Pepper chuckled. "I'd half expected some insane military dictator wearing a head of antlers calling himself Pan. "
Pan did not laugh. It leaned closer. "Pepper, understand me. This is not your fight. I'm the naturally elected ruler of Haven. The choice To remove me, that isn't yours. I did not bring you here to destroy me, but for other reasons. "
"The choice?" the word affected Pepper in some way Stanuel could not figure out. He looked over at Stanuel. "then if you're a benevolent ruler, you will escort me off Haven, leave Stanuel alive, and move on to other things. After all, it was your orders that set Stanuel down this path. "
"Of course. It's that or a sentence in one of Haven's residential rooms. You'll be locked in, but comfortable. There do have to be ways to handle such things. Exile, or confinement. "
"Okay, Mr. Pan. Okay. My work here is done. " Pepper moved towards Stanuel with a flick of his feet. "Come on Stanuel, it's time to leave the tower. "
Stanuel could hardly look Pepper in the eye. "I can't believe you left there. "
"Pan made a good argument. "
"Pan offered to pay you more. That's all. "
"There's that, but I won't take it. " Pepper scratched his head. "If I destroyed Pan, what would you do?"
Stanuel frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You said the emulations wouldn't be allowed to hold direct control, earlier. Does that mean you'd allow the emulations to come back and decide votes for you?"
"One assumes. We might have not gotten them right, but if we can fix that error, things can go back to the way they were. "
Pepper unpacked his suit and stepped into it. It crinkled and cracked as he zipped it up. "And then I'll be back. Because you'll repeat the same patter all over again. "
"What?"
"For all your assumptions, you're not quite seeing the pattern. Deep down, somewhere, you all want Pan. You don't want the responsibility of voting, you want the easy result. "
"That's not true," Stanuel objected.
"Oh come on. Think of all the times princes and princesses are adored and feted. Think of all the actors and great people we adore and fawn over. "
"That doesn't make us slavish followers. "
Pepper cocked his head. "No, but we still can't escape the instincts we carry from being a small band of hunter-gatherers making their way across a plain, depending on a single leader who knew the ins and outs of their tiny tribe and listened to their feedback. That doesn't scale, so we have inelegant hacks around it.
"Stanuel, you all created a technological creature, able to view you all and listen to all your feedback, and embody a benevolent single tribal leader. Not only was it born out of your unconscious needs, even your own emulations overwhelmingly voted it into power as sole ruler of Haven. "
Stanuel raised his hand to halt Pepper. "that's all true, and over the last four days we've argued around all this when we found out about the vote. But, Pepper, whether perfect or not, we can't allow a single person to rule us. It goes against everything we believe in, everything we worked for when we created Haven. "
Pepper nodded. "I know. "
"And you're going to walk away. "
"I have to. Because this wasn't some power grab, it was the will of your people. There was a vote. Pan is right, it is The rightful ruler. But," Pepper pointed at him, "I'm not leaving you empty-handed. "
"What do you mean?"
He handed over the backpack and pressed a small stick with a button into Stanuel's hand. "the E. M. P device is in the backpack. You won't get anywhere near the tower to take out just Pan, but if you trigged it in the hub after I leave, it will shut Haven down. Pan will have backups, and his supporters will protect the tower, but if enough people feel like you do, you can storm it with the guns in that pack. "
"You're asking me to. fight?"
"You know your history. The tree of liberty needs to be watered with some blood every now and then. Thomas Jefferson, I think, said that. Most of your ancestors fought for it. You could have kept it, had you just. Taken the time to vote yourself instead of leaving it to something else. "
"I don't know if I can. " Stanuel was bewildered. He'd never done anything violent in his life.
Pepper smiled. "You might find Pan is more willing to fold than you imagine. Think about it. "
With that, he stepped into the airlock. The door shut with a hiss, and the spacesuit faded into camouflage black as Pepper disappeared inside whatever stealth ship had bought him to Haven.
Stanuel stood there. He pulled the backpack's straps up over onto his shoulders and made his way toward the gardens, mulling over the mercenary's last words.
A hologram of Pan waited for him at the entrance to the gardens, but no goons were nearby. Stanuel had expected to be captured, with the threat of a long confinement ahead of him. But it was just the electronic god of Haven and Stanuel.
"You didn't understand what he meant, did you?" Pan said. It really was the panopticon, listening to everything that happened in Haven.
"No. " Stanuel held the switch to the E. M. P in his hand, waiting for some trick. Was he going to get shot in the head by a sniper? But Pan said it didn't use violence.
Maybe a tranquilizer dart of some sort?
"I told you," Pan said, "I also created the resistance. "
"But that doesn't make any sense," Stanuel said.
"It does if you stop thinking of me as a person, but as an avatar of your collective emulators. Every ruling system has an opposition; the day after I was voted into power, I had to create a series of checks and balances against myself. That was the resistance. "
"But I was recruited by people. "
"And they were recruited by my people, working for me, who were told they were to create an opposition tame as a honey trap. " Pan flickered as he walked through a tree. An incongruous vision, as Stanuel floated through the no gravity garden.
"Why would you want to die?"
"Because, I may not be what all of you want, just what most of you want. I have to create an opportunity for myself to be stopped, or else, I really am a tyrant and not the best solution. That is why Pepper was hired to bring the E. M. P device aboard. That was why, ultimately, he left it with you. " "So it's all in my hands," Stanuel said. "Yes. Live in a better economy, a safer economy, but one ruled by what you have created. Or muddle along yourselves. " Pan moved in front of Stanuel, floating with him.
Stanuel held up the metal tube and hovered his thumb over the button. "Men should be free. "
Pan nodded sadly. "But Stanuel, you all will never be able to get things done the way I can. It will be such a mess of compromise, personality, mistakes, wrong choices, emotional choices, mob rule, and imperfect decisions. You could well destroy Haven with your imprecise decisions. "
It was a siren call. But even though Pan was perfect, and right, it was the same song that led smart men to call tyrants leaders and do so happily. The promise of quick action, clean and fast decisions.
Alluring.
"I know it will be messy," Stanuel said, voice quavering. "And I have no idea how it will work out. But at least it will be ours. "
He pressed the button and watched as the lights throughout Haven dimmed and flickered. Pan disappeared with a sigh, a ghost banished. The darkness marched its glorious way through the cavernous gardens toward Stanuel, who folded up in the air by a tree while he waited for the dark to take him in its freeing embrace.
Civilization
by VYLAR KAFTAN
Vylar Kaftan writes speculative fiction of all genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and slipstream. Her work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, GigaNotoSaurus, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Cosmos, Escape Pod, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Sybil's Garage, The Way of the Wizard, and in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Paper Cities. She lives with her husband Shannon in northern California.