Mars Needs Books!

by Gary Lovisi

  The years passed, and Arabella Rashid grew into womanhood. She became a stunning young lady, but remained aloof and always guarded. She was guarded in her self and thoughts, and of course, literally, being guarded by the top security shock troops the DOC had to offer. And through it all, she never forgot Simon’s ill use of her. She never forgot all she had learned from him as well. She hated Simon and damned him to hell every day for what he had done to her and all the others. Yet even as she tried to fight against everything he represented she was fearful that she was becoming more and more like him every day.

  Relentlessly the years passed by. The old Earth flew around the old Sun, and Arabella Rashid thought sometimes of the man called James Ryan. Images of his rugged good looks flashed in her mind. She was saddened at what she had caused to be done to him. First had been the brain wipe, then the implanted memories and instructions. She wondered just what kind of a new man he had become. James Ryan had been a DOC special agent, as cold-blooded and ruthlessly efficient as any the Department of Control and Simon had created in their early clone program. Much like that little girl, who had become Arabella Rashid.

  There had been war at the DOC in the days before she had killed Simon. All of Simon’s various early creations having grown up, educated by Simon and the DOC, becoming nice little monsters. So ambitious. So ruthless. They had fought each other behind the scenes in a long clandestine war, teens and pre-teens in a dirty high-tech Lord of the Flies battle for survival—and Simon’s favor—which was after all, the very same thing back then.

  Those had been hard days. Arabella Rashid remembered them now with a shudder. These more modern days were different, colder still, after all hope for her was long gone. However the DOC was still unaware of her actions. Though the Authority ruled all, she now realized it was...vulnerable.

  Even then she still kept James Ryan in her thoughts. She allowed herself a small smile of joy as her mind imagined his strong face and handsome form. Ryan was older than her by ten years. It was nothing like the age difference with Simon. Her thoughts of Simon caused her great anger but her thoughts of James caused her to smile—almost like a little girl again. He was magic for her soul. She realized now that she had a crush on the man. She’d been only thirteen when she’d first met him but he had not left her thoughts and her dreams since then. She often wondered about him. How was he getting on?

  The last contact she’d had with Ryan was when she’d seen to it that an old paperback book had been delivered to him. She wondered what he thought of it. She wondered what his new programming would make of him now. His old personality was gone. Now he was a new person with new memories and programming. A totally different person from the man she had sent for to do some sensitive body disposal work years ago. Nevertheless, he was still a DOC agent even if his memories had been all erased and replaced with new ones. As a DOC agent he must have been brain wiped on many occasions. Now his mind was full of made-up memories and new personality traits. Now he collected and read old hard-boiled crime paperbacks. Obsessively. It was quite ridiculous on the face of it, and Arabella Rashid laughed almost cruelly, but it was an important part of her plan. Meanwhile, poor Ryan’s memories of her and DOC, and the death and disappearance of Simon, were all gone now. Erased forever.

  Arabella Rashid smiled. Ryan was an agent of the DOC, like she had been. Still was, in fact. He was not as high up in the hierarchy as she was certainly, but she realized, everyone these days was an agent of DOC in some way. She wondered where Ryan was now. What was he doing?

  She wondered where he had come from, what he had done in his long career for the DOC? It must have been many terrible things. Now Ryan’s new implanted programs were all in, and according to her plan they would kick in on the long trip out to Mars. But Ryan wouldn’t be going to Mars for a year yet. In the meantime, she’d had him placed in the general DOC special agent assignment pool. He would be given jobs like any other DOC agent. And he’d perform them like a DOC agent was supposed to perform them. With ruthless efficiency. Doing just as he was told.

  Arabella Rashid’s mind kept coming back to that old science fiction paperback. It was with Ryan now, or it would be with him soon. She had given express orders he was to have it on his next assignment and that it was to follow him and be his personal property until he was placed on the ship to Mars. Then it would be taken away from him and on the long trip out to the Red Planet, his new programming would kick in—and he’d become a reader and collector of mystery and crime paperbacks.

  She smiled, wondering what Ryan would make of it all, had he but known. But of course, he wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t know anything. No matter that his brain had been wiped and re-implanted, Ryan was still an intelligent man. He’d surmise something was up once he saw that book. He wouldn’t remember it, of course, nor anything else concerning Arabella Rashid or Simon, but he’d be very curious. The old science fiction paperback would spark his consciousness, he would know that it meant...something.

  But what?

  She wanted to give him that hint, just to keep him thinking.

  The new Director of the Department of Control read the secret files about the progress of the cloned children of the Janus Project. It told about each clone and who it was based upon—Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Jeffery Dalmer, John Wayne Gacy—the list was endless and ever more horrendous. She read the “Biographies” and “Accomplishments” sections of the host subjects and was truly appalled by one after the other, as atrocity piled upon atrocity.

  She signed sadly, “These people aren’t even human beings. They really are something else, something non-human. Simply monsters, each and every one of them, and they shall never see the light of day.”

  When she came to the next to last subject, a large “X” had been overprinted. Here it was noted that the host DNA was supposed to have come from Simon himself. Arabella Rashid smiled, and whispered, “Not this time, Simon. You may have saved enough of your DNA for this project in advance of your timely demise, but your clone will never live long enough to use it. You know what that big red “X” means?”

  Simon could not answer her, so she told him.

  “It means, the fetus was born dead. You see, Simon, I had one of your more amenable DOC scientists insert a deadly virus into the mixture. The fetus developed, but as it developed it was also dying and it was finally born dead. As you should have been.”

  Arabella Rashid turned up the screen, clicked on the next file. The name didn’t matter, the contributor of the DNA was listed as Napoleon Bonaparte. She smiled at that, Napoleon tempered with Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King and Albert Schweitzer added to the mix would be beneficial, among with many others.

  She said, “Many years from now this one will drop his given name and take up the name Moses Sage. Then he will begin his real work. His work for the freedom and dignity of the human race—which will need him more than he can ever know.”

  Arabella Rashid then smiled as her thoughts turned to the man she had sent out to Mars. “Right, Ryan? You know it too. Someday, Ryan, we shall meet again and maybe the world will be a better place for us.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MEMORY CAN PLAY YOU

  Ryan was lying naked on the cold floor of a small cell-like room. Alone. Dark. Thinking.

  He didn’t know when it all began. He didn’t know when it would end. Or how it would end. In fact, he didn’t know much of anything at that point.

  Here’s what he did know.

  Something deep inside him told him all about it. There seemed to be some little voice inside his mind. It told him about how there’s always been this struggle in the world. It is between people, sometimes individuals. More often it is between groups, governments, political theories and ideologies, even sometimes crackpot ideas expounded by morons and maniacs. Seemingly with all of them at each other’s throats. In the end it is the individual who always turns up the loser. The little guy and gal cut down another inch. Made an inch shorter each day. Th
ey are pounded down into the ground, some of them sunk in so low they have no place else to go. Some of them down so low their eyes have to look up just to see level ground. Sometimes they think they’re looking up. In reality they’re just standing down deep in a ditch they know they’re never getting out of. Kind of like a grave.

  His thoughts told him that these days the individual is the biggest loser of them all. While any individual skilled enough to become self- sufficient has become the scariest person of all to the system. To the hated Authority who run everything and thus to the rumored DOC—The Department of Control. The DOC, that controls everyone and everything, though few even know of its existence. But those that truly understand the word fear, are terrified to hear that name even whispered.

  Even now Ryan wonders if it all really exists. The DOC? Some say it’s worldwide. Others say that it originally began as a way to monitor the Internet or fight international Islamic terrorism after the attack on the old United States of America on September 11, 2001. Regardless, in no time it seemed the DOC was soon not only monitoring but controlling, and not only the Internet. It was soon influencing, then controlling our government, then foreign governments, and not soon after, damn near everything.

  Their hand was felt heaviest when they began rewriting history. They altered all texts and laws, changing everything online until no one knew anymore what the original facts had been. Most citizens didn’t care though, as long as they were given programs and government giveaways. A lot of it was mind-numbing, glitzy entertainment, bread-and-circus thrills. They were offered and accepted a vast wasteland of mindless entertainment: originally beginning on what had been called “television” far back in the early days, then on the Net, later with live inputs plugged directly into the brainpan. They infected the minds of millions of these “wireheads” with powerful subconscious suggestions and propaganda protocols that controlled their actions and thoughts. It was all crap to deaden the mind, making them pliant and obedient. Head slots for disks became conduits for instant downloading of mindless music, sex and violence, so-called “entertainments,” that went directly into the brain. The young especially loved it and were especially vulnerable. They were encouraged in school and at public events to form “group link-ups” when each had a direct brain-link input slot in their neck. Then they could all be on the same program. Literally. Of course everything was heavily dosed with Gov-prop lies, sly distortions, and ably focused suggestions that you had no choice but to obey. Orders to conform. Directives to do as you were told. And warnings about how dangerous and wrong it was to ever question authority—especially The Authority.

  It wasn’t long before most people didn’t even know how to think rationally at all.

  And history? Facts? There were so many versions. Which version did you want? No one remembered now just which version was actually true. Few even cared what events were authentic or real?

  What was reality after all?

  Facts, truth and rational thinking had become the greatest casualties of the high-tech future. No one was even sure if the leaders were actual people anymore, and not just made-up holograms of idealized persons in virtual format. Who were they really? No one actually ever met any of them. What did it mean, when what they said or stood for changed by the hour. There was no way to check anymore with actual written records, hard copies. Most had been destroyed. There was no way to go back now, no way to discover what laws were actually written and on the books. There were no books. The books were gone long ago. Laws changed daily, even hourly now. The digital history was revised by a stroke on a keyboard. No one knew about this, and worse, no one seemed to care.

  That’s just the way the future was.

  But how had it come to this?

  Ryan heard a while back some rumor that The DOC had gone interplanetary. That it had agents, maybe even offices and reps on the mining colonies of Mars, Luna, and all the other planetary colonies and stations. He figured, why not? They wanted to control everything, and it seemed they sure as hell did.

  Rumors abound about everything of course. Facts and truth don’t exist. Most of the bad rumors, the worst of them all, concerned The DOC. Most of them were started by The DOC too. But of course, everyone knew The DOC didn’t really exist. Surely it couldn’t exist. Or so everyone said. You see, no one is supposed to know it exists. And in truth, almost no one does.

  Except Ryan.

  He knew.

  At least, he thought he knew.

  Unless it’s all a bunch of crap he got out of that old science fiction paperback he’d been reading lately.

  Or out of his dreams.

  Or nightmares.

  He was not so sure anymore.

  They play with your mind here.

  Truth means nothing to these people. The truth is, he was not sure of much of anything these days....

  He tried to think back on things sometimes, but it was hard when he realized he couldn’t even trust his own memories or senses.

  Memories.

  What do they really mean? What are they? Really.

  Memories are cold, frozen, and it hurts real bad to think about the past, but if he tries real hard, and if he can stand the terrible pain, sometimes he can free up a few bytes from the granite block that’s inside his head.

  Sometimes he thinks his mind has been tampered with, his thoughts processed for him. Programmed. Altered. Sometimes he thinks he’s crazy. Sometimes he’s sure of it. Other times, he’s just not so sure.

  What if he is right? About being crazy.

  Well, that might be true, but deep down inside he didn’t really believe that.

  Well, what about being programmed or altered?

  That would be the scariest thing of all!

  Sometimes he’d laugh, thinking he was the only sane one! Then he really had to laugh. Sometimes he’d even cry about it. Of course it’s not true, it can’t be true. He couldn’t be crazy but it’s been known to happen. It was hard to explain.

  The world today is a very screwed up place, and if you happen to be very screwed up yourself, then you actually might fit into it very well. Maybe he was a “normal,” at least according to the parameters of his world. And conversely, living in this sewer of a world, maybe he was just plain crazy.

  Or at least he would end up that way before his time here ran out.

  One thing he did know is that whoever really runs the show here, has control of it all. There’s all kinds of subliminal, and not so subliminal, messages in vids, neural implants. Most people pop them into their head slots like eating candy. All the software and info has been manipulated and loaded with brainwash mind-controlling, behavior-modifying codes, and political propaganda. That had been going on for decades on Earth. No one with half a brain—or who has half a brain left these days—can trust any neural software, vids, or implants. No one who wants to keep their own mind free can ever trust any of this modern media. It has all been compromised.

  However, there were some die-hards who stay away from all modern media. They say it is poison for the mind. Some say it is poison for the soul as well.

  These few hard-core “individuals” only read books. Actual books in hard copy. Old books are best. They’re deemed safest. Those cannot be easily infected; meaning manipulated or tampered with. While they certainly can be compromised, it is not cost effective. So hard copy books remain relatively safe and the older they are, the safer they are. Preferably books from LastCen. Last Century. These are almost always paperbacks. These are best. Paperbacks have no screen, no neural implant, no virtual reality disk, no memory chips. There is no interference or interface at all. Nothing but the actual book as written by the author and printed on paper. There is only the paper and ink, and the reader’s eyes and mind.

  Paperbacks from LastCen were common once, relatively inexpensive, and still held truth and honesty in hard copy. The old ones are best, before POD—print on demand—began. From that moment on text could be changed, amended, altered, corrected, or revised eve
n in hard copy, just like what has been going on for decades with electronic media that make up our digital memory today. So the oldest paperbacks were always the safest; those from the pre-POD days of the 1980s—and the best and safest of all were dated from the faraway days of the 1940s to the 1970s.

  In the beginning, the Authority told everyone they did all changes, updates, corrections—for the good of the people. It was done to better society. It was done for only the most noble and virtuous reasons. In the beginning, it appeared they were correct. That was what was so chilling about the changes. People accepted them so easily. That’s how it began.

  Whenever government tells you that what they are doing is “for our own good”—you’d best run for the damn hills!

  Ryan knew the best stuff was published in paperback over a hundred years ago. It had been written back in pre-computer days, during the 1950s and still written and published up until the year 2020. That is when the last actual physical books were published as mass-market hard copy paperbacks. Hard cover books had long before ceased to exist except in the most rarified academic circles and never for fiction. Those LastCen old days sure had been a time when people remembered freedom, and how to live free. It had been a time of wonderful ideas, expressed in delightfully odd little books with amazing and idiosyncratic subjects and content, all lovingly created with effective cover art and design that made each and every one of them special.

  Ryan suddenly screamed in agony.

  There it went again, that pain in his head.

  The pain was powerful. It always came back when he tried to think. Maybe the pain in his head was from trying to access his old memories? He knew they probably had put a psychblock implant to stop him from thinking certain thoughts, accessing certain memories, trying to figure out certain truths. It was a way to block things they didn’t want him to know or remember. They could usually stop you from remembering. His own true memories could be twisted or transformed into things he had never known existed. Truths he thought he knew down deep inside him were now things his mind could be forbidden to access.