The Modest Proposal Institute: A YA Dystopian Thriller Read online

  “They didn’t know!” Tomas cried. “Clever people told them, promised them, and used cleverly chosen statistics to show it was sensible. They are just simple people who have been led to destruction and we have the means of helping them recover. It’s immoral and shameful of us to do nothing.”

  “We are not doing nothing,” Yves said. “The food projects are selling food throughout Western Europe every day.”

  “It’s not enough,” Tomas cried. “We have to re-establish order so they can grow their own food again.”

  “They need to establish order,” Shane said, “not us. But enough of this. What we need to do now is get the NuMen out of Europe, back to our own properties, and then hand control back to you. Before we do that, we need you to take a deep breath and, even if you can’t agree with our decision, start supporting it.”

  “I’ll support the decision because I’m on the institute’s side, but I’m going to remind you all of this moment every time we see bodies piled high around the world,” Tomas said grimly.

  Chapter 47: Separate Existences

  To Shane, this end of the drama was yet another anticlimax. Tomas did fall in line for a time and, fortunately, the West stabilized over the coming months and years. The horrific scenes Tomas had imagined didn’t fully materialize. Though the West’s collapse into poverty was dramatic, their rate of descent slowed such that people—far fewer than there were before—could adjust. Within a decade or so, life in the West was much as life had been in Africa or Southeast Asia before the collapse: hard but not unbearable.

  For the Modest Proposal Institute on Earth, the underwater cities were now the principal centers of life. The institute’s only active places on the surface were the spaceports managed by the space project team and the offshore islands that had been the institute’s starting point, which were now managed entirely by Tomas as automated factories. Other than the robot project team members providing technical and maintenance support, there were few actual humans on the islands.

  For many years after, Tomas kept his word about not taking over countries to defend and support the populations, but he maintained a distance from the rest of the institute. That boded ill for the future, Shane knew, for he had more regular contact with Tomas than Alexis or the old Founders did, and Tomas’s views never changed. He continued believing he could make the world a better place, and that led to so much of what followed.

  The biggest shock—of no surprise to Shane but intense pain to Alexis—had been Nadia marrying Tomas and the couple settling on one of the Indonesian islands, living in a newly built home that looked like a mediaeval castle. Tomas had said he wasn’t trying to rebuild the Russian Empire but his new home suggested otherwise. Unknown to the institute, however, was the real Russian castle he acquired some time later.

  The institute now had three distinct entities: under the sea, in space, and scattered pockets of land on Earth’s surface, each led by men who held strongly different visions of the future. Contact between the three sides of the institute were frequent but lacked warmth, as Alexis told Shane one day when they met to chart progress.

  All three, however, cooperated on some very particular facilities and shared the resulting products. For Shane and Alexis, uranium was vital to the survival of their new cities as fuel for the mini reactors. When the use of nuclear power ended throughout the West, the institute bought a uranium mine and processing plant. Security around these facilities was tight and Kurt and Yves’s security project expanded. It grew even further when Western oil and gas production stopped because people found even heating and transport to be beyond their means, forcing the institute to buy and operate oil and gas wells to provide fuel for the space planes, hypersonic planes, Manta Rays, and power plants.

  Shane paused his recording. All this was for the future and he should not get ahead of the story. What he’d captured was what he’d set out to say. With the West’s collapse and Tomas’s attempt to capitalize on it, the institute split into three radically different paths with Alexis introducing the wildest new direction for the human race. And, as always, Shane watched Alexis from afar.

  Chapter 48: A Rich New World

  On the cockpit monitor, Alexis watched passengers making their way into the space liner’s cabin area. He smiled. They were a mixed bunch of elderly couples, middle-aged singles, and two young people who he knew were popstars in the wider world. They were all wealthy or they wouldn’t be on the flight but, to give them credit, they were all braver than he’d have expected from meeting people in the outside world.

  The cost of this vacation was $50 million dollars for two weeks, and there were forty paying guests. They were the winners of a lottery; the first people outside the institute to be guests of the space project’s Earth View Hotel, and the people who would be remembered for years to come because of it.

  Institute people from the underwater cities had begun the venture, followed by some of the few who continued on the surface with Tomas. Both groups had been valuable and enthusiastic pioneers; some of the underwater families had even emigrated to the moon to start businesses providing the products they’d so effectively sold to Moon City dwellers.

  Tomas’s people weren’t as enthusiastic. Whether it was because they followed Tomas in his vision of a new world on Earth or whether they just preferred being able to enjoy Earth’s superior environment, Alexis couldn’t tell; but so it was. Now it was time to see if regular customers, ones who were paying for the experience, would be equally satisfied as the pioneers had been.

  He hoped so. The space project’s immediate future depended on it.

  He watched the cabin crew direct the passengers as the robot pilot ran through the pre-takeoff checks. Champagne was served as passengers settled into their seats and safety harnesses. It was felt that these common business class treats would help soothe any heightened tension or last-minute nerves. After all, this was an inaugural flight for the institute and a first space flight for the passengers. That took courage or bravado and the crew wouldn’t know which until the plane began to climb out of the atmosphere and into the darkness of space. Alexis wondered if the passengers realized the safety harness was as much to keep them in their seats if they lost their nerve as it was to stop them floating around the cabin when they were beyond the pull of gravity. He grinned. He almost wished something like that would happen

  The robot pilot confirmed the plane was ready to go. Alexis ran his eyes over the screens to check. The robots were never wrong and the plane’s own computer was equally accurate but the only real reason he, the pilot, was onboard was to check the computers—and, he supposed, to give the passengers the feeling a competent man was in charge. After his years of training and flying hours, Alexis knew he’d take a robot over a human any day, but people still liked to feel they were in the hands of a professional.

  He heard the cabin crew captain making the “welcome aboard” speech and running through the safety features. Her American accent, too, was intended to be reassuring. The institute had thought hard about the moon vacation cabin crew; should they be men or would the passengers prefer attractive young women? In the end, they just asked those who were paying for the seats and the decision was, as everyone knew it would be, attractive young women. Alexis thought it just as well they had chosen “attractive young women” since none of the institute’s men would be half so patient or nearly attentive enough to be stewards on these flights. They’d be more likely to punch any passenger who became even mildly snappish. Anyhow, rich people like to be surrounded by beauty and none of the institute’s men were chosen for their looks.

  When the formalities ended, Alexis told the pilot to take the plane up. The space liner climbed steadily, circumnavigating the globe as it rose up toward the blackness of space. The passengers watched the world sliding away below them through their own personal “windows”—monitors that showed the view outside since real windows along the hull of the craft were considered altogether unsafe. The passengers had indivi
dual cots along each side of the cabin where they could sit or sleep away the long flight. Two days in space cooped up in a small cabin with people they barely knew was just one of the challenges passengers had been warned of, but the honor of being the first visitors to the hotel and having their suites named after them for all time was a big enough draw to overcome most physical disadvantages.

  When the plane entered space and the passengers could feel that gravity no longer had them in its grip, many were eager to escape from their harnesses. The passengers had to be given time to get over their too-intense excitement before they could be released, and even then, it needed to be in short bursts and before more alcohol was served. This was the moment for Alexis to go and meet them—a role he hadn’t been looking forward to because he had no sympathy for Earth’s usual crop of wealthy people. But he knew it had to be done.

  He unfastened his harness and opened the cockpit door, took a deep breath, put a smile on his face, and floated out to meet his public. Almost at once, he was recognized.

  “Hey,” Melvin, one of the older billionaires, said. “I know you. You’re the guy who does the interviews on TV.”

  Alexis agreed that he was indeed the usual spokesman for the institute.

  “So, who’s flying the plane?” Melvin demanded.

  “Well, right now it’s on autopilot,” Alexis said, “and that’s the way it will stay until we get ready to land.”

  “You’re the pilot too?”

  “I’m a pilot and a spokesman,” Alexis said. “I’ve even recorded some recent interviews from space.”

  “Jeez, are you the only guy in this Institute?”

  “No, but I’m the only guy who got voluntold to be a spokesman and who trained as a pilot. So, it seemed like a good idea for me to fly and lead this first flight.”

  It was a good idea. The familiar face made introductions and ice-breaking a whole lot easier than it might have been. The passengers were so keen to talk to him about interviews gone by that it was over an hour before they remembered they wanted to experience zero gravity. Embarrassingly for Alexis, who didn’t care for such adulation, many wanted autographs.

  As the time wore on, the passengers were released one by one and trained in how to manage the lack of gravity. Fortunately, the suits prevented any embarrassing inappropriate accidents from happening even when people inevitably floated into each other.

  The journey was uneventful, even boring after the first eight hours, when the earth was receding and the moon and stars grew brighter. The institute had provided entertainment for the passengers, and the passengers had brought their own, but Alexis could see that future trips would need even greater entertainment efforts on the part of the cabin crew. Fifty-plus hours of flight was longer than most people could manage without complaint.

  Many passengers slept for long periods, especially the older ones. The young couple stayed in one of their cots with the privacy screens drawn and their noisy antics caused some embarrassed glances among the rest of the travelers. Alexis learned that they were filming themselves as the first “Fifty Thousand Mile Club” members; all very silly, but people crave to be special for something.

  Chapter 49: Earth-View Hotel

  It was a relief to everyone when Alexis told them they were nearing the end of their trip. The moon had been growing larger on the monitors with each passing hour and now filled the screens. Its mountains, plains, and valleys could be clearly seen by everyone, even those with older eyes.

  “We will be leaving this daylight side of the moon very soon,” Alexis announced over the PA, “and traveling around to the dark side. You’ll see our moon base, the Chinese one, and the never-quite-finished American and Russian bases. Then we’ll head back to the sunny side where our hotel is waiting to greet you. The cabin crew will begin assisting you into your suits and harnesses for landing.”

  He watched the cabin monitor to check that everyone was following the crew directions and were settling into their landing positions. They’d never had a space plane crash and this wasn’t the time to begin.

  “If you look out of the right-hand side of the ship,” he said, “you’ll see a small satellite. This is one of our twelve satellites around the moon. They warn us of anything that looks like it will hit the surface, be it a meteor, asteroid, piece of space junk, or a missile. Anything that approaches will be detected, tracked, and, if it is a threat, deflected or destroyed. Your stay with us will not include any unpleasant surprises, I promise you.”

  “You said ‘anything that will hit the surface,’” one of the guests said. “Is that anywhere on the moon or just near the base and hotel?”

  “Good question,” Alexis replied in his best spokesman voice, “and the answer is, it depends. Anything near our facilities will be stopped but small things hitting the moon well away from there, probably not. However, anything really big will be stopped no matter where on the moon it might hit. Our concern is that, if the impact was big enough, moonquakes could crack the domes. As I said, we take your safety, and ours, very seriously.”

  He paused to let the passengers view the satellite and take in his words before continuing.

  “In a moment you’ll see the lights of our city and your hotel, and farther off the lights of the Chinese moon base, which you’ll be visiting on the fourth day of your stay. If you look carefully, you’ll see starlight glinting off metal structures on both sides of the plane. The one to the right is what was to be the American base. We plan to move in there soon. To the left is the barely begun Russian base, which may or may not have a role to play in our future here. We haven’t decided yet.”

  He turned his attention back to the cockpit controls as the robot pilot skillfully brought the plane to circle over the hotel’s landing pad. When the controls were locked with the hotel’s controls, the plane descended smoothly to the surface and the rockets shut down.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Alexis said, “welcome to the moon. Once you’re in the reception area, you will be able to remove your spacesuits. There is little chance of something going wrong as we open the plane’s doors and you exit into the tunnel but, like I said, we take safety very seriously. Only another thirty minutes and you will be in your rooms having a real shower and getting the feel of low gravity, so bear with us for these last few minutes. After you’ve unpacked, we have a cocktail reception in the Atlas Room for anyone who wants to attend. There will be another tomorrow for those who just want to relax for the rest of today.”

  As Alexis had predicted, nothing went wrong and the disembarkation went without a hitch. He was, however, surprised to find everyone at the reception. Their arrival had given them all such a burst of renewed energy that they were ready to go on a moon walk right away.

  “Tomorrow we will go out first thing,” Alexis said when the demands grew too insistent. “Today we need you to get familiar how it feels to be here. I know in the movies guys don’t have to spend hours getting acclimatized when they jump out onto the moon but we insist that you do. None of you are trained astronauts or even athletes and we don’t want anyone getting injured.”

  Dark mutterings of discontent followed this firm announcement. The passengers were not used to being told no. Their wealth on Earth meant they never had to hear such dictatorial language.

  As they were shown around the hotel and resort, however, their discontent drained away. The center of the complex, the hotel’s atrium, reached from ground level to the high clear dome through which stars shone brightly. At ground level, pools glittered invitingly, connected by channels where water flowed from pool to pool. Hot pools steamed slightly, humidifying the air and beckoning spa lovers in. Above the pools, a jungle of tropical trees and plants twisted their way toward the dome while creepers hung down, inviting active people to swing from tree to tree like Tarzan. In the low gravity, even older people could imagine themselves doing just that before sliding down into a welcoming pool.

  “I’ll just recap some of the information you were give
n before you reserved your places,” Alexis said when the excited conversation had died away. “Because water and air are so precious here, they are constantly being recycled. To make that more palatable, your suite recycles the room’s air and water back to you after it is thoroughly purified and refreshed. For the entire time you are here, you will not share either of these precious commodities in your rooms. You will, of course, when you’re in a common area such as this lobby that we’re standing in now. As in your suites, the air and water here are being cleaned constantly. You have no need to fear any ill effects of sharing.”

  This reminder set the crowd buzzing with excited interest.

  Alexis continued. “Every room is open to the sky and stars all the time unless you choose to dim the transparent shield in your room. The only privacy walls are to the neighboring rooms and the common areas. Remember that during the times people are out sightseeing. They may see more than stars if you don’t.”

  “If they look my way, they’ll wish they’d kept their eyes on the sky,” one heavy elderly man laughed. His jest was met with polite silence and embarrassed smiles.

  “How do you have all this water here?” an elderly woman asked.

  “A lot we ferried up but the rest we make,” Alexis replied. “Science and technology are wonderful things.”

  “And the air?”

  “Same thing. The initial charge we brought up from Earth but now it’s made right here on the moon.”

  “Does that mean one day the moon will look like Earth?”

  “That’s where we’re headed,” Alexis replied, “but it won’t be exactly the same. The moon’s gravity is too low to keep an atmosphere so we’ll cover the surface with domes and inside each dome will be the new earth.”