Mr

A man who knows how to read sits in a well-lit room and holds a book. The book is normal in all respects and is in a language the man understands. However, the man cannot read the book. Why? It is a simple riddle but a strange thought to cross one's mind. Now of all times, with civilisation falling to pieces the world over. A dyslexic Nero, riddling while Rome burns.

It is midnight now. No, it is a couple of minutes after midnight but what are a couple of minutes between friends? A couple of minutes that will be remembered forever as the end of the world. No, wrong again. Not the end of the world, just the end of the world as we know it. Darkness now, blind and uncertain darkness before the dawn. I like the analogy; darkness beckons for humanity, before a new and glorious dawn.

Some might find it ironic that the ubiquitous biochip, which has ruled our lives for so long, should be such a force for change. Unseen and unnoticed it has been a digital mark of Cain; only now, by its absence, does it become noticeable. I don't find it ironic; I find it apt. By its demise this foul device redeems itself.

One biochip for everything, for everyone. A chip in every arm, a life in every chip. Just as computers freed people from paper, the chip freed us from almost everything else. There was no more need to carry cards or remember codes. People no longer needed keys to open doors or passports to cross borders. As far as was practical or meaningful, and then a distance beyond, all the details of an individual's life could be stored in and read from the biochip in their arm. There would be no more fraud, no more theft, no more mistaken identity and no more lies. All past tense, because the chips are gone now. The biochipped world died a few minutes ago, at midnight. I know it did, I killed it.

I never questioned while I worked, never had doubts about the biochips. Perhaps I should rephrase that. Until I questioned, I worked. As soon as I started questioning, I stopped working. I was stopped from working. Either way, it's academic. It's all academic. The question I asked was academic. I asked whether we could live without the biochip. I questioned whether we needed it. I wondered would we be better off without it. In short, I doubted the faith.

Faith, that word fits as well as any. The dogma of the biochip was all encompassing like a religion. It demanded total acceptance and blind obedience from everyone. Its very nature meant that only its adherents could function and prosper. Non-believers were excluded from society by default. Without a chip there was no way to open a lock, drive a car, access a computer or even use money. All questions were swept before the almighty chip because it represented progress. The relentless march of technology, in which all things are good so long as they are new, made the biochip a god. It controlled all things, and through it all people could be controlled.

When I questioned, that was my answer. I, who as a programmer had been an acolyte of the faith, was now an apostate. When the inquisition of authority came for me they branded my questioning seditious; they might as well have called it heresy, and burned me at the auto-da-fé.