He had the highest of aspirations for his son. Greg was to grow up to be a free man, whether he grew up that way or had to fight for it tooth and nail. That didn’t happen. He had watched his son grow up to be enfolded in the society that he despised. Every year Greg’s spirit became more and more malleable, and every year Old man O’Hara retired a little more of his own soul to that secret place that some people fortify with whiskey and hate. Old man O’Hara hid it in plain sight. He hid it in the light of day, in the world that should have been his and his son’s, the world that was off limits to the general population except under special circumstances by decree of the World Consortium on Government, Labor, and the Environment.
The World Consortium began as an activist organization. They pointed to technology as the cause of human suffering. They pitched science as mysticism and provoked the fear of the unknown in the ignorant. They were a paragon, the final ultimate stage of the evolution of the Luddite movement. They wanted to close the factory to save the weaver and the environment. They were going to close it no matter what the owner said and no matter how many people had to freeze without shirts on their backs. Even if it meant that the Luddites themselves would starve, because it was what was good for society and the world. If society and the world were too stupid to see it then they would just have to have the school marm twist their ears a little to show them, and they did.
Old man O’Hara could recall perfectly the day that the Consortium and the leaders of the world announced that there was going to be a sovereign alliance of all the worlds’ governments. All industry was to stop immediately and divert all resources to the development and production of an underground living environment for the world’s population.