Pieces of You (23 page)

***

Those observing Mark in his hospital bed at that moment saw a shocking change; pallor seemed to spread over his skin and his body jerked as though struck by heavy blows. Zachri spread a blanket of love around him to keep him from giving up his spirit then and there.

***

After the initial shock of this revelation, Mark turned to Zachri.

“I wish I didn’t believe you! This is the most devastating forecast I’ve heard or read outside of Revelations but I feel your compassion and see the pain in your eyes. Still, I’d like to see it for myself. Will you take me to a representative U.S. community two decades from now?”

***

The child looked around as though he could sense he was being observed and then went back to his solitary play. After a few minutes, he stopped what he was doing and spoke into the wall screen.

“Momma, I’m very thirsty. Can I have my afternoon drink early today?”

The face of his mother appeared as she answered from her video phone in another section of their tiny home.

“Donegal, I wish you wouldn’t ask me when you know the rule—one cup of water per person twice a day. If you take more, it will be recorded by the cyber-sensors and I will be charged an over-limit fee that we can’t afford.”

“I wish you were still a teacher for the college.”

“Me, too, dear, but I had no choice.”
             

Miriam thought back to how her teaching job ended. First, her supervisor had gently explained that all teachers must have their memories scanned using a hypnosis technique. After she and her colleagues had complied, all the information the teachers had acquired while employed was reclassified as public knowledge.

Next, this public knowledge was downloaded and sorted into folders by subject. This became the curriculum for the new Webversity, an online training center where classes were tailored to orders placed by each employer willing to pay the high tuition. Almost every large corporation used the center for reprocessing employees. From what Miriam had read, most of the tuition costs were offset by tax deductions.

“Donegal, we are just lucky that the college let me be retrained for this job. If I didn’t have a needed skill, we would have been forced to go to the collective pharm with your father.”

At the mention of his father, Donegal started to cry.

“When can I see Daddy? It’s been almost a year since his last visit.”

“Now son, you know the rules for visits.”

Miriam forced herself to speak as casually as possible.

“He can come for a half day on your birthday and take one legal holiday each year. There is much work for the
P
harmers. If they had more time off, there would be a shortage of food for people in our classification. Your father has to check the growth of plants and animals throughout the day. He can’t miss a single day.  What is added to the food and water must be measured very carefully. Do you remember what happens when too much of the treatment is given?”

“Yes, Momma, the chickens and pigs and cows have to be killed. The fruits and vegetables are burned. When I see those pictures, I feel sick!”

“Why don’t you think about something else. You could do a lesson with your friend, Dante. That way, you won’t be registering low output when the people on the hill run their daily diagnostics.”

“Mother, why can’t I just play outside with Dante? When I was doing my homework, I found this place on the internet called Historical. Even though it was marked forbidden, it let me in. You wouldn’t believe what I saw—children my size running around in big open spaces with green floors. They were doing things together like kicking and throwing balls and blowing up balls that would float above their heads and disappear. Lots of the children were riding two-wheeled things that went so fast. Some of the boys were racing each other on them! Momma, why can’t Dante and I have some of those things to play with?”

Although his mother tried to hide her fear and revoke her own childhood memories before she replied, her voice over the speaker sounded peculiar, even to her own ears.

“Donegal, you are not allowed into those files and for a very good reason. What children were allowed to do when I was young was not good for us. All that freedom made us lose respect for authority and we played when we should have been doing homework.”

Her voice softened a little as she continued.

“Anyway, I take you to the gymnasium three times each week. Don’t you have fun there?”

“Yes, Momma, I like the equipment but I wish we could play some of the sports Daddy once told me about.”

“At the gym you get precisely the amount of exercise you need and I make our meals according to the prescribed menus so you won’t be overweight.”

Miriam paused, unable to prevent herself from thinking that such an outcome would be nearly impossible, given their food rations.

“You look very healthy, my son and you hardly ever get sick. That’s why it would be foolish to ignore the policies approved by our leaders. You are a very smart boy, but please don’t ever again peek at anything that is forbidden! We will be severely punished if the people on the hill find out.”
             

***

Mark observed the interaction between Miriam and her son with horror.

“Who are the people on the hill and how can these people accept that much control over their lives? The poor children! How can parents consent to such a sterile existence? Tune me in to whatever airwaves or psychic channel will allow me to talk to that woman!”

Mark was beating his fists against the window of the train as he shouted. Zachri cut him off.

“You can only observe here—this is not your future. Now, steel yourself for a visit to some of the world’s most affluent people; the ones who live in the buildings which tower over the scene you just inspected. Again, you will not be taking part. Believe me, there is no way you can interact with these people and if you think you have something to teach, ask yourself why they have learned so little about human rights from the past twenty centuries.”
             

Mark shut up and held on as they ascended the 3,615 feet to the 217th floor, the control room with the appearance of a cone-shaped space ship docked atop the building. When the equipment was not busy taking readings on the nearby regions of the Earth’s solar system, it was documenting the activities of subjects in nearby camps.

All the camps were run by one of the associations connected to the new leaders, the closest one being Machiavellian Advanced Futures (MAF). Mark was keen to hear what these leaders talked about behind closed doors.

***

“Ralf, what has your bio-security team found out about the susceptibility of our subjects to the vaccine?”

“Cicely, the team leader, reported that her group is extremely pleased with the results. Testing has returned positive outcomes at all levels of vaccination. We now can control all strains of the influenza virus.”

“Good work! Has our vaccine been updated since discovery of the antigenetic shift that allowed us to produce this virus subtype?”

Mark recognized that this question related to influenza epidemics started deliberately in laboratories
.
He
was aghast. Zachri raised a finger to his lips to prevent an outburst which might cause Mark to miss what came next.

Ralf was responding enthusiastically to the
i
nquiry.

“We have positive results on that, too, Geoffrey. In the unlikely event that one of our colleagues contracted the virus, we could quickly eradicate it. We also don’t want too many of our subjects getting sick at the same time. That would play havoc on our productivity! “

“And, of course, we want to protect the camp residents who are compliant. We must be able to control who is in good health and who isn’t, and those who become ill must be certain they made the choice.”

Just then, Juliana stepped off the space elevator, having just returned from the food storage facility in its orbit near Mars. This was her first trip up and it was easy to see that she was bursting with news and thrilled by the success of her mission.

Her two-week space trip had been made possible by the enormous receipts of MAF money that had allowed the community to purchase one of only a half dozen cables attached to the surface of the Earth. Their cable was capable of reaching 62,000 miles straight up to a space station, escaping from the gravitational pull of the Earth as it climbed carrying loads of up to twenty tons.

During the past six months, the elevators had all been working exceptionally well, thanks to the perfection of carbon-nanotube composite ribbon.
             

Juliana’s first words came out about ten decibels above normal.

“What a spot to store literally tons of our homegrown
—
or should I say aeroponic and hydroponic grown food! With this new resource, we can grow twice as much and, with these outer space greenhouse-warehouses, we’ll be able to keep it in an environment that assures freshness, longevity and protection from infestation. We can also be the warehouse for food grown by our competitors.

“
By this time next year, our storehouses could contain five percent of the world’s staple crops and grains, especially wheat, rice and corn
,
and it will only take about two weeks to move large quantities of inventory back to Earth.”

Geoffrey took over from Juliana’s discourse.

“Our story will almost parallel that of the Biblical tale of Joseph, who was made overseer in Egypt by Pharaoh. He devised a plan to store up all the excess grain during the years of abundance so the people would not starve during the years of famine. In the lean years, Joseph opened the storehouses and let people come from everywhere to buy grain.

“
We, too, will produce and purchase surpluses, bring them to our warehouse in space
,
and wait. When people in our region of the world become desperate for food, we will deliver and not at exorbitant prices. All those who pledge their allegiance to MAF will be fed.”

Geoffrey sounded like he was making this speech to the UN as he continued.

“We can follow through on our part of the bargain to alleviate hunger because we have what has been missing: supplies, storage and a system for distributing food through remote or treacherous terrain, even during conflicts.

“
Our four-legged, animal-like robots can go where two or four-wheeled vehicles would be useless.”

Ralf, always the pragmatic one, wanted answers on the plans for the financing of food distribution to beneficiaries who were unable to cover the costs.

“I know we made billions of dollars during the global depression of the early 21st century but the strategy you propose does not seem cost-effective. Are you planning to start a non-profit arm of the company?”

Ralf’s tone projected undisguised disdain but Geoffrey was unruffled.

“Having control over that much food can mean power beyond even our wildest dreams, old boy! We’re no longer a corporation; we are becoming a nation, one with a servile electorate. What would be the benefit to us if our subjects were too weak to produce?

“
Knowing clearly where their food and salaries come from and what is required to keep them coming, I’m betting they’ll choose service for the sake of their families’ survival.

“
Haven’t you read about the domination of the masses in the former Soviet Union? With our technology, we’re much more effectual planners than Soviet leaders ever were! And don’t forget: MAF is not alone in this.”

Geoffrey concluded the meeting by giving orders to broadcast their latest success.

“Juliana, please submit a detailed report of your elevator trip to all the executives of MAF. After we document their reactions, we will notify the leadership of the other eleven corporate nation-states that this phase is complete.”

Mark was livid.

“You mean this same group, or groups, who would control people with vaccines that inject viruses will control a sizable portion of the world’s staple foods? Am I right in thinking the ‘antigenetic shift’ under discussion has something to do with deliberately causing epidemics of influenza, Zachri?”

“It results from the recombination of the genomes of two viral strains. For example, if a pig was infected with a human influenza virus and an avian influenza virus at the same time, an antigenic shift could occur, producing a new virus that had most of the genes from the human virus and a substance or enzyme from the avian virus.

“
The resulting new virus would likely be able to infect humans and spread from person to person. Since it has surface proteins not previously seen in influenza viruses that infect humans, most people would have no immune protection. That’s how an influenza pandemic can occur.