nimiety
[ni-mahy-i-tee]
1. excess; overabundance:
nimiety of mere niceties in conversation.
2. an instance of this.
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Mr. Tavin sat at the head of the large table with his
fingertips pressed lightly together. The
other people at the table shuffled papers and looked over reports as a few late
comers entered the room as quietly as they dared. It wasn’t until all seats were filled that he
began speaking.
“Thank
you all for making it.” He said. His eyes moved around the room, lingering on
those who had come late. “Now that
everyone’s here, we can begin. What’ve
you all got for me today?”
None of
the others spoke. They simply shuffled
and fidgeted in their seats. Mr. Tavin
could already tell he wouldn’t like whatever they had to say. Finally one of them gathered the courage to
say something.
“Nothing
good sir.” Said the middle aged
man. “All resource intakes are at an all
time low, and there’s not much that can be done at this point to change that.” Mr. Tavin could see the sweat starting to
form on the man’s forehead.
“Really
now?” Mr. Tavin asked.
“Y-yes,
sir.” Said another one, this time a much
younger man. “Food production is still
falling, wood isn’t growing fast enough to meet demand, and all metal resources
have been mined out to the point where getting access to more simply no longer
worth it, or too dangerous.”
Mr. Tavin
had suspected as much. It had been the
same as the last two meetings. He had
tried to get his people to work on the ever increasing resource issue, but so
far nothing had worked. He leaned back
in his seat and thought.
“Is
there anything we have enough of?
Anything at all?” He asked. It took a few seconds before anyone said
anything.
“Actually,
there is sir.” Said one of the older
members. Mr. Tavin said nothing,
although his ears perked up. “The
population still continues to climb.
Frankly, there’s far too many people around, and yet the numbers just
keep going up.”
“Really
now? So we have dwindling resources and
an overabundance of people who need them.”
Mr. Tavin wanted to launch into a
long string of swears and curses, but that would be in poor taste. It was getting worse every time. “Is there any way we can use that to our
advantage? Any way at all we can use
that high population growth to help solve the other problems?” It was a long shot, but there might be
something they could do.
“Well,
there’s always the Soylent Green approach?”
Said the younger member.
“The
what?” Mr. Tavin asked.
“It’s
from an old movie. The major corporation
put our food rations that turned out to be human bodies. Maybe something like that?”
“Hmm. An interesting idea. Use half the population to feed the other
half.” Mr. Tavin hated himself for even
considering such an option. “But no,
that wouldn’t work. It would involve too
many sudden disappearances and lead to too many questions. All it would take is one misplaced tooth or
bone and we’d be in more hot water than we can handle. Anything else?”
“Well,
there’s always human experimentation.”
Said one of the female members.
“Go on.”
“We use
the excess population as guinea pigs for various experiments. We can maybe find a way to use them to fix
various problems with resources in that way, at least if we’re lucky.”
“Hm,
interesting. Very interesting. Reduce the population and attempt to find a
solution to the problem at the same time.
Yes, that could work.” Mr. Tavin
said. “And if we spin it right, nobody
will complain. Ask for volunteers for
the experiments and promise them things like food or money or some such and we’ll
have more than enough test subjects. And
if we say it’s for the good of humanity than nobody will complain or question
it.” It wasn’t ideal, since there were
so many things that could go wrong with human experiments, but it was likely
the best idea that would be presented. The
meeting had just started, so there would be quite a bit more, but best to put
out as many tendrils as possible.
“So, I
have your permission to start, sir?” She
asked.
“Yes
you do. Write up a formal proposal with
what sorts of experiments you have in mind, and make sure you keep me in the
loop at all times, understood?”
“Yes,
sir.”
“Good.
Now, any other ideas?”
As the
other members struggled to come up with something, Mr. Tavin eyed the woman who
had presented the idea. She would be
interesting to work with, he could already tell. Human experimentation was a tricky business,
but she was right. Using the people for
such things would go far. After all,
even if there were sacrifices, there would always be more people.
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And thus, and evil corporation is born....Dun dun dun. Why do I get the feeling that there'll be a lot of these in the future? Hmmm......
