Hardin's Dilemma

by A.S. Morrison

opportunity. Dizuria decided to wait it out, hoping that whichever country was left standing, they would give us some of the land of the loser. Unfortunately they were stupid and both built nuclear bombs, something outlawed long ago when the idea first sprang up that it was possible. Well as you can imagine that wouldn’t do.

  “New technologies enabled the surrounding countries to be able to have a plan just in case the war went in that direction, and it did. The representatives from each of the surrounding countries came here to propose the dome. And how could we say no with that much pressure? No use in having all the big countries mad at us. They knew we would be a hard sell so they let us tweak the plan. And can you guess what we said? We decided that we would be the ones to create the necessary code in our computers to be able to get back in once enough time had passed. Now it just so happened that they ‘forgot’ to put in that code. At least that’s what we told the other countries. But who could blame us? Things escalated so quickly. The type of computer program needed for the dome could not be changed once it was in use. Once up this thing was going to be up forever, unless there was some way already present in it for it to come down. Now I’m not going to get into the mess about how all those hundreds of computers used to power the thing became one super computer somewhere underground. That’s too much to talk about for you people. Just know that it happened, and that they tried to change the code then, but it didn’t work. We were in the clear.

  “Our government waited some years before going in, and once inside we found that it was safe, as I have mentioned. Everything was destroyed, and we are still not sure how that happened if no nuclear bombs went off. What we didn’t expect was that people had survived in bunkers. I know that’s news to you, but they did survive. They were very good at hiding. One group, what was left of Humurom, lived in a mountain. The other group, Bozlin, lived underground. These two places were thirty some miles away from each other. At first we decided to ignore them. Very few people ever came out of the mountain so we saw no point to bother them, and besides they lived a good twenty miles from the wall on our border. The Bozlins though came out frequently and even set up little towns again. Can’t have that so we started training people to kill them. If they knew that we were there then they would try to get out, meaning that the people out here would know we lied to them for so long. Then people started getting too far from the mountain, can’t have that. So we sent some people to kill them. Not too fast though, don’t want anybody getting suspicious enough to start investigating. Now I know this sounds bad, but think of it a different way. Those two countries had tried to kill everyone by building nuclear bombs. All the countries could have been destroyed if we let that happen. They had their chance and they ruined it for themselves. We are just finishing the job.

  “The important thing to take away from all this is that Dizuria is inside attempting to build up an offense to keep those survivors quiet until we figure out what to do. Every leader has different ideas on what should be done with them. Some say we should leave them alone, some say we should kill them all. Leric, our leader for the past two years, has done a good job at making himself clear that he wants them all gone, but in a controlled way. You see the main concern is that they did in fact make nuclear bombs. We have the video files from long ago to prove it. If we try anything too quick they might just set them off in fear. Can’t have that either. So it’s a messy situation and Leric is trying his best to confront the naysayers in his small circle of mayors. Now I don’t know why there is such a huge influx of recruits, those are his orders. They don’t tell me anything but what I need to tell you. All I know is that soon all the land in that wall will be ours and we will be able to spread out and have all the land we want and nobody will ever know.”

  I sat in the back of the class in awe at what I was hearing. We had hit it big. This was everything. Mr. L was giving us exactly what we wanted to know. If only we had a recording device with us. While what he was saying did scare me, I was happy that we finally had something to go back to Azureland with. If we could get something solid to bring back as proof then everything would get better in no time, I knew it.

  He continued on for several hours. Next he talked about the checkpoints and that cleared up another issue. He told us that checkpoints had been set up all along the edge of the wall so nobody could get too close to the edge of the dome. That explained why we were only attacked when we got to the wall. And it may have also explained what that old cage was that we found near the wall.

  He went on for several hours about things that had nothing to do with the wall. He told about the skills we would have needed if this was a classroom full of the brightest students, the kind he was used to teaching.

  I zoned out while he insulted us and tried to think of something I could ask to shine more light on the subject of killing Humuroms but I couldn’t think of anything without seeming too knowledgeable about them, after all this was supposed to be the first time I learned of their continued existence.

  Mr. L finished with a two hour explanation of why this was all important. Everything he said was about how Dizuria was so badly treated throughout history and how they deserved to get that land. I had a very hard time trying to stay awake. I occasionally looked over to Theen who was trying his best to look like he was enjoying the lecture.

  A man and woman entered the room. I hadn’t even noticed that Mr. L had stopped talking.

  “Give us your name and we will decide which group to put you in.” The woman said, holding a clipboard. “Wait; there are two more people than are on our list.”

  “You are still going by the lists?” Mr. L asked the woman. “They are getting people from all over the country, most aren’t on the list.”

  The woman seemed to think that this was a plausible idea and continued on, asking all of us our names. I accidentally told her my name was Hardin, but I couldn’t think of another on such short notice. She told four of us to go with her and the others to go with the man who had come in with her. We followed her out into a small hallway that led from the back of the classroom. She stopped us halfway down the hall.

  “Go ahead and get to know each other, you two are going to be in the Wild Group.”

  We introduced ourselves to the others. Besides Theen our group had a girl named Zurrel and the man named Billus. They seemed nice, though when I introduced myself to Billus his eyes grew wide. He stared at me strangely for a few seconds before introducing himself.

  “Alright that’s enough.” The woman said. “Let me show you to where you will be staying for tonight.”

  We followed her to the end of the hall and into another elevator. All of us squeezed in and went up to the eighth floor. She told that this part of level eight was not connected to the other part and that nobody could get there unless they were part of the Dome Project. We split up into different rooms. Theen and I were put into one room and the other two were put into another. Wake up for the next morning was to be at six.

  “I guess we really got roped into something, didn’t we?” Theen said when we were alone in our rooms, which looked almost identical to the rooms we had the night before, but without the windows.

  “I hope it pays off. I feel dirty just by being in contact with all this.” I wiped my hands on my pants.

  “We should learn a lot in the next few days.”

  “They didn’t even tell us anything that was going to happen other than saying that we are going to be wild, whatever that means.”

  “I think they do that so we don’t try to escape.” Theen reasoned. “They want us to think that it won’t be so bad until we get there.”

  There was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Zurrel standing there.

  “Hello, I’m in this group.” She said.

  “Yeah.” I said, not sure what else to say to that.

  “Any ideas on what’s going to happen tomorrow?” She asked anxiously.

  Thee
n came up behind me. “None.”

  He let her in.

  “Me neither.” She said. “How did you get into this?”

  Theen ignored the question. “How did they get you?”

  She sighed. “Came to the city to run an errand for my boss and I was arrested and brought here.”

  “That’s horrible.” I said.

  “No, I hated that job.”

  I nodded slowly, not sure how to react. She seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing.

  “Something similar happened to us.” Theen lied.

  She shivered. “I don’t like the sound of wild.”

  Theen nodded in agreement. “Definitely doesn’t sound good.”

  There was another knock. Billus was at the door.

  “Getting to know each other?” He said.

  Zurrel pointed a finger at him. “Did you say that you had done this before?”

  “Yes.” Billus said simply.

  “What is it like?” She pressed on.

  “I shouldn’t tell you. You’ll figure it out on your own.”

  “Come on, tell us something.” Zurrel pleaded.

  He looked at us pityingly. “Wild means inside the dome.” He left without another word.

  XIII

  I didn’t sleep well at all that night. I had a history of nightmares dating back to my childhood, each getting more bizarre as time went on. I had a