“Thank you,” I said, and we turned around. The robots followed at a respectful distance for 50 paces and then dispersed.
“A rabid dog? I’ve never heard that one.” Burt said. We walked all the way back to the building in silence. We took the elevator up to the 14th floor, walked down the main corridor, then down our corridor to our room.
I walked in thinking my own thoughts, and then jumped back three feet when I noticed them. I nearly knocked Burt over, except that he was as surprised as I was at the sight of the two women sitting on his bunk. They were watching the television and turned to us as we entered with smiles on their faces.
“Who are you?” I asked, stating the obvious question. The two women stood. They were dressed casually but in very nice clothing. They both wore jewelry — something I had not seen for a year. Burt and I were the same age, and these women appeared younger, although it is so hard to tell these days. They certainly were not terrafoam residents. And both were carrying thick books. They appeared to be either phone books from a bygone era, or large catalogs like Sears used to have long ago. I had not seen a book like that for many years.
“I’ll second that,” was Burt’s reaction.
“We are so sorry to startle you,” said the woman on the left. “We know this is unexpected, but we are here to talk to Jacob Lewis105. Are either of you him?”
“I am Jacob Lewis105,” I said. “How did you get in here? I am amazed that the robots allowed it.”
“That will become clear within the next hour. Would it be possible for us to speak to you alone, Mr. Lewis105?”
“I guess. Burt, can I have the room for a little bit?”
Burt said, “I’ll go down and talk to Mike. Come get me if you need me.”
They sat back down on the bunk, which really was no easy task given the space available. They looked so tremendously out of place in the room to begin with. They offered me a seat as well.
“Jacob Lewis105, what we are going to tell you today may be quite surprising to you, but it is all true. It will take approximately 30 minutes and then, with your permission, you will be able to exit the terrafoam system today. May we begin?”
Chapter 5
I reached out to shake hands with the woman on my left. “Call me Jake,” I said.
She took my hand and said, “I am Linda.” I turned to greet the woman on my right and she said, “And I am Cynthia.”
Linda started right in, “Cynthia and I are here to talk to you about the Australia Project. This is for you.” She handed me the thick book she had been holding. On the cover it said, “Australia Project Catalog”, with a picture of a happy group of people on the beach, and along the right hand side there was a row of pictures showing a house, a shirt, a meal on a table and several electronic products. I started to flip through the catalog.
“Have you ever heard of the Australia Project?” Cynthia asked.
But I was still looking at the catalog. It was a giant paper catalog, printed in full color. The paper was thin, and the book had to have over 3,000 pages in it. It was a lot like an old-fashioned Sears catalog — pages and pages of products. As I flipped through it, there were hundreds of pages showing different styles of clothing. Hundreds of pages showing different meals. Hundreds of pages showing all different kinds of vacation resorts. Thousands of pages of “consumer products,” for lack of a better word: Electronics, appliances, furniture, tools, you name it.
“Is this paper?” I asked. A catalog like this containing this much paper was obscene. It was amazing to me that anyone still printed paper catalogs.
Linda said, “It’s like paper. We call it LC, or laminar carbohydrate. The terrafoam robots won’t let us bring anything metal or electronic into the terrafoam system, so this is the best thing we have to show you what the Australia Project is about.”
“Have you ever heard of the Australia Project?” Cynthia asked.
“No, I haven’t,” I said as I continued to flip.
“A number of years ago, your father purchased two shares of 4GC, Inc. in your name. These shares entitle you and one other person to come live as citizens of the Australia Project. You may leave the terrafoam system with us today if you choose to.” Linda said.
I stopped flipping and looked at her. “I can leave the terrafoam system today? What does that mean?” I asked. She had my undivided attention.
“It means that you can walk out of this building with us today, fly to Australia and begin a new life as a citizen of the Australia Project.” Linda said.
“How is that possible? Why would the robots allow it? Are you telling me the robots will just let me hop on a bus and drive away?” I asked.
“More or less. You do have to sign out of the system.” Linda said.
“Excuse me if I laugh out loud. And I don’t mean to be rude. But if that’s the case, then why haven’t I been able to simply walk away? I’ve been trying to find a way out of here for a year.” I pointed out.
“The robots won’t let you walk away because, if they did, you would end up as a homeless person on some city street. Without a job, you are by default homeless in the American economy. None of the wealthy people want to look at homeless people, so you are warehoused here and forced to stay here.” Linda said.
“In terrafoam, you are out of sight and out of mind, as they say,” Cynthia added. “Since we are providing the transportation, and we are taking you to another country, the robots are happy to see you go. It means one less mouth for them to feed.”
Linda said. “If you would allow us, we would like to spend ten minutes telling you about the Australia Project. What we are talking about will make much more sense to you at that point, and it will be much easier for you to make the decision.”
“The decision?” I asked.
“The decision whether you want to leave with us or not.” Linda said.
“I’m all ears.” I replied.
Linda began describing.
“The Australia Project is what we call a fourth generation civilization. Prior to the Australia Project, civilization has been through three phases. There was the hunt/gather phase, the agrarian phase, and then the industrial phase. What you are experiencing here in the terrafoam system is the ultimate destination for many of the industrialized nations of the world. In your case, in America, robots created a massive concentration of wealth that, eventually, imprisoned millions of people.”
Cynthia added, “What you are experiencing in America is the worst that the robots have to offer. Robots control the humans, rather than vice versa.”
Linda continued, “The Australia Project was born specifically to solve these problems and create a new form of human civilization. It is a fourth generation civilization conceived of by Eric Renson. Eric was an American who was heavily involved in what was then called the open software movement. As an American, he had seen Manna in its earliest phases. He could envision what Manna, combined with the coming robots, would mean to America and Western civilization as a whole.”
“He at first tried to fight it, but realized that was impossible. Instead, he eventually came up with a completely new way to think about human societies. In the Australia Project, humans get the best that the robots have to offer, rather than the worst. He took the open source model of free software, added the robots and brought the model to the material world. The revolutionary idea in open source software is the fact that no one owns the code. Because there is no owner, the code is free to everyone.”
Cynthia picked up the thread. “Eric’s key concept was extremely simple. What he realized is that, in a robotic civilization, everything can be free.”