Chapter Four
The Life of Beren
Disabilities were practically obsolete in this era. Blindness had been cured by the bionic eye, prosthetic limbs functioned almost as good as the real thing and the communicator devices had made such vast improvements to the cochlear ear implant that deafness was a thing of the past. Genetic engineering had all but eradicated hereditary diseases. Modern medicine had advanced to such a state that cures for cancers had even been found. All of this sounded promising for Beren in his desire to walk again, except that access to stem cell technology for the purpose of regenerating broken spinal cords was hampered by the all-encompassing patents placed over stem cells by Utopia Corporation’s research and scientific subsidiaries.
Access to medical services was determined as a matter of nepotism. By the year 2187, all genes had been patented and ownership of gene patents were dispersed amongst the global five. Provision of health care by any of the global corporations was usually a matter of showing an allegiance to that company by proving oneself as a dedicated customer. Whole families migrated from one global corporation to another just so one of their members could receive the required health care from that company. People understood that receiving health benefits from any of the global five would have to be a matter of cajoling and persuasion. These were practices in which Beren steadfastly refused to engage, despite being in a position where he had a genuine desire for medical treatment.
As a previous convicted felon and disgraced hacker, Beren had a reputation that was very much out of favour with any of the global five, Utopia among them. As a consequence, Beren had learnt to adapt to the irrevocable changes wrought upon his life by being bound to a wheelchair. Life was not made easier by his situation, but Beren had no other choice than to learn how to cope. It was already difficult enough for him to find employment, as all the details of his past were available for anyone to access. Through a series of coincidences and connections, Beren was miraculously able to secure his tenure at the university because history academics were so scarce. Most history academics did not know the first place to look to ascertain history over a hundred years ago and the history lessons they provided would often be skewed depending on which company of the global five they had the most loyalty to. Beren enticed the selection panel at Sydney University with his tantalising knowledge of a version of history that many had thought was lost.
Soon enough, the faculty was clamouring to offer him a position. Knowing that he had them like putty in his hands, Beren could, and in a brilliant stroke of manipulation, did take full advantage of the university’s desperation to negotiate for himself a position that was not only overly favourable but gave him free reign of his intellectual endeavours. Down on the streets around Sydney University, Beren attracted the attention of all the passers-by around him. The sight of a person in a wheelchair was almost as rare a sight as a flock of birds flying through the metropolis. As Beren rolled past the queues of people lining up for the pod stations, heads everywhere turned around to catch a glimpse of this queer looking man nonchalantly pushing his wheelchair down the street. Being paralysed, Beren was unable to ride the tube home, so out of necessity he had to find a place to live that was within wheeling distance of his office. To avoid the heat of the sun during day, Beren usually made this journey later at night which suited him as it gave him more time at university to study his books and create the perception of diligence.
Fortunately, he had managed to locate a ground floor apartment close by to the university, courtesy of the university, which avoided the need to ride the tube. He had a small wheelchair friendly courtyard in his apartment where he could still enjoy the outdoors somewhat. Lined up in front of his apartment there were plenty of shops and restaurants where he could buy his everyday goods and as Chantel and Beren ambled down the street, they attracted the attention of every customer in the shops along the way. Beren was used to suffering daily abuse, as anyone in his situation would. The insensitive stares he received were compliments compared to the torrent of insults being yelled out at him by the strangers watching him pass by.
“There goes Professor Rolly Polly!” yelled an overweight, middle-aged lady towing along her small child by the hand.
“Check out Mr Metal Legs!” shouted another boy who was loitering with his mates in the middle of the crossing.
“Look at who’s too lazy to walk!” smirked a young woman around Chantel's age, who cheekily spun around in a mock pirouette in front of Beren, as if to show off her physical ability.
This was just some of the abuse Beren copped in his day to day life. Like anyone who had regularly been subjected to such intolerance, Beren learnt to build a shell around himself, grit his teeth, block out the insults and ram his wheelchair into anyone who dared to confront him. This instance was no different. Before the snarky youth had finished her twirl, Beren had already started to bear down upon her generating speed and dexterity in his wheelchair which was completely unexpected to all the passers-by. The bewildered bully soon had the wind knocked out of her as Beren mercilessly ran her down then proceeded to give chase, as her friends tried to gather her from the ground to flee.
Chantel rolled her eyes at Beren's violence. She had heard of his retaliatory antics but had never seen them in action before. Beren was unrepentant. Those who had insulted him once and were within ramming distance quickly learned never to do so again. For others that were just slightly out of reach, Beren would give chase and if they were lucky enough to escape unharmed they were certainly given such a scare that they would never try it on again. Any students of Beren’s that were audacious enough to even so much as tease him and his paralysed limbs, soon found themselves expelled from university without a case to answer. In a defensive mechanism, Beren literally turned his disability into a weapon that could be used against anyone that dared to attack him. In his own abrasive way, Beren rebuked his perpetrators’ feelings of superiority until they succumbed to fear and eventually learnt to respect Beren’s persistence. Despite this, Chantel knew how difficult it was for him to adjust to a life on wheels.
Giving him some respite from the exertion of using his hands, she helped to push him down the street. Although Beren’s wheelchair was equipped with an electric motor she knew that he refrained from using it when he could because of the sheer cost of electricity. The resources for fuelling combustion engines had long since been depleted from the earth and the only source of energy remaining was electricity. There were several sources of renewable energy, solar energy being the most efficient. However, the prevailing source of electrical energy was nuclear. Although the global regime assured its citizens that there was no danger of nuclear energy being depleted in the next two hundred years or so, electricity still remained an expensive resource for many. Given this, in addition to his naturally frugal nature, Beren tried to avoid using his wheelchair’s electric motor when he could.
On the way back to Beren’s apartment they stopped by a Pangaea download station to again grapple with the dinosaur for the Soul download. Beren scowled at the dinosaur as he went through the usual voice activation motions. Being of restricted height, Beren was forced to use the child high download stations that, to Beren’s disdain, were designed to treat their customers like children.
“Soul? This has an ‘M’ rating. Are you sure you have your parents’ permission to download this file?” the dinosaur asked condescendingly.
“Oh, stop patronising me and give me the damn download!” Beren yelled back.
“Okay whatever you say,” the dinosaur replied. “Remember Pangaea accepts no responsibility for –“
The dinosaur was cut off as Beren rammed the download stylus into his external hard drive to trigger the download. A beep sounded.
“Yippee! Your download is now compleeeete!” the dinosaur decreed with delight.
“Fantastic, let’s get out of here,” Beren muttered, rolling away as fast as he could.
As Chantel rolled Beren up to his apartmen
t, she was greeted with the sight of another incorrigible mess, similar to that in his office.
“Welcome to home sweet home, Chantel,” chirped Beren. “You can see that I rolled out the red carpet for you. I must have been expecting visitors. I even put the air freshener out.”
The smell of mouldy oranges wafted over to the front door where Beren and Chantel had just arrived. Chantel paused before entering, taking time to assess the disparate state of the room and trying to work out a route to navigate the wheelchair through. Beren dispelled the need for this when he simply proceeded to roll over the rubbish on the floor.
“I’ll take over from here thanks Chantel. You’ve been a wonderful chauffeur. Much appreciated. Now where did I put those blasted glasses?”
Chantel groaned.
“Beren those glasses are so old school. Are you still a teenager or something? Why don’t you just hook your hard drive up again?”
After his prison stint, Beren had refused to re-connect his implants to the Pangaea mainframe and as a result his interaction with the world was akin to the way a child would connect before their bodies had developed enough to have the implants inserted. He had a separate hard drive device from which he could view the holographic contents by wearing eyeglasses, his communicator device was a stand-alone component with a microphone and speaker that he had to raise to his ear to use and his payment chip was a tiny piece of metal that he carried around with him wherever he remembered to bring it.
“Unlike you my dear Chanty, my body is a temple,” Beren bragged, spinning back precociously on his wheelchair. “I don’t want Pangaea digging inside my head again, tracking my every movement like they did before.”
“Beren, you’re paranoid,” Chantel sighed exasperatedly. “Why would Pangaea do such a thing? Why would they even be interested?”
“As if anyone would not be interested in me, Chanty! No one else has a brain the size of mine,” Beren gloated.
Chantel suppressed a smile. Despite his irreverence, Beren was still the smartest person she had ever known.
“Why are you so worried? You know that the Human Integrity Act will stop them doing that. They can’t do anything to track us or trace us. It’s the law.”
“Oh, pft Chantel. What does the law mean when they control parliament?”
Chantel started to protest.
“Don’t worry about answering that question,” Beren stopped her, putting up his hand. “In case you didn’t notice, it was a rhetorical question.”
The Human Integrity Act or an ‘Act to preserve the integrity of the human mind, body and spirit against involuntary intrusion and observation to ensure the freewill of all people-kind for future generations’ was a statute passed by global parliament four score years ago, despite having been originally introduced just after the inception of the global regime. It was one of the last remaining acts from the original suite of legislation promulgated by global parliament, eventually passing approximately around the time electorates ceased to be represented by countries and corporations were granted the right to representation in government. The bill was debated and revised for almost a century, constantly churned and re-churned through the vestiges of Parliament before it was finally championed by a dedicated Parliamentarian who worked tirelessly to secure the passage of the legislation through the house. In her second reading speech introducing the Act, the brilliant young stateswoman, Parwardah Hassanzadah, originally from the country of Afghanistan, gave such a powerful endorsement for the longevity and relevance of the Act that it was one of the few, if not only, laws of parliament that resonated and became engrained in the mindset of the people.
Let the record show that we, the people have spoken. As we join forces across the world, for the sake of the betterment of humanity, in an act of solidarity with all humankind, to show that we are truly one world and bound as inextricably to this earth as we are to each and every one of our neighbours, let us together make this decree. Humanity is sacred. Humanity cannot be stifled. Humanity must remain free. Freedom remains the essence of our lifeblood. It is as essential to our souls as air, as water, as food. Without freedom our souls would perish.
What makes us part of humankind - this inexplicable force that ripples through our hearts and minds and pumps our veins full of independence, virtue and wisdom? What makes our lives beat with a sense of purpose? Why must we strive with relentless ambition, to build more, to improve the world, to achieve what is great? It is because we are bound in our determination for freedom. Not only for the freedom of this generation, but for future generations so that we can keep improving, keep making life better for our children and our children’s children. We owe this not only to them but also to our ancestors before us, who fought so hard to win us this freedom so that we might enjoy life without servitude. The liberty bestowed upon us cannot be taken for granted.
The world has taken a remarkable turn in the last century. In forming the global parliament we have realised that we the people, are all brothers and sisters of the same blood, that there is no longer any need for the world to be sundered into artificial divisions. In recognising this, we must also recognise that to work together in harmony with this earth we must all be entitled to the same choices, that the same opportunities should present themselves to each of us, that we should be able to go wherever we dream we can go. That is why we must all come together, as one, to support this legislation.
Nobody should be able to force their will upon the life of another person, without due regard to the consent of that human being and the proper application of the law. The life of each and every one of us should be respected and treated as sacrosanct. Every man, woman and child must be guaranteed the right to freedom. To curtail this right is to damage the very fabric upon which humanity has inherited this earth. To sacrifice the will of the people for whatever reason, is to admit that we have failed as a society, that all our lessons in governance, law and policy amount to naught if we are unable to ensure that most fundamental and basic of concepts for civilisation – human liberty.
The Human Integrity Act guarantees exactly that – the freewill of each and every citizen in this global regime. The Human Integrity Act makes it illegal to control the will of another person. The Human Integrity Act prohibits unwarranted intrusion into the life of another human being. The Human Integrity Act will become the cornerstone upon which generations to come will realise the most integral and evident of truths - that the integrity of all human beings is inviolable. Maintaining humanity’s unalienable right to freedom is a responsibility that we all bear. I hereby proclaim the passage of this Act – to preserve the integrity of the free will of the people.
The global parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the bill, and so the modern day Magna Carta, the Human Integrity Act, became enshrined into law. The Act of course, did nothing to prevent voluntary intrusion and so millions of people merely opted in to various encroachments into their daily lives without realising that in doing so, they were violating the freedoms that had been fought for them by generations before.
Few people had ever read and understood the Act. Chantel, like many others, knew of the existence of the Act and understood its purpose but beyond that she was vague on the precise details. Nonetheless, she was aware of its significance in shaping the constitutional rights upon which the global regime governed and the notions espoused in the Act against unjustified intervention. She believed in the law and that Pangaea would obey and apply the law. Beren, on the other hand, was not so convinced.
“The Human Integrity Act,” he said mockingly. “Well, sorry for being sceptical but when is the last time you heard about anyone breaching the Act? Has anyone ever been taken to jail under the Act? Do the global police even investigate the Act? Of course they want you to believe that they would never do anything to violate the Act. But Chantel my dear girl, they also control the Act.”
Chantel rolled her eyes. In the meantime, Beren had retrieved his glasses and plugged in his hard
drive for the viewing.
“Nothing,” Beren stated. “I mean there’s that silly movie here and that’s it. Nothing else. No glitch.”
Chantel groaned.
“Okay, you can do your thing then to tap into my hard drive. But remember, you must promise…”
“Yes, yes, my pet don’t you worry. I’ll make sure no one traces you. Or myself either. God forbid. Imagine that, going back to prison. How awful!”
“Beren, I’m serious!”
“Okay, yes I know. Things like a job and life on the outside and…dare I say - liberty, whatever that entails - is important to you. Wouldn’t want to take that away, would I now.”
After tinkering with a few lines of code, Beren had decrypted the Soul file so that it could be viewed using his glasses from Chantel’s hard drive. He was aghast with what he saw.
“Chantel, this is incredible. I simply have no words to explain this. You’ve definitely done the right thing in showing this to me. Just imagine, what could this be all about?”
Chantel could not help but wonder.