Voice of Reason in the Desert


Vesselin C. Noninski




New York











Also by Vesselin C. Noninski

Relativity is the Mother of All Fake News
No Great Reset
No COVID-19 Pandemic
No COVID-19 Pandemic (audio)
Deception Governed by Absurdities
Time is Absolute, Including the Extra Special Bonus: Manual How to Do Bad Science
Companion to Deception Governed by Absurdities
Companion to Deception Governed by Absurdities (translated)
Conservation of Coordinates and Its Crucial Social Ramifications
Conservation of Coordinates and Its Crucial Social Ramifications (translated)



To my dear friend and colleague Judith M. Ciottone, professor of nuclear physics, who is the first and the only one in the entire world who understood and appreciated the deep profundity of my discoveries. I thank her also for the help in preparing this text and for her unwavering moral support in these times of trouble and intellectual degradation.



Copyright © 2024 by Vesselin C. Noninski

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author. Inquiries can be directed to the author at timeisabsolute@outlook.com.

Cover is from a stock image on www.canva.com





Introduction

Introduction

No discoveries have been more important than the ones made by the protagonist of this story, and none have been more harshly slighted by the world, a world that continues to celebrate absurdities by calling them science and sheepishly worshiping these absurdities as the ultimate creation of the human mind. It so happens, however, that the absolute truths the protagonist discovered are eventually bound to become an intricate part of the inevitably spontaneous formation of a contrivance that provides the remedy to save the world. That is why, neglected or not, his scientific discoveries at long last could not possibly have any chance to be circumvented either deliberately or by some divine power.

What follows, especially in the subsequent book, is in some ways unusual. It is conceived as a novel that is more or less a vehicle for entertainment. In this case, however, it hopes to attract readers when all else has failed. Yet it is based on the protagonist’s scientific discoveries of absolute truths, which makes it less fiction and more nonfiction. The protagonist wishes it sounded less didactic, but, alas, he can’t help himself.

Firstly, the subject matter is such that it cannot favor freedom of laxity. There must be at least some certainty in expressing the ideas. That is detrimental for a regular novel but is an essential element of what is to follow from here on. The risk is that when there is certainty a door always cracks open to serve a pontificator. Furthermore, how can you get pontification out from under your skin when you have already written eight books which are anything but frivolous, rather, calling for reason and rational thought? We shall see from what follows if the right balance will be found and whether what will be cooked will be gourmet or a cacophony salad.

“I know that’s boring for the general reader,” thought the protagonist when he first reached for the pen, figuratively speaking, to begin penning the book, “Hence, whoever expects this book to unleash roaming in the irrational, this will not be such person’s reading buddy on the night table.”

The protagonist reclined in his chair, slightly pressing his ear lobes between his hands and sighed, releasing the tension that had been building when he began realizing what he is getting into.

“I must be honest,” the protagonist confided, “This book is written with the purpose to be read by everyone, not just by people who think they understand science or for people who are interested in reading about science. It has an entertaining element and that is deliberate. Judge me or not, that’s how I felt during the time I was writing the book. When literally no one cares to read what you have written your heart overflows with despair and you go beyond your borders. I know some will rightfully say, let it go. You’ve done your fair share, now let the chips fall where they may.”

With thas said, we will now carry on, remarking one other peculiarity of this creation—meant as a tetralogy, it will have it’s first part hidden.

“The reason for that is trivial,” the protagonist explained, “Nevertheless, I reckon that the first part had to be written if for no other reason than to have a recorded account available of what I went through prior to suddenly finding myself into the whirlwind of making discoveries, followed by the quixotic endeavor to pass them across to society with the goal to save its (society’s) future from further sinking into the same mistakes it has been tragically sinking for over a century, to reach a moment of the incredible serendipity of realizing that the discoveries I made are nothing less than instruments to save the world,” excitedly said the protagonist, continuing, “In effect, my discoveries prove that there is no new reality, as has been incessantly advertised to impress the feeble minded, no new physics which requires revolutionary changes in thinking, turning it into an illusory mess. There is an irreversible demise in thinking, crushing of its cognitive basis, as a result of vicious assault massively propagandized during the course of the entire century and ongoing to this day.”












The idea for the book

Where did the idea for writing this book come from?



“The following will sound like an excuse-me-for-living type of an apology but I felt I need to preface this book with the following introduction, as a sort of disclosure statement,” said the protagonist, preparing to divulge a secret one doesn’t hear very often fall off the lips of a creative person, “I’ll be honest with you, the truth is, I have been extremely unsuccessful in getting across to society the discoveries I made regarding the most important notions of thinking—time and space—as well as many other notions such as motion, if I am to mention one more of these many other notions with regard to which I made discoveries. My discoveries, which provide the direction of the future world, are viciously ignored by today’s world. Correcting world’s cognition on the basis of these discoveries is perhaps the most important change the world must make.”

The gap between the willingness of the world to hear and adopt these discoveries and their dramatic significance dwarfs any other problem of world importance. Unfortunately, the more important these issues are, the less they occupy the central attention of the world throughout the decades, much less its daily agenda.

“This is the nature of things or human nature, if you will,” the protagonist continued, “And I also in no way try to make excuses for myself for my blatant inability to convince the world. At present, there is not a single individual, including my closest friends, in the entire wide world who would want to listen to these catastrophic arguments, let alone make an effort to understand them and take them to heart. The attitude is that Vesco has been saying something which seems obscure, to say nothing of the fact how boring it is. For whatever reason this Vesco has been obsessed with that and we, being civilized, should respect his personal preferences, no matter how annoying they actually are.”

Convincing the world that science is in a grotesque state today as a result of taking a wrong path, obtruding the mantra that “You must be wrong, in order to be right”, and is still going along that wrong path during the past hundred years, is impossible. The world is blind to the grotesques state of science, to the fact that it is badly ill, and has it as a firmly established fact that science is doing more than well, every day opening up new astonishing expanses of scientific miracles. I don’t want to repeat here what my discoveries are because I’ve described them in at least eight books now. Those who are interested may find them on the internet because I’m not willing to repeat over and over again arguments that I have already described in various forms in so many writings. Moreover, these discoveries are not organic to the story that follows. Nevertheless, a follow-up sequel to this book asks for having a brief review of some of the discoveries, so I summarize there the discoveries relevant to the issue at hand.

Part of the story to be told here takes place in the not so distant future but today is also not forgotten. That future is so near that the relations, institutions, the law and everything else is so close to us that it might as well be happening right now. Undoubtedly, we have a ways to go, but we can relate to what will be happening soon in much the same way as if we are witnessing it now. Besides, there is no reason to surmise that the world will end in ten years, or in a hundred years. No one can guarantee that the world will not be around another thousand years or more, for that matter. Given the speed at which some technologies are moving, even the near future is set to bring us amazing developments.

As far as science goes, today’s science is a goner and all those who have the inclination to find out what is going on in today’s science are sorely wasting their time. People who are in their senses will not waste even a minute of their life with what today is being called science.

On the other hand, while science today is improper, there is technology, which differs from proper science in that its character is necessarily applied, let alone unwavering in its righteousness. Proper, real science, which is lacking today, on the other hand, doesn’t care about practical applications, to say nothing about how nonchalant today’s broken science is about its wrongness and absurdity. Proper, real science occupies itself with the production of knowledge only, exclusively focusing on the way nature works. Emphatically, science is not a “productive force” as the authorities were drumming into the heads of society, drumming which still reverberates throughout the world—a fertile soil for all kinds of fabricators, manipulators and swindlers of all sorts.

“Why am I even talking about these boring, didactic sounding matters?” worriedly thought the protagonist.

Because, in the long run, what is going to be related herewith concerns one very crucial fact; namely, that the world will become a better place when science, in order to reform itself as proper, real science, must begin functioning similar to technology. Notice, proper, real, science will still comprise an activity exclusively producing knowledge; i.e., it will differ from technology, however, in that the knowledge produced by that proper, real, science will be truthful knowledge, not something that vicious propaganda shoves down the throat of the world as knowledge, but that “knowledge” is in fact falsity, absurdity and fabrication.

“It happened so that in my sixties I started discovering absolute truths which laid the foundation of a completely new, reformed look at the state of science, which I was appalled to find is in shambles,” went on the protagonists with a lot of angst and pain.

Aside from the fact that technology is something limited, in most cases concerned with solving some concrete practical tasks, as opposed to the proper, real, science, devoid of absurdities, which discovers general laws pertaining to all nature, shining like the sun over everyone on the entire earth, technology is a very neat thing, actually. Technology is a neat thing because it always delivers what it promises. It never fails, because if it does fail bridges will start collapsing, buildings will go down in rubble and airplanes will crash mid-air, if they can take off at all. Technology always, without exception, obeys the absolute truths of nature.

Thus, it is worth repeating, that the salvation of humanity will arrive when science begins to function the way technology does, turning itself into proper, real science, while at the same time retaining its specific characteristics of being the idealistic finder of new knowledge as opposed to the practicality of technology.









Devious trick

Devious trick



In order to get out of the above nagging and uttering definitions which no one is interested in, our protagonist decided to try making the above a little bit more interesting by telling you a tale which, although seemingly far-fetched at first glance, may happen to turn out to be quite plausible. He decided to go out of his way to make an attempt at writing a fiction book, something utterly unusual for a scientist. Of course, he knew of other scientists who have made similar attempts. All of these attempts seemed to him outright unsuccessful. His attempt will also turn out unsuccessful, he intuitively knew that, but at present he had no other choice. No one wants to listen to what he says, so, at least, there will remain something in black and white and, who knows, one day, some lost soul may even find it, if not entertaining, at least readable.

He was sitting there, all by himself, in his usual pose. Picture him holding his head in the palms of his two hands, whispering indistinctly

“I’ve always thought that in order to be a good writer you must be a seasoned liar. There may be something to it when considering the general literature, I get it. In this particular writing, though, the story is about real truth, not the uttering which some call truth, but isn’t truth at all.”

Furthermore, the problem with writing a fiction book, for someone who is used to scientific exactness, results in something tentative, pertaining only to the protagonists. If there are thoughts of general character, they usually are trite, so that they be snugly accommodating for the general public. General public expects entertainment and that usually is not that deep. Deep content is boring and has no public.

These thoughts made him all the more reluctant and his arm got so heavy, as if it turned into a piece of lead, unable to lift itself so it could reach the keyboard of the computer.

“The interesting thing about this story,” he thought, after getting over the anxiety, “is that the fundamentals of it are unequivocal. These are the fundamentals I discovered,” as he already said, “beginning in my early sixties.”

These absolute fundamentals which he discovered will inevitably serve as the absolute calibrating standard for the future development of proper real, science, which in turn will have unforeseen favorable repercussions on the entire workings of the world, making it a better place.

The arguments against the absurdities such as quantum mechanics and especially the “theory” of relativity, deviously foisted as the fundamentals of physics, are the golden standard of scientific arguments.

So, now, fasten your seatbelts and let’s have some fun until we find out how the world will become a better place when science becomes fixed.

“Before the reader immerses into the story,” the protagonist said, “I would like to express something which bugs me to this day. What is really amazing is that such a profound problem for the elite, as the one this story is about, directly jeopardizing its governance, is analyzed by its lackeys and willing servants traditionally, classically, without even a bit of imagination.”

To reiterate, in the story below we are met with special services, agents, informers, everything expected to protect the interests of the elite. The answer is radically elsewhere but the elite and its cohorts stubbornly marches along the trodden path, confident as ever. Obviously, those who service the elite and are hired to protect it are themselves brainwashed in the spirit of the general mediocrity. What is happening shows that the ruling group is, in all actuality, incapable of even worrying about properly protecting its interests, nor would it be able to even if the elite were the shrewdest bunch on earth. This has never happened in history. The elite has always been on top of it with its manipulations and schemes. Not now. Not that it didn’t want to. It just couldn’t.





events that unfold

The events that unfold in this unusual story



The protagonist was walking along the promenade when something unusual happened. The first thing he saw were the ambulances on the Henry Hudson Parkway blaring like mad. He didn’t realize that whatever was happening, though outside his immediate interests and struggle, was still intimately related to what he was fighting for. There would be a lot of “water under the bridge” before it became clear what that meant and how it was connected to him, but today he hadn’t the slightest idea, accepting those sirens as just part of the usual background noise of the city.

Let us now forget about that ambler, who otherwise is actually all too important for our story, and give ourselves over to the ensuing tale. Let’s now enjoy the story while it lasts, because, although it seems to be a story about crime, it is far beyond such a common thing and will cause an increasing headache, mostly for those who are responsible for law and order. Not to mention that it will eventually take an unexpected direction, reaching a state of universal stupor and stun.

As befitting stories like the one that follows, stories involving public disorder, not to mention loss of life, there must be a Police Commissioner involved.





The Troubled Commissioner

The Troubled Commissioner



The NYC Police Commissioner was beside himself. Not only had he lost his temper this morning when the suits called him to report the unresolved crimes piling up on his desk at an unfathomable rate, but now this. Three reports were lying on a special small table brought in for the occasion. It is always a special kind of emergency when a dignitary, to say nothing of a potentate, was found deceased. Now there were three, with no witnesses, no signs of invasion, no fingerprints.

The chauffeur was waiting downstairs to bring the Commissioner to the first crime scene, but the otherwise busybody-defender of the law was in no hurry. Something does not add up here—more so than in the usual cases when it doesn’t add up.

The Commissioner was savvy enough to know better, even when a case is a tough nut to crack. There was something more now, though. On top of it, it might have been just an illusion, but the man was hearing distant sounds of what appeared to be a celebration. It’s beside the point, thought the Commissioner, so he brushed it off and went on with the convoluted task at hand.

By the way, there was a restructuring in the police department recently, whereby there was a change in naming the ranks of the police officers, among other things. This introduced slight confusion, which this relator wasn’t spared from as well. For example, the reader may want to excuse the title of Commissioner being confused in this text with that of Inspector and so on. No offense intended.

He sat on a chair in front of the little table and reached out for a well-hidden pack of cigarettes. He had already too many scorns from his loving wife to know better on this occasion too—better hide the cigs to avoid explanation.

A knock on the door brought him back to the reality around him. Before answering, he took a piece of paper from underneath the Roladex and wrote in his wide longhand:

Do not disturb!

He hung up the sign on the outside of his office door, not even caring to express the slightest curiosity as to who might have disturbed his thoughts. Probably, it would have been wiser to notice that there was nobody there. But the Commissioner was occupied with his own thoughts and they were really on the other side of disturbing. Was the knocker too timid, afraid to confront the Commissioner, or did he have a second thought about an uncooked suggestion, which he intended to share with his boss? This was a tough case, but no matter how tough the case is, the underlings always compete to be the first to share their thoughts with whoever is in charge. Most likely, it was the second option.

So far nothing unusual, save the usual dismissal of the extraterrestrial, mysterious and paranormal.

What made the Commissioner unusually agitated, though, is that never before has there been such a number of luminaries vanish within hours of each other.

“All the special forces and security involved, and not even an inkling of who might be behind all this?” was the question that wouldn’t become scarce in his mind, not only on this day, but would persist for days ahead.



~o~


At the same time, in another part of the world, a door bell rang and a voice from one of the rooms was heard:

“Come on in, the door is open.”

Surprisingly, the neighborhood crime had fallen to nil, as never before. People easily accommodate to such changes, massively leaving their doors open. This was unheard of even a decade ago, so the stout man stepped in somewhat hesitantly.

“London Police Commissioner Knowington,” introducing himself to a woman in a pegnoir.

The lapels of the pegnoir were slightly krinkled, suggesting perhaps leaning over a writing desk during an intense mental exercise, more so than puzzle-solving, which is exactly what happened during her long night of struggle over hypotheses.

“I know, Commissioner, what brings you here. I assure you, that’s exactly what’s causing me to lose sleep too.”

Dr. Pennybrow was a deputy director of a research center which had a name but its occupation was not exactly clear.

“How is it that a system can be so perfectly tuned, so infallible, and even immune from amnesia toward the ancient computer languages of the sort of Assembler, Algol and Fortran, from which all that we know today language-wise evolved? It’s like one of those Roly-Poly toys that can never tip over. There is no infallible system—a well-known paltriness and a doctrine we were all raised with—but this one, apparently, is. Are we sinking now into the paradox of desired fallibility of a system, in order to believe it’s real, instead of rejoicing in its perfectness?”

Hearing that, the Police Commissioner on the other side of the pond found himself doubly baffled—on top of the unusual passing of luminaries around the world, falling like flies, now this—a flawlessly functioning central system. Mystery upon mystery keeps piling up, although mystery was excluded on the NYC side of the pond, as was said. Where will it end?

“How do you mean?” the Commissioner on this side of the big lake turned his eyes to meet Dr. Pennybrow’s, asking more for politeness than genuine interest. He already had too many things on his mind to be distracted by minor technicalities. Little did he know. Dr. Pennybrow sensed that bureaucratic neutrality in Commissioner’s eyes and replied with her well-trained office demeanor

“You know how hints jolt even before you’ve written the whole word in your word processor. That’s sometimes quite annoying, actually. We have experienced that now not just separate words but whole blocks of the code come up as hints. Lately, you can’t even touch the code editor because the code you intend to write appears ready to go as soon as whatever it is senses what you’re up to. Remember also how one needed to test the ready program and the more complex it is the more cycles of corrections it had to go through. Not any more. Not only does it appear that the program seems to write itself but it goes through the whole testing process on its own at a speed none of our employees can match.”

The Commissioner was onto something else and Dr. Pennybrow’s words hung in the air more like the wallpaper in the room than having any other role in the exchange between the two. We know that Dr. Pennybrow was aware of that blank disinterest and let it go.

It’s understandable that the reader would like to know more about the center Dr. Pennybrow was working for, however, such knowledge will not contribute to unpacking the mystery at hand. These kinds of centers are usually involved with what’s in front of them, trying to perfect and apply, in various practical directions, what is already known. Those who work there do not have the wherewithal that would allow them to have the initiative to go beyond the visible horizon of their set tasks. Any attempt to violate this restriction finds no fertile ground and is abandoned, even if there is an employee who occasionally stumbles upon an opportunity to break through.

Therefore, the observed rising perfection in the functioning of the digital world they are dealing with is observed only from the technical point of view, treated as a given.

Such an institution does not predispose one to even attempt developing an understanding of a possible inherent connection to the outside world, apart from the familiar ways of inputting and outputting data through a computer keyboard, mouse, a computer monitor, to mention but a few, or other external devices. One can imagine the operation of this center as a workshop where, apart from assembling certain elements to produce a working machine, the most that can be expected creatively is to produce a bespoke product to achieve a concrete practical goal. So the increasing perfection of the work of their digital creations was more or less just seen as a curiosity, except that, understandably, they welcomed it as something quite desirable.

Unfortunately, the atmosphere in almost all such institutions possesses to some extent the utilitarian orientation of the center represented here by Dr. Pennybrow.

Therefore, especially in view of what was eventually to unfold, the activities of the institution in question, and others like it, have only a marginal role and are of no interest for what is to happen later in our story. We shall, therefore, not dwell on it further.



~o~


People still go to pubs where they can talk somewhat freely. Conversations on the internet are monitored. When the hired, concealed censors outsourced in Pakistan or elsewhere overseas are instructed to shadow-ban unwanted discussions, they promptly do so without a second thought. The topic of discussion concerning disappearing potentates is one such serious topic deserving the mother of all bans on the internet.

When face to face in a café, patrons can say slightly more things to one another. That possibility is always rarely missed in this “internetionalized” world, but today that was entertained more than ever, and the joints were buzzing. Information was creeping out, as it always does when people start sensing that something out of the ordinary is going on. The bits of information have been seeping out elsewhere as well, which explains the sounds appearing as festive cheers, which the Commissioner seemed to hear but brushed them off. What that premature celebration was about wasn’t clear, because at the moment, even if one heard the rumor about passing potentates, it was still unconfirmed, let alone a complete mystification to everyone. As expected, the media, which controls the main flow of information, mentioned not a word about that basically tragic occurrence, in many ways curious. Loss of life is always a tragedy. This, however, wasn’t an ordinary loss, if there could ever be anything ordinary in losing life, despite the dabbling of philosophers and poets, some of whom viewing death as an integral part of life, hence a most usual thing. In the case of dignitaries, it is always not so usual a thing, philosophizing and poetizing notwithstanding. Dignitaries are not called dignitaries for no reason. In times past, the death of a king was a big deal, overturning history. The influence a king had can now only be compared, even surpassed, by the CEO’s of global companies, although the might of even the biggest corporation cannot be compared to the might of the smallest state with a king or a pope at the helm. The Vatican comes to mind, not so much San Marino with its army of crossbowers in its ranks.

How long could that information blackout, commanded by the police in all countries, obeying the order of those who run the world—the elite—last was anybody’s guess, but it couldn’t possibly be long. The Commissioner knew that very well. Therefore, he lost no time, not only to promptly organize the investigation, but also to resort to unusual steps, which may even cross legal limits. The state of emergency made him turn a blind eye to that crossing. He would co-opt the devil, if need be, to crack that nut. This situation couldn’t be tolerated any further.

There is an underworld, which in usual cases, was the main target of the Commissioner as the primary nemesis. Now, the services of that underworld may turn out useful. Why not reach out? He remembered how flexible things could be—marijuana was strictly criminalized, and it never crossed anyone’s mind that marijuana users could expect a break from the government. Yet, when its use got out of control, police, instructed by its handlers—the elite—gave up. Here, in the present case, the Commissioner was facing a problem of unheard-of proportions, greater than anything the police department had ever encountered, marijuana use being only a footnote to the novel police have been writing for at least a century. He was not feeling at ease to cross uncrossable barriers, but circumstances were dire, to say nothing of the fact that now the handlers themselves were in jeopardy. Not an excuse, some would argue, but the Commissioner had to do it, even though in doing so, he was adding fuel to the fire of rumors, reported even in the entertainment industry, of police ties to organized crime.





The Turbid Gaze of a Jaguar

The Turbid Gaze of a Jaguar



He was sitting behind his desk, like the unofficial emperor of the world, with the unhesitantly turbid dim look of a jaguar. One word, and the sun shining over a business deal will change its orbit. Two bodyguards came into his office. One of them whispered something in his ear. A swift change darted across his poker face glance, piercing the bodyguard, a glance that was never seen before. Now it meant war. When officials summon non-officials, what else could it mean?

It was not far-fetched to expect that all this motley crew of the summoned would gather somewhere, but who exactly would be the host and where exactly this high meeting would take place remained a mystery, a mystery whose veil would never be lifted. When the interests of the potentates are at stake, not to mention when their lives are in danger, the details of what takes place as a barrier are never reported to us—the mere mortals. The most we are allowed to register is what’s in front of us, no more.



~o~


The tires of his Maybach squealed, let off by the sudden impulse of the driver. A new link in the chain of his life was awaiting him—him, the Jaguar, not the driver.

The road was curving, fenced by pine trees, sometimes showing the salient gorges of the mountain. Fields with yellow flowers were springing up amidst the pine trees, only to be replaced again by the pines getting rarer as the climb was advancing.

The shiny shields of the cars, parked in front of the hut, were simmering in the bright sun that would mark this meeting, which would not soon fade away from the memories of those who were lucky enough to participate—as questionable a stroke of luck as it may be.



~o~


The luxurious clacks of the conservative car doors, opened rhythmically by the well-trained personnel, echoed throughout the gorge. These sounds were the accompaniment of the darting, if not chaotic, thoughts of those who were to gather inside the hut. This was not the usual laidback atmosphere in the club where the maître d’hôtel and the hostesses wore the same white gloves and starched white collars. Neither was it anything out of the ordinary when the chairperson, the first among equals, uttered his usual welcome, adding

“Here, in this hut, we have gathered to pay tribute to some needs which call for no delay.”

The curtains, fluttering in the tender wind coming through the slightly cracked windows, allowed the mountain breeze to replenish, with the scent of herbs, the room which had already begun to have the cigar smoke a bit more pronounced.

“Who knows what is being cooked up behind our backs,” someone was whispering in one of the corners.

“Don’t be paranoid.”

“And, yet, my intuition tells me, soon it’s gonna be hell.”

How many times have we heard those lines in every gangster movie? The hunch has its reasons. It wasn’t very usual, though, to have government look so openly for help from the mob. Never has an alliance with the government, as open as this, led to anything good.

As soon as the first among equals finished his soliloquy, there was a feeling that the floor began to shake, and to some of those present it seemed that everything was beginning to crumble, starting with the small altar in one of the corners. It is not always possible to control the hallucinations caused by the pressure of the moment.

As for the others present, who knows by what happenstance, finding themselves amongst the scions of the evergreen mob, this marked the end of a well-meaning group, which had set itself to change the world for the better by changing its fabric. How that group was connected to the mob no one knew, but they were also there, clandestine as ever. Paradoxically, the turmoil setting up in the world was going to do exactly that—change the world for the better—but that organized group neither had anything to do with it, nor did it have the slightest idea where all this is coming from.

Besides, when it comes to the mob, whoever has pillaging as a goal doesn’t give a hoot about betterment of the world. Such an agenda is nowhere to be seen in his schedule. Notably, what was happening was an activity on a practical level of mid-management of world affairs by using the brute force of police, army and secret societies plus the mob, as a notable exception. The elite, whose instruments are all these power institutions, the mob included, didn’t have a clue about what’s going on in the world either. Their expectation was that by amassing enough force, as in the usual cases, the danger to their existence will be restrained. Wrong! The danger of extinction for the elite was greater than ever this time.

Going back to the mid-level, we see the two groups entering an adjacent room, when its doors started to open.

Those who remained behind were the guards and the chauffeurs. The ones left behind were only to serve the privileged who are entrusted with the legacy of mob matters. They were not privy to any of the details of that legacy, neither did they know the final destination, least of all the goal of all this. But, as was pointed out, when it comes to the goal of all this, they were not alone in this oblivion. Everyone was in a fog, no matter the hierarchies involved.

It wasn’t important whether the basic personnel knew anything anyway, although when you’re excluded, who knows what you may think. But, after all, they were paid to do this job and most of them put up with suppressing their curiosity.



~o~


As for the Jaguar and his lieutenants, in a world where the vulture does not know it’s a vulture, the rules are made on the go. Everything changes from one day to the next. The only permanent goal is the sordid needs of the pack. For an outsider, such as the protagonist, it may not even make sense.

This time, however, it was more than that for both parties—police and the mob, not counting the third party, the party dedicated to improving the world.



~o~


This time the goal set forth for the mobsters was not loot. Their leader was surrounded virtually from all sides by the pack, draining him by a cannonade of pretenses of not understanding things clearly, as well as justifying obvious contradictions. This is how the paid hounds do their job when they are whipped up, having no second thought, neither are they following reason.

The Jaguar aside, our protagonist, also present at the meeting, was occupying himself with different thoughts. One thinks or writes about what concerns him the most. That is why he felt encircled by an insurmountable obsession about his main concern—not only how to get his epic discoveries across to the peoples of the world, but how to make these discoveries become a part of the world culture?

Even his closest friends were nonchalant about the world ignoring these discoveries. The fact that no philharmonic in the world had their music pieces as part of their permanent repertoire was of no concern to them, engulfed in the everyday struggle for their daily bread, intertwining themselves in mutually beneficial unions, entangled like messed up yarn with meaningless academic titles aspired to a crumbly pension and some local authoritativeness in the hierarchy of the quiet parochial slumber. Artists, moviemakers, scientists, everyone creative across the board stay happy in that insulting paralysis, only grateful to be alive, to be able to consume and travel. That is enough for them, eating, driving expensive cars, if they can afford them, and to see the world, not bothering about whether the world bothers to see them.

These kinds of thoughts are not in harmony with the solemnity of the atmosphere, despite the sheer lack of clarity as to why they were summoned there at all. The protagonist, however, was in his usual mood, never quite minding what is going on around him. Why was the main character in this writing so much concerned about the inclusion of his discoveries in the word science, respectively, culture? The first thought, naturally, is—ego. This is too easy an explanation to even deserve a consideration. The protagonist was acutely conscious of what he has achieved and what significance the discoveries he has made have for the world. How fatal that significance is was still escaping the discoverer. In truth, however, even he, at that point, didn’t know the real extent of the impact on the world, which his discovery of the absolute character of the most fundamental notions of thinking, would lead to. For now, his thinking was limited. He only needed to understand what makes it so that people not only hear about a discovery, but that discovery becomes a part of the everyday routine and discourse.

He was invited to this meeting out of pure friendship. No one imagined that the presence of an academic could move things further along in the investigation. As it would turn out much later in the game, one never knows. Not only is one more brain not in excess when solving such a tangled case, but the trained mind of an academic is a blessing. To say nothing of the fact that the academic in question has made one of the most important discoveries in history, which, as it would turn out eventually, is closely tangled with the resolution of the dramatic conundrum at hand.

Of course, you may have made discoveries of any level of importance, but if no one hears about them, they don’t exist for the world. One pens a book, writes a symphony, paints a picture, then puts it on the market and (sometimes) earns a lot of money as a result. Many think earning money is the goal. If you have become visible enough because of the market success, that also ensures, as a byproduct, becoming part of the culture. Wrong!

Is a meeting such as the one in the hut enough on the way to immortality or there is something more?



~o~


When the minions are forced by the circumstances to find themselves in charge, the adequacy, the ability to understand the responsibilities of firmly holding the reigns is of the essence. It is not unusual for this upward transition to go smoothly. After all, all are human beings, albeit having different upbringing, education, and origin. It is true that living earlier in poverty and need, must have incurred indelible marks on one’s being, but with the halo of power, the deficiencies due to these marks begin to look more like qualities than a drawback. Power heals anything. The Jaguar didn’t even think about that. Everyone put in power thinks of possessing that power as an inalienable right, as nothing else but natural and fully deserved.

“Power, however, means money as its singular generator, have no doubt. It’s money first, power next, not the other way around,” said an old man from the crowd, as he drew from his cigarette, held the smoke a bit and exhaled it in a puff.

Money possession is mostly chance but also specific knowledge or instinct, if you wish, about how to become needed. Such knowledge is never taught in school.

The old man began panting when remembering something and continued

“I wish I knew that when I was young and did not deceive myself, thinking that diligence in school will teach me anything else other than to be a working bee in the hive of life.”



~o~


She was looking at this fellow with the tiny rusty padlock on his chin and stories were reverberating in her brain, the sediment of a long experience in life. She can’t be fooled. So, who is this man staring at her, cracking a slight smile? The answer to this question she almost knew.

The jukebox in the bar is now broken and the silence clearly makes for rhythmic steps to be heard outside the open window. Then more, somewhat hesitant steps add their tentativeness to the first, a banging sound from the trashcan lid resounds and a deadly silence settles in.

The man with the orange shirt, sporting the rusty padlock, slightly turns his head away from the window. This allows Marion to step aside from the bar and cross the room. The night is quiet and there’s no one outside. This is what Marion sees when she opened the door to inspect, led not so much by a strange curiosity, but because that’s the job of a bartender—not only to serve drinks and shots, but also to be alert about the whereabouts of the entire joint placed under her care. Whose were these steps, why the trashcan sound and, most importantly, why isn’t there anyone to be seen around, having produced such a noise just a minute ago? When she looked more intently, she saw in the distance two receding figures. It occurred to Marion that those two, now retreating in the darkness, had unsuccessfully attempted something.

The padlock-fellow left on the table what must be twice the tab, raised himself from his chair and attempted to tuck in his shirt with an awkward gesture, while hurriedly exiting the front door. He sensed the threat hadn’t yet gone away, and it could be a mortal threat. The banging sound was produced by the clumsy attachment of an “infernal machine” with a clockwork detonator, aiming to blow up the whole block, not only the pub. There is no small sign of danger in a small town. Small towns and the pubs therein are unsafe. Were these two receding figures just some local thugs or were they connected to the larger story related herein? The larger story was an incomparably bigger threat, albeit not for every one, but only for the negligibly few occupants of the astral expanses of power, as will become clear, perhaps even not before long.

At such a moment one must react to the situation at hand, putting off ruminations on bigger threats for later. When one’s life is threatened directly, for him there cannot be a bigger threat.

He was trained to deal with such immediate threats. Obviously, those who tried the assault were in a hurry. Clearly, they knew who their target is—a former Marine and a participant in special operations around the world. Their sloppy work allowed for part of the device to slip out from the braces, hitting the top of a trash can. The Marine knew how to command his panic and fear, causing a beginner to fatally freeze. The soldier plunged, reaching the device with his left hand. It was a matter of less then a second, but he managed to throw the box into the ravine, beyond the wall of the outside latrine. The explosion that followed was horrendous, but took place at a distance and below the level of the ground where the pub stood on, so the damage was not significant and no one was harmed.

For our story, the question, though, still remains—was this attempt at assault just a coincidence, an event alongside the world turmoil, an event that would have happened anyway when a secret agent, a former Marine, is involved, or a deliberate action resulting from the dramatic things which the world is experiencing?

The above question is interesting but it is just a detail, the way individual battles, in the long run, are only of interest to the war historians. What really matters is the bird’s eye view, when the war ends. No one had this view at the time of the assault, for and many months, if not years, later. Thus, for the time being, all one had to do is withhold second guessing and misgivings.

Nevertheless, tension was felt and that led to activization of all power structures.



~o~


“Call me Lisa” said a message in his junk mailbox, which he accidentally read when cleaning it, tapping wildly. If there were not this obsession with keeping his email window free of bold typed words, he wouldn’t have even noticed her message, let alone read it. Concealed paid sex solicitation has become rampant these days but most everyday internet users like him have become numb to it. There was a number underneath, probably a phone number with a Manhattan area code.

He had been occupied with research on scientific matters and that had kept him away from even his closest contacts. The most he’d do socially is sit in a Starbucks coffee-shop with his MacBook Pro, engulfed in his thoughts. The last thing on his mind was to have a date, never mind a relationship.

Who Lisa was he couldn’t recall, but this was a message he was supposed to receive from his unknown relatives who arrived from the town of Kladno in Poland around 1917. In this message, he was to be told something which his ancestors had decided to preserve and hide specifically for him. He was the only one to whom that secret was to be revealed. Thus, the message read more like “Don’t forget who you are!”, “Don’t forget where you come from!”, “Don’t fall into the misery of this world’s folly!”

The first thought when one hears about secrets passed down through families is that they must concern the whereabouts of some gold treasure dug into the forests of Germany. The least one can usually think, in such a case, is some kind of property and inheritance. The mediocre imagination can hardly go further than that. Yet, there are secrets which are transferred from generation to generation, which supplant such trivialities. It’s not about home recipes which are passed through generations. Neither is it how your great grandfather built a church or a school in his hometown, as, incidentally, had been the case in our main character’s ancestry.

The surest way to keep knowledge secret is when it is wrapped in the form of science. For once, such knowledge may be hard to understand. even if the untrained mind wanted to know it. Secondly, claimed science, which in actuality can be sheer absurdity, as science is today, can be enclosed in a propaganda veil, discouraging anyone who would dare volunteer to penetrate it.

It is quite unlikely that his ancestors in Kladno meant that kind of knowledge. So, then, what was this secret knowledge which his ancestors wanted only him to knows?

Our suggestion is that what was passed on to him as secret knowledge, reminisced in the message of the unknown Lisa, was the spirit of discovery. That was the secret knowledge—the spirit of discovery, knowledge, mostly subconscious, of the awareness that it is he who is meant to make seminal discoveries. That spirit of discovery made it so that his line of thinking penetrated into territories no one else dared to go into. This left him without competitors, and he was able, when the experience and the years were right, to make discoveries of incredible depth and significance.

The message from the junk mailbox acted as a trigger which opened a hidden psychological door, which burst forth the incredible energy of a sudden relief. He realized how blessed he was to have no competitors in the fields he was studying. If everyone was doing it, the field would be so crowded that there would have been no place for him. Enemies and friends alike thought of criticizing relativity and quantum mechanics as more of an occupation bringing prestige than a science occupation. There are people a thousand times more pushy than him, working their way in with elbows and teeth, tooth and nail, as it were, and he would have drowned in that sea of competitiveness like a stone in a lake. Lucky for him, however, competitors are afraid to deal with these questions, because even the mere dealing with them will harm their reputation. It will label them as crackpots—that was their greatest fear. Of course, there were no competitors also because there were only a few with the acumen he has, but even they were imposing the self-barriers of auto-censorship. So, he realized, he was basking in this bliss of viciously imposed involuntary anonymity, which was, in fact, his best ally. Thus, the gloomy days when he sat in his room with the shutters down, blocking the daylight, were wasted days.

On the contrary, he had to thank God that no one has heard of him and no one is showing any interest in his work. This made him calm and capable of concentrating on his thoughts. Otherwise, he would have been in a constant state of agitation, hence distraction, and wouldn’t have been able to do one thing.

Speaking of secrets, imagine a world in which there are no secrets. Imagine, everything which science has achieved is available online for everyone to see. Parameters of personal health, as much as medicine has been able to determine, are available at once to everyone. The DNA constitution of everyone’s body, its genetic connections to everyone else, are known even from a distance. Monitoring of food, air and water is ubiquitous and no intake of hazardous nature is at all possible—imagine a truly sanitized world.

In addition, everything else is on public record—no secrecy on contracts, no secret negotiations, no corridors of power. Under such conditions, the world we know will fall apart.

As was said, there is one area where, by its very nature, knowledge will be hidden to most of the public—science. This is where speculations flourish unchecked, especially today, concealed under the shared collective lie known as paradigm, forming a consensus. It is concealment of scientific knowledge by the mere fact that it can only be achieved by that knowledge being understandable, or made it appear understandable only by an elite. Elite imposes on everyone else what is to be considered knowledge and what appears as understanding of that so-called knowledge.

The above is a very important point but the world is not prepared for it. Science and technology are not mutually interchangeable. There is a distinct difference between the two. The topic of science as distinct from technology in its goals, but desiredly functioning as the upholder of real truth as the main means of improving the world, will occupy the world’s attention years from now, comprising the essential part of the revelation regarding what’s going on now, causing all this buzz. This is a heads-up, but we will not jump the gun now, before finishing our story of what’s happening in the mysteriously changing world. Something bigger than the visible threats and disasters was slowly taking over, staggering the earth, bigger than Godzilla, earthquakes and world wars.



~o~

The tram was already winding past “Vishneva” stop, and no one in that tram suspected what was happening nearby in an apartment somewhere down the slope in “Lozenets”.

Two people, a young dame and an over-the-hill gentleman, an old curmudgeon of sorts, were occupied by solving riddles, oblivious to all going on around them, as befitting of people involved in an engaging interlocution everywhere and everywhen.

“Pick out buildings in Sofia built in the Secession style,” she said, lightly flicking a lock of hair above her temple.

“You want to trick me into admitting that one cannot easily come up with some answers. The building I live in is Bauhaus, if you’d consider that as a progeny of Secession. So, here you have one. For the rest, I have to go around town and appreciate them one by one if they belong to the Secession, given also that I’m not an architect, and therefore cannot have the last word.”

“OK, then, after this easy question, you may now agree that to consider what comprises art is even harder. People have long ago given up on strictly defining art and are letting it go. There is nothing you can say objectively regarding art. I suspect the same applies to science. Can someone who has not done science make pronouncements on the veracity of scientific claims?”

“The answer is in the positive, depending on the claims. For instance I, myself, have made scientific discoveries of historic significance, which happen to be scientific claims that any averagely intelligent person can get.”

“Aren’t you conceited? Can anyone even allow himself to talk like that?”

“Certainly. Depends on whether the talker can back up his claims with arguments. Furthermore, I’ve done some work to make my unequivocal arguments capable of being understood straight away. I remember once, at Oxford University, someone was talking about arguments on what he was saying and his reply was “read my book”. I surely, have written a number of books on this seminal topic with indubitable, unequivocal arguments, but I’ll never refer you to my books if you need me to give you arguments. It’s just not possible for anyone who at least has common sense, to not understand these arguments and to avoid concluding that we, our society, the thinking of the world, for that matter, is in deep trouble, provided that the one who has imposed the untruths criticized is elevated to be the greatest genius of all time. A shabby, terrible state of affairs.”

These two were enjoying themselves in a talk which may resemble to some an altercation when two close people are feuding, but it was not. It wasn’t also that the gray growler was trying to impress the young lady. He knew that she is not naïve, ready to fall for cheap tricks.

More importantly, as paradoxical as it may appear, their talk had everything to do with what was being gone over and over again in that apartment in “Lozenets”, down the street from the Seminary, where an exchange over the future of the world was taking place. Such exchange is disappearingly rare in this post-industrial, post-modernist, empty world, a world of “anything goes” service economy, enslaved by the dollar.

In these disappearingly rare places, ideas for a new movement were drafted, as much as that would ultimately turn out to be vain efforts. Nothing can be done in times of crisis to prevent such fantaseurs. There are always insightful people who would astutely follow the details of what happens in the world and take advantage. They are like the stockbrokers, who employ the world news to judge which way the price of a stock will go. No one in this tram, or any other tram, or train, car, bus, plane, ship or submarine, was suspecting what was being said in other apartments as well. In most apartments, people talk usual things. In the streets, people go about their business, as if nothing special is taking place, only some curious news has begun to trickle down, through here and there, about passing potentates. However, potentates were so far away from the common pedestrian, as they have always been. The world of the potentates and the world of the pedestrians is the only viable example, metaphorically speaking, of parallel universes, with which the absurdity known as quantum mechanics so much unjustifiably prides itself. The parallel universes of quantum mechanics are an absurdity because quantum mechanics itself is absurd. The two parallel universes of the commoners and the luminaries are real, as real as you and I.

For the common people, the whole world may be falling apart but they will keep going as if nothing happened, until something drastic from the outside really hits them hard.

It was already getting dark, and the lamps tangled in the branches above the pavement were still waiting unlit. Recent events had stoked various circles to intensify their activity. In a society, there are various strata occupied mostly by people who need to make a living. There are, however, also opportunists who have found a niche to stay out of the rain, as well as people who are genuinely interested in how the world works.

Various non-profit organizations, paid for by the big corporations owned by the elite, who install the government and then control it, were also in on it. The events were both an opportunity to manipulate, but more so a must to gain understanding of the social climate, so profits and control wouldn’t be harmed.

What was happening was a fertile ground for imagining new theories about how the world could be fractioned, what new alliances can be formed. None of these dreams will come true but peoples of the world could do nothing but fall for these blabbers. Wild theories were ushered with rampant claims about dire consequences. Potentates have their own interests. Their “think tanks” were serving the needed views on a platter for the masses to avariciously consume. Those who hated the elite had their formations to elaborate their stories. The self-proclaimed intellectual world was in its prime state, cooking up ideological stew to the taste of those who order it. Blessed times to speculate on the fate of the world. The production of speculations became once again profitable, after the hiatus during the years of peace. The others, those who produced other things, not the hot air of words, went on along their usual way, but the feeling of dissipation engulfed them too, albeit only on a psychological level for now. When society falls apart, first it slides into a “free for all” state. In time, it stiffens and acquires the new form desired by the elite. The current situation didn’t promise such an outcome, because now the elite is the victim, which is something history has never seen before.

On the other hand, all in all, the brouhaha around the visible was another illustration of how appearances can be deceitful. Something else was going on but no one could put their finger on it. No one could even suspect anything, not even the experts in the various fields who were involved in unpacking the case.

All these activists were so uptight that they couldn’t spend the time to allow some depth in their analysis. They were rushing and rushing to get ahead of the competition. Various ideas floated in the air. Those with stronger connections in the media, meaning those who were backed up by corporations with the strongest muscles, were appearing daily on the screens of the TV’s, on national radios and everywhere they could get their hands on the bugles of mass propaganda. One could hear all kinds of fantastic visions and predictions—from, history is not what we know of it and the world isn’t what we’re told it is, to, all that we see around us disappearing in a split second very soon. Various doctrines, ideologies, intertwined and necessarily confused and misleading, were encroaching like melted asphalt upon every inch of the world consciousness. Those gooey, sticky fantasies became the main tenor uniting the world. Union in destruction due to disappearing of central powers.

There were those who insisted that things must somehow stay the same, in order to avoid such dissipation. Things, however, obviously could not stay the same. The potentates were subdued by some so far unknown new sort of pandemic. No new bacteria, no new virus, nothing so far known to cause pandemics, was around; let alone honing in on the potentates, sparing everyone else. The picture was nothing short of apocalyptic for the societal upper crust.

In a way, all this excitement was expected. Such a pace of disappearance of potentates is not seen every day, not that it has ever been seen. This was some new sort of reverse revolution, provided that revolutions always have potentates who stand behind them. This one, so far, looked so self made, let alone efficient, with no blood and violence in the streets, except for what the rulers of the world are experiencing. No need to add, special agencies of the world were the first to become agitated. Their downfall was that they were applying the usual methods, with agents, informers, lieutenants and all the structure one can even see in movies.

Here, we will give a glimpse of what suddenly looked like a disturbance in their ranks, as well as reveal what happened with one of the aforementioned organizations. That particular organization attracted our attention because its goal was to change the world for the better. Is that what this turmoil was about? Does that organization, which we will write with a capital letter “O”, have anything to do with what is going on?





Village Life

Village Life



After many battles, verbal, not physical, he had finally come to this place, tucked away in the otherwise windswept hills of the old mountain range. The natives, who hardly anyone would call peasants anymore, because peasants cultivate the land or take care of the farm animals, while these, the new ones, were only settlers from stormy places and their days passed sluggishly, had heard from here and there that there is an alien in their midst. Other than knowing their language, however, hardly anyone could say for sure who he is.

Not long after he came to the village, some saw another stranger slowly approaching the humble abode inhabited by the freshest alien. From afar, it looked like the newcomer was holding a small lit candle in his hand, but the flicker could also be from those little flashlights sold in the stalls covered in shabby mats, where it was not uncommon to see a sleeping cat resting after another love adventure.

It was somewhat strange to see, at that time of day, a man with a candle in his hand, not only because it was still bright outside, but because, though with characteristic windlessness at that time of day, it would never have occurred to anyone to so mark his presence in this empty place.

Behind the hills, the sun was already fading, still retaining its color of melting brass. The lizards were still chasing each other, having crawled out from under the heap of stones, as if piled up on purpose beyond the fence of what we shall call the monastic house, not so much for its holiness as for the modest appearance emanating from that abode.



~o~


Another twig cracked in the small, stylish fireplace, which was one of the markers of this home.

“Did you accept the offer before you came to me?” the host said, adding another log to chase away even more successfully the coolness that was already settling in from the hill.

“Let’s talk like we’ve known each other for a long time and we’re good friends. No one listens, but sometimes walls have ears.”

“Good. I’ll ask you again, but not now.”

A cat sneaked through the half-open door, as if it had been taken from the tarpaulins somewhere in the stalls, but it was no worse than if it came from anywhere else. Otherwise, everything else remained as it was. The fire was burning, and the guest had laid the hems of his pardessü on a chair by the door, revealing the emblem of a familiar label, but not so legible as to be recognized.



~o~


Why her name was Esmeralda no one understood. And how she had ended up in south London was also a mystery, not so much because of her strange decision to move there from sunny Nice, but mainly because she had allowed herself to be sans pennies in her pocket, given that her previous life was too well secured. But she knew something which could only benefit someone if they made such a change.

She knew how to launder money, but not in the usual way which always attracts the IRS. Clubs, striptease joints, funeral parlors, jewelry stores are an old chestnut for her. She knew how a sum of money can disappear on this side of the border and reappear on the other side. You should see how she jumps the NYC subway turnstile. Unbeknownst to you, while speaking with her, she makes you position yourself against the camera that monitors the entering passengers. Then, although slightly on the heavy side, she would slowly protrude herself round the turnstile, just like a cat, that you wouldn’t tell she could make it, but she manages to get underneath the very close gap of the door—all that catting and jail jeopardy for three menial dollars, considering her grandiose intentions? Since the times she was in her teens, her dream was to find someone to corrupt her. Young girls, quite unsuspectedly to their parents, learn all kinds of things at that age. She happened to learn about money-laundering. This is quite unusual. Girls her age are typically interested in other things and the concept of money to not very few of them boils down to the idea that it grows on trees. Our girl, however, received an advanced education early in life. A girlfriend of hers had once explained to her the concept of money laundering. That fascinated her so much that she even found the usual dream of many a young lady of marrying a wealthy man as a goal quite menial. She wanted financial independence, knowing that she had earned the money through her own efforts. A tough woman she was. Some would say a proto-feminist but that was hardly her. Over the years she mellowed, following her dad’s profession of an accountant, specializing in laundering money for reliable clients, but himself always trying to keep her away from that occupation. She didn’t even know what her dad was doing for a living.

How would that kind of skill benefit the current activity of finding the culprit for the turmoil the world now finds itself in? Well, any campaign must be financed. It needs money. Besides, is the one who asks the above question really privy to what potentates do? Surprisingly, they can be very mediocre in their fundraising needs, not any better than any ordinary thug. They would go into the thrift markets surrounded by their detail and would haggle with the peddlers there till the cows come home; at that, for the pettiest item on the stand.

In the large scheme of things, a pickpocket, a broad or a money-laundering woman could hardly help the Commissioners in the two countries divided by a pond with anything, nor could any other petty or even a big time criminal, help any of Commissioners’ higher-ups. However, who knew that at the moment? So hoaxters, swindlers and crooks like Esmeralda became also a welcomed part of the investigating crew. Was she invited to the meeting? This no one knew, and the supposition is that, as her own sole proprietor of her pickpocket or money-laundering or whatever-you-may-wanna-call-it business, she could afford to run away and hide from public exposure all she wants. The business of the Jaguar is all too big to remain unnoticeable. Therefore, his presence at the meeting could not be avoided.



~o~


The rain never stopped. They had announced in the forecast that it would be cloudy and gloomy, but the rain was a surprise. Under the blue dome of the umbrella, two wet eyes were peeking, as if they did not trust the world.

The tired silhouette in the frame of the opposite café took a sip, as if it were a moving picture. He tried to wave at the young woman, but she didn’t seem to notice him. Did they know each other? One may doubt it, but a feeling had been settling in, for some time, that streets and cafés are strewn with operatives, and there was hardly any one else around. A very strange feeling of seeing people who know something which is not meant for you to know. One may venture to guess that the man in the café and the young woman didn’t actually know each other, but something was betraying her, in the eyes of the café patron, that she is one of theirs. Now, with clandestinity falling apart, which everyone was beginning to feel, it seemed allowable to know and befriend your so far unknown fellow operatives. This allowed him to wave to her. Besides, she was a very attractive young woman. Who would miss such an opportunity, readily served by the common operative destiny. Alas, there was no reply from her, as we already know.

A taxi driver stopped carefully next to the already formed puddle along the sidewalk and lowered the right window.

“Miss, do you need a ride?”

“Thanks, I’m close by.”

She lied, but it wasn’t unusual for her. That was part of the game she was playing. A game that seemed complicated, but when you understood it, it seemed logical and unobtrusive—pretend you’re someone who you are not, do the job and wait for another assignment.

The silhouette from the picture-frame window got up, inserted his hand into the back pocket of his trousers to pay the bill, and at that moment a shot rang out, disturbing the uneventful afternoon.

One could be nothing but amazed at the rarity of these shots, provided the grandiose, historic disturbances taking place, which would suggest real bullet storms and mutinies. The world was waiting for something, hushed in the calm before the tempest.

The overall number of shots in the streets of the world may not match the gravity of the situation. However, when it’s your only life, then one only shot, if it hits the target, matches all possible shots in the entire world.

Gangsters can hardly be blamed for the decreased number of shootouts. They are low-tech operators and their victims are not of elite category. For over a century or more the contingent of the victims has keept the same profile because gangsters have simple goals that are achievable immediately.

It's no accident that the intelligence operatives of countries are so named. They keep up with the times and use more and more intelligent methods with the advancement of technology. Thus, they resort to physically removing a competitor only in very select cases, when their command center decides it is absolutely necessary.

The man in the café was obviously someone of that caliber, to say nothing that his physical removal was absolutely necessary, because he belonged to a group which was in no way under any control by the central authorities. He would have been a person of interest any way, but under the conditions of the world today, existence of such a rogue organization, no matter its openly stated altruistic goals, was absolutely inadmissible.

This time the bullet hit the pinnacle. He will be sent to a hospital. That uncovered him and eliminated him from the hunting game.

The young woman continued on her way. What is she up to?

The posse was more organized and systematic. The other group, the Organization, was already falling apart, as became clear from some previous episodes. Nevertheless, there needed to be an official sanction sealing its fate. The hunting pack, on the other hand, acted like a wild boar, relying only on its instinct to push and kill. Organization was becoming unruly, defying the control of it own upper echelons. Therefore, it was doomed to fall. The posse, for its part, had no way to have even a clue as to what was cooking in the rank and file of that unruly gathering, and was acting instinctively.

The young lady heard the shot and braced herself to fend off any threat. She had to deliver the message.



~o~


When you’re in an unfamiliar city, it’s not wise to wander around like you’ve lived there for years. Something will always betray you, especially when you are wanted. If it rains, to take off your shoes and with them in hand, start crossing streets and boulevards, is even scary. The lady with the blue umbrella, however, carelessly slapped in the puddles, pretending that she had nothing to lose.

Twenty seven minutes before the time of the meeting, an impatient female personna with a blue umbrella stepped to the left of the square.



~o~


While there, in that remote half-village, its two temporary inhabitants were living in their own parallel world. Not that it still wasn’t them—those same old regulars from the coffee shop in the big city—but the sudden circumstances of rusticity, and the outburst of the immersion in the innocence of nature, made them full of joy, like that displayed by urban children when affected by the rare chance to be in the midst of greenery and silence. This turned the two into natural conspirators, such as they would otherwise never be if they only were to obey the rules of conspiracy taught to them by the instructors of the Organization. A conspiracy of this kind, making visible something, such as the act of adoring nature, that otherwise, when doing their conspiratorial job, would blend in as something usual, however, would hardly have benefited them for the work they had to do. Apparently, after all the amassing signs, they were already being released from their obligations to the Organization and were becoming free.

“Where is Janet now?” one of the secretive fellows asked provocatively, revealing something he should never do; namely, revealing knowledge of a fellow participant in the veil.

Moreover, Janet was a courier, expected to deliver the message which would determine their fate.

“If it’s that girl who cut her hair short to cover up the last remnants of her femininity, I have no doubt, she will somehow fare well somehow, no matter where she is. Beauty never experiences misery.”

The provocation worked. This reply revealed another amazing fact. Janet wasn’t unknown to the other secretive fellow as well.

Indeed, amazing. Rules are rules. Where would all this complex network end up if the protective layers, keeping the participants from knowing each other, fail? Maintaining clandestinity isn’t a new invention. Obviously, now,breaking clandestinity was in order and that meant trouble.

What dark thoughts do we have to banish in order to reach the essence? The essence of what is really going on was not at all at the fingertips of the two fellows who have just met, not knowing even what brought them together in the first place. Those that ordered them to congregate didn’t know either because they were following orders from still higher superiors. At least the chain of command wasn’t broken yet, no matter how much the Organization was advertised as a purely civilian initiative.

That togetherness displayed today by the two, meeting face to face, that knowledge of a person none of them was supposed to know personally, was a sign of disjointment in the Organization. Small signs like this are very substantial. However, it is very typical for even seasoned clandestiners to have these signs overlooked. When that happens, this bleeds even more trouble.

What is funny is that when things clear up and it will become known who drives the world and, in particular, who is responsible for this potentate thing, it will become clear that all this Organization fantasy is so insignificant, let alone off the mark, that it is even embarrassing. The key to unlocking the mystery, when it comes to saving the world, and the fate of the potentates linked to it is far off from where the Organization had imagined it, that the very existence of the Organization amounts to nothing other than wasting their members' time, nurturing vain hopes, in effect, helping to affirm the unfair order instead of fixing it. It is better not to involve oneself in activity when he does it only with hope and good intentions, but foregoes deep analysis. The effect will be the opposite of what’s intended. However, at that moment, it was too early for all that to be known. All that was available for the participants was to lick their wounds after realizing that the Organization is probably just about gone.

A bell rang outside. Barking ensued. The local mailman on a bike merrily handed a telegram to both inhabitants when they appeared on the doorstep. This was a summons from the superiors in the Organization. Does this summons answer the question why members who shouldn’t even know each other, on the contrary, were made to stay together in different parts of the world, awaiting further orders? The superiors deemed it easier, for what was to come, to summon their army that way.





The Letter

The Letter



The next stop was Paddington, but she didn’t feel like getting off. Woman’s intuition is never wrong, figuratively speaking. After all that hesitation, she finally took her bag decisively and got ready. Where else to go? The night was in front of her, and that’s even scarier.

The subway car grunted, took one last bout, and stopped. The doors opened and then she saw him on the platform, in all the splendor of an assassin.

But there was no way back. When you are in the hands of the inevitable, salvation comes only as an unexpected gift.

What does one feel knowing that death will come in a moment? It is to face, for a moment, the abyss of the unknown. It is to sense that there will be no more concern than pain. But even the horror of pain does not matter at the thought that someone has that infinite power over you, compared to which every power in the world looks like a ghostly chimera.

What is it like to feel the hand of another power, far more powerful than your most powerful personal Demiurge, which fatefully intervenes to divert the arrow of time from where your life should end, towards a path, though rainy, but protected from the shower of deadly bullets?

It was so decided. He raised his hand there, on the platform of Paddington Station, but immediately fell on the rails, staggering. The end of the ramp was too short to hold him. The policemen who ran, usually very kind and helpful, did not even understand what intentions the man had, because when the gun the assassin-to-be was holding fell, it flew off his hand and got stuck in the grill of the air outlet to the rails. They called an ambulance, as they always do when a passenger fainted at the station, while their police radios hung on their thin leather belts were scratching in response that the ambulance was arriving at any moment.

She moved slightly away, in the opposite direction to the crowd, which was flowing toward the scene, full of curiosity. Her move did not go unnoticed for the cameras dotting the station. London had become a very suspectful city after everything that happened to it recently. But, even if it hadn’t happened, it would still be as suspectful as befits an imperial capital.

Her heels measured her steps like a counter. The red hat girded with a black ribbon, small and elegant, was tilted slightly sideways. A discreet brooch of a cut brilliant on the left still supported the strawberry blond hair that embraced the beautiful face, shining like an expensive wreath adorning her well-placed figure. She was in a red coat, which was more reminiscent of a redingote than a feminine attribute that such a body deserves. Why would anyone dress up so ostentatiously when the job requires platitude was unclear. Maybe reverse psychology was at play, or, perhaps, vanity, which some people have in excess, could have played a role combined with a tad of recklessness. You can’t always figure out what people do. There was no dress code for couriers either.

In the black purse, sandwiched between the fingers, dressed in gray gloves, and pressed to the body, almost above the discreet left pocket, was the letter. This letter would give the answer to mysteries far more unexpected than all versions of the trained eye from the station cameras could invent, in their failure to find reasons to detain the suspicious young persona—the powerlessness of the superficial observation. Not that the young dame herself could appreciate more the importance of the letter in her possession.



~o~


“Did you see him? Did you see that, on the third screen on the right?” the officer on duty, with the two yellow chevrons on his sleeve, asked with slight annoyance, an annoyance caused by having to emphasize something that should have been obvious to begin with.

“Now I will play the tape back for you to make it clear even to a blind man,” he said, and began spinning the recording back and forth, which made it so that, as an individual went to the right, a crowd rushed to the left.

Then everything returned to the starting position to open the fan again. He repeated this butterfly effect several times, and this finally caused a scratch and a nervous dart of taking a cigarette out of a package. But the sign on the wall clearly indicated what the law says in this territory, which caused the cigarette to return to the package.

A heart attack strikes people suddenly, and when you have a responsible mandate to perform, heart attack seems to be the most anticipated guest. Then the path is clear. Ambulances, morgues. Always the same.

However, it is not the same when a letter is carried in a handbag and you have been bestowed the utmost mission for the letter to be delivered. We exclude the old-fashioned habit of a letter being perfumed because it is meant for a loved one or from someone once beloved, who sends you a last goodbye before separation. Unfortunately, no one carries such letters in their bag anymore. And, if you’re going to carry a letter in a purse when you're are the target at Paddington station, things go beyond the retro pattern.

Besides, while one may wonder whether the assault on the pub and the shot heard in Brussels had any connection to the current events, the likelihood that this failed shooting attempt is connected with some secret services attempting to prevent developments in the Organization, was very high. The outcome for a decision made by higher-ups concerning the Organization, was reaching its center.

Of course, in the overall scheme of things, aside from the insignificance of the ordinary crime activity against the gross current events taking place, these games secret services of countries play with each other are a similarly inconsequential child’s play compared to the big picture of the unfolding world events. We mention these bickerings amongst the states of the world only as an illustration of child’s play they are, in the context of all that has been happening in recent months.



~o~


The English police officers, in addition to being kind and helpful, are also very diligent. Two cars with sirens leave from somewhere because the danger to the Kingdom is felt in the air. It wouldn’t have been almost a millennial Kingdom, otherwise if its police officers hadn’t looked after their own police.



~o~


A careful outside observer, however, could not help noticing that at the other end of the train station, something was happening that was not quite common in these latitudes on the globe, although it was to be expected given England's colonial history, suggesting an unheard of human diversity. The beautiful floral robes of the group of Africans, symbolically devoted to their ritual, were colored even brighter by the sun’s rays that pierced through the glass dome of the station. The train arrived and the ritual group disappeared from view. This sudden distraction may have been the reason to avoid the tragedy.



~o~


On Heigt Street, London, in one of those whitewashed houses whose authenticity you can now feel only in Dublin, sat the General. He waited calmly propped up, with one hand on the oak table, casually disposed to feel the movements in the street through the half-open French window. The General appeared expectant but not much distracted by the changes of scenery outside the window. He knew that the new butler was arriving today, and there would be a little more movement in the house. The old butler had found a new job, but the General had no regrets either, for, though he imparted calm in the house with his reassuring demeanor, the sluggishness of the butler sometimes did not keep up with the pace of family events.

While the General stood by the window, lost in his thoughts, in almost a slumber, he had not noticed that someone else had passed through the yard, but the bell woke him up, and his daily nap flew away as the servants brought the young lady in red into his office.

Enchanté mademoiselle,” said the General and, slightly bent, ritually raised her hand to his face.

She was a business-like woman, though not even routine gallantry interfered badly with her. On his ring finger, she noticed a gold ring with a ruby. Its red flash seemed to further challenge her disciplined mind to make her reach for her handbag and pull out the letter.

The General looked at her very closely. She handed him the envelope, he opened it and seemed to freeze. The army preparations had not been in vain. He kept his composure, but slightly nodded to the footman to send the guest away. Janet sunk into the forthcoming dead of night, clutching her folded blue umbrella—the rain in London stops only for a while at that time of year. The envelope contained only one blank sheet. That was the message.



~o~


The General began considering gradual disbanding of the Organization. Indeed, in this way it can be preserved better—turning it into a system of sleeper cells. This means that agents, helpers, those that carry out the orders, must begin revealing themselves. This, of course, was not a new idea to the General. That idea followed not so subtly from the order he received in the form of that blank paper sheet sent to him in an envelope.

If that were so, it begs the question “What next?” The General felt deeply that he had no answer to that question. The feeling that was engulfing him more and more is uselessness, the same feeling he got after retiring. Finding himself almost at the helm of the Organization relieved that feeling, but now, again, sinking into the void of uselessness after disbanding the Organization felt even more painful. With age, that rollercoaster wasn’t becoming less palpable. This phenomenon characterized not only his Organization, but also any other clandestine or semi-clandestine community of people, tied to each other by common interest, or even groups who were paid to cling together and act in step as an army formation. Something greater was overcoming these human assemblies, making them non-sequitur.



~o~


With his decision to initiate the disbanding of the Organization, the General could not avoid the question how is one to make oneself useful after so many years of devotion? That feeling of emptiness is well known by everyone who suddenly becomes unemployed or suddenly realizes that an ideology once so beloved by him is an empty shell of broken promises. With the General and other retirees, who have found something as a life devotion, at that so far successful, their dropping from the ranks tasted differently. It is one thing when you have financial reasons for what you do, or it’s a matter of love, and quite another when circumstances make you retire from an activity which seemed only has idealism at its core—an idealistic desire to do work which will make humanity better, but what has remained is nothing other than lackluster and emptiness. Some societies fill the void with prejudice to forestall disintegration, but it makes matters even worse.

In all honesty, the clandestinity and everywhereness of the Organization, infiltrating central structures of government with the aim to control them from wrongdoing, mostly from corruption, was offering more of a feeling that one does good, rather than result in some actual change. The system is too engrained, too entrenched and intertwined to allow corrections, no matter how secret and subtle the agent of change is. Not that the General did not know that, but he always felt that one has to do what one has to do.





Paris, mon amour

Paris, mon amour



Their eyes met and it crossed his mind that he couldn’t help but conclude—she’s an artist. His male voice was telling him that a lady in a red coat with a red hat and black gloves and a discrete voilette could be nothing else in today’s gray Paris. The unusual thing was that he was in this oyster bar here across Gare du Nord, not exactly an artist’s hangout, but today’s artists, especially those coming from London under the English Channel, are not the old Montmartre bohemians anymore. The world became wealthy during the peaceful days of Europe’s 1960s. So he reasoned, sitting at the table before the sea dishes with oysters pushed into the ice in several silver vessels in front of him along with a jug of lemon wedges next to a silver bowl containing water scattered with sumac leaves. Two magnolias, dipped in a glass bottle taken for vases, looked at the arranged table from one end. The horse, harnessed to the carriage outside, was eagerly clanking with the sound that brought back the memory of sweet impatience. This feeling was reinforced by the slightly disturbed tinfoil frame surrounding the window, as befits a Parisian bistro, and gave the vehicle exactly this nostalgic look, which so fits a paved square in Paris.

The ice with which the oysters were covered was melting, which suggested that he should approach and ask:

Mademoiselle, it’s good to be in Paris after rainy, and some say, foggy, London, isn’t it?”

“But how did you know I had anything to do with London, and I didn’t even have an accent?” said the young lady, thinking that he had overheard her ordering in French.

“I just didn’t expect to see an artist here amongst the oysters. Your charming smile and the finesse of your outfit could not hide the artist in you. The Parisian somehow expects to see the artist against the background of another decor. By template, in Montmartre, say.”

“Although I don’t exactly understand your hint, I feel that you flatter me. I can’t imagine that such an exquisite gentleman like you would make the slightest gesture of rudeness when a lady dares to speak, especially in such a pleasant interior.”

“Should we go somewhere else, for a change, it suddenly crossed my mind? Paris is so rich in beautiful façades.”

“What to change, the interior?”



~o~


The car had already taken to the streets of Paris when the matter fell from his lips as a ripe fruit long awaited to be picked:

“Shall we not meet? My name is Jon Paul Jon. My friends call me Paul and sometimes JonJon or just JJ.”

“Marinella. Nice to meet you. No matter that my name sounds Italian, I was born here in Paris.”

The remark for the reader should say at this point that Marinella was the adopted name for Janet, to be used in Paris. Is there any particular reason why a lady should introduce her real name when meeting a stranger?

The brakes creaked slightly, but with the luxury of a well-maintained elegant car that never seemed to become, in time, anything else but an even more elegant car, albeit adding 80 or 100 years to its life, it was bringing about an added pleasure of feeling back in the times of the Belle Époque.

“Arrived,“ exclaimed JJ, “This is the place I meant when I thought about what would suit your refined elegance.”

Jon Paul Jon was a researcher at Oxford University, who had come to Paris to ruminate over the Egyptian hieroglyph plates. This interest of his is unrelated to his research. Truly, it wasn't even research but more likely a vacation in Paris which will allow him to think about some even more transcendental matters than studying nature, if there ever could be any more transcendental occupation than that. His interest during this sort of vacation has more to do with his concern about the durability through ages of the solid findings of science. How far down through the centuries can the positive knowledge a scientist accumulates last? Not far it seems—the paper wears out and therefore can endure centuries but not millennia. Digital transcript itself lasts forever, however its holders don’t. Almost everyone living during the past decades has experienced how information on floppy discs became obsolete. Then came CD's, which are being fazed out as we speak, then flash drives. How about the devices which read the information? Go find a floppy drive reader today, or try to read text typed with an obsolete program such as Chi-Writer. By the same token, how long is the pdf file format going to last, or documents in Word format? Second, it is Paris we’re talking about. Should anything more be said?

JJ, of course had heard about the brouhaha around the world, but his reaction didn’t differ from that of the protagonist. Scientists everywhere have common traits. They are more interested in their research than in any perishable problems of existence.

The reader may notice that the protagonist’s role in this sequel is minimal. That’s understandable because the protagonist is a scientist, not any kind of police investigator or the like. It’s true that scientific research has something to do with the work of a sleuth but it concerns ideal matters, not man-made occurrences and deeds that are not universally inherent in the nature of things. As for why people like JJ would prefer the continent and not London—a city quite like St. Petersburg in Russia, where everything is magnificent from a distance, but when approaching it closely, the lackluster of the buildings and other urban creations begin to show badly.

JJ also never ruled out that romantic things could happen in Paris, where else, so he seized the opportunity. On the other hand, a romantic interlude was not unpredictable because of the masculine air it exuded, though he almost never paid much attention to these matters.

What was rather unfortunate, however, was that the issues on which he thought he was focusing all his attention were, in fact also experiencing a dramatic scarcity. He was not paying enough attention to the academic issues that, while not directly related to his research, were fundamentally misleading and compromising the entire academic world. It is true that academics are mostly preoccupied with staring at their own navel and paying no attention to the work of other colleagues, especially when it concerns broader issues. But the travesty that the humble protagonist, not seen very much in this book, discovered was completely beyond the entire academia and all human thought, and upon realizing that, the travesty he discovered put a truly devastating stench on the entire academia. JJ, however, is a typical academic who pays attention only to peer-reviewed material, thus missing, in this case, the most spectacular discovery ever made, overturning the foundations of science. What’s more, the discoveries the protagonist made, subsequently turned out to have a major societal impact, not to mention being intimately connected to solving the potentate conundrum around which this whole book turns. Had he known what was to come out of these discoveries, JJ would have straight away dissed the ensuing events, concluding for the umptieth time that fleeting relationships are never what they seem at first sight.

The answer is here. It is under your nose. Yet, you don’t see it. JJ aside, it was the protagonist himself whose orbit was still far away from the orbit of truth, which would propel his discoveries to solve all the inter-human problems of the world, in the meantime giving the answer to the main question of this book---``Whodunnit?''





Neuchâtel Station Switzerland

Neuchâtel Station, Switzerland



The train tooted its horns twice and slowly puffed, abandoning the station. His locomotive was one of those old ones, with a lot of steam, but always well oiled, having forever preserved the impeccably wrought shiny details like those levers attached to the wheels, which move up and down and make the train a train, levers so exciting to the imagination of boys.

Two men, absorbed in their thoughts, sat in the two armchairs, upholstered in red plush, sipping cognac from the glasses in front of them, while the bluish smoke from their panatelas hung over their heads. One of them slightly lifted the red shade, edged with small tassels, to peer into the outside scenery, almost looking like the painting of a classic artist.

“No, we will not solve the problems of the world here on this train,” one of them muttered, pulling hard from the panatela.

“But still, we have to solve the issue somehow. I know, it’s not like you’re carrying goods in containers to have everything written in black and white, but our inaction will now sow doubts, for which we could pay dearly.”

A waiter in a white uniform approached them along the aisle and politely asked:

“Gentlemen, I do not want to interfere with your conversation, but only want to remind you that the salon is non-smoking.”

The two nodded and, without taking a sip more of the cognac, got up and headed for the passage connecting the two carriages.

“What are we doing? Who’s using us?” one of them almost asked, as they made their way to the compartment through the narrow corridor. He didn’t ask out loud because he knew what consequences it might have.

They were forbidden to even have phones. There was only a courier—a woman who had to carry the messages in an envelope with a red wax seal. It was like in the old days, and it looked more like a theater than a serious occupation of responsible people. But the stakes were high. You couldn’t just pretend to play and not be fully in it.

As they entered the compartment, they found a man in a twill suit with a felt hat, slightly facing the window, looking through his pince-nez over a chain of newspapers, left there for passengers’ convenience.

“Good afternoon. Are you for Zurich too?”

“No, I'm going down to Neuchâtel,” said the newcomer, nodding for a ‘good afternoon’.”

From under his jacket, as if carelessly checked, a small Beretta protruded into a designer case.

“Something happened and I had to interrupt my vacation on the Turks and Caicos Islands,” he gave away the curious information without anyone asking.

The old-fashioned gentleman was already beginning to take the shape of something rigged. The train was half-empty, there was no one in their compartment as well, when they first entered it. Then, shortly after the train left the station, the two interlocutors went into the dining car. The new man in the compartment could not have been abyone but someone who had come especially for them from some other compartment, apparently waiting for them to return from the dining car. The unexpected appearance of this stranger apparently was also conveying a message, but what was it?

The train entered a tunnel, and the moment before the lights were lit, the gabardine man was gone, leaving no room for clarification. What was the point of all this? The train was approaching Neuchâtel.

The brief appearance and then disappearance of the lover of exotic islands could be nothing but a message for the two to flee. Flee as soon as possible, otherwise a surprise awaits them at their final destination.

What was going on in the heads of the state security officials could only be guessed, but the fact was that they were now put on high alert. When unusual events happened, could there possibly be a more unusual event than the disappearance of potentates. State Security begins to suspect everyone.

Who was the elegant man in their compartment, obviously sent to warn them? Was it self-initiated, or had someone sent him?

Okay, flee, run … but where to run? The train was moving forward, and they were bound by its direction. The other option, to jump off and sink into the surrounding wilderness, was impossible—that would make them even more suspicious, and if they got away from the police, they’d be in even more trouble amid the unwelcoming expanse of the unknown land.

Besides, why should they run at all? Come to think of it, what crime have they committed against any country? The mere fact that they are clandestine is not a crime.

But when suspicion falls, the overreach of State Security officials knows no bounds. These officials are capable of any manipulation to win praise from superiors, backed by a cash reward. Try not to fall under their radar. The consequences could be severe, and who’s to say the two men are innocent? This is a dangerous, lying world. It is a world in which even the flagship of truth—science—is tainted and defiled. Those who happen to be targeted as suspicious by the official authorities, rightly or wrongly, could find themselves facing incredible trumped-up charges that even they could never have imagined. When shown the portrait the police have painted of them, especially when perceived as a real threat, the accused will not be able to identify their own selves. Go find a way to explain yourselves out of this. Good luck. So, don’t play with fire and don’t try this at home, kids.



~o~


In fact, where were they headed? Two passengers whom fate gathered together on this train, led by the hand of identical tasks, the road to how they would actually fulfill them was not exactly known to any of them. Simply, soldiers in the army of the unknown, waiting for orders. Doesn’t any soldier feel like that? The motivators, officers or sergeants, drill in them the general idea who the enemy is and that defeating the enemy is the final goal. However, as far as the nitty-gritty of the war and what exact steps the commanders undertake is not only a military secret, but no regiment or GI could be privy to it in any practical sense. The soldier knows his concrete circumstances, his closest comrades, and the immediate tasks he should do, set by the sergeant. All else is left to the higher command.

The train stopped at what appeared as a small station. Because it was a bend, the steam locomotive could be seen merrily puffing out white clouds, like those that used to cause such joyful exclamations at the dawn of the revolution, stirred up when the steam engine came into existence. The two peeked carefully at the platform through the car window in the hallway, then looked at each other, agreeing that the mysterious traveler would be what they needed to see coming down the steps and rolling down the platform. But, the dressed-up gentleman wouldn’t make himself available there. The train set off almost imperceptibly, then accelerated, and the orbs from its stack grew longer.



~o~


The agents of the system were everywhere. Therefore, activists had to be sent to the most inconspicuous places, sometimes for respite, but most often to regroup and wait for new orders. But how exactly the plan would be implemented, hardly anyone knew, neither did anyone know what the plan really is. And, that’s understandable. Throughout the years of modern centuries until now, various options have been used to keep society together, as a whole. All sorts of dictatorships, including those disguised as democracies, were tried, even the destructive zeal of youth was harnessed to destroy society, and bring it to the ground. Entire countries have been devastated, engulfed in the flames of such a dabbling at improving, rather enslaving, the world. Nothing worked, especially in terms of improving, other than the plentiful successes in enslaving vast territories and peoples.

The number of people in the world was already getting larger by the day, and ignoring this fact was untenable, says the elite. The latter was putting plans into effect on how to deal with that through promoting its butlers to become writers of books serving as a manifesto of the new order.

As for the positive improvement of the world, a new approach was needed, and the vague message to the General, which we are made to suppose is not yet another veiled attempt at the elite’s control, seemed to convey the contours of the decision—do nothing, wait until the solution revealed itself, on its own, just as ripe fruitby all accounts separates from the tree. By all accounts, however, the call to wait until the time itself was ripe for change had nothing to do with that waiting for developments that would bring freedom to the world, unsuspected even by the most ardent zealots. No one had the faintest idea of what was to come, and everyone rushed to foretell predictable things, variations on approaches already tried, all of which turned out to be stillborn.

Otherwise, the lackeys of the system were following every move, while knowing exactly nothing about what actually goes on and what to do. Didn’t that happen at Paddington Station, with its plentiful arrays of cameras, the eyes of the police? In the new century, even central indoctrination through television is no longer possible. All that led to authorities giving up, letting the members of society find their own way. In the end, they will ultimately fall into the elite’s net, the elite was sure of that. What was happening, however, was far beyond these plans, but nobody had a clue about it—neither the central authorities, nor the police, the secret societies or the conspiracy theorists. That was something new that was emerging, slowly and magnificently, like a tsunami wave.



~o~


But now we’ll get back to our distant hamlet heroes. There, in that remote village, the conversation was about fertility, which finds its way again and again, unfazed by the coldest winter and severest war. What else should two men talk about when tasks lie on their shoulders and time has stopped, but they observe through their hamlet window the renewal of budding spring? It is astonishing how a ploughed field, covered by the late snow of spring, very soon records on this blank sheet of paper the sprouts of life, which then flourish into wheat, folded by growing ears. That scene recurs every year. Whatever the background, homo sapiens has its own constant concerns, but also hopes and felicity. Even during the times when the world collapses, children are born in the ruins, there is still darkness and bitterness, but also a piece of joy, as inevitable as life.

This was the consolation of the two men, held in reserve if their mission collapsed, as it seemed to be heading toward. There is life beyond the mission, if you manage to survive.

Otherwise, they were longing for the peaceful strolls on the streets of New York City, with rooftop reservoirs one can hardly see anywhere else in the world, the freshness of the city air in the morning, the hidden sentimental decadence of that Metropolitan city, and even the ugly shacks strewn all over the city in front of the restaurants and cafés, built during some quasi-pandemic a couple of years ago. Manhattan never looked like a European city before, there were no open-air sidewalk cafés, but after the phony pandemic, all of that became too much with no prospect of going back to what NYC was before. Once the city allows businesses to encroach on the sidewalk and the adjacent strip of street, there is no turning back. It is very difficult to revert to normal when the floodgates have been allowed to open and the flame of revolution is kindled in you, even if you don’t quite know exactly what you’re fighting for; it is very difficult to go back into your shell, abandon the revolutionary urge and succumb to a quiet life. This, however, was coming to these two enthusiasts, who hadn’t yet seen even one battle unfold. All was preparation and training in clandestinity.

A rickety cart was moving down the carriage road, drawn slowly by brownish oxen, adding to the rustic picture of the landscape opening before the two strangers. The pungent smell of manure added itself to the picture as well. It was another world, moving according to its own laws, without having a second thought as to what was beyond the hill.

Similar is the feeling when you’re flung in a shopping mall somewhere in the world, enclosed in its own quiet, yet cold commercial space, separating you from everything else in the world, not knowing the country you’re in—a terrifyingly packed sample of high standard and banal sameness.

Apropos, enterprises such as shopping malls, the portrait of what a good life in excess means, corrupts society, makes it weak. They exemplify the fate of a weak creature overwhelmed by the market savvy vultures of commerce. External enemies don’t need other methods of undermining and crushing society. At times, soft force is more efficient, bombs and death of war coming later, only as a final chord of the coda in the music score, ending the symphony of takeover.

Seeing these two worlds, one may think that their inhabitants have achieved their harmony, and what remains is to choose which one of the two worlds to sink into. There’s no need for an Organization to go out of its way trying to improve the world. Actually go and sink in, in any of these worlds, begin living nearby and then come and tell us how you feel.

“Awe could hardly be expected from such an experience,” opined a passer-by, “arguably, no one is expected to stop by and swear to God it feels otherwise.”

The Organization is needed. This is what both of these men felt, only because of what they were told its goals are when they volunteered to join. It was during the times they were graduating from the university, full of energy and enthusiasm, as well as full of anxiety about facing the unknown world. Very few young people know at that age what they really want to do with their lives.

This is when the recruiter came up to them, seeing them wastefully spending their time in a café when other people were working.

“Hey, there,” said the recruiter, “Would you be interested in joining the army?” the recruiter had developed a hunch for knowing who is recruiting material.

These two were not, so he cut to the chase, sparing all the introductions and tricky meanders of recruitment technology.

“That’s all right,” was the reply heard almost simultaneously from the two young men.

“Perhaps, I might interest you in something else, completely casual? I tell you, a lot of young ladies expressed interest in it too.”

Those were the times when young people were bombarded with offers touching their tender side of soul. Recruiting has much improved its techniques, harnessing the latest achievements of applied psychology, a practical application of academic thought specially developed to aid manipulation. Squeamishness was now encouraged in young males and was not at all frowned upon in women, as it used to be in the past. This helped in promoting what earlier would be thought of as exotic ideas, such as saving the planet, instead of having the pivot of youth’s effort focusing on systematic learning in the disciplines occupying themselves with positive knowledge. Personal improvement was replaced by pleasures and consumerism. Our two men still hadn’t been sucked into that ensuing cyclone of degradation. The years when they were young were still not ripe for that kind of priorities shift. Nevertheless, they fell for the idea dished out before them by the recruiter. This time, it was an offer to join an Organization aimed at improving the world. Both, actually, went quite enthusiastically about that, not even asking about the particulars. Just the thought that they will work for the improvement of the world was enough for them. Well, the promised female presence should also not be forgotten as a stimulus for their joining, despite the later disappointment that the promise was used only as bait. Not that there were no women in the Organization. There were plenty of them. But it was structured in such a way that no direct interaction was allowed, neither with men nor with women. Clandestinity, clandestinity was the buzz word. There were so many other quiet, or, call them secret, organizations, to say nothing of the secret services of the countries, which didn’t like to have competitors. Everything may turn ugly if activities to change the world were out in the open—perception of a radical movement may immediately scratch the ears of a state secret operative.



~o~


It seemed to him that he was not indifferent to her. There was an old turntable with a funnel in the room, and next to him, slightly in disarray, lay vinyl records. He took one record out of its paper casing, placed it carefully on the disc, turned the small crank and slightly pulled down the lever with the needle. The music rang through the well-furnished living room.

“Ah, Duke Ellington.” she said, after yanking away her robe slightly, so as not to press the door on him when he entered her living room a few moments ago, “What intuition! This is my favorite music.”

He, still official, in his flawless three-piece, pulled almost invisibly back in a slight surprise. She didn’t expect such a rapid development, let alone have him see her already in a house robe.

“This is what marriage is,” the unmarried man thought to himself, “It is hardly given to an ordinary mortal like myself to decipher them, let alone their immediate intentions.”

“It’s not my fault,” he recovered, “I found the record next to the turntable. But I won't hide the fact that I really would like to be able to correctly guess the wishes of such a fascinating artist.”

She lightly pulled the curtains of plush adorned with large tassels, to obstruct the view from the window, made by the standards of the big city. Otherwise it would readily give away its messages to every point of the other building beyond the perfectly perfect street.



~o~


Several things were happening at that moment—both of our acquaintances were getting off at the station in Zurich, the fire in the fireplace was burning in the already darkened remote village house, where the two of the inhabitants could not even finish their card game and had already returned to their rooms, the Paddington policemen found nothing, no matter how hard they searched. They were already with their wives.

These seemingly unrelated phenomena had one unifying center—the General—sitting composed on the fur armchair, his cigar already forming a rather long gray cylinder of tight ash in the little saucer he had fitted for an ashtray. The butler hid the proper ashtrays, hoping to be able to fight the manly habit in the General. The General did not even notice these little tricks of the butler in his great struggle with human weaknesses, because even if the saucers were combed out, there were vases, and all sorts of other ceramic figurines, Venetian boats, blue souvenirs from Porto and all sorts of knick-knacks that could be harnessed to hold a cigar.

He ran several more agents through his mind, in addition to those with whom the kind reader has already managed to confront, without even suspecting that there was a question of any deeper interconnectedness. But these few other agents to whom the General paid attention, were not different. They were also driven by his intention to encircle the civilized world for the sole purpose of directing the world to a better future. Alas, he was just a gear wheel, of which his agents were the pins and cogs, holding this gear wheel in position as part of the whole construction. The gear wheel only does what it’s supposed to do, not realizing what his role in the overall scheme of functioning of the machine is. The same gear wheel may be part of a machine which has a completely different function.

The goal—a better future for the world—sounded wonderful in its abstraction, but what a better future meant for the world was still an unanswered question. The blank sheet brought to him by the female currier, announcing the assignment of the most peculiar task—in fact, relieving him of carrying out any task—did not contribute at all to harmonizing with an expected message that would be meant to clarify how to achieve this great goal—a better future for the world. Besides, without clearly knowing what a better future for the world really is, there is always the suspicion that a plausible goal is a cover for shady deeds.

Those who have dedicated their years to a better future for the world have not even known how to define that better future, let alone how to fight to achieve it. How can you fight for something you can’t even define?

The General turned his thoughts back to his younger years in the barracks. The strength of the youth, the ambition, the bait of inevitable success, led him into the army as a professional occupation, where no difficulties could shake his determination to succeed. The years flowed and the epaulettes became heavier with stripes. The medals began covering his chest. He was wearing them now, as the milk he was drinking flowed down the walls of the vessel, covering the medals. The hostess, however, rushed to prevent this trickling from reaching the stove and burning. The blank letter was to be the help to assist the General, who had been burned in many battles, not to burn out; to assist the General, who had already lost civilian sense, to capture him in the chute in which a world wider than his familiar barracks would have benefitted from his help for the better.

But, that white paper? Did its whiteness mean that, for the good of the world, it was better for a General to do nothing anymore? Is that the message, or is there something else he doesn’t realize? This, he was to seriously think about.

The General remembered that day when, already bracing to retire from faithful service, he sat in that pub on one of the corners of Piccadilly Circus, nearer Bond Street, and someone spoke to him, that being customary in the pubs of London.

“I see that darker beer suits your taste,” said the stranger, causing the General to look around. The people around the table enthusiastically raised ale.

“No, I’m not fussy. That’s just what happened,” the General replied disciplinedly, hardly paying tribute, accompanied by a military report.

“No one can take you for someone else. The military school training of the British officer is unmistakable. Once he has acquired it, he carries it all his life, as the military flag of the unit where he served.”

“Interesting observation. I had not thought about it,” said the General, although, as it turned out, a certain vanity was no stranger to him.

It is no coincidence that pretty girls look at the tight officers with impeccable uniforms, and then give birth to beautiful daughters, so that they too can continue this tradition, which would not have appeared if there were not for the mixture with a light dose of male vanity, usually considered uncharacteristic of the stronger sex. Just a pinch of vanity, however, in moderation. He who knows even takes advantage of the traces of vanity to direct the conversation further to the topic for which the colloquy was initiated in the first place. Not always, quite rarely rather, an ordinary conversation in a pub is purposeless, at least as far as one of our interlocutors is concerned.

“I’ll be straightforward. My intuition told me that I should offer you to join an event. I knew as soon as I saw you walk into the joint with the flat back of a military man.”

The General had worked on recruiting volunteers for the army, but slightly retreated after the sudden offer. You didn’t do that when you wanted someone to find a place on your lists. It began along stuff everydayish, a friendship was struck up around talk of ordinary things, and then the ground was carefully tested to see if the man had any connection at all to military affairs. Of course, there are special centers for recruiting soldiers, where young boys enlist in the army, less than for some youthful ideas of patriotism and honor, but, in most cases, driven by personal interests for secured existence, and why not, by adventurism. New lands are always attractive to the youth, especially when everything is organized by the state. The General returned to his own motives in those times, and again found that there was no other place for him, because being in the army was a tradition in the family. It is difficult for a child to see beyond the example of a strict but beloved father. And there was romanticism in the tight, shiny belts and holsters and in the cortical with a nacreous handle that his father hung on his belt only during holidays. His dad dated his mother, who was dressed in a fairy white frock, hand-stitched, with color and blush on her cheeks, which, for the little boy, was inevitably connected with the ice cream in the bowl served in that little pastry shop after the parade.

Probably from the beer, which is also alcohol, no matter how many people have it only as food, as liquid bread, thoughts flew into memories, but that was only for a moment. Military discipline brought him back to the present and to the absurdity of the sudden proposal from this completely unknown man. His doubts, which, at another time in life, would have distanced him instantly from the stranger, were now somehow melting. What do I have to lose today, a retired General, almost forgotten by the world? Would any enemy want to fight me today, in my useless retirement existence? What if fate sends me this as fun?

Of course, the stranger relied on it too. Adults who have grown up to reach the same age and experience act the same. They don’t have much left in those late years, so they agree to things they wouldn’t have thought of in their youth.

This mental ping-pong of variants, exchanged between the two, ended quickly, after which the General trickled through the smoke from the cigar spewing from under his clenched teeth.

“How do you mean?”

No sooner was the proposal issued, than the General found himself adorned with the honor of heading the London chapter of the Organization. Indeed, was there anything better to do for a retired military man, than to make himself useful, thus feeling needed for something?



~o~


The artist, the lovely Marinella, and the subject Jon Paul Jon, who had not yet learned to understand women properly, were getting ready to go to dinner down in another what was presented to him as a small restaurant. The evening was rather warm and humid than the typical dank evening that makes the crossers hurry up to dive into the slightly blue-colored bar. However, they smoothly crossed the canvas and it seemed to him that he felt the touching of a warm palm. Why does it still turn out that the initiative comes from the gentle, supposedly disinterested, if not visibly inaccessible, being, itself an object of desire? The moment was short, because after two steps they had to pass one after the other through the face control, after being inspected thoroughly by the forceful anabolic bodyguards of the establishment. It had to be some old-fashioned restaurant with a program, apparently popular, since just reserving a table was not enough to sift out the many willing to enter. There was also a bar where you can have a drink while waiting to be invited to the table, but there you could also be left spending the entire evening even if there were not a reserved table for you. Perhaps, this attracted the crowd, ready even for such a nuisance, to sit the night over on uncomfortably high chairs in front of the counter in order to breathe the same air with the nobs that might happen to peek into this establishment, in their meaningless search for what they usually never find in the restaurants of Paris. Jon Paul Jon, however, was new to this celebrity world, and although he still didn’t pick it up as his own, was making it somehow or other. For her part, she felt another breeze of selfness, as she always feels when visiting these places. Her perfume was strong and one would think that it was the cause that brought the feeling of just fallen breeze, but she wore it on her even before they entered the restaurant she herself actually chose, no matter how contrived such a choice might seem to be for someone.

In order to reinforce his feeling that he had fallen into something unloved, it suddenly seemed to him that in the muffled soft red light someone seemed to approach Marinella and nodded imperceptibly.

Women are mysterious, he knew. Some even declare them a mystery of nature, and so when you are under their halo they do not give you such an immediate sense of any strangeness. It feels like it’s been that way since time immemorial. So he rejected any assumptions and let the pleasure of the night ahead guide him, melting every trace of paranoia.

Madame and Monsieur, your table is ready,” said the maître d’hôtel emerging from somewhere, making the familiar worked-out gesture with the protracted hand, dressed in a peculiar white glove, covering mostly his fingers.

The evening began quite unusually, but it continued even more so after hearing Marinella’s question, as soon as they took their seats in front of the two tall candles at the table.

“We’ve known each other for a long time now by today’s standards, and that gives me more confidence to ask, how would you feel if the woman your life revolved around in the last few days had more secrets than you expected?”

This was a somewhat unexpected question, no matter how inexperienced he was in women’s secrets, and which also implied their strong exaggeration. But what did she know about him that wanted to get an insurance like that? In fact, what kind of threat was that; a dark past? The Paris bohemian is full of all sorts of quirks, he thought. To buy time, he seemingly casually said:

“Should we look at the menu before we delve into the mysteries of our lives?”

This sentence coincided with the sudden appearance of a waiter in white with a white cloth looped over his right hand:

“Could I propose a fairly old vintage of Sauvignon Blanche?”

The waiter bent slightly to hear the answer. Somehow, from years of experience, he had judged that he had before him connoisseurs who lived sifting old wine from a new vintage of traditional wine. However, intuition does not always have true hits, but we should hardly be angry with him. After all, the question was not unusual, but, on the contrary, followed the established protocol. What else would he ask them about?

“And a bottle of Perrier, please,” JJ said, with the carelessness with which the student tried not to reveal himself when he went out in front of the desk, realizing that he had been asked a question which he could not fail to answer in the affirmative because his assessment of the term depended on the answer.

Fluffy clouds from the cigar smoke rose above the tables to the light blue ceiling with angels in its corners holding trumpets.

“I’m by no means a puritan, but I wouldn’t embark on an adventure that would jeopardize my good name, to be frank,” he said, while her décolleté sang slightly as she tossed off the ethereal scarf covering her shoulders, “Sometimes a good name is a very small price to pay compared to being involved in things that, though not illegal, will divert your thoughts in an unpredictable direction, and you still have too much to do as you begin. Therefore, when you see one thing driven by passion, and it turns out to be something else entirely, you have to be sure that you can afford to become a victim of such a substitution,” he said, adding, “I beg my pardon,” getting up carefully from the table, “I won’t be long off.”

It was not a matter of urgency. He was just trying to buy time to consider on the way to the hygiene place what actually was going on. But the usual suspicions gave way when, on the threshold of the hall, before entering the premises of the bar, the music stopped, the girls from the dance floor, who had not even started their number, left the stage, the waiters also disappeared, accompanied by some visitors. What clearer indication that something unusual is happening in which he, Jon Paul Jon, will find himself immediately involved, without even having imagined such a development. A more adventurous soul would be filled with curiosity, if not with enthusiasm. However, he immediately realized that the answer to Marinella’s question would already find the answer. He could have left the restaurant right away, and that would unequivocally mean,

“No, I’m not ready to have adventures with a woman who already has more secrets than I expected.”

Jon Paul Jon, however, walked back to the table, unable to judge what prevailed—curiosity to see what was about to develop in this unexpected place he was visiting for the first time, or a man’s interest in an irresistible woman.

“You said that you would not be long, but you even exceeded your promise,” Marinella noted with a tad of suspicion.

Nothing escaped from the attention of the young lady, even minor details. This did not seem unusual for a young woman, but he did not understand whether it was a reproach that she had felt concerning the reason, the gain of time in his brief absence, or was it just tossed to make the conversation go on? However, there was no time left to reinvent the reason for this detail, for where the scene was, a spotlight outlined a bright spot and the General, although plain clothed, appeared in all his military glory. To Jon Paul Jon, who was seeing him for the first time, the man in the spotlight who caught the attention of those sitting at the tables looked like another member of the staff, but Marinella, strained, expected to hear what this strange man would say. In order not to reveal herself, she discreetly opened her purse, pulled out lipstick, and carefully soaked her lower lip with it.

“Gentlemen,” Jon Paul Jon looked around and found that there were only gentlemen in the room. Marinella was an exception, but the person under the bright spot was blinded by the spotlight and did not see her. Jon Paul Jon didn’t know that this was an old-school soldier who couldn’t guess that women could be thrown into the trenches of the battlefield. There were no trenches here, let alone shots fired by an enemy, and you wouldn’t give him, a man in civilian clothes, that he was a General. Jon Paul Jon didn’t give away what he thought of the man either. Still, he heard his next words.

“A small part of the Organization is gathered here. I’d say its guiding nut. I had to meet face to face with you to tell you that, for now, we’re putting the Organization to sleep until further notice. Each of you, however, remains in your position as a reservation in the name of a great idea. You will not be forgotten.”

The disappearance of the potentates has put all the special services on the highest possible alert, the level of suspicion was heightened to unheard of focus which made the existence of an innocent Organization impossible without the constant jeopardy of it being a persistent congregation of persons of interest. This was in no one’s interest, least of all to the goals of the Organization. Therefore, the decision of the higher-ups to put it to sleep was a sage one.

Moreover, for narrator’s part we must add that, as it will turn out later, the saving of the world will follow a completely different protocol, unbeknownst to anyone, including the protagonist, with his quite less than prominent a presence in the current story, who later will play the decisive role in uncovering the conundrum. In comparison, the Organization was an old-fashioned attempt, a children’s game of reaching goals which it didn’t have the foresight, let alone strength, to pull through.

Otherwise, all the groups—police forces, secret services, the mob to a certain extent, worried about its profits from extortion and bribery, were very busy at work, according to the standard way they understood the world and, in particular, a situation like this, concerning the trouble potentates got in.

That bustle did not concern the Organization which was put to sleep, which is too bad because it has to drop out of our story and some of its colorful members won’t have a role to play in the future developments. The members we already know were more or less just foot soldiers. Their main quality was to be the perfect performers under the baton conducted by the upper heads of the Organization. One may wonder if this is not all an underling in a structure needs to possess—less self-awareness, more subduing oneself to the rule of the law well spelled out in the founding papers and the constitution of the Organization.

There were also some, in a way, unruly members which were tolerated because their unruliness consisted in suggesting curious ideas outside the confines and the means to achieve the goals of the Organization outlined in its constitution. Unlike those goals, covered by the penumbra of secrecy, those unruly elements could share their ideas freely and yet remain members of the Organization. One of them was convinced that the future world would be better if breathing air wasn’t kept to be so essential and was proposing to work towards technologies that would change that, another one thought food is our greatest enemy and the energy and the building material for our cells must be supplied by alternative means. All in all, most of this frenzied thought belonging to the unruly members concerned physiology. Some of it sounded implausible, while other proposed ideas such as exploring ways of non-sexual procreation may be thought of at least as thinkable. Adherents to known fantasies already explored by some futuristic movies and sci-fi literature are not even to be mentioned here for their triviality. Anyway, the Organization was sometimes having fun, alongside with the tasks which its governors have already set up in stone when founding it.

None of the Organization’s members, even the ones with the most unhinged inventiveness and fantasy had even an inkling of what was to come—constituting itself as the savior of the world and, as an aside, putting a decisive end to the current potentate brouhaha. Ordinary human fantasy, even the most creative part of it, has limits, regurgitating well known old idioms. Conversely, the discoveries made by the protagonist break new horizons as part of a hitherto unknown intrinsic part of nature that no imagination, artistic creation or societal implication can match them in their originality and impact.

That needed some time to become observable.



~o~


What has always amazed Jon Paul Jons is the seeming repulsion of true intimacy, even when the object of his desire has allowed oneself to be physically possessed. And he had wondered before if it had always been so and was wondering if it would come to that again. Even the most passionate sex didn’t open the door to a simple kiss, and now they’d joined fingers, stepping onto the sidewalk for a night stroll, as if there were promises ahead. Dinner, which had seemed to have begun quite ordinarily, had ended so ingloriously. But his thoughts still revolved around this change in her, which, if it did not betray the beginnings of love, at least looked like feelings. To him, it was even more important than that, which would shock no one in jest. But, it seemed, there was apparently time for him, too. The development, which only a woman’s heart cannot foresee, as something that gushes like a fountain from a woman’s living nature, caused a momentary exaltation in the mixture of amazement at what ensued in the bar and the loud clenching now of the ten braided fingers.

Marinella walked upright, expressionless, and her thoughts were ahead of her steps as well as striding in a different direction from JJ’s, quite paltry for a man holding the hand of a woman. What will happen to the network that she helped with such a zest to find itself built in different parts of the world? Those two, whom you sent to the remote village to merge with the wilderness, always ready to start, will live there, will wait and leave, probably. Will this be the end of this dream change request? She hadn’t even thought about whether, indeed, any change is worth it. The promise was that this was being done for change, and she got involved without even suspecting that such a change was possible at all. Corruption is in the air. This shakes the young, not yet accustomed, unrestrained as a result of a poor experience, who felt it in the very roots of his beingness. She knew that only the Organization could point to the outcome. Affectionate. No violence and no victims. The only way out. The details didn’t matter. They were owned by the organizers. She was interested in the goal, in the final outcome, and she couldn’t help but feel it’ll be a good one, if the goal of the Organization depended on her.

How was the Organization different from an army or from a corporation, where all the units work in synchrony, subject to a hierarchy with a central government? Perhaps society just wasn’t a corporation that some people think it is, after all. Its laws are still unexplored in their full essence and what all the participants of the restaurant meeting experienced throughout Organization’s brief life was just an imperfect experiment.



~o~


He tried to sleep, but sleep did not come. It didn’t help turning to one side. What was that thing today? People don’t talk to each other anymore. She lay on her back and her breathing slowly lifted and burst her chest, calm and unawakened, like resting after a most relaxed evening. That attraction to a woman could so muffle the senses to anything else. It was a given that does not even serve to be mentioned. In the depths of his mind, however, there were still scenes of what happened last night. The slight touch of her palm before they entered the club, the pressing of the palms after they left, and what happened in the meantime. What had he gotten himself into, driven by blind passion, accidentally stumbled upon an object of desire, there, in the area across Gare du Nord? But the God of Sleep was not late in salvation. Jon Paul Jons was a strong man and let himself be defeated when it was necessary. He left everything for the morning. Whatever else he would do, fighting that until the end of that night, would only prolong it, to leave him in the morning more tired and incapable of logical judgment. How Jon Paul Jons achieved the rational agreement with the God of Sleep was a mystery that did not appear for the first time. Marinella didn’t sleep. She just closed her eyes. The fact that an organization did not connect with its individual parts in order not to be exposed would doom it to failure. What sustained the Organization was the understanding that each of its elements was completely imbued with its spirit, so striving for success that it (the Organization) could replace all of its elements on its own. What is the General needed for, then? What was his role, the only mediator between its parts—a physical mediator whose role is only to receive letters? In fact, so far only one letter that contained only a blank slate. The meeting in the bar, which has been waiting for several months now, did not bring anything more, if the lulling of an organization is really nothing. Rational thinking was still with her to finish this work immediately. Will there not be ideas in life even more insurmountable than life itself, things that make all the details and circumstances so connected that they will always lead to an insurmountable result? No matter how things turn, the body needs oxygen, to continue life. Water is also not something only existing in a dream. In order to survive beyond a deeper period, the body needs food. What is that other reason for which organization is created, without which life is impossible? So impossible that each part of it understands the need without consulting the others, who, to be one, they only need an ordinary messenger to bind them into an organism that could not continue in parts. Otherwise, each part would take the road alone.

It could hardly be doubted that the other participants in the restaurant meeting were going through similar introspection. Alas, even if they manage to find the answers for themselves, those answers are miles away from what will really solve the problems of the world; i.e., the goal of the Organization; at that, involving no specially assembled for this purpose human organization at all, least of all applying violence or any kind of turmoil.

One cannot blame the participants in the Organization, however, because it is only human to strive for bright future, it’s human nature. The only thing is to know how, and if you do, you’ll spare time and effort. That knowledge sometimes comes unattended and this is what the future was charged with.



~o~


The two of them got off at the train station in Zurich. They did not even suspect what had happened the night before in the Paris restaurant and quite conscientiously continued to perform the tasks they had set themselves according to the general plan of the Organization. When they got involved, things seemed so logical and well placed that no matter how different the options, however flexible the participation of each of them, the goal the Organization had set itself shone with such strength that it was simply impossible not to achieve it. There are idealists that will hold their post no matter what. Probably it looked perfect because they didn’t know the details and that smoothed out all bits and pieces that were coming to them in one solid, shining whole.

And here come the greeters—two policemen with a huge shepherd dog that did not tear its yellow eyes from their figures. The police asked the two travelers to follow them to the office for verification of documents.

The Organization did not even remotely mate with its members, so no member would betray any of its secrets even if he intended to. But the country of Switzerland, like any country, and more strictly than most countries, perfected its communication with every emerging novelty. It’s no wonder that it had information about every suspiciously free electron throughout Europe.

But how had our two passengers attracted the attention of the strict law enforcement officers in the outstretched uniforms?

As they asked themselves this question, the two looked at each other, and seemed to simultaneously find that one of the policemen appeared to resemble that smoke-gone passenger who was supposed to get off at the station in Neuchâtel, but, then, there was no trace of him on the platform when the train got swollen and took off from the station.



~o~


What was happening is bigger than anything that ever happened at any moment of Organization’s history. There had been moments when the organization felt shaky. This now is a full breakdown of its very heart. Leaders, agents, common operatives are moving like headless flies, still having the feeling they obey orders, many of which, they imagined, must serve some final aim which they usually didn’t know. They were taking that for granted and necessary. Now it felt different. It felt like the three-tiered system of command had vanished forever. They themselves didn’t know what is going on.

When an organization whose goals you deeply believed in falls apart, the feeling is shocking. It is similar to the feeling after a divorce and especially the feeling when you lose a loved one. The loss of sense of belonging, of emptiness and losing one’s way is a very known feeling when the structures you have always taken for granted break down. A kind of ominous silence falls and you feel like you’ve lost the whole world. Only select individuals foresee that the break-up is a harbinger of a new beginning, of a more perfect struggle for a new world, such as the struggle of the Organization is internally completely powerless to wage, actually.

What was hermetic to understand by the participants is that the apparent collapse is in fact a renewal, and this our two travelers could not have sensed at that moment, if at all, that destinous fate.



~o~


Laxity is taking over the world. Remember that shot at Paddington station? When police are distracted, that gives ideas in some people that revolution is commencing. Not too fast … .



~o~


Special services are distraught. Secret agencies following agents of other secret agencies are at a loss. Who is chasing who now?

The pawns instructed by the elite concentrating in Switzerland attempt innovative ways of control. Ownership is the prime target. They try to abolish it because in this system ownership means independence. Independence is opposite of slavery. The elite doesn’t like that. Digital currencies leading to obviating fiat money, so that everyone be spied on and becoming dependent of governments installed by the potentates, that must grow and not be hampered. All kinds of other ideas are floating around, one better than the other, serving the ultimate slavery. However, nothing seems to actually work. The plan was to eliminate huge masses of population through various means. This appeared to have worked through instilling the terror of false pandemics—only unknown commoners were dying; there was not a single royalty dead, despite the common biology, shared amongst royalty and commoners.

Chillingly for the elites, today one observes the opposite—only royalty and potentates die under completely unclear circumstances. The commoners are here to stay unharmed, only subjected to their own frailty.

“This is unacceptable,” says the lackey of the potentate, “although at present nothing can be done.”



~o~


The protagonist’s time was coming, however being blocked from all sides. That blocking won’t do the elite any good, neither the protagonist’s enlightening the world would be of any help. What was happening was spontaneous. No one’s interference would change the run of the forthcoming events. The role of the protagonist was only to explain and reveal his developing understanding of what really happens. That is why it would be useful to have a public address presenting his ideas.

No chance. Official lecture on the matter is out of the question. No university would allow really free speech, let alone a presentation with unequivocal arguments. Universities are an extension of the elite and no rebelliousness, not a hint even, no matter how justified, is permitted. The elite considers the question closed no matter how glaringly bizarre the absurdity of the “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics shines from its very first pages to the last.

The elite has established for itself a crooked system of wrong beliefs, calling it science, in which no truth is allowed if that truth could bring down the system. That crooked system is instituted and incorporated in society as correct, pronouncing as closed any further discussion of its consistency.

That’s too bad, because it is free exchange that would make it possible to secure the sprouts that will shape the path to a bright future and, incidentally, answer the question “Whodunnit?” It is for the protagonist to take up this role, although he himself wasn’t aware at all at that time about the role fate has destined for him during the entire course of the current story. His will be a process of increasing awareness and realization that will pass through several critical stages, which it is too early to pay attention to. There will inevitably be developments on this, but they will be described in a forthcoming book. After all, things cannot be left hanging, can they?

However, the speaker can still gather an audience even at this stage. He has already made seminal discoveries that will change the world of science and beyond, although, as has been said, he is still miles away from the serendipity that would shine on him as to how his unequivocal discoveries will play an integral role in shaping a just world in the future.

Nevertheless, even today he can pay for a conference room in a hotel, even find a free public place to invite the curious to hear about his discoveries.

Aside from the limited purpose that the protagonist sets for his lecture, compared to the truly spectacular practical implications that his discoveries will cause in the not-too-distant future, as he himself will be surprised to find out before long, those who come to his lecture can do nothing, and one wonders why should the lecturer even bother having lectures.

It would have no benefit, either materially or in any other moral sense. But, you know, there are those idealists who think they can do something to improve the world on their own. It’s a naïve notion, but that’s the way things are.

And so we see the protagonist overcoming all the hampering thoughts of the above kind by giving a lecture.

“Because we, those who adhere to the morals and principles of this lecture, are true scientists and not bureaucratic “scientists” of today’s world, manipulation is foreign to us. That’s why the stories we tell are boring, if being a scientist is any excuse. Truth is boring because it is one, and lies and deception are colorful because with them ‘anything goes’, as is today’s forcefully adopted universal idiom.”

The speaker was referring, in his words, to real scientists, not the millions who pass themselves off as scientists but are in fact the most ordinary frauds and bunglers. When he made the discoveries it struck him like thunder from a clear blue sky when finding that, contrary to the basic requirement of science to honor truth, academia is a hornet’s nest of Machiavellianism, diminishing opportunistic clientelism and sycophant comprador humiliation of truth to the point of denying the very reality of truth.

“Academia is a shameful organization only worthy of disrespect, disdain and contempt. Just think about the endowed chairs—a major external private interference of incompetence into academia. Or, think about those hundreds of millions of dollars passing on as an endowment to an influential university by private donors, having not the slightest idea what exactly those moneys will be spent on but are being pledged due to being lured by the vainglorious idea that their money will go for academic greatness that they would also share in part. Devious academia is shamelessly scamming incompetents by taking advantage of their vanity and ego. To say nothing of the fact that over a century academia has allowed itself to function under the aggressive suppression incurred by the senselessness and absurdity of the “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics.”

The audience was listening in disbelief. The one who was expected to promote academia’s prominence was saying such sacrilegious words.

“Peer-review today is a scam invented to cover up the enormous fraud that academia perpetrates every day, especially when it comes to research concerning the foundations of knowledge. People rely on academia, but it is unconscionably betraying them by the minute,” the protagonist’s indignation had no bounds, outpouring like sizzling lava from the podium.

It is an outrage that has held him in its grip ever since he realized what a hermetic pit science has fallen into, completely obliterated by the meaninglessness of the “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Everything that has led to this level of utter disgust with what science has allowed itself to reach is out there, available for anyone to read and see with their own eyes.

Why are people so unwilling to read and analyze even the most prominent texts, readily available to everyone, that supposedly shape modern thinking?

Apparently, the propaganda of their false greatness is so vivid that it blinds everyone to its falsity.

This also begs the question why it took so long for the protagonist himself to see the truth? He was already over the hill when he still thought, indoctrinated by his diligent valedictorian training at the university and his systematic hard work in scientific research in his favorite partial science disciplines, that when we say “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics we are dealing with exceptional science. He was deeply convinced in that but he never reached for the original publications putting forth the impossible ideas of the, nothing short of sheer lunacy. The protagonist didn’t feel the need to go back to the basics. He had enough to do on the concrete tasks of his own research. It seemed to him absolutely impossible that there can be anything wrong with the purported fundamentals so well accepted the world over.

Curiously, when the first rays of doubt began to break through the clouds of indoctrination his own mother, a scientist herself asked him

“Where did this come from?”

She had been at a scientific conference in Netherlands and when she came back she found a different son—before the conference she had a son adhering to the holy orthodoxy in science, but when she came back her son confronted her with his faith beginning to shake to the core. Don’t pick the word faith, telling the protagonist that science is not based on faith. It isn’t. However, the protagonist was dumbstruck out of the blue that his confidence in the greatness of the “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics has been more of a faith than of science. Later he found out that this applies to the entire world. The holy belief in the “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics is faith, not science.

Well, how, then, did the protagonist experience the enlightenment? What triggered his change of heart?

This was a result of a pure accident, which, if it hadn’t happened it would have never occurred to pass through the protagonist’s mind that he should pay even the slightest attention to that what he considered a time-waster; that is, to reexamine super well established doctrines.

This happenstance, was a chance encounter of what many would refer to as an application of Cherchez la femme saying. This story may be titillating and serve to attract readers the way a lamp attracts mosquitoes, but we will skip it, leaving it to be told elsewhere because it is beside the point since the message of this series of books aspires to greater heights.

Overcoming the memories as to how the protagonist got involved with this and how his indignation at the current status of science basics grew throughout the years laid the grounds to forming a firm determination to fight this injustice till the end.

Fighting it has to do with understanding what is important to people as a criterion for an endeavor to be considered scientific.

Because people have no way of knowing what is worthwhile in the scientific world, those who promote “party line” in science rather than truth, come up with quasi-quantitative measures like the impact factor, in the meantime making a buck from the vanity of the army of aspiring scientists. It is one thing to strain your thinking and unearth what is truly new knowledge and quite another to lazily become a part of a “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” unprincipled cobweb of opportunists trading truth and integrity for questionable academic prestige and impact.

“The impact factor is a self-indulgence of the lowest order, pushed as a criterion by businesses such as ISI (Institute for Scientific Information), which parasitize on the crowds working in institutes and universities, exploiting the internal struggles for supremacy and hierarchy that are natural to such institutions, which are of interest only to them. Prime example is the promotion through the censorship of subservient peer-review of the author of the “theory” of relativity. The excuse is that scientists build careers and searching for truth which will be censored is counterproductive to their life goals.”

No one in the audience has ever heard such candid words about the current state of science. This had to be said, because if the impact factor is truly to be trusted, then according to it, the catastrophic nonsense imposed at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, the scandal of substituting science for absurdity, exemplified by the “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics, would completely undeservedly enjoy the highest score in this ranking based on the impact factor, trumping any worthy effort of an honest researcher for true scientific excellence. The environment in which impact factor is the criterion for good science has created an incredibly toxic thicket, a jungle of intertwined bad science that is almost impossible to untangle at this stage. It’s a disgrace. The hope of getting out of this mess lies in the amazing development that will be revealed in the next book, a development that even its herald and prime mover, the protagonist, has not yet understood.

“You know, we’re noticing that you are making hints; at that, more than once, that the protagonist will begin playing a role in what you call saving the world, to say nothing about solving the current potentate conundrum,” said a group of readers, “Why aren’t you upfront about that and tell us what this innuendo is. What are you implying?”

The impatience of the anxious readers is understandable, but this will come in due time when its own time comes. Besides, at this point of time, and that was repeatedly said, the protagonist hasn’t yet the slightest clue about these developments.

The reader-activist group would chime in from time to time, expressing their impatience, but we’re more or less trying to follow the sequence of events rather than play the role of satisfiers of public curiosity.

The protagonist had imaginary scientists, practicing real science, not the current ones who present absurdity as science, as invitees, but he also enjoyed talking to his imaginary readers, even those who attempted character assassination. Call it pre-empting, call it anything you wish but this is how some of these imaginary exchanges went.

“Besides, he hasn’t even checked the details in his story. Swiss police was never armed with Beretta. It uses Glock. British police doesn’t have yellow strands on their uniform. It’s so easy to check these things today. Messing up details compromises your story,” pettily resented a reader.

“Protagonist’s tale has never aimed at entertainment and accuracy in this respect. The story is entirely fictional, while the morals from the story are not. To say nothing of the central ideas which are absolutely true. The story is just a made up background with some elements of realism, and the protagonist is notorious for his disregard of exactness when it comes to unnecessary detail,” was the retort from another reader, “Pickiness is out of order here when it concerns cities and places where the action took place,” an advocate's reply followed.

“Why use, then, names of real cities and places?” that critically minded reader asked.

“I guess, to give a certain feel of authenticity to the atmosphere and events described,” retorted the defender.

“Anyway. I shouldn’t have raised the question. Let’s see now what we have under these circumstances,” replied the critic in his usual tone.

As for the protagonist, his reply sounded like this

“I feel how those writing good books are almost smacking their lips with delight when they tell their stories. It doesn’t happen to me. I’m writing the current story just because I have to. I have to find ways of attracting attention to the important discoveries I’ve made, which, as I am already beginning to sense it, will save humanity,” matter-of-factly said the protagonist, “Therefore, the unevenness of the narrative or inexactness here and there I don’t consider as unforgivable. Besides, the atmosphere of the day is that the writing has to fit into the political correctness of the day, having this percentage or that of the characters as well as the the requirement that the use of pronouns must be proper. I don’t consider this requirement set in stone either. Here’s the point—when the writer is a male, as is the case, he should use male pronouns, as a rule of thumb.”

“By the way, what do you think you’ll accomplish with this book?” interjected one of the regular imaginary readers, “I’ll tell you what—the only thing is you’re going to do is give away hints to other people and plant ideas in their heads that they can use government to achieve whatever they aspire to, no matter how mediocre that may be.”

“That’s fine,” replied the protagonist, “As long as they really have sustainable ideas, which they can prove unequivocally, as I do. However, I assure you, there won’t be too many who would live up to that crucial criterion.”

The theme of giving away ideas will recur from time to time but that is the least of worries bothering the protagonist, although he should have listened to his good friend

“They don’t notice you now, but if your discoveries were made by them, they will completely shadow you and will portray themselves as the great heroes. Stealing ideas and dumping their real originator into oblivion is as natural as is breading for the living organisms. Think how you can protect yourself and your discoveries not only by being silenced but also from the ideas being stolen from you.”



~o~


“Don’t worry about that person. We’ll take care of him,” said the stout man standing near his desk, reaching for a cigar from a box on the desk. Then, he cut the tip of the cigar with scissors preparing to savor it.

“With all due respect, sir, aside what our interests are for allowing the world what to know, it is in our personal best interest to be aware of the actual reality of the situation. In that respect, I regret to say, but there are all the indications that the latest critic is right and we may not be able to protect our man debating him in a public forum,” said the aid.

“That may be but it is not the first time we resort to ‘damage control’. It’s all about appearances. We cannot risk the collapse of the system because it had appeared to some random nobody to come up with truth. Didn’t we tell society that truth is only an illusion, a matter of interpretation, a metaphor?”

“Sir, if we do not consider the flaw, it will grow and eventually compromise us. I looked into it and, following in the great American humanist tradition of self-reliance, personally saw the disaster we continue to fuel with our tax dollars.”

“How can you tell me that someone who has come out of the woodwork has brought down the pride of science that has gone through decades of rigorous research?” said the Commissioner with the typical arrogance of a know-it-all, “The sheer implausibility of such a takedown leads me to dismiss any further discussion on the subject,” the Commissioner cut short his aide, not realizing how shortsighted such attitude was. If he were more humble that might have helped him draw closer to the solution.

“Sir, if I may, it is the fact itself that matters, not the perception of it created among millions if not billions of people. If perception mattered so much more than reality, then there would be no discoveries.”

The police Commissioner brushed off all that talk; he had taken all the precautions. He was a good Commissioner with a lot of experience behind him. So, intercepting a conversation between a persons of interest was a no brainer to him. He has listened to the protagonist’s diatribe and that raised a few very red flags in his Commissioner’s mind.

“OK, I gotcha,” the Commissioner was sure that the exchange he intercepted revealed what he was after “Get these conspirators! Get them now!”

Disappearance of dignitaries was not a small matter. This was as grave a matter of state security as one can get. The Commissioner has committed all his career and reputation to uncovering that mystery.

Now, here is the moment to mention that all this story in this book was meant to be told as a part of a tetralogy but in the course of writing everything changed and merged into one indelible togetherness and mess. When you think of it, however, unknowingly, the Chief Commissioner was after the gist of what caused the vanishing of the dignitaries but in what way. One may say with certainty that the Commissioner did not have the slightest clue what he was really after. The absolute truths discovered by the protagonist, the powers that protected their concealment, the dignitaries turned victims … Who was the Commissioner after? More importantly, what is the connection with whatever the Commissioner was after and that above-quoted purely academic scene? The connection is there, it is crucial but no one ever figured it out. It was for the protagonist to discover that connection but at the time he also didn’t have a clue.



~o~


The clouds over the heads of the NYC Police Commissioner, the Police Commissioner in London and all other special institutions throughout the world were thickening. Internationalization of the disaster was imminent. This is a brouhaha involving the upper crust of society the world has never seen. The proportions were not only huge but the essence of the disaster was as much unheard of as it was strange to no end. The heads of states, billionaires and high-ranking politicians, specifically they, dying and no inkling of a culprit seen on the horizon, the ordinary folk staying put. What on earth is that?



~o~


At long last, all that is happening has everything to do with a very efficient correcting of malfunctioning science. This may sound unbelievable given the gargantuan efforts of the elite through its media to divert the agenda of the day from this real, drastic problem to other issues elevating them as the problems of the world, peppering all that talk with calling those issues science, in order to make them sound legitimate and unquestionable.

The harm done on the people by perverting the meaning of science is a matter for the FBI and CIA to handle. Alas, they will not touch it with a ten foot pole. First, this would anger their masters, the elite, and second, they have no clue what this is to begin with. The folly imposes censorship through merely convincing the world about complexity of the issue, implying that it’s “Too Hot to Handle”, as it were.

One time, during the years when he was naïve enough to think that academia is a rational institution, a meeting was arranged for the protagonist at the physics department in one university, the birthplace of the idea of the so-called Ivy League system of universities. A senior professor opined that for someone to understand these matters (“theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics) one needs no less than four years of study and many, many years after that study to acquire full comprehension of the subject. This sounds exactly like saying that, in order to know that one is not equal to two, one needs decades of college instruction first, and then many more decades of practicing science. At that, the professor in question, as any professor of physics, happens to be lecturing to the students questions directly connected to the epitome of absurdity known as “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics. Every professor of physics nowadays, if not enjoying to stay in the cold, is required to bow down and ardently approve of said absurdities known as “theory” of relativity and quantum mechanics. It is arrogant and deeply corrupt for such a professor to claim that he cannot discuss the matter because of its complexity. That is an insane behavior, but those who hang on to the status quo for lack of basic integrity, use such scare tactics to avoid exposure and embarrassment.

“What you’re telling us is very interesting. However, again, what does this have to do with the story you were relating in this book, which sounds more like a police serial or an international espionage saga,” the asker tried to be polite, yet insisting on an answer

“Really? To involve inexplicable massive death of kings and royalty, billionaires and politicians of high standing is just a story for the criminal chronicles or an espionage story?”

“OK, that part may not be ... but the connection ... the connection of the dying dignitaries with what someone said somewhere to a random audience isn’t at all obvious? That sounds far-fetched ... but, carry on with your story. Let’s see where it’s going to bring us to.”



~o~


The NYC Police Commissioner got a call from the London Police Commissioner. Although some on the police force might have been members of the Organization, no one called from there. We saw that the Organization was being fazed out by its own governing body. As days went by, consultations amongst the police departments of various countries intensified. This was becoming a common world effort. United Nations, usually not involved with homicides, now also took notice, although its help in such matters cannot be expected to be high.

“Something’s going on beyond anyone’s control which may threaten the life on earth,” can be heard during these conferences of the police and secret forces of the world, although, obviously, what was happening was not a threat to the life of earth but is only a threat to a super tiny crust which needs a magnifying glass to be discerned from the rest of the earth’s population.

OK, now, as never before, the world press began noticing and reflecting on its web pages, TV chronicles and printed materials in the kiosks the consequences of that unknown something. This has replaced other stories and unwillingly to the elite is becoming the main topic of the day, its agenda, no matter how begrudgingly and painfully that switch was approved by the owners and the captains of the “fourth power”, the mass media. Sometimes there is no money and power in the world that can prevent, first, trickling, and, then, flooding with information unwanted by the elite. It is capitalism, after all, and such discombobulation of society is manna from heaven for the business of mass media. It is only drastic occurrences such as massive disappearance of potentates that can make the elite listen and pay attention. How did the world reach this state of affairs was beyond anyone, literally?

“For the life of me, for the first time in my life, I completely don’t get it,” Commissioner was fuming violently, cursing the universe, which was completely out of style for him.

So great was the fear, that it seems no one realized that the potentates that were passing were, to emphasize it again, a negligible part of that whole wide world. In other cases millions of people die and the maximum one hears are occasional condolences. Now it’s a handful of people and the sky is falling.

No doubt, all the massive propaganda was portraying what was happening as something very bad. Population of the world was also being persistently conditioned to falsely perceive it as if the world is ending. As said, the world itself was staying put since how can it be otherwise when the overwhelming majority of the world population kept going undisturbed, in its everyday fashion?

Only very far-sighted minds began to sense that, on the contrary, the planet is beginning to clear itself from centuries of oppression. But, how exactly? That was the sixty-four thousand dollar question which was not up to anyone on earth to answer at this stage.



~o~


Aside from the members of the police departments or the mob, so far, as it concerns what appears to be activists—improvers of the world and their associates from any color of the NGO palette—we have seen just a small group of people, some of them complete strangers to each other. The only thing that connects all of the participants in this small group is their belonging to the Organization. Some are annoyed by the reference to activities, which sound as if implying the group of people in question are conspiring. However, call it what you will, groups of people do gather together congregating to reach a goal, not even announcing to the world their association. We like to think that the advertised common goal is noble. It isn’t always so. Our Organization, as becomes clear when frugal information about it creeps out, tends towards the do-gooders. Unfortunately, just gathering in secrecy to do good isn’t enough.

“Not that I try to downgrade what the Organization is purportedly doing,” thought the protagonist.

Police, on the other hand, is called to maintain order, which is a good thing from the point of view of most working families. However, in the long run, it upholds whatever system is in existence in a country—fair or unfair. No country is perfect and the police does what it can within the system.

This limited role of the police within a system is very reminiscent of the lawless system of scientific paradigms—another term for lies perpetuated by the collective—to which individuals must conform if they are not to lose their comfort. Just as with the police system, any change of paradigm, or paradigm shift as it is called, must occur within the obviously absurd system misnamed science, an absurd system brazenly introduced by the elite in the early 20th century.

The real upholders of the system are the potentates, and they always make sure through their police, secret societies, press, and academia to keep the system unjust. There is no just system governed by a potentate.

To keep the differential between the powerful and the powerless, they use different methods, policies and ideologies, as well as, as just mentioned, secret societies. The ultimate goal of any secret society is the artificial maintenance of the power differential, which is another way of saying the artificial maintenance of injustice.

This immediately begs the question, is the above applicable also to the Organization? Although secretive as a whole, and despite openly stating its ultimate goal—improving of the world—one may safely say that the Organization was also striving to upkeep that differential. If it were not, that must have been openly stated, which it wasn’t. This fact, the Organization’s adherence to preserving said differential, ergo, preserving injustice, dooms the Organization to failure, even if none of the events that led to its lull occurred.

Make no mistake, potentates are the ones in charge, as we speak. They are the elite. How does the Organization, which we so much talked about, feel about the discrepancy between powerful versus powerless isn’t quite clear, despite the semi-tonally declared ultimate goal of Organization—to improve the world. This was not something said explicitly but everyone involved kind of knew it or felt it.

All in all, the Organization was a relict of defunct systems based on past ideologies which were encompassing the globe at one time or another. None of these ideologies was long lived but all of them were, at a varying extent, unjust. That’s all we need to say on that matter.

The reminding of the above may sound trivial but it has everything to do with what is happening—disproportionate deaths in favor of the potentates. That fact started to become more and more visible and caused scratching of more than a few heads.

Of course, it’s a public secret that not all intentional deaths are uncovered by the police. However, in this case, obviously, cold cases, deaths whose perpetrators are never to be found sounds not too sound at all. Just think whose deaths we’re talking about.

Now, if we are to zoom out slightly we may note that there are many sci-fi and mainstream novels, movies and TV shows in which the main characters claim to be committed to saving the world. Of course, all of this is not serious, it is like “what they say and do in the movies”, if not said only jokingly, and is nothing more than wishful thinking and fantasies. By contrast, here the prospect of the world being saved is real because it rests on the solid foundation of absolute truths, the mechanism of which will become clear and in more detail in the next book.



~o~


The telephone rang and woke up the General from his light slumber which he usually sank in during his afternoon nap.

“General, NYC Commissioner speaking. I have summoned with me, in may office, Inspector Knowington and the specialist Dr. Pennybrow. It will be a great pleasure to have your presence with us, here in New York City. Should you decide to attend, which I can hardly doubt, the tickets for your flight will arrive shortly at your door. New York City will be honored to have you as our guest.”



~o~


The problem was so unusual that the Government gave a leeway to the organized crime. Organized crime, understandably, took it as announcement of war. The officials, however, were busy attending to the glaring situation and ponder over relations with this or that. It seemed now like childishness.



~o~


The meeting in NYC held in the Commissioner’s office was but one of many gatherings conducted in high places and, no doubt, in palaces and residences. We will let these higher meetings go unattended. They actually have no place in our account as a story-building element. Those details about the mentioned meetings are more or less a nuisance. Furthermore, curiously, unlike pretty much every criminal story told, never directly involving the Palace, the story told here does do that. The king and the royals are not even mentioned in the overwhelming number of film or TV productions involving crime, despite the obvious role of the persons at these high places as potential persons of interest especially on a global scale. Furthermore, it would be plainly uncouth to deny the role of the king in legitimizing the Nobel Prizes. Wasn’t he, the king, who handed, giving them a state sanction, all these Nobel Prizes comprising nothing other than outright absurdities? This is far from just a formal act. That action of the king gives the stamp of approval to the ultimate travesty that absurdity, nonsense, can enjoy the status of high science. The kingdom, however, protects its potentate, no matter how ruinous his actions might be for the nation and for the world. What potentate otherwise would it be?

The last lines started to lift the veil covering the so much sought for solution to the muddle that has been engulfing the world for some time. Although we will not yet have the full answer, it gives a glimpse of what is to come and what will at some point flood the world like water gushing from a broken dam.

Unlike what was said above about sparing the royals in popular culture from even a spec of doubt, in our current story, the royals and other potentates truly have no role to play in and of themselves but to be victims; at that, of no particularly delineated perpetrator, unless they decide to change their ways. The latter, also inevitably leading to their institutional demise and disappearance from the scene of history, while keeping the dignity of their personal lives.

On the contrary, royalty, tycoons, senior politicians, influential academics, leaders of mega-corporations, all those who directly influence the world with their decisions, their action, or inaction, are now the ones that someone or something makes the object of sanctions. They find themselves immersed into something that can’t be cleaned off, peeled off, removed like a sticky substance that stays on the skin no matter how you try to wipe it off, even if you use the best solvents available.

This condition of society only provides the environment, as a good government, that exists nowhere, is supposed to do. The government does not produce material things, neither does it make discoveries, writes symphonies or pens books. It only betters the environment so that real discoveries be made, novels penned don’t comprise just clever combination of words, fine art isn’t arbitrary and human thought on all matters be more organized, productive, and most of all truthful.



~o~


“Ladies and gentlemen, never in history have we experienced such an attack on leaders in peacetime. There is no cholera or other pandemic today, let alone the fact that the deceased were in excellent health before it happened, regardless of who caused it. The potentates have always been the target of conspiracies and various other political crimes. To date, there is no evidence of such ploys related to current events. There is no evidence other than the fact of these deaths, no suspects, no leads. There have been cold cases, we all know that. However, the sheer number of high-profile victims of cold cases today, and especially the fact that these high-profile victims are from different countries, geographically unconnected to each other, and some lack even a biological link that precludes even internecine coup d’etats, makes the current situation highly unusual, nothing short of extraordinary.”

Observant people draw attention to the fact that, due to recent fabrication presented to the world as pandemic, the victims are exclusively anonymous, nameless people whose deaths cannot be ascertained directly.

Furthermore, the studies cast serious doubt on the veracity of these deaths.

In the current climate, discussed herewith, the situation is reversed. For some unknown reason, by some unknown perpetrator, the deaths of the personalities have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. The passing of even one person of powerful lineage or potentate ilk cannot remain hidden from the world, let alone the deaths, of late, of dozens and hundreds of the most prominent people in various countries of the world.

This is something very serious. Something the world has never seen, even during the worst known authentic pandemics.

Official state funeral ceremonies are held. Church bells ring continuously. Gun salutes are produced. The capitals of the world, the airwaves, the television news reports everywhere become a great and prolonged mourning ceremony.

What is more important, the staff that was once coveted, such as professions of pages, servants, and footmen is increasingly needed—people fear that it is dangerous to be around potentates who have become toxic for some unknown reason. The world is headed in an unwelcome morbid direction in its rarified expanses of governance, sparing those who inhabit the foothills where billions of people live.

As for general justice, think about it—the average person lives as if nothing is happening, while at the same time there is human trafficking, wars, billionaires stealing the wealth of entire nations in elaborate ways. Therefore, what is the need for courts where only those who can afford expensive lawyers win?



~o~


The worry of the Jaguar was of a different kind. Kings and potentates were dying at an unheard-of rate but this didn’t concern his business and was passing like noise of light breeze by his ears. What really concerned him is that no one wanted bribes any more. It has become dangerous, even deadly to accept bribes. No member of Congress accepted any money any more to sweet a deal. As part of Jaguar’s business self-serving changes, sometimes substantial changes, in the legislature are needed so that Jaguar’s matters can go smoothly and everyone knows how this happens—money under the table, inexplicable favors and many other ways of what some call corruption—a term of an amorphous meaning, which, when skillfully applied, never leaves proof positive. People have a feeling of it but can never produce categorical evidence, when corruption is skillfully conducted but in disappearingly few cases of no actual importance. Investigative journalists make their whole carrier feeding it with innuendo and rumors. Once in a while some inconclusive document may be produced, generated by a rookie politician or a sloppy executive and that’s all. Most of the times those who commit corruption get away with murder, sometimes literally.

No more of this, though. No one is willing to go that road any more. Hedge funds, Wall Street speculators, small and big time money sharks cannot swim in the ocean of business without corrupting someone. Corruption is the other name of the system. Eliminate corruption and the financial business will stall, politics will lose its feet. The whole system will fall apart. Not any more. The system is falling apart but in a different way. Dissipation of all the neatly, cuddly, set up connections is observed everywhere.

“This is not only not good for business, this means death to us all, mob and big business alike,” the Jaguar nervously paced the room from one side to the other and back, feeling for the first time completely helpless.

What is going on? Who will take the responsibility?

In all popular stories, attracting huge audiences, the main goal is money. In this case the goal is something incomparably greater. The goal is to win over the brain and then the heart of society. This is something our investigators couldn’t fathom.



Whodunnit?

Whodunnit?



Although our heroes remain completely blind to the reason for the inexplicable reversal of fortune of the powerful compared to the fate of the commoners, we, for our part, are fortunate to be able to delve deeper into the nature of some issues that will begin bringing clarity to the enigma that is causing so many problems for the elite.

The completely unexpected answer to the question “Whodunnit?” that is now troubling the entire world is contained in a forthcoming book that goes far beyond the lives of the powerful, although it does answer the question of why they are being targeted, and explains how the world as a whole will be spontaneously saved by its own means, without outside interference and violence.

Our protagonist will now emerge as the central figure in the forthcoming book. Not only will he find the answer to “Whodunnit?”, but he will also discover the path to humanity's salvation. Unfortunately, not only is he still unaware of his sublime mission, but even at the end of his pilgrimage no one will listen to him. He will continue to be a voice of reason in the desert.




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