*As soon as tools had been converted from being manual implements of man into implements of a mechanical apparatus, of a machine, the motive mechanism also acquired an independent form, entirely emancipated from the restraints of human strength.*
Marx, Kapital
Andy hopped from a platform, tossing his now well greased tools into a tube at his side. Down they went, clanking all the way, singing in deep echoes of their reluctant journey long after disappearing. Andy empathized, but only so much, having abandoned any interest of any sort since, well, since memory served.
A pair of columns put horizontal towered some stories above, a single digit plastered at each of their fronts. Digits Andy never cared to investigate, and might assume would remain a dull mystery had he bothered, though in truth he couldn't say. One column cut short as he walked, while the other expanded, until from its middle spawned a number of its more curious children. From the corridor and into another a single of these shrank, tracing a wall and the other, then the floor, but always close enough to spy, for most of Andy's walk.
The walls, or rather lengths of metal lain atop themselves at various depths which afforded some semblance thereof, and each host to grids, knobs, panels, whatever served whatever purpose served the rest, opened at a point. Here shadows of the many things which reached and wound about above replaced any sight of anything too lofty, though on the way Andy's gaze did catch on another guy, freshly hopped and tossed from a platform which happily bent and folded into itself at his departure from it.
A ramp leaned out, then a second which Andy took. This one widened, while the grounds about it fell away to leave a greatly elevated view of much the same, though here the easy blue which all but a here and there of soft green or mat yellow dominated the previous places turned to an impotent red. A maroon really, but much the same to Andy, as all these places were. It was a silver which replaced where this soft red had neglected, and in this new light he might have gazed into a swirling depth of metal to surpass the one above before.
There was a figure across the plane, who trudged along neither toward nor away, but rather at some absurd slant which put him somewhere at a far corner of winding metal with an especially dense net of parts and planks about it. Andy in turning from this found himself freshly across a set of mighty teeth of a darker shade than the floor around it, the threshold for a wide cut of floor which jerked not a moment after his arrival.
“It's the last one.”
The voice was quiet, distant likely. Andy looked out the other way, where the slanted walls emerged while the elevator drifted out and down. The colors mixed and traded here, with green almost like skin having assumed a chief position, and regiments of reds and blues at its command, always in order. Wheels below rolled in silence but for a low hum and rumble, and above them was a space between, like a ditch where pistons fired one cylinder into another larger, then out again and on they went. Many of these of many sizes surged and shrank at every speed, of a cadence which did evoke almost some strange attraction.
Only at the ride's bowels did Andy forget the breathing spine. Three others had joined him, or rather that he joined them, and having completed the descent he watched them trudge away apart, for from here there were many paths to tread. Fans with blades longer than any man whirled lazily about a pair of kissing walls, and despite not a whisper of a breeze the chamber was pleasantly cool. A passing search revealed nothing save a net of metal of what ground or pressed or turned behind, and in time these too receded before a way with a pipe along one side, and bars like braces around and protruding far from it. The easy blue of far above, or perhaps below, or really even much the same he couldn't guess returned to conquer all but these braces, which Andy would have called rusted were they not so uniformly colored.
Along this floor ran grooves, paths of sorts though likely not in truth, windingly unruly as they were at points, if always shallow enough to ignore. Above these at one side were discs, suspended at four points each by wide protrusions which reached to this place's height, a mesmerizing sight.
Such was it to behold, that Andy overshot his final turn by no small length of pipe, and in doubling back it was a thought most foreign which drifted past, obvious now if entirely novel, in looking again about.
But into a narrow passage he crept, where a sign soon issued that ubiquitous verse above the entrance to a Hole.
A bar stretched along the length of it, with countless tables, stools and chairs of no particular design or size planted wherever they might. Barren as these places generally were this night saw this one brimming, with swaths of men rolling to and from the bar. He had thought it unknown to most, but too late now to find another, and anyway it was a decent space. Charming, it could be said, though only half so much as with half so many sweeping through. Andy absently joined them, grabbing a mug of whatever was served before the flow swept him and many more beside back toward a seat.
One beckoned, from the edge of a bench tucked against a particularly secluded wall. Andy quickly took it, searching a pair of faces locked in idle conversation and a third, shrouded in shadow at the table's edge. Better company than the last, by all accounts, and at least somewhat removed from the ever swelling din, as he preferred.
"Not the greatest season for me, I'd say.”
“Really? Too bad mine went so fast, can't believe it's Four again so soon.”
“Had me so high I barely saw a thing. Next to a fan too, the noise was worse than this.” The man waved his glass about, offering a swig or three to the floor before taking another himself. “I'd best have a beauty of a spot next go.”
“Doubt you won't. They've got a sort of balance struck for all of that, I think.”
Andy went to toast the floor, feeling eyes on him for a moment before the voice continued. A tasty concoction, sour and thick, but sweet enough.
“I have seen stuff that makes me think so.” The voice was lower, or meant to be at least, given all the rest in competition. “Felt dangerous, not right hanging like that all day. Wasn't room for a platform, even.”
A quick glow caught Andy's eye, and already strained attention. Many a like whisper he had heard, at many a similar table, and this of no special insight no less.
“What're the odds though, you know?” A pause. “Tell you what, mine are shit for another so good, I just hope we don't trade.”
Laughter from both, as Andy watched another glow race through the room, shifting from yellow to blue then back again in rushing through a hopelessly meandering groove.
“Sounds like we just might. You're right you know, Optimization ain't only for them.”
Fainter glows crawled the walls elsewhere, tracing shades of depth and form behind, where gears looked to wind and chords of plastic reached to pulse.
“Now you really got me shitted, thinking on my luck like that.” A pause again, and futile go at quieter talk. “There is something different in the work lately.”
A pulse gathered most often past a spot, where after a dozen passes a wide plate showed, crawling from wall well onto ceiling.
“Something better, sure. I've seen it too.”
Particularly well crafted, so it seemed, with lines and grooves spreading across it's face in such elegant chaos.
“The fans'er whirling fiercer every day, the walls are breathing out, I mean just since this season my lift must've doubled speed.”
Andy tore his gaze from the pulsing grid above. It was all so entertaining, to be sure.
“Why?”
At that their attention was got, curious as the two looked to be at any other's hearing, if not whatsoever for the question itself. But it was a third's, risen from his shadow to reveal nothing of any interest but a look before sinking away entirely, which proved unusual.
The two rose shortly after, gathering their drinks and selves to leave Andy alone, if only for a moment. More of the same did soon replace them, of course, leaving the room itself best equipped to distract from the hours. So it did, until at last the hatch from whence he came cracked open with a hiss and groan.
With the circus ended its parade slowly dispersed. Upon finally reaching the hatch himself a ticket printed at Andy's side, with lefts rights and straights drawn in a long series. Quite long, he saw, in wondering on his own previous season. Lots of downs too, but what was it to him? He knew nothing anymore, all things being freshly Optimized, and anyway what were the odds?
*Since under modern conditions we are for almost everything dependent on means which our fellow men provide, economic planning would involve direction of almost the whole of our life.*
Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
From a cut in the floor Andy emerged, with hands free of the freshly discarded tools already clambering away into the chute beside. Given the wide room of his work their drift into the uncharted places of tomorrow remained to mourn the passing, with echoes hopping about to chase Andy from the spot.
It was the distant rakes of metal which hurried to replace any trace of quiet, descending from on high. The flirting of gears in fact, as Andy had well observed a dozen times if once, cranking on to spin a wide wheel carved into a massive wall stood at attention behind. Laboriously it turned, with a hum to accompany the soaring procession of clicks and clacks, and as expected too proud to reveal aught of its workings behind.
A faint light summoned Andy from his most thorough inspection of the winding paths running within his own between his feet, which narrowed into a new room stuffed with a great many ledges. Most of these fell onto a gap far below, with strips of floor reaching past any safe crossing. They proved a sight together, like a rigid net of limbs, with pads of light burrowed at odds along the way down dashing shades of soft reds or blues onto the equally dull grey of the uncertain walls. A certain splash of color from across the space searched a corridor much like his own, he saw, before landing on a figure left to ponder a similar sight.
Then out whooshed a tube from among the larger openings. A rail, similarly lit and left further obscured within for but slender windows running down its sides, ground to its halt. The car nearest Andy stretched much further than the gap, resting lazily on its grounded edges to await departure.
Muted whispers of the lights below still peaked up where they could, before a shoot of metal waved across, and with a sharp report into position at the rail's tip. Andy went to board, while the car's wide door pealed back, its smooth side folding with a series of scrapes into layers toward the top.
The trail of a trenchcoat waved at his side, and the heavy leg of another as the door unfurled again behind. Four was always colder, and the One succeeding usually much the same at its start. Andy pulled his own coat close, and in raising his gaze from the floor searched the slit of window. The rail roared on, past rooms and spaces, caverns and rushing walls, all noteworthy in some degree.
But it was to see a singularly captivating space that he peered out. Not at first, of course, and in fact it was many a day's start or end or both which saw him wandering its awesome lengths and widths, a fascinating maze from within as much as singularly wondrous structure from without.
The rail rushed out from a tunnel, chasing a long, rounded edge carved from a towering wall which gave witness in its stunned silence. Pistons waved, panels shifted, bars slid, tubes stretched in and out of sight and flinched to scratch unknown impulses. The whole of the thing breathed, easily, subtly, but breath it did, betraying the size of all the spires and towers and even great slanted braces and walls and narrow metal posts with lights atop of every size reaching high as his carriage steadily climbed.
Andy lingered at the window long after another hungry tunnel swallowed the sight. The ways had wound and climbed when he had ventured through them, with the occasional cavity a stark reminder of the scale so easily forgotten from inside. Everything was green, but of every shade, and some so odd he thought them blues or yellows. On a particularly curious evening Andy had tracked a great meandering column of a deep, comforting tone, much longer across than any man. Round and round and through and past and down but mostly up it wound, until confident to reach into the panels and bars of the ceiling higher still, the only of its kind to prove so brave.
Off at the final stop his two companions went, and a distant Andy far behind them. The door fell shut promptly after, with the roar of the rail's otherwise unsung departure fading swiftly out of thought. So much to process, from within and without, and such a difference between as to be almost irreconcilable, yet it did possess a certain ineffable unity. Much like the many other places of his countless passing, could he not help but realize, and with such sudden, jarring clarity, as to shake the very foundations of perception.
The Hole of his choosing peaked from around a corner, with the hum of many voices drifting out to greet him from below. All of purpose he had seen in everything was suddenly transformed to beauty, and of such purpose was it all to now have none.
It was a smaller place, and left with an empty seat for every other occupied, arranged as they were before a bar with drinks along its length. Andy weaved amongst the tables, and upon reaching the line of drinks removed one, in search of some seclusion. A corner presented nicely, where but for a pair of fellows turned to face the wider room he would drink alone.
They leaned against the table, and in fact Andy's passing behind them went without any notice. Much the better, for there was much to ponder.
“Last few seasons felt like I've been on detail.”
“Really? Yea I guess me too. Sort of. More tweaking less cranking I suppose.”
“The last few guys I talked to said the same.”
Andy rubbed his head. It was almost insufferable, to hear them prattle on towards nothing, like everyone he had ever heard. Especially with such insight, as he was still so baffled to have.
“They know something, got some new way to work or similar.”
“New way? Like faster or what?
“Maybe. We'll be knowing soon enough, you mark my words.”
The same tired spirals of thought, going round and round and nowhere. With all sure of they and them without a thought for why, it was to Andy almost proof of no power at all above them, if only to explain such gross stupidity.
“Anyway my point is we don't need it safer.”
“Couldn't hurt though, right?”
“Don't see how it could really help. I've worked every kind of thing I've ever seen, never even came close.”
“Well that is why they Optimize, I guess.”
“Is that why?” Andy spoke quickly, and with more force than he intended, if only to penetrate such density. The two jumped, and turned to face him, their faces blank. “Or really do you have any idea at all why? How can everything change every season, and you still think you're doing anything?”
He grew louder with every word, earning looks from others as he spoke, on things he had not fully realized himself. “None of you, or anyone really seems to care why our work is changing, or maybe that in changing so much it's not even changing in the slightest? I've never heard a single man wonder at that, or for that matter whether anyone dies at all.”
He was screaming, and to most of the room, as they crowded round the table to hear him. “Or tell me this, have you ever met anyone who knows someone that has, while working? Died I mean? I certainly haven't, but then how could I when I rarely see anyone long enough to be seen twice before we're all ‘optimized' again. Not that I've ever cared. And that's another thing, doesn't it feel sort of hypnotic? The sights, the sounds, that's really what they are, not whatever they seem to do at first, whatever that is. Such beauty has no purpose. Cannot.”
After a short pause someone did speak, mug in hand. “What drink you on? Been a long while since I saw beauty in a wrench.”
“Geez, what do you suppose'er the odds of that?”
Riotous laughter from his audience, as they dispersed to drink again. Andy searched what faces he could, and in finding only amusement returned to his own stool, fuming. But as he sat a familiar face did return his furious gaze, in retreating from the Hole. The hatch slammed and hissed before Andy could so much as rise, however, leaving none to offer counsel, as any near had meandered away.
So he sat truly alone, at a table all his own. With much indeed to ponder.
*Yet I think with dread of the readjustment of the habits and instincts of the ordinary man, bred into him for countless generations, which he may be asked to discard within a few decades.*
Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren
Not a glance could Andy spare, in his rush to reach a Hole. Another season spent, with countless hours grinding away at nothing. Without the will to speak, to share this new terrible vision which cast in such a dismal frame what was before him.
But no longer. Tonight some would listen, given all he would say, for as much as much seemed ever more obscure so much the more was positively clear. They must see, how could they not? Even the subtle beauty quickly faded once recognized. A lie, deception it was, misdirection of the senses so effective precisely in its staunch opposition to its purpose. A facade, convincing in its chips and fades, if particularly weak once seen.
Someone at least must understand. Andy shook his head, rushing on around a final corner. But why? Still the question haunted him, strengthened with every thought. Free of purpose such a grand creation, the whole of his and everyone beside's very lives, had no right even to be.
There above the Hole it sat, proud and haughty, and not just there but nestled deep into the heart of every soul left here to wander. Andy yanked the latch, his fury renewed.
“I doubt you'd sway a single one.”
Andy turned. There was the man, the third for a third time, staring back from within a thick hood. “You.”
“Yes it is I.” He spun and walked away. “And even if you did it'd only be trouble.”
“What?” Andy ran to follow, almost tripping on a divot.
“They don't listen. Nobody does. Not really.”
“What?” Andy matched the other's long, slow strides. Deliberate, though, and peculiarly so.
“You can't really convince anyone of anything in here. You can cause a bunch of damage, though, trust me.”
“What?”
“Oh I've seen everything. Cults, revolts, general tumult. you name it.” He kept the course, whatever that was. If there was some logic to it Andy couldn't see it. “Apathy's the real killer, though. It was a stroke of luck I found you in that Hole. For both of us.”
Andy almost lost him as he jerked around a bend, his hood flapping in the gust of some blades whirling at his side. “What?”
“You really had me going at the last one. Luckily no one caught on. They'd just become your pawns, they always do, and then you'd run around starting some ineffectual fuss while I caught a very cogent licking. Anyway they can't be told to think, no-one can, and that's the long and short if it.”
Andy stopped. “So it's all some test?”
The man paused, and in turning shot Andy a look. “No. Well yes, maybe. In a manner of speaking, if surely not by design.” He continued, hands nestling in the long pockets of his jacket. “A byproduct nonetheless, though. Fascinating.”
That was no small thing to say, yet on he went, leaving Andy to play catch-up again. “Byproduct?”
A loud slam overwhelmed his exclaim. Then another fainter, from somewhere far below the bridge of sorts they crossed. And another, or faint echo thereof, far too faint to guess the way.
“Quickly now, Andy. A night between the gears can get quite nasty, I assure you.”
Too quickly to think, as it happened, for the third man now rushed across the bridge. It narrowed as they went, until just wide enough to hold the two abreast, splitting out to either side from a wall which cut the bridge short.
The man kept his course, however. “You might have found this little trick, even.” He continued forward, sliding out of sight behind a panel of the wall as the ground took to a rumble below him. “What a disaster that would be.”
A chuckle drifted from the wall as Andy ran to catch the man, while the world behind him Optimized. His head turned back toward the wild mess of shuffling things in sliding past, bars and gears and tubes and grids and knobs and spires of metal, stripped of any purpose or consequence.
A mighty, piercing light surged forth from behind it. Andy threw an arm across his eyes, reaching blindly with the other. “What is this?”
“Here.” Something slid into his outstretched hand. “You'll want to see this, I imagine.”
Wandering colors swirled in the black depths behind his clenched eyelids, well after they unfurled again behind a pair of impossibly thick goggles. Andy caught a glimpse of the silhouette at his front, before promptly thrusting an arm back between them. The man stood leaned against a balustrade, marking the true end to the bridge.
“It's quite the shock. You wouldn't be the first to faint.” There he was, at the sort of wide balcony's side. “One particularly squeamish guy, never forget it, lost his bowels right there at this very edge.”
The man prattled on, utterly dull beside what stretched from the balcony. White waves, rolling without ceasing unto a point far out at the front. Even with an arm across the light it was some time before they turned to green, and another gazing age to show them stationary. Mounds reached up from them, a net at first, and with dark pillars hiding beneath.
“Trees.”
“Impressive. Usually only the botanists catch on so quick. In fact you're my only from Strict Mechanics, the only in a long while I'm told. What is it you get, a single lesson in Organics?”
There was a pool, exceedingly large, not dark and thick but bright, pure, without disturbance in its face. It matched where the green waves failed to roll. High, where plumes of pale smoke drifted past that unsearchable beam. “I do remember.”
“Indeed.” A pause. “As you have well surmised, your life is not what it seems.” Andy watched a dark smudge drift from the hills into the blue above, then into the light and out of sight. “Yes.”
You were right, there is no reason for it, no task to be done, no goal. None to which we can contribute, anyway. Only potentially hinder.”
“No odds.” Andy looked to the man, then back out, searching the blue for his drifting smudge. Instead a small thing caught his eye, but close enough to see somewhat, moving swiftly across the green between swaths of tree. It looked to be a thing, something, with a rider atop, moving swiftly as something so far might appear. Hair swept behind, caught in the wind of speed.
“A horse, they call it. A beast, very generally.”
“People live out there?” Andy jabbed a finger out, seized by a new and deeper fury. “And we do nothing?”
“We do nothing so they can.” Another pause. “To be there is to be free.”
His hands gripped the balustrade, its metal cold despite the bright warmth surging from this wondrous world. “How can they?”
“Well we are moving right along.” The man paused yet again.
“Speak!”
“You, and everyone else behind us is kept here as a mercy.”
“A mercy?” This time Andy paused, and in turning from the balcony meant to search the man's face.
But the third man turned instead, to look over the balcony himself, his hood adrift in some quiet breeze. It was no short while before he spoke, his hands returned to their sheaths at his sides. “There've been a lot of ladies lately, especially from Botany. If I weren't happily paired myself I'd go back and do it all over again now, trust me. It's quite a time to be enlightened.”
Andy dragged an arm across his dripping forehead. The sweat, the heat, the light, it penetrated him, purged any pretense. “They did this to us? Someone out there, and you knew, and told no one?” He leaned directly over, where an interminable drop fell between them and the endless rolling green. “You're worse than them.”
“I thought the same.” The man looked back toward him, before staring out again. “As I say, it is a mercy. When given the choice few chose freedom, and those who didn't, couldn't, meant to drag the rest back with them. Change is hard, goes without saying.”
“So better this…” Andy ripped his goggles off, his eyes awash behind them. The brilliance returned, flushing his vision until his arm rushed back to block it. The noise, the grinding, changing structure of behind, of his every thought and notion, roared back into focus.
“We cannot go beyond, but we are not all we are. Trust me, there has never been a better time, I've never seen half as many women, pretty ones, and smart too. Good stock.”
“So the many are wasted for a few, and you accept it? You were one of them.” Andy screamed, blind, at that which stood before him. “I am one of them.”
“Do you suppose they are so much the worse for it? Do they seem unhappy? Were you, until you knew?”
“I was lucky to notice!” Andy shook his head, blinded again as he tried to face the man before his arm returned to its place. “You were too. Anyone would be.”
“Luck.” His voice came more directly, with some sterner tone. “It was not its design, but since it was to be this thing does offer clues, to those dissatisfied with work. That takes a certain type though. A certain caliber.”
“That's it, then? Let them, let me, let everyone rot while paradise awaits?” Andy thought of the many he had ever happened across or watched cross paths, or exchanged words with over a mug, kept separate and ignorant, of really everything. “This is no way to live, for anyone.” He knew it, felt the truth of those words in their saying. “This place is a disease.”
“A benign tumor, to contain a blind malignancy. In lieu of its removal, necessary.”
The voice came from just behind, and then a terrible bang. Andy was yanked forward, rolling over the metal and off into the high abyss between worlds. Crimson tears rushed over his eyes, obscuring the bright horizon as the winds of descent dragged his life around his head. One last vision filled them, consumed them, of a hill, of a girl atop a beast, sprinting forth.
*One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a "common good"! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.*
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil