Last Man in London, page 10
‘The Department of Security,’ said George.
‘The Department of Security,’ agreed Edgar, ‘where everybody who did not complete their education, and who could not make any other contribution to the communities, was relocated for further training. They would never leave that department unless they could prove they could make a valuable contribution in other ways to the Corporation.’
‘So what do they spend their lives doing?’
‘Policing, or they joined the military,’ replied Edgar. ‘Some of them are right here in the Complex. The ones you see in uniform come from there but there are many more that are not in uniform, they look just like you and me. They will be monitoring the hy-devs of anybody they choose.’
‘Like me?’ George asked.
‘No son, they won’t be bothering with you. You are no threat. You are making a contribution. They monitor anybody who maybe making a threat to the New Order. Particularly the underground religious movements. Some of those people were so committed to their beliefs that they still practiced them, in secret. But as the generations went by fewer and fewer of them bothered with it. It’s dying out altogether but the Department of Security keeps an eye on them.
‘What about outside the Complex?’ Asked George.
‘They are everywhere,’ Edgar told him. ‘The Department of Security are watching everybody all over the Corporation, on every Central Complex and in every town, city and village. That is what they are trained to do on the West Island. They are stationed on great ships in the seas around our perimeter; they are at the Hydroports and Seaports. They are in the air, in space and even under the sea. And that’s a good thing; it means we can all sleep peacefully in our beds at night. Because the last thing we need, as a species, is all that religious nonsense taking over again. Look at the good it did last time it had any influence over their communities. Both Islam and Christianity. Neither have been allowed in the West since the Incorporation forty three years ago. Life has been so much easier since. And much safer.’
‘I can see that now,’ said George, ‘although I don’t like the idea of being watched all the time. But I wouldn’t want any religion, as you have described it, to be in control of anything ever again. And you still haven’t explained to me exactly what it was yet.’
‘Firstly,’ Edgar reminded George, ‘I have told you. You are not being watched, you are not a threat. Just keep your head down, make your contribution and live quietly. If you are doing that then you can have a great life. You will be safe, ignored and able to or go wherever you want at anytime you want. Stay out of their focus son, like I have, and you will find life is so much better compared to what it was like when I grew up in the democracy. There have been no wars, no famines, no religious threats and having fewer people around is probably the best thing of all.’
George was pacing around the room and listening intently. ‘How come?’ he asked.
’For example, look at this building. There used to be six apartments on this top floor alone with about thirty people living between them. Now I can have it all to myself. It was the same downstairs. It was the same in your building and the same thing all across the Complex, Division of Albion and the whole Corporation. Where there was once one hundred people there are now about ten. Those who want to have families, and can prove they are responsible enough, can have the fertility treatment for free these days. They can have children as long as they themselves can look after them and do not expect the Corporation to pay for everything, like the last governments did with their welfare system.’
‘And what was that?’ George asked as he tapped onto his hy-dev. The message was from Tibha and read, ‘Harry’s Bar, Butler’s Wharf, H14.’
‘Well, that was really the downfall of all democracies. It was started with good intentions. People who worked, who had jobs were paid salaries. Not unlike the allowance and expenses you receive now for your contribution. I was one of those people, most of us were. But, the governments took a small amount away before we even received our money and put it into a big fund. Imagine that George, billions of people all having a small amount of money taken away from them, with no choice, to pay for whatever their elected governments decided to spend it on. Well, they set up something called the Welfare State which gave some of that money to people who did not have jobs and could not find any. The elderly, for example, or the sick and the injured. And people with children they could not afford to feed themselves. And those who were homeless were given somewhere to live. All the people you will find in that book you are working on by Charles Dickens. That sort of poverty was ended. The money, our money, was spent on building houses for those who didn’t have anywhere to live. People who were ill or injured could be looked after in our hospitals for free.’
‘But that sounds like a great idea,’ said George enthusiastically as he tapped a reply to Tibha; ‘sounds lovely, that’s downstairs from Edgar’s and I am here now. See you at 14.’
’It was a great idea, to begin with.’ Edgar agreed.’ And it worked very well. Those who were fortunate enough to have something contributed a little to those who were not.’
‘So what was the problem with that?’
‘The problem was that within two generations there were increasing numbers of people who grew up expecting this. They didn’t even look for any work. This was back in the days when anybody could have children whenever they liked and the more they had, the more money the governments gave them. And the bigger the houses they built for them. There were millions of the little bastards. Life became so easy that before long people from all sorts of places were moving to Albion and claiming money to live here with. Money that people like me were paying into the system. Do you know George; there even became such a thing as Health Care Tourists?
’Heath Care Tourists?’ George questioned.
‘Yes, people who were sick or injured would travel to Albion from all over the planet and then claim they had become sick or injured whilst they were here. By doing that they could then receive the best medical care in the world, for free. Well, not for free, I was paying for it. The rest of us were. And the government encouraged this. It was madness, sheer madness. And this number of people grew and grew, the Welfare Generation they were called. And then governments, who looked no further ahead than the next elections, which were every four or five years, would promise and then give these people more and more benefits. It was old fashioned and crude attempt to buy their votes and secure power again for themselves.
It was something that all Left Wing governments did. They promised money to the poor and lazy that had been squeezed from the hard working and barely solvent. And they were the people who naturally voted for the other side, the Right Wing governments. The problems all started when their own favoured politicians began behaving in the same way and that is how they all fell into such huge debt in the years leading up to Incorporation. Of course, the big business, the wealth creators, could cash in by lending governments vast amounts of money and then charging great rates of interest. And that made them richer and the ordinary people poorer. It was another reason the Corporation found it so easy to launch their takeover bid. They promised to end all of that corruption and we were easily persuaded.’
‘Because real power is defined by money or violence,’ said George quietly. ‘I read that somewhere during ASPP training and I always wondered what it meant. Now I can see what it means. It means power over the people, control over others.’
‘That’s exactly what it means George and we should be grateful that the good guys won. There was no place in modern society for the Welfare State, Health Tourism, religion or, for that matter war. The Corporation have given us many good things, made many good decisions and society is run properly now as any business should be. There is no debt, everybody has a job and makes a real contribution. When I was younger people had to work until they were at least seventy-years old. Sometimes even older than that. You will be withdrawn at fifty-six. That’s it; your contribution is made and then you get to live the rest of your life safely, happily and go and see the world if that’s what you want to do. Or spend the rest of your life at lunch if you prefer, like I do.’
‘So you were a scientist in those days?’ asked George.
‘And I was a lucky one too.’ Edgar admitted. ‘I worked in a medical centre with some of the finest former Muslim scientists in the field of medicine. I was only a junior but, as a team, we developed a vaccination that made it easy for women to conceive children again. It was an antidote to the virus we had identified that was making nearly everybody sterile. But it was very expensive and only the privileged few could afford it although it did work. With just one injection any woman could become pregnant. As long as she was in a fifteen year marriage contact and had the money, then she could have a child. The Human Race was saved from extinction George, that’s how important the discovery was, or at least how it seemed, at the time. That vaccine neutralised the virus and reversed its effects. One of the senior scientists took most of the credit, I was only an assistant, but we were all rewarded, given an empty unit to live in, for free, and a generous living allowance. We were all encouraged to set up our own research laboratories and carry on our work but nobody had to. Our contribution had been made, for life. I have Dr Khan to thank for that; and a great man he was too.’
‘So that explains the laboratory you have,’ George pointed to the closed door at the far end of the room. He had never been inside there but had once passed the open door when he was much younger. It was mainly plasma screens covered with what appeared to be mathematical equations that he new nothing about. Nor did he have much interest in. It wasn’t his subject. But he did notice the mice, the rabbits and the guinea pigs. George had no interest in animals either, even when he was younger, apart from dogs. He promised himself he would have a dog one day when he had reached his withdrawal age. He could keep it in Cape Town where there was plenty of room and countryside nearby. The Central Complex was no place to keep a dog.
‘So you were all rewarded with early withdrawal. What have you been going since then?’ George enquired.
‘Living my life young man. Watching sport, gambling, drinking and enjoying the company of women. I like to read too. That’s why I kept all those books in the chest I once showed you. But I haven’t looked in there for years now. All the books I need are right here,’ Edgar fingered his hy-dev, ‘in this book archive. Thanks to people like you George, and those before you. It’s an important job you have there; making sure history is reflected properly in fiction. I sometimes carry out experiments and submit my findings to the Research Department but science has moved on such a long way since my day. I really haven’t kept up with it.’
‘You haven’t missed religion since it was banned?’
Edgar laughed, ‘no way. I was always an atheist anyway, I never believed in any of that hocus pocus, thank God.’ He laughed some more at his own joke. George didn’t really see what was funny.
‘What about democracy, is there anything you miss about the old way of government?’ he asked.
Edgar considered his reply. ‘Well, I suppose I liked the idea that we were all responsible for our communities. Countries, as we used to call them. That we could vote for who we wanted to govern us and that they would do whatever they had promised for everybody in return for that vote. The idea of democracy is a good one in theory; it’s just that it doesn’t work in practice. I remember that after the other war I told you about, between the old European countries where one of them sent all the religious Jewish people away who then found a way of defeating them. Do remember I told you earlier?’ George nodded. ‘Well, after that war the Welfare State was set up by the next government. And at the very same time a group of wealthy and influential businessmen from all over the old countries of the West began meeting up once a year at a hotel called The Eiderberg.
They said they were meeting to discuss how to improve trade between the West in general and the rest of the world. All the richest people of their generation were at some point invited to the meetings and as they grew older and died out the younger generation joined in and took over. Within twenty years or so the Eiderbergers, as they were known, were the owners of all the major news feeds, internet information companies, advertising companies and everything else we could gather information from. They owned all the banks too and the technology companies. And this meant they could persuade us who to vote for and who not to vote for. The governments knew this too and so it was in their own interest to bring in or modify laws that suited the Eiderbergers and their business needs. Because nobody could ever be elected, anywhere in the West, without their endorsement.
People had become lazy George. Whenever there was an election the Eiderbergers made sure all the so called democratic votes went in their favour. It was easy for them when all over the news feeds they owned one candidate was presented as the great reformer and the other was seen to be backed into a corner and accused of lying, cheating and fraud. Who would you vote for? And so everybody voted in the way their news feeds encouraged them too. The news feeds owned by the Eiderbergers. It was mass hypnotism and it meant they got the governments they needed for their own interests and we, the actual voters, got the governments we deserved. The rich got richer and the rest of us picked at pieces. This became widely known just before Incorporation. Thanks to the internet, which was still unregulated at the time, people started learning all about the way the Eiderberg Group controlled politics from behind the scenes and that democracy was a sham. The vote counted for nothing.’
Edgar then patiently explained that the cornerstone of democracy was the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech. It was something the news feeds fought for the right to and governments tried to regulate. It was an honest attempt by some honest people to hold back the tide of force. The problem for them was, as more and more people began to realise, that the news feeds, the television channels, the newspapers and the internet information channels were all owned by members of the Eiderberg Group. And the freedom of the press was only free for those who owned it. That was the elite few who funded the political campaigns that led to the so-called fair elections of their own representatives. It was they who decided who would be able to govern, not the voters. In truth the Free Press practiced censorship as a policy.
Democracy, of the fashion that the Greeks imagined it to be, had never existed at all in the Western Empire. Ancient Greek society arranged a system that allowed all people to cast a vote, privately. An announcement would be made and each person could then drop either a black or white stone into a pit. These were then counted and if the majority of the stones were white then the proposal was approved. If the majority were black then it meant the people disagreed. It was infantile but it worked in small communities where everybody was informed by their own means. It was the pure democracy. However, in the great Western Empire, where people were manipulated by controlled information, their opinions could only be formed by the source of that information. Real democracy never existed in modern times. Edgar reminded George once again that if voting had made any difference at all then it would never have been allowed.
‘Ordinary people George,’ Edgar concluded, ‘who were either too stupid or too lazy to think for themselves simply voted for whoever their favourite news feed led them towards. And that was not a democracy, it was a sham. I, for one, was glad to see the back of it. And the back of the Eiderberg Group too.’
Chapter Seven
‘If you all knew the Old Order didn’t work and that all these powerful business leaders were really in charge behind the scenes,’ said George thoughtfully, ‘then why didn’t you all oppose them? In a democracy you could do that, couldn’t you?’
’No, I was glad to see the back of democracy son, most of us were.’ Edgar repeated. ‘Things are so much better now. The vote was the greatest appeasement and con-trick of the last one thousand years. By the time Incorporation became an option the population did not need to be coerced, threatened or bullied towards it. We were offered free and wireless energy, Wi-Hy, cheaper and bigger homes to live in, better jobs, cheap and easy travel and a permanently stable economy that actually made a profit. It was as near to the perfect society that democracy could never assemble.
Although, some people did resist the change George. But there were only a few and mainly for the reason of attracting attention to themselves. But, by then, society had reached the stage where few people could really be bothered. Most young people were too busy trying to become reality television stars or were pretending to be something they were not on the internet. In the same way as governments, for centuries, had encouraged ordinary people to follow sport or the theatre or film stars, the Eiderbergers gave their generation Reality Television.’
‘I think I get it,’ said George. ‘I was reading about this when I did a project on the Romans during ASPP. They used the great shows in the Coliseums and the Arenas to give ordinary people something to look forward to and then talk about. The more people who talked about the great spectacles then the fewer there would be who were wondering what the Emperors and other rulers were getting up to. It diverted attention. And for your generation it was football and cricket and other sports at the weekend that distracted people from government issues or scandals.’
‘Not everybody son but you are right.’ Edgar agreed. ‘That’s why they were paid so much money to do so little. The Eiderbergers made sure that all the main stories for people to talk about were pretty irrelevant. Unless any of the politicians displeased them, then we never really heard much about politics and government. I, certainly, was more interested in the Chelsea result at the weekend than what the Chancellor of the Exchequer was trying to achieve. And then, for the generation below me, your grandfather’s age group, they added reality television to keep people’s minds away from the real political issues, such as Incorporation, during the years leading up to the takeover.’
