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“Oh, so you’re telling me you got to your position by being a nice guy and sharing your paycheck with the rest of the city?”
The Governor laughed.
“I see where you come from. Something such as money is such a difficult discussion. But, I can assure you, I don’t earn more than I need, and I actually invested quite a lot into–”
“Into looking like a freaking kid half your age?” scoffed Eden. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but money isn’t a difficult discussion in the Suburbs. It’s an actual, factual need. We don’t get to chat and argue about what we do with it; every single human being that works, works because they need to. And every single credit we earn, we need to survive. There is no discussion needed because everyone in the Suburbs knows exactly what their neighbor goes through, on a daily basis, to survive. We can’t afford to complain about such things as looking young or old, about the color of the damn furniture, or what clothes we can put on our backs!”
Eden’s anger visibly cooled the Governor’s enthusiasm. The man sighed and turned to her. His eyes briefly went to Dante, with a much clearer disgust for him. Still, Dante didn’t avoid his eyes at all, putting a hand on Eden’s waist, and although he was standing behind her, his eyes looked like a guard dog ready to bite at any time to defend its master.
“...The Suburbs is the result of a chaotic society. They are the remains of the failure of the previous generations to keep society under control. The Core is our best chance of survival. …Do you know how many human beings are alive, on this planet, at this moment?”
Eden frowned, unable to understand where he was going.
“A little under two point three billion,” announced Pan through the speakers.
Eden glared at the ceiling, a bit mad at her brother for playing along with the Governor, but the old man had visibly expected this much. He didn’t look surprised and simply extended his arms.
“Just a century ago, we were almost four times as many, and suffocating our own planet! …Mother Earth was rotting under men’s blind ambitions. We killed hundreds of other species to build our cities, fill our stomachs, and procreate, always destroying more. Evolution only taught us how to break the food chain, making ourselves the apex predator of a whole planet! Our own kind was our worst enemy, and naturally, we began destroying each other.”
Suddenly, the screens around them changed into a very different vision.
Eden even stepped away in shock. War. Not like the war she had seen outside, but an absolutely terrifying war scene was playing on the screens. Every single building burning, explosions everywhere, dozens of vehicles flying or in the streets, spitting fire and smoke at every corner of the ground. Planes were flying in all directions, shooting at each other and crashing into buildings. And bodies. Hundreds of bodies filling the streets with blood and flesh, only a handful of people still alive, busy killing each other. She couldn’t even tell if this city was Chicago or another; it was ravaged. If there had been any sounds, she could imagine how terrifying and deafening it would have been.
“...This, Eden, is war. The real, hideous, and vile side of what our kind is capable of. Destruction, nothing but destruction, for miles and years on end. We didn’t just lose two-thirds of all living things in just a couple of decades. We lost countries, civilizations, continents. Two of the seven continents were entirely annihilated. Half of Europe and Asia were blown up, and whatever countries were left, on any land, were devastated by war. And finally, natural disasters from years of ignorance destroyed what our weapons couldn’t.”
He sighed.
“...If not controlled, left to their own devices, men become the best artisans at destruction. They do not even mean the evil they cause, it is their ignorance that becomes both their best argument and their weapon of choice. We chose to ignore how sick we made our planet, how we dumped our trash in the weakest countries. Men chose to blame those they couldn’t reach, for it was easier to deflect their mistakes onto someone else and feign ignorance... Thus, men like your father and I had no choice but to rise up and take control to prevent the final destruction of our civilization!”
“Do not put my father and yourself in the same damn basket,” groaned Eden. “You can find whatever excuse you want, you are still a mass murderer. You killed thousands of children, and all those people that didn’t fit in your utopia!”
“It was necessary,” retorted the Governor, perfectly composed. “I understand a child like yourself might have trouble seeing the greater vision we had. But, without the proper leader to take the reins, our kind is doomed to self-destruct.”
“How the fuck do you justify murdering unborn children?!”
“Natural selection, nothing else! Eden, you do not understand. How would our planet be able to handle eight billion humans again? It would die in the next century. Thus, we have no choice but to regulate our population. Look at the Core! The sacrifices made allow those people to live in harmony! In peace! Not only that, but all the Cores are on the same level of equity! No more poor countries, no more apex predators preying on the weak! The sacrifices are made for the greater good, for the sake of preserving our civilization. If only the good, healthy genes survive, under the right supervision, humans will be able to keep on living for centuries on this planet! Earth will be green and blue again!”
“And what gives you the right to make that choice?” muttered Eden.
She laughed bitterly, annoyed by all that she was hearing.
“I get that we destroyed half the planet with our bullshit. I get that humans are the smartest and cruelest kind. I already know all that. We all know what happened. But you know what? …Truthfully, I do not care if our kind is bound to go extinct in a century or two. I don’t care if we all end up dying of hunger, lack of oxygen, or from fighting. As horrible as it is, at the very least, we get to fight for our own survival. …What I can’t handle is listening to one old rotten bastard, alone in his fucking tower, deciding who gets to live or die!”
The Governor’s expression darkened.
“Careful, child. You do not–”
“I don’t understand?” Eden interrupted him. “Go ahead, keep patronizing all of Chicago because you know so much better! You think nobody knows? We aren’t blind or deaf! We all see what our world is like, in the Suburbs, past your white fences and perfect roads! …So you think free will is a threat? You think blindsiding people is going to make them any better? I don’t see any of your so-called perfect people fighting for their beliefs! Look at Chicago! Half of them are fighting for their survival, and the other half are completely numb and lobotomized for the sake of a utopia that will never truly exist! Your precious citizens can’t even process what is going on in their streets, you’ve made them utterly ignorant of the suffering of others! I hear you saying men destroyed the planet, but all I can see is a bastard like you, building walls between people and choking up one side and feeding the other with lies!”
“...That is the only way for our kind to survive,” retorted the Governor, anger in his eyes. “A child like you cannot understand. It takes resolve to be the one to shoulder such precious ambition!”
“I can understand it is wrong to kill a baby against their parents’ wishes.”
The anger rose in the Governor’s eyes, and this time, he did look a bit older. But Eden continued, feeling herself become colder and more resolved than ever.
“You’re a wretched person who hides behind shitty excuses,” she continued, “you murder babies that don’t fit your utopia, and you get rid of people with a will to live another way. You torture children to feed a science that allows old farts like you to cheat death. Don’t lecture me about the natural order of things. I’ve seen what you do down there.”
“Science will be the solution for our kind to survive!”
