I SHOULD state immediately that, in writing this historic eyewitness report, I am prejudiced with all the prejudices of a Reservation American.
The facts about our way of life are generally known. Still, there are many who forget that the Reservation was established only in 1979, after the two-hour work-day had been made law in the United States. It was in 1979, a grand and glorious year, when our forefathers, who believed in the old pioneer virtues, petitioned Congress for a tract of land where we could live and work — fourteen or sixteen hours a day if we wished — as had the first settlers in this country.
To its credit, Congress granted this petition, and the Reservation was created. It would prove to be a continuous source of vulgar amusement for Americans on the Outside.1 Yet, if they laughed at us for being hopelessly old-fashioned, we, in turn, had a righteous scorn for a people who only lived for idle amusement in the Pleasure State that had succeeded the Welfare State of the twentieth century. I, as a Reservation American, born and bred, was no exception. I had never been outside the Reservation until June 23, 2039, when as Reservation Chief of Police I was drafted in the service of my country.
Service, faith and hope — that is why I am writing this eyewitness report about the search for the stolen A-I-D, the most terrible invention mankind has ever known. Not for fame or glory, but as an example of what one determined hard-working man was able to do.
The stolen A-I-D will be recovered! I refuse to think that total destruction is still a possibility.
In this year 2039, the facts about the A-I-D are known to every child, but they can bear repetition.
The A-I-D weighs exactly twenty-four pounds, corresponding to the twenty-four hours in the day — a gruesome touch of the inventor’s imagination.
The A-I-D is a detonator.
It is NOT the super-bomb as many think. If the timing device has not been set, it is harmless. The A-I-D is a detonator, but whether the released radioactive gamma rays or the mesons in its thermoid atomic coil constitute the force will always remain in doubt. What is certain is that it can go off and destroy the world’s stockpile of fission and fusion bombs, our unhappy inheritance from the past.
People of the earth, a warning!
1. Report any odd or mysterious parcel of medium weight to the proper officials!
2. Give at least two hours of your day to the official search parties organized by your Government!
3. Mankind has one last chance to save itself!
And mankind will be saved for I, one humble individual, almost did the job myself.1
1 After almost a month on the Outside, during which period I traveled widely throughout the country, I can, as God is my witness, testify to the superiority of the Reservation way of life. Life on the Outside — or in the Funhouse, as we have always called the Pleasure State — can be Judged for what it is by my sober descriptions in the pages that follow. I refer the scholarly Reservation American to the supplemental Appendix. But for the ordinary hardworking Reservationist my occasional footnotes will be adequate.
1 This account will be included in the GCDM or Great Capsule of Historic Documents and Writings. Thus, buried beneath the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., if worse comes to worst, unknown future generations — if any — may chance upon it.