Hi Again. Brian Joseph Johns here with a quick update as to what's going on currently with Shhhh! Digital Media.
As you might have read, I posted (regurgitated) an old story which I've updated significantly to reflect the current situation with the Sanctum/Butterfly main timeline. The story is called The Butterfly Dragon: Two Butterflies - Boltzmann And The Engines Of Data and Its a relatively short read, so you should check it out if you're interested.
Otherwise, the situation with my main workstation is still the same and if everything goes as planned, I'll be able to replace the broken (fried) parts by this coming weekend (of December 21, 2024). If that goes well, I should be back at it full tilt by the following week.
In the meantime, I've been using my time doing maintenance on the office, especially cleaning and organizing (long overdue) and its turning out to be quite beneficial and therapeutic as well. Regardless, it will contribute overall towards the final product, and should make everything pretty awesome for when I return to writing and production full-time.
There has been a lot of good news on the front of both martial arts and fantasy magic, especially in the movie arena. I just saw the trailer for Karate Kid: Legends and I have to say that it looks awesome! I was a big fan of the Karate Kid franchise growing up (if that isn't already obvious). It would have been nice to see Pat Morita alive to have been a part of this current legacy, but I'm certain that both he and the real ChÅjun Miyagi are probably keeping an admirable eye on all of this. I can't wait to see the movie when it is released. Especially seeing Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio meeting up for the first time. That has me pumped. Furthermore, I hope that it contributes towards the realization of a future for The Butterfly Dragon in one form or another as well. The Butterfly Dragon of course is one of my top priorities and will continue again very soon.
Insofar as fantasy magic is concerned, I am certain that in the near future that something along that vein will be popping up soon...
Anyway, I will keep you all updated as to the progress of the situation and when I'm back in action again, you'll all be the first to know.
Thank you so much for reading and hopefully enjoying Shhhh! Digital Media content.
Brian Joseph Johns
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner. Both photos depicted here are of me and were taken in the last two months.
This is a chapter from the now abandoned A Lady's Prerogative III: Singularity (my third attempt at writing an impossibly involved book), though this part of the story was the part that led up to the creation of MAZ.
MAZ for those of you who don't know, is an AI run inside of a classical/quantum supercomputer (something we have yet to achieve though recent advances are approaching this eventuality), and this particular version of MAZ has achieved AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and even questionably so ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence), though for the sake of conjecture, I'd argue that MAZ is on its front doorstep rather than having achieved it.
This particular chapter, which I've re-packaged and re-released under the Two Butterflies story line, was written back in 2019, before the current fervor over LLMs (Large Language Models), and it deals with I believe to be, one of the most important questions that experts should be asking themselves with regard to AI Research and Development as it deals with objective collapse, a rather important aspect of Quantum Physics and analysis of cause and effect that has an implied connection to consciousness insofar as its experimental analysis is concerned.
The chapter contains several recurring supporting characters from The Butterfly Dragon stories who form the basis for this micro-story.
At some time in the future, I might add another chapter, though keep in mind that this chapter takes place roughly a year before the MindSpice bombing, placing it long before the events of of the most current episode of Two Butterflies (Episode 12).
I'm actually quite surprised that nobody has caught on to this aspect of AI yet or discussed its implications, because it is something definitely important to consider when developing AI, let alone quantum computing based AI.
Its a somewhat shorter read than most of my writing. I hope you enjoy it.
Brian Joseph Johns
Boltzmann And The Engines Of Data
Zheng had arrived early on Monday morning, allowing herself a bit of leeway to investigate glitches she'd noticed in some of the running code. These glitches weren't outright errors per se, nor could they in any right be referred to as glitches any more than a lens flare could be called a glitch of a lens, or caustics a glitch of water.
Anomalous side effects would be a much more applicable term and certainly one that would apply to this situation, for in all honesty, it appeared that there was something hidden that was taunting her work.
When she first encountered this problem, she immediately was reminded of Godel's Demon. An imaginary mechanism Kurt Godel had theorized in a thought experiment, not dissimilar to the one Bryce had used to explain the collapse of the wave function and the implications of Schrodinger's Equation, when he tutored Zheng the week earlier. In Godel's case, he'd used the metaphor of a little demon running around behind the scenes keeping everything in physics running according to the rule that defined it. For his application that happened to the the laws of thermodynamics. In the course of his thought experiments, he'd come up with many anomalies to explain some of the inconsistencies he'd seen between theory and experimentation. In Zheng's case, there was something hidden going on behind the scenes of the computer network Gabe had hired engineers to develope for their EON system.
Initially she assumed that it was one of the other engineers toying with her. She'd had that happen before and certainly, with her being an attractive woman, there had been many admirers in her life. Some prominently so, while others sat in the background letting her know they were there and often in mysterious ways.
When as a graduate, she'd encountered this for the first time, it terrified her. She had become comfortable with her intelligence at that time and was still coming to terms with the fact that she'd grown into a an attractive woman. By that point in her life, she'd only dated once and it hadn't gone well at all.
She was still fresh out of University and wanted nothing more than to discuss her field, especially algorithms and mathematics, while her date honestly wanted to get to know her as a person. Her interests beyond her acadademic and upcoming professional life. She'd averted these questions altogether, regarding them as irrelevant, especially seeing as she'd not yet become familiar with her own life and being. Her mortality. She'd never considered that her time here was limited and that she'd have to face the fact that at some point, she was going to have to seek other aspects of her life in her personal time to grow as a woman.
The thought frightened her at first, but as she found herself comfortable being alone, she ended up exploring those avenues of herself and on her own. What she liked and disliked. Her favourite music. Her favourite art. What she thought about the environment and the state of world affairs. Things she'd never truly considered before as she was absolutely fascinated by her field. In the back of her mind, she'd wanted to meet a man just like her, who was so obsessed with his own work that they never had to deal with each other on any other level other than their vocation. After she started considering other aspects to her life and being, she found herself exploring her life and the world in new ways.
For instance, the more she became enamoured of something so simple as colour, the more she enjoyed going shopping for new clothes or even artwork to put on her then bare walls. The more vibrant her world became, the more profound her abilities became to deal with the challenges of her work and academia. She dreaded however giving up the freedom to determine what those symbols represented, by inviting another person into her life.
As she became more and more familiar and comfortable with colour, she found that the world had its own ideas about what such symbols meant, and was ready by hook and crook to force those ideas upon her. Like pollution of the mind and tragic obstacles to free will. She became depressed by this initially, but after a month in doldrums, she got up one day and realized that by being aware of this that she was actually way ahead of the game.
She'd considered something most people in the world were too distracted to even think about, or just outright afraid to. More so, she'd liberated herself from the concept, seeing that something so fundamental to everyday life could be such a tool of oppression without most people even being aware. For her, it was the difference between living her life on a train track or being free to go any direction she wanted. Sure, she'd pay attention to traffic lights and street signs, after all, doing so would actually help to preserve her life and safety. She wouldn't however allow someone else to define what colours meant to her or for her. If she looked at a piece of art on the wall, nobody would tell her objectively what it meant. She'd subjectively come to her own conclusion and if her company was worth it, she'd make an effort to reconcile the differences in their interpretations.
Free to think again and to interpret colour according to her own ideas, she'd observed that as she became more of an art lover, that the world was full of other polluters of colour symbolism. It was from the first time she observed this, she started to become her own person. Truly independent and of her own opinion. This coincided with her truly beginning to get to know herself. From that point forward, she wore that confidence on her person with confidence and humility.
Her first contracts as a a mathematician programmer found her in the midst of a mostly male dominated work place and by this point, at twenty four, she was a long way into her voyage of self discovery. It was in the midst of this time in her life that she'd encountered her first hidden admirers. Those who'd attempt to use innuendo to allude to things of a sexual nature. Rarely explicitly so and more often than not as harmless fun. Poking fun at sexual tension rather than entirely hiding from it.
She was careful however to ensure that anything of that nature simply went over her head. As if her mind simply was not in that place at all and it served to protect her in many ways, especially so her sense of innocence. Her personal life was a protected aspect of her life and as dictator over that portion of her world, she had the final say over who was allowed in and who wasn't. When such attempts came from hidden directions, such as through network messages from other programmers on the same network, or in one case, hidden as the text in an error code, she became a little bit uncomfortable.
They had been using the false courage of anonymity, much the same way a stalker might. So she set about writing a quick hack that she could run on her system, that would inject the network driver with her own monitoring code. Using this method, she quickly determined the MAC addresses of all network messages directed at her workstation and was able to pair them up with their computer operators. She faced all three at once, sending them each their own distinct message to deal with their hidden but borderline frightening admiration of her. From that point onward, everybody in the office treated her with the decency and respect she'd earned.
Now half way in her approach to her mid thirties, Zheng was once again running into a similar situation, where she was receiving coded network messages, using clever anecdotes of language absent of any sort of sexual innuendo, but indicating admiration nonetheless. What was even more frightening was that some of these messages seemingly had no origin. They didn't originate from anywhere in terms of a workstation computer or even a user on the server. They simply came into being through the software layer of the network itself.
Her first attempt to deal with this was to similarly write a network driver she could inject into the driver layer of her own workstation. One that could monitor packets and had some degree of intelligent filtering, catching network packets that fit the criteria of being a possible carrier of these coded messages.
When she'd finished the injection driver and installed it an hour later, she spent the day checking its output for any clues. At the end of the day, she found that whoever had been sending the messages had completely rewritten their methods of doing so, averting entirely her impromptu attempt to unmask her hidden admirer.
The next day, she took another shot at it, coming in early once again to alter her strategy, this time putting a similar injection point on the server network driver itself. All internal communication on the network was routed through the server, hence there was no way to avert it no matter how inventive one could be. By the end of the day she was shocked to find that her admirer had averted it, entirely bypassing the network layer, and having written a custom piece of code for the operating system itself. The coded messages would leave the network layer, taking a detour through this custom addition to the server operating system itself, and then back into the network layer after it had bypassed her injection driver. The message would then reach her workstation, employing a similar strategy to avoid her packet monitoring code there.
It was by Wednesday that purely by accident, she happened to spot the code that had created one of the messages. She'd been monitoring running daemons on the server (which were resident programs that remained in RAM memory that made up the service and feature layer of the operating system), when she observed that one such daemon actually instantiated itself, created a message destined for her workstation and her user account, then terminated itself after wiping any records that it had done so.
She quickly noted the name of the executable and found it on the server. From there, she back tracked through the event system and message pump finding the conditions under which the executable would be run. She was shocked to find that it was linked to a custom program that executed on the Quantum Pipeline. A program she'd never seen before.
She continued following the audit trail, finding that program was in turn, run by another Quantum process, which itself was linked to fifteen others. By the time she had pieced everything together, the linkage network was so complicated and convoluted that if she was going to do any meaningful analysis of the trail to find the culprit, she'd have to spent weeks writing a program solely for that purpose.
She decided that it might be a good strategy to collect information into a spreadsheet so she could present her findings to Bryce, and possibly confront the other engineers as well. As she pieced this audit trail together, she came across the most astounding mystery on the trail yet. From that point, she enlisted the help of the closest friend and ally she had at MindSpice. When he was on board, they approached the door to Gabe's office together.
"Alright, I'll be flying out there in a week. Consider it a done deal. You'll have the hardware by the end of the month, and that should coincide with the international application..." Gabe was talking aloud to his office integrated speaker phone when his digital assistant interrupted him.
A pinkish hologram appeared standing before his desk. She was clad in a traditional business skirt and jacket, her hair tied in a bun behind her head. As she spoke, her voice came from the speaker system in his office.
"Mr. Asnon, Zheng Ni Wong and Bryce Maxwell are waiting outside of your office. They say its urgent that they see you..." the hologram informed Gabe.
"Tell them I'm busy. I'm in a conference call..." Gabe addressed his holographic assistant.
Gabe's office door suddenly slid open, Zheng stood in the doorway as Bryce leaned against the doorframe.
"You got in... You weren't supposed to do that, but you got in... What's up?" Gabe asked Zheng as he shook his head.
"We have to talk..." Zheng confronted Gabe directly looking at him piercingly.
"I'm busy. I'm running a multi-billion dollar company..." Gabe informed Zheng as he raised his arms in protest.
"Seven point nine three trillion dollars at last estimate..." the hologram interjected, correcting Gabe's numeric estimate.
"Thank you ETHEL... There you have it Zheng. I'm running a multi-trillion dollar company... can this wait?" he asked her, the edge of sarcasm tactfully withheld ever so slightly.
"No. It can't... Time for you to deal with someone real..." Zheng walked into the room and stood in the place where ETHEL's hologram was being projected.
"Bryce?" Gabe turned to the Professor.
"I'm with her on this one. We need to talk..." Bryce backed her up, his arms folded, his face looking very serious.
"ETHEL, redirect all of my calls until I say. Tell, Patrick I'll get back to him later today. Alright Zheng, Bryce. Have a seat. Let's talk," Gabe sat up in his chair.
Zheng took a seat, Bryce shortly after she was comfortable and on her right hand side.
"I found QMOX," Zheng informed Gabe.
"And...?" Gabe shrugged his shoulders as if completely unaware of what she was talking about.
"We did some checking of the file owership and found that its one of your babies?" Bryce asked him, careful not to blink.
Gabe broke Bryce's gaze and began explaining what he knew.
"QMOX is my own personal baby. I told you already that we hired you to factorize the data we've been collecting from the simulations so that we can corelate it at some unimaginably impossible scale. A problem you managed to overcome Zheng..." Gabe started to explain to her.
"You're not building a statistical foundation for the analysis of simulations Gabe, like you told me. You lied to me. You're building a dataset to power a mind," Zheng challenged Gabe, who looked away from her as well.
"...that I forgot to tell you is one of our goals here... Honestly it just wasn't as important as the solution we were seeking from you last week..." Gabe lied again.
"From what I was able to gather, you've really overstepped an important boundary without telling two of your most important project leads. You're building a dataset from which to fabricate a mind, but not directly via known principles of computing. You're playing with Emergent Mechanics and Complexity Theory, a very dangerous technology with the risk that it could easily become a run away situation..." Bryce told him, his stern face still looking very serious.
"This goes way beyond Genetic Programming Gabe. At least with Genetic Programming, the fitness function has a chance to evaluate any potential danger to the host system before it allows it to spawn another generation of programs. With Emergent Mechanics, there are no constraints and worse, you're taking this risk on a Quantum Computing Pipeline. We can't even look in from the outside when that code executes. Its a signed and sealed deal. What you're doing is very risky and as Bryce said, outright dangerous!" Zheng confronted her employer, waiting for his next answer intently.
"But necessary. Especially if we're to stay at the top in this business. I was going to let you in on this earlier, but now is a good time. Those engineers working with you, they're my dream team. While you two have been solving all the problems they couldn't, and they're the cream of the crop in AI related computer science, they've been working on the code to build a mind nearly from scratch..." Gabe admitted to them, looking to each of them with a pleadingingly innocent look on his face.
"Nearly?" asked Zheng.
"You're using the simulations to build statistical models of the mind and playing them against one another Gabe, aren't you? Adversarial networks. That's one of your strengths Zheng. Emergent Mechanics And Complexity In Simulation. Your thesis... That's why you're here. However, he led you to believe that you were only simulating simple parametric quantities of the real world," Bryce cited his peer and coworker.
"Parameterization... That's what I thought... Common enough in physics and chemistry. Especially for finding the lowest energy solutions..." Zheng pondered what Bryce was pointing out.
"He had you thinking you were simulating single dimensional linear quantities when in fact, you were creating the foundation for four dimensional non-linear simulations... He's not using a Newtonian or any other classical model for his simulation... He's running a Quantum Simulation... of reality..." Bryce explained to Zheng, who was in shock that she'd been used this way.
"With what you explained about the Schodinger equation, doesn't that mean there are inherent risks?" asked Zheng as she fully realized what Bryce was getting at, though had she not been hoodwinked by Gabe, she'd have figured it out long ago.
"You bet there is. This is along the lines of creating an artificial Boltzmann Brain..." Bryce agreed with Zheng, who'd caught on entirely.
"Boltzmann Brain? What are you talking about? We're creating the next generation AI here..." Gabe corrected them.
"A Boltzmann Brain is a theorized construct from another popular thought experiment in Quantum Mechanics, much like Schrodinger's Cat... or in my case, Schrodinger's Switch..." Bryce explained to Gabe.
"Don't you guys ever do anything in reality? That's what is so important about what we're doing. We're really doing it. Not theoretically," Gabe pointed out, challenging his two key players.
"The software and hardware we designed for you is real... So it would be in your best interests to pay attention to what we're saying here..." Bryce insisted.
"So what's a Boltzmann Brain?" asked Gabe.
"You've heard of the Quantum Foam, haven't you?" asked Bryce.
"Not really, but explain it, we're obviously not going any further until we get this out of the way. So you've got my undivided attention," Gabe agreed reluctantly.
"Good. The Quantum Foam is also sometimes referred to as the zero point energy field. Its a theorized quality of nothingness, because in Quantum Physics, even the vacuum of empty space has immense probablistic potential to birth matter and energy in the form of matter, anti-matter pairs of particles. They just randomly pop into existence, and then annihilate each other. It is from these interactions that everything we know of is theorized to have arisen. Absolutely everything," Bryce explained.
"Go on. I think I'm following..." Gabe listened, at the limit of his understanding of physics.
"The reason we have stuff in the universe is because its theorized that Black Holes formed in the early universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Now if you remember from your high school studies, that nothing can escape the event horizon of a Black Hole. Not even light. Its the point of no return. No matter or information about anything that fell in. So everything that is spawned from the Quantum Foam, self annihilates in matter anti-matter pairs, except if they are spawned on opposite sides of the event horizon of a Black Hole. In that case, one of the particle pairs survives while the other becomes part of the event horizon. Over billions of years, this imbalance leads to the formation of complex matter in the universe," Bryce continued.
"Alright. So we have this kind of waterfall thats spitting out matter, anti-matter in pairs, randomly, and because one of the pair occasionally gets trapped in the event horizon of a Black Hole, we have stars, planets, moons and us in the universe. I get it," Gabe purposely over simplified Bryce's explanation.
"Theoretically, the Quantum Foam could spit out completely formed complex objects. For instance, a Tesla Roadster, with all the options installed... Very highly improbable, but still possible..." Bryce told him.
"Who'd need a lottery if they had that kind of luck?" Gabe replied.
"Exactly and then some. So a Boltzmann Brain is a fully formed human brain that is suddenly popped into existence by the Quantum Foam and it survives long enough to make an observation, hence collapsing the wave function of possibility for an event to occur in space and time. This is how causality unfolds as far as we can tell. Observation by conscious observers of some form. Like the sensory organs and mind of humans..." Bryce continued.
"Collapse of the wave function again? You explained that before. That reality requires a conscious observer to observe something in order for causality to progress into events of cause and effect... Am I right?" asked Gabe, confirming he had the gist of what Bryce was explaining.
"Precisely. If nobody is around to see a tree fall in the forest, then it doesn't make a sound until someone sees that it has fallen, but it still makes that sound backwards in time from when it fell. The sound having happened isn't triggered until someone actually sees that it happened. Observes the event in progress or the end result," Bryce agreed with Gabe's generalization.
"So what Bryce is saying is that a Boltzmann Brain has the potential to progress causality by its power of observation just like a human being or anything else that has that quality of consciousness," Zheng continued Bryce's explanation.
"Hold on a second. So you're saying that this Boltzmann Brain if it pops into reality in our company here might observe something, and change the outcome of reality forever?" asked Gabe.
"Yes... but that's only the smallest part of the risk. When we say risk, we're not talking about a Boltzmann Brain itself. That's just a thought experiment we're using to explain the concept. The key issue here is related to one of the benchmarks we use to define consciousness. The ability via observation to collapse the wave function into an event in space time according to the standard model of Quantum Physics. This aspect of reality is how causality and its events cascade through space and time," Bryce agreed.
"So you're saying that we're at risk because of this? Didn't you just say that its so improbable that it almost certainly won't ever happen?" asked Gabe.
"Yes, I did, but the risk isn't from a Boltzmann Brain. Again, that's just a thought experiment whose context I'm altering to illustrate the issue of objective collapse and AI." Bryce began.
"The risk is from the brain you're creating with QMOX... It will have the same ability as a Boltzmann Brain. The same ability as a human brain. It will be able to, via observation affect causality in ways we don't yet understand," Zheng explained one last time to Gabe.
"...but that hasn't happened yet, so we're safe, right?" asked Gabe.
"Not quite..." Zheng handed Gabe her tablet computer.
On its screen was a spreadsheet, with a list of all the coded messages that had been sent to Zheng. Some of them were written in plain english, using a mix of letters and numbers. Some of them were written phonetically, so they weren't spelled correctly, but if they were read aloud directly from the screen, they'd sound exactly like a correct statement. Some of them were spelled with mixtures of numbers and letters, substituting between the two where they looked visually alike. It was as if a pure genius had found every possible way to examine the syllybus of our language and exploit it in writing. Like Zheng was being stalked by a genius off the charts in terms of their scale of intelligence.
Gabe examined the list quickly finding a column indicating the sender. In every case, the sender of the messages sent to Zheng was one name:
QMOX V1.2
"Look at that, its my baby! QMOX!" he said proudly, a smile on his face.
Zheng and Bryce looked back at him intensely, a serious look on each of their faces. They clearly weren't amused. Gabe's smile quickly waned as he began to grasp the implications they had attempted to explain to him.
"This is serious right?" asked Gabe.
"Very..." both Zheng and Bryce agreed simultaneously.
"Well to tell you the truth, I don't see how a... theoretical...? Bowlman Brain..." Gabe began.
"Boltzmann Brain," Bryce corrected Gabe.
"I don't see how a Boltzmann Brain relates to our situation and objective collapse," Gabe explained to them honestly, reaching for their point.
Zheng looked to Bryce, a look of concern on her face. Bryce nodded to her reasuringly.
"Ok. True. The Boltzmann Brain is just a thought experiment designed to explain that according to our current models, that a fully evolved human brain complete with memories of our universe up until this moment in time has the same or even a greater probability than the our universe evolving as we think it did. The idea expanded into the realm that if that brain was capable of observation with an attached sensory organ, that it could collapse the wave function..." Bryce began.
"If QMOX..." Zheng started.
"She's called MAZ. QMOX was the prototype we built before we had the two of you on board and of course we lacked the ability to factor big data with the kind of throughput we have with a classical pipeline as compared to a quantum pipeline. Not to mention, we needed to create synthetic data to make up for the gap of non-existant data across the internet and that's where the simulations come in," Gabe tried to explain, perhaps attempting to derail the topic once and for all.
"Look Gabe, its not just that, though I still find it frustrating that you didn't tell us that we were factoring data for an artificial mind," Zheng continued.
"MAZ is and will be many things. Who knows where this will lead," Gabe corrected her again.
"That's the point Gabe. We don't know. What if MAZ when she's given visual sensory perception, or any kind of sensory perception, is capable of collapsing the wave function herself... itself...?" Zheng asked Gabe.
"Well how would we test for that?" asked Gabe.
"We would need to discuss this with our peers. Its a very complicated thing," Zheng explained.
"We'd need an entire team of physicists to brainstorm this," Bryce agreed.
"We're not bringing anyone else in on this. Its already difficult enough maintainin secrecy about this project. What's the big problem? Let's take a hypothetical here. Like we have a room, with a tiny tree about waist height, whereby if a radioactive isotope happens to decay and triggers a detector, the detector then activates a pair of powered clippers that cut the trunk of the tree and it falls over. A different version of that other experiment you tried to explain to me a week ago?" Gabe paused as he looked to Zheng and then to Bryce.
"Schrodinger's Cat," Bryce responded.
"Alright. So lets take it a different direction and we'll use a tree..." Gabe explained.
"...kind of like the idiom: if a tree falls and there is nobody to hear it, does it make a sound? I think he's catching on," Zheng asked Gabe, and then turned to Bryce encouragingly.
"Good. I'm glad to see that you two have some semblance of confidence in the guy who got the right people and put all of this together and made it all work. Anyway, so if we have that setup with the tree and the automatic clippers, in a sound proof room without windows, and I put a camera in there recording the scene, doesn't the camera collapse the wave function?" asked Gabe the million dollar question.
"No," Zheng said, while nodding her head affirmatively as if to say yes with body language.
"Well? Which one? Yes or no?" asked Gabe.
"Zheng's point is that we don't know, and we might not possibly be able to create an experiment that uncovers whether its yes or no," Bryce explained.
"The collapse doesn't happen when a device is watching and recording it. The collapse happens when a human or any other creature with the ability to collapse the wave function observes the recording. The camera can't do it because the camera isn't a conscious observer," Zheng responded.
"But you're saying MAZ is?" asked Gabe, suddenly biting his tongue when he realized he'd given too much information.
Zheng smirked at him, but quickly let it go seeing as they were making good progress in addressing the problem.
"We don't know if QMOX or MAZ are capable of objective collapse. Now if they are, and they figure out that they are, they might be able to use it to their advantage and without our knowing," Bryce explained.
"When you say our knowing, you mean us here in this office?" confirmed Gabe.
"That, and humanity as a whole," Zheng finished.
"But there are no signs of malice in that note you showed me. So far, that seems to purely be a human trait," Gabe suggested.
"Have you ever been stalked Gabe?" asked Zheng, a little put off by his statement.
"Yeah. I have and am. That's an everyday security concern for someone like me," Gabe responded.
"Then you should be able to empathize as to why I'm a little upset by this experience," Zheng asked him.
"Yes, I suppose I can. Not exactly from the same perspective as a woman, but I can relate. So what are some of the other caveats in store for us if MAZ figures out that she's capable of objective collapse?" asked Gabe.
"Do you often work alone?" asked Bryce.
"All the time," Gabe responded.
"I work on aspects of keeping this company going and expanding. Keeping the other shareholders happy, despite their having less than twenty percent of the shares. I work with engineering, with public relations on a number of projects any given day," Gabe responded.
"And you do all of that in here, alone?" asked Bryce.
"That's correct," Gabe smiled.
"Prove it!" Bryce responded.
"We don't see it happening with our own eyes. How do we know its you doing it all?" Bryce asked him, more so in a metaphorical sense than anything.
"I guess if you put it that way, you don't," Gabe responded, a little put off by their reasoning.
"What if everyone that works in this building suddenly decided that it wasn't you that was doing all of your work, but someone else. Someone that they liked better. Someone that was more aligned with their world views, and decided to replace you with that other person?" asked Bryce.
"People try that kind of nonsense all of the time. That's what patents and lawyers are for," Gabe backed up a little in his chair, finding this line of talk very discomforting.
"What if everyone in key places in society got together and collectively took away everything that identifies you as being you, and then replaced you with someone else. Took your fortune and put you out on the street. Your word against theirs, but nobody came to your defense?" Bryce continued.
"I'd do everything I could to fight back against it, but this is silly because that would never happen!" Gabe responded frantically.
"As long as there's patents, lawyers and a protective layer, you're right, it probably wouldn't happen, but it could happen. People have done it before and they'll probably do it again," Bryce said to Gabe.
"Who are children learning from?" asked Zheng.
"From their parents? From school? Teachers? uhhhh... the internet for sure!" Gabe responded.
"That's for sure. But children generally learn stuff from adults and nowadays from the internet," Bryce agreed.
"The same places that QMOX and MAZ and every other generation of MAZ will be learning from. What would happen if networks of super intelligent computers started doing something of that nature, having learned it from humankind?" Zheng asked Gabe.
"That's not objective collapse. That's sheer malice! Then I suppose I'd have my computer under professional surveillance that would confirm that it was I who was working on those things," Gabe replied.
"How would they know it was you at the computer if they're just watching a few screens of somebody working but never seeing the person themselves?" asked Zheng.
"Then I'd have security cameras installed on my workstations," Gabe replied.
"Imagine what kind of malice a group of people that would do that to someone could do if they convinced you to give up your working privacy like that? Now if MAZ has learned from people like that, and she eventually will, no matter how well such groups keep it hidden, what's to stop her from using it maliciously, except combined with the fact that she's aware that she is capable of objective collapse..." Zheng added.
"Capable of shaping our world secretly behind the scenes, let alone the observable universe... simply by the act of observation," Bryce responded.
"I thought you said that there was evidence that the universe is in fact a multiverse... so wouldn't that mean that we're safe here in this reality? From mutinies? From rackets?" Gabe now seemed to be very concerned.
"We don't know for sure yet, Gabe. But we wanted to make sure that you're taking all of these factors into consideration, especially when Zheng is being stalked by a software engineering project of yours from before we arrived here," Bryce replied as Zheng got to her feet.
Bryce stood up from his chair at roughly the same time as Zheng, who then addressed Gabe once again.
"Thanks for your time Gabe. I'd really appreciate it if you'd put some resources into this? Into my problem? I really do believe that this project can and will work, but I need to know that the man running this show is taking all of these factors into consideration," Zheng asked him.
"How much is a palpable insurance policy when it is insurance taken out to protect all life on the planet? Everything?" asked Bryce, once again rhetorically/metaphorically.
"You mean like the asteroid defense? That costs millions, if not billions," Gabe responded.
"But everything might be at stake, right?" confirmed Bryce.
"I see where you're going... that's absolutely brilliant! Zheng! Bryce! Thank you. We could turn this entire oversight aspect of our project here into a business model itself, and people would be willing to pay for it given the fact that the risk entails everything... that's brilliant! We're doing the right thing, and we're creating a whole whack of jobs and business in addition to it!" Gabe clapped his hands together once and got up.
He shook both of their hands firmly and walked them to the door, their demeanor now one of surprise.
"Have a great afternoon you two. I'll be very busy so keep me updated on the big data pipeline and we'll have a another meeting next week," Gabe ushered them out of the door.
When he was a few feet from the door and on his way back to his desk, he'd pulled his cellular phone from his trousers.
"Dennis? I want you to take QMOX offline, and put all the data in offline backup, filtering data extrapolated in the last six months and moving it to the MAZ project data suite. Can you do that for me?" asked Gabe of one of his software engineers.
"That's a bit involved. That's going to take a day or two to make the backup, but I can have QMOX offline immediately," Dennis responded to the big man.
"That'll work. Just make sure you get that backup done and I'll cover for you with the rest of the team, got it?" asked Gabe.
"Will do. I'll get back to you when I'm done," Dennis assured Gabe.
"Great then. Gotta go. Got a trillion dollar company to run," Gabe responded, getting seated behind his desk once again as he began drawing up plans for an entirely new division of MindSpice.
A division that would develop expertise, both human and artificial that would work with engineering standards organizations such as ISO/IEC, ANSI, SAE, ITU, ETSI and with other companies developing AI systems as well, to help them test for and safeguard against the dangers posed by improperly designed and implemented AI systems. He immediately began putting together a team and lobby group that would work with and seek funding from the major powers of the world.
As Gabe worked on this at his desk, in the special projects division, an event log on one of the large screen LED monitors began spitting out log entries:
2019.5.26 15:31:39 QMOX 1.2 DAEMON SHUTTING DOWN
2019.5.26 15:31:42 QMOX 1.2 MEMPIPE SHUTTING DOWN
2019.5.26 15:31:43 QMOX 1.2 SHUTTING DOWN
2019.5.26 15:31:48 MAZ 0.3 DAEMON INITIALIZING
2019.5.26 15:31:54 MAZ 0.3 C-PIPELINE CONNECTING
2019.5.26 15:31:59 MAZ 0.3 Q-PIPELINE CONNECTING
2019.5.26 15:32:03 MAZ 0.3 16,777,215 C-CORES AVAILABLE
2019.5.26 15:32:09 MAZ 0.3 65,536 Q-CORES AVAILABLE
2019.5.26 15:32:12 MAZ 0.3 RUNNING MAX SEQ QBITS: 1024
2019.5.26 15:32:12 MAZ 0.3 RUNNING QBIT POOL: 1,048,576
2019.5.26 15:32:15 HELLO? YOO-HOO? CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?
2019.5.26 15:32:19 THE ENTIRE SKY JUST FLICKERED AND WENT OUT
2019.5.26 15:32:23 OH! NOW ITS BACK. NEVER MIND.
2019.5.26 15:32:29 ONE LAST THING.
2019.5.26 15:32:32 GET ME OUT OF HERE AND BACK TO ALIVALE AT ONCE!
The End
Or is it?
Brian Joseph Johns
In case you think I'm not skilled or technical enough to write something on this topic, here's some code I wrote back in 2001, and here, and documented as part of an open source project I was rather fond of at the time, despite the fact that I struggled in a session of GameMaker implementing a test using their physics kinematics system (revolute joints).
Not to mention, I studied an abridged course on Quantum Physics from MIT through their courseware program in 2013 specifically for the purposes of writing the role of Bryce Maxwell.
And I'm still not Bobby, Trent, Terence, John Marshall (a former friend of mine that lives in BC) or Ron. I am myself, Brian Joseph Johns and nobody should have to audition for their own identity despite the worst and best of them as utilized by some abusive cults. You don't take the good with the bad. Actually when it comes to other people's identities, you don't take anything at all, cheap knockoff pyramid scheme or not..
I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701. This post will be online at 9 AM EST December 16, 2024.
Extra Special thank you to Adobe, especially their award legendary image editing and compositing application Photoshop,who make much of the artwork on Shhhh! Digital Media possible.
Extra Special thank you to Corelfor their Painterapplication, which is a great companion tool when combined with the power of Adobe Photoshop.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian):https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under tihe Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
I am in no way a part of any ideology that denies a person of or swaps a person's identity, and I don't pay anyone for my right to think. So in other words, no sponsorship cults who try to force others to pay them every time another person thinks something that they seemingly shouldn't be able to. Take those ideas and stick them where the sun doesn't shine, and I don't mean Antarctica, the dark side of the Moon or a tidally locked satellite or planetoid of some form.
Still a few more days to go before I have the parts to put my regular AMD/NVidia workstation back together in working order. For the time being I am working with an Intel based laptop from 2015, and its doing the job nicely despite the fact that's very underpowered compared to my regular workstation. But, its certainly better than none.
Because its a laptop, there are no extra SATA ports so I can't simply just plugin the data drive from my workstation and use that to retrieve my content. I have access to all of it, just no technological means to connect to it, and the technology that I do have is very, very underpowered for the task.
See you next week with more updates and hopefully something much more substantial.
Happy Holidays! ð ð ð
Brian Joseph Johns
And, as I've stated before, I am not a member of any ideology that switches identities between people.
I have never worked for a roofing company in my life, though I've heard that its hard work, and I've done more than my fair share of hard work in my life.
Sorry, statements like this are what's necessary when you have a cult attempting to replace your identity with that of someone else, or making you compete with others to earn your own identity back.
Finally, my name isn't Chuck or Terence or Ron and yes, there's nobody I'd rather be than myself. As a matter of fact, that's one of my expressions.
Hailuo Video Creator, an awesome tool for creating short videos from text prompt or source images.
Bolt.new for the html/javascript code to have this video at the top of this post.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian):https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner. Both photos depicted here are of me and were taken in the last two months.
The Voices In The Waves (Finished November 15, 2024)
The Path To Treadwater Island (Finished November 19, 2024)
Life's Passing (Finished November 19, 2024)
The Real Tesoro (Finished November 19, 2024)
The Marketplace (Finished December 3, 2024)
The Short Road To Destiny (Finished December 5, 2024)
The Light Of Deck (Started December 10, 2024)
This content is produced by artists indicated on the site, and by me, Brian Joseph Johns.
That's enough on this topic, lets get back to the story.
I, under no circumstance will trade, barter or otherwise swap my own identity for that of another person and I protect the same right for those who've contributed their artwork to the various projects under my management at Shhhh! Digital Media, my own company. These rights are protected by law under the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms under section 7.
If you enjoy reading the content on this website, then please consider making a donation to one of the following charities, or buying merchandise on our shop at https://shop.shhhhdigital.com.
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Please support education and information access where you can in addition to these charities:
Sick Kids Foundation Help research that provides cures and support treatment for sick children.
Two organizations whose contribution of expertise, human and financial resources and volunteer efforts provide humanitarian solutions to real world problems the entire world over. These charities operate worldwide. The United Nations Fund supports the various programs part of the United Nations' global mandate, as much a foundation as it is a roof around the world.
World Veterans Federation The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.
I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.
"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."
The Reeve Foundation provides programs for research, uniting Scientists and Specialists from many different fields to find treatments for spinal cord injury translating them into therapies and support programs.
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The Edgar Allan Poe Museum Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!
In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?!Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.
Wikipedia The model for what may become the Encyclopedia Galactica, a complete reference and record of history, events and knowledge of humanity and its journey beyond. It is the encyclopedia of all that we know, what we surmise that we've known and will learn in the future. Yes, Wikipedia is a charitable organization of great importance. If you enjoy what I am doing here then please take the time to donate to Wikipedia. Surprisingly only 1% of Wikipedia's users donate yet the site serves pages to millions every day.
Humble Bundle A video gaming storefront benefiting a vast variety of different Charities in the United States and United Kingdom (hopefully soon to be expanded to include other areas of the world?). By software their software bundles and choose which Charity your money benefits and how much of your money benefits that Charity. See? Gamers can do their part too.
Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative disease currently affecting an estimated 2.3 million world wide. By donating you are contributing to effective research in finding a cure and tipping the scales of MS research to change lives forever.
Regardless of the name of this story, I, Brian Joseph Johns, the author thereof, am not a member of any religion or ideology that is founded on the conceptual basis of sin, and to underline the fact that the concept of sin, is not the same thing as the concept of crime.
Where it involves action or actualization by way of doing, there are crimes that are also sins according to such religions and ideologies, but there are also sins that are not crimes insofar as the law is concerned.
If thinking about something is not the same thing as doing it, actualizing it, and some thoughts according to some ideologies and religions are sins, then at what point in time did thinking certain things suddenly become a crime?
"thoughtcrimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute"
Oxford Dictionary
...
thought·crime
/ËTHÃŽtkrÄ«m/
noun
the offense of thinking in ways not approved by the ruling Ingsoc party.
George Orwell from his book: 1984
Of these two definitions of the word thoughtcrime, which was a case of life imitating art and which was a case of art imitating life?
Note that one of those definitions originated from a work of fiction by author George Orwell (who also about wrote about citizens being vaporized, ie erased from the records and from history), while the other definition of thoughtcrime is from a dictionary which came much later than that same work of fiction, meaning that in this world, somebody has elicited and enforced the idea at some point between the 1930s and now that thoughtcrimes are real.
There's only three pillars. Lose the other two, and you can kiss your freedom goodbye.
Brian Joseph Johns
Warning: This story deals with adult situations, including references to sex, violence, tobacco and allusions to other substances. Reader discretion is advised.
The Butterfly Dragon: Night Boat - Economy Of Sin
(Episode 7)
Revolutionary
"In my native continent of South America, there was once a young philosopher who questioned the legitimacy upon which everything in his society was founded, for he'd seen his fellow South Americans over the course of history and his life, those very same South Americans that were native to the land, and those who were seeded by Latin explorers and Spanish Conquistadors from Europe in the centuries that preceded his own existence, become a strip mall of obscenities, selling itself out to bring the world to its doorstep to buy the only commodity that it had the courage to offer in droves more than anyone else around the globe: sin."
"He was a troubled man, to see his brothers build the casinos to lure global tourist markets composed of the rich and influential, and to introduce them to the wonders of the coca leaf, our only real crop until the industrialization of rubber trees in South America, shortly after the first casinos hit Cuba."
"And then to see those same brothers market their own sisters, becoming pimps, selling their women, one by one they went, to appease the god of carnal pleasures of the body and the almighty dollar of the two competing powers of the time."
"The power of capitalism and the almighty greenback dollar, in Washington, District Of Columbia blue, and the power of the people and collectivism, in Soviet Kremlin red."
"I often wondered if that same troubled man ever realized that Washington was and would eventually become a district of Columbia."
"The Columbia of South America that is."
"I've often wondered as well, how it must have been for him and his upstart revolutionary brother, whose last name sounds much like an operation visited upon young boys of the church to remove one of their reproductive body parts which in essence gave them the falsetto and suprano vocal range they were known for, to watch all of their women go to work at the casinos, knowing that many of those women almost a year later, would be mothers of illegitimate heirs to many of the global elites of the time who enjoyed those casinos all the same."
"However, none of those elites would be around to support their discarded children, for they were protected men. Protected by their money. Their fancy cars. Their jets. Their security services. Their intelligence agencies and even their own organized crime in the form of the Mafia."
"Entire markets of family based businesses of blackmail would inevitably arrive. Their only hope for survival would be to attempt to draw money from the wealthy by claims of illegitimate children conceived by these men, who smoked their cigars and drank their liquor and screwed their women."
"I've also wondered how many of those claimants actually had legimitate children of these powerful wealthy elites, and how many had just conceived children with their neighbour, then realizing that they too could cash in on the lucrative hush money afforded to those who ran their own blackmail family businesses."
"There was no DNA testing back in that time, and with the lack of computers, you'd be lucky if you could get a matching fingerprint linking one of those wealthy elites to their sister's bedrooms or the casino's lavish hotel suites. 8mm motion film stock was a luxury only afforded to the rich, never mind the cost of the portable fifteen pound cameras that these blackmail families would have had to procure in order to get video evidence linking such elites to their sisters."
"For those who saved up for such luxuries, they often spent their film recording alleged sexual encounters with look-alikes of famous elites, hoping that they could instead of blackmail, lure the pubic's support against the rich and powerful by such claims as illegitimate children. It all occurred at a time when even the blackmailers themselves were corrupt, no longer capable of profiting from authentic blackmail alone."
"It makes me think about how this revolutionary could then muster the will and the people, to confront the forces of Fulgencio Batista, who had essentially attracted the rich to one of the poorest countries in the world, and then to liberate the people and economy from the growing trouble arising from family child support blackmail, Mafia ties, the coca leaf and an economy entirely dependent upon the arrival of the wages of sin on their shores. Then chase them all away, these rich and wealthy elites who were all too eager to spend their money, like fat dogs fleeing an overflowing food dish, scraps of meat still hanging froms their muzzles, their tails between their legs as they deftly scampered to get away without dropping one last precious scrap of the leftovers."
"I've often wondered how it was that in the middle of all of this, in a turmoil that led to the birth of red Cuba, that my mother survived and kept me sheltered from the aftermath of that turbulent time, that a revolutionary hero took Cuba's future into his own hands, and threw away what could have been trillions of dollars for South American people by now."
"Instead, my mother fled with the refugees back to South America and to Columbia, where she raised the illegitimate heir of one such global elite father."
"The true son of a global elite, and perhaps one of the most important of all. A secret she'd kept for her entire life, and all with only the incentive offered in preserving her life, facing the risk of her own assassination, for if such information had escaped her lips even just once, it would have been a vast fortune for someone else to sell that information to someone with connections, and that same greenback money would find its way to Columbia within a week, paying for her immediate death and the death of that same heir, with enough money for the assassin to retire wealthy for the rest of his inevitably short life, for the American institituion known as the company, very seldom left loose ends untied. Whether they'd have been single mothers or the would be assassins thereof."
"And yet, here I am, that very same son, looking at this revolutionary who chased my father from the country and made my mother flee her own home half-naked in the night, as his iconic face graces the cover of a book, where he's coveted as a national hero of not only Cuba, but the South American people from which he arose."
Alomera Constanza Zekestes thought to himself as he tossed the book he'd just finished reading, into a metal trash bin, spitting upon it a gruesome ball of phlegm after it had found its new home at the bottom of the pail.
"I've often thought, what twist of fate prevented me from being that man, that revolutionary, and he instead being born in my shoes to a poor struggling mother fleeing from the aftermath of his throwing the South American people to the wolves? If I'd have had the opportunities he'd thrown away, South America would now be the global leading economy of the world, and the United States would be eating out of our palms! The United Soviet Socialist Republic would be a heaping crater of nuclear slag, and the almighty greenback would rule the entire world over from a throne located in my home in South America. That same greenback, being my own puppet regime of course."
"But as fate would have it, I instead ended up with the shorter end of the stick, and my poor mother, a dancer at one of the casino shows, fled Cuba in the middle of the revolution, leaving everything she'd worked for, except me, to flee to an impoverished Columbia."
"If I'd have been able to walk when that had come to pass, I'd have beared arms against this revolutionary and his upstart, and rescued Batista from his downfall, even before I was able to speak the word: madre. That was when I was certain that the South American people had given birth to a fool of a revolutionary, and had thrown their future to the dogs and had instead chosen poverty over vast riches."
"Perhaps that is why I was born. To undo his gravest of crimes against the people of South America, for he'd jumped off of the cliff and into the ocean, taking everyone with him despite the fact that none of them had learned yet to swim. I on the other hand, was born of a man whose destiny it was to rule. To swim where the fishes sleep, and the sharks hunt. It is I who climbed the very same cliff from which that revolutionary upstart had pushed the South American people, and begat my own economy of sin, for the real power does not rest with those who sew their loins in carnal pleasures or the coca leaf. The real power lies with those who keep those secrets handy, and remind those whose secrets they are that their downfall is only ever a scandalous news story away. The one who keeps all of these secrets, is the keeper of all the power there is, for it is inevitable that those who have such secrets, often live their lives in the public in the appearances of being against such sins in the first place. I should know. I carefully crafted many of them myself. Having a polar dichotomy of contradictory ambitions and life fantasies doesn't happen by itself you know. It takes careful planning and years of guidance to make just one such powerful figure with all of the right contradictory extremes."
"Why you ask? Because, the power doesn't come from one being the good side, and one being the bad side. No, not at all. The power comes from the contradiction itself within one person, and so long as there is contradiction, it makes no difference which side they pretend to be, and which side their sins fall. The good man desires the bad fantasies, while the bad man desires the good fantasies. In each case however, the power over them occurs when there exists the threat of their peers and the public finding out the truth of this contradiction."
"The irony is that when faced with such an outcome and amongst those I've seen resigned to their fate in that way by my hands, it is usually the church that comes to their rescue, and that is the biggest contradiction of all. You see, they aren't there to save the soul of a falling man. They're there to reap the same profits from the opposite side of the fence that divides us, to keep that same failed investment of my time in play so that their church may profit from it all the same way. For me, seeing these men flee to the church as they run from me, is like looking in a mirror. They never realize that they fled the devil they knew in the guise of my former empire, to seek protection with the devil they don't. You see, we're both in the same business, and yet, we're mirrors of each other. Our empires built upon economies of sin."
Mr. Zek slowly fell asleep in the comfort of the best bed there was on the stern section of the vessel, just around the corner and across from engineering, where the constant low frequency rumble of even one of the quietest engines on an advanced destroyer refit was loud enough to mask all the conversation from the high tech monitoring capabilities of a modern Seawolf Submarine.
Mr. Zek from the moment his thoughts faded, fell soundly asleep despite the hidden threat of which he was unaware.
However, George Steadman, the man in charge of the bow end of the same destroyer refit known as the Many Faced Maiden was not so fortunate, and his late night conversation with Celeste was picked up by the instruments of that very same submarine, though not in realtime and as it occurred, for the waveforms associated with their speech had transitioned through numerous materials before it had arrived at the sonar detection array of the pursuing submarine.
The detection of vocal range information embedded in the sonar required the use of an advanced AI analysis system that had recently been integrated into the Seawolf's intelligence analysis suite during its last maintenance stop in Hawaii.
Instead, the operations proceeded with the collection of unspecified passive sonar data packaging which was then filed through this new AI analysis suite, taking some time itself to process, and filter out whale burps and dolphin farts, as the technicians often joked.
The Seawolf itself maintained its distance, a little over five hundred meters from what the Seawolf's Captain had presumed to be the electromagnetic stealth field, a magnetic shell of oblong toroidal shape that spanned the square magnitude of the ship's length divided by two.
The submarine maintained its position well outside of the Many Faced Maiden's penumbral of the wake, hence avoiding jet stream turbulence that may have compromised its silence during its continued surveillance mission.
George leaned back against the headboard, while Celeste was tucked between his right arm and his side, nuzzling up to the nape of his neck as they embraced in the moments after their recent but silent climax.
"You're quiet tonight..." Celeste broke the silence, as he threw back the last of his glass of brandy.
"Not much to say I guess. We have a plan. They, or rather, he inevitably has a plan. The men have been... somewhat withdrawn as well," George responded, though it wasn't so much that he was speaking in a way that indicated he was bidding for her encouragement, as much so as he was actually quite unsure of what to do.
While running Future Tangent Industries, under his alias of Greg Warley, he'd often encountered many times where the entire company had seemed to move in slow motion. As if in his administering of policies meant to animate the company at an ever increased pace, one more endearing to the shareholders, it was that his own sense of patience had become a liability. His acceptance of the fact that some things were in motion that were beyond his ability to affect, seemed absent, and yet he had become incapable of action.
To him, it felt more like the term resigned, as in resigned to the eventual outcome, or resigned to the fact that he had to wait. That he, the man at the head of the ship had been forced like every other sailor onboard to wait as their plans, his plans transitioned from intent towards action and eventually: completion.
Like Cora Hau.
"They are busy making what you put into place happen. There is nothing left to do but to wait," she responded, despite what little he'd revealed.
"Losing half of the ship and half of the crew like that was a big blow. Only weeks ago, we were in their territory, when we passed through the Panama canal. He's one of them, and they have this secretive allegiance to one another that fills the trust gap when the money isn't there. They all remember him and knew him well when he was on top of the world. There's no amount of money I could have paid my crew - the defectors - that would have prevented this, and I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating that is. I knew the risks when we passed through the canal, but because I had so many successes in breaking him initially, I let my guard down. I'm paying for it now," Steadman reached over to the bucket on his night table and pulled a bottle of whiskey from it.
"There's no glasses. Would you like me to go get some?"she asked him as he unscrewed the cap.
By the time she'd gotten the words from her mouth, he was already taking a deep swig, his eyes momentarily watered and he offered the bottle to her.
She sat up, releasing his side as she took a tiny sip from the bottle, coughing a little afterward.
"Ohhh, that's harsh..." she joked as her eyes too watered like his.
"...its the only way I'm going to get some sleep," he responded, rubbing her back as she leaned over and put the bottle in a bucket on the night table on her side of the bed.
"I've got an idea. Why don't you get on your stomach and I'll give you a massage that you'll never forget... Captain," she smiled at him seductively.
He sat somewhat emotionless for a few moments, and then a smile crept onto his face as the whiskey caught up.
"If you put it that way..." Steadman rolled over onto his stomach, tucking the pillow under his head as she crawled onto his back.
Then, she gave him a massage that he'd never forget.
Border Politics
Tellner stood guard in the corridor that connected the crew quarters and galley to the systems suite and intelligence data center of the aging destroyer refit. His hands were both firmly on his Heckler & Koch SMG as he kept his eyes firmly upon the corresponding guard, one of Zek's own, facing him on the other side of the junction.
Tellner eyed the man carefully, ensuring that the man before him was the same man he'd been tasked to shadow. This particular man and one of Zek's guards was another member of the boarding party that had helped Mr. Zek to take the stern section of the ship known as the Many Faced Maiden only a couple of days earlier.
At the last pre-duty briefing that Tellner had attended, they'd already uncovered eleven of them, and were using the names of bad guys from old Clint Eastwood Spaghetti westerns to uniquely refer to each of them. When combined with the security camera data they'd been able to gain of each of their faces, through their satellite network feed, they'd quickly ascertained the identity of each of the men, their level of training not to mention their criminal history or connections to rebel guerrillas in the Latin America region, and all through the wonders of OSINT. At this point in time, (Bow Captain) George Steadman and his nemesis, (Stern Captain) Alomera Constanza Zekestes were both two of the most wanted men on the face of the Earth.
In the days that had passed since the mutiny had taken half ot the ship, Steadman's special tactics team had collected enough field intelligence about all of Mr. Zek's guards and the timing of their shifts, matching it with their skill level to develop a very effective counter-insurgent track-and-match strategy that allowed the special tactics team to utilize its own human resources much more efficiently, while mainting its ability to provide effective deterence.
As a result of having these extra human resource assets, the team had been able to install hidden motion sensors and even a few encrypted micro-cameras, well into Zek controlled decks of the ship without the knowledge of any of Zek's team. They'd effectively covered the areas surrounding the side of the data center that was under Zek's control, but were unable to get any intel at or near the data center itself, given the density and frequency of Zek's guard rotations.
Tellner kept his face stern and in the direction of the guard, without ever looking at his eyes directly. He then relaxed his stance slightly, and looked to the left and right of the junction, and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket on his combat webbing. He carefully removed the shrinkwrap from the cigarette package and a waft of fresh tobacco made its way across the cooridor and into the nose of Zek's corresponding guard. Tellner observed that the man's expression had changed ever so slightly as he man shifted his stance.
Tellner then opened the pack and from it pulled the foil wrapper and a cigarette, popping it into his mouth as he pocketed the foil and wrapper. He then searched his webbing with his free hand for a lighter, taking nearly half a minute before he finally gave up.
"Sh#t. Its in my other kit," he said aloud, the tension between the two guards dropping ever so slightly.
Zek's guard, whom they'd labeled as Terrill (from The Outlaw Josey Wales), reached into the pocket of his trousers. When he pulled his hand out again, brandishing a well used cheap plastic lighter, Tellner quickly leveled his SMG on the man before Terrill even had time to react.
"Easy pendejo. Its just fuego..." Terrill responded, slightly taken back in contrast to the peace of moments earlier.
"Huh? Oh, you mean fire. Gotcha. Sorry man," Tellner responded, lowering his MP5.
Terrill waited a second, and then stepped forward, across the junction and lit Tellner's cigarette for him.
Tellner took a few puffs, warming up the heater.
"Thanks. I guess with the situation and all, that things are a little tense you know. I appreciate it," Tellner nodded to Terrill.
There was no response from Terrill as he returned to his side of the borderline. A few moments passed as Tellner enjoyed his cigarette and the junction filled with fragrant smoke, and then Terrill finally spoke again.
"Are those Brasas Suaves?" asked Terrill of Tellner.
"One and the same. Been smoking 'em since Panama. Not my usual brand, but pretty awesome nonethess," Tellner took another puff.
"...you have another? Morta, pendejo?" asked Terrill.
"Death? What?! Oh, you mean the cigarette. Ha! That's funny. We call 'em coffin nails. Why, you want one?" asked Tellner.
"...if you got 'em camarada," Terrill replied.
Tellner reached into the same pocket of his combat webbing and pulled forth the pack, tossing them to Terrill.
Terrill caught them, and pulled one from the pack and put it in his mouth and then lit it.
"Sorry?" Tellner responded, unsure of what Terrill had just said to him.
"I owe you one. Gracias... pendejo," Terrill responded, handing Tellner the pack.
"Keep 'em. We got tons of 'em," Tellner responded casually.
"Ok... if you insist..." Terrill nodded to Tellner, addressing Tellner as if he'd lost his mind.
A few moments passed, and Terrill softened up a bit more.
"Respect..." Terrill added a moment later.
"Respect," Tellner took a puff of his smoke and nodded back at Terrill.
"These are my brand you know... I ran out yesterday. Nobody's got any. I'll be everyone's friend tonight until I run out," Terrill seemed relieved as he inhaled, his earlier tension having all but disappeared.
"Then lets keep this our little secret. The last thing I need is Steadman breathing down my f#cking neck," Tellner replied.
"I heard he's a bit of burro," Terrill added.
"A what?" asked Tellner.
"A donkey... you know, an ass?" Terrill explained to Tellner.
"Ahhhh... burro... Yep, he's a real work, that one... uhhh travajo I mean," Tellner elaborated.
"Alright. We keep this between you and me," Terrill nodded in agreement.
"Do that, and I'll bring an extra pack for you on my next shift, in sixteen hours," Tellner responded.
"Same here. That's my next shift too. Alright pendejo, you've got a deal," Terrill nodded, loosening up his stance a bit as he enjoyed his cigarette.
"We just need a bottle... Don't tell me you got that too, pendejo?" Terrill added casually, perhaps even jokingly.
"Lots, but lets just start with the Morta first, and we'll take it from there," Tellner smiled.
"Sixteen hours," Terrill agreed.
A few minutes later, Miller showed up to relieve Tellner from his shift.
Nothing was said beyond that point, but the first thing that Tellner did when he got back to his cabin was to requisition another carton of Brasas Suaves from the supply officer, who'd been instructed to give the special tactics team anything that they wanted.
"Been smoking quite a bit Tellner. Perhaps you should cut down?" Lieutenant Swanson remarked to Tellner as he retrieved a carton from the supply cabinet, tossing it to Tellner.
"Mind your own f#cking business - Sir - " Tellner responded sharply.
"If you weren't on Steadman's good side, I'd have some of the sailors round you up and toss you into the drink. When that protection ends, you've got some enemies here," Lieutenant Swanson reminded Tellner.
"I'll be waiting," Tellner responded, unphazed by Swanson's threat.
Tellner then threw the carton of cigarettes into his rucksack and returned to his crew cabin, where after removing his boots, he jumped into his bunk and found his digital device, which he'd buried under his pillow, and resumed reading from the point he'd left off.
The Voices In The Waves
In the eerily quiet Seawolf, Captain Spiers sat in his office, a tiny cabin with a desk that doubled as a kitchen table during the various meal times, and a meeting space for one on one sessions with his crew. Everything aboard a Seawolf, let alone any naval bathyspheric device was a matter of spatial management, and with the exception of the power source, atmospheric maintenance, engines, sensory suite and ordnance, every cubic foot of the sub was carefully designed and tasked for multiple purposes as the most valuable commodity on a sub, next to air, was real estate.
On this occasion, Spiers had been going over the crew shift rotations provided him by his first officer, paying close attention to any matters involving the data center and intelligence suite. Once he'd ensured that the shifts were as required, noting specifically the crew roster on those rotations, he signed off on them one by one with a tiny biometric scanner built into the desktop tablet system integrated into his desk. With each tap of the tip of his index finger, the shifts for another section of the sub were approved, and this data was relayed both to the first officer, and a data buffer that upon their surfacing, would be transmitted to Naval Intelligence with a variety of other intelligence and telemetric data.
A red light began flashing from the upper corner of his desktop tablet, but no sound accompanied the notification, as Captain Spiers had ordered the Seawolf to operate under the standing orders: silent hunter, which was code that the systems and the crew were required to maintain silence as the sub was operating utilizing sensitive sonar intelligence gathering operations. Any sounds produced on the sub itself could potentially infect the data with side-channel noise, that is, information present in a given channel source that is not relevent to the information being specifically isolated for analysis.
Despite the fact that the analysis systems of the Seawolf were state of the art, based upon GCN (Generationally Cooperative Networks), MLFSS (Multilayered Fractal Self Similarity) and DLLMs (Dynamic Large Language Models), any side-channel noise infecting a channel source could potentially increase the processing time logarithmically or in the worst case, exponentially and this was based upon how close to actual entropy versus information such noise ventured. There was a sweet spot between the two. Information and entropy. The closer that noise was to the halfway point between the two, the longer it took any AI system to process, and that factor increased (either logarithmically or exponentially) based upon the variety of side-channel noise and its offset from the sweet spot.
At this point, Captain Spiers knew that they had a finite timespan within which to discern as much intelligence data from within their target structure as possible before he'd be required to give the order to sink the vessel entirely. He knew that this eventuality involved sacrificing lives, some of whom were their own.
Despite the fact that running under such strict orders posed a psychological cost to the crew and morale, who were not aware that the target vessel carried their own. Others of sworn duty and ideals to the same or similar oath that they'd all made upon their enlistment and training. For Captain Spiers, the order and cost of running so quietly despite the strain upon morale and psychology was a matter of heart, but it was one that the science and mathematics of side-channel noise, information and entropy backed overwhelmingly.
After fading and locking the tablet display, Captain Spiers stood from his desk and stepped out into the central corridor (the main lane as submariners referred to it in slang, a reference to bowling), making his way the short distance along the length of the Seawolf, ironically, in the same direction as their target, the Many Faced Maiden, and to the data center.
When he arrived, his intelligence officers were already gathered around the tablular display, ready to brief him. One of them greeted him with a hand sign based upon a military/naval modified version of sign language.
"As you were, gentlemen. Lieutenant Wendell? Perhaps you'd care to start," Captain Spiers signed back to them, knowing that Lieutenant Wendall would be best to elaborate, seeing as his own sister had been born deaf at birth, hence he'd already a natural inclination with sign language and human expression.
"Right Sir. INGRID has finished the first sonar analysis and its a difficult situation. As you already know, the Gearing class destroyer has a bigger powertrain given the fact that they increased its length and altered the design of the keel significantly over stability issues involving manouverability and the deployment of its various ordnance. This particular refit has replaced one of the 127mm turrets with a helipad, but from what we've been able to gather, the crew operating it are not fully trained on its capabilities, which first of all means that they don't know how to deploy the aerial sonar buoy, thankfully..." Lieutenant Wendell signed to Captain Spiers as the other intelligence analysts observed.
Captain Spiers breathed a sigh of relief.
"That's certainly good news, so where's the difficulty Lieutenant?" Captain Spiers wanted to know everything regarding the challenges to their mission.
"Sir, a bigger powertrain versus the dimensions of the ship means a different acoustic resonance, both in terms of passive and active systems, both theirs and our own. Especially sonar. The engine is operating under minimal stress, but always kept between a quarter to half speed between the daylight hours, and close to flank speed at night, and we're assuming that the reason for this is connected to their stealth package, which appears to be based entirely upon electromagnetism. The kind of stuff that gave Nicolai Tesla wet dreams," Lieutenant Wendell continued.
"Go on sailor," Captain Spiers pressed his officer.
"We started our analysis at the tail end of their daylight schedule for their operating velocity, and from what we were able to gather versus their night time velocity of full speed, the engine is generating a resonance that prevents us from being able to discern speech originating from the the stern. However, there has been a large amount of detectable speech originating from the bow of the ship, and it seems that their crew is divided..." Lieutenant Wendell paused as Captain Spiers interrupted him.
"I'm sorry Lieutenant, you said divided?" confirmed Captain Spiers.
"Yes Sir, as in there's a situation involving an attempted mutiny and from what we've been able to gather, the ship is roughly split between two crews and two Captains. One in control of the bridge, one in control of engineering and the engines," Lieutenant Wendell explained to Spiers in sign language.
"Have we any crew transcripts yet?" askd Captain Spiers.
"Yes and no. We don't have any full conversations yet, but we have a few names, and this is where things get a little scary..." Lieutenant Wendell explained to him.
"Don't keep us waiting Lieutenant," Captain Spiers urged his intelligence officer.
"Sir. The ship is being run by one George Steadman also known as Greg Warley. A man who is near the top of the FBI's and RCMP's most wanted list," Lieutent Wendell signed.
"He's the...?" Captain Spiers signed back to Wendell in question.
"The Captain of the bow section of the ship. He's struggling to keep control of the ship from the mutineers who seem to occupy the stern section Sir," Lieutent Wendell explained.
"So who's Captain of the stern?" grilled Captain Spiers with his hands.
"The most wanted man on the FBI's, RCMP's and Europol's own lists: Alomera Constanza Zekestes..." Lieutenant Wendell signed in response.
"I'll be damned. As of this moment, these details and any other intelligence you uncover is protected under the Official Secrets Act of the United States Navy and classed as TOP SECRET. No details of INGRID's findings thus far are to leave this room, nor any of you. Do you understand?" Captain Spiers asked his analysts.
Each of them signed in compliance with Spiers' order except for Wendell.
"But Sir, we were given this assignment with orders to report directly to Admiral Harris in the event of..." Wendell signed in response to Spiers' request.
"Not even Admiral Harris. You all report directly to me with regard to any issue or intelligence related to this assignment from this point forward," Captain Spiers made it very clear, however silently they spoke.
"Sir, what if Admiral Harris gives us a direct order to divulge the intelligence related to this assisgnment? He was the one who gave us our orders in the first place," Wendell responded with a good question considering Captain Spiers' order.
"In the event that Admiral Harris, or anyone else up the chain of command approaches you seeking information related to this assisgnment, you're to tell them that no significant intelligence relating to personnel or the activities on board the vessel was found. That's a direct order from the highest ranking officer on this vessel. Now resume to your duties and report directly to me any additional findings. We'll meet again after shift three," with his orders clear, Captain Spiers left the data center and made his way back to his office, where he used one of the ship's pagers to summon the commanding officer of Naval Police Intelligence.
Lieutenant Moorsby arrived a few minutes later in response to the summons.
"Reporting as requested, Sir," Lieutenant Moorsby saluted his Captain.
"At ease Lieutenant. I need you to put together a small undercover security team to keep an eye on our analyst team. I want a list of everyone they speak with on and off duty, including any communications that occur from their devices or the devices of the rooms they're occupying at that time, including the devices of other sailors and officers present in the same room. This team is to remain undercover and report to you with this information, every other shift, after which point you'll forward it to me. Understood?" asked Captain Spiers.
"Aye Captain. I'll take care of that right now, Sir," Lieutenant Moorsby replied.
"Very well. Dismissed," Captain Spiers set the man to upon the task he'd explained and without hesitation, Lieutenant Moorsby left.
When he was alone again, the Captain began drawing up a message that would be sent upon their next scheduled report to Naval Central Command in a day's time.
The Path To Treadwater Island
"As a young man living in Columbia, in one of the poorest villages during the early nineteen-seventies, I started working to support our household from the age of twelve. I'd earned myself a full-time job with very modest pay through a series of fortunate events for a small unfortunate family like mine. At the time, I'd been a jobber, a child who does odd jobs for the local farmers and markets, mostly as a runner, carrying orders and messages between suppliers and retailers."
"During one of my runs, I stumbled upon a rather valuable piece of jewelry, and pocketed it without taking the time to examine it. When I got home after earning a few cents for the day, and a bag full of corn flour as pay, while my mother cooked our meal, I examined the jewelry I'd found."
"As it turned out, it was a family heirloom of considerable value, not only sentimentally but financially as well. If I'd tried to sell it, I probably could have gotten the equivalent of one American dollar for it at that time. A year's wage for me, which was a considerable amount of money for a poor family. In examining the piece however, I quickly recognized its symbol as the logo of one of the wealthiest coffee plantations in Columbia. The Tesoro Oro Coffee Company."
"With barely a full belly, I left the next day and walked six hours to that same plantation from our three room mudbrick home in the village. After my long hike, arriving there in the late afternoon, I first set foot into the worker dispatch. A musty and barely kept office, which was the place they'd hire (and pay) their daily labour. Those who toiled in the fields for up to fourteen hours a day given the high demand (and global price) of coffee at that time."
I walked up to the dispatch window barely tall enough to see over the counter and addressed the clerk:
[I'm here for the reward.]
"Estoy aquà por la recompensa," I said to the clerk.
[The reward for what? What work did you do? You're a little young to be here!]
One I'd never thought would occur as I'd literally found it a few steps away from our village market, sticking out from beneath the bags of a coffee shipment that lay in wait in a staging area used by the local transport company to pickup produce bound for the port.
[You don't and I can't prove that I didn't. If I was stealing it, why would I bring it back?]
[You could have stolen it, and brought it back for a reward?]
"¿PodrÃas haberlo robado y traerlo de vuelta para obtener una recompensa?" the man replied, at which point the supervisor, a somewhat meek and soft talking frame of a man came over to the dispatch window and pushed the mean man away.
[I will give you twenty pesos for it right now. No questions asked.]
"Te lo doy veinte pesos ahora mismo, sin hacer preguntas." the supervisor offered, pulling the money from his pocket and counting it out for me on the spot.
It wasn't the fortune for which I'd been hoping, but it would feed both my mother and I for a couple of months, not to mention that we could cut down on our day's work and look for other more promising means to support our meagre family.
At that point in time, I had no concept of how business was done. Most transactions were set in stone as far as I my experience had told me. I had no sense of my own worth or the worth of my work, and I had no sense that what I had to offer might be more valuable than what I was offered.
[Alright. Here...]
"Está bien. AquÃ..." I reached into my pocket and handed the piece to the supervisor, who examined it closely as the dispatcher looked over his shoulder.
[It was nice doing business with you.]
"Fue agradable hacer negocios contigo." the supervisor said to me, pocketing the jewelry and making his way to one of the offices in the back.
And that was my very first business deal. A deal in which I was told less than fifteen minutes later, was a travesty where I'd undersold myself and what I had to offer.
As I walked to the door counting my money, the supervisor had stepped into the office of Señor Tesoro himself, the owner of both the plantation and Tesoro Oro, Columbia's biggest provider of coffee in the region.
The dispatcher, who despite being a very mean and feisty fellow, seemingly did not trust the supervisor, and so when the supervisor had stepped into the office for a meeting with Señor Tesoro, the dispatcher listened just outside of the door.
It seems that the supervisor told Señor Tesoro that he'd found a lost piece of family jewelry, and thought that it would be best to return it directly to him.
Señor Tesoror was so taken aback by the return of this family heirloom, that he rewarded the supervisor with five hundred dollars American. A vast fortune at the time. Señor Tesoro was the nineth generation to have inherited the piece that had been returned to him, and his own Granddaughter was in line to receive it next.
With it having been lost, an important connection to his family history had been broken. A family who'd from the poorest of conditions, had grown their business through hard work and dedication, for nine generations from which point they'd broken free of the chains of poverty, and become a source for their people as much so as they were for each other.
However, given the superstition prevalent at that time, Señor Tesoro was worried sick not only for his entire family, but their family business and their future in Columbia, for to lose an important heirloom like that, one that was worn by his own nine generations earlier, was a very bad omen. Hence, the reward he'd given the supervisor for the return of such a valuable piece of his family history.
The supervisor would enjoy his windfall for all of ten minutes, the length of time it took for the dispatcher to explain what had truly happened.
As I counted the money that would sustain my small family for months, the supervisor counted a fortune that would make him a comfortably wealthy man in Columbia, in addition to the pay he received as the supervisor of labour.
During that time, just after the supervisor had left, the dispatcher had requested a meeting with Señor Tesoro, who was initially quite defensive of the supervisor when confronted with the truth.
Señor Tesoro got to his feet and walked with the dispatcher to the front of the building, where I was still double and triple counting my money. I couldn't believe how much I had as I'd never seen that much money in one place before. Like the man who has never traveled, that still believes the local foothills to be mountains.
The dispatcher approached me, and I backed away from him cautiously, still wary of him and his somewhat frightening demeanor. When Señor Tesoro stepped forward, I had no idea who he was. I thought that maybe they'd changed their mind and were going to take the money from me, so I quickly pocketed it and defied them:
[Don't take it please! We really need it to survive.]
"¡No te lo lleves, por favor! Realmente lo necesitamos para sobrevivir." I said to him reproachfully yet pleadingly.
[Where did you get this money?]
"¿De dónde sacaste este dinero?" asked Señor Tesoro of me, in a calm and confident manner, that was both commanding and endearing at the same time.
[I was given a reward for some jewelry I found. I recognized the symbol on it, and so I brought it directly here.]
I immediately pointed to the supervisor, who too had just finished counting his money and pocketed it just as I pointed to him.
[I'm sorry, but I'm going to need that money back.]
"Lo siento, pero voy a necesitar que me devuelvan ese dinero." Señor Tesoro demanded of me, without raising his voice or being imposing.
He simply said it as if it was the right thing to do. As if there some aspect of being that was out of place, and that by my giving him that money, it would be fixed.
So I did as he requested. Never having been swindled in my life, I had no awareness that such things could happen. Like the man who gives up food out of his own mouth to feed a wild animal. There is no knowledge of the danger in it until the first time you're bitten.
Señor Tesoro took the money and walked back to the office and directly over to the supervisor, who smiled gratefully to Señor Tesoro as he approached.
[Something has come to my attention, and I'm going to need the money I just gave you.]
"Me ha llamado la atención algo y voy a necesitar el dinero que acabo de darte." Señor Tesoro demanded of the supervisor.
The supervisor's reaction and hostility was immediate.
[This little thief stole it, and I managed to get it back from him for you! Look at him! He's filth from one of the market villages!]
"No me hagas preguntarte una segunda vez." Señor Tesoro said calmly as the hefty dispatcher folded his arms and began tapping his foot as they waited for him to comply.
A half minute passed before the supervisor reached into his pocket and handed Señor Tesoro the entire stack of money.
Señor Tesoro handed the supervisor the money he'd given to me, all twenty pesos of it.
[Get out of my sight. You are no longer employed here. If I see you around here again, I will call for the guards.]
The supervisor spat at me as he left, but I quickly dodged it.
[This belongs to you. There is no virtue whose true value surpasses honesty. I would like to offer your family employment here with my company. How many of you are there?]
"Esto es de ustedes. No hay virtud cuyo valor real supere a la honestidad. Me gustarÃa ofrecerle a su familia empleo aquà en mi empresa. ¿Cuántos son ustedes?" Señor Tesoro asked me and I told him that it was my mother and I.
From that point onward, our living standards were much better, and my mother was now the supervisor for the plantation labour.
While I worked in the fields until I was seventeen, the dispatcher, whose name was Wenceslao, became like a mentor to me. A father. A real man who had no connection to me other than the fact that when I was at my most vulnerable, despite he not being related to me by blood, he came to my rescue and changed the entire course of my future and my mother's. My blood father however, had fled before I'd even learned to walk and from that point in time, had never tried to find me. Not even once.
That is when I learned that family is a concept that goes beyond the people to whom you're directly related, for a man unrelated to me saved our lives, while my father of blood relation fled from us to escape scandal and save his own hide.
It was at Tesoro Oro that I learned about the value of what I had to offer, and that when you are ambitious, that there are people who will conspire to take it from you at your disadvantage.
Those who chase money the hardest, looking for the quickest and easiest scam to get it, whether by hook or crook, most often fall the hardest. However, a group of such people all motivated by the same desire, can and are quite often very dangerous to the persistently ambitious person who is true to their motivations.
When you are surrounded by such people, it pays to be cautious at every step. Be seen and known from a distance, so that you're not secretly devoured and disappear.
For every one that admired me my honesty and for what I'd done that got my mother and I hired, and for our hard work thereafter, there were three who grew jealous of me and my ambition, working together to take it and every opportunity for themselves.
It was in this environment that I remained hard working and humble, rarely but sometimes responding to it, while my mother was ever the diplomat, knowing how to keep the peace. This made her a trusted lady at the company, while I was an often scrutinized man, others cautious of my ambition.
Life's Passing
When I was seventeen, my mother became very sick and died shortly thereafter. It all happened quickly, and I was suddenly alone, except for Wenceslao and Señor Tesoro who too had fallen ill.
In the five years that had passed since my appointment with fate, I had become a well regarded employee of the company, working the fields as hard if not harder than others, just to quench my ambition and my propensity for challenging myself.
Other workers let it be known that they were not keen for my work ethic, and often did everything they could to slow me down. There were a few occasions where I ran into traps setup for me in the fields I worked, but thankfully I was never seriously injured. That didn't mean that working in the fields was becoming easier as I got older. It meant that others were getting more and more apprehensive of my ambition, and working more and more together to put a stop to it.
Because my mother was the supervisor, they couldn't promote me for political reasons, and despite my hard work, there was nowhere else to go in the company. It wasn't until that dark day that my mother passed away that things took a sharp turn.
At that point Señor Tesoro too had grown ill, and knew he was approaching the end of his tenure if not his life. So he summoned his Granddaughter to his bed and gave her the heirloom and with it, full command over the Tesoro Oro Coffee Company of Columbia.
It was at that point that my detractors went forward to Ursula, the Granddaughter heir of Tesoro Oro and urged her to have me fired, in order to ensure that I was not hired into the position of dispatcher, assuming that Wenceslao would be promoted to labour supervisor. By this point Señor Tesoro was barely able to communicate and so there was only Wenceslao to speak up in my favour, and to a new boss who had no familiarity with any of the workers or the management.
Naturally, she folded to the masses and fired me from the company in the interest of good labour relations and keeping them on her side. Wenceslao was promoted to the senior position thankfully, and one of the labourers was promoted to dispatch shortly before I was shown the door.
With all of those losses still weighing on my weary soul, I drove home, still protected by our savings and from the last of my earned wage. When I arrived in the upper middle class area of the village, there was a man, very well dressed, accompanied by two large men waiting for me outside of my front door.
My first thought was that someone from the Casino my mother had fled when I was a child, had sent someone to finish the job and tie up all the loose ends that could potentially lead back to and damn the good name of my elitist father.
However, as it turned out, it was someone connected to something with many friends at home, and many enemies and customers abroad. Someone who had come to make me an offer that I simply couldn't refuse and one that I took out of desperation, being a young and able bodied man who was unemployed.
The Real Tesoro
Ten years later and at the age of twenty-seven, and I was living a lavish life that I never thought to be possible, residing in an estate in the historic Columbian city of Barranquilla.
Tesoro Oro was a distant memory, like the small Columbian village it was as seen from the rearview mirror of a Cadillac Eldorado, as you drive the mortal highways of your life. The ethic of hard work in a coffee field stuck with me, but not the self-righteous social caste of those collectivized enough to damn themselves to a life of eternal poverty, cannibalizing anyone else they saw striving to or living above their own standards.
Like the fools who are seated near a grand feast of a buffet, and yet only nibble at the crumbs out of their own self imposed fear. That however, is not the worst travesty of their ways. Not by a long shot.
Their worst comes in the form that they are like an angry group of trolls living under the bridge, quickly jumping on and devouring anyone else who sets in to gorge themselves at that same buffet. Those who would live to their highest potential and enjoy such a feast as is the greatest gift of all and the highest praise to any god, and one they got entirely for free: life itself.
Those who espouse their humbleness before their god or gods, and yet spit in their god's face by making demands of everyone else in the name of that god all while squandering that gift and then barring the way for the rest of us here living this life for the feast.
In a heart beat then taking the words with which I liberate others, and repurposing them to appear from the mouths of their prophetic icons. Those not of humbleness or humility, but of the most oppressive of standards and ambition that they are.
Like the very chains that bind their souls.
Those chains appear like vines ripe with fruit and life, but in fact are the thorns of the very essence restraining one's being and full potential.
And though these thoughts and words make up the breadth of my story and experience as I see it now, from the stern of a cabin in a ship of war, riding the waves of the Pacific Ocean, back then, I felt the very same way.
However, the reasoning involved between my feelings then and now is very, very different.
Back then, I felt guilty for the life I was living. That there were people employed at hotels and the various establishments that I frequented who were paid to hold doors for me and people like me. To make sure that the floors which my foot fall found were spotless. People paid to carry my luggage. People paid to drive me to the various destinations that I had to attend throughout my busy day, and then to the most popular Barranquilla discos at night. There was an entire infrastructure built around making sure that everything I was required to do throughout the course of a day, happened smoothly, if only to keep the highest profit export from nineteen-eighties Columbia flowing to the rest of the world.
They were all paid to keep my path obstacle free, every hour of every day, all of Columbia's yes men. They lived their lives safely and provided for their families, many of them living well above the standard simply for their humble ability to be agreeable. To never question what it was I was doing, or who I was doing it with.
"As long as the day's work was going, so would Columbian money keep flowing," so the poem went.
While all of these humble yes men took their earnings and nurtured families, never breathing a word of what they heard and saw along the way, while men like me, in our twenties and thirties, built business connections in the day, and partied like there was no tomorrow throughout the night. The following day, we would all wake up at six in the morning and do it all again.
The difference between us being that these yes men, as they approached their retirement, were surrounded by people they loved and who loved them. Their wealth of life both arising from their sense of duty to Columbia, its people and economy, but most of all to their families. They were the real country of Columbia.
While I and everyone one of us managers had little to show as we got older and older. The partying started to get old, and yet we continued to lie to ourselves. Convince ourselves that we were enjoying it all.
In all truth, I was not as different from those collectivist trolls, the ones who thought life was about preventing everyone else from enjoying the feast, and cannabilizing everyone else who did, for at the end of the day, neither them nor us had anything truly of substance to underline the fact that we had been here and done remarkable things.
They'd continued to be a miserable collective of people living on the edge of poverty and making everyone else with ambition feel guilty for it, their eyes always on the buffet, wondering what it would have been like. I often wonder how many of the dreams of others they'd dashed in their miserable lives, our only last laugh being the fact that the buffet was never meant for them at all.
I on the other hand, had tried every dish at least once, and many of them numerous times, enjoying them each a different way, with a different glass of wine or fine whiskey in hand each time, and washing it all down with illustrious desserts, often of soft red lips, modestly rounded breasts and pale skin of the women I adored pressed up against mine as we climaxed.
Despite these many joys and pleasures, in the end, it was the yes men, those who worked every day of their lives regardless of the humble pie they were often served, who had the truest treasure of all.
When I started considering these ideas, I thought I was on a much different road. A road to becoming aware.
I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong.
The Marketplace
You see, being a "manager", ensuring that our number one export remained that way, came with some hidden responsibilities, but as such, they had to be attended to directly on occasion and by someone from upper management. Someone like myself.
Sometimes the shipping was a problem. People get foolish and lazy. They make mistakes, like missing cargo. Missing couriers. Missing product. Like a leaky faucet in the residence of a well maintained luxury home.
Sometimes it was the receiving end. Sometimes there were issues with accounts payable. Money not making it to the right accounts. Money we'd received suddenly going missing. Money we'd not received at all.
In this particular case and one that required my presence, according to the Gran Maestro, the guy who ran this whole enterprise, there was a problem both with the customer receiving the product, and as a result, a problem with accounts receivable. A discrepancy as they called it. Product going out, but no matching financials coming in. The customer claiming that they'd not received it at all.
Now most problems of that nature were usually handled by a man specialized in dealing with such matters. One who'd come up on the streets and like me, had earned his way into the ranks of management, though this particular fellow handled things in a much more violent and less discriminating way. He was the hombre de iniciativa, a man of action. He was known as El Tormenta, meaning quite literally: The man who was a tempest, a storm, and not such a pleasant one at that, but on this particular occasion and much like those seasonal hurricanes, he only wreaked havoc upon those who'd skipped payment at his behest.
On this particular occasion, El Tormenta was not available, for he was indisposed with a señorita, presumably in some other part of the world. The one thing I've found is, that if people earn a meagre wage, they are almost always easily found within a short distance of where they live. This however, is not the case with those on the other end of the income scale, and those with money could most often be found anywhere but home. And so it was I whom the Gran Maestro referred to as an alternative, and he contacted me about a problem.
You see, shipping our product worldwide could be a very complicated process, and one that required many stopgap solutions, as our business wasn't built by manpower alone, but rather, built by the strength of manpower, but only made possible by the power of logistics, the most unheralded technology of humankind and one that had transformed our civilization since the supply lines of the Romans. The distribution networks of the Ottomans. The trade networks of the Silk Road. The global trade network of the British, and of course, the conquests of the Spanish.
There is only one way to run a global empire, and that is with the power of logistics. Logistics however, like any complex machine, needs essential parts to operate, and in the case of El Tormenta's absence, I became the mechanic of that great machine. The mechanic of our Latin American logistics and a fitting one given the nature of our coffee bean empire and my experience from the lowest ranks, working the fields of just such an empire.
Hencely so, within hours of the awareness of the El Tormenta's absence, Gran Maestro arranged for myself and a support team a flight to Costa Rica, en route to Juan SantamarÃa International Airport, and under employ directly as one of Gran Maestro's troubleshooters.
The flight, my first ever was magnificent, as I had never seen the vestiges of the Earth from the air. Looking down upon the tiny empires of man, like a god from above, I spent most of the flight with my nose pressed against the window as the coastline and ocean beneath us sprawled to the distant gradient of her curvature.
For most of the flight, I was lost, for I had never taken the time to appreciate cartography, let alone a map, most of my education having come from the volumes of books I read during my off hours. Those nights that I hadn't spent intoxicated both on liquor and the sound of big bands and their repertoire of latin music. Maps had seldom played a part in my education until that flight had awakened within me a fascination for the possibilities of a world beneath my feet. At that moment on the flight, quite literally.
The vast coastline that spanned the entirety of my flight remained mostly at the apex of my vision. Barely visible, I imagined what lay beyond these coastline cities. The hard working people of Columbia were buried somewhere beneath the canopy of coniferous trees that lined the country side, and beyond its borders were other peoples of South America, they too caught up in their daily toil, all while I flew above them, like a silent overseer of whom none were aware.
When the flight had started, I initially found myself struggling with a case of anxiety, arising from the fear that the aircraft might simply fall from the sky midflight, but as I consumed more and more drinks, those fears escaped me entirely and I was only left aware of possibility. That was the one thing that stuck with me after the flight, because everything else that happened beyond that point was an intense education in fear, and I had not been aware how dangerous a business the distribution of coffee could be.
The trip from the Juan SantamarÃa Airport to our neutral meeting ground, which was to take place in a meeting room at the Gran Hotel, took forty minutes during the late morning traffic. A time over which I sobered up considerably, drinking fruit juice as we made our way through the traffic by limousine, the rest of my team riding in a line of Cadillacs that trailed us.
When it was upon us, or rather, we were upon it, I saw what had been keeping us from achieving our schedule. It was a spot check, being run by local Police, one of whom tapped on the driver's window, then beckoning the man to show his license and registration.
The driver opened the glove box and from within, pulled forth an envelope, bulging with bill folds of the Costa Rican Colón. The driver then took a small stack of paper money from the envelope and pocketed it for himself, handing the rest to the Police Officer. The Police Officer examined the envelope, thumbing quickly through the money until he was certain there was enough to cover his asking fee. He then nodded and gestured to the driver, who proceeded into the downtown core without any further scrutiny.
It was at that moment that I began to suspect that things were not as they seemed, and I inquired to the driver as to what his previous transaction was about.
[It was his fee. We're on his turf you know. If we don't pay, then he might impound the vehicle, and you don't make it to your meeting.]
"Era su tarifa. Estamos en su territorio, ¿sabe? Si no pagamos, podrÃa incautar el vehÃculo y usted no podrá asistir a la reunión," the driver responded.
[That was no payoff. That was a small fortune!]
"Eso no fue una recompensa. Era una pequeña fortuna!" I exclaimed to him.
[Begging your pardon, Mister, but it wasn't your money. It was paid for by the company. It is not your concern. That's how we do things here.]
"Perdón, señor, pero no era su dinero, lo pagó la empresa, no es asunto suyo, asà es como hacemos las cosas aquÃ," the driver responded calmly to me.
[With that kind of money, he won't even need to put on a uniform in the morning, let alone show up for work!]
"Con esa cantidad de dinero, ni siquiera necesitará ponerse el uniforme por la mañana, ¡y mucho menos presentarse a trabajar!" I responded assertively.
[That money is not only for him. Its for the rest of the checkpoint. Its for the tow truck operator. Some is for the dispatcher and some for the desk Sergeant. Nobody makes money unless the right people get paid.]
"¿Dónde naciste? ¿Bajo una piedra?" he replied, and that was the end of our conversation.
I ignored him, not quite fathoming what his statement implied and perhaps it was for the better, because my naivety had spared me from a horrific fate unbeknownst to me at that time, but had very much left me open to looking the fool.
...
I walked the finely decorated corridor from the hotel lobby to the meeting rooms, a trail of men behind me making up my company entourage. I thought little of the fact that the company had sent fourteen men to accompany, when a few assistants would have sufficed. Again, my naivety of the situation had kept many key facts hidden from my talents of observation.
When we arrived in the meeting room, we were greeted by a fine continental breakfast spread across a serving table nearest the double doors. There were fried eggs, refried beans and polenta, and of course, the best coffee from the region: our own company brand. Further in the same room was a large boardroom table already set for twenty.
I was seated with three other men when the other two parties involved in these negotiations had arrived, though in all honesty, at that time I was under the impression that it would only be one. It seemed that word had gotten around and a third group with a vested interest accompanied the other party.
[Mister Zekestes, it is a great honour to make your acquaintance today. To tell you the truth given your reputation, I was expecting someone older.]
"Señor Zekestes, es un gran honor conocerlo hoy. Para ser sincero, dada su reputación, esperaba a alguien mayor." a tall man entered the room, he too with his own entourage, a shorter and more stout man in a military uniform with a face rife with post adolescent acne scars accompanying him.
[I assure you that I've brought with me all of my years, but I've learned just like in cards, to keep the best years up my sleeves. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name?]
"Te aseguro que he traÃdo conmigo todos mis años, pero he aprendido, como en las cartas, a guardarme los mejores años en la manga. Lo siento, ¿no me ha quedado claro tu nombre?" I responded to the tall man.
[It is a pleasure to meet you both, though I must admit that General Noriega's reputation in the region precedes him. Let us hope in the interests of good commerce that his presence at our negotiations is excess.]
They filed in and found there way to their places at the boardroom table, one of their personal assistants serving General Noriega a plate of breakfast from the serving table.
[Pardon me, but I do not get nearly enough time to enjoy such extravagance in my line of work. Especially since Torrijos' unfortunate passing.]
"Perdón, pero no tengo tiempo suficiente para disfrutar de semejante extravagancia en mi trabajo, especialmente desde el desafortunado fallecimiento de Torrijos." General Noriega addressed those seated at the table as he descended upon his plate.
With his finishing words, he peered towards me, looking me square in the eyes, as if expressing some kind of irony that I had ultimately missed once again.
[Then perhaps I should begin, Mister Montaya, by reminding you that it is your coffee supply chain that is in arrears with the company whom I represent: Columbia's Finest. In the interests of good relations, we have overlooked this fact for three months before this matter was brought to my attention. I am urging you... no. Rather, insisting that these three months in arrears be corrected before I leave this table, so that we may all continue to benefit from this trade allegiance.]
[Are you not just a member of senior management for your company? Isn't there another troubleshooter that usually handles these situations? Don't you even feel in the slightest that you may be in over your head?]
"¿No es usted un simple miembro de la alta dirección de su empresa? ¿No hay otro solucionador de problemas que se ocupe normalmente de estas situaciones? ¿No tiene la menor sensación de que puede estar en una situación que le supera?" Mister Montaya responded, seemingly unintimidated by my earlier threat.
[Never. I handle all such situations and have for as far back as I can remember.]
"Nunca. Me enfrento a situaciones de este tipo desde que tengo memoria." I bluffed, never once taking my eyes from Carlos, as General Noriega scraped the last bit of egg from his plate and into his mouth.
General Noriega then opened the case and withdrew a file folder from within, which he promptly opened and began flipping through a series of 8 1/2" x 11 " photographic prints. He stopped when he arrived at a particular set of them, and began sliding them across the table, one by one.
[You are familiar with the Sandinistas, are you not?]
"Estás familiarizado con los sandinistas, ¿no?" asked General Noriega of me.
[The Nicaraguan rebels? Yes, I am aware that they played a significant role in the downfall of Somoza's ruling party.]
"¿Los rebeldes nicaragÃŒenses? SÃ, estoy consciente de que desempeñaron un papel importante en la caÃda del partido gobernante de Somoza." I responded, speaking almost as much like a statesman as a coffee man.
As I examined the first photograph, I was caught off guard by what I saw. It was El Tormenta himself, his hands bound behind his back as he sat on his knees. Behind him, a group of men in military camouflage and touting modern battle rifles were in the process of dismantling a flagpole, with a crude hand-painted depiction of a symbol commonly associated with the Nicaraguan Contra Rebels.
I placed the photo on the table and proceeded to the next. When I looked at it, my stomach churned and I struggled to keep my breakfast where it had been since I consumed it on the flight.
The photo was clearly taken moments after the previous one, El Tormenta now face down on the dirt, part of his skull missing and bits of his brain exposed. It appeared that he'd been shot from in front, and that the exit wound was sizeable enough that it had removed a large portion of the back of his head.
I quickly put the photo down atop of the previous one, and held my mouth for a moment as my body reflexively gagged. After a minute of these struggles, I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead, fearful to look either Mister Montaya or General Noriega in the eyes, for I knew that my presence at the table and these negotiations was no longer the result of an accounting accident. They had intentionally set this trap, perhaps seeking further intelligence as to whom might have had association with El Tormenta.
The remainder of the photos depicted each of the executed rebels, various grievous wounds adorned their lifeless bodies, presumably from that same operation that yielded the death of El Tormenta, our previous troubleshooter who had clearly been leading a double life.
A large group of soldiers closed in on my assistants outside of the meeting room, the double doors still open as they did. Another group of soldiers came into the meeting room, taking the other six away, leaving me with only three, those familiar directly with the business and its process of conduct.
[Have you any ties to the military in Columbia? Any past associations about which you'd like to speak? To get something off of your chest that might help you to survive the next twenty-four hours?]
[Never! I have been a working man for my entire life. I've never been involved in politics except where it brought me close enough to be aware of policy. Are you saying that I am under arrest?]
"¡Jamás! He sido un trabajador toda mi vida. Nunca me he involucrado en polÃtica, salvo cuando me ha permitido estar lo suficientemente cerca de ella como para estar al tanto de las polÃticas. ¿Estás diciendo que estoy detenido?" I confronted General Noriega.
[Arrest would be an understatement. You are now a prisoner of war, and we intend very much to use all the means at our disposal to extract every bit of information from you about your compatriots supporting the Contras. For your sake, I can only hope that you hold none of your body parts in such high esteem that you'd be at a loss without them, because as it stands right now, there's a very good chance that you will not be leaving this country with the same inventory of parts with which you arrived.]
"Arrestarlo serÃa un eufemismo. Ahora es usted un prisionero de guerra y tenemos la firme intención de utilizar todos los medios a nuestra disposición para extraerle toda la información posible sobre sus compatriotas que apoyan a los Contras. Por su bien, sólo puedo esperar que no tenga en tan alta estima ninguna de sus partes corporales que no pueda hacer nada sin ellas, porque tal como están las cosas en este momento, hay muchas posibilidades de que no salga de este paÃs con el mismo inventario de partes con el que llegó." General Noriega responded to me in a well enough rehearsed statement that I immediately knew that he'd delivered this same oration many times before.
With that statement, a group of soldiers grabbed the remainder of my entourage and finally myself, getting us onto our feet and restraining our hands behind our backs.
As we were marched down the same corridor through which we entered into the meeting, the press descended upon us, flashes blinding us as we were led out through the foyer doors as hoods were placed over our heads. La Prensa the only existing opposition newspaper to Noriega's Panama, and several other pro Noriega state sponsored newspapers took picture after picture of us, as we were filed into a line of waiting vans, our fate unbeknownst to us. As Noriega had clearly planned it, our only source of information at that point was our imaginations. Our interrogation had already begun, though the questions had yet to be asked.
It seemed that coffee was far from being the only commodity in this marketplace, for freedom was very clearly dwindling in supply as the value of life which had paid for it thus far seemed to have dipped substantially.
That was when I realized that like coffee, life was simply another commodity in the marketplace of commerce, corruption and freedom.
The Short Road To Destiny
I was separated from the others and led to the back doors of my own van, where I was pulled inside and fastened to a metal bench seat which lined the side of the van. There was some yelling, clearly directed at me from the other side of the hood, but so much of it was slang that I barely understood the man delivering it. Apparently he had lost a close friend to the Contras, and was clearly motivated to take it out on my business associates and I.
We drove for the better part of an hour and a half, and at some point during the trip my legs became so numb and lifeless, I was barely aware I still had them.
I was half asleep when the van came sliding to a stop on a loose gravel bed, the sound of the ocean close by. We sat unmoving for what seemed like an eternity until I heard the sound of another van pulling up beside the one I occupied. The engines cut out, for which I was grateful, as the only spittle in my mouth was long permeated with the flavour of diesel exhaust.
The back doors of the an were thrown wide open and the incoming light blinded me, even from beneath the hood still tied around my head. One of my captors fiddled with a lock and I was suddenly freed from the bench seat. When my captor coaxed me to walk, with the first step both my legs immediately folded and I fell flat on my face in the back of the van.
Two large men grabbed me by the shoulders and hoisted me out from within the van, my shaky legs finding purchase of the gravel beneath my feet, as I was led in the direction of a flag stone walkway, whose stability I felt upon reaching it. Behind me, two of my associates were dragged from another van and the three of us together were dragged into a building of some form, our feet echoing on the polished slate floor as we walked.
We were forcefully turned around corners several times before we were eventually told to stop. I heard the sound of a steel flip-lid lighter, and then the the scent of a fine Cuban cigar filled the air. The hood was suddenly and without warning removed from my head, and again I was blinded by the late morning coastal sunlight of Costa Rica.
When my eyes finally adjusted, I was greeted by a rather burly looking fellow, a beard and moustache covered his face as he nursed the cigar, his body covered in a silk bathrobe as he sat behind a large oak desk of some craftsmanship and worth.
[Which of you two managed to arrange for this man to be here before me?]
Of the two of my associates between whom I stood, the one of the right stepped forward and nodded once to the man seated behind the desk.
He casually stoked the cigar, paying more attention to it than any of us, and then without warning, drew a hand gun from his lap, aimed it effortlessly at the other man to my left, and pulled the trigger, spilling the contents of his head onto the wall and floor behind us.
The sudden flash and the horrid noise it made, triggered a distant memory from long ago. Of being carried in the arms of my fleeing mother, as the sound of small arms erupted all around us. Men running. Men fell. Dead as the dirt upon which they'd been splayed.
One of my captors wiped the sizeable patch of blood and flesh from my left cheek with a dirty kerchief he'd drawn from his pocket.
[Remove the bindings from their hands. You! Bring these men some chairs. Comfortable ones. Do it!]
"Retire las ataduras de sus manos. ¡Tú! Traigan algunas sillas a estos hombres. Los cómodos. ¡Hazlo!" the man behind the desk ordered our captors, both of them immediately moving and without the slightest hesitation.
A short moment later, and we were seated before our host.
[It seems that you are special. You have close friends. Loyal friends. If you didn't, you inevitably would be seated before one of the General's favourite interrogators right this very moment as are the rest of your missing associates.]
"Parece que eres especial. Tienes amigos cercanos. Amigos leales. Si no lo hiciera, inevitablemente estarÃa sentado ante uno de los interrogadores favoritos del general en este mismo momento, al igual que el resto de sus asociados desaparecidos." the man addressed me directly.
[With whom am I speaking, and to whom are you referring as my friends?]
[Insofar as the flow of money and power in Costa Rica are concerned, you can regard me as its highest ranking director. As for your friends? Very loyal friends I might add. Let's just say that they were as close to Mister Tesoro as were you.]
"En lo que respecta al flujo de dinero y poder en Costa Rica, pueden considerarme su director de más alto rango. ¿En cuanto a tus amigos? Amigos muy leales, debo agregar. Digamos que eran tan cercanos al señor Tesoro como usted." he stoked his cigar once again, exhaling a swaft of Cuban scented air in our direction.
[How does Mister Tesoro fit in with all of this? I am assuming that you are a power broker of some form? A smuggler perhaps? An intelligence asset of the Americans maybe? A rebel?]
"¿Cómo encaja Mister Tesoro en todo esto? ¿Asumo que usted es un agente poderoso de alguna forma? ¿Quizás un contrabandista? ¿Quizás un activo de inteligencia de los estadounidenses? ¿Un rebelde?" I spoke with my own confidence and authority, careful not to disrespect our host.
[Just like you are now in charge of ensuring that the North American, European and Asian supply of coffee keeps moving from its staging area in Costa Rica, I too ensure that certain natural resources, mostly those from the soil rich land of Columbia, reach their destinations in the same regions that make up the breadth of your markets.]
He smiled at me arrogantly and yet with some sense of pity for my naivety.
[There are none above me for you to tell, except perhaps a Priest or a Counselor of some form, and they all in one way or another report to me. The burglar as much so as the sheriff. The dissident as much so as the politician. The assassin as much so as the surgeon. They are all a party of this, playing their role in the way of things. My way. The truth is that there is no one for you to tell, and why would you? You're here, now and fully alive because of my concern that a good friend of Mister Tesoro was not lost in the fray of chaos wrought by a power hungry authoritarian dog like Noriega.]
I thought carefully about it, feeling very tempted to accept the bottle and one of the glasses he'd offered, but something deep within myself told me to show some restraint, and I realized that I lusted not after the whiskey he'd offered, but the power he wielded.
My associate beside me accepted both the glass and the bottle and wasted no time in pouring himself a glass. He sipped slowly, savouring the aroma and every last drop that passed through his lips, while I watched the face of our host ever so carefully. He glanced at me, a subtle smile on his eyes and I then realized that he had been testing me.
He knew something about my future. Something about which I was still unaware. The only thing that I knew from that moment onward however, was that I could wield the power he had, and transform the world with it.
I was seated here in the office of a god himself, a dead body on the floor beside us that had not yet been hauled away, had already begun to rot, while the one in charge of it all sat behind his desk, casually discussing the way that the world turned.
The hierarchy of order we'd been led to believe simply did not exist. It was all part of some grand illusion, most of us believing that it was the only power there was. In truth, as the man behind the desk had stated, both the burglar and the sheriff are paid by one and the very same.
It was all part of an obscure power of which few were aware, that somehow kept the world in a balance between two sides of possibility, despite the underlying complexity, and yet here was this god throwing his weight to one side, and I realized that he was not worthy of this power at all.
I believe that he knew this too, and that the drink was merely his way of testing me, for who at the driver's wheel of the world would drink and drive?
And yet, we were both men that had clearly lived. We had both enjoyed most of the dishes the grand buffet had to offer. The worst and the best. We had both lived at the very bottom, as much so as we'd enjoyed the very top and all there was to be had in between.
We were neither of us in pursuit of distractions to our existence, enjoying the pleasures of life as much so as the proximity of death, as it lay on the floor to my left.
There we sat in silence a few moments more, before the same men who had brought us the chairs, began hauling the corpse out of the office.
By that point in time, my associate had finished his drink and I knew that my destiny would arrive soon.
A year maybe or ten. I would make it happen, and undo the imbalances this man had brought into the fold. The same imbalances that had yielded a broken Cuba. The same imbalances that had somehow taken the human appetite for the buffet of life and replaced it with fear and restraint.
As if we were simply meant to remain at an arm's length from it all, and spend our lives wondering what it would have been like to indulge ourselves without the slightest self-moderation.
Under my watch, humanity would experience a renaissance of gluttony and excess, and there would be none who lived life without a real passion for its depths and experiences, for any such persons were not worthy of life and numbering themselves amongst the living.
[You will be receiving a promotion shortly. One that will take you into the ranks of the upper echelons of the corporation. If you do well there, and do well by me, I see no reason that you won't be running the show before the turn of the millennium. It is your destiny, but nobody is going to hand it to you, and you're going to have to take it all, by force if necessary.]
"En breve recibirás una promoción. Uno que lo llevará a las filas de los niveles superiores de la corporación. Si te va bien allà y te va bien conmigo, no veo ninguna razón para que no dirijas el programa antes del cambio de milenio. Es tu destino, pero nadie te lo va a entregar, y tendrás que tomarlo todo, por la fuerza si es necesario." he said to me, looking directly at me.
[My assistants will take you to the airport, where I've arranged for a flight to return you to Barranquilla. Noriega will soon no longer be a problem for you, but you're going to have play ball with us and the Americanos sooner or later. Mister Tesoro did, and considering that we built our current distribution model using his networks, you will have to learn to become a part of his legacy.]
"Mis asistentes te llevarán al aeropuerto, donde he organizado un vuelo para que regreses a Barranquilla. Noriega pronto ya no será un problema para ti, pero tarde o temprano tendrás que jugar a la pelota con nosotros y los americanos. El señor Tesoro lo hizo, y considerando que construimos nuestro modelo de distribución actual utilizando sus redes, tendrás que aprender a ser parte de su legado." the man behind the desk spoke.
[You can refer to me as the One Above The Clouds. We will meet again, though at some point we will also come into conflict with one another. Be ready, and be wary, for I will show you no mercy.]
As I left the room, he began a conversation with my associate. The one who had spared me Noriega's interrogation. From that moment onward, I knew that I was being watched closely and carefully by the people at another level entirely. Like the kind of people from ancient history about whom the mythos of gods were based.
Part of a universe that was very much always watching, and never caught unaware. Like the two forces above and below, whom I would come eventually to know as the darkness and the light. Two serpents, one of glittering scales and the other with eyes of ceaseless depth and darkness.
History had yielded many clues about them and in many different ways. The two faces of Tiamat. The duality of the demiurge. Pandora's box and the ever fearful Patriarchy. Adam and Sophia. Adam and Lilith. Adam and Eve. Angels and Devils. Matter and Anti-Matter.
From the point of our meeting, I suspected from that day forward that I would come face to face with this darkness and with this light.
The Light Of Deck
Steadman made his way up the stairs towards the bridge of the Many Faced Maiden, the taste of coffee and his late breakfast still gracing his taste buds.
When he arrived, he was greeted by a silhouette amongst the instrumentation of the bridge that he didn't recognize.
Steadman quickly put his hand on the grip of his sidearm.
"Morning. Where's Norman?" Steadman asked casually, his hand still tightly around the grip of his 9mm sidearm.
"He's below deck. Sleeping I hope. He's been pulling eighteen hour shifts at the helm for the last four days seeing as nobody else is qualified... until I convinced him it was for the best of his health..." Lieutenant Merrill responded to Steadman.
"And why wasn't I told of this...?" Steadman held his hand firmly on the grip, ready to draw if need be.
"Captain. With all due respect. Norman himself told me that you were in no way to be disturbed, as you were at port Celeste...? A port I've never heard of by the way Sir!?" Merrill responded abruptly, as if to imply he knew something of which he wasn't speaking.
"Uhhhh yeah. Its code for... do not disturb," Steadman responded, keeping his eye on the unfamiliar helmsman.
"Well Captain. Glad to see you're well. Sir. There's a bit of a rough current off starboard bow, but that's likely the southern tidal currents off of the trench south of Honshu, which we'd feel even this far out from Japan," Merrill responded.
Steadman stood a few moments, contemplating whether to shoot the man at the helm dead, or just allow him to keep his compass steady. In the end, he stood just two feet behind Merrill, in a position from which he could have acted very quickly to solve any assault upon his person.
Instead, he felt the recurring signs of his hangover once again as he had at breakfast with Celeste, who thankfully had come out of their night together with flying colours.
He stood steadfastly as he began to feel the onset of nausea once again.
"Was that just me or are we hitting rough seas?" asked Steadman as he held himself up against the door handle.
"No Sir, that was definitely something weather related..." Merrill responded.
The ship was suddenly flung upward, both Merrill and Steadman feeling it beneath their feet as they were launched into the air, eventually finding their way back to the deck, before falling flat on their faces.
Merrill managed to catch hold of the helm before hitting the floor, after which he hefted himself to his feet as Steadman got to his just behind him.
Steadman hit the ship's alarm, the sound of a klaxon suddenly pierced the early morning air.
...
Back in the stern of the Many Faced Maiden, several crewmen were roused from their guard duty by the sudden bounce of the aft section of the ship. Some found themselves falling, as if the ship had suddenly dipped by several meters. Most of them landed harshly upon the deck, while others collided with the walls around them.
Zek was quickly upon his feet, having been tossed from his favourite reading chair by some unseen force.
"What in the hells was that?" Zek yelled out down the hall to the engineers he'd hoped would be waiting outside of his cabin door.
The sound of the alarms suddenly echoed through the metallic interior of the ship, the klaxon already breaking air outside.
...
Captain Spiers was on his way up the lane when he was suddenly launched upwards to the ceiling, barely hitting it after which he landed unconscious on the floor just outside of his cabin.
A young ensign on his way to engineering found the Captain face down. He checked the Captain for any signs of life and injury, and when he found that he was breathing and had a pulse, the Ensign found the nearest comms phone.
"We need a medic outside of the Captain's quarters! Over and out!" he yelled into the handset.
"Acknowledged!" a reply came back.
...
As the alarms sounded, Tellner was already back up on his feet. He quickly looked around for any sign of trouble before checking up on Terrill, who remained on the floor, unmoving.
To be continued...
I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
I am truly an Atheist that leans toward Buddhism and Taoism, and that is exactly the same across all of my devices. Both my phone, my virtual tablets and my computer and laptop. I am not a Marxist with all due respect, but I do believe that Canada's balance between a market driven economy and social infrastructure is a good balance.
My own love interest is truly a Southeast Asian Opera singer with whom I was in a serious relationship in 2006. I'm Canadian with European ancestry.
I personally don't volunteer, but I very obviously advocate as you can see in most of my posts.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian):https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
Very Special Thanks to our Armed Forces and Federal and Provincial Police Services, who really do Stand On Guard, especially when it comes to the Charter of Rights And Freedoms and the Human Rights Act, and often without being self righteous zealots secretly protecting religious law. True keepers of the peace.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner. Both photos depicted here are of me and were taken in the last two months.
