Returning to Eden

At Police HQ

DCI Damian Diabolik sat behind his desk, surrounded by glass walls that allowed him to watch all his staff, something he did with diligence every day. He ran a very tight ship. If someone spent too long visiting the toilet, he docked their credit. Today, however, he was troubled. Another elderly person had been reported missing and her whole family along with her. She had been due to be euthanised as per state requirements because of the development of treatment-resistant arthritis but she was a no show. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have concerned him. Some elderly people got frightened, tried to flee and were later found by his department, cowering in somebody’s attic. This time, however, he was rattled. There had been at least a dozen disappearances in the last six months alone. Every police department in the country was reporting missing elderly people, or people who had developed disabilities. Inexplicably, young couples also seemed to be vanishing and this puzzled him exceedingly.

Unlike the previous groups of elderly who had been dragged out of their hiding places in tears, these people had never been found. That bothered him. It was a personal affront to both him and his department that they could not be located. He stared at his computer screen, connecting his mind to all the information they had on file about the Freeman’s. He could see this family had a long history of brushes with the law. Mr Freeman Senior had already been executed decades earlier for using a bartering system to exchange goods, for attempting to grow his own food and for being openly critical to his work colleagues about AI. None of these things on their own merited a death sentence, of course, but he had persisted in his behaviour despite being warned several times. Jon Freeman’s replica 20th century home had raised a few eyebrows but as he scanned the information, he saw that the official report contained no concerns and so it wasn’t followed up. His wife, Mary, was entirely unremarkable. She had worked at a local advertising firm and had an almost perfect employment record and no criminal history. She did have a history of depression and had been barred from the insemination programme so there was a black mark on her file.

Anyone who got refused had a warning label put on their record so all doctors, future employers and law enforcement were aware. This was because people with depression often had health problems or issues with conformity that could require closer scrutiny. Apart from this blip, which had appeared to be temporary, Mary seemed to be a model citizen. Why she had vanished at the same time as Mrs Freeman Senior was a puzzle. He had to consider that she may have been an unwilling participant. Perhaps her husband was holding her against her will? His brow knotted as a tension headache started to take hold. He noticed his coffee cup was empty, causing him to feel instantly more irritable.

“Bot!” he shouted for the station robot, “Why is it beyond your capability to keep my coffee replenished!? Useless tin can! And send MacDougal in here, will you!?”

He waved his cup in the direction of the robot, who took it and refilled it for him.

“Certainly Sir, I apologise”, said the robot.

After he had set down the new coffee, he went to fetch Jude MacDougal, the new police recruit. Jude had only passed his police exams by a whisper. He lacked aptitude and discipline to the point where he had almost been refused a job in the police force. He had only got through and been hoisted on Diabolik’s department because he was the son of the Chief of Police. No one wanted him on their team and when Damian heard he was expected to work with him, he felt like cursing. If it weren’t for this young man’s connections and the fact that robots did all the menial work, he would have assigned him to broom cupboard duty.

Jude MacDougal bumbled through the door, almost tripping over his own shoes as he did so. Damian sighed and rolled his eyes. Jude had two days worth of stubble growing on his face and the kind of crazy, out of control hair that seemed at odds with his smart uniform.

“You wanted to see me, Sir?”

“Yes MacDougal”, he barked at him, “Sit down before you break something!”

Jude sat and looked at him expectantly. It was his first day and after police boot camp and the difficulty he’d had making the grade, he was excited to finally be here and to be given his first assignment. He wanted so badly to be a real cop and make his father proud.

His new boss looked him over for a few moments as if considering what to do, then cleared his throat.

“Right, MacDougal, we’ve had several disappearances of late and now the Freeman family have disappeared. I’m sending officer Rathmore on door to door enquiries to see if he can ascertain what happened to them. You can sit in the police vehicle and observe.”

Jude felt a wave of disappointment and his face fell.

“Sir”, he began to object, “I had hoped…”

The DCI raised his hand to silence him.

“One thing you’ll learn, working for me, MacDougal, is that you don’t question my authority! You will shadow Rathmore and when I’m confident you aren’t a liability, then we will see.”

He swagged down his coffee in three gulps and started hollering again at everyone again.

Later that morning, Jude sat in a police car, as his colleague Rathmore knocked on every door in the neighbourhood. Yannis Rathmore was a bronzed, half-Greek, muscular man in his 30’s with characteristic jet black hair. His eyes, rather than being the usual brown, were as black as coals and very unnerving to look into. His mother was Greek and his father English so they had chosen an embryo with the same genetic components to look similar to them. He had also taken on a mediterranean temper and was Rathmore by nature as well as by name. This made him a formidable policeman and a first class interrogator. When confronted by his presence, most people simply spilled out everything they knew to get him off their doorstep. Today, however, no one seemed to know any information as he trundled from door to door, collecting everyone’s details and sending the information from his mind to his Ipad and then to the police car’s onboard computer system, where Jude sat, reading them as they came in.

The details were very mundane; names; marital status, number of people in the home and whether or not they knew the Freeman's or had seen anything unusual. Data from television sets and domestic robots were taken but had so far yielded nothing. After the 99th tedious entry, Jude yawned and started to doodle on his own Ipad. A slight resentment began to seep in as he realised they’d given him a jobsworth’s position to get him out of the way. He was less important even than the office tea boys who were robots because he didn’t even get to knock on doors, but just to observe how interviews were conducted.

Yannis came marching back to the car in forceful and determined strides.

“Nothing interesting on this row”, he remarked, getting in the driver’s side, “I’ve another 50 rows to do today so there had better be some kind of news I can take back to the office. Diabolik will never have it if I take back nothing.”

50 rows? Jude tried not to look horrified but inadvertently registered his dismay via the onboard computer system, which Yannis read. He raised his eyebrows and glanced at his new, rather hapless side-kick.

“Don’t like the job, MacDougal? There’s plenty more who’d take it.”

Jude flushed with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry sir. I do want this job, more than anything, but, it’s just...I’m not doing anything. I’m just watching you do things. I could do so much more.”

Yannis leaned in closer and momentarily wondered whether he should clip his colleague round the ear, but then he decided that ambition was something to be admired.

“Please”, Jude implored, “Give me an occupation! I will prove I am worthy of the chance.”

Yannis was about to answer him when he received a message from the station. He listened attentively and then switched on the engine.

“Change of plans”, he said, “The boss wants me to interview a friend of the Freeman’s, Joshua Lord. Apparently his car was being used by them. I have to take you back to the station, first, though.”

Jude sighed again and hoped his next day at work would be more rewarding than this one.

Back at the Colliery

Mary sat on a beanbag on the floor with a group of other people, each with their own beanbag. In front of them was a very old fashioned chalkboard, the like of which she had only seen in old photographs. She reflected that this was a rather informal set up for a classroom. On the row behind her, anyone who found sitting on a beanbag difficult was given an armchair. Grandma and Alfie were seated in their armchairs, whispering something to each other and occasionally giving a huge belly laugh. She had no idea what they found so amusing but she hoped that she would still be able to concentrate on the class.

A door at the far end of the classroom swung open and a waft of light flooded in as a man with velvety black skin and a mop of black curls entered the room. His eyes were soft with a fawn-like quality and he wore robes that looked like a combination of traditional African dress and a Victorian frock coat. Mary was puzzled, as he carried no lamp and she couldn’t see where all the extra light was coming from. Unlike other types of bright light, she did not find it dazzling, rather it lit up the room in a cosy glow.

“Hello”, he smiled warmly, “My name is Lysander Lord. I am your teacher for this science course. Perhaps we might begin by introducing ourselves. After all, we will be spending a lot of time together over the next few weeks. Who would like to go first?”

He looked at his audience, waiting for a response. Grandma and Alfie were still giggling and didn’t seem to be paying attention at all, but Martha raised a hand as she cradled her son in the other arm.

“I’d like to...but I have my baby here, should someone else take him?”

Lysander smiled again, this time from his eyes.

“Children are always welcome here, they are the purest of souls. Why don’t you come up here?” He gestured her to the front.

“Hiya”, she said cheerfully, clearing her throat and looking out at the sea of faces before her, I’m Martha, married to Anthony. We wanted a baby, but you know, I was a bit of a gob-head at school and I did a presentation about how microchips were a bad idea. Got suspended.”

She laughed nervously, then continued.

“When we made the application for a child, they refused as the suspension was on my record. I was too revolutionary to be a mother. To cut a long story short, I got depressed and my Anthony discovered this colony so we could have our son.”

Her husband waved at her from among the audience as she looked at their baby with grateful tears in her eyes.

“As you can see, we now have John and he’s lovely!”

Everyone cheered and clapped as she went back to her beanbag and the next person stood up.

Back at Police HQ

Joshua sat on the hard metal chair, tapping his fingers on the equally hard metal table in front of him. Unlike the other rooms in the police station, the interrogation room was purposefully dark, small and claustrophobic. Sensor strips lined the walls and a large and very obvious camera was pointed at him from the ceiling. He sighed. He had been involved in helping hundreds of families escape and this was the first time he had ever been called in for questioning. He clasped his hands and offered up a silent prayer that all would be well, being careful of course not to use the word God in case this was picked up by computers.

As he tried to centre himself, in burst Rathmore with such a fury that Joshua wondered if he would overturn the table.

He threw an Ipad on the table with electronic files on it.

“I brought you in earlier because the Freeman’s drove your car to the undertakers. It was spotted there, along with them by several witnesses. Because of that we have seized your vehicle and are looking at the journey log.”

Joshua looked up and gazed at him levelly.

“Yes”, he replied simply, “I said they could borrow it.”

“Why? The tram is perfectly sufficient. The Freeman’s always used one.”

“Yes”, Joshua said again, searching for an answer, “But Mary was upset because Lily Freeman was going to die. She kept crying so they wanted a private vehicle to be more discreet. It was a visit to an undertaker. I was trying to be sympathetic.”

Yannis Rathmore narrowed his eyes and leant forward, stubbing his cigarette out perilously close to Joshua’s hand.

“You were praying when I walked in here. You said ‘help me father’ What did you mean? You’re not a religious believer, are you? Dangerous fanatics, they are.”

Joshua looked at him without attempting to move away.

“I was thinking of my father”, he said, “It’s not every day that one is arrested. I am worried and it made me miss him.”

“And who is your father, exactly?” Rathmore looked at his file, “I can’t find any mention of him in any file I’ve looked at. And what cryogenics agency were you born from? Of the 10 agencies in this country, I can find no record of you at all.”

Joshua shrugged.

“I don’t know. Computer glitch? And I never knew my father, he left before I was born. Mother doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Rathmore slammed his fist into the table.

“That’s a lie, right there! You just said you were thinking of your father and you missed him!”

“Yes”, said Joshua patiently, “The other kids all had fathers and I missed the presence of a father sorely throughout my childhood. I used to imagine what he might be like and at this moment my need for him came to the fore again.”

Rathmore was momentarily speechless. This guy had an answer for everything. He grabbed at his wrist.

“Where’s your microchip?”

Joshua turned his wrist around and held it up to his face.

“Here, of course.”

A quick inspection revealed he did in fact have a microchip. Rathmore huffed, almost disappointed. He directed his attention back to his records.

“Your journey log says you picked up the car from a park and ride? They didn’t return it to you?”

“No.”

“How did you know it was there?”

“They told me they left it there.”

Rathmore faked a laugh. He had to fake it as it wasn’t something he did very much.

“Now I know you’re lying. We can check their phones.”

Joshua tossed his phone to Rathmore.

“Check it. I have nothing to hide.”

The call log did indeed show a call from the Freeman’s home five days before they had been reported missing. He frowned. This guy was a riddle, one he didn’t like.

“We can check with their domestic robot”, he warned him, “We have him in the station.”

He bagged up Joshua’s phone for evidence and walked out.

Jude MacDougal was in the office connecting his mind to various people’s phones and TV’s to continue with enquiries. He paused what he was doing when Rathmore came over, looking frustrated.

“Okay, MacDougal. You want a real job? You can help me crack this nut. Go undercover, pretend to be like him, pretend you want to leave and then see what information you can gleam. They’d never suspect you, particularly with that ridiculous haircut.”

Jude was both surprised and elated.

“Really? But I don’t have clearance from DCI Diabolik. I’m sure he won’t agree.”

“You leave him to me”, he replied, “I’ll square it with him.”

In The Classroom

Lysander began his class with a single question.

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?”

Mary looked bemused and hoped the rest of the course would be more practical, less philosophical. Most trees were artificial but of the natural species still grown, of course a sound would be made if they were felled.

“Yes”, she interjected, “Everyone knows the sound a tree makes when it falls!”

“And they know that”, said Lysander, “Because their brain interprets sound waves picked up by their ears and tells them that that is in fact the noise a tree makes when it falls. What, however, would happen if there were no ears to pick up those sound waves and no brains to interpret them? No humans? No animals? Put another way, can a sound exist without it being perceived? This was a question of George Berkeley and it is fundamental to the rest of this course.”

George Berkeley was a scientist with an interest in quantum physics. His writings had been banned for a very long time. Mary knew that as Jon had been told to burn copies of things he wrote. She glanced at him with raised eyebrows.

“As George said ‘To be is to be perceived’ - and so right he was!”, continued Lysander.

Jon piped up.

“Berkeley founded Subjective Idealism, a religion with unsupported ideas about the nature of reality.”

Lysander nodded.

“Yes, his information was banned, but like most things that are banned, what he had to say was important. His theory, in quantum mechanics, was that the physical world doesn’t exist and the only things that do exist are mental images of the world. Sound waves are vibrations and vibrations need an ear to convert them into sound and a brain to interpret them as such. Without these, there is no sound. What you think and perceive becomes your reality so to change your reality, all you have to do is change your thoughts.”

Grandma had stopped giggling and was staring at Lysander.

“Oh come on, lad. I do mindfulness, but are you trying to suggest that we can create a whole new reality just by changing how we perceive things?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying”, Lysander smiled.

Three Weeks Later

Mary walked around her apartment, adjusting the wall hangings and plumping up the futon cushions. She glanced at her solid wood coffee table and remembered Lysander Lord’s words, that the physical world didn’t exist. She reached out to touch the table. It certainly felt real enough. How could something only in her mind seem so full of substance? She picked up her Quantum Physics for Dummies book (an essential part of the reading list, Lysander had said) and sat on her bed, wanting somewhere comfortable to study. This was particularly important when the subject matter seemed almost incomprehensible to her.

As she sipped a drink that was on the nightstand and looked at her book, the room was suddenly filled with a warm and soft glow, the same as the one that had emanated from Lysander when he walked into the room. She looked up and was startled to see a man standing at the foot of her bed. He was extremely tall with very broad shoulders and an unkempt scraggly beard. She leapt off the bed, frantically looking for something she could hit him with. She realised all she had was her mug of juice, hardly a lethal weapon.

“Stay back!”, she hissed at him, “I will call someone!”

“Don’t be afraid”, he said gently, “I don’t mean you any harm.”

His voice had an ethereal quality to it and made her feel instantly relaxed.

“What do you want, then?” she asked, “and how did you get in here?”

“The door was open”, he replied, “Sorry, I did call out but you were so absorbed in your book you didn’t notice. Allow me to start again. I’m Gabriel.”

“I’m Mary”, she offered, extending a hand. As her hand touched his, intense feelings of well being and happiness filled her. The feeling so surprised her, that she withdrew her hand again as if he were hot coals.

He smiled at her, noticing her surprise.

“I am here to tell you that you are expecting a baby, one just as nature intended, and you should not be concerned. Your baby will be a marvellous asset to the community and to this world.”

As oddly enticing as this man was, Mary almost laughed at the absurdity of such a statement. It was certainly possible that she could be pregnant, but how would this man she never met know about it and how would that be possible without some sort of test?

“I see you are sceptical”, he said, “But please have faith that it’s true.”

There was a clattering noise and she sat bolt upright in bed, disorientated. Jon, Grandma and Alfie had just come in like a herd of elephants and something had been dropped on the floor. Mary looked around her and realised she was still in bed, her book open at the page she left it. Her juice unfinished on the nightstand. A dream! It had been a dream! She rubbed her eyes.

Jon came over to kiss her.

“Was the book that riveting?”, he teased.

“Jon”, she said, “I had this really strange dream. I dreamt a man called Gabriel told me I was pregnant.”