The Liedeck Revolution Book #2: Endgame

by Jim Stark

  He struggled into the cabin, used both hands to hoist the metal bucket onto the wood stove, and breathed relief. He'd have a sponge bath in half an hour or so—whenever the water was above body temperature—but for now he had to get into some dry clothes. He smiled as he peeled off his soaked pants and socks and underwear. His penis had shrunk, and turned a cloudy white, and his scrotum had shriveled defensively.

  Forgetting is like inexperience, he knew. This is going to take time, he also realized—the personal-sorting-out process, not the getting-dry-and-warm-and-clean.

  Chapter 62

  INHERIT THE EARTH

  Friday, March 18, 2033—10:00 a.m.

  Annette had slept too little, and poorly. Her body complained as she drove towards the entrance of the underground Diefenbunker, the home base of Jesus-E. There were no MIUs or Sniffers here, she had been told (although rumor had it that they had one early-model Sniffer in a locked safe, in case of emergencies). That must be why the Board of Directors of Evolution International chose this unique locale for its warm meeting, she said to herself.

  In the past twenty-four hours, the directors had flown in from all over the world for this gathering, even though the secrecy of their deliberations would likely be short-lived. Surely their decision to meet here had nothing to do with the fact that the WDA retained the right to use nuclear weapons against the perpetrators of chaos, and the fact this place can withstand a near-direct hit. She dismissed that thought with a rather nervous laugh. Hi there Zilla, she said to her instinct. Feeling a tad paranoid today? she asked him.

  Civilians had jumped at the chance to have things LieDeck-verified under the new LV policy of the WDA, and not unexpectedly, agents in the field had been cooperative. It seemed the LieDeck-verification of Human Three status could be done directly after all, since those who had achieved it knew it, and those who hadn't knew they hadn't. And so it was that Evolution International had confirmed the Human Three status of their top people, putting to rest years of pointless speculation about who among them, if anyone, might be a WDA informant or mole. No one was, and no one could fake Human Three Consciousness.

  Now, having learned for the first time that Human Three Consciousness was a real and provable phenomenon, it was certain that the Board would take a decision to ask the WDA to change its approach. There had been talk for years about some day asking the WDA to simply confirm the Human Three status of Evolutionaries instead of asking their four demeaning questions, since being a Human Three implied the right answers.

  Annette hadn't been able to find Lilly Petrosian yesterday, and hadn't made much of an effort, truth be told. She assumed Lilly simply wasn't answering her Netmessages. So, late last evening, Annette had Netlinked with the WDA monitor of Callaway #6, Gordon Weatherby, and confirmed that she had indeed mastered Human Three Consciousness, become Human Three—the first time she had really known that fact for absolute sure. It felt good. In fact it felt more than good—it felt wonderful. It took the commitment to the idea of Human Three Consciousness right out of the realm of belief, where it had sat in the past beside such embarrassments as religious faith, and placed it right squarely in the scientific world. I now know who I am, she realized as she parked near the entrance to the old bunker. She had to wonder if the Jesus-Eers would ever muster the guts to check out their silly religious dogmas on a LieDeck. Not gonna happen, she figured. Maybe just as well.

  The ninety-eight monks of Jesus-E were thrilled to have been designated the official host clan. “Just let our people in, escort them out and serve us your fabulous wine,” they had been told. It was quite impossible to make arrangements with a bunch of male grape farmers and rock-tunnellers who eschewed the spoken word, so Evolution International had named Victor-E the “unofficial” host clan—meaning that they had to do everything else, all the hard stuff, everything except the three small duties that had been assigned to these eccentric monks.

  The past twenty-four hours had been hectic on the Québec side of the Ottawa River, and Annette had to be almost forced into bed at three o'clock in the morning. Now, she regretted her inability ... my unwillingness, she edited herself ... to delegate authority to others during the frantic ramp-up to this rare warm huddle of Evolution International in the Diefenbunker. She was plain exhausted, and by the look of the crowded parking lot, she was among the last to arrive.

  Annette was again struck by the theological lunacy of these monks. They thought they could find Satan beneath the surface of the Earth if they dug a long enough tunnel. Like that's going to happen! came the sarcastic thought. And for seventeen years, they had professed their belief that Victor Helliwell was the Second Coming of Jesus Christ! Oh well, she figured, with the new LV policy of the WDA, that myth will be dispelled very soon, no matter what the Jesus-Eers think or do.

  She wasn't a member of the international Board of Directors, but as the head of the “unofficial” host clan and a member of the original “gang” over at Victor-E, the first clan ever to exist, she had been given a late invitation for this historic meeting. When her hood was carefully removed from her head by a taciturn monk, she found herself standing in a large underground room, and in the company of the thirty Board members of Evolution International, plus a few strays, like herself. Everyone was standing, and the windowless room was alive with animated conversation. Silent monks were serving their fine wines, and Annette was personally welcomed by Mbingu K'tonga, head of the African network of clans, with whom she had Netfaced on many occasions ... and with whom she had shared Netsex once, back in ... twenty thirty, she remembered as she caught a flash of his perfect white teeth.

  "Mbingu,” she beamed. “Good to see you, my friend. Are you chairing today's—"

  "No, I am,” said a cramped voice from behind as an arm embraced her waist.

  "Victor!” she exulted. “I wondered if you were coming today. How are you?” She found it odd—even comical—that he had dressed in a suit and tie for this gathering. He was the only person in the room wearing such clothes.

  "Dying, unfortunately,” he said after they'd kissed. “But apart from that I'm dandy. We'd better...” He finished the sentence with a hand gesture.

  The delegates sat down on an odd assortment of mismatched chairs, and the hubbub became a hush as Victor pulled a lightweight plastic lawn chair to the front of the room. “I think I'll have some of that white wine,” he said to a passing monk. The draped man handed Victor a full glass. “Thanks,” said Victor, and the monk smiled. “Thank ... you,” he repeated assertively, but the monk just smiled wider, and added a dutiful nod. “You're wel—come,” said Victor irritably. “It's just courtesy."

  The monk looked around the room, hoping to find a superior who could help him out of the dilemma.

  "Say it, for Christ's sake,” said Victor testily. “I'm a human being, and I deserve to be answered when I say thanks."

  "You're welcome,” said the terrified monk. “Lord,” he whispered as he slunk away.

  "There you go,” said Victor—meaning it wasn't such a big deal to open your mouth and spit it out. He had heard that these monks believed he was the Christ, and thought it was perfectly ridiculous. He remembered the heyday of religion, and he'd even tried to believe in God once upon a very long time ago. It amused him, the crackpot things people did in the name of a non-existent deity. Sometimes it irritated him. Why do people think they need the fear of a god to even try to love each other? he wondered for the millionth time. He stifled the impulse to lecture these foolish monks, and after tasting the wine, he turned his full attention back to the business at hand.

  "As you all know,” he began, “we were going to do this phase two thing at Victor-E and hope that it would catch on world-wide. However, we're at war now, so we have to either surrender, or beat the WDA at its own game. We could have surrendered over the Net, so I assume you've come here to get sweaty and muddy and Human One and kick some serious WDA butt.” He felt like a coach ... or a quarterback.

  Glances flew al
l over the room. That wasn't exactly how any of these directors would have put it, but ... well, this was war.

  "Just kidding,” said Victor impishly, remembering his crazy dream of very early that morning. “This contest is unavoidable, but this conflict is not between Evolution and the WDA! It is between Human Two and Human Three. The world is no longer big enough for both species. We cannot co-exist any longer, so ... we Human Threes must convert all the Human Twos, or at least the vast majority—say ninety-five percent—in the next few years. Otherwise, we're finished.

  "Now, we have no tradition of proselytizing,” he went on, “for the good reason that Human Twos cannot be reliably made to see any light on a basis of rational argument or persuasion. Which leaves us with—?” He looked out at his captive audience and saw that again, he'd managed to confuse the lot of them.

  "Prayer?” suggested a young monk, out loud! Victor dismissed him with a scornful look, caught himself, and said “no,” as politely as he could manage.

  "Force?” came a timid female voice from the back.

  "Please,” said Victor. “You don't fight fire with fire if you're a Human Three. You fight fire with...?” He paused again, hoping for an intelligent offering, or any offering at all. When nothing emerged, he finished the sentence himself. “Water!"

  Jeeze, felt Annette, I wish he wasn't so fucking obtuse about everything. “I'd prefer it if you just told us what you have in mind,” she said.

  "Connnnnnnditioning!” said Victor excitedly. “The only effective competitor to the biological imperatives of an unwilling or disinterested Human Two is conditioning! A Human Two seeks his or her self-interest compulsively ... not effectively, but certainly compulsively, instinctively. So ... we have to modify the material equation such that the efforts of Human Twos at self-gratification lead them inexorably over to Human Three Consciousness! We have to condition them into it!"

  Everyone was as miffed as ever, but two things were clear. First, Victor seemed sure of himself; and second, you don't dismiss the man who had invented the LieDeck and the Evolutionary socio-economic model until you'd heard him out.

  "And the poor shall inherit the Earth,” Victor offered with a crooked smile, just to be sure their bewilderment was complete. “Now, I guess the monks had better skedaddle so we can get down to the business of this phase two thing."

  "Why not let them stay?” suggested Annette. “They won't talk!"

  Victor always felt sick when he dwelt upon the absurd beliefs of Jesus-E—especially as they pertained to himself—but when he looked up and saw the eager, child-like looks on their bearded faces, he couldn't bring himself to do it. “I ... guess,” he said, and about a dozen monks scrambled to find good spots on the floor right in front of Him.

  Chapter 63

  JACKASSES

  Friday, March 18, 2033—1:40 p.m.

  The WDA had a monitor amongst the monks of the Jesus-E clan, just as Lilly Petrosian lived among the Victor-Eens ... except he was clandestine. He hadn't been able to get a video of the proceedings in the Diefenbunker, but he had managed to stash his digicorder close to where Victor had been seated, taped beneath the seat of a chair. And half an hour after the meeting ended, he'd gone into the room, retrieved his tiny digicorder, driven to his office in Carp (on what he said, in a hand-scribbled note, was a “personal privilege” mission), compressed the audio data down to a “squashy,” encrypted the thing and fast-loaded it by satellite onto Sheena Kalhoun's MIU.

  Sheena Kalhoun and her inner circle of six generals (plus old General Brampton, who had elbowed his way in) spent the next forty minutes listening to Victor Helliwell outline the “phase 2” plan that he had devised for Evolution. And now that their eavesdropping session had ended, everyone, even the “king of peace,” was waiting for Sheena to set the tone, to say something—anything.

  "Anybody figure Helliwell ... could be joking?” she asked. Nobody even shrugged. They weren't sure where she was going with this, and there were dangers in both a “yes” and a “no” response. Sheena kept staring at the dead MIU screen. “Well, does anybody think he was play-acting, trying to fake us out?"

  "No way he knew we were recording the meeting,” said her favorite Member of the General Assembly. His name was General Carlos Juarez, and he ran—or “represented,” officially—Brazil. He was in Sheena's good books, permanently, it seemed, and had been ever since he had accepted the point position and stick-handled the WDA through those “Henderson Scandals” last year. He wasn't always helpful, but he seemed able to speak up at will in Sheena's presence and yet be spared the legendary Kalhoun temper, even when his ideas were less than helpful ... like now. “No question Helliwell meant what he said,” offered Juarez. “There were no beeps, anyway.” They were, of course, LieDeck-verifying the squashy.

  Sheena nodded patiently. Juarez sometimes displays a stunning grasp of the obvious, she thought, like now. “Is Victor Helliwell insane, then?” she asked. “Like a sociopath, or a psychopath?” Everyone knew that there were certain psychiatric disorders that allowed their sufferers to escape LieDeck detection—mostly because they didn't rightly know that they were lying, or had no conscience to be bothered, and hence no angst to be detected in their vocal patterns.

  "Doesn't help to have a malignant golf ball inside your skull,” said Brampton, with a chuckle.

  "Even if he is insane,” tried Juarez, ignoring the Brampton intervention, “the issue is whether or not the directors of Evolution bought that load of crap."

  And then sometimes he actually is helpful, thought Sheena, like now. “Any traffic on that?” she said into the rarefied air of her top floor office at WDA headquarters in New York.

  Her MIU lit up, and her Information Officer came on the screen. “Not yet,” he said. “They'll either use the snail mail or compressed-encrypted data in a fast-load squashy to all the clans or..."

  "Or?” demanded Kalhoun.

  "Well, they could let the directors fly home and tell their clan networks personally,” said her Information Officer, “but that would take time, and I think these people are in a hurry, and Mr. Helliwell did encourage them to go public as soon as possible. I'll alert you the moment we get some electronic data on that."

  It was only two hours since Victor Helliwell had spilled his guts to the full Board of Evolution International. “They met on the warm,” said Sheena, “so obviously they didn't want us to know about phase two before they're ready. Maybe they're anticipating that we'll fumble the thing in our first reaction, or ... or they think we could and would screw them up.” It had always bothered the Supreme Commander when civilians assumed that the WDA would interfere in ways that weren't strictly within the mandate of the Charter. It mattered nothing to her that such concerns had proven prudent in the past, especially during the Henderson Scandals. She still found this paranoia insulting. But, the bigwigs of the Evolution movement almost never meet on the warm except on a regional basis, she pondered. So ... what was the point? Surely ... surely they didn't think that ... that we'd nuke them!

  "I think he meant every God damned word of it,” said General Juarez. “Plus, I think they bought it. And furthermore, I personally think Helliwell's completely fuckin’ gonzo. The fact that nothing he said got beeped only proves that he believes his own bullshit, not that what he said is true."

  All eyes moved from General Juarez to Sheena Kalhoun. “So...” She paused briefly to make absolutely sure she had this right. “So, we declared economic war on Evolution, and their brilliant retaliatory move ... is to start giving their money away helter-skelter?"

  Nobody said anything. That was essentially what Victor Helliwell had proposed ... well, not all their money, but half of their ongoing savings. No one in the WDA's inner circle dared to contradict or even confirm Kalhoun's cynical synopsis. They'd all heard the recording, but it made not a lick of sense to any of them ... never mind what Victor had said was the point of his cockamamie plot.

  "Statistics?” called Sheena, and another to
p international civil servant popped onto her MIU screen. “Have you run the numbers yet?” asked the boss.

  "Still working on it, chief,” said the female mathematical wizard that Sheena always consulted. “But as a rough guess ... we—uh—figured last week that it would take eight months to a year for Evolution to collapse financially—just on the basis of your so-called modest suggestion. Now, with Helliwell's SST giveaway deal factored in, that time-line should be cut to...” The people in Sheena's office watched as the oracle double-checked the bottom lines. “As far as I can tell, the new SST thing should accelerate the process—a lot. I'd say Evolution should be totally bankrupt in perhaps ... I don't see how they can hold out more than another ... five months ... maybe as little as four!"

  Sheena ordered her MIU down, and a small curl appeared in the corner of her mouth. “We declared economic war on Evolution,” she reviewed in a manner that exhibited great care, “and they're responding ... by weakening their defenses and giving away their war chest! Did I ... get that right?"

  Slowly, the snicker in Sheena's voice infected the whole room. Even General George felt a rare smile creeping over him. Incrementally, the snickering became chortling, then laughter, and finally disintegrated into a collection of guffaws that set up a full-fledged emotion wrestling session, replete with foot stomping, tears and all. Evolution had been shown the business end of a sword, and their leaders had decided to defend themselves by impaling themselves on the thing.

  "Fuckin'—” Sheena could hardly get the other word out, so convulsed was she with the colossal idiocy of it all. “Jackasses,” she finally managed.