The Law of Nines

“Schools, of course, will be a thing of the past. Learning will be stopped in its tracks; knowledge will wither daily. Survival itself will be an all-consuming struggle. As people die in droves the aptitude for technology, the skills, the expertise that was so common and taken for granted, will be lost. Without it your world will plunge headlong into the depths of a bottomless dark age of filth and misery. Millions upon millions of lives will be cut short as they are born into profound ignorance, abject poverty, backward superstition, and the rule of the most brutal.

“That is the reality of a world without technology—brief lives of unimaginable misery, filth, and savagery.”

Only the rain droning on filled the sudden silence. Jax sat quietly for a moment, letting it all sink in, letting the horror of understanding settle over him.

Alex knew that the Dark Ages had been a time much like she described. The knowledge built up by past civilizations had been lost as mankind plummeted into a black abyss. Survival was such a struggle that there were stretches of centuries about which next to nothing was known. That mankind emerged in the Renaissance was a testament to the nobility of the human spirit. It was only when mankind rose up and began to develop technology to shape the world that light came into their dark existence.

But it had taken a thousand years for that light to return.

“That is what Radell Cain’s ideas mean to our world, Alex,” she said softly. “That will be our fate. We will be stripped of everything we’ve made of our world and our lives.”

Alex sat sobered by such a description. He’d never really considered the far-reaching ramifications of such a thing. He now realized that Jax had. If anything, she was painting a kinder picture than what would be the horrifying reality.

If technology were suddenly taken away, the suffering and dying would be beyond imagining. Without all the factories and common technologies that people whined about, they’d be lucky to be able to grub enough worms to keep them alive.

Alex gestured vaguely. “You could use technology instead—build things, make things, create the things you need—just like we did. Mankind here developed what we have from nothing.”

She cast him a reproachful look. “And how many millennia did you live in a world of darkness lit only by fire?”

He knew she was right.

“It took the people here centuries to create, invent, and discover things to improve your lives. We, too, have spent countless eons developing parallel abilities that enable us to live without suffering the most common afflictions and wants. We use those abilities to tell us the best time to plant, the best time to harvest. Without those methods, thousands would starve. There are endless examples of how abilities developed over a long history help us live—help us live in an unnatural and evil way, according to Radell Cain.

“Because he wants to rule, because he needs something to blame simply so that he can gain power, everything we have will be forever lost, and once lost, it can’t be recovered.”

“But why would Cain want to do that? He would rule a wasteland.”

Jax arched an eyebrow. “You just said it. He would rule. He is willing to lay waste to civilization just to gain immense power for himself.

“If he really cared what became of people under his rule he wouldn’t incite such hatred for values, hold the victims responsible for the crimes against them, and shift blame to the innocent whenever anything goes wrong. He would work to solve problems instead of using them to seize complete power for himself.

“After Cain gets what he wants, no one will be able to challenge him. He will rule the world—a cold, dead, starving world—but he will rule it nonetheless, living in lavish excess with all the trappings his heart desires. What little of everything there is, he will control. That’s all that really matters to him. He is a man completely without empathy for others. It only matters to him that he gets what he wants. If a few million die he doesn’t really care—the dead don’t eat.”

Alex stared off as he listened. “It seems impossible to believe that people would go along with such a thing.”

Jax sighed. “I know. It’s hard for us to believe, too, but every day people willingly undergo a process called ‘the Cleansing’ to remove any gifted ability—that means magic. Afterwards, after this rebirth, the magic they were born with and learned to master is forever gone. They tell other people that they feel free for the first time in their lives and pressure them to give up their ‘tainted’ abilities as well. Crowds wait in lines to have it done, to go along with everyone else, to prove their virtue.”