Working

she put the tool down, and faced the room. "this one's for controlling people" she said "you'd never get riots, you'd never see war. all so happy and blissful but seething inside. i never perfected it: most subjects died. i'd switch it off - they'd convulse on the floor. completely unsatisfactory, for running a city. i loved the idea - it's just such a pity. "no, i've not anything quite so crude as to blow up the world or poison its food. you want next door - they have time-bomb crops: that seed four times, and then growth stops. perfect incubation, to kill a world. with cross-pollination: instant famine unfurled." "no, my favourite one is this - it's for altering reality to remove any sign that people were here: they just never exist - i press this button - see, it's working just fine..." "no, no need to run: there's nowhere to go. you shouldn't have come here, and now you never have. why talk at all? oh. i'm lonely, you know. but now you've seen my face, i just can't let you live."