Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy

A HIT ON THE HEAD

Every society encourages some behaviors and punitively forbids others. Thus, although cultures were not scientifically designed, they act much like computers programmed for specific results. One can look at their cultural structure and predict: this one will have a high murder rate, this one will have many schizophrenics, this one will remain Stone Age unless interfered with, this one is going to the stars.

–marilyn chambers, Neuro-Anthropology

Benny "Eggs" Benedict never got home from Epicene Wildeblood's party that night. On the corner of Lexington and Twenty-third, Benny was hit by a heavy lead pipe, which smashed his skull and killed him. The pipe did not fall by accident; it was wielded deliberately by a man named Francesco "Pablo" Gomez. Pablo did not hate Benny or have any personal feelings toward him at all and he did not grin sadistically. Pablo hit Benny with the pipe because Benny was well dressed and probably had money in his pockets. When Benny was comatose but not yet dead, Pablo dragged him into an alley and went through his pockets, finding to his delight that his surmise had been correct and Benny was actually carrying more than $50; he had $52, to be exact. Benny died while Pablo was rifling the wallet.

To Pablo, $52 was a lot of money. He went home humming happily.

That's the way things were in Unistat at the height of the Revolution of Lowered Expectations.