The Liedeck Revolution Book #2: Endgame

by Jim Stark

  I am pleased to report that of these two hundred and forty-six MGA tests—Member General tests—and thirteen thousand five hundred and ninety-one staff tests, all the respondents answered “no,” and no lies at all were detected by our LieDecks. All these responses were recorded and are on archive, available for anyone to check and re-verify using the LieDeck of any WDA agent, if they wish. I hope this will lay to rest any doubts that remain on this matter, and will deter journalists and anyone else from suggesting that the WDA was in any way involved with the illness and death of Lester Connolly.

  Brampton nodded again, this time without prompting. He was glad that Sheena had said “I hope” and not “I trust,” because “hope” was guaranteed LieDeck-proof. They both hoped this Netcast would make all this fuss go away. Brampton really hoped it. He had never actually said: “Kill that son-of-a-bitch Lester Connolly,” but he had done a fair bit of high-volume, out-loud, Beckett-like wishing along those lines—which, considering his lofty position, could amount to ... well, trusting that his “will be done.” Still, he had done his present duty, willingly or otherwise, and Sheena Kalhoun thought it was time to wrap things up with a final dig:

  In the next few days, every WDA agent in the world will be similarly verified, and you will of course be apprised of the full results. I don't know exactly why this horrible suggestion was made in the first place, and I hope that I will get either an explanation or an apology from the New York Times and its reporter, Mr. Gilbert Henderson. Net, down, now.

  Chapter 45

  BATTLE PLAN

  Monday, March 14, 2033—2:00 p.m.

  Victor was taking painkillers more regularly now, but they didn't do much for the thick feeling inside his head. He'd been working hard in preparation for Victor-E's “phase 2” effort, the attempt the clan intended to make to acquire full Human Three Consciousness. He found he had to lie down frequently, and it seemed he rarely found time to watch the Netnews any more. But so far, this up and down activity hadn't been allowed to interfere with his daily lunch-time chess game with Noel, a tradition that dated back almost to the Revolution, and represented Victor's only social contact through his nineteen silent years. The only difference was that he and Noel now played on the warm ... and of course now he could, and did, kibitz.

  Michael had sent Noel home from the Bahamas on day two of the vacation, when he (Michael) had learned that Victor really missed him (Noel), badly. It seemed somewhat extravagant to send him back aboard the corporate jet, and the whole situation seemed a tad strange, but Victor was dying, after all, and his invention had fueled the meteoric rise of Whiteside Technologies, and Julia frequently had other things to do besides tending to the needs of the hermit of the lodge, which left Victor alone, with only a substitute cook to depend upon. And besides, Noel wanted to go home—it seemed clear to Michael that he missed Victor as much as Victor missed him.

  On this day, Noel was giving as good as he got, both on and off the chessboard. The two aging men had been sitting in Victor's living room on the second floor of the lodge for the last hour and a half, listening to a powerful March rain pound at the roof and lash loudly at the windows as it demolished the last vestiges of a winter's accumulation of snow and ice. They were at move twenty, in what seemed to be shaping up as a boring draw. Victor was playing black, and nothing ingenious sprang to mind as he stared down at the wooden men. Funny that the queen is called the most powerful man on the field of battle, he said to himself. I wonder what Julia's up to?

  "You heard ‘bout Randy is being made da president an’ all dat?” asked Noel, mostly to irritate his opponent, and partly on the off chance that Victor really hadn't heard.

  "President?” asked Victor without lifting his head, or even his eyes, and certainly not his voice. He wasn't being distracted from any brilliant analysis of the chess game, but he did not want to give Noel the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him. “Of what?” he said, just in case this wasn't all a brain-gambit.

  "Dat ‘Merrcan outfit,” said Noel—for him, it seemed that thirty years wasn't enough time to learn to speak proper English.

  "What American outfit?” Victor asked, sitting erect and looking perturbed. “What the fuck are you talking about, Noel?"

  Noel gave Victor the bare facts, as he remembered them from Randy's Netcast. “He says he's da president of USLUC and dat nobody is s'posed to talk to dem WDA guys no more until somet'ing is getting done ‘bout dis guy dat used to be da president before he is dying yesterday, an’ den some people, dey t'inking de WDA did it ... kilt dat odder guy,” he managed. “So dey make trouble, yes? T'row rocks, burn cars, all dat shit—all h'over da world, tabernac."

  Victor hoisted his shrinking body up from the chair and violently swept the men from the board with the back of his hand. “Why didn't you tell me, furfucksakes?” he yelled.

  Noel was old, but he was a big man, with a temper to match. He walked around the table to do something he'd been meaning to do for the best part of the last twenty years. He used both hands to grab Victor by the front of his silly paisley caftan, and hauled his face in to where it was practically touching his own.

  The Frenchman's breathing smelled like garlic, and murder. Victor's head pounded. “I ... I'm sorry,” he said. “You put up with me for all those years when I wouldn't talk, and ... you didn't do anything wrong, and ... and I was completely out of line to take my frustrations out on you, Noel. I'm ... really sorry."

  Noel held the dying man in place for a couple of seconds more, still wanting to punch the crap out of him, and wondering how the little bugger had come up with the only damn words that could spare him a good whupping. “If you ever talking to me like dat again, I am bust up your face,” he growled.

  "Gotcha,” said Victor. “Yeah,” he added rather hastily—to avoid any cross-cultural misunderstandings.

  "So you are conceding dat chess game,” stated Noel—as a fact. He pulled Victor an inch or two closer.

  "Yeah—sure,” Victor sputtered into Noel's stubbly chin. “Really, I'm not just saying it. I really am sorry, okay? I was totally wrong. I was...” He was going to say that he'd been acting like a Human Two, but that would have meant nothing to the cook, and might have triggered an assault.

  Noel let go of the caftan contemptuously, marched out of the room without another word, and slammed the door to punctuate things. Victor breathed heavily to make up for the oxygen-shortage of the last half-minute—it seemed much longer. The pain at the base of his skull leapt with each beat of his heart. His first impulse was to face with Michael on the SuperNet and have that fat Frenchman fired. He had to marvel at how his feelings were still trying to take decisions for him—never mind what his brain said. Fuck, it's not that easy to be Human Three, he thought as he staggered to the bathroom and swallowed another pain pill.

  He sat on the edge of the tub for a couple of minutes, deliberately thinking about ... nothing. Then he went out to his MIU. Too bad I don't have a LieDeck, he said to himself as he picked up the mouse to order a synopsis of recent news reports. He said “Net, up, now,” but nothing happened! Then he remembered that he'd unplugged the thing—he wanted nothing to wake him during those times when he slept well. He plugged it back in and ordered up what he wanted verbally.

  Ever since the SuperNet began, back in 2018, he had absolutely never used his MIU without first spending a few minutes of intense concentration to “focus his mind,” as he had always called it. He found it was impossible to remember why he had initiated that custom, and stuck to it so rigorously. He'd had his reasons for doing it ... of that he had no doubt ... but he just couldn't remember what those reasons were. Must be the brain tumor, he thought as the announcer began running through the day's developments, but that didn't show up until ... He forgot.

  Yesterday, at eight forty-eight a.m., Lester Connolly died. The virus seemed to have been eliminated by the amputation of his left arm one month ago, but somehow it regained a foothold in his chest. He was euthanized at his own re
quest before the pain became unbearable.

  Millions of people around the world went on a destructive rampage at the news of his death, breaking windows, setting fires, and in some isolated instances assaulting WDA agents. These hooligans apparently believed that the WDA had somehow caused Mr. Connolly's illness, as New York Times reporter Gilbert Henderson vaguely suggested in his Netcolumn a month ago. Some medical commentators have suggested that it would be very unusual and perhaps even impossible for the original disease to re-establish itself on its own, and that has led to speculation by some conspiracy types that Mr. Connolly may have been re-infected by the WDA.

  At seven p.m. yesterday, Randy Whiteside, the eighteen-year-old son of Whiteside Technologies president Michael Whiteside, went on the Net to announce that he was suspending his studies at the University of Miami to take over as the interim president of USLUC. He used the occasion to ask every civilian in the world to stop demonstrating destructively, but he also urged everyone in the world to refuse to talk to any WDA agent or representative, and to refuse to do their legally-required monthly LieDeck-verification sessions. He also advised civilians not to talk to the media about whether they planned to heed USLUC's call for civil disobedience. It is not yet possible to determine whether civilians will follow the new USLUC president's advice to refuse LieDeck-verification and not talk to the media, but the destructive demonstrations stopped after eleven hours and peace returned to streets and neighborhoods the world over.

  Sheena Kalhoun went on the Net at one thirty-eight p.m. Eastern Standard Time today, using the universal override for only the third time in her career as Supreme Commander. She denied any link between the WDA and the illness and death of Lester Connolly. She allowed an unprecedented application of LieDeck-verification to her live Netcast, conducted by a civilian panel using a battery of five brand new LieDecks from the assembly line at Whiteside Technologies in Ottawa, Canada. All MGAs and all paid staff at WDA headquarters were tested, apparently, and no lies were detected. Many people still seem to believe that a trick was used and that the WDA is responsible. Over the next few days, every WDA agent in the world will also be LieDeck-verified.

  Ms. Kalhoun demanded an explanation or an apology from Gil Henderson, the New York Times reporter who originally made the veiled accusation. Mr. Henderson has remained silent, and was unavailable for comment. He is apparently standing by his story, and the Times has confirmed that for the present, it is standing by its reporter.

  On the economic front, the latest InterBank projections indicate that—

  Victor silenced his MIU and pondered these astonishing developments. He'd been out of touch for two days, and he hadn't even heard about Lester Connolly's death, let alone the unprecedented worldwide outrage. He knew there were messages waiting for him in his MIU—there always were—but he'd rarely bothered with such mundane things in the past, and he did so even less since his recent decision to be engaged with humanity for his personal sprint to the finish line. I've got to stay abreast of things, he scolded himself. I must have been zonked on painkillers during Kalhoun's universal override, he thought—forgetting that he'd had his MIU unplugged since early morning ... or was it yesterday ... he couldn't be sure, and he cared little ... not one whit, truth be told.

  It was unbelievable! Randy Whiteside, at eighteen years of age and with no political background, had ended the demonstrations and thrown the WDA on the defensive in one inspired stroke! What remained, Victor knew, was the implementation—always a sticky wicket. How many people will actually do what he said, he wondered, actually refuse to be LieDeck-verified and march willingly off to jail? The WDA won't have to “divide and conquer.” They probably have an enormous list of people that piss them off, and they'll challenge those people to take their LV sessions first. This ... could backfire.

  The Netnews went on to interview professional pundits and a few common people on how Randy's gambit might play, but Victor tuned all that out. “Face with Annette Blais, Netsite on file, request override,” he commanded.

  Annette was in an aerobics class, fighting a losing battle against time and flab. It took her a moment to towel down and respond. “Yeah?” she said breathlessly as she turned on her Sniffer. “What's up, Victor?” she asked when she saw the ragged beard and bald head on the tiny black-and-white screen. This had better be important, she snarled in her mind. At least he's letting me see him this time. She was glad that he was talking again, before he died. For a while, until a couple of days ago, he'd call her several times a day on this, that, and everything else. It seemed to her like a mid-life crisis, but of course it was much more serious than that—it was sort of a prolonged death rattle. She smiled weakly at him.

  "You ... heard about Randy?” Victor asked as he turned off the outgoing visual signal of his MIU.

  "Yes,” she said simply to her blank screen. Although Annette couldn't see it, Victor's face began to contort. She could, however, sense his pent-up emotion in the short pause that followed. Don't you watch the freaking Netnews? she wanted to ask.

  "And...?” he asked.

  "And ... what?” she asked patiently.

  Victor found this extremely frustrating. “What's your response?” he demanded. “The reaction of the clan?” he specified.

  "It's up to each individual,” said Annette as she ran the towel over the top of her chest with her free hand. “Evolution is a way of life, Victor. We don't play mommy and daddy or priest or cop to our people on moral issues. And besides, Lilly's still away on vacation, so ... no problems here so far."

  Victor's feelings wanted to swat the fat bitch on the ear, and again he found himself amused at how easy it was to regress right back to Human Two. It occurred to him that while he was the author of the concept, his experience of Human Three Consciousness was largely intellectual. For the past couple of decades ... well, the last dozen years or so ... millions of people in Evolution had been living it, trying it on for size. But there is no substitute for experience, he thought, limply. In fact, knowing intellectually about Human Three Consciousness can't hold a candle to the impact of practical situations, he could remember concluding even before the LieDeck Revolution, back when he made the three reel-to-reel audiotapes. Conditioning, he recalled emphasizing to himself back then. That is the key to everything.

  He'd cooled down by now, and made a decision. “Can I groupface with the governing council over there?” he asked Annette. “Now?"

  "Jeeze ... most of them are at work, Victor. Can't it wait until—"

  "No!"

  "No?"

  "No!” Victor almost shouted. “I wouldn't have asked if I—"

  "Okay!” said Annette as she mopped her forehead with the towel. “It'll take me about twenty minutes to set up ... is that alright?"

  Victor figured she was lying when she said twenty minutes ... she probably wants to shower and change. A “detour,” he figured, remembering the list of names he'd created for the various kinds of lies. “Sure,” he said. “Net, down, now."

  He couldn't abide the thought of sitting on his fitful impatience for twenty minutes, so he decided to pre-record his message to the Board of Victor-E. He wasn't in any way inclined to try to persuade anyone of anything. That wasn't the Human Three way. You say what you've got to say, and leave it at that. He set up his MIU to record, turned the visual output back on, and began.

  "Well, hi folks,” he said as lightly as he could manage. “As you know, circumstances have changed.” He hated that phrase ... it was usually the prelude to injustice, the pretext some folks used when they wanted to break their word or default on a deal. He continued: “History is about to restart, for better or worse. The questions we should address are: who will join this battle, and on what side, and what weapons will they use, and who will win?

  "Now, most of you people are committed to being Human Three ... or to becoming Human Three ... and things are going pretty good so far, with the not-lying and all that. Phase two? That's still to come, but right now there'
s a decision facing every civilian on Earth. Do we go along with Randy Whiteside and USLUC, or do we cover our asses and run for the hills? There's no definitive judgment on what a Human Three should do here, so I'll tell you what I've decided.

  "I'll never talk to the WDA again ... or at least not until I'm certain they didn't do a JFK on Lester Connolly. If you want my opinion, Victor-E should take a referendum over the Net to make its decision collectively, and if it's a strong ‘yes,’ then a Net-alert should be sent to every clan in the world, recommending they follow suit. If all Evolutionaries in the world are on board for Randy's strategy, then the battle is over and we will have won in a couple of days. We'll get the truth from the WDA and take it from there. My guess is you'll get at least three-quarters of Evolution involved, and that's more than enough. If the WDA really had nothing to do with Lester's death, then ... well, I guess they'll come out of this stronger than ever, though perhaps a little bit chastened as to the limits of their power. If they did do it, as many people suspect ... well, I don't have a clue where things would go in that circumstance, but I can't avoid concluding that it's best all around if we find out the truth, the whole truth. Let me know what you decide, eh? Net, down, now."

  Victor was done, and he sat back to await Annette's return call. He tried to remember all the times the forces of darkness had used bullets or bombs to change the silhouette of the political landscape. There were two or three Ghandis, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his brother Bobby, Martin Luther King, Salvador Allende, Sweden's Prime Minister Olaf Palme—South Africans goons did that one—Sadat, Rabin, and then—

  "Hi Victor,” came Annette's voice from his MIU. “We're all set up."

  Victor didn't respond verbally. He was accustomed to using a mouse from his years of silence, so he just set the arrow and clicked to start the transmission of his recorded message. Then he clicked the sound and picture off his own MIU. They'd get back to him in due course. He couldn't believe he'd gone from total recluse to the status of global shit-disturber in a matter of a few weeks. Oh well, he figured, I'll be dead pretty soon anyway.