by J. A. Hailey
The three Americans pretended to become busy with some other things, and moved away, so that they could discuss privately.
“We’ll just have to create and install a few controlling programs, to place in laptops that will move around with the King and the Sheikh,” said Gales. “If ever noticed, and if we are asked, we can tell screenside that we are attempting to control some motor issues they are suffering from.”
“It’ll have to be something else for Abe,” observed Sagan. “Can’t say that we have just now found three cases at the same time. I’ll put a chip into his head; it’s very small, after all, but I won’t connect it to his brain. Okay with that, Abe?”
“No, Patrick, on second thoughts, let’s connect nobody up. It’s a con game, and we have to feed imaginary feelings into them. Either way, it will be imaginary, so why risk the dangers of connecting up and being busted by the virtuals of screenside. It’s going to be for a long time that we have to manage the con job, and at some point or the other, we just have to be in mobile signal range.”
“I agree, on second thoughts, actually,” said Gales. “Bullshit is bullshit, and that’s all we have to work with. Why risk connection? Just put an unconnected chip into every head. When the time comes to connect, we’ll think up some new excuses to do it. In the meantime, they’ll never know.”
“Yep, I am the expert,” said Sagan. “No one else is ever looking into their heads. Unconnected is the way.”
“Whatever you decide, Patrick. You are the doctor in our group,” said Grietzmann loudly, leading them back to the rulers. “You are the greatest doctor in the world, and you do whatever you think is best. Of course, I want you to put my microchip in also. Just make sure there are no physical complications.”
“Physical complications?” croaked King and Sheikh fearfully, together.
“It is okay,” said Sagan, reassuringly. “I have conducted many thousands of such operations, and yours will be done perfectly, although I have to admit, Your Highness, that preliminary scans show that your brain is somewhat more developed than that of other humans I have operated upon.”
The surgical procedures were conducted one after the other, starting quite early in the morning, with the King craftily putting Grietzmann and the Sheikh on, before scheduling his own neural implantation operation, clearly viewing them as guinea pigs.
Sagan, too, made a great show of the rather minor procedure, by keeping Grietzmann and the Sheikh under total anesthesia, on the operating table, for exactly two hours.
After satisfying himself that Sheikh Abdul was still breathing, the King underwent the same procedure, and, by evening the two patients, King and Sheikh, were unnecessarily sitting in wheelchairs, and examining girls to enjoy that night. Grietzmann had excused himself to go to his room, and was presumably asleep.
Of course there were no complications, and by next morning it was business as usual.
“You just have to live a normal life,” advised Grietzmann. “Do nothing different to what you’re doing now. Exercise caution about mobile phones around you, and be very careful when within range of any sort of mobile network. You are both rulers; live your normal lives, while you are being created as privileged beings inside the computer world. Later, as your date of birth approaches, or should I say rebirth, we will sit down to work out a plan by which you can retain your positions as overlords of humanity, despite dying physical deaths.”
The two Arabian despots went into deep thought. “It is a great gift from God, to give us this opportunity of living forever, and of becoming rulers of the entire world,” said the Sheikh.
“I have a score to settle with the Iranians,” said the King. “When I have tested the powers of eternal life, through a system of rebirth in human bodies, I am going to throw a nuclear missile at them.
“Sheikh Abdul, my spies tell me that the North Korean dictator often visits you in your city. Why?”
“Your Highness, he’s a blackmailer, besides being a seller of nuclear weapons. He has to use my city and its facilities to move money. With the entire western world after him, there is no way for him to use any place other than my city.”
“Well, Abdul, just let him know that I am also interested in buying a couple of nuclear missiles. The rumor is that he has already sold one or two to the Iranians. I have no problem with throwing nuclear missiles between Iranians and my people, when I am sure that I cannot die.”
After insertion of microchips, the two Arabs’ bonds with the three Americans became forged in steel, with the entire palace thrown open for the two already-connected eternals and Grietzmann, to wander around in as they pleased.
The night before departure from the desert palace, meeting in the King’s private quarters, Grietzmann, clearly in no doubt that Sagan and Gales would soon come alive in screenside, in digital form, surprised everyone by asking the Sheikh, “I reckon, Sheikh Abdul, that you personally know the nuclear terrorist North Korean dictator?”
“Of course, Ibrahim. His eventual goal is to extort around one hundred billion dollars annually from rich countries, by using nuclear threats. His main plan is to park his small missile-equipped submarines near major western cities. They’ll pay, but it is impossible for him to handle such vast sums unless he includes me in his team. Yes, he can open a bank account in my city, and maybe even a hundred fake and fictitious bank accounts, but he’ll be caught, and his money will surely be taken away. Remember, we too are in various treaties with the USA and Europe, to prevent money laundering. Without me, he cannot transact such vast sums on a routine basis. I know him very well. Why do you ask?”
“We need a very select team, Sheikh Abdul, and Your Highness, but we are not going to be very clever, unless we make this select team broad-based, spanning the globe. We certainly need our main team leaders, like you both will be, to be geographically far from each other.”
“Why?”
“Highness, we are going to run the world exactly as we please; no mercy. We just have to ensure that one single nuclear attack cannot destroy us.”
“I want to be the main King of this new world,” said the King.
“Indeed, Highness, I believe there will be no opposition to installing you as the Emperor and overlord of the humans who are to live in the computer world. And that should result in you naturally becoming master of the human world.”
“Let’s get it done, Ibrahim. The people are waiting.”
“It takes time, Highness, but there is going to be no problem with finding time. After it is done, it is for eternity.”
And they raised their glasses to toast each other.
“Bullshit, the Korean fuck,” said Grietzmann, later, to his fellow conspirators. “Look, guys, I don’t know what’s ultimately really going to happen on this eternal computer-life front. In fact, I often think it is some form of delusion. Why the fuck should we believe an advanced civilization has come into being, with the ability to transfer humans into there?” He pointed at a laptop on a table.
“I’m ready to go with total denial. Shit, when it comes to me, I’m not getting into the club. Children play this sort of game. Behind this door is La-la land, which only we two can enter.
“But money is another thing. Forget eternal life. Throughout history, people have had to do with one lifespan for life. And what they have all sought to do is to enjoy that one throw at life.
“I’m going to be no different. Shit, I am no different. I’ll sell the Korean asshole’s missiles to these torturers, rapists and unjust child-abusing demons. Let them throw at each other. I want to meet the Korean nutcase. I’m sure I can become his agent to these people. Let them evaporate each other; what’s it to me? But money? You guys, too. Maybe the whole computer thing fails. In due course, you may come to believe it to be a pointless fraud being perpetrated on you. How much money is there in brain implant?
“Let’s make our billions fast, by selling dreams and selling nukes. Let’s enjoy life as billionaire
s. Then we must die, as we must die. That is how it has always been.
“Anyway, the Korean fuck ain’t gonna buy this eternal life crap. His plan is this one life. He came to power, swimming through a sea of blood, and is still torturing and killing people daily, including his own family members.
“I’ll meet him, in my new role of dream merchant. Different dreams for different dreamers. Nightmares for some.”
Grietzmann laughed. “Now I have to convince them they need nuclear deterrence, as eternal life doesn’t survive nuclear blasts, ha, ha. Start them building nuclear-proof shelters underground. One per palace, and should be huge, in keeping with your stature, built with everything for your comfort, as you are accustomed. Lots of money for me.”
The Americans could have left for home two days later, when finally released by the King, on his becoming sure that the neural implant operation had been free of infection or complication.
However, it was Gales now who decided to spend another day at the palace.
“The King is rarely here, in this palace, I have gathered,” said he. “That supercomputer is going to be an irresistible magnet to all the illiterate fucks who hang around here.”
“I know these bastards,” said Grietzmann, nodding agreement. “Some of these bastards really are bastard children of the King. But it’s got lost in the mix, and nobody is sure of anything, with the women all busy screwing the servants.”
“This palace, unknown to us earlier, is actually perfect for our meetings, as it is probably the most remote luxury location available, already naturally isolated from mobile phone signals,” said Gales. “It could become the ideal future place for us to meet, without having to plan too much.
“I came up with the thought that it might be foolish to leave this monster computer unguarded. The illiterate assholes here will imagine that a supercomputer gives something different on the Internet, to what a normal computer provides; sort of like a gateway to heaven. With such a monster machine, it’ll be very difficult to detect whether little bits of physical tampering have taken place.
“This supercomputer can support thousands of Wi-Fi ports, and we’ll never know if a wire has been slyly connected to it, or if some ports have been made functional, connected to the Internet.”
Grietzmann laughed. “We’ll get the King to issue a warning. I have seen him in action, watching one of his sons being beheaded on the sand. They’ll take him seriously.”
“What’s the good of that, after the damage has been done?” said Sagan. “Better let Michael disable those possibilities. The King can find many other reasons to behead his own children.”
Thus, after spending many hours studying the voluminous brochure, in lousy English, which the Chinese manufacturer had supplied with the computer, Michael Gales got hold of the two fogged-out Chinese technicians, and spent an entire day working at the computer, opening panels and disabling possible Internet and Wi-Fi ports.
Finally, having put the panels back on again, he sent for a man identified as the future maintenance person, to be placed in charge of the computer.
“Look,” he said, and pointed out an input port. “His Highness has ordered the kingdom’s telephone company to run a wire through the desert. It is a private wire, and any tampering with it is to be punishable by death. See that point there?
“That is the exclusive, solitary, lone, sole, only, single, one and no other connection point for the landline Internet wire. Understand? There are currently no Internet Wi-Fi broadcast points from this computer, though I might create one or two, only one or two, later. Any attempt to create a port, slyly, will also be punishable by death. Right, Highness?”
“of course, Michael,” said the King, emphatically, having wandered in to watch what his American buddies were doing with his future residence. “If you want, we could even execute these treacherous bastards in advance of the crime. I often do that.
“You.” He pointed a forefinger, an inch from the face of the trembling computer in-charge, who thought his end had come. “Even if someone else does it, I will have you slaughtered part by part in the desert, chopping fingers, wrists, elbows, arms, and so on. You’ve seen it done, haven’t you?
“No one is to touch any part of that computer. Guard it with your life.”
The trembling man fell at the King’s feet, kissing his shoes and thanking him for his mercy.
On counting the work for that get-together in the desert palace done, Sheikh and King departed for the cities they ruled from, muttering oaths against imaginary coup plotters, and thinking up terrible new torments.
A few hours later, the three Americans, in the King’s jumbo jet assigned to them, were also on the way back to the USA.
Despite being unconscious in the computer world of screenside, Sagan and Gales, when interacting sometimes with other caretaker virtuals, outside of the Parisian Group, in humanside, were mightily impressed. “It’s like heaven has descended to earth,” said Gales, in conversation on the flight back. “Could angels be any more angelic?”
Sagan nodded in agreement and appreciation. “And they actually have a lot of the powers that angels might have, or are supposed to have.”
“Besides omnipresence and potential interference, you mean?” laughed Gales.
“Yes. On the physical front, they can do so much. Crash aircraft, destroy power grids, switch off every single form of communication…”
“And launch nuclear attacks.”
“Why nuclear, Mike? Screenside has the ability to operate practically all our conventional war machines; well, the new ones of superpowers, for sure. Strategic bombers, fighter aircraft, probably submarines, and everything else of importance; and if they want, they’ve got infantry too, in the shape of thousands of implanted Mexicans. They could do it from both sides, if they wanted a full-fledged war, like America-Russia, the two Koreas, maybe India-Pakistan, or whatever they feel like.”
“Amazing,” agreed Gales. “In a strange way, barring control over natural birth and the afterlife, these guys are God.
“Yet they are so terrified of inadvertently playing the role of God. It is absolutely the most important thing for them to let the world function without interfering. Helping mentally ill humans and letting paralytic people walk is a great kindness, and not interference in humanity in a macro way.”
“Look, Mike,” said Grietzmann, nervously, “I hope you guys are not rethinking our joint position on trying to somehow bypass their controls when you become alive inside screenside? You have yourselves said that these guys never lie. After one hundred years, they will surely obliterate you, as they have told you.”
“No Abe, no rethink,” said Gales. “We are humans, and we want to live like humans. We know that there is a way to do that, and, in fact, we have planned and worked with you on creating a system for enjoyment of the human world, after we have died as humans. That’s work we have done in our roles as neurosurgeon and computer specialist, in which we’ve used the virtual people as guinea pigs, to perfect the program to the point we are at.
“And I want the continuation of those young girls. I don’t think we, Patrick and I, might get into preteen, although it seems to be natural progression of sexual desire, judging by those rulers.
“This rape and pedophilia thing, if able to be done fearlessly, could be like drugs, where you start with cannabis and end up with heroin and crystal meth - chasing, snorting and mainlining.”
“You’re one hundred percent right about progression to younger,” agreed Sagan, emphatically. “Look at these bastard rulers, and the thousands of privileged, and therefore safe and immune, other little sheikhs and princes, all into the same things – turned into murderers, rapists and pedophiles from before they are grown up into adults themselves.”
“Abe says that he was present when the Sheikh forced a teenage, officially acknowledged, son to kill his childhood nanny,” said Gales.
“Yes, I saw it,” confirmed Grietzma
nn. “The kid was crying; got slapped and kicked by the sheikh, who was screaming, saying, ‘You have to learn that, for us, no one is exempt.’
“Actually, funny that you’ve said it so accurately,” said Grietzmann. “All prohibited items start off by being repugnant, which is why those things are prohibited under normal human laws, but they can then move to being tolerable, until finally they become desirable. The word is, of course, progression.
“I myself did not know how I was changing in the company of these demonic people.
“One Friday morning, not too many weeks ago, we were in another palace, when the King had just denied the clemency plea of a convicted Pakistani drug user, who would be airlifted to be beheaded in the marketplace of some city, that very day itself, after being soundly whipped, post the public Friday prayers. So I had asked, “But why not spare him, Your Highness? He’s only doing what you do.”
“The horrible fellow answered, ‘Ibrahim, I am a King and he is a nothing. How can he do what I am allowed to do? He probably gets his drugs supplied by one of my thousand unknown sons, or maybe even a bastard prince of position, of whom I scarcely know.’”
“Then the Sheikh, sprang to the King’s support. ‘His Highness must be strict about killing these people publicly, after torture. Only by these executions, or removal of limbs, that cause them to become permanently crippled, and useless in life, beggars on streets, can we convince the western world that we are not at all involved in the supply of drugs. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS; everything is linked with us, especially for money laundering through my city. This way, we keep Islamic terrorism far from us, while also earning good money. Clever, huh? Stupid idiots in the West.’”
