The Theta Prophecy
Page 20
“It’s a tough situation,” Matheson said. “We all know wars have been great in uniting the people or, at least, distracting them. And if we could control every single thing the people do, we would never have anything to worry about. But it seems like…” He trailed off, squinting at the impossibly thick stack of recommendations. Had anyone actually read through each one to see what drastic actions they would require of the Tyranny?
“Out with it,” the Ruler said. “It’s just the two of us. You can say whatever you want.”
“Well,” Matheson said, scratching his eyebrow, “it’s just that it seems like every war we create has unified the people against us instead of rallying them against the enemy.”
“Against us?” The Ruler shook his head as if he couldn’t have heard correctly.
“We get reports that with each additional war, more people agree with the Thinkers. They don’t say it in so many words because they know we’re listening to all of their calls and reading all of their emails, but the language shows sympathetic tendencies for the Thinkers and clear distrust of the Tyranny.”
“Can’t we lock up everyone who doesn’t believe us? Isn’t it illegal to question what we tell them?”
“It is, but they aren’t coming out and directly saying it. It’s more of the hesitation in their words and voices. If we could read people’s thoughts, we could lock up every single person for a thousand miles.”
“It’s that bad?”
“It’s worse than bad. The same thing happens with each law we pass and each new checkpoint we set up. Our own people resist us more each time we find ways to control them.”
“Keep them safe, you mean.”
“Yes, that too.”
“I’m tired of this,” the Ruler said, pounding his fist against the sofa’s cushioned arm. “We need to show them we mean business.”
“I agree with the sentiment, and history shows that people do like strong leaders. But like I said, they aren’t coming out and saying they’re against us, it’s more of a general sentiment. The law says it’s illegal for them to speak out against us, but we can’t arrest them for believing in their hearts that we’re evil. And with all the false accusations,” Matheson said, trailing off and grimacing.
The Ruler slapped his knee with an epiphany. “Have you considered that maybe they aren’t false accusations? Maybe all the people being reported really are Thinkers.”
“Then it’s even worse than we could have imagined, because it would mean everyone is against us and no one thinks we have their best interests in mind.”
The Ruler’s eyes became wide and he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Everyone?”
“Almost.”
The Ruler leapt to his feet in triumph. “We’ll pass a new law! It will be illegal to be against us.”
“It already is,” Matheson said, and the Ruler crumpled back down on the sofa.
“Things would be so much easier if we could just find the Thinkers and get rid of all of them. They’re the ones getting everyone else to second-guess us with their logic. If we got rid of them, no one would think for themselves; they’d do anything we told them.”
“They’re a smart bunch,” Matheson said of the Thinkers, knowing that if he said the same thing anywhere else, and if he weren’t the Ruler’s trusted adviser, an alarm would be signaled by whichever of the Tyranny’s microphones had picked up the comment and it would be a matter of minutes before men in black armor stormed through the door and dragged him away. “We’re trying everything we can, but they always find ways to elude us.”
“How’s that possible? For God’s sake, we monitor every single thing people say and write.”
“They speak in codes that don’t sound like codes. They use things like the names of former Rulers and the names of states to refer to each other without our computers identifying it as anything suspicious.”
“Why don’t we just have our computers track people using those code words?”
“We tried that. The software spotted a group of Thinkers on the west coast. The Security Services raided the homes. They blasted everyone away.”
“And?” the Ruler said, his eyes big with hope.
“And it turned out the phone calls were a bunch of elementary school girls doing a group project for their history class.”
“Oh.”
“Our men blasted all of the kids and their parents and none of them ended up being Thinkers.”
“Oh.”
“That’s how the Thinkers evade us, by speaking in common terms that we have a hard time picking up. By the time we identify one set of code words they’ve moved on and are using another set. We’re always one step behind them.”
“I thought the very reason we listened to everyone’s calls was to keep track of these people.”
“I know,” Matheson said, grinding his teeth together. “It’s not working, though. And things just keep getting worse. I know this is going to sound extreme, but the only thing I can imagine doing to make people trust us is if we postpone having any more wars, stop dragging people off the streets, maybe even punish one of our guys if he kills someone who isn’t a Thinker. Maybe close down some of the checkpoints. They’ve never been effective anyway.”
“We can’t do those things.”
“I know.”
“That’s insane.”
“I know.”
“They would crucify me,” the Ruler said, and Matheson knew he was no longer speaking of the people out on the streets, the people who lived in fear of what the Tyranny would do next, but the leaders, the men and women who wrote the laws and were fond of going on television to scare people into a frenzy. “You know they all just want a chance to be the next Ruler. They’ll say and do anything they can to be Ruler. They would slaughter me if I didn’t keep approving the wars. They’d go on television and say I wanted the Tyranny to be weak. They’d tell everyone I was the Ruler responsible for putting their children’s lives in jeopardy.”
“I know.”
“And we need to drag people off the streets if we expect to have the prisons full. Do you know how much money is made off those prisons?”
“I know.”
“And if I had one of our men punished for killing a kid or some broad? Can you imagine what the leaders would say about me? They’d claim I was against the Tyranny! If we’re going to start reprimanding our guys for killing innocent people, everyone’s going to think we did something wrong. And we can’t have them believing that!”
“I know.”
“And don’t even get me started on the checkpoints. Do you know how many millions of people we keep employed with those inspections? Yes, they’re a waste of time. And yes, they’ve never prevented a single attack. But if we get rid of even a few thousand of them, that’s thousands of people who suddenly won’t have jobs. The leaders will crucify me. They’ll say I’m responsible for the worst jobless rate in decades. And worst of all, that would be thousands of people who no longer have a reason to support us because we wouldn’t be giving them paychecks.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
They both stood up and walked back over to the window that overlooked the yard. The security fence, ten feet high, kept everyone two hundred feet away in every direction. Within the perimeter, there were no trees, only open grass so possible threats could be identified and blasted. But outside the fence, littered amongst the monuments and museums were light green trees, almost white, that made the urban prison look like a pretty place to visit during the spring and fall.
“There has to be something we can do,” the Ruler said.
“I wish there was.”
33 – A New Set Of Stories
Year: 2048
“Okay everyone, I want to start off by apologizing for my outburst earlier.”
The same men and women who had been told to scrap their previous stories in favor of ones Amy selected were once again sitting in the conference room. The intern looked gratified to have
been invited to a second meeting just because it was more exciting than stapling papers together or standing by the photocopier all day.
“I just got off the phone with the station manager. You can all scrap whatever you had on the three stories we discussed earlier.” She scanned the room for signs of someone who was more uncomfortable than they should be. “Whichever one of you called and told him about the stories I wanted to run will be happy. He won’t let us air any of them.”
A reporter at the far end of the table raised his hand. When Amy sighed and nodded her head, the man asked, “So, does this mean I can cover the Wildsmith-Hutchins wedding now?”
“No,” she said, looking at the portraits of the legends on the wall around her. They had made their careers on war stories and corruption. None of them had won Pulitzers or any other award for covering the wedding of two famous people. “Did you go to school to learn how to cover celebrity weddings?” Before he could answer, she added, “We can’t do the stories I just mentioned, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep working on the same fluff pieces as usual.”
She waited for someone to complain. No one did. Probably, she thought, whoever had gone behind her back and called the station manager to get her in trouble would do so again after this meeting was finished.
“George, I want you to start preparing a story about the fine that the First Tyranny Bank has to pay for laundering money for drug cartels.”
“Man, and to think my roommate’s in jail for selling pot,” the intern grumbled.
Amy said, “They laundered billions of dollars to support some of the very people the Tyranny is supposedly fighting and all they got was a fine equal to two weeks’ worth of their profits.”
One of the reporters said, “Imagine if everyone who was caught with drugs was fined two weeks’ worth of whatever was left in their paychecks after food and rent. The jails would be empty.”
“And that’s exactly why the Tyranny doesn’t do it,” Amy almost said, but she knew that whoever called her boss earlier would be looking for other things to say about her.
“Debbie, I want your team to start a story on how Faith Industries is dumping thousands of tons of chemicals into our drinking water without being fined a single penny.”
Picking at one of his nails, Jerry said, “One of the guys from the Security Service almost cracked my skull open the other day for tossing the pickle from my burger on the sidewalk. I really thought he was going to kill me.”
“Jerry, start getting an update together on the status of that women who defended herself from her abusive boyfriend by swinging a knife at him. Last I heard she was sitting in a prison somewhere. See if she’s still alive. At the same time, I want an update on the mercenaries that the Tyranny used who slit the throats of those twelve women during the last war. Last we heard, they were all given promotions. See if they’ve done anything else since then.”
A reporter in the back of the room raised her hand. When Amy nodded the woman said, “My niece killed a boy when he ran out in front of her car. She was a year too young to be driving and didn’t have a license. Now she’s in prison. But the son of Provincial Technologies just ran over four people while drinking and driving, then went shopping afterwards as if nothing had happened. He didn’t even have his license taken away. Mind if I cover it? It’s the least I can do for my sister.”
“I love it,” Amy said. “Get right on it.” And then, to the entire room, “Okay, get going.”
“These stories are going to get you in just as much trouble as the last ones,” Jerry said, walking beside her as they made their way back down the hall toward their offices. When she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, he said, “Relax, I wasn’t the one who snitched. I’m just concerned for you.”
“There have to be limits,” she said. “What’s next? I’m executed for killing a spider while one of the Tyranny’s friends is rewarded with a new billion dollar contract after killing some kids?”
“If there were limits, someone would just pay the leaders to pass a new law and have them extend the limits even further.” When Amy didn’t laugh, he added, “It was just a joke.”
“It’s not funny. It has to stop sometime. Even when there’s no specific law to say whether or not a company’s actions are legal, the courts still rule in their favor.”
“The judges and officials are all former employees of those companies.”
“That doesn’t make it right!”
“I know, I was just saying.”
“I used to have this neighbor,” Amy said, “a really old guy, looked like a skeleton. He planted some flowers on the sidewalk outside his home and the Tyranny took him away for littering. I haven’t seen him since. That same week, S.K. Computers was found to have been dumping toxins into the river for the past decade. They didn’t even get a fine. Where does it end?”
“I don’t know,” he said. And this time, he did put his hand on her shoulder. His palm rested there only for a brief moment, just long enough to offer some reassurance. Then it was gone before anyone else could see it.
But a simple touch wasn’t enough to make her feel better. “What will it take? Women and children developing sicknesses they’ve never had before? The entire world turned into one giant mushroom cloud? When will these people be held accountable for what the leaders let them get away with?”
Everyone around them was looking at her.
“Come on,” Jerry said, pulling her into her office and closing her door. Once they were alone he said, “God damn it, you can’t keep talking like this. You know the Tyranny will come get you if you keep it up. People are already whispering that you might be”—his voice turned to a whisper—“a Thinker.”
“I know,” she said, sitting down. Her face dropped into her palms. Her head was enveloped within the gray hair that made her feel as if this job, the conditions she had to work in, were making her shrivel to nothing. “I know.”
“Listen to me,” he said. “You know what happened to my brother? On his son’s sixteenth birthday, he gave his boy the same blaster his father handed down to him. A family tradition. The Tyranny came and took him away. I’ll never see him again. But you know what I do? Instead of focusing on that, I thank God that at least the Security Services didn’t shoot my nephew the way they shot that little kid last year who was holding a fake plastic blaster.”
He didn’t care if the AeroCam heard these things because he was fairly sure whichever of the Tyranny’s men listened to it would interpret everything as a strange sort of compliment.
“Do you hear yourself?” she said, raising her head and looking up at him. “Have you lost your mind? Your brother is either dead or rotting in a prison and you’re thankful your nephew is still alive?”
“Amy, if you let the madness overwhelm you, you won’t have anything.”
“You have to pick a side,” she said. “Are you just going to sit around and accept every new tax the Tyranny tells you to pay so it can finance its next war or another batch of checkpoints?”
His eyes darted to the window and to the army of AeroCams hovering over every part of the city. “Amy, don’t.”
“My daughter’s friend owed a couple thousand dollars,” she said. “Her home was taken. She was thrown out on the street. When the banks make bad investments, they’re reimbursed. Is that fair?”
“Of course not.”
“And what are we doing about it?”
“What can we do? They’ll drag us away if we speak up. Just like they’ll drag you away if you keep talking like this.” He looked toward the office at the array of reporters, interns, lawyers, and secretaries. All of them were whispering about something or other. Most of them were probably saying Amy was a Thinker. And he was the one sticking up for her, being seen alone with her in her office. What would that mean for him when the Tyranny’s men arrived?
34 – No Way
Year: 2048
“Maybe if we start treating everyone the same,” Matheson said.
“Well, if we can’t stop the wars and all the masses of people being sent to prison, maybe we could make things better with the public, earn their trust back in a way, if we gave the same types of sentences to the owners and their friends as we give to everyone else.”
“Now you’re just making a mockery of this whole thing, Matheson. You know there’s no way we could send any of them to jail. No way.”
“Some of them are supporting the very people we claim are our enemies in other countries and nothing happens. Meanwhile, we’re throwing people in jail for jaywalking. We’re blasting entire families when we suspect just one of them might be a Thinker. People see this stuff and they know we’re playing favorites.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? But you know what will happen if I send the first billionaire to prison? They’ll all turn on me. I won’t get re-elected, that’s for sure. They’ll find a leader who will do anything they want and they’ll make him Ruler. We have to let them do what they want. We have to.”
“Well, then maybe we could do it the other way around.”
“What do you mean?”
“If we can’t send the elite to jail for supporting radicals or the corporations for all the crimes they commit, maybe we could stop sending everyone else to prison for their more minor crimes.”
“This is the dumbest—”
“Just hear me out. If a bank can help drug cartels, maybe we should let the average citizen do the same thing. What’s the harm? The drugs they buy or sell would be infinitesimally small compared to the amount of drugs that the banks are helping pass through our borders. And if we have companies poisoning people and ripping them off, maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on people who commit minor infractions.