My little invention has really shaken things up. I created the ultimate defensive weapon: the personal force field. It took awhile to get it into mass production but when we did, we sold a zillion of them. Sadly, I neglected to patent it, but I made my money. Since then, it’s been open-sourced and crowd-sourced. There’s even a DIY kit model.
They’ve also become pretty stylish. They come in colors and patterns. Some have pulsing lights, which I think is a little garish. I prefer the classics: clear and invisible.
Most people enjoy their force fields and it makes people feel safer. But some people seem deeply disturbed.
The Pentagon is very upset. They haven’t been able to build a drone that can kill a force field protected terrorist. You’d think they be happy, though, because terrorists have been unable to kill force field protected civilian. But the
Pentagon doesn’t seem to care about that.
Gun enthusiasts, by and large, seem despondent. They still carry big guns and large packs of ammo. But the force field people around them feel neither protected nor threatened by those proud Americans. The AR-15ers are so familiar and inconsequential that few notice them at all. I hear gun sales are way down, but I don’t really know. Manufacturers have opted to not release recent sales figures.
Some folks from the Pentagon have, let us say, “chatted” with me. I told them that the genie is out of the bottle and that I don’t even control it any more. They don’t want 3 wishes, only one. They wish they could disable force fields whenever they choose. They want to kill again.
Here’s what I neglected to tell them: I know how to quickly and easily disable any of these force fields. With this power, I could rule the world. But why would I want to do that? I’ve already altered the world to my liking. Less killing and bravado, more people just going about living their lives.
Not bad.