Connection Part I: A Dystopian Novel (Perfectible Animals Book 2)

by Thomas Norwood

  “What the fuck, Harvey? What about our plans?”

  Sid was referring to the hare-brained schemes the two of them came up with whenever they took drugs—which was every time they saw each other—to get as rich as absolutely possible in as short a time as absolutely possible and retire on a tropical sea-stead somewhere. While Harvey always took these plans with a grain of salt, more as an interesting conversation topic than a real possibility, Sid obviously took them completely seriously.

  “That’s never going to happen if we don’t have a little cash flow first, is it?” Harvey tried to placate him, make Sid think that he hadn’t forgotten him, when in actuality his and Sid’s plans were the furthest thing from his mind right now.

  “You traitor. You’ve left me for The Corp, of all companies. Those monopolizing bastards who are taking over the world one city at a time and limiting everyone’s v-space access so they’re forced to deal with either them or their cronies.”

  “Democracy was a brief if beautiful glimmer in the eye of history,” Harvey said. “Things have almost always been ruled by despots. And if you’re a practical realist, like I am, as opposed to an idealistic dreamer, like you are, then it’s better to get onto the right side of things.”

  “That’s bullshit, Harvey.” Sid crossed his arms and looked down sullenly.

  “No. It’s not, actually. There’s something I have to tell you. But you have to absolutely promise to keep it to yourself.”

  Harvey had debated with himself for hours about whether or not to tell Sid about the takeover of Melbourne by The Corp, but if his friend ever found out he knew and didn’t tell him, Sid would hate him forever. If he even survived. If Sid was going to stand a chance of staying inside the city after the takeover, he had better start making plans now.

  “What’s that?” Sid said.

  “The Corp is going to take over Melbourne.”

  Sid looked up. For a moment he didn’t say anything. “What the fuck? You’re joking, right?”

  “No. I’m not joking.”

  Sid stood up and paced into the kitchen and back. “Oh my fucking God. What the hell am I going to do? I know what those bastards do—they kick out everyone who isn’t actively making them money. We can’t let this happen.”

  “It already is. It already has, actually. I was at an event a few weeks ago where the government basically confirmed it.”

  “Oh my fucking God.”

  “Look, calm down, Sid. I think we can work something out. You still haven’t put in a tax return for the last few years, have you?”

  “No. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “That’s how they work out who stays and who goes. Those who are earning over a certain amount get to stay. If they’re employees, fine, they might lose their jobs as The Corp slowly takes control of most of the businesses in the area, but not immediately. And if you’re self-employed, the same thing might happen. Unless they consider you too small to bother with—which in your case they might. So you have to put in a tax return, and do it really soon, which shows that you’re earning enough to make it worth it for them to keep you, but not so much that they want to take over your business.”

  Ever since Harvey had decided to tell Sid about this, he had been doing his research. In accordance with his knowledge of tax and business from the university, this plan seemed the safest.

  “I don’t even have a business, for God’s sake. Unless you call the hacking and private eye work I do a business, and I hardly think they’re going to be happy about that.”

  “Of course that’s a business. A very respectable business.” Harvey wanted to cheer his friend up. He had seen Sid go into depression on more than one occasion. “Or at least it could be. You don’t have to tell them you do anything illegal. We’ll have to inflate your salary a bit, probably quite a bit, and you’ll have to somehow come up with enough money to pay the tax on that, but if we do it right, then there’s a good chance they’ll leave you alone.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “And where the hell am I going to get the money for the taxes? I haven’t even been able to pay the small amount of taxes I should have been paying.”

  “You’ll have to get a few more jobs. And if that doesn’t work, then maybe I can help you out, and you can pay me back later.”

  “What about our personalized hallucinogens business? Why don’t we start that? We could actually start to earn some real cash with that. If you’ve got some money coming in, you could put up the cash, and I could do all the work.”

  The personal hallucinogens business was their latest idea—to create a drug that matched its effects to your biochemistry to produce any desired effect. By "work," Harvey assumed that Sid meant sitting around all day taking even more drugs than he currently did.

  “Look, let’s work out details later. Let me see what happens with this job, first. If I don’t get it, then I’ll have to get my parents to pay for my right to stay here, which I really don’t want to do.”

  “Hey, why don’t we take a trip to the de-reg?” Sid said. “If The Corp takes over, it might no longer be so easy.”

  Harvey thought about it for a minute. He loved the de-reg, but if he was going to start a new life as a diligent corporate employee, then he would probably have to stop his activities there.

  “I’d love to, Sid. But I really don’t think it’s the right time just now.”

  As Harvey drove back home that night, he wondered if he were going to be able to make good on his promise to Sid. If he didn’t get this job, there was no way that he was going to be able to help Sid pay his taxes. Even if he did get the job, did he really want to spend his first two months' salary helping his friend? Why the fuck hadn’t Sid gotten his shit together before this?

  Harvey remembered back to when he and Sid had first met. They had both started high school together and were in many of the same classes. Although at first Harvey had considered Sid way to uncool for him, it seemed many of the really cool kids thought that Harvey was too uncool for them. So, in effect, they were both loners, and they both spent a lot of their time in v-space.

  It wasn’t until a couple of particular incidents that Harvey and Sid became friends. One day, their English teacher, Mr. Jones, started picking on Harvey in front of the whole class. Harvey had been playing a game in v-space and hadn’t heard Jones’s question. Jones obviously thought that taunting him might help him pay more attention next time. Mr. Jones went on and on for a couple of minutes, ending with something like, “Maybe if you paid more attention to the great masters than to the rubbish that passes for entertainment these days, you’d have heard the question, Mr. Black. Can anyone else tell me what their favorite quote in Hamlet is?”

  Sid put up his hand.

  “Yes, Sid?”

  “Mine is 'Brevity is the soul of whit.'”

  Sniggers went around the whole classroom.

  Mr. Jones turned red with shame; suddenly he couldn’t find anything to say.

  Harvey had said nothing to Sid at the time, but a few days later he saw Sid surrounded by a couple of older boys in a corner of the corridor. One of them had his bag.

  “Why don’t you just give it back to him, Sharpy?” Harvey said to the one holding the bag, a stupid boy who made up for his stupidity with bullying.

  “What are you going to do about it, dickwad?” Sharpy said.

  Harvey spent quite a bit of time training in martial arts and had just had some new software installed in his com which rapidly increased his muscle movement speeds. Before Sharpy knew it, Harvey had snatched the bag from him and given it back to Sid. Sharpy aimed a punch at Harvey’s stomach then, but Harvey saw it coming and slid sideways, putting his foot out and using Sharpy’s own momentum to trip him over and push him down on the floor. He then stood on Sharpy’s hand, which had splayed out to break the fall, and looked around at the other boys. None of them moved. Sharpy started struggling, grabbing Harvey’s legs with his other h
and, but Harvey simply increased the pressure on his hand with his shoe.

  “Don’t make me break your fingers, Sharpy,” he said. “Because I will if I have to.”

  Sharpy stopped struggling then, and Harvey said to Sid, “Come on, let’s go.”

  “That was fucking amazing,” Sid said as they walked off down the corridor together.

  Harvey only nodded.

  “No, I mean, really. That was awesome. What sort of software are you using?”

  Harvey turned to Sid and then ran a scan of his nano-ware using a custom application that he had designed. For the first time he realized that Sid himself was packing some pretty impressive mods.

  “Well, I do actually train,” Harvey said, “but I’ve also been testing out this new app called Street Fighter.”

  “Street Fighter. Wow. I mean, you need some 7th Gen motor-neuron tech for that.”

  “Yes. So?”

  Sid looked at him and then nodded his head. “Okay, that shit’s almost military grade.”

  “My father works for a software firm. I tell him there are nasty kids at school who pick on me.”

  “Is that shit even legal for civilian use?”

  Harvey just looked at him.

  Sid nodded his head again. “Do you think you can get me some of that stuff?”

  Harvey looked at Sid and couldn’t help laughing. “It’s not just plug and play, you know? You actually have to train to use this stuff.”

  “I could do that. I am a fifteenth level mage in DreamScape, after all. I know all about training.”

  “I’m talking about real training. Physical training. You play DreamScape?”

  DreamScape was one of Harvey’s favorite v-games, and it’s what he did whenever he wasn’t doing anything else or half the time even when he was doing something else.

  “Holdorf Greenwood, at your service.” Sid saluted him using the common DreamScape gesture. Harvey laughed. He also opened up his DreamScape window, did a search for Sid’s character, and noted that he was indeed a fifteenth level mage, a position even higher than his own character.

  “Have you managed to get past the armies of death, yet?” Harvey said, a problem that he had been working on for weeks.

  “Whipped their asses,” Sid said, making a whipping sound with the words.

  “How’d you do it? Hang on, don’t tell me. I want to work it out for myself.”

  The two ended up having lunch together, chatting about DreamScape and many other things as well. From then on they were inseparable.

  By the time Harvey arrived home that night, he realized that he had no option but to help Sid out in any way he could.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ONE DAY, SHY'S mom came into his room at the hotel. “I have to return to Melbourne, Shy.”

  “Already?”

  “Yes. You know how I told you we’d sent details of our breakthrough back to headquarters? Well, apparently the military have finally granted me permission to meet with Michael Khan.”

  While Shy was excited about the prospect of meeting both Michael and maybe even his brother Harvey, he was also disappointed about leaving Guatemala so soon. He had been spending more and more time with Salina over the last few weeks and he had started to fall in love with her. Still, with everything that was about to happen in Melbourne, he knew he had to get back while he still could.

  “When do we have to leave?” Shy said.

  “Friday evening.”

  The next morning, Shy met Salina, as they had agreed. Today she had a meeting with one of the bishops of the whole country. Señor Garcia, the priest whom Shy and Salina had met at the primary school, had said that he alone wasn’t able to make a decision, that the decision had to be made by his superiors. So today Salina was meeting Señor Marquez, a bishop, at an old convent outside of town where he had an office. Shy had said he’d go with her.

  The wall around the convent was solid stone, a meter thick, containing a large wooden gate. Shy and Salina were let through by a guard, who then accompanied them across some dry grass to the main building. They went through an entrance hall into a central courtyard, which had an arcade running around it and a small fountain in the center. The guard knocked at a small door and a deep voice bade them enter.

  Salina and Shy entered a fairly bare room with a small window that looked out over a garden at the back of the convent where fruit trees grew, and a couple of priests were attending to the lawn.

  “Welcome,” the old priest said, standing up in flowing robes and shaking them both by the hand.

  “Thank you for seeing us,” Salina said.

  “It’s my pleasure. Please, take a seat.”

  Shy and Salina sat down on old wooden chairs that looked as though they had been sat on by hundreds of generations before them.

  The priest sat himself down and then, after tidying up a few papers on his desk, crossed his hands and looked at them.

  “Well, I’ve had a look at this world of yours, Youtopia, and I have to say I’m quite impressed.”

  “Thank you,” Salina said.

  “Now I’m a man of the world. I know that many things go on in Youtopia that would not be condoned by the church, but I can also see its huge potential.”

  The man flicked his small eyes sideways. Shy detected in him the cunningness of a master diplomat and negotiator, traits that were no doubt as essential for success in the church as in any other organization.

  “You mean its potential for education?” Shy asked, knowing that wasn’t what he meant.

  “Yes. Education. That is definitely one of its advantages. Children here have far too little access to decent educational materials. What you have there would seem to provide them with more than enough.”

  “Does that mean you will allow us to continue to distribute access to it in the schools?” Salina said.

  “Maybe. Maybe.” The old man nodded his head thoughtfully and then stroked his chin. “There is one important obstacle, of course. And that’s the fact that access to it, in this country at least, has to be obtained illegally through the Mexitel network. The church cannot be seen to be involved in any illegal activities. Our relationship with the ruling corporation is already tenuous at best, you’ll understand?”

  “Yes, of course,” Salina said.

  “We do, however, still have some political clout in this country, as you can imagine, with over eighty percent of the population still Catholic.”

  “Do you think there’s some way you could change the law?” Salina said.

  “Change the law?” The priest looked up through wrinkled lids. “No. I doubt that would be possible. However, there may be an alternative. The law states that people are allowed to access v-space through any network they choose. The problem is—the only network available is the Mexitel one. What, however, if we were to create our own network? Do you think that might be possible? Now, I’m a man of God, not a technical man, but from my limited understanding something like this might be possible, am I right?”

  Shy wondered why they hadn’t already created their own network, if it was that easy for them, and why they would even entertain the idea of allowing Youtopia to be accessed through a network they created. He wanted to remain open minded, but something about the direction this conversation was going just didn’t make sense.

  “Yes, that would definitely be possible,” Salina said. “It all depends on how much money you have. And the problem would be—what if Mexitel decides to change the law? What then?”

  “Well, then we’d have to start a revolution,” the old man joked, but Shy knew it wasn’t just a joke, as plenty of revolutions in these parts had been started by the clergy, tired of seeing its citizens downtrodden by the state.

  “When do we start?” Salina said, smiling.

  “Whoa. Not so fast there, young one. There are plenty of details to be worked out yet.”

  “I’m not quite sure why you’d do this,” Shy said. “Why wouldn’t you just create your own network and all
ow access to that?”

  “We’ve tried that, in other parts of the country,” the priest said. “And nobody used it. It seems people are happy to be Catholic when it benefits them, when they want to come to church on Sundays and see all their friends and be forgiven and blessed by the Lord, but the rest of the time, back in their homes, when they’re anonymous, they want to be able to do whatever the hell they like.” The old man chuckled.

  Shy almost laughed, but he kept himself in check.

  “And how would Youtopia help this?” Salina said.

  “It seems your world has enough interesting features to keep people happy. Now, if we could just find a way to leverage that so that it benefits the citizens in a way that the church sees fit, then we might be able to come to some kind of mutually satisfying arrangement.”

  “And what do you mean by that?” Salina said.

  “Well, to start with, we would have to restrict access to quite a number of areas of your world, many of which are completely beyond the bounds of the Church's philosophy and moral code of conduct. Secondly, we would have to modify a number of other parts of the world, at least so that they fit in with our philosophy and view of history. And thirdly, we would have to find some kind of a way to use it to promote the Lord’s Word and to encourage people to come back to the Church.”

  Shy was ready to stand up and walk out of there. Salina, sensing this, sent him a message telling him to wait.

  “To be honest, Father, although your offer sounds like an attractive one, I’m really not sure that we have the power to modify Youtopia in all the ways that you are suggesting. We’re like priests ourselves, missionaries, if you like, with no more power to change Youtopia than any missionary of the Catholic Church would have to change the words of the Bible.”

  “So who would have this power, then?” the priest said.

  “Youtopia is a communal construct,” Shy said. “Many thousands of people have been responsible for its construction. It can’t be modified or changed by any one person or organization.”