About The Laws of Space

Post 223:

The Laws of Space

Episode 33:

Chapter 17 Continues

            …“Why what?”

            “Why do any of it, assuming it can be done? I know you think I’m some damned revolutionary, but I didn’t do what I did out of a latent desire to turn freedom fighter. We can talk all day long about the System and its flaws but at the end of the day it saved humanity. Without it we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

            Walsh was riled and rose to start pacing around the fire. Clearly Tate had struck the wrong chord. Through the dissonance, the Old Man stayed calm.

            “There is much you don’t know, Alder. We have information that the people of the Five Cities lack.” He took a moment, adjusting on his rock. Clearly the man was in pain—the myriad wounds he carried had to trouble him constantly. “After the bombs and the disease and the famine threatened to eradicate humanity from the globe, there were very few left. This was the only arable, habitable land left on any of the planet’s continents.”

            “Yeah. I know all this,” Alder said.

            “Do you know when?”

            “Do you?”

            “We have a pretty good idea. Roughly three hundred years ago.”

            “Good a guess as any, I suppose.”

            “It is not a guess.” The Old Man turned around with his only arm and grabbed an object, setting it down at Alder’s feet.

            “What’s that?”

            “It’s called a book,” Walsh interjected, sitting down on the other side of Tate. “The Ones Between have thousands, hundreds of thousands.”

            “What exactly is a book?” Alder asked. “I mean it’s great that you have so many, but you might have hundreds of thousands of rocks as well. What’s the value—I guess is my question?”

            “Books are like information files you used to receive on your Worldview. Or like the tales you were told in your Educational Facility. Only they are in permanent, written form, thoughts and histories and ideas bound together by paper, written by people from the time before. Books are a big reason why we talk different, act different, continue to defy the kind of “life” that the Five Cities offer. At some point, that remaining few went in two directions. One segment decided to erase every hard drive that had any reminder of the past, but kept the processors. The other chose a different path. No empty hard drives. No hard drives at all. What I’m talking about was essentially a bifurcation of the remainder. A disagreement at first, but eventually, it erupted into a war.”

            “A war?”

            “Startling isn’t it? Survive all that horror only to start more.”

            Alder was interested, nothing new. Everything interested Alder. “I’m sorry to say this, but what you’re telling me sounds like further vindication of the System. With the System there can be no war. It makes it impossible. Inhumanity is recognized and accounted for.”

            “Three hundred years ago I might have agreed with you, Mr. Tate. I’m telling you all the truth I know, and with the truth comes much to think about. Think about this: Inhumanity cannot be solved in a non-human way. The Five Cities model has proven it. A System of mindless electronic control can no better solve the problems of human nature than an animal can. A person living with animals, obeying nothing but basic animal laws of survival, can only be made into an animal.”

            “Keep going.” He was trying to keep up with the Old Man.

            “That same axiom holds true with the System. If you live ruled by mindless wires and networks and machines, you are bound to become nothing but another mindless component, as lifeless as a Mech, but with less power. When you walk around City Five, do you feel surrounded by human beings? Do you even know what that means? And when you were L9, thinking about taking over the whole damn show, did you feel human?”

            “I don’t know,” Alder whispered. He was becoming overwhelmed; it was a lot to swallow, even for a man with his IQ. “I blew my credits because I felt lacking, something missing, I guess. I tell Webb I just wanted someone around, besides myself.”

            “You were missing yourself. A self. Humanness, it’s what makes you stand out amongst the rest of the Five Cities—it’s why we’ve fought and died to get you here.”

            “Fought and died?”

            “There have been casualties,” Walsh spoke solemnly. “To divert attention away from City Five, we’ve systematically conducted raids on the other cities. The plan worked. They were not prepared for us to find you. Unfortunately, some had to pay the price. Some in my charge.” Thoughts of blood and sand beckoned the big man’s conscience.

            Tate felt a drowning of the soul. He had been charged with a sin impervious to expiation. “I need to get out of here,” he panted.

            “Indeed,” nodded the Old Man. “You only have five hours to get back inside the System. You and your friends must go.”

            “How do you know—so precisely, I mean?”

            “I don’t,” he answered. But in five hours you will have been gone as long as I ever was when I journeyed outside the System’s bounds. You and your friends could have longer, but do you want to chance it?”

            On the heels of the question Alder adamantly projected his answer. “Not for a second. Mr. Walsh, can you retrieve my companions?”

            “I think I can manage that.” Walsh got up to leave through one of the cave’s many exits. As he did so, Addie was reentering, holding a tray full of food.

            “Looks like I took a little too long,” she said.

            “No, that’s alright, Adelyne,” said the Old Man. “Let Alder and his friends eat on the way. And I want you to guide them back. Take as many people as you need. You know the timetable.”

            “Sure thing, OG.”

            Alder could already hear Walsh returning with his friends. Lerner’s strained voice and Webb’s sarcastic jibes grew louder coming down one of the portals. He looked down at Old Garrick and held up his hands. “So that’s it? I just go back? I haven’t agreed to anything. I’m ambivalent at best. It’s a lot to spring on a person.”

            “I know it is.” The Old Man crookedly rose to his feet and extended his remaining hand. It was that thing again. “We will give you time to make your decision. Your path is not for us to dictate, you must come to it of your own volition.”

            “But I have so many more questions,” he answered, awkwardly extending his own hand.

            “Of course. Addie will fill you in, and for the rest, you will have friends inside City Five.”

            “Friends?” That word gets bandied around, I guess.