Authors: Mark Clark
He waited for a response but none came. Nicholas and Elizabeth listened with interest and Stefan appeared nervous.
‘Dunnett understood that the way out of the mire was through science.’ He repeated it to make his point more savagely and his voice began to rise. ‘Science, - the method of inquiry that never takes itself too seriously; the methodology that willingly throws any hypothesis away when a better, more useful theory presents itself; the thinking man’s religion. All of this has been thrown away in less than one hundred years? I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that human beings could ever be so stupid!’ He was getting passionate again. ‘Here we are, fellow Corporate City-Siders, in one city alone in the possibility of a sea of others but, if they exist, we know nothing of them. They may be there but we can’t contact them. There may be other economies but we can’t trade with them. Why? Because we have allowed superstition to lead us into the safety of certainty - into the dangerous waters of certainty! Tell me this, Stefan, why do you think the Roman Empire at the time of Christ had tap water and sewage while the streets of London fifteen hundred years later had none? Why were they dumping their shit into the streets while the Ancient Romans were flushing it away?’
Stefan didn’t know, or if he did, he said nothing.
‘I’ll tell you why, Stefan, I’ll tell you all why. It was because the Dark Ages intervened in Europe. It was because ignorance intervened. It was because when you don’t understand anything you have two choices: you can either run away scared, create a superstition, call it magic, or the will of God, or whatever you like, or you can enquire into its nature; try to understand it; reveal its secrets, bit by argumentative bit, on a road that never has the satisfaction of an end. This is the scientific method. It’s a thorny and troublesome road but it’s a road that leads to knowledge rather than a road which leads to self-satisfied ignorance. When humans fully embrace religious doctrine they don’t have to think because their doctrine is firm and unyielding. The religious zealot thinks the same thing at eighty as he did at twenty. He doesn’t have to think. It’s all been done for him. The script’s already written; all the amendments made; lights, camera, action - just follow the word; follow the herd. And if something inexplicable occurs? Well, the Lord moves in mysterious ways, doesn’t He? Just have faith and let that be an end to it. That’s the difference between religion and science. Science engages the head; religion engages the heart. The only trouble is - the heart wasn’t made for thinking. That’s not its function. When we use it to think with, catastrophe often follows. Thinking with the metaphorical heart is a self-absorbed, subjective and inaccurate manner in which to seek knowledge. It leads civilisation down the path to Hell by too readily accepting Heaven.’
Everyone was looking at Leslie as if he was somewhere between madman and Messiah.
‘Don’t you all see?’ he concluded, ‘The world of our forefathers, hundreds of years ago, clawed its way out of the Dark Ages only because the Arabs had the precision of mind and the forethought to understand the genius of Antiquity. Books were worth a king’s ransom then and they are now, but we’ve failed to recognise it and I’m afraid, everyone, that the future will pay dearly for our lack of sagacity.’
With this he subsided into his chair and said no more.
‘Very impressive!’ said Elizabeth after a long pause. ‘We really have to find that book. Stefan. I want every government department turned upside down. The manuscript could simply have been misplaced. I want its footprints detected and traced. No excuses. Go.’
Elizabeth dismissed Stefan and turned back to the two men but she addressed Lesley, in particular.
‘I’ll have the whole city put under the microscope, Consul Woodford,’ she assured him. ‘We’ll find that book, and if you’re half as good at thinking as you are orating, we’ll make some great strides in the next six years. Your thoughts on religious doctrine interest me greatly. We must speak upon the matter later in more detail.’
The meeting ended soon after. It was decided that the nuts and bolts stuff of government could wait until later in the week. Nicholas and Leslie were about to enter the elevator, when Elizabeth stopped Leslie.
‘Go on, consul,’ she said to Nicholas, ‘I wish to speak with Consul Woodford.’
With a wave and the close of two elevator doors, he was gone.
Elizabeth took Leslie by the shoulder, manoeuvred him to the corner of the room and spoke quietly.
‘Consul, I assume that in spite of the lost manuscript you already have some ideas and blueprints of your own? At least I think that’s what you started to say to me at the party the other night, but we didn’t get much chance to speak.’
‘Yes,’ Leslie replied, and feeling that honesty was winning him the day he added, ‘I couldn’t get near you for all of those young, oversexed suitors.’
For a moment Leslie felt that he had overplayed his cards because Elizabeth looked back at him in silence with a startled expression upon her pretty face. But the sun soon broke through the clouds and he watched with delight as a vast smile lighted up her glorious face and a hearty laugh forced its way through those inviting, red lips. She gripped his shoulder more tightly with camaraderie.
‘Oh, Consul Woodford,’ she laughed, ‘what a surprise packet you’ve turned out to be. An honest politician – now there’s an oxymoron.’
Leslie let down his guard and laughed along with Elizabeth. He found the generosity of her laughter compelling and if he hadn’t been in love with her before, he certainly was now.
‘The reason I ask,’ she continued, still smiling in the aftermath of her laughter, and still clasping him by the shoulder, ‘is because there was another young man at that party that I would like you to meet. His name is Damien Hill. He’s a businessman of some vision, I think, and I was hoping that, manuscript or no manuscript, you two might put your heads together. He’s a man who has the means to put some of your ideas into action. What do you say?’
‘I’d be happy to meet him,’ replied Leslie.
The two parted with a smile and Leslie’s feet didn’t hit the ground until he was half way across Hyde Park. There he stopped by the old war memorial, beside which sat a much more recent bust of Jeremiah and this reminded him of his troubles.
Beneath the bust, a plaque read: ‘In the pursuit of opportunity for all people.’ Sitting beneath it was a small boy with big, dark eyes who looked up dolefully at him. Immediately, the bubbles went out of his effervescence. The boy could have been from a Dickensian workhouse. His clothes were mere rags, ingrained with filth. He was unwashed and his hair was oily and unkempt. He had a small, tattered cap in front of him and he was begging. Leslie reached into his pocket and, with a sad smile, tossed in some coins. The boy returned the smile, grabbed the cap and ran off, lest the man change his mind and steal back the treasure.
Leslie watched the boy disappear across the crowded middle-day park. He watched him shrink into a small, brown dot lost in a mass of other small, brown dots. And it struck him forcefully – Jeremiah’s and Dunnett’s administration had sought to bring individuals opportunity, but the subsequent century had failed that dream. No matter where he looked: north, south, east or west, there were homeless beggars. But there were few people to whom they could beg. The majority of the well-to-do were in the scrapers away from the filthy streets.
As he walked, he ruminated upon this class separation. There were those who were neither homeless, nor wealthy, it was true. There were shopkeepers and salespeople of whatever goods the limited factories of Corporate City could create. There was a basic but sound banking system that employed people and there were many loan sharks. Also, many of the poorer citizens had been employed by the rich. There were attendants of all kinds: tutors and nannies for their children; cleaners for their apartments; tailors for their bodies and hairdressers for their heads. Some women even had handmaidens and many of the elderly rich had all-day carers. These street dwellers, fortunate enough to find employment in this way, lived in the lower levels of the scrapers, mainly for the convenience of the rich. But there were few of them. This was not a robust emerging middle class. The economy was too rudimentary for that. The rich had access to all of the leftovers from the old world. They had a functioning electricity grid. They had food grown by the luckier lower class members in what fertile ground there was between the periphery of the city and the desolation of the wasteland. They even had alcohol, courtesy of one government brewery and also provided by any street dwellers clever enough to supply it (although this produce was mainly consumed by the employed street dwellers themselves, due to its inferior quality). They were not as wealthy as the tsars of nineteenth century Russia, or the kings of early eighteenth century France, but they were wealthy enough, especially when compared to the street dwellers who died in droves each winter and who scavenged through the bins of the rich, when they could get away with it. The more Leslie thought about it, the more he marvelled that there hadn’t been some major uprising in the past century. There had been riots, some of late, in fact, but never had the poor galvanised themselves into a force to threaten the status quo.
Leslie had spent his entire life in the luxury of the scrapers, thanks to his father, who had been rich. He had been privately tutored and had enjoyed all the trimmings of opulence. In fact, his friends said he was mad to seek public office because it meant a demotion to the lowest levels of the scrapers; just above the street dwellers. But he had insisted and he had achieved his goal. During his young life he had built up a battery of ideas and had always wanted to serve in public office, but until this moment he had never seen so clearly how utterly the present city had failed its citizens. It was no good blaming them, he reasoned, they needed guidance. That was what good government should be about. But he had been so buried in books and ideas that he had not, until now, really considered how to best utilise his ideas to effect government. Technological advance was all very well and he could help provide that, but it must be practical technological advance that served the individual citizens of Corporate City. It must be technology that served Jeremiah’s dream. It must be technology shared by all, not only enjoyed by the wealthy.
And then it crystallised. Elizabeth was wiser than she knew. He would get to know this Damien. He would get to understand how the city functioned and he would tailor his inventions to suit the practical advancement for all. Even if the famously lost manuscript didn’t surface, he could still achieve great things for his city. He would join all the little brown dots he was still watching clustering along the streets and join them into a cohesive picture.
And when he had established himself as a scientist and consul of worth - then he would make a pitch for Elizabeth Dawson.
*
EXT.THE MOUNTAINS.DAY
A mansion sits silently upon the hill. It is unused and dilapidated.
Two men on horseback ride out of the nearby forest. One soldier wraps a rag around the head of an arrow and lights it.
The soldier shoots the arrow into the dry, old structure and immediately it bursts into flames.
The soldiers ride away.
The following Thursday, Elizabeth convened what was officially the first meeting for the triumvirate. So Leslie was amazed to see Damien Hill perched between Elizabeth and Nicholas, sitting patiently behind the polished hardwood table. His amazement was transparent and Elizabeth responded.
‘Our friend Damien Hill has graciously agreed to attend today,’ she explained with a broad smile. ‘He has, unfortunately, resisted my attempt to bring him more permanently into the fold as an adviser, but he has agreed to meet with you today for some preliminary discussions, apropos our conversation the other day, consul.’
Elizabeth awaited Leslie’s reply. His natural disposition was to caution. This man was not a part of the body of three who ruled the city and damn it, he was quite good looking and Elizabeth obviously had great regard for him if she had asked him to be adviser. She looked absolutely stunning too in a light green dress. Her beauty was no doubt appreciated by the young businessman she now sat beside. All these thoughts went through his head but he replied courteously, ‘Of course,’ and seated himself.
‘Alright,’ Elizabeth began, shaking her dark, meticulously tousled hair in a prelude to her address. ‘My second term officially begins today and I intend to make some big waves in Corporate City over the next six years. I need men of vision to accompany me on my journey. That is why Damien is here today. And that is why I am honoured to have been blessed with such capable men as you, Nicholas and you, Leslie.’
Leslie was flattered but Nicholas didn’t look all that happy. Damien Hill was impassive.
Elizabeth continued, ‘So here is my proposal. Nicholas and I will oversee the day to day running of government for the foreseeable future. We’ll run any new ideas past you, of course Leslie, but essentially we will embark upon a transformation of the bureaucracy of this city and a cleansing of some troublesome criminal factions whilst you two,’ she pointed towards Damien and Leslie, ‘will be given full reign to conceive of and execute some more inventive and far reaching plans.’
Leslie and Damien sat forward in their chairs. Damien’s handsome face was radiant with interest. Leslie pushed back his thinning fringe and listened.
‘What we need in this city is a firm hand,’ Elizabeth stated forcefully. ‘The rich would seek to draw us under their spell with promises of gold and reward. The minority groups would woo us with their promises of electoral support and the street dwellers would have us quiver in our boots by rattling their empty scabbards in the streets. But we will not be swayed, consuls. Over the next six years, free of the cancer of election, Nicholas and I will embark upon a radical transformation of the ground conditions in the city while you two visionaries will map out any new inventions that may take us into a wider world. Everything you need will be at your disposal. Whatever machinery and resources you require will be granted. All you have to do is ask and it will be supplied, if humanly possible. What do you say?’