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The
social status they would reach thanks to his new hierarchy would allow them to rub shoulders with the most important people, making them part of the elite of the community. For the child of a middle-class couple this could truly be considered an exceptional achievement.

Finally
, the husband’s will prevailed. He had once more resigned to paternity; this time for good.

As
the weeks kept passing, the voltage between them decreased, relieved by the surprises and the delights of their recent welcome into the sophisticated world of high society.

The affection that bound
them had proved to be strong enough to endure any challenge. Their relationship became once more that of their best times. Both knew that their best chance of being loved lay in staying together, so the loving care they mutually dispensed went to its peak and stood there.

As
years kept passing they found that they had aged again. This time Lucy did not want to undergo replication. Her husband’s endeavors to convince her stretched along several months, once again bringing winds of disagreement that would shake the peace of their home. He was transformed into a villain every time the subject came up in conversation, while she simply refused to listen.

The situation was desperate, since
if failing to replicate they would lose their acquired social privileges. His position within the corporation would be compromised to the point of risking his stay in it. The rules were clear when stating that after the age of 50 years replication was mandatory for all members of the leadership and their partners.

For no apparent reason, a morning like any other Lucy
decided to submit to her husband’s will and consented to undergo the process for the second time. Soon both had been rejuvenated again.

This was the last time that discord altered
their long lasting mature emotional relationship.

T
he cool air of dawn gently swayed the drape before the slightly open window. Inside the room, a just bathed recruit was finishing to don his uniform. His wet hair looked still disheveled as he buttoned his dark thick cotton shirt.

Th
is morning he was quiet. The task that had kept him busy for the last 72 hours, reviewing his personal history, had enlivened his spirit. In fact, the only trouble that afflicted him at the time was a slight pain in the throat, which by the way, it was to be expected after having talked for so many hours each day since the beginning of his stay at the camp.

The
pounding of Professor Naim’s knuckles on the door made him turn to say:

“Just a minute
! I haven’t finished dressing yet.”

He hurried to
put on the boots, tied the laces quickly, and then hastily passed the comb through his head.

Opening the door
he greeted the amiable visitor:

“
Good morning. Every day you get here a little earlier.”

The
enigmatic professor’s smile showed as always before responding:

“
Good morning. It is part of my job to be unpredictable to you. Are you ready for our cruise?”

“
I am, and this time I intend to keep my bearings.”

The professor’s laughter was immediate, and with this he started
the route as usual.

This time he was ready to do
whatever necessary to avoid confusion along the intricate path. In his mind he had noted the direction of his room, which he had found easy to do seeing the sunrise through the window.

At every step and after each turn
he strove to figure out his new position in relation to the original reference point; however, this time their route crossed through a large hall crammed with small workstations, bounded by screens that rose to obstruct the view, and whimsically arranged in geometric patterns to shape a twisted maze. In the end this was enough to beat the purposeful recruit before the unchanging smile of his guide.

As the door opened
he got to see professor Kilgo, waiting inside like every morning since his arrival, and leaning back in his armchair. He looked up from the documents he had been studying to address a quizzical gaze to the visitor while uttering the usual short question:

“
Well, where does the north is today?”

The
submissive defeated expression on the face of the man who was arriving, accompanied by the sideways movement of is head, was enough for an answer. A loud unisonous laughter did not delay to arouse deep from the abdomens of both professors, who seemed just to live watching for opportunities to laugh.

“
Until yesterday we devoted to explore your past up to the point where you think to remember it. This activity has been tremendously beneficial to us, as refreshing your memory has allowed you, even if inadvertently, to once more get in touch with the way you used to see the world where you dwelled during the early years of your life. I have made a list of all the times when you had to make a decision that would affect your path for the rest of you days. Now we intend to make you find out where the strength that made you defect came from, abandoning your late years life, which to the eyes of others looked successful and peaceful, to sink in an uncertain strive just to survive barehanded in a place you knew nothing about. Do you agree with me that your decision could hardly be described as logical?”

“
Indeed. Abandoning a happy home and a well-paying job is from every point of view against the dictates of common sense; however, deep inside me an absolute certainness of having made the right decision persists in spite of understanding that even greater risks are still to come.”

“
You are a person whose intelligence can be classified above average. The fact that you have come this far proves it. Therefore, you are liable to be assailed by thoughts that might make you hesitate during your mission. It is essential that your belief to be doing the right thing be greater than any doubt that might attack you. Our work, henceforth, will be to help you get the self-assurance you will require to succeed. We will begin by reviewing your relationship with your father, which it seems to have changed from very close to quite distant. Can you explain us why?”

“
My father was the best friend I ever had. I bear great regret for having abandoned him during the last years of his life. In my childhood we used to spend long hours talking and making plans for our next trip. During those years the countless adventures we lived together in contact with nature were what gave meaning to my existence; the sensations, sounds and smells that used to come along with them still give me goose bumps when they repeat without notice. During the days I spent walking through the forest to get here, the presence of my father accompanied me constantly. I could find him in every sound, in the aroma of damp soil, in water reflections in the streams, and even in the smell of my sleeping bag. He was a strong man with great attitude, he always had the answer no matter what was the question, and every time I hesitated or fainted he was there to carry me, but he always encouraged me to resolve small predicaments seeking strength within me. His presence wholly filled my entire childhood, and it was but the years of my adolescence what gradually brought us away.”

“
How did this happen?”

“
As the years passed I was given more and more freedom. My new friends and the lots of parties, gatherings or just leisure evenings that I shared with them, most of the times wouldn’t be approved by my parents. When weekends came and I found him packing his gear to go on a new tour I felt guilty because I knew he expected me to go with him; however, he never reproached me for not doing it, but I could sense a tinge of sadness in his expression. As for me, each time I pulled away from my mind every thought that could make me feel bad and went back to my activities. Many times I quietly regretted not having shared those adventures with him, but never let them know.”

“
What happened between you after your father became unemployed?”

“
By then I was in college. Our long talks, which had abounded in my childhood and disappeared years later, finally were back, but sporadically. At that time my father began increasingly to space his weekend outings, I guess because of the financial hardship the family had fell into; he could be found sitting at any time of day in his favorite armchair reading a book or just deep in thought. Our scarce conversations used to be about school or my recent love affair with Lucy, to whom, by the way, he showed great kindness, and sporadically about the guilt he felt for having come to a point where he had to survive from our household savings and my mother’s discreet salary. Still, he urged me to keep on until achieving an academic degree that would allow my career to move faster. I could sense his grief for having lost his job to someone younger and more prepared. Pain overwhelmed me every time I saw him brought down to this point, and that made me avoid spending more time with him. I could not bear to find he had become a sad and lonely man, and could not understand what it was that made him stick to life.”

“
And after you finished school?”

“
The day I finished graduate school is the last time I remember seeing my father laughing and chatting as in previous times. During the small reception they offered me at home to celebrate the occasion, it seemed that time had not passed over him. The happiness that shone in his face reminded me of the man of those distant years that had been who I had most admired. His joy was contagious to me to the point of making me forget that he actually had plunged into a deep depression. It was as if the man he had been before were back and we all were celebrating his return. Deep inside I was wishing that he came back to be the same as before, but I knew it was unlikely. His joy faded away within a few days to go back to his typical mood of the recent years. It would not be long for the day when he decided to commit suicide.”

“
How did you feel before his suicide?”

“
It was a Sunday afternoon and Lucy, my mother and I had gone shopping. When we came back home we were surprised not to see him sitting in his usual armchair, so my mother went to his bedroom, where she found him inert. Her desperate cries calling me were bewildering, so I strode upstairs. I found her standing by the bed, unable to speak. When I realized what had happened I hugged her and we both began to mourn. The impact of such a finding made us hardly talk among ourselves for several days. We simply embraced each other whenever we met face to face. My life was never again the same. For the first time I seriously got to consider the possibility of my own death, and thereafter I went into a lapse fraught with questions of a spiritual nature. Although my mother had brought me into believing that there was eternal life for those who had acted fairly in their passage through this world, I was prone to believe in reincarnation, a philosophy very popular at that time and which I found more comfortable. Many years later, when the inexistence of the human soul was declared, the peace of mind that brought me knowing that I did not have to die as long as I replicated every time I needed to, made me blindly accept this declaration and never again challenge its truthfulness. I was forced so by my contract with the corporation and so I did.”

“
What led you to accept the job offered by the same corporation that had caused so much damage to your father?”

“
At that time I had been caught by anxiety. Lucy had just replicated a few years ago and I was seeing myself grow old. Moreover, we had justified spending all our savings on her replication in order to have a child, which later had been postponed. I felt that my life was slipping through my hands, and for the first time I was suffering from severe accesses of jealousy. After all, the body age difference between my wife and I had become significant and she looked wonderful, and to aggravate the situation, I knew my replication had fallen absolutely out of my reach for financial reasons. When the merger of the company for which I was working and the corporation became a fact, and I was offered a high-ranking position in it, I knew that my big break awaited there. The absolute rejection I felt towards this organization was not as big as my fear of ending up alone. On the other hand, Lucy was for it and my mother against. I could not please both of them, so I took the easy way out and accepted. Since then I have lived with the deep feeling of having betrayed the memory of my father, and to this day, whenever I remember, guilt upsets me.”

“Well
. We will take a short break for lunch and resume later.”

In the adjacent room
some food trays brought from the cafeteria awaited them, as every day until then. This time they would go through lunch without exchanging a single word. Thoughts were swirling inside the recruit’s head. For the first time he had become able to look at his past as a mere observer, gaining a new perspective that allowed him to understand the whys of each of the decisions made throughout his life. He could perceive himself as a mere actor in the drama of his existence, which would provide the opportunity to rationalize his fears to later on dispose them of. However, the anxiety that was producing this new self-finding in him had taken already his calm away, and there was still a long distance to go.”

Once the break
was over, the three men settled back in their usual places to continue. As usual, Professor Kilgo took the initiative:

“
Explain to us how the close relationship with your mother you have had for most of her life would become an absolute rift by the end of it.”

“
My mother always cared for me. In the early years of my life she would not let me away from her even for a moment, which is understandable since after my birth she lost the ability to get pregnant and this assured me to be an only child. As I began attending elementary school, she got a job that left her afternoon hours free, which she devoted to assist me with my school work, and afterwards just to play with me. When I grew up I became more attached to my father and this made her constantly scold him for taking me in his weekend outings, claiming I was too young to share such risky activities, and during the afternoon hours that we spent together on weekdays she would not lose a chance to reproach me for the time of solitude that she had to overcome when we were absent. This made me develop the feeling that, because of me, the relationship between my parents was deteriorating, and as a result, guilt was my companion every time I went on a new tour with my father.”

“
How did you handle those feelings?”

“
At first this caused me a great anxiety that clouded the joy of the time I shared with my father, and although as field trips added my anxiety gradually disappeared, guilt always persisted.”

“
And during your adolescence?”

“
My mother was constantly worried about my long hours of absence and the little sleep I got when I was away. Our conversations during that time were always about her concern for my lifestyle; however, by then my self-esteem lay on the approval I received from my new group of friends. Until that time my life had been rather isolated, and throughout my childhood I had had a hard time trying to relate to others, so I had never developed an affinity with any of my fellow students. In fact, it could be said that I had no friends at all, so, finding me out being part of a group and accepted into it as par was a new experience that I was not willing to sacrifice just to please my mother. For this reason, I just put up with the long harangues she addressed me, and then went on behaving the same way. I had to develop the ability to listen indifferently to what she said to dare keeping my new way of life, which at the time made me feel as an adult.”