The Second Sphere

Millions of memories rushed back to me suddenly. Ideas about the future began to take root, grabbing what was left of my patience. Quincy Laslow was a full-fledged member of the Green Revolution. Now there was a tidbit that I would never have predicted.

Quincy observed me like I was in a cage. I could tell he wanted me to spill my reaction to him, to utter words of forgiveness and thankfulness. But that wasn’t what I felt. Uncertainty was on my face. I felt it drawn along the base of my chin and in the set of my eyes.

“Is it that shocking, Orion?” Quincy Laslow asked.

“You’re telling me that you’re part of the same organization I’ve spent the last 150 years of my life investigating and trying to bring down?”

Quincy’s face became sympathetic, like I was a naïve child who needed the world explained to him. His tongue plucked his teeth before he drew a breath.

“We never should have left earth,” he said. “They told us there wasn’t enough room, that there weren’t enough resources. Now we live in places where there are literally no resources. And they use our minds to line their pockets.”

“And now I guess I’m supposed to tell you how happy I am that you’re a member of the GR?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I never expected you to embrace this news immediately.”

“So, this whole thing, from the very beginning, was a Green Revolution set-up?” I asked.

“The whole thing? What whole thing are you referring to?” My question drew lines of irritation along Quincy’s face. “Let me explain something to you clearly, Orion. This virus that we’ve hopefully just destroyed wasn’t released by the GR,” Quincy said. “But you should’ve already figured that out.” He drew his head back and regarded me down the slant of his nose.

“You and Victor Newberry seem to have been reading from the same playbook, sir,” I said. “I’m not sure that I can believe anything a man who’s willing to kill this many people says. Call me crazy.”

“You’ve seen the evidence of what I’m saying, Orion. You don’t even trust your own senses anymore?” he asked. “Somewhere deep inside, you must understand that our entire population has been played for fools by a group of corrupt and greedy people, whose only purpose in life is to dominate.

“You see,” he continued, “you’ve wanted to believe that the Green Revolution is some horrible terrorist organization that desires the destruction of civilization as we know it. But that simply isn’t true.” He leaned toward me and put a hand on my knee.

“All we want is for humans to be humans again. This way of life…” he tossed his head toward the second sphere. “It’s most inhuman, wouldn’t you say?” He leaned back again. “We’re merely trying to restore humanity.”

“And so you restore humanity by killing thousands of people? Is that what makes us more human?” Oh, I admit it. I thought about strangling him at that moment. I was so close. My hands could have crushed his windpipe.

“It’s amusing to listen to you speak like this, Orion,” he said. “It seems that you’re more upset by the fact that I’m a member of the Green Revolution than anything else. Yet, everything you did this afternoon helped us accomplish what we wanted. So tell me, what’s worse?”

I was about to respond when the truth of what he said struck me. Until the moment he told me he was part of the Green Revolution, I did everything he asked. “Sir, I don’t know what I think right now,” I said. “All I know is that I’m hearing you say things that I don’t want to believe.”

“Okay, Orion. Okay. I’m not here to argue with you.” He licked his lips. “Would it shock you if I told you that the real Green Revolution isn’t responsible for a single act of terror that has occurred in the Three Spheres for the past 150 years? That our organization appears to have been overtaken by the most vile, menacing force that the human race has ever faced?”

Quincy’s face became quite grave. “Wasn’t it just terribly convenient that the Green Revolution became a terrorist organization quite suddenly? That after years of peaceful resistance and activism, the GR started happening? That the entire movement fractured, and no one could get a handle on what they were doing? That was what the TSG and the Gagotrothes wanted, to have everyone believe in the hypocrisy and violence of the GR. To find a convenient scapegoat for their well conceived plan to thin the population.

“But those of us who have been intimately involved in this movement for years, we now know what happened, that it wasn’t members of the Green Revolution at all, but infiltrators, who spawned all of this violence.”

I felt dirty, sitting there listening to him, knowing everything I’d done over the years because of my own ignorance. My skin crawled as I remembered all that I believed before seeing Victor Newberry’s interviews. I’d wanted to work at the Laslow Corporation and have faith in every succulent notion about the dirty Green Revolution that had been put forward. My ignorance was willful.

Quincy sighed. “You can’t tell me that you haven’t been thinking about this since you saw Newberry’s interviews.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re real. He could’ve fabricated them to divert attention from the GR,” I said, ever the contrarian.

“Victor Newberry wasn’t stupid,” Quincy said. “He put his life on the line to conduct those interviews. He gave his life to share the truth of what’s happening in our worlds.” Quincy shook his head. “But, if you truly don’t believe what I’m saying, Orion, then how, in good conscience, could you choose to purchase throwaways and Love from a GR operative?”

I felt a twinge of regret. “It was never my intention--”

“The road to hell, Orion,” Laslow said. “I’m not here to give you a hard time about that.” He waved his hand at me. “Because even Cody Beans didn’t understand what he was a part of. He didn’t know anything about the organization he funneled money to. No one knew the extent to which we’d been infiltrated until you got those interviews.

“What I’m saying is that I get why you did what you did, in spite of what you felt. A lonely man. Seeking companionship. Looking to escape the dreary world. You didn’t ask to come to the moon, Orion. You were sent there. On assignment. You did as you were told because you thought it was the right thing to do. And what did the moon do to you? What did it do to you?” He waited for me to answer. But I couldn’t say anything. “It made you miserable, Orion. It made you feel like your life had become one big mistake.

“I’ve used my share, too,” he said. “I’ve used and I’ve used and I’ve used. Because that rock isn’t where we were meant to live. It makes us miserable. Being up here has made me appreciate what we had back there. We’re of the earth, Orion. We were made on the earth, and that’s where we should be.

“Man’s nature is being divorced from man. We’re making ourselves into the image of what we think we should be, rather than allowing ourselves to be what we actually are.”

“I’m not sure that I need a sales pitch,” I said.

“Orion, I’m going in a roundabout way to tell you that the TSG and the Gagotrothes must be stopped. We don’t have much time. They’ve ratcheted up their hostilities. And I’d like for you to come with me to work against this menace.”

“You want me to work with the Green Revolution?” I asked.

“I want you to work toward stopping the destruction of the human race, Orion.”

“If you think I’d ever--”

“You’re blinded by all of the work that you’ve put in, Orion. You don’t want it to be in vain. But let me assure you that none of it will have been in vain. We need you. We need your experience if we’re going to succeed in the coming war.”

“Does your father know about this?” I asked.

Quincy smiled. “Do you really think my father, the man who started the Laslow Corporation, is involved with the Green Revolution?” He shook his head. “Do you really think he’s interested in anything besides hoarding his money?

“No, Orion, I’ve kept my affiliation with the Green Revolution a secret from him. You know why? Because if he knew he’d probably use it to his advantage. He’d probably find some way to make money off it.” Quincy glanced at Malinda. “Don’t you think he’d do that?”

“What is it that you don’t understand?” Malinda asked, her voice bristling with anger.

“Now, now, my dear, we can’t antagonize him too much. He has the right to ask questions. And he’s proved his resourcefulness. He’s a guest of his own choosing here, and we don’t want him to despise us,” Quincy said. “Let’s let him ease into this, okay?”

I felt the strong coercive hand of Quincy Laslow running up and down my chip. “I need to know where we’re going,” I said.

“We have to go back to earth,” Quincy said. “This movement is centered there. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise, now would it? Don’t you want to be back? Don’t you want to get a chance to see Lila again?”

Hearing my daughter’s name flipped a switch. “Don’t you try to use my daughter as a bargaining chip.” The smile disappeared from Quincy Laslow’s face.

“What would you prefer, Orion? That we turn back to Mars? Hand you over to the Laslow Corporation? Take you to the rendition facility? There’s plenty of evidence that you conspired to insert this virus.” Quincy’s voice was pitched low. This was, undoubtedly, a threat.

“You set me up?” I asked.

Quincy Laslow shook his head. “I wasn’t the one who set you up, Orion. Nor do I know who did. But I’m quite confident that it wasn’t you. I’ve been observing you for a long time. I know who you are. No, I’m quite certain that the Laslow Corporation, much like the GR, has been infiltrated.”

Malinda slapped her legs, stood, and left the room. She came back a moment later, holding a silver case, which she presented to Quincy. “Something to take your mind off the day, let you ease into your decision-making process,” she said. Quincy flicked two dials and opened the case. He swung it around, so that it faced me. Inside were several Love drives.

The feeling jumped. The lust pounded back into my chip. Seeing those tiny, black and green florescent drives reminded me of why I was still alive. Malinda removed two, closed the case, and set it on the floor. She handed a drive to me, then one to Quincy.

The thirst for Love galloped toward me. What I wanted, at that moment, was to have the enhancement sweep me into its arms, take me as far away from that ship as possible. I didn’t want to hear Quincy talk anymore. I didn’t want to think about my future or the Green Revolution.

I dosed and let the drug grab hold of me. The anger slid away. The lock on my chest flew open. The explosion and all of this destruction needed to be wiped away, cleaned from my being.

The world slowed considerably. Each movement that Quincy made, and each sound that Malinda uttered, were drawn out, unending, overlapping. I couldn’t make sense of what they said or what they did. I wondered if I too was slow, encumbered by the unending space. My chip began to pulse. I put my hand on the side of my neck and kept it there for a few moments.

I dosed again and, in a moment, I fell back. My seat felt soft and heavenly. Outside, through the window, I saw all of space, black and pricked with white spots. The moon got smaller by the moment. It looked like a tiny rock now, a rock of no significance.

I wondered why I’d been there in the first place.