Forgotten Foreknowledge

Epilogue

A month had passed since my official instatement, and I was finishing up moving into my new, larger apartment in the capitol. Being in proximity to the Triumvirate made certain meetings easier – ones that were unable to be conducted via telepresence. I found my actual work less stressful than when I was at Disbursement, although the burden of greater responsibility more often intruded on my thoughts during my free time. I had quickly grown accustomed to the surveillance I had bound myself to, given in practice it was no different from being remoted continuously anyhow; privacy only existed for the ignorant, as the saying went.

Rearranging possessions in the altered abode layout, I found myself once again lost in thought. I had already foreseen on the Path some of the change I would effect, but what if I chose to do things differently? I knew it was folly, given the Path was immutable, unlike the Lesser Path we currently were able to probe. No, not immutable, as the Veil proved, but near enough as to make no difference now. Just as the People chose to trust me over such a short period of time, I must trust the Path. However... given my position, what if I were to be corrupted? The Path would merely show me following corrupt courses of action. Could I really not change that, even if I currently wanted to? Would I then be doomed to betray myself?

"Need some help, Apollon?" Ilia teased playfully as she walked into the dining room, smiling.

I looked down and found myself holding a container of utensils. "I thought I told you to stop calling me that..." I said half in jest. I was mildly worried that if I pressed the issue, she might start calling me by one of my other names. However, it was the part of me that was an Elder that she fell in love with, reuniting us. Of course, given it was that persona which arranged our meeting in the first place, I should've realized earlier that her obsession with Elders made her the obvious match for a primary.

"I have some good news!" Ilia stated cheerfully. "Thanks to you clearing up some obstructions, and my efforts in learning how to navigate the auditing procedures, I today received word from the Sociological Administration that we've been put on the waiting list for a child! Because of the Veil we'll have to wait for gestation to finish, but we'll still be some of the first ones. Isn't this great?!"

"Yeah!" I replied. I wasn't quite ready for a child yet, but in about eight months I might be. The 'obstruction' I cleared up was the standing order to refuse any applications I made for a child. I also used my knowledge of the Path to point the Nursery Department in the right direction to find a child suitable for us. I simply made their work easier, rather than skipping any lines or bypassing any safeguards. At least, from my point of view that seemed to be the case. Where exactly did the line lie between what I did and corruption, though? Subjectively, one's evil never feels like evil...

Ilia noticed my pensiveness and tried to snap me out of it. "Hello?! Shouldn't you be thrilled? ...You're not worrying again about you misusing your... exclusive knowledge, are you?"

"I... well..." I trailed off. I thought of the book, the formerly-secret Archive that had been given to me, that I had once written. Its visage had been made the gateway to all of the memories I was bestowed, branching off from an index at the beginning of the book. I had merely to think of the Archive and I could recall any of those things I had probed, so long ago. I had only scratched the surface in a month, of all the knowledge I had hastily, desperately, accumulated over a period of decades. I possessed extensive knowledge of my personal future, and my own family's, but remained afraid of what I may find there. I knew that, in times past, it was considered normal, indeed a sign of maturity, to probe and accept one's future, even one's death. However, in the modern era, and in my current life, that had not been the case, nor even a possibility.

"Don't let it go to your head," Ilia suggested, "you're not omnipotent. You may be kind of omniscient, but only in comparison to the rest of us who've been poked in the mind's eye," she said with a grin. "You, more or less, can't do anything a Scholar couldn't do a century ago."

"A century ago no one could see hundreds or thousands of years into the future," I retorted. "Even if some modern-day Scholar were to possess the quantity or breadth of future-knowledge that I do, mine is inerrant. That gives me an inherent power advantage, over everyone, really." That included her, too.

"You may have more power than any individual," Ilia admitted, "but not over the entirety of society. You're only one person, after all. Well... aside from your multiple lifetimes, that is. My point is... take the Nursery Department's parental auditing procedures for example. These guidelines are created by society, and exist in order to shape people... to ensure that no individual, no matter how powerful, can deviate too far from what society deems allowable. So you see, society's guidelines safely keep you from misusing your power advantage. Even if you could eliminate that advantage, there's no need, because society can already handle it."

"You're forgetting," I reminded, "that I'm one of the primary individuals responsible for setting those guidelines now." Officially I counseled the Triumvirate, but we knew that in the near future I would begin to advise the voting public directly. Referenda on guidelines, procedures, and policies, would soon be materially affected by my counsel, and I already knew the outcomes of any votes. "Also, you're taking it for granted that there aren't any loopholes to bypass those safeguards – loopholes that only I may have knowledge of."

"If you used knowledge of loopholes to bypass safeguards," Ilia replied, "you would definitely know about it. You couldn't accidentally do something like that, which is what you're really afraid of, right? Also, it's not like you're the only one who can assess a procedure for flaws; logicians and software can do that, too. Finally, you won't be single-handedly dictating procedures or laws for society, at least according to my understanding. Even if you can influence a vote, and know the result, that won't mean you control it, any more than a participant of a debate controls its outcome."

"But," I countered, "if I were to use my knowledge for personal gain, like I did with the Nursery Department..."

"It wouldn't be a problem," interrupted Ilia, "so long as it caused no more harm to society than if you hadn't. They would've chosen the same child for us either way."

I was standoffish. "There's no way you could possibly know that! The Path only shows..."

"One thing," completed Ilia. "However, we're not on the Path anymore. Have you forgotten so soon? There are new possibilities, opened up by us being on a Lesser Path. You put this into practice yourself, when you first searched for a primary. We can utilize these Lesser Paths to find out what may be, to learn of alternate possibilities from what will be. I found that the child we would be granted, if you had no special influence, would be the same. I'm sorry, I should've told you this earlier."

"So what you're saying is," I contemplated out loud, "that I need a Devil's Advocate? Someone who understands the way I think, has a sense of perspective, is always available for me to confide my deepest feelings to, fundamentally agrees with my ethics, and wishes to hold me accountable to them?" I thought for a moment, considered obtaining the answers from my memories, yet held back, still unready to find out more about my future than necessary to fulfill my obligations. "Where would I ever find such a person?"

Ilia smiled, and held out her hand.