Everyone remembers the day justice came to Denny Berton. It was televised all over the Western world. Denny Berton was a psychopath who had kidnapped fourteen people, convinced them that they were on a television show, and then gruesomely murdered them one by one. His lawyers claimed that he was not guilty by reason of insanity and they succeeded. The real reason people remember it is because it was the first time Guilt+™ was used in a non-laboratory setting. Guilt+™ was a drug created by the Medshape company that would increase activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex and enhance guilt in the user. The verdict was that since Denny Berton did not feel guilty about what he had done they were going to humanize him with Guilt+™ instead of putting him in a psychiatric ward.
I was sitting on a bus watching the news, as were many other riders. The moment Denny Berton was given the pill everyone watched with curiosity. Denny Berton burst into tears bawling on the floor, crying out for forgiveness. “Do you feel guilty for what you have done?” they asked. “Yes, yes, yes...” groaned Denny, repeating it over and over under his breath. This is what they wanted, to see a monster turn into a human and regret the horrors he had done. The news segment ended and everyone went on with their day, proud of their government for finding a humane way to deal with the monsters of this world. What the news didn’t cover was Denny Berton smashing his head on the floor until he lay, a lifeless human, on the cold concrete of the detention room.
I think back to this day as I stand on the balcony of my twenty-third floor penthouse looking out at the skyscrapers we humans so love to make, each flashier than the next. I consider my brief partnership with Medshape to produce Guilt+™. I created the active ingredient in the pills after many months of testing. Why would I make such a drug? It was all because of Ashley.
We’d met at a social event in our first year of teaching high school. We soon found that we were obsessed with the same things, science, the outdoors, and even the same TV shows. Through the entire school year we were inseparable, working on lesson plans together, going on hikes and chatting about our lives at Carlo’s Coffee before school. It was around our third year of teaching together that Ashley’s conversations started to shift. We would often talk about our day-to-day troubles, but Ashley started to get very worked up over trivial matters. I would constantly have to divert the conversations to avoid this. Most of these tirades would circle back to the arguments that would frequently happen between her parents with whom she was still close.
On June 8th I got the call. It was summer break and I was on vacation when Spencer, the 11th grade English teacher, told me to turn on the news. His ominous tone made my stomach churn. The news flickered on covering the story of a couple in their fifties that had been murdered in their home just hours ago. As I saw the house surrounded by police cars and ambulances my heart stopped.
“... the only suspect, their daughter, Ashley Walker was seen running from the scene, ....”
I knew it couldn’t be true. The Ashley I had been friends with for the last three years couldn’t have had anything to do with this. I sat cemented to the armchair trying to convince myself that it couldn’t be Ashley, but I could never fully do it.
Bang, bang, bang, a knocking at my door shattered my trance. Who would come at this hour of the night to a vacation rental? I felt my insides scrunch up like a discarded tissue as I recalled telling Ashley where I would be vacationing. I looked through the peephole and to my horror there she was standing on the doormat.
I opened the door. Her eyes were bloodshot and her shoulders slumped with defeat, but the most unsettling part was her expression. She wasn’t quite smiling but I saw no confusion or sadness or anger, just her normal friendly face. The same face that I would see when we passed in the hallways at school. I began to take a step back, unsettled by her lack of emotion, when she spoke with conviction,
“I feel so relieved, they won’t argue anymore. I took care of that.”
I started to shake with terror. The Ashley I had known was no longer human she had changed.
“Don’t you feel anything? Do you feel guilty?” I whispered in fear.
I will never forget her reply.
“No, I can’t, if I think about guilt I will realize what I have done. I would rather die a monster than admit what I did as a human.”
At that, she put a gun to her head, and died a monster. I went numb. I could hear myself screaming as I collapsed in the doorway.
As I groggily came to, the flashing chaos of sirens and paramedics felt as if it was a scene out of a movie. This couldn’t be my real life. For the next five weeks or so I shuffled numbly through the aftermath, thinking about her words and wishing I could get my friend back. The human, not the monster. I devoted all of my time to finding a way to humanize the lost. Eventually everything circled back to guilt and that is what Denny Berton felt as he became “human.” I take a step closer to the skyline in front of me. Did Denny Berton die a human? Was this what I had intended?
Guilt+™ had been diluted until the effects were “humane.” The criminals would feel guilt but not too much. Just enough to help them reflect, or so the news said. It was revolutionary. Ever since Denny Berton, I had been cut out of the loop and given financial compensation instead.
It took five more years for me to discover the inevitable had happened, the government had continued research with Guilt+™. Last spring, a series of post-combat soldier suicides caught the media’s attention and they ran with it. Happily returned soldiers were suddenly found dead in their homes. After an investigation that was hindered by government “intervention” they discovered the soldiers had been taking pills to cope with PTSD, but these weren’t Prozac. These pills decreased activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex, a sort of Guilt-. Then the whole story broke loose. Other soldiers admitted that they had been given Guilt-™ during the war to improve their focus in battle. Soldiers who don’t feel guilt after killing a human being are able to serve for longer and carry out more ruthless missions. The military soon discovered that when they stopped taking Guilt-™ the guilt would come flooding back all at once. So to keep it hushed these veterans were given a weekly supply of Guilt-™ to keep them above water. Apparently some didn’t want to rely on drugs.
Even now as I stand on the ledge of my balcony, feeling the cold December gusts and looking down to the red lights of the street below it pains me to think of my invention. Originally created to bring back the humanity of those we love, it was now being used to turn loyal soldiers into medicated war monsters. The glimmering of the lights on the water in the bay sparkle as I sway on the edge of nothingness trying to keep myself above water. I consider monsters and men. Does being humane really make us human? Why does it seem that the people so obsessed with being humane turn out to be the worst monsters? Myself included. I hear the faint honking of cars far below and look at the lone white pill resting in my palm. Past it I see the darkness going from my toes to the street below. I pop the pill into my mouth and swallow it dry. And just like every other time, I see Ashley in my mind asking me,
“Do you feel guilty?”
“No.”
“Good.”
All good things come to an end. The greatest TV shows have series finales, that perfect bowl of taco rice will eventually empty, your best friends move away, heck even your life will end at some point. Endings really are inevitable and they hurt. The worst are when the endings are your responsibility. I couldn't let our project go on any longer. It had to end.
I am always amazed at how I came upon the lab. I was drunk and stumbling down an uneven concrete path on campus late one night when I found that the doorway of an abandoned engineering building was unlocked. After warily going down the stairs I found myself in this old lab. There were some boxes and old machinery but other than that it was a blank canvas. It's emptiness called out to me, whether it was some weird mental phenomenon or fate the room said, "I'm so bored sitting here with no purpose, I'm going through an existential crisis here buddy." Now I'm not one to bail on inanimate objects going through existential crises, so I made a Schwarzenegger-y promise. "Don't worry, I'll be back." And I delivered.
Over the next few weeks I kept going back to my abandoned lab, just as I'd promised. It wasn't the drunken promise to a room that was driving me to do it, I felt something. I became obsessed and so I sat in the eerie silence of the abandoned lab, chasing an idea.
These memories come washing back over me as I look at the very full lab in front of me. I am still impressed at how I was able to sneak the variety of metalworking and prototyping tools and machines into the lab without being noticed. It took a decent amount of problem solving to improvise the budget soundproofing so passersby wouldn't hear us working.
Us. Yes us. I look over to Randy’s makeshift office snugly situated between lathe and the stack of servers. I still remember the day that Randy joined. I was still chasing the idea when I heard a sound on stairs. As soon as Randy rounded the corner that little part of my brain exploded. Something had triggered that idea that had been evading me for so long. I didn't even fully register his startled scream at finding me down here. My mind was running at hyper-speed. All of a sudden I could see all the tools I would need. As these elements of a plan were forming around me I realized that I would need someone's help if I actually wanted to make my idea a reality.
"WHO ARE YOU? ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?"
As my mind was pulled back into reality by Randy’s yelling, the room emptied before my eyes.
"Oh, sorry," I said, shaking the thoughts out of my head, "I'm Eddy... What are you doing down here?"
"I've been asking you that same question. You have to answer first."
"Uhh... well... I was just down here thinking...and... yeah... that's about it."
"What do you mean thinking? You're telling me that you find abandoned buildings with creepy basements and sit in them alone and think?"
"Well yeah... I guess so."
"Uhh, creepy! But not much different than trying to find a place to study that I haven't been to before, I’m Randy by the way..."
My mind went back to my idea. What if Randy wanted to work with me on it? Something about him helped my breakthrough, what if I get stuck again. It would be good to have him around you know, to work with me on the project.
"... and then I remembered the time when my brother told me to go get my own snack from the kitchen-- are you even listening to me?"
How Randy’s story got to this point I have no idea. "Oh... uhm yeah... hey Randy I've got a question."
"Really?"
"Would you want to help me with a project I'm working on."
"Ok, your creepiness level just reached a new maximum. I think I'm gonna go."
"No no, wait listen to my idea at least. Maybe you will change your mind."
I took his hesitance as an "Ok fire away" and warily started explaining what I wanted to build. I explained how it would save the world from oppressive governments. Soon the words started flowing as my usual nervousness vanished.
After I had finished I could tell I had him. We started writing plans immediately. I pulled my stool over to the side of the room near the lathe and let him get to work. I left early but Randy stayed and continued working.
He was there when I arrived in the mornings and always stayed longer than me. I made a private office space near the lathe for him to work in. Things were going smoothly.
One morning I noticed a small piece of code on my computer that was sending information back to a different location. So I wiped the drives, and started fresh, restoring my progress from a backed up copy. Had Randy had been leaking information to some sort of organization, or possibly even to the military? I didn't want to believe it but Randy wasn't cooperating as much as normal. I assured him that we were almost done. But on the inside my trust in Randy was broken.
Then this morning was the biggest giveaway of all. I was at home checking the security cams I had installed, when I saw a police car drive by the lab. The suspicions started. Then as I was eating breakfast I saw another police car drive by. This was no coincidence.
I had to get back to the lab. Someone had found out about my project and there was no way that I could let this get in the hands of the government. They would ruin it. I rushed out the door to go clean out the lab.
A few weeks ago Randy and I decided that in an emergency the first priority would be to destroy the project, sacrificing the lab and the building. So that’s what I am doing now. Destroying my contribution to society. It has to be done. My heart plummets as I log in to my computer to initiate the wipe. I poured time, knowledge, sweat, blood, and tears into this project and so has Randy. A crash behind me makes me spin my chair to see three police officers barging in.
I tried to turn back and initiate the wipe sequence but I was too late. One of the officers had already pinned me to the desk.
Tears came to my eyes as I realized that all we had worked for was now in the hands of the government.
Excerpt of Police Report for Operation on April 11th 2018
Four officers entered the abandoned building. The suspect was sitting by a computer and at our entry turned but appeared to be unarmed. Officer O’Hara rushed to the suspect and immobilized him. Further investigation found explosives placed around the walls of the room. Lieutenant Jameson went to help Randall Leland, who was tied to a bracket on the wall in a homemade cell. It appears that the suspect, Edward Clement, had held Leland in the lab for the past two months against his will. Leland testified that he had been immediately tied up and gagged. Clement assigned him tasks that he never carried out and were eventually finished by Clement himself. Clement has been arrested and is currently being charged for kidnapping and possession of weapons.