Absolution

by Peter Smith

  When you go through a trauma like that, it’s hard to alter your behavior. She smiled as she saw children playing at a baseball diamond that had been built toward the outer edge of the community. That was something she hadn’t thought to include in her settlement designs, outdoor recreation. The towers had tennis courts and swimming pools, but nothing with enough space to knock a ball over a fence. The kids stopped what they were doing, looking up and pointing to the transport as it continued its banking maneuver to reach the established landing field.

  They swooped in low, nearly at tree top height as they came into the small clearing where vertical takeoff and landing aircraft were expected to set down. The Marines had been bringing people from the North West to this settlement for years now and the landing area was well maintained. It might not have been every day that they received visitors by air, but they were prepared to receive them.

  A group of adults were walking from the tree line, one of them was armed but the rifle he carried was lazily cradled in his arms. She knew the defensive systems of the transport were tracking him and she was more concerned for him if he were to attack them than she was for her own safety. And then there was Toby. He stood in front of the ramp as it lowered, his bulk shielding both her and Sean from any potential threat. The three of them walked down the forward ramp, the one placed beneath the nose of the transport.

  Within seconds the welcoming party was greeting them. Sean stepped forward as the five men and women of the community eyed Tobor warily. They had all likely been prey to drones similar to his model. They may have even lost family and friends at their mechanical hands. But this was a different time, and people could adapt. While they might not trust her or her robotic companion, they understood that this place, its vertical farms; 3D printers and raw material resource depot had been left by her for them.

  So she and Tobor were permitted to come here, albeit likely grudgingly. Sean shook hands with the two people that were closest to them. Maria’s eyes went to the man with the rifle as she inspected each of their hosts. He flashed one of the most genuinely happy smiles back at her. The man’s rainbow colored teeth caught her attention, and she wondered what could have possessed him to make such a cosmetic choice. A voice she hadn’t heard in decades demanded her focus.

  Shaking Sean’s hand, was George Creighton, the former head of the Vancouver Spire and a man she had long thought was dead, “Uncle George?” She asked, shocked to see him.

  He looked at her, a sheepish smile stretching over his face, “Hi Maria”

  She lunged at him, her arms wrapping around his and pinning them to his sides, “I’m so glad that you survived!”

  She could see one of the other men take a step forward. She felt George’s hand wave them away as he spoke, “So am I.” He said with a laugh.

  She released her grip on him and his right hand moved to his bicep, rubbing it’s side, “Nicole?” She blurted out, “What about Mark and Stephanie?”

  He smiled again, “Nicole is fine, she’s back at the tower and the kids are all grown up and just like you have kids of their own.”

  Joy like she hadn’t experienced in some time filled her. A small piece of the guilt she bore had lifted some in that brief instant, “How did you manage it? I mean, dad fed me some bull about how the US Army had killed you all during ‘The Fall’ but after I figured out who he was, I assumed that he had been the one to do it.”

  He nodded his head, “He tried” George looked around, as if making sure her father wasn’t lurking in the tree line.

  “Then how did you do it, he was successful in getting rid of all the other Spire families in the America’s.”

  George’s foot absentmindedly probed at the dirt landing pad, “One benefit of everyone thinking you aren’t that smart is that they underestimate you. I was always worried that your dad was planning something bigger than what he was letting the board know about. I didn’t even want to go along with his original idea but I knew that if I said anything either he or Chen would kill my family.”

  “So what did you do?” Sean asked, his curiosity peaked by the insight into the world before it ended.

  “While the fighting was happening, I used one of the genetics facilities in the Vancouver Spire to create cloned material for my family.”

  “You cloned yourselves?” Sean asked, his eyebrows rising.

  “Well… no… not really,” George said in his sheepish way. “What I did was, I grew biological matter, not entire bodies, that wasn’t necessary. Then I used the manufacturing facility in the basement to produce powerful enough explosives and set them to go off all over the entire Spire, including on primary supports.”

  “You made it look like your Spire had been attacked and you had all been killed.” Maria said, astounded.

  “What about your building staff?” Sean asked, his tone pointed.

  George motioned to the men and women around him, “Feel free to ask them.” He said with a smile.

  Maria looked at the others standing right beside George and they nodded their heads in response to her silent question, “How… did you manage it?” She asked George.

  “I ordered the entire staff to abandon the building once the fighting started, but I shared with my executive assistants a location that I had been preparing as a shelter outside of Vancouver. They had to share the information by paper to keep it off the network. Then when I thought it was the right time I had my family leave, placed our surrogate material in the right areas of the Spire and blew its supports.”

  She nodded her head, “And because of the pulverization of the biological matter and the fires that raged, my dad wouldn’t ask too many questions about if you and your family had been in the building.”

  He nodded, “Pretty much. That and there was a lot of fighting happening throughout the Americas. Your dad liked to perpetuate the idea that he was aware of everything and anything, but as things got more and more complex he started missing things.”

  She flashed back to the scar on the back of her father’s neck, where he had placed the neural link that allowed him to more easily access the data of their empire and issues orders to its millions of drone warriors. A similar device now linked her mind to the Empire’s network. Already she could feel access to simple systems being opened to her by Toby. Her father had likely started development and testing of the technology after ‘The Fall’. If what George was saying was true, he couldn’t have allowed for such a large gap in his abilities to exist.

  She glanced at the smiling rainbow toothed man once more, wondering if he had worked for Mr. Creighton.

  George motioned toward the settlement, “Sean said that you wanted to see the settlement?”

  Sean shook his head, “I said she needed to see one of them.”

  George looked confused, “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “No, it's just that with recently global events I wanted to let her experience a positive moment.” Sean said, intentionally leaving out the details of her personal crisis.

  George nodded, “Well I’m always happy to be of service to our Marine partners,” he then looked from Maria to Tobor, “I can’t assure you that everyone will react well to your presence Maria, or your traveling companion.”

  She looked back at Tobor, “Toby, can you stay with the transport?”

  Tobor’s head shifted down toward her, “That is not advisable, an increase in distance will create a delay in my ability to reach you should you require protection from unforeseen threats.”

  She smiled at the robot, “I understand, please stay.”

  Toby nodded it’s head, “I will be available to you at a moment's notice. Please maintain an open audio visual channel with myself.”

  “A reasonable request.”

  “I can protect my wife you know.” Sean said annoyed.

  Tobor’s head swung toward Sean, “You are unable to best your son at Hide and Seek.”

  Sean’s jaw tensed, “He’s tiny and can get into unexpected places
.”

  “Your inability to anticipate where your opponent may choose to lie in wait is one of one hundred and thirty-two reasons you are currently assessed at being seventeen percent effective.”

  George watched the exchange, confused. Maria waved dismissively at him as Sean stood up straighter and stepped toward her companion. She grabbed her husband's arm and directed him down the path, so they could leave the landing zone and enter the settlement.

  “I mean it, I’m going to turn him into cans for something.” Sean muttered as they and the group of residents walked down the path.

  “Threaten to transfer his operating system to the Spire’s waste reclamation unit, that always works.” She said, a smile tugging at her lips.

  He looked at her with the same expression of confusion that George had on his face a moment earlier.

  The walk to the settlement proper took only a few minutes, but it was pleasant to walk through the woods in the early morning. The air was crisp and filled with the sounds of birds singing back and forth to one another. The local wildlife must have grown accustomed to the regular arrival of aircraft as they had returned to their perches quickly after the transport had touched down.

  The path they walked was made entirely of compressed dirt and she wondered how it faired with inclement weather, she looked toward George as the entire group strolled down the path, “Why aren’t you using the landing pads on top of the towers?”

  “We only let aircraft we are certain are friendly land there, everyone else lands on the outskirts of the town.”

  She looked back toward the landing area, wondering who other than she or the Marines had airborne assets she didn’t know about. It was possible the Marines had figured out a way to keep some of their flights over the continent from being detected by her but they would qualify as friendly aircraft, “George, who else has landed here?”

  He laughed, “Other than the regular Marine visit, you’re the first.”

  “So why the extra security procedure?”

  He smiled at her, something she remembered him doing a lot when she was a child. She was glad to see that the end of the world hadn’t beaten that out of him, “It’s not always going to be that way Maria, eventually we and the other settlements will start building aircraft to travel across the continent. I enjoy being proactive.”

  “That makes sense,” she said, “I’ll have to come up with a protocol to manage those flights once they happen.”

  One of George’s aides spoke up, “Not going to let us figure it out on our own, huh?”

  Maria felt shame that she had automatically made the decision for how such a system should be run. Of course the people needed the opportunity to develop and run the systems themselves, who was she to tell them what to do. She nearly apologized when George turned and smirked at the aide, “Sometimes it’s necessary for those in power, the ones that have the bigger picture, to decide and for those choices to be followed.”

  The aide nodded at this, “So when do you know it’s right to make that decision?” Maria asked.

  “The larger it is, the more complex it is and the greater the likelihood for harm or loss of life. If something meets those qualifications, that’s when you need someone to come in and present a clear vision or pathway to achieve a goal. If you were to establish a protocol for how civilian aircraft were to behave in the airspace of North America, it would save use the trouble of having to work it out ourselves. There are dozens of different settlements and eventually hundreds of cities will exist, that’s a lot to coordinate when each of them will have a unique viewpoint.”

  “So you’re saying it’s okay to remove choice from the people?” She asked, it seemed too close to what her father believed and practiced.

  As if reading her mind George continued, “Just because your dad decided for all humanity doesn’t mean that anyone else who tries to create clarity and organization will do the same as him. You can create the rules, and people still have a choice. They can agree with them, bitch and complain about them or analyze them and try to make them more efficient. They do that by choosing to communicate with you. How you receive their ideas, suggestions and complaints is a choice for you to make and shows everyone the leader you are. Do you listen to them, change your behavior and rules to create the most efficient and egalitarian outcome possible, or do you ignore them and shape the rules to benefit you and those loyal to you.”

  He stopped and looked at her, “It is’t the exercise of power that is the problem. It’s how that power is applied and the intent behind its use.”

  She blinked, “You said people thought you weren’t that smart, they were definitely wrong.” She stated.

  “Well thanks Maria, coming from the most powerful person on the planet, that’s a bit of a compliment.”

  She shifted on her feet, uncomfortable at the power that she wielded. Maria looked up at the large warehouse building they were walking alongside of “So are you expanding your food production facilities because you are providing resources to the Marines?” Maria asked, trying to change the subject.

  George nodded his head, and they began walking along the expanded warehouse that housed the vertical farms and meat growth facilities that fed this settlement, “Yes, we don’t manufacture any weapons though.”

  “How did you know that I would ask that?”

  “Because it’s what your father would have asked and you’re a lot like him.”

  She went cold with the observation and she could feel Sean’s grip tighten against her palm, “That’s actually the reason we’re here, I wanted Maria to see the good she’s done in this world and to realize that she isn’t like her father.” Sean explained.

  George looked at them for a moment, thinking about his words carefully, “That’s not possible though, she is like her father, but that’s because he raised her. When ever you share proximity with that powerful of a personality it leaves its mark on you. Heck, my interactions with him left me changed. I never would have developed to be who I am now, if I hadn’t met him.”

  Maria’s head dipped slightly as they walked and George continued, “Oh but don’t take that to mean that you are your father. I mean, aside from the obvious fact that you two aren’t the exact same person. While you two have similar thought processes that’s just it, they’re similar, not the same. I can promise you this, your father never would have built a place like this unless it served a purpose, and that would have been to eradicate survivors from his war and plague.”

  Sean smiled, relief likely flooding him after the conversation turned the way he wanted it to, “How many people live here now?”

  “In this settlement, a little over a thousand live in the towers and the homes within our declared limits. However, there are a couple hundred more that are homesteading in the area and come in regularly to trade and get updates on what’s happening around the globe.”

  Sean looked at her, “This place wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for you Maria. You made this happen.”

  In the distance she could see the kids at the baseball field, pressed up against the fence, trying to get a glimpse of her. She didn’t know if it was fear that kept them from giving in to their curiosity and coming over to speak to her or if they had been told to keep their distance. Sean followed her gaze, “Those kids are living a normal life because you’ve created a haven, not just here but throughout all the Americas. None of the other Spire families would have done this, not even the Berlin or London spires created free communities within their territory.”

  “What are you worried about Maria?” George asked.

  She looked down, not knowing what to say, “It’s not a concern, it’s that I know that I’m responsible for all the ill that led to these people having to live here. This settlement, for all the good that I’ve done,” she placed air quotes around the word good, “was to make up for my original sin.”

  George scoffed, “This, all of this, is your fault?”

  “I was born.”

  Geor
ge let out a slight laugh, and she felt a thread of annoyance work it’s way into her thoughts, “Maria, your dad did this because he was mentally ill and a megalomaniac. If you hadn’t been born it would have been something else that inspired him.”

  He sighed, “Maria, is that why you’ve tried to stay on the sidelines for this conflict?”

  “You know about that?”

  A laugh came from behind them and she turned to see Rainbow Smile looking at her, “Everyone knows about that hun.”

  “Then you know that thousands died because of my choices.” She said, looking toward the East. She didn’t know why it felt right to look that way, but it did. As if she could somehow see along the curvature of the Earth and to Berlin, a continent and ocean away.

  “Did you launch a chemical weapons attack against a civilian population center?” George asked.

  “Well, no, but” She began, only to be interrupted by George.

  “But nothing. You are not God Maria, you are not responsible for the actions of others. You are only responsible for yours. You tried to stop the attack on Berlin. You have tried to drag Trotsky to the negotiation table for months,” George said. She held back on explaining that General Kellen had been just as intransigent but she understood that given Mr. Creighton’s relationship with the Marines that such a statement might not go over well.

  “You make decisions for the right reasons. You do so to help people and not just yourself. You have no justification for blaming yourself for the actions of others.”

  “Okay, lets say I agree with you, if I force myself into a situation, doesn’t that take away their right to choose? Aren’t I behaving just like my father?”

  George shook his head, “Maria, choice is complicated. For example,”, his hand swept the settlement, “The way you designed this place dictated how we would live.”

  She cocked her head to the side, perplexed, “How?”

  “You built multistory buildings for us to reside in, provided fully functioning vertical farms and meat production facilities. Once you did that you were telling us how we should live our lives.”