Silos of Man

Chapter 20 - Remnants of OZ

I feel like I'm fleeing from the lab, and now I wish to hell I had my car!  You're okay, Dany, just keep one foot in front of the other.  No one knows anything right now.  You're being paranoid.  You did nothing wrong or covert in there that would raise any concerns.  You need to take some deep breaths and just get home.  After deep breath number 7, my gait slows to a steady, regular pace and my mind starts its work. 

Let's put some basic facts together, working-in all the pieces.  Joan very clearly has information about our samples and experiment that she's not sharing because of some direction from the Councils.  Tom et al. seem to think that the degradation of the samples is a diversion excuse, to distract us from looking behind the curtain of their intervention in our experiment.   But what the hell is so bad that chromosomal degradation would be better!?  I shudder.  Joan obviously can't be trusted.  I shudder again.  Untrustworthy leaders lead to corruption.  Corruption is an ugly weed germinated in greed, which grows into the exploitation of many, for the gain of a few. 

The insidious evolution of corruption perpetuated millennia of oppression, inequality, injustices, and the disparity between those with means, and those without.  We can't allow it to fester once again.  Our world has now almost entirely eliminated all forms of non-medically/or accidentally-induced suffering, and within a hundred years, humans have essentially propelled forward in evolution by about 500 centuries, according to experts in the SHE sciences.  These Social History of Empathy experts, have maintained for decades that in the absence of the competitive, aggressive, and sexually-focused nature of the Y-chromosome phenotype, cooperation, nurturing and creative ingenuity was able to take hold as the predominating social norm.  This is when the 'every man for himself' era which basically began with capitalism, came to an abrupt end, and contributory societal cooperation was adopted as the desirable norm.  How can this type of progress and global utopia be based on corruption?  For what purpose?  To maintain power.  But if their power has brought global peace, do we not want it maintained?

I find myself really struggling with this conundrum.  How can holding back The Cure, benefit those holding it back?  How could this corruption benefit anyone?  Preventing the return of renewable genetic material needed for the perpetuation of the human race isn't just confusing, it's evolutionary suicide.  It makes no sense and I feel my breath speeding-up as I try to contemplate their reported motivation to protect our utopic world from the dangers of the Y. 

Then my breath stops dead as I land on a theory.  Holy shit.  The risk inherent in a degrading chromosomal supply, would far outweigh any personal or group interest in maintaining power.  While the obvious plan for NWG's Guiding Council to keep power would include keeping a competitive stream of humans from returning to the socio-political stage, they couldn't do so, or it would mean the end of us all, unless...holy shit! We've figured out how to do it...how to reproduce without them. We've decoded cloning, or some adaptation thereof to allow for continued procreation. Holy shit, holy shit, holy sh...as I'm about to spin out of control, my device vibrates. "Hello?!"

"Hello?!"  "Dan, hello! I can't stop thinking about the coffee we had at that café and was hoping you'd be up for another."  Shit!  This is bad – we're in full code.  "I'm just pulling onto your street and was hoping we could scoot over there."  I'm stunned into stillness and stand staring at a tree across the path from where I've stopped.  A part of my brain watches a bird flit from branch to branch and then fly away into the vast open blue space above us, and I have an overwhelming wish to fly away like that.  Fly away from all of this confusion.  Screw work, screw The Cure, screw it all.  I'll very happily take a trip with Ryann, to anywhere.  Now.  Right now.  Get us out of here!  My heart starts pounding and Tom brings me back to the moment when her concerned voice sharply prompts, "Dany!?"  "Yes, okay.  Sure.  I'd love to." I managed to stammer.  "I'm walking home now and will be there in 10."  "See you then", and she was gone. 

My legs shake as I resume my walk at a much quicker pace, and I realize that I'm just barely managing to keep control of them such that they don't start running in the other direction.  Alarm bells are going off in my head and as I turn the corner, I see Tom's car speeding toward me.  Shit, I have a feeling that Tom's about to show me behind the curtain – and I don't know that I want to look.