The planet called Earth launched into its first-ever universal conversation.
At one level or another, a majority of its eight billion inhabitants took part — some through electronic forums and scientifically tabulated opinion polls, while countless others participated through the babble of rumor and argument in teahouses, marketplaces and teeming bazaars. News and debate trickled down via mass media while public perceptions percolated upward, even in dictatorships. Local officials asked hairdressers, taxi drivers and bartenders what people were saying, then passed word to mayors, then governors and so on. But mostly, it happened online, in a million sosh-sites, bitcafes, eposcenes and blags.
The Great Discussion was ardent. Opinionated. Boulevards filled with mass demonstrations. Here and there, fevered emotions broke into riots. Some buildings and effigies burned …
… and yet, for the most part — to the surprise of nearly everyone — the debate was rather earnest. This issue seemed to go beyond nationalism or politics. It was just too important for most people to leave to passion.
Shall we transmit a message?
That was the central question, solemnly argued from back alleys in Dacca to the yacht basins of Sydney, from impoverished hovels in Quito, where the TV was the only source of illumination, to penthouse apartments in Helsinki.
Shall we send the xeno-guest’s call for help?
If it were simply a matter of beaming a radio bulletin to space, there would be no point even raising the issue. All sorts of nations, cities and even private individuals owned high power transmitters. Even if the world reached a 99% agreement to stay quiet, somebody would surely disagree and defy mass opinion by shouting to the stars. Today, more than ever, it was the human way.
But it seemed that new and sophisticated technologies were needed, in order to send an SOS bulletin to the nearest Garubis outpost in time to do any good. For now and the immediate future, only the U.S. government had a clue how to build such machinery.
In theory, the United Nations Supervisory Committee could insist that those blueprints be posted on the internet. But they had no intention of doing that right now. Perhaps not ever.
It all hung on what the world consensus decided — if agreement proved possible at all. For weeks, it did not seem to be.
* * *
Meanwhile, for Mark Bamford, it was back to the grind. Back to high school — the modern form of incarceration for those found guilty of being young.
In some other era, a sturdy fellow who was just about to turn seventeen might be a confident hunter, already at the top of his skill, faster and more daring than anyone else in the band. As a farmer, he would have fields to plow and probably a family to feed. In ancient kingdoms like Rome or Babylon, a fellow his age might by now have scars from a soldier’s battles. And he would know how to make nearly all his own tools.
Even until a few decades ago, if you were eager to escape high school, you could always drop out and enlist.
No longer. Nowadays, even the army wouldn’t take you without a diploma. So, you might as well just stick it out, get grades, go to college. Sure, nobody would take you seriously there, either; but at least college was more interesting and fun. You’d finally get an adult’s freedom — without the responsibilities … or any of the respect. Till graduation, then, life was on hold however you looked at it. Just one thought made the prospect bearable.
Everybody has to go through this.
It’s just my turn.
Only now that wasn’t exactly true, was it? The news cameras had vanished from Twenty-Nine Palms High within a week after that fateful Thursday. Yet, so long as the whole world was transfixed on the issue of first contact, Mark’s position at school settled into a rhythm of grueling discomfort.
It wasn’t all sullen silence. In fact, more students spoke to him now than before all this started, perhaps out of some vain hope of being invited to meet the Xeno. But soon most realized Mark had no back door pass. That one encounter at the base had been pretty much it.
Even Gornet’s pals stopped following him around with horking sounds. They still glowered, and Mark felt certain they would have pounced by now, pummeling him after school — except that it seemed pointless.
I have a reputation as a tattler, he realized. They won’t beat me up because they think I’d squeal.
He wouldn’t! Not over a simple bruising. He wanted to tell them that. Get it over with, dammit! The guerrillitas near Caracas had been far more frightening than some putzy gang of SoCal teen-athletes. Anyway, they might be surprised how many licks of his own he got in.
But Mark kept his mouth shut. Anything he said now would just be used for mockery.
He stopped using his locker. Every time Alex Behr and Conner Mills accompanied him to practice at the climbing wall, Mark carefully checked the ropes. Once, he found a few suspicious nicks, which he repaired without comment. Beyond that, the goal was to endure till summer. Then just one more year, he told himself.
Another week passed, and then another while the world bickered over the Message Proposal. Then one day, trucks arrived and parked next to the athletic field, disgorging a motley array of carnies and roustabouts who got to work, gradually setting up tents and rides for the Twenty-Nine Palms Desert Carnival, which always coincided with the high school’s Homecoming Dance.
Mark winced when he saw banners announcing this year’s theme — an alien motif — silvery UFO types, still more popular in the public mind than the weirdly realistic Garubis image. There was even talk of changing the school mascot from a cartoony spy to E.T.
Agh, he thought, wishing Dad would just get promoted or transferred again. But as the crank callers and drive-by vandals ebbed away, Major Bamford returned to his squadron, now in the thick of testing new “gimmicks” using bits of alien technology. In fact, Mark hadn’t seen Dad so happy since before Mom died.
I might be too, if I had something useful to do.
Even history class was no escape. Mr. Castro finally gave up trying to focus on the past. Now, every discussion had something to do with the great big international debate over The Message.
* * *
Today’s class focused on the surprise announcement by an ecumenical conclave of religious leaders, ranging from the Pope and Dalai Lama to Jewish, Muslim, Mormon and Hindu scholars.
Morally, we must transmit the Visitor’s call for help, stated the joint declaration. Whether these beings prove beneficent or hostile, it is vital that we begin relations with a righteous act. We must, all of us together, put our trust in the wisdom and mercy of God.
This communiqué had profound effects worldwide, even on non-believers. Never before had a single choice been portrayed in the same moral terms by all major faiths at the same time. Some of Mark’s fellow students were also influenced to change their minds. But not Dave McCarty.
“It’s all propaganda,” he muttered. “The priests have had the masses in their grip for centuries. Since before there was writing! Now they’re doing it again.”
Arlene Hsu shook her head. She had grown more confident during the last two months, exchanging ideas informally, with increasing boldness and often free-of-facts, in the American style.
“How can you say they are insincere, Dave! Contact with a huge and powerful alien culture will bring in new ideas, challenging all of the old faiths. Why should the religious leaders want competition —”
“Because they’re confident they’ll win out, of course. I bet they see a chance to grab converts among the stars! Or maybe they just believe their own propaganda.”
Mr. Castro stepped around to sit on the front of his desk.
“You use that word pretty freely, Dave. Do you have a clear idea what it means?”
“What? Propaganda?” McCarty blinked a couple of times. It was one of those terms you just grew up using, without ever seeing it defined.
“Propaganda … is where the folks with power or money or influence —”
“— elites —”
“Yeah, elites want the masses to believe something that’ll help keep ’em under control, doing what the masters want. In olden times they did it by preaching ‘obey the kings and priests.’ They did it in temples and churches and when they hired guys like Homer to chant songs about heroes and gods …”
“And nowadays they do it with television, movies, commercials.” Froggi Hayashi interrupted, with a nod to his friend.
“… and schools.” Dave finished. That triggered agreeing laughter from several students.
“So,” Mr. Castro concluded, tapping his own chest. “That makes me a tool of the establishment, cramming conformity messages into young minds, molding them into compliant little villagers.”
“And consumers!” interjected Paulina Isfahani. “Got to keep the economy churning, after all.”
The teacher sighed. “Ah, it’s sad. You’re all too young to be so cynical.”
That won the teacher a flurry of groans that he tolerated with a grin.
“And yet, I wonder — could that be a clue?”
The remark drew puzzled looks.
“You mean the fact that we’re cynical?” asked Helene Shockley from behind Mark. He didn’t have to turn around; Mark knew exactly what she wore today — a turquoise top with beaded trim and a plunging neckline that stopped just short of breaking the school’s liberal dress code.
“What could our cynicism be a clue to, Mr. Castro?” Helene finished.
“Why, a clue to which propaganda messages we should be watching out for, of course. You all seem to agree that indoctrination fills the airwaves, newspapers, movies — and schools,” he conceded with a nod to Dave. “Persuasive messages that are nevertheless too subtle to be noticed by the common man or woman on the street. Right?”
Nods of agreement all around.
“But you are all capable of noticing, and rising above this pervasive brainwashing. Is that it?”
More nods, though not quite as quick or vigorous as before. Uh-oh, Mark thought, sensing one of the teacher’s trademark logical traps.
“Well, well. How fortunate I am that you seventeen-year-old juniors and seniors in my history class happen to be so much smarter and more observant than all those sheep out there! All the doctors and lawyers and mechanics and such — they can’t resist the brainwashing, but you have. How do you account for this amazing statistical fluke? Anybody?”
Now there was stone silence, until Arlene raised her hand again.
“Everybody likes to think they are smart, I guess … and that everyone else is clueless.”
Mr. Castro nodded.
“Some of you, at university, will study scientific method and learn how easily we’re fooled by what we want to believe. You’ll be sent out to survey people on the street, asking two questions. How did you arrive at your own set of beliefs? And why do your opponents believe what they do?
“Can anyone guess what nearly always happens?”
“Um … isn’t it obvious?” Mark ventured. “People say they got their own beliefs by calmly looking at the evidence.”
“Right. And this crosses all boundaries of politics or culture. Left or right or whatever. We ascribe our own opinions to logical appraisal of the situation and the facts, while we think that our enemies believe what they do because of malice, or greed, or gullibility, or else flaws in their character.”
Helene mulled this over, then commented. “I guess that’s human nature. We come up with reasons to think well of ourselves, and put down those we don’t like. It makes their opinions seem less important. Especially when they don’t like us.”
This time, Mark turned around in time to catch Helene looking briefly at him! Her expression, friendly — and perhaps more — made him swivel forward again, awash in confusion. Was there some kind of double meaning in her words?
Paulina jumped in.
“Are you suggesting we may be as brainwashed as anybody else? But you said we’re cynical!” She shook her head. “Unless … unless that’s the clue you were talking about.”
“Could be,” Mr. Castro said. “But first, what do you consider to be the principal propaganda message of our time? Come on, let’s have it. Something really extensive and widespread, that we swim through every day.”
Froggi spoke first. “Commercialism! Be a good consumer. Buy stuff!”
“Hmm, yes. By volume — in the sheer number of messages — advertising can’t be beat. But look at how thick-skinned the average person is toward commercials! I remember some old sci-fi novels predicted that people would march like morons to buy whatever they were told to. But reality is different. Every year advertisers struggle harder to amuse us, spending millions for a little name recognition. Nope. Try again.”
“Religion,” Dave said, succinctly, with his arms crossed and jaw set. That drew objections from Jamilla, Tasha and Jerome, who called Dave intolerant.
“The most paramount theme is conformity,” suggested Arlene. “And reverence for the past. From an early age … in China ….” Then she paused, suddenly unable to continue.
The teacher nodded. “It may surprise you to hear that I agree. Conformity is a potent theme that drives every society — at least every one I’ve heard of. Powerful forces push individuals to please their neighbors, and especially their tribal elites. At your age it’s oversimplified with the term ‘peer pressure.’ Some of it comes from self-interest — it helps to have friends.”
Ouch, Mark thought. He still felt confused by that look from Helene, a moment ago. Had there been some kind of under-meaning, for him alone?
“Especially back in olden times,” Paulina said, with a furrowed frown. “Back in the caves, it must’ve been life-or-death to have friends. Maybe that’s why it’s built into us to worry so much about popularity.”
“An interesting point,” the teacher acknowledged. “Maybe you can find some references, pro and con, to share with us tomorrow.” This time there were no groans. The topic hit most teens too close to home. Paulina bent over her tablet, tapping furiously.
“And yes,” Mr. Castro continued. “Most societies actively preached conformity. Citizens were urged to resist disapproved influences and toe the line. This kind of indoctrination was common, in law and myth.
“But universal? Might our society be an exception?”
He paused.
“Can any of you name a recent movie that actively preached conformity? ‘Be like everybody else and suppress your individuality’? How about any games, vids or popular novels? Can you come up with a single example? Even one in which the hero says everybody should be the same?”
This time, silence stretched for half a minute.
Slowly, as if it might be a mistake, Mark lifted his hand.
“I think the message in movies … is nearly always the opposite.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, doesn’t the hero, most of the time, kind of stick it to some evil rich guy? Or some nasty government agency?”
“Or powerful criminals, or some other conniving elite. Or else the mean supervisor, or the oppressive husband.” Mr. Castro nodded. “Usually, it starts in the first ten minutes of a film. There has to be some clash with an authority figure in order for a modern audience to properly bond with the protagonist — the hero or heroine. Even if it’s just a snide remark, mumbled about the boss or a neighborhood bigshot. If you really want the audience to hate the villain, show him oppressing someone. Or kicking an animal. Can anyone think of an exception?”
Mark could see his classmates wracking their brains. Especially Dave and Froggi, who clearly didn’t like where this was heading.
“Suspicion of authority,” the teacher said. “The theme fills our media tales, novels and videos. The main character has to display some quirk of individualism, some underdog eccentricity or independent streak, even if she starts out as an aristocrat or princess. Often it doesn’t matter which authority figure gets defied. If the writer or director is politically right-of-center, it may be government or intellectuals. If she’s more to the left, it could be a faceless, inhumane corporation or a smug aristocrat. Or vicious drug lords, or some foreign power … or maybe a threat from outer space.”
He turned around and wrote on the e-board. “One of your assignments will be to get examples. Tally how many modern movies you can find that preach suspicion of authority, and its companion message — tolerance of eccentricity.
“For comparison, also list films or videos, if any, that push the opposite message — conformity and/or intolerance of differences.”
“But —” Dave McCarty sputtered. “How could suspicion of authority be propaganda! Are you suggesting that some conspiracy of secret masters one day decided — ‘Hey, let’s start a campaign so people will hate conspiracies and secret masters?’ That doesn’t even make sense!”
“Calm down, Dave. And no, I’m not saying it was planned … though that might be an idea worth chewing on.” He smiled. “I figure a more likely explanation is that we’ve been doing it ourselves, subconsciously, by paying to see entertainments that reinforce something we —”
“— already believe,” Kristin Gomez blurted, then rushed on to object. “But then why hasn’t anybody noticed!”
“I noticed.” Arlene Hsu raised her hand again. Some of the old shyness returned to her voice. “We all noticed, back in Guangdong. American movie heroes … never show respect.”
From behind him, Mark heard Helene Shockley respond. “I think maybe we don’t notice because it’s hard to —”
“— notice propaganda that you already agree with,” Mark found himself finishing for her. He glanced at Helene apologetically, then away again quickly. There had been another friendly, enigmatic smile.
Now Dave was really angry. “You’re saying we’re taught to be individualists? That society wants us to defy authority? That —”
“That you didn’t invent it, Dave?” murmured Paulina. “Any more than you invented the black leather look.” She pointed at his studded jacket. “Yeah, I can live with that.”
Not if looks could kill, Mark thought, as McCarty glared at her. A strangled noise gurgled, but before Dave could gather words, the class period bell rang.
“Check my web bot for the full assignment!” Mr. Castro called to those rushing for the door. Half a dozen students gathered near his desk, continuing to argue till the last possible moment. It illustrated why Mark had invited the teacher to be a witness, that crazy Thursday night (it felt like a lifetime ago). In Mr. Castro’s Class, you almost felt like you were in college, instead of a big warehouse for teens.
Mark wasn’t one of those lingering behind. He hurried outside and turned to wait as throngs of students pushed past him in the hall. When Helene emerged, would there be something in her eyes again? If so, should he speak? What could he say?
Here she comes, he thought —
— only to be shouldered aside as someone much taller forged past. It wasn’t a violent or aggressive shove. The rangy boy even muttered a friendly, reflex apology. No big deal; you got used to being jostled in the halls. And yet ….
Scott Tepper grinned, taking Helene’s elbow as she emerged. The senior whispered in her ear and she laughed, shaking the coiled black ringlets of her hair. As they turned to head off together, Helene did offer Mark another glancing smile — it was friendly.
But that’s all. Friendly. He must have imagined anything else.
He felt like a robot through Pre-Calc and English. In Chemistry, Alexandra tried to snap him out of it by threatening to set fire to his sleeve with the bunsen burner. She and Barry Tang — it was the one class they all took together — had to take care of the rest of their joint experiment without Mark’s inept assistance.
What finally broke his spell of self-pity, a while later, was a sudden news flash that rocked the lunch court, sending everyone diving for cells and palm-links, even as sirens began wailing in the distance, toward a low line of desert hills.
A terror attack, murmured the soft, mechanical voices of several hundred wrist-phones and pen-cells, across the quad. An assault against the Contact Center — at the air base, just outside of Twenty-Nine Palms.