The Ksum

Write a short story. At the beginning of the story a character encounters a problem and uses different strategies to solve it.

In this story, choose one device – character, setting, or style – and use it to explore a political problem of importance to you.
 
Manny was one of the chosen children to learn his lessons from the Ksum Device. This little black box, an odd-looking gadget, complete with a few toggle switches, a couple of blinking LEDs and multiple leads was thought capable of filling a child’s brain with a complete education in the span of a day.

This education was nothing more, truth be known, than advanced AI despoilment of the little one’s brain. Terabytes of terabytes of data would be sailed upon them, forced by electricity into the recess of their brains.

A group of selected children became human guinea pigs. They were sent to a gloomy looking lab outside of Washington DC. Once in the building they were prepared for the indoctrination. Physicals and mental evaluations were administered. Once deemed healthy they were scheduled for their instant educations.

From their evaluations, the subject matter of their learning was chosen. All would leave the lab that day, a seven-year-old with a PHD in whatever field they were thought gifted for. Medical Doctors, Scientists, Philosophers, and more would soon fill the barracks at the compound.

As Manny was receiving his ingraining, a janitor, as he sweeping unplugged his Ksum device. Realizing what he did, he quickly plugged the machine back in. Manny, like the others received his education, though his was altered and befuddled and not quite what had been designed.

The project, experiment, scheme was a failure. Some of the children died. Many were left walking vegetables, a few never matured past being seven. Manny was the only true survivor.

Manny’s intelligence was so extreme that he realized he needed to fake his condition and when evaluated by the lab technicians would only drool and stare into space.
The children were sent back to their families or admitted to medical facilities for the rest of their lives. Manny returned to his parents’ home and continuing becoming a well-rounded child. In his heart, mind and soul though there harbored a deep hatred and need for revenge. His little mind vowed that all the scientists and the Ksum inventor would pay for their actions.

Manny’s forced education left him with a vast knowledge of repeatability and predictions. This along with a spattering of Mystical Engineering allowed him to design and build his own little black box, complete with toggles and LEDS. On the eve of his sixteenth birthday the box was completed and Manny stood in his parent’s garage contemplating the box.

This box would ensure reparations and revenge for himself and the other little boys and girls whose lives were devastated that day.

By throwing the first toggle, all the effected children would peacefully pass away, ending their pain and their families suffering. By selecting the second toggle, the adults responsible for the experiment, including the inventor would die horrible deaths. The third switch would cause the children of the evil adults to become vegetables like so many of the children from the lab. The fourth switch would render all the children whole again. The fifth and final switch would bring immediate brain damage to the responsible adults.

Manny’s brain weighed the choices, rolling over each one for its worth, cost and satisfaction. Killing the children would hurt others. Was death good enough for the adults? Should the children of the adults suffer to find vengeance? Could he justify healing the others and not having his revenge? Would his feelings of revenge be happy with seeing the adults become vegetables?

Manny smiled, a great smile, a smile larger than he had expressed since before the laboratory and slowly made his selection, flicking the chosen switch.
 
Roy Richard
October 2024