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Red Herrings and White Elephants
Loch Ness Monsters and other Mysteries Solved
The Jam: Sounds from the Street
Chapter One
Of course he was nervous; he often was at times like these. Especially today as it was the first day of his contribution. His contribution to The Corporation that had been training him for his life’s work. For sixteen years their academy had been teaching him to be George Willoughby. And it was finally time to start giving something back to the people who had invested so much in his future. And, of course, in their own. George fumbled in his trouser pocket for the packet of diazepam he had collected from the smoke store on his way to the Hydrostation. A couple of those would stop his internal organs from rattling. They usually did. He pulled gently on his earlobe and peered up at the departures board. The concourse of the main hydro-terminal at Waterloo Station was, as usual, neat, clean and with people moving casually around as they collected breakfast, met with friends or simply headed for their allocated platforms. Nobody appeared worried, nobody appeared hurried. And yet George stood upon legs that felt as if they had no bones.
Everybody appeared to know their purpose and George wondered how many of them were about to begin the first day of their working lives. It was, after all, the first week for his year of graduates to make their way to new work zones. To begin the life they had been preparing for since their career selection process sixteen years earlier, when all students had been assessed, at the age of ten, and allocated a suitable role within The Corporation. A role they would then spend the remainder of their education being carefully prepared to carry out. Finally George found what he was searching for. Platform 12, the South West Hydrotrain to Exeter was leaving at 09.15am and scheduled to arrive at the Southern Central Terminus at 09.37am.
‘Man, these Hydros are getting faster,’ he thought. ‘That’s 235km in 22 minutes.’ From Exeter he could catch the Sub Atlantic Pulsed Plasma Hydro to New York, Washington, Miami or Rio de Janeiro, if he wished. They were even quicker.
George sucked the air in between his teeth and studied the terminals along the line between Waterloo and Exeter until he found Guildford; arriving at 09.22, which allowed him more than enough time to reach his work zone and begin at 10am. George was never late for anything. Nobody ever was.
‘Willoughby,’ called a voice marginally high enough above the low hum of the concourse to attract his attention, ‘where were you placed?’ George turned to see one of his oldest friends, Will Grainger, approaching with his usual wide smile. The pair had been neighbours as children, had attended assessment school together in the Central Complex and, despite being parted when Will was assigned a position in the Industrial Training Programme, whilst George had been placed on the Literature Updating Curriculum, they had remained close friends.
George felt relief. He had spent the entire weekend trying to control his nerves and, at one point, had felt as if his lower intestine had turned into ragged ice, dropped a little and was repeatedly stabbing him in the kidneys. He was pleased to see a friendly and familiar face.
Will seemed to have no similar concern. ‘Dude,’ he called again, ‘where were you placed in the end?’
‘Guildford,’ George replied. ‘There is a Department of Literature just outside the old town and a pod-car runs right beneath the building. I’ve plenty of time.’
Grainger looked up at the departures board. ‘I got Woking,’ he added, ‘it’s only one stop before yours and look, there is another Hydro leaving at 09.45. Guildford is only seven minutes away, let’s sit for coffee.’
George hesitated but his friend was already heading for the dispenser. ‘Ok, he called after him, but I’m taking mine with me and not sitting around here wasting time with you. Besides, I am keen to get there, see what the place looks like, to see where I am going to be spending the next thirty years.’
’Thirty years,’ Grainger repeated quietly. ‘They program us for sixteen years to make one single, repeated, contribution to the company for the next thirty. Then withdrawn at fifty six and free to spend the rest of our lives doing what exactly?’
‘As many twenty-five-year olds as I can,’ George joked. Grainger knew he wasn’t joking. George began to calm down a little as the pair made their way to Platform 12 and the diazepam started to work its magic.
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Will as George offered him the packet.
‘Keep them,’ he told him, ‘I’ve plenty.’ Will stuffed the tube into his pocket.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all, thought George. At least he wasn’t the only one making his debut into the real world, as his training supervisors had repeatedly called it.
‘The Real World?’ Grainger echoed his thoughts. ‘It won’t be any different to the role-play world we have become used to. I was fully trained two years ago and have spent all of my time since then doing exactly what I will be doing today, after the induction morning. Simple Transition they called it.’
George already knew as he also graduated two years earlier, as had everybody else from their respected education programmes, and spent that final twenty four months on the Advanced Supervised Preparation Programme (ASPP). The whole point of that was so graduates could start contributing to the company from the moment they took their placements. It was the same each year; a seamless placement, zero disruption to those who had already begun their life contributions and without disruption to the work supervisors and the rest of the department.
The Hydrotrain slid to a silent halt at the terminal and the pair stepped on. George turned to his friend, ‘you also stuck to the ten-till-three work period then?’ he asked.
‘I don’t like early mornings and want to be back at Central Complex by half three,’ said Will. ‘That leaves me the rest of the day to do what Will does best.’
George shuddered. ‘Count me in later then, I will need some of that by the end of this day.’
During their final two years on the ASPP all graduates were invited to choose their daily working program. Each employee of the company had to contribute a full five hours of work for each of four days in a week. George opted to continue his ASPP hours as they suited him, Will had done the same but anybody could change, after checking the contribution pattern on their company issued hydro-devices, selecting available shifts and then logging them onto the central server which would alter their tracking patterns accordingly. The Global Positioning System on their hy-devs would record their contribution routines for the work period although, in truth, they recorded everything.
Will and George both knew, as they scanned their ident-cards at the platform gate, and again as they entered the work zone, that their movements were registered at the Divisional Database. So what; it was they same for everybody. It had been for all of their lives and, besides, the only time anybody checked it was during their annual appraisal, or if anybody had gone missing. Such as the famous case of Ivy George. She was the student who dropped hers in a lake whilst taking digi-pics on a lone, day trip to Boston. When the Divisional Database failed to pick up her signal for thirty minutes her Education Supervisor had been alerted and within seconds the entire Corporation had been informed and her picture profile was automatically displayed on everybody’s hy-dev main page.
Poor Ivy had some explaining to do when she finally arrived back at the Central Complex Hydroport, where the cameras immediately recognised her, alerted the nearest supervisor and she was taken to the personnel officer for a de-brief and retraining day. In truth, Ivy had quite enjoyed it. The following morning people she didn’t know smiled warmly at her, having recognised her digi-profile, which had been embedded on every home screen the previous day. Ivy found herself enjoying the slight attention and was disappointed when, within hours, something else had occupied everybody’s focus and she seemed to be forgotten about again.
George settled into his seat and studied his reflection in the smoked glass window opposite him. He had a narrow head with a small pointed nose and prominent cheekbones. Shoulder length blond hair and, at around 6’2, was carrying a few kilograms of extra weight, which his supervisor had already recommended a fitness programme for. It began the following week.
‘It’s your own fault you fat bastard,’ Will goaded him as if reading his thoughts. ‘You want to cut down on your pies and pints mate, and get some exercise.’
George laughed, pulled gently on his earlobe and then traced his finger along the port wine birthmark, around the size of a thumbnail, which drew attention to his right cheek. His supervisor had also recommended a clinic that would remove it for him
‘And leave the birth-mark,’ Will added, ‘it gives you character. It’s part of you and there is nothing perfect about perfect.’
George laughed again and sipped his coffee whilst considering the reflection of his friend as the Hydro sped out of the Central Complex and through the countryside. Will was shorter and with brown wavy hair. By the look of it his obsession with his hairdresser was not reciprocated. He was also leaner than George and fitter. He had a round, friendly face with a near permanent smile that revealed a prominent gap between his two front teeth.
‘I probably will,’ George said aimlessly. ‘As long as you leave the teeth alone.’
Will grinned widely as the Platform Pods of the Woking Terminal pulled alongside the Hydro and connected. ‘See you later then,’ said Will as the main doors opened and he stepped into the pod, after making way for those who were joining the Hydro. With that the doors smoothly closed, the Pod disengaged and peeled away from the main train. George sped onwards and watched as the Woking pod slowed into the terminal and the Guildford pods pulled up alongside and quietly connected. He stood up to wait for his turn. The tablet in his pocket had pinged a reminder that Guildford was only fifteen seconds from Woking.
Looking out of the smoked glass window George studied the building ahead as the hydro-pod slowed into its terminal. It was old, very old and built from red bricks with tinted windows and painted white window frames. ‘Like something from the old books,’ George grinned to himself. ‘Like many of the buildings in Cape Town. Ahh, Mira,’ George thought. ‘Still, no time for her now.’ He would see her at the weekend. At that moment George’s hy-dev pinged him a personal message which he checked as he moved towards the assembly area for the new intake.
Mira: ‘good luck today babes like you need it, see you on Friday night x’ George tapped a single letter reply and slipped the device back into his pocket. She would know what that meant.
As he approached the intake lounge he checked his watch; 09.25. Looking through the smoked glass windows he cast his eye around the group of around twenty five graduates and recognised only one from his ASPP training. Hugo Gomez had not exactly been a friend but at least he was a friendly face, a familiar one.
‘Hugo,’ called George as he walked into the room. ‘Georgie boy,’ came the reply and the pair hugged like the friends they were not.
‘So, you were given Guildford too?’ Hugo asked rhetorically.
‘I applied,’ said George. ‘It seemed obvious to me, within seven minutes of the Central Complex so I can stay in my old apartment there. Edgar is on the Complex too...’
‘Edgar?’ interrupted Hugo.
‘He is my father’s grandfather. The only relative I know about these days, I go and see the old boy once a week, take him some whiskey and smokes and he sometimes talks about the old days. Never gives much away though, the old bastard, but he has seen it all and I often take my advice from him. He has been a sort of mentor to me, outside of the Corporation.’
‘We are not supposed to have those,’ replied Hugo, ‘but, I suppose, if he is family.’
George ignored the remark and continued, ‘he was something to do with the Corporation at a high level but retired in the early days, back in AI03, I think. He was given a fantastic top floor apartment in an old converted warehouse as a life reward. You should see the views from there. Right across the Complex and he has the whole floor so it’s a 360 degree panorama. And besides, my subject is history and he has lived in it, so I have learned a lot from him’ George watched as the supervisor walked into the room. ‘I will take you there one day, you can meet the old man, he is full of stories’
Hugo, George and the others straightened to face the last man into the room.
‘I would like that,’ Hugo whispered. ‘Seen much of Will?’ he asked.
‘On the hydro this morning, he got Woking for his Industrial Placement.’ George replied.
‘I saw it, just seconds along the line, I will make sure I am on the same hydro as you both tomorrow, it would be good to see him again and...’ Hugo tailed off.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ interrupted the Graduate Supervisor, ‘and welcome to your first day of contribution, the first day of your working lives and, of course, the first day of the rest of your lives.
‘What a twat,’ whispered George. ‘I hope he is not going to talk in clichés all morning.’
Hugo ignored him and listened alertly. ‘My name is Vincent Baptist and I have been the Intake Supervisor at this department for the last twenty years. There is nothing I do not know about what goes on around here and so if you need anything at all then I am the man to ask. I will be supervising you until I am withdrawn, which is in ten year’s time’
George listened as he surveyed the other graduates. They were all of the same age and all of them, like himself and Hugo, would have been assessed for this contribution at the same time and received a variation of the same training and preparation at one of the five hundred and twenty academies throughout the Corporation.
There were marginally more young women than men and he realised that, apart from Hugo, he knew none of them. George’s gaze stopped and rested upon a beautiful, brown-skinned girl with shiny, black hair who was staring up at the supervisor, listening intently. George found himself staring at her. She glanced quickly towards him and then back again as a small smile, which began in those brown eyes, briefly lit up her face. George quickly turned back to the supervisor and realised he had not been listening. He pulled gently on his ear with his thumb and forefinger and forced himself to concentrate.
‘You haven’t missed anything,’ whispered Hugo. ‘And yes, she is cute. I noticed her earlier.’
’What did he say?’ hissed George.
‘Just some crap about where the sports centre is, the dining room, overnight suites and everything else. It’s all in the induction PDF anyway, I read it earlier. Don’t worry about it.’ The supervisor’s words became audible to George again as he tuned back in.
‘And so, as you know, there is very little I can tell you about what you will be doing here. You are all fully trained, completely prepared and can go to your work zones right away, if you like. However, for those of you who are interested I can offer you a tour of the archives. Here you will see books. Real books as they were first printed back in the days when we used to use paper for everything.’
Some of the graduates started chattering excitedly. They had never seen a book before. They had all been recalled during the first years of the Incorporation and replaced by a brand new updated digital version that was uploaded automatically to everybody who handed their old battered, original copies into the re-cycling facilities.
Edgar, on the other hand, had an old chest full of them in his storage area back at the warehouse. He had shown George once, but hadn’t let him read any since they were considered to be against company policy to own, when everybody had the new digital copies safely on their hy-dev bookshelves. The Main Board’s Public Relations Department had sent an email to the entire corporation reminding everybody that paper was a valuable resource that needed to be preserved and recycled. Although George had never been told of what it was being used for instead. He had never seen any, apart from the old, tattered copy of a story called Treasure Island that Edgar had once, briefly, let him see before locking it back into the chest with what appeared to be a couple of hundred others.
The supervisor’s voice faded back into range again as he announced, ‘so, remember that the old democratic governments of the past encouraged fiction writers to make up names, places and situations, for reasons best known to themselves, and it is our job, in these new, enlighten times, to correct some of those details. The Main Board want an accurate record of history, not the fictionalised version the old regimes used to teach its subjugated populations, such as your grandfathers and great grandfathers. When you log on to your work zones your will all receive an introductory memo and an induction PDF. Once you have read this your first novel, chosen from your specialist subjects that were identified during ASPP, will download for you to begin correcting. Ladies and gentlemen, please remember there have been tens of millions of books published over the last, corrupt, five hundred years or so. They all need to be corrected and then preserved. It will take many of us many years and certainly, for you, it will be a lifetime’s work. Work that is well worth doing if it means that future generations will have a complete and accurate record of The Corporation’s real history, I am sure you would agree.’
Some of the group gasped eagerly. After all, correcting history was a very important career to have been chosen for. For these graduates there was no better way of spending their entire working lives than reading books and making the odd improvement or deletion here and there to make sure they was perfect, accurate and that they reflected true history. All of them would also be given time to write their own books for publication by The Corporation. They were all now professional writers and editors and would, themselves, become part of the future’s own history. It was an exciting time.
‘And finally, for those of you would like to see the archive, for those of you who would like to see the old obsolete format, the way books used to be produced, then please follow me.’
George joined the back of the group and watched the dark-skinned beauty move slowly in front of him. From where he was he could almost smell her. He tried to get a little closer. The supervisor spoke again.
‘Remember everyone, these are not all of the books ever written. The Corporation has about a five hundred departments like this all across the regions and other books are being corrected, or translated into Albion from old, dead, languages by thousands of literary workers just like you. Although all of the books you are about to see,’ he added proudly, ‘were updated and corrected right here in this very building. It is a historic achievement by those working here both past and present.’
Hugo could feel the sense of excitement among the group. As they stopped at the door to the archive George brushed arms with the girl with the dark eyes and, for a brief moment, felt her naked skin upon his. At that moment he felt excitement of an entirely different kind to the rest of the group. They entered the climate controlled archive room and along the shelving sat lines and lines of what the graduates immediately recognised as the old books. But they alone, among all the company members, knew this for only the graduates of the Literature Updating Curriculum (LUC) had been taught about books and magazines. Graduates from the Agriculture & Farming, or Industrial, Curriculum’s didn’t need to know anything about hardback and paperback books.
There had been nothing illegal about them in their day, but they were simply objects from a time long ago and nobody had used them, or pens, pencils, or paper for over forty years. Instead, the tap, tap tapping of the hydro-device was all members relied upon in the year AI43. Every member had been allocated their own on the first day of Pre-Training that was replaced each year with an updated model.
The grads marvelled at the sight. Some gasped while others simply stared. A bold few stepped forward and ran their fingers along the creased and fading spines and experienced the unique sensation of fanning a few pages. The girl with the dark eyes appeared to be close to tears, as if she had waited her entire life for a moment like this and had not been disappointed.
‘This may be her first orgasm,’ Hugo whispered.
George looked at him and ignored the remark. To the right of the archive was an open plan area with hundreds, if not thousands, of neatly lined desks, each with a chair and a thin, modern plasma screen of about twenty inches wide that their hy-devs would automatically connect to once they were placed upon any of the desks.
The supervisor turned to address his new recruits.
‘Ladies, gentlemen, once again you will remember learning of how fiction writers of past generations such as Dickens, Twain and Nabakov had made up names for regions that they called countries. And then they all copied each other. The Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare, for example, called the Western Division of Albion, that we are all part of today, a country called England and even gave it a central city with the name of London. Emile Zola then borrowed the idea and referred to the Western Division of Gaul as France and gave it a central city called Paris. Mark Twain made up a place he called America, a name he gave the ten Western Divisions across the Atlantic Sea. It was a fashion among fiction writers to provoke and sensationalise their stories but it wasn’t long before scurrilous and ill-meaning people, wrestling for power and control of these lands, adopted their ideas and presented them to uneducated people as facts. They re-wrote their history.’
George appeared a little confused by this revelation. He thought John Bunyan had invented England, not William Shakespeare, in the first book ever published way back in the year AD1678 of the old calendar. That’s what Edgar had once told him although, when he tried to look for it at the Amazon Library, there was no trace to be found on the search archive. Mind you, he couldn’t remember the title. Something about a pilgrim was all he could recall. The supervisor continued without interruption.
‘They then used those uneducated people in the respected regions, your ancestors, to fight wars with each other in an attempt to control or defend these so called countries. They motivated the masses with what they called ‘national pride’ or ‘national defence.’ A little like the way the Middle East is organised today with warring nations using religion to provoke violence towards each other. Yes indeed, Shakespeare, Twain and the rest of them have a lot to answer for. We should all be grateful that when the Main Board took over the running of the Corporation they banned all religion throughout the Divisions. Here in the Western Corporation we have nothing to go to war over with each other and can all work together for the good of ourselves and The Corporation. Only a fool would allow these fiction writers to create an environment for the greed and avarice of democracy to raise its ugly head again. And in those days mankind was never short of fools. It was all revealed as a sham anyway. If voting had actually changed anything for the better then nobody would have been allowed to do it anyway.’
George appreciated the irony. All graduates had learned about democracy and Edgar had mentioned something once, so he made a mental note to ask him more about it one day. He then felt his personal messenger vibrate from the inside pocket of his jacket. Glancing down he saw it was Mira again, 'Hello babes, how's your first day going?' George wasn't quite sure how he felt about Mira. When they met she was just about to enter her first year-long marriage contract, and George was signing his own. Both had contracts with other partners. But George knew he was dismayed when he chose not to renew at the end of the first twelve months with his wife and yet Mira went ahead and renewed hers for a second year. That was a blow and when she did finally end after the third year she blamed George for not revealing his real feelings for her properly. She said she didn't know how he felt about her and that was probably true; he wasn’t sure himself. He made a mental note to skyphone her later as he preferred to talk rather than personal message all day long, which was something of a habit of Mira’s. He would try to speak to her later, although she rarely answered his calls, unless he caught her on a good day.
George wandered through the work zone and selected a desk close to the window on the far side of the room. Placing his hy-dev on its surface the screen woke up and prompted him for his unique password. George tapped upon the keyboard and became aware of a presence at his right shoulder.
‘Hi, I’m Tibha,’ said the girl with the dark eyes.
George turned in his seat, offered his hand and replied, ‘I’m George Willoughby, I noticed you earlier.’
Tibha’s eyes began to smile again, ‘I know, and I noticed you too, mind if I take this table?’ she asked as she pulled out a chair and sat down without waiting for a reply. George felt his natural anxiety rise up again and his marrowbone appeared to vibrate within his bones. He reached for some more diazepam in a manner he hoped she wouldn’t notice. ‘Vitamins,’ he explained when she did notice.
George wasn’t comfortable in the company of women as beautiful as Tibha. She had elegance about her, a friendly aloofness, and looked as though her ancestors were from the area of the old British Raj he had learned about when he corrected a book called A Passage to India during his ASPP final training. He loved the look of the women he had seen in the illustrations and one with a similar appearance had been on his curriculum for a couple of years before transferring to one of the ten Western Divisions. George remembered Jalini well, but had never found the courage to ask her out when he had the chance. He pretended to read his induction PDF as he tried to think of something to say to Tibha that was intelligent, funny and appropriate all at the same time. He had nothing. In truth George wasn’t comfortable in the company of any woman, let alone an example as beautiful as Tibha. As usual, he would have to leave it to her to do all the hard work, if there was any to be done.
‘So what is your specialist area?’ Tibha asked quietly.
‘You are a damned idiot,’ thought George, ‘even you could have come up with something like that.’
‘Nineteenth century of the old calendar,’ he smiled.
‘I know when the nineteenth century was,’ she teased. George reached for the diazepam once more.
‘Yours?’ he countered. Tibha turned to face him and George felt her warm, dark eyes penetrate his soul.
‘The Romantics, the poets,’ she said tenderly and then followed that with, ‘somebody has to make sure that Shelley wasn’t telling fucking lies.’
Tibha turned back to face her screen and, once again, a smile spread across her perfect features. George stared at her in disbelief; he hadn’t expected that. He was, for a moment, mesmerized but then started laughing.
‘Somebody certainly has,’ he agreed. ‘And keep an eye on Byron too, that one was always up to no good.’
Tibha laughed out loud and George felt the anxiety drain from his body as he turned to face his own screen, pressed the download prompt and received his very first assignment.
‘Great,’ he announced, ‘A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.’
’Boring,’ replied Tibha, ‘And easy. You can start with the title; he invented Christmas and look at all the trouble that has caused over the years.’
‘True,’ George replied. ‘But he didn’t exactly invent Christmas. That was done long ago and he just made more people believe in it. With this particular book as it happens.’
George had been given A Christmas Carol to update and correct during his ASPP training and so he knew the story well. He had received the top mark in the academy for his re-write which was why, he imagined, he was given the task to do again for real this time. He also wondered how many other writers throughout the Corporation were tackling the same novel at the very same time, or had done so in years gone by. It didn’t matter. Today, this was his to work on. He had a beautiful girl who had chosen him to sit next to and it was going to be a perfect day.
He turned to his keyboard and tapped in the words, ‘A Winter’s Tale of Morality.’ That was it, he had started proper. It was his first unsupervised contribution to literature and history. George studied his work, considered his new title for a moment and then deleted the words ‘of Morality.’ He then read on; ‘Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner.’ George paused, considered the passage and then replaced the word clergyman with the word ‘doctor.’ Next to him Tibha chuckled to herself, ‘hey I got London 1802 by William Wordsworth.’
George laughed. ‘I don’t envy you having to take references to England and London out of Wordsworth,’ he told her. ‘You won’t have much left will you?’
‘It’s easy,’ she replied. ‘You just have to replace every mention of England or London with the word Albion. That’s it, job done.’ He thought about that for a moment, turned back to his work and continued reading.
Chapter Two
George worked quietly for the next three hours, almost unaware of Tibha and her presence near by. Almost, but not entirely. He could smell her but instead of wasting his mind in trying to think of something memorable to say, for he rarely could, he concentrated on his first assignment. Christmas was easy to correct as it had been replaced by other re-writers long ago and had become the Mid Winter Festival held on the 21st December each year. That was the time for celebrating life, celebrating each other and celebrating the Incorporation of the old Western Empire and its transition from a so-called democratic, and widely corrupt, system of individual governments, to a properly run, efficient and profitable business, managed by professional businessmen.
At the academy graduates on all training programs had spent two years learning about democracy and its steady decline through avarice, greed and self interest. About how those who worked hard to support themselves and their families were forced to pay for those who chose not to. The Great Western Empire, a collection of all those countries with their made up names had been heading for a total collapse, just as the Roman Empire had fifteen hundred years before. The graduates had learned about how the greatest and most cultured Empire in history with its art, architecture, education, science, medicine, their understanding of the universe and their unique system of democracy, which had taken five hundred years to build, had been finally and brutally destroyed by a tribe of Barbarians.
They were people who had lived within Roman Society for centuries, although were given no meaningful part to play in it. Eventually, history recorded, the Roman Empire shattered when some of their own people, the underclass, attacked and destroyed their rulers. At the academy the students learned that all Empires ended in the same way and usually after around five hundred years. Exactly the same thing had happened to the Greeks, Egyptians, Ottomans, Mesopotamians, Aztecs and all the other great and civilised societies of the past. After the Roman culture had been destroyed most of the known world then lived through a period called the Dark Age, during which the largest part of the people lived in mud huts, caves and small shelters. They became hunters and gatherers again and not shopkeepers and traders as the Romans had been before them. The new ruling classes, on the other hand, lived in great castles with their men of violence.
However, the graduates were given this as an example of how history had been recorded by the winners and that these were among the first historic records that had to be re-written and made true again. Instead, the academies taught all of the students of the Corporation that the Roman Empire didn’t collapse at all. They cleverly morphed into the Roman Catholic Church and ruled from a new city called the Vatican, within Rome. From there they continued to exercise power over the people through the fear of the unknown rather than the fear of the centurion soldier. Somebody, somewhere in Rome, had wisely calculated it would be far more profitable to invent a Christian God and keep the underclass in control by using the terror of Hell instead of the cruelty of the sword. It was hard to know which was worse. And it worked too, for more than a thousand years. The Roman Catholic Church became far richer and more powerful than its predecessor, the Roman Empire, could ever have dreamt of. It was a business model to learn lessons from.
The Corporation, they were taught to believe, had been observing the decline of the Western Democracy for nearly sixty years. It began with the Age of Discovery and had dominated the world for around five hundred years. The natural life span of any Empire. The Corporation could clearly see the end was approaching and warned of the threat from barbarians living within their own societies. So they had taken the brave and wise decision to remove the failing governments, merge each economy and run the western world properly as a business. It meant the people didn’t have the chance to vote for their leaders anymore but, as Vincent Baptist had reminded them during the induction, ‘if voting actually changed anything then they wouldn’t have been allowed to do it.’ So nobody cared and welcomed the change. It was a change for the better, just as the news media had been repeatedly predicting during the years leading up to Incorporation. The corrupt governors had been withdrawn and the Main Board established a new regional department to run each division made up of the best and brightest minds of their generation.
George thought about Christmas and why this word had come up so often during his training. It was never used in modern times but it must have been important to many people for a very long time. He had mentioned it to Will once but he had never heard of the word. It simply wasn’t used at the Industrial Training Academy. George made a mental note to ask old Edgar about it one day. He would remember. Edgar would have celebrated Christmas when he was younger, a long time ago. George noticed the time on his hy-dev. It was hour thirteen and he was ready to investigate the dining rooms. Picking up his device, which automatically disconnected with the plasma screen, George glanced at Tibha and considered asking her to join him. But Tibha was busy correcting Wordsworth, by gazing far into the distance, and so he chose not to interrupt. He wasn’t sure how to ask anyway.
Walking through the hallways George looked around and marvelled at the high ceilings, ornate carvings and listened to the echo of his own footsteps and others as they casually made their way around the building. Some were wearing sports gear; others had already finished their contribution and were heading for the platform pod that would deliver them to the next speeding Hydrotrain - to somewhere or another. George found a dining room serving his favourite Raj Cuisine, sat at the window revealing miles and miles of gently rolling hills and rich farmland, selected his skyphone application and then tapped the option called ‘Mira.’
There was no reply and George left no message. Instead he searched his history archive for the word ‘Christmas’ and the only definition he could find was ‘an old, historic festival of the now discredited and abandoned Christian religion that had replaced the civilised and cultured Roman Empire around the fourth century, after it had been established by one of its own Emperors.’ And that was it. There was no other reference to Christmas apart from in the books of fiction he and the others were updating. In every case they were to replace the word with the Winter Festival. George felt proud to be part of setting the record straight. It was an honour for him to have been trained to make sure that all future generations would have an accurate record of history. One day the old, invented, religions and countries would have no part in that history at all. For many, like his friend Will, it already had no part. Grainger wouldn’t find a definition of Christmas on his hy-dev. The Corporation cleverly knew that he wouldn’t need one in his line of work.
George’s Raj Platter arrived and he picked at his food as he thought about what he had learned about the old system of democracy back at the academy. Leaders of the western world, they had been taught, were more interested in their own places in history and their own personal vanity. In England they preached about wind farms and sustainable energy whilst not mentioning the blanket power cuts that almost ruined their society five years later; or the Welfare State and immigration policy that finally did. In America the two political sides became so hostile and bitter towards each other that there was never any middle ground. There could be no meeting of the minds and each blocked the other’s attempt to get anything done for the good of the people they were chosen by to represent. In the countries they used to call France, Spain and Italy the apathy towards politics and politicians became so deep-seated that few people ever bothered to vote at all. Those who did simply selected ‘somebody else.’
It had become a common theme across the Western Empire towards the end of the old calendar. Come election time, those who troubled to vote at all just turned up, recognised who currently held office, and then chose one of the others, regardless of who they were or what they represented. Changing their spokesperson every two or four years ensured nothing sensible was ever achieved and economies ground to a halt as a result of political clumsiness. The Greeks were the worst. All the business in Greece was done in cash and so their governments were never able to collect taxes that would ensure the welfare society could be looked after properly.
It was also common practice among Greeks to continue claiming family living expenses for the long dead. It meant their government was always spending and never collecting. Their bankruptcy was the first signal to the Corporation that this practice was likely to spread throughout the West and eventually destroy it, before the barbarians could even draw their swords. The Corporation wisely knew that they needed a fifty, or even a one-hundred, year business model if the Western Empire was to survive. The days of the four or five year elected governments served no useful purpose at all in the modern world. It wasn’t long enough to achieve anything meaningful; and so none of them ever did.
The two powerful African economies, South Africa and Kenya had managed to engineer a one party state run by unimaginative gangsters and thieves who served only in their own interest and kept an otherwise thriving population, that was full of potential, uneducated and ignorant. This ensured their votes for generations. The time had come for proper businessmen to run these economies and to replace the rogue and self interested. So, by 2018 of the old calendar, the communities were easily persuaded. For years their chosen news feeds, the old newspapers and television programmes, had been subtly leading people in the direction of who they wanted them to vote for. It was easy. Compliment their chosen candidate and discredit or smear the others. Societies always voted in the way their news feeds directed them. It became inherent.
The Great Western Empire certainly had been heading the in the same direction as the Romans, Egyptians, Greeks and Ottomans and, it appeared, for exactly the same reasons. It was doomed to failure by the one major flaw in all societies. That was the notion of democracy. The simple fact was that democracy and capitalism did not mix. They could not work together and the side with the most money would always win the argument. Governments guided each other towards bankruptcy, as the bland might lead the bland. Meanwhile the rich grew richer and there would only be one outcome. As soon as big business had more cash reserves than their elected officials then revolution would be a formality. And bloodless too. George’s head began to hurt as he remembered all of this.
‘Ahh, the food of my ancestors,’ interrupted Tibha.
George shook off his thoughts and smiled warmly at her ‘You looked busy and I didn’t want to interrupt you,’ he said, ‘otherwise I would have asked you to come with.’
‘You look troubled George,’ what’s troubling you. Woman or work, it’s usually one or the other with you boys.’
George thought about Mira. ‘Both,’ he replied. ‘What do you know about democracy?’ he asked her.
‘Very little,’ she admitted. ‘The poets and the romantics rarely covered subjects like that and so there was no need for us to learn about it. Although there were a few. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a poem called Mask of Anarchy in protest of the Government of 1819 and he mentioned England a few times, but only because Shakespeare had called it that. The poem has an anti-government sentiment and is anti-democratic and so they taught us a little of why Shelley wrote it and why it was so popular at the time. But, apart from replacing the references to England with Albion we were told that everything else was pretty accurate. Shelley had been right and democracy was a bad thing, even as far back as then. It was the total power and financial control held by the very few over the so very many. And that was the whole point of Mask of Anarchy. So that’s all I really know about democracy, that it was a bad thing.’
’That reminds me,’ asked George, ‘earlier you mentioned replacing England and London with the proper word, Albion, right.’
‘I did.’
‘It never occurred to me before you said that,’ George continued, ‘but have you ever wondered if England and London were the same thing, or were they different places?’
‘Perhaps they were,’ Tibha replied. ‘Don’t forget, these fiction writers, the novelists, invented quite a lot. And when you do that you need to have a good memory because otherwise some things become blurred, misunderstood and misremembered even. It’s a bit like lying to somebody. Liars need to have great memories. If you tell the truth, like we do today, then you don’t need such a reliable memory do you?’
George thought about Mira again. ‘Very true,’ he replied. ‘If you tell the truth then you don’t have to remember what you have told people because....’
‘You don’t forget the truth,’ interrupted Tibha. ‘I had a marriage contract with a guy once who would have done well to remember that. He lied to everybody but could never remember quite what it was, exactly, he had said. And so when the subject came up again his story would be slightly different and people were always suspicious of him. That’s why I didn’t renew after only one year, I was never sure if I could believe him or not. And another problem liars have is that they never believe anybody else either.’
George’s hy-dev pinged him a message. It was Mira; ‘Hi babes, sorry I missed your call, am on the beach with friends and skyphone was in my bag. Will try to call you later. Hope your day is wonderful.’
’Yes’ replied George, ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
’Have you had a marriage licence yet George?’
He looked out across the valley. ‘Once,’ he replied. ‘Lovely girl called Alana. We would have renewed at the end of the first year but she wanted to transfer to a department in the Ameca Region, over the water. She said the west coast of the Ameca Divisions was the best place in the world to live. I prefer Africa and I didn’t want to go. By then, I had met somebody else in Cape Town. I have a house there that a relative, I had never met before, transferred to me when she died. I go quite often and spend the weekend there.’
‘I’ve never been to Cape Town,’ replied Tibha, ‘I would love to go sometime.’
As usual George missed his cue and simply said, ‘I’m going this week. I am catching the Friday afternoon Sub Orbital Jet that will only take around ninety minutes. Come hour 18 I will be in my favourite bar in the city drinking a cold Iceberg in the warm sunshine.’
’Iceberg?’
‘It’s lager with a frozen lime Margarita in it. It floats like an iceberg as it melts’ George explained.
’That sounds amazing,’ said Tibha.
Again George seemed oblivious and admitted, ‘the girl there, Mira. I need to find out what is going on, perhaps this weekend I will.’
’Try the samosa,’ Tibha interrupted, ‘mine are marvellous.’ She looked hard at George, searching for signs of a life. She could see the soul but the life seemed troubled. George bit into a samosa and nodded his approval. He looked up at Tibha who was now gazing across the countryside. He liked the way she dressed. A crisp white shirt with an embroidered eastern pattern and long sleeves. They were partly rolled up to reveal subtle bracelets and a watch that she wore with the face underneath her wrist. It had an open V neck with no collar that revealed nothing although suggested plenty. She wore casual jeans that complimented her slim hips and athletic thighs. Tibha sat with her long legs crossed and with one elbow on her knee nibbling at a pancake. George liked her. She smiled at him and he realised he had been caught staring at her, again. Or, at least, that was how it seemed to him.
‘Erm, ahh, how are you getting on with Wordsworth?’ he asked her clumsily.
‘Oh I finished with that one hours ago,’ she said. ‘It is only a short poem with a couple of references to England but it was the old, dead, language he used that needed a little time. ‘Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea,’ she said theatrically.
‘Who speaks like that?’ laughed George.
‘Well, they did,’ she reminded him, ‘but it just needed a little updating that’s all, without changing the meaning of the poem.’
‘So what did you change it to?’ he asked.
‘You had a voice with the soul of the sea,‘ she replied softly. ‘I had to be careful with that. I first wrote, ‘You had a voice that sounded like the sea.’ George winced. ‘Exactly’ she continues, ‘I had to keep the feeling in there, the original feeling with modern words that people can relate to in the same way these days as they did when it was first written.’
George could see why Tibha excelled with the Romantics and the Poets during her ASPP training. She had plenty of soul alright. He wanted to take her to Cape Town, the most soulful city he knew. She would love it. But, he dare not suggest it and anyway... George’s hy-dev vibrated another message into his chest from his shirt pocket. It was Mira again. ‘Yes anyway, what do you know about Christmas?’ he asked Tibha.
‘Oh, A Christmas Carol,’ she remembered his assignment. ‘Well I have read it. It’s a nice story, but total fiction. Wasn’t Christmas some sort of religious festival for the Romans?’ she asked him. ‘The Roman Catholics, among others,’ he corrected her. ‘What does it say in your archive?’
Tibha tapped onto her screen and read out loud. ‘An old, historic festival of the now discredited and abandoned Christian religion that had replaced the civilised and cultured Roman Empire around the fourth century, after it had been established by one of its own Emperors.’ She looked up at George who was again peering through the window.
‘That’s what mine says,’ he replied.
‘So what’s the problem?’ she asked.
‘No problem, no problem at all,’ he said quietly. He looked again at Tibha. She had a face like a spring afternoon. Warm, fragrant and looking forward to something. Summer, probably.
‘How would you like to have lunch in Cape Town?’ he blurted out, ‘someday maybe?’ he added when he had heard his own words.
‘That would be lovely,’ Tibha replied but, sensing George’s anxiety she continued, ‘not this weekend though, I have other plans. Definitely someday, I have always wanted to go and it would be perfect to have someone there who knows his way around. I gather it is a wonderful old city and, besides, I love beaches. We could have lunch on a beach or cocktails at sundown. That sounds amazing.’ She beamed.
George smiled and relaxed in his chair. And then he thought of Mira. And then he thought of Tibha wearing a bikini on Clifton Beach, with oil varnishing her dark skin. And then he reached for his diazepam again.
Tibha noticed and said, ‘right it is back for my last couple of hours, I have another Wordsworth, A Parsonage in Oxfordshire. That shouldn’t be too hard, maybe I will make it a romantic old Manor House, or a farmhouse perhaps. Are you coming, Mr Writer?’
’I certainly am, Miss Romantic,’ replied George. She beamed at him again. ‘Hey,’ he thought, ‘I have said the right thing for once. Or have I? Or is it the diazepam?’ His hy-dev vibrated another message as he caught up alongside Tibha on the way out of the dining room.
‘Is that Cape Town calling?’ she asked him.
‘I doubt it,’ he replied, knowing full well it probably was. He slipped the device out of his pocket and tried to hide his surprise as he said, ‘no it’s Edgar, he’s my grandfather, well great-grandfather, technically.’
George sat back down at his desk, tapped in his password and read Edgar’s message.
‘Good luck today son, first day and all.’ He then, absent-mindedly, began reading it out loud, ‘Next time you come over bring the 15-year-old Jamie and a carton of smokes. I am ok for dz, got a box full this morning.’
George smiled and turned to Tibha who, in contrast, had a look of horror on her face. She appeared, for a moment, as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
‘A fifteen-year-old called Jamie. For your grandfather?’
George paused for a second and examined her mix of confusion and disgust. And then he started laughing.
‘Yes that’s right,’ he teased her, ‘a fifteen-year-old bottle of Jameson Special Reserve Whiskey.’ And he rolled his head back in laughter. In many ways he was relieved. Tibha was not so perfect after all. Perhaps she was a bit daft. That made him less scared of her.
‘What a relief,’ she laughed at herself.
George shook his head, held his hands out with his palms upwards and pulled A Christmas Carol back onto his screen. Studying the second part he read, ‘When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of the bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber.’ He deleted the word ‘chamber’ and replaced it with bedroom. ‘He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters, so he listened for the hour.’
Again George paused and considered the line. After a few moments he deleted the word ‘church’ and replaced it with ‘community clock.’ Throughout his work George was leaving the word ‘ghost’ in as it was central to the story and besides, some people still believed in ghosts. There was no harm in that. At the hour 15 his hy-dev reminded him to close for the day and gave him a word count of 11,457. He was satisfied with that.
Gathering up his device he glanced towards Tibha, only to find she had already left and without saying goodbye. He was puzzled for a moment and then his hy-dev vibrated him a message. ‘Tibha: bye Georgie Boy (isn’t that what your friends call you) same time same place tomorrow?’ He grinned happily.
‘How did she know that’ he wondered. He thought about it as he walked along the grand hallway and remembered something Edgar had once told him. ‘You can never enjoy women if you try too hard to understand them. Just pretend to.’
‘Georgie Boy,’ called Hugo as he joined him in the hallway, ‘how was it, what were you given today?’
‘Have you spoken to the Raj girl we saw during induction this morning?’ George challenged him.
‘Nope, why did you?’ said Hugo.
‘No, not really.’
’Georgie Boy?’ He wondered. ‘How did she know that, who is that girl?’
‘So, what did you get on the first day?’ Hugo repeated.
‘A Christmas Carol,’ George told him enthusiastically.
’Nice,’ said Hugo, ‘start with one of the classics why don’t you. I’ve spent all day on Harry bloody Potter.’ George shuddered. He was aware of the stories but wouldn’t want to have to read any of them.
Within fifteen seconds of George and Hugo being delivered to the speeding Hydrotrain, the Woking platform pod pulled alongside and Will stepped on board.
‘Dude,’ he called to Hugo. It’s been a long time.’ The pair shook hands.
‘Two years to be exact,’ replied Hugo, ‘when the three of us went to watch Chelsea play Liverpool in the Complex Stadium.’ Will looked at George who was busy tapping something into his hy-dev.
‘So it was,’ he replied.
’It’s a date,’ George typed, in response to Tibha’s message. And then he wondered if she may misinterpret that as a real date. What would she think about that? George knew that once he had sent it he had ten seconds to re-call the message so that it would not be delivered. He started counting the seconds, wondering what to do, when Will sat down next to him.
‘Go alright?’ he asked.
‘Not complaining,’ said George without looking up. ‘Hugo is on the same placement, remember him? He was on my ASPP and you’ve met him several times.’ Will and Hugo stared at George.
‘You ok mate?’ Will asked. ‘Of course I know Hugo, I have just been talking to him, he is right here. What’s going on?’
George looked down at his hy-dev to see the words ‘message delivered.’ He gathered his senses, pulled his shoulders back and said, ‘nothing, no nothing, I just have a lot on my mind.’
‘Woman or work?’ asked Hugo.
’Both,’ George sighed, ‘but they are the not the important things right now. Will, do me a favour, what does it say on your hy-dev about Christmas?’
Will started tapping, looked up and replied, ‘nothing at all.’
’Hugo?’ George asked.
Hugo appeared disinterested but he said, ‘it’s some old religious term that is now obsolete. It’s what they used to call the Winter Festival, a long time ago. It’s probably the same thing only the old name for it.’
‘There you go buddy, it’s the old name for the Winter Fest,’ added Will. ‘So what?’
‘No what,’ George said as he studied his reflection in the window opposite and traced his birthmark with the nail of his little finger. ‘Hey Will, I am going down to the Mother City for the weekend, do you fancy a few days in the sunshine?’
’I certainly do Georgie Boy,’ said Will as he checked his calendar of appointments. ‘I may have to bring Marnie as I promised to take her out for dinner on Saturday night, but she loves Cape Town too so it won’t be hard to persuade her. We have just signed our marriage licence for another year, so there is something to celebrate.’
’You still with Marnie?’ Hugo asked, ‘that must be the third, or fourth contract?’
‘Fourth,’ George interrupted. ‘She’s a good girl, just lacks judgement when it comes to men. You want to come down too Hugo?’
’Not this weekend, I have other plans. I am taking the Sub-Atlantic to New York for the day on Saturday for lunch with an old friend. I may stay over until Sunday but I am playing golf just outside the Complex at midday. Still, I can catch the hour 9 from New York Central Station and be back in Exeter by ten so there is plenty of time.’
George turned to Will. ‘Ok, I will send you a diary insert with the flight number; we leave at hour 16 on the Sub-Orbital Hypersonic and will be landing at 17.30. Ok with you?’
‘Agreed,’ said Will, ‘can’t wait. Are you still in touch with Dr. Feelgood down there?’
‘Of course, Marvin will be in town, he always is. It shall be a weekend to remember.’
‘Even better; and Mira?’ Will asked. ‘I don’t suppose she will remember much of it will she?’
George thought about Mira again, and then about Tibha. And Will offered him his tube of diazepam. Minutes later the Hydrotrain eased into Waterloo Station at the Central Complex and everybody stepped off.
‘So, are you coming with me later? asked Will.
‘Do you know what, not this time,’ George replied. ‘I told Edgar earlier I would see him tonight and take him a crate of his favourite. And I have something to ask him about.’
‘Nice,’ replied Will. ‘Give the old boy my love and tell him I will drop in on him sometime over the next few weeks.’
‘I will, and make sure you do. He would like that,’ George told him as they moved off in opposite directions. Will and Hugo headed for the underground hydro and George to the main exit for the short walk to his apartment building. It was right alongside the main River Thames. Edgar and Will’s own grandfather had been close friends back in the old days. Both families had lived in the same street on the south side of the Central Complex. Will had known the old boy for as long as he could remember. And Edgar had always been fond of the lad. He had some connection to his own mother although neither Will nor George quite knew what it was. Mind you, they hadn’t even known their own mothers very well after they had been assessed and joined the Training Academy. George hadn’t seen his mother since then and the last he heard was that she had recently reached the age of fifty-six, been withdrawn and was now enjoying life somewhere in the south of the Division of Gaul.
Shortly before the hour 20 George scanned his ident-card at the entrance to the warehouse, which opened the main door. At the same time Edgar’s television screen split to reveal a picture of the hallway and he watched George carry a box towards the elevator. With a tap of his hy-dev Edgar granted the boy access and turned back to his laboratory. He ended the day’s experiment and closed the door.
‘Alright granddad,’ called George as he walked into the apartment, ‘I have bought you a fifteen-year-old. Twelve of them actually’ he added as he set the case down, peeled off the top and pulled out a bottle of the finest fifteen-year-old reserve whiskey that two dollars could buy.
‘Don’t mind if I do son, you know where the glasses are. Have you eaten?
––––––––
Chapter Three
Edgar was very much from the old days and, over the years, many of his habits had been absorbed by the young George. As a student of history he loved the old days and with Edgar it seemed as if he could even feel the theme. Both were happy when the old man’s hy-dev pinged him the message to say that their fish, chips with bread and butter supper had been delivered to his food hatch. Where it came from George had never asked. The pair sat in old fashioned leather armchairs with their plates in their laps. George had only ever eaten meals at a proper dining table anywhere he had been for his entire life, apart from at Edgar’s where he ate from his knees. And in his own home, when he was alone, of course. The pair sprayed salt and vinegar over their chips and made sandwiches out of them, munching away and sipping whiskey.
‘Chip Butty’s,’ announced Edgar between mouthfuls, ‘ain’t never been anything better. How’s your cod?’
’Perfect,’ George replied as he looked around and studied Edgar’s main room. It was a wide, open space with large windows on two walls that framed the view of the Central Complex, shining brightly and humming with activity.
‘That is the original brickwork,’ Edgar gestured towards the large chimney breast and fireplace. ‘Somebody tried to persuade me to knock it down once, but that’s character that is. It must be over two hundred and fifty years old. Do you know that this whole building was built in 1802 of the Old Calendar by prisoners of war? When I first moved in here one of the old boys on the ground floor told me the story.’
Edgar had, at some point, chosen to have the high ceilings painted in a deep, dark maroon colour. The old wooden floorboards remained exposed and tattered rugs were scattered around. George had been there many times, of course. He had even lived there once for a few years whilst he was in the second part of his training and the Complex Academy was just around the corner.
‘How old was I when I stayed here?’ George asked.
‘I dunno, fourteen, fifteen; something like that.’ Said Edgar.
‘Were those pictures here then,’ George asked, pointing his butty at the African style art that peppered at least two of the walls.
‘I’ve had them for years,’ replied the old man. And they are yours one day; in fact you get the whole place when I’m gone. I ain’t got nobody else I can call family anymore.’
This remark caused the anxiety to build up in George again. Edgar had been around for all of his life and been part of it. A big part of it and it simply had never occurred to him that one day he wouldn’t be there anymore. Edgar was seventy-eight years old and most people lived well past a hundred years in modern times. George relaxed a little when he realised he would be at least around the withdrawing age himself by the time Edgar shuffled on.
‘Yeah well I don’t want to think about that,’ he said between mouthfuls, ‘if it’s alright with you.’ I’d prefer you to live forever, or at least outlive me.’
‘Everybody’s gotta die son. That’s easy. Any idiot can do that. Living is the trick. That’s the hard part so make sure you do it properly and for as long as you can. And make a contribution too, something that will last forever.’
’I do my best,’ grinned George as he set his plate down on the floor, leaned back into the big old armchair and sipped his whiskey.
Edgar tapped on his hy-dev and the giant screen on the wall sprang alive. ‘The footie is just starting,’ he said, ‘are you staying to watch it?’
‘Of course,’ said George. ‘Chelsea are at home, I can see the stadium lights are on.’ George gestured his glass to one of the big windows. ‘We should have gone. You used to take me all the time,’ he reminded him.
‘Bollocks to that,’ replied Edgar, ‘it’s cold out there and they haven’t got no armchairs in that stadium, nor Jamesons for that matter.’
Edgar stood up with his plate and, as George handed him his, he placed them back into the hatch and slammed the door shut. Where they went, George had never asked.
‘Come on you blues,’ shouted Edgar as the game started.
George had been armed with so many questions that day, but now was clearly not the time to start asking them.
’You cheating bastard,’ Edgar shouted at the referee.
George had long since given up reminding the old man that the referee couldn’t hear him, from where he was sitting.
‘What do you remember about Christmas?’ he ventured.
Edgar turned to look directly at him, paused for a moment and then said, ‘some old religious shit from years ago.’ He turned back to the screen, ‘not backwards, pass it forwards you useless wanker,’ he bellowed.
’And what about religion, what do you remember about that?’ George pressed on.
‘Nothing. Except when I was married once and started believing in the Hell part of it. That was back when your grandfather was born.’
‘How old were you then?’
‘Twenty-one, what is this twenty bleeding questions? Try passing it to a bloke with the same colour shirt on you muppet,’ he yelled.
George realised this was not a good time to be engaging Edgar in conversation about anything other than football. And so he gave in to type. ‘That’s more like it,’ he clapped, ‘a corner, now don’t waste it’ he called out, as Edgar stood up to watch. The ball flew over the heads of all the players and out for a throw in, to the wrong team, on the other side of the pitch. Edgar turned to George, arms stretched out wide and with a look of disbelief on his face. He didn’t even have to say ‘useless wanker,’ as he sat back down. George already knew. Looking around the apartment he started noticing things, for the first time, which had always been there. He had so many questions but they would have to wait. He settled back into his chair, sipped his whiskey, put his feet up and watched the game.
‘Come on you Blues,’ Edgar cheered as the final whistle sounded and the home crowd roared. ‘I do love a 3-0 win over the northern monkeys.’
‘Northern what? Asked George.
‘Never mind son, we won. Pass me that bottle.’
George topped his own glass and then did as he was asked. ‘Granddad, I am going down to the Mother City this weekend, is there anything you need before I go? But, I am back on Sunday so if it can wait....’
‘I’m good son, thanks for asking.’
George took a deep breath. ‘I am thinking of asking Mira if she wants to sign a marriage contract whilst I am there.’
Edgar choked on his whiskey and wiped his chin with a fraying sleeve. ‘You fucking what?’
’She is a good girl, has a good heart. If I can only help her with her drinking I think it will be great, she is fantastic when she is sober. I have never met anyone like her.’
‘And when she is drunk?’ Edgar probed.
‘Well,’ George paused and then said, ‘I’ve never met anyone like her either.’
‘Doesn't that answer your question George?’ assumed Edgar.
'I didn't ask one,' he responded.
'I think you did,' Edgar insisted.
George ignored the remark. ‘But if I can only help her with the drinking problem, if I can make it go away.’
‘You a head doctor now son are you, as well as a book geek? You sound like an idiot. Alcoholism is an illness, not a party weekend. You either have it or you haven’t. You are one or you aren’t. There is no in between.’
Edgar was not impressed by what he had heard of Mira, although he had never met her.
‘The thing is,’ George continued, ‘I met a girl today and I just can’t get her out of my mind. I’m thinking I might find out how things are in Cape Town, once and for all, and then decide what to do. Suggest a marriage licence or end it for good. Whatever ‘it’ is. But I know that would break her heart, it’s the thing she fears most.’
’Well, there is only one way to find that out son,’ said Edgar, ‘so perhaps it’s a good idea to bring matters to a head, so to speak. It’s only a year’s contract anyway. Just remember one thing. Be careful what you say and be careful what you do. A woman may, one day, forget what you have said to her but she will never forget how you made her feel. And another thing, you don’t really want to be entering a contract like that with a girl who spends most of her time looking for a better party, when she should be looking for a better self, do you?’
‘And when did you become an expert on women?’ asked George.
‘An expert on women? That’s called an oxymoron my boy but, I have learned from my own mistakes.’
‘Go on then,’ George challenged his grandfather, ‘tell me about your girlfriends when you were younger.’ Edgar thought for a moment, took a long draw from his glass, lit a smoke and sat back into his big leather armchair. After a few more moments he said.
‘Like most boys-turned-teenager, my sole ambition was to get myself a girlfriend and by the time I was seventeen I had met the perfect one. She was fragrant, funny and purely virginal. I stole all of that after promising to show her the beauty of making love. But I was just a kid and rushed it and, in the end, showed her nothing at all. She was sweet to taste, but shy and had yet to discover her desire for life, content instead to tow along. I decided I needed a girl with a little more sparkle, some confidence and awareness.
By the time I was nineteen I had met the perfect one. She was tall and rangy and gangly and effortlessly sexy. She could entertain and was easily entertained and she was confident enough to teach me love. That’s an old word we used to use. But it became over-used and, in the end, meaningless and so it dropped out of the language.’
‘What does it mean?’ George asked.
‘It explains a state of mind, that’s all’ Edgar replied. ‘It used to be one of the biggest of all the words and described a feeling you had towards somebody you would do anything for. Some people even died for love. Anyway, we were the perfect couple, on the skin, but in the veins beneath she was too emotional. Passionate, fiery, irrational as hell, she could start a row in an empty room.
She got herself pregnant; it was possible in those days and so I had to marry her. After that almost everything was a drama and everything else an emergency, she threatened to leave each week and once even left a suicide note before going out for the day. I threw up with the worry. She had to be placed at the centre of everything and her form of self-defence was to attack first. She spoke off the top of her head and out of her arse and I was never sure which. I finally grew weary of all this and felt I needed somebody easier to live with.
By the time I reached twenty-two I had met the perfect one. Not a head turner to begin with, but once she had discovered her sexuality she wore it with ease. She was affectionate, popular, reliable, clever and clean, the five great qualities. I was so fond of her I even bought her underwear that she would actually want to put on. She was one of the Goodhearts, and I only wish she hadn’t caught me hunched over chopped out lines of cocaine in Bickford’s Kitchen on that Sunday afternoon. The depth in her was the shallow in me and it soon became far too obvious she could live without me.
But, when I was twenty-four I met the perfect one. Radical and driven to change the world. Believed in belief and that attracted me greatly. She spread, she scattered, she sprinkled and yet ultimately she destroyed everything close to her. She even believed the way to demonstrate against the old capitalism was to smash up a burger bar, depriving dozens of part time students their minimum wage in the process. She was forty-five kilograms of plastic explosive that was ready to go off at any moment and, when it did, she blew emotion in every direction, making the whole city shiver. Her heart had been squeezed and was then twisted into a fist. She ended up disliking me for reasons I never bothered to think about. Insensate, thoughtless and with a heart well worth breaking. But not before I had shagged all the best sex out of her.’
George frowned, took a deep draw on his whiskey and lit a smoke. He was already wishing he hadn’t asked the question. But Edgar pressed on.
‘So by the time I was twenty-five I had met the perfect one. She was calm, cool, reserved and at ease with herself. She didn’t expect too much out of life, which is how even I didn’t disappoint her. A teacher with few friends and no sport, her views on Zen and a smooth pace both fascinated and relaxed me. But she couldn’t explain why those dumbMasters would throw young kids into the mud if they couldn’t answer their dumbZen questions, such as ‘why do you sit there and not here?’ and ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’ Once I had heard enough of this handclapping claptrap I became restless and eventually bored. My life was passing along unnoticed by anybody, including myself. I needed something else. I needed more.
By the time I was about twenty-eight I had met the perfect one as the most dramatic girl in the world arrived in mine. She was an actress and dug everybody on that scene. Life became one big adventure as she paraded me around. What a looker, what a lover, but what a moon mushroom. She had none of her own direction and no time for mine. I couldn’t keep step as she flip-flopped from one place to another without settling for a moment to look around her. At every stop she would be trying to find a better one and if she did she was off. Her insincerity required a heart of stone not to laugh at and, in the end, those rant and ramblings left me numb and gave me pins and needles. Eventually one of those pins went straight into my pin-cushion-head and pricked me aware. She was talented and strong but tainted and so, so wrong. The hour had come for me to run before she inculcated me for the worse. She was changing me and anyway, I needed to settle down.’
‘She sounds like Mira,’ George interrupted.
‘Does she? Well I can see the attraction then,’ Edgar replied, ‘but that will wear off sooner or later, it always does.’
Edgar wasn’t quite finished.
‘So anyway, by the time I was thirty-one I had met the perfect one. I was uncovered and opened up by a beautiful, creative, stable and proper woman with a career, direction and time for even more. She fell in love with me, and madly too, and then watered my dry life. She bought me time and gave me purpose. She was smart and I thought I was when I nearly married her. But she was bright enough to shine right through me and see everything inside. Before the year was out so was I. She destroyed me. And my record collection, but kept everything else. Apparently she was insentient.
After that I thought about how times had been ten years earlier, when I was always looking for something. I felt older back then but was much wiser by now. It’s true that if we learn from our past without being bitter we can call it experience, and not to take advantage of all of this is the Big Sin. So I trousered all of that experience and I became far more comfortable with myself. My karma was good and I spent the next twenty years in the company of twenty-five-year-old shaved blondes with big tits. I could get a new one every year.’
George stared at the old man for sometime before he drained his glass and said, ‘thanks for the advice; I am sure there is some in there somewhere. I had better be going.’
‘How did your first day go?’ Edgar asked, almost as an after thought.
‘I started correcting one of the classics, A Christmas Carol by,’
‘Yes, I know who by,’ interrupted Edgar. ‘So that’s why you were asking about Christmas earlier. Well, I hope you do a good job on it and come by again next week, when you get back. You can tell me about Cape Town and I will tell you what I remember about Christmas, but only after you have finished the update of that book.’
‘Cheers, thanks granddad, see you next week. Oh, and what were those five great qualities again?’
’Affectionate, popular, reliable, clever and clean.’
’Is three out of five close enough?’
‘Not really son,’ said the old man as he tapped his hy-dev, activating the elevator that would take George back down to the main hallway. He watched as George left the building, buttoned his coat against the cold winter wind and began the short walk to the underground network. Edgar turned off his wall screen, filled his glass and stood at one of the large windows overlooking the Central Complex. From where he was in Butler’s Wharf he could see the spectacular Tower Bridge, with the famous old castle on the Tower Hill beyond. Both were illuminated against the black November sky and beyond them the great dome of the Wren Monument dominated the skyline. Edgar remembered Christmas clearly. He remembered St Paul’s Cathedral too, before the Corporation had renamed it along with all the other great cathedrals, mosques and churches of the old city.
Edgar lit an open fire and watched as the growing wind drove the rain against his window. He sipped his whiskey and thought about the old days. The old days of his childhood when there was still such a thing as Christmas, churches and Midnight Mass. It was a long, long time ago and he wasn’t really sure of how much he actually remembered or if he had since been told what he remembered. Were they even his own memories? It was another lifetime and it all seemed so blurred to him now. Edgar pondered the past as he watched the flames dancing in the grate.
He remembered Christmas fondly as a time when families would come together. The poorer families like his would have to huddle together around a single small fireplace in cramped parlour as they exchanged presents, sang carols and celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ. George, Edgar realised, knew nothing about Jesus Christ as any record of that particular, primitive myth had long since been deleted from the Corporation archives. Edgar thought about Christianity and its vast enemy Islam. He remembered the great final war that began in 2001, of the Old Calendar, when Islam attacked the very centre of the Christian Empire in New York. He remembered how that had changed everything. And then he fell asleep.
The following morning George, Hugo and Will all met at the coffee dispenser on the concourse of Waterloo Station. As soon as they had settled into their seats George asked Will, ‘what does your archive say about love?’
Will tapped his screen, ‘nothing, again,’ he replied.
‘I know something about love,’ offered Hugo cheerfully. ‘Shakespeare invented that too.’
George tapped at his own archive and read; ‘Love – a state of emotion and/or feeling that a man would have towards a woman or his family, children etc. Invented by William Shakespeare and was dropped from the language of Albion after it became over-used and meaningless. It has been replaced by ‘respect, admiration, honesty commitment and contract.’
‘Almost just as Edgar had explained,’ thought George. Within minutes Will had left in the platform pod and Hugo and George were being eased into the Guildford terminal in their own.
‘Good luck with that little wizard today,’ George teased him as they went their separate ways. When he reached his own floor he was disappointed to find no sign of Tibha anywhere at all. Still, he had other things on his mind as he sat down, pulled A Winters Tale up onto his screen and began to read. No sooner had he started than a message box appeared on his screen.
Mira; ‘Sorry to miss your call yesterday babes. I went on a long bike ride in the afternoon and was pooped when I got home. Fell straight to sleep.’
‘Bike ride, or beach?’ George wondered. He changed his settings to ‘working hours’ and then closed the message screen. Turning back to his manuscript he read, ‘Yes!’ said the child, brimful of glee. Home for good and all. Home for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven.’ George deleted the word ‘heaven’ and replaced it with paradise. He then deleted that, added the words ‘a delight’ and continued reading. An hour or two must have passed before he noticed Tibha sitting next to him, on his right hand side.
‘Good morning,’ she offered.
‘Is it still morning then?’ George laughed.
‘I logged in for a twelve until seventeen work period today,’ she admitted. ‘I had things to do this morning.’ George didn’t ask what they were and turned back to continue his corrective work.
He wondered how many people were actually reading their copy of A Winter’s Tale as he worked on it. Did anybody notice names changing, countries disappearing, corrections taking place to millions of bookapps every single day? George gazed through his window at the world beyond. Even if anybody did notice then the next generation wouldn’t, that’s for sure. That was the whole point of his work. How many people, he wondered, were out there and currently reading something that he, himself, was correcting? By the time a reader reached the ending of a book, he may have changed it. The beginning was certainly already different and an updated version had been spidered out to every hy-dev bookshelf within seconds of his corrections. He also wondered how many people were reading Tibha’s modernising of Wordsworth that would already be in their book archives. The original having been lost forever.
’Tibha,’ George turned in his seat. ‘What were you taught about love at your academy?’
Ahh, love,’ she replied. ‘It was a central theme for the poets and romantics. They wrote about it as if it was the most important thing a person can experience. An achievement almost, that everybody should aim for if they were to feel complete. To love and to be loved. It was a feeling, an emotion that always led to something good. Some say it still is although it wasn’t true that it always led to something good. Often it led to disaster.’
George looked at her closely, he was listening carefully. ‘Yes, but what did it mean, what actually was it?’
‘Love was doing something good for a person that they would never, perhaps, know you had done for them. Acts of kindness, if you like, when nobody was watching. It’s one thing to do good things for everybody to see George, it’s quite another to do them when you know nobody will find out you have done them. To know there is no reward, but to do a good thing anyway, that’s love George.’
‘Isn’t that just kindness? Isn’t that simply the right moral thing to do?’ He asked.
’It isn’t something that is easy to understand or explain,’ she continued. ‘Love was once the only human emotion that nobody could really understand or explain. It was an unstoppable feeling. An internal volcano. It was never angry, or provoked. Short tempered people found peace in love. Love never kept score. It never counted up who had done more for who and so it was never in debt or in credit. Instead it simply forgave bad behaviour whether it was intentional or otherwise. Love was never jealous. It embraced another person’s achievement and encouraged it, with pride. Love was felt quietly and behind the scenes and never openly or needing to be recognised. It didn’t need attention.
Love never enjoyed the misfortune of others, even in secret. Instead it applauded and admired their success. Love trusted and was always hopeful, it was patient and restrained. It cared deeply about others and, although it was always the same thing, it could come in completely different forms. The love they had for their lovers, for example, was slightly different from the love they had for their families or friends. A person could love books, or music, or their dog. They were all variations of a theme.’
‘What was the difference?’ he asked her.
Tibha thought about this for a while and then replied, ‘physical love probably. That was the only difference. The love for a child would never cease to exist, no matter the circumstances, although the love for that child’s mother, or father, may never have existed in the first place.’
’So you mean sex, procreation?’ He thought he understood.
Tibha considered this for a moment. ‘Well for two grown adult humans who weren’t related then yes, I suppose that could be an expression of love, but not necessarily. Plenty of people had sex without love and many more felt love without having sex. Some said that loveless sex was the best kind and that so was sexless love. But there was much more to it than that. Love was never proud of itself. It didn’t think more highly of itself or feel superior. It never boasted about itself. It worked quietly and behind the scenes and stood aside when it needed to. It was never rude or disrespectful but instead it protected; even those who did not feel they needed protecting. You can protect a person with love George, without them even knowing or understanding. It was brave, fearless even, when it gave so much for such a great personal cost. Often that would never be recognised and that was the bravest thing about love. It never gave up hope. It was a connection, characterised by a flow of positive emotions and warm feelings. Some say it still exists.’
George was as fascinated as he was confused. And her passion was turning him on. He wondered if she believed love still existed, but was afraid to ask. Tibha continued, without interruption.
‘It was only when you saw people doing stupid and ridiculous things that you realised you were in love. Either that or when they have gone, forever and it was too late to do anything about it. That was a tragedy. Love was a beautiful feeling, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes that mostly gathered around the heart. It was a butterfly, dancing around you but, and most importantly of all George, when a beautiful butterfly lands on your hand the temptation is to grab it and hold onto it tightly but that, or course, only crushes it. You have to let butterflies fly George, letting it go is love.
Love was a gift, of the rarest kind. It could emerge over a period of time or it could appear in an instant. But nobody could ever really love another person unless they loved themselves first. Otherwise they just adored or desired that person as a result of their own lack of fullness and insecurity. That love was always in need of attention and reassurance and it rarely lasted for long. Not for one of the people anyway. And that’s when all the problems started George. When one person fell out of love the other could be badly hurt, emotionally. And this often led to bad things. You had to be strong enough for love George and many people simply weren’t strong enough.’
George was exhausted. ‘But surely anybody who was in love would often feel sad or insecure for most of the time, anyway? What would be the point in believing in something you cannot really feel, see and understand.’
‘We are in trouble as a species, George,’ Tibha concluded, ‘if people continue refusing to believe in things they cannot themselves actually do, feel, see or understand.’
Tibha smiled and turned back to her manuscript. George’s head was hurting.
‘What are you working on today?’ he asked her, as he searched his note book application.
‘Beachy Head and other Poems by Charlotte Smith,’ she replied.
‘Never heard of her.’ George responded, without looking up.
‘No, that’s because of all the Romantic Poets the men were considered superior. The Big Six they called them. William Blake, Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Shelley and John Keats. Although most people at the time preferred the women Romantics like Shelley’s wife Mary and Charlotte Turner Smith.’
‘Mary Shelley, didn’t she write Dracula?’ George asked.
‘Frankenstein.’ Tibha corrected him.
‘Either way,’ George said, ‘there’s nothing very romantic about that.’ Tibha grinned at him and he reached for his diazepam, turned to his screen and started reading his own manuscript. But he found it hard to concentrate as Tibha’s words of love vibrated through his brain like a jackhammer in the hands of a beginner. ‘The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song...’ George, once again, deleted the word Christmas and replaced it with the word ‘Festival.’
He was becoming bored and restless and announced to Tibha, ‘I am going for a walk around the building to see what we have here.’ Tibha didn’t reply. She didn’t hear him. Tibha was away somewhere with Charlotte Smith.
‘And you?’ he asked as he stood up, this time interrupting her. ‘Which of the Romantics do you prefer?’
Tibha looked George directly in the eye. ‘The men,’ she replied. ‘I always prefer the men.’
Chapter Four
A few evenings later George was standing at the window of his own apartment and looked out across the river towards the Complex. From there he could only see the western part and he was thinking about Christmas and the way Charles Dickens had described it. The snow, the open fires, the crowded streets, the decorations, the grubby, happy faces. The story of the Christmas Spirit. He thought about the dirt, the grime, the poverty and cramped living conditions inflicted by generations of democracy that the Corporation had sensibly made a thing of the past.
‘What an imagination Dickens must have had,’ thought George, ‘to have made all of that up in his own mind. No wonder he was such a popular writer. That’s what the best writers do,’ he remembered being taught, ‘make up places that can seem so real when, in fact, they had never existed at all.’
He poured himself a whiskey, lit a smoke and began to mull over Edgar’s words of the other evening. He certainly respected his advice but sometimes could not be sure that Edgar really understood what living in the modern world was like. He hadn’t really done anything, apart from muck about in his laboratory, for as long as George had known him. And, probably, for many years before that too. He thought about Mira. And he thought about Tibha and her expressive description of something he realised he knew nothing about. And so he began to write a list of questions, that he wanted to ask Edgar, onto his hy-dev notepad.
1: Christmas.
2: Love.
3: My mother and father.
4: The last government.
5: His role in the Corporation.
6: His experiments.
7: Religion
Finally he looked up at the time on the wall screen. It was hour 1 and so he placed his device upon the surface in front of him, took a sleeping tab, drained the glass and fell into a deep sleep with his feet up on the table.
The following afternoon George was sat at the seafood bar where he had arranged to meet Will and Marnie in the Central Complex Hydroport. He selected his skyphone app, tapped the icon called Mira and waited. There was no reply. This time he tapped out a message; ‘in Hydroport, should be in Cape Town City by H18. Want to meet at H19.30?’ He placed it back on the bar and received an instant reply.
Mira; ‘Yippee, can’t wait. See you later. Travel safe babes x’
‘She must have seen me calling, it was ten seconds ago,’ thought George. ‘Why not just answer?’
‘Don’t try to understand them son.’ Edgar reminded him, from somewhere deep inside. The trouble was that George wanted to understand. George wanted to understand everything. He tapped onto his hy-dev notebook to add another question for Edgar. The page was blank; the list was no longer there, even though he was certain he had saved the text. He was annoyed with himself. How could he forget to add the list onto his server?
‘Shall we get some food here,’ asked Marnie and she and Will sat down.
‘No let’s eat later,’ Will suggested, ‘drink?’ he offered, and picked up George’s bottle of chilled white wine and poured a couple of glasses.
‘We have thirty minutes,’ warned George. ‘Drink up and let’s get on the plane.’ Within fifteen minutes they had found the boarding gate, scanned their ident-cards, which charged their accounts the twenty-five-dollar ticket fee to Cape Town from the Central Complex. They swiped their fingerprints, grinned at the photo-recognition camera and they were permitted to board the Hydrosonic.
George settled into his seat, pulled out his hy-dev and selected the application that would automatically inform the motor storage unit at the Cape Town Hydroport that he would be collecting his car on arrival, around ninety minutes later. That would give them plenty of time to check her over, charge her up, change the fluids and have her ready at the collection point from the moment he arrived. Ninety-year old vintage cars were not uncommon, especially in Cape Town, but they needed looking after properly if an owner was out of town for long. The motor storage unit were constantly running old engines, checking batteries and servicing the petrol to hydrogen conversion units. Hydro-converters had been fitted to all old cars as soon as hydrogen fuel became free to all members of the Corporation, just after the take over. Free energy had been promised for everyone in the lead up to incorporation. It was one of the things that made the transition so seamless. Who, in their right minds, would want to continue paying heavy government imposed fuel and energy taxes when the alternatives were offering the newly developed hydrogen energy for free, to everybody? The cost of living had then dropped by seventy five percent in a single year.
George then selected his notepad application, opened a new page and patiently tapped in the words;
1: Christmas.
2: Love.
3: My mother and father.
4: The last government.
5: His role in the Corporation.
6: His experiments.
7: Religion.
This time he carefully chose the auto-save option that would send a copy of the note to his personal remote server storage that he would later be able to access from anywhere and from any device, if necessary. He also saved a copy directly onto his hy-dev, settled back into his seat and watched through the window as the aircraft left the earth’s atmosphere and turn on its hydrogen powered Pulse Plasma Thrusters. At six thousand kilometres per hour, and skimming the ozone layer, they should all be safely on the ground in Cape Town within seventy five minutes. At the same time Hugo would be speeding through one of the Sub Atlantic Tunnels, on the Pulse Plasma Hydrotrain, at around five thousand kilometres an hour. One of those would deliver him to New York in around forty five minutes.
At the Cape Town Hydroport all three scanned their ident-cards which automatically allowed them access to the African Division. Their hy-devs also sent a location back to the central servers which their supervisors could monitor, if it was thought necessary. Will and Marnie headed for the City-Link which dropped them within a short walk of George’s house in Seapoint, on the side of the mountain range known as Lion’s Back. George had a housekeeper who had been informed as soon as he scanned his ident-card in the Central Complex Hydroport that he was only a few hours away and she would be ready for them to arrive. He made his way to the motor storage unit and could see the staff polishing the spoked wheels of his beloved Old Calendar 1972 Jaguar XJ6 Coupe. The car had been locked in the garage of the house when it had been passed to him and he then spent two years lovingly restoring her.
After collecting the keys and paying the fee with a quick scan of his ident-card, George fired up the straight six cylinder engine which purred into life and pointed it towards the big flat topped mountain known as The Table, which towered above, and protected, the city from its sometimes inclement weather. George felt full of life. His first week at the Corporation had gone well, he had met Tibha, and he was now in his favourite place in the world. And that was the driver’s seat of his old Jaguar and heading towards the Mother City. He snapped on his sunglasses, selected some tunes and poured on the power. In fifteen minutes he was pulling into his car port and would be where, these days, he considered to be home. Will and Marnie would have already arrived and hopefully were opening the wine.
‘You’ve been away a long time this time,’ snapped Constance, his housekeeper.
‘It’s only a few months,’ he replied as he gave her a warm bear hug. Constance had been living at the house for her whole life after her mother had been given a suite of rooms on the ground floor when she began working for the previous owner. Constance didn’t remember the previous owner, or at least said she didn’t. But she adored George and made sure everything was looked after for him whenever he was back at the Albion Central Complex during his final years of training. George had no bag to unpack; he never needed to take anything to Cape Town apart from his hy-dev and ident-card. But his wardrobe was full of freshly ironed clothes suitable for the warm climate he could enjoy now that he had crossed the hemispheres from the cold Albion winter into the warm African sunshine.
On the terrace Will was drawing the cork from a fine bottle of white from the Jordan Wine Estate, one of the many in the wine-lands dotted around the Mother City. He poured Marnie a glass and sat back to admire the magnificent view across the Table Bay, along the West Coast and out over Robben Island, a seven star holiday resort that had been built forty years earlier, just after incorporation.
‘I remember my grandfather telling me that was once a prison island,’ Constance told him as she walked past with another case of wine for the cooler. She was well aware that when George was home she would need to keep the wine and whiskey cold, the ice drawers full and the smoke box topped up. Other than that he asked for very little, apart from the occasional blind eye.
George joined them, sat down, took a long draw on a tumbler of wine and announced, ‘I am off to a jazz club later, you guys coming or do you have other plans?’
Will looked at Marnie who shrugged her approval and replied, ‘of course we are coming. Jazz on the Long Street of a Friday night, what is there not to look forward too?’
‘Ok,’ said George, ‘we are meeting Mira at hour 19.30, she said she preferred to join us there instead of coming here first.’ Constance stopped and looked at George, before saying nothing. He continued, ‘we are meeting Marvin, Beth, Gus, Gemma and a few others and Ben E’s Jazz Band are playing live. I have asked him to reserve us our favourite table.’
Marnie clapped her excitement.
‘Good work Georgie Boy,’ said Will. ‘A quick shower and we are ready to go.’ Marnie followed him to their bedroom. Will had chosen it from George’s four spare rooms, several years earlier, for the view across the bay. And for the large walk in bathroom.
Marvin was the first to arrive at the Long Street Café, a large two part room with a long bar on one side and a small stage at the far end, partly hidden by a mirrored dividing wall. The owner of the club, Costas, a long time friend of George and Will’s, noticed Marvin and greeted him warmly.
‘The others on their way?’ he asked as he led Marv to the big table. Before he could answer Gemma and Beth danced in through the doors, creating attention for themselves.
‘I can see they have started early,’ said Costas as Marv waved the girls over.
Both in their early twenties Beth and Gemma were typical examples of what George called the Cape Town Pirates. Like so many of their age group they were on their final ASPP but really couldn’t be bothered to learn much. They were only interested in the next party and who was going to pay for it.
It was a sense of entitlement girls in this town had if they were pretty and well dressed. They flirted with everybody and anybody who might give them something for nothing. They never gave anything back; despite suggesting, or even offering, so much. They were raiders. They were takers and leavers. They were pirates but, even so, fun to have around. George had slept with Beth once after she had passed out at his house and he had woken up with her climbing into his bed. She was a beautiful girl and it was an opportunity George had taken advantage of. He didn’t regret it but was not so proud of himself either. The following morning he had strolled to the local deli for coffee and pastries after leaving her fast asleep. When he returned she was gone. They never spoke of it again.
Will, George and Marnie were next in and sat down; Costas brought a bottle of fifteen-year-old Jameson to the table and joined them. Marvin produced a small glass bottle filled with cocaine and the girls giggled as they asked, ‘may we?’ Marv nodded his approval and the girls snapped it up and headed for the bathrooms.
‘You know you are not going to get anywhere with those two Marv?’ Costas told him. ‘They are in here every week poncing off someone or other. I have never seen them pay for a drink, or leave with anybody except each other, despite flirting around the bar all night.’
‘Cape Town girls,’ said Marv, ‘take them or leave them.’
‘Leave them,’ said Will, as Marnie nodded her approval.
‘Take them,’ cried Costas, ‘I do.’
George looked down at his hy-dev and tapped, ‘we in Long Street Café, where you?’
There was no reply. Girls were different here than they were in the Northern Hemisphere and two perfect examples danced back to the table, giggling with each other. They were dabbing numb, tingling noses with delicate knuckles and grooming their long hair with bony fingers.
Gus arrived and said to them, ‘you two have started early haven’t you?’ They ignored him and Costas poured out another glass. Gus looked around, ‘No Mira?’ he asked George.
‘Not yet,’ he shook his head, before checking his hy-dev. There was still no reply. Another girl tottered across on high heels, leant forward and planted a kiss on Gus’ forehead.
‘Maria,’ he said.
’How are you?’ she squealed. The word ‘you’ was delivered in a tone that changed three times and sent poisoned darts into George’s ear drum. Her perfume, which thickened the air, was cheap enough to taste.
‘Has somebody been polishing the tables?’ Marv asked nobody in particular. With that, Maria turned quickly to look over Gus’ head at somebody else and then off she went in a new direction.
George looked at Gus. ‘She is..’ he started,
‘I’m not interested,’ interrupted George.
‘Ok, but don’t you just love that old fashioned lycra material they use again these days?’ George had to admit that he did and the pair watched as she sashayed towards another table in her cling-tight top, hipster jeans and dangerous heels. Maria knew George, and knew he didn’t like her.
‘The shine of her star will fade soon enough;’ said George, ‘and then nobody will be looking at her anymore.’
‘I violated her in the back of a taxi about a year ago, for the small price of a single line.’ Marv added. ‘With a couple of shooters and a few lines inside her well, you can get almost anything you want inside her.’
George checked his hy-dev again, to find nothing. He glanced towards the door and out into the street. There was still no sight or sound of Mira.
Beth and Gemma were chatting the chat they began in the bathroom and they all knew that within twenty minutes they would be feeling fantastic about themselves. They would become city princesses and everything would be going their way. It would become their world and the rest would be simply living in it, making it happen for them. Costas ordered them a pair of shots each. He knew they wouldn’t be buying anything tonight and so what the hell. Maybe they would one day, when they grew up. The girls love the magic dust. It feeds extra feeling into their nerve endings like pouring warm oil into the soul, or as writing a beautiful line for them will. Everything tingles. Tummy’s turn, defect’s real or imagined vanish in the haze. For a while.
‘We might as well join them,’ Marvin offered.
‘Rude not to,’ replied Gus.
They all then took their turns on the little trip to the tiled shelf in the bathroom. Finally the glass vial was passed to George, who had told himself he was never doing it again, as soon as he had finished his training and started contributing. But it looked as though nobody had heard him and so off he went too. Gus stared across at the giggling girls opposite who were counting down from five before tossing back their free shots.
‘I wonder,’ he thought, ‘what your contribution is going to be? What will become of you when the Corporation realise you have nothing to add to society?’
Ben E, the tall double bass player wandered over to the table with a home grown hash tab dangling from his lips.
’Looking good Bennie,’ called Will.
‘Cheers dudes,’ he drawled. ‘If I am going to be steaming tonight then I at least want to be stoned too.’
Without introduction the band sprang into life with a drum fill and Ben E hurried towards the stage. Behind the keyboards sat one hundred and fifty kilos of rhythm and blues meat. The legendary Clem Hemming had his head hunched low and his jet black hands jumped and danced along the snow white keyboard, spraying arcs of sweat as he played his intro, which sounded like the first thing that came into his head. He had his own beat.
‘You are all crazy tonight,’ he yelled into the microphone. He was probably right.
‘You don’t have to die to find paradise,’ he cried. ‘No man, take some of those jumping beans over there and come with me just for one night only.’
He meant, of course, ecstasy. It could be bought in most bars at the weekends since the Corporation legalised all previously banned drugs. It kept the profits up and the potential trouble makers otherwise distracted for a few days. It also meant they could control which areas of the Divisions received exactly how much of what kind of recreational drugs that they alone decided were suitable. Keeping the main part of the population superficially happy and partly docile had been company policy since Incorporation. That was also why anybody could pick up diazepam from almost anywhere for a single dollar a box.
Clem hunched and he rocked and he played. The girls were up and dancing, heads were bobbing, fingers drumming and hearts were bumping. Ben E rolled back and forth to the beat with his eyes closed and his slim fingers laying a rhythm down beneath Clem’s twinkling tunes.
‘Man alive,’ shouted Marvin as the cocaine started to work its way into his single-inch brain. ‘This place is hard core, we are all alive tonight like we have never lived before.’
Gus laughed and looked at George. He laughed too, looked towards the door and finally saw Mira. She was two hours late. Her short, slim frame was dwarfed by the doorway as she brushed her long, dark hair away from her face and looked around. George watched as she peered across the crowded room. He wasn’t sure if he was pleased she had finally turned up or not. Time would tell. He turned away to watch the band and moments later Mira slipped quietly into the seat next to him placing the palm of her hand onto his thigh and quietly attracting his attention. She smiled warmly as he looked at her and then jumped up and wrapped her arms around him.
‘Welcome home babes, I’ve missed you,’ she whispered. George’s heart immediately softened. It always did. He couldn’t help himself.
’Sorry I am late,’ she pleaded. ‘I was having sushi with my sister. She has boyfriend problems, do you want to hear about them.’
‘No thanks.’
’I thought not, anyway I am here now, let’s order shooters.’ George nodded, Costas overheard and, with a wave of his hand, made her wishes come true.
‘Why didn’t you answer your skyphone yesterday?’ George asked her.
‘I told you babes, I didn’t hear it. I was on my bike all afternoon. I had a lovely ride all the way along the seafront and right down to Camps Bay. And then all the way back again. Aren’t you proud of me?’
‘But you said you were on the beach.’
Mira studied his face before replying, ‘yes at Camps Bay, I saw some friends and sat with them for a while, that must have been when you tried calling.’
George thought about this and decided it was at least plausible. But something with this girl just didn’t add up. Mira didn’t make sense to George, despite how he felt about her. He decided this was the weekend he was going to tell her.
‘Come on babes drink up,’ Mira was already banging her shot glass back down onto the table before George had even reached for his. He quickly caught up by the time she had downed her third from the tray-full in the centre of the table.
George looked across towards the stage. By this time the music was beautiful but the girls raved as if they were in a school disco. One of them danced so wildly that she almost took out the drummer. She was untamed. But the mess was cleared up and put into a taxi. The band played on and the evening was gearing up to be a memorable one.
‘Man dig that geezer over there’, cried Marv as he returned from the bathroom dabbing his nose with a handkerchief. ‘He’s done so many drugs his soul is skeletal. That’s not dancing, he’s unrolling his bones. Listen Gus, imagine this. Imagine if we never came down from here. What would life be like, don’t you think, do you ever think what would happen. Is that a love dance he’s doing over there? Who is she?
Mira pressed her head into George’s shoulder and he stroked her long, brown hair. ‘Can we go soon babes?’ she asked him.
‘You’ve only been here half an hour,’ he told her.
‘Yes but can we go somewhere quieter please, please babes.’ This was typical of Mira. She thought that George’s friends didn’t like her and, in truth, they didn’t much. Especially the Cape Town friends. Will, on the other hand could take her or leave her. George signalled to him above the music, stood up, nodded to Costas and Gus and led Mira to the door.
‘You are going to have to tell him,’ Gus told Costas.
‘You tell him.’ Costas replied. They watched as George and Mira walked past the window and out of sight.
’So,’ George asked as they strolled along the street, ‘another bar? Which one?’
Mira thought for a moment, wrapped both her arms around his waist and said ‘the bar at your house. George’s bar is my favourite bar and it is such a beautiful evening. We can sit on the terrace, enjoy the view and listen to music, just the two of us. I have missed you.’
‘Yes I could see that,’ George told her, ‘by the way you were two hours late.’
‘Don’t be like that,’ she scolded him. ‘I told you, I was talking to my dad on the phone.’
‘You mean eating sushi with your sister,’ George reminded her.
‘That’s right, like I said, I was with her when my dad phoned.’
This did nothing to ease George’s troubled mind but at least they were heading for his house. He might even get laid again and so he stopped asking questions. There was no point in provoking a fight and Edgar once again reminded him, ‘don’t try too hard to understand them son.’ George liked Edgar.
‘Please babes,’ Mira pleaded, ‘I just want to be alone with you. And anyway, you know I hate those noisy bars in town. I never go there. Take me home, please.’
‘Then why didn’t you just come straight to the house in the first place?’ he asked her.
‘Look how beautiful the moon is tonight,’ she replied.
As they turned the corner from the main road everything was quiet and the rest of the city was still. They crossed Strand Street and walked up the hill. To their right hand side the harbour lights shimmered and reflected in the calm sea beyond. An amateur band rehearsed in a nearby garage and the ships in the bay lay at anchor, waiting to be called into the port. The low African sky looked as though a thousand diamonds had been thrown, at random, across a black blanket and George said so.
Mira looked up at him and squeezed his arm, ‘you say the most beautiful things,’ and then she buried her head into his shoulder. She clung onto him like a limpet. George wondered if she was trying not to fall over.
‘You choose some music and I will open a bottle of wine,’ he said quietly as he tapped in the alarm code at the front gate.
‘Shooters first, shooters first,’ she cried as she danced across the room towards the Tequila.
‘Whatever you like,’ George called after her as he reached into the cooler for a bottle of Merlot.
‘Aren’t you supposed to drink red wine at room temperature?’ Mira asked as she lined up eight shot glasses.
‘You certainly are,’ replied George, ‘if that room is in the cellar of an old manor house in the Northern Hemisphere and it is Old Calendar 1744.’
Mira gave him a blank look.
‘Here in the summer of AI43,’ he continued, ‘nobody should be drinking warm wine. Either red or white,’ and he reached for a couple of tumblers. ‘Even this isn’t cold enough,’ he remarked as he took a sip. George dropped a cube of ice into his wine and was about to do the same for Mira when she placed four of the shot glasses in front of him.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t water my wine down.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘The alcohol doesn’t jump out of the glass. Putting ice in there doesn’t make it weaker, just colder.’
‘I prefer mine without ice thank you and here, it’s shooter time.’ With that she downed another two, took her glass out onto the terrace and waited for George to catch up. He sat down opposite her and, with his arms resting on his knees, he leaned forward and quietly asked, ‘ok, what’s going on Mira? What’s with this unusual behaviour?’ She looked hurt and said nothing. He continued. ‘The missed phone calls and immediate messages, why don’t you speak to me?’
‘I told you I was on my bike.’
‘Or the beach,’ George added. ‘And that’s another thing, all those odd little stories that don’t add up and I don’t just mean this week, I mean for the last six months.’ Again, she said nothing ‘Are you going to talk to me?’ he encouraged her.
‘Ok, ok. It’s just that I am scared of losing you.’
‘You have said this before, and then go ahead and behave in exactly the way that is likely to make that happen. Lying to me, turning up late and sometimes not showing up at all. The last time I was here you sent me a message at H2 saying ‘I want you now.’ I replied telling you I was still awake and to come over. I then didn’t hear from you again for two days. Was that message even meant for me? Because that’s how to lose me Mira, we are either together or we are not. Right now it feels like we are not and yet here you are again, here we are again.’
‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ she announced quietly and without looking up.
George was stunned.
She then looked straight at him with her green, shining eyes and said, ‘it’s ridiculous. The way I feel about you scares me and that’s why I keep trying to push you away, out of my mind, out of my thoughts. But you never go away. If anything the feeling gets stronger and that frightens me, it scares me to death. It frightens me that one day you will just say ‘that’s all, that’s it, go away silly girl. I couldn’t bear that. Every time I see you or hear your voice my heart starts pounding and it scares me to think that it might be for the last time.’
George reached across and took her hand.
‘How long have you felt like this?’ he asked quietly.
‘Ever since the day we first met.’
George was shocked.
‘That was four years ago. So why did you take that marriage licence and then renew it?’ He asked her.
’Because you were with somebody else and I thought you didn’t want me.’ She admitted. ‘I was desperate for you to stop me. Do you remember when I came round here and told you I had set the date? Do you remember what you said?’
George was embarrassed. ‘That I knew a good marriage licence lawyer you could use.’
‘Exactly,’ she shouted. ‘Here I was, desperate for some sort of sign from you, just something to say I shouldn’t go through with it and you congratulated me, and even offered to arrange it for me. You’re an arsehole.’
‘Yes I do remember,’ George admitted quietly. ‘I remember it clearly.’ He felt ashamed. ‘But why didn’t you say something?’
Mira snatched her hands away and pulled the hair away from in front of her face. George could see she had been crying and she then confronted him angrily.
‘Because all you could talk about was that slut you were going into contract with.’
George laughed, ‘she is not a slut but yes, I remember that too.’
Mira then spent the next thirty minutes reminding George of all the other signs she had given since the day they had met and he reluctantly had to agree with each of them. Mira remembered everything and was right about all of them. Finally George admitted he had felt the same way as she had from the very beginning.
‘You are a fucking idiot,’ she told him. You call yourself a writer? Aren’t you supposed to notice things, see things that others don’t?’ she demanded.
‘You also might have made it easy for me and simply said something,’ he replied. ‘I thought you were happy with your contract and I didn’t want to interfere.’
‘Fuck off,’ she shouted. ‘And bring some more wine when you come back.’
‘What are we going to do now we have both admitted all of this,’ George asked her.
‘Spend the rest of our lives together, have a family and be happy, but only after you have fucked off first,’ she replied. ‘And then come back.’
‘Can we start slowly by just dating properly?’ George suggested.
‘Give me some time to think about it,’ Mira said as she finally offered a small smile. And then came the uncontrollable laughter that George so adored in her. When he returned he noticed that the four remaining shots of tequila were now on the terrace table and two of them were empty.
‘Come on babes,’ she said. ‘You have some catching up to do, and we have some celebrating to do.’
George downed his tequila, sipped his wine and stood staring out into the darkness of the bay that was punctuated only by the intermittent flash of the Robben Island Lighthouse. He thought carefully about what had just happened and considered the advice Edgar had given him only days earlier. Mira, meanwhile, was tapping something into her hy-dev.
Finally George sucked air in through his teeth, tugged on his earlobe and turned around.
‘Ok, let’s do it,’ he said, against all of his instincts and Edgar’s advice. ‘Let’s be together. We can ignore the past, the other people we have been involved with. How about we never mention any of it again and start with a new screen, from right now, a brand new start.’
She looked up at him. ‘But you shagged my sister,’ she shouted. ‘I’m not sure I can forget that. Why, why why?’
‘Because, Mira, you were married to somebody else and she and I were both single at the time. And we liked each other. You encouraged us, remember?’
‘I didn’t mean to. It hurts like hell, I can’t get over it.’ Mira stood up and announced, ‘I have to go.’
George was confused. ‘We are in the middle of a conversation, where are you going?’
‘I have some friends in from Johannesburg; they have just told me they are in a bar in Long Street and I am going to join them. I don’t want to look at you right now, I can see you tomorrow.’
‘You said you didn’t like the bars in Long Street?’
‘I never said that.’ She argued.
George was becoming concerned; it was after midnight. ‘I can’t let you go back to Long Street, I will worry too much. You are drunk and it is dangerous down there at this time. You can stay here, with me or in your favourite room, you choose, but you mustn’t go to Long Street now, it’s too late.’
‘You controlling bastard, call me a taxi right now.’ She screamed.
‘Well, ok, but you can call your own taxi. If you want to leave then you can sort yourself out.’ He insisted. ‘Phone for your own taxi.’
George didn’t see the first punch coming but it caught him squarely on the side of the face, knocking the glass from his hand which then shattered across the terrace. Before he managed to react a second blow landed directly into his ribcage and the third, a kick that was aimed at his testicles, was parried away before it connected.
‘What the hell are you doing Mira,’ he shouted as she ran towards the front door and started butting it with her head in an attempt to open it. George finally restrained her, but not before taking two more blows to the face and a solid kick in the ribs. He managed to sit her back down into a chair and calm her down. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘I want to see my friends. I told you they were in town and you won’t let me leave.’
‘You can leave Mira, in fact I will insist, get out. After all we have just talked about I can’t believe you are behaving like this again. The door is open, now leave and don’t come back.’ Mira ran out into the night, down the road and was gone. George reached for his whiskey and when Will and Marnie finally returned they left him as they found him; fast asleep in his favourite armchair.
––––––––
Chapter Five
‘But you did shag her sister,’ Will reminded him the following morning after George had re-told his tale. Partly in an attempt to make some sense of it for himself. As he gazed out to sea Will studied his face.
‘Look at the state of you; I can’t believe you got beaten up by a girl.’
‘You should see the shape of my ribs,’ George finally responded as he pulled up his shirt.
‘What the hell did she hit you with, a hammer?’ yelled Marnie when she saw the damage to George’s torso.
‘I would have hit her back,’ said Will.
‘No you wouldn’t have, but had I done that then right now I would be in the Correction Centre and with no chance of ever being granted another Marriage Licence. Besides, you don’t hit women.’
‘Very noble Georgie boy,’ said Marnie, ‘but I am afraid sometimes it is deserved. If she is going to fight like a man then she should expect you to defend yourself. I hope that’s it now, I hope you are not going to have any contact with her again?’
‘I don’t have a choice. I am sure I will hear more from her, I always do. She is probably climbing into the boot of my car right now. But Mira needs help and if she asks for it, then I will do what I can.’
‘You are a damn fool George.’ Will told him. ‘You do not need this kind of chaos in your life, why get involved?’
‘Because dear boy, you have to take care of the people who care about you. You do not abandon your friends when they need you, regardless of how they have behaved. She is not right. There is something wrong with Mira and I hope it can be fixed. But even so, if I don’t hear from her then that’s it. I will not be calling her again. That’s the last time, I promise.’
Constance had been sweeping up the broken glass on the terrace but had stopped to listen to George’s story. She said nothing but when Will caught her eye she shook her head sadly and carried on with her work. She had seen, or at least heard, something similar before. At that moment George’s hy-dev pinged him a message which he read out loud.
‘Mira: I’m sorry.’
‘That’s it, two words?’ asked Will.
‘It’s not enough,’ added Marnie.
‘No, it’s not enough,’ George agreed softly.
‘Bloody Mary?’ announced Will.
‘Bloody right,’ replied George, ‘industrial strength for me.’
‘You won’t find the answers in alcohol George,’ offered Marie.
‘Sometimes I don’t find them by asking questions either,’ he replied. ‘Will, make mine a treble and then I am off to the Hydroport. There is nothing for me in town this weekend. Run me up there will you and then you two can stay here and use the Jag for the weekend. Take her out for a long drive into the wine-lands; she could use a proper run out.’
‘Don’t mind if we do, we can celebrate our renewed licence at a restaurant in the countryside Marnie.’
‘Renewed Marriage Licence,’ thought George, ‘what a waste of time.’ He gathered his two closet friends together, gave Marnie a kiss and hugged them both. ‘Congratulations you two, you deserve each other.’ George winced in pain as Marnie held him a little too tightly around his damaged ribcage.
Back at the Central Complex Edgar was surprised when his hy-dev alerted him to George’s arrival and he tapped the icon that granted him access. He knew as soon as he saw the boy that something was wrong.
‘What’s that on your fucking face?’ he demanded.
George poured himself a whiskey, sat down and spent the next hour re-telling the entire story of the previous day’s events. Edgar looked sad.
‘I’m sorry son but there is nothing you can do. She needs professional help. For any alcoholic, recovery is a life long battle and it never goes away. But she has to realise that for herself.’
‘Come on granddad, who is to say she is an alcoholic? I’ve seen everyone I know drunk at least once or twice, including you. Although, to be fair, never anyone quite as reckless as Mira.’
‘How many times have you seen her like that then?’
‘Twice.’
’In four years?’ asked Edgar.
George thought about the question, ‘yes, I think so.’
‘Then she has been hiding it from you and you need to understand she has a problem. So does Mira. And until she does she will continue to hide, just as she has for the last four years.’
George sat silently. He thought of all those unanswered calls and the instant message replies and realised that Edgar was right. If she had spoken to him then he would have heard it in her voice. She had not wanted him to know.
Edgar appeared to understand. ‘It’s one of the most difficult things in the world to confront George. When somebody you thought you knew turns out to have been somebody else all along. Somebody entirely different. It’s the same as lying to you, it is fraud.’
George thought about something Tibha had mentioned during the previous week when she said that liars needed to have great memories. He realised that Mira’s memory wasn’t so great. It was why her excuses were always slightly different between one telling and the next.
Edgar studied the boy and could see the sadness in the slump of his shoulders.
‘There is nothing you can do to help her you know,’ he repeated, ‘unless she asks for it. There is nothing anybody can do unless a person admits to having a problem and then looks for help. If she doesn’t then she will still be acting in the same way in forty years time, if she survives that long. She will be incredible for a few months and then gone again. I have seen it all before.’
George knew Edgar was right. Mira had crashed her car once whilst she was drunk and nearly killed herself. And if she attacked anybody else as she had him then there was no doubt she was going to be in great danger at some point, if she hadn’t been already. Perhaps even more than once. George knew that he didn’t want such a drama in his life. He already suffered from enough anxiety without having to worry about another car crash every time Mira went on the missing list.
‘Alcoholism is incurable George.’ Edgar continued. ‘It is controllable but that is a life long fight which you have to know you could lose on any day. Tomorrow, or on some day long into the future. You never know when it will happen although you do know that day is coming; that phone call will probably come. I knew a girl once whose mother was just the same. She must have been in her seventies when I first met her. She was a beautiful soul, kind, thoughtful and considerate. But, every now and then, when the craving took her she was gone. I lost count of the number of times we found her, after a few days, in a hotel room, or barn, surrounded by empty bottles of wine. She had been going off on those benders since she was thirty. How old is Mira?’
‘Twenty-seven.’ George replied.
‘Marriage Licence son...? Family and happily ever after? Do you really want to spend the next forty years waiting for that phone call? Is that how you want to live your life George?’
‘But we all drink Granddad. You do every day.’
‘Yes, but I am not an alcoholic George. You either are or you aren’t and I know I am not.’
‘How?’
‘Because a few years ago my doctor, after the annual check up, told me that all of my major organs were still functioning perfectly normally. She couldn’t believe it. To be honest, nor could I and, as usual, she told me to cut down on drinking and smoking. I reminded her that she said that every year and that I didn’t want to. And that was when she said to me, ‘you don’t want to or you can’t?’ It made me stop to think about it and so from that moment onwards I didn’t take a single drink. None at all.’
‘And what happened?’ Asked George.
‘Absolutely nothing. I looked in the medical archive for the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal for alcoholics, or at least for regular drinkers, and I was expecting to experience sleepless nights, sweats, fatigue, anxiety, depression, cravings, headaches, nausea, heart palpitations, trembling and clammy skin. Go and look it up for yourself, the list goes on and on.’
George was listening carefully. ‘And,’ he asked, ‘so what did you experience?’
‘Nothing at all. None of them. For six months I didn’t feel any different to when I was drinking a couple of glasses of whiskey everyday. Sometimes half a bottle and sometimes the whole lot. I was so disappointed. I had spent so long trying to be an alcoholic and it turned I just wasn’t. You either are or you aren’t. I‘m not and nor are you. But I think Mira is. And that will never change, she sounds far too self absorbed and with very little self-respect.’
George thought for a while. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he groaned, ‘help her or don’t get involved. Am I in time or is it too late? Is the glass still half-full or is it half-empty?’
‘Don’t start with that philosophy bollocks son. Philosophy only asks questions, it never answers them,’ Edgar paused for thought. ‘But I do have the answer to that particular problem that has troubled your finest minds for centuries,’ he added cheerfully.
Half-full or half-empty?’ George looked up and asked him.
‘Yes,’ said Edgar, ’either way it needs topping up, pass me that bottle.’
George tapped onto his hy-dev notepad to bring up the list of questions he had for Edgar, but tossed it to the side when he saw that, once again, the page was blank.
‘You mentioned something about love the other day, what was it?’
Edgar studied George and finally said, ‘there is no such thing, no such word. There used to be. It used to describe a sort of feeling that would cause people to do all sorts of stupid and irrational things. It caused more harm than it created any good. It was too easy to say and too easy to believe. Eventually it became meaningless. Respect and trust and patience were what really mattered in any relationship. Love was just a word we used to get ourselves out of trouble. Or laid.’
George thought about the words ‘respect’ and ‘trust’ and ‘patience’ and he was running out of all three with Mira. It was a pity, he thought. But that was all. It wasn’t a disaster, just a damn shame.
‘All good things pass George and some of them should do,’ Edgar added, ‘and then never come back again.’
‘But I thought love was doing something good for a person that they would never, perhaps, know you had done for them.’ He pressed on. ‘You know, acts of kindness when nobody was watching. To know there is nothing in it for you, but to do a good thing anyway, wasn’t that love granddad?’
’No, that was called kindness.’ Edgar assured him.
George tried to remember everything else Tibha had told him. ‘Wasn’t love a beautiful feeling, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes that mostly gathered around the heart. Wasn’t it a gift of the rarest kind that could emerge over a period of time or could appear in an instant? And something to do with butterflies?’
‘What bollocks is this?’ Edgar asked him. ‘Have you been on those funny herbal smokes again? I warned you about those. Look, love was a temporary insanity. It was excitement, enthusiasm, passion, promises, beliefs and the desire to have sex at every chance you get. And then, when that and all the other things have burned away, and the promises have not been kept, you had what was left. If you were one of the lucky ones.’
‘Which is?’
Respect, compassion, honesty, trust, loyalty and all with somebody you actually quite like, hopefully.’
‘And have you ever had that?’ George asked the old man.
‘Many times, it’s wonderful. But people come and people go George. People enter your life and then they leave again, for one reason or another. You just have to accept it will keep happening.’
George thought again of Mira. He didn’t really want her out of his life. But he didn’t particularly want her in it either. It was a problem. Mira was his problem. ‘I’m just tired granddad, I am going to bed. I’m going to stay in my old room here if that’s alright with you?’
Edgar looked at the wall clock. ‘It’s only H22.30,’ he told him.
‘It’s been twenty-four long hours. Good night.’ George then turned back and scooped up his whiskey glass, ‘but I’ll just take this along for some company.’ He was asleep before his head hit the bedside cabinet.
The following morning George was woken by a message to his hy-dev which read, Tibha; ‘Morning Mr Dickens, how is the weekend on the wild African frontier?’ George laid back and smiled to himself. He thought of Tibha and wondered whether he should reply straight away, or if that would appear too keen. But if he didn’t then would it seem a little indifferent? He decided to wait for an hour which he hoped would fall somewhere between the two problems. He then noticed a second message that had arrived at the hour 3.45.
Mira; ‘I said I was sorry.’
George deleted it. He started going over in his mind everything that had happened, trying to make sense of it. His heart started beating; a hot sweat spread across his forehead, cheeks and then ran through his chest. And then his insides began rattling. George quickly reached over and rummaged his case for the diazepam, took two of them and then laid back to watch the sunrise over the Central Complex as he waited for them to calm him down.
He then opened his notepad and began to look again for the notes he had made for Edgar at least twice over the previous few days but there was still no trace to be found. Instead he patiently opened another page and wrote the words;
1: Christmas.
2: Love.
3: My mother and father.
4: The last government.
5: His role in the Corporation.
6: His experiments.
7: Religion.
George considered all seven questions before deleting ‘love,’ as he had already heard quite enough of that. He also deleted the question about Edgar’s role in the Corporation as that could wait. Right then he didn’t need to know, it was only a curiosity. He then deleted mother and father and was left with;
1: Christmas
2: The last Government
3: His experiments
4: Religion
This time he took great care to save the note in four separate locations, restarted his hy-dev and immediately looked in all four places. In each file and on each server the note had finally remained exactly as he had written it. George wondered if the word ‘Corporation’ had anything to do with it.
At the big pine table Edgar was his usual, cheerful morning self, just as George had remembered.
‘You still here?’ he grunted.
George ignored him and went out onto the balcony. The fresh, crisp November air stung his lungs as he took in great mouthfuls. The diazepam was working and George could feeling himself calming down into an unusually good mood. He called inside and reminded Edgar that he had a packet on the table and should take some himself. He then tapped a reply into his hy-dev for Tibha; ‘a disaster, came back to CC last night, see you Monday.’ His finger hovered over the send option and then he deleted it instead. ‘Why would she want to know that?’ he asked himself. ‘Why would he want her to know that?’
George joined Edgar at the old farmhouse table in the corner of the room and poured himself some coffee. Edgar was scrolling through the news feeds on his hy-dev before he announced, ‘Damn Arabs, they are still at war with each other. I thought there would be none of them left by now. Still, they will all be old men soon enough, or dead.’
‘What are you talking about?’ George asked him.
‘Did you know there used to be nearly two billion of them?’
‘Who?’
‘There was once nearly two billion people living in the Middle East or practicing their religion. Islam it was called. Those that remain still call it that’
‘That’s impossible,’ replied George. ‘There are only about two hundred million people in the entire Western Corporation. I read somewhere that it was the same in the tribal Middle East. I know for sure there are only one billion people living in the whole world. I read a population census the other day.’
‘That’s about right now,’ Edgar told him. ‘But when I was your age there were about two billion of us and about two billion of them.’
‘Four billion people? How much of that diazepam have you taken?’ George asked him.
Edgar ignored the remark and, without looking up, he added, ‘that’s was just your Christians and your Muslims. When you include all the others there were over seven billion people living on this one tiny planet.’
‘Ridiculous,’ George told him, and then tapped a new message to Tibha; ‘back on CC, had to return early as I think my grandfather has gone mad.’ This time he sent it.
‘Why do you think that is ridiculous?’ Edgar asked him carefully, still not looking up from his news feed.
‘Seven billion people?’ George questioned him, ‘I just told you, I have seen the census from last year and it was estimated that there are around a billion people living on planet earth just now. Where do you suppose six billion people disappeared to? Explain that.’
Finally Edgar looked up and George was studying his hy-dev, waiting for a reply from Tibha. It pinged him a message.
Mira; ‘why aren’t you at home. Constance says you are out, where are you?’ George deleted it. He felt like man with a terminal illness. Edgar decided to remain silent. George was asking all the right questions but appeared to be otherwise distracted. Small personal issues occupied what little attention he had today. He had no room for the big story. Not for today, at least. George slumped back into his chair.
‘I think I need a head transplant,’ he announced, ‘is that possible yet? So what happened to six billion people over the last forty five years? Was there a war, a famine, a plague and, if so, why don’t I know about it?’
Edgar again stayed silent for a few moments. He wasn’t going to lie to George but he also wasn’t quite ready for him to know the complete truth, at least not yet. He would have to find that out for himself.
‘I have spent three quarters of my life being so careful,’ he began. But George was studying his hy-dev. It was Mira again; ‘where ARE you?’
George was about to close his device down when another message flashed up.
Tibha; ‘at a loose end today on the CC, you around for lunch?’
George reassembled his thoughts and said, ‘granddad, I want to know about Christmas before I go back to the work station on Tuesday. It might help me in correcting Dickens. After all, you actually remember it.’
Edgar straightened up to form a reply and then saw George tapping into his hy-dev, ‘that would be nice, where and when?’ And so he kept his counsel, for the moment. George deleted his message and looked up again, ‘so, six billion people, what happened then, was there a nuclear war? I have read about that. I read about the atomic bomb and the nuclear cold war. They warned us in the Academy about a repeat of that. Is that what happened granddad?’
‘No.’
‘Then what the hell happened to all of those people?’ George asked.
‘Nothing really happened to them,’ Edgar began. ‘Nobody was killed, well, not that many. And there were no food shortages or famine, nobody starved. Well, not in the West they didn’t. Infertility was the problem. It all started with the final war that began in 2001 of the old calendar, of the old democracy.’
George’s hy-dev lit up once more and he was immediately drawn to it.
Mira: ‘Do you hate me now?’
’Are you listening to me son?’ Edgar demanded.
‘No. Yes. Wait a minute, what did you just say. Six billion people died because of what?’
‘Well, five or six billion, give or take. And I told you no-one was killed. Well, not all at once. The reason was two-fold. First of all was the great final war that began in 2001 between the West and the religion of Islam. Many in the West claimed it was over the oil, the old fossil fuel source that was found mainly in the countries of the Middle East that were dominated by the people of the Islamic faith. But, of course, it was far more sinister than that. The war was never about oil. If it was then the leaders of the old democracies would have just sat down and thrashed out deals with despots and barbarians, as they had done for centuries before. No, it was about one religious faith imposing their medieval beliefs upon another. The leaders of Islam insisted the whole world must follow their faith and obey their laws. And they were pretty damn committed to achieving it as well. Over two thirds of the world’s Muslims believed their own religious law was more important than the laws of the Division they were living in.’
Finally George was paying attention.
‘This frightened people.’ Edgar went on. ‘Fewer and fewer of us wanted to bring children into what was becoming a very dangerous world. For a while there it looked as though it would never end and they were never going away. And this was a big problem for the Western Empire. If people stopped having children then who would fight their wars for them come the next generation, or the one that followed them? The West was already in decline and then the same thing started happening all over the world. People just stopped wanting to have children. Many more simply could not afford to. So more people were dying in the wars and of natural causes and fewer people were being born.’
‘Exactly what happened to the Roman Empire,’ George said to himself. ‘And that cost six billion lives?’
’No,’ the virus did most of that work. ‘Edgar insisted. ‘A growing number of women started to find out they were unable to conceive. Either they were infertile or the men were. Some blamed evolution, others blamed modern science and the way they modified food and water to preserve it. Remember George, seven billion people is a lot of mouths to feed. Human beings were ruining planet earth. Governments of their day and the decisions they made led to climate change. More hurricanes, tsunami waves and typhoons killed hundreds of millions of people. The war went on for nearly twenty years and that killed hundreds of millions more. Then, of course, billions of people grew old and died of natural causes whilst the younger generations were finding it increasingly hard to conceive. It was a hell of a mess. It was a frightening time George, the Human Race was dying out. That’s why nobody talks about it these days. The Corporation finally stepped in and after that well, everything began improving. Almost immediately.’
’How?’
‘Well, for a start, they recognised the war had nothing to do with oil or any other natural resources. They knew it was a religious war.’ Edgar began.
‘You are going to have to explain religion to me,’ said George.
Edgar ignored him and continued, ‘A religious war that was fought between the extreme elements of the Christian religion of the West and the Islamic extremists of the Middle East. For those of us caught up in the middle, who believed in neither, it was a terrifying time. I’m not surprised nobody wanted to bring children into the world. I certainly didn’t but your grandfather had already been born by 2001, when it all started. I wouldn’t have any more. Nobody I knew did. And so, the population in the West simply began to decline. At one stage it was falling at a rate of around fifty million people a year. It was the same all over the world. There was a solution, but infertility treatment was expensive and only the rich or privileged could afford it. But at least that meant some children were being born, like your mother and father for example. At least the human species would not die out altogether, thanks to the senior scientists of the Corporation.’
George’s hy-dev lit up once more and he was immediately drawn to it. Tibha; ‘is that a yes or no Mr Dickens?’
This time George immediately replied, ‘it’s a yes please Ms Shelley, where and when?’
‘Were you involved in the war granddad?’ he asked.
‘Only as one of the junior scientists. I didn’t shoot anybody.’ Edgar replied proudly.
‘What was it like?’
‘It was a fight to the death. To begin with it was dismissed as terrorism, Islamic terrorism and nobody seemed to understand it properly. They were far more committed to it than we were in the early years. There were a few bombs here and there that very few people, apart from those involved or affected, really took any notice of. It was only when a handful of committed Islamic fighters hijacked a couple of airplanes full of passengers, who could have been any one of us, and crashed them into buildings in the Western Divisions that we really started paying attention. Our governments sent armies out to the countries that had trained those people, the countries with the oil and the Islam. They tried to find the people who were responsible. It was a bloodbath and it soon became obvious, when western governments also started sending out Christian Missionaries, Army Chaplains they called them, to hand out copies of their own holy book, and to try and convert the conquered, the ones they claimed they were saving, that history was repeating itself again. It was a holy war. Christian against Muslim and there were billions of people on each side.’
George shook his head slowly.
‘It was hardly surprising that when the Corporation promised to end the war and bring the western armies home, to act as a defensive shield only, that the public were so easily persuaded to replace their governments. By then it had come to the stage where Islamic extremists, who had been living in our own communities for generations, started attacking innocent people in shopping centres, on trains, buses, at stations, in schools and anywhere else they were gathered in large numbers, and were defenceless, that we knew we needed protecting here at home, not in the Middle East. Those idiot democracies did not see it coming. Luckily the Corporation did. Democratic governments, as much as they would like to have, could not control information back then as the Corporation can today.’
‘Attacked in shopping centres?’ George was appalled. ‘People just going about, living their normal lives with nothing to do with the army or religion, were attacked?’
‘It was co-ordinated George. Thousands of Islamic soldiers, who were living in the west; their families having been invited by governments in the years beforehand, armed themselves and went out into the streets. It happened in towns and cities all over the Western Empire. Hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered; whilst their governments were looking to the East they had left the back door open. They called it a Fifth Column Attack and there was carnage.
‘A Fifth Column,’ George questioned, ‘What’s that?’
‘It was a term the Corporation used to describe a group of people, or army, living in a country that gathered together in secret. They would be as disruptive as they could be on a small scale and, once given the signal from their leaders, they would all rise at once and cause wide-scale chaos. It was an old military tactic that many armies used throughout history.’ Edgar explained.
‘I know,’ George replied. ‘I remember now. The Barbarians lived in the Roman Empire for centuries before co-ordinating their attacks on Rome. They were a Fifth Column and Rome was not expecting any threat from their own people, or so they thought.’
Edgar looked impressed. ‘I did not know that. But that is exactly what a Fifth Column is. People who you think are your own. People you think you know who turn out to be somebody else entirely. Does that sound familiar George? All the time there had been an Islamic Army waiting in the West for the signal to attack. They were all connected together by the internet, before it was regulated, and could communicate their intentions easily.
So, after the Fifth Column Attack we knew we were involved in a war for civilisation itself and that was worth fighting for. They wanted us all to change our way of lives. They wanted to impose their beliefs and laws upon us, here in the West. Their own medieval beliefs and barbaric laws. And the Christians, well they were just as bad. They made it clear that Islam would have to change their own ways if they wanted to live among the western communities. There was no compromise and no apparent end in sight.’
‘So what happened afterwards,’ George was mesmerized.
‘The government was forced to suspend its democratic principles. It was forced to act undemocratically in a way that everybody could see clearly, for the first time. They revealed their motives by rounding up all non Christians and taking them to secure compounds across the Western Empire where their families were forced to live. They announced that it was for their own protection but we all knew it was for ours really.’
‘That seems a little unfair to me,’ said George.
‘Nothing in life is fair son. They did what they had to do. Obviously many innocent people were shut away but there was no way of knowing who was innocent and who was a threat, either at that time or who would be in the future. Government experts had been studying Islam and their holy book, the Koran. It was clear that when Muslims talked about Islam being a religion of peace, the peace they were implying was the one that would prevail after they had forced the entire world to adopt its beliefs and obey its laws. That was the peace they were preaching and the Christian governments were never going to accept that. Islam wasn’t a religion of peace at all, but then neither was Christianity and this was the heart of the whole problem.’
Chapter Six
Edgar looked sad, they were painful memories but he composed himself, poured a little brandy into his coffee and continued. ‘You see, we were told time and time again by the scholars and so called experts that Islam was a religion of peace. And I have no doubt that was true for the vast majority who shared that particular belief. But whether that was actually the case or not turned out to be completely irrelevant. It was a smoke screen that convinced the rest of us in the West that the rampaging maniacs, who terrorised the whole non Islamic world, could be easily contained. It convinced us that they didn’t matter so much. That was where governments had it all wrong. The Corporation, on the other hand, realised that the fanatical few were the ones who had become the leaders. They were the ones with the power and who had all the real influence.
It was they who were waging wars all over the world and slaughtering Christians, Jews and anybody else who did not follow their beliefs. It was they who were killing non-Muslims in Africa in an attempt to create a Caliphate across the entire continent. It was they who were doing the same all over the West whilst the peaceful majority remained silent. They were too scared to stand up to the fanatics from their own religion for fear of becoming targets themselves. It was the fanatical few who were carrying out the bombings, the murders, the beheadings and what they called honour killings.’
‘Honour killings’ asked George, ‘what is that?’
’Anybody who shared their faith and was a true Muslim but who had been considered to have offended that faith, or were in breach of one of their laws, were murdered. Even if it was a member of their own family, including children, if they were caught being too friendly with non Muslims. The fanatical few, the leaders, encouraged all this whilst the peaceful majority stood silently by and that made them part of the problem too. Because the fanatics had taken over the places of worship. And controlled their educations and who taught the next generation, their children, how to grow up and become murderers themselves. It was they who encouraged the hanging and stoning of homosexuals and rape victims and taught them how to make a bomb and walk onto a train, or anywhere else crowded with Christians, and detonate it.
You see, the silent and peaceful majority didn’t matter by then. They had made themselves irrelevant, because we never knew who was peaceful and who wasn’t. They were cowards who hid behind each other. Exactly the same thing had happened during other times in our history. When China was a Communist country there is no doubt that the majority of the Chinese people were peaceful. But their leaders still managed to kill seventy million of them who didn’t agree with their beliefs. When Russia was a Communist country there is no doubt that the majority of Russians were peaceful too and yet they managed to kill fifty million people who did not agree with their beliefs. Japan was a particularly peaceful nation until the fanatical few waged war in South East Asia murdering twelve million people. The same can be said in parts of Africa. Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Libya to name only a few.
The Corporation had studied history and the lesson was a simple one to learn. And they made sure we learned it. By the time of the Incorporation peace loving Muslims had become unimportant. Failing to condemn and prevent the fanatics had meant they themselves were also part of the problem, whether they were directly involved or not. One day they woke up and found that the violent element of their faith now owned them. Innocent, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and African people had all died because the peaceful majority had remained silent, on their behalf. And when it was their turn to die there was nobody left to speak up for, or protect, them either. The Corporation was not going to allow that to happen in the Western Empire.
And because Muslim people failed to integrate and refused to live among westerners in western cities and, instead, gathered together in their own communities, they created no-go zones. Western people could not go into those areas and they enforced their own barbaric laws upon their own people. And the governments did nothing to stop this. So when the inevitable happened, the Fifth Column Attack on the old and the young, families, civilians and any non Muslims, the Corporation was the first to react. They showed us how governments had also become irrelevant. And that is why the first thing the Corporation did was to ban all religions and round up anybody who refused to abandon their medieval beliefs. They were locked away on compounds and everybody could relax again. It was a horrible time son. But difficult decisions are easy to make when there is nothing left to lose.’
George stood up and walked to the window overlooking the Complex. ‘You said it was the governments who did the rounding up, not the Corporation.’
’I can’t really remember now,’ said Edgar. ‘It was around the time of the takeover. It was a long time ago now.’
‘So what happened to all those families who were taken to the compounds?’ George asked.
‘They were safe. Safe from revenge attacks. The Christians couldn’t get at them.’
‘No I mean now, where are they now?’
‘Well, after Incorporation and religion was banned, those who refused to give up their Stone Age beliefs were sent back to the Stone Age. They were forced to relocate to a country that did still practice their chosen religion. ‘No problem,’ they were told. ‘If you want to be a Muslim then pick a country where their particular faith was encouraged and off you go.’ It was no surprise that none of them wanted to go anywhere of the sort and so they were forced to. It was called a Peaceful Repatriation Program but I happen to know that many were allowed to stay.’
‘How do you know that?’ George asked.
‘Because many of them were very clever indeed and had a lot to contribute to the new society. Some of them worked in the same science division as me and I am glad they did. You see there had been another war, over one hundred years ago, between western countries that my own grandfather had fought in. He told me all about it when I was younger. One of the countries involved had done a similar thing to the Corporation, only they deported all of their Jewish people. And this turned out to be their biggest mistake because it was those Jewish people, the clever ones, who ended up developing the weapons that eventually defeated the country they had been expelled from. Had they been allowed to stay then the outcome of that war would have been very different. In fact, it would have been the opposite. The Corporation had learned from this and kept the clever Muslims in the West, working for them instead of against them.’
‘That’s a relief, I am pleased about that,’ said George.
‘We all were,’ Edgar replied.
’So what happened to those who were sent back?’ asked George.
‘Well,’ Edgar began, ‘this was the whole problem with religion in general. It was the refuge of very troubled minds. For a start, those who dedicated their lives to Islam did so in different ways. They interpreted their holy and sacred book in their own ways and could not agree with each other. The two largest groups were the worst. The Sunni’s and the Shiites. They didn’t like each other at all and with no Christians left to fight, since there weren’t any after their religion had been banned as an organisation in the West, they turned on each other. They went to war with each other over their beliefs and the West simply let them get on with it. We all sat by and watched it on television. They did a better job of killing each other than our army had been doing anyway. They were left alone to de-populate themselves. Western borders were closed and they were simply ignored. After the Corporation had developed hydrogen energy there was nothing in the Middle East they wanted anyway.’
‘What a terrible way to deal with things, and what about the Christians. What happened to those who refused to abandon their beliefs?’ George wondered.
‘They all went very quiet. I am sure some of them still practiced their silly, superstitious nonsense but never in public. There were still many countries in the Middle East and Africa where Christianity was permitted but none of the westerners wanted to go and live in any of those places. Their total faith was, apparently, not so important to them after all. Besides, none of the younger generation, like me at the time, believed any of that crap by then anyway. It was only the older people and they have all died out now, taking the God they made with them. Their churches and mosques were turned into something more useful, life was more peaceful and the Corporation became incredibly prosperous. We all made so much money. Well, those of us who were contributing did. Those who weren’t all died out, or are dying out. If they couldn’t pay for their own health care then they didn’t get any treatment. Hundreds of millions of people died of illness or, as the Corporation news feeds called it, natural causes.’
‘And this all seems fair to you does it?’ George confronted Edgar. ‘That all the Muslims were taken to detention centres and then expelled from the West and anybody who could not afford medical treatment died of illness?’
‘They started it,’ Edgar told him sternly. ‘They wanted their way of life to be preserved and so the Corporation sent them somewhere that it was being preserved. If more Muslims living in the West had integrated into the communities they lived in, instead of attacking them, the Corporation would not have sent them back to the Stone Age. The Human Resources Department once did a study in the Division of Germania that concluded that the Muslim people living there had received over two billion dollars in benefits more than they had contributed to their community. Imagine that multiplied around the fifty Divisions of the Corporation. But they wanted to fight us for their own lifestyles and expected the West pay for it. They ended up fighting for their own lives, somewhere else. But that was their own choice. It didn’t have to be that way. All they had to do was renounce their religion, accept the total ban and observe the law like everybody else.’
George was tracing his finger around the lip of his cup. He was deep in thought. ‘Well that explains some things,’ he accepted, ‘but that doesn’t really explain where six billion people disappeared to in forty years.’
‘Well, it does though doesn’t it,’ said Edgar tapping into the calculator on his hy-dev.’ ‘That works out to be around one hundred and fifty million people a year. Which doesn’t seem so many people to die in tribal wars, famine, earthquakes, typhoons, tsunami waves and other natural disasters. Plus, accident, illness and natural causes. Out of seven billion people that would be about right. The real problem was the virus. With most of the remaining population either being unprepared to have children, or unable to conceive, the birth rate dropped from around two hundred million a year to only a few million.
It happened almost immediately but nobody really noticed for years as it was never mentioned by the Corporation news feeds. But then maternity hospitals started closing down as they had little work to do. Following that the schools began to close as there were fewer young students. Then the universities and many hospitals were converted into homes as there were fewer people who needed to use them. Former government buildings, thousands of them, became apartments. Jails were turned into luxury hotels and compounds to be used as living accommodation. This saved the Corporation trillions of dollars which was all put to good use. Then, after ten years or so, unemployment became a thing of the past. Everybody leaving full time education was guaranteed a job and those who were not properly educated were sent to the West Island, just off the west coast of Albion.
‘The Department of Security,’ said George.
‘The Department of Security,’ agreed Edgar, ‘where everybody who did not complete their education, and who could not make any other contribution to the communities, was relocated for further training. They would never leave that department unless they could prove they could make a valuable contribution in other ways to the Corporation.’
‘So what do they spend their lives doing?’
‘Policing, or they joined the military,’ replied Edgar. ‘Some of them are right here in the Complex. The ones you see in uniform come from there but there are many more that are not in uniform, they look just like you and me. They will be monitoring the hy-devs of anybody they choose.’
‘Like me?’ George asked.
‘No son, they won’t be bothering with you. You are no threat. You are making a contribution. They monitor anybody who maybe making a threat to the New Order. Particularly the underground religious movements. Some of those people were so committed to their beliefs that they still practiced them, in secret. But as the generations went by fewer and fewer of them bothered with it. It’s dying out altogether but the Department of Security keeps an eye on them.
‘What about outside the Complex?’ Asked George.
‘They are everywhere,’ Edgar told him. ‘The Department of Security are watching everybody all over the Corporation, on every Central Complex and in every town, city and village. That is what they are trained to do on the West Island. They are stationed on great ships in the seas around our perimeter; they are at the Hydroports and Seaports. They are in the air, in space and even under the sea. And that’s a good thing; it means we can all sleep peacefully in our beds at night. Because the last thing we need, as a species, is all that religious nonsense taking over again. Look at the good it did last time it had any influence over their communities. Both Islam and Christianity. Neither have been allowed in the West since the Incorporation forty three years ago. Life has been so much easier since. And much safer.’
‘I can see that now,’ said George, ‘although I don’t like the idea of being watched all the time. But I wouldn’t want any religion, as you have described it, to be in control of anything ever again. And you still haven’t explained to me exactly what it was yet.’
‘Firstly,’ Edgar reminded George, ‘I have told you. You are not being watched, you are not a threat. Just keep your head down, make your contribution and live quietly. If you are doing that then you can have a great life. You will be safe, ignored and able to or go wherever you want at anytime you want. Stay out of their focus son, like I have, and you will find life is so much better compared to what it was like when I grew up in the democracy. There have been no wars, no famines, no religious threats and having fewer people around is probably the best thing of all.’
George was pacing around the room and listening intently. ‘How come?’ he asked.
’For example, look at this building. There used to be six apartments on this top floor alone with about thirty people living between them. Now I can have it all to myself. It was the same downstairs. It was the same in your building and the same thing all across the Complex, Division of Albion and the whole Corporation. Where there was once one hundred people there are now about ten. Those who want to have families, and can prove they are responsible enough, can have the fertility treatment for free these days. They can have children as long as they themselves can look after them and do not expect the Corporation to pay for everything, like the last governments did with their welfare system.’
‘And what was that?’ George asked as he tapped onto his hy-dev. The message was from Tibha and read, ‘Harry’s Bar, Butler’s Wharf, H14.’
‘Well, that was really the downfall of all democracies. It was started with good intentions. People who worked, who had jobs were paid salaries. Not unlike the allowance and expenses you receive now for your contribution. I was one of those people, most of us were. But, the governments took a small amount away before we even received our money and put it into a big fund. Imagine that George, billions of people all having a small amount of money taken away from them, with no choice, to pay for whatever their elected governments decided to spend it on. Well, they set up something called the Welfare State which gave some of that money to people who did not have jobs and could not find any. The elderly, for example, or the sick and the injured. And people with children they could not afford to feed themselves. And those who were homeless were given somewhere to live. All the people you will find in that book you are working on by Charles Dickens. That sort of poverty was ended. The money, our money, was spent on building houses for those who didn’t have anywhere to live. People who were ill or injured could be looked after in our hospitals for free.’
‘But that sounds like a great idea,’ said George enthusiastically as he tapped a reply to Tibha; ‘sounds lovely, that’s downstairs from Edgar’s and I am here now. See you at 14.’
’It was a great idea, to begin with.’ Edgar agreed.’ And it worked very well. Those who were fortunate enough to have something contributed a little to those who were not.’
‘So what was the problem with that?’
‘The problem was that within two generations there were increasing numbers of people who grew up expecting this. They didn’t even look for any work. This was back in the days when anybody could have children whenever they liked and the more they had, the more money the governments gave them. And the bigger the houses they built for them. There were millions of the little bastards. Life became so easy that before long people from all sorts of places were moving to Albion and claiming money to live here with. Money that people like me were paying into the system. Do you know George; there even became such a thing as Health Care Tourists?
’Heath Care Tourists?’ George questioned.
‘Yes, people who were sick or injured would travel to Albion from all over the planet and then claim they had become sick or injured whilst they were here. By doing that they could then receive the best medical care in the world, for free. Well, not for free, I was paying for it. The rest of us were. And the government encouraged this. It was madness, sheer madness. And this number of people grew and grew, the Welfare Generation they were called. And then governments, who looked no further ahead than the next elections, which were every four or five years, would promise and then give these people more and more benefits. It was old fashioned and crude attempt to buy their votes and secure power again for themselves.
It was something that all Left Wing governments did. They promised money to the poor and lazy that had been squeezed from the hard working and barely solvent. And they were the people who naturally voted for the other side, the Right Wing governments. The problems all started when their own favoured politicians began behaving in the same way and that is how they all fell into such huge debt in the years leading up to Incorporation. Of course, the big business, the wealth creators, could cash in by lending governments vast amounts of money and then charging great rates of interest. And that made them richer and the ordinary people poorer. It was another reason the Corporation found it so easy to launch their takeover bid. They promised to end all of that corruption and we were easily persuaded.’
‘Because real power is defined by money or violence,’ said George quietly. ‘I read that somewhere during ASPP training and I always wondered what it meant. Now I can see what it means. It means power over the people, control over others.’
‘That’s exactly what it means George and we should be grateful that the good guys won. There was no place in modern society for the Welfare State, Health Tourism, religion or, for that matter war. The Corporation have given us many good things, made many good decisions and society is run properly now as any business should be. There is no debt, everybody has a job and makes a real contribution. When I was younger people had to work until they were at least seventy-years old. Sometimes even older than that. You will be withdrawn at fifty-six. That’s it; your contribution is made and then you get to live the rest of your life safely, happily and go and see the world if that’s what you want to do. Or spend the rest of your life at lunch if you prefer, like I do.’
‘So you were a scientist in those days?’ asked George.
‘And I was a lucky one too.’ Edgar admitted. ‘I worked in a medical centre with some of the finest former Muslim scientists in the field of medicine. I was only a junior but, as a team, we developed a vaccination that made it easy for women to conceive children again. It was an antidote to the virus we had identified that was making nearly everybody sterile. But it was very expensive and only the privileged few could afford it although it did work. With just one injection any woman could become pregnant. As long as she was in a fifteen year marriage contact and had the money, then she could have a child. The Human Race was saved from extinction George, that’s how important the discovery was, or at least how it seemed, at the time. That vaccine neutralised the virus and reversed its effects. One of the senior scientists took most of the credit, I was only an assistant, but we were all rewarded, given an empty unit to live in, for free, and a generous living allowance. We were all encouraged to set up our own research laboratories and carry on our work but nobody had to. Our contribution had been made, for life. I have Dr Khan to thank for that; and a great man he was too.’
‘So that explains the laboratory you have,’ George pointed to the closed door at the far end of the room. He had never been inside there but had once passed the open door when he was much younger. It was mainly plasma screens covered with what appeared to be mathematical equations that he new nothing about. Nor did he have much interest in. It wasn’t his subject. But he did notice the mice, the rabbits and the guinea pigs. George had no interest in animals either, even when he was younger, apart from dogs. He promised himself he would have a dog one day when he had reached his withdrawal age. He could keep it in Cape Town where there was plenty of room and countryside nearby. The Central Complex was no place to keep a dog.
‘So you were all rewarded with early withdrawal. What have you been going since then?’ George enquired.
‘Living my life young man. Watching sport, gambling, drinking and enjoying the company of women. I like to read too. That’s why I kept all those books in the chest I once showed you. But I haven’t looked in there for years now. All the books I need are right here,’ Edgar fingered his hy-dev, ‘in this book archive. Thanks to people like you George, and those before you. It’s an important job you have there; making sure history is reflected properly in fiction. I sometimes carry out experiments and submit my findings to the Research Department but science has moved on such a long way since my day. I really haven’t kept up with it.’
‘You haven’t missed religion since it was banned?’
Edgar laughed, ‘no way. I was always an atheist anyway, I never believed in any of that hocus pocus, thank God.’ He laughed some more at his own joke. George didn’t really see what was funny.
‘What about democracy, is there anything you miss about the old way of government?’ he asked.
Edgar considered his reply. ‘Well, I suppose I liked the idea that we were all responsible for our communities. Countries, as we used to call them. That we could vote for who we wanted to govern us and that they would do whatever they had promised for everybody in return for that vote. The idea of democracy is a good one in theory; it’s just that it doesn’t work in practice. I remember that after the other war I told you about, between the old European countries where one of them sent all the religious Jewish people away who then found a way of defeating them. Do remember I told you earlier?’ George nodded. ‘Well, after that war the Welfare State was set up by the next government. And at the very same time a group of wealthy and influential businessmen from all over the old countries of the West began meeting up once a year at a hotel called The Eiderberg.
They said they were meeting to discuss how to improve trade between the West in general and the rest of the world. All the richest people of their generation were at some point invited to the meetings and as they grew older and died out the younger generation joined in and took over. Within twenty years or so the Eiderbergers, as they were known, were the owners of all the major news feeds, internet information companies, advertising companies and everything else we could gather information from. They owned all the banks too and the technology companies. And this meant they could persuade us who to vote for and who not to vote for. The governments knew this too and so it was in their own interest to bring in or modify laws that suited the Eiderbergers and their business needs. Because nobody could ever be elected, anywhere in the West, without their endorsement.
People had become lazy George. Whenever there was an election the Eiderbergers made sure all the so called democratic votes went in their favour. It was easy for them when all over the news feeds they owned one candidate was presented as the great reformer and the other was seen to be backed into a corner and accused of lying, cheating and fraud. Who would you vote for? And so everybody voted in the way their news feeds encouraged them too. The news feeds owned by the Eiderbergers. It was mass hypnotism and it meant they got the governments they needed for their own interests and we, the actual voters, got the governments we deserved. The rich got richer and the rest of us picked at pieces. This became widely known just before Incorporation. Thanks to the internet, which was still unregulated at the time, people started learning all about the way the Eiderberg Group controlled politics from behind the scenes and that democracy was a sham. The vote counted for nothing.’
Edgar then patiently explained that the cornerstone of democracy was the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech. It was something the news feeds fought for the right to and governments tried to regulate. It was an honest attempt by some honest people to hold back the tide of force. The problem for them was, as more and more people began to realise, that the news feeds, the television channels, the newspapers and the internet information channels were all owned by members of the Eiderberg Group. And the freedom of the press was only free for those who owned it. That was the elite few who funded the political campaigns that led to the so-called fair elections of their own representatives. It was they who decided who would be able to govern, not the voters. In truth the Free Press practiced censorship as a policy.
Democracy, of the fashion that the Greeks imagined it to be, had never existed at all in the Western Empire. Ancient Greek society arranged a system that allowed all people to cast a vote, privately. An announcement would be made and each person could then drop either a black or white stone into a pit. These were then counted and if the majority of the stones were white then the proposal was approved. If the majority were black then it meant the people disagreed. It was infantile but it worked in small communities where everybody was informed by their own means. It was the pure democracy. However, in the great Western Empire, where people were manipulated by controlled information, their opinions could only be formed by the source of that information. Real democracy never existed in modern times. Edgar reminded George once again that if voting had made any difference at all then it would never have been allowed.
‘Ordinary people George,’ Edgar concluded, ‘who were either too stupid or too lazy to think for themselves simply voted for whoever their favourite news feed led them towards. And that was not a democracy, it was a sham. I, for one, was glad to see the back of it. And the back of the Eiderberg Group too.’
Chapter Seven
‘If you all knew the Old Order didn’t work and that all these powerful business leaders were really in charge behind the scenes,’ said George thoughtfully, ‘then why didn’t you all oppose them? In a democracy you could do that, couldn’t you?’
’No, I was glad to see the back of democracy son, most of us were.’ Edgar repeated. ‘Things are so much better now. The vote was the greatest appeasement and con-trick of the last one thousand years. By the time Incorporation became an option the population did not need to be coerced, threatened or bullied towards it. We were offered free and wireless energy, Wi-Hy, cheaper and bigger homes to live in, better jobs, cheap and easy travel and a permanently stable economy that actually made a profit. It was as near to the perfect society that democracy could never assemble.
Although, some people did resist the change George. But there were only a few and mainly for the reason of attracting attention to themselves. But, by then, society had reached the stage where few people could really be bothered. Most young people were too busy trying to become reality television stars or were pretending to be something they were not on the internet. In the same way as governments, for centuries, had encouraged ordinary people to follow sport or the theatre or film stars, the Eiderbergers gave their generation Reality Television.’
‘I think I get it,’ said George. ‘I was reading about this when I did a project on the Romans during ASPP. They used the great shows in the Coliseums and the Arenas to give ordinary people something to look forward to and then talk about. The more people who talked about the great spectacles then the fewer there would be who were wondering what the Emperors and other rulers were getting up to. It diverted attention. And for your generation it was football and cricket and other sports at the weekend that distracted people from government issues or scandals.’
‘Not everybody son but you are right.’ Edgar agreed. ‘That’s why they were paid so much money to do so little. The Eiderbergers made sure that all the main stories for people to talk about were pretty irrelevant. Unless any of the politicians displeased them, then we never really heard much about politics and government. I, certainly, was more interested in the Chelsea result at the weekend than what the Chancellor of the Exchequer was trying to achieve. And then, for the generation below me, your grandfather’s age group, they added reality television to keep people’s minds away from the real political issues, such as Incorporation, during the years leading up to the takeover.’
‘I’ve read about that,’ said George. ‘Wasn’t that when ordinary people, with no talent at all, could get themselves onto television and become famous, almost immediately?’
‘Sort of,’ Edgar replied. ‘Only it wasn’t the winners of the shows people watched them for. Nobody really cared about them. It was the failures they found more entertaining. It was simply a repeat of the old Victorian practice, one hundred and fifty years earlier, of spending a Sunday afternoon down at the local lunatic asylum laughing at people who were locked away in there for believing they were something they were not. It was a shocking way to deal with the deluded. Reality television was just a repeat of that sort of entertainment. The Eiderbergers encouraged society, through their news media and television channels, to tune in and watch for the failures. It was the deluded, people who genuinely believed they were something they could never be. Such as a singer, or an actor.
All the Eiderbergers really needed were for more people to be interested in what Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, after they released film of themselves having sex on the unregulated internet, were doing than they were in either their intentions or in voting. Within one generation any real interest in politics had been replaced by people who spent their entire lives shopping, on the beach or giving blowjobs that were filmed on camera phones. That was how I saw it anyway. People hated genuine and hard earned success and loved to see ordinary, talentless people becoming instantly famous. It gave them hope and it was all part of a plan.’
George thought about this. ‘And so it was the culture of ‘that could be me’ and without any real effort either. That would explain the tens of thousands who queued at the auditions for these vulgar spectacles. And the news feeds all encouraged this with enthusiasm.’
Edgar smiled and then broke into a sympathetic laugh. ‘It was a society where Kim Kardashian had more followers on her social network sites than the President of the United States. It was a society in which being an idiot, or a bad amateur porn slut, had an obvious value. It became a society where few were prepared to learn, work, experiment, practice or do any of the things needed in order to make a real contribution to anything. Instead they made role models of clueless idiots for their next generation to learn from. Nearly half of society, nearly all of the youngsters, worshipped this. The bottom fifty percent. The underclass, the clueless, the welfare generation were all the victims of the Eiderberg Group who encouraged them to make fools of themselves. And that particular generation would never run out of fools.’
‘So,’ George responded, ‘did this mean that anybody who aspired to be part of the reality generation, either to watch or to be seen, were as bad as each other?’
‘Well, when it reached the point that Government Ministers had to compete for attention with these idiots by themselves appearing on daytime television programmes in a seven minute item sandwiched between the round up of the latest reality television drama and a recipe from the new celebrity chef, that it all became vulgar in the extreme. They were, apparently, our country’s finest minds who were seen to be desperately trying to impress the lowest common denominator. That was the unemployed and those pretending to be in further education. In other words, the future majority and their future voters. Our elected leaders had come to depend upon the irrelevant.
Anyway, it’s all so long ago now son. It doesn’t matter anymore. The Corporation simply took it all off television. They removed it from the news feeds and they all disappeared into obscurity. But I do remember reading that most of these people caught the virus, meaning they were unable to have children themselves and so their genetic line ran out of steam. Most of them died of natural causes and left no legacy behind them. We remembered them as the childless generation. The X Generation we called them in the scientific community.’
‘But you had developed the cure by then?’ George remembered.
‘And it wasn’t for any of them George,’ Edgar reflected. He then started laughing again. ‘If the Human Race was going to survive and then prosper once more then it did not need that particular, curious gene among its number. I have to admit that was a peculiar human characteristic that I was pleased to see extinguished. And I wasn’t the only one. The Corporation didn’t need it either. Only the Eiderbergers wanted the vast majority of the population to be distracted in that sort of way. You see, if you asked any child from my generation, or from before, what they wanted to be when they grew up they would say something like ‘a footballer, or a guitarist, or a cricketer or athlete.
And then they would go and spend most of their younger lives practicing or learning how to do just that. The good ones then became popular, rich and famous. One single generation later, thanks to the Eiderberger culture, when you asked a child what they wanted to be when they grew up they would simply reply, ‘famous.’ Because they knew there was a chance they could be just that without having to waste any time by learning to be actually any good at anything. Fortunately the Corporation eased that particular delusion out of society within one generation. There are no more freak shows anymore. Everybody contributes something worthwhile these days and that’s another great thing the Corporation did for us.’
‘I read somewhere,’ said George, ‘that if somebody’s bicycle had a puncture people would stop and try to help them. But if a Rolls Royce broke down then most people would laugh.’
‘I am afraid that just about sums up society in the years leading up to incorporation.’ Edgar pondered. ‘There was a lot of jealousy and resentment from those who were enjoying the Welfare State towards those who created the wealth that paid for them. In the end, those with the money get the decisions in their favour George. And in the end they incorporated the entire Western Empire, and sent those who contributed nothing to the West Island to train for military and security contributions. Then the virus broke out, they all became sterile, couldn’t afforded the reversal procedure and their entire genetic line began to die out. They couldn’t have any more children and the ones that already had found that they would never be able to have children themselves when they grew up. There will be a few of them left over there; I don’t doubt it. But what with illness and old age? Well, you can see how the population dropped so rapidly can’t you.’
‘Where did this virus start granddad. Do you know how?’ George asked him.
Edgar stood up and walked to the window, deep with thought. ’It began in the prisons.’ He appeared to be thinking out loud. ‘Doctors started noticing a pattern among prisoners who had been released and who were then applying for fertility treatment. It did exist back then but it wasn’t working very well and nobody really cared. I remember the news feeds asking us if we really wanted the criminally minded to be able to reproduce a new generation and wouldn’t it be better if they were eventually removed from the Gene Pool. And because most of those people were part of the Welfare Generation, and were all receiving benefits from the old governments, the virus began to spread among their communities too. The unemployed and the unemployable all became infertile and that was a shame for them. Because when we developed the vaccine to reverse its affects they were exactly the type of people who could not afford to pay for it.’
George watched Edgar as he stared out of the window and across the Complex. He began to feel the early effects of what would become an uneasy feeling.
‘I am still not convinced that democracy, the idea of government by the people for the people, was such a bad idea in general,’ announced George. ‘After all, does anybody know who the current Main Board actually are? Or even who the Regional Board Managers are? Take the Western Division of Albion for example, who runs it. Who is in charge?’
‘Why do you care?’ Edgar responded. ‘It works and that’s all we need to know. Take it from me, I lived under the old system and the new order of things is so much better. Let me explain it to you in another way. The central ideology of democracy depended upon each person, who was entitled to vote, making an intelligent and rational decision based upon what he or she regarded as their best interests. But organised political parties found a way to bypass this and instead would appeal directly to the unconscious mind, in the first case, and then to the lazy. The unconscious mind they could reach through subliminal means such as advertising and biased news reporting. For that they needed the news feeds to be part of their program, or at least the owners of the news feeds and that’s how the Eiderbergers became so powerful and influential.’
‘And the lazy, how did they convince them?’ George wanted to know.
’By lying of course. A lazy person never bothers to learn anything for themselves. They never have done. Instead they would just rely on the opinions of others, who may be equally lazy. Remember this George; a person who doesn’t read for themselves is no better informed, in the end, than the person who can’t read at all.
Democracy was only ever supported where there was an economic interest involved. It was about securing control of the world's resources. Incorporation of the West simply made that more honest and better able to achieve. Foreign intervention by governments in the shape of war were only ever carried out for economic benefit and not, as the old governments used to claim, in the interest of national security. That was until the big one. The seventeen year War of Religion that forced democracy out as a system of government. As soon as it was no longer relevant then the whole structure could become more honest, more self interested and competitive. There was no bloody revolution, just the shuffling out of the old order and in with the new. It was a properly planned and structured take over with a viable business model for the long term future.’
Edgar was confident of his memory in this case. He knew he remembered the take over as he had been part of the Corporation at the time. But once he and the rest of his generation had passed then history would be secure in the image of the Main Board, because they were writing it themselves. Edgar was lost in his thoughts. To know what to remember and what not to was no dilemma for him. Life had changed for the better after incorporation and so why would he complain. Why would anybody? Control was then at least in the hands of experienced, professional businessmen.
They were the men and woman who were more than capable of running western economies. There was little dissent. The overwhelming emotion of the time was one of relief and optimism. There would never again be career politicians. The opportunists, who left their educational programmes, joined a political party and never themselves had a real job before claiming to be able to represent those who did. Edgar remembered them all too clearly. He remembered those oily people. Lying for the votes. Vain, media whores who delighted in the sort of television fame that was shared with vacant, empty, talentless reality stars that dominated the news feeds of the day. And the vacant, empty viewers who adored them all. The Main Board took all of that nonsense away too, declaring it a ‘loss maker’ in the long term.
And all the time there was the Public Relations Department. Smooth, seamless, polished and making sure nobody got to see, hear or say anything that may damage the image of the new Corporation. Inevitably there would be descent and demonstration, from time to time, but the news media could only broadcast what the Main Board allowed them too. Within a decade dissent had all but melted away and, within a single generation, nobody could even remember what they had even been marching for when they were younger. And there was no record of any dissent in the archives. By AI43 nobody could even be sure if they had a genuine memory of anything from the previous democracy.
George sat quietly and looked out over the Central Complex. He thought about everything Edgar had told him and tried to make sense of the incorporation. He had learned something about the old democracy but never about the massive drop in population. He knew nothing of the virus. All he knew was that every human being had to be in a valid fifteen-year marriage contract to be able to apply for the fertility treatment that would enable them to have children of their own. And to qualify for a fifteen-year marriage licence each person had to have been involved in at least five single year contracts that had not had its terms and conditions compromised. Nor must they have committed any crime or breached their contract with the Corporation. If they had then fertility was removed as an option for them. Their genetic line would die out with them and be removed from the human pool altogether.
Looking at the wall clock George remembered his date with Tibha. He gathered his things together and Edgar activated the elevator. As he turned the corner of the building the cold November wind tore into him and George hurried for the doorway of Harry’s Bar where he quickly found an empty table at the window. The long dark wooden bar ran the length of the unit and the mirrored wall behind gave the appearance of a much bigger area than the owners of Harry’s Bar needed. He watched through the window as the great Tower Bridge opened to allow one of the Corporation security ships into the Complex and then he studied his surroundings. The open, exposed brickwork walls were exactly the same as Edgar’s and in the centre of one wall there was a large open fireplace, filled with unburned logs. George considered the brickwork for a few moments and then, suddenly, he grabbed his hy-dev, hurried out of the bar, back around the corner and into the main hallway of Edgar’s building.
‘What war?’ he asked Edgar frantically as he entered the apartment.
‘What’s that son?’ he replied without looking up, ‘the one in the Middle East that’s been going on now for forty years or more?’
‘No,’ George told him. ‘The one that you said something about the prisoners who built all this.’ He cast his hand around the room. ‘What prisoners, what war, who was fighting who?’
’Ahh that,’ Edgar sighed. ‘Well, I don’t know much about it but when I was at school we learned about the Napoleonic War’s between France and England which was around two hundred and fifty years ago. The old man who used to be the caretaker here told me that the captured French prisoners were brought here to the Central Complex and used as builders. They were responsible for a lot of the....’
George interrupted him. ‘The Napoleonic Wars?’
‘That’s right,’ replied Edgar. ‘Some little French dictator tried to invade England but our army saw him off and beat him at the Battle of Waterloo in the end.’
‘Right here, just down the road were the Hydrostation is?’
‘No George, the station was named after the battle. England beat France in the war. Why are you suddenly so interested?’
‘Because some of the things you have said just do not make sense. For a start, England at war with France? Two hundred and fifty years ago? And the French prisoners built this building. This very building? That must mean it was true. I mean, if they were actually here and built all this, including that fireplace, then French prisoners were here. There was a France and there was an England. Because this was a hundred years before Charles Dickens and hundreds of years after Shakespeare. Does this mean England did exist, France did exist, and they weren’t simply made up by fiction writers after all?’
Edgar paused, looked up from his hy-dev and replied, ‘I can’t remember now son, it’s all so long ago and I am not really sure about what was real and what I have been told is real after forty years of Corporation news feeds. I can’t remember anymore. Don’t worry about it. Just make your contribution, do what you have been trained to do and enjoy a quiet life. You don’t need to know anymore than you have been taught.’
But George did need to know. As usual, George needed to know everything. He once again made his way down in the elevator, around the corner, sat back down and waited for Tibha. He was busy searching his archives for the Napoleonic Wars when she arrived and stood next to his table. He didn’t notice her.
‘You seem confused George,’ Tibha said gently. ‘You look as if you have just recovered from a general anaesthetic. Is everything alright?’
George stared into his cup as he absorbed everything Edgar had told him. Without looking up he asked, ‘what does your hy-dev archive say about the Welfare State?’
‘Oh, and nice to see you too?’ she replied. George apologised, stood up and gave Tibha a warm hug that surprised both of them. They sat down and she began tapping onto her screen before finally looking up and saying, ‘nothing.’
‘No, nor does mine.’ George told her. ‘And what about the Fifth Column?’
After a short while Tibha looked up and said, ‘Something about the Spanish Civil war when an army general was approaching the Iberian Central Complex with four columns of soldiers and he famously announced that he could rely upon the support of what he called his Fifth Column. He believed they were his supporters who lived on the Complex and who would rise together and join the attack from the inside as soon as he gave the order.’
George looked at her affectionately and said, ‘so does mine.’ He then sent an instant message to Will asking him the same question and received a single word answer. ‘Nothing,’ it read. He then started to tell Tibha as much of his conversation with Edgar as he could remember. ‘What does your archive say about the Peaceful Repatriation Program?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Mine neither. Chancellor of the Exchequer?’
‘Nothing.’ Tibha repeated.
’Ok, Health Care Tourists or Reality Television?’
Tibha tapped away and finally said, ‘Again, nothing.’
‘Nor does mine,’ George replied. His hy-dev then flashed him up an alert which gave him the archive on the Napoleonic Wars. ‘Try the Napoleonic Wars, he asked her as he began to study his own reference.
‘The Napoleonic Wars. The Division of Gaul was taken over during a people’s revolution led by a General Napoleon Bonaparte. He was finally stopped by a hero of the Division of Albion in OC1815 at a place called Waterloo on the mainland. Millions of people died and one of the Complex Hydrostations was named in honour of the occasion and to serve as a reminder that revolution can only cost millions of lives and can never be successful.’ George read the words out loud and looked at Tibha.
‘1815 of the Old Calendar,’ she noted. ‘That’s the period of the Romantics and yet my archive says nothing.’
‘Have you ever wondered how accurate these hy-dev archives are?’ George questioned.’ Edgar has just told me so many things that he remembers from the old days and yet I can find no record of them. Nothing at all. Perhaps he is going mad after all?’
He tapped out an instant message to both Will and Hugo, ‘what does your archive say about the infertility virus?’
‘Nothing,’ Will replied moments later.
Hugo; ‘on 15th hole, back on the complex at H16, see you in Harry’s and then we can have a look.’
‘Well,’ said Tibha, ‘I have noticed that some of the things I remember being taught as a youngster seem slightly different now that I am an adult. But I always assumed that it was because I am now fully trained and perhaps didn’t remember something clearly. Young minds do that sometimes, they store information in an unreliable way. We were always being taught that.’
‘We were taught that as every day goes by nothing much seems to change.’ George replied. ‘And then, one day we look back and everything appears to be different. They told us that was the best approach to learning history we could have. That the current archive was always accurate and not to worry if we remembered things differently.’
‘If only we still had real books,’ complained Tibha. ‘Once they were published they could not be altered. That was why they were phased out but I would love to know what they first said. What the original writers had to say. I mean, even the updating we are doing now may have already been carried out once before, if not more. The problem with the hy-dev archive George is that the information we have is only as reliable as the information somebody else puts there. Who is to say it is real? I sometimes wonder about breaking into the real book archive at the work zone and reading some of the originals.’
George looked across at her with the face of a man with important news. ‘We can,’ he told her. ‘We can do exactly that.’ George swiped his ident-card at the terminal on the table which paid his bill and grabbed Tibha by the arm.
‘Come with me,’ he demanded excitedly.
Edgar smiled to himself as he, once again, granted George access to the elevator and studied the attractive features of his companion in the camera feed on his screen. He could also hear their conversation.
‘I hope you are not thinking about going down to the work zone and....’ George interrupted her.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘We have just the thing we need, right here.’
Edgar grinned to himself, made his way to his favourite armchair and poured a large whiskey. He felt he deserved an early one.
‘Granddad,’ George called from the elevator doorway.
‘Yes I know, you have brought Mira to meet me,’ the old man called back across the room.
George immediately stopped. Mira? He had forgotten all about her. ‘Ah, no, this is Tibha, the girl from the work zone I told you about.’
‘You have been talking about me?’ she said quietly. Tibha was pleased to hear that. George had seemed to ignore every signal she gave him and appeared to show little interest in her at all.
‘Mira is still in Cape Town, I hope.’ George replied. ‘Anyway, I promised to show Tibha some real books. She has never seen one, well not properly anyway. Can I have the key to the chest in the storeroom? The chest with all the books in it.’
Edgar was pleased with himself. He had finally sparked enough interest in George to go and start finding things out for himself. To find out what had really happened to the old democracy and how the New Order had created modern society.
‘Of course son, I am surprised you have never asked before, what with you being such a book geek.’
‘It never occurred to me before,’ replied George. ‘I had everything I needed on my hy-dev archive. Or at least, thought I did. I have thousands of books in my archive. I never needed to look for real ones; they are too heavy, too old and too dirty. Nobody looks at old book formats anymore.’
’So why now?’ Edgar asked him casually.
‘It’s a project we are working on,’ said Tibha, ‘and, by the way, it is so nice to meet you. George has told me lots about you?’
‘You too darling,’ the old man said casually as he sipped on his whiskey and turned back to his wall screen. ‘It’s on the hook in the hallway, where it has always been Georgie Boy. Just where you have walked past it every time you have been in here. Where it has always been son.’
‘I haven’t told you anything about him,’ George whispered to Tibha as they walked along the hallway.
‘Then you should have done,’ she teased.
She could barely contain her excitement at the thought of holding books for the first time in her life. She had seen them during the induction on her first day in the work zone but had been too overwhelmed to actually touch one. Now she could pick one up for the first time but, more importantly, she could see for herself what some of them said. George pushed open the solid wooden door that revealed Edgar’s neat rows of boxes and storage crates. In the far corner stood a large, heavy wooden chest with a two leather straps and a strong brass lock. George eased the key into the lock, slowly turned it and they listened to it clink open. As he lifted the heavy lid Tibha gasped, ‘oh my word,’ through the fingers that covered her mouth.
‘I never in a million years thought I would ever see this.’
Tibha began to take books out of the chest. She fanned through the pages of some of them, brushed the dust off a few others and started to place them neatly upon one of the empty shelves with the spines facing towards her so she could read each title and author.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Treasure Island, the original copy. David Copperfield, it’s you Mr Dickens, nice to finally meet you in person,’ she said as she held it up to the light.
As they lifted the books out and placed them along the shelf George’s attention was finally drawn to something else, stored neatly towards the bottom of the chest.
‘And what on earth is this?’ he asked.
Tibha stared into the chest and studied the object.
‘I have no clue at all,’ she replied quietly.
Chapter Eight
‘It’s called a laptop.’ Edgar informed them as Tibha placed in upon the table in front of him. ‘It’s my old laptop. Where did you find that? I haven’t seen this in forty years.’
‘It was in the chest with the books.’ George told him. ‘What is this?’ He was holding a lead with a three pin plug on the end of it.
‘It’s the power cable. In those days we used to have to plug things into an electricity system. And pay for it. We didn’t have free wireless hydrogen power in those days.’
‘So you couldn’t take it any further than the length of this,’ Tibha pointed at the cable.
Edgar ignored the question but instead replied, ‘but when Wi-Hy became available and everybody could simply connect to the wireless power supply we could use a little USB converter.’
Edgar pointed to the hydrogen USB power supply plugged in to the side of the laptop. ‘It is exactly the same thing as your hy-dev, only an older version.’ He told them. ‘And they had hard drive storage, not the modern applications, so we would download information and it was stored as it was. Not like the apps you have nowadays that can be updated automatically. With those laptops we had to do that manually. Half of us didn’t bother. They were phased out after Incorporation and everybody was allocated one of the early hy-devs. I don’t even know why I kept that,’ Edgar continued. ‘Try it, it might even still work. There is no reason why not.’
George and Tibha stared at the old relic. Neither had seen anything quite so old fashioned before.
‘Maybe later granddad.’
‘You have some fabulous books in there sir,’ Tibha exclaimed as she took George’s hand to lead him back towards the store room. Patiently and carefully they continued to lift out the books and line them along the shelving. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, Animal Farm, Robinson Crusoe, Brave New World. George began to arrange them in alphabetical order and Tibha said excitedly, ‘look, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Wasn’t it Mark Twain who invented the word ‘America?’
George was busy organising Edgar’s books. ‘Crime and Punishment, Dracula, 1984, Tale of Two Cities. He stopped and fingered the hard cover before turning it over to read the sleeve notes. He read the first line out loud, ‘Annotated version with modernised sentence structure.’
‘Why does that surprise you?’ asked Tibha. ‘So they were updating and modernising the content of later versions of old books. That’s all we are doing and I suppose it will always be done. The English language is a living thing George. It is always evolving. Nobody speaks like Shakespeare anymore. Who ever said to you ‘where for art thou’ instead of ‘where are you?’
‘I understand that,’ said George. ‘But this could be important. You see the whole book is about London and Paris. They are the two cities of the title and it is all about the period of time in Paris and London during the French Revolution and the war with England. The Napoleonic Wars. Edgar said it was French prisoners of those wars that built these buildings.’
‘So what?’ asked Tibha
‘I’ll tell you so what,’ replied George. ‘It means if they were real, if those men were actually here, then this is not pure fiction is it. It means Charles Dickens did not invent the war or London or Paris. They could have been real events, real places. And if so where were they?’
‘So the correcting or the annotating, as it says there, wasn’t simply updating the language for the modern reader, it was re-writing history. They were actually changing it, not correcting or updating it.’ Tibha seemed to understand.
‘Exactly,’ George responded as he sat down onto the floor and opened A Tale of Two Cities. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven.’
‘There is that word ‘heaven’ again,’ said George. ‘Dickens used it a lot.’ As he was about to read some more his hy-dev pinged him a message. It was from Hugo; ‘in Harry’s Bar, where you?’
George carefully placed the laptop into his bag and told Edgar they would be back in a few hours. Hugo was waiting at a table by the fireplace where a huge log fire was now crackling away and warming his frozen bones.
‘I don’t even know why you play golf in this weather.’ George told him.
‘I was with Dr Abraham, my old supervisor before he was withdrawn.’ Hugo said, ‘I like to see him once every few months and he is a keen golfer. It’s the best way to spend any time with him.’
‘Yes I remember him,’ George said as he sat down. ‘He was the son of Lord Kingston, a member of the last government.’
Hugo nodded and then introduced himself to Tibha. ‘I remember you from the induction,’ he told her. ‘Why aren’t you in Cape Town?’ he asked George.
‘Long story,’ George told him as he studied Harry’s Bar menu on his hy-dev. After he had placed an order for some pizza and a bottle of fine red wine George reached into his bag and pulled out Edgar’s old laptop.
‘Dr Abraham has one of those,’ Hugo noted. ‘It was his father’s. Here, I will show you how it works. They are not like Hydrogen Devices that only store information in applications; laptops each have their own storage facility. Like a mini server inside that can only be updated manually and never remotely as they are these days. I can’t imagine ever working on one of those but they all used to in the old days.’
Hugo pulled the laptop across the table, fingered the hydrogen converter to make sure it was securely in place and pressed the power button. All three sat patiently watching the blank screen for what appeared to be about ten minutes before a rotating logo appeared before their eyes.
‘What’s Windows 8?’ asked Tibha.
‘An old operating system,’ Hugo told her. ‘These were the first that actually used apps but they also had their own storage drives. It will be interesting to see what Edgar kept on his.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said George. ‘You mean there will be information on here that has never been updated or corrected?’
‘That depends on whether your grandfather ever updated anything.’
‘He hasn’t touched it for forty years,’ said George. ‘This is going to be good, especially as he worked on the antidote to the infertility virus. I wonder what his notes say.’
‘That’s if you believe in the virus,’ replied Hugo. ‘Dr Abraham once told me that it was deliberate and that the Corporation had intentionally introduced it.’
The three of them looked at each other as they waited for the logo to stop spinning and the laptop to finally turn itself on.
‘It works,’ cried Hugo. ‘Here, I will show you how the information is stored.’
Hugo began to navigate the files and George stopped him at one that was called The Sunday Globe. Inside were editions that Edgar had downloaded and that were stored on his own hard drive. George realised this was the first time anybody had been given access to Edgar’s files in two generations and he reached into his pocket for some diazepam as he felt the anxiety sweeping through his bones.
‘Open that one,’ he asked Hugo, ‘let’s see what the news was in OC 2015.’ Hugo clicked on the icon of the file and opened the The Sunday Globe of March 1st 2015. The front page editorial ran a satire in the shape of a letter written to the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
‘The second to last President of the democracy,’ Hugo pointed out. The headline read;
‘A Letter of Advice to the President cc David Cameron and Angela Merkel.’
Dear Mr President, (or can I call you Barry, now that we are about to become friends?) I hope this finds you well and sleeping soundly in the White House. However I, myself, have been up all night and have finally solved the U.S Debt Crisis on the back of a whiskey label.
It turns out to be quite simple. Leave Islam and the Middle East alone. Withdraw everybody – soldiers, diplomats, medical and teaching personnel, builders, security guys, experts and anybody else that your predecessor in the White House, the orangutan, (remember him?) sent there in the first place.
Then, don’t send any more cash, guns, drones or medical aid and put some of that 4 – 6 Trillion Dollars you will save towards finding a new way to fuel your cars. Then you won’t need the Arabs anymore. The rest of it you can use to get yourselves out of the crap and reduce your borrowing by one third, at a single stroke.
Now, of course, I have thought about the consequences of such an action. What serious presidential advisor wouldn’t? The result is that the medieval Islamic tribes will all immediately set about killing each other because they believe their version of Islam is the right one and that all the others must die, as horribly as possible. That’s a shame, but isn’t that what you want anyway? And think of all those young American, and other Western, lives you will save because they are NOT THERE.
Oh, but leave Fox News out there so that all of your other religious types of people can watch the inevitable bloodbath on their HD plasma flat-screens. From their armchairs with a cold beer and a hot dog. In fact, why don’t you base Fox News there and you will be rid of them too in the end. And also don’t worry about what the Arabs think from a PR point of view. They will still be celebrating their victory over the infidels in the streets and burning flags and throwing sandals around and shooting the guns (we gave them) into the air long before they realize they are on their own now. By the time it dawns on them we will all be rich again and they will all be hiding from each other in caves.
You can then start reducing the tax you charge your citizens so they can spend more money on donuts and imported beer to stimulate your tattered economy. The Middle East will begin depopulating itself, without your help, which will please the Eiderberg Group and finally silence all the conspiracy theorists. That way everyone is happy and you will be re-elected again as Life President.
Oh, no you can’t. That’s not going to happen is it. But for Cameron and Merkel? Well it’s a win-win for those two. Think of your friends. The Israelis too... They can expand into the newly barren lands, become a holiday resort and offer helicopter tours of former war zones. There can be treks to photograph real life cave-men and they could even re-introduce hunting. Now that it is banned in most of Africa, western hunters can find new, defenceless, animals to bag, take home and make rugs out of. Or trophy heads for their lake cabins. I can see that being big business and the Israelis love that above everything else.
There is another major advantage. Withdrawing now will make sure that your legacy, and David Cameron’s legacy, will not be that Tony Blair and George Bush, who started all this in the first place, will be remembered as World Statesmen, or even fondly, which is exactly what you two are achieving at the moment. And nobody wants to see that do they? You and Dave certainly don’t. Nor do I, I am on your side.
Why has nobody else thought of this? Am I a Genius? You can have that policy for free Mr President, sorry, Barry. It’s on me, in the name of world peace. Well, peace in the West but then who cares about anybody else. I certainly don’t. And another thing, you should sack all of your other advisors; they should have thought of this before me. They have had longer on it.
Yours hopefully
Future Presidential Advisor
‘Tibha’ said George, as he scanned the words for a second time. ‘What does your archive say about David Cameron?’ She tapped away before replying, ‘the second to last Prime Minister of Albion during the old democracy.’
‘Is that all?’ George asked.
‘That’s all.’
‘What about Angela Merkel?’
‘Exactly the same thing, only she was from Germainia.’
‘President Obama?’
‘Same again, this time from America.’
George clicked on a link to another page and found a short story about a scientific experiment which read;
Scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe have announced that Nuclear Fusion has been successfully achieved. This is expected to lead to free energy for every person by eventually making it possible to separate hydrogen from water, a clean, unlimited, natural and renewable resource. It will be possible to convert everything from cars to air conditioning within five years leading to a revolution in the way energy is produced and used on the planet.
’Granddad was a scientist,’ George told the others. ‘I expect this is why he saved this copy. I will ask him about that later on and see what he remembers.’
Tibha watched as Hugo linked to yet another page which carried a story about the war in the Middle East. ‘The Seventeen Year War of Religion,’ George said as he sucked the air in through his teeth and tugged at his earlobe. The headline read;
Further Violence in Syria.
The United Nations has announced today that more troops from America, Great Britain and France will be deployed on the ground as Syrian rebels advance on the capital city. The latest disturbing reports from Damascus warn of what is being described as a lost generation after the International Red Cross released figures suggesting that at least half of the refugees of the Civil War were children under the age of fifteen. Most have lost both parents and seen other family members killed in the escalating violence. Many are turning to crime or being forced to join rebel armies in their ongoing attempt to overthrow the Government.
George scrolled through the online news feed until his attention was drawn to a headline which read;
Fifty-Five Killed in Bomb Attacks on Mosque.
At least fifty-five people have been confirmed dead and another ninety-seven were wounded after a twin bombing of a Shiite Mosque in northern Iraq. The blasts in Tuz Khurmato, an ethnic city around 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, occurred during morning prayers and many of the wounded were attending a nearby market. Authorities believe that at least one was a car bomb. It was the sixth attack on the Shiite town in the last three months.
In Baghdad rival Sunni leaders have announced the closure of their own mosques after claiming that Shiite Muslims were responsible for the bombings themselves in an attempt to incite hatred and encourage revenge attacks. The Sunni sect have recently been protesting about the ‘targeting and injustice shown towards their own clerics, followers and mosques.’
According to United Nations observers more than 3000 people have been killed in the small region, during sectarian clashes, in the last month alone.
George shook his head and clicked on a link to another story with the headline;
Thai Army Opens Fire on Government Protesters.
In Bangkok around 5000 anti government protesters, who tried to force their way into the compound of the Royal Thailand Army headquarters, have been fired upon by government troops. Leaders of the protest claimed they were making a peaceful attempt to persuade the army to help them oust the governing party. ‘We only want to find out whose side the army are on,’ one of them shouted to reporters as they attempted to force open the gates.
Moment’s later machine gun fire scattered the growing crowd in all directions, which answered that particular question in emphatic fashion. Protesters have gathered at five locations around the city in what appears to be a well organised and co-ordinated demonstration. Government sources have suggested that a rebellion may be gathering pace and only last week the state owned Thai Airlines threatened a general workers strike, that would ground the entire fleet, if any of the protesters were harmed.
At the foot of the page another headline read;
Israel steps up its air strikes against Iranian nuclear targets.
Israel have once again defied international opinion and ordered further air strikes on what they have identified as nuclear bomb making facilities throughout Iran. Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Nejab announced, ‘we cannot allow Muslim countries, who are committed to wiping the State of Israel off the face of the map, to develop nuclear weapons. No Jew will ever be safe in their homeland if we do. America and the European Community must do more to protect the Israeli people and eliminate this threat from its Muslim neighbours.’
The American Foreign Office has issued a statement calling for ‘calm and restraint’ to be exercised by both sides. Iran, meanwhile, has condemned the attacks and shown footage on national television of hundreds of casualties from a nearby school. They have described the attacks as ‘monstrous crimes committed by monsters.’
On the second page George was dismayed to read;
Escalation of the tension between China and Japan is unavoidable.
The war involving China and Japan over the disputed territories of the Islands of Senkaku has intensified after China attacked a Japanese airbase in the south of the country. It is thought to be where fighter jets, who had been patrolling the airspace, were stationed. The ownership of the group of nondescript islands in the East China Sea has long been in dispute and the latest development has led the Japanese Government to issue a statement confirming that they have no option other than to retaliate.
The American Ambassadors to both Beijing and Tokyo have called for further peace talks although it seems Japan are committed to striking back against what they are describing as an ‘unprecedented act of violence and a declaration of war by China.’ The United Nations have condemned the attacks and called for a common sense approach and a peaceful solution.
’Was it just war, everywhere back then?’ Hugo wondered.
‘It gets worse,’ George replied as he clicked on the link entitled;
Tensions Flare in Belfast as the Orange Order Parade Turns Ugly.
The American Consulate General in Belfast has warned its citizens to avoid the Protestant protest march as it was likely to turn violent. A statement read ‘During 2014 a number of religious protest marches have been characterised by violence between Catholic and Protestant supporters. In the wake of last week’s car bombing in Belfast City Centre, which killed thirty-five Catholics who were attending Mass, a warning has been issued reminding everybody that innocent bystanders are often caught up in sectarian violence and become victims themselves.
Extremist elements of the Protestant Orange Order are thought to have been behind the attack and the authorities have warned of reprisals. Military personnel and facilities, law enforcement agencies and Catholic gatherings have all been warned to increase their awareness of suspicious vehicles or packages. Last week Northern Island’s Deputy First Minister warned of more protests and violence as the city returns to the general, sectarian lawlessness of the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Tibha sipped at her wine as George read out the report. ‘And this is all in one week?’ Asked Hugo.
‘There is still more,’ George told them as he clicked on the link entitled;
Muslim protests in co-ordinated events at Government buildings in Sydney, Paris, Berlin and Madrid.
Unarmed mobs of Islamic protesters tried to force their way into government buildings throughout the West in what appeared to be co-ordinated events last night. They were met by organised Christian activists who waved provocative banners reading ‘Muhammad is a Liar’ and ‘Jesus is the Truth.’ Muslim leaders appealed for the security services to remove the Christians and when they were reminded that peaceful protests were permitted in Washington DC they decided to take the law into their own hands.
The protesters were demanding that schools only serve halal meat to their children to avoid ‘offending their faith.’ They also demanded that any non-halal meat provided for other children must be prepared in separate kitchens by different cooks.
Within minutes mobs around the world were out onto the streets and in many cases violence erupted and had to be met by strong resistance. It is estimated that nearly 50,000 arrests were made in twenty-seven cities throughout the West. The authorities are examining social network sites to try and find out who organised the protests.
Wearily George then selected the link that read;
Coco, the People’s Choice, Wins the Final Round of Pop Tarts.
Last night 1.5 billion people worldwide tuned in to watch the conclusion of the world’s first international talent competition. In the final round the duo of ‘No Limits’ proved that there were no limits to the depths they would sink to by murdering the Madonna song ‘Papa Don’t Preach.’ There were few in the audience who thought that the original could ever be made any worse but No Limits duly obliged.
Samitar, the sixteen year old hopeful from Birmingham sang an emotional version of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and Boys Aloud capped their performance, without irony, with a cover of the Girls Aloud classic ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ which itself was a copy of a 1967 hit for Tommy James and The Shondells.
Mixi Blixie completed her set with a cover of the All Saints’ hit ‘Under the Bridge,’ and later told the live audience that she had always been a fan of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers but had gone off them when she had heard their copy of the All Saints’ classic. And that was why she chose to do her own version.
But in the end it was a rousing cover of Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ by Coco that received the most phone votes in what must have been the world’s largest ever Karaoke Competition. Reporters for this newspaper have discovered that over five billion votes were cast at $2 for each call which has earned the television channel nearly eleven billion dollars in the process.
Edgar, George realised, had been right. By the year of the Old Calendar 2015 the world was popularised by three identifiable, central characteristics. On the one hand there were billions of people who were prepared to go to war and to die in the name of their two thousand year old, juvenile, superstitions and beliefs. On the other hand there were billions of people who looked no further than the daily, televised, talentless freak shows combining vacuous celebrity with an underclass of people who had nothing to contribute to society. And running through all of this was the increasing loss of control and influence by then elected democratic governments of any nation.
Very few people below the age of thirty-five years old had any interest in politics or democracy and yet still expected to benefit from the Welfare State without making any real contribution to it. It certainly was a society in desperate need of reform and it was becoming increasingly clear to George that religion was the most serious of the issues.
Eventually George clicked on the link that read;
Suicide Bombers Target Diners in a Packed Restaurant.
Terrorist bombers murdered at least 65 people in an attack on a crowded restaurant in the Somali capital of Mogadishu yesterday lunchtime.
A car bomb was detonated at the entrance to the Mary Magdalene Diner and as survivors carried the injured inside a suicide bomber self detonated in the middle of the packed room. The busy restaurant is in the centre of the town close to the Somali Parliament buildings. Witnesses reported seeing smashed glass, twisted tables, blood and large pieces of human flesh. A spokesman for the Mogadishu authorities Yusuf Belene confirmed that ‘first a car bomb exploded at the entrance to the restaurant and when people took cover inside a suicide bomber blew himself up’.
Terrorists from the Al-Shebuub group have claimed responsibility for the attack and say their target was Somali government ministers who regularly ate there. In fact no members of the government were in the building at the time of the attack and the victims were mainly Christian women and children. Al-Shebuub have been at war with government forces in the north of Somalia for three years.
‘We were behind today’s attack,’ a spokesman for the terror group announced on their facebook page. ‘Government officials, military forces and security services regularly meet there and so the Mary Magdalene was a legitimate military target for us.’
Somali President Mohamed Hussein later spoke to the world’s media and said ‘We strongly condemn the deliberate and brutal attack and encourage our neighbours and the rest of the world to join us in fighting terrorism across Africa. The second blast was a cowardly attack on teenage civilians from a nearby school who were only trying to help the victims of the first blast.’
President Hussein’s elected government have been in power for about three years and is committed to rebuilding the country after decades of civil and religious war.
‘This was all in the years leading up to Incorporation,’ said Hugo. ‘I wonder what Dr Abrahams remembers of all this. His father, don’t forget, was a member of the final democratic government.’
‘Do you think he would want to talk about it?’ Tibha asked him.
George studied his old classmate as Hugo stared into the twitching flames in the old iron fireplace.
‘There is only one way to find out,’ he said as he reached for his hy-dev and started tapping onto the screen. Tibha was looking over George’s shoulder and pointed to the link that read;
Kidnapped Pakistani Men Murdered for Refusing to Convert their Faith to Islam.
Reports have been confirmed that three of the five Sikh men who were kidnapped six weeks ago have been beheaded by the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s volatile tribal belt, as a brutal warning by militants to other Sikhs living in the area.
Provincial authorities have revealed that the terrorist group had left the heads of the three victims at a Groupware, a holy Sikh place of worship, in the town of Peshawar at the eastern end of the Khyber Pass.
The remaining two are thought to be still in the hands of the rebel fighters and their fates are, as yet, unknown. There has been confusion over the total number of Sikhs who have been kidnapped and held for ransom although sources say that one man, who escaped, claimed they were being forced to renounce their faith and to swear allegiance to Islam.
The abductions occurred in an area where the government security forces have no control at all and the extremist militants are enforcing Sharia Law upon its occupants. A large number of Sikhs lived in the tribal belt until the Taliban arrived last year and tried to impose their religious tax upon them. Most members of the community then fled to larger and safer cities across Pakistan.
Elsewhere in the city two teenage Muslim boys were pulled from their school classrooms and hanged in the courtyard after being found guilty of apostasy by a council of local Mullahs.
’I feel ill,’ Tibha admitted. George scrolled to the lower half of the page and selected the link marked;
Anti Government Protesters take to the Streets in the Ukraine.
Hugo read the story out loud.
‘Over 300,000 people defied a protest ban in Kiev on Friday night and there were fierce clashes with government security personnel after the crowd began chanting for ‘revolution.’ Anger has been growing about the government’s decision to freeze the country’s integration with the European Union and the West.
A group of demonstrators surrounded the President’s office and were driven back by police using tear gas, water cannon and flash grenades. The police later issued a statement which said that over 100 protesters had been hurt, some seriously. Government opposition leaders, who have occupied a trade union building and set up a temporary headquarters, called for their supporters to remain calm although they have denounced police action as ‘provocative and unnecessary’ whilst calling for the government to resign.
A spokesman announced, ‘the President should show some leadership. The people clearly want to become an integral part of the West and membership of the European Union will secure this. We want to be part of the West; that is vital for the future security of our country.’
Tibha sat back down and said, ‘I don’t want to hear any more of this. What sort of world were they living in back in those days? Was it madness, everywhere?’
It appeared that by 2015 the entire world was experiencing conflict in one form or another. There were people in the streets protesting about their governments, the Middle East was in turmoil with civil unrest and there was talk of revolution in more than half of the countries. Dictators in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq had been overthrown by militant rebels who were supported by secret services and armies from the West. The apparent democratic elections that followed were dominated by extreme and violent followers of the Islamic faith, who immediately brought in laws that would effectively mean that voting would again be banned. The newly liberated people then fought, once more, for control of their countries.
Protests that spread to western regions often turned violent and ugly. Governments called for calm and restraint. Youngsters who were native to their own countries, and who followed no particular faith, armed themselves and patrolled city streets in an attempt to protect their neighbours from religious fanatics. They would be met by chanting, racist groups whilst the police struggled to keep any sort of order. By the end of 2016 violent street attacks on people of any particular religious faith were a common feature and would rarely even make the pages of anything other than a local newspaper, if at all.
New wars between religious sects had broken out all over the world. In Australia some members of the minority Muslim community were carrying out random attacks on unarmed people in the cities, on the beaches, in schools, stations and airports. Authorities found it impossible to monitor and control small groups of individuals who co-ordinated their murderous plans by using coded messages in unregulated internet forums. Just a handful of people, heavily armed and with no regard for their own lives, could commit atrocious acts, against unarmed people at their own leisure, until security services finally caught up with them.
The events in Mumbai, where hundreds died, and at the Summer Camp for Workers Youth League in Norway, where a lone and unchallenged gunman claimed seventy-seven lives before he could finally be stopped, had proved to the world that random and violent acts of this nature could not be predicted, controlled or prevented. At the turn of 2017 vicious attacks on trains, markets and shopping centres were a regular feature throughout Africa and the western world and, in the majority of cases, one religion or another was at the very core. It was festering throughout the West as a maggot may burrow into a decaying apple.
Hugo noticed his hy-dev had pinged him a message and he pulled it towards him. ‘Dr Abrahams,’ he noted. ‘He has invited us around to his apartment tomorrow evening.’
––––––––
Chapter Nine
The following morning George and Hugo met at the coffee dispenser on the main concourse at Waterloo Hydrostation. ‘No Will?’ Hugo asked him as they made their way to Platform 12.
‘He is staying for a few more days with Marnie in Cape Town.’ George replied. ‘They have logged in for a Wednesday to Saturday contribution this week, he’s back tomorrow afternoon. He says he has something to tell me.’
George had spent most of the previous night pacing around his apartment whilst one half of the Complex worked and the other half slept. He had been appalled at the state of the world he had read about in Edgar’s laptop files. It was an entirely different place to the one he was familiar with and, although there were still some reports of war in the Middle East, the population in the entire area was now so small as to pose no threat to anybody outside their own region. Will had even been on holiday there and taken tours of the great uninhabited cities. He had told George all about Dubai and how that once major metropolis had fallen into decline as soon as western scientists had developed hydrogen energy and refined their nuclear power stations. It had meant the demand for oil, the old fossil fuel that was once so important to the Middle East, had fallen to nothing. The West no longer needed to trade with the Arabs and as the religious violence increased there, during 2017, people simply stopped travelling to the area.
Westerners were not interested in their medieval laws which insisted women tourists covered their heads, were not allowed to drive and were prohibited from even holding hands with somebody they were not married to, let alone share a hotel room with. Western cash rapidly ceased to go in the direction of the Middle East and many of the great cities began to decay. Then the virus ripped through the population and, as the generations passed, entire regions of the Middle East were de-populating at a rate faster than that of even the Western Empire. Will had told him about Saudi Arabia, a once powerful and wealthy country inhabited by princes and dynasties who caught the virus and slowly died out. Young men grew old and left no further legacy behind them. Thirty million oil rich princes were reduced to around fifty thousand within two generations. After Incorporation the Main Board had imposed a trading ban on the complete area, declaring it ‘irrelevant’ to the future of the West.
Historically the Arab communities had been rich with culture and invention. It had been industrious and, for many centuries, the centre of the trade around the known world. But it had always been a mystery to European people. Its complicated tribalism had been outgrown by Europeans five hundred years earlier and yet its religious, clannish divisions remained at the heart of Middle Eastern Culture. For the most part this was respected by its trading partners, or at least tolerated. But the enforced creation of a State of Israel, a Christian nation located in the centre of a Muslim dominated continent, began conflicts over land tenure during the second half of the 20th century. Such disputes were usually manageable through diplomatic negotiation, and occasional war, but with the emergence of Islamic Extremism during the final years of that century, and the early decades of the following one, they became harder to resolve peacefully, especially after Iran had developed nuclear weapons. God, it appeared, had not been negotiable for either side.
George had also read a feature article on Edgar’s laptop claiming that during the five thousand years before Incorporation over 14,500 wars had been fought around the world and 3.5 billion people had lost their lives. With each new generation there had been a new weapon of mass destruction. The arms race had been going on since the dawn of Mankind. Once upon a time simple folk threw sticks and stones at each other. Eventually it became possible to wipe out an entire population with one fingernail and the flick of a switch. At the time of Incorporation the Americans had 39 vast military installations around the world. At the height of the British Empire in 1890 they had about 37 big and powerful bases. The Romans had thirty six during their time as a major power. That seemed to be about the number required for any Empire to rule the world.
It is true of all cultures and cults that the wealthiest or the strongest would emerge as the natural leaders and society had been evolving, once again, in this fashion. To the East the religious extremists were winning their battles for power and influence through the use of violence and intimidation and in the West, members of the Eiderberg Group had been dominating societies by using their wealth to structure a system of governance in their own image, for their own interests. Many believed they planned and carried out, or at least staged, terrorist attacks within their own Western communities as a means of creating abject fear and subservience. Whether this was true or not mattered little as frightened people are easily controlled with the simple guarantee of protection. The leaders of every civilisation, throughout history, had repeated the same tactic.
But, with Western Governments running out of funds and turning to the Eiderberg controlled banks for the money they needed for their defence programs, the wealthiest individuals were able to tighten their grip. It was estimated that by the end of the year 2020 of the Old Calendar 95% of the wealth in the West would be controlled by as few as 5% of the people. Anti Eiderberg Group demonstrations began to appear all across the Western Empire but the Eiderberg sponsored state governments were able to pin them down wherever they emerged. Internet news feeds were monitored, censored and finally closed down. Television feeds were carefully biased and news print became propaganda material.
The problem, the Corporation had identified, was that followers of Islam had not only moved themselves to the West, but they had attempted to move the East to the West with them. It began with minor changes. Food laws were introduced, then the primary language in some schools was changed from English, religion in schools was promoted once more. Christian festivals such as Easter or the Nativity Scene were banned for fear of causing offence. Western values, which had been fought for and established over centuries, were being eroded in just a few generations by elected politicians. They were being given away, without a fight, by men clearly incapable of producing a single original thought between them. It was the beginning of the end of western democracy. It would lead to the end of government by amateur businessmen.
But what was the alternative? An oppressed society living in militarized, totalitarian states, such as Stalin and Hitler had once advocated and failed with. Was it to be a life in fear of the whip or the gun, or a free society of happy citizens who loved their own culture enough to be prepared to fight for it, and preserve it, from total destruction at the hands of Islam and its committed ideology? The dilemma for the members of the Eiderberg Group was that they were being blamed for the financial collapse of the banking system in the West. Some even went as far as to suggest they deliberately engineered it in a bid to bankrupt governments and then ask for the keys to be handed over. And this was a problem because the more criticism they received through the unregulated internet, the more people mistrusted them. An alternative form of economic management had to be found that members of the public would be comfortable with if they were going to be asked to give up their vote. There had to be something given in return for what would be seen by many as a sacred rite. Others, however, already realised that it wasn’t worth a thing. Not when the majority only voted in the way their Eiderberg Group news feeds encouraged them to.
’What do you think Dr Abrahams wants to see us about?’ George asked Hugo.
‘I have no idea, I just told him I was working with a colleague on a project about outdated technology and asked if I could have a look at Lord Kingston’s laptop. He then replied by inviting us over tonight.’
George felt uneasy about the whole thing. Lord Kingston had been part of the last democratic government and, although he was long dead, he must have known something about how the New World Order had been shaped. Perhaps even Dr Abrahams knew something himself. It would be a long day in waiting to find out.
‘I still don’t know why he would readily show you his father’s laptop.’ George wondered.
‘Relax my friend; he has shown me before. That’s how I knew how to use Edgar’s.’ That did make a little more sense to George.
In the work zone Tibha looked tired and jaded. She had been struggling to update ‘Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems’ a collection by both Wordsworth and Coleridge that had been considered to have marked the birth of the Romantic Movement of Albion. She had first studied the volumes during her Advanced Supervised Preparation Program. But the words she had heard from Edgar’s laptop the previous evening had also kept her awake all night. Nothing had prepared her for that particular window of history.
‘I can’t believe people treated each other in such a disgusting way,’ she told George when he arrived. ‘Are you sure it is all true?’
‘I am afraid it is,’ he replied. ‘In those days, before we had applications that could be updated automatically, information was stored on each person’s own device and not remotely. It cannot have been changed, not even by Granddad. That was the news of the week and there is no way of avoiding it. Those events actually happened.’
‘OK,’ said Tibha, ‘but that doesn’t mean that the countries they refer to were not made up by previous generations of fiction writers, as we were taught, does it?’
‘No it doesn’t,’ said George. ‘But I am not so sure what I believe in any more. I can’t even be sure how reliable Edgar’s memory is but I do know that he lived through the transition period between democracy and incorporation and so some of his recollections must be accurate. He must know something. I will have another look through his hard drive this evening.’
‘Can I come too?’
‘Yes, I will message you when we are leaving Dr Abraham’s. You can meet us in Harry’s.’ George then turned to his screen to finish off his updating and correcting of A Winter’s Tale. Although he had a little less enthusiasm for it now than when he had first started. After a few hours George was about to take a break when the supervisor interrupted his flow of thought.
‘Ahh Willoughby, young man. And how was your trip to Cape Town at the weekend?’ asked Mr Baptist.
George was a little surprised but was reassured when Baptist continued. ‘Don’t worry George; it is a supervisor’s responsibility to monitor the new graduates for a few months when they begin their contribution. I have an application to let me know where everybody has been at the weekend. You didn’t stay long though?’
‘Just a day trip,’ George told him. ’Checking on the house and everything is fine. All is well. Actually I spent most of the weekend with my grandfather on the Complex.’
‘Yes, the legendary Dr Willoughby, I know about him too. He was a hero of my father’s for being part of the team that created the antidote for the virus. If it wasn’t for him George I wouldn’t be here; nor would any of us for that matter.’
‘He was only a junior member of the team,’ George assured him as he stood up to make his way to the dining rooms.
‘Never the less George, never the less. We are all part of the team,’ he said cryptically.
‘Baptist knows something about the virus,’ George told Hugo as they met in the Iberian Dining Room.
‘So do I and so, apparently, do you? It’s not a secret George,’ Hugo said. ‘Don’t start becoming paranoid. Some people know about it and others don’t. That’s true of most things.’
George settled into his chair and tapped out an order for a Tapas Board on his hy-dev.
‘What do you know about the Welfare State Hugo?’ George asked.
‘Nothing,’ what is it?’
‘So you know about the infertility virus that nearly wiped out Mankind, but nothing about the Welfare State?’
‘Like I said, some people know some things, others know other things. Few people know everything. What is it?’
’Well, from what granddad says it was something along the lines of a lot of people who were being given money and accommodation by the old government but were unhappy with the people who were giving it to them.’
‘Why?’ Hugo was puzzled.
‘Because the people who were giving it to them could no longer afford to and wanted it to stop. Because they could not afford to pay for themselves and for all the others anymore. But the people who were benefiting from this, The Welfare Generation, started demanding even more than they were receiving already. So the government told them that there was no more to give because the people who were giving it to them were being mean, selfish and prejudiced.’ George paused for thought before continuing.
’This led to the people on benefits becoming convinced they needed to start hating the people who were paying for all their benefits and demanding the government do something about them by charging those people more tax and then passing it on to them. The government had to decide which of the two groups were more likely to vote for them at the next election and spent the entire time, and lots of money, on doing studies as to how they could get more money from the rich, pay out the least to the poor, keep the most for themselves and still have both sides, or as many as possible, vote for them at the next election.
But, the government worked out that soon there would be more people receiving benefits than there were actually paying for it. The people, for their part, worked out they could actually vote themselves more money by electing the politicians who promised them more money in exchange for their vote. But the people with the money only voted for the politicians who promised to lower their taxes and then give less to the people who claimed benefits.’
‘What does all that mean?’ asked Hugo.
‘I am not really sure, it confuses me,’ George admitted, ‘but I do know that my grandfather said that the people with the money will always win the argument, whatever that argument is. In which case it would be in the interest of the people with the money to stop that system of government before the people who received benefits, the Welfare Generation, grew in number to the point where they could out-vote all the others. I think I understand this now.’ George was still trying to work it out for himself.
‘Exactly the same thing happened years ago in the Division of Africa. When they still had an elected government there were fifty million people living in the area. Forty million of them did not work and received benefits instead. The other ten million had to pay for it all. And the forty million voted, every time, for the government who promised it would continue. They simply outvoted all those who were in work and paying for everything.’
‘And what happened there?’ asked Hugo.
‘They went bankrupt, obviously. That is why the southern half of the African Continent is now part of the Western Corporation. The people paying for everybody else soon ran out of money and those who needed it stopped receiving it. Many of them starved to death, or died of natural causes, apparently.’
‘How many people live there now?’ asked Hugo.
‘Around 1.8million,’ George replied, ‘and all of them contribute. Those that didn’t died out.’
‘Fifty million people down to fewer than two million in forty years?’ Hugo was staring at George as their Tapas Boards arrived at the table.
‘Isn’t it obvious how democracy failed? As soon as democratic government began to take away from those willing to work and give to those who were not, it was destined to fail. Ok, it may have taken fifty years but it was a certainty from the very beginning. As soon as the threat of the number of people unwilling to work exceeded the number of those who were, then those with the money would insist on a change of government, a new system, a New Order. Do you think they had something to do with the virus George?’ Hugo asked. ‘Do you think that was a convenient way of removing the problem of those who were not contributing and only taking instead?’
George fiddled with his meat balls. He knew that religious people were dangerous. From what Edgar had told him they were very dangerous. But how could the Eiderberg Group, the richest and influential people, persuade all of those on benefits to allow them to take over from their governments? It didn’t make sense to George. Nothing seemed to make much sense.
’Let’s just wait and see what Dr Abraham has for us before we start drawing conclusions.’ George finally replied.
From what Edgar had told him he did understand that towards the end of democracy there was no such thing as real politics in the West. There was no Left and there was no Right. There was no real rivalry or reasoned debate between the two major political parties in each Division. There was just one single economic party run by the big businesses and nobody really cared about society anymore. From what he had seen, on the laptop, the main problem was the tone of the news feeds. Twenty-four hour rolling news was designed for one particular thing. War. Because without war there really wasn’t twenty-four hours worth of news everyday. It would mean the ordinary, everyday events would have to be elevated from the mundane and into the sensational.
They had to find new ways to announce ‘breaking news,’ and more news to break to keep viewing figures, and therefore revenues, up. Fear was the best way of keeping people connected to their news feeds. But often this meant that the real meaning of breaking news would be lost in hype or sensationalism, in an attempt to win more viewers and sell more advertising. The end result was that the viewer would be treated to the ‘you are all going to die horribly but buy this brand of toothpaste before you do,’ type of entertainment. George thought of the alternative and decided that even the governments he had heard, or read, about would not go as far as creating war or staging terrorist attacks just for the benefit of twenty-four hour rolling news and entertainment.
And then he remembered The Eiderberg Group who were behind everything. Would they go that far? And then he remembered the virus. What would be the point of introducing a virus that would reduce the population of the planet if that meant fewer people to sell their products to? Why would the Eiderberg Group be behind that? George was confusing himself even more. He reached into a pocket and pulled out his diazepam. Hugo, who was also deep in thought, casually accepted a couple of tabs, swallowed them whole and sipped on his Gazpacho soup. The pair of them would have to wait and it would be a very long afternoon.
Later that evening Vincent Baptist tapped on his hy-dev, opened his tracker application and watched as George and Hugo swiped their ident-cards at the entrance to the subway at Waterloo Hydrostation. A few minutes later he noticed that the pair of them had left the network at Putney Bridge and so he activated the Global Positioning System on Hugo’s hy-dev and followed them as they walked along Fulham Palace Road, in the west of the Complex, before turning left into Bishop’s Park Avenue. Baptist then activated the ‘associates’ feature and immediately recognised the name of Dr Solomon Abraham living at number 59.
He knew Abraham to be Hugo Gomez’s previous supervisor during his Advanced Supervised Preparation Program and so his curiosity was satisfied. Mentors were discouraged by the Corporation although personal relationships were not. They could be lovers for all Baptist cared and so he closed down the tracker app, pulled on his overcoat and walked along the road to his local pub. The fact that George Willoughby had accompanied Gomez was only a minor curiosity for now. But he did log the encounter onto their personnel files with a command to alert him of any reoccurrence.
George was nervous as they walked towards the front door. Hugo had sent Dr Abraham a message from Putney Bridge Station and so he was expecting them. He had already authorised access for Hugo’s ident-card at the entrance to the building.
The pair embraced warmly as Hugo strolled casually into the apartment, which left George feeling a little uncomfortable. He fingered his packet of diazepam in his trouser pocket.
‘George Willoughby, my dear boy,’ said Abraham after he had finally let go of Hugo. ‘I have heard so much about you over the years. I must say it is an honour to meet a direct descendent of the great Dr Willoughby, your grandfather I believe?’
‘Great grandfather, to be accurate,’ George corrected him.
‘Fine man, fine man,’ Abraham suggested. ‘Take a seat my dear fellows whilst I fix us a little drinkie.’
George studied Abraham with caution. He was a well dressed man in a very old tweed suit with a pale green shirt and a darker shade of neck tie. He must have been in his early sixties and was completely bald. He also had a round, red face and a pair of spectacles that appeared far too small for his wide head. He wasn’t a man for small talk and asides. He came straight to the point.
‘So, what is this project you are working on? I thought you were supposed to be writers?’
George had to think fast.
‘Oh we are sir. But we have been given a project to update the archive on past technologies. It covers a number of features including the devices writer’s used to use. Even typewriters from long ago.’
‘Not that long ago George, I still remember using one. Here, drink this whilst I fetch the laptop.’
Minutes later and he had returned with a contraption that looked just like Edgar’s.
‘There you go George,’ said Hugo. ‘It’s the old days. Isn’t it fantastic?’
George checked to see that Dr Abraham was otherwise engaged and popped a couple of diazepam into his mouth.
‘Thank you Solly,’ Hugo said.
The pair drained their glasses and prepared to leave.
‘Bring it back next week Hugo,’ said the Doctor. And don’t show anybody else in case it is taken for re-cycling. I mean, it is of no use to me, but it does have some sentimental value. I used to watch my father spending hours and hours on that thing. I would like to keep it. Even though it just sits up in the storeroom gathering dust. I don’t mind if it is taken in, otherwise I wouldn’t be lending it to you, but I would prefer to keep it dear boy, you understand darling?’
Hugo packed the laptop away into his bag and the pair made their way back to Putney Bridge.
‘Darling?’ George asked him.
‘Just his way Georgie boy, just his way.’ Hugo said without embarrassment.
‘Does he know what is on this hard drive?’
‘I doubt it,’ Hugo replied. ‘He said once he had hardly ever turned it on. In fact, did you notice it doesn’t even have a hydro-converter plugged into it?’ George hadn’t noticed. Minutes later and they were settling into the deep armchairs by the fireplace in Harry’s Bar. Tibha had been waiting and already had a bottle of wine on the table. She filled a couple of clean glasses as George handed Hugo the USB wireless power supply from Edgar’s laptop. Then, they sat and waited as the old thing booted up.
‘What’s Windows XP?’ asked Tibha as the logo appeared on the screen.
‘Another ancient operating system,’ said Hugo. ‘Don’t worry; I know how to work it.’
Ten minutes must have passed before the home screen finally appeared. There was nothing on it except a small panel asking for a top secret password. Hugo looked confused.
‘Did he have a dog?’ George asked him. ‘Granddad once told me that most people use their dog’s names as a password in those days, silly as it seems.’
’They did have a dog,’ Hugo remembered Dr Abraham mentioning it more than once. ‘Stanley, Sidney, Henry? It was something like that.’
‘Try them all,’ George suggested.
Hugo tapped away at the keyboard for a few minutes before announcing,’ you have to be kidding me. Sidneyhound is the password, we are in.’ All three sat and watched the screen as it slowly revealed the icons that would lead to the filing system. George was immediately drawn to the one that was called gvbus. ‘Could that mean government business? He asked.
‘One way to find out,’ said Hugo as he clicked on the icon and waited until the hard drive revealed hundreds of files.
‘Oh no,’ complained Tibha, ‘this could take days.’
George and Hugo ignored her and scanned the list until they found what they were looking for. It was a file marked ‘incorporation.’
‘You beauty. Are you sure Dr Abraham doesn’t know what is on this hard drive?’ George asked.
‘I am not sure of anything, but he said he had never used it.’
George had his doubts but kept them to himself for the time being. ‘Open it,’ he said. ‘Let’s see.’
Hugo moved the cursor across the screen and selected the option to open the folder. Again, there were thousands of documents inside. Tibha groaned again, sat back in her chair and reached for the wine.
‘That one,’ George pointed. ‘Open that one.’
Hugo hovered the cursor over the file called ‘takeover meetings,’ and clicked the open option.
’Oh my goodness,’ gasped Hugo.
Tibha quickly sat forward and George began pulling gently on his earlobe as he read through the names in the list of documents until he saw the words ‘Eiderberg Group.’
‘Who are they?’ asked Hugo.
‘They were a group of the most powerful and influential businessmen, bankers and military officials who appeared to be running democratic governments all over the world before Incorporation. They, it seemed, were really in charge and made such a mess of things that it lead to the downfall of economies, democracy and ultimately themselves.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Hugo.
‘Some people know some things darling, whilst others know other things. Few people know everything,’ replied George.
‘Very funny, open the file.’ George did as he was asked and inside was a memo dated 26th July 2009 and entitled;
‘Eiderberg Group Operation New World Order, Final Stage by DA.’
‘That one, that one.’ Hugo pointed to the file.
‘Who is DA?’ George asked.
‘David Abrahams, Solly’s father, Lord Kingston. That was his name before they knighted him, or lorded him or whatever it was they did in those days. That’s him, open it and see what it says.’
––––––––
Chapter Ten
Memo for Eiderberg Group Meeting July 2009.
It is clear now that western governments have finally been brought under our control. The financial collapse of the International Banking System last year has severely weakened all western economies, many of which will fail without the support of our members. It is now time for the news feeds to begin the process of conditioning the minds of the people into willingly accepting our proposals for a new society and better form of government.
Thanks to the student loan initiative every young member of society is now either in debt or receiving benefits. Their generation will be no threat to our future initiative once we announce that all outstanding loans will be cleared and they can start again, debt free. They already blame their governments for these debts. The generation prior to them are almost all in debt to our banks and credit card companies. Many of their houses are being re-possessed, thanks to the mortgage loan crisis, and they also blame their governments for this predicament. Once again we will announce that all outstanding debts to our banks and mortgage companies will be wiped out.
All we need now is for our scientists to finalise the development of Hydrogen Energy and reports from the Large Hadron Collider Committee have revealed they are only a few years away from achieving this. As soon as they do we can initiate Operation Z, the final stage. Once the communities are debt free, all energy needs are completely free for everybody, in the same way the wireless internet networks have been provided, then we can begin to ease their governments out of power. Our studies have revealed only limited resistance from the population, as long as our news feeds continue to lead them in the right manner.
Once this is achieved we will leave Coalition Governments in place during a transitional period before doing away with them altogether. The second phase of the structured takeover of Western Society has been agreed as follows;
1: the regulation of the world-wide internet and the control of public opinion through the use of planned electronic broadcasts.
2: All free media platforms and social networking sites will be either banned or severely regulated in the interests of national security. Co-ordinated terrorist attacks blaming those networks for operational communication should be enough to convince the public that they are a danger. We should consider banning YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and any other feeds that the enemy use to direct their efforts against us.
3: There will be one single currency called the Amero. (AmericanEuro)
4: The phasing out of countries as sovereign states. There will be one Western identity.
5: An engineered zero growth economy leading to zero prosperity for the workers and, therefore, greater prosperity for the Eiderberg members and associates.
6: A standard tax on all citizens of the New Order (the West).
7: The end of the Welfare State. All citizens must either be in full time education or full time employment. Those who are not will be drafted into the Military or moved onto controlled accommodation facilities, with immediate effect.
8: NATO will be disbanded and the one single western military, known as the Department of Security, will replace it. It will be directly controlled by this Board.
9: The proposed de-population initiative will take immediate effect. A sterilisation program will be rolled out by the Human Resources Department to those who are known as the Welfare Generation. It will also be included in all aid packages to foreign countries, including our allies. This sterilising agent will also be added to the standard inoculations and immunisations for all new births. We would expect to see the world’s population decrease by 75% over the next fifty years. That is the primary target.
10: All religion, of any form, will be banned.
To say we are striving for a one-world government is exaggerated at this time but not entirely unfair. We will begin this initiative in the western countries only. Those of us in Eiderberg feel we could not go on fighting and killing one another forever. Rendering millions of people homeless and starving at this stage in the program would be to our disadvantage. We have to be seen to be improving the lives of ordinary people in order to gain their trust and support.
By the time anybody notices the de-population initiative it will be too late for them to prevent it. Department of Security Special Agents (DSSA) will also roll out the program among our enemies and trade competitors from day one. Small capsules of a sterilising agent regularly dropped into clean water reservoirs, and included in vaccinations and aid packages, will take effect immediately. The world’s population is expected to drop significantly over the first ten years of the initiative.
Further information will follow through the usual channels.
DA
George, Tibha and Hugo sat in silence, gawping at the memo. Finally George spoke.
‘But that still doesn’t make sense, why would the Eiderberg Group want to de-populate the west, or the world. Why reduce their marketplace?’
‘Maybe this will make more sense,’ said Tibha who was pointing to another file called ‘Eiderberg Disbanding.’
Memo Following Eiderberg Group Meeting. June 15 2016
Due to the negative news coverage and ongoing activism from misinformed conspiracy theorists it has been decided that The Eiderberg Group should be disbanded with immediate effect. It is obvious that the public would not support Eiderberg Group initiatives at this stage. This announcement will be made through the authorised news feeds next weekend. Regular delegates who are invited to make media comments are asked to confirm that security concerns surrounding our annual meetings have rendered them no longer worth having.
The cost of policing tens of thousands of chanting protesters outside meetings make them no longer worthwhile, or safe for members of the public. You may also want to mention that over five hundred protesters were treated by medical services for sun-stroke, de-hydration and anything else you can think of. The term ‘Eiderberg Group’ should no longer be used by any executive or official news feed other than in the past tense. It no longer exists. As far as everybody is concerned, the protesters and demonstrators have prevailed; we have disbanded under the pressure of protest.
Next year’s meeting, on the second weekend of June, will be organised by the existing Steering Committee and invitees will be notified of the arrangements one month in advance. Executive jets will collect each delegate from their local airport and proceed to a secure military airfield where a chartered airliner will be waiting. Its eventual destination will remain unannounced but please be assured that everybody will be guaranteed the usual comforts and security.
In the meantime our preparations and central policies remain unchanged.
Sincerely
Steering Committee.
’That’s not disbanding, that’s re-branding,’ said a shocked Hugo.
‘Wait a minute,’ said George. ‘You said Dr Abraham had never used this, but he showed you how it worked and so he must have. Do you think he wanted us to see this?’
‘I have no idea,’ Hugo replied. ‘But one thing is for sure and that is the Eiderberg Group did not disband at all, they just melted away into the background and wrote themselves out of the news feeds. The main participants still ran just about everything in western society. Only without a name or known meeting place there was nothing and no-one to protest against anymore.’
‘Clever move,’ said Tibha. ‘These were clever people.’
George re-read the final line of the memo out loud. ‘In the meantime our preparations and central policies remain unchanged.’
‘You know what this means don’t you?’ He asked. ‘These people were behind the Incorporation. The same people everybody thought had disbanded had not gone anywhere after all. It means they went ahead with their sterilisation policy. That was no virus guys, that was a deliberate sterilisation program, worldwide. Starting with the Welfare Generation and criminal classes and then extending right across the world to reduce the populations of their enemies. And from I can see that included the followers of religion, particularly Islam. They won their war by giving it up and then, instead, started reducing the populations of the enemy. It was a long term plan, a two or three generation plan to put a stop to the fall of the Western Empire and ensure it didn’t go the same way as all previous Empires.’
‘Ruthless bastards,’ said Hugo. ‘Creating a utopian society, that everybody of our generation, a mere two along the line, would be glad of having, but by using distinctly dystopian methods. That’s genocide.’
‘No it isn’t,’ said George. ‘They didn’t kill anybody. They just prevented the majority of society from reproducing.’
‘Apart from those chosen by themselves, to continue the Human Race,’ added Tibha.
‘Those who had something to contribute,’ agreed George. ‘Such as my granddad.’
The three of them sat in silence for over half an hour before George finally said, ‘open that file Hugo, the one called ‘background information.’
Hugo clicked on the icon and read the heading to the others:
Study of Public Opinion towards Democracy, Government and Society in General in 2015.
The general public are distracted, fragmented and disorganised. Although they should still be allowed, every four or five years, to come along and participate in a democratic election. This should continue through the transitional period of coalition governments wherever we can achieve one. And they should still be given a little choice among the candidates we select for them. It will make no difference to the group’s long term initiative.
Attitudes among the public have been taken seriously and monitored carefully since the 1960’s when the original peace movement was gathering pace. Since then there have been no other co-ordinated and mass protest against government on such a scale. Business needs to know how ordinary people are thinking and the Vanishing Voter Study has revealed that, as of now, 75% of the people don’t even know when there is an election going on. Instead, most ordinary people already believe it is all collaboration between big business involving rich contributors and their chosen political leaders. In most cases they believe that the public relations industry prepare chosen candidates to say meaningless things, that most people do not understand, in an attempt to win a few votes. In this respect we are ahead of target.
Studies also conclude that most people vote against their own interests and do that consciously. Because they already realise that it doesn’t matter much. So they choose the candidate they feel most comfortable with and who they think they can trust. But in terms of policy those candidates are trained to make it hard for people to work out where they actually stand on serious issues. This policy has worked so well that 80% of voters now do not fully understand their candidate’s position on the real political issues that would affect them. And they do not seem to care.
Issues where the elite and wealthy hold very strong views and the general public have the polar opposite view in their favour are never brought up during national elections. These issues are always unmentioned by any of the political sides. Public opinion has been irrelevant now for decades and so the time is right to lead them towards what we shall call Professional Management. We have been able to discredit most high profile political players with the use of our news feeds and now research shows the public are ready for a structured take over of democracy, only not in the name of the Eiderberg Group.
We will continue to promote sport, arrange world tours of the most popular musicians and performers and at the lowest level of society they should continue to have new and even bigger reality television spectacles. The target for that will be a worldwide talent show that focuses on the losers in the early stages and makes international stars of the winners. A global competition will keep the lower orders occupied and give them something to pay attention to that doesn’t matter at all.
After fifteen years of war we are now weaker at every strategic level than we were when it began. And that is because we cannot fight and defeat an enemy we do not understand. Islamic Ideology remains a mystery and in many cases we cannot even identify who they are until they strike first. We are relying on our intelligence operations too heavily. It has come to the stage where we keep on having to be lucky. But they can strike at will and will continue to do so in increasing numbers right here, in the heart of our western communities. This should be allowed to continue in a controlled manner. The culture of fear is one we still need to promote wherever possible.
Our investigations reveal that the vast majority of people do not believe in God, despite what many of them say when surveyed. Nowhere is this hypocrisy more apparent than in America and this demographic may be the hardest to convince that religion should be banned for the benefit of the future. Television Evangelists should continue to be discredited in a high profile manner. A godless future is the only hope for western civilisation. The forces of Islam will prevail unless we completely eradicate religion.
Finally, the failure of the education system is on schedule. Each year student loan costs rise and teaching standards fall. Annually the government figures confirm an improvement in exam results but the actual exams are steadily becoming easier. Within a decade graduates will not even be able to tell you who Winston Churchill was, or where Cornwall is. Most of them leave their full time education not knowing whether to look at the stars through a telescope or a microscope. Academically gifted children are no longer challenged and there is no chance of having an inquisitive younger generation.
The clever ones will be occupied by sport or the promise of a steady job in a law firm or marketing agency. Or they will be encouraged to start their own small businesses which will keep them on our side by committing them for life to our financial institutions. The rest will be distracted by reality television idols. There is now little chance of anybody from that generation noticing a changing society.
Report by DA
‘They are already running the Western Empire and this is five years before Incorporation,’ George noted.
‘And what is this big deal about religion’ asked Tibha. ‘It is all they seem to be talking about in those days.’
’These are very dangerous people,’ said Hugo, ‘very dangerous indeed.’
‘Not any more they are not,’ replied George. ‘They are all dead. But they appear to have made major changes to society back in their day and I, for one, would not want to live in a world that was described by all those Sunday Globe reports last night. Well, that we read last night.’
‘Me neither,’ said Tibha. ‘The world we live in is a much nicer place. And what was going on with those reality television celebrities?’ She laughed.
‘Who cares about them,’ said George. ‘What I want to understand is now that we know the Eiderberg Group were behind the Incorporation, the wealthiest and most influential men of their generation, who wanted war to end and religion to be eradicated, then why did they also want to reduce the population? You saw how much money they made out of the international karaoke thing they produced. Why would they want to stop that? It doesn’t make any sense.’
’No, it doesn’t,’ agreed Hugo. ‘Perhaps they didn’t have a choice.’
And they probably didn’t have a choice. By the year 2015 of the old calendar there were enough examples in western history of people killing each other over their religious differences. The Corporation didn’t need to be reminded of that. And they didn’t need to be reminded that democracy in the West was even founded as a Polyarchy. America certainly was. It meant that the primary objective of government had always been to protect the interests of the wealthy few. They were the leaders and their respected dynasties. In other words, they were the winners. It was how western democracy was designed. It meant that the fundamental principal, when it came to shared decisions, was that their own interests, individually and collectively, were considered equally. And that was the cornerstone of the Eiderberg Group principles.
There may have been many more of them in 2014 than there were when democracy was first established in the West, but the protection of their own interests remained defined. There had been a few dissenters along the way and a few little victories were had by the people and so society was not as bad for them as it had been two or three hundred years earlier. But, elections had always been rigged or even stolen and the public generally didn’t care anyway. It was never a big issue for them. They had jobs, or the Welfare State, or the football at the weekend, or the internet. Or they had their reality television programmes every evening and could dream of becoming famous. And fame was such an empty house.
‘I think we should look at this one,’ said Hugo pointing to filed marked ‘Human Rights and Government Abuse.’
Are European Governments Guilty of Human Right’s Abuses?
A new report by the Council of Europe has implied that human rights have suffered as a result of the economic downturn over recent years. In response to the financial crisis the austerity policies implemented by most European governments has led to cuts in public spending, aggressive tax increases on the lower wage earners, pension cuts for the elderly, benefit cuts for those out of work, higher unemployment and reduced job security.
The whole range of human rights from access to justice, freedom of expression, accountability, the right to a decent wage and adequate standard of living have been compromised. Vulnerable and marginalised groups have been affected the most as democratic values slide further backwards. People can make complaints to the European Court of Human Rights, who can make decisions that governments are bound, by law, to abide by. But nobody can afford to do so since massive cuts in Legal Aid took effect last year. The European Social Charter ruled these cuts violated people’s basic human rights by limiting their access to justice.
Bail out programmes to countries with bankrupt economies relies upon the agreement of the International Monetary Fund and the financial community. The flourishing corruption by government officials has been identified in fifteen member states and the European Union has called for this to be addressed before any further financial bailout funding will be authorised. The ordinary people of those countries will be affected the worst during this coming winter with food and fuel shortages predicted on a wide scale.
Reports reveal that Romania and Bulgaria are the worst performers with regard to democracy and mentions that ‘given the histories of these countries that is hardly surprising.’ The countries displaying the sharpest declines in democratic values are Greece and Hungary. High unemployment in both countries has lead to civil unrest and the rise in extremism. There is no appetite for democracy in either country and a New Social Order has been strongly recommended. The people would welcome it.
Johnas Sogoda, a member of the European Parliament for Croatia, claims the report reveals significant problems for Europe. He has been quoted as saying ‘There are a growing number of countries where the native people are calling for foreign minorities living in their neighbourhoods to be removed. This kind xenophobic characteristic, or this policy of not accepting foreigners or minority religions, is something that is particularly worrying. It is completely opposed to the idea of one common European Community.’
The European Union is being encouraged to apply democracy throughout its member states but is warned of resistance among those with leaders who believe they are being unfairly treated in terms of financial assistance.
DR for the EG
’Who was DR?’ asked George.
‘No idea,’ Hugo replied. ‘But does it matter? Everything is so secretive and yet so clear. The people of the Western Empire had no idea what was really going on did they? And as for the virus. It sickens me to think that such a small group of people could make huge decisions that affected so many people in only a few generations. How could they reduce the population by such a large number, so deliberately?’
‘We know how,’ George told him. ‘I still want to know why. It’s obvious why they wanted to remove religion from society. That did nothing but harm, even though I am still not certain what it was. And I can understand why they would want to reduce the population of their enemies. But why their own?’
The real Main Board, the former members of the Eiderberg Group, were clearly lunatics, even though their main aim was not anarchy and destruction. It was social stability and peace. Mass murder was never on the agenda, as it had been for other European lunatics during the previous century. Men like Josef Stalin and Adolph Hitler. But the Main Board’s program for totalitarian control was, in many ways, much worse. The simple idea that a small group of people could control the entire West, right from the very point of deciding who would be allowed to propagate the human race and who would be removed from the overall gene pool, was a disturbing one.
This policy was totalitarian in the extreme but it was now far too late to do anything about it. Even making the fertility injection freely available to everybody would be too late for those social groups who had already been left to become extinct. George and Hugo did not know that the fertility treatment was freely available to everybody living on the West Isle, the Department of Security, twenty-five years before any expected military conflict with other rival Empires such as China, or Russia. Or if a planned invasion of the Middle and Far East was scheduled. Like any major corporation, or industry, the Main Board had long term plans and could even create an army of any size they needed if they had twenty-five year’s notice.
‘I am going to read this one before talking to granddad,’ said George. ‘He may have answers and he certainly knows something about religion. I shall take him his favourite fifteen-year-old whiskey and get him talking.’ George then clicked on the file that was called;
Report on democracy throughout the world in 2016.
There have been major gains in the Middle East during the last year as a result of the growing popular movements for reform and freedom. However, some areas have experienced an increasing authoritarian response to these freedom movements. Whilst the number of countries who can be considered free and democratic has risen by three, there have been twenty-seven countries that have experienced significant declines. This is now the eighth consecutive year where there have been more declines in democratic freedom than there have been gains, worldwide.
A number of African countries including Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Lesotho have all shown improvements, as has Burma. Countries with noted declines in democracy include Kenya, Nigeria and the European nations of Turkey, Russia and Ukraine. The report also reveals there has been an increase in persecution by despots and dictators who are targeting independent news outlets and opposition organisations.
The number of elected democracies now stands at 118 out of the 200 recognised countries, worldwide, which is a net increase of only one. Nearly half of the world remains undemocratic.
The report also highlighted a notable increase in Muslim on Muslim violence which has reached horrifying levels in areas like Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. Turkey has experienced a serious decline in civil liberties and the Persian Gulf States have all increased their so called repressive policies.
Western Europe and North America continue to have problems with the impact of the financial crisis and nationalist sentiment is on the rise in response to the increasing number of immigrants, although most nations have faced these challenges without lowering their high regard for democratic values and civil liberties, so far.
‘So far’ being the operative word here,’ said George. ‘Let’s go and see what granddad has to say about all this.’
He reached for his hy-dev and tapped out a message. Moments later Edgar replied telling George he was away from the Complex but would be returning the following afternoon.
‘Well I suppose that’s it for tonight then,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m off; I will see you two in the morning.’
He winked at George, blew Tibha a kiss and pulled his coat tightly around himself. George and Tibha watched him leave as she leant forward and shared the rest of the wine evenly between the two remaining glasses.
‘What now then, Mr Dickens?’ she asked him.
George was staring into the fire but he gathered his thoughts, looked across at the wall clock and said, ’21.30. It’s still early. And I don’t suppose I will sleep much tonight. I will probably go home and open a bottle of whiskey. Why don’t you join me?’ he found himself adding. ‘Er, I mean, uhm I have some wine somewhere too.’ He stumbled.
Tibha laughed at him. ‘You don’t ask many girls out do you Mr Dickens?’
‘No.’ he admitted.
‘In that case I would love to join you for a nightcap. Finish this up and let’s go.’ George looked across at Tibha and smiled warmly at her. And then he remembered Mira, reached down into his trouser pocket and snapped a couple of diazepam from the tube. As they sat on the subway George started to feel a little less nervous and promised himself he would finally reply to Mira in the morning. He didn’t have any bad feelings towards her and was ready to help, if she wanted him to. He pulled out his hy-dev and tapped the icon that turned on his apartment lights and lit the fire.
‘Very nice indeed Dickens,’ Tibha said as she unwrapped her coat and sank into one of the big leather sofas in front of the fire. George tapped again into his hy-dev and the 24-hour news feed appeared on his wall screen. Tibha watched the latest reports as George opened a bottle of wine for her, poured himself a three finger measure of whiskey and settled into the chair opposite. She stretched out and then covered herself with a blanket before saying, ‘do you really understand any of this George?’
’Not fully,’ he replied. ‘I mean, most of it is obvious. The Main Board who initiated the takeover of society planned, and delivered, a better world for everybody. I am not sure the way they went about it was particularly pleasant, to say the least. Introducing a virus that would render virtually everybody sterile is kind of sinister, don’t you think?’
‘I am not so sure,’ Tibha looked out of the window at the western part of the Complex. ‘I mean, it doesn’t seem so bad to me that anybody these days can apply for a Family Marriage Licence, as long as they qualify. I don’t think it is so bad that a murderer, or a rapist, is never allowed fertility treatment and so that their genetic line is halted. And that anybody contributing to the Corporation, to our way of lives, is allowed to. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, I suppose.’ George was once again deep in thought and Tibha drifted off into a peaceful sleep. He studied her as she curled up on his favourite armchair and he felt a warmth growing inside, a happy feeling. She was beautiful, both inside and out. If only he had the courage. He covered her with a second blanket and poured himself another nightcap as he watched the dying embers of the fire that was projecting the last of its heat. Eventually he took himself off to his bed but lay awake, thinking about where to start with Edgar. What should he ask him? How much should he tell him? How much did he already know?
He reached across for his packet of diazepam and swallowed two with the last gulp of his whiskey. As he stared at the ceiling his attention was drawn to the door. Quietly, but purposely, Tibha was padding across the room and then sliding beneath the covers. ‘Hello, what’s this?’ asked George gently. ‘I’m cold,’ she replied. She buried her head into his neck and wrapped her arms around his body. ‘And I’m scared,’ she added. George was nervous and waited for her to make another move but it was soon obvious that she was sound asleep. He stroked her back and drifted off into an uneasy sleep himself.
The following morning George woke to find himself alone. From somewhere Edgar again reminded him, ‘don’t try too hard to understand them son.’ He tapped an icon on his hy-dev that turned on both his coffee machine and shower unit. He then noticed a message. Tibha; slept so well, thank you. Didn’t want to wake you, you looked so peaceful, Dickens. Have gone home to shower and change, see you at the wz at H10.’
George was about to head for the shower when he noticed an earlier message. ‘Mira,’ he thought, ‘I will definitely call her this morning.’ But the message was from somebody called Claudine. He didn’t know anybody called Claudine. George tapped on the icon and read;
‘Dear George, I don’t know if you are aware of the tragic death of Mira Bell two nights ago. She was hit by a taxi and died instantly. I am so sorry; I know you two were very close.’
Chapter Eleven
George began shaking uncontrollably as those words sank in. He read them over and over and struggled to believe what he was reading. At one point he even considered it to be a nasty trick that Mira herself had arranged a friend to be a part of. He clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Through the fog of shock he began to remember Claudine. Mira had introduced them once, several years earlier and he had met her on another occasion since. George decided that it was not her style to be involved in a prank so evil. It had to be true. He paced to the window and then into the kitchen. He paced back into the bedroom where the shower was hissing and steaming in one corner, behind an exposed brick wall. He found his tube of diazepam and gulped three of them down and then sat on his bed, waiting for them to start working and so his bones would stop rattling. And when they finally did he carefully read the message again, to be sure he had not misunderstood.
The mistake he had been hoping for wasn’t there. The message read exactly the same way and didn’t change no matter how many times he looked at it. Despite how many times he hoped that it would. That message remained the same with each reading. It was the saddest George had ever felt and every moment he had spent with Mira was repeated, as a full colour movie, in his mind. Over and over again he could see her face and hear her voice. Including those final moments, the most painful of them all. He had never felt more alone.
At midday Tibha looked across at George’s empty work zone and finally decided to send him a message. She received no reply and when she eventually found Hugo in the Mediterranean Dining Room, he also tapped out a message and received no reply. George had curled up on his favourite sofa, wrapped the blanket, which smelt of Tibha, around himself and cried until he thought he may stop breathing. Then he reached for his whiskey and began drinking. He stared at his wall screen and could hear people talking but had no idea what anybody was saying. The fog rolled in across the Complex and George could see nothing from his window, which only added to his sense of isolation and despair. He wished he had never heard of Claudine. He wished it was last week. He wished he was in Cape Town. He wished he had never met Mira. He wished he could meet her again and every time he remembered that was never going to happen, he started shaking.
Eventually his hy-dev pinged a message that somebody was at the front door. When he saw it was Will he had mixed emotions. He didn’t want to see anybody, but Will might know what had happened. He might have even been there and so he let him in. Will looked at the state of George and gave his old friend a hug. ‘You have already heard then?’ George sat down and said nothing.
Will picked up the whiskey bottle and said, ‘this won’t change anything.’ George ignored the remark and Will went to turn off the shower and he then made some coffee.
George reached for his whiskey, topped up the mug and took a long draft. Finally he spoke. ‘What happened?’
Will paused before taking a deep breath and he said, ‘She was out drinking in Long Street with friends in the afternoon. She stumbled out of a bar, slipped on the kerb and fell in front of a taxi. Everybody saw it George. It was horrible, she didn’t stand a chance. She died instantly.’
‘She hated Long Street,’ George shouted. ‘What was she doing there anyway?’
Again Will paused before he carefully said, ‘she was always drinking in Long Street. Gus and Costas had wanted to tell you. She was a regular feature there. It was only you who didn’t know that. They wanted you to know. But nobody could have prevented this; it was just an accident George.’
‘An accident that was bound to happen. Somebody should have helped her. I should have helped her.’
‘There is no point being angry. And don’t blame yourself.’ Will told him firmly. ‘It wasn’t your problem; there was nothing you could do.’
George’s hy-dev pinged him yet another message from Hugo; ‘where are you?’
He threw the device across the room. Will then patiently tapped out a message for Hugo explaining to him what had happened.
‘Who is Mira?’ Hugo asked Tibha.
‘A friend of George’s in Cape Town. More than a friend, I think, why?’
Hugo then read out Will’s message and Tibha gasped.
‘Poor Georgie boy,’ was all she could say.
For the next two days George never left his apartment. And nor did Will. He sent second a message to Edgar who immediately returned to the Complex and arrived carrying a litre of 15-year old Jamesons.
‘He won’t find any answers in that,’ Will told him when he saw the bottle.
‘We are not looking for any son,’ Edgar replied as he brushed past him with a pat on the shoulder.
‘You,’ he pointed his finger at George, ‘get yourself showered and smarten up.’ George did as he was told without argument.
Will then listened as Edgar reminded George of the story about his old friend’s mother and nodded in agreement as he explained that alcoholism was an illness.
‘Without professional help this call was always going to come, one day son. At least it is out of the way now, you can get some closure. Nothing will change what has happened. It is not your fault.’
George was beginning to understand as his thoughts became clearer. It was good to have Edgar around, he always made things clearer.
‘He’s right,’ added Will. ‘Just give yourself some time mate. You need to take yourself through the five stages of loss and grief.’
Edgar looked sympathetically at his grandson before carefully saying, ‘Denial is the first one. Your first reaction to such a shock will be to refuse to believe it. It is a normal response to overwhelming news and it helps carry you through the first period of pain. That’s followed by anger. At yourself and towards anybody who happens to be near you. It could be aimed at anybody. Even the one we have lost or sometimes complete strangers. But you have your diazepam to help you with that. That stuff keeps the anger down, have you got enough or do you want mine?’
‘I’ve taken plenty.’ George said quietly.
‘Good lad. And then comes the self-negotiating, the bargaining. If only I had done this, if only she had done that. What could we have done to prevent this from happening? If only I had done more, or not said that. It’s all part of the process son. This is followed by depression. It doesn’t have to be serious but you are going to feel down for a while. All you need is reassurance and to remember that it was not your fault. There was nothing you could ever have done to have stopped this from happening. Who knows, it may have already happened by now if you hadn’t been there to prevent it. This time you weren’t and you can’t help that. Finally you reach the stage where you accept it. What happened has happened. It is what it is. People come and people go George. I am afraid you just have to accept that.’
‘It’s true,’ Will agreed. ‘It was already time to move on. You already knew that you had to let her go don’t you, after the last time you saw her.’
‘I know, I know,’ said George sadly. ‘I know I didn’t particularly want to see her again, but I didn’t want it to be like this.’
Edgar rubbed his knee and said, ‘Come on you two let’s get down to Harry’s and I will buy you a late lunch.’ George nodded in agreement.
‘Shall I send Hugo a message telling him where we are?’ Will asked him. George nodded again and said, ‘Yeah and tell him to bring Tibha with him.’
Will sent the message.
As the three men left the subway for the short walk to Butler’s Wharf, the fog across the Complex began to lift. George’s mood began to lift along with it and the diazepam he was taking every hour was keeping his anxiety from developing. Will remained quiet whilst Edgar made small talk, pointing out some of the boats moored against the dockside and telling the boys who they belonged to.
‘That one is Harry’s,’ he said, pointing to an elegant three berth, forty-five foot motor boat that was tied up directly outside the bar. ‘We take it up to Putney Bridge sometimes and meet an old friend of ours in the Star and Garter.’
‘Who’s that then?’ asked George without particular interest.
‘Solly,’ Edgar replied, ‘he lives just over the bridge.’
George stopped walking and stared at the back of his grandfather, who paused and half turned towards him.
‘Solomon Abrahams?’ he asked.
Edgar looked puzzled. ’How do you know Solly?’ he replied.
George said nothing and began walking again. As they entered the bar he said, ‘How do you know Dr Abrahams?’ he asked his grandfather.
‘He is an old friend of Harry’s; we met through him, about twenty years ago.’ Edgar didn’t say anything else, he had already said enough.
‘You still haven’t explained Christmas to me,’ George told Edgar as they settled into to their chairs by the crackling fireplace.
‘It doesn’t exist anymore,’ said Edgar, ‘but when I was younger it used to be the day when all Christian families celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of God, by gathering together on the day somebody once, long ago, assumed was his birthday. That was December 25th each year, just a few days after the Winter Festival.’
‘Jesus Christ, Christians, Christmas?’ George pondered the connection between the words.
‘But most western families celebrated Christmas,’ Edgar continued, ‘you didn’t have to be a Christian. People gave each other presents, made the biggest meal of the year, we stuffed our faces, drank as much as we could and then fell asleep in front of the television. I loved Christmas, especially as a kid, it used to be so exciting waiting for Father Christmas.’
‘Father Christmas?’ Will asked. ‘So Christmas was connected to Christianity and, I guess, was banned along with the religion after Incorporation?’
’That’s right,’ said Edgar. ‘But we then had the Winter Festival instead, on mid-winter’s day a few days earlier. So we still had the big get together, the drinks and family rows so it didn’t make any difference to us at all. All the kids were given a holiday from school between the Festival and the New Year and most of the adults took time off work. It became the two week piss up it remains to this day.’
‘And what about religion in general, what exactly was that all about?’ Will asked the old man.
George and Will listened as Edgar then went on to explain that religion was an organised, irrational belief in a spiritual god who created the universe and everything in it, including Mankind.
‘Although god was man made, not the other way round. And also one of their biggest mistakes,’ he told them. ‘Around two thousand years ago the people told themselves, and anybody else they could persuade to listen, that there would be no morality or peace in the world without embracing and idolising their god. But, in fact, morality predated god by many thousands of years. Religion was the origin of totalitarianism. It was a form of dictatorship that was watching you everyday, following your every move, monitoring your thoughts and could punish you for them.’
Edgar then pointed out that there had never been a society, prior to the forming of the first religion, who considered murder, theft, perjury and child abuse to be acceptable. And none of them had ever needed a God to guide them towards that basic human instinct. Although it should never be said that there is no god, it can be insisted that there is no reason to believe there is one. The idea that religion claims that God made the universe in six days and then rested on the seventh is one of the central pillars of the house of Christianity. But nobody can separate that belief from the fact that human beings inhabited the planet at least one hundred thousand years before that claim was made.
The principal of religion is a totalitarian belief. It was the desire to subject yourself to the status of a slave. It was to believe that there was an unchallengeable, unchangeable dictatorial and tyrannical authority who will subject you to surveillance for twenty four hours, every day, throughout your life. Who creates a path for your life in which everything that happened to you was prearranged, designed and then imposed upon you. It was the ownership of your personality and the limiting of any individuality. It supposed that a person could not know the difference between right and wrong, between moral and immoral, between good and evil, without religious guidance in whatever form that manifested itself.
It was a set of beliefs that were formed in a region of the world populated by illiterate peasants whose understanding of the real world, whose knowledge of the universe was less than that of the average six-year old in modern times. Even a small child has heard of America and Australia. It would be another one thousand seven hundred years before the inhabitants of the known world even discovered those vast continents. Why didn’t they ask themselves back then why god had not guided those who wrote his holy books by intervening and saying, ‘don’t forget to mention the earth is round and that there is still plenty for you to discover.’ Why didn’t he explain that bacteria caused disease at a time when the overall belief was that disease was caused by curses and devils? Because if God created everything, then he would have known about bacteria, and the Mississippi River and Kangaroos. And why didn’t he point out that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way round.
The truth is that those who established the three main religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, lived in a small area of a barren part of the planet that had been involved in tribal wars for thousands of years. Those people would have believed in anything. But why would anybody still pay attention to any of those two thousand years later? Even if they accepted that the original calculations could be inaccurate? If they now believed that their god had created the universe millions of years earlier than had first been thought, because science had proved it, and then he finally populated it with humans over one hundred thousand years ago, as it was finally estimated, then it would mean they also had to believe that he then sat and watched as human beings suffered from war, disease, tornados, earthquakes, famine, slaughter and any number of persecutions for 100,000 years without intervening. Or, as some people believed, he actually made it all happen.
And then, after around 95,000 years of this carnage on earth, god decided to reveal himself and finally do something about it. And he did so by sending his only son down to be persecuted, tortured and then to die in a horrible manner, in order for people to believe in his presence. And, once they did, and that great Empire of the Romans finally embraced Christianity and founded the Roman Catholic Church, their new leaders were confronted by an entirely new cult who had modified those beliefs to suit their own cultures. Who claimed that a peasant, cave dwelling shepherd, around 600 years later, had been instructed by god to re-establish the original monotheistic faith of Jesus, the son of that god.
This meant that he and his followers believed that the Christians and Jews had got it all wrong and that their own faith was invalid. They claimed the holy lands for themselves which led to great wars and the god, they all believed was their own, encouraged it all. By the time it was abolished by the Corporation the belief in all of this superstition was responsible for most of the violence being carried out across the world. And yet it was a set of beliefs that belonged to the infancy of the human race. Beliefs that should have been outgrown thousands of years earlier, but instead had grown. Not only had it grown but it had separated into many different splinter cults who all made outrageous claims for themselves and who never offered any evidence for those claims.
Their central argument to those who did not believe in their childish superstitions was that the absence of their god could not be proved. Which, as an argument, was in itself juvenile. For the onus of proof should always lay with those making the claims, not for those who remained unconvinced. And the larger the claim being made then the greater the body of evidence should be needed to support those claims. And yet nobody ever did. Throughout the two thousand year history of religion no single piece of solid evidence was ever presented by anybody to support any claim made for the existence of god. And yet, in those days, even to suggest that they may have it all wrong would lead to one particular religion or tribe threatening to discredit, or even kill a person.
‘At the time of Incorporation,’ Edgar explained, ‘that threat was as bad as it had ever been. Banning it and removing any trace from the history archive was one of the smartest things the Corporation did in the early days. It was such a relief to those of us who could think for ourselves and were not governed or controlled by some sort of heavenly dictatorship, as the religious people were.’
The Christian Roman Catholic Church, along with their Pope, considered by Catholics as the vicar of Jesus Christ here on earth, were responsible for some of history’s most brutal and darkest chapters including the Spanish Inquisition, slave trading, the Crusades, serious injustice towards women, the mistreatment of children in almost every country on earth. And for the forced conversion of native people in South America and Africa. For the incitement, from their pulpits, of the massacre in Rwanda and for their silence during Adolph Hitler’s final solution. In the end it had to give away so much ground because ordinary people began to learn so much more. But nobody would ever forget the way that particular cult behaved when it was powerful and when it really did believe that they had god on their side. And as for the Church of England, the main splinter group of Christianity? Why would anybody have any respect for an organisation that was founded on the family values and moral fortitude of Henry VIII?
And its opposite number had been equally influential over the centuries. The suppression and indoctrination of members of the Islamic faith by its Imams and Elders, especially of its women and children, has been a central theme of that particular cult since its inception. It is also the only one of the main religions that lists violence towards non-believers as one of their ten practices. Jihad, which is translated as ‘struggle’ appears forty-one times in the Koran and is repeatedly called for. Moderate Muslims interpreted this practice as a struggle for God. But the moderate and peaceful Muslims were repeatedly out numbered during the course of history. Jihad, or holy war, against Christians, Jews and Hindus had been continually called for throughout the centuries.
According to the teachings of Islam, Judaism and Christianity no longer existed. They claimed that Islam had replaced them both, because they were newer and their information came from what they called the last, or final, Prophet. They regarded modern Spain and Portugal in the same way as the Iberian Peninsular had once been part of the Muslim Caliphate. And so central Europe would always remain a target for them and were thought of as occupied lands. The Main Board had to ban all of them to prevent the complete collapse of civilisation in the West. If it hadn’t then the place George, Hugo, Will, Tibha and everybody else was living in, by the year AI43, would have resembled Syria, or Afghanistan.
George looked towards the door to see Tibha and Hugo shuffling inside just as Will was leaving to meet Marnie at Waterloo. As Hugo sat down he placed Lord Kingston’s laptop on the table and George turned it on. Edgar looked at it carefully and realised he knew who it belonged too.
‘What’s on that?’ he asked.
‘I am just about to show you,’ George replied as he opened the files he had read a few days earlier. Tibha tapped out an order for some food on her hy-dev whilst Hugo looked through the wine app.
‘Did Solly give you this?’ Edgar asked when he had finished reading. ‘You already know that don’t you.’ George answered.
Edgar read the documents, sat back, took a large draw of his whiskey, lit a smoke and then said. ’The rich and the elite had been running the world’s economies for centuries,’ Edgar began. ‘Most of us realised that and it is why nobody really cared when the takeover happened. It was for the best, the world was in a terrible mess in the years leading up to it and the amateurs who were in government at the time had no idea how to deal with it. They only had short term objectives. Some plan or scheme that would take them through to the next election. What we needed was stability, strong leadership and financial freedom. The likes of Rothschild, Rockefeller and Baring, the bankers, they held all the power anyway and always had done. They were the ones who were financing everything. The Welfare State, wars, governments, the news feeds, the television programmes we watched, the music we listened to. They were the ones who would decide who could be a star. They controlled everything.’
‘The Eiderberg Group.’ Hugo suggested.
‘Yes, that lot.’ Edgar continued. ‘Until they disbanded just before the incorporation. Or at least I thought they had. I see from these documents that they simply re-branded. You know Lord Kingston was one of them don’t you?’
‘Obviously.’ said George.
‘It was nothing new,’ Edgar repeated. ‘They had been in charge for centuries. There had never been such a thing as real democracy; I have already told you that.’
‘Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign
Over government, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless Patriots of Spain?
That make all Europe’s journals squeak and gibber.
Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who makes politics run and gibber?
The shade of Bonaparte’s noble daring?
Jew Rothschild and his fellow Christian Baring.
Those and the truly liberal Lafitte
Are the true lords of Europe. With every loan
Is not a merely speculative hit
But they can seat a nation or upset a throne
Republics get involved a bit
Columbia’s stock has holders known
And even the silver soil in Peru
Must get itself discounted by a Jew.’
George, Edgar and Hugo all stared at Tibha as she finished speaking.
‘Excuse me?’ George asked.
‘It’s Lord Byron,’ she replied. ‘The Twelfth Canto of Don Juan, his classic poem that was published in 1837 of the Old Calendar. I knew I had heard the name Napoleon before. But he is complaining that Jews and Christians were the true lords of Europe, the power behind every government or monarchy. We were taught during ASPP that Rothschild and Baring were the heads of the most powerful banks in the world at that time. And Byron was famously noting that they had financed both sides of the war Napoleon was involved with.’
‘The Napoleonic Wars.’ Said Edgar.
‘The Battle of Waterloo,’ said George thoughtfully.
‘I need a drink,’ said Hugo.
‘Don’t you see,’ exclaimed Tibha. ‘The major banks were controlling everything even as far back as OC1837, probably long before that too. Democracy didn’t really exist then either. A small number of financially influential people were in charge. Rothschild and Baring lent the French and the English the money to go and buy guns, horses and pay soldiers with. That’s what we were taught. And Don Juan, at least part of it, makes that point and has recorded it.’
‘And so there never has been a real democracy?’ said George.
‘No,’ Edgar agreed. ‘There never seemed to be.’
Meanwhile Hugo had been searching through Lord Kingston’s laptop for references to religion. Eventually he found the file called ‘Faith and the Future.’ As the others chatted about how the bankers had been financing governments and royal families across the western Empire for centuries Hugo clicked on the file link.
Faith and the Future.
There is no doubt that The Rapture will soon be upon us. We now believe that the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Coming, will take place between the years 2032 and 2042 after His death. God’s son will return to earth and take with him his chosen Jews and Christians. Our holy book, the bible, confirms this in several places. The Book of Revelation; 7:4 reads, ‘And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.’ The same book at 14:1 confirms. ‘And I looked and saw a lamb standing upon Mount Sion and with him were a hundred and forty four thousand, having his father’s name written in their foreheads.’
Therefore we are sure that only 144,000 souls can be saved at the time of the Second Coming, which was probably an accurate number. We know at the time the bible was being written that would have been more than enough to cover the number of Christ’s followers. But, in modern times, with the number of Christians in the world standing at around two billion, God faces a dilemma. He would have to choose. And we cannot afford to take the risk of any of us, or our families, falling outside that number. We have all sinned gentlemen. Now the time has come for us to make sure of our rightful place in Heaven alongside Jesus Christ, our Lord, and God himself.
This means Christianity and Judaism must no longer be an option for ordinary people. Religion will be banned by the new Corporation after a period of discrediting by our news channels. We will start with Catholicism, the oldest of them all, and their systematic abuse of children in their care. That should make many people ashamed enough to despise them. The religious war between the Christian West and Islamic East should be stopped immediately and the reason given is that there is no longer any need to fight an endless and bloody war between two banned ideologies. The public will be relieved.
The planned de-population programme, and the banning of religion among the western societies, should reduce the number of us faithful to fewer than a hundred thousand. This policy will present God with less of a problem when Jesus comes to choose the 144,000 of us who remain and worship his soul.
Hugo turned the laptop around and the other three leant forward to read. They all then sat in silence until Edgar said,
‘I fucking thought so. That virus was deliberate. They intended to sterilise everybody and then pick and choose who could have a reversal procedure. That way they could control the population at will. No wonder they withdrew us so early, somebody on our team would have found that out.’
‘They ended the holy war, banned religion and permanently removed the Islamic threat just to make sure that they themselves were among God’s chosen few?’ George questioned. ‘The maniacs. It was all done, the whole reform, the New World Order, it was all created just to make sure the wealthy few, who remained worshippers, would be taken to heaven by Jesus Christ during the second coming. It was never about money, or power, it was all for religion, their religion. That’s verging upon mental illness. It’s madness.’
Edgar started laughing. ‘But they are all dead now, and there was no second coming was there? And there is no Heaven. But the world is still a better place now guys, you can trust me on that one. It is ironic though, when you think about it. They were wrong all along and yet still banned religion, the scourge of society. Only they thought they were keeping it for themselves alone. That’s funny.’
By then it had become clear to both George and Hugo that the entire Incorporation, the restructuring of society, had been engineered by a small group of people who were not only the richest and most influential, but were also fanatically religious. The banning of religion had been for everybody else and, instead, remained their own privilege. And the de-population program had been for the sole purpose of making sure that at the time of the second coming there wouldn’t be two billion Christians in the world anymore, there would be around 144,000. The amount their holy book had given as the number who would be granted eternal life in Heaven. Mad, fanatical religious belief had led them to create a society they would be able to control. And at their command billions of people had become sterile and died childless in order to ensure their own place in heaven at the second coming.
George looked at Edgar for some time before finally asking. ‘So where is London?’
‘Who wants another drink?’ said Edgar, dodging the question but George was in no mood to be avoided.
‘Where is London?’ he asked again, a little more firmly.
Eventually Edgar slowly stood up and moved towards to the window, ‘come here, I have something to show you.’
All four of them stood at the window as Edgar pointed to the dome of the great Wren Memorial.
‘That,’ he said, ‘was St Paul’s Cathedral. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which is why the Corporation gave it that name when cathedrals, mosques and churches were repossessed as religion was banned. And the Tower Castle, behind the bridge, used to be called the Tower of London when I was a boy. It has been there for over a thousand years. This is London; you have been here all along. You were born here, grew up here and still live here, in London.’
‘So it wasn’t made up by the fiction writers we are supposed to be correcting,’ said Tibha.
Edgar slowly shook his head. ‘I have just told you, the Tower of London has been there for over a thousand years. Your fiction writers have only been around for half of that. London pre-dates fiction by a very long time my love. It’s real alright. It is right there. It is all around you and always has been.’
Edgar sensed the shock as the information sank into the others. ‘Still, the world’s a better place I assure you.’ He told them. ‘We haven’t had the nutcases from any of the religions at war for decades. With anybody other than each other in the Middle East, that is.’
Tibha looked across at George who was gazing into the distance, far past the dome of St Paul’s and was listening to Mira laughing. She reached for his hand and squeezed it tightly and as he turned to face her his bright, blue eyes were wet and shining. A small tear appeared in the corner of one of them, which he gently scraped away with the nail of his thumb.
‘I am so sorry George,’ she said softly. And then she leaned across and held him tightly around his neck, gently stroking the back of his head.
‘I’m so sorry Georgie boy.’
Chapter Twelve
The following morning George took his coffee out onto his balcony and sat looking out over the western half of the Complex. It was cold and a frost had gathered overnight on rooftops for as far as he could see. He poured a little brandy into his mug, lit a smoke and thought about Mira. He remembered the uncontrollable laughter, the hopes and dreams she shared. The music they listened to and the stories he told her. Mira would sit and listen to George telling stories for hours and hours. ‘You must write your own book,’ she repeatedly encouraged him, ‘you say such lovely things.’ And he also remembered the lies, the deceit and the drinking. Sure, nobody was perfect, he reminded himself. He was far from that and yet she was as close to it as he had found, so far. And now, well now all that laughter, happiness, spirit and her innocent optimism would soon be scattered on a beach in Cape Town. Dust in the sand. It was her favourite beach. It was their favourite beach. Mira would never leave there now. And George would never go there again. With a heavy sigh and troubled heart George stabbed out his smoke, picked up his mug and turned back into the apartment.
‘Oh, there you are,’ said Tibha as she walked from the bedroom wearing his dressing gown and stroking her long, black hair with a towel.
‘Here I am,’ he smiled warmly at her.
‘I am on the 11-4 schedule today,’ She told him. ‘Want to meet in Harry’s later?’
George had been given five days compassionate leave by Mr Baptist and was not expected back into the work zone until Monday morning. ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘I am going over to Granddad’s this afternoon, I have a few more questions for him, so I will be in the Wharf anyway. See you there at H18?’
‘Good plan, I am off tomorrow too, so we can have a relaxing day. Shall we do something?’
‘Such as?’ he questioned her.
‘I don’t know, you decide. As long as it doesn’t involve drinking all day in Harry’s Bar.’ She replied.
George really couldn’t be bothered to decide anything. ‘I will try to think of something,’ he promised.
‘And don’t drink too much with Edgar,’ she called as she disappeared into the bedroom, ‘I know what a bad influence he can be on you,’ she laughed.
‘And when exactly did you become my wife?’ he replied. Although not loudly enough for her to hear him.
’What are you going to do with all this information George?’ she asked as she re-emerged, fully dressed this time.
‘Nothing,’ he told her. ‘What is there to do with it? I can’t record it anywhere; the hy-devs automatically delete any new reference to religion or the original Corporation. I found that out when I was trying to make some notes last week. And you have seen how limited most of the information is about other things from the past. I can’t change that. I am not sure I want to either. What would be the point? I would like to hear granddad’s whole story though. And to learn something about my family; I know nothing of my father since he left. Granddad may know where he is. And to find out more about religion too. I am so curious as to how so many people, for so many years, could have been under what appears to be some sort of spell.’
‘Oh, blah, blah, blah,’ called Tibha. ‘Religion rubbish, why do you need to know any more about that.’
‘Because I need to, that’s all.’ George still needed to know everything.
Tibha blew him a kiss from the doorway as she left and he picked up his hy-dev and tapped out a message to his grandfather.
‘How are you feeling son?’ Edgar asked George as he walked from the elevator.
‘I have been better,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m doing ok.’
‘Is it too early for a drink?’ Edgar pointed to the wall clock.
’It’s past midday isn’t it,’ George grinned as he picked up a couple of glasses and thumped them down into the big, old pine table. ‘Make mine a large one.’
Edgar carelessly half filled both glasses and handed one of them over. ‘I can’t stop thinking about her,’ George said sadly.
’Mira?’ Edgar replied. ‘It will take time son. Try and focus on the happy memories, the ones that made you laugh. Try to look back fondly rather than sadly, or angrily. Be grateful for what you did have and not resentful of what you found out.’
‘She lied to me. She was lying to me.’ George was angry.
‘And so does everybody George. Ninety-five percent of the people who cross your path in life don’t really give a damn about you. It may even be a higher percentage than that. That’s life. Just concentrate on the few who do. That’s all that really matters. Be a giver and not a taker. And that way you will never be troubled by those who only take. They become irrelevant to you, a mere distraction and nothing else.’
George sipped on his whiskey. He wasn’t there to talk about Mira. ’Is there anything,’ he asked, ‘anything at all that could be good for our society if the population was allowed to grow back to something like the levels it was before Incorporation?’
‘No, nothing at all.’ Edgar replied. ‘Seven billion people were far too many. The predictions at the time were that number would have been trebled by now. Imagine that George, right now, out there, more than twenty or even thirty billion people running around all over the place. You don’t even like it when someone sits next to you on the subway. In the old days we all used to have to stand, shoulder to shoulder, crammed in we were, like pilchards.’
‘Like what?’ George had never heard of tinned pilchards.
‘Never mind son. You wouldn’t have liked it, that’s all,’ said Edgar.
‘But de-population, that still troubles me a little. Everybody today is born fertile and yet automatically sterilised. And then that can be reversed if the Human Resource Department decide you are eligible.’
’No George, they don’t decide anything. You have to prove you are eligible. It’s up to you. If you have fulfilled the terms of your contract then they cannot and would not deny you the right to have a family. That’s in your hands, not theirs. And besides, we had to rely on condoms in our day. You don’t have that problem. You youngsters have it easy these days. Look, there had to be some sort of de-population. And as far as I could see there were only a handful of ways to do that with a society.’
‘And they were?’
’War, Famine, Disease, Natural Disaster, Contraception and Celibacy. Which of those would you prefer George?’ Edgar asked.
‘Ok, I see your point. Forced contraception was at least the most humane way of those to go about it. What about marriage, how did that work in your day?’
‘Well, long before my time, when people lived in small communities, people married people and had families who were like each other. Farm boys married farm girls and the wealthy aristocrats married into each others families. It was like that for generations. But, in my day those lines had all been blurred. Especially in the big cities like London.’
George looked out of the window towards St Paul’s. Edgar continued. ‘In my day we could marry whoever we wanted. In fact, we could have children even if we weren’t married. We could choose whoever we wanted to share our genetic line with and guess what; most of us chose somebody unsuitable. I know I did. Your generation are encouraged to marry like minded people. That’s why you are brought up among people with similar natures, like that Tibha girl for instance. Mechanically minded people are mixed with mechanically minded people from the beginning of their academy training. Scientists are mixed with other scientists, artists with artists and writers, George, like you, are associated with other creative people, from a very early age. That way you are far more likely to share your genes with somebody of a similar nature and, scientifically speaking, that’s good for society. That is good for the future of the Corporation.’
’And all we have to do is prove we can honour five marriage licences, either with one person, or with five different people, and we qualify for a fifteen year family licence,’ said George thoughtfully.
‘It’s not a perfect system,’ agreed Edgar. ‘Many people enter the one year contracts just to get them out of the way. But, they can’t be broken, that’s the point. So at least people are more honest with each other than they used to be. And more patient too, they have to be. Not like in my day. We could be having relationships and sex with whoever we wanted to and whenever we wanted. We could simply pay for it if we chose to. And so can you, only not if you want to have a family yourself and propagate your gene.’
‘What is the difference between having sex in a relationship and paying for it?’ asked George.
‘Paying for it was cheaper,’ laughed Edgar, ‘in the long run anyway.’
‘I don’t understand,’ complained George.
‘And I wouldn’t expect you too,’ Edgar responded, ‘pass that bottle.’
George had the feeling they were talking about two different things. He wanted to know more about his family but Edgar had never really spoken about them. George had met both his grandfather and his father, according to Edgar, but he was too young to remember either of them.
‘What is it like to have children? ’He asked.
Edgar peered into his glass as if he was looking for something. ‘To be the father of a growing child is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Nothing reveals a man's limitations as much as the absolute realisation that his heart and soul is running around in another person’s body. A little person. That is the time when ordinary men need to become extraordinary. I could go on,’ he told George, ‘but I wouldn't want to spoil your sleep, as it has ruined mine over the years.’
Edgar was glad George had found out the truth about how modern society had been shaped. He, himself, had seen big changes but for the younger generation everything would appear to be natural and normal. It is what they were born into, grew up with and became used to. It impressed Edgar that such big changes could be made to everybody’s way of life in only a few generations. One of the problems, of the old democracy, had been that the intelligent people were all full of doubts and the ignorant were overcome with misplaced confidence.
He thought back to his own grandfather and he really didn’t know what life had been like for him. And that meant society had changed between their generations too. And had probably always changed between every other generation. He wasn’t at all troubled by what the original Main Board had achieved and to discover it had all been done to satisfy their own deeply held religious beliefs amused him. And after all, there was nothing sinister about the society they had created, only in the way they had achieved it but that was all in the past. Now things were controlled, orderly and relatively safe.
He could turn a blind eye to the forced and sometimes covert program of sterilisation. He remembered the Welfare Generation and the high streets littered with young, single mothers who couldn’t hold down a relationship and didn’t want to work. He was quite happy to see the back of religion and their poisonous grip upon the poor souls who shared its beliefs, or had them imposed upon them. The whole environment to him, as a scientist, appeared to be verging upon some sort of mental illness. Who, in their right mind, would have a beautiful, new baby boy and the first thing they would do was hand it over to have his foreskin cut away. ‘Pass me that sharp stone or flint,’ they would say in the undeveloped countries. ‘Scalpel nurse,’ in the more progressive ones. To Edgar they all seemed to be as bad as each other. If it wasn’t a diagnosed mental illness then it had to be very close to it.
And democracy? Well, it all began with the right intentions but a democratic system had to be closely associated with capitalism, even though they were not compatible. There was no other way for democracy to work, other than for the benefit of the capitalists, and in which case it would only be a matter of time before those with the money bought the society they needed for themselves. As Tibha had pointed out they were already pulling all the strings as far back as when Lord Byron had been complaining about them. It didn’t get him anywhere and complaining about it wouldn’t get anybody else anywhere either. And that was why Edgar had opted for a quiet life. A life under the radar. A life out of focus. But that didn’t stop him from reminiscing from time to time, even though he had no appetite for a return to the old system of society. He felt more liberated now than he ever had been in a free democracy. For a start nobody was letting bombs off on the subway anymore, or in shopping centres. And the freedom from fear is the sweetest freedom a man can feel.
The Corporation gave him that and the Main Board maintained it. After that, he didn’t care what their motives or reasons were. He hoped George didn’t either. But Edgar felt sure he had no intention of making a fuss about what he had learned. After all, that was why Solly had encouraged him to allow George to find the laptop. He was confident George would not want to live in the sort of world he would read about in 2015. That would be the same as him wanting to live in the world his own grandfather had once described.
A world of war with Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan. Wars that had been written out of history and removed from the archive. Erased and forgotten about, in only a few generations. But he did want him to preserve it. And society may change again during George’s own lifetime. He had his own generation to think about, his own way of life and his own relationships. He studied the boy and could see he was hurting.
‘Are you planning another trip to Cape Town?’ Edgar asked him.
‘No, not for a while,’ said George. He looked up at Edgar. ‘Doesn’t it bother you, they way they fashioned a New Order?’
’There were times in my life George,’ he replied, ‘when I have been ashamed to be a member of the human race, a human being. When I remember how our species treated each other. And, in some parts of the world, still do, in the name of their religion or in the name of national pride, then I am ashamed of my fellow creature and how we developed over the years. In my lifetime I have seen things change for the better. I have seen more empathy, more sympathy, less dogma and much less fear’
‘But what about all those people who were rounded up, sent to the controlled living accommodation and then deported. Did that bother you at all, as it bothers me? And the region of the Middle East that is now in ruins, almost deserted? They were defenceless weren’t they? They didn’t stand a chance against the Corporation.’
’Only a fool George,’ Edgar said carefully, ‘would argue that we fought against and destroyed the weak and defenceless of the planet. We fought the scum of the planet. People whose children and grandchildren will never again try to kill mine, or yours. They started their Jihad and as soon as it looked as if they may prevail, and impose their way of life upon the people in the West, then the powerful people in the West, the Eiderberg Group, hit back. Decisively and once and for all. They were not to be messed with and I couldn’t care less if they did that for their own selfish, stupid religious reasons or not. The end result was the same. And remember, if they had not been quite as fanatical, and ruthless as they were, then maybe the ending would have been very different. Heroes aren't born George, they are forced; they have been cornered. They had no other choice. Maybe you would have done the same thing if you had been living in the sort of society you read about in those newspapers on that laptop.’ Edgar gestured with his glass towards the table.
‘The only thing new in the world is the history we find out about,’ said George thoughtfully. ‘And it is easy to criticise with the benefit of hindsight I suppose.’
‘Critics are like virgins son.’ Edgar drained his glass and reached for the bottle. ‘They know what to do alright; they have seen it done many times on the internet. But they have never done it for themselves.’
George sat down and stirred the ice in his whiskey with a fat finger. Finally he looked across and asked Edgar the question he found the hardest to confront him with. ‘And so what happened to my mother and father?’
Edgar sat back in his chair and paused in thought for a short while. ‘Your mother broke the terms of their marriage licence when she got herself involved in a relationship with another teacher at the ASPP facility. She used to be Head of Literature you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ George replied. ‘I remember. Was there a scandal?’
‘Only locally. That sort of thing was kept quiet by the Corporation. Only those closely involved really knew anything about it. And those who did weren’t really interested. She broke her contract that was all. As I remember it, she carried on as normal with her contribution, although she knew she would never be able to apply for another family licence. But the chap involved wanted a family of his own and so, within a few years, he had met somebody else, moved to one of the other Divisions and had his family there. Your mother then stayed here on the Complex until you were old enough to enter the Academy and then she applied for a position in the Division of Gaul and moved away.’
George looked down into his glass and pursed his lips. ‘That’s why I have no brothers or sisters. She did come back to visit me from time to time.’ He said fondly.
‘The last time was when you were staying here during your ASPP,’ Edgar reminded him.
‘Maybe I should go and see her,’ George appeared to be thinking out loud.
‘Maybe you should,’ Edgar replied thoughtfully.
‘What about my father?’ George asked him.
‘My grandson,’ Edgar said quietly. ‘He was heartbroken for a while, but he soon got over it and moved on. He hadn’t breached the terms of the contract and so he was able to marry again and have a new family.’
George stood up. He immediately understood the consequences of that announcement. ‘And did he?’ he asked.
‘He was a scientist too.’ Edgar said proudly.
‘And did he?’ George asked again.
‘Ok George, here is the thing,’ Edgar began to explain. ‘He packed up and moved away from the Complex. He was given a transfer to the African Division and became a Head of Department. Once the travelling time to Cape Town was cut from twelve hours to only around ninety minutes he used to come back here quite often and visit his friends. He tried to visit you too but your mother would never allow it. She was still angry and bitter that he had left her when he found out about the affair. She wanted more children but knew they would have to be conceived whilst she was in contract with him. She blamed him for invoking the termination clause. It meant she would never have another chance. She wanted him to stay quiet about it, put up with it. But he wasn’t like that son. He was stubborn, single minded, believed in the truth. A lot like you. Anyway, eventually she disappeared for a few months. I found out later she went off to a retreat of some sort to try and ‘find herself.’ She should have tried looking up her own arse.’
’Did he get married again? Do I have brothers and sisters?’ George patiently asked for a third time. He was beginning to think Edgar was avoiding the question.
’Yes he did George.’ Edgar finally admitted. ‘To a lovely girl from the African Division. She was an artist and a fine one too.’ George looked up at the paintings, prints and sculptures that were scattered around Edgar’s scruffy apartment.
‘You were very close to him weren’t you?’ he said quietly. Edgar remained silent.
‘Are you going to answer the question?’ George finally prompted him.
Edgar took a deep breath and then said, ‘they didn’t have any children son. There are no brothers and sisters. They planned to. They chose a beautiful house in Cape Town, signed a contract and he had a new future ahead of him. He intended to come back for you but your mother simply wouldn’t allow it. She told so many lies about him that in the end even she didn’t live the truth. She was the most bitter and angry person I ever encountered. It makes my skin crawl even thinking about her behaviour when you were younger. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Where is he now?’ George asked. ‘Why did he give up on me?’
’He never did that son,’ Edgar said softly.
‘Are you crying granddad?’ George looked closely at the old man who was holding his glass in front of his face with both hands.
’He never wanted you to know how unspeakably badly your mother behaved,’ he finally said. ‘He didn’t think it was necessary for you to know any of that. She blocked every attempt of his to have any contact with you and to be a part of your life. Eventually he was able to persuade the Human Resources Department that you would be better off living in a stable family environment with him in Cape Town. By then you were about ten-years old and he was coming to take you home.’
Edgar placed his glass down, wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his old fraying shirt and then cleared his throat. ‘And that was when the accident happened.’
‘What accident?’ George asked.
’He lost his life George, in a climbing accident somewhere in the African Division. That’s all I know. I never saw him again and I still miss him every day. All I have to remind me of him are those paintings and you. You are very similar to him George. I see him in you every time you come here.’
’He brought you all of this art from Africa when he came to visit didn’t he,’ said George.
‘That’s right son, but not for me. They belong to you. He brought them for you, they are yours.’
George looked again at the paintings he had become so familiar with over the years. And then he asked, ‘and what about the woman he went into contract with?’
‘She was devastated. We all were but she never recovered. She lived in their house as a virtual recluse, surrounded by his things, until she finally fell ill and died. They could have cured her but she refused the treatment. She didn’t want to live.’
George stood up and walked to the window. Gazing out across the Complex he said firmly. ‘The unknown lady who gave me her house. My father’s house. My father’s Jaguar. My father’s furniture, my father’s everything.’
‘Is all yours now George, just as he wanted it to be. Just how he intended it to be. Until that fucking accident. He didn’t have a contract in place but Nancy, the girl he married, she knew how much he missed you. Nancy knew he wanted you to have it all and so she made sure a contract was in place, in your favour, before she died.’
Edgar wiped another tear from the corner of his eye. George said nothing. ‘He was a good boy too George,’ Edgar finally said. ‘He was inquisitive, he asked questions and he wanted to find out for himself who was behind the Corporation. He understood that science was controlling society. Controlling the world. He would come here and ask me all the questions you have. But he never got as far as you son, the accident prevented that.’
‘Why have you never told me any of this before?’ George demanded.
‘Because you have never asked and because I would rather leave things alone son. For a start I have always been suspicious of that so called accident.’
‘You have to write all this down granddad. You can use your old laptop and nobody will ever know. You have to tell the story about the decline of the Great Western Empire. Pretty soon there will be nobody left who remembers anything. About London, for example,’ George swept his hand across the windows, ‘The history of this great city has been simply deleted. My home town, your home town. The home town of my father. You need to tell this story. Write the book. And I will show you how. We can do it together. You are the last man who will remember it all.’
‘No, no, no George,’ Edgar sighed. ‘I am an old man and intend to live my remaining years out of their focus. Religious people are very dangerous George and I don’t know if any of the Main Board members still are, even if their Rapture didn’t materialise in the end. Your father came close to the truth. Now you have found out everything he did and you also know everything I know. Leave it alone. Knowing is enough and when I shuffle on you will be the only one left who has the whole truth, who understands the real history. You can do whatever you want with that information son, write the book yourself if you like, but just be careful. I’m an old man George, it’s you, and not me. You are now the last man in London.
The End.