by A. G. Riddle
CHAPTER 40
For the last three hours, Ares had been touring the hospital, talking with the citizens undergoing treatment for burns, broken bones, and shrapnel wounds. The small facility was overwhelmed. The halls were chaotic, with people darting in all directions. Ares was a beacon of calm in the storm. Seeing the carnage readied him for what he had to do, confirmed he was making the right choice.
A staffer led him out of the main hospital into an adjacent building, which had been used as office space but now served as a makeshift psychological hospital.
The citizens in every room looked the same to Ares: vegetables.
“They’re suffering from resurrection syndrome,” the doctor said.
Ares had never heard of the condition. His tour guide read his expression.
“It was never diagnosed in your time. Possibly never even seen. Mentally, the patient is unable to cope with life after resurrection, or more specifically, their brains are unable to integrate certain memories, in this case, those of their violent death. The syndrome has become more prevalent as our lifestyle has changed. We think the shifting emotional range of our citizenry is partly to blame. Repeated resurrection is also a risk factor. Some of these patients died in the first wave of terror attacks with no symptoms or a very mild case of resurrection syndrome. This time around, they’ve been reborn in almost a catatonic state. Either way, this could become a pandemic in itself.”
Ares nodded, wondering if, in another few thousand years, any of his people would be able to survive resurrection.
Ares’ ear piece activated, and his second in command said, “Sir, we have a new development. The terrorists have taken hostages.”
Ares smiled. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Isis was scared, but not nearly as frightened as the people around her. This will turn the whole world against the labor faction, she thought. This would truly be the end of the revolt, the last straw that steeled the citizenry to take drastic action. Isis could only imagine what that action would be. She pushed the scenarios out of her mind as she stepped forward in the line.
“Your number is 29383,” the man said. “What is your number?”
“29383,” Isis answered.
Beyond the line, two men were arguing.
“You’ve dug our grave.”
“I’ve saved us, Lykos. I’ve done what you didn’t have the guts to do.”
The other man, Lykos, caught Isis’ eye. He stopped, as if he had recognized her.
The masked man issuing numbers motioned for the next person in line and said to Isis, “Move on, 29383.”
Isis shuffled forward, joining the group in front of her, but Lykos stopped her, pulling her over to join the other man he’d been arguing with. “This is what I’m talking about,” he said, pointing to her. “Do you know who this is?”
“Of course. A hostage. What’s your number, hostage?”
Isis opened her mouth, but Lykos cut her off. “Don’t answer that. Her name is Dr. Triteia Isis. She’s an evolutionary geneticist—”
Lykos’ adversary raised his hands. “Forgive me, I don’t know too many evolutionary geneticists—”
“She’s created a genetic therapy that would enable our people to do anything the intellectuals can.”
The rebel leader paused, and Lykos continued. “She’s presenting her research to the full forum tomorrow, or she had planned to before we took her hostage. She was a supporter of our cause.” Lykos focused on her. “And I hope she still will be, and that she accepts our apology for the barbaric methods of some members of our cause.” He waited for her response.
“I… am. I do.”
“Now we’re going to release you,” Lykos said. “And I hope you’ll still give that speech tomorrow.”
Isis nodded. “I will.”
Lykos led her away.
The other man called to them, “If they listen, it’s because of what we did here.”
Lykos led her through the corridors, not speaking to the guards who simply nodded and let him pass. When they were alone outside the building, past the last checkpoint, he said, “I’m very sorry for what happened to you. We’ve lost control of the situation. Please tell them that, whether you give your presentation or not. Something has to be done. These methods only represent a minority of our people. We’re ready to make whatever sacrifices we need to.”
The council was in full panic now, and that pleased Ares greatly. He had them right where he wanted them.
Nomos was speaking, and Ares sat at the head of the table, barely listening.
“The revolutionaries are running all over that army of yours.”
“They can’t fight,” another councilman said.
“Quite right,” Ares answered, standing.
“What’s your solution, General?” a woman asked.
“You’ll hear it tomorrow in the forum.”
Another council member slammed his fist into the conference table. “I want to hear it now. We might not make it to tomorrow. All options, ladies and gentlemen. Can we create a pathogen that would only target labor? Cut our losses and have the sentinels bombard the occupied zones?”
The room erupted in shouting. Ares slipped out the door. Strangely, the night before he knew the battle would begin, he slept well.
CHAPTER 41
In the forum the following day, Ares sat in the chairman’s box and watched silently as speaker after speaker took the central stage and shouted at the three thousand attendees in the auditorium and the tens of billions around the world watching. This was the moment every politician had always dreamed of: the issue that would shape generations to come. A single vote that would ensure that they were remembered, that their pitiful name and face would be put down in the history logs, immortalized. They scrambled for the spotlight, practically tripping over each other, grasping desperately for every second of fame. Half the time was spent arguing about time itself—how much the current speaker had left, how much the previous speaker had run over, and how much would be allotted to the current time-waster. The spectacle left no doubt about why compromise had broken down.
But the urgency of the situation had inspired attention on all sides, and from many, radical solutions.
The debate raged all day, and still Ares stayed silent. He wanted his solution to be the last presented. It would be the final solution.
At the opening of the evening session, a scientist took the podium. She had been scheduled for earlier in the day but had never shown. The council had counted her among the many labor advocates who had backed out in light of yesterday’s escalation of violence, but the scientist, Isis, had apparently had a change of heart. Several representatives had yielded their time to her, and she used that time to describe a global research project, which had sequenced the genomes of every Atlantean. Isis detailed how she had isolated the genes that powered evolution, setting the Atlantean species apart from the other hominid genome samples that had been collected by Ares’ own expeditionary fleet during what had become known as the age of exploration, before the fall of their first homeworld.
Isis insisted that this basic Atlantis Gene could be manipulated to bring all Atlanteans to a state of cognitive equality. Her proposal came down to a simple genetic therapy, and to Ares’ dismay, the representatives in the forum began rallying around it.
Ares rose and approached the lectern in his box. All the other voices faded, and the light on his microphone turned green. It felt as though the lights had dimmed, that it was only him and Isis below, standing on the stage. The DNA diagram filled the massive screen behind her, and seeing it steeled Ares, convinced him he was right.
“What you’re describing would be a cataclysm,” Ares said. “A singularity. We know of only one world, one race who ever pursued such an endeavor. All that’s left of them is a great serpent that seeks to circle the universe and strangle every last human life to death.”
“We can control this. We’re talking about a slight modification,” Isis said.
“Then what? Even if you succeed, there will always be some people who are smarter than others. There will always be some who can run faster than others. Some more attractive than their neighbors. To whom will you deny genetic equality? Who will decide it? Who will make the final decision about whether I’m genetically inferior and need to be fixed? Perhaps when I wake up in another ten thousand years, I will require an update, but I want to remain the way I am. What are my genetic rights?”
“My solution is voluntary.”
The auditorium erupted, and Ares smiled. He had cornered her. These people wanted the issue dealt with permanently. A voluntary solution for some people felt like kicking the can down the road, delaying the inevitable.
“My solution is not voluntary,” Ares said.
Shouts went up from boxes and balconies across the hall, people yelling in unison into disabled microphones, “What is your solution?”
“I brought our people to this world. With the other founders of the exodus, I set forth our dream of one people on one world, stretching into eternity. The anti-Serpentine laws were written to protect us from ourselves, and they cannot be broken. Must not.” Ares ignored the smattering of voices. “But our dream of one people on one world cannot be realized in peace. And I refuse to see a war within our own people. I won’t fight it, and it’s clear to me that no one else can. Ours will become a tale of two worlds. We have the means to solve our strife tomorrow, to give equality and opportunity to every citizen. The fleet of ships we built in the years after the exodus still exists. They are science ships and transports and mining vessels. As you know, we mapped every world within the new sentinel line. There are many that can become the new home of the labor class. They can create their own world there, so long as they adhere to the Serpentine Restrictions. We cannot allow them to become a danger to themselves or us.”
Questions came quickly and so did Ares’ answers. The mining ships could be configured for terraforming, transforming the new world into a haven, free of natural disasters and safe from cosmic dangers. The transport ships that carried the staff and parts to the sentinel assembly line would take the colonists to their new world. The debate quickly devolved into how to label the exiting Atlanteans, with one contingent insisting that “exiles” was the correct term since it was a forced removal. The term separatists was entertained but deemed too confrontational. Finally colonists was ratified, though the rules made it clear that one of the conditions the colonists adhere to would be the Serpentine Restriction of never leaving their world for exploration or colonization.
When the major questions were answered, and the debate descended into small details, like which districts would be evacuated first and what each person would be allowed to bring, Ares slipped away.
“I’ll leave the vote to you,” he said to Nomos.
They awoke him in the middle of the night, which Ares felt was ironic for someone they let sleep through a ten-thousand-year period in which they had thoroughly ruined his planet.
“We’re close on the vote,” Nomos said. “We need a compromise. A large voting bloc wants to ease the exploration restrictions. They request use of some of the science ships for deep space exploration.”
“To what end?”
“They’re calling it The Origin Project. Just a simple study of primitive hominids.”
Ares turned the idea over. It could be problematic. “Okay. Two conditions. One: there are military beacons orbiting some worlds. They can’t go near them. They perish if they do. Second: they only get one ship. We can’t risk having hundreds of ships parading around the galaxy.”
They again woke Ares several hours later. The second exodus, what was called the Atlantean Equality Act, had been formally approved by a narrow margin.
CHAPTER 42
The day the Exile Order was signed was the worst in Isis’ thirty five years. In her mind, she debated how she might have been more persuasive, presented the data differently, how she might have bested Ares in the forum.
Around her, the world changed and not for the better. In the aftermath of the vote, the greatest fear had been retribution from the labor population, but none had come, at least not against the intellectuals. Ares’ strategy had been sound. The leaders of the labor revolution promptly released their hostages and actually turned their focus inward, persecuting any laborers who protested the forced relocation. Their methods were brutal and the news coverage relentless. Political leaders ignored it. A small group of intellectuals continued their protests, holding out hope for a single society. The voices mostly came from citizens in cities that hadn’t been touched by the riots or terrorists blasts. The victims who had lived through the carnage counted the days until the exile in silence.
A week after the vote, Lykos had visited Isis at her lab, and to her surprise, thanked her. They had seen each other regularly after that, and each time, she looked forward to it a little more.
She always provided an update from her side. The restrictions on automated technology had been relaxed a bit, easing the post-exile transition for the intellectuals.
With every visit, there was less to talk about, but Isis still looked forward to the meetings. She dreaded the day when the ships would come, load the laborers, and leave forever.
It was during one of their conversations, when Lykos was describing how the labor leaders were codifying the criteria of a laborer, that Isis formed her plan.
“They’re using income, job type, and even what your parents do,” Lykos said.
“Are they considering a genetic definition?”
“No.”
“Have they identified the relocation world?”
“Yes. General Ares and the teams are already terraforming it. But I don’t know where it is,” Lykos replied.
“Can you find out?”
“Maybe.”
Isis shared her plan, and when she was finished, Lykos was silent for a long time.
“Just think about it,” Isis said.
The following day, she visited Janus.
“I’ve reconsidered. I’d love to join The Origin Project.”
She felt slightly guilty that the enthusiasm she shared with him was for different motivations, but that was something to work out later.
Ares stared out the window of his survey ship at the blue, green, and red planet below. Massive machines crawled across the surface, turning dirt and sending plumes of red dust into the atmosphere. The terraforming machines were moving mountains, creating a paradise for the Atlantean Exiles.
“The geological survey is in, General Ares. The tectonic plates in the northern hemisphere won’t be a problem for four thousand years. Should we leave them?”
“No. They may not be able to fix them in four thousand years. Make accommodations now.” The struggle of a global disaster could ignite their evolution. That would be dangerous. Ares wanted life to be easy for them here. That was essential to his plan.
On relocation day, Ares watched the fleet of transport ships from the lunar observation deck. The ships reached to the burning white star beyond, and the sight of the full fleet took his breath away. He felt the hair on his arms stand on end. A single thought dominated his mind: I have won.
The Origin Project launched a week after the fleet returned from transporting the last of the Exiles. The launch ceremony was lavish. Pundits and politicians hyped the expedition as the opening of a new age of Atlantean exploration—under the strict guidance of the anti-Serpentine laws. The team of scientists would study human life throughout its galaxy, on the worlds within the new sentinel line, finally unraveling the secrets of evolution and the Origin Mystery itself. Many believed that the breakthroughs could yield new clues about how the Serpentine ring accessed the Origin Entity, and how it might be defeated. The team was given the opportunity to conduct research that had been banned, never even talked about for thousands of years. Janus had been right about one thing: the project was the perfect place for Isis to continue her research. But that wasn
’t her true motivation.
The first time Isis toured the massive science ship, she was blown away. The scale of the ancient vessel was staggering. It contained hundreds of science labs, and at the center, two giant arcs capable of harvesting entire ecosystems from a world. The ship had been built in the years after the exodus and used to complete a full survey of the stars and planets within the sentinel line. Probes and survey drones had done most of the legwork, but a large science team had followed up on the ship, studying worlds that might have an impact on Atlantean safety. They had used the massive arcs to bring back entire samples of worlds for study by specialists on the new Atlantean homeworld.
Whereas the arcs had been used for science in the distant past, they would serve as entertainment in Isis and Janus’ time. Citizens clamored at the opportunity to visit other worlds without ever leaving. Each time The Origin Project disembarked, a new wave of speculation rose about what they would bring back. The attention served to rally support and funding for the project, and Isis knew that was a large motivation for the arc component. The other, she felt, was Ares and the council’s desire to periodically check-in on the scientists. Each time they returned home, a team of two dozen specialists from fields including infectious diseases, nanotechnology, and psychology performed a rigorous battery of tests on each scientist. But they never brought home anything harmful. And interest in the arcs they brought back waned with every return visit. Eventually the worlds started to look the same, and Janus and the team began seeking more exotic specimens with every trip, a desperate attempt to reignite the public’s interest. It was a losing battle. The crowds lining up to see the arcs were smaller each time they returned.