How Society Worked

Cirice sat in her classroom waiting for the period to start. The guest speaker was a little bit late, but he was going to tell them how society worked. It was a rite of passage for everyone to get a lecture like this when they reached high school. It was one of the very first classes of the first year. Even though his arrival had been delayed due to interdimensional conflict, a real-life PlunderCorp Major was coming to speak. Previously, Region 2 School 28 had the privilege of having a General speak. However, this was many years ago. Now, the Generals only spoke at the largest schools in the classier parts of cities. School 28 was in the city and was certainly large enough, but the students there were at the poorer end of the spectrum. They usually just had a private or a recruiter speak.

The Major arrived with disheveled hair and a wrinkled uniform. Although the students were too far away from him to notice, he reeked of gin from the night before. With some effort, he made it behind the podium. His dead eyes scanned the room of children. The bright lights bombarding his retinas stung and activated a headache.

“Hello kids, sorry I’m late. I’m Major Brodyn Smith, a representative from PlunderCorp, and I’m here to tell you all what we do. Everything that you can buy at the store, every material of every building in this city, and even the air you breathe is here thanks to our state-run company.”

Cirice listened intently, but not because she was interested in joining PlunderCorp. Instead, she carefully analyzed every word that he said in order to pick apart his story. Her parents were radicals and strongly opposed PlunderCorp for ethical reasons.

“You may be wondering how we get these materials. That’s a great question. What we do is go into alternate dimensions and harvest their natural resources using high-tech equipment. After we bring them back here, we can unload our trash into the alternate dimension. I mean, why not? It’s not being used by anyone.”

Cirice couldn’t believe her ears. They were implying that none of the other dimensions they traveled to were inhabited at all. She had already seen the pictures and videos, though. Before they disappeared from social media, she had even downloaded several. 3-dimensional holographic projectors began to bring up some images.

“Every once in a while, we come across some powerful wild animals and deformed monsters. This is the result of a habitat shift in an alternate dimension, a cross between a lion and a tortoise. We call it a lortoise.”

Several of the kids laughed as Brodyn spun the image and zoomed in on the head and drew attention to the thick shell on the back. Cirice knew that lions and tortoises couldn’t mate, so this had to be a lie from the state.

“As you can see, it has the legs of a lion, impressive mane and jaws, and a thick shell. We had a very difficult time killing this one when it attacked our unit. Thank goodness for SCOP weapons, am I right?”

Even though Brodyn seemed completely mentally checked out, the crowd was absolutely eating it up. Cirice felt like she was going insane. How were people believing any of this?

“Speaking of SCOP, I need to tell you all about the cool weapons that we get to use on the frontlines.”

Many of the boys were struggling to contain their excitement while Cirice was on the brink of repeatedly slamming her head into the table. An aide rolled a suitcase into the classroom. Brodyn opened it up and assembled the rifle. He spoke as he put it together.

“This was the very first SCOP rifle, the R-1000. It was used back in the 22nd century to shoot through tanks. This rifle was the very first handheld railgun. That means instead of using gunpowder like those before it, the bullets were shot using powerful electromagnets. This technology had already existed before, but it took all of the power needed to run a city for a few days and the previous railguns were gigantic. Then, because of SCOP, a gun that could fire bullets at Mach 8 was in the hands of our infantry. Using heavy materials like Tungsten and Osmium alloys for bullets, they could shoot right through enemy tanks like paper targets.”

The gun was massive, built like a sniper rifle. From end to end, it had to be around 8 feet long. The thick carbon steel walls of the barrel were a deep black, but was shiny enough to reflect some light. The kids were transfixed on the weapon, and a couple of the boys started to drool. Almost nobody noticed the aide bringing out the second suitcase as footage of the R-1000 played on the holographic projector. Brodyn started assembling the second rifle.

“The R-1000 served its purpose well. It was an anti-material rifle that could go into the hands of some select infantry. However, SCOP wanted to make something a little more versatile. That’s where the R-2000 came into play. There are three general parts of this weapon, the pistol, the case, and the attachments.”

Brodyn showed how the electromagnetically powered pistol could attach inside of a case that converted it into a marksman rifle, then the type of bump stock it used to become a fully automatic assault rifle.

“These types of weapons have been very useful on the frontlines, shooting bullets at higher speeds than many sniper rifles of the past and at higher rates than most old-school machine guns. This was a massive leap in our weapons technology.”

A third suitcase was rolled out. Brodyn began assembling the weapon.

“This is the R-3000, a rifle that doesn’t even need bullets. Instead, it fires powerful shockwaves that are concentrated to a single direction like light in a laser. The ability to do this sort of thing was quite the challenge, and this weapon arrived in the middle of the 23rd century… but now, we have something new.”

Instead of a suitcase, a fully assembled R-4000 was brought out by the assistant, already assembled.

“Thank you. This one takes too long to assemble- it’s a little too complicated. This is the R-4000. Instead of bullets or shockwaves, it shoots disc-shaped portals out of its wide, flat barrel. The portals separate whatever it hits, cutting the target in half. The portal teleports what’s on top of it up a little and what’s below it down a little.”

Footage of a lortoise being shot with one and getting cleanly decapitated was played. The students cheered almost in unison. Cirice, however, wasn’t impressed. She knew it cost over 850 trillion in taxpayer dollars to develop. Brodyn was finally starting to wake up.

“This weapon can teach us a lot about our history. Since its design, we have used portals in a variety of different ways. PlunderCorp’s interdimensional portals came from the breakthrough used to develop this very weapon! Do we have any questions?”

Cirice raised her hand, and Brodyn motioned her to ask her question.

“About these alternate dimensions, are they just as old as ours and use the same physical laws? If so, how do animals like the ‘lortoise’ come to be?”

“Good question. Honestly, I have no idea. We’re trying to do some research into that, but at the end of the day, we just follow our orders and collect resources. Anything else?”

Cirice alone raised her hand again.

“Uh, you again.”

“How do you harvest the resources so fast? Even with our advanced technology, it seems like these small teams wouldn’t be able to work that quickly.”

“We uh, we get a lot of help. Next person?”

Cirice raised her hand a third time. Her hand was the only one up in the room.

“You have an awful lot of questions, don’t you?”

“Sorry, I’m just a curious girl. Do we know how many other dimensions there are? And what would happen if we ran out?”

Brodyn laughed.

“That one’s above my pay grade, sweetheart. Anyone else?... Alright, I need to get back to the base. Thanks for being great listeners!”

The crowd wasn’t quite as enthusiastic. Some put the pieces together that they stole first and asked questions later, but most still cheered. Cirice felt like she did a good job with her questions, but they wouldn’t have done her any favors socially. Being critical of the current accepted way of life wasn’t cool, and it made some teachers wary of her. Sometimes she felt like she could only talk to her parents about her concerns, and that definitely wasn’t “cool”. Moving on to her next class, she thought about what she could do.