Sleep Over

by H. G. Bells

  Pendragon, Ry, Laura, Bett, Fee, Rick, Al, and Jay: the Gibsons Rebuilding Committee, the GRC.

  We started filling in stats right away, and I explained to them more about the 5 PSS, the five Personal Special Stats, the custom skills that they had liberty to pick for their unique talents. We tried to keep them to skills we thought we’d still use. Those ranged from Photography to Gardening, Timber Falling to Watch Maintenance. Between the eight of us, we had forty different PSSs.

  So that was the party-creation process. It feels a little weird to document, because it’s hard for me to know if “outsiders” will find it interesting. But if you’ve never done it, just know that it can be a thrill. A hugely exciting thing to craft a new group, to think of what skills you have or what skills you want to have, and put pencil to paper, and you get a kind of exhilaration that binds the group together.

  We had control over our lives, for what felt like the first time in a long time. Total power to direct ourselves.

  “So,” asked Rick, “who’s the DM here?” A simple question that let me know that Rick had gamed before. Had it been D&D? Maybe Call of Cthulhu? Jeremy pointed at me. I wasn’t one to decline; the group needed a leader, and since it was my idea it seemed obvious. But he was just calling attention to it for the others, to let them know that someone was sort of in charge.

  “So what’s first then, boss?” asked Jay.

  “Our primary mission will be to draw other people in. Everyone is to have three GOLS sheets with them at all times, so that if someone (and two of their friends) wants to join, you can get them in right then and there. You walk them through what we just did; name, 5 PSSs, the whole deal.

  “It’ll be hard at first. I guess we just set an example; pull your GOLS sheets any chance you get. Anything you’re doing is getting you XP (Experience Points), and you record it as soon as you can. Take pride in your work. When we pass one another, let’s tell each other what we gained that day.

  “Pendragon,” I said in example, “you level up in Penmanship yet?”

  “Sure did,” he answered. We high-fived.

  “Always positive, always lifting each other up. This is about support, this is about binding people together and acknowledging the good work that we do. Got it?”

  “So our first mission is to use GOLS in public and to be there for anyone that wants to join us?” asked Laura. I nodded. She held out her hand and Jeremy gave her some blank GOLS, each one rolled up with a piece of twine tied ‘round. GOLS scrolls, he called them.

  Those early times were difficult, but we did what we set out to do. Each of us did it in our own ways, but always there was the interaction when we saw one another. High fives and claps on the back. The first time I saw Al out and about, he was so intimidating that I couldn’t imagine high-fiving him. But he waltzed right up to me and asked in a booming voice (so that everyone could hear).

  “Ry, you level up in Food Security yet?”

  “This morning,” I answered. I could see he meant to high-five me and I swung to meet him, resulting in a blow to our hands that left my whole arm stinging. I tried not to show it though, and continued on my way like it weren’t no thang. As planned though, the exchange had not gone unnoticed.

  It was frustrating for me to see the others. They toiled away, making progress yes, but it was easy for their efforts to go unnoticed. This was when we started adding visual shibboleths to our attire. Jeremy Pendragon got the first—a nice patch with a quill and a flourish of ink under its nib. He wore it subtly on his jacket breast, but when asked, he would tell them that he’d got his first Meta-Level in Penmanship.

  Spirits waned in the others. As our GOLS party grew closer, the rest of the town seemed despondent and lethargic. The grief hit us all differently in that time; it was a brutal thing to face. So many dead, such despair. But where the GOLS brought us together, the others were alone. It made my heart ache for them, to know I could help them, but only if they wanted it.

  I watched as order fell apart. The town fractured into two sides; one thought that we needed to focus on getting ready for the winter, and the other thought that establishing a communication network with neighboring towns was more important.

  Organization was poor, and I agonized to see a duplication of efforts due to lack of coordination. As their spirits plummeted I wished I could just scream at them to fill in a fucking GOLS sheet and to see if it helped. But we weren’t a dictatorship; this wasn’t DC we’re talking about here, we were still trying to function as a democracy.

  After the first suicide, we met in the town hall.

  Mrs. Barsol Jay urged them to adopt the GOLS sheets. We were nearing a tipping point—what percent of a population needs to adopt something before it becomes the norm? I’m not sure what it was before the apocalypse, but after it, when we were rebuilding, I figured it was something like 10 percent. (It turned out that it was much lower—low single digits in most cases; the bigger factor was what kind of people were needed to proliferate the spread of the meme.)

  At the time of the first suicide, there were fifteen people with GOLS sheets.

  Jay’s invitation got another three after that somber meeting, but it was a dark, dark time.

  Over the following days, Al was able to pull some of the older people in slowly. I think he lured them with the idea that it was good for the kids, knowing that they’d see the benefit once they got going as well.

  The twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings were easiest, but I’m not sure if that was just because of the age range of our core group. Like follows like, and we had a leg up with those ages to begin with.

  I mean, it still wasn’t easy. There were a lot of naysayers.

  “Quit wasting time,” they said as I pulled out my GOLS to fill in a point in Fuel Management. We’d been gathering firewood all day, and that was important.

  “Just counting my XP in Fuel Management,” I said. “Oh man, I’m going to level up tonight!” I said; my excitement was genuine. We had picked titles for the various level ranges, and I was about to cross the threshold from Scribe to Acolyte. “Hurrah for Fuel Management!” I said, cheering myself. Giving it such a serious name appealed to some, even if my antics were somewhat absurd, and that evening I managed to get two of “the older ones” to fill in GOLS.

  Each night we met at the town hall and had a brief powwow. We’d announce any new members and they were encouraged to tell us their 5 Specials.

  Always the day after, we made sure that the new recruits got asked about their GOLS. Always binding together, always propping each other up. It was of course all subjective—how do you decide how much XP to give yourself for any given task? Because it was left to us to be our own judges, sometimes adjustments had to be made. Don’t misunderstand though: adjustments were always made to increase XP. We were hard on ourselves. If we saw someone had done a good job and had not really awarded themselves an appropriate amount of XP, we’d sort it out that evening, thus recognizing their efforts in front of the group.

  The tipping point happened when a reconnaissance party arrived back from scouting—Vancouver was a short boat ride away, and we wanted to know how things were going down in the big city. The runners talked to us in the town hall, and they seemed chagrinned at their findings. They introduced someone from Vancouver, a forty-something with silver on his temples and a military jacket. Under several medals on his breast I saw a peculiar patch, one of a fist holding a hammer against a lightning bolt.

  “I’m told,” he said in an authoritative voice, “that someone once known as TreeBeardTopiary lived here.” My heart leapt and I rose to my feet.

  “That’s my username on—” I started, but decided to keep it simple; “that’s me,” I finished simply.

  “Well son, most of Vancouver is using GOLS sheets now, and I understand we have you to thank for it.”

  Pretty much everything he said after that was just his mouth moving and this crazy ringing in my ears; I could not fathom such success of GOLS as he was tell
ing us about. He motioned for me to come up on stage and when I didn’t respond right away, Pendragon had to give me a push forwards. All the sound came back into my world then and I heard him saying something about foresight and leadership.

  I joined him up there and he pulled a patch from his pocket and pinned it to my jacket breast. It was an icon of two hands shaking against a target background.

  “This young man’s ideas are saving lives and helping rebuild the world. If y’all want to get with the program, you’ll find that you’re playing with the big kids. And now if you’ll excuse me, I do believe I just leveled up in Diplomacy,” he said. He held his hand up expectantly and I only hesitated for a minute before I high-fived him.

  The town hall didn’t know what to do at first.

  Jay signaled to our party to get going though, and we circulated through the crowd with GOLS sheets.

  Jeremy had been making copies diligently the whole time we had been struggling to make it happen, and they finally saw the light of day.

  It was successful beyond my wildest dreams. I know it wasn’t used everywhere, but it was widespread enough that most everyone at least knew about it.

  Pendragon and I went back to Vancouver with the General, and from there we traveled the country.

  Together we developed the GOLS achievement standardization. Certain cities had local variants. I couldn’t have anticipated most of the ones that had to be created on the fly; how could I have known there’d be a need for a Wolf Defense patch, but goddamn if some of the northern locations didn’t need one. They adapted, and, as we grew old in the world as we rebuilt it, I got to see so many wonderful level-ups.

  There was an achievement patch for damn near everything, and the most prized were the ones that told everyone that you’d helped in a big way.

  Not everyone used GOLS; in some cities, people used it as a secret religion, pumping up their stats in silence as they worked alongside people that didn’t understand how their motivations had been honed and crafted, but who understood they were working with a seriously dedicated individual.

  You know someone was a gamer from the Before Time because their GOLS sheet is likely framed on their wall. Or maybe it’s still in use, tucked away in their pocket, still getting levels in Masonry, Salvage, or Barter.

  By 2050, (there will be) more plastics (in the ocean) than fish (by weight).

  —The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s

  “The New Plastics Economy”

 

  Blanche: We now convene the special meeting of Rebuilding World Government Special Think Tank, at Bibliothèque de Genève, Prom. des Bastions 1, 1211 Genève 4, Switzerland. Regular Presiding Officer, Anne Blanche, is present, as is the Secretary, Marta Levison.

  We open the floor to the reading and discussion of the vision statement of one of the New World-Wide Population Control Act proposals, as read by Dr. Rose Betrand, head of Analytics, New Population Control Committee, PhD of Population Ecology.

  Dr. Betrand: Thank you. I’ll get right to it. The census takers have done their great work, and all over the world experts like myself have determined the best course of action. We have had to extrapolate for some parts of the world where data is not reported, but we are confident in our conclusions.

  Before the pandemic, world population was approaching eight billion. Now our best estimates place us around seven hundred million. We are not in danger of going extinct. We have been given a great opportunity here, an opportunity to shape the human race with intention, with awareness to our numbers.

  Two-thirds of the survivors are of reproductive age. The rest are too old. None are too young.

  We are left with 200 million women to reproduce.

  Of course this issue brings up the very contentious issue of eugenics, and I’m prepared to—

  Dr. Rasmusen: Are any of us really prepared to—

  Blanche: Please sir, the chair asks that you keep your comments until after the—

  Dr. Betrand: No it’s all right, let’s hear it.

  Blanche: The chair recognizes Chloe Rasmusen, “Reverse Eugenics and the Split of Homo Sapiens Sapiens” paper co-author, PhD of Population Ethics.

  Dr. Rasmusen: It doesn’t have to be evil, we have a real shot at doing something great for the future of humanity here.

  Dr. Betrand: Doctor, tell us then, who would you propose we, as you put it in your paper, bail out of the gene pool, remove from the breeding population?

  Dr. Rasmusen: Breeding as a human right is utter nonsense—look where it got us! The numbers don’t lie! If this insomnia hadn’t taken us down as much as it did we would have continued to destroy ourselves. Eight billion people! 1.6 billion cows, over a billion sheep and even more pigs! We ate the oceans dry, we fucked the planet for future generations of people, all of who would have the right to pop out as many babies as they wanted, without regard for if they could afford them, if society could afford them, if the earth could support them.

  Blanche: Doctor, please calm yourself or I’ll have to ask you to leave. Get to your point.

  Dr. Rasmusen: My point is that our worst were outbreeding our best, that we were practicing eugenics in reverse, where the brightest, most capable people were choosing not to have children. We have seen what that does, and we know it’s unsustainable.

  Getting us to agree on just how many humans the earth can support is damn near impossible. It was the issue of our time, bigger than climate change, and yet, we couldn’t talk about it. Because telling people they can’t have a baby is a human rights violation! Pft, please. Motherfuckers, having a baby should have been a human rights violation!

  Blanche: Doctor, you’ll have to sit down now please. We will hear more from Rose Betrand, on the New World-Wide Population Control Act.

  Dr. Betrand: Thank you. Dr. Rasmusen has some very good points, and I do not disagree with anything she is saying. You can imagine it was very frustrating to be in our field when humanity was headed that direction. Every person exists solely to make more people. We’ll have to ascend to a higher level of being, have to overcome millions of years of primal, base programming to make this work. We’re going to have to be masters of our fate now.

  The human race has a second chance. If we use our heads, if we are careful about this, we can get ourselves under control.

  This all supposes that everyone is going to play along . . . Which they won’t, I know. There will be war again. There will be noncompliance. My hope is that we get enough of humanity on board with The Act that they can effectively police the rest.

  So my proposed core of The Act is this: reproduction is no longer a human right. We do not get to decide that we can have a baby as an individual any more.

  How do we accomplish this without a travesty of corruption? I know, right? It’s not going to be perfect, but we have to try, damn it we have to try.

  At first, it’s going to be easy. The survivors will hardly be curbed at all. It’s the future generations that will be affected, but they won’t know any other way, will they? We have to set a good example. We have such an opportunity here.

  I have laid out The Act in three phases, and they are as follows:

  Phase 1: Every female survivor who wants to have babies can have up to four babies. If there are women who cannot have a baby, they may enlist the help of one who can. If any woman gives up her child in this manner, they are permitted to have more than the allotted four children, to a maximum of eight. The children they give up are not their own—they are considered the children of their adopted parents in every way, but the children will be openly told of their parentage, their genetic heritage, and made aware of any such siblings they have. This first wave of babies are part of Generation 0, the rebooting of the human race.

  Efforts are to be made to inform them of their fathers. If in doubt, multiple people must be included in the family tree.

  Phase 1, Subsection A: Keeping family trees is compulsory. We must be careful here; we cannot
inbreed. People must travel around and spread genetic diversity. Moving cities every few generations perhaps. Something to get the human race spread around, something to homogenize us and prevent some repetition of inbred small-town population problems from the past. It might not be a problem with millions and millions of us still living in urban areas, but many small towns have been reduced to only a few dozen, and it’s for them and their future generations that the Family Tree must make a comeback. Iceland showed us the way in the Before, perhaps we can use their app.

  We don’t need to figure that out just yet though. Right now it’s all about the numbers.

  If we account for some women not wanting babies, and other women receiving babies from Giving Mothers, as we’re calling them, we go from two hundred million women, having four babies each, to the first generation, the first actual distinct generation in human history, having eight hundred million children. This brings our population up from 750 million, to, let’s round some more, double that—1.6 billion.

  Phase 2: Generation One, as we are calling it, may have as many as three children. Rules from the Survivor Generation apply: any that cannot have babies and desire them, may work with another woman to have children.

  So 1.6 billion x 1.5 = 2.4 billion people.

  Then we move into Phase 3: Maintenance Mode, the true test to see whether humanity is ready to grow up and take responsibility. Generation Two is permitted to have two children, and only two children. Same rules apply for people wanting children but who are unable to reproduce. Womb max occupancy limit is set at eight.

  If we’re lucky, we’ll be 2.4 billion people.

  Look, it’s not like we’re saying who can have the babies and who can’t. We could try and eliminate a host of genetic diseases. Now’s the best time to try. I’d love to try. Shall we play that game for a minute? Dr. Rasmusen, would you join in the discussion again for a moment please?