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“I would like to second my concern relating to the absence of children. Now forgive me if I’m mistaken but, we had been promised that the nest would start its own breeding program” said Love interjectionally.
“We’ve been hearing about this for years” interjected The War General.
“As I was saying, I’d like to know how far off a realistic breeding model we are. If War is right and what they’re collecting is the pick of the bunch then we have a serious problem. As it is, I say we either extend our reaches, or, we move the Nest. It’s not that unfeasible, but it is the only option we have” said The Love General to a mixed reception.
“The Nest will not move, not now” spoke The Behemoth in the far end of the room breaking his uneasy silence.
“We are not ready” continued Marcos.
“But when? We can’t sit here forever. We haven’t the population that we need and yet we haven’t sufficient food to maintain the population that we have. And all of it is dependent on him” said The Work General pointing to The Scientist.
“I want to take up the point of Love; the children I receive are useless. They cannot attend the process of farming. They don’t rationalise and commit to action. It’s almost becoming impossible to contain them and we’re losing great numbers” said Work.
“That’s true,” said The Administrator. “If I could just…”
“Shut up” yelled the generals in unison.
“The Children we have At Work are finding it impossible to stay At Focus. Their condition demands a result of effort immediately. They put a seed in the ground and expect to see a full harvest within the hour and when it doesn’t happen they start fighting. They get desperate and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to purge this desperation. Man has been separated form labour for aeons. With the state of these children, it’s impossible to expect anything more than the futility we’re trying to reign in. Unless he solves this problem”, he said pointing to the man of science, “we will all starve very soon and without rations, we will lose our control on these children; we’ll lose control of ourselves. Give me a cure for the famine or give me some magic beans, that’s all I ask for” said The Work General.
The Scientist shuffled some papers in front of him and tied them to his clipboard. He fixed his spectacles which had slid down his nose thanks to the thick beads of sweat dripping from his forehead just above his eyes, which on a freezing cold grey August morning would be odd to anyone else other than him.
This was another peeve that laboured the generals’ patience with the man and as he slipped the glasses forward with the tip of his index finger, the generals all sighed and groaned in unison being hushed into silence by the satellite stare of Marcos at the head and the Behemoth at the foot of the table. The generals, like disciplined dogs, pouted ruefully and bid their attention to The Scientist.
“I would like to say that we have found the cure for the famine and that we are ready to start inoculations. I would like to, but I cannot. At the moment we are no closer to finding a cure to this famine than you are to reaping a full harvest” he said pointing to The Work General.
“What I can say is that in our experiments so far to date we can unquestionably prove that currently, rehumanisation is more than highly possible, it’s probably possible,” said The Scientist.
“Can you tell us about your experiments?” asked The Work General.
“Yes. What exactly are you doing down there” said The War General being obviously more suspicious and outspoken than the other generals could possibly be.
“I shall give in layman then, the gist of our trials. And please, if there is struggle in your comprehension, then refrain from latching on to other’s concentration and dragging them to the murky depths of your schoolboy sagacity. There is no grace in drowning so if you must; be quiet about it” said The Scientist.
The generals all looked at each other and in a moment of unspoken concordance, all thought about taking The Scientist by his scrawny neck, out of The Nest, down through the sprawl of towers and bridges, past the safe zone where on the edge of The City centre near the cobblestone bridge that lead to perdition, there passed; under the weight of its malefic presage, the black river, where one bathed in Famine.
Each eye dreamt of the same sight, holding The Scientist’s head under the water until his scrawny legs and dainty fingers stopped twitching. Neither man cared for intellectualism and neither for his insolence.
“If ever I’m sinking, I’ll use your lungs as a float,” said The Love General.
The other generals laughed together. Marcos slammed his fist on the table and The Behemoth cleared his throat. Silence returned to the board room.
“As I was saying, the bulk of our work focuses on understanding the subconscious model and how best to re-establish physical and metaphysical balance. We are not looking at the famine as the problem as such. More so we attribute the famine to being a red flag, it’s the proverbial fever. If you want to stop the heat then follow the smoke to the fire. And that is precisely what we are doing now. We are following the smoke through every field of scientific research. We have the finest philosophers, mathematicians, physicists, scientists, neurologists, astrologists and immunologists. I have though made a request to our esteemed leader here Marcos for one more resource which I think is fundamental to our negotiating with nature; from a truly remarkable perennial science long thought extinct, a midwife; an order I think difficult but not impossible I’m sure. I know that when we have every intellectual and emotional component working concertedly to comprehend the logic and fallaciousness of this conundrum, we will undoubtedly identify the physical dials necessary that we can transpose to re-assign what we believe is the core of the human crises; the absence of the empathy gene” said The Scientist pushing his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose and snorting in mild self-approval.
“Ridiculous. You think you’re better than us. You think you’re smarter than us” said The War General.
“I am not handicapped as to whether you think that I think I am smarter than you, or whether you think you are less smart than I” replied the scientist.
“Can you cure the famine?” asked The Love General interrupting.
“Yes” replied The Scientist.
“When?” demanded The War General masking his insult with anger.
“And what about food?” added The Work General.
“The famine will be cured when the equation is complete. A sad day for you I assume my violent friend. As for food production, the contamination levels in the soil for now; are untreatable. You have to be better with the resources you have. Talk to them. Plants respond to sentiment you know. They have the empathy gene. Funny really, how aborted from nature we found ourselves” said The Scientist ecstatically.
“When can we expect some informal result?” asked Marcos.
“For now, I would suggest focusing on your activities in the four states. If we can replicate at least the extremity of emotion; this fear and love, and we can recite this process procedurally, eventually it will inseminate some subconscious instinctive learning and we will see gradual change in comportment. Now until we understand better the genetics of this conundrum, we will be a while yet from a natural child and our own breeding program. Without the empathy gene, women will not lactate, and without a woman’s breast milk, our species just cannot continue” spoke The Scientist.
“Why not? How can something natural be so difficult? You’re supposed to have the solutions. There were seven billion of us for christ sake” said The Love General.
“Were my friend. Are, is completely speculative. I would put it in the hundreds of millions maybe. Who knows? But what we are certain of is that while women are breeding naturally, they aren’t lactating and their offspring that survive the two day buffer are carrying, or rather, not carrying, this genetic deficiency. I’m afraid until we find a cure for the famine and we are able to inoculate women or, given that the loving proves effective and these
children of ours through their emotional learning reignite the quenched spark of universal law and then grow to be prime for breeding, then, my steadfast generals, and, of course, revered sirs, we are many years away from natural production and even when we do reach this point, we are still what may seem like a lifetime away from civilised loving. The kind you sing about in song. Without a cure for the empathy gene, we are looking at no more than seventy years until total human eradication; the last hoorah for our species. If we find this link, we save humanity. Now does that sound like something you want to be a part of? I think that about answers your questions” said The Scientist closing over the documents on his clipboard.
“Thank you that will be sufficient. Generals return to your duties and prepare your scripts, The Dosing will commence mid-morning. I think it’s safest if we go with the weather again. Everything is as is; focus on what you need to do. The only thing that can change our direction is the map we keep in our mind. Maintain yur focus, your state of one. I want you to be vigilant. If you see any sign of the famine creeping on your children you are to dispose of them immediately” said Marcos.
“Sir, what about the rumours? Are they real?” asked The Work General.
The men stopped shuffling their documents and all looked to Marcos with childish apprehension, expecting him to deport the absurd idea that this fairy tale was tangible and also partly hoping that he would concede to the idea that its existence was possible, that it could be true.
“Let me make this abundantly clear, New Utopia is not real. Look over those walls; The Famined, they come to us. Why? Because we are Utopia. We have the cure. We are humanity, all things come to us” he screamed smashing his fist down on the table.
“If I hear one more word of this desire, this conscious wanting, you will be ex communicated, scavenging like the rest of them for dog scraps and weather reports,” he said spitting with every word.
“Excuse me gentlemen,” said The Scientist, pushing his spectacles forward again and sliding his chair back before slipping out of the board room and off to the lower dwellings to put his incredible mind to a more pragmatic use.
The generals all lifted themselves from their places and left in the same fashion as they arrived, thinking of their own concerns. The White Hearts held their place having never changed the direction of their sight or attenuated the immediacy of their focus during the entire meeting.
Marcos and the Behemoth sat in directed stare in the company of the muted Teller, hidden in the dark cover of his thick black hooded cloak.
“How is your woman?” asked the Behemoth.
“She’s fine,” said Marcos; though he didn’t really know.
A Rising Fall Page 6