“She was going to die,” he said sobbing. “I knew that in about ten years she would be dead. She would never grow up. The people who were so kind to me in this village would also most likely be dead either from starvation, disease, or the breakdown of social order. I knew that for a fact, yet I couldn’t tell them. You see, the insights you get in the government are frightening, but we are all rather isolated. We have our homes, our families, our work, and that’s about it. 568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtlRNCGbDR6
It didn’t hit me until then. I had seen the numbers on a computer screen and knew what was happening and also knew what was going to happen. The thing is when you are there where the apocalypse is actually going to happen, those numbers suddenly have faces, have lives; they become people like you and me. Then the numbers aren’t numbers anymore. They become those faces, they become those lives. They had to know because we already knew. I owed them that knowledge.”568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkLKV0YTVvG
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A sudden realization came over me. Investigations had missed it. The only way the PPP plan would work to save at least a part of humanity would be if the vast majority of people remained ignorant of our actions until the very end. If what we knew became general knowledge, there be a worldwide panic with every mother’s son trying the save his own neck. No one would be saved in that situation. It would make The Book of Revelations look like My Fair Lady. 568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXyvK7a5zNl
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“What the hell did you tell them, Doctor?” I said leaning over the table. “What did you do?”568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuDW4c9Z6ts
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“Nothing,” he shouted. “I told them nothing. I swear to God I said nothing to anyone.”568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1cSpJoukTS
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I sat back in my chair. “If that is more rubbish, you will spend the rest of your short, miserable, life in agony I promise you.”568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgn6tEcAqYm
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“No,” he gasped. “It’s true I swear it.”568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBJTj2mn4tR
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I believed him, but that brought up another question in my mind. “Very well, let’s assume I believe you. Then why didn’t you tell them right then and there instead of trying to tell everyone now? That makes no sense. You could have told them and then try to disappear into the countryside. It wouldn’t have worked, but your chances were better there than back at PPP Administration.”568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡejSnxNS4L4
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He swallowed hard again and went on. “I went back to work, but every time I ran a new analysis, every time I saw the projected deaths from starvation, from fighting over the last resources, from the collapse of social order, they stopped being numbers. They started being faces in my mind. 568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvUuEIBXkkJ
So after four or five weeks I just couldn’t take it anymore. When I saw my wife and kids, I saw those faces. When I saw people on the street, I saw those faces. When I heard the claptrap on the news nets that things were great and nothing was wrong, I saw those faces. What gave me the right to live and in turn condemn them to die?”568Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqS6GQ4as9N
