A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is chapter 35. 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, and 34.
Looking at the twenty panel painting on her wall, Ana focused on a particular area of the artwork. T2 had called this area the red zone. Important events were mapped out across the entire display. The red zone was reserved for events leading up to society's transition into a dystopia in 2020. Despite all of the time she'd spent with T2, Ana still found it hard to believe that things would get that bad.
Once a month, Ana did a conference call with Trish, Thomas, and Dave. These calls were supposed to be about keeping T2's dystopia at bay. None of them knew how to go about doing that, so the calls ended up being somewhat less focused. Today, they'd been talking about the Saudi backing of 9/11. Then the conversation veered into trickle up economics and metals price fixing by big banks.
Now, considering at T2's art, Ana tried to bring the conversation back to the matter at hand. "Come on guys," she said. "T2 gave up everything to put us in a position to make a difference when the time comes. And that time is coming."
"Anyone with a computer can get a job with NIS that pays a living wage," said Dave. "That's something."
"And anyone who can afford to rent can afford to rent-to-own a TAP property," said Trish. "We're up to three million units as of last month. Plus, anyone can camp for free at one of our ecovillages."
"Speaking of that," said Thomas. "What's going on with Harry in Colorado? I read in a blog post that he got kicked out, but never heard the story."
"Yeah," said Trish. "Harry started drinking again and groped someone. The whole village got together and decided to give him another chance. Then he did it again, so he's out, and he's banned from all TAP properties and operations. We put him on our official Shit List."
"Huh," said Thomas. "This is the first I'm hearing about this list. Is it public?"
"It's public, but we don't advertise," said Trish. "Mostly, it's used for internal TAP decisions. Like, whenever a new person shows up at one of the villages, someone checks to make sure they're not on the list. Anyone on the list can appeal their inclusion in it, but no one has ever appealed."
"Interesting," said Thomas. "But getting back to the matter at hand, I'm still not totally clear on what difference we're trying to make."
"You knew T2 better than any of us," said Ana. "What would he be doing if he was still alive?"
"Seriously?" said Thomas. "I feel like he'd be amazed by what TAP and NIS are accomplishing. Not to mention the influence we had in the last election. But whenever we talked about this moment, the lead up to the pandemic, he got kind of weird about it. Like he was traumatized by it, maybe."
"Yeah," said Trish. "A million dead and civil unrest will do that."
"A million dead?" asked Dave.
"That's just in the US," said Ana. "And just from the virus that starts spreading next year. Add to that a hundred thousand more deaths per year from drug overdoses. Spiking accident and murder rates. To be honest, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around it."
"T2 always qualified that one million figure," said Thomas. "He said it included everyone who died with the virus, not just those who died from the virus. But even if the real figure ends up being twenty percent lower, that's still a nightmare scenario."
"And you're all convinced that this will happen?" asked Dave.
"T2 was never wrong about the big stuff," said Ana.
"Not to sound negative, but what do you think we could do about a virus?" asked Dave. "I mean, really?"
"About the virus?" said Thomas. "Probably nothing. But from what I understand, it was society's response to the virus, and not the thing itself, that made everything fall apart. Crazy policies that set the stage for widespread rioting. Corporate handouts and partisan squabbling, against a background of intense fear mongering. The Fed using their special computer to inject money into the financial sector, leading to runaway inflation. That kind of thing."
"You mentioned that by email," said Dave. "What I'm wondering is where NIS fits in. We have the third biggest blockchain in the world and we're a major player in the web microservices industry. We're big enough now that we're thinking of hiring our own lobbyist. But what can we really do about a virus? As in, biological, not digital."
"You could set up a way to track the propaganda," said Ana. "As we all know, media propaganda greatly intensified at the beginning of 2016. I'd like to see a system where I read a news article, then click on an app to see the source of the story. Whether the source is corporate of government or some think tank. I'd also like an app that shows me a story without emotional language or unnecessary phrase repetition."
"Interesting," said Dave. "Have you seen our censorship tracker? We log disappearing news items and censorship events across a few categories. I can find out if the project team is up for expanding to track propaganda, too."
"AFN could feature that on its site," said Thomas. "And do regular stories on the information it provides."
"That gives me an idea, but on another subject," said Trish. "TAP polling. Between grant recipients and tenants, we've got millions of people in our network. So we start surveying them, asking what they would do if there was a virus, etc.. It's basically a way of warning people about it without warning people about it."
"So you don't think we should actually warn people about it?" asked Ana.
"Maybe in a year, when it's supposed to begin," said Trish. "I mean, most of our people have already been exposed to the idea. T2 told everyone he could about his version of the future. But getting too loud too early about it seems like it might be a mistake."
"I kind of wish you'd kept me out of the loop on this one," said Dave. "I know what T2 believed, but actually having a meeting about it is surreal."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
Read my novels:
Check out the comic I wrote:
