Asterion (5 page)

A timeline appears on the screen. “Bridging the centuries is a growing trend towards polarization among factions. Fueled by the rhetoric of pundits, the differing views became adversarial, with growing animosity toward each other. They were pitched battles on the field of ideas that became the new norm. The supposed co-equal branches of government, created to balance and check unbridled power became opponents in a match of thrust and parry, with complete defeat of the opponent, the ultimate goal. The casualties are the good ideas of both factions. They became the unfulfilled hopes and desires of the populace. Rational discourse became insults and witty repartee. Hyperbole ruled the day. Some wanted unchecked spending that would stifle economic growth, creating a nation that eventually would slide down the financial slope into oblivion. The other side, desired to loosen the reins on businesses through reduced regulations and taxes. They contended that this would create job growth and lessen the need for social programs. However, with no guarantee that the economy would flourish without fluctuation, there is much reservation about the uncertainties of the future. Greed would push the envelope and fairness, the environment and worker’s rights would suffer. People, divided and confused looked for answers. Throwing money around is wasteful as there are opportunists who would abuse and steal from the system. However, not providing for those in need is not a popular tact either.” Taylor and Christine looked at each other. It is obvious that they had lived in a world that while austere, is stable and provided for it citizenry.

Shrill voices brought their gaze back to the screen. A long parade of examples illustrated the problem. Self-described beacons of brilliance from the extremes of both sides flooded the airwaves with their own brand of distortions, innuendo and out of context sound bites. They would impugn callers who had a cogent idea with a statement intended to imply that they stumbled upon the truth or shout them down, refusing fruitful dialogue. Show hosts on both sides ridiculed those with differing viewpoints. It is a circus atmosphere, a ten-in-one sideshow with a loud mouth barker hawking for each event. It did not seem productive or fair to Taylor and Christine as they are used to a certain civility in political dialogue. The closest a modern program came to that level of dissent is one that featured a host named Donovan who had a sidekick named Danny. He claims to be the opposition to Leader Burnsom. A watchdog for the masses he would proclaim that they could rest easy with him on watch. “Donovan would mildly chastise the leader on one issue while at the same time singing his praises in other areas. All the while Danny exhausted a vocabulary book saying nothing about anything. You felt that the words just popped into his head and he repeated them in random order. Then Donovan would remind you of his brilliance and benevolence in being the guardian for the masses. It all seemed self-serving. Is it Leader Burnsom behind the stage decorations pulling the levers of their strings with smoke effects? One could imagine it being so.

The narrator captures their attention once again. “With no solutions, the country searched everywhere for someone who could solve the problem. That someone is Ira Burnsom.” Treating the viewer to a photomontage of Burnsom, the narrator continues, “Burnsom rose through the ranks from local to regional to state and finally national politics. Recognized as a consensus builder amongst factions, he had the respect and admiration of the people. One who got things done by giving each party a little here and a little there, creating winners for both sides of the aisle. Whether you believed in the legislation or not, it is progress in some direction. ”Burnsom, with national recognition, wins the election for President on the platform of building bridges to all parties, making government work for all with the checks and balances that would minimize and eliminate fraud and abuse. He achieved some stability in a volatile world by promising peace through mutual benefit rather than conflict. The stage is set for the world we live in today.” With that last statement, the first part of the program is over.

Their schedule full, Christine retires for the night. Taylor sees her to the door and watches as she drives off in her electric car. He listens as the whirr of the electric vehicle fades in the distance. The project, Christine and the revelations in the documentary stirs the emotions and the mind. His sleep is restless that night.

Arriving at the lab, Taylor pours over the logs generated by the instrument, looking for any problems that might endanger the project. Sleepy, he guzzles coffee in an effort to overcome his lack of sleep. Trent walks in the break room and lets Taylor know that electronically, everything is performing well. “No glitches have popped up.”

“So far so good,” Taylor announced, “The long preparation time is paying off on the real experiment.”

Christine comes in and heads for the coffee pot. It is getting a workout this morning. Taylor asked, “How did you sleep?”

She rolled her eyes. “Not well given the circumstances.”

Taylor smiled. “Ditto.” Devin comes in and looks like his night was not that restful either. “Problems?”

“Not now,” Devin shot back while leaving the break room with a giant cup of coffee. Taylor wondered what that was about, but didn’t have time to dwell on it.

CHAPTER 6 - SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

The mystery ended later that day when Devin called Taylor to his office. Taylor enters and Devin is on the phone. He motions for Taylor to close the door. Devin is arguing with someone on the other line, but Taylor cannot determine who is on the other side of this conversation. Ending the call, Devin looks at Taylor. “The lab is being audited. I don’t know why, but we have to make sure we have recorded everything that has come into this lab and money we spent.”

Taylor shrugs it off. “No problem. We have records of usage and consumption. We’re ready at any time to produce those records.”

Devin breathes a sigh of relief. “Here’s the kicker. That includes all our records outlining processes, formulas and other recorded data.”

Taylor is curious now, “Why that information?”

Devin taps his head and waves his hand in the air. “They say that this project is so critical that they want another backup of our information in order that the project can continue in the case of a disaster. They will not take our word for the state of readiness. Their careers are on the line and this backup will give them the warm fuzzies. The cost of this project is like laying it all out on one number in Vegas. If it does not come up a winner, then they are out of favors with their superiors. They fall down the bureaucratic ladder in status, position and credits. Still it’s more we have to do, but we have no choice in the matter.”

“Well, everything is in spreadsheets that are updated in real-time and we record everything we do including material, processes and quantities. We can reassure them easily without any grand efforts.” Taylor left the meeting thinking that while out of the ordinary, it is probably the overactive mind of a paranoid bureaucrat.

“Taylor addresses the team in the lab. “Devin informs me we have to provide a complete audit of the lab. Oh, and not only the financial stuff. We have to provide processes, procedures, notes and anything else we have. Thankfully, the project is essentially on autopilot and we only have to monitor the processes. We just have to confirm that we have it readily available when they arrive.”

Christine expresses her suspicions, “The bureaucracy might be ramping up to mass produce the creatures on a shorter time scale than initially intended.”

Taylor says, “All the calculations and processes are based upon the AutoDNA instrument processing the material. There are no other units calibrated. This one is the only one capable of performing properly. It would be too difficult to deal with all the issues that arise in the construction and validating of the instrument. There is not much documentation for that stuff digitally and it was resolved through a lot of trial and error. That’s our control of the technology. It will be ready to mass produce when we are satisfied with the results.”

Christine, not convinced, “I still think something is up and it’s not good.”

Taylor sighs, “There’s nothing we or anyone else could do about it for now. We just had to comply with the edict.”

Trent nods his head and silently goes back to his work. Taylor and Christine watch him leave and return to their tasks.

Christine joins Taylor at his apartment that night to continue watching the documentary. Starting the next chapter, they settle in on the sofa. The narrator begins. “Burnsom runs into the usual bureaucratic hurdles that all politicians face. However, Burnsom has a plan. He convinces the bureaucrats that the people are fed up and whether they wanted to or not, there is going to be changes, but we can all pull together as a team to give the people what they want without totally changing what the bureaucrats are used to having. Burnsom had perfected the art of change through mutual benefit for both parties that gave at least the appearance of change to the populace. That made Burnsom wildly popular. The people thought he is on their side and the bureaucrats thought he is on theirs. However, Burnsom is on Burnsom’s side and he is always the big winner amongst lesser winners. What others tried to do with brute force and fear, he achieved with an iron fist hidden in a velvet glove. However, that is beginning to change.” Taylor and Christine now see the path that led to Burnsom becoming leader for life.

“Burnsom delivers on his promise to provide a cradle to grave support system for the people. Tying it to the Constitution, he repeats the mantra, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness at every speech stop. Government would provide healthcare, jobs and a stable economy for all. The government even pays for your funeral. The financial burden is great and Burnsom needed to do something radical in order to make this popular new system work. He confiscated all the pension funds under the guise of providing everyone with a retirement. He nationalized all businesses telling the people that the government could stabilize the economy, make wages fair and eliminate unemployment by doing so. The operators of the businesses became bureaucrats and richly rewarded for growing the businesses. Not at the salary rates they enjoyed in the past, but still much greater than the populace. Sole proprietorships and other small unviable businesses became part of the larger businesses and that resulted in maximum efficiency of each business sector. Only in small rural communities are some businesses allowed to exist. This also required a radical reduction in salaries as the burden of providing for the citizens fell to the government. Burnsom dealt with the lazy and freeloaders with reeducation centers. Graduate from one as a productive citizen and you took your place in the workforce. Fail in that reeducation center or return to your old ways and they had special reeducation centers for that. Some who went there said it is the last stop unless a person made a radical change in their behavior. The government is not going to tolerate a lack of productivity from anyone in order for the system to work. However, productivity diminished slowly over time as everyone is less motivated and most are not going to work harder than the next for the same benefit. The unintended consequence of the desire to provide for everyone is a somewhat benevolent dictatorship that managed to spread the poverty, rather than spread the wealth. As long as everyone is in the same boat, there is less complaining by the masses”

Taylor and Christine look at each other with astonishment at just how brutal the government is at enforcing its will. It’s not what they perceived it to be and they never gave the other segments of society much thought beyond their wellbeing. Their motivation is their curiosity. The quest to discover and create new things is exciting to them. They needed no prodding. They did not realize that many are not similarly motivated.

Turning again to the monitor, they listen intently. “Healthcare is based upon a person’s contribution to society. How much you received depended upon the importance of your job and how much time you had before retirement. A retired senior had little to contribute and thus had minimal healthcare coming their way. An unskilled laborer could face similar circumstances even with years left on their service to the community. Technology made many of the societal advances possible. Public spaces, filled with cameras and scanners became the norm. Walk into the grocery store and the government computers know you, your body fat ratio and the stats of your other family members. For your health, it would allow you to purchase certain foods and not others as the government determined for you how to maintain your health. The invasive nature of the government grew with every advancement and idea they could imagine. Technology made the informants and spies of the past obsolete. Long gone was the reliance upon neighbor reporting on neighbor. Computers and databases replaced armies of analysts. Burnsom stopped short of putting invasive technology in private spaces. He knew that would cause a revolt.”

“Money became outdated. The government paid you in credits and you paid for purchases with a card. The computers monitored individual purchases, analyzed them for trends, such as overspending and the health consequences of bad decisions. It may take a month or so, but they knew everything about you. Authorities, alerted by each person’s personal information reacted to anomalies and questioned issues out of the norm. The price of peace of mind is a bureaucrat everywhere you went in life. Like the political officers in totalistic empires, they permeated society. Criminal activity declined, curtailed by the command and control structure. Bartering became the only way criminal activities remained profitable. Bartering labor and goods outside the system is the only way innovative citizens still got ahead to a certain degree in life. Burnsom made sure that citizens are aware that it is not legal or productive as it took away from the central economy that benefited all citizens. However, behind the scenes, he tolerated the behavior. It gave citizens some sense of control, a leg up on the government. Burnsom made it work. Deficits disappeared for many years, planning helped smooth out the cycles in the economy and there is zero unemployment as everyone worked for the government.”