Freedom by Daniel Suárez Read Free Book Online Page B

architecture.” He turned back to Sebeck. “And yet this pueblo was built almost a thousand years ago. At the very apex of Anasazi civilization.”
    With a wave of his hand, glowing D-Space lines suddenly began to extend from the ruins, rising to complete the walls all around them—filling in the missing gaps and extending translucent 3-D walls and roofs above and around them. The immense structure was being rebuilt before their eyes. Pottery, possessions, and other objects appeared as though filling in a level map for a video game.
    Avatars of Anasazi Indians walked through the doorway bearing baskets. Others moved through the rooms on their daily business, speaking to one another in their native tongue. Children ran past Sebeck, laughing. He could hear water flowing and song. Anasazi civilization had come back to life around them.
    Price whistled behind him. “O-M-F-G ...”
    Sobol’s avatar appeared to gaze approvingly on the scene.
    “This structure contained six hundred rooms and rose as high as six stories. It was the tallest man-made construct in North America until the steel girder buildings of Chicago in the 1880s. The Anasazi supplied it with a network of eighty-foot-wide irrigation canals. They built four hundred miles of ruler-straight roads linking their capitol to seventy-five outlying communities. They flourished here for centuries.”
    Sobol walked up to Sebeck and leaned on his cane. “Why did they perish, Sergeant? And so suddenly at the height of their achievements?”
    Sebeck turned to observe the spectral avatars of ancient Anasazi priests coming into the great room in a procession, chanting. Like long departed spirits.
    Sobol moved to let them pass. The priests didn’t notice him or Sebeck, but continued chanting as a spectral fire raged in the central fire pit, casting shadows that did not include either Sebeck or Sobol.
    Sobol watched the priests closely. “Their fate holds important lessons for twenty-first-century man—because we are not exempt from nature’s laws. When the survival strategy of a civilization is invalidated, in all of human history none have ever turned back from the brink. When presented with disruptive change, without exception they perish.”
    Sobol raised his arms, and with a wave of his hands the entire D-Space scene vanished—leaving only the real-world ruins again. And silence.
    Sobol walked up to a ruinous window and looked out across the moonlit desert landscape. “But Anasazi civilization encompassed only this small region. By contrast our industrial civilization encompasses the entire earth. And should it falter, the resulting conflicts have the capacity to exterminate all human life.”
    Sobol gestured where the Indian priests had stood just moments before. “They made a simple enough mistake. The same one we’re making. They founded their society on resource extraction, and in doing so, inflated their population beyond the carrying capacity of the land. They cut down all the trees and expanded arable land with irrigation projects. Until finally there were no more trees. And their topsoil washed away. And when drought came, their highly centralized society fell apart in bloodshed in a few short years.”
    Sobol walked to the edge of the now cold fire pit and poked it with his illusory cane. “Instead of adapting, their leaders clung to power and strove instead to be the last ones to starve to death. The Mayan civilization in South America did the same, and I expect our own civilization will do likewise. The people behind the modern global economy will prevent any meaningful change until it’s too late.”
    The avatar looked to Sebeck. “But the question that needs to be answered is whether civilization’s inability to adapt is a failure of leadership—or an unwillingness in humanity itself.
    “Your quest comes at a critical time in human history, Sergeant. It’s time we knew whether a durable democracy is possible—one whose laws are not just