Mad-Sci-Soc

by Arrand Pritchard

  “Terri is a fine young woman…” Conrad replied smoothly.

  “My super power seems to have been working on her recently.”

  “Perhaps we can change that. We can give you real mutotonic superpowers, Aaron, with the right carefully-worded, licence application. But it is not superpowers that make a superhero, but heart, integrity... ”

  I interrupted, “You apply for superpowers?”

  “Apply, yes. You think they’re inherited? No, that would be most unfair, that would be like wealth or royalty! How archaic!” said Conrad with some disgust.

  “Well, yes. I assumed that was the case. Either that or a dreadful accident with a radioactive frazzaliser. You know, developing mutations...” I stammered.

  “The newscasts like to promote radiation as the cause of the super powers and the arrival of superheroes but radiation is nothing but a poison. Keep taking a rad-free pills otherwise you'll soon be poorly. Mutotonic is in fact a made-up word. It’s just part of the smoke-screen. You can't make any assumptions until you've understood this crazy world of ours,” said Conrad firmly. “The first thing you need to know. There are no real superpowers, mutotonic or otherwise.”

  “But...” I stuttered. “I've read the news, I've seen the movies, the mainstream reality shows… It is in wikipedia!” This was a shock to me; like finding out that Santa Claus was not real.

  “It's just technology and science applied in a disguised form. Just like a magician’s trick. There's nothing supernatural. Even your fridge’s behaviour will turn out to have a perfectly logical explanation. Even if it does seem rather bizarre at the moment.”

  “A bit more than bizarre? Not even Disney would dare to imagine an evil fridge.”

  “Fortunately the nearest Disneyworld is tens of miles away. We can't blame Disney for this.”

  “But this is incredible. No superheroes? Have I been lied to all my life?” I stuttered.

  “You and most of the rest of society. It's pretty criminal really,” sighed Conrad.

  “I knew Superdude was fiction, he said he was an alien; and we all know aliens don't exist after the UFOs were exposed as a stunt by Hollywood producers to whip-up interest in sci-fi. But BatBuddy, Nerdifier, Spider-Guy?”

  “Yes, they're all just regular joes. The only one coming close to the truth is BatBuddy. At least he never claimed to have anything mutotonic.”

  “Yeah, but he only went after email scammers! What about the super villains? Torro, The Wit, Dr Invincible, Dweebee?”

  “These super villains are all patsies. All employed to drive up the ratings and contracted to fail. Sure, there are some real bad guys too, but generally they are not televisual enough.”

  I held my face in my hands. “So Captain Kittoffery was a fake?”

  “If by fake you meant he had technological assistance then yes,” said Conrad referring to himself in the third person.

  “Captain Kittoffery's super strength... it was just a gimmick?” I asked aghast.

  “A titanium exoskeleton, pneumatic pumps and a bullet-proof vest, hidden by a holo-costume,” replied Conrad.

  “And Spider-Guy? How did he climb walls?” I asked.

  “Wall climbing equipment has been available for decades. It is amazing what you can do with some disguised zip lines,” he said matter-of-factly. “Always had problems getting out of the bath though.”

  “Nerdifier. He could go invisible.”

  “Holo-costume and some cameras!”

  “And his hypnotic influence?”

  “A dart gun delivering a powerful suggestibility drug.”

  “Super hearing?”

  “Electronic snooping.”

  “Super vision?”

  “Telescopic night vision goggles.”

  “And what about Aquaboy and his gills?”

  “No gills. He uses a rebreather.”

  I asked Conrad the same sort of questions, in a repeated loop, varying the phraseology of the question in minor ways. Conrad gave longer and shorter answers depending on whim.

  “Holly cursing, sycophantic, chocolate-covered cow, captain,” I sighed. “Is there no magic left?”

  Conrad smiled and described the historical context.

  After the third Robot War and thereafter the countless skirmishes between rival crime gangs using army surplus robots, governments around the world reluctantly agreed to program all humanoid form automatons with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to prevent their deliberate harm to humans. But this move had a significant impact on the issue of crime control. All the Police Force Robots had to be decommissioned and replaced by Asimov compliant machines. Take up of the re-humanised jobs was inhibited by two troublesome bits of legislation. Firstly the health and safety laws and secondly, the introduction of psychological tests to prove Police Officer sanity. Since crime could no longer be controlled by the long robotic arm of the law, governments fell on a more traditional psychological angle to crime prevention: fear of being caught by an omnipotent do-gooder. “Super heroes” became deliberate government creations in most countries around the world (except China which still frowns upon such Western fairy tales). These token law enforcers could act as idols and role models fighting crime without the paraphernalia of a Big Brother state to crack down on freewill and creativity. The politicians, including the President, despite his superhero political advert, publicly denounced the vigilantes. Although, actually, they appreciated their unaccountability and invested in broadcast networks creating their hero-themed reality TV shows in order to get their kickback cut. In any case, the state could always revert back to other police enforcement mechanisms like micro-drones, if the amateurs did not deliver the right level of public approval. Conrad explained that all superheroes are licensed by a secret government agency, under Presidential oversight, to ensure just enough interest, public enthusiasm and broadcast ratings, while also generating enough fear into seriously organised criminals by this special form of high-profile vigilantism. Vigilantism, it turns out, with government, and corporate, approval.

  “So it's about the media and the corporations again?” I asked.

  “Isn't everything?” shrugged Conrad.

  “Is there no super power you can't fake?” I asked in desperation.

  Conrad sighed wistfully, “We still haven't mastered flying. Sure we have our jet-pack but it has a flight time of just a few minutes... and its slow... and we can't fight with it.”

  “Can't you invent a better jet-pack?”

  “I'm organising a crowd-sourced development,” he winked.

  Eventually I asked the key question, “So where do you apply for superpowers?”

  “The Su-U, the Super Hero Union,” replied Conrad smugly. “I'll take you there tomorrow. Mad-Sci-Soc has its own chapter and a secret hideout downtown.” At this point I had exited the car.

  We arranged to meet the next day to look for the fridge remains, once Conrad had decoded Antonio's data. Conrad lowered the car's shell and the vehicle immediately leapt away from the curb rejoining the speeding traffic chaos at the end of the street.

  ***

  Wednesday, January 23, 2123

  I bounded into the apartment where Terri was laying on the sofa unwrapping grapes while watching the broadcast 3d images in the center of the room. There was not enough room to reach the sofa and Terri didn't like it if I walked through the holographic image, so I stayed by the door.

  “Did you find the fridge?” she asked not looking away from holographic characters in the fictional drama.

  “No. But you’ll never guess what?” I said enthusiastically.

  She did not reply but suspended the holoscreen. She rolled a grape around her mouth as she transfixed me with her stare.

  I tried a different tack. “Can I get you something? Tea, perhaps?” I was hungry. I walked to the kitchen area. Terri had previously not liked the way I made her tea. As a Brit, from the land of tea drinkers, I always found this was a bit of an insult and have tried really hard to make it to he
r specification. After all it's only boiled water, tea leaves and milk. I was ready to give it another go.

  “No,” she replied in a drawn-out tone implying that I had forgotten something.

  Then it came to me what was bothering her. “Oh, I geddit. No, I didn't see Max. He didn't turn up.”

  She pulled a face and turned away.

  “But you’ll never guess what?” I repeated to the back of Terri's head, she was not looking at me.

  Terri resumed the broadcast program and said, “I'm guessing you found nothing.”

  “Well... uh, yes. But that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say that Conrad... is really...”

  “...Captain Kittoffery. Yes, I know,” said Terri finishing off the sentence, killing my buzz.

  “You knew? Why didn't you tell me?” I said.

  “It's his secret identity,” she said with emphasis on “secret”. “I was asked to keep it secret.”

  I nodded while trying to restore my dignity. “Well,” I said. “Well, he's offered to make me a... get-this... a...”

  Terri interrupted again, “A super hero?”

  Open mouthed, I nodded.

  “Yeah. Been there, got the t-shirt. Did they give you a hero name?” she said twisting around to look at me.

  I shook my head.

  “You’d better think of one by yourself before they give you something crappy,” she suggested and returned back to the broadcast.

  “So... they... you?” I asked un-intelligently.

  Terri just made a hand gesture to wave me away.

  “No really. What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You said you were a super hero too?” I stammered.

  “It didn't work out.”

  “So you were?”

  “I could have been.”

  “But it didn't work out? Come on, you need to tell me more than that,” I pleaded.

  “I can give you one more word on the subject.”

  “And that is?”

  “Max!”

  “Oh. Right. You don't want to talk about it?”

  “I don't want to talk about it,” she said through gritted teeth turning up the volume on the broadcast. She added, talking over the sound from the show, her parting piece of advice, “Don't let them take you out on a mission!”

  ***

  Thursday, January 24, 2123

  Thursday morning, Terri left for work and I went to meet Conrad as early as I could. It was noon. I could have explained that I was a late riser but that was only part of my excuse. I do my work at night, my “Freelance Technical Research” that Terri likes to scoff at.

  Legacy. That word conjures up a picture of something nice that you leave for future generations: some wealth or family heir-loom. But not for computers, it means the exact reverse. It means expense, maintenance and trouble. And that is the Legacy Net, the old early 21st century internet and web pages: lots of trouble. I guess I am attracted towards trouble.

  It's true that the Legacy Net had a lot of pictures of naked woman that could snaffle up much of my working time but it is also the only source of unfiltered, unrestricted, unpatented, uncopyrighted information on the planet. At no time do you encounter the dreaded DRM-pop-up that says "copyright laws forbid this action" as found on the corporately-controlled holo-web. With the Legacy-Net, I could drink my fill from the fountain of knowledge, while the population at large on the Holoweb merely had access to mouthwash.

  Since the Legacy Net is trouble, it is locked away, heavily protected, and only accessible to licensed Information Archaeologists who have to fill out the right forms. My secret is that I can access it without the form-filling. Ok, it is technically illegal but the way I see it, if my grandfather had free access to this info, then so should I. My access is by a “backdoor,” “trap door” or a “Trojan Horse”... actually I can't remember the correct metaphoric name. This is what I do. In order not to be tracked, I have to “borrow” an acquaintance's unmonitored Legacy Net account with academic privilege, he's not even a licensed archaeologist! But from a separate app, I can spring an encryption token, just a random ten digit number. With my own antique computer and that encryption key number, I can enter the Legacy Net archive at the Museum of Computer Technology. My machine is so old that it slips under the access control protocols. But this has to done between midnight and 12.30am EST to coincide with the patching of intruder detection software which is effectively offline in that period. So while the virtual guard dog sleeps, I creep inside the Legacy Net like I might have if it was an old abandoned haunted house. I use several special apps that minimise my “footprint” on the dusty data. I don't imagine anyone checks too closely anyway.

  It's amazing what you can learn at a Star-Hit De-Cafe Bar; that's where I found out how to hack the cob webs, from a fellow student in my final weeks at college just as I was trying to find paid employment. This small piece of insider information became my subsequent meal ticket. I had little choice but to become self employed since, during college, my virtual world avatar was locked up in virtual prison. I had been caught attempting to circumvent the payment system by offering counterfeit crypto-currency. That, together with my natural nocturnal habits and poor dress sense made me an unsuitable candidate for any real world jobs with the corporations; indeed just about any employment that used state-organised currency.

  Before leaving the apartment, waiting for the auto-taxi to arrive, Terri broke our usual morning protocol of ignoring each other to ask, “Have you thought of your super hero name?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I fancy... Captain Disaster!”

  “They already have a Captain.”

  “They can't have another?”

  “No. No,” said Terri gravely. “You have to have a totally original name. But you could be a General or a Major.”

  “Major. Ok,” And I pretended to go into character, “Stop bad guys! Says who? Says me, Major Disaster! Hmmm! That's not going to work, is it? General Disaster? No. No better.”

  “Like taking candy from a baby,” said Terri with a smile. She had set me up.

  But I was thinking, hey, is she starting to like me again? “How about Colonel, Corporal, Private?” I said assuming she liked the military sounding names, having not processed that she was teasing me.

  “Best keep this to ourselves, Private Disaster,” she said sardonically.

  “By the way, do you have any money?”

  “You know this is one of the reasons why we are breaking up, don’t you?”

  ***

  Chapter Five Induction

  Thursday, January 24, 2123

  Conrad met me on the flood prevention barrier above Pier 86, next to the sunken remains of USS Intrepid. The old ship, an “aircraft carrier”, lay at 20 degrees off vertical with decaying twentieth century air vehicles, incongruously clinging onto the flight deck in formation; stuck there by hurricane-proof cabling.

  “What’s on the agenda?” I asked Conrad breezily.

  “Well, you'll be glad to know we are not going onto the carrier,” he said indicating the rusty hulk in the water.

  “I heard the Mayor was going to re-float the boat but had hit technical problems...”

  “The robots keep slipping off and falling into the Hudson, if that's what you mean by technical. And there's too much health-and-safety-ism for human workers. Meanwhile the plan for submarine drones to weld up the hull underwater has stopped due to a dispute about who owns the patent on the technology,” said Conrad.

  I gave a sly smile. Copyrights and Patents strike again.

  “Yes,” said Conrad in a drawn-out fashion, in response to my smirk.

  Conrad pointed northwards, “We have our craft waiting along the dock.”

  It was a grey day and there were a few people close to the water's edge. Conrad pointed to a small tourist boat, apparently waiting for us, manned by two ancient robot matelots. As a robot-free zone, you did not often meet robots in the streets of Manhattan. As for Rob
ot sailors? Very rare. Humans like jobs such as sailors and often elected to retire robots from such employment, but for this boat, strangely, it retained retro robot matelots. They were human-scale, all metallic with personality-chip removed.

  The robots insisted via a series of pre-programmed announcements that we must wear life-belts. It was pointless to argue with them and I complied after seeing Conrad don his. We were guided onto the enclosed viewing deck.

  “So why are we going on a boat trip?” I asked. “Are you going to offer me a job in the Navy?”

  “Maybe a job as a pirate. Just go with the flow. You’ll understand soon,” said Conrad. “First let me give you the results for the search on the fridge using Antonio's data.”

  “Yes, please, do.”

  “I haven't found it.”

  “So, no fridge?”

  “No. But,” Conrad announced, “I returned to your old apartment and used a spectroscopic analyser.”

  “Uh-ha,” I said seriously, pretending to know what spectroscopic analyser could do.

  “And found,” said Conrad smugly, “trace elements of triglycerides and carboxyl hydrocarbons.”

  “Uh-ha,” I said seriously.

  “You know what that means?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Butyric and caproic acid?”

  “No, still nothing going on here,” I said pointing to my head.

  “Fatty acids?”

  “Like in bacon?” I said lamely.

  “Dairy products!” said Conrad with mild irritation.

  “Oh, and that means?”

  “Cheese!”

  “You found cheese?”

  “Solidified dairy products and mites that can only come from cheese. High quality cheese.”

  “Terri does like her cheese.”

  “Hmm. I think that is significant. I found a trail, footprints, as it were, of cheese from your apartment, leading through the back yards of several properties to a community waste and recycling area.”

  “And you found cheese there?”

  “No, I found nothing there.”

  I smiled as convincingly as I could, at Conrad's complete failure.

  “From that I can surmise that the cheese, and the fridge, were collected and carried off elsewhere?” said Conrad with satisfaction.

  “So they were picked up by a garbage truck?”