March 19, 2029
The town council chambers were remarkably depressing. Last renovated in the late ’80s, they reflected the style of the time: civic austerity by way of a basement rec room. Faux-wood paneling lined the walls. Caleb’s folding chair rested on speckled Formica flooring, scuffed from years of restless shifting. More chairs leaned in a row against the wall, awaiting a public audience that would not come.
Instead, only the barest quorum was present. Flanking Caleb were the four other council members who made a habit of attending. There was Ray Caldwell, owner of High Peak Resort and one-man Chamber of Commerce. Brice Whythe, who had made a reputation for herself as a state senator before settling into retirement and the comparatively paltry duties of local government.
Sharon Van der Berg, busybody extraordinaire and progenitor of one of the evening’s two proposals, along with what must have been some 90% of the council’s business. Caleb, who had come back from Iraq determined to continue serving the public, and who had been riding incumbency ever since. And then there was Dr. Brady.
Dr. Brady had joined the city council two years ago. He had grown up in the town, but he left for college decades ago, where he seemed to never look back. Even as a child he had a reputation as an aloof academic. Time had only hardened that persona. But he had made a name for himself as a pioneer in genetics. Science fame is a little different from regular fame, and the average resident of Purity couldn’t explain the first thing about what Doc Brady had actually done—Caleb included. But they could at least tell you he was a big deal, and just about the smartest mind to ever come out of the town.
He had moved back two years ago and had immediately mounted a campaign for town council, promising a new era of local government driven by data, careful analysis, and the scientific method. Caleb had his doubts at the time that the pitch meant much. More likely, the people of Purity had figured, “Hey, he’s supposed to be smart enough.”
In the intervening years, Dr. Brady had proved himself to be perhaps the least engaged member in the history of the Purity town government. He had shown up diligently to every meeting, listened carefully to the arguments for and against every measure and then, without fail, abstained.
This had earned him a fair bit of ire from his fellow council members, but no amount of pleading, scolding or antagonizing had moved him. “An abstention is still a vote,” he would always recite, like a boy scout quoting the requirements for his Pedantic Asshole badge. Caleb in particular found it infuriating. Yes, theirs was a small town. The votes were often mundane and inconsequential. But they still mattered, just as sure as the people of Purity mattered, and the sheer disrespect in tossing away so much responsibility made Caleb’s blood boil.
That was what made the night’s session so interesting. There were two proposals on the docket. One from Sharon Van der Berg; and one, for the first time ever, from Dr. Brady. And boy, was it a doozy.
Sharon’s proposal was first, though. She had determined that the town was in desperate need of an Iraq War memorial. Purity had sent just 7 of its young men to Iraq. Caleb, being one of them, was intimately aware. It had also lost one: Roger Van der Berg.
Caleb was deeply torn. He had known Roger, who had been only two years his senior. He understood the depth of Sharon’s grief, and the personal meaning this proposal held for her.
He had also seen the quotes: granite, floral arrangements, propane for the eternal flame. All told, it would eat $10,000 of the town’s ever-dwindling budget, plus annual maintenance. $10,000 was a lot of unfilled potholes. Sixty-six of them, to be precise.
They ran the vote down the line.
“Yes,” said Caldwell. His buddies would be filling the contracts, and he was content to see city funds go to their pockets.
“No,” voted Brice, who had been openly critical of the memorial as a vanity project.
“Yes,” voted Sharon, as she was bound to. That left Caleb as her last shot at a majority.
He tapped his pen on the table, dreading his vote. He knew what it had to be, though.
“No,” Caleb said. Sharon’s eyes flared wide.
“Caleb!” she exclaimed. “I thought that of everyone here, you would have...”
“I do, Sharon. But the budget just isn’t there. Maybe we can find some private funding.”
“Oh really?” Sharon scoffed. “Are you going to pay for it?”
Just then, Dr. Brady cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, but I haven’t voted yet.”
“You haven’t voted ever,” Caleb snapped.
“That may be so. But I would like to vote now. I vote in favor of the proposal.”
Sharon lit up. Dr. Brady had rescued her pet project with a vote all the more incredible because it was unprecedented. She might have hugged him, had they not been two seats apart.
“The aye’s have it,” Caleb dutifully proclaimed. “The measure passes.”
There was some small part of him that was glad to see it pass, for all it meant to Sharon. But he knew just as well it was bad for the town. Dr. Brady had picked a hell of a night to start participating. Caleb had a guess as to why.
“Dr. Brady, your proposal is next. Before we vote, I’d like to open the floor to some discussion. Namely, I want to make sure we all understand it properly. Some of the language is, to my ear, quite unusual.”
“I think it’s absolutely common sense,” Dr. Brady countered.
“Then perhaps you can enlighten me. Understand, we haven’t all had your education. Now, as I read the proposal, it seems the gist is this: you want to limit employment in the town government to human beings?”
“Yes.” Somehow, Brady said it as if it were the most obvious proposal in the world.
“Is this meant to address a specific issue of some sort?”
“Yes. The other week, I read that a town in Iowa had elected a duck to its city council. It was done in protest, I understand. But I nonetheless hoped to preempt any such shenanigans here in Purity.”
“I see. And are you aware of anyone planning to vote for a duck here in town? I’m fairly well-connected, and I haven’t heard murmurings of any waterfowl at all eyeing a run.”
“Not at the moment. But clearly, it’s not expressly prohibited.”
“And does the city currently employ any non-humans?”
“There is a K9 on the police force, though he does not receive a paycheck or benefits. Nonetheless, you’ll note there is a specific exemption for this in the proposal.”
“I got a question,” Caldwell jumped in. “Does it apply to ghosts?”
“Ghosts aren’t real, Mr. Caldwell.”
“Right.” Caleb rubbed his eyes. “This just doesn’t seem to have any purpose.”
“I’ll admit, it’s preventative. It anticipates a problem we haven’t yet experienced. But I would hardly call that pointless. Especially since the proposal has no cost to the city.”
“I don’t see the harm,” said Caldwell.
“Maybe there isn’t any,” Caleb allowed. “But there’s still one part that bothers me. Dr. Brady, you’ve included a definition of ‘human.’”
“Only as it pertains to the application of this proposal.”
“Even still. Can I read a bit of this? Because this strikes me as a problem.” Caleb held the doctor’s proposal aloft. “‘To be human is herein defined as to possess an unadulterated genetic inheritance from the existing Homo Sapiens population.’ It’s been a while since I took biology, but that doesn’t sound like any definition I’ve ever read.”
“You might be reading too much into it, Caleb. This is not a definition in any universal sense. It’s merely, for the purposes of this measure, a set of descriptive criteria.”
“Isn’t that basically the definition of a definition?”
From her corner, the otherwise silent Brice gave a little chuckle.
“How would you define ‘human,’ Caleb?” Dr. Brady asked.
“That’s just the thing. I wouldn’t. And what’s all this about ‘genetic inheritance?’ That sounds kind of...”
“I understand. The language of genetics has been abused by some unsavory types. But there is nothing here about ethnicity or gender or anything else. The only race of consequence is the human race.”
“So then what is this language about ‘unadulterated?’”
Brady paused for a moment. Caleb continued. “How exactly would a person, Dr. Brady, become ‘adulterated?’”
“There isn’t currently any way they would.”
“Well, if I may, that sounds overly expansive and unneeded. Strike that and you’ll have my vote.”
“No!” Dr. Brady shouted. It was more emotion than anyone had ever seen him express. “I have spent a great deal of effort on this definition, Mr. Matthews. Not merely the language, but the thought behind it. A career’s worth of thought. I am not looking for an editor now. Give me an up or down vote.”
“Come on, Caleb,” Caldwell interjected. “This ain’t the UN. He just wants to stop some prank vote from messing with our town.”
“Is that really all?”
Ray Caldwell checked his watch. “Either way, I’m ready to vote on it.” Everyone agreed, and Caleb took the vote.
Brice voted no. She looked sad, resigned—as though she knew something Caleb didn’t.
Ray voted yes, breezily and without hesitation.
Sharon looked torn, and her pleading eyes leapt back and forth between Caleb and Dr. Brady before she squeaked out her vote: yes.
Caleb stared Brady down. He couldn’t quite work out what the doctor was up to. But he was up to something. Caleb looked him in the eyes and cleared his throat. “I abstain.”
“And I, of course, vote yes,” Brady said.
Caleb sighed. “The aye’s have it. The measure passes: 3 Yes, 1 No, 1 Abstain.”
May 9, 2044
The park had been utterly transformed. The bulk of the crowd was protesters, who were a dime a dozen; sign-wielding crowds who could be counted on to migrate wherever they were needed. But a good chunk of real estate was occupied by reporters—national reporters!—and that was a rare sight indeed. They seemed like something out of time, like dinosaurs. But better than dinosaurs. Sarah’s parents had taken her to Jurassic Park when she was twelve, and it had been a disappointment: just a bunch of movie cross-promotion. The attractions were as much frog and iguana as they were dinosaur, a genetic collage that fell short of the real deal.
The reporters, on the other hand, were everything the movies had promised and then some. They filled the park with tents and massive lights and huge broadcast cameras on the shoulders of pot-bellied old camera operators.
Sarah, in contrast, was a 16-year-old with a phone and a low-end autodrone. She had to rely on computational fill and audio enhancement for her production value. The truth was, Sarah’s footage often looked better. But the authority of the networks didn’t come from looking better. It came from their size. They could afford to pay the premium for worse equipment that was supposedly more elegant. As though an image were somehow truer if the light that formed it were bent only by glass, but not silicon and math.
Sarah worked for the Purity Sentinel, a name rather uncreatively cribbed from the school mascot. Though most of the people in the park had never heard of her paper specifically, they understood it to carry a fair bit of prestige. School papers had filled the gap left by the long slow extinction of local rags. They were understood to be the source if you wanted accurate first-hand accounts, rather than hacktivist bloggers or the nationals mining social. Bigger schools even had adults on staff, ostensible editors who in truth were ringers who generated all the award-winning content.
But the Purity Sentinel had nothing like that. They had five dedicated students in a windowless basement lab, of whom Sarah was the most senior. She had spent the past four years covering the ins and outs of the Purity Town Council. Overnight, that particular expertise had become exceedingly valuable.
As she waded her way through the different factions who had staked their claim on Goldsmith Park, she couldn’t help but notice one specifically: the Purists. It made sense they would be here, the conflict being what it was. But they absolutely dwarfed the SJW’s and the radicals that had also migrated here. And whereas the activists were a loose coalition, spread out in smaller cliques throughout the park and rife with infighting, the Purists all seemed to get along. They clumped together under large communal tents eating group dinners. Theirs was the only encampment with Port-a-Potties (all properly licensed, of course.)
They seemed like an actual community, and they were undoubtedly the most dedicated to the issue. Everyone else would be gone in a week, flocking to the next outrage. The Purists seemed ready to weather the apocalypse in the park.
Past the Purists was the TWN tent. A producer was waiting to talk Sarah through a well organized and formal intake process: pre-interview, questions to be asked. Then, to makeup—actual, physical makeup! Sarah only hoped she wouldn’t look too terrible.
Finally, they sat her on a folding chair overlooking the old Iraq War Memorial, where protesters had been using the eternal flame to light blunts, and blasted her with light. She tried not to squint.
“Remember, look in the camera. There’ll be a slight delay, so let her fully finish her question before you respond.”
They counted down, and Ilya Bogdonovich’s face appeared before her.
For all of Sarah’s criticism of the mainstream networks, it was hard not to be a little star-struck. She swallowed it down.
“To provide some background on the local politics in Purity, we now have Sarah Ryland, Senior Correspondent for the Purity Sentinel. Sarah, welcome to The Long View.”
“Thanks for having me, Ilya.”
“Let’s start with some background. How exactly did this local ordinance come to be passed?”
“It’s a good question. I’ve heard some harsh words directed at the citizens of Purity, and it’s worth noting that until a couple weeks ago, practically no one outside or inside the town was even aware of this being on the books.”
“So how was it passed in the first place?”
“It seems to be entirely the brainchild of Dr. Richard Brady, who is a prominent local leader. He has a background in scientific research, and in fact was once on the shortlist for a Nobel Prize. But for the past two decades he has withdrawn from the scientific community and has instead become heavily involved in local politics.”
“The measure in question was actually the very first Brady passed, correct?”
“Yes. He was a first-term town council member then, and not particularly well known. The passage of the measure seems to have been quite clandestine. And it’s never been applicable, until now. It’s unlikely it would have even been enforced if Brady hadn’t pulled it out of the archives himself.”
“Sarah, how is Dr. Brady viewed around town?”
“He’s well liked. He’s made a lot of friends over the years, gathered a lot of political capital that he’s cashing in now. But I want to be clear: he doesn’t represent Purity. The idea that a person could be denied employment—denied their humanity!—for the simple crime of not being sick! It disgusts me, and it disgusts a lot of people here.”
“And yet, by all appearances, the effort to repeal the measure will fail.”
“The bigotry of the town council is its own. People didn’t vote for this. And even on the council, several members plan to resign if the repeal fails.”
“There have been many documented acts of discrimination against the first CRSPA babies, especially now that they are entering the workforce. But this is the first to happen at the government level. Do you expect it will be the last?”
“Well, the only thing that’s certain is that this won’t end today. It will be settled in the courts, and that takes time. But on a personal level, I have no interest in living somewhere where bigotry is embedded into our laws. I know many of my peers feel the same.”
“Finally, Sarah, what would you say to Dr. Brady?”
“Ms. Smithwick was modified in vitro to prevent cystic fibrosis. Not to give her an advantage, not to make her smarter or stronger, but to cure a disease. My great aunt had CF. She lived a short, difficult life. Is it worth it, Dr. Brady, to deprive someone of their health and happiness just so you can hang onto some sad, old, broken definition of what it is to be human? I beg you to think of the people you’re hurting and ask yourself: what benefit comes from your actions?”
“Thank you, Sarah.”
The screen, the lights, they all cut out, and she was back under the TWN tent in the park. It had all been so quick, she could barely remember what she had said. As if reading her mind, the producer ran over.
“That was perfect, Sarah. Wonderful.” A sound man ducked in and pulled the mic patch from her throat. It stung like a band-aid.
The producer continued. “We may want to speak with you again after the vote, if that’s alright.”
“Of course!”
“I suspect you’re going to hear from the other networks, too. You might want to clear your calendar the next couple days. You know, I came up through school papers, too. This could be a really good opportunity for you.”
“Thanks. I’ll definitely keep that in mind.”
She worked her way back out into the park, her mind abuzz with the possibilities. Might she be able to become a voice of authority on Purity? Might she be able to parlay her expertise not just for this fleeting news cycle, but for the years of litigation and debate to follow?
It was as good a path out of the town as any she could think of, and every young person of any ambition at all needed to map some way out. The town elders, such as they were, had been trying in vain to keep their children from fleeing to the cities for years now. But there was simply nothing here for someone as bright and promising as Sarah.
She looked over the freaks who had flocked to Purity, so eager to set up camp and claim a community for themselves, and she thought: This place is going down the toilet anyway. Let them have it.
December 10, 2049
Abigail surveyed the crowd. After fielding so many accusations of bigotry and -phobias from afar, it pained her to admit how intimidating the crowd was. But the truth was the truth, to quote Dr. Brady.
The truth was, she was a long way from Purity, and she was nervous.
The crowd was mostly undergrads, which put them at prime age to be among the first recipients of cosmetic genetic alteration (“Don’t say ‘cosmetic,’” Abigail silently reminded herself.) Socioeconomically, they also fit the bill. Their parents were wealthy and liberal and eager to undermine all sorts of normal categories, from race and gender to—in more extreme cases—ability.
The most readily apparent modifications were color. Several people were a drab lizard green, which had been the first to be made available, derived from reptile genes. But other, frankly more attractive colors had soon been developed. Festive yellows, sky blues and royal purples popped out here and there from the seats.
More subtle were the androgynized members of the audience who had had their features smoothed out into the fuzzy border between sexes. For some, it was merely a matter of their facial features, but some number of genuine hermaphrodites had been engineered by especially enthusiastic activist parents. If Abigail were to guess between them, she could only do so based on the slogans emblazoned on their shirts: confrontational quips like “Gender is over,” or “You’re Half the Person I Am.”
Abigail set it aside. Whatever she felt about these sorts of mods, they weren’t the point of her presentation today. Straying too far into that territory could only distract from her true focus.
Through the walls, she could hear the muffled chants and drums of protesters. They were standard whenever a Purist ventured out of their cloistered academic circles to address the wider world, and she was prepared for them. No doubt, they were nothing next to the demonstrations happening on the other side of the country, where the Supreme Court was hearing arguments regarding Purity, Montana’s right to exclude the genetically modified. Purity, of course, was expected to lose. But it nonetheless lent that much more tension to the proceedings here.
Unlike those clamoring outside, everyone before her had come to listen to her. However antagonistic they might be to her ideas, they were listening. She owed them the best argument she could make. She took a deep breath and calmed herself.
She had been invited by a sympathetic young biologist, himself a blue-skinned mod who had nonetheless come across Abigail’s writing and found it compelling. He stepped to the podium and took the mic.
“Hello everyone. Good evening. I want to thank you all for coming. I know tonight’s speaker has garnered a big response here on campus, much of it negative. And our goal tonight is not to provide a ringing endorsement to their presentation, but rather a fair hearing. I personally feel there is a lot of merit in what tonight’s speaker has to say, challenging though it may be to hear, and we owe it all due consideration.
“Abigail Cerrano is a PhD candidate in genomics at the University of Montana. She has a blog, ‘Questionable Design,’ where she writes about issues pertaining to human genetic engineering, its possibilities and its risks. Please welcome her to the stage.”
Her host attempted to start a round of applause that sputtered and stopped, and Abigail walked to the podium listening to each of her own creaky footsteps.
“Hello everyone, and thank you for having me. My presentation today is called “Hidden Homogeneity, and it’s–”
Abigail tried advancing to her first slide, only to find it wasn’t there.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Can we… I think we need to switch over to my slides.”
She hung there for a seeming eternity as some unseen A/V technician troubleshot the issue. Then, she saw her title slide appear with all the relief of a stranded castaway spotting a ship on the horizon.
“My presentation is called ‘Hidden Homogeneity: How Trends in Genetic Engineering Make Populations Vulnerable.’ You are all aware, the availability of affordable, accurate and reliable genetic alteration has exploded. It’s a technology that has been highly controversial–”
“Only to bigots!” came a voice from the back. Abigail pressed on.
“Many arguments around the technology, however, have been formulated on ethical or philosophical grounds. What I aim to present today is empirical evidence that widespread gene editing poses a threat to the health and safety not just of those who receive it directly, but long-term, to the entire human population.”
“I thought we *weren’t *human?!”
“Though this presentation has been simplified for a wide audience, our full data set and analysis are available online. I’d like to begin by talking about diversity. Many of you in this room possess physical features that have never before been expressed in any human population. But commercial gene editing did not initially address--” *Don’t say cosmetic, *she thought-- “visible attributes. The thing that made it widely publicly acceptable was the treatment of disease.
“And there is no doubt that those first major breakthroughs were exciting. Terrible, life-threatening conditions could be prevented: cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, and then an ever-expanding list of genetic disorders that could be corrected before they ever caused anyone harm.
“‘Disease’ is a funny term, however. What constitutes illness, versus normal human variation? Sometimes it’s clear, in cases where a genetic abnormality causes someone significant pain and suffering. But increasingly it is not.”
Abigail advanced the slide to an exhaustive list of genes and gene sequences.
“When you alter the genes of anyone in vitro, for any reason, the following sequences are now by default checked and ‘corrected’ by over 85% of clinics. One is associated with early cardiac arrest. Another with Alzheimer’s. Another still with a greater risk for schizophrenia. Though we are aware of these correlations, in the vast majority of cases we are unaware of the mechanisms by which they function. It is entirely possible—likely, even—that by altering these genes we are engaging in as-yet unknown trade-offs for the individual, and these trade-offs may not be apparent for over a generation. But my team has focused its work on another area of concern.”
Next slide.
“This slide visualizes a metric my team has devised to measure genetic diversity within populations. At a glance, there is very little change globally, by continent, or by nation. This should be unsurprising, given the relatively small number of genetically modified humans. But when we compare the GMH population to the population at large, we see a stark difference. It is much more severe than we anticipated before starting our analysis. To find as much genetic homogeneity as exists within the GMH population, you would have to look at traditional communities 5 or 6 thousand people living in isolation. This, despite the fact that the global GMH population is now estimated to exceed 10 million people.
“What’s more, this is unlikely to improve as the GMH population grows, so long as clinics and clients continue to optimize for health and wellness in a uniform way. As we move past overt genetic disorders into increasingly incremental health gains, we are not so much curing people as we are standardizing them.
“This poses serious long-term risks.”
She advanced to the next slide. This was simply a picture of a banana.
“This is a Cavendish banana. Or rather, I should say it was. They are all gone now. The second major variety of banana to go extinct, though for the same reason as the first. You see, all banana plants of a given variety are genetically identical. This makes them uniquely susceptible to disease, as a population. Ultimately, even our most advanced agricultural science couldn’t save them.
“To look at this room, it is easy to get swept up in the idea that we are in a brave new world of human development and diversity. But in fact, inside, we are becoming more the same in ways that are foundational, invisible and dangerous. It may be generations from now that we feel the full effect of this, when it is too late, unless we have the foresight to act now with caution and conservatism in the re-engineering of our own species. Thank you.”
Her host dutifully clapped as he took back the mic.
“Thank you, Abigail. We’ll now take questions. If you’re called, please wait a moment for the autodrone to reach you with a mic.”
The first question was from a young man just about wrapped in electronics.
“This strikes me as a distant and potentially irrelevant concern. By the time these changes propagate, we’ll likely be more machine than biological anyway.”
“Perhaps,” Abigail replied. “Regarding the speed of change, keep in mind that as genetic modification grows more accessible, things will happen quickly. It may only take a generation or two for a fundamental shift in our genetic makeup to manifest.
“As for the rest, I’m not a cyberneticist. We’ve been promised mind-machine interfaces and sentient AI for decades. But genetic mods are here now.”
“It’ll happen,” the technophile interjected on his way back to his seat. The next questioner was an orange woman with a shaved head. As she gripped the mic, Abigail noticed several of her fingers were fused together to form a sort of fin. Who, she wondered, would do that to their child on purpose?
“You’re a Purist, right?”
Abigail sighed. “Yes.”
“So you, for example, wouldn’t date just about anyone in this room?”
“I believe in forming long-term relationships with an eye toward having children. And for me, not being genetically engineered is important in a partner.”
“So in other words, you don’t think GMH’s are fit to be parents.”
“My personal choices are my own. I have no desire to regulate anyone else’s behavior.”
“And if your kid tested sick, you wouldn’t do anything to help them?”
“Not through GM, no. I’m really not here to talk about my personal views, though. I’m here to talk about my research.”
“I just wanted everyone to know they’re hearing research from a weird cultist.” There was scattered applause as she sat back down, and the mic flew to the next questioner. He was a man in a suit, a total anachronism in this crowd. Ah, Abigail thought: faculty.
“I fear, Ms. Cerrano, that your beliefs and your research may be inextricable. This hypothesis of yours, it’s not a new one, is it?”
“The hypothesis? No. It doesn’t need to be.”
“But this is more than just an old idea. It’s a central tenet of your little religion.”
“It is not my religion, sir. It’s a hypothesis, not a belief. And as it happens, the data support it.”
“Oh, but it is a belief. That’s why you structure your whole life around it: who you can love, how you can conceive, even whether you would save your own children. This ‘research’ is the logical endpoint of a whole life of motivated reasoning.”
“My personal life is separate from my research. If you would look at the analysis...”
“I don’t need to. I believe your biases undermine your analysis.”
“Who’s letting belief get in the way of science now?”
The faculty moved to answer, but when he opened his mouth, all Abigail heard was a high-pitched screech. Someone had pulled the fire alarm.
As they filtered out, Abigail took solace that they had at least made it to questions. Many of her colleagues had been shut down far earlier.
But she remained troubled by that last questioner. She was committed, as were her peers, to the long debate that lay before them. How, though, could she convince those who refused to even listen? And what did it mean that these people were doing the teaching?
November 15, 2052
Jorge sat outside the council chambers. Purity had once been centered a few miles away, in a dilapidated public building. But before he had been old enough to remember, the courts had made their ruling, and the community—swelled with excitable Purists who had emigrated from all across the country—had begun restructuring itself in such a way that it might be legally allowed to exist.
That had led to some big changes. Overnight, the adherents had gone from denying they were a religion to insisting upon it. It allowed them to use the First Amendment as a shield, and it ensured that if the government wanted to come after them, they would likewise need to attack a number of Christian, Jewish and Muslim sects that shared their prohibitions; a politically untenable move.
But the other change was this: go private. The township of Purity was but a shell now, even smaller than before the great influx. The Purists lived on an archipelago of privately owned estates, properties and homes throughout the county. They had even purchased some town lands for new construction, like Goldsmith Park. It was ever-expanding, but it had all started here at what had once been the High Peak Resort. Before the Council Chambers had been council chambers, they had hosted conferences and workshops and weddings; perhaps even a Bar Mitzvah or two.
Jorge could remember receiving a tour of the grounds as a child. His mother had proudly brought him, just before it was fully opened to the public, and had spoken with great pride of what it was destined to become. At the time, it had been the most awe-inspiring structure he’d ever witnessed. He had since traveled widely, studying in New York, Chicago, Oslo, Accra-- he could say with confidence that there were greater wonders than an old converted resort in Montana. Though even now, the view from outside was a bit of a marvel.
It was strange to think this might be the last time he ever saw it.
Now it seated the Council of Elders. It was a grandiose name meant to give weight to their claims of religiosity.
They called him in, finally, and brought him before the Council. Father Brady was the only member who might rightfully be called an “elder,” and even he was suspiciously spry for his age. What gave them seniority was not years of life, but years of education. Every one of them was a PhD.
Father Brady had taken a heavy hand when the Purists first arrived. They had been a group organized by little more than shared fear. Brady gave them organization, structure, telos—and though they did not know it, Brady’s vision shared an enormous amount in common with universities.
The man was nothing if not strategic. He knew education would be key to the Purists’ survival, and he built an entire society around it. Purity’s population of 380,000 generated an immensely disproportionate number of lawyers, biological scientists, financial specialists, real estate experts, actuaries and accountants. They were the foot soldiers in Purity’s endless skirmish with the wider world.
But even here, not everyone was suited to such jobs. There were also writers, philosophers, artists and musicians. People like Jorge.
Father Brady tapped a small gavel, commencing the proceedings.
“Jorge Ortiz, welcome to the Council. I’m sorry your first visit here is under such challenging circumstances. It is still our hope to reach a resolution to this issue within the community.”
“Yes sir.”
“We’d like to allow you an opening statement.”
Jorge awkwardly shuffled some papers—they’d insisted on paper—and read.
“Members of the Council, I stand before you today because I have been confronted with what I believe to be an unfair and impossible choice: a choice between my home and my principles. I believe this is also an unnecessary choice, and one that exposes inconsistencies and contradictions in Purity’s own rules, which the Council would be wise to address.
“Let me begin by saying Purity is my home. My family is here, and I am tied to the community in ways that few people can claim. And I cannot separate who I am today from the experiences I’ve had here, the lessons I’ve been taught, and the very identity I’ve absorbed my whole life. No matter what happens today, I will always in some sense be a Purist, whether this council acknowledges it or not, or indeed, whether I acknowledge it or not.
“My whole life I have been taught two key lessons, lessons which are in conflict with each other. The first is that Purity is a special place, a place apart from the world at large, where the tradition and legacy of humanity is uniquely preserved. The second is that we must not withdraw from the wider world. We must engage with it, constantly prove our worth and continue to learn lessons from those unlike us. This ’tension’ is a core part of our theology. But I say it’s a lie. It’s a deflection. Simply highlighting a problem doesn’t solve it. And that tension, which we like to pretend we can navigate, is in fact irreconcilable.
“Four years ago I left our community to study in the wider world. This is not something we all do, especially writers like me, whose vocations lack a certain pragmatic return on investment. We want our scientists out among the best in the world, where they can be a part of the bleeding edge of research. We want our lawyers embedded within the institutions that ultimately will decide our fate. There is less we artists can do, and so, for better or worse, we receive less encouragement and fewer resources. I do not think it is hubris to acknowledge I was sent out because I showed unique promise. It was felt that I might be able to represent our people in the wider culture, which is something we struggle to accomplish.
“But one cannot participate in the wider culture and also remain apart from it. When I first traveled away from home, I was shocked at the level of difference I encountered. They were people who seemed like aliens. It seemed to confirm everything I’d ever learned. We truly were different.
“That, I came to realize later, was thinking based on ignorance. The more I spoke to people, the more I worked with them, the more I absorbed the lessons the outside world had to offer, the more I was confronted with the reality that the people of the outside world were not lesser to us. They were not even that different, no matter how they looked. They were thoughtful, kind, good-humored people. What’s more, they were often better than us, in ways. Smarter. Healthier. They lived lives that were less painful, less full of conflict. But they hadn’t given up their humanity in any way I could tell.
“How many sick and disabled people had I watched suffer my whole life, never questioning it. Even my own brother, who died so young. I always thought it was necessary. What if it wasn’t?
“I fought off these doubts by telling myself that Purity still offered me things the wider world could not. Family. Community. Purpose. But I fell in love. Newhope is unlike anyone here, in every way you can imagine. Yes, she looks different. More different than most. Most of you wouldn’t deign to call her human.
“But she also lives in a different world. A world that isn’t about hanging on desperately to the past, but instead is dedicated to building a future. A future that will be better, happier, and more accepting. I know that change is frightening. But fear is never the right reason for anything. It is not the right reason to stay in the past. Not for the people of Purity. And not for me.
“I want to challenge you to move beyond fear, to let me, and the other children of Purity like me, be a part of the world without giving up our home. I know the people here--and you here on the Council--are also good. And it is never too late to let go of hate. Not for any of us.”
There was a silence in the hall as Jorge set down his papers. Father Brady took a sip of water.
“You’re done then?”
Jorge took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Ok. That was very eloquent, Jorge. It was very heartfelt. The problem is that it’s wrong. Words are tricky things. For all your talent with them, you’ve yet to see through to the deeper truth. Words are how we discuss the world, but they’re imprecise. Flexible. They can be bent, like notes, for all sorts of creative effect. The world doesn’t bend, though.”
“So you won’t let me live with her?”
“Of course not!”
“Why am I here, then? Why waste my time?”
“There are those on the Council who wanted to debate. They wanted to see if we could arrive at some sort of compromise. Maybe your girlfriend could come join us if she would submit to sterilization. Willingly remove herself from the gene pool.”
“You can’t be serious! That’s disgusting!”
“I agree. And we will not offer that arrangement. Not that you would take it. You’re ultimately here, Jorge, because of our relationship. Think of it as reverse nepotism. We do lose people, you know. We lose them with some frequency. It’s their right. But I wanted to speak to you, and I wanted to do so here, in my capacity as Chief Elder, on the record. This is for the community.”
“You want to publicly humiliate me?”
“I want to give you one last lesson before you go. Think of it as your final service to Purity. There’s something people are picking up on the outside. I have heard it now from several exiles. This notion that no matter what you do, even after you leave, you will still be a Purist. Where did you hear such a thing?”
Jorge stammered. “I don’t know.”
“You’re little multi-colored girlfriend, perhaps? Some vast succession of professors and intellectuals and socialites, who have tossed aside the genes of their parents, but who have happily inherited their bank accounts and downtown apartments and talking points? I fear our own people are starting to absorb the misrepresentations that have been heaped upon us for decades now. Let me be plain.
“The circumstances of your birth do not make you part of this community. Not your genes, not your mother—not your grandfather. It is true that genetic integrity is a necessary part of living here. But it is not sufficient. What makes a Purist is what they do; second for the community, and first for our mission: the preservation of humanity in a recognizable and diverse form.
“We do not tell others how to live. We do not even tell our own members how to live. But logic dictates you make a choice. What offends me, Jorge, is not that you would choose other than me. It is that you would deny the choice at all, that you would deny a logical reality. Just as always with you, it’s feelings over reason. You are arguing against a tautology. You cannot be a Purist while, through belief and action, not being a Purist!”
“I don’t want to give up on people here. I don’t want to give up on you. I know you are not all bad.”
“Bad? This has nothing to do with good or bad. If you somehow grew up laboring under the impression that we are better than the outside world, then I am sorry. I’ve truly failed you. I don’t aim to preserve us because we are better. I preserve us because we are us.
*"*You can be one of us, or you can not. A or not A. There’s no dancing around it. There is no rhetoric that can change the fact. I can respect you if you choose you would rather not be human. But for God’s sake, be a man!”
Jorge leapt from his chair and jabbed a finger so hard that, though he was twenty feet away, it seemed as though he might knock Father Brady over.
“Fine! This conversation is over. You’ve proved all my worst fears, and if I’ve failed in moving you, I’ve at least succeeded in proving to myself I’m making the right decision.”
He marched for the door, just about knocking it off its hinges. But before he stepped all the way through, he stopped. Without looking back, he spoke.
“Tell mom if she wants to see me, she can come and find me.”
And then he was gone. The room was not quite silent; the dull white noise of its ancient ventilation system hummed noticeably. Even still, no one dared breathe.
Father Brady was not an emotional man. He had raised his voice perhaps a half dozen times in thirty years, and never in public.
“Father Brady. Are you sure you want that on the record?”
“Yes. We do not lie. And I am not afraid of looking bad, not anymore.”
“It’s not so much that. There are others who feel like Jorge. We might alienate them. It might have been better to be more...”
“What? To exile him in a more conciliatory tone? I just said: we do not lie.”
Father Brady stood now himself, slow and unsteady; more so even than usual.
“You will all have to make decisions without me soon enough. You will guide this community. So understand: you might think us naturalists, but there is nothing more unnatural in this world than fighting change. Do not think you will be able to do it without sacrifice. If you think that, then we will fail.”
June 6, 2073
What a strange sweep of activity had worked its way across the day. Hours ago, Goldman Plaza had been its fullest ever. Grand processions of mourners stood by, angling for a view of the casket. Father Brady would not have liked all the pageantry, but he would have recognized the need for it. Or so Elder Simons had been told.
He was the youngest and least senior on the Council, having been officially inducted just two months ago. As such, he had never worked with Father Brady and he had never met him while he was still in good health. The last couple years had been difficult for the old patriarch. Father Brady's mind had gone slowly. It was the way he had most feared dying, and there were whispered rumors that he would have killed himself much earlier on, if not for the impact he feared it would have on the community.
The crowds had migrated inside now to the vast superstructure that made up nearly half of the old park lands. The other Council members were occupied with the service, Chief Elder Cerrano foremost among them, but Elder Simons was new and unproven enough that he could slip out for a time, unnoticed. Ironically, this left him to tend to the day's emergency.
In the corner of the plaza was an old, out-of-place memorial to a small forgotten war. It perplexed visitors and natives alike. Father Brady had possessed no nostalgia for the park when the new construction was designed. He had steamrolled over a half-dozen other little town relics. But not this one. His reasoning had been uncharacteristically cryptic: he said that he owed someone a favor.
It was there that representatives from the legal team awaited. Chris Berry stood proudly in a suit, tablet in hand, his lips held tight and stoic. The clouds overhead were thick enough to dim the daylight, and the flickering light of the memorial's flame danced over his face.
Chris was no mere lawyer. Purity had no military, but they fought an endless war in the courts, and they had committed their resources accordingly. Their legal organization rivaled any in the world, and Chris had been atop it for decades, consiglieri for a small nation.
They didn't bother with pleasantries.
"The vote is in," Chris said. "The United States is no longer a sovereign nation."
It was, of course, a foregone conclusion, but Simons's heart still sank to hear it. He had already been briefed on the consequences and likelihood of the vote. This new international conglomeration of democracies would have a new Constitution with new ideals. An entirely new jurisprudence would begin development. And though little was set in stone, the First Amendment was on the chopping block.
The vast likelihood was that the new government would have rules around free speech and religious practice modeled after Europe's; that was to say, they would be weaker, and they would be secondary to the state's conception of human rights and dignity.
It would be years still before things were finalized. All the technology in the world had not expedited the glacial pace of legal maneuvering. But as with a glacier, the slowness belied its inevitability.
It was a cruel poetry: the day of Father Brady's funeral was also the day Purity's fate was sealed.
"What then are our options?" Elder Simons asked.
"I'm not going to lie, Elder. This is uncharted territory. We're talking about a new constitutional convention, one that aims to set up a common government across three continents and 37 nations. Now, it's true that we don't have a lot of friends in the outside world. But it's just as true that we are not the only people who feel we're getting trampled over. There are potential allies out there."
"Not so many that we were able to prevent this vote."
"No. But we've been surviving in loopholes for some time. For all the vast difference between our values and theirs, the law has to make sense. It needs some sort of consistency. That works to our advantage."
"I wish I shared your optimism, Chris. But you're thinking of old law. There is nothing inherent to the law that demands it be just. And as you said: we are now in uncharted territory."
"We were born in uncharted territory, Elder."
Elder Simons nodded. "You all have your devices turned off?"
"Yes. This meeting is off the record."
"The council has been anticipating this. We haven't yet made any decisions. But I've been told to inform you that we're considering more drastic measures."
"I understand. I know the council values my advice, so I'll give it. But this is a political question, more than a legal one."
"Yes. We know. We ask you not in your official capacity, but as a friend to the council, and to Father Brady. You knew him better than many of us."
"Father Brady was definitively opposed to secession. He was worried that for us to withdraw from the world would lead to our inevitable decline. We would fall behind."
"Yes. It's a concern we all share."
"My work, as you know, takes place outside. And I can tell you: we're already falling behind. Our average life expectancy is 10 years under theirs. Our IQ, 20 points under. And we have so much more variability in our community. More sick, more infirm, and more people who simply have not been blessed with the talents we so desperately need. We have kept up thus far with discipline, organization, and faith. But we're reaching the limits of what that can do."
"Then it's hopeless."
"I don't think so. This is where I struggle to justify my thoughts. There are things borne of innumerable small observations and experiences, that I can't easily condense into an argument. This is just my intuition, and I don't know what that's worth. But I sense a shift in public opinion, just on the horizon.
"Things have moved so much faster than even Father Brady might have anticipated. The gulf between the older generations and the young is starting to grow vast. People are looking at the children being born today, and they're afraid. These are the very people who lambasted us for questioning change. They now see that they are not the future any more, and they want to pump the brakes. But they can't. In comparison, we seem quaint. Hardly a threat. Where once they feared us, now, increasingly, they pity us."
Elder Simons shook his head. "So we live at the pleasure of wider world? Like animals on a nature preserve?"
Chris nodded. "Something like that, yes."
"What do you think Father Brady would have said to that?"
"I know what he would say. I spoke to him about it. He told me to fuck off."
"Much as I imagined."
"But I asked him then, what is the alternative? What can we do to compete, if we wish to retain our humanity?"
"And what did he answer?"
"He didn't have an answer. And now he's dead."
Elder Simons didn't have an answer either. For a moment, there was a terrible silence, as no one knew what to say.
"Here is the decision that must be made now. Do we declare independence? There is talk of our compatriots in Africa, Canada and New Zealand doing the same. We could join forces."
"What forces? We have no army. We have no industry. Few of us occupy agricultural lands. We cannot be self-sufficient, and we are too distant and fractured to truly coordinate. And only the Canadians would be within the borders of the new coalition. The rest are in Chinese territory; they may well be exterminated by the end of the century."
"And us? If it's another hundred years before we’re wiped out, are we truly better off?"
Chris threw up his arms. "If you want my advice, it's this. If you want to start a conflict, if you want to try to beat the whole world, you won't. We can't win that. But give me and my team time. We'll find a way."
"I fear all we are doing is extending our decline. We need a sustainable solution. I see no victory in your path."
"Look, nothing's getting settled today. How old are you, Elder Simons?"
"I'm 44."
"Please forgive me, as I don't mean to talk down to you. I was 44 myself, once, and I think I was pretty bright. But there is merit to experience. Nothing is getting resolved today. Everything else has become impossibly fast, but not the law. This is the start of a new fight, and it's a fight that will take a decade at least, probably more. I'd bet two.
"And if there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's this: a hell of a lot can change in twenty years."
October 4, 2093
Every effort had been made to make the ambassadors’ trip as welcoming as possible. This was no small task. Purity had become increasingly stratified in the past two decades—a consequence of its cruel, uncompromising normal distribution. For every scholar or lawyer or scientist that could function and compete outside of its borders, there were three or four more who never left.
The Elders of Purity had made every effort to keep things as meritocratic as possible. Every stage of a child’s advancement was guided by objective, sophisticated testing. Education, housing, medicine: all were socialized, and with great care to avoid the emergence of a privileged class that might bend the apparatus of the state to its own short-sighted ends.
Despite those best efforts, the incessant pressures of the outside world had set certain standards that Purity simply could not ignore. If a student was halfway through high school and still struggled with Calculus, how were they to compete outside? If they couldn’t master Fastlick, how could they even communicate. Most outsiders still knew English or Spanish, and they might deign to speak it with their own increasingly obsolete grandparents, but they would never slow down so much for a workplace conversation. Even Fastlick was a compromise. The outsiders spoke Clicktrack amongst themselves, and they enjoyed a good 80% increase in verbal bandwidth for it. But it employed too many sounds an unmodified human mouth simply couldn’t produce.
And so there was as class divide that no amount of legislation and social support could alter: there were those who could work outside, and those who could not.
Cassie’s parents had belonged to the latter camp. She had grown up in a household filled with discontent. Her father, a chemist, worked a rote job at a pharmaceutical facility. Her mother worked at a day care. In either case, they had gone as far professionally as they were ever going to go, having reached their potential as measured by impenetrable algorithms and the priorities of a bunch of unelected old priests.
Her family had wanted for nothing in particular—not food or care or comfort, not even opportunity. All they lacked was the one thing the state could not evenly distribute: ability.
“This isn’t a problem outside,” her mom had often proclaimed. “Folks is born how they ought to be: equal.” Her mom didn’t know much about how things worked outside. Indeed, she had never met an outsider in person. She knew that they were all beautiful and brilliant, and they lived in gleaming megacities and arcologies. And she knew that the reason they lived this way was because no one had gone out of their way, before they were even born, to deprive them of such a life. Not like in Purity, where the whole of society had been structured to keep people—aside from a select few—from being the best people possible.
No matter what they had, it would never be enough next to what they *could *have had.
It had been clear from an early age that Cassie was fated for a different path. She had excelled at everything, it seemed: from school to social life to even athletics. And in Purity, if a child excelled too visibly, it meant only that they had room to be challenged further. Before long, her life was a blur of commitments. She saw her mentors and teachers more and more, and her own parents less and less. More often than not, they were just faces in the crowd that observed her competing or winning an award.
As the crowds got bigger, it became harder and harder to be certain they were even there.
Now she was on the other side of the line. She had been accepted to North American University 17, where she would study epidemiology. The Elders had been pushing for more people in medicine. The genetic differences between Purity and the outside were beginning to grow so great that some diseases were no longer cross-communicable between the populations. Human diseases received rapidly dwindling resources, and the Elders were terrified that they would soon disappear entirely. It was just one more area in which Purity was now on its own.
She would leave in the fall, but she had been assigned to shadow Brother Yan for the summer. He would guide her on what to expect. The outside was becoming stranger and more foreign, and rare was the citizen of Purity who now made the journey. It was a lonely and frightening mission. But it was, as always, vital to her education.
Brother Yan had seen a great many promising young scholars off. Though now in his mid-40’s, he looked much younger, and sounded much older. He spoke to her with more seriousness than she was used to.
“Cassie, understand that all care has been taken to insulate the ambassadors from judgment. Many of our people, they might react negatively at the sight of an outsider. This is understandable, but it mustn’t impact negotiations.”
“I understand. I will keep my thoughts to myself. I have seen photos and videos after all. I know what to expect.”
“The records we share of the outsiders are… out of date. They are always changing, you see.”
“I’ll be good,” Cassie promised. “I’m only here to observe.”
“I know you will. But it will be difficult.”
The helipad was quite remote, by the standards of Purity’s modest borders, which lent the facility an elite mystery in the public imagination. In truth, it was little more than a strategically placed patch of concrete, with a modest 2-room facility adjacent to it. It was in this facility—little more than a shack, really—where Cassie and Brother Yan now waited.
They heard the chopper before they saw it crest the nearby mountains. Outside, they had fantastic vehicles, but only within reason. So many promising technological avenues had reached dead ends: quantum computing, fusion, sentient AI, mind-machine interfaces. The ambassadors’ helicopter was optimized in a myriad of ways, incorporating all the technologies that had proved themselves successful: in particular, the incredible composite materials that had sent the outsiders’ cities towering into the sky.
But even now, planes couldn’t fly with magic. And though the helicopter shimmered and flexed in ways that seemed otherworldly, it still worked the same as any other, chopping through the air like a madman and making an awful racket. This one, being one of their long-haul models, even used fossil fuels.
It touched down confidently and the door slid open. Cassie at first thought that the figures stepping out of the helicopter were unremarkable. In silhouette, they were not so different than anyone she’d met before. A little taller, a little leaner, but fundamentally human. The illusion dissipated with each step they took forward.
The first noticeable thing was their similarity. They were, in dimension and gait, indiscernible-- so much so that for a moment Cassie wondered if the glass through which they observed them was creating some strange reflection.
As they fully emerged from the helicopter cabin into the light, they began to distinguish themselves. Their skin was unlike anything Cassie had ever seen. The one on the left sparkled with innumerable radiant colors, flashing in different angles like sequins. In contrast, the one on the right seemed to absorb light. The eye had to hunt for the dark striations that stretched across their skin and arms. They had one other difference, as well: wings.
They were not functional, Cassie knew. The outsiders had not yet been able to engineer the vast physiological differences necessary to facilitate real flight, from bone density to cardiovascular changes to, of course, feathers. It was not for lack of trying, however. Any of the requisite traits could be pilfered from the appropriate species, in isolation. But every new feature resulted in a cascade of biological consequences. Stringing them all together had proved a more complex puzzle than anyone had initially imagined.
They had not stopped trying. The outsiders had all but abandoned sexual reproduction, and while basic social cohesion required some essential shared traits, everything below the neck was essentially fair game.
As they approached closer still, Cassie saw the complementary truth: their faces were, save for color and jewelry, identical. Their skulls were smooth and overlarge, leading into gaunt, sexless features. Their cheekbones seemed to puff out slightly, a result of the accentuated sinus cavities that helped enable Clicktrack. The same with their slight jaws, which housed thin, dexterous tongues.
They looked, Cassie thought, like toy figures. They had different paint jobs and gimmicks, but they seemed cast from the same mold.
They entered, and Brother Yan greeted them. He was to be their escort, just as Cassie was to be Yan's shadow: ever-present and secondary.
"Welcome," Brother Yan greeted in Fastlick. "I hope you had a good flight."
"We experienced no incidents," responded the bright one. They spoke in English. It was meant as a sign of respect, but filtered through their mouth, which had been modified and optimized for an invented language, the English words sounded muffled and formless. It reminded Cassie of the students at the deaf school, who had managed to learn to speak through every sense but hearing.
Brother Yan picked up the cue, responding in his native tongue. "I am glad to hear it."
"I am Justice," offered the bright one. "And this is my colleague, Progress."
"I am your escort, Brother Yan. If you will follow me, we have a car waiting."
"Who is this?" asked Progress, casting an eye to Cassie.
"She is my mentee," Brother Yan explained. "Her role is to observe and to learn."
Progress did not seem satisfied with this answer, but they did not press the issue. Brother Yan led them to the car. An actual person was at the wheel, as a matter of security. In the unlikely event of an attack, he would be able to improvise an escape route.
The time and place of the ambassadors' arrival had not been publicized. But there were nonetheless those elements in Purity who were opposed to the meeting. Some adamantly so. The Elders were deeply concerned they might attempt to intervene.
As they drove toward the city proper, they blended into regular traffic. Justice and Progress examined the city as it passed them by. They were the first outsiders to come since before Cassie was born.
"It is very quaint," Justice remarked. "It is like watching a living history."
"History belongs in the past," sneered Progress.
"What is one little reminder? Without it, we have no perspective."
Progress left their rejoinder unanswered as the car wound its way through the city streets.
Arrangements had been made to allow the car direct access to the loading dock of Brady Hall, so that their guests might be granted admittance without the scornful gaze of the general public. Every effort had been made to tidy it up, but it still bore the permanent wear of every place that served function over form. Brother Yan led the outsiders through the labyrinthine service tunnels beneath the facility.
"Please forgive our appearance. In the interest of your privacy and comfort, we thought this the best route to take."
"Your people fear us," Progress accused.
"Some do," Brother Yan readily admitted, catching Progress off guard. "I believe you already know this. But our leadership is committed to these discussions. And we acknowledge your gesture of charity in having come."
"And we, yours in receiving us," Justice assured. "We cannot move forward without mutual respect."
Eventually, they emerged from the maze of scarred, concrete tunnels and into the more austere halls of the center proper, which had been selectively evacuated of all but the most essential personnel.
Cassie had never been inside Brady Hall. It was the most recent and most regal of all of Purity’s construction, the latest home for the Council of Elders, and Cassie gazed up at its ornate walls with some amazement. Progress and Justice may as well have been trudging through a warehouse for all the enthusiasm they showed.
"All this marble. You could have housed your whole population here with an arcology," Justice suggested.
"It was thought that Brady Hall should serve as a true monument, not just to the man, but to his ideals. It was to be a building that would withstand the test of time."
Even diplomatic Justice struggled with that. "How very... sentimental," they proffered.
Eventually, their path terminated in a conference room. The normal council chambers were imposing and austere, and communicated the Council's unquestioned authority. For the purposes of the negotiation, this more modest room had been chosen instead.
The implicit message in this arrangement was that the participants were on equal footing. A seeming concession, but perhaps in truth a gambit. The Council had little leverage at all in the impending talks.
In turn, everyone took their assigned seats. Justice and Progress placed themselves at one side of the table as Cassie and Brother Yan receded into the corner. Finally, the Council filtered into the room and sat opposite the ambassadors.
Chief Elder Cerrano was on in years now, outwardly frail, but by all accounts still as sharp and ruthless as ever. She had led Purity through its hardest times, facing challenges from outside and within, and she had only further cemented her authority. There were those who accused her of opportunism, but insofar as her own self-promotion aligned with Purity's, she had people's loyalty.
Now, at this table, she was essentially the embodiment of the community. The other council members were present and would vote, but there was no doubt whom they would follow.
"Thank you for coming," she said, "and for indulging us in the theatrics of a negotiation."
Cassie was taken aback, and from her corner she struggled to remain silent. It was true, she had not been in many negotiations herself. But this didn't seem the way to open.
Justice was unfazed. "It is perhaps best not to think of this as a negotiation, but as a discussion among friends."
"You may think of it however you wish. It will still be what it is."
"Very well," Justice said. "Let's start with this: what do you hope for?"
"The continued existence of my people."
"That I believe we can attain."
"With the appropriate conditions," Progress added.
"Doubtless," sneered the Chief Elder. "And what would these not-at-all onerous conditions be?"
"As a legal matter, Purity's existence has long posed a moral quandary," Justice began. "You are little more than a collection of people making your own choices. No one is force to be here, and ultimately, no one can be forced to leave. Others, however, are prohibited, and for such vital features as their very genes. This flies in the face of all our values. It is only sheer legal inertia that has protected your backwards ways.
"But now that the New Republic is in place, and the legal authority to end this barbarism finally enacted, the prevailing opinion has shifted. You are viewed not with ire or fear, but with pity. You are the last extant community of what we once were, flaws and deficiencies intact.
"The general sentiment is that you now have anthropological value."
"You want to make us into a zoo?"
"Zoos are cruel. Purity would be a preserve."
"How magnanimous."
"In truth, yes. Consider the alternatives. Your people already subsist on charity. You can no longer compete on the world stage. How are you to survive, if not with our support and patronage?"
"And upon what," asked the Chief Elder, "is your support contingent?"
"Several points. First, your community is of little value to the world if the world cannot see it. You must open up access, if not to permanent residents, then to visitors.
"Second, your people must retain their right to leave. At this stage, the divide between the wider world and your community is vast, and it will not be easy to integrate individuals from Purity into regular society. But there are those among you who would choose differently for their children, and they shall have that opportunity, as is their basic human right."
Chief Elder Cerrano looked almost bored. "Is that all?" she asked.
"No," said Progress, who leaned in now to commandeer the discussion. "There's another matter. The simplest thing, really, but the most important. A matter that extends past the politics of the situation, and into the matter of simple scientific accuracy."
There was something in Justice's face, generic and inexpressive though it was, that hinted at embarrassment. Progress continued.
"It has become clear that the differences between our people are far more vast than it has been heretofore polite to acknowledge. Beyond mere appearance, there are cognitive differences, psychological differences, physiological differences, *reproductive *differences. We are no longer, by any meaningful definition, the same species."
"Where is the discomfort in acknowledging that?" asked Cerrano.
"Because of the logical consequence. The people of Purity, in a strictly technical sense, can no longer be considered human."
There was a wave of gasps and shocked faces across the council, save for Chief Elder Cerrano, who remained silent and stony. She quieted her peers with a wave of her hand.
"Purely as a technical matter, of course," Progress continued. "As sentient beings, you are still entitled to all your natural rights. And inevitably, the facts are what they are. The distinction between Homo Sapiens and Homo Interim exists, whether it is acknowledged or not.
"But for the purposes of our agreement, a statement from the council endorsing the reclassification would be... expected."
"Which is to say, required."
Progress shrugged. "Nothing is required. These are the terms. You are welcome to reject them and be subject to the same laws as everyone else."
"And is there anything else?"
"There is much else," Justice assured. "Matters of trade and military force and financial obligation. We will send them to you for review. But I do not believe you will find anything unexpected, nor unacceptable. This is the key point."
The Chief Elder sat silent for a time, the strength of will that radiated from her all but vanished.
"You may take time to consider this," Justice offered. But the Chief Elder shook her head. Instead, she turned away, peering into a dark corner of the room.
She looked at Cassie.
"You," she asked, "You are Brother Yan's current charge?"
"Yes," she replied.
"What do you think? Do you want that we should bargain away our humanity?"
Cassie answered without thinking.
"Words are words. I want that we should continue to exist."
A slight smile formed on the Chief Elder's lips.
"As do I," she said with a nod. "As do I."
April 12, 2106
Ethan stepped cautiously over the sick in the Visitors’ Center. They had done what they could to cobble together a proper treatment facility. But they were so dependent on resources from Outside, and Outside was in even worse shambles than Purity.
Among their own people, they were suffering greatly. The hospital had been overloaded, and temporary treatment centers had sprung up throughout town: in Brady Hall, the schools, the theaters. None of them had the staff or facilities to properly treat the sick. They served instead primarily for triage and quarantine. It was not enough; without basic medical supplies for the overflow, mortality was reaching 10%.
The Visitors’ Center had been reserved for visitors, and here things were truly dire. Wall to wall was packed with cots, with Outsiders’ bodies stretched along them, gasping and wheezing as fluid and mucus filled their lungs, and they slowly drowned in their own bodies. A few of these poor souls had held on for as long as a week since exhibiting symptoms, but none had yet recovered.
Nearby, Butte arcology suffered from the inverse of Purity’s dilemma: all of the medicine and resources a person could ask for, and virtually no one left to actually use them. Sick of reaching out to the unresponsive city government, Ethan had made a verbal agreement with the closest thing left to an authority: a high school superintendent. The arrangement was thus: Purity would bring as many volunteers as possible to staff the hospitals and triage centers, and they would return with IV fluids and anti-virals and monitors to treat their own people.
It was not an uncontroversial plan. But who could say no? The Purity government were mere figureheads. The Outsider government was no longer functional. In such times, authority rested in the hands of those who would act. Ethan, like his Outsider counterpart calling from the high school, had become a leader by default.
He had assembled a sizable caravan of volunteers, now waiting outside the visitors center. It was a motley selection of vehicles that stretched out along the road. To be useful, the trucks needed 3 traits: gas engines, steering wheels, and decent carrying capacity. There weren’t many vehicles in Purity that fit the criteria, and the 30ish specimens that lay before him represented almost all of Purity’s stock.
Drivers had been an issue, too, at least at first. Ethan had been surprised, once he did a little digging, how many driver’s licenses were still floating around. Park rangers and maintenance workers and even the occasional enthusiast had gone through the extensive requirements to obtain one.
It all amounted to a respectable expeditionary force. There was one key experience, however, that they all lacked: not a one of them had ever before traveled beyond Purity’s borders.
Ethan went down the line, shaking hands, offering thanks, and confirming the plan, such as it was. Their superintendent friend within the arcology was to grant them access and lead them to the hospital there. They would stage their teams, gather supplies, and fan out—there was nowhere near enough capacity in the hospitals there, either—tending to the sick with basic care where they could. The drivers, in turn, would return to Purity with their trucks fully loaded.
There was no end to the limits they expected to face. Everything in the arcology was designed in accordance with the cognitive and perceptual faculties of Outsiders—and vice versa. Interfaces were in Clicktalk and Quickline. Audio speakers used auditory frequencies outside of normal human hearing. Displays used colors outside the visible spectrum. For all intents and purposes, they were boarding an alien structure.
For every thing that was different, though, another thing was the same, and the basic procedural steps of emergency medicine had not changed radically. Hydrate with fluids, administer painkillers and anti-virals and, mostly, wait. It was perhaps largely symbolic. If their efforts back home were any indication, they could save few lives. But they could at least offer comfort and empathy to those suffering in their final days, and in Ethan’s mind that was moral duty enough. It had been enough, as well, for his convoy of volunteers as they set out into the unknown.
The roads to Butte were silent and sterile; impeccably maintained ribbons of asphalt that saw great care but little use. The Outsiders, if they did not fly, were linked to one another via various simulated meeting places in virtual reality. And so it was that, while it was presumably Purity that was confined to its own borders, it was the Outsiders who had grown increasingly shut off from the world, cocooned in their cities. The boldest among them ventured to places like Purity, a small trickle next to the vast majority within the arcologies.
Those Outsiders who did come were always very tight-lipped. Partly, it was the language barrier. Few spoke English at all at this point, relying instead on translators. But it was also intentional, part of an active effort to preserve Purity as a quaint anachronism and enjoyable tourist attraction, unmarred by the wages of time. Purity’s dwindling educated class, of which Ethan was a prominent member, still had some broad understanding of the wider world. But for the average resident, the dealings of Outsiders were as relevant and accessible as those of the Greek pantheon.
The caravan worked its way slowly along the road, flanked on either side by mountains, as though they were being routed down a grand hall. The GPS indicated they were growing close now, but the arcology was nowhere in sight. And then, as they passed the mountains and the land opened up before them, it revealed itself. Ethan had heard descriptions, and he had even seen pictures of some of the smaller early arcologies. But nothing had prepared him for the scale of the structure growing ever more visible as the mountains peeled back like a curtain.
It was simply massive. Ethan knew the Outsiders had access to materials he could only dream of. But it was one thing to know it, and another entirely to witness it. Seeing it now undermined all of his mind’s internalized assumptions about physics. It was like showing a child a gyroscope suspended magically off a table’s edge.
It loomed nearly 1,000 meters high. It was nearly as wide at the top, tapering down into a sort of inverted pyramid, and coming to contact with the Earth via a single column. Several arms extended from each side, stretching out like thin filaments for what must have been another several hundred meters. That they held themselves aloft without further buttressing or reinforcement seemed a miracle. The impression was of an object in impossible balance, like a top that spun forever.
Beside Ethan, the driver whistled.
“You’re going inside that?”
Ethan nodded. “So long as there’s anyone left to open the door.”
They drove the last several miles in the shadow of the place. There had been, until about 3 weeks ago, 4 million people living there in an interior surface area roughly equivalent to Manhattan island. There was no way of knowing how many were still alive now.
Ethan’s mind turned unavoidably to the macabre logistics of the situation. They had come to tend to those still living. But before them lay history’s largest tomb, an incomprehensible locus of sickness and rot.
The vast majority of traffic into and out of the arcology was airborne, departing and arriving at heliports further up the structure and shuttling passengers directly to corresponding arcologies all across the globe. To arrive on land was a rarity. As they neared the base, and the body of the arcology loomed over them like a storm, Ethan was struck by the relative modesty of their own point of entrance. It was not so much more grand than the loading bay at Brady Hall. It existed seemingly as a formality, in no way sufficient to serve the needs of an entire city.
How many bodies would need to be removed? How would they quarantine the living? How would Ethan protect his own people, for whom the disease was still immensely dangerous?
"How are we going to get everything through that?" he asked aloud.
The driver scoffed. "It'll be slow going, but we'll get it."
The caravan rolled to a stop, lining up at the entrance. Ethan would have expected a vast amount of infrastructure--pipes and conduit and power cable--here at the arcology's singly point of contact with the earth. But it was sleek and featureless, like a household appliance: an amber cylinder about fifty meters wide that extended up another thirty meters before flaring outward. The entrance was large enough for three of the trucks, and opened directly into a massive elevator platform, but they didn't drive in. A small team would venture in first to appraise the situation.
Ethan hopped out of the truck and met with the others. A small staging camp was already sprouting up: tents and water stations and portable bathrooms, and a changing facility where he and the other scouts could prep their hazmat suits.
Shondra was the non-doctor in this preliminary force. She had a different specialty. It would have certainly been a violation of Purity's agreement with Outside for them to maintain any sort of military organization, or even something tangential to a military organization: such as an intelligence agency. And so if Shondra's team had spent years gathering what information they could--from transmissions, from the documents and words of particularly careless Visitors--then it was for purely anthropological reasons.
It was thanks to such speculative research that they had a general idea of the arcology's internal organization. Shondra was also one of the few people in Purity who could somewhat decode Quickline, their written system. It relied on a level of visual cognition no normal human possessed. Entirely different sentences might be differentiated by no more than a single mark, placed at an angle one degree different. She was far from proficient, but she had scrounged up enough of the language to read the basic signposts they would need: "Danger." "Open." "This Way." "Up."
She led the team onto the elevator platform and carefully navigated the menus on a control panel, holding up a camera to the screen to reveal to her parts of the display which transmitted infrared. She paused for a moment.
"It looks like our friend at the school kept his promise. We have access to all the major sections of the arcology here. Should we start at the hospital?"
"Yes," Ethan replied.
Shondra tapped the screen and the platform began to ascend. It was eerily smooth. Ethan looked around for some hint at the mechanism that lifted them upward, but he could see no sign of it, no cables or gears or hydraulics. He knew there must be some conventional technology powering the massive lift. The Outsiders were advanced, not magic. But whatever it was, it was integrated so invisibly and elegantly that it felt like they were simply floating up, even as the massive platform began to accelerate to an intimidating speed. He couldn't see it, and he couldn't hear it, but it he could feel it in the increased pressure of his feet on the floor. The acceleration must have lasted at least 10 seconds; more than enough time to get up to a speed like 200 km/h. Maybe more.
A few moments later and he felt lighter, a sign that the platform was beginning to stop. Ten more seconds of deceleration, and they came to a final rest. A massive door opened where they had entered.
"We're in the equivalent of a freight elevator," Shondra explained. "It runs centrally through the center of the arcology, and it's not regularly used for anything but major supplies. We're on the right level now, but we're still about a half-klick away from the nearest hospital."
"Okay. Where do we go from here?"
"I don't know, precisely." She pointed to the open door. "Let's start there."
They entered into a wide, unpopulated hallway. Ethan could instantly recognize it as a service room; it was lined with pipes, power lines, ducts, and all the inevitable infrastructural workings of a behemoth like this. But it nonetheless felt otherworldly. He had never before been in a basement or boiler room devoid of rust, corrosion, and greasy stains of uncertain origin. Here, everything was spotless and tidy. There were no light fixtures. Instead, the ceiling seemed to glow, as though they were not in the bowels of an inconceivable superstructure, but just passing under a tent outside. The air was crisp and cool, a perfect 20 degrees, and he could swear he felt a slight breeze at this back.
There was occasional signage, hanging inconspicuously off the ceiling wherever the hallway met a junction or a turn. Shondra dutifully tried to parse them, pausing for a moment before extending a pointed finger down one fork or the other. To Ethan, they were mere squiggles, often nearly identical. On his own, he might not have even perceived them as signs in the first place.
“Did anybody bring some breadcrumbs?” remarked one of the team. It was a joke, but it was also a good idea. Ethan kicked himself for not having brought along markers or wire. He simply hadn’t envisioned the scale of the place; it had never occurred to him that they might get lost.
Shondra seemed focused, but not worried, and Ethan gathered she had enough confidence in her Quickline literacy to stave off any anxiety. It reassured him.
Eventually, she spoke aloud. “We’re close. This one’s directing us to a hospital. I think.” she said.
“You think?”
“Public facilities are all written with this same branch, here,” she said, pointing to a short line that branched off from the longest. “Depending on the angle, the meaning changes, and the differences are incredibly precise. I can’t nail it without a protractor. It’s either a hospital, a courthouse, or a prison. Should be the hospital, though.”
“They have prisons?” Ethan asked with astonishment.
“Of course. Not very big ones, from what we can gather. Mostly bureaucratic criminals, since they’ve engineered out their violent impulses. But nobody’s perfect.”
Shondra took them down one final turn, and they emerged once more into a wide open pavilion. It was an idyllic and regal scene, grand walkways flanked by rows of trees. There was a ceiling above, but it was high and spacious, with regular skylights that let in shafts of brilliant daylight. Smaller buildings lined the sides, and Ethan could see a small shuttle sitting lifeless at a boarding station. The space was like the halfbreed child of an 18^th^ century European city and a 20^th^ century mid-western mall.
Ethan gazed up at the skylights, and thought about how long they’d been walking. “We’re still inside, aren’t we? That’s artificial.”
Shondra nodded. “What did you think, they just hung out in these things all day in the dark?”
For all its grandeur, the concourse was empty and lifeless.
At its end was a subdued entrance: the hospital. At every step, the Outsider arcology had flaunted its scale and sophistication, its superiority. But here, for the first time, there was a reversal. The hospital at Purity was one of its most advanced and largest structures, a gathering point for so much of the community’s brilliance, focused on the noble pursuits of research and healing. But that was a vestige of a world in which there were still things to fix, still illnesses to cure. Here, where no one was born ill, where accident and injury were the only conceivable causes of harm (and where those, too, had been minimized) the hospital had all the prestige of a hair salon. It was a utilitarian little establishment, no larger than a furniture store.
They stepped through a glass door into the reception area, and they saw their first Outsiders. They were huddled together on a plush chair in the corner, motionless. Crusted blood stained their faces around their noses and mouths, by now faded to a rusted brown. One was a child.
Ethan had never seen an Outsider child before. They didn’t come to Purity. Outsiders didn’t have families, as such. Children were grown in clinics at a perfect replacement rate. Given Outsiders’ long lifespans and immaculate living conditions, that meant they were rare, and when they were born they were raised by the state. It occurred to Ethan that the schools must be like the hospitals: tiny, vestigial institutions meant to serve needs that had nearly been vanquished.
These two people on the couch, then, were not family. The adult must have simply found the child, or been assigned to them, and tried to offer them comfort in their last hours. They were not family. But Ethan could not help but see them as one.
“Holy shit!” came an alarmed voice from further along, and Ethan hurried forward.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. Ethan rounded the corner to meet a shocked member of the team, backing away from an open door. He did not speak. He merely pointed an unsteady finger through the doorway, and Ethan looked inside.
It was a nightmare. Bodies were literally piled high in a heap, so thick that Ethan couldn’t see through to the back wall. Limbs and necks dangled like fallen marionettes. Each body was a different color and shape and size, but every one featured the same lifeless face, caked in rusty blood.
“Shit,” Ethan said. “We’re too late.” They had yet to explore the rest of the hospital, let alone the arcology, and they would duly do so. But he knew what they would find. There was no one here, no doctors tending to the sick, no agonized groans and pained screams as there were back in Purity. There was only the peaceful silence of a tragedy that had already occurred.
March 19, 2117
The Old Purity town council chambers were remarkably depressing. Though recently renovated, they had been restored to accurately reflect an especially shabby time in the town's history. And just a few miles over were the grand halls and bustling streets of Purity proper. Purity was a global capital now, rapidly growing and expanding to accommodate the administration of what could only be called an empire. Old Purity, in contrast, had taken over Purity's prior duties as a stagnant preserve of the past: a historical site masquerading as a full town.
It was an alright gig, if you liked to take things slow. The other four members of the council were essentially retirees, granted the meager responsibilities of their station--and the relatively generous pay--as a form of political patronage. Renault's case was different. He was, in essence, a political exile, banished to the margins for his criticism of the central Purity government. He did not believe a single, central government was safe. He believed Purity should be fostering the development of independent nation states as the influence of their colonists expanded ever-outward, salvaging the vast resources of the old arcologies.
He had shared his beliefs rather too loudly.
Now he was here, overseeing the business of a picture book town. Their jurisdiction was strange and patchwork: the Historic Downtown District, Goldsmith Plaza, High Peak Chambers. All places unified by little more than their irrelevance.
His friends told him he should be grateful. Renault lived comfortably. He had few responsibilities. Little did they know that was the worst punishment the Elders could have crafted for him. He craved the conflict and bustle of the capital, from which the world of tomorrow was being made. He had even applied to be part of one of the expeditionary forces that had been expanding humanity's reach. It was dangerous and demanding work. Many had died. But their sacrifice had, bit by bit, opened up the world anew. Settlements had been established well into South America, and there were preparations being made for the first trans-Pacific expedition, to Arcology 801. Kyoto.
Renault would only hear about it. He was, for better or worse, bound to the banalities of Old Purity. There was only one measure on the docket today, and as usual, it was only there because he had forced an issue. He called the session to order.
"We have only one item to discuss today, and that is the decommissioning of the Iraq War Memorial at the edge of Goldsmith Plaza. For years, the monument has been little more than a local curiosity. It is ugly and out of place. The war it commemorates, the Iraq War, was a small conflict in the late 20th century, and it is generally considered by historians to have been a military misadventure from the national government at the time. And with regard to the individual soldiers commemorated, as near as I've been able to discover, the people of Purity only actually lost one soldier to the conflict.
"All this alone might not merit its removal, but there is also the issue of its ongoing maintenance costs. Cleaning, gardening and floral arrangements, and most significantly, the propane used to fuel the eternal flame. The availability of fossil fuels being what it is--and given the importance of such resources to our reclamation efforts--it strikes me as essentially irresponsible to continue to support it. I propose that the monument be removed, and that that area of Goldsmith Plaza be redone to better match its surroundings."
The response to his little speech was apathy, much as he expected, and he readied himself to hold the vote. But just then, Claudia Briggs raised a shaky hand. She was the oldest member of the council by a mile, and most times she seemed to occupy her seat in a catatonic state. She spoke now with a passion that bordered on anger.
"Father Brady himself kept that monument up."
"I'm sorry?"
"Father Brady. They tried to take it down, years ago. And he said no. He wanted it up."
"I see. I wasn't aware of that. And I understand the great admiration many members of our community, particularly the older members, have for Father Brady. He was, no doubt, a very important figure. But he is no longer a member of the government, nor has he been for a very long time."
"Father Brady made this place! You have him to thank for the fact that you were even born. And if he wanted it to stay up, it should stay up."
"Did he ever say why it mattered to him?"
"No," Claudia admitted. "People always wondered. But he didn't have to say why. It mattered to him, and we owed him that."
"I'm very sorry, Claudia. I understand. But this thing is costing us a small fortune, and no one even knows what it's for. And we're not about to forget Father Brady. He's still got Brady Hall, after all."
"You don't understand."
"Perhaps I don't. But let's put it to a vote."
He went down the line, gathering each vote. It was a landslide: 4 to 1, with Claudia the only dissenter. He called the vote in the affirmative, and logged it in the meeting minutes. As he watched Claudia stewing in her seat, he felt a little bad. But he still knew he was in the right.
What are you going to do, he thought to himself. Things can't stay the same forever.