The summer was always his favorite season. Everything beautiful in life happened in summer. His earliest memories, childhood adventures, teenage crimes and love affairs were all blessed with the summer sun. But today, the first light of summer, would put an end to his brief existence on this planet.
If you met Mr. Smith a couple of years ago, you'd think he was an entrepreneur. He had just created a secure networking/communications tool that revolutionized content generation and distribution. It could be used in places without internet by piggybacking off the telecom provider. One could use voice calls and text messages to upload content that would be distributed to all subscribers. Accessing content was also done this way. The data on the server was encrypted. The traffic to servers were made anonymous.
Three summers ago, he made the site public. He expected the online community to love him and reward him for his gift to the internet community. The site did have a good initial traction and received honorable mentions in quite a few technology blogs. It was the age of net neutrality and online privacy. How could anyone not want it?
However, the market was saturated with messaging and social services. People cared about expressing and socializing without caring about surveillance and tracking. "I have nothing to hide" was the mantra. Nobody wanted to use a new service, or get their friends to transition to this platform. Mr. Smith's creation was eventually lost to the depths of internet oblivion.
Or so it seemed.
It was the last month of his subscription for the cloud hosting of his site. He was looking at the usage stats. Things did not seem good. A few thousand had registered with the site. A few hundred were actively using it. The advertising revenue was nowhere enough to offset the hosting costs of the website. The site was burning through his own personal savings. He lit up a cigarette and wrote his parting words to his users.
"Hi there! I'm the creator of this site and I have a personal request for you. Due to the high costs and low returns for running this site, I will probably have to take this down by the next month. Please consider making a donation to my Paypal and if enough of you contribute, we can keep hopefully keep this online. No matter how this turns out, I'm glad to have you as a user and thank you for everything. "
The next morning when he checked his Paypal account, he had a couple of million dollars in it. The number looked too unreal for him to get excited about it. He was certain there was some kind of misunderstanding, although at the back of his head he was experiencing a tingling of pure awesomeness. He checked his mailbox. There was a hoard of mail in languages he could not understand. A total of three contributors had made donations that collectively exceed 5 million dollars. Who were these people?
Over breakfast, he translated the mails to English and began comprehending the events that led him to have 5 million dollars in the bank. After many cups of tea and Google searches later, he pieced it all together.
It turns out, most of his users were from conflict zones of the world. These were nations crippled from war and poverty. Nations where all the public infrastructure was bombed and people existed in a state of perpetual fear. Turns out, his creation helped organize the rebel forces and overthrow the regimes imposed by the western world. The website in their country was synonymous with "voice of the people". All the key top level organizers used this for communication and the rest of the people were educated through word of mouth. It was a tool that fought the crippled journalism of the country, shaped a cohesive public vision and united its citizen in times of despair. The lack of the site's popularity in the western world became the site's biggest advantage. When the news of the site's take down reached its users, the top three oil barons of the country made a donation to keep the site functional. In their email, they mention that they did not know the cost of running a service such as this and hoped the money that was contributed was sufficient. The mail ended with "Please don't hesitate to ask for more should you need it".
Mr. Smith felt a sense of profound satisfaction at the end of his research. He had made more impact to mankind than he ever could hope to do. He had big plans for the site now. He would hire more people, buy more cloud space, add more features and make this the tool that truly unites mankind.
Or so he hoped.
The FBI caught scent of the money trail and arrested Mr. Smith. Say hello to the Patriot Act.
The summer was always his favorite season. Everything beautiful in life happened in summer.
He walked down the hallway to his execution chamber. He was found guilty of supporting and participating in terrorism. No evidence required. No evidence found. All that caused this was a money trail. "I should have asked a venture capitalist instead" he thought. He felt the cold leather straps being tightened around his wrists, chest, torso and legs. It was going to be death by lethal injection.
The last passing vision he had was the doctor injecting something into his vein. When he woke up, the first thing he wondered was "Did i just wake up?". He looked around. This was not America. He seemed to be locked in a dark room that smelled like camel piss. He stood up and walked to the door. "Hello?"
A few minutes later, two men came to unlock the room. They smiled at Mr. Smith. He smiled back. "Today is your lucky day" said one of them. "Waking up from a lethal injection is pretty lucky I guess", responded Mr. Smith.
"Ha ha. This is a funny one. I said you're lucky because you get to fix what you broke"
"What did I break?"
"Our oil supply. Your stupid software got us kicked out of this country. You are going to fix it Mr. Smith."
"Well, if you want the data, take it. I just want to get back home."
"Home? You are technically dead. Dead men don't have homes. They have caskets. Your's was buried two days ago"
"Who did you bury?"
"Mr. Smith"
"No, I'm Mr. Smith"
"Nope. You're going to be Mr. White" said the man as he took out a passport and read the name.
A crew of men walked inside carrying a tripod, filming equipment and some guns. Most of them dressed like the locals. They stripped Mr. Smith of his clothes, covered his head with a black bag and made him kneel in front of the camera. He could now hear the cameraman start recording and one of the guys gave out a speech in a language he could not understand. At the end of the speech, there was a hole in the bag.
"Ladies and gentlemen. Citizen of this country. Yesterday, one of our kind was executed. He was an honest man, Mr. White. He was a true patriot and national hero. He risked his life so we could get news from the conflict zones of the world. The terrorists may have taken his life but they will never take his voice. We will rise against this evil. We will fight this devil. I am placing sanctions on [INSERT COUNTRY HERE] and initiating drone strikes within the fortnight. We will endure these hard times as we try to bring stability to mankind."
The summer was always his favorite season. Everything beautiful in life happened in summer.