“Don’t get the wrong idea. I say Alex changed, and he did, vastly, but that is not to say he was ever what we could call normal. Dissatisfaction with this place and its people had long been present within him. I suspect Alex had always harboured this dream. The seed of rebellion was planted within him years before, I believe, but I have no idea whether or not he would have acted on those impulses without this push, or whether it merely set existing plans in motion,” Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Of more interest to me is whether he had always intended for us to be accessories in his machinations. I think I was far too involved at that stage to even envision a bigger picture. Even when he began to tout his ideas, I still missed the forest for the trees.

“I suppose none of it is really relevant. What is important is that we were not the aggressors here. There is only so far a lawless, corrupt society can push people before they snap. If it was not us, it would have been someone else. Decades of neglect have left the people of Tartarus hungry, wanting. They were chomping at the bit for change. Be it by chance or design, we were merely the ones to take the reins.”

Simon had to check his temper. With a hint of amusement he noticed that he was starting to sound like his brother, advertising their cause to the people.

“Alex was nothing short of a genius. Vastly intelligent, effortlessly cunning. He sailed through school, tackled every exam, every challenge that was thrown his way. He did that for as long as he could bear. Finally, he dropped out, aged fifteen. My parents begged him to go back. They saw him as their hope, their ticket to a brighter future. Even then, Alex recognised this as a fools dream. There can be no future for children of the Pits. He knew he had reached the limits imposed on him.

“Intelligence is not the privilege of the lower classes. Masterminds rot in the shadows, their potential unrealised, whilst fools rise to the highest seats of power just because they happened to be born with the right name. Alex knew that no matter how clever he was, he could never overstep his mark. He could never leap the walls your kind erected. It takes money and influence to get into a position where a person can be of any use to the world, two things we never had, and could never hope to gain. The Summit has no interest in prodigies. Power passes from hand to hand through open nepotism. Outsiders are a threat. They come with new ideas and troublesome morals. Why risk your dynasty’s fortune backing an enigma, when there are a host of inbred nephews who are more than willing to maintain the status quo? So long as that went on, there could be no real change. Alex realised he couldn’t jump these hurdles, but he could topple them.

“He never held down a job for very long, my brother. Nothing enticed him, nothing excited him. He would stay stick it out long enough to see the first payday, and then he would use that money to buy up old books and study his hours away. He would dissect every last passage, until he knew the texts by heart, and then he would repeat the system. He wasn’t particularly bothered about the kind of book. Ancient texts, religious scriptures, whimsical fictions, all of these littered his collection. The worth was in the learning, in the opening up, he would say. I suppose from these various tales he weaved a world of perfection, a utopia in his mind. He found that ideal which he was later inspired to share with us all. Wherever the idea came from, it came with an overwhelming hunger to see it realised.”

“And this is the man you allowed yourselves to be persuaded by? I find it troubling that you gave in to his desires so willingly,” Armitan sniffed.

Simon shrugged, “You can’t convince someone to do something they don’t want to do, Alex used to say. If we had been totally averse to the idea, then he would never have brought us round to his way of thinking. The reason why Alex was so successful, why he has achieved so much, is because he convinces people they can do exactly what they want to do. He just removes the fear. Alex picks up on that burning need within you to see change, and he tells you that it’s okay to feel that way. He tells you that you are not a monster for wanting a brighter future for the world. It’s in all of us, the Summit had just trained us to suppress it.”