by Jim Stark
Chapter 64
SPOILS OF WAR
Wednesday, April 6, 2033—7:25 p.m.
It was a sunburned evening, the kind of sweaty affair one might expect in Memphis or Athens in July, not in Pontiac County, Québec in April. March had not been so unusual, even after four decades of global warming, although towards the end there had been less snow than would have been typical a century ago. Still, there'd been no “weird spells” in 2033—until now. The high on this windless day, at 3:00 p.m., had been 93 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, and the humidity rivaled that of a sauna. It would probably last only a day or two before things went seasonal again, but for the moment, it was ... well, weird.
"We should have come starkers, to freak them out,” joked Lars as he plodded down the cement stairs with Annette Blais and Tirone Lucas. Had this meeting been virtual, the guys at least might have done it—Annette was too hung up or dignified (take your pick) to present herself to the whole world au naturel. But this meeting was “on the warm,” or “in person,” as Evolution International had insisted, and Evolutionaries weren't supposed to flaunt their broader comfort zones in the Normal community, especially when it came to all things sexual. So here they were, dressed in clinging clothing, representing Victor-E's new role as community Santa Clauses, entering the basement of the town hall.
They were on time, and they were surprised not to see a clump of locals standing out on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes and joints—the usual fare for Normal meetings. They didn't even see anyone parking a car or walking towards the early-20th-century building on Main Street. “Maybe they didn't hear about our meeting,” said Tirone, “or maybe they just didn't believe us!"
"Maybe Normals just don't like free money,” said Lars sarcastically.
"Yeah right,” said Tirone. “And pigs fly."
The threesome went down the stairs to the basement, and voices could be heard from the meeting room. Lars opened the door, peeked in and saw about a dozen people, mostly women, and all clearly proletarian.
Annette gave Lars a light knee to the buttocks to move things along. “I guess the local movers and shakers didn't come,” she whispered.
They had expected that. The middle class and anyone even higher up the ladder were ridiculing this new “phase 2 thing” that Evolution was now launching—not that they had much of a handle on the details. They certainly didn't want anything resembling charity from what they considered a collection of “misfits and deviates,” a phrase that better-off Normals used in private to characterize Evolution. A few businesspersons had mumbled their concern that this new Evolutionary gimmick might catch on, like Canadian Tire's funny-money or the Fineberg Food chain's frequent diner points, and cut into their sales figures. For the most part, however, the Normal response to Evolution's weird invitation had been raised eyebrows and dismissive laughter.
The notice on the Net had been rather vague. All over the world, from almost one million clans, the same message “template” had been filled in and sent out on the Net to bulletin boards maintained by all nearby cities, towns and service groups:
All phase 2 Evolutionary clans will henceforth invest a significant portion of all their members’ ongoing savings into social services for the surrounding Normal communities through our new Social Service Terminals (SSTs). [name of clan] invites all Normal citizens to come and tell us what you need. A meeting will be held on the warm at [time] in the [place] on April [date—no later than April 8], 2033.
"Hey, here comes Santy Claus!” slurred a short Normal male wearing a feed cap—obviously a country hick, and just as obviously a drunk. Annette seemed to remember that squeaky voice. She caught the eye of the unfunny guy who had repeated the “Santa” put-down that had sprung up in Normal chatrooms immediately after the first skeletal facts about the “phase 2” plan had been released. She recognized him as a regular at the E-tery, a mostly unthreatening pain-in-the-ass whose patronage was prompted by the rather high probability of excellent boob-ogling prospects. In the E-tery kitchen, all the staff referred to him as “the troll."
The sweating locals were standing around in groups of two or three, wiping their faces and complaining about the sweltering weather. When Annette and her two escorts went to the fold-up table at the front of the room, those who had come to hear the news shuffled to find seats. There were tiny open windows down one wall of the basement room, high up, just above ground level, a perfect set-up to let in lots of natural light, no breeze at all, and way too much heat. Annette fished an unused E-tery serviette from her purse and mopped her brow. “You got the numbers?” she asked Tirone.
"Right here,” said Tirone. She knew I had them, he realized, so why did she ask that? He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and flattened it as best he could on the plywood table, having already forgotten that his feelings might have been injured one moment ago.
The years haven't been kind to Tirone, thought Annette. He was fifty-eight, but he looked a lot older. Annette was pleased to see the pride in his sunken eyes as he shook his head at the impressive bottom line on the page between his big beefy mitts. He finds it nearly impossible to believe we're actually doing this, she thought, but he's so trusting of others—especially Victor—that he's going along with it. That was also true of a hundred million other Evolutionaries around the world—almost half of the movement had already signed up for “phase 2.” It's amazing that so many came on board, Annette considered, again. I think it's possible that Evolutionaries are closer to Human Three Consciousness than Victor realizes.
She wanted to “believe” that, even though belief, as such, was not exactly a popular activity for Human Threes. Belief meant you accepted something as true even though you had no evidence, and no reason to even suspect it was true other than your own hope that it was ... or maybe somebody else's hope or say-so. The reality of Evolution's shift to the phase 2 model was foggier than Evolutionaries suddenly seeing some kind of bright light. The perception of most people was more in keeping with the instinctive skepticism one would expect of a jungle-dweller, or a capitalist. In fact, millions of Evolutionaries were shifting over to the new model on faith, plain and simple, never mind that they had been specifically asked not to do things that way. But it was understandable. After all, they had just recently learned that Victor Helliwell was the architect of the Evolution movement, and it was Helliwell who was recommending this fundamental amendment to the rules.
Annette put her elbows on the table, interlocked her fingers, parked her chin on her hands, and stared out at the motley collection of locals that had deigned to attend. She could have called the meeting to order and jumped right into the business part, but she wanted to collect herself, review the situation, take a minute or two to just think.
The campaign slogan that the Board of Evolution International had decided upon at the Diefenbunker was: “Phase 2—because it's right for now—even if it feels wrong.” Human Threes knew all about that “feeling wrong” business. They'd had hundreds of personal experiences, and heard about thousands more from friends and family, where those words “even if it feels wrong” had been the fulcrum upon which big decisions had turned, good decisions, mostly, decisions that had reinforced their new and unnatural reliance on reason, and their distrust of impulse, their distrust of their own gut feelings. The reality was that many of those decisions were tentative, taken on trust, and confirmed only when it became obvious that they were right, later ... sometimes months later. The apparent momentum of the international move to “phase 2” was indeed very tentative.
Evolutionaries knew they were at war; that was simply impossible to miss. A lot of their business was drying up as more and more Normal customers heeded the “modest suggestion” that Sheena Kalhoun had made a few weeks back. Most Evolutionaries had a friend or a family member who wouldn't go along with phase 2, or who was moving out of a clan in protest, even disgust. But almost all of the older members of the movement, along with at least some of the newer ones, had dec
ided to buy into the recommendation of the Directors of Evolution International. If they stuck it out for a couple of months and it didn't show concrete signs of working as planned, they'd be out a few thousand dollars each—not a big deal. And of course as free people, they could change their minds at any time and go back to the old phase 1 model ... and just hope that somehow the movement would still survive the economic war that had been declared by the WDA.
But then along with the alarming exodus, there was a parallel trend that stymied the expert analysts—a growing demand for those places vacated by the Doubting Thomases, a flood of new applicants to Evolution, a need for entirely new clans to be constructed, thousands of them, all over the place. It seemed that the world's remaining Christians—although they certainly didn't buy Victor Helliwell as a new Jesus—were profoundly impressed by his “economics of love” idea, and the fact that he had based phase 2 on the admonition in the second “Great Commandment” for Christians to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Some Christians said that the phase 2 model was based on the Golden Rule—"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"—but the second so-called Great Commandment was the principal source of Helliwell's inspiration ... even though he also meant what he had said about phase 2 having nothing to do with believing the Bible or believing in God. ("A good idea is a good idea, no matter what the source may be,” he had emphasized repeatedly in the Diefenbunker.)
One thing was certain: Victor Helliwell unquestionably believed his own words when he articulated the phase 2 economic model in the Diefenbunker. All his words had been surreptitiously recorded by Annette Blais—partly for the sake of history, and partly so they could be LieDeck-verified later. A sympathetic (read “not-too-hostile") agent of the WDA had later allowed the LVing of that entire presentation, and it flew out over the Net that Helliwell's logic, if not intrinsically verifiable, had at least passed that test. Helliwell believed (and it could be cogently argued) that if Evolution were to operate on the basis of the phase 2 model, their customer loyalty would become so intense that many Normals would start volunteering at the Social Service Terminals, or SSTs—and many of these volunteers would eventually end up joining the movement, becoming givers rather than takers, and getting a lot more fun out of life in the process! This was a wild dream, that real love could eventually conquer instinct, greed and selfishness—even evil. Of course Victor Helliwell was not the first person to propose such a preposterous notion—Jesus was—but Victor was the first to translate it into material terms, into an economic model that could, and would, test this theory out, once and for all. And now Annette and her two friends were in a position to start that ball rolling, to see if it went anywhere or not.
"You'd think more'n a dozen locals would'a come,” Tirone said sadly. He had picked up on Annette's mood, and done a little Human Three thinking of his own. He felt it was time for her to snap out of it and get her butt in gear.
"You watch, the next SST committee meeting will be so crowded they'll be renting the fucking arena,” Annette whispered as she accepted the damp, wrinkled page from Tirone. Then she introduced herself and her fellow phase 2 Evolutionaries. “We are not here to run your meeting,” she told the small gathering. “We will simply tell you how the phase two SST thing is going to work, and how much money is available, then you folks will have to form a committee, elect a chairperson, discuss your priorities, vote, and tell us what you need, okay?"
"You mean, like, we just tell you how to spend all that money and that's what you'll do?” asked the tipsy troll from his hiding place under the feed cap.
"That's about it,” said Lars, who was sitting to the left of Victor-E's administrator.
"So, like, if we voted for free beer, you'd buy beer and give it to us?” asked the troll's buddy.
"Is that what you want?” asked Tirone, putting a hard Human One edge on his voice.
"Sure, why not?” said the troll.
"Well,” said Annette, “if you make up a committee and the committee votes for that, I guess ... that's what we'll do, but you'd have to—"
"All riiiiiiight!” said the troll-buddy with a triumphant thrust of his fist. “All in favor o’ free beer, hands up, dammit!” He tried throwing both his arms into the air, presumably to signal the touchdown.
"First of all,” shouted Tirone—the Tirone Lucas of old, really—"you couldn't drink that much beer, and sec—"
"Try me,” squeaked the troll belligerently.
"—and secondly,” bellowed Tirone, “if you'd shut your fuckin’ mouth for a while, I think maybe some other people could talk and we could get on with the meeting."
Annette stood up and looked down at Tirone, amazed that after so many years living in Evolution, he could regress with such speed to the rowdy goon he had been before the Revolution.
"Sorry,” said Tirone when he looked up. “Sorry,” he repeated ... directly at the troll, who was ready to roll up his miniature sleeves and pummel Tirone—not that he stood a chance of landing a single blow. “I guess I shouldn't'a shouted at youse ... or swore,” he said reluctantly.
Annette got the two inebriated locals to sit down, and went back to the business that had brought her here. “First, why don't I tell you how much money you'll have to play with?” she asked, immediately regretting her choice of the word “play.” “There's...” she checked the wrinkled sheet of paper. “There's three hundred and twenty people at Victor-E, of which ninety-six people are retired or at school full time or too young to work, so that means there's two hundred and twenty-four Evolutionaries who work full time. The average income for an employed Normal is a hundred and ten thousand dollars a year, but the average income of an Evolutionary is only about sixty-five percent of that amount, or about seventy thousand a year. The total income at the Victor-E clan is seventy thousand dollars times our two hundred and twenty-four working people, or about sixteen million dollars a year. As you may know, we save and invest approximately forty percent of our incomes, so our collective savings are about six million a year. Now, in this phase two program, instead of investing all of that money for our own retirement, we'll be putting half of it, or three million dollars a year, in the SST committee that you people will be setting up. So if you—"
"Holy Christ!” said the suddenly sobered-up troll. “So you're going to give us three million fuckin’ dollars a year, and we can do whatever the fuck we want with it?"
"That's right,” said Annette, with silent questions rumbling in her head about whether these people deserved so much as a half-price hamburger. There were nods of agreement from her Evolutionary cohorts—that was the plan.
"Why?” asked the troll's similarly sobered-up sidekick.
"That's our business!” said Tirone ferociously. “Well, you said it was,” he whined up towards Annette's disapproving face.
"We aren't here to explain our reasons,” Annette said diplomatically to both Tirone and the small audience. “That information is already out on the Net for any of you to look up. For the moment, I will tell you that there is one string attached. Whatever you decide to do with this money is fine with us, as long as you can explain how the ideas you agree upon will help make life better in your community ... which means if you want free beer, you'd have to justify the expense in those terms, which I don't think you—"
"Yeah right!” said the troll. “So it's—like—we can have anything except free beer, right?"
"Come on with me, you two,” rumbled Tirone as he stood up quickly, pointed two adjacent fingers at the sinners, and headed for the door. “I'm gonna personally buy you guys as much beer as you can drink between now and fuckin’ midnight, okay?"
The two drinkers reached the door before Tirone, hooting and hollering all the way.
"Thanks, Tirone,” said Lars, echoed by Annette.
"No problem.” said Tirone. “Just don't be surprised if I come home a bit wobbly—and don't be surprised if I convert them two assholes inta Human Threes,” he added with a goofy grin. “We're allowed
to push people now, right?"
"Okay,” said Annette to the nine women and one man who remained, “so, this money should go a long way towards making life better for you and your families and friends, so ... do I hear any nominations for chairperson?"
Chapter 65
MOON ON THE RISE
Wednesday, April 13, 2033—2:45 p.m.
It was mid-afternoon on a pleasant mid-April day—Canada and Québec had returned to seasonal temperatures. The sun was rising ever higher in the sky, and sticking around longer. Victor stood at his traditional spot at the picture window, staring west. Spring was just around the corner, and there was now open water all around all the edges of Wilson Lake. He wondered if he'd make it to summer, conscious. Doctor Valcourt had changed his medication again, and while the pain was under better control, Victor's body now had an unpleasant buzz, even at the best of times.
But my soul is ... he said to himself, meaning it poetically rather than theologically. On the inside, he restarted the thought, I'm...
In three days, it would be the nineteenth anniversary of the day in 2014 when he first met Randall Whiteside to show him the prototype LieDeck. Victor didn't know how he should feel about that. What ever happened to that first LieDeck? he asked himself, and then he remembered that it had been in the lodge when the place was blown up on April 19, 2014. Or so I was told, he reminded himself. No one seemed absolutely sure about that, but that's the way the history books and the Netshows told the story ... so ... that's what probably happened, he told himself. It didn't feel right, that “fact,” but then nothing felt right any more. Not since...? Victor tried to pin it down. January, he figured, when I had to start taking all those pain pills.
April 16—the day in 2014 that he showed old man Whiteside his LieDeck—wasn't an anniversary anyone celebrated. They should, he felt. Vision is better than blindness, no matter what's in front of your eyes. Soon there would be a flurry of anniversaries ... the day the lodge got bombed, April 19, 2014; the day the late prime minister Louis St. Aubin swan dived to his death in Australia, April 26, 2014; the day Bucharest and Leningrad died, April 29, 2014; and the day when I stopped talking ... that was ... He couldn't get that date clear in his mind. There were too many anniversaries to remember, all clustered together—the Revolution—and none of them brought pleasure.