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20:36 Wednesday 16 November 2089
“Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Ethan Armstrong was fuming. Life had been normal or, at least, as normal as could be when he ran the world. The resistance attacked Illuminati strongholds. The Illuminati defended the strongholds. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully. That was how it was, it was to be expected. Any government had its critics. Even the ONP. Well, especially the ONP. That was to be expected. Policies put in place by the various ONP governments around the world weren’t designed to help the general population. The general population, mostly non-Recarns, were the worker bees. Their sole purpose was to make the already obscenely rich Illuminati even richer and to entrench the Organisation’s position in the world.
He looked around the great boardroom at the Council of Thirteen, each member looking regal in their ceremonial robes.
“I asked you a fucking question.”
Councillor Cavendish went to rap his ceremonial staff three times, hard on the ground, to signify that he was about to speak, as was demanded by Illuminati protocol. Ethan, the Pindar, held his hand up to stop the Councillor from doing so.
“Screw protocol Cavendish. If you have something to say, then say it.”
“Very well, my Lord Pindar. We have received reports that Douglas, the Businessman, is dead.”
“Yes. A great shame. Of course, we were enemies but at least you knew where you were with Douglas. Go on.”
“The leadership of One Life should have gone to Zafar Azad, but nobody has heard anything from him for a few days. And then this Garcia character has appeared from out of the blue, as it were.”
“How? Where did he spring from?”
“Nobody knows, sir.”
Councillor Bruce stood up, taking advantage of the absence of protocol.
“If I may interject, my Lord Pindar. I think the more pertinent question is how did he get access to the IT infrastructure? I mean, he appears to have access to anything, absolutely anything, that is interconnected. It’s as if Internet security measures seem to be nonexistent to him. He can access and hijack anything he wants to. At anytime. At will.”
“And what about our systems?”
“They’re secure my Lord Pindar. As soon as the first Garcia transmission occurred I checked our network and beefed up our firewalls.”
That was a small mercy.
“I’m glad somebody was on the ball. Thank you. So we’re safe.”
“For the moment, sir. But imagine that the Internet is an enormous building with an infinite number of locked rooms. Garcia has found a master-key that will open all those rooms. We’ve changed the lock of our room and have barricaded the door with furniture, but it’s only postponing the inevitable. He will get in, sooner or later.”
Councillor Bruce took a breath and continued.
“And his videos are everywhere. It’s like a virus. Except that it isn’t. Not in the way we think of computer viruses anyway. We have no idea how he’s doing it. Try to access a video on YouTube and his propaganda plays instead. Try to post a message on Facebook and half the time your post is replaced by a propaganda video. It’s the same for Instagram. And Twitter feeds are getting flooded with Garcia’s propaganda. It’s quite impressive really. In a bad way, of course.”
“How can we stop it?”
“We can’t at the moment. We’re doing our best, but we haven’t been able to do a thing to stop it yet. I’ve got teams of experts working around the clock.”
“Well, if you need to, put more people on it. We can’t let this continue unchecked. Every hour that passes, more Normals will be brainwashed and think that they can overcome us. I can’t stress how important this is to our future, our very existence.”
Ethan started to walk towards the door. He turned to his councillors.
“I want all hands to the wheel to find out anything about this Garcia fellow. Who he is, where he’s from, what he has for breakfast, where he hangs out, who he hangs out with. Everything. If he has a shit, I want to know the colour and the consistency. I need information. Down to the minutest detail.”
He went to open the door but was halted by a throat being cleared.
“Yes, Councillor Sinclair?”
“My Lord Pindar. I think that we need to address the elephant in the room.”
And what elephant might that be?”
There was a hush, almost visible in its intensity, that enveloped the room. Councillors looked at each other. Nobody had spoken of it but each was aware of it. Was Councillor Sinclair really going to say out loud, that which they all knew but were afraid to admit? Councillor Sinclair took a deep breath.
“My memory. My memory is not what it once was.”
“You’re getting old, my friend. It’s to be expected.”
“No. My memory is perfect - regarding this life anyway. I’m talking about my past lives. I can’t remember a thing. My past life memory has disappeared. Gone. Kaput.”
“Probably a temporary thing. A virus perhaps. It’ll come back. I’m sure.”
Councillor Warburg raised his hand.
“My Lord Pindar. I have no past life memory either. I’ve tried to remember my previous existences but I can’t. It’s as if there’s something blocking me from them.”
Ten of the remaining members of the Council of Thirteen felt emboldened by the confession of Warburg and Sinclair and admitted that they too had lost their past life memory. Councillor Bruce turned to Councillor Cavendish, a fifteen year old boy in a room full of adults.
“As everybody knows, I am standing in for my father until his new incarnation is able to return to the fold and he can reclaim his place on the Council. But I’m concerned that he will never come back. If he too is suffering from a loss of PLM, he won’t know that he should come back. He won’t remember us. He’ll only be aware of his new life. Councillor Cavendish, our special forces located your new host body in a remote village in Vietnam and brought you back to us. Do you remember how your previous life ended? Do you really remember? Please be totally honest.”
Cavendish wanted to say yes but he was terrible at lying.
“In my sleep?”
“Try again.”
“Some kind of accident?”
“Nope.”
“I give up.”
“You were blown up by an exploding golf ball. The kind of thing that a Recarn would remember. We’re Recarns. That means we remember our past lives. Without PLM what are we? What are we? We’re normal. And more importantly, we’ve lost our advantage over the rest of humanity.”
Ethan felt obliged to calm things down.
“We’ll deal with that in due course. Our most pressing problem is this Garcia character. Let’s solve that situation first. Anyway, I still have all my faculties intact, including my past life memory. All resources must be focused on Garcia.”
His hand had been hovering over the door handle during this more recent discussion. He opened the door and hurried out of the room, only relaxing a little when he was back in the comfort and security of his own office. He pulled a bottle of whisky from the desk drawer and poured a generous shot into a crystal glass, wishing that he could remember his past lives, wishing that he could pool all his considerable experience gained throughout the centuries and could find a way to deal with Señor Santori Filipe Garcia.