“Hero Atlas what are your thoughts on the new law that just passed? Is the restrictions on people with an Evil Alignment a step backward?” The young reporter with light blond hair was one of my favorites, Rosiland always asked heavy-hitting questions: the ones steeped in controversy. She never faltered, even when she was interviewing National Heroes there was no starry-eyed admiration in her eyes typical of the general populace.
“Of course not! The newly passed law is for the safety of all, it’s well-known that Evil Alignment people are five times more likely to commit crimes if they are monitored it will discourage them from doing so. In the end, it is for their safety as well the fewer crimes they commit the easier it will be for them to be contributing members of society.” Atlas’ dimples flashed as he gave the camera what had been described as the manifestation of “boyish charm” in a smile.
I was surprised by his comment about the safety of the evil-aligned, most heroes disregarded that part of the population until it came to punishing them for ill deeds. My surprise didn’t last long when after his comment he looked behind the camera a lifted one eyebrow before his smile got wider. The answer had been scripted and he was looking for confirmation that he got it right from his PR manager.
“And how do you plan to enforce this? There is no such skill that detects what alignment someone is. Unless you guys have been holding out on us?” Rosiland questioned and maybe there was more barb in the last question than strictly necessary, not that I was complaining. I wonder what alignment she is?
“Of course not, Rosie. Us heroes have nothing to hide any secrets we have about our skills are simply so those with nefarious intentions don’t get a leg up.” There was an undertone of dismissal in the first sentence the spacing and tone mimicking that of an adult speaking to an ignorant child.
“Our scientists have come up with a device which takes a sample of a person’s blood and can tell which side they fall on even though it hasn’t been perfected to the extent where we can tell whether they are Villain or Anti-hero.” The hero continued breezily.
“Interesting since all papers I have seen published have shown such devices have a 60% accuracy at best,” Rosiland said her grin taking on a predatory edge, perhaps this was her revenge for the previous disrespect.
“I’m just a simple man I don’t have the knowledge to speak to that, but it is a good idea and I trust our scientists.” An appeal to him being just the average man and therefore trustworthy: a smart move.
The interview continued much in the same vein Rosiland asking questions that threatened to expose Atlas for his prejudice and ignorance, but that he managed to recover from with only minimal scratches to his reputation. It got boring after a while so I turned it off, knowing that I could pull it up again if the mood struck me.
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I didn’t watch the news that often, but considering my recent aligning it would pay to keep on the current events and public opinion. Of course, it was mostly the latter, the news didn’t go into the scientific breakdown of what they were saying or use facts at all. Most of the stories were heavily layered in prejudice and bias.
For example, although what Atlas said about the evil-aligned being five times more likely to commit crimes was generally an accepted statistic, there was truly no way to know that was true.
As previously stated there is no way to know if someone was evil-aligned the statistic they got was from asking incarcerated individuals. Individuals who had very little to lose and new that declaring themselves to be evil-aligned often worked as a deterrent for other crimanals who messed with them.
Rosiland had been right about previous devices not being accurate and I doubt that the newly minted device Atlas mentioned had improved the percentage of accuracy much. To a certain extent the device could put a dent in my plans, if i was tested and it was declared I needed to be under surveillance my crimes would be noticed. That is if I refused to adapt.
Over all it was an inconvenience, but not impossible to work around should it become necessary. There was however some silver linings I found in this declaration. There was bound to be push back from people about the infringement of rights even if it was the rights of people they didn’t particularly care about. If the machine was as inaccurate as I anticipated it being then about fifty percent of the population would be labeled as in need of surveillance something that would set the public outcry against them.
In the case that the public was ignored the draining of funds and manpower would cause the effort to lose traction and it would be given up. My guess was that they wanted something else, either that or they were as stupid as they seemed.
The silver lining would be the questioning of the Heroes' intentions as well as my chance to take note of any groups that formed in protest to possibly use as allies in the future. It would be interesting to see how things would unfold.
Done with my current train of thoughts I pulled up the EVIL lottery screen staring at the one coin sitting there. In my quest to set a routine, I hadn’t yet implemented the plans to complete more tasks and thus I only had the lone coin from my “Traffic Violation”.
I did debate waiting until I had collected others, but it would not increase my chances so I saw no reason to wait.
Plucking the coin from the screen was not as shocking to me this time but I did still feel a certain sense of wonder as the digital thing in front of me become real at the touch of my fingers.
The coin slid into the slot with relative ease, popping of piece of gum into my mouth I started to form a bubble as I watched the colors spin around.
When it finally stopped I was prepared for another congratulations for "Nothing!" that's not what happened. Honestly, if these were the types of things that the EVIL lottery could offer I needed to get more coins pronto.
[Congratulations! You have won "Incendio - The Arsonist's Dream" This weapon is capable of setting anything on fire. Happy burning!]