by J. R. Harber
Asa glanced at Eve, trying to catch her eye, but she was rapt, watching David as if his every movement meant something vital. Asa swung his arm up on the couch’s back behind Eve, circling her protectively without touching her. Eve did not seem to notice, but David’s eyes flickered past the gesture, taking it in as he had taken in everything they had done and said since they’d arrived.
David sat back in his chair and scrutinized them both in what Asa was beginning to see was his habitual fashion; then he stared off behind them with the same intensity.
“I do not know precisely what you have already been told,” he said at last. “I will ask you to be patient. What you were taught contains absolute truth as well as blatant lies, and the two are so tangled, so bound up with each other, that at first you may think I am telling you things you already know.”
“Okay,” Asa said.
“I was a relatively young man when the world as we knew it began to end. I was a computer engineer. I was on the brink of great achievement. I was married with a newborn child.”
“James,” Eve said. “Daniel’s father?”
David blinked. “No,” he said curtly and cleared his throat. “My personal life is not important to the story of what happened.”
Asa started to protest, but David kept speaking as if the interruption had not happened.
“The world as we knew it then was ending,” he went on. “It had been since before I was born.” He smiled suddenly. “We are all dying from the moment we are born,” he said, and he sounded as if he was quoting something. “No one likes to think of their own demise. We are horrified of ending. Our minds have mechanisms to prevent us from dwelling too much on the inevitable fact of our own deaths. Otherwise, we would accomplish nothing or go about our lives haunted by our own terror.”
“Some people do live like that,” Eve said quietly, and David gave her a sad smile.
“Unfortunately, some do. So, imagine a species and a civilization facing the same prospect: they will die, their children will not be born, and the few that will be born will survive only to find their legacy is suffering and extinction. Of course, people deny it is happening. ‘Don’t worry,’ they insist. ‘Everything will be fine. The children are the future. They will devise some new technology to clean up any mess that we create today for the sake of profits.’
“But eventually, denial became impossible. The end began. Everything started to happen at once. The oceans rose, and storms raged across the earth, bringing devastation.”
“We do know this,” Asa said quietly, and David nodded.
“I know. Let me continue. Communications were knocked back a century. We lost nearly all forms of contact. Storms and floods ruined crops, bringing famine. Famine forced people to flee their homes. Soon, people were crowded together in the only livable parts of the world, fighting for scarce food. Attempts to distribute scant resources turned into outright war, total anarchy.” David raised a hand as if anticipating interruption. “I know. You know this too. But what you cannot possibly understand is how fast it all happened: not in generations, but in the space of only a few years. To know it will happen eventually is one thing, but to see it happen almost overnight …” He trailed off, shaking his head.
David stood and went to the window, gazing out at the ocean. The sun was still high in the sky, and it glittered off the water. Asa watched it, then looked away, his eyes burning with the afterimage of the light. David stayed where he was, speaking to the glass.
“We saw this coming. We tried to prevent it, and I do not mean a small group. Most of the world knew what would happen, because it was as plain as day. Year after year, the direst predictions were proven out. But no one wants to believe they are dying. There was another reason too, a more sinister one, and this I believe you know too.”
He stopped and turned, his eyebrows arched, waiting for an answer.
“Greed,” Asa said, slightly irritated at being questioned on history that every child knew by the time they could read. David simply nodded and turned back to the window.
“Greed. There was a saying: ‘Knowledge is power.’ But back then, it was nothing of the kind. Information was everywhere. You could learn any subject known to man at the push of a button. But very few did. Money was the real power. Money created its own alternative truth. It was an age of appalling excess among the rich—they took more and more and more, stuffing it away for themselves while the masses struggled to survive. And when the end came, well, those were the people with the power to save the world. The billionaires, the politicians, the puppet masters of the human race. They were also the people who decided to do nothing and let the previous civilization burn to the ground. Who knows where we might all be if they had chosen to try to fix the broken system rather than hit the reset button?” He fell silent and didn’t move a muscle.
“David?” Eve prompted after a moment.
He turned back to them and sighed, then returned to his chair and sat down. “I spend too much time alone,” he said. “It makes me dwell on things.”
“Some things are worth dwelling on,” Eve said quietly, and he smiled faintly.
“No wonder Daniel liked you,” he murmured. “Where was I? I tell this story in my head so often I get lost in it.”
“You said something about a reset button?” Asa said, and David nodded.
“Thank you. When it became clear that we had failed, that we could no longer stop what had been set in motion, some gathered—the great minds of the time: scientists, of course, but more than that. Great thinkers, leaders, and several of the very wealthy who were also humanitarians, those of the rich who were seeking a solution to end the suffering like the rest of us.” His voice took on a hard edge of irony. “Because, of course, nothing could be accomplished back then without a great deal of money.”
“The Founders. You were among them?” Eve asked hesitantly, and he shook his head.
“No. I was not a great philosopher, just a computer geek. They needed technological infrastructure, and I was called in to do it. But that was later, when their intention had already been set in motion, when the plan was already in place. I’m a Founder in name only.”
“The plan for us?” Asa asked.
David made a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh, then shook his head and continued. “In a way,” he said dryly. “The Founders—they named themselves that, by the way—their debate began with finding a solution that would bring the world back to normal and ensure humanity’s survival. How to gather surviving populations and provide enough infrastructure to help everyone survive. This was very early on. Hundreds of millions had died already, but the earth’s population was still over seven billion. Many people who could still be saved.
“The Founders argued and ran computer simulations. They debated infrastructure and hypothesized over a thousand possible iterations of what might happen next, and then rather quickly, they came to their ultimate decision: they would do nothing at all.”
Asa and Eve glanced at each other, then looked back at David, who was watching them expectantly.
“But they’re the Founders,” Asa said. “Without them we wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s true. They planned this society: everything from the size of the ideal community to the age of childbearing. Everything modeled to its purest ideal and pragmatic in every way. But before they could do that, they had to wait out the storms and wars and famines. And once the earth had stabilized, once the population had dropped to a manageable level, they put their plans into action. At that time, they became the Founders, and the saviors of those who were left.”
“Right.” Asa nodded. “We know that too. But they didn’t do … nothing.” Puzzled, he turned to Eve, and she met his eyes with a stricken look. “I don’t understand, do I?” he asked slowly, and she shook her head.
“Asa,” she said, her voice thin, as if it might fade away. “Did you hear what he said? ‘The saviors of those who were left.’ He means that they let everyon
e else die. They just sat back and … watched while billions of people starved and drowned and murdered each other.”
“What?” Asa stared at her. “No, that’s not what he means, Eve. The world was in chaos—there was nothing they could do.”
“Ask him,” she said tightly, nodding toward David.
Asa turned to the old man, who was watching them with grave eyes.
“The world was in chaos,” David said heavily. “Some say the seeds of this anarchy were planted many years before, when the powerful let weapons inundate our society. But aside from the violence, there were many things that could have been done. Flood zones could have been evacuated. The world’s population could have been organized to migrate safely to higher ground. Farming and transport of food could have been arranged to feed the shifting populations. Alternate communication systems could have been put into place to maintain contact with other parts of the world. Most obviously, clean energy could have been put to use, both to mitigate the damage already done to our environment and to ensure that people would still have electricity, clean water, hospitals. There were many more things that could have been done that were not, and they had the ability to do all of them. So, Eve is correct.
“But they wanted to build a perfect society from scratch, one free of the problems and religious ideologies that had led to the destruction of the old civilization. They believed the perfect society could only be achieved with a small fraction of the population. A scattered people so brutalized by catastrophes, disease, and violence that they would gladly renounce the shackles of the past and embrace the new order wholeheartedly. So, the Founders allowed the destruction to continue unchecked until they had what they needed.”
“And where did you come in?” Eve asked.
“I began building the computer system, the Network, once they settled on a plan. It changed as time went on, of course, but the basic framework was there from the beginning.”
“Why did you agree to do it, if you thought what they were doing was wrong?” Asa asked, distressed.
“I didn’t think they were wrong,” David said. “I was not among them at the beginning, and if I had been, I doubt I would have approved of their decision. But once it had been decided, once it was the path we were taking, I didn’t oppose it. You see, just like them, I had watched as the powerful allowed catastrophe and ruin to ravage the planet for their own selfish ends. I witnessed the carnage of the old civilization.
“I did not want the loss of life to continue, but if it was going to, then it made sense that whatever came next should be thoughtfully planned. Planned by people not motivated by greed. Planned so that no one could amass obscene wealth or benefit from holding others down in poverty for generations, so that everyone would have what they needed, so that we would truly all be on equal footing from birth. Totally pragmatic and completely unapologetic.
“If you are a good person, you have everything you need. If you’re a bad person, you are removed from normal society, as well as the future gene pool. Give the good people universal income so they can enjoy life and raise a proper family. Send the bad people to Work. A true meritocracy bound together by an unbreakable sense of community. We’re all in this together. It was a stunning vision, and I became as true a believer as any of them.
“The individual citizens of our new society would use technology only sparingly, as the social ramifications were proven too dangerous by the old way of life. However, our new world would be run using a sophisticated set of programs. So, as the other Founders drafted philosophies of governance and population control, environmental conservation, resource distribution, and justice, I created the technological infrastructure to implement it—the Network, a system that could steward our society perfectly, and peacefully, for a thousand generations. That was the key, you see. Human history shows failure after failure when it comes to living together in harmony. The intent is often good—whole civilizations were built in the past using the most noble of principles. Yet always, the original intent crumbles beneath the inexorable weight of human fallibility. Greed, lust for power, the desire to subjugate—they always return, eventually. So, I was given the task of removing that possibility. I did so.
“When life began anew, I chose to live in the world we built. I wanted to see it from the inside—to be part of it. Most Founders felt otherwise, and over time I diverged from them in my vision for the world. I maintained access to the Network, which was necessary for any repairs or unexpected glitches, but I soon saw there was other work to be done. Several years into our great experiment, I broke with the rest of the Founders for good. We argued bitterly over the direction my work was taking, and an unspeakable transgression was made.
“But they could not take away my access to the Network—they didn’t dare—and when my grandson showed an aptitude for the work I have devoted my life to, I shared my knowledge with him eagerly. We continued to work together even after I was sent here—at least until …” He broke off. He was knotting his hands together, gripping them so hard it looked painful, and now he closed his eyes and sighed deeply.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Asa said awkwardly, the words falling flat even as he spoke them.
David shook his head and stood, going back to the window, where the sun was sinking lower in the sky, tinting the sparkling water orange.
“How …” Eve hesitated, and David turned around.
“Go on,” he said. He strode over to the desk and opened Daniel’s computer. “I’m listening,” he assured her as he quickly typed something, then went to the workbench along the wall and rummaged through a small box labeled “Odds & Ends.”
“You said you eliminated the possibility of human fallibility entering into … the State,” Eve said, clearly choosing her words carefully. “Is that right? You mean greed and revenge? Things like that?”
“Yes,” David said. He snatched an object from the box and nodded, satisfied, then returned to the computer. The thing was another, smaller strip of metal, and he slid it into a slot on the side of the machine, then looked up at Eve. “I’m sorry, my dear. You were asking me something important.”
“I don’t know if it’s important or not,” she said quickly.
“You want to know how I eliminated human weaknesses as variables.” He pressed a series of buttons on the computer keypad, and it spat the strip of metal back out with a low-pitched hum. David closed the computer carefully and came back to sit facing them. “Well, I’ve been debating whether to tell you,” he said.
“We want to know,” Eve said with a quiet intensity, and he smiled at her, his eyes crinkling at the edges.
Then he sobered, and turned his attention to Asa. “What about you?”
“Yes, I want to know too,” Asa said with a glance at Eve.
David nodded. “It’s not a flawless innovation, but I do think it’s quite brilliant. He is effortlessly authoritative yet perfectly empathetic—he makes those who follow him see the best in themselves. A leader who inspires his people not to fight but to lift one another up for the greater good. Because of him, we truly are all in this together,” he finished pensively.
“The Chancellor?” Asa blurted out. “Are you talking about the Chancellor?”
David nodded. “No human being could inspire as he does—keep the peace as he does. Human leaders grow bored, fall in love, have children who usurp their power.
“There was a saying, long ago: ‘Only the one who does not desire power is fit to wield it.’ It was a witticism, an impossibility. Yet that is precisely what we created with the Chancellor. Everything about him was meticulously designed, from his face to his voice to his speeches to every minute facet of his personality—every gesture, no matter how small. It was all compiled using the best traits from many of the great leaders throughout history—some you would admire, if you learned of them, and others who would strike terror in your heart even from the grave. Yet he cannot be vengeful or proud or greedy. He cannot desire anything except the well-bein
g of the people. He does not desire power, and thus he is fit to wield it.”
Asa looked at Eve. What? he mouthed, and she shook her head, wide-eyed.
“Are you saying the Chancellor isn’t … a person?” Eve said at last.
David smiled. “No. He is so much more than a person.”
“Then … what is he?” Asa asked, incredulous.
This man is insane, he thought, but David’s calm countenance and reasonable tone made his wild claims seem believable.
As if Asa had spoken aloud, David chuckled. “I know I must sound insane, and I am sorry. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you the truth about the Chancellor.”
“Well, you have, so answer Asa’s question,” Eve said, but she sounded more curious than irritated.
“He is a highly specialized computer program,” David said.
“But I’ve seen him,” Asa said. He was beginning to suspect the man was enjoying dragging this out, and it gave him the urge to force it to a conclusion.
“What you have seen is a holographic projection.”
“That’s impossible,” Asa retorted. “I’ve seen him! I’ve seen him with people, real people. My father’s brother was on one of his broadcasts, where he introduces people to all of us. Loads of people have been on those broadcasts. You can’t tell me they were all holographic too.”
“I’m sure your uncle is not a holograph,” David said with a tone of mild amusement.
“If what you’re saying is true, someone would have noticed,” Eve said.
“He’s a very good holographic projection,” David said reasonably. “Unless you tried to touch him, you would never know the difference, even from a few feet away.”
Asa looked at Eve, but she appeared just as perplexed. She sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “If what you’re saying is true—if—then who controls him? You? The other Founders? Are they all alive here in Sanctuary too?” David laughed aloud, and she stood, glaring down at him. “You know you’ve told us something that’s extremely hard to believe, right?”