The Remaking

by J. T. O'Connell

  After what happened to her mother, how could she just run away? Sovereign City would be a wonderful place to live, if they were with her. Sela hoped her father could understand that, since she could not contact him. If they all three left, she would joyously go.

  Instead, she had spent time watching SovereignCast, learning about the wonderful place, the really powerful ideas that made it so different from Megora.

  Most of the videos in SovereignCast would play for a few weeks. Sela had seen the market spot numerous times. The stream continued. Next came a video Sela had yet to see. Her heart pounded.

  The man's face was strong, the curve of his cheeks faintly soft, yet his jaw firm, framing a gorgeous smile of perfect teeth. He had a way of involving his eyebrows in his expression to reveal the deepest feeling of his soul. His hair was dark, not quite black, kept short and styled to give him an inch of thick waves above his head.

  He was so genuine, so honest and up-front, so generous! Sela knew his face, and admitted to herself that she adored his face.

  His name was Gideon Blaize.

  Sela whispered the name, absorbed by the image. Gideon was the SovereignCast personality who interviewed refugees from supercities. He was athletic, not buff, but muscular, and he was typically an inch or two taller than the people he interviewed for the program.

  Usually he wore a nice button-down shirt and slacks. On this episode, he was wearing a basketball jersey, showing off his broad shoulders, his tan, and the glowing warmth of summer sun splashing down from the open sky.

  His introduction to the episode was mesmerizing. "Hello and welcome, Megora. This is Free At Last. I have good news."

  The camera zoomed out, showing a pair of younger boys, probably thirteen and fifteen. "I'm here to welcome the LaBrie family to Sovereign City, and a better life."

  Gideon smiled with warmth. "And what better way to do that, than to join their boys for a great game of hoops?"

  Rock music played over shots spliced together of a three-on three game, Gideon and the LaBrie boys against three other boys of mid-to-late teens making shots, skirting around each other, passing, rebounding, cheering, and grinning. Everyone having a blast.

  After a while, Gideon spoke again, his jersey feather-touched around the neck by a thin shadow of sweat. His skin glistened even brighter now. "Boy, those kids are glad to be back in the land of the free! Let's talk to their parents and find out a little about them." He shot the ball one last time, hitting a perfect three-point swish.

  The shot cut to Gideon and the parents sitting on stone benches elsewhere in the municipal park. Gideon had toweled off, looking radiant as ever.

  The LaBrie's looked star-struck. They had seen this young man on these feeds, and then taken the risk to flee from Megora. And suddenly they found themselves in paradise, being interviewed by an angel.

  "It's great to have you both here," Gideon started easily. His smile was so welcoming, the parents couldn't help but smile back.

  "It's just… a wonderful blessing to have made it, Gideon," Mrs. LaBrie said, her husband nodding at the words.

  "Before we get too deep, I have to ask, Mr. LaBrie, who's this little darling behind you?"

  The camera panned over to show a child, a girl, sitting in the grass and playing with a doll.

  "That would be Meghan, our youngest," Mr. LaBrie was camera-shy compared to his wife, and yet the pride and joy of his family shone through his eyes.

  "So you have three special children. That's just so great! We have so many kids they can make friends with here in Sovereign City."

  Mrs. LaBrie smiled, tears brimming in her eyes, "It's more than we could ever have hoped for!"

  Gideon nodded and leaned forward, "And I want you both to know," he clasped his hands together, "this is the safest town you could ever raise children in. We take our families very seriously here. We all look out for each other, and make sure to keep our city very safe for all who love liberty."

  Mrs. LaBrie wiped her eyes. Sela felt her throat tighten with happiness for the family.

  The crime in Megora was appalling. So many mundane things were outlawed in the Remaking, that the Guides couldn't dedicate much time and effort to stopping real crimes, like kidnapping, murder, and assault; not unless the victims were important to the Council. Sela couldn't imagine trying to raise a little girl like Meghan in so cruel, careless, and cramped a city as Megora.

  Yet, it was rare for an entire family to escape the Remaking. Sela had seen numerous interviews with Gideon Blaize. It was nearly always just one person, or maybe a handful of friends that escaped. Travelling overland with three children was difficult to manage. This was the first full family Sela had seen on Free At Last.

  Gideon sat up straight and rested an arm on the back of the bench. "Mr. LaBrie, tell me about your family; where you come from, originally I mean."

  Mr. LaBrie nodded, "Before the… Before the Remaking, we lived in Salt Lake, but when we applied for our placement, they sent us up to Detr—I mean Megora. We were sent to Megora."

  "That sort of thing happened to a lot of people," Gideon nodded sympathetically. Sela subconsciously tried to match the angle of his eyebrows.

  "Yes, that's what everyone in Megora said."

  "What did you do for a living?" Gideon asked.

  Mr. LaBrie answered, "I was a civil engineer, so I spent a lot of time trying to work on the infrastructure and…" He shrugged, "It just became clear very quickly that no one could untangle all that mess. No one worked together. The electricians didn't talk to waterworks, and neither of them cared what the Transit Authority needed."

  "Mmm," Gideon nodded with understanding.

  "We just realized that… the government was the same thing," Mrs. LaBrie added, shrugging. "It was just too big to be good."

  "Too complex, too many goals," Mr. LaBrie agreed with his wife.

  Gideon tilted his head and pushed forward another sweet smile, "Sovereign City is the polar opposite. Our government here is too good to be big."

  The trio laughed and Sela did too. She had never heard it put like that. She wondered if her father was watching. His views had changed as his work with the Provisional Council had exposed more and more flaws.

  "How long did you live in Megora before you decided to leave?" Gideon's voice softened, anticipating the difficulty the conversation was approaching for the couple.

  "Uh…" Mr. LaBrie glanced up into the sky to think, "Honestly, it took… maybe two years."

  "But that was because we hadn't heard of Sovereign City!" Mrs. LaBrie protested.

  "Oh?" Gideon leaned back.

  "It's true. It's true, Gideon," Mr. LaBrie groaned as he continued, "I'm afraid a lot of people in Megora believe the lies from the Agency of Vision. They don't think there's anything outside the Zone but a wasteland."

  "Yes, it has…" Gideon sighed with labor, his own soul mangled by these facts. "It has been very difficult for us to get the word out about Sovereign City. Many are unaware. Others are aware and simply have not yet been able to leave Megora."

  Gideon's voice ached, as though each word stabbed him in the chest. It actually pained him to realize that many people in Megora were oblivious to what Sovereign City offered!

  "If only more could discover the hope that we offer…" Gideon grimaced sadly.

  "Oh, but they will, Gideon!" Mrs. LaBrie reached forward and touched Gideon's shoulder, half to reassure the stricken host, and half to confirm for herself that her family had really made it out of Megora forever. "We found your shows, and more people will too!"

  "Yes, they will," Gideon nodded and brought a thin smile back. "We will find a way to let everyone know. Those who want to live free, will have the chance at it, and have the chance here."

  Straightening his shoulders, Gideon said formally, "Mr. and Mrs. LaBrie, you have your lives back. We are happy to extend a warm hand of greeting to your family. Welcome to Sovereign City!"

  Chapter 3

  After the interview,
another replay program showed workers renovating a damaged. So much of it had been pulled down, it was impossible to tell what had caused the damage; whether it had been war, the disasters, or just age grinding away the accomplishments of human toil.

  Sela had seen the rerun several times, and told the tablet to skip this one. The next video was another re-run, as were the two following that. And then the loop started again. Only the interview was new to her.

  She set the tablet down and thought for a while. It would be wonderful to live in Sovereign City, to live in peace and tranquility, although she didn't know if the videos idealized the place. Probably they did to some extent.

  There was no way the Provisional Council would allow an alternative society out there to go on existing. Her father had explained that to her. Doctrines that flew in the face of PC mandates could expose how wrong the government was. Any alternative was unacceptable in their eyes.

  And the Council had significant military strength. How could a place flagrantly countering the Remaking possibly stand up against any backlash? How many people lived in Sovereign City? What did their army look like? She had not seen any signs of military strength in the months she had been watching the occasional broadcasts.

  Sela’s father had once mentioned that America had been easier to subdue than some other areas of the world. A prosperous nation can quickly forget the cost of the plenty it enjoys. It can become lethargic enough to let go of the principles that provide for that success.

  Other areas of the world were inhabited by tribes that had very little contact with the wider world, even none at all. Tucked away in jungles and rough terrain, remote, secluded. Even those people had to be integrated into the Remaking, so said the Council.

  Between the First World and the tribal were many peoples resilient to subjugation. Those in the Third World were vividly aware of the wealth enjoyed in prosperity. They saw lavish riches, and wanted it, much more than they wanted another dictatorship, even dictatorship of an enlightened, intellectual elite.

  The poor of those torn countries knew first-hand what tyranny was like. Trying to scrape out a living day to day, managing only a meager subsistence that could be crumpled and thrown away at the wave of a powerful hand. If they were to suffer under such foolish government, at least it ought to be local, someone of their own land calling the shots.

  The Provisional Council was an international agglomeration of influential social theorists and powerful ideologues, all of them networked together in a complex web. Sela’s uncle had been involved in so many different organizations and clubs, all of it geared toward making a better world. Better with more central control, better by directing the lives of the masses. Remaking the world.

  America had forgotten what it meant to be subjects. Americans had gone to sleep and let a powerful tyranny overtake the nation handed down from ancestors. Without a fight.

  Many areas of the world fought the Council's military forces. Those regional wars occupied significant resources dedicated to bringing all of mankind under Council rule.

  But how could an entire city go unmolested in North America? A city that made open propaganda efforts in Megora no less!

  Sela wondered if SovereignCast was injected into other supercity networks. It was certainly possible. She really had no clue where the City was. The Council knew, no doubt.

  And what of the disasters?

  Somehow Sovereign City had managed to escape the storms that pounded some areas for days on end. The flooding, the blasts of lighting that fell almost as heavy as rain. Tornados that wandered for days on end, scouring the landscape, tracking back on themselves and pulverizing the debris it had tossed about earlier.

  The death toll had climbed quickly. It was like nothing that had ever been recorded in the world before, and all assumed that somehow the planet was retaliating for ecological damage.

  Sela sighed and stood up, moving to the cramped balcony attached to her apartment. Far below, the street was now full of pedestrians rushing everywhere in a hurry, going nowhere fast.

  Her apartment was one of those on an outside wall of the building, which was lucky, since most of the dwellings had no windows, much less a balcony. It was in a concave corner of the building, her balcony butting up against another wall.

  She sat down in a chair and looked out, listening to the breeze moan through Megora, while she watched the people migrate far below.

  Those disasters had not been natural, Sela knew. How could an ecosystem retaliate? It couldn't. It didn't have a mind. Natural catastrophes didn't happen because the planet was angry. They happened because they happen, and tragically, people sometimes happen to be in the way.

  And yet, the disasters that drove so many people into the sanctuary of supercities like Megora, those disasters were not natural at all.

  Sela's father had been involved in a research group that had discovered a complex relationship between the solar cycle, and cloud formation. A decade before the Remaking began, Sela's Uncle Steffen had approached her father. One of his organizations began funding the research in exchange for full access to the information.

  Eventually, Sela's father realized that the disasters were not new weather patterns at all. They were normal storms dramatically exacerbated. The Council was using his life's work to amplify storms, to wreak havoc and kill thousands of people.

  Of course, by the time Sela's father tried to back away from the Provisional Council, his family was trapped in Megora, in the Tower of Hope.

  A sophisticated propaganda campaign rounded out the effort. Terrifying news stories and doomsday ads convinced much of America to abandon their old way of living, and take shelter in the safe havens run by the Provisional Council. The supercities had been under construction for years, by that time.

  Once everyone who would come voluntarily was relocated, the invitations were converted into mandates. Those choosing to brave the storms and the collapse of the old world were rounded up. Anyone resisting was compelled with brutal, even lethal, force.

  How could an entire city have passed through all of this without so much as a single violent storm? After all, the Council could simply wait until a storm naturally forms somewhere near Sovereign City, and then amplify it until it destroyed everything in sight.

  Somehow, the City had developed a method to counteract the… Well, it wasn't weather control. The Council couldn't control storms, only make them worse. The technology could only be put to sinister use, disgraceful in Sela's eyes.

  And yet, Sovereign City was there, a beacon of hope for those who wanted to escape the Remaking. If only there were a way Sela's parents could escape Megora with her. That was probably impossible, given the condition her mother was in.

  Sela swallowed back her frustration and let a few sorrowful tears slip down her cheeks. It was incredibly hard to live by herself, having no one to talk to about how much she missed her parents, how much she worried about her mother's condition.

  Her father was being made to continue working for the Council. He would do what he had to do to get the treatments Sela's mother needed. But that was why he had sent his daughter away. If the Council could poison his wife, then they eventually would go after Sela too.

  He had set up a hidden account that continually bought her ghost time, the most expensive sort. Being on the inside for so long at least had the advantage of powerful connections and some wealth.

  Meanwhile, Sela tried to live, since she had refused to leave for Sovereign City. Her face, voice, fingerprints, DNA, everything; scanned as Sela Mason, a ghosted identity. Her real name was Sela Wallis.

  She hadn't spoken with anyone who knew that name in a long time.

  Sure, there were people she could trust. She would see Max Gaines tomorrow, and she could trust him, for the most part. No one could be trusted enough to know who she really was, though. Sela couldn't risk everything her father had sacrificed just to vent her feelings to someone.

  She would just have to endure.

  Wa
king up the next morning was tough. Stress from all her thoughts had made falling asleep difficult. Sela crawled out of bed and made a cup of coffee.

  She sipped it and frowned with annoyance. It was lousy coffee. It always tasted burnt, no matter what she did. Good coffee was expensive, these days.

  While it cooled, she showered and dressed in clothes that were nice while comfortable. She wouldn't draw too much attention.

  Sela never wanted to look too attractive while she was out, unless she was doing something that really demanded it. Attracting attention in her district was asking for trouble. Anything that singled you out above everyone else…

  By now the coffee had cooled, so she downed the rest in one long pull, and then rinsed out the mug, and drank a cup of water to thin out the bitter aftertaste. The last thing she did was grab the memory card from inside the table and stash it in her purse.

  Out on the street, she weaved through the crowds of people, tracing her path back to the transportation level. She boarded the Magtrain and spent the following half hour eyeing the other passengers while pretending not to look at anyone.

  So did everyone else nearby.

  Finally at her stop, Sela climbed up to street level. She kept her purse open, giving her ready access to the mace and the handgun her father had given her.

  She had not fired a gun since she was twelve, back in Nashville. A friend had gone out to a range with her family, inviting Sela along.

  It was intimidating at first, but the adults had given her a rigorous course on firearm safety and made certain she understood and respected the guns. The overpowering noise of gunfire had heightened her awareness of just how serious even target shooting was.

  Quickly though, she realized it could also be a lot of fun. Something about the recoil, the thump of the report in her ribs, the perfect hole cut into fresh paper targets; shooting was very satisfying.

  Sela wasn't a great shot, although considering she had only been shooting that one time, she wasn't bad, either. If she ever had to use the pistol, it could go either way for her.