Abandoned World: The Awakening

Charlie had thought about it a lot, and he had no other answer. And it turned out that he himself was among those who had voluntarily given up the truth and sat in that capsule for an hour to forget everything… But, on the other hand, that suited him just fine, because he was now the real ruler of the whole world. That's exactly what he thought he was.

I mean, who was he before? Anyone, but certainly not who he was now. He certainly wouldn't let everyone forget the rules he enjoyed forming so much. And improving them over time. He made everyone think they were ruled by an entire council, a council of elders who guarded society with their wisdom. And what it was like for him when he organized it… He gathered the eldest among all, revealed to them the "secrets" of the station and convinced them of the need to preserve them.

He told them that the place they were at was a temporary station on the Moon, a satellite of the Earth, which had been given to him until they were taken away. They must be taken under a set of conditions known only to him. And only he knows how to give a signal, after which the Earthlings will check the necessary conditions, and if they are accepted, will take the people back to Earth.

How he had to go around and around, making up those very conditions almost on the fly, constantly arguing that without him there would be no salvation in any case. After all, the first condition was the preservation of his life and health with full and unconditional obedience to him. It was really hard to argue with this, because he was the one who had revealed the first secret for them — where they were. The secret that was hidden to everyone else, and that the elders could keep within themselves. Especially since it was the elders who were the visible power to everyone else — in this Charlie Haddock was not wrong. He felt that he would only be able to keep his shadow power if the visible power was held by a group of individuals who would become steadfast to leave their rightfulness collectively. Where each elder would rely on something special on his part, inventing his own sacred esoteric knowledge that he could not share with others.

Nothing hides the real truth like the presence of an undisclosed lie. That was a rule Charlie had made for himself. One should always form a lie first, then turn a blind eye to it, claiming that it is impossible for everyone to know it for some vital reason. Everyone will want to know in the end what's behind it. They will want to find out from those who don't know it themselves, but are unable to admit it. And this means that the lie will live forever, feeding itself.

It cost him some thought to come up with Tosca. A prison where he could hide those who didn't want to act according to his rules. Officially, they went there for felonies, that is, serious criminal offenses, which now also included failing to turn over a new medium they'd found. He had one Elder, Peyton Cross, who had volunteered at the council to explain to all the rank and file members of the station why it was so important for the Elders to handle the information initially. Charlie had listened to him in person first, and he found his arguments extremely convincing. He couldn't have thought of it himself. Then Peyton spoke to the other elders, refuting their arguments with his own, and was the winner. And then, when he voiced the decision to the whole station, it was literally his finest hour-he articulated what he had said so many times before with such skill and conviction that even Charlie listened and nodded his head a couple of times. Peyton turned out to be a real godsend for manipulating mass consciousness. Though, admittedly, the others weren't going to be far behind him.

It was surprising how well the elders had gotten into their roles as omniscient and controlling that they had stopped even thinking about actually knowing anything. After all, they had never reminded Charlie Haddock, apart from the first few months of their becoming a Council, that he had promised to tell them in time about the conditions under which they might be taken back to Earth.

As for the prison itself, it did not appear as a separate structure at once. At first it was a distant cargo bay, following the technical rooms, where the oxygen, produced by a number of manipulations directly on the Moon, was filtered. And, of course, it happened that someone escaped from there. To the surface. And there he broke some solar panels, damaged a number of cables and was caught by the security service, which after half an hour of proceedings threw the fugitive back

to the surface, but without a spacesuit.

They regretted it a day later when they found the corpse still lying near the entrance.