The message was signed with the alias: “A true friend."
Who was his anonymous contact? How did he reach him, and since when could you send anonymous thoughtmissions on the network? He did not know who he could trust to ask without raising suspicion. Tears ran down his throat when he thought about his father. How he suffered for him, while Don was too busy to notice and show his gratitude. With a quick hand movement, he loosened his shirt collar and leaned back against the wall. His palms were sweating and he suddenly became dizzy. He looked around, scanning all the faces of the employees and robots who were left inside the offices. He was unable to access the system. Too many doors were locked to him.
"Daniel Kaminsky, as a token of our appreciation here at Minds, and most recently for delivering a subject for interrogation, we have decided to present you with a bonsai plant. It's waiting for you in room E4. Keep up the excellent work. There are good things ahead of you."
Don rushed to room E4. He ran inside, lifted the plant with his sweaty palms and looked at it from every direction, but his attention was drawn to a sequence of serial numbers running on the wall fast enough to blur.
He approached the wall and took a careful look, until he noticed his father's name. The running application displayed his father's image in various stages of his life, a short biography, countless video clips from personal documented events, his serial number with a ‘V’ checked next to ‘No longer in use’ and an image of the bonsai plant he had become. Don froze in front of the display, refusing to believe it. In the end he sat on the floor and tried catching his breath.
He then noticed an open door that connected the room to a huge hall full of bonsai plants. He walked in with his heart pounding and wobbly legs, and passed through the plants in sequential order, as the numbers advanced toward the one he was looking for - the serial number belonging to his father.
***
He had to leave the building, pull a few meters away and crouch behind a tree to be able to sit down. He clutched his father, or what was left of him, in his hands. He would grow by Don's side. For a moment he felt a certain peace. An acceptance. Before, something inside of him had hoped his father was still alive, that he had imagined the whole thing. But there it was, the change was right in front of him. His spirit was gone, but there was something to hold on to. Not much, but more than nothing. He swore to find the person responsible for his death and make him pay for it.
He did not like remembering his father. It was too painful. Nevertheless, he chose the pain and played their last day together on Re-Minds. It was a very ordinary day, even though his father seemed more down than usual.
"I received another message from Sunshine," Kenny told Don, bleary-eyed and troubled.
"What was it this time?" Don asked.
"She's not happy," said Kenny, despondent.
"You haven't been listening to me, have you? Just buy more."
"I won't give in to pressure. Why should I? I'll spend when I want to."
"But you don't want to be disconnected."
"They can do whatever they want. I can't be bothered anymore. Maybe I'm not cut out for this new world. But I'm not going to turn myself into something I'm not. I told her to piss off and leave me alone. Don, should I make us something to eat?"
"I'll do it, just let me finish up cleaning in the attic."
He hadn't spoken to his father since that day.
"Don't get sucked into the past. It wastes people away, like a very addictive drug," a thoughtmission interrupted him. "Minds had been corrupted by algorithmic purism, and now the company has to rid itself of the infestation and take a step back in order to move forward."
"Who are you?" Don thoughtmitted as he looked at the sky, which he had set on permanent sundown.
"I made it clear at the beginning that my identity will not be revealed. Regarding my motivation, which you must wonder about, I'll only say that I'm worried that Minds has gone too far. An infatuation with progress has bred top-down arrogance and cost everyone dearly. I fear that only a monumental shock will get people to disconnect from the network and advance toward a possible reparation, or else we'll be buried under our own hubris."
"No one will go through with it willingly," Don thoughtmitted.
"I don't need their cooperation. I'm planning something big. Codename Restart, that's all you need to know right now. I need someone like you, a strong leader, someone who survived out there, who was hurt by the network enough to be made aware of its harm. Let me say it straight: because your father was taken from you, I assume you'll be motivated to lead a new social order. If you want revenge for what they did to your father, and many others like him, this is your chance. You’ll have to act discretely, and follow my instructions carefully. Are you with me?"
"Does anyone else know about this?"
"No."
"I hear you," Don thoughtmitted.
"Good. So here's the plan: first, you'll have to lose the component in your head before the restart takes place. I’ll let you know when the time comes. You’ll wait for my order and organize teams to disconnect other users. Once the brain event’s on, there'll be no turning back. Thoughts will be freed from filtering, everything will spiral out of control and into mass chaos. People will literally lose their minds. They’ll poison the intricate social fabric that links them together, lose their work and their dearest friends, and it’ll all happen because the truth will be exposed."
Don was shocked. "You're describing an apocalypse."
"There's no other way. The truth has to come out, even if it's dirty and damaging. People have been allowed to live a phony lie long enough. After disconnecting, they’ll be transparent and exposed, no longer able to keep anything to themselves. Apocalypse now, tomorrow and the day after that. This is where we are. The human mind is calling for redemption. A desire to disconnect exists, but people are saddled and pulled in. It's stronger than they are… an addiction. Everyone’s cursing the network and worshiping it at the same time.
"It’ll be a complex operation. You'll have to coordinate a large team to pull the components out one by one – techies, medics, and also psych teams will have to support this complex process. And don't get it wrong, Minds will collapse only when confidence is lost. Confidence is hard to restore, and I need it to be obvious that the trust between Minds and its users had been irrevocably lost."
"How?"
"With the Neverminds. You’ll have to put together and manage teams of Neverminds, the survivors you’ll gather from shelters in every town. It's a worldwide plan, and it will be carried out in every single country where Minds operates. I’ll arrange for you and other undercovers to be assigned as guards to the shelters. What I actually want you to do is gather all the Neverminds to locations I will have ready, and convince them to spread the word about the atrocities of Minds."
"No one will believe it… no one will want to."
"They will. I'll make sure they will," the mystery man thoughtmitted to Don. "Just wait for the order. You’ll be provided with everything you need to carry it through. Money will not be an issue. And about your father, I’m truly sorry for your loss. Sometimes the innocent are made to pay for the mistakes of others. It has always been so. What's done is done. Your father was murdered because the system labeled him as deficient. All for the sake of efficiency. To them, he was an underachiever, and too far gone. What followed - we already know. He was just another number, an object, another person who didn’t live up to the network's expectations. It wasn't personal. But now go and make it personal, avenge his death. You have a chance to change the future of society."
***
Don was now devoted to only one purpose: crushing Minds. In the following days he went on living as Daniel Kaminsky of Elite Delete, carrying out all his duties on autopilot, keeping to himself and keeping his head down. When he needed somebody to talk to, he would consider getting in touch with his anonymous ‘true friend’ just to blow off some steam. But he stopped short of doing so, st
ill worried that the entire purpose of their communication might be a clever ruse designed to trap him, drumming up sufficient evidence for conspiracy to throw the switch on his miserable life.
He hid the plant that looked like his father in his room, and spoke to it at night.
"Dad, Minds will pay for what they did to you. I'll see to it. I promise I won't let you down anymore. You should have listened to me back then, I told you to buy more. I never thought it would end like this, that you'd end up like this. You didn't deserve any of it, but what goes around comes around."
For a moment he felt the plant was listening, and that his father's spirit was residing over it.
The preparations for Operation Restart proceeded as planned. Don woke up in the mornings at a small Elite Delete apartment tucked away in the mountains, and used his clearance to sortie from there to the shelters, gather the surviving Neverminds and transfer them to one of several hideouts. Anything he needed was made available. At first, they didn't understand who he was or what he wanted, but they gradually grew to trust him. And as he gained their confidence, he could start tasting his victory. Out of a vague, shapeless concept, humanity had become ever more discernible to him. It had a face, and also mannerisms, goals and reservations.
The plan was being carried out where no one bothered looking, and Don managed to slip past Elite Delete's attention. No one suspected him; he was a Minds employee after all.
He had a hard role to play; the Neverminds were plagued with indifference. Their disconnection had turned them toward a simpler life, reverting back to earlier, forgotten ways. The neverending quest for progress was over for them, and they won. They were free, independent. In a way, next to them, he was demanding too much. He felt he was intruding on their peace with all his network talk. Many of the Neverminds were fearful of what lay ahead of them. They felt uneasy with the prospect of convincing the connected into disconnecting, which did not make things any easier. Everyone would have to believe them once Restart was set in motion. He doubted the connected would be taken in by naturalistic arguments. Ask them to fall back? Talk them into communicating like in the old days, after they had been accustomed to instantaneously transmitted thoughts?
Don thought about it a lot, the gravity of the awareness Minds users would have to contend with.
The employees of Minds slept like babies, while he woke up regularly in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and lusting for revenge. He paced round and round in his white Minds suit, his feet wrapped in black boots that met the floor with a clacking sound that made him sick. Don was shackled by his uniform even at night, constantly aware that anything could happen and he might have to get up and run. He had to be prepared. He forced himself into the ritual every day, bleary-eyed, treading in spotless military fashion between the shelters, his clacking boots making him wince with every step.
***
And then, one day, it happened. He received the thoughtmission - Operation Restart was set for 11:11 the next morning. His ‘true friend’ was ready to release the algorithm that would jam the network. Billions of thoughts would be thrown into disarray at once, and there would be no way back. Whole worlds would come apart, leaving only the mentally strong to pick up the pieces.
"It will be like putting a mirror in front of everyone's face," Don's anonymous ‘true friend’ boasted. "The financial, social, political and cultural damage will be immense."
On the eve of Restart, Don stayed up. He stared out of the window at the world outside until the sun rose, watching the snowy mountains light up and thinking about Candy again. He reran the memory of them watching the leaping orcas in the bay together, and wondered what had happened to her. He heard her laugh, and fell with her on the snow, rolling. He could smell the trees in the air, feel the snow melting in his hands. The colors of the sunset… he saw the orange mixing in with the pink and yellow, an unforgettable blend of optimism unraveling before his eyes. He would soon have to part with his living memories and leave Minds. He looped that memory ad nauseam: the orcas leaping in the air, Candy bursting into laughter, over and over, one image chasing the next. He shut his eyes and tears started welling up. When he opened them, a white Angora owl flew past the window. Did Nicola lose it? he thought, and opened the window to let him in.
They looked at each other for several moments, and then his guest fluttered out. Don watched him go. His wings streaked through the sky. He also wanted to fly like that, far away. Maybe he could meet his father up there. Not yet, there are things worth waiting for, he calmed himself, there are.
***
Elsewhere, in another part of the world, Solly sat down and thought about how something had to change. He was crushed and exhausted from his ongoing efforts to stay involved in the network he himself created. Pandy stared at him, expecting something.
What options did he have? He was pushed out of the empire and there was nothing for him to do now. He no longer had control. Fabian and Christoph snubbed him, excluded him, and made him feel like a helpless, beached seal. As far as they were concerned, he was useless. They did brief him occasionally on the day to day decisions, but it had been a while since he was last called to the meetings and conferences where the big issues were discussed. It happened slowly. He could no longer recall the last time he felt relevant, and it hurt. He was sick of discovering new features and brilliant developments he knew nothing about.
For the most part, he lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling and browsing through thoughts. He could not be bothered to think ahead, and hated himself for it. He also let himself go, and his health suffered for it.
The only one who understood him was his therapist, virtual agent Dr. Downy Gates.
"Reality keeps reminding me of how successful Minds had become," Solly complained.
"Move on. Come up with something new and wonderful," the holographic doctor suggested.
"I can't. Something inside me is stuck. I can't visualize the future. I'm a living testimony to how this network gets people addicted."
"You invented it - it's your success, and you need to learn how to put past success behind you and move on."
Solly nodded, whether for Downy's benefit or himself was unclear. Pandy played on the floor, vying for attention.
"Nothing lasts forever…" the doctor reminded him and trailed off into nothing.
"I know, nothing but eternity," Solly shouted after the vanishing doctor.
It was meant to connect people through their thoughts, he never intended for them to pay such a heavy financial and personal price.
Solly seldom bought anything anymore, and had turned himself into the shittiest consumer on the network. His brain rank plummeted down to new lows. He realized that a social network like theirs had to be economical, and that it had the right to demand compensation. You don't get something for nothing, or so they say. He also had to contend with being something close to a Nevermind, as far as network definitions went. He played a memory of sharing these feelings with Christoph.
"Hey, Solly, what can I do for you?"
"I'm happy to see how successful Minds is becoming."
"It really is exciting to see humanity coming together," Christoph answered dryly.
"I've been hearing things from concerned people."
"Rumors are for the weak," Christoph snapped.
"Okay, but according to these rumors, Sunshine is practically terrorizing a whole lot of people, just to get them to buy more. They’re being threatened, they're scared. I understand the need to encourage users to make purchases, but scaring and pressuring them? We don't have to go that far."
"Solly, this attempt to stick your head in decisions that have nothing to do with you - that's going too far. As far as I recall, your account balance isn't complaining."
"That's true, but I can still say what I think."
"Why should you?" Christoph wondered. "Go and make the next new thing. The world needs entrepreneurs more than it needs another concerned citizen. Let us deal with running the
network. If anybody asks, say the network is doing what it can to get the most out of its citizens. On the whole, our data shows that people are buying more. Sometimes people need help to bring out their best effort. Go pet your cute red panda cat. He could probably use the attention. I'm busy enough as it is." Christoph hung up.
Solly felt a deep loathing for Christoph. He hated him so much for pointing out how irrelevant he was. The network was born in his mind, but, in reality, he was disconnected. Minds had become a consumer behemoth without him.
He often found himself walking around Nevermind shelters, standing nearby, watching and envying them their simple lives. He imagined himself settling down there with Pandy.
"I don't recognize you. Who are you? What are you looking at?" The pixelated shadow of a spooked Nevermind shouted out to him from the entrance to the shelter.
"I'm nobody," Solly answered and remained standing.
"Everyone has a name," the man replied.
"I lost mine," Solly said.
"Is that something you can fix?" the Nevermind asked curiously from the dark.
"I'm afraid it's too late for that," Solly answered, his hands in his pockets. He hid under a wide brimmed hat, not wanting anyone to recognize him. "Just stay strong," Solly said in a shaking voice, turned his back and left.
To add to Solly's problems, some signs of the virus that had once incapacitated him were starting to appear again. He found it hard to maintain concentration on simultaneous tasks. He spent more of his time lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, trying to get up and start a new day, but never actually leaving the bed. The walls of his mind were drawing in. He had nowhere to run. Feeling trapped, he went frantically from room to room, knocking things over, intentionally throwing other things.
"I can see you didn't take my advice," Dr Downy Gates thoughtmitted.
"I hear what you tell me and I understand, and it makes me feel stronger. But after an hour or so it goes away, and I'm back to my black thoughts. I can't control it. I'm having a hard time being ignored."
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