The Theta Prophecy (23 page)

Year: 2048

Matheson looked at his watch. “We don’t have much more time,” he said in a gentle voice.

In a few minutes, the meeting would start and men in suits would take turns explaining why the next war was a necessity and the newest batch of laws would make everyone in the Tyranny even safer. He looked over at the Ruler, who was still staring out the window.

The Ruler forced his mouth into as much of a smile as he could muster, then turned and looked at his friend.

“We can’t go against any war they’re going to propose.”

“I know.”

“The leaders will convince everyone I’m a weak Ruler. They’ll say I don’t have the Tyranny’s best interest at heart and I’m endangering the lives of everyone we hold dear. And they’ll just engineer a reason for the war to take place anyway.”

“I know.”

“The Thinkers will whisper that the entire war is a sham, and more people will believe them, but there’s nothing we can do.”

“Well,” Matheson said, forcing a smile of his own. “Look at the bright side: we never know what code words the Thinkers are using so we won’t know when they’re talking about us.”

The Ruler flinched and Matheson immediately regretted his attempt at a joke.

“Have you heard what they’re going to recommend next?” the Ruler said. “We have checkpoints everywhere and AeroCams tracking everyone and we still don’t know what everyone is doing, so they’re going to tell me we need to pass a law requiring everyone to get little microchips implanted in their arms.”

“My god,” Matheson said, placing his hand against the wall to steady himself.

“They’ll sell it as the ultimate way to keep everyone safe.”

“What if people don’t go along with it?”

The Ruler gave him a sideways look, then shook his head. They both knew there would be a handful of people willing to sacrifice their freedom and maybe their lives to stand up for what they believed in, just like there was every time the Tyranny did something like this, but everyone else would offer mild complaints before doing what they were told.

“Personally, I don’t like the idea of passing the law any more than you,” the Ruler said. “They already distrust us. With everything we do, they hate us a little more each day. But the guys”—he signaled to the closed door and to the men who would be there shortly—“swear it will finally let us find all of the Thinkers and eliminate them.”

“Did the book talk about this, about the microchips?”

“The book?”

“The one you mentioned earlier. From the future.”

“No.”

“Then maybe the microchips never happen after all. Maybe we find a way out of this.”

“You know what they’ll say,” the Ruler said, once again gesturing at the door. “They’ll say the AeroCams haven’t caught the Thinkers. Neither have the checkpoints. If we want to get rid of the people who question what we do, this is our only option.” When Matheson gave the Ruler an odd look, the Ruler added, “Don’t look at me like that. It’s what they’ll say, not me.”

“You can’t go along with it. There has to be a line.”

“I know that!” the Ruler yelled. “Damn it, don’t you think I know that? But what can I do? They’ve already budgeted for the new contracts we’re going to give them to produce the chips. If we don’t go along with it, they’ll send the leaders on television to tell everyone we’re ruining business. They’ll say how many people we put out of work.”

“I know.”

“They’ll say we’re endangering people’s lives by
not
doing it.”

“I know.”

“Damn it, can’t you say anything other than ‘I know’?”

Matheson turned and looked at his friend. “What do you want me to say? It’s like you said; if we don’t go along with these things, they’ll force your hand. If we try to make things better for the people, no matter if it’s holding everyone accountable for the same crimes or getting rid of some checkpoints, someone else will suddenly seem like a sensible replacement as Ruler.” He walked over to his friend and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’re in a very difficult position. I wish I could help more than I am.”

“I’m going to be remembered as a despot and a dictator.”

“Yes,” Matheson said. And then, when the Ruler started to raise his hand in the air to slam it down on the table, he added, “But so will the Ruler before you and the Ruler after you. It’s the nature of the beast. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. It’s not an enviable position.”

The Ruler sat down on the sofa again. Outside, the men grew louder, impatient to get in and sell their wars and their laws.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” the Ruler said. “You saw me graduate college and get married. You saw me go up through the ranks of the leaders. Did you ever think it would turn out like this?”

Matheson shook his head. “It’s not the way anyone would have hoped things would turn out. It’s funny, I remember how happy you were the day you were elected Ruler. And I was happy for you, too. Look how things are now, though. But all you can do is try your very best.”

“You’re the smart one,” the Ruler said. “Even when I had all these crazy notions about making a difference, you stayed away from this career path.”

Matheson remembered things slightly differently. He remembered being lost and misguided, his parents having been dragged away by the Tyranny. No one he could trust. No one to watch over him. He remembered a man two years his senior taking a chance on him when no one else wanted to be associated with the child of suspected radicals.

“If we could switch places, I would. I wish there was a way to make them go away,” Matheson said, motioning toward the men they could hear but not see.

“I guess all we can do is have our men go on television and convince everyone that the new war is for their own good. They won’t buy it, but maybe we can make it seem like it’s not so bad. The real problem will be convincing them about the microchips in their arms. I can’t even guess how long our guys will have to make the rounds on television before people go along with that one.”

“You really think this will be the way we finally catch the Thinkers, when nothing else has worked?”

The Ruler shrugged. “I don’t know. All I can do is go along with what they tell me to do.”

“Then I guess we just keep telling the public that it’s for their own good and hope they’re too numb to care.”

“Maybe if we say it enough times, they’ll believe it.”

“Yes, maybe.”

“Okay,” the Ruler said, standing up and straightening his clothes before the meeting was to start. “Let’s get this over with.”

Matheson nodded, stood, then walked across the room. At the door, with his hand on the knob, he turned and said, “’Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.’ We just need to hope they remain unconscious.”

“Who said that?”

“I don’t remember. Someone much smarter than me.” And then he opened the door, watched as the line of men filed into the room, all eager to peddle their respective forms of slavery and misery, and then Matheson left to start calling the people who would go on television later that day to sell the idea that more surveillance and a tighter reign was for everyone’s own good, the only way to keep everyone safe.

Year: 2048

“A good day’s work,” Amy told the newsroom. “You can all be proud.”

The first of the three stories she had talked about had just aired. A five-minute piece on how the First Tyranny Bank had laundered money for drug cartels and gotten off by paying a small fine, while citizens within the Tyranny were being sent to prison for minor infractions. The reporter who provided the voice for the piece had been so scared about what might happen to her that she insisted on having a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen saying that the news editor was responsible for the content of the report.

Amy had been sure the station manager would call her right before the piece was going to air and tell her to run something else. It hadn’t happened, though. Maybe she wasn’t giving her staff enough credit.

The intern looked up from the copier, where he was putting in a new ink cartridge that no one else would take the time to replace. A lot of his research had been used for the piece they had just aired. Amy saw that even as he got ink all over his hands, he had a look of pride that came with contributing to something meaningful for the first time.

“You’re not even getting paid,” she said, smiling. “You don’t have to stay this late.”

“I know,” the intern said, his face reddening. “I just like it here.”

The elevator chimed and everyone looked to see who the Tyranny would be coming for this time. The girl in the sundress, still upset about her earlier molestation, hid under a desk so she wouldn’t be groped again. But instead of four men in black suits, a middle-aged man with slick black hair and a grey striped dress shirt got off, found his bearings, and began walking toward Amy. For many on the floor, the visitor was to be feared even more than the Tyranny. The station manager.

“How’s it going, Amy?” he said, extending a hand to greet her. “Let’s go in your office and talk.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” she said after they had closed her door and were sitting on either side of her desk.

“Oh, I think you know.” When she didn’t say anything, only offered a blank stare, he added, “Are you really going to make me say it? Fine. What were you doing tonight on the news?”

“Reporting the news.”

“Come off it. Don’t talk to me like I’m dumb. The story you did about the First Tyranny Bank. Are you trying to get the entire station in trouble? You’re lucky it was me who came up here and not the Tyranny.” When she still didn’t say anything, he shook his head and said, “I’m letting you go, effective immediately. Jerry will be the new news editor.”

“The Tyranny came and took him,” she said quietly.

“They did? When?”

“Today.”

“See!” he said. “That’s what happens when you report on stories like that.”

“It had nothing to do with the story we ran.”

The station manager waved his hand back and forth. “Whatever. Then I’ll find someone else to run the stories. But I need you to pack your desk up before you leave tonight.”

He waited for her to defend herself. When she didn’t, he sighed, got up, and walked out of her office.

After he was gone, she stared out the window of her office, watching the AeroCams go this way and that way on their never-ending mindless mission. When her eyes grew heavy, she looked at the objects laid on her desk and realized there were precious few things she cared about taking home with her. A framed picture of her with her husband and two daughters. Another of just her two kids. She put these things and a couple others under her arm and walked to the elevator.

“What’s going on?” the intern said.

For a brief moment, she had a vision of the kid in front of her, reporting back to the Tyranny everything he saw and heard around the office. He would be the perfect mole. But then she saw the way he looked at the possessions under her arm, remembered the way he hadn’t been able to look at her when he mentioned his dead dog, and realized it was just paranoia.

“You know,” she said, “when I first got here, I thought people would rise up and refuse to accept everything that was going on around them if I could just show them exactly what was happening. But I waited too long. Too many people tolerated minor infractions and let them build up one after another, until we were in a condition no one would ever have allowed in the first place. Too many people ignored an abuse on someone else in the hope it wouldn’t affect them next. People’s actions matter. Their
inaction
matters. Even my own. All those years I sat back and played the game, telling myself I would wait until my daughters were old enough to take care of themselves, those were years I could have been fighting back against all of this.”

“What now?” the intern said, rubbing his eyes.

“Well,” she smiled and entered the elevator, “Just because I’m too old, doesn’t mean everyone is.” And she put the index finger of her free hand up to her eyebrow and gave him an informal salute as the elevator door closed between them.

In the parking garage, at her car, a man’s voice came from behind her: “Dirty Thinker.” She could sense the barrel of the blaster as it was aimed at the back of her head.

A pair of thoughts entered her mind. The first was that throwing open her car door and jumping inside would be pointless, as would any effort to swing her purse over her shoulder and knock the blaster from the assassin’s hand. Those things only happened in movies. The second thought was that perhaps she really had waited too long to try and make a difference. Maybe she should have attempted to do something earlier in life, when it would have made more of a difference. But at least she had done something eventually. At least she had done something before the end.

And then nothingness.