Be Nice: Science Fiction

[penthius]

"Please sit nicely next to me. If you don't, I'll slit your throat. So won't you please be nice?" The young man stared at the grey-haired lady holding her knitting with a disturbed expression. That was not the order that this was supposed to go in.*He* held the knife, after all. He mustered up his courage and growled, "Hand over your purse, lady!" The security cameras in the high-speed rail compartment must have malfunctioned, as no record remained, but eye-witnesses insisted that the little old lady (who was not so little and not so old, though the grey hair was all her own) took the young man's knife away from him and slit his throat with it, then told his gang that they should sit down and "be nice."

Inspiration: "Won't U Please B Nice," by Nellie McKay
Story Potential: High
Notes: Many stories are all about how dark and gritty and overpopulated and dangerous the future will be. Great. Let's let it be that. And then let's have a "be nice" movement swinging back against the momentum--in their own, particularly noir-future, sort of way.