This is the start of a novella I'm working on, actually a series of several.  It's science fiction.  I'm a conservative, my best friend is a socialist, and I discovered that there are people who really can hold very different views.  Cool. Contact me if you want the whole novella. 

© 1999-2000 Donald Brown

It was a quiet afternoon in Independence.  George Tanner liked quiet afternoons.  No thefts, no accidents, no infringers, just driving around in his squad car with the music playing.

Suddenly the music cut out, the info screen beeped, and a message appeared.  “Go to 1810 Industrial Circle, fight in progress.”  George sighed, turned on the flashers, and spun away.

He stopped two blocks away.  It looked like there was a big audience, 20, 30 people.  Or they may be involved.  More than one man would deal with.  At least, more than one cautious man, and George Tanner was a cautious man.

George fiddled with the controls in his pocket, then whispered into the lapel on his jacket, “Tanner here, dealing with the fight.  Looks like a big crowd, any backup available?”

The dispatcher’s voice came out of nowhere.  George knew that only he would hear it, something called an inductive sound wave generator created the sound within his ear, but it still startled him. “This is Dispatch.  Checking… Wait, what fight?  Where are you?”

“1810 Industrial Circle.  Didn’t you dispatch me here?”

“Not me.  But I just came on shift.  Hold on…Tanner, you live under a lucky star.  We’ve got some juniors in the area, dealing with some small stuff.  They’re on their way.”

“OK, thanks.  Tell them to come in quietly, no sense in startling the crowd until we’re ready.”

When the other cars arrived, George filled them in on the situation.  The junior officers linked their protective shields and walked up to the crowd.  The crowd was watching one man fighting off four others.  He was good, but they were wearing him down.

George pulled out his megaphone.  “Citizens, this is the police.  Can we help someone?”

The crowd dispersed like cockroaches when you turn on the light.  A few considered a run at the officers, but seeing the linked shields and stun guns, remembered somewhere else they wanted to be.

But the fight went on.  George waited for the call for help.  When it didn’t come, George asked, “Is there anyone here who is having a problem?”  The lone fighter gave George a very dirty look but continued fighting.

Maybe the fighter was struck on the head and wasn’t thinking straight.  “Citizen, we cannot give assistance unless we are asked.  Does anyone here need help?”

Exasperation showed on the fighter’s face.  “Yes, yes, I want help.”

Finally, George thought.  The officers raised their stun guns and aimed at the other fighters, while George ordered “Please move away from that citizen and stand down, sirs.” 

The four fighters moved away, exchanged nods, and then all hell broke loose.  One of them tossed a grenade, another tossed a smoke bomb, and another reached for an energy gun.  The juniors started shooting into the smoke and dust.  George aimed at the one with the gun, shot, and the gunman collapsed.

When the smoke and dust cleared, three of the fighters had gotten away.  The only person the juniors managed to hit was the man they were trying to protect.  George made a mental note to suggest they get some more training—they didn’t see the motion until it was too late, they didn’t recognize which threat was a real danger, and then they fired into an area they couldn’t see.  Thank God for stun guns.

George ordered the juniors to cuff the gunman and take him back to the police station for questioning.  “And I’ll deal with the citizen who requested our help and try to explain why he’ll have that headache for the next few hours.”

To George’s surprise, the citizen was already stirring.  He must be in incredible shape to shake it off so quickly.  The citizen’s head rolled back—and George saw a patterned band around his neck.  Oh, shit.  George put a call through to the Captain.  “I’m bringing in a crisis, Boss.  The beating victim we just rescued—he’s a drone.”

Everyone in Independence knew this history of the Independence—and the threat that drones presented.

One hundred and sixty-eight years ago, the Years of Madness started.  Small war after small war after small war, until everyone was at war with someone else.

Eighty-nine years later, out of the madness came Fred Anders.  He brought peace to his village with a simple question, is this your fight?  Because they choose to fight, must you join the fight?  If our nations’ leaders choose to fight, must you fight?

Village after village adopted Anders’ philosophy and the wars stopped.  There was still some fighting, because some rulers did not take kindly to villages not joining in their wars.  But a battle to protect the village was their fight.  And they won those.

And soon, the villages formed the city of Independence, a city dedicated to individual liberty.  This would be a place where your right to swing your fist only ended at someone else’s nose.

As the decades passed and as more people were inspired by Anders’ vision, Independence grew until it was a metropolis dedicated to liberty.  Independence stands as incontrovertible proof of what Anders stood for.

Unfortunately, at the time that Anders was showing the way out of the Madness, there also was another wannabe savior named Glaver.  He tried to lead people the wrong way.  Instead of protecting their individuality, he told people they must give themselves up to join sheep-like into some greater group.  His ideas would have been dumped on the trash heap of history as it deserved, except for the diabolic creation of one of his minions.  They created a device that enslaves people to computers, stealing their humanity for some supposed greater good.  And in a sense of irony obvious to anyone with a sense of history, this infernal device is a collar.  Once again, the slaves wear collars.  And so “Unaria” was born.  Drone City.

The computers are efficient enough that their city has grown as large as Independence, but it’s a city full of drones instead of real people.  As Independence and Drone City have grown, the distance between their borders has shrunk, until now the two cities almost touch.  The two cities have had nothing to do with each other for all of their history, but there’s much worry about what will happen when they intersect.  And that may have just happened.

George helped the stranger to his feet and into the car and headed for the station.  He kept stealing glances at the stranger.  The stranger seemed inhumanly erect.  The breathing was impossibly even.  The face was too perfectly chiseled.  A thought flashed through his mind, amazing how fast the stranger had changed from person to drone, but he ignored it.

The stranger’s eyes fluttered open.  “What happened?  Where am I?”

“You’re in my car, I’m a police officer.  When we moved in to break up the fight, you got hit by a stray shot.”

“I see.  Did any of those stray shots hit the others, or did they all get away?”

“We got one of them, the other officers are taking him to the station.”

The drone showed disgust.  “I see. Are these the same officers who were shooting wildly?”

“You noticed that?”

“Yes.  I hope they are competent enough to handle this task.  Their captive was involved in a crime that could affect both of our communities.”

“Your perp will be at the station waiting for us.  Incidentally, I’m George Tanner.  Do your people have names?”

The stranger gave George the kind of look that George gives to the stuff that sticks to his shoes.  “Yes, I have a name.  Morningstar of Danver.  I also have a home, a pet, and my favorite color is blue.  Any other questions?”

“Just trying to be friendly.”

“Then I have a question.  What took you so long to stop the fight?  Earlier action might have made it possible to catch more of those involved.”

“In Independence, we respect the rights of individuals, and so we only step in when help has been requested.”

“Why?  You could see that I needed help!”

“Maybe you had started the fight.  Maybe you were showing off your Martial Arts skills and wanted to take on all four.  Whatever.  The law is that the police can only move in when requested.”

“Humph.  Good thing you didn’t show up after they knocked me unconscious.”

“That would be different.  When the presumed victim is UNR—unable to request—we are able to take action individually.  We’re not unreasonable, we just believe that the citizens must be as protected from governmental excess as they are protected from other citizens.”

“Ah.  Curse my bad luck for not having been beaten to a pulp before you arrived.”

George thought about saying something about it being his bad luck too, but thought better of it.

Morningstar was watching the traffic.  “Amazing large number of utility vehicles out today.  If you organized your layout more efficiently, there shouldn’t be a fraction of these out.

“Utility vehicles?  They’re just cars.  Owned by the person driving them. Baby here is mine, except for the police radio, siren, and lights.”

“People own their own vehicles?  Is your mass transit that bad?”

“The Metro’s fine.  But for many people, their car is part of them.  It’s freedom, it’s the ability to just go without a reason.  And for mine—watch this.”  George pushed a button, and the roof slid back into the trunk and the windows rolled down.  “Feel the air running through your hair, feel the sun on your body.  This is the life!”

Morningstar leaned back and closed his eyes, showing contempt on his face.  He sighed and said, “And we’ll have fun, fun, fun until your daddy takes the T-bird away.  Oh, well, I suppose you bare necks need these primitive pleasures.”  And that pretty much killed conversation for the rest of the trip.

George parked the car and led Morningstar into the station.  “We’ll see the Captain first.  Something this important, he’ll want to be involved.”

“Captain—he’s at the top of your hierarchical chain?”

“If you mean, is he my boss, yes.  He’s a good man, you can trust him.”

“But can I trust you?”

Before George could answer that one, they’d arrived at the Captain’s office.  The Captain was waiting for them, pacing back and forth.  When he saw the pair, he sat down in his chair, leaned forward, and said, “I’m Captain Harrison.  Who are you and why are you in Independence?”

Morningstar snapped erect and his face went blank.  “I am Morningstar of Danver, Danger Verification.  We’ve had a series of unexplained breakdowns that appear to be sabotage.  The latest was an explosion that almost crippled one of our power generators.  I identified a chemical agent and tracked the path into Independence.  As I was following the trail, I was apparently spotted and attacked.”

Captain Harrison leaned back in his chair.  “And you think the guy we’ve got in interrogation is responsible?”

“My tracer showed that they had some of the agent on them.  Unfortunately, my tracer was destroyed in the fight.”

Harrison let out a weary sigh.  “Wonderful.  So you’ve got no evidence that they were involved in this supposed sabotage.”

George spoke up.  “Captain, they were beating him up pretty badly.”

“So they were beating up on a drone.  No way to prove it was anything other than that.”

Morningstar went cold.  “So you think it’s reasonable for someone to beat up on a drone, as you put it?”

The Captain closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.  “Of course not.  But if I’m going to take a case to the courts, we need to have evidence that will convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt.  See if you can get anything out of the guy, but if you can’t, I don’t think we can charge anything more than simple assault, a few weeks in the restitution camps at most.”

As Morningstar and George walked down the hallway, Morningstar’s face showed barely-controlled anger.  “Is your Captain always so cavalier about sabotage?”

“Nah, the DA’s just been riding his back recently.  We’ve sent the DA a couple cases recently that didn’t pan out.  The judges got angry at the DA, so the DA came down on the captain.”

“So the judges are over the DA who is over your Captain.  How can you get anything done with all these hierarchies?”

Fortunately, they were at the interrogation room, so George didn’t have to come up with an answer.

George introduced Morningstar to the doctor, psychologist, and lawyers.  The person in custody was Jimmy Carr, and he was certified to be healthy, sane, and aware of his rights.  Carr had some minor convictions for petty vandalism and theft, but full restitution was paid.  He did have a major conviction for infringement, he had shouted down someone who was advocating that Independence try to make contact with Unaria.

Morningstar asked, “What’s infringement?”

“Infringing on someone else’s rights.  Carr has the right to say anything he wants, but he can’t keep anyone else from speaking.  Look, he’s got a thing about dr—Unarians, so I think I should start off the interrogation myself.  There’s a viewing room over there, you can see and hear everything.”

Morningstar nodded.  “Makes sense.  Remember, just the facts, Sergeant Friday!”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

Drones are really weird, thought George.  “OK. I’m going to try to play Good Cop on him.  Uh, do you know the term ‘Good Cop/Bad Cop’?”

“Of course.”

George sauntered into the interrogation room, shaking his head.  “Jimmy, Jimmy, you screwed up.  With that infringement on your record, this is going to look like assault with intent to infringe.  Why not tell me what this is about and maybe we can do something?”

George was excepting almost anything.  Bravado.  Whimpering.  Bargaining.  But instead, Carr looked him in the eye and said, “I claim the Final Right.”

“C’mon, Jimmy, it’s not that serious.  We can do something here.  Work with me on this, and I might be able to let you walk.”

“You got the reports.  I’m sane.  I can make this decision.  I claim the Final Right.”

Damn it.  He was right. George motioned towards the doctor.  The doctor came forward, put a pill on the table in front of Carr, and backed away.  George released Carr from the restraints, and Carr took the pill and swallowed.

“Cop, you’ve been decent, so I’ll give you a warning.  Keep away from the drones, disaster is coming and they’ll get nasty when they’re on their own.”  And Carr fell to the floor, lifeless.

Morningstar burst into the room, shock written on his face.  “What happened?  What did you do to him?”

George whispered “He claimed the Final Right, and so I had to help him.”

“You killed him!  He knew things, and you killed him!  Whose side are you on?”

George spoke with a no life in his voice.   “Each man’s life belongs to him, and the ultimate right is to decide to end it.  This is our most cherished right and no one can be denied it.”

“Why?”

George pulled his gaze away from Carr’s body and turned to Morningstar.  “The old, the infirm, those in pain, sometimes life is less bearable than death.  And if we do not allow someone to end that unbearable life, then we are saying that the life isn’t his, it is ours.”

“So you knew he wasn’t the reason this so-called ‘right’ was created, and yet you killed him.  And we have no information to try to convince your Captain that this is a serious situation.”

“You don’t need to.”  Captain Harrison stood in the doorway.  “Nobody would Final just for assaulting a drone.  There’s something bigger here.  Tanner, from now on, you’re exclusively on this investigation with Morningstar.  Let me know what resources you need, this is our highest priority investigation.  Morningstar, you can stay with Tanner, and welcome to the force.”

George followed the Captain into the hall.  “Captain, be reasonable.  Work with a drone?  Take him home?  You can’t do this to me!”

“I can and I am.  Look, I don’t like drones any more than you do.  But if people from Independence do enough damage in Drone City, there may be war.  And a lot of innocent people get killed in war.  So you’re going to keep it from happening.”

“Swell.  You know I could resign.”

“You could Final as well.  But you won’t because you know I’m right.   This needs a good cop and you’re a good cop.”

“Yeah, yeah, George Tanner, Super Hero.  I better get back to my new roomie.”

The Captain smiled.  “Remember, the faster you solve this, the sooner we all get rid of him.”

George laughed.  “Captain, you are the king of motivation.”

Morningstar watched Officer Tanner and Captain Harrison argue in the hallway.  These barbarians were more interested in their personal desires than in what was going to happen to the group.  Morningstar, what have you gotten yourself into?

Every Unarian knew this history of the Unaria—and the threat that Independence presented.

Out of the Years of Madness came a prophet, Glaver.  He could see that this perpetual fighting would only end when people gave up their personal interests and worked for the benefit of all.  He was not the first to propose this, but he was the first with a solution.  Some of his compatriots had been working on a human/cybernetic link, designed to make weapons easier to use.  Glaver saw that it could be used to pull people together, to really experience the pains that others felt and so work together to end it.

Glaver himself had not realized all that was possible, but he and the other founders followed the path, and so was born Unaria.  Unaria, perhaps the most stable society in all of history.  And so Unaria grew into a true city-state, but never lost sight of its purpose as it grew.

Unaria knew about Anders and his attempt to create a new society.  He built his society on the old failed and discredited cult of individuality.  The Unarians had prepared for Independence to explode, to move and show the survivors the true way to peace.  But somehow Independence had managed to survive and grow.  The two were now close enough that there was a worry that the inevitable explosion would engulf Unaria as well.  And that seemed to be the path they were on.