“Too risky,” said Fermi. “Let’s walk through the scenario. The Hive finally succeeds in taking over Drake. All the Wraps on this planet are exceedingly well protected, and we’re never allowed to all be together at the same physical location. Similar to your president and vice president never flying on the same plane. There is far more security around us right now than is evident, believe me. So Drake—let’s now call him Hive Drake or H-Drake, since he’s no longer in control of himself—can’t be sure an attack on us will succeed. And if he fails, we’ll be alerted that the hive-mind has circumvented our safeguards. And the Hive may never get another chance.”
Erin pursed her lips. “That explains why he wouldn’t try to attack the other Wraps on Earth. Not why he wouldn’t try to wipe out the human race.”
“Because he knows we’re still out there, monitoring,” said Fermi. “Even if he did manage to produce a lethal, infectious bioagent and slip it under our radar, when it started killing people we’d be on top of it. We could use our skills and computer to counteract it. Even if this wiped out half of humanity, which might be devastating to your civilization for hundreds of years, the Hive won’t arrive for thirty-two thousand years, and our analysis suggests this setback would only make you stronger in the long run. Like a broken bone is stronger after healing, or a controlled burn can lead to a healthier forest.” He paused. “But we don’t need to speculate. Because we know what H-Drake has been up to. First, he faked Drake’s death. Any ideas what he did next?”
Erin shrugged. “None.”
“We’re almost certain the first thing he did was recruit Kyle Hansen,” said Fermi. “Kyle could help him build a primitive quantum computer, within the limitations of primitive Earth components, and work with the required human consultants and collaborators.”
“Based on what you’ve told us,” added Steve Fuller, “H-Drake must have convinced Kyle that along with running this show, I moonlighted as a dangerous arms dealer and killed off the other three Wraps. That’s probably why Kyle didn’t mention them to you. Not important at that point—at least given what he believed the truth to be.” Fuller shook his head. “Kyle also faked his death about six months later, probably so he could join H-Drake full time.”
Erin nodded, but remained silent.
“We had big plans for Kyle once he graduated from CMU,” continued Fuller. “And his supposed death hit us all hard. And not just because we thought we lost his brilliance, which is considerable, although he’s so modest you’d never guess it. But because we monitored and vetted the shit out of him, and had developed an affection for him. He’s a good man.”
Erin had quickly reached this same conclusion herself.
“Kyle spoke many times about Drake using a quantum computer,” noted Erin. “So they must have succeeded.” She furrowed her brow in confusion. “But I still don’t get it. The Hive’s grand plan after all of this is to cure psychopathy? How does this help them? Help it?” she corrected.
“Like I said, H-Drake knew we were still out there,” replied Fermi. “Along with our quantum computer and all of its capabilities. We screen for everything that could cause widespread destruction; nuclear, biologic, chemical, anything. And we correlate purchases and other information. If he tried to unleash any kind of WMD attack, we’d probably stop it, along with the Hive’s chances here. And as I said, even if not, if he didn’t wipe out the entire population, you’d only grow back stronger over many thousands of years.”
The alien shook his head. “But we weren’t looking for someone constructing a crude quantum computer,” he explained. “Or someone trying to come up with a cure rather than a biologic agent that kills. Basically, he knew a cure would sail right under our radar screen. We wouldn’t be the slightest bit suspicious until it had infected everyone on Earth.”
“Yes, but so what?” said Erin, still confused. “A cure for psychopathy just helps you in your goal of protecting us. Decreases the chances we’ll commit suicide.”
“No,” said Fermi adamantly. “A cure defangs you. A cure takes away some of the elements that make you what you are. The positive of what you are.”
“No!” barked Erin passionately. “I refuse to believe that! Yes, psychopaths are fearless. And boldness and fearlessness in business and other settings can be a positive. And they can be very articulate and persuasive, and can sometimes think outside the box. But they are so destructive that anything positive about their behavior is more than nullified.”
Erin remembered telling Hansen that some trolleyology research had suggested psychopaths might be better utilitarians than normals. On the other hand, a nuclear bomb might make a better paperweight than a normal bomb. But so what? This was minor consolation to those it destroyed when it went off.
“We agree,” said Fermi. “In those that are psychopathic, the negative brought on by their genes far outweighs any positive. But the way the Hive is curing this will remove all of these genes from the human gene pool forever. Not just for psychopaths. How many psychopathic genes did he discover?”
“Eight.”
“Okay, imagine that if you’re unfortunate enough to have all eight, you’re a psychopath. Which is a huge negative to society. But what if you had four of the eight? Where would that put you? Maybe more selfish than average. More aggressive. More prone to take risks. Less compassionate. But in this case, the good these traits can do in moving society forward might outweigh the bad. We had our computer do an analysis, and if you wipe out all the genes from the human gene pool that in the right, unfortunate combination cause psychopathy, humans lose their edge. They never become as sheep-like as the members of the Seventeen. But they lose enough of their insatiable drive, their ultracompetitiveness, to no longer be a threat to the Hive.”
Could this be true? Could psychopathy just be the unhappy extreme of traits that helped mankind dominate a hostile planet? It was something Erin had never considered.
“We put everything we know into our computer,” said the alien. “And its analysis showed that in the Hive’s shoes, the strategy H-Drake is attempting to deploy is the optimal one. The strategy with the maximum probability of achieving long-term success. Namely, neutralizing humanity as a threat when the physical components of the Hive arrive.”
“Are you sure you and the Hive haven’t overestimated the importance of some of these genes to our drive and ambition?” asked Erin.
“Positive,” said Fermi. He paused in thought. “Did you ever see reruns of the original Star Trek television series?”
Erin shook her head no, wondering where this was going.
“I’m a huge fan,” said Fermi. “Which is ironic, because one of my two Wrap colleagues took the name Roddenberry. And he isn’t a fan.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” said Fermi. “Anyway, I’ve read all the scripts for this series. I don’t watch the actual shows, because I can’t handle the violence, but I can skip over the violent parts of the scripts rather easily.”
“Okay, so what about it?”
“There was an episode called ‘The Enemy Within,’ which I believe provides a perfect sense of why negative traits, in proper moderation, need to be preserved in your species. In the episode, a transporter malfunction splits Kirk into two identical versions. At least identical physically. But one version is basically a psychopath. And the other is basically a sheep—with a constitution similar to members of the Seventeen. What’s fascinating about the episode is that the empathetic Kirk can’t make hard decisions. They paralyze him. He can barely make any decisions. He’s impotent. On the other hand, the psychopathic Kirk is all rage and no reason.”