I rubbed my forehead with one hand, then found myself gazing distractedly at my hand. The action felt significantly different than in VR, although I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how. I shelved that thought for later, when I had some free time.
I looked at Gina, who was still waiting for an answer. “Umm, I’ll grant that you’ve gone through all your alternatives, but I don’t think I have, yet. Guys, I really do not want to become a revolutionary. People die in revolutions, even in the so-called peaceful ones.” I looked around at the others, meeting their eyes one by one. “I have the flying cities almost ready for the big reveal. I think that might shake things up enough without the need for shooting people and blowing things up.”
“Will you present that as a threat, or keep it for a surprise?”
“Honestly, Kal, it’s not really much of a threat,” I replied, “at least on paper. Rethink your ways or we’ll produce flying cities. Lacks a certain something, know what I mean?”
Kal chuckled ruefully. “Okay, yeah. It may be more of a threat after it’s implemented and we start to see some of the fallout. Until then, the Council is only going to see what they want to see.”
“Still, you have to try,” Denu added. “Present it to them, and if they don’t get the point, oh well.”
Gina went to the fridge and retrieved a beer. She waved it at Denu before apparently realizing that was a bad idea with an unopened carbonated beverage. “Marcus’ point, though, is that we’d like to avoid the full-scale revolution option, so oh well as an attitude is not helpful.” She turned to me. “And stop being such a wuss.”
Denu and I both grinned at her. Good ol’ quiet, un-opinionated Gina.
“Okay,” Kal looked around the room. “So Marcus will go talk to the Council and try to convince them that their totalitarian policy is not supportable. If they listen to reason, great. If not, we proceed on the cities thing anyway, without official approval.”
We each nodded, silently. As plans went, it lacked something. But it was better than a shooting war.
*
“Not acceptable!” Councilor Benben’s face in the video window could only be described as thunderous. I tried to avoid grinning. To say that my proposal was meeting resistance would be a massive understatement.
Councilor Murray cut in from another window, “We are finally getting close to aligning populations with labor requirements on the mats and cities. If people start moving around haphazardly, or even emigrating to some other living arrangement, it will mean chaos. There aren’t enough people to do all the required work. We need them to live where they’re needed.”
“Leaving aside,” I responded, “the question of whether it’s morally acceptable to tell people where they should live and what job they should do.”
“It’s the law, Marcus.”
I smiled at Councilor Brennan. “Which simply sidesteps the statement. Anything can be passed into law. That doesn’t make it right. Plus there’s the question of the agreement you signed with Riker before we shipped you out here. It sets out—”
“That document is not legally binding,” Brennan replied. “We’ve already voted on that.”
“So you can just vote any agreement you don’t like null and void on your own dime, then vote in whatever else you want. And everyone else is just supposed to go along because it’s the law?”
Murray looked down his nose at me. Really. Literally. “Saying it with a sneer isn’t a rebuttal, Mr. Johansson. I think we’re pretty clear on this. No flying cities. Possibly at some point in the future, but we will make that decision, not you.” He looked around, likely gauging the mood of the other councilors from his end. “And I think we’re done here. Good day.”
And he switched off. Within a second or two, the other councilors did the same.
I sat back in my office chair and shook my head. Done? Hardly. There was a scene in Demolition Man, where the police captain couldn’t conceive the possibility that someone might not follow orders. The Council’s reaction had that flavor.
I sent a quick text to the Revolutionary Council: Kal, Denu, and Gina.
I tried. They dug in their heels. Looks like we’ll be doing this the hard way.
*
I didn’t really want to bother Bill or Riker. Or Bob, for that matter. They each had their own problems to deal with. I supposed that the Others could eventually become my problem as well, but for now, I had the local issue to deal with.
I checked my android’s current location. I’d loaded it into a cargo drone after the meeting at Kal’s, and ordered the drone into orbit around Poseidon. I directed the drone to West Mat Four, with instructions to inform me when it arrived.
The population of the mats hadn’t really dropped much, yet. Only a few floating cities had been constructed, and the Council didn’t feel the need to make them residential. Essential personnel and industry, only. Yet another reason why the public was getting tired of the Council. When we first decanted the colonists, there had been an expectation that living on the mats would be necessary for only a decade or so, maximum. And would be gradually phased out in favor of manufactured floating cities during that interval. Now, twenty years later, more than ninety percent of the human population of Poseidon still made their homes on the mats.
I got a ping from the drone and smiled. After only a few days of having my own android, I found myself using any excuse to go walkabout.
It took only a moment to activate the android, and I found myself draped over the support rack. I opened the cargo doors and walked out into sunshine.
Weather on the mats wasn’t typically a problem. The colonists had made a point of settling mainly on the mats caught in the tropical zone. In the absence of any land whatsoever, Poseidon’s oceans had settled into bands similar to Jupiter. Each band had a small but distinct difference in temperature, ecology, and even salinity.
Rainstorms swept across the mats frequently, but they were mild, warm, and short. The occasional major storm could be seen developing days in advance, and a series of drones were in place to tow affected mats out of the way.
I walked the short distance to the edge of the landing pad and joined pedestrian traffic. New Georgia was a small town by any measurement, and it exuded that flavor. People knew each other, no one seemed to be in a hurry, and there was no feeling of crowding, at least out in public. It was a measure of the perversity of human nature that the biggest complaint people had about living here was that they weren’t given a choice.
I sighed to myself and set off in a random direction. I didn’t have a goal; I simply wanted to enjoy the day.
It took fewer than five minutes for my day to be ruined.
An internal buzz indicated an incoming call. Metadata showed it was from Kal. I connected, audio only. “What’s up, Kal?”
“The Council apparently wasn’t satisfied with just telling you no. They’ve taken steps…”
“Ooh, steps.” I snickered. “What’ve they done?”
“Shut down anything that might be a source of supplies for us. Reallocated any personnel that might be helping, and moved them. Including Gina and Denu. And changed all the printer schedules.”