Rest (2)
"What should I do for fun today?" muttered a man whose mouth seemed stretched ear to ear as he wandered the streets. At a glance it might have looked unsettling, but in the square district of the Ark, countless people were now strolling about in search of their own amusements.
"Got the booze?"
"Of course. What about snacks?"
"Stashed them all at my place. Let's head in and drink already!"
"Damn, it's been ages since we had a proper drinking session."
Among the crowd were groups of soldiers in uniform. They were not deserters, but personnel on collective leave. Though their destination was unclear, they marched through the square with single-minded purpose, paying no attention to anything else.
With a daily stipend of 1,000 credits—more than enough for idle enjoyment—the population, now exceeding 80,000, spent their time purchasing luxuries they had once only dreamed of or filling their wardrobes with the latest fashions. Among those luxuries were items for children as well; over 20,000 of the Ark's residents were under the age of eighteen.
What could possibly drive children into a frenzy? Wireless remote-control toys and the newest game consoles—items whose prices were absurdly inflated for what they were, enough to make any parent hesitate. Thanks to the bonus, parents could finally buy their children everything they had wanted.
"Whoa! It's a PS101!"
"Kid, is it really that good?"
The father smiled warmly as he watched his son bounce around clutching the console.
Even in the mid-22nd century, after humanity had colonized Mars and the Moon, daily life had not changed in any fundamental way from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Only the materials had advanced. Technology did not compel people to layer on extra clothing when they were not cold.
The square of Ark No. 17 overflowed with energy and laughter. The sight was so reminiscent of the world before the fall that I found myself momentarily lost in thought.
How many people would die in this Ark, and how many children would be born? By the time those children grew up and had children of their own, would humanity be able to wrest control of the Earth back from the monsters? I could not say. If even the artificial intelligence could not predict it, how could I?
I simply carried out the duties given to me. I would feed them, house them, clothe them, educate them, arm them, and burn my own body for the revival of humanity. The resurgence of mankind and the reconstruction of civilization—I would not live to see it, but I hoped that someone born in this Ark would witness that day.
Ark System Check Complete.
Result: No anomalies. All systems normal.
"Understood..."
Ark No. 17's hardware was flawless, but its software was not. Because it had been written by humans, bugs and glitches were inevitable, and the AI, by its very nature, could not easily detect such minor errors. What if the error-detection module itself contained a flaw? Well, there was nothing to be done about it.
"Haa... How exactly are we supposed to train the next generation of Controllers?"
Before my eyes stretched an expanse of AI code so vast that "bottomless" was the only fitting description. A single typo or omission in any of those lines could trigger a catastrophic failure, which was why every Controller, myself included, was also a highly skilled programmer. An ordinary programmer would have their brain fried just looking at a codebase measured in quetabytes. Even I felt my eyes ache after only a few moments.
Creak...
I could not rest. I must not rest. If the one holding operational authority over the Ark went on strike, every facility—including the aquaponics facility—would shut down, and the people would starve. The emergency food stores would automatically seal themselves as well.
The excessive authority granted to the Controller existed because the leaders of the United Nations who built the Arks distrusted ordinary people to an almost pathological degree. To prevent mob rule, they had embraced an extreme form of elitism. The revolt at the Rostep Data Center had shown that humans, when their survival was threatened, tended toward profoundly irrational behavior. Having witnessed the fruits of thousands of years of civilization reduced to that, the UN leadership could never entrust the Arks—humanity's final strongholds—to ordinary citizens.
The authoritarian title "Controller," rather than the milder "Supervisor" or "Administrator," stemmed from the same logic. Mere oversight and management would never curb humanity's excesses; maintaining the minimum order required for civilization's reconstruction through iron-fisted rule was also part of a Controller's duty.
—The vast majority of humans may be persons, but they are not rational beings. Never forget that.—
That was what my instructor had told me during Controller training. The words had left such an impression that I still remembered them clearly.
Democracy had suffered repeated setbacks since the early 21st century, resulting in mob politics, populism, and the collapse of war, livelihood, and economy alike. The Third World War had followed, and only after the United Nations, on the brink of mutual annihilation, carved up the dying nations and redrew borders at will had humanity barely survived. In the 22nd century, the once-hollow United Nations had become the sole legitimate governing body of mankind.
The truth the pre-collapse elite had grasped was that humanity could govern itself but could never guide itself. It was a brutal lesson paid for with the Third World War. In the end, every problem in human society arose from the demand that people govern and take responsibility for themselves. That was why the UN leadership no longer spoke of equality. They spoke only of fairness. Their reasoning was that cold, mechanical, emotionless fair governance was the only way to prevent further meaningless wars. At the apex of that ideology stood the Controllers—myself included.
We were the ones who had achieved every accomplishment humanity as a species could attain, the only ones possessing the vision to save mankind and rebuild civilization.
Of course, someone who disliked the arrangement might say: "Those people would do anything to survive if you denied them water for three days and food for three months." But—
Creak...
"Somehow, I doubt it..."
In the 2150s, Earth's population had exceeded thirty billion. That was the result of building cities atop high mountain ranges and constructing others in the deepest ocean trenches. Among that enormous population, it had not been difficult to select those who placed conviction above survival instinct. Controllers were those capable of upholding duty at the level of fanaticism and blind faith—beyond mere resilience to torture, starvation, or heartbreak. Myself included.
In the extreme case, even if the entire planet were vitrified, radioactive seawater flooding outside the shelters and concrete melted into lakes, a Controller would don protective gear alone and step outside the Ark to search for survivors. Breaking the will of such Controllers was... impossible. Not merely difficult—impossible in the same way entropy cannot be reversed. It was a law.
"Ha... I really am exhausted."
The fact that such thoughts kept surfacing meant I was under considerable psychological pressure. After all, I was already in my forties, and working sixteen hours a day for eight months without a single day off was wearing down my mind even if my body held out.
"Ugh...!"
I stretched to loosen my stiff body and returned to work. Even setting administrative duties aside, the tasks and documents requiring my approval were endless. While the AI and administrative officials handled minor matters, verifying their results, pointing out deficiencies, and suggesting improvements remained my responsibility.
"Aaaagh... I'm going to die at this rate..."
Several times a day I wondered whether being a brain in a jar might actually be easier. But then they would simply pipe the work directly into my brain with no inefficient keyboard tapping, so I continued mechanically processing tasks with my mind half-empty. It was a rather petty thought, but I couldn't help it.
I just wanted the citizens' vacation to end so I could watch them work like dogs the way I did.