Chapter 27: Damage Control, Morgan POV (Patreon)

Chapter 27

Damage Control

Morgan POV

Melody wanted me to record more interviews. Her arrival and our marriage had people asking questions. Questions they would answer themselves if we didn’t do it for them. So, I sat in my sky yacht’s studio surrounded by half a dozen floating cameras while Fernando, the AI interviewer projected as a hologram, asked questions.

“Do you love your wife?” Fernando asked, glancing at his holographic note.

“No, but I respect her.”

He frowned, contorting his Italian features. “You’ve only known her for a little over a week, so I would have thought you a fool if you had said you loved her, but I find it equally unsettling that you respect her so quickly?”

A laughed, and it was genuine. Fernando was good at his job and very easy to get along with. We had done this many times before, and he had made almost every interview enjoyable.

“I’ll admit I wasn’t sure about her to begin with. Melody is bubbly and cheerful, so not exactly the type of person you think of when you think of someone creating a nation. But she wrote the entire constitution on the first night she arrived and finished laying out the system of laws that will govern Mars the following day. During that time, she also dealt with companies trying to use Mars as a tax haven, and established a website which announced what she was building to the world. Since then, she hasn’t stopped working inside and outside the Game. I have lawyers, accountants, financial and military advisors looking over everything she does, and no one can find a single fault in her work. So yes, I respect her and her abilities.”

“But you don’t love her.”

“No.”

Fernando paused and then took a deep breath to sigh dramatically. “It must be difficult being married to someone you don’t know and don’t love.”

“My dad gave me some advice after he found out what was going to happen and before I met Melody. He said there are many people who have arranged marriages. Those that make them work are the ones that go into them willing to love the other person, not right away, but in the future. I’ve thought about that a lot over the last week, and I think he’s right. When you start any new relationship, you’re looking for reasons to love this new person. You’re looking for reasons to give up your most precious resource, your time. So that’s what I’m doing, I’m looking for reasons to love her?”

“Have you found any?”

I paused, not wanting to answer. “That’s a little personal, Fernando.”

“And asking if you love your wife isn’t?”

“Touché. I suppose the honest answer is that I’m not sure. I’ve found reasons to like who she is. I’ve found reasons to respect her. It’s still too early to say if those reasons are something that will make me love her. We haven’t clicked yet.”

“Is that important to you?”

I chuckled, suddenly nervous. “It would make things easier. But I’m not sure how important it is. I’ve dated women I clicked with when we met, and I’ve dated women I haven’t. Since I’m not married to any of them, I can’t say it’s important.”

Fernando flipped a page in his notes. “That’s not how most people would think in your situation, I imagine?”

“Most people wouldn’t end up in this situation.”

Fernando chuckled and shook his head. “You likely only believe that because you were born in America. Arranged marriages actually make up the largest portion of marriages on Earth.”

I stopped to stare at him, unsure if I had heard him correctly. “It does?”

Fernando nodded. “Yes. I did a little research. Statistically, across Earth’s population, 55% of marriages are arranged, making it the norm, not the exception. You only treat arranged marriages as a foreign concept because you’re American. If you look online, you will find several hundred large forums that talk about this topic.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I’m aware. However, I doubt this information will help you. Their culture is not your culture, so the norms they experience differ from what you will experience in the same situation. Having an arranged marriage in one of these cultures, you would be surrounded by friends and family who had gone through the same situation. They would be able to give helpful advice for what you should expect and limit your expectations to something reasonable.”

“Was that a question?”

Fernando glanced at his note. “I suppose not. What are your impressions of the recent abolishment of the UK parliament? The King received rejuvenation treatment like everyone else thanks to you and has a very long life once again ahead of him. There are whispers that the monarchy might have decided to actively manage the UK once again.”

The events he was talking about were still less than an hour old. Nicholas’s destructive display was the reason I had to scramble to record this interview.

“I think the situation in the UK taught us something important and that Nicolas Thistlebush’s actions were justified but excessive. The Peacekeepers might have killed off the worst of humanity, but they didn’t kill off every unscrupulous person on Earth. We now live in a world where lifetimes can be measured in millennia. The wrong people in power could lead to eternal dark ages of repression.”

“That’s an unpleasant thought.”

“It get worse. Our governments in the West are built on the idea of constant change. People are voted in and voted out, changing with the times and the will of the people. Someone who invests early used to only experience fifty years of compound interest, and then they died. What happens when they experience a thousand years? The needs of someone who is three centuries old are different to those who are thirty, and none of our current legal or financial systems are ready for this change. There were people waiting for their grandparents to pass away because it was the only way they could afford a house. Their grandparents are now as young as they are, and house prices and land prices are rising at a horrendous rate.”

“When immortality is possible, land and space are finite.”

“Exactly.”

“Is that why Mar’s won’t be selling land?”

“Yes. We’re looking to the future, not in a decade or two, but a thousand years from now. The majority of factions can maintain their populations between Cycles. They have very stringent birth control laws that stop things from getting out of control.”

“Will Mar’s have such laws?”

“Not in the beginning. With an additional world, the human population can expand without complications, but there will be a point where it can’t, and we will have to make changes then.”

“So, you wouldn’t be against the King taking back control of the UK?”

“The UK isn’t mine to control. I don’t get to decide what happens there. If he has the power to take back control, it’s up to him to wield it, and it’s up to the people of the UK to decide whether they want to respect that.”

“If you were him, what would you do?”

I smiled. “That’s easy. I would contact Melody and ask her for advice. She’s the only person on the planet that can help build a legal system and nation that will last.”