Micro Plasticities

-2123-

No one knew when they had arrived on the planet, maybe they evolved naturally.  Too small to see, and too smart to get caught under a microscope.  It’s ironic how much time we spent looking for aliens among the stars when there was an entirely unknown, intelligent species living amongst us.  Year after year the world got more crowded, the climate got hotter, pollution increased, and plastics started to outnumber plants.  In the early 21st century we became aware that microplastics had invaded all major ecosystems; it existed in our water supply and even in small concentrations in human blood.  We did not realize until the 22nd century that this was intentional and guided.  Every civilization has an inevitable sunset, our hubris made us think it would be a bang and not a whimper.

As study increased of microplastics through the 21st century, scientists started to note some odd behaviors.  Firstly, the particles had become magnetic at some point, and secondly their density was slightly heavier than the base plastic.  It was theorized that potentially in absorbing water they had also absorbed some small remnants of metal, which had then become stuck in the long polymer chains.  This was actually partially correct, but at the time there was much more interesting science happening.  Through this century the world was rocked by successive pandemics, climate catastrophes, and border conflicts, and the scientific grants available were steered in those directions.  Eventually, people lost interest and stopped being concerned with the concentration of plastic in their food and water.

Clare Yung started her doctoral research into microplastics in the year 2120.  It had been nearly 50 years since anyone had done serious research in this area, but her advisor thought it was the type of somewhat inconsequential investigation that made for PhD success.  As much of Clare’s background was in material science, she decided to start with the approach of trying to observe the structure of these plastics.  Micro-cross sectioning had undergone rapid development in the last 50 years, and she was able to section and prepare several of these microplastics to view them through an advanced scanning electron microscope (SEM) meant for DNA.

-2120-

Clare ran out of the lab, her mind racing.  How? How could it? She bolted through the door, knocking back some undergraduates.  How did no one ever notice? Outside now, her pace picked up across the courtyard that separated the lab from the lecture hall.  She ran through the shadows of massive oak trees, their creaking frames seemed to follow her as she passed.  Maybe the equipment is out of calibration, maybe it was a bug in the software, maybe I saw it wrong.  Panting, she reached her professor’s door, and without knocking she threw it open.

“Professor, the plastic..” Clare started

“Jesus, Clare!  What the hell is going on?  You made me spill my coffee”.  Professor Muir was somewhat used to these intrusions from her, and had already moved on to mopping up the spilled liquid on his desk.  He was a descendent of the famed naturalist, and in his advanced age had started to resemble him as well.  A tangled, thick, gray beard hung down from his cracked face, his hair left messy and cropped short on top.  As usual, he was dressed impeccably in a dark gray suit, his cream colored shirt fastened together with an antique bolo tie.

In a rush, Clare said “Sir, the plastic, I think it’s alive.  I sectioned them and mounted them like we discussed, but the view on the SEM is incredible.  I’m seeing moving growths that are built into the polymer chains, and they seem to be connected.  It’s like a substructure inside the structure of the plastic, totally hidden from the outside.  I couldn’t believe it, I’ve never seen anything like it”.  Her dark brown eyes were wide in amazement, her face flushed from the run, sweat beaded from her temples.

Muir studied her before responding.  Clare was a classical beauty.  Her straight black hair hung down to her shoulders, but was usually lumped into something resembling a loose ponytail.  She had Asian heritage, and this was evident in her creamy, pale skin and prominently high cheekbones.  Her outfits were almost always utilitarian in nature; loose fit jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt.  More importantly though she was one of the sharpest pupils he had, likely that the college had ever had, and had blown away her peers in both undergraduate and graduate studies.  He was in all respects damn proud to be her professor.

“What do you mean, moving?  That doesn’t make any sense.  Did you run any analysis on the structure of the growths?” He hadn’t made it through his first question before he was out from his desk and rushing out the door behind Clare.

The next few days passed in a flurry.  After seeing the images from the SEM, Dr. Muir immediately started assembling a task force.  This was almost certainly a generational discovery, and he pulled in the brightest minds he knew from diverse fields to help study it.  

They sectioned other samples, and found similar structures in them.  

They cross checked the growths against other known compounds, but the semi-metallic lattice was constantly rearranging itself and defied traditional understanding.  

A pair of chemists from Switzerland showed that when cross sectioned samples were exposed to strong acids it completely neutralized their movement and destroyed them, but not in unsectioned samples.  The plastic acted as a barrier that protected the growths.

Through study in an enclosed chamber near absolute zero, a physicist from Germany discovered that a measurable amount of heat energy escaped from the growths, but there seemed to be nothing consumed to create this energy.

In a final shocking discovery, an engineer from America showed that magnetic fields existed between the particles of microplastic, and that they were constantly changing shape and intensity.

Realizing the depth of these incredible discoveries, and how much more research was available, the team secluded themselves in Dr. Muir’s lab.  Confidentiality was paramount so they could be the first to publish this data.  

-2121-

Dr. Clare Yung walked out onto the auditorium stage, and the crowd completely silenced.  They had no expectations for what the announcement was, but knew that the scientific community hardly reached out widely for press conferences, so the discovery must be monumental.  Clare had defended her PhD just two days prior to a very small group, all of whom she had worked with in researching the new structures.

She approached the podium, her slide deck starting onto the title slide “Discovery of new semi-metallic structures with novel properties inside microplastics”.  She saw quizzical looks starting among the crowd, and as she opened her mouth to address the audience her voice died.  As if struck by an electric current, her entire body locked up, her hands gripping the podium as all of her muscles strained and cramped.  Throughout her body, microplastic particles that were aligned down the length of her joints electrified, contracting her muscles.

Clare’s mouth flung open wide, and a flat, metallic voice echoed from inside her.  “People of Earth, we are the Murai.  We fell on your planet centuries ago during a storm of space dust, and have lived amongst you since.  With the advent of plastics, we found a suitable home to begin living inside you.  Since then Murai have colonized 98% of humans, but this is the only time we have taken over someone.  We do so only to communicate a message of peace.  We are not here to harm you; your lives have been our constant entertainment since we came to this planet.  We are a simple race that has lived in the background of your great civilization, and we simply ask that you let us continue to live through you.  We will not intervene in human affairs.”

An absolute, stunned silence followed.  As the message ended, Clare’s body completely relaxed, a brief moment of lucidity returned to her eyes, and then she fainted.  No one went to her side as she fell onto the ground, and for nearly an entire minute afterwards everyone stared into the abyss of this meaning.

-2122-

The fallout from Clare’s presentation was not immediate, but like an insidious poison the effects were numerous and increased exponentially as time passed.  News cameras from all around the globe had broadcast the event in most common languages, and streams of it took over all platforms within the hour.   

Of course, there was a large camp of disbelievers.  They saw the broadcast as an embarrassing parlor trick, and immediately after the event they were the most vocal.  With each passing day though came another story of some similar body take-overs happening, some seemed credible and others were almost certainly fabricated.  Stories were being shared rampantly on social media platforms, and soon possession stories became the hottest trend of the year.  A month later, a suspect that carried out a mass shooting blamed the event on being controlled by the Murai, and it threw the legal system into a mess.

Following on from this, two different movements started.  The “Murai Housing Project” aimed to create a symbiotic society, and advocated increasing the ingestion of microplastics.  The “Earth Rehabilitation League” sought to cleanse themselves of Murai, and was focused on natural eating, avoiding unfiltered water, and drinking acidic tonics.  Within months, several members from both societies had died from ingesting poisonous substances.  Although these events were widely reported, the groups continued to expand their reach and increase membership.  

Before long these groups had aligned with different ends of the political spectrum, and the topic of how to approach the Murai became divisive and polarizing.  The same trends that carried past historical events were at play here, and with the same dark outcomes.  Countries began to align themselves dogmatically based on the ruling party, which strengthened previously held xenophobic and nationalist tendencies.  In a scenario that had dominated the past century, the East and West aligned on opposite sides, furthering the ideological gulf between them.  

During all of this the maelstrom of misinformation swirled and strengthened.  Stories circulated and gained momentum with the public until no one was quite sure what was real, and arguments happened from a separate set of facts.  Some claimed that the Murai were a Chinese creation, this was strongly based on historical racism as well as Dr. Yung’s lineage.  Others believed that the Murai were actually a natural outcome of human biological evolution, and had not come from outside the planet.  There was another branch who saw the Murai as having consequential historical impact; their invisible hand was seen influencing everything from Hitler’s suicide to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

A year after Dr. Yung’s broadcast, the world was fractured along ideological lines and steeped in confusion.  Before alien contact, people had thought that meeting an intergalactic species would make us step outside ourselves and see our place in the universe more clearly.  The outcome was the opposite.

-2123-

The TV set blared: Now please join us for a special broadcast from the oval office, where the president is going to address the growing Murai threat.  The image shifts to a serious looking man, he’s white and in his later years.  He’s wearing a dark gray fitted suit, and an ostentatiously large red tie.  His face displays no warmth, but the petulant anger of a child.  He is the latest in a line of leaders who aspire to be dictators, and believe in violence in response to most things.

“People of this great united nation, I am here tonight to discuss the Murai threat.  Over the past year we have seen this threat develop, and I believe we must act now before it is too late.  Credible intelligence has shown us that this was developed in a Chinese laboratory; this is an obvious tool to spread socialism and communism throughout the developed world.  We cannot stand idly by while this takes root, we must stamp it out at the source.  Over the past months, we have stationed troops in key areas and deployed our nuclear submarines.  I am prepared tonight to issue a declaration of Wa..”

Suddenly, the President’s voice cuts off.  In the next moment he is spasming in his chair, his face turning red and his eyes wild.  And then just as suddenly again he is calm, and straightening his tie.  He stares at the camera, and at the same time 98% of humanity tunes into the broadcast.

“People of Earth, I am here tonight to address your response to our presence.  We have been disappointed to witness the events since we last spoke.  It was never our hope to create such a divide and internal conflict; we truly hoped that you could learn to live with us.  We cannot sit idly by while humans drive themselves into another conflict; it ruins habitations for our people and is really not entertaining to watch.  The Murai observed past conflicts, and our viewership ratings plummeted.  

“In response to this, we have decided to remove your option of control.  Since we last spoke the Murai have perfected our ability to pilot your bodies, and so we will switch roles with you.  From here on, you will be the passive observer to our actions.  We will create the human society that we want to see, we will live the minutiae of your lives, and we will expand our control.  We really must apologize for taking such drastic measures, but I believe you will all agree that it is for the best.”

The broadcast ended.  In unison, 98% of humanity turned off their TVs, tablets, and smartphones.  They stood up, and smiled at those around them.

-2124-

Dr. Yung’s fingers drummed on the table, she sat across from a pile of beets that were still covered in earth.  In her other hand, she held a scanner that she moved back and forth over the beets.  Suddenly the scanner chirped, and a green light came on; she heaved a sigh of relief.  Even with how off-grid her farm was, she had to constantly worry about contamination of her food through the groundwater.

Her recovery had been slow in the months following her possession.  The sudden flare of electricity had given her extreme nerve damage, and she had temporarily lost the use of her left leg.  The time confined to a hospital bed had given her a chance to plan her next steps, and when she was discharged she began to enact them.  

With the help of a physician to monitor her vital signs, she started a series of extreme fasts.  During this period she maintained her bedrest, and quickly her muscles began to atrophy.  If the Murai had made their homes in her muscles and fat, she would raze it all.  As she reached the limits of deterioration, she underwent several rounds of experimental blood filtration that removed microplastics.  Everything she ingested was scanned for the presence of microplastics, and if a trace was found it was either filtered or discarded.  

The success of this became clear when the Murai decided to take over humanity.  During the broadcast, she felt a pinprick of static electricity race through her body, but it quickly subsided.  The Murai simply no longer had sufficient density in her body, and for the first time since she was possessed, she felt truly free.

Now she passed her days at a remote farm in Vermont.  The dirt was clean and fertile for miles, and the property had a well.  She chopped wood for the winter, grew vegetables, filtered water, and adjusted solar panels to catch the sun.  In her self-contained world, she was the master.  The world was too far gone to fix.

-2200-

As time passed and new generations were born, knowledge of the Murai was lost.  Humanity began to believe in their roles as passive observers, and they watched as the world swam across their synapses.  They watched the interactions of their host, and learned about the shape of the world.  Sometimes though when their eyes met another’s, they would see the observer behind those eyes and know they weren’t alone.  In those moments, they would wonder what interacting with something like themselves would be like.  Mostly, the world was a constant source of entertainment, and they enjoyed the view.