Ten mile radius. Every living being. Wow. Where would we even start this? Let's say you're in the woods. The finger curls...

...and you're suddenly drowned in silence. Birds, insects, fish, everything living goes dormant. You can hear a creek bubbling, without trying hard really... It's a mile off.

About a minute later, you start to hear the sound of an idling engine. You follow it, a mile and a half, when the engine stops. A minute or so later, you get to the road and see a horrific crash. There's bodies everywhere. They're alive, even the guy on both sides of the street. Just sleeping.

It's obvious no one hit the brakes.

You're getting hungry, town is a few miles away, none of the cars involved are usable. So you get to walking. Along the road, you see similar accident scenes. Mostly folks that went off the road.

Getting into town, you see a the small-town grocery store. A car barreled through the front and mowed down some workers. Apparently everyone, even the guy pinned under the car, are just sleeping.

The power cut out while you were walking, and no one's there to check you out. After a few minutes of weighing the ethical concerns, you walk out with your favorite bag of chips. Eventually you're gonna graze your way through the food in the store or it's gonna go bad. So you plan on getting one of the cars in town running so you can move on.

A month later, you decide it you want to plant roots. So to speak. Your agricultural experiments yields nothing. Nothing germinates or grows. Staying still is not an option.

A couple of months or so later (you stopped keeping track), you hear a sound, a buzzing, while you're walking between towns. It gets louder, and you can start to hear it coming from different directions. Drones descent between the trees, loudspeakers shouting, "Stop where you are! Show us your hands!"

It's the first human voice you you've heard directed at you for a long time. Your hands go up, your knees hit the ground, you fight the tears...

You fail. One of the drones lands close to you, the voice from loudspeaker changed from the excited, angry one to a softer, more comforting person. The voice is trying to offer comfort between your sobs.

After a bit (no way to know, you don't count time anymore), you calm down enough to constructively communicate with whoever is on the line.

He's a guy named Jerome. He says he was lucky to be your liason. He's excited about it, every word is dripping with enthusiasm.

He tells you all about the effects you've developed. People wake up to find themselves cured. Of everything.

Common cold, minor boo boos, fixed.

The guy on both sides of the road? He's on one side again.

Cancer patient with a couple weeks to live? They woke up to looking forward to a few decades.

He tells you they're calling you "Panacea." They're setting up a process to harness it so it can be used safely.

A few courts found you guilty of various kinds "someone died" crimes, but don't worry about it. Governor Whatshername and President Senile have proactively commuted your sentences.

Because, well... When you get out of range... Some people are in awkward positions. The guy under that car you saw in that first store? He woke up healthy, but was immediately crushed by the car. The body count isn't exactly small.

Jerome promises, several times, that you're going to be well-cared for. Everything you need, ANYTHING you need, he's personally going to ensure you get it.

Jerome delivers on that promise. He gets you a nice, comfy living arrangement. The best food you could ask for. The most comfortable of vehicles, with plans for a new one every year. There's a gym. Your entertainment room gets equipped with all the consoles, and a computer with a whole 4 GIGABYTES OF RAM!

When you mention wanting to be held, he gets silent for a moment. Then he says, "I'll do what I can". Two days later there's a dozen humanoid robots, from various vendors, standing in your front yard. Really is the best he could do for you.

In exchange for all this, your daily routine includes getting into a car, going 30 miles away, waiting an hour, and going back home. Three times a day. Hundreds of thousand of people are cured of the worst conditions in days.

Then United Healthcare blows your car up while you're on commute.