This is my introduction to the portfolio known as Project: Dyszombie. -ed
By William “Doc” Stodden
Every society has a foundation.
For some the foundation lies in the mists of time, way back before anyone can remember. These societies often rely on myth to explain their foundation. Other societies however have more recent and memorable foundations. Sometimes people who were alive then reported on the founding moments of the society.
I guess this is sort of like that: a report on the foundation of a new society, in the midst of the ashes and skeletons of the old. But unlike most societies, in this society there never was any specific meeting of some people who declared “We are *a* people.” This society, which more or less came into being by default, like some unforeseen hand flipped a switch, is more defined by what it replaced. Hopefully someone with a measure of intellectual curiosity will come along and find this account someday. But it is highly doubtful that anyone will scratch their heads one day and ask “I wonder where we came from.” Not the way things are going.
That doesn’t really matter, to be completely honest. I write because I can. Because I am one of the few left in this world that do. And as long as I am holed up in this library, which was stocked with enough canned and preserved food to feed a small city for weeks, thanks to Cold War paranoia and bureaucratic oversight, I will be able to finish my history at least. Its more likely that someone will find me here and do me in though, long before there is ever any danger of me starving to death.
When I think back to how this whole thing started, I can easily point to a single moment in history. I was just a kid, about 15 then, but I knew that what was happening would change things for ever. I knew because that night, we watched a member of the New Ethics Party, a Dr. Edward Owens, be elected President of the United States, and then, after we turned off the TV, my father left the house and drove the family car off a cliff outside of the city I grew up in. We were of course devastated: it seems, however that my mother was not in the least bit surprised.
It is appropriate, perhaps to step back a little: The previous year, 2011, saw a huge break through in medical technology. According to the literature I discovered here in my exhaustive search of the archives, in June of that year, two doctors at a medium sized university in southern Illinois discovered a drug. The project was being funded by the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, and the rest of the alphabet soup there in Washington, and was supposedly top secret. But the news of the discovery leaked. After that, the scientists did what was academically appropriate and published their results. Naturally, they became infamous overnight.
It would appear that these scientists were working on a drug meant to rehabilitate criminals and make soldiers more robotic and less feeling. That’s your typical conspiracy theory nutjob stuff, the sort of thing a government which is able to print its own money and is paranoid about any form of social unrest does with its time and resources. But unlike your standard run of the mill conspiracy theories about alien cover-ups, reptilian invaders from another planet, Masonic plots to control the world, or sightings of Elvis (does anyone even remember Elvis anymore? If he were still alive today he’d be getting up around eighty years old, so it was kind of silly how people used to still be preoccupied with him… I digress.) this secret government program was real. After publication the only secret was who authorized the funding in the first place…
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