A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is chapter 15. See previous posts for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.
Deep in Appalachia, the night swimming with fireflies, sitting on a section of log, T2 watched as Ana allowed two younger women to braid her hair. Nearby, a trio plucked out haunting melodies on stringed instruments and a quiet man with a big bushy beard offered a mason jar of moonshine in lieu of conversation to anyone that approached. The tranquil scene, lit with oil burning torches, starkly contrasted the storm raging in T2's mind, which had been kicked up by the recent mess in London.
He had alerted them well in advance of the 7/7 bombings. He'd sent detailed warnings to the British authorities and the American authorities and major media around the world. But no one had listened. The bombs had detonated, the people were killed, and now the UK had its very own 9/11 moment to use as justification for any course of action it saw fit to pursue, no matter how damaging to freedom this action might be.
"You look like you're somewhere else," said Molly, a twentysomething TAP associate, finding a seat next to T2. "Still thinking about the news?"
"You know," said T2. "When the US government started spouting lies about yellowcake uranium to justify war with Iraq, I knew better than to think that I could do anything about it. But the 7/7 bombings seemed like they'd be another story if I just warned enough people that they were coming. Now, I feel like all of it was for nothing. Or worse, like maybe the people in power knew what was coming and wanted it to happen because it created opportunities for them to expand their political power."
"Do you know what I learned growing up as a smart girl in West Virginia?" asked Molly. "I learned that most people are average and that doesn't stop them from thinking they're smarter than that."
"True enough," said T2.
"There aren't many folks walking around who are my intellectual equals," said Molly. "Statistically, I'm only likely to find one in any random group of two hundred. Point being that most people just ignore my ideas because they're not equipped to adequately evaluate them. That doesn't make them sinister, even when bad stuff comes about as a result of their foolishness."
"Right on," said T2. "I still wish the people calling the shots were smarter than that. Maybe they're just not."
"Smart or not, I think they're all basically unhappy rats," said Molly. "Living in shitty cages, locked in cycles of compulsive action and unrewarding addiction. To money. Power. You know."
"Probably," said T2. "But where does that leave us?"
"Don't know," said Molly. "But a good place to start might be Rat Park."
"Oh yeah?" said T2.
"For sure," said Molly. "There was once a scientist who got a bunch of rats hooked on drugs. Which I guess is a normal thing for a scientist to do. He put drugs in their water bottles and the rats would get high until they died. This went on until he found the secret to getting the rats to stop using."
"What was the secret?" asked T2.
"Rat Park!" said Molly. "He made a place for the rats to live that didn't totally suck. A park where they could play and dig and socialize, instead of keeping them is shitty rat prisons all of the time. The rats in Rat Park started avoiding the water with the drugs in it, the ones who were addicted kicked their addictions. See, it turns out the drugs were never the problem. The problem was having a shitty, unnatural life that produced addictive behaviors."
"Makes sense," said T2.
"When I first heard about what you were doing with TAP, with your Anything Grants, Rat Park was the first thing I thought of," said Molly. "Most of society is like the regular bad rat cages. They even call working the rat race. But why should that be all there is? Why not give people the opportunity to make their own Rat Parks, where they can find variety and joy instead of stupid, arbitrary mazes to run through?"
"I like it," said T2. "But the part I'm having a hard time with is the scientist. What I mean is, maybe we can all be happy rats in a Rat Park of our own making. But the people running the experiment still treat all of us like disposable rodents. They can't be stopped or reasoned with. Oftentimes, they can't even be identified. So they just keep putting drugs in our water and making us run their stupid mazes."
"Look around," said Molly, waving her arms around for effect. "This is our Rat Park and we love it. So you couldn't stop people in another country from doing a bad thing. So what? You're doing the part that you can do."
"True enough," said T2. "So have you personally received an Anything Grant?"
"I got fifteen thousand dollars to spend the whole year building a system to identify and track to people behind mountaintop removal coal mining," said Molly. "It creates profiles of each one, and connects these profiles to the poisoned landscapes and waterways around mining sites."
"That sounds ... risky," said T2.
"It is," said Molly happily. "But it's not like the government is ever going to hold these people accountable. I figure if they're going to destroy the planet, the rest of us should at least know who they are and what they did."
Overhearing this conversation, Ana's ears perked up. "How exactly does that work?" she asked.
"It's a three tier system," said Molly. "Tier one is workers, just regular people collecting a check. We put their pictures on our website to shame them for harming the environment, but don't include names or locations. Tier two is managers. They're about half-and-half good old boys and petty tyrants. They get pictures and names and cities of residence. Then there are the corporate bosses, who sometimes don't even visit the mining sites. They get every last thing we can find on them, posted for all to see."
"But what if something happens?" asked Ana. "What happens to you if someone uses your website to help them commit a crime against one of these bosses?"
"Maybe I'll get in trouble," said Molly, shrugging. "In this state, I might even go to prison. Like if someone went ahead and dumped a truck full of stolen coal on some executive's house or poured a bunch of battery acid in one of their swimming pools. Or if they drowned a boss in a poisoned stream, that would definitely get me in trouble. But so what? I'm not encouraging anyone to do anything with the information I provide. That's their choice. And I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if one of the people wrecking our ecosystems got hurt."
"And TAP is paying for this?" said Ana.
"Technically, the grant covers my living expenses so I can work on the project," clarified Molly. "Funding for the project itself comes from donations."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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