A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is chapter 39. See previous posts for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38.
In November, the anonymous workers that Thomas and Trish had become accustomed to stopped showing up at the studio. Thomas wondered if their departure had something to do with the election, but it wasn't as if there was anyone to ask about it. He wasn't reckless enough to call up Mr Wachuski with questions regarding people that didn't officially exist. But, with them gone, an idea came to Thomas.
There were now dozens of NSEA headsets in the studio that no one was using. And their experiments, producing religious experiences with the headsets, had been quite successful. So they cleared out the space that wasn't dominated by the Mind Spheres, replacing piles of old tacky office furniture with an arrangement of two dozen comfortable chairs, each with a small table and a lamp next to it. Then they invited top people from the Federation to join them in Minneapolis for a mind-blowing New Year.
On Christmas Eve, Rashonda Wells and Todd Harvey from AFN showed up, having been invited by Thomas to tour the mysterious place he'd so often disappeared into. Trish met them at the door. Thomas was running late after attending a family event.
"Impressive," said Rashonda upon seeing the Mind Spheres.
"Is this some sort of virtual reality gaming suite?" asked Todd, considering the identical lounge chair setups.
"Not VR," said Trish. "The NSEA systems use electric fields and ultrasonic actuators to talk to the brain directly."
"How exactly does that work?" asked Todd. "I'm assuming you brought me here to write a story about it?"
"Let's wait for Thomas before getting into it," said Trish. "Tell me, are you working on anything big?"
"We're getting some blowback from our decision not to cover the Presidential election," said Rashonda. "If there's trouble at the Capitol on January 6 like you warned about, we'll cover that."
"AFN covers important stories," said Trish, shrugging. "There's nothing important about a corporate stooge being elected to office."
"We should have covered the election more," said Todd. "We actually gained subscribers by not covering it, but I still think it was the wrong move."
"It was my call and I stand by it," said Rashonda, who'd had this conversation before. "Did you know global poverty is doubling under pandemic policies? This new poverty is killing twenty thousand people every day. That's a million every two months. You want to cover politics? Cover the politics of that."
"I'd like to see an in-depth story looking at the similarities between the pandemic and 9/11," said Trish.
"How do you mean?" asked Rashonda.
"It's just something I've been thinking about lately," said Trish. "For starters, both 9/11 and the virus seemed to come out of nowhere, but really there was plenty of warning signs for both. Signs that experts ignored."
"Okay," said Todd, unconvinced.
"The real similarity is in the response," said Trish. "Three thousand people died in 9/11, but tens or even hundreds of thousands died in Iraq and Afghanistan afterwards. This virus might kill millions, but as Rashonda just pointed out, millions more are already dying because of how we're responding to the virus. And then there's the money."
"The money?" asked Todd.
"Here, I have data you don't have," said Trish. "Part of T2's legacy. By the time the dust begins to settle, our projections show that central banks will have injected some nine trillion dollars into economies to keep them afloat. The thing is, most of this money isn't going to the people who need it. It's going into the financial markets. Eight of that nine trillion is being added directly to the wealth of billionaires. (alt link)"
"I don't see how that compares to 9/11," said Todd.
"They say they're doing one thing, but they're really doing another," said Trish. "Since 9/11, our foreign policy seems perfectly designed to manufacture terrorists, from drone strikes to torture to incarceration of militants in Iraqi prison camps. More terrorism means bigger security budgets, which always enrich the already-rich and make people less free."
"So you think pandemic policies are making the pandemic worse?" asked Rashonda.
"They're making the pandemic worse, they're transferring wealth from the lower classes to the elite, and they're making people less free," said Trish. "I honestly believe that these are the control regime's specific goals. What reminds me so much of 9/11 is how so many people are just going along with the program, trapped in fear, never once wondering why lockdowns and masks and the new vaccine keep failing to stop the spread of the virus. The reason is that they were never intended to stop the virus. They were intended to destroy our freedom, just like the response to 9/11 was, but in a way that's an order of magnitude bigger, and global. If we wanted to stop the virus, minimize its harms, we'd be following Sweden's lead."
Thomas arrived then, feeling like an interloper at having come into what was clearly a heated discussion. "What did I miss?" he asked.
"Trish thinks the pandemic is a 9/11 redux," said Rashonda. "I'm only half convinced."
"Give it a year and see what data comes in," said Thomas. "Now, has Trish explained what we do here?"
"Brain wave VR?" said Todd.
"Close enough," said Thomas. "Our particular focus is producing experiences of the divine."
"The ... divine?" asked Todd skeptically.
"Are you familiar with how entheogens work?" asked Thomas. "Our NSEA systems can produce religious experiences in a way that's similar to, say, magic mushrooms."
"So, digital drugs?" asked Todd.
"Sort of," said Thomas. "But with several key differences. The experiences are short. Fifteen minutes to start. And they are customized to each individual's neural signature. In fact, every aspect of them can be customized in the software that runs the systems."
"What about safety?" asked Todd.
"For now, the technology is completely experimental," said Thomas. "Trish and I have both used it extensively with only beneficial effects. But if you want to try it, you'll have to sign a disclaimer that gives you no recourse if the tech does you harm. And it might. We don't really know."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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