Chapter 17:
The group entered through the heavy steel door and walked up to their rooms. They planned on meeting downstairs again in two hours to figure out what to do for dinner and discuss any questions they may have. Lyla and Darin went into their rooms leaving Doug, Vera and Thomas standing together, talking about what they'd seen.
"I don't know," Doug muttered, "the fact that all the robotic technology seems so stupid is pretty disappointing. I guess it's fine overall, since the other technology is intriguing, especially the PODS thing. I can't wait to find out how that works. I guess my vision of the future always included a lot of intelligent robots and without them, it seems strangely empty."
"I never really cared about technology," Vera said, "I knew that would always march on undaunted. I mainly worried that people would become either bloody idiots or completely immobile due to so much automation and lack of any imagination, so I'm just happy to find that's not the case. I'm not sure how I feel about all this genetic altering... It's just not right."
"I'm not too sure I like all of this technology," Thomas said. "I mean a lot of it is something I can see being a good idea, but some of it goes too far. Those Copybots, for instance, are pretty terrible, and the way that Darin and Lyla acted like they didn't care about the fact that so many people got lost with that PODS thing was horrifying." He sighed. "Otherwise, I guess the future is OK. And hey, I can finally get a flying car!" They talked a bit more about trivial, little things before Vera announced that she was going to her room to rest. They said their goodbyes and she closed the door.
"I think I'm going to do the same," Thomas said. He walked down the hall, found his room key and opened the door. He collapsed on the bed and woke up with a start about an hour and a half later. Fortunately he wasn't due to the lab for another ten minutes. He stared at the ceiling momentarily, pondering over everything he had seen. There had been so much that it was nearly overwhelming, and he wasn't quite sure about the meaning of most of it. Why were those people talking into thin air? Were the PODS really safe enough to use? Were there other robots out there enforcing laws? Was he going to have to watch every step he made, every word he said? His mind continued assembling questions that he wanted to ask. He was just hoping that he could remember them. He got up and made his way down to the lab again. The rest of the gang was already there.
"Oh good," Lyla said, "right on time, we were just about to discuss languages."
"Yeah," Vera interjected, "I noticed that so many people weren't speaking English and I was wondering if it was no longer the most spoken language in the city."
"As I was telling them," Lyla continued, "there is still no 'official' language, but the most common ones are English and Chinese followed closely by Spanish."
"Chinese?" Thomas was surprised by this. "I figured Spanish would be right up there, but Chinese?"
"Well she was just about to explain it when you came in," Doug said, much more irritable than he was roughly two hours ago. Thomas took the hint and decided to just sit down and listen quietly rather than to keep interjecting, holding his own questions for later.
"As I was saying," Lyla began, "there was a huge Chinese immigration to North America sometime back around the middle of the twenty-first century after the end of World War Three."
"There was a third World War?!" Thomas shouted, vetoing his earlier decision.
"Well yeah!" Lyla said, "The economy collapsed in 2036 after all the oil ran out, and the governments started the war as a 'jolly good way to rejuvenate the economy.' It worked surprisingly well in that respect, but backfired in that it caused all the world governments to collapse. That, though, ended up being a good thing too, because against all odds, the entire Earth ended up uniting under one new system of government."
"So there's no such thing as the United States anymore?" Thomas asked.
"Not really, no. The new government copied some of the methods of the United States but ended up improving them substantially. The three branches of government that you all are familiar with are no longer used."
"No president?"
"Nope, just a congressional body, judicial system, and whatever agencies they create."
"Fascinating..." Vera said. "So when you keep saying the government did this or that, you're saying a complete world government?"
"Yup, Pangaea began in 2052 and has been running relatively smoothly since then. There's no such thing as a third world country anymore, and everything now follows a set of universal standards so things are the same no matter where you go in the world."
"Unbelievable..." Doug said. "It sounds too good to be true."
"It is!" Thomas yelped, "there must be something wrong somewhere!"
"Well it's certainly not perfect!" Darin laughed.
"It sounds pretty good to me!" Vera said.
"But anyhow," Lyla wanted nothing more than to be able to finish this explanation as quickly as possible, "that's why we have to get you guys ID numbers. You'll need them to travel, plus you must have it to get your implant."
"Implant?" the three asked in unison.
"Yeah, it's required by law that everyone get their implant by school age, so we'll have to get you one as soon as possible."
"And just what does this implant have in it?" Thomas asked, afraid of the answer once again. Lyla turned to Darin and let him answer it since he knew a lot more about it than she did.
"It basically contains everything about a person: their ID number, name, medical history, an electronic copy of their DNA, primary language spoken, current address, all of that stuff."
"Oh great!" Thomas began to rant, "so any Joe Blow can walk up to me, get my name and address from my implant, and come axe murder me later at his convenience? That's just wonderful, technological progress at its finest!"
"Calm down! It's not exactly like that. The implants can communicate back and forth, but only certain information can be publicly obtained. I can see information about Lyla from her implant, but only her name, ID number, and primary language. Only health officials and government workers can access some of the other information."
"Seriously?" Doug asked. "That's awesome! Finally! Some technology that makes sense! How do you see the information?"
"Well the implant uses electromagnetic radiation to project an image onto your visual cortex. Usually it's just plain text, but occasionally pictures and stuff can be displayed."
"Cooooooollll...." Doug breathed.
"But why would it show you someone's ID number? Shouldn't that information be private?" Thomas protested, ignoring the other parts that he didn't understand. "I don't want someone knowing my ID number, especially if it functions like a social security number!"
"It's not a secret number. Anyone can know it, but only you can use it because it's included in your implant and there's only one you. No one could possibly steal it unless they create a fake implant, and those are virtually impossible to make. Besides, you couldn't call or email anyone if you didn't know their ID number."
"They double as email addresses and phone numbers?" Doug asked.
"Yeah. It replaces mailing addresses too. If you want to send Lyla a card you just stick her ID number on the envelope and the correct destination will be looked up and added at the post office."
"So this means that this implant also doubles as a cell phone?" Doug was catching on to this idea fairly quickly. Thomas was too, unfortunately, and suddenly realized why all those people on the street seemed to be talking into thin air. He groaned.
"Yup, you've got it!"
"Ugh!" Thomas put his head in his hands. "You're crazy," he said to Vera and Doug. "I'm not letting the government stick something into my head that does who knows what! You do what you want, but I'm certainly not going to let myself get sucked in to this madness." Thomas stood up and stormed out of the lab, leaving the others behind, bewildered and confused. He tramped up the stairs to his room and shut the door behind him.
"I can't believe it," he muttered al
oud to himself. He couldn't understand how Doug and Vera were so willing to be inducted into this mess. He sat on the bed and kicked off his shoes, letting them to fall to the floor. This was group-think at its finest: Doug and Vera were just blindly accepting whatever they were told. He scoffed.
I'm certainly not going to be taken in, not by any means, no sir! He thought to himself. Just then someone knocked on the door. Oh they've come to convince me, well we'll just see about that! He stood and walked over, opened the door, and saw Lyla standing there alone. He stared at her silently for a while, attempting to put on a mean face but failing to do so. It would've been much easier if the guys were there. He could've focused his rage on them, but it was hard for him to treat a woman badly.
"Hi Thomas," Lyla said quietly. "Can I come in?" Thomas wanted to stand, firm and determined, look her straight in the eyes and tell her that no, in fact, she could not come in because she was not going to change his mind. He straightened up, made his best determined face, looked straight into her deep, brown, pleading eyes, and melted.
"Sure, I guess," he stammered, relinquishing his post at the door and allowing her to enter.
"Thanks," she said. She looked around to figure out where to sit, and finally decided to sit on the end of the bed. Thomas placed himself in a lounge chair adjacent to where Lyla had settled in. They sat in an awkward silence for a while. Finally, Lyla decided to speak.
"Look Thomas, I know you're probably a little put off by everything, and it's understandable, things have changed a lot in two-hundred years."
"Yeah..." Thomas said.
"To expect you to adapt and change so fast is a lot to ask."
"Yeah."
"And it's rather unfair in a way too."
"Yeah!"
"But... Didn't you go into this knowing it would be this way?"
"Well ... yes, but..."
"Your friends need you to be there for them too. It's not as easy for them as you might think. Darin is down there still explaining things about the implant to them, and they still feel like they don't want to get it."
"But Doug was acting like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!"
"No, he was just impressed by the technology. After you stormed out he expressed his concern about privacy, among other things. You can't jump to conclusions so quickly. This is a learning process for all of us, and we need to cooperate and work together so that we can fully understand each other."
"So... what are we going to do?"
"I don't know. You'll have to make that decision yourself. I suspect that if you wait a while and then go talk to Doug and Vera, the three of you will be able to agree on something. I don't know if it helps or not but I've had the implant since I started school, and I've never had a problem with it." Thomas sat in silence, thinking things over.
"Anyhow, I'd better go. You're going to need time to figure things out." She got up and walked towards the door.
"Hey Lyla?" Thomas said.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"No problem," she said, smiling sweetly as she left. Thomas wasn't sure what had just happened, but Lyla seemed to put everything at ease in his mind. He still felt nervous about the whole thing, but her perspective seemed so fair, so balanced. Making assumptions about Doug and Vera wasn't right. They needed to stick together. It was almost embarrassing how quickly he had forgotten Frank’s advice. He had to go find Doug and Vera and figure out what they were going to do. Thomas got up and walked over to the door, flung it open, and discovered a surprised looking Doug and Vera standing on the other side.
"Oh. Hi!" Thomas said.
"Umm, hey," Doug said. "So Vera and I were discussing this implant thing..."
"Yeah?"
"We're not entirely sure what we want to do though. What do you think?"
"Well, I really hated the idea at first, but Lyla gave me some more information and some things to think about. It seems like a terrible idea from a privacy standpoint, but everyone has one now. If we don't get one, we'd stand out more than those who do have one. Not to mention, we wouldn't be able to travel anywhere together."
"Yeah, that's basically what we figured too," Vera said. "Doug thinks we should go ahead and do it but I'm still not sure."
"Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely convinced either," Thomas insisted, "but it's one of those all or nothing things. Either we all do it or none of us do it."
"I agree," Doug said. "If we don't all get it, that's just going to break us apart. What'd we come here for anyhow? To see the future. To have an opportunity for a better life. We should have known that there would be issues like this that would come up. If we're going to do what we came here to do, we're just going to have to accept it and go with the flow." Thomas stood silent. It all made sense to him and he was prepared to agree, but Vera still seemed to be waffling.
"Well..." she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "I guess so, yeah. I'll do it."
"Good," Doug said. He turned and looked at Thomas questioningly, waiting for his response.
"Oh, I'll do it too," Thomas said.
"Cool," Doug said, happy to have a resolution. "We're supposed to tell Darin and Lyla what we decide. I'll go let them know." He walked off.
"I'm going to bed," Vera said, "I'm exhausted. See you tomorrow," she said as she walked down the hall to her room.
"Well that was easy," Thomas said to himself as he closed his door.