Spare Future

- 88 - Backdoor To the Future

Flavio Mancini, dottore in Statistical Sciences and, for the few who were aware, a luminary in Social Predictability, was torn between the two perspectives before him. In one of these he was to appease the military and deliver the action plan they had commissioned. By his own calculations, he understood better than anyone: in doing so, he would grant the armies of the countries belonging to IUPITER a political power that military forces had never had before. However, this would be the least risky choice on a personal level, laden with material benefits that might offset some guilt. In the other perspective, he was to sabotage their attempt to implement their unique idea of world peace and unity, filled with authoritarianism, hierarchies, and social elites. As soon as they noticed, and sooner or later they would, Flavio would be up against the secret services of a wide range of nations that usually presented themselves as peaceful. And then there was the other range, those nations that didn't care about appearing peaceful at all.

He vividly remembered being on the verge of abandoning the IUPITER project, and it was only the tragic night of the argument with Flavia that had changed his mind. That Flavia – or Claudia, as she now called herself – had awakened in a surprising return from the threshold between life and death, did not clarify his feelings about what he wanted to do.

On the contrary, the world into which he felt drawn was increasingly desolate and anchorless. Claudia had been out of the hospital for a week and did not want to see him. She had called him, and with no discernible emotion in her voice, thanked him for taking her to the hospital. Then she had been curt and cutting with him, declining his calls and refusing to meet.

What left him most puzzled and disoriented wasn't so much the rejection but rather the realization that he didn't feel all that upset. He felt neither profound disappointment nor heartbreak. He simply realized that of his Flavia, if she ever existed outside of his infatuation, all that remained was a specter, a ghost whose essence had dissipated, just like the memories of the past months that amnesia had taken from his closest friend.

The thought of losing Cristina, on the other hand, made his heart pound with anger and regret. From her, he hadn't even received the courtesy call that Claudia had granted him. Yet he knew he would see her again very soon because her reintegration into IUPITER was already being discussed with marked enthusiasm and a date set on the calendar. He also knew, and it hurt to think about it, that upon seeing him again she would neither embrace him nor even gift him with the smile that had always characterized her.

He wondered what had brought her back to the project. He liked to imagine that her ideas of equal integration among peoples remained unchanged. However, her abrupt return made him fear a change of heart, which he suspected was due to discovering that the project's creation was motivated by an extraterrestrial threat.

Despite Clelia presenting it as one of the possibilities, Flavio was not scared of a hypothetical clash with another civilization that, while manipulating energies at a level high enough to travel among stars, had been wise enough not to annihilate itself on its own planet. He was, however, terrified of those who, lacking the wisdom to avoid self-destruction on their own planet, were already planning to carry social aggression onto another planet they couldn't even reach.

Regardless of his decision concerning the action plan he was to deliver to the high officers of IUPITER, one way or another, he would have to confront their aggressiveness. The whole point was to decide whether this confrontation should occur within a very few years and on a personal level or more in the long run, having already compromised the future of human society.

This dilemma was closely monitored light-years away by the Interdimensional Assembly. While late afternoon approached in Rome, an extraordinary session of the Assembly was convening at dawn solely to alleviate the anxieties of those participating.