by Redemption
As she glides from the room Andrew feels uneasy, unsettled, unfulfilled. The whole thing is fragmented, disjointed, confusing. He has no control over anything. When will he get back the rest of his physical faculties? Will he then understand more easily and clearly what is going on and be able to come to grips with it?
He worries about Sylvia. Why hasn't Christiana told him more about her? Is there something to hide? She appeared from time to time on the film but had little input and seemed of minor consequence in the scheme of things. That wasn't like Sylvia.
While he ponders he sees something on the VC he hasn't noticed before. It is a small white 'P' tucked away at the bottom of the screen. Without expecting anything to happen he dinks it. The screen illuminates with 'Programming' and a list of topics. He feels a thrill run part way down his spine. A good sign?
Delighted to find he has additional powers and access to new fields, Andrew explores by dinking, furtively as if a naughty boy, and brings up the topic of 'Sylvia'. He sees it is 'Barred from significant input' and, with mounting anticipation, is able to change it by dinking to 'Full input' and 'Summary'.
~
The screen showed pictures of Sylvia attending Andrew - bandaged and bed-ridden - carefully and lovingly administering to the inert body. Tears in her eyes and soft murmurs of endearment. Andrew feels his own tears and begins to understand why Christiana deleted it.
Cameron Dench was giving her his assessment: "I have every hope of being able - in due course - eventually, that is - to bring Andrew out of the coma, but at this time I can't give any guarantees or even estimate when that might be."
"But it's agony for me being beside his breathing body and getting absolutely no sign or response. Isn't there anything more you could possibly do?"
"I understand your concern," said Cameron, smiling. "The good news is I've just been awarded a major research grant to further my investigations. They're so impressed with what I've achieved thus far I can now afford to put a whole team to work. I'll be doing my utmost to bring Andrew back to you again as quickly as possible."
Kent was shown consoling Sylvia. "Would you like to work with me on the new project?" he said brightly. "I'm sure Andrew would have liked you to contribute your shared thoughts and feelings towards such a worthwhile purpose."
"Thank you Kent. I'd like to. It will keep me occupied. I feel so helpless and empty when I'm beside Andrew unable to do anything constructive."
The film showed Sylvia actively engaged in discussions with the work group at their Hebridean hideaway. Return visits to Andrew's bedside were interspersed, with no response or advancement from Andrew and deepening despair from Sylvia. Kindness and tenderness from Kent were displayed, in small, subtle ways initially, then progressively more open and measured.
~
I knew he always fancied her, Andrew thinks. Damn him. She wasn't interested in him before, but this is a different Kent and a very different Andrew. I was so bloody useless there on that bed, with precious little prospects, I might as well have been dead. He wonders what his feelings would have been if he was in her shoes and finds, reluctantly, he can't fault her growing interest in other directions. But the interest merges into attraction and they are shown becoming closer.
Abruptly a message appears on the screen. 'This summary has now reached the point to where the main film has been viewed. Do you wish to view the remainder of the summary?' Suppressing tiredness and disappointment, Andrew dinks 'Yes'.
For a time he wishes he hadn't as the summary shows snippets of increasing intimacy and then love-making. He feels the improbability (impossibility from the 2020 point of view) of being a voyeur checking on his wife's 'unfaithfulness' thirty years after the event - after coming back from the dead. Hell, he rationalises, fighting back tears, all this to make the film more saleable to the public.
But he is shaken out of his self-pity by a picture of bold headlines.
'MAGNATE DIES IN PLANE CRASH'.
Date 30 September, 2022.
With macabre fascination he reads the smaller print.
'Mr Kent Buchanan, President of Mogul Mining, was killed yesterday when the plane he was piloting exploded in mid-air on a flight from London to Paris. He was due to address an international conference on fighting crime and to announce a new weapon which sources say would have been a major breakthrough. Preliminary investigations have unearthed evidence indicating the plane may have been sabotaged by international criminal elements. Also killed in the accident was Mrs Sylvia Buchanan. They are survived by a daughter.'
'End of summary'.
~
Damn the Calabrone. They finally did get the two of them. His feeling for organised crime escalates to intense loathing and fierce hatred. Doing so much evil around the world. It doesn't seem to matter too much until it directly affects you. Maybe you can have a small win occasionally, as Kent has done, but they will always be there. And eventually - well, he had just seen what could happen eventually. Inevitable, he thinks, as his mind collapses from its elevated temporary toehold of social possibility to be nearer the state of his manacled physical reality.
Now he understands why Christiana had hidden the Sylvia segment from him. And there was a daughter - he felt a warm tinge of excitement. Would he let Christiana know he had seen the segment? Without being able to think clearly either way, he decides, for the time being, not to divulge it and dinks the film back to its previous state with Sylvia 'Barred from significant input'.
He is glad he knows the truth. Sylvia would have been mostly happy. And the Buchanan name will continue, he thinks wryly. Anyway that was twenty-eight years ago and he has to pick up his new life and get on with it. Mentally drained, he falls asleep, only to have an agonising dream that further shakes his wobbly mental foundations.
V
D: Dream N1:
He finds himself in a courtroom, in a witness stand. Behind a stern judge is a large sign 'Negligence Commission' (Negcom). Will this new terminology never end? A prosecutor is questioning him relentlessly.
P: "Do you agree your world had many social and environmental problems, that little was being done about it, and there were no solutions in sight?"
A: "Well… that depends…"
Judge: "The defendant will answer 'yes' or 'no'.
A: "Well… yes."
P: "And was this situation allowed to continue while leaders, people in high places, people who ought to have known better, sat by and twiddled their thumbs, so to speak?"
A:…… "Yes."
P: "And Mr Buchanan, were you not one of those intelligent, highly qualified, on-the-surface 'responsible' on-lookers?"
A: (After trying to think of any reasons why he wasn't, but failing)… "Y…e…s."
Judge: "What were you doing about it?"
A: "I was worrying about it, your honour."
Judge: "You were, were you not, what used to be called an educator?"
A: "Yes."
Judge: "It has been reported, and I can hardly believe my ears, that you did not teach young people much about how to learn, or even how to achieve in life. Rather a basic oversight for expert educators, don't you think?"
A: "In retrospect, yes. Of course."
Judge: "Such a waste, in time and money and resources - and the wider ramifications to society. Unused power of people is a waste, and waste is careless, and carelessness is often negligence, sometimes tragically so. People hasten to turn off a light because it is a waste of power, yet zillions of times this power in more important forms is being wasted every day without people caring."
P: "Mr Buchanan, while we think you people at the time were either apathetic, or lazy, or ignorant, or stupid, or all the above,… (a giggle of mirth escapes from the gaggle of school children in the public gallery)… but certainly complacent, it is not our purpose here to dwell on your unfortunate dispositions. It is to determine whether or not you were negligent - that is, apt to omit what ought to be done - for which there are heavy penalties, and w
hich there ought to have been in your day, because if there had been we wouldn't be here today."
Judge: "Do you have anything to say in your defence?"
A: "Ah… Yes your honour, but I need time to prepare it. You see I have been in a long coma and my thoughts are still hazy."
Judge: "A likely story. What will they think of next. Alright, court adjourned till tomorrow morning."
Andrew hastily consults his attorney. "What can I do?"
"Tomorrow they will reveal your accumulated negligence points. From what I've seen you will have so many Neg points it will be a stiff sentence. There is only one way out. You must start earning Gen points."
"What the hell are they?"
"Generative - in the sense of productive - points. The opposite of neg or negligence points, don't you see? You earn them through helping people or society or the environment and they neutralise neg points. I suggest you start immediately."
Andrew rushes out on to the street. It is highly congested with cars crawling by. He hails a cab and gets in.
"Why are you going so slowly?" he asks the driver.
"I'm not going slowly; this is my normal speed - 10 mph. If I go any faster the engine will blow up."
"But you're in first gear. Put it into top gear and get going, you idiot."
"Don't call me an idiot Buster or I'll bust your nose. What's this gear business you're talking about?"
"First gear, second gear, drive. Look down there," pointing to the markings 1, 2, and D beside the gear shift.
"What are you, some kind of nut? I've been driving cabs for thirty years and I've never heard such nonsense."
"But gears make your cab go faster, work more efficiently, use less gas. I'm trying to help you."
"The last thing that helped car drivers was when someone showed us how to let the handbrake off. I took some convincing but the cab certainly works better, even though it puts guys out of work at the brake repair shops. But all this fancy talk about 'gears' - all cars drive on '1'. Any idiot knows that. Get out of my cab."
Andrew sits on the kerb, head in hands. "I'm trying to earn Gen points but people just won't listen. They won't do things to help themselves, even when it's so damned obvious," he says to the cold air, utterly dejected. "THE WORLD IS STUCK IN FIRST GEAR!"
=
CHAPTER 20 Provolution
"Ignorance is guilt!"
The steel in Christiana's opening remark next morning and in her gaze shakes Andrew's already shaky composure. He senses she has left her kid gloves at home today. Searching for words within the remnant confusion of his Negcom ordeal and from the Sylvia revelations, he shakes his head as if to clear it, to disagree and to query, all at the same time, succeeding only in giving an impression of a head about to topple from its body.
"I thought we were to talk about revolutions?" is all he can manage, lamely.
"Correct," says Christiana, suppressing the muscles trying to lift the corners of her mouth, "I just want to draw your attention to a current view that you will find different. In your time it was accepted that ignorance of a law was no excuse for breaking it. That is still the case, and now it applies as well to some of our unwritten laws, which include responsible custodianship and rights to unused potential, which you will hear about shortly. Because they are so important we now include them under the 'ignorance is no excuse' banner. OK?"
"OK," with a sigh. He doesn't relish being further unsettled. Obviously she has a reason for saying this, but surely couldn't have knowledge of his dream, so it must be coincidence. He studies her lithe form as she busies herself doing small things and then as she passes his bed gives him a soft kiss on the forehead. She hums a familiar tune and he wonders whether there is anything more to Christiana than appears on the surface. Maybe he is becoming more interested now the question of Sylvia has been put to rest, now he knows the circumstances of her demise so long ago. In the grey stippled background of his thoughts about Sylvia, his coma and distant 2020, Christiana is a bright spot that sparkles and contrasts against his jaded mind, ripples and reflects around the anchor that is his body.
Finally she sits beside him. "Revolutions are about change, substantial change. Sometimes they occur over a long period, as in the Agricultural Revolution, where changes were major but disruptions reduced because of the extended time frame. The Industrial and Information Revolutions had progressively shorter time scales with more confusion and disorder.
"At one extreme of the change scale the French, American and Russian Revolutions took place over a short period with extensive warfare, tumult and bloodshed. Quietly, at the other extreme is evolution, where results emerge at such monumentally slow speeds they have no direct effect on present generations."
"Evolution is painfully tedious, you might say, whereas revolutions are tediously painful?" Andrew asks.
"Very good," Christiana responds. "Nothing wrong with your brain."
"So is 'revolutionary' a term to describe the huge changes of the last generation?" asks Andrew. "What about the massive problems, the whole baggage of difficulties that must have accompanied it? It's a big price to pay. Unless by some miracle you're going to tell me you and your 'enlightenment' obviated all that."
V
D: Revolutionary Process:
Christiana: "The 'revolution' of our generation had a greater impact than all that preceded it, yet it wasn't a revolution in the traditional sense. The big ask was how to achieve the good without the bad?" She launches into a series of rhetorical questions and answers. "Why is there a need for revolutions? Because when conditions and circumstances change, as is their habit, individuals follow reluctantly and slowly, institutions most only when they are forced to. People become disenchanted with organisation and authority, weary and pessimistic about their impotence.
"Why do things have to get so bad before they change? One of the perverse 'rules of revolution'. Because problems can't be clearly understood within the context of old ideas; solutions lie outside present patterns of thought. Institutions aren't able to handle mounting problems. A new way of thinking about old problems is needed - the so-called paradigm shift - but people can't embrace the new paradigm until they let go the old one.
"As well, for people who could influence policy, the effort and risk in departing from established customs and conventions is seen to be greater than the perceived need to change. Hence a lot of resistance has to be broken through."
"Nothing new there," Andrew points out. "I knew all that. What are you leading into?"
"Some of the other 'rules of revolution'. Revolutions are, at best, under limited control, so there are unintended and unknown side effects. Hence 'having to take the bad medicine with the good' and 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. Lack of control results in pitiful (in retrospect) discord and disarray, upheaval, turmoil and anarchy."
Andrew wants to argue but knows he is on weak ground. He recalls a general view prevailing among his youthful contemporaries as to how 'good' were the Russian and Chinese Revolutions. How that view inhibited forward thinking at the time and how pathetic it became in retrospect.
"Yes, you knew a certain amount about the process of change," Christiana continues. "The way new ideas are treated with coolness or scorn until, bit by bit, people begin to see their sense and value. Eventually a critical mass of understanding and support is reached, there is a flip-flop and suddenly the idea becomes the conventional wisdom and people ask why it wasn't done before, why it has taken so long?
"But even though these things were known a generation ago no-one was pursuing them. Kent's group was different - they thought about it and did something. They created an agenda for positive societal change by re-programming the dynamics of the revolutionary process. They changed change. Instead of just letting things happen and watching them get worse until some form of revolution erupted with climactic results, they took the initiative, went out on a limb, backed their collective judgement and instituted decisive action to change things for t
he better."
=
"We were proactive," said Rose on the screen. "'Proactive: 1. Creating or controlling a situation by taking the initiative. 2. Of or relating to mental conditioning, or a habit, etc., which has been learned.' It's a word that didn't appear until the twentieth century, which is a pity because it could have been used to good effect in previous eras. One of the foremost / important / effective / valuable ways to use our brain, is not only to think but to think ahead, to save our feet / head / society. Planning and acting ahead of otherwise negative events so introduction of change happens with a minimum of disruption. The necessary collective change of mind is introduced by co-operation and control rather than conflict and crisis. The best way to fix problems is to make sure they don't happen. Much less trouble than trying to fix them after they occur.
"We brought on a proactive revolution of the mind, (and, via the individual mind, of society) or 'Provolution' for short. Awareness preceded change, rather than follow it as in a revolution. (We thought for a while we might call it 'Sage' - Stimulated And Guided Evolution, or 'Gape' - Guided and Accelerated Positive Evolution, but decided against them.) Provolution is a mental, social and cultural transformation. It was our mechanism for achieving the benefits of revolution without the feral baggage. And one of the main components of the Provolution was, of course, Mentology. Mentology informed and fired and drove the Provolution."
~
"Oh my God," Andrew moans as he interrupts the film. "I'm not sure I can cope with all this new terminology."
"Andrew, of course you can. You're just not used to it. Think about the multitude of words that are familiar to you but unknown to people of a generation earlier. You can handle it easily with a new mindset. Mindsets help us negotiate complexity, but they also deter innovation. We needed a hybrid form to get us through complexity without cramping innovation. Mindset is a word you're going to hear a lot more about."
"I've heard it before. You talk to me at times like I'm a child," he complains.