Survival Instinct- Forces of Change

by Sandi Gamble

  I had not thought of that moment since. Until now. It occurred to me that Jace and I were in danger of becoming the “other”. Different, bordering on freaks. How far could we go before we were considered dangerous?

  Jace and I spoke about my concern later that day. We agreed that there was a real danger. That afternoon we made a pact. We would carry on as much as we could just like everyone else. Normative behavior would be our cloak. Our protection. Only with one another and, perhaps with Ann, would our full sense of who we were find full expression.

  Ann watched us both, measuring our reaction to her words. Satisfied that we had heard her message clearly, she gestured for us to follow her.

  “I am quite certain that you have not discovered my other collections,” she said as she led the way deeper into the bowels of the library until we came to a series of doors, each protected by a graduated security system.

  Finally, with a particularly meaningful smile, she paused before a final set of doors. “Are you ready?”

  Jace and I looked at one another and nodded.

  “Good.” She stood before the iris-identification pad and then pushed open the door.

  I felt the breath taken from me as the door opened on to a huge, warehouse-sized room. The first thing I saw was what looked like a stampede of wooly mammals. But then, on closer examination, I saw that they were elephants.

  Elephants!

  These magnificent creatures had been extinct for hundreds of years. I only knew them from images in books and on electronic displays. Noble creatures standing fifteen feet high with their mighty ears and massive trunks.

  “Would you look at them,” I said, my eyes wide with wonder as I circled around the display of life-sized, real, but stuffed elephants. Ann allowed us to freely interact with these beautiful creatures, life sized, but taxidermied animals. She explained to us that the DNA of most creatures including these was carefully stored in the ARC and when the earth was repaired enough, scientists would start to repopulate the world with them. As yet the earth was not considered healed.

  “Back when people hunted these magnificent creatures for sport,” Ann said, “a man who would become an American president went to Africa and killed this whole family.” Her voice was filled with a sadness and longing I had not heard before.

  I looked at her and then I looked at the elephants. A large bull elephant led the herd, his huge tusks reaching fifteen feet in front of him. Behind him followed a couple of females and younger elephants. In their midst was a small baby, small enough to have as a pet! At least that is what I thought.

  “Why would he do such a thing?” I asked.

  “For the same reason that people did most of what they did at the time – selfishness, greed, thinking that all existence existed for his personal enjoyment and pleasure. It was an extension of the individual. I am most important therefore my family and tribe is most important therefore my beliefs are correct and my comfort is more important than anyone else’s and everything that exists, exists for me and mine.” She sighed. “Frighteningly, we still have those same emotions and feelings. It is part of our genetic make-up as human beings. No amount of engineering seems to be able to fully erase it from our being.

  “However,” she went on, “we have come a long way toward blunting that fierce individualism.”

  It would be later, when only Jace and I were there, that Jace looked at me with his most earnest expression and asked me what I thought about what Ann had said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to think of the particular thing he was asking about.

  “The bit about getting rid of individualism,” he said, his tone off-hand but his expression deep and thoughtful.

  “What about it?” I asked, trying to anticipate what his train of thought might have been. That was often the way it was for the two of us. Jace would raise a topic, and I would try and figure out where he was going with it. Most of the time I could figure it out. Sometimes, I caught on quickly. Once in a while, I was completely lost until he told me. I think I liked those times most of all. Of everyone in the world, even my teachers and parents, only Jace could genuinely delight me with the excitement of discovery.

  Until the moment he asked, I hadn’t given her comment much thought. I had just been caught up in the moment, trying to take everything in. After all, it was not every day that students were given a private tour of an unknown museum! But, now that he had asked, I realized that her comment had struck me as very odd, and somewhat troubling too. But I wasn’t exactly sure why.

  After all, she’d made perfect sense when she cataloged the negatives of human greed and materialism – both fully the consequence of the heightened sense of individuality. We had been taught how man’s behavior had brought about the degradation of the natural habitat, forcing the population into the bunkers.

  And yet, I could not help but consider that along with those profound negatives, it is our sense of self, our individuality that contributes to everything wonderful about being human – our ability to create art, to make music, to fall in love.

  Certainly to “erase” the sense of self and individuality, to erase human greed and avarice is a positive aim, perhaps even a noble one. But if that effort also removes every vestige of our human ability to create art and music, or to fall in love… perhaps it is not such an appropriate goal.

  But then, even with Jace’s incisive questions, my faith in the Academy was absolute. If the Headmaster determined that ego was the source of the avarice and greed that had done such damage to the world, then I did not doubt him. And to have Ann in agreement… well, that seemed to settle the matter for me.

  I looked Jace in the eye. “But do you really think that is the true goal? To get rid of individualism?”

  The truth was, I knew that our academy supported and encouraged a degree of individuality by allowing each one of us to move through a tailored education plan that had been individually-designed, specifically with each child’s requirements in mind. I felt quite certain that it was not individualism or ego itself that was the object of the Academy’s focus but rather the unhealthy expression of it. After all, I did not think it was possible, let alone desirable, that the things that made us unique were erased.

  We all had tasks that we would be trained to do. Our futures, occupations and role in the larger enterprise were not left to the whims of emotion and random events as had been the case in the past. While we each had some input into the direction our futures might take, the truth was that the options available to us were determined by the series of very comprehensive tests that we’d each completed upon entrance to the Academy.

  As Jace and I had learned from our own experiences, these tests take into account objective knowledge and learning, our interests, personality, creative expression, skills, mental aptitude and unique abilities. The tests are followed up with a number of well-structured counseling sessions with a senior advisor who is assigned to the student based on personality matches. However, the student still may reject the advisor and request another.

  Of the thousands upon thousands of students who had passed through the Academy over the generations, only Jace and I had presented ourselves as the kind of enigma that called the process into question. That said, in some way, the Academy took solace in the old adage, “The exception proves the rule” in assessing our aptitudes and capabilities.

  The simple truth was that the process had served our community well. The match between individuals and their career had proven to work in the best interest of the person and the community.

  The community moves forward; the individual feels rewarded by satisfaction in the task.

  No longer did people feel the need to search for a career based on potential income. Because the system of matching had been so well-perfected, and professions so expertly allocated, earnings – and indeed, money itself – was no longer a viable system of assessing worth. It had, after all, been an imperfect system throughout history, creating class tensions, philoso
phical debates, wars and the unequal distribution of resources.

  In our community and society, satisfaction resulted from the ability to contribute to society as a whole. A responsible bartering system functioned to fill in the small, everyday gaps that inevitably resulted in human interaction.

  Lest anyone believe that this system was foisted upon the people, imposed upon us in some dark conspiracy, the teaching of the Academy was clear and verifiable. The allocation and education system came about over the course of many hundreds of years during which our civilization spent time in the underground bunkers during the purge.

  Survival first. Then philosophy.

  Underground, conflict was a luxury that we simply did not have. Each had to do his and her part. Disagreement could result in disaster – real disaster, not some vague sense of unhappiness. The disagreements and arguments that preceded the purge had to be surrendered; otherwise, the doom of all was guaranteed.

  It was logical that this period would see an explosion of regulations. We were teaching ourselves and learning how to live together. Some decisions had to be made about how best to negotiate the transition.

  The transition was not easy, but it was necessary. Humankind learned a great deal during those years; and has benefitted mightily from the process. It was not a certain outcome, but with hard, hard work and great expense, we moved forward rather than backward.

  At the Academy, our raw scores were combined with input by proctors, and all the scores were entered into vast and complex computer algorithms designed to place everyone on the correct career path. The algorithms had been designed to account for thousands of variables, from age, union of parents, genetics and effort; physical capability is assessed along with mental acuity. Proctors are trained to observe every aspect of the test taking, from a subtle eye movement to the more obvious, such as signs of frustration or impatience.

  Once the data has been entered into the programs, it cannot easily be manipulated by human intervention. Only in the event of a gross error, the kind that had not occurred for many, many years, is a candidate ever retested. Certainly, such retests are not entertained based on any of the “non-merit based” criteria so often used in the past.

  In formulating the future, the program does not care about the “influence” or “importance” of a family member. Everyone in the society is important. No one’s influence weighs more than anyone else’s.

  Once set upon a course of study, the curriculum – which has been developed using the same complex algorithms – is followed exactly. In this way, learning plans are both “individualized” and communal.

  We are all taught according to need and talent. No two children are taught the same. Yet, when all is said and done, we are all trained according to the same standards and creed. This training is deemed necessary and is compulsory for everyone.

  There are no exceptions.

  “It was not always like this,” Ann explained to Jace and me during one of our regular visits to the museums. “Many centuries ago children went to schools and were taught to think and act the same as each other.” She smiled as she studied our expressions. “It’s ironic, is it not? Jace and I had ascertained from the many books we had read that back then, the idea of ‘individuality’ was practically a form of idol worship, there really was no individuality at all. In the history of mass education, a child was simply taught to be a non-thinking and compliant unit, the fear of our forefathers was that having too many free thinkers would not be good for the world. Not in curriculum or in teaching method anyway.

  “People then were raised to become compliant workers and, more detrimental to all involved, compliant consumers.” Ann shook her head in mild approbation. I was certain that I heard a slight “tsk” in her not-so-subtle judgment of how “primitive” people had been in the past. “And what consumers they were! They wanted everything, even when there was nothing left to be had!”

  She described the weaknesses of an educational system where there were universal lesson plans based on government requirements with each and every child moving through the system as one. Some excelled. Some coped. And some, who could not keep up, were left behind, often turning to crime and theft as a means of survival. There were entire social castes doomed to lives of crime and substance abuse for no other reason than the “system” sought to force them to learn and be just like everyone else.

  An obvious impossibility.

  Meanwhile, there were others who were truly gifted children. These children rose to the top like cream no matter what their circumstances. Invariably, they were placed in situations and schools that valued their individuality and the possibilities that they brought to society. It was often hard for many of them because the process of finally finding a learning environment that matched their gifts often resulted in too many negative experiences that scarred them in one way or another.

  And then there were those who, because of societies inequalities and the fact that they happened to be born into households that possessed great wealth, also benefitted by being placed in learning environments which treated them as individuals, although in many instances they were still pushed to be what they were not.

  In short, it was an inefficient system which caused more harm than good; it was patterned after assembly lines that had been devised to efficiently produce widgets, cars and shaving cream. In addition to being wholly inadequate to educating students, they spoke to the underlying philosophy that held young students to be little more than the products manufactured by these assembly lines.

  “It is a wonder,” Anne added with a sigh, “that any of them could so much as stand upright in such a system.” She gave an involuntary shudder.

  However, even with our own highly touted individualized system of education, much of our early education shared the “group mentality” of previous methods of educating. While the process by which some of us learned was different than others, there was still a common body of knowledge that the community felt it vital that we shared.

  “Shared information is shared destiny,” the Headmaster made clear.

  So, during our first year at the Academy, we were directed to move from one area to another as a group. Other than the guiding hand of our advisors, there was a scarceness of individuality about what we learned. Nor should there have been, as best I could tell. Our world demanded that we learn about war, warfare, defense, advanced armed combat and survival techniques.

  No matter our final task in society, we were all, first and foremost, required to be soldiers even though we live in a peaceful, friendly world. So it was that by the end of our first year studies any one of us was capable of killing another person with a single blow. So was the cookie cutter model of the past.

  Of course, the ability to kill another is never the same as having permission to do so. We were taught that we must always be prepared to act, but acting was a matter of profound discretion. The ability to kill another was a skill we were required to have. We were also taught that actually killing another, except in warfare, was absolutely unacceptable.

  Our first year lessons were so that we all embraced our shared history and destiny, and that we had the tools to ensure our own personal safety. Underground survival was the first lesson we had to become expert at so that we could respond appropriately to any of the possibilities that could arise.

  Even as Ann showed Jace and me the many horrors that befell the generations before our own, she took pains to make plain that even though these things happened in the past, there was always the danger in the world that it could happen again. Indeed, because the danger is always present, the Academy was sure to expose us to the numerous atrocities that the Ministry does not want to see repeated.

  When Ann took us through the museum exhibits, there was a cool, safe fascination. The displays, even those that had been created to depict real life situations, were remarkably sterile. They allowed for cool detachment and study – which both Jace and I enjoyed. However, the atrocities that Academy exposed
all students to that first year of study were immediate, visceral and gut-wrenching.

  None of us who experienced the lessons were quite the same afterwards.

  While the content and process was the same for each student, the experience itself was individualized. My teacher, Norman Sitzman, was responsible for my introduction.

  “Ari.”

  I turned to face him. His voice had an atonal, flat quality. Which made his ability to command my attention all the more remarkable. Perhaps it was his physical presence. He towered over most of the students and, indeed, the faculty as well. His skin had a sandpaper quality, rough and reddened. His dark hair was cut close to his scalp, forming a flat top. His eyes, generally hooded and making it difficult to read his emotions or thoughts, were deep and dark.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, standing at attention.

  “Follow me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Although each of us knew that we were to be introduced to the atrocities of past times, none of us knew exactly when our individual experience would be. Part of the goal was to surprise each student, making him even more vulnerable to the power of the presentation.

  I hurried along after Mr. Sitzman, struggling to keep up without falling into a loping runner’s stride. His legs were so long that his normal, efficient strides made it extremely difficult for me to maintain his pace.

  But I did. I had no choice.

  When we arrived at the student’s lab facility, he led me into a small room. Inside the room, there was a chair with a total immersion helmet and a small tray alongside it.

  “Sit.”

  I sat.

  “Put the helmet on.”

  I put the helmet on. As soon as I brought it over my head, I was immersed in total darkness.

  “You can hear me now,” he intoned. “Soon, you will not be able to hear me. Instead, you will be completely immersed in a sensory experience. Are you ready to proceed?”