The Hidden Truth: A Science Fiction Techno-Thriller

by Hans G. Schantz

  Mom, Dad, and I arrived at the appointed time on a cold Thanksgiving morning. The Tollivers’ maid opened the door for us. “Hello, Miss! So good to be seeing you!”

  “Hi Cookie!” Mom smiled. “So good to be seeing you, too.”

  “Come right on in,” Cookie said. “Yo’ momma’s busy in the kitchen and she won’t hardly let me help,” she said to Mom. “You might could talk some sense into her so’s we both could lend her a hand.” I followed as Cookie led us to the kitchen. “Where’s that sweet little girl o’ yours?” Cookie asked Mom.

  “She’s spending Thanksgiving with her boyfriend’s family,” Mom explained.

  “Hard to imagine her all grown up like that,” Cookie said. “Why, I remember when she was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

  We passed the living room, where I saw Abby deeply intent, studying some papers. I decided I might as well get my obligatory annual exchange of greetings with her out of the way.

  I let Mom and Dad continue to the kitchen in Cookie’s wake, went in to the living room – or was it a “parlor?” – and I sat down in the chair right next to Abby. I figured my refusal to await her formal permission to join her and my flagrant assumption of equality in helping myself to the chair next to her might annoy her enough to cut short our exchange. Amit was becoming a bad influence on me when it came to using social tricks on people.

  “Hello, Abby,” I said with as much warmth as I could muster. She jerked with surprise. Must not have seen me. “Sorry to startle you,” I added.

  She set her papers down as far away from me as she could reach and turned them face down. Now I was curious. “Hi,” she said. “I didn’t hear you arrive.” She must have been focused. That gong they called a doorbell would wake the dead.

  “How’s your school year going?” I asked, politely.

  “I’m going with Shawn to the winter dance,” she said smugly. Ah yes, unscrupulous Shawn from the debate team. His father was a lawyer, so he was socially acceptable in a way that Amit could never have been. Besides, he was buddies and debate partner with our cousin, David, Uncle Mike’s son. “Shawn and David were telling me about how you and Amit lost to Sharon and Emma in the pre-season debate tournament,” Abby continued.

  “You win some, you lose some,” I observed indifferently. I refused to be baited by Abby. I continued looking calmly at her. I spoke; it’s your turn, Abby. The silence stretched on. Finally she broke.

  “Shawn is getting a Porsche for Christmas,” Abby offered.

  Heh. Nice try. “Kinda takes the fun out of it if you know in advance what Santa’s bringing you, don’t you think?” I asked. Abby paused, clearly frustrated by her inability to get a rise out of me.

  “Shawn said you and Amit gave up on debate and did Student Congress instead at the last tournament,” Abby said. My, that girl just wouldn’t give up probing for a weakness.

  “Why haven’t you tried out for debate, Abby?” I asked. “You’d be good at it.”

  “Debate is for…” Probably for losers or geeks or something else suitably derogatory for the likes of me. Only her lawyer-wannabe boyfriend was in debate, too. She caught herself in time to avoid the trap. “Well, it’s not for me,” she finished weakly.

  Best to quit while I was ahead and before she figured out a way to actually score on me. I figured I’d spoken with her enough to fulfill the demands of courtesy toward my hosts, so I excused myself. As I left, I saw her grab her papers and continue reading them. What was she studying so intently?

  Everyone else was in the kitchen – my folks, Grandma, Cookie, Uncle Larry, and Aunt Nikki. Uncle Mike, Mom’s other brother, and his family were off elsewhere this year. I could make a meal off the snacks and appetizers Grandma had laid out – sausage cheese balls, chips and nacho dip, and she had dinner rolls that had been sliced, filled with ham, cheese, and a spicy brown mustard, and then baked. Grandma popped a new tray of a dozen small rolls out of the oven. I helped myself to a couple, steaming hot.

  Uncle Larry was bragging to Dad about how even in a down market, Tolliver Corporation was doing better than the rest of the businesses in the sector.

  “A large part of the cost of construction materials comes from transportation,” Dad was saying. “The Gore Tax is only going to make Tolliver lumber more expensive to your customers.”

  “We’re doing our part to help preserve our planet’s future,” Uncle Larry observed self-righteously. Ah, yes. It was actually the “Preserving our Planet’s Future Act.” Only climate deniers like Dad referred to it as the Gore Tax. “Besides,” Uncle Larry added, “lumber naturally sequesters carbon out of the air. I have it on good authority that the EPA will soon be recommending that lumber producers, like Tolliver, get carbon credits that will more than make up for the carbon taxes on the fuel.”

  Dad was shaking his head. “All that red tape doesn’t help either the planet, or your business. You pay their extortion with one hand and get their kickbacks and rebates with the other. It only breeds more bureaucrats and makes it more difficult to do business.”

  “It’s hardly the government’s fault if poorly-capitalized small businesses aren’t able to do their fair share to help the environment,” Uncle Larry opined piously. Uncle Larry may have had a point, but even I could see he was just trying to bait Dad.

  Grandma Tolliver interrupted whatever retort Dad was about to make by handing him a cup of coffee. “Here you go, son,” she said, “hot and black, just the way you like it.” I always got the impression Grandma Tolliver liked Dad. “If y’all will accompany me to the dining room,” Grandma added, “Cookie is ready to serve our Thanksgiving dinner.”

  I saw Abby come into the dining room empty-handed, so I excused myself as everyone was settling into their places at the table. I headed down the hall to the bathroom. I spied Abby’s papers on the coffee table where she must have left them. Unable to resist my curiosity any further, I took a peek. It was a print out of a web page – “Explaining How to Preserve Our Planet’s Future to Your Crazy Right-Wing Uncle.” Oh my. This was going to be an interesting dinner.

  I washed my hands and returned to the dining room as everyone was taking their seats.

  At the head of the table, Uncle Larry said Grace. Then, Cookie rotated around the table, removing the plate covers. Grandma Tolliver picked up her fork and took the first bite of dinner. That was my cue to dig in, although with much tinier and more dignified bites than I would ever have eaten at home. Cut three bites, eat three bites, and cut three more. Mom had pounded proper table manners into me.

  Abby piped up proudly, “Our turkey was raised free-range right here in Lee County. It’s locally-sourced, so we’re doing our part to avoid unnecessary greenhouse emissions and protect our planet’s future.”

  I saw a hint of a smile on Dad’s face. He turned to Mom, “Please pass the butter, dear.” He was going to bite on a buttered roll, not on the political point Abby dangled in front of him.

  Abby was undeterred. “The Preserving Our Planet’s Future Act prevented global catastrophe by committing the U.S. to targeted reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve slowed the growth in temperature almost to a standstill, but carbon dioxide levels are still rising and more must be done to roll back the damage of our past recklessness.” There was a long and pregnant pause. Finally, Dad broke the silence.

  “What delicious gravy, Mrs. Tolliver,” Dad said with a hint of amusement in his voice.

  “Oh, bless your heart,” Grandma Tolliver said, “but Cookie is actually responsible for the gravy.”

  “Oh,” Dad turned to Cookie, “Thank you, Cookie for all your hard work. The gravy is particularly delicious.”

  “You’re welcome, sir, thank you” Cookie said to Dad as she continued topping off water and wine glasses around the table.

  I could tell Abby was getting frustrated at her inability to engage Dad in a political discussion about climate change. “We need to dismantle the capitalist system and make sure business takes its proper role
as the servant to social needs, if we’re going to protect our planet’s future.”

  Dad studiously ignored her. I caught Uncle Larry glance at Abby in smug approval. The rules of etiquette are clear. The head of the table has a responsibility to steer conversation away from adversarial or controversial topics, but Uncle Larry was standing by, letting his daughter take pot shots at Dad. I had come to expect that kind of subtle yet contemptuous discourtesy from Uncle Larry. Much as I understood the danger of climate change and the importance of environmental concerns, I was finding Abby’s harping to be tedious and annoying.

  Exasperated with her lack of success, Abby gave up her indirect approach and engaged Dad directly. “What do you think, Uncle?” she asked him.

  “You’re too young to remember it,” Dad observed mildly, “but socialism was tried over and over, again and again in the twentieth century. We had the “National Socialism” of the Nazis in Germany, and the “International Socialism” of the Communists in Russia. Both flavors of socialism left destruction and death tolls that would have been unimaginable to folks a century ago.”

  “Real socialism has never been tried,” Abby asserted. “Those were unsuccessful and flawed attempts.”

  “Would you say the Aztecs never practiced real human sacrifice,” Dad asked dryly, “because they never did get their crops to grow reliably no matter how much blood they shed?” I could tell Uncle Larry was getting angry at Dad’s brutal directness. Mom had put her hand on Dad’s arm. Dad continued quickly, “But, let’s not spoil this lovely meal with any more politics. How ‘bout them Vols? Think they’ll take the SEC this year?”

  Tolliver Corporation had a skybox at Neyland stadium on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville. Uncle Larry liked little better than to talk about the football team. He took Dad’s bait, describing some of “our” best plays in the most recent games as if he were on the field with the team. That effectively ended Abby’s attempt to indoctrinate her crazy right-wing uncle.

  The rest of the meal passed without incident.

  After Cookie cleared the table, Aunt Nikki insisted Mom and Dad needed to come out back with Grandma to see Grandma’s chrysanthemums. Abby followed along leaving me with Uncle Larry. “So, how is school going?” he asked me.

  “Fine,” I said, neutrally.

  “Abby was telling me about your women’s suffrage debate a couple of months ago,” he added.

  Did he think I cared that deeply about winning every debate? “You win some, you lose some,” I said philosophically, getting better at it with practice.

  “Did you know that the Tollivers and other key players in the Civic Circle are deeply involved in the women’s rights movement?” he asked.

  “Oh?” I was genuinely curious. “No, I didn’t.” I wondered where he was going with this.

  “Not with women’s suffrage per se,” he clarified, “but more recently. We’re funding women’s studies on campuses across the country and given grants to any number of activist groups. What do you suppose feminism is all about?”

  “Women’s rights?” Now I was confused. “Equal pay for equal work? No discrimination on the basis of gender?”

  “Not really.” He seemed smugly amused at my apparent ignorance. “That’s not why we pushed it or why it was done. The women’s rights movement had three goals. First, it got women into the workplace where their labor could be taxed. Have you studied economics at all?”

  “Not formally,” I said, “but I’ve read a bit.”

  “If you increase the supply of something, what happens to the price?”

  “All other things being equal,” I qualified my answer, “the price goes down.”

  “That’s right,” he said as proudly as if I were a puppy who had learned to perform a trick at his command. “So, with more women entering the work force the supply of labor increases and wages are depressed. It becomes a self-perpetuating sociological construct. There’s a whole study of how to implement social changes that once implemented cannot be reversed – it’s called a sociological ratchet. Things like women’s suffrage, women’s rights, Social Security, and many of the best, most progressive ideas are all policies that once implemented, can never be reversed. That’s by design.

  “Now couples need to have two careers to support a typical modern lifestyle. We can’t tax the labor in a home-cooked meal. We can tax the labor in takeout food, or the higher cost of a microwave dinner. The economic potential of both halves of the adult population now largely flows into the government where it can serve noble social ends instead of petty private interests.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be appalled or amazed at the way he so casually considered commanding and controlling other peoples’ lives. These were certainly some ideas I’d never considered before. “That’s very interesting, sir.” I decided to remain non-committal and see what else he might share. “You said there were three reasons for feminism?”

  “Yes,” he said, apparently interpreting my interest as approval. “The second reason is to get children out of the potentially anti-social environment of their homes and into educational settings where we can be sure they get the right values and learn the right lessons to be happy and productive members of society. Working mothers need to send their children to day care and after-school care where we can be sure they get exposed to the right lessons, or at least not to bad ideas.”

  “Many families homeschool, though,” I pointed out, “and there are still many mothers, like mine, who stay at home. Mom put me and my sister, Kira, to work at chores around the house after school, made sure we picked up after ourselves and took care of ourselves, learned to do laundry and cook, and do dishes.”

  “Yes,” Uncle Larry acknowledged. “That is a weakness. But, we’re even now implementing a solution to it. It’s going to be called “Common Core.” We’re going to tie together all the states and their educational systems to a single set of curricular standards, and we’ll require homeschooled students meet the same standards. We’re going to mandate testing to exactly quantify student performance to be sure no child gets left behind and identify problem schools and problem teachers.”

  I was confused. “That sounds like a good thing,” I noted. “Quantify performance and hold public schools accountable for their failures.”

  Uncle Larry smiled smugly. “Oh, it is, but you should never consider a policy based only on its first-order effects. You have to look past that at the second-order consequences, too. Teachers will be evaluated on their performance based on how well their students do on their tests. So, what will happen?”

  “They will be motivated to do their best to do a good job teaching their students.” It still wasn’t making sense to me.

  “They will spend all their time teaching students how to optimize test scores to the exclusion of anything outside the officially approved curriculum, making sure they stay precisely focused on the officially sanctioned lessons,” Uncle Larry clarified. “But, that’s not the real benefit.”

  “I still don’t get it,” I confessed.

  “What happens when they run out of time? When they are already teaching their poor little hearts out, and their students’ test scores are still questionable, and the raise they were hoping for isn’t going to happen unless their students become more proficient?”

  I was still drawing a blank. Uncle Larry enlightened me. “They are going to assign homework to their students: enough homework to guarantee that even elementary school students are spending all their spare time doing homework. Their poor parents, eager to see that Junior stays up with the rest of the class, will be spending all their time helping their kids get incrementally more proficient on the tests we have designed. They’ll be too busy doing homework to pick up on any anti-social messages at home.”

  “Homework in elementary school?” The notion seemed ridiculous to me. Except for the occasional project, I didn’t even begin to get homework until I was in ninth grade or so. Even now, in high school, I was usually
able to complete all my homework in spare moments while in other classes or during breaks.

  “Of course it seems peculiar to you,” Uncle Larry acknowledged. “You’re not accustomed to it, but it’s coming: slowly, gradually, bit by bit, until parents and children alike are used to the concept and take it for granted.”

  That sounded spooky. It reminded me of Dad’s parable of the frogs in the slowly boiling water. I carefully kept my unease off my face and focused on looking interested and engaged.

  “Children will be too busy to learn independence at home,” Uncle Larry continued, “too busy to do chores, to learn how to take care of themselves, to be responsible for their own cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Their parents will have to cater to their little darlings’ every need, and their little darlings will be utterly dependent on their parents. When the kids grow up, they will be used to having someone else take care of them. They will shift that spirit of dependence from their parents, to their university professors, and ultimately to their government. The next generation will be psychologically prepared to accept a government that would be intrusive even by today’s relaxed standards – a government that will tell them exactly how to behave and what to think. Not a Big Brother government, but a Mommy-State.”

  Uncle Larry was getting on a roll now – animated and excited. I got the impression he didn’t get to open up like this often. It was fascinating – albeit in a deeply disturbing sort of way. I didn’t have trouble continuing to look interested and engaged. He continued taking my interest as an indication of receptiveness to his ideas, and he kept on describing his schemes.

  “Eventually, we may even outlaw homeschooling as antisocial, like our more progressive cousins in Germany already do,” he noted. “Everyone must know their place in society and work together for social good, not private profit.”