Mad Science

Every culture features certain skills and talents. One can detect signs of these aptitudes even in the play of small children. For example in societies with a flair for kidnapping and ransom, grandparents will get little demand notes written in tell-tale childish hands telling how many gumdrops they need to leave outside their back door if they ever want to see little Johnny again Or in a nation that leans toward roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, little Mary will not be all that surprised to find the front wheel of her bicycle suddenly transformed to a twisted, smoking mess after running over a cherry bomb as she peddles to the playground.

Mad Science is a highly valued pursuit in Cyberia. Almost every Cyberian child gets a beginner’s mad science lab kit by the time they reach the age of five. Cyberian parents are on the phone to their pediatrician with worries about their child’s development if he or she hasn’t blown a hole in the wall  of their bedroom by seven or eight, and parents at PTA meetings proudly display mutated house plants bred by their pre-teens. If a child hasn’t infected their computer—or for that matter the family pet—with an original virus by graduation from high school, Cyberian parents are sure their offspring will be trapped in a life of penury and squalor in the lower classes of society.

Cyberian mad science specializes in integrating technology—particularly data processing and database management—with the human body. In other words, the development of cyborg technology is a highlight of Cyberian society and economics.

One of the earliest developments along this line was the Gray Area Redline Monitor (GARM). Inserted into the human body and linked to the human nervous system, the GARM monitor tracks the difference between official limits and actual limits. On the “razor blade” principle of economics, Cyberian mad science companies implant monitors for nominal fees and make their money from the many software monitoring programs they upload (for a fee) to the monitor.

One of the first programs monitored the difference between the official speed limit and the actual enforcement speed limit. If the speed limit is posted at 55, everyone knows that they’re not going to get a ticket for driving at 57—but where is the actual point when a patrol car will put the flashing lights on behind you? As you near the actual limit, the monitor begins to send warning pulses into your nervous system. A shrill keening in your ears means—step on the brake now before it’s too late.

GARMS are extremely useful in assisting with navigating many tricky and awkward social situations.

A young lady of high school age will notice her monitor alerting her when her skirt is a bit too short for the principal’s taste. A young man out on the town with the same young lady will get an alert when his friendly hand has progressed a bit past the acceptable cuddling stage to the excessively personal groping stage.

Along with familiar rights such as indecent speech and Lèse majesté, two of the great principles of Cyberian life are Privacy and Transparency. As with many great principles of civic life, these two rights contradict each other. The greatest (well, maybe maddest) researchers of Cyberia applied their talents to solving this problem.