Chapter Twenty-Six
Anarchy
As the first rays of sunlight peeked over the eastern horizon, the coordinates on the automobile’s dashboard indicated they were getting close. The renegades on board the Chairperson’s vessel breathed a sigh of relief after what had seemed to be an extraordinarily long night. They were worried about how fortified the infrastructure would be around the mainframe. Quantum computers were notoriously unstable and had to be located away from the residential zones of the metropolis. This was as much of a security solution as anything else; isolating the servers would make them more difficult to sabotage and make it easier to detect intruders to the site. Eventually Chantel could see lights twinkling in the distance that looked almost like a miniature city. The automobile flew across the barren landscape, hurtling ever closer towards the target.
Suddenly there was an incoming communicator message on the automobile’s computer.
“Please enter access code to proceed.”
The security system for the mainframe had automatically detected the approaching vessel.
“What do we do?” Chantel asked.
Beren was equally baffled.
“We…um…are here on the authority of the Chairperson. Unfortunately the Chairperson could not make it out here today.”
The fully automated security system tried to process this.
“Authentication required. Please provide your authority to proceed.”
Chantel furiously tried to determine the access code, while Beren futilely attempted to negotiate with the system’s artificial intelligence.
“The Chairperson has sent us to deliver a very important message to all Pangaeans…we are here to…um…do as the Chairperson has ordered.”
The security system did not seem convinced.
“Instruction unfamiliar. Verifying request with head office.”
The group panicked.
“This will alert the global police,” Julie cried alarmed. “They’ll be able to locate where we are.”
The security system responded with the dire news.
“Request to proceed not verified. Automatic deactivation initiated.”
Before anyone on board had time to act, the automobile’s computers immediately shut down and left them plummeting to the ground in a manner of seconds. They landed with a sharp jolt; all power in the automobile had been deactivated.
“Is everyone okay?” Chantel asked, popping the hatch to escape the battered vessel.
She jumped out, grabbing Beren’s wheelchair and quickly setting it up on the dusty ground. A disgruntled chorus of grunts and grumbles affirmed Beren’s and Julie’s wellbeing.
“Quickly, we don’t have much time before the police get here,” Julie shouted, running towards the mainframe city while Beren and Chantel tried to keep up with her paces.
Out of nowhere a spray of laser beam fire hit the dirt, narrowly missing Julie by a matter of centimetres.
“Holy smokes!” she cried as more laser beams were fired in their direction. “This city protects itself.”
Julie knelt on the gravel and started firing her laser shooter back in the direction of the attacking laser beams. Her keen eyes, used to spotting objects in the distance from the deck of the Saharan, pinpointed out the targets in the wall of the mainframe, aided by the light of the rising sun reflecting off the locations of the weapons. It wasn’t long before the offending laser shooters were reduced to molten metal.
“Good work Julie,” Beren applauded as they raced towards the mainframe compound.
As they reached the entrance, the security system was in full alert.
“Perimeter compromised,” it sounded, accompanied by the squealing of high pitched alarms.
They approached the authentication screen for visitors to the compound. Chantel could see a fingerprint reader and an iris scanner. She had no doubt that voice recognition would also require a password to gain entrance. Her heart fell with dismay when confronted by the complexity of the security screening. She had expected there to be guards located at the mainframe with which there might be the possibility of negotiating, especially if they were to find out that the Chairperson was dead. However, it seemed that Pangaea did not trust people to protect the mainframe. The security system for the compound appeared to be entirely automated. Chantel wondered how they would be able to deceive a computer system to let them in. At that moment, Beren rolled straight up to the checkpoint and allowed himself to be scanned.
“Pangaea sucks,” he said assertively when prompted for the password.
The system processed his details and then miraculously, the gate opened.
“Welcome Chairperson.”
“What the…?” Chantel wondered as they walked into the mainframe compound.
“I changed the Chairperson’s Pangaea access codes to my own last night,” Beren gloated. “I also changed the password to something a bit more appropriate.”
Chantel and Julie followed Beren through the door, relieved that his foresight had prevented them from being blown into smithereens. They proceeded through tunnels of glass, encasing various rows of servers. Behind the glass windows, the flashing lights on the inter-connected technology gave the encapsulating tunnel an organic feel. The air was pulsating with the whir of components, which added to the dry heat produced by the power surging through the atomic particles as qubits were processed at the speed of microseconds. It was like they were running through the bowels of a huge mechanical beast.
“We have to get to the central command centre,” Beren urged as they ran down the only path through the compound pointing the way to the processing hub.
They emerged finally into a massive atrium. Morning was breaking through the glass ceiling of the compound, filling the scene with the ambient light of dawn. The ground before them gave way to a massive cone shaped opening that radiated ultra-violet light as particles whirred around the interior of the cone at astronomical speeds. Footbridges passed over either side of the pit to the central command centre suspended in the centre of the atrium. The group ran across the footbridge as quickly as they could, trying not to look down into the glowing depths of the massive chasm. They reached the jumble of screens and projections that was the command centre.
“Quick, connect up the hologram recorder,” Beren instructed, as he provided his biometrics and password for verification.
Chantel hooked up the hologram recorder to the mainframe and the file they had created the night before was uploaded in an instant.
“Okay, this is it,” said Beren, tinkering with the commands on the system. “Just a few more seconds and the world will know--”
He pushed the final button to activate the broadcast.
“--the truth.”
The group collectively held their breaths. At that moment, every Pangaea connection in the world was simultaneously receiving the message that would predicate the doom of the global regime. Through Pangaea’s intricate satellite communications network, Pangaeans were instantly receiving the download that had the unthinkable power to topple Pangaea’s supremacy in government and ultimately usurp the control of the global five. The state-of-the-art technology Pangaea had developed to make its communications system the envy of the other global corporations would now be relied upon to facilitate its demise as news of the Chairperson’s death went viral around the globe. Chantel watched the message play in front of them, hoping that they had concocted it sufficiently to create the effect they were seeking, hoping that it was emotive enough to inspire chaos. She listened to the spiel she had drafted about the Human Integrity Act and prayed with all the energy she could muster that it would reach out to people enough to make them care.
Fellow global citizens, we bring you this message to tell you that we have been living under a lie. Companies that we have trusted to exercise their power in good faith, for the benefit of the people, have been committing the worst atrocities known to people-kind. What you are about to see proves the lies whic
h have been told to us by those we trust. Those in whom we placed our faith to govern with veracity and honesty have overstepped the power vested in them to rule according to the will of the people. They have engaged in the worst form of evil known in the history of the earth – slavery.
In year 2174 the Human Integrity Act was introduced as law to preserve the integrity of the human mind, body and spirit against involuntary intrusion and observation, to ensure the freewill of all people-kind for future generations. Under the Human Integrity Act, all humans are beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. We are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in the spirit of humanity. The Act gives everyone the right to life, liberty and security of person. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
At least two of the global corporations, Utopia and Pangaea are guilty of the crime of slavery. The images you will see are evidence of people being subjected to slavery. These companies have been working on the technology to impose slavery through the implants we all wear in our heads. In flagrant breach of the Human Integrity Act, these companies thought that they could get away with inflicting slavery upon other human beings. This is an abomination of the power they hold to govern the global Parliament for the people.
Global citizens, the Chairperson is dead. The Chairperson was assassinated whilst attempting to perpetrate the crime of slavery upon an employee of Pangaea. Whatever else the global regime will tell you, this is the truth. Global citizens, it is up to you now to ensure that the principles of the Human Integrity Act are upheld. We, the people, have a united duty to resist the imposition of the global regime’s power upon our lives. We cannot lie complacent while our own personal liberties are eroded before our very eyes. Global citizens of the world, we must collectively make a stand to ensure that our liberty remains paramount, to preserve our right to freedom and to maintain our own autonomy. We must take a stand against slavery.”
The group looked at each other in the sun drenched surrounds of the atrium. For such a significant message they were expecting its dispatch to be heralded by a fanfare, a thunderous applause, a grand hoorah; they were hoping for anything to indicate that it had been received with the intended effect. But there in the chamber of the mainframe’s central command centre, they were oblivious to the impact the communication was having upon the people.
“Is there any way of getting the news or some information about what’s going on out there?” Julie asked, as Beren tried scouring through the information on the mainframe to see what reports people had been posting. “Will the message go to people that aren’t with Pangaea?”
“There’s no encryption on the files so it can be sent to anyone,” Beren reassured. “Let’s hope people spread the world to all the other global citizens.”
“Wait, I know how Pangaea monitors the traffic on its systems,” Chantel piped up. “There’s a tracking system we developed that allows us to trace all data from its source. I should be able to bring up the frequency maps which can show us all access to the data in real time.”
Chantel starting sifting through the applications on the mainframe command centre until she found the one she needed.
“Uh-huh! This is it,” she said, happily loading up the program to track the spread of the message. “Wow, look at it go.”
On the map in front of them, tiny pinpricks representing the transmitted file were shown multiplying rapidly until the dots seemed to encompass the entire globe.
“Yes, the word is getting out there,” Beren hurrahed.
Just at that moment they heard a shout from across the divide of the cone.
“Freeze! You are under arrest.”
The global police had arrived. The group looked up to see three officers bearing weapons blocking off their path to the entrance.
“Hands up!” they shouted.
Beren made an attempt at diplomacy with the law enforcers.
“Look, we know you have a warrant for my arrest but it will be pointless taking me into custody now. The Chairperson is dead. The global regime is all but annihilated. You’ll soon find out that rather than breaching the law I was in fact responsible for exposing those who had acted in contravention of the Human Integrity Act to justice.”
The global police seemed slightly resentful of their task but proceeded to do as ordered.
“No matter what you say we have to bring you in, all of you. Put your hands up now. We know you have weapons concealed in your wheelchair.”
Beren and Chantel raised their hands obligingly in the air, concealing behind them the lightening quick reflexes of Julie as she extracted her laser shooter and delivered three rapid blasts towards the global police. What happened next was too catastrophic for anyone to foresee. The laser beam shots deflected off the armour of the global police, ricocheting around the atrium in all manner of trajectories. Inevitably, one of the blasts struck the side of the cone, interrupting the processing of the subatomic particles in the processor core. The core began to overheat, letting off steam and sparks in a crescendo of noise. All around them, the mainframe began to shake as if the great mechanical beast was starting to stir.
“We have to get out of here. It’s unstable. It’s going to blow!” yelled Beren.
They all rushed together towards the entrance, over the footbridge which was starting to bend and melt from the heat being emitted from the cone and through the tunnels of glass behind which the lights of the transistors were going ballistic. Chantel ran the fastest she had run in her life until at last they broke free from the mainframe compound and out into the clear air of the desert.
“Get on board,” she yelled, as they piled back into the Chairperson’s automobile.
No sooner had the group bundled themselves once again into the vessel which had just started to rise into the air, than the tempo in the mainframe reached fever pitch and a massive explosion erupted into the air. The entire compound burst into flames. Beren insisted upon receiving a high five as below them, the most advanced technology that had been developed by an global corporation crumpled into a charred mass of molten electricity.
Chantel watched the fireworks fly realising that this was the end of Pangaea - the company that was her brand, her employer, her government and had become her enemy was finished. She leaned her head back against the chair of the passenger seat and closed her weary eyes. Her journey had finally finished. It was time for her to go home.
-----------------------
“Make sure you come to visit us sometime,” Chantel made Julie promise as she gave her a firm embrace. “You’ll be able to find us better than we’ll be able to find you.”
Julie nodded, blinking back tears as she held Chantel close.
“Yes, make sure you swing by sometime,” Beren repeated also giving Julie a heartfelt hug. “That is if you are in the area and all. Bring Condor with you. That guy is awesome.”
“Location -54+29, south-eastern quadrant. I’ve always wanted to visit that part of the world. I’ll make it there soon, I promise,” Julie pledged.
With those tearful goodbyes, Julie hopped back onto the Saharan to make her way back to the seas of the south-western quadrant. There she would reunite with Condor and Auntie Bessie and the rest of her family. She wondered if they had also received the message. Boy, would there be some questions for her to answer when she saw them again.
Chantel and Beren waved farewell from the deck of the Chairperson’s automobile, which had been converted into boat mode for the long journey across the seas. As the sail on top of the Saharan disappeared from sight, Chantel and Beren steered the automobile to the next destination – Location -54+29. It was time for Chantel to return home.
Epilogue
The storms had finally ceased temporarily in the agricultural zone. Chantel and Beren exited the bunker to have a look at how much damage had been wrought upon the crops. In the months that had passed since the destruction
of the Pangaea mainframe, the world had become a very different place. By the time Chantel and Beren arrived again on the shores of the great southern land, the people were up in arms about the dastardly intentions that the global government had for the people. There was massive upheaval all around the world, as people rioted in protest against the global regime. Chantel was glad that her parents were able to stay safely stowed away in their bunker.
She was flooded with relief to see them again when her and Beren finally arrived at the farm.
“Chantel, the world has gone crazy. We were so worried about you,” her mum fretted, her eyes betraying the grief she had suffered at the possibility that she had lost not one but two of her children.
“We tried to call you but we couldn’t get through at all. All the lines were down,” said her dad visibly shaken with relief, in contrast to his usual stoic nature.
They welcomed Beren into their fold with open arms and together, they bore out the ensuing chaos in their own haven away from the rest of the world. Eventually they learned to live like a family again.
Chantel sighed when she saw the destruction the last cyclone had caused to the crops that had just started growing on the farm.
“Well, guess we’ll just have to start over again…doing things the old fashioned way,” she lamented, feeling a sense of responsibility for eradicating the centralised services that would have assisted them in the regeneration of the harvest.
“This is the cycle of life, Chanty,” Beren comforted. “Don’t stress so much about it.”
“Beren, but what will happen to the world now. How do we know if what we’ve done will change it for the better. Should we really have interfered with destiny in that way?”
“Chantel, this was bound to happen. As soon as Pangaea overstepped its social obligation to the people, as soon as they conceived of the notion of slavery, as soon as they sent you the glitch on the movie Soul, that put the world on a course of path dependence towards anarchy. Empires rise and fall, Chantel. History tells us that. It’s the natural course of change. We didn’t tempt fate at all. We were just the catalysts to bringing about the inevitable.”
“But destroying the global regime, Beren…you don’t think that’s changing destiny.”
Beren smiled and taking Chantel’s hand, held it tightly in his own.
“No, that’s got nothing to do with destiny…this is destiny,” he said, brushing back Chantel’s long wavy hair that had finally grown back again after being brutally shaven by Pangaea months ago. He gingerly touched the deep, mangled scar where her chip used to be making Chantel wince with a mixture of shame and disgust at the resurgence of memories from the events that took place in the Chairperson's chamber. Beren offered Chantel a reassuring smile, letting her know that despite the unsightly scar, he still thought she was beautiful.
And there, in their own private sanctuary away from the riots, Beren looked deep into Chantel’s large brown eyes as the world around them raged in the throes of transitioning to a new world order.
THE END
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