Fiction: Afterlife Volume 3 (Chapter 32)

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Afterlife is a sci fi/western action serial published every other week. Join us in a post-apocalyptic journey through a future where life has become little more than a struggle for survival. However, where there’s life, there’s always hope.

Read the previous chapter here:

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 31

Where:

Abby and Paul leave Denver.
Mavery gives a speech on racial tensions.
Abby finds and enters Valhalla.

Find the Volume 3 Table of Contents page here.

View the Map here.

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Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 32

Abby shined the light up ahead of her as she walked up the long, narrow stairway.  The walls and ceiling of the stairwell were made of stone blocks.  Abby had the feeling no one had been here for thousands of years.  She felt like she had entered an ancient tomb, as if she were walking through one of the ancient Egyptian pyramids.  There was one still remaining in the northeast part of the Republic of Africa, though most accounts agreed it was a crumbled shell of its former self.

For a while, Abby wondered if the stairway had an end.  Her calves were starting to hurt and she had to take a break at one point because she was getting tired.  Eventually, the stairway led into a small chamber, ten feet by ten feet, with a ten foot ceiling.  The walls, ceiling, and floor all were all stone blocks just like the stairway.  There was a stone ledge across from the entrance with a video monitor of some sort sitting on it.  Next to the screen was a safe.  Beneath the screen was a green button, which Abby pushed.  The technology was ancient, but the screen was still intact, and it still seemed to work as static appeared for a few seconds.

The words “Seong Family” with some Korean characters Abby didn’t recognize appeared.  They faded to black and the face of a man appeared on the screen.  He was a thin Korean in his early thirties, with short black hair and piercing eyes.  The background was a stark white wall.  “My name is Cheol Seong,” the figure said.  “I welcome you, and hope you are a member of the Seong family, as was intended.”

“Yes,” Abby said with a smile, realizing she was speaking to no one.

“I don’t know where to begin.  There’s so much to say.  I hope I say enough that you’ll understand what’s happening, at least as much as I do.”  He took a deep breath.  “Two hundred years ago there was an event that destroyed the world as we know it.  My ancestors hid in underground cities with many others.  They also stored technology, examples of living wildlife and plant life, and enough materials to start the rebuilding process in places where people survived the apocalypse.  Their leader was a man named James Garrison.  I tell you these things because I don’t know how much you now know.  A lot of history has been lost.  Some because of passage of time, some, I believe, intentionally.  More on that later.”  He smiled a warm smile that reminded Abby of her father’s.  “I don’t know what caused the end of the old world.  I don’t know if anyone does.  If someone knows, they feign ignorance.  Some think it was global warming, an environmental event of some kind.  Some think it was nuclear war.  The most popular idea that had been pushed for a long time was an asteroid or a series of them.  Scientists have debunked that one, I’m pretty sure, but some still believe it’s the case.”  Abby wished she could have gone back in time and told him what she’d learned in Denver, that it had been a nuclear holocaust of some kind.

“We have been leaving our underground city, the city of Atlantis, for over a century now, wearing environmental suits to guard against the harsh environments.  We’ve started building air converters that will clean the air.  Hopefully there are places your generation can breathe without the assistance of technology.”  Abby nodded.  “I believe that someone is keeping secrets from the rest of us.  I believe it starts with the Garrison family.  Many have intermarried through the years.  There are Brevingtons, Greenwoods, Bergsons, Rennocks, Tralleys, Cylburns, Ellermans, and many others.  Those, including Garrison, are the seven most common names in the group, though.  This group of families and their allies call themselves the Chosen.  Their leaders are in a group called the Council of Atlantis that spans the entire world.  I believe whoever’s in control of Atlantis in your time probably has one of these surnames.  They try to keep the control as tight as possible between them.”

“Herman Rennock,” Abby said.  “At least until recently.  But it’s New Atlantis, and it’s above ground.”

“I’m not even sure if they know the secrets of exactly what happened to the world,” Cheol Seong continued.  “There has definitely been an intentional cover up somewhere.  I’m sure of it.  My father, grandfather, and great grandfather never spoke of it.  I don’t know if any of them knew anything, but I’m under the impression that they kept us out of the loop because of our Korean heritage.  Now let me say more on that.  Long before the world ended, Korea was split into two nations, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Korea, and the Republic of Korea, more commonly known as South Korea.  South Korea was a capitalist democracy, much like the United States of America of the time.  I’m sure you’re familiar with some of this.”  Abby nodded.  “North Korea, on the other hand, was a rogue socialist nation under the control of a dictator born from a long line in a family of dictators.  They ruled over the nation with iron fists, controlling everything including speech, media, even what people could say and think.  Many of the people were starving, but the slightest action or words against the rulers resulted in imprisonment, and even sometimes death.  As the years went on, the regime became more and more fearful that people would revolt, as the dictators were further and further removed from the original ruler, so they clamped down harder, increasing military spending and policing the people with stricter laws than ever.”  He looked gravely out at Abby and she looked back, her jaw hanging open.  “This is where our ancestors come from.  Including the famed Prometheus, who was largely responsible for finally toppling this regime.”

“The first Prometheus,” Abby said.  She wondered if Cheol Seong, the man speaking now, had any idea that the world now also referred to him as Prometheus.  She assumed it was him at least, the first man who took the money from the big business oligarchy and gave it to everyone, especially the poor and downtrodden, essentially starting the resistance.

“Prometheus was a man named Seong Kim,” Cheol Seong continued.  “He was a humble farmer born in a small town called Namp’o-ri, a town outside of Kaesong in the North Hwanghae Province.  He had the gift of words, and when he was old enough, he was sent to Pyongyang to be a state writer of propaganda.  Seong Kim always had a heart for the people, though, and he recognized their suffering.  He knew the only way to save them would be to free them, so when he could, he defected to South Korea and started sending capitalist and democratic information to the north with a strong network of spies and freedom fighters.  He also spread the truth about the cruel regime and how there was a better way.  The truth can be a powerful weapon.  As the information spread throughout the people of North Korea and more and more of them saw the evils of the regime, a resistance grew.  It was these freedom fighters who ultimately toppled the regime, and Koreans finally achieved their long dream of a unified nation.  Unified under a democratic, capitalist government.  One of Seong Kim’s descendants moved to the USA and we’ve been in this land ever since.  I tell you all of this for two reasons.  The first is to show you that you have leadership and rebellion in your blood.  You have the ability to free your people, just as your ancestor Seong Kim helped free his.  The second reason is that I want you to understand the power of information.  The power of knowledge.”

“I know,” Abby said with a nod.  She thought of Mavery Thomas, and how what Mavery was trying to do now was very similar to what Abby’s ancestor had done so long ago.  She had a new, growing respect for Mavery.

“Now, let me do what I can to give you the information I believe could help you set your own people free.  Our current city of Atlantis has become a laissez-faire capitalist system based on the ideas of Ayn Rand and objectivism.  It’s far from democratic, though.  It’s essentially become an oligarchy, where the wealthiest families are in control of everything.  I thank God that our family is the second wealthiest after the Garrisons, but with the help of other wealthy friends including the Chosen, they’ve managed to decrease our political clout.  I, like Seong Kim long before me, see the suffering of all of my people, though.  I see that the system here is broken, and there are many who are suffering because of it.  The Chosen have taken it upon themselves to determine who’s beneficial to our society and who isn’t, meaning, basically, who can be profitable for them.  Those who aren’t, they exile.  They say this is the only way our civilization can survive since we don’t want to enable parasitic hangers-on, or ‘looters’ as they call them.”

“They still do,” Abby said with a frown.

“This is essentially a death sentence, since the outside environment is still incapable of sustaining life without the assistance of technology.  They leave these so-called ‘looters’ near air converters and they claim to give them what they need to survive, but I’d be very surprised if any of these colonies last more than a few months.  And before the air converters, they just gave them environmental suits with breathing apparatuses.  That was a supposedly humane way of executing them, pretty much.  Leave them to their own devices and see if they can survive.”  He shook his head.  “Anyway, this strict laissez-faire capitalist system they have in place is not only immoral, but I believe it will fail, as all systems based on blind ideology fail.  Before the apocalypse, our histories say that the United States of America had a two party system of government for a very long time.  There were the right wing conservatives and the left wing liberals.  As time went on, the divisions grew as the two sides tried to counteract one another, and it got to the point where there were basically laissez-faire capitalists fighting for power against socialists.  This caused constant situations of gridlock.  When there wasn’t gridlock, one side would push one-sided legislation through that served to make their base happy, but it only angered the other side’s base and increased division.  The anger grew until the other side took over the most important government positions.  They would essentially work to erase everything the opposing side had done, and put their own one-sided legislation through.  This seesaw of power continued for decades, over a century some say, and the nation was weakened because no lasting progress was being made.”

He grinned.  “In retrospect, it’s easy to see that this was no way to run a government, but the people of the time were so caught up in their ideologies and in the divisions this system caused, that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees.  Another issue was the power of money.  Big corporations and businesses had lobbyists constantly in the ears of the politicians.  They also had expensive lawyers and unsurpassed financial clout.  They could throw nearly unlimited funds into elections to see that they preserved their power.  Private citizens ended up ultimately having very little say in what was happening.  A third issue was the issue of religion.  Religious organizations and churches were allowed to have unlimited power in the government, so there were constantly religious wars being waged over the power to control.  That’s what these organizations were ultimately fighting over, control over people and their decisions.  Tax exemptions meant that people’s tax free donations were going towards political campaigns being preached from the pulpit.  There were once rules that didn’t allow preachers to tout the benefits of one politician over another, but these rules were taken away.  Often, in the USA at least, these organizations were in league with the big businesses and corporations that flocked to the right.  But the left wasn’t without its centralized power structures and corrupt leaders.  And a final problem was the issue of local sovereignty.  As the divisions grew, the power of the central government grew, since the politicians were afraid of letting the other side take control.  They were always fighting to take more control for themselves, and it was ultimately the local governments which suffered.  The big national political parties tried to take steps to influence even local election results and maintain power as the two sides fought their political wars on every front possible.  It was the local citizens who suffered the most in these situations, as their voices were being ignored.”

Abby frowned.  “Rennock had power over everything before he was ousted.”

“So you have with you, I hope, a constitution.”  Abby nodded.  “I’ve only started working on it with some of my allies,” Cheol Seong said, “and I’m sure by your time, it has been revised and perfected.  I’ll try not to get into too much detail, but I’ll touch on the important points to make sure that you can see that they are implemented when you set up your government.  Our constitution is based on the Constitution of the United States of America, with the Declaration of Independence as a blueprint.  I suggest you familiarize yourself with these documents if you haven’t yet.  I hope they are still available in your time.”

Abby nodded.  “They are.  And I am familiar with them.”

“But there are four distinct additions we’ve made to deal with the four problems I stated earlier.  We believed these changes were necessary for democracy to return and thrive.  The first two are simple.  Big money and religion have been mostly removed from government.  Obviously, government needs taxes and funds to operate, but according to our constitution, the politicians see none of this.  They are all given the same amount to fund their political campaigns and are not allowed to accept money from outside sources while in office or running for office.  Lobbying by corporate or business entities is illegal.  Politicians can only be contacted by private citizens.  And if it’s determined that these citizens are contacting the politicians on a company’s behalf, the company and all of its employees will be barred from further contact.  Now the owner of a company can contact a politician, but only as a private citizen.  If there is any hint of bribery, the citizen will be barred from further contact.  If the bribe is accepted, the politician will be arrested.  There will be an outside, unaffiliated organization that will police these political dealings and elections.  Everything will be as transparent as possible.”

Cheol Seong cleared his throat.  “Second, let’s briefly talk about religion.  This was simple.  This same outside entity will police the government to make sure there’s no undue religious influence, or influence from any large, powerful organization, by subjecting these organizations to the same rules for lobbying and elections provided for businesses.  We’ve also removed all tax exemptions from these organizations.  Specific charitable acts handled by these organizations are still considered to be exempt, however.  It will also be illegal for preachers to support political campaigns from the pulpit.  Third, we will localize the government as much as possible.  No one knows what’s right for a particular state, city, or town better than that particular state, city, or town.  We’ve taken steps to give local governments most of the power, and keep national influence out of local elections.  The central government is only necessary if there are disputes or if laws are broken.  The central government also deals with larger scale economic policy and the military, which is an unfortunate necessity for any sovereign state.  Immigration will also fall into the jurisdiction of the central government, but we’ll work to make the process as easy as we can while still keeping out criminals and threats.  Our diversity is what will make us great, after all, and a constant flow of immigrants is necessary for a nation to maintain a healthy population.  Finally, let me get to the structure of the political system when it comes to political parties.”

Abby nodded.  “Centrism.”  She’d read the constitution in her bag many times, so she was already familiar with a lot of what he was saying.

“There need to be three strong political parties for a democratic system to truly thrive.  There must be a party on the right, one on the left, and one in the center.  The centrist party will act as a sort of system of swing votes.  It will help keep the other two parties in line, and will curtail much of the division that exists in a two party state.  As long as the centrist party is a strong one, the right and the left will have to fight for centrist votes in order to pass any legislation, just as the centrist party will need votes from either the right or the left or both.  No single party will ever be able to ram one-sided legislation down the nation’s throat by taking over every branch of government.  If this centrist party is missing, we have the seesaw of power I spoke of earlier and the great divisions that can destroy entire nations.  There are safeguards in our constitution to try to keep all three parties strong and thriving, but it’s ultimately up to the people.  That’s where the information comes in.  So those are the most important additions to the constitution.  It’s not perfect, but I believe it’s the most perfect form of government to this date.  It builds on what we’ve learned from history, and as this system grows and evolves, future thinkers can help it adapt.  It will never be set in stone.  We have to think practically, in terms of what works.  I hope these principles are still alive and well in the constitution you have today.”

“They are,” Abby said.

“So let’s move on to logistics and finances.  The Seong family has amassed a fortune over the years in the business of clean energy solutions.  We’ve developed technologies that make energy cheap, environmentally safe, and sustainable.  We have lots of competition within the ranks of the Chosen, who are generally strong proponents of the oil and coal industries, but they haven’t been able to beat us out since, generally speaking, our energy solutions are better in every possible way.  My father says the only reason the Chosen don’t exile us is because many of them are invested in our businesses and have made some hefty profits off of us.”  He chuckled.  “It’s ironic how the world works sometimes.  Anyway, they saved some coal and oil among the resources that were safeguarded before the apocalypse, and their mining operations were some of the first things that were set up on the outside, so yeah, coal and oil are still thriving, much to the chagrin of myself and my fellow Seongs and our employees.  I’m not sure what it’s like in your time.”

Abby rolled her eyes.  “They’re still trying to push coal and oil.  Some things never change.”

“We’ve started buying up diamonds with a portion of our fortune to make sure it’s in a physical form that will last no matter what happens with the economy.  I hope you have billions of dollars in diamonds now.  Enough to found the nation we want to start with the constitution.”

Abby frowned.  “There would have been a trillion, actually.”  She wondered what was going to happen now that Alex was dead.  Where were the diamonds he and the Bloody Six had with them?

“The constitution goes over the logistics of how the government will be set up,” he said, “so I won’t spend time talking about that now.  The last thing I want to talk about is knowledge and art.  History, music, philosophy, science, theology, all that good stuff and more.  The Chosen have decided what to preserve.  They are in control of all of the narratives here.  They’ve used propaganda and control of all information to push their agendas.  They’ve only told us what they wanted us to hear, and I believe that is the reason there are so many holes in the historical accounts of what really happened.  When so many people push a false narrative, the truth gets lost in the shuffle.  But this control of information and knowledge has affected far more than just history.  Scientific research was lost if it didn’t fit the stories the Chosen were telling.  Philosophy and all of the arts suffered casualties.  I believe a member of the Greenwood family was a huge fan of classic rock, so nearly all of that was preserved.  The Rennocks preserved lots of art and literature, but mostly that which pushed capitalist ideals.  The Brevingtons have tried to put a white nationalist spin on history, and a lot of people have bought into it.  I believe that’s part of the reason why members of our family have always been outsiders.  That along with our clean energy businesses.  Anyway, my point is, a lot of stuff would have been lost if not for our family’s attempts at preserving everything we could.  This history, art, philosophy, science, knowledge in general really, is preserved on a set of chips in the safe next to this screen.  I’m sure with the technology you have in your day, you’ll be able to find a way to read the data off of these chips.  Take this information with you.  Some may have been lost in your time.”

“I will,” Abby said.

“There’s also a key in there,” he said.  “My family has passed it down.  It’s apparently very important, but none of us know what it’s for, at least not to my knowledge.  My father said his father told him we’d know when the time came.  Very vague, I know, and I’m sorry for that.  But now the key is yours.  Hopefully you’ll know what to do with it, as my father said, when the time comes.”

Abby shrugged.  “I guess I’ll figure it out.”

He smiled.  “So here you are.  Perhaps the last hope for humanity.  I wish I could have done this for you, but we weren’t ready in my time.  We haven’t amassed a big enough fortune, and we don’t have the manpower or the firepower to topple the Chosen.  I hope that you do.  And I wish you all the luck in what you’re setting out to do.  I am your ancestor.  I’ve never met you, but know that I’ll always be with you.  And I love you.”  He smiled as the screen faded to black.

Abby almost felt like that last part came from her father himself, though Cheol Seong had been dead thousands of years when her father was born.  She wondered what all of this meant now that Rennock and the Chosen were already toppled and the IAO was in power throughout much of the world.  It didn’t change anything.  Seong’s ideas and the constitution were just as relevant, and the IAO was just as much of a threat as Rennock if not a bigger one.  It was still up to Abby to set up a new nation, and to see that principles that would preserve the freedom of all people would be put into place.  Abby wondered what had happened to the underground city of Atlantis.  She had the feeling that there were secrets hidden there that could answer many more questions regarding the world’s history.  Those secrets would have to wait, most likely, until New Atlantis was conquered.  Abby suspected that the ancient underground city was most likely somewhere near the newer version.  “I’ve found some numbers programmed by your father,” Einstein said.  “I believe they may be the safe’s combination.  You could try them.  The numbers are 42, 14, and 12.”  Abby nodded and proceeded to unlock and open the safe.  Inside, like Cheol Seong had said, was a small box full of computer chips and a golden key with a dollar sign symbol on it, which Abby placed in her bag.  She stood in the room thinking for a few minutes, then turned and started making her way back down the long stairway.

When Abby emerged from the mountain, Paul was waiting for her outside on the sand bike.  “What did you find?”

“A box of memory chips and a key,” Abby said.

Paul frowned.  “How will that help?”

Abby placed her air canister back in the sand bike and sat behind Paul.  “I’ve always thought I was going to find something powerful here.  A proverbial magic sword, like Arthur finding Excalibur or something like that.  I remember my father once told me that our Excalibur isn’t a weapon.  It’s an idea.  It’s information.”

“So how’s that gonna help us defeat the IAO?” Paul asked.

“It isn’t going to help us defeat the IAO,” Abby said.  “It’s going to help us build a new world.  I think maybe we already have everything we need to defeat the IAO.”  Abby hoped Mavery Thomas was still alive.  If not, she’d have to find someone else.  But there would definitely be someone.  She was sure of it.

“Whatever you say,” Paul said, shaking his head.  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Abby smiled.  “Einstein, tell us how to get to Rose City.”

“Come out the way you came,” Einstein said.  “And we can go from there.”

Paul turned the engine back on, turned the sand bike around, and shot out of the plateau and back onto the narrow trial as mountains and cliffs whizzed by on both sides.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNRCvG9YtYI]
 

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Continue on to the next chapter:

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 33
Where:
Abby and Paul travel to Rose City.
Abby and the resistance leaders come up with an ingenious plan.
Resistance leadership votes on an important issue.

Find the Volume 3 Table of Contents page here.

View the Map here.

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Check out Michael Monroe’s page on Amazon to find other stuff he’s written.
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