Everyone Was Going Mad About Science

           Everyone Was Going Mad About Science

     Angra continued looking at the hundred smaller monitors
on the wall in front of her as she began tapping the buttons
on the control panel under those monitors. She stopped her
tapping to look at each monitor individually. And at the
SpaceProjectile on it.

     “The rest of the Yantians may not like what I’m about
to do,” said Angra. “But I’m sure this will solve all of our
overpopulation problems here on Yanti.”

     After looking at each monitor, Angra looked down at the
control panel to make sure that she was pushing the large
red button in the middle of it. then she looked up at the
monitors again as the top of the rooms that they were in
slid open so that they could leave those rooms.

     Suddenly, the individual monitors disappear into one
large monitor that covered the whole wall there as one of
the SpaceProjectiles exploded once it reached the light blue
clouds above it. after it exploded red rain droplets rained
down on the Yantians outside of buildings and buildings too.
Including the one that Angra was in.

                             #

     “You are a very hard Yantian to find,” said Maggia. She
was staring at a large monitor that appeared to be turned
off. The only indication that it was on was a thin white
line around the edge of the darkness in the middle of it.

     The voice of Angra was the only thing heard coming from
behind the darkness on that monitor in front of Maggia. “You
didn’t find me. I’m the one who contacted you.”

     “I wasn’t talking about this talk that we are about to
have,” said Maggia. “No one knows where you are at. That’s
what I was trying to say to those listening to us.”

     “That’s because I don’t want anyone to know where I’m
at,” said Angra. “After a little more than three hundred
years, most of Yanti still want to kill me for what I have
done to them.”

     Maggia leaned back in her straight seat. “I’m one of
them who want to kill you. After all, you didn’t just solve
our overpopulation problem. It was the way you solved it.
And what also happened when you did it.”

                             #

     “Two more of our youngest adults have been taken,” said
Maggia from behind a hovering tabletop. “That makes a little
over one hundred thousand of them in the last ten years.”

     “Only this time is different, though. This time The Law
has been given some Moving Images of what happened.” Maggia
swiveled around in her hovering seat. She looked at a large
Image Monitor floating behind her.

     Suddenly, the monitor behind Maggia changed from a
black viewing area to show two youngest adults walking down
a walkway talking to each other when a big transport floated
up beside them. The two females stopped walking and walked
over to it. After a few minutes of talking the side of that
transport disappeared and the two females got into it. Once
they were the transport left.

     “That didn’t look like they were taken to me,” said
Maggia. “It looked more like they wanted to go with whoever
they were talking to.”

     “That’s the way it looked to me too,” said Angra as she
watched her large Information Monitor in front of her. Angra
smiled wickedly. “I wonder who they are going to blame this
taking on.”

                             #

     Angra got up and walked to the small monitors on her
wall that showed the youngest adults on them. She started with
the first monitor. And read the latest results just under
that adult. Then she moved on to the second one and did the
same thing. As she read each result, she closes her eyes
tight, squinting them, and smiles.

     “Everything looks good so far,” said Angra. “All I need
to do now is make sure no one else gets hurt by it.”

     Just then Angra’s wall of small monitors became an
Information Monitor again. She was about halfway down that
first row of checking the results when the image of Maggia
appears before her. Angra back walked to her hovering seat
and sat down in it.

     “I hate it when they do this,” said Angra as she looked
at that Information Monitor. “But I am wondering how many
more youngest adults that has gone missing that I’m going
to be blamed for.”

     “The Law has finished checking out what happened to
Barrini and Gracai,” said Maggia. “And despite the moving
images that we saw a few days ago, The Law still believe
that they have been taken.”

                             #

     Multiple screaming and yelling could be heard from
beyond a closed entrance at the end of a long corridor as
Angra ran toward it. That entrance barely slid open before
she ran through. Only to skid to a stop just after she got
into a very large room with a hundred floating Sleepers in
there with those screaming and yelling.

     Slowly, Angra looked at the youngest adults in those
Sleepers. Especially, at the sparks coming from the metal
lines connecting the sparking machines behind the Sleepers
that were attached to those youngest adults. Angra ran past
a double-sided row of the Sleepers there to a room-length
control panel. After hitting a bunch of buttons, the sparks
ended. So did the screaming and yelling.

     Angra turned toward the youngest adults there. “I’m so
sorry that happened. I don’t know why it happened. But I
will figure it out so that it doesn’t happen ever again.”

     “Something like this has never happened before,” said
Angra. “I’m not mad like almost everyone on Yanti thinks that
I am. No madder than everyone else who has had to live the
same age for slightly over three hundred years.”

                             #

     “Stop bothering me,” said Angra. She was walking down
a hallway toward the front entrance of her residence when she
heard another buzzing sound. “I will be there in a minute.”

     As Angra got to her entrance it slid open to reveal
Barrini and Gracai. “You must be Barrini and Gracai. Welcome
to my residence.”

     Angra greeted them in the traditional Yanti way by
crossing her arms across her upper front and bowing her head
slightly. Barrini and Gracai did the same as they entered
that residence and followed Angra into a large living area.
“Is this where you do whatever it is that you do with us
youngest adults?” Gracai asked.

     “I know what everyone thinks of me,” answered Angra.
“That I’m some kind of a mad Yantian. But that isn’t true. I
haven't harmed any of you yet.”

     After showing Barrini and Gracai to two floating seats,
Angra continued. “Well, that isn’t exactly true. There was a
scare a few days ago. But it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

     “As for if this is where it happens,” continued Angra.
“It isn’t. I just like to meet my willing Yantians and talk
to them a little before we start doing whatever it is that I
do to them.”

                             #

     “Why am I doing this to you younger adults?” Angra
asked herself as she walked Barrini and Gracai down a long
corridor toward an entrance at the end of it. “That is what
you want to know, isn’t it?

     Angra stopped just before she got to that entrance.
“It’s okay. Almost all of you want to ask me that question.”

     “It all started soon after I solved our overpopulation
problem. When I also caused our ageless problem. I noticed
that when you youngest adults started to become adults at
ten or eleven for you females and twelve or thirteen for our
males that you stopped aging too.”

     “That’s when I realized that you were going to be the
solution to this problem,” continued Angra. “And I started
trying to find that solution. It just took me almost three
hundred years before I could try to do that.”

     Angra turns toward the entrance at the end of that
corridor. “It may be a little scary when you first go in
here. But it’s not that bad.”

                             #

     Once again, Angra was staring at her wall of small
monitors from a distance. Then she walks up to the first
one. And starts checking her findings. She smiled. “Very
good. I like what I’m looking at.”

     “All of them are looking very good,” said Angra after
she finished checking out the rest of that row. She’s about
to start on the next row starting at that end when the large
single monitor appeared again with Maggia on it.

     “Twenty more youngest adults have returned to when they
have been taken,” said Maggia. “They are weak, groggy, and
confused. But other than that, they appear to be okay too.”

     Angra tapped that large monitor to return that wall to
the smaller monitors. “Of course, they are okay. I’m not any
madder than anyone else is on Yanti.”

     “If the monitors look the same as the top, then I think
that I have found a way to stop us from aging anymore. I’m
just not sure if I can reverse it, though.”

                             #

     “You and most of the rest of Yanti have been right
about me,” said Angra. I have been the one who has been
trying to find a solution to our ageless problem with a lot
of help from our youngest adults.”

     Angra continued to stare at the large monitor on her
wall. Once again, that monitor only showed mostly darkness
on it. “But you and the rest of Yanti are wrong about me
taking them. I haven’t taken anyone. All the youngest adults
that have helped me have been willing Yantians.”

     That time, only the voice of Maggia could be heard from
behind that darkness. “Is that why you contacted me again?
To tell everyone on Yanti what you have been doing.”

     “Of course, that’s not the reason. I don’t want to talk
to you,” answered Angra. “But you are the best way to let
the rest of Yanti know I think I have found a solution to
our ageless problem.”

     “So, what is your solution to a problem that you have
caused?” Maggia asked. “And what does it have to do with the
reason why you contacted me?”

     Angra sighed. “The solution is the reason why. I’m sure
that I can stop the aging problem. But I don’t think that I
should do it. If I do, it will be because everyone on Yanti
wants me to do it.”

                             #

     “All of Yanti has decided what you should do about our
ageless problem,” said Maggia as she finally got the chance
to look at Angra. “And they have decided that they want to
risk death than to live in this madness anymore.”

     “Are they sure about that decision?” Angra asked. “I
know that I can stop our ageless problem. But since our
normal lifespan isn’t a little more than three hundred
years, there is a very good chance that we will all die
because of it.”

     For about a minute, Maggia didn’t say anything. “As I
said, they would rather die than live forever like what they
have been doing.”

     “That’s fine with me,” said angra as she tapped the
large monitor to return that wall to the smaller monitors.
Only now they showed SpaceProjectiles on them instead of the
youngest adults. “We are about to find out if we are going
to age normally or if we will all die from old age.”

     Angra pushed the red button on the control panel under
those smaller monitors. And just like slightly over three
hundred years ago, the SpaceProjectiles left those monitors.
A few seconds later, Angra fell to the floor after the red
droplets of rain started hitting her. And almost instantly
she started to die from old age. But just before she
disappeared into nothing but ashes, she mumbled one last
thing before she died. “At least we don’t have to live in
this madness anymore.”

                    Word Count = 1,988