by K A Riley
Granden surveys us all. “What is it about repetition that winds up being so seductive?”
Sara has her elbow on her desk and her face scrunched up in the palm of her hand. “We’re stupid,” she grumbles.
Granden gives what I think is an annoyed sigh and asks her to elaborate.
“We’re stupid. We’re instinctive and lazy by nature. We’re not born to be critical thinkers. So we take the easy path, the one we’ve heard about or tried before, and we know it works.”
“That’s a good way to wind up with your head buried in the sand,” Ignacio objects.
“Sometimes ‘buried in the sand’ is the safest place to be,” Sara replies.
“It may be safe,” Mattea says, “but it’s also a sure way to stay ignorant.”
Granden crosses his arms and says, “Hm. Interesting point.”
Without raising his hand or even looking up, Arlo suggests that it all has to do with fear. “Scared people do bad things and are the most easily manipulated by bad people.”
Nodding his partial agreement, Granden says, “Part of the power of propaganda comes from its reliance on fear. I think Arlo makes a strong point. Fearful people are always more likely to fall for propaganda, buy into conspiracy theories, and see existential threats everywhere around them.” He taps the pad on the podium next to him, and the hologram of a familiar face—wrinkled mouth, beady eyes, weathered skin, oily-black hair—springs to life just over his shoulder.
Libra and Sara are the only ones from our Cohort who were born in the U.S., although they were taken overseas to Europe when they were only about six years old, so I know they don’t remember or know much about our adopted country. Still, we all moan and boo at the image of former and long-dead President Krug.
After all, his reach extended well beyond the borders of America. According to Granden—and he should know—a few million people around the world wound up rich because of him. But a few billion more wound up dead.
Granden pumps his hands in front of him to calm us down. “So, to start, let’s talk about Krug. I’m assuming you know who he was?”
We all nod that we most definitely do.
Although we arrived here months after Krug was thankfully tossed off a roof by Kress and her Conspiracy, we’ve all heard stories, and we’ve all suffered through the violence and cruelty he so casually and globally spawned.
For the rest of class, Granden leads us through a whole history of slogans, deception, and rhetoric—all the things that brought Krug to power and enabled him to embark on his greedy, ego-driven campaign of global terror.
Granden’s a good teacher. He’s not as intense as Brohn, as demanding as Kress, or as scary as War. But he knows a lot.
Except for War and Mayla, he’s the only one of our teachers who’s old enough to really know what life was like before and after the wars.
And he’s definitely the resident expert on Krug.
After all, Krug was his father.
17
Brainwashing
Over the next couple of weeks, Granden been introducing us to a bunch of old movies, most of which we watch for homework.
Sometimes, our entire Cohort reserves the Movie Room just off of the Lounge.
One day, Granden tells us about the long tradition of eating popcorn at the movies.
We don’t have popcorn, but thanks to Mayla and her class on Hunting and Foraging, we have an ample supply of pine nuts from a part of the woods on the south side of the mountain. The woods on one part of the mountain have only recently recovered from a long history of drone strikes and toxic, radioactive fallout that Mayla thought might keep the land barren forever.
So when we’re not in classes or engaged in apprenticeship training with our personal mentors, my Cohort and I sit around watching old movies and munching on pine nuts out of a collection of small ceramic bowls.
Back in class, Granden grills us about the reading he’s assigned, and we take tests every couple of days to see how well we’re keeping up, how much we’re retaining, and whether or not we’re ready to move on.
Most of our readings come from holo-texts, but Granden boasts that he’s “old school” and has decided to also give us supplemental assignments from the shelves of musty paper books in the Academy’s sprawling, second floor library.
I must be “old school,” too, because I prefer the paper books to the holo-texts, which make my eyes hurt and bore me with their flat, soulless, uniformity.
Like most birds, ravens use their heightened sense of touch to adjust to changes in air pressure, temperature, and wind speed. They also have tiny, sensitive whiskers called rictal bristles on their beaks, which gives them extra tactile sensitivity. So maybe I’m channelling that from Haida Gwaii as I run my finger along the grainy paper pages.
The stack of books on my nightstand keeps getting higher and higher, and Libra jokes about how she’s afraid one day it’s going to topple over and crush me in my sleep.
Like me, Sara does most of the assignments, but sometimes she bins off.
“Grades are just another form of brainwashing and propaganda,” she tells Granden one day in class.
“That’s an interesting point,” he answers and then gives her an “F” for not handing in her work and then tells her she has to go do it anyway.
She grumbles, but I know she’ll do it. The only thing she hates more than being told what to do is being told that she didn’t do it very well.
In class, Mattea gets decent scores, but she doesn’t stress about it one way or another. She does enough to fly under Granden’s radar and seems happy being out of the spotlight.
Arlo and I are toward the bottom of the class.
Although I do like reading a lot, I’m usually too distracted to bother with most of the written assignments and too focused on my apprenticeship lessons with Kress to keep up properly in Granden’s class.
He holds me after class sometimes and lectures me about the need to be disciplined. I promise I’ll try harder, and I usually manage to keep up…for the next couple of days, anyway. And then, I get distracted by one thing or another and wind up falling behind again.
Unlike me, Libra is hyper-competitive about the assignments and isn’t shy about announcing her marks to the rest of us every night in the Dorms.
When Ignacio finally cracks and tells her nobody cares, she gets pouty.
“Granden cares.”
“Well, I don’t,” Ignacio snaps.
Except for the faint orange glow from the security panel, the room is dark. Still, I can see Libra’s gleaming white teeth when she smiles at me from her bed. “He’s just jealous,” she whispers with a head tilt toward Ignacio.
“I’m sure that’s it.”
I mean, it’s true. Ignacio can be a bore and a bully. Maybe Libra’s right. Maybe he’s been so snarky lately because he’s mad about her being so much smarter than him and how she keeps exposing him as a total thicko.
The next day, we’re all surprised when Granden congratulates Ignacio for having the highest marks in the class at the mid-term break.
Ignacio mumbles, “Thanks,” but he doesn’t seem too happy about being outed as a proper, upstanding intellectual.
Wow! From meat-head to egg-head right before my eyes. What else is this guy hiding?
After we’ve settled down and Libra has uncrossed her arms and unclenched her teeth, Granden turns our attention back to the day’s lesson.
Mattea raises her hand and says something’s been bothering her.
Libra reaches over and squeezes Ignacio’s upper arm. “You mean besides Mr. Grumpy here being such a secret genius this whole time?”
Ignacio rips his arm from her grasp and grumbles that he’s not a genius.
“Fine,” Libra says with pretend offense. “Then just grumpy.”
“What’s your question?” Granden asks Mattea.
“Well…I’ve been wondering. Is there such a thing as good propaganda?”
“How do you me
an?”
“Well, for homework, we read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Last week, we read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.”
“Go on.”
“Well, aren’t they all just forms of propaganda? Aren’t they all just doing what Krug did? What I mean is, isn’t everything just designed to make people do or think or feel what the designer wants them to?”
Libra stabs a hand into the air like she’s trying to poke a hole in the ceiling. Without waiting to be called on, she belts out her opinion.
“Krug’s propaganda tried to scare people into being afraid and hurting other people. Krug was motivated by greed, selfishness, and personal insecurity. The movies and books Mattea is talking about are trying to scare people into being nicer to animals and to be better human beings.”
Sara shakes her head. “But fear is still the key ingredient, isn’t it?”
Like a leaking balloon, Libra’s hand sinks down out of the air. “Um…I guess.”
Granden lets us talk a little while longer before guiding us in a series of lessons about free will and something he calls, “Priming.”
“Priming,” he explains, “is based on repetition but also on visual or verbal cues that take advantage of our ability and our desire, conscious or unconscious, to connect one thing with another.”
With my entire relationship with Haida Gwaii in mind, I ask, “Aren’t connections a good thing?”
“Very often,” Granden concedes. “But they have a downside too, since connections made in haste or out of ignorance are what lead to simplistic thinking patterns and stereotyping.”
From there, Granden gives us some more of the historical story of Krug’s rise to power, this time with an emphasis on the subconscious power of priming.
When I ask if he can tell us what it was like to have Krug as a father and to see (and help!) him get killed, Granden shifts on his feet and tells us those are all stories for another time.
So instead of hearing the super interesting stuff about how Granden managed to aid in the overthrow and assassination of his own father, we hear more about how Krug drew on events, fears, and insecurities of the past to promote ignorance and fear in the present.
As tough as classes like Unarmed Combat are on my body, this class is just as tough on my brain.
I’m surprised when Sara raises her hand. She’s confident in an I-don’t-care-what-you-think sort of way. But she’s more inclined to mock someone—usually me—for participating than to be a participant, herself.
She doesn’t blink when she addresses Granden. “We’ve spent the past few days talking about how easy it is to brainwash someone. How do we know that’s not what you’re doing to us?”
I expect Granden to get offended or maybe even laugh. But he does neither. Instead, he nods and eases down onto his mag-chair next to his teaching console.
“What makes you ask that, Sara?”
“Well, if propaganda is based on fear, what you’re telling us seems designed to make us afraid.”
I’m looking back and forth between Granden and Sara. I can’t believe he’s even treating this like a serious question, and I keep thinking he’s going to cut her off or something.
“It’s true,” he says. “I’m trying to teach you about fear. But I think that’s different than trying to make you afraid.”
Sara squints at him and doesn’t seem satisfied.
“Are you afraid?” he asks.
“Of what?”
“Of the world outside of this Academy.”
“I was,” Sara admits.
“When?”
Sara bites her lip, and I think she’s going to start crying, but her voice is solid and strong. “In the Processor.”
“The one in Spain?”
Sara nods. “But only at first. When I was little.”
“You were in there for a long time, right?”
“From the time I was six.” Sara’s eyes dart around the room. “We all were. Except for Branwynne.”
For some reason, I feel offended at being left out. Which is stupid, right? The five other members of my Cohort spent six years as the En-Gene-eers’ lab rats until Kress and her Conspiracy got them out. Why would I want to be part of that?
“Well, I can tell you this much at least,” Granden promises. “I don’t want you to be afraid or ignorant.”
Sara slides her fingers through her short blond hair and then leans back and crosses her arms across her chest. “But isn’t all teaching just a form of propaganda?”
Arlo shakes his head under his hood. “Sara, I think teaching is the opposite of propaganda.”
Ignacio leans forward, a deep crease forming between his eyes. “How do you figure? I’m with Sara on this one. I’m sure you remember what they did to us in the Valencia Processor, right?”
Arlo hangs his head, and when no one answers, Ignacio answers for himself. “They said they were ‘teaching’ us to use our abilities as Emergents.” Under the blanket of silence that follows, Ignacio continues on, his voice in a quiver of restrained anger. “They hooked us up to diagnostic equipment. They ran us through impossible puzzles and VR-sims designed to weed us out. They manipulated us, monitored our every move, pretended we were being prepared to help in a global war, and they kept us in cages the entire time. They called it teaching. We called it torture.”
I’m watching my Cohort and expecting Granden to lead the discussion one way or the other, but instead, he sits back and lets us talk.
I wag a finger at Ignacio. “Propaganda is a tool to get others to do what you want. Teaching is a tool to help others figure out what they want for themselves.”
Sara laughs. “Sounds like the same thing.”
“It’s not,” I insist. My head hurts all of a sudden, and I sort of see her point and almost want to agree with her. But no—I’m not going to give her the satisfaction.
Shaking her head, Sara flicks her thumb toward Mattea. “Mattea said it, herself. Propaganda and teaching…they’re both tools one person uses to manipulate someone else. Is it really anyone’s place to stop someone from believing what they want to believe?”
“It is,” I say, my words crisp and deliberate, “when what they believe in is murder and getting rich and powerful while everyone else suffers and dies.”
Sara swings around to fix her eyes on mine. “Is it really our responsibility to stop people from suffering and dying?”
I roll my eyes. “Um…yeah. That’s why we’re here.”
“Not me,” Sara says with a vigorous shake of her head. “Not any of us. We’re here because we’re different…No—we’re here because we’re better than the Typics, and they want to use us as weapons against each other.”
“Bollocks!” I shout, rising to my feet, my palms planted firmly on the glass top of my desk. “We’re here because Kress saved us. We’re here because Wisp really thinks we have a chance to save the world. We’re here because we’d be dead if we weren’t.”
I feel myself starting to cry, and now I feel like a total tosser.
Libra raises her hand.
Great. The last thing I need is Miss Full-of-Beans over here coming to my rescue.
“I agree with Sara,” Libra says.
Wait. What?
Libra waits for someone to object, but no one does, so she soldiers on.
“Sara’s right. Teaching is just another form of brainwashing.” She swings her eyes around the room, taking in all of us, the rows of glass-topped desks, the holo-displays behind Granden, and the glass wall looking out into the empty, wood-paneled corridor. “Maybe all of this is just another Processor. Maybe it’s all just another trap to weaponize us for someone else’s war.”
I frown and offer up a long, “Ummmm” of objection, but Libra ignores me and locks her eyes on Granden’s instead.
“From what we’ve heard and from what you’ve been telling us, Krug tricked people into thinking everyone else was out to get them. Then, he convinced them that they were superior to everyone else. Then
, he got everyone fighting and killing each other while he gathered up more and more wealth and power for himself. How is that any different from what’s happening here?”
“Good question,” Granden says, a glint in his eye. “Now, answer it.”
Libra stares but doesn’t answer, so I give it a shot, my voice struggling through an angry quiver.
“There’s a difference between tricking someone and teaching them. There’s a difference between trying to get what you want and helping others to get what they want. Krug was all about fear. You knew him better than anyone, right? He was afraid of his own flaws. He was afraid of being laughed at or ignored or forgotten. He was afraid of being vulnerable or wrong. He was afraid to listen and afraid he might not be God. The Academy is the opposite. It’s like you said. You’re teaching us the opposite. You’re teaching us how not to be afraid.”
Sara rolls her eyes at me. The other members of my Cohort are also glaring at me like I’ve somehow betrayed them, like I’m the daft cow of the bunch, ready to let myself get brainwashed and sucked into some villainous propaganda machine.
Granden must notice because he stands up and tells us this is probably a good place to stop for the day.
Standing and hoisting our bags onto our backs, my Cohort and I file out and head down to the Tavern for lunch.
Trudging a few steps behind, I stop on the first floor and hold up my arm with the blue-gel cast on my wrist. “I need to stop at the Infirmary to see if Mayla can fix the crack in this thing.”
“I’ll keep you company!” Libra beams.
“Not me,” Ignacio says. “I’m hungry.”
Mattea and Arlo heartily agree with Ignacio, and they all follow Sara downstairs to the Tavern while Libra skips along next to me on my way to the Infirmary.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore, and I swing around to face her, my hands clamped to her shoulders. “Where the bloody hell did that come from?”
Libra’s eyes go wide, and her lips quiver under a stammer of surprise. “W-w-where did what come from?”
