“Hungry? Care for breakfast?”
“You have a Maker?” Pax yawned while struggling to button the shirt.
“No—good old-fashioned canned goods.” Ellis pulled a Dinty Moore stew out and held it up to the sun. The label was scraped and torn from rubbing something inside his pack, but the image of a steaming bowl of hearty meat chunks and vegetables was still visible. “Two-thousand-year-old beef stew. Yum.”
Pax fixed the can with a skeptical stare. “Am I going to like this?”
“Depends on how hungry you are. How do you feel?”
Pax grimaced. “Like someone stuck a sword in my shoulder last night. Where did you get such a mammoth knife?”
“The Internet.”
Pax sat up, glanced at the bandage, then began getting dressed. “The Internet—I read about that. Information Age invention, like the steam engine or electricity—started a revolution, right? Lots of people mention the Internet during arguments about the Hive Project. Everyone saying it’s like that, and how well that worked out. But then people are always comparing extremes to make a point. The Hive Project is either as good as the Internet or as bad as the Great Tempest.”
He handed the can to Pax, who began studying it, as Ellis rummaged around for the can opener. He hoped he hadn’t left it back at the time machine or, worse yet, in his garage. “So, exactly what is this Hive Project I keep hearing about?”
Pax was smoothing out the torn section of the label and studying the can with a skeptical expression. “It’s an initiative the ISP is pushing for—the next step in evolution, they call it.” Pax paused and thought a moment. “The Internet globally linked everyone through machines and wires, right?”
“Some would say tubes.” Ellis grinned, but Pax only appeared confused. “Never mind—old joke.”
“Well, the ISP wants to do the same thing, only they want to put the machines in our brains.”
“Make you like cyborgs or something?”
“No, that’s just a metaphor—sorry. There’s nothing mechanical involved. They want to alter our biology to make it possible for humans to link telepathically.”
“Is that possible?”
“They think it is.” Pax rotated the can to look at the picture on the label. “The way the ISP presents it, the Hive Project would solve all of our problems.”
“Hollow World has problems?”
Pax smiled. “Yes—many.”
“No war, no discrimination, no disease, no pollution, no violence, no class warfare…”
“I didn’t say we had the same problems. Well—I suppose you could say we still suffer from one remaining issue that manifests itself in several problems.”
“Like?”
“Communication. Misunderstanding. Isolation. You see, with the Hive Project we’d all be joined as one mind and know each other’s thoughts and feelings—all part of a giant whole. Misunderstandings would be a thing of the past. Everyone would know what everyone else knows, so it would eliminate the need to relearn knowledge in schools. Like the Internet—like global communications—the Hive would make it possible for humanity to leap forward creatively as never before.”
Pax tapped the can and then shook it. The dubious look remained. “They also say the Hive would solve the identity-maintenance problem.” Pax touched the bandage. “We wouldn’t need chips to tell who we are—we’d just know—or maybe we’d all be one, so it wouldn’t matter. It would be impossible to lie or cheat. We could also abolish government altogether. All decisions would be made as a whole—no more suspicion or deception—no need for laws, really. It’s believed that compassion will overflow and the whole human race will unite in perfect harmony.”
“Sounds a little too perfect.” Ellis found the bag of peanut M&M’S and set it aside. “Why the debate if it’s all going to be so grand?”
“That’s the ISP’s formal prediction. Not everyone agrees, of course, and there’s the problem of eliminating individualism. You might have noticed how a lot of us try to stand out in a world of so much homogeneity—tattoos, brands, and piercings are ways people take great pains to be different. You probably find those things strange, huh?”
“Tattoos and piercings? No, we had those in my day too,” Ellis said, and smiled as he finally found the opener. “Fairly popular when I left, in fact.”
“Really?”
Ellis took the can back from Pax and, setting it in the grass, began to open it. “Oh, yeah. Some people spent thousands of dollars getting their whole bodies inked. You aren’t the first to seek to be different.”
“But all of you were Darwins, already unique. How can anyone be more unique?”
“Believe me—people tried.”
Pax looked baffled, then shrugged. “Anyway, there’s a huge fear over losing identity. We already look the same, sound the same, smell the same, and now they want us to think the same—to dissolve our identities into a molten soup of conformity. No one will ever be special again, no one will be able to have any privacy, the whole world will always be there, in our heads, listening to every stray thought, every impulse, every desire.”
Ellis shivered. “Sounds like hell.”
“What’s hell?”
“Pretty much what you’re describing—a bad place for bad people.”
“A lot of citizens of Hollow World would agree with you.” Pax watched him rotate the metal wheel around the can lid. “This is fascinating. It’s like a histogram or one of those historical reenactments they do at museums. Only those people are just acting, guessing. You’ve actually done this before.”
“Open a can? Oh yeah—and for the record, you’re easily impressed.”
He slowed down. “The trick is not to let the lid fall in. Near the end, the torque will tilt the lid up enough to get your finger underneath so you can bend it back. There, see?” He lifted the lid up. “But be careful of the jagged edges. They can be sharp.”
“Incredible. It’s like camping with a caveman.”
“Oh yeah, Neanderthals loved Dinty Moore.”
Pax scowled. “I’m young, not an idiot.”
“No, you’re not.” Ellis looked for the spoon. “How about you? What do you think about this Hive thing?”
Pax hesitated, then said, “I’m scared of it. I like my hat and coat. I like that people recognize me at a glance, see me as different. Opinions don’t matter, though, which is why I find all the protests more than a little silly. Doesn’t make sense to scream about something you have no control over.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If the ISP had the means to go ahead with the Hive, they would.”
“But I assume you could pass laws to stop them.”
Pax’s head shook. “Doesn’t work that way anymore. Like I mentioned before, no one tells anyone else what to do—or not do.”
“What about—” Ellis almost said murder. “What about theft? You don’t tolerate stealing, do you? You must have laws restricting that.”
Pax smiled at him. “What can you steal from me that you can’t make for yourself? Or that I can’t reproduce in an instant? I wear a new suit every day. We don’t have a problem with theft.”
“But you must have conflicts that need to be resolved.”