Stryker #5, At the End of Eternity – Chapter 14

“Today we uncovered the first medical care facility that we’ve found. It appears to have been a rather large hospital; it’s big enough to serve this entire section of Tikal. Best of all, the machinery in it appears to be largely intact and has not been looted! None of it is in working order right now, but I’m hopeful that the problems can be addressed. Based on the other technology I’ve seen in this city I strongly suspect that what we’ve discovered today could revolutionize medical care – and perhaps even significantly increase lifespans.”
–Noel Lawson
July 9, 7243
 

The next day Amy and the Sentinel met again at the base of Falcon Ridge. This time the Sentinel was there well before Amy arrived. Alex was there too, sitting at the Sentinel’s feet and letting him scratch him behind his ears. The dog looked quite content.

“Oh, hey there,” Amy said. “I didn’t know you were going to be early. I’ve been pretty busy the past few days.”

“So it would seem,” the Sentinel replied. He stood up and Alex ran off into the distance, chasing nothing in particular. “You have caused quite a stir! General Maldonado’s genocidal plans are not going very well.”

Amy smiled. “No, they’re certainly not. It’s a beautiful thing. Scrambling the data on those recorders really hurt him. Plus, now he’s in trouble for wasting Adrasta’s entire oil supply. The council was really unhappy and gave him a good dressing-down at last night’s meeting. The cost to restock the oil and redo the surveys is enormous, and the general wasn’t supposed to be doing them in the first place. This project is getting more and more unpopular all the time.”

“You’re getting the general into a lot of trouble,” the Sentinel commented.

“Well, it’s partly his fault. If he had repaired the road before taking his tankers on them, as the council had ordered, he wouldn’t have been blamed when the road collapsed. It would have just been seen as an unlucky accident. If he had obtained the council’s permission to do the global surveys, instead of just going for it, he wouldn’t have been blamed when the first survey failed. The reason he’s in hot water is because he keeps going behind people’s backs to do things he’s not supposed to be doing, and I’m making sure that he gets caught.”

“That does have consequences,” the Sentinel replied. “The general irrationally blames all of his failures on Monroe Araiza. If you keep doing this Monroe’s life is going to become very difficult. Maldonado is not just going to sit there and take it forever.”

“Well, I have to do something, you know. I can’t just let him kill all those people. If I step in with force and stop them then I’ll never know if the Adrastans should be saved. I’ve got to stall them until we have a cure, and that means continuing these accidents. Besides, I’m not too upset over making the general look bad. He is trying to kill millions of people, after all, and he has already killed 416 human beings. He’s lucky that he hasn’t been struck dead.”

“Have you actually been considering that?”

“It is pretty tempting. You have to admit that he deserves it. The problem is that while the general is the one guiding the project, the project is only possible because it has the support of the council and the city itself. Most people in Adrasta approve of the plan. There’s something like 80,000 people in that city who actually think it’s a good idea to hunt down and murder all of the tribes. The general is just one of them, and getting rid of him isn’t going to make anything better. The only reason he can do these things is because he has the support of the people. If I start frying everyone who supports genocide then it would pretty much wipe out the entire city. That’s why I want to stall things until I can force the city to make a choice. I’m hoping I can change their minds.”

“And what if Adrasta ignores you?” the Sentinel asked. “What if they decide to go ahead with the bombing, despite the existence of a cure?”

“Then I will have to stop them once and for all,” Amy said sadly. “If they are bound and determined to murder the tribes, no matter what, then I will not save them. I’ll move them to Xanthe, where they can live out the rest of their days until they finally die out.”

“Xanthe? Why Xanthe?”

“Well, we’ve already had one civilization commit suicide there. If these people are bound and determined to make the same choice then they might as well do it there. Xanthe is apparently where civilizations go to die.”

“So you’re not going to kill the general,” the Sentinel said.

Amy shook her head. “No, I’m not. I’ll stop him, and I’ll make sure that the council discovers every crooked thing he’s doing. But I’m not going to be his executioner.”

“What are you going to do if there is no cure?”

“No cure?” Amy repeated, startled. “Is that what you’ve found?”

“I’m afraid that the possibility must be raised. I have done a massive amount of work over the past few days. The galactic supercomputer has not been online for long but its capacity is staggering. It has enabled me to understand the nature of the disease, and has revealed the consequences of the genetic abnormalities that cause the disease in the first place. As we guessed, the disease is quite mild early in life and only degenerates into outright insanity in the teenage years. It is possible to cure children up to the age of six because at that point the effects have not yet become permanent. The body and the mind can still be healed.

“Now, the cure is a complicated process. The person cannot be cured all at once. Instead, a series of nanites that are tailored specifically to that child has to be administered. These nanites must saturate their body and change it gradually over a period of several days. This gives the mind a chance to adapt and respond to what is going on.”

“But there is a cure?”

“In theory. I would like to caution that I have been dealing with mathematical simulations only. I have not performed any tests on actual human beings. Given the precision of my models I would imagine that the results I am getting are exact, but as I said the cure has not been tried.”

“What about adults? Can they be cured too?”

The Sentinel shook his head. “I simply do not see how it could be done. The problem is that by the time the child turns into an adult, the disease has fully taken root and has unseated the mind itself. The result is utter madness. Even if the body were cured – which is no mean feat in itself – the mind is still broken and is unable to understand the changes. It is like the garbage data that was on the general’s data recorders. You simply cannot undo the damage or erase the errors. It is too late. There is no way to coax the mind back to sanity.”

“So what if you just have the person start over?” Amy asked. “Maldonado just reformatted the recorders and went out to collect more data. Can’t you just reformat people’s minds and let them start over again? They’d have a blank slate. The madness would be gone.”

“Are you certain that’s a good idea?” the Sentinel asked, surprised. “Erasing a person’s mind is a horrifying thing to do! The mind has a person’s memories and knowledge. It is a huge part of who they are. Erasing the mind is very close to erasing the person itself. It goes far beyond a violation of privacy. You are taking a person and eradicating it.”

“Don’t you think you’re going a little overboard?” Amy asked. “It’s not that bad.”

“It most certainly is! Imagine if you were to contract dementia. In the process of the disease you would forget everything you ever knew, everyone you ever knew, and even who you were. The Amy Stryker that I know would cease to exist. You would lose everything about you. It’s a horrible fate. Why would you wish to inflict that on these people?”

“People are more than their minds,” Amy argued. “You act as if everything that makes up a person is stored in their head. People aren’t just machines. They have a spirit too – and that’s something you can’t just reformat. Each person is an amazing meld of spirit and body – of spiritual and physical. That’s how God made us. In the case of these tribes, the spirits are attached to bodies that have insane minds. The mind has a broken picture of reality and that’s causing all kinds of problems. What I’m saying is that we should wipe out the madness. If we were to erase the mind and turn it back into a blank, childlike state, the adults could relearn again – they would be growing up, but this time with a fixed mind. We would be giving them a second chance at life. The only thing we would be taking away is an insane perception that is filled with horror and fear. This is the exact opposite of dementia.”

“So you propose turning the adults back into children?” the Sentinel asked.

“Yes – but mentally, not physically. With the madness gone the Stewards could teach them how to live again, and this time they could understand it. They wouldn’t be losing anything valuable or anything that they might want to keep.”

“I understand,” the Sentinel replied. “If you are sure that this is the course you want to take then I will run simulations and see what is possible. It will not be easy; I have no data on how to erase a mind, and frankly that very idea makes me uncomfortable. But I understand your argument and I do not have any alternatives to offer. However, I must ask you a question. Do you realize that if I learn how to do this you could apply that same technique to the Adrastans?”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Amy asked. “Their genetic problems are totally different! We can easily cure them without doing any mental hocus-pocus.”

“That’s not what I mean. If you have the ability to wipe the minds of the forest dwellers then you also have the ability to wipe the minds of the people in Adrasta. You could simply retrain them along whatever lines you liked.”

“Oh,” Amy said, startled. “I see. But – that would be horrible! You can’t just take a person and reformat them. Why would you ever even think of such a thing?”

“But isn’t that what you’re doing to the tribes?”

“That is totally different! We’re only doing it to them because they’re insane and have massive brain damage that makes it impossible for them to understand reality. The people in Adrasta aren’t crazy; they’re just amoral. You can’t say ‘Well, I don’t like the choice you made, so I’m going to rewrite your brain so you will make better choices.’ That is horrible. Really, really horrible. All I want to do with the tribes is erase the insanity and give them a chance to actually see the world as it really is. We are not going to imprint orders on their mind so they will do exactly what I want them to do. I’d like the Stewards to teach them and offer them a choice, but there is no way I’m going to hardwire anybody. That is appalling.”

“But you must realize that you will have that power. You are asking me to develop the technology to alter a person’s mind. That opens up a great many terrifying possibilities.”

“Possibilities that we are not going to explore,” Amy said firmly. “We are going to cure the tribes and then that will be that. We will then convert your supercomputer back into ordinary planets, and you and I will take that brain-altering technology with us and leave this world. No one else will ever have it.”

“Leave this world?” the Sentinel asked.

“Well, leave this universe, I guess. You and I have an appointment in eternity. When this is over we’re going to God’s country.”

“And you expect me to go with you?”

“Of course! What did you think – that I was going to leave you behind? You and Alex are both coming with me.”

“But I am not a son of Adam,” the Sentinel protested. “I have no right to enter the heavenly city. It was not built for me.”

Amy shook her head. “This isn’t negotiable, Steve. You are coming with me and that is the end of it. Do I make myself clear?”

The Sentinel sighed. “I understand your intention, but I do not know what will happen when you actually try it. But that is a conversation for another day. To get back to the matter at hand – before we even explore a cure for adults it may be wise to attempt to cure a child first, to see if the technique works. Once we have verified that we can pursue curing adults, with the understanding that the technology will never be used for anything else and the computer will be destroyed after the last one is cured.”

“That sounds good to me,” Amy said. “How long will this take?”

“A few days. It depends on how old the child is. Older children will take longer.”
“Can you try to cure the oldest child that you can? I know it will be harder, but I’d like to take the child to the council and confront them with him. An older child would probably be a lot more sympathetic than a screaming toddler. As you said, I can’t keep stalling the general forever.”

“I understand,” the Sentinel said. “I will do what I can and will let you know when I have something.”

“Thanks,” Amy replied.