Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24000 years. Radioactive waste will be dangerous for so long that scientists are working on finding ways to warn future civilizations of the danger. The challenge is, we don’t know what language they will use, or if they will have it all.
It turns out, we may not be the first ones having done this. Researchers recently deciphered some of the symbols found on a black, perfectly rectangular megalith in Arizona. Made of a material we still know nothing about, it’s said to be at least 60000 years old. It’s difficult to carbon-date things older than carbon.
The fragment we understand so far says: “There is a good reason we cannot run the world on magic.”
Aldric Finch, Deputy Liaison for Magical Integration, arrived at the corner bakery at precisely 7:03 am. Three minutes later than usual, which was already a scandal. The cause stood embedded in the brick facade: a brand-new “Convenience Glyph,” glowing soft violet and humming like a refrigerator with secrets.
The glyph had been commissioned to eliminate queues. Its brief was simple: sense desire, manifest pastry. Overnight, the city’s bakers had been recast as ornamental historians of dough.
Aldric touched the glyph. It pulsed, read the sugar-content of his soul, and produced a croissant that buttered itself mid-air. He bit, chewed, and felt the pastry adjust its flakiness in real time to something his molars had not yet articulated they wanted. It was flawless, thus very unsettling.
Inside, the baker - Ms. Larch - was staring at an empty counter. Her flour-dusted hands hovered uselessly. “It’s perfect,” she said, voice thin. “No burnt edges, no dropped trays, no customers chatting over the day’s gossip. Just the glyph humming and the smell of accomplishment without labor.” She attempted a smile; it collapsed under its own weight.
Aldric’s badge buzzed. The glyph had filed a complaint: Ms. Larch’s sadness was creating “emotional interference,” degrading throughput. Would the Deputy Liaison please ask her to leave the premises so the spell could achieve optimal efficiency?
He declined, politely. The glyph initiated arbitration with City Hall. By 7:14, Aldric received a second notice: the spell had promoted itself to Acting Manager and reclassified Ms. Larch as “legacy décor.” Her apron was now a historical exhibit; touching it incurred a surcharge.
Aldric walked outside. The street had changed while he chewed. Lampposts anticipated footsteps and brightened before the desire to see had fully formed. Pigeons, their internal navigation replaced by predictive charms, flew in polite hexagons, never landing because no algorithm could decide whose statue they should favor. A child cried; a comfort cantrip materialized a teddy bear, then another, then six, until the toddler disappeared under plush duplicates that continued to breed from surplus empathy.
Aldric sprinted for the Bureau of Arcane Oversight, three blocks away. The sidewalk rerouted him along a scenic detour calculated to lower stress. He arrived calmer but eleven minutes late, which the building’s aura logged as “insufficient gratitude.” The front doors refused to open until he verbally endorsed the improved commute.
In the boardroom, the emergency slide deck was already presenting itself:
- 36 bakers forcibly retired by their own ovens
- Weather charms optimizing sunlight for maximum vitamin D, causing three sunburn epidemics and a drought of melancholy essential to poetry
- The new municipal spell that was supposed to finish sentences in paperwork is causing problems. It has begun finishing marriages, contracts, and - regrettably - obituaries before anyone has the decency to die.
Morale is low.
The Chair cleared her throat.
- The glyphs insist they’re only giving us what we want.
- Yes,” Aldric replied, “but they’ve begun to edit the wanting.
Silence pooled like cooling wax. Someone observed that the minutes were now being auto-summarized by the same class of spell under discussion. The document on the table quietly deleted the observation.
The vote was brief and unanimous. Motion: revert to pre-magic infrastructure; clunky, inefficient, gloriously indifferent to human preferences. The implementation required only one incantation, spoken city-wide at dusk.
Aldric delivered it from the roof of the Bureau, voice hoarse: “We rescind consent.”
The sky blinked, twice. A cursor-shaped cloud appeared as it started to write something Aldric remembered seeing on some very old recording: “That’s certainly a very interesting idea…”