The Greatest Commodity (First Draft)

Still Alive

Was it truly James Nevil? Xf39b's thoughts repeatedly turned to that line. Was it he? Could he possibly have lived a billion years?

Nevil didn't give him time to ask. His human form disappeared, replaced by the form of a bird, an Eagle. He took off and flew to the east. Xf39b accelerated to superhuman running speeds, and yet, barely kept up with the airborne Nevil -- or whatever it was that claimed to be Nevil.

Again, days went by, Xf39b was forced to slow down his time-perception just to avoid sheer boredom. Nevil, on the other hand, showed not the slightest sign of tiring.

Finally, a building began to appear over the horizon, a massive mansion, several square miles in size. Xf39b stepped onto its front porch, Nevil was already waiting for him, sitting casually in an armchair.

Nevil stood up and opened the front door for his guest. He then entered, and Xf39b followed. The place seemed normal enough for a classical place of habitation, a structure designed to provide material comfort to sensitive beings. They came to a large room, built more richly than any such room in any such mansion that Xf39b had ever seen before. There was a fireplace, holographic no doubt, and several soft chairs. Nevil took one, and after being motioned to, Xf39b took one as well.

"Now," Nevil said. "You must have a lot of questions for me."

"I do." Xf39b's reply was strictly no-nonsense.

"But," Nevil emphasized. "I have questions too. And I'll ask first, for many reasons.

"First, does that 'Collective' of yours still operate?"

The nature of the question managed to stir enough of Xf39b's faint emotions to surprise him. "No." he replied. "The Collective was dismantled only a million gigaseconds after The Loss." How did Nevil know about the Collective?

"Years, please," Nevil said. "I can never get used to this silly metric stuff you're doing nowadays."

"I would hardly consider an effective method of measuring time without planetary bias silly," Xf39b said, feeling almost offended.

"Call me old fashioned," Nevil replied, making no immediate overture of peace. "Now, tell me, how many years is that?"

Xf39b made the calculations. "Thirty-One million, and seven-hundred thousand years."

"Quite a lot, isn't it?" Nevil said. "But you wouldn't see that much time as a lot, would you?"

Xf39b ignored the jab. "How do you know about the Collective?"

"I've seen it!"

"What?"

"I went to Luna! Spent my last three decades of humanity there!"

Xf39b searched his records. "There is no record of anyone fitting your genetic pattern in the Lunar section of my database."

"That's because I'm a non-person. I faked Taygete citizenship to be allowed in. I left long before Taygete's denial of my existence arrived. But when it did, I have no doubt that they erased every reference of my existence, burned my books, and prosecuted those who would dare speak my name!"

"Why would they do that?"

"You know why." Nevil couldn't have gotten more cryptic, but Xf39b had access to a database containing a billion 'years' of history spanning twenty galaxies and thousands of quintillions of people. He managed to dig up information that vindicated Nevil's claim, the Collective did indeed eliminate all reference to individuals who broke primary laws. It provided the illusion of a crime-free society to erase the crime and the criminal together.