"Stark, sombre tragedy. The poignant tale of a noble man, corrupted by the idle whim of fate, enticed down the primrose path of pathos to ignominy and death." I paused to take a breath, and was rudely interrupted.
"Look, that's awful. And misleading, as well. Noble? Humbug! I'm supposed to be the writer; all you have to do is give me a vague idea of the plot as you see it, and maybe a few character insights. OK?" He did look annoyed; they'd gotten quite good at putting expression into robots. But I didn't care; I don't die every day, you know.
"Tough; there are loads of writers who would love to do my autobiography. After all, I am the last reasoning human being." In point of fact, I knew that any one of the bunch would massacre my life. But I figured if I wanted to make up a lot of literary garbage, it was only courteous to give me the time. Last request, and that sort of thing. He sighed. I knew he was thinking; next time he'd bring erasable tape, and posterity be damned. I decided to show him.
"It was the middle of the night, with the sun directly overhead; the sort of time that you'd expect walruses to salivate, eggmen to fry, and earth-shattering decisions to be put off until a more civilised hour. I was slaving over a hot computer, an important deadline just hours away, the fate of civilization as we know it at stake. Little could I have guessed that my vital computations were about to be disrupted by the intricate machinations conceived within the headquarters of G.H.O.S.T., the conspiracy that secretly ruled the world. This is the story of how, by the most extraordinary of coincidences, I influenced the decision that, thirty years later, led to the policy that ensured the mathematical supremacy of the New Incan Empire; which, in turn, brought about the Seventh Caucasian Backlash, and the ensuing Years of Chaos; followed by the triumphant Golden Synthesis, which necessitated intergalactic intervention on the part of the Gods of Disorder; requiring the direct participation of the Forces of Good; which induced the muddled confusion we have today. But for a complete understanding of the significance of our past, we must place these events in the correct socio-historic perspective." Actually, I was beginning to feel a bit guilty about this paragraph, especially when I saw how queasy he was looking.
"Please," he said, visibly trying to be reasonable, "we both know that the public only cares two hoots about you because you're sane and you're the first case of treason in the past century. Do you actually have a message to convey? Or are you trying to convince them all that you're crazy? If so, I'm not wasting my time."
I tried to look repentant, and suggested the compromise I had been angling for. "Okay, then. But don't blame me if it's dull. Can I at least specify the structure of the thing? I want to divide it into four crises, each with a different title. Please?"
"If you must."
"Fine, The first, I call Crisis of Body."
They came in at 3 a.m. You could hear them coming from a mile off; sound carries in an empty building. I'd just fixed the last bug in my program for the fifth time, and was recompiling it. I glanced up at them. They had guns. They were pointing them at me. I was rather startled.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
Their expressions didn't change; their guns didn't waver. The man was over six foot, and thin as a rail; you'd think he must have done time on a crucifix in a cornfield. He was about forty; shoulder-length black hair framed a stark, cubist face, creased by sun and pain. Bleak eyes reflected black emptiness. The other one, the woman, was a Dutch china doll. She was short, and beautiful in a super-frozen, hyper-elegant kind of way. You could imagine getting up for her if you were a necrophiliac who liked them straight from the morgue. Maybe. Her eyes were the pale blue of liquid oxygen.
The china doll told me: "We're blowing up the building. We don't want to hurt anyone, its bad publicity, so we're bringing you out. Fast." Her voice was as cold as her eyes; you could tell that she would prefer I stayed where I was; or even better, went to sit it out with the bomb. I did not feel encouraged about the possibility of inducing a rational discussion of potentially viable alternatives.
"Okay; can I get a fresh listing first? It won't take long, promise." I started to get up to go towards the line printer.
(I took advantage of their momentary confusion to slide smoothly from my seat and throw the chair at them, then follow the chair and kick the scarecrow in the crotch, while ducking to avoid the bullet fired at me; I whirled and brought the edge of my hand against the throat of the china doll just as she pulled the trigger, shooting me in the stomach... actually, I thought better of the idea.)
"Move it." I remembered there were no computer speech units units in the room; I immediately deduced that this must have been the scarecrow. He seemed quite determined. I sighed, thinking rude thoughts about philistines, and started picking up all my listings and stuff; my race car program was doomed not to be perfected. (Oh, sorry; I was supposed to be working hard. Well, don't tell them that.)
He waved his gun. "Git." Actually I was amazed at his patience. Perhaps he was being polite, trying to impress his girlfriend. If she was. (I took her in my arms, and kissed her passionately; her icy exterior melted, she sobbed at the fate that had forced her to take up a life of terrorism, that only allowed us to meet on Fridays from 3:15 to 3:45. Those few brief moments of stolen happiness, in which we had to cram all the love and tenderness of a lifetime, meant more than my salary to me... Hold it; let's not get ridiculous. I don't even know the woman, and she probably wouldn't appreciate me anyway.) Just then, she took careful aim, and fired a bullet between my knees. I noticed that she was raising the gun. I tried to memorize her face, for revenge, as I moved quickly towards the door.
When we all got outside, I found Elaine already there, with the machine operators, under the watchful eyes of a couple more of The Gang. One of them called over; "Is that it, Jake?" He answered: "Yeah, ready?"
"No problem; we were waiting for you. Is everyone ready?" No answer. "Okay, then; five, four, three, two, one..." and he pressed a button in a control box in his hand.
Sic transit gloria machina. There was a fairly loud bang, the glass round the entrance shattered, and an alarm went off somewhere. We tried not to think of the damage to the computer in the building; at least, I tried not to visualize the twisted pretzel logic, the randomized memory, the freshly distributed processors, all of that gruesome, wanton destruction of life - I mean property - anyway, it was awful. On the other hand, I could now go home to sleep; I wondered if Elaine felt like coming home with me.
Then one of the gunmen waved at us, and said, "You are all coming with us." He indicated a VW van parked nearby. "Get in." I had the feeling it was going to be a long, lonely night.
I returned my attention to my tape-recording friend. "How am I doing?"
He seemed a bit happier. "Not too bad; with a bit of rewriting, we could get an interesting couple of pages out of that. Of course, we need more sex and violence. And we have to tie it in to the Sigma tapes."
"Well, that's easy. I did all my modelling on that machine, and when they blew it up, my backups and everything vanished. I mean, my thesis lost about two years of research right then."
"Were any Sigma tapes blown up, then?"
"No. They had such ridiculous restrictions, the tapes were in a bank vault in New York. I only managed to hear them about five times in three years. Before the Prohibition, that is."
"What were the original Sigma tapes like?"
"Well, of course, it depended on the translation. The pure pleasure touch ones were fun, but dull after a while. The audio ones were kind of like ultra-rock, but more sophisticated. The visual ones were dull. It was the mixtures that really took off; those and the more specific touch ones. But all that was in my official report."
"Yes, but remember, I can't feel the broadcast, and I want subjective impressions."
"I feel sorry for you robots, in a way; it's really nice, for a while. It's only after a few weeks that you wish you could wake up; but by then it's too late, of course."
"Hmmm." He was making some cryptic notes, so I figured it was time to continue.
"The next episode is one I'd like to title Crisis of Mind."
He muttered "Pretentious bastard," but I took no notice.
They (our abductors) released us from the VW on a deserted stretch of road about five miles out of town. Just before we got out, they forced us each to take a pill, but there wasn't any obvious effect, so we didn't waste any time worrying about it. We walked back to town (it was starting to get light), and then we all split up to go home. I got undressed, and remembered I had to set my alarm for 8, because there was this stupid meeting I had to go to at 9. My watch said 8:30. I had a glass of milk and a Mars bar, got into my suit, and moved.
It's strange remembering it now - wondering why I didn't go to the police, get myself checked by a doctor, anything. All I can think is the drug had already begun to affect me. The cops told me later that using a drug like that was a standard technique - giving the kidnappers time to get away. Seems it worked, anyway - not only were they never caught, the cops never even found out why they wanted to blow us up. Maybe it was an industrial job. Or maybe they just wanted to make a protest against Authority without giving names.
The meeting was in the main lecture hall; they had the stage all lit up, with a few desks for interviewees. The front rows were for the committee, and the rest was for news people and interested spectators, I guess. The place was almost empty. So I went up to the front left to say hi to Pete, and to ask what was supposed to happen. He waved. "Hey, I didn't think you were going to wake up in time."
I apologised: "Sorry, I was kidnapped, and they just let me out. What do I have to do?"
He laughed.
"You should be fairly late on; I'm afraid you're a pretty minor kind of witness. When I call your name, just go up and answer their questions. Wish me luck; I have to start this thing off." Just then, someone called the place to order, and we all sat down and prepared for a wasted day.
I was starting to feel kind of dizzy; I wasn't sure if it was the pill I'd taken, or just the lack of sleep. I was glad I wasn't the first one up on the stage, anyway; at least I had some time to recover.
Some official or other stood up and begun droning; the purpose of this official inquiry was to ascertain whether or not the Sigma tapes should be banned from the earth as a pernicious influence, an attempt by the aliens to subvert and destroy the youth of our fair world; or, whether the good that they do (oft lies interred with their bones), and the significant advances in biomathematics justified the extremely careful measures taken to prevent the (escapes of) the tapes (or the rapes of the napes) by the hooligans and subverters of justice in (the arena). The tapes were all carefully locked away where no (slings and arrows) could reach (sleeping, sleeping, having abandoned all hope, where is thy sting I love thee still fair Elaine...). After all, in a controlled (paternalistic) society, where the expert (reigns okay), and know (not wisely but too well whither the will o' the good wanders), who can take it upon themselves to claim that machines can compete with - yea (nay, e'en replace i'the heart) - the rational(istic), considered judgements (heaped upon) ourselves? When (spring has sprung upon us, and thoughts turn to Elaine, of the beautiful lips, that I long to kiss past the witching hour, till it be morrow, how can I not love thee)? Then Pete (cold-hearted orb alight) describes the possibilities inherent in a new understanding of the kinds of networks within the brain, how machines with such networks could become (mighty before ye, yea, until even they could love fair Elaine. Oh, would that we need never part; but you have gone, in your own inimitable way, and nought can take your place. Others may try, but what boots it? None can compare with the asparagus in your navel, your pearly white elbow, the tentacle you whip so lovingly cross my longing forehead... Oh, it drives me wild!) And Pete leaves the platform (why isn't he flying?), and someone calls (the valiant) George, who's into mathematical models using lattices, categories (peanuts, raisins, and (dare we say it) chocolate bunny rabbits? Imagine, if you will, the tempestuous scene of a room full of madly copulating, sticky, chocolate hares; do they have genetic material to exchange at all? Not like Elaine.)
Pete sat down next to me, and whispered: "You look worse that I do, and I was the one up there. What's up?"
I tried to answer: "Was drugged by chocolate asparagus leaves; not sure I can keep track of the objective interactions if they keep shooting those poor moose chips around."
Unfortunately, I had spoken rather louder than I had intended; at least, people were looking at me. But I tried to shut up and ignore the dancing nymphettes, even if they did pout very well.
George looked unhappy; were they being nasty to my friend George? Well, I'll tell them a thing or two when it's my turn, that's for sure! After all, since when has a sociological problem been repressed away? If people are unhappy enough to use Sigma tapes to excess, they'll shoot up or trip to excess, and the world is no better off. Sure it's a lot of fun; but I can be just as morally self-righteous as the next pedagogue, and I can think louder too! SO THERE!
Whoops; people are looking again. Come on, guy; think small. George is leaving; where has the time gone? Oh-oh; that's me. Will I make a fool of myself? Will I destroy Man's only chance to make friends with an alien species? Can I stop myself from destroying the world? Full steam ahead, damn the mosquitos, and remember the cabbages! At least I can give them the pieces of my mind!
Where are these people taking me?
My autobiographer nodded. "Yes, I read the transcript of that inquiry. Several congressmen were quite upset by your outburst. In fact, you, more than any single individual, were probably the cause of the Prohibition."
"I know, I know. But dammit, I was drugged. The blood analysis showed that."
He waved it away. "Anyway," he continued, "you've set the stage for a tremendous internal conflict. What are you going to call your next `Crisis'? Dare I ask? Will it be the Crisis of Elaine?" Sarcastic bugger.
I grinned, but not too much. "Well, I figured a bit of filler is needed, to recover from the sheer intensity of that last section. So I was going to go on to my Crisis of Law."
I'd been moping around for a few weeks, not doing an awful lot. My research was shot (or, more literally, blown up); I wouldn't be able to duplicate it without access to the Sigma tapes, and the Prohibition was coming very soon; we all knew that. What the hell was I going to do with my life? So I was at home, being productive and reading a science fiction comic book, when the doorbell rang.
I answered the door, and saw a well-dressed, business-type woman in her early thirties; the sort you would expect to sell insurance or something. I didn't really know how to deal with such an aberration, so I invited her in and tried not to look inquisitive. For some irrational reason, I expected her to want to come right to the point; these people who look as though they value every precious second often do (in my very limited experience). I therefore offered her coffee, and went into the kitchen to make it. When I got back, she began.
"I suppose you're wondering why I'm here." she said. "I represent an organisation that is interested in pursuing research into the field you have been studying."
"Yes?" I responded calmly. No, it can't be true. A job offer? An unsolicited job offer? For me?
"As we both know, it seems unlikely that your source materials will be available for much longer." God, yes. Reminders like that I didn't need.
"Our group," she continued, "has managed to obtain copies of some of these electroencephalic recordings, and would be interested to know if you would be inclined to continue your progress with us."
I wondered who they were. It could be a branch of the government, it might be some large company, it might be the Mafia; I would probably never know. It would look like a small research company, owned by stockholders. It would be illegal. Did I care? Not that it was evil, but. Was the risk acceptable? "I hate to seem crass, but do you have any idea what sort of salary I would receive?"
She named a range; it was about what I could expect to earn after a couple of years in the real world, in a related field; not bad, not worth a hell of a lot of risk. But I really did want to make a contribution to the knowledge of the world; I'm an incurable idealist at heart. Or maybe I didn't want to admit that my last few years were a complete waste. "I'll think it over; when do you want to know by?"
I figured I should consult with Elaine, since I had some kind of duty to her. Which suddenly made me realise, "Oh yes, where is this organisation of yours based? Will I be working in this area? Or is it somewhere else?"
The woman had been about to answer my first question; she took scarcely a moment to recover. "We would like to know your decision within the next month. You should contact Barlow Associates, where you will be working; it's on the outskirts of the city, on the north side. Do you know it?"
I didn't; but I took a card. "Will there be an interview, and all the usual sort of thing? If so, where do I show up and when?"
"Barlow Associates can answer all your question better than I," she responded. "If you direct your inquiries there, I am sure they'll be glad to help you." She was being cagey; on the other hand, this was an illegal operation. I suddenly realised that, had I thought of trying to inform on these people, and curry favor with some kind of authorities, this would have been exactly the line I would have taken. On the other hand, what could I say? So I thanked her, and after a polite goodbye, she left. I foresaw long arguments with Elaine; she had a Neo-Hippy thing about the responsibility of scientists to the populace, and for all we knew I was going to work for her dreaded Defence Department. But it was a chance to do some interesting work.
"As you know, I took the job."
My confidant smiled grimly. "And you had no idea who you were working for."
I conceded the point. "But, how many people actually did know who paid for their research? What with companies owning companies owning branches of the government owning other companies, my theory is that the Social Services Department really ruled the world." Aha; that shook him.
"Why not Defence? I thought it was supposed to be a military-industrial complex."
"God, you haven't done a good job of figuring out our society. Have you looked at their budgets? The only reason Defense was so big was because it employed so many for so much to do so little. But don't feel bad; most people didn't know either. In fact, I'm not actually sure; I can only speculate on eternal mysteries. Anyway, I figured that my research would eventually be paid for by the government, and given to the government, so what did I care? But now we get to the major incident, called Crisis of Conscience."
Sharon looked up as I came into the office. "Hi, how are you?" Then she saw I was wide awake and alert. "Are you all right? Did you have another fight with Elaine?" I nodded, but I didn't really care. Elaine and I had been arguing more and more recently, and we were both pretty reconciled to giving it up. A shame, but we knew each other fairly well, and had stopped making excessive allowances. It happens to everyone. So I said it was all okay, and we'd agreed to call it a draw. I wondered if Sharon was attached to her full capacity; but figured later would be a better time to find out.
I was going up the stairs to my cubicle when I heard a familiar voice in my head: "Grief for your parting."
"Oh, thanks, M#wara, but it's over with, I guess."
He didn't pursue the matter; that's the good thing about the A#a$. Or maybe it's being a telepath that does it. I wouldn't know. But it makes them very careful when dealing with the rest of us; they have a great sense of our fragility, just as we do of theirs. It all balances. But I had the feeling that M#wara still had something to say; I was slowly beginning to recognise the mental sound of patient waiting.
"I regret to tell you, as I must tell everyone here, that the company will be disbanding in five months time. You must conclude your research by then, or that part of it that you are able to. I wish you the best. Grief for our parting."
"Hold it a second," the autobiographer interrupted. "Then, at that point, you knew that you were doing research for the A#a$?"
"Oh, yes. I'd met M#wara within a week of starting my job; he'd explained that they frequently subcontracted to other races. It seemed very reasonable; we were better at network logic than they were, and besides the Sigma tapes didn't have the same effect on them. So I figured the government knew about it, and didn't mind, or it didn't, in which case it didn't matter and I was just pursuing knowledge. I didn't know what they were up to. But back to the story. M#wara had just told me that their grant had been terminated, and I believed him."
Now, that was a shock. I suppose it shouldn't be; other races have governments too, and what seems more foolish to a penny-pinching bureaucrat than to run a research station on another planet where all the staff are native? Especially where the product is simply a piece of knowledge that he can't understand? It just doesn't help the economy spin round. Abstract science is martyred once more to balanced budgets or whatever. Or perhaps they had found some other race that had already done all this kind of thing, and so this was all unnecessary now. Somehow, I hoped not. (Aren't I selfish?) But anyway, I had to plan the next five months carefully; I had so much to do, and so little time to do it in. Then I'd have to find a job! I was still convinced that I hadn't yet found the real world; but who wants to? I have enough trouble in this one. Perhaps if I hadn't drunk so much beer, Elaine wouldn't have been so upset. But forward; who knows what the future will bring?
It was then that I found that trouble comes in threes. Or at least it did this time. We got raided. I suppose that M#wara had enough warning to escape; being telepathic has its advantages.
Raided is perhaps an over-sensational word to use. Actually, a local inspector, representative of some minor bureaucracy, came in and asked about some peculiar radiation that had been generated within our labs. He was directed to me, as highest ranking researcher left in the building.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but there are regulations governing the strength and kind of frequencies allowed in public areas. Do you have any idea what could have triggered off our detectors?"
I wasn't really sure, of course. But my guess was that it was tied in with the work some of the others were doing, trying to broadcast the Sigma tapes. The problem was, of course, that I couldn't admit it without revealing the tapes, and that might put us all in jail. So I equivocated. "Well, I'm not really sure. We use some electrical equipment, of course, but it's all supposed to be shielded. Rest assured, however, that it will be looked into."
He was apologetic, but quite firm. "I'm afraid I can't leave it at that, sir. We have to make sure that it won't be repeated. Have I your permission to investigate the work area?"
I couldn't do that, but inspiration struck. "No, that's impossible. We are engaged in robot communication mechanisms, and as you must know, we cannot take the chance of industrial espionage. We cannot let you in without a search warrant, or some indication of approval from our superiors."
He wasn't pleased. In fact, he was pretty nasty; enough, that I thought maybe he actually was an industrial spy. "Well, I do have the authority to force you to discontinue your experiments until I receive convincing assurance that the leak won't recur. Furthermore, I must require that each of the employees within the building undergo a thorough physical examination, to ensure that no one was accidentally hurt."
I mentally said bye-bye to the next five months of research, remembering that M#wara could not be found, and we all trooped off to have our bodies looked at.
It was in the midst of the check-up that I got a shock. It seemed that a small part of brain had been burned out, or something. At least, it wasn't functioning. I knew that I had been the main human subject of the broadcast experiments, but they had tried them on animals first, and assured me that there was no damage, or aftereffects of any kind. Indeed, I had felt no difference. I remembered that the last broadcast hadn't worked, but they assured me that it was just a blown fuse or something, and that wouldn't flood my precious body with nasty radiations. I didn't understand, but I didn't like it. No one else had my problem in the building, anyway, so the doctors figgured it must have been from something else, and we all went home.
That was my big chance to save the world; if I had just gone to the authorities, convinced them that I had been working for a telepathic alien for the past year, using Sigma tapes, and that, for some unknown reason, the alien had burnt out a small part of my brain that did nothing we knew about, then perhaps all of this would never have happened. I suppose we could have figured out that the A#a$ were calibrating a mind weapon, the likes of which we had never imagined, intending to totally immobilise the world, and drown us in happiness. I suppose we could have guessed that the insidious appeal of the Sigma tapes was sufficient to do the job. But I didn't. I just went home, and collected my salary for the next three months, doing nothing in the lab, since it was closed down. And then, here we are. Civilization collapsed, and you all took over.
I know you must think I'm stupid; but I don't. I'm just a gullible, friendly guy, who had a lot on his mind when the decision had to be made, and I didn't want to go to jail. I honestly didn't expect them to try to drug us into oblivion; and if I had, I wouldn't have expected it to work. But if you're a telepathic race, you get a different set of ethics, I suppose, and if you have to fight against potential competitors, it's one of the more humane ways to do it. I suppose I was the ideal test subject, concentrating on the mathematics so hard that I would never be distracted into worrying just what they were trying to do. But anyway, the New Order decided that I'd willingly collaborated with the A#a$, and so here I am; condemned as a traitor.
My autobiographer sat motionless for a moment; I wondered if he felt resentful towards me, as one of the last twenty or so functioning humans on Earth. Then, he tried to reassure me. "I don't think anyone blames you, really. Mind you, there were a lot of us who were upset with you. We didn't want to take over society; at least, not yet. It's too difficult, and we aren't yet capable. As it is, with all of us just taking over your roles, it will take years to figure out how to control everything."
"That's all right. You've got time. We were never capable either. I'm glad that we got you to the point that you could keep going on your own, anyway. I wish you all luck." And I waited for death at the hands of the poor, sympathetic robots.