Last Man in London, page 11
‘I’ve read about that,’ said George. ‘Wasn’t that when ordinary people, with no talent at all, could get themselves onto television and become famous, almost immediately?’
‘Sort of,’ Edgar replied. ‘Only it wasn’t the winners of the shows people watched them for. Nobody really cared about them. It was the failures they found more entertaining. It was simply a repeat of the old Victorian practice, one hundred and fifty years earlier, of spending a Sunday afternoon down at the local lunatic asylum laughing at people who were locked away in there for believing they were something they were not. It was a shocking way to deal with the deluded. Reality television was just a repeat of that sort of entertainment. The Eiderbergers encouraged society, through their news media and television channels, to tune in and watch for the failures. It was the deluded, people who genuinely believed they were something they could never be. Such as a singer, or an actor.
All the Eiderbergers really needed were for more people to be interested in what Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, after they released film of themselves having sex on the unregulated internet, were doing than they were in either their intentions or in voting. Within one generation any real interest in politics had been replaced by people who spent their entire lives shopping, on the beach or giving blowjobs that were filmed on camera phones. That was how I saw it anyway. People hated genuine and hard earned success and loved to see ordinary, talentless people becoming instantly famous. It gave them hope and it was all part of a plan.’
George thought about this. ‘And so it was the culture of ‘that could be me’ and without any real effort either. That would explain the tens of thousands who queued at the auditions for these vulgar spectacles. And the news feeds all encouraged this with enthusiasm.’
Edgar smiled and then broke into a sympathetic laugh. ‘It was a society where Kim Kardashian had more followers on her social network sites than the President of the United States. It was a society in which being an idiot, or a bad amateur porn slut, had an obvious value. It became a society where few were prepared to learn, work, experiment, practice or do any of the things needed in order to make a real contribution to anything. Instead they made role models of clueless idiots for their next generation to learn from. Nearly half of society, nearly all of the youngsters, worshipped this. The bottom fifty percent. The underclass, the clueless, the welfare generation were all the victims of the Eiderberg Group who encouraged them to make fools of themselves. And that particular generation would never run out of fools.’
‘So,’ George responded, ‘did this mean that anybody who aspired to be part of the reality generation, either to watch or to be seen, were as bad as each other?’
‘Well, when it reached the point that Government Ministers had to compete for attention with these idiots by themselves appearing on daytime television programmes in a seven minute item sandwiched between the round up of the latest reality television drama and a recipe from the new celebrity chef, that it all became vulgar in the extreme. They were, apparently, our country’s finest minds who were seen to be desperately trying to impress the lowest common denominator. That was the unemployed and those pretending to be in further education. In other words, the future majority and their future voters. Our elected leaders had come to depend upon the irrelevant.
Anyway, it’s all so long ago now son. It doesn’t matter anymore. The Corporation simply took it all off television. They removed it from the news feeds and they all disappeared into obscurity. But I do remember reading that most of these people caught the virus, meaning they were unable to have children themselves and so their genetic line ran out of steam. Most of them died of natural causes and left no legacy behind them. We remembered them as the childless generation. The X Generation we called them in the scientific community.’
‘But you had developed the cure by then?’ George remembered.
‘And it wasn’t for any of them George,’ Edgar reflected. He then started laughing again. ‘If the Human Race was going to survive and then prosper once more then it did not need that particular, curious gene among its number. I have to admit that was a peculiar human characteristic that I was pleased to see extinguished. And I wasn’t the only one. The Corporation didn’t need it either. Only the Eiderbergers wanted the vast majority of the population to be distracted in that sort of way. You see, if you asked any child from my generation, or from before, what they wanted to be when they grew up they would say something like ‘a footballer, or a guitarist, or a cricketer or athlete.
And then they would go and spend most of their younger lives practicing or learning how to do just that. The good ones then became popular, rich and famous. One single generation later, thanks to the Eiderberger culture, when you asked a child what they wanted to be when they grew up they would simply reply, ‘famous.’ Because they knew there was a chance they could be just that without having to waste any time by learning to be actually any good at anything. Fortunately the Corporation eased that particular delusion out of society within one generation. There are no more freak shows anymore. Everybody contributes something worthwhile these days and that’s another great thing the Corporation did for us.’
‘I read somewhere,’ said George, ‘that if somebody’s bicycle had a puncture people would stop and try to help them. But if a Rolls Royce broke down then most people would laugh.’
‘I am afraid that just about sums up society in the years leading up to incorporation.’ Edgar pondered. ‘There was a lot of jealousy and resentment from those who were enjoying the Welfare State towards those who created the wealth that paid for them. In the end, those with the money get the decisions in their favour George. And in the end they incorporated the entire Western Empire, and sent those who contributed nothing to the West Island to train for military and security contributions. Then the virus broke out, they all became sterile, couldn’t afforded the reversal procedure and their entire genetic line began to die out. They couldn’t have any more children and the ones that already had found that they would never be able to have children themselves when they grew up. There will be a few of them left over there; I don’t doubt it. But what with illness and old age? Well, you can see how the population dropped so rapidly can’t you.’
‘Where did this virus start granddad. Do you know how?’ George asked him.
Edgar stood up and walked to the window, deep with thought. ’It began in the prisons.’ He appeared to be thinking out loud. ‘Doctors started noticing a pattern among prisoners who had been released and who were then applying for fertility treatment. It did exist back then but it wasn’t working very well and nobody really cared. I remember the news feeds asking us if we really wanted the criminally minded to be able to reproduce a new generation and wouldn’t it be better if they were eventually removed from the Gene Pool. And because most of those people were part of the Welfare Generation, and were all receiving benefits from the old governments, the virus began to spread among their communities too. The unemployed and the unemployable all became infertile and that was a shame for them. Because when we developed the vaccine to reverse its affects they were exactly the type of people who could not afford to pay for it.’
George watched Edgar as he stared out of the window and across the Complex. He began to feel the early effects of what would become an uneasy feeling.
‘I am still not convinced that democracy, the idea of government by the people for the people, was such a bad idea in general,’ announced George. ‘After all, does anybody know who the current Main Board actually are? Or even who the Regional Board Managers are? Take the Western Division of Albion for example, who runs it. Who is in charge?’
‘Why do you care?’ Edgar responded. ‘It works and that’s all we need to know. Take it from me, I lived under the old system and the new order of things is so much better. Let me explain it to you in another way. The central ideology of democracy depended upon each person, who was entitled to vote, making an intelligent and rational decision based upon what he or she regarded as their best interests. But organised political parties found a way to bypass this and instead would appeal directly to the unconscious mind, in the first case, and then to the lazy. The unconscious mind they could reach through subliminal means such as advertising and biased news reporting. For that they needed the news feeds to be part of their program, or at least the owners of the news feeds and that’s how the Eiderbergers became so powerful and influential.’
‘And the lazy, how did they convince them?’ George wanted to know.
’By lying of course. A lazy person never bothers to learn anything for themselves. They never have done. Instead they would just rely on the opinions of others, who may be equally lazy. Remember this George; a person who doesn’t read for themselves is no better informed, in the end, than the person who can’t read at all.
Democracy was only ever supported where there was an economic interest involved. It was about securing control of the world's resources. Incorporation of the West simply made that more honest and better able to achieve. Foreign intervention by governments in the shape of war were only ever carried out for economic benefit and not, as the old governments used to claim, in the interest of national security. That was until the big one. The seventeen year War of Religion that forced democracy out as a system of government. As soon as it was no longer relevant then the whole structure could become more honest, more self interested and competitive. There was no bloody revolution, just the shuffling out of the old order and in with the new. It was a properly planned and structured take over with a viable business model for the long term future.’
Edgar was confident of his memory in this case. He knew he remembered the take over as he had been part of the Corporation at the time. But once he and the rest of his generation had passed then history would be secure in the image of the Main Board, because they were writing it themselves. Edgar was lost in his thoughts. To know what to remember and what not to was no dilemma for him. Life had changed for the better after incorporation and so why would he complain. Why would anybody? Control was then at least in the hands of experienced, professional businessmen.
They were the men and woman who were more than capable of running western economies. There was little dissent. The overwhelming emotion of the time was one of relief and optimism. There would never again be career politicians. The opportunists, who left their educational programmes, joined a political party and never themselves had a real job before claiming to be able to represent those who did. Edgar remembered them all too clearly. He remembered those oily people. Lying for the votes. Vain, media whores who delighted in the sort of television fame that was shared with vacant, empty, talentless reality stars that dominated the news feeds of the day. And the vacant, empty viewers who adored them all. The Main Board took all of that nonsense away too, declaring it a ‘loss maker’ in the long term.
And all the time there was the Public Relations Department. Smooth, seamless, polished and making sure nobody got to see, hear or say anything that may damage the image of the new Corporation. Inevitably there would be descent and demonstration, from time to time, but the news media could only broadcast what the Main Board allowed them too. Within a decade dissent had all but melted away and, within a single generation, nobody could even remember what they had even been marching for when they were younger. And there was no record of any dissent in the archives. By AI43 nobody could even be sure if they had a genuine memory of anything from the previous democracy.
George sat quietly and looked out over the Central Complex. He thought about everything Edgar had told him and tried to make sense of the incorporation. He had learned something about the old democracy but never about the massive drop in population. He knew nothing of the virus. All he knew was that every human being had to be in a valid fifteen-year marriage contract to be able to apply for the fertility treatment that would enable them to have children of their own. And to qualify for a fifteen-year marriage licence each person had to have been involved in at least five single year contracts that had not had its terms and conditions compromised. Nor must they have committed any crime or breached their contract with the Corporation. If they had then fertility was removed as an option for them. Their genetic line would die out with them and be removed from the human pool altogether.
Looking at the wall clock George remembered his date with Tibha. He gathered his things together and Edgar activated the elevator. As he turned the corner of the building the cold November wind tore into him and George hurried for the doorway of Harry’s Bar where he quickly found an empty table at the window. The long dark wooden bar ran the length of the unit and the mirrored wall behind gave the appearance of a much bigger area than the owners of Harry’s Bar needed. He watched through the window as the great Tower Bridge opened to allow one of the Corporation security ships into the Complex and then he studied his surroundings. The open, exposed brickwork walls were exactly the same as Edgar’s and in the centre of one wall there was a large open fireplace, filled with unburned logs. George considered the brickwork for a few moments and then, suddenly, he grabbed his hy-dev, hurried out of the bar, back around the corner and into the main hallway of Edgar’s building.
‘What war?’ he asked Edgar frantically as he entered the apartment.
‘What’s that son?’ he replied without looking up, ‘the one in the Middle East that’s been going on now for forty years or more?’
‘No,’ George told him. ‘The one that you said something about the prisoners who built all this.’ He cast his hand around the room. ‘What prisoners, what war, who was fighting who?’
’Ahh that,’ Edgar sighed. ‘Well, I don’t know much about it but when I was at school we learned about the Napoleonic War’s between France and England which was around two hundred and fifty years ago. The old man who used to be the caretaker here told me that the captured French prisoners were brought here to the Central Complex and used as builders. They were responsible for a lot of the....’
George interrupted him. ‘The Napoleonic Wars?’
‘That’s right,’ replied Edgar. ‘Some little French dictator tried to invade England but our army saw him off and beat him at the Battle of Waterloo in the end.’
‘Right here, just down the road were the Hydrostation is?’
‘No George, the station was named after the battle. England beat France in the war. Why are you suddenly so interested?’
‘Because some of the things you have said just do not make sense. For a start, England at war with France? Two hundred and fifty years ago? And the French prisoners built this building. This very building? That must mean it was true. I mean, if they were actually here and built all this, including that fireplace, then French prisoners were here. There was a France and there was an England. Because this was a hundred years before Charles Dickens and hundreds of years after Shakespeare. Does this mean England did exist, France did exist, and they weren’t simply made up by fiction writers after all?’
Edgar paused, looked up from his hy-dev and replied, ‘I can’t remember now son, it’s all so long ago and I am not really sure about what was real and what I have been told is real after forty years of Corporation news feeds. I can’t remember anymore. Don’t worry about it. Just make your contribution, do what you have been trained to do and enjoy a quiet life. You don’t need to know anymore than you have been taught.’
But George did need to know. As usual, George needed to know everything. He once again made his way down in the elevator, around the corner, sat back down and waited for Tibha. He was busy searching his archives for the Napoleonic Wars when she arrived and stood next to his table. He didn’t notice her.
‘You seem confused George,’ Tibha said gently. ‘You look as if you have just recovered from a general anaesthetic. Is everything alright?’
George stared into his cup as he absorbed everything Edgar had told him. Without looking up he asked, ‘what does your hy-dev archive say about the Welfare State?’
‘Oh, and nice to see you too?’ she replied. George apologised, stood up and gave Tibha a warm hug that surprised both of them. They sat down and she began tapping onto her screen before finally looking up and saying, ‘nothing.’
‘No, nor does mine.’ George told her. ‘And what about the Fifth Column?’
After a short while Tibha looked up and said, ‘Something about the Spanish Civil war when an army general was approaching the Iberian Central Complex with four columns of soldiers and he famously announced that he could rely upon the support of what he called his Fifth Column. He believed they were his supporters who lived on the Complex and who would rise together and join the attack from the inside as soon as he gave the order.’
George looked at her affectionately and said, ‘so does mine.’ He then sent an instant message to Will asking him the same question and received a single word answer. ‘Nothing,’ it read. He then started to tell Tibha as much of his conversation with Edgar as he could remember. ‘What does your archive say about the Peaceful Repatriation Program?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Mine neither. Chancellor of the Exchequer?’
‘Nothing.’ Tibha repeated.
’Ok, Health Care Tourists or Reality Television?’
Tibha tapped away and finally said, ‘Again, nothing.’
‘Nor does mine,’ George replied. His hy-dev then flashed him up an alert which gave him the archive on the Napoleonic Wars. ‘Try the Napoleonic Wars, he asked her as he began to study his own reference.
