Amygdala Hijack - A Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Story of Impending Dystopia

EP. 20 - UNAGER

EARS CALLED OUT TO Molli and Peter from his upstairs bedroom.

"Folks, we start in a half hour since our Unager friend is arriving at that time. Sorry. She needed to be here earlier than expected. Besides, we're streaming the Bard's interview at 4 p.m. This is better for us as it won't conflict with that time."

Ears came downstairs a few minutes later. Peter was back asleep in his sofa bed.

"Dude," he urged, grabbing Peter's knobby toes poking out from beneath the blanket. "You got to wake up, big guy, unless we're all going to join you in bed and have a sleazy interview together. I'm not sure our Unager friend is into that, though we could ask her."

Peter sat up straight but bleary-eyed.

"Sorry. I'll be ready. I had a nightmare and was trying to make it good. Ever done that, where something bad was happening? You try to fall back asleep and invoke a happy ending?"

"Sure, just not minutes before an interview. This lady is top of her field at MIT. She might expect something more presentable than morning breath and bloodshot eyes."

Peter jumped out of bed, collapsed the frame, and set it back into the sofa. "I'll do my best to fake it," he mumbled, running into the bathroom.

Unager arrived at the door promptly at the top of the hour, and Ears greeted her.

"Welcome! Come in and please take a seat. Anything I can get you?"

She was a stout, middle-aged woman in a modest yellow dress with brown hair that showed an inch of gray at the roots. She limped on her left leg from an apparent ankle injury, but Ears was too polite to ask if it was recent or not.

He recalled his parents who were both overweight, especially his mother. Her feet were always a problem, carrying the burden of size, but she refused any geedee tech that might help her.

Peter and Molli emerged from different doors at the same time. "Sorry about the wait," they echoed.

"My fault, my fault. I had something come up that conflicted with our afternoon appointment and am glad you could accommodate me. Do you mind if I ask you something before we get started?"

Peter was surprised at this request. "No, go right ahead."

Molli was readying the equipment on the table, and Ears had gone upstairs to locate his tablet.

"Knowing a few weeks ago that I was being invited, I listened to your podcasts, each of them since you started this new format. Very interesting content and speakers, and I can't state that what you are up to is either outrageous or outlandish. Indeed, I fear it's all too real."

"Why. Is that an issue?" Molli wondered, fidgeting with the setup.

"I suppose some of the concern is balance. You see, when a type of medium like a podcast emphasizes negative content, people are attracted to negatives. For reasons we still don't fully understand, fewer endorphins and pleasure hormones are released when content is positive, or so we've found in countless studies. Negatives beget negatives, and positives beget positives. Positives become naturally subverted due to this effect and, over time, negatives get first billing. Negatives therefore compound and have greater impact than positives. Do you understand?"

Molli finished fiddling with the sound mixer. "Sure, but we're not the only ones reporting on this defensive tech, if that's what you're implying. Our pod is just a small voice in the larger mix, nowhere near the scale of major media."

"I saw you are among the top podcasts nationally now. Have you had the time to comprehend your rapid rise to fame?"

Peter responded, "This is a temporary phenomenon, in part because we had the Welcomer or Reverend early on. He invited his massive flock to the show. That we can tell, they never left. Then there were other guests with market influence and ad dollars, and they juiced the numbers via their own means. We've had little time to do that ourselves."