Chapter 29

Neither of us knew where to start. We rode around on the slidewalks for nearly three hours, going nowhere in particular. Katherine occasionally pointed out a landmark or related information from some TotalVid program she had seen. For the most part, I limited my responses to grunts of acknowledgment. I didn’t want to let her know I knew a lot more about New York City than she did. I had been forced to travel there for business, as well as to the political centers in Washington, D.C., more times than I would have preferred. As far as the major buildings, cultural and entertainment centers, historical landmarks, and so on, there wasn’t really much she pointed out to me than I hadn’t already seen.

There were a lot of towering buildings where older, less historic structures had stood. Some of these were interesting. Most of them were merely massive monstrosities where the huge population could work or live.

There were also some significant changes in ethnic neighborhoods that featured a myriad of exotic food and music, as well as little enclaves of artists of various types. These were very interesting to me, and provoked most of the conversation we had during the first part of our excursion. It was short and limited to simple facts, but at least it was conversation.

We had lunch at a very nice restaurant Solomon had told Katherine about. Naturally, she ordered and paid for both meals. I have to admit, it felt nice to have a lady do that kind of thing for me. When I was younger, no female had any reason to do so, and when I was older I was the ‘rich guy’ and almost always picked up the tab. So I had no problem letting someone else pay the bill. Our small talk turned to art, and I told Katherine I would really like to see what modern art was like.

Within minutes after being treated to lunch I was entering an art gallery, where the art was extremely modern. I know it was in the middle of a business day, but given the unbelievable population, it was still surprising to me how few people there were wandering around the art gallery, especially as it was free. Either the exhibits they had in this place really stunk, or this was about as graphic of a display as I would see of Katherine’s explanation of how badly art had gone out of fashion because it was totally ‘non-productive’ in this society.

The first piece was a huge blob of some doughy looking material. It spun endlessly in the middle of a surrounding group of smaller, harsh looking, brightly colored squares, triangles, hexagons, and other sharply cornered objects. I first thought of the blob as ‘shapeless’, although it was actually a continuously changing shape. The blob kept a uniform distance from the harsh, never changing angular objects that kept a relatively fixed position while rotating like moons all around it. By this time, I knew enough about their technology to understand all of the objects in this display were in some sort of antigravity field, with the soft central object either having something in it that was causing the flux, or being influenced by some differential gravitational field which pulled that volatile mass into constantly unique shapes.

“Wow, that’s incredible!” Katherine exclaimed.

“Oh. Umm, yeah, I suppose so,” I responded, not wanting to dampen her enthusiasm.

She obviously read my tone of voice.

“Oh, dear. You thought I meant the art work?”

Well, that threw me for a loop! What the hell were we talking about?

“Uh, well, I have to admit that’s what I was looking at. Weren’t you?” I asked cautiously.

“Oh, no!” she claimed with a small laugh. “Well, that is, not directly.”

“May I ask what, then?”

“I was looking at the title of the piece.”

“Oh, I see. I hadn’t noticed. What’s the title?”

“‘Man spinning in the void of the limitless psyche and the total emptiness of the implacable universe.’”

“Oh. Uh, wow. Yeah. That’s pretty amusing.”

“Exactly! So you understood my reaction?”

I looked at her for only a moment. I mean, how dishonest could I possibly be?

“Actually, no. Not in the least.”

“Oh,” she said, with only a tiny trace of disappointment. Then she brightened again. She understood I couldn’t have possibly gotten her point. Still, she was so pleased with the title that my ignorance had not in the least dampened her enjoyment of this obscure joke.

“It’s a parody of our society. In fact, it’s almost a direct insult to the basic principles of the Zaibatsu.”

“Really? I don’t get it, but I’d sure like to.”

“Well, the first part is ‘man spinning in the void of the limitless psyche.’ As you’ve probably gathered, the society as a whole is paramount above the importance of any individual. I think you gained some inkling of that with Solomon’s story about Robert Winston Wood. So this ‘limitless psyche’ thing is illustrated by several directly contradictory items. First, the fact that the psyche is constantly assuming different shapes while the objects representing the world around her are fixed and rigidly angular, demonstrates the inflexible system. Second, the psyche is actually bigger than any of those societal objects, saying the artist thinks the individual is the most important. Finally, the psyche is the center of this universe, which speaks for itself. I think the part about ‘the total emptiness of the implacable universe’ is also so obvious in this context it needs no explanation.”

Frankly, I could’ve used a little more explanation, but I wasn’t going to let her know. Anyhow, I think I got the point.

“Wow! But this seems like – well, I don’t know, pretty radical stuff, at the least.”

“Exactly! That’s what I was originally impressed with. I think it’s executed fairly well, but the fact the artist felt that they could openly express their thoughts about how people relate to our current society, no matter how mild this protest might be, is really amazing. A few years ago, no one would have dared express those kind of beliefs.”

“Does that mean you think the Revos movement is having a significant impact on the general population?”

“Absolutely,” she affirmed. “I’m surprised the artwork was ever produced. But the fact that this little gallery, which is some tiny and distant part of the Regional Zaibatsu, was willing to display it is even more of an indication that resistance to their power is growing.”

“I see.” I thought back to my silly speech to Wafer and Katherine about resistance cells and battle plans and all of that Hollywood stuff revolutions are made of, and was glad I had apologized at the time. Here, in a piece of modern art exhibited in an obscure, nearly deserted gallery, was a symbol that the real battle was being won.

We viewed all of the exhibitions in the gallery, although no single piece seemed as overtly anti-government to Katherine as the first one. When we left the gallery, Katherine seemed to have regained a lot of her usual positive attitude.

“Did you find that interesting?” she asked, sounding more concerned with my personal enjoyment level than any understanding I might have gained about her society.

“More than I can tell you,” I assured her. “Do we have time to go somewhere else before we have to head back?”

“Sure,” she said, pleased I wanted to continue our tour. “I’ve wanted for years to explore the local Hall of Advanced Technologies. It’s not too far from here, and I believe it’s always open. Would you like to make a quick visit?”

“If you want to see it, then I want to see it,” I answered as gallantly as I could.

“Great,” she said, totally oblivious to my romantic intent. Oh, well, I thought, maybe the people in this society weren’t used to the subtleties of male-female interaction. More likely, I just wasn’t good at it. “I understand several of Solomon’s early works are on display there.” Or maybe I was just totally wasting my time, in spite of what she had told me about her relationship with Solomon.

“Great,” I agreed dryly.

She set off merrily in the fast lane of the slidewalk, and I had to hurry to catch up with her. After about ten minutes, I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep up the pace. Man, was she ever eager to see this exhibition! I figured the only chance to save myself from cardiac arrest was to distract her. The problem was I was barely getting enough oxygen into my system to sustain my current aerobic level, let alone spare any for exercising my gray matter.

“So, uh,” I huffed and puffed as I tried to think of something meaningful to say, “the Zaibatsu is pretty restrictive in more ways than just political. I mean, like with the art, things that are political, but not directly political. You know what I mean?”

“What?” she said abstractedly, not turning her head or slowing down the pace. Okay, this was going to take more effort than I was putting into it. Which was another way of saying I had to find more specific topics of conversation. As well as more interesting. After all, I couldn’t just admit I had a problem keeping up with this younger, more physically fit person, could I? I was a man, she was a woman, and that was all there was to that. Right?

Then I had a sudden inspiration. In many ways, the title of that art piece had not been as much political as philosophical, bordering on the religious. I remembered Solomon, in recalling his memories of Aimee Keito Saito, had made some mention of her zeal towards the Soga Sosha, comparing it to a religious fervor. That might be a good point to explore as I tried to slow her down, both in her excitement for this display as well as in her physical pace.

“Well,” I continued, formulating my thoughts as I tried to keep my momentum going forward, “they really try to step into the arena of religion as well as politics. I mean, from what Solomon said, they’ve tried to make their own politics into a form of worship. It’s one of the ways they control the common people, right?”

Oh, blessed be; it actually worked! Katherine definitely slowed her pace as she considered the question.

“Control them?” she asked. “Yes, I suppose that’s true in a lot of ways. I hadn’t exactly thought of pseudo-religious control as a deliberate tactic, but it would certainly fit into everything else I’ve learned about them since I joined the Revos.”

Although I could easily keep up with her now, I was still having a tough time trying to catch my breath from our previous pace. Still, I managed to eke out another question with the limited air left in my lungs.

“The way I heard it from Sol,” I panted, trying to take a couple of deep breaths, “and from what I’ve seen, it’s more like the Zaibatsu is trying to take the place of God.”

Then a miracle happened. She stopped walking entirely! No matter how much the Zaibatsu had tried, God was still not dead! I stopped beside her, and tried not to pant heavily as my breathing returned to normal. Of course, we kept moving at the normal sedate pace of the slidewalk.

“I’m not sure about that,” she said slowly, so deep in thought it was like she was talking to herself. “Within the churches that still exist, God is still worshiped as some generic ‘supreme being’. Although I know from the research Teknos and Wafer have done it’s not at all the same as when there were strict religions in the world.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “It seems like former family values are now channeled into loyalty to an employee’s company. The local Zaibatsu seems somewhere just below God on the importance scale to those who are still religious, and replaces God for those who aren’t.”

She didn’t say another word until we arrived at our destination. She was still thinking about her feelings towards the leaders of her world, while I was merely trying to reduce my heartbeat to a survivable level. We arrived in silence, and stepped off the slidewalk onto the pavement in front of the skyscraper that housed our goal.

I stood there starting at the building as I tried to catch my breath. It loomed even higher than most of the towers throughout the city. She waited patiently, not even breathing hard. Where the art gallery had been fairly small, the Hall of Advanced Technologies must have taken up a third of the building. I asked her if the Hall was actually as large as it looked.

“Yes,” she responded brusquely, “it’s pretty big. I understand it’s at least sixty floors high. Many of the exhibits are so large they require two or even three floors of space. We won’t be able to see much if we want to get back to the lab in time to have dinner with the others, but at least you’ll be able to get a good idea of what happened to technology from your time to ours.”

Now I was really looking forward to this. Maybe I could see some of the inventions my companies had helped to create. After all, Katherine had told me some of the displays went back more than fifteen decades to some of the ‘primitive’ roots of current devices.

That’s why I was terribly disappointed when she said: “Oh, dear. We can’t go in!”

“Why not?” I demanded, incensed to have expended all that effort to get to a place I couldn’t even enter.

“It costs five credits.”

“What? I thought all of the ‘public services’ were free to all comers, one of the social benefits of this world.”

“I’m surprised as well. I’ve never seen a charge for anything like this before.”

“So then, why this place?”

“I can only assume because the subject matter is so popular. Maybe they had to find some way to cut down on the crowds. Or, because it’s very expensive to operate this particular museum and technology is constantly changing, they felt a small entrance fee would be alright in this case. It’s something I’ll be very interested in researching when we get back.”

“If we go back at the same pace we got here, I won’t be alive long enough to learn the fascinating answer,” I muttered.

“Pardon me?”

“I said if we go away from here, I won’t be able to see all of the fascinating things here.”