Chronicle of Nautilus

Chapter 18: The Boring Duty

A week passed after Claire went missing. She was nowhere to be found. Tom spent a lot of time trying to explain the incident that had ravaged a portion of the city quite severely. He attempted to soften the public response and hide the truth. He made journalists from The Walker to mix lies with facts. The incident was explained as a forced arrest of a terrorist, who had planned to sabotage the ship. Tom had told, he had been tracking the suspect for a long time and once he tried to capture him, the terrorist attempted to escape. That moment, he figured, it was the most logical solution to stop the man by any means necessary. The ship, as Tom had said in his report ‘was safe once again’.  

Tom was slightly relieved that Stacy's weapon was neutralized. And it all was thanks to another man, a man he once knew, who sacrificed himself finishing what Tom couldn't.

There was going to come a time when he would go and have some serious talk with her. For now her presence was weaker, all information in the databases had been magically recovered. The feeling of someone working against the system was gone. 

******

The governing on the ship was based on the ideology of technocracy. This type of political system was accepted in the late solar system and implemented inside the colony ships. People took their leaders for granted, since every leader had been picked after a thorough selection by a science committee. Only those who were experts in their field could take the responsibility and positions of great importance. Tom, Ermac, Cyrus, leading bio-engineers and everyone else, who wanted to be a part of leading personnel, had to pass tests and get permissions to be put in the positions they were today. After qualifying they needed to study and acquire additional properties to meet the requirements. All young people were given employment according to their personality evaluation tests and skills.

Tom was worried about The Outsider, who had disappeared for too long. The entity must have been planning something. Each day Tom read reports of Julian Shaw in hopes that ways to stop The Outsider were found. Capturing or eliminating all ex-convicts was not a solution; they needed to kill the cancer and not the body it had infested.

Tom had checked the data collected by Claire about the current situation of ex-cons. He had put a few of those, who had the least social lives, behind bars just in case their solitude was caused by The Outsider and asked his agents to follow the others.

Today Tom was to meet with the leading members of the people’s government. Most of the time the meeting was only a formality - the government had no influence in Tom’s affairs and Tom was not interested in the small domestic problems. From time to time the government proposed new laws over which Tom had a final word. The ship had very strict constitution, but the government always found small gaps through which their new laws could slip.

*****

A large white building stood in front of Tom, this was the place where many domestic issues were solved. The official name of the place was - the house of law and government. Six large pillars stood in front of the building. Sculptures of ancient gods and heroes that represented fair governing and intelligence were placed in between them.  The building was located near the center of the city. It neighbored one of the hospitals.

Tom walked up the wide stairs, greeting the officials he met. He never enjoyed visiting this place, mostly because of the people working here, locked in their illusionary world of manipulations. Many people in here felt significant to the society, when in truth, they were not. They had played adult games for too long and took their roles too seriously.

After stepping into the building, he noticed that a dispute had broken out between one of the administrators and a small boy. Tom caught only the last part of the conversation.