Maiden Lane

by Christopher Blankley

  “It does,” Eve contradicts. “In fact, we have two.”

  Chapter 17

  “Care to answer my question now?” Eve asks.

  Things are a little more relaxed. I’ve put the gun away. Logan fetched more beer.

  “What lies at the end of Maiden Lane?” I ask rhetorically. “That’s easy. I understand now. What lies at the end of Maiden Lane is Rothschild, himself. Red Shield lies at the end of Maiden Lane.”

  “Rothschild?” Logan ask, surprised.

  “But not a man named Rothschild, his creation. Red Shield. A gigantic number crunching machine. A computer so powerful that it can calculate the Rubric – a probability matrix of all inputs and outputs, predict the actions and decisions of everyone, everywhere at all times, down to the most minute detail. That’s what lies at the end of Maiden Lane. Rothschild himself. Or rather, itself.”

  “You’re kidding,” Logan whistles across the top of his beer bottle.

  “He’s not,” Eve sips hers. “I knew you’d get there in your own time. I had faith...Red Shield said you were one of the smart ones...”

  “But wait, you have TWO of these computers? Is one good and one evil? Do they play tic-tac-toe with thermonuclear weapons or something?”

  “No, it’s not like that.. It’s more like the old one and a new one. The original and the upgrade.”

  “That can predict everything, all the time?” Logan interjects.

  “Exactly.”

  “Except...what’s going on out there?” Logan points out the window with his beer bottle.

  “Oh no, Junior predicted that, too.”

  “Junior?” I ask.

  “We call the new one Junior,” Eve smiles.

  “So it wanted the stock market to tank? For everyone to riot?” Logan goes on, ignoring us both.

  “No, certainly not.”

  “But it did nothing to stop it?”

  “It certainly did. That’s why we’re all sitting here, right now. This is what Junior did about the stock market crash.”

  “Right, but it didn’t have a butterfly in Abu Dhabi flap its wings, so a hurricane might hit the East Coast and close down the stock exchange, or something.” Logan looks at me. “I mean, that’s how your math works, right?”

  “Not exactly,” I answer, but I’m watching Eve’s expression. She’s relaxed, enjoying the conversation. No more pretenses, no more games.

  “No,” she says. “Red Shield foresaw this eventuality, but it was powerless to stop events via its usual means. Care to tell us all why, smart guy?” Eve winks at me.

  I don’t appreciate it. “Because Megalytics doesn’t work with money,” I answer flatly.

  Eve makes a gesture like that should explain everything.

  “I don’t understand,” Logan says.

  “No, neither do we,” Eve sits up, more interested in making this point. “I mean, Megalytics should work with money – does work with money, we have factual proof that it does. It’s just...you see...our understanding of Megalytics is really only slightly more advanced that what he’s published.” She points at me. “Red Shield may have the big computers, but when it comes to the theoretical stuff...”

  “You need this guy,” Logan points at me too.

  “Exactly.”

  “Lord, are we all royally screwed,” Logan laughs.

  “Shut up,” I tell Logan, then turn to Eve. “Wait a minute, you say Megalytics can work with money?”

  “Yes.”

  “You just can’t get it to work?”

  “Correct.”

  “But you have proof?”

  “We do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well,” Eve finishes off the last of her beer. She waves it at Logan, who gets the hint and heads for the kitchen. She continues, when we’re alone. “You remember I said we have two computers – two Red Shields.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, everything I told you in the car was true – about the original Red Shield and a man named Meyer Rothschild.”

  “And the Battle of Waterloo?”

  “Correct. When Rothschild cornered the British pound and took over the Bank of England, he saw this for exactly what it was: a tremendous shift in the fundamental power structure of the European economy. But Meyer was a brilliant financier. One motivated by more than just greed. He knew that such power, concentrated in the hands of one family – one man – was evil in and of itself. But at the same time, he knew that limited, strategic control of the money supply could act as a moderating force on the young, European economy, and as means to counteract such gambits as the one that delivered the Bank of England into the hands of Rothschild family in the first place.

  “The power just need to be separated from the man. And that’s exactly what Meyer Rothschild did.”

  “How?” Logan was back with three more bottles of beer.

  “He commissioned the greatest clockmaker in Frankfurt, a man named Hershel Barthman, to build a clockwork machine. A vast, intricate computer dedicated to one task and one task only: calculating the value of the British pound, in gold, and issuing buy or sell orders for gold bullion based on that calculation.”

  “What? That’s it?” I ask. “I thought you said it calculates the Rubric?”

  “Right, but this is the original Red Shield,” Eve reaches for her new beer. “A clockwork computer of springs and cogs and gears. It’s function is extremely primitive, but its results...well, when Red Shield was complete, it was installed in the vault of the Bank of England and quietly set to work. The great age of British prosperity ensued, along with its vast Empire, often attributed to the stability of its currency. Rothschild, the man, passed away, but Rothschild the machine kept ticking on, methodically regulating the value of the pound to the relative value of gold.”

  “Fascinating,” Logan says. But by his breezy tone, it was obvious that he has no idea what Eve is talking about.

  “Yes, fascinating history lesson,” I cough. “But what does this have to do with the twenty-first century? And with what’s going on outside? And you and your quick-change show? And the President of the United States? And why the heck are you in that picture over there?” I’m yelling again. Logan looks terrified.

  Eve just rolls her eyes. “Will you let me finish?”

  I calm down. “Sorry.”

  “Where was I?” Eve considers.

  “You were about to tell us what the Masons have to do with all this,” Logan interjects.

  I sigh. “Shut up-”

  “Yes, exactly!” Eve cuts me off. “Thank you.”

  I look at Logan in horror. He looks at me in glee.

  “So, by the beginning of the last century, England’s financial power is in decline. The Foundation of Cordwainers, Horologists and Thimble-makers – established and controlled by the Rothschild Family, with the goal of maintaining the mechanical parts of Red Shield, and keeping its existence a closely guarded secret – came to the decision that Red Shield would be more effective at stabilizing the world’s economy if it was put to work calculating the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar. To this end, plans were put into place to move Red Shield from the Bank of England to New York, to be installed in the new institution of the Federal Reserve.”

  “This is the bit with the Masons,” Logan whispers smugly to me.

  “Shut up,” I whisper back.

  “No, he’s right,” Eve adds. “The public face of the Foundation I belong to – the one created to secure and maintain the original Red Shield, is commonly known as the Masons.”

  “Really?” I’m shocked – shocked that Logan is right about anything.

  “She’s a Mason,” Logan whispers again. “Wait? My college girlfriend was a Mason? Oh Lord, that explains so much...”

  “Think about it. What’s the Mason’s emblem?”

  “The compass?”

  “Yes. Yes and no. It is, in fact, the hands of a clock. It was a clockmaker who built the original Red Shield.”

 
; “Okay, okay,” I wave my hands, trying to dismiss all the talk about Masons. “Something tells me the creation of the Federal Reserve is only the beginning of this story?”

  “It certainly is,” Eve leans back. “The idea to move Red Shield to the United States created a schism within the Foundation. The orthodox faction of the Foundation – the First Foundation – were vehemently opposed to the move. They believed doing so would betray Rothschild’s original genius. The more modern faction – the Second Foundation – believed that Rothschild could never have foreseen the seismic shift in global power toward the United States. After all, how could he? For back in his times, America was little more than a rural backwater. But the First Foundation would have none of it. Rothschild had placed Red Shield in London, and in London it would stay. They revered Rothschild – revere Rothschild, still do – with an almost religious fervor. A miscalculation on Rothschild’s part was not only incomprehensible, it was impossible. Members of the Second Foundation were not so pious. They wanted to study Rothschild's machine. Learn from it. Perhaps even improve it. This was tantamount to blasphemy to the First Foundation.

  “As you might guess, things got ugly. Fast.”

  Eve pauses to take a sip of her drink. I realize that I’m literally on the edge of my seat, listening intently. I look over at Logan. He’s similarly enthralled.

  “With the two factions in open warfare, the decision was made to covertly move Red Shield to the New World. By night, Red Shield was removed from its vault under the Bank of England and loaded aboard the newest, fastest ship in the Rothschild family’s fleet.”

  “The Titanic?” I remember.

  “Yes. Secure in the hold of the ship, the Titanic began to steam for New York. But at the last minute, the First Foundation learned of the plan and managed to place three agents aboard the vessel.”

  “Those men you mentioned? Guggenheim, Straus and Astor?”

  “Yes. Three agents with explicit instructions to do whatever it took to stop Red Shield from arriving in America.”

  “And?” Logan and I say in unison.

  “And...well, let’s just say, the Titanic didn’t hit an iceberg.”

  “They sank it?” Logan is blown away. “With the machine aboard? No way!”

  “No way is right. Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps agents of other powers were vying to steal the machine. Maybe sending the machine to the bottom of the ocean was a better option than letting it fall into non-Foundation hands. Nobody survived the voyage who could be held to account.”

  “But Red Shield did make it to New York?” I ask. “Or we wouldn’t be sitting here. Did you fish Rothschild’s machine out of the ocean? Or build a new one?”

  “Neither, Red Shield arrived in New York harbor on schedule, in the hold of the RMS Titanic.”

  “But you just said-” Logan begins.

  “No, the ship that sank at sea on April 14th, 1912 was not the Titanic, but its sister ship, the RMS Olympic. The Second Foundation made a great spectacle of packaging up and loading a decoy Red Shield aboard a decoy Titanic, expecting the First Foundation to intercept it. The real apparatus crossed the Atlantic a week later, aboard the real Titanic, under great secrecy. But it served our purposes to let the First Foundation believe that Red Shield was lost at the bottom of the ocean. At least until it was properly installed in the new, American Federal Reserve.”

  “Did you ever tell them what happened?” I ask.

  “They figured it out,” Eve allows. “Eventually. Even secret societies have problems keeping secrets.”

  “But then what happened?” Logan asks excitedly, like a kid listening to a bedtime story.

  “Then what? Well, the roaring twenty’s happened, that’s what,” Eve smiles. “With Red Shield firmly in the hands of the Second Foundation, we were able to study its workings, attempt to decode its design. We made great advances, invented whole new forms of engineering. The ground work for modern computing came out of the Second Foundation’s study of Hershel Barthman’s clockwork masterpiece. Other discoveries, the Second Foundation kept closer to its chest, for they were far too powerful to be left in the hands of the general scientific community. Among our greatest achievements was a new form of mathematics that seemed to decode in inner working of the machine. What powered its remarkable predictive capabilities. A new math of very large aggregates.”

  “Megalytics?” I exclaim.

  “Woh!” Logan echoes.

  “I didn’t invent it?”

  “Sorry,” and Eve looks genuine. “Rothschild sort of already invented and used it to keep the world economy stable for two centuries.”

  “But I...” my head is spinning. “But I remember...”

  “...Smoking lots of weed in your dorm room?” Eve glares at me, looking for a sign of recognition. “With Logan...and his girlfriend...” She points two fingers at herself.

  “You!” I shout, climbing out of my chair. “You did it!”

  “Yeah, I maybe, sorta, kinda planted the seed of Megalytics in your head.”

  “What? All of it?” Logan is disgusted too.

  “Pretty much.” I’m about to scream. “But you came up with the branding: I mean: ‘Megalytics’...wow! That was all you. And way cooler that what we had been calling it. And look on the bright side: everyone, everywhere, for all time is always going to THINK that you invented it. I mean, nobody is going to believe in a super, secret cabal of clock-makers. Well, nobody but Logan.”

  “Not really comforting.” I sit back down. Then the real question occurs to me. “Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

  “Yes, well, we’re getting to that. You don’t want to jump ahead in our story, do you?”

  “Certainly not,” Logan sounds offended.

  I wouldn’t mind getting to the punchline.

  “With the new predictive power of Megalytics at our disposal, the Second Foundation began to consider the idea that we might be able to actually do a better job controlling the world economy than a century-old clockwork computer. We were confident that we’d decoded Red Shield’s secrets, understood its mechanics. With the power of Megalytics under our control, we could do more than just stabilize the world economy, we could vastly increase its productivity. With the right calculations made at the right time, we could easily wipe out poverty in under a decade. Class warfare? Civil strife? No problem. With the insights of Megalytics put to good works, instead of wasted on simply calculating the value of the dollar against the value of gold, which of the world’s problem could we not solve?”

  “Oh, this isn’t going to go well,” Logan says, like he’s commenting on a movie. He gets to his feet and goes to the kitchen for more beer. “Wait, wait, wait! Let me guess what happens...err...World War I? World War II? Aliens attack!” He returns to his chair with three bottles.

  “We know what happens,” I say dryly, taking my new beer. “It’s happening again, outside the window, right now.”

  “Exactly,” Eve says and takes a big swig to finish her beer. “The Second Foundation turned the machine off on Monday, October 28th, 1929. The next day, the New York Stock Exchange fell 40 percent. We turned Red Shield back on that Wednesday...”

  “But it took fifteen years and a world war to pull the planet out of depression.” I say, looking out the windows.

  Eve stays silent, contemplating her new beer.

  “But in the end, everything turned out okay, right?” Logan asks hopefully.

  “Well, the Second Foundation certainly learned its lesson,” Eve goes on. “We’d succumb to the original mistake – the very conceit that Rothschild had strived to avoid. That so much power, in any single organization’s hands, was an evil unto itself. We didn’t mess with Red Shield again. Let it do its thing. We even made peace with the First Foundation.” She waves her bottle behind her. I think she’s getting a little tipsy. “Tusk and his cohorts. We brought them back in to oversee the hardware, make sure everything was running smooth. The years 1945 to 2001 constitutes the gr
eatest continual expansion of wealth in human history. Two billion people – two billion – were pulled out of poverty. All by doing nothing but letting a centuries-old computer calculate the value of a dollar.”

  “And that’s what lies at the end of Maiden Lane,” I hold my beer up as a salute. Eve and Logan follow suite.

  “Exactly,” Eve smiles. “When Red Shield moved from London to New York, a great army of clockmakers and tinkerers moved with it. Even the decedents of the original clockmaker, Hershel Barthman, had a store there on Maiden Lane.”

  I remember the moment, standing at the corner of Maiden Lane and Broadway, looking down at the clock in the sidewalk and realizing I was late for my flight. Barthman, the face of the clock had read.

  “But as America’s dependence on the machine grew ever more critical, the size of the modern data mining equipment and telecommunications infrastructure attached to the ancient computer multiplied tenfold. Soon, the city of New York had to build a whole new facility, deep underground, just to house it. They built two office towers above. The tallest in the world. Two symbols of America’s stability and greatness, literally and figuratively built on top of Red Shield.”

  Chapter 18

  Something explodes outside the window, snapping us all back to the here-and-now. We leap to our feet and run to the window. Down on the street, a car is burning. Kids are dancing around it, cheering, throwing garbage on the fire.

  “The World Trade Center,” I say, watching the car burn. I mean, I already knew it. I’d figured that bit out, right out of the gate. I just hadn’t figured-figured it out. You know?

  “The World Trade Center,” Eve repeats, looking down at the street. “Al-Qaeda and the Islamists, they knew what they were attacking. Both in 1993 and 2001. They knew the real source of America’s strength and prosperity. They knew how to truly strike a deathblow to Western imperialism. Destroy Red Shield and you’d destroy America.”

  We back away from the window, returning to our seats. We’re safe. It’s a long way down to the street. But the explosion is still disconcerting. How could things have gotten so bad so fast?