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In the last episode, Buck goes home to fetch his
family and move them to Contention City. Everyone joins in for one last
barbecue before the Turners move to Contention City where Buck has taken a
job as sheriff. Buck gives his hands a 7/10ths interest in any profits from
the ranch and makes them promise to keep Renner on, never mind the trouble
everyone has had with him in the past. He’s a changed man now. He’s
brainclipped.
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Episode 25
Yeah, so I put brrkups in more heads than I
promised the Council I would. Still, I never wanted to stick a brrkup in
everybody's head. Critics said I did.
I saw how well the device worked, how much it
helped people. Everybody who had one installed became as good as they could
be. I reckoned that only someone inherently evil could find something wrong
with that. If everyone was good, then there would be fewer cronies for the
bad guys to be in cahoots with.
Not that everyone needed a brrkup. Some people are
good enough. They follow the rules. Why put a brrkup in someone's head if
they're good enough? We intended it as a treatment rather than a punishment.
A person who was "good enough" wasn't
part of the epidemic of violence. They did nothing to provoke or sustain the
fighting, nor were they likely to become involved in the fighting. They
regarded and treated their fellow man with equality.
I wasn't the only person who thought brainclips
were a good thing. When word got out about them, some asked me to put one in
them. They regretted one action or another, and they no longer trusted their
judgment. Though there was pathetic resignation in the request, there also
was a certain dignity. How could I refuse? Not all crimes are public in
nature and knowledge. If they felt they violated some law, even though it
was their own personal law, I couldn't refuse. In the end, using a brrkup to
achieve the goal of becoming a good person is no different from using any
other tool.
I never asked someone why he wanted to be clipped.
People have a right to keep their secrets.
By the end of September, around 850 people had
brainclips implanted, not all of whom remained in Contention City. Deputy
Anaya and I kept meticulous records. Childs didn't keep any. We had to guess
at the number he installed.
By October, the name of Contention City had become
a misnomer. You never saw a quieter, more orderly town. A motion was put
forth to the Council by one of the clipped residents to change Contention's
name to "Happy Valley."
The Council unanimously vetoed the proposition.
Many people figured we'd be troubled with still more immigrants if we
changed the town's name to Happy Valley. Who wouldn't want to move to a town
with a rich silver lode where everyone was happy? Population growth wasn’t
seen the way it is today with towns wanting to grow. Most people didn’t
want to grow like New York, San Francisco or Tombstone. They didn’t
realize how much money could be made in real estate or business.
Anyway, there were some who maintained that the
general mood of the town wasn't especially happy. That might be true if your
idea of happiness is a big affair where everyone is telling witty stories,
laughing and drinking. Unlike many silver rush towns, very few people
continued to go to the End of the Trail and the Metropolitan saloons.
Rather, the citizens went about their work seriously and steadily. The
brainclipped, to a person, went home at night, talked with their families or
friends, played a card or board game and never fought over the outcome. They
spent the hours before bedtime in some quiet manner. When they were tired,
they went to bed. The next morning, they went to work again. Their lives
became a simple existence with a basic rhythm. Though dull to some, I found
it pleasing. I didn't miss the town it had been where people cussed and shot
at each other at all hours and tragedies befell people like the Crawfords.
Some said the town became creepy, but most
welcomed the change, whether or not they were implanted. For most of us,
Contention City was becoming a heaven on Earth.
If someone didn't like the changes, he packed up
and left. Even without the name change, people arrived every day by rail car
and wagon, hoping to live in peace rather than strife. They knew there was
money to be made in Contention. No other place in the United States offered
as great an opportunity for a man to find his fortune.
Still, some people weren't satisfied with the
changes I wrought. In whispers, they called me a self-righteous,
sanctimonious, faultfinding bastard. I did my best to consider the criticism
a complement. I never expected everyone to agree with everything I'd done. I
took their comments as part of the job and made note of them. Their
opposition to what I was trying to do was reason to suspect they were
profiting somehow from the shiftless way things had been.
I brainclipped some of these people, not because
of criticism, but because they broke the law. My critics often misunderstood
both the abilities of the brrkup and my intentions.
There was no point in listening to those who were
too vociferous in their criticism. Councilman Garza was among those. I
couldn't countenance the way they'd have the town. To those who complained
I, ". . . would do unto others what I wouldn't do unto myself,"
I'd give them their point. The way I saw it, people of my ilk are not the
ones who create the majority of the world's problems for others. We raise
our children by the Good Book, try to live those words as best we can. Our
lives bear more good fruit than the Del Wilsons, Tom Pricketts, Jasper
Halahans, and the Thomas Brotherses. Should I have implanted myself just
because I implanted others? Foolishness! That would be like saying we should
all go to prison because we'd send lawbreakers there.
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