The LieDeck Revolution: Book 1

by Jim Stark

  "Beep,” went the LieDeck.

  "Well I'll be damned,” she said, earning herself a gratuitous beep. “I never would have guessed it!” Another unexpected beep made both women smile. “Either we both believe something that's wrong,” she said carefully, “or love is rational. I guess we have to accept it as a fact ... but I don't understand how that could be."

  "I think I do,” said Annette excitedly. “We all want love, right? Everybody enjoys receiving love, so it makes sense in terms of our own instinctive and rational self interest to give love away, because the more we give away the more we get, sort of like the old rule of karma, you know? As in ‘what goes around comes around.’”

  "So hate,” said Winnie, “like you feel towards those men who shot you, that would be ... instinctive...” She waited for a beep that never came. “But irrational."

  "Beep,” went the LieDeck.

  "Jesus, now I'm totally confused,” said Winnie.

  "My hatred for those guys is instinctive,” said Annette, noting that there was no beep so far, “because it—uh—serves to promote aggression or an attempted defense against a genuine threat to my survival—or an escape, I guess—and yet my hate is ... also rational, because ... because ... I don't know why."

  "Beep,” said the LieDeck.

  "Whaaaaat!” complained Annette. “This LieDeck is full of shit."

  "Beep."

  They both laughed, although not with great pleasure. This was a bit like losing a chess match to a computer. You could grab a hammer and smash the sucker into little bits, but you couldn't deny what it had done.

  * * *

  "Jacks here."

  "Lynden, it's Nick. Listen, we copped a break up here. It could settle things down all over the world. Don't ask, okay? It's not for certain yet, and there isn't time to explain. I want to address the Security Council. Get an emergency session set up for eight p.m. I'll do it over the phone. They've got the tech for that, eh, to patch the phone to their speaker system?"

  "Nick,” said Jacks helplessly, “there's nobody left down here, nobody worth talking to, at any rate. The UN is practically empty. The WDA people disappeared a few days ago, of course, but ever since Vladimir Latzoff shot his fucking mouth off about maybe using nukes on Romania, people are fleeing the city. I mean you must have heard about the traffic jams, gridlock, and looting—even some of the soldiers are taking off, covering their own asses."

  "Fuck!"

  * * *

  "I guess you do know why your hate is rational,” said Winnie. “At least ... you seem to know, subconsciously. I guess just your conscious mind doesn't realize why."

  "Could it be that my hatred is rational for the same reason that it's instinctive?” asked Annette.

  "Maybe,” said Winnie. “Try saying it as a statement rather than a question, and see what happens."

  "My hate for those sons o’ bitches is rational...” Annette waited a few seconds to make sure she was okay to that point, “because it motivates me to avoid or destroy a real threat to my survival.” And again there was silence. “So,” she went on, “when my real needs are served by my emotions, instinct itself is rational.” The silence of the LieDeck confirmed that she was on the right track, and Winnie was mightily impressed.

  "But instinct is irrational,” Annette continued, “when the threat is not real ... when the threat is overestimated ... or when my reaction to the threat might be self defeating...” Every time she paused, the LieDeck silently endorsed her assessment of reality, or at least the validity of her beliefs about reality, her subconscious notion of reality. “Christ,” she said. “This God damned thing is dangerous!"

  "Beep."

  Winnie smiled. “That doesn't mean the LieDeck isn't dangerous, by the way,” she explained, “only that you don't really believe it is. Neither do I, frankly. What's really dangerous is Human Two, especially with technology in its hands."

  "So ... you're actually a Human Three now?” asked Annette.

  "Getting there,” admitted Winnie with a trace of pride.

  Annette was stunned by the discoveries she was making with the aid of the LieDeck, if not about reality, at least about her perceptions of reality, meaning the notions that the subconscious mind assumed or assessed to be the truth.

  * * *

  "Why won't he talk to me?” shouted Nick at the U.S. secretary of state—actually, the Air Force general who was filling that role now.

  "Prime Minister, I've heard you out, I've asked you to send us any information you can, but I simply have to hang up now. The Martial Law Authority in the United States of America is trying to deal with domestic panic and Russian insanity at the same time. You could tell me you found the Holy Grail or the meaning of life or the exact value of pi. It would still have to wait, sir."

  "That's from the top?"

  "Yes sir. Sorry sir."

  "Fuck!"

  * * *

  "Look,” warned Winnie, “I promised everybody, from Mr. O'Connor to Mr. Whiteside to the damned cops outside the door, that I wouldn't tell you anything about the world ... any news. All I'll say is that the attack on the lodge was kind of a Cold War II thing. The people who shot you thought the LieDeck was a threat to democracy and freedom, and you were just ... in the way. That's all I'll say."

  Annette's mind returned to the question of what she was going to do, what she could do, to resolve her all-consuming hatred for the men who had somehow decided that her life was expendable ... for the cause of freedom and democracy, she had now learned. Were these people insane? Did they feel remorse? Could they actually be right about the LieDeck and its potential to threaten the very things that the free world holds dear? Were their beliefs rational, or merely rationalizations of some dark, instinctive need to have an enemy and play the killer in order to feel safe? The “eat or be eaten” equation. And what would LieDeck-verification do to their consciences, to their perceptions of the world, of reality?

  * * *

  "General Secretary Latzoff,” Godfrey said crisply, “I know we're not on the same side of anything, but you can always use a LieDeck to monitor this phone call, or to LieDeck-verify your tape of this phone call. I am telling you the truth. It looks like this theory is valid, and we want to set up a top-level conference call with your officials, in case this stuff actually means what we think it means. The LieDeck, together with this new theory, could mean the end of all current wars ... possibly the end of war itself ... forever!"

  Nick Godfrey cocked his head, pinching the receiver between his ear and shoulder, and hit the “timer” button on his digital watch. For posterity, if there was to be one, he noted that it took a minute and forty-two seconds for the translation to get done and for the Russian leader to construct his response. This had the potential of being one of the key decisions in all of human history, and as the Canadian Prime Minister waited, he felt a stinging pain in his chest. He took a deep breath and virtually willed it away.

  "When will you complete your assessment of this matter?” came the translator's marbled Russian voice.

  "No later than nine p.m., our time. That's in about three and a half hours,” said Nick, looking into Jacques Lafontaine's face for confirmation of the plan, and the timing of the thing. Jacques nodded. There was a short pause, and a few muffled words could be heard from Moscow.

  "Call this number tomorrow morning at seven a.m., Eastern Standard Time,” said the nervous translator. “General Secretary Latzoff will take your call personally."

  * * *

  "Somewhere...” said Winnie as she began rummaging through her purse again, “I've got ... here it is."

  She pulled out a thin, black, plastic covered wire, with a jack on one end and a suction cup on the other.

  Annette recognized it from her years of work in the security business. It was the poor man's way to tape a telephone conversation, eight dollars and ninety-five cents at Radio Shack. “So, are they including those with every LieDeck sale now?” she asked.

  "Yeah,
” said Winnie. “I understand Whiteside just got a shipment of thirty thousand of these thingamabobs and they got another half million on order, would you believe? People were complaining that they couldn't use a LieDeck over the phone. Now they can. That's one of the reasons they used the casing of a Dictaphone to house the LieDeck. You stick the suction cup on the ear end of the telephone receiver and the jack into the mike hole, and bingo, you can verify the person on the other end of the phone—in secret, if you put your LieDeck on the light mode or the pin signaling mode ... and your end of things too, of course ... verify both—"

  "Good thinking,” said Annette, meaning the inclusion of this device with all LieDeck orders, “but why did you take it out?"

  "So you can call those guys they arrested,” said Winnie. “If you want to resolve your hate, you have to talk to those guys."

  The thought of confronting her attackers terrified Annette. She'd spent many an hour, awake and asleep, imagining how she would lay hurt on the people who had hurt her, and some of the ideas she'd come up with were so heinously violent or cruel that she hadn't even dared discuss them with the psychiatrist she'd been seeing twice a day. She didn't even know who these men were.

  "How would I get hold of them?” she asked.

  "Through Patriot,” said Winnie. “Get Whiteside to apply pressure on the PM, maybe through his friend Senator Cadbury. Tell Mr. O'Connor he damned well owes you, so you can sort yourself out, you know ... emotionally. Tell him you're ready to learn what the hell is going on. They can't keep you in the dark against your will."

  Annette thought it was a grand idea. Scary, but grand. She was about to ask if it could be arranged for tomorrow morning—she was always a bit stronger in the mornings—when Helen arrived at the door. “Ready to go?” she asked mischievously.

  "Where?” asked Annette.

  "To the Whitesides’ manor,” said Helen. “You've been released."

  Chapter 67

  PIETRO FINDS PIETRO

  Steve Sutherland had done his part at the cathedral, and it wasn't easy. He had spoken with feeling about Bill Doyle's finer qualities as a man, and meant every word. He had expressed his profound regret at not having anticipated Bill's reverse epiphany, although he skipped the part about how maybe Bill might still be alive today if only ... if only a lot of things.

  In the eulogy, Steve had also declined to repeat the traditional mention of how the deceased was surely in a “far better place” now. Steve couldn't say that even if he had wanted to, because he was now in the habit of leaving his LieDeck on at all times—this for a lot of reasons. And turning it off wouldn't have changed a thing. Representatives of the press were in attendance, at the church, and they just never turned their LieDecks off when an innocent white lie could sometimes lead to a perfectly printable exposé.

  Maybe I'm getting too cynical, he said to himself as a priest droned on under a dull sky and over the suspended casket. Come to think of it, I only noticed one reporter inside the church, and she seemed to be doing more praying than note taking. I'd go talk to her, human to human, if I weren't so tied up with ... He hated that brick wall, the one that said: “If you speak it aloud, then ‘beep.’”

  Sixty or so relatives, nuns and priests were now gathered at the gravesite, and Steve stayed near back of the pack, on the side of things closest to the road. He had no official role to play here, and that was a relief. The brief outdoor ceremony was coming to an end, and he really didn't want to stay, to exchange strained glances and cautious words with the family and the last of the true believers. Cemeteries were difficult and sad places, God or no God.

  He turned and walked away, slowly, towards the Patriot car that was waiting to whisk him back to the Whiteside's manor. The grass was well on its way to full uniform now, and the buds on the trees were well into their annual unfolding. Too bad people don't get to start over like that, he thought.

  "Steve,” came a voice from behind. “Got a minute?"

  It was Bishop Pietro Malini, he of the legendary dust-up with old Joe Farley ... and dressed in civvies! Steve had never seen him like that, not even at Catholic Youth Camp. He also hadn't noticed him at the cathedral, or in the crowd around the grave ... perhaps because he was quite short.

  "Of course—uh...” he said, offering a tired hand to his former colleague.

  "Pietro,” said the frail, balding man as he gave Steve's hand a consoling double-clasp. “Just call me Pietro,” he said as his hands quickly returned to the relative safety of his pants pockets. “I'm ... out of the Church too,” he admitted with a resigned shrug. “It's quite a shock, actually, and...” His voice trailed off into that brand new vacant lot where feelings went when the pillars of a lifetime had buckled and snapped.

  Steve knew that crowded ghetto well, and he nodded in the way one does when there is understanding, but no words. “So ... where will you go now?” he asked. “What will you do?"

  "Well, I'm certainly not going to pull a Bill Doyle, if that's what you mean,” said Pietro bluntly.

  Steve winced at the way his friend's suicide seemed to have become sort of a “thing,” a textbook behavioral precedent that one could follow ... or not.

  "I've run up quite a debt with that new nine-six-seven line recently, that LieDeck-verification phone line service,” continued Pietro. “And—uh...” His voice involuntarily withered again.

  "And...?” ventured Steve. The last thing he wanted was to trigger a repeat of the Bill Doyle tragedy, but this was a grown man here, and he was asking to be asked.

  Pietro took a deep breath and let it all out. “And it was worth every penny,” he said confidently. “I now know who I was, I now know who I am, and I now know where I'm going, all thanks to the LieDeck."

  Steve's LieDeck told him by its silence that Pietro's confidence was real, but he had heard this brand of bravado before, from Bill, when he had first faced reality. Bill had believed himself too, and had even LieDeck-verified his feelings, but then ... ?

  "So who ... were you?” he asked.

  "I was somewhat hard to get along with, I know, but I was a decent man, one of many who bought into a popular myth ... and I did quite a poor job of internalizing it, of being it,” confessed Pietro.

  "Well, I'm a member of that club too,” admitted Steve, with more hurt than humor. “So who are you ... I mean now? What's ... next for you?"

  "Well, I still am a decent man,” said Pietro. “But as it turns out, I'm a decent—uh—homosexual man. And I'm okay with that, Steve. I really am okay about that! I guess I knew that I was gay since ... well, since forever, even if I never faced it."

  Steve searched for a telltale glint of truth in the tiny brown eyes of the redoubtable Bishop Malini, forgetting that no one had to do that any more. Pietro, as he now wanted to be called, was indeed at ease with his new identity, or with his recent discovery of his true identity ... at least for now.

  "And as for the future,” continued Pietro, “the first thing I'm going to do is get my own LieDeck, so I don't have to rely on the nine-six-seven line, and I'm going to use it to write a common sense book on how we can dump God and replace Him—replace the myth, I guess I should say—with a reality-based moral code. Not a bad idea, eh?

  "And I'm going to tell everything I know to the Caughy Commission, of course—although now that they've got a LieDeck, they've got things pretty well figured out and under control..."

  His words stopped flowing momentarily, and he seemed to find it necessary to look off into the distance. So many priests in jail, he thought. A “holy round-up,” they were calling it in the papers. How could we not have known? How could we have known and not understood? How could we have known and understood and done nothing, or too little? How could we have rationalized such a ... a holocaust?

  Pietro consciously recaptured his confidence and picked up where he had left off with Steve. “And on the personal level, I'm going to simply be the person I really am, without shame or regret. I've decided that I'm going to actively
seek a partner for myself, Steve, a person to share my life with, a ... a husband, or whatever gay guys call it. That's if..."

  Steve knew the ending of that sentence, and it reminded him that a Patriot agent was standing beside a car, nearby, frightened to death by the perilous state of the world, and waiting to perform what might turn out to be his last official duty. “I gotta run,” he said ... honestly, as far as he knew.

  "Beep,” went his LieDeck as he backed away.

  "It was ... good to see you, Pietro,” he added quickly.

  "Beep."

  Chapter 68

  A NATURAL REACTION

  Annette was delighted to learn that she was being released, but a bit confused as to why she hadn't been told in advance. Dr. Kreuzer had always made a point of telling her everything ... or so he said. Helen and Winnie agreed to wait in the chopper while the nurse helped Annette dress. Putting on full regalia was something she hadn't done for a while, something she'd never done with limbs that felt like water balloons.

  "I want to say goodbye to Dr. Kreuzer,” she said.

  "Oh, I'm afraid he's busy,” said Nurse Bea. “And you're not sick enough to waste his time any more, young lady. Write him a letter. He'll like that."

  Annette looked at the weathered face of the woman whose kind, professional manner had made her days bearable for ... it seemed an eternity. She was perhaps forty-five years old, physically large, and “strong like bool,” she had bragged ... often ... trilling the “r” in “strong” and saying “bool” like some Eastern-European fanatic. “I am not a bucket of kitty litter,” Nurse Bea also used to tell her. “You piss on this old broad and you're gonna get pissed on right back."

  "Thanks for everything,” said Annette.

  "No problem,” said the nurse. “Go have yourself a good life, and if you want some personal advice, next time somebody shoots at you ... duck."

  The orderlies had already taken the suitcases and presents up to the helicopter on the hospital roof. Annette eased down into the wheelchair and waved goodbye to the room that had been her home for almost two weeks. “Hope my replacement is less of a pain,” she said.