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Chapter 24
By AC
Byrce looked back at Paula, who was trying to navigate her way around the trash cans in the alley they were in. Ahead of them, the Core rose, glowing an almost malevolant green. One can tipped, spilling trash in front of her. She jumped as if burned.
Byrce sighed. In some ways Paula was like a frightened kid, thrust into a strange world... Which made sense, he thought, remembering where she said she was from. From the images he'd seen, Paula probably never had seen trash before in her life.
The patrolman had lived here, and had gotten used to the filth, the smog. But tonight, he saw it as an outsider might; and was dismayed by what he saw.
Paula had promised a lot. A technology that would produce Ether without killing people or animals, ways to make things without producing waste, medical techniques that could repair any injury.
Utopia, a word that had almost vanished from Byrce's vocabulary. Paula lived in such a place.
It could happen here. So why, he asked himself, was he so uneasy about the idea?
His parents had lived during the great industrialization. His father had been a fisherman, while his mother was an artist. Shortly after the Core went up and Ether was being harvested, the river was drained of life. He remembered Father slowly wasting away, as he hung up his nets for the last time.
Byrce looked back at Paula, who had caught up with him. "Miss ter Maardan? Could I ask you something?"
Paula, still eyeing the trash cans, said, "Sure."
"Say we get in to see the leaders of the Ministry, and you get them to accept your ideas. What do you think will happen then?"
Paula blinked. "Well, your reactors would be shut down. Quantum taps would be built, along with nanite factories. Then the destruction of life on this world would stop."
Just like that, huh? Byrce began to wonder if he'd sided himself with a saviour or a nutcase. "What about the people working in the Ether labs?"
"Huh?"
"What are they going to do, now that they're not looking for new ways to harvest Ether?"
Paula's face registered her confusion, as if she was trying to mentally shift lanes. "Well... surely they would find other jobs."
"Doing what? A lot of people here prefer life as things are."
Paula actually looked surprised. "How? How can they? They're wrecking their own planet!"
"Which, if I read your attitude right, is unthinkable where you're from. But it's thinkable here. Right now, Ether makes things cozy for people. It provides jobs for some, and energy for most. If they had to choose between a valley of cute animals and a warm bed and full stomach every day, they would choose the bed.
"But your ideas are new, different. How many people would trust themselves to this new technology? It would certainly wipe out a lot of jobs, and not produce enough new ones --" images of his father, unable to find work, flitted through his mind.
"But the alternative... The destruction..." Paula leaned up against the wall, as if to steady herself.
"You know, it's kind of nice that you decided to come along and save our world. But it would have been nicer if you'd given some thought to the people in it."
Paula turned to face him, and Byrce was a little shocked to see a tear in one eye. "I thought you understood," she said. "I thought you were someone I could trust."
"I think I do understand," he said, stepping closer to her. "And I still think that you deserve a chance to voice your opinion. Just because people prefer the way things are doesn't mean that they're right.
"But you have to understand that just because your way works for you doesn't mean that it will work for us."
Whatever Paula planned to say was forgotten as another trash can fell over. They turned... to see a woman in tattered clothing pick herself up from where she had fallen. There were scars and small plugs wherever Byrce could see exposed skin.
The woman lifted up her face... and Byrce gasped, remembering the announcement that had begun tonight's strange events. "It's Cisia," he said.
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