seemed to be entirely deserted, the likelihood of that happening was minute. That was if the robots hadn't somehow hijacked the station and hidden all the overseers in some obscure corner. That was unlikely though. The robots seemed entirely peaceful and more than willing to help with the simplest tasks.
Dale jogged for a second to catch up with Seven. "Shouldn't we have some kind of weapon to take care of the potential conflict we'll run in to?"
"No, there's no way anyone hostile could be living here. It's been like this for an incredibly long time. Nothing has changed." Seven reached for Dale's hand, taking it in her own. "I can protect you if you're really that paranoid."
Dale made a small frown, pulling the corners of his mouth down. "You can protect me?"
She laughed. "I was joking. There's no point to learn violence since there's no violence to deal with. But if you're so conflict oriented like you seem to suggest, I would think you'd be more likely to protect me." she made a pouting face. "I'm just a poor defenseless product of bioengineering. Too bad for me right?"
Dale laughed. "I would have no idea. I don't remember when I was born."
"Well, you're not the first. Most overseers profess to this being true, though I think those who say they do remember are just being full of themselves."
"Do the overseers live forever like you do?"
Seven sighed, "Some of them. The point I was trying to make earlier is that I have the potential to live forever, not that I would life forever. We're all susceptible to disease and to injury, but if taken care of we can heal it out over an extended period of time."
"Is it worth it?"
"Some say it is." Seven folded her arms, Dale's hand pressed firmly into the crook of her elbow. "But if you are wracked with pain and the knowledge of the past then it can often be a kind of suicide to exist. Some prefer to die."
"It sounds terrible in my opinion. Most of my friends will die if I were to live forever and I would have to live on and make new ones."
"That's what life's all about though isn't it? Making new friends? Building new relationships and helping yourself and others to grow?"
"Well yeah I guess..." Dale shrugged. "I'm just sentimental. Letting go of old comforts is difficult. It just takes time to adjust."
"That's very true." Seven stopped walking, jolting Dale from his downcast expression.
"What?"
"We're at the edge of the living centers."
Dale squinted into the light that was filtering in to the hallway. All he could see was a white building made of stone, its foundation built on top of a yard that bubbled up from the edge of a short rock barrier. A lane seemed to be leading off to the right, its surface made of interlocking stone, but other than that the view was cut off.
"Seems like an excellent place to have an entrance... If you want to completely underwhelm people..." Dale said.
Seven laughed. "It could be worse considering. Come on," She pulled him by the hand. "I want to check the ship records."
Dale followed diligently, his hand becoming sweaty in her fingers.
They led off to the right, following the road. Seven's eyes seemed to be drawn to each and every dwelling as they went by, as if to memorize and compare notes with the computer's database inside her head.
To Dale, they all seemed like something out of a fairytale from home. A few times when he thought he saw shadows moving, his thoughts wandered to leprechauns and knights riding those valiant steeds that used to populate the old stories. As they kept moving though, the houses began to change, becoming larger and more extravagant until they towered high above, sometimes twisting or bending over to create mind boggling shapes and angles.
"Why are there so many large houses? What is so different about some of the overseers that they would be given so much more than the others?" Dale asked, shaking Seven's hand.
"It's not about what they're given. The overseers chose where they lived. Some just preferred smaller homes to the towering monoliths that the others wanted. It wasn't about competition or class rights if that's what you were wondering."
"Yeah, that did cross my mind, but I'm still having trouble absorbing this whole 'no conflict' society thing. It just seems so wrong to me, like it can never be perfected."
"Well, I hate to break it to you, but it's been done. Perfection doesn't always have to be rooted in evil. Just thinking that perfection is just a mask for imperfection uncovers the imperfections in the people who think perfection is impossible. It's kind of frustrating to me to think that these things could possibly be common place for you."
"Eh, I've grown up in a world where the only way to be perfect is by conforming to imperfection." Dale shrugged. "I've never believed in it, but there seem to be enough people who do for it to have some prominence. Of course, it won't lead anywhere good. The assumption that perfection is unattainable pretty much requires that the end goal is imperfect. And if the end goal is assumed to be imperfect then the desire to accomplish anything at all vanishes. It creates an undesirable side effect that dampens people’s expectations and compromises their definition of perfection until they have no sympathy for the attaining of perfection at all. This leads them to hate the idea of perfection because in their mind perfection cannot exist. And if perfection cannot exist, they hate the thought of someone who still seeks imperfection, and in order to hide their own imperfections they laugh and scoff at those who are seeking to attain perfection in order to fill the void that they themselves have created in their own lives by listening to the lies of others that tell them that perfection is impossible. It's almost as if they have a major guilt complex that cannot be covered even though they think they have to try because they cannot be perfect. It's a cycle that never ends. Most people can't see it and that's why they choose to seek out imperfection."
"Well, I'm very sorry to hear that."
"Yeah." Dale pointed at one of the tall structures as they passed by. "Is there any way I can get one of those for myself?" He asked.
"I assume so. Though I don't know what you could do with it if you've already got such a nice ship. You haven't even looked through it yet, how do you know you'd like these any better?"
"Eh, it looks like you can walk on the walls in these buildings. Do they have the same 'dead particles' that the ship uses?"
"Yes, if you look, you'll see that they have a very manageable connection between the standard floor type structure and the more eccentric, twisting or angled additions." Seven's eyes caught something down the street and she took off, pulling Dale behind her."
"What is it?" Dale asked. Seven was faster than he'd assumed she could be and he had to stumble along to keep up, using Seven's hold on his hand to pull himself at an even pace.
"I thought I saw someone up ahead. At the corner of the grassy barriers."
Dale's eyes were pinned on the point where Seven had seen the person, but as they got closer, it became apparent no one was there.
Seven looked in either direction down the street but kept walking. "It was just another one of the greeter bots like the one you smashed in the face earlier."
"Let's not stick around then. I really don't want to be here if that thing sees us."
"It won't hurt you if that's what you're thinking."
"I don't care. I want to get out of here as fast as I can. Where are we going?"
"There's a transmission center at the center of the ring." She pointed straight up. "We just have to get there and everything else should be taken care of."
"Why can't we just go through one of those twisty mountain houses?"
"Well, I just don't want to."
"Why not? It leads directly to the center?"
"I don't feel right going through other people's homes."
"For all you know they're all dead. You're respecting dead people."
"They won't be dead. Overseers don't die. That's the way we're built."
Dale gave an exasperated gesture. "But you can be killed."
"Yes we can, but that stil
l doesn't mean we will die."
"Isn't dying and being killed the same thing? At least it should be since you seem so keen on making this impossible."
"I'm sorry Dale. I'm trying to make this as straight forward as I can and I think there's a rift between what you know and what I know." She stopped, holding out her hand. "Here, let's try this."
"What do you want me to do with it?" Dale asked hesitantly.
"I want you to let me cover your eyes with my fingers. I'm going to transfer the pictures I have in my mind into your thoughts using your optical sensors."
Dale shrugged and let her take his face in her hand. She caressed it gently for a moment, wiping the hair away from his forehead, before putting her thumbs against his eyelids.
"When the overseers were younger, they were inclined to researching ways to make themselves immune to the effects of aging."
Dale felt images begin forming in his head. There was some kind of tank with a person floating at the center. A white robed man was holding a clipboard and monitoring the status of something that was written on the screen.
Seven continued. "In doing so, they hoped to share their knowledge with the younger generations and skip the necessary schooling and learning patterns that forced older overseers to pass on without sharing the full extent of their knowledge. This was to protect their investments in technology, sciences, and history. They hoped to save the great minds of their civilization so that they could teach and expound on what was already known, speeding up the process of advancement. As a side