Back in the beginning of the 21st century, there were rising numbers of violent crimes, rampant terrorism, increased mass murder, and the people were right that something was wrong and needed to be done. At first they tried to blame the increase in violence on the availability of weapons and the normalization of brutality within pop culture. As the media publicized these atrocious acts, public outcry gained momentum, and so too did the laws against owning guns and other weapons. When the wave of crime was not stemmed by these measures, the government finally had the firepower they needed to end net neutrality; violence was limited in movies and television shows, video games were no longer allowed to have human death; punishment for violence was increased in both the schools and the general public.
It was not until the middle portion of the century that enough attention was paid to the geneticists and psychologists who had been studying biology and behavior, the ones who had said there was a way to predict violent and psychopathic tendencies in people. With the media focusing on nothing but the growing death tolls, the body counts, the fear, the government had to make a decision before the people took things into their own hands or turned on them. Liberties had slowly been taken away from the people on this campaign against unnatural and untimely death over the years, so the people had already become conditioned to losing more of their freedom, rights, and privacy.
When the order for mandatory genetic testing and brain scans was announced, nearly everyone complied quietly. What was losing a little bit of freedom and privacy if it meant preventing large-scale deaths and the heartache of those affected by them?
The police only had to make a few rounds to gather up the resistant few before nearly everyone had been accounted for. Hospitals, schools, and conference centers were requisitioned for the expedient testing of the entire population. College students studying psychology and biology were brought on to help analyze the results of the testing due to a shortage of fully-qualified scientists. Dozens of labs popped up seemingly overnight on the corners of cities and in the strip malls of quiet suburbs to process the tests locally.
In the beginning, the tests were long and complex, the results not simply black and white. The scientists had explained that people could not always simply be labeled ‘violent’ or ‘psychopathic’, but had to be rated on more of a sliding scale. The presence of monoamine oxidase A, the warrior gene, and other violence-related markers were not enough to rule someone a hard and fast psychopath or would-be criminal. Behavior, the presence of traumatic experiences early in life, and inactivity in certain regions of the brain also played key roles a diagnosis. Rather than a quick turn around on results, the analysis of the tests dragged on longer than the people or government expected.
As with many things that happen on a macro scale, this was not expedient enough for the government. There were too many variables, too many scientific terms, too much rhetoric for the impatient suits on the hill. While bureaucracy may take its time, those who answer to it are not allowed that same latitude. Rather than heed the complete advice of those who had originally kicked off this entire campaign, the government turned to a close and trusted few to simplify the tests, to come up with a way to sort out the ‘criminals’, the ‘ticking time bombs’, from the rest of the public.
The labs remained in place as a permanent fixture to process the tests of stragglers and newborns for decades to come. The college students returned to their studies, no longer needed for the long and arduous process of interpreting results of a test that was no longer in use. The scientists, appalled by the oversimplification and butchering of their tests, retired, turned to academia, or quietly returned to their work. The people waited in their homes for their results, for the outcome of this massive campaign.
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Despite the persistent loss of civil liberties over the years, the people had not been prepared for the government’s next step. As a large number of the results were being compiled, and the state-owned scientists and decision makers came up with a finite way of analyzing results, the government came forward with a new proclamation. Because of the serious and grave manner of this matter, every television had been turned to the same channel for the announcement, every web page redirected to the speech. All eyes were on the official that would dictate the direction of the future.
No one is alive anymore that would have remembered that historic day near the middle of the century. Even with the increases in technology and advances in medicine, the life expectancy was still not long enough for any of those to still be around. I imagine, though, that every person that was alive to view that fateful speech remembered exactly where they were when it aired for the rest of their lives. I am told that many alive during major terrorist attacks had a similar recollection, but I have had no such comparable experience.
That day the government came forward and announced that anyone that was shown possessed MAOA and CDH13 on those genetic tests would be isolated from the population. Those that exhibited these genes, regardless of whether or not they had a criminal record or a history of violent behavior, would be removed to facilities where they could not harm the public. It was too great a risk to leave these ‘ticking time bombs’ among the people. No one wanted another mass shooting, a public bombing, murder and rape in their town, their state, their country. This, like every other law and decree, was for the protection of the people. Never before in the history of man had they been able to detect and isolate the cause of violence in humanity as they could now. This was a turning point for the human race.
The government announced that they would not release the results of the tests to the individuals because there was too great of a concern for flight risks and violent outbursts. The affected would be quietly met at their homes by law enforcement officials and escorted to secure facilities. Those with no criminal record, of course, would be separate from those who had knowingly committed any crimes. These people were, in a way, still innocent. They did not belong in prisons with the convicts. There was no need for anyone to panic because their loved ones would be well taken care of and comfortable. This was what was needed to end the violence, to create a better tomorrow, to protect their children and offer them a brighter future.
While there were many that went quietly when the authorities showed up to collect them, many resisted, many ran. There were no longer guns or any other type of weapon in residential homes, but that did not stop people from taking up baseball bats, kitchen knives, or anything they could fashion into a temporary weapon in an attempt to resist apprehension. Soon riot teams and the military were brought on to round up the affected. The government announced that this was to be expected from those that had been diagnosed, that this validated these measures. Was this the kind of violent behavior the people wanted living in wait among them? In a matter of months, families had been broken apart, and most of the affected escorted to the secure facilities. Everything began to quiet down again.
At first, the detained were allowed to write letters home to their families and friends with assurances of their health and comfort. Despite the advances in technology and communications, they were only allowed a simple pencil and pen. When families started noticing abnormalities in their beloveds’ word choice and speech, they would contact the facilities about their well-being. Visitation had already been prohibited, and the officials assured the families that this was just a sign of their loved ones’ true nature finally taking hold. After many letters, phone calls, and reassurances, families stopped trying to make contact. A sort of peace settled over communities in a way it never had before. With time the memories and trauma faded, or at least that is what people told one another.
This was the new normal.