2085
Authors: Alejandro Volnié
2085
by
Alejandro Volnié
Published by 12 Editorial
Copyright: 2002, Alejandro
Volnié
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The year is 2085 and mankind’s way of life has changed once again, due to the natural evolution of a species that cannot give up on trying to manipulate their environment and control their congeners.
It was during the decade of the twenties when engineering
succeeded on systematically reproducing entire living organisms starting just from their simple genetic profiles, make them grow to the desired point at amazing speeds, and then allow them to live on at their natural pace.
A number of
citizen’s organizations and their indignant protests were not enough to stop the progress of research in this science, justified by its potential applications for humanitarian purposes and industrial food production.
In the field of medicine, cybernetics applied to reading and control of brain pulsations boomed during the same period,
getting since the beginning of this new discipline to cure a number of ailments by simply applying electrodes in different parts of the human body. By reading and modifying the electrochemical reactions inherent to the functions of living organisms, it became possible to correct undesirable behavior patterns. So, diseases once considered as incurable, eventually became part of history.
The world is divided into two blocs that have em
erged from the new economic, political and social orders, but their geographical distribution seems to ignore any definite rule, as there are islands of each one within the other and this does not seem to follow any logic, at least at first glance.
In the one hand is
the overdeveloped world, consisting of a highly industrialized society and urban setting, governed by the economic interests of huge corporations that have emerged from the new ultra-modern philosophy; on the other hand lies the bloc that those in the overdeveloped bloc in recent times have come to name “the reaction,” formed by segments of the global society that have refused to transform their social structure in the same way, choosing to keep a vision more attached to their traditions and idiosyncrasies, and this increases every day the gap between them.
The inhabitants of the overdeveloped world know just what they are told by the media. That is,
that the reaction is a tiny part of the world’s population subject to an extinction process due to the great efforts that corporate leaders do so regularly and soon will have evolved enough to merge with them.
G
lobal issues are decided by the Synod of 113, which is formed by the same number of corporation leaders. These corporations are the result of more than one hundred years of mergers of all types and sizes of companies. Thus, each of these huge organizations is involved in all the levels of economic activity. The result has been that small businesses exist no more. All inhabitants of the overdeveloped bloc are employed by one of these scarce, huge conglomerates.
As a result of research for the development of
weapons and carrying further the medical advances of the twenties, during the decade of the thirties one of these corporations managed to cyber store for the first time all of the information in a human brain, and then found the way to reinstate it therein.
The next step was to
duplicate living beings through cloning—which at that time was technique mastered already —then take them in a short time to an age of physical maturity, and finally load in the new brain information extracted from the mind of the original specimen. Going this way, it was achieved for the first time to produce a replica of a living being whose only difference with the original organism would be not showing the marks on the body left by life’s incidents, and not sharing any experiences after the date on which the information was obtained.
This procedure was given the name of replication, and
it was the point of contention that would take world population to divide into the two blocs that now prevail.
Replication of living
beings had been kept secret for more than ten years when it finally transcended to the domain of commercial interests. Then came the time when these services began to be offered to the public. Initially just for pet substitutions, but soon they began to be applied also to human beings, who thus could get a rejuvenated body keeping their life experience.
The replication procedure
carried along the obligation to destroy at the end the former body while still retaining in full its personality and knowledge. The discussion about the morality of this practice constituted for several years an important issue in the whole world, until finally the interests of the powerful prevailed as their position allowed them to easily manipulate the laws. Replication was turned into a common practice for members of the upper social strata, and became a justification to record periodically the contents of the minds of all people in important positions within the corporations’ command structures.
Under
the alleged reason of assuring their permanence within organizations, the key elements of the corporations’ structures began to allow the auscultation of their brains by third parties, thus forcing themselves to keep their minds free from ideas contrary to the leaders’ interests, and providing for that fact alone absolute knowledge of their thoughts.
The consumption of fossil fuels began to decline during the late thirties thanks to the development of cold fusion, a technique that is now used in all power sources for mobile or portable use, and then thanks to the implementation of the first antimatter reactors, which have now replaced the old power generation plants.
Nowadays oil is considered a curiosity, a symbol of the short comes of previous century’s science.
Recycling techniques and the
development during the fifties of the ability to synthesize complex molecules from pure elements, rendered a lot of raw materials unneeded, and the regions of the world that until that time subsisted from their extraction are precisely those which have chosen to remain in what the overdeveloped call “lag.”
Global communications
, either public or household based, are continuously screened by members of the security centers that large corporations operate to ensure social control.
They support their right to perform
such activities in the treaty signed by all the leaders during the fifties, which at that time were still 147, same as the corporations. This document is the foundation of the new world’s order, and it rules upon all laws and regulations governing human activity within the overdeveloped world.
The political division of the world exists only as a formality, since the constant agreements to globalize human activity gradually made political and economic powers to coincide in the leaders. People speak no more about countries. The world is ruled by corporate executives.
The food industry, using techniques of cell reproduction
, has wiped out agricultural producers. In the overdeveloped world there are no longer such things as farms. Where cities end, vast tracts of land begin, kept as ecological reserves. They only get interrupted from time to time by minerals mining fields. The output of these mining facilities is carried to huge processing plants that produce everything needed to keep the momentum of modern megalopolises, which have completely absorbed what years behind used to be known as rural population.
In
these days, the eradication of environmental threats such as global overheating and variations in ozone levels in the upper atmosphere has been achieved, since now there are immense facilities meant to reverse the processes that once caused imbalances in the chemical composition of air. These plants are driven day and night by the clean and cheap energy now available.
E
cological reserves are inhabited by a great diversity of animals in the wild. Nobody talks anymore of endangered species. Technology has successfully repopulated many species that were considered seriously endangered, including some of which there were no specimens alive at the time.
Natural water sources are rarely exploited as the availability of large amounts of energy now
allows getting it in an industrial way, avoiding having to bring it from remote locations.
Within society
, individuals are ranked according to their functions in corporations; welfare levels are high in all strata and people live in an apparent atmosphere of tranquility. The new royalty consists of the “counselors,” who are the family members who own and govern large corporations, and never appear in publics but operate through the leaders.
The traditional power struggles remain. Each corporation intends to absorb
the other, as has happened continuously during the recent hundred years. Although in appearance the relationships between them are cordial and they cooperate in a wide range of global issues, competition is harsh and devoid of moral considerations.
It is, in short, a time when life has become safe, orderly and easy, in exchange for the total loss of privacy in communications, actions, and mostly in thoughts.
As a reward for this sacrifice, immortality is no longer a myth but a luxury item.
It was about six o’clock afternoon that Thursday. He was sitting, relaxing in his favorite fluffy easy chair, holding a half-finished glass of red wine with his right hand. His thoughts were running rampant while the evening light was crossing the window to taint the room with its red.
“I’
m exhausted. Why do I have to tire myself like this, talking to sub-ranks, if my job is to keep sub-leaders and ranks functional? Well, another day, another story; how good it ended. To think that there were times when people did what they wanted, worked in what they liked and did not need the monitor to get convinced that all was going well. But things have changed. Everyone wants to get promoted and gain access to replication, and everything else may go into oblivion. I wonder if it is right to have learned how to stay alive forever. With everything I’ve been through during my 83 years of life, I find it a pain to try to reconcile the self of my youth with the man I’ve become, but I made that decision a long time ago and I must stand steady in it. After all, not many years ago even the leaders died. What was not having enough technology! Today we have come to think that it is not so much what you have to suffer to achieve it. Things like feeling bad for a couple of days, or being disoriented and hopelessly motion sick, or that at the beginning you feel weak because you have no energy. And what to say about the shock of having to confront and eliminate your previous body! But in return, the prize is waking up in a young body, free of ailments, because you have been brought again to your best, and you stand next to an ever young woman, and nothing aches. I still remember how I was before my first replication. Returning from 50 to 27 would have been a miracle in the past century, but now it is just a fringe benefit. Good to have become a monitor, it is something that will always make me proud, and ultimately, I have achieved great things, as the recent vacation in Saganville. That is a real achievement, especially for me, who started from far below, and despite this I have been there three times. And what about the happiness that it gives Lucy!”
At this point he stopped
his internal dialogue, sighed out of melancholy, frowned, and kept it there for a few seconds. Then he rose to a sitting position on the edge of the couch and said:
“
Who do I cheat? I am freaking out. I live in a lie by choice. In the twenties people still believed in reincarnation, and at that time they may not have been wrong, but now, with this thing of replication, neither I nor anyone else will ever find out. I have been there twice, and while the leader’s esteem for me remains the same, they can become any number; and what is worse, I repeat with discipline the corporation’s doctrine, trying to convince myself that I am happy! No doubt that I am stuck in this easy way of life.”
He
fell again in a pause, this time for a few seconds, and then pick up the thread of his dissertation.
“
Easy to live repeating nonsense of which I cannot convince myself? Easy not even knowing if I am really myself? Easy to have pressed twice that red button that started the process of eliminating my own aging body and having to endure the sight? And having to dismiss it while knowing that it still was being ruled by the same consciousness than when it was I? Easy to understand that if that old man had woken up at the time, he would also have been I, and no one in this world could have told apart his thought from the one tied to my present existence? Easy to put up with the remorse that has caused me having forced the woman I have loved for so many years to go through it just to flatter my vanity? Easy to dismiss all of my mother’s teachings, on which I founded my first efforts many years ago? And then having stayed far away from her until the time of her death because of the terrible embarrassment that caused me to hold her gaze after showing myself rejuvenated twenty-three years that first time? Everyone seems to accept this way of living when I enforce it at the corporation, but I just cannot convince myself. I would like to understand the meaning of all that happens, that truth suddenly touched my understanding in some miraculous way, or that someone appeared in my life to explain things to me so that I could feel safe again, as when, while still very young, I used to live in peace with myself.”
Then
he stopped his thoughts. He sipped a drink from the glass that had been still for several minutes between the fingers of his right hand, and through the windows he let his shadowed eyes stare at the distance to get blinded by the red of the setting sun.
On h
is face a new expression began to draw, a mixture of pain and exhaustion. He knew he was compelled to reassume his inner dialogue in the way long ago he had been trained to do it.
“Stop it! Let it go! You are risking everything you ha
ve achieved. And even more, you are jeopardizing your lifestyle and your wife’s for the sole reason of having allowed you to think as you did a moment ago. Remember that your contract forbids you to hold any thoughts discordant with the corporation’s philosophy, and if any of those take you by surprise, you are obliged to immediately discard the memory. You must erase from your brain everything that has crossed your mind in the prior minutes or it will appear in the upcoming evaluation of your mental profile, and your next session is scheduled in four days. In so little time you will not be able to generate by yourself a response that neutralizes this ranting. You have to use the isomentalizer again. You must use it. That is what your contract states. What just popped out from your mind is a serious fault. You should be grateful of having been granted the privilege of owning this device.”
He
laid the glass on the side table and stood up, and making a huge effort to keep his reason away from all doubts, he headed for the lobby. He took the stairs, and then walked down the hall to the bedroom.
As he entered the room he took his clothes
off and got his favorite pajamas. He lay on the bed, covered himself with the comforter, laid his head on the pillow and reached up to the amber tiara that was retracted into its receptacle on the headboard. He pulled it and fit it on his temples. He inhaled deeply, and then released the air with a slight sigh. He stared into the geometric designs drawn on the ceiling and so began with the usual procedure. With his eyes following those shapes line by line, always in the same order, he started the count:
“
20, 19, 18, 17, 16, ... 15 ... 14 ...”
The effect was achieved almost immediately,
as he had done it hundreds of times before; each time that an unsuitable thought had taken him by surprise. Having failed to immediately suppress it had forced him to undergo this hateful procedure.
He fell into a deep sleep that
would last all night.
A
few minutes later the tiara released itself from his head with a faint click. It retracted to its original position with the typical buzz that overcame for a moment the sound of his calm breathing. It was ready to intervene again.
Shortly after
, Lucy arrived. She just had to look at him for a moment to understand that he was sleeping soundly. The little red light under the isomentalizer’s receptacle still was on. She looked at the screen in front of the bed and realized that it was not even seven o’clock. She drew a sympathetic smile on her face while gently murmuring:
“
Thinking, thinking... Always thinking... What was it this time?”
