--by Robert Arvay
It was the year 2218 when
the problem was discovered. No one knew
what to do about it.
Beginning fifty years
earlier, in 2168, everyone had begun being implanted with a computerized micro-chip,
in their brain. It took ten years to
insert all the chips. This included the
time it took to hunt down all the hold-outs, and to enforce compliance. After ten years, almost everyone was a
“chipper,” a person who had the chip.
The chip was deemed to be necessary. Life had become too complicated for most
people to manage. Suicides were on the
rise. Crime had dramatically
increased. Masses of people were either
uneducated, or mis-educated, because few people could agree on what was fact,
and what was opinion. Chaos threatened
to destroy society.
Technology had empowered
individuals to such a degree that it was all but impossible to maintain law and
order. A grade-school kid could figure
out how to hack the computer systems of banks, nuclear missile silos, and even
their own report cards.
Something had to be
done. Something was done.
The brain chip solved the
problem. Inserted into the brain early
in life, even as soon as a month after being born, everyone could think alike,
or at least, enough alike to forestall the radical disagreements which
previously had threatened civil war. The
chip had its own microcomputer program, and it could in turn program, in a
sense, the human brain of the recipient.
Human brains were then programmed to agree on the most controversial
issues which previously had been tearing society apart. Chippers obeyed the rules, and therefore,
chippers could be trusted.
Even better yet, the brain
chips could all receive periodic updates from time to time via signals
transmitted from satellites. This
allowed the government to revise failed social programs without the traditional
bickering that had previously disrupted every major social program change in
the pre-chip years.
At first, many people had
objected to the brain chip. It was
itself the most controversial technology that had ever been introduced. At first, the chip had been surreptitiously
inserted into the brains of children during doctor visits. Parents were either not told what was
happening, or else were given false information. As word of this leaked out, dissent
increased.
After a few years, however,
everyone could see that children with the chip did better in school than most
other children. They were better behaved,
more obedient, and easier to raise.
After that, more and more parents clamored to have their own children
implanted, and finally, adults themselves began asking for and receiving chip
implants. People with the chip earned
much more than most people without it, because with it, they became much
smarter than before.
What no one was told, until
there was no denying it, is that once the chip is implanted, it cannot be
removed without tragic consequence to the recipient. Painful deaths occurred whenever a chip was
removed.
For nearly fifty years, no
one requested the removal of chip implants.
Everyone who had one was happy with it.
No chipper ever felt depressed, worried, or in doubt—about anything, not
even about the chip itself.
Unlike as with drugs, the
chip enabled the chipper to cope with problems, and to devise solutions,
because the chip enhanced intelligence.
Everyone who had it had automatic encyclopedic knowledge of virtually
every subject taught in any school.
Since the knowledge was stored, not in the brain, but in the chip, the
knowledge did not occupy one’s thoughts until and unless he needed it. Then, he could access the needed information
immediately. For example, anyone who
needed to learn Swahili (or any other language) could instantly master it, and
speak it with as much proficiency as any native speaker.
But one day, the Great
Problem was discovered. It was
discovered that the chip had an embedded error in it, an inherent and
irreparable malfunction which would eventually, but inevitably, cause the
chipper to go suddenly and incurably insane, and violently so. The incidence of this form of insanity
suddenly began to increase, and no one knew how much worse it might get.
At first, there was general
panic in the population, not only panic, but anger. Who had designed the chip? Why had it been put into patients without
thorough testing beforehand? Which government
officials had authorized the surreptitious implants into children? How dare they? The possibility of rebellion loomed large.
The panic suddenly ended
when the next update was made via satellite transmissions. Everyone suddenly assumed that the problem
was only temporary, and that a fix had already been devised. The fix would be implemented soon, very soon,
even as soon as tomorrow.
Nobody resented the fact
that tomorrow after tomorrow came and went, with no solution, because after
all, the problem would be fixed tomorrow.
