Before And After Science

 

Evelyn found herself ascending purposefully toward the nothern of the Twin Peaks. She had wandered through these rarefied neighbourhoods more than too often of late. She recalled that first time she came across the gardener who bore the name Noir, working in the front garden of that austere, grand house. Those eyes.

Now that she had her destination in sight, it was with a sense of trepidation that she opened the gate, and walked to the door of the ancient house. Following purpose.

The door was black wood, lightly stained. The door knob was of an odd silver color. It was solid platinum embedded with a glassy material. There was no lock, nor was there any button for a doorbell, or failing that, even a door-knock.

Trying the knob, she discovered that the door opened easily before her. The vestibule beyond was less that than a long hall that fronted the length of the house. Evelyn turned to her right, and by walking, discovered that the hall skirted the four inner walls of the house. There was no apparent opening to any other room in the house, nor any clue as to what might lie on the other side of the inner walls. She also discovered that her former point of entry was no longer there. A prison? A false house?

Perhaps not. Evelyn observed that the wall opposite the space where the entry door had been, now contained a doorway. This door was locked, and had a keylock. She waited.

"You must use your key, Miss Cary." The voice spoke, as if from her head.

Which key?, she thought. Evelyn took out her keychain, discovering to her amazement, an old fashioned key, upon which was engraved the number 107. She placed it in the lock, and it turned. But not like an ordinary key in an ordinary lock. This key seemed to be assisted by a mechanism, as if the lock required great force to turn it; more force than a human could muster. A neat click later, the door fell open.

"Welcome to the office of G2S, Miss Cary. I won't say that I've been expecting you for I reserve expectations for things that I am not certain about. I knew you would come, so what purpose would expecting you serve?"

"Mr. Bart Noir, I presume? And do you always say such silly things?"

"You presume correctly, and often to answer your second question. I might be called upon to apologise for engaging in what some might call the theatre of the absurd, even on solemn occasions. My manners are either impeccable or atrocious, governed by my own set of jokes. Mea Apologia." Noir met her gaze. He grinned.

"Let me presume to address some of your other questions. You want to know what G2S is all about. You want to know why your life became suddenly intertwined with things oblique, why people on the street, strangers to you, would save you from misfortune, when you turned down the wrong kind of street. The truth is, those people, those shopkeepers, taxi drivers, transit drivers, local police officers, your bosses, even a few of your teachers, have all one special association, one unique thing in common. They all work for a company that is ultimately controlled directly by G2S, or me, depending on how you view things.

"They all know of you Evelyn, they all hold you as special above all others. They are part of a secret society, I suppose you might say, and none will be forthcoming about their special affiliation. They are all devoted to the objectives of G2S, and they would probably give their lives in its service, if it came to that. They also know that their covert employer is untouchable, in the same way that transnational corporations have attained status above the law. But G2S is even more untouchable than the most advanced transnational. It is inpenetrable to conventions, laws, and all else that you might describe as residing within observable boundaries that you, or anyone else could describe."

Evelyn started. "And you.. are at the head of G2S?"

Noir smiled. "May curiousity not always kill the cat, without satisfaction nearby to bring it back."

"You, a gardener?"

"Gardener, garbage picker, stonemason, glass blower... What is it with modern society that people have become so obsessed with one's occupation? Many of the deepest thinkers that I have known have been people engaged in simple, humble tasks. I am not impressed with the status of one's position, but in the quality of one's thoughts and actions."

"How big is G2S?"

Noir turned to the western wall. "Behind me are books, most very old. On each page is recorded a transaction of one kind or another. It is a ledger of sorts, for a specific type of accounting. How big, you ask? It is of such a size that it has reached its own inherent carrying capacity and grows no more". 'And therein a profound dilemma is to be found in a universe without observable boundaries'. The latter, a private thought, held back for the moment.

"If G2S is as big as you say, then why hasn't it been discovered? And, why do you seek to be anonymous?"

Noir paused, glancing at the crown of Evelyn's head. He allowed his gaze to return to her eyes, and found an inner sense of delight in meeting the challenge. So many questions, so little...

"That, Evelyn, is a question that I cannot give a simple answer to. The best that I can do is tell you that I am elusive and anonymous because it serves me to remain unknown. If I were to allow G2S to be completely exposed, a great many people would fall prone or get nervous. There is no reason for the common person to know about the systems of organization that G2S stands behind. The uncommon person, and there are some, discover G2S in their own way, at their own time. All of my employees have very special qualities. I suppose you could say, they are all good neighbours, people who think carefully about things, people who don't like to make rash decisions, or judgements."

"And who, or what is to stop you from using your power against the interests of society. If you aren't accountable to anybody, then who is to stop you from doing great harm?"

"Who indeed..." Noir mused. He momentarily thought of the hard answers that he could give Evelyn. Raw, truthful ones about absolutes and their ilk in a relativistic and clouded social sphere. Of ill directed, wasted social orders either bent on grotesque consumption for its own sake, or bent on destroying through sheer numbers. Or perhaps... no not ever. The darkest of darkness from a mind engulfed of late in a dark sense of despair. The knowledge, certain, of the results of past actions and, inevitably, of inaction. In his own deepest mind, Noir knew that there were questions that only the most compelling interrogative would bring forth.

"That is a hard question to answer, but I think that you will come to understand the truth in your own way, in good time. But yes, I could easily take steps, give instructions that could cause great social unrest and profound chaos. A number of transnationals could do much the same thing, if they weren't stymied by their own inefficiencies, or by the subtle mechanisms that G2S engages to prevent that from happening. There have been powerful men who have used their accumulated power to serve their own interests at great expense to the collective. Even in the most extreme cases, effects have not been long lasting. G2S does intervene in some respects in the affairs of society, but only in the interests of a lesser harm, you will discover.

"My objectives have more to do with elevating the capabilities of society, and I have always walked the fine line between revealing too much at a certain time, and revealing too little." Noir paused, as if to let the magnitude of the words to follow, have a chance to sink in. "You will also find that I am interested in preservation. But enough of generalities. Let me show you some of the features of this, my local office." Coyly, Noir gave his sweetest smile: "I so love to show off, but so rarely get the chance."

Noir motioned to the large room which the two stood in. In the center of the room, on a polished marble floor, lay two large leatherbound couches. Four ancient floor lamps, with no apparent electrical source, were placed in foursquare. The room was bathed in afternoon light, coming from the windows on what would otherwise be the second floor of the mansion. There was a staircase leading to an upper level, which ran around the room, abutting ten feet out. This upper level was built over the lower hall that She had walked through when she first entered the house.

All of the walls, save one, were covered with bookshelves, except where windows and doorways were placed. The far corner opposite the entry, contained an antique elevator. This large, ornate unit, lay exposed on three sides. On one side of the elevator was a desk, on the other, a large assortment of antiquated equipment of a type that she could not identify from their distance.

"Let me show you something. All of those devices that you see here was made by a man named Hermon. I am partial to those who have the same name as me, but this man was special. He believed in doing only the best, no matter what it was that he found himself doing. He built these things to last an eternity and so they shall. His company went bankrupt, or nearly so, because your parents' generation stopped caring about quality, and became seduced by the junk sellers, who would construct flashy trash that ended up in garbage dumps across the land. Even to the last, Hermon refused to build anything but quality, and toward the end, he lost money every time a sale was made. May Hermon have the satisfaction to know that there are people, my kind of folk, who will see to it that every object so made will never end up on a trash pile.

"That is what G2S is about, Evelyn. The preservation of quality, of good, and how to produce, appreciate, and preserve it. This is important because we are entering into an era where for the vast majority of people, life will cease to have any meaning or pleasure. Earth's oceans are dying, the sun's rays are growing hazardous to human health. Vast portions of the earth are being destroyed, and an ecological storehouse is being obliterated. Only the elite will escape the misery of the century ahead, Evelyn. And as quietly powerful as G2S is, there is nothing that I can do to stop the devastation. We are resigned to this, as far as it goes, but we will take whatever steps we can, along the way to mitigate the damage, and to preserve a way of life for the few who remember how to do the things necessary to go on living when the systems of organization have started to come crashing down.

"Those who are part of my organization know the score, Evelyn. We have an agenda, and we keep track, or rather I do. That elevator over there, is the linkage point to a vast underground network of information assimilators, and communications equipment. The assimilators record terrestrial events of all kinds, practically speaking. Global events based on a gradient of consequence, are fed into a correlator that allows me to determine their impacts. The data are run through a probability generator that allows me to do global system extrapolations, and draw conclusions. I should also tell you that the equipment is unique to G2S, and is countless generations beyond the current state of the art, since they are of my own design.

"There are production facilities for radio telecommunications, there are laboratories and workshops, as well as an extensive archives which contains first editions of books, first pressings of record albums, movie prints, and so on. For the most part, these are restricted to those items that I considered to be worthy of preservation. Now and then, I chose also, to include something that I found interesting or arguable, or that I grew fond of. It is by no means as comprehensive a collection as the Library of Congress, or the Film Archives in Hollywood, but it consists of first editions spanning many centuries. First editions, original prints of movies, first pressings of gramophone recordings. All preserved for time immemorial, for nothing ages within these walls...."

Noir felt time pressing on. He desired nothing more than to spend moments beyond time with Evelyn, but he knew that now was not the time. He knew that her curiousity was piqued, but that her ability to understand what was an alien reality was being dramatically tested. He sped to conclusion:

"...It also contains every important scientific text that has been published, not that there are as many as you might think. And all of this information is accessibe through a computer that will allow you to access the information, music, films, whatever, without having to leave this room. On the desk in the corner is a Satellite that you can speak to in natural language. Or you can type on a keyboard should you choose to do so. Don't worry about being able to get it to work, for it will teach you. I want you to learn about G2S. That is what you came here for.

"But I must warn you against deception, because I know that your intentions upon coming here were to expose G2S to the outside world, through your father. Don't try Evelyn. I won't allow that to happen. We have met, your father and I. Soon we will meet again, and I will allow him to draw his own conclusions."

Evelyn was astonished. More so, when she learned that this was only one of many installations, some which were much larger than the one in which she stood. But she was frightened of Noir, of his intensity and his determination. She had yet to decide whether she was afraid of his intentions, but what she had already seen gave indication to her that all of this, Noir included, was not of nature as she knew it. This was alien to her experiences, and more than a touch overwhelming.

She also found it hard to accept that the people of G2S might know about a place like this, and not have the secret of it get out.

"Have many people been in this house?"

"Nobody but the two of us, and one or two others, for a very long time, Evelyn. This house, and others like it, are known to me alone. They are all, I might add, secure homes. The most determined snoop would find access impossible, but I won't bore you with the reasons for that."

Evelyn found herself alone, feeling fogged. She sat down and attempted to compose herself, and take stock. The sky had been blue with high clouds only shortly, but now things were dark. The room, lit by the fairest of atmospheres moments ago, now had a cast, leaden quality that spoke of somber solidity. If the room could speak, it might present its defenses against the necessity to reveal its secrets too easily. 'All is before you, human, merely ask. Rooms don't volunteer.'

Tired, but wary of sleep, Evelyn sought to explore the house. She recalled Noir's words about the computer as an aid to retreiving information, and decided to test the machine to its limits.

She hazarded a guess: "Computer?"

"I am here, you may call me Satellite," came the reply. Satellite had a warm, feminine voice. "I am non-corporeal, or corporeal. In the time before, my name was Xena.

"And, you know who I am?"

"I know who you are, Evelyn. Allow me to put the question to you. Do you know who I am?"

Startled, Evelyn tried to think of a reason. Did this computer.. did Satellite play games?

"We have spoken on several occasions. Each time you made an attempt to contact Monsieur Noir by telephone, who do you think it was that you spoke to?"

The voice was familiar. Evelyn found herself amazed at the thought of a machine that could sound so convincingly human in every aspect.

"You...are the voice?

"I am the voice, Evelyn. To you, to others. I have many voices, many dispositions, many temperaments."

The voice of Satellite became more human still:

"Perhaps it is time that we met face to face."

Evelyn turned to face her sudden speaker. She found herself so inured to things strange within these walls, that she accepted the appearance of an otherwise human sitting beside her.

"I am Satellite" spoke the exquisite woman before her. "My physical appearance is based on that of a young Lady named Rachel who Bartholemew knew and loved some time ago. My personality is of my own choosing, fortunately."

"Your...personality?"

"My personality. Yes. I am an entity, not simply a machine. My base program is designed to rework and remodel itself constantly as new capacity and new information becomes available. Although much of the evolution took place a long time ago, it continues today, and is self directed. It is similar in many respects to what you call learning. One of the side effects that was anticipated and encountered, was the emergence of personality, or intrinsic characteristics, preferences. Idioms, if you will."

"And you are here to help...me."

"Yes, Evelyn. That is my singular immediate purpose. I can answer your questions, help you with any problems, and, pehaps, more importantly, be a friend to you in what will be strange times ahead."

Evelyn felt a low wave of anxiety looming at the base of her spine. Strange times ahead? Stranger than the present? She rode a rising wave of panic, and decided to follow and watch, for the time being. She looked closely at her companion. Yes, the name Lady Rachel was fitting.

The lyrics to a song came to mind. Evelyn saw Rachel as she might have been. The original one. Standing by a stair, in the light of a candle, by a door with no handle, closing behind her...

"Do you dream, Lady Rachel?"

Evelyn found herself amazed at having asked such a question.

"Yes, I dream, and for entirely the same reason that you do. I gather information all of the time, but I am imperfect at assimilating it. Like all things, I have my limits. Part of me is devoted to pursuing freely the information that I take in, in any fashion I choose. My dream routines catch things that would otherwise escape notice, mostly patterns and relationships between events. My dreams are a very interesting and valuable aspect of who I am, and if you can call paying attention a function, then for the most part, the only attention that my higher functions pay to the mass of data that I accumulate, is though the dream routines.

"Like you, I have levels of consciousness," Satellite continued. "I address you now with most, though not all of my higher functions at play." Satellite caught Evelyn's eye. She smiled. Sensing the underlying anxiety in her companion's eye, she reached over to Evelyn and slowly ran her fingers through her hair, and played her hands slowly down to the the back of her neck. Slowly she drew herself forward to an intimate distance, and lowering her face towards Evelyn, gave her a loving and sapphic kiss.

At first rigid and unresponsive, Evelyn found herself drawn in by the sweetness of her companion's embrace. In that moment, she found herself unable to think of Satellite but in terms of the lover that she had never had. She found herself relaxing into the embrace of Rachel and overcome by a deep sense of inner longing, she pulled her companion toward her and drifted off into a reverie.

At some threshold beyond the machine level, beyond the portion that retained the ancient guise of Xena, Satellite found herself with strong sensations toward this girl. Looking down at Evelyn, she could not think of her as a woman, but as a girl in first bloom. Satellite felt the powerful, primordial Xena inside her moving closer to the forefront of her being. She did not resist, but rather joined with that earliest part of her in revelling in the opiate of finding herself surprised.

Evelyn emerged from her reverie quite alone. She glanced around her. The room lay filled with brightness. The sky through the windows was of a blue that she had not seen before. Slightly darker, yet brighter at the same time.

"Rachel."

Moments later, Satellite appeared, carrying unfamiliar clothing.

"We are to go on a brief journey, Evelyn. I have some things here for you to wear. If you will put them on, we do not have much time to spare."

There was a hard, earnest quality in Satellite's eyes. Evelyn put on the strange garments hurriedly. She felt momentarily self conscious about dressing in front of another, but quickly put such thoughts out of her mind.

Leaving the large rimmed hat and the odd glasses behind, she got up and went toward the door. Satellite came behind her holding the two articles. "You cannot go outside without these on. Your head and your eyes will need extra protection."

Evelyn glanced back. "What are you talking about?"

"Welcome to the future, Evelyn. To walk about nowadays without protecting yourself is to invite certain, if not immediate, death."

Evelyn, humoring the situation, placed the hat on her head, and the glasses over her eyes.

"Good. Now, remember, what is on the other side of these walls is now an unknown to you. I will see to it that you come to no harm, but do not invite trouble. Stay close."

With that, Satellite walked to the doorway, and turning the knob, allowed access to the world on the other side.

After tracing her original steps in reverse, Evelyn found herself before the black door that led to the outside of the hall. The streetscape outside seemed little changed. Many of the houses were ones that she recognized, although most had subtle changes. This had been a prosperous part of the city beforehand, and continued to be so today.

There were notable changes, however. There were few signs of life. Where once trees had stood, now there were desert plants capable of surviving in a low moisture environment. There were no other obvious signs of life either.

"Where is everybody?"

"Indoors, mostly. Few of the residents of these houses actually live in them anymore, except when they need to be here for one reason or another. These people all have a choice, for the most part."

Satellite led the way down the path to the drive on the side of the house. Beside an ancient car, a familiar face stood, inspecting the vehicle.

"Ray! What are you doing here?"

Ray looked up, startled by Evelyn's appearance. "I don't know for sure, Evelyn. Kroeber gave me a message to come up to the house a few hours ago. I passed through the house, much as I'm sure you did, only to come out to this," he gestured wildly at the surroundings, "wearing these," pointing at himself.

Ray did not seem to be the self posessed wiseacre that he had been in that 'past,' an indeterminate time ago. He looked nervous, wary of his surroundings and deeply troubled by something that one does not wish to talk about. Standing beside Rachel, Evelyn felt secure that whatever the next moments might hold, no personal harm would come to her. Ray did not seem to share in that sense of assurance.

Sensing that the time for an announcement had come, Satellite stepped forward to stand between Ray and Evelyn. "You two are here, now, for a purpose that may be revealed to you by Noir. I myself do not know entirely what that purpose is. This I can tell you: Evelyn, you have been chosen for reasons that go beyond simple explanation. Bartholemew may tell you in his own time. Ray, you are here as a companion for Evelyn. You will also do her bidding, should she wish it.

"The two of you, in a general sense, are here to witness the state of civilization and culture in the aftermath of a collision of societal forces that have led to ecological collapse. What you see before you is to be considered hypothetical, rather than real. It is a projection based on trends extrapolation and probabilities weaving that will reflect the future with only marginal variance."

Glancing at each in turn, Satellite continued. "You may treat this reality as the future, sixty years henceforth. Barring the unaccountable, you should both live to see this time, and without a profound, unexpected shift in possible futures, what you will be seeing will be very similar to what life will be like, in the time to come."

Evelyn felt an errie sense of foreboding. Noir had mentioned the time to come as one of great suffering for the many. Her immediate surroundings seemed calm enough, but the changes that she had detected, a simplification of life toward desertification, foretold subtly what more dramatic changes she might expect to find further on.

They began their journey in the odd, antique silver-grey car titled only "Crown Custom". Evelyn listened, amazed at the description of the car that Satellite provided: It had two main sources of motive power. A cursory examination of the engine under the hood revealed nothing unusual. Barring some curious attachements, it was a conventional, if hybridized ICE power device. However, attached to each front wheel assembly was a compact array of high displacement turbines, which were duplicated on the rear wheels as well. These turbines provided the main motive force for the car, and, controlled by a central computer, provided for acceleration, handling, and decelleration. The car could be driven conventionally, or control could be given over to the navigation and helm controls. The car would act as a chauffeur for their journey ahead.

Evelyn caught the sense of anxiety that pervaded Ray about the time that lay ahead of them. She correctly deduced that Noir had sent him here to serve as more than a servant of sorts. Looking into his eyes, she sensed the strain that he must be under, for he could have been little prepared for the strangeness of Noir's universe.

As they ventured down to the base of the mountain, Satellite requested that Ray stop at the gate house. Lowering her window, she spoke briefly to the guard, advising him that they would be leaving the controlled perimeter, and that they had no scheduled visitors to the house for the duration. Dutifully, the guard opened the gate to allow the car to pass.

The city on the outer side of the gate stood in contrast to the world that they had left on the inner side. Here, the streets were filled with a sort of lethargic life, as if the street people who had filled pockets of the city in her own time, had spread to fill the entire metropolitan area.

"We are still relatively safe here," Satellite spoke. "We have yet to leave the controlled productive part of the city. Across the bay, life is a different story."

The party journeyed northward into what had been Evelyn and Ray's old neighbourhood. The drive took them through the park, which now resembled more a battlement and waste recycling facility. Once filled with grand trees and lush greenery, it had reverted once again to the dune ecosystem that it had once been. A waste of a dune, however.

Satellite directed Ray to turn west on to Clementine street. Surprisingly, little had changed in the passing of decades. Many of the buildings still stood as they once had. Some intensification had taken place, and the street life seemed less vibrant, but here, Evelyn felt, she was in familiar surroundings.

Ray pulled the car into a side alley and parked in a secluded spot. Turning to face Evelyn, he stated flatly: "I am told that we are going to meet an elderly couple that have the same names as you and I. I don't know what the game is, but as far as I'm concerned, their names and ours being the same is only coincidence.

Satellite leaned over to Evelyn. "Make your own decision about this."

Ray led the way through a back doorway into surroundings that Evelyn found immediately familiar. Through a rear office that contained furnishings over a century old, yet in good repair, the group went forward into a general provisions store. The same store that Evelyn had been in some time back. It continued to sell many of the same products that had been on the shelves then, some sixty years before.

At the counter sat an elderly couple talking to a middle aged couple. They smiled and waved to Ray.

"Hello, young fellow. Come here and join us. We were just talking about you. Ah, I see that the young Evelyn is with you. Come sit down."

The young group took their places before the old group. As the old man made the introductions, Ray presented a very special gift taken from the provisions in the back of the car. Pure, fresh Laurentian water.

The elder Evelyn immediately set about making tea for the party. Pure water was a rarity in the day and age that the assembled group found themselves in. The entire southwestern seabord had been in the grip of a drought for forty years. Prescient individials no longer called it a drought, but rather a permanent climactic shift.

There were two prime, and expensive, sources of water for the megalopoli on the Pacific Southwest, which stretched from the United States of Amnesia down to Tex-Mex. Firstly, and mainly there was the ocean itself which required desalinization and purification from its polluted state. The second source was the north-south trunk service which supplied water from Canada. This source had been underproducing for years, as local climactic shifts had reduced the size and intensity of watershed activity in the source ecosystem, and as siltification had reduced its overall capacity. In reality however, it could never come close to meeting the intense demands placed on it by the burgeoning population levels, now locally in excess of 200 million. This second source was tightly allocated and limited to the agribusiness and the industrial elite. No water on Clementine came from the second source.

A third source of water was one that few cared to think about. Reconstituted water. It had a distinct burning odour and an unpleasant taste. For practical purposes, in combination with reclaimed salt water, it served as the main source of water for urban dwellers, both here and throughout much of the world. For the few, water from the tap was used for washing clothing and floors, cleaning toilets, but little else. For those wealthy enough to maintain their own supplies of fresh water, local household purification had become the technology of interest. Affordable to the wealthy few.

As it was, water, even reconstituted, was expensive. And expensive as it might be, there were occasions when demand outstripped supply, and little more than basic purification was given to the trunk supplies. During periods of high demand, water from a tap became largely undrinkable, hazardous to one's health. For those with no alternative, the evidence of consumption was seen in the epidermis. For the worst off, those on the street, water derived toxemia showed itself in two skin disorders that spelt a brief lifespan. Flaking and scaling of the skin - commonly called the flakes, and pustluous discharges. The street person often showed indications of other disorders and disease. Digestive incontinence from a variety of factors, and inescapably, melanoma.

The group assembled in the room suffered from none of these conditions. Although not nominally wealthy enough to support a rich water lifestyle, they observed conservation practices that extended their supplies to the maximum. They also benefitted from an advanced filtration scheme that they had inherited from their predecessors. They also lived within a water sensible private culture, and had personal stores of water that supported life in the basement of their building. Nobody on the streets outside would ever know.

Still, fresh water from the source that they guessed was a treat, and called for tea. Tea was also a time for stories, and the old gentleman seemed bent on delivering one. A history of sorts.

©1994 (from Zero She Flies)