Chapter 19

The sun was just starting to lighten up the sky outside of my condo. The huge picture window, with the first subdued rays of sunlight gently illuminating the carefully tended landscape, promised it was going to be a beautiful day. Inside, however, it was dark and gloomy.

“Damn,” I finally said. “I mean, that’s a pretty depressing story, Solomon. If all of that’s true – which I have no doubt about,” I cut him off at the pass, “then I can certainly understand why you hate your government so much. And why you have such a hard time finding a little humor in your life. I mean, you’ve had a lot of success and made some pretty good friends, but ... Well, all in all, it seems to me like it’s been pretty damn depressing, you know?”

“I wasn’t complaining about anything, Barney. I was merely doing as you asked. You wanted to hear about my life and my society, and I told you.”

“Absolutely. Boy, did you ever.”

“And now that I have, it’s time for me to get back and finish my job.”

“Wait a minute! You’re going to leave just like that? You must have had a purpose in coming here. That is, other than to accuse me of betraying you.”

“Well, sort of. Mostly I made the jump to escape from the Security Force, as I said. This is one of locations I had preprogrammed into the computer, so it was pretty easy for me to jump here quickly. The other reason was to see what steps, if any, you might take to prevent me from getting my inheritance after the SF visited you.”

“Well, you can rest assured on that point.”

“I appreciate that, Barney. Unfortunately, I’ve probably put you in great danger now.”

“How’s that?”

“The Security Force is going to come looking for me, and this is a location they will probably search first. They may not show up for days, maybe weeks, but please believe they that eventually will show up. And, now that you’ve accomplished what both they and I wanted, they may consider you expendable.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a cheerful thought.”

“I suggest you take a vacation. A long one, and don’t let anyone know where you’re going.”

“Oh, sure, just be on the run for the rest of my life. Anyhow, if they want me badly enough, they could probably look up old travel records. No, I don’t really like that prospect hanging over me.”

“Well, I don’t know what else to suggest. We could always hope they don’t come after you, I suppose. But they’re very thorough, and have obviously proven to be far more ruthless than I’d ever thought.”

“There is one other thing I could do. That is, with your help.”

“Anything I can do for you! Just name it.”

“Take me back with you.”

“What! Barney, that could be very dangerous.”

“Any more dangerous than waiting around for the Numbers Brothers to show up and put a tattoo on my forehead?” I exclaimed, jumping up and starting to pace around the room.

“Uh, well...”

“Exactly. What could be more dangerous than that?”

“I think you already know the answer. But let’s look at it another way. I know it’s not a pleasant prospect for you, but with your money you could create a new identity. More than one, if you had to. And you could travel in ways there would be no possibility to trace. The odds against the Security Force finding you would be much higher than the potential dangers of Time travel.”

“Maybe so,” I said, pacing now for all I was worth. “But, as you said, I really wouldn’t enjoy the life of a fugitive. Besides which, I think I’ve done all I can here. I’ve already turned control over both the finances and charities to others. There’s no challenge anymore. I’d really like to see that future, and maybe even get some excitement back into my life.”

“Barney, this isn’t some kind of game.”

“I know that! You people are putting your lives in danger. Well, my life is probably at risk now, isn’t it? And from the same people. I’d kind of like to get back at them, you know. I mean, for the way they tricked me and made me think badly about you. For what they did to your friends. For what they’ve done to humanity. I’d like to see if, in some way, maybe I could make a difference in your world. It’s what I’ve been trying to do in mine, you know.”

“I don’t know, Barney. It’s a lot riskier than you think.”

“Maybe so. But I don’t like the alternative. Besides which, maybe I could be of real help to your cause,” I bragged, sitting down next to him.

“No offense, Barney, but how?”

“Well ... You said your group doesn’t believe in violent revolution, right?”

“Absolutely,” Solomon said decisively.

“Great. Fine. Well, I’m an economist. You don’t have any economists in your society, do you?”

“Well, no. Again, no offense, Barney, but they’re sort of like linguists – not much need for them anymore.”

“No linguists, either?” My curiosity got the better of me again. “Why, does everyone who travels much use one of those translation machines?”

“Some do. Actually, though, most people who regularly do business internationally are fluent in the other two languages. It’s considered more polite than a translator.”

“‘Other two?’ You mean there are only three languages in your world?”

“Three major languages, yes. As you must be aware, that’s a trend that’s been going on for centuries. English and Chinese were obviously taking over their parts of the world, and most of the Romance language countries use a version of Spanish.”

“So French didn’t make it, eh?”

“I think it’s only spoken in Paris now. Not only was Spanish much easier to speak, but many countries in the world already spoke it.”

“The Catholic influence?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps at first. However, there aren’t any religions left to speak of.”

“So that obviously means no more foreign language teachers in the schools.”

“Right. Also not needed anymore.”

“Wow. Well, I guess all of that just helps to reinforce my point. Everything is moving toward centralization, including economics. Your whole world seems to be based on a single, currently stable exchange system. Has been for decades, right? So your society isn’t prepared for an attack on this centralized system from someone like me. If I could somehow introduce economic chaos into the electronic system, then maybe we could do some real damage to your government without having to resort to violence.”

“What do you mean, ‘economic chaos’? How could you do that?”

“You ever heard of the Great Depression, in the early Twentieth Century?”

“Uh, vaguely. I don’t remember any details, but I think the country known as the United States had a very severe financial crisis for a while.”

“Exactly. And it all started because one part of the economic system, known as the stock market, experienced an unexpected crash. It made a lot of companies either very weak or totally bankrupt.”

“Okay, I know something about the stock market from helping you make your fortune. But we don’t have anything like that system. So how could you cause a financial collapse?”

“Actually, it’s a lot easier to introduce chaos into your current system because it’s so centralized. If I could introduce a virus into your computer system creating deflation in salaries and inflation in costs, the entire world would soon be in turmoil.”

“The entire world?”

“Sure. Because the heart of the whole financial system is one centralized computer complex, right? I mean, that’s what I gathered from your story.”

“Well, yes. Economically, the Master Server acts as a global information update and interchange center. It’s sort of a ‘clearing house’ for all financial transactions no matter where they occur in the world. It also acts as a redundant storage system for all locally kept data.”

“Ah hah!” I exclaimed, leaping to my feet again. “So you have some kind of credit card system, which maybe we could use as the catalyst for introducing the bug into the system.”

“No, I’m afraid not, Barney. There are no artificial media used to trigger a transaction.”

“Rats,” I said as I started my usual pacing to facilitate the thinking process. “That would have been too easy, right? So then how does the computer system register a transaction.”

“Everything is done through personal ID codes, which are essentially neural patterns. The ID code contains all of an individual’s personal information.”

That stopped me dead in my well-worn tracks.

“Neural patterns? But, I mean, doesn’t that require...”

“The register mechanism does a brain scan for every transaction. Exactly.”

“What!” I was totally appalled. “You mean the sales machines read your brain patterns like some kind of bar code? But that means you could never have any privacy!”

“Well, I don’t know,” Solomon protested, pretty damned defensively, if you asked me. “After all, any transaction you perform has to be voluntary. The brain scan is instantaneous, painless, and a neural pattern can’t be duplicated. The system insures that a mistake, or some kind of fraud, will never happen.”

“How do you know they don’t intrude?”

Solomon looked upset. “Actually, given some of the experiences I heard from other people, I’m not so certain any more that they don’t.”

“Uh huh,” I agreed. “And how did they get this neural pattern in the first place?”

“A neural scan is taken when a child is around two years old,” Solomon answered grimly. “After the so-called ‘neural pruning’ the brain performs on itself has taken place.”

“What’s more, when you say ‘all of an individual’s personal information,’ that implies they know a lot more about everyone than just how much money they have to spend and what to deduct. Am I right?”

Solomon sighed. He also rose from his seat, and went over to look at the dozens of exotic tropical fish swimming in the tank nearly covering one of the walls in my condo. From the story about his life, I gathered this resistance to criticizing his government had been ingrained from early childhood. It seemed to be fading fast.

“Yes,” he agreed tersely, briefly glancing over his shoulder to look at me. “That’s one of the many things about our society upsetting many people, and not just the Revos.” Turning back to the fish, he continued.

“In order to keep every bit of financial information straight, the central files contain all information regarding the person’s Level and exact pay. The so-called credit account is actually a credit and debit record of all financial transactions of the individual, from the time they were awarded their first credit. Of course, that allows the government to keep track of both government and non-government professional services supplied, as well as all personal items bought. The latter includes any items the person purchased that may arouse suspicion of anti-government acts. They even know of ‘bad habits’ the person may have, such as using drugs or prostitutes. Of course, the Zaibatsu excuse knowing that information as wanting to prevent a person from over-spending their income, thereby saving them from getting into trouble.”

“My God! Big Brother has turned out to be Big Business. So these Security Force cops can nail a person pretty easily for having those bad habits, I guess.”

“Oh, no!” he laughed cynically, turning away from the fish tank and back towards me. “None of those are illegal. After all, almost everything your society would have labeled a ‘vice’ is just another form of entertainment in my world. The Zaibatsu wants to keep the populace happy, doesn’t it? Plus it gives the government greater control of the people who use them, just the way they control travel and progeny restrictions. In fact, they control everything important in our society.”

“They also control travel and having kids through the neural scans?”

“Look, don’t get me started on that issue, please! Let’s just say all of these controls are performed through the same ID system.”

“Which is connected to what you call the Master Server, right?”

“Right again.”

“Humph!” I humphed.

“You find that to be somehow amusing?”

“Well, I think the term seems pretty ironic,” I admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, from everything you’ve described, this central computer system essentially controls the lives of everyone on the planet. How much they make, what they can spend it on, where they can travel, even how many children they’re allowed to have. And yet you call it the ‘Master Server.’ It seems to me it’s more like the Master of humanity rather than serving!”

“Hmm,” Solomon mused. “I hadn’t ever thought about it like that – naturally. But, as you put it in that light, I also find it highly ironic.”

“So, anyhow, among all those other things it monitors, this Master Server acts as a clearing house for all international transactions, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay. So, if you can get the virus into this central computer, then every time someone makes a transaction in any part of the world, that computer would be infected. If we write the virus well enough, all of the computers would eventually infect each other. Because there are people moving around different areas pretty frequently, it probably wouldn’t take more than a few weeks, a couple of months at the most, before almost every computer in the world had the virus.”

“That quickly?”

“Let’s say you give it an incubation period of a week. Transactions are flowing through the Master Server. The virus becomes active. Bingo! All of a sudden, anything listed as a credit, such as wages, are registered as much lower than they should be. Any debit, such as a payment for a good or service, gets registered at a much higher rate. The amounts are random, so the system never gains equilibrium in either direction. People suddenly have a lot less buying power, and things cost a tremendous amount more than they should. What do you think is going to happen?”

“Quivering quantums! I see what you mean. How long do you think all this would take to create chaos after the virus took effect?”