Attached to the rear of the Museum of the Unison rests a domed addition, an auditorium maintained for the sole purpose of educating the next generation of scholars to scrutinize the past. It exists behind the history, yet ahead of a zoned off area set to be lovingly crafted into an elevated park and reading atrium come summertime. Past ahead. Future behind it. The addition could be said to be wedged in the proverbial present in the scheme of things.

Continuum.

Transparent aluminum is the dome's makeup, a shining emblem coated in warped amethyst solar paneling. Steel frames jut out and around the dome, rising into five spires dotted in holes to take in rainwater. As the chilling rainfall renewed its assault on the surface world, these spires pinged with every drop to hit their metallic surfaces. A soft harmony, playing out above the roof of an educational greenhouse, a set of tinny organ pipes making harmonies while they took in the deluge, funneled it down below the ground where a system of algal layers and mineral sheeting purified and renewed..

Raindrops by the trillion. Plummeting. Making harmonic sounds. Collected. Stored. Filtered. Nature's bounty.

As the rhythm of the climate played out above, the interior of the auditorium lit up. Warm white ambiance illuminated a round wall of carbon fiber railings, balustrades, one after another, rising up almost to the bottom end of the clear gem-colored dome. Between those rails, cushioned black seat behind folding desks, electric charge ports beneath. An elegant aqua carpet brought together the stark black balustrade and seat with the clarity of the white walls with maple wood crown molding. Four electronic horizontal blueboards formed a crescent down on the floor, the center circle of the auditorium. A podium of marble stood alone, ahead of the boards. Softness.

Into this cushion came the students. Some wiped cold from weary eyes, lack of sleep the result of too much study, or an overabundance of socialization. Others sped into the auditorium, brimming with excitement to learn new things, populate unused brain cells with fervent synaptic charges, sensory download, intellectual pursuits. They all wore heavy coats, biopolymers in pastel colors, young persons thinking of spring as they endured the blight of winter. Hands removed hats, caps, scarves monochrome and striped and sat down, filling up the auditorium to await the day's lesson.

Whispers between classmates. Soft smiles. Holographic tablets turned on, plugged in.

Marvus, the historian, strode into the center, sans the coat. He entered like a man on a mission, serious, fierce even.

Bodies still waking up? Perfect!

On the move, he waved hands over the blueboards, trusted the programming he set up before walking in to do its thing. On each board, tiny light beams rose in shades of cerulean, light blue and white. Holographic hard light, tactile and bright. Cities formed from the illumination, each one as distinct from the other as fingerprints were from one person to another. Once they rose, Marv dropped his satchel into a chair and got down to business.

"Ontillad. Masara. Eope. Seemanna. The four cities of the Tetrarchy Coalition. Each one resting on many levels, the ruins of previous incarnations of metropolitan life. Ontillad has the most, at least nine subterranean levels of archaeological amazement at last count. But certainly, you all know this part already." He scanned the auditorium. Faces remained indistinct, eyes hazy.

While he waited for signs of life, the storm cloud, Klavin, altered the climate from sleepy lethargy to static chaos. He wore a slate gray turtleneck and black, creased military pants emboldened by chrome striping down the sides. Down the center of the turtleneck, a blood red stripe of fabric. Black gloves, silver fur at the wrists. His entourage entered behind him, dressed the same save for ebony military jackets and wired earpieces added for security detail. Students began to twitch in their seats, somnambulistic expressions turned foul. Marv could track the disease, negative emotion, spreading across the auditorium, plague of nano-locusts. He felt its intense expression, rather than visualizing its inherent values as his friend Daya could (she being unique in this respect). Heavy, intense barometric pressure. At its center, an emotional void. Klavin, Eye of the Tumult.

He affects an entire student body? How? Why?

Students were antsy, as if each developed an instantaneous skin rash.

"Can we get on with the lecture, so it can be over?" one asked, teeth clicked together.

Ignore her chiding. Think!

Marv approached the young plaintiff, attaching a smile to his face en route. He thought of Salima, how free she must feel to be able to leave the country and explore! Hair blowing in foreign wind, toes dug into the sands of some faraway beach, while native women and children played, laughed. It lifted his mood, and he realized how much Salima meant to him.

He wants to play again? Fine. He's wide band, and very good, if not the best. Breathe. Relax. Narrow your focus.

The fertile sed of positive thought germinated as the aura of instructor connected with that of the student. The young woman, curled into a hunch, sat erect. Her wearisome visage resisted the tug of emotional gravity and extended into a hearty smile, cheeks rosy.

"What's your name, miss?"

"Veromique," she whispered.

"Veromique! Wonderful! A good old Arimian name. I take it you're from the island?" Marv inhaled deep, despite the infectious blight of Gray taking up space. He narrowed his emotive vision, eyes locked on this one student, as he recalled the artistry of the tabletop and coffee mug earlier, the harmony of rain on glass.

"Y-yes. I immigrated two years ago." She looked up. Her frown lifted, not a lot, but enough to dispel the dread constricting the flow of the class.

"Perfect. Tell me, Miss Veromique, what is the primary energy source of Masara?" He smiled, the type that offers welcoming.

She returned one in kind, eyes shifting to the side to express the frustration still within, but the young lady was, yes, fighting off the cloud of gloom.

Marv glanced up at Klavin, the cold, unreadable ambassador, come to observe while playing games all his own. Then, he returned to the blueboards, chest full of fighting air, aura blown out like a boxer after scoring a knockout blow.

"Power. There are many reactions to this word. This day, we'll narrow it to engines of civilization, specifically, solar, wind, geothermal and the like. What powers cities?"

His spine went cold. Evil dog. An emotional attack, from behind. Self doubt, striking as a beam of darkness, went directly at Marv. He stiffened. Fingers gripped the nearest blueboard. Salima. Good coffee. Matching wardrobe. Unity. My students...need...me!

Eyes closed for a second, just enough. Exhale! As air escaped, Marv entered the kaleidoscope of his heart, pulled up every remembrance, from motherly hugs in childhood to the exhilaration of free running across the rooftops of Masara.

Pain of gloom died off, and he heard a cough from the upper rung of the auditorium. Klavin Deerkind, sniper, slipped.

Marv whirled around, grinning ear to ear. "Ontillad! Situated beside the Coveted Sea and boasting a fabulous harbor, the capital city of the TC, it naturally takes advantage of sea power to operate its electrical systems. With a population of nineteen million, a century ago it was said that wave power and hydroelectricity could never sustain the capital. Too complex. Too many machines instead of the old power stations we once ran on coal and vitriol. Then again, many Last Age politicians were either sponsored by those who mined those limited resources, or worked in their once glorious sky high offices, raking in millions in physical and digital currencies. But the large hydroelectric funnel north of the city, built sixty-nine years ago, proved how much power one could generate."

A hand waved over the blueboard of Ontillad, with its spread out features, save for City Center, its broad wildlife highways with verdant flora, long docks doubling as parks stretching out over the water. Salt thriving trees planted into the docks displayed visible, thick roots below the planks. Marv admired the artificial view, how well the hologram gave off such a vivid representation of the capital. Colors. Light capture. Brightness going over the infinite buildings as the program emitted an illusion, a timelapse of the sun's passing over Ontillad on any given day.

"Water. Strong currents to the southeast are perfect for harnessing wave energy. It took convincing, just as it did to get Masara to garner sixty-eight percent of its power from the sun, especially considering the cloud cover we get."

Muffled laughter. The student body began to awaken to the possibility of comprehension. Their slight amusement depressurized the entire chamber. Marv exulted in a sigh of relief.

For near to two centuries, the TC had been dominated by what was then a newer form of Neerian political thought. Equality, self actualization and a capitalist form of economics. This took us away from the overt power of Neerian monarchy, the one-man rule which benefitted wealthy estate holders while marginalizing the millions of the majority class. It had its greatest moments in the founding of the document which brought us the freedoms we now enjoy. But, there came with it a ball and chain. Money. To be more precise, greed, associated with the inherent acceptance of capitalism. Nnow, on the surface, this form of economics seemed fruitful, inspired many to occupy small business ventures and built up the early TC Navy. However, its dark side proved too potent, too in depth, for its promise of equalizing society in the long run could ever hope to match. In short, the greed of capitalism outranked any ability from the majority class to gain wealth and better living. For every gain made by tweaking that system to expand the middle class, usually by government subsidies, another elected leader later on would undo those benefits. Meanwhile, banks, unregulated, grew into giant reptiles that slept over the landscape. They sent lobbyists to Ontillad, clogging up the political machine with bribes to enhance the banks' power. Seeing the advantage, everyone from the vitriol diggers to coal barons to even the industries of meat and dairy had thousands of highly paid, eager executives in the capital, ensuring that with those bribes burgeoning solar, wind, wave power and a full realization of equality never got off the ground. In other words, tons of currency, paid out to make certain that everything remained relatively the same."

As per his custom, Marv ended a glum speech with a silent outburst from his aura, a soothing sense of calm, a humane massage. This kept the crowd relaxed, despite the old bad news. He watched them, saw their stillness, their previous chaotic state lulled into a simplistic attentiveness. Marv glance up at Klavin.

The red tie. Bold. Distracting. He knows his power plays well.

"So! What does this have to do with the multitude of green power we enjoy today? Well for one, we should never forget where we came from. Selfishness got our ancestors into the long march to near destruction; endless warfare, hunger, foul water, abandoned buildings and land improperly utilized. Solar and other sources of renewable energy existed, but they put as much emphasis on blocking their advance as they did fighting other nations and one another in a bid for resources that were never scarce, only mismanaged. Propaganda and bad governance were identical twins."

Backs straightened. Minds were taking in the data. Hands gripping styluses got to taking notes.

"Natives from the Synchim Tribal States tried for ages to get us to respect the land, the water, and the sky. We didn't listen. In the decades before the Crowning War, smog levels in the four burghals were astronomical. Cancer, in dozens of insidious forms, was all too common. Legislation finally passed to curb pollution and fine the corporations made progress, but not nearly enough. By this time, the most successful corporations not only had our politicos in their vest pockets, but they were, in essence, the government. People felt their protests would change them. They did not. Only the election of leaders from the bottom rung of the majority class, bit by bit, every four years, paved the way for change. Even then, it was slow. This is why we here in Masara, once a place of verdant sunshine and warmth, have the cold, icy winds and clouds from the north pole. Ice locked pollutants, when they melt, are carried on that wind to our lungs. Fifty years ago, almost half the population relocated to either Ontillad or Eope. Climate change. It struck, unabated, while our elders argued. Masara is the living example of taking too long to solve a problem when we had the means long before. Sure, we've cleaned things up a lot since then, but the tangible weight remains."

Pause.

Give them time to process.

Marv felt the hefty buzz of emotional dread overhead. Why was Klavin letting it hang above? Why not drop the fullness of his negative ruin, surely he must know I can't stop that much? And, how does he even have so much hate to bring to bear?

"Anyway, we are getting better. Despite initial claims by opponents that solar power would mine the world dry of lithium and silicon, as bad as fossil fuels, those claims proved false. By initiating the Great Upgrade Act of Forty-Two Eighty, every tree removed in a legal tree farm begets two minimum be planted. All lithium mines are carefully excavated rather than detonated, old ones filled in. Solid state mechanics made batteries much better, longer, safer as did transparent solar cells. Now, these things once fought over, blockaded, are ubiquitous, and the fruits of better living apparent. These days, very few would ever want to return to a time when factories churned out millions of dead animals, chemicals and vitriol vehicles and dumped waste carelessly into local rivers."

"But science advances. Ninety percent of vehicles in the TC are electric, powered by the sun. Their motions down the streets are stored in roadside kinetic batteries, which serve as backup power deep underground during storms. Energy is stored, recycled and reused just like paper, organic polymers, compost and lumber. Old buildings became new ones. Dead land was given over to the people to turn into parks and gardens, or to provide a stable living environment for the homeless we once had. The change, listening to those close to the land, taking the next leap forward, was daunting. But we never surrendered. Progress plus hope equals success."

Marv felt a migraine come and go. The cloud!

Klavin loved to toy with people. Such a cruel bent. Marvus could not conclude how someone such as the ambassador could affect others with his disease, since only Idealists manifested emotional flow and it was strictly in the positive. But, he supposed, as the head pain gloom cloud came and went, that for action there was...

"Okay, everyone. I see this is a lot to take in, and the day is dreary. How about I give you time to wake up? There are refreshments in the Welcome Lounge. Get a coffee, a sweet morsel, and come back, fresh for facts?" He clapped his hands. Students snapped to attention, grabbed their belongings, and filed out.

Marv meditated, on the blueboards, pulsations of rain, how black balustrades matched well with the carpeting. Patterns of harmony.

He heard the cough. In the stands, Klavin. The entourage? Departed. But the ambassador from Gem Estates sat, staring into the historian.

"Ambassador Klavin."

"Marvus. Excellent instruction."

"Thank you."

"You possess quite an affectation for your students, thought they are strangers to you."

"We are all one."

Klavin rose, heels clicked together. He made for the exit.

"Is that so?"

He left, as Marv felt the auditorium sigh as he did, both of them relieved to be free from the burden of excess weight.

What is his game plan?

Marvus needed to find out. For the burghal, for his students. For his peace of mind.