Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 055, Saturday
February 24th, 2018
Chapter Six: Justification
The catastrophe could have been avoided.
The Empire had the technology to control events of this type. Natural
disasters could be mitigated, prevented, undone, even harnessed for the benefit
of the people, in the same way that similar problems are resolved on other
worlds.
The Continuum, and the collective both, craved the impending drama that
would come in the aftermath of the destruction. The pique of ruin, was a savory
delight for them. They loved to live vicariously in the lives of desperate
people. To watch them sacrifice; selflessly or selfishly, they wanted to be in
the moment with those people making the hard decisions.
In one place a parent would give up their life for the sake of their
child, a husband for the sake of his wife. In another place the man would sell
his spouse into slavery, and the parents make a cannibalistic feast of their
child’s body.
The more gruesome the decision the more enwrapped the collective would
be in it. They could not wait for the moment to arrive. They were ready for it,
eager, hungry.
Jim’s planning would cause the Continuum to feel real anguish, real
fear, real pain, to feel it full-force. They would pay for the ages of
contemptuous tyranny they lorded over the entire Empire. The Continuum would
pay with its artificial life, and the Collective, what survived of it, the
Collective would have to adjust to a new reality.
They would participate in the cataclysmic events happening on Earth, in
a manner they could not have predicted, had no defense for. Would not be able
to respond to it. They would feel it as if they were experiencing it
themselves.
Jim told himself this, if the Continuum would have listened to him, this
impasse might have been avoided. He told himself this even knowing that it was
a lie. It was a justification. He had guided events to this place, had been
shaping this moment for millions of years, seeking this opportunity, and now he
would deliver it.
He never had any intention of allowing them to escape the fate that he
had laid out for them. The only thing they determined was the timing.
The right now, and here it is.
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