[ WP ] In a world where almost everyone is an unfeeling psychopath , those who can show emotion are shunned -- being able to display or feel emotion is considered a mental illness .

The first thing you should know: My name is Milos. It was given to me by my mother and father, who have both been dead for well over thirty years. This is not a generally known fact. Even now, as I watch the other minutiae of my life being laid bare on one of the 24-hour news channels, the fact that I have a name is missing from the reporter ’ s five-point profile on me. When describing this new menace to society, he refers to it as “ 8465-1793. ” Throughout my life, other blank faces like this man have called me “ 8465-1793. ” I have always thought of myself as Milos, in secret and behind my own carefully cultivated blank face. 
 
 While this specific name is not known, the wider practice of naming children is well-known indeed. And if this man before me on the television screen knew I had a name, he would have said so by now—though the word itself would never cross his lips. This secret tendency is a hallmark of the criminally insane, an underclass of EPD sufferers who manage to hide their symptoms in public. My parents were such. Genetically consigned, I am such. 
 
 Sufferers of Emotional Personality Disorder, known as “ empedes ” by scientists and “ emps ” in common parlance, exist on the fringes of society. They comprise anywhere from 2 % ( by official numbers ) to 8 % ( commonly accepted by serious academics ) of the population. Most are confined to insane asylums for their irrepressible outward manifestations of emotion or empathy. These institutions are shrouded in secrecy. The criminal underclass I was born into is constantly shifting as “ newly diagnosed ” empedes who had previously been living “ normal ” lives are constantly being confined to asylums. Those who manage to conceal their symptoms and live full lives, a group of which I had hoped to be a part, make up perhaps 10 % of the total empede population. Families, while they have continued to exist as the most efficient social institutions, are notorious breeding grounds for perverted interpersonal relationships that foster the development of EDP in children. 
 
 It has been ten minutes, according to the news channel ’ s digital clock reading, so I must finish quickly. According to the reporter, the police have reached my apartment. I knew they would not initially expect me to still be in my office at this hour, but surely they will come here next. My office occupies almost the entire top floor of the building, surrounded by windows with a clear view of the building's entrances and the streets around campus. When they come, I will know. 
 
 Here is the second thing you must know, the reason I am writing this: I am an historian. A professor, soon to have been retired, at my Section ’ s most prestigious school. Specifically, I study prehistory. And this is where the trouble began for me, in the mysterious ruins of the ancient civilizations to which I have devoted my life. I have a friend who is an archaeologist. Friendships are another symptom of inherent criminal insanity. Nonetheless, I have had three throughout my lifetime. This one was also an academic associate. 
 
 One day, he showed me something he had found at his latest dig. He had shown no one else, he said. When I saw it, I knew why. This was probably the most important archaeological discovery in the past century. It was a small piece of red plastic, with miniature wheels attached. While oddly constructed and ludicrously ornate, it was clearly a model of some primitive automobile. 
 
 This was a key I had been searching for. Based on this artifact and other findings, I published an article in the obscure journal *Pre-Radioactive Archaeological Review* arguing that the ancients may have been more technologically advanced than previously thought. Innocuous, I thought. I was wrong. 
 
 We know little about the Radioactive Event. Almost certainly, it was caused by some extraterrestrial object that wiped out around 99.99 % of humanity. After this event, the remaining humans evolved over thousands of years from primitive ways of thinking to our current rational state. Standard thinking holds that the ancients of PRE times were barbaric people who lived in squalor. Theirs was a world of sprawling urban decay, primitive huts, vast expanses of untamed wilderness and inefficient farmland. This is because it was a society of emps, of the delusional, a global insane asylum being run by the inmates. Within the emp underclass today, a persistent myth has arisen that describes the pre-Radioactive Event peoples differently. My parents had taught me this: that the pre-Radioactive empedes built utopia based on love for one another. 
 
 I have devoted my life to finding evidence of this utopia, to finding any intriguing new evidence of pre-Radioactive daily lives at all. All the while I have hidden my true purpose by writing about the ancient practice of empathy and the inefficient, nightmarish society it created. But here, at this late hour in my career, something substantial had come. I was ecstatic. I wrote the article based on my friend ’ s findings, listing him as the primary author so he would receive the fullest credit ( a disgusting, incomprehensible thing to do, perhaps, but that is the way my abnormal mind works. I could not bear the thought of passing off someone else ’ s findings as my own ). I knew it would be groundbreaking. I did not really fully consider the consequences. 
 I called this friend from my office about an hour ago, hoping to inform him of the article ’ s acceptance for publication before I ended my workday. There was no answer. 
 
 That was when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw his image on the television screen, followed by a video. A black-clad team of police was dragging him out of his apartment building and into an unmarked van. 
 And then I knew, even before my own picture appeared on the screen with the legend “ CRIMINALLY INSANE PSUEDO-ACADEMIC 8465-1793. ” Everyone I knew was watching, everyone would know. I had no friends and nowhere to hide. I had thought that my article would be read by a few specialists, and hopefully be a landmark in my field. I did not realize that I was abandoning caution in my excitement, that my article challenged the underpinnings of our emotionless society and the mythology it used to prop itself up. I did not think that writing about a small model of an ancient automobile would be my fatal mistake, after all these years. I still do not fully understand it. 
 
 I am writing this to the society of the future, where hopefully people will not be taught to hate emps like they are now. I am writing in hope that a future historian, an academic like myself, will need a source like this to understand this cold, rational, systematic hatred. For that is what it is. 
 
 They are here. 
 
 *** 
 
 The man in the black suit refolded the page, replaced it in its metal tube, and put the tube on 8465-1793's desk. He kicked the loose floorboard under which he had found the tube back into position. Picking up the small piece of plastic that had also been in the tube, he thought back to his last case. 8465-1793 had been the third ancient historian this year, and his associate had been the eleventh archaeologist. This particular agent's department had just been created to focus solely on academics in response to this glut. 
 
 Who knows what would happen if just one of them had really known his field, thought the man in the black suit. If only one of them had realized the implications of this piece of plastic, or the “ plastic mannequin ” from the last case, or the “ miniature taxidermy bear ” from the one before that. 
 
 He put the metal tube with the 8465-1793 ’ s final words to the future in a suitcase designated for “ highly classified subversive evidence ” and walked out the door, down the hall. He passed a pair of professors in conversation. They paid him no heed. 
 
 “ Have you heard from 8465-1793? He hasn ’ t shown up today, ” inquired the first. 
 
 “ Not a word. Strange. He ’ s usually quite punctual, ” came the reply. 
 
. 
 The man in black walked past them and boarded the elevator. As he pressed “ 1, ” he realized he was still holding the toy car in his hand. Furtively, he slid it into his pocket. Later, the official report of the investigation would note that there was no evidence of the artifact mentioned by the professor. 
 
 It would make an excellent gift for the black-suited man ’ s son, whom he loved. 
 
 
 > I've never done this before, but I could n't resist. I know it could use work, might not precisely fit the prompts parameters, and that the direction tends a bit too much toward the science fiction `` here's an explanation of everything in the world at once'' trope. How's the writing in general? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
