There was just something about West Island that made Greg Bishop smile.
Unlike East Island, built out to emulate peak United States culture from the last two decades of the 2nd Millennium CE, West Island was devoid of tall buildings and grid-like roads. West Island boasted some of the largest tracts of preserved wilderness left on the island that housed the last vestige of the human race.
Bishop leaned back on the slight slope of the hill he’d spent the last hour reading a novel on. The hill was green with fresh grass, and below him, the bare slope terminated at a line of trees that marked the edge of a forest that stretched on for dozens of miles before him. From his position, Bishop would normally be able to see all the way to the edge of the forest in the distance where it ended close to the shore of the island, but today the fog was slow to recede.
Bishop didn’t mind it. On a clear day, one could also see the wall, and the towers–towers which held men with guns.
The book Bishop had been reading was Starburst by Alfred Bester, a collection of short science fiction pieces from the 20th century. It lay tented in the grass, spine to the sky, the last page he’d read pressed against the blades.
Bishop considered picking it back up to read another short, but instead, he slipped a bookmark into it, closed it, and tucked it away into his backpack. There would be plenty of time for reading later.
*
As Greg Bishop fumbled with his mass of keys at the front door of the West Island Library, he heard someone running up the granite steps behind him. Pulling back the correct key and letting it disappear back into the mass, he decided not to open the door, instead holding the ring of keys closer to his chest before turning around. As he did so, he questioned why he was being so cautious.
Turning, he saw the familiar face of a recent acquaintance.
“Dr. Bishop,” the young woman said with a smile as she bounced up the last few steps. “I was hoping I’d catch you before you got busy.”
Bishop smiled, both to be pleasant and in amusement at the thought of ever being busy. “I haven’t even opened up yet,” he said, jingling his jumble of keys. “It will be a while before I get up to speed. Remind me of your name again.” He knew they’d been introduced, but she’d been with a group of several from the Academy.
“Angela Tilly, D-Level at the Academy,” she replied, smile beaming.
“History, right?” A guess, but Bishop knew they only ever sent groups in the History slice. Most of the students from Legal came individually of their own accord, and he’d only ever seen Angela in a group.
“That’s right.” The smile kept beaming, and Bishop felt a bit unsettled by it.
“What can I do for you?” Bishop noticed his hand was clenching the keys tightly, and he let his hand drop to his side, jumble jangling.
“I know you’re very busy, and I won’t take up too much of your time, but maybe you could just point me in the right direction?” She took a few steps toward him, and lowered her voice slightly. “I’ve got three papers to write before the end of term, and one has to be original research into a topic that’s not already in the Academy records.”
“Oh yes,” Bishop replied, nodding knowingly. “That means you won’t have too much longer before your permanent work assignment, right? What subject were you leaning toward?” As he asked this question, he turned back to the door and set to finding that pesky key again.
“I’m very interested in the early history of this island, before and just after the Fall,” she explained. “At first, I was going to focus on Fredrick Gilhouse himself and his story, but there are about five papers on various portions of his legacy.”
“Gilhouse is an interesting man,” Bishop responded, nodding his head. “But you’re right, he’s a popular subject.” Procuring the correct key, he lifted it to the lock.
“I diverted and got curious, so I pulled a query on papers that had been filed for approval but denied to see if perhaps something there might inspire me.”
Bishop inserted the key into the lock, enjoying the analog click of each tooth against the tumbler.
“That’s when I found your application for a paper on Tachibana’s Revolt that was denied,” Angela said quietly.
The name hung there in the silence of the morning. The old university grounds were empty, almost always, and Bishop imagined that he heard ‘Tachibana’ echo on for eternity in the labyrinth of old granite buildings. The key, frozen for a beat, was suddenly removed from the lock.
Bishop turned and said rather forcefully, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. If you don’t mind, I do have some important business to attend to, so I must bid you adieu and ask that you leave the grounds until public hours begin. Good day.”
Bishop nodded in dismissal and then very quickly unlocked the door, entered the library, and locked the door behind him.
Angela stood shocked, mouth half open, clearly not expecting the reaction she’d received.
As Bishop began his usual routine of turning on lights and opening blinds, he cast a glance towards the front doors and saw the Academy student standing unmoving outside. After about five glances, he discovered she’d finally departed.
*
The morning passed without fanfare. Bishop only had one small group of retirees from East Island, and they practically gave themselves the tour of the old university grounds. The only trouble he’d had was from one of them who had complained that he’d oversteeped her tea.
As he was tidying up the tea station that he’d only ever used once or twice a year, a call came in through the old analog phone on his desk. That meant it was coming in through the direct Academy line.
On the other end was the Assistant Academy Director, Devon Ballew. After a moment or two of formal greetings, Ballew got straight to the point.
“Dr. Bishop, I wonder if I could impose on you,” the voice on the other end said. Bishop knew the name, but had never seen or met the man. His mental image of him was unforgiving: short, wiry, bald, meek. “I’ve a few D-level students working on their final papers, and instead of the usual rigmarole of paperwork and orientation, I wonder if I might just send a few over on their own off public hours to do some research. I wouldn’t ask you to stay beyond your normal working hours, but I’d rather they not burden you during public hours.”
“Not an issue, Assistant Director. I’d be happy to stay past working hours if needed,” Bishop replied honestly. “I don’t have much at home drawing me away.” Bishop chuckled after this, and then wondered why he’d laughed when the reason nothing was home was due to his wife’s departure to Alterations some years back.
“Excellent,” Ballew replied enthusiastically. “If you don’t mind, I’ll send one over today near the end of your public hours, and perhaps they can help you close up.”
“I’d appreciate the company and the help,” Bishop replied flatly, his mind suddenly on the image of the black van from Alterations pulling away with his wife, her hooded head appearing in the rear window as it sped away.
Bishop didn’t even register that the line had been terminated. He held the receiver in his hand for quite a while before returning it quietly to its cradle. He was pondering on the disposition of his wife when he saw the next group coming up the steps.
This was a scheduled tour, a large group of A-Levels from the Academy, most between ten and eleven years old. Bishop quickly snapped out of his reverie and stood up, genuinely smiling. These were his favorite tours.
*
Back on the wide granite steps leading up to the Library building, Bishop took questions from the students as a wrap-up for the grand tour.
A rather snotty, bespectacled boy, after being called on, asked, “Why isn’t this part of the Academy?”
Bishop nodded, acknowledging the question. “Many, many decades ago, the government of the peoples on this island underwent a significant change to the American Democracy you all know today. As you’ve learned, as stewards of the legacy of humanity, we brought many things with us from our past to this island, and the early years of this new society were spent deciding which of those vestiges were relevant and beneficial to the forward progress of man.
“There were two visions for education: one, the Academy you all know today; the other, similar to public education systems. This University was the highest institution of the other vision, and today we preserve it so that we know where we came from, and we keep it separate from the Academy, frozen in time, because this vision does not align with where humanity is currently headed.”
Another student, this one a small Japanese girl, raised her hand. Bishop acknowledged her and she asked, “Why can’t we have novels in the Academy library?” Bishop clocked that she’d been the one student most interested in the massive Fiction section of the massive University library–the only place on the island where novels were kept, excepting a few wealthy Islanders who had collector’s items in their homes.
“A good question,” Bishop replied, holding up a finger, “but one you should already know the answer to. Our forefathers decided that humanity excelled and progressed best without distraction. The majority of the novels in this library detail fictional worlds and fictional events. The brainpower and imagination it takes to conjure up those places and events in your mind is better used to imagine new realistic solutions to problems and innovations to further human progress. We keep them as a reminder of how we used to be, but we keep them separate from our pursuit of knowledge, lest they distract us from that progress.”
Bishop was so used to answering the same questions over and over that he said the words almost automatically.
Another hand raised, another student called on to ask their question. This one, a young red-haired boy, seemed less certain about the question he was asking. “Why is there no statue of Tachibana in the Hall of Presidents?”
Bishop cleared his throat, then coughed a moment, choking on the answer. This was not a question he’d ever answered before, and he struggled to form the correct, accepted answer in his head before his mouth blurted something else out.
“As a result of the end of the revolt led by Councilor Tachibana,”–he sighed internally, thankful he’d used the correct demoted title–“it was decided by the rest of the government to initiate Damnatio Memoriae on Tachibana. His statue was removed from the Hall of Presidents and destroyed.” Bishop refrained from mentioning that Tachibana was killed by his own statue in the ceremony, crushed by his own visage.
Unprompted, another student asked, “What’s Damnation Memory?”
Now sweating, Bishop cleared his throat again. “Damnatio Memoriae means a person’s name and history is erased from records. Usually reserved for traitors and villains whose actions betrayed the human race, or set it on destructive paths.” Textbook answer from much training before Bishop had been offered his post. Still, it made him nervous to speak of such things.
“Now, the time for questions is concluded.” Bishop then angled toward wrapping the tour up quickly. “Please follow the instructions of your chaperones and return to your buses. I thank you all for coming, and I hope to see many of you return in the higher levels to do research in this very important monument of education. Good day to you all.”
Bishop waved a goodbye to them, and the crowd began to move chaotically. Bishop found his eyes trained on the boy who had asked the Tachibana question, and then his eyes fell on a face next to the boy. At first, he though it another A-Level student, but then the recognition hit him like a brick.
Bishop hadn’t ever considered Angela Tilly would be the one that Ballew would be sending.
She stood, having been squatting next to the boy, obviously having fed him the question.
Bishop couldn’t control the frown that crumpled his face, and quickly turned to climb the rest of the steps to the library. As the crowd dispersed around her, Angela followed him.
Calling up behind him, she pleaded, “Assistant Director Ballew said I should help you close down for the day.”
“Not necessary,” Bishop called back, quickly entering the library. He briefly considered locking the doors behind him, but refrained.
Moving to his desk, he heard the library doors shut behind him, a few seconds after the hinge would have normally allowed them to. He busied himself with shuffling around stacks of paper that didn’t need shuffling. Out of habit, he quickly tossed a stack of papers over the Bester novel he’d uncovered in his shuffling. He could feel her standing there watching him.
After another minute or two of trying to ignore her, he looked up as he spoke. “I told you I can’t help you.”
She was much closer to him than he’d anticipated, and he inadvertently moved back a step.
“You can, Dr. Bishop,” Angela said, her voice quiet and her face unreadable. “And I can help you.”
Bishop shook his head emphatically. “There is a reason that paper was denied. The same reason I just gave that boy who asked your question. Damnatio Memoriae. All records redacted, burned, destroyed. Erased.” He moved around his desk, putting it between them.
Angela moved forward and put her hands on the desk, defiantly staring him down. “That paper couldn’t have been denied without you submitting a draft and the full contents of your research. You wrote the paper, you did the research.”
Losing his patience, and his mask, Bishop slammed a stack of law books he’d been shuffling around down in front of him and leaned forward over the desk, eye to eye with her. “And they fucking burned it! All of it!”
Dr. Bishop quickly rounded the desk and grabbed Angela roughly by the upper arm. He didn’t notice a few tourists were milling around the front lobby, and didn’t care. Forcing her to the door, he spoke under his breath. “This is not the time or place for this. You’ll get us both sent to Alterations.”
Hauling her to the door, he roughly tossed her out. Stumbling to her knees, she looked back at him, shocked. Without a change of expression, he hissed, “Apply for an internship in analog records.” Touching his nose surreptitiously, he closed the doors and locked them.
As Angela got to her feet and brushed herself off, the doors opened again and Bishop ushered out the forgotten tourists.
“Sorry, closing early,” he explained as he pushed them out. The doors slammed, and the harsh sound of the lock echoed throughout the little alcove outside the entrance.
*
When the paperwork came through, Bishop let it sit for a few days. This is what he would have done normally, and so he tried to retain appearances in case anyone was monitoring. Even as he thought through the circumstances and the measures he was taking to maintain secrecy, he questioned why he was even bothering. He was clean. He’d done his turn at Alterations and come out in the same slice as before: Historian. Assigned right back to his previous post. They’d let him go. No fault. Keep up the good work. We need this place.
On the fifth day after the paperwork came through, Dr. Bishop approved Angela Tilly’s request for an internship in Analog Records.
*
There was just something about West Island that made Greg Bishop smile.
In East Island, the focus was on social circles and events. That half of the island was full of golf courses, pickleball courts, coffee shops, and cafes. In the business sectors, skyscrapers rose ridiculously in the air, mostly full of empty offices. East Island was known for glamour and high fashion. The men drove big cars and the women rode big men. Scandal was accepted and expected. Carnal pleasures were on the menu if you knew where to look for said menu.
There was just something about East Island that made Greg Bishop frown.
Before his wife had been sent to Alterations, she’d become a regular visitor of the central East Island metropolis, miniature in comparison to its counterparts of old. Bishop imagined they’d sent her there after her sentence. She belonged there.
West Island was the last vestige of nature. Rangers, biologists, botanists, veterinary practices. West Island held the people that Bishop identified with, and the landscape that Bishop loved.
Even though his meager salary forced him to live in a low-rent section of East Island, he was close enough to the river that separated the two sides of the island to make frequent visits. Plus, the University was just on the West Island side of the river. This proximity allowed him to open his mornings on his favorite hill in a small park few people knew about.
As he closed his new novel, this one an old Asimov favorite, Foundation and Earth, he thought about the day ahead, and what he’d be revealing after keeping it hidden for so long.
*
After several weeks of leading her through carefully curated collections of material just adjacent to Tachibana that had survived the purge, he deemed her ready for the deep vault and the secrets it held. He’d tested her enough, and she’d answered correctly on all important questions. It had been at least a decade since someone new had been allowed this access.
He kept it a surprise, biding his time. He had to be sure about her. Her interest in the revolt wasn’t just surface-level curiosity, it was deeply intertwined with her philosophy. She was voracious in her pursuit of knowledge, and that voraciousness was only matched by her passion for the very humanist ideals that led to the revolt in the first place.
He’d planned it for a week, and then scrapped his ceremonial plan for something quite spontaneous.
She had her head quite literally in a massive record book of the Historical Society’s Daily Records, perusing every line for as much as she could about the events leading up to the revolt. Most had been redacted, but contextually she could suss out what happened. Bishop walked casually over to her from his desk where he’d been watching her. He carefully shut the giant tome, ignoring her protest at losing her place, and simply held a finger to his lips.
Taking her hand, he led her from the table she was at and approached the massive granite table in the center of the library. Everyone always asked why they kept it devoid of clutter and completely empty of objects. He reached up to a nearby column and depressed a tile that caused a loud grinding sound.
As he guided her to the table, it began to sink into the floor. Once the table’s top was level with the floor, he carefully helped her onto it. The table continued to sink into the floor, taking them to a long dark hallway. A large platform moved to fill the open space above them, and for a moment they were in complete darkness.
As he waited for the lights to kick on, he suppressed sexual thoughts about her that had become more frequent. Working so close together over the weeks, it was only natural. Nothing had happened, but Bishop sensed a growing tension between them, and hoped that it led to something… but not yet.
The lights kicked on finally and he led her down the long hall to the vault. He glanced at her and noticed her beaming smile. She kept the silence he had initiated.
Arriving at the vault, Bishop pulled out his keyring. Without having to search for them, he found two keys next to each other and inserted them both into a single keyhole that accepted both of them. Turning the lock caused a loud thump to echo through the hall, and after a few seconds the thick door to the deep vault slowly opened.
By the time the door had opened wide enough for them to enter, the lights inside came on.
It was then that Dr. Gregory Bishop finally spoke.
“This vault holds all that is left of the times before the Tachibana Revolt. All his personal journals and correspondence are here, as well as video interviews with other prominent Islanders of the time. Everything erased in the Damnatio Memoriae purge is saved here.”
Before he could turn to see her expression, she was on him, ravenous. She tore at their clothes and pushed him back onto the nearest table, and time slowed to a crawl.
He couldn’t focus on her face. It moved above him, dark, now and then eclipsing the light fixture overhead, and in that darkness he saw his wife. The wife who had betrayed him. He missed her, longed for her, even as a woman decades her junior pressed against him.
A flicker of worry about the documents beneath them came and went.
A voice in his head, drowned out by the moment, was clawing its way back now. It reminded him of past instances of trust misplaced. He ignored the voice and thought of his hill and of time. The library was a tomb, and up until a few moments before a prison. It began not to matter to Bishop what he’d kept secret here.
Between heaving breaths, he finally managed to blurt out in pieces what he’d been planning on telling her next.
“The Tachibana stuff isn’t all of it. There’s novels and films from before the fall. Things the Council banned, things thought burned or lost.”
She’d moved away by then, already flipping through massive tomes of history meant to have been erased. The hidden, forbidden story of how the island came to be.
“And there’s more. There are many of us. Humanists.”
He struggled to catch his breath. It had been quite a while since he’d had such a workout.
“We meet in secret. I just mind these records, but there’s a whole secret group.”
He pushed himself up to his elbows to watch her. She was looking back at him. The look reminded him of his wife.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
“Well,” he hesitated. “We’ve got time… it’s not something I can just explain in one sitting. We’ve been building numbers for a while now.”
Moving back to him, she pulled him up to her naked body again. “Tell me everything.” Pressing his lips to hers, she allowed him to kiss her and touch her for several more minutes before pulling away..
That voice again, quieter but persistent. Careful, it said.
“We need to induct you formally and add you to the list,” Bishop explained, sliding off the table and beginning to clothe himself again.
“There’s a list?” Angela asked, curiosity piqued.
Nodding, Bishop walked over to a computer terminal and typed in a few keystrokes. He hesitated before executing the command.
He imagined his hill, the forest… simple things, smaller than humanity, than islands, than revolution. He imagined Angela there with him.
After a moment, several sheets of paper began rolling out of a printer nearby.
“If I give you this, you have to keep it safe and secret,” Bishop explained. “All of these people will help you however you need. Need a place to crash? Money? Access? We have lots of operatives in government and on both sides of the island.”
Pulling the list from the printer, he handed it to her.
Angela’s eyes were already perusing the list.
Bishop admired the way she just absorbed everything. He could see her memorizing the list. It was the same attention she’d had every time he pulled a book from the shelf during the first week she’d been his intern. She always knew exactly where to put the books back. She knew his filing system within a few days. He noticed the same rapt attention on his key ring every time he’d used it. He’d most recently seen it when he went through the steps to open the vault. She took it all in instantly. She reminded him so much of his wife.
She started saying something, but Bishop’s eyes were focused on the table they’d just got up from. There was a sheen of sweat there, and he missed his wife at the sight of it. If only he knew where on the island she’d ended up.
It didn’t matter that she’d betrayed him.
It didn’t matter that he’d gone to Alterations because she’d turned him in for reading a banned novel.
“–trust me.”
He only then realized Angela had been saying something. “What did you say?”
Angela shook her head. “Wow, I really shook you, Dr. Bishop. I think you need more practice.” She grabbed his head in both hands and kissed him deeply.
“I said, I want you to know that you can absolutely trust me.”
Bishop nodded, and smiled.
It’s what he’d told his wife before he turned her in for adultery. Adultery was absolutely allowed in East Island, until someone reported it. It was his secret group that had warned him of his wife’s betrayal. He wondered if they’d been partly responsible for his easy time in Alterations. He’d chosen spite when told, and used the time before they came for him to report her adultery.
He probably should have focused on getting his affairs in order, or disappeared into the forest.
Angela was already dressing again and stuffing the list in her pocket. “When I come back tomorrow, will you show me more of it?”
Bishop, still reeling from the sequence of events, answered, “Sure, I’ll even tell you how the Fall was a lie, and that there’s a whole technologically advanced civilization out there past the walls and across the seas. We’re just a breakaway trillionaire’s dream project that ran too long. But our group is going to fix that soon. That’s why we need people like you.”
Like his wife.
“It’s almost time to finish what Tachibana started.”
*
There was just something about West Island that made Greg Bishop smile.
On a clear day, you could see the walls that surrounded the island, cutting every off from the shores and keeping them sequestered in their little 20th century wax museum. Everyone dreamed about what was beyond those walls, and those that sought it out were shot down in their tracks. On East Island, the walls fit in with the city. On West Island they stood out as wrong.
Greg Bishop had been staring at those walls for too long lately. He’d been reading the wrong books. And most recently he’d been trusting the wrong people.
There was just something about East Island that made Greg Bishop frown.
The women. They were all fucking evil, and after years of denying it, though he had the full history of the entire island at his fingertips, Greg Bishop refused to believe that the women of East Island really ran this place. He refused to believe it because it meant that nothing about his little revolt was real.
As he closed his novel, hands grabbed him. Looking at each of the Alterations agents in turn, he saw both Angela’s and his wife’s faces behind the faceplates of their helmets.
Greg Bishop had already been to Alterations once. No one came back from Alterations twice. The final alteration was the ultimate one.
He knew that every name on that list was about to receive the same verdict as he would soon receive.
If the list was even real, the voice said to him. Was any of it real?
The two women, both the only women he’d known physically, pushed him down to his knees.
He looked out to the sea beyond the forest, trying desperately to ignore the wall and the towers.
The black bag dropped over his head snuffed out that last vision, and at the pull of a trigger, Greg Bishop died in West Island.
