Day 3.8

The [A-Frame Hut] was starting to look like an actual shelter now, and that had a motivational force of its own. The side that would become the door could be left until last because he’d need to sit down and remake a gate of some sort—That left the back end to be walled off.

“I will begin cutting the lengths to size,” Rittan said, breaking the silence that had overtaken them. “August, if there are no other races present on earth, are human’s given assignments of their own?”

August paused for a moment before continuing to tie off the branch.

“It’s complicated,” August said, repeating his words back to him. “Human’s get to choose what we do for work, but there’s a whole host of things that have an effect on that choice, you know?”

“I’m not sure I do,” Rittan said curiously.

August rubbed at his neck for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain it.

“Well,” August said, drawing out the word to give himself some time to gather his thoughts, “Say you want to be a famous singer or a renowned painter—you have those things in Hekaton, right?”

“Yes, we have those,” Rittan said, nodding. “Art is a cornerstone of Gaian society.”

They had that in common at least, so much of their culture had been passed down or expressed through art, and music was one of the great leaders in that area.

“Say you wanted to be one of those two; the skillset required for either is pretty different, right?” August said, tieing off another branch. “To be able to sing at a basic level is something you need to work at; getting to a level of public performance is hard, and to be good enough to do it on a global level? That takes decades of hard work and constant refinement of your chosen skill.”

Rittan nodded, looking thoughtful.

“So, say you were born in a community that had no singing teachers, or perhaps there was one, but the cost to hire them was far too high for you to afford,” August explained, “Maybe the community you were born into doesn’t like music that much, or thinks it’s a waste of time to pursue and heavily discourages it.”

“A community with no singing teachers?” Rittan said, frowning.

“Sure, but you could substitute just about anything into place there—the component that matters there is access to learning,” August said, thinking about his own childhood. “You can make a choice to become a renowned painter or a famous singer, but depending on where you start, it could be an uphill battle that lasts your entire life.”

“Earth is a very different place to Gaia,” Rittan said, tone searching. “I—it’s a tragedy that anyone would have their expression stifled by nothing more than circumstance.”

“Yeah,” August murmured. “But I think you’ve got me beat in that regard, Rittan—at least I had a choice.”

Rittan remained quiet for a while after that, and August felt growing anxiety that he’d come off as rude or perhaps flippant. For a human, unconscious environmental factors, or even the role genetics played, could determine a lot about a person’s future, but for the Voithos, that wasn’t the case.

They’d been genetically designed for a purpose, and the choice to follow their own desires, to chase dreams or to spearhead their lives in an entirely different direction through conscious effort had been ripped away. It was sad to think that dragging Rittan out of Limbo and trapping him on an island full of monsters had likely given him the most access to choice he’d ever had.

“Which assignment did you choose?” Rittan asked, studying the knotted vine in his hands.

“I worked at a music store,” August said ironically. “Selling other people’s music over the counter.”

There were other reasons that he hadn’t mentioned; lack of talent, lack of work ethic, lack of ambition, lack of direction—being paralysed by anxiety, being forced to make a decision between going to the school his parents had wanted and the idea of actually confronting them over it.

“Over a counter?” Rittan said, surprised. “Was this some kind of tradition?”

August pulled at his ear lobe for a moment, wondering.

“Let me guess, no physical copies?” August guessed. “We were trending towards that back home; my ‘assignment’ had maybe two more years left before we would have most likely shut down.”

“Trading goods at a physical location is something I’ve never heard of before,” Rittan admitted, “In Hekaton, there were terminals that would interface with a PDI—there were rules on what you could request, at least that was true for the Voithos.”

“What rules?” August asked.

“There were size limitations in public locations because it made delivery difficult at times and could present an obstacle for those in the area,” Rittan said, ticking off each on his bottom right hand. “You couldn’t request weaponry outside of very specific circumstances—there was also a limit on how many consecutive orders you could place to avoid flooding the area with carrier drones.”

“How much did it cost to have something delivered?” August wondered, genuinely interested.

“There was no delivery fee,” Rittan said, amused. “You simply had to pay for the item.”

“Damn,” August said, “Back home, it costs more to deliver stuff than the price of the object—in some cases anyway.”

“That’s absurd,” Rittan said, eyebrows raised.

“That’s what I said every time I had to pay fifteen dollars just to get a five-dollar pizza,” August muttered.

“Dollars are human currency?” Rittan asked for clarification, and August nodded. “What is a pizza?”

“Food,” August shrugged, “Dough, sauce, bunch of different toppings, that kind of thing—you’ve probably got some kind of equivalent.”

“August,” Rittan said, frowning. “On Hekaton, basic necessities such as food do not have a cost associated with them.”

“Food is free?” August said, giving up on the vine for a moment. “You said almost a billion people were living on Hekaton—how could they possibly feed that many people for free?”

“I—it has always been that way,” Rittan admitted, “On earth, what happens if you cannot afford to purchase a meal?”

August was beginning to feel like he’d stepped into a minefield.

“If you don’t have the money to buy anything, then you don’t eat,” August admitted.

Rittan had a very complicated expression on his face and fell silent once more.

“There are social programs that help,” August said, searching for something to dilute the growing discomfort, “Tokens to exchange for food, a small stipend for those with financial difficulties—that kind of thing.”

Rittan gave a half-hearted smile, and it did very little to make him feel any better.