Chapter 29: Truth
For a moment I stopped breathing and stared ahead. I was in shock and my body was threatening to shut down. I gasped as I forced myself to take some air.
“Are you okay?” Austin reached for my shoulders. I leaned against him.
“I’ll be all right. I just need a minute.” My brain was reeling. Is this a trap? How can Mr. Stewart be here to help?
“I’m sure this is big shock for her. I’m not who she thought I was,” Mr. Stewart commented. He was handling an electronic device.
“What does that mean?” Austin was confused. “I thought he was your teacher?”
“Teacher from hell!” My shock had dissipated and my anger spilled out. “He worked against me all during high school. Always putting me down or embarrassing me. Whatever he’s telling you is a lie. How did you find him?”
“I found him,” Mr. Stewart answered calmly. “When I saw the two of you together at the dance, I figured he was someone you trusted. Once he opened up to me, I realized he was too valuable not to involve in our group.”
“What group?” I yelled. “For years you’ve rammed down my throat how the city operated. Told us to obey, how safe our city had become. Were you lying to us then? Or are you lying to us now?” I got very close to him, closer than I had ever dared. Rather than flinch, he met my gaze.
“I told you what you needed to know to survive. You may not realize this but I’ve been trying to tell you the truth.”
“How? By embarrassing me in front of the class? Yelling at my father? Pick one.”
“Sit down,” he commanded and gently pushed me down into a chair. I accepted while Austin joined us. Lola whimpered nearby and I was glad to see the mechanical dog. I gave her head a rub. She seemed to perk up at my touch.
“Didn’t you ever question why some of the simulations didn’t follow the history you were taught? I spent hours restructuring the visuals to give a small glimpse of how the past actually took place. You saw things and met people that no one else ever did.” My thoughts went to the simulation of my mother.
“That was you! Why the elaborate setup? Why not just tell me?”
“You know why.” He motioned around us. “Our society watches and records every second of our lives. How long would I survive as a history teacher if I was caught subverting my students?” His cold eyes blazed with fury.
“You’re not making any sense. Why tell me about the city’s actual history? I mean nothing to you. You and my dad were no longer friends. Why risk teaching me the truth?” Mr. Stewart looked conflicted. He stood up and started to pace, as if working up the courage to answer my question.
“In one of the simulations, I showed you my friendship with your father and your mother.”
I nodded. “It’s funny, he never mentioned you before.”
“Probably because I was friends with your mother first. I cared very deeply for her. But she cared more for your dad.” He straightened up, as if embarrassed by his admission. “Still, I wished nothing but happiness for her and your father. It hurt me just as much when she disappeared.”
“Disappeared? You mean died?”
He turned to look at me. “Her body was never recovered. I deal in facts, Pene. Most people’s remains have been found since that day of tragedy, but never your mother’s. Trust me, I’ve checked many times.”
His concern for Mom was touching but creepy. I began to realize why Dad hadn’t talked about him and why he was fixated on me.
“So what? There was tons of rubble. Many of the terrorists’ bodies were never found either,” Austin interjected.
“What if there were no bodies to find?” Mr. Stewart said as he stared intensely at both of us. One the technicians behind us had been following the conversation and nodded in approval.
I stood up. “What do you mean? History has always showed the terrorists’ demands, the attack and explosions. Are you telling me that they never existed?”
“No. But I’ve always felt it was an elaborate ruse. As a historian, I have researched the terrorists’ identities extensively. None of them seemed to have any history about twelve months before the earthquake. If they were such passionate people about their cause, they should have shown up in other causes before the attack. But there is nothing, no history; they’re like ghosts. They had no families that would carry the shame of their attacks.”
“That’s not in any history lesson I’ve ever had,” Austin added.
“Why would it? It would dispute everything you knew,” Mr. Stewart commented. “The ascension of drone technology came after the attack. What if it was all staged to create our ‘safe’ society?”
My mind danced. I was overloaded. I had been thinking that the court system might have a few corrupt officials, and now that seemed minor in the overall scheme of things.
“What made you suspect?” I asked. Mr. Stewart seemed excited by the question.
“History is rarely neat. If you get in an argument with someone, how many sides to the story do you have?”
I thought of my dad’s court comments. “At least two.”
“And if you have ten witnesses, how many other viewpoints of what happened do have?”
“Another ten,” Austin answered before I could.
“Exactly. It’s human nature to interpret events uniquely. We all have different life experiences and sympathies; none of us sees events the same. Law enforcement has learned to use a series of similar questions to determine if people’s view of events change from multiple questioning. From varying opinions, they are able to discern what actually happened. The court of law was exactly the same. Testimonies could vary between witnesses, and cross-examination could bring different recollections. Trials could take weeks to complete in order to go through all of the testimony.”
“My dad always told me how painful court cases used to be.”
“They were painful, long and often the person with the most money won. But the guilty party always had a chance. Unlike today, when the accused is presumed guilty. Look at your father’s trial and the one for the shopkeeper — both farces. The farthest thing away from justice.”
“But why? What did they do to deserve to be sentenced? Morall liked my dad — at least that’s what he said to me.”
“It’s not about liking or disliking someone, it’s about exposing the truth.”
“What truth? Some of the re-enactments involved places and scenes that had nothing to do with our city. One memory involved dinosaurs, another pirates. Were you showing some old movies?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Pene.” Mr. Stewart looked confused and leaned forward. “The history I sent you involved different interpretations of our city. Not some fantastic renderings from another world. I sent you the negotiations, the underground tunnels, the sleeping citizens.
“Which made even less sense. How could people sleep through aftermath of the explosion?”
“I don’t know.” Mr. Stewart shook his head. “These were fragments that I pieced together from varying viewpoints, documents, footage that disputed our version of events. I don’t even know if they are true, but they were purposely scrubbed from the re-enactment database. I did my best to piece these memories together and share with you those that involved your mother. I kept myself distant so that others would not suspect my true intentions.”
“Which were?” I asked.
“To share with you the truth about your mother. You look so much like her.” He hesitated. “But I had to be extremely careful or I’d be caught.”
“Like my dad.”
“Your dad was getting close to exposing someone and paid the price for it. I have no idea what your shopkeeper friend did — maybe ticked off the wrong type of people or dealt with illegal commodities. What did he sell?”
“Weird stuff,” Austin piped up. “He was delusional. Sold things from faraway lands. Claimed that aliens dropped them off.”
“Well, he must have come across something or seen someone he wasn’t supposed to. Pene, I figured you were next on their list. What did they try to do to you in the Justice Building?”
I thought about the questions posed by Morall, and the evil-looking sphere.
“They seemed less interested in me and more interested in knowing who was helping me. Besides Austin, there was no one else I knew about. And the explosions stopped everything. They scrambled to move me away, and it seemed to really shock Morall that their defenses could be breached.”
Mr. Stewart smiled at my commentary. “With the underground tunnels, it’s good we can still do some things undetected.”
“But why? Why create the explosions and draw so much attention to you? You couldn’t know the explosions would set me free?”
“But we did,” Austin interjected. “This cavern is the perfect example. Come here.” He pulled me out of my chair towards a shelving unit built into a wall. Several monitors showed buildings around the city. I recognized one room.
“That’s where Morall was about to inject me. You could watch me the whole time?”
“Not exactly,” answered Mr. Stewart. “Because of the infrastructure of drones and cameras, there is the opportunity to piggyback the signal to let others—”
“Like us!” Austin added excitedly.
“To watch the signal as well. But we don’t have the same ability to pinpoint locations. We have to target certain areas of the city and randomly hack into footage. It takes hours to find the right location. We only found you a few minutes before Morall arrived in the room. It didn’t give us much time to set up a diversion. But once we did, we followed your progress and created diversions that would hopefully stop or delay your interrogation.”
“But why take such a risk on me? The explosion could have hurt someone, and now the Justice Department will be after you. There are more important people than me in this city. Why put your people at risk for no reason?” I was happy to be free, but they could be all caught tomorrow.
“You don’t understand, Pene.” Mr. Stewart leaned towards me. “Morall has taken a special interest in you. I don’t know if it is because he was connected to your dad or if he sees something in you that he wants to redeem. He’s shared more information with you than with his own staff. He isn’t going to let you go. He wants you badly and he will do anything to find you. That makes you very valuable.”
“But if he throws all his resources behind him, he will find me, and all of this.” I gestured around the room. “How is that going to help the Resistance if you are all caught and charged?”
“We have a plan, trust me. The department’s strength is that they have been able to keep all of this information hidden from residents. The tracking of individuals, the falsifying of evidence; if any of this gets out, the whole system goes out the window. Morall knows that. By staying focused on you, he is going to make a mistake. In fact, I think he already has.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We were able to listen to some of his interrogation,” Austin said. “He mentioned that they used some type of new crown on you to make you think you had escaped when you didn’t.”
“I remember that part,” I replied sarcastically, wondering what point they were trying to make besides making me feel stupid.
“We have never seen the technology so miniaturized before. What if others have been fooled?”
“What do you mean?” But a dark thought crossed my mind.
“You know how hard it is to get a travel visa out of the city,” Austin added. “Takes years to process. Then when someone travels and returns, they always make a big deal of publicizing their exploits.”
“And they do interviews, explaining all the places they’re been. I watched one guy on a bus monitor tell about his ocean voyage. Showed pictures — described his experiences. From seeing those trips, that is what has driven me to explore,” I enthused.
“What if,” Mr. Stewart motioned me closer, “the trips were manufactured using the miniature crown you wore? You didn’t even know that you hadn’t left the city.”
“It was very realistic.” I thought closely about running through the park, which had been all in my head. “I would probably still be there if they hadn’t decided to pull me out.” I pondered. “That would mean it was all fake. That nobody’s travels are real.”
“Since the earthquake, travel has become extremely limited. I used to go abroad when I was your age,” Mr. Stewart explained. “But in the first few years since the tragedy, no one was allowed to leave the city because the ground was too unstable because of the earthquake. It’s only become available to travel to a select few over the last few years.”
“But what are they hiding — what’s behind the city limits?” Before he could answer, an alarm bell screamed and everyone in the cavern rushed to activity.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Mr. Stewart looked at a screen.
“We have visitors. Looks like we weren’t careful enough in bringing you here.” Mr. Stewart looked at Austin, who was crestfallen. He patted Austin on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we can turn this to our advantage.” He motioned to the others to follow him and pocketed his electronic gear.
Austin and I looked at each other and then ran after him. We climbed a ramp that took us out of the bowels of the cavern, into a basement. We turned and climbed a flight of stairs. The door opened and I could see sunlight through one of the arches. The football field beckoned.
Mr. Stewart’s men were carrying some type of gun. I wasn’t sure if they planned to destroy or disable their attackers. As we exited the archway and entered the field, I turned to the reason for the alarm bells. A large flying drone was hovering over the field, its engine generating heat as it lowered itself to the field. Sitting calmly on the back end of the drone, like a man riding a horse, was Morall. He was all smiles, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Or he had just caught us with our hands in the cookie jar.
Around him were at least a dozen other drones. They were large, bigger than a full-size adult and easily twice as strong. As Morall landed on the field, they landed behind him, forming a semi-circle. He leapt off the drone like a man half his age.
“Pene, I was worried about you. Seems you took up with the wrong sort after all. Be glad that I’m here to rescue you.” His obvious glee made me think that my ‘escape’ from the justice building might have been staged. “Please introduce me to your friends.”
Mr. Stewart stepped forward. “Leave her alone. For a man who prides himself on justice, preying on teenage girls is disgusting. Instead of standing for all that is right, you represent all that is wrong in our society.” Morall looked amused and motioned to one of the drones to scan Mr. Stewart. The red glow measured him from head to toe. Morall looked at a small monitor in his hand and frowned.
“A teacher? I’m a bit disappointed. I was expecting someone with higher credentials to be the mastermind. No matter; you and your group will be sentenced. In a few days you will all be older and a lot less wiser.”
“I don’t think so.” Mr. Stewart slowly paced around Morall’s drones. “You underestimate human beings and our ability to adapt. The drones can’t think for themselves. They can’t create, they can only react. They have no defense for this.” Mr. Stewart pulled out a gun and fired. The roar was loud. The lead drone’s head exploded, exposing circuitry, and sparks arced into the air. The drone collapsed, its circuits littering the ground like metal entrails. This seemed to infuriate Morall.
“I don’t how you acquired a gun. They have been illegal for years. You’re only delaying the inevitable. You have gone beyond a normal sentence. Every action is damning yourself and your colleagues to death.”
“My colleagues are armed as well.” Methodically, Stewart circled Morall. “Any move you make to take us in will result in all of your drones being destroyed,” Mr. Stewart motioned, and several people on his team armed themselves. Morall seemed surprised but didn’t panic. He began pacing around the field, clicking on a small monitor in his hand.
“You are all being recorded. Thousands of citizens will see your crimes, and your punishment will be swift.”
“I’m sure the entire length of our discussion will be viewed by the public so both sides of our exchange will be heard,” Mr. Stewart challenged.
“Of course — the footage is always representative of what has occurred.” Morall smiled. He wasn’t going to be trapped into saying anything incriminating. I figured I needed to draw him out. I stepped towards him and several drones moved closer to me. He held up his hand to stop their advance.
“It’s okay — she’s unarmed.” He raised his arms in an embrace, a grandfatherly gesture. “Pene, you don’t know how much help you’ve been. You’ve led us on quite a chase but because of your help, you have brought the so called Resistance to its knees. This delay,” he pointed at the guns, “will soon be over and these people forgotten.”
“Like my dad!” I pointed angrily at him. “Will you erase everything about us just like you did to him? Anyone who challenges the truth is sentenced and deleted.” I looked straight at a drone. “Will anything I say be left intact?” The drone’s eyes stared at me but remained voiceless. Morall came towards me, and this must have seemed like a threat. Lola came running out of the tunnel and charged Morall. Whatever her intelligence, she was able to determine danger. She leapt at Morall, teeth drawn. I felt a deep pride that something electronic could actually feel the need to protect me. The feeling was fleeting. Morall swatted and she fell to the ground at his feet. He stamped his foot, crushing the little dog. The light in dog’s eyes dimmed and it remained motionless.
“No!” Austin yelled and ran towards Morall. A drone went to intervene and one of Mr. Stewart’s men fired into its chest. The drone fell to the ground. The other drones surrounded Morall like a mother protects her babies, preventing Austin from reaching Morall.
“Enough! I have let this go on too long. All of you will be convicted of treason! Resist and you and all of your family members will be killed.”
“You and whose army!” Austin screamed while trying to evade one of the drones. Morall said nothing but put his electronic gauge in his pocket and motioned behind him.
At first I saw nothing but then I thought I could see hundreds of dots in the sky. The air became shiny as thousands of reflections flashed from metallic bodies. I heard rumbling and watched as motorcycle drones, as well as dogs and other animals rushed into various stadium entrances. The noise was unbearable and I put my hands over my ears to block out the sound. I turned, and Austin, Mr. Stewart and the others had all stopped — the mass of metal drones was a force to behold. As the flying drones landed and the motorized drones rumbled into the stadium, it felt like the ground was shaking.
As I looked around at the sea of drones, I realized that all hope was lost.