Chapter 1
SILENCE

The world was still the same, but the Blox family had been transformed. After traveling deep inside the Earth to visit the Great Hall, everything was different. They started to see things that never bothered them before—but now they were concerned. Science was being used to make life more of a shadow than a reality. The news was more of a fabrication than a real documentation of facts. Advertisements were promoting illusions to make people follow a contrived path to a poor replacement for true happiness. Sadness had been classified as a disease and was treated with drugs that numbed the brain. People were following the pied piper1 in a trance with eyes blind to the true path to joy and peace. Free will was being coerced to follow the Creature and worship him. Robots did not have free will and were not capable of understanding this attack on humanity. But the people in the Great Hall had been watching for years, and now the Blox family and their friends were given the task to open the eyes of the world.

After returning to the castle, Seymour found sleep out of his reach. It was after midnight and he was sitting at the table in the kitchen sipping tea when Ruby, dressed in her pajamas and bathrobe, entered the room. She made herself a cup of tea and sat down next to her husband.

“The twins fell asleep in front of their computer,” she whispered after taking a careful sip of tea. Then she added, “I managed to get them into bed but they wanted to go back to whatever they are working on.”

Seymour smiled knowing her biggest concern was always for the children. He turned to face Ruby and with a sad face mumbled, “We were given an impossible mission. I don’t think we can do it.”

“What!” Ruby exclaimed. “Where is my husband? You look like the man I married. You resemble the man that helped save the world from a pandemic and eliminated the great lockdown. Except for that sad look on your face, I would think you were he. What happened? Did someone steal your happy pills?”

Seymour’s expression did not change. He looked down into his teacup and muttered, “I guess so.”

In a calm voice and a clever smile Ruby concluded with, “Well, whoever took them, I hope they’re happy.”

Seymour first chuckled and then looked at his wife’s huge grin and after another small giggle said, “You sure do know how to soften a disastrous situation. How did you get so smart?”

She never answered his question but replied, “Let’s finish our tea and head back to the bedroom. We have a big day tomorrow and we will need some sleep.”

Despair quickly returned and Seymour sadly mumbled as he turned his eyes back to his cup of tea, “We cannot change the world. The Creature and his followers have obscured everything we did in the past. People cannot see past the poison fruit being offered. What could I ever do to change the minds of these misguided people? Free will has been turned into momentary satisfaction and feared regulation. I have no answer for fighting these evil forces.”

Ruby had never seen this look of anguish on her husband’s face before. She had never felt the deep despair in his words before. Not knowing what to do she slowly rose from her chair and went to the counter to rinse her teacup and place it on a towel lying on the counter by the sink. Silently she left the kitchen and walked down the hall to the balcony with the two-seat glider and sat thinking in the dark. After a long soft cry she whispered, “I need your help. If anyone can hear me, please tell me what to do.” She was surprised and quickly sat up when a man’s voice declared, “What seems to be your problem? Perhaps I can help.”

In a dark corner of the balcony, unnoticed by Ruby when she entered, stood Jason the group beta or Betazoid android2. He was highly skilled in all things medical and had returned with the family from the Great Hall to help in their mission. When he approached Ruby, the smile on his face, the blue shirt he was wearing, and his artificial skin made him look more human than robotic. Jason knew that looking down at someone when talking was very intimidating, so he sat on the floor in front of Ruby, took her hand and looking up asked, “What is the problem?”

Ruby found his gentle approach and the warmth of his hand soothing. She replied, “It’s Seymour. He seems to be in a deep state of depression and I don’t know what to do.”

“Has he ever been like this before?” Jason asked.

“No, never,” Ruby answered. “And he has never refused to go to bed with me before.”

“It is probably not clinical or major depression3. I will take a look at him and run some tests. He will not be aware that I am scanning him so it will not add to his condition. You need to try and get some sleep and we can discuss this further in the morning,” Jason added.

Ruby did not think she could sleep, but Jason’s gentle voice and warm touch compelled her to at least try. They both went back to the kitchen and found Seymour asleep with his head lying on one arm on the table. Ruby took his empty teacup to the sink, rinsed it out, and put it next to her cup on the towel while Jason carefully got Seymour to his feet. In a daze, Seymour mumbled, “What’s up?”

Ruby replied, “It’s time for bed.” She took his hand and helped him shuffle his way to the bedroom where he mechanically took off his outer garments, shoes, and socks then plopped on the bed and pillow.

During the journey to the bedroom, Jason performed all known medical scans4 on Seymour’s brain and found no irregularities. His programming led him to wait to see if sleep might make things better. When Ruby placed her bathrobe on the chair next to her side of the bed he commented, “After a good night’s sleep things may be better. I will see you in the morning,” and proceeded to leave the room.

During his exit, Ruby replied, “Thank you Jason. Good night.”

The next few days were difficult for Ruby. Seymour responded to simple questions but refused to say anything about the mission. Robyn told Ruby that he has not communicated telepathically with any of the androids since returning from the Great Hall. Jason ran every test and concluded that Seymour was using his free will to go silent when conversations were about the mission. Because all of the androids were programmed to respond to questions and did not have free will to refuse, this was a problem they could not understand or fix. Ruby’s ability to experience empathy let her feel his struggle but offered no solution to the problem.

Before the return from the Great Hall, the Creature had concluded that Seymour was one of the main reasons past plans to control everyone had not succeeded. The Creature knew that failure was a bitter pill to swallow. Therefore, this master of demons sent many to whisper in Seymour’s ear that changing the world was impossible. Constant whispers of failure to change the world made the evil ones able to convince Seymour the best action to take was to remain silent. Even Ruby’s great love could not block these whispers of disaster.

Paul and Ester waited two days for Seymour to get everyone organized, but heard nothing. On the third day, they asked Robyn to set up a meeting to discuss the plan for waking up the world. On the day after Paul’s request, they all gathered in the large chamber of the palace at the time Robyn had set. After everyone was seated, Robyn explained, “The purpose of this assembly is to clearly define the undertaking we all agreed to and the role each will play to accomplish this task. Paul would like to propose a simple statement to define our mission.” Everyone turned to look at Paul when Robyn stopped talking.

Paul glanced at his notebook, looked up, and stated, “I propose we call this project ‘Wakeup World.’ No one liked the name and there were many negative comments.

Andy laughingly said, “It sounds like an alarm clock,” and others followed with similar statements.

Paul requested, “Then what do you suggest we call our project?”

Many hours of discussion finally ended with a majority agreeing on ‘Illuminating Truth’ as the name for the mission. During the debate, Ruby would ask Seymour to help but he would just shrug his shoulders and look down at his hands on the table. He kept hearing whispers of how his words could lead them in the wrong direction and failure would be his fault. He chose silence as the best action he could take.

Paul ended the meeting by setting up the next gathering in two days. He asked everyone to bring their plans on how they would proceed to ‘Illuminate Truth,’ and what they might need from others in the group. Then turning toward Seymour he asked, “Would you like to add anything?”

Seymour said nothing, but shook his head to respond with no.

Paul added, “How about a closing prayer?”

Seymour shocked everyone by answering with the same non-verbal response of no, rising, and leaving the room. For the next two weeks the group held many meetings, but Seymour did not attend any of them. Nobody could figure out what had made him go into this shell of silence. Even the people in the Great Hall were mystified and could not offer a cure.

The Creature was pleased at the success his demons had on shutting Seymour down. He sent even more of his evil spirits to intensify the attack and told them they would turn him...