Chapter 50: Dawn of the Revolution

Time: July 4, 8244 11:48 AM

Taking over the Code of Bel'dar proved to be delightfully easy. The monks of Babylon completed the upgrade of their operating system in mid February and we began our probing soon afterwards. We were ready to make our first backdoor changes by early March.

The Australian women and my family have two objectives today with my meeting with the Babylonian monks. The first objective will be executed at noon. If successful, we are expecting a great deal of chaos at Babylon, and our second objective is to propagate our compiler changes discreetly into the historical archives. This will guarantee the existence of our backdoor regardless of whatever historical version of the OS is running. After all the years of intensive work and planning, our modifications to The Code of Bel'dar are about to pay off.

Pitiful! What a shock to see how simple The Code was! Even I who am not a professional programmer was startled by the awkward coding and lack of sophistication. During the months of analysis, the recoding team in Australia kept reminding me that The Code of Bel'dar was written in an era when photonic switches and quantum computers were in their infancy. And yet, this was The Code of Bel'dar! How could I have ever feared such a decrepit piece of flawed logic?

To put it bluntly, the thing is garbage, millions of lines of poorly written Z prime-prime that form a rat's nest of decision trees with a pathetic AI interface planted on top. I think I understand now why AI research is forbidden. It would be so easy to construct interfaces with modern coding techniques that would make The Code of Bel'dar look ridiculous. And yet in the hands of its champions, The Code had ruled the sacred world with absolute might for over eight thousand years.

Bel'dar was fond of making announcements on days tied to special events of the solar calendar, so we waited until the Southern hemisphere winter solstice on June 26th to have The Code come alive with our new messages. To the astonished monks of Babylon, The Code made loud but vague complaints against the senior leadership of the world and directed the monks to be at a large auditorium on July 4th in Bandar Arenas. The monks were to bring before them all of Ruling Royalty. The Code could then pronounce Judgment.

My own council was flabbergasted over this decree, but it was a direct sacred order and I complied in a timely manner, meeting with all the Domines as they flew in from around the world. I dedicated the second largest hall in my palace for the meeting. It seats well over four thousand people.

As soon as The Code was informed of my compliance, it issued new orders. It made the unprecedented move of ordering all Babylonian Commander monks (CL-15 to CL-8) and Upper-Level Manager monks (CL-6 and CL-7), and I mean all of them, to travel to Bandar Arenas without delay and witness The Code's high-noon pronouncement.

A short history on the monks of Babylon: Not since Bel'dar himself has sacred power and secular power resided in one person. The two lines of authority were split that long ago. Babylon has its standard quota of 3,900 Priests, but except for the CL-2 Priests of Lower Labor, Babylonian Priests are also monks, special Priests entrusted with protecting and maintaining The Code of Bel'dar.

It is a revered position to be a Babylonian monk. The positions are eagerly sought after by many young Priests who have failed to be in the top 1% of their childhood class and thus have no chance for Royalty. The only way to enter the Sacred Order is at the first adult promotional gate, when CL-2s petition for CL-3 two years after becoming adults.

By tradition, CL-2 Priests reared at the capital or currently stationed at Babylon are not eligible... Bel'dar was quite determined to limit contact between the secular and sacred capitals as much as possible. The Order of monks was thus created to be a self-electing body, and they invite whom they chose of the successful petitioners. Acceptance is life-long. The only way to leave the Order is through death.

There is also a strong correlation between the monks and the Health faction. It is perhaps not surprising. Society's sacred functions are based on medical expertise, the human genome modifications and the drugs for anti-aging and eternal virginity. Historically, eighty percent of monks come from the twenty percent of monasteries that are in Health-faction townships.

The current head monk CL-15 Makhtar spared no expense and chartered three large commercial jets to fly his Order to Bandar Arenas. The largest would carry all of the 213 Commander monks (from CL-15 to CL-8), and the others would transport his 134 CL-7 and 218-CL-6 managers. I offered to fly Makhtar and his highest Commanders to the capital in one of my private ramjets, the top three CL-15 and five CL-14 monks of the Babylonian adult monastery.

Makhtar's holographic image stared at me in horror when I made my suggestion. Perhaps he was remembering the last group of people who flew in my personal ramjet. I assured him my offer was one of simple cordiality, and I even offered to be on the plane myself and travel with them. Makhtar rebuked me for making what he considered an improper offer of familiarity, and flew in with his other Commanders.

Undaunted, I offered Makhtar the privilege of leading the morning Prayer service at my great capital cathedral, and on this point he graciously accepted. He gave hard sermons during the hours of the Prayer of Wonder and the Prayer of Counted Failures, stressing that The Code of Bel'dar must be eternally and absolutely obeyed, even to the point of death. Staring at the Guards during the service, he reminded them that the lack of doubt is the first pillar of faith of the true believer.

My Royal guards were clearly unhappy about the likely prospect of being ordered to assassinate one or more members of Ruling Royalty and possibly even me, but the central tenets of the religion left them no choice. After morning Prayers, Makhtar was busy checking with his technicians on the quantum encrypted link to Babylon. He then confirmed to Aleser that the auditorium presentation system was in direct and infallible holographic contact with The Code's Judgment. Aleser swore a sacred oath that his Guards would faithfully carry out The Code's orders, no matter what they were.

The Domines and I sat at one side of the great hall while the 565 monks sat with their ceremonial weapons near the center. Surrounding us were more than a thousand of fully armed Guard, five-hundred along the perimeter of the main floor, and the remainder in the circling balcony. My entire council, including Jibran, looked as if they were mentally preparing themselves for death. The Code of Bel'dar had not ordered the death of a Ruling Royal since the end of the Wild Times, not directly, but it appeared the long period of inactivity was about to end.

Jibran was sitting next to me. He noticed that my eyes were half closed, and he glanced up at the clock. "Three minutes Abdul Hadi," he whispered softly.

I fully opened my eyes, stretched, and nodded.

He watched my slow breathing for a moment and commented, "I must say Abdul Hadi, you seem remarkably calm about this."