“You know, Amelia, disrespecting agents of the Mod by ignoring one’s presence will not strengthen your case.”
“Officers, about those irrational regulations?”
"A paradox. And one easily reconciled.”
“How so?”
“You are free to marry, but not to court.”
“Then how do I decide on a suitable partner?”
“You don’t. You can only agree to marry, not engage in selection. Under exigent circumstances, the Mod may propose a partner and your parents may consent.”
“I suppose you won’t propose Marco to them?”
“Your question reflects a sense of humor, a valuable asset to City. Graphic design may not be your suitable calling.”
“Must the Mod choose everything for me?”
“We are not here to discuss everything. Once you are a suitable age, you are free to choose anything you like.”
“You mean after I’ve spent four years doing college nightlies designed to help me internalize the rationale and cultivate skills only useful to its purposes?”
“You show much promise, Amelia. What a waste it would have been for you to marry this Marco and join the transits.”
“Who said we were going to do that?”
“It’s what Vidalia feared.”
“We had other plans.”
“So you were going to join some type of grandfathered enterprise?”
“You want to trap me into another confession?”
“We are only following the terms of the discourse set by you. You were either going to join the transits or not.”
“We were not going to become transitory. Why would we want to do that? It’s beautiful out there, but no place to live.”
“Then you wouldn’t wish a transitory life on your parents?”
“Why would they become transits? They have positions essential to the rationale. They remotely operate agricultural machinery necessary to produce food and actuate shipments to the citizens of City. You wouldn’t want to lose their productivity.”
“Your father is very productive.”
“My mother is, too.”
“She is when she is content, but personalized analysis predicts her productivity will fall to non-supportive levels if we are unable to convince you of the rationale, to re-socialize you. Under those circumstances, now that you are eighteen, we would be forced to commit you to life as a transit. Your parents are not grandfathered to a non-tech trade, so we couldn’t permit you to benefit from City without a corresponding contribution. We cannot force the rationale on you, but we would not be required to support you, either. You would be removed from your home, implanted with a track and restricted from ever returning to your parents flat or any other internal residence within City. We would, of course, monitor your movement. You would have forfeited the right not to be tracked by abandoning the rationale and breaking the social contract. If you were to meet with Marco subsequently, we could hold him accountable for the crimes against reason committed while you were still a student and citizen. He, too, would be tracked and committed to life as a transit. Your mother’s productivity would drop, and after the Mod refused to support an unproductive citizen, your father’s constitution would suffer at the thought of both a wife and daughter living transit. You see where this is going?”
“Maybe living transit wouldn’t be so bad for us.”
“That doesn’t seem to be your true feeling. The lack of security and environmental hazard alone could drastically shorten one’s expected lifespan, not to mention the reduced quality of life without ship or tech of any kind.”
“We could barter.”
“Only with other transits. No one would risk losing citizenship just to exchange for the primitive wares of a transit. And I can assure you the product, if it can even be called that, of the transit population is so inferior to actuated product that your family will be lucky if transit food only brings indigestion and disappointment as opposed to paralysis and a complete psychological breakdown.”
“Sounds like you are speaking beyond your knowledge.”
“If that is the kind of knowledge you desire for yourself and family, Amelia, then there is nothing we can do for you.”
“What are my alternatives?”
“Come with us to a school for troubled youth, a place where you can learn the rationale without temptation.”
“Wouldn’t the other troubled youths provide temptation?”
“There aren’t as many of them as you seem to imagine. After three generations in digital time, most of the young people today understand the benefits of reason, technology and the actuator. They understand the efficiencies that benefit the people of City and the fragile environment on which we still depend for food and water.”
“The environment is fine. You don’t hear me coughing, and you already know I’ve been going out.”
“For short spells, perhaps, but for all our efforts towards efficiency, we have a long way to go before full recovery.”
“What new offsets would you propose?”
“There are always new efficiencies to test, but that is for the Mod to decide. The patrol only administers the law. For now, we are here to discuss your introduction to a suitable institution for continued learning. If you consent, we will expunge Marco’s record. After you finish your degree, if you still wish to join him, you will be a college graduate and free to make that decision. Assuming you don’t pursue a transit’s life, your parents will continue as usual, earning shipments and enjoying their comforts. You will be serving the greater good for yourself and City. But if you rashly commit yourself and those you love to life as a transit, you can never return and neither can they. Shouldn’t they be free to make a choice without your actions determining their destiny?”
“They would be free to choose. Whatever I decide, my parents could continue being productive. I could continue living in their flat and stop going out. I could abide.”
“That’s not what the tests indicate. Your imagination is vivid, Amelia. So much potential, but in this case, your imagination would be proven wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“Think about it logically. Without our help, would you have the strength to avoid seeing Marco? Now that you have felt your heart beat under the intoxication of new love, could you resist temptation?”
“At least my parents could decide for themselves.”
“Don’t you know that their hearts beat for you? If you could not resist seeing Marco, how could they resist the temptation to spiral toward depression in your absence?”
“There must be medicines for that.”
“That, Amelia, is not a subsidized product, and not one they can presently afford. It seems they have spent dearly from Private earnings to provide you a memorable annual dance. A certain dress. Tell us how you would like to repay them.”
“If I complete my studies in this in-person school, will Marco’s record will be expunged?”
“Yes.”
“Could you record that?”
“Recording underway. Repeat the question.”
“Will you expunge Marco’s record if I complete my studies in the in-person school?”
“Yes.”
“Will you agree not to pursue Marco in the interim?”
“Yes. He will be placed on probation until you graduate, and assuming he does not commit further crimes against reason such as pre-courting other young women or persuading students to abandon their studies, we will not pursue young Marco.”
“He would never court another.”
“Then you have nothing to fear.”
“And I would be free to contact my family?”
“You would have complete access to tech. We would not want to stunt your social development.”
“And I would retain my privacy rights?”
“We cannot restrict those rights unless you first commit to life as a transit, but you must forfeit your right to any external travel until your studies a
re finished. Your parents will be provided two annual visits to the institution.”
“And you would post my whereabouts?”
“Your whereabouts and new contact information will be posted on City’s network for one hour after you agree to the terms and conditions of your institutionalization.”
“And then?”
“After expiration of the original post, your whereabouts will be classified for your protection and to remove any temptation Marco might have in engineering unauthorized contact. He would, however, be free to contact you via digital technology, a concession that would serve the greater good.”
“So that he too may internalize the rationale?”
“You are high speed beyond your years.”
“He will never do it. He will never contact me through chat or video chat or email.”
“Then perhaps he doesn’t love you after all.”
“Or perhaps our love doesn’t depend on tech. Perhaps our love is timeless.”
“Love may be timeless, Amelia, but your time is running out. Do you agree to the negotiated terms?”
“I so agree.”
“Then the terms have been recorded.”
Chapter 10
Where do I begin? How do I begin? How do I go back to a life of digits after losing a life of love?
They say, Amelia, complete your freshman year. Attend the annual dance, then only three more years to go. There will always be time for Marco. As if they know how slowly time passes without you. Missing you is what makes this an institution. Missing you makes me write old form. The physicality of writing on paper, the time it takes, reminds me of you.
Without hope of ocean or bottle, how can you respond to me like in one of the pre-digital tales you told me from the collector’s Stories of Hope? The memory of paper books lining the collector’s walls now seems like an imagined screensaver.
At first the institution resisted giving me paper and pen. They said it would compromise my rehabilitation. They said I should assimilate to efficiency and the rationale. “What could paper and ink generate but waste?” I resisted their logic by refusing to do my nightlies. My agreement with them did not require me to reach high standards as a student, only to commit to the institution until I completed college. Plenty of students refuse to do their nightlies. I’ve been hearing that in posts for years.
“Amelia,” they said, “you have always been different from other students. Even when under the influence of Marco, you have always done your nightlies. The patrol informed us of the great promise you showed during your dialogue with them. They said your logic was strong and that your potential for internalizing the rationale was great. They said you could one day be a troubleshooter within the Mod, negotiate dialogues for the patrol, or even legislate policy.”
Whatever my weaknesses in writing source code, they said my graphic design studies were hiding my true logical gifts. They said I was destined for more. At the highest level, tech and logic are of equal importance to the Mod, City, and the rationale. I began to wonder if I had underestimated myself or if they were merely manipulating their words to make me internalize the rationale.
Finally they gave me the pen and paper as a reward for returning to my studies. Teachers here deliver necessities to me by hand same as my parents did at home after receiving their nightly ship.
Students don’t have access to an elliptical. Otherwise the rooms are standard issue, hardly different than my room at home. Above my desk with flat screen and digit board, I sleep in a conforming bunk bed. A mini and headset are also provided so we can listen to music or video without disturbing the rooms around us. Other than bed sheets and the clothing I brought with me, the only other item in the room is a dresser for my clothes with a hang for dresses. They’ve provided that luxury.
To avoid the inefficiency of real time socializing, they’ve provided us each with our own bathroom. Surprisingly, my bathroom includes a shower and a tub, a luxury usually earned by the most productive parents. The water costs must be draining.
Please forgive the middle year humor. Sometimes I wish I could return to the simplicity of those years, though it would mean waiting five more years to meet you. My teachers said only the most promising reform students are assigned rooms with tubs; the others must earn the privilege as a product of their studies and progress with the rationale. I don’t know what to believe. It’s not a question I feel comfortable asking, not wanting to offend any of the other reform students. Most of them aren’t as lucky to have memories such as ours to keep them going. Most of them haven’t bothered to return my requests for contact.
One student, Skip, is being reformed for boarding. Not with digits, but on wheels. After his parents’ shipment arrived each night, he would escape into the night on his board and wheels. Skip would ride his board, on streets maintained for licensed trips and the patrol, doing tricks over curbs and in the air. It was only a matter of time before he was caught, warned and then re-caught. The tricks kept him going back for more. He said much depends on velocity, necessitating smooth roads, and he tried to describe the tricks for me. He even tried to send links to his pre-digital boarding heroes, but access had been blocked.
The tricks are hard to imagine without images, but he compared them to dancing in the air with the board as his partner. When the tricks are done right, the board becomes an extension of his feet.
He said it was like love in that way. He said there were different types of love, all kinds of trouble worth living transit for. In the end, the patrol persuaded him to attend the institution by warning what would happen to his parents. Their logic was strong; he couldn’t resist for long. Our parents have worked so hard for us. We are all they have. All I have is the memory of you and the picture you gave me.
I’ve folded it so small, hidden it so many times, that the picture has worn off or faded in spots. Stars in the worn paper mark your face as if you are under a night sky; only the background is blue from the collector’s painted walls. When I think of the collector’s flat, I remember the walls painted blue wherever not lined by books. It’s growing hard to remember the rest of his treasures. The night seems long ago and our time there brief. How is time passing for you? How do you feel when you go to our meets and I am not there? In my mind I see you placing “at” signs everywhere only to gain no response. I worry about the patrol using the symbol to locate you, forcing you into dialogue for new crimes against reason that would not be covered by my agreement. Whenever I review the record of my dialogue with the patrol, I discover loopholes only in their favor. I don’t suspect they would interpret the agreement to your advantage. If they caught you, would you submit to an institution so we could at least be standard together? Or would you commit to your pre-digital ideals and be tracked as a permanent transit? I love you, Marco, more than anything in this world, even more than the pre-digital ideals that inspired our meets.
After completing my studies, they say I will understand why we would be better off living together as standard citizens. They say you must possess valuable skills to have dodged the patrol for so long. I didn’t tell them how long that was or the adventures you have pursued. Sometimes I think they say things to see how I will react.
Teachers visit our room three times a day to deliver meals or fresh sheets, bathroom items and water. They stay long enough to answer questions in real time. Whatever the inefficiency of real time, that type of dialogue can be very convincing when you are not used to speaking with another person present, especially a teacher whose logic is strong.
To clear my head, I’ve begun avoiding speaking to my teachers in person. From now on, I will only speak to them via chat. I feel less intimidated that way, but wonder if my choice provides greater strength to their position. Am I conforming to the rationale by seeing the advantages of tech?
I would rather lead a pre-digital life with you, to live among the collection, to raise our child to be more independent from the Mod and Privates. Whatever our living conditions, I would rat
her live with you than apart. Living apart doesn’t feel like life at all. It feels like living transit. I don’t think I have the strength to live like this forever.
Marco, I know you love me. I am as sure of that as the picture in my hand, but if the patrol were to engage you in dialogue, would you choose rehabilitation if it meant the chance to communicate with me again? Or would you choose to live transit? I know that was never what you wanted, that you thought grandfathered practices could coexist with modern ones. I know you fear transitory life as much as me, but sometimes you would get a look in your eye when the wind made its sound through the tall grass or when the doves would coo. You would get a look like the stars cut in the picture I’m holding. I know you love me, Marco, but I hope the stars are not enough to make you fail the dialogue.
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