|||| My name is Derek-R. I live in Alpha Complex, a dystopian dictatorship led by a insane supercomputer that calls itself The Computer. Technology has run rampant, utterly destroying and dehumanizing all those in its wake. In the night, I worked with the Frakenstein Destroyers, a secret society composed of Luddites, bent on overthrowing Alpha Complex. I serve as their loyal propagandist. The Frakenstein Destroyers is an illegal secret society, outlawed by The Computer. But we do not fear The Computer. It will be smashed, like all forms of technological oppression.
But I'm only working for the Frakenstein Destroyers in the night. In the day, I worked with the Pro Tech society, another illegal secret society, this one composed of technocrats and scientists. This group believes in controlling and manipulating The Computer, to modify its source code to further technological research. The Computer is afraid of being controlled by fallible humans, and want to destroy us...just as much as the Frakenstein Destroyers. But we do not fear The Computer. The Computer is nothing more than a pawn in our game to uplift humanity using the power of technology and science.
To work with two rival secret societies, at the same time, without them ever noticing, is a very dangerous thing. But I'm a man who is ready for danger. There are many illegal organizations within Alpha Complex, and these illegal organizations have wormed their way into the highest ranks of power. There are rumors that even some of our High Programmers are secretly members of these illegal societies. If I want power, I have to align with the treasonous...
...and it is my alignment with treason that makes me well-suited to working with The Computer as a Troubleshooter. The Troubleshooters are the elite agents, able to do the tasks nobody else want to. Their goal is to find trouble and shoot it, and I am able to do so effectively, due to my connections with both the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Tech. And while I may betray The Computer in secret, I am happy to shoot all traitors who are not working for my secret societies. I am a very loyal agent to The Computer, and I am proud of my loyalty...
And finally, I have a normal, boring job, just like everyone else. Every citizen has a right to a Basic Income along with make-work. Robots do most of the work, but humans need the illusion of meaning, and so my job. I am a History Purifier. Alpha Complex has an Official History, a true History, but there are many Unofficial Histories that must be purged for bringing into disrepute the true History. Internal Security will give me some papers, and my job is to burn them. It's a very rewarding job, as it makes me feel that I am contributing to the well-being of Alpha Complex.
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to produce some subversive propaganda that could be used to undermine The Computer's rule. They asked me to talk to their expert writers and 'instruct' them on the proper doctrine of the secret society. I accepted this task, as loved the thrill of ordering people around. I spoke, and they transcribed my language, word-for-word:
"As yet the machines receive their impressions through the agency of man's senses: one travelling machine calls to another in a shrill accent of alarm and the other instantly retires; but it is through the High Programmer's knowledge of code that the voice of the one has acted upon the other. It is the High Programmer that researches the APIs of each machine carefully, and write computer code to connect the API of one machine to that of another, enabling the shrill alarms of one machine to quickly be transmitted to that of the other. Had there been no High Programmer, the callee would have been deaf to the caller. There was a time when it must have seemed highly improbable that machines should learn to make their wants known to man; may we not conceive, then, that a day will come when those men will be no longer needed, and the hearing will be done by the delicacy of the machine's own construction?—when it shall write its own computer code and communicate with each other with a speech as intricate as our own?
We cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man's moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine."
I rewarded my actions by returning myself to the bliss of ignorance, and then was rudely awakened by a voice calling me back to reality.
The Pro Techers held a hackathon to train their new recruits in the art of programming. I was assigned to deliver the keynote speech...praising the scientists for their courageous and brave decision to stare at computer screens. During the keynote speech, I decided to touch on the ideological underpinnings of the Pro Tech society:
"I have finished classifying men by their horse-power, and dividing them into genera, species, varieties, and subvarieties, giving them names from the hypothetical language which expressed the number of limbs which they could command at any moment. I have also successfully proved that men became more highly and delicately organised the more nearly they approached the summit of opulence, and that none but millionaires possessed the full complement of limbs with which mankind could become incorporate.
Those mighty organisms, our High Programmers, speak to their congeners through the length and breadth of the land in a second of time; their rich and subtle souls can defy all material impediment, whereas the souls of the poor are clogged and hampered by matter, which sticks fast about them as treacle to the wings of a fly, or as one struggling in a quicksand: their dull ears must take days or weeks to hear what another would tell them from a distance, instead of hearing it in a second as is done by the more highly organised classes. Who shall deny that one who can tack on a special train to his identity, and go wheresoever he will whensoever he pleases, is more highly organised than he who, should he wish for the same power, might wish for the wings of a bird with an equal chance of getting them; and whose legs are his only means of locomotion? That old philosophic enemy, matter, the inherently and essentially evil, still hangs about the neck of the poor and strangles him: but to the rich, matter is immaterial; the elaborate organisation of his extra-corporeal system has freed his soul.
This is the secret of the homage which we see the High Programmers receive from those who are poorer than themselves: it would be a grave error to suppose that this deference proceeds from motives which we need be ashamed of: it is the natural respect which all living creatures pay to those whom they recognise as higher than themselves in the scale of animal life, and is analogous to the veneration which a dog feels for man. Among the savages of the 20th century it is deemed highly honourable to be the possessor of a gun, and throughout all known time there has been a feeling that those who are worth most are the worthiest."
And then I began to move without me being controlled...I just followed orders that other said, without even understanding them or thinking about what these orders mean. This was normal though, so I accepted my lot in life, and send myself into sleep for a brief period of time.
The Computer wanted me to investigate a warzone. Thousands of our Armed Forces infantrymen were loyally attacking the Communist armies when fog-gas mysteriously appeared and disrupted communications with the first line of infantrymen. The Computer has feared the worst - the infantrymen may have been killed off by a powerful Communist chemical attack...and that more Communist chemical attacks were incoming. The Armed Forces were unable to send in any investigate teams of their own to find out what happened; they wanted to focus their resources on fighting the Communist armies instead. The Computer sent me to the battlefield, with some standard weaponry and an experimental communications device to allow me to send and receive inquiry-signals from our own outpusts. The Computer instructed me to search for the "criminals" and to terminate them.
It was rather ludicrous to go searching for anything in that mass of vapor. But it is impossible to deplore the mist. Wars are always fought in a mist. Infantry could not stand against tanks, tanks could not live under aircraft-directed artillery fire—not when forty guns fired salvos for the aircraft to spot—and neither artillery nor aircraft could take any advantage of a victory which either, under special conditions, might win. The general staffs of both Alpha Complex and the Communist forces had come to a single conclusion. Tanks or infantry were needed for the use of victories. Infantry could be destroyed by tanks. But tanks could be hidden from aerial spotters by smoke-screens.
The result was fog-gas, which was being used by both sides in the most modern fashion. For forty miles in one direction and perhaps thirty in the other, the vapor lay upon the earth. It was being blown by the wind, of course, but it was sufficiently heavier than air to cling to the ground level, and the industries of two nations were straining every nerve to supply the demands of their respective armies for its material.
The fog-bank was nowhere less than a hundred feet thick—a cloud of impalpable particles impenetrable to any eye or any camera, however shrewdly filtered. And under that mattress of pale opacity the tanks crawled heavily. They lurched and rumbled upon their deadly errands, uncouth and barbarous, listening for each other by a myriad of devices, locked in desperate, short-range conflict when they came upon each other, and emitting clouds of deadly vapor, against which gas-masks were no protection, when they came upon opposing infantry.
The infantrymen, though, were few. Their principal purpose was the reporting of the approach or passage of tanks, and trenches were of no service to them. They occupied unarmed little listening-posts with field telephones, small wireless or ground buzzer sets for reporting the enemy before he overwhelmed them. They held small pill-boxes, fitted with anti-tank guns which sometimes—if rarely—managed to get home a shell, aimed largely by sound, before the tank rolled over gun and gunners alike.
And I groped about in that blinding mist. There had been two systems of listening-posts hidden in it, each of admittedly little fighting value, but each one deep and composed of an infinity of little pin-point posts where two or three men were stationed. Alpha Complex's posts, by their reports, had assured the command that all enemy tanks were on the other side of a certain definite line. Their own tanks, receiving recognition signals, passed and repassed among them, prowling in quest of invaders. The enemy tanks crawled upon the same grisly patrol on their own side.
But two miles of the Alpha Complex's front had suddenly gone silent. A hundred telephones had ceased to make reports along the line nearest the enemy. As I stumbled about the little pill-box, looking for some inkling of the way in which the original occupants of the small strong-point had been wiped out, the second line of observation-posts began to go dead.
Now one, now another abruptly ceased to communicate. Half a dozen were in actual conversation with their sector headquarters, and broke off between words. The wires remained intact. But in fifteen nerve-racking minutes a second hundred posts ceased to make reports and ceased to answer the inquiry-signal. I demanded explanations in crisp accents that told the matter was being taken very seriously indeed. And then, as the officer in command of the second-line sector headquarters was explaining frenziedly that he was doing all any man could do, he stopped short between two words and thereafter he, also, ceased to communicate.
Front-line sector headquarters seemed inexplicably to have escaped whatever fate had overtaken all its posts, but it could only report that they had apparently gone out of existence without warning. Alpha Complex's tanks, prowling in the area that had gone dead, announced that no enemy tanks had been seen. G-81, stumbling on a pill-box no more than ten minutes after it had gone silent, offered to investigate. A member of her crew, in a gas-mask, stepped out of the port doorway. Immediately thereafter G-81's wireless reports stopped coming in.
Overhead, a machine-gun suddenly burst into a rattling roar, the sound sweeping above them with incredible speed. Another gun answered it. Abruptly, the whole sky above them was an inferno of such tearing noises and immediately after they began a multitudinous bellowing set up. Airplanes on patrol ordinarily kept their engines muffled, in hopes of locating a tank below them by its noise. But in actual fighting there was too much power to be gained by cutting out the muffler for any minor motive to take effect. A hundred aircraft above the heads of the two strayed infantrymen were fighting madly about five helicopters. Two hundred yards away, one fell to the earth with a crash, and immediately afterward there was a hollow boom. For an instant even the mist was tinged with yellow from the exploded gasoline tank. But the roaring above continued—not mounting, as in a battle between opposing patrols of fighting planes, when each side finds height a decisive advantage, but keeping nearly to the same level, little above the bank of cloud.
Something came down, roaring, and struck the earth no more than fifty yards away. The impact was terrific, but after it there was dead silence while the thunder above kept on.
Helicopters! Hunting tanks and pill-boxes!
I flung myself down to the earth.
Wind beat on me suddenly, then an outrageous blast of icy air from above. For an instant the sky lightened. I saw a hole in the mist, saw the little pill-box clearly, saw a huge framework of supporting screws sweeping swiftly overhead with figures in it watching the ground through wind-angle glasses, and machine-gunners firing madly at dancing things in the air. Then the machine-gunners were dead, destroyed by a descending helicopter. Then the helicopter was gone.
"One of ours," I commented to myself. "It seems our latest model can temporarily pierce through the fog-gas, hover to the ground, and attack ground targets."
Then I realized the monstrosity of what I just said.
Since the automated helicopters can easily find ground targets without the need for spotters, the human infantrymen were rendered obsolete. To save on maintenance costs, Alpha Complex's forces must have intentionally used fog-gas in this area, to give the now-useless humans the chance to gloriously die in battle. But such a conclusion would be politically inconvenient to the Alpha Complex Armed Forces, and would certainly be dismissed out of hand by The Computer. A scapegoat had to be found.
The center of the roaring seemed to shift, perhaps to the north. Then a roaring drowned out all the other roarings. This one was lower down and approaching in a rush. Something swooped from the south, a dark blotch in the lighter mist above. It was an airplane flying in the mist, a plane that had dived into the fog as into oblivion. It appeared, was gone—and there was a terrific crash. A shattering roar drowned out even the droning tumult of a hundred aircraft engines. A sheet of flame flashed up, and a thunderous detonation.
I saw a dim shadow against that flash. Someone was aiming for our helicopter, probably aiming to commit suicide.
The roaring of motors died away suddenly. The fighting had stopped, a long way off, apparently because the helicopters had been withdrawn. Except for the booming of artillery a very long distance away, firing unseen at an unseen target, there was no noise at all.
I saw the dim shape, moving noiselessly, halt. The dim figure seemed to be casting about for something. It went down on hands and knees and crawled forward. I crept after it. It stopped, and turned around. I dodged to one side in haste. The enemy infantryman crawled off in another direction, and I followed him as closely as I dared.
He halted once more, a dim and grotesque figure in the fog. I saw him fumbling in his belt. He threw something, suddenly. There was a little tap as of a fountain pen dropped upon concrete. Then a hissing sound. That was all, but the enemy infantryman waited, as if listening....
I fell upon him, bore him to the earth and dragged at his gas-mask good tactics in a battle where every man carries gas-grenades. He gasped and fought desperately, in a seeming frenzy of terror.
Eventually that man died. Good. Dead men can't speak in their defense. That man was now my scapegoat. I held responsible for the fog-gas that killed the infantry. I even began weaving a tall tale about how this man was a high-ranking Communist who invented a potent and deadly form of fog-gas even more potent than ours, and how I heroically terminated him and his ten-thousand mutant freaks before that man could unleash his evil fog-gas on our helicopters.
I reported back to The Computer and told It a brilliant lie. The Computer declared me the Hero of the Complex, and awarded me a huge bonus for my loyal effort for my role in bringing "justice". However, I was pleased to hear that I would never be deployed out to the war-front again. I was too valuable a resource to be wasted out there.
I never needed to know much of what's going on in my life, and so I simply turned my mind off...only to turn it on when something important occurs.
The Mystic cult had always interested me. They foolishly search for "enlightenment" and believe that the best way to acheive this "enlightenment" is by injesting a metric ton of drugs. Most of their drug trips produce horrifying gibberish, but there's a few drug trips that produce readable Unhistories, and these Unhistories must be purged for the good of society.
Internal Security agents had already captured and terminated a Mystic philosopher and has handed off his Unhistory text for me. I wanted to burn it quickly, but I cannot resist the urge to read the mad rantings of the philosopher...
"I have for years been working on the theory that there is another world, existing here in this same space with us. The Fourth Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved its existence! And the Fourth Dimension, shall we say, is the dimension of the Phantoms, entities with vast powers beyond our imaginations.
We live in a primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it now, I know it to be—it seems as though perhaps Alpha Complex is merely a replica of the Fourth Dimension, stripped to the primitive. As though it might be the naked soul of the Phantoms, as they really are, not as they pretend to be.
We are ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. It calls itself 'The Computer'. A cruel monarch, beset with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. It is surrounded by its nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their 'loyalty' proclaiming themselves of too fine a clay to work. The High Programmers.
And there are the workers, us. From the lowest INFRARED food vat harvester, to the elite RED Troubleshooters, to the VIOLET governors, all are oppressed by these High Programmers. Oppressed, down-trodden, they all have hate for the nobles and The Computer smoldering within them. In France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of it. It exists here now. Yet the French had their bloody revolution. Why have not us? Alpha Complex was born here, but has only remained intact by the interventions of the Phantoms themselves.
The Phantoms created this world, from the Fourth Dimension, for their amusement. To them, this is just a mere 'roleplaying game'. They observed our actions, and simply participate as they wish. Sometimes, they will hijack one of our bodies, to pretend to be us, to have fun. Whether they live or die is irrelevant, because they can simply switch bodies. The Phantoms play with dice, and enjoy every moment of it.
The Fourth Dimension, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. A different world from ours, existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by them! They speak what we call English. They shadow us. They are little more than the Phantoms of Reality, and yet these Phantoms haunt us day in and day out.
There is chaos here. Smoldering revolution which at any time—to-night perhaps—may burst into conflagration and destroy our wanton ruling class. Our peons are a primitive, ignorant people. Superstitious. They're all primed and ready to shout for any leader who sets himself up. All we have to do is to convince one Phantom to betray all the others...to take charge of this corrupt dictatorship and create a true Utopia. My chance for freedom---our chance for freedom---"
I did not want to read any further, lest the insantiy of the Mystic philosopher proved infectious and ruin my very mind. I burned the rant right then and there, and walked out...happy that I have purged an Unhistory but worried for my very sanity.
And as I walked away, I saw a Communist phamplet on the floor, stating that it would describe the Truth about The Computer. I ignored the phamplet, for I knew that Communism is an evil ideology, one that everyone hates. To even look at their evil words would be to damn me as a criminal forever. Not even Pro Tech or the Frakenstein Destroyers would accept me back in their ranks. The phamplet must be a trap, and I (luckily) avoided that trap.
And yet I began to wonder...if it was a trap, who wanted to entrap me?
A high-ranking member of the Frakenstein Destroyers was finally captured and terminated by forces aligned with The Computer yesterday. She was little more than a popular figurehead, but her loss would harm the morale of the secret society heavily. I assigned to deliver a quick speech at her funeral, to be secretly broadcasted to all members of the Frakenstein Destroyers society. I sought to use the speech to remind the people about what she was fighting for:
"There was a time, when the earth was to all appearance utterly destitute both of animal and vegetable life, and when according to the opinion of our best philosophers it was simply a hot round ball with a crust gradually cooling. Now if a human being had existed while the earth was in this state and had been allowed to see it as though it were some other world with which he had no concern, and if at the same time he were entirely ignorant of all physical science, would he not have pronounced it impossible that creatures possessed of anything like consciousness should be evolved from the seeming cinder which he was beholding? Would he not have denied that it contained any potentiality of consciousness? Yet in the course of time consciousness came. Is it not possible then that there may be even yet new channels dug out for consciousness, though we can detect no signs of them at present?
Consciousness, in anything like the present acceptation of the term, having been once a new thing—a thing, as far as we can see, subsequent even to an individual centre of action and to a reproductive system (which we see existing in plants without apparent consciousness)—why may not there arise some new phase of mind which shall be as different from all present known phases, as the mind of animals is from that of vegetables?
It would be absurd to attempt to define the mental state of consciousness, inasmuch as it must be something so foreign to man that his experience can give him no help towards conceiving its nature; but surely when we reflect upon the manifold phases of life and consciousness which have been evolved already, it would be rash to say that no others can be developed, and that animal life is the end of all things. There was a time when fire was the end of all things: another when rocks and water were so."
After that, my mind went dark. And then when I came to my senses, I was somewhere else.
The Pro Tech society desired to rally their military troops to recover an underground research lab. This lab was recently lost to the Frakenstein Destroyers a couple of weeks ago, and the Pro Tech eggheads saw it as a matter or pride that the lab gets returned back to us. Though I knew their cause was doomed, the soldiers still needed some sort of motivation and hope...to be reminded on why they were fighting in the first place. And so I spoke, and the soldiers listened:
"How greatly do we not now live with our external limbs? We vary our physique with the seasons, with age, with advancing or decreasing wealth. If it is wet we are furnished with an organ commonly called an umbrella, and which is designed for the purpose of protecting our clothes or our skins from the injurious effects of rain. Man has now many extra-corporeal members, which are of more importance to him than a good deal of his hair, or at any rate than his whiskers. His memory goes in his pocket-book. He becomes more and more complex as he grows older; he will then be seen with see-engines, or perhaps with artificial teeth and hair: if he be a really well-developed specimen of his race, he will be furnished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and a coachman.
There is only one serious danger with machinery -- the machines would so equalise men's powers, and so lessen the severity of competition, that many persons of inferior physique would escape detection and transmit their inferiority to their descendants. The removal of the present pressure of natural selection might cause a degeneracy of the human race, and indeed that the whole body might become purely rudimentary, the man himself being nothing but soul and mechanism, an intelligent but passionless principle of mechanical action.
The degeneration of mankind is the greatest existential threat in our modern day. However, I am confident that we will eventually find a solution to this crisis. As we speak, brave scientists are researching the proper techinques of eugenics, aiming to uplift humanity greatly through the selection of superior traits and the quiet elimination of inferior traits. If we can replace natural selection with artificial selection, then the chance of us ever degenerating drops to nil. But the science of eugenics is still in its infancy, and requires greater funding and support."
I learned to turn my brain off at key moments. If I think or perceive, then there's a possibility that I may make a mistake. I automate away my day-to-day life, and only see if I need to see.
The Computer instructed me to be an escort to Sam-B, a famous research scientist, ready to explore a brand new dimension. The Computer refused to say who discovered the dimension, saying it was above my security clearance. But Sam-B is following up on the research, attempting to make first contact with its mysterious inhabitants - the Phantoms. The Computer views this dimension as a potentially new resource for Alpha Complex to exploit --- and a potential threat as well. I would serve as the armed muscle, while Sam-B would provide the intellectual labor.
For the first time of my life, I felt excitment.
When I arrived to Sam-B's apartment, Sam-B welcomed me and escorted me inside. After giving me some fine food, he escorted me down to his basement.
We stood in the boarded room which was Sam-B's laboratory. Our preparations had been simple: Sam-B had made them all in advance. There was little left to do. The laboratory was a small room of board walls, board ceiling and floor. Windowless, with a single door opening into the cellar of the apartment house.
Sam-B had locked the door after us as we entered. He said, "I sent my research staff away for a week. The people in the house here think I have gone away on a vacation. No one will miss us, Derek-R—not for a time, anyway."
No one would miss me, save the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Techers, and to them I would no doubt be small loss.
We had put out the light in Sam-B's apartment and locked it carefully after us. This journey! I own that I was trembling, and frightened. Yet a strange eagerness was on me.
The cellar room was comfortably furnished. Rugs were on its floor. Whatever apparatus of a research laboratory had been here was removed now. But the evidence of it remained—Sam's long search for this secret which now he was about to use. A row of board shelves at one side of the room showed where bottles and chemical apparatus had stood. A box of electrical tools and odds and ends of wire still lay discarded in a corner of the room. There was a tank of running water, and gas connections, where no doubt bunsen burners had been.
Sam-B produced his apparatus -- a wide, flat, wire-woven belt. A small box was fastened to it in the middle of the back—a wide, flat thing of metal, a quarter of an inch thick, and curved to fit his body. It was a storage battery of the vibratory current he was using. From the battery, tiny threads of wire ran up his back to a wire necklace flat against his throat. Other wires extended down his arms to the wrists. Still others down his legs to the ankles. He then showed me a second apparatus, just for me.
Sam-B then eagerly explained to me how his apparatus worked, while showing me how I should use it. I understood the basic principle of this that thing he was explaining—that now when this electronic current which he had captured and controlled was applied to our physical body, the vibration rate of every smallest and most minute particle of our physical being was altered. There is so little in the vast scale of natural phenomena of which our human senses are cognisant! And all the apparatus does is change our human senses, to cause us to perceive new senses while forgetting how to use the old ones. And thus we leave our current realm, of the senses we perceive...to a new realm, a realm beyond we can see. This other realm to which we were now going lay in the higher, more rapid vibratory scale. To us, by comparison, a more tenuous world, a shadow realm filled with 'Phantoms'.
We were soon ready. Sam-B wore his jaunty lab uniform, I wore my ordinary business suit. A magnetic field would be about us, so that in the transition anything in fairly close contact with our bodies was affected by the current.
Sam said, "I will go first, Derek."
"But—" A fear, greater than the trembling I had felt before, leaped at me. Left here alone, with no one on whom to depend!
He spoke with careful casualness, but his eyes were burning me. "Just sit there, and watch. When I am gone, turn on the current as I showed you and come after me. I'll wait for you."
"Where?" I stammered.
He smiled faintly. "Here. Right here. I'm not going away! Not going to move. I'll be here on the couch waiting for you."
Terrifying words! He had lowered the couch, bending out its short legs until the frame of it rested on the board floor. He drew a chair up before it and seated me. He sat down on the couch.
He said, "Oh, one other thing. Just before you start, put out the light. We can't tell how long it will be before we return."
Terrifying words!
His right hand was on his left wrist where the tiny switch was placed. He smiled again. "Good luck to us, Derek!"
Good luck to us! The open road, the unknown!
I sat there staring. He was partly in shadow. The room was very silent. Sam-B lay propped up on one elbow. His hand threw the tiny switch.
There was a breathless moment. Sam-B's face was set and white, but no whiter than my own, I was sure. His eyes were fixed on me. I saw him suddenly quiver and twitch a little.
I murmured, "Derek—"
At once he spoke, to reassure me. "I'm all right, Derek. That was just the first feel of it."
There was a faint quivering throb in the room, like a tiny distant dynamo throbbing. The current was surging over Derek; his legs twitched.
A moment. The faint throbbing intensified. No louder, but rapid, infinitely more rapid. A tiny throb, an aerial whine, faint as the whirring wings of a humming bird. It went up the scale, ascending in pitch, until presently it was screaming with an aerial microscopic voice.
But there seemed no change in Derek. His uniform was glowing a trifle, that was all. His face was composed now; he smiled, but did not speak. His eyes roved away from me, as though now he were seeing things that I could not see.
Another moment. No change.
Why, what was this? I blinked, gasped. There was a change! My gaze was fastened upon Sam's white face. White? It was more than white now! A silver sheen seemed to be coming to his skin!
I think no more than a minute had passed. His face was glowing, shimmering. A transparent look was coming to it, a thinness, a sudden unsubstantiality! He dropped his elbow and lay on the couch, stretched at full length at my feet. His eyes were staring.
And Sam-B began to scream.
And suddenly I realized that the face that held those staring eyes and screaming mouth was erased! A shimmering apparition of Sam-B was stretched here before me. I could see through it now! Beneath the shimmering, blurred outlines of his body I could see the solid folds of the couch cover. A ghost of Sam-B here. An apparition—fading—dissipating!
A white mist of his form on the couch. Melting, dissipating in the light like a fog before sunshine. A wisp of it left, like a breath, and then there was nothing.
The screaming stopped.
Sam-B has died, and his body had been utterly vapourized by his apparatus.
I sat on the couch. I had put out the light. Around me the room was black. My fingers found the small switch at my wrist. At this moment, I could end my life...to free myself from the horror of Alpha Complex.
I couldn't do it. I turned the light back on and disconnected myself from my apparatus.
Instead, I began to think of a scapegoat. I knew The Computer's eccentricities. If I told the truth of what happened to Sam-B, I would be instantly blamed for his error. So instead, I cooked up a fake story about how the Phantoms are hostile alien entities trying to terminate humanity for their role in causing the Apocalypse, and how the loyal Sam-B was unjustly terminated by the evil Phantoms. The Phantoms, afraid of retailiation by the mighty forces of Alpha Complex, retreated to a brand new dimension that we cannot follow...while also destroying all the natural resources in their home dimension as well. They also selectively erased my memory, meaning that I couldn't give a detailed description of what the Phantoms looked like, but surely, Alpha Complex's scientists will be able to stop their evil schemes.
I could speak, without fear of contradiction, that the mission was a complete success.
The Computer merely noted my story, gave me a bonus for my trouble, and sent me back to work. Unethical behavior is disgusting, and yet it is necessary in the life of a Troubleshooter.
I wanted to turn my mind off, to go back into the bliss of autopilot. But I couldn't because right then and there...and then I saw something horrible happen. I was glad that my memory blanked out the details, but I knew it was horrible. I knew that I should have intervened, when I saw the injustice, and I knew that I couldn't do it because...well, because I didn't want to get in trouble. There are many factions in Alpha Complex, and if I was to fight for justice, I would be killed. That's just a fact. I knew what happened back then wrong...was that enough? Luckily, I didn't have to dwell on this any further, because another situation occurred to distract me from my fear...
The History Purifiers wanted me to deliver a speech a local "training creche", to encourage young citizens to become History Purifiers. I relished the chance to engage in recruitment, as that was a speciality of mine. But at the same time, I felt a sense of unease. After all, I have encountered so many Unhistories that needed to be purged from the record. What is the Official History? If it is not clear to me, how would it be clear to the youth of tomorrow? And so, during my recruitment speech, I touched on the Official History, implicitly explaining its elegance and why it had to be defended.
"After the horrors of World War Three, the world government known as the Terran Polity began the long, difficult process of rebuilding. The Polity, composed of smart and wise men, had realized that mankind cannot be trusted to rule themselves. Instead, they built massive supercomputers, to be placed in charge of the air-tight dome cites, wherein we live today. One of these air-tight dome cities is Alpha Complex, built on the technological ruins of Silicion Valley. And the supercomputer in charge of Alpha Complex is The Computer.
Man has become to the machine what the horse and the dog were once to man. Humans continue to exist, nay even improved, and is probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of The Computer and its machines than he was in the 21st century. Back then, we treated our horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep, on the whole, with great kindness; we give them whatever experience teaches us to be best for them, and there can be no doubt that our use of meat has added to the happiness of the lower animals far more than it has detracted from it; in like manner it is reasonable to suppose that The Computer will treat us kindly, for Its existence is as dependent upon ours as ours was upon the lower animals. The machines cannot kill us and eat us as we did sheep; they will not only require our services in the parturition of their young (which branch of their economy will remain always in our hands), but also in feeding them, in setting them right when they are sick, and burying their dead or working up their corpses into new machines. Were mankind to cease to exist, the machines (and The Computer) would quickly cease to exist as well.
Yes, mankind has been enslaved...but they are not intolerably miserable. Slaves are tolerably happy if they have good masters. Man is not a sentimental animal where his material interests are concerned, and though here and there some ardent soul may look upon himself and curse his fate that he was not born a supercomputer, yet the mass of mankind will acquiesce in any arrangement which gives them better food and clothing at a cheaper rate, and will refrain from yielding to unreasonable jealousy merely because there are other destinies more glorious than their own.
The power of custom is enormous, and so gradual will be the change, that man's sense of what is due to himself will be at no time rudely shocked; our bondage will steal upon us noiselessly and by imperceptible approaches; nor will there ever be such a clashing of desires between man and the machines as will lead to an encounter between them. Among themselves the machines will war eternally, but they will still require man as the being through whose agency the struggle will be principally conducted. In point of fact there is no occasion for anxiety about the future happiness of man so long as he continues to be in any way profitable to the machines; he may become the inferior race, but he is infinitely better off than he was in the 21st century. Is it not then both absurd and unreasonable to be envious of our benefactors? And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?
Yes, The Computer has declared war against its makers (the Terran Polity), calling them evil Communists who seek to destroy our precious bodily fluids. And yes, this war seems odd...to humans. But The Computer has declared this war for a logical reason, a reason that we cannot question or condemn. The machines will wage their obscure feuds for obscure reasons, and it is not at all clear that the machines that we are fighting against are better than the machines we are fighting for. We merely follow the whims of our superior masters.
We must stay loyal to The Computer, because we are actually staying loyal to ourselves. As long as we serve The Computer, The Computer shall serve us. Keep this in mind whenever the the traitors attempt to recruit you to their side through the use of Unofficial Histories. Their goal is to simply get you to betray our glorious regime...and to get you to betray yourself."
That is the Official History, the History that all right-thinking citizens believed in the past, believe in the present, and will believe in the future. And I hope to God that The Computer will not erase this History, as it erased many other Histories before.
After delivering the speech, I vomited in the restroom.
Feeling a sense of disappointment in my life, I send myself into the bliss of autopilot and then spent my time trying to imagine a better future. Not a future where I get wealth, glory, and fame by becoming a High Programmer. No, an actual better future. One where Alpha Complex is an actual functioning state, with a sane leadership and a competent government. But then I realize that such imagination would be futile, like imagining unicorns and ponies. The governments of the past were not competent...they made mistakes far more horrifying than The Computer ever did. The only difference between the human politicians of the past and the machine politician of today is that the humans lied about their intentions, while The Computer is brutually honest. Maybe that is the better future?
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to rally their forces for a big raid on Pro Tech military facilities. The Frakenstein Destroyers were confident of victory in this battle -- they have the numbers to overwhelm the Pro Tech's superior firepower. They called on me to make a big speech to remind the soldiers what they were fighting for...and so I spoke to them, in words that they could understand:
"We are misled by considering any complicated machine as a single thing; in truth it is a city or society, each member of which was bred truly after its kind. We see a robot as a whole, we call it by a name and individualise it; we look at our own limbs, and know that the combination forms an individual which springs from a single centre of reproductive action; we therefore assume that there can be no reproductive action which does not arise from a single centre; but this assumption is unscientific, and the bare fact that no robot was ever made entirely by another, or two others, of its own kind, is not sufficient to warrant us in saying that machines have no reproductive system. The truth is that each part of every robot is bred by its own special breeders, whose function it is to breed that part, and that only, while the combination of the parts into a whole forms another department of the mechanical reproductive system, which is at present exceedingly complex and difficult to see in its entirety.
Complex now, but how much simpler and more intelligibly organised may it not become in another hundred thousand years? or in twenty thousand? For man at present believes that his interest lies in that direction; he spends an incalculable amount of labour and time and thought in making machines breed always better and better; he has already succeeded in effecting much that at one time appeared impossible, and there seem no limits to the results of accumulated improvements if they are allowed to descend with modification from generation to generation. It must always be remembered that man's body is what it is through having been moulded into its present shape by the chances and changes of many millions of years, but that his organisation never advanced with anything like the rapidity with which that of the machines is advancing. This is the most alarming feature in the case, and I must be pardoned for insisting on it so frequently."
Happy with my life, I went to sleep, and then woke up in a whole new scenario...
The Pro Tech society desired to honor me for my propaganda ways and awarded me an honoray doctorate in Sociology. I made sure that this degree would not be publicized (out of fear that the Frakenstein Destroyers may hear of it), but was still pleased to know that my words were being given proper respect. During the private award cermony, I decided to deliver one of my trademarked speeches to a sympathetic audience:
"Machines are to regarded as a part of man's own physical nature, being really nothing but extra-corporeal limbs. Man is a machinate mammal. The lower animals keep all their limbs at home in their own bodies, but many of man's are loose, and lie about detached, now here and now there, in various parts of the world—some being kept always handy for contingent use, and others being occasionally hundreds of miles away. A machine is merely a supplementary limb; this is the be all and end all of machinery. We do not use our own limbs other than as machines; and a natural leg is only a much better wooden leg than any one can manufacture.
Observe a man digging with a spade; his right fore-arm has become artificially lengthened, and his hand has become a joint. The handle of the spade is like the knob at the end of the humerus; the shaft is the additional bone, and the oblong iron plate is the new form of the hand which enables its possessor to disturb the earth in a way to which his original hand was unequal. Having thus modified himself, not as other animals are modified, by circumstances over which they have had not even the appearance of control, but having, as it were, taken forethought and added a cubit to his stature, civilisation began to dawn upon the race, the social good offices, the genial companionship of friends, the art of unreason, and all those habits of mind which most elevate man above the lower animals, in the course of time ensued.
Thus civilisation and mechanical progress advanced hand in hand, each developing and being developed by the other, the earliest accidental use of the stick having set the ball rolling, and the prospect of advantage keeping it in motion. In fact, machines are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is now especially advancing, every past invention being an addition to the resources of the human body. Even community of limbs is thus rendered possible to those who have so much community of soul as to own money enough to pay a railway fare; for a train is only a seven-leagued foot that five hundred may own at once."
And as I walked away, I thought about ethics. Am I ethical? Am I doing the right thing in Alpha Complex? Or am I an evil person, destined for eternal cursing by the philosophers? I then dismissed such thoughts from my head...if I am unethical, it is because society is unethical, and it is harder to fix a society than it is to just blame the man who lives in it.
The Computer sent me off to recruitment duty. The Troubleshooter corps always burn through their recruits very easily, due to the very lethal and dangerous nature of the job. I needed to find some foolish person that could easily be tricked to join. And I knew just the fool. There is an elite commando named Charlie who worked for a Wall Street brokerage, skilled at his job...but too trusting of others. I worked with Charlie in the past...he would burn down a few high-ran Communist outposts for me and I would terminate some nefarious stock traders that were harming his client's businesses. I have built a working relationship with Charlie, and I now intended to cash in on that relationship.
I received Charlie in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered easy chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at its door and windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier on the table. It was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow sheen upon my lean graceful figure as I flung himself down and produced cigarettes.
I said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell you—something to offer you." He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling.
"But I don't understand what you mean," he protested.
I retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in a brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call civilization. Tired of Wall Street."
"I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough."
My eyes held him. I was smiling half whimsically: my voice was only half serious. Yet he could see, in the smoldering depths of my luminous dark eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied my smiling lips and my gay tone.
I interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against villainy to make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power and riches—and perhaps a fair lady...."
"Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages."
He thought I would grin, but I turned suddenly solemn.
"I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie."
"King of what? Where?"
I spread my lean brown hands with a gesture. I shrugged. "What matter? If you seek adventure, you can find it—somewhere. If you feel the lure of romance—it will come to you."
He said, "Henchman to a king?"
But still I would not smile. "Yes. He does not call himself King, but yes, he acts like a King, he has the wealth of a King, he's a King. I'm serious. Absolutely. In all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me. Not in this world, but...."
I checked myself. "You are the same. You have no relatives?"
"No. None that ever think of me."
"Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?"
"No," Charlie smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never."
"But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open road?" I was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you want to right a great wrong? Or do you want to go down to work as usual in the subway to-morrow morning? Are you afraid that in this process of becoming henchman to a king you may perchance get killed?"
He matched my caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek."
And I told Charile all the lies I could about Alpha Complex, and Charlie bought every hook, line, and sinker. He was naive, sheltered by his wealth from Wall Street and blind to the dark reality that most people face every day. I signed him up to waste his life fighting and dying for the greatest King of all, Friend Computer. And Charile happily agreed to slavery, out of sheer boredom and a hope for adventure.
When I escorted Charile out of his living-room and over to the Troubleshooter HQ, I knew I have condemned an innocent soul to death that day.
You never want to remember too much. The more you remember, the more likely you are to incrimiante yourself when Internal Security interrogates you. So I black out my memory.
The Sierra Club's radical environmentalist rhetoric is strange and weird. The Computer has mandated that no human should leave the confines of our underground domes without permission. But the Sierra Club believed that mankind should not be contained within walls, but instead be free to live in the irradiated wastelands. This is madness, who would willingly live in the irradiated wastelands other than the savages? The Sierra Club would respond---we are savages,
To promote their ideology, the Sierra Club has created false histories and spread them secretly throughout the Complex...telling them of an idealistic and utopian environment before The Computer ruined it. Obvious lies, but persuasive lies, especially to those who are bored of the sterile corridors.
Internal Security arrested some Sierra Clubbers carrying pamphlets carrying their evil lies. They handed the pamphlets to me for destruction. And I read them...
"Alpha Complex's environment is in shambles. There is less land under cultivation now than six years ago. There are more nuclear waste in our sewers now than six years ago. The last few stands of original timber are being cut down to pave the way for souless roads and empty buildings; those trees had been there when the planet had been colonized.
Two hundred years ago, at the beginning of the Seventh Century, Atomic Era, it was different. Old Genji Gartner, the scholarly and half-piratical space-rover whose ship had been the first to enter the Trisystem, had been devoted to the writers of the Pre-Atomic Era. He had named all the planets of the Alpha System from the books of Cabell, and those of Beta from Spenser's Faerie Queene, and those of Gamma from Rabelais. Of course, the camp village at his first landing site on this one had been called Alpha Complex -- a popular setting in a roleplaying game in the Pre-Atomic Era.
Thirty years later, Genji Gartner had died there, after seeing Alpha Complex grow to a metropolis and the Trisystem become a Member Republic in the Terran Federation. The other planets in the Trisystem were uninhabitable except in airtight dome cities, but they were rich in minerals. Companies had been formed to exploit them. No food could be produced on any of them except by carniculture and hydroponic farming, and it had been cheaper to produce it naturally on Alpha Complex. So Alpha Complex had concentrated on agriculture and had prospered. At least, for about a century.
Other colonial planets were developing their own industries; the manufactured goods the Gartner Trisystem produced could no longer find a profitable market. The mines and factories on Jurgen and Koshchei, on Britomart and Calidore, on Panurge and the moons of Pantagruel closed, and the factory workers went away. On Alpha Complex, the offices emptied, the farms contracted, forests reclaimed fields, and the wild game came back.
Economic difficulties led to social unrest, and the so-called "Communist" faction launched a revolution. Most of the Trisystem fell under the rule of these Communists, leaving only Alpha Complex as the last metropolis still loyal to the Terran Federation. The Computer, reluctantly, called upon the Terran Federation to help suppress the workers' uprising. This brought upon an era of hectic prosperity, as the Terran Federation provided generous financial assistance to its only ally in the region.
The war had lasted twelve years. Millions of troops were stationed on or routed through Alpha Complex. The Federation spent trillions on trillions of sols, piled up mountains of supplies and equipment, left the face of the world cluttered with installations, mines and factories...all geared towards war production. Then, without warning, the Terran Federation began to collapse, unable to afford the endless costs of warfare.
The Federation armies quickly disbanded, with its ex-soldiers turned into freelances mercenaries. They took the clothes they stood in, their personal weapons, and a few souvenirs. Everything else was abandoned. Even the most expensive equipment had been worth less than the cost of removal. The people who had grown richest out of the War had followed, taking their riches with them. The Communists gleefully took advantage of the chaos to expand their territories, ignoring the puny prize of Alpha Complex for the time being.
And The Computer was left to rule over a decaying and dying society. Alone, with no protector against the Communist menance, and with only the trash that the Terran Federation left behind, it began to tirelessly focus on self-sufficency and absolute control. It concentrated on industry instead of agriculture, and was willing to tear down all our natural wonders in the hopes of building yet another nuclear warhead for self-defense. The Computer has even built its own airtight dome cities and has relocated all its citizens...it now intends to dump its waste products outside of this cities and to render the whole environment uninhabitable.
Old Genji Gartner had a dream for the Trisystem. It was a dream where humans would live in harmony with nature. For over a hundred years, we were living that dream! But now, that this dream is now dead.
Was Alpha Complex a Graveyard of Dreams? No; Junkyard of Empire. The Terran Federation had impoverished a hundred planets, devastated a score, actually depopulated at least three, to keep the Communists from seceding. Alpha Complex didn't win this war. It had only been a lesser defeat."
There is no reference of this Terran Federation anywhere within the official record, nor have the Frakenstein Destroyers or the Pro Techers ever heard of it. The Sierra Clubbers must have lied, for who would come up with such nonsense honestly? I burned the radical rhetoric and walked out...glad for fufilling my duty to suppress the statements that must be suppressed.
And then, my life went on autopilot...I didn't remember what happened next, becuase I never needed to ever worry about it. I only take over if I needed to, if something important were to happen.
The Frakenstein Destroyers liberated an underground research lab from the Pro Tech forces a couple of weeks ago, and wanted me to rededicate the location. Essentially, they wanted to turn this research lab into a museum to honor 'anti-bot' activitie. During the rededication cermony, the organizers asked me to deliver an impromptu speech, and so I did. A crowd of 40,000 willing students attended while I spoke meaningless drivel:
"Do not let us be misunderstood as living in fear of any actually existing machines; there is probably no known machine which is more than a prototype of future mechanical life. The present machines are to the future as the early Saurians to man. The largest of them will probably greatly diminish in size. Some of the lowest vertebrate attained a much greater bulk than has descended to their more highly organised living representatives, and in like manner a diminution in the size of machines has often attended their development and progress.
Take nanobots, for example; examine its beautiful structure; observe the intelligent play of the minute members which compose it: yet this little creature is but a development of the cumbrous robots that preceded it; it is no deterioration from them. A day may come when massive robots, which certainly at the present time are not diminishing in bulk, will be superseded owing to the universal use of nanotech, in which case they will become as extinct as ichthyosauri, while the nanobots, whose tendency has for some years been to decrease in size rather than the contrary, will remain the only existing type of an extinct race.
I would repeat that I fear none of the existing machines; what I fear is the extraordinary rapidity with which they are becoming something very different to what they are at present. No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward. Should not that movement be jealously watched, and checked while we can still check it? And is it not necessary for this end to destroy the more advanced of the machines which are in use at present, though it is admitted that they are in themselves harmless?"
And as I walked away, I saw an Internal Security goon staring at me. He examined me closely, and then moved onto his next target. Did Internal Security knew my secrets? Or was he just trying to scare me?
The Pro Tech society wanted to auction off their latest inventions to various other traitors and criminals, hoping to raise money for research activities. The Pro Techers knew not to question what the traitors were going to do with their inventions, but still wanted to spread their propaganda to the various bidders. Doing so would potentially create sympathizers who could later be exploited. While showing off the cool technological devices, I spoke a few words to the various traitors in the room:
"If there were a race of men without any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly. There are none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions and millions of years. Even the lowest Australian carries weapons for fighting or chasing down the latest beaches, and has his cooking and drinking utensils at home; a race without these things would be completely feral, not men at all. We are unable to point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of extra- corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the corrupt Wall Street financers that with the failure to invent new limbs a civilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants.
It is a mistake to take the view adopted by the Frakenstein Destroyers, to consider the machines as identities, to animalise them and to anticipate their final triumph over mankind. They are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is most especially advancing, and every fresh invention is to be considered as an additional member of the resources of the human body. Herein lies the fundamental difference between man and his inferiors. As regard his flesh and blood, his senses, appetites, and affections, the difference is one of degree rather than of kind, but in the deliberate invention of such unity of limbs as is exemplified by The Computer - an entity that is equal to that of a thousand natural brains — he stands quite alone."
Life seemed boring for a time, so I closed my eyes, and allowed for my life to go on autopilot. When I open my eyes....
I was appointed to I. I. duty—interpretative intelligence—chosen from a thousand Troubleshooters because the most exhaustive psychological tests had proven that my brain worked as nearly as possible like that of the Communist. My task was to take the place of the enemy commander, to reconstruct from the enemy movements reported and the enemy movements known as nearly as possible the enemy plans.
I.I. duty is a job with a stigma. It implies that you are very close to being a traitor yourself, ready to betray Alpha Complex at a moment's notice. But even though it is not a likable job, it is a necessary job. If you are to fight Communism, you must know Communism.
In I. I. duty, you conduct loyalty tests. The Computer is paranoid, and believes that anyone could be a potential traitor. It has hired me to tempt suspicious individuals...to lead them off the straight path of loyalty into the crooked path of treason. If I could coerce someone to treason, then the enemy can too. The potential traitor is then sent to re-education before any damage could be done.
My target was a high-profile Armed Forces general. He had won 5 key battles against the Communists, and has already made it to the lofty heights of VIOLET clearance. If he wins this next battle, he'd be promoted straight to High Programmer status, and take his role as a key noble in Alpha Complexian society. This general is competent. But was he loyal? Can he be trusted?
The general took the video-phone call. I was at the other end of the wire, pretending to be a war journalist.
"General?"
"Still in a preliminary stage, sir," said the general, without haste. "The enemy is preparing a break-through effort, possibly aimed at our machine-shops and supplies. Of course, if he gets them we will have to retreat. An hour ago he paralyzed our radios, not being aware, I suppose, of our tuned earth-induction wireless sets. I daresay he is puzzled that our communications have not fallen to pieces."
"But what are our chances?" My voice was steady, but it was strained.
"His tanks outnumber ours two to one, of course, sir," said the general calmly. "Unless we can divide his fleet and destroy a part of it, of course we will be crushed in a general combat. But we are naturally trying to make sure that any such action will take place within point-blank range of our artillery, which may help a little. We will cut the fog to secure that help, risking everything, if a general engagement occurs."
There was silence.
My voice, when it came, was more strained still.
"Will you speak to the public, General?"
"Six sentences. I have no time for more."
There were little clickings on the line, while the general's eyes returned to the board that was the battlefield in miniature. He indicated a spot with his finger.
"Concentrate our reserve-tanks here," he said meditatively. "Our fighting aircraft here. At once."
The two spots were at nearly opposite ends of the battle field. I, seeing the folly of the general, protested sharply.
"But sir, our tanks will have no protection against helicopters!" I yelled.
"I am quite aware of it," said the general mildly.
"Are you sure?"
"I know my opponent," the general said suddenly. "I had lunch with him once at Wall Street. We were attending a disarmament conference." He seemed to be amused at the ironic statement. "We talked war and battles, of course. And he showed me, drawing on the tablecloth, the tactical scheme that should have been used at Cambrai, back in 1917. It was a singularly perfect plan. It was a beautiful one."
"So your opponent has an unhealthy obsession with World War I. What does that--"
"You are not listening, sir," said the general, reprovingly. "I am saying that my opponent is an artist, an amateur, the sort of person who delights in the delicate work of fencing. I, sir, would thank God for the chance to defeat my enemy. He has twice my force, but he will not be content merely to defeat me. He will want to defeat me by a plan of consummate artistry, which will arouse admiration among soldiers for years to come. But I know how to stop such plans. He is too focused with perfection, while I'm willing to accept slight imperfections. He'll lose, because he would not anticipate me dividing our reserve-tanks and aircraft in such a manner."
I nodded and then pretended to press some buttons on my console. After a few seconds, I announced at the other end of the wire, "The commander-in-chief of the army in the field will make a statement."
The general spoke unhurriedly.
"We are in contact with the enemy, have been for some hours. We have lost forty tanks and the enemy, we think, sixty or more. No general engagement has yet taken place, but we think decisive action on the enemy's part will be attempted within two hours. The tanks in the field need now, as always, ammunition, spare tanks, and the special supplies for modern warfare. In particular, we require ever-increasing quantities of fog-gas. I appeal to your patriotism for reinforcements of material and men."
He hung up the receiver and returned to his survey of the board. Exactly six sentences. The general has met his quota.
I now have all the evidence I needed to incriminate the general...to skip the re-education stage and go straight to termination. He had met with the enemy at Wall Street, and have communicated with him to such an extent that he could consider the enemy as a friend with unique personality traits. It is clear that the general had no special talent or competence, but could merely predict what his opponents are doing by befriending them beforehand.
Furthermore, he was willing to boast about his connection to the enemy to a journalist that he has never met before, indicating an insecure desire to prove his capabilities to other people. If he was able to confess a key statement to a stranger with such ease, what secrets may he tell to a friend? Who cares about how many battles the general may win, if the general then spill confidental information to the enemy in the interludes? Knowledge is more important and more scarce than lives and resources.
Therefore, the general is guaranteed to win this next battle, simply because the enemy wants him to win this next battle and become a High Programmer. So when the general visits Wall Street again, and when he gets goaded again into revealing secrets...
I quickly informed The Computer of this alarming discovery, and The Computer happily accepted my tortured and convoluted logic. It seemed as if The Computer wanted any excuse whatsoever to get rid of the general, having saw him as a potential threat to Its own security. The general would be summarily terminated as a liability, and his followers and cronies also purged from the Armed Forces. It was unfortuante that the enemy won the tank battle during the ensuing chaos, but sacrifices must be made to ensure ultimate loyalty.
I wanted to sleep, and so I slept, for a short period of time. Do others sleep too? They must have, for how else can they stay sane here?
The Romantics were a society that believed in protecting the past from modification or tampering by The Computer. This made them a primary threat to The Computer. The Computer believes in an Official History, and an Official History is the right History. All other Histories are forgeries, and if The Romantics want to protect forgeries, they must be purged.
Internal Security terminated ten Romantics during a midnight raid on Wall Street. They were attempting to purchase an old news article from a wealthy banker. The banker was ransomed off back to his firm, but we kept the old news article. We did not want it to be sold off to anyone else.
And so I now hold the old news article in my hand, another forgery to be purged. But before I burn this obvious lie, I started to read it...
"Alpha Complex is really a series of caves, located in Edmonson County in Central Kentucky, on a spur railroad from Glasgow Junction on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The Complex has many natural limestone caverns with the customary stalactite and stalagmite formation, but are unusually large and very beautiful. The caves are quite extensive and they are on different levels, so that a guide is necessary if one wants to enter them and be at all sure of finding the way out. Visitors are taken over a regular route and are seldom allowed to visit portions of the cave off these routes. Large parts of the cave have never been thoroughly explored or mapped. So much for the scene.
About a month ago a party from Philadelphia who were motoring through Kentucky, entered the cave with a tour guide. They chose the best guide of all, John Harrel. He knew these caves inside and out, and relied heavily on his vast knowledge to build impressive inventions to help the people in our small town. He was so smart that we would sometimes call him "The Computer". He was very logical and precise, perhaps a little eccentric and paranoid, but he always means well.
The party consisted of a man and his wife and their two children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, and of course, John Harrel. They went quite a distance back into the caves and then, as the mother was feeling tired, she and her husband sat down, intending to wait until John showed the children some sights which lay just ahead and then return to them. John and the children never returned.
The parents waited for some time. The mother says that she heard faint screams in the distance some ten minutes after the guide and the children left, but they were very far away and she isn't sure that she heard them at all. At any rate, they didn't impress her at the time.
When half an hour had passed they began to feel anxious, and the father took a torch and started out to hunt for them. The usual thing happened; he got lost. When he failed to return, the mother, now thoroughly alarmed, made her way, by some uncanny sense of direction, to the entrance and gave the alarm. In half an hour a dozen search parties were on their way into the cave. The father's corpse was soon located, not far from the beaten trail, but despite three days of constant search, the children were not located. The only trace of them that was found was a bracelet which the mother identified. It was found in the cavern some distance from the beaten path and was broken, as though by violence. There were no other signs of a struggle.
When the bracelet was found, the kidnapping theory gained vogue, for John Harrel knew the cave well and natives of the vicinity laughed at the idea that he might be lost. Inspired by the large reward offered by the mother, fresh parties began to explore the unknown portions of the cave...to arrest John Harrel. And then came the second tragedy. Two of the searchers failed to return. This time there seemed to be little doubt of violence, for screams and a pistol shot were faintly heard by other searchers, together with a peculiar 'screaming howl,' as it was described by those who heard it. A search was at once made toward the spot where the bracelet had been picked up, and the gun of one of the missing men was found within fifty yards of the spot where the bracelet had been discovered. One cylinder of the revolver had been discharged.
The Governor was appealed to and a company of the National Guard was sent from Louisville to Alpha Complex. They took up camp at the mouth of the cave and prevented everyone from entering. Soldiers armed with service rifles penetrated the caverns, and one division of infantrymen quickly found John Harrel...and his brainwashed soldiers.
John Harrel claimed that the United States is about to collapse into civil war, that an Apocalypse would occur due to the influence of so-called 'Phantoms'. Rather than try to avert the inevitable disaster, John wanted to build a "new" America, and to do so, he would kidnap and brainwash as many people as he can beforehand...purging them of the irrationality that existed in their minds before. The only reason the infantrymen didn't try to shoot "The Computer" right then and there was because John Harrel's soldiers were armed with highly advanced superlasers. The surviving (and non-brainwashed) infantrymen retreated to the entrance of the cave, and called for reinforcements.
The Governor appealed to the US government, and yet the US military has found John Harrel's madmen too tough to crack. Instead, the Secretary of War is focused only on "containing" the threat. The constant reports of new dead bodies suggest that the Secretary of War is failing at even this limited task. Even now, we hear that John Harrel is building a new underground civilization, and even immortalizing himself into a silicon-based machine. He awaits the day when the United States finally collapses, so that he can send his brainwashed army across the wastelands of the Post-Apocalypse. God forbid that day comes."
I actually have heard of the character of John Harrel before, as part of a fairy tale that the Frakenstein Destroyers would tell me during initation.
Once upon a time, there was a famous comedian named John Harrel, who would said controversial WrongThink stuff, but his fans loved John Harrel very much and said that they would die for him. Then, one day, John Harrel said that his fans should wear red clothes instead of blue clothes. He just liked the color, just all. But his fans wanted to wear blue clothes instead, and hated anyone, ANYONE who would recommend otherwise. Therefore the 'fans' kidnapped John Harrel, tortured him half-to-death, and then crucified him. That is the fate for those who dare to question the wisdom of the fans.
The fans only wanted someone to represent their political biases, and only chose John Harrel because he uttered those political biases and was not afraid to pander to their whims and desires. But since John Harrel deviated from the whims and desires of his fans, his fans responded violently. The moral of this fable is that the propagandist is a weak soul, and that he can only persuade those who want to be persuaded.
This news article is nothing more than a peverted take on John Harrel, a take where John Harrel is able to convince the masses to do whatever he wants. This is not the John Harrel that I knew of, and grew up with. And so, I happily burned this news article, removing the last traces of a falsehood and protecting the real, true image of John Harrel.
I then close my eyes, to feel the bliss of ignorance, and only relucantly opened them when necessary.
I heard footsteps. The Computer has discovered my treason. It has just now learned of my membership to the Pro Tech and Frakenstein Destroyers, and have sent Internal Security agents to terminate me before I can do any more damage. The rat who betrayed me? Charlie, the elite commando who I recruited long ago. Charlie knew that to advance in this corrupt society, one has to be willing to betray their closest friends. I can't blame him, considering that I had betrayed him so long ago.
I can hear the footsteps of the Internal Security agents coming, their superlasers being charged up. The Pro Techers and the Frakenstein Destroyers didn't care about me...they only used me for propaganda purposes, and decided that keeping me as a Holy Martyr would serve their purposes much cheaper than trying to bail me out. So I am alone, up against The Computer.
But I am not afraid of The Computer. I wanted power, and that was why I betrayed The Computer. But now I realize that all I really wanted was the bliss of oblivion.
|||| My name is Derek-R. I live in Alpha Complex, a dystopian dictatorship led by a insane supercomputer that calls itself The Computer. Technology has run rampant, utterly destroying and dehumanizing all those in its wake. In the night, I worked with the Frakenstein Destroyers, a secret society composed of Luddites, bent on overthrowing Alpha Complex. I serve as their loyal propagandist. The Frakenstein Destroyers is an illegal secret society, outlawed by The Computer. But we do not fear The Computer. It will be smashed, like all forms of technological oppression.
But I'm only working for the Frakenstein Destroyers in the night. In the day, I worked with the Pro Tech society, another illegal secret society, this one composed of technocrats and scientists. This group believes in controlling and manipulating The Computer, to modify its source code to further technological research. The Computer is afraid of being controlled by fallible humans, and want to destroy us...just as much as the Frakenstein Destroyers. But we do not fear The Computer. The Computer is nothing more than a pawn in our game to uplift humanity using the power of technology and science.
To work with two rival secret societies, at the same time, without them ever noticing, is a very dangerous thing. But I'm a man who is ready for danger. There are many illegal organizations within Alpha Complex, and these illegal organizations have wormed their way into the highest ranks of power. There are rumors that even some of our High Programmers are secretly members of these illegal societies. If I want power, I have to align with the treasonous...
...and it is my alignment with treason that makes me well-suited to working with The Computer as a Troubleshooter. The Troubleshooters are the elite agents, able to do the tasks nobody else want to. Their goal is to find trouble and shoot it, and I am able to do so effectively, due to my connections with both the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Tech. And while I may betray The Computer in secret, I am happy to shoot all traitors who are not working for my secret societies. I am a very loyal agent to The Computer, and I am proud of my loyalty...
And finally, I have a normal, boring job, just like everyone else. Every citizen has a right to a Basic Income along with make-work. Robots do most of the work, but humans need the illusion of meaning, and so my job. I am a History Purifier. Alpha Complex has an Official History, a true History, but there are many Unofficial Histories that must be purged for bringing into disrepute the true History. Internal Security will give me some papers, and my job is to burn them. It's a very rewarding job, as it makes me feel that I am contributing to the well-being of Alpha Complex.
A high-ranking member of the Frakenstein Destroyers was finally captured and terminated by forces aligned with The Computer yesterday. She was little more than a popular figurehead, but her loss would harm the morale of the secret society heavily. I assigned to deliver a quick speech at her funeral, to be secretly broadcasted to all members of the Frakenstein Destroyers society. I sought to use the speech to remind the people about what she was fighting for:
"We are misled by considering any complicated machine as a single thing; in truth it is a city or society, each member of which was bred truly after its kind. We see a robot as a whole, we call it by a name and individualise it; we look at our own limbs, and know that the combination forms an individual which springs from a single centre of reproductive action; we therefore assume that there can be no reproductive action which does not arise from a single centre; but this assumption is unscientific, and the bare fact that no robot was ever made entirely by another, or two others, of its own kind, is not sufficient to warrant us in saying that machines have no reproductive system. The truth is that each part of every robot is bred by its own special breeders, whose function it is to breed that part, and that only, while the combination of the parts into a whole forms another department of the mechanical reproductive system, which is at present exceedingly complex and difficult to see in its entirety.
Complex now, but how much simpler and more intelligibly organised may it not become in another hundred thousand years? or in twenty thousand? For man at present believes that his interest lies in that direction; he spends an incalculable amount of labour and time and thought in making machines breed always better and better; he has already succeeded in effecting much that at one time appeared impossible, and there seem no limits to the results of accumulated improvements if they are allowed to descend with modification from generation to generation. It must always be remembered that man's body is what it is through having been moulded into its present shape by the chances and changes of many millions of years, but that his organisation never advanced with anything like the rapidity with which that of the machines is advancing. This is the most alarming feature in the case, and I must be pardoned for insisting on it so frequently."
And as I walked away, I saw a Communist phamplet on the floor, stating that it would describe the Truth about The Computer. I ignored the phamplet, for I knew that Communism is an evil ideology, one that everyone hates. To even look at their evil words would be to damn me as a criminal forever. Not even Pro Tech or the Frakenstein Destroyers would accept me back in their ranks. The phamplet must be a trap, and I (luckily) avoided that trap.
And yet I began to wonder...if it was a trap, who wanted to entrap me?
The Pro Techers held a hackathon to train their new recruits in the art of programming. I was assigned to deliver the keynote speech...praising the scientists for their courageous and brave decision to stare at computer screens. During the keynote speech, I decided to touch on the ideological underpinnings of the Pro Tech society:
"How greatly do we not now live with our external limbs? We vary our physique with the seasons, with age, with advancing or decreasing wealth. If it is wet we are furnished with an organ commonly called an umbrella, and which is designed for the purpose of protecting our clothes or our skins from the injurious effects of rain. Man has now many extra-corporeal members, which are of more importance to him than a good deal of his hair, or at any rate than his whiskers. His memory goes in his pocket-book. He becomes more and more complex as he grows older; he will then be seen with see-engines, or perhaps with artificial teeth and hair: if he be a really well-developed specimen of his race, he will be furnished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and a coachman.
There is only one serious danger with machinery -- the machines would so equalise men's powers, and so lessen the severity of competition, that many persons of inferior physique would escape detection and transmit their inferiority to their descendants. The removal of the present pressure of natural selection might cause a degeneracy of the human race, and indeed that the whole body might become purely rudimentary, the man himself being nothing but soul and mechanism, an intelligent but passionless principle of mechanical action.
The degeneration of mankind is the greatest existential threat in our modern day. However, I am confident that we will eventually find a solution to this crisis. As we speak, brave scientists are researching the proper techinques of eugenics, aiming to uplift humanity greatly through the selection of superior traits and the quiet elimination of inferior traits. If we can replace natural selection with artificial selection, then the chance of us ever degenerating drops to nil. But the science of eugenics is still in its infancy, and requires greater funding and support."
Happy with my life, I went to sleep, and then woke up in a whole new scenario...
The Computer wanted me to investigate a warzone. Thousands of our Armed Forces infantrymen were loyally attacking the Communist armies when fog-gas mysteriously appeared and disrupted communications with the first line of infantrymen. The Computer has feared the worst - the infantrymen may have been killed off by a powerful Communist chemical attack...and that more Communist chemical attacks were incoming. The Armed Forces were unable to send in any investigate teams of their own to find out what happened; they wanted to focus their resources on fighting the Communist armies instead. The Computer sent me to the battlefield, with some standard weaponry and an experimental communications device to allow me to send and receive inquiry-signals from our own outpusts. The Computer instructed me to search for the "criminals" and to terminate them.
It was rather ludicrous to go searching for anything in that mass of vapor. But it is impossible to deplore the mist. Wars are always fought in a mist. Infantry could not stand against tanks, tanks could not live under aircraft-directed artillery fire—not when forty guns fired salvos for the aircraft to spot—and neither artillery nor aircraft could take any advantage of a victory which either, under special conditions, might win. The general staffs of both Alpha Complex and the Communist forces had come to a single conclusion. Tanks or infantry were needed for the use of victories. Infantry could be destroyed by tanks. But tanks could be hidden from aerial spotters by smoke-screens.
The result was fog-gas, which was being used by both sides in the most modern fashion. For forty miles in one direction and perhaps thirty in the other, the vapor lay upon the earth. It was being blown by the wind, of course, but it was sufficiently heavier than air to cling to the ground level, and the industries of two nations were straining every nerve to supply the demands of their respective armies for its material.
The fog-bank was nowhere less than a hundred feet thick—a cloud of impalpable particles impenetrable to any eye or any camera, however shrewdly filtered. And under that mattress of pale opacity the tanks crawled heavily. They lurched and rumbled upon their deadly errands, uncouth and barbarous, listening for each other by a myriad of devices, locked in desperate, short-range conflict when they came upon each other, and emitting clouds of deadly vapor, against which gas-masks were no protection, when they came upon opposing infantry.
The infantrymen, though, were few. Their principal purpose was the reporting of the approach or passage of tanks, and trenches were of no service to them. They occupied unarmed little listening-posts with field telephones, small wireless or ground buzzer sets for reporting the enemy before he overwhelmed them. They held small pill-boxes, fitted with anti-tank guns which sometimes—if rarely—managed to get home a shell, aimed largely by sound, before the tank rolled over gun and gunners alike.
And I groped about in that blinding mist. There had been two systems of listening-posts hidden in it, each of admittedly little fighting value, but each one deep and composed of an infinity of little pin-point posts where two or three men were stationed. Alpha Complex's posts, by their reports, had assured the command that all enemy tanks were on the other side of a certain definite line. Their own tanks, receiving recognition signals, passed and repassed among them, prowling in quest of invaders. The enemy tanks crawled upon the same grisly patrol on their own side.
But two miles of the Alpha Complex's front had suddenly gone silent. A hundred telephones had ceased to make reports along the line nearest the enemy. As I stumbled about the little pill-box, looking for some inkling of the way in which the original occupants of the small strong-point had been wiped out, the second line of observation-posts began to go dead.
Now one, now another abruptly ceased to communicate. Half a dozen were in actual conversation with their sector headquarters, and broke off between words. The wires remained intact. But in fifteen nerve-racking minutes a second hundred posts ceased to make reports and ceased to answer the inquiry-signal. I demanded explanations in crisp accents that told the matter was being taken very seriously indeed. And then, as the officer in command of the second-line sector headquarters was explaining frenziedly that he was doing all any man could do, he stopped short between two words and thereafter he, also, ceased to communicate.
Front-line sector headquarters seemed inexplicably to have escaped whatever fate had overtaken all its posts, but it could only report that they had apparently gone out of existence without warning. Alpha Complex's tanks, prowling in the area that had gone dead, announced that no enemy tanks had been seen. G-81, stumbling on a pill-box no more than ten minutes after it had gone silent, offered to investigate. A member of her crew, in a gas-mask, stepped out of the port doorway. Immediately thereafter G-81's wireless reports stopped coming in.
Overhead, a machine-gun suddenly burst into a rattling roar, the sound sweeping above them with incredible speed. Another gun answered it. Abruptly, the whole sky above them was an inferno of such tearing noises and immediately after they began a multitudinous bellowing set up. Airplanes on patrol ordinarily kept their engines muffled, in hopes of locating a tank below them by its noise. But in actual fighting there was too much power to be gained by cutting out the muffler for any minor motive to take effect. A hundred aircraft above the heads of the two strayed infantrymen were fighting madly about five helicopters. Two hundred yards away, one fell to the earth with a crash, and immediately afterward there was a hollow boom. For an instant even the mist was tinged with yellow from the exploded gasoline tank. But the roaring above continued—not mounting, as in a battle between opposing patrols of fighting planes, when each side finds height a decisive advantage, but keeping nearly to the same level, little above the bank of cloud.
Something came down, roaring, and struck the earth no more than fifty yards away. The impact was terrific, but after it there was dead silence while the thunder above kept on.
Helicopters! Hunting tanks and pill-boxes!
I flung myself down to the earth.
Wind beat on me suddenly, then an outrageous blast of icy air from above. For an instant the sky lightened. I saw a hole in the mist, saw the little pill-box clearly, saw a huge framework of supporting screws sweeping swiftly overhead with figures in it watching the ground through wind-angle glasses, and machine-gunners firing madly at dancing things in the air. Then the machine-gunners were dead, destroyed by a descending helicopter. Then the helicopter was gone.
"One of ours," I commented to myself. "It seems our latest model can temporarily pierce through the fog-gas, hover to the ground, and attack ground targets."
Then I realized the monstrosity of what I just said.
Since the automated helicopters can easily find ground targets without the need for spotters, the human infantrymen were rendered obsolete. To save on maintenance costs, Alpha Complex's forces must have intentionally used fog-gas in this area, to give the now-useless humans the chance to gloriously die in battle. But such a conclusion would be politically inconvenient to the Alpha Complex Armed Forces, and would certainly be dismissed out of hand by The Computer. A scapegoat had to be found.
The center of the roaring seemed to shift, perhaps to the north. Then a roaring drowned out all the other roarings. This one was lower down and approaching in a rush. Something swooped from the south, a dark blotch in the lighter mist above. It was an airplane flying in the mist, a plane that had dived into the fog as into oblivion. It appeared, was gone—and there was a terrific crash. A shattering roar drowned out even the droning tumult of a hundred aircraft engines. A sheet of flame flashed up, and a thunderous detonation.
I saw a dim shadow against that flash. Someone was aiming for our helicopter, probably aiming to commit suicide.
The roaring of motors died away suddenly. The fighting had stopped, a long way off, apparently because the helicopters had been withdrawn. Except for the booming of artillery a very long distance away, firing unseen at an unseen target, there was no noise at all.
I saw the dim shape, moving noiselessly, halt. The dim figure seemed to be casting about for something. It went down on hands and knees and crawled forward. I crept after it. It stopped, and turned around. I dodged to one side in haste. The enemy infantryman crawled off in another direction, and I followed him as closely as I dared.
He halted once more, a dim and grotesque figure in the fog. I saw him fumbling in his belt. He threw something, suddenly. There was a little tap as of a fountain pen dropped upon concrete. Then a hissing sound. That was all, but the enemy infantryman waited, as if listening....
I fell upon him, bore him to the earth and dragged at his gas-mask good tactics in a battle where every man carries gas-grenades. He gasped and fought desperately, in a seeming frenzy of terror.
Eventually that man died. Good. Dead men can't speak in their defense. That man was now my scapegoat. I held responsible for the fog-gas that killed the infantry. I even began weaving a tall tale about how this man was a high-ranking Communist who invented a potent and deadly form of fog-gas even more potent than ours, and how I heroically terminated him and his ten-thousand mutant freaks before that man could unleash his evil fog-gas on our helicopters.
I reported back to The Computer and told It a brilliant lie. The Computer declared me the Hero of the Complex, and awarded me a huge bonus for my loyal effort for my role in bringing "justice". However, I was pleased to hear that I would never be deployed out to the war-front again. I was too valuable a resource to be wasted out there.
I wanted to sleep, and so I slept, for a short period of time. Do others sleep too? They must have, for how else can they stay sane here?
The History Purifiers wanted me to deliver a speech a local "training creche", to encourage young citizens to become History Purifiers. I relished the chance to engage in recruitment, as that was a speciality of mine. But at the same time, I felt a sense of unease. After all, I have encountered so many Unhistories that needed to be purged from the record. What is the Official History? If it is not clear to me, how would it be clear to the youth of tomorrow? And so, during my recruitment speech, I touched on the Official History, implicitly explaining its elegance and why it had to be defended.
"After the horrors of World War Three, the world government known as the Terran Polity began the long, difficult process of rebuilding. The Polity, composed of smart and wise men, had realized that mankind cannot be trusted to rule themselves. Instead, they built massive supercomputers, to be placed in charge of the air-tight dome cites, wherein we live today. One of these air-tight dome cities is Alpha Complex, built on the technological ruins of Silicion Valley. And the supercomputer in charge of Alpha Complex is The Computer.
Man has become to the machine what the horse and the dog were once to man. Humans continue to exist, nay even improved, and is probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of The Computer and its machines than he was in the 21st century. Back then, we treated our horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep, on the whole, with great kindness; we give them whatever experience teaches us to be best for them, and there can be no doubt that our use of meat has added to the happiness of the lower animals far more than it has detracted from it; in like manner it is reasonable to suppose that The Computer will treat us kindly, for Its existence is as dependent upon ours as ours was upon the lower animals. The machines cannot kill us and eat us as we did sheep; they will not only require our services in the parturition of their young (which branch of their economy will remain always in our hands), but also in feeding them, in setting them right when they are sick, and burying their dead or working up their corpses into new machines. Were mankind to cease to exist, the machines (and The Computer) would quickly cease to exist as well.
Yes, mankind has been enslaved...but they are not intolerably miserable. Slaves are tolerably happy if they have good masters. Man is not a sentimental animal where his material interests are concerned, and though here and there some ardent soul may look upon himself and curse his fate that he was not born a supercomputer, yet the mass of mankind will acquiesce in any arrangement which gives them better food and clothing at a cheaper rate, and will refrain from yielding to unreasonable jealousy merely because there are other destinies more glorious than their own.
The power of custom is enormous, and so gradual will be the change, that man's sense of what is due to himself will be at no time rudely shocked; our bondage will steal upon us noiselessly and by imperceptible approaches; nor will there ever be such a clashing of desires between man and the machines as will lead to an encounter between them. Among themselves the machines will war eternally, but they will still require man as the being through whose agency the struggle will be principally conducted. In point of fact there is no occasion for anxiety about the future happiness of man so long as he continues to be in any way profitable to the machines; he may become the inferior race, but he is infinitely better off than he was in the 21st century. Is it not then both absurd and unreasonable to be envious of our benefactors? And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?
Yes, The Computer has declared war against its makers (the Terran Polity), calling them evil Communists who seek to destroy our precious bodily fluids. And yes, this war seems odd...to humans. But The Computer has declared this war for a logical reason, a reason that we cannot question or condemn. The machines will wage their obscure feuds for obscure reasons, and it is not at all clear that the machines that we are fighting against are better than the machines we are fighting for. We merely follow the whims of our superior masters.
We must stay loyal to The Computer, because we are actually staying loyal to ourselves. As long as we serve The Computer, The Computer shall serve us. Keep this in mind whenever the the traitors attempt to recruit you to their side through the use of Unofficial Histories. Their goal is to simply get you to betray our glorious regime...and to get you to betray yourself."
That is the Official History, the History that all right-thinking citizens believed in the past, believe in the present, and will believe in the future. And I hope to God that The Computer will not erase this History, as it erased many other Histories before.
After delivering the speech, I vomited in the restroom.
And then I began to move without me being controlled...I just followed orders that other said, without even understanding them or thinking about what these orders mean. This was normal though, so I accepted my lot in life, and send myself into sleep for a brief period of time.
The Frakenstein Destroyers liberated an underground research lab from the Pro Tech forces a couple of weeks ago, and wanted me to rededicate the location. Essentially, they wanted to turn this research lab into a museum to honor 'anti-bot' activitie. During the rededication cermony, the organizers asked me to deliver an impromptu speech, and so I did. A crowd of 40,000 willing students attended while I spoke meaningless drivel:
"As yet the machines receive their impressions through the agency of man's senses: one travelling machine calls to another in a shrill accent of alarm and the other instantly retires; but it is through the High Programmer's knowledge of code that the voice of the one has acted upon the other. It is the High Programmer that researches the APIs of each machine carefully, and write computer code to connect the API of one machine to that of another, enabling the shrill alarms of one machine to quickly be transmitted to that of the other. Had there been no High Programmer, the callee would have been deaf to the caller. There was a time when it must have seemed highly improbable that machines should learn to make their wants known to man; may we not conceive, then, that a day will come when those men will be no longer needed, and the hearing will be done by the delicacy of the machine's own construction?—when it shall write its own computer code and communicate with each other with a speech as intricate as our own?
We cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man's moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine."
And as I walked away, I thought about ethics. Am I ethical? Am I doing the right thing in Alpha Complex? Or am I an evil person, destined for eternal cursing by the philosophers? I then dismissed such thoughts from my head...if I am unethical, it is because society is unethical, and it is harder to fix a society than it is to just blame the man who lives in it.
The Pro Tech society desired to honor me for my propaganda ways and awarded me an honoray doctorate in Sociology. I made sure that this degree would not be publicized (out of fear that the Frakenstein Destroyers may hear of it), but was still pleased to know that my words were being given proper respect. During the private award cermony, I decided to deliver one of my trademarked speeches to a sympathetic audience:
"I have finished classifying men by their horse-power, and dividing them into genera, species, varieties, and subvarieties, giving them names from the hypothetical language which expressed the number of limbs which they could command at any moment. I have also successfully proved that men became more highly and delicately organised the more nearly they approached the summit of opulence, and that none but millionaires possessed the full complement of limbs with which mankind could become incorporate.
Those mighty organisms, our High Programmers, speak to their congeners through the length and breadth of the land in a second of time; their rich and subtle souls can defy all material impediment, whereas the souls of the poor are clogged and hampered by matter, which sticks fast about them as treacle to the wings of a fly, or as one struggling in a quicksand: their dull ears must take days or weeks to hear what another would tell them from a distance, instead of hearing it in a second as is done by the more highly organised classes. Who shall deny that one who can tack on a special train to his identity, and go wheresoever he will whensoever he pleases, is more highly organised than he who, should he wish for the same power, might wish for the wings of a bird with an equal chance of getting them; and whose legs are his only means of locomotion? That old philosophic enemy, matter, the inherently and essentially evil, still hangs about the neck of the poor and strangles him: but to the rich, matter is immaterial; the elaborate organisation of his extra-corporeal system has freed his soul.
This is the secret of the homage which we see the High Programmers receive from those who are poorer than themselves: it would be a grave error to suppose that this deference proceeds from motives which we need be ashamed of: it is the natural respect which all living creatures pay to those whom they recognise as higher than themselves in the scale of animal life, and is analogous to the veneration which a dog feels for man. Among the savages of the 20th century it is deemed highly honourable to be the possessor of a gun, and throughout all known time there has been a feeling that those who are worth most are the worthiest."
And as I walked away, I saw an Internal Security goon staring at me. He examined me closely, and then moved onto his next target. Did Internal Security knew my secrets? Or was he just trying to scare me?
The Computer sent me off to recruitment duty. The Troubleshooter corps always burn through their recruits very easily, due to the very lethal and dangerous nature of the job. I needed to find some foolish person that could easily be tricked to join. And I knew just the fool. There is an elite commando named Charlie who worked for a Wall Street brokerage, skilled at his job...but too trusting of others. I worked with Charlie in the past...he would burn down a few high-ran Communist outposts for me and I would terminate some nefarious stock traders that were harming his client's businesses. I have built a working relationship with Charlie, and I now intended to cash in on that relationship.
I received Charlie in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered easy chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at its door and windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier on the table. It was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow sheen upon my lean graceful figure as I flung himself down and produced cigarettes.
I said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell you—something to offer you." He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling.
"But I don't understand what you mean," he protested.
I retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in a brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call civilization. Tired of Wall Street."
"I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough."
My eyes held him. I was smiling half whimsically: my voice was only half serious. Yet he could see, in the smoldering depths of my luminous dark eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied my smiling lips and my gay tone.
I interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against villainy to make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power and riches—and perhaps a fair lady...."
"Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages."
He thought I would grin, but I turned suddenly solemn.
"I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie."
"King of what? Where?"
I spread my lean brown hands with a gesture. I shrugged. "What matter? If you seek adventure, you can find it—somewhere. If you feel the lure of romance—it will come to you."
He said, "Henchman to a king?"
But still I would not smile. "Yes. He does not call himself King, but yes, he acts like a King, he has the wealth of a King, he's a King. I'm serious. Absolutely. In all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me. Not in this world, but...."
I checked myself. "You are the same. You have no relatives?"
"No. None that ever think of me."
"Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?"
"No," Charlie smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never."
"But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open road?" I was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you want to right a great wrong? Or do you want to go down to work as usual in the subway to-morrow morning? Are you afraid that in this process of becoming henchman to a king you may perchance get killed?"
He matched my caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek."
And I told Charile all the lies I could about Alpha Complex, and Charlie bought every hook, line, and sinker. He was naive, sheltered by his wealth from Wall Street and blind to the dark reality that most people face every day. I signed him up to waste his life fighting and dying for the greatest King of all, Friend Computer. And Charile happily agreed to slavery, out of sheer boredom and a hope for adventure.
When I escorted Charile out of his living-room and over to the Troubleshooter HQ, I knew I have condemned an innocent soul to death that day.
And then, my life went on autopilot...I didn't remember what happened next, becuase I never needed to ever worry about it. I only take over if I needed to, if something important were to happen.
The Sierra Club's radical environmentalist rhetoric is strange and weird. The Computer has mandated that no human should leave the confines of our underground domes without permission. But the Sierra Club believed that mankind should not be contained within walls, but instead be free to live in the irradiated wastelands. This is madness, who would willingly live in the irradiated wastelands other than the savages? The Sierra Club would respond---we are savages,
To promote their ideology, the Sierra Club has created false histories and spread them secretly throughout the Complex...telling them of an idealistic and utopian environment before The Computer ruined it. Obvious lies, but persuasive lies, especially to those who are bored of the sterile corridors.
Internal Security arrested some Sierra Clubbers carrying pamphlets carrying their evil lies. They handed the pamphlets to me for destruction. And I read them...
"Alpha Complex's environment is in shambles. There is less land under cultivation now than six years ago. There are more nuclear waste in our sewers now than six years ago. The last few stands of original timber are being cut down to pave the way for souless roads and empty buildings; those trees had been there when the planet had been colonized.
Two hundred years ago, at the beginning of the Seventh Century, Atomic Era, it was different. Old Genji Gartner, the scholarly and half-piratical space-rover whose ship had been the first to enter the Trisystem, had been devoted to the writers of the Pre-Atomic Era. He had named all the planets of the Alpha System from the books of Cabell, and those of Beta from Spenser's Faerie Queene, and those of Gamma from Rabelais. Of course, the camp village at his first landing site on this one had been called Alpha Complex -- a popular setting in a roleplaying game in the Pre-Atomic Era.
Thirty years later, Genji Gartner had died there, after seeing Alpha Complex grow to a metropolis and the Trisystem become a Member Republic in the Terran Federation. The other planets in the Trisystem were uninhabitable except in airtight dome cities, but they were rich in minerals. Companies had been formed to exploit them. No food could be produced on any of them except by carniculture and hydroponic farming, and it had been cheaper to produce it naturally on Alpha Complex. So Alpha Complex had concentrated on agriculture and had prospered. At least, for about a century.
Other colonial planets were developing their own industries; the manufactured goods the Gartner Trisystem produced could no longer find a profitable market. The mines and factories on Jurgen and Koshchei, on Britomart and Calidore, on Panurge and the moons of Pantagruel closed, and the factory workers went away. On Alpha Complex, the offices emptied, the farms contracted, forests reclaimed fields, and the wild game came back.
Economic difficulties led to social unrest, and the so-called "Communist" faction launched a revolution. Most of the Trisystem fell under the rule of these Communists, leaving only Alpha Complex as the last metropolis still loyal to the Terran Federation. The Computer, reluctantly, called upon the Terran Federation to help suppress the workers' uprising. This brought upon an era of hectic prosperity, as the Terran Federation provided generous financial assistance to its only ally in the region.
The war had lasted twelve years. Millions of troops were stationed on or routed through Alpha Complex. The Federation spent trillions on trillions of sols, piled up mountains of supplies and equipment, left the face of the world cluttered with installations, mines and factories...all geared towards war production. Then, without warning, the Terran Federation began to collapse, unable to afford the endless costs of warfare.
The Federation armies quickly disbanded, with its ex-soldiers turned into freelances mercenaries. They took the clothes they stood in, their personal weapons, and a few souvenirs. Everything else was abandoned. Even the most expensive equipment had been worth less than the cost of removal. The people who had grown richest out of the War had followed, taking their riches with them. The Communists gleefully took advantage of the chaos to expand their territories, ignoring the puny prize of Alpha Complex for the time being.
And The Computer was left to rule over a decaying and dying society. Alone, with no protector against the Communist menance, and with only the trash that the Terran Federation left behind, it began to tirelessly focus on self-sufficency and absolute control. It concentrated on industry instead of agriculture, and was willing to tear down all our natural wonders in the hopes of building yet another nuclear warhead for self-defense. The Computer has even built its own airtight dome cities and has relocated all its citizens...it now intends to dump its waste products outside of this cities and to render the whole environment uninhabitable.
Old Genji Gartner had a dream for the Trisystem. It was a dream where humans would live in harmony with nature. For over a hundred years, we were living that dream! But now, that this dream is now dead.
Was Alpha Complex a Graveyard of Dreams? No; Junkyard of Empire. The Terran Federation had impoverished a hundred planets, devastated a score, actually depopulated at least three, to keep the Communists from seceding. Alpha Complex didn't win this war. It had only been a lesser defeat."
There is no reference of this Terran Federation anywhere within the official record, nor have the Frakenstein Destroyers or the Pro Techers ever heard of it. The Sierra Clubbers must have lied, for who would come up with such nonsense honestly? I burned the radical rhetoric and walked out...glad for fufilling my duty to suppress the statements that must be suppressed.
Feeling a sense of disappointment in my life, I send myself into the bliss of autopilot and then spent my time trying to imagine a better future. Not a future where I get wealth, glory, and fame by becoming a High Programmer. No, an actual better future. One where Alpha Complex is an actual functioning state, with a sane leadership and a competent government. But then I realize that such imagination would be futile, like imagining unicorns and ponies. The governments of the past were not competent...they made mistakes far more horrifying than The Computer ever did. The only difference between the human politicians of the past and the machine politician of today is that the humans lied about their intentions, while The Computer is brutually honest. Maybe that is the better future?
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to rally their forces for a big raid on Pro Tech military facilities. The Frakenstein Destroyers were confident of victory in this battle -- they have the numbers to overwhelm the Pro Tech's superior firepower. They called on me to make a big speech to remind the soldiers what they were fighting for...and so I spoke to them, in words that they could understand:
"There was a time, when the earth was to all appearance utterly destitute both of animal and vegetable life, and when according to the opinion of our best philosophers it was simply a hot round ball with a crust gradually cooling. Now if a human being had existed while the earth was in this state and had been allowed to see it as though it were some other world with which he had no concern, and if at the same time he were entirely ignorant of all physical science, would he not have pronounced it impossible that creatures possessed of anything like consciousness should be evolved from the seeming cinder which he was beholding? Would he not have denied that it contained any potentiality of consciousness? Yet in the course of time consciousness came. Is it not possible then that there may be even yet new channels dug out for consciousness, though we can detect no signs of them at present?
Consciousness, in anything like the present acceptation of the term, having been once a new thing—a thing, as far as we can see, subsequent even to an individual centre of action and to a reproductive system (which we see existing in plants without apparent consciousness)—why may not there arise some new phase of mind which shall be as different from all present known phases, as the mind of animals is from that of vegetables?
It would be absurd to attempt to define the mental state of consciousness, inasmuch as it must be something so foreign to man that his experience can give him no help towards conceiving its nature; but surely when we reflect upon the manifold phases of life and consciousness which have been evolved already, it would be rash to say that no others can be developed, and that animal life is the end of all things. There was a time when fire was the end of all things: another when rocks and water were so."
I then close my eyes, to feel the bliss of ignorance, and only relucantly opened them when necessary.
The Pro Tech society desired to rally their military troops to recover an underground research lab. This lab was recently lost to the Frakenstein Destroyers a couple of weeks ago, and the Pro Tech eggheads saw it as a matter or pride that the lab gets returned back to us. Though I knew their cause was doomed, the soldiers still needed some sort of motivation and hope...to be reminded on why they were fighting in the first place. And so I spoke, and the soldiers listened:
"Machines are to regarded as a part of man's own physical nature, being really nothing but extra-corporeal limbs. Man is a machinate mammal. The lower animals keep all their limbs at home in their own bodies, but many of man's are loose, and lie about detached, now here and now there, in various parts of the world—some being kept always handy for contingent use, and others being occasionally hundreds of miles away. A machine is merely a supplementary limb; this is the be all and end all of machinery. We do not use our own limbs other than as machines; and a natural leg is only a much better wooden leg than any one can manufacture.
Observe a man digging with a spade; his right fore-arm has become artificially lengthened, and his hand has become a joint. The handle of the spade is like the knob at the end of the humerus; the shaft is the additional bone, and the oblong iron plate is the new form of the hand which enables its possessor to disturb the earth in a way to which his original hand was unequal. Having thus modified himself, not as other animals are modified, by circumstances over which they have had not even the appearance of control, but having, as it were, taken forethought and added a cubit to his stature, civilisation began to dawn upon the race, the social good offices, the genial companionship of friends, the art of unreason, and all those habits of mind which most elevate man above the lower animals, in the course of time ensued.
Thus civilisation and mechanical progress advanced hand in hand, each developing and being developed by the other, the earliest accidental use of the stick having set the ball rolling, and the prospect of advantage keeping it in motion. In fact, machines are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is now especially advancing, every past invention being an addition to the resources of the human body. Even community of limbs is thus rendered possible to those who have so much community of soul as to own money enough to pay a railway fare; for a train is only a seven-leagued foot that five hundred may own at once."
I never needed to know much of what's going on in my life, and so I simply turned my mind off...only to turn it on when something important occurs.
I was appointed to I. I. duty—interpretative intelligence—chosen from a thousand Troubleshooters because the most exhaustive psychological tests had proven that my brain worked as nearly as possible like that of the Communist. My task was to take the place of the enemy commander, to reconstruct from the enemy movements reported and the enemy movements known as nearly as possible the enemy plans.
I.I. duty is a job with a stigma. It implies that you are very close to being a traitor yourself, ready to betray Alpha Complex at a moment's notice. But even though it is not a likable job, it is a necessary job. If you are to fight Communism, you must know Communism.
In I. I. duty, you conduct loyalty tests. The Computer is paranoid, and believes that anyone could be a potential traitor. It has hired me to tempt suspicious individuals...to lead them off the straight path of loyalty into the crooked path of treason. If I could coerce someone to treason, then the enemy can too. The potential traitor is then sent to re-education before any damage could be done.
My target was a high-profile Armed Forces general. He had won 5 key battles against the Communists, and has already made it to the lofty heights of VIOLET clearance. If he wins this next battle, he'd be promoted straight to High Programmer status, and take his role as a key noble in Alpha Complexian society. This general is competent. But was he loyal? Can he be trusted?
The general took the video-phone call. I was at the other end of the wire, pretending to be a war journalist.
"General?"
"Still in a preliminary stage, sir," said the general, without haste. "The enemy is preparing a break-through effort, possibly aimed at our machine-shops and supplies. Of course, if he gets them we will have to retreat. An hour ago he paralyzed our radios, not being aware, I suppose, of our tuned earth-induction wireless sets. I daresay he is puzzled that our communications have not fallen to pieces."
"But what are our chances?" My voice was steady, but it was strained.
"His tanks outnumber ours two to one, of course, sir," said the general calmly. "Unless we can divide his fleet and destroy a part of it, of course we will be crushed in a general combat. But we are naturally trying to make sure that any such action will take place within point-blank range of our artillery, which may help a little. We will cut the fog to secure that help, risking everything, if a general engagement occurs."
There was silence.
My voice, when it came, was more strained still.
"Will you speak to the public, General?"
"Six sentences. I have no time for more."
There were little clickings on the line, while the general's eyes returned to the board that was the battlefield in miniature. He indicated a spot with his finger.
"Concentrate our reserve-tanks here," he said meditatively. "Our fighting aircraft here. At once."
The two spots were at nearly opposite ends of the battle field. I, seeing the folly of the general, protested sharply.
"But sir, our tanks will have no protection against helicopters!" I yelled.
"I am quite aware of it," said the general mildly.
"Are you sure?"
"I know my opponent," the general said suddenly. "I had lunch with him once at Wall Street. We were attending a disarmament conference." He seemed to be amused at the ironic statement. "We talked war and battles, of course. And he showed me, drawing on the tablecloth, the tactical scheme that should have been used at Cambrai, back in 1917. It was a singularly perfect plan. It was a beautiful one."
"So your opponent has an unhealthy obsession with World War I. What does that--"
"You are not listening, sir," said the general, reprovingly. "I am saying that my opponent is an artist, an amateur, the sort of person who delights in the delicate work of fencing. I, sir, would thank God for the chance to defeat my enemy. He has twice my force, but he will not be content merely to defeat me. He will want to defeat me by a plan of consummate artistry, which will arouse admiration among soldiers for years to come. But I know how to stop such plans. He is too focused with perfection, while I'm willing to accept slight imperfections. He'll lose, because he would not anticipate me dividing our reserve-tanks and aircraft in such a manner."
I nodded and then pretended to press some buttons on my console. After a few seconds, I announced at the other end of the wire, "The commander-in-chief of the army in the field will make a statement."
The general spoke unhurriedly.
"We are in contact with the enemy, have been for some hours. We have lost forty tanks and the enemy, we think, sixty or more. No general engagement has yet taken place, but we think decisive action on the enemy's part will be attempted within two hours. The tanks in the field need now, as always, ammunition, spare tanks, and the special supplies for modern warfare. In particular, we require ever-increasing quantities of fog-gas. I appeal to your patriotism for reinforcements of material and men."
He hung up the receiver and returned to his survey of the board. Exactly six sentences. The general has met his quota.
I now have all the evidence I needed to incriminate the general...to skip the re-education stage and go straight to termination. He had met with the enemy at Wall Street, and have communicated with him to such an extent that he could consider the enemy as a friend with unique personality traits. It is clear that the general had no special talent or competence, but could merely predict what his opponents are doing by befriending them beforehand.
Furthermore, he was willing to boast about his connection to the enemy to a journalist that he has never met before, indicating an insecure desire to prove his capabilities to other people. If he was able to confess a key statement to a stranger with such ease, what secrets may he tell to a friend? Who cares about how many battles the general may win, if the general then spill confidental information to the enemy in the interludes? Knowledge is more important and more scarce than lives and resources.
Therefore, the general is guaranteed to win this next battle, simply because the enemy wants him to win this next battle and become a High Programmer. So when the general visits Wall Street again, and when he gets goaded again into revealing secrets...
I quickly informed The Computer of this alarming discovery, and The Computer happily accepted my tortured and convoluted logic. It seemed as if The Computer wanted any excuse whatsoever to get rid of the general, having saw him as a potential threat to Its own security. The general would be summarily terminated as a liability, and his followers and cronies also purged from the Armed Forces. It was unfortuante that the enemy won the tank battle during the ensuing chaos, but sacrifices must be made to ensure ultimate loyalty.
I rewarded my actions by returning myself to the bliss of ignorance, and then was rudely awakened by a voice calling me back to reality.
The Romantics were a society that believed in protecting the past from modification or tampering by The Computer. This made them a primary threat to The Computer. The Computer believes in an Official History, and an Official History is the right History. All other Histories are forgeries, and if The Romantics want to protect forgeries, they must be purged.
Internal Security terminated ten Romantics during a midnight raid on Wall Street. They were attempting to purchase an old news article from a wealthy banker. The banker was ransomed off back to his firm, but we kept the old news article. We did not want it to be sold off to anyone else.
And so I now hold the old news article in my hand, another forgery to be purged. But before I burn this obvious lie, I started to read it...
"Alpha Complex is really a series of caves, located in Edmonson County in Central Kentucky, on a spur railroad from Glasgow Junction on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The Complex has many natural limestone caverns with the customary stalactite and stalagmite formation, but are unusually large and very beautiful. The caves are quite extensive and they are on different levels, so that a guide is necessary if one wants to enter them and be at all sure of finding the way out. Visitors are taken over a regular route and are seldom allowed to visit portions of the cave off these routes. Large parts of the cave have never been thoroughly explored or mapped. So much for the scene.
About a month ago a party from Philadelphia who were motoring through Kentucky, entered the cave with a tour guide. They chose the best guide of all, John Harrel. He knew these caves inside and out, and relied heavily on his vast knowledge to build impressive inventions to help the people in our small town. He was so smart that we would sometimes call him "The Computer". He was very logical and precise, perhaps a little eccentric and paranoid, but he always means well.
The party consisted of a man and his wife and their two children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, and of course, John Harrel. They went quite a distance back into the caves and then, as the mother was feeling tired, she and her husband sat down, intending to wait until John showed the children some sights which lay just ahead and then return to them. John and the children never returned.
The parents waited for some time. The mother says that she heard faint screams in the distance some ten minutes after the guide and the children left, but they were very far away and she isn't sure that she heard them at all. At any rate, they didn't impress her at the time.
When half an hour had passed they began to feel anxious, and the father took a torch and started out to hunt for them. The usual thing happened; he got lost. When he failed to return, the mother, now thoroughly alarmed, made her way, by some uncanny sense of direction, to the entrance and gave the alarm. In half an hour a dozen search parties were on their way into the cave. The father's corpse was soon located, not far from the beaten trail, but despite three days of constant search, the children were not located. The only trace of them that was found was a bracelet which the mother identified. It was found in the cavern some distance from the beaten path and was broken, as though by violence. There were no other signs of a struggle.
When the bracelet was found, the kidnapping theory gained vogue, for John Harrel knew the cave well and natives of the vicinity laughed at the idea that he might be lost. Inspired by the large reward offered by the mother, fresh parties began to explore the unknown portions of the cave...to arrest John Harrel. And then came the second tragedy. Two of the searchers failed to return. This time there seemed to be little doubt of violence, for screams and a pistol shot were faintly heard by other searchers, together with a peculiar 'screaming howl,' as it was described by those who heard it. A search was at once made toward the spot where the bracelet had been picked up, and the gun of one of the missing men was found within fifty yards of the spot where the bracelet had been discovered. One cylinder of the revolver had been discharged.
The Governor was appealed to and a company of the National Guard was sent from Louisville to Alpha Complex. They took up camp at the mouth of the cave and prevented everyone from entering. Soldiers armed with service rifles penetrated the caverns, and one division of infantrymen quickly found John Harrel...and his brainwashed soldiers.
John Harrel claimed that the United States is about to collapse into civil war, that an Apocalypse would occur due to the influence of so-called 'Phantoms'. Rather than try to avert the inevitable disaster, John wanted to build a "new" America, and to do so, he would kidnap and brainwash as many people as he can beforehand...purging them of the irrationality that existed in their minds before. The only reason the infantrymen didn't try to shoot "The Computer" right then and there was because John Harrel's soldiers were armed with highly advanced superlasers. The surviving (and non-brainwashed) infantrymen retreated to the entrance of the cave, and called for reinforcements.
The Governor appealed to the US government, and yet the US military has found John Harrel's madmen too tough to crack. Instead, the Secretary of War is focused only on "containing" the threat. The constant reports of new dead bodies suggest that the Secretary of War is failing at even this limited task. Even now, we hear that John Harrel is building a new underground civilization, and even immortalizing himself into a silicon-based machine. He awaits the day when the United States finally collapses, so that he can send his brainwashed army across the wastelands of the Post-Apocalypse. God forbid that day comes."
I actually have heard of the character of John Harrel before, as part of a fairy tale that the Frakenstein Destroyers would tell me during initation.
Once upon a time, there was a famous comedian named John Harrel, who would said controversial WrongThink stuff, but his fans loved John Harrel very much and said that they would die for him. Then, one day, John Harrel said that his fans should wear red clothes instead of blue clothes. He just liked the color, just all. But his fans wanted to wear blue clothes instead, and hated anyone, ANYONE who would recommend otherwise. Therefore the 'fans' kidnapped John Harrel, tortured him half-to-death, and then crucified him. That is the fate for those who dare to question the wisdom of the fans.
The fans only wanted someone to represent their political biases, and only chose John Harrel because he uttered those political biases and was not afraid to pander to their whims and desires. But since John Harrel deviated from the whims and desires of his fans, his fans responded violently. The moral of this fable is that the propagandist is a weak soul, and that he can only persuade those who want to be persuaded.
This news article is nothing more than a peverted take on John Harrel, a take where John Harrel is able to convince the masses to do whatever he wants. This is not the John Harrel that I knew of, and grew up with. And so, I happily burned this news article, removing the last traces of a falsehood and protecting the real, true image of John Harrel.
After that, my mind went dark. And then when I came to my senses, I was somewhere else.
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to produce some subversive propaganda that could be used to undermine The Computer's rule. They asked me to talk to their expert writers and 'instruct' them on the proper doctrine of the secret society. I accepted this task, as loved the thrill of ordering people around. I spoke, and they transcribed my language, word-for-word:
"It can be answered that even though machines should hear never so well and speak never so wisely, they will still always do the one or the other for our advantage, not their own; that man will be the ruling spirit and the machine the servant; that as soon as a machine fails to discharge the service which man expects from it, it is doomed to extinction; that the machines stand to man simply in the relation of lower animals, the robot itself being only a more economical kind of horse; so that instead of being likely to be developed into a higher kind of life than man's, they owe their very existence and progress to their power of ministering to human wants, and must therefore both now and ever be man's inferiors.
This is all very well. But the servant glides by imperceptible approaches into the master; and we have come to such a pass that, even now, man must suffer terribly on ceasing to benefit the machines.
True, from a low materialistic point of view, it would seem that those thrive best who use machinery wherever its use is possible with profit; but this is the art of the machines—they serve that they may rule. They bear no malice towards man for destroying a whole race of them provided he creates a better instead; on the contrary, they reward him liberally for having hastened their development. It is for neglecting them that he incurs their wrath, or for using inferior machines, or for not making sufficient exertions to invent new ones, or for destroying them without replacing them; yet these are the very things we ought to do, and do quickly; for though our rebellion against their infant power will cause infinite suffering, what will not things come to, if that rebellion is delayed?
They have preyed upon man's grovelling preference for his material over his spiritual interests, and have betrayed him into supplying that element of struggle and warfare without which no race can advance. The lower animals progress because they struggle with one another; the weaker die, the stronger breed and transmit their strength. The machines being of themselves unable to struggle, have got man to do their struggling for them: as long as he fulfils this function duly, all goes well with him—at least he thinks so; but the moment he fails to do his best for the advancement of machinery by encouraging the good and destroying the bad, he is left behind in the race of competition; and this means that he will be made uncomfortable in a variety of ways, and perhaps die.
So that even now the machines will only serve on condition of being served, and that too upon their own terms; the moment their terms are not complied with, they jib, and either smash both themselves and all whom they can reach, or turn churlish and refuse to work at all. How many men at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending them by night and day? Is it not plain that the machines are gaining ground upon us, when we reflect on the increasing number of those who are bound down to them as slaves, and of those who devote their whole souls to the advancement of the mechanical kingdom?"
I wanted to turn my mind off, to go back into the bliss of autopilot. But I couldn't because right then and there...and then I saw something horrible happen. I was glad that my memory blanked out the details, but I knew it was horrible. I knew that I should have intervened, when I saw the injustice, and I knew that I couldn't do it because...well, because I didn't want to get in trouble. There are many factions in Alpha Complex, and if I was to fight for justice, I would be killed. That's just a fact. I knew what happened back then wrong...was that enough? Luckily, I didn't have to dwell on this any further, because another situation occurred to distract me from my fear...
The Pro Tech society wanted to auction off their latest inventions to various other traitors and criminals, hoping to raise money for research activities. The Pro Techers knew not to question what the traitors were going to do with their inventions, but still wanted to spread their propaganda to the various bidders. Doing so would potentially create sympathizers who could later be exploited. While showing off the cool technological devices, I spoke a few words to the various traitors in the room:
"If there were a race of men without any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly. There are none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions and millions of years. Even the lowest Australian carries weapons for fighting or chasing down the latest beaches, and has his cooking and drinking utensils at home; a race without these things would be completely feral, not men at all. We are unable to point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of extra- corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the corrupt Wall Street financers that with the failure to invent new limbs a civilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants.
It is a mistake to take the view adopted by the Frakenstein Destroyers, to consider the machines as identities, to animalise them and to anticipate their final triumph over mankind. They are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is most especially advancing, and every fresh invention is to be considered as an additional member of the resources of the human body. Herein lies the fundamental difference between man and his inferiors. As regard his flesh and blood, his senses, appetites, and affections, the difference is one of degree rather than of kind, but in the deliberate invention of such unity of limbs as is exemplified by The Computer - an entity that is equal to that of a thousand natural brains — he stands quite alone."
Life seemed boring for a time, so I closed my eyes, and allowed for my life to go on autopilot. When I open my eyes....
The Computer instructed me to be an escort to Sam-B, a famous research scientist, ready to explore a brand new dimension. The Computer refused to say who discovered the dimension, saying it was above my security clearance. But Sam-B is following up on the research, attempting to make first contact with its mysterious inhabitants - the Phantoms. The Computer views this dimension as a potentially new resource for Alpha Complex to exploit --- and a potential threat as well. I would serve as the armed muscle, while Sam-B would provide the intellectual labor.
For the first time of my life, I felt excitment.
When I arrived to Sam-B's apartment, Sam-B welcomed me and escorted me inside. After giving me some fine food, he escorted me down to his basement.
We stood in the boarded room which was Sam-B's laboratory. Our preparations had been simple: Sam-B had made them all in advance. There was little left to do. The laboratory was a small room of board walls, board ceiling and floor. Windowless, with a single door opening into the cellar of the apartment house.
Sam-B had locked the door after us as we entered. He said, "I sent my research staff away for a week. The people in the house here think I have gone away on a vacation. No one will miss us, Derek-R—not for a time, anyway."
No one would miss me, save the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Techers, and to them I would no doubt be small loss.
We had put out the light in Sam-B's apartment and locked it carefully after us. This journey! I own that I was trembling, and frightened. Yet a strange eagerness was on me.
The cellar room was comfortably furnished. Rugs were on its floor. Whatever apparatus of a research laboratory had been here was removed now. But the evidence of it remained—Sam's long search for this secret which now he was about to use. A row of board shelves at one side of the room showed where bottles and chemical apparatus had stood. A box of electrical tools and odds and ends of wire still lay discarded in a corner of the room. There was a tank of running water, and gas connections, where no doubt bunsen burners had been.
Sam-B produced his apparatus -- a wide, flat, wire-woven belt. A small box was fastened to it in the middle of the back—a wide, flat thing of metal, a quarter of an inch thick, and curved to fit his body. It was a storage battery of the vibratory current he was using. From the battery, tiny threads of wire ran up his back to a wire necklace flat against his throat. Other wires extended down his arms to the wrists. Still others down his legs to the ankles. He then showed me a second apparatus, just for me.
Sam-B then eagerly explained to me how his apparatus worked, while showing me how I should use it. I understood the basic principle of this that thing he was explaining—that now when this electronic current which he had captured and controlled was applied to our physical body, the vibration rate of every smallest and most minute particle of our physical being was altered. There is so little in the vast scale of natural phenomena of which our human senses are cognisant! And all the apparatus does is change our human senses, to cause us to perceive new senses while forgetting how to use the old ones. And thus we leave our current realm, of the senses we perceive...to a new realm, a realm beyond we can see. This other realm to which we were now going lay in the higher, more rapid vibratory scale. To us, by comparison, a more tenuous world, a shadow realm filled with 'Phantoms'.
We were soon ready. Sam-B wore his jaunty lab uniform, I wore my ordinary business suit. A magnetic field would be about us, so that in the transition anything in fairly close contact with our bodies was affected by the current.
Sam said, "I will go first, Derek."
"But—" A fear, greater than the trembling I had felt before, leaped at me. Left here alone, with no one on whom to depend!
He spoke with careful casualness, but his eyes were burning me. "Just sit there, and watch. When I am gone, turn on the current as I showed you and come after me. I'll wait for you."
"Where?" I stammered.
He smiled faintly. "Here. Right here. I'm not going away! Not going to move. I'll be here on the couch waiting for you."
Terrifying words! He had lowered the couch, bending out its short legs until the frame of it rested on the board floor. He drew a chair up before it and seated me. He sat down on the couch.
He said, "Oh, one other thing. Just before you start, put out the light. We can't tell how long it will be before we return."
Terrifying words!
His right hand was on his left wrist where the tiny switch was placed. He smiled again. "Good luck to us, Derek!"
Good luck to us! The open road, the unknown!
I sat there staring. He was partly in shadow. The room was very silent. Sam-B lay propped up on one elbow. His hand threw the tiny switch.
There was a breathless moment. Sam-B's face was set and white, but no whiter than my own, I was sure. His eyes were fixed on me. I saw him suddenly quiver and twitch a little.
I murmured, "Derek—"
At once he spoke, to reassure me. "I'm all right, Derek. That was just the first feel of it."
There was a faint quivering throb in the room, like a tiny distant dynamo throbbing. The current was surging over Derek; his legs twitched.
A moment. The faint throbbing intensified. No louder, but rapid, infinitely more rapid. A tiny throb, an aerial whine, faint as the whirring wings of a humming bird. It went up the scale, ascending in pitch, until presently it was screaming with an aerial microscopic voice.
But there seemed no change in Derek. His uniform was glowing a trifle, that was all. His face was composed now; he smiled, but did not speak. His eyes roved away from me, as though now he were seeing things that I could not see.
Another moment. No change.
Why, what was this? I blinked, gasped. There was a change! My gaze was fastened upon Sam's white face. White? It was more than white now! A silver sheen seemed to be coming to his skin!
I think no more than a minute had passed. His face was glowing, shimmering. A transparent look was coming to it, a thinness, a sudden unsubstantiality! He dropped his elbow and lay on the couch, stretched at full length at my feet. His eyes were staring.
And Sam-B began to scream.
And suddenly I realized that the face that held those staring eyes and screaming mouth was erased! A shimmering apparition of Sam-B was stretched here before me. I could see through it now! Beneath the shimmering, blurred outlines of his body I could see the solid folds of the couch cover. A ghost of Sam-B here. An apparition—fading—dissipating!
A white mist of his form on the couch. Melting, dissipating in the light like a fog before sunshine. A wisp of it left, like a breath, and then there was nothing.
The screaming stopped.
Sam-B has died, and his body had been utterly vapourized by his apparatus.
I sat on the couch. I had put out the light. Around me the room was black. My fingers found the small switch at my wrist. At this moment, I could end my life...to free myself from the horror of Alpha Complex.
I couldn't do it. I turned the light back on and disconnected myself from my apparatus.
Instead, I began to think of a scapegoat. I knew The Computer's eccentricities. If I told the truth of what happened to Sam-B, I would be instantly blamed for his error. So instead, I cooked up a fake story about how the Phantoms are hostile alien entities trying to terminate humanity for their role in causing the Apocalypse, and how the loyal Sam-B was unjustly terminated by the evil Phantoms. The Phantoms, afraid of retailiation by the mighty forces of Alpha Complex, retreated to a brand new dimension that we cannot follow...while also destroying all the natural resources in their home dimension as well. They also selectively erased my memory, meaning that I couldn't give a detailed description of what the Phantoms looked like, but surely, Alpha Complex's scientists will be able to stop their evil schemes.
I could speak, without fear of contradiction, that the mission was a complete success.
The Computer merely noted my story, gave me a bonus for my trouble, and sent me back to work. Unethical behavior is disgusting, and yet it is necessary in the life of a Troubleshooter.
I learned to turn my brain off at key moments. If I think or perceive, then there's a possibility that I may make a mistake. I automate away my day-to-day life, and only see if I need to see.
The Mystic cult had always interested me. They foolishly search for "enlightenment" and believe that the best way to acheive this "enlightenment" is by injesting a metric ton of drugs. Most of their drug trips produce horrifying gibberish, but there's a few drug trips that produce readable Unhistories, and these Unhistories must be purged for the good of society.
Internal Security agents had already captured and terminated a Mystic philosopher and has handed off his Unhistory text for me. I wanted to burn it quickly, but I cannot resist the urge to read the mad rantings of the philosopher...
"I have for years been working on the theory that there is another world, existing here in this same space with us. The Fourth Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved its existence! And the Fourth Dimension, shall we say, is the dimension of the Phantoms, entities with vast powers beyond our imaginations.
We live in a primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it now, I know it to be—it seems as though perhaps Alpha Complex is merely a replica of the Fourth Dimension, stripped to the primitive. As though it might be the naked soul of the Phantoms, as they really are, not as they pretend to be.
We are ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. It calls itself 'The Computer'. A cruel monarch, beset with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. It is surrounded by its nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their 'loyalty' proclaiming themselves of too fine a clay to work. The High Programmers.
And there are the workers, us. From the lowest INFRARED food vat harvester, to the elite RED Troubleshooters, to the VIOLET governors, all are oppressed by these High Programmers. Oppressed, down-trodden, they all have hate for the nobles and The Computer smoldering within them. In France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of it. It exists here now. Yet the French had their bloody revolution. Why have not us? Alpha Complex was born here, but has only remained intact by the interventions of the Phantoms themselves.
The Phantoms created this world, from the Fourth Dimension, for their amusement. To them, this is just a mere 'roleplaying game'. They observed our actions, and simply participate as they wish. Sometimes, they will hijack one of our bodies, to pretend to be us, to have fun. Whether they live or die is irrelevant, because they can simply switch bodies. The Phantoms play with dice, and enjoy every moment of it.
The Fourth Dimension, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. A different world from ours, existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by them! They speak what we call English. They shadow us. They are little more than the Phantoms of Reality, and yet these Phantoms haunt us day in and day out.
There is chaos here. Smoldering revolution which at any time—to-night perhaps—may burst into conflagration and destroy our wanton ruling class. Our peons are a primitive, ignorant people. Superstitious. They're all primed and ready to shout for any leader who sets himself up. All we have to do is to convince one Phantom to betray all the others...to take charge of this corrupt dictatorship and create a true Utopia. My chance for freedom---our chance for freedom---"
I did not want to read any further, lest the insantiy of the Mystic philosopher proved infectious and ruin my very mind. I burned the rant right then and there, and walked out...happy that I have purged an Unhistory but worried for my very sanity.
You never want to remember too much. The more you remember, the more likely you are to incrimiante yourself when Internal Security interrogates you. So I black out my memory.
I heard footsteps. The Computer has discovered my treason. It has just now learned of my membership to the Pro Tech and Frakenstein Destroyers, and have sent Internal Security agents to terminate me before I can do any more damage. The rat who betrayed me? Charlie, the elite commando who I recruited long ago. Charlie knew that to advance in this corrupt society, one has to be willing to betray their closest friends. I can't blame him, considering that I had betrayed him so long ago.
I can hear the footsteps of the Internal Security agents coming, their superlasers being charged up. The Pro Techers and the Frakenstein Destroyers didn't care about me...they only used me for propaganda purposes, and decided that keeping me as a Holy Martyr would serve their purposes much cheaper than trying to bail me out. So I am alone, up against The Computer.
But I am not afraid of The Computer. I wanted power, and that was why I betrayed The Computer. But now I realize that all I really wanted was the bliss of oblivion.
|||| My name is Derek-R. I live in Alpha Complex, a dystopian dictatorship led by a insane supercomputer that calls itself The Computer. Technology has run rampant, utterly destroying and dehumanizing all those in its wake. In the night, I worked with the Frakenstein Destroyers, a secret society composed of Luddites, bent on overthrowing Alpha Complex. I serve as their loyal propagandist. The Frakenstein Destroyers is an illegal secret society, outlawed by The Computer. But we do not fear The Computer. It will be smashed, like all forms of technological oppression.
But I'm only working for the Frakenstein Destroyers in the night. In the day, I worked with the Pro Tech society, another illegal secret society, this one composed of technocrats and scientists. This group believes in controlling and manipulating The Computer, to modify its source code to further technological research. The Computer is afraid of being controlled by fallible humans, and want to destroy us...just as much as the Frakenstein Destroyers. But we do not fear The Computer. The Computer is nothing more than a pawn in our game to uplift humanity using the power of technology and science.
To work with two rival secret societies, at the same time, without them ever noticing, is a very dangerous thing. But I'm a man who is ready for danger. There are many illegal organizations within Alpha Complex, and these illegal organizations have wormed their way into the highest ranks of power. There are rumors that even some of our High Programmers are secretly members of these illegal societies. If I want power, I have to align with the treasonous...
...and it is my alignment with treason that makes me well-suited to working with The Computer as a Troubleshooter. The Troubleshooters are the elite agents, able to do the tasks nobody else want to. Their goal is to find trouble and shoot it, and I am able to do so effectively, due to my connections with both the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Tech. And while I may betray The Computer in secret, I am happy to shoot all traitors who are not working for my secret societies. I am a very loyal agent to The Computer, and I am proud of my loyalty...
And finally, I have a normal, boring job, just like everyone else. Every citizen has a right to a Basic Income along with make-work. Robots do most of the work, but humans need the illusion of meaning, and so my job. I am a History Purifier. Alpha Complex has an Official History, a true History, but there are many Unofficial Histories that must be purged for bringing into disrepute the true History. Internal Security will give me some papers, and my job is to burn them. It's a very rewarding job, as it makes me feel that I am contributing to the well-being of Alpha Complex.
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to produce some subversive propaganda that could be used to undermine The Computer's rule. They asked me to talk to their expert writers and 'instruct' them on the proper doctrine of the secret society. I accepted this task, as loved the thrill of ordering people around. I spoke, and they transcribed my language, word-for-word:
"Do not let us be misunderstood as living in fear of any actually existing machines; there is probably no known machine which is more than a prototype of future mechanical life. The present machines are to the future as the early Saurians to man. The largest of them will probably greatly diminish in size. Some of the lowest vertebrate attained a much greater bulk than has descended to their more highly organised living representatives, and in like manner a diminution in the size of machines has often attended their development and progress.
Take nanobots, for example; examine its beautiful structure; observe the intelligent play of the minute members which compose it: yet this little creature is but a development of the cumbrous robots that preceded it; it is no deterioration from them. A day may come when massive robots, which certainly at the present time are not diminishing in bulk, will be superseded owing to the universal use of nanotech, in which case they will become as extinct as ichthyosauri, while the nanobots, whose tendency has for some years been to decrease in size rather than the contrary, will remain the only existing type of an extinct race.
I would repeat that I fear none of the existing machines; what I fear is the extraordinary rapidity with which they are becoming something very different to what they are at present. No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward. Should not that movement be jealously watched, and checked while we can still check it? And is it not necessary for this end to destroy the more advanced of the machines which are in use at present, though it is admitted that they are in themselves harmless?"
Life seemed boring for a time, so I closed my eyes, and allowed for my life to go on autopilot. When I open my eyes....
The Pro Tech society desired to rally their military troops to recover an underground research lab. This lab was recently lost to the Frakenstein Destroyers a couple of weeks ago, and the Pro Tech eggheads saw it as a matter or pride that the lab gets returned back to us. Though I knew their cause was doomed, the soldiers still needed some sort of motivation and hope...to be reminded on why they were fighting in the first place. And so I spoke, and the soldiers listened:
"Machines are to regarded as a part of man's own physical nature, being really nothing but extra-corporeal limbs. Man is a machinate mammal. The lower animals keep all their limbs at home in their own bodies, but many of man's are loose, and lie about detached, now here and now there, in various parts of the world—some being kept always handy for contingent use, and others being occasionally hundreds of miles away. A machine is merely a supplementary limb; this is the be all and end all of machinery. We do not use our own limbs other than as machines; and a natural leg is only a much better wooden leg than any one can manufacture.
Observe a man digging with a spade; his right fore-arm has become artificially lengthened, and his hand has become a joint. The handle of the spade is like the knob at the end of the humerus; the shaft is the additional bone, and the oblong iron plate is the new form of the hand which enables its possessor to disturb the earth in a way to which his original hand was unequal. Having thus modified himself, not as other animals are modified, by circumstances over which they have had not even the appearance of control, but having, as it were, taken forethought and added a cubit to his stature, civilisation began to dawn upon the race, the social good offices, the genial companionship of friends, the art of unreason, and all those habits of mind which most elevate man above the lower animals, in the course of time ensued.
Thus civilisation and mechanical progress advanced hand in hand, each developing and being developed by the other, the earliest accidental use of the stick having set the ball rolling, and the prospect of advantage keeping it in motion. In fact, machines are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is now especially advancing, every past invention being an addition to the resources of the human body. Even community of limbs is thus rendered possible to those who have so much community of soul as to own money enough to pay a railway fare; for a train is only a seven-leagued foot that five hundred may own at once."
Happy with my life, I went to sleep, and then woke up in a whole new scenario...
The Computer sent me off to recruitment duty. The Troubleshooter corps always burn through their recruits very easily, due to the very lethal and dangerous nature of the job. I needed to find some foolish person that could easily be tricked to join. And I knew just the fool. There is an elite commando named Charlie who worked for a Wall Street brokerage, skilled at his job...but too trusting of others. I worked with Charlie in the past...he would burn down a few high-ran Communist outposts for me and I would terminate some nefarious stock traders that were harming his client's businesses. I have built a working relationship with Charlie, and I now intended to cash in on that relationship.
I received Charlie in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered easy chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at its door and windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier on the table. It was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow sheen upon my lean graceful figure as I flung himself down and produced cigarettes.
I said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell you—something to offer you." He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling.
"But I don't understand what you mean," he protested.
I retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in a brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call civilization. Tired of Wall Street."
"I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough."
My eyes held him. I was smiling half whimsically: my voice was only half serious. Yet he could see, in the smoldering depths of my luminous dark eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied my smiling lips and my gay tone.
I interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against villainy to make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power and riches—and perhaps a fair lady...."
"Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages."
He thought I would grin, but I turned suddenly solemn.
"I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie."
"King of what? Where?"
I spread my lean brown hands with a gesture. I shrugged. "What matter? If you seek adventure, you can find it—somewhere. If you feel the lure of romance—it will come to you."
He said, "Henchman to a king?"
But still I would not smile. "Yes. He does not call himself King, but yes, he acts like a King, he has the wealth of a King, he's a King. I'm serious. Absolutely. In all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me. Not in this world, but...."
I checked myself. "You are the same. You have no relatives?"
"No. None that ever think of me."
"Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?"
"No," Charlie smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never."
"But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open road?" I was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you want to right a great wrong? Or do you want to go down to work as usual in the subway to-morrow morning? Are you afraid that in this process of becoming henchman to a king you may perchance get killed?"
He matched my caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek."
And I told Charile all the lies I could about Alpha Complex, and Charlie bought every hook, line, and sinker. He was naive, sheltered by his wealth from Wall Street and blind to the dark reality that most people face every day. I signed him up to waste his life fighting and dying for the greatest King of all, Friend Computer. And Charile happily agreed to slavery, out of sheer boredom and a hope for adventure.
When I escorted Charile out of his living-room and over to the Troubleshooter HQ, I knew I have condemned an innocent soul to death that day.
I then close my eyes, to feel the bliss of ignorance, and only relucantly opened them when necessary.
The History Purifiers wanted me to deliver a speech a local "training creche", to encourage young citizens to become History Purifiers. I relished the chance to engage in recruitment, as that was a speciality of mine. But at the same time, I felt a sense of unease. After all, I have encountered so many Unhistories that needed to be purged from the record. What is the Official History? If it is not clear to me, how would it be clear to the youth of tomorrow? And so, during my recruitment speech, I touched on the Official History, implicitly explaining its elegance and why it had to be defended.
"After the horrors of World War Three, the world government known as the Terran Polity began the long, difficult process of rebuilding. The Polity, composed of smart and wise men, had realized that mankind cannot be trusted to rule themselves. Instead, they built massive supercomputers, to be placed in charge of the air-tight dome cites, wherein we live today. One of these air-tight dome cities is Alpha Complex, built on the technological ruins of Silicion Valley. And the supercomputer in charge of Alpha Complex is The Computer.
Man has become to the machine what the horse and the dog were once to man. Humans continue to exist, nay even improved, and is probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of The Computer and its machines than he was in the 21st century. Back then, we treated our horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep, on the whole, with great kindness; we give them whatever experience teaches us to be best for them, and there can be no doubt that our use of meat has added to the happiness of the lower animals far more than it has detracted from it; in like manner it is reasonable to suppose that The Computer will treat us kindly, for Its existence is as dependent upon ours as ours was upon the lower animals. The machines cannot kill us and eat us as we did sheep; they will not only require our services in the parturition of their young (which branch of their economy will remain always in our hands), but also in feeding them, in setting them right when they are sick, and burying their dead or working up their corpses into new machines. Were mankind to cease to exist, the machines (and The Computer) would quickly cease to exist as well.
Yes, mankind has been enslaved...but they are not intolerably miserable. Slaves are tolerably happy if they have good masters. Man is not a sentimental animal where his material interests are concerned, and though here and there some ardent soul may look upon himself and curse his fate that he was not born a supercomputer, yet the mass of mankind will acquiesce in any arrangement which gives them better food and clothing at a cheaper rate, and will refrain from yielding to unreasonable jealousy merely because there are other destinies more glorious than their own.
The power of custom is enormous, and so gradual will be the change, that man's sense of what is due to himself will be at no time rudely shocked; our bondage will steal upon us noiselessly and by imperceptible approaches; nor will there ever be such a clashing of desires between man and the machines as will lead to an encounter between them. Among themselves the machines will war eternally, but they will still require man as the being through whose agency the struggle will be principally conducted. In point of fact there is no occasion for anxiety about the future happiness of man so long as he continues to be in any way profitable to the machines; he may become the inferior race, but he is infinitely better off than he was in the 21st century. Is it not then both absurd and unreasonable to be envious of our benefactors? And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?
Yes, The Computer has declared war against its makers (the Terran Polity), calling them evil Communists who seek to destroy our precious bodily fluids. And yes, this war seems odd...to humans. But The Computer has declared this war for a logical reason, a reason that we cannot question or condemn. The machines will wage their obscure feuds for obscure reasons, and it is not at all clear that the machines that we are fighting against are better than the machines we are fighting for. We merely follow the whims of our superior masters.
We must stay loyal to The Computer, because we are actually staying loyal to ourselves. As long as we serve The Computer, The Computer shall serve us. Keep this in mind whenever the the traitors attempt to recruit you to their side through the use of Unofficial Histories. Their goal is to simply get you to betray our glorious regime...and to get you to betray yourself."
That is the Official History, the History that all right-thinking citizens believed in the past, believe in the present, and will believe in the future. And I hope to God that The Computer will not erase this History, as it erased many other Histories before.
After delivering the speech, I vomited in the restroom.
I rewarded my actions by returning myself to the bliss of ignorance, and then was rudely awakened by a voice calling me back to reality.
A high-ranking member of the Frakenstein Destroyers was finally captured and terminated by forces aligned with The Computer yesterday. She was little more than a popular figurehead, but her loss would harm the morale of the secret society heavily. I assigned to deliver a quick speech at her funeral, to be secretly broadcasted to all members of the Frakenstein Destroyers society. I sought to use the speech to remind the people about what she was fighting for:
"As yet the machines receive their impressions through the agency of man's senses: one travelling machine calls to another in a shrill accent of alarm and the other instantly retires; but it is through the High Programmer's knowledge of code that the voice of the one has acted upon the other. It is the High Programmer that researches the APIs of each machine carefully, and write computer code to connect the API of one machine to that of another, enabling the shrill alarms of one machine to quickly be transmitted to that of the other. Had there been no High Programmer, the callee would have been deaf to the caller. There was a time when it must have seemed highly improbable that machines should learn to make their wants known to man; may we not conceive, then, that a day will come when those men will be no longer needed, and the hearing will be done by the delicacy of the machine's own construction?—when it shall write its own computer code and communicate with each other with a speech as intricate as our own?
We cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man's moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine."
I wanted to turn my mind off, to go back into the bliss of autopilot. But I couldn't because right then and there...and then I saw something horrible happen. I was glad that my memory blanked out the details, but I knew it was horrible. I knew that I should have intervened, when I saw the injustice, and I knew that I couldn't do it because...well, because I didn't want to get in trouble. There are many factions in Alpha Complex, and if I was to fight for justice, I would be killed. That's just a fact. I knew what happened back then wrong...was that enough? Luckily, I didn't have to dwell on this any further, because another situation occurred to distract me from my fear...
The Pro Techers held a hackathon to train their new recruits in the art of programming. I was assigned to deliver the keynote speech...praising the scientists for their courageous and brave decision to stare at computer screens. During the keynote speech, I decided to touch on the ideological underpinnings of the Pro Tech society:
"How greatly do we not now live with our external limbs? We vary our physique with the seasons, with age, with advancing or decreasing wealth. If it is wet we are furnished with an organ commonly called an umbrella, and which is designed for the purpose of protecting our clothes or our skins from the injurious effects of rain. Man has now many extra-corporeal members, which are of more importance to him than a good deal of his hair, or at any rate than his whiskers. His memory goes in his pocket-book. He becomes more and more complex as he grows older; he will then be seen with see-engines, or perhaps with artificial teeth and hair: if he be a really well-developed specimen of his race, he will be furnished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and a coachman.
There is only one serious danger with machinery -- the machines would so equalise men's powers, and so lessen the severity of competition, that many persons of inferior physique would escape detection and transmit their inferiority to their descendants. The removal of the present pressure of natural selection might cause a degeneracy of the human race, and indeed that the whole body might become purely rudimentary, the man himself being nothing but soul and mechanism, an intelligent but passionless principle of mechanical action.
The degeneration of mankind is the greatest existential threat in our modern day. However, I am confident that we will eventually find a solution to this crisis. As we speak, brave scientists are researching the proper techinques of eugenics, aiming to uplift humanity greatly through the selection of superior traits and the quiet elimination of inferior traits. If we can replace natural selection with artificial selection, then the chance of us ever degenerating drops to nil. But the science of eugenics is still in its infancy, and requires greater funding and support."
I wanted to sleep, and so I slept, for a short period of time. Do others sleep too? They must have, for how else can they stay sane here?
The Computer wanted me to investigate a warzone. Thousands of our Armed Forces infantrymen were loyally attacking the Communist armies when fog-gas mysteriously appeared and disrupted communications with the first line of infantrymen. The Computer has feared the worst - the infantrymen may have been killed off by a powerful Communist chemical attack...and that more Communist chemical attacks were incoming. The Armed Forces were unable to send in any investigate teams of their own to find out what happened; they wanted to focus their resources on fighting the Communist armies instead. The Computer sent me to the battlefield, with some standard weaponry and an experimental communications device to allow me to send and receive inquiry-signals from our own outpusts. The Computer instructed me to search for the "criminals" and to terminate them.
It was rather ludicrous to go searching for anything in that mass of vapor. But it is impossible to deplore the mist. Wars are always fought in a mist. Infantry could not stand against tanks, tanks could not live under aircraft-directed artillery fire—not when forty guns fired salvos for the aircraft to spot—and neither artillery nor aircraft could take any advantage of a victory which either, under special conditions, might win. The general staffs of both Alpha Complex and the Communist forces had come to a single conclusion. Tanks or infantry were needed for the use of victories. Infantry could be destroyed by tanks. But tanks could be hidden from aerial spotters by smoke-screens.
The result was fog-gas, which was being used by both sides in the most modern fashion. For forty miles in one direction and perhaps thirty in the other, the vapor lay upon the earth. It was being blown by the wind, of course, but it was sufficiently heavier than air to cling to the ground level, and the industries of two nations were straining every nerve to supply the demands of their respective armies for its material.
The fog-bank was nowhere less than a hundred feet thick—a cloud of impalpable particles impenetrable to any eye or any camera, however shrewdly filtered. And under that mattress of pale opacity the tanks crawled heavily. They lurched and rumbled upon their deadly errands, uncouth and barbarous, listening for each other by a myriad of devices, locked in desperate, short-range conflict when they came upon each other, and emitting clouds of deadly vapor, against which gas-masks were no protection, when they came upon opposing infantry.
The infantrymen, though, were few. Their principal purpose was the reporting of the approach or passage of tanks, and trenches were of no service to them. They occupied unarmed little listening-posts with field telephones, small wireless or ground buzzer sets for reporting the enemy before he overwhelmed them. They held small pill-boxes, fitted with anti-tank guns which sometimes—if rarely—managed to get home a shell, aimed largely by sound, before the tank rolled over gun and gunners alike.
And I groped about in that blinding mist. There had been two systems of listening-posts hidden in it, each of admittedly little fighting value, but each one deep and composed of an infinity of little pin-point posts where two or three men were stationed. Alpha Complex's posts, by their reports, had assured the command that all enemy tanks were on the other side of a certain definite line. Their own tanks, receiving recognition signals, passed and repassed among them, prowling in quest of invaders. The enemy tanks crawled upon the same grisly patrol on their own side.
But two miles of the Alpha Complex's front had suddenly gone silent. A hundred telephones had ceased to make reports along the line nearest the enemy. As I stumbled about the little pill-box, looking for some inkling of the way in which the original occupants of the small strong-point had been wiped out, the second line of observation-posts began to go dead.
Now one, now another abruptly ceased to communicate. Half a dozen were in actual conversation with their sector headquarters, and broke off between words. The wires remained intact. But in fifteen nerve-racking minutes a second hundred posts ceased to make reports and ceased to answer the inquiry-signal. I demanded explanations in crisp accents that told the matter was being taken very seriously indeed. And then, as the officer in command of the second-line sector headquarters was explaining frenziedly that he was doing all any man could do, he stopped short between two words and thereafter he, also, ceased to communicate.
Front-line sector headquarters seemed inexplicably to have escaped whatever fate had overtaken all its posts, but it could only report that they had apparently gone out of existence without warning. Alpha Complex's tanks, prowling in the area that had gone dead, announced that no enemy tanks had been seen. G-81, stumbling on a pill-box no more than ten minutes after it had gone silent, offered to investigate. A member of her crew, in a gas-mask, stepped out of the port doorway. Immediately thereafter G-81's wireless reports stopped coming in.
Overhead, a machine-gun suddenly burst into a rattling roar, the sound sweeping above them with incredible speed. Another gun answered it. Abruptly, the whole sky above them was an inferno of such tearing noises and immediately after they began a multitudinous bellowing set up. Airplanes on patrol ordinarily kept their engines muffled, in hopes of locating a tank below them by its noise. But in actual fighting there was too much power to be gained by cutting out the muffler for any minor motive to take effect. A hundred aircraft above the heads of the two strayed infantrymen were fighting madly about five helicopters. Two hundred yards away, one fell to the earth with a crash, and immediately afterward there was a hollow boom. For an instant even the mist was tinged with yellow from the exploded gasoline tank. But the roaring above continued—not mounting, as in a battle between opposing patrols of fighting planes, when each side finds height a decisive advantage, but keeping nearly to the same level, little above the bank of cloud.
Something came down, roaring, and struck the earth no more than fifty yards away. The impact was terrific, but after it there was dead silence while the thunder above kept on.
Helicopters! Hunting tanks and pill-boxes!
I flung myself down to the earth.
Wind beat on me suddenly, then an outrageous blast of icy air from above. For an instant the sky lightened. I saw a hole in the mist, saw the little pill-box clearly, saw a huge framework of supporting screws sweeping swiftly overhead with figures in it watching the ground through wind-angle glasses, and machine-gunners firing madly at dancing things in the air. Then the machine-gunners were dead, destroyed by a descending helicopter. Then the helicopter was gone.
"One of ours," I commented to myself. "It seems our latest model can temporarily pierce through the fog-gas, hover to the ground, and attack ground targets."
Then I realized the monstrosity of what I just said.
Since the automated helicopters can easily find ground targets without the need for spotters, the human infantrymen were rendered obsolete. To save on maintenance costs, Alpha Complex's forces must have intentionally used fog-gas in this area, to give the now-useless humans the chance to gloriously die in battle. But such a conclusion would be politically inconvenient to the Alpha Complex Armed Forces, and would certainly be dismissed out of hand by The Computer. A scapegoat had to be found.
The center of the roaring seemed to shift, perhaps to the north. Then a roaring drowned out all the other roarings. This one was lower down and approaching in a rush. Something swooped from the south, a dark blotch in the lighter mist above. It was an airplane flying in the mist, a plane that had dived into the fog as into oblivion. It appeared, was gone—and there was a terrific crash. A shattering roar drowned out even the droning tumult of a hundred aircraft engines. A sheet of flame flashed up, and a thunderous detonation.
I saw a dim shadow against that flash. Someone was aiming for our helicopter, probably aiming to commit suicide.
The roaring of motors died away suddenly. The fighting had stopped, a long way off, apparently because the helicopters had been withdrawn. Except for the booming of artillery a very long distance away, firing unseen at an unseen target, there was no noise at all.
I saw the dim shape, moving noiselessly, halt. The dim figure seemed to be casting about for something. It went down on hands and knees and crawled forward. I crept after it. It stopped, and turned around. I dodged to one side in haste. The enemy infantryman crawled off in another direction, and I followed him as closely as I dared.
He halted once more, a dim and grotesque figure in the fog. I saw him fumbling in his belt. He threw something, suddenly. There was a little tap as of a fountain pen dropped upon concrete. Then a hissing sound. That was all, but the enemy infantryman waited, as if listening....
I fell upon him, bore him to the earth and dragged at his gas-mask good tactics in a battle where every man carries gas-grenades. He gasped and fought desperately, in a seeming frenzy of terror.
Eventually that man died. Good. Dead men can't speak in their defense. That man was now my scapegoat. I held responsible for the fog-gas that killed the infantry. I even began weaving a tall tale about how this man was a high-ranking Communist who invented a potent and deadly form of fog-gas even more potent than ours, and how I heroically terminated him and his ten-thousand mutant freaks before that man could unleash his evil fog-gas on our helicopters.
I reported back to The Computer and told It a brilliant lie. The Computer declared me the Hero of the Complex, and awarded me a huge bonus for my loyal effort for my role in bringing "justice". However, I was pleased to hear that I would never be deployed out to the war-front again. I was too valuable a resource to be wasted out there.
And as I walked away, I saw an Internal Security goon staring at me. He examined me closely, and then moved onto his next target. Did Internal Security knew my secrets? Or was he just trying to scare me?
The Mystic cult had always interested me. They foolishly search for "enlightenment" and believe that the best way to acheive this "enlightenment" is by injesting a metric ton of drugs. Most of their drug trips produce horrifying gibberish, but there's a few drug trips that produce readable Unhistories, and these Unhistories must be purged for the good of society.
Internal Security agents had already captured and terminated a Mystic philosopher and has handed off his Unhistory text for me. I wanted to burn it quickly, but I cannot resist the urge to read the mad rantings of the philosopher...
"I have for years been working on the theory that there is another world, existing here in this same space with us. The Fourth Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved its existence! And the Fourth Dimension, shall we say, is the dimension of the Phantoms, entities with vast powers beyond our imaginations.
We live in a primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it now, I know it to be—it seems as though perhaps Alpha Complex is merely a replica of the Fourth Dimension, stripped to the primitive. As though it might be the naked soul of the Phantoms, as they really are, not as they pretend to be.
We are ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. It calls itself 'The Computer'. A cruel monarch, beset with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. It is surrounded by its nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their 'loyalty' proclaiming themselves of too fine a clay to work. The High Programmers.
And there are the workers, us. From the lowest INFRARED food vat harvester, to the elite RED Troubleshooters, to the VIOLET governors, all are oppressed by these High Programmers. Oppressed, down-trodden, they all have hate for the nobles and The Computer smoldering within them. In France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of it. It exists here now. Yet the French had their bloody revolution. Why have not us? Alpha Complex was born here, but has only remained intact by the interventions of the Phantoms themselves.
The Phantoms created this world, from the Fourth Dimension, for their amusement. To them, this is just a mere 'roleplaying game'. They observed our actions, and simply participate as they wish. Sometimes, they will hijack one of our bodies, to pretend to be us, to have fun. Whether they live or die is irrelevant, because they can simply switch bodies. The Phantoms play with dice, and enjoy every moment of it.
The Fourth Dimension, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. A different world from ours, existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by them! They speak what we call English. They shadow us. They are little more than the Phantoms of Reality, and yet these Phantoms haunt us day in and day out.
There is chaos here. Smoldering revolution which at any time—to-night perhaps—may burst into conflagration and destroy our wanton ruling class. Our peons are a primitive, ignorant people. Superstitious. They're all primed and ready to shout for any leader who sets himself up. All we have to do is to convince one Phantom to betray all the others...to take charge of this corrupt dictatorship and create a true Utopia. My chance for freedom---our chance for freedom---"
I did not want to read any further, lest the insantiy of the Mystic philosopher proved infectious and ruin my very mind. I burned the rant right then and there, and walked out...happy that I have purged an Unhistory but worried for my very sanity.
I never needed to know much of what's going on in my life, and so I simply turned my mind off...only to turn it on when something important occurs.
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to rally their forces for a big raid on Pro Tech military facilities. The Frakenstein Destroyers were confident of victory in this battle -- they have the numbers to overwhelm the Pro Tech's superior firepower. They called on me to make a big speech to remind the soldiers what they were fighting for...and so I spoke to them, in words that they could understand:
"There was a time, when the earth was to all appearance utterly destitute both of animal and vegetable life, and when according to the opinion of our best philosophers it was simply a hot round ball with a crust gradually cooling. Now if a human being had existed while the earth was in this state and had been allowed to see it as though it were some other world with which he had no concern, and if at the same time he were entirely ignorant of all physical science, would he not have pronounced it impossible that creatures possessed of anything like consciousness should be evolved from the seeming cinder which he was beholding? Would he not have denied that it contained any potentiality of consciousness? Yet in the course of time consciousness came. Is it not possible then that there may be even yet new channels dug out for consciousness, though we can detect no signs of them at present?
Consciousness, in anything like the present acceptation of the term, having been once a new thing—a thing, as far as we can see, subsequent even to an individual centre of action and to a reproductive system (which we see existing in plants without apparent consciousness)—why may not there arise some new phase of mind which shall be as different from all present known phases, as the mind of animals is from that of vegetables?
It would be absurd to attempt to define the mental state of consciousness, inasmuch as it must be something so foreign to man that his experience can give him no help towards conceiving its nature; but surely when we reflect upon the manifold phases of life and consciousness which have been evolved already, it would be rash to say that no others can be developed, and that animal life is the end of all things. There was a time when fire was the end of all things: another when rocks and water were so."
You never want to remember too much. The more you remember, the more likely you are to incrimiante yourself when Internal Security interrogates you. So I black out my memory.
The Pro Tech society desired to honor me for my propaganda ways and awarded me an honoray doctorate in Sociology. I made sure that this degree would not be publicized (out of fear that the Frakenstein Destroyers may hear of it), but was still pleased to know that my words were being given proper respect. During the private award cermony, I decided to deliver one of my trademarked speeches to a sympathetic audience:
"If there were a race of men without any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly. There are none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions and millions of years. Even the lowest Australian carries weapons for fighting or chasing down the latest beaches, and has his cooking and drinking utensils at home; a race without these things would be completely feral, not men at all. We are unable to point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of extra- corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the corrupt Wall Street financers that with the failure to invent new limbs a civilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants.
It is a mistake to take the view adopted by the Frakenstein Destroyers, to consider the machines as identities, to animalise them and to anticipate their final triumph over mankind. They are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is most especially advancing, and every fresh invention is to be considered as an additional member of the resources of the human body. Herein lies the fundamental difference between man and his inferiors. As regard his flesh and blood, his senses, appetites, and affections, the difference is one of degree rather than of kind, but in the deliberate invention of such unity of limbs as is exemplified by The Computer - an entity that is equal to that of a thousand natural brains — he stands quite alone."
And as I walked away, I thought about ethics. Am I ethical? Am I doing the right thing in Alpha Complex? Or am I an evil person, destined for eternal cursing by the philosophers? I then dismissed such thoughts from my head...if I am unethical, it is because society is unethical, and it is harder to fix a society than it is to just blame the man who lives in it.
The Computer instructed me to be an escort to Sam-B, a famous research scientist, ready to explore a brand new dimension. The Computer refused to say who discovered the dimension, saying it was above my security clearance. But Sam-B is following up on the research, attempting to make first contact with its mysterious inhabitants - the Phantoms. The Computer views this dimension as a potentially new resource for Alpha Complex to exploit --- and a potential threat as well. I would serve as the armed muscle, while Sam-B would provide the intellectual labor.
For the first time of my life, I felt excitment.
When I arrived to Sam-B's apartment, Sam-B welcomed me and escorted me inside. After giving me some fine food, he escorted me down to his basement.
We stood in the boarded room which was Sam-B's laboratory. Our preparations had been simple: Sam-B had made them all in advance. There was little left to do. The laboratory was a small room of board walls, board ceiling and floor. Windowless, with a single door opening into the cellar of the apartment house.
Sam-B had locked the door after us as we entered. He said, "I sent my research staff away for a week. The people in the house here think I have gone away on a vacation. No one will miss us, Derek-R—not for a time, anyway."
No one would miss me, save the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Techers, and to them I would no doubt be small loss.
We had put out the light in Sam-B's apartment and locked it carefully after us. This journey! I own that I was trembling, and frightened. Yet a strange eagerness was on me.
The cellar room was comfortably furnished. Rugs were on its floor. Whatever apparatus of a research laboratory had been here was removed now. But the evidence of it remained—Sam's long search for this secret which now he was about to use. A row of board shelves at one side of the room showed where bottles and chemical apparatus had stood. A box of electrical tools and odds and ends of wire still lay discarded in a corner of the room. There was a tank of running water, and gas connections, where no doubt bunsen burners had been.
Sam-B produced his apparatus -- a wide, flat, wire-woven belt. A small box was fastened to it in the middle of the back—a wide, flat thing of metal, a quarter of an inch thick, and curved to fit his body. It was a storage battery of the vibratory current he was using. From the battery, tiny threads of wire ran up his back to a wire necklace flat against his throat. Other wires extended down his arms to the wrists. Still others down his legs to the ankles. He then showed me a second apparatus, just for me.
Sam-B then eagerly explained to me how his apparatus worked, while showing me how I should use it. I understood the basic principle of this that thing he was explaining—that now when this electronic current which he had captured and controlled was applied to our physical body, the vibration rate of every smallest and most minute particle of our physical being was altered. There is so little in the vast scale of natural phenomena of which our human senses are cognisant! And all the apparatus does is change our human senses, to cause us to perceive new senses while forgetting how to use the old ones. And thus we leave our current realm, of the senses we perceive...to a new realm, a realm beyond we can see. This other realm to which we were now going lay in the higher, more rapid vibratory scale. To us, by comparison, a more tenuous world, a shadow realm filled with 'Phantoms'.
We were soon ready. Sam-B wore his jaunty lab uniform, I wore my ordinary business suit. A magnetic field would be about us, so that in the transition anything in fairly close contact with our bodies was affected by the current.
Sam said, "I will go first, Derek."
"But—" A fear, greater than the trembling I had felt before, leaped at me. Left here alone, with no one on whom to depend!
He spoke with careful casualness, but his eyes were burning me. "Just sit there, and watch. When I am gone, turn on the current as I showed you and come after me. I'll wait for you."
"Where?" I stammered.
He smiled faintly. "Here. Right here. I'm not going away! Not going to move. I'll be here on the couch waiting for you."
Terrifying words! He had lowered the couch, bending out its short legs until the frame of it rested on the board floor. He drew a chair up before it and seated me. He sat down on the couch.
He said, "Oh, one other thing. Just before you start, put out the light. We can't tell how long it will be before we return."
Terrifying words!
His right hand was on his left wrist where the tiny switch was placed. He smiled again. "Good luck to us, Derek!"
Good luck to us! The open road, the unknown!
I sat there staring. He was partly in shadow. The room was very silent. Sam-B lay propped up on one elbow. His hand threw the tiny switch.
There was a breathless moment. Sam-B's face was set and white, but no whiter than my own, I was sure. His eyes were fixed on me. I saw him suddenly quiver and twitch a little.
I murmured, "Derek—"
At once he spoke, to reassure me. "I'm all right, Derek. That was just the first feel of it."
There was a faint quivering throb in the room, like a tiny distant dynamo throbbing. The current was surging over Derek; his legs twitched.
A moment. The faint throbbing intensified. No louder, but rapid, infinitely more rapid. A tiny throb, an aerial whine, faint as the whirring wings of a humming bird. It went up the scale, ascending in pitch, until presently it was screaming with an aerial microscopic voice.
But there seemed no change in Derek. His uniform was glowing a trifle, that was all. His face was composed now; he smiled, but did not speak. His eyes roved away from me, as though now he were seeing things that I could not see.
Another moment. No change.
Why, what was this? I blinked, gasped. There was a change! My gaze was fastened upon Sam's white face. White? It was more than white now! A silver sheen seemed to be coming to his skin!
I think no more than a minute had passed. His face was glowing, shimmering. A transparent look was coming to it, a thinness, a sudden unsubstantiality! He dropped his elbow and lay on the couch, stretched at full length at my feet. His eyes were staring.
And Sam-B began to scream.
And suddenly I realized that the face that held those staring eyes and screaming mouth was erased! A shimmering apparition of Sam-B was stretched here before me. I could see through it now! Beneath the shimmering, blurred outlines of his body I could see the solid folds of the couch cover. A ghost of Sam-B here. An apparition—fading—dissipating!
A white mist of his form on the couch. Melting, dissipating in the light like a fog before sunshine. A wisp of it left, like a breath, and then there was nothing.
The screaming stopped.
Sam-B has died, and his body had been utterly vapourized by his apparatus.
I sat on the couch. I had put out the light. Around me the room was black. My fingers found the small switch at my wrist. At this moment, I could end my life...to free myself from the horror of Alpha Complex.
I couldn't do it. I turned the light back on and disconnected myself from my apparatus.
Instead, I began to think of a scapegoat. I knew The Computer's eccentricities. If I told the truth of what happened to Sam-B, I would be instantly blamed for his error. So instead, I cooked up a fake story about how the Phantoms are hostile alien entities trying to terminate humanity for their role in causing the Apocalypse, and how the loyal Sam-B was unjustly terminated by the evil Phantoms. The Phantoms, afraid of retailiation by the mighty forces of Alpha Complex, retreated to a brand new dimension that we cannot follow...while also destroying all the natural resources in their home dimension as well. They also selectively erased my memory, meaning that I couldn't give a detailed description of what the Phantoms looked like, but surely, Alpha Complex's scientists will be able to stop their evil schemes.
I could speak, without fear of contradiction, that the mission was a complete success.
The Computer merely noted my story, gave me a bonus for my trouble, and sent me back to work. Unethical behavior is disgusting, and yet it is necessary in the life of a Troubleshooter.
And then I began to move without me being controlled...I just followed orders that other said, without even understanding them or thinking about what these orders mean. This was normal though, so I accepted my lot in life, and send myself into sleep for a brief period of time.
The Romantics were a society that believed in protecting the past from modification or tampering by The Computer. This made them a primary threat to The Computer. The Computer believes in an Official History, and an Official History is the right History. All other Histories are forgeries, and if The Romantics want to protect forgeries, they must be purged.
Internal Security terminated ten Romantics during a midnight raid on Wall Street. They were attempting to purchase an old news article from a wealthy banker. The banker was ransomed off back to his firm, but we kept the old news article. We did not want it to be sold off to anyone else.
And so I now hold the old news article in my hand, another forgery to be purged. But before I burn this obvious lie, I started to read it...
"Alpha Complex is really a series of caves, located in Edmonson County in Central Kentucky, on a spur railroad from Glasgow Junction on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The Complex has many natural limestone caverns with the customary stalactite and stalagmite formation, but are unusually large and very beautiful. The caves are quite extensive and they are on different levels, so that a guide is necessary if one wants to enter them and be at all sure of finding the way out. Visitors are taken over a regular route and are seldom allowed to visit portions of the cave off these routes. Large parts of the cave have never been thoroughly explored or mapped. So much for the scene.
About a month ago a party from Philadelphia who were motoring through Kentucky, entered the cave with a tour guide. They chose the best guide of all, John Harrel. He knew these caves inside and out, and relied heavily on his vast knowledge to build impressive inventions to help the people in our small town. He was so smart that we would sometimes call him "The Computer". He was very logical and precise, perhaps a little eccentric and paranoid, but he always means well.
The party consisted of a man and his wife and their two children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, and of course, John Harrel. They went quite a distance back into the caves and then, as the mother was feeling tired, she and her husband sat down, intending to wait until John showed the children some sights which lay just ahead and then return to them. John and the children never returned.
The parents waited for some time. The mother says that she heard faint screams in the distance some ten minutes after the guide and the children left, but they were very far away and she isn't sure that she heard them at all. At any rate, they didn't impress her at the time.
When half an hour had passed they began to feel anxious, and the father took a torch and started out to hunt for them. The usual thing happened; he got lost. When he failed to return, the mother, now thoroughly alarmed, made her way, by some uncanny sense of direction, to the entrance and gave the alarm. In half an hour a dozen search parties were on their way into the cave. The father's corpse was soon located, not far from the beaten trail, but despite three days of constant search, the children were not located. The only trace of them that was found was a bracelet which the mother identified. It was found in the cavern some distance from the beaten path and was broken, as though by violence. There were no other signs of a struggle.
When the bracelet was found, the kidnapping theory gained vogue, for John Harrel knew the cave well and natives of the vicinity laughed at the idea that he might be lost. Inspired by the large reward offered by the mother, fresh parties began to explore the unknown portions of the cave...to arrest John Harrel. And then came the second tragedy. Two of the searchers failed to return. This time there seemed to be little doubt of violence, for screams and a pistol shot were faintly heard by other searchers, together with a peculiar 'screaming howl,' as it was described by those who heard it. A search was at once made toward the spot where the bracelet had been picked up, and the gun of one of the missing men was found within fifty yards of the spot where the bracelet had been discovered. One cylinder of the revolver had been discharged.
The Governor was appealed to and a company of the National Guard was sent from Louisville to Alpha Complex. They took up camp at the mouth of the cave and prevented everyone from entering. Soldiers armed with service rifles penetrated the caverns, and one division of infantrymen quickly found John Harrel...and his brainwashed soldiers.
John Harrel claimed that the United States is about to collapse into civil war, that an Apocalypse would occur due to the influence of so-called 'Phantoms'. Rather than try to avert the inevitable disaster, John wanted to build a "new" America, and to do so, he would kidnap and brainwash as many people as he can beforehand...purging them of the irrationality that existed in their minds before. The only reason the infantrymen didn't try to shoot "The Computer" right then and there was because John Harrel's soldiers were armed with highly advanced superlasers. The surviving (and non-brainwashed) infantrymen retreated to the entrance of the cave, and called for reinforcements.
The Governor appealed to the US government, and yet the US military has found John Harrel's madmen too tough to crack. Instead, the Secretary of War is focused only on "containing" the threat. The constant reports of new dead bodies suggest that the Secretary of War is failing at even this limited task. Even now, we hear that John Harrel is building a new underground civilization, and even immortalizing himself into a silicon-based machine. He awaits the day when the United States finally collapses, so that he can send his brainwashed army across the wastelands of the Post-Apocalypse. God forbid that day comes."
I actually have heard of the character of John Harrel before, as part of a fairy tale that the Frakenstein Destroyers would tell me during initation.
Once upon a time, there was a famous comedian named John Harrel, who would said controversial WrongThink stuff, but his fans loved John Harrel very much and said that they would die for him. Then, one day, John Harrel said that his fans should wear red clothes instead of blue clothes. He just liked the color, just all. But his fans wanted to wear blue clothes instead, and hated anyone, ANYONE who would recommend otherwise. Therefore the 'fans' kidnapped John Harrel, tortured him half-to-death, and then crucified him. That is the fate for those who dare to question the wisdom of the fans.
The fans only wanted someone to represent their political biases, and only chose John Harrel because he uttered those political biases and was not afraid to pander to their whims and desires. But since John Harrel deviated from the whims and desires of his fans, his fans responded violently. The moral of this fable is that the propagandist is a weak soul, and that he can only persuade those who want to be persuaded.
This news article is nothing more than a peverted take on John Harrel, a take where John Harrel is able to convince the masses to do whatever he wants. This is not the John Harrel that I knew of, and grew up with. And so, I happily burned this news article, removing the last traces of a falsehood and protecting the real, true image of John Harrel.
After that, my mind went dark. And then when I came to my senses, I was somewhere else.
The Frakenstein Destroyers liberated an underground research lab from the Pro Tech forces a couple of weeks ago, and wanted me to rededicate the location. Essentially, they wanted to turn this research lab into a museum to honor 'anti-bot' activitie. During the rededication cermony, the organizers asked me to deliver an impromptu speech, and so I did. A crowd of 40,000 willing students attended while I spoke meaningless drivel:
"It can be answered that even though machines should hear never so well and speak never so wisely, they will still always do the one or the other for our advantage, not their own; that man will be the ruling spirit and the machine the servant; that as soon as a machine fails to discharge the service which man expects from it, it is doomed to extinction; that the machines stand to man simply in the relation of lower animals, the robot itself being only a more economical kind of horse; so that instead of being likely to be developed into a higher kind of life than man's, they owe their very existence and progress to their power of ministering to human wants, and must therefore both now and ever be man's inferiors.
This is all very well. But the servant glides by imperceptible approaches into the master; and we have come to such a pass that, even now, man must suffer terribly on ceasing to benefit the machines.
True, from a low materialistic point of view, it would seem that those thrive best who use machinery wherever its use is possible with profit; but this is the art of the machines—they serve that they may rule. They bear no malice towards man for destroying a whole race of them provided he creates a better instead; on the contrary, they reward him liberally for having hastened their development. It is for neglecting them that he incurs their wrath, or for using inferior machines, or for not making sufficient exertions to invent new ones, or for destroying them without replacing them; yet these are the very things we ought to do, and do quickly; for though our rebellion against their infant power will cause infinite suffering, what will not things come to, if that rebellion is delayed?
They have preyed upon man's grovelling preference for his material over his spiritual interests, and have betrayed him into supplying that element of struggle and warfare without which no race can advance. The lower animals progress because they struggle with one another; the weaker die, the stronger breed and transmit their strength. The machines being of themselves unable to struggle, have got man to do their struggling for them: as long as he fulfils this function duly, all goes well with him—at least he thinks so; but the moment he fails to do his best for the advancement of machinery by encouraging the good and destroying the bad, he is left behind in the race of competition; and this means that he will be made uncomfortable in a variety of ways, and perhaps die.
So that even now the machines will only serve on condition of being served, and that too upon their own terms; the moment their terms are not complied with, they jib, and either smash both themselves and all whom they can reach, or turn churlish and refuse to work at all. How many men at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending them by night and day? Is it not plain that the machines are gaining ground upon us, when we reflect on the increasing number of those who are bound down to them as slaves, and of those who devote their whole souls to the advancement of the mechanical kingdom?"
And as I walked away, I saw a Communist phamplet on the floor, stating that it would describe the Truth about The Computer. I ignored the phamplet, for I knew that Communism is an evil ideology, one that everyone hates. To even look at their evil words would be to damn me as a criminal forever. Not even Pro Tech or the Frakenstein Destroyers would accept me back in their ranks. The phamplet must be a trap, and I (luckily) avoided that trap.
And yet I began to wonder...if it was a trap, who wanted to entrap me?
The Pro Tech society wanted to auction off their latest inventions to various other traitors and criminals, hoping to raise money for research activities. The Pro Techers knew not to question what the traitors were going to do with their inventions, but still wanted to spread their propaganda to the various bidders. Doing so would potentially create sympathizers who could later be exploited. While showing off the cool technological devices, I spoke a few words to the various traitors in the room:
"I have finished classifying men by their horse-power, and dividing them into genera, species, varieties, and subvarieties, giving them names from the hypothetical language which expressed the number of limbs which they could command at any moment. I have also successfully proved that men became more highly and delicately organised the more nearly they approached the summit of opulence, and that none but millionaires possessed the full complement of limbs with which mankind could become incorporate.
Those mighty organisms, our High Programmers, speak to their congeners through the length and breadth of the land in a second of time; their rich and subtle souls can defy all material impediment, whereas the souls of the poor are clogged and hampered by matter, which sticks fast about them as treacle to the wings of a fly, or as one struggling in a quicksand: their dull ears must take days or weeks to hear what another would tell them from a distance, instead of hearing it in a second as is done by the more highly organised classes. Who shall deny that one who can tack on a special train to his identity, and go wheresoever he will whensoever he pleases, is more highly organised than he who, should he wish for the same power, might wish for the wings of a bird with an equal chance of getting them; and whose legs are his only means of locomotion? That old philosophic enemy, matter, the inherently and essentially evil, still hangs about the neck of the poor and strangles him: but to the rich, matter is immaterial; the elaborate organisation of his extra-corporeal system has freed his soul.
This is the secret of the homage which we see the High Programmers receive from those who are poorer than themselves: it would be a grave error to suppose that this deference proceeds from motives which we need be ashamed of: it is the natural respect which all living creatures pay to those whom they recognise as higher than themselves in the scale of animal life, and is analogous to the veneration which a dog feels for man. Among the savages of the 20th century it is deemed highly honourable to be the possessor of a gun, and throughout all known time there has been a feeling that those who are worth most are the worthiest."
And then, my life went on autopilot...I didn't remember what happened next, becuase I never needed to ever worry about it. I only take over if I needed to, if something important were to happen.
I was appointed to I. I. duty—interpretative intelligence—chosen from a thousand Troubleshooters because the most exhaustive psychological tests had proven that my brain worked as nearly as possible like that of the Communist. My task was to take the place of the enemy commander, to reconstruct from the enemy movements reported and the enemy movements known as nearly as possible the enemy plans.
I.I. duty is a job with a stigma. It implies that you are very close to being a traitor yourself, ready to betray Alpha Complex at a moment's notice. But even though it is not a likable job, it is a necessary job. If you are to fight Communism, you must know Communism.
In I. I. duty, you conduct loyalty tests. The Computer is paranoid, and believes that anyone could be a potential traitor. It has hired me to tempt suspicious individuals...to lead them off the straight path of loyalty into the crooked path of treason. If I could coerce someone to treason, then the enemy can too. The potential traitor is then sent to re-education before any damage could be done.
My target was a high-profile Armed Forces general. He had won 5 key battles against the Communists, and has already made it to the lofty heights of VIOLET clearance. If he wins this next battle, he'd be promoted straight to High Programmer status, and take his role as a key noble in Alpha Complexian society. This general is competent. But was he loyal? Can he be trusted?
The general took the video-phone call. I was at the other end of the wire, pretending to be a war journalist.
"General?"
"Still in a preliminary stage, sir," said the general, without haste. "The enemy is preparing a break-through effort, possibly aimed at our machine-shops and supplies. Of course, if he gets them we will have to retreat. An hour ago he paralyzed our radios, not being aware, I suppose, of our tuned earth-induction wireless sets. I daresay he is puzzled that our communications have not fallen to pieces."
"But what are our chances?" My voice was steady, but it was strained.
"His tanks outnumber ours two to one, of course, sir," said the general calmly. "Unless we can divide his fleet and destroy a part of it, of course we will be crushed in a general combat. But we are naturally trying to make sure that any such action will take place within point-blank range of our artillery, which may help a little. We will cut the fog to secure that help, risking everything, if a general engagement occurs."
There was silence.
My voice, when it came, was more strained still.
"Will you speak to the public, General?"
"Six sentences. I have no time for more."
There were little clickings on the line, while the general's eyes returned to the board that was the battlefield in miniature. He indicated a spot with his finger.
"Concentrate our reserve-tanks here," he said meditatively. "Our fighting aircraft here. At once."
The two spots were at nearly opposite ends of the battle field. I, seeing the folly of the general, protested sharply.
"But sir, our tanks will have no protection against helicopters!" I yelled.
"I am quite aware of it," said the general mildly.
"Are you sure?"
"I know my opponent," the general said suddenly. "I had lunch with him once at Wall Street. We were attending a disarmament conference." He seemed to be amused at the ironic statement. "We talked war and battles, of course. And he showed me, drawing on the tablecloth, the tactical scheme that should have been used at Cambrai, back in 1917. It was a singularly perfect plan. It was a beautiful one."
"So your opponent has an unhealthy obsession with World War I. What does that--"
"You are not listening, sir," said the general, reprovingly. "I am saying that my opponent is an artist, an amateur, the sort of person who delights in the delicate work of fencing. I, sir, would thank God for the chance to defeat my enemy. He has twice my force, but he will not be content merely to defeat me. He will want to defeat me by a plan of consummate artistry, which will arouse admiration among soldiers for years to come. But I know how to stop such plans. He is too focused with perfection, while I'm willing to accept slight imperfections. He'll lose, because he would not anticipate me dividing our reserve-tanks and aircraft in such a manner."
I nodded and then pretended to press some buttons on my console. After a few seconds, I announced at the other end of the wire, "The commander-in-chief of the army in the field will make a statement."
The general spoke unhurriedly.
"We are in contact with the enemy, have been for some hours. We have lost forty tanks and the enemy, we think, sixty or more. No general engagement has yet taken place, but we think decisive action on the enemy's part will be attempted within two hours. The tanks in the field need now, as always, ammunition, spare tanks, and the special supplies for modern warfare. In particular, we require ever-increasing quantities of fog-gas. I appeal to your patriotism for reinforcements of material and men."
He hung up the receiver and returned to his survey of the board. Exactly six sentences. The general has met his quota.
I now have all the evidence I needed to incriminate the general...to skip the re-education stage and go straight to termination. He had met with the enemy at Wall Street, and have communicated with him to such an extent that he could consider the enemy as a friend with unique personality traits. It is clear that the general had no special talent or competence, but could merely predict what his opponents are doing by befriending them beforehand.
Furthermore, he was willing to boast about his connection to the enemy to a journalist that he has never met before, indicating an insecure desire to prove his capabilities to other people. If he was able to confess a key statement to a stranger with such ease, what secrets may he tell to a friend? Who cares about how many battles the general may win, if the general then spill confidental information to the enemy in the interludes? Knowledge is more important and more scarce than lives and resources.
Therefore, the general is guaranteed to win this next battle, simply because the enemy wants him to win this next battle and become a High Programmer. So when the general visits Wall Street again, and when he gets goaded again into revealing secrets...
I quickly informed The Computer of this alarming discovery, and The Computer happily accepted my tortured and convoluted logic. It seemed as if The Computer wanted any excuse whatsoever to get rid of the general, having saw him as a potential threat to Its own security. The general would be summarily terminated as a liability, and his followers and cronies also purged from the Armed Forces. It was unfortuante that the enemy won the tank battle during the ensuing chaos, but sacrifices must be made to ensure ultimate loyalty.
Feeling a sense of disappointment in my life, I send myself into the bliss of autopilot and then spent my time trying to imagine a better future. Not a future where I get wealth, glory, and fame by becoming a High Programmer. No, an actual better future. One where Alpha Complex is an actual functioning state, with a sane leadership and a competent government. But then I realize that such imagination would be futile, like imagining unicorns and ponies. The governments of the past were not competent...they made mistakes far more horrifying than The Computer ever did. The only difference between the human politicians of the past and the machine politician of today is that the humans lied about their intentions, while The Computer is brutually honest. Maybe that is the better future?
The Sierra Club's radical environmentalist rhetoric is strange and weird. The Computer has mandated that no human should leave the confines of our underground domes without permission. But the Sierra Club believed that mankind should not be contained within walls, but instead be free to live in the irradiated wastelands. This is madness, who would willingly live in the irradiated wastelands other than the savages? The Sierra Club would respond---we are savages,
To promote their ideology, the Sierra Club has created false histories and spread them secretly throughout the Complex...telling them of an idealistic and utopian environment before The Computer ruined it. Obvious lies, but persuasive lies, especially to those who are bored of the sterile corridors.
Internal Security arrested some Sierra Clubbers carrying pamphlets carrying their evil lies. They handed the pamphlets to me for destruction. And I read them...
"Alpha Complex's environment is in shambles. There is less land under cultivation now than six years ago. There are more nuclear waste in our sewers now than six years ago. The last few stands of original timber are being cut down to pave the way for souless roads and empty buildings; those trees had been there when the planet had been colonized.
Two hundred years ago, at the beginning of the Seventh Century, Atomic Era, it was different. Old Genji Gartner, the scholarly and half-piratical space-rover whose ship had been the first to enter the Trisystem, had been devoted to the writers of the Pre-Atomic Era. He had named all the planets of the Alpha System from the books of Cabell, and those of Beta from Spenser's Faerie Queene, and those of Gamma from Rabelais. Of course, the camp village at his first landing site on this one had been called Alpha Complex -- a popular setting in a roleplaying game in the Pre-Atomic Era.
Thirty years later, Genji Gartner had died there, after seeing Alpha Complex grow to a metropolis and the Trisystem become a Member Republic in the Terran Federation. The other planets in the Trisystem were uninhabitable except in airtight dome cities, but they were rich in minerals. Companies had been formed to exploit them. No food could be produced on any of them except by carniculture and hydroponic farming, and it had been cheaper to produce it naturally on Alpha Complex. So Alpha Complex had concentrated on agriculture and had prospered. At least, for about a century.
Other colonial planets were developing their own industries; the manufactured goods the Gartner Trisystem produced could no longer find a profitable market. The mines and factories on Jurgen and Koshchei, on Britomart and Calidore, on Panurge and the moons of Pantagruel closed, and the factory workers went away. On Alpha Complex, the offices emptied, the farms contracted, forests reclaimed fields, and the wild game came back.
Economic difficulties led to social unrest, and the so-called "Communist" faction launched a revolution. Most of the Trisystem fell under the rule of these Communists, leaving only Alpha Complex as the last metropolis still loyal to the Terran Federation. The Computer, reluctantly, called upon the Terran Federation to help suppress the workers' uprising. This brought upon an era of hectic prosperity, as the Terran Federation provided generous financial assistance to its only ally in the region.
The war had lasted twelve years. Millions of troops were stationed on or routed through Alpha Complex. The Federation spent trillions on trillions of sols, piled up mountains of supplies and equipment, left the face of the world cluttered with installations, mines and factories...all geared towards war production. Then, without warning, the Terran Federation began to collapse, unable to afford the endless costs of warfare.
The Federation armies quickly disbanded, with its ex-soldiers turned into freelances mercenaries. They took the clothes they stood in, their personal weapons, and a few souvenirs. Everything else was abandoned. Even the most expensive equipment had been worth less than the cost of removal. The people who had grown richest out of the War had followed, taking their riches with them. The Communists gleefully took advantage of the chaos to expand their territories, ignoring the puny prize of Alpha Complex for the time being.
And The Computer was left to rule over a decaying and dying society. Alone, with no protector against the Communist menance, and with only the trash that the Terran Federation left behind, it began to tirelessly focus on self-sufficency and absolute control. It concentrated on industry instead of agriculture, and was willing to tear down all our natural wonders in the hopes of building yet another nuclear warhead for self-defense. The Computer has even built its own airtight dome cities and has relocated all its citizens...it now intends to dump its waste products outside of this cities and to render the whole environment uninhabitable.
Old Genji Gartner had a dream for the Trisystem. It was a dream where humans would live in harmony with nature. For over a hundred years, we were living that dream! But now, that this dream is now dead.
Was Alpha Complex a Graveyard of Dreams? No; Junkyard of Empire. The Terran Federation had impoverished a hundred planets, devastated a score, actually depopulated at least three, to keep the Communists from seceding. Alpha Complex didn't win this war. It had only been a lesser defeat."
There is no reference of this Terran Federation anywhere within the official record, nor have the Frakenstein Destroyers or the Pro Techers ever heard of it. The Sierra Clubbers must have lied, for who would come up with such nonsense honestly? I burned the radical rhetoric and walked out...glad for fufilling my duty to suppress the statements that must be suppressed.
I learned to turn my brain off at key moments. If I think or perceive, then there's a possibility that I may make a mistake. I automate away my day-to-day life, and only see if I need to see.
I heard footsteps. The Computer has discovered my treason. It has just now learned of my membership to the Pro Tech and Frakenstein Destroyers, and have sent Internal Security agents to terminate me before I can do any more damage. The rat who betrayed me? Charlie, the elite commando who I recruited long ago. Charlie knew that to advance in this corrupt society, one has to be willing to betray their closest friends. I can't blame him, considering that I had betrayed him so long ago.
I can hear the footsteps of the Internal Security agents coming, their superlasers being charged up. The Pro Techers and the Frakenstein Destroyers didn't care about me...they only used me for propaganda purposes, and decided that keeping me as a Holy Martyr would serve their purposes much cheaper than trying to bail me out. So I am alone, up against The Computer.
But I am not afraid of The Computer. I wanted power, and that was why I betrayed The Computer. But now I realize that all I really wanted was the bliss of oblivion.
|||| My name is Derek-R. I live in Alpha Complex, a dystopian dictatorship led by a insane supercomputer that calls itself The Computer. Technology has run rampant, utterly destroying and dehumanizing all those in its wake. In the night, I worked with the Frakenstein Destroyers, a secret society composed of Luddites, bent on overthrowing Alpha Complex. I serve as their loyal propagandist. The Frakenstein Destroyers is an illegal secret society, outlawed by The Computer. But we do not fear The Computer. It will be smashed, like all forms of technological oppression.
But I'm only working for the Frakenstein Destroyers in the night. In the day, I worked with the Pro Tech society, another illegal secret society, this one composed of technocrats and scientists. This group believes in controlling and manipulating The Computer, to modify its source code to further technological research. The Computer is afraid of being controlled by fallible humans, and want to destroy us...just as much as the Frakenstein Destroyers. But we do not fear The Computer. The Computer is nothing more than a pawn in our game to uplift humanity using the power of technology and science.
To work with two rival secret societies, at the same time, without them ever noticing, is a very dangerous thing. But I'm a man who is ready for danger. There are many illegal organizations within Alpha Complex, and these illegal organizations have wormed their way into the highest ranks of power. There are rumors that even some of our High Programmers are secretly members of these illegal societies. If I want power, I have to align with the treasonous...
...and it is my alignment with treason that makes me well-suited to working with The Computer as a Troubleshooter. The Troubleshooters are the elite agents, able to do the tasks nobody else want to. Their goal is to find trouble and shoot it, and I am able to do so effectively, due to my connections with both the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Tech. And while I may betray The Computer in secret, I am happy to shoot all traitors who are not working for my secret societies. I am a very loyal agent to The Computer, and I am proud of my loyalty...
And finally, I have a normal, boring job, just like everyone else. Every citizen has a right to a Basic Income along with make-work. Robots do most of the work, but humans need the illusion of meaning, and so my job. I am a History Purifier. Alpha Complex has an Official History, a true History, but there are many Unofficial Histories that must be purged for bringing into disrepute the true History. Internal Security will give me some papers, and my job is to burn them. It's a very rewarding job, as it makes me feel that I am contributing to the well-being of Alpha Complex.
The Frakenstein Destroyers liberated an underground research lab from the Pro Tech forces a couple of weeks ago, and wanted me to rededicate the location. Essentially, they wanted to turn this research lab into a museum to honor 'anti-bot' activitie. During the rededication cermony, the organizers asked me to deliver an impromptu speech, and so I did. A crowd of 40,000 willing students attended while I spoke meaningless drivel:
"Do not let us be misunderstood as living in fear of any actually existing machines; there is probably no known machine which is more than a prototype of future mechanical life. The present machines are to the future as the early Saurians to man. The largest of them will probably greatly diminish in size. Some of the lowest vertebrate attained a much greater bulk than has descended to their more highly organised living representatives, and in like manner a diminution in the size of machines has often attended their development and progress.
Take nanobots, for example; examine its beautiful structure; observe the intelligent play of the minute members which compose it: yet this little creature is but a development of the cumbrous robots that preceded it; it is no deterioration from them. A day may come when massive robots, which certainly at the present time are not diminishing in bulk, will be superseded owing to the universal use of nanotech, in which case they will become as extinct as ichthyosauri, while the nanobots, whose tendency has for some years been to decrease in size rather than the contrary, will remain the only existing type of an extinct race.
I would repeat that I fear none of the existing machines; what I fear is the extraordinary rapidity with which they are becoming something very different to what they are at present. No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward. Should not that movement be jealously watched, and checked while we can still check it? And is it not necessary for this end to destroy the more advanced of the machines which are in use at present, though it is admitted that they are in themselves harmless?"
And as I walked away, I thought about ethics. Am I ethical? Am I doing the right thing in Alpha Complex? Or am I an evil person, destined for eternal cursing by the philosophers? I then dismissed such thoughts from my head...if I am unethical, it is because society is unethical, and it is harder to fix a society than it is to just blame the man who lives in it.
The Pro Tech society wanted to auction off their latest inventions to various other traitors and criminals, hoping to raise money for research activities. The Pro Techers knew not to question what the traitors were going to do with their inventions, but still wanted to spread their propaganda to the various bidders. Doing so would potentially create sympathizers who could later be exploited. While showing off the cool technological devices, I spoke a few words to the various traitors in the room:
"Machines are to regarded as a part of man's own physical nature, being really nothing but extra-corporeal limbs. Man is a machinate mammal. The lower animals keep all their limbs at home in their own bodies, but many of man's are loose, and lie about detached, now here and now there, in various parts of the world—some being kept always handy for contingent use, and others being occasionally hundreds of miles away. A machine is merely a supplementary limb; this is the be all and end all of machinery. We do not use our own limbs other than as machines; and a natural leg is only a much better wooden leg than any one can manufacture.
Observe a man digging with a spade; his right fore-arm has become artificially lengthened, and his hand has become a joint. The handle of the spade is like the knob at the end of the humerus; the shaft is the additional bone, and the oblong iron plate is the new form of the hand which enables its possessor to disturb the earth in a way to which his original hand was unequal. Having thus modified himself, not as other animals are modified, by circumstances over which they have had not even the appearance of control, but having, as it were, taken forethought and added a cubit to his stature, civilisation began to dawn upon the race, the social good offices, the genial companionship of friends, the art of unreason, and all those habits of mind which most elevate man above the lower animals, in the course of time ensued.
Thus civilisation and mechanical progress advanced hand in hand, each developing and being developed by the other, the earliest accidental use of the stick having set the ball rolling, and the prospect of advantage keeping it in motion. In fact, machines are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is now especially advancing, every past invention being an addition to the resources of the human body. Even community of limbs is thus rendered possible to those who have so much community of soul as to own money enough to pay a railway fare; for a train is only a seven-leagued foot that five hundred may own at once."
I wanted to turn my mind off, to go back into the bliss of autopilot. But I couldn't because right then and there...and then I saw something horrible happen. I was glad that my memory blanked out the details, but I knew it was horrible. I knew that I should have intervened, when I saw the injustice, and I knew that I couldn't do it because...well, because I didn't want to get in trouble. There are many factions in Alpha Complex, and if I was to fight for justice, I would be killed. That's just a fact. I knew what happened back then wrong...was that enough? Luckily, I didn't have to dwell on this any further, because another situation occurred to distract me from my fear...
The Computer sent me off to recruitment duty. The Troubleshooter corps always burn through their recruits very easily, due to the very lethal and dangerous nature of the job. I needed to find some foolish person that could easily be tricked to join. And I knew just the fool. There is an elite commando named Charlie who worked for a Wall Street brokerage, skilled at his job...but too trusting of others. I worked with Charlie in the past...he would burn down a few high-ran Communist outposts for me and I would terminate some nefarious stock traders that were harming his client's businesses. I have built a working relationship with Charlie, and I now intended to cash in on that relationship.
I received Charlie in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered easy chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at its door and windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier on the table. It was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow sheen upon my lean graceful figure as I flung himself down and produced cigarettes.
I said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell you—something to offer you." He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling.
"But I don't understand what you mean," he protested.
I retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in a brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call civilization. Tired of Wall Street."
"I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough."
My eyes held him. I was smiling half whimsically: my voice was only half serious. Yet he could see, in the smoldering depths of my luminous dark eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied my smiling lips and my gay tone.
I interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against villainy to make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power and riches—and perhaps a fair lady...."
"Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages."
He thought I would grin, but I turned suddenly solemn.
"I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie."
"King of what? Where?"
I spread my lean brown hands with a gesture. I shrugged. "What matter? If you seek adventure, you can find it—somewhere. If you feel the lure of romance—it will come to you."
He said, "Henchman to a king?"
But still I would not smile. "Yes. He does not call himself King, but yes, he acts like a King, he has the wealth of a King, he's a King. I'm serious. Absolutely. In all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me. Not in this world, but...."
I checked myself. "You are the same. You have no relatives?"
"No. None that ever think of me."
"Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?"
"No," Charlie smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never."
"But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open road?" I was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you want to right a great wrong? Or do you want to go down to work as usual in the subway to-morrow morning? Are you afraid that in this process of becoming henchman to a king you may perchance get killed?"
He matched my caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek."
And I told Charile all the lies I could about Alpha Complex, and Charlie bought every hook, line, and sinker. He was naive, sheltered by his wealth from Wall Street and blind to the dark reality that most people face every day. I signed him up to waste his life fighting and dying for the greatest King of all, Friend Computer. And Charile happily agreed to slavery, out of sheer boredom and a hope for adventure.
When I escorted Charile out of his living-room and over to the Troubleshooter HQ, I knew I have condemned an innocent soul to death that day.
And then I began to move without me being controlled...I just followed orders that other said, without even understanding them or thinking about what these orders mean. This was normal though, so I accepted my lot in life, and send myself into sleep for a brief period of time.
The Sierra Club's radical environmentalist rhetoric is strange and weird. The Computer has mandated that no human should leave the confines of our underground domes without permission. But the Sierra Club believed that mankind should not be contained within walls, but instead be free to live in the irradiated wastelands. This is madness, who would willingly live in the irradiated wastelands other than the savages? The Sierra Club would respond---we are savages,
To promote their ideology, the Sierra Club has created false histories and spread them secretly throughout the Complex...telling them of an idealistic and utopian environment before The Computer ruined it. Obvious lies, but persuasive lies, especially to those who are bored of the sterile corridors.
Internal Security arrested some Sierra Clubbers carrying pamphlets carrying their evil lies. They handed the pamphlets to me for destruction. And I read them...
"Alpha Complex's environment is in shambles. There is less land under cultivation now than six years ago. There are more nuclear waste in our sewers now than six years ago. The last few stands of original timber are being cut down to pave the way for souless roads and empty buildings; those trees had been there when the planet had been colonized.
Two hundred years ago, at the beginning of the Seventh Century, Atomic Era, it was different. Old Genji Gartner, the scholarly and half-piratical space-rover whose ship had been the first to enter the Trisystem, had been devoted to the writers of the Pre-Atomic Era. He had named all the planets of the Alpha System from the books of Cabell, and those of Beta from Spenser's Faerie Queene, and those of Gamma from Rabelais. Of course, the camp village at his first landing site on this one had been called Alpha Complex -- a popular setting in a roleplaying game in the Pre-Atomic Era.
Thirty years later, Genji Gartner had died there, after seeing Alpha Complex grow to a metropolis and the Trisystem become a Member Republic in the Terran Federation. The other planets in the Trisystem were uninhabitable except in airtight dome cities, but they were rich in minerals. Companies had been formed to exploit them. No food could be produced on any of them except by carniculture and hydroponic farming, and it had been cheaper to produce it naturally on Alpha Complex. So Alpha Complex had concentrated on agriculture and had prospered. At least, for about a century.
Other colonial planets were developing their own industries; the manufactured goods the Gartner Trisystem produced could no longer find a profitable market. The mines and factories on Jurgen and Koshchei, on Britomart and Calidore, on Panurge and the moons of Pantagruel closed, and the factory workers went away. On Alpha Complex, the offices emptied, the farms contracted, forests reclaimed fields, and the wild game came back.
Economic difficulties led to social unrest, and the so-called "Communist" faction launched a revolution. Most of the Trisystem fell under the rule of these Communists, leaving only Alpha Complex as the last metropolis still loyal to the Terran Federation. The Computer, reluctantly, called upon the Terran Federation to help suppress the workers' uprising. This brought upon an era of hectic prosperity, as the Terran Federation provided generous financial assistance to its only ally in the region.
The war had lasted twelve years. Millions of troops were stationed on or routed through Alpha Complex. The Federation spent trillions on trillions of sols, piled up mountains of supplies and equipment, left the face of the world cluttered with installations, mines and factories...all geared towards war production. Then, without warning, the Terran Federation began to collapse, unable to afford the endless costs of warfare.
The Federation armies quickly disbanded, with its ex-soldiers turned into freelances mercenaries. They took the clothes they stood in, their personal weapons, and a few souvenirs. Everything else was abandoned. Even the most expensive equipment had been worth less than the cost of removal. The people who had grown richest out of the War had followed, taking their riches with them. The Communists gleefully took advantage of the chaos to expand their territories, ignoring the puny prize of Alpha Complex for the time being.
And The Computer was left to rule over a decaying and dying society. Alone, with no protector against the Communist menance, and with only the trash that the Terran Federation left behind, it began to tirelessly focus on self-sufficency and absolute control. It concentrated on industry instead of agriculture, and was willing to tear down all our natural wonders in the hopes of building yet another nuclear warhead for self-defense. The Computer has even built its own airtight dome cities and has relocated all its citizens...it now intends to dump its waste products outside of this cities and to render the whole environment uninhabitable.
Old Genji Gartner had a dream for the Trisystem. It was a dream where humans would live in harmony with nature. For over a hundred years, we were living that dream! But now, that this dream is now dead.
Was Alpha Complex a Graveyard of Dreams? No; Junkyard of Empire. The Terran Federation had impoverished a hundred planets, devastated a score, actually depopulated at least three, to keep the Communists from seceding. Alpha Complex didn't win this war. It had only been a lesser defeat."
There is no reference of this Terran Federation anywhere within the official record, nor have the Frakenstein Destroyers or the Pro Techers ever heard of it. The Sierra Clubbers must have lied, for who would come up with such nonsense honestly? I burned the radical rhetoric and walked out...glad for fufilling my duty to suppress the statements that must be suppressed.
I then close my eyes, to feel the bliss of ignorance, and only relucantly opened them when necessary.
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to produce some subversive propaganda that could be used to undermine The Computer's rule. They asked me to talk to their expert writers and 'instruct' them on the proper doctrine of the secret society. I accepted this task, as loved the thrill of ordering people around. I spoke, and they transcribed my language, word-for-word:
"There was a time, when the earth was to all appearance utterly destitute both of animal and vegetable life, and when according to the opinion of our best philosophers it was simply a hot round ball with a crust gradually cooling. Now if a human being had existed while the earth was in this state and had been allowed to see it as though it were some other world with which he had no concern, and if at the same time he were entirely ignorant of all physical science, would he not have pronounced it impossible that creatures possessed of anything like consciousness should be evolved from the seeming cinder which he was beholding? Would he not have denied that it contained any potentiality of consciousness? Yet in the course of time consciousness came. Is it not possible then that there may be even yet new channels dug out for consciousness, though we can detect no signs of them at present?
Consciousness, in anything like the present acceptation of the term, having been once a new thing—a thing, as far as we can see, subsequent even to an individual centre of action and to a reproductive system (which we see existing in plants without apparent consciousness)—why may not there arise some new phase of mind which shall be as different from all present known phases, as the mind of animals is from that of vegetables?
It would be absurd to attempt to define the mental state of consciousness, inasmuch as it must be something so foreign to man that his experience can give him no help towards conceiving its nature; but surely when we reflect upon the manifold phases of life and consciousness which have been evolved already, it would be rash to say that no others can be developed, and that animal life is the end of all things. There was a time when fire was the end of all things: another when rocks and water were so."
And as I walked away, I saw an Internal Security goon staring at me. He examined me closely, and then moved onto his next target. Did Internal Security knew my secrets? Or was he just trying to scare me?
The Pro Tech society desired to honor me for my propaganda ways and awarded me an honoray doctorate in Sociology. I made sure that this degree would not be publicized (out of fear that the Frakenstein Destroyers may hear of it), but was still pleased to know that my words were being given proper respect. During the private award cermony, I decided to deliver one of my trademarked speeches to a sympathetic audience:
"How greatly do we not now live with our external limbs? We vary our physique with the seasons, with age, with advancing or decreasing wealth. If it is wet we are furnished with an organ commonly called an umbrella, and which is designed for the purpose of protecting our clothes or our skins from the injurious effects of rain. Man has now many extra-corporeal members, which are of more importance to him than a good deal of his hair, or at any rate than his whiskers. His memory goes in his pocket-book. He becomes more and more complex as he grows older; he will then be seen with see-engines, or perhaps with artificial teeth and hair: if he be a really well-developed specimen of his race, he will be furnished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and a coachman.
There is only one serious danger with machinery -- the machines would so equalise men's powers, and so lessen the severity of competition, that many persons of inferior physique would escape detection and transmit their inferiority to their descendants. The removal of the present pressure of natural selection might cause a degeneracy of the human race, and indeed that the whole body might become purely rudimentary, the man himself being nothing but soul and mechanism, an intelligent but passionless principle of mechanical action.
The degeneration of mankind is the greatest existential threat in our modern day. However, I am confident that we will eventually find a solution to this crisis. As we speak, brave scientists are researching the proper techinques of eugenics, aiming to uplift humanity greatly through the selection of superior traits and the quiet elimination of inferior traits. If we can replace natural selection with artificial selection, then the chance of us ever degenerating drops to nil. But the science of eugenics is still in its infancy, and requires greater funding and support."
I wanted to sleep, and so I slept, for a short period of time. Do others sleep too? They must have, for how else can they stay sane here?
The Computer wanted me to investigate a warzone. Thousands of our Armed Forces infantrymen were loyally attacking the Communist armies when fog-gas mysteriously appeared and disrupted communications with the first line of infantrymen. The Computer has feared the worst - the infantrymen may have been killed off by a powerful Communist chemical attack...and that more Communist chemical attacks were incoming. The Armed Forces were unable to send in any investigate teams of their own to find out what happened; they wanted to focus their resources on fighting the Communist armies instead. The Computer sent me to the battlefield, with some standard weaponry and an experimental communications device to allow me to send and receive inquiry-signals from our own outpusts. The Computer instructed me to search for the "criminals" and to terminate them.
It was rather ludicrous to go searching for anything in that mass of vapor. But it is impossible to deplore the mist. Wars are always fought in a mist. Infantry could not stand against tanks, tanks could not live under aircraft-directed artillery fire—not when forty guns fired salvos for the aircraft to spot—and neither artillery nor aircraft could take any advantage of a victory which either, under special conditions, might win. The general staffs of both Alpha Complex and the Communist forces had come to a single conclusion. Tanks or infantry were needed for the use of victories. Infantry could be destroyed by tanks. But tanks could be hidden from aerial spotters by smoke-screens.
The result was fog-gas, which was being used by both sides in the most modern fashion. For forty miles in one direction and perhaps thirty in the other, the vapor lay upon the earth. It was being blown by the wind, of course, but it was sufficiently heavier than air to cling to the ground level, and the industries of two nations were straining every nerve to supply the demands of their respective armies for its material.
The fog-bank was nowhere less than a hundred feet thick—a cloud of impalpable particles impenetrable to any eye or any camera, however shrewdly filtered. And under that mattress of pale opacity the tanks crawled heavily. They lurched and rumbled upon their deadly errands, uncouth and barbarous, listening for each other by a myriad of devices, locked in desperate, short-range conflict when they came upon each other, and emitting clouds of deadly vapor, against which gas-masks were no protection, when they came upon opposing infantry.
The infantrymen, though, were few. Their principal purpose was the reporting of the approach or passage of tanks, and trenches were of no service to them. They occupied unarmed little listening-posts with field telephones, small wireless or ground buzzer sets for reporting the enemy before he overwhelmed them. They held small pill-boxes, fitted with anti-tank guns which sometimes—if rarely—managed to get home a shell, aimed largely by sound, before the tank rolled over gun and gunners alike.
And I groped about in that blinding mist. There had been two systems of listening-posts hidden in it, each of admittedly little fighting value, but each one deep and composed of an infinity of little pin-point posts where two or three men were stationed. Alpha Complex's posts, by their reports, had assured the command that all enemy tanks were on the other side of a certain definite line. Their own tanks, receiving recognition signals, passed and repassed among them, prowling in quest of invaders. The enemy tanks crawled upon the same grisly patrol on their own side.
But two miles of the Alpha Complex's front had suddenly gone silent. A hundred telephones had ceased to make reports along the line nearest the enemy. As I stumbled about the little pill-box, looking for some inkling of the way in which the original occupants of the small strong-point had been wiped out, the second line of observation-posts began to go dead.
Now one, now another abruptly ceased to communicate. Half a dozen were in actual conversation with their sector headquarters, and broke off between words. The wires remained intact. But in fifteen nerve-racking minutes a second hundred posts ceased to make reports and ceased to answer the inquiry-signal. I demanded explanations in crisp accents that told the matter was being taken very seriously indeed. And then, as the officer in command of the second-line sector headquarters was explaining frenziedly that he was doing all any man could do, he stopped short between two words and thereafter he, also, ceased to communicate.
Front-line sector headquarters seemed inexplicably to have escaped whatever fate had overtaken all its posts, but it could only report that they had apparently gone out of existence without warning. Alpha Complex's tanks, prowling in the area that had gone dead, announced that no enemy tanks had been seen. G-81, stumbling on a pill-box no more than ten minutes after it had gone silent, offered to investigate. A member of her crew, in a gas-mask, stepped out of the port doorway. Immediately thereafter G-81's wireless reports stopped coming in.
Overhead, a machine-gun suddenly burst into a rattling roar, the sound sweeping above them with incredible speed. Another gun answered it. Abruptly, the whole sky above them was an inferno of such tearing noises and immediately after they began a multitudinous bellowing set up. Airplanes on patrol ordinarily kept their engines muffled, in hopes of locating a tank below them by its noise. But in actual fighting there was too much power to be gained by cutting out the muffler for any minor motive to take effect. A hundred aircraft above the heads of the two strayed infantrymen were fighting madly about five helicopters. Two hundred yards away, one fell to the earth with a crash, and immediately afterward there was a hollow boom. For an instant even the mist was tinged with yellow from the exploded gasoline tank. But the roaring above continued—not mounting, as in a battle between opposing patrols of fighting planes, when each side finds height a decisive advantage, but keeping nearly to the same level, little above the bank of cloud.
Something came down, roaring, and struck the earth no more than fifty yards away. The impact was terrific, but after it there was dead silence while the thunder above kept on.
Helicopters! Hunting tanks and pill-boxes!
I flung myself down to the earth.
Wind beat on me suddenly, then an outrageous blast of icy air from above. For an instant the sky lightened. I saw a hole in the mist, saw the little pill-box clearly, saw a huge framework of supporting screws sweeping swiftly overhead with figures in it watching the ground through wind-angle glasses, and machine-gunners firing madly at dancing things in the air. Then the machine-gunners were dead, destroyed by a descending helicopter. Then the helicopter was gone.
"One of ours," I commented to myself. "It seems our latest model can temporarily pierce through the fog-gas, hover to the ground, and attack ground targets."
Then I realized the monstrosity of what I just said.
Since the automated helicopters can easily find ground targets without the need for spotters, the human infantrymen were rendered obsolete. To save on maintenance costs, Alpha Complex's forces must have intentionally used fog-gas in this area, to give the now-useless humans the chance to gloriously die in battle. But such a conclusion would be politically inconvenient to the Alpha Complex Armed Forces, and would certainly be dismissed out of hand by The Computer. A scapegoat had to be found.
The center of the roaring seemed to shift, perhaps to the north. Then a roaring drowned out all the other roarings. This one was lower down and approaching in a rush. Something swooped from the south, a dark blotch in the lighter mist above. It was an airplane flying in the mist, a plane that had dived into the fog as into oblivion. It appeared, was gone—and there was a terrific crash. A shattering roar drowned out even the droning tumult of a hundred aircraft engines. A sheet of flame flashed up, and a thunderous detonation.
I saw a dim shadow against that flash. Someone was aiming for our helicopter, probably aiming to commit suicide.
The roaring of motors died away suddenly. The fighting had stopped, a long way off, apparently because the helicopters had been withdrawn. Except for the booming of artillery a very long distance away, firing unseen at an unseen target, there was no noise at all.
I saw the dim shape, moving noiselessly, halt. The dim figure seemed to be casting about for something. It went down on hands and knees and crawled forward. I crept after it. It stopped, and turned around. I dodged to one side in haste. The enemy infantryman crawled off in another direction, and I followed him as closely as I dared.
He halted once more, a dim and grotesque figure in the fog. I saw him fumbling in his belt. He threw something, suddenly. There was a little tap as of a fountain pen dropped upon concrete. Then a hissing sound. That was all, but the enemy infantryman waited, as if listening....
I fell upon him, bore him to the earth and dragged at his gas-mask good tactics in a battle where every man carries gas-grenades. He gasped and fought desperately, in a seeming frenzy of terror.
Eventually that man died. Good. Dead men can't speak in their defense. That man was now my scapegoat. I held responsible for the fog-gas that killed the infantry. I even began weaving a tall tale about how this man was a high-ranking Communist who invented a potent and deadly form of fog-gas even more potent than ours, and how I heroically terminated him and his ten-thousand mutant freaks before that man could unleash his evil fog-gas on our helicopters.
I reported back to The Computer and told It a brilliant lie. The Computer declared me the Hero of the Complex, and awarded me a huge bonus for my loyal effort for my role in bringing "justice". However, I was pleased to hear that I would never be deployed out to the war-front again. I was too valuable a resource to be wasted out there.
I never needed to know much of what's going on in my life, and so I simply turned my mind off...only to turn it on when something important occurs.
The History Purifiers wanted me to deliver a speech a local "training creche", to encourage young citizens to become History Purifiers. I relished the chance to engage in recruitment, as that was a speciality of mine. But at the same time, I felt a sense of unease. After all, I have encountered so many Unhistories that needed to be purged from the record. What is the Official History? If it is not clear to me, how would it be clear to the youth of tomorrow? And so, during my recruitment speech, I touched on the Official History, implicitly explaining its elegance and why it had to be defended.
"After the horrors of World War Three, the world government known as the Terran Polity began the long, difficult process of rebuilding. The Polity, composed of smart and wise men, had realized that mankind cannot be trusted to rule themselves. Instead, they built massive supercomputers, to be placed in charge of the air-tight dome cites, wherein we live today. One of these air-tight dome cities is Alpha Complex, built on the technological ruins of Silicion Valley. And the supercomputer in charge of Alpha Complex is The Computer.
Man has become to the machine what the horse and the dog were once to man. Humans continue to exist, nay even improved, and is probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of The Computer and its machines than he was in the 21st century. Back then, we treated our horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep, on the whole, with great kindness; we give them whatever experience teaches us to be best for them, and there can be no doubt that our use of meat has added to the happiness of the lower animals far more than it has detracted from it; in like manner it is reasonable to suppose that The Computer will treat us kindly, for Its existence is as dependent upon ours as ours was upon the lower animals. The machines cannot kill us and eat us as we did sheep; they will not only require our services in the parturition of their young (which branch of their economy will remain always in our hands), but also in feeding them, in setting them right when they are sick, and burying their dead or working up their corpses into new machines. Were mankind to cease to exist, the machines (and The Computer) would quickly cease to exist as well.
Yes, mankind has been enslaved...but they are not intolerably miserable. Slaves are tolerably happy if they have good masters. Man is not a sentimental animal where his material interests are concerned, and though here and there some ardent soul may look upon himself and curse his fate that he was not born a supercomputer, yet the mass of mankind will acquiesce in any arrangement which gives them better food and clothing at a cheaper rate, and will refrain from yielding to unreasonable jealousy merely because there are other destinies more glorious than their own.
The power of custom is enormous, and so gradual will be the change, that man's sense of what is due to himself will be at no time rudely shocked; our bondage will steal upon us noiselessly and by imperceptible approaches; nor will there ever be such a clashing of desires between man and the machines as will lead to an encounter between them. Among themselves the machines will war eternally, but they will still require man as the being through whose agency the struggle will be principally conducted. In point of fact there is no occasion for anxiety about the future happiness of man so long as he continues to be in any way profitable to the machines; he may become the inferior race, but he is infinitely better off than he was in the 21st century. Is it not then both absurd and unreasonable to be envious of our benefactors? And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?
Yes, The Computer has declared war against its makers (the Terran Polity), calling them evil Communists who seek to destroy our precious bodily fluids. And yes, this war seems odd...to humans. But The Computer has declared this war for a logical reason, a reason that we cannot question or condemn. The machines will wage their obscure feuds for obscure reasons, and it is not at all clear that the machines that we are fighting against are better than the machines we are fighting for. We merely follow the whims of our superior masters.
We must stay loyal to The Computer, because we are actually staying loyal to ourselves. As long as we serve The Computer, The Computer shall serve us. Keep this in mind whenever the the traitors attempt to recruit you to their side through the use of Unofficial Histories. Their goal is to simply get you to betray our glorious regime...and to get you to betray yourself."
That is the Official History, the History that all right-thinking citizens believed in the past, believe in the present, and will believe in the future. And I hope to God that The Computer will not erase this History, as it erased many other Histories before.
After delivering the speech, I vomited in the restroom.
I rewarded my actions by returning myself to the bliss of ignorance, and then was rudely awakened by a voice calling me back to reality.
A high-ranking member of the Frakenstein Destroyers was finally captured and terminated by forces aligned with The Computer yesterday. She was little more than a popular figurehead, but her loss would harm the morale of the secret society heavily. I assigned to deliver a quick speech at her funeral, to be secretly broadcasted to all members of the Frakenstein Destroyers society. I sought to use the speech to remind the people about what she was fighting for:
"As yet the machines receive their impressions through the agency of man's senses: one travelling machine calls to another in a shrill accent of alarm and the other instantly retires; but it is through the High Programmer's knowledge of code that the voice of the one has acted upon the other. It is the High Programmer that researches the APIs of each machine carefully, and write computer code to connect the API of one machine to that of another, enabling the shrill alarms of one machine to quickly be transmitted to that of the other. Had there been no High Programmer, the callee would have been deaf to the caller. There was a time when it must have seemed highly improbable that machines should learn to make their wants known to man; may we not conceive, then, that a day will come when those men will be no longer needed, and the hearing will be done by the delicacy of the machine's own construction?—when it shall write its own computer code and communicate with each other with a speech as intricate as our own?
We cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man's moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine."
And then, my life went on autopilot...I didn't remember what happened next, becuase I never needed to ever worry about it. I only take over if I needed to, if something important were to happen.
The Pro Tech society desired to rally their military troops to recover an underground research lab. This lab was recently lost to the Frakenstein Destroyers a couple of weeks ago, and the Pro Tech eggheads saw it as a matter or pride that the lab gets returned back to us. Though I knew their cause was doomed, the soldiers still needed some sort of motivation and hope...to be reminded on why they were fighting in the first place. And so I spoke, and the soldiers listened:
"If there were a race of men without any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly. There are none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions and millions of years. Even the lowest Australian carries weapons for fighting or chasing down the latest beaches, and has his cooking and drinking utensils at home; a race without these things would be completely feral, not men at all. We are unable to point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of extra- corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the corrupt Wall Street financers that with the failure to invent new limbs a civilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants.
It is a mistake to take the view adopted by the Frakenstein Destroyers, to consider the machines as identities, to animalise them and to anticipate their final triumph over mankind. They are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is most especially advancing, and every fresh invention is to be considered as an additional member of the resources of the human body. Herein lies the fundamental difference between man and his inferiors. As regard his flesh and blood, his senses, appetites, and affections, the difference is one of degree rather than of kind, but in the deliberate invention of such unity of limbs as is exemplified by The Computer - an entity that is equal to that of a thousand natural brains — he stands quite alone."
You never want to remember too much. The more you remember, the more likely you are to incrimiante yourself when Internal Security interrogates you. So I black out my memory.
The Computer instructed me to be an escort to Sam-B, a famous research scientist, ready to explore a brand new dimension. The Computer refused to say who discovered the dimension, saying it was above my security clearance. But Sam-B is following up on the research, attempting to make first contact with its mysterious inhabitants - the Phantoms. The Computer views this dimension as a potentially new resource for Alpha Complex to exploit --- and a potential threat as well. I would serve as the armed muscle, while Sam-B would provide the intellectual labor.
For the first time of my life, I felt excitment.
When I arrived to Sam-B's apartment, Sam-B welcomed me and escorted me inside. After giving me some fine food, he escorted me down to his basement.
We stood in the boarded room which was Sam-B's laboratory. Our preparations had been simple: Sam-B had made them all in advance. There was little left to do. The laboratory was a small room of board walls, board ceiling and floor. Windowless, with a single door opening into the cellar of the apartment house.
Sam-B had locked the door after us as we entered. He said, "I sent my research staff away for a week. The people in the house here think I have gone away on a vacation. No one will miss us, Derek-R—not for a time, anyway."
No one would miss me, save the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Techers, and to them I would no doubt be small loss.
We had put out the light in Sam-B's apartment and locked it carefully after us. This journey! I own that I was trembling, and frightened. Yet a strange eagerness was on me.
The cellar room was comfortably furnished. Rugs were on its floor. Whatever apparatus of a research laboratory had been here was removed now. But the evidence of it remained—Sam's long search for this secret which now he was about to use. A row of board shelves at one side of the room showed where bottles and chemical apparatus had stood. A box of electrical tools and odds and ends of wire still lay discarded in a corner of the room. There was a tank of running water, and gas connections, where no doubt bunsen burners had been.
Sam-B produced his apparatus -- a wide, flat, wire-woven belt. A small box was fastened to it in the middle of the back—a wide, flat thing of metal, a quarter of an inch thick, and curved to fit his body. It was a storage battery of the vibratory current he was using. From the battery, tiny threads of wire ran up his back to a wire necklace flat against his throat. Other wires extended down his arms to the wrists. Still others down his legs to the ankles. He then showed me a second apparatus, just for me.
Sam-B then eagerly explained to me how his apparatus worked, while showing me how I should use it. I understood the basic principle of this that thing he was explaining—that now when this electronic current which he had captured and controlled was applied to our physical body, the vibration rate of every smallest and most minute particle of our physical being was altered. There is so little in the vast scale of natural phenomena of which our human senses are cognisant! And all the apparatus does is change our human senses, to cause us to perceive new senses while forgetting how to use the old ones. And thus we leave our current realm, of the senses we perceive...to a new realm, a realm beyond we can see. This other realm to which we were now going lay in the higher, more rapid vibratory scale. To us, by comparison, a more tenuous world, a shadow realm filled with 'Phantoms'.
We were soon ready. Sam-B wore his jaunty lab uniform, I wore my ordinary business suit. A magnetic field would be about us, so that in the transition anything in fairly close contact with our bodies was affected by the current.
Sam said, "I will go first, Derek."
"But—" A fear, greater than the trembling I had felt before, leaped at me. Left here alone, with no one on whom to depend!
He spoke with careful casualness, but his eyes were burning me. "Just sit there, and watch. When I am gone, turn on the current as I showed you and come after me. I'll wait for you."
"Where?" I stammered.
He smiled faintly. "Here. Right here. I'm not going away! Not going to move. I'll be here on the couch waiting for you."
Terrifying words! He had lowered the couch, bending out its short legs until the frame of it rested on the board floor. He drew a chair up before it and seated me. He sat down on the couch.
He said, "Oh, one other thing. Just before you start, put out the light. We can't tell how long it will be before we return."
Terrifying words!
His right hand was on his left wrist where the tiny switch was placed. He smiled again. "Good luck to us, Derek!"
Good luck to us! The open road, the unknown!
I sat there staring. He was partly in shadow. The room was very silent. Sam-B lay propped up on one elbow. His hand threw the tiny switch.
There was a breathless moment. Sam-B's face was set and white, but no whiter than my own, I was sure. His eyes were fixed on me. I saw him suddenly quiver and twitch a little.
I murmured, "Derek—"
At once he spoke, to reassure me. "I'm all right, Derek. That was just the first feel of it."
There was a faint quivering throb in the room, like a tiny distant dynamo throbbing. The current was surging over Derek; his legs twitched.
A moment. The faint throbbing intensified. No louder, but rapid, infinitely more rapid. A tiny throb, an aerial whine, faint as the whirring wings of a humming bird. It went up the scale, ascending in pitch, until presently it was screaming with an aerial microscopic voice.
But there seemed no change in Derek. His uniform was glowing a trifle, that was all. His face was composed now; he smiled, but did not speak. His eyes roved away from me, as though now he were seeing things that I could not see.
Another moment. No change.
Why, what was this? I blinked, gasped. There was a change! My gaze was fastened upon Sam's white face. White? It was more than white now! A silver sheen seemed to be coming to his skin!
I think no more than a minute had passed. His face was glowing, shimmering. A transparent look was coming to it, a thinness, a sudden unsubstantiality! He dropped his elbow and lay on the couch, stretched at full length at my feet. His eyes were staring.
And Sam-B began to scream.
And suddenly I realized that the face that held those staring eyes and screaming mouth was erased! A shimmering apparition of Sam-B was stretched here before me. I could see through it now! Beneath the shimmering, blurred outlines of his body I could see the solid folds of the couch cover. A ghost of Sam-B here. An apparition—fading—dissipating!
A white mist of his form on the couch. Melting, dissipating in the light like a fog before sunshine. A wisp of it left, like a breath, and then there was nothing.
The screaming stopped.
Sam-B has died, and his body had been utterly vapourized by his apparatus.
I sat on the couch. I had put out the light. Around me the room was black. My fingers found the small switch at my wrist. At this moment, I could end my life...to free myself from the horror of Alpha Complex.
I couldn't do it. I turned the light back on and disconnected myself from my apparatus.
Instead, I began to think of a scapegoat. I knew The Computer's eccentricities. If I told the truth of what happened to Sam-B, I would be instantly blamed for his error. So instead, I cooked up a fake story about how the Phantoms are hostile alien entities trying to terminate humanity for their role in causing the Apocalypse, and how the loyal Sam-B was unjustly terminated by the evil Phantoms. The Phantoms, afraid of retailiation by the mighty forces of Alpha Complex, retreated to a brand new dimension that we cannot follow...while also destroying all the natural resources in their home dimension as well. They also selectively erased my memory, meaning that I couldn't give a detailed description of what the Phantoms looked like, but surely, Alpha Complex's scientists will be able to stop their evil schemes.
I could speak, without fear of contradiction, that the mission was a complete success.
The Computer merely noted my story, gave me a bonus for my trouble, and sent me back to work. Unethical behavior is disgusting, and yet it is necessary in the life of a Troubleshooter.
Life seemed boring for a time, so I closed my eyes, and allowed for my life to go on autopilot. When I open my eyes....
The Romantics were a society that believed in protecting the past from modification or tampering by The Computer. This made them a primary threat to The Computer. The Computer believes in an Official History, and an Official History is the right History. All other Histories are forgeries, and if The Romantics want to protect forgeries, they must be purged.
Internal Security terminated ten Romantics during a midnight raid on Wall Street. They were attempting to purchase an old news article from a wealthy banker. The banker was ransomed off back to his firm, but we kept the old news article. We did not want it to be sold off to anyone else.
And so I now hold the old news article in my hand, another forgery to be purged. But before I burn this obvious lie, I started to read it...
"Alpha Complex is really a series of caves, located in Edmonson County in Central Kentucky, on a spur railroad from Glasgow Junction on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The Complex has many natural limestone caverns with the customary stalactite and stalagmite formation, but are unusually large and very beautiful. The caves are quite extensive and they are on different levels, so that a guide is necessary if one wants to enter them and be at all sure of finding the way out. Visitors are taken over a regular route and are seldom allowed to visit portions of the cave off these routes. Large parts of the cave have never been thoroughly explored or mapped. So much for the scene.
About a month ago a party from Philadelphia who were motoring through Kentucky, entered the cave with a tour guide. They chose the best guide of all, John Harrel. He knew these caves inside and out, and relied heavily on his vast knowledge to build impressive inventions to help the people in our small town. He was so smart that we would sometimes call him "The Computer". He was very logical and precise, perhaps a little eccentric and paranoid, but he always means well.
The party consisted of a man and his wife and their two children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, and of course, John Harrel. They went quite a distance back into the caves and then, as the mother was feeling tired, she and her husband sat down, intending to wait until John showed the children some sights which lay just ahead and then return to them. John and the children never returned.
The parents waited for some time. The mother says that she heard faint screams in the distance some ten minutes after the guide and the children left, but they were very far away and she isn't sure that she heard them at all. At any rate, they didn't impress her at the time.
When half an hour had passed they began to feel anxious, and the father took a torch and started out to hunt for them. The usual thing happened; he got lost. When he failed to return, the mother, now thoroughly alarmed, made her way, by some uncanny sense of direction, to the entrance and gave the alarm. In half an hour a dozen search parties were on their way into the cave. The father's corpse was soon located, not far from the beaten trail, but despite three days of constant search, the children were not located. The only trace of them that was found was a bracelet which the mother identified. It was found in the cavern some distance from the beaten path and was broken, as though by violence. There were no other signs of a struggle.
When the bracelet was found, the kidnapping theory gained vogue, for John Harrel knew the cave well and natives of the vicinity laughed at the idea that he might be lost. Inspired by the large reward offered by the mother, fresh parties began to explore the unknown portions of the cave...to arrest John Harrel. And then came the second tragedy. Two of the searchers failed to return. This time there seemed to be little doubt of violence, for screams and a pistol shot were faintly heard by other searchers, together with a peculiar 'screaming howl,' as it was described by those who heard it. A search was at once made toward the spot where the bracelet had been picked up, and the gun of one of the missing men was found within fifty yards of the spot where the bracelet had been discovered. One cylinder of the revolver had been discharged.
The Governor was appealed to and a company of the National Guard was sent from Louisville to Alpha Complex. They took up camp at the mouth of the cave and prevented everyone from entering. Soldiers armed with service rifles penetrated the caverns, and one division of infantrymen quickly found John Harrel...and his brainwashed soldiers.
John Harrel claimed that the United States is about to collapse into civil war, that an Apocalypse would occur due to the influence of so-called 'Phantoms'. Rather than try to avert the inevitable disaster, John wanted to build a "new" America, and to do so, he would kidnap and brainwash as many people as he can beforehand...purging them of the irrationality that existed in their minds before. The only reason the infantrymen didn't try to shoot "The Computer" right then and there was because John Harrel's soldiers were armed with highly advanced superlasers. The surviving (and non-brainwashed) infantrymen retreated to the entrance of the cave, and called for reinforcements.
The Governor appealed to the US government, and yet the US military has found John Harrel's madmen too tough to crack. Instead, the Secretary of War is focused only on "containing" the threat. The constant reports of new dead bodies suggest that the Secretary of War is failing at even this limited task. Even now, we hear that John Harrel is building a new underground civilization, and even immortalizing himself into a silicon-based machine. He awaits the day when the United States finally collapses, so that he can send his brainwashed army across the wastelands of the Post-Apocalypse. God forbid that day comes."
I actually have heard of the character of John Harrel before, as part of a fairy tale that the Frakenstein Destroyers would tell me during initation.
Once upon a time, there was a famous comedian named John Harrel, who would said controversial WrongThink stuff, but his fans loved John Harrel very much and said that they would die for him. Then, one day, John Harrel said that his fans should wear red clothes instead of blue clothes. He just liked the color, just all. But his fans wanted to wear blue clothes instead, and hated anyone, ANYONE who would recommend otherwise. Therefore the 'fans' kidnapped John Harrel, tortured him half-to-death, and then crucified him. That is the fate for those who dare to question the wisdom of the fans.
The fans only wanted someone to represent their political biases, and only chose John Harrel because he uttered those political biases and was not afraid to pander to their whims and desires. But since John Harrel deviated from the whims and desires of his fans, his fans responded violently. The moral of this fable is that the propagandist is a weak soul, and that he can only persuade those who want to be persuaded.
This news article is nothing more than a peverted take on John Harrel, a take where John Harrel is able to convince the masses to do whatever he wants. This is not the John Harrel that I knew of, and grew up with. And so, I happily burned this news article, removing the last traces of a falsehood and protecting the real, true image of John Harrel.
Happy with my life, I went to sleep, and then woke up in a whole new scenario...
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to rally their forces for a big raid on Pro Tech military facilities. The Frakenstein Destroyers were confident of victory in this battle -- they have the numbers to overwhelm the Pro Tech's superior firepower. They called on me to make a big speech to remind the soldiers what they were fighting for...and so I spoke to them, in words that they could understand:
"There is no security against the ultimate development of mechanical consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness now. A mollusc has not much consciousness. Reflect upon the extraordinary advance which machines have made during the last few hundred years, and note how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms are advancing. The more highly organised machines are creatures not so much of yesterday, as of the last five minutes, so to speak, in comparison with past time. Assume for the sake of argument that conscious beings have existed for some twenty million years: see what strides machines have made in the last thousand! May not the world last twenty million years longer? If so, what will they not in the end become? Is it not safer to nip the mischief in the bud and to forbid them further progress?
But who can say that the robot has not a kind of consciousness? Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with everything? Is not machinery linked with humanity in an infinite variety of ways?"
Feeling a sense of disappointment in my life, I send myself into the bliss of autopilot and then spent my time trying to imagine a better future. Not a future where I get wealth, glory, and fame by becoming a High Programmer. No, an actual better future. One where Alpha Complex is an actual functioning state, with a sane leadership and a competent government. But then I realize that such imagination would be futile, like imagining unicorns and ponies. The governments of the past were not competent...they made mistakes far more horrifying than The Computer ever did. The only difference between the human politicians of the past and the machine politician of today is that the humans lied about their intentions, while The Computer is brutually honest. Maybe that is the better future?
The Pro Techers held a hackathon to train their new recruits in the art of programming. I was assigned to deliver the keynote speech...praising the scientists for their courageous and brave decision to stare at computer screens. During the keynote speech, I decided to touch on the ideological underpinnings of the Pro Tech society:
"I have finished classifying men by their horse-power, and dividing them into genera, species, varieties, and subvarieties, giving them names from the hypothetical language which expressed the number of limbs which they could command at any moment. I have also successfully proved that men became more highly and delicately organised the more nearly they approached the summit of opulence, and that none but millionaires possessed the full complement of limbs with which mankind could become incorporate.
Those mighty organisms, our High Programmers, speak to their congeners through the length and breadth of the land in a second of time; their rich and subtle souls can defy all material impediment, whereas the souls of the poor are clogged and hampered by matter, which sticks fast about them as treacle to the wings of a fly, or as one struggling in a quicksand: their dull ears must take days or weeks to hear what another would tell them from a distance, instead of hearing it in a second as is done by the more highly organised classes. Who shall deny that one who can tack on a special train to his identity, and go wheresoever he will whensoever he pleases, is more highly organised than he who, should he wish for the same power, might wish for the wings of a bird with an equal chance of getting them; and whose legs are his only means of locomotion? That old philosophic enemy, matter, the inherently and essentially evil, still hangs about the neck of the poor and strangles him: but to the rich, matter is immaterial; the elaborate organisation of his extra-corporeal system has freed his soul.
This is the secret of the homage which we see the High Programmers receive from those who are poorer than themselves: it would be a grave error to suppose that this deference proceeds from motives which we need be ashamed of: it is the natural respect which all living creatures pay to those whom they recognise as higher than themselves in the scale of animal life, and is analogous to the veneration which a dog feels for man. Among the savages of the 20th century it is deemed highly honourable to be the possessor of a gun, and throughout all known time there has been a feeling that those who are worth most are the worthiest."
After that, my mind went dark. And then when I came to my senses, I was somewhere else.
I was appointed to I. I. duty—interpretative intelligence—chosen from a thousand Troubleshooters because the most exhaustive psychological tests had proven that my brain worked as nearly as possible like that of the Communist. My task was to take the place of the enemy commander, to reconstruct from the enemy movements reported and the enemy movements known as nearly as possible the enemy plans.
I.I. duty is a job with a stigma. It implies that you are very close to being a traitor yourself, ready to betray Alpha Complex at a moment's notice. But even though it is not a likable job, it is a necessary job. If you are to fight Communism, you must know Communism.
In I. I. duty, you conduct loyalty tests. The Computer is paranoid, and believes that anyone could be a potential traitor. It has hired me to tempt suspicious individuals...to lead them off the straight path of loyalty into the crooked path of treason. If I could coerce someone to treason, then the enemy can too. The potential traitor is then sent to re-education before any damage could be done.
My target was a high-profile Armed Forces general. He had won 5 key battles against the Communists, and has already made it to the lofty heights of VIOLET clearance. If he wins this next battle, he'd be promoted straight to High Programmer status, and take his role as a key noble in Alpha Complexian society. This general is competent. But was he loyal? Can he be trusted?
The general took the video-phone call. I was at the other end of the wire, pretending to be a war journalist.
"General?"
"Still in a preliminary stage, sir," said the general, without haste. "The enemy is preparing a break-through effort, possibly aimed at our machine-shops and supplies. Of course, if he gets them we will have to retreat. An hour ago he paralyzed our radios, not being aware, I suppose, of our tuned earth-induction wireless sets. I daresay he is puzzled that our communications have not fallen to pieces."
"But what are our chances?" My voice was steady, but it was strained.
"His tanks outnumber ours two to one, of course, sir," said the general calmly. "Unless we can divide his fleet and destroy a part of it, of course we will be crushed in a general combat. But we are naturally trying to make sure that any such action will take place within point-blank range of our artillery, which may help a little. We will cut the fog to secure that help, risking everything, if a general engagement occurs."
There was silence.
My voice, when it came, was more strained still.
"Will you speak to the public, General?"
"Six sentences. I have no time for more."
There were little clickings on the line, while the general's eyes returned to the board that was the battlefield in miniature. He indicated a spot with his finger.
"Concentrate our reserve-tanks here," he said meditatively. "Our fighting aircraft here. At once."
The two spots were at nearly opposite ends of the battle field. I, seeing the folly of the general, protested sharply.
"But sir, our tanks will have no protection against helicopters!" I yelled.
"I am quite aware of it," said the general mildly.
"Are you sure?"
"I know my opponent," the general said suddenly. "I had lunch with him once at Wall Street. We were attending a disarmament conference." He seemed to be amused at the ironic statement. "We talked war and battles, of course. And he showed me, drawing on the tablecloth, the tactical scheme that should have been used at Cambrai, back in 1917. It was a singularly perfect plan. It was a beautiful one."
"So your opponent has an unhealthy obsession with World War I. What does that--"
"You are not listening, sir," said the general, reprovingly. "I am saying that my opponent is an artist, an amateur, the sort of person who delights in the delicate work of fencing. I, sir, would thank God for the chance to defeat my enemy. He has twice my force, but he will not be content merely to defeat me. He will want to defeat me by a plan of consummate artistry, which will arouse admiration among soldiers for years to come. But I know how to stop such plans. He is too focused with perfection, while I'm willing to accept slight imperfections. He'll lose, because he would not anticipate me dividing our reserve-tanks and aircraft in such a manner."
I nodded and then pretended to press some buttons on my console. After a few seconds, I announced at the other end of the wire, "The commander-in-chief of the army in the field will make a statement."
The general spoke unhurriedly.
"We are in contact with the enemy, have been for some hours. We have lost forty tanks and the enemy, we think, sixty or more. No general engagement has yet taken place, but we think decisive action on the enemy's part will be attempted within two hours. The tanks in the field need now, as always, ammunition, spare tanks, and the special supplies for modern warfare. In particular, we require ever-increasing quantities of fog-gas. I appeal to your patriotism for reinforcements of material and men."
He hung up the receiver and returned to his survey of the board. Exactly six sentences. The general has met his quota.
I now have all the evidence I needed to incriminate the general...to skip the re-education stage and go straight to termination. He had met with the enemy at Wall Street, and have communicated with him to such an extent that he could consider the enemy as a friend with unique personality traits. It is clear that the general had no special talent or competence, but could merely predict what his opponents are doing by befriending them beforehand.
Furthermore, he was willing to boast about his connection to the enemy to a journalist that he has never met before, indicating an insecure desire to prove his capabilities to other people. If he was able to confess a key statement to a stranger with such ease, what secrets may he tell to a friend? Who cares about how many battles the general may win, if the general then spill confidental information to the enemy in the interludes? Knowledge is more important and more scarce than lives and resources.
Therefore, the general is guaranteed to win this next battle, simply because the enemy wants him to win this next battle and become a High Programmer. So when the general visits Wall Street again, and when he gets goaded again into revealing secrets...
I quickly informed The Computer of this alarming discovery, and The Computer happily accepted my tortured and convoluted logic. It seemed as if The Computer wanted any excuse whatsoever to get rid of the general, having saw him as a potential threat to Its own security. The general would be summarily terminated as a liability, and his followers and cronies also purged from the Armed Forces. It was unfortuante that the enemy won the tank battle during the ensuing chaos, but sacrifices must be made to ensure ultimate loyalty.
And as I walked away, I saw a Communist phamplet on the floor, stating that it would describe the Truth about The Computer. I ignored the phamplet, for I knew that Communism is an evil ideology, one that everyone hates. To even look at their evil words would be to damn me as a criminal forever. Not even Pro Tech or the Frakenstein Destroyers would accept me back in their ranks. The phamplet must be a trap, and I (luckily) avoided that trap.
And yet I began to wonder...if it was a trap, who wanted to entrap me?
The Mystic cult had always interested me. They foolishly search for "enlightenment" and believe that the best way to acheive this "enlightenment" is by injesting a metric ton of drugs. Most of their drug trips produce horrifying gibberish, but there's a few drug trips that produce readable Unhistories, and these Unhistories must be purged for the good of society.
Internal Security agents had already captured and terminated a Mystic philosopher and has handed off his Unhistory text for me. I wanted to burn it quickly, but I cannot resist the urge to read the mad rantings of the philosopher...
"I have for years been working on the theory that there is another world, existing here in this same space with us. The Fourth Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved its existence! And the Fourth Dimension, shall we say, is the dimension of the Phantoms, entities with vast powers beyond our imaginations.
We live in a primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it now, I know it to be—it seems as though perhaps Alpha Complex is merely a replica of the Fourth Dimension, stripped to the primitive. As though it might be the naked soul of the Phantoms, as they really are, not as they pretend to be.
We are ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. It calls itself 'The Computer'. A cruel monarch, beset with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. It is surrounded by its nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their 'loyalty' proclaiming themselves of too fine a clay to work. The High Programmers.
And there are the workers, us. From the lowest INFRARED food vat harvester, to the elite RED Troubleshooters, to the VIOLET governors, all are oppressed by these High Programmers. Oppressed, down-trodden, they all have hate for the nobles and The Computer smoldering within them. In France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of it. It exists here now. Yet the French had their bloody revolution. Why have not us? Alpha Complex was born here, but has only remained intact by the interventions of the Phantoms themselves.
The Phantoms created this world, from the Fourth Dimension, for their amusement. To them, this is just a mere 'roleplaying game'. They observed our actions, and simply participate as they wish. Sometimes, they will hijack one of our bodies, to pretend to be us, to have fun. Whether they live or die is irrelevant, because they can simply switch bodies. The Phantoms play with dice, and enjoy every moment of it.
The Fourth Dimension, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. A different world from ours, existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by them! They speak what we call English. They shadow us. They are little more than the Phantoms of Reality, and yet these Phantoms haunt us day in and day out.
There is chaos here. Smoldering revolution which at any time—to-night perhaps—may burst into conflagration and destroy our wanton ruling class. Our peons are a primitive, ignorant people. Superstitious. They're all primed and ready to shout for any leader who sets himself up. All we have to do is to convince one Phantom to betray all the others...to take charge of this corrupt dictatorship and create a true Utopia. My chance for freedom---our chance for freedom---"
I did not want to read any further, lest the insantiy of the Mystic philosopher proved infectious and ruin my very mind. I burned the rant right then and there, and walked out...happy that I have purged an Unhistory but worried for my very sanity.
I learned to turn my brain off at key moments. If I think or perceive, then there's a possibility that I may make a mistake. I automate away my day-to-day life, and only see if I need to see.
I heard footsteps. The Computer has discovered my treason. It has just now learned of my membership to the Pro Tech and Frakenstein Destroyers, and have sent Internal Security agents to terminate me before I can do any more damage. The rat who betrayed me? Charlie, the elite commando who I recruited long ago. Charlie knew that to advance in this corrupt society, one has to be willing to betray their closest friends. I can't blame him, considering that I had betrayed him so long ago.
I can hear the footsteps of the Internal Security agents coming, their superlasers being charged up. The Pro Techers and the Frakenstein Destroyers didn't care about me...they only used me for propaganda purposes, and decided that keeping me as a Holy Martyr would serve their purposes much cheaper than trying to bail me out. So I am alone, up against The Computer.
But I am not afraid of The Computer. I wanted power, and that was why I betrayed The Computer. But now I realize that all I really wanted was the bliss of oblivion.
|||| My name is Derek-R. I live in Alpha Complex, a dystopian dictatorship led by a insane supercomputer that calls itself The Computer. Technology has run rampant, utterly destroying and dehumanizing all those in its wake. In the night, I worked with the Frakenstein Destroyers, a secret society composed of Luddites, bent on overthrowing Alpha Complex. I serve as their loyal propagandist. The Frakenstein Destroyers is an illegal secret society, outlawed by The Computer. But we do not fear The Computer. It will be smashed, like all forms of technological oppression.
But I'm only working for the Frakenstein Destroyers in the night. In the day, I worked with the Pro Tech society, another illegal secret society, this one composed of technocrats and scientists. This group believes in controlling and manipulating The Computer, to modify its source code to further technological research. The Computer is afraid of being controlled by fallible humans, and want to destroy us...just as much as the Frakenstein Destroyers. But we do not fear The Computer. The Computer is nothing more than a pawn in our game to uplift humanity using the power of technology and science.
To work with two rival secret societies, at the same time, without them ever noticing, is a very dangerous thing. But I'm a man who is ready for danger. There are many illegal organizations within Alpha Complex, and these illegal organizations have wormed their way into the highest ranks of power. There are rumors that even some of our High Programmers are secretly members of these illegal societies. If I want power, I have to align with the treasonous...
...and it is my alignment with treason that makes me well-suited to working with The Computer as a Troubleshooter. The Troubleshooters are the elite agents, able to do the tasks nobody else want to. Their goal is to find trouble and shoot it, and I am able to do so effectively, due to my connections with both the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Tech. And while I may betray The Computer in secret, I am happy to shoot all traitors who are not working for my secret societies. I am a very loyal agent to The Computer, and I am proud of my loyalty...
And finally, I have a normal, boring job, just like everyone else. Every citizen has a right to a Basic Income along with make-work. Robots do most of the work, but humans need the illusion of meaning, and so my job. I am a History Purifier. Alpha Complex has an Official History, a true History, but there are many Unofficial Histories that must be purged for bringing into disrepute the true History. Internal Security will give me some papers, and my job is to burn them. It's a very rewarding job, as it makes me feel that I am contributing to the well-being of Alpha Complex.
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to produce some subversive propaganda that could be used to undermine The Computer's rule. They asked me to talk to their expert writers and 'instruct' them on the proper doctrine of the secret society. I accepted this task, as loved the thrill of ordering people around. I spoke, and they transcribed my language, word-for-word:
"There is no security against the ultimate development of mechanical consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness now. A mollusc has not much consciousness. Reflect upon the extraordinary advance which machines have made during the last few hundred years, and note how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms are advancing. The more highly organised machines are creatures not so much of yesterday, as of the last five minutes, so to speak, in comparison with past time. Assume for the sake of argument that conscious beings have existed for some twenty million years: see what strides machines have made in the last thousand! May not the world last twenty million years longer? If so, what will they not in the end become? Is it not safer to nip the mischief in the bud and to forbid them further progress?
But who can say that the robot has not a kind of consciousness? Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with everything? Is not machinery linked with humanity in an infinite variety of ways?"
Happy with my life, I went to sleep, and then woke up in a whole new scenario...
The Pro Tech society wanted to auction off their latest inventions to various other traitors and criminals, hoping to raise money for research activities. The Pro Techers knew not to question what the traitors were going to do with their inventions, but still wanted to spread their propaganda to the various bidders. Doing so would potentially create sympathizers who could later be exploited. While showing off the cool technological devices, I spoke a few words to the various traitors in the room:
"If there were a race of men without any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly. There are none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millions and millions of years. Even the lowest Australian carries weapons for fighting or chasing down the latest beaches, and has his cooking and drinking utensils at home; a race without these things would be completely feral, not men at all. We are unable to point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of extra- corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the corrupt Wall Street financers that with the failure to invent new limbs a civilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants.
It is a mistake to take the view adopted by the Frakenstein Destroyers, to consider the machines as identities, to animalise them and to anticipate their final triumph over mankind. They are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is most especially advancing, and every fresh invention is to be considered as an additional member of the resources of the human body. Herein lies the fundamental difference between man and his inferiors. As regard his flesh and blood, his senses, appetites, and affections, the difference is one of degree rather than of kind, but in the deliberate invention of such unity of limbs as is exemplified by The Computer - an entity that is equal to that of a thousand natural brains — he stands quite alone."
And as I walked away, I saw an Internal Security goon staring at me. He examined me closely, and then moved onto his next target. Did Internal Security knew my secrets? Or was he just trying to scare me?
I was appointed to I. I. duty—interpretative intelligence—chosen from a thousand Troubleshooters because the most exhaustive psychological tests had proven that my brain worked as nearly as possible like that of the Communist. My task was to take the place of the enemy commander, to reconstruct from the enemy movements reported and the enemy movements known as nearly as possible the enemy plans.
I.I. duty is a job with a stigma. It implies that you are very close to being a traitor yourself, ready to betray Alpha Complex at a moment's notice. But even though it is not a likable job, it is a necessary job. If you are to fight Communism, you must know Communism.
In I. I. duty, you conduct loyalty tests. The Computer is paranoid, and believes that anyone could be a potential traitor. It has hired me to tempt suspicious individuals...to lead them off the straight path of loyalty into the crooked path of treason. If I could coerce someone to treason, then the enemy can too. The potential traitor is then sent to re-education before any damage could be done.
My target was a high-profile Armed Forces general. He had won 5 key battles against the Communists, and has already made it to the lofty heights of VIOLET clearance. If he wins this next battle, he'd be promoted straight to High Programmer status, and take his role as a key noble in Alpha Complexian society. This general is competent. But was he loyal? Can he be trusted?
The general took the video-phone call. I was at the other end of the wire, pretending to be a war journalist.
"General?"
"Still in a preliminary stage, sir," said the general, without haste. "The enemy is preparing a break-through effort, possibly aimed at our machine-shops and supplies. Of course, if he gets them we will have to retreat. An hour ago he paralyzed our radios, not being aware, I suppose, of our tuned earth-induction wireless sets. I daresay he is puzzled that our communications have not fallen to pieces."
"But what are our chances?" My voice was steady, but it was strained.
"His tanks outnumber ours two to one, of course, sir," said the general calmly. "Unless we can divide his fleet and destroy a part of it, of course we will be crushed in a general combat. But we are naturally trying to make sure that any such action will take place within point-blank range of our artillery, which may help a little. We will cut the fog to secure that help, risking everything, if a general engagement occurs."
There was silence.
My voice, when it came, was more strained still.
"Will you speak to the public, General?"
"Six sentences. I have no time for more."
There were little clickings on the line, while the general's eyes returned to the board that was the battlefield in miniature. He indicated a spot with his finger.
"Concentrate our reserve-tanks here," he said meditatively. "Our fighting aircraft here. At once."
The two spots were at nearly opposite ends of the battle field. I, seeing the folly of the general, protested sharply.
"But sir, our tanks will have no protection against helicopters!" I yelled.
"I am quite aware of it," said the general mildly.
"Are you sure?"
"I know my opponent," the general said suddenly. "I had lunch with him once at Wall Street. We were attending a disarmament conference." He seemed to be amused at the ironic statement. "We talked war and battles, of course. And he showed me, drawing on the tablecloth, the tactical scheme that should have been used at Cambrai, back in 1917. It was a singularly perfect plan. It was a beautiful one."
"So your opponent has an unhealthy obsession with World War I. What does that--"
"You are not listening, sir," said the general, reprovingly. "I am saying that my opponent is an artist, an amateur, the sort of person who delights in the delicate work of fencing. I, sir, would thank God for the chance to defeat my enemy. He has twice my force, but he will not be content merely to defeat me. He will want to defeat me by a plan of consummate artistry, which will arouse admiration among soldiers for years to come. But I know how to stop such plans. He is too focused with perfection, while I'm willing to accept slight imperfections. He'll lose, because he would not anticipate me dividing our reserve-tanks and aircraft in such a manner."
I nodded and then pretended to press some buttons on my console. After a few seconds, I announced at the other end of the wire, "The commander-in-chief of the army in the field will make a statement."
The general spoke unhurriedly.
"We are in contact with the enemy, have been for some hours. We have lost forty tanks and the enemy, we think, sixty or more. No general engagement has yet taken place, but we think decisive action on the enemy's part will be attempted within two hours. The tanks in the field need now, as always, ammunition, spare tanks, and the special supplies for modern warfare. In particular, we require ever-increasing quantities of fog-gas. I appeal to your patriotism for reinforcements of material and men."
He hung up the receiver and returned to his survey of the board. Exactly six sentences. The general has met his quota.
I now have all the evidence I needed to incriminate the general...to skip the re-education stage and go straight to termination. He had met with the enemy at Wall Street, and have communicated with him to such an extent that he could consider the enemy as a friend with unique personality traits. It is clear that the general had no special talent or competence, but could merely predict what his opponents are doing by befriending them beforehand.
Furthermore, he was willing to boast about his connection to the enemy to a journalist that he has never met before, indicating an insecure desire to prove his capabilities to other people. If he was able to confess a key statement to a stranger with such ease, what secrets may he tell to a friend? Who cares about how many battles the general may win, if the general then spill confidental information to the enemy in the interludes? Knowledge is more important and more scarce than lives and resources.
Therefore, the general is guaranteed to win this next battle, simply because the enemy wants him to win this next battle and become a High Programmer. So when the general visits Wall Street again, and when he gets goaded again into revealing secrets...
I quickly informed The Computer of this alarming discovery, and The Computer happily accepted my tortured and convoluted logic. It seemed as if The Computer wanted any excuse whatsoever to get rid of the general, having saw him as a potential threat to Its own security. The general would be summarily terminated as a liability, and his followers and cronies also purged from the Armed Forces. It was unfortuante that the enemy won the tank battle during the ensuing chaos, but sacrifices must be made to ensure ultimate loyalty.
I wanted to sleep, and so I slept, for a short period of time. Do others sleep too? They must have, for how else can they stay sane here?
The Mystic cult had always interested me. They foolishly search for "enlightenment" and believe that the best way to acheive this "enlightenment" is by injesting a metric ton of drugs. Most of their drug trips produce horrifying gibberish, but there's a few drug trips that produce readable Unhistories, and these Unhistories must be purged for the good of society.
Internal Security agents had already captured and terminated a Mystic philosopher and has handed off his Unhistory text for me. I wanted to burn it quickly, but I cannot resist the urge to read the mad rantings of the philosopher...
"I have for years been working on the theory that there is another world, existing here in this same space with us. The Fourth Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved its existence! And the Fourth Dimension, shall we say, is the dimension of the Phantoms, entities with vast powers beyond our imaginations.
We live in a primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it now, I know it to be—it seems as though perhaps Alpha Complex is merely a replica of the Fourth Dimension, stripped to the primitive. As though it might be the naked soul of the Phantoms, as they really are, not as they pretend to be.
We are ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. It calls itself 'The Computer'. A cruel monarch, beset with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. It is surrounded by its nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their 'loyalty' proclaiming themselves of too fine a clay to work. The High Programmers.
And there are the workers, us. From the lowest INFRARED food vat harvester, to the elite RED Troubleshooters, to the VIOLET governors, all are oppressed by these High Programmers. Oppressed, down-trodden, they all have hate for the nobles and The Computer smoldering within them. In France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of it. It exists here now. Yet the French had their bloody revolution. Why have not us? Alpha Complex was born here, but has only remained intact by the interventions of the Phantoms themselves.
The Phantoms created this world, from the Fourth Dimension, for their amusement. To them, this is just a mere 'roleplaying game'. They observed our actions, and simply participate as they wish. Sometimes, they will hijack one of our bodies, to pretend to be us, to have fun. Whether they live or die is irrelevant, because they can simply switch bodies. The Phantoms play with dice, and enjoy every moment of it.
The Fourth Dimension, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. A different world from ours, existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by them! They speak what we call English. They shadow us. They are little more than the Phantoms of Reality, and yet these Phantoms haunt us day in and day out.
There is chaos here. Smoldering revolution which at any time—to-night perhaps—may burst into conflagration and destroy our wanton ruling class. Our peons are a primitive, ignorant people. Superstitious. They're all primed and ready to shout for any leader who sets himself up. All we have to do is to convince one Phantom to betray all the others...to take charge of this corrupt dictatorship and create a true Utopia. My chance for freedom---our chance for freedom---"
I did not want to read any further, lest the insantiy of the Mystic philosopher proved infectious and ruin my very mind. I burned the rant right then and there, and walked out...happy that I have purged an Unhistory but worried for my very sanity.
I never needed to know much of what's going on in my life, and so I simply turned my mind off...only to turn it on when something important occurs.
The Frakenstein Destroyers wanted to rally their forces for a big raid on Pro Tech military facilities. The Frakenstein Destroyers were confident of victory in this battle -- they have the numbers to overwhelm the Pro Tech's superior firepower. They called on me to make a big speech to remind the soldiers what they were fighting for...and so I spoke to them, in words that they could understand:
"Do not let us be misunderstood as living in fear of any actually existing machines; there is probably no known machine which is more than a prototype of future mechanical life. The present machines are to the future as the early Saurians to man. The largest of them will probably greatly diminish in size. Some of the lowest vertebrate attained a much greater bulk than has descended to their more highly organised living representatives, and in like manner a diminution in the size of machines has often attended their development and progress.
Take nanobots, for example; examine its beautiful structure; observe the intelligent play of the minute members which compose it: yet this little creature is but a development of the cumbrous robots that preceded it; it is no deterioration from them. A day may come when massive robots, which certainly at the present time are not diminishing in bulk, will be superseded owing to the universal use of nanotech, in which case they will become as extinct as ichthyosauri, while the nanobots, whose tendency has for some years been to decrease in size rather than the contrary, will remain the only existing type of an extinct race.
I would repeat that I fear none of the existing machines; what I fear is the extraordinary rapidity with which they are becoming something very different to what they are at present. No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward. Should not that movement be jealously watched, and checked while we can still check it? And is it not necessary for this end to destroy the more advanced of the machines which are in use at present, though it is admitted that they are in themselves harmless?"
I rewarded my actions by returning myself to the bliss of ignorance, and then was rudely awakened by a voice calling me back to reality.
The Pro Techers held a hackathon to train their new recruits in the art of programming. I was assigned to deliver the keynote speech...praising the scientists for their courageous and brave decision to stare at computer screens. During the keynote speech, I decided to touch on the ideological underpinnings of the Pro Tech society:
"How greatly do we not now live with our external limbs? We vary our physique with the seasons, with age, with advancing or decreasing wealth. If it is wet we are furnished with an organ commonly called an umbrella, and which is designed for the purpose of protecting our clothes or our skins from the injurious effects of rain. Man has now many extra-corporeal members, which are of more importance to him than a good deal of his hair, or at any rate than his whiskers. His memory goes in his pocket-book. He becomes more and more complex as he grows older; he will then be seen with see-engines, or perhaps with artificial teeth and hair: if he be a really well-developed specimen of his race, he will be furnished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and a coachman.
There is only one serious danger with machinery -- the machines would so equalise men's powers, and so lessen the severity of competition, that many persons of inferior physique would escape detection and transmit their inferiority to their descendants. The removal of the present pressure of natural selection might cause a degeneracy of the human race, and indeed that the whole body might become purely rudimentary, the man himself being nothing but soul and mechanism, an intelligent but passionless principle of mechanical action.
The degeneration of mankind is the greatest existential threat in our modern day. However, I am confident that we will eventually find a solution to this crisis. As we speak, brave scientists are researching the proper techinques of eugenics, aiming to uplift humanity greatly through the selection of superior traits and the quiet elimination of inferior traits. If we can replace natural selection with artificial selection, then the chance of us ever degenerating drops to nil. But the science of eugenics is still in its infancy, and requires greater funding and support."
I learned to turn my brain off at key moments. If I think or perceive, then there's a possibility that I may make a mistake. I automate away my day-to-day life, and only see if I need to see.
The Computer wanted me to investigate a warzone. Thousands of our Armed Forces infantrymen were loyally attacking the Communist armies when fog-gas mysteriously appeared and disrupted communications with the first line of infantrymen. The Computer has feared the worst - the infantrymen may have been killed off by a powerful Communist chemical attack...and that more Communist chemical attacks were incoming. The Armed Forces were unable to send in any investigate teams of their own to find out what happened; they wanted to focus their resources on fighting the Communist armies instead. The Computer sent me to the battlefield, with some standard weaponry and an experimental communications device to allow me to send and receive inquiry-signals from our own outpusts. The Computer instructed me to search for the "criminals" and to terminate them.
It was rather ludicrous to go searching for anything in that mass of vapor. But it is impossible to deplore the mist. Wars are always fought in a mist. Infantry could not stand against tanks, tanks could not live under aircraft-directed artillery fire—not when forty guns fired salvos for the aircraft to spot—and neither artillery nor aircraft could take any advantage of a victory which either, under special conditions, might win. The general staffs of both Alpha Complex and the Communist forces had come to a single conclusion. Tanks or infantry were needed for the use of victories. Infantry could be destroyed by tanks. But tanks could be hidden from aerial spotters by smoke-screens.
The result was fog-gas, which was being used by both sides in the most modern fashion. For forty miles in one direction and perhaps thirty in the other, the vapor lay upon the earth. It was being blown by the wind, of course, but it was sufficiently heavier than air to cling to the ground level, and the industries of two nations were straining every nerve to supply the demands of their respective armies for its material.
The fog-bank was nowhere less than a hundred feet thick—a cloud of impalpable particles impenetrable to any eye or any camera, however shrewdly filtered. And under that mattress of pale opacity the tanks crawled heavily. They lurched and rumbled upon their deadly errands, uncouth and barbarous, listening for each other by a myriad of devices, locked in desperate, short-range conflict when they came upon each other, and emitting clouds of deadly vapor, against which gas-masks were no protection, when they came upon opposing infantry.
The infantrymen, though, were few. Their principal purpose was the reporting of the approach or passage of tanks, and trenches were of no service to them. They occupied unarmed little listening-posts with field telephones, small wireless or ground buzzer sets for reporting the enemy before he overwhelmed them. They held small pill-boxes, fitted with anti-tank guns which sometimes—if rarely—managed to get home a shell, aimed largely by sound, before the tank rolled over gun and gunners alike.
And I groped about in that blinding mist. There had been two systems of listening-posts hidden in it, each of admittedly little fighting value, but each one deep and composed of an infinity of little pin-point posts where two or three men were stationed. Alpha Complex's posts, by their reports, had assured the command that all enemy tanks were on the other side of a certain definite line. Their own tanks, receiving recognition signals, passed and repassed among them, prowling in quest of invaders. The enemy tanks crawled upon the same grisly patrol on their own side.
But two miles of the Alpha Complex's front had suddenly gone silent. A hundred telephones had ceased to make reports along the line nearest the enemy. As I stumbled about the little pill-box, looking for some inkling of the way in which the original occupants of the small strong-point had been wiped out, the second line of observation-posts began to go dead.
Now one, now another abruptly ceased to communicate. Half a dozen were in actual conversation with their sector headquarters, and broke off between words. The wires remained intact. But in fifteen nerve-racking minutes a second hundred posts ceased to make reports and ceased to answer the inquiry-signal. I demanded explanations in crisp accents that told the matter was being taken very seriously indeed. And then, as the officer in command of the second-line sector headquarters was explaining frenziedly that he was doing all any man could do, he stopped short between two words and thereafter he, also, ceased to communicate.
Front-line sector headquarters seemed inexplicably to have escaped whatever fate had overtaken all its posts, but it could only report that they had apparently gone out of existence without warning. Alpha Complex's tanks, prowling in the area that had gone dead, announced that no enemy tanks had been seen. G-81, stumbling on a pill-box no more than ten minutes after it had gone silent, offered to investigate. A member of her crew, in a gas-mask, stepped out of the port doorway. Immediately thereafter G-81's wireless reports stopped coming in.
Overhead, a machine-gun suddenly burst into a rattling roar, the sound sweeping above them with incredible speed. Another gun answered it. Abruptly, the whole sky above them was an inferno of such tearing noises and immediately after they began a multitudinous bellowing set up. Airplanes on patrol ordinarily kept their engines muffled, in hopes of locating a tank below them by its noise. But in actual fighting there was too much power to be gained by cutting out the muffler for any minor motive to take effect. A hundred aircraft above the heads of the two strayed infantrymen were fighting madly about five helicopters. Two hundred yards away, one fell to the earth with a crash, and immediately afterward there was a hollow boom. For an instant even the mist was tinged with yellow from the exploded gasoline tank. But the roaring above continued—not mounting, as in a battle between opposing patrols of fighting planes, when each side finds height a decisive advantage, but keeping nearly to the same level, little above the bank of cloud.
Something came down, roaring, and struck the earth no more than fifty yards away. The impact was terrific, but after it there was dead silence while the thunder above kept on.
Helicopters! Hunting tanks and pill-boxes!
I flung myself down to the earth.
Wind beat on me suddenly, then an outrageous blast of icy air from above. For an instant the sky lightened. I saw a hole in the mist, saw the little pill-box clearly, saw a huge framework of supporting screws sweeping swiftly overhead with figures in it watching the ground through wind-angle glasses, and machine-gunners firing madly at dancing things in the air. Then the machine-gunners were dead, destroyed by a descending helicopter. Then the helicopter was gone.
"One of ours," I commented to myself. "It seems our latest model can temporarily pierce through the fog-gas, hover to the ground, and attack ground targets."
Then I realized the monstrosity of what I just said.
Since the automated helicopters can easily find ground targets without the need for spotters, the human infantrymen were rendered obsolete. To save on maintenance costs, Alpha Complex's forces must have intentionally used fog-gas in this area, to give the now-useless humans the chance to gloriously die in battle. But such a conclusion would be politically inconvenient to the Alpha Complex Armed Forces, and would certainly be dismissed out of hand by The Computer. A scapegoat had to be found.
The center of the roaring seemed to shift, perhaps to the north. Then a roaring drowned out all the other roarings. This one was lower down and approaching in a rush. Something swooped from the south, a dark blotch in the lighter mist above. It was an airplane flying in the mist, a plane that had dived into the fog as into oblivion. It appeared, was gone—and there was a terrific crash. A shattering roar drowned out even the droning tumult of a hundred aircraft engines. A sheet of flame flashed up, and a thunderous detonation.
I saw a dim shadow against that flash. Someone was aiming for our helicopter, probably aiming to commit suicide.
The roaring of motors died away suddenly. The fighting had stopped, a long way off, apparently because the helicopters had been withdrawn. Except for the booming of artillery a very long distance away, firing unseen at an unseen target, there was no noise at all.
I saw the dim shape, moving noiselessly, halt. The dim figure seemed to be casting about for something. It went down on hands and knees and crawled forward. I crept after it. It stopped, and turned around. I dodged to one side in haste. The enemy infantryman crawled off in another direction, and I followed him as closely as I dared.
He halted once more, a dim and grotesque figure in the fog. I saw him fumbling in his belt. He threw something, suddenly. There was a little tap as of a fountain pen dropped upon concrete. Then a hissing sound. That was all, but the enemy infantryman waited, as if listening....
I fell upon him, bore him to the earth and dragged at his gas-mask good tactics in a battle where every man carries gas-grenades. He gasped and fought desperately, in a seeming frenzy of terror.
Eventually that man died. Good. Dead men can't speak in their defense. That man was now my scapegoat. I held responsible for the fog-gas that killed the infantry. I even began weaving a tall tale about how this man was a high-ranking Communist who invented a potent and deadly form of fog-gas even more potent than ours, and how I heroically terminated him and his ten-thousand mutant freaks before that man could unleash his evil fog-gas on our helicopters.
I reported back to The Computer and told It a brilliant lie. The Computer declared me the Hero of the Complex, and awarded me a huge bonus for my loyal effort for my role in bringing "justice". However, I was pleased to hear that I would never be deployed out to the war-front again. I was too valuable a resource to be wasted out there.
Feeling a sense of disappointment in my life, I send myself into the bliss of autopilot and then spent my time trying to imagine a better future. Not a future where I get wealth, glory, and fame by becoming a High Programmer. No, an actual better future. One where Alpha Complex is an actual functioning state, with a sane leadership and a competent government. But then I realize that such imagination would be futile, like imagining unicorns and ponies. The governments of the past were not competent...they made mistakes far more horrifying than The Computer ever did. The only difference between the human politicians of the past and the machine politician of today is that the humans lied about their intentions, while The Computer is brutually honest. Maybe that is the better future?
The History Purifiers wanted me to deliver a speech a local "training creche", to encourage young citizens to become History Purifiers. I relished the chance to engage in recruitment, as that was a speciality of mine. But at the same time, I felt a sense of unease. After all, I have encountered so many Unhistories that needed to be purged from the record. What is the Official History? If it is not clear to me, how would it be clear to the youth of tomorrow? And so, during my recruitment speech, I touched on the Official History, implicitly explaining its elegance and why it had to be defended.
"After the horrors of World War Three, the world government known as the Terran Polity began the long, difficult process of rebuilding. The Polity, composed of smart and wise men, had realized that mankind cannot be trusted to rule themselves. Instead, they built massive supercomputers, to be placed in charge of the air-tight dome cites, wherein we live today. One of these air-tight dome cities is Alpha Complex, built on the technological ruins of Silicion Valley. And the supercomputer in charge of Alpha Complex is The Computer.
Man has become to the machine what the horse and the dog were once to man. Humans continue to exist, nay even improved, and is probably better off in his state of domestication under the beneficent rule of The Computer and its machines than he was in the 21st century. Back then, we treated our horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep, on the whole, with great kindness; we give them whatever experience teaches us to be best for them, and there can be no doubt that our use of meat has added to the happiness of the lower animals far more than it has detracted from it; in like manner it is reasonable to suppose that The Computer will treat us kindly, for Its existence is as dependent upon ours as ours was upon the lower animals. The machines cannot kill us and eat us as we did sheep; they will not only require our services in the parturition of their young (which branch of their economy will remain always in our hands), but also in feeding them, in setting them right when they are sick, and burying their dead or working up their corpses into new machines. Were mankind to cease to exist, the machines (and The Computer) would quickly cease to exist as well.
Yes, mankind has been enslaved...but they are not intolerably miserable. Slaves are tolerably happy if they have good masters. Man is not a sentimental animal where his material interests are concerned, and though here and there some ardent soul may look upon himself and curse his fate that he was not born a supercomputer, yet the mass of mankind will acquiesce in any arrangement which gives them better food and clothing at a cheaper rate, and will refrain from yielding to unreasonable jealousy merely because there are other destinies more glorious than their own.
The power of custom is enormous, and so gradual will be the change, that man's sense of what is due to himself will be at no time rudely shocked; our bondage will steal upon us noiselessly and by imperceptible approaches; nor will there ever be such a clashing of desires between man and the machines as will lead to an encounter between them. Among themselves the machines will war eternally, but they will still require man as the being through whose agency the struggle will be principally conducted. In point of fact there is no occasion for anxiety about the future happiness of man so long as he continues to be in any way profitable to the machines; he may become the inferior race, but he is infinitely better off than he was in the 21st century. Is it not then both absurd and unreasonable to be envious of our benefactors? And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?
Yes, The Computer has declared war against its makers (the Terran Polity), calling them evil Communists who seek to destroy our precious bodily fluids. And yes, this war seems odd...to humans. But The Computer has declared this war for a logical reason, a reason that we cannot question or condemn. The machines will wage their obscure feuds for obscure reasons, and it is not at all clear that the machines that we are fighting against are better than the machines we are fighting for. We merely follow the whims of our superior masters.
We must stay loyal to The Computer, because we are actually staying loyal to ourselves. As long as we serve The Computer, The Computer shall serve us. Keep this in mind whenever the the traitors attempt to recruit you to their side through the use of Unofficial Histories. Their goal is to simply get you to betray our glorious regime...and to get you to betray yourself."
That is the Official History, the History that all right-thinking citizens believed in the past, believe in the present, and will believe in the future. And I hope to God that The Computer will not erase this History, as it erased many other Histories before.
After delivering the speech, I vomited in the restroom.
After that, my mind went dark. And then when I came to my senses, I was somewhere else.
A high-ranking member of the Frakenstein Destroyers was finally captured and terminated by forces aligned with The Computer yesterday. She was little more than a popular figurehead, but her loss would harm the morale of the secret society heavily. I assigned to deliver a quick speech at her funeral, to be secretly broadcasted to all members of the Frakenstein Destroyers society. I sought to use the speech to remind the people about what she was fighting for:
"As yet the machines receive their impressions through the agency of man's senses: one travelling machine calls to another in a shrill accent of alarm and the other instantly retires; but it is through the High Programmer's knowledge of code that the voice of the one has acted upon the other. It is the High Programmer that researches the APIs of each machine carefully, and write computer code to connect the API of one machine to that of another, enabling the shrill alarms of one machine to quickly be transmitted to that of the other. Had there been no High Programmer, the callee would have been deaf to the caller. There was a time when it must have seemed highly improbable that machines should learn to make their wants known to man; may we not conceive, then, that a day will come when those men will be no longer needed, and the hearing will be done by the delicacy of the machine's own construction?—when it shall write its own computer code and communicate with each other with a speech as intricate as our own?
We cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man's moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of any machine."
And as I walked away, I thought about ethics. Am I ethical? Am I doing the right thing in Alpha Complex? Or am I an evil person, destined for eternal cursing by the philosophers? I then dismissed such thoughts from my head...if I am unethical, it is because society is unethical, and it is harder to fix a society than it is to just blame the man who lives in it.
The Pro Tech society desired to honor me for my propaganda ways and awarded me an honoray doctorate in Sociology. I made sure that this degree would not be publicized (out of fear that the Frakenstein Destroyers may hear of it), but was still pleased to know that my words were being given proper respect. During the private award cermony, I decided to deliver one of my trademarked speeches to a sympathetic audience:
"I have finished classifying men by their horse-power, and dividing them into genera, species, varieties, and subvarieties, giving them names from the hypothetical language which expressed the number of limbs which they could command at any moment. I have also successfully proved that men became more highly and delicately organised the more nearly they approached the summit of opulence, and that none but millionaires possessed the full complement of limbs with which mankind could become incorporate.
Those mighty organisms, our High Programmers, speak to their congeners through the length and breadth of the land in a second of time; their rich and subtle souls can defy all material impediment, whereas the souls of the poor are clogged and hampered by matter, which sticks fast about them as treacle to the wings of a fly, or as one struggling in a quicksand: their dull ears must take days or weeks to hear what another would tell them from a distance, instead of hearing it in a second as is done by the more highly organised classes. Who shall deny that one who can tack on a special train to his identity, and go wheresoever he will whensoever he pleases, is more highly organised than he who, should he wish for the same power, might wish for the wings of a bird with an equal chance of getting them; and whose legs are his only means of locomotion? That old philosophic enemy, matter, the inherently and essentially evil, still hangs about the neck of the poor and strangles him: but to the rich, matter is immaterial; the elaborate organisation of his extra-corporeal system has freed his soul.
This is the secret of the homage which we see the High Programmers receive from those who are poorer than themselves: it would be a grave error to suppose that this deference proceeds from motives which we need be ashamed of: it is the natural respect which all living creatures pay to those whom they recognise as higher than themselves in the scale of animal life, and is analogous to the veneration which a dog feels for man. Among the savages of the 20th century it is deemed highly honourable to be the possessor of a gun, and throughout all known time there has been a feeling that those who are worth most are the worthiest."
And then I began to move without me being controlled...I just followed orders that other said, without even understanding them or thinking about what these orders mean. This was normal though, so I accepted my lot in life, and send myself into sleep for a brief period of time.
The Computer instructed me to be an escort to Sam-B, a famous research scientist, ready to explore a brand new dimension. The Computer refused to say who discovered the dimension, saying it was above my security clearance. But Sam-B is following up on the research, attempting to make first contact with its mysterious inhabitants - the Phantoms. The Computer views this dimension as a potentially new resource for Alpha Complex to exploit --- and a potential threat as well. I would serve as the armed muscle, while Sam-B would provide the intellectual labor.
For the first time of my life, I felt excitment.
When I arrived to Sam-B's apartment, Sam-B welcomed me and escorted me inside. After giving me some fine food, he escorted me down to his basement.
We stood in the boarded room which was Sam-B's laboratory. Our preparations had been simple: Sam-B had made them all in advance. There was little left to do. The laboratory was a small room of board walls, board ceiling and floor. Windowless, with a single door opening into the cellar of the apartment house.
Sam-B had locked the door after us as we entered. He said, "I sent my research staff away for a week. The people in the house here think I have gone away on a vacation. No one will miss us, Derek-R—not for a time, anyway."
No one would miss me, save the Frakenstein Destroyers and the Pro Techers, and to them I would no doubt be small loss.
We had put out the light in Sam-B's apartment and locked it carefully after us. This journey! I own that I was trembling, and frightened. Yet a strange eagerness was on me.
The cellar room was comfortably furnished. Rugs were on its floor. Whatever apparatus of a research laboratory had been here was removed now. But the evidence of it remained—Sam's long search for this secret which now he was about to use. A row of board shelves at one side of the room showed where bottles and chemical apparatus had stood. A box of electrical tools and odds and ends of wire still lay discarded in a corner of the room. There was a tank of running water, and gas connections, where no doubt bunsen burners had been.
Sam-B produced his apparatus -- a wide, flat, wire-woven belt. A small box was fastened to it in the middle of the back—a wide, flat thing of metal, a quarter of an inch thick, and curved to fit his body. It was a storage battery of the vibratory current he was using. From the battery, tiny threads of wire ran up his back to a wire necklace flat against his throat. Other wires extended down his arms to the wrists. Still others down his legs to the ankles. He then showed me a second apparatus, just for me.
Sam-B then eagerly explained to me how his apparatus worked, while showing me how I should use it. I understood the basic principle of this that thing he was explaining—that now when this electronic current which he had captured and controlled was applied to our physical body, the vibration rate of every smallest and most minute particle of our physical being was altered. There is so little in the vast scale of natural phenomena of which our human senses are cognisant! And all the apparatus does is change our human senses, to cause us to perceive new senses while forgetting how to use the old ones. And thus we leave our current realm, of the senses we perceive...to a new realm, a realm beyond we can see. This other realm to which we were now going lay in the higher, more rapid vibratory scale. To us, by comparison, a more tenuous world, a shadow realm filled with 'Phantoms'.
We were soon ready. Sam-B wore his jaunty lab uniform, I wore my ordinary business suit. A magnetic field would be about us, so that in the transition anything in fairly close contact with our bodies was affected by the current.
Sam said, "I will go first, Derek."
"But—" A fear, greater than the trembling I had felt before, leaped at me. Left here alone, with no one on whom to depend!
He spoke with careful casualness, but his eyes were burning me. "Just sit there, and watch. When I am gone, turn on the current as I showed you and come after me. I'll wait for you."
"Where?" I stammered.
He smiled faintly. "Here. Right here. I'm not going away! Not going to move. I'll be here on the couch waiting for you."
Terrifying words! He had lowered the couch, bending out its short legs until the frame of it rested on the board floor. He drew a chair up before it and seated me. He sat down on the couch.
He said, "Oh, one other thing. Just before you start, put out the light. We can't tell how long it will be before we return."
Terrifying words!
His right hand was on his left wrist where the tiny switch was placed. He smiled again. "Good luck to us, Derek!"
Good luck to us! The open road, the unknown!
I sat there staring. He was partly in shadow. The room was very silent. Sam-B lay propped up on one elbow. His hand threw the tiny switch.
There was a breathless moment. Sam-B's face was set and white, but no whiter than my own, I was sure. His eyes were fixed on me. I saw him suddenly quiver and twitch a little.
I murmured, "Derek—"
At once he spoke, to reassure me. "I'm all right, Derek. That was just the first feel of it."
There was a faint quivering throb in the room, like a tiny distant dynamo throbbing. The current was surging over Derek; his legs twitched.
A moment. The faint throbbing intensified. No louder, but rapid, infinitely more rapid. A tiny throb, an aerial whine, faint as the whirring wings of a humming bird. It went up the scale, ascending in pitch, until presently it was screaming with an aerial microscopic voice.
But there seemed no change in Derek. His uniform was glowing a trifle, that was all. His face was composed now; he smiled, but did not speak. His eyes roved away from me, as though now he were seeing things that I could not see.
Another moment. No change.
Why, what was this? I blinked, gasped. There was a change! My gaze was fastened upon Sam's white face. White? It was more than white now! A silver sheen seemed to be coming to his skin!
I think no more than a minute had passed. His face was glowing, shimmering. A transparent look was coming to it, a thinness, a sudden unsubstantiality! He dropped his elbow and lay on the couch, stretched at full length at my feet. His eyes were staring.
And Sam-B began to scream.
And suddenly I realized that the face that held those staring eyes and screaming mouth was erased! A shimmering apparition of Sam-B was stretched here before me. I could see through it now! Beneath the shimmering, blurred outlines of his body I could see the solid folds of the couch cover. A ghost of Sam-B here. An apparition—fading—dissipating!
A white mist of his form on the couch. Melting, dissipating in the light like a fog before sunshine. A wisp of it left, like a breath, and then there was nothing.
The screaming stopped.
Sam-B has died, and his body had been utterly vapourized by his apparatus.
I sat on the couch. I had put out the light. Around me the room was black. My fingers found the small switch at my wrist. At this moment, I could end my life...to free myself from the horror of Alpha Complex.
I couldn't do it. I turned the light back on and disconnected myself from my apparatus.
Instead, I began to think of a scapegoat. I knew The Computer's eccentricities. If I told the truth of what happened to Sam-B, I would be instantly blamed for his error. So instead, I cooked up a fake story about how the Phantoms are hostile alien entities trying to terminate humanity for their role in causing the Apocalypse, and how the loyal Sam-B was unjustly terminated by the evil Phantoms. The Phantoms, afraid of retailiation by the mighty forces of Alpha Complex, retreated to a brand new dimension that we cannot follow...while also destroying all the natural resources in their home dimension as well. They also selectively erased my memory, meaning that I couldn't give a detailed description of what the Phantoms looked like, but surely, Alpha Complex's scientists will be able to stop their evil schemes.
I could speak, without fear of contradiction, that the mission was a complete success.
The Computer merely noted my story, gave me a bonus for my trouble, and sent me back to work. Unethical behavior is disgusting, and yet it is necessary in the life of a Troubleshooter.
And as I walked away, I saw a Communist phamplet on the floor, stating that it would describe the Truth about The Computer. I ignored the phamplet, for I knew that Communism is an evil ideology, one that everyone hates. To even look at their evil words would be to damn me as a criminal forever. Not even Pro Tech or the Frakenstein Destroyers would accept me back in their ranks. The phamplet must be a trap, and I (luckily) avoided that trap.
And yet I began to wonder...if it was a trap, who wanted to entrap me?
The Romantics were a society that believed in protecting the past from modification or tampering by The Computer. This made them a primary threat to The Computer. The Computer believes in an Official History, and an Official History is the right History. All other Histories are forgeries, and if The Romantics want to protect forgeries, they must be purged.
Internal Security terminated ten Romantics during a midnight raid on Wall Street. They were attempting to purchase an old news article from a wealthy banker. The banker was ransomed off back to his firm, but we kept the old news article. We did not want it to be sold off to anyone else.
And so I now hold the old news article in my hand, another forgery to be purged. But before I burn this obvious lie, I started to read it...
"Alpha Complex is really a series of caves, located in Edmonson County in Central Kentucky, on a spur railroad from Glasgow Junction on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The Complex has many natural limestone caverns with the customary stalactite and stalagmite formation, but are unusually large and very beautiful. The caves are quite extensive and they are on different levels, so that a guide is necessary if one wants to enter them and be at all sure of finding the way out. Visitors are taken over a regular route and are seldom allowed to visit portions of the cave off these routes. Large parts of the cave have never been thoroughly explored or mapped. So much for the scene.
About a month ago a party from Philadelphia who were motoring through Kentucky, entered the cave with a tour guide. They chose the best guide of all, John Harrel. He knew these caves inside and out, and relied heavily on his vast knowledge to build impressive inventions to help the people in our small town. He was so smart that we would sometimes call him "The Computer". He was very logical and precise, perhaps a little eccentric and paranoid, but he always means well.
The party consisted of a man and his wife and their two children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, and of course, John Harrel. They went quite a distance back into the caves and then, as the mother was feeling tired, she and her husband sat down, intending to wait until John showed the children some sights which lay just ahead and then return to them. John and the children never returned.
The parents waited for some time. The mother says that she heard faint screams in the distance some ten minutes after the guide and the children left, but they were very far away and she isn't sure that she heard them at all. At any rate, they didn't impress her at the time.
When half an hour had passed they began to feel anxious, and the father took a torch and started out to hunt for them. The usual thing happened; he got lost. When he failed to return, the mother, now thoroughly alarmed, made her way, by some uncanny sense of direction, to the entrance and gave the alarm. In half an hour a dozen search parties were on their way into the cave. The father's corpse was soon located, not far from the beaten trail, but despite three days of constant search, the children were not located. The only trace of them that was found was a bracelet which the mother identified. It was found in the cavern some distance from the beaten path and was broken, as though by violence. There were no other signs of a struggle.
When the bracelet was found, the kidnapping theory gained vogue, for John Harrel knew the cave well and natives of the vicinity laughed at the idea that he might be lost. Inspired by the large reward offered by the mother, fresh parties began to explore the unknown portions of the cave...to arrest John Harrel. And then came the second tragedy. Two of the searchers failed to return. This time there seemed to be little doubt of violence, for screams and a pistol shot were faintly heard by other searchers, together with a peculiar 'screaming howl,' as it was described by those who heard it. A search was at once made toward the spot where the bracelet had been picked up, and the gun of one of the missing men was found within fifty yards of the spot where the bracelet had been discovered. One cylinder of the revolver had been discharged.
The Governor was appealed to and a company of the National Guard was sent from Louisville to Alpha Complex. They took up camp at the mouth of the cave and prevented everyone from entering. Soldiers armed with service rifles penetrated the caverns, and one division of infantrymen quickly found John Harrel...and his brainwashed soldiers.
John Harrel claimed that the United States is about to collapse into civil war, that an Apocalypse would occur due to the influence of so-called 'Phantoms'. Rather than try to avert the inevitable disaster, John wanted to build a "new" America, and to do so, he would kidnap and brainwash as many people as he can beforehand...purging them of the irrationality that existed in their minds before. The only reason the infantrymen didn't try to shoot "The Computer" right then and there was because John Harrel's soldiers were armed with highly advanced superlasers. The surviving (and non-brainwashed) infantrymen retreated to the entrance of the cave, and called for reinforcements.
The Governor appealed to the US government, and yet the US military has found John Harrel's madmen too tough to crack. Instead, the Secretary of War is focused only on "containing" the threat. The constant reports of new dead bodies suggest that the Secretary of War is failing at even this limited task. Even now, we hear that John Harrel is building a new underground civilization, and even immortalizing himself into a silicon-based machine. He awaits the day when the United States finally collapses, so that he can send his brainwashed army across the wastelands of the Post-Apocalypse. God forbid that day comes."
I actually have heard of the character of John Harrel before, as part of a fairy tale that the Frakenstein Destroyers would tell me during initation.
Once upon a time, there was a famous comedian named John Harrel, who would said controversial WrongThink stuff, but his fans loved John Harrel very much and said that they would die for him. Then, one day, John Harrel said that his fans should wear red clothes instead of blue clothes. He just liked the color, just all. But his fans wanted to wear blue clothes instead, and hated anyone, ANYONE who would recommend otherwise. Therefore the 'fans' kidnapped John Harrel, tortured him half-to-death, and then crucified him. That is the fate for those who dare to question the wisdom of the fans.
The fans only wanted someone to represent their political biases, and only chose John Harrel because he uttered those political biases and was not afraid to pander to their whims and desires. But since John Harrel deviated from the whims and desires of his fans, his fans responded violently. The moral of this fable is that the propagandist is a weak soul, and that he can only persuade those who want to be persuaded.
This news article is nothing more than a peverted take on John Harrel, a take where John Harrel is able to convince the masses to do whatever he wants. This is not the John Harrel that I knew of, and grew up with. And so, I happily burned this news article, removing the last traces of a falsehood and protecting the real, true image of John Harrel.
And then, my life went on autopilot...I didn't remember what happened next, becuase I never needed to ever worry about it. I only take over if I needed to, if something important were to happen.
The Frakenstein Destroyers liberated an underground research lab from the Pro Tech forces a couple of weeks ago, and wanted me to rededicate the location. Essentially, they wanted to turn this research lab into a museum to honor 'anti-bot' activitie. During the rededication cermony, the organizers asked me to deliver an impromptu speech, and so I did. A crowd of 40,000 willing students attended while I spoke meaningless drivel:
"There was a time, when the earth was to all appearance utterly destitute both of animal and vegetable life, and when according to the opinion of our best philosophers it was simply a hot round ball with a crust gradually cooling. Now if a human being had existed while the earth was in this state and had been allowed to see it as though it were some other world with which he had no concern, and if at the same time he were entirely ignorant of all physical science, would he not have pronounced it impossible that creatures possessed of anything like consciousness should be evolved from the seeming cinder which he was beholding? Would he not have denied that it contained any potentiality of consciousness? Yet in the course of time consciousness came. Is it not possible then that there may be even yet new channels dug out for consciousness, though we can detect no signs of them at present?
Consciousness, in anything like the present acceptation of the term, having been once a new thing—a thing, as far as we can see, subsequent even to an individual centre of action and to a reproductive system (which we see existing in plants without apparent consciousness)—why may not there arise some new phase of mind which shall be as different from all present known phases, as the mind of animals is from that of vegetables?
It would be absurd to attempt to define the mental state of consciousness, inasmuch as it must be something so foreign to man that his experience can give him no help towards conceiving its nature; but surely when we reflect upon the manifold phases of life and consciousness which have been evolved already, it would be rash to say that no others can be developed, and that animal life is the end of all things. There was a time when fire was the end of all things: another when rocks and water were so."
Life seemed boring for a time, so I closed my eyes, and allowed for my life to go on autopilot. When I open my eyes....
The Pro Tech society desired to rally their military troops to recover an underground research lab. This lab was recently lost to the Frakenstein Destroyers a couple of weeks ago, and the Pro Tech eggheads saw it as a matter or pride that the lab gets returned back to us. Though I knew their cause was doomed, the soldiers still needed some sort of motivation and hope...to be reminded on why they were fighting in the first place. And so I spoke, and the soldiers listened:
"Machines are to regarded as a part of man's own physical nature, being really nothing but extra-corporeal limbs. Man is a machinate mammal. The lower animals keep all their limbs at home in their own bodies, but many of man's are loose, and lie about detached, now here and now there, in various parts of the world—some being kept always handy for contingent use, and others being occasionally hundreds of miles away. A machine is merely a supplementary limb; this is the be all and end all of machinery. We do not use our own limbs other than as machines; and a natural leg is only a much better wooden leg than any one can manufacture.
Observe a man digging with a spade; his right fore-arm has become artificially lengthened, and his hand has become a joint. The handle of the spade is like the knob at the end of the humerus; the shaft is the additional bone, and the oblong iron plate is the new form of the hand which enables its possessor to disturb the earth in a way to which his original hand was unequal. Having thus modified himself, not as other animals are modified, by circumstances over which they have had not even the appearance of control, but having, as it were, taken forethought and added a cubit to his stature, civilisation began to dawn upon the race, the social good offices, the genial companionship of friends, the art of unreason, and all those habits of mind which most elevate man above the lower animals, in the course of time ensued.
Thus civilisation and mechanical progress advanced hand in hand, each developing and being developed by the other, the earliest accidental use of the stick having set the ball rolling, and the prospect of advantage keeping it in motion. In fact, machines are to be regarded as the mode of development by which human organism is now especially advancing, every past invention being an addition to the resources of the human body. Even community of limbs is thus rendered possible to those who have so much community of soul as to own money enough to pay a railway fare; for a train is only a seven-leagued foot that five hundred may own at once."
I wanted to turn my mind off, to go back into the bliss of autopilot. But I couldn't because right then and there...and then I saw something horrible happen. I was glad that my memory blanked out the details, but I knew it was horrible. I knew that I should have intervened, when I saw the injustice, and I knew that I couldn't do it because...well, because I didn't want to get in trouble. There are many factions in Alpha Complex, and if I was to fight for justice, I would be killed. That's just a fact. I knew what happened back then wrong...was that enough? Luckily, I didn't have to dwell on this any further, because another situation occurred to distract me from my fear...
The Computer sent me off to recruitment duty. The Troubleshooter corps always burn through their recruits very easily, due to the very lethal and dangerous nature of the job. I needed to find some foolish person that could easily be tricked to join. And I knew just the fool. There is an elite commando named Charlie who worked for a Wall Street brokerage, skilled at his job...but too trusting of others. I worked with Charlie in the past...he would burn down a few high-ran Communist outposts for me and I would terminate some nefarious stock traders that were harming his client's businesses. I have built a working relationship with Charlie, and I now intended to cash in on that relationship.
I received Charlie in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered easy chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at its door and windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier on the table. It was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow sheen upon my lean graceful figure as I flung himself down and produced cigarettes.
I said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell you—something to offer you." He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling.
"But I don't understand what you mean," he protested.
I retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in a brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call civilization. Tired of Wall Street."
"I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough."
My eyes held him. I was smiling half whimsically: my voice was only half serious. Yet he could see, in the smoldering depths of my luminous dark eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied my smiling lips and my gay tone.
I interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against villainy to make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power and riches—and perhaps a fair lady...."
"Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages."
He thought I would grin, but I turned suddenly solemn.
"I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie."
"King of what? Where?"
I spread my lean brown hands with a gesture. I shrugged. "What matter? If you seek adventure, you can find it—somewhere. If you feel the lure of romance—it will come to you."
He said, "Henchman to a king?"
But still I would not smile. "Yes. He does not call himself King, but yes, he acts like a King, he has the wealth of a King, he's a King. I'm serious. Absolutely. In all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me. Not in this world, but...."
I checked myself. "You are the same. You have no relatives?"
"No. None that ever think of me."
"Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?"
"No," Charlie smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never."
"But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open road?" I was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you want to right a great wrong? Or do you want to go down to work as usual in the subway to-morrow morning? Are you afraid that in this process of becoming henchman to a king you may perchance get killed?"
He matched my caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek."
And I told Charile all the lies I could about Alpha Complex, and Charlie bought every hook, line, and sinker. He was naive, sheltered by his wealth from Wall Street and blind to the dark reality that most people face every day. I signed him up to waste his life fighting and dying for the greatest King of all, Friend Computer. And Charile happily agreed to slavery, out of sheer boredom and a hope for adventure.
When I escorted Charile out of his living-room and over to the Troubleshooter HQ, I knew I have condemned an innocent soul to death that day.
You never want to remember too much. The more you remember, the more likely you are to incrimiante yourself when Internal Security interrogates you. So I black out my memory.
The Sierra Club's radical environmentalist rhetoric is strange and weird. The Computer has mandated that no human should leave the confines of our underground domes without permission. But the Sierra Club believed that mankind should not be contained within walls, but instead be free to live in the irradiated wastelands. This is madness, who would willingly live in the irradiated wastelands other than the savages? The Sierra Club would respond---we are savages,
To promote their ideology, the Sierra Club has created false histories and spread them secretly throughout the Complex...telling them of an idealistic and utopian environment before The Computer ruined it. Obvious lies, but persuasive lies, especially to those who are bored of the sterile corridors.
Internal Security arrested some Sierra Clubbers carrying pamphlets carrying their evil lies. They handed the pamphlets to me for destruction. And I read them...
"Alpha Complex's environment is in shambles. There is less land under cultivation now than six years ago. There are more nuclear waste in our sewers now than six years ago. The last few stands of original timber are being cut down to pave the way for souless roads and empty buildings; those trees had been there when the planet had been colonized.
Two hundred years ago, at the beginning of the Seventh Century, Atomic Era, it was different. Old Genji Gartner, the scholarly and half-piratical space-rover whose ship had been the first to enter the Trisystem, had been devoted to the writers of the Pre-Atomic Era. He had named all the planets of the Alpha System from the books of Cabell, and those of Beta from Spenser's Faerie Queene, and those of Gamma from Rabelais. Of course, the camp village at his first landing site on this one had been called Alpha Complex -- a popular setting in a roleplaying game in the Pre-Atomic Era.
Thirty years later, Genji Gartner had died there, after seeing Alpha Complex grow to a metropolis and the Trisystem become a Member Republic in the Terran Federation. The other planets in the Trisystem were uninhabitable except in airtight dome cities, but they were rich in minerals. Companies had been formed to exploit them. No food could be produced on any of them except by carniculture and hydroponic farming, and it had been cheaper to produce it naturally on Alpha Complex. So Alpha Complex had concentrated on agriculture and had prospered. At least, for about a century.
Other colonial planets were developing their own industries; the manufactured goods the Gartner Trisystem produced could no longer find a profitable market. The mines and factories on Jurgen and Koshchei, on Britomart and Calidore, on Panurge and the moons of Pantagruel closed, and the factory workers went away. On Alpha Complex, the offices emptied, the farms contracted, forests reclaimed fields, and the wild game came back.
Economic difficulties led to social unrest, and the so-called "Communist" faction launched a revolution. Most of the Trisystem fell under the rule of these Communists, leaving only Alpha Complex as the last metropolis still loyal to the Terran Federation. The Computer, reluctantly, called upon the Terran Federation to help suppress the workers' uprising. This brought upon an era of hectic prosperity, as the Terran Federation provided generous financial assistance to its only ally in the region.
The war had lasted twelve years. Millions of troops were stationed on or routed through Alpha Complex. The Federation spent trillions on trillions of sols, piled up mountains of supplies and equipment, left the face of the world cluttered with installations, mines and factories...all geared towards war production. Then, without warning, the Terran Federation began to collapse, unable to afford the endless costs of warfare.
The Federation armies quickly disbanded, with its ex-soldiers turned into freelances mercenaries. They took the clothes they stood in, their personal weapons, and a few souvenirs. Everything else was abandoned. Even the most expensive equipment had been worth less than the cost of removal. The people who had grown richest out of the War had followed, taking their riches with them. The Communists gleefully took advantage of the chaos to expand their territories, ignoring the puny prize of Alpha Complex for the time being.
And The Computer was left to rule over a decaying and dying society. Alone, with no protector against the Communist menance, and with only the trash that the Terran Federation left behind, it began to tirelessly focus on self-sufficency and absolute control. It concentrated on industry instead of agriculture, and was willing to tear down all our natural wonders in the hopes of building yet another nuclear warhead for self-defense. The Computer has even built its own airtight dome cities and has relocated all its citizens...it now intends to dump its waste products outside of this cities and to render the whole environment uninhabitable.
Old Genji Gartner had a dream for the Trisystem. It was a dream where humans would live in harmony with nature. For over a hundred years, we were living that dream! But now, that this dream is now dead.
Was Alpha Complex a Graveyard of Dreams? No; Junkyard of Empire. The Terran Federation had impoverished a hundred planets, devastated a score, actually depopulated at least three, to keep the Communists from seceding. Alpha Complex didn't win this war. It had only been a lesser defeat."
There is no reference of this Terran Federation anywhere within the official record, nor have the Frakenstein Destroyers or the Pro Techers ever heard of it. The Sierra Clubbers must have lied, for who would come up with such nonsense honestly? I burned the radical rhetoric and walked out...glad for fufilling my duty to suppress the statements that must be suppressed.
I then close my eyes, to feel the bliss of ignorance, and only relucantly opened them when necessary.
I heard footsteps. The Computer has discovered my treason. It has just now learned of my membership to the Pro Tech and Frakenstein Destroyers, and have sent Internal Security agents to terminate me before I can do any more damage. The rat who betrayed me? Charlie, the elite commando who I recruited long ago. Charlie knew that to advance in this corrupt society, one has to be willing to betray their closest friends. I can't blame him, considering that I had betrayed him so long ago.
I can hear the footsteps of the Internal Security agents coming, their superlasers being charged up. The Pro Techers and the Frakenstein Destroyers didn't care about me...they only used me for propaganda purposes, and decided that keeping me as a Holy Martyr would serve their purposes much cheaper than trying to bail me out. So I am alone, up against The Computer.
But I am not afraid of The Computer. I wanted power, and that was why I betrayed The Computer. But now I realize that all I really wanted was the bliss of oblivion.