Chapter 59:... Are Sent From Heaven Above

Time: Judgment 1, 8316 3:43 AM

As Eleora stretched, I lay back and relaxed, at peace and admiring the bright morning sunlight washing the room from the eastern bay windows. Then my wife closed her eyes and brought us back to 8244 with her words.

"I remember this so clearly. We were at mission operations, in the command post two kilometers south of the Academy. Kefira was doing an excellent job of being visible on the global holocasts without getting in anybody's way. I remember being amazed that a twelfth-year could have such a commanding presence. We all cheered when you activated the holo-feed from the lobby and let us see you, and then cried when we saw the activated auto-destruct sequence."

Eleora opened her eyes. "Well, we and the rest of the world followed you along your journey. Abigail starting screaming and calling for you to turn back at the third airlock. She could read the ancient symbols. She called the language Spanish."

I interrupted. "Like Spain? Didn't they own these islands?"

"Yes, I believe they did. Anyway, once you entered the airlock, the holovideo switched to the view from the control room. There was no way to warn you!" Eleora paused and sighed. "It was so awful when we saw you getting hit with the eternity drugs. We couldn't believe the look of triumph on your face as your mind was mutilated. It was Kefira who first realized why you were smiling."

"Ah, my sweet daughter. She's so smart."

Eleora laughed. "Light-years beyond smart! Abdul Hadi, you have no idea! Anyway, we watched you wait patiently until 12:35 PM when the airlock opened. You leaped out and got to work hacking the console."

I sighed. "Wow. I remember wanting to do that, planning to do that, but I have no memory of actually doing it."

"No, of course not. Six minutes Abdul Hadi! You hacked the system in six minutes! The mission team was astonished. We lost our holovideo of you then, at 12:41 PM."

I nodded. "Yes, that was the plan, use all available bandwidth to transmit the files."

"The mirroring system was working fine, multiple copies of everything you sent were being created all over the world. The concept of too many backups just didn't exist, not for this."

Eleora paused for a moment, sighing before continuing. "By 1:30 PM, we guessed you would be entering your sleep cycle. All my sister-wives and I were beginning to come around to Kefira's perspective, that having you in a primary purge coma at 2:15 PM would not be such a bad thing."

"At 2:00 PM we got our first report from worldwide mission analysis. There were numerous technical details on the anti-aging drugs, but many, many critical files were almost certainly still missing. We were going to fail."

Eleora shuddered. "The next fifteen minutes were the most awful of my life, and they would have been even worse without Kefira. We hugged each other and wept the whole time. And then 2:15 PM came, and there was no explosion. And then 2:16 came, and no explosion. And the files kept coming."

"It was miraculous Abdul Hadi! No explosion and the files kept coming. The excitement and suspense of not understanding was incredible! I tried to use one of your tricks to calm myself. I watched the shadows of the day as the afternoon progressed. The sun finally set at 7:26 PM, and still the files were coming. I remember watching the fall of the twilight. And then a few minutes after 8 PM, a beautiful full moon began to rise in the sky. It was so pretty, and it seemed like a beautiful omen. I remember it being 9 PM, and the data still kept coming. Then it was 9:30 PM, and the data still kept coming."

"At 9:31 PM the exterior airlock cycled and you came running out of the building. You raced south towards the mission operations bunker. You made it back to us at 9:36 PM carrying a bunch of notes. Data transmission completed at 9:37 PM. The Nikahaldi library had been fully drained. At 9:38 PM the complex exploded."

Eleora shuddered. "I can still remember how the room shook. The explosion was huge, almost nuclear! It took more than a decade to repair the damage. Thank the Holy the township had been evacuated."

I grinned at her. "So tell me of my brilliance!"

"Okay. This was from your notes. We still have them, by the way. They're on public display at your palace at Bandar Arenas."

I was shocked. "It's still my palace?!"

"Well of course! You are Cunif Califar! No one's ever going to take that away from you Abdul Hadi!"

"But... But I'm an eternal virgin! I can't govern!"

"Well, no. Jibran is first facilitator of council operations now. He's CL-30."

"What? First facilitator?"

"Oh, the government has changed a lot since 8244 Abdul Hadi, a lot and for the better."

"Ah. And we're still using Citizen Levels?"

Eleora nodded. "Oh yes. We still want to run the society as a meritocracy. There's a little bit of seniority mixed in too."

"Hmmm?"

"Well, the system's changed a little."

"Tell me?"

"Sure. There's no culling of course, and everything one has free access to the anti-aging drugs for life. All boys and girls are CL-0, a white cycle with a black outline. All children become CL-1 adults on Judgment 1 of their twentieth year. In the following years as adults, they are free to take promotional testing at any Judgment, as often as they like. Think of a matrix with the CL on one axis and the age by year on the other. For each cell, exactly one in thirty will advance to the next Citizen Level, regardless of how many take the test. Promotion is based purely on relative performance."

I laughed. "So for any cell, if only one in thirty take the test, they all pass?"

"That's right. But the number seeking advancement is always higher than that, usually about 20%."

I nodded. "And you always compete only within your own age group?"

"That's right, to the single year of your birth. The lowest Citizen Levels thus become depopulated as the generation ages. We think this is the best way. It's a challenging meritocracy, but there's also some kindness and consideration and respect for age. The system is balanced to have on average one CL-31. Abdul Hadi, I could go into a lot more detail. Do you want me to?"

"Uh... No. Take us back to 8244."

Eleora nodded. "This is from your notes. You are in the Nikahaldi control room at 12:41 PM and facing a 2:15 PM detonation. There's not enough time for you to exit the building. You have completed your planned mission, but it's just not like you to be idle. So you sit and try to think of something to do to improve your position. And then you have an epiphany. You can run a diagnostic test on intruder sensitivity. You modify the sensor arrays to make them as detuned and insensitive as possible, and then you run the system that way in a diagnostic loop test."

Eleora shuddered. "I know this as a doctor. The first forced sleep cycle right after eternity injection burns the brain. The coma is brutally deep. A little after 1:30 PM, you picked what you thought was the most difficult spot in the security center for the sensors to lock scanners on you, and you collapsed there shortly afterwards. In your state of near death, the out-of-balance sensors could no longer see you. In the Holy's mercy, the fuzzy-logic concluded there was no one in the building and cancelled auto-destruct."