the biochemical weapons division
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I was a midlevel biochemical research engineer for the Biochemical Sciences Department of the government. The Department was divided into two branches, one military and the other civilian. I worked in the civilian division, which was responsible for coming up with non-lethal products for civilian use. The military’s central Biochemical Weapons Division was right next door to ours, but it was top secret and seemed like a world away. Nobody in the outside world was supposed to know about it. They were responsible for coming up with new biochem substances for use in warfare and national defense, and that was against international law. All the deadly substances they came up with they kept to themselves, and all the non-deadly ones they gave to us to see if we could make a profit from it in the civilian market. And we were pretty good at making profits, which in turn helped to fund their research.
Even though nobody would admit it or talk about it, I could sense this was the case. Our division had a squeaky clean, relaxed atmosphere. When we weren’t working, we joked and smiled and called each other by first names regardless of position or seniority, and we even sometimes hung out together after work. We’d known each other for such a long time. But we all knew somewhere deep inside we were just a front for the division next door - that our existence was fundamentally built on nothing. Not even the profits we made were essential, because the government got enough money from taxing the civilian population. But none of us ever confronted this directly in our thoughts, or discussed it with each other, probably because we all had good jobs with very high pay and great benefits, low stress, lots of vacation time, and the opportunity for creative challenge with high IQ people. So nobody ever really complained, and nobody ever quit.
But although it was okay there, I wanted out. I just wanted to be outside in the real world and do what I wanted. I wanted to feel 100% comfortable where I was, and I wasn’t feeling that here. I could feel the fraud of everything very vividly. But I told no one about my plans to quit, and I still smiled my same friendly smiles and talked the same easy banter. But the more I thought about leaving, the more I could feel some distance gradually growing between me and my colleagues. Perhaps they could sense my change of my heart.
One day though, I was walking down the hallway and a guy wearing a low level uniform from the military division came up to me with a clear plastic container with some sticky, semi-liquid, yellow substance inside, and he said, “Here, can you take this to your section leader? It’s a new biochem that we haven’t found any use for. They told me to tell you not to drop it, so it’s urgent that you get it to your section leader ASAP.” He looked a little nervous, and seemed to want to get back to his division. And that was strange, because usually guys from the weapons division next door don’t talk to me out of the blue, let alone give me something to pass on to my superior. I didn’t know anybody in that division, and besides I was a midlevel engineer – passing things to other people was for couriers, and we had those. But I did as he said, and didn’t question why, because he said it was “urgent,” and it would only take a few minutes of my time.
He quickly disappeared, and I started walking back to find my section leader, and then all of a sudden the biochem substance starts to bubble and foam, and the plastic container shatters and the substance sticks itself all over my left hand and arm – as if on purpose. And I can feel pain, and in that pain I know deep inside, my body knows, that it is not a harmless substance, so I head straight for the restroom to wash it off. Not running, because I don’t want to make a scene, but not walking either because I have this yellowish stuff on my arm that hurts all over. I get into the washroom and quickly pour soap and cold water on it, and the substance starts to come off, but I can still feel the pain eating away inside my hand and arm, and the pain is slowly starting to expand up my arm, and my skin is now orange. I can feel inside my life is in danger, but at the same time my mind still trusts that this couldn’t happen to me, because how could my life be in danger in one of the world’s most safest and protected places? After washing it off in the sink, I rush back to my section and coincidentally bump into my section leader in the hallway. She is an attractive woman who never smiles, and I immediately tell her what happened. She calmly asks me, “Did you wash it all down the sink?” After I said “Yes,” she said, “Good.”
And then she quietly says, “This is a prototype substance we recently came up with, one of the most lethal that we’ve ever created. Once it comes into contact with a biological organism, it has the ability to disintegrate that organism from the inside out. We haven’t tested it on humans yet. But we estimate that you have about 15 minutes to live.” And she said this as if she knew that all this would happen. As if it were planned. And then I realized, the government somehow knew that I was thinking about quitting, and they had decided to use me as their first human test. I realized then that nobody leaves the Biochemical Department. Even though I worked in the civilian division, I was a threat to the government simply because of the fact that I knew about the existence of the military division. It would have resulted in the fall of the government, as well as change, and the loss of everybody’s jobs. Simply knowing was enough. So they couldn’t afford to let the truth out – it wasn’t in their best interest. And I realized that in the last 15 minutes I had left to live. I realized that there are some truths that are so threatening to certain people that if you know them, they will kill you simply because you know. There are some truths that can kill if you are not careful. It was then that I learned that I should have never lived so close to evil.
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