Preserving Perfection: Self-obsessing with body augmentation has left the entire planet of Ramos without children. But to acquire children means interstellar war! (Veiled Destiny Book 2)

by Jason Bourn

  Signed “Dorial Anton, Ramos Leadership Council Head”

  Admiral Badstubner looked at Giliad and nodded, “You were right. They responded very quickly. I suppose a video conference is the best that we could hope for under such short notice. We can always follow up with a demand for a face-to-face meeting with the children if necessary.”

  Garth added, “With any luck we can quickly convince the children to come back with us, then a second meeting won’t even be necessary.”

  Nadia smiled, “This is better than I had hoped. The foreigners are being much more accommodating than I would have thought after going to all that effort to acquire our children. I’m hoping that there isn’t something that we have missed. Giliad, what do you think?”

  Giliad was silent for a moment, then said, “I believe that due to our overwhelmingly superior forces, we have forced them into something they would not otherwise do – and without any use of arms. This is good. However, the fact that they are letting the children decide means, to me, that they have a high degree of confidence that the children will ultimately decide to stay here on Ramos.”

  The other three were horrified, shaking their heads in disbelief.

  Nadia voiced what the other two were thinking, “Do you mean to tell me that after getting violently abducted, these children might choose to stay on Ramos? Don’t they know how much we have gone through to get them back. If Saul was here now, he would continue raving about his poor missing children for over an hour.”

  Giliad looked Nadia straight in the eye and said, “I would be willing to bet that they don’t know how much we have gone through and how much we’ve done to get them back. That is one of the main objectives that we need to get across to them if we are to be successful in getting them back.”

  CHAPTER 22 – CHILDREN MEETINGS

  Dorial and Rheana met with all the children several hours prior to the video meeting with the Torvalians.

  Dorial began, speaking to all the children, “We have tried to give you everything you wanted and needed since you have come to Ramos.” He looked up, trying to read how he was coming across in the children’s faces.

  Seeing some blank expressions, but also a few nods, he continued, “We hope you have all improved your minds, your bodies and your hearts as well. When you came, you were but children. However, now you are adults, and as adults, you deserve to know the truth.”

  Looking up again, he saw rapt attention, but no other emotions, yet.

  “As you may know, you are the only children on Ramos. We have been unsuccessful at breeding ourselves. We therefore selected you to become the future of our society. Everything that we have will become yours. We have tried to provide you each with the best body augmentation available, in hopes that you would be happy here on Ramos. We were planning on telling you about your parental history for some time – and now the time has come. The time has come now because they are here now. Your original parents have come to visit you here on Ramos.”

  Looking around, he saw wonder in many of the children’s eyes. “They will talk to you later today, using a video feed. You will see them and they will be able to see you. I encourage you to talk to them and tell them how much you like where you are and what you are doing.

  “I hope you know how much we have given you and how proud we are of each and every one of you in using what you have been given. I am quite sure that they will request that you go with them, but I believe that you would be much happier here. They will say that you should go back to where your parents are, but I believe that your parents will be strangers and that you would miss your life here. In the end, you are each going to have to decide whether you are going to stay or if you are going to go back with them.

  “I give you my word that you will continue to live the life you have become used to if you stay. I am quite certain that you will not be nearly as happy going back with them, especially since we would not be able to provide any additional body augmentation or fix any malfunctions of your existing body augmentation while you were with them.

  “Again, it is your decision. I trust that you will decide wisely, in that it will impact you the rest of your life. With your body enhancements, you should live to about five hundred years old – so that is a long time.

  Dorial went on to ask the children to point out something to the Torvalians during their upcoming video meeting. When he was finished talking, he concluded, “IF you have any questions, let me know. If not, that is all.”

  Dorial waited for any questions, but there were none. He realized that any questions they might have concerning their parents or their future if they left could be better answered in the upcoming video meeting. And they already knew what their life was like here – no need for any questions about that either.

  The children all left, without a single question being raised. Dorial knew that the Torvalians had the last chance at changing their minds, which was to their advantage. What he didn’t know was whether that meant the children were ultimately going to stay or were going to leave.

  Before Rheana left the video meeting, Dorial asked to talk to her for several minutes.

  He started, “You know, the children are having the same problem that we have. They have had twenty-four babies between them, but every one of them has been just as narcissistic as ours have been.”

  “Yes,” she replied, “this appears to be a fatal flaw with our body augmentation-based society. Even the children are so engrossed in their bodies that they have no time to spend with their progeny.”

  Dorial added, “You know that means the children are going to face the same issue in four hundred years or so – either come up with some new children or have our society end for good.”

  Rheana responded, “The good news for us is that we won’t be around to have to make any more decisions like that. At that point it will be all up to them.”

  Smiling ruefully, Dorial broke the connection, wondering what short-term decision the children would make, and if they chose to stay, whether they would have the necessary strength to make the longer-term decision to keep their society alive. Only time would tell.

  – – –

  The video feed was set up such that a camera was on each child’s face. The large, central feed showed the Torvalians all of the children, so each child’s face was exceedingly small. When a child spoke, their picture instantly took up one-quarter of the screen, so they could be seen clearly. The other children took up the rest of the screen. When another child spoke, their picture took up one-quarter of the screen and the previous speaker’s video feed was cut by a factor of four. This way it was possible to see the current child talking in full detail, but still see the recent speakers with reasonable detail. On the other hand, those that had never spoken, or who hadn’t spoken in some time, would only have very small video feeds showing on the display.

  Similarly, each child could see each member of the Torvalian war council, with the most recent speaker’s video feed magnified the most.

  In addition, each member of the war council had their own display. This allowed any war council member to enlarge the video feed of any one child, which was done automatically by their persa if they stared at that child for any length of time.

  The sound for everyone was muted, until someone chose to speak – this kept the background noise from so many people from drowning out whoever was trying to speak.

  When the video feed meeting was established, Nadia immediately focused her attention randomly on a handful of children, one at a time. As their faces quickly enlarged, this allowed her to see each child clearly and she attempted to read the expressions on their faces. Her first impression was that they were definitely no longer children. They were full-grown young men and women. What she read on their faces was curiosity, mixed with some misgivings. She felt she understood why there was curiosity, but she was not sure of the source of the misgivings. This was something she was going to have to look into to try to understand.

  She started
off the meeting with an address to all the children.

  “Twenty years ago, a great injustice was inflicted upon many peaceful worlds by the people of Ramos. Over one hundred children were forcibly torn from their homes and families and forced to go to a foreign world to live, called Ramos. You are those children! We are the representatives of your parents, who desperately want to get you back to them.”

  Nadia looked at the facial expressions on several of the “children.” Even though she had thought of them as children, they really were not any more. Interestingly, she saw more misgivings, almost like they took her message the wrong way. She ran her words back though her mind – this was exactly what she wanted to say, and she thought that she had said it fairly well.

  Ignoring the rest of her planned speech, she decided to try to get more personal. Seeing them up close, she, along with all the other war council members, no longer thought of them as children, but she didn’t know what else to call them. Mentally, she used the word “children” as a placeholder, knowing that they really weren’t that any more.

  She chose the “child” in the upper left corner of her display. As she looked at her, her image quickly magnified, and her persa, using facial recognition and age progression AI, showed the young woman’s name was Deborah “Debbie” Collins.

  “Deborah Collins,” she started, “Can I call you Debbie?”

  The young woman nodded, suspicion showing through on her face.

  “Here is a picture of your parents as they were twenty years ago. Do you remember them? They really miss you.”

  A single tear formed in one of Debbie’s eyes, and slowly ran down her cheek. While not really wanting to make her cry, Nadia felt that this was a good sign.

  Debbie finally said, “That was a lifetime ago. I do barely recall my parents, but I have moved on since then. We have all moved on.”

  This was not what Nadia had expected to hear, nor was it what she wanted to hear. “But don't you want to go back home to your family and friends?”

  Debbie stared sadly at Nadia for several long moments, then finally said, “We are no longer children. We have grown up. We have our lives established here. I don’t want to go back and I don’t think that anybody else does either.” She paused, then said, “You can ask everyone though.”

  Looking at the faces of the “children”, she saw almost unanimous nodding of heads.

  “But how can you just turn your backs on your parents?” Nadia asked.

  Debbie looked around. Evidently, they were all in a large room so Debbie could see the other “children.” Remembering what Dorial had asked them to do, she went on, “Everyone,” she said, “Pull back your camera angles so they can see you, all of you, not just your face. And turn on your audio as well.”

  Suddenly the images of all the “children” pulled back so that the entire war council could see a full view of every “child”, not just their faces.

  All manner of body augmentation could be seen, from body armor to bone and muscle enhancements.

  Suddenly the audio was turned on and the sounds emanating from more than one hundred “children,” each with servo motors, pumps and many other body system enhancements caused an absolute cacophony of sound.

  Each of the council members pulled back from their screens, physically repulsed by what they were seeing and hearing. They had been indoctrinated into abhorring any kind of virtual reality or body enhancements for hundreds of years so it was fully embedded into their psyches. What they saw and heard repulsed them more than they could imagine. Each member of the war council knew at that point that the “children” could never go back to Torval 2. Not even their family members would be able to take them in.

  Nadia got a grip on her emotions and finally said, “I think we understand now what you are talking about. I think we will understand if you want to stay here on Ramos.”

  With that, trying to hide her revulsion, she quickly disconnected from the video meeting.

  CHAPTER 23 – CHILDREN DECISION

  Nadia just sat there after she terminated the video meeting. She couldn’t believe how much the “children’s” body augmentation had repulsed her. She realized that it was an overreaction, but the stigma had been embedded so deeply that it was now part of the core of every person in their Torvalian society.

  She tried to analyze her feelings, to try to get a little perspective, but she found her body slightly shaking with her emotions on overload.

  In an attempt to get herself under control, she decided to stop analyzing her response and just tried to wipe the images out of her mind.

  After several minutes of calming deep breaths, she finally felt better.

  She knew that the war council needed to meet to discuss this, but she didn’t really want to go through those same feelings again, after finally getting them under control.

  After waiting as long as she dared, she requested a war council meeting be adjourned immediately.

  Slowly each member in turn came on line, starting with Giliad, followed by Admiral Badstubner and finally Garth.

  Both the admiral and Garth were pale, so Nadia was quite sure that the body augmentation stigma had profoundly affected them as much as she herself had felt it. They looked back at her as if they were trying to keep their heads afloat on a fast-moving river – trying to get their emotions under control. Neither uttered a sound.

  Giliad, on the other hand, appeared to be much more under control. She was curious as to why. When he didn’t volunteer anything, she started the meeting.

  “Thank you all for meeting so soon after that very disturbing video meeting with the ‘children’. I know how much it must have affected you – I felt it every bit as much.”

  Garth was the first to speak. “It is a good thing that the children’s parents couldn’t see their kids and what they have become.”

  Admiral Badstubner added, “Yes, I don’t think any of us appreciated what would happen to the ‘children’ when they were taken. Those that took the children obviously had body enhancements, but nobody ever expected that they would subject our children to the same barbaric practice.”

  Garth interrupted saying, “I am sorry to say this, but there is no way that those ‘children’ can ever be integrated into our society. What they are goes against everything that we believe in.”

  Admiral Badstubner nodded, “I agree. Even those trained officers on our ships would be severely affected by ...” He stopped, not able to finish his sentence. Finally, he continued, “by what those children have become. I can’t imagine the response of a common citizen at home.”

  They sat in silence, nodding their heads, but not knowing what else to say.

  Finally, Nadia looked at Giliad and asked, “Giliad, you don’t appear to have been affected nearly as much. Why is that?”

  Giliad looked at her and smiled, “I was able to get a sensor in to monitor the Ramos communications with the ‘children’. At that point I was able to see the ‘children’. I assure you that I had the same reaction as you have had, but I have had much more time to come to grips with it.”

  Excited, Nadia exclaimed, “Were you able to find out any additional information on the ‘children’ or the situation in general?”

  Giliad slowly shook his head, “No, they were very forthright with the ‘children’. They essentially gave them the same information that we gave them, but without the details and the personalization that we provided.”

  They all sat in silence, each ruminating on what the “children” had become. The silence stretched on for more than a minute when Nadia finally said, “What do we do if even some of them vote to return with us?”

  The admiral quickly said, “I will go on record to say that would be a major problem.”

  Giliad waited for a moment then said, “Based upon the responses that I saw on the ‘children’s’ faces, I suspect that we don’t have to worry about the ‘children’ wanting to come with us. They appear to be of the same mind in all wanting to stay here on
Ramos.”

  Nadia thought about it and finally said for the group, “I hope so. I don’t know how the ‘children’ would ever be able to be integrated into our society. I hate to say it, but I think it is for the best that the ‘children’ stay here.”

  Looking around, she saw grim agreement in every face.

  After another long silence, Nadia said, “It appears this meeting is over. Now all we have to do is wait for the ‘children’s’ vote.”

  They each signed off in turn, with Giliad finally left as the only participant on the video meeting.

  As he finally logged off, he was thinking hard about what he had said, and what he hadn’t said.

  What he hadn’t mentioned was that he had heard what the underlying issue that had caused this war in the first place – their inability to raise children themselves that were non-neurotic. And now the “children” had the same problem. This meant that in several hundred years the “children” would be getting old and they would need to refresh their race with new children.

  Giliad knew that a strategy needed to be developed to deal with this eventuality. It was not a question of “if”, but rather “when.” There was plenty of time, literally hundreds of years. But the time would come where there would be another war.

  He didn’t know if it was better for the Torvalian society to know this or not. He would have to think long and hard on this.

  – – –

  Another video meeting between the war council and the “children” was set up so all could see the results of the voting. The voting itself was almost anticlimactic. Not a single “child” wanted to leave Ramos. Every single one voted to stay.

  They went so far as to sign a petition, signed by every “child”, saying “Our home is Ramos and our culture is Ramos. We don’t want to leave Ramos.”

  Nadia, trying to hold back her revulsion said, “Thank you all for listening to our side. I am sure that you have considered everything and that you have made the best decision for you. We wish you long and happy lives.”