“What time is it?” Sela asked, falling into step beside Desmond.
“A little past three,” he answered.
Within two minutes, they were passing areas of the office Sela recognized, and people that recognized her. She couldn’t remember the names of the four researchers, but she replied to their greetings.
The pair rode the elevator down and moved out onto the street. People in business attire went their separate ways, hardly noticing each other, though each and every person was dressed to impress. Yet, card phones, tablets, and expensive Eyeblade glasses enslaved their attention.
Desmond ignored everyone as he walked. He glanced now and then at Sela, exchanged vague smiles with her. She remembered how handsome he was, and how easy it was to miss when she was angry at him.
Sela had spent her time in the shower decompressing from the video. The whole process had wound her up tight, and she was tighter still, because of the past few weeks. She thought about the letter in her purse, and thought this time, she was doing what her father had asked.
It was harder this time around, though. He had spent enough money to get her out of Megora, simple and plain. Of course, she would still have had to find a way to Sovereign City, but just getting outside of Megora was a big step. She’d had a free ticket that she turned down.
Now, Sela thought wistfully, I’ll have to help the Vines capture my cousin. It made her nervous, so she tried to put the task out of mind. It could be a few days before she’d have to do that, after all, right? Maybe Leon would be busy with some training exercise, or maybe he would give her a low priority.
Well, no, Sela told herself. No, he’ll give me a high priority, because he knows how important my dad is.
At any rate, Desmond was taking her out to get some relief from all this stress. It would be impolite to ruin that with melancholy or anxiety. And she wanted respite; even a little would make the upcoming challenges easier to bear.
“Where are we going, then?” Sela asked once more. If it was to another nice restaurant, Sela would have to find a way to explain that she wasn’t hungry. She couldn’t imagine eating right now.
“There’s a really great part of the city that I wanted to show you,” he replied.
Which wasn’t saying much. Sela didn’t express the thought though. She had been to many of the nicer areas of Megora, though. These clothes were for the nicer areas. “What part of Megora is it?”
“Technically, it’s part of Detroit,” he answered, with another smile.
At that, Sela wrinkled her eyebrows. Detroit was gone, slowly bought up and rebuilt in the years leading up to the Remaking. It was the first city in North America to really take shape, followed closely by some city in Mexico, whose name she couldn’t recall.
Several turns and about twenty minutes later, she noticed there was a break in the tall, ominous buildings. There, nestled into one of the wealthier districts, half a dozen blocks stood, buildings not of the post-modern sort that filled Megora.
These were… Sela didn’t know the term for it. American Modern? Maybe. They were red brick buildings, tall for their day, with iron-bar fire escapes and old framed windows.
No naturalights were mounted to their sides, no mirrors. It was still about the middle of the afternoon, and Sela could see that the shadows of Megora would cover over the structures too early. For now though, they were still bathed in beautiful sunlight, making the antiquated buildings seem warm and inviting and nostalgic.
During all of their moving, Sela’s family had once lived in an apartment not terribly different from those buildings. She had been young, six or seven, and they had only lived at the place for a year or so.
Foggy memories slid through her mind. Memories of cherry-stained hardwood floors that creaked underfoot, and helping to dry dishes with her parents, helping as much a child can. There was an old sofa that Sela could remember thinking very comfortable, even though its cloth covers were worn from use.
The buildings loomed over Sela and Desmond as they approached. And Sela began to notice something else nostalgic. Some of the people wore wearing outdated clothes, the sort worn when Sela was a child.
“How did this whole area get… left alone?” Sela asked. A man passed them with a wavy haircut that was at least twenty years out of date.
“They got the Council to agree to it,” Desmond replied. She followed as he took a right down a narrow street between two of the blocks. “In every other respect, they’re loyal to the Remaking.”
Passing a plate glass window, Sela saw antiques on display. The store was selling trinkets and books and clothing and furniture, all of it older than the Remaking, some of it much older.
Desmond paused in front of the shop and added, “The Remaking is about people more than it is about objects. Going along with it has privileges.”
As they stepped into the shop, Sela wondered just how long the Council would allow this remnant of the past to persist. The past was the enemy of the Remaking, along with reality and human nature.
“I come here sometimes to get away from Megora. Whenever I need to remember what we once had."
Desmond greeted the store owner with a wave and then escorted Sela around. Rather than one large room packed with antiques, there were several. At least half of the first floor was part of this store.
The rooms were broad and large and would have been spacious, but for the overwhelming assortment of items for sale. Sela guessed the first floor had been a spacious apartment in years past, a luxury suite, now converted into a warehouse of nostalgia.
Much of the merchandise looked like junk to her. Things like old children’s toys from the seventies, sewing equipment a century out of date, and dusty volumes from every era; none of that piqued her interest.
Every so often, Desmond point out a knickknack or a tool or an old electronic device. Some of them she didn’t recognize until he named them. Without the celluloid on it, the reel-to-reel video projector looked odd.
It was quiet in the store, and a faint musty scent nestled among the merchandise. There were aging pieces of furniture, classic video game consoles and cartridges, even old jewelry, coins, and medallions behind glass cases.
Every so often, the hardwood floor would groan underfoot. The shop was as old as the items offered for sale. It seemed loud, in comparison to the hush of the antique shop.
Sela did see things she recognized. There was an old Lite-Brite set, indistinguishable from the one Sela’s mother had saved from her childhood. There were little statuettes of cats and some of other animals as well. There were miniature houses, everything in the cutaway dwellings a frozen snapshot of the early 1950s.
There on a high shelf, leaning against the wall was something she had not seen in ages. It was in a case with a glass front, out of reach for the average person, tucked just into the shadows where the fluorescent light just didn’t quite seem to penetrate very well.
It was folded into a triangle, the same shape as the case. The case was a nice oak, darkly stained and once polished, now nicked and scuffed with age. Even through a layer of dust on the glass, Sela could see the deep blue hue contrasting with the white stars, only a few.
Sela stared at the cloth for a few seconds before she realized what it was. The red and white stripes could not be seen, but they were surely there, folded behind the starfield of blue.
For the first time, Sela realized she had not seen an American flag since coming to Megora. Such displays of regional pride were banned by the Provisional Council, and at least in Megora, the prohibition was total.
Sela could remember a time when there had been American flags in her classrooms. That had been a long time before the Remaking began. Back then, in the first few grades of elementary school, children began the day by pledging allegiance to the flag and to the country it represented.
She didn’t know how she felt about that, compelling kids to revere such things.
And somewhere around fourth grade, maybe earlier, maybe later, t
he flag and the pledge just didn’t show up anymore. The adults just went on about their days, as though everything was the same, and there was an additional thirty seconds not wasted on kids standing and reciting lines they didn’t understand.
There had been flags outside of school, sure. And yet, as Sela remembered back, they had slowly been weeded away. By the time they moved to Nashville, many areas of the town never displayed a flag, as though there were something gratuitous or barbaric in it.
Flags were regularly on display in Megora, but they were the gray-and-blue banner of the Remaking; olive branches cradling a globe, all of it lifted upward by a palm attached to an arm at the bottom of the flag.
It was everywhere. It was a patch that every Guide wore along with the chevron triangle. It was plastered onto all of the propaganda pieces created by the Agency of Vision.
Sela had grown sick of seeing it at first, when she had moved out of the Tower of Hope. She had not realized how ubiquitous the symbol of the Remaking was until she began to question what it stood for.
Breaking out of her trance, she blinked twice and turned her eyes away from that relic of Old Glory. Then she noticed that Desmond stared at it too, his gaze reaching into the past as well.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said vaguely.
She looked at the stars again, her mind imagining the stripes. She didn’t know what to say. She never really had strong feelings about the United States, and still didn’t, even to this day.
“It was so much better than what we have now,” Desmond whispered grimly.
Sela squinted, “If it was so perfect…” she paused, wanting to ask the question carefully, “then why did they let go of it?”
Desmond shrugged his shoulders, still staring. “A hundred different reasons, a thousand.” He finally looked toward her, “The problem was success.”
“Huh?” she asked, startled. “How can that be?”
Desmond’s eyes took a faraway look again. “America eradicated so many of the real, deep problems that had always plagued mankind. People started to magnify the littlest, trifling problems into divisive obstacles.
“There used to be a saying,” he took a breath, “’ Don’t make a federal case out of it.’ And essentially what it meant was that… yes, problems persist in humanity, but some small problems are not worth fixing if you have to move heaven and earth to do so. Government might fix something small today by expanding its power. But then, having gained authority to intervene in every little detail, that same government might make life a living hell.”
Sela could certainly believe that. The Remaking demonstrated that hazard daily.
Desmond added, “Some people didn’t like that freedom lets everyone live different lives, based upon their own choices. They didn’t think it was good that some folks earned millions of dollars more than others, even though money was just a measure of satisfying other people’s needs and desires.”
He lifted up his hands for emphasis, “If someone doesn’t think they’ll be better off, they won’t buy something from you. That’s all there is too it. And if you don’t think you’ll be better off, you won’t sell it.
“Free trade is the greatest encouragement to help your fellow man, because both people are better off, every time a deal is made.
“When government gets involved, it always comes down to force; forcing people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. That means someone only gets a benefit when someone else gets hurt, and that’s not good.”
“But people didn’t see it that way?” Sela asked.
“Some people, a loud group,” Desmond answered. “They thought that you can only get rich by stealing somehow from everyone else.”
“Well that’s how the Provisional Council does it,” Sela pointed out.
“True, but that’s not free trade,” Desmond countered. “That’s government. Government is force. It is the threat that you’ll go to prison, if you don’t comply with the demands. Under free markets, you can choose where to do business and how and when. You can even refuse to do business. It’s all up to you.”
Sela sighed, rolling her eyes. “Okay, if you say so.”
Desmond scowled at her, but he moved on, “People wanted the money to all be spread evenly, regardless of how wealth got to where it was. What they didn’t understand was that the money changed hands in all of these millions and millions of little transactions that everyone participated in. Those who were frugal and productive gained, and those who made foolish choices or were lazy didn’t, but they at least had the benefit of being able to choose what they got for their money.”
“What about luck?” Sela demanded. “Doesn’t luck play a role?”
“Sure, like the luck of being born with a natural talent for something like singing or playing baseball or figuring out calculus problems. It’s a factor.
“But the point is that these millions and even billions of little decisions by everyone decided who got what. And keeping the decisions on the personal level encouraged people to find innovative ways to make others better off. And it was essentially fair! Those who truly needed help because of bad luck could get it through local charities.”
He shook his head in frustration, “But some wanted the choices people make to have no bearing on the results of those choices. They wanted everyone to have the same amount of money, without regard to what sort of choices they make.”
It didn’t sound too bad to Sela. In fact, if people could become poor just because they made a few bad choices, she thought that was a pretty awful system.
“But if we’ll all end up with the same amount of what is produced, regardless of how we behave, then there’s not much to encourage people to do the right thing and work hard.
“It’s much easier to sit and watch television or sleep in or do whatever. And,” Desmond caught the scowl on Sela’s face now, “And don’t get me wrong; I can’t say I blame people for following their incentives.”
He tilted one corner of his mouth downward, “I just think that’s why it’s a bad idea to be throwing incentives out the window. Doing as you please is all well and good, but sooner or later, we run out of someone else’s money to pay for everyone consuming and not producing.”
Sela shrugged again, not sold on that view. “All I know is, I don’t like the Council telling people what to do. And I see a lot of rich people were involved in getting the Council put in charge. And I don’t like that.”
Desmond nodded in agreement. “Yes, it’s sad. It’s sad that people would use the free market to become successful, and then block other people from having that chance by getting rid of the free market.”
He grimaced in disgust, “They already have their wealth, and the Council will not ask for too much of it, since those people support the Remaking. Meanwhile, they don’t have to worry about competition anymore. They just hide in their great towers and look down their noses at everyone else for being so unsuccessful and uncooperative. Everyone else is pitiful to them, and needs to be nannied by the Council. It’s disgusting! I hate them!”
Sela had never seen that look of twisted fury on Desmond’s face before. And he recovered his composure quickly, grabbing at his wrist, feeling to make sure his Flee collar was still there beneath the cuff of his shirt.
Sela looked into his eyes as he turned back for another look at the flag.
“She wasn’t perfect, Sela, the United States. But she was good.”
Looking at the stars, Sela contemplated that. She didn’t think they could ever bring back America. Once something like that is lost, it seems impossible to recover.
That was someone else’s job though. Hers was to undermine the Provisional Council. No matter what intentions they had, whether to help or to oppress, they were evil.
And Sela at least knew, America had been better than this.
Chapter 19
Sela climbed the stairs behind a group of three people, their clothes much nicer than hers. She was dressed in her plain shirt and
jeans, miles out of place in this district.
It was a wealthy area of Megora. Nicer even than where the Hannan Enterprises office was. Just a few blocks away, the luxury apartments and condos were crowded up against dozens of buildings housing the agencies of the Remaking.
Nearest was the massive complex of buildings housing the Agency of Vision. West of that resided the Environmental Preservation Agency, which put out regulations on particulate matter and chemical standards for all products.
Then there was a compound for the Department of Economy and Equity, the feigned Fairness arm of the Remaking. Their official duty was to direct the economy of Megora, keep it limping along, while keeping it in line with the egalitarian ideals of the Remaking.
Sela agreed with Desmond that the Council should not meddling so much in the lives of the people. She just wasn't sure about letting everyone be left alone entirely. If someone couldn't earn enough money to eat, would they just starve to death?
Sela had not seen anyone donating food to the poor since she was a child. Since her mother had been involved in numerous efforts to help the poor in Nashville. And now her mother was ill and dying.
It scared her.
Sela didn't know much about the Department of Economy and Equity. For whatever ideals they had, it was yet another tentacle controlled by those who had wealth and power already. Yet another organization that trampled on the forgotten man just trying to scrape by.
That angered her.
She put those thoughts out of her mind and climbed the stairs. Clusters of important, wealthy people were speckled around the platform. If these people were any more important, any wealthier, they would have their own air transportation. Fens were popular, but there were all sorts of helicopters used over Megora, if you were high enough on the totem pole.
Sela shied toward the back rail, keeping away from all of these lavishly-dressed people. Sharp glances stabbed at her anyway. She wondered whether they would call the Guides to have this commoner, this peasant, removed from their midst.
The Remaking Page 29