The Need

‘The Revolution has failed, its flags hang high on all of Earth’s atmosphere-scrapers, on the moon’s launching stations and beyond, in the humanized Solar System, yet their meaning is lost. The Revolution has been betrayed. Young arsonists turned old fire extinguishers govern the institutions that they were supposed to suppress. They’ve changed them, saying them necessary to further the Revolution, but that word, ‘revolution’, sounds empty in their mouths. They shed their plastic cargos and close range armor for fine silks from Venus. They became who they swore to destroy. They’re betrayers to the cause, and the blade of justice hangs over their heads, ours is the hand that will bring it down.’

“Pretty good, isn’t it?” There isn’t a single device in the entirety of the colonized Cosmos that hasn’t played the message at least once. The former mega corpos’ channels, now state owned transmission stations, have it on loop, their IT specialists can’t stop the signal. The Central Council has unleashed its dogs all over the Solar System with a single order: find who’s responsible; in the cafeteria of a beaten trash burner she seems immensely pleased with herself.

“Very good,” I say, sitting in front of RosyRoxel, a small woman seemingly born with a net interface already implanted behind her eyes, I think she’s the only person alive capable of such a feat.“How far are we?”

Her eyes go blank while she interfaces the navigation system. “Just four hours away. The alarm for the crew should go off in a few minutes.” She talks as if she’s driving us to a nice vacation spot on good old Earth. She has no pre-mission jitters, no last minute stomach aches, no crippling anxiety, she’s been doing all of this for the better part of her life. Our cause attracts many, there are almost as many reason to join than the people who do. Some had their family’s ancestral home seized by the state; some were the parents of a kidnapped child, arrested in the night by plainclothes agents; or the unfortunate victims of a government inquisitor, special judges who investigate and try all those accused of ‘anti revolutionary rhetoric’. RosyRoxel found them and took them under her wing, harvesting whatever talent they could serve the cause with. She is older than all of us, some say that she was already operative 50 or so years ago, when the traitors were still armed with rifles and bombs, not microphones. We are not reactionaries, we don’t want the return of old injustices, we are the Revolution’s paladins, here to purge it from a traitorous political class.

“Are you ready, Nino?” She speaks now, in the empty cafeteria, more like a mother than a military commander. That’s what she’s been for many of us, a mother first, a teacher second, a strategist and commander last.

“I guess I am,” I take the hand she’s offering from the other side of the table, it’s warm. “As ready as one can be.” She found me in a pseudo-winery on a Satellite Fortress near Mars, where my parents and I, escaping Earth, had landed to find passage for the free Settlements on Pluto and further. The emigration officer spat on my father’s face, when he offered a few thousands UCC (Unified Credit Currency) with our documents. The small emigration office was swarmed by armed guards. His hands behind his back, my father tried to say something to me, the butt of a rifle silenced him. My mother was so scared, she looked like a cat in a cage full of rabid dogs, she didn’t glance at me once, her eyes lost in the nightmarish masks the guards wore.

Later an old woman came for me, she said she worked for some state department, she promised me a new home and a loving family, I wanted neither, and during our travel to wherever she was bringing me I slipped away, disappearing in the ever crowded narrow streets of the Fortress. I found myself a little corner to sleep, and slowly learned to steal and cheat, until one day I tried to pickpocket a small woman drinking cheap 85% plastic wine. She tore me from a state of mere survival, and showed me a reason to live.

Now she tightens the grip on my hand, pulling me away from those distant memories. “You’re too worried. You’re ready. All will be well, you’ll see.” The blare of the alarm wakes the rest of the crew, she smiles one last time, and leaves me.

When Earth’s atmosphere starts pushing on our walls, I can think only of my mother’s lost eyes, of my father stolen words. The eyes of the crew are fixed on the large monitor panel in the control room, none of them has ever seen the birthplace of humanity, the big Blue. What truly mesmerize them are the oceans, for a child of the Cosmos water is a thing sold in drops, a thing of small amounts. Their expressions make me smile, I’ve known both of them for years, I’ve seen them grow as RosyRoxel saw me. The beeping of an authentication requests explodes in the room, RosyRoxel transmits a fake identification signal without slowing the descends. Pangaea, the super continent, created when the Unified Continents of Eurasia and Africa joined after the great sinking of the Americas and Oceania, now fills the monitor panel. Air control asks for more documents, a higher level of authorization is needed, for today all air spaces on Pangaea are closed or severely limited. RosyRoxel gives it to them, and generates a fake signal, cutting the one emitted by our engines. We continue flying hidden in the clouds, but as far as air control knows, we are slowly getting ready to land in Cape Town.

“We’re here.” She turns from her seat, and watches all of us in the eyes. “See you all on the other side of the wolf’s fangs!”

“Might the wolf tremble and perish!” We answer as one.

In our gliding suits, my two comrades and me quickly get to the cargo bay, the back hatch is already half opened. I stop and hug them, they do the same.

We are flying over Baghdad and its thousand gardens, the birthplace of civilization, capital city of Pangaea, and today the location of the Party meeting. Members of the government from all over the Solar System are here today. Security is strict, but the message spread by RosyRoxel has distracted them, they’re more prepared for a media war, than a frontal assault. We jump and all goes to shit.

I regain consciousness in a small room, the plan seemed so perfect, we encountered no resistance on the route to the Conference Room. We stormed in, our weapon ready to end the crowd of parasitic politicians, but the large room was empty.

We noticed the gas when it was already too late.

I’m sitting on a chair, and so are my comrades, they’re still unconscious. In front of me, a table, and on the other side the Man of Steel himself, the heart of the Revolution, the head of the government of the better part of the Solar System, and the chief betrayer of what I’ve dedicated my life to. I’m unarmed, but not tied, I leap forward, I’ll kill him with my hands if I have to. My legs fail me, and I collapse on the chair.

The Man of Steel observes me with the same eyes I’ve seen posted all over the Solar System.

“How did you discover our plan?”

“I’ve always known,” he speaks slowly, as someone who lives out of time.

“What do you mean, you alwa–”, he interrupts me. “Why are you here? Revenge? Is it because of what happened to your parents?”

“Nothing happened to my parents, you or some of your dogs, lift a finger and a minion hungry for a promotion made them disappear. But no, that isn’t why.”

“Why then?”

“Why?! Haven’t you seen what you’re doing? What you’ve made out of the dreams you sold to the people? You are the old that hides under a new hat. You wear the Revolution as a costume but ignore its values, what it stood for.”

“And what did it stand for?” he moves through the conversation as if he had it a million times before.

“Justice, freedom, equality.”

“What justice? What freedom? Our first act was to collectivize —”

I cut him off. “I’m not here to talk policy.”

“No, you’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am, and I want to kill you, not for some abstract reason, but because of the kidnapping, because of the killings.”

“You think I like butchery? The Revolution doesn’t stand on dreams alone, it stands on the corpses of men and women. Before our victory, it stood on our corpses, now on those of our enemies.”

“Enemies? Are protesting teenagers your enemies? What about people’s houses getting dispossessed, what did they do? What about my parents?”

“So it is about your parents.”

“No it isn’t. What I’m talking about is… is democracy itself, under your rule there is no freedom of speech, there is a single Party!”

“Democracy, the noblest of words. But, you tell me, what does it mean? Power to the people, but how are the people supposed to use it? How do you give it to them? In the past they had elections and parties, some countries had two, other more, and all called themselves democracies. We abolished all parties but ours, we made our Party part of the state apparatus. We built a ladder of ascending Councils that start from the bottom, closer to the people, and rise to the central government; so that our decisions can be influenced by the reality at the base. Why? Because truthfully, a political system can only be the emanation of a single group of people and its interests. There is no power to the people, there is only power to a part of the people. Through human history, the interests of the few have ruled over the many. Our Revolution brought us to power, and we are making our best effort to ensure the interests of the many above all. And that means, that when one of the few refuse to give up what his ancestors stole, what they stole, it must be taken from them. It means that when a man like your father, a torturer of who ruled before, tries to escape, he must be captured so that his victims may have at least something that resembles justice.”

Tears slide out of my eyes. I found out about my father a year ago, still I knew him as a parent, not as a tormentor. “What about my mother? What was she guilty of?”

The Man of Steel intertwine his hands’ fingers. “I’ve read your file, and it seems to me that the arrest of your mother was a mistake committed by an overly eager local commissar. I know it means nothing to you, but I’m sorry.”

“What happened to her?”

“Do you really want to know?”

I remain silent, and he keeps talking. “You spoke about freedom of speech. And it is true, there are some kinds of speech that we prohibited. Have you ever asked yourself why?”

“Because you fear that it might undermine your rule.”

“Yes! Only an immutable regime allows free speech, for it has sedated its population. Its people get their fill of justice and indignation just by blabbing. They can say whatever they want, it doesn’t matter, because all they’re doing is exhausting themselves screaming into the void. A political system that allows absolute or almost absolute freedom of speech is a system sure of the inability of its people to change it, of the uselessness of said speech. We don’t think that, we respect our people. We want them to be as smart as they can, as active as they can, and that means that what they say, what they read, what they write, does matter, for we believe they have the ability to change our system.”

“So you oppress them because you think they’re totally awesome and smart. Come on, do you even hear yourself?”

“Are the billions we tore from the maws of poverty oppressed in their new homes, and human jobs? Are the sick oppressed in their hospital beds, for which they pay only what they can?”

“Two things can be true at the same time.”

“Maybe,” admits the Man of Steel before standing up. “But I’m sure of one thing, all those billions wouldn’t have what they now have, what they’ll have, without what you call oppression.”

“Says you.”

“You think yourself my better. What would have you done the day after the Revolution?” He slams his opened hand on the table. “Would you have held multi planetary elections? What if you lost those elections? What of all the dead, then? What of all that was sacrificed for the Revolution? What about the dream?”

I say nothing.

“What about those who disagree with you? What would you do if they started gathering followers who believe they should ruin what you’ve created. Would you let them do it?”

I say nothing again, but this time he waits. “What do you want me to say? That I would arrest them all, kill them?”

“No! I want you to say the exact opposite. If you can, you should let them grow their movements in a controlled environment, you should let them strike, let them fail. Let them become the fetish needed to vent the people’s frustrations, grievances, unhappiness. Let all of those who agree with them live vicariously through their failure, so that they don’t need to live it themselves.”

My heart drops. “What do you mean, grow in a controlled environment?”

He shows me a screen, there are photos of a younger him with an almost unrecognizable RosyRoxel. “That means nothing! That’s just an old photo. That could be fake,” I scream, but my voice is weak.

“Do you really think that? How do you think, we discovered about your little operation. Yours is just one of the many armed groups we monitor, you are society’s relief valve.”

Decades of lies fall heavy on my shoulders, an entire life built on nothing but manipulation from an enemy that felt so far away, while being just under my nose. Today I lost my family for the second time. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me? Are you going to use our death for propaganda.”

“Maybe theirs,” he points to my comrades. “But, I want you to join the Revolution, the true Revolution, not the confused thing you’re doing.”

I almost laugh. “You really think me so stupid to believe you want to recruit me?”

“That’s exactly what I want. The Party attracts many, but they’re bureaucrats, they’re not men and women of conviction, they desire power and prestige, their spirit is empty. The Party needs them, but the Revolution needs people of principle, people of action, people not scared of sacrifice.”

He puts a gun on the table. “No one can be forced to be the person the Revolution needs. One is or isn’t.” He slides the gun to my side of the table, and glances at my unconscious companions. “You must choose.”

“Why me? Why not them?” I try and fail to hide the panic that suddenly grips me, my voice shakes with the understanding of what’s happening.

“Who tells you that I didn’t already ask them. Who tells you that they haven’t already refused.”

“And if they refused, do you really expect me to accept?”

“This isn’t a loyalty contest. They don’t matter, you don’t matter, in the large scale of things I don’t matter, only the Revolution does. I know you dream for a better Solar System, I know you dream of justice for all, I know you dream of humanity’s happiness, for that’s what I dream too. Look in my eyes Nino and you’ll look into a mirror. Trust me, this is the way, the Revolution must live, and to live it needs people like us. Men and women ready to do what must be done.” His words are heavy in my mind, heavier than the gun in my hand.

I open my eyes in the same room, but I’m not me, I’m the Man of Steel of another me, a young woman. I already gave her the speech, and after a minute of silence she speaks.

“So, what you’re saying is that the end justifies the means?”

“No, I say that there is no end. The Revolution is a boulder, you can push it forward or be squashed with whomever else tries to stop it.” I observe her grasping the vastness of the lie her RosyRoxel fed her. In a waste of memories and hopes, I see her finding the path I laid before her. I push the gun, and eye her comrades. “You must choose, now. Trust me, this is the way, feed the Revolution, water the dream of a better future.”