Chapter 129
“On the other hand, Prince’s greed for increasingly greater profits,” said the Grasshopper, “which he called the organic need of the economy to constantly grow, was eating away at the Balance. It was necessary to constantly increase consumption, quarter over quarter.
“That is why they created the labor camps where they took the Non-Consumers, and carried out experiments on them, with the goal of creating a Super-Consumer, a being that would have an intensive and increasingly frequent need for new models.
“They tried to copy the sexual drive. And in time they succeeded. The problem emerged when they realized that the Super-Consumer must have that much more income to be able to afford all the new goods that they wanted, at least three times per week. They must earn a lot more, i.e. they have to work that much more.
“That is why at the camps they designed state-of-the-art maximally automated and robotized plants with excellent productivity and the minimal need for human labor. They trained the most successful specimen of the Super-Consumer to work and employed them at these plants. The calculation showed that their appetite for new models could be financially covered only if they worked sixteen hours per day at these most automated plants. And they worked.
“The next problem occurred when the Super-Consumers, having seen the first pieces of the new model on the assembly line, would jump onto the conveyor, steal the piece and run around the factory with it, already trying it on. When they would change, they would see the next piece on the line. They would again steal it and take off the piece from a minute ago, even though it was the same model. But this piece was a minute newer. And so on indefinitely.
“It turned out that the Super-Consumer was unusable, that their desired passion for consumption, which the Kaellas had finally developed, at a huge cost, prevented them from working and earning to satisfy their super-consumer needs. They shut down the labor camps and killed all the people.”
“Dreadful.”
“Nothing new, Dr. Palladino. It’s always the same, all throughout the existence of mankind. All the Kaellas and the Erivans of this world, regardless of the level of development of the civilization or its social organization, under the excuse of expanding its ideology, territory, wealth, power… they killed with impunity. Killing was always the only goal and death was the final outcome.
“It was by mere chance that these historic individuals, who we are familiar with, gained the oportunity to kill. Had they not killed, someone else would have. The problem of ordinary people was that they didn’t get the opportunity. And the problem of those that had the opportunity were the instruments. They had to use one group of people as the instrument for killing a different group of people.
“Through history the development of science and technology changed the structure of the killing instruments. In each subsequent epoch an increasingly smaller group of people were needed for killing an increasingly larger other group.
“This was labeled the increase in the number of civilian casualties. The need for subjects or followers was decreasing. The instruments were becoming more advanced and the killing was simpler.”
Chapter 130
“Well, I don’t know if that’s great,” Sayash hesitated. “It’s a very large city. I’ll lose you.”
“No, you won’t, Mr. Sayash, we promise!”
“We won’t leave your side, or Lucky’s!” the children shouted out.
“What grade are you anyway?” Sayash suddenly wondered.
“First, Mr. Sayash,” Larisa said.
“First? Well then the big city is out of the question!”
“Why?” they shouted all at once.
“What do you mean ‘why’? You’re too small. You don’t even know the alphabet. You’ll need to read all the signs… you know which ones… and all that…”
“We know how to read!”
“And write, Mr. Sayash!”
“Aha! And how do you know?” Sayash didn’t believe the children.
“Well, we know. We learned in preschool,” said Sib.
“Hmm… You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Sayash smiled, already giving in to the children.
“What can we do - we’re smart!” Ekene smiled.
“Well, even if we didn’t know how to read, you’ll read the signs for us, Mr. Sayash,” said Mariam.
“Me?” Sayash was shocked. “Oh, children, you’re so naïve! You think that when you are as old as Mr. Sayash you’ll still be able to keep all the letters in your head. You won’t. They fall out… For example, the letter L is still in my head. I mean, in addition to the letter S. That’s why I named Lucky - Lucky; in case I had to sign our names somewhere. So that we are not embarrassed…”
“So how would you read the signs in Megapolis, if you didn’t have us, Mr. Sayash?” Milan asked.
“I wouldn’t read them. Lucky and I don’t need that. The two of us aren’t interested in where we are… or where we’re going. No… we never part…”
“We’ll do the same, Mr. Sayash! We’ll never part from you and Lucky! We too aren’t interested in the signs. Here, the letters have already fallen out of my head!” Flavia said out loud.
“Oh, you’re so nice…” Sayash was getting soft. “OK, so let’s get going. This is how we’ll do it. Now listen to me very carefully. I’ll go at the head of the group. You follow me, in pairs. And hold hands. I’ll hold Lucky in my hands, but backwards. He won’t look forward but back at you, over my shoulder. As soon as someone lets go of their pair or leaves the group, Lucky will whack me with his tail. And if I turn around…”
“No one will, Mr. Sayash. We’ll be good. We’ll listen you!” said Nirmala.
“And if someone did let go, Lucky wouldn’t give us up, would you, Lucky?” asked David, holding Lucky to his chest.
“You’ve really grown close, haven’t you?” Sayash smiled.
Chapter 131
“I realized that the end of the epoch of Humane Capitalism was coming to a close,” said the Grasshopper. “The appearance of Mr. Alexander and the unstoppable growth of his movement had shown me that the system would collapse in my lifetime. And that entire time, up there, above all of us, the absolute killing instrument has been suspended. And I wondered, what would Kaella do when the system started to collapse, when he saw that he was losing? What do you think, Doctor? What would Kaella have done his last moments, when he realized that there were no more buyers?”
“I know what you mean.”
“He would think ‘if you’re not my Consumers, then you have no more reason to live.’ And Kaella would finally find his excuse to use this absolute weapon.”
“Probably,” Dr. Palladino agreed.
“Or imagine Prince, sitting in my place, at the command desk, watching live satellite feeds. Watching Non-Consumers taking out wads of money and gold bars from the vault beneath his palace. Or David from his garden, or The Night Watch from his hallway, or the Mona Lisa from the wall over his bed. What do you think, which buttons would Prince press at that moment?”
“All of them.”
“And…”
“Forgive me for interrupting you, but what happened to all those masterpieces? Erivan demolished the palace…”
“Yes, he demolished it. And he tried to build higher colonnades. As though Kaella wouldn’t have done so, if the construction could support them. Charlie removed the artwork to a safe place on time. In the underground depots of Erivan’s squads. I wouldn’t allow anyone to lay a hand on them. Only I can destroy such beauty.”