by Rakesh Sethi
CEO Jorg Begrlmann was interested in developing smart phone market, but that was not what his hidden mission was all about. Jorg was deeply unhappy to the point it was not clear if his happiness was linked to anything but money. He argued that there were 12 billion hands in the world give and take a few and about 24 billion ears and almost 24 billion eyes that all were available to be served. He chose to ignore the dead, dying, blind and the deaf.
His favorite theme was just like Julius Caesar’s. He came he saw and he conquered. Jorg was not alone. His boards of directors were fat bankers from the EU who wanted to demolish the US hegemony in the globe and replace by their kinder and gentler on the senses machine.
The cell phone had succeeded in that way and had found its way in every living persons hand.
The dead were also involved in that they were satisfied customers who never complained.
Not since Stalin or Mussolini or any other dictator had anybody figured out how to rule. Imperialism was alive and well. Science was and is being misused by a few.
Omega was uniquely positioned in controlling all the global theater since the dream was to wire each person. Not only wire each person, but also wire each of his senses independently. The Americans, let Jorg think that he was central to this arrangement. Many corporate executives from the mighty corporations from USA did meet the Omegan’s from time to time. The neo-conservative hawks were orchestrating what may be the grandest war ever imagined by human mind. This war was conceived to engage people on earth by providing them cell phones. People carried their own “termination unit” nicknamed TU by the pentagon maverick Col. Brody.
Living, dying and dead all were customers. This satanic plan was devised in godly scale and would need intervention of the almighty if there were such a thing.
Jorg was also an advisor to the government. Omega had offered a unique proposal to the military advisors and the homeland security, that would ultimately bring an end, to the world of terrorists and the phenomenon of terrorism would be eliminated once for all.
In this plan several billions of people once hooked were going to be content driven and their choices would be reduced to some absurd few. As a result the whole masses of population could be programmed at will by Omega. This would be the end of the revolutionary process of human evolution.
Jorg, argued, that the Church had done this for thousand years but the church had largely failed, since most of the churchgoers still were not subservient to the degree the pope wanted.
Omega wanted to be the new church and Jorg was the papal authority. The Pope was unhappy also.
The industrial revolution was first attempt by society to bring about this kind of control on the colonies but it had failed since their impact was to control commerce.
But Omega had figured out that by controlling senses the mind would be disabled forever. Omega stood to reap the biggest and mightiest award of being the conqueror of the whole human race. The new form of military the new warrior and a new war was going to take place.
The mother of all wars would be fought on the premise that majority of the people can be fooled at once.
Omega chose its employees with utmost care.
The process of selection was more than one on one interviews or wolf pack interviews
. The interviewee’s were screened using a battery of test on loyalty, militarism, defeatism, pathological signatures and psychology in addition to the core competency of their jobs.
Most candidates failed one of the test and were disqualified.
The executive in-charge was a retired etymologist who also had studied the anatomy of religions. The acceptance rate was one out of thousand would be accepted.
Jorg and his cohorts had an uncanny ability to see the convoluted, but failed to grasp the obvious. They had always paid highest attention to the mission and chose, to ignore inconvenient findings that did not go along with their mission.
Jorg lived a life surrounded by agreeable people. Jorg feared nothing except death.
Jorg had only one dream in his adult life. This dream repeated often enough that Jorg chose to pretend he never had such dream.
In the dream Jorg is on a candle lit stage and he is the tenor and he sang in quivering voice.
“When angels hover by my side
No time to spare, get ready for the ride
Hold on a minute
I never got time to
Smile or spoil,
To watch mighty seas ebb or tide
Hold on a minute
Let me steal one last kiss
Hug or shake
But watch the pain subside
Hold on a minute
Let me watch, shatter
These delicate bonds
I patiently wove
Let me drink one last sip
Of elusive joy
Hold on a minute
Let me say good bye”
Amanda, his wife of twenty-two years, was the most agreeable person on surface. Only on two or three occasions in those married years did she present her own view but with apprehension.
Why?
Amanda was compulsive guilt tripper. She always was the first to accept blame for the situation. Her situation was that she had deep feelings of compassion and faith and her love of Jorg had kept them hidden deep beneath.
He systematically destroyed her core or so he thought. Her core was so deeply removed from her daily existence that she started believing it did not exist.
She had episodes of deep dives into her core and was puzzled that the core was trying to wake her up.
Jorg had met her on college campus and fallen in love with her. She saw in him a young, energetic and caring person. Jorg was controlling in his demeanor despite being polite and giving to Amanda.
Miraculously, years of neglect of her own self, still did not destroy her core beliefs. But they had corroded her exterior quite a bit.
They had one eighteen-year-old daughter remnick, who grew into a young person with her own mind. Remnick had by nature the values that were Amanda’s core. Remnick was spiritual baby.
Over the years Jorg developed deep passion for playing chess and played to dominate the opponent right from the first move.
He played chess with Remnick on occasions and loved to defeat her and humiliate her. He was of the opinion that no one should be spared in the duel. At times when he did not play chess he would think of creating imaginary games that were three-dimensional chess with countries as pawns.
His favorite was Finland as the King. He imagined the powerful nations as Kings in other dimensional chessboard. He planned with the bishops and queens of the other dimensions in planning and coordinating offense.
He created his own rules and favorite amongst them was the ability to launch what he called was the Finnish multiple Kings. In this move he would get co-operation from all the horses, elephants and the pawns. The few who were in front line did not and were not consulted.
The sacrificial pawns were laid down one after another till rivers of blood drew paths of success leading to the imaginary fall of the Kings.
He loved to play chess at work every morning prior to starting his office work. He played intensely for one hour and his colleagues saw this as a normal activity of an executive.
Some suspected his rigor and intense focus as being anal, but no one suspected this as a prelude and a reminder of organic madness. Over the years family and friends all accepted the ritual but despised the solo chess activity as a sign of impending trouble.
Jorg invited friends over for parties at his modest home. His few friends also were interested in sharing their stories on special chess games.
Most despised the American competitors from Chicago. They would eat their meals and devoured New York steaks while stating their elaborate dreams of annihilating the competition. They ended each dinner by playing a Finnish Idol. In this game the subject was asked to present a plan to dominate mobile wars game.
Jorg loved to be the first to start. Amanda
hated this gathering and used to phase out with other executive wives and drown themselves in American wine and talk about the hot Hollywood stars and the fashion of the day.
The night would end in winning finnish Idol being the hosts for the next party and they did this add infinitum. Jorg was happy to be living In this self created cocoon, and loved to think that he was the decider of the master chess plan that his life and work was.
Amanda thought that over the years would listen up to her and becomes the normal person she had loved and married.
Two thousand eight hundred years after Rome was built, the patriarchic family structure was well and intact. The Eurasians gift to the Italians had spread to the Scandinavian fjords and Finnish upper class. Jorg, thought he was the master of the house and the capitalistic temple, Omega.
Amanda did not quite agree.
Amanda realized early on that Jorg was not going to change his ways. She begged of him to regain the lost love and relinquish the quest. She chose to be on his side but she was not sure how long. She chose to be happy despite the circumstance. She was well-read women, agnostic and a radiant face as if she was blessed.
She smiled and her eyes danced with her smiles. Whoever came in contact with her fell in her aura? Her words were carefully chosen and she spoke as if each word was delivered with the perfect tone and pitch. Her voice was soft and barely audible. Her speech was hypnotic and powerful to send listener into trance. Her hair gave her an angelic appearance. Her voice added the symphony of nature. She spoke and the listeners were in trance.
Remnick loved her father spiritually.
But She did hate his blatant statements that she overheard at parties.
Remnick was a peach nick and was evolving into her own self. She measured people by the simplicity of life style they lived and by the degree of honesty and truthfulness they conducted themselves.
She was fond of the South Eastern ascetic and developed a likening for the teaching of Sikh Guru Nanakji. In particular she was fascinated by the Guru’s statement that truthful living was more important than the truth itself.
She spent hours and days at end trying to comprehend the power of those few words. Remnick wanted to share her thoughts with her dad but alas he had no or little time for her.
Amanda was a good mother, but suffered from attention deficit of sorts that she was unable to listen to a single idea for more than three seconds.
Remnick repeatedly asked Amanda the meaning of life. Amanda would sing her a lullaby each night.
Remnick asked Amanda with a puzzled face
Why God chose to play with us
Like puppets in a village play
Showering happiness now and then
Interspersed with episodal glum
Why we go on the way we do
Without much ado
Do you really know mother
No I said with a puzzled face
Why you choose to ask my pie
What causes you to think these thoughts?
You go on with your merry ways
Collating joyous moments
Remembering the souls that leave
Weaving and dreaming answers if you could
My child”
Not that she did not want to, but she could not. Her mind wandered off fast like a biker on a downhill run or a fast train that came and left the station.
Remnick understood that neither mum nor dad had capacity to grasp her ideas. She chose internet to be her guru and spent her spare time learning about Nanak and his teachings.
Remnick dared to meet the guru in her dreams. Every night she would read and just before turning the lights out she would recite a poem to draw the saint to her dream.
“ Through nebulous clouds you shine
Eternally bound
Going nowhere
While I stand by the rails
Of gloomy future and boundless trails
Going nowhere
Thy cosmic act begins nor ends
Soothing light upon me you send
Dancing in my heart and soul
When will me meet?
My eternal goal”
And she did see his majesty. He held her hand and led her to the foothills of the Saratoga Mountains.
He laughed at her jokes and he smiled and cared for her and so did she. He asked her a million questions and he chose to answer it in a few words. All in all she was ecstatic in his company.
She did not feel thirsty or hungry and time stood still. She asked him about the nature of truth. She asked him the root causes of misery in the world. She asked him about the urge for humans to dominate each other.
He did not answer at once and asked her to take the path of silence and introspection. She did not speak for days. Her dreams led to more answers and fewer questions. As she dreamt and developed dialog with Nanak, she ran out of all her questions.
Now it was enough to just dream of him and is with him. He was constantly with her. She felt overjoyed and blissful. She woke up from these dreams and acted in symphony that her dreams played the night before.
Amanda listened to Remnick’s statements and her experience of joy. Deep down she had no idea what was going on in her daughter’s minds. Was it someone at school was it a boyfriend of Remnick’s.
Notably there was a large amount of research work ongoing at Berkeley and State University on the cookie detection and antidote development. The work at State University on the psychology of the developer and key traits in malware code development was showing that most of the programmers were apt to make statistically preferred odds of making same mistakes. So the team there was focused on developing protection methods in the compiler to avert and inform security reports to the applications team.
Other work that was largely below the radar was the work on radiation damage at Pinketon University. Researchers were looking at short term and cumulative effects of radiation damage to brain tissue.
In particular the researchers were looking at the catalytic effects of trace iron in blood and the effect of radiation on the faster coagulation of proteins in the plasma.
While such research was ongoing the legal teams at Omega were paying little heed. The focus of the legal team was really to control and nip damage before it took root but stay away from any liabilities that could not be proven easily.
Chapter Nine
CEO or Monster
Jorg was busy putting a deal together with major carriers in USA. Only the Democratic nominee Jason stood in between winning the contracts. Jorg was hell bent in making sure that Jason would not win the primaries. On the other side of the world Major Keski was hurrying in getting to launch the first mobile mosquito worm. It was to hit the mobile phones of Nominee Jason and his campaign manager. Jason received a call on his crackberry with a unknown number flashing on the screen. He took the call of his life and took a first step to his death. He would die of brain cancer forty days later. This news sent shockwaves in the political landscape.
His manager Jamie followed Jason to his grave.
Chapter Ten
The Antidote from the Slum Doctor
(Bulla visits Mumbai and runs into Sheri). Bulla is deeply impressed by Sheri. Sheri flirts with Bulla and he rejects her overture. She ignores the sentiment and challenges him to a game development dual. Bulla wins. Sheri gets drunk with Bulla and asks him to share the latest Omega operating system quirks. Bulla talks about the loopholes in the software.
Sheri falls in love with Attila. He is obsessed by the mosquito games. Major Keski offers a bundle to Attila to get Sheri to develop the mosquito Trojan. Sheri find her opportunity and obligies to work on it.
She does develop a game.
Major Keski calls his investors in US. They want this product launch immediately. Major gets Sheri to release the patch from a striking workers cell phone at the failing textile mill. The calls replicate and spam calls hit the selected numbers in the target zone. The spam then delivers babies in secondary target countries
and hit 10 million users in the target zone.
Nothing happens, no one knows, no articles in papers.
No blood no gore.
Keski is smiling as a smooth operator.
His contacts deliver him the dough. Keski shares the wealth with Sheri and Atilla.
Both leave the country for Venezuala and settle in Zapatista stronghold.