The Gang of Four

  ‘Mrs. Collier has arrived, Prime Minister; she’s accompanied by Helen Warner and Alan Dosogne.’

  ‘Excellent, show them all through, would you?’

  The Prime Minister stood and strolled over to his window to view the ever-present cluster of press and photographers as they huddled near Number Ten’s front door, sheltering as best they could from the heavy downpour. The PM smirked; no one down below had any inkling of the events that had occurred this week, since the “meteorite blast”. In fact, that was no longer the biggest news story; the big ticket item now was an imagined bust-up between himself and his Chancellor. Business as usual. There were even rumours of a putsch, with some media pundits openly speculating on the possibility of the Chancellor taking over the top job by as soon as next week! That was not going to happen – with or without Dosogne and Warner’s box of tricks. Still, he’d need to talk to his chief whip and get the lay-of-the-land regarding his perfidious and venal MPs. Perhaps the Chancellor would be taking a back-bencher’s job next week.

  ‘Prime Minister.’

  ‘Mrs. Collier, Ms. Warner, Mr. Dosogne. Do please come in.’

  The PM pressed his intercom: ‘Can we have some refreshments sent up? For four.’ The PM ushered his guests over to the comfy sofas. ‘Please, sit here…’

  ‘So, we are still in business?’ he asked, once everyone had settled.

  ‘We believe so, sir,’ replied Mrs. Collier.

  ‘Yes,’ added Dosogne. ‘We still need to develop our own projects, along the same lines as before, but–’

  ‘–but we know for sure that this thing can be made to work now,’ finished Warner.

  ‘Good! Well naturally I’m happy to continue playing my part in all this, but the main reason I’ve asked the three of you to pop over this morning is simply to clarify the itinerary. Not so much my own, but rather… the cat’s.’

  ‘Mr. Waterstone, sir?’ asked Dosogne.

  ‘Of course. When’s he going to start trashing the planet?’

  ‘With respect, Prime Minister,’ replied Dosogne, ‘he is the planet.’

  ‘Right, so when’s he going to start self-harming?’

  ‘I believe he’s already started working with the spider. If I understood him correctly, the initial part of the plan involves erupting a chain of CO2-rich volcanoes.’

  ‘I see. And this is imminent?’

  ‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ replied Warner. ‘We should start noticing a rise in global volcanism, including a sharp spike in activity around the Pacific Ring of Fire, later this year.’

  ‘Later this year!?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but it will just be treated as a scientific curiosity. Maybe a news item. Life will continue largely unaffected.’

  ‘Then what’s the point? I thought the so-called “human system” needed to be seriously stressed.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but the volcanism itself is merely the catalyst. With greatly increased CO2 levels the cat believes it can then dislodge the icecaps, sending them into the oceans and raising global sea levels by several tens of metres. With most of the world’s coastline, and many of its major cities, underwater, the human system will then get very stressed.’

  ‘And what sort of timescales are we looking at here?’

  ‘Five years? Maybe less. The ice doesn’t even need to melt. As soon as it’s off its polar moorings, so to speak, and floating freely on the oceans, it will displace the water and hence raise sea levels virtually overnight!’

  ‘Hmm, sounds horrendous, especially for this place,’ the PM waved his arm to indicate London, ‘but will that be enough to disrupt the machine networks? Surely society will adapt. Cities can always be rebuilt further inland.’

  ‘Quite, Prime Minister. But all of this is just “phase one” – enough stress to allow our initial epigenetic coding to be assimilated successfully. But, as you say, the human system will learn to adapt so, a few years later, it will be time for “phase two”.’

  ‘Which entails? …Dare I ask.’

  ‘The cat wants to blow the Yellowstone caldera, sir, and that will certainly tip us over the edge, bringing about partial societal collapse and fatally compromising the machine networks in the process. Thereafter, the maintenance of the human system should become simpler, easier to uphold – assuming we, the Custodians of the Human Genome as the Gang of Four referred to us, remain in business. So the human system can’t become too stressed otherwise we, or our descendents, would struggle to maintain the programme. Anyway, after five generations of this we should, as a species, be sufficiently realigned for a successful attempt at the singularity.’

  ‘One that will give us a Star-Trek future rather than a Cyberman future,’ added Dosogne.

  The PM shook his head. ‘I hope all this shit proves to be worth it!’

  ‘We will be saving our necks, Prime Minister. It’ll be worth it,’ Warner stated firmly.

  The PM silently regarded Warner for some time, occasionally glancing at the others. ‘…And this geological activity will be the full extent of the cat’s involvement?’ he finally asked.

  ‘We hope so, sir. However, the spider hinted at further “interventions” down the line should the machines prove more resilient than expected, so the cat is also looking at something in Indonesia.’

  ‘What sort of “something”!?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say, sir. Something big, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Christ!’

  ‘Well, let’s hope that Yellowstone proves to be enough.’

  ‘Yes, let’s.’ The PM sat back in his chair and focused on his security officer. ‘Mrs. Collier, what’s the current situation regarding the Gang of Four?’

  ‘Vanished. Off the radar, sir, but if you recall, we have agreed to terminate our investigation of the Gang of Four.’

  ‘Did we sign anything?’

  ‘Sir!’ interrupted Warner. ‘We have to honour that agreement, even if it was just verbal. Without the Gang of Four’s cooperation this project simply won’t work!’

  ‘Alright, calm down, Ms. Warner. I was only joking!’

  ‘Hmm,’ replied Warner, sceptically.

  The PM turned again to Mrs. Collier: ‘We will terminate all our current investigations pertaining to the Gang of Four, however–’

  Warner took a deep intake of breath and rolled her eyes.

  ‘However!’ continued the PM, ‘We’ll maintain their file, adding to it if necessary every time they allow themselves to be noticed.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but we don’t even know if they’re still with us – in physical form, I mean.’

  ‘Well that would suit us fine, wouldn’t it, Mrs. Collier, but for all we know they could turn up next week, arrested for drunken or lewd behaviour or something! So, I suppose, under exceptional circumstances we may have to intervene, if only to save them from themselves… I take it we’ll be giving Russell Tebb a wide berth as well? Is he back at his Bermondsey aerobics studio?’

  ‘All Bermondsey security personnel, plus their equipment, have been removed. We don’t know where Tebb is.’

  ‘We don’t need him for our work, do we?’

  ‘No, sir,’ replied Warner.

  ‘Then we’ll leave him alone,’ stated the PM.

  Warner nodded. ‘I agree, Prime Minister, but maybe we should at least keep tabs on him, in case we need to contact the others in an emergency. There’s no guarantee Tebb could help with that but he is our only known conduit – unless one of us fancies contacting them via ayahuasca.’

  The PM snorted: ‘Well you can count me out of that!’

  ‘Alan here would be the obvious candidate, sir. He’s the only one of us to have done their Truth thing. Seems like there would be more chance of “contact” if he does it.’

  Dosogne shot Warner a furious glance and she responded with a smirk. The PM held aloft another statesmanlike hand:

  ‘It’s just a hypothetical, Mr. Dosogne. Hopefully none of us need deal with them ever again, but Ms. Warner is correct – if
and when it comes down to it, and Tebb can’t be found – you’re in the frame.’

  Before Dosogne could complain, the tea trolley arrived; the conversation then continued on for another forty minutes before the PM finally stood to terminate the meeting.

  ‘Okay, we seem to have everything covered,’ he said, shaking everyone’s hand. As the group slowly sidled over to the door the PM placed a hand on Dosogne’s shoulder, holding him back.

  ‘If you could just wait a moment, Mr. Dosogne. I’d like a quick word with you in private. Ms. Warner, if you’d like you can wait for him in the lobby. This will not take long.’

  Warner frowned as she departed the PM’s office with Mrs. Collier.

  ‘Do you enjoy a good working relationship with Helen Warner?’ The PM asked, once he was alone with Dosogne.

  ‘Well, I think so, potentially,’ replied Dosogne, rather noncommittally. ‘I’ve only been working closely with her this week, and she’s a complex character, so..,’ he added.

  ‘Hmm, and it doesn’t bother you that she’s unwittingly part of an alien network.’

  ‘That will take some getting used to, admittedly. But she is technically fully human and making her own decisions on things. Her intelligence is her own, it’s just that the, err, what was it called?’

  ‘The Malevolence.’

  ‘Yes, – it’s just that that thing provides her with access to the mental powers of other humans in the network. To my mind this is like having access to alien apps, as it was for me when I was a Sponsor hybrid. They’re just enhancements, enhancements she’ll need if she’s to push through these programmes.’

  ‘And would you describe her as mentally stable?’

  ‘She’s a genius.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means she’s remarkably stable, considering.’

  ‘Yes, well, genius or not, stable or not, we will be dependent on her for decades to come, and after that we’ll need a replacement with similar mental abilities.’

  ‘What are you driving at, Prime Minister?’ asked Dosogne, looking a little unsettled.

  ‘She’ll need looking after, Mr. Dosogne. Only someone within our group can do that. And the only person she really likes and trusts – is you.’

  ‘You think she likes me!?’

  ‘Mr. Dosogne, you don’t get to be a success in politics without knowing how to read people. Yes, she likes you, and rather a lot. You’re just such a bonehead you can’t see it.’

  Dosogne was at a loss for words and remained so as the PM reopened his office door to show him out.

  ‘Take care of her, Mr. Dosogne.’

  ***