Judgement

by Fergus Bannon

  Most of the space in newspapers became filled with condensations and analyses of The Truth broadcasts. A couple of editors and publishers who resisted and instead published anti-Truth propaganda got the same treatment as the Guardador's publisher.

  Paradoxically, the effects in developing countries, where there were far fewer receivers per head of the population, were more marked. Whilst individuals rarely owned a receiver, most villages had a communal dish. During one lengthy piece on corruption at the highest levels in the Indian government, the Minister of Internal Security ordered the army to smash every satellite dish on the sub-continent. Within an hour Channel 8 had shown the man issuing the order, then launched into an eight hour precis of his corrupt life. Before the sun had set other high officials were falling over themselves to rescind the order, lest through any inaction the blinding light should fall upon them too. Besides, high-resolution downloadable videos of The Truth’s output were already clogging the internet to the point of widespread breakdown.

  The story in Russia was similar, but most of the population had long since given up any notion of non-corruptibility on the part of their leaders. In China, memories of Tiananmen Square and many other atrocities resurfaced to haunt the government. The Minister of State had felt confident about finding and destroying the majority of satellite receivers, and the fact there was only one, state-controlled internet provider made blocking access easier. Besides, he was little concerned about his own life and record being examined in minute detail. A communist zealot, he wasn't ashamed of any of the things he'd done, brutal though they often had been.

  Together with the generals he issued an order that all citizens who had watched The Truth should be judged as counter-revolutionaries and subjected to summary execution. Financial incentives were offered to citizens who could direct soldiers to owners of such receivers.

  By the next day nearly 10,000 men, women and children had been executed throughout the provinces of China. Most executions took place in Peking and Shanghai, causing major problems when it came to disposing of the corpses. Large trenches were dug in public parks. The bodies were doused with petrol and cremated until huge clouds of black soot hung over the crowded cities.

  Within an hour of the first death the Minister of State was found in his office, his hands tied behind his back and his feet bound. He had been shot through the back of the head. A message had been written in the minister's own blood across one wall. It said that unless the minister's subordinates rescinded the order within the hour then they too would be executed in the same manner.

  By dawn of the next day another 8,000 citizens contaminated by The Truth, or at least having had access to a receiver, had been executed. So too were the deputies of the Minister of State. Their bodyguards maintained they had literally vanished, only to reappear within seconds bound and shot. In public places messages appeared repeating the threats, though extending now to the deputies' deputies. Similar messages appeared on State TV and could only be stopped by shutting the whole system down. In the face of this communications blackout, rumours flared unchecked and the power of the government waned as their control began to disintegrate.

  It was only after three devolutions of responsibility, and the deaths of seventy-two of the highest ranking government officials and military, that the decree was rescinded. By then nearly 25,000 people had been executed. The only receivers left were scattered around the far-flung provinces where their presence was much easier to hide.

  In China at least, System X had failed. For now.

  CHAPTER 17

  Chilton, Virginia

  It was like Christmas, though that was still months away. The streets were deserted but for a few scurrying people and the occasional car which raced by. Even the weather was conspiring in the effect, the chill beginning to bite and giving the first intimations of the snow to come.

  Lola was impatient. She tugged at his arm and laughed with frustration when he resisted. Strong though she was, he was stronger and bigger. Her laughter was infectious, causing the first hint of a smile to twitch at his grimly set mouth.

  'Come on, you big stiff. I want to see what's happening.'

  'Ever thought that ignorance really might be bliss?'

  'Not in your case, no. You've been about as light and carefree as a grizzly's asshole. Anything would be better than that.'

  The bars of Penn Avenue were full to bursting as they passed. A drink seemed to be the thing people needed most right now. A man hurrying towards them suddenly turned right into a bar called Henry's. Lola redoubled her efforts to push him to it, but he dragged her away. As he did so the street lamps flashed into yellow and began the slow climb to white.

  She grabbed the lapels of his expensive wool overcoat and started to pull. When he resisted she pulled harder until the coat threatened to undergo a cataclysmic devaluation. When he bent forward she smiled and bit him hard on the end of the nose.

  'Jesus,' he staggered back clutching his face. Blinking his tears away he found Lola giving the finger to Edwards, fifty feet behind, who was slowing back down to a walk and taking his hand out of his coat.

  'Your pal's pretty jumpy.'

  'Perhaps he's afraid someone might hurt me.' Gingerly he touched the end of his nose which was now stinging in the cold.

  'Look pal,' her thick little forefinger jabbed into his chest, 'I've had enough of this mournfulness crap. What's the problem?'

  He tried to crank up a smile. Lola raised one corner of her lip in disgust. She glared up at him, hands on hips, her small body buried within her thick black duffle-coat, white bobble hat and long white woollen scarf.

  He found himself laughing. 'You look so cute,' he said and ran like hell before she could catch him. He'd got barely forty feet when a weight landed on his back. Staggering to a stop he felt both his ears grabbed.

  'Shit! Just because I'm only four foot ten every silly bastard calls me cute!' then she was off him.

  'Sorry,' he said, chuckling and holding his hands forward, palms spread to show he wasn't armed, that he wanted to be friends.

  She looked steadily at him for several seconds then strode by him into the nearest bar. It was an ersatz Irish pub called O'Reilly's, all lettering and decor in green.

  He sighed and followed.

  As he got to the door he looked back and saw Edwards grimacing and shaking his head, Leith's immersion in a crowd of strangers being just what the bodyguard didn't want.

  The pub was genuine enough to reflect the less egalitarian class system of Ireland and the United Kingdom. It was split into two sections: one a 'Public Bar', the other a 'Lounge'. Leith, having been to Europe, knew that the Public bar was for the workers, to keep the vulgarity and commonness of people who actually used their hands for a living away from the precious middle classes. Lola, like any good American, headed for it right away.

  It hardly mattered. Inside it was just one big room with a circular central bar. In the far corners two television sets were the only sources of illumination. Both showed the Channel 8 logo.

  Lola was already ordering a pitcher of beer. The mass of people was clustered around the two sets, glasses in hands, and she had no trouble getting served.

  She glanced at him as he leaned on the counter beside her. 'What are you afraid of anyway? The Truth?' she snorted.

  'You bet,' he toyed with a beer coaster advertising Guinness.

  ‘”And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. Hawthorne, wasn't it?' She poured some beer into his glass.

  He knew she hadn't made the connection between his mysterious disappearances and The Truth. His work had kept them apart for almost a week. Their reunion had left little time for anything but joyful, and this time tender, lovemaking. He'd been relieved to find she'd missed him. She was the only good thing in the nightmare that was his life.

  'What d'you think about this business?' he pointed a finger at the nearest screen, 'What's it all about?'

  She shrugged. 'It seems to be abo
ut what it says its about, namely The Truth. I can see why you aren't too happy about it. You fuckers at Langley never could leave anything alone. Now all your sleazy little covert actions are being revealed for all to see.'

  'Are you sure it's all true?'

  'How can you doubt it? As far as I know, and I've been reading the newspaper analyses pretty carefully, it all checks out. Christ, if it was just ten percent true that would be a major improvement on what passes for news nowadays.'

  He nodded. 'That's probably right, but where's the information coming from? How was all this footage shot?'

  'That's a mystery, no question. I've read speculation that a lot of the stuff is from intelligence sources. After all, most intelligence services probably bug their statesmen, and with cameras being so small they can just as easily film them as well. Maybe some kind of pan-intelligence community has sprung up, with 'moles' in all the major agencies...CIA, MI5, Mossad and so on.'

  'What about the Kennedy thing? The way it followed the bullets.'

  'Sure, that had to be bullshit, special effects...that kind of thing. But again, when they analysed it, it did made some kind of sense. I don't mind the broadcasters being illustrative like that, but it would be better if they made it clear what was happening. Like on TV when they re-enact a crime, they put 'simulation' on the bottom of the screen.'

  Leith remembered his beer and took a long drink. When he put it down he looked at her. 'You don't think,' he wiped the foam from around his mouth, 'you don't think that maybe, just maybe, you're being a teensy-weeny bit glib about all this.'

  She took a deep breath and stopped smiling. ‘Yeah, OK, but you know I'm not religious. I prefer to look for rational explanations, but I've got to admit that it does take some explaining. Like that business about the murderers. Spooky.”

  She shook her head. ‘But then I've heard people talk about all those surveillance satellites up there, how it's just a matter of retrospectively analysing their data. I mean, you hear about how satellites can read number plates. But how could they see into rooms or when the crimes were at night? They show them too.

  'But that's why everyone wants to see this broadcast. An important message, due in... ' he saw the silvery flicker of lights reflecting off her watch as she pulled back her sleeve, '... in five minutes. Like I say I'm not religious, but if this is 'Jesus Christ: The Sequel' then I wouldn't be sorry. Religion must be a big comfort and it's my loss that I could never convince myself it was true. I wouldn't be sorry to find out I was wrong.'

  He nodded and raised the glass again. Lola was at least trying to face things, albeit in a sneaky way. Everybody else, particularly the press, was still reacting to the revelations, more concerned with corroborating them than trying to figure out where the information was coming from. Perhaps it was understandable. Answers were being given to things that had bothered journalists for years. Maybe they were afraid that by looking too closely they might kill the Golden Goose.

  The average man in the street tended to take a different viewpoint. The whole thing was either denied as a trick, a product of Hollywood special effects, or the start of the Second Coming. The world was slowly going crazy.

  He looked across at the screen. The text had been there for the past twenty-four hours. It said:

  ‘A message of the deepest significance to all mankind will be broadcast on this channel at the following time:’

  A list of times in the various zones followed. The Eastern Standard entry was for 9:00 p.m.

  As he watched, new text began to roll up the screen.

  ‘Everything is under control.

  You are safe but only for the moment. Mankind faces a difficult and dangerous future and must change its ways to survive. The Truth is designed to aid you in this but is being wantonly disbelieved or ignored, despite clear evidence that it is being brought to you with technologies beyond anything possible on the Earth.’

  He heard the first mumblings of surprise from the other customers.

  'This is not the preface to an invasion from extraterrestrials. The Truth is brought to you by only one being, and that being is human. Her name is Verity.

  Verity will explain everything and will answer any questions from an invited audience. She will appear at the main satellite broadcast studio of the United Nations General Assembly building in New York on November 8 at 3:00pm EST. She will take questions from:

  Terence Nkobe, UN Secretary General

  Professor Tod Keneally of NASA and Cornell University

  Brent Valeur of TransPac Satellite News

  'As evidence that The Truth is not a fraud perpetrated using Earth technology, an unequivocal demonstration will be given. A rainbow will gird the Earth, passing over every point between latitudes 60 north and south at the following times:’

  Leith automatically looked for Eastern Standard, then checked his watch. One hour. He turned back to his drink.

  'What the fook was that all about?' said an Irish voice.

  'I haven't the faintest idea,' said another, 'but good or bad it's worth a drink.'

  Leith pulled Lola away from the bar as the crowd surged away from the TV’s.

  'What the fook was it all about?' she said, managing to grab the pitcher of beer before she was out of range.

  'Seemed self-explanatory to me.'

  'You don't seem overly surprised.'

  'No and to be honest,' why not, The Truth was letting it all hang out anyway, 'these guys have been up to a lot of other things. Stuff which really isn't so nice.'

  She gaped at him. 'You mean it's true? That it's all down to aliens or something?' She gave a nervous little laugh.

  He shrugged. 'Frankly, it's about the only explanation I can think of. Their technology, at least what we know of it, seems to involve two major advances over anything we can do. The first is access to time, to a record of all that's happened before. That's where The Truth comes from. The second is just as unbelievable. Maybe it's still all Earth technology and tricks, but I guess we'll find out in an hour.'

  'The rainbow?'

  'Yeah. A rainbow that could gird the Earth. That would be magic. Let me take you home. Langley'll be coming back to the boil and I guess I ought to be there.'

  They decided to walk back, even though Lola's apartment was several miles away. She'd made it plain she would't let him out of her sight until he'd done some explaining. That would take time, she'd said, so they may as well walk. She had been very firm. He would've needed Edwards' help to get away from her.

  He started to tell her but she wouldn't believe him at first. Only when he told her of his torture, and he heard his own voice go small and uncertain, did she change. She stopped and put a hand on his chest. He opened his mouth to tell her he was okay when he heard her gasp.

  He followed her gaze round and heard the quiet awe in her voice. 'Here it comes.'

  Buildings four and five stories high surrounded them, but they were at an intersection. To the East, between breaks in the skyline, he could just make out a brilliant violet band edging its way above the horizon.

  Lola looked at him but said nothing. They turned and hurried on, the buildings temporarily obscuring the sight. Every east-facing window seemed crammed with faces. By the time they turned into Lola's street, the last of the colours had become visible.

  'My God, it's so bright,' he muttered. It was as though a huge and splendid arch was being hauled up over the world.

  'What a brilliant symbol.’ Lola's voice was hushed. 'So peaceful, but so glorious; like we're crossing a threshold.'

  Arm in arm they watched in silence as the arch continued its slow clim upwards. Once it was clear of the skyline he lost the sense of its motion.

  It was only when the arch was a quarter way up from the horizon that Leith checked his watch and realised how long they had been standing immobile and silent. He glanced around the street, at the particoloured shadows cast by buildings and bushes and cars. Then he saw that he, too, was casting a rainbow-rimmed shadow.
r />   ‘It’s like acid,' he mumbled.

  'What was that?' she asked softly.

  ‘It’s like an acid trip. Multiple colours in your shadow that move when you do.' He swept his arm slowly to his side, faint double rainbow sweeping across the sidewalk. He noticed the cigarette ends in the gutters and even a skid-mark on the road. 'It's as bright as full moonlight.'

  'How do you think it’s done?’

  He exhaled. 'I guess some kind of high powered laser. On one of their satellites perhaps, or maybe even on the moon.’

  He hesitated, changing his mind. ‘No, not that far away: the broadcast said the rainbow would be restricted to sixty degrees north and south, so it's got to be closer than that. Yeah, it's like any communications satellite in a geostationary orbit. But...then it would be stationary...the arch is moving faster than the Earth's rotation.' He gave up. 'What the hell. Someone at Langley'll figure it out. Speaking of which,' he said, putting his arm round her, 'I'd better go.'

  He kissed her but she only barely responded and he noticed that her eyes were open wide, staring at the spectacle over his shoulder.

  'Right,' she said, 'I think I'll head up to the roof. Get a better view.'

  'You're not gonna...'

  She held a hand up and the blankness in her gaze suddenly vanished. 'I told you not to give me that shit.'

  'OK, I'm sorry. It's just...I like you so much.'

  She kissed him but this time with such spirit that he put his hand under her coat and touched a hard rising nipple through the thin cotton of her shirt.

  'Whoa, boy,' she pushed him away. 'That'll be waiting for you.'

  Then she was off, stopping only at the foot of the building to kick off her flat-heeled shoes and cram them into the pockets of her duffle-coat. Opening her coat for more freedom, she began the climb.