The Ice Cream Horror: Compound W34

There were some first-things-first items to handle, though.

Birth control was dumped in the garbage.

Yeesoon's IUD would have to come out, she made an appointment but it would take a while.

Organized shelves with each girl's bathroom tote went into the living room right next to the hallway. Clothes went onto hanging racks made from copper pipe hung from chains from the ceiling. The kitchen needed new pots and pans sized for 8 servings at a time (someone would want seconds).

Their lives got more complicated, but also more simple. No more hunting for a husband, they had one. No more going out to bars and drinking late, they had responsibilities.

They did have goals. All of them had goals.

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Two months later, the SYMPH spaceship went into low orbit around the Earth.

The SYMPH had already done a lot of catching up to do with news from the SYMPH homeworld.

A monster-like race had made the SYMPH run from their planetary system, fleeing, moving fast, but eventually running all the way to the Milky Way, and finding likely places, and seeding life, and then watching it happen.

The SYMPH had fled because they had to get away from the monsters!

But, the monsters were no longer a worry. The monsters had discovered another, non-SYMPH race of intelligent beings to conquer. Those beings had tech to generate power by slightly increasing the quantum foam vacuum energy of an empty cubic centimeter.

The monsters had figured out that race's technology and quickly broadcast it to the rest of their inhabited worlds. Testing the theory, they instead opened a channel to extract power from a cubic meter instead. More is better?

The monsters didn't understanding that meant collecting energy from an 11-dimensional space to generate n^(100*100*100) to the 11th times as much power as before.

The monsters were gone.

The SYMPH race was no longer living. Their machine was, and it had been on the moon a VERY long time. The SYMPH did have some permanence, though, in that their culture and intelligence and ability to foster life carried on their legacy for hundreds of millions of years across countless star systems, shaping intelligent species and trying to control them long enough to prevent them from self-annihilation.

The SYMPH were machine intelligences. They were echoes of ancient living beings.

The SYMPH were ghosts.

What they SYMPH saw was that mankind was poisoning itself. It had put too much methane and CO2 in the atmosphere, pollutants, toxins in the air and water supplies used by humans, huge loss of biodiversity on land and at sea, it was almost the end for the species.

Standing by and watching a sentient species implode isn't what SYMPH had planned.

Kevin and Dave and the rest of the groups were picked up, literally. Kevin's entire apartment block was wrapped in a force field, picked up, and brought up to the SYMPH ship in orbit. This raised the population of that ship to about 100.

Each of the men in that cultural geography class, and their Beshas by their sides, were lifted up with their apartment buildings into the SYMPH ship.

Just to ensure there was a good genetic sample, two other entire dormitory buildings at a nearby state women's nursing college were brought aboard, too.

Compound W34 was found in the bloodstreams of the Higgins class members, then duplicated by the SYMPH and distributed carefully worldwide. In a way, they were enslaving humanity.

SYMPH ethics wouldn't allow this slavery to be too onerous, though, only enough to help humans past the hump where they'd be tempted to create power by slightly increasing the quantum foam vacuum energy in a small volume or large one.

New instructions were needed.

Kevin was chosen. His Beshas were happy with him, and probe analysis of his intellect and wisdom capacities was sufficient.

Kevin was made Emperor of Earth.

Some things were changed. Electric power from SYMPH-powered tech created silane / mono- and poly-crystalline silicon cells, which by the millions of tons was turned by Earth machines (duplicated by SYMPH machines) into far more power than Earth needed.

Robots were built, all human designs and construction. Medical tech was given out.

This was almost good.

But, then, with the advent of Precision Fermentation (PF), no more cows were needed for milk, or for great steaks, or many other meat and fish purposes. The world could return to its natural diverse beauty.

Unfortunately, there were tradeoffs with using PF.

Kevin saw what was happening with atherosclerosis and diabetes, and put a tax on ice cream to make a small bowl cost $30. Candy was taxed, too. People got more in-shape.

Everyone, world-wide, started exercising and eating healthy food - because Kevin said to, and they'd been dosed with W34.

The W34 had another CRISPR effect: For every man born, there were five women born. The birth ratio of mankind had changed!

It suddenly wasn't possible to have a man to yourself - unless you were a rich woman, that is.

The monsters had won - the people who were incredibly sad at losing the joy of having ice cream thought so, at least.

By the next halloween, candy wasn't given out, fresh fruit was, and pie slices, and other fancy things, because by then, everyone HAD to be exercising.

People were living longer.

But, without Ice cream.

NO ICE CREAM.

The atmosphere was better, biodiversity was returning, people were cleaning up their messes, women were getting married and making babies and getting inexpensive child care and living the dream in a world where mundane hassle jobs were done by robots, too.

And, off the world, too, since there was tech for building large scale ships and on-orbit stations where humanity could make lots of copies of themselves in the infinite vastness of space.

But there was a tragedy amongst the joy of plenty.

There was... NO ICE CREAM.

Horror, HOrrrrrrorrr.... HORRRORRRRRRR!!!! NO. ICE. CREAM...!!!!!

SO, on this and any other halloween, when you're looking around whatever happened to make almost everyone good looking, healthy, well-adjusted, organized, and capable parents? NOW you know. It was the MONSTERS. And, because of the monsters?

YOU DON'T GET ICE CREAM, ANYMORE, EVER!!!

-- The end.

== End Notes ==

Rule 1: Work out daily, do math like you do piano - practice; have lots of happy kids, be patient and forgiving with them, give your partners oral and help them come regularly, and Always Be Tidy.

Rule 2: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to create power by slightly increasing the quantum foam vacuum energy. Doesn't matter if it's a small box. Just, don't.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (no matter what time of year it is when you read this)

== Author Notes ==

This was written quickly. Thus, complaints about the theme, execution, misspellings, incorrect grammar, or really anything else, should be addressed to: British Airways, Greenwich, UK. They have an excellent complaints department.

Upvotes are appreciated, comments likewise. The author has many works in many formats, feel free to browse.

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