The sound of the television can be heard in the apartment, that music that starts that well-known talk show, but this time with a more festive variant.
The presenter comes out from behind that huge curtain doing his characteristic dance that, like his show, that is just another talk show with nothing special, manages to keep me glued to the television. It will be because they always bring relevant guests, because of the charisma of the person presenting it or their intelligent questions, or maybe it is because of all the staging and the work behind the scenes. In the end, even if I always ask these types of questions, the answer does not matter, it will not make the program stop being good and I will spend my time enjoying it.
The presenter arrives at his seat, somewhat tired due to the passage of time that has been reducing his stamina; he settles down and makes his typical greeting to the audience, kicking off the show.
− Well, today we have a luxury guest - He looks directly at the camera, who makes a close-up of his face - he is director general in the investigation area of iasata and recognized as one of the great minds of the 21st century, Mr. Philip West -Then canned applause sounds- I have to say that it is a pleasure for us to have you here
− The pleasure is mine -a well-dressed man, somewhat older, with an affable look and sleepy tone- not every day you have the opportunity to be in a program of this caliber
− Damn, if you say things like that you will make me blush
− And who said no wants to achieve that.
− It seems that today he has not only come for the time on camera, but also wants to take the presenter
− Hahahaha
− Well, going back to what concerns us; I have a doubt that does not leave me alone, despite the importance of your work, why are you so little known?
− I think it is because the investigation area is not precisely one of the visible faces of the institution; If we add that most people have a superficial and sometimes wrong knowledge of iasata, it is no surprise that my existence is unknown.
− You know, to tell the truth, when my producer came and told me that you were going to come, I was something lost, but after he explained who you are, I couldn't wait for this day to come; but continuing with this, you just said something that kept me thinking, people have a superficial or erroneous knowledge about iasata, and this leads us to our next question: What is iasata?
− It is a complicated question, not because of its complexity, but because of its length, and as I understand time on television is a tyrant, so I am going to have to give the summarized version, let's see, said roughly, iasata is in charge to deal with everything that has to do with those, misnamed, avatars
− Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but basically it would be like a kind of government, which is in charge of security, health, education, among other things of the avatars
− Yes, you are quite close to what the summarized version would be.
− And with this, another question arises. What are, according to you, misnamed avatars?
− Let's see, according to me and the entire scientific community, we prefer to name them as people with singularities, but we are not going to discuss this, the avatars are ordinary people, like the two of us, who due to a series of genetic mutations have obtained, what we at iasata, we call singularities that, translated more simply, would be something like superpowers.
− It is interesting to think that, if you told me this a couple of years ago, I would have thought you were talking about one of the comics my son reads, but what seemed impossible has become something every day, but this was not always the case, was it?
− To me too, if you told me this 20 years ago, I would have thought you were kidding me, but after what happened at the “tragic Christmas”, I believe anything; Obviously now it is something normal, but to get to this we had to go through a rather long and complex adaptation process
− And with this we come to the main dish of today's program, the well-known "Tragic Christmas", which today we see a world holiday that runs from December 24 to January 7, but that is actually an event that changed the world as we knew it and brought us to where we are, although I think you are better able to talk about this, so I passed you the ball and asked what exactly happened on the “tragic Christmas”?
− I do not think I am the best to talk about this, it is more in the investigation area we have many more qualified historians, but the one who is here is me, so I have to assume responsibility, if you think about it, it is an event that is It can explain from many points of view, political, economic, social, scientific, among others; But if I have to make a kind of summary that serves as an introduction, it would be that on December 24, 2000, a certain sector of the world population underwent a kind of change in their genetics that awakened a series of abilities or powers, which today we call singularities…
This year's special ended up falling into the same trope as always, the “Tragic Christmas”.
It is annoying that every year they repeat the same thing and more if it is something that is supposed to be common knowledge, that is, it is something that almost everyone lived or learned in school. On December 24, 2000, a sector of the world's population began to awaken abilities that surpass human capacities, the famous singularities, something like superpowers; These superhumans are what we know today as avatars. Obviously, this caused quite a stir, I mean, suddenly the guy next to you at the supermarket becomes the closest you've ever seen to a superhuman, like the ones you see in the comics, but they were unable to control these singularities; in short, they were the equivalent of a monkey with a revolver, causing many civilians to be injured and even killed.
This led to the appearance of several groups that began to take action on the matter to try to control it. On the one hand, we had the governments, which at first were waiting expectantly for their intervention to be essential, but that passivity did not would last a long time, a large part of the population would rise in protest, which would lead to the mobilization of the armed forces with the aim of "appeasing" the situation, some what they did was neutralize in a "peaceful" way these superhumans, due to that they were still considered civilians and the damage they caused was not done consciously; but others took more radical measures and gave permission to implement violence without qualms, under the allegation of the common good. The former had several people without singularities wounded and killed, while the latter dedicated themselves to massacring these superhumans; but in the end they both had similar results, a huge death toll.
On the other hand, there was the reaction of the population, who at first remained skeptical, it was impossible for them to believe that things like this would happen outside of what was a fictional story, but with the passage of time and as the events increased, it became difficult to maintain disbelief, however minimal it was, it was impossible not to come into contact with an avatar or with the damage they were capable of causing. The reactions were diverse, but not for that reason unproblematic, you had some who began to empty the shopping centers and lock themselves in their homes, others crowded into the main government headquarters to request the government's intervention in the matter, which caused the mobilization of the armed forces, previously mentioned, but not only to keep the avatars under control but also to repress the manifestations that with the passing of the days were becoming more and more violent and numerous; And finally, you had those who decided to take action on their own hands and take charge of the supposed "common good" themselves, under the banner of "citizen justice."
This degenerated into a great division in the population, since there were those who understood that the avatars were not intended to cause damage but were innocent civilians, who found themselves with an unexpected situation and completely overcome, and with those ideas in mind, they supported the search for peaceful solutions, in which there would be the fewest possible injuries; although those good intentions did not end in good ideas and many civilians without singularity died trying to carry out those ideals. On the other hand, you had those who believed that avatars were perfectly aware of their actions and had evil intentions, these people supported and carried out more radical measures, such as indiscriminate killing of avatars.
There were also some groups that saw avatars as gods, but much information was never obtained about them, so their activities are, even today, unknown to us.
In the end, everything resulted in total chaos that brought with it hundreds of thousands of deaths and the greatest crisis in human history. Destroyed economies, overthrown governments and bloodshed, this is what happened in the two-week period, and this is what is commemorated in the period from December 24 to January 7.
The chaos was increasing with the passage of time, until in this context disastrous appeared ...
− The iasata, which had the perfect plan to end the crisis, and carry out, in return for it, met its demands; the states accepted and in a period of only three months the chaos was appeased and the problems generated by it were solved or were in the process of being solved.
− And this leads us to another question, we already know what the problem was and who solved it, what remains for us to know is how it was solved.
− The answer to that question is much simpler than you might imagine, what iasata did was…
Fight fire with fire, if the problem is Avatars, then make them the solution. The first step was to get the avatars to carry out the plan, for this they took advantage of the fact that several avatars were arrested in isolated areas, IASATA took them to their facilities and there they were taught to handle their singularities; Once they had a considerable number of troops, they created what we now know as "the new guard", which consisted of small groups made up of 5 avatars that worked together with the security forces of each nation, to improve their reaction power and incident prevention. Its next goal was to restore social order; The strategy to do so was to leave the national forces in charge of any incident caused by civilians without singularities and the new guard would intervene if the incident was caused by civilians with singularities, anyone who did not belong to the new guard was strictly prohibited from intervening; not only could they able to restore order, but they also got civilians without singularities to trust the avatars.
With these measures in just three months, they managed to restore order; but this was not the only thing. The IASATA seized several properties belonging to the state, such as schools, hospitals, police stations, etc.; These were adapted to serve both civilians with and without singularities and making them part of the infrastructure IASATA, they were also given permission to build their headquarters in points that itself IASATA considered strategic.
After seven months from the beginning of the incidents, it could already be considered that everything was returning to normality, IASATA had obtained more power than any institution, whether state or private, in the world; they had the ability to dominate the world, if they wanted to, but they quickly went out to dismantle these rumors, making it clear that from the beginning their only interest was to ensure the well-being of civilians without singularities and with singularities; For this, they saw it necessary for governments to stay totally out of any matter that involved civilians with singularities, in addition to being given total authority over these matters; These requests were not long in being fulfilled; and with this, IASATA became a new state system in charge of dealing with avatars worldwide.
It was to be expected that various media outlets spoke out against it and had some support, but over time they began to stop doing so, as the good results obtained by IASATA made them lose their credibility with the public.
And this is how we are today, citizens with singularities and without singularities coexist in their day to day; When these dates arrive, all the channels are dedicated to recounting what happened 20 years ago, despite the fact that it is supposed to be something of common knowledge, which makes everything that happens on TV these days incredibly boring and repetitive.
− Fudto fudto
And it seems that I am not the only one who is bored; I can hear how he hits the balcony door of the terrace; at this rate it is going to knock it down. I open him and enter the apartment at a lazy pace, dragging his belly across the floor, a furry ball of fat that looks like a cat.
− Hey Giza, how are you doing?
− Hungry fudto -his characteristic voice of an overweight old green man
− What is education, respect and manners you do not have it very incorporated in your mind, do you?
− Shat ap, hungry!
− Okay okay, there is no need to get so upset - I go to the cupboard and put some cat food in a bowl- I'll give you your filthy food
He sits on the couch as if he were a person with his hind legs being almost covered down its fat stomach and dropping its front paws on its belly. I put his food beside him and he starts gorging himself on it.
It is quite rare that he comes with such a violent attitude to ask for food, usually he approaches like the classic friend who suddenly comes to your house with a couple of beers to watch some sport or a porn, I think he would be more of the porn ones ; It is as if it has been a long time since the last time he ate something, but it is difficult to draw these kinds of conclusions when we talk about Giza, that his life revolves around eating, sleeping and looking at cats on animal planet; if he go more than thirty minutes without eating anything, it gives he an existential crisis. But, despite everything, he is not the type of cat that struggles or is violent, and if we add to that that his owner has been quite silent lately, not to say that in recent days her scandals have disappeared, it is a coincidence of events that at least raises doubts; in the end the best solution is to ask directly the source of the problem.
− Hey Giza, how's Lisa been lately?
− who?
I really don't know what I expected from a cat that never learned to use a litter box well; Although sometimes he comes to surprise you, he is still a stupid cat. But hey, going back to the main topic, it seems that I won't be able to get anything out of him; although it may also be that I am worrying too much, most likely she has gone home to spend these dates with her family and forgot to leave food for Giza.
− Well, at least it will be a quiet party.
− JOJOJOJOJOOJOJOJO -he holds his stomach, while he looks at me and breaks his rib with laughter.
Is the fucking cat making fun of me? This fucking fat ball, realizes that he is laughing at whoever is feeding his, at the owner of the sofa on which his fat butt is resting, while he watches my television and eats the food I gave his.
− How about I take you out to the streets and make a comedy show to earn your food for yourself, you chubby jocular?
− HO! - A mixture of surprise and concern about the answer is seen in his face
But in the end, the one who laughs last laughs best, obese cat.
Nekko Miu
