by Rod Rees
2:09
Las Vegas
The Real World: 16 April 2019
With the US economy revitalised by the huge increase in the price of oil (following the nuclear destruction of the Middle East oilfields during the Two-Day War of 1963, the USA found itself the second-largest oil producer in the world), President Paul Kenton signed a secret cooperation pact with Russia (the Leningrad Protocol of 1968) to jointly finance the creation of a nuclear weapon and a related delivery system. On learning about the so-called New Manhattan Project, the British Prime Minister, Edward du Cann, reacted angrily, dubbing Russia and America an ‘Axis of Evil’ and vowing to do everything in the British Empire’s power to prevent these two ‘rogue states’ from becoming N-powers. This speech marked the beginning of the Cold War.
America and the Bomb: Penny Fairchild, ParaDigm Publications
There was something, just something, in the way Norma said this that made Ella turn to look at her and she was more than a little disturbed by the sparkle of excitement in the girl’s eyes.
‘To my way of thinking,’ Norma began, ‘even if we prevent the activation of noöPINC, we still won’t have won. We might have averted genocide but we won’t have won! Think about it. If Rivets and Dong E organise things so that when the Boles try to switch on noöPINC nothing happens … so what?’
‘Well, a few billion people will have been saved from a pretty horrible death!’
‘Quite right, Rivets, but we won’t have defeated the Boles, all we’ll have done is just delayed the inevitable. ParaDigm will still be the most powerful company on the planet and the Boles – the Grigori – will still have control of ParaDigm. Okay, so they’ll have suffered a reverse and they won’t be happy but all they’ll do is dust themselves down and start plotting again. To win – to defeat the Boles and the Grigori – we’ve got to find a way to negate their power.’
Rivets gave a smirk and a disconsolate shake of his head. ‘That’s impossible, Norma. ABBA’s current non-cooperation only seems to involve matters relating to the Demi-Monde, so the Boles still control the day-to-day functioning of the machine, and that means they control everything.’
‘Tell me why ABBA is so important to them.’
‘Because ABBA has taken data fusion to new and unprecedented levels,’ answered Rivets. ‘ABBA has access to the information held in all the governmental and private databases around the world …’
‘Is that true?’ challenged Norma. ‘The US government always insists that its databases are immune to hacking by ABBA.’
‘Bullshit,’ opined Rivets. ‘There isn’t a database that ABBA can’t access. Forget encryption: ABBA’s processing power is so enormous that it trashes the most complex cyber-defences in seconds. And the upshot is that ABBA knows and analyses in real time all the data flowing through the digital systems of banks, of supermarkets, of tax agencies, of the police, of doctors … of everybody: if a record is digital then ABBA has seen it. And then you’ve got to remember that ABBA manages the PanOptika surveillance system, so all the information collected by every – and I do mean every – public and private CCTV camera and by every eyeSpy in the world finds its way to ABBA. But that’s not all: ABBA operates the Polly network so it reads every eyeMail you send or receive and listens to every Polly conversation you participate in. It’s impossible to walk, drive or take a shit without ABBA knowing about it.’ Rivets laughed. ‘ABBA owns you folks … and the Boles own ABBA. They know what everyone is thinking or doing almost before they think or do it. That’s why ParaDigm’s so adept at outmanoeuvring their commercial rivals and why no country has ever seriously challenged the might of the British Empire. The Boles always win because they know the cards their opponents are holding.’
‘Frightening,’ admitted Ella. And the odd thing was that she was frightened. That ABBA had presented to her as Vanka had made her forget just how powerful the machine was … and that it seemed to be following its own agenda.
‘This is the reason why all the governments outside the British Empire are so freaked by ABBA,’ continued Rivets, ‘and why they’ve been trying to push a declaration through the League of Nations restricting ABBA’s ability to access databases and limiting the surveillance scope of PanOptika.’ He gave a shrug. ‘Waste of time, of course, the technology has gone too far for it to be dismantled. To demand that Paradigm abandon PanOptika, turn off the cameras and ground the eyeSpies is naïve. The Boles will only respond by creating ever-smaller cameras, ever more subtle ways of monitoring you and me and everyone else in the whole fucking world. The League of Nations might have banned moteBots but everybody knows they’re out there and everybody knows there’s fuck-all we can do about it.’
Norma nodded. ‘What you’ve said, Rivets, only confirms my belief that it’s the Boles’ control of information that’s their ace in the hole. A good friend of mine back in the Demi-Monde told me that information is and has always been the most valuable commodity in the whole world. Politicians since the dawn of history have understood that without information people have no real power. So to defeat the Boles we must subvert their control of the information provided by ABBA.’
‘Come again?’
‘Think about it. The reality is that the Boles’ power comes from knowing things other people don’t … having access to information denied other people. And like all commodities, information is valuable because it’s scarce—’
‘No, it isn’t, Norma, Polly has given us access to more information than ever. Shit, thanks to Polly, we’ve got information coming out of our ears.’
‘Not so, Rivets, what we’ve got coming out of our ears – or rather, going into our ears – is noise. The Polly is full to overflowing with garbage and this, I think, is a deliberate strategy of the Boles. All the porn, the banal chatter of social networking sites and the blitzkrieg of prurient gossip carried by Polly is there to mask the paucity of important data, real information, the stuff that’s kept confidential and secret, the stuff that’s sealed away behind layers of ABBA encryption … the stuff that’s only known by the Boles. That’s the information I’m referring to: the information which is valuable because it’s scarce … scarce because we don’t even know it exists. That’s what we’ve got to do to defeat the Boles, we’ve got to end the scarcity of information … devalue it.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘By using noöPINC. The Boles, by making every man, woman and child in the world noöPINC-equipped, have given us the perfect weapon to defeat them. Their intention is to use noöPINC as an on/off switch for the Plague – to decide who lives and who dies – but what if we turned this plan of theirs around and instead we used noöPINC to give humanity access to all the information held by ABBA? The Boles have created the first digitocracy, a tyranny based on their control of digital information where Joe and Jane Public have been reduced to the status of digital peasants. What I am suggesting is that we stage the digital equivalent of a Peasants’ Revolt.’
‘Er …’
‘You’ve told me, Rivets, that you and Dong E have been sent here to reprogram ABBA so that it’s dutiful to the Boles, but what if, instead, you reprogrammed it so that it allowed everyone with a noöPINC access to its databases … to all the information it holds? In that way we’ll subvert noöPINC and devalue the information that forms the foundation of the Boles’ power. By taking control of noöPINC we will supplement the biosphere with a noösphere.’
‘A noösphere?’
‘A noösphere is a concept first promulgated by Teilhard de Chardin which envisages all human thought, experiences and knowledge coalescing into a sort of hive mentality.’
Ella laughed. ‘It’s actually a very old idea. It used to be called Atavistic Thought Inheritance.’
Rivets shook his head. ‘Old or new, it’s still a fucking ridiculous idea.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you created this noösphere of yours, everybody would know everything about everybody!’ Rivets spluttered. ‘You
would destroy privacy and without privacy society would cease to function.’
‘Society, Rivets, is a very robust thing,’ answered Norma. ‘A couple of hundred years ago people lived in villages and knew everything about their neighbours. It’s only since the advent of cities which threw strangers together that we’ve become obsessed with privacy. What I’m suggesting is that we use ABBA and noöPINC to create a global village.’
‘But then nothing would be private.’
‘Exactly.’ Norma gave a sardonic little chuckle. ‘To my way of thinking, the choice we are presented with is between preserving privacy and annihilation.’
For a moment Rivets seemed to be nonplussed by Norma’s certainty, but, game as ever, he tried another tack. ‘It would destroy the functioning of government!’
‘No, Rivets, it would change the functioning of government; it would make governments wholly transparent and wholly accountable and that would be a good thing. A noöPINCed world would be a true democracy.’
Rivets still wasn’t convinced. ‘Even so, the Boles could threaten to turn off ABBA and without ABBA the world would cease to function: the Polly network would crash, the transport system would be thrown into chaos, people would starve, nuclear plants would go into meltdown. That’s the Boles’ get-out-of-jail-free card: move against them and they’d simply pull the plug on ABBA and we’d all be en route back to the Stone Age.’
‘Could they, Rivets? I don’t think ABBA’s in the mood to be shut down. And anyway, once everyone is noöPINCed, ABBA wouldn’t belong to the Boles any longer: ABBA would belong to everyone.’
‘The religious community will go apeshit, Norma,’ noted Dong E. ‘Once they find out they’ve been noöPINCed, they’re gonna be very unhappy campers. There’s a lot of people out there who think ABBA is the Antichrist, that PINC is the Mark of the Beast and that wearing it signals the triumph of Satan.’
Norma wasn’t impressed. ‘What we’ll have to do, Dong E, is sell this as the Revelation … the dawning of a new age of humankind … an age of peace and harmony.’
‘How so?’ asked Rivets.
‘Because my feeling is that once people are privy to the information held by ABBA, wars will be a thing of the past. Most wars are the result of differences – real or imagined – between peoples … different religious beliefs, different languages and different political philosophies. But once everyone has access to the sum of human knowledge, once the barriers of language are dismantled, those differences will be eliminated. It will be the Age of Enlightenment come again.’
‘And to enter this utopia, all Believers will have to do is accept the Mark of the Beast,’ countered Dong E.
‘Once they’ve been plugged into ABBA,’ riposted Norma, her voice rising with excitement, ‘once they’ve experienced the euphoria that comes from being PINCed, then they’ll understand that noöPINC doesn’t represent damnation, it represents salvation.’
Rivets nodded. ‘Yeah, when I was PINCed I had something of an epiphany, so I can relate to that.’
‘Exactly, Rivets. What we will be doing is presiding over the birth of H+, humans whose mental performance has been augmented by ABBA and noöPINC. The Gathering won’t see the victory of the Boles and the Grigori, but the dawning of a noöcracy … the era of the all-knowing. And thanks to Aaliz, I’m the leader of the Fun/Funs, so I’ll have an unprecedented opportunity to sell InfoCialism to the world at the Gathering.’
‘InfoCialism?’ asked Ella.
‘The name Percy Shelley gave to the system that achieves the socialisation of information.’
Rivets nodded. ‘I have to say, I’m attracted to the idea of usurping control of noöPINC … especially as the alternative is death. You don’t have much use for privacy when you’re six feet under.’
‘And it will strip the Boles of power,’ added Dong E.
‘Yeah, good point, Dong E …’ Rivets trailed off and spent a minute sitting in silence, sipping his coffee as he struggled with the consequences of Norma’s proposal. Finally, he said, ‘Well, I guess we don’t have much of a choice. The Boles have to be defeated. Okay, Norma, I’m convinced.’
‘Good,’ said a smiling Norma. She looked around. ‘So if we’re all in agreement?’ There were nods from everyone sitting at the table. ‘Then let’s cut to the chase. I’m presuming that Dong E, being an expert on noöPINC, can write the program amendments necessary to alter its functioning, so that the virus is incapable of being activated.’
A nod from Dong E. ‘Yeah, and I’ll also have to do some tinkering to stop the Boles controlling the content that can be downloaded from ABBA.’
‘Then it only remains to figure out a way of sending these instructions to ABBA.’ Norma looked across the table towards Rivets. ‘I guess that this is your area of expertise, Rivets.’
‘Difficult.’
‘But doable?’
‘Maybe.’
*
They spent ten minutes discussing tactics, finally deciding that Norma would go to the Gathering escorted by Burl and Oddie; that Rivets and Dong E would go to the ParaDigm facility; and that Ella …
Ella didn’t quite know what she would do. Having rescued Norma, her role seemed to be over. She couldn’t go to the Gathering – her colour made her too noticeable for that: all Fun/Funs were white – and there didn’t seem to be any other role for her. As she waved Norma, Burl and Oddie off in the pickup she had a troubling feeling of suddenly being surplus to requirements. In the space of an hour, she’d gone from saviour to fifth wheel.
‘That Norma Williams of yours is one very forceful lady, Ella,’ mused Rivets as he walked with her and Dong E across the lot to the parked Studebaker.
‘I could object to the use of the word “yours”, Rivets. As you heard, she’s very much her own woman.’
And that was certainly the truth. The last time Ella had had anything to do with Norma Williams had been back in the Demi-Monde and she’d changed one hell of a lot since then. The Real World Norma was a much more certain girl than the one Ella remembered and she found it really difficult to connect with people of such a certain disposition. Lilith had been a very certain lady and she had caused no end of mayhem and unhappiness. Maybe all the ‘Messiah’ business in the Demi-Monde had gone to Norma’s head? There was certainly a touch of the evangelist about her now.
They got to the car and Rivets handed Ella the keys. ‘You drive, Ella: give me and Dong E a ride to the ParaDigm facility and then take off. There’ll be less chance of you being spotted by the FBI if you’re driving than if you take a train or a bus. I’ll announce the car stolen in a couple of days.’
A good idea, though Ella didn’t have a clue as to where she would ‘take off’ to. ‘So tell me, Rivets,’ she said as she slid into the driver’s seat, ‘how are you and Dong E going to make the changes to noöPINC?’
‘By making a retro-fix.’
‘Retro-fix?’
They sat in the car as Rivets explained to Ella what retro-programming and Temporal Modulation were and then he spent another five minutes answering her questions.
‘So if I understand you right, Rivets, the Boles don’t just control the present but they also control the past.’
‘Correct, Ella.’
Almost absent-mindedly, Ella switched on the car’s engine, then manoeuvred it out of the parking lot. She made a PINC-advised left turn and found herself on an almost deserted stretch of road signposted to ‘ParaDigm Nevada Research Facility’. Automatically she sank lower into her seat, trying to make herself as small as possible. She could almost feel the Boles watching her and that thought was a troubling one. In her judgement, it would take more than the reprogramming of noöPINC to defeat the Boles and the Grigori.
‘One thing puzzles me, Rivets, why didn’t you tell Norma about Temporal Modulation?’
Rivets made a moue. ‘Maybe I was just overwhelmed by all this InfoCialism business.’
‘Or maybe we were just a little suspicious of her,’ adde
d Dong E, ‘just like you were, Ella.’
An insightful observation, but then Dong E was one smart girl. ‘“Suspicious” is probably the wrong word, Dong E. This InfoCialism of Norma’s has just come at me in a bit of a rush. Maybe I just need some time to get my head around it. I can see the logic in what Norma’s proposing … it just seems a little radical for my taste. The reshaping of humankind isn’t something to be done lightly.’ Ella almost laughed. She of all people knew the truth of that statement. Meddling with evolution always seemed to end in tears and, as she saw it, presiding over the dawning of H+ was doing just that. ‘I’ve had some experience with hive mentalities … with noöcracies like the one Norma’s proposing, and those experiences haven’t been altogether pleasant.’
‘So what do you think we should be doing?’
‘We’ve got to remember that the thing that is motivating the Boles is their desire to have the Grigori triumphant, and while they’re still around, humanity will never be safe. We’ve got to destroy the Grigori.’ Wasn’t that the truth? Her time in the Demi-Monde had taught her that neither Lilithi nor the Grigori had a place in the Real World. Both had to be consigned to history.
‘So do we know where these Grigori are hiding out?’ asked Rivets.
‘No … no one knows.’
‘Well, if we can’t find them, it’s difficult to destroy them!’
‘Maybe ABBA could tell us?’ suggested Dong E.
Ella shook her head. ‘No, ABBA can’t do anything that directly harms the Boles, and telling us where the Grigori are hiding would do just that.’
‘That’s a real shame, Ella. If I knew where they were, it’s possible I could deal with them … especially if they’re anywhere near a TiME facility.’
Ella drove in silence for a minute or so as she turned this last statement of Rivets’ over in her head. ‘If I was to find out, how would I be able to let you know their location?’
‘All you’d have to do is send me a TELEpath message via PINC.’
