2022 (9 page)

“I’m glad you approve. Are you ready for your
big pep talk tomorrow?”

“Yes—I think everyone here is pretty
committed to the cause so I don’t foresee any problems.”

Diane arrived later than anticipated. The
last twenty-five miles of road was not much more than a temporary
path through the trees, and she had driven painstakingly slowly
through most of it. When she arrived, the security guard at the
edge of the village told her which trailer she would be staying in
and advised her to move quickly before Richard began his
presentation.

She parked her RV in a parking lot that was
beside the security entrance since they would not let her drive it
right onto the site. She then grabbed her cell phone and put some
undergarments into a bag and made her way to her designated
trailer. When she arrived, she found that she would be sharing the
trailer with two other people. Putting her bag on the unclaimed
cot, she left the trailer and joined the general flow of people
heading towards a large structure she heard called “the town
center.”

She entered the building, following the crowd
into an auditorium that was equipped with a stage, but that could
also have been used as a gymnasium. She guessed that the
retractable seating would easily accommodate two thousand people.
On this day, however, there was a collection of several hundred
fold-up chairs in the middle of the room, all facing the main
stage.

She found a chair as Richard walked onto the
stage and welcomed the gathering. “I’m so proud of this moment, and
still find it hard to believe that it started only seven years ago
when a good friend challenged me to solve the ultimate puzzle: How
can we live on this planet without destroying it?

“You’ve all had a few weeks to see how the
physical structure of Percipience is shaping up. I’m going to spend
the next hour going through the social aspects of the village.
You’ll have already heard most of this, but as promised, we will go
through it one more time and if you still have doubts that you’re
in the right place, you can drop out of the program. There will be
buses available tomorrow morning to take you back to the foundation
headquarters. This will be your last chance to reconsider.
Afterward, it’ll be full steam ahead.”

The large screen behind Richard displayed a
number of bulleted points:

Guidelines for the Percipience Way of
Life

1. Other than for hunting wildlife, no weapons will
be made or built.

2. Population control will be implemented once a
sustainable population has been reached (roughly 2,000).

3. Allow expansion only if resources are available
and if it will cause no stress to the environment.

4. Selective genetic pairing will be done and will
be overseen by the elders.

5. Everyone must rotate through all routine tasks in
the village for a set amount of time as specified by the
elders.

6. Everyone must assist in large tasks such as
planting, harvesting, building huts, and repairs.

7. No currency.

8. No livestock.

9. No personal possessions other than clothes and
what can be carried in a backpack.

10. No elected officials.

11. No attempts to communicate with the outside
world.

12. Environment is on equal terms with humans.

13. Each hut will have one elder, and the elder’s
word is law for the hut. Each elder will select a successor who
cannot be a direct descendant.

14. One of the elders will also be the leader for
the village and his or her word will be law. The leader will select
his or her successor, again which cannot be a direct descendant

15. An elder or the village leader can be replaced
only if the vast majority of the other elders agree.

He paused to give his audience time to read
and then continued. “I’m expecting that during the years ahead,
you’ll figure out the best way to run your village, but these are
the basic rules that should be followed. With no currency,
possessions, weapons and no real privileges for the leaders I
suspect that many of the problems that are in today’s society will
simply disappear, but not all of them. It will be up to all of you
to make this work.”

After finished answering a surprisingly small
number of questions, the crowd dispersed and he left the stage to
join Mikhail.

“How’d you think it went?” he asked.

“It was a slam-dunk,” Mikhail said. “Everyone
here is fully on board with the program, and I’d be very surprised
if anyone boards a bus tomorrow.”

“I’m getting that impression. We’ll finish up
here with a meeting with the elders in a few days. Then I’m off to
repeat this whole exercise three more times at the other
villages.”

That evening Mikhail was nearly asleep in his
bunk when he heard knocking on the door of his private trailer. He
stumbled out of bed, put on his robe, and opened the door.

“Richard! What’s wrong?”

“We seem to have had an issue at one of the
colonies. A computer has been tampered with, and the security team
has a man in custody. They suspect he was trying to break into the
foundation’s network with some very sophisticated hardware.”

“What can I do to help?”

“I’ve had him sedated and flown up to
headquarters. I was going to talk to him myself after this trip,
but now I think perhaps you may have a better way of getting
information out of him.”

Mikhail smiled confidently. “Sure, I know a
few ways to do that. I’ll have a full report to you in a day or
so.”

“Thank-you, Mikhail. I appreciate all that
you’re doing.” He didn’t ask how the information would be
obtained.

“No problem. Let me make a quick phone call,”
Mikhail said. He picked up his cell phone and punched one of the
speed-dial numbers.

“Sorry to bother you at this late hour, Hope,
but duty calls—can you please come to my trailer for a few
minutes?”

She appeared almost immediately. Mikhail was
impressed; he knew he had woken her, yet she was fully dressed and
appeared alert. He explained Richard’s problem and that the person
apprehended at the colony had been flown to headquarters.

“Could you fly up there and see what he has
to say?”

“Of course—I assume since you’re asking me
that you want the full story from him?”

“Do what is necessary. And if it’s possible,
please return by tomorrow evening. I’ll make sure the helicopter is
ready within fifteen minutes.”

She returned to her trailer to gather the few
things she would need. She had worked for Mikhail in the past on
other projects, but nothing like this one. Here she would use her
full training. This would be the first time he had asked her to
interrogate someone, and she was looking forward to it.

********************

Spencer woke in complete darkness with a
salty taste in his mouth. He lay on a cot; after a moment, he
determined that the room was not completely dark but had a dim
light coming from the baseboards. His eyes adjusted, and it
appeared that the room was quite small, having only a sink and
toilet aside from the cot. There were no windows, and he had been
stripped of all his possessions. He had no idea how long he had
been unconscious.

The back of his head hurt severely, and he
felt nauseous. He managed to lift himself off the cot and reached
the toilet before retching uncontrollably until there was nothing
left but dry heaves. He lay down on the cement floor, which was
cool and felt good. After dozing for a few minutes, he felt strong
enough to stand and moved to the sink where he washed his face with
cold water and took a drink.

God—how’d I end up here?
He remembered
entering the colony and talking to the building leader, but after
that remembered nothing. He found his way back to the cot and fell
asleep immediately.

He awoke again, this time with a clearer
head. The room was somewhat lighter now, and the door was open. He
saw two people in the room with him. Wordlessly, and without much
care, they picked him up, and with one on either side led him down
a hallway.

They entered a room containing only a simple
wooden chair with armrests and strapped him in tightly enough to
restrain any movement. Then they attached various electrodes to
him, and when they were finished, he heard the door close. He
looked into the mirror on the wall and saw that besides the machine
behind him, he was alone. At least he thought he was alone; he was
unable to see the far walls with only the dim lightbulb hanging
over him.

A voice came from a speaker located somewhere
in the ceiling. It was deep in tone but had a mechanical sound.

“I’ll get straight to the point. One way or
another, you’ll answer all my questions. The measure of pain and
your survival will be entirely up to you. Your answers will be
verified, and if you don’t tell the truth, you will die.”

“Who are you? If you think you’re scaring me,
you’re mistaken.”

There was a soft, deep laugh from the
speaker. “Brave words but the electrodes attached to you are
telling me that you’re already afraid. Now, although I do enjoy
this, I don’t have the time that I’d like to completely break you
down. So I’m going to have to cheat a little.”

The door opened and the same two men
returned. One wrapped a rubber hose around Spencer’s arm while the
other prodded to find a good vein. After a moment, he injected him
with a large syringe and removed the hose.

“This is my own special blend of truth serum
that I’ve found to be very effective,” the voice said. “I’ll give
it a while to take effect.”

The men left the room and the voice was
replaced by a slow, steady drum beat.

Spencer broke out in sweat and could feel his
heart racing. He quickly lost track of time and tried hard to
concentrate when he heard the voice again.

“Let’s begin.” The voice proceeded to ask a
series of question that Spencer felt compelled to answer. He gave
them his name, information about his family, education, the DIR,
and the people he worked with. Sometimes he offered too much detail
or went off of the topic of the question and was given a small
electric jolt to get him to stop.

The questions, drugs and steady drum beat
left him dazed, and he was unaware everything had ended until he
felt himself being untied and led back to his cell. He couldn’t
recall what he had said during the interrogation and hoped he
hadn’t revealed too much. He wondered what might happen to him
next.

********************

Hope felt pleased as she analyzed the results
of the questioning. Although some of the readings from the
electrodes were slightly higher than she liked, the young man was
no match for her questioning skills and had provided answers
without hesitation. She validated several answers through a friend
in the DIR and felt confident that she now had what Mikhail wanted.
She looked at the clock and realized she had been up for thirty-six
hours. She gathered her things and headed to the helipad with the
plan to be in Percipience in time for supper.

Sue reviewed the paper the director had just
given her in his office. “This can’t be right.”

“I’ve had a few people go over the data and
it checks out,” he said.

“But just thirty years—that seems such a
short amount of time. There’s no way to stop it?”

“It doesn’t appear so, once past the tipping
point. At least not on a time scale that we’d like. The oceans are
huge but have a fairly delicate ecosystem. With increased
temperature, pollution, acid levels, over-fishing, and recent
mining activities, it’s been pushed over the edge. It’s not like
there’ll be no life in it, but things will change significantly,
including losing most of the aquatic life that we rely on for about
twenty percent of the world’s food supply, especially after the
events of 2018.”

“I’m sure once we release this information,
the governments will do something about it. Stop the mining and
fishing, for instance.”

The director shook his head. “I doubt it.
Because of CURE’s latest threat, we’re getting slammed to supply
more environment information, but this isn’t the first time this
issue has been reported. The information has been out there for
years. But governments of key countries involved could never agree
on what should be done and kept pushing the problem to the bottom
of the pile. This is the result.”

“I’ll review the data behind this myself,”
Sue said. “I’ve been assigned a few environment information
requests as well but will transfer them to Spencer. That is when I
find him.”

“You’ve lost your puppy already?”

She sighed as she got out of her chair to
leave. “I’m sure that he’s all right, but he was supposed to check
in yesterday after he arrived at one of the Pleasant Belief
colonies, but he hasn’t yet. When he does call in, I’ll roll up a
newspaper and give him a few swats.”

The director laughed. “I’m sure you will. Let
me know if you find anything wrong with the data on that ocean
report.”

“I will,” she said.

********************

Diane woke to the sound of movement in the
trailer. Following Richard’s speech after her long drive, she had
gone back to her trailer and fallen asleep. She opened her eyes and
saw one of her roommates emerging from the bathroom.

“Good morning, my name is Diane,” she said,
sitting up in her cot.

“I’m Olivia. Did I wake you?” she said as she
finished drying her hair with a towel and looking in horror at
herself in the full-length bathroom door mirror.
No makeup and
these overalls, I hope no one that I know sees me.

“It’s time for me to get up anyway.” Diane
pointed to the cot beside hers with its rumpled blankets. “I see
that our other roommate has already gone.”

“Yes—her name is Hope, and she left late last
night. Didn’t you wake up when her phone rang? Must have been
important, because she shot out of here, and I heard the helicopter
take off shortly after. I don’t know much about her, though. We
flew up together yesterday morning, and I think she’s supposed to
be helping me.”