Trixyz was startled out of her thoughts about political schemes by a vid screen popping up in the corner of her window.
Trixyz had always been interested in history. She'd heard somewhere that history was a subject that used to get taught by itself. Learning about the past had been separate from all the other disciplines. Of course, that wasn't the case anymore. Now it was only History of Physics, History of Mathematics, History of Computing, History of Communication, or History of the Arts. At least, those were the broad categories. Politics was something to be distained, not learned about. Then again, there was obviously politics involved in who made it to the board of directors. Nobody really seemed to care, and they weren't overly coveted positions unless you were one of the ultra-ambitious fast-track manager types. But you had to test very highly in multiple fields to get into that category. Or at least, that's what the company line had always been. "Management is reserved for those exceptional individuals who have proven their worth to the company and it's people."
Of course, The Corporation made the schooling programs. The tests were all decided on very high up at a corporate level. People's very aptitudes and attitudes were no doubt shaped by the corporation, for the corporation. Trixyz shuddered to think what would happen if the corporation ever gave in to any kind of moral corruption.
In the corner of the com, the stewardess was explaining the exit procedure.
"Please sit in the comfortable acceleration cushion chairs, and relax as we begin our deceleration procedure."
Trixyz was having trouble paying attention. She felt light headed, and was not able to focus properly. She found herself wondering how the corporation came about in the first place. Why was it not something people knew about?
"Fasten the seatwebs that will have appeared to either side of your chair."
"Amile, have you ever thought about how the corporation first started?"
Amile looked at Trixyz like she was crazy. She'd never given the corporation much thought. Nobody even really talked about it. Why would they? The Corporation had a pretty hands-off approach. Local governments always took precedence, unless the crime was particularly nasty. Even then, the corporation mostly hired mercenaries to clean up messy situations, they almost never got directly involved.
You only needed to know about the corporation if you were starting your own business, or if you were somehow stealing money from them. They didn't like that much. The whole idea of rebelling against the corporation seemed ridiculous to Amile. Why rebel against something that wasn't there most of the time? mercurystation had been performing genetic experiments that were technically illegal for a very long time. Hell, much of that kind of thing happened even on EarthStation. As long as nobody got hurt, it was hardly anybody else's business. The only thing the Corporation seemed to really come down hard on was cloning. Start a clone shop, and you might get some very unhappy visitors. But then again, you'd also get a buttload of protesters.
"I'm not sure who started it, but I'm sure it was before space travel, wouldn't you think?" Amile went back to listening to the stewardess.
Trixyz wasn't sure the Corporation had started after people left earth. She thought it was probably older than that. She wondered what kind of government existed on the Earth. Did the Corporation exist down there too? It was easy enough to travel from one to the other, but she'd never heard it talked about.
Finally Trixyz felt the slight tug of the deceleration beginning. "How much longer till we get there?" she asked, feeling like a little kid on a trip. She grinned at Amile.
"It's only been ten minutes." Amile said. "You're going to have to wait another hour I'm afraid. I hope you went to the restroom."
---
As Mir and Puja and Garret finally found their way to the entrance of the midway, Mir noticed that not all of the posters on the wall were related to the amusement park. There were political posters as well, sporting slogans like "Support your local management." and "Discover freedom through rebellion." and "everlasting life, you don’t have to wait till death to get it." It was hard to tell which signs were supporting the recent revolution, and which were supporting the company that called Eternal Life Services. Now that Mir looked closely, the logo that Youth's Fountain was using had actually incorporated the logo from ELS. Of course Mir had heard of Eternal Life Services. They were the professional (and legal) front for the vampire cult.
It was rumored you could come here under the pretense of getting a full body massage, and leave with a new set of gene constructors floating around in your blood, pumping the new sequence into your body, Developing you into whatever you chose. You could be a superhuman, a gorgeous hunk. Anything was possible.
Mir had always been more interested in robotics. He felt it would be cool to have an artificial eye. Then it was always possible to upgrade, should you need to later.
The three boys tried to squeeze into the lock, behind a group of parents and their kids. The kids were clutching giant balls of cotton candy, and Mir was on the opposite side of where Puja and Garret were. They went through the lock first, with all the cotton candy eating brats. Mir waited and went through with only three other people in the lock. Two of the three were standing quite close to Mir, and they had their hands in their pockets suspiciously. Mir wasn't suspicious so much as he was curious. It seemed odd that they would stand so close, but maybe it didn't seem close to them.
Of course, just as he was thinking this, the third man gave some sort of hand signal, and the other two grabbed at his arms and legs. It took Mir a second to figure out what was happening, and that second would probably have given him enough time to escape their clutches, but after the second, the best he could do was give one of the men a black eye, and the other a good knee to the gut. The one Mir had kneed doubled over, but the other guy just grabbed tighter, and Mir's hands were bound before the lock finally opened.
"Puja, Garret, help!" Mir yelled. But he saw they'd had their own problems. Garret was putting up a good fight, but Puja was already tied up. There were at least four other men surrounding them both. The kids with cotton candy were nowhere to be seen, and had no-doubt run away quickly when the fighting began.
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