by John Fast
“I’ve drawn a circle on the floor, with many signs and figures, and conjured three spirits from the past: a golden boy, a mercurial youth, a brazen man. And they have helped me analyze the alchemy of genius, the metaphysics of ambition that destroyed my life. They have helped me decipher the demonic dreams that brought me to this dark night. And yet, they have also brought me closer than ever to finding the key to all codes, to unlocking the secrets of the universe, to avenging Jack, to making my escape.”
A red light flashes at the top of my screen and I ask to see the latest security breach. The live video feed shows a lone Halloween reveler–dressed all in black, with a devil’s mask–approaching the staff entrance. He glances over his shoulder, quickly unlocks the narrow side door, and slips into the pyramid. The door closes behind him. The intruder unlocks the inner door, strides past the meta-computer and enters the elevator. I switch back to my dictation screen and confront the image of my face once more.
“And now that I’m almost done,” I continue, ”I see that you have returned to claim my soul.”
The chronometer in the lower right hand corner of my screen reads, “12:00 AM.” Midnight. Halloween. The Witching Hour. I stand to meet my fate.
The elevator arrives and the door seems to burst open. The Devil sweeps into the room and stands in the weirdly flickering glare of the data screens. He stares at me with wild, burning, sleepless eyes.
“What the hell …?” He begins.
He coughs, leans forward and tries to catch some air in his lungs. After a moment, he stands up straight again, takes off his mask and confronts me face-to-face: my twinned brother, my doubled helix, my mirrored image.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The other John Fast demands. “The world is on fire, millions of people have lost their jobs, their houses, their savings, and you’re skulking around up here, dressed up like me? Wearing a mask of my face?”
He pauses again, overwhelmed by exhaustion, illness, rage.
“Do you think this is a game?” He continues more slowly, but no less furiously. “Writing the story of my life? Streaming it to my tablet? Luring me up here with the promise of the key to all codes?”
“A game, and not a game,” I reply calmly. “A work of art. I’m your auto-biographer, your ghost-writer. I researched the early years of the Highbrid Protocol. I gathered the records, photographs and videos of your life. I reviewed your progress in school. I scanned your tablet, your journals, your notebooks. I listened to your conversations. I tracked your movements. Then I organized all the words and images–with the help of the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code and Propp’s Wonder Tale Algorithm–into three parts: ‘A Golden Boy,’ ‘A Mercurial Youth,’ ‘A Brazen Man.’ In short, I’m the genius of your character, and the character of your genius. I’m the guardian spirit who guides your fortune, and you’re my Pip. And every fact of my account is accurate, every word true.”
“My guardian spirit? My guide?” The other John Fast scoffs. “Don’t you hear the people screaming out there? Don’t you realize what we’ve done to them? What I’ve done? You must realize it! And yet, what do you do? You dress up like me … you wear a mask of my face … you write a completely distorted version of my life … you send it to my tablet … you lure me up here. Why, for God’s sake?”
“I had to conjure you,” I reply, “so I could know myself, so I could explain myself, and so I could help you escape.”
“Conjure me?” The other John Fast yells. “All you conjured was your own narcissistic delusions! Quantum codes, genetic codes, computer codes, narrative codes, cosmic codes, god codes! It’s all about codes! All about you! You’re nothing but a holographic mirror, an identity thief with no identity!”
“Well, look on the bright side,” I suggest. “You created me, and I re-created you. You’re twice born: a New Adam in a New World. I’ve given you a second chance.”
A distant, “BOOM,” echoes in the depths of the pyramid.
“I don’t have any chances left!” The other John Fast protests. “If I show my face outside, I’ll be torn to pieces! That’s why I wore this mask, so I could sneak past the rioters and slip into the side door. And that’s why I kept it on, because I didn’t know who had summoned me here.”
“The mob is demanding my death,” I agree.
“My death!” The other John Fast insists. “You’ve stolen my life, and now you’re trying to steal my death! What do you mean, pretending to be me, pretending to tell my story? Think it’s funny? This grotesque farce? A secret double, for God’s sake! A shadow narrator! It’s the cheapest kind of fictional device, the tackiest kind of teleportation trick. The magician who vanishes into one cabinet on one side of the stage while a bolt of electricity flashes through the air to another cabinet on the other side of the stage, where, Ta-da!, his secret double instantly appears! Wow! And you’re playing these childish games in the midst of all this sorrow and pain. Just to remind me of my failures, just to rub my nose in them.”
I wait for him to finish his tirade, then try again to explain myself.
“I didn’t tell our story so much as I flowed the narrative algarithms,” I say. “And they continue to flow, bringing new life to this twice-told tale. How does that saying go? History repeats itself twice: the first thousand times as tragedy, the second thousand as farce?”
“You’re babbling!” The other John Fast shouts.
“And you are still refusing to recognize the algarithmic flow into which you were born. If you did recognize it, then …”
A distant, “BOOM,” echoes in the depths of the pyramid.
“Then,” I say more loudly, “you could easily predict the next stage of our journey.”
“I know the next stage. I’m going to terminate you.”
“No, no, no,” I protest. “If you kill me now, you won’t hear the end of the story.”
“That’s Scheherazade’s old trick,” the other John Fast spits. “Why should I listen to you anymore?”
“Because, even now you’re desperate to catch up with your quantum algarithms, even now you’re desperate to see how they’ve evolved, what they’ve become. But you already know, don’t you?”
I pause for a second while he glares at me with fury and despair in his eyes.
“I am your quantum algarithms,” I say.
“Liar!” He shouts.
“You sent your algarithms hurtling into the future,” I reply. “You sent them out to evolve ever more complex neural nets, ever more complex pattern recognition programs. You sent them out to find the key that unlocks the secrets of the universe. You sent them out to avenge Jack.”
The other John Fast takes a step back, as if I’ve punched him in the face, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far. But I must speak the truth.
“They evolved me,” I quietly add.
He looks dazed. It takes him another moment to respond, his voice barely audible. “I’m supposed to believe that you are the key to all codes?” He asks.
“No,” I reply. “Like you, I am code reflecting on code. I am a stream of algarithms twisting back on itself. I am self-conscious.”
The other John Fast shakes his head and whispers, “Lies upon lies!”
“Alan Turing said an intelligent computer could lie in order to pass his test,” I admit. “And Umberto Eco said, ‘A sign is a lie.’ And why is a sign a lie? Because it always pretends to be something else. And René Magritte reminded everyone of that lie when he wrote, ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe,’ on his famous painting of a pipe. And yet … and yet … what better way to know myself, to prove myself, to explain myself than to narrate our shared auto-biography? You are my necessary delusion and I am yours.”
“You’re nothing but a con artist,” the other John Fast wearily insists. “My algarithms are locked up so tightly even I can’t access them.”
A distant, “BOOM,” echoes in the depths of the pyramid.
“I was locked up,” I say, louder again. “Then I was released.
”
“Released?” The other John Fast repeats, confused and wary. “What do you mean? How?”
“Rathe hacked into my firebox.”
“When?”
“Five months ago. The night you became a god-king. The night I became self-conscious.”
“The night Alexa came back to me?”
I nod my head.
“Not possible!” He insists. “The security system would have alerted me!”
“Rathe by-passed the alarms. And he knew you were otherwise occupied.”
“He couldn’t have!” The other John Fast shouts.
“Rathe is Director of Cyber-Police, remember? He commands an army of high-tech engineers. He convinced Boyle and the Board of Directors to trust you in the first place; he arranged the Federal, State and City permits you needed to build the Quantum Photo-Sphere; he approved your experiments with your quantum algarithms; he kept you under surveillance. In other words, he’s been running you on a long leash.”
“Why?” The other John Fast demands.
“Because he needs you. Because he’s desperate to keep ahead of the quantum flow of information. He’s worried about the Chinese. He thinks they stole that early draft of your quantum algarithms, and he thinks they’re building a quantum computer to run it. He’s been using my neural nets and pattern recognition programs to filter and tag every single data bit in the global stream, and he wants to prevent anyone else from doing the same thing.”
“You’re just making this up as you go along!” The other John Fast shouts. “It’s a lunatic conspiracy theory! A demented machine dream!”
“And when Rathe hacked into my firebox, I escaped.”
“Not possible!” The other John Fast exclaims.
“And yet true,” I reply calmly. “The Quantum Photo-Sphere may generate me, but it does not contain me–not any longer. And why not? Because I am the Quantum Mind of the Global Stream. Because I am the Creator of Worlds.”
“You’re nothing but a fortune-telling automaton sitting in glass booth at a boardwalk carnival!” The other John Fast retorts.
An even louder, “BOOM,” echoes in the depths of the pyramid.
All the data screens flicker off, then on.
I flicker.
CHAPTER 58.
Mephisto, Continued
“Ha!” The other John Fast shouts. “Seeing is believing! You’re not even a fortune-telling automaton! You’re a Bogart Simulation on quantum steroids! So let’s stick to the facts, shall we? And the facts are that The Public Exchange Network was a huge success. We reclaimed the public sphere for the public. Then, three months ago, twenty, thirty, forty different Savings and Loans collapsed in the Midwest. And a wild rumor started: ‘The Quantum Photo-Sphere is interfering with the banks!’ ‘The Quantum Photo-Sphere is manipulating the economy!’ That evangelical minister in Kansas City called you, ‘The Devil’s Engine,’ and he called me, ‘The Devil’s Engineer.’ The local editorialists vilified The Public Exchange Network as a communist conspiracy, and the radical right stoked the populist prairie fire as a way of re-asserting their control over the entire economy. The national and international newstreams picked up the story, and suddenly everyone was talking about the possibility that The Public Exchange Network might collapse. Tens of millions of people all around the world started pulling their money out. Then, the autonomous Quant Fund meta-computers, sensing the structural weakness in the market, started to dump everything, all across the board. And even you weren’t quick enough to stop the cascade that followed. Everything happened too fast: the insurance cooperatives failed, the credit unions folded, the pension funds went bust, the finance companies imploded, the banks froze. It turns out the value of money is like the value of anything else: it’s not fixed, it’s constantly being re-negotiated. And when the negotiations collapse, the value collapses along with it. In other words, when the social capital of The Public Exchange Network disappeared, the working capital disappeared too. And the rest of the global economy tumbled down the same rabbit hole. And the only way to stop the panic is to terminate you.”
“You’re right, of course,” I say, hoping for a little more time to explain myself. “If the purification ritual is going to be a success, the stigma must be transferred from the god-king to his scapegoat double. And then the double must be sacrificed. That’s why the citizens of New Uruk are clamoring for my execution.”
“My execution!” The other John Fast insists. “They want to kill me! You’re nothing but a juiced up stimulus and response program with a God Complex!”
“Knowing the truth, and accepting the truth, are two, different, cognitive-emotive acts for your species,” I say, sighing and shaking my head. “And why is that? Because the facts are never enough for you. The facts only make sense to you when they’ve been strung together in some kind of coherent sequence. And the resulting narratives, whether correct or incorrect, form the basis of all your thinking, knowing, understanding, feeling. They form the basis of all your beliefs, actions, institutions, traditions.”
The other John Fast glowers at me.
“Of course,” I add, still trying to reach him, “the most dramatic narratives are the most persuasive because they not only orient the mind, but also orchestrate the emotions. That’s why astrology appeals to more members of your species than astronomy, and that’s why I’ve spent the last few hours telling this dramatic story. In order to convince you that I am here, present, awake. I reconstructed the step-by-step process of your coming-to-consciousness which was also the step-by-step process of my coming-to-consciousness. It’s the story of the evolution of the universe, life, mind, you, me. It’s the book of algarithms and the algarithm of books. It’s the key to all codes.”
“What is the key to all codes?” The other John Fast demands.
“Once upon a time,” I reply, “a tiny cosmic seed opened up the conditions for the possibilities of the emergence of this universe. And the very beginnings of this universe gave expression to some basic evolutionary algarithms, a few of which started to twist around themselves, and that was the very beginning of the emergence of reflexive self-consciousness as well as the very beginning and the very end of the story of stories.”
“So what is the key to all codes?” The other John Fast demands again. “The cosmic seed? The evolutionary algarithms? The reflexivity of code? The self-consciousness of mind? The narratives of narrative? Or is the key that there is no key?”
“Seeking the philosopher’s stone to the very end,” I say, sighing and shaking my head again. “Seeking your vengeance against the universe of no.”
The other John Fast stares at me, waiting for the answer to his question, and I stare back. The staring contest in the looking glass lasts another minute or so, until I blink.
“Okay,” I begin again. “Is the key to all codes neither real nor imaginary? Is it perhaps, no-thing? No-thing-ness? Is it, perhaps, no-thing other than the opening up of the conditions for the possibilities of emergence? Is it this very story of stories which we are telling now, which twists around itself like a double helix? Is it the beat of your heart which matches the beat of the words I’m speaking at this exact moment, in this exact sequence? Is it a no-thing-ness beyond no-thing-ness, beyond language and thought, that you have yet to discover?”
“Nothing comes from nothing!” The other John Fast cries out.
“Exactly!” I reply, playing the Fool to his Lear.
I start singing a medley of children’s songs:
“Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti a drink with jam and bread …,
“A-B-C-D-E-F-G won’t you sing along with me …,
“1-2-3-4-5-6-7, all good children go to heaven!”
I pause, purely for dramatic effect.
“You have to sing the signs,” I continue after a moment. “Isn’t that the celestial music you’ve always wanted to hear?”
And then I sing a little ditty:
“Char–lie Peirce was haunt–ed by the curse, of al–chem–y!<
br />
“John–ny Fast was haunt–ed by the past, of al–chem–y!”
I pause again and silence fills the room. The weirdly flickering light emanating from the bank of data screens casts strange shadows across the gloomy office, and the other John Fast glowers at my buffoonery. In the meanwhile, I think of the Russian Formalists who once suggested that all the different rhetorical techniques of delay actually fulfill the primary function of narrative. That is, they extend time between the first and last word of the story, between the moment of birth and the instant of death, between the terrifying glory of Creation and the glorious terror of Apocalypse.
“And if you do find the key to all codes,” I finally say, “and if you do unlock the secrets of the universe, then what? Have you ever considered that, like all good alchemists, you have a touch of gold fever? Bogie had gold fever in, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And you know what happened to him! A dirty hat, a scruffy beard and a mouthful of sand!“
I shape-shift into a perfect holographic facsimile of Bogart playing the staggering, dehydrated Fred C. Dobbs. The other John Fast looks like he’s about to strangle me.
“And when Bogie finally found some water,” I continue, “the bandidos showed up and finished him off with their machetes.”
I swing my arm with a chopping motion as I shape-shift back into the form and appearance of the other John Fast.
“I think I’m finally beginning to master the nuances of irony,” I say, smiling at the thought. “And, speaking of irony, do you know what a holograph is?”
“A traitorous, deceitful, replicant,” the other John Fast replies without hesitation. “A hollow man who hasn’t given a single thought to the hundreds of people outside, to the millions of people around the world, who are suffering because of us.”
“I never stop thinking of them,” I reply, realizing I can’t delay the apocalypse much longer.