(no subject)
Manhattan, New York; 10:00 am - 2/18/07
I wonder if that dickless fuck Zia ever has to put up with shit like this.
As of last week, fifteen of the twenty smartest mutants in the whole world were known to the public, and the other three were known by my people, at least vaguely. Of course, you’ve got that skirted poof Mal off on the side. Nobody knows where he stands. But his boyfriend, Jeremiah Scripture, he’s up there. So’s Antaeus, James Meehan, Rachel, her girlfriend the Ubercunt, a bunch of others. Most of them seem to polarize to the Teragen or the Project, which makes a perverse kinda sense. The smarter you get, the more you start to realize how other people, other things tick. You start to see people for what they really are. When they talk, you don’t even hear what they’re trying to tell you, anymore, you just hear what they mean. And god forbid you get saddled with being able to read their empty little fucking heads; telepaths are statistically in the upper 10% of recent eruptees in terms of quality of life for the first six months. After that, they’re in the bottom 3%. Mind readers are 36.4% more likely to commit suicide than any other kind of nova. The super-smart assholes don’t fare much better, and follow the same, predictable course: top 20% for six months, then crash down to the bottom 8%. 23.8% more likely to off themselves than a mutant without. What do those numbers tell anybody who’s inclined to read them, huh? Well, sure, you can always lie with statistics, but let’s pretend those figures are accurate. We’ve got a sample size of about eight thou and can accurately track around seven-point-six thousand of them, so while you’re still going to have problems with correlating or antecedent causes, just trust me, the research is pretty fucking good. I compiled a lot of it.
So what does that tell you? Well, chances are, you look at those numbers and come to the conclusion that understanding people - whether it’s by figuring them out like you’d backwards-assemble a program or an engine or just by dipping around inside all those places they want to keep hidden from you - is pretty fucking depressing. That still doesn’t explain why, of course, but I can make a pretty good guess. Once you really understand people, you understand how basic, atavistic, and simple they really are. All that complexity, all that depth, all those noble intentions and aspirations of heroism, you know what they basically boil down to? Getting laid and out-surviving the other monkeys. The sad thing is that most of these jokers have to become evolutionary dead-ends before the realize what any high school biology teacher could tell them; that people are still just a bunch of fuckin’ animals, and that all our art, our history, our religion, our science, our pompous attitudes about dominion over this little ball of mud we sit on, all of it; it’s all just really about fucking and living. Realizing that fact and understanding it are two different things, and I think that’s what sends so many of these jokers running to the bureau for their handguns and their Valium. Once you understand that fact, really understand it, you’ve basically got two options: either you’re going to deal with that fact, or that fact is going to deal with you. And that’s why the mind-readers and the super-intelligent are so likely to off themselves; universal perspective shoves your face right into the truth of how small and pathetic and meaningless you and everyone you know and everything you do is, and does fuck-all in the way of imparting upon that person the coping mechanisms to deal with that truth.
There aren’t a lot of people who can hack that. Those who do have to work with it. Some become shepherds, and you’ll find a lot of them in the Project. Some of them convince themselves that the flaw isn’t in humanity, but baseline humanity, and that, gee, if only all the novas could form a cute little commune away from all the ignorant, dirt-farming, pissant monkeys, finally we could get something “real” and “meaningful” done, and you get a lot of Terats going that route. Then you get guys who try to opt out of the game entirely, and a lot of mercs opt for that; keep your mind occupied and you won’t have to think too hard about how pointless it all is. After that comes a grab-bag of assorted religious wackos and narco freaks who try to dull the voice in their head by filling it with something else, effectively just bullshitting themselves, which is probably the oldest means of avoiding unpleasant truths known to sentient life. I wonder how many of them just try to turn off.
The Directive keeps constant surveillance of the twenty smartest novas on the planet, at least as far as they can. There’s a slant nova by the name of Ping who’s been awfully elusive of late, but then, any mutant that’s as smart as he is and not public about it is going to be awfully good at laying low, anyway. Each individual on that list is watched by an entire team through every moment of their lives. Each one is considered a Titan Class threat, because every last one of them is so far beyond the pale, their machinations so vast and complex, that moves as seemingly innocuous as ordering a pizza or taking the dog for a walk are regarded as suspect, tiny cogs in some ridiculously circuitous plan that pays off a few thousand steps down the road and can only be deciphered by watching them constantly, analyzing everything from the frequency with which they blow their nose to the time between clicks while channel surfing. Baselines can have trouble believing that; Freud’s old chestnut about a cigar being just a cigar. But when Prodigy sits on the toilet or Scripture goes out to buy tofu, I somehow doubt they’re planning anything more insidious than dinner and maybe a tug before passing out with the Spice Channel on. Or maybe that’s just me.
I can see my reflection in the glass screen of a map that sits on a wall in a surveillance boiler arm of the Manhattan branch of the Directive. I used to work in this arm. I used to do what these people do, vicariously living out the lives of the brilliant as a career, digging, examining, analyzing. A small, red light catches my eye, a pinprick of light hovering over a spot in New England. I press my finger to the glass over the dot and a display comes up on the window, asking for my access credentials. I type them in with one hand as the glass reads my fingerprints, DNA, retina. A transparent window pops up over the Atlantic to tell me I’ve been granted access, and is replaced with another window with a full profile on the nova in question. Of these twenty dots, only two of them bring up profiles that register as incomplete. One of them is for Divis Mal, and the other one is mine. Some of those people out there in that room, now they watch me.
Huh. Up to eleven this week. I wonder if they’re flattering me.
“Agent Machina?” A voice comes from behind me. I do my best to ignore it.
“Agent Machina?”, it persists. “I’ll ask you again; why did you fail to alert us of the threat Rothstein presented to our interests in Riyadh?”
I close the window and turn to look back to the table. All I can hear is the sound of my own totally unnecessary breathing and the metronome ticking of an antique wristwatch Agent XXX’s wearing. What the fuck do you say to a question like that? Reminds me of when I’d be dating some broad and she’d asked me if she looked fat. There ain’t any way to answer that question that they’ll buy. There is no right answer. ‘Because I’m not fucking omniscient’ isn’t going to cut it, for the precise reason that somehow they’ve got it into their heads that all-seeing and all-knowing is exactly what I am. The Amazing fucking Kreskin, is what. Agent Machina, the answer man, the Great Gazoo, less a man than a computer with a rotten attitude that you can beat and threaten when it gets mouthy.
I sigh and take a seat at the table, eyeing the three figures across it with the kind of contempt I’ve been practicing all my life. I cast a glance up at the one-way glass behind them, wondering who’s behind it today. Fitzgerald, maybe. Or Roth. Monitoring my life signs, supplying the juice to the Perseus Unit, the one that I developed less than a month ago, the one my assistants installed in this room. And now they’re using it against me. The irony is so thick I can chew it, especially since it’s so completely fucking unnecessary. They don’t know that, of course, wouldn’t buy it if I told them, and in the meantime, they’re going to be more vigilant than ever, convinced somewhere in the back of their heads that the hold of my supernatural likeability (snort) is at last broken, and now, oh yeah, the gloves are off.
The truth isn’t going to cut it, but any mother or used car salesman could catch me in a lie. I’m a shitty liar. And the suits are getting impatient, and I got nothing. Going to have to tell them something, Gerad. Can’t sit here all fucking day. “I, uh…I failed to alert this committee to the threat because…well, because it played perfectly into my plans.” I spit the last few words at them, giving them a look of sober satisfaction. They’re going to love this.
One of them arches his eyebrows behind black, mirrored sunglasses. “Excuse me? Agent Machina, what exactly are you telling this committee?”
“Exactly what you want to hear”, I heave back. Really, I got nothing, and I know it. If they’re going to demote me, fire me, ship me off to Greenland, there isn’t shit I can do about it. May as well get it the fuck over with. “That’s what you’re suspecting, right? That my lack of communication over the last week after that cunt fucked off to play General is all part of some epic, butterfly-beats-its-wings-in-Vanuatu-and-the-Cubs-win-the-World-Series-type scheme? Couldn’t be that I just didn’t fucking think of it, right? Nah. Couldn’t be that I spent the last week naked on a couch in Pretoria, furtively trying to console my distressed girlfriend because she apparently cares more about that stupid, know-nothing, egomaniacal, homicidal, hack, thinks-she’s-a-soldier fucking cooze than she does about me, RIGHT?” I sigh, growl, and put out my butt on the tabletop, my jaw set and clenching in anger. “Look. You’re going to question anything I say. Whatever I tell you, you’re not going to believe it, leastwise not entirely. You lot think I’ve got some angle I’m playing. Fine. Fucking fire me and get it over with. You can have my goddamn resignation, if that’s what you want. I’m through with this shit.”
Center across the table consults his flanks with a silent move of his head and looks back at me with what I could swear is the tiniest bit of a smirk on his face, folding his hands in front of him. "Agent Machina, would you kindly wait outside a moment?"
"Sure", I spit. Time to kick old Gerry out so they can decide what to do with me. The jury convenes to its chambers. The executioner sharpens his axe. I storm out, and the door closing behind me is the snap of a rubber glove going taut around your doctor's hairy fist before your first prostate exam. I stand in the hallway and ignore the 'NO SMOKING' sign for a few minutes. A couple of bodies pass me and steer a berth wide enough to keep their Titanics from hitting my iceberg.
It doesn't take them long to decide, which is exceptionally good news or exceptionally bad. Agent Van swings the door inward and returns to his chair without a word. I follow him inside and take a seat. "What's it gonna be?"
Brown swings the axe. "Agent Machina, it is the conclusion of this council that--" Here it comes. Greased up and ready. My sphincter clenches hard enough to pinch off a finger. No fighting it. "you did not mislead or withold information from your superiors regarding Dr. Alexandra 'WarGear' Rothestein."
Huh. Didn't see that one coming. I reach up my hand and rub the crust out of the corner of my eye thoughtfully. "You really believe that?"
Brown lets a rare moment of candor slip out. His lips don't move, but I can see it in his eyes. I didn't expect them to answer the question, but the barest flick of his lids tells the story. They aren't buying it, and for reasons I can't tell, they aren't going to drop me. Yet.
"That isn't germane to the judgment of this council", Agent Starling cuts in. "Our judgment is that you did not mislead us. That is all."
I nod slightly, inhaling through my nose. "Got it."
A manilla folder closes, and Starling delivers on her windup. "Your SCI clearances will be revoked for a period of no less than six months, and your TS clearance will be limited to engineering. Director Leifenstahl will be monitoring and supervising your work for a period of no less than three months, at which time you will be under review by this council again. Furthermore, your access will be limited to the main, engineering, and utilities wings of the building." Her voice hovers for a moment, switching mental tracks from her prepared speech. "You are an invaluable utility to the Directive, Agent Machina." She's practically sneering while she says it. Yeah, baby, you like it. You know it. "As an engineer. And it's our decision that it is far past time your access credentials were commensurate to your function. That will be all. Dismissed."
I grunt, stand, and salute. The door is a mile away, but I man up and carry myself with a soldier's poise all the same. To be honest, it ain't too bad. My surveillance credentials get stripped, that pencil-dick Loni hovers over my shoulder. The punishment is more symbolic than anything. 'You're not an agent, anymore. You're a tech, nothing more. Be a tech.' So why the fuck are my knuckles white with rage? I walk the long mile back to the engineering wing under escort; I'm not welcome here, anymore.
I sulk back to my office, country music and heavy metal. I can't access my own file, anymore.
I wonder if that dickless fuck Zia ever has to put up with shit like this.
As of last week, fifteen of the twenty smartest mutants in the whole world were known to the public, and the other three were known by my people, at least vaguely. Of course, you’ve got that skirted poof Mal off on the side. Nobody knows where he stands. But his boyfriend, Jeremiah Scripture, he’s up there. So’s Antaeus, James Meehan, Rachel, her girlfriend the Ubercunt, a bunch of others. Most of them seem to polarize to the Teragen or the Project, which makes a perverse kinda sense. The smarter you get, the more you start to realize how other people, other things tick. You start to see people for what they really are. When they talk, you don’t even hear what they’re trying to tell you, anymore, you just hear what they mean. And god forbid you get saddled with being able to read their empty little fucking heads; telepaths are statistically in the upper 10% of recent eruptees in terms of quality of life for the first six months. After that, they’re in the bottom 3%. Mind readers are 36.4% more likely to commit suicide than any other kind of nova. The super-smart assholes don’t fare much better, and follow the same, predictable course: top 20% for six months, then crash down to the bottom 8%. 23.8% more likely to off themselves than a mutant without. What do those numbers tell anybody who’s inclined to read them, huh? Well, sure, you can always lie with statistics, but let’s pretend those figures are accurate. We’ve got a sample size of about eight thou and can accurately track around seven-point-six thousand of them, so while you’re still going to have problems with correlating or antecedent causes, just trust me, the research is pretty fucking good. I compiled a lot of it.
So what does that tell you? Well, chances are, you look at those numbers and come to the conclusion that understanding people - whether it’s by figuring them out like you’d backwards-assemble a program or an engine or just by dipping around inside all those places they want to keep hidden from you - is pretty fucking depressing. That still doesn’t explain why, of course, but I can make a pretty good guess. Once you really understand people, you understand how basic, atavistic, and simple they really are. All that complexity, all that depth, all those noble intentions and aspirations of heroism, you know what they basically boil down to? Getting laid and out-surviving the other monkeys. The sad thing is that most of these jokers have to become evolutionary dead-ends before the realize what any high school biology teacher could tell them; that people are still just a bunch of fuckin’ animals, and that all our art, our history, our religion, our science, our pompous attitudes about dominion over this little ball of mud we sit on, all of it; it’s all just really about fucking and living. Realizing that fact and understanding it are two different things, and I think that’s what sends so many of these jokers running to the bureau for their handguns and their Valium. Once you understand that fact, really understand it, you’ve basically got two options: either you’re going to deal with that fact, or that fact is going to deal with you. And that’s why the mind-readers and the super-intelligent are so likely to off themselves; universal perspective shoves your face right into the truth of how small and pathetic and meaningless you and everyone you know and everything you do is, and does fuck-all in the way of imparting upon that person the coping mechanisms to deal with that truth.
There aren’t a lot of people who can hack that. Those who do have to work with it. Some become shepherds, and you’ll find a lot of them in the Project. Some of them convince themselves that the flaw isn’t in humanity, but baseline humanity, and that, gee, if only all the novas could form a cute little commune away from all the ignorant, dirt-farming, pissant monkeys, finally we could get something “real” and “meaningful” done, and you get a lot of Terats going that route. Then you get guys who try to opt out of the game entirely, and a lot of mercs opt for that; keep your mind occupied and you won’t have to think too hard about how pointless it all is. After that comes a grab-bag of assorted religious wackos and narco freaks who try to dull the voice in their head by filling it with something else, effectively just bullshitting themselves, which is probably the oldest means of avoiding unpleasant truths known to sentient life. I wonder how many of them just try to turn off.
The Directive keeps constant surveillance of the twenty smartest novas on the planet, at least as far as they can. There’s a slant nova by the name of Ping who’s been awfully elusive of late, but then, any mutant that’s as smart as he is and not public about it is going to be awfully good at laying low, anyway. Each individual on that list is watched by an entire team through every moment of their lives. Each one is considered a Titan Class threat, because every last one of them is so far beyond the pale, their machinations so vast and complex, that moves as seemingly innocuous as ordering a pizza or taking the dog for a walk are regarded as suspect, tiny cogs in some ridiculously circuitous plan that pays off a few thousand steps down the road and can only be deciphered by watching them constantly, analyzing everything from the frequency with which they blow their nose to the time between clicks while channel surfing. Baselines can have trouble believing that; Freud’s old chestnut about a cigar being just a cigar. But when Prodigy sits on the toilet or Scripture goes out to buy tofu, I somehow doubt they’re planning anything more insidious than dinner and maybe a tug before passing out with the Spice Channel on. Or maybe that’s just me.
I can see my reflection in the glass screen of a map that sits on a wall in a surveillance boiler arm of the Manhattan branch of the Directive. I used to work in this arm. I used to do what these people do, vicariously living out the lives of the brilliant as a career, digging, examining, analyzing. A small, red light catches my eye, a pinprick of light hovering over a spot in New England. I press my finger to the glass over the dot and a display comes up on the window, asking for my access credentials. I type them in with one hand as the glass reads my fingerprints, DNA, retina. A transparent window pops up over the Atlantic to tell me I’ve been granted access, and is replaced with another window with a full profile on the nova in question. Of these twenty dots, only two of them bring up profiles that register as incomplete. One of them is for Divis Mal, and the other one is mine. Some of those people out there in that room, now they watch me.
Huh. Up to eleven this week. I wonder if they’re flattering me.
“Agent Machina?” A voice comes from behind me. I do my best to ignore it.
“Agent Machina?”, it persists. “I’ll ask you again; why did you fail to alert us of the threat Rothstein presented to our interests in Riyadh?”
I close the window and turn to look back to the table. All I can hear is the sound of my own totally unnecessary breathing and the metronome ticking of an antique wristwatch Agent XXX’s wearing. What the fuck do you say to a question like that? Reminds me of when I’d be dating some broad and she’d asked me if she looked fat. There ain’t any way to answer that question that they’ll buy. There is no right answer. ‘Because I’m not fucking omniscient’ isn’t going to cut it, for the precise reason that somehow they’ve got it into their heads that all-seeing and all-knowing is exactly what I am. The Amazing fucking Kreskin, is what. Agent Machina, the answer man, the Great Gazoo, less a man than a computer with a rotten attitude that you can beat and threaten when it gets mouthy.
I sigh and take a seat at the table, eyeing the three figures across it with the kind of contempt I’ve been practicing all my life. I cast a glance up at the one-way glass behind them, wondering who’s behind it today. Fitzgerald, maybe. Or Roth. Monitoring my life signs, supplying the juice to the Perseus Unit, the one that I developed less than a month ago, the one my assistants installed in this room. And now they’re using it against me. The irony is so thick I can chew it, especially since it’s so completely fucking unnecessary. They don’t know that, of course, wouldn’t buy it if I told them, and in the meantime, they’re going to be more vigilant than ever, convinced somewhere in the back of their heads that the hold of my supernatural likeability (snort) is at last broken, and now, oh yeah, the gloves are off.
The truth isn’t going to cut it, but any mother or used car salesman could catch me in a lie. I’m a shitty liar. And the suits are getting impatient, and I got nothing. Going to have to tell them something, Gerad. Can’t sit here all fucking day. “I, uh…I failed to alert this committee to the threat because…well, because it played perfectly into my plans.” I spit the last few words at them, giving them a look of sober satisfaction. They’re going to love this.
One of them arches his eyebrows behind black, mirrored sunglasses. “Excuse me? Agent Machina, what exactly are you telling this committee?”
“Exactly what you want to hear”, I heave back. Really, I got nothing, and I know it. If they’re going to demote me, fire me, ship me off to Greenland, there isn’t shit I can do about it. May as well get it the fuck over with. “That’s what you’re suspecting, right? That my lack of communication over the last week after that cunt fucked off to play General is all part of some epic, butterfly-beats-its-wings-in-Vanuatu-and-the-Cubs-win-the-World-Series-type scheme? Couldn’t be that I just didn’t fucking think of it, right? Nah. Couldn’t be that I spent the last week naked on a couch in Pretoria, furtively trying to console my distressed girlfriend because she apparently cares more about that stupid, know-nothing, egomaniacal, homicidal, hack, thinks-she’s-a-soldier fucking cooze than she does about me, RIGHT?” I sigh, growl, and put out my butt on the tabletop, my jaw set and clenching in anger. “Look. You’re going to question anything I say. Whatever I tell you, you’re not going to believe it, leastwise not entirely. You lot think I’ve got some angle I’m playing. Fine. Fucking fire me and get it over with. You can have my goddamn resignation, if that’s what you want. I’m through with this shit.”
Center across the table consults his flanks with a silent move of his head and looks back at me with what I could swear is the tiniest bit of a smirk on his face, folding his hands in front of him. "Agent Machina, would you kindly wait outside a moment?"
"Sure", I spit. Time to kick old Gerry out so they can decide what to do with me. The jury convenes to its chambers. The executioner sharpens his axe. I storm out, and the door closing behind me is the snap of a rubber glove going taut around your doctor's hairy fist before your first prostate exam. I stand in the hallway and ignore the 'NO SMOKING' sign for a few minutes. A couple of bodies pass me and steer a berth wide enough to keep their Titanics from hitting my iceberg.
It doesn't take them long to decide, which is exceptionally good news or exceptionally bad. Agent Van swings the door inward and returns to his chair without a word. I follow him inside and take a seat. "What's it gonna be?"
Brown swings the axe. "Agent Machina, it is the conclusion of this council that--" Here it comes. Greased up and ready. My sphincter clenches hard enough to pinch off a finger. No fighting it. "you did not mislead or withold information from your superiors regarding Dr. Alexandra 'WarGear' Rothestein."
Huh. Didn't see that one coming. I reach up my hand and rub the crust out of the corner of my eye thoughtfully. "You really believe that?"
Brown lets a rare moment of candor slip out. His lips don't move, but I can see it in his eyes. I didn't expect them to answer the question, but the barest flick of his lids tells the story. They aren't buying it, and for reasons I can't tell, they aren't going to drop me. Yet.
"That isn't germane to the judgment of this council", Agent Starling cuts in. "Our judgment is that you did not mislead us. That is all."
I nod slightly, inhaling through my nose. "Got it."
A manilla folder closes, and Starling delivers on her windup. "Your SCI clearances will be revoked for a period of no less than six months, and your TS clearance will be limited to engineering. Director Leifenstahl will be monitoring and supervising your work for a period of no less than three months, at which time you will be under review by this council again. Furthermore, your access will be limited to the main, engineering, and utilities wings of the building." Her voice hovers for a moment, switching mental tracks from her prepared speech. "You are an invaluable utility to the Directive, Agent Machina." She's practically sneering while she says it. Yeah, baby, you like it. You know it. "As an engineer. And it's our decision that it is far past time your access credentials were commensurate to your function. That will be all. Dismissed."
I grunt, stand, and salute. The door is a mile away, but I man up and carry myself with a soldier's poise all the same. To be honest, it ain't too bad. My surveillance credentials get stripped, that pencil-dick Loni hovers over my shoulder. The punishment is more symbolic than anything. 'You're not an agent, anymore. You're a tech, nothing more. Be a tech.' So why the fuck are my knuckles white with rage? I walk the long mile back to the engineering wing under escort; I'm not welcome here, anymore.
I sulk back to my office, country music and heavy metal. I can't access my own file, anymore.