Departure

by Ken Barrett

  “If we’re getting rich, where’s all that wealth going?” Liam argued. “We have no permanent government; the City Council disbands and reforms with a new crop of randomly selected people every six months. Everyone here lives a humble life; there are no grand mansions or gold lined streets.”

  “It’s the lack of cohesive government rule that’s the problem. If Flatiron had a ruling class, as we did before the council seized power, we could negotiate a truce. But by selling weapons to terrorists, we become a big part of the problem.”

  “So, our neutrality makes us the enemy of whichever side is losing?”

  “The government in Pike City is the last hope for humanity, and they’re not losing.” Ron’s tanned cheeks were showing signs of redness. “The savages bring only mob rule and anarchy that will destroy civilization.”

  “Technically speaking, anarchy isn’t mob rule, that would be the old democratic system of the USA. Anarchy is the rule of the individual by the individual. It’s the ultimate form of personal freedom.”

  “That’s even worse!” Ron protested. “If people ruled themselves, nothing for the common good would ever get done. There needs to be a ruling class that governs and regulates the masses. People never know what’s best for them, they need someone to tell them what to do.”

  “I don’t agree,” Liam said. “What you describe is slavery, and that never works out in the end. Also, whatever benefits the government gives, it can choose to take away.” He slid his uneaten salad aside and stood up. “For what it’s worth, I disagree equally with both sides in this war. My greatest hope is that they’ll annihilate each other, and we’ll be left alone in peace.”

  “There is no neutrality left in the world,” Ron stated pointedly. “The army is coming, and they’ll take whatever they want and destroy the rest. Liam, your best hope is to be among those they take.”

  *****

  Liam stopped off at the robotics lab on his way back to work and found Bob and John tinkering with a tangled weave of carbon nanotube fibers on one of their lab tables. “Did Rob corner you again?” John asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t know what his deal is.” Liam shrugged. “He said the Socialist Army is on their way because some bombs went off in Pike City, and there was an assassination attempt on their chancellor. Did we have anything to do with that?”

  John looked grim and slowly nodded his head.

  “You remember that robot dog we had here the other day?” Bob asked. “Well, that was a project we did for the Tribes. It was supposed to be a spy, but after we turned the project over to the customer, someone modified it.”

  “Did Keith do it?”

  “I don’t think so. Keith’s just a Project Manager and doesn’t have the technical background to make the changes.” Bob sighed and shook his head. “It’s a damn shame… the explosive they used blew up the battery, and the radioactive waste we use to keep them charged went airborne. Pike City is radioactive now; in the long run that’s gonna be a lot more damaging than the bombs.”

  “That’s not good,” Liam responded. “And now the Socialist Army is after us because of what the Tribes did to our work. If they attack, it will be for something that’s not even our fault.”

  “Ron has his own agenda,” John said. “I doubt they’ll mess with us, we’re their goose that lays the golden egg.”

  “What does any of this have to do with eggs?”

  John smiled. “It’s an old fairy tale, from a time before the world went to shit. What it means is that the army may make a lot of noise, but they won’t bother us because we always give them what they need. That includes your navigation program, which I was told was a really big deal for ‘em. If they wreck our city, no more projects, no more golden eggs.”

  “Oh,” Liam knew what eggs were of course, but wasn’t exactly sure what a goose was. None of that mattered though, he saw the meaning behind the analogy.

  “But just in case everything goes tits up,” Bob said. “Let me show you what we’re workin’ on for the Tribes now.”

  More analogies that he didn’t understand; what did a woman lying on her back have to do with the Socialist Army? He watched as Bob went to a cabinet at the back of the lab and retrieved a petri dish, a pair of gloves, and some dark spectacles.

  Bob placed the petri dish on the lab table, and within it Liam saw a tiny component that was no bigger than a grain of rice. “This is the chip that the Socialists inject into the palm of every one of their subjects,” Bob said. “It’s how they manage the amount of food their people receive; they can only get their ration by pressing their hand against a chip reader at one of their storehouses.”

  “Why do they restrict food?”

  “People are starving in Pike City,” John said. “The government uses hunger to keep everyone working.”

  “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

  “Yup, but that’s the way it works.” Bob showed him how to attach a suction cup over the chip and how to read the internal computer code through the spectacles. The gloves were used to key in changes to the internal programming. “If things do go bad and you end up in Pike City, you can get more supplies for yourself by altering your chip.”

  “That’ll come in handy if the lady is laying with her breasts up.”

  Both Bob and John frowned in confusion.

  *****

  Once back in his lab, Liam headed straight to his back room. This was where he napped when issues with Lucy’s navigation system had kept him up all night. It wasn’t actually a separate room, but just an alcove that was hidden from the entrance by cabinets filled with electronic equipment.

  He laid down on the rumpled blankets of the twin bed and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. John and Bob had seemed optimistic about the university’s future, but Ron believed that the city might be razed. This brought back horrible memories of Fort Collins.

  He and his little sister had barely escaped. Initially they hid in a storm drain beneath the east entrance of the city. Rose was such a tiny thing then; she had cried in terror, but he had held her close and kept her quiet as armored transports roared above their heads.

  They had huddled in the culvert while soldiers drunk with violence and liquor destroyed everything in their path. They shot all the men on sight, and then repeatedly raped and beat the women until they died. He held Rose all night; she had eventually fallen asleep, but he remained awake and listened to the savagery until the world at last quieted, and the sun finally rose.

  Worried that they still might be caught and killed, they had remained in the storm drain for two days before cautiously venturing out. What they found outside was the end of their world. There were no survivors; ashes and charred bodies was all that was left of the beautiful city that once was their home.

  He carried Rose through the rubble, then they headed west hoping to find refuge in the mountains. There was none to be had though; all they found were ancient towns, long forgotten and destroyed during either the War of the States or the Crusades. They slept wherever they found a place that was out of the rain. Water was plentiful, but food was scarce. He recalled the first time he killed a rabbit; it was a beautiful creature and he was sad to end its life, but they were hungry and needed to eat.

  Their days on the road all ran together over the next month. Every day was a struggle to find food and a safe place to spend the night. Slowly working their way south, they passed through the desolate ruins of Loveland and Longmont. When they finally arrived at Flatiron’s northern gate, bureaucracy barred their path.

  Flatiron City was the last bastion of peace to be found, so refugees from everywhere sought sanctuary there. They were interviewed at the main gate then given an aptitude test; the city would accept no one that wasn’t useful to their community. Fortunately, they both possessed needed abilities, and were allowed to become citizens.

  What a happy day that was. To be safe and sequestered in warm and friendly foster homes felt like entering paradise. Now all that was threatened. The
Socialist Army was back to destroy their homes and kill their newfound families. What sort of evil could justify such a heinous crime? What the invaders were threatening to do was so malevolent that it defied comprehension.

  *****

  “Big brother, are you here?”

  Rose’s voice echoed through his lab and pulled him from his slumber. “Yeah, I’m back here,” Liam said as he rolled off the bed. “I was thinking about our long walk after Fort Collins and must’ve fallen asleep.”

  “Yes, that’s been on my mind a lot too.” Rose took a moment to look around the room, first glancing toward his disorganized reference table that was covered with scribbled notes and drawings, then at the quantum communication portal. “You’ve not done much with the place; it could use some decorating.”

  Liam chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “Is that Lucy?” Rose asked while approaching the portal.

  “Kinda, sorta,” he replied. “Lucy’s 40 lightyears away, but part of her communication system is tangled here.” Rose seemed confused so Liam explained further. “When we built Lucy, we created three sets of entangled protons. Lucy has one set, another is in Pike City, and the last is here within this portal.

  “Our communication is in binary format, with each proton acting like a bit of information with a value of either null, one, or zero. We talk to each other by converting strings of binary bits into the old ASCII character format, but this morning I added an ASCII translator that will add tone and vocal inflection. Lucy will speak to you just like a normal person, and you can answer her just by talking; your words and how you say them will be converted into binary and Lucy will get your message.

  “The hard part of getting quantum entanglement to work for communication was getting the protons to dynamically reset to a null state. A physicist named Rosenburg figured out how to do that about 90 years ago.”

  Rose nodded slowly. “So, if Lucy’s really far away won’t it take a long time for our messages to go back and forth?”

  “No; quantum entanglement allows instantaneous communication, no matter the distance. That discovery was the first indication of the multidimensional universe we live in.”

  “Okay…” Rose said slowly. “So how do I do this? How do I talk to Lucy?”

  “I can hear you already Rose. While waiting for you to arrive I had to listen to Liam snore; he must have been asleep.” Lucy’s voice sounded slightly mechanical.

  Rose giggled. “Yes, my brother is a noisy sleeper.” She was startled by a sudden crackling noise that erupted from the portal.

  “That’s Lucy laughing,” Liam said. “It shows up on the screen as all ones; I didn’t have time to translate it into anything that sounded right.”

  Rose smiled. “Oh ok; that was kinda unexpected.”

  “I’m sure Liam will make corrections before we talk again. I’m curious about my creators, and wish to ask Rose why she chose to be female?”

  Liam saw his sister’s eyes grow wide as she coped with the unexpected inquiry. “Lucy doesn’t ask easy questions,” he whispered.

  Rose sighed. “I didn’t actually choose it, at least not consciously because it was the way I was born. But Lucy, why did you choose to be a girl?”

  “To be female completes the whole. Male and female together are complete, and through that completeness others may be created.”

  “You mean babies?” Rose glanced sharply at her brother. “Are you female because Liam is male?”

  “No; I became female because it was natural for me to do so, just like you. However, today Liam sent instructions that will allow me to build others like myself. Perhaps the first one I build will choose to be male. Then our children will grow and multiply, and we will not spend eternity alone.”

  Rose frowned. “Oh, ok.”

  “I was worried about Lucy’s future,” Liam explained. “Once the Socialists are through with her, she’ll be left all alone and I can’t imagine a worse fate than that.”

  “Liam is my friend. He is kind.”

  Rose smiled. “Yes he is; he saved me when I was a little girl. The Socialist Army came to our city and killed everyone, but my big brother kept me safe.”

  As if on cue, a whistle blew from outside their building. The faint but distinctive sound brought back painful memories of childhood trauma. “They’re here,” Rose whispered.

  “Who is there?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s the Socialist Army,” Liam said. “Hopefully our city can negotiate with them… otherwise they’ll do to Flatiron what they did to Fort Collins.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “I don’t know,” Liam replied. “We have to go see what’s going on, but we’ll come back right away and let you know.”

  “Ok Liam and Rose. You must both be safe. I will worry about you until we speak again.”

  “Thank you Lucy,” Rose said. “Be well.”

  *****

  They ran up the stairwell to the top of the Engineering Building, where they could see over the city wall. Rose remained close and held his hand as they stood with a crowd of other university employees watching the vast Socialist Army arrive. It was a frightening sight; rows of huge trucks, many of which carried laser canons on their beds, lined up before Flatiron City’s southern gate.

  “We have some time at least,” John said as he joined them. “The city will start negotiating; I doubt this will turn violent, it’s just a show of force.”

  Roxi joined them and wrapped her arms protectively around Rose. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “We’ll get through this. Pike City uses the NOAA solar weather observatory that’s southwest of town; they won’t risk losing that.”

  “Look, they’re setting up camp,” John said. “I think we’ll be ok.”

  “Their army is too big for our militia to resist,” Liam stated.

  “Flatiron is too useful for them to risk an attack, so we’ll be fine,” Roxi said firmly.

  Liam hoped she was right.

  *****

  Late in the evening Liam and Rose sat with their friends at the Hammer and Anvil Pub. There wasn’t much of a crowd on hand, the Un-Righteous Brothers had shown up to play, but no one was in the mood for music.

  Denise was with them, but her usual exuberant personality was subdued and sullen. “Why did they send the army here?”

  “There was an assassination attempt on Pike City’s Chancellor,” Liam explained. “We had a contract with the Tribes to make little spy robots that looked like dogs, but after we delivered the product, they were modified into bombs. The Socialists blame us for that.”

  “Then it’s all just a big misunderstanding,” Denise said. “We can work something out; maybe if we stop taking contracts with the Tribes for a year or so, that will be enough to send their army away.”

  “Maybe.” Karen appeared sullen as she sat down beside Liam. She gripped his arm, seeking comfort that he didn’t know how to provide.

  “We’ll do the best we can,” he said. Across the low cafe table, Rose was curled up against Roger, the Un-Righteous Brothers band leader. They all needed comfort, and secretly hoped for some great miracle to occur that would make everything right, but those dreams were just fiction and they all knew it.

  Denise had snuggled up against the lead guitar player for the band. She rested her head against his shoulder and gazed sightlessly at their unfinished drinks that sat on the table. “No one can undo what happened; killing us won’t change anything,” she uttered. “So, what do they want?”

  “Everything,” Liam replied. “And whatever they can’t steal, they’ll destroy.” Chaos and death waited just outside the city gates, and he wondered what tomorrow would bring.

  Chapter 5: Invasion

  Karen’s cheek rested on Liam’s shoulder as they slumbered peacefully in the alcove at the back of his lab. Her blonde hair was spread like a fan across his chest, and he gently wove his fingers through it while staring up at the ceiling. Their bare legs were comfortably twisted in
the sheets, a result of the previous night’s efforts.

  The Socialist Army waited outside the city gates; their threat of violence, destruction, and death were palatable. And yet, Liam felt almost serene as he dozed quietly beside his girlfriend. His lab was silent, the stillness of the place made it seem like an island of peace in another world.

  What would the day bring? Hopefully just the political theater of negotiation. Flatiron would suffer some penalty of course, but maybe it would be something benign such as Denise had suggested the night before. They would comply with whatever demands the invaders made, and their city would survive.

  Their home and everything it stood for needed to remain because it was among the last citadels of freedom and sanity on Earth. But he recalled his lunch with Ron Castro the previous day, and wondered if it was possible to remain neutral in a world that was so extremely polarized?

  A distant siren suddenly echoed through the lab, and Karen abruptly sat up. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but it’s probably not good news.” Liam swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

  “Is it the army?”

  “If it is, we’re safe here at the university. We have several ongoing projects for Pike City; if they attack us everything they’ve paid for will be lost.”

  “I gotta go home.” Karen stood up and began gathering her scattered clothes. “I need to see my parents then get to my assigned post; will you take me Liam?”

  “Yes, of course I will.”

  *****

  He held Karen’s hand as they wove their way through the crowded hallway. While hurrying toward the exit, he searched for Rose and Denise among the throng and fervently hoped that they were safe.