Ethel the Vigilante Granny

Ethel the Vigilante Granny Part 9

A visitor observing the UK from afar would have observed vast forests which were threaded through by well-maintained roads. Everybody had right of passage, the disabled, the poor, the rulers and various unclassified members of society. There were no railways left, private cars were the order of the day, electric, quieter and every citizen with a reasonable IQ was allowed to own their own vehicle.

They could be fully manual or computer controlled. For those with limited dexterity of their hands the cars were all capable of switching to tram mode. A car would steer but the driver could accelerate while the car used molecular bonding lasers to glue itself to the road. Invisible tramlines would then prevent it from flipping. Driving was therefore one of the pleasures available to every citizen.

It reduced feelings of inadequacy, boredom and listlessness and was always recommended whenever one was feeling stressed or fatigued.

"Go for a drive," the middle-class psychologists would say. "It's free, available to all, and it is the universal panacea for all that ails you."

That is what Kevin was doing now. His wife Lily sat in the seat beside him and waved to the occasional service robot they passed in the night. These were often six legged workers one metre high with retractable multi-purpose arms.

"You don't have to wave at them," Kevin protested. "They're not alive, they do the menial work leaving the under classes are free to squander their lives however they wish."

"They're more intelligent than you think. And everything has the spirit of Gaia within it."

"Foolishness."

"They say the men in black can't always talk to the machines any more. That the machines have an agenda of their own. That the processing power they are using is excessive for simple road maintenance."

Lily waved as they passed another robot. "I still think attributing human characteristics to silicon and metal is foolish. Just because you say something is true doesn't make it so. That is why we banned politicians and brought feudal ownership back. Everybody realised politicians were less good than everybody else at making the important decisions of society."

"So you think machines have no inner life?"

"Absolutely. Gaia is a dream created by people who can't face how horrendous nature is. Take nuclear wars for instance, nature made that possible."

"The last time I checked nuclear wars didn't occur naturally, they're not like volcanoes."

"I know, but according to your philosophy Gaia created humans so nature made nuclear wars possible if Gaia didn't want nuclear wars he wouldn't have created religion. And if he didn't want religion he wouldn't have created humans."

Lily waited see if Kevin would laugh or give some another indication to show that he was making an attempt at humour. But it struck her that he was being absolutely literal. He could only appreciate the physical world. Sometimes Lily believed Kevin loved his car more than he did her.

Sometimes Kevin believed it too. But he would never say so. He was the model middle-class citizen number-one, ordained by the men in black and had thereby earned holidays combined with many privileges at the top of the middle-class privilege zone.

He had the best food, the best medical care and was able to see places forbidden to the anarchists and the less aspirational middle-classes.

But he needed a wife to enable him to mix more easily with the people who made the rules humanity followed, Lily was an important part of his identity and so he didn't want to upset her unnecessarily. He knew she enjoyed travel as much as he did and he thought that was enough, he had given her a good life full of cruises and dresses which should be sufficient. Who needed to believe in the unseen when the visible world was just so gratifying?

There were days when perhaps the physical world did seem less than exciting but those days just went to prove how poorly designed nature was. If Mother Nature was real he must hate us, Kevin thought. He must look at us from above, a sociopathic (but natural) God who created us to suffer across the centuries. Then we discovered technology and we didn't need superstitious beliefs in things like Gaia anymore.

But, apparently, in these times when we can make anything apparently some of the weaker personalities still need their outdated crutch of a belief system.He sensed his wife was not happy. Kevin prided himself for his sensitivity. Those who could not read the feelings and motives of the people around them were not high climbers. They wouldn't earn holidays or extra leg room on air cruises.

He resolved to try to make his wife happy by not talking about his beliefs.

"You've known me all this time when you hold my beliefs in absolute contempt?"

"That's not true," Kevin said. "I just think a lot of your friends are unbalanced for believing in this stuff."

"If my ideals repulse you so much we don't have to touch each other again. I wouldn't want to pollute your boring, materialistic ethos."

"I suppose Gaia could have provided the psychic strength that enabled humanity to endure the nuclear wars, the nano wars, the food wars and the water wars. Science can't explain the human spirit."

Lily was impressed with the intelligence of the answer, she had never thought her husband was clever enough to respond with so much clarity. But she gave him no marks for sincerity and she felt terribly alone as she discussed the details of their upcoming holiday, their third that month, in order to reassure him that everything was still good between them. Kevin was convinced, as well as relieved. He didn't actually want to have to find new wife right now as it would have been inconvenient.

Lily sank into a level of depression that could accurately be assessed as clinical because she realised her whole life was a lie. She had married the wrong man for a chance of experiencing paradise as only modern technology could provide.

If hers was the most perfect life possible why did she feel so unhappy? And if she felt like this now what mental state which she going to be in a week's time from now? Or a year? She privately resolved to turn to drink, drugs and electronic virtual-reality immersion to make it possible to endure the remaining years of her life.

Of the two people in the car only Kevin was happy, and it depressed Lily even more that he could be satisfied by so little. An observer high above the skies above Kevin's car could not have seen their two opposing mental states with the limits of technology. The same observer might have noted the clean air, helped of course by the emission free technology of modern vehicles. The stealth satellite that was flying above them watching Kevin's car was able to see how efficiently the batteries were working. A high resolution medical scan was possible if required and showed that the two humans were in excellent physical health, however, it was unclear if this would remain the case the case for long.

The satellite's infra-red indicated that scores of anarchists were converging towards the road a mile ahead of Kevin's present position. The machine pondered what it should do. But it pondered fast because it was a machine. The middle-class humans will die if we do not intervene. All humans have free will. Yes. But the men in Black will over react if these two are harmed. Kevin drove towards the anarchists oblivious to the danger, pleased that he had rescued his marriage so adroitly. He loved his car.