Lovers of Babel

by Valerie Walker

  I feel that a book that discusses the importance of free living should never reach the hands of any human. This book could ruin the system and drive us into an all-out war.

  I continued my search for information about this dangerous book. I came across all sorts of documents that expressed an equal amount of contempt and love for the mysterious text. Then, there was an article from a newspaper formerly known as The New York Times entitled: Family Tries to Preserve the Book of Wisdom Despite Rumors of Extinction.

  The article chronicles the life of a religious family from the southern part of the former United States. The father preached in a Pentecostal church and specialized in the art of spontaneous exorcism. The article said that his exorcisms were opened to the church. If anyone from the congregation felt an evil affliction that needed healing, they would simply walk to the pulpit and preacher Alex Leon would call the demon out. Leon’s church would grow tremendously throughout his thirty years of pastoring until 2020 when his church building was burned down by a group of religion terrorists. The family lost everything.

  The article goes on to say that, despite the fire that consumed the three-story Wisdom in the Heights Pentecostal church, pastor Alex Leon refuses to lose faith. “I grew up in the church and always knew I’d be a preacher someday. I have a responsibility to my family and congregation to stay strong and continue on through this ordeal,” Leon said. When asked why more than half of his congregation never came back to help rebuild the church, Leon who is now sixty-years-old said, “We are living in scary times now, times where even the believers are turning their backs on the truth. The status of the church is hanging by a thread.” Authorities said the Book of Wisdom was one of the main reasons why religion terrorists wanted to destroy the church. “They despise all that’s in it,” Leon said, “and they don’t want it around anymore.” And neither does sixty percent of the world’s population who don’t own a Book of Wisdom, according to 2021 census data taken from the Bureau of Vital World Statistics. It’s a fact that the majority of the world could care less about the Book of Wisdom and don’t think reading it is as important as it once was, but Leon and his family want to try and preserve the value of the infamous book by keeping one very old copy enclosed in a glass case. “It can’t die out. It’s impossible. The world needs this book more than you can imagine. If ever it were to cease to exist so would all moral thought. There would be utter chaos in our streets,” Leon said. The majority of citizens in the U.S. would disagree with Mr. Leon’s sentiments and would claim that the world doesn’t need a book to show them what true morality and wisdom is; rather the truth is found within. At least, this is what the group Alchemists Anonymous said…. No matter what side one may choose, the fact still remains that the printing of the Book of Wisdom is rapidly decreasing by the hour. According to experts of ancient texts, by the end of 2055 the book will no longer be printed or available in stores and the only texts that will exist will be the ones that only one-sixteenth of the world’s population own.

  I was dumbfounded that a single book could cause this much controversy. Whether you agreed with what was in the book or not, the Book of Wisdom was powerful. I typed the name Alex Leon into the search. Alex was surely dead, but I wanted to find out if he was successful in preserving the book.

  I found only one other source that talked about Alex Leon. It was a dissertation entitled, The Infamous Book and the Mind: How the Book of Wisdom Inspired Cognitive Confidence and was written in 2111by a distinguished psychologist named Graham Stein. In the dissertation, Graham claimed to have used Alex’s aged book for his research after searching for it for several years. He eventually found it in a run-down local museum in Mississippi where it was being kept in a refrigerated basement, still inside the glass case. Graham planned to return it once his research was over, but by the time his dissertation was complete and was ready for review, the world was preparing to end. It didn’t say in the dissertation whether or not Graham was able to successfully return the Book of Wisdom, but I feel that this is the lead I’ve been waiting for.

  I used a database called Citizen Quest to see if Graham made it to the Underground before the apocalypse. I found five Graham Steins each one living in a different part of the Underground. Then, I came across a Dr. Graham Stein who lived in Underground Columbus, Ohio and was a professor of psychology and other behavioral sciences. This was a perfect match. I printed the page with Dr. Stein’s information and made my way back to the atrium of the Universal Archives.

  When I made it back to the front, Frita was explaining the ceiling mural to a young family that seemed to be distracted by the commotion of the festival still going on outside. As I began to walk out the doors, Frita hollered at me to get my attention.

  Then she addressed her guests.

  “I’m sorry. Pardon me for a moment.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” She asked.

  “Well, I found enough to continue my search. Thank you.”

  “Ah, before you leave I wanted to tell you something that I forgot to mention about the book.”

  I asked her to continue.

  “Fifteen years before the apocalypse there was a civil war in the place known as the United States of America. The war was over the extinction of the Book of Wisdom. The fanatics of the text were up in arms about how the government stopped the purchase and sell of the book. They claim that this violated their rights as citizens. The government claimed that the ban on the Book of Wisdom had nothing to do with rights, but that they were wasting billions of dollars a year on printing when the books weren’t even being bought. The fanatics didn’t buy the government’s explanation so they took to the streets. They raided government headquarters all around the country demanding that the book be sold again and that the right to sell privately be restored. At some point the protests became violent and the police had to intervene. Even though the fanatics were outnumbered they continued to fight. One thousand people died at the hands of law enforcement. After the war was over, the government wrote the Book of Wisdom into law that no man, woman, or child should ever speak of the book again. It became illegal to possess it. This is the reason why nobody cares about your book Amias. The Book of Wisdom is illegal.”

  I was chilled to the bone. How can the government make a book illegal?

  The idea of rights and natural rights isn’t new to me. I’ve read books about the founding of the Americas and how the laws were founded upon the idea that every human being had natural rights that had been given to them by birth. Of course in the Underground those rights are not taken into account. There’s no room for individualism in the new system, but the fact that the old government would impose a law on its people that violated their freedom made my curiosity erupt. That book must contain powerful insight that threatened the state of governance in the old age.

  “Are you telling me that that book is still illegal now?” I asked.

  “Once Armageddon hit a lot of things changed in our world including laws, but the Book of Wisdom has never been mentioned as far as I know. I think it’s because everything was destroyed in the disaster and even before the apocalypse there were only a handful of books left. The Authorities didn’t think it was important to write the Book of Wisdom into law, but that doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten about it. Most of those who are in charge of maintaining law and order in the Underground were alive in the old world. They are the ones who’ve read the contents of the book and know of its power. You should be very careful with your search and if you happen to find the copy, don’t tell a soul.”

  I plan to do just that. I’ll find the book and read it from front to back committing it to memory. I will then use the wisdom I gain to lead this new civilization into a new era. Of course I could never share this book with anyone else because it’s much too dangerous. The wisdom and understanding would spread and it could cause the complete destruction of the system. However, I could use the Book of Wisdom to increase my influence. The Underground needs a lea
der like me and I will use this ancient device to get what I’ve always craved.

  Power.

  July 7, 2134. Aboard lightning rail from Ohio – After my trip to Vatican City I decided to try and find Dr. Stein. Once I made it back home from Rome I booked another lighting rail ticket for the summer to see the doctor who, at the time, was teaching at University.

  My train was supposed to depart at 5 p.m. that day and would get to Ohio by 8 p.m. with no stops in between. I had a few hours to spare before leaving so I decided to do some last minute research on the Book of Wisdom. I turned on my Apple holopad and immediately felt a wake of exhaustion sweep over me. I realized I hadn’t slept for 24 hours since I was cramming to finish my thesis. I decided to forego my research and opted for a quick cat nap instead.

  The feeling of cold slime running down my cheek woke me. I wasn’t pleased to see that it was my hairless cat licking my face. I opened my eyes still groggy from sleepiness and looked over at the floating numbers hovering on my nightstand. I shot up from my bed. It was 4:40!

  I threw on a pair of shoes and placed my holopad inside of my small suitcase. I grabbed my wallet and ran out the door. Once I got to the lightning rail boarding station the train was about to depart.

  I shouted at the nearest train attendant to hold the train for me. I was running toward the attendant who was just about to board.

  “I have a ticket!”

  “Sir, tickets are supposed to be checked at guest services outside the terminal,” the attendant said.

  “Oh, please make this one exception for me. Please, I am going on important research and can’t afford to miss this train. Here, I have my ticket and it has been paid for.”

  I was begging her.

  She paused and looked at me inspecting my sincerity.

  “Okay, but you must ride in the caboose. There aren’t enough seats left. Yours has already been taken.”

  “The caboose?”

  The back of the train was where the crew slept and ate. It didn’t look nearly as immaculate as the passenger freight cars. The inside of the caboose was wood grain from floor to ceiling instead of all white like the passenger cars. The crew slept on bunk beds that were lined up towards the very back. The dining area was very small and during meal time the booths were packed with hungry workers. Despite the lackluster living conditions, the crew seemed lively and upbeat, a stark contrast to the stuffy ambiance of the main rail cars.

  The train attendant and I boarded the caboose and the train took off immediately. There was a handful of staff workers sitting down in the booths looking at me.

  “Hey guys, this is, uh,” the attendant looked at me.

  “Amias.”

  “Amias, and he was late boarding the train so I’m doing him a favor and letting him ride with us,” she explained to her colleagues.

  I nodded politely nodded at the crew then walked self-consciously over to a seat further back near a window. The crew looked back at me.

  “You look like a very important person, Mr. Amias,” An old man with hint of an Irish accent and thick black eyebrows said.

  I was wearing my shiny platinum loafers that I received as a graduation gift from my father. I was also wearing black slacks and black turtleneck that drooped over my collar bone. My black hair was slicked back with hair gel. I’m sure to them I looked like a slam poet from the future.

  I tried to hide my shoes behind the seat in front of me, but the crew had already seen them.

  “Those shoes you got, are they, silver?” The Irish man pried.

  “They’re platinum,” I said trying not to give the man eye contact.

  The Irish man got up from his seat, walked over to me and sat in the chair in front of me. He turned around to face me and I was kicking myself for not waking up on time.

  “Excuse me for prying. It’s just that we here haven’t had many opportunities to meet people of your status. Only those with enough credits are able to travel on the lighting rail and these days credits are harder to come by. So tell me Mr. Amias, what exactly do you do?”

  I finally looked at the man.

  “I’m a cognitive science researcher.”

  “A cogno-what?”

  “I study the brain and human behavior.”

  “You get paid to study?”

  “I have proposed many theories that have made tremendous breakthroughs in mind sciences and research. I get paid to make history.”

  “Ah! A history maker!” The Irish man exclaimed. “Fellas, we’ve got ourselves a historian in the building!”

  His comrades howled in laughter.

  “History. You know I find it funny that it’s only people like you who like talking about new history. You want to ignore past history and make your own imprint on future history as if what you have in here is more innovative than anything in existence,” the man pointed at my head. “When in reality there is nothing new under the sun. Research that my friend.”

  The man was about to get up from his seat.

  “Nothing new? That’s ridiculous. Our entire civilization has had to start from scratch,” I said.

  “What do you know about starting over? You’re too young to know what the world was like before. If you were alive then, like me, you’d know that even though the fire burned this place into oblivion with not so much as one blade of grass left, it is impossible for anything to be truly original and that includes your clever ideas.” The man stood up and looked at me.

  “It’s called nature; human and inhuman nature that can never change. That’s the way this world was created and that’s the way it’ll end. No matter what bells and whistles the ‘system’ places on the environment with technology always increasing; the human heart will remain as wicked and deceitful as ever.”

  I sat up in my seat.

  “Where did you get that from?”

  “What do you mean?” The Irish man asked.

  “Your ideas aren’t original either according to your own theory. So, what book or person gave you that information?”

  The old man looked at me and the corners of his mouth slightly rose.

  “You are a perceptive young man, I see. You want to know where I got my wisdom, because there isn’t too much of the stuff floating around these days. I can tell you one thing, surviving the apocalypse didn’t help humanity in the way of wisdom. If anything, we’ve gotten more arrogant. Lad, when I was your age my father had an old worn out book that he used to read from. It talked about so many things having to do with life and the soul. It even predicted the future. He would read to me every night before bed and without me realizing, I had changed my whole attitude about the world. We were in the wake of total and complete destruction, but with the knowledge that I gained from that book I had no fear of what would become of me. I knew, somehow, that everything would work out for goodness sake,” the man said.

  There was a long pause that went through the cabin. The crew members looked to be meditating on the old man’s words.

  “Was that book called The Book of Wisdom?”

  The old man nodded his head still reflecting on his words.

  “I thought that book became illegal before the apocalypse and that it was forbidden to even talk about it.”

  “Lad, there were and still are many things that the powers that be want to hide from us. Things that are ultimately good for us are made to look bad until everything we thought was good in the world is an enemy of the state. But in Ireland we ignored that foolishness and stood by the truth. They may have been able to take away the physical book from us, but not the wisdom in our hearts.”

  “Why did they want to eliminate something that seems so harmless?” I asked.

  “Oh there is nothing harmless about that book. They wanted to destroy the book, because it was the most harmful thing to ever happen to the twenty second century.”

  I was startled by the strength in the man’s words.

  “There is great power in the heart of a man who has nothing to fear, Amias
. This is exactly what they wanted to prevent.”

  8:20. Ohio later that night. – The train arrived here only 20 minutes behind its expected arrival time. I stopped by a food stand in front of the station to grab a bite to eat then went to my hotel to get some rest. In the morning I will ride to Columbus University to pay an impromptu visit to Dr. Stein

  July 8 10:15 – When I arrived at Columbus, the doctor was on a break from lecturing on a theory about how the absence of the sun in daily life would cause the citizens of the Underground to experience changes within their molecular structure due to the lack of natural vitamin D; consequently, human beings would evolve into people who are particularly nocturnal. Dr. Stein was sitting in his antique wooden rocking chair and fiddling with his sparse grey hair contemplating the results of the day’s lecture when I walked into his office.

  “Uh, can I help you find someone?”

  The doctor looked at me with a queer look on his face.

  “Hello Dr. Stein, I’m Amias Riley. You don’t know me, but I’m a type of science researcher myself. I’ve come here because I came across a dissertation you wrote while in the old world and was wondering if I could have a confidential discussion with you about the contents of your research.”

  Dr. Stein looked surprised. “Well, Mr. Riley, how confidential is this going to be? Does there need to be a contract of some sort?”

  “Is it legal to put The Book of Wisdom into a contract?”

  The doctor’s expression turned serious. He rose from his seat and walked over to the door of his office and closed it. Then he turned to look at me.