Consensus: Part 1 - Citizen

by Jason Tesar

good point. Why don’t you?”

  “Maybe I am … with other people. I save my rudeness for you.”

  “I’m honored,” Dal said over his shoulder.

  The door to the social studies room was open, and more than half of the seats were occupied. Mr. Yan was standing in the middle of the semicircular arrangement of chairs, speaking quietly with a student in the front row.

  Dal climbed the steps toward the back row. Though seats weren’t assigned, the students tended to sit in the same place every time. He took his seat and quickly extended his legs so Rena couldn’t get to the empty chair beside him.

  “I don’t know. You’re a twelve now. Maybe you should sit down front with the other highrates.”

  Rena grinned as she looked down at Dal’s legs. “Do I need to remind you of what I did to the leg of another single-digit?”

  Dal’s smile disappeared.

  “What? Did I go too far?”

  Dal pulled his legs in to let her pass, but his eyes were focused elsewhere.

  Rena turned around and realized why Dal’s expression had shifted.

  The new student—the same young man she couldn’t help staring at in the hallway yesterday—had just come into the classroom. He made eye contact with Rena for a moment before taking a seat in the front row.

  And just as she’d felt before, the warm, electrical tingling came over her again. But this time it didn’t take control of her body. She was free to move. Free to look down at Dal’s face and recognize the bulging muscles along his jawline from gritting his teeth.

  Rena slowly moved to her seat, grateful to have a physical motion to hide behind. But it only lasted a few seconds. When she was seated next to Dal, and had tried several positions before settling on one with her legs tucked to the side, she looked up to find him staring at the floor and chewing on his thumbnail.

  The new student was reclining with his arms crossed.

  Mr. Yan shut the door and began speaking to the class, but Rena may as well have been wearing earplugs. All she could think about was the new student, the way his presence made her feel, and Dal’s obvious discomfort with it. Excitement and anxiety. The tension of conflicting feelings.

  She closed her eyes and massaged her forehead, hoping it would calm her. Make her feeling differently about the situation. But her reality hadn’t changed when she opened her eyes. It was like what Dr. Mallory said last night about the subconscious and the conscious. Her reaction to the young man in the front row was visceral. Something apparently beyond her ability to control or even conceal. And then there was Dal. Her best friend. He was acting jealous. And though that made her feel guilty, she could dismiss her guilt by reminding herself she’d done nothing wrong. She hadn’t made any promises to him. Their relationship wasn’t like that. She was free to feel however she wanted. Or maybe Dal was just being protective. Either way, she didn’t want to ignore his feelings. His happiness mattered a great deal to her. Conscious thoughts. Controllable.

  Rena felt like she was in the middle of a battle between her subconscious and her conscious mind. They were pulling at her. Ripping her apart.

  “Why is agreement so important?”

  Mr. Yan’s voice suddenly broke through Rena’s thoughts. A good sign that her mental battle was temporarily subsiding.

  “Because consensus determines law,” someone answered.

  Rena glanced up at the clock on the wall to find that half an hour had already gone by. How did that happen?

  “Why does consensus determine law?”

  “That’s the system the Founders put in place.”

  “But is that how it should be? How do we know the Founders were right?” Mr. Yan continued.

  “Because … we agree they were right?” someone replied.

  “Interesting,” Mr. Yan said, pointing at the student. “So tell me the assumption underlying your statement.”

  The class went silent.

  The new student held up his hand.

  Mr. Yan turned and pointed at him. “Yes?”

  “Agreement is the foundation of our society, because it defines what is right and wrong.”

  “Just right and wrong … in terms of law?”

  “No,” the young man answered. “Our laws are an extension of what we know. They’re the conclusion. The idea of consensus is deeper than that. It first determines what’s true and what’s false. An individual is susceptible to the lie of his or her own perspective. So … when we compare our perspectives, we find areas of overlap. Through agreement we discover truth. Agreement is truth. And truth is the foundation for everything in our society, including our laws.”

  “Thank you, Lukas. I couldn’t have put it better myself.” Mr. Yan looked up to the rest of the class. “Has everyone met Lukas Kagan? He just moved into our district, so he’s new to our school.”

  “Hi, Lukas,” several of the students mumbled.

  “Welcome,” Mr. Yan said with a smile. “It’s great to have you with us.

  Lukas nodded.

  “So …” Mr. Yan continued, “the reason I bring this up is because our next section of study involves Reentry. How many of you know there exists a legal process by which an Outlier may reenter society?”

  Only a few hands went up around the room.

  “As Lukas said, truth is the foundation for everything in our society. But the identification of truth requires the comparison of multiple perspectives, which of course requires the participation of many citizens. The more the better, actually. The higher the participation rate, the more confidence we can have in the truth that comes from it. Agreement is so fundamental that we even extend the opportunity for participation to those who have removed their perspectives from consideration. You see, we don’t want fewer ideas. We want more. We need more. So next week, we’ll begin studying the process of reentry.”

  “Mr. Yan?” Lukas said, putting up his hand.

  “Yes, Lukas?”

  “No Outlier has ever used Reentry.”

  “Well … there has been one.”

  “She was the reason the process was developed. But that’s not the same thing.”

  Mr. Yan scrunched his lips and nodded before looking around the room. “Why don’t you explain what you mean, Lukas? I don’t think everyone in here knows what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh. OK,” Lukas said, sitting up in his chair and looking back at the rest of the class. “I’m talking about Nadia Prall … the girl who was found in a drainage pipe on the Outskirts of Segment Six.”

  A few students nodded.

  Rena knew who she was. She’d studied some of Ms. Prall’s writings in communications class. The woman was now a productive member of Esh.

  “She was only four years old at the time,” Lukas continued. “She didn’t have an implant, which meant she’d been born an Outlier and had probably wandered into the city by accident. The reentry process was created because of her. No Outlier had ever come back to Esh before her, and none have opted for Reentry since.”

  “I wasn’t planning on covering this material until next week,” Mr. Yan explained. “But since you brought it up, let’s discuss it at a conceptual level. Does everyone understand what Lukas just said?”

  Most of the class nodded.

  “The finding of Ms. Prall was an important milestone in the development of our society. Her presence highlighted the fact that Esh had no established method by which an Outlier could rejoin society. Citizenship was essentially … like a door that only swings one way. And obviously, that didn’t support the ideals our Founders left us. So it required a change. Does that make sense?”

  Again, most of the class nodded.

  “Does anyone have any questions about the basic idea of Reentry?”

  Rena wanted to keep quiet, but her hand slipped up before she could help herself.

  “Yes, Rena?”

  “What point were you trying to make?”

  Lukas turned his head suddenly, realizing the question was aimed at him, not
the teacher. When he made eye contact with Rena, there was no feeling of electricity this time.

  “My point was, only one Outlier has ever become a citizen, and that was because she got lost. It was entry, not Reentry. So technically, no one has ever gone through the process. The Outliers don’t want to participate. They’re criminals. They have the opportunity to live within the law and they choose not to. So do we really want their perspectives to be included?”

  “A thought-provoking question, Lukas,” said Mr. Yan. “Does anyone want to weigh in on the—“

  “Maybe they’re not criminals,” Rena said. “Maybe they just don’t agree with everyone else.”

  Lukas turned around in his chair so he was completely facing Rena. “Then they should stay and talk about their reasons for disagreeing. But they haven’t. They’ve removed themselves from society, which proves that they didn’t have a reasonable basis for their perspectives in the first place.”

  “Most people won’t listen to a perspective that’s outside of the consensus. So why would Outliers want to speak up?”

  “That’s an interesting point, Rena,” said Mr. Yan. “So are you saying a consensus can be skewed if only certain people participate?”

  Rena shrugged. “I guess. I mean … what incentive is there to disagree? Embarrassment? Ridicule? Shame? If the goal is to discover truth, then the process shouldn’t suppress different perspectives. It should welcome them.”

  Mr. Yan nodded. “I think we agree on that. That’s exactly the purpose of Reentry.”

  “It does welcome different perspectives … if they’re reasonable.” Lukas was ignoring Mr. Yan and looking straight at Rena.