The Last Place to Stand

by Redshaw, Aaron K.

  The teacher walked around the room. “E5528?”

  “Yes?” she said.

  “What are you good at?”

  The child thought for a moment. “I like to draw.”

  “Drawing,” the teacher said, “has no utility. People who draw are among the Castaways, those who do not want to be productive. The Castaways are not interested in making society better, they only care for themselves. They are selfish. Do you want to be a Castaway?”

  The student got embarrassed. “No,” she said quietly as she looked at the ground.

  “As I was saying,” the teacher went on, “utility is what give us value. Now, in the case of E5528, she may be good at drawing, but that is not a usable utility. Later, when she is older, she may be good at using her imagination to help engineers design innovative products. She might even help design new and useful chips.”

  A hand shot up in the front row, “Yes?” the teacher said.

  “When will we get our chips?” He was a new student. Still quite young.

  “When you go on to Phase 2 of your schooling. For you that will be five more years.”

  The same student, “But if the chips make us know things, why do we have to learn here?”

  “Because,” said the teacher, a little frustrated, “if you do not know how to be useful, you will not know what to do with a chip when you have it. You have to know what is important and what your place is in society.”

  Another student put up a hand.

  “Yes.”

  “I heard that the Castaways called themselves something different.”

  “That's right,” said the teacher. “They call themselves the Waldenese, which they think is a good thing. Walden was a story about a lazy man who wanted to leave society in order not to contribute to it any longer. Then he could do whatever he wanted, not thinking about the needs of anyone else. He could have even died out there and it would have made no difference to society, for he had done nothing to improve it.”

  “But we are all one people and we work toward the common good,” one of the older and brightest students said.

  “Very well said,” the teacher smiled.

  Chapter 14

  “I see you have decided to join us,” said John, the leader of the group.

  “I wanted to give it a try.” The group looked friendly toward him. They were seated outside on wooden chairs in a circle.

  “And what are you called?” asked John.

  “X4287,” he said.

  “I've heard you are getting your sight back, X4287,” said the leader.

  “Just barely. At least I can walk now though.”

  “Excellent,” said the leader.

  The leader addressed the group: “We have all been among the Technophiles for a long time, long enough to receive in our bodies and souls the destruction that can occur there. This is a place where we can end all that. And begin something new.”

  “So what do you do here?” asked X4287.

  “Mostly talk, and get mad, and sometimes even cry. It depends. But most of all we are healed. You are now our twelfth member. Now I want you to think about what it was like being among the Technos, or if you like to call them the Solpaths, you may. Try to remember how you felt. If you were not busy, if you did not have something that needed to be done, how did you feel? Put yourself in that place again and try to feel it.”

  “You want to know how I felt?” said a big man. “I felt like crap. I wanted to kill or be killed. I didn't think it at the time, you know, but I worked just to escape the feeling. And I knew it too. It took a while though before I knew there was anything to escape to.”

  “Hmmm,” said the leader. “I can identify with that. Who’s next?”

  “I felt very lonely,” said a middle aged woman. “I was surrounded by people, but I was always lonely.”

  “I'm sure a lot of us have felt that,” said the leader.

  X4287 spoke up, “I'm not even sure. I didn't really think about it before. I was always so busy.”

  “I'm sure a lot of us could identify with that too,” said the leader. “It often takes time to learn again to feel, and remember.”

  A thin wiry man said, “One thing is for sure, I sure feel better now.”

  “Yes,” said the leader.

  A few of the others shook their heads, lost in the feelings of a previous time. One lady had tears streaming down her face, but remained silent.

  “Here's what I want you to do,” said the leader. “I want you all to think about this further this week and write down what you come up with.”

  “And X4287, I have an additional assignment for you. I want you to start thinking about a name, rather than an ID. An ID is like a serial number given to machines, but has no personality to it. You were meant for more than that. Think carefully about it, ask your new friends, read some of your favorite books, if you have any, and see what you come up with.”

  “I will do my best,” said X4287. “But can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where did you get your name?”

  “My name is John,” the teacher said, “The man I got my name from was a writer who could write the times and lives of men so that you felt you knew them, and you understood their circumstances. His name was John Steinbeck.”

  “Hmm,” said X4287. “I'll do my best to come up with a name.”

  “Take as long as you like. It's an important decision.”

  “I will,” said X4287.

  Chapter 15

  The old man with short brown hair sat in a chair on the other side of the office from X213. She had seen him every day, but never talked with him, but now he came over to her.

  “X213?” he said.

  Over the buzz of incoming messages and feeds she barely had a sense that anyone was there next to her. She put a pause on most of her work for a moment. “Yes?” she said.

  “I see you every day,” he said, “and just wanted to say hi.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Why would you do that?”

  “I guess it's just my old ways,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “I grew up with the Wald—with the Castaways,” he said. “I sometimes get into old habits.” He looked down at the ground as if studying something.

  “Oh, things are so much more convenient here, aren't they?” she said. “I can't believe anyone would want to live so rough and with no sense of purpose.”

  “That's what I thought,” he said.

  She continued, as though not hearing him. “And those people do not know about community. I mean community where we can call each other so easily and stay in constant contact. It's really great and it doesn't even interrupt the other things we do all the time.”

  “Community,” he said. “Time.”

  As though he wasn't there she continued, “And time is so precious we can't go around wasting it. We only have so much of it, so now we can work and learn and communicate all at the same time and not a moment is wasted.”

  “Wasted,” he said. He was still looking at the ground.

  “In fact we don't even need to sleep very much because of course that would be more of a waste of our precious time. And anyway, as long as I take my pills I feel fine with only three hours of rest.”

  “Rest,” he said.

  “Well,” she said, “I really have to get back to work, things are really piling up now. Thanks for coming over here to say hi. It's nice to be here and really feel like I know somebody.” At this, she turned from facing him and faced forward again, staring blankly at the wall, her mind racing with approvals and denials, correspondences, notices and messages that raced across her mind. For a second a peripheral thought hung there, what was his name? But then she got drawn away by the endless tasks in front of her and she dismissed the question.

  He turned away toward his own seat and with a tear in his eye he whispered, “to know somebody.”

  Chapter 1
6

  As they approached the city, Samuel huddled with his men, “Okay, as I have told you before, the best way to fight an enemy is to know how it thinks. And the best way to know how the Technos think is to know their technology—at the top.”

  “So what's the plan?” said Adam. His voice had a whispery kind of roughness to it. Like a man who had smoked something too much.

  “Plan?” said Samuel. “Do I need a plan?”

  “Come on chief, you've always got some plan,” said Chavez. His light skin and red hair had to be covered more than the rest since he was so easy to spot.

  “Yeah, I got a plan,” said Samuel. “We're going to infiltrate Techcorp.”

  The men were silent, but the increased tension could be felt. They looked at each other wondering who was going to speak up. Finally Ray said, “We will do whatever you say, chief. “

  The one man who hadn't spoken was the one who probably had the most to say. “Wallace,” said Samuel. “What’s your take?”

  Wallace was slow with his words, like running through a tide of molasses, but he was sharp. It was as though he hand chose each word carefully before speaking, so that when he did speak, you could trust every word. “You know, Captain, I've been there. For seven years before getting out. I know,” he paused searching through his memories, “about the place. There is one possible problem. One man who might recognize me. It could be dangerous.”

  “I've been counting on your knowledge,” said Samuel, “and we will be careful to keep you hidden from this person. You will be very valuable to this operation though.”

  Wallace said with a hard stare of concentration, “I'll do my best, sir.”

  Each of the men were solid. Good soldiers with good hearts. They wanted to serve with Samuel because they believed in him. They believed there were people still to be freed and that many of them just didn't know there was a different way to live. People trapped in a society that burned them out and threw them away.

  “Men,” said Samuel.

  “Yes, sir,” said the men.

  “Tonight we spend the night in the heart of the enemy's camp.”

  “Yes, sir,” they all responded.

  They had traveled for a couple of hours when Adam caught up to Samuel. “So I was just wondering,” he said in his raspy voice.

  “Yes,” said Samuel.

  “We have been able to rescue people mostly by contacting Little Brother. Why go this route? Why take the chance?” Little Brother was a network of Waldenese whose purpose was to be eyes and ears in the society of the Technos case violence was planned against the Waldenese. Their second function was to watch for people who looked like they might be ready to cross over to join with the Waldenese.

  “It's because of Little Brother that we're doing this,” said Samuel. “There have been signs that something big is about to happen in the technology of the Technos. If it's something that will be used against us I want to know about it. If it's just another brain experiment I want to know how it will affect survivors who come to us in the future.”

  The skyscrapers were clearly visible now, and the sun was starting to get warm. “So this is not a rescue mission, but information retrieval?” asked Adam.

  “That's right,” said Samuel.

  Adam thought for a moment, but then hesitantly asked, “So if I die, it will not be for a person, but an idea?”

  “Both,” said Samuel. “If we know what they are going to do to people in the future, we may determine how to help them. If it is a weapon or something that may be used as a weapon, we can prepare our people to flee. And that would be saving lives. Either way, it is for the sake of people.”

  Adam looked relieved. “Good,” he said. “If I die, I want it to be for people, not for things or ideas.”

  Samuel smiled. “You have a good head on your shoulders, Adam, and a good heart. I would have thought less of you if you hadn't brought this up. It is always for people. I believe that as much as you do.”

  Chapter 17

  Going through the city, they hid under baggy clothing and tried to cover their faces so that cameras would not pick up on their identities. It was only the cameras they needed to avoid. People were so busy receiving feeds and doing other activities related to work, that their presence among the city folk was undetected. But cameras record everything, and there were even programs that analyzed camera feeds to look for suspicious behavior or to match with known Outcasts or criminals.

  Buildings were lighter in frame than in the past. New construction materials made it possible to have thinner supports, thinner walls, even thinner windows. Windows were more like a bubble material that never broke rather than the heavy and dangerous glass of the past. Cement was not used at all in construction due to its weight and how brittle it was. High density plastics made up the walls and ceilings.

  On the outside, the city looked very clean. Vandals and other no good citizens were executed on sight. If you were not productive, and even worse, if you were destructive, you were eliminated. That was the law, and if cameras picked up any such activity, robotic units would be sent out to your location in order to enact swift justice. Needless to say, the streets were very clean, public property unmarred.

  Though the city had crowds of people walking past each other, no one spoke. All that was heard was the sound of shuffling feet, everyone busy in their own world. Likely there were occasionally people without this newest feed technology, but they felt so uncouth that they kept silent hoping no one else noticed their social ineptitude. They still exchanged information with the chip they did have which was encyclopedic and offered information as well as distractions such as games or learning puzzles. They were constantly looking up useful facts for the day or their job or just to know.

  Samuel and the four men watched for the cameras and occasional robots who paroled the streets. They were unable to move through the alleys, because that was where cameras were most likely to be stationed. They moved among the people without talking because others did not talk and such an activity would bring about clear suspicion. This part was not extremely risky. But then they came to the building.

  Techcorp was a jet black skyscraper of 435 floors, taking up a city block. It housed many different companies and many divisions of those companies. But every company had one thing in common: The advancing of technology. And all of the companies had one head: The government of the Solpaths. Since the government and the advancement of technology was so integral to each other, the government heads worked inside this building as well. Entry was bound to be difficult.

  They put on their disguises, which amounted to putting a dummy chip in the slot behind their right ears which each of them still had because they had each lived here at some point. This chip was the only real disguise they needed. Everyone in this building had feed technology. This technology not only increased productivity, and therefore value in their eyes, but it was the best of security systems.

  Only one thing kept this security from being foolproof. No one figured on Wallace. Not only had Wallace worked in that building, but he had worked on that project. His rejection of what the Feed Brain Interface (FBI) would do to society was the reason for him leaving it. Initially, however, he was in charge of the translation process between digital information and neural information transmission. He made sure the brain could understand what the feed was transmitting.

  Having Wallace gave them a huge advantage. He had spent the last few months working on creating “dummy transmitters.” These chips appeared to receive feeds because they transmitted back usage data, but they did not connect to the brain. Usage data told the company what feeds were being used, as there were thousands to utilize for every purpose, some secure, used only for companies that did not want their info available to others, and some for the general public. Receiving usage data let the system know who was there, who was missing, and who didn’t belong. Wallace had modified the chips to at first “listen” to the chips around them
and mimic the chip ID of another worker.

  As employees received their feeds about work or entertainment, they also received another, more hidden feed. This feed did not consist of facts, but was a massaging of their minds into acceptance of ideals such as, “without technology, we would go back to the stone age. It is what distinguishes us from animals. It is what makes us human. Technology is the key to the future. If you contribute to the progress of technology, you contribute to the future of mankind. You are useful. You are worth-ful.”

  This was dangerous because Wallace said it really worked. People, even those violently opposed to such a way of life, often times could be turned because of this mind-altering process. It was at once subconscious and superconscious. For this reason, it was getting less common for people to turn to the Waldenese.

  Having these chips firmly in place and having peeled off their original garb to reveal the simple utilitarian clothes that others wore, they entered the building knowing they may never come back out.

  Chapter 18

  X4287 wanted to explore. He had heard so many terrible stories about these Waldenese, or “Castaways,” as they had been called where he was from. But by the feeling he got from them, they could not all be true. For example, he heard that the Waldenese were all lazy, since they did not have a work ethic that told them work was what gave them purpose. Growing up he had never doubted that without such a strong motivation to work hard and succeed there would be little motivation to work at all. But approaching a house on his right, he saw a man making repairs to his walls with fresh clay, while his two boys helped him. Meanwhile, the man’s wife was cleaning some clothes in a wash basin and hanging them on a rope stretched between two trees out front.

  A couple of minutes later, he saw a whole family planting seed in a freshly furrowed garden. Each family member took a row at a time and were careful, putting the seeds in the ground one at a time and pressing them down in the soft soil a couple of inches below.