by R. K. Syrus
“And the best part, Mr. Shara, the very best part: how easy it was. What I thought might take decades took only months.
“I miscalculated the intense desire of governments in poorer countries to spy on their people. I offer better signals intelligence than America’s NSA or Britain’s GCHQ could ever provide. Tin-pot potentates literally tore their lighting infrastructure out by the roots in the clamor for more Licht/Net devices.
“My factories had a most difficult time keeping up with orders. Through billions of light fixtures across the planet, I have singlehandedly democratized oppression.”
“Are you confirming Lichtwerks is in partnership with the most brutal and dictatorial regimes on the planet?”
“Naturally. And I would not call it much of a partnership. Tyrannical juntas are still our best customers. Nothing like the threat of prison or a public flogging to get people to install our products. If one does not count standby time and dark-light transmissions, my illumination is actually more energy efficient than most fluorescent bulbs.”
“Dark what?”
No, Mr. Shara, you are no scientist at all.
“It is a common misconception that if you turn off one of my bulbs, it no longer transmits data. People think other fixtures or street lights make their handsets function. However, when turned off, they still transmit on the invisible spectrum.
“In simplified terms: We watch you in the dark. My newest models continue to transmit for a period, even when unplugged.”
Licht looks to the elevator spire, which will soon carry him beyond the grip of gravity.
“Most of the universe is dark. It reflects no light. We can only intuit its existence. The neutrinos that power the Lichtstrom, they are a doorway.”
Shara looks at him strangely. Perhaps hoping he will go off on a racist rant about gypsies and foreign guest workers.
“Lichtwerks surveillance networks received serious love from military oppressors and despotic ballot-box-stuffing theocracies. In the geopolitical food chain, these would be the vultures and hyenas.
“Hard on their heels came every so-called democracy in the world. Every industrialized nation started using my system to watch, manipulate, and control their people.
“These societies are sophisticated, omnivorous, and flexible in their survival modes. As they were busy watching their people, an uber-predator would naturally evolve. One at the very top of the information food chain.”
“Lichtwerks.”
“Precisely. Even the most paranoid dictator gave me enough ammunition to sink them or help them, as I chose. Large democracies were easier. With regularly scheduled elections and the media’s intense fascination with who is sticking what body part where, it’s almost too easy to get what I want.”
Shara nods. As if he understands.
“What exactly is it you want?”
The hooded figure of Death finally emerges from his vestibule and strikes.
BONG, BONG, BONG…
Mr. Shara, this bell, it tolls for thee.
22
BONG.
“Right now? I want you. All that you have to give.”
“Sorry? I didn’t hear you correctly.”
BONG.
“You did. You will come here to Der Lichtstrom. You will leave your home, come with your wife to the gentle cultured heart of Europe, and live here. You will enjoy a massive increase in your living standard.
“Regrettably, I cannot allow all members of your family to leave my borders at the same time. All my key employees are under the same stricture. My country is beautiful, very well engineered and managed. You will learn to love it.”
BONG.
“You’re… you must have lost your mind!”
The clockwork reaper finishes his solo and retreats.
“You ask the wrong question. The right one is: What use are you?”
Shara’s face becomes nearly as bone white as Death’s.
“That lake, I had it made. Mine improves greatly on what nature threw together. This one makes the view perfect. Your predecessor has left for you a job vacancy. He annoyed me very much by going to our excellent staff gymnasium, signing out a set of ankle weights, walking off a dock, and drowning himself in that lake.”
“Look, Professor, everyone knows where I am. If something happens to me—”
“I see from your file you are a fairly active swimmer. I hope you will find the waters here to your liking. They may seem chill at first, but I predict you will quickly get used to them.” Licht checks the time. “Nothing is going to happen to you. You have my word.”
“The word of a madman!”
Licht feels a calm glow. “If you were not so busy making diagnoses of my mental infirmities, you would have noticed I have already set you on a new rewarding career path.”
Licht flicks a panel. Shara’s dossier comes up on the wall display screen next to the fireplace.
“As a respected international journalist, you have interviewed the majority of the leaders across the globe. Working for the Welt/Licht news service, you will continue as before. No one will remark upon your increased access as you fly on my jets and sail on my ships from one coveted interview to another.”
“You already employ hundreds of journalists.”
“You underestimate your true gifts. You will not be reporting news. You will be making it. On my instructions.”
Shara palpitates, as only young men with tight skin and all their teeth can, with vigor.
“Herr Doktor, I don’t know whether to laugh or pity you. You can’t keep your mental condition secret for long. Let me help you get treatment while someone else manages all this. The strain must be overwhelming.”
At least he’s not afraid to talk back. Good man.
“You are offering to take me to the cuckoo’s nest. Thoughtful. But I am offering you the chance to stop chewing cud and swallowing it like a sad-eyed milk cow. I am offering you the chance to play liar’s poker at the highest level and, for once in your life, win.
“You already know, on a small scale, some of the work we have done in your country through the large cavernous mouth of the Indonesian politician Mr. Banten. This makes you ideally suited to my main business. You must wonder how I can afford to give away all my services for no charge, yes?”
“It’s well known you sell advertising, search results, people’s personal details, all of which are very hard to opt out of.”
Licht looks past the space spire to the halo of approaching night as it seeps into the tops of high clouds.
“Once, there was a man. He decided he would rule the world. He would, unlike the Caesars, the Khans, even Napoleon, not himself fight. He would not be a general in the field. He had no idea about such things. He decided to conquer the world with words. His words. He thought, this man did, he knew his words would take root. He knew they would multiply. And they did. His words were power and nearly did the job.”
“Are you talking about—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Licht says, cutting Shara off. “He failed. Making an unforgiveable mess. I wish to conquer. I’ve learned that my own words, they can never be enough. A man only has so many. To bind governments and the people underneath them, it takes an inexhaustible resource. I shackle them all with their own words!”
Shara’s forehead beads with perspiration.
“The backbone of our enterprise is, and always has been, secrets. The secrets of anyone, everywhere. Most, we keep, some we trade for what we want more.”
“Like recognition of your company’s property as a sovereign nation,” Shara says, his eyes staring at the middle distance between them.
Time to wake up, Mr. Shara.
Licht thumbs another panel. An image of the man’s wife at their house in Jakarta appears on the large monitor. The point of view is from the ceiling light fixture in Shara’s own living room.
His guest’s smooth tanned face blanches. “How are you—? We had those lighting fixtures changed.”
“My people
in Jakarta bribed your resident manager to change them back,” Licht says. “It gave us the opportunity to upgrade you to our next generation of features.”
Two quarter-inset panels appear. An odd-looking sonogram sits above a chemical analysis. Licht beams at Shara, enjoying his role of the proverbial stork.
“I don’t allow smoking here, but you can enjoy one of your predecessor’s cigars at the home that is now yours. In addition to an impressive collection of exotic snakes, he kept a well-stocked humidor. A celebration smoke is traditional, isn’t it? You are about to be a father.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ach, you should know about this. The latest Licht/Net illumination panels have spectrograph capabilities. This technology allows astronomers to know what the atmosphere of Venus is made of. How hard would it be to analyze your wife’s state of health from her bodily fluids?
“As you can see, we can even do rudimentary ultrasonography if the subject stays prone and still. For example, while asleep. Your preliminary results indicate the birth of a healthy baby boy is thirty-four weeks away. Better pick out a room for a nursery.”
Shara’s outrage has distracted him from noticing two large gentlemen emerge from their places behind what seem to be solid pillars.
Shara shakes his head so quickly it looks like anatomical vibration rather than a gesture. “She never said anything.”
“Mrs. Shara does not know she is pregnant. You will have the honor of giving her the good news when she arrives and you start your new lives here as citizen workers.” A guard, Mr. Plotz, grabs Shara’s shoulders. “These gentlemen will escort you to your family’s new home.”
“All you’ve done is given me more information for my article! When people find out you’re watching us all in our bedrooms and bathrooms—”
“You have more pressing problems than personal privacy. In Jakarta, your wife has promised Mr. Banten she will deliver a certain package.” He points to the screen. “That package. She thinks it’s a dossier on the government’s more questionable Lichtwerks connected activities. Mr. Banten and the government minister are scheduled to have a meeting. You know, to clear the air.
“Your wife will deliver this folder. She will then leave allowing the two men to discuss how they will cripple my influence in Indonesia. What none of the participants know is that folder holds three quarters of a kilo of synthetic explosive. That dossier will indeed have a large impact. But not the one your group expects.”
If it is possible for Shara’s face to contort into an expression of greater disorientation, it does. He pulls out his handset.
On the wall monitor, video feed shows Mrs. Shara lifting up her Eurolincx satellite phone. She starts speaking. To Mr. Shara.
Shara’s phone is inert in his hands. He has not dialed.
“Halo saying,” his wife says.
She casually places the fat binder package on a shelf by the door so as not to forget it. Mr. and Mrs. Shara have a pleasant conversation.
Auto-translation captions scroll beneath in German and English. Confusion replaces anger and outrage as the dominant expression on his guest’s face.
“Bewildering, yes? She really is speaking with you. Or she was. That is the conversation you had with your wife as you traveled from Lyons. It happened two hours ago.”
Dr. Licht pauses to let that sink in.
“Since that time, from the moment you crossed into my territory, not one qubit of information has reached you or has been sent by you. Your recording devices are not burst-uploading to your private server via satellite frequency as you believe. Their memories are blank.”
Licht savors the highlight of the placement interview. “Now, let me, the scientist, update you, the journalist, on the current state of events.”
Licht brings up the real-time feed. A government office building in downtown Jakarta spews black and gray smoke out of dozens of broken windows. Bahasa Indonesian writing crawls along the bottom of the frame as nearly hysterical commentators try to all speak at once.
“I always hate waiting for the recap. This is the gist: About thirty-five minutes ago, your wife delivered the package we mentioned. There was some doubt whether she would arrive in time, given the appalling state of traffic in your capital today. That’s why you had to wait outside my office as long as you did. My apologies for the tardiness.
“The bomb, which will be traced back to a Sumatran separatist organization, was punctual. Mr. Banten and the minister are dead. A live feed from the morgue shows them trying to work out which body parts belong to whom. I will spare you that. I know you were close to Mr. Banten.”
Shara recovers some of the breath that shock had knocked out of him.
“You’ll never get away with this. We’ll fight you to the last. You can’t manipulate and kill people for your own selfish purposes!”
“What better reasons could there be? In any case, your own fate, that of your wife, and your unborn son, these should be of more concern than abstractions like freedom. In fact, I will not interfere with your free will at all. Choose now. Go ahead. Reject my hospitality. Return to your country. You will be in literal chains.
“Security footage of your wife delivering the bomb will shortly be requested from us by Detachment 88, your nation’s brutish anti-terror squad. The government building’s internal system malfunctioned. The Lichtwerks proprietary video file is the only evidence of this crime of treason and mass murder. Your wife is in the company of my security people. They have told her you have been involved in some kind of emergency. She is on her way to my plane at Jakarta International. I think you know how it goes if you choose to decline.”
The younger man’s hands shake on the armrests of his chair. “Have you already picked out the prosecutor and judge for my case?”
“No. Only your wife’s case will be heard. News of your extradition from France, places, times, arrival gate, will make its way to the reactionary pro-government militia in Jakarta. Friends and business associates of the dead cabinet minister, being unable to attack your wife directly, will kill you in some mundane manner.
“Your wife will be sentenced to face a firing squad. From what I comprehend about your justice system, which is not much, I anticipate her sentence will be suspended for nine months due to her delicate condition.
“Your son will be born in a dreadfully overcrowded prison and make his way into the less-than-ideal orphanage system of your country. Your newspaper recently published an exposé of children as young as six years old being sold to sportswear sweatshops. At least you won’t be alive to see that.”
The arrogant light in Tommy Shara’s eyes, strong when he marched in, flickers and dies. The young man’s will collapses.
Blitzkrieg!
Licht beams at his new team member.
He never had a chance from the moment his life was decided for him. Shara rises weakly. Sandwiched between two guards, he shuffles to the door.
Licht’s attention drifts. He squints through antique theatre glasses made for a tsar by Fabergé. He scans the procession beneath the enormous window.
At the door, his new hire pauses.
“You’re a monster. I don’t know why people haven’t gotten together to kill you.”
Licht is genuinely surprised.
“Why would they?”
He lowers his bejewelled binoculars. Thousands, tens of thousands, have died as a result of his activities. Just as surely Licht believes millions have been saved. Disruptive wars have been averted, inconvenient genocides deferred.
Lichtwerks was the self-driving option for societies, much safer and efficient. In each atom of his being, he is certain every living human is enriched by his work. The thought of sane, productive, normal people wanting to hurt him is beyond conception.
In a quiet voice not meant for his departing guest, he says, “I am the reason why, in a dark and uncaring universe, a tree in the forest makes noise when it falls. Without us watching, there is no meaning.”
Tall doors snap shut. His binocular lenses flick across the oncoming stream of VIP guests.
Where are you? You Scottish…
Licht sees Oliphant. He’s riding on the most peculiar oddity imaginable.
“Ach!”
It’s as though the man and his meschugge assistant are going to their own event, not his. Worst of all, they are both staring right back up at him.
23
RAN OLIPHANT
“Someone’s watching us.”
Ranulph Oliphant stares up at the Lichtstrom’s Stalinesque eaves. Two jittery specks of light wink back. If photons could carry miserly intent, he imagines these would.
In their airy but confined ride, his shoulders bump against the couture ruffles draping Melanie Françoise.
“Wolfie,” she trills, “that triple-doctorate poopyhead. He’s lucky we’ve showed up at all.”
Dr. Françoise—honorary PhD in Fine Arts, Shimer College, Chicago—gives her head a defiant shake with a mound of loose blonde curls Marie Antoinette would have envied.
“I certainly hope he does notice,” Ran says, reining in the horses pulling their chariot. “Shame for Brutus and Cassius to go through all this bother and not burn the bastard’s britches.”
He smiles and speaks through his teeth. The Lichtstrom has a million eyes, not counting their host’s. Some of them read lips.
Brutus and Cassius pull them along slowly. Too slowly for their liking or his. The two robust Percherons are named after Caesar’s assassins. The horses have been uniquely decorated for the event. Their bodies flash with hundreds of squares of brilliantly shining armor.
It took some convincing before Ran agreed to decorate his steeds. Melanie’s ideas often ended up being impractical or downright dangerous. Ran really likes his horses. He’s more fond of them than most of the people with whom he does business. And he wouldn’t trade their steaming droppings for Professor Licht.
In his youth, he worked in the stables of gentry and lords, first as a work hand, then as a groom. The pair pulling them experience no discomfort. A clever arrangement of bright tiles lets their muscles move and skin breathe naturally. His horses enjoy the attention. They stomp and preen past throngs of spectators and paparazzi.
