The Price of Progress

Would you stab an innocent baby if doing so would cure one of the worlds fatal diseases?

The hypothetical question was written neatly on the whiteboard, hiding the ethical minefield that lay within. The psychology teacher stepped back, letting the students ponder over it. Opinions were given, debates raged, but to Leonardo Avendi the choice was clear: stab the baby.

Leo wasn't an evil child, far from it. He excelled in his studies; mathematics and science being his forte. He viewed the question with the same cold logic he approached his equations. When asked to explain his opinion, he simply quoted 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, Miss.'

'Ah, but that is where we run into trouble is it not? Surely to save millions you could stab ten babies then. Why, to cure AIDS perhaps you'd stab a hundred babies, if you're still speaking about benefitting the masses. It is what we call the slippery slope argument Leo. Where does one draw the line?'

*****

Howling, the wind bit with tiny icy fangs into his skin. Looking out over his estate, an old man sat on the balcony. Storm clouds rolled in, dropping the air temperature with them. Not that he noticed - he'd lost most of the feeling in his outer nerves a few years ago. At a hundred and sixteen years old, he still got around, albeit gingerly. Life expectancy was longer than ever before - though sometimes he questioned the point. I can't feel anything on the outside, nor the inside - my soul is black and shriveled.

'A hundred and forty-six,' he muttered to himself. Thats where I drew the line. Thats how many lives the great Sir Dr. Leo Avendi took to cure cancer.

*****

The middle-aged Doctor woke in a sweat. He stared straight ahead, blinking, adjusting to the dim light. Did I.... Jesus... his thoughts raced. Scrambling, he lept to his desk. The lamp illuminated his damp skin - a white naked maggot under a spotlight - as he poured equations and notes down onto paper. Page after page, the immense knowledge burst out of him in a frantic brain dump. It was the culmination of years of research, and one dream he'd never forget.

He made the necessary arrangements from his office at The Institute. When you headed up the biggest private sector research company on the planet, there wasn't much you couldn't get your hands on. The Government had a 'dont ask, dont tell' policy in this area. It made sense - most advancements either helped lower costs in the public sector or were bought by the Defense Department.

Leo could only get so far testing on animals, he needed human subjects to test his dream-inspired work on. And he could get them. No one employee would know the full picture, such was the de-coupled nature of the network he maintained. A smuggler in Africa would get a large sum of money to fill large cargo containers with refugees (“I promise you a new life in America!”). A shipping company would take unmarked containers across the Atlantic. Customs officers bought off with research money would look the other way, while a transport service would deliver the containers to the Institutes vast industrial grounds. Forklift drivers placed the containers into one end of the sealed research area, without ever knowing the contents. All this was paid for by a host of sister companies, leaving a paper trail no-one would follow. In any case, Leo had people at the IRS in his pocket too.

It took a week for the subjects to adjust to their new environment. When the crates opened, scientists in suits led the bewildered cargo into holding cells. Their supplies in the shipping container were adequate, but even so a few were D.O.A. After being locked for a few days in a dark box with dead members of your family and you don't come out singing rainbows.

Translators explained that they were in U.S. quarantine, where they'd have to remain for two months before being released and given starter-homes. This seemed to brighten their spirits a little - hopes and dreams acting as a blanket to the white, sterile lab rooms they now lived in.

A hundred and forty-six subjects, split across thirty containment pods, housed in East Wing. Dr Leo checked in on each one individually. Satisfied with both the data and the subjects condition, the testing begun.

Each test cell was fitted with advanced lighting. A technology the U.S. Army had acquired, it could beam massive amounts of energy along any given spectrum. Any living cells under such bombardment would mutate within days. They were, in effect, cancer-guns. Designed to be installed covertly in high risk buildings, be it those of known or potential enemies, they could be activated at will, minimizing collateral damage and media attention. The public didn't know such a weapon existed - they wouldn’t want to.

Cancers sprung up in the Africans like poisonous toadstools in autumn. The subjects limped around their cells, becoming physically drained. They banged on the walls, demanding to know what was going on. They got no answers, no communication. Just three meals a day through a chute in the wall. The food given to each cell contained a variant of the vaccine Dr Avendi had synthesized. He'd seen it work in animals; it just needed tweaking for humans.

They didn't know it yet but they would be part of history. As they loped around their pens, he admired their struggle. Some were faring better than others - up and walking. Candidates with poorer solutions barely got out of beds. Lying in their own filth, they coughed up blood and black muck. At this stage they were more cancer than human - a rotting husk filled with death.

No matter their condition, all data was useful, being fed back into new variants of the cure. As time passed, the researcher tweaked the cancer-beams, the vaccine reagents and concentrations. He couldn't deny it was cruel to partially cure some before subjecting them to harsher radiation yet again. Their existence was a see-saw of life and death, with pain standing in the middle, rocking it back and forth. Even so, all this was necessary. It was for the greater good.

As subjects passed away, those that weren't delirious from exposure wailed and grieved. Biohazard suits would come in and clear the deceased, sometimes defending themselves against angry, albeit weak attacks. Time went by, and only a handful remained. However as they fell, Leo's spirits rose. His cure had come in leaps and bounds; his dream becoming a reality. When only one boy remained, huddled in a corner, his eyes too dry to cry anymore, Dr. Leo knew it was finished. Despite being subjected to months of deadly rays, the boy was a picture of health - physically, if not mentally. He had cracked the code scientists had sought for decades, the boy was a testament to that. Staring dreamily at a vial of the perfected serum, an assistant asked what should be done with the survivor. Avendi looked up, surprised he hadn't thought of the boys future before. It was a shame the operation was top-secret and the subject was an information risk. Leo had grown found of the tough little bastard. Compared to wasting away in death throes for days, the kid would have it relatively peacefully. He smiled as he administered a lethal injection, rubbing the boys head playfully.

*****

The vaccine was an incredible success. It swept the world in a frenzy, millions of dollars spent on its mass production. The wealthiest countries air-dropped it to developing nations, and cries of joy were echoed around the globe as hospital patients got out of their beds. Accolades were poured onto Dr Leo Avendi. The Nobel Prize, a knighting from the Queen of England and Time Magazine dubbed him the 'Father of Post-Modern Medicine'. For awhile he reveled in the spotlight, proud of what he'd done. Gradually he declined the invitations to lecture, and resigned from the Institute. He was keen to enjoy his twilight years in peace.

Unfortunately, he rarely got any. Over the years his dreams became darker. His imagination would overlay his vision with sickly ghosts. Wailing spirits harked back to his questionable research days. He began to loathe them; loathe the batch of subjects and their emotional pleas. The hurt in their eyes as they stared through one-way mirrors. looking for someone to save them. He was saving the human race - what was a group of third world refugees anyway? He tossed and turned, his frustration turning to malice, grinning like a fool as he turned up the radiation in his dreams. And as he sat watching the black clouds storm towards him, he recalculated the price of progress: his soul.

Lightning cracked like a whip! Temporarily blinded, Sir Leo put his hands to his ears. Thunder clapped hard enough to shake the house. Shaking his head, he looked up and saw it. A demon stood before him. He knew it was a demon. Not that he'd soon one before - but what else could it be? A red-angry biped, covered in a shimmering flame, floated before him. He wondered if he'd gone as crazy as DaVinci in his last days - the radiation perhaps acting as his namesakes mercury had done. "Leonardo," it boomed in what was more two sickles scraping together than a voice. It grinned, revealing a row of tiny skull-shaped teeth. "My, what a black soul you have for me!"

Even faced with this infernal being, the old doctor’s logical brain ticked over. If this was a merely a dream, a phantasm of the mind, he could say anything he wanted. If not... well, he was probably at its mercy anyways. Before he could ask just what the demon wanted, he was interrupted. "To explain what I am would be like trying to teach your pet dog the laws of astro-physics. I am merely too far outside your reality to comprehend - even for a man of your intellect. The form I have taken is merely for your benefit. A metaphor - to convey the fact I am both more powerful than you know, and evil - at least as you understand it.

Some humans would call me a God, but what they’d really mean is I am a highly evolved being. So much so that I now appear magical/mystical, for that is a term some use to label human ignorance.

Nevertheless, I have been trapped in your dimension for some time now, a scavenger surviving on meager scraps, until such a time when I can escape again. I've lurked here since you crawled out of the jungle to build your cities. I've seen empires rise and fall, seen millions die in wars you wage on each other.

On the cosmic stage, Earth is less than an anthill. Universal empires, races exist of incredible technology, forces and dimensions interact beyond the scope of even my control (thus my current predicament). Meanwhile the ants on this planet idly play with sticks and bombs, not drawing a second look from anyone. Who knows, in a few million years (if you all survive that long), humans might become part of the bigger picture. But you were never going to get there without a little help...

Through your brief history, there have been various leaps in achievement. Your knowledge plateau's briefly then bam! A discovery sparks a new phase of learning. It’s almost amusing that you pat yourselves on the back for these inventions, when really you have me to thank.

Thousands of years ago I gave the mathematics to engineers which paved the way to the Pyramids - Aztec & Egyptian. I helped the druids build Stone Henge. I dropped the apple for Newtons Physics. Einstein’s genius came about from my intervention. The microchip was part of a deal I brokered which spawned a new wave of technologies you humans have come to rely on. Cast your mind back sixty years ago Leo. I came to you in a dream, and planted the seed from which you cultivated a life-saving vaccine."

Leo gaped. To say the demons speech had rocked Avendi would be an understatement. His mind was a storm. It wasn't the first time it had been suggested humans were helped by outsiders to create the wonders of the world. That the microchip was salvaged from a U.F.O. That it was reaching to think a cousin of the ape could one day have a space-station on Mars. Even his own discovery was strange when he looked back on it. He had made snail-like progress on his research for years until one day it all came to him in a weird dream. It was true - humans wouldn't have got very far at all without this demons help. The question seemed obvious. Leo simply asked "Why?"

"I believe the human phrase is there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” he chuckled at the irony. “To survive in this plane, I feed on black, greedy souls. That is one of the few things I cannot create, but must harvest. For every great discovery, men have exacted a great cost on themselves and their bretheren. Hundreds of slaves were tortured and died under Egyptian whips. The Aztecs made sacrifices till their priests were covered in gore. Newton, a young pyromaniac, lit the Great Fire of London. The city was a smoggy fire-trap of sin, a ripe fruit that was plucked in exchange for his advances in Physics. By the end, he was completely mad from mercury experiments anyways; no-one believed it all came to him in a dream.

'Jack the Ripper' was none other than an early penicillin researcher - his lust for murder equal to his interest in biology. It was unfortunate he didn't connect all the dots before someone took credit for his discovery years later.

In the 1900's, the possibility of using nuclear reactions as a weapon was nothing but theory. Only a thought I gave to Einstein and his idle chatter with researchers would make it a reality. Those bombs caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the weight of those souls torturing Alberts own to the end of his days.

And then we arrive at you, Sir Leo. You'd argue your research was altruistic, that you were doing it for the greater good. But as Kantian ethics states, you used them as a means to an end. More than that, you reveled in playing God, in choosing who would live a little longer and who would die. And since then you've dreamed and fantasized about those shady days, your soul becoming a juicy, hate-filled sponge. Any last words before I consume it?"

Filled with a strange mixture of fear and futility, Leo said nothing. As his soul was sucked from its meaty cage, his reflected on that psychology lesson from a lifetime ago; it is indeed a slippery slope, but one mankind has little choice but to ride.