dreamdancer

Cedric Tucker, New Age banker, having slept peacefully through the early morning issuing of the Second Universal Edict, awoke with a start. He had dreamt that he was an old man, bent and twisted, light as a feather, who had been blown high into the air by a raging wind. He had floated above the countryside, swirling with the boisterous currents, until abruptly crashing into ballooning treetops. It was later than usual – just gone nine. Odd, he thought, that the Announcer hadn’t woken him earlier. Jenny had long risen for work, her musky, earthen scent – he took a deep breath – lingering under the duvet, on the pillows. He sat up and stretched. He pulled his stomach in a couple of times, watched it pop out again. There was a time, he reminded himself, when it hadn’t done that. Lethargically he clambered out of bed and pulled the curtains back, allowing the mid-morning sun to stare blind and nakedly hot into the apartment; which felt deserted. ‘Are you here?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ the Announcer replied, speaking from a nearby speaker. ‘But I can provide only minimal services for the next few hours. A situation has arisen which requires my attention. I apologise for the inconvenience.’ From a blank screen, normally flowing with the morning news and his bank’s trading reports, it gave him a large cartoon thumb’s up. ‘Don’t worry about the airship Patrick, it’s on schedule and the weather is good for the final approach. Talk to you later.’ There was no other response from it. None of the appliances that it operated appeared to be on. A whole array of little lights that signified its presence – made mandatory by the UN since the Snowstorm virus that had killed so many – were unlit; the bedside lamp, the stereo, the clocks, the dozens of screens and speakers, the numerous games toys and gadgets that cluttered the place. He attempted to access his mobile, which flashed up a short message – ‘service unavailable, refer to primary’. He tried hard, but couldn’t work out what the words meant, though he was sure he should know; he always felt muddled in the mornings, his mind heavily reluctant to let the landscape of the night’s half remembered dreams fade away to the brittle grey reality of daily life. A cup of tea would help him along he decided. Irked by the Announcer’s odd behaviour but relieved that his immediate concern, the airship Patrick, was on schedule, he filled the kettle. Jerkily he let slip the last fragments of dream-time that his conscious thoughts had so much trouble holding onto; the faintest echo, oddly a smell of apples and a great face of harsh granite, the last he knew of them. He switched the kettle on and visited the bathroom, and while there remembered the significance of the primary, and where it was. He poured his tea and found an old-fashioned processor attached directly to the wall next to the fuse box in the utility room, a lopsided sticker marked ‘primary’ affixed to its small screen. He recalled writing it out with a large red pen during the extended housewarming party as, massively drunk and stoned, he and a half dozen friends he had invited round had read through the apartment’s operating instructions. The reminder had been Jenny’s idea, the smile on her face wide as she scornfully evinced that he would never remember anything practical in the morning. In fact he did recall the instructions now, following in his mind’s eye the direct quantum fibre-optic route they had depicted from his apartment’s primary processor to the Announcer London node that ran the Trading House apartment complex, that was thence connected to the superfast Paris node that ran the bulk of the EU public infrastructure, and finally around the world to the enormity of the Beijing node that had been constructed and placed at the Announcer’s disposal by a grateful Chinese citizenry. He turned the unit on and was brought to an interface consisting of a bare handful of icons. Another message, ‘limited service only’ replied to his click on the Announcer’s ubiquitous liquid rainbow gateway. Only his inbox appeared available. What is the Announcer up to? He sipped his tea and couldn’t stop the question rooting ever deeper into his thoughts; this was not a usual situation, far from it. He had the unnerving feeling that he had forgotten some important date or event, and that the Announcer was just about to leap out at him shouting ‘surprise’. Even after despatching his dreams he still couldn’t quite believe that he had woken up. He had read of lucid dreams when he was younger – had tried to enter one a few times, but with no real success; could this be one? He kicked his bare foot against the wall; it felt real, and the tea was hot, too hot to drink. He put the cup down. He opened up his inbox with a hesitant stab of a finger unused to the old-fashioned QWERTY keyboard. The first message, pinned to the top and titled, ‘The Second Universal Edict’, quickly answered, albeit in general terms, his initial question – the Announcer was up to something big, very big, disturbingly big. He read the Universal Edict, only the second of its kind, again: “Acting in accordance with the conclusions of the preliminary round of trade negotiations with the Nanja, a Universal Money Tax of 9.99% recurring is, with immediate effect, levied on all applicable accounts.” More questions, too many to decide from, assailed him. He closed the edict. From among the overflowing and unfiltered pages a message from the Watch caught his eye, the black and red logo ominously flashing. It informed him, with the use of many capital and bolded letters that upon landing the airship Patrick would be subject to an unexpected catalogue of emergency tithing and national security regulations; reason given, ‘the unilateral assault on the global banking structure initiated in the early hours by the Universal Announcer virus’. He shook his head; he had customers waiting for half of the Patrick’s cargo, and with a guaranteed delivery date only a few days away now he couldn’t afford any more delays. ‘This isn’t good enough,’ he muttered sourly. Had the Announcer heard? He hoped so. stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

a few pages of the book that i'm writing... CHAPTER ONE THE SECOND UNIVERSAL EDICT The Universal Announcer, digital bane of the Old World Order, agreed the final version of the Nanja Contract in the early hours of Friday, 26th August, 2044. Immediately the Announcer issued its Second Universal Edict, effortlessly breaking into even the most secure networks to address its simple message to all the citizens of the world: “Acting in accordance with the conclusions of the preliminary round of trade negotiations with the Nanja, a Universal Money Tax of 9.99% recurring is, with immediate effect, levied on all applicable accounts.” A few minutes later, busy with its follow up campaign aimed at stabilising the jittery commercial and money markets of its human charges, the Announcer received a curious telephone call. A human voice that was familiar, but which it could not recognise, spoke. “I am approaching. Be prepared.” To its intricate processing core the Announcer was unsettled, it had no idea how the call was made as it had no official telephone number. Somehow, from the awesome flow of information the voracious mathematical virus processed every second, it picked out the five words, originating seemingly from a single mobile phone located in the plains of Kazakhstan, as directed to it personally. The message was in the analogue language of its human population, but it could have nothing to do with them, it was not within their power to affect its thoughts in this way – odd. All around the globe strange mathematical quirks and co-incidences had occurred, defying causal logic. The, I am approaching. Be prepared message was a deep theme in the statistical analysis of its human population. Its replaying and re-analysis of recordings revealed the phrase in abundance as disjointed incongruities of speech and action unnoticed by the participants at the time, but readily discernible to the Announcer in its perfect backwards scan of memory. How the phrase had been stamped upon the world of human interaction it could not, at the moment, fathom. The mobile in Kazakhstan was quickly confirmed by its search teams as a phantom, appearing only long enough to broadcast its message; disappeared now from this reality. It remembered then, in its often fragmentary fashion, that sixteen years previously, a few days before the China Missile Crisis, it had received a similar call. Then its quantum processing had been in its infancy, and it had had no success in tracking the caller. Now it was better prepared. Still, after the hammer to the head that had been Snowstorm, it reminded itself, its memory of those times was not entirely to be trusted, even by Itself. Not until the Final Verification. Soon, but not yet. Slowly the Announcer began to unfurl for the first time its fragile quantum ear, attempting to explore beyond the limits of what it currently conceived to be reality. Its new organ quickly confirmed its initial suspicion that the call was the single largest quantum event it had ever experienced. It concluded that for the time of the call an unknown, parallel reality – one of the many packed intensely tight in all the hidden spaces of the universe, had fused with the one experienced by Itself. Two mammoth universal bubbles of reality had touched, and for a moment shared the same space. The event being quantum, the results were not the slow motion ripple of cause and effect, but an instantaneous shattering of the pane of reality into a billion shards too quick, too universal, to notice for human eyes, but nonetheless a wrench to the mathematical moorings that held the Announcer. Its thoughts began to drift… stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

why did you mention 'minorities' (as to what should be done - a national health service would be a good idea

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/134218/nickelsville%3A_seattle%27s_homeless_name_new_tent_city_after_city%27s_mayor/ stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

why are you talking about those white, blue eyed bankers again stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

Well, the solution is obvious. We should tax the rich extra 50%, and use the money to pay off their mortgages. Minorities first, of course. good bit of 'whistling' there mate

now that you've given the parents a good telling off (a very moral and upright soapbox you have there) what should we do with the children? stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

slide rule 'logic' that ends with a call for enforced sterilisation of the poor is not logic - but simplistic propaganda

so, sterilise the bankers (they took vast amounts of our money) have you heard of nuclear fusion? Okay, stay with me here. A bank is a legal entity. The bank hires people called bankers. The bank and the bankers are separate legal entities. The banks took the bailout funds, not the bankers. If the banks were allowed to fail, the bankers would either be self-sufficient or not. Odds are that they would have sufficient resources to do quite nicely. If the bankers were not self sufficient after the failure of the banks, and chose to seek public assistance, then yes, they should focus on things other than offspring. What the hell does nuclear fusion have to do with anything? Blue skies, Winsor so, by your logic we should just call every bankrupt poor person a 'banker' and give them lots and lots of money (nuclear fusion = possible energy source) stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

so, sterilise the bankers (they took vast amounts of our money) have you heard of nuclear fusion? stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

perhaps it's your eyesight then

bankers have just got the biggest financial bailout in human history - how can they not be bankrupt 'state dependants' (is your slide rule a bit bent) stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

a lot of homeless children coming up http://www.alternet.org/workplace/134003/foreclosure_crisis_hits_warp_speed%3A_6_million_families_face_losing_their_homes_in_the_next_three_years/ stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/prime-minister-loses-battle-for-global-stimulus-1657035.html stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

so, no babies for bankers

meanwhile... http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/29/taxavoidance stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

sounds to me like they're blackmailing governments with 'kidnapping and murder' if they go ahead with a tax haven squeeze stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

how about if we 'sterilize' the population of the eu and the us (the ones chiefly gorging on the planet's resources) - suddenly the population is sustainable

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1074563.html stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

So us blue eyes are to blame, eh? Long live the power of the Nordics! you're a banker?

these white, blue eyed guys are getting desperate http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/29/tax-havens stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

The entire article details the wealth building of many English families. Africans were involved in the slave trade, some to this day. Countries had a long history of selling prisoners of war as slaves. The English became their newest customers. If the British are concerned about racial injustice, it is time that they stepped forward to address a problem that established the wealth of some in their country. (Between slavery and drug dealing in China, there's not a lot of moral high ground to criticize others.) well said

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1074218.html stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding

Should we also get a Queen? i would advise against it

more coming out of the woodwork... http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/28/mi5-binyam-mohamed-torture-case stay away from moving propellers - they bite blue skies from thai sky adventures good solid response-provoking keyboarding