DUALITY: The World of Lies
Page 29
Meimei sat down on the stone pavers and warned him to not be startled as she projected another light picture with images and voices that she flipped at with her hand to produce new pictures with new voices, over and again, in rapid procession before saying, “System, close display” -and it all vanished as instantly as it had appeared.
Gahre took a seat across from her. “What is happening, child?”
“Uncle Indulu just got a com from one of our security agents. They were discussing something about a terrorist attack on the borders of the Anarchies, which you probably don't know, but they are distressed chaotic lands in the center of the subcontinent. Maybe the Cybergenetic FreeMen Group again, I'm not sure. I can't find anything. It's probably being suppressed on the networks for “purposes of public order” or whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
“That sounds quite serious.”
“Pffff. It happens,” she shrugged. “May I touch your hair?”
“As you please, girl.”
She stroked at his long dirty mangled locks, and then drew her hand back with a shriek. “Spider!” she exclaimed.
Gahre grabbed that section of his hair and pulled it before his face to examine it. A big black tree spider was indeed nesting in there. “How long have you been hiding there?” he asked as he brushed it away nonchalantly.
Meimei jumped a bit, spinning her head all around, as if the spider might come running back to bite her. Gahre laughed.
“You're so filthy!” she exclaimed. “You know, I've never seen a man like you. You are very strong. And you would be quite handsome if you were cleaned up a bit... or a lot. You're like that eco-zone you just walked through, crawling with icky organisms. Tics and spiders and heaven-knows what else. How do you stand it?”
“You learn to adapt,” he told her plainly. The pigtailed doll of a girl had her big brown eyes focused entirely on him now. Seeing into them, Gahre sensed there was something much more exceptional about her than his initial impression of the childish temerity she projected of herself. There had to be. Indulu would not have taken her as his apprentice otherwise.
“Is it true you ambushed the bandit Har Darox and apprehended him and his men?” she asked.
“Aye, young one. I'm surprised you’ve heard tell of it.”
“I follow news of the Pangea, what I can get of it. You are a hunter?”
“Aye, since I was younger than you, I learned to fell beast, an indispensable art that has kept me fed on this long journey.”
“There's no hunting on this side of the wall. We have eco-zones. Some you can visit, but hunting is strictly forbidden.”
“Yes, we have similar rules in my village. Of course there is always poaching.. not that I advocate it as a general rule, but with ill considered hunting bans where creatures like fishers are making a nuisance for people, sometimes it's acceptable to break the law, you know, if it's an ill-considered one like that.”
“Oh, there is no poaching in the Arathian eco-zones, dark stranger. The animals are all tracked by machine, and the entire zone is surveilled perpetually around the clock. You would be apprehended before you even pulled the trigger.”
“In this machine world, one does not need to hunt or farm or craft, yes? So what trades do folk take up?”
She smiled. “What I do is attend lessons and lessons and lessons morning to night. I'm surprised my brain hasn't exploded yet. And, honestly, sometimes I wish it would.”
“I don't think that much schooling is healthy for a child. As schoolboy in Tulan I attended four or five hours of daily lessons. School lets out in the early afternoon so that we may attend sports or chores or play, or attend the work of the family business. And of course, in the sowing and harvest seasons, there is no school as we are compelled to work the fields.”
“God, I wish were in a Pangean school,” she mused. “I guess I should thank you. Uncle pulled me from my lessons today for this. You must be very important, dark stranger.”
“No, child, I'm surely no one of great significance. I sought out a truth that was hidden from me and drove me mad with curiosity. Now here today I've found it. Indulu's tale has further opened my eyes to this new reality.”
She leaned to whisper, although there was no one else about. “You know why he told you that tale, don't you? He wants you to seek out the old ascended master. No one else is brave enough, not like you! You've crossed the world as no one before ever has, with stoic determination and no fear of death. But I'll tell you something of Uncle... he's not really my uncle, you know?”
“I gathered that when you described your lineage. He is your master?”
“Yes, but that's a secret.”
“One I will keep, child. The man is dear to me as well.”
“Good. Then you must tell no one of how he and his inner circle saved you in the Sea of Sand. His political opponents would hammer him mercilessly for interfering like that. It would be a scandal for him.”
“I see. Then I shall keep that secret as well, clever one.”
“Well of course he could not just leave you to die. What were you even thinking? Did you not know the span of it?”
“Not in accurate measurement. It was just deemed 'endless' which I did not believe.”
“You know something, dark stranger? Indulu is more embroiled in that world of corruption he laments than anyone I know. He and his Rubelian counterpart, a Machine Lord, are the old order of our time. I just tell you this so you understand rightly his role. It is that of keeping the status quo at all other cost.”
“Perhaps you should not speak disparagingly of your master, child.”
“Pffff. Don't give me that, and just hear what I'm telling you.”
“That he keeps the world stable and at relative peace? I fail to see where your critical tone fits into that.”
“No, dark stranger, there is no peace, not really. It's just the illusion of peace they hold to now. You came seeking truth in The World of Lies, but I'm telling you it’s far more insidious on this side of the wall.”
“Peace is peace. When there is no fighting, that is peace. It cannot be an illusion, whatever foundation it rests upon. Even be it one of some deceit.”
“That's where you are blindly wrong. The time frame has already been set by Logos, that in 20 years hence there will be a reckoning in the Taiji. In these centuries of peace, the Arathian population has grown and so too the realms of Rubeli. And once again, they grow hungry! This great heartland of agriculture you see before you, it is no longer enough provide for the Taiji. This deficit worsens incrementally year by year. In two decades, dark stranger, war or worse will come. And the Old Order is not preparing for it, only holding to their old ways and the status quo.”
“Another war between the stars? Over what exactly? It sounds like Occitania has fed them for centuries now.”
“Over this very wall! They would tear it down and develop the lands of the eco-zone, beyond the boundaries of this wall and the shore of The Muting Blanket. That history Uncle spun for you would sound very different if a Rubelian did the telling. The Arathian council would never allow it; not in a thousand years would they allow it. We have given enough of our inestimable world over the Rubelians, and they will not encroach another inch on our precious Pangea! That is a certitude, dark stranger. So war or worse, it is inevitable.”
“And you, a mere child, have a solution to this quandary that Indulu and his governments cannot see?”
“Yes! We, you and I, we are the new order. So what if you find that ancient relic in the mountains, if he even exists? What can he do for us in the world, hiding away from it as does on those lofty heights? No, it is up to us to do for ourselves without the old ones and their paralyzing prudence. Join me, dark stranger, east of this wall. I will teach you our ways, and together we will usurp the old order, expel the Rubelians from this world, and prepare a proper defense against what's to come. We need one such as you, who knows Truth. It is far worse here, Pangean, than what you likely think. It is an indescribable tormen
t. I would take that knife of yours and scar my face beyond recognition if it meant I could enter your Pangea. And once there, I would seek to rid myself of all Forbidden Knowledge, by way of a hammer to my head if necessary, until it was fully erased from my mind, and I might live a natural human life. Intrigue upon intrigue, conspiracy upon conspiracy, layer upon layer, lie upon lie. It is Hell this place! There is not one mind which is not enslaved by it. And there is no one here who sees beyond that veil of deception. But you, you dark stranger, you have the raw will to face illusion and dispel it without fear. O' I would follow thee, dark stranger, to eternity!”
“Child, are you wicked? You propose for me to conspire with you against your master, a man who has twice saved my life?” Gahre at once felt regret for uttering this hasty rebuke. Her very soul seemed to pleading for his aid by the end of it, but he just could not reconcile how this technological world of splendor and luxury could be all that terrible. He was still young enough to recall how adolescent girls were prone to overdramatizing matters. In any case, her demeanor toward him shifted sharply in reaction to it.
“What other point is there to having a master except to best him? That's just the way of things,” she stated curtly. “You call me a child, yet I'm not but a handful of years younger than you. And certainly won't be when 20 years have come to pass. So listen to me, and listen well, because you face a crux in your destiny on this day. There are three ways for a Pangean-born like you to enter Arath. First, he may be chosen and initiated in The Order. Secondly, a man may, through grandmastery of his craft or academic research, arrive at scientific truths suppressed in the Pangea, or as you know it “Forbidden Knowledge.” As a consequence, that man may choose or even be forced to relocate to Arath with his family. That's how I got here, from my grandfather's alchemical research. Then there is a third way so rare that an instance of it has never occurred until now. That is someone, who through sheer will and determination, physically arrives here. He then shall either be granted special status within The Order to remain in the Pangea or be registered into the machine networks as an Arathian citizen. This is the Law. Do you understand, dark stranger?”
“It means I am no longer a fugitive from The Order?”
“No, caveman. It means you must choose which side of this wall you will descend, never again to see the other.”
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