Dreams
in the Tower
Part 3
Andrew Vrana
The look in Monika’s eyes as she delivered the latest update on the aftermath of that bitter night that had almost—almost—caused Silvan to abandon everything was too alarming to be ignored.
He had made a big mistake last time she had been in his office; he had let his anger, and even worse his fear, show through in Monika’s presence. He had shown her his human side and ever since then she had been distant and visibly shaken whenever she was around him. As he looked at her now, sitting in front of his desk while he stood over her, wringing her hands in her lap and breathing too heavily, he had the horrible feeling that his sturdy right hand was fraying, cracking under the pressure.
“What is it, Monika?” he asked her. “What else do you need to tell me?”
“Nothing,” she said immediately. “It’s just…” She took off her glasses and placed them on the desk, rubbing her eyes. “It’s just everything. All of it. I’m tired and I’m guilty and I just want this all to be over.”
“It won’t be over now until it’s done,” he said. “One way or the other. I made my choice, and apparently they made theirs. I didn’t want war. That’s not on us. They are responsible for their own deaths.”
Monika let out a sputtering cough-like sound that may have been a sob and covered her eyes with her hands. Silvan stared at her in confusion for a moment before reaching a tentative hand out to touch her shoulder. She jerked away from his touch and looked up at him with wild red eyes. At that moment he knew definitively: the respect she showed him was not out of friendship or admiration but rather fear—the kind a superstitious peasant has for a king who proclaims himself divine. He removed his hand and walked around his desk to sit at his big chair on the other side.
“I need to know,” Monika said. She donned her glasses so that her dewy eyes were obscured somewhat behind the glinting lenses. “Tell me what all this is for, really. I get Project Unify, I really do. But I don’t understand why. Tell me. I’ve been blind long enough and I deserve to know.”
“I suppose you’re demanding an explanation then?”
She nodded uncertainly.
Silvan sighed, long and slow; the time had finally come to be honest with her. He owed her nothing less. He paused and stared out through the window at the cloudless sky, wondering how to convey his mind to her, how to decipher his dreams for the dreamless. When he looked back he saw she was staring at him eagerly, almost impatiently.
Hungry.
“Well,” he began, “I guess I have to start from the beginning then. The very beginning.” He paused and stared at the patterns in the wood of his desk, seeing shapes in it he knew no one else saw. He had stared at these patterns while rehearsing this very speech in his head, unsure at the time if he would ever need to give it. “Many years ago,” he began, “long before I founded Silvan Technologies, the Age of the Corporation dawned and transformed capitalism—changed it from a system of economics to a system of governance. For the first time, at least officially, our elected leaders and the people who elected them no longer had the power, not truly. Those at the top of the capital hierarchy could use their money as power over anyone and everyone. And why shouldn’t they? Those who are successful, or come from a successful lineage, are usually inherently far more intelligent than the masses. Why leave the power in the hands of a horde of idiots when they will be equally satiated with the illusion of power? The only thing that makes sense is to let the elite minds guide society.
“But it’s a ravenous world we’ve created. Obviously, corruption abounds. Rather than the smart and successful ones building the world we all need, we have a group of greedy dogs fighting each other over who gets the biggest share of the kill, who has the most power over the others. They get so…so distracted by the melee that they forget about the world, and progress stagnates. Power is the bane of the corporate society even as it is the bane of humanity itself. Therefore it must be removed to usher in the perfected ideal, the post-capitalist dream, the future of the world.” Glancing up, he saw a timid look on Monika’s face and realized his voice had become louder and more harsh. He took a moment to compose himself.
“How do we attain such lofty aspirations?” he continued more calmly, speaking the words he had gone over in his head countless times before. “This question tortured me for decades as I took advantage of a system I despised, building the greatest corporation the world has ever seen. Then one day, sitting in this room, looking out that window there, I realized I had already answered the question. I was well on my way to possessing what I needed to drive the world into the future, and it was something much cleaner, much more wieldable than raw financial power.”
He let that hang in the air until she said, “What is it?”
Looking her dead in the eyes, he said, “Control. Power gives you control, but only until someone else comes along with more power. Total control transcends power, so that power becomes meaningless. So to lead society into the future, all I need is total control.”
Monika laughed politely. “And how will you do that?”
“Have you not been paying attention?” He grinned. “When I own everything, only I can decide what meaning wealth has. All of the money goes through me.”
“And money is power.”
“Exactly.”
“But only you will be able to derive power from the money, when you own everything.”
“Right.”
“You won’t own everything,” she said, leaning back and staring thoughtfully out the window. “You and I both know that. It’s simply not possible.”
“If you hadn’t pointed out that unfortunate truth,” he said, “I would have made you leave my office immediately. I won’t own everything. But that’s a problem I took care of.”
“How so?” She was looking at him with stony eyes, almost back to her usual self.
He would have liked to have told her everything, just to have another person there into whom he could siphon some of his doubts and fears, but it was smarter to leave her out of it. As loyal as she may be, as vital to his continued existence as they both knew she was, she was only human. She could be broken.
“On that you’ll just have to trust me.”
The instant defeat in her eyes told him that she would, that she didn’t have a choice.
19
“Baz, what time is the man from Silte Corp calling?” Chris asked the question over his shoulder as he worked the knot in his tie up to his throat. He then started pulling on his pants—the ones fresh from the dry-cleaner, not the ones he had worn into the Capitol that morning for the vote.
“11:30,” Baz said from the wide screen that Chris had had built into the wall directly across from his desk when he’d moved in. “That’s six minutes thirty-six seconds from now, Senator Colmin.”
“Do I look presentable?” He had just finished with his cuffs and now stood in full view of the screen’s camera, which was his virtual assistant’s perception tool.
“Perhaps you might do something with your hair, Senator Colmin.”
“Good eye.” Chris ran a soft hand through his neatly trimmed, gray-flecked brown hair, smoothing out any signs of the excitement of the last fifteen minutes. As an unmarried member of the United States Congress, he had to keep up the appearance that sex was something he just did not do, even though nobody with a brain really believed that.
“I wouldn’t put your feet up on the desk,” Alana said, smoothing out her pants as she stepped out of the office’s spacious closet, “unless you plan to put some shoes on.” She was wearing a not-quite-formal navy blue suit that was exactly what Chris would expect a senator from New York t
o wear.
“I wouldn’t put my feet up on the desk anyway,” Chris said. “It’s expensive.”
“Why not?” Alana asked playfully. “You don’t want to trample the desk like you trampled the lives of millions of unemployed workers and their families this morning?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Fearing an economic collapse, Chris had previously been among the many who had sought to force Silte Corp to re-employ most of its laid-off personnel and have its subsidiaries do likewise, but three days of violent protests with a death toll in the thousands (many of them demonstrators, but that was beside the point) had forced he and many of his colleagues to trust Silvan and his corporate empire—if only to stay true to the media-guided public opinion. So he had voted against the emergency action. He couldn’t help but wonder, considering Silvan’s influence, whether the outcome of the vote would’ve been any different regardless. There was a lot of money coming out of that tower in Dallas, enough to make all sorts of things happen.
“Baz,” he said to the elderly generic male face on the screen, “does Senator Shelley have a clear way out?”
“Just a moment…okay. It’s clear now, Senator Colmin.”
“Good,” Chris said. “Alana, until next time.”
“Next time,” she said, smoothing out her sleeves, “maybe we should do this when you have a little more than twenty minutes to spare.” She obviously hadn’t been satisfied, but Chris knew her well enough now to pick up on that without her having to say it.
“Goodbye, Senator Shelley,” he said formally. He walked her to the door and looked down the hall in both directions before ushering her out and closing the door to the sound of her echoing footsteps. He hoped no one had decided to leave a nearby office before she got far enough away; it would not be good at all for a libertarian like himself to get caught having a secret meeting with a neo-progressive, especially in his first term in Congress. And if somebody found out they were fucking…well, he could only imagine the career-ending articles his acquaintances would gleefully send him accompanied by messages telling him how much they had always secretly hated him. He would have to retreat back to Texas and hope the scandal didn’t prevent him from getting some type of respectable corporate job before his last government paycheck ran out.
Circling around to sit at his desk, he finger-combed his hair one last time, preparing for the meeting that the message from a Silte Corp HR-bot had so adamantly implored he be present and alone for. Chris assumed the position, placing his hands on his chair’s armrests and donning a practiced smile—friendly, but not so friendly that he would not be taken seriously.
When the call notification came up on screen Baz said, “Putting him through right away, Senator Colmin.”
“Hello, Senator Colmin,” the man’s voice said while the screen was still black. A second later his narrow, well-lined face showed up on the screen, and Chris leaned back in surprise. The man’s hair was grayer and his eyelids were heavier, his mouth tighter, but Chris recognized the man right away.
“Nelson Hergeman,” he said, relaxing his shoulders and dropping the mock-friendly act: this was a friend. Well, he was a friend to the extent that he was the man who had been appointed by Silte Corp to make sure Chris won his primary and made it to Washington as junior senator for the state of Texas. “How have you been?” Chris said. “You know I never really thanked you for, well, this.” He gestured at the office around him.
“It’s time to repay Mr. Silvan and Silte Corporation,” Hergeman said, completely ignoring Chris’s polite greeting. “We got you in office,” Hergeman elaborated. “Now you help us.”
“Oh, I see.” Something wasn’t right about the way Hergeman spoke—or the way his face didn’t seem to reflect his words in any noticeable way; in fact, he was unsettlingly wooden to the point of appearing inhuman. “I understand,” Chris said. “I mean, I’ve been wondering when you guys would reach out to me with all that’s going on out there.” Not to mention, he thought, why you scheduled this meeting for after the morning vote. Had they been testing him by seeing where his allegiance would fall when left unhindered?
There was no question that Chris owed everything to Silte Corp. When he initially set out on the campaign trail, he made no secret about his full support of the Corporate Freedom Act in its present state and promised that he would not vote for any legislation that would impinge on the rights of corporate persons. Knowing, obviously, this would have limited appeal among a weary voter base, he had been relying on gaining an edge in the primary through generous corporate contributions; what he had gotten instead was a visit at his North Dallas headquarters, in person (for the one and only time—the rest of their meetings would be in vid-calls), by Nelson Hergeman. The man had discussed a few ideological points with him for a while before telling him that Silte Corporation would be willing to win him the senate seat if he would agree to serve them whenever they needed him to. Wanting nothing more at that moment than to gain one more step on the political ladder, Chris had taken the stylus firmly in hand and signed the tablet screen. Within a week, the only other serious contender in the primary dropped out suddenly and mysteriously. Two months later, the two other candidates who posed any real threat to Chris’s campaign dropped out of the race, and in November he began making preparations to come to Washington D.C. to join his fellow freshman senators. Hergeman had sent him one final message: “Congratulations. You will hear from us.”
It seemed that time had come.
“We have a bill,” Hergeman said. “It has your name on it, along with a few others, but you’re front and center. You’re going to introduce this bill Wednesday, and the vote will be Thursday. It will pass the senate and house and will obviously not be vetoed by the president.”
“Okay,” Chris said slowly, trying to ignore the weird motionlessness of the face on the screen. “And what is this bill? More corporate freedom? If so, I can’t guarantee it will pass.”
“No.” Hergeman shook his head mechanically. “The bill gives artificial personalities, intelligences, and other entities legal personhood. The Freedom of Non-Physical Persons Act.”
Out of respect for the man, Chris forced himself not to laugh. After a short silence he said, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather me propose increased freedom for corporate persons? That might have a better chance than this.”
“It will pass.” The strange, emotionless way he said it made Chris believe him.
Sponsoring a bill wasn’t all that much to ask of Chris. In fact, having his name on a major, polarizing bill could be a great step to a possible future presidential run. But this bill in particular was just ridiculous. There may be fifteen or twenty members of Congress on the ideological fringes who thought that, for one reason or another, artificial personalities should have equal rights; aside from those, everyone saw the possible long term implications—like what will happen when a true artificial intelligence is created and instantly possesses all the rights of a natural human being. The fear was just too ingrained to allow them to endorse such a thing. Not to mention the fact that half of them—including every senior senator over the age of 65—still refused to update their offices with virtual assistants like the rest of the world. This bill would be a tough sell, and not only would it not help his future presidential campaign, it might actually prevent it altogether. He should say no to Hergeman now and join in the mocking derision aimed at whomever they picked to take his place on Wednesday.
But he didn’t have that option.
“Give this bill to my assistant,” he said to the screen, where Hergeman’s face didn’t even acknowledge that Chris had said anything.
“That will be all for now, Senator,” Hergeman said.
“All right.” Chris poured himself some ice water from the jug on his desk and took a sip. “Before you go,” he said, “why exactly does Silte Corp need a bill like this to pass? Are your secretaries threatening to go on strike or something?” He chuckled but quickly stopped when he realized the joke had not mad
e so much as a dent in Hergeman’s steel exterior.
“I’m not permitted to answer that.”
“Understandable,” Chris said. Then, deciding he’d had enough of this uncharacteristic version of the man he had once known, he said, “You know, for as much life as you’re showing today, I’d say you’re an artificial personality.”
Still not even a grin from the other man. Hergeman only said, “We will be in touch, Senator.” And with that the meeting was over.
Draining his nearby glass of water, Chris got up and moved around the desk, straightening his tie and shirt collar. He looked around the room and sighed; on Wednesday he would probably become the subject of a day’s worth of jokes from the news analyzers and political satirists of the world. It would blow over, eventually—it always did. Or maybe it wouldn’t need to. Hergeman had sounded pretty sure, and Chris couldn’t deny that Silte already had a heavy hand in the day-to-day dealings in Congress. He would just have to trust the masters and play along, do his job.
“Baz,” he said, “I’m going out to lunch. Give me a summary of that bill. Everything I need to know to not look like too much of an idiot on Wednesday. That includes outside facts and data.”
“Right away, Senator Colmin.”
Pocketing his tablet, Chris said, “Just think, if things work out Wednesday then maybe someday you’ll be a senator and someone will be taking your orders.” He couldn’t help but flash an irreverent smile at the screen as he sauntered out of the office—a smile that quickly died when he realized that if the bill passed he might actually have to start giving his virtual secretary paychecks.
And that was a scary thought.
20
For at least the hundredth time in the last five days Jason, huddled on one of two beds in a little passenger cabin aboard the container ship MV Wyles, tried to call Sabrina through the non-E com app he had put on her tablet. For at least the hundredth time, he was left disappointed. No, he was more than disappointed: he was utterly demolished, torn by the guilt of abandoning her and aching with worry at what might have happened to his last remaining friend. While there was no way of knowing if his calls and messages were even getting through, he did know that no one else but Sabrina would be able to receive them, regardless of who might be in control of her tablet now, so he kept trying.
Dreams in the Tower Part 3 Page 1