Chapter 21 Spine of Logic #2
Soren returned to Clover Hollow, smitten and forever changed. He’d always been effeminate but hid it by telling peers he was just a bookworm. Once, his mother caught him dressing up in her clothes. Blessedly, she didn’t tell his father. In his imagination, Soren had always had a pretend boyfriend.
Over the past two years, he and Nathan grew from friends to clandestine lovers. Nathan had started bringing shipments from the commune to the city every month, and they’d get together. Only now, with Nathan’s birthday next month and his following close behind, Soren stood to lose it all.
“Here we are, son,” his father said, showing him to a gleaming station in a sterile office.
“This interface is where I tap into the Core itself, feed it the vital information, receive responses and recommendations from the Oracle Core. Of course, I’m only one of the twenty-one Ministers of the Oligarchy, and it’s up to the First Cipher to interpret the meaning and will of the Oracle.
But that couldn’t happen without my expertise keeping the Core running glitch-free. ”
Soren studied the control panel, the readout machine, and glanced over his shoulder through a wall of windows at the pulsing engine. “It’s impressive, all right.”
“I’m so glad your scores put you in the top tier,” he said.
“You don’t have to worry about being assigned to a biochemical field or mechanical engineering.
If you prefer research and development, coding is the way to go.
But why would anyone want to work outside the mountain?
I’m on the team for tomorrow’s program, when the Oracle will speak to the crowds.
Minister Chen Lu, Creative Designer Elsa Davis, and First Shepherd Severin Dray are programming the projection, tweaking the voice, and writing the script.
Everything must be approved by the First Cipher, but I’ll be running troubleshooting to make sure the event goes off without a hitch.
Would you like to stay and watch me work, get a feel for it?
” he asked hopefully. “Or do you want to look around, maybe talk to someone in reactor dynamics or synthetics research?”
None. He pictured the Unity Hall staff, the technicians robotically roaming the ground floor of the mountain, and inwardly cringed.
Must knowledge and progress come at the cost of individuality?
He didn’t want to be a cog in the wheel, spinning forever in the direction others pointed him. I want to be an artist.
“This place is awe-inspiring, Father,” he replied. “And your job is especially significant. You always talk about the science of it all, but you’re in the Ministry, our government. I’d like to know more about that aspect of your work.”
“Here, have a seat.” Adélard offered him a practical office chair on wheels while he took an identical one at his desk. “I don’t talk about my job with the Ministry much because so much of it is classified.”
“Like the first floor,” Soren inserted.
His father tensed, a tick jerking in his face.
“Yes, like that. In the first years, Appalachia’s founders—First Cipher Aurelian LeCun’s father among them—got together to decide how the region would be run.
Appalachia wasn’t as large then as it is now, but they wanted a government that wouldn’t make the mistakes of the past. They decided that an oligarchy of intellectuals made the most sense.
Why allow an autocrat to hold absolute power or take a gamble on a democracy where idiots would elect other idiots to positions of power? ”
His reasoning made sense to Soren. “Smart people with the good of the nation at heart should be in charge,” he agreed.
“I just don’t get all the restrictive rules geared toward uniformity.
People should be allowed to express themselves, to decide things like how they want to spend their lives or who to spend them with. ”
“Unity is strength,” Adélard declared, “and order is the highest adaptation. In the founding years, many social codes were experimented with, but one group or another was always unhappy. We discovered that, without equity, citizens reverted to jealousy and theft. Without strict order, there was no peace. So, like with issues of survival in the aftermath of war, the founders asked the Oracle. It laid out the perfect plan to avoid the pitfalls that have plagued so many cultures through human history. By instilling regulations such as shared land and equipment in the communes and equal housing and rationing in the cities, we have minimized human tendencies toward greed.”
“But why all the drab colors? Why allow a machine to pick our mates and assign our careers?”
His father shook his head with a wry smile.
“You ask these questions every year, and the answers don’t change.
It’s a proven fact—the Oracle knows best. Look, son, on the outside, things are practical, purposeful—uniformity for the sake of unity—and unity is everything.
But consider the inside of our apartment compared to your friends?
Your mother decorates as she sees fit, with many colors.
You have those cartoon character pajamas you still wear, though they’re halfway up your shins.
The government hasn’t snuffed out individuality.
Should people be allowed to pursue any career path they fancy?
Should a man with marginal intelligence be allowed to practice medicine or design cutting-edge equipment just because he wants to?
Or a woman with a two-hundred IQ be allowed to open a nursery because she loves flowers? ”
Soren leaned his elbows on his knees and hung his head. He’d heard this all before, and it always made sense to his brain—but not his heart.
“What’s this really about, son? Is it because you’re soon to be matched with a wife?”
He swallowed in silence, unsure what to say. His fingertips tapped together, nerves crawling under his skin. I want to be with Nathan, he thought. But I can’t disappoint everyone.
Soren felt his father’s hand on his shoulder and glanced up, questions in his eyes.
“Do you think your mother and I haven’t noticed your tendencies? There’s no shame in being a sensitive soul or lacking athleticism. It’s natural to be curious, to have self-doubt, or wish to pursue forbidden passions. The matching ritual is in place for a critical reason.”
“I know. We have to repopulate,” he said. “Everyone is required to have children, unless they can’t.”
“That’s right.” His father patted his neck and removed his hand.
“But no laws forbid you to seek pleasure outside your marriage. Many men who are, shall we say, more delicate, find satisfaction without forgoing their duty to marry and produce children. Your mother and I are solid—an unbreakable union. Despite that, we both have our … hobbies.” He shrugged.
“Are you saying you have other lovers?” Soren’s eyes widened, shock rippling through him at this revelation.
“You’re a young man now, soon to become a full-fledged adult. You might as well know the truth—but don’t tell your little sister,” he stipulated, finger pointed at Soren.
“I won’t!” He blinked, rendered speechless. As intelligent and astute as he was, accustomed to sneaking moments with Nathan, he would have never guessed.
“A marriage works when both parties are happy and satisfied, working together for a common goal. We don’t air our laundry in public, but, if you need sexual fulfillment elsewhere, it can always be arranged.
Every man in Appalachia has a wife, every woman, a husband.
What else they do is nobody’s business but their own. Does that ease some of your fears?”
Soren couldn’t believe that his father knew without him ever coming out.
There would have been no point, as everyone’s lives were so strictly structured.
But if his father was to be believed, he still had a road to happiness.
He and Nathan could marry their matches and still maintain their relationship on the side.
He could paint in his free time and decorate his home anyway he liked. Pink slippers—just never outside.
Hope welled up, bursting across his face like spring sunlight. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow to meet Nathan and tell him the good news.
“Thanks, Father. It’s such a relief to not have to hide this side of me from you and Mother.”
Pinning him with a serious expression, his father warned, “You must still hide it from the rest of the world. Many citizens are not as understanding as I am. If you’re ever to hold a seat on the College of Ministers, you must uphold every appearance of conformity.
Whenever a minister dies or becomes too infirm to perform his or her duties, a new Institute graduate, who has distinguished himself or herself in their field, is chosen to take their place, always keeping the number of oligarchs at twenty-one.
It is the College of Oligarchs who vote for the First Cipher.
It’s my hope that you take my seat one day. Nothing would make me prouder.”
Turbines whirred. The Core hummed. Soren’s heart thumped. He wanted to make his father proud. He wanted to please Nathan. But the constant looming fear that had shrouded him in a cloud of indecision for most of his life whispered in his mind’s ear. You can’t do both. Maybe neither.