Apocalypse Prelude: Do You Know What Your Grandchildren Will Be Doing for a Living?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Epilogue

Chapter One

As I look back writing this missive, I must admit that I wasn’t sanguine about spending the autumn in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, United (as if) States of America. It was bad enough the Americans were so mutually antipathetic they couldn’t make up their minds which state of the Union to shove their capital city in. Nevertheless, building on the basis of if I can’t play I’m going to puncture the football the resultant siting of the sod in a swamp must be a piece of trans-continental petulance unrivalled in history.

I had just scalded my throat from an over-boiled coffee of a not-‘A’-list Mocca’s outlet on the corner of 11th Street and Rhode Island Avenue and was walking south. The impersonal traffic glided past, the usually lone occupants staring ahead in their own little world, cocooned by metal and plastic from the bite of the season labouring arthritically towards Christmas. Unusually for a big city, almost half the vehicles used still belched carbon waste. Washington had only two hydrogen garages and it still smelt as revolting during heavy traffic periods as it had a century ago when it had a population two thirds it’s present size. No wonder you could still tell the law firms on the way out. Their frontages hadn’t been scrubbed clean, the way centuries ago you could tell when the housewife was sick by the state of the front door-step.

Gritting my teeth against the headache rapidly spreading behind my eyes, I pushed on towards the office I could see ahead. A reasonably large but subdued frontage, it held the firm of Clintock, Steele and Houma, Solicitors At Law and general consultants in the field of corporate legal thuggery. Their frontage was immaculate, I noted. The appointment was for half past eight in the morning, the 21st September of the Year Of Our Lord 2112 Anno Domini and I was running about on time and on caffeine having flown in only three hours ago from Caracas. I hadn’t slept properly in forty-six hours (I never could on aircraft of any description). My mood, as usual requiring little reason to turn black, was therefore foul. Cat-napping, in my opinion, although an occupational hazard had an alarming habit of leaving one prone to slap-dash work and cutting corners. In my line of work this wasn’t just undesirable, it could be downright dangerous. I had two significant scars and several old fractures to prove it. At least there were no personal pressures to be dealt with at the moment. My wife was currently entering the second week of a five week cruise with my two children. Theoretically I was supposed to be flying to Jamestown to pick it up on the Caribbean leg and I was slightly on the Satanic side of furious that the first serious break I had lined up in four years had been bush-whacked at the last minute. The fact my wife had spread bet Kellie, my occasional partner in crime Jake’s common law spouse, on my pulling out and won five hundred dollars was no comfort either.

A bit more about my back-ground might be useful to you if this chronicle is to make much sense. I got my degree in law and economics in 2091 from King’s College, Cambridge, in the England province of the European State and took a Master’s whilst working for eleven years as part of the European State Defence Ministry. It was there I found out all that anyone needs to know about venality, self-interest, fraud, embezzlement and the mechanics of arms procurement in general. The modus operandi of the triumvirate of EuroState Defence Ministers to buy European capital ships or aircraft for twice the price of Indian or Borneon manufacturers as long as the supplier promise 350,000 euros a year for a one-day week non-executive directorship upon retirement became familiar to me early on. As was the practice, for later favours, of not scrapping the purchases when they inevitably were delivered late, grossly over budget and were obsolete by the time they were launched or flew. Or were a pile of junk that required ‘adjustments’ that were tantamount to building the damn thing from scratch again at extra cost. Or not having penalty clauses in contracts for late or over-budget roll-out. No wonder in the cabinet wars of the 2080’s over the South Atlantic oil and Antarctica mineral rights the Euro tonnage losses and body-bag count were so high. But it did teach me all the usual tricks of corporate legalised fraud and how far big businesses will go.

Having spent eleven years aiding and abetting institutionalised corruption, I finally got sick of it and left at the physically tender but mentally jaundiced age of 32, three years after my marriage. The fact that the European State hadn’t been able to come up with a bribe big enough to pay an accountancy firm to sign their books off as true and complete for four decades was basically the end. Even I know the difference between ordinary graft and blatantly taking the piss, so I left before too much of the stench of working for the scum soaked in too deeply to wash out. Covering the audit trails for a junior minister who had two overseas tax haven accounts and employed on European State money as part of their staff someone to launder their bribes and invest their profits of corruption was getting too close to the cesspit. There was also the fact I was head-hunted by a firm of people that were looking for what they described as my non-quantifiable talents. To you, that’s stuff you’re capable of and have done but don’t dare put on your curriculum vitae in case you scare the employer off. The contract they offered was substantially better than the civil servant wage I was currently pulling down and civil service pensions weren’t what they once had been, even for a Euro-crat. Orla and I had decided it was time to start a family as well. That meant Orla’s income dropping and we needed the money. Orla was pragmatic enough to realise to get it, I’d have to put in the hard graft.

The firm I was then part of was called Wilton McCabe and specialised in corporate internal crime. This mainly involved little things like corporate embezzlement, data theft, selling trade secrets to rivals and the acquisition of personal information which rival companies can then use to subvert or black-mail other staff. As you can imagine, this involved swimming in the effluent discharge part of the corporate gene pool and navigating the grey waters where accountancy and law met and congealed. Law enforcement agencies were usually powerless or apathetic regarding dealing with what are laughably called victimless crimes like bribery and large corporations usually took the law into their own hands regarding this sort of thing. It was my job to provide proof positive and then walk off and let them get on with it, but often things got nasty before I got that far. That morning I had just wound up a case of patent high-jacking. A research assistant working for the aerospace firm of Walter Pierre had been blackmailed by the threat of revoltingly embarrassing home footage of her in flegrante being put on the Web. In return for providing schematics and specs of the Landeau relay circuit designs to the rival Kanaka Aviatech the footage would be returned unpublished. These circuit designs were essential for the latest aircraft navigation technology that Walter Pierre was going to sell to all major light aircraft builders. They weren’t pleased to find that they couldn’t make any of them because when they tried to patent their invention they found that their rivals Kanaka had already done so—even though Kanaka didn’t have the ability to construct the damn circuits themselves.

The assistant in question was sacked and being sued and a High Court ruling (being appealed) over-turned the Kanaka patent. The lawyers were rubbing their hands in glee over what promised to be a long-drawn-out battle of attrition in the monstrously clogged and ludicrously inefficient Eurostate courts. And here I was, having flown red-eye from Caracas hot-foot to a Washington legal firm I’d never heard of in autumn in response to a very terse message from my supervising partner at Wilton McCabe.

I had asked what was so very urgent (not quite in those words) and Juru had bluntly told me that the people who this outfit were engaged by were exceeding heavy clout and had demanded me specifically, so just extract digit and move. Considering there were only about two dozens outfits (and I include global governments in that) that carried that sort of weight with my firm, that intrigued me a little.

Knowing that four computer scientists were A.W.O.L. and one had been murdered intrigued me a lot.

The 11th Street office’s lobby was as bland and unimaginative as all Washington law firms. In a desperate attempt to give the impression of huge wealth and influence without being ostentatious or ‘flash’, they failed on both counts. The faux-marble entrance porch and tinted glass just looked like a middle-income tart that was trying too hard to pick up a better quality of kerb-crawler. The two doormen’s uniforms were over-braided and their boots under-polished. The pretty receptionist was clearly hired for her dental work and decolletage rather than her intellect and efficiency. Having finally located Dale Trent on her appointment list and spoken robotically into her head-set she gave me a glittering smile are asked me to take a seat with a voice devoid of any interest. So far, no surprises.

It took less than two minutes before something very big in an alarmingly pressed suit came for me. His name badge said ‘Emmanuel Solomon’ and I reckoned he’d played line-backer for his college team before giving it up for a less girlie sport about five years ago. He led me into a small ante-room (I noted the weapon and bomb detection sensors installed in the door-frame) and after asking me politely if I was armed—I wasn’t—he politely patted me down and started talking to himself in some sort of jibberish I presume was code. That or I was alone in a room with a sixteen stone raving loony.

Obviously he got a reply in his concealed ear-piece because he opened a rear door into a narrow hallway and we walked down the cheaply carpeted corridor towards what was a plain door. Now I was curious. I’ve never come across a Yank law firm that didn’t insist on having ‘offices’ for all it’s staff and junior partners that were nothing but plasti-glass cubicles. Presumably this is so visitors, walking past all these gauche goldfish bowls can ogle the frantically busy paralegals and lawyers going about their incredibly important industry. It wouldn’t be so the senior partners can keep all their staff totally paranoid because they’re on 24-7 view and therefore must compete with each other to give the ‘best’ impression of who looks the most busy and harassed in the lust for advancement. Heavens no.

I also have never come across a Yank law firm whose senior partner’s offices aren’t emblazoned with a name in italicised gold leaf and furnished with the sort of ostentatious pot-latch and bad taste that would have embarrassed a Shanghai pimp. So imagine my interest when I was shown by my new friend Emmanuel into a fairly small room with only a conference table with twelve padded chairs and patio doors looking out over a small walled garden. The weak September sun couldn’t compete with the electric strip lighting and the carpet and walls were predictable shades of corporate beige.

Emmanuel announced me as I walked in to the four people in the room. Two were sat at the table and the others standing by the only other furniture—a small coffee table with coffee machine and inevitable bowl of mini-doughnuts and pile of paper plates. They looked at me as Emmanuel slid out of the room, closing the door, so I slipped out of my coat. A tall, vaguely Arab-looking woman walked over and greeted me with the first genuine smile of the day. That should have been reassuring but it wasn’t. When someone smiles at me upon professional first acquaintance with clear and obvious relief—the sort of ‘At sodding last the cavalry’s arrived’ sort of relief—it’s usually bad news. For me.

Good morning and thanks for coming at such short notice, she said. Her name was Aeisha Goldman and apparently Senior Partner for Corporate Industrial clients. I’d have placed her as a well-preserved fifty or over-stressed forty-five. She introduced the others as I hung my coat on the back of a chair and sat down with my briefcase next to me unopened. One was a Jade Lichstein, a slightly junior partner from her division dealing with patent and licensing law and apparently the most directly concerned with the client for whom they were engaging my services. She was a very stressed-out thirty-something of Afro-Caribbean parentage. There was a athletic Anglo-Saxon man called David Kellman (a significant slice of Germanic or Dutch in there somewhere) in his forties who I’d already button-holed as Security from the moment I walked in anyway. Finally there was a young man from Finance called Felix Saylor who looked to be in his twenties and well out of his depth. He was probably there just for courtesy and to rubber-stamp the budget and frankly would have preferred to give this rat’s nest a wide birth if anyone had’ve given him half a chance.

Once Jade had done the honours for me with the coffee pot and we were all sat down, the fun started.

Chapter Two

Have you ever heard of a company called Pixel Solutions? David Kellman’s voice was soft, almost as if he was afraid of being over-heard, but it carried anyway. Ex-military, I was sure—probably made a lot of people’s life hell when he got his sergeant stripes. Most likely U.S. Marines. I told him I hadn’t.

Can’t say I’m surprised, he said, sliding a folder across to me. Real paper documents, not a disc, about a quarter of an inch thick. Joint venture capitalised by NAARC Cybertech and Longton Industries, with half a dozen minnows holding a few shares. Interesting fact—Longton is majority owned by four other NAARC subsidiaries, so effectively Pixel is a NAARC subsidiary itself in all but name. You’ve heard of NAARC, I take it? he asked with the deceptively casual demeanour that just yodelled ‘loaded question’ like a drunken goat-herd.

Of course, I responded calmly. "North American Alternative Resources Corporation. Set up about four decades ago. Corporate mirror image of a British outfit of far older and generally woolier background. If you hadn’t I’d have presumed you’d been cryogenicly frozen until this morning. Basically they’re an R and D firm of boffins. They come up with green techniques and new methods of recycling and stuff like that. NAARC then licence it out to the big, smelly and grimy corporations with no green street cred for them to polish up their corporate image whilst said client corporations continue using their core operations to make their grubby fortunes. NAARC provide the window dressing and garnish so the major firms can keep public confidence whilst just ploughing on regardless. For a licence fee, naturally."

Felix Saylor from Finance looked like I’d just belched in church, Aeisha Goldman the senior partner made a slightly high-pitched peep of shock and Jade Lichstein from Licensing looked like I’d recommended a sulphuric acid enema. David Kellman just smiled.

I think that’s a little harsh, he said. I just shrugged.

Well, he continued, NAARC is not an independent organisation. Strictly speaking, from a corporate law point of view, it is—it has no share-holders except it’s own board of directors and it isn’t publicly listed. Just like SCARC, in fact. And SAARC. And BARC, although technically that’s more of a club than a company—the directors pay subscriptions to be directors. That took me back a bit. ANTARC, AFARC, I could go on. They’re all Alternative Resources Corporations—or Companies—or Collectives—or Conglomerates—or Co-operatives. It’s only somantics.

The only practical difference is in region. SC—Sub-Continental—is India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and such. ANT is Antarctica. SA is South America. You get the picture.

I considered. You mean they’re all copying the same business model? I asked.

No, said Aeisha, speaking for the first time. We’re telling you they’re all the same organisation, period. Just split for camouflage purposes in a corporate legal sense. They share directors. They share senior consultants. They share scientists and research facilities. They have a mutual legal and financial services arrangement for the setting up of subsidiaries to develop new technologies. They exchange capitalisation in programmes interest-free from their profitable activities to get projects going. And reduce tax liabilities, of course. But all these subsidiaries are majority, if not wholly, owned by ARC organisations. If not then by wholly owned or majority owned ARC subsidiaries, or subsidiaries of subsidiaries. But dig through the camo far enough, you get back to ARC’s of some kind—usually, as it happens, BARC.

She was so calm and cool about this nonsense I had to gawp. And her a senior partner. She just had to be kidding me. Look, you’re a senior corporate lawyer, I said, reasonably. What you’ve stated is impossible. Anti-trust, international trade regulations, union complications… . I trailed off as she was tapping her finger-nails impatiently on the table-top and looking very annoyed. I was aware that the light inside was getting uncomfortably bright, at least for me.

I don’t expect you to believe it. In fact it’s the response BARC and it’s partners has been very careful to cultivate from day one over fifty years ago—back in the mists of corporate time, in fact. No-one’s entirely sure when the snow-ball started rolling, in fact, but that’s immaterial. It’s preposterous. It’s impossible. It’d be impossible to control. So no-one looks—even bats an eyelid when more and more Alternative Resources Companies set up and more and more subsidiaries set up and more and more wealth gets accumulated out of the non-sustainable sector. Because it doesn’t accumulate in any one place. There isn’t any one focal point to shout There it is!" at. But I know it to be true, despite your naiveity. Because I’m a senior partner, the senior partner, in this law firm. This business was capitalised and set up by me, she snapped, using NAARC and SAARC money via a bank that happens to launder—I mean manage—inconvenient ARC funds that make taxes awkward if not off-loaded out of a particular tax entity and spent elsewhere as a tax loss. I’m sure you’re familiar with the method."

Her voice dripped sarcasm but I wasn’t in the mood to bite. This was beginning to have the ring of plausibility about it. Besides, her Medusan gaze didn’t brook much debate. She was either some nutter or was sure of what she was saying and I had known enough of both to tell which. I kept my mouth shut.

Twenty years ago I set this firm up, Goldman continued, and we’ve been handling all NAARC and SAARC corporate legal affairs since. Including doing the dirty work, which brings us back to the matter in hand.

I decided to take her half seriously. She herself could seriously believe this huge conspiracy theory without it actually being so, but she was no-one’s fool. There had to be a juicy kernel of solid protein in the truth of it somewhere to convince a woman of her calibre, so I decided to humour her. So NAARC and SAARC pooled funds to run legal affairs to halve costs. That was believable as both firms were probably thick as thieves, having similar business activities and interests. That much rang true. Maybe there were a large number of other arrangements in the ARC ‘family’. It’s not like anyone would have looked.

Kellman took on the running again. Seven years ago members of the ARC group set up a small IT company called Pixel. NAARC Cybertech, a subsidiary of NAARC Technology, and Longton Industries, a private company with several owners, all private individuals or family-owned companies involved in NAARC. Anyway, Pixel started doing commercial computer modelling, advanced computer assisted design, animation and so on. They were modestly successful. But behind the window dressing the real purpose of the firm was carried out. A project team of five had been assembled to work in the field of trimetrics development. You’ve heard of trimetrics?

Now my confidence slumped. This was getting preposterous. That’s a techno myth like the frictionless ball bearing, or ninety per cent energy efficient internal combustion engine, or room temperature zero resistance super-conductivity, isn’t it?

Kellman shook his head. "More like the hyper-cube. A mathematical model of a four-dimensional cube was cracked in the late twentieth century, but no-one could ever build one. It wasn’t physically possible. So like string theory, another piece of brilliant theoretical science with no practical application, it quickly fell from interest. No-one could make money out of it. At least, not then or probably for decades."

He paused to take some more coffee, but I interrupted. "Are you telling me someone not only cracked the mathematical model for trimetrics, but in such a way that trimetric processors could be made?"

All the heads around the table began nodding slowly. Even Aeisha was smiling in a patronising way as her dimmest pupil finally caught on to a simple concept. I felt slightly dislocated from reality. Things were going a little swiftly.

Kellman continued. Some time ago. Pixel was set up to develop the practical tech that one of the team members had cracked the theory of. Getting the theory was all very nice, but the actual trial-and-error of revolutionary new materials, design techniques, construction and so on are hideously prohibitive. The old proverb of a breakthrough being one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration is quite true. But after years of concentrated effort, they were within a week or so of testing the first prototype when it happened. Day before yesterday.

What happened? I demanded.

It was Goldman who replied. Three things, in fact. Firstly, Charlie Singh the User Interface Coder and Peter Quentin, who wrote the source coding, went missing. Secondly, Wendell Brock, the team chief programmer, was found dead. Then when our security people tried to find Kori Asari, the Project Leader, all they got was a cryptic message about going fishing on her personal comm.

I was thinking hard. What about the fifth one?

Aeisha and Kellman swapped