The pain was improving drastically, and the cast did wonders to keep my arm in place while the bones healed. Mr. Barton was confident my wrist would heal correctly if I left my arm in the cast for a couple of months. After a remarkable recovery, I returned to living in my flat.
The sight of the Enforcers patrolling the streets now made my stomach drop and brought back the lingering fear of another severe injury. They had snapped my wrist like a toothpick, without emotion, as if it was as simple of a task as walking.
Deciding it was best to catch up on my sleep and relax, I sat on my couch and grabbed the book I had purchased from the merchant instead of watching TV. I sealed the room to my flat behind me and put on a kettle of tea, struggling to use my fingers in the bulky cast.
I was relieved that the strain of my running had not caused the frayed spine of the book to fall apart; had that happened the pages could have been seriously damaged. The cover looked like it had sustained heavy wear in its lifetime, but the cardboard had served its purpose in protecting the manuscript. The paper didn’t look synthetic, but it was also so mottled that if it were real paper, it wouldn’t be worth much. The page with the year of print said 1991; it had to be a typo. Books that old didn’t exist.
History taught us there had been a great flood in 2039 that had wiped out New York completely. Survivors rebuilt the country into what it is today, but almost everything, including all books printed before 2039, had been destroyed or sucked into the toxic Atlantic Ocean. The book in my hands suggested one of three things: the print date was a typo and it was supposed to read 2091, the book was as old as it claimed to be and had somehow survived the Great Flood, or there was never a Great Flood of 2039. The third thought was dangerous—worse than incorrect. It was the kind of thinking that got someone sent to the Sculptors.
A wave of fear rippled through my mind as a realization dawned. The book could be potentially treasonous. I could have Edgar test it before I read it, but I had paid for the book and didn’t have anything else to do if I decided not to read it. I felt something else as well, a deep thirst for knowledge. Perhaps the book could help me improve my thought output and lead to my own Paragon Thought. Unless the book included history and dates that precluded 2039, I would assume it to just be a simple typo. Deciding to learn the book’s secrets, I turned the page and started reading:
“An Inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful. Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labour to inquire into. The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry; whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves; sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search of other things.”
I paused after the first paragraph. This was no ordinary book; the first paragraph alone told me more about Absolute Knowledge than anything I had ever known. While it made no mention of Absolute Knowledge itself, it was clearly a book about the project, perhaps even in its earliest stages of development.
I continued for a few pages:
“Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct. If we can find out those measures, whereby a rational creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need not to be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.”
Something was wrong with this book. Panic shot through my body like venom and my heart pounded in my chest. My mind was telling me to stop reading before it was too late. This book was a book of treason. Still, was there truth to this? I had only read through a couple of pages, but was it too late to turn back? Was the damage already done? I knew I should stop reading, but I wanted nothing more than to see if there was any truth to the words. Pressing on, I was intent on finishing what I had started. I could destroy the evidence when I was done.
Three hours later I finished the book with more questions than answers, hungry for more but full of fear. It was impossible to tell when the book was actually written based on the text, but it was peppered with incorrect words. A long length of the book talked about God in relation to man. God was referenced as a person. Mr. Barton made frequent references to God or Gods, and I simply understood it to be another incorrect word in his expansive criminal vocabulary.
When I closed the cover of the book and slid it under my couch, I noticed my hands were shaking. I knew I needed to go to Mr. Barton for help, for advice. I dreaded it knowing he wouldn’t take it well. He would know I knew better than to keep reading after spotting a single incorrect word.
Despite my fears, I stayed awake and re-read the entire book to get a better understanding. It was satisfying to get such an interesting perspective on ideas. The author’s writing was rather difficult to break down and understand at certain points because I was unfamiliar with many of the terms mentioned in the book. It was also the first time I had ever seen thoughts compared to infinity. Before reading the book, I only thought infinity to exist within the confines of mathematics. Infinity was a complex idea, and after reading the book about what it had to do with thoughts, both simple and complex, I didn’t understand anything more about it than before. If the author’s words were truth, I now knew more about the formation of ideas than ever before, and perhaps I would be able to increase my thought output.
Even if I could increase my thought output, it wouldn’t make a shred of difference if I was sent off to the Sculptors for knowing and understanding treasonous words. No matter how I looked at it, I knew I needed to consult Mr. Barton. Teaching classes for a living was out of the question, and I didn’t want to sink to the level of becoming a criminal. Until I got this sorted out, I wouldn’t be able to visit a Collection Parlor, wouldn’t have an income, and wouldn’t have any vouchers for drinking water or to purchase basic food. In other words, I was screwed. Cursing, I realized seeking Mr. Barton’s help was my only option. I wouldn't dare put the financial burden on Mary and rely on her kind nature. It felt terrible to need Mr. Barton’s help and put him in another problematic situation right after he had saved my life and incurred huge expenses I wouldn’t be able to repay any time soon.
I walked into the kitchen of my flat and opened one of the drawers which held my vouchers and spending credits. Roughly twelve hundred credits, three water vouchers, and two food vouchers. Assuming I needed to drink a minimum of half a gallon of water a day, I had roughly six days to live without the help of anyone else and without breaking into my credit reserves. Education was out of the question now; the next lesson would have to wait while I tried to figure out how I was going to survive. I opened one of the lower cabinets in the kitchen and pulled out the large steel safe I had purchased from a traveling caravan the previous year. After dialing the combination into the safe, the door popped open revealing a small brown paper bag filled with all of my credit savings I had been putting aside throughout the years. In total, it was just over three units, enough to keep me holed up in my flat for a couple months.
Stolen novel; please report.
I would be able to purchase food and water vouchers on the streets from individuals with my credits at a better rate than purchasing food and water for credits directly from the Government. At best, I could manage three months without going to a Collection Parlor, or resorting to becoming an entrepreneurial criminal. Surely Mr. Barton could help me come up with a solution within three months. One thing I was certain of was I wouldn’t take anything else from him other than advice, and I would work to repay him for taking care of me in my time of need.
Content with my plan, I replaced the brown sack in the safe and put my remaining vouchers and spending credits back in the drawer. The fear I had ruined my life in a few hours’ time was slowly fading and I went to sleep with mixed feelings and jumbled dreams.
In the morning, I ate a quick breakfast and packed the book in my backpack along with a few of the texts Mr. Barton had lent me. Today was the day I would tell him of what I had done and hope for the best. If anyone could help me, it was him.
I pulled the bandana over my face and exited my flat into the dark streets of the Slums. Though I was tempted to visit Mary, I knew it wasn’t a good idea—I had too much on my mind and didn’t want to involve her in my mistakes or put her in any danger. The Sculptors, like many other things, had always seemed like stories invented to keep people off the streets and working to further Absolute Knowledge. Things were entirely different now that I actually had reason to fear them. It was as if they had become a very real, tangible thing, and I had given them a reason to take me away.
I walked over to Mr. Barton’s flat and knocked on the heavy steel door. My heart was already pumping in my chest. My biggest fear was not that my life was in danger, it was that I’d lose Mr. Barton as a friend. Mr. Barton opened the door and quickly motioned me inside.
After taking off my bandana, it was clear he could see something was wrong with me.
“Are you okay, Jake?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t know. I uh … I bought a book from a traveling merchant and don’t think I was supposed to read it.”
Mr. Barton’s expression went blank. “Do you have the book with you?”
I nodded and pulled the book out of my backpack. His expression changed instantly; first it was shock, then anger.
“Where did you get this?” he hissed with venom in his voice.
“I told you, a traveling merchant,” I managed, sounding weak. My legs shook.
“How much of it did you read?” he asked in the same tone, a mix of fear and anger.
“All of it.”
“The Sculptors will kill you for this. I assure you they’re very real.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I felt my strength and courage fade. “What can I do?” I said, looking down and avoiding eye contact.
Mr. Barton sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. He was silent. The only noise suppressing the deafening silence was the burbling of the coffeemaker.
“I suppose I’ll need to teach you a few things,” he said, sighing again. He looked defeated. “I’m not going to let you die because you know a bit of truth.”
A grave silence filled the room as the coffee machine completed its brew cycle.
“What you managed to read is one of the most treasonous pieces of literature you could have possibly found, a book worth about thirty units on the black market. The author’s name is John Locke, a British philosopher.”
I didn’t know what British or philosopher meant, but knew the book was worth about five months of income as a Thinker, an unthinkable sum of money.
“Was the book actually written before 2039?” I asked.
“It was written almost five hundred years ago in another country,” he replied. “This copy is still extremely rare; I’m surprised it survived so long.”
“Is there truth to the book?” I asked.
“Yes, more truth than anything you have ever read. Almost everything you know is a lie. All the history and literature you have read is a lie. The only truth you know is the laws of English, mathematics, and science.”
I was taken aback by this. More questions filled my mind; the hunger for truth was sharp and frantic. Before I could ask anything, Mr. Barton was already talking again.
“It’s time we start your first lesson, Jake.”
I nodded. We’d probably be going over new books or New York’s real history. I frowned when Mr. Barton pulled out a Collector canister and set it on the table.
“We’re going to see how poisoned your mind is from reading Mr. Locke’s work.”
I nodded again and sat still while he attached the electrodes and neuro collectors to my head.
“Do you have a trash bin I can use?” I asked, worried about the vertigo from the connection.
“You won’t need it. Collectors were refined long ago. The pill they give you does nothing. It’s another way for the Government to reduce what they pay for thoughts. When you choose to take the pill at a Collection Parlor, the Collector doesn’t send a harsh jolt of electricity to targeted areas of your brain.”
I was baffled. Mr. Barton flipped the switch on the Collector and the light indicating a secure connection turned green. There was no nausea and no sensation of my brain being ripped in half.
“Now, what you’re going to do is not think about An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” he said simply.
As soon as he said the name of the book, another light started blinking red.
“You thought about the essay. If this were real, the Government would know what’s in your head, and you’d be dead within an hour after they scour your brain for everything you know with horrible torture.”
This made me mad. “How the hell would I not think of it when you say it?” I shouted, the lights on the Collector continuing to blink red.
Mr. Barton pointed at the lights with anger in his eyes. “Every time that light flashes, the Government knows you know something you shouldn’t. Every time that light blinks, the Government will wipe you off the face of the Earth without leaving evidence you ever existed. Your flat will be cleaned, someone new will move in, and you’ll simply disappear forever. You will be nothing but an insignificant memory to those that cared about you. Even those you consider among your best friends won’t question your death or go looking into it; they know better than that. When that light blinks, you will cease to exist. Not even Mary will go looking into your death.”
That last attack sent anger flooding through my veins.
“How can I not think about something when you say the name of it? It’s impossible. And Mary would look into it, just like I would for her,” I seethed.
“You’re referring to a Catch-22, and I assure you this isn’t one.”
“A what?” The anger I felt was growing into hot fury.
“It’s an expression coined by Mr. Joseph Heller in 1961. A Catch-22 is a situation that is impossible to escape. In his novel, he presents the idea in the example of fighter pilots in World War II. While I know you don’t know what World War II or a fighter pilot is, just know they were people with an extremely dangerous job during an extremely dangerous period of history. To try to get out of doing their jobs, these individuals would go to a doctor to request a mental evaluation for insanity in the hopes they would be found insane and incapable to do their assigned work. Unfortunately for the pilots, by seeking a psychiatric evaluation in the first place, they had demonstrated their own sanity and could therefore not be declared insane.”
It didn’t make any sense. “That’s just as impossible of a situation as not thinking of something when you hear it,” I responded.
“How could the pilots have gotten out of their jobs?”
“They couldn’t have. You just said it was a Catch-22.”
“Was there something different they could have done to avoid their situation and the infinite loop of impossibility they faced?”
“I suppose they could have had their friends ask for them to have their evaluations done,” I responded as I tried to fight the frustration that was creeping up again, threatening to take control of my actions.
“Well, yes, but that probably wouldn’t work either. If their friends also wanted to get out of the job, which I assure you they did, then by requesting their friends have an evaluation for insanity, they had to be sane enough to recognize insanity and therefore couldn’t get out of the jobs themselves. If they asked someone insane to ask for them, then the insane person, who would still be flying as I mentioned before, couldn’t be taken at their word. They wouldn’t be able to recognize insanity, but if they could recognize insanity, then they wouldn’t be insane, and both individuals would still have to fly. In the end, everyone did their jobs and no one could be deemed too insane to fly.”
This was too much for me. “So there was no way for them to avoid flying?”
“No. That’s why it’s called a Catch-22. It was an impossible situation to escape.”
I slammed my fist on the table and glared at Mr. Barton, ready to either walk out or hit him.
“So how is my situation different from theirs?” I asked, my voice low and cool, anger and frustration boiling my mind.
“Because I can help you break the infinite cycle. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.”
The light on the Collector didn’t blink red.