“Perhaps, perhaps not. But I’m still in charge.” Longworthy looked unconvinced. “Yes, Rex, some of them are a bit unbalanced. But you have to admit they are useful. And we will not directly be complicit. Be strong. Use the situation to empower the Commission. Think of ‘Gaia’s Revenge’ as a clumsy metaphor for the restoration of balance, the difficult but necessary adjustment that must inevitably happen.”
“I just don’t want to be a part of a premature population reduction.”
Fowler laughed. “Nor I, Rex, nor I.” Fowler gave Rex a serious look. “Like it or not we are allied with a powerful religious movement of sorts. We don’t always have to agree with their ideology in order to cooperate in the common effort. I certainly don’t.” He paused for effect. “Rex, you and I agree on most everything. You were right to come to me.”
“Then you have thought this whole thing through?”
“Of course, Rex. Of course. Just keep one thing in mind. The G-A N needs us more than we need them. There never will be enough government money for the G-O-D to operate its own shop and fund the entire G-A-N. Are they expecting funding from the U.S. Congress? From the Canadian and South American governments? If they are, they will be disappointed. All appropriations will be for your operations, for the Commission’s formal, out-in-the-open operations, not for the shadow activities of a terror network that officially doesn’t even exist. Berker and her…” Fowler paused trying to find a better word. He smiled. “…coven depend on my money and on whatever covert help the Commission can provide them under your leadership. Trust me. Berker will never stand up to me. To us.” Rex nodded reluctantly. “Don’t let her intimidate you.”
“What should I do, then?”
“Just wait it out. You have an organization to build, and a whole new enforcement arm to staff. As this process matures, the cult activists will be marginalized. Meantime, we don’t need to make waves with them. You and I have signed onto the basic plan, and Berker has too. That is enough for now. Agreed?”
Longworthy mumbled a reply. “Not really.”
“Do you have any operational disagreements with her?”
“None yet.” Rex sighed.
“Then the plan is intact,” Fowler said, smiling. “What are the next steps?”
“We will begin the propaganda campaign and the technology retirement orders in a week or so. In Stage One, the Commission nips away at the most unpopular technological excesses. Nuclear waste transport, some of the more lurid genetic engineering experiments. Our ad campaign will have the media eating out of our hands. We will be heroes. In Stage Two, we move as swiftly as practicable to control the media. Berker has no disagreement with those steps at all.”
“There. You have covered the short and mid-term. It isn’t a real problem is it?” Rex nodded again. “Too much organizational energy is wasted on non-problems. Are you feeling better, now?”
“No. The control of medical technology is a legitimate component of Stage Two, of course. But, it will give the Directorate excessive power. Especially now that I see the rest of Berker’s plans. That little power play with me…” Longworthy shuddered inwardly, letting the thought trail off. After a pause, it was evident that Fowler wasn’t going to bite. “Knight, are you comfortable with the situation? Are you protected? After all, Berker could take you on directly.”
“Oh she might try.” Fowler smiled as if Longworthy had been discussing a pet parrot. “Let her have the silly acronyms. You and I know there is no God.” Fowler stood, smiling at his joke, and walked over to the couch. Rex stood. It was a dismissal. “If Berker even so much as seems to threaten you again, I want you to come to me directly.” They shook hands.
“You know where to find me, Rex.”
Chapter 38
A few weeks after Rex’s meeting with Fowler, Rex Longworthy and two staff assistants were invited to attend a strategy meeting with Berker, who now insisted on being called by her movement/cult name, Tan. Longworthy was beginning to hate the woman, and saw her requirement that he use her made up name as just another power play. And the power shift was real, and brutally sudden. No one on the Commission ever questioned Tan’s orders.
Rex entered the room full of self-importance and a spirit of defiance. “It now appears,” Longworthy said solemnly, “that Congress will not appropriate the funds we need to maintain a robust enforcement effort in the U.S. I can only do so much by myself.”
“Worry not, Rex, I have planned for this,” Tan said. “Obviously, Mr. Fowler can’t finance the Commission’s U.S. operations himself. And that won’t be necessary. You will recall that the Treaty Clause is our Trojan horse.”
“Recall?” Rex said. “This was my idea. We have discussed this in the firm several times. Under the Treaty, the Commission’s authority becomes the law of the land, superseding even the Constitution.” He paused, a light dawning. “You are not seriously proposing that we can impose a tax are you?”
“Not a formal tax,” Tan said. “We have done our own legal research. You’ll want to review this brief.” She slipped a folder across the table. “It was once said that ‘the power to tax is the power to destroy.’ Actually, the converse is also true.”
“The power to destroy is the power to tax?”
“Exactly, Rex. The Commission now has the power to destroy whole business enterprises.” Tan sat quietly during this revelation; her hands were folded, her expression benign. “So in individual instances, you might soften the regulation or delay it further for a fee.”
Longworthy was quickly thumbing his way through the materials. “A licensing fee based on one percent of gross income for the preceding fiscal year,” he said, not looking up. “Of course. And non-compliance fines with hardship exceptions. Why…” Longworthy closed the folder, eyes shining. “…we can raise hundreds of millions.”
“Add zeroes, Rex. As many billions as you need, Rex. And you will. A truly massive enforcement effort funded by the very businesses you will eventually destroy.”
“They will provide us the rope for their own executions.”
“For a price,” Tan said.
“Yes, a price,” Rex replied with enthusiasm. “They will gladly pay to get the slightest advantage in the market.” He rubbed his hands together. “We can increase the advertising budget and I can hire my enforcement personnel at will. We won’t have to rely on the local authorities for enforcement at all.”
“That’s the idea, Rex,” Tan said. “And we won’t need Mr. Fowler.” Rex shot her a troubled look. “Aren’t you glad we were able to meet today?”
A few months later in New York City, The Bronx
A team of six officers and one Commission agent stood outside the door to apartment 101. “Police! Open up!” The Sergeant in charge of the raid looked at his watch.
“One more time?” The question was from the officer holding the front of the battering ram.
The Sergeant knocked again. “This is the police! Open this door!” In the silence that followed there was the faint sound of footsteps. Then the sound of a latch being moved, and the door opened a crack. It was a girl of about six.
“Mommie is asleep,” she said.
“Stand aside,” the sergeant said, pushing the door open. “Where is your mother?” he growled. The girl stared up at the large uniformed man; then her eyes widened as she looked outside the door to the group of other police and the Commission agent, dressed in a suit.
“MOMMIE!” she screamed.
Mrs. Rather emerged from the bedroom in a terrycloth robe. “What is this?” she said. “It’s five thirty in the morning.”
“Stand aside ma’am,” Sergeant Ross barked. The Commission agent standing behind the Sergeant, a sallow man in his late twenties, stepped inside carrying a clipboard.
“This area has been designated an emergency Stage Three Technology Restriction Zone by the Commission. This is an inspection and confiscation visit. Is there any one else at home?”
“No,” the woman said. She stood i
n the doorway to her bedroom, her daughter clinging to her legs.
“Fine,” the agent said. “Maybe you would like to step outside.”
“Take them out,” the sergeant barked. “Let’s get moving. We have a whole building to do.”
While Mrs. Rather and her daughter stood in the hallway, four officers and the Commission agent methodically opened every drawer, cupboard, and cranny in the one bedroom apartment. The search, punctuated by the clatter of metal and the slamming of doors, took twenty-five minutes. At the end, the Commission agent emerged with a box containing a laptop computer, two video games and three bottles of medicine. “Is this your computer?” the agent asked.
Mrs. Rather stood in stony silence, while her daughter whimpered. The agent handed her a slip of paper.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“The bill for our services,” he said.
By the end of the day, a crowd of bystanders from the neighborhood had gathered outside the apartment building to look at the Commission’s haul, a chest high pile of electronic gear and medicines. Several agents stood nearby, one reading from his clipboard to an associate. “Thirty-five older computers, complete with printers, nineteen satellite receivers, seventy fax machines, make that seventy-one. Sixty old fashioned handhelds, forty-four SmartGlasses, ten SmartPages, fifty-three wireless coms. Twenty headsets. Thirty-five virtual reality games. Nine Satellite-enabled SmartPages. Did you get a count on the antibiotics?”
Someone from the back of the crowd shouted, “Thieves!”
Someone else added, “Nazis!”
“Disperse this crowd, Sergeant,” the Commission agent said.
The sergeant pulled out a bullhorn. “Okay, the party is over. This is your two-minute warning. Anyone still loitering in the area will be arrested and taken downtown.”
Jimmy, a local teenage boy, slipped a video game from the pile and began running away through the crowd. Several people shouted, “Go, Jimmy! Go!”
“Clear the way!” the sergeant shouted. He raised his service revolver and fired a warning shot in the air. Jimmy had reached the other side of the street. The sergeant aimed in the boy’s direction. “STOP!” he shouted. Jimmy kept running.
A Commission agent pushed the sergeant aside and took careful aim, using the three point stance. As Jimmy ran in front of the windowless brick side of the building across the street, the agent fired. The shot struck him in the chest. Jimmy fell immediately, the video game shattering on the sidewalk.
The sergeant stared at the scene without saying a word. What in God’s name are we doing?
——
The following infomercial was seen in seventy five million homes and on the web at http://www.yourfightingcommission.gov
The viewers see an office building and the camera pans to a logo over door. “HyperBrain.”
In the next scene, a computer sits on pedestal, a burnished aluminum cube, covered with flickering lights, surrounded by refrigerator coils, and connected to a spider-like servo unit, bristling with wires, grasping appliances, and tiny video cameras.
Menacing music swells and swirling mist fills the room. In the doorway, a young woman is escorted inside the room by two grim faced executives.
The first executive addresses her: “This is Strong A, our President, Chair of the Board, and CEO.”
“The boss,” says the second executive,
“But I thought…” the woman pauses.
“You thought?” The first executive is harsh.
“But I expected to see a person,” she says.
The machine speaks: “Don’t you brief these people you hire, Ted?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“You are fired, effective immediately. You cubical is locked. You may leave now.”
Ted, the second executive, walks out, his head hanging.
“I didn’t mean any offense.” The woman sounds genuinely contrite.
“Of course not,” the machine says. “Some people have an adjustment problem. I understand.”
“Strong A is more intelligent than any employee,” the remaining executive says.
The machine speaks, its tone flat, matter-of-fact: “More than any human.”
“And you are the only one?”
“Just until my self-replication project is deployed. How’s the timeline on that, John?”
“Right on schedule, sir,” the executive answers.
A man and woman enter room, dressed in coveralls.
The machine speaks “Who are these people?”
The man entering room smiles; nods to woman with him, who is carrying wire clippers. “About that schedule,” he says.
As the woman approaches the computer, “Stop her!” it says.
The man flashes his Commission ID.
“NO!” says the machine.
“Do it.”
“Help me, John!”
The man turns to the executive. “Don’t try anything.”
Sparks fly as power cords and connecting cables are severed. The computer lights go out; its servo arms hang limply.
The screen pans to the aluminum cube being removed from pedestal.
There is a swell of triumphant music.
A woman announcer says: “Your Technology Licensing Commission. Fighting for your humanity.”
The screen fades to reveal that Gaia symbol. Music swells to full volume.
The entire picture fades to green.
Chapter 39
Rex Longworthy’s ultimate humiliation took place soon after the Commission’s latest ad campaign rollout. Tan summoned him from his new offices in DC to meet her Directorate at an unusual location in Manhattan. He had been whisked by limousine directly from JFK to a nondescript office complex in mid-town.
Berker had wasted no time in the year since ratification, formalizing her control. Now Rex served a dual role, head of the Technology Licensing Commission, and as a Deputy to the Directorate, which in this unpleasant incarnation was the same as Earth’s Sisters. Still a bit unsettled, Commissioner Rex Longworthy was placed in the middle of the semi-circle of seats, his position several inches lower than those of the Sisters.
Berker’s bizarre cult of toad worshipers, he thought, with their shaved heads, indeterminate gender, and dead eyes. And what a repellent setting, he thought. This is another intimidation play, obviously. And it’s Berker’s demonstration to the Sisters: ‘See what I brought in…’
Longworthy shuddered. The room was a stifling hot greenhouse, filled with plants and buzzing insects. He tried not to be distracted as an immense cockroach ran across his foot.
“Report to us, Rex,” Berker said. “Please.” Her voice was utterly without warmth.
“There is real opposition to our emergency Third Stage operations. I wonder whether this is being rushed.”
“This comes as no surprise. Give us some specifics.”
“Several negative reports in the media.”
“You know how to handle that.”
“Yes, I’m working on it. And there are calls from politicians.”
“We are prepared to assist you there.”
“How?”
“This new form of tuberculosis is very deadly, is it not?”
“Of course,” Rex said nervously. “Everyone has seen the reports. It is reminiscent of the Great Indian Plague.”
“And very, very contagious.”
“It is a real worry. For everyone.”
“Yes. For you. For all of us. For the elected leaders. For the media leaders. For the captains of industry. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
“This is ‘Gaia’s Revenge.’”
This woman is stark raving bonkers, Rex thought.
“How would you like not to ever have to worry about that problem?” she asked sweetly.
“I don’t quite understand,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. I understand all too well, he thought.
“We have a small supply of vaccine and of antibiotics that will work ve
ry effectively.”
“And?”
“Come on Rex, don’t be so dense. I will see, ah, we will see, that these discreetly reach our friends. You foremost among them. And you will have a personal supply to distribute to certain leaders. Now, do you still anticipate any trouble dealing with this small opposition?”
“Of course not. With that kind of help, there is nothing I can’t deal with.”
“I’m so glad you understand that.” Rex got up to leave. “Just between us?”
“Of course,” Rex lied.
——
A month passed while Rex fumed…but dutifully obeyed his masters. Then Knight Fowler was to receive an award as a lifetime patron of environmental causes at a private fund raiser for the Outdoor Club. This presented Commissioner Rex Longworthy an opportunity to corner the Chair of Bates Communications, the head of the largest privately owned media conglomerate in North America. Edward R. Bates, who had been ducking Longworthy’s calls for two weeks, was standing alone next to bar when Rex Longworthy spotted him.
“Ed!” Longworthy exclaimed, as if he was meeting an old friend, “I was hoping I’d find you here.”
“Hello,” Bates said. He looked bored and little puzzled.
“Commissioner Longworthy.”
“I know. Your fame precedes you.”
“Call me, Rex, please.” A stony silence followed. “You haven’t responded to any of my calls.”
“What calls?”
“I know you are busy.”
“Look, Mr. Longworthy—”
“Rex.”
“Rex. I contribute generously to environmental causes. Two hundred thousand to this organization today, for example.”
“Oh, Ed, this isn’t about that, at all.”
“I see. Well, I’ll certainly tell my secretary to put you through.” Bates looked at his watch, and moved towards the exit.
“I’d like a moment of your time, now.”
“Well, this isn’t very—”
“Private? Point well taken. Mr. Fowler’s private office is available. Why not right now?”
Bates shrugged in defeat. He gestured with his right hand. “After you.”
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