Collective Mind (7 page)

COMA
reacted fairly calmly to the protest demonstrations, which in time petered out
almost completely. Violations of the law were a matter for the police and the
Agency tried to keep out of things and not participate in any open conflicts.
People who had been cured of fatal illnesses came out voluntarily in support of
COMA: they and their relatives were the Agency’s most aggressive supporters,
often showing up at meetings of protesters with poster saying: “You are
advocating our death”.

The
relatively harmless attack carried out by Mr. Elvis-Henri was stridently
branded an “act of terrorism” by the press, which discussed it for a whole
week. The flames of interest were fanned by the site of the crime – calm,
respectable Monaco, which in former times had hardly ever figured in the crime
reports.

When
the Department of Orange Energy of the Paris police received the summary
investigation report of the Monaco incident, basically no one took much
interest in it. Only Commissioner Pellegrini, as the head of department, was
obliged to familiarize himself with the document, and he started leafing
through the thick file. A standard case of an attack carried out by a solitary
fanatic. Boring.

Pellegrini’s
father was Neapolitan; his mother was a Frenchwoman from Bordeaux. He was born
and grew up in Paris, but he considered himself an Italian who had inherited
the character traits of both nations. When necessary, his rapid, impulsive,
Italian-style gestures coexisted quite comfortably with his subtle French tact.

Pellegrini’s
face seemed rough-hewn out of heavy granite, with powerful cheekbones and a
large forehead. The broad stripes of the bags under his small, brown eyes lent
his face a masculine brutality and intense astuteness. The deep folds on his
slightly sunken cheeks and around his mouth created the impression that his
mind was constantly engaged in strenuous thought. He was tall and stately, and
his bearing made it clear that he was an ex-army man. Pellegrini had served in
Africa for a long time before coming to work in the Drug Control Department of
the police.

He
worked very efficiently and could have become the department chief, but it
didn’t happen. He felt he had everything he needed to soar right to the very
top, and it was only his Italian name that stopped him. He had pretty good
chances several times, but every time someone else outflanked him, and the
possession of an archetypal French surname was essential, which gradually
inculcated in him a grudging resentment against his fellow-countrymen.

However,
his dislike of them was intermittent, like a dotted line. He wouldn’t let
anyone else insult the French. Once, a long time ago, Pellegrini had watched a
football match, an international final between the London Arsenal and Olympique
Marseille. Marseille lost, letting in two goals late in the game, both scored by
a French legionnaire playing for Arsenal. A drunk English fan sitting in a bar,
flung out the boorish comment that only the very best Frenchmen had the right
to plough the fields of England. Pellegrini got up, and with a single, rather
gentle but precise blow, dislocated the man’s jaw. Policeman or no policeman,
he had Italian hot blood.

Pellegrini
was not over fond of pureblooded Frenchmen, especially Parisians for their
arrogant attitude to Italian southerners, and he sometimes expressed his
opinion of them in extremely harsh terms. He felt that he was paying them back
in their own coin, taking the same attitude to them as they took to him. Like
the last time, when had been upstaged yet again, and the vacant position of
head of the Narcotics Control Department had been taken by his only genuine
friend – Giles Gautier. Pellegrini considered himself a more appropriate
candidate, and it was especially galling to lose the position to his best
friend.

But
despite everything, he did eventually rise to become the head of the new,
prestigious Department of OE. Now everything was sure to change. Pellegrini
thought he could really spread his wings and show everyone what he could do…
How very wrong he was.

Six
months later Gautier downloaded his creativity out of patriotic considerations.
He tried to persuade Pellegrini to go along with him and other officers. He
pictured to him how they would have a wonderful life by the ocean, somewhere in
Bordeaux, while their creativity would continue working for the good of their homeland
and the world. Pellegrini refused: he had realized his dream at least in a new
department with such a promising future, and he wasn’t willing to abandon with
his new position.

Pellegrini
was glad he hadn’t gone to download his creativity along with Gautier, and now
he couldn’t do it anyway, because he had signed a contract prohibiting
downloading. Someone at the top had realized that at this rate the police would
be left without any high-quality personnel, and introduced a bar on downloading
for top-level officers.

Initially,
Pellegrini’s work had been interesting and new technologies made catching
criminals easy. But pretty soon COMA grew so powerful that Pellegrini’s job
became pure routine. And not only his job, but practically all police work

 Pellegrini
read the report of the attack without much interest, thinking that it would be
good to feel the tenderness of the southern sun right now. He decided to take a
trip to the scene of the “notorious terrorist attack” while the tracks were
still fresh, while there was still something to delve into and someone to talk
to. He phoned the Monaco branch of the Agency and asked them not to touch
anything, explaining that he was on his way to conduct a supplementary
investigation.

***

Isaac
woke up close to midday. Despite his thirst and the hangover pounding at his
temples like a sledgehammer, he got up quickly, for he was too hyped up to keep
still. He downed two glasses of water and felt better. The adrenalin from
yesterday’s successful meeting flowed back into his bloodstream again, arousing
a pleasant excitement. Isaac prowled round the apartment like a lion in a cage
and couldn’t really get to do anything.

Bikie
didn’t show up until one.

“What
a dump,” he grunted instead of saying hello.

“What?”
asked Isaac, puzzled.

“I
said, you live in a real dump.” He paused for a moment and added: “Seriously,
Isaac, it’s like I just walked into my own place.”

Isaac
rewarded his irony with a wry grin.

They
walked over to the computer, which was already switched on. Isaac opened a file
and showed Bikie the database. Bikie whistled.

“Oh,
wow! Data bases are my soft spot, my true love,” he said with a hint of
smugness. I see a data base, get inside, find the weak spots and crack it.”

Bikie
plumped down on the chair in front of the computer and ran rapidly through the
list.

“Ah,”
he said disappointedly. “Nothing needs cracking here.”

Isaac
took the mouse from Bikie, moved it to find the cursor and explained that the
data base was useful for finding accomplices. It was where he had found Bikie
and he had seen other people in it who thought like him. Isaac explained about
Wolanski and the other candidates. He felt too embarrassed to mention the girl
though.

Before
Bikie had even heard him out, he was hammering on the keyboard and digging
through the social networks.

“Look
at this dude Charles. A bit older than us, from a family with deep pockets.
Moves in the highest circles, no problems with money. Yes, I remember, I
remember,” he said, once again interrupting Isaac, who was trying to say
something. “You’ve already set your sights on this whatshisname – Wolanski. But
check it out – this guy’s got a Harley. He’s one of us, and there’s an excuse
for getting to know him.”

“Just
a rich showoff, I reckon” Isaac objected. “Bet you, he only bought a Harley
because he read somewhere how cool it is to have one.”

“What
are you saying, bro, where do you think they write that it’s cool to have a
Harley? The Ducati Sport, now, that’s never been like a Harley, and it
shouldn’t look like one, and that’s why…”

“Okay,
Bikie! But how are you planning to hob-nob with someone from his circle?
‘Hello, I’m a barman with a Harley, what year’s your machine? Are you against
COMA? Me too!’ I suggest that if it’s a no go with Wolanski, then we can
contact this guy too”

“Isaac,
if you’ve already decided everything, “then say so.” Bikie snapped, «I figure a
normal guy will make normal conversation, with money or without. Although, what
the heck you consider normal these days, if ridding yourself of your soul has
become the norm. Eh? Especially if you don’t happen to have any better way of
doing as well as this guy with the Harley.”

Bikie
regarded financial inequality and disparity of opportunities as the main
reasons why it had become popular to be a donor. That way everyone got a
chance, whether they were from Europe, Asia or Africa. The important thing was
how well your head worked. While before, being from Fiji one could expect only
the finger.

The
first massive wave of creativity downloading came about in countries with
negligible opportunities for fighting your way up without heavy connections,
for earning enough for your own house, or for getting rich. A large flow of
elderly but intelligent people followed from countries with a poorly developed
social sphere, in Latin America and Asia.

In
the prosperous countries, the young took up downloading. In Hong Kong, Greece,
Italy and France, graduates who could not find a good job easily surrendered to
it. Yesterday’s students quickly discovered how difficult it was to support
themselves independently, let alone to earn enough for a decent house, start a
family and live a stable life, no matter what high-level specialists they were.
Most of the big-time positions were taken, and some had disappeared altogether
thanks to the UNICOMA-generated technologies. Sure, you could scrape by on
social support payments, but the money received for OE offered a real
opportunity of never having to worry about anything again. That was what they
had studied and developed their brains for, you could say. In America, masses
of prisoners volunteered to sell their creativity. And it went on and on. After
three years it was already pointless to single out specific groups. Everybody
everywhere was downloading.

It
quickly became clear that people were earning a pretty good income from selling
their OE, and there was even a controversy about taxes. Should income from OE
be subject to taxation? Who ought to levy it, and at what rate? The discussions
were also complicated by the fact that a person could go away to any country,
download his OE there, stay there to live in a boarding house and never come
back. Eventually they decided that there would be no income tax. Not anywhere.
But countries would receive incentives and discounts when buying technologies
from UNICOMA, depending on the citizenship of downloaders, instead of having to
collect taxes on downloads locally.

UNICOMA
successfully campaigned for the abolition of capital punishment. Rather, an
alternative was offered – the downloading of one’s energy instead of
electrocution or gassing: “Let every person serve the society.” It was a shame
to waste the resource, if someone got executed his energy would be lost
forever. UNICOMA was keenly interested in increasing the Collective Mind volume,
and didn’t want a drop of Orange Energy to be wasted. It equipped prisons with
download technology, and continuously increased the capacity of the network.
Prisoners who downloaded their OE were offered significantly more comfortable
conditions.

A
lavish Hollywood movie was made. About a talented young guy, a 3D architect who
through a series of failures, takes the wrong path in life. His actions become
more and more contemptible and mean, and he loses his job. Computer hacking and
doing drugs eventually lead him to homicide. The car he is driving while high
on cocaine hurtles off the road and two passengers are killed. Unintentional,
but still a homicide. He sunk lower and lower and eventually became a killer.
The hero became an antihero. The viewer’s eventually lost sympathy for him. But
in the second half of the film, his profound repentance and his study of the
strong and weak sides of prison life lead him to voluntarily donate his energy,
in order to improve the lives of prisoners. His OE rating was huge, almost
70000 HIT – a valuable contribution to society.

The
end of the film presents the real individual, who lives in a simple, but
comfortable prison boarding house. Statistics showed that a year after he
donated his OE, correctional facilities were given new regulations and
technologies which they implemented, significantly reducing the level of
violence in prisons. Prisons themselves were becoming more and more automated
and were practically impossible to escape from.

We
do not know what this man’s real contribution to the innovations was. But it
all looked really great, the movie won an Oscar, and the criminal was even
pardoned, although he voluntarily remained in the boarding house since he
didn’t want to live anywhere else.

Hollywood
is an ideal propaganda mechanism, it treats the public like a lover, who twists
a man round her little finger and gets everything she wants out of him by
putting him through incredibly profound emotions. The viewer’s cry and laugh,
they live other people’s lives, and then they are ready to accept Hollywood’s
ideas and messages in real life.