Indigo Ch. 10

Sam had been awake for a while. She had showered, tidied the small living area, and was now watching the flow of people through the courtyard below. After her conversation with Dr. Franklind, she felt compelled to get to know this place, and Edward.

She heard a knock at her door. She hurriedly pulled on her jacket, and headed over. Much to her surprise she was not greeted by the short black-haired man she was expecting. Today, Tobi and his blonde curls appeared as she opened the door. He had pulled his hair back, exposing his bright eyes and dimples. It was hard to see his happy face and not find him adorable. He carried coffee and a bag containing muffins.

"You are not exactly who I was expecting." Sam said, with a small sign of disappointment.

"You're not pleased to see me?" Tobi asked as he walked into her room and started to look around. "You really didn't have much with you when you moved in, did you? I guess it's hard to earn any credits moving around as much as you did."

"Actually, I deal only with cash. I never actually connected an account to my ID."

"No wonder they wanted you here. You have already been brainwashed." His smug tone had irritated Edward, but Sam found it slightly charming. He was arrogant without a doubt. But when he had his attention focused on you, it was easy to see it as confidence.

"I resent that. Especially after the video you people put together." Sam wanted it to be apparent she was still upset over the film. It was not appropriate to put her through that, and if she stayed long enough, she hoped to put an end to that video all together. Tobi ignored her comment and was still looking around her room, paying attention to her lack of personal possessions. So Sam continued. "It was getting hard to live without credit though. The entire country has almost converted now. On the news, they talked about how the President planned to phase out paper currency in the next two years. Just like they had phased out coins in his first term."

"That doesn't surprise me. It will keep people like you from staying free for very much longer." He gave her a wink. But, Sam noticed a small amount of concern in his voice. He had not known about the change in currency. It was obvious that The Commune was as disconnected from society as they seemed.

"So what are you doing here today? You are not the one usually assigned to Samantha detail."

"I came to take over for a few days." He looked up at her, finally content that he had inspected everything in the room.

"Why?" Sam was not pleased. She had every intention of telling Edward off about the video the next time she saw him. Apparently that would have to wait. "Did he take a vacation then?"

"Yeah. Between the both of us, it was much-needed. It is easy to start taking this place too seriously. When they got here, Edward was so wild. Rose used to threaten to kick us out weekly. But, she kept us around. It has just been so tense around here recently. The Indigo staff are all working really intense hours. They are spending so much time fighting against what is happening to the rest of the country that they forget to enjoy being separate from it."

"So she hasn't fired him." There was disappointment in Sam's voice. She knew Edward was too important for Rose to dismiss him, but she had hoped he was at least in trouble. Sam wondered if all the staff was so stressed because they were searching for her, or if there was something else going on. Maybe Edward deserved some sympathy for being so overwhelmed. However, in an attempt to keep from dwelling on a situation she could not control, she brought her attention back to the man before her. "So I am guessing you aren't Indigo staff?"

"Nope. I volunteered to keep you entertained, and I am an awesome tour guide though." He winked and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her out the door.

Tobi lead her from the building she had stayed in, and away from the rest of The Commune. The path was steep, but the gravel road indicated it was used with frequency. In an opening in the forest, Sam found a farm complete with livestock and gardens. She was introduced to the farm director Cameron and her husband Gregory Temple. After a tour of the buildings and paddocks, Sam could sense that they were eager to share their story for her. It was as if they knew about her experience a few nights ago, and were trying a change of tactic. It was sincere though, and they wanted her to trust them. Their warm personalities had struck Sam at once, and she decided to stay for a drink and hear about what brought them to The Commune.

In a former life, Cameron had worked for a large agriculture business as a data analyst. As part of her job she had visited a feedlot where cattle were processed for slaughter. Though the industry had created fast growing, hearty, large cows, they wanted to reduce their death rate in the pens. When she walked unto the property, she heard screaming. It was so loud that it had brought her to her knees. None of her counterparts had experienced it. Thinking she was stressed and overworked, the company sent her out on medical leave. That is when she had met her husband Gregory. Together they discovered that she could channel the basic feelings of animals: fear, discomfort, and content. Tobi had a gift for growing plants. He ran the gardens at The Commune and convinced her to come live with him. They had lived at The Commune for a decade.

The couple talked extensively to Sam about how their practices had been transformed in the past few years. They were able to process plants and animals with absolutely no waste through composting and management practices. The small farm could support up to two hundred adult residents at one time with no need for fertilizers or pesticides. Sam was intrigued to learn that G&G Pharmatech was also one of the leaders in pesticide and fertilizer production in the country. She knew them only for their pharmaceutical work. When Sam seemed confused by the relationship, Gregory explained that on a fundamental level the science was all the same. Creating medications meant to heal those with human DNA was not all that different from finding chemicals to kill those with insect or finding chemicals to promote growth in organisms with plant DNA. He had even invited her to take part in the biochemistry class he was teaching for the upper school students to help her better understand how closely the two were related.

The next day, Tobi arrived with coffee and breakfast in hand. Sam was relieved by how easy her time with Tobi was. He was calm and playful in a way she had never experienced. She was allowed to be herself, without any interference by what he was feeling. Though she found it curious that he was able to guard his emotions so securely, it was a relief to be with him. Many of the residents here carried a huge sense of burden and tension, and Tobi was able to pull her into a bubble of emotional quiet when he was around.

Sam spent the next day touring the library. It came as a surprise to Sam that not all information was available via the internet. Despite what the government professed, there were parts of recorded human history that the normal public was not privy to. Tobi pulled up sites concerning all manner of exceptional news and articles; people with unexplained abilities, editorials documenting fear of the rising Corporate Party, and scientific articles proving the detrimental affects of varying chemical compounds. At The Commune they could access articles and data that were not available to the mass public through a connected web of computers kept in secure locations across the country.

Sam stared at the screen in front of her, while Tobi continued to pull up various articles.

"So who writes all of this? If everything in the news is being run through the corporations, who has the resources to put this together?" Sam was staring at different article titles skeptically.

"Indigo pays for most of these studies to be done now. In the past though, there were lots of groups publishing research and trying to let the public know what was happening. They just weren't loud enough to stop the momentum. If you check the dates, anything prior to the current Presidency could have been written by any number of people. Anything after that would be funded by Indigo."

"Edward told me that Indigo also works for the government and major businesses. Isn't that a serious conflict of interests?" Sam asked.

"Of course it is. My theory is that Indigo wants to keep their enemy as close as possible. And after what you said about the currency, Indigo will need that relationship to keep The Commune open." Sam thought about what Tobi was saying. It had to be impossible to work with the government and corporations without them knowing about The Commune. But, then again, Sam had learned so much in the past few days. If Indigo could stay hidden from the public in the age of information, it couldn't be much harder to stay hidden from everyone.

One of the major things that Sam had noticed on her tours around the campus was a surprising lack of mobile technology usage. She had yet to see a mobile phone, tablet, or WC on anyone. For that matter, it appeared that anyone wearing glasses actually needed them to correct their vision. It had been a long time since she had seen so many faces in one place that were free of the WC's that had become so popular. She explained to Tobi how the glasses had exploded in usage once Congress had approved national Wi-Fi. Those listening in on their conversation in the library gave an audible gasp.

Sam was confused by their reaction. Tobi explained to Sam how all electronic devices emit varying levels of radiation. Wireless computing requires high energy, invisible radio waves running through the buildings or projected into a larger area. The Commune was built far away from civilization in order to avoid as much of this background radiation as possible. Those that were extra sensitive had a hard time differentiating normal senses and the noise that they experienced with this radiation. They were sometimes labeled with autism or schizophrenia or fibromyalgia or a host of other illnesses. Those with sensitivities were constantly being bombarded by what normal people couldn't feel. It overloaded their senses. Tobi pointed out that, obviously, no place is free from radio waves but they can be minimized. At The Commune they limit outside radiation by having buildings lined with cement and a thin layer of lead. The windows included an ultra-fine aluminum mesh that served to ground out most of the major electromagnetic waves that came through the windows. People were allowed to use electronics indoors, but the infrastructure offered an escape to those that were most affected.

It dawned on Sam that the quiet she had experienced, though somewhat attributed to everyone's avoidance of her, was also because she could no longer hear the hum of electronics around her. Though eerie when she first arrived, it was now peaceful. The resident's here could actually experience peace and quiet.