by G. R. Carter
“I can’t wait, Mr. Secretary!” Aguilar said. “Until then, do you have anything exciting for me to tell the country during the speech tonight?”
“Of course, Mr. President,” Marburg smiled even brighter. “You will be delighted with what we have planned. Each and every citizen will receive a special download tonight, during the speech, which will completely change their lives. Imagine the ratings! Here’s what you can announce…”
People’s Grand Hall – Federal DC
State of the Union Address
“And so, my fellow citizens, I am asking you all to sync your SmartWatch right now, and make sure that all electronic devices are connected to Grapevine, wherever you are. This download that I am about to transmit means the end to the interruption in service. No more brownouts, blackouts or internet service failures. This is the great victory over the Solar Storms we have hoped for. Tomorrow ushers in a New World for us all.
“Citizens of our great country, and to all of brothers and sisters around the world watching this evening, I need your help immediately. Sync your SmartWatch, computers, TVs, cars…anything existing as part of the Smart Grid. Do it before midnight tonight. To make this update work effectively, we don’t want any weak links. Just as monthly mandatory vaccinations protect all citizens from the spread of disease, this update must be utilized by all to be truly effective.”
Aguilar radiated a smile into the camera and reached over to the prop button provided by the NewsWatch production people. He pushed the button, signifying the release of Grapevine’s update throughout the Cyber Universe. The public had no idea updates from Grapevine started transmitting long before the President’s speech began. But the political optics provided too great an opportunity for a savvy public relations expert to pass up. All over the world, Grapevine’s updates passed from device to device, both wired and wireless. Any machine with a computer brain received Grapevine’s signal, installing an entirely new set of codes and commands – and replacing the old world with the new.
St. Louis
Two Years Before the Great Reset
Antonio “Little Tony” Diamante, Chief Executive Officer of Rosenberg, Kane & Associates stared out the floor to ceiling windows of his plush office. The view from the 42nd floor of the Renaissance Tower was spectacular, watching the ships go by on the river. And the noctilucent light shows put on by the Solar Storms made for great viewing up here. Sunday mornings were his favorite time to enjoy the sight. The normal hustle and bustle of the work week and the tourist throngs of Saturday made the calm Sundays a chance to appreciate how great the city was.
St. Louis was his city, born and raised. Even when others in his Family went off to Ivy League schools to get their law degrees, he opted for hometown Washington University. Back then, the city struggled to maintain what once made it the Gateway to the West. He knew the place had the bones to be great again. He just couldn’t picture himself out on those hoity-toity eastern campuses running around like he was a blue-blood. He was a Midwestern kid. Even though he liked the finer things that came with privilege, he wanted to stay here, where the Family was.
It wasn’t like he needed to build a resume to get hired somewhere – there was never any doubt Tony would join the family business at Rosenberg, Kane & Associates, known around the city as ARK.
Tony’s great-grandfather founded ARK when the Family’s hard-won wealth needed to be handled legally and invested wisely. Great-grandpa never finished high school, let alone law school, but clearly the writing was on the wall for the great Mafia Families throughout the Midwest. The Federal Government wasn’t going to allow them to continue to make tax-free profits, so the smart leaders such as the original Diamante founded “legitimate” firms. Manufacturing, accounting, some in the unions – but the smartest and most successful established law firms.
Men once involved in organized crime figured out that instead of making thousands running protection rackets or gambling, their families could make billions being involved in “legitimate” government transactions. They moved every resource they could to this fertile ground called “The Law.” A Family could wrap up all functions of business into one office – the original vertical integration. Several firms existed here in St. Louis alone. But under Tony’s leadership, ARK pulled ahead in size and scope.
FBI and police of the previous century would take credit for forcing the Mafia out of cities; instead, they just went to college.
Tony was an electronics junkie, one of those who carried a SmartWatch and a Smartphone at the same time. Modern business was built on technology. As Grapevine figured out how to combat the Solar Storms, money by the trillions poured into tech infrastructure projects. The city thrived with all of the dollars and new citizens rolling in, and so did all the major cities designated Regional Capitals by the Department of the Interior.
Each state now had several hundred million to several hundred billion (depending on their influence in DC) in federal dollars to spend on rebuilding the electrical infrastructure of America. DC simply made the money appear. If a local government unit ran short on a critical project, all they had to do was ask for more from the Department of the Interior, the administrator of the bill’s funding. Money sloshed through the halls of government like water from a broken levee. Regional Capitals were the ones to receive their handouts. With teams of lawyers and civil engineers, proposed city projects were approved in the equivalent of a financial flash fire. Projects sitting in limbo for years were approved without even being updated.
Even NASA got back into the act, beginning work on a new Lunar Base, where rare minerals consumed by the super computers could be mined in greater quantity. This top-secret project was helped in no small measure by one of St. Louis’ favorite corporate children, Boeing. Tony brokered that deal himself and made millions for ARK overnight.
Large portions of outlying areas were still without reliable power or connectivity, but the heart of the great cities was beginning to beat again with power emanating from constant contact with the entire world. Smart grid technologies were fortified by Grapevine. Like an angel floating through the invisible air waves, Grapevine rescued millions and then billions of gadgets from the electrical surges caused by Solar Storms.
Grapevine gave the electrical grid just the tool that was needed to keep the power consistently flowing to important infrastructure and emergency services. Portions of the grid affected by Solar Storms were hibernated, which became a frequently-used verb in the world lexicon. The rest of the global network would compensate for the sleeping part, allowing the flow of civilization to continue uninterrupted.
For those on the inside track, life got better each and every day. The greatest negative impact was on the depleted middle class who came to understand the problem with millions and billions of dollars flowing – if you don’t have access to that money you quickly find yourself priced out of normal transactions. Products and services followed the easy money, and soon construction materials had doubled and tripled in price. Fiber for electric upgrades went to those with the most influence. Anything that was used for infrastructure became impossible to get outside of the major metros. A two dollar loaf of bread became five dollars. Gas and diesel doubled in price as supply dwindled, redirected where refiners could make the most money. Smaller cities and towns were left with sky-high prices or no supply at all. News of work in the cities and fading prospects in the rural communities caused great migrations to the Regional Capitals. The sudden influx of people pushed the housing supply to near zero, and the already bubble-level prices of homes and apartments skyrocketed further.
New residents of the cities demanded that someone fix these problems and provide the full array of government services owed to them as citizens. Elected officials obliged the newcomers, promising them everything they wanted. Like Tammany Hall standing on the docks awaiting boatloads of new immigrants nearly two hundred years prior, America’s modern politicians set up Welcome Centers. These centers became a modern Ellis Islan
d in each city. New arrivals were evaluated for talents and skills and then made aware of all the services available to them simply for being present. Billions meant for repairing America’s backbone were redirected to pleasing Americas’ voters.
Still, folks were optimistic. Life would be better than ever. And while there were major problems to be handled in the new slums, where a constant stream of refugees from flyover country settled, technology was the savior that made anything possible.
Tony Diamante’s rational mind knew the whole system was a house of cards. The amount of debt being created could never be paid, effectively leaving future generations of Americans slaves to a system that would ultimately have to let them down. Such awareness allowed him to stash hard currency paid for by all the digital currency he could generate. And he could generate a lot. Tony was the go-between of the government agencies with projects to complete, the accounting firms that audited the projects, and the companies on the ground that could get the projects done.
Unlike many others in his line of work, though, he believed the projects actually should get done, that they weren't just transactions on paper that allowed those in the know to get a piece of the action. That opinion was far too uncommon in the furor kicked up by the The Reboot. The corruption associated with free money was off the charts. But Tony’s insistence on getting the real work done made him a superstar in many corners of this bureaucracy. This notoriety brought him twice or three times the amount of business he would have had otherwise. That notoriety also brought him a lot of enemies – partially due to jealousy, but also because one person completing contracted work made those who didn’t look bad. So as Tony was stashing hard currency for the financial collapse he knew would soon come, he was also building a private security force to protect himself and his interests.
Unemployment was sky-high in the heartland, and the only opportunity for a young person outside of farming was to join the millions flocking to the mega cities - easy prey for politicians and for unscrupulous businesspeople. Tony was no angel, but he preferred to take advantage of those who had wealth versus those who didn't. Otherwise, what was the point? ARK hired the best of the new arrivals, those possessing skills he needed for his various business interests.
About the only bright spot for those left in rural America was the black market that sprung up to supply the cities with items government deemed unnecessary or illegal. Tony quickly secured those connections through a couple of employees who had come in from the countryside to seek work. Life began to resemble the beginning of the 20th century, with goods flowing from the hinterlands to the big cities. Except it wasn’t moonshine or other illegal goods flowing to the population center; this time it was food.
Because daily food rations were now a commodity and issued via government dispensaries, real and fresh foods were a luxury Tony both enjoyed and profited from. And connections with farmers far outside the prying eyes of government bureaucrats were literally worth gold.
All this occurred under the noses, or mostly with the understood permission, of the new Department of the Interior Compliance Officers. Young bureaucrats at the Welcome Centers particularly appreciated fresh food instead of the Ration Bars they were expected to eat like commoners. Tony provided what people wanted, and in return those same people gave Tony inside information that he requested.
Department of the Interior workers issued SmartWatchs to the new arrivals. SmartWatchs were coded specifically for each citizen, giving them access to their assigned apartments and to their supply of Ration Bars that acted as daily sustenance. Through the miracle of modern chemistry, the Ration Bars tasted great and were issued in a wide variety of flavors and textures for your weekly allotment. Federal Government nutritionists commandeered the formula from a small college who developed the contents for maximum nutrition.
The next step included creating a profile for each person, assuming they didn’t have one already. The profit included background and skills, as well as medical records for themselves and their families. The process smoothed out visits to the Affordable Care clinics spread throughout the city. One simply requested an appointment via the SmartWatch, assuming the SmartWatch didn’t detect irregularities in body function and preschedule an appointment.
The brilliance of the process was that the Department of Human Services adjusted the Ration Bars based on your work activity and health status. As long as a person stuck to their assigned DHS plan, all of their daily needs were cared for, allowing each individual to pursue their desires. To make sure that one didn’t receive too many calories based on weekly activities, manual laborers got a higher potency than accountants, and children received Rations based on their age and body mass.
Naturally, the life desired by Tony and his inner circle was a bit different than the average resident of the Regional Capitals. Safety and health were a given; ARK provided all their employees with concierge doctor service. Senior Department of the Interior Food Compliance Officers often joined Tony at his private “Supper Clubs” that dotted the city. Supper Clubs were the speakeasies of the 21st century – a place someone could get a real steak, baked potato, fresh salad, and a glass of wine
Definitely gonna get that steak tonight, Tony thought with a smile.
Tony came back to the here and now, ready to return to the day’s agenda. “What is DOI saying about the new SmartWatch updates?” he asked a bank of flat screens hanging on the wall. Several of his most trusted capos looked back at him from various parts of the city. “Level A citizens are supposed to be eligible for an upgrade to the new hardware next month. Do we know when they will begin arriving in the stores?”
One of the video screens reported in, “Shipments are supposed to arrive at Get–Marts by the 15th, sir.” That’s still a stupid name for a store Tony thought, referring to the only remaining full-line retail chain. But I guess it was better than Tar–Marts, or Wal–Get.
Aloud, he said: “And you made sure they added 10% to the original ship orders? Just make sure that the receiving department at the airport remembers they’re to hold the order until we have a chance to get ours. One for each employee, remember?”
“I’m on it, sir,” the screen replied.
Tony turned to the inner circle present in his massive office, seated comfortably in antique wood and leather chairs. There existed no tension of boss and subordinate – three of the four were related to Tony, and the other had known him since he was a boy. Tony made sure to always treat these men and women with respect, and they reciprocated with a life-and-death level of loyalty.
Every leader of the ARK family learned from an early age that bad information flowed from employees covering their own tails. Remove the fear of harsh consequences, and you received what you needed from your people. Tony even used the same technique on many of his enemies, of which ARK had acquired several.
“Alright, let’s get to the City Permit problem. I understand that M&C Consultants got someone on their payroll into the mayor’s office. And now we’re getting our permits blocked?” Tony asked, referencing his biggest rival in the city.
Permits from the city allowed his Supper Clubs to operate as a conference center for business meetings instead of a restaurant. The same permit department also licensed the book stores – known legally as antique stores – ARK operated all over the city. Electronic books were available for purchase directly from a citizen’s SmartWatch. Any company with a Publisher’s Permit could generate publications short or long, and on just about any topic known to mankind. Hate Crime laws ensured that no offensive material was published, and the electronic nature of books allowed the Free Speech Council to remove passages deemed inappropriate or intolerant.
However, since the paper books from earlier times hadn’t been regulated, many didn’t meet the mandates the Free Speech Council established in the Reboot Bill. Besides, the paper version was considered environmentally unsound in the electronic age. Only antique stores were authorized to handle the hard copy, and then each title
still had to be labeled with Advisory stickers if challenged by the Hate Crime laws. Wealthy people paid big money to get their hands on classic titles no longer published, like Huck Finn or The Giver. Tony kept his own library at ARK’s Renaissance Tower headquarters building.
It was a nice side business. ARK Junior Partners made quite a bit of cash renting the basement meeting rooms to groups that refused to meet the compliance guidelines set forward by the Free Speech Council. But that and the money they made from the Supper Clubs was less than a rounding error compared to the government contracts they had. That’s why Tony wondered what M&C was up to with this move. Why spend all this effort to cut off people who just wanted a steak or a book?
I guess that’s where they think we get our power and influence from?
More information came from Tony’s Vice President of Accounting and second cousin, Kathy Kingsley: “It’s even stranger than just a blocking move. From what our sources are telling us, someone from DC is calling this shot. They forced the mayor’s office to integrate some true believers from the Department of the Interior into the Office of Permits. The mayor struck a deal with M&C to put their people in place, as long as they follow the guidelines from DC.”
“Since when did the Jews do business with Interior? They’re just as much in the rackets as us Pisans!” Bobby Costello, another cousin and the one in charge of Tony’s private security forces, nearly shouted from one of the video screens.
“Shut up, Bobby. M&C is no more Jewish than ARK is Catholic,” Tony replied, disgusted at the distraction. “And drop it with the street lingo, your mother is Mayflower blue–blood and your father went to private school, just like you did.”
Tony continued: “What I want to know is, why the change now? I understand the move by M&C, but why not try to take our permits? Why block them instead? How do they make money that way? And if there are real hard-liners from Interior here, how do we get to them? How can we convince them to change their minds?”