Chapter 19

My stiff joints ached as I shuffled off the back porch. The bright sunlight bathed the paved patio space, increasing the temperature to extra warm. I sat carefully, my great granddaughter holding my book and my tea for me. Once settled in my padded outdoor recliner, she handed me the ice tea.

I moved it into a cup holder, and helped the four year old climb up into my lap. She presented the book, and I began to read to her. As I finished her favorite book, she said, “Thank you pop pop. Can I go swimming now?”

“Go ahead Becky, but only for an hour, your mom will be by to pick you up then.”

She scooted off the recliner, dropping onto the pavement with a giggle, and charged to the pool at the end of the patio, doing a cannonball into the pool. Her personal guardian robot carefully watched her from overhead as Tim walked up to my chair and poured a refill.

“I think you spoil her grandpa,” he told me.

“I did the same for you, and your dad.”

“He complains that you spoil everyone,” Tim replied.

“It’s my planet, I’ll spoil anyone I want to,” I told him.

A stranger suddenly stepped up, holding a silver sphere in his hands. I eyed him, wondering who it was until I realized it was me.

“Hi there Adam,” I said, greeting him.

“Hello Adam,” he responded.

“What have you got for me?” I asked.

“Memory storage device. Just hold it in your hand, and it will record all your memories.”

“Don’t want to lose me in the end after all,” I chuckled as I took the device. The interface was simple, and I closed my eyes as it played my entire life.

The early years growing up, going to school, college, building a business, growing it, realizing that I would have no descendants, and deciding to create a foundation that would carry my name forward in the city.

Then the awakening, the growing power, the discoveries, the second youth, the love, the betrayals, the challenges. Then came the event that hurt the most, the battle against the Trade Federation, and the sudden ripping disconnect from the collective of me.

I was a spectator for the creation of New Eden, watching it get forged, and formed. Then leading the others who had similarly been disconnected into individual existences again into a new life. Closed off from the outside world we were left alone with a few select other immigrants to experiment and colonize a new world.

There were challenges, and joys as we created a new home for ourselves. I had children, then grandchildren, and now even great grandchildren. I told them the story of us leaving our old world for this new one, stories of how we built this city, and how to use the technology we had mastered.

The social order had been Nora’s idea. We were living in a pristine paradise of a world, post scarcity, unlimited energy, every want and need provided for. Her plan had been simple, a digital democracy where every person had one vote from birth, and every citizen was required to vote in every election, held on the first of each month.

The twist she added was brilliant, parents could exercise their child’s vote until they turned 16, and anyone could lease a vote to another person. The population boom would have bankrupted any other civilization. We had robotic manufacturing, AI managed, including the robotic collection of resources. We could build anything given sufficient time. At the beginning I personally owned every electric generator and means of production on the planet.

The currency was set as a watt hour of electricity as the smallest unit, and as the wealthiest person on the planet, I offered to lease any vote that was available for 4,500 kilowatt hours a month. It was enough for the basics of living for a single person, and acted as our social safety net. As the years went by my vote block decreased as citizens exchanged power for methods of generating it themselves. As they became increasingly self sufficient, they also became increasingly politically active.

The path had been set, and the policies I had set for the planet continued as much as from inertia as from the obvious benefits that grew from them. Consortiums and unions grew, combining power, both electrical and political. Others leased votes, and power blocks emerged. There was some political tussling for a while, and then I was only an honorary member of the planetary board of directors. My son Karl had run a successful campaign, enticing a coalition government to remove me from power. I had encouraged it.

Age and infirmities had caught up with me soon after, 80 years of life from first landing had left me back in the shape I had been in when the power first arrived. I had outlived all the other first settlers, including my dear Noras. The joy of my grandkids and great grandkids rocketed through those final last years of memories, and then the device shut off.

I handed it back to the still looking young me. “I’m looking forward to having another daughter soon,” he said.

“Oh? How long has it been on the outside?” I asked him. I used to know how many minutes outside the time field equaled how many days or weeks it was inside, but I couldn’t remember the exact ratio anymore.

“Enough that she’s my third,” he said.

“That’s nice. Thank you for coming and letting an old man be remembered,” I told him.

“It seemed like now was the time,” he said.

“Ending soon huh?”

“Only fifty more years till I’ll lift the time shield. Whether you take new immigrants will be up to the people living here, I’m going to leave that up to them.”

“Thank you Adam, it’s been a wonderful life, on a wonderful planet,” I told him.

“You’re Poseidon aren’t you?” the young man asked me excitedly.