Call Me Joe

by Martin Van Es

  “We can already equip people with non-organic body parts, soon we will be able to make brains and computers interact, adding knowledge and skills or burning away traumatic and undesired emotions or barriers. We will become less and less human. The rich will be able to buy degeneration-inhibiting treatments, staying young forever, increasing the population still further.

  “We also need to watch the data-people carefully. In the age of dataism, unscrupulous people who can collect enough biometric data will be able to manipulate people, making all their decisions for them with far less heart.

  “Deep learning on the internet will allow machines to become even more intelligent. An electron is a million times faster than a human neuron. I cannot guarantee that robots will not be able to create their own will, intuition and consciousness, which means eventually they will be able to create a strategy. What value would we be to them then? Will they need us once they are capable of reproducing themselves, causing an intelligence explosion? AI is alien intelligence and people will become less and less human if they do not stay in control of it.

  “So do we continue to cherish freedom and democracy, or should we govern in a more autocratic way, admitting to ourselves that people have always proved bad with handling power? The big challenge for us is to get listened to on the global stage. Most of us can raise an audience in any university or on a platform at the United Nations or at Davos, but when it comes to talking to the other ninety per cent of the world’s population…

  “We have been saying for some time that what we desperately need is a charismatic figurehead who can unite the whole world. It seems that you truly are a gift from Heaven.”

  To her own surprise, Yung found her voice cracking with emotion. She had been working for so many years, chipping away at all the problems of the world, being knocked back every time she seemed to be making any progress that it was hard to believe they were finally on the cusp of making a breakthrough. It felt like all the fears and frustrations that she had been bottling up for years had suddenly been let free and she was being swept away on a wave of emotion. Joe stood up and hugged her tightly, aware of the tension trembling through every muscle in her spare frame as she sobbed into his chest.

  “I’m here now,” he said. “Allow me to serve you in any way I can. And for those of you who do not yet quite believe that this is true, I understand. I also know that one of you will betray me.” He held up his hand to silence them as they all raised their heads and voices in protest. “The traitor already knows who they are and they need to know that I understand them as well and that when the time comes I will forgive them.”

  Twenty

  “It’s like a snowball,” Hugo explained to Sophie and Joe as they drove back to school the following afternoon. “When a video goes viral it starts by being shared by the people involved and their followers. If each of those people shares it with two or three more people and each of those people does the same – well” – he pushed up his glasses, which had slid down his nose as usual – “you can see it will just spread faster and faster.”

  “Like that ancient Indian story of doubling the number of grains of rice on each square of a chessboard,” Sophie added. “If you keep doubling up then on the last square you end up with more than two hundred billion tons of rice.”

  “Plus,” Hugo said, excited by his own understanding of the subject, “word of mouth makes other people start searching the video out and continuing to share it with their followers, including news organisations and influencers with thousands or even millions of followers of their own. That’s how it comes out at billions of viewings within a few days.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” Joe laughed.

  “You should become a teacher, Hugo,” Sophie said.

  “It is simple,” Hugo said. “Unless you’re thick or something.”

  “Hugo!” Sophie laughed.

  “He may be right,” Joe said ruefully.

  What Hugo did not anticipate in his explanation, was that because the videos of Joe had become hard news, the traditional media, renowned for their ruthlessness in pursuit of scandal and sensation of any sort and desperate to stay ahead of the digital news cycle, now wanted to follow the story up and were already digging around for other angles and more in-depth explanations than were available on platforms like YouTube and Twitter. They also wanted to do it faster and more eye-catchingly than any of their competitors and whatever they came up with would then be spread on the internet as well, increasing the noise but diluting the core messages, making Joe even more famous but confusing people as to who he actually was and what he was actually doing on Earth.

  The scale of what had been happening over the weekend, while they had been locked inside Yung’s mountain retreat, only fully dawned on them as their car drew close to the school premises and they found their way blocked by an ocean of bodies, many of whom had cameras and recording devices. The crowd had been further swelled by people who had seen the videos and wanted Joe to perform personal miracles for them, hundreds of them bringing their sick friends and relatives in the hope that he would be able to heal them in the same way as the miracles they had witnessed online.

  “I am not going to be able to get through to the gates,” the driver warned.

  “Don’t worry,” Joe said, “drop us here and we’ll walk.”

  “Are you sure, sir?” The driver obviously didn’t think that was a good idea but did not feel it was his place to insist. Seeing that there was already a police presence on the edges of the crowd which would provide his charges with some protection, he reluctantly unlocked the doors and released them.

  Joe stepped out, not noticing how scared Sophie and Hugo looked as they followed him into the crowd. For a few moments no one spotted he was there, those standing near to the car assuming it was just one more person trying to jostle their way closer to the school gates, but as he moved further into the dense mass of bodies people began to turn round and the exclamations of those who were closest to him spread outwards like ripples on the surface of a pond. The tide turned and the weight of struggling bodies surged in on them.

  “Joe,” a harsh man’s voice with a Scottish accent cut through the noise, “do you really fancy yourself to be the Son of God?”

  Joe was taken aback by the rudeness of the voice and simply smiled in the direction it had come from. Other voices now competed for his attention, photographers and cameramen wanting him to “turn this way”, reporters pushing their phones under his chin and shouting questions at him like “How does it feel to be divine?” and “Can you walk on water, Joe?” and “Aren’t you worried about being killed again?”

  It was as if they were angry with him for daring to become so famous overnight, challenging him to justify his existence, to prove himself to be who he claimed he was. There were too many voices now for him to hope to make any sort of personal connection to any of them, but that didn’t stop more from joining in, raising the noise level and increasing the pressure coming from the back of the mass of bodies that was now struggling to get closer, threatening to crush those at the front.

  If the media seemed to want to expose him as a fraud and no more than another cult leader, the rest of the crowd were clamouring out to convey their adoration and to attract his attention, wanting to let him know how much they loved him and how much they needed his help and his blessing. Scuffles began to break out as the well-wishers attempted to break through the ranks of reporters and photographers who were blocking their way to him. A punch was thrown and a nose spurted blood. Temperatures rose and more punches were traded as tempers snapped after a long day of standing around, waiting in the hot sun for this moment, for this chance at the biggest story on the planet in two thousand years.

  Joe heard Hugo calling out for help and turned to see that he had been knocked to the ground and was unable to get back on his feet. Leaning over, Joe lifted h
im up so their heads were level.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Hugo said, “but I’ve lost my glasses.”

  There was no chance of being able to find them beneath the trampling feet of the herd as it pressed ever tighter around them. Joe saw Sophie’s head bobbing around as she was pushed from side to side. With his spare arm he reached out and pulled her to him. The police, dressed in riot gear, had seen the violence breaking out and decided it was now time to intervene. They charged, cutting a path through the bodies with their batons and encircling Joe, Sophie and Hugo, forcing back the crowd. Joe could see that there was a group of wheelchairs in the middle of the scrum, both the people sitting in them and those pushing them were looking desperate and were obviously frightened that they were about to be crushed between the police and the media.

  “We’ll escort you to the gates, sir,” the closest policeman shouted.

  “It’s all right, officer,” Joe said. “They will let us through. I trust them. Just let me get to the people who need me. You can trust them. Have faith.”

  “Sir!” the policeman shouted, but Joe was already moving out of earshot.

  With Hugo in one arm and Sophie held close with the other he began to walk, one step at a time towards the wheelchairs and the sea slowly parted in front of him like a withdrawing tide. The reporters still shouted their questions as they drew back but allowed Joe a few feet of space on each side as if held back by an invisible cordon. The police lowered their batons and watched as he reached the wheelchairs and talked to the people, laying his hand on their heads and on the heads of those who were with them. Everyone he touched rejoiced and wept and embraced him.

  The shouting seemed to grow quieter at the centre of the crowd, while those at the back still bickered and pushed to get closer. Everyone, both media professionals and visitors, watched as Joe moved amongst the sick and touched them and talked to them. As things calmed down he was able to put Hugo back on the ground and Sophie took a firm hold of the boy’s hand as they stood watching with everyone else. Hugo did not protest, straining to see everything that was happening without the help of his glasses.

  All the time more people were arriving at the site. As word spread through the internet that Joe was actually there and actually healing people, more media started to turn up and the sound and wind of helicopter blades above the heads of the crowd added to the dust and the buzz. The pressure from the outside of the crowd was increasing, despite the fact that the police were trying to hold people back, and new media people were managing to fight their way to the front. As Joe crouched down to talk to a pretty child in a wheelchair there was a sudden surge of photographers trying to get the perfect picture.

  “Heal her Joe!” one shouted.

  “Get her to walk!” shouted another.

  “Look this way, love!”

  The people behind the chair were knocked over and the chair tipped to the side. Sensing that a great news story was unfolding, the media pushed harder and the force of their numbers knocked the chair over, spilling the child beneath their feet. Now they had a real drama to report. A child was about to be trampled by a crowd, and in their enthusiasm they became that crowd, taking pictures and recording the frightened screams as they pushed and shouted and stamped on her flailing limbs.

  Joe lunged forward and scooped the little girl up in his arms, holding firm with his feet spread wide as the hungry reporters jostled him and shouted more questions. The girl stopped crying and smiled up into his face.

  “Who is she?” a voice shouted.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “What’s your name, love?”

  “Can you perform a miracle on her, Joe?”

  “Do you hold yourself responsible for this accident?”

  The police had fought their way through to the front again and used their batons to push the crowd back, giving Joe some space and righting the wheelchair so that he could place the smiling child safely back down.

  “Look into your hearts,” Joe said, straightening up and talking directly to the cameras, “you people from the media. And ask yourselves some questions. Do you believe you are doing the right thing? Are you giving the world a true picture of what is happening here? Are you driven by a need to educate and inform or are you simply wanting to sell newspapers and advertising at any cost? Was this child lying in the dirt because of me or because of you with your aggression and your carelessness?”

  The media drew back a little and the shouting grew less, some of them were apparently feeling pangs of shame but others could be seen simmering with resentment, believing they were being patronised by someone they were in the process of making into a global superstar.

  Having gained some calm, Joe moved forward again towards a woman on crutches. He was showing obvious signs of fatigue, having been working through the crowd for over an hour, and he gratefully accepted a paper cup of water thrust towards him by an anonymous well-wisher. He drained it and handed the empty cup back to the same outstretched fingers, returning to the job of placing his hands on the heads of those around him.

  The man who had passed him the drink was swallowed back into the crowd, immediately disappearing from view with the cup, so that no one noticed him slide it carefully into a plastic bag, like precious evidence from a crime scene.

  Twenty-One

  The American President stared around the room. Some of the generals had taken the time to introduce themselves to him, others he had heard about by reputation. None of them looked happy. The President was holding a one-page briefing document in his hand and was trying to take in the key points while talking at the same time. As a result, the words babbling out of his mouth did not make complete sense. The generals waited with barely hidden impatience for him to ask a question which they could use their military experience to respond to.

  “Mr President…” the Secretary of Defence took it upon himself to interrupt the President’s flow, to everyone’s relief. “We believe that we need to put the military on high alert. There is a restlessness in the world and we need to be ready to take control wherever and whenever it starts to threaten the status quo.”

  “I’ve seen them,” the President said, “I’ve seen them on the television and on the internet. But they are not the majority. I have seen them marching and I have read their banners and I do not think that we need to see them as a threat. They are just small-time troublemakers. Losers in life. If you look at the crowds, and I have studied them closely, probably more closely than any of you, I can see that they are mostly women and children, communists and agitators.”

  “It is true, sir,” one of the generals agreed, “that the demographic for most of these protesters is under thirty, and that there are marginally more women than men, but I think it would be a mistake to dismiss them for that reason. It is nearly always the young who take to the streets in any movement, but that does not mean that there is not something bigger happening in the background. We believe that there is likely to be civil unrest on the same scale as the civil rights movement, the worst race riots and the anti-war movement of the nineteen sixties, and this time it isn’t just confined to America. It is happening all over the world. There are things happening in New Zealand which are causing us a great deal of concern.”

  “New Zealand is long way away, General,” the President replied, having already checked that fact on Google.

  “With respect sir, this is the twenty-first century and nowhere is a long way away from anywhere any more. You may be right and it may all come to nothing, but we believe for the time being we should cancel all leave and put the military on standby, just in case they are required for peace-keeping activities.”

  “You really think things are that bad?” The President looked a little rattled. He stared hard at the paper again as if willing the words to enter his head and make sense.


  “We are monitoring the situation closely, sir,” the general replied, “but we have every reason to think that there might be some sort of global revolutionary movement building up and we need to get on top of it quickly, before it becomes anything bigger.”

  “A revolution?” the President asked, his eyes widening with excitement at the thought of an impending battle. “Do we need to send troops to New Zealand? We could maybe send some warships. What about drones? Are we using drones?”

  “At the moment, sir, we are using every sort of surveillance mechanism that we have. We feel that we need to know much more before deciding on a course of action. We would like to have the troops available to send in should things escalate. It seems possible that the Russians and the Chinese are up to something, but we can’t work out what. We need to be ready.”

  “This guy performing these miracles, claiming he’s the Son of God or something” – the President seemed almost to be talking to himself. “I saw him on the internet. He’s just some kind of hippy healer, right?”

  “At the moment we are having trouble finding out anything about him,” the Director of Security admitted. “It’s like he’s appeared from nowhere.”

  “Everyone comes from somewhere,” the President said, looking pleased with his own moment of wisdom. “If he’s hiding his past then he must be some kind of crook, right? We need to know what he’s done. Where’s he been hiding all these years? What’s he out to achieve? Where are the bodies buried? Find the smoking gun…” He seemed to run out of crime story clichés.

  The Director of Security cleared his throat. “We do at least know where he has been for the last few days, sir. He appears to have been with Yung Zhang and a number of other prominent liberal thinkers.”

  “He’s with the communists?”

  “They’re not exactly communists, sir. Lalit Wadia is one of them.”