The Gang of Four

The band members returned to the stage to commence their second session. If it were anything like their first, he’d consider retiring to his room.

  ‘What’s up, Tebby? You look glum. Don’t you like your buddies’ music?’ enquired Gerry. He was sneering, but not because he too found the “music” to be a cacophonic discordant racket – he was just sneering because that’s what Gerry did. At least relations had been normalized since the previous night, Gerry and his fellow crop circle makers weren’t the type to hold a grudge and had in fact cheered loudly when they spotted Russell entering the Red Lion’s bar. This, of course, had wound Russell up, but with Ceres and the others responding in kind to Gerry’s bonhomie he’d been forced to go along with it and be friendly. It remained difficult, though, Gerry was such a relentless piss-taker!

  The music began, and, as before, it was utterly unbearable.

  ‘No, I can’t stand it!’ he said in reply, but Gerry ignored him; as with the other circle makers and everyone else in the bar, his attention was now exclusively directed at the musicians.

  Reluctantly Russell joined the others and focused on the performance. That should be performances, because every band member was playing a different song; in fact, they were all playing a completely different genre of music: On lead vocals, Ceres forcefully projected a soul ballad, in the style of Adele or Whitney Houston. On support vocals and lead guitar, Kev was hammering out thrash metal. To the right of the stage, and surrounded by keyboards and laptops, Mr. Waterstone dispensed some form of trancey, high energy house. At the back of the stage, and supplying the relevant percussion for everyone else, sat Michael. He was surrounded by an enormous drum kit and was gripping a stick in every paw as he bashed out several jarring rhythms with force.

  Russell could bear it no longer. He stood to leave but found himself making eye-contact with Ceres. She smiled at him and brought her left hand up to her ear and made a turning motion. “Tune in” seemed to be the message. He had previously tried to focus on the individual band members but that got him nowhere: the other sounds kept bleeding through, but as he attempted to feel the spirit of their genres he found himself more able to tease bits out individually. This approach worked better because each band member was in fact also supporting the others. They were all doing what Michael was, more obviously, doing.

  Ceres’s power ballad was not his thing, nor was Kev’s thrash metal. But a good bit of house always went down well at the aerobics studio. He focused on Mr. Waterstone’s music…

  Wow! Now he was getting it! Presumably the band were performing in this manner in order to cater to the various musical tastes of the audience; add a sprinkling of perception filter to make it all seem believable – and everyone in the room was probably hearing something close to perfection!

  Russell, however, as always, had to work at it – never a perception filter to help him out...

  Mr. Waterstone’s house was a potent and hypnotic arrangement. The cat only seemed to use the keyboards intermittently and instead spent most of his time just dancing on the spot, throwing shapes and glaring at the audience; his moves were both languid and easy on the eye. Fat cats, it seemed, in common with fat men, always looked good when they danced.

  The audience members tended to fixate on one or other of the band members. For Gerry and his crew it was either Kev or Mr. Waterstone; for Bosman and his crew it was either Ceres or Kev. Alas Michael, for all his physical effort, appeared to be a background figure for everyone. Curse of the drummer perhaps, although it was just as well: Michael and the others, but mainly Michael, had been forced to realign their perception filters for the croppies following “exposure” at the Third Eye crop circle. Michael was now visible to them as a giant animatronics spider, with the perception filter explaining away all his fluid movements as: “programmed”. Mr. Waterstone was simply a versatile stunt cat. Meanwhile Ceres’s Gaia radiance had dimmed since leaving the circle and what was left could be put down to star quality, or X factor.

  As one of the songs ended Kerstin Wahlmann came over and sat down next to Russell. ‘Ceres is amazing! So much talent!’ she beamed.

  Russell smiled in agreement and regarded Kerstin closely. She was very hot. And possibly interested, too, but it really was hard to tell: any attraction she might be harbouring for Russell was clearly eclipsed by an utter love and adoration for Ceres.

  Russell felt jealous, and outgunned: he was competing against every other life form on the planet, even the wombats. Oh well, what did it matter; tonight he would be stuck in another one of those goddamned Gordian knots, but then after that… his association with the crazy gang might come to an end. So, who knew..? Kerstin smiled back at him as she moved somewhat dorkishly to the music. Yep, she was extremely hot.

  The second set eventually came to a close and the band members promptly descended on Russell’s table, much to Kerstin’s delight, and Gerry’s irritation – he exchanged glances with his pals and then they all stood to leave.

  ‘Busy day tomorrow, bringing the harvest forward, coz of the weather and that. See ya, Tebby! Great gig, Kev, didn’t know ya had it in ya, ya big ape, haha!’

  Everyone watched them leave.

  ‘They’re off to make the final part of the circle,’ remarked Ceres, winking at Kerstin.

  ‘Agh!’ screamed Kerstin, suddenly, ‘I will speak to Gunter and see if we can put a stop to this!’ She stood and signalled Bosman, who then came shambling over; he was clearly drunk: ‘Super gig, my friends, reminded me of Destruction at their finest, my most favouritest band in the world!’ He slapped Kev hard on his back and then joined the group at the table.

  Kerstin was embarrassed by Bosman’s drunken manner and also perplexed by his description of the music. She ushered him back to his feet: ‘Come on, Gunter, let us purchase a round of drinks for the table.’

  ‘And crisps!’ added Ceres.

  Bosman agreed and lurched towards the bar with Kerstin’s support.

  ‘How many has he had?’ asked Russell.

  ‘Just a couple of lagers,’ replied Michael.

  ‘Eh? Are you doing a number on him?’

  ‘Just a bit of incoherence while Kerstin complains about Gerry,’ explained Ceres, ‘who must be allowed to complete his work unfettered. Gunter will be sober enough when he returns, although very open: I wish to quiz him on his crop circle research.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ added Michael, ‘you didn’t talk to Gerry about his crop circles, did you, Russell?’

  ‘No. I got what you were saying earlier.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah! It would be like, err, collapsing…err,’

  ‘The superposition?’

  ‘Yeah! What was that again?’

  Michael sighed: ‘If Gerry ever stops to analyze his work, it would change the resultant circle: collapse it down from the human system’s to just Gerry’s own creation, thus effectively destroying its original content.’

  ‘Which you still can’t interpret.’

  ‘Whatever! Let’s wait for part three before jumping to conclusions on that one. I’ve not been beaten by a code yet!’

  ‘Are you sure there is a code? You all keep describing it as “gibberish”. Maybe Gerry has thought about what he’s constructing.’

  Ceres looked pained but dismissed the idea with a shake of the head.

  ‘Impossible,’ Michael concurred, but then he revised that down to: ‘inconceivable.’

  A depressive silence descended on the table and Russell felt it acutely. What if that jackass Gerry really was just producing nonsense? Perhaps his sneering, mocking manner was humanity’s only true message here. Perhaps when the whole image was combined all that would be revealed would be “the finger”. That meant ‘homo dumbass’ was on its way, and Russell had now finally come to the conclusion that, ghastly though it sounded, the technological singularity was the better option. As an artificially constructed species it was humanity’s destiny, surely?

  He decided to change the sub
ject:

  ‘By the way, got to agree with Bosman, it was a great gig once I figured out how to tune in! Loved your work, fella!’ Russell gave Mr. Waterstone a pat on his head. The cat seemed pleased.

  Bosman and Kerstin returned with a variety of drinks and bar snacks.

  ‘For the ladies...’ Ceres was handed a packet of crisps and some sort of cocktail. Whatever it was, Kerstin had the same.

  ‘For the gentlemen…’ Bosman gave himself, Russell and Kev each a bottle of imported lager and a chilled glass.

  ‘And some rinds for our feline friend over there.’ Bosman threw a packet of pork scratchings over to Mr. Waterstone, who looked less than impressed.

  Bosman finally turned to Michael: ‘Apologies, spider, but they do not serve WD40 at this establishment,’ he laughed heartily.

  ‘So I get bugger-all then!’ replied Michael, with obvious annoyance. This took both Bosman and Kerstin aback.

  ‘Whoa, I didn’t know it could speak,’ replied Bosman, studying Michael closely.

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Ceres, frowning at Michael, ‘it’s got a voice synthesizer connected to an advanced AI bot.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Bosman, still regarding Michael.

  ‘It still fails the Turing test. Try a few questions,’ suggested Russell, with a smirk towards Mr. Waterstone. The cat smirked back as it deftly opened its bag of pork scratchings and began chomping on a large piece. It eyed both Michael and Bosman expectantly.

  ‘Very well,’ replied Bosman, ‘Let’s see… What is the capital of Lower Saxony?’

  There was no response from Michael.

  Bosman scoffed: ‘I believe it has fallen at the first, as you say.’

  ‘It helps if you address him by name,’ replied Ceres, now showing some amusement, ‘he’s called “Michael”.’

  ‘Okay… Michael–’

  ‘Hanover,’ replied Michael, abruptly. Bosman was delighted and clapped his hands.

  ‘Those sorts of questions are bread-and-butter to an AI bot, they just pull that stuff off the internet! Ask him a hard one,’ suggested Russell.

  ‘Very well: What is the meaning of meaning?’ asked Bosman, folding his arms in triumph.

  ‘Christ!’ replied Michael.

  ‘Is that it, spider?’

  Mr. Waterstone attempted to contain a snigger by stuffing his face with more scratchings.

  ‘That’s all you are getting… and my name is Michael!’

  ‘Hmm…’ Bosman mulled this over: ‘It is very naturalistic, but as you say, it is not defeating the Turing test, is it?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Ceres. ‘Tell us about your crop circle research, Gunter. It sounds fascinating!’

  ‘Yes, yes, in a minute, I’ve got one more for Michael.’

  ‘Shoot,’ replied Michael.

  ‘Michael–’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Yes, Michael–’

  ‘What!?’

  ‘If you will let me speak, please!’

  Michael remained silent, and Bosman tried once again: ‘Everything I say is a lie, including that statement, Michael.’

  Michael still remained silent.

  ‘I have got him!’ declared Bosman.

  ‘No you haven’t!’ replied Michael, ‘your second statement was a truth.’

  ‘No, everything I say is a lie!’

  ‘No, you correctly identified your first statement as a lie, thus telling a truth. Ergo: you do not always lie. That was a lie.’

  Mr. Waterstone looked very confused.

  ‘I always lie!’ shouted Bosman.

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Michael shouted back.

  ‘Ha! I win!’ declared Bosman.

  In due course the conversation turned towards crop circles and Gunter Bosman’s specific research in this area. Unlike others, Bosman was less interested in the physical peculiarities of crop circles – the bent or exploded nodes, the disruption to electrical equipment etc – and was instead regarded as something of a scholar when it came to pictogram interpretation.

  ‘What did you make of that circle where we conducted our filming today?’ asked Ceres.

  ‘Very impressive!’ Bosman replied, ‘excellent mathematical precision, novel presentations of the golden ratio, repeated on many scales–’

  ‘What’s the point of it?’ asked Russell.

  ‘The point?’

  ‘Does it convey a message?’ After hearing that the Third Eye circle had been sent, like a cosmic email, specifically to him, he’d pressed the others to explain further, but they claimed not to know. It seemed unlikely that Bosman could furnish an explanation but it was worth hearing what he had to say on the matter.

  ‘We believe it is a warning about Earth upheavals, climate change etc,’ replied Kerstin, keen to jump in.

  ‘Sounds like guesswork,’ replied Ceres, sceptically.

  ‘No,’ asserted Bosman, ‘we cross-reference the pictograms with ancient interpretable rune symbols from all over the world and there are commonalities. This circle does appear to be forecasting a climate disaster, maybe volcanic upheavals.

  ‘It never rains but it pours,’ said Russell, firing a look at Mr. Waterstone. ‘You had to get yourself a piece of the action, didn’t you?’

  Mr. Waterstone was still looking confused from earlier and he gave no indication that he knew what Bosman was talking about. Russell realized that everyone was staring at him.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was referring to, err… Please continue, Gunter.’

  ‘Well that’s it!’ Bosman declared.

  ‘So who is this message directed at?’

  ‘Depends on which references you take: either “the high priest”, or “the court jester”,’ replied Kerstin.

  ‘Court jester!?’ cried Russell.

  ‘Yes, as in “the fool”. I believe it means all of us: the perpetrators of our own fate.’

  Russell deliberately avoided looking directly at Ceres, but he could hear and feel her mocking laughter. It was a tangible force.

  Chapter Five

  Friday

  (The Human System)