Creative energy powers a computer that has no tastes or preferences and is not affected by emotions. Energy cannot be infected by evil. All that matters is the battery power of the human head. The combined energy of an artist, a biochemist, a musician and a doctor can now solve the most complex medical problem. It’s not artificial intelligence, which can take decisions. It’s a biological processor, a repository of ideas and answers to questions.
The United Kingdom immediately declared Dr. Jeremy Link’s discovery a secret of strategic national interest and classified information. The security services raided Link’s house the very next day, Link had already handed over the technology to the UN beforehand – to a friend of his, Antony Blake, who was a specialist in computer modeling in nuclear physics and a Deputy General Secretary, before disappearing himself, temporarily, as people thought at the time.
The technology eventually became the property of the world, without increasing the power of any individual state or any international corporation The idea of transferring the technology to the UN saved the world from domination, and possibly even from World War III. The United Nations International Collective Mind Agency, or UNICOMA, was now set up, becoming popularly known as COMA.
In three years of operation the agency completely vanquished cancer, AIDS and diabetes. Oil consumption dropped by a factor of three, and two years later – by a factor of five. After seven years, more than 70 percent of cars ran on non-polluting hydrogen. Plastic became soluble, metals coated with a new compound didn’t rust, the problems of freon, CO2 and other harmful emissions had been forgotten. The UN had deposed NATO from its throne of military domination and the number of wars in the world was steadily declining. No one wanted to have anything to do with UN peacekeepers, who now looked like an army of soldiers out of Star Wars.
UNICOMA became a very successful institution, in both the popular and commercial senses, priding itself in a host of inventions and achievements. The agency earned fantastic profits from the sale of patents, even though the fees paid to talented people who off-loaded their creativity were extremely generous.
There was another side to the coin – those talented people transformed into a grey mass. But is that really a high price, if their accumulated knowledge and future potential have been preserved, while wars have become a thing of the past, and cancer, drug addiction and smoking, which used to cost tens of millions of lives a year, have been defeated? The agency entered into lifelong contracts to provide the off-loaders with continuing support, and it took good care of them, not to mention the huge fees they were paid. A particularly important point was that the donors’ creativity wasn’t completely drained. It fell to a minimum of 500 base points, and for some reason these final vestiges of the energy couldn’t be downloaded. Specialists assumed that this level was essential to life, and was regulated by the body itself. A kind of “notional zero”.
One could see photographs of smiling people in dressy clothes, sitting beside azure swimming pools, with the caption: “I gave people what I was given from on high, and I have been rewarded!” These people looked very happy. Stupid, but happy and harmless. So Happies were they called.
Why Jeremy Link disappeared, if he really did disappear at all, or was killed or hidden by someone’s secret services, has been the greatest mystery of recent times. All sorts of different theories have been proposed, including some totally off the wall. Perhaps, it was thought, the brilliant professor, like so many others, became a feebleminded Happy, living somewhere in the Caribbean or New Zealand. Link was named Man of the Year and awarded the Nobel Prize in absentia. The UK made a U-turn and became terribly proud that the brilliant inventor was English. The Royal family even wanted to knight him, if only he could be found. Even the omnipresent internet couldn’t offer any indication of his whereabouts or information concerning his death. For several years “Link” led the query ratings in internet search engines, outstripping “download”, “porn” and “games” and coming second only to the query “how”, but there weren’t any answers. On the other hand, in China alone the number of new-born children who were named Link, Linky, Linxy and Lin was almost a million.
Chapter four
The depressing thoughts ran round and round Isaac’s head. His feet quite literally tripped over each other, and it took him more than half an hour to cross the square.
The buzzing of the little device in Isaac’s pocket irritated him, and he switched it off. Cold trickles of rain ran down over his gloomy face and dribbled down his neck. Isaac shuddered and pulled himself together.
He called his device “V-Rain” both in honor of his sister and because it was a victory over the rain. Selling market-ready technology for good money wasn’t easy, and Isaac had clearly put things off for too long. He had carried on improving the device, reducing its size and perfecting everything, even the visual design. And then Vicky’s problems began and Isaac wasn’t able to handle her illness and at the same time navigate the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the patent system. These days the Patent Office and the system of selling inventions were practically vestigial relics. All corporations bought their technology from COMA, without any legal hurdles, using the standard contract developed by the Agency.
V-Rain was now ready, even though only one copy, a compact device like a small, smooth oyster, but it was finished. Isaac knew he could count on receiving a check for a couple million dollars minimum, but it would take at least three months to arrive, and Vicky needed her surgery on Monday. He would never forgive himself if his sister died, he wouldn’t want any money then. Better to be a Happy with a zero creative index than a smart guy whose wealth cost the life of the only person he really cared for. Why had that damned Professor Link disappeared? Maybe he would have come up with a way to offload only half or a third of one’s orange energy leaving a bit more than a pitiful 500 points?
Isaac had already drawn up the obligatory contract and instructions a month ago, just in case it was needed, and dammit, now it was needed! He had appointed Victoria his guardian, and she would take care of him when she was back on her feet. But in the meantime it was the temporary guesthouse at Theoule. He had written into the contract that they should keep him there and transfer the management of his property and guardianship to his sister upon her first request.
A large drop of cold rainwater gathered on his neck behind his collar and scalded its way down his back. Isaac returned from oblivion. How long had he been standing in front of the door of the Town Hall? One minute, or maybe ten? One final intelligent glance at an airplane flying past, at a policeman walking by, at a taxi, at the sea, and Isaac opened the door and walked inside.
It was cozy inside the Monaco branch of UNICOMA. Cool music playing soothingly, light colors, a spacious hall. Isaac mentally compared the reception area with a day-spa in Thailand, except there was no scent of lemongrass and no smiling Thai girls. There were quite a lot of people there – five at once. An old man, an elderly woman, a young guy, Isaac and some hippy-looking vagrant. Five neurones ready to replenish the power of the artificial brain. Five clusters of the world’s creativity drive.
Isaac habitually hypothesized about people. He didn’t often get a chance to check his theories, but at least it was more interesting than simply waiting.
With some of the off-loaders everything was clear straight away. The old man had probably decided to supplement the provisions of his pension. If he still had a good level of creativity, he could quite easily spend the rest of his life here, in the sunshine of Côte d’Azur, in one of the sanatoria that had sprung up like mushrooms just recently, from St. Remo to Marseilles.
“So many people dream of the blue sky and blue sea – azure, that is,” thought Isaac, grinning to himself. “Spending the rest of their life, their pension years, in the best seaside resort in the world… in France.” The building boom in guesthouses had almost doubled the population of Provence. And they had started building a third terminal at the Nice airport.
Judging b
y his clothes the old man wasn’t from here; he’d come to take a look at the level of his would-be subsistence and stayed on. The way it looked, no one was expecting him back at home or wherever it was he lived, so he was kissing his own identity goodbye on the spot, and from here he would be taken to his final place of residence. That is if he was lucky, of course. Many people overestimated their reserves or came too late, when their orange energy was already exhausted. Europeans had to move elsewhere and find themselves a haven in southern Croatia or Montenegro, or maybe even in some Asian countries or Latin America.
The woman was quite wrinkled for her age. She had obviously been through a lot. She looked old, although she was probably about 50, or even younger. Maybe it was too much for her, supporting some good-for-nothing child, who was an idle drone, or maybe a first-wave Happy. During the early years of Collective Mind, young people, mostly drug addicts, had offloaded their creativity en masse, without a thought for what came next. Their brothers, sisters or parents had to pick up the pieces, there were plenty of those. Or maybe things weren’t that way at all, and she was simply tired of being alone. So many men, so many problems.
The fidgety young guy was running away from love. This was his legal way of suicide. He was ugly, with a pimply, lumpy face, greasy skin and deep-set eyes. Skinny but not sinewy, with an unhealthy stoop. In short, a geek. No dreamboat, and not a “man” in the female interpretation of the word.
It was probably personality suicide, a way to put an end to heartaches. Isaac realized he wasn’t mistaken when the young guy took a photo out of his wallet and gazed at it for a long time. His entire being exuded despair, but not the kind Isaac had. Isaac was miserable about himself, about the shape his life was in, about the brains he was soon going to lose, but this guy was miserable about a girl.
“The photo, of course! The one you keep looking at.”
Pierre got nervous and shrank as if he was trying to disappear, dissolve, and reduce himself to an inconspicuous, transparent molecule. He blushed and instinctively pressed his hand against the pocket where he kept his wallet with the precious photograph in it.
“Hey, take it easy. After all, love is worth showing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t…” Pierre began and stopped short. “I…” he continued in an apologetic tone. “I don’t… What do you want? Who are you? Leave me alone!”
Isaac laid a friendly hand on Pierre’s shoulder and spoke in a firm, commanding voice.
“The two of us will leave this place as dimwitted boneheads, with no shame or emotions. And you won’t give a hoot about who you loved and what you were embarrassed about. We’ve got nothing to lose.”
“I don’t think so.”
“C’mon, show me. Don’t be a pighead.”
Pierre reluctantly took out his wallet and handed it to Isaac. Isaac opened it. A few small-denomination banknotes, documents for a motor scooter and a slightly crumpled photograph of Pierre, hand-in-hand with a black-haired girl. Sweet, but by no means a beauty. To all appearances the photo was about five years old, maybe a bit less.
“What’s her name?”
“Chantal.”
“Chantal…”
Protest. A feeling of protest at what was happening, at the paradox of him ending up here, was gnawing at Isaac and bursting out of him. He wanted to cancel everything; he wanted everything to be different, not like this. He didn’t want to come here, and now the urge of not letting it happen to Pierre, of persuading him not to download, was swelling up with enormous force, permeating every fiber of his being. Pierre could be saved! Isaac’s brains started whirling furiously, he wanted to choose the right words, convincing enough to stop the young guy. What did Pierre want this for? What sort of raving nonsense had this guy, almost a teenager, got into his head? Instantly Isaac thought of Pascal, who had wasted his creativity out of love. He tried to calm down, so that he would sound more convincing. He felt like a negotiator, standing on a roof and talking a teenager out of jumping off the edge. All he knew was that had to save him, and he put his trust in intuition, the kid’s will to live and his own wild desire to help him!
He never had time to finish his thought.
Chapter five
The hobo suddenly jumped up, grabbing everyone’s attention, pulled out a crucifix and proclaimed in a thunderous voice.
”May the Lord be with us!”
One of his plastic bags went flying into the center of the hall, and another flew over the reception desk. A moment later there was the loud bang of an explosion, then a second, and a third, then more. Smoke abruptly billowed up.
Isaac instinctively covered his head. But in fact, there weren’t any flames or shrapnel from the explosions. The space quickly filled up with thick smoke. He didn’t feel any pain or any shock wave either. The bangs had simply been loud, and the acrid suspension turned out not really to be smoke – it was a rather foul-smelling white gas. Isaac recognized that smell from his childhood – a gas heavily used by farmers for killing insects in their fields.
Isaac sneezed once, then again. The downloaders all sneezed one after another. A face contorted in terror, belonging to a girl who worked at the reception, flashed by in front of his face.
The old woman screamed. More squealing voices joined in. Turning his head, he saw Pierre, apparently unharmed, gazing in shock at the smoke-filled hall and back at Isaac There was a stupefied question in his eyes: “Is all this for real?”
Another explosion rang out. The fire-extinguishing system kicked in, water sprinkled down from above and a siren howled. A fit of fear seized Isaac – irrational, hideous fear. He realized it wasn’t over yet and anything could still happen. Panic set in. There was only the gas, still no shrapnel or shockwave. Isaac wasn’t injured, he wasn’t hurting anywhere. But the fear that something else would happen hit him again, harder than ever. He couldn’t see anything. Induced by the acrid gas tears streamed out of his eyes. Water was pouring down from above. He couldn’t think calmly and coolly any longer.
“Where’s your main computer? Where do you keep the devil’s heart?” the hobo asked in a booming voice, donning a respirator.
That brought Isaac back down to earth and forced him to focus. He cautiously slid off his chair and set off on his knees in the direction of the door.
“Move it, or I’ll kill her!”
A woman squealed again. Isaac could hear the old man breathing heavily. The water had dampened down the gas a bit, and the air was gradually clearing. Afraid that the terrorist would see him, Isaac looked round anxiously and moved on quickly towards the exit on his knees.
“I’m asking you for the last time! And don’t anybody move!” The terrorist cast a vicious glance at Isaac.
Isaac froze not knowing what to do. Did the terrorist have any accomplices? Was the door open?
In the center of the hall, immediately behind the wooden counter, he saw the man he had taken for a hobo, clutching the receptionist by the throat with one hand and holding something against her back with the other.
The security guard, still on his feet, was clearly hesitant to move any closer. On the one hand, it seemed like there was nowhere the hobo could have got a gun from; the metal detector frame at the door would have sounded the alarm. But on the other hand the security man couldn’t see what the terrorist was holding in his hand and pressing against the woman’s back, and he wasn’t taking any risks. But then, Isaac’s train of thought didn’t necessarily reflect what the security guard was really thinking.
“Let her go,” the old man suddenly said, “She’s a woman, an office worker, not likely to know anything.”
That experience comes with age is well-known, momentarily reflected Isaac although he had never seen this notion in action before.
“I’m a retired army officer,” - the old man was trying to speak in a firm, calm voice, although breathing heavily because of the gas. “What is it you want?”
“What I want is to destroy this diabolical machine. I want to tear its d
iabolical heart out!” the Hobo screamed.
“Hmmm,” thought Isaac. “Yet another religious fanatic and it looks like he’s genuinely insane to boot.” He was gradually recovering his wits, the panic was receding. The TV sometimes reported attacks on the Agency. But only rarely, and besides, when you watch something on TV it doesn’t occur to you that the same thing could actually happen for real.
The old man got up off his chair and asked the woman in a commanding voice: “Where’s your central computer?”
“Th-th-there,” the woman gasped out, stammering through her tears, and waved her hand in the direction of a white computer standing in a separate room, separated from the reception hall by a glass wall.
The hobo pushed the woman aside and in two rapid strides reached the back office door and kicked it open. He lifted the computer above his head and slammed it down hard onto the floor. The security man was still standing there, glued to the ground.
“Everyone down on the floor, cover your heads!” – roared the old man. The ferocious power in his order sent everyone tumbling unquestioningly to the floor, even the security man obeyed.
The hobo carried on smashing the computer in the office, frenziedly ripping out wires and various attachments. Isaac could hear something grating and plastic splintering and through this racket came the howling of a siren out in the street and brusque voices. The police! He remembered that the station was just a hundred meters away.
Collective Mind Page 2
