Today's #flashfiction #BugsInTheFuture

“Want to go out for a bite?”

Tron* #quote

Today I ate Taco Bell WITH THE FURY OF THE GODS!!! The food didn't stand a chance. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Bugs In The Future

       The most aggravating thing has happened to me. The most humiliating thing. I managed to cover it up the first time around. But it got worst the second time around when they asked me to look up something specific. I was exposed. It was horrible.

     I am Doctor Samantha Frescas, genius extraordinaire. I've built many wonderful machines for mankind, and because of that the government gave me a huge grant to create a device to look into the future. And I succeeded. How could that be bad? How could that be humiliating? How could I be “exposed” or anything turn out “horrible”?

The machine was buggy.

       It only turned out random data, slowly. By a miracle the first time it gave me data it was on a natural disaster. Easily something I could pass off as intentional. But afterward I was exposed for wasting tons of government money on something that relied on luck to get anything better than “Tommy Gerri will fail his math test tomorrow.”

      But someone came to my rescue. Senator Brad Refior. He called me late one night.

      “This Doctor Frescas?” He asked. "This is Senator Brad Refior."

      “Yes,” I replied.

      “You alone? I have a plan to save your reputation.”

       I smiled. “Yes. And I'm listening.”

      “The solution is we just build a whole bunch of your machines to get enough data.”

      “But that could cost billions! It couldn't possibly be cost effective! Even if we get lucky enough to effectively predict natural distastes reliably the sheer amount of money needed to build enough machines to do that could be spent on so much more.”

      “Do you want your want life to go on as a faliure? Besides even if it it isn't cost effective good will be done.”

      “Fine. As long as you tell me what you gain from this. I'm not dumb.”

      “It'll be a massive government project, I'll sign off the contracts to people who then later donate to my campaign second hand. Usual politics.”

       “Okay. I accept.”

       I know what I did. But people will accept it. My name will go down in history so I will live longer than when I get put in the dirt just by serving some political needs for awhile. Better than being a failed scientist.