The Force (The Kingdom Chronicles)

by Alexandra Swann

  Across the room, bioethicist and Harvard professor Kevin Leeds sat transfixed as he held his shimmering prism. He had scoffed at the notion of bending time and space until he had looked into the facets and once again become a boy in New England in a cold empty house waiting for his parents to come home. Kevin’s parents were ACLU attorneys who had time for every cause but their son. Day after day he returned from school to a lonely, messy house where the heat was seldom turned on because heating and cooling were bad for the environment. Tall for his age, pallid and lanky, Kevin was not athletic, and he did not make friends easily. As he looked into the prism, he could once again feel the sting of the rejection and mockery that he experienced every day at school and the anger and resentment he harbored toward his more popular classmates who had friends and siblings and relationships. He relived the awful loneliness of turning the key to an empty house day after day. His mother did not think television was a good pursuit for her son, but she did leave him a stack of approved reading materials, and his one joy was the afternoons that he spent reading Jane Goodall. Her writings transported him to Africa—a continent of exotic people, animals and locales.

  Now he was graduating with his bachelor’s degree. His parents were there, of course, but he remembered feeling that they were more interested in how his achievements reflected on them than in his future. Willow, the girl he lived with in college, was graduating too. She was barely pregnant, but soon she wouldn’t be; they had both decided that they were not ready to start a family.

  Now he was working on his doctoral thesis—a five-year case study on the effects of family-planning techniques on a control group in Nairobi. During the five years of his research, Kevin had found himself. In Massachusetts he was still the skinny, pallid twenty-something with an old hybrid that barely ran and not enough money for dates, but in Nairobi he was a god among mortals. He had shared most of his five years with Anasa, a young Kenyan woman who had agreed to be sterilized to participate in the case study. Anasa’s name meant “joy” in Swahili, and his relationship with her and his life in Nairobi had been the closest thing to joy Kevin had ever experienced. He had left when his research was over and never contacted her again, but barely a day passed when he did not think of her and his five years in Africa.

  The prism moved in Kevin’s hand, and he could see his present. He was walking toward his office on campus. On his way, he stopped at the shop where he bought his daily cup of coffee from Nadine, the owner and his long-term part-time lover. Nadine was his age and had been married three times, so she was more than content with their casual relationship, which perfectly suited Kevin. They took trips together and dined together a few times a week. Though not intellectual, she shared his core beliefs in environmentalism and socialism, and she made a suitable sounding board for his ideas. She was the ideal companion for a man of his intellect who did not want a more demanding relationship but was still haunted by the loneliness of his youth.

  Now Kevin was on campus. The walls of his office at Harvard were lined with awards he had received for his work in international population control and environmentalism. He still loved the smell of a classroom on the first day of school, the way the chalk felt in his hand, and the fresh faces of the students taking their seats. With Kevin’s credentials he did not need to teach a freshman class; yet, he requested the opportunity to teach “Bioethics, Population Control, and the Future of the Human Race” every year to another freshman class. For many of these students this was their first time living away from home, and Professor Leeds was one of the first voices they would hear who would help them unlearn any superstition or religious influence or archaic sense of national pride left over from their parents. Every semester he began with the same goal—to ensure that no student attending his class completed it without experiencing a radical transformation of belief so great that they could never again relate fully to any belief system other than Leeds’. Whether that transformation came through belittling students in class who dared to argue with him about his beliefs, or encouraging them to shed their outdated ideas about morality, or punishing dissenters with failing grades, Leeds could see the transformation he wrought in the eyes of his students at the end of every semester, and he rejoiced that a new crop of young people had been indoctrinated.

  The prism turned again in his hand, and he could see himself five years into the future, receiving the Nobel Prize for Bioethics. This was the one award that had eluded him, but he had been working steadily toward its achievement. Kevin once again had international recognition… He saw himself going to visit his father in the long-term care facility where Douglas Leeds had lived for many years as Alzheimer’s destroyed his mind. Douglas looked up in shock to see his son standing there after nearly a decade without a visit. Kevin explained to his father that he had won the Nobel Prize and that he had just returned from Sweden. As Douglas looked at his son, for a split second the fog that shut out his surroundings lifted, and he viewed Kevin with a combination of envy and admiration that the younger Leeds had never before seen.

  If Kevin rubbed his thumb across the prism and renounced his life, he would be making the ultimate sacrifice for the good of nature. He would be eradicating himself—his past, his present and his future. Yet, in doing so he would also be erasing his research, his work. The hours that he had spent initiating thousands of students into global environmentalism would be gone. How would their lives be changed if Leeds’ influence was suddenly eradicated? He thought of his walks on campus; he would never again see the vibrant fall colors as he strolled among the paths. He would never drink coffee with Nadine or take another trip to Europe with her as his companion. He would never explain to another coed that by pleasing her professor she could improve her GPA just enough to make it into that vital top five percentile so critical for a student’s future in the modern competitive world. In less than a moment, all of his work, his ideas, his contributions to society would disappear. He could never do that—that was a sacrifice to be made by a lesser intellect. The universe could not afford to lose Kevin Leeds.

  Two tables to the left of Professor Leeds sat Hemraj Ambani. Hemraj’s name meant “King of Gold” and it aptly described his financial situation—Ambani was one of the world’s leading industrialists and currently occupied the number one spot as the richest man in the world.

  Ambani studied mysticism and world religions as a hobby, so he felt more curiosity than contempt at Josef’s suggestion to pick up the prism. If the prism could bend time and space and act as a portal to a changed reality, Hemraj knew that the secret did not lie in some scientific discovery but rather in the dark arts. That fascinated him, and he picked it up carefully and looked into it deeply.

  Immediately, he was ten years old at boarding school in London. It was winter, and he was being bullied by the British boys. He hated these boys. His family was immensely wealthier than any of them, but they mocked and ridiculed him relentlessly. The intense anger that he carried toward the West had grown in this school until it had overcome everything else in life. During his visits home on every holiday, he begged his father not to send him back, but his father flatly refused and said that his son must have a Western education.

  Now he was at home in Mumbai. The family was celebrating his sister Vasana’s engagement to Ishan Pai. Vasana did not attend school in London. She was educated at the Scottish Presbyterian School in Mumbai where she received a Western education and achieved fluency in English, but her socially conservative parents did not trust their daughter outside of the country. Hemraj and Vasana had never been close—she was badly spoiled and petted by both parents, and it always seemed to her brother that she got the best of everything. In accordance with centuries of tradition, Vasana’s father had arranged her marriage, but she had been allowed to meet Ishan prior to the wedding and apparently had liked him. She was spinning around the room like a dervish showing off the jewels he had given her for a wedding gift and boasting about the dress she would wear and the world cruise they w
ould take for their honeymoon trip. Hemraj did not meet Ishan until his sister’s wedding, and he hated him on sight. Forty years later, his opinion of his sister and brother-in-law had not changed.

  Suddenly he was at his own wedding marrying Ramita, the bride his father had chosen for him. Ramita—in English it means “pleasing,” and she was pleasing in every way. Her marriage to Hemraj was the merger of two of India’s most powerful families. Like Vasana, Ramita was educated in India for primary school, but unlike Vasana, Ramita’s parents had sent to her to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She was beautiful, graceful, fluent in English and gracious to everyone. Hemraj was once again standing in front of her on their wedding day knowing with a certainty that at that moment he was the envy of every man in attendance, including Ishan. It had been one of the rare moments of happiness in his life.

  The prism glinted in his hand, and now he was sitting in the office of his father’s chief business manager and his attorney for the reading of the will. Hemraj’s mother had died from cancer while she was still in her forties, and his father never remarried. He had buried himself in his work and his mistresses and barely acknowledged his son. Hemraj was in New York on business when he received the call that his father had suffered a massive stroke and was in a coma. The elder Ambani died before his son arrived. Hemraj did not feel grief about his passing—his emotions were more akin to disbelief and shock. At thirty years of age, he had become the head of a billion-dollar conglomerate and one of the richest men in the world.

  Hemraj’s father left his vast business and financial holdings to his son and his daughter and son-in-law. Hemraj owned fifty percent, and Vasana and Ishan each owned twenty-five percent. His chest was hot with anger and humiliation as he left the office and stepped onto the crowded streets of Mumbai where his driver awaited with an armored car. Silently, he cursed his father for dividing the holdings in such a way that he was permanently chained to Vasana and Ishan.

  The prism turned in Hemraj’s hand, and he was in present-day Mumbai in the palatial home he had built for himself, Ramita, and their two children. His personal residence was the most lavish and expensive in the history of the world—a writer for Forbes Magazine had joked that the private estate of Hemraj Ambani had replaced the Taj Mahal as India’s greatest tourist attraction. Ramita was the ideal companion—still beautiful and a flawless picture of grace and culture. She understood and embraced Indian culture without hesitation—she never challenged her husband on any point. She accepted his romantic dalliances without confronting them. For his part, Hemraj knew that he could never find a substitute for her, so though he frequently enjoyed other women’s company as a diversion, he rewarded Ramita’s discretion with the largest, most expensive private jewel collection in the world. Every piece of her clothing was custom-made by the world’s top designers. She traveled frequently to her luxurious homes throughout the world where she entertained the world’s wealthiest families at her lavish parties.

  Now Hemraj was standing in his office arguing with Vasana and Ishan. Hemraj was chairman of the board of the family enterprises, but Vasana wanted that title for her husband, and she constantly schemed and plotted against her brother. The newest coup was an effort to persuade the board of directors of some of the Western corporations to replace Hemraj as CEO with Ishan on the grounds that Hemraj was embezzling from his own companies to support his lavish lifestyle. Vasana was standing in front of him yelling at him. She was wearing western clothing and much too much make up, and he thought how he hated her and her fat, bloated worthless husband.

  The prism turned in Hemraj’s hand and two more years had passed. He was now at Ishan’s funeral. Ishan had been the unlucky victim of a random shooting in the street. Vasana was weeping inconsolably at the loss of her husband, but Hemraj was quietly overjoyed. Under the terms of his father’s will, Ishan’s interest in the family’s holdings had now passed to Hemraj, giving him seventy-five percent control and leaving Vasana with only twenty-five percent. She had no more power to start a coup. Hemraj’s first official act would be to lock her out of the building. He was only sorry that she had not been on the street with her husband when the shooting had taken place—he had, after all, paid to have them both assassinated.

  If Hemraj rubbed the prism, he would cease to exist. In the present reality, Ishan was still alive, and he and Vasana would become the sole heirs to the billion-dollar conglomerate. Ramita would be the wife of another man. All of the wealth, the prestige, the fame that Hemraj had accumulated would pass to others. The thought of his wife belonging to another man, of Ishan sitting as chairman of the board of his companies, of Vasana boasting about her husband’s business savvy, was more than Hemraj could bear. He could never give up this life—and why would he? The present world was home to nine billion people. Let those who had nothing to live for disappear.

  Amanda Sutton had not intended to pick up her prism, but somehow, the piece of crystal had made its way into her delicate hand. She, too, found herself transported from the room, but when she stared into its facets, everything looked fragmented and hazy, and if she were viewing it through a mist. She could see small shards of memories—a fleeting image of herself as a child with a tiara on her head as she was named the winner of a pageant. A woman was next to her, but Amanda could not see her clearly. Was that her mother? She had an impression of being on a rollercoaster on a blazing hot day. She was seven or eight years old at the time. She could not see the faces of anyone around her. She could not remember the name of the amusement park or how long they stayed.

  She felt the prism turn, and she could see briefly a shouting argument that she was having with her mother. What did they argue over? What was said?

  The memories sharpened a little as they became more recent. Now she had a hazy recollection of sitting in a restaurant with a man who was giving her an envelope containing one thousand dollars and asking her to take a job—somewhere. She could see his face; she could even hear his voice, but she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. When the prism turned again in Amanda’s hand, she saw only mist.

  Josef had said that if she rubbed the prism with her thumb, she would disappear. She had not done that, but as Amanda stared into the crystals, she had the disturbing sensation that she was already disappearing—that the space she occupied in the universe was already beginning to close and that she would soon simply vanish.

  A loud crack from the front of the room broke the trance. Immediately, all 150 participants in the conference were seated in their chairs with their dinners in front of them.

  Josef lowered his hand from snapping his fingers into the microphone. He had watched the experiment with intense interest. As each person had disappeared into his or her own reality, Josef had been able to study their reactions and their fascinations with their personal visions. When he was ready, he was able to call them back.

  Now he spoke again, “Thank you for taking part in my little experiment. I observed that not a single person in this room elected to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Not one of you rubbed the prism and repeated the chant. Why not? What did you see when you looked into the crystals? The passionate embrace of a lover?” his eyes fell on Luis Carlos, and the monarch felt his own face color with embarrassment, “the pride of accomplishment of academic achievement?” now he was looking directly at Kevin Leeds, who stared back at him coldly, “wealth and possessions?” now he was gazing at Ambani. The men shifted in their seats—surely he could not see their memories—their fantasies. Each man felt a vulnerability he had never before experienced, as if Josef had forced him to expose his most secret thoughts.

  “Would anyone like to volunteer to tell us what you saw? Would you Amanda?” he was now staring at her. Amanda shook her head, looked down, and sat silently turning the ring that she hoped would bring her good luck.

  Josef continued, “I submit to all of you that this is the very reason why after more than seventy-five years we have never been able to achieve our goal
of a sustainable world. We ask residents of democracies to vote for laws and governments that will make their wealth, prominence and professional achievements vanish—that will remove from them the joys of family and the relationships they treasure. Not one of you chose to sacrifice yourself because when you stared into the crystals you saw elements of your past and present and hopes for your future with which you could not bear to part. But I would have you understand that every person who has ever been faced with the decision to erase himself, his work, his life for the greater benefit of society has felt the same way—no matter how menial or meaningless his life would appear to us. The plumber who works long hours performing the most noxious tasks and then sits in his usual place at the neighborhood pub waiting for the waitress to finish her shift so that they can be alone together; the first grade teacher who congratulates herself that she is shaping the next generation and then goes home to an empty apartment and fills her hours reading romance novels while she dreams of one day meeting her fantasy lover; the accountant who works a seventy hour week and every year plans a new marketing campaign in the hopes of growing his tiny business into one that will someday support him without such grueling effort and will give him a retirement worthy of the years that he has invested—to each of these people and billions more just like them, life as they presently experience it is precious. They will never vote to erase themselves.