The 2084 Precept

by Anthony David Thompson

  ***

  Well, nothing new except for the timeframe. And Jeremy had presumably had fun formulating the text. On the one hand, I found it not only unnecessary but also a bit mean of him to include the bacteria. On the other hand, by ensuring that I would die a natural death (hopefully by decay rather than, for example, being murdered, also a natural enough death on this planet) and that, by extrapolation, my offspring—should I choose to join the maniacal and rabbit-like stampede to replicate—would at least get a reasonable term, he had proven to me yet again that he meant well. He was basically a pleasant and agreeable person, irrespective of his mental illness.

  I had just finished a swim in the sea and collected Jeremy's phone from the bar—where I always leave it for safekeeping—and was enjoying my white wine and bacalao tapa, when said phone rang.

  "Good day to you, Peter. Working or lounging around today?"

  "Hello there, Jeremy. I was lounging around for a while but then my phone rang and I had to stop."

  "Ha, then I apologize," he laughed. "And what did you think of the edict?"

  The final stretch, I am going to continue this in a civilized manner and not just because of the money I've been paid.

  "I thought it was an extremely just and appropriate judgment taking into account the circumstances, Jeremy. And as for the timeframe, which will, using my calendar, take us to the year 2084, well… I found that to be a remarkably fair one. It gives me the chance of a long life and at least a half-life to any of my potential offspring, unlikely though their existence may turn out to be. Please accept my heartfelt appreciation."

  "Ah well, Peter, you never know. I put it in on the off-chance. Same reason I left you with my visiting card when we first met in London, you know. Off-chance."

  "Yes, well, and once again, thank you very much. It was very kind of you." And good to know that I am not to be annihilated this evening. And equally good to know that nor would any attractive and savory females, one of whom I would therefore hopefully meet and become involved with before the week had run its course.

  "You are more than welcome, Peter," said Jeremy. "And now I have some further information for you. As there will be no meeting on Friday, I intend seeing your prime minister informally either tomorrow or on Tuesday. I will be making use of his perceived interest in my so-called computer-hacking capabilities to obtain his agreement on two points concerning yourself."

  "Concerning myself? And what might those two items be?" I asked.

  "The first one is the one I mentioned to you yesterday. We need the prime minister’s signature on a formal government guarantee in writing that you will no longer be of further interest to any national security departments, police departments or defence departments in connection with any matters or occurrences relating to, or arising from, your acquaintance with my good self. You were employed by me as a consultant, additionally utilized by me to engineer an initial contact with U.K. officialdom, and have absolutely nothing to do with anything else whatsoever."

  "They seem to have lost interest in me already, Jeremy, but such a confirmation at government level will certainly be good for my peace of mind. Thank you very much again for taking such time and trouble on my behalf."

  "I consider it to be my obligation, Peter. You and I had agreements, we both complied with them, and there was nothing in any of them which implied you would be subject to ongoing surveillance or any other form of harassment which might have a continuing negative effect on your private life."

  "Nevertheless, thank you again, Jeremy. And what would the second matter be?"

  "The second matter would be with regard to my disappearance, to my return home. Poor Jeremy Parker will be left behind and will regrettably be left with his own brain which, as you know, is in very poor repair. In other words, he will have a relapse. Without my presence, he will revert to being the dangerous psychopath he always was. However, my departure will not occur immediately as there are certain things that need to be settled, tidied up as you might say. One of these items is the Obrix group of companies."

  So he was staying, was he? Suspicious, indeed. Possibly the proof of the pudding in fact. Fantasy worlds are all fine and dandy and they can function in the mind at an extraordinary level of detail, but when it eventually comes to the point of having to fly off to your own delusion, well now…that is when it becomes a trifle difficult, oh yes. So let me push him on that.

  "Why would you want to stay, Jeremy? Why would you want to tidy things up? As I understand it, from your point of view you are basically just leaving an ant colony."

  "Your ant colony, Peter, is certainly of no importance to us at all. However, my continued presence for a while might feasibly provide a psychological aura conducive to the success of the deliberations currently occupying the valuable time of your species' leaders. Or it might not. But as members of a benevolent society, my professor and I have decided that the mere possibility of such an effect makes a brief prolongation of my presence a desirable affair. And to be honest, Peter, studying the immediate sequel will add a final and refined touch to my research data and consequently to my dissertation’s closing conclusions. And so I thought I might just as well tidy things up at the same time."

  Man, oh man, does he have answers for everything. You have to take your hat off to him. He is in possession of a highly creative brain, amazingly impressive neurons beyond any doubt, and to that we have to add the telepathic powers and the astronomy.

  "And the Obrix companies Peter," he continued, "they mean nothing to me, as you can imagine. I have decided to sell the group to you. If you want it, of course."

  How many times in the past few weeks has this guy been able to knock me off balance? These companies have nothing to do with his fantasy world, they are real, and so is their money, I've received some of it myself. But I can't of course buy anything like this, not at any legal price anyway.

  "That is another extremely generous gesture of yours, Jeremy," I said, "but I regrettably cannot accept it. I don't have that kind of money."

  "That has been taken into account," he replied. "I have set up a new company whose share capital is the legally required minimum and you, using your own personal means, will purchase those shares. It also so happens that this company has received some extremely high value loans from selected private and institutional investors, these loans being for the purpose of acquiring other companies with a view to improving their performance and subsequently selling them off at a substantial profit, or turning them into public companies via a stock offer, or else simply keeping them and benefitting from above-average annual dividends. And the first company to be bought by your new company will be the Obrix Group, as already agreed with the main institutional investor."

  Well, not for the first time was he proving his genius for making things happen, our friend Jeremy, and I was absolutely not going to enquire as to whether anything telepathic had been involved in his dealings with the investors. But probably that had been the case, I thought to myself. Investors would not normally make loans of any size to a new and under-capitalized company—and rarely to others as well. If they did want to become involved, they would buy shares, they would acquire part-ownership and have representatives on the board.

  "The funds available,” continued Jeremy, “are not sufficient to meet the full purchase price which, as you may appreciate Peter, is of an amount sizeable enough not to attract any undue attention. And so the remainder will be on credit, and this can be paid off over time by your new company's share of the profits generated by the newly acquired Obrix group of companies."

  "Interesting, Jeremy. And may I ask what you, as the sole shareholder on the receiving end of all of this money, are going to do with it?"

  "Ah hah," said Jeremy. "I wouldn't have expected you to miss out on that, Peter. First of all, and needless to say, I shall be providing for the expert and luxurious care of Jeremy Parker following his coming relapse. And as for the rest, I don't know. Perhaps part of it could go t
o somebody I know who might want to lend it to his new company to enable it to accelerate its loan repayments?"

  Ploutus had done his fair share and, in the absence of a Christian or Islam equivalent, my neurons latched on to Lakmish Devi to thank this time. Lakmish Devi, as you may know, is the Hindu goddess of wealth and consequently and unsurprisingly the household goddess of most Hindu families. A discerning choice in my view and preferable to a goddess of poverty if there is one, which I would doubt, she wouldn't get her fair share of the prayer cake. Lakmish Devi, on the other hand, is worshipped daily and enjoys a huge following, especially among Hindu women, for whom she is a favorite. And yes, we know that Lakmish Devi has 108 names and is responsible for many other things in addition to wealth. She has her hands full even if she works overtime, no doubt about it, but what the names are and what her additional duties are, I couldn't say. My non-Hindu neurons do not consider these nuggets of information to be of sufficient importance to be allowed a place in any of their archives. Only the wealth bit was stored.

  "Jeremy, please tell me what I have done to deserve all of this."

  "No problem, Peter. It's simple. You have proved yourself to be a benevolent and non-violent human. You have also assisted me greatly and in a cooperative and non-belligerent manner. And I find your tendency toward cynicism to be a harmless, natural and defensive reflex which allows you to serenely and inoffensively cope with the ghastly environment in which you happen to find yourself, and of which you are forcibly a part. Your ant colony," he laughed.

  "My ant colony."

  Funny thing, but these occasional references to ants have finally jogged my neurons into recalling the second poem I had published all those years ago. That poem was another weird poem and it was all about ants; Céline's class would have enjoyed supplying interpretations for that one as well.

  "Exactly, Peter. And now we have to agree on a day and a time at the end of next week for you to fly over and meet with the small army of lawyers and accountants and advisory bankers who will have a number of documents for you to sign in connection with your purchase of the Obrix companies. The prime minister is sending a legal representative to ensure there are no problems or, if there are, to ensure that they are resolved. I won’t be present, I have a lot to do and I am also involved in a takeover in Spain. But my presence in London would be superfluous anyway. Just you and the experts."

  "Obrix Consultancy Partners," I said. "I've been meaning to ask you about that. I see from your edict that Obrix is your name for our planet. Does the word actually mean anything or is it just a name? Like Saturn for example?"

  There was a pause.

  And the reply, when it came, was a subdued one. “It is simply the name of your planet translated into your language’s consonants and vowels to replicate our wave sounds, Peter.”

  “Uh-huh. But forgetting about languages and wave sounds, does it mean anything? And how was the name decided anyway? And by whom?”

  There was another pause.

  “I owe you some honesty on this one Peter. I chose the name for my dissertation. Your planet is otherwise catalogued as a reference number, sub-referenced to your star which in turn is sub-referenced to your galaxy. A name is a good idea for dissertation themes.

  “But what does it mean?”

  “The word means anomaly, Peter. I called your planet Anomaly. Talk to you again soon," he said.

  And a takeover in Spain, eh? A nice coincidence, oh yes. And so we agreed on a time and a date and I couldn't do more than say goodbye, my cerebral functions had fallen into disrepair; not, as we know, for the first time in the past few weeks. Their training had left them unprepared for the Jeremy Parkers of this world. Sensory overload is the medical term, I believe.

  I spent the afternoon at the side of the pool pondering my unfamiliar financial situation in between occasional spells in the water. I had a contract with United Fasteners allowing me to earn as much or as little as I wanted over the next year or two. I was CEO and ship owners' representative of Naviera Pujol and its consultant to boot and I was earning a very fat sum and a very fat bonus, fat being an apt enough term for anyone such as myself who was not a billionaire. I had way over one million Euros in the bank from my previous consultancy and stock market activities, plus another million from Jeremy, less whatever tax the birdbrains needed to spend on themselves, flap, flap, or give to Greece, flap, flap, or throw away on something else, flap, flap.

  And I was about to own a company which would propel me into the multimillionaire bracket as soon as my pen touched paper, at which moment in time I would cease describing the sums from Industria y Transportes Pujol S.A. as fat. And I would put myself on the board of my new company for a decent fee, and I would appoint myself Chairman and CEO of it as soon as I was finished sorting out the Naviera, with a salary to fit and a contract providing me with bonuses, or boni if you prefer, and plenty of stock options. And—nearly forgot—I would also be receiving some succulent dividends every year on my shareholdings. And—almost forgot again—my dividends and the value of my companies would be increasing year on year at a hefty pace as soon as I began to occupy myself as my own internal consultant.

  Had I forgotten anything? I didn't think so, but in any event I was not going to spend any more of my sunny Sunday thinking about it or excavating the mine of providential incidents in an attempt to rationalize how it had all happened. It had just come about, that's all. Full stop. Or period, if you are American and have the need to utilize a word already gainfully employed for several other unconnected purposes, the details of which it would serve no purpose to enter into here.

  The only problem I might have is if the Christian god turns out to be the real one. His son is quoted in the Christian Bible as saying "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." He is quoted on this three times in fact, twice in Mark and once in Luke, just to make sure we don't misinterpret anything.

  Well…bloody hell. Not very nice. I mean…bloody hell. So perhaps I should develop a strategy for dealing with that as soon as I can find the time. Perhaps I can make use of the massive loophole left open by his choice of words, buy a camel and then manufacture a giant-sized needle with an eye so large the animal would be able to amble through it without even stooping. Whatever. My type of consultant knows that problems have solutions. I shall consider all reasonable alternatives.

  The book I was reading, Platform, took my mind away from it all. It is one of those books which make you think, and it requires your involvement to the exclusion of most everything else. I was approaching the end, which was unfortunate. It was one of those books you would like to continue reading for a few more weeks. The main character was holed up somewhere and appeared to be waiting to die. In fact he not only appeared to be waiting to die, he appeared to be wanting to die—because of a woman problem. Fair enough. His decision, nobody else's, and judging by his exotic and minutely described sexual experiences, he would at least have the consolation of being able to say 'I lived'. A consolation not available to all and sundry on this planet; but there you go, what else is television for?

  I will be interested to see how everything turns out for this character in the end.

  I am thinking of buying another of this author's books. There is one called Atomized. The author is an interesting and intellectual guy, clearly one of the top intelligent 10% of the species. Although, actually, and now that I come to think of it, 10% is a gross exaggeration. I am going to chuck that quota, the same as I chucked the croissants. 1% would be more like it. But if I consider the subject in depth, it is clear to me that 1% is also an outsized and far-fetched exaggeration. The ratio should be 0.1%. That still gives us over 7 million intelligent people on the planet (truly intelligent is what I mean of course, rather than the retarded human definition of it). And that number has a nicely pleasant and reasonable kind of ring to it. To my ear, that is. Its consonance is of the logical kind. A dialectic estimate, 0.1%.
Around 7 million. I am happy to settle on that.