The Scientist
He sat in his apartment at the bottom of a huge vertical city. His name was Eros, and he liked it there, even though he didn’t have much. In fact, all he had was some test tubes, a microscope, and a few laboratory tools. Life was hard for poor people in this polluted world. The rich people had great lives, they just sat happily in their apartments while they breathed easily and received everything they could ever dream of. In the lower half of the city, the air was almost unbreathable because of all the pollution. Only the rich people could afford to live in the upper half. Every citizen in the lower half had to constantly be assisted by breathing machines. Somehow, Eros found peace in his toxic, blank apartment.

Eros looked out his window facing east. He saw nothing but dust and another vertical city as tall as the Tower of Babel. He looked through the window facing west. As far as he could see, there was nothing. Only black earth and occasional toxic puddles. Eros was dying because of air pollution, and the only way he was going to survive was if he somehow restored the ecosystems around him. Having a prestigious job in microbiology before he was fired gave him a good amount of knowledge about the things outside his windows.

His “laboratory” was the place where Eros studied the dead plants and animals that he recovered from outside. He had to be extremely careful when collecting things for his research. He always wore a special suit that he invented which kept only the breathable air inside his spacesuit-like helmet. He also only went out at night, making sure that no government officers saw his suspicious activities. Eros saw that the pollution was so strong in some areas, that it damaged the DNA of anything it touched. He found that he could modify some of the dead organisms by changing the actual coding of their DNA. He sprayed chemicals that he had found were able to resist the pollution on every single plant and animal he had recovered over the past few years. He had found a possible way to literally save the world.

Eros knew better than to tell anyone about his discoveries. That is the reason why he was fired from his job. He had spent years working for the government as a microbiologist. He took advantage of his access to all of the high tech tools and did some of his own research that involved restoring the life of the planet. The government quickly found out about this secret research and fired him.

“You are too smart for your own good,” was the reason stated the the president. “We would not want the rest of our people to be harmed because of your silly inventions.”

Everyone hated the president, including all the officials that worked for him. He abused his power and had an extremely arrogant attitude. He didn’t like anyone who he felt threatened by. He was elected into office because of tradition. His father and grandfather had also been presidents, but the current president was by far the worst. The only reason everyone still followed his orders was because they feared getting fired or even killed.
One night a while ago, Eros stole some of the equipment in the lab he worked in before he was fired and fled to a different city in which he found a vacant room on the bottom floor where he would stay. Eros knew that he was fired because the government would make no money if pollution didn’t exist. They controlled everything from breathing machines to fast food and every single penny that anyone spent ended up in the government’s hands. Eros knew that the air had been polluted on purpose to bring in massive amounts of money. What he didn’t know was that he was being plotted against.

Ever since the night the equipment was stolen from the laboratory, the government had been closely watching Eros. Their thought was, if firing him from his very lucrative job didn’t teach him a lesson, the only way to stop him was to kill him. Of course Eros went on with his studies, not thinking about being killed.

One afternoon, Eros sat down in his apartment to take a much needed nap. Not more than 30 minutes later, two government officials approached his door, clothed in the suits invented by Eros himself when he worked as a microbiologist. One of the officials knocked loudly 3 times. Eros rose from the ground where he slept and walked slowly toward the door, knowing any company was extremely suspicious, especially at that time of day. The simple act of walking to the door made Eros lose his breath, and it didn’t help that he was more nervous than ever before. He opened the door to find two men that he had previously worked with.
“May we have a few minutes of your time?” asked the official on the left.
“For what reason?” responded Eros.
“We would just like to ask about a few things, may we come in?” said the same guard.

Eros knew that this was not a good sign at all. There was no time to think about anything else but getting away. His adrenaline had kicked in. He slammed the door and sprinted to grab his spray bottle of “life chemicals.” He then took a running dive through the glass window and landed on the black earth with only a few cuts in his face. He struggled to breathe through the heavy pollution. The two men seemed to finally realize what was going on, and ran his way. Eros took off into the black sea, knowing that he would not survive very long without his suit. The men were advancing. Eros unscrewed his full spray bottle and let it spill on the ground wherever he ran.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, and fell to his knees. The spray bottle slowly fell and hit the ground. The two men caught up with him and immediately put him in handcuffs. Eros noticed that the men had their attention focused on what was going on behind them. He didn’t need to look back to know that he had won. He slowly cracked a smile, exhaled through his nose, and died happily. What the two men saw was a miracle. An endless shockwave of green shot out from the trail of chemicals that Eros had spilled. The brown air was being pushed higher and higher out of the atmosphere. So many kinds of plants sprouted out of the ground. People started flowing out of their apartments to see what had happened.

The two men took off their suits, bent down to touch the grass, and started to cry. They realized and understood the evils of their work. At this point, nobody was left in the cities. Oxygen tanks were scattered across the field and almost everyone was face down in the grass. The two men that had intended to kill Eros had never been so happy to fail.

“I have never been so happy in my life!” shouted an elderly woman who had been kept alive by an oxygen tank for as long as she could remember.

The now clean outside world was scattered with people. Everywhere in sight, there was either a person or an abandoned oxygen tank. If only Eros had survived long enough to see all the happiness that he had caused in the world. A circle of people had formed around his body. They were all dancing and chanting his name. Some even laid their jewelry on his muscular chest.

“We are finally free!” shouted a little boy who had just joined the dancing circle.
One thing that some people noticed to be a little bit odd, was the fact that no government officials were outside with the rest of the people. In fact, the president of the city had called an emergency meeting in the top of the eastern building. Hundreds of officials were piling in the common room of the top floor to see the president standing before them. Every one of them scowled at the president and wondered how one man could be so evil that he endangers other people’s life just to get money. They had never seen him so angry or disappointed. Once all of the officials were present and seemed to be situated, the president started to open his mouth to speak.

“Our money was just destroyed before our eyes,” said the president. “Every single one of these dancing people symbolize a ton of money going down the drain. The only way we can plug the drain, is if we somehow get everyone back inside and breathing our oxygen.”

“How are we going to do that, sir?” asked one of the higher ranked officials, nervously.

“Well, comrade, I have a plan,” said the president. “You see, now that Eros is dead, nobody knows that we polluted the air on purpose. The people love us because we provide them with oxygen, and otherwise, they couldn’t live. To keep our good image, we must like what the people like. For example, Eros is a hero to the people, so we will act like we see him as a hero also. We will host a formal funeral for Eros in this very room, tomorrow. 100 officials will be present at the funeral, making it seem like we think it is a big deal. The rest of the officials will stay inside their apartments until the funeral service begins at 3:00 PM. They will then go to the laboratory and grab lots of blow torches. They will exit the city and burn every organism they see, plant and animal, outside the city. The smoke from the fire will then rise and settle in the air, making it look like more pollution. When the funeral is over, the people will go back outside, see that there is more pollution and no more life, and be scared into buying more oxygen tanks,” said the out of breath president. “It’s simple,” he added. He assigned two officials to go and retrieve Eros’ body and prepare it for the funeral tomorrow. He also assigned 50 more officials to put invitations to the funeral in every apartment’s mailbox in the city. He was sure that his plan was going to work.

The two men that had been assigned to kill Eros were now headed down the elevator to go retrieve his body. They walked outside, and pushed through the endless crowds of people to finally find Eros’ body decorated with jewelry. People were still dancing all around him, and the officials had to force their way back to the city while holding the body. They brought him up to the now empty common room and laid his body on the conference table. They removed all of the jewelry and set it aside. His jacket was ripped, so one of the officials took it and retrieved a new one from Eros’ old apartment. On the way to the apartment, the official felt something square in the inside pocket of the jacket. He unzipped the pocket to find a letter. He opened it to find big loopy words; it read:

If you are reading this, I am most likely dead. But the good thing is, the world is almost saved. The only thing left in the way of restoring our ancestors’ clean way of life is the president. He must die if the people wish to live without fear. It is up to you, the reader, to do two things: kill the president, and don’t tell anyone about this letter until after the task is done. Be smart, the fate of the people is in your hands. Sincerely, Eros.

The official’s heart pounded, but he knew that Eros was right. Killing the president was the only option. He entered Eros’ old apartment, found a nice looking jacket in his closet, pocketed the secret letter, and started the walk back to the conference room. When he got there, he found a casket in the middle of the room. The other official told him that it was delivered while he was gone getting the jacket. They dressed Eros in the new jacket and gently placed him in the casket.

All of the officials dreaded the next day. They did not want to follow through with the president’s plan, but they didn’t think twice because of fear that they would be fired. At around 2:30 on the day of the funeral, the giant conference room started to fill up with people. There must have been thousands. Almost everyone in the city showed up. One by one, an official would show them to some seats, which had been set up beforehand. The funeral service started, and the official that had received Eros’ letter walked over to one of the back windows to make sure nobody saw outside. He knew that he needed to complete his task before the other officials did any damage to the environment. He had come prepared with a pistol in the inside pocket of his black suit. He quickly glanced behind him to see the officials storming out of the bottom floor, blow torches in all of their hands. It was now or never.

The president stood up and walked to the front of the room to stand by Eros’ open casket. The official stuck his hand inside his jacket and drew the revolver to his right side. No one noticed.
He raised his arm and aimed the gun directly at the president’s chest. Some officials noticed the gun, but they did not dare to say anything. Time was running out. The president started to say something to the sea of people, but didn’t get any words out. The official had pulled the trigger. The task was complete. Before all hell broke loose, the other officials assured the people that the situation was under control. They seemed to be in on the plan! One of the officials radioed to the men down on the ground and ordered them to abandon the plan and come back to the top. After everyone calmed down and the revolver was emptied of it’s contents to show that there was no intent of harming anyone else, the officials explained what the president had been doing to them. Although in shock, the people understood, and slowly started to cheer. The assassin walked to the front of the room and stood by his victim. He had never felt so proud.