Fast Forward

by Lou Anders

“He can't have just done that,” said Mephisto, hoarse with disbelief. “He's a Plotter.”

  “Get up, faggot,” said Uncle Hannibal, grabbing Charles's shoulder.

  “Hit him,” said Charles.

  I hadn't unfrozen yet, but Anil had been waiting for this moment all day. He jumped forward and tased Uncle Hannibal. Uncle Hannibal dropped, with a hoarse screech, and the other Shooters backed away fast. Anil stared down at Uncle Hannibal with unholy wonder in his eyes, and the beginning of a terrible joy. Suddenly there was a lot of room in front of the consoles, enough to see Lord Deathlok sitting there staring at the readout, with tears streaming down his face.

  Charles got out of the chair.

  “You lost,” he informed Lord Deathlok.

  “Your reign of terror is over!” cried Anil, brandishing his taser at the Shooters. One or two of them cowered, but the rest just looked stunned. Charles turned to me.

  “You left your post,” he said. “You're a useless idiot. Myron, take the taser off him.”

  “Sir yes sir!” said Myron, grabbing my arm and rolling up my sleeve. As he was unfastening the straps, we heard a chuckle from the doorway. All heads turned. There was Mr. Kurtz, leaning there with his arms crossed. I realized he must have followed me, and seen the drama as it played out. Anil thrust his taser arm behind his back, looking scared, but Mr. Kurtz only smiled.

  “As you were,” he said. He stood straight and left. We could hear him whistling as he walked away.

  It wasn't until later that we learned the whole story, or as much of it as we ever knew: how Charles had been recruited, not from his parents’ garage or basement, but from Hospital, and how Mr. Kurtz had known it, had in fact requested it.

  We all expected a glorious new day had come for Plotters, now that Charles had proven the Shooters were unnecessary. We thought Areco would terminate their contracts. It didn't exactly happen that way.

  What happened was that Dr. Smash and Uncle Hannibal came to Charles and had a private (except for Myron and Anil) talk with him. They were very polite. Since Painmaster wasn't coming back to the Gun Platform, but had defaulted on his contract and gone down home to Earth, they proposed that Charles become a Shooter. They did more; they offered him High Dark Lordship.

  He accepted their offer. We were appalled. It seemed like the worst treachery imaginable.

  And yet, we were surprised again.

  Charles Tead didn't take one of the stupid Shooter names like Warlord or Iron Fist or Doomsman. He said we were all to call him Stede from now on. He ordered up not a bioprene wardrobe with spikes and rivets and fringe, but…but…a three-piece suit, with a tie. And a bowler hat. He took his tasers back from Anil and Myron, who were crestfallen, and wore them himself, under his perfectly pressed cuffs.

  Then he ordered up new clothes for all the other Shooters. It must have been a shock, when he handed out those powder blue shirts and drab coveralls, but they didn't rebel; by that time they'd learned what he'd been sent to Hospital for in the first place, which was killing three people. So there wasn't so much as a mutter behind his back, even when he ordered all the holoposters shut off and thrown into the fusion hopper, and the War Room repainted in dove gray.

  We wouldn't have known the Shooters. He made them wash; he made them cut their hair; he made them shracking salute when he gave an order. They were scared to fart, especially after he hung up deodorizers above each of their consoles. The War Room became a clean, well-lit place, silent except for the consoles and the occasional quiet order from Charles. He seldom had to raise his voice.

  Mr. Kurtz still sat in his office all day, reading, but now he smiled as he read. Nobody called him Dean Kurtz anymore, either.

  It was sort of horrible, what had happened, but with Charles—I mean, Stede—running the place, things were a lot more efficient. The bonuses became more frequent, as everyone worked harder. And, in time, the Shooters came to worship him.

  He didn't bother with us. We were grateful.

  Tony Ballantyne blew my socks off with the story “The Waters of Meribah,” which appeared originally in Interzone 189. I didn't know anything about Tony, beyond my original impression that he was a genius, and then I met him on a pirate ship in Glasgow and found out he was also a very nice guy. There was nothing for it but to have him in Fast Forward.

  T urning on a computer has a whole different feel nowadays, but I had to write this somehow.

  I'm running CP/M now. If that doesn't mean anything to you, then it soon will. It's an old operating system from the seventies: A Platonic OS. Lots of people are installing it.

  It's only a few months since I heard the term Platonic Operating System.

  I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd never listened to my brother.

  “Can you fix it?” I asked. Ken was gazing at the screen with that half smile on his face he always has when he's doing me a favour.

  “It's not broken,” he snorted. “You just had the security settings turned up high. The computer must have detected unsuitable words in your files.”

  “What are you implying?”

  Ken gave a laugh. “Don't be so sensitive. They're there to stop children accessing inappropriate stuff on the Internet. Of course, most children would have no problems turning them off. Don't worry. I'll soon have things sorted.”

  “Oh, good.”

  He tapped away, the clacking of the keys the only sound in my half-empty flat. So much space to fill with half the furniture gone…

  There seemed to be empty spaces in the conversations between Ken and me too, lately. Just like this one.

  “Do you want some more coffee?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  “Yes, please.” He held out a flowered mug, one that Jenny must have overlooked when she disengaged her possessions from mine. “And how about a spot of brandy in it?” he added. “It's cold out there.”

  He leaned back in the elderly chair and gave a dramatic sigh. “Of course,” he declared, “the big problem here is that you are still using a Platonic operating system.”

  Ken has this way of dropping conversational hooks, then sitting back and looking smug whilst he waits for you to bite on them. Normally I'd just ignore him, even say something sarcastic, but—just like when you speak to the tax office—you're always polite to the person who is fixing your computer.

  “Platonic operating system?” I asked. “I thought it was just Windows, like everyone uses.”

  He laughed at that.

  “Windows, Linux, Mac OS. They're all the same. They model the real world inside your computer. Whether you're running a spreadsheet to do your household accounts, or playing a car racing game, you're just running an imperfect model of the real world.”

  He looked at me again, another one of those little pregnant pauses. I was the one who went to university, he was saying. I was the one who studied philosophy; he had left school to become an electrician.

  “Okay,” I said. “Plato said that humans experienced the world like a group of people sitting inside a cave, watching the shadows of reality that dance on the walls before them. Are you saying that my computer just does the same? Models shadows on a wall?”

  “You got it,” said Ken sliding a plastic case from his pocket and holding it up for me to see. “This is something new. It dispenses with the paradigm that the computer only models the real world. This operating system makes the assumption that everything input is real.”

  I took the case from him and turned it over in my hands. There was a shiny CD-ROM inside, half hidden by a torn piece of paper on which were scrawled the words “Aristotle OS.”

  “What's the point of that?” I asked.

  “You'll see.” He pressed a button, and the DVD tray on my computer slid smoothly open.

  “Ken,” I began, “I'm perfectly happy with my computer the way it is. All I want to be able to do is write articles and lesson plans. Maybe try to keep track of my spending—”

  It was too late. He had already dropped the disc into the tra
y and was beginning to type at the keyboard.

  “Now,” he said. “Where's my coffee?”

  Ken eventually left two hours later with a promise to meet at our mother's house for dinner the following Sunday. I didn't hold out much hope. Something would come up; an old acquaintance would buttonhole him in a pub somewhere. Either that or he would lose track of time, busy downloading more illegal stuff from the Net. It had been a long time since he had made a family meal. I looked across at my guitar, gathering dust in a lonely corner. It was longer still since Ken had come around on a Wednesday night so we could rehearse together. I couldn't remember the last time we had played a gig….

  I busied myself with tidying up the kitchen. I had an article to write, but, truth be told, I was putting off starting it. I didn't want to see what Ken had done to my poor computer. His modifications tended to complicate my life, not simplify it. They were all done in good faith, of course, but sometimes I longed for the days of my old AMSTRAD word processor with its green screen and simple commands. I groaned as I saw my PC, its screen, once a familiar pale blue, now shining at me in bright orange.

  Maybe I should mark a set of essays ready for tomorrow's lessons.

  Still the orange screen seemed to be staring at me.

  “Okay,” I said, seating myself before it. “Let's see what Ken has done this time.”

  The screen looked pretty much the same as before, apart from the bright orange background. I clicked START and launched my accounts spreadsheet.

  It was exactly as I had left it. Neat columns showing my monthly income and expenditure. Ken had been hassling me to use a copy of the Money Management software he had installed, but I preferred this. I could understand it. I had control. I could spot mistakes. Just like that one there.

  I was saving up for a car. Each month I transferred what I could into my savings account. That month I had mistyped an entry. £10 instead of £100. That was easily rectified. I clicked in the cell and made the change. An error message flashed up on the screen.

  Reality dysfunction. £10 is not £100

  “I know that,” I muttered. “I made a mistake.” I tried the correction again and received the same error message.

  “Bloody Ken.”

  I picked up the plastic disc case, still lying by the keyboard, and read the scrawled insert. Aristotle OS. That was a clue, of course.

  “Come on now, Jon,” I said to myself. “You can figure this out. Ken said that this was not a Platonic OS. This does not model reality….”

  It made a certain sort of sense, when you thought about it. Aristotle believed that Plato had got it wrong. Reality wasn't something that existed “behind” us and could only be seen as shadows; it wasn't something that could only be modeled with our reason. Aristotle believed reality was that which we perceived through our senses.

  What senses did a computer have? Inputs. Keyboard presses and mouse clicks. Digital samples of sounds and images played into their memories a byte at a time. If the keyboard had said there was £10 in the savings account this month, then £10 there was. If the keyboard later on said there was £100, then the computer would want to know which was right. It would be like me opening my wallet and finding £100 in crisp notes there, when minutes before there had only been £10. I'd want to explain the change.

  I gazed at the screen. What was the point of my computer acting like this? Well, it was easily fixed. I entered another £90 in the cell below the £10. There. Now I had £100 in my savings account.

  If only mistakes in life could be remedied so easily.

  I grew to like the Aristotle OS. It came into its own when I was typing up long articles. I came to rely on the little messages that flashed up as a piece of work took shape.

  J Davies cannot have published

  An Introduction to Existentialism

  in 1982 and 1984

  or

  Grumman cannot have been born both French and German

  It had other uses too. Ways of making you think; of confronting you with your own assumptions.

  Why do you begin so many sentences with the word “Hopefully”?

  or

  Why give £40 to Feed the Homeless when this month you threw out food to the value of £45?

  Why indeed? I resolved to be more careful with my shopping. I would eat everything that I bought. There was half a lettuce going brown in the bottom of the fridge. I boiled a couple of eggs and made a salad with it.

  My first inkling that something was not quite right came when Ken phoned late one night, maybe three weeks after he had installed Aristotle.

  “Hey, Jon…” His speaking was slurred. I could hear the clink of glasses in the background, the muffled sound of laughter made by men drinking in a pub after hours.

  “Ken,” I said. “It's two o'clock in the bloody morning. Can't it wait?”

  “Jon, have you been using your computer?”

  “Of course I've been using my computer. Why have you rung me in the middle of the night to ask me that?”

  “No. No. I don't want another pint. No. Whiskey.” His voice was muffled. I could picture him standing there, that way he did, phone cradled at his neck, shaking his hand in a “drink” gesture at the barman. “No. No Jon. That should be okay. Of course you should use your computer. Just don't connect it to the Internet.”

  “What? Why not? How am I supposed to read my mail? Look Ken, what's the matter with you?”

  The line went dead.

  I went back to bed and stared at the ceiling. I couldn't go back to sleep. My mind drifted inexorably to Jenny. What was she doing now? I wondered. After half an hour of torturing myself I got up and went into the lounge and picked up my guitar, blew the dust off it. I tried to play something, but the strings were old and I couldn't tune them.

  The picture on my computer screen was of Ken and me, standing on the summit of Ben Nevis. It was a cold scene, gray cloud swirled over the lifeless vista: rocks and rubble and the remains of a building. A man in a yellow waterproof coat and thick woolen hat could be seen squatting there, stirring a pan on a portable stove. Steam from hot soup rose into the air.

  Ken was dressed in a thin jumper and coat; on his feet was a pair of old training shoes. He looked as if he had wandered out of a pub in Fort William with a couple of his mates and decided to climb the mountain for a laugh.

  That's exactly what he had done.

  He was holding up a can of Tennants Super Lager for the camera to see. I stood by him, in my old Craghoppers jacket, looking seriously concerned for my brother's well-being.

  A picture paints a thousand words…. This one captured the moment perfectly. It told the viewer everything they needed to know about my relationship with my brother.

  Just one thing. I've never been to Ben Nevis.

  How had the computer managed to superimpose me onto that picture?

  Ken almost looked embarrassed when he came around.

  “Look,” I said. “Look!”

  I clicked the mouse, flicking through picture after picture on the screen. Me in front of the Taj Mahal; a strange city of silver towers, the Houses of Parliament clearly visible nestling amongst them; an airplane the like of which I'd never seen, flying over a blasted plain.

  “Where have they come from?” I asked. “I certainly didn't put them there.”

  “No,” said Ken. “It's Aristotle. It's trying to make sense of contradictory data. Let me explain.” He looked around for inspiration. “I know; it's better if you close your eyes….”

  I stared at him. He looked a mess.

  “You stink of beer,” I said. “When are you going to sort yourself out?”

  He looked angry.

  “I've got nothing to sort out. Look, close your eyes. I'm trying to explain it to you. Do you want me to fix your computer or not?”

  That threat was always there. I closed my eyes. “Now what?”

  “Now imagine an orange. Are you doing that? Imagine the feel of its skin, that slightly waxy, warm sensati
on. Imagine pressing your thumbs into it, forcing a hole, juice squirting over your hands, that sharp citrus smell in your nose—”

  “Is there a point to this?” I said, my eyes tightly closed.

  “Yes. Open your eyes. Look at me. Now, tell me. How do you know what you just experienced was imagination and not the real thing?”

  “Is this some sort of philosophical question. ‘Am I a butterfly dreaming I am an Emperor?’”

  “No. I'm dealing with facts, not some philosophical bollocks. Listen, I'll tell you how you know the difference: the signals in the neurons in your brain that fired when you imagined the orange were not as strong as they would have been if you had really handled one. The same neurons fired, but there was a difference in the magnitude of the signal.”

  “If you say so….”

  “I do say so. Well, your computer can't do that. For a computer, a memory location is either on or off. It holds something in memory, it accepts an input, it has no way of knowing if what it has stored is real or imaginary. You connected your computer to the Internet. It has encountered all sorts of data out there. Games, models, jokes—some things that are just plain wrong. But it has no way of knowing what is real and what is made up. It tries to resolve what it sees as contradictory realities. Your pictures are an example of your computer doing just that.”

  “Oh. So what are you going to do about it?”

  He held out another disc. This one read Kant 2.0. “This'll sort it out.”

  “Why don't I just go back to Windows?”

  “You can't. Aristotle won't let go. It refuses to accept a Platonic OS as valid. It will upgrade to Kant, though. Don't ask me why.”

  I gave a grim smile. “I know why.” It wasn't often I managed to put one over on my brother where computers were concerned. “Kant built on Aristotle's materialism. He distinguished between the thing in itself, and the way it appears to an observer. He said that we only experience the world through the forms of time and causality. I'm guessing that the upgrade on that disk will give my computer just enough of a context to make sense of the world.”