Author:

Paris Hilton Rendered to Offshore Blackshop

May 5, 2016
NEW YORK–Spokespeople for famed Manhattan socialite Paris Hilton report that the three-time heiress was rendered Thursday to an undisclosed, offshore shopping haven known as a “blackshop.” “It was an ambush…we were overwhelmed instantly,” admitted Fred Luchia, Hilton’s tearful head of security. “I’d say six, maybe seven well-trained guys, dressed in black Prada, head to foot, balaclavas […]. She was zipped up in a Gucci body bag and gone before we knew what happened.”

“Rendition,” an emerging practice among high-end retailers and luxury goods companies, involves the abduction of wealthy, high-profile customers who are reportedly detained at baroque, unidentified duty-free camps, often indefinitely and without access to courts, attorneys, or financial advisers. “There are no clear numbers on how many have been taken in this way,” explains Brett Horgaus, an ACLU attorney and head of the organization’s human trafficking task force. “We estimate that as many as 2-3 thousand ultra-wealthy consumers are being held a half-dozen secret sites worldwide. The stigma of these abductions, and the secrecy among the families of those who are targets, lead us to suspect that this estimate may be low.”

Few clues have emerged about the mysterious process and the far-flung operations network that reportedly supports it. June reports in Vanity Fair and the New York Times linked the abductions to a network of unmarked, private jets and anonymous, mid-western front corporations with names like “Houston Dataplan Unlimited” and “Pick-of-the-litter, Inc.”

A more recent account from a purported former detainee includes tales of being forced to shop in stress positions, dancing to exhaustion in clubs playing music at high volumes, and being incessantly coddled by teams of ominous, hooded figures. “For more than 6 months all I heard was ‘spend, spend, spend,'” explains Frank Fetch, the son of a wealthy Minneapolis publishing family. “They wouldn’t let me sleep. I’d start to nod off, and there’d be another handler with an exclusive Manolo Blahnik sneaker or a tray of cashmere Q-Tips. It was exhausting, mentally draining.”

Some investigators have also begun to raise questions about the practice. “The detainees, until now, have been classified as prisoners of a hostile, state-less power,” notes U.S. Internal Revenue spokeswoman Sophie Ticondaroga, “which affords them favorable tax treatment for the duration of their imprisonment. Should we find, however, that the detainees consented to their imprisonment, or otherwise colluded in their abductions, we would likely seek remedies on behalf of the treasury.”

Precinct Collapse Disorder Plagues Coastal Communities

December 9, 2029
MAR VERDE–Like residents in many coastal counties in this affluent area of northern California, local store-owner Dwight Henrikson was surprised to discover Thursday morning that the local sheriff’s office had been inexplicably abandoned. “I got a call yesterday to come down to the station to give a witness statement,” observes Henrikson, “but when I got here, nobody was around. The lights were on, the doors were opened, coffee was brewing, but the place was empty. It was eerie.”

The phenomenon, dubbed “precinct collapse disorder” by social scientists who have studied it, has struck numerous police, fire, and other municipal agencies along the pacific coast and throughout the northwestern United States. “The disorder has placed a particularly intense strain on the system,” notes California Attorney General Edga Meese. “In many cases, the very individuals who’d be investigating these clusters of missing persons are exactly who’s missing. We’re doing what we can to reallocate resources, but it’s been a real challenge.”

The disorder, which has been variously linked to declining health benefits for civil servants, the proliferation of employee RFID tags, and the reported health effects of on-the-job video surveillance, is characterized by the spontaneous disappearance of all employees at a station or agency office. Occasionally a stray, uniformed rookie or two is found sleeping on an office floor or wandering confused in the vicinity. “We are scrambling on this,” explains Dr. Penny Gaspeir, an expert on the disorder. “It appears to have a complex of causes, and there are a number of hypotheses, but we are working on-the-fly, in the hot zone, with lots of conjecture and not much context.”

Most uncanny to residents in affected precincts has been their continued ability to have calls to otherwise abandoned station houses answered promptly and pleasantly. “The weird thing was, when I found the station empty, I called 9-1-1,” elaborates Henrikson. “I heard a phone ring somewhere in the back, there, and then somebody picked up and took down my information.”

“Not many people realize that much of their local service has been outsourced,” continues Dr. Gaspeir, “particularly to offshore call centers, and private evidence labs and real-time on-the-job video monitors. There may not be any officers in the station, but the phones are still answered and much of the work still gets done.”

Cancer Causes Cancer, CDC Concludes

March 2, 2019
ATLANTA–The Centers for Disease Control announced Wednesday the results of a decade-long “meta-study” of more than 75 years’ worth of medical and scientific cancer research, concluding that “the hypothesis best supported by extant research is that the soundest predictor of whether a patient will have developed cancer is whether the patient has developed cancer.” “The most striking finding of the study is not that cancer causes cancer,” explains Dr. Betty Rind of the CDC’s special task force, “but that cancer doesn’t always cause cancer. It’s a key factor–probably the key factor, but it’s not decisive.”

The study was the brainchild of former CDC Director Dr. Henry Swellman, who initiated the $26 billion effort during his short tenure. “I’ve given this quite some thought,” Swellman testified to a Senate subcommittee during his contentious three-month confirmation hearing, “and there are so many potential causes for cancer out there. There’s a simpler, more elegant possibility. What do all cancer patients have in common? That’s going to be the most likely cause, and I intend to find it. The data is there. Now it’s just a question of will.”

Swellman’s team quickly grew to more than 150 doctors, clinicians, and statisticians, who combed archives of peer-reviewed studies and their supporting data for clues to cancer’s elusive cause. The studies and their data were subjected to a series of sophisticated mathematical analyses, including proprietary ‘Monte Carlo simulations,’ multiple regressions, and a recursive set of ‘Hyde transformations.’ “We eventually reached a conclusion that was both surprising and obvious,” notes Dr. Rind, “a number of factors are correlated with the development of cancer, but the highest correlation is actually between the development of cancer and the development of cancer.”

The CDC’s report hypothesizes that the ‘strong yet imperfect’ correlation it found between cancer and the presence of cancer may be related to an esoteric prediction found in the developing field of quantum diagnostics. The so-called ‘uncertainty diagnosis’ suggests that certain medical conditions remain in a state of suspension or uncertainty until diagnosed. “I believe part of what we see in the CDC study is a corollary of diagnostic ‘superposition,'” explains Professor Rudolph Pilegram, a leading proponent of the theory. “Certain diseases are held in a state of seemingly contrary suspension until the moment of diagnosis. Pre-diagnosis, you may simultaneously have cancer and not have cancer. Diagnosis itself resolves the superposition. If you’re diagnosed with it, you have it, if not, you don’t. I believe the imperfect correlation in the CDC study is a side-effect of this phenomenon.”

Asked about the implications of the study, the CDC’s Dr. Rind notes that “the importance of a study like this will really only be seen in retrospect, in the way that it shapes future research. I think what this study tells us, pretty clearly and unequivocally, is that the best way to find effective treatments for cancer is to focus our research efforts on finding effective treatments for cancer.”

Google Body: Users Find Asses with Both Hands

August 18, 2022
MOUNTAIN VIEW–Information search giant Google, Inc. announced Thursday the release of Google Body, a search service aiming to index the internal and external anatomy of every living creature on the planet. “Google has long been dedicated to making information both useful and universally accessible,” notes Google VP of Product Development Eric Hind. “We’re happy now to extend search to information about human bodies, mine and yours, inside and out, from the number of follicles on my head to the length of the President’s toenails.”

The project, known as Google Body, sees the company partnering with public transportation systems, libraries, and motor vehicle departments to place scanning equipment in high-traffic doorways and public thoroughfares. Though details of the agreements are scarce and reportedly subject participating city and state officials to strict non-disclosure terms, Google’s announcement confirmed that the project is active in several major U.S. population centers, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City, with agreements with at least 16 other cities in late-stage negotiation. “We’ve passed proof-of-concept at this point,” adds Hind, “and now our focus is scalability and rolling this thing out nationwide.”

The service, which has been available for some three months to invitation-only beta testers, enables users to search for aggregate information about the anatomy of user-defined groups. “The service is a boon to the medical research community,” says Dr. Jennifer Guns of the Johns Hopkins Clinic for Specialism. “Nothing will replace truly controlled trials, but the ability to get a snapshot of, say, the blood pressure of men between 50 and 65 on New York’s Upper East Side, can certainly give companies an idea of where they might best spend their research dollars.”

Early testers have remarked upon a fuzzy-logic “match my organ” feature, which helps users get in touch with the nearest, most suitable donor for multiple organ systems. “We think of Body as way to bring people together,” remarks Google’s Hind. The most common searches among testers, however, exploited the service’s ability to produce three-dimensional images of the bodies of individual subjects. “I was shocked when I saw it,” exclaims Larry Blender of Carson City. “I mean, one, where did they get a 3-D rendering of my ass, and, two, does my ass really look like that? I admit that I satisfied some of my curiosity about a few of my neighbors and co-workers before I thought to search for myself, but I was still really shocked to see it up there.”

The service has understandably raised concerns among privacy activists, who point to reports that early users include some well-known insurance companies and two prominent executive recruiting firms. “You know what the top two search terms are, after ‘ass’?” asks David Deerfield of People and Privacy, a privacy-focused community outreach group. “They’re ‘aorta’ and ‘arterial plaque.’ Who do you think is conducting those searches? There’s no doubt in my mind that there are insurance company bots scouring this thing and we think it should stop.”

Responding to criticism from privacy groups, Google’s Hind pointed to the program’s opt-out policy. “We are very concerned about user privacy, and that’s why we will not make publicly available any information about anybody who let’s us know they do not want to participate by wearing an Opt-Out headband when in public. Google archives information about those individuals, but does not make it searchable.” The yellow and black vinyl headbands can be requested free of charge by writing to the company at its Mountain View headquarters.