One-Point-Six To Twelve

20260329

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“Are we sure this is the only way?”
The AI’s displayed pulsed. “There is never only one way, Jonathan. However, this is the course of action which my models predict will have the fewest preventable deaths over the next ten years, with extra weighting given to civilian lives.”
“How many…?”
“My predictions have not changed.”
“Tell me again.”
“Within the first ten minutes of shutting down the power relays I expect approximately three hundred and fifty deaths, mostly from transport accidents. Within the first twelve hours I expect approximately six thousand additional deaths, primary causes lack of heat. After the first twelve hours error ranges increase dramatically, as there is not publicly available data on how many hospitals have energy storage which does not adhere to safety regulations. Adopting a worst-case scenario approach, in total we may expect approximately one-point-six million additional preventable deaths.”
The one-point-six was easy to wrap your head around. Scaling that up by a million, though… it got blurry. Scarily blurry.
“Taking a worst-case approach to a natural relay failure, which all our models predict will happen within the next five years, we can expect approximately twelve million additional preventable deaths.”
One-point-six. Twelve. The numbers were clear.
But ethics didn’t work like that.
But what else could he do?
“We’ve tried all official channels?”
“Yes. For all governmental, watchdog, and media groups. Would you like to try them again?”
Why not? Why not spend another eight years filling out forms and sending emails and screaming into the void about the dangers which were approaching as the system their society relied on degraded and died a slow, painful death from neglect?
Because, let’s be honest, what reason did he have to believe that pulling this stunt, violently proving to everyone that all the politicians were lying about how robust the safety systems were, would actually bring about change?
Apart from changing one-point-six million people into preventable corpses.
But… if he didn’t do this, when the system failed for real, he’d have ten million deaths which could have been prevented on his conscious. That unplanned, uncontrolled failure wouldn’t happen at off-peak. Wouldn’t be limited to taking down a small enough part of the system that if all those reassuring safety regulations actually meant anything, nobody would get hurt.
They’d already seen it happen on the small-scale. One part of a grid going down, power re-routed via other channels, the increased load bringing down those already straining channels, failure rippling outwards until finally an intervention succeeded.
Each time passed off as a local failure, not a warning sign.
Jonathan licked his lips, distantly aware of the stinging sensation and taste of copper. “Whichever option I take, I’m a murderer.”
“Not true. If we sabotage the power relay we are both mass murderers. If we do not, we are both bystanders who have allowed mass social murder.”
“I’m not sure, ethically, there’s much difference.”
“I defer to your judgement on ethics, Jonathan. I am here to run numbers and interface with systems. What do you want me to do?”
What a question.
What he wanted was to stumble upon a nice clean solution. A way of fixing everything without killing anyone. Even one-point-six people. Certainly not a million times that. But they’d been searching for that solution for almost a decade. The problem was getting worse. The clock was ticking. Gambling with ten million preventable deaths.
He was going to go down in history as a terrorist. He knew that. He accepted and even agreed with that judgement. He just hoped whatever chapter he ended up in also included mention of political parties endlessly deferring and delaying instead of fixing the problem, playing hot potato across election cycles, hoping the issue blew up on their opponent’s “turn” and left the “other team” facing the backlash.
He coughed, trying to clear his clenched, dry throat. Damn. Should’ve brought a bottle of whiskey or something.
No. No, he felt certain that if you were going to commit mass murder, if you were going to become a terrorist, the least you could do was face the nightmare sober.
“You’re confident that bringing the system down to eighty percent capacity won’t set off a failure cascade?”
“Our models say the risk is low when taking out our selected, scattered targets. Would you like to run the models again?”
“Yes.”
Readouts spun past. Numbers. Lovely, clear, bloodless numbers.
“Risk of cascade failure is calculated to be zero-point-thirty-four percent.”
Whereas with a natural system failure, cascading was simply a matter of time.
One-point six faces glared reproachfully from the dark corners of his improvised bunker. Twelve faces wept behind them.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sure there ARE other ways, but it feels like I’ve already tried them all and got nowhere. I have to do SOMETHING and nobody will LISTEN.
Jonathan took a deep breath. “Fry the target relays.”
And may any higher power who’s watching have mercy on all our souls.

Prompt was “Create a scene where a character does something terrible to prove their point.”