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"What I have in my stories is ethics. Ethics and morality are very different cups of tea. I adhere to a very strict rigor of personal ethics and I demand it of those around me as well."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Cholinesterase-Destroying Gas | ||
| Horrific anti-personnel poison. |
| ...The two decayed-eyed employees followed, both men relaxed . . . they passed into the open circularity of the hatch-
And then convulsed throughout, from scalp to foot, internally destroyed; as Rachmael, shocked and terrified, watched, he saw their neurological, musculature systems give out; he saw them, both men penetrated entirely, so that each became, horrifying him, flopping, quivering, malfunctioning-more than malfunctioning: each unit of their bodies fought with all other portions, so that the two heaps on the floor became warring sub-syndromes within themselves, as muscle strained against muscle, visceral apparatus against diaphragmatic strength, auricular and ventricular fibrillation; both men, unable to breathe, deprived even of blood circulation, staring, fighting within their bodies which were no longer true bodies . . . Rachmael looked away. "Cholinesterase-destroying gas," Dosker said, behind him, and at that instant Rachmael became aware of the tube pressed to his own neck, a medical artifact which had injected into his blood stream its freight of atropine, the antidote to the vicious nerve gas of the notorious FMC Corporation, the original contractors for this, the most destructive of all anti-personnel weapons of the previous war. |
| Technovelgy from Lies, Inc.,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Fantastic in 1964 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the hostage gas from The Uplift War (1987) by David Brin and the cookie-cutters from The Diamond Age (1995) by Neal Stephenson.
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'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
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'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
