shine on america - chapter two
the story of fenton moses wayne (a.k.a.
johnny a-bomb)
"why i hate technology and other lies"
the mayor of the city of mirrors lay
motionless on a stage in central park. fenton and bedby got on their
horses and rode. crazy thoughts running through their minds. -who invented
chocolate? can the mayor really be dead? was history altered before
their very eyes?- were they somehow responsible for it? -does 6th street
still have some of the best indian restaurants in new york city? if
a tree falls in the forest, and there’s no one there - "yes,
it makes a noise. you don’t need a person with ears for there to
be a sound wave you idiot!". wow, bedby can read my thoughts, fenton
thought. "no, you’re saying this stuff out loud you didtz".
out of the park, across 96th
street towards the east river. towards gracie mansion to get some information
and find the truth. the truth is out there! past gracie mansion, down
2nd avenue to 14th street, across to the west side. an alternate group
rides west to the hudson, turns downtown and heads for battery park.
which group arrives first?
"i’m hungry, let’s get
some food". bedby was thinking out loud now. i looked at her and
wondered how she could be so calm during this crises. -this doesn’t
concern you? how can you remain so calm in the face of impending doom?-
"fenton, we do not exist here. no one knows us. we didn’t
pull the trigger, we were witnesses. we don’t need to know what
happened. what we need to do is get out of here." the question
still remains. how do we get back to our own time period?
-what do you think will happen after
all this?- fenton looked at bedby. bedby looked up at the sky. fenton
did as well. she shook her head, so did fenton "stop that, you’re
pissing me off. what do you mean by after all this? you mean when our
bodies die, the physical part? well, you know a lot of people believe
that we go on to another level. probably another dimension. the soul
doesn’t enter the body until just before you’re born. after
it stops functioning, the soul leaves the body and returns to where
it came from." -where it what?- "come on. you meet someone
and feel like you’ve know them before. that’s happened to
you right? those feelings of deja vu. you know there are people who
can see your aura. they can look at you and actually see something.
some of them see several layers around your body! there’s astral
plaining, out of body experiences, ghosts. nobody can explain this stuff.
scientists will tell you it doesn’t exist because they can’t
prove it does exist. when we met each other we knew almost immediately
that there was something drawing us together. we both know we’ll
know each other for ever. but some people are frightened by these things.
it’s to weird for them. you just have to accept that there are
some things that cannot be explained." -actually, i meant what
will happen to us tomorrow. but that was very interesting.- a long silence.
fenton and bedby came from the future.
the past, being history, is a known quantity. however, if the past has
been changed, it must also change the future in some way. every action
has a reaction. so the question is, what was the reaction to the mayor
of new york city being shot?
what’s a boy to do?
we’re thinking. we’re thinking
really hard. bedby looks at me, i look at her. she says "what’s
a boy to do?" i shake my head. -let’s go see the mall"
so off we go, to our nations capital, washington dc.
we arrive and look around. a few blocks
away, we see a group of people walking into fords theatre. we followed.
"the internet is going to be everywhere.
small computer chips will be in everything. they'll be in your silverware,
in your car, in everything you own. your toaster will be on the internet.
imagine a world where everything can be controlled remotely. this is
exciting stuff" fenton had this horribly contorted look on his face.
bedby looked over — he's not serious is he?- - i think he is serious
-"soon we'll have a cashless society. everything you buy will be bought
with a card" the lecturer, a noted computer expert was just finishing
his talk. the audience, oblivious as to it's meaning, applauded wildly.
—any questions? fenton raised his hand -why would i want my toaster
on the internet?- "everything will be on the internet" —why?- silence.
—how will people who live from paycheck to paycheck, live in your
cashless society?- "well, that will be worked out" —how? will you
give them more money, better jobs?- "that's a good question" —yes
it is. what's the good answer?- "whenever there is change, it upsets
the apple cart. but in the end, everyone goes along and enjoys the new
options that are available to them". "so what about the people in bed
sty?" "what about them?" —bed sty is short for a neighborhood called
bedford styvesent. the fact that you don't know that, and don't have
an answer is very sad. it shows that you haven't thought this through,
and it pretty much negates your entire speech. and i still want to know
what my toaster is going to do on the internet-.
we walk outside and look for a hotel.
bedby "money?". —credit cards. check it out, my card
says expiration 2005-. a few hours later we turn on the television.
some guy named harry kling is interviewing gater williams, the CEO -
Visionary of HardMicroSystems International.
harry: so gator, tell us about your
new operating system dialog 2000.
gator: harry, this is the most innovative system ever. you know with
our new operating system, you'll even want to put your toaster on the
internet.
bedby falls off the bed laughing.
harry: now the pear computer company
says you've stolen a lot of their ideas.
gator: that's so absurd. i'll tell you one of the major differences
between the way our operating system works and the way theirs works.
first of all, pear has this silly belief that the user should always
be in control. we recognize that most users are novices, so we make
the decisions for them.
harry: so it's a kind of artificial intelligence
gator: exactly. let me give you an example. the user is working away
on his word processing application
harry: word up.
gator: correct. the application has been upgraded just the other day.
we go out and get the upgrade for him. we know it's going to add some
new features that we're sure he'll want to use right away. we download
the new application in the background. when he pauses for more than
30 seconds, we quit and immediately launch the new upgraded app.
harry: couldn't this be a little confusing to the user, which by the
way could be a woman not a man.
gator: of course. as soon as the upgrade is launched a window pops up
giving the user a tour of the new app. the tour only takes a few minutes,
but our research shows that the user is more than happy to get that
upgrade.
harry: but they were busy working.
gator: as were we.
harry: but shouldn't you give them a choice as to when to get the upgrade.
gator: oh no. you see if we did that they'd put it off. people are such
procrastinators. it's a shame really.
harry: when we come back, we'll be taking your phone calls.
what is it about commercials that makes
me want to puke? i sit and watch and wonder who is the target audience
for this particular piece of garbage. i'm not old enough, or young enough
to wear diapers, i don't have heartburn, i don't have an upset stomach,
although after watching these commercials i should. i don't have a throbbing
headache. sometimes i think america is ill, and at the same time shopping
for a new car.
harry: caller #1, do you have a question
for gater williams?
fenton: i do. mr williams, what exactly will my toaster do on the internet?
gator: a lot of people wonder why we'd want to put our appliances on
the internet. let me give you an example of how this technology can
be used.
harry: your new house is completely wired isn't it?
gator: exactly, and that's the example i want to give the caller.
harry: i believe his name is fenton.
gator: well fenton, my house is completely controlled through the internet.
at random intervals throughout the day, new passwords are generated
and sent to me via email. these messages are encrypted so that only
i can read them.
fenton: what if something goes wrong?
gator: there's a back door.
fenton: so somebody could hack into that.
gator: no, i mean there is physically a back door. you know i'd like
to invite you to come out and see the house the next time you're in
seattle.
fenton: well it's my lucky day because...
"mr. wayne, ma'am? gator williams sent
me to retrieve you." we climbed into a new prototype hydrogen powered
car. the dashboard of the car had an odd look to it. "as you can see,
we're using a special scaled down version of dialog to activate many
of the features of the car. we call it 'dialog drive'." he turned around
to face us "don't worry, it's very stable and you'll need to sign this
non-disclosure agreement. also, you agree not to discuss anything you
see here, or write about it. you agree to not say anything about the
company that could negatively impact on the shareholders." —you
mean like if the car crashes or something- "well that's very funny,
but it won't crash." the shareholders? the bottom line is making money
and driving the stock price up. legalized gambling runs the economy.
we pull up to a beautiful house. gator williams is standing outside
waiting for us. "welcome to gatorville" we walk inside and there are
beautiful paintings everywhere. chagall, monet, pollack. —i was
told that these painting weren't real, but were just projected on the
wall and could be changed- "well that would be pretty stupid. anyone
can buy a picture of a famous painting. i enjoy art, i enjoy looking
at the textures, looking at the paintings in different light. you can't
do that with a photograph of a picture projected onto a wall. look at
this one. it's by an artist from marin county, dave archer. he does
airbrushing on glass. it's amazing. when you turn the lights down it
brings out features that you don't see with brighter lighting. who told
you that i project paintings on the wall?" —just a rumour- "what
kind of a jackass would do that? you know people say i'm brilliant when
it comes to software design" —no they don't- "but i have no talent
for drawing or painting. so i really appreciate what goes into that
kind of art". we walk into the atrium. there is an incredible view of
the pacific ocean. "late at night i just sit here and watch the water.
it's hynotising." a waiter appears and asks if we'd like anything to
drink. i order a white russian, bedby an orange chloe, and gator a martini
"stirred, shaken and tossed". gator looks at me and says "now don't
get me wrong, the internet is great. it's opened up all kinds of doors,
but some of these so called visionaries have gone too far. i'll tell
you something, i don't want my toaster on the internet. i don't even
have one." this is strange talk from the richest most powerful computer
guy on the planet. "and the cashless society — there's a really
stupid idea. it sounds really good until you consider a few things.
for example, when i pay for something with a credit card. i get the
bill a few weeks later. i pay for it a few weeks after that. in essence,
i get the item for free for a month. i still have that money in my account
earning interest. with a cashless society, the bank takes my money immediately.
you know i don't think they need my money that badly." jeez, i actually
agree with this guy. the drinks arrive and we walk out onto a terrace.
—i thought you were totally into all this computer geek stuff?-
"no fenton, it's all smoke and mirrors. computers are always crashing.
what a waste of time. you want to know what i use? remember you signed
that non-disclosure agreement. i use a fig." —the pear thing?-
"absolutely. i write on it and it works. i never lose any work, it's
fast and i can email whatever i want to the office so they can put into
some overblown, bloated word processor."-you mean 'word up'?- "god,
what a piece of junk that is. you know you can't repeat any of this
to anyone." —but you have littleDialog for handhelds- "yea,
it’s a colorful paperweight" —so what's next?- "well,
i certainly don't need any more money. i’ve got money to burn.
i rarely bother to go the office anymore. you know most of my time is
spent doing interviews. people ask me where i think the industry is
going. what a joke. how the hell would i know where it's going? we didn't
innovate anything here at HardMicroSystems. we bought it all from other
companies. can you believe it? people are asking me what the next big
thing is. i'll tell you the truth, i could care less. i'm sure i won't
use it or even be able to figure out how it works. have you ever used
our software? it's a nightmare!" —so why don't you make it better?-
"hey, this is as good as it gets! we protect ourselves with the end
user license agreement. have you read that thing? you know what it says
don't you?" —actually i do. it says that you aren't responsible
for the software working.- "is that a kick in the ass! it says we don't
warrant it to work. we have no obligation to fix it. come on fenton,
where else could i get away with this kind of thing? if you went out
and bought a car with that kind of agreement, the government would jump
in and sue you" — well, you are being sued by the government- "yea,
that kind of sucks. but we have a plan."
check this out. we have a monopoly.
by the way, i never said that, and you never heard me say that. what
if i announced that we were no longer going to sell dialog 2000. tomorrow
you woke up and the company was gone. the government would be screwed,
and the users, the voters would be furious. imagine for a second the
repercussions." —are you serious?- "i don’t need
any more money. i’ve got money to burn. my stocks are being sold
every day, a little at a time, so no one notices. in a few months i’ll
pull the plug and that’ll be the end of it. it’s my company,
and i can do whatever i want with it. so that’s the deal."
—but what about the shareholders? does everyone know about this?-
"no, that would be to risky. only the people who work directly
for me know about it. i could care less about the shareholders. they
didn’t do any of the work. they didn’t stay up late adding
one unusable feature after another. like i said earlier, it’s all
smoke and mirrors." —but can’t they sue you?- "no.
it’s in my contract. much like the user agreement you get with
our software. a few years ago a friend of mine warned me about the government
stepping in. i went to the board and announced i was leaving. to get
me to stay they agreed to my terms. i don’t think they expected
it to come to this. to bad for them." —it’s not that
easy. how can you just close it down? if you walk away that’s one
thing, but closing it all down. don’t you need the shareholders
to agree?- "yes. and they will, because they’ll think it’s
an idle threat. there will be a big press conference where i’ll
announce that we’re selling everything off. then we’ll do
it. once everything has been dismantled, it’ll be too late and
too difficult to pull it back together. i can’t tell you the whole
story, it’s really complicated. but take my word for it, it took
us over a year to work the details out, and it’s going to be a
real mindfuck. you know what the biggest joke of all is? as little as
i know and understand about computers, i do understand this. this is
what’s important to me. this will be my legacy. not ‘word
up’ or dialog 2000, or dialog drive."
we left the house later that evening
and flew back to washington. back to the hotel to sleep. between the
jet lag and the bizarreness of the past few days, we’re exhausted.
who said "sleep deprivation is a good thing"?
morning arrives and there’s no
question that something very strange has happened. looking outside i
can see robots walking down the street. -say, bedby, wanna see something
really cool, and at the same time a little unsettling?- she wasn’t
amused. gathering information, along the information superhighway. bedby
had brought her cell phone with her, and apparently some extra batteries.
i had brought my newton (just in case we got hungry). using the two
together we were able to connect to the internet. logging on to the
new york times site we read through the past few months of news. during
the last elections the democrats were badly routed. republicans are
running the white house and both branches of the house. the military
machine has been churning out robots to help keep the citizens "in
line". the streets are very quiet, and after reading for a few
hours, it’s easy to understand why. for starters, the police no
longer need search warrants. since we don’t exist here, and to
make the story more interesting, we’re going to attempt to set
things right. one thing we need to figure out is how to combat the robots.
it’s not quite robocop out here, but the robots are designed to
show the police where there’s trouble. we’ve logged back on
the internet and are trying to break into the superNet research facility
to get the design plans for the robots. meanwhile bedby has gone out
to the library of congress to find some books on robots.
when bedby returned from the library
she had a stack of books in her hands. "ever hear of a writer named
asimov?". "of course, he wrote restaurant reviews for the
ny times". "i think this might be a different one". she
had found a bunch of books by a writer named "issaac asimov",
who was apparently influential in the early design of robots. he wrote
several books on the subject. we have also found a web site devoted
to overthrowing the government called "arrive". there has
been some serious resistance throughout the country. in los angeles
a woman gave some robots milk and cookies. the robots, in an effort
to make them more human, were given information about human needs. although
they have no need for food, and there isn’t anything they can do
with the food (like digest it). they ate it because they had been programmed
to believe that they would like it. after a few days, they started to
break. word of this spread pretty quickly and before long there was
a race to break as many as possible while the government raced to alter
the neural network of the robots. this was easy for the government since
the robots were all connected by wireless transmitters using cell phone
technology. the key is to get to the cells, intercept the transmissions
and change them back to their original state so the robots will still
have an appetite.
we’ve decided on interesting strategy.
we will invite some robots over for dinner. we’ll spike the milk
with LSD, and the cookies with some other medications. now realistically,
none of this should work, but since we have been unable to break into
the superNet web site, we have to just guess and hope that this asimov
guy really was the father of robotics. if we can disable enough robots,
the government, which is already pretty shaky, can be dismantled.
we’ve managed to crack the cellular
network of the robots and we’re sending them invitations. we expect
quite a few of them to start showing up tomorrow. we also had time to
go out to a record store and buy some old CD’s. incredibly we managed
to find the sensual stare’s ground breaking CD "120 minutes
of silence LIVE!". although it was tempting to buy it, we wanted
to have some sound emanating from the speakers. we settled on wrinklemuziks’
"a move to the right" and a few other cool cd’s to help
set the mood. pere ubu’s dub housing and the residents eskimo.
it’s show time!
at eight o’ clock the robots started
to arrive. having never eaten before, and having heard rumours from
other robots, they seemed very excited, although to be fair, it’s
kind of hard to tell what a robot is thinking or if it’s really
excited. they ate and ate and ate. after several hours of eating, they
got up to leave and promptly fell flat on their cute little robot faces.
COOL!!
we start to dismantle the robots using
mr. asimov’s books as a guide, but soon realized that whatever
knowledge of robots he had, he didn’t have the same model that
we have.
how do you travel through time? you
have to move faster than the speed of light. the faster you go, the
farther back you travel. of course there’s a bit of a heat buildup
which tends to fry anything. but let’s consider what would happen
if someone figured out a way around this problem. history could be altered
by anyone who had access to the technology. this would send the planet
into a state of permanent disarray. after we discovered the secret of
time travel, others followed. but soon after that, a group of scientists,
realizing that although the idea of time travel was good, the actual
application was not, set out to stop it. they sent someone back to make
sure the invention never happened. which worked. but only for a short
period of time until word got out. then others traveled back to make
sure it did happen. time is of no meaning when you can go where you
want, when you want. it all becomes one time, but with different dimensions
to pass through. ok, this is a little hard to follow. just trust me
on this. once the process begins, it can’t be stopped until everyone
agrees on a compromise. while we were dismantling the robots there was
a blackout. when dawn broke, we looked outside to find that once again
we had moved on to another time. outside, the robots were gone and we
were back in the late 20th century, december 29th, 1999. the newspapers
are filled with stories of planned mass suicides ("it’s the
end of the world in just three days"), there are celebrations for
the beginning of the 21st century, which doesn’t actually begin
until the year 2001, and of course terrorist plots! 2000 is just a random
number (they started counting after jc zipped off to join pop in the
etherworld). in isreal, china and other parts of planet earth, this
celebration means nothing. but we’re going to take part. and here
we go...
to be continued...
kenn lowy
summer 2000
copyright 2000 kenn lowy
