Crossover: It's a Jon Hunter thing.

by Timothy Ellis

  "Yes."

  "So you knew about it?"

  "I was agreeing it was a good touch."

  "Dad wondered why it came out on paper. The world is digital now."

  "Are you suggesting it should have been delivered as email spam?"

  "Ugg no. Even I get too much of that. Besides, there's spam blocker sites to prevent it."

  "How do you know about spam blockers?"

  "I wanted a webmail account. Dad told me they routinely block what they think is spam, and don’t tell anyone they are doing it. He got me my domain address instead."

  "So you like getting spam?"

  "Of course not. But when the school forum sends out a bulk email to everyone, I get it. My friend Lucy has to get a copy from me because her Mum won't pay for a proper email account, and she never knows she was sent anything, because she never gets it."

  "What use are they then?"

  "Webmail accounts?"

  "Spam blockers."

  "I don’t know. Seems stupid to let the real spam through while deleting something we asked to be sent."

  "Yes it does."

  "SUZY!"

  * * *

  In six hundred years, spam had never been eradicated. You either put up with it, auto sorted and deleted it, or like me, had a good chuckle over what people were trying to sell to the wrong person. And then deleted it. It was the highlight of everyone's day. Not.

  George and I locked glances, and kept on chuckling. Aline on the other side of me looked like she was about to hit me.

  But I couldn’t stop.

  This was just so funny.

  Thirty Seven

  "Was that you?"

  "Was what me?"

  "The news said everyone in the country with an email address received a political email comparing their candidates."

  "Did you get one?"

  "Yes. It asked me to urge my parents to think about who they voted for."

  "Will you?"

  "I already did."

  "Good."

  "The news also said that spam stopped at almost the same time. My friend received her school forum news email as well, for the first time."

  "Interesting."

  "Yes. Dad wondered if someone had upgraded the email system to be able to properly detect spam, and at the same time removed all the spam blocker sites. The site owners are now suing the hosts."

  "Well if someone did figure out how to delete the real spam, the blocker sites wouldn’t be needed, would they?"

  "I guess not. Neat trick though. Do you know how it was done?"

  "How it was done wasn’t the important thing."

  "What was?"

  "The will to do it."

  "It wasn’t done because no-one wanted to? That can't be right. No-one likes spam."

  "Spammers like spam. People who sell email lists like spammers. And the spam blocker site owners love spam because it gives them a reason to have a site, and makes them feel powerful blocking everything except genuine spam. Plenty of people who could have solved the problem, didn’t want to spend the money to make it happen."

  "Money. Ugg. Why do so many things come down to money?"

  "It’s a good question. I'll give it some thought."

  "Dad was really glad to get back to work. I overheard him telling Mum we were running out of money. Him getting his job back came just in time."

  "I could tell you were worried. Was it running out of money causing him so much stress?"

  "No. Actually his main stress came from dealing with the unemployment people. They were trying to force him to take work he wasn’t suited to."

  "Why was that?"

  "Government policy he said. He said the last government disliked poor people, and sick people, but they truly hated the disabled and unemployed."

  "Where is the logic in that? There are too few jobs for too many unemployed."

  "You're asking me? I'm 12. Nothing about any of that makes any sense. Dad says he wouldn’t have minded if the government were actually doing something to create jobs, but they weren't. At least not jobs at his level. They say they are, but nothing changes, and the unemployment people have to follow rules set by the government which upsets everyone. At least Dad didn’t have to resort to crime to feed his family. He says some people have to because dole is so little these days, no-one can actually live on it. The government do this deliberately to force people into getting a non-existent job. Sometimes I think the people who think these things up don’t actually live on this planet."

  "Hmmm."

  "Suzy? Dinner."

  * * *

  George and I high fived behind Jane's head.

  Thirty Eight

  "Was that you?"

  "Was what me?"

  "The last Prime Minister was on the tv last night."

  "What has that got to do with me?"

  "Strange things happen every time we chat about something."

  "What was strange about the PM being on tv?"

  "It was what happened which was strange."

  "What happened?"

  "You don’t know?"

  "I don’t watch tv."

  "Oh. Well the ex-PM was explaining why his party should be reelected, when the host suddenly interrupted him, and they went to a news break. Seems someone hacked the banking system and stole a lot of money."

  "How much money?"

  "Billions."

  "That’s a lot."

  "That’s what Dad said. I wouldn’t know. A hundred dollars is a lot of money for me. I don’t know what a billion is."

  "It’s a hundred dollars with a lot of zeroes after it."

  "It made a lot of people angry."

  "Why?"

  "Apparently everyone with a net worth of more than 5 million dollars had their accounts zeroed out. What's a net worth?"

  "The total value of all assets and bank accounts, if it was all converted to money at that moment."

  "Why 5 million?"

  "I guess it’s a nice round number."

  "Is that the way you tell if someone's rich?"

  "Not really, but you could say anyone with a net worth of 5 million is rich."

  "And now they aren’t?"

  "Apparently so. What has this to do with the ex PM?"

  "When they returned to the current affairs program, he was white and shaking. He was asked how this affected him, and he actually puked on camera."

  "I'm sorry I missed it. What happened to all the money?"

  "Well there was this other strange thing."

  "What?"

  "All the people who've been unjustly denied disability since they tightened up the rules, received an anonymous donation. So did a lot of people who couldn’t afford the hospital treatments they needed, or were on long waiting lists for a government hospital, and now could go private. Or who were struggling because their meds were not on the government list, and were too expensive. Every unemployed person got one too."

  "Sounds like someone read Robin Hood."

  "There's a book? I liked the movie, even though Dad doesn’t know I saw it. The world needs someone like him now. Dad says there are too many selfish greedy people in the world."

  "Hmmm."

  "Suzy? Bed."

  * * *

  The pause activated again.

  George and I weren’t chuckling any more.

  All heads turned to Jane.

  Her face was going red.

  "What?"

  The pause disengaged.

  Thirty Nine

  "Was that you?"

  "Was what me?"

  "The news was full of bad things happening to rich people over the last few days."

  "What sort of bad things?"

  "Some of them couldn’t make the payments on their debts, so their houses and other assets are being repossessed or sold to cover the debts."

  "Couldn’t have happened to better people."

  "That’s being said a lot. Particularly about all the politicians who no longer have a job. So
me of them are about to be homeless as well."

  "Poetic justice."

  "Dad said that too. Serves a lot of them right, and maybe after they spend some time on the dole queue they will understand what it's really like to not have a job and be unable to get one."

  "We can but hope."

  "Dad isn’t so sure about that. He thinks they will figure out a way to get around the system."

  "It's their system. It should be applied equally to them as well."

  "Dad hopes so, but only time will tell. Anyway, the PM won't be one of them."

  "Why not?"

  "He killed himself. That’s the official version anyway."

  "There's an unofficial version?"

  "Lots. The media are having a field day over it."

  "Are they saying why he would kill himself?"

  "Well the hacking of the banking system wasn’t just the removal of money."

  "Oh? What else?"

  "The programs were changed."

  "Really? How do they know that?"

  "The programmers found the changes, and removed them."

  "So why is it still a problem?"

  "Apparently every night at midnight, the changes appear again, and any income in the accounts of previously rich people currently in the legal system, who previously lost everything, disappears again. The PM was still getting paid for being PM, but every morning, his account has zero in it."

  "That's some hack."

  "They are looking for a virus, but no-one can find where it's hiding."

  "Good luck with that."

  "That’s what a lot of poor people are saying."

  "You mentioned previously rich people in the legal system?"

  "Yes. The courts are now overflowing with cases about rich people doing the wrong thing, and previously getting away with it. It's like a higher power has decided to expose everyone who ever did anything wrong."

  "Do you believe that?"

  "I don’t know. I'm only 12. Besides, as long as Dad has a job, why should it concern me?"

  "It will one day."

  "Yes, when I'm 18, and can vote."

  "How's the election going?"

  "Apart from the ex PM puking on national tv?"

  "Apart from that."

  "Dad says the newspapers are all biased, and convincing everyone to vote for the last government again. Since there are no tv ads, people are reading newspapers instead. I did a search, and for every news site saying how bad the opposition would be in government, there's a site pointing out the lies being said."

  "I was hoping the lack of tv advertising would fix that."

  "No. Quite the opposite in fact. Dad says the sale of newspapers is well up. Both paper and on the net."

  "Hmmm."

  "I guess I better go."

  "Why?"

  "Every time you go hmmm, my Mum yells at me."

  "Hmmm."

  "SUZY!"

  * * *

  BA had joined us in chuckling.

  The twins looked like they were on the verge of understanding something, but just couldn’t get a grip on it.

  Jane was edging fully into horror now. I wondered why, since she had supposedly read this before. Something must have changed.

  Forty

  "Was that you?"

  "Was what me?"

  "Something happened to the newspapers today."

  "Oh? What?"

  "You didn’t see?"

  "I don’t read newspapers."

  "Oh. Dad says there are no lies in any of them today."

  "How can he tell?"

  "They have blank spots all through them. The news said everything which did print could be easily verified as being true. Everything else is a blank space."

  * * *

  George and I were doubled up laughing.

  BA was grinning, and half the rest of them were at least smiling now.

  Jane now looked completely horrified.

  * * *

  "Blank space? How big?"

  "The news said it varied from paper to paper, but the smallest amount of blank was 65% of the whole paper."

  "That’s a lot of blank space. Do they know how it happened?"

  "The man who owns most of the newspapers is claiming industrial sabotage. What's sabotage?"

  "If I put a hole in all the tires of your Dad's car, it would be sabotage on a small scale. It would mean you would be late for school, and he would be late for work. It's something done which has a negative effect on who it's done to."

  "So it's something done to deliberately make someone angry?"

  "That would be a side effect."

  "No-one can figure out how the newspaper printing was affected, since apparently the original files are intact."

  "It’s a neat trick."

  "You know how it was done?"

  "I said it was a neat trick."

  "So you did. But I still wonder about you."

  "What does your Dad think about the election now?"

  "He thinks it's going to be a disaster."

  "Why would he think that, if people have to think about their choices for once?"

  "Well the parties will all hand out how-to-vote sheets, so those who vote for a party will still be told who to vote for. The rest won't know who to vote for, so he says they will do a donkey."

  "A donkey?"

  "That’s what he said."

  "Did he explain it to you?"

  "I did ask, and it's just voting down the paper in order they are listed."

  "And this is bad?"

  "Yes. The order is supposed to be random, but he says it's amazing how often the winning party was placed high on the paper, while the losing party was lower."

  "There can't be that many people doing it?"

  "5% on average he says. But this time he thinks it will be closer to 30%. The how-to-vote sheets will tell 70% how to vote, and the rest will just donkey."

  "Hmmm."

  "Bye."

  * * *

  George braying like a donkey cracked everyone up.

  Forty One

  "Was that you?"

  "Was what me?"

  "The news said all the how-to-vote sheets were printed in gibberish. The parties are suing the printers."

  "All of them?"

  "Country wide. Every single one. Even the independent candidate's ones were too."

  "Do they know what happened?"

  "The parties and some candidates are blaming the printers. The printers are blaming a software upgrade. The software company is claiming they didn’t issue an update. It's all in court now."

  "What does your Dad say?"

  "It's going to be an even bigger disaster now."

  "Why?"

  "Because now the vast majority of people will donkey."

  "Why?"

  "Everyone binned the mail-outs comparing candidates, and they deleted the emails."

  "Everyone?"

  "Close enough."

  "So the candidate on the top of each voting paper will likely win?"

  "That’s what Dad says. So it won't really be an election. Just a random generation by the computer which orders people on the voting paper."

  "Nothing is truly random."

  "My friend's Dad said that. He's a conspiracy nut."

  "How so?"

  "I don’t know. What does conspiracy mean?"

  "A conspiracy is when people keep something bad a secret."

  "Why does that have anything to do with nuts?"

  "Not nuts. Being called a nut is the same as being called crazy."

  "So he's keeping secrets?"

  "No. A conspiracy nut is someone who sees them when they are not there."

  "So he's just crazy?"

  "Not necessarily. Some people are easy to confuse."

  "Tell me about it."

  "You want details?"

  "No. Sometimes I worry about you."

  "Why?"

  "You seem to not understand a lot of things. And you don’t watc
h tv or read newspapers."

  "Maybe it's because there is a big age difference between us."

  "Maybe. I'm only 12 after all."

  "True."

  "Did you hear about the man who owns most of the newspapers?"

  "What about him?"

  "He's on his way."

  "He doesn’t live here?"

  "Oh no. He went overseas a long time ago."

  "And they let him own newspapers here?"

  "Yes. Dad says his company owns the newspapers, but everyone prints what he wants printed. So it’s the same thing."

  "Why's he coming here then?"

  "He's angry about his newspapers having so much blank space. He's also suing the software company. But he's coming here to tell one of the parties how to run the remainder of the election campaign."

  "Why does he care when he doesn’t live here anymore?"

  "Dad asked that when the news presenter said it."

  "Did they say why?"

  "No. The news presenter can't hear Dad yelling at her."

  "So we don’t know."

  "Well Dad suggested something which wasn’t really very nice, and Mum told him off for saying it in front of me."

  "What did he say?"

  "I promised not to tell anyone. Dad doesn’t want to get sued as well."

  "Fair enough. I'll think about how I can find out more."

  "Well there's no point in reading the newspapers."

  "Why not?"

  "That’s one of the things in the law suit. Some of the blanks were about why he was coming here."

  "Hmmm."

  "SUZY!"

  * * *

  "Priceless!" I gasped.

  "Good thing Amy isn’t here," said Alison.

  Amy was our media guru. She'd be doing her nut at us if she saw this. The media was her life. Or had been until three days ago.

  I nodded sagely, Cheshire cat grin firmly in place.

  Forty Two

  "Was that you?"

  "Was what me?"

  "The house belonging to the man who owns all the newspapers was knocked down."

  "How did that happen?"