“So: this! The MindMeld?”
Dunwoody had a way of materializing just when you least expected him
at the sushi house. Greg and Frank had brought Alfie along for a
little quiet commiseration on his return. “Do you realize what
you’ve unleashed?”
Alfie turned to face him
wearily.
“I don’t need this right
now,” said Alfie.
“Beckinsale… Alfie… may I
call you Alfie? You’re playing right into their hands, Alfie.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Greg
got off his stool and moved towards Dunwoody, as if to protect Alfie,
who with Frank stayed hunched over the counter, not facing the
professor.
Frank suddenly swung around on
his stool. “Hey, hi there! May I call you ‘Asshole’? Get the
fuck out of here!”
“Leave it, Frank. It’s OK.”
Alfie now also turned to face his nemesis. In his heart he knew he
was right, in a funny sort of way. But ‘they’ wasn’t aliens.
He thought back over the last few days.
* * * * *
The misty dawn in the forest,
jogging between the trees. Rare, horizontal shafts of sunlight
amidst a brooding gloom. He’d been thinking of aliens right at
that moment. Hadn’t there been a scene in ET just like that? He
was remembering how he’d watched it when Dan and Kath were little:
how they wanted to watch it over and over, identifying with the kids
in the movie. Then a figure looming out of the mist: Ethan.
“Alfie; Alfie!” A smile:
the smile a tiger gives to a cornered gazelle.
“What are you doing here,
Ethan? You flew all the way up here?” As if he didn’t know.
“No big deal, Alfie. I like
it up here. All the… trees.” He seemed to be sizing him up;
pacing slightly around him; ready for the big pounce and the best
angle to sink his fangs into the jugular.
“I didn’t see you as a trail
hiker, Ethan.” In fact he’d never seen him in anything but a
business suit. Polo shirt and chinos just looked wrong on him.
“You’d better come up to the lodge. Bett can make us breakfast.”
“Let’s just talk, Alfie.”
Pacing, pacing.
Alfie started jogging on the
spot. The gazelle, looking for a chance to escape. “How about
jogging along with me then?”
Alfie knew the answer and Ethan
didn’t bother to give it. “We’ve been worried about you for
some time, Alfred.”
“So have I been.” He
shrugged. “Worried about me.”
“Sure, sure. I can understand
you need some time off.” The tiger gave a broader smile, showing
all its fangs.
Alfie stopped jogging on the
spot.
“More than time off, Ethan.”
“You see if you stop
communicating, it gets us… more than time off?”
“You got the message via
Greg.”
“I got the message, Alfie.”
“Greg is a good guy. He
understands.”
“Great guy, Alfie. But you
wouldn’t do this to him, would you?”
“Do this?”
“Do this, to him, to all of
us, Alfie. To yourself, to your family…”
“I’m doing it for my family,
Ethan.”
“Are you?” He stopped
pacing. Ready to leap, thought Alfie. “Are you, Alfie? And how
exactly do you think it’s gonna help them?” He moved towards him
and Alfie actually flinched. But he just put a hairy paw round his
shoulder. “Let’s walk a little, shall we?”
They shuffled along, linked
together, the tiger and the gazelle. The lion shall lie down with
the lamb, and a little child shall lead them.
And so it started, with the most
numbing platitudes. About how important he was to the Company; how
he was loved by staff; the thousands of them that relied on his ideas
and his goodwill; the public face of the Company; loved by the
customers; loved by the world; the Company couldn’t be the same
without him; the Company this, the Company that… Then the menace
kicked in. The wailing and gnashing of tiger fangs.
“A while back we did an
analysis, Alfred. You know how we run all these scenarios: disaster
recovery, opportunities, threats, what happens if…”
“Ah, the famous Risk
Register.”
“The Risk Register, Alfred.”
A bit of a squeeze on the shoulders, a tightening of the grip.
“Well, we did a ‘what if’ on, ‘what if Alfie Beckinsale went
under a bus tomorrow’? We asked some respected analysts. You know
what happened? Even asking the question caused a share price wobble.
Somehow. Even under conditions of strict secrecy. ‘Why are they
asking this question?’ Kinda thing.” The grip tightened again.
“You know what the answer was, Alfred.”
He didn’t respond.
“You know what that answer
was? A third off the share price. Overnight.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, wow, Alfred. You are
WorldNet. That’s something, isn’t it, eh?”
“It’s… something.”
“Something to be proud of.
You are
WorldNet. To the outside world anyway.”
“I used to be proud.”
“When you make your
presentations, the world stops and looks, Alfred. The world
stops and looks. Now if you were just to walk away… think what
that would mean. If you died, that’s one thing. But – just walk
away? Think of the rumors. Think Alfred.”
Now he was gripping so tight it
was hurting.
“Think! ‘There’s a
problem with the business’. ‘He’s fallen out with the Board’.
‘He’s sick’. ‘He’s crazy’. Had you thought about that,
Alfred?”
“Not exactly.”
“’Not exactly.’ What did
you think about?”
“My family. My life.”
“The simple life, huh? Out
here in the…” He was groping for words, an attempt to grasp what
Alfie saw, but he couldn’t even begin to see it.
There was only product, growth,
profit: there was only the Company.
Alfie could feel the arm
starting to shake. The fake bonhomie barely masking the anger and
anxiety. The smile on the face of the tiger; tense; ready to strike
now. “Out here in the… trees.”
“The Jedediah Smith State
Park… the redwoods.” It didn’t even register with Ethan.
“So you haven’t thought
about the share price...?”
“No, Ethan.”
“The impact of a collapse on
thousands of people…”
“No, Ethan.”
“Their share options, their
jobs…”
He shook his head.
“And on you, Ethan.”
“I just wanted to walk away.”
Wanted… past tense already.
“Walk away? You think you
could just walk away? You think with the massive loss of share
value… you could just walk away?” He swung round and took Alfie
by both shoulders, looking intensely into his face. Against the
rising sun, his face was a dark blur, in deep shadow. But Alfie
could feel the eyes, intent, raging, insistent. “Don’t you
realize you’d get sued to hell by the shareholders? By the
Company? By me, Alfie? I’d have no choice but to sue you, Alfie,
for damaging the Company like that. Your life would be hell, Alfie.
For many years. And your comfortable lifestyle – forget it!”
So this was it: the pounce, the
quick kill.
* * * * *
And so he was back at the
counter of the sushi bar, commiserating with Greg and Frank. Now the
Company had come up with some real corker, and Greg had spent the
morning outlining the new presentation he had to do. Ethan has
signed up the MindMeld for the next Star trek movie: Vulcans develop
the device in the twenty-fourth century and it’s time traveled back
to now. And he had to present it to the world. Not even his idea
this time. Just pure marketing: the new MindMeld Star Trek Special
Edition. Tacky. Who dreamt this stuff up?
Meanwhile, Dunwoody was
continuing to warm to his theme.
“…So you’ve connected up
our kids with this alien device, Alfie. What next?”
Alfie turned to him at last.
“Patrick. I understand where you’re coming from. But what makes
you think this is bad? We’ve watched the kids since we started up
the MindMeld. They’re co-operating; developing new ideas in ways
we never even thought of. And so far, this is just within the
context of a game. Who knows what they might be capable of if you
hook up, say, all the postgrad AI students in a virtual environment.
All the rocket scientists. All the cancer specialists. Whatever.
It’s a new world, Patrick. My kids and your kids have never known
a world without interactive computing, without social media. This is
more than a revolution; this is the start of a new species, with the
facility for something new – let’s call it hive-mind
intelligence.
“And never underestimate the
capacity of the human to come up with something new, Patrick. It
doesn’t need aliens or the Illuminati or the freemasons. Never
underestimate what the human brain is capable of when stimulated by a
big pile of money!’
* * * * *
Alfie slowly pushed open the
door to Kath’s room. She was neatly tucked up in bed, with just a
bluish glow beside her bed, like a protective aura around her head.
At first he thought it was a night light; then realized it was her
tablet.
Hard to say if she was still
awake. He crept over, thinking to switch the device off.
“Good night, Kath,” he said,
soft enough not to disturb her.
“Good night, Daddy: I love
you,” said Kath. Sleepily, drifting off.
“Good night, Mr Beckinsale,”
said Tiger Lily, her calm, protective gaze materializing on the
screen. “Good night; sweet dream.”
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