From: ultratempum <ultratempum@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:33:50 +1100
To: ultratempum<ultratempum@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: of known
I walked along the last of what seemed to be an endless stretch of red earthen road.
It was hot, dry and tiring. I was nowhere, but I could see where I was going ahead in the distance.
The lights of the city were so soft. Unlike the bright neons of the attention thieves in the dense entertainment districts or the endless, uniform squares of the flat, soulless suburbia, this city just glowed: shone like late afternoon sun on leaves, unassuming, organic and peaceful. That isn't to say that the city appeared still. It hummed with a hive of life.
The city was a hive, in a way. Based on the design and construction of termite mounds, the city walls were the same red earth as that which surrounded it. As I got closer, I realised that what appeared to be city walls were not the walls of a fortified castle, but rather just the walls of the outer buildings. The city had no defined boundary, nor controlled border; just a turretless, hazy edge, seemingly unwelcome from the pure lack of interest of the inhabitants toward visitors, rather than specifically defensive and suspicious.
I approached the outer edge where the road just stopped, having reached the doors to the outermost buildings and seeking no further terrain: an unconquering, uncurious road, content with its confines and humble purpose. As I began to walk along this perfect and pristine, flat though slightly textured and incredibly gripped plastic, I noticed movement along the high walls of the surrounding outer towers by which I ventured.
They were small creatures, no bigger than a metre, crawling along the outer surface of the buildings toward me. As they weaved rapidly closer, they leapt to the roadside before me, two to the floor and one atop a street light. They were children, with eyes that flickered purple to green, then to blue, white and finally to the soft, deep ochre of the surrounding city.
"Hello", I started, slowly. "My name is Leighton. Nate Leighton."
The children stared at me unnervingly, scanning up and down my body silently. I opened my mouth to speak again, but the child up the back on the light spoke first.
"We know. Why are you here?"
The children were frank and unsurprised. Their quiet curiosity was both alien and animalistic at once, so that their strange mannerisms could only be defined as 'inhuman'. At least, not as I knew it.
"I am here to see Victor Petrez", I stated, hoping for their assistance or disinterest, either being preferable to this quiet and disquieting silence.
The city was completely silent, except for the slow, soft hum of the giant turbine at the city centre, which was no louder than a breeze through a forest canopy. Despite the unfamiliar design and appearance of the city, it was intensely peaceful and calming. There was traffic, all of it silent with the small, one-person vehicles sweeping gracefully around the city in synchronous harmony without lights nor signs to co-ordinate their ballet. They all passed along the city floor, any of the many tiered passages between buildings, or from roof to roof, draining like water into the slipstream created by the turbine to fly away to another, distant settlement.
"You don't need to see him here. You could have seen him via the site. You don't need to come here to see anyone", the front-most child responded. Despite the discouragement, she pulled a small device from her back pocket and threw in onto the ground between us. It unpacked into a small screen and propped itself up. Victor Petrez looked up at me.
"Yes?", he asked. "What do you want?"
I looked over to the children. "I could use some privacy."
"That's unfortunate.", the child on the streetlight replied. "There isn't really that notion here. Not with conversation at least. We can move away, if that makes you more comfortable, but we will know everything that you tell him, just as will everyone else here."
I, of course, knew this. It was hard to get used to. Speaking to one person was like speaking to everyone at once. Sort of.
This is one of the cities of The Known, a group of people who have chosen to collaborate their knowledge on a daily basis – to have a hive memory. Everything that anyone sees or hears is used to automatically update a collective knowledge base. This base is accessed inside the eyes of every Known, projecting the knowledge onto the world around them.
This has increase the rate of progress in the city, reduced the social inequality that privileged knowledge brings. There is no ability to cheat, steal, live secret lives, or 'get away with' crime. Because everyone knows what you know, if you think you are morally justified in an act, everyone else does too. Being a Known means being of similar mind because everyone's upbringing is based on the same ever-growing knowledge base. There is every kind of love without taboo and the most successful community-wide cooperation the world has ever seen.
Originally, the Known were a small collective. They used what they knew try to improve the greater society around them. Most people prevented their entrance to shops and public places, would ostracise them from conversation, would remove their rights. They were feared for their shared eyesight. As progress increased, they began to change their bodies to improve their abilities. Their new appearances was the final straw. They were the other. They were exiled.
They built new cities like this one. Clean and self-powered with mining, farming, commerce, transport and housing all inclusive. Soon the population grew, people began to leave the other cities to join them, knowing that the life was different, but better for them and for the world around them. They were producing in surplus and the rest of the world feared them, trading only in limited wares. New products frightened the old cities. The world around the Known grew suspicious and paranoid with the growing fear and isolation. Today the cities are tearing themselves apart with civil war as some drive for a pre-emptive strike against the unarmed Known (who could easily make powerful weapons should they desire) and others resist the unnecessary violence.
I looked into the strange eyes of Victor Petrez. "I want to become a Known. Please let me. I've walked so far, for so long to get here."
Petrez looked back with a blank expression. "You could have asked anyone here, you didn't need to disturb me. Follow the children."
The children stood up tall, suddenly civilised and much less bestial than they had appeared when leaping from walls and perching on high. They walked ahead in a line across the road, where the traffic slowed and stopped in anticipation of their passage. No markings or crossings, just synchronised harmony. I followed.
The room which we entered across the road was small, like a janitor's office, with tools hanging from the well-lit walls and a semi-transparent ceiling allowing a soft, even sunlight through. One child directed me to a large, dentist's chair and I sat as they ran out the door to resume their play. Instantly, a tall man appeared through the door, closing it behind him. The adult Known are very different. The children must have been just four or five years old, having their intelligence and senses enhanced at birth and getting rapidly used to movement and the world around them. By the Intermediate Youth age, determined by the age of full environmental awareness to that of full, adult physical development, they are ready for their body alterations.
The tall man was wearing the same clothes as all Known do – the dark, padded, second skin which provides them with much of their extraordinary strength, agility and comfort. It is said that it maintains ideal temperature, protects against UV, radiation, chemical agents and anything else that the cities might deploy in the future. It also houses much of their interaction and intelligence technology. This is what I had come to receive.
"We aren't all the same, you know", the tall man stated, answering a statement that I had not yet voiced. He knew, as did I, that outsiders viewed the Known as literally a single organism. Joining them was seen as being eaten by a vast and alluring monster; a meal for the Siren.
"We project all manner of designs about ourselves to present our individuality, but only the Known eyes can see them. It's the same with the signs on the streets, the advertising economy, all of the information we share, create and consume." The tall man turned on a round, ring of red light which hung from the end of a metal arm.
"If we give you our eyes, you must see for us as we see for you. You do understand that?", the tall man spoke quietly in a sincere, yet rehearsed manner.
"Yes", I replied. "So will you take me?"
"We do not 'take', Nate. We trade. We work together."
I wanted to ask how he knew my name out of habit, but stopped short.
"Well done.", he continued. "Repressing the urge to ask how I knew your name shows a willingness to understand and adapt to the basic ways of our city."
"Uh... Thanks?", I muttered, wondering whether he could read minds as well.
"You are probably wondering whether I can read minds. Unfortunately, we've just had a lot of the same replies to the same questions and comments. By using the same script, we can anticipate newcomers' actions. We don't want anyone acting violently here and acting in a strange manner to the script is a 'heads up' about the potential for even stranger, unpredictable responses."
"So, have I passed then?" I asked jokingly, though quite seriously wanting a reply.
"This isn't a test, Nate. And yes, you have." The tall man answered with a completely straight face. I stared back at him, unsure of how to respond.
"That was a joke", he assured.
I was surprised. "I didn't know that you could joke!"
"We aren't machines, we're just people like you with a single ability which tends to lead to many others. We aren't restricted or obligated to act a certain way, we aren't brainwashed or even guided. There is a basic fact of psychology that allows people to live together in harmonious communities and has since the dawn of man, or at least the dawn of some creature before man. That fact is that our minds are guided by our experience and the closer your experience is to another persons, the more similar your thoughts are likely to be. We aren't one creature, nor are we psychic or special in any other way. We all just act for ourselves upon what we know. Our legality is our morality, neither of which needs to be enforced or written down. Essentially, the Known is 'get along to serve yourself'. The rest just falls into place.
He handed me a piece of paper with a line on it and a pen. There was no writing on the sheet.
"If you really want to take on this ability, to share your eyes, just sign here." He put his hands behind his back and smiled his a soft glow of his now-purple eyes.
"Don't contracts usually have... words? What do you want from me in return?", I asked, prepared for something entirely different.
"Your eyesight in return for ours. A more than fair trade, information is free, we lose nothing by sharing it. If you want the eyes to see it, we will give that to you in order to improve our vision. 'Get along to serve yourself and serve yourself to serve all.' But, you are right, this is a strange contract. If you feel uncomfortable about it, I can write something on it, but it's largely pointless. We all know what I have told you. You haven't been coerced. If you sign here, we will all see it. Paper records of contract are for the benefit of those who weren't there. Everyone is here."
"Oh", I was speechless, considering 'Oh' to be hardly a speech. Part of me was in awe of the simplicity that I could see, the lack of bureaucracy. Part of me was petrified by the reminder that I was being watched by so many eyes, so to speak.
"I do have one more question" I announced, regaining courage. "What do I do in... intimate moments?"
"Ah", he replied, understanding my concern. "Well, only information is stored and transmitted, not a live video feed. No one even knows whose eyes saw what, just that it is known. If you still require some privacy, which most people are content without, there is a mostly painless procedure to temporarily disable transmission. You will lose our sight and share none of your own, but the only remaining sign of guilt in our society is symbolised in this act. If something goes awry near you during this period, there will be a great deal of suspicion."
"I see", I answered resolutely. "I'm ready to sign."
I quickly picked up the pen and wrote my name. The tall man picked up the piece of paper just as quickly, looked at it for a moment and set fire to it.
"This flame is symbolic of the unnecessary cement for our trust, which will be intimate and unconditional."
I stared at the ash in his fireproof hand.
"If you burn the contract, how does one break it?"
He smiled at me. "I speak with my own voice. I make my own mind. So too will you. There cannot be this ability without reciprocity. If you give up the sight of others, we will lose your eyes. There are no conditions to this agreement. It is a formality to the statement of your will to belong with us. Leave and no one will seek you."
With that said, I smiled too. I didn't know how I was going to adapt to this world, but at least I wouldn't be alone in my efforts.
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