SIFTING THROUGH THE HUNDREDS of emails that had arrived the previous few days, Peter found nothing from Molli.

“Sweet girl,” he lamented. “You used both code words. I sent you out there to die. I’m so sorry.”

Warm air from his furnace was now flowing into the garage, and he began pounding at his keyboard to check the cloud sites. He was relieved to discover some of the world’s IT server farms still working. Then he checked his own servers and verified the Unager podcast had run earlier in the day, as scheduled.

“Only a few more,” he exhaled. “Glad I set them up earlier. I’ll get Hats queued right now, even in its rough state. Hope the electricity holds long enough for me to edit it further.”

Despite his state of mental disarray, he felt committed to finish the team’s objectives. “Let’s see. Brokers is next Wednesday the 28th. Hats would run a week from today, the 30th. Not likely to get to Stoicholic, though, who’s probably dead anyway. I’ll ping to see. Maybe we can advance the interview since I may soon be dead, too. At least my voice might live, and I can go out with a minor sense of accomplishment.”

Peter scanned the headings of incoming emails from the Unager show that played hours earlier. Although they were substantially fewer in number, their headings were hopeful: ‘Right On,’ ‘Glad to see you kicking,’ ‘Rock the Pod,’ and similar messages of encouragement. This energized Peter even more to finish the podcast series, despite the nightmare he was living.

“Stoicholic,” he typed, “can you move our interview to an earlier day, assuming we still have electricity?”

In an instant, he received a reply. “No. Can’t risk it. Now or never. Good?”

Peter rested his head at the back of his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Seriously?” he thought. “This day? I’m exhausted. Almost died today, three times. The mechs at Ears’ condo, mechs at the Square, and my front porch. Now an interview? But he’s right, this ends the ordeal, and I can check-out with a clean conscience. Besides, Molli wanted this one. I’ll do it for her, alive or not. I’ll do it for her.”

“Okay,” Peter replied. “I assume voice only. No video. Here’s the invite, using my bridge.”

* * *

“Hello, Peter,” a childlike voice began.

“Stoicholic?” he questioned. “I thought you were a guy, and you sound so young.”

“Chronologically, yes and no. A story for a future, less eventful time, assuming we get there. I heard the Unager interview as it ran today. That’s good. I pulled strings, whatever is left of strings, to make certain that would play.”

“How?” Peter asked.

“Another time, if possible. I am aware of your other interviews that are ready to run, as Molli kept me informed. Brokers, Hats, and I’m the last one, correct?”

“Yes, and she’s in danger at best.”

“I’m aware of that, too. Little I can do. Little either of us can do. If she remains alive, it’s by her own wits. That goes for you and me as well.”

Her shared knowledge of the podcast and Molli’s status made him uncomfortable, and he was beginning to doubt her credibility. Yet at this point, credibility was the least of his worries. Not knowing how long the electricity would remain on, Peter felt they should start the interview.

“Let’s get started now. Can’t tell how long we have.”

“Electrical should continue through the night,” she confirmed. “Activities are happening of which most who remain alive are not apprised. Last chance activities, but activities nonetheless. Attempts at rectifying or recompense. Too little too late? Possibly.”

“Okay, that’s too much for me to handle. I’ve been through it today. A wringer like no other wringer. Likely not in this dimension of space-time, but we’ll hopefully talk at some future date about that rectifying and recompense. I’m starting now to record on my laptop, so please be sure to speak into your microphone and don’t move your head around too much.”

“Will do. I’m ready.”

Peter clicked his mouse to start.

“Fans of the podcast, those who may still be among the living and can access an internet feed, this is the final installment of our series on new tech. I’ll avoid the obvious discussion on the obelisk, this apparent cocktail of death just released on humanity, and our current abysmal status as a species on Earth. Another time on that topic, assuming another time comes to pass. One word on Molli before we begin. We are recording this podcast late on Friday, October 23rd. Molli departed Cambridge for a rural part of the country early yesterday morning, and I have no idea where she is now or if she’s alive. I’m hoping by the time this podcast runs on Wednesday that her whereabouts is known. I’ll keep you updated if possible.”

He sighed loudly. “Today’s guest is Stoicholic. We connected and agreed to stream and record this on an impromptu basis minutes ago, given uncertainties in the electrical systems, networks, and other factors. Stoicholic, can you provide a brief background on who you are and why you are wrapping-up this series of podcasts with us?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Let me begin with my pseudonym. Molli and I agreed to use ‘Stoicholic’ since I adopted Stoic philosophies years ago. Many of your listeners likely understand little about Stoicism, beyond what they may have learned in ancient Greek or Roman history or philosophy classes. I can touch briefly on that topic. Interestingly, however, the word is aligned in pronunciation with the branch of chemistry known as Stoichiometry, also Greek in origin. That word’s etymology implies a combination of elements and measure. The implication is appropriate to our global situation.”

Peter added, “Our original audience was fairly deep on scientific knowledge, so some of our listeners may understand that term. How do you associate it with our current cataclysmic state?”

“A modern definition of the term speaks to separate and distinct elements of a reaction that are manipulated and recombined such that no components are lost in the outcome. However, the resulting combinations typically have few characteristics of the individual inputs. To interpret that in simpler terms, consider where humanity was before this crisis. Countless complex elements were combined into a reaction chamber. Some more volatile, some less. What emerges is very different than what went in.”

Peter was frustrated at the vague reference. “I’m not fully there with you.”

“Your podcast, Peter, is a great example. Consider OmniBev and what she was referencing as one element. Poison Paul another. BioEthel another. The same for Eugenie, the Bard, and your other guests. Each was an element of the reaction. Some simple, others complex. They were combined in the same reaction chamber, and what’s coming out was not predicted. Predictable, yes. Predicted, no.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked. “I don’t understand the inference.”

“The word ‘predicted’ implies someone, let’s say a credible scientific body, had assessed the potential outcomes of one risk path. Geedee tech is an example. Had such an august body analyzed the potential catastrophic outcomes for ten minutes, even ten minutes, they might have predicted the unmitigated risk.”

Peter was still unclear. “What risk?”

“The risks of unfettered, unregulated, unrestrained, and uncontrolled genetic experimentation by undisciplined, unhindered, and unaware persons or groups. The scientific body could have modeled and predicted it. For Christ’s sake, they modeled every other risk including their personal stock portfolios recently bolstered by various geedee companies in which they were invested. The outcome was highly predictable, as it is in stoichiometry, yet it was not predicted.”

“Why was it not predicted?”

“Entitlement, of course. Most human negatives begin there. Think of higher institutions of learning that feel entitled to the intellectual property arising from these new discoveries. Count corporations and governments into that mole, if you understand my chemistry and math drift. Heaven forbid any entity, much less a global body, should tell them they can’t experiment with life’s building blocks in an unrestrained manner. Easy street is never the right street to steer down, as you know. Our lack of restraint played right into our natural competitiveness and greed. I suppose there was a bit of God-like vanity mixed in as well.”

She paused for a second, waiting for Peter’s next question. Still in a daze of fatigue, he let her continue rambling.

“Many things could have been predicted but were not. Home grown geedee kits. Nanotech used as the solution for many of the world’s ills. Societal pressures and Social Darwinism as outcomes from age engineering tech. Nuclear grenades, for God’s sake! One only needed to listen to a few of your podcasts to see the coming cataclysm. I could go on, but these stoichiometric problems of moles and mass and volume as applied to our society and technology were predictable – yet not predicted.”

“Okay, I’m getting the picture, but I don’t quite understand how entitlement comes into play,” he admitted.

“Was it Stu’s podcast that touched on this? It’s the observation that our technological maturity is far outpacing our social maturity. Consider that many animal species possess a level of social maturity. Think of chimps using sticks as spoons in termite mounds for the last million years. Their social systems could accommodate that tech easily over such a long period. Then consider that humans have vaulted forward from the bronze age three thousand years ago to geedee, anti-aging, AI near-sentience, and nuclear tech in a few decades. Our new tech advanced at a rocketing pace. Human societies and the ethical systems that bind them together, meanwhile, arguably declined during that time. Get my drift? We’re talking pace of technology change and the predictable social imbalances that result.”

“Hmm. A few other recent guests briefly touched on this as well. How does our discussion relate to the obelisk, however?”

“The obelisk was another volatile element in the reaction chamber. It was the catalyst to accelerate these potentially useful but definitely devastating technologies into one unrestrained, final experiment of humankind. No bungling parliament or congress or people’s party could ever have passed laws fast enough to keep pace with these tech advancements, nor would they be allowed to do so given the perceived threat from the obelisk.”

“But should technology’s management and pace of change have been government’s role?”

“No, of course not. Government reflects the people. When the people, the citizens, the cognizant beings, do not agree upon a common ethic or goal for the species, then governments will not reflect that ethic either.”

Peter was on edge and wasn’t thinking about extending his typical interview politeness.

“I don’t understand why you’re including that word in this conversation. Why are ethics even a factor in this devastation we’re experiencing? And why should science be associated with ethics in this sense?”

She laughed. “Peter, you voice the sentiment of many scientists from this and prior decades. They believed ethics had no place in science and tech. That lack of discernment was the easy path. We pretended these stoichiometric elements are somehow separate. But at the end, in the final days, we are feeling the effect of their inseparability. When you can cheaply and easily create multiple technologies capable of quickly destroying your species, a society lacking a universal set of ethical behaviors ceases to be a society by its own hand.”

Peter was not happy to be discussing philosophy at this point. “This may sound speculative to listeners. You can’t blame what I saw this morning, the dead bodies frozen in the streets, on ethical lapses of mankind.”

“Oh, sure I can,” she insisted. “It is nothing but that.”

“What proof do you have?”

“I may not be expressing myself succinctly, Peter. Let’s assume humans created a scientific body with global control of all geedee tech, starting from the early days. Could it have mitigated the potential for this deadly plague currently devastating humanity?”

“Possibly.”

“The correct answer is ‘yes,’ and we would not be experiencing the horrors we now witness.”

“It’s unreal, though, or naïve,” he countered. “Even if the Westernized countries agreed to do this, they couldn’t force China or Russia or other technocratic or autocratic countries to abide. These attempts at getting global agreement on anything are always efforts in futility; trying to stop the unstoppable. Blood from a stone.”

“You made my point. Our society, our species, is utterly incapable of advancing in concert with our technological advances. We now understand that global climate change was real, and both predictable and predicted. It was the first cannonball to blast through the hold of humanity’s ship. Cause and effect were less directly connected because it took so much time to comprehend, measure, and feel its terrible impact. Same is true for the geedee tech killing billions of humans as we speak, but the impact there is immediate.”

“We’re in danger of running out of time or electricity, ma’am. I’m looking at the clock, and we must move ahead. Can we discuss what you mentioned regarding Stoicism?”

“Fine. In our science and tech-heavy world, we allowed the veil of ignorance to obscure our vision. Humanity’s new focus, should it survive, must be embedded in the philosophy of Stoicism.”

Peter was impatiently waiting for her to reach a climax, something worthy of the other podcasts.

“Can you describe this philosophy for our listeners and its relevance?”

“Given the circumstances and the anxieties of our situation, I’ll nutshell this for your audience. Stoics are grounded in self-control. Control of one’s emotions, desires, and wants – particularly fear and entitlement. They live and teach a sustainable human ethic to ensure our survival and prosperity through eternity, including the forcible weighting of logic over emotion and self-actualization over individual wealth. Stoics exhibit an ethic of respect for others regardless of their similarity to you. They evaluate the implications of actions before acting.”

“Our listeners will understand that,” Peter argued. “Are you implying that if humanity had adopted a Stoic philosophy or mindset, we would not be in this terrible predicament? If so, that seems simplistic in and of itself.”

She laughed again. “Let’s do a quick review of where we were before the arrival of the obelisk. Your friend Stu said it best, that the bar had been lowered on tech. Geedee was proliferating everywhere in its various forms and colors, be that human to human, or animal, or microorganism, or metal, or synth. Nanotech was everywhere. Synbio was everywhere. Mind control tech as well.”

Trying hard not to fall asleep, Peter impatiently wanted to conclude the conversation. “We get that; get that. How does a philosophy help?”

Sensing his anxiety, she proceeded with haste. “Unlike the deadly tech of old, whether armaments, nukes, or poisonous gases, the new tech was much easier to create, and therefore more widespread. ‘Democratized’ was Stu’s word. Very apt. New virulent tech piled in cascades and layers atop the old virulent tech. The obelisk became the reaction in the catalyst, and your podcast helped expose that. With so much unfettered, democratized tech, anarchy was a foregone conclusion and only a matter of time.”

“And we suffer from that now.”

“Billions died in the last twenty-four hours, and billions more will likely die in the coming few days and years. Certain countries annihilated others only because they were historical enemies. Old rivalries die hard, but death is the final arbiter of rivalries. History is only written by the living, should any remain to write it. It has not been reported by the media given the circumstances, but multiple nuclear arsenals were launched, even from countries who supposedly had none. Peter, fear and entitlement are what remains of humanity’s legacy. We were together in the petri dish of Earth, each doing our own thing without regard for the other. With no common human ethic, not a religion mind you, but an ethic, we were doomed from the beginning.”

Peter kept visualizing the image of Molli, frozen stiff in a Minnesota field. He wondered if that might not be the best end for her, considering the prospects.

“Peter, are you still there?”

“Yes, sorry, yes. By your last words, you implied humanity was destined to arrive at this end.”

“There is no destiny. There is only decision and direction, or the lack thereof. The scale can be tipped by a single event or catalyst in either direction based upon the ethical system employed. In this case, the obelisk tipped toward the fearful and entitled weightings of humanity. Think of it. We possessed ample tech for any one human from the eight billion to carry out our most destructive capabilities. One person may have created this plague, and another the Toxo. And that’s the tip of the iceberg of what’s out there now, as I understand.”

“I fear we’ll never find out since no humans may be left to analyze the causal factors.”

“In substance, we had no social glue, nothing to bind us, and we used technology to further rip us asunder. This might have been fine if we lived in our little cliques on separate planets, but we didn’t. We lived together on one planet, without a common ethical construct or agreement for our future role as a species. Recall the old saying ‘we met the enemy and the enemy is us?’ A hard lesson, and a final lesson.”

“Stoicholic, I usually ask for last thoughts, but we are out of time. Those were distinct opinions. I’ll thank you again for joining us on this last of the series, and possibly last of the podcasts. Ever.”

She thanked him, and he closed the interview.

Warm air from the furnace was still running through the register. In the silence, he heard the telltale dripping of water.

“Crap!” he hissed. “Leaks.”

Peter ran to the kitchen and saw water dripping out from under the sink.

“Can’t be from pressure since I shut off the valves,” he thought. “Must be residual.”

He ran to the hall closet, grabbed a handful of towels, and placed them over the water puddled on his kitchen floor.

“I can’t touch this. Who knows how Toxo is spread, or the plague?”

Wet rags in hand, he sat on the kitchen floor. “I could die here, out of my mind, attracted to shiny moving things. Or it could happen like the other poor souls frozen in rigor mortis, or by an autocrat who fires a nuke at us as his last angry message. Even if I lived through this, who could stand the aftermath as the bodies thawed, much less all the other dead wildlife? Everything is dying, and the world will be a chaotic nightmare for any survivors.”

He walked back into his garage and prepped the Stoicholic podcast for queueing to the server.

“Another one to edit further, if I get the chance. How many are still alive who care? Who has network access as of today? Who is not dead? Do it anyway; do it anyway,” he told himself.

After the end of the long, dreadful day, Peter finished uploading the podcast. He made sure no lights were on in the house, then went back into his safe place, the garage. He pushed his heavy tool chest in front of the door for one last measure of warning and protection, locking its wheels. Pulling an old cot from a top shelf of the garage, he threw a comforter over himself and fell into a disturbed sleep.