Existence (70 page)

Of course, some apparent “accidents” weren’t. So, police officials promised to investigate any possibility of foul play, especially now that Betsby’s death-confession had begun climbing the charts, accompanied by a tide of conspiracy theories. Hamish made a mental note to send one of his favorite contract operatives to lend the authorities a hand. He felt a personal stake in getting to the bottom of this.

Damn. I’ve found so few minds I respect.

If Strong did this, instead of leaving me to handle Betsby, then our deal is off. A lot of deals are off.

Hamish closed his eyes.

Unbidden, a steady stream of fantasies had been bubbling through his mind, the last few days—as if his subconscious were trying to find a way around the dour conundrum offered by the Artifact aliens. As always, the ideas manifested as dramatic plots for a book, or movie, or interactive. Till now, each of them had seemed—well—
untenable,
even cheesy. Borrowed, blatantly, from earlier works of fictional paranoia. Disappointment with himself had darkened his mood.

Only now, he found himself mulling part of the posthumous confession of the man some were calling the Saint of the Silverdome. Hamish always prided himself in his memory for good dialogue.

It is undeniable that I broke the law … I administered a legal medicine for a real illness … but in an illegal way, never consulting my patient. For that I’ll go to jail … accepting punishment according to the traditions of Gandhi and the other great martyrs, with acceptance.

Oh, that was good stuff. Truly memorable. In a way, Hamish kind of envied Roger Betsby, whose real experiment had
not
been medical, but social. Perhaps all of this publicity, heightened by his death, would indeed turn the attention of a fickle public toward the lesson the Doctor sought to teach. A lesson about maturity versus sanctimonious fury.

Maybe. Briefly.

But that outcome wasn’t what concerned Hamish. No, what struck him was a sudden, bolt-like realization. Awed by Betsby’s innovative technique for getting a point across.

A confession is always more credible than a denial.

Hamish felt a chasm in the pit of his stomach, a cavity made up of fear. The action that he suddenly found himself contemplating would change everything. There were terrible dangers, possibly as great as the ones that Roger Betsby faced. But also potential rewards. Plus a very real chance to alter the world, something that his genre fictions—despite all their dire-warning intensity—had never achieved.

Could I actually do this? Shall I study the idea first? Working out all the pros and cons and details?

Or would that only risk losing the moment, the sheer, impulsive genius!

In fact, there was only a very narrow window of time. Worldwide economies were teetering as thousands committed suicide, tens of thousands rioted, millions stayed home from work, and billions muttered angrily at their tru-vus and tellai-screens, driven into a contagious funk by the message of the artilens. And, while regular political institutions teetered, certain cabals of planetary power dealers were getting set to make their big move. One that Hamish had striven for years to assist—

—only now he felt a new certainty—that he did not want the “solution” being offered by Tenskwatawa, or the oligarchs, after all.

*   *   *

“Mr. Brookeman?”

His eyelids parted. Slightly startled, Hamish looked down to see the petite lab director, half his height, Dr. Nolan, standing just a meter away.

“Mr. Brookeman, I want to repeat our apology for having preempted your reserved time with Tarsus. I’m sure you understand that fast-breaking news events get priority.”

Fast-breaking news? Well, maybe. But the question you asked the octopus-oracle was both boring and dumb.
Still, he maintained a calm and friendly smile.

“I’ll tell you what,” she continued. “Why don’t we offer you time with Patmos, our parrot-prognosticator? Her record is almost as good as Tarsus’ and we can give you a substantial discount.”

Hamish nodded.

“Very well. Lead on.”

As he followed the keeper of animal auguries, Hamish considered the question he might pose—a very different one than Tenskwatawa had sent him to ask.

If I confess my crime, will it help me influence world events and bring outcomes I’ll desire?

He would have to simplify the query further, of course, and couch it as a yes-no, either-or choice for the feathered fortuneteller to pick between, opening one labeled box or the other for a tasty treat. In truth, Hamish wasn’t sure he believed in these supposed seers. Most reputable scientists scoffed at the whole idea, attributing their “track record” to statistical flukes. But as long as he was already here.…

What if the answer is yes? Do I have the guts to carry out my plan?

Even if I find the courage, I’d require help to pull it off. But who? I’ll need people with technical skills, who are good at acting in secret … and quickly …

His subconscious was already ahead of him. Hamish realized this when he found his left hand absently fondling a small case in his pocket, containing a single contaict lens.

They helped me once … my mysterious benefactors … to see through the banality of the aristocrats’ club.

They said I had only to get in touch, again, if I wanted to go farther down a rabbit hole. This certainly would qualify as a leap!

But do I dare work with people I don’t even know?

Can I trust them?

Will they even go along with what I have in mind?

Would anybody?

Hamish heard a squawking sound ahead, as Dr. Nolan entered a chamber whose walls were covered with drip-veg hangings, lending the place a jungle ambiance.

“Awr. Hi Jill! Hi Jill! Hello-o-o stranger! Awk! Tall! Awk!”

Shifting her weight on a wooden perch, a gray parrot rocked eagerly, ready to get to work, building her moderate, but above-average, score in the Worldwide Predictions Market. Of course she didn’t know about any of that, nor did she care whether her tally of successful forecasts qualified as prophecy, coincidence, or statistical fluke. Perhaps (according to some)
not caring
might be part of the reason for it all.

Hamish spent a few minutes refining his paired, yes-no questions, writing them on two slips of paper, then inserting them behind clear labels, covering separate hatches in a wooden cabinet. Then he stood back, still clutching the little container in his pocket, breathing shallowly as his heart raced.

Am I really this credulous? This superstitious?

Of course I am. Or I would never have written so many tales about the price of hubris and ambitious pride.

Only now, shall I attempt to alter human destiny, through actions of my own? Not via stories on a screen or the pages of a novel, but in real life?

Isn’t that arrogant, in its own right?

Minutes later, he had his answer, Patmos chuttered happily, fussing her way through devouring a nut. The door she had chosen lay open behind her.

Wordlessly, with barely a nod of thanks, Hamish turned to go.

First order of business? A quiet place to slip on the contaict lens and commune with the people behind it, seeking their help to carry out a desperate, impromptu plan. A plan to rescue the world from diabolic alien invaders.

If this works, I’ll owe the inspiration to you, Roger.

Rest in peace.

THE CONFESSION OF A HOAXER

Hello. My name is Hamish Brookeman, and with this statement I admit and avow to having committed a crime.

First, though, I’m told that I am the 246th most famous person on the planet. But for those of you who still don’t know who I am, here’s my
bio
. A lot of folks say that I’m pretty good as a story-maker, scenario-builder, vid-director, and so on. In fact, those very skills are why I was invited, some years ago, to
join a conspiracy.
A scheme that I once believed in—

—that I now confess to be monstrous and wrong.

In my defense, let me say the plot didn’t seem bad, at first. Those behind it appeared sincere, claiming we’d save the world! A world riven by political, military, and ethnic feuds that threatened Armageddon in dozens of ways. A world that’s withered and worn out from ecological neglect and overuse by ten billion ravenous consumers. A world where venerable traditions hang in tatters and every day brings more news of insolent technological “wonders” that might end us all.

Was it still possible to divert lemming-humanity from its doom?

The concept we came up with was simple, having been portrayed in science fiction dramas going all the way back to a classic
Outer Limits
episode and one of the great comic books of the 1980s.

How to get all peoples and nations to put down their petty squabbles and unite in common cause? Why, by offering them a
shared enemy.

A credible external threat would provoke the goodwill and fellowship that humans always show to other members of their tribe, when confronted by dangerous outsiders. Across history, leaders used this method to rally their subjects.

But how to accomplish it? A lot of ideas that seem elegant, say in a movie, prove impossible to implement, especially by a small and secret cabal. By the time they came to me, the group had already considered the problem, long and hard. They knew better than to try anything too ornate, like forging a complete “alien spaceship,” or even the partial wreckage of one. The world’s scientists and sages would quickly discover telltale signs of Earthly origin, in every alloy and part, down to the distribution of isotopes.

As for the invaders themselves? Well, not even great nations like China, America, or Brazil are so scientifically advanced that they could fake an extraterrestrial being, down to organs, metabolism, and a foreign genome.

But the Group did have one area of advantage.
Simulation technologies
had been squirreled away for quite some time—a quirky holographic technique here, a crystalline storage method there, some tricks of ai—set aside by skilled workers and innovators in Hollywood, in the defense establishments, and gaming industries. Separately, they didn’t amount to much. But together? Well, imagine how dedicated these far-seeing idealists had to be, in order to keep their best breakthroughs hidden, instead of exploiting them to get richer! In sum, together, the sequestered techniques added up (we thought) just enough, so that their combination might seem impressively advanced, even far ahead of contemporary human abilities.

And that’s where I came in. Who was better qualified to write the back story? The scenario. The characters. Their behaviors and motives. The things they’d say … in order to fool the world with
simulated aliens
?

Of course, by now you all know I’m referring to the Havana Artifact and its collection of “extraterrestrial emissaries.”

And yes, I am hereby claiming, confessing, avowing, and admitting
It was all a great, big hoax!

*   *   *

But hang on a moment. Let me finish. For, you see, there remained arguments over
how
to present our simulations. Perhaps hide a transmitter aboard one of the big, deep space probes sent out by ESA, NASA, or Sinospatial—perhaps the
Maffeo Polo
or
Voyager Twelve—
heading out to Uranus or Neptune. The clever notion was for our little parasitic device to detach from the main ship, just as the mission swung close to Jupiter, for a gravity slingshot maneuver. If done properly, at that crucial point, the two pieces might go very different ways. (See the concept illustrated
here.
)

A few years later, the secret transmitter would then turn toward Earth and beam a
SETI signal
to our planet, purporting to be from some faraway world and laying down a threat that might unite humanity! It was a clever plan … but impractical, I’m told. The space agencies and their astronautics experts might not be fooled for long. They would soon trace back the orbits and figure it all out. Anyway, smuggling a parasitic cargo onto a scientific planetary probe is about as easy as persuading your wife to hire three Swedish “nannies.” It can’t be done.

So my fellow conspirators settled on the Artifact Option. No need to stow away on a voyage to deep space. Instead, use all those hidden techniques to make a simple block of reactive crystal that could be powered by sunlight alone. Embed the right simulation programs … then simply release it into orbit near the Earth! In such a way that it would have to be noticed, and grabbed, by one of the debris-snagging teams … ideally, by some astronaut who was bored, burnt out, and easy to fool. Drop a hint or two, get him assigned to work in the desired area—and there you have it!

At the surface, our deception worked better than any of us could have hoped or imagined. And I admit, I felt pretty darned proud of the results. Especially my aliens! It was some of my best writing, ever.

Oh, sure, some people have cried “hoax!” since the beginning. But we expected that. So long as a majority believed there were genuine aliens, and that First Contact had finally been achieved, then the whole world’s attention would zero in on the same thing, at the same time.…

Only, then some things went wrong. I began to see the story go off track. Our synthetic aliens, simulated inside the Artifact, started diverting from my script! Moreover, instead of uniting the world, this “First Contact” was having the
opposite effect,
splintering society and causing everything to fracture!

Then came the
Core Message
. This thing about making millions of
copies
was bad enough. But to claim that
nobody survives
?

That’s when I realized … I’d been had. In my gullibility, I had lent my services, my creativity, to a conspiracy. One that had communicated with me only by encrypted overlays, never in person. What had seemed a prudent security measure, I now saw as a way to keep me from ever tracking down my comrades in crime. Compatriots who—for some reason—had chosen to alter the message, giving it a twist I never intended. From hope to despair.