EP425: The Boy in Zaquitos

[littlepossum]

It feels that there is something in this story about the evil normal people are capable of and the way we use rationlisation, avoidance and the rejection of personal responsibility to deal with the guilt.
I think that despite his claims of declassification that this little lecture to the highschool is another thing the agency hadn't expected him to do.

[Dyalos]

Whatever the setting, this would be the equivalent of asking one of those drone pilots to come and speak to a class about how many innocent people he killed in the name of the mission. That's what I don't like about this story. It's not his actions during the mission, I know that kind of crap happens every day, it's the fact that he is calmly addressing a room full of students and explaining his actions with no remorse. Sure, he's developed some neuroses from the events, but at no point does he say he regrets his actions. The story doesn't focus on those neuroses, instead it tells us how he managed to work through them and live a happy, normal life after being a mass murderer. Are we supposed to celebrate him? "Congratulations Heir Himmler, I'm glad you can sleep comfortably at night..."

Sadly I've seen many such lectures in my life, "BookTV" frequently features book tour presentations from just such people, and West Point academy, military think tanks, and many similar institutions use these lecturers as objects of unwholesome study in international relations, especially from foreign operations like Mossad or the former KGB.

"These days, there is a profusion of CIA memoirs. And lots of controversy surrounding them.":

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-06-04/local/35461165_1_cia-spymaster-john-kiriakou-publications-review-board

To provide a more "applicable example" for you, per the specifications put forward, here is a reportedly grim and vivid drone pilot who expresses no explicit remorse beyond "feeling sick":

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/us/drone-operator-interview/

and here is a picture of him lecturing college students after he was invited to do so by the University of Montana:

http://www.montanakaimin.com/news/article_b7f7e638-abe2-11e2-9eb9-001a4bcf6878.html

[El Barto]

I did not like the story at all.  It was fantastically unbelievable.  I cannot imagine that the CIA would recruit some normal young kid to become a mass murderer.   If something so horrific ever happened it would be someone they could trust implicitly, wouldn't it?  Some middle aged guy with no family?  The way this story just skipped over that huge point seemed crazy to me.  We did not get to see anything about how or why he was willing to do this other than the lecture about how America must survive for the good of the world.

Also, I did not care for the narrator's smug self-congratulation for not killing one kid while he murdered everyone else around him.  How is what he did any different from walking around executing tens of thousands of people with a gun?  What he did was arguably much worse because it caused huge numbers of agonizing deaths. 

Also I thought the fact that he was speaking publicly about it to be crazy.  What he did was a crime against humanity sanctioned by a government.  The story would have been much stronger had it ended with him being caught, exposed, and the rest of the world nuking his home country to end the experiment.

[evrgrn_monster]

I'm going to have to side with Cutter; I, too, had a huge problem with the framing of the story. It didn't make a whole lot of sense that this would be a speech given to a school. I have had my fair amount of Vietnam vets come speak at my schools, and a few even went into details of the deaths that they seen and even caused. However, that is nowhere near the same magnitude of what this man did. He passively murdered many, many civilian innocents, which cannot be brushed away as just an outcome of the horrors of war. The story itself was alright, but the framing killed it for me.

Actually, the story did bother me a bit, in that I wanted him to be punished for being weak and letting so many people die when all he had to do was not bite down. In fact, him rescuing that one boy and his family actually infuriated me; it allowed him a release from his responsibilities. He could look back at all the death and illness he rained upon nations and see this one instance of mercy he decided to act out upon and go, "Hey, I wasn't so bad now, was I? Look what I risked to save this poor, freckled boy." Granted, that may have been the point of this story - this character doesn't seem like someone I'd want to pity or feel compassion towards, and since I left feeling disgusted with him, mission successful?

[Devoted135]

Well, that was disturbing! I agree with PotatoKnight, he seems to have been able to rationalize his actions with "following orders" and doing "everything he could" to avoid infecting people at home. High motivation and low intelligence, indeed! To me, this is a brilliant exploration of what people are capable of, even if it can only provide one possible snapshot in the end. This is in spite of the framing device, which I agree is contrived and detracts from the core of the story.

I cannot imagine that the CIA would recruit some normal young kid to become a mass murderer.   If something so horrific ever happened it would be someone they could trust implicitly, wouldn't it?  Some middle aged guy with no family?  The way this story just skipped over that huge point seemed crazy to me. 

Actually, this was explained in the story. Only a person with a very specific biology would be able to be a carrier of the disease without actually succumbing to it. That's why they initially rejected him but later re-recruited him after they had run the blood tests.

[El Barto]

Actually, this was explained in the story. Only a person with a very specific biology would be able to be a carrier of the disease without actually succumbing to it. That's why they initially rejected him but later re-recruited him after they had run the blood tests.

I did understand that the kid had the right biochemistry to be able to be a carrier and that made them want him.   But the author never explained (to my satisfaction) how they were able to convince a nice college graduate to become a mass murder just like that -- with relatively little drama.

[SonofSpermcube]

I mostly agree with Cutter on this one.
The story was very well told and I enjoyed watching the character development, but... it was a little weak. I can't put my finger on exactly what made it weak. Maybe it was the setting, like Cutter said. Maybe it was an author trying to do something he shouldn't have, like we heard at the very end, after the Daikaiju. Maybe it was a combination of factors.
Also yes, John Chu read it very well, with all the right inflection and tone. But his voice was just wrong for this piece. Wilson Fowlie or Nobillis might have been a better choice.

I think it was how the tone of the presentation didn't match the emotional development of the character in his own narrative.  And I don't mean the way John Chu read it.  It's like "oh hey, let me tell you about a career option you might not have thought of and by the way here is how it nearly destroyed my soul, anyone want to know about the benefit package?"

It wasn't awful, but it probably would have been better told straight, without any framing. 

[Unblinking]

I think it was how the tone of the presentation didn't match the emotional development of the character in his own narrative.  And I don't mean the way John Chu read it.  It's like "oh hey, let me tell you about a career option you might not have thought of and by the way here is how it nearly destroyed my soul, anyone want to know about the benefit package?"

Well said.

[Jen]

I agree with PotatoKnight - "terrifyingly believable" sounds about right. I can't imagine someone just deciding "yeah, I guess I'll become a mass murderer!", but I am sure those people do exist and there are other people in power, somewhere, who could decide to use them... this is what makes the story so scary. I can't say that I exactly *enjoyed* it, but it made me think, and it made me ignore all the flaws pointed out in this thread.

[albionmoonlight]

I think that the author had some sense of the tension that we are recognizing with the "how could anyone agree to do this" questions.  I think that's why the story contains the part where the examiner perks up when he hears the narrator talk about not really having a country.  If someone was TOO patriotic or TOO driven to do "good for America," then he might not be able to handle the assignment.  The story mentions how the participant before the narrator could not hack it.

I think that the narrator was the perfect choice to be this kind of weapon, both because of his psychological makeup and because of his natural immunity.  And, to the extent possible, the story tried to show us this.

Also, very timely story as more and more leaks come out regarding the NSA and the sense that those in charge will do whatever they think is necessary to protect and serve their country.

[SonofSpermcube]

Disturbing news today (12/10/13) "Madagascar village hit by bubonic plague" -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25324011

shut

Down

EVERYTHING

[Moon_Goddess]

Disturbing news today (12/10/13) "Madagascar village hit by bubonic plague" -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25324011

Lucky.... Best way to win is to be lucky enough to start in Madagascar.

[CtrlAltLee]

This story is going to stay with me for a while.  I could easily see it happening in an alternate timeline. The way the narrator just gets to walk away and  live a prosperous life with everything anyone could ever want materially while his victims lose all of their tomorrows make it even more upsetting. There's no absolutely no justice, but the narrator is so earnest and self-loathing it was hard for me to hate him for it. Especially knowing that's the way it goes in real life so often.

[davidthygod]

I really like the concept of how he becomes an outdated weapon, so he is just sort of retired and noone cares.  We have better ways to implement our biological warfare agenda, so go do whatever you want now.  As he tells his story, it feels like a document that is unsealed after a period of time.  He talks to this in the story as well, but it strikes me as more realistic the way it works here, than all of the over the top movies and stories where they have to kill everyone remotely involved so the secret doesn't get out. 

I liked the whole story, it was a great commute distraction.

[Jompier]

I agree with PotatoKnight - "terrifyingly believable" sounds about right.

Likewise. Setting aside the issue of how the story is framed (i.e., career day speech? something else?), it had a truly horrifying believability to it. I could hear and understand the twisted logic of using a human as a vehicle of biological warfare. If someone shoots a canister of something into an area and it starts emitting a mist of some sort, I would think I would back away. But a person, I wouldn't think anything of it.

As to how the character was brought on to do this work, I had no problem here either, why wouldn't it be easier to recruit someone who desperately wanted to be an operative, enough to go through with interviews at which he knew full well he had no chance succeed. He was mentally vulnerable and open to suggestion of any way that he might be of help and the mechanism of help (i.e., spreading infection) seems to work because it distances the main character from the destruction he brings about. It's like when we have a cold and we think nothing of touching doorknobs, countertops, and maybe even shaking hands, all the time running the risk of passing the cold along.

Good story. I ended up buying McAllister's Dreambaby as a result.

[danthelawyer]

I have to agree with Cutter across the board, including (I'm sorry to say, given his heroic stepping in) Mr. Chu's narration. I have to add that I thought the story was terribly predictable, and really quite boring. I was glad to be doing other things while I listened, because I was just sort of biding my time till it ended.

[SonofSpermcube]

I think it's clear that the protagonist is supposed to be a pretty boring guy. 

[Pi Rho]

Only just got around to listening to this one and was compelled to join the forum so that I could comment. I really did not like this story for two reasons; the narration and the science.

My dislike for the narration is different than everyone else, I do not care about voice fitting character or anything like that really. My issue is that I feel a narrator ought to at least take the time to properly pronounce words and if they are not familiar with a word then they should make some effort to familiarize themselves with it.

Throughout the story I had to listen to the word Yersinia mispronounced Your-a-sen-ya and it drove me utterly batty. Now yes, I understand that sometimes Latin species names can be difficult and had the story been about Caenorhabditis then I might be a bit more forgiving but Yersinia is really straight forward, it sounds like it looks: Yer-sin-i-a

Secondly, the science... Maybe I am being overly nit-picky because I am a microbiologist but for me a good sci-fi story pays attention to the science behind the story. Granted it may require some suspension of belief but it does not require you to completely forget that there is some level of fact behind your science. Now I am not asking for the author to provide a graduate level course on bacterial pathogenesis in the story but it would be nice if he were able to give something more than a botched/butchered Wiki regurgitation that allows the author to make a human into a bio-weapon through a ridiculously roundabout manner when a much easier, and successfully proven, ages-old method would have accomplished the same thing for pennies on the dollar.

These things combined just ruined the story for me.

[Fenrix]

My dislike for the narration is different than everyone else, I do not care about voice fitting character or anything like that really. My issue is that I feel a narrator ought to at least take the time to properly pronounce words and if they are not familiar with a word then they should make some effort to familiarize themselves with it.

If you stopped to read the things up-thread, due to technical difficulties, the narrator was brought on board at the last moment and delivered a narration in three days under a schedule pressure. While I agree perfect pronunciation would be the optimal solution, we were not operating in optimal conditions.

Secondly, the science... Maybe I am being overly nit-picky because I am a microbiologist

maybe...

...when a much easier, and successfully proven, ages-old method would have accomplished the same thing for pennies on the dollar.

Which ages-old methods of covert operations would you have employed? Is destabilization through covert genocide completely unbelievable?

[Listener]

Story: The framing part felt more science-fictional than anything else. The rest of the piece was pretty much "the US engages in biological attacks so they can get favorable-to-them economic/social change", which sadly isn't really fictional. I was driving from GA to NC at the time, so I figured I would stick the story out, but normally I would've skipped it. The ending didn't really hit me that hard, mostly because I've used that technique before in my own writing: guy does something that affects thousands, but doesn't make a change until it affects one.

Narration: This was probably my favorite of Chu's narrations that I've heard across the casts.

[Pi Rho]

Apologies for the delay, I only just returned from holiday

If you stopped to read the things up-thread, due to technical difficulties, the narrator was brought on board at the last moment and delivered a narration in three days under a schedule pressure. While I agree perfect pronunciation would be the optimal solution, we were not operating in optimal conditions.

I had read up-thread and I can recognize there was a time crunch. However, I disagree that that is an excuse for the mispronunciation of a straight forward word. There is nothing confusing or difficult about Yersinia, it sounds exactly how it is spelled and so the adding and subtracting of phonemes by a professional narrator just hits me wrong.

Which ages-old methods of covert operations would you have employed? Is destabilization through covert genocide completely unbelievable?

This was not really genocide as the goal was not to wipe out an entire people, just spread enough chaos to result in destabilization. And I never said that a government performing destabilization was improbable, as it is rater factual. My grief is that spending ungodly amounts of money to find a "Typhoid Mary", training them in covert ops, engineering a tweaked strain of Y. pestis and then repeatedly sending out this animated bio-bomb is too unbelievable when the alternatives are easier, cheaper and, from the point of the government interested in causing havoc, more deniable.

The best way to spread things like this is to use the means nature/evolution put in place. The author goes to great detail to describe how the agent is supposed to start these plagues in the areas where they would most likely spawn, it would be much easier and more effective to release plague infected rats or fleas into these areas and let the natural order of things take its course than to rely on pseudo-secret agent humans. The rats and the fleas are better vectors and do not have the problem of conscience. In the same manner, medieval Europeans and ancient Chinese used to fling infected corpses (human and animal) over castle/fortress walls during sieges to great effect. If we go back to your comment about genocide, I would cite for you one of the ways by which the Europeans decimated the Native Americans; they did not use white men infected with smallpox but instead passed out blankets inoculated with the virus. Cheap, easy and significantly more believable for spreading a plague than "False-tooth Frank" the (not-so) super spy...

[Fenrix]

My grief is that spending ungodly amounts of money to find a "Typhoid Mary", training them in covert ops, engineering a tweaked strain of Y. pestis and then repeatedly sending out this animated bio-bomb is too unbelievable when the alternatives are easier, cheaper and, from the point of the government interested in causing havoc, more deniable.

If we accept that the narrator is reliable, the operative was planted as a journalist for a socialist newspaper. I'm pretty certain that his paychecks weren't coming straight from the feds. If bureaucrats are good at anything, it's covering their asses, so they would be able take this socialist wing-nut writer who has major personal space issues and cut him loose with an comfortable amount of deniability. Brand him as part of the colander-hat crowd and assassinate his character and you'll be fine. 

The best way to spread things like this is to use the means nature/evolution put in place. The author goes to great detail to describe how the agent is supposed to start these plagues in the areas where they would most likely spawn, it would be much easier and more effective to release plague infected rats or fleas into these areas and let the natural order of things take its course than to rely on pseudo-secret agent humans. The rats and the fleas are better vectors and do not have the problem of conscience. In the same manner, medieval Europeans and ancient Chinese used to fling infected corpses (human and animal) over castle/fortress walls during sieges to great effect. If we go back to your comment about genocide, I would cite for you one of the ways by which the Europeans decimated the Native Americans; they did not use white men infected with smallpox but instead passed out blankets inoculated with the virus. Cheap, easy and significantly more believable for spreading a plague than "False-tooth Frank" the (not-so) super spy...

Have we seen any biological warfare programs that use vermin as the vector? As I recall, these plagues also have a high casualty rate on the vermin carriers. So there is no easy manufacturing in some US lab and then getting them through customs to turn them loose. I'm not sure I'd count smuggling infected vermin across borders as easy. Nor would I count setting up a covert bio lab somewhere in the country and staff it with folks to manufacture the plague and infect vermin and release them. Ballistic deployment of infected corpses is neither subtle nor easily deniable. I'm not seeing a compelling scenario that's both easier and more deniable.

If we were talking about a culture other than American, you might be able to build a case for something like an infected suicide bomber, who instead of being strapped down with explosives is packed with disease. But suicide attacks tend to be anything but covert.

I'll grant you that introduction of European diseases had an apocalyptic effect on native populations. However, if you want to cite organized genocide by whitey make sure you take into account that there are not a large number of primary sources that support the position, and there has been some problem with "academics" falsifying and exaggerating the scale of active and malicious participation. Is all this just part of ongoing cover-up or is it part of another compelling fiction?

[Scattercat]

Just because the smallpox blankets weren't a standard method doesn't mean they weren't attempted and didn't work.  Lord knows the U.S. army has tried more hare-brained schemes than, say, dropping a box full of fleas in an isolated area.  (The firebomb bats, for instance.  Or the trained dolphin "assassins."  Yes, neither of those ended up actually *working* per se, but it's far from implausible that fleas and rats would be used, and the point about them being both cheaper and easier to deny is valid.)

[Varda]

You guys! Obviously, the solution is to let everyone commit mass murder in his or her personal unique and individual way. Pi Rho can release the plague fleas, Fenrix can try out the false tooth thing, Scattercat can hand out comfy smallpox blankies, and I'll keep on leaving doughnuts in the Escape Pod lounge to encourage the obesity epidemic.

The important thing, though, is that we kill all humans. Let's never lose sight of that goal.

[Fenrix]

Screw the tooth. I've watched Dune and know that works. Just know who you're breathing on.

I want bat bombs! Imagine what our Godzilla movies would look like if the bat bomb development had beaten the nuke out the door. And the cold war. Oh the possibilities!