The Will [on hold]

3000s - Episode 4

3175

“It is not working.”

“Of course it is working.”

“And how is that?”

“They never said it would be easy. They never said it would be quick.”

“They. And who are they?”

“Those who have come before us. Those with whom it began.”

“As far as I have heard, they’ve never said anything.”

“Well. You never heard it, as you were never here to listen. You are new to the Collective, and newer still to the Protopian camp; you must know that there is much you’ve not yet heard.”

“Then tell me. Tell me, now, all that you know about Protopia and Glorion, and I’ll absorb years’ worth of knowledge in an hour. I want to hear and know everything. This camp never had a more passionate proponent.”

“Your passion is evident indeed. But passion is not everything.”

“Passion and knowledge, in a brilliant mind, breed genius. I want to know everything.”

“I ought not tell you everything. Not just yet.”

“And why is that?”

“The vision is delicate. Its details, in unprepared hands, would be dangerous.”

“Then prepare me.”

“You must prepare yourself.”

“Until I am deemed worthy of the vision?”

“Yes.”

“This vision. Is anyone truly worthy of the vision? Does anyone even understand it? Or are we all slaving away to bring it to life, without knowing its details, its dangers?”

“I can assure you, boy, that some of us are well aware of every detail, every danger, of this vision. Every virtue, every vice.”

“I will believe it when I know those things myself.”

“Very well. Till then, you will not have to believe anything.”

“And till then, it seems to me that we are all blindly following this vision as if it were the law. Some great law that we must never change, never question.”

“Come, now. You know that this has nothing to do with law.”

“Was it not by legal deed that we first obtained claim to this great stretch of land?”

“Of course. And what of it?”

“Our very claim to Protopia, then, is legal.”

“You, boy, have much to learn.”

“I will not be called boy.”

“Do not resent your youth. A brilliant mind as yours, with much to learn, and many years to learn them, is a far better thing than a learned, wizened mind well on the path toward its demise.”

“You, then, are on that path?”

“With every feeble breath, I near it.”

“And yet these years have only rendered you a brighter, wiser genius, I am sure.”

“Years can do many things to a man.”

“At any rate. What are we to make of Protopia? The slow progress it is making?”

“The very fact that its progress is so slow, boy, assures us that it is real progress.”

“Oh, so I suppose this slow pace is all part of the vision?”

“Everything is part of the vision.”

“What in—”

“Everything that has happened, and everything that is set to happen soon, is all a product of the vision. Once the clockwork was set in motion, fate and future were determined. Set in stone.”

“So everything, you mean to say? Not only Protopia, and Glorion—but, too, this Earth?”

“It is all the same cosmos. The vision, boy, does not only look forward. It looks back. It looks within and all around.”

“You are speaking like a fool.”

“Eh? Like a madman?”

“Very nearly.”

“Good. That is the mark of genius.”

“Ha.”

“Laugh as you will. But I assure you that Protopia is progressing just as the Glorious vision would have it. There is no doubt in this mad mind, boy. It is working.”