Arthur was the kind of man who, if you asked him how he was, might say "Fine, and you?" with the sort of politeness that indicates he neither approves of or is concious of his response. His response is the result of 31 years of social conditioning, finely tuned through the complex systems of family, strangers, friends and co-workers. Complex the system may be, the results generally fall within one area on a politeness graph: "Automatic indifference and respect".
Today another man, who's social conditioning result falls into the 1% range of social conditioning which develops the same chemicals and responses in a section of the graph at the Steinmar-Renard Institute for Human Social Psychology as "Psychotic", asked Arthur how he was, and Arthur's
conditioning prevented him from detecting the edge of violence in his voice.
"Fine, and you?" Arthur's mouth formed the words automatically. A full two seconds slipped by as his conciousness became aware of what his cerebral cortex had known for a while: This man had wielded a pistol, and he was smiling calmly.
"Just dandy. Why don't you come have a walk with me?"
Arthur's memory conjured projections of pain and discomfort as he explained to his associates why he was late and why his wallet with all of its credit cards and dollar bills no longer existed inside his pockets. Another part of his memory flashed images of a gravestone with "Arthur" printed on it in with unflinching accuracy. This projection of the future reached Arthur's conciousness as an overwhelming feeling to not worry so much about being late to his meeting and shift his weight and his focus to the smiling stranger with the strangely silent metal object in one hand.
"Ah, ok".
Arthur's motor cortex propelled him towards the alley while the new stranger (who was now the focus of his world, consuming his virtual reality) persists in broadcasting a calm, unafraid smile, grinning at the world and the facets of its strange reality. Something inside Arthur's grey matter clicks, and he attempts to gain knowledge so that, even if he is a sheep being led to a slaughter, he will at least know where he will be killed. "Where are we going?" his mouth asks, with sincerity and astonishing politeness.
His captor's smile dissipates for enough milliseconds for Arthur's brain to become aware that his question sparked nervousness and uncertianity. Arthur's mind, after jumping from several theories, ended at the conclusion that questing for more certianity might paradoxically raise the level of uncertianity in his situation. Flipping a coin when standing at gunpoint to determine if your captor will shoot you or not is a terrible position to be in, and Arthur processed that his survival chances would be higher if the coin is never flipped again by never giving this stranger a chance to decide if he wished to shoot Arthur by not giving any uncertianity to the stranger's situation by asking questions.
The stranger's smile was corrected well before Arthur arrived at this conclusion, giving him a moment to reflect that maybe he hadn't really said anything at all, or that the stranger was indifferent to questions. Arthur's mind began wandering even more, asking questions to himself such as "Has this stranger done this before? How did he get a gun in the city? Who did he work for?".
Arthur continued walking towards the stranger and his questions ceased being asked when the stranger pulled the trigger.
