Conscious

by Vic Grout

  “The President.” Bob stated bluntly. Jerry smiled and nodded.

  “Ah, you’ve seen her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Don doesn’t want, … er, need, me around for that. So I can concentrate on my proper job now.

  “Which is?”

  “Trying to stay in contact with the rest of the world – keeping operations operational. And that’s proving pretty difficult at the moment!”

  Andy decided to go all in with a bluff: this was his chance.

  “Aye, tell me about it! I’ve been trying to contact my ex-wife to find out how my daughter is: she’s missing and I’m worried. But no-one has a phone that works any more and Skype and all that stuff’s buggered. Any chance I could borrow yours to try her number direct?”

  Jerry’s look became suddenly stern.

  “Andy, please don’t think we don’t take sensible precautions with guests like you. Information is always valuable and we have plenty of that. We know that you do indeed have an ex-wife, but you do not have a daughter – or any children.” Andy stared, open-mouthed and ensnared. But Jerry had not finished. “We also know that you don’t drink alcohol even though you said you needed a beer this afternoon. However, when your breath was scanned as you returned from your excursion, you had drunk none. Be very careful, Andy: all such things are noted.”

  He turned abruptly and left the canteen.

  *

  It had been another early start, and another long day, and The Desk was still running very much on European time. Frustrated as they might be by lack of progress and other setbacks, and horrified as they were by the massacre they knew was continuing across the world, they were tired and saw only too clearly that nothing else could be achieved that night. Whatever they were to try next would have to wait until morning. They hugged disconsolate goodnights and took to their rooms, each with their own images of the carnage outside.

  It was forty minutes later. Andy lay sleepless and in unbearable pain, staring open-eyed into the dark nothing of his ceiling. Slowly, very slowly, his eyes adapted a little. Gradually, even the miniscule amount of light creeping in around the edges of the door, and reflected on a few shiny surfaces, was enough for him to be able to detect the dim outline of larger items of furniture. He continued to stare, hardly blinking.

  Beside him, Aisha’s breath was soft and regular. Still he waited. Little by little her breathing grew steadier and stronger; eventually, it reached the level of a low, light snore. He rose – painfully but as gently as he could – from the bed, listening for any audible change as he did so. Still she slept soundly. He fumbled for his clothes at the chair on which he had deliberately left them when they had undressed. Quietly, he pulled on a t-shirt and loose jogging bottoms, and slipped into a pair of light shoes, suppressing the groans that sought escape as anything touched his body. Even more quietly, he padded towards the door, let himself out into the corridor and quickly closed it behind him. Aisha slept on.

  Chapter 29: Truth

  It was the next morning, although it had to be early because Andy was still asleep. At first, his dream of sitting quietly by a river with Aisha – her sight fully restored – was disturbed by a distant tapping somewhere; then actual physical contact: someone was shaking him gently by the shoulder. He awoke to find Jerry Austin standing over him, finger to his lips, urging him to silence. Light from the corridor outside fell in through the open door.

  Jerry motioned Andy to follow him from the room, which he did. He still wore the shirt and jogging bottoms from the previous night. He quietly left Aisha sleeping and closed the door behind him. As they stalked towards the lift, he grunted sleepily through his pain.

  “What’s this all about?”

  Jerry waited until the lift doors closed on them before replying.

  “I’m inclined to assume, Andy, that anyone with any decency, who has to fabricate lies about needing alcohol when they don’t drink, or to phone someone who doesn’t exist, is hiding an equally important truth. I’m testing that theory.” He said no more.

  On exiting the lift, he led Andy to the Look Out. Outside was still dark. Two guards lurched upright to attention from their chairs.

  “We’re going out!” Jerry snapped; it was so obviously not his natural manner that Andy could not suppress a smile. One of the guards slid open a glass panel and closed it after the two of them had stepped through. There was just enough light from inside to show the short flight of rough steps. They climbed these, turned around the outside of the rocky outcrop into a natural recess and were swallowed by the blackness.

  Immediately, and without warning, Andy felt something being pushed into his hand: a mobile phone. It was switched on at the same time as it was passed, the screen’s glow reflecting off his face and giving just enough light to make out Jerry’s features.

  “What’s this for?” he asked – although he felt he knew.

  “Phone your ‘daughter’,” said Jerry.

  Andy had no more lies to hide behind: that stage of the game was over and they had lost. He shrugged acceptance of the situation and pulled Stephen’s card from his pocket, waving it towards Jerry by way of explanation – or apology. Holding it at an angle to the phone’s face so he could both read the number and enter it, he carefully typed in the sequence – his anxiety increasing towards what might happen when he pressed ‘Call’. The string of digits built up across the screen until he pressed the final one to complete the number. As he did so, a second line of text appeared below it:

  Jerry Austin (mobile) [this phone]

  He never pressed ‘Call’. Instead, he stared blankly at the screen for a few seconds as his tired brain made the necessary connections. Then, slowly, he held out the phone to return it.

  “You’re ‘Gus’?”

  Jerry took the phone and slid it back into his jacket.

  “I imagine we have some kind of understanding?” he said.

  *

  As she had the previous morning, Aisha awoke to find Andy no longer beside her. Once more, she groped in a wider search around the bed. This time, however, there was no-one in the room to reassure her.

  Further along the corridor, Jenny and Bob emerged sleepily from their separate rooms and converged on the canteen.

  *

  “So you know Stephen?”

  A hint of daylight had stolen into the air. Jerry’s face was clearer now. He thought for a moment.

  “No Andy, I don’t think I do know anyone called ‘Stephen’. However, I probably do know the man you’ve been calling ‘Stephen’. I tend to call him ‘Anton’, just as he calls me ‘Gus’ but none of those names are correct. It’s just a precaution – and a convenience. Sadly, I haven’t heard from Anton – or Stephen – since around the time you departed from Brussels. I doubt things are well.”

  “So, what’s going on?”

  “Ah! Where to begin?”

  “Well, let’s start with ‘Gus and Anton’, shall we? How do those two know each other?”

  Jerry smiled. “I’ll try.” He glanced at the sky. “But it’ll have to be quick: we can’t stay out here much longer.” He began.

  “I suppose we have to go back a few years to when we first started realising that the idiot, Trump, might end up in the Whitehouse. A lot of the military and security services quite liked the guy – still do – but there were plenty of us across the US – and elsewhere in the world – who worried that the planet wouldn’t last twelve months with him in charge. We kinda started talking to each other about what might happen when he did something batshit crazy: wanted to bomb someone for not letting him build a golf course – that sort of thing. Then, a bit more seriously, we discussed how the saner elements of the military and security might try to mitigate against some of the stupid stuff he’d almost certainly do – mostly to protect ourselves at first. We were never exactly organised as such but we started to work together a bit more regularly and we grew and, somewhere along the line, we started talking about ourselves as someth
ing called the ‘Quiet Group’. Anton and Gus were early members. We were never really doing anything wrong – just trying not to let the ethical message get lost – so, although lots didn’t want to join us, they knew we were there all right, and had to put up with us. There’s been a sort of uneasy relationship between the QG and the rest ever since.”

  He took a deep breath. “Well, fortunately of course, Trump didn’t last long as president!”

  “So, was the Quiet Group behind the assassinations?” Andy asked pointedly.

  “No, not really: not our style – or our ethics,” Jerry answered quickly, but then looked uncomfortable. “But I can’t say it came as a surprise and you could say we didn’t do a lot to stop it. Anyway, by that time, we’d kinda realised that some of the really serious lunacy he was carrying around with him – the egotism, bigotry, racism and rampant warmongering – was pretty much embedded in power in the developed world anyway. So maybe it would be a good idea if we stuck around a while and tried to throw a bit of morality into the mix occasionally. So that’s what we did, that’s what we still do, here we are, and there we are, and we’re pretty much everywhere, trying to do our bit.”

  “And are there many of you?”

  “Depends what you mean by many. A lot, certainly. Among Don, Scott, Larry and me, I’m the one QG member. But that might be a typical ratio across different levels of all the services – high and low; I don’t know. We generally have to keep quiet most of the time: hence the name, I guess. I know Don, in particular, doesn’t like it – and doesn’t trust me.” Jerry allowed himself a small chuckle. “And that’s why the four most senior guys in this place all had to come and meet you when you got off the carrier: at the time, Scott and I were the only ones available who’d been trained to drive the speeded-up buggies and Don felt he had to come with me in case I told you anything I shouldn’t! And that’s why we’re out here: most of the larger OI rooms are bugged. Don’s hardly let me out of his sight the past few days and I’m only free now because he’s having to look after the President now that she’s arrived.”

  “So what’s she doing here?”

  Jerry shrugged. “One of the safest places there is at the moment. She’s spending most of her time on the VIP accommodation floor below ours and she can dive down into The Hole at a moment’s notice if anything happens.”

  The low sun had breached the mountain range in places and thrown spikes of brightness across the plain. Andy took a moment to digest the information before his next question.

  “Right then. What’s the deal with us? Why are we really here and why won’t anyone let us do what we came here for?”

  “That’s a much harder question,” Jerry replied, “and I’m not sure I know all the answers. Some of it might be guesswork.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well, to some extent, Andy, I think you know.” To his surprise, Jerry reached inside his jacket and pulled out the pencil-written article Andy had been scribbling on the plane. “I apologise for taking this from your room but I needed some idea of who I was dealing with before I attempted any approach. Our surveillance data is very detailed and factual but it doesn’t always tell us who people really are.”

  “And who am I?”

  Jerry smiled. “You are many things, Andy. But of immediate interest to me is that you’re a good man who wants to find a solution to this problem.”

  “So why are we being stopped?”

  “This is where I have to speculate. But I think you are being delayed rather than stopped.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, although your team can provide the ultimate solution to the problem – and now probably have, there are those who may still benefit from the current situation being prolonged. It may not be in quite everyone’s interest to destroy this thing – this It – just yet.”

  “Who, for God’s sake? It’s killing everyone! No-one’s safe. Why would anyone want this slaughter to continue?” He suddenly recalled not-Thompson’s aversion to disconnection in Brussels. “There can’t be a corporate or a business objection any more, surely? No-one’s worried about losing money, are they? It’s broken things way beyond that now.”

  “It has,” Jerry agreed, “although – incredibly – some financial transactions are still taking place. But more importantly, I suspect the appearance of ‘It’ is – fortuitously for some people – solving another emerging, but difficult, long-term problem.” He raised Andy’s notes between them once more. “And I think you know what it is.”

  Andy tried to think back to the flight; he could hardly recall what he had written. He knew he had been angry: that governments cared about big business more than those that voted for them – profit more than people. He had finished by speculating that the elite might not be able to escape the damage that was being caused by technology any more than ordinary people, though; that they would ultimately suffer the ravages of technocapitalism too. They would be subject to the same environmental decline, the same descent into war and terrorism, the same loss of privacy, the same social instability caused by an automated robotic workforce.

  Oh no! Surely not?

  He could barely spit the words out.

  “You can’t be saying that the elite are using this – It – as a convenient means of wiping out a surplus population, can you?”

  “I can’t say anything for sure,” answered Jerry. “I’m not privy to those sorts of discussions, largely because I’m a QG member. I hear a few things from time-to-time, and work things out for myself, but I can’t be sure. But there are large parts of the theory that make sense.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” Look at the major problems we have in the world today and think about those that ‘the elite’, as you call them, can distance themselves from and those they can’t. Which parts of,” he waved the paper once more, “your ‘technocapitalism’ work for them and which don’t?” Andy considered for a moment but the question was rhetorical; Jerry continued.

  “The super-rich have always managed to insulate themselves from violence and war; there’s no particular reason to think the future will be any different. Similarly, with enough money – and if you want to, you can still remain pretty much hidden too – I’m not talking about ‘celebrities’ here: they’re just cannon fodder. We’re talking about multinationals and arms dealers. Privacy for the real elite won’t be a problem in the future either. For example, it’s not a huge secret that an ‘Alternative Internet’ is largely complete now – a physically-separate, smaller, hidden version to run alongside the crude one the ‘plebs’ like you and me have to use.

  “But environmental damage and social unrest are a different matter entirely: those are real threats – even to the elite. The first is obvious but the second may be even more of an immediate danger. We’re already seeing the effect that an automated AI/robot workforce is having on unemployment. And with higher unemployment comes increased hardship, which leads to social unrest and instability. And it’s that instability that they fear most, particularly if it’s global – not just limited to the developing world.

  “Until now, the solution has been simple. The elite control everything: the money, government, the Internet and the Media. They spread lies and misinformation and cause most people to fight amongst themselves. They use differences between people to divide them. They use whatever tools offer themselves: religion, atheism, race, gender, anything. Even in so-called ‘free’ countries, they manage to get people to vote against their own best interests on the basis of ‘competition’ and it still passes for ‘democracy’. Everything’s driven from the US, of course: the EU’s just a junior partner in American global imperialism – but a very willing one!

  “But that stability has its limits. If unemployment through automation continues to rise – as it’s doing, and no-one changes the underlying economic model, then that system of control by disinformation will ultimately fail. The lies will be too obvious; the diversions won’t make sense: the numbers will s
ee to that. Either by peaceful means, through the ballot box, or violently, in the streets, the old order will fall. They know that. They also know that they can’t survive on a dead planet either, of course.

  “Now, awful as it may seem, elimination of a massive number of people helps solve both those problems. ‘Thinning out’ a large fraction of the population decreases overcrowding, reduces tensions, lowers unemployment, takes pressure off the environment and just makes those left grateful to be alive. Balance restored on many levels. Technocapitalism doesn’t need the same ratios of a surplus labour force as conventional capitalism. A much smaller number of humans and an increasing number of robots will give the system back its stability and the elite can regroup and start again. And the short-term environmental damage will be a price worth paying in the long run for a less densely-populated, less damaged world. If It carries on the way It is, by the time It’s destroyed Itself, It’ll have accounted for a good number of the rest of us too. Then the elite can start again; maybe with their smaller, ‘Alternative Internet’ as the starting point?”

  The closest patch of sunlight had nearly reached them.

  Andy felt numb. “So you’re saying,” he asked, aghast, “that they’re going to let It carry on killing people until they think the numbers are right? Really?” He struggled for words. “And do they have a target? Any particular figure they’d like to achieve? Jesus, I can hardly believe I’m saying this!”

  “I’ve heard global figures of seventy or eighty percent mentioned in the context of an ‘ideal’.”

  “They’re going to let It continue to kill people until only three-quarters of the world’s population are left?”

  “No, until three-quarters are gone.”

  *

  Jenny and Bob were eating a cheerless breakfast. A slight disturbance from the doorway made them turn in that direction. Aisha was groping her way, alone and distraught, into the canteen. They rose quickly and helped her to a seat.