#knowledge run

[QUICK PREFACE: This is something I began as a creative writing project my Sophomore year of high school in Mrs. Davis' class. It's been a while since I've done anything with it. Hopefully a new social networking site will give me some sort of incentive to start writing again. Enjoy! Or not. You don't need me to tell you what to do]

Knowledge Run: Section One: Conception

Chapter 1:

They ran in a synthetic world with synthetic peace. Lance Malevo sat in a small coffee shop on the outskirts of Quadrant Two, Sector One just a few thousand kilometers away from Central District One as he waited for the mysterious contact. He took refuge in a corner of the shop as far away from the automated barista as he could. He hated the way it greeted the customers so happily…so artificially happy. He hated the generic peppy voice. He hated the people who treated it like a person. He hated a lot of things. Most of all, he hated people.

“I fucking hate leads. They’re almost always wrong. Always fucking me over one way or another. They never know what the fuck they’re getting themselves into…” Lance thought, “They always try to jerk me around…rip me off…then I have to find them, listen to them beg for their pathetic fucking lives, and then kill them…” Lance grinned menacingly to himself at the notion. Several times had he been contacted anonymously by some one who claimed to know something about the Ten-Dance Book. Everyone claimed to know something about it. No one ever really did.

“Is he here yet??” A piercingly scratchy voice cawed into his left ear from a speaker penetrating his ear canal. Lance instinctively raised his left hand and pressed it against the left pane of the black visor that he wore over his eyes. It emitted a synthetic click as he spoke to the voice.

“No, Vex. I’ve been here for a full five minutes and this contact hasn’t shown up. He should have damned well been here minutes ago with the rapid transit! He’s just dawdling! Who the fuck is this guy supposed to be anyway?” Lance demanded.

“YOU INSOLENT LITTLE PRICK! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!” Vex screamed in disgust as Lance rotated a synthetic wheel on the touch-sensitive panel of his visor counter-clockwise, turning the volume of the belligerent voice to a more tolerable level.

“You are to wait there until the damned place closes! I will not allow you to miss an opportunity to find that damned book!”

“Yeah, you said that the last fourteen times I met a contact,” Lance muttered sarcastically.

“What the Hell did you just say??” Vex spat.

“I…nothing…it was nothing,” Lance gave up. It was never worth it to argue with Vex. Lance couldn’t wait to be done with Vex. He couldn’t wait to be done with his work as a Destitute agent.

“Just fucking stay dead,” Lance wished. Moreover, he couldn’t wait to be off Pandora.

Pandora’s simulated tranquility was maintained by a system that was once viewed as flawless: at age eighteen, one was required to take an intelligence quotient test, which would determine their placement amongst society. One’s education was placed entirely into one’s hands. People were not required by law to do any schooling, though education was publicly offered via online courses. Knowledge was almost literally power, and those who chose to repudiate the opportunity for it lived life hard, fast, and high, then were brought crashing back to terra firma as they became of-age.

Those who yielded scores of 130 points and above were immediately placed into governmental positions, ranging from military officials and biochemical engineers in charge of making sure weapons were the strongest possible, to the Supreme Court, who policed the streets and placed those they deemed felons into the district penitentiary of which they were in charge.

Those who yielded scores of 120 to 129 points were placed into the medical and engineering fields in charge of making sure everyone lived as long as physically possible. The engineers were not only in charge of maintaining the functionality of the entire electronics system that ran the planet, and making sure that the artificial life support was operating at all times – including the replication of food – but also supplying the medical division with up-to-date biomechatronic prosthetics. The medical division made sure old organs and limbs that failed were replaced with prosthetic ones – or if a patient was rich – farm-raised organs or limbs genetically fitted to the user via stem-cell manipulation.

Those who yielded scores of 110 to 119 points were placed in the business district where all stock exchanges, advertisements, construction, and anything else pertaining to the superficialities of society took place. Anyone that yielded a score below 110 points was immediately drafted into the Planetary Armed Forces and Defense Division, whose likelihood of death increased as the intelligence decreased. The front line was held by those who were least likely to comprehend the danger they would face. The front line was held by the ignorant…by the drones, as dubbed by the vox populi. The whole system was an effort to make sure that the smartest of the smart kept the city running properly and orderly.

Lance pondered the system with malicious intent.

“The Ten-Dance Book. That’s my ticket out of this cluster-fuck of a society; that’s my ticket out of Destitute.”

Pandora’s only flaw in it’s ideal system was it basic fundamental principle: intellect is power, and power corrupts.

“Pandora. You’re mine.”

What does one get when one places ten geniuses into a single room facing a single problem? They all think they’re right; they all think they’re smarter than the others; they all desperately want to be the best.

“Pandora. I deserve you.”

What does one get when one places trillions of geniuses in charge of a planet?

“Pandora. I can change you.”

Chaos.

A man approached the metal table at which Lance was seated.

“Afternoon, Malevo,” he casually greeted the dark-clad adolescent.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lance demanded.

“Don’t be so hostile, boy,” the man exhaled as he took a seat opposite Lance, “I’m the old bastard you’ve been waiting around to see,” the man said ironically. He was young. He looked to be only around fifty years of age…not even halfway to death. Halfway to natural death, at least. He wore little to reflect his intellect level, so there was no way for Lance to at least gauge his credibility by appearance.

“He’s masking his identity…not bad…” Lance admired the man just a little. Maybe his secrecy revealed that he was indeed a person to be taken seriously. Or maybe he just had a poor sense of style. His black overcoat was open, showing that he wasn’t wearing a collared shirt beneath it, but rather a form-fitting white T-shirt. He wore jeans coupled by dress shoes and a leather belt, and he held a silver wrist watch in his left hand. His eyebrows seemed to be frozen in permanent inquiry, which gave him an expression of curiosity and wisdom. He had the beginnings of a short, scruffy beard and his jet black hair was just slightly overgrown.

“What the Hell took you so long?!” Lance demanded as he flicked his visor upward so he could gaze at his acquaintance without the distractions of a busy heads-up display.

“Sorry, kid. I don’t like to rush things like the rest of this city. I’m old-school like that,” he spoke with a mellow, collected voice.

“Whatever. Tell me what you know about Ten-Dance,” Lance demanded.

“How about a little history lesson, first?”

“No. You will tell me about The Ten-Dance Book right now, or so help me God I will –”

The man chuckled to himself interruptingly, “God? Haha. Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” He said.

“Quit wasting my time!” Lance pounded a fist into the metal table, gaining the attention of a small radius of people inside the coffee shop.

Again, the man chuckled.

“What’re you going to do? Leave? Kill me? Face it. As much as you’d like to rip my face off, I may know something you don’t, and I know you desperately want to find out.” The man was right. Not only was he right, but he was smart. He’d figured out that he had more bargaining chips that Lance could ignore.

“What do you want?” Lance said through gritted teeth.

“I want you to listen,” the man said solidly, “that’s the problem with your whole organization…too damn rushed to gain a little of what you seek. You want it all at once. That’s the first thing you need to know.”

Vex listened patiently. He knew that they may have finally come across a credible contact.

“You think no one knows…” the man placed his watch into his pocket, “…about your secret club of ninnies?”

“Destitute is one of the biggest organizations on the this planet! We have agents in all four quadrants! In all six sectors of all four quadrants! In every central district all six sectors of all four quadrants! Who the fuck says we’re trying to be secret?!” Lance retorted, almost standing to leave.

“Yeah, yeah. Whoopie. So you’re a bunch of thugs tearing up the joint in search of the greatest source of information ever. Big deal. But you think your secret is safe and locked away?” The man bore into Lance’s soul through his eyes.

“Oh shit,” both Lance and Vex thought at the same time.

“Yeah. That secret. So you’re looking for some book of brilliance. Cool. Do you know for how long and how many different sects had been searching for the fountain of youth on Earth? No one took them seriously because most of them were pacifists, or really old, or prayed to aliens. You know why they take you all seriously? You’re thugs. You’re young. You’re organized. You make them believe that something is out there worth obtaining. But they don’t know why you need it, do they? They all just think you’re anarchic kids trying to best the system,” he reclined himself to better stare outside the window, “You see. What they all think is that you’re just a bunch of kids –”

“Agents,” Lance corrected him. He couldn’t stand being called a kid when he knew he’d been through much more than most post-Testers had.

“Right. Kid-agents that aren’t bound by the Test yet. But if you’ve been around for so long, why aren’t there any – well, for argument’s sake, let’s call them ‘veterans’ – around from your club? There isn’t anyone out there who knows anything about your organization…nothing about its inner workings or anything. The answer is simple: you wipe their memories before their Test so that when they’re required to actually do things, they can’t just sell you out in case they become government officials. But sell you out to what credibility? You want knowledge. That’s what this whole damn planet craves anyhow. Who’s to say you’re after a bad thing? No one. It’s always IQ this, IQ that…yeah, what of it? I’ve got to admit, you all have the perfect alibi, even if you give off a bad vibe,” he straightened his posture, “Well, I’ve figured it out. The Book is bigger than everyone thinks. You don’t want it to become bigger and better than the government, no…that’s too simple. Too easy. You’re after the power of God, Right, Vex?”

“What?! How does he know about Vex??” Lance was dumbfounded. No one knew Vex existed.

“Yeah, I know,” the man said. Was he a telepath? Did somebody leak? No. Their visor would wipe them if they even tried.

Vex was furious. Whenever he contacted someone that showed promise, he always used a Destitute agent to contact a third party to contact the third party that would set up a meeting for another Destitute agent. It was a complex chain that was a surefire way to mask his existence to the fullest. If he felt he needed to, he would extend each step by a person or two. How could a simpleton like this possibly have learned about him?

“Who are you, you bastard?!” Vex screamed, forgetting a second that only Lance could hear him.

“Who are you?” Lance asked, his voice faltering slightly.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” the man attempted to coax him into a sense of trust. He could tell it wasn’t working, “besides, did you really think you could keep your paranormal link to a ghost secret for long? You know you’re not the only ones to have achieved it, granted that there aren’t many.”

“You didn’t answer,” Lance corrected him.

“Of course not. But that’s because you haven’t even listened to a thing I have to say,”

“What do you want,” it was more of a demand than an inquiry.

“I don’t want anything tangible. No, I’ve graduated beyond those of superficial needs. All I want is for you to listen,” It was obvious that the man knew something worth hearing. Maybe Lance wouldn’t kill him. And then again...

“You know too much. Maybe you also know that you’re about to die.”

***

Chapter 2:

Benne ran down the iron street at a cool pace. His visor locked on to library after library after library. He made it a point to delete the location marker “library” from his visor’s memory.

“I’m not looking for a children’s book today,” he grinned to himself. Although he wished he were again, he’d committed to this mission too long ago to quit now and head back to the day care. He lifted his right hand to the touch-sensitive panel of his visor and slid it forward. His HUD pulled up a digital-analog clock, noting the time.

“Hmmm…it’s only midday. I don’t see anything wrong with a little break.”

Benne slowed to a walk and strolled past a café in which the virtual barista casually greeted its next customer. He turned into a nearby bookstore and stepped into an available selection booth. It whirred to life.

“Hello, what is your preferred medium of literature?” The booth’s virtual display was a young woman configured to look like a human librarian. Her long, black hair was twisted into a bun with a single pencil keeping it in place, and her thin-rimmed eyeglasses coupled with her gray women’s suit gave the impression of intelligence.

“Artificial intelligence,” Benne curiously thought, “how quaint.” The booth may have looked simple, but even just the opening was complex. Digital sensors scanned his body structure and a scale in the floor of the booth measured his weight. This is how it determined he was human, and as a result, it prompted him in English, the only accepted universal language of the human race.

“Informal magazine, please,” He requested of the Virtual Intelligence.

“Accessing…magazine name, please?”

“Organic History,”

“Accessing…one moment, please…” After a few seconds, the VI played an arpeggio to confirm that the selection was in its database.

“Please connect eBook,” it said. Benne unclasped a pocket in the front of his shirt and pulled out a device the size of a playing card and the thickness of lighter. He connected the universal serial bus port to the booth’s output and sang a tone to confirm its connection. It projected a hologram in front of Benne from a tiny projector on the top of the drive. Benne waved his hand over the hologram as he panned through the cover-flow of recent issues. He came to one that caught his eye and he jabbed at it with his index and middle fingers. As he did, it beeped and overtook the width of the projected screen.

Benne casually flipped through the holographic magazine, marveling at the architectural past. What would have taken several meters thick of this wood substance is now easily replaced with a few centimeters thick of aerogel: a material lighter than air, but stronger than steel. Primitive architecture fascinated him. In fact, primitive technology fascinated him. The application of aerogel had become so widely versatile since its development, that it apparently made using this wood obsolete. Its benefits ecologically and economically made it so that it became one of the most widely-used materials on Pandora, seconded only by titanium. Aerogel was used to make windows, insulate buildings, and even to reinforce building structures. If there were anything to define that of the 2,814th century's accomplishments, the innovation and application of meta-gel was a keen focal point.

“Benne, is it truly the time to be sifting through ancient texts?” A voice spoke through Benne's visor.

“Aww, c'mon, Lord. Gimme a break here!” Benne whined to the voice.

“If you must,” Lord sighed.

“Well, I mean...” Benne couldn't help but to feel guilty, “I suppose it can wait.”

Benne slid a single digit from left to right horizontally across the back of the body of the eBook's drive. A small animated icon appeared in the righthand corner of the magazine's display.

“Downloading...” the VI rang in completion, “download complete. Forty credits charged to your account.”

“Geez...” Benne groaned. He was glad that the Alliance paid for everything in exchange for his services. Benne undocked the eBook and replaced it in his pocket, clasping the fastener as he stepped out of the booth.

“Thank you, please come again,” the VI dismissed him cheerfully. All of its interfaces went dark, signaling waiting customers that it was vacant.

Benne readjusted his focus to his HUD. He murmured acknowledgements and disapprovals. As he came to a decision, he took a few steps to gain momentum, and then sped off towards Q3S2. Having been near CD2, he knew he had quite a trip ahead of him. Of all the anthologies he'd read about Ten-Dance, he'd only been able to dismiss 147 of them as invalid. This would have been his 964th trial relying on the sources he'd come across.

Benne sucked synthetic air deep into his lungs.

“I wonder how real air feels,” he pondered. He'd read about Earth from collecting ancient USB drives from people who had Earth-born ancestors. He'd seen pictures of Earth: waterfalls, prairies, oceans...but he couldn't fathom real nature. As he ran, he glanced over several kids' parks surrounded in polypropylene grass.