by Saul Garnell
No way out.
“But what if,” Jacques said upon reflection, “there was some explanation for our actions? Beyond man himself?”
“You mean God’s will?” Jean-Paul jested. “Like puppets?”
“Not so direct. But maybe there is some force, a holistic phenomenon of some kind. One affecting both man and society.”
“The group is an illusion. We act as individuals, knowing only our own thoughts.”
“I don’t know,” Jacques disagreed politely. “Look what happens at church, when all the people come to mass at the same time. How can one explain this behavior?
“Nonsense! Just groups of brainwashed individuals. Like trained dogs.”
“And the military? Acting in unison with newly invented weapons? Can we just presume it’s the rational movements of many individuals? Maybe this complex interaction explains why we see political sides drawn between resistance groups. We’re liberated, yes, but resistance cell behaviors have changed. Now we see...”
Jean-Paul lit up another cigarette. “Yes, go on.”
“Disagreement.”
“Fire!” screamed the judge.
At once, the unified hammering of sten guns erupted. Thunder filled the air, and Jacques stood by horrified as the bullets spat from the eight muzzles lined up before him.
RATA-TATA-TATA-TATA-
TATA-TATA-TATA-TATA-
TATA-TATA-TATA-TATA!
The noise was deafening. Dread filled Jacques eyes as the three captives fell backwards under a hail of gunfire that could easily have killed a hundred men. Time slowed, and the firing continued until every gun clip was emptied.
Then it was over. As silence reasserted itself, the stench of gunpowder reeked through the air, engraving the memory further into his ravaged conscious. Jacques could still not believe what had taken place. The whole event occurred for no reason. It was beyond him.
Beyond logic.
“Actually, it is quite logical and to be expected,” Jean-Paul said, emphatically waving his cigarette.
“What?”
“Oh, yes, men can and should always question the morals placed upon them. Such activity, violent as it may be, is the natural course of history. Most are ignorant of this process. But only when we question accepted rules do we transcend what is considered possible. Then we become free to change the course of history.”
Jacques frowned disapprovingly. “Look, Jean-Paul. I can’t say your philosophy is right or wrong. But I see man’s future as an amalgamation of complex events, some within our control, some not. But in my opinion, our morality is not disposable. It is the foundation upon which our society is built.”
Jean-Paul snorted out loud. “Sound foundation?” he mocked sardonically. “I am always amazed at the presumption that morals are concrete objects, to be used like building blocks. As a Marxist, I shouldn’t need to remind you of man’s misguided faith. The Bourgeoisie enslave hordes of factory workers under this premise, and they will continue into the far future if they’re not stopped. No, I can’t accept morals as anything other than a convenience for those in power.”
“Then it’s the Bourgeoisie. Only them?”
“Without a doubt,” Jean-Paul confirmed, while stamping out his cigarette.
Jacques gazed quietly at the ashtray overflowing with spent cigarette butts.
Silence quietly smoldered.
The judge spoke calmly while cleaning his machine gun with a dark oily rag. “The justice you helped bring about today is a clear affront to corruption, and demonstrative of our values,”
“I see,” Jacques agreed carefully.
“The Capitalists are animals. They will consume anything, enslave anyone, abuse any system, as long as it satisfies their Capitalistic goals. On the other-hand, Marxism is a superior system. Fighting for the rights of the downtrodden – who shall, as you will see shortly, rise under the unifying flag of the proletariat.”
Jacques remained silent. Partly because he feared reprisal, and partly because the judge was so content with hearing himself speak.
“And you, Jacques, you have been part of this glorious history.”
“Have I?”
“But of course!” said the judge, slapping Jacques on the arm. “Today is just the beginning. As we begin our revolution, it is only a matter of time. A proletariat will rise, usurping power from the Bourgeoisie and bringing about total freedom.”
Three old Citroens puttered up to where they stood. The judge tucked away his gun and sat in the first car’s front passenger seat. Leaning back cheerfully, he nodded to the driver who forced the overloaded car into gear.
“Long live the proletariat!” yelled the judge, waving his cap as they sped off.
The cars droned into the distance, the whole time diminishing in size until they became nothing more than small dots on the horizon.
Jacques looked around. He was now alone, and thunder could be heard as intermittent rain drops began to spatter on the ground.
Little remained of the mock court. Looking at the grassy turf, he saw the scattering of spent shells. For some time he examined their number, until his eyes came to rest upon the bodies. All three lay on their backs in a unified pool of blood.
Jacques found himself unable to react. He simply gazed at death in a lucid state of catatonia. Standing by idly for some time, he looked around as a hard rain began to fall. Without seeking cover, he went inside the barn, having decided his only course of action.
He brought a wheelbarrow to move the bodies.
Jean-Paul screwed on his pen cap and stowed away his notebook in its leather case. Satisfied with the interview, he was ready for some dinner and a late night of writing.
“Thank you for your time, Jacques. I have found our conversation quite stimulating.”
Jacques nodded apprehensively. “Irrespective of our differences, let us hope France survives all the changes yet to come.”
“Oh, it will,” Jean-Paul said, smiling with yet another cigarette hanging from his lips.
“Are you certain?”
Jean-Paul nodded. “It’s only natural, monsieur. As I stated, we are solely responsible for our actions. As such, there is only one conclusion.”
“Yes?” Jacques said. “What’s that?”
“We are condemned to be free.”
With that, Jean-Paul Sartre turned and left the cafe. He remained indifferent to any lingering concerns Jacques might harbor. He would learn in time, that was for sure. After all, freedom was the most complex of problems. Only a few realized it.
And fewer would understand its price.
Shinzou took a small booth at the Copper Queen Restaurant, waiting for his old server to show up. He soon realized how unlikely that was. Too many years had passed by. But the place looked the same. Smelled the same too, full of smoke from a well-tended barbeque pit and the aroma of an antique deep fryer. Old memories came flooding back.
Located in the east wing of Bisbee Arizona’s Palo Verde Spa and Resort, the Queen had fed him more times than he could remember. The misnomer “Spa and Resort” was a euphemism, though. It really should have read “Primitive Enclave.” Or, as some called it, a luddite ghetto. Still, Shinzou was happy knowing that little technology surrounded him, and like a second home he wasn’t expecting anything unusual. But, picking up their card stock menu, it hit him. The Queen had departed from her local culinary tastes, offering to his chagrin an assortment of international dishes certified ISO 22122. What the hell? Here? For that, Shinzou joked to himself, someone had to die!
Strange thing, the human consciousness. Big or small, any issue could arouse the need to kill. So long as the issue had meaning. It was funny that he should remember that old aphorism. That was something Hugo used to spout at him a long time ago. And you know what? In this particular case, it was true.
He sighed with resignation while glancing at the entrance. Without a filter, he had to check quite often. Two meetings were scheduled, one with Hugo and afterwards with Sumeet
. He looked forward to meeting Sumeet, of course. But meeting with Hugo? That would depend. His booth gave him a good view of the main entrance, and it only took a short while before Hugo arrived. Striding over slowly, he looked side to side and scanned the room disdainfully before sitting down.
“Why on earth did you ask me to come down to this place?” Hugo said.
Shinzou laughed. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like getting out of that small cage of yours?”
Looking sadly at his filter, Hugo placed it in his jacket’s pocket, then set his attention on Shinzou. Hugo was upset, but that mattered little. The two had long ago agreed to tolerate each other’s moods.
“Cages vanished when virtual space was perfected. That’s been the case for decades. But this place?” Hugo peered around in disbelief. “These primitive spas are bizarre. No network, flexi, filters, crawlers. Nothing!”
“Uncomfortable?” Shinzou teased.
“Me? No, not really. I just find the whole non-tech thing ridiculous. The Primitives here are looking for a life that’s long gone. Or worse! It’s an excuse for perps to hang out. If someone gave me half a reason, I’d paste warrants on a quarter of them.”
Shinzou snorted. “You’re not in a very festive mood. Have a drink.”
“Can’t. I need to get back soon and meet with Miguel. Speaking of which, I would like to give him something. Any chance you called me down here for a good reason?”
Shinzou sighed, a bit disheartened, then reached into a leather satchel that sat next to him. He drew out a small permaflexi-imprinted pad and tossed it to Hugo, who looked at it skeptically.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“I think you’ll find the contents of that encrypted text worth your while. It’s a temporary vaccine for premature decay occurring on the neural boards.”
Hugo sat up. “You solved it?”
“It’s not a cure, but it’ll postpone degradation for a while. Just check it with your science lab.”
Hugo peered at the pad and tapped it irascibly. “Why did you make me come here? This should have been with the lab by now.”
A waitress wearing jeans and a simple embroidered shirt walked up to both men. She held an old-fashioned green paper pad and a now extinct number two pencil while waiting in anticipation for their order. Hugo looked up, displaying irritation and an unwillingness to say anything.
“Would you boys like to order something? A drink?”
Shinzou smiled furtively. “I’ll have an ice tea for now. Something not on your ISO 22122 list, please.”
Seeing that there was more tension than hunger looking her in the face, the waitress went on her merry way. Shinzou was thankful her social instincts were well tuned.
“Relax!” Shinzou urged. “That’s just a courtesy copy. Lab got it ten minutes ago, before you arrived. They’ll be singing your praises by the time you get back.”
“Stop playing with me!” Hugo said, unamused.
“I’m not playing.”
Hugo looked at Shinzou for a few moments, his calculating mind trying hard to figure out what might be coming next.
“I suppose this isn’t the reason you called me here. Right?”
Shinzou smiled. “You’re right.”
“Fine, what’s going on.”
Shinzou looked around. Even though he trusted the many Primitives who surrounded them, a quick visual check of the area seemed prudent. The information he had was important, and worthy of it. Seeing they were alone, he leaned over and spoke softly.
“I looked over the data you sent on the Martin Luther King.”
Hugo immediately held up one hand to pause the conversation. Pulling out a sniffer, he checked for bugs and ensured the area was secure enough to talk openly.
“You should put that away,” Shinzou urged. “It’s safe here.”
Hugo didn’t appreciate the comment. Still, the non-tech enclave did have its advantages. The sniffer registered negative. Satisfied, Hugo placed it back and looked up.
“Any other place and I’d never discuss this. Christ! So what did you find?”
Shinzou smirked before leaning his elbows on the table. “I’m looking over what’s left of the systems, but I’m unsure if that analysis will prove useful. However, the passenger manifest turned up something of interest: Subhas Kim and Thomas Nagel.”
Hugo looked on calmly. “Yeah, I saw their names too. What about it? Their records were clean.”
“They worked for the Santa Fe Institute.”
The name of the Institute got Hugo’s attention. He of course understood its role as the cradle of Sentient Technology worldwide. Cocking his head with interest, he leaned forward and listened with heightened interest.
“What’s the Institute got to do with this?” Hugo whispered.
“At this stage anything is possible, so I called Gupta over there. Remember him?”
Hugo considered the name momentarily before shaking his head. “No, I can’t say that I do.”
“He was there sixteen years ago and now he heads up the entire Sentient Lab. It seems that Kim and Nagel were some of his top researchers.
Hugo blinked a few times, but there was no reaction. “Keep going.”
Shinzou said, “It gets better. Gupta thinks they were acting a bit moody over the past few months. Especially in recent days, leading up to the crash. He hasn’t told anyone else this. Only me, because of our relationship.”
A waitress approached the table with Shinzou’s drink. Hugo withheld any comments until the hostess had dropped off ice tea and was out of hearing range.
“Being moody isn’t enough,” Hugo stated flatly. “Still, it’s good that you know Gupta personally. You should visit him. Maybe you can dig up something.”
“I already have an appointment.”
“Good, but we’ve got to find something solid. Do you have any other leads? We need to move, or other ASPAU units will issue warrants and muddy the water.”
Shinzou sipped at his tea. “Well, there was a large crowd of Japanese tourists on the plane. Not easy to make out a pattern yet, but maybe I can run some search algorithms. See if anything pops up. I can also check the on-board system logs, but it seems that little survived the crash. Ground-based mirrors don’t show anything unusual.”
“Maybe they’ve been scrubbed,” Hugo said.
“It’s possible,” Shinzou agreed. “I’ll check the data and look for any signs of tampering. Anyway, didn’t the Sentient team find something?”
Hugo showed signs of hesitation, and began playing with the unused fork. “Well, that old theory again.”
“What? The Unabomber correlation?” Shinzou sneered quietly.
“The fact that a broad range of technologies has been hit by LS always keeps open the anti-tech angle. Now that a plane’s involved, the correlation simply went up.”
Shinzou sighed. “You’ve been following that ghost forever. It’s more likely that we’re looking at a number of highly focused groups doing all this for the challenge, or playing the derivative markets somewhere.”
“Hackers don’t kill a planeload of passengers for fun, and they’re smart enough to constantly alter their tactics. If we could just find some pattern to link everything to one group”
“Or a lone wolf?” Shinzou added cynically.
“Why not?”
Shinzou restrained his misanthropic grin.
“Maybe he’s nearby in this damned enclave,” Hugo said while waving his arm toward the seating area. “The perfect hiding place. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Shinzou shook his head stubbornly, just as he knew others would do. The irony of the situation was laughable. Though entertaining, the discussion was pointless because either way Hugo had no usable evidence and Shinzou knew that more than anyone. Time to change the topic.
“On a more realistic note,” Shinzou segued, “that young Indian working in Japan is on his way here. He’s on the maglev from Maui as we speak.”
“What, Sumeet Rama-s
omething?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“Why now?” Hugo asked suspiciously.
“I invited him. He has analysis that came from the original design database. It could be useful, especially if I can cross examine my recent findings against it.”
Hugo took an uninterested sip of his tea. “That’s good news. But I’m suspicious that he’s so conveniently friendly. I don’t recall you ever needing to work with anyone before.”
“Yes, well, times change. And if it helps you to understand things better, he went to Bishop Cotton too. So there’s a bit of the old boy network at play.”
Hugo laughed. “I thought you ignored that type of relationship. Still, you need to work that relationship for everything it’s worth and get some results.” Standing, Hugo threw his napkin carelessly on the table. “And let me know what happens with Gupta. The quarter is ending soon, and I need to hit my numbers or Miguel will have his way with me.”
“It’s always nice to know we have worthwhile goals,” Shinzou ridiculed.
“That’s what makes the world go ‘round,” Hugo grinned.
Sauntering back to the entrance, Hugo made his way toward the spa’s main exit. Shinzou watched with interest and considered Hugo’s parting words. Goals that made the world turn were a fine end to their conversation. That sentiment was indeed more important than Hugo could ever have imagined. Shinzou laughed to himself and called the server over.
Time to satisfy his more primitive needs.
Chapter 13—Nothingness
Man is condemned to be free, because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—Jean-Paul Sartre
Waves over a rhythmic sea. Pulsing with life, containing energy both vast and ominous. Spilling upon the shores like the engine of creation. Or was it the creator himself, unlike the God that Shiro prayed to each day.
Again the dream began. As it had so many times before, Shiro’s mind freely wandered before a vast foaming sea in the early hours of morning. Little did he realize a new epiphany would soon be revealed, one that would forever change the future for both man and Sentient alike.
