To cut through all the red tape and give people the truth about our society and the WEAPONS to create real change.
—Mission Statement of Radio RTLM
Early the next morning Erica and I follow directions to Hanif’s office, tracing a maze of tunnels through increasingly serious-looking security checks. When we finally reach the right reception area, we’re told to wait. Erica doesn’t like to waste time. After fifteen minutes, she says, “Maybe we should come back later . . .” but the main door opens and in walks Hanif.
“Ah, ladies,” he says. “Good morning again. Sorry for the delay. Another driver takes over after I deliver you to work, but I have to complete the run to protect my cover. Please, follow me.”
Meeting Hanif in this setting throws me off balance, but he’s perfectly at home. His office is large and comfortable, the office of someone important. I don’t know whether to feel flattered or frightened by the fact that he was assigned to us.
Hanif motions for us to sit before he takes his chair. “Why did you wait so long after the Uprising to submit your ID code?” he asks.
I quickly explain what I learned about my mother when we found my micro-dot. “For a long time I wasn’t ready to know more,” I tell him, “but when we came here, I couldn’t resist trying to find out. Do you have any idea why my code was removed?”
He shakes his head. “I had a look at the records. It’s a mystery. But it doesn’t look like an accident.”
“But why would anyone do this deliberately?” I ask. Hanif looks at me for a long moment before replying, his dark eyes filled with compassion. “I’m not supposed to indulge in speculation,” he begins. My heart sinks, but then he adds, “I find it impossible not to wonder, though. If you had been taken for organs or murdered, it would make sense, but it doesn’t seem as if anyone was trying to hide a crime. I can only conclude this was an act of malice.”
“You think someone wanted to harm Blake?” Erica asks.
“I don’t think Blake was the target. It might have been aimed at one of her parents.”
“But my mother was probably dead by then,” I say. Hanif nods. “Yes, and you were both thousands of kilometres away, out of range of Queen’s Park. That leaves your father.”
“My father? You think he was still alive in 2355?”
Hanif holds up his hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t want to give you false hope. If someone in power was trying to harm him, there’s a good chance he didn’t survive.”
I look down to hide my disappointment.
“A lot of data was removed from your file when the ID code was disabled, but don’t give up. If you know your mother’s name, there’s a chance I can trace her through the system.”
“Her name was Emily Monax.” Even now, speaking my mother’s name causes a rush of powerful longing.
“Monax is an unusual name,” Hanif says. “I can work with that. If I can locate your mother in the files, I’ll learn a great deal. Once I have her ID code, I’ll be able to trace her marriage. Then we should discover your father’s name and ID code.”
I’m too stunned to speak, but Erica says, “We’ll know who he was?”
“His name, whether he’s still alive, everything Blake wishes to know about her father’s ‘fate should be in those files. I’ll be in touch when I’ve finished my search.” He’s completely polite, but there’s something so final in this last sentence that Erica and I rise as if on cue. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that it’s vital for me to maintain my cover,” Hanif adds, opening the door for us. “We mustn’t talk about these things outside these buildings. Just make an appointment through Dr. Siegel’s office if you want to talk again. Do you have any questions before you go?”
“I do,” I say. It’s silly, but I want to know anyway. “That night just after we got here, when I met you at High Park, was that really your wife and child?”
For the first time in his professional persona, Hanif grins.
“Yes. I had assumed you’d stay close to home for the first few days. When Security realized you were out, we had to scramble to cover you. I knew you might recognize me, but I didn’t want you to feel threatened, so I brought my family. Shauna was not amused to be drawn into my work.”
So at least that mystery is solved.
As we walk back to our office, I try to process everything we’ve learned. “If my father had enemies inside the government, he must have been special, Erica, don’t you think? Maybe he was a leader of the resistance, like you and William were in Terra Nova.”
“Try not to get your hopes up, Blake.” I hear the caution in Erica’s voice, but I’m already beyond that.
In our office, I find a message from Kayko, directing me to the archives for the morning. Terry Raven is waiting with a copy of the radio broadcasts for me. “You can work anywhere, of course, but I’d be happy to have you work here. That way, I can download your content notes before you leave.” He waves toward a cubicle. “Astral has already set up in there.”
Inside the media booth, he hands me earbuds and loads the disk while I patch my scribe into the system. Then he leaves me alone with the past.
“Good morning, human animals!” a voice yells into my ears. “You’re listening to RTLM, Toronto, Radio to Liberate Your Mind! Here’s last week’s number-one hit, ‘We Bin Robbed, We Bin Robbed,’ by the Silent Spring Tribe.” The music throbs. As I listen, it occurs to me I might have heard this broadcast, or one just like it, as a baby passing some radio receiver on the street in my mother’s arms. Or my father’s. I’m powerfully drawn to that vision of the past. I have to force my attention back to the music. The singer is chanting against a rhythmic backup. The song is about the toxins in the atmosphere. The final verse gets to the heart of the message:
Tell me who took away our ecology?
Well it must’a been all that technology.
The time is coming to show some might,
To blast away the techies and get back what’s right.
We bin robbed.
That’s just the start. As the morning passes, I realize RTLM existed to whip up hatred against science and technology. And they were very creative. Like “We Bin Robbed,” all the music decried the destruction of the environment, or urged people to revolt against technology, or both. I listen to an episode of “All the Earth’s Children,” a serial play about a girl with environmental diseases. She seems to have three or four, all fatal, and her parents rage helplessly against technology, while her friends try to trace the toxins back to their sources. It’s dramatic, wildly unrealistic, and very effective, I’m sure, in making people hate technology and science.
My father was a scientist. At least, I know he worked in a lab. What would it have been like to be the target of such intense hatred? By lunchtime, I feel sick. Astral looks grim when he comes out of his cubicle. I remember his mother was a scientist too.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, then I stop and shake my head. “Not really. It’s awful, isn’t it?”
“I always wondered how my mother knew she had to send me away. I guess it was like that everywhere. It must have been a nightmare. At least we’re finished for the day. I never thought I’d be happy to sit through a Council meeting.”
“Neither did I.” But I’m almost giddy with relief. I’d forgotten about the meeting.
At lunch, Kayko, Griffin, and Luisa ask about RTLM, but Astral and I don’t say much. The feelings those broadcasts have provoked are too intense to discuss. The others are so excited about their hologram, they don’t notice. This enthusiasm helps wash away the residue of hatred that seems to cling to me like a fine layer of filth.
We spend all afternoon watching the Justice Council debate the finer points of accepting victim statements, but I barely listen. Instead, I spin daydreams about my father, the brave resistance leader. But I can only create my dream father for a few moments at a time. RTLM keeps intruding. There’s something horribly contaminating about those radio broadcasts.
I don’t talk to Erica about RTLM after work. I’m too confused by the unaccountable shame of knowing that someone related to me incited such hatred. The hate was wrong, evil even, but it floods my system like a toxin. By nightfall, I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin. I wish I could go to High Park, to see how Sparrow is, to talk to Prospero, but I’ve promised to stay away. I’ve got to distract myself.
Then I remember William, during the holo-conference, reminding me to use the portable holo-lab. I still haven’t touched it. I’ve almost forgotten about science since we came here, about what I’m supposed to be. Now, I feel the need to reclaim that part of myself. I open the case, set up the rods that run the tiny holo-projectors, and patch my scribe into it. The lab can be used for original experiments, but I’m too involved with the Justice Council to think creatively, so I call up the menu of classic experiments and disappear into the world where I feel most at home.
I choose something basic, a twentieth-century experiment that creates organic compounds from inorganic materials. This might just be a cute trick, or it might help explain how life began on earth. Nobody knows. This experiment would be dangerous to run in my bedroom real life, because a flame is needed to keep water boiling inside glass tubes and a power source sends an electric charge through the artificial atmosphere, so it’s perfect for the holo-lab. I call up the glass tubes and configure them into a closed circuit with a chamber for boiling water, a spark chamber, and a cooling area. It takes time to work out the best configuration. Then I insert the virtual sterile water and select the amounts of hydrogen, methane, and ammonia to create the reducing atmosphere. I set up a virtual fuel cell to provide the spark that charges the gases, simulating lightning. I work with intense concentration, loving every moment. Finally, after a few hours, I light the virtual burner that will keep the water boiling. It’s a simple experiment, but the holo-lab won’t produce results unless I’ve done everything properly, just as in real life.
When I’m finished, I shut off my lights and lie back on the bed so I can admire the skymaker’s stars on the ceiling, but I leave the holo-lab open, so the blue flame lights my night as well. Science is not evil. Technology harmed the earth, but only because people weren’t good enough to use it better. The Consumers could have stopped the destruction of the planet. Instead, they went on consuming.
The next few days are going to be difficult, but I’ve got to get through. Some lost truth about the start of the technocaust might be hiding in those broadcasts. If it is, I’ve got to be strong enough to find it.