The Brave New World

The cube next to the lectern in the general a.s.sembly chamber of the United Nations dissolved into thin air just as the delegates were trooping in for yet another vote.

They were a sorry sight. Most hadn"t washed for several days, ever since water had begun to be rationed. The toilets in their rooms were overflowing. All had spent many sleepless hours, wondering what had really happened and what was going to come next.

What happened was that finally, they had a taste of what life looked like for many people in the world. Just a little taste.

It was enough to make them all deeply unhappy. People who are unhappy tend to be pessimistic. The sudden disappearance of the cube in the general a.s.sembly chamber caused a small panic.

Some delegates were instantly convinced that the disappearance of the cube meant fresh disasters. They ran to the underground bunkers meant to protect them from attack.

Some delegates were worried that all the implant kits, scrolls, and hiber beds they"d taken had disappeared, too. They ran back to their rooms to rea.s.sure themselves that all the stuff they had taken from the cube was still there.

Some delegates couldn"t believe the cube was gone, just like that. They scrambled onto the stage and examined the floor next to the lectern, looking for clues.

There were none. All that remained were the implant kits, scrolls, and hiber beds stored in the rooms. The blue lights in the bases of the implant kits glowed rea.s.suringly.

And then, the unthinkable happened yet again.

The lights in the building flickered, came on, flickered, and went out again.

Accusations flew fast and furious in the power control room of the United Nations building. The engineers and repairmen a.s.sembled there all began shouting at the same time.

"What did you do?!"

"You touched that!"

"I saw you flick a switch!"

"Liar!"

"a.s.shole!"

"Moron!"

"c.u.n.t!"

The truth was, none of the people in the power control room had touched anything. They were afraid of touching anything. A number of their friends had been electrocuted while trying to fix things.

For the past few days, they"d all been mostly concerned about concocting convincing stories of how they were working hard to fix the power outage. Now they all stood in the room dimly lit by Coleman lamps, shouting at each other. It wasn"t constructive.

For the next half an hour, total pandemonium reigned in the United Nations building. Delegates rushed to and fro, many furiously punching the keys on their smartphones. They seemed to be working: they switched on without exploding, or dying with a final fizz of fried electronics. The installed applications worked. The messages could be played back. Text messages could be typed in, and saved.

But they weren"t working in the sense no calls could be made. The network was dead.

In the meantime, the chief electrical engineer - the next person after G.o.d at that difficult time - regained control in the power room. He immediately issued a series of orders, then ran to talk to Chief Brody, in charge of the overall security in the building and its environs.

Security guards and policemen were immediately dispatched to check all the light switches in the building, make sure they were in the "off" position, and prevent anyone from touching them.

Down in the power control room, the chief electrical engineer was busy setting up an experiment.

He connected a powerful reflector to a small, portable generator. He rigged a long broom pole to the handle on the generator"s starter cord. Then, hidden behind an overturned metal desk, he carefully put the pole on the desk"s edge and pushed down sharply.

The generator farted, then fired and began chugging happily. The control room was flooded by intense white light from the reflector.

No one whooped or danced with joy. They all kept their heads down and their hands on the backs of their necks, waiting for the generator to explode.

It didn"t explode. It chugged steadily. The light kept shining. Occasionally it dimmed a little, but then returned to normal.

Joyous shouts rang out.

"f.u.c.king A!"

"We did it!"

"Yay!"

It took a while for the chief electrical engineer to restore order. When he did he immediately sent out teams to bring in more small, portable generators. Then he ran to confer with the building"s director of administration. He wasn"t about to make a single move more without covering his a.s.s first.

The general a.s.sembly chamber of the United Nations building was still lit by rows of Coleman lamps. The s.p.a.ce beside the lectern where the cube had stood was conspicuously empty.

The lectern wasn"t. It was filled by Nelson Odongo wearing his last fresh shirt and underpants. His suit was creased, and so was his forehead as he watched the delegates enter the chamber. The presidents, prime ministers, generals, admirals, the small handful of kings that ruled their nations directly - all those important, dignified people were behaving like schoolchildren that had just heard the bell for the break.

Nelson Odongo was patient. He waited. He was a wise man, and knew that life mostly consisted of waiting. Life itself was a form of waiting - for death.

When everyone had finally settled down, Odongo began to speak and immediately shocked the a.s.sembly into silence.

His voice boomed from the speakers in the chamber!

Outside the chamber, two electrical engineers exchanged thumbs-up signs. They were squatting by a row of connected portable generators, which were all thudding busily.

"My dear fellow parliamentarians," said Nelson Odongo, and paused: he noted with pleasure some of the people in the chamber seemed scared of him.

"As you can see, we have partially restored power," said Odongo, including himself in the team that had worked feverishly to rig up the sound system he was using. Nelson Odongo hadn"t touched a screwdriver or a wrench in the past thirty years.

In fact, he hadn"t done much of anything for most of his life. Whenever he needed something done, he asked someone to do it. Even his s.e.x life consisted of lying back comfortably while an experienced, expert mouth was working on his d.i.c.k.

"Everything will be gradually returning to normal," Odongo continued, fully aware that he was lying. The old norms were dead. New norms would take their place. They would be set so that everything would go on as before.

As someone clever had put it: if things were to remain the same, things would have to change.

It was up to him, Nelson Odongo, to expedite the needed change. He waited for the excitement caused by his promising words to die down. Then he said:

"In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do very fast. We have to set up administrative structures for two worlds: the old, and the new. We have to decide what needs to be done next. Every single step we take has to be the right step."

He paused to let this sink in. Then he continued:

"We must immediately affirm this a.s.sembly as the top authority in both worlds. We must also elect a Colonial government for the New World. We must decide on immediate steps to be taken in both worlds.

"We shall have to set up a number of committees to work on selected areas of concern. We have a lot - a lot! - of work to do.

"Therefore, we shall now break for brunch. I am told there will be several hot meals to choose from."

A few voices cheered, and Nelson Odongo frowned. Such children! But this was all to the good. He could handle children. He was good with children. Children ate out of his hand.

He stopped frowning, and smiled at his audience.

"All right," he said. "Let"s go eat something."

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