A/N: I'm terribly sorry for the late update, especially since this chapter is mostly filler. In compensation, most of the previous chapters are getting a makeover – I'm editing out General Bad Stuff and adding in a few important plot points here and there.
Chapter Ten – Pax and Bellum
June 20, 1851 V.E.
The great country of Pax sprawled across nearly half the globe, a mismatched patchwork quilt of countryside and steaming cities. In the middle of the nation stretched a long plain, dotted with the occasional farms and forests, and in the middle of the plain were the innumerable rooftops of Conurbation, Pax's second-largest city, and in the middle of Conurbation was an immense, cobbled space known as the Chancellor's Square.
A hundred-foot-tall statue of the dictator of Pax smiled down benevolently on his harried subjects from the centre of the square as they rushed fretfully about their business under his ever-watchful gaze. The inscription on the statue's enormous pedestal read TO GUIDE US – TO LEAD US – TO PROTECT US. Though this statement might be questionable, no one dared question it, too inspired by the glorious Chancellor and his ever-present policemen in resplendent red uniforms. There were always four or five of the nation's enforcers strutting through the square, adjusting their burnished mechanical armor, steam-powered hand cannons in holsters just below the policemen's twitching hands.
Clouds of pigeons soared around the square, the plump gray birds unpleasantly reminding Victor of the fat man from the newspaper as he sat on an old, wooden bench on the edge of the Chancellor's Square. Cold, grey early-morning light fell softly on the prestigious old buildings surrounding the square. Clouds scudded nervously across the sky, throwing the Chancellor's enormous stone face into ever-shifting stark relief.
Victor Rossum was oblivious to it all, staring in shock at the front page of the newspaper he had spread out on his lap. Important articles littered the edges in neat columns, as always, with titles like Construction Finished on Capitol Palace and Tensions with Bellum Increase. And in the dead centre of the front page sat a large black-and-white photo of Victor himself and Pinocchio perched on the living room table behind him, a mechanical turtle with a Cyclopean red eye. Scientist Creates Artificial Intelligence, screamed the enormous headline beneath it.
A small whirring noise interrupted Victor's thoughts. "What do you think of it, Pinocchio?" the scientist breathlessly asked his creation, perched on his shoulder like an ornate metal-and-wood parrot. He gave a strangled little laugh. "I told you you'd be famous, didn't I?"
The little robot hummed and blinked its red eye thoughtfully. CITIZENS KNOW NOW, its screen displayed. CAREFUL.
"Careful?" Victor twisted around to see the little machine on his shoulder. "Of what?"
Bits somewhere deep inside Pinocchio clacked and chuttered. The robot had gone through design changes even since the fat man's visit scarcely two days ago. The ornate wood-and-metal shell had been rounded and grown to encompass nearly the entire robot, a pair of delicate claws at the bottom for grabbing hold of Victor's shoulder all that were left of what the scientist had once intended as a fully articulated set of humanoid limbs.
FEAR, the little robot displayed. GREED. There was a pause. PEOPLE HAVE FEAR AND GREED? it questioned. I HAVE DEFINITIONS, BUT I DID NOT KNOW –
"That people are really like that?" sighed Victor, folding the newspaper down to read the article on himself. "Yes, I suppose they are. Some are, I mean. Not all. In general, humans are wonderful creatures." A cloud scurried across the sun, throwing the enormous statue of the Chancellor into darkness. "But there are always a few. You're probably right, Pinocchio. I'll be careful."
FATHER?
"Yes, Pinocchio?"
The little robot had already scanned the entire article and had moved on to the sides of the newspaper page.
PAX IS...The machine emitted another whirring sound. ANGRY AT BELLUM?
Victor nodded unhappily. Pinocchio was unable to ask "why" – that was beyond his range of current words – but his creation was trying to understand the problem through the eyes of an innocent. "Do you know what Bellum is, Pinocchio? Or Pax, for that matter?"
I HAVE DEFINITIONS, Pinocchio repeated, red eye pulsing. BUT...NO.
Spreading out his hands, the scientist gestured grandly to the cobbled splendor of the Chancellor's Square. "We live in Pax, Pinocchio. This is one of its largest cities, and it stretches for miles and miles..."
Pax actually did reach nearly halfway around the globe, from the edges of Euramerica to the very fringe of the Axis Mountains. Though perhaps the empire was not as great as it had been before the darkness of the Great World War, it was still one of the most powerful, and splendorous, nations on the planet.
Or so its citizens were told. But of course none of them would disbelieve their glorious 63rd Chancellor of Pax, Daniel Clemence, who was leading the country out of the recession the entire globe had fallen into after the War. Resources were slowly growing scarce, though, the much-picked-over mines of the great nation finally beginning to grind to a halt after centuries. And hungry eyes began to turn to the horizon, to Bellum.
To the far north of Pax was a pristine land, broken only here and there by the cities of its foreign people. While Bellum's sprawl may not have quite rivaled Pax's, the vast majority of its territories were virtually untouched by human hand. Mountains spiked out of the lush green forests here and there, filled with thick veins of emeralds and coal and iron. There were far fewer inhabitants of this land than in Pax, and they were for the most part farmers and traders, toiling under the ancestral flag of a prancing stag on a field of green. It and Pax had both been part of an ancient kingdom once, or so the stories went, and the land had been divided between two brothers, who gave their regions their crests. The emblem of Pax had long since been changed to the red-white-black triangular symbol familiar to so many of the nation's citizens and enemies, but its original banner had been a golden chimaera rearing on a scarlet background. And equally as old as the banners was a saying – nearly lost now, but still heard occasionally through Bellum to frighten children – that the chimaera crept towards the stag hungrily, ready to pounce, already envisioning its priceless insides.
If there was animosity in Bellum towards Pax, however, it was equally matched and more in the ancestral land of the chimaera. The most recent shock had the entire populace of Pax in an uproar – heavily armed troops from the smaller country, apparently hell-bent on causing destruction, had snuck across the border and destroyed a train terminal and a small factory before being defeated by Pax's valiant troops. Bellum vehemently denied any such attack, but Pax had doubled the security on the border nonetheless. Some of the more vocal Paxian citizens had egged on their government to declare war on the forested nation and "crush the bloody bastards," but the Chancellor promised that every effort was being made to ensure peace between the nations.
Other, less voiced citizens suggested, in hushed whispers behind closed doors, that the attack might have been forged by their own government. This theory was never discussed openly, of course, for no loyal citizen would want to incriminate his own country. And for those who incriminated the country, Pax would mourn for the error of their ways, then cut off their head and mount it on a high pole for crowds to gawk at. Progress must be maintained, Progress at all costs, and anyone who threatened the nation's peace or challenged its values inhibited Progress and must be removed.
But that was not for ordinary citizens to decide. These were secretive matters discussed in hidden places behind many locks and safeguards, by those cold men and women who ran the country and the impassioned commoners who plotted against Pax's dictatorship. Victor Rossum explained the situation as best he could to his little thinking machine, minus the more controversial and rebellious topics.
Pinocchio's eye rocked slightly as he whirred in thought. IS BELLUM A DICTATORSHIP? he displayed.
Victor mused over this. "You know," he said at length, "I'm really not sure. I think I heard something about a king once, but they've got a parliament too, and something called a Prime Minster..." He chuckled dolefully. "Does anyone really care now? We're practically at war with them already."
The little robot sat in silence as Victor got up from the bench, grimacing at his aching joints, and folded up the newspaper. IS BELLUM EVIL, FATHER? it finally displayed.
"Hmm? Oh, that thing with the train station. I don't think so, Pinocchio. True evil's a very rare thing, thankfully. If there's a motive behind it – greed, jealousy – that person isn't really evil, just...misguided, I guess, and people can help them. Bellum's like that. They're a bit scared of Pax, scared of what we might do, I suppose, and they feel like they need to show us that they're not defenseless. Like a cornered animal rearing up. The thing is, it's only making the problem worse, but at least our Chancellor understands." The scientist glanced appraisingly at the statue looming over the square. "He'll make sense of it, and everything will be fine." It was meant to reassure himself more than Pinocchio.
"No, Pinocchio," Victor rambled on, "a country, at least a country with enough people, can't really be truly evil. Some of them are bound to understand that something isn't right. One can hope, at least. When you hurt or kill or destroy, and there's no reason for it, it's simply because you can..." He heaved a sigh, and there was a far more resigned tone to his voice when he started up again. "That is pure evil, and there's nothing that can be done to save a person, or a country, like that. You have to remove them, or have the whole world suffer the consequences."
Clouds gathered in the brightening morning sky, throwing the stone face of the Chancellor into shadow as Victor and his robot left the square. Already he could hear one or two whispers, glances in his direction, as people compared the white-haired man and his machine to the picture on the front of their newspapers. By nightfall, nearly everyone in the city – in the entire country – would know who he was. The scientist mumbled a mild oath and ran a hand across his forehead and through his scruffy hair. "Why the front page?" he muttered. "I never asked for this. The article should have just been on you, Pinocchio. This will interfere with my work. Oh, what –"
Pinocchio gently squeezed his shoulder. FATHER?
"Yes, Pinocchio." Victor stopped himself mid-rant. It was too late; the damage had been done. Complaining about it now didn't change anything.
IS PAX EVIL?
Victor opened his mouth to speak, then reconsidered and closed it. Stopping in the middle of the street, he stuttered a little, arguing with the ever-louder voices in his head, then stood there thinking of Bellum.
"No," he finally declared. "No."
He hurried home then, his machine's questions preying on him as he wondered whether a country could truly be evil or not, and it completely slipped his mind to read the end of the article on him in the newspaper clenched tightly in his hand, and the short editorial at the end:
This article was the last work of BERNARD H. KOFFMAN, known as "Bernie" to all. Shortly after completing this work, Bernie collapsed late last night and was discovered by neighbors in the morning, who promptly summoned medics. Despite the doctor's valiant efforts, Bernie passed away from unknown causes. Completely devoted to his work, Bernie was a cheeky and jovial presence and a friend to everyone at the office. He will be missed by all. For information on Bernie's funeral, see the obituary at the back of the newspaper. In honor of Bernie's merriness, ambition, and true friendship, we of the Pax Heralder have placed his last article at the very front of this newspaper, the place of honor that every reporter strives to have his work displayed in. You were a priceless asset to all of us, Bernie. You will be missed.
And meanwhile, far to the north and in a dirt-packed field before a land of unharvested forests and unmined mountains, rows of guards in resplendent red uniforms broke formation to let a small convoy pass, past Pax's guarded border and into the fringes of the territory of the stag. The contents of the convoy were known to only a handful of elites, the people in the convoy briefed by the Chancellor himself, and it was all part of a plot that would make the rebels howl and leap in their secret rooms if they had known, and pour streaming into the streets with throngs of citizens to topple the Chancellor's tenuous hold on the country. The Chancellor had agreed with their morals, once, and so he kept the plot secret. But times were changing, and resources were growing scarce, and the chimaera had to feed.
Pax and Bellum. Bellum and Pax. A shining pinnacle of Freedom and Progress, and the wastelands of the mongrel hordes.
Though some people occasionally wondered which was which.
Of course, they were quickly arrested and executed. Progress was compromised when citizens dissented.
A/N: This is now a fanfiction about government conspiracies. Plan accordingly.