FAUST’S SHADOW: A Twice-Told Tale

by John Fast

  “But wouldn’t you like to be able to read them?” Dr. Malawi asked gently.

  “Absolutely!” I declared. “I don’t know where they’re going, and I don’t know if they’ll ever get there, but I’ll chase them to the end of time.”

  “And they are secure inside the quantum firebox?” Dr. Malawi inquired, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  “They are secure,” I assured her without hesitation.

  “And that is why the Executive Committee of the Global Stream Association has decided to continue to support your experiment,” she announced, smiling at me. “Precisely because of your diligence and your tenacity.”

  “Thank you,” I said thickly, struggling to balance the suddenly potent mix of fast and slow chemicals surging through my brain.

  Paxton rescued me again.

  “Shall we start dinner, then?” He asked casually, as if he had known the outcome of the trial all along. And as if he hadn’t noticed the glazed look in my eyes.

  CHAPTER 56.

  The Apex of Dreams

  Alexa returned to my glass-walled office at The New World Stock Exchange on a warm evening in mid-May, almost three months after our fierce argument. We had spoken only twice since then: brief, polite conversations on our cell phones. I stood to greet her, wondering what to say when she stepped out of the elevator.

  Of course, she looked incredibly beautiful. Her ash-blonde hair flowed to her shoulders, her blue eyes flashed, her sculpted face glowed. She wore a short black jacket over a silver blouse, black dress pants and low heels. She walked right up to me, plunked her black satchel down on the floor, and looked me straight in the eye.

  “John Fast you really are a genius!” She declared without a trace of irony in her voice. “So how did you start this global economic transformation?”

  I wasn’t sure if I could take her praise at face value, so I replied with a trace of irony.

  “Presto! Chango! Nothing up my sleeves!” I said, shooting back the arms of my gray jacket.

  “Seriously,” Alexa said, frowning.

  “Why don’t we ask the Holographic Interface?” I suggested, not sure if my enervated brain was up to the task. “I forgot to introduce her the last time you were here.”

  I turned and called out, “QAI?”

  The young Navajo appeared instantly.

  “Yes, Fast,” she replied.

  “QAI, this is Alexa. Alexa, this is QAI.”

  “Hello, Alexa.”

  “Okay,” Alexa began. “I can play. Hello, QAI. Can you please explain how Fast started this global economic transformation?”

  “Certainly,” the Interface replied. “He asked me to analyze the worst problems and find the best solutions.”

  Alexa gave me a long, loving look, a look I’d been waiting for my entire life.

  “Have a seat everybody,” I said, gesturing to the blue armchairs.

  When we were settled, I prompted QAI to continue.

  “I’ve done several things to rationalize the global economy,” the young Navajo explained. “For example, I re-organized the international loan and debt programs; I outlined fair work, fair pay and fair trade agreements; I proposed new regulations for the finance and currency speculators; I designed clean energy and clean water technologies; I discouraged the gigantic, hydroelectric dam projects. The members of the international community are still debating some of these suggestions, while they are implementing others.”

  “We’ve been working on these issues for decades,” Alexa said. “How did you get anybody to listen?”

  “I supply irrefutable facts, make irrefutable projections based on those facts, and propose irrefutable solutions to the problems,” QAI stated. “For example, Alexa, your work in China, Bangladesh, and Indonesia has inspired similar efforts around the world.”

  Alexa smiled.

  “Everything we’ve accomplished here,” I added, “was inspired by your work, Alexa, your ideas.”

  Alexa lowered her head and smiled again.

  “QAI,” I prompted. “Tell Alexa about The Public Exchange Network.”

  “We’ve started a Public Exchange to run alongside The New World Stock Exchange,” the Interface stated.

  “I know!” Alexa exclaimed. “Everyone knows! And it’s such an obviously simple and good idea! The people who oppose reform always make it seem infinitely more complicated than it really is. So, how did you begin?”

  “I’d been thinking about your work, Alexa,” I said, talking at hyper-speed. “And I’d been talking with QAI. And I realized that just as the global stream had reclaimed the public airways for the public, so too it could reclaim the public funds. Think about it: the public airways had been abandoned to the private interests of profit, and that led to the high cost and pitiful quality of radio and television. Similarly, the public funds had been abandoned to the private interests of profit, and that led to the high cost and pitiful quality of insurance and banking. So I thought we should use the global stream to reclaim these public funds.”

  “How, exactly?” Alexa asked.

  “Take insurance,” I replied. “Where could you find a better example of a public fund? What could be more vital to the community? And yet, like the radio and television executives, the insurance executives had privatized that public resource from the beginning. The result? Instead of focusing on the well-being of the community, the insurance executives focused on the ever rising profits of their stockholders, and their own inflated bonuses and salaries. A few reformers tried to address these problems, but they met with fierce opposition.”

  “So what did you do?” Alexa wondered.

  QAI took her cue.

  “I determined that insurance companies don’t need stockholders,” she said. “The pool of insurance premiums can provide the money to run the business. And whatever interest the pool accrues can be poured right back into it.”

  “In other words,” I said, “without stockholders you don’t have to keep draining the pool and raising the rates in order to produce ever higher profits.”

  I paused for a moment, then jumped ahead.

  “And I thought the public should own and control the public insurance funds, not a group of wealthy money men. So, with the help of QAI’s irrefutable facts, projections and solutions, I started The Public Exchange Network. We went to all the social networking sites and offered low-cost, single-payer, not-for-profit, insurance plans. About a hundred million people in the U.S. have signed up so far. We’ve opened regional offices in this country, and we’re opening offices in other countries as well. Instead of working for the stockholders, and for themselves, the new insurance administrators work for the people whose insurance premiums they’re managing. Instead of draining the community pools and raising the individual rates for the exclusive benefit of the private investors, these new administrators are sustaining the pools and lowering the rates for the mutual benefit of the public subscribers.”

  “And this new, not-for-profit, insurance cooperative,” QAI added, “has already saved billions of dollars in health care expenses through its economies of scale and its collective bargaining power. The administrators have already had many cost-saving negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies, the medical technology companies, the health management companies, and the medical professional organizations.”

  “And we’re applying the same model to the banking industry,” I noted. “Instead of charging 30% interest on credit cards and loans which, as you well know, is more than double the amount U.S. law once defined as usury, we’ve started an international association of local credit unions with 2% interest rates. And when The Public Exchange Network freed up these credit lines, it freed up entire sectors of the global economy. In fact, The Public Exchange Network has been so successful, here and abroad, that it has opened up new insurance, financial and commercial opportunities among the middle classes, the working classes, and the working poor. A new global dynamic has emerged in just a few months.

  �
��Of course,” I added, “We’ve made a ton of enemies as a result of these reforms. The Wall Street Czars think they should own and control every sector of public life. And the Board of Directors here at The New World Stock Exchange would have fired me a long time ago if they didn’t need me to monitor the Quantum Photo-Sphere, and if the new insurance cooperatives and credit unions weren’t so wildly popular and successful.”

  “We’re learning to nurture the future with the same care that we nurture our children,” Alexa noted, looking me directly in the eye.

  I stared back at her in surprise.

  “I’ve been thinking about that African folktale, John,” she explained, glancing at the Holographic Interface.

  I took the hint.

  “Could you excuse us, QAI?” I requested.

  “Certainly,” QAI replied, snapping out of existence.

  Alexa looked around the office.

  “Is she really gone?” She whispered. “Are we really alone?”

  I nodded.

  “Can you turn off the data screens and the lights … and secure the elevator? Can you block the view from the obelisk?”

  I walked over to my desk, wondering what she had in mind, hoping it was the same thing I had in mind. I used my keyboard to turn everything off and to lock down the elevator. Then I blacked out the glass wall that faced the obelisk, and the data link that rose from the floor to the ceiling. The office was completely dark, except for the city and river lights sparkling outside the three remaining translucent walls.

  “Check, check, check,” I reported.

  Alexa got up from her chair and unbuckled the satchel she had left on the floor beside my desk.

  “I brought a bottle of champagne and some glasses,” she said.

  She popped the cork, filled the plastic flutes and handed me one.

  “I want to toast your success.”

  “But it’s our …,” I protested.

  “To Doctor John Fast,” Alexa said, raising her glass, “who has fulfilled the promise of his genius, who has led us into the future.”

  “Thank you, Alexa,” I replied. “But The Public Exchange Network is really the fruit of your genius. Your arguments, your insights …”

  Alexa interrupted me again, this time with a long, deep, passionate kiss.

  “I did it because of you,” I said when I could breathe again. “I did it for you.”

  She kissed me again and I kissed her. Then, I took a half step back and lifted my glass.

  “To Doctor Alexandra Pavlova,” I said, “who has fulfilled the promise of her genius, who has re-imagined the future.”

  When we finished toasting each other, Alexa caressed my hair.

  “I’ve always loved this silvery-gold color,” she said. “Can we dance? Can we have some music?”

  I leaned over my desk and cued up Glenn Miller’s Big Band version of, Moonlight Serenade. Alexa took off her black jacket and folded it over the back of her chair. Her sleeveless silver blouse shimmered in the darkness. I held her close and we swayed together, with the city and river glistening in the background.

  “You know, John,” she whispered in my ear, “I was trapped in a mirror for a very long time: half-alive and half-dead. I felt incredibly isolated … until I finally realized I wasn’t alone. I mean, who hasn’t struggled with the question of their identity? Who hasn’t felt divided in their soul? Who hasn’t confronted their mortality? Twice before I chose death, and death rejected me. Today, tonight, this minute, I choose death again, but in a different way. You see, I’ve thought and thought about the future, John, and I don’t want to be immortal like the moon, I don’t want to live forever as an empty reflection. Instead, I want to be immortal like the tree. I want to flow with life, I want to surge with seeds, I want to have children … our children.”

  We stopped dancing and Alexa looked directly, intensely, hungrily into my eyes. I felt fiercely aroused by her arousal. I kissed her perfect face, her perfect lips, her perfect neck. I kissed her for a long, long time. The one advantage of all the speed coursing through my bloodstream was that it sustained my physical desire for her. And, seeing my arousal, Alexa unzipped my black jeans and caressed me. And just when I felt I couldn’t hold back any longer, she slipped out of her black pants, underwear and shoes with one fluid motion and sat down on the edge of my desk. She hooked two fingers of each hand into the sturdy belt loops on either side of my jeans, leaned all the way back onto the desk and pulled my hips into her hips. And as I entered her she wrapped her legs around my back and held me tight. I leaned forward and spread my hands on the desk, on either side of her waist, to support my weight. We locked eyes and bodies for a moment until she relaxed her legs just enough for me to move inside her, which I did, very, very, slowly. Eventually, we took turns crying out, but we didn’t stop there, couldn’t stop there, or anywhere else for a very long time.

  *************

  A while later I was lying naked with Alexa on the blue carpet in the middle of the office. I studied her beautiful, sleeping face and felt an overwhelming love for her. All my accumulated anxieties and fears, all my doubts and sorrows, were gone for the moment. I felt peaceful for the first time in three years, and I also felt a deep surge of pride. I had built my quantum computer. I had uploaded my quantum algarithms. I had rationalized the global economy. I had won Alexa’s love. And, together, we had almost succeeded in putting our ghosts to rest.

  I stood up, walked over to the glass wall facing the plaza, and studied the city and the river. I whispered my imaginary boyhood headline: “HIGHBRID HOUDINI SAVES EARTH!” I laughed out loud. And I thought again about my quantum algarithms running inside their quantum firebox, and I knew that any day now I might possess the key to all codes in its real or imaginary form. I might unlock the secrets of the universe. I might avenge Jack.

  I raised my bare arms, spread my bare legs and spoke to the starry sky:

  “My head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God!”

  If anyone had been looking up from the plaza at that exact moment they would have seen the abstract Vitruvian Man glowing neon blue on the facade of the glass pyramid; above that they would have seen the living Vitruvian Man standing naked and spreadeagled in his glass office; above that they would have seen his crystal eye blazing fire from the glass apex. In other words, they would have seen how a highbrid magician became a god-king.

  CHAPTER 57.

  Mephisto

  And now, just five months after I stood on that peak, the entire world has turned upside down. The news video running silently on my desk screen lingers for a moment on the pyramid: the crystal eye is dark, the neon Vitruvian Man is dark, the entire building is dark. The crawl at the bottom of the screen reads, “ … 11:45 PM, OCTOBER 31, 2046, THE NEW WORLD STOCK EXCHANGE, NY, NY: RIOTING ESCALATES AS CHAOS SPREADS ACROSS CITY AND GLOBE ....” The news video drops down to the dark plaza where dozens of Halloween revelers–demons, devils, ghosts, skeletons–prance around the pyramid and an enraged mob hurls bricks and bottles at the front doors. A tall man in a black leather overcoat tosses a Molotov cocktail in a high arc that ends at the stainless steel lintel. The gasoline bomb bursts into flames and drips fire on the massive doors. A phalanx of riot police, with shields raised, stands off in a corner, powerless to quell the violence. A huge dump truck surges past the wild crowd, hesitates for a few seconds with an awkward shift of gears, then crashes straight into the burning doors.

  A distant, “BOOM,” echoes in the depths of the pyramid.

  I stand up, walk over to the glass wall facing the plaza and look down on the turmoil. After a moment, I return to my desk screen and hit the audio key. The rioters’ cries fill my dark office.

  “Come … out … John … Fast!”

  “Give our money back!”

  “Fast, Fast! We want Fas
t!”

  As if on cue a roll of thunder rattles the glass walls of the pyramid. I look up at the night sky and see masses of black clouds gathering over the city. Then I’m drawn back to my desk screen by a reporter shouting above the tumult.

  “ … began three months ago turned violent again tonight after The Public Exchange Network finally collapsed under its own weight. And the entire global economy has been dragged down with it. Trillions of dollars in investment capital have been lost. The riots in London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro continue to spread while here in New York the annual Halloween Parade has turned into a citywide carnival of mayhem. The police are overwhelmed. The National Guard has been …”

  I mute the sound again and turn around so I can watch the global riots flashing across the bank of screens behind my desk. After a moment, the largest screen switches to a year-old digital news photo of the annual Highbrid Halloween Charity Ball. I’m standing in the foreground of the picture, facing the camera, looking pale and grim in my black tuxedo, glossy cape and top hat. The caption: “John Fast.”

  I hit the audio button on the remote.

  “This is what comes from playing God with the genetic code,” the anchorwoman fulminates off-camera. “This is the result of our unrestrained ambition, our lust for knowledge and power. We all live in Faust’s shadow now, and we all share his fate.”

  I mute the sound and turn back to my desk screen where the all-too-familiar images continue to flow: demons, devils, ghosts, skeletons, rioters, fire, police, truck picking up speed for another run at the pyramid.

  “And once again History comes crashing into the front door like a dump truck that’s lost its brakes,” I announce to the darkness.

  A distant, “BOOM,” echoes in the depths of the building.

  I sit down and switch my desk screen back to dictation mode. The built-in camera and microphone continue to record everything I do and say. I stare at the digital image of my face and begin the final entry in my journal.