“It started pretty soon after you left, although it wasn’t noticeable at first. The kooks who had opposed broadcasting human beings began growing in number and influence. They started arguing that it removed a vital element of life, something that people have had historically, and that without it we were weren’t fully human, we weren’t experiencing the full richness of life. Some crap like that. Anyway, it really caught fire in society, and people began protesting against broadcasting, which just made the movement even more influential. Then three things happened, one right after the other: there were some violent confrontations, the protests multiplied tenfold in response, and then they managed to get some kind of governmental injunction against broadcasting. Not just broadcasting; to ensure that no human being was broadcasting, they forbade any use of synthesis and any use of SHF radio signals. Theoretically, that would only prevent broadcasting a person, but since you were so far away, all of your information was broadcast over SHF as well. When they cut it, your connection stopped.
“As you could guess, forbidding all synthesis caused civilization to collapse. The only way to travel from one planet or moon to another is via old-fashioned rockets. But there have been revolutions, wars, battles, and skirmishes all over the solar system. There have been droughts, famines, epidemics, you name it. Entire populations have been wiped out. Some people refused to obey the injunction against synthesis, primarily to synthesize food and water. That’s the main thing that led to the skirmishes. They would either be attacked by the Liddils, or, more frequently, their neighbors who were desperate for food and water.”
The two men had untied Marc and let him sit in a chair, while the one speaking sat in another, facing him. The other man alternated between pacing back and forth in the small room, and standing behind the first man, glaring at Marc. Marc’s eyes had grown wider and wider with horror as he listened to the kinder—or at least less hostile—of the two men. But at this point, he interrupted. “I’m sorry; ‘attacked by littles’?”
“Liddils. L-I-D-D-I-L. That’s the anti-synthesis nuts. ‘Liddil’ is their slogan.”
“What does it mean?”
“Who the hell cares? They’re murderers. They’re responsible for all the death, all the pain, all the suffering that’s taken place over the last 35 years.”
Marc did some quick addition in his head. “35 years? But you said they started five years after I left.”
“They did.”
“But that doesn’t add up. I took eight and a half years getting to Sirius, spent 15 years there, and another eight and a half getting back. That’s 32 years total. If you subtract the five years from it, it’s only 27.”
“That assumes that we synthesized this nice, new body for you as soon as we received your broadcast. We didn’t. You’ve been in storage for the last eight years.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Who do you think? The Syndicate.”
“I thought you said that civilization collapsed. But the Syndicate is still in control?”
“Well, if by ‘in control’ you mean we still have the power we used to have, then obviously the answer is no. But we still wield more power than any other group in the solar system. We’re at war with with over 20 different factions right now, but only a few of them are serious contenders.”
“But, wait a minute, how could you synthesize me at all? You said there was an injunction against it.”
“There is. We’re violating it, putting ourselves at great risk incidentally, to synthesize you. It seemed an acceptable risk.”
“Acceptable? Why?”
“On the off-chance you could tell us where your girlfriend is. Since you can’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, it turns out that you’re completely useless.”
“Emma? Why in the world would finding her be so important to you?”
“Because she’s the head, the chief, of the Liddils.”
Marc looked at the man in shock. “No. Not her. No, not her.”
“Yes, her.”
Marc looked down at the ground and struggled to keep from openly weeping. Such a display in front of these men who had shown such naked hostility toward him could only give them an even more negative view of him, and that could put him in danger. Danger; he remembered a conversation before he left—was it with Hartman?—about how there was no such thing as danger in a world where you could be resynthesized from your last neural scan if anything happened to you. Now he was actually afraid, although he wasn’t sure of exactly what. Fear of the unknown.
When he was confident he could keep his emotions under control, he raised his head and looked at the two men. “So. You put yourself in danger in order to synthesize me, and then you realize I can’t help you. What are you going to do with me now?”
The second man, the more hostile one, laughed and said, “Well we thought about killing you. You know, so no one would find out what we did. But then we thought death is much too kind for the great Marc Tornsen! Better we should let him live!”
“What? What do you mean?”
The less hostile one held up a hand and said, “Maybe it would be easier to show you.” He stood up, walked over to a table on the other side of the room, picked something up from it, and walked back, holding the object out to Marc as he approached. “Look into this.”
“A mirror? Why?”
“Look.”
Marc, confused, looked into the mirror and then gasped as he saw a face he had never seen before. The image in the mirror gasped with him, turned its head with his. After several long moments, Marc managed to tear his eyes away from the mirror to look at the two men again. “What … why have you done this to me? Why have you given me a different face? I thought you couldn’t alter someone’s face that much.”
“You can, it’s just that the DNA asserts itself, and forces the face and body into the pattern it dictates. It will probably be three years before your face will start looking like the old you. But this will give you plenty of time to hide.”
“Hide?” Marc shook his head. It seemed everything these men said made no sense. “Why would I have to hide?”
The angry one spoke up again. “Because you’re Marc Tornsen, the symbol of everything that’s wrong with the world.”
Marc stared at him for several seconds, then finally, in utter bewilderment, said, “What?”
The less hostile one spoke: “When the Syndicate announced your arrival at Sirius, it was taken over by the Liddils as the representation of everything wrong with synthesis and broadcasting. You are the face of the ‘evil’ they’re fighting against. For us, it’s different. For us, you’re the excuse the Liddils used to commit genocide. We gave you a different face so you wouldn’t be torn apart the moment anyone lays their eyes on you.”
“Congratulations Tornsen,” said the angry one. “You’re the most despised human being who’s ever lived.”