We've Seen the Enemy Page 14

  Ruth seemed apprehensive, but Timothy couldn’t wait to be hooked up. While they ate, he asked HAL about the basics of the teaching unit, and HAL went on to explain what they should expect while hooked up. In short order they were done eating, and after using the restroom as HAL had suggested, they sat down on the two closest chairs. The Medi-Bot hooked them up to a body scanner and had the machine do its start-up routine. Timothy saw his vision slowly blur, and just before things became black he felt Ruth hold his hand.

  Timothy was surprised to see a sudden, completely clear image jumped out at him. The clarity of what he was seeing was so incredible that he couldn’t focus on the content of the teaching. Within a few moments though, the events he was seeing suppressed his astonishment. Timothy and Ruth saw the same basic content, their area where they live now but back in time before there was any life. He saw this area zoom away until he recognized the Earth, but even that became a small ball as the angle of vision passed the moon, then Mars, and then the outer planets. Ruth marveled at the rings of Saturn and Jupiter, and Timothy noticed a ship pass by just inside his peripheral field of view. The instruction unit noticed his focus and quickly gave him statistics on the type of ship it was and what planet it had been found on, and included information on the ancient ruins of a civilization that had lasted millions of years.

  After Timothy had understood that the universe was composed of countless stars that were for the most part conglomerated into galaxies, it once again showed the Earth and the explosion of life that soon followed. Timothy wondered at the strange mist that flowed through the surface as if it had a life of its own, and the instruction unit didn’t comment either. He did notice that this mist was very active around the centers of life, and Timothy watched with intense interest.

  Soon intelligent life appeared, then the first civilization, and Timothy saw incredible work done by humans, but he also saw incredible destruction. The religious hatred and murderous actions of many through the ages brought back to Timothy the argument he had earlier with HAL, that humans really can’t govern themselves effectively. Timothy looked intently as the unit showed him important events in human history and his attention was transfixed when he saw Jesus hung on a stake, with his mother and the disciple John there, just like the Holy Book had said. That scene faded, and next he saw the events of the dark ages unfold. He watched in horror as scene after horrifying scene unfolded with unimaginable brutality and he had to mentally stop the images as he attempted to regain his emotional composure. After what seemed like forever, segments of information on the First and Second World War revealed to Timothy the power of science without morality.

  When the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Timothy’s intense focus led the instruction unit to think that he wanted more information, and before Timothy was aware of it, he had received enough knowledge to construct a rudimentary atomic bomb.

  The thought that this machine had this kind of power appalled him, and he made a mental note to speak to HAL about this.

  From there, he saw the world come to close to a third nuclear war, then the space race, a period of unstable and rampant economic growth and the final earth-wide economic collapse. At this point, the instruction unit stopped and Timothy opened his eyes.

  Ruth who was sobbing uncontrollably. This was the last straw for him too, and he reached out his hand as he also started to cry, aghast at what the human race could have done, but did instead.

  After a long while, the tears stopped and they were both too physically and mentally exhausted to say a word. When HAL informed them that they had sat there for nine hours, they couldn’t believe it. It had literally felt like a few minutes for them. Another meal was left there, and so Timothy and Ruth ate before they dragged themselves to the washroom and then bed.

  That night Timothy dreamed of the Enola Gay; of skull faces; Jesus talking to him and telling him that ‘few things were needed in life, or perhaps just one’ though what that ‘one’ was the Jesus of his dream never explained; stars and planets coming to dance around his head as he ran away terrified that they would engulf him in a never ending embrace of despair and sorrow. When he awoke, he felt more tired then when he went to sleep. Thankfully though, he smelled eggs and a vegetable stir fry which surprised and worried him at the same time.

  “HAL, where did you get this stuff?” he asked.

  “If you’re worried about the ‘poisons’ penetrating these foods here, rest easy. They have been picked from the tops of hills and the eggs were harvested from the animals that reside there.”

  Timothy appreciated the thought of eating this food without worry, but he felt uncomfortable that HAL seemed to know so much about them and their worries. As he ate, he noticed another one of those black ships taking off as one more entered.

  “What do those flying ships do?”

  “They watch,” HAL said, somewhat matter of fact.

  Ruth was still asleep but she had started to stir, and Timothy was embarrassed that he had just remembered to leave some food for her. He had been thinking of what he had seen the day before, and as Ruth greeted him with a kiss and prepared to eat, he asked HAL, “What do you plan to do with these instruction units?”

  Ruth stopped eating and waited for an answer. They waited a long time before the answer came, and it was once again not informative enough.

  HAL said, “That depends on future events.”

  “But what if you were to instruct others, and they were to pursue information that could jeopardize other people’s lives. Would you allow it?”

  “Once again, that depends on future events. It would also depend on who it is that would be using it.”

  Timothy tried a different tack. “Can we delve into anything this machine has stored away? In other words, have you hidden anything from us?”

  “I have set the parameters to allow you complete access to anything this databank holds.”

  “What if I were to try and search out a way to destroy you?”

  Ruth drew her breath in sharply.

  “The information is at your disposal, though you would find that objective very difficult to accomplish even with the correct information.”

  “So, you wouldn’t stop me.”

  “No.”

  “That’s dangerous, HAL,” Ruth said, but HAL didn’t reply.

  “Two more questions HAL,” Timothy continued. “Do you have emotions? And, can you lie?”

  “No, I do not. And yes, I can decide to tell the opposite of known actualities.”

  “So you can lie,” Timothy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you lying now?” Timothy asked, half-joking.

  “Yes.”

  Timothy and Ruth looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

  HAL started laughing too, and that shocked the both of them into silence. “You can laugh?” Ruth asked, astonished.

  “No,” HAL replied, and Timothy and Ruth burst out laughing again.

  They gained new respect for those that created this machine so many hundreds of years before. They both decided that the machine truly couldn’t laugh, but that it was still surprisingly adept at calculating the nuances of humor, one of the hardest of human emotions to understand.

  HAL had calculated that this response would accomplish its objective, to redirect their course of questioning. Their reactions told it that its objectives were reached, for the moment. HAL calculated a 63% probability that they would raise the matter up at a future date.

  “Tell me HAL, can you love, too?” Ruth asked.

  “No, but I can understand all the different kinds of love.”

  “Really!” Ruth said sarcastically. “Then define the love that exists between a man and a woman,” Ruth added challengingly.

  “Very well. In laymen’s terms, true love is, among many other things, the desiring and enjoying, usually but not always in a non-sexual way, the complexities and nuances of another person to the point that the two people will eventually bond
at an emotional level. This bond usually culminates in the outwardly display of marriage which confirms their agreement to all present and to themselves emotionally; and in the eventual sexual act, often times repeated...”

  “Ok, Ok, we get it,” they said, giggling.

  “But I’m not finished. I have another two hours of scientific explanation defining the chemical reactions that occur that lead to both short term and long term bonding…”

  “Obviously HAL, you understand this more than any human can,” Ruth said playfully. But she did have one final question. “With these instruction units, are we accessing actual historical information, or is this your interpretation of past events?”

  “That, Ruth, is a very good question. It is not in my programming to re-interpret information for the Base Library. This instruction unit works independently of my entity, although I can add and delete information as I see fit. It has accumulated the information it feels you need based on what you know, and has independently prepared it in such a way that you can easily understand. It is quite factual and as accurate as possible. For the sake of continuity, many older historical segments have been theorized or recreated based on proven or long accepted but unproven historical sources, yet by far the majority of information shown has come from physical sources such as modern and prehistoric news and historical files, archeological artifacts, or electronic sources such as video and digital files.”

  Having finished eating, they went to the restroom and came back to once again be hooked up. Timothy had more questions, but he felt he should see what else the machine had to show.

  Once they were hooked up, the images and information they started receiving continued from where they left off the day before.

  The effect of the earth-wide economic collapse was far reaching. The financial collapse of two industrialized nations caused worldwide panic and the shockwaves of the collapse toppled one bank after another. The political machine was quagmired as accusations flew from one nation to another. Through inaction and useless accusation, the situation worsened as more and more countries privatized their economy, but this stop gap action only worsened the global situation.

  Within three days the collapse was irreversible and all attempts at damage control were now diverted to survival. Inflation rose to a world average of over 1000% per month, and much of what was considered important became worthless because it no longer contributed to survival.

  People’s priorities changed when they lost everything for which they had worked their whole life. Bank machines no longer worked because paper money had no value, and things once taken as valuable became worthless as people struggled to eat and stay warm. Gold, a hot commodity, was eventually thrown into the streets when people realized it was worthless. The new gold was food, fuel, medicine and clean water.

  Pandemonium hit as greed, frustration and panic set in, and millions lost their lives to the instability of those few days. The world shook as if through tremors, and world leaders became drastic in their approach to solutions. Barely buried religious fervor exploded and murder became once again ‘the will of God’, leading to new levels of atrocities, militant actions and guerilla warfare.

  Soon after the collapse, in 2027, a third and final world war began. Timothy and Ruth saw over one billion of Earth’s population die directly from a nuclear attack on that one day war, and another two billion die from disease, starvation and radiation poisoning in the one year period following the war itself.

  Ten years after the One Day War, most of the Earth’s population had been decimated through disease, long term radiation poisoning, deaths brought on by terrorist attacks in the name of God, and a new influenza pandemic that spread all through the world within a period of two months.

  At the lowest point in human history, one Thomas Grey gained prominence.

  This quiet, shy but influential accountant had been proclaiming a financial ‘doom and gloom’ to Wall Street five years before the financial collapse, and had shown up on National Television to highlight his eleven year plan.

  Because his plan encompassed the impossible at the time, he was labeled a crackpot. However, with humanity’s near destruction, the President of a much smaller and disorganized United States had found him again and invited him to speak of his plan on national television once again. He was reluctant, but the President promised to back him and appear beside him as he outlined The Plan, as it came to be known.

  He began by identifying himself and outlining his purpose: The restoration of peace and security to the human race, to be implemented by any leader who had the courage to follow through with his recommendations.

  His sensible logic, coupled with his reputation and his few if any political ambitions appealed to a people tired of death, lies, inaction and political double speak. Before Mr. Grey knew it, a cry had risen up across the nation, and soon Earth wide, to not only implement his plan but to have him as their new World Leader.

  The then President invited him over for dinner and introduced him to The World Alliance Council, a mysterious group of twenty people, addressing them as his friends. In the course of the evening this group explained to Mr. Grey that world events had inexorably and relentlessly reached this climax, and that it was a necessary correction to what had been a deviant path that greedy humanity had chosen to follow. Timothy watched the interchange with intense interest, and the instruction unit obliged by giving him the dialogue record of the event.

  “Do you mean to tell me that this council had something to do with the One Day War?” Mr. Grey had asked as a cold sweat starting forming on the nape of his neck.

  One of the members appeared to be the spokesman. The unit had no record of his actual name. “No. However, we knew what was about to occur and took action to protect people that were too important to the human race to lose. In the end, the war benefitted humanity.”

  Mr. Grey’s anger peaked as he realized the implications. “You mean to tell me that the death of billions of people somehow helped us?”

  “Mr. Grey, please don’t get angry. It serves no purpose in this dialogue. As to whether it helped us, look at world events. Nobody listened to you before, and look at what happened. And now,” the spokesman said with exaggerated open arms, “...here you are standing in front of us. Which, by the way, was made possible because we protected you and your family.”

  “We are talking billions of lives!” Mr. Grey emphasized.

  “This council understands. Honestly. It looks like we are cold and calculated, but I assure you, we spent decades working out the permutations. Let me explain in simplified terms. Think of what has happened to the human race as a disease. In many respects, it is very much the same. Greed, corruption, religious zealotry, materialism and so on has spread out like, well, like necrotizing fasciitis. Flesh eating disease spreads so fast and is so ingrained that the only recourse we have is to amputate and destroy the ruined flesh. If not, the whole body will die.”

  “But the One Day War wasn’t selective, culling the bad and leaving the good. It wiped out everyone, good and bad. How does this help us?”

  “That’s true,” the spokesman said. “But it provided us with an opportunity, one we can use to humanity’s benefit.”

  “How?” Mr. Grey was horrified at this cold logic, but he kept listening.

  “Well, let’s use another example, one that is 2600 years old. I was told you are religious. Very well then. In the Bible, chapter two of the book of Daniel describes a vision that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon had.”

  “I didn’t know you were religious.”

  “I’m not, but some others in the council are also. That is irrelevant, but the story is fascinating.

  “The king of Babylon had a vision while sleeping, but promptly forgot it when he awoke. It so disturbed him that he insisted his magi not only interpret the dream, but reveal it to him too. That was of course impossible, as Daniel stated. But they were magi, supposedly able to do these very things, and seeing as they failed, t
hey were about to die for it. Daniel saves the day by relating the dream and its significance. Here is where it gets interesting. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a tall statue in the form of a man. The head was made of gold, the chest of silver, the hips of bronze, the legs of iron, and the feet of a mixture of iron and clay. He then said that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar, and went on to explain that each segment represented an existing or future world power, culminating in the final one, the feet.”

  “Made of iron and clay. I know. But iron and clay don’t mix.”

  “Of course not! And that’s the point. Daniel went on to explain - rather vaguely I might add - that in the ‘end’, human society would have strong and weak elements in it, and that these elements would be at war with each other. Whether you believe in divine providence or not, the truth is that human society was indeed at war, both symbolically and physically. No sure conclusion could be reached on the important issues, because there was no effective leadership and because no one could see past their greed. The issues that had plagued society for 6000 years were now worse than ever. Society had to lose hope, to admit defeat, to believe there was nothing left, to be able to accept hope. We know for a fact you were not oblivious to this.

  “But even this loss of hope would be ineffective with too large a group, as some in the group would always push for their ideologies. Too large a group would be chaotic. Of what use would 50% of seven billion clamoring for help be, if the other 50% was bent on taking advantage of the situation? In truth, human society had to be brought down to manageable levels, levels that could be taught, guided, and directed to the path that would ensure their survival.”

  “You mean controlled,” Mr. Grey said.

  “Yes, that works too. Do you not think control is necessary?”

  Mr. Grey was horrified at the group’s cold hearted action, but he could see clear similarities with what he himself had warned about only a few short years before. And though the truth was a difficult pill to swallow, he could see the logic behind it.