CONTINUING WHERE "IN THE GOOD OL' CYBERTIME" LEFT OFF!
UNDER THE DOME OF NOONAN
Sequel to "In The Good Ol'
Cybertime"
by Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci
(part 1)
After two centuries of emotional claptrap and bleeding-heart politics, it was refreshing and
reassuring to live in a world where Science had the last word. Of course, I knew next to nothing of the
old days, and now that Dad was gone, I knew even less. Why the techno-jacks had programmed Dad with volumes
of banned history books was an enigma I was hard-pressed to unravel. Was it because they trusted
me? Was Dad already failing in circuit health when he suddenly began recounting tales of the past to me,
sometimes non sequiturs that worried me. I could be venting about one of my students at the university
where occasionally I taught physics when Dad would interrupt with "And don't you for a second let them
tell you otherwise: There was life before Science! An uncomplicated world predicated on the basic
societal unit, the family. Father, mother, little ones. A kitchen table where the family assembled to
take meals and discuss personal issues, weather conditions, political faux pas, birthdays and
holidays. Discussions did not require scientific approval. In those early days error was not a crime.
One could say what one pleased-- even tread above ground in the unempirical realms of the spiritual and
the divine. Most believed in God, a kind of Father
who answered the entreaties of his "children." Those who did not believe in God, learned to believe in him
as soon as misfortune or calamity roped them in. Then out of abject fear and the realization that life was
indeed tenuous, cried out to the very one they denied, 'God, help me!'" All this from Dad in response to
my sharing with him a tale out of school about a dim-witted student who saw physics as five credits
closer to graduation and nothing else. So Dad had me worried long before that tragic ride to Computville
where I dropped off Dad at the Cybertime, never to see or hear him speak again.
That had been my punishment-- to lose the best friend I'd ever had. My crime? A simple, though perhaps not
so innocent little kiss, on the warm lips of Concetta, least likely woman on earth to help me succeed. And
losing Dad was only half the punishment: I was
forbidden by Sciencommittee to ever again have relations with a woman. By relations I mean the word
in all its contexts-- sexual, social, professional. The convictag on my wrist alerted women to stay clear;
the penalty for an abettor was the same as for the original perpetrator. Though tiny and
inobtrusive, no more than a circular patch on my wrist, the convictag lit up like a tiny sun, emitted a deafening screech,
and as if that were not enough, it emanated a gagging stench-- much more malodorous than what assaulted your
nose on any street littered with the daily dead. In other words, the convictag kept a criminal honest.
Even if I were so inclined, in a moment of desperation
and physical longing, I would be a fool to reach out and touch some female-- friend or stranger. The
Sciencops would haul me away, strip me of my sci-mil title of colonel scientist and most likely exile me to
one of the distant Florider city-state burghs like Miama Beach where I'd spend my remaining days jailed
in one of those condemned eyesore hotels that border the polluted waters of the Atlantic. I could no
longer teach, write tomes of Science, or ever again live in the style I've been accustomed to. Farewell
to to the millions of Scien-Cash points that tallied my way every week and made me one of the richest in
Denver. Here's a rhetorical question: What would you do?
At least they hadn't confiscated my Newton, which they could have, despite a lifetime certificate of title.
Like Dad, it was one of those prestigious machine wonders that makes me, Colonel Scientist Gottfried
Leibniz, different from the thousands and thousands of Gottfried Leibnizes scattered throughout North America
and even parts of Japan. I'd be willing to wager that, prior to the current New Scientific Order, when
Dad said this planet of ours boasted more than one continent and one country of another continent, there
were few of my namesake on any of the other continents. It's a fair supposition since the New
Scientific Order had decided centuries ago to restrict the naming of new births after the heroes of Science
and Mathematics. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, who lived in the 17th Century-- My Truth, has it been
five hundred years already? Where did the time go! This genius was a great mathematician and in his honor
and memory I was given his name. I could've been Pierre Curie or Antoine Lavoisier or George Washington
Carver. I was proud to be Leibniz.
The Scienclerk at the Human Hatcheries desk decides your name. I've never regretted being Gottfried until
lately when male fellow associates delight in making puns of my name as it refers to my recent indictment--
the kissing crime I mentioned. "Gottfried got freed?" they ask me the way adults speak to infants. Before
they can get close enough to pinch my cheek and wink, I leave the punsters behind me and go on with my day.
Luckily I haven't been plagued with women fellow associates attempting close-up teasing like that.
Most have stopped greeting me on the streets and in the labs. Most have promising futures. Why would
women risk throwing it all away for some in-close sarcasm when my convictag could easily set off sense
alarms and close their futures for good!
Life went on: business as usual. I drove the Newton hovering down the long Louis Pasteur Parkway on my way
to the university where I had my advanced class of physics. It was two hours of pure joy. I love
physics. But my class of all male students did not
share my euphoria. They preferred engineering and Sci-Tech, though I doubt they were inclined to rack up
higher grades in those courses than they were in mine. And then too the convictag of mine did nothing to
engender more than a prefunctory confidence in their professor. When I spoke of physics, how it continued
to save us from annihilation, they shrugged, smiled weakly, and continued to see physics in all its
nuances of matter and energy as merely a required course in nebulous theory.
When the evening class ended at ten, one of the students-- a quiet cadet named Frits
Zernike-- approached me at my desk. "Colonel Scientist, may I speak with you?" he asked. My first impression was,
Oh, Truth, not this boy dropping out! He might have
some degree of promise if only he sticks with academic goals. I nodded.
"Have you another class now?"
"No, Sir."
"Then walk me down to the garage," I suggested. "I'm on my way to Edwin McMillan Library at the other
uptown campus." For a few minutes the walk was silent except for our footsteps that fell synchronized
like those of marching soldiers. "Something troubling
you, Cadet Zernike?"
Falling out of step with me, he stopped walking. So I stopped too and looked back at him. "A problem,
Cadet?" I asked.
Zernike was fumbling inside his military jacket, first one pocket, then the other. Finally his hand emerged
with an envelope. "Sir, I was asked to give this to you."
I knitted my eyebrows and squinted dark eyes at him.
He smiled to reassure me. "No, no. It's not anything like that, Sir," he explained. The fact that I was a
tag-carrying criminal of sorts might have had him interpret the look of my face as fear, maybe even a
touch of paranoia. "The sender is a friend. I agreed to deliver it to you." Zernike handed the envelope to
me, but I could see for all his nonchalance, his hand was trembling. He was in a hurry for me to take it
from him so he could break away and leave quickly. Which he did. Over his shoulder he called back to me.
"Colonel Scientist, do not share the contents of that letter with anyone except the sender. And," he
paused, then added, "I never gave you that letter. You found it somewhere far from the university." He
waited for me to agree. "Okay, Cadet. I found it somewhere else."
And I was alone heading for the Newton in the garage basement. Zernike was nowhere. What was it all
about?
I didn't trust myself to open the envelope here or even in my hovercar. I'd wait till I left the library
and was safely back in the sanctum of my penthouse. I thought to myself: First check the walls, read it in
the smallest room, perhaps under the bedspread. My heart was jogging too fast. Easy. Easy. You're not
in trouble. It's just a damn letter. Maybe the students wrote it. Maybe something like: "Give us a
break, Sir. You're way over our heads. Can we slow down this physics thing before we all fail your
course?" I laughed out loud, buzzed open the Newton door and sidled in. Who wrote the letter? Was it
from the Sciencommittee? Did it have any bearing on the crime of kissing Dr. Donnelly Noonan's niece
Concetta? Was it from Noonan himself delivering the final coup de grāce as if all he'd already done was
not enough? It amazed me how that one kiss had converted me from one of the untouchable scientists
who at forty could only rise higher and higher, high enough to touch the sky, if there was a sky to touch.
Thanks to Dr. Noonan who designed and constructed the domed ceiling around the world, there was no more
visible sky. That opaque bubble between us and the sun kept us from frying. Just in time to save North
America and Japan. The rest of the Earth burned down and left nothing, not even a graveyard. That was
forty years ago since the dome was built. It was no surprise that Dr. Donnelly Noonan would meet without
resistance when he proclaimed himself the new head of the New Scientific Order. Back in 2020, the scientists
had made it clear to those in power that they alone could solve the mass death dilemma occurring all over
the world, particularly from AIDS and so many different types of cancer. Not as despots, not as
dictators. Simply scientists to oversee the carriage of justice, the preservation of life, and the
installation of the new scientific order. According to them, science had taken a back seat much too long--
millennia, in fact. Governments decided what experiments, what studies, what advances these good,
hard-working scientists were permitted to make. And the glory, beyond the occasional award, always went to
the governments, never to the deserving who sometimes worked years and years to achieve scientific
breakthroughs.
All along the scientists had had the cures but held onto them as bargaining chips: cures for power. In a
Boston hospital, half a century of Dr. Jonas Volkner's dedicated work with cancer finally paid off,
the scientists kept it all under wraps.
The Federal Drug and Food Administration waited but the Scientelligensia-- that body of militant
scientists-- refused to release the cure to the U.S. government or any other government. When the FDA
threw its hands up in surrender, when the U.S. President Hillary Rodham stepped down from office,
when all leaders everywhere sacrificed their positions for the sake of the millions dying, the first
Scientist President, Dr. Alexi Borokov, took world control. Dr. Volkner's miracle drug Contracan, it was
promised, would be administered to all countries. Another scientist, Dr. Harold Brink, would likewise
release to the new Science Government his own discovery called Anthiv to wipe out AIDS. But once
the new government was securely in operation,
Scientist President Borokov still refused to release the cures. From 2020 to 2096 the cures were
administered in isolated cases where the Sciencommittee was willing to give life in return for
some favor or support. Mass deaths no longer made the news. It was commonplace for one to go anywhere and
find death there on the curbs and in the middle of streets the way Dad told me little animals in the 20th
Century were run over and left red-striped heaps on the highway.
At the start of the new century in 2100 the Major Wars broke out and though they were not active wars
throughout, they did last twenty-five years! It was a futile last-ditch effort on the part of Science's
enemies, but it failed miserably despite the fact that they outnumbered the Scientists in soldier power but
Science had all the right weaponry: gases, germs, nuclear bombs, cures to look around by 2125 and find
themselves uncontested. Dr. Donnelly Noonan had distinguished himself in that Great War He was
everyone's hero. And he was the scientist laboring with his invention, a bubble dome to save the planet
against a rupturing ozone layer. Here too he waited long enough for surviving enemies in Europe and the
other continents to be poisoned before he gave the
Remove Gas Masks Order to loyalists here and in Japan. Then he raised the giant dome and saved the day.
Forty years ago Noonan had come through. By that time North America and Japan were all that remained of
a populated world that had numbered fifteen billion people! He could have released the cures then. What
did he have to lose!
I breathed my first breath in 2147. From the Human Hatcheries I was sent when still an infant to my first
of many state kibbs-- short for "kibbutzim," a word of unknown origin, which meant "government houses for
children." I was fourteen and on my way to serious
studies at the University where I managed to distinguish myself with high grades, blind dedication,
a single- mindedness to succeed and bring honor and glory to Science. In 2168 when the City-States Wars
broke out-- and there were many!-- I fought in the thick of them. Instead of seeing the usual dead
bodies in the streets of Denver and everywhere else people were dying, I was seeing dead bodies on the
battlefields. In fact, I was doing everything in my power to keep the number of dead enemies as high as I
could. Finally it earned me the rank of Colonel Scientist, which opened all doors for me.
At times it made me feel invincible. Millions of Scien-Cash points at my disposal said I could buy
whatever my heart desired. And I bought it all. And for several years now I had my Dad who was worth more
than all the Scien-Cash points in the world. He had been a graduation gift from the Sciencommittee. All
of the Scientists had unanimously voted me worthy of this high-tech robo-cyber whom I named Dad, a sort of
joke since that name had gone out of circulation the previous century when infants were born in State
Hatcheries without need of Dad or Mom. As I said I had everything! I had the domed-world by the tail and
not once did I ever imagine my life could take a bad turn. Far as it went, the worst thing in my life was
teaching an unresponsive class of low-brains a subject I adored. Other than wondering what the sky looked
like through that domed yellow opaqueness or what rain felt like when it teemed down on your face or snow or
sleet-- all the scientific phenomena that had become words from Dad, something to see but only vaguely as
in the haze of nighttime dreams.
I cut short my research visit to the library. I could hardly keep my mind focused. The letter in my side
pocket was waiting for my eyes only so I clicked out on my space and headed for the Newton. Careful not to
hit pedestrians or ride the hovercar over the obese dead and as a result spin the Newton into a possible
accident or citation from the sciencops who were free to take your license away and/or cart you off to a
prison term. It seemed so hypocritical to me now: city-staters were not permitted to get into car
accidents, but no one took a serious interest in clearing the streets of the decomposing. The bodies
were everywhere, sometimes naked as the day they were hatched when someone in need of clothes would strip
the corpses and run away from the Sciencops. Driving was a challenge, a darting in and out and around
through a labyrinth of stacked bodies and blocked-off exits. But not until I became a kissing criminal did
I look at the big picture and wonder where the hell was justice. Before then I had it all. Don't rock
the boat. I'm okay; who cares if you're okay. All at once, because a woman who didn't like my kiss-- bit my
tongue till it bled!-- ratted on me to her Uncle Donnelly Noonan. Of all women from whom to steal a
little kiss off, I picked Concetta, niece of the First Scientist. And if he had not simmered down a bit, I
would surely have been condemned to death. An associate, Captain Scientist Albert Einstein, said
someone had gone to Noonan and pleaded for my life. Einstein was not at liberty to reveal who my savior
was.
My lack of discretion put an end to Dad. It put an end to any relationship with a woman I could ever hope
for. Fortunately for me, the sentence imposed spoke only of human women, which meant I was well within the
law owning the female robo-cyber I had purchased in Cybertime the day I delivered my Dad. At least with
Margo I could pretend making love, I could say all the love words I'd hope to one day tell a real woman. I
could do it all without fear of my convictag alerting the Sciencops to my penthouse with drawn zappers,
arresting me in violation of fratenizing with the opposite sex. Margo could speak in a sexy voice, make
all the right moves, had the gentlest of touches; yet she was Margo, top of the line nothwithstanding, she
was Margo, a robo-cyber programmed to please and tease but not a real live human woman who could speak her
own mind: choose to please or not please. All my successes behind me now, it was humbling to admit that
life could be worse, that my Margo was better than no Margo at all. Once in the penthouse I lay in bed, my
arms folded behind my head, and simply stared at the ceiling. It was my luck that Noonan and his gang
hadn't yet invented mind-reading devices or I would in short order become the late Colonel Scientist. I just
had a sick feeling the letter in my jacket could get me killed. After awhile I drew the drapes, cut down
the lights and as casually as I could, gave the room a twice-over, looking for the pale-red eyes of snooper
cameras in all the corners of the room and every inch of furniture. Though I found nothing, I was enough of
a scientist to know that didn't prove there was nothing to be found. So I turned down the bedspread,
kicked off my boots, and stretched myself along the length of the bed. Next I threw the bedspread over
me, turned to lie on my side, hidden from any possible eyes. Then, coughing to cover the sound of the
letter's removal from the envelope, I had it opened in my hand. In front of my eyes that squinted in the near
darkness. I held the paper almost against my nose and
word by word I read it.
UNDER THE DOME OF NOONAN
(part 2)
I'd never given it much thought when life was easier. Dad used to say we demonstrate true strength when we
are forced to. Nobody flexes muscles for its own sake. And I felt that about me now. For nearly forty
years I had kept myself in a proper perspective in relation to Science, to my government, to my position,
and lastly to myself. I'd been paid off. Life came to me without a struggle. There was no reason to
question or wonder about the way life was. But a fall from grace somehow was like Dad's point about
strength. Noonan had woken me up to a new way of looking at him and at life and of course at myself.
Before the infamous Concetta kiss, I would've been the first to submit names to the Thirty Judge
Sciencommittee and recommend punishment to the full extent of the law. Now I was a criminal.
The note said, "No names. The hour is late. Be ready. Tomorrow."
I re-read the cryptic note several times. Tried reading the words in different order. Looked for the
real message. A solution to the puzzle. What did it mean "No names." And I should "be ready" for what
"tomorrow"? Who were my enemies? I wondered. And what the hell did Cadet Frits Zernike have to do with
all this subterfuge? Was it a classroom prank? Or was Noonan behind this? Some justification to hoist
my ass through a poophole in the dome and have me choke to death outside or melt or vanish into
painfully thin air? Who were my enemies? I'd been too busy doing the right thing, earning Scienc-Cash
points, writing books on physics, staying away from women. Who were my enemies? For that matter, who
were my friends? I couldn't really name a one. Most were acquaintances-- hello-goodbye people. And no one
did I ever invite to my penthouse where Margo and I did our best to keep up-- for me!-- the pretense of
two happy lovers doing their best to make it through another day. Who then?
Paranoid or not, I rolled the paper into the smallest ball and shoved it into my mouth. At last I was able
to swallow it, then leave the bed for the kitchen, pour a tall glass of tea and wash it down. Back on
the bed, before long, I fell into a deep sleep and did not wake up until the morning.
The day came and the day went. I maneuvered the Newton into my assigned parking spot, hardly noticing
the Fermi parked behind me. I thought I knew all the cars down here, I thought to myself. But a second
look did not reveal any more than I already knew: it was out of place. I bent over to buzz shut my Newton,
listened as the tractor belt hissed and smoked and finally settled down to rest till morning on the
blacktop.
I don't remember anything after that except for the sharp sting that climbed up my nostrils, burned my
eyes, while I tried to fight off the hand forcing the rag or glove against my face. In seconds my rubber
legs folded and I closed my eyes to consciousness. I felt myself hovering above ground like my Newton.
Floating like a dying man who can't decide whether to get up and live or lie down and die. And all around
me was quiet. Only the sound of wind somewhere and the sensation of being taken miles away from where I
fell in the garage.
I wasn't dead. Thank Truth for that! I lay there like a sack of bones, afraid to move. My hands were
tied behind me.
"Wake him," said somebody who kicked me in the side. I was debating whether to wake
up or wait. Somebody kicked me again.
I opened my eyes. "Whatta you want? I heard myself say but it was not my voice. Much deeper. Like a
wake-up voice of a person who's been roused from sleep. Like me now. "Who are you?"
They wore hooded masks. I could see only eyes. Five of them in long black coats.
"You want Scien-Cash?" I said. "I'm a Colonel Scientist. Lots of points if you want it. But don't
do anything crazy. It's not worth it. This convictag I wear--"
"Is deactivated," said a woman's voice from the shortest of the long black coats. "In this room
you're a free man, Leibniz."
Then another said, "You can leave here alive. There's a good chance of that."
"And what do I do to manage that?" I asked, sarcasm my only weapon. "Do I stand up and just walk out? Can I
have my convictag back so I'm not caught without it and zapped on the spot? What do you want from me?"
I could see how nervous the lot of them were. After all, nobody kidnaps a high Science official and lives
to talk about it. But what in Truth's name could warrant such a bold and suicidal move? Were they
going to tell me or was this going to be more enigmatic word games like their letter of last night?
"Are you planning to kill me?"
The woman laughed. I liked the sound of it. She was the first woman I'd been physically this close to
since the kiss-off back in March. If she got closer I'd play the old teen game of guessing what perfume
she was wearing. Or the old any-age game of what she looked like under all the layers she had on. "Kill you?" she asked.
"Would we kill a man-- a high Science official like you, Gottfried? You're the catch of the century! Don't make us have to throw you
back in."
The others laughed. Who was the leader here? I wondered. Then I found out.
"All right, the rest of you. Get out of here!" the woman said in a voice that commanded enough respect to
start the others almost racing out of the room-- no questions asked. "We need to talk," she said, walking
towards me. She unloosened the rope that bit into my wrists. "Sorry," she said. "We needed you here.
Anyway we could."
"Am I up for some kind of ransom?"
"You're here because we need you to be here."
I looked into her eyes-- blue or green within the black frame of her hood and mask. "Why me?"
She nodded. Then she pulled over a chair and set it beside the cot I was still half lying on. She tapped
the convictag on my wrist. "Hello. Can you hear me?" she spoke into the tag. Then she laughed. "You
haven't enjoyed life, have you, Colonel Scientist, since Noonan and his judges gave you life without a
woman. How did you earn your sentence?"
She smelled good. I just didn't like where this conversation was heading. "I made a big mistake," I
began. "I met a pretty woman and instead of asking about her family, I went ahead and planted a kiss on
her mouth. A deep one. Deep enough for her to clamp down on my tongue with a set of white pearls. The
bite was excruciating but not nearly as painful as the next day when the Sciencops hauled me into court.
This woman with the pearls had lodged a complaint against me. Then I found out her uncle was Dr.
Noonan, Scientist President of All City-States in North America and Japan."
The woman laughed. I was about to say, Hey, that's no joke. He got all thirty judges to find me guilty.
She stopped laughing and in a voice too serious to be making a random comment, she said, "You were lucky,
high Science official. Noonan wanted you dead. The thirty judges agreed to go along with him. But
somebody stepped in and got them to change their decision."
"I heard that from a friend," I said.
"Albert."
"Yes, Albert Einstein! How did you know?"
"He's one of us," she said. Then I watched her stand and slowly remove the hood and the mask and the long
black coat.
"Concetta!" I think I screamed. "What in Truth's name is happening here?"
"It was I who stepped in, Gottfried, and saved your life. I know what's going on in that scientific head
of yours. You're thinking: Why did I file charges in the first place? Am I right?"
I tried to find a reason. "You wanted me punished but my death would be a gross miscarriage of justice. A
kiss did not deserve death. Is that it?"
Now she was sitting beside me on the small cot. Concetta Compton, daughter of Noonan's sister
Florence. What was she doing here? Where was all this leading?
"You might say I planned this from that first kiss. Believe me, I didn't want you dead. I want you very
much alive. What you saw here tonight were only a handful of black coats and black hoods. We number in
the thousands and we grow stronger everyday. We are going to take back the government and heal the dying.
We need your help."
I had no words. I was listening to a woman who had a year ago changed my life, made me a criminal, sent Dad
to the heap, sent me into the artificial arms of Margo. A woman very related to Uncle Donnelly
Noonan,the Science President. A woman who was talking
treason to a high Science official and Colonel in that same uncle's army. What could I say to her? "Are you
crazy?" I finally said. "They'll kill you! All of you!" I made a sudden move to stand and, dizzy, sat
right back down again. "I don't belong here. This is enough to march all of us up the poophole of your
uncle's dome. You want that?"
She reached out and took my hand in hers. Anywhere else, under any other condition, I would've called
that romantic. But there's nothing romantic about plotting a revolution. It was as good as admitting
you could start counting the hours left in your short life. At forty I wanted at least another fifty years.
"Trust me," she said. "We've made headway. This is
not a suicide mission, Gottfield. We have good people on our side. There are doctors and scientists who are
working with us. Many of Noonan's high command: judges, soldiers. Gottfield, we need to stop the
dying! They keep the cures locked away from the
people. Hospitals under Noonan's government are ordered not to treat cancer and AIDS. To simply turn
them away and let them die. Mass murders for nearly two hundred years! Are you able to live with that?
Is your position in this murderous government so important you'd close your eyes to what's going on
everywhere?"
She'd worked herself up to crying now. I let the teardrops dribble down my fingers. We looked at each
other and almost in one simultaneous move bent forward and kissed each other. "Help us," she whispered.
"Suppose I do. What then?"
"Frits Zernike, the cadet in your night class. He'll direct you. And Einstein will do whatever he can."
We embraced. Our way of saying we were together in this. "What about my convictag?"
"I convinced Noonan to commute your sentence."
"From life to one year?" I asked, hardly believing.
"He's a tyrant. He's wrong for these city-states. But I'm his niece. I'll get him to do whatever I can
to change this world. And that means freeing you."
Concetta clapped her hands and the others returned to the room. "Take Colonel Scientist Leibniz back to his
garage."
One of the men made a motion to secure my hands behind my back, but Concetta stopped him. "No, Samuel. He's
one of us now."
I sat in the back seat as the Fermi maneuvered around the dead bodies on the highway. It might have been
the first time I tried looking at those faces on the macadam. All of them staring, many of them upwards at
the dome that Noonan built to keep death away. The prospect of winning this war filled my head like a new
reason for living. It excited me. In my imagination I pictured the Denver streets-- all the streets
everywhere!-- free of the dead, the sidewalks busy with laughing children.
#
© 1999 by Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci
