Collective Mind (34 page)

“Done!”
smiled the taxi driver.

Everything
was happening as if in a fairy tale; like pictures on the internet: the
beautiful bridge couldn’t possibly be confused with anything else, on the right
was a view of the Empire State Building blazed blue and they could see the
Chrysler Building with its beautiful, illuminated, frilly yellow design.

The
driver turned to the embankment and the Williamsburg Bridge appeared,
connecting the neighborhood of the same name with Manhattan. At this point, the
two friends were so enthralled by the sights of the city that even the enemy
headquarters, the UN building towering up along the embankment, provoked only
positive feelings. The car turned left, to cross the island and in succession
they cut across Second Avenue, Park Avenue, Madison Avenue and, finally, the
most famous of all, Fifth Avenue. There were so many people in the streets, it
looked as if some incredible sale for pedestrians was under way. The roads were
packed with yellow taxi cabs but basically the traffic was moving smoothly.

As
soon as Isaac thought about that, they got stuck in a jam.

“Broadway
and Times Square are ahead. The traffic’s always tricky around here.”

“That’s
OK. We’re in no hurry,” Bikie replied.

Eventually
they arrived, paid the driver, collected their suitcases and walked into the
hotel lobby. They didn’t feel like sleeping any longer and had to wait for the
professor and Pascal. Bikie went out for a stroll. Isaac asked him to buy some
local phones and checked into his room.

Now
that he was alone, he could finally call Michelle in peace. She had to release
Commissioner Pellegrini. He had done everything he promised and not tricked
them.

The
first question stubborn Michelle raised was about her coming to join them.
Isaac was strongly against. Of course, he would be glad to see her, but the
risks were too high.

“You
know, Isaac, there’s only one person who can tell me where I can and cannot go.
And that is me! I’m not a fool, you know that perfectly well…”

“Michelle,
please…”

But
she did not seem to be listening to him at all.

“I’ve
been talking to Pellegrini here. We had loads of time. He won’t let us down.
He’s a decent guy. He has really seen the light and now he’s dying to get into
the fight.”

“It’s
not just him, can’t you see that?” said Isaac, trying to convince her to be
reasonable, but it was useless.

“Don’t
interrupt! Let me finish! I’m not going to get in your way or interfere in your
business. Do whatever you like I’ll simply see my friends.”

“Then
why are you asking me?” Isaac was beginning to fume. “If you want to see your
friends in New York, London or Melbourne, just buy a ticket and fly.”

“Oh,
Isaac, please,” said Michelle, changing her tone. “Why do you keep putting me
off all the time? I helped you get to America safely, by the way, so I’m also a
member of the team. Besides, I’ve blown my cover with Pellegrini anyway.”

“No
you haven’t. Tell him that when you realized we had really left, you untied him
immediately. He doesn’t know that you advised us about Miami.”

“I’ll
go where I want to go!” said Michelle, changing her tone again

“My
God, how fickle you are! Exactly as Bikie predicted.”

Michelle
hung up.

Oh
boy! He had been in such a great mood, and now she had ruined it all! Isaac was
furious. Could she really be so spoiled? That “I’ll do whatever I want” of
hers… Yes, dealing with her was turning out pretty tricky.

Isaac
had another thing to do that he had been putting off for a long time. He had to
contact Wolanski and tell him everything somehow or other. He hadn’t yet
thought of how to explain that they had held a police officer hostage in
Wolanski’s house. Well, there was nothing to be done about it, he had to call.
Isaac reluctantly tapped in Peter’s number.

“Hi,
Isaac!” Peter’s voice was as vibrant as always. “How are you getting on? How’s
the work going?”

“Everything’s
fine. Things are good. Your house is all safe and sound. Where are you right
now?”

“In
Dubai.”

“Sorry
Peter, just a second…” Isaac looked at his phone and then added: “I hope I
didn’t wake you up? We’ve got an eight-hour time difference.”

“Whoa?”
said Peter, calculating something rapidly. “Good for you, guys! I get it!
That’s great!”

“We
solved the jigsaw. So we went.”

“You
did?” There was more joy than surprise in Peter’s voice. “I never had any
doubt!”

“Listen.
There were some problems too. I was called in by the police. They asked about
the details after that terrorist attack in Monaco. I have told them, you are my
employer, just in case.”

“Anything
serious?”

“Well,
not quite,” Isaac replied mysteriously. “You know I had nothing to do with it.
They just latched on to me.”

“I
see.” This time Peter’s cheerfulness vanished. “What should I do?”

“Nothing.
It’s been fixed already. And the good news is that Vicky will be well soon! An
old friend gave me the money. Pascal, I told you about him, remember? He turned
out to be a really sound guy. ABSOLUTELY sound, in fact,” Isaac said
emphatically.

“Freaking
hell!” Peter grunted. “That means…”

“Yes,
Peter, that’s exactly what it means!” Isaac interrupted. “Anyway, you relax
over there. Get a tan. There’s nothing more to be done in Monaco.”

“Listen,
Isaac. There’s something I need to tell you as well. It’s very important. You
must find a way to contact me. Call from the hotel.”

“OK,
I’ll settle in and call you. Good luck, old buddy!”

“And
to you guys! Don’t forget to call “

“I
won’t.”

He
did not tell Peter everything, but most important things  did get across. The
quick-witted Peter understood where they were, who with and what for. Now he
just had to explain about Pellegrini, but that could be done from his hotel
room.

Isaac
glanced at the time. Well now, he ought to get a bite before everyone got
together.

Bikie
came back first bringing six phones: one for each of the team, one for
Pellegrini and one in reserve.

Isaac
told him that everything was fine with the commissioner, he hadn’t tricked
them. Tomorrow he was expected to go back to Paris, arrange an official trip
for himself and fly over within a couple of days.

Things
were fine with Link and Pascal too. No incidents. They were just tired after
two long flights.

“You
are quite a sight!” Bikie couldn’t help commenting on the professor’s new
appearance. “A genuine villain out of a children’s horror movie.”

Link’s
head was shaved smooth and he had a sumptuous ginger mustache protruding from
under his nose, upon which there sat a pair of old-fashioned glasses in thick
tortoise-shell rim.

“Shut
up, Bikie! I swore that none of us would joke on that subject.”

“Got
it,” Bikie said as seriously as he could, stifling his laughter.

They
decided not to sit up late and went to their rooms. The time in France was well
after midnight.

They
woke up very early, due to the time difference and went down for breakfast in
Starbucks to discuss their plans for the day. They decided to visit the
laboratory in the museum building the following day; in the meantime, they
would take it easy and recover from jet lag.

They
wandered around the city, each going his own way, planning to meet for lunch.

Everyone
was in the café on time, except for Link, who arrived late wearing the
most mysterious of his cunning smiles and announced that he didn’t come
empty-handed. It turned out that he bought tickets for a Broadway show.

“Let’s
relax a bit today. It’s not rock-n-roll or underground, but it’s the new
classics. Since we’re in the Big Apple, we can’t pass up Broadway. Especially
since no one knows when we’ll have another chance to see it.”

Everyone
was delighted; none of them except the professor even thought about it.

***

The
modernistic design of the theater hall was unusual and impressive. Incredibly
huge screens, consisting of large numbers of panels joined together, were on
the right and the left, at the front and on the ceiling. It was as if the
audience was seated in a tele-capsule. The seats reclined to a half-lying
position.

Shows
of this kind appeared shortly after the discovery and were under the influence
of OE.

Modern
music no longer simply contained melodies that stimulated varying degrees of
emotion: grief – joy – laughter – joy – sadness. Just as the Russian
avant-garde artists abandoned the object in the early twentieth century, the
COMA computer has partially discarded melody.

The
composing program created by the Collective Mind computer combined all the
well-known popular melodies with developments in psychiatry and neuroscience.
Calculating which sounds influenced which regions of the brain, the program
produced something totally mind-blowing!

By
adding light effects in 4D, the first show plunged its audience into a state of
total ecstasy.

 The
computer controlled human emotions, alternating sounds and images, so everyone
simultaneously laughed, wept, guffawed and sobbed, and then laughed and
rejoiced again. At the end they looked at the outer cosmos and galaxies and
went utterly happy.

Тhe
final chords of the program aimed to induce in the audience the feeling of
ultimate joy. As they left the show, the companions kept talking across each
other, sharing impressions.

Even
rock’n’roller Bikie lit up like a neon sign, with a smile right past his ears.
An hour later in the hotel they all at once felt overwhelmed by fatigue and
went to their rooms to fall into a deep, calm sleep.

In
the morning everyone was taciturn, nobody felt like talking.

Link
explained that during the show the brain had discharged almost all of its
reserves of endorphins, adrenalin, and serotonin.

“The
pituitary gland, the hypothalamus, and the pineal gland are exhausted. An hour
and a half after the show there was a discharge of melatonin, to stabilize the
organism, and we fell asleep. Because of that, driving isn’t allowed after
computer operas and shows. The body needs time to recover, so I took the
liberty of scheduling a massage for everyone followed by a day of rest,” Link
summed up, looking very pleased with himself.

Isaac
imagined that Link lectured his students with exactly the same intonation, and
thought once again what a class act Link was: not just intelligent, but
experienced too. And he was obviously very savvy when it came to cool leisure.
Isaac recalled the Japanese girl from Amsterdam, and that part of his life
still remained a mystery. Isaac and Bikie have not seen her again and asking
Link about that delicate subject seemed too awkward. She probably stayed in
Sardinia, or maybe she was preparing a new launch pad for the professor so that
he could disappear after the operation, or in case something went wrong.

Link
added that after these tense weeks, it was an important consideration to
cleanse their nervous systems; that was why he had taken the team to the show.
Sort of a rebooting.

Everyone
was grateful to him. Isaac was so exhausted, he did not even have the strength
to tease Bikie about rock’n’roll. If not for Link’s standing in his eyes, the
hard-boiled biker would never have agreed to any experiments like this. But he
went along with everyone and came away very content. Isaac smiled as he
recalled his friend’s foolishly happy face last night.

“That’s
it! We’re relaxing!” Link commanded. “After the massage we’ll have lunch, and
at four you’re going to the Guggenheim.”

Link
still used the old name for the building of the American branch of the Agency,
where one of the four Collective Mind global servers was located. Previously it
was the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art, which housed a fabulous
collection of art of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

UNICOMA
had only moved into the Guggenheim building quite recently, after having
generously constructed and donated new premises for the museum with much more
space – a masterpiece of architecture that was immediately dubbed the Eighth
Wonder of the World and the very best thing that mankind has built in its
entire history.

The
Agency was one of the bidders in a proposal for the design of a new home for
the museum. For sure, all leading architects of the world submitted their
proposals but there was nothing to match the concept from Collective Mind,
which won in all categories and on all criteria.

To
develop the design, the computer used absolutely all the ideas of architects,
artists and everyone else who had donated their creativity, utilizing at the
same time the most advanced and bold engineering solutions, even those that had
never been used for constructing buildings before. Everyone was absolutely
astounded when they saw what combined OE was capable of.

***

It
was not known what else the computer used in its proposal, but all members of
the jury voted for the design, with the result being that a magnificent
building has been erected in the presently tranquil area of East Harlem, where
property prices immediately shot up.

The
building turned out superb, unlike any others, and included elements of some of
well recognizable styles from various periods. For instance, at the main
entrance, a classical column seemed to have been frozen in light-blue melted
glass, forming a magnificent arch. The astounding mélange of styles
enchanted even seasoned specialists, and day and night ordinary people walked
around the building, keeping their eyes glued to it. Journalists promptly dubbed
the style “neo-eclecticism”.

It
was quite a sight. The main gimmick was the building’s total lack of symmetry,
so that if you walked around it, its contour constantly changed. This
accomplished an additional important effect: all viewers liked the design
because everyone could find his own preferred perspective. The same building
seemed to have three hundred and sixty views, one for each degree of the
circle. From one angle there was a hint of Gothic, from another angle a hint of
Modernism, and from yet another was Post-Modernism. Every person walking around
it could find a point at which he simply couldn’t help gasping in admiration
because it fit so perfectly their own ideal of harmony. The building really
delighted each and every person who viewed it. An entire collection of
masterpieces correctly assembled together.

  The
problem came when the Agency tried to use the same volumetric space approach
for designing its next building: the operator connected to the computer, which
turned out exactly the same design, only slightly smaller. Almost exactly the
same – apparently the addition of creativity from a few new downloaders had
some effect. And no matter how hard they struggled and shuffled the operators
around, they still got identical designs.

To
be fair, the new buildings were similar in style, all neo-eclectic, but the
designs for multi-story skyscrapers and small buildings did, in fact, differ
from each other. With buildings of the same size, there were certain
differences that the computer allowed depending on climate, solar irradiation,
and the surrounding environment.

As
an expression of its gratitude, the Guggenheim Foundation gave UNICOMA its old
premises. Moving the servers from the United Nations tower to the relatively
small white building beside Central Park was not really all that necessary, but
the Agency saw it as a political PR opportunity.

Americans
are practical people, they turn everything into a business, a show, a way of
making money. And the place where OE was stored was no exception. After
UNICOMA’s American office was installed in the former museum, they set up a
huge permanent exhibition of their achievements there, to promote the idea of
downloading. Of course, there was no real-life machinery and buildings on
display, just models and 3D photographs. You could download your OE right there
on the spot and Collective Mind’s main American server was located somewhere
underground.

The
basic concept of a visit to Guggenheim had not changed since its early days:
first arriving via the elevator and then walking down along a spiral, examining
the exhibits. Only the exhibits were now of a much cooler kind. Isaac stopped
in front of almost every one; they were so fascinating. He even momentarily
wondered if they were making a big mistake. He decided that they were not as
none of these models, videos and pictures, and everything they depicted would
disappear.

A
separate section was devoted to prior ideas and discoveries. Long before the
discovery of OE, mankind had sensed that it existed. Why was one person more
talented than another? It was a matter of genetics, upbringing, education, but
something else as well. The divine spark, charisma, the aura – all these and
numerous other terms had now been given a precise definition: Human Imagination
Tone.

At
the end of the exhibition, there were amusements and attractions and anyone
could take an express test for their OE level. People were lured with
challenges: “Find out how much you’re worth”, “Be one of today’s top ten, of
this week’s top hundred”, “Do you have five stars?” Even though he knew his HIT
level, Isaac found it hard to resist being measured again.

On
all sides, they were selling trinkets, little magnets and postcards with images
of the Museum, including memory sticks shaped as little big-headed men. Those
had no connectors, working via bluetooth.

There
was a download center in the basement of the museum while its rear section
housed an annex, conference hall, and staff offices.

Link
spent no more than fifteen minutes in the museum and then asked Isaac to go
outside with him

“I
don't want to go back into the museum,” he explained. “There is a risk that
I’ll be recognized. There are more of my portraits in there than ‘wanted’
posters in a police station. But I have spotted something important there.
There will be a conference in the museum in two days. I suggest we think about
how we can get into it.”

Isaac
nodded. He also thought about the conference.

“We’ll
try our best. See you at the hotel.”

As
they examined the exhibits, the plotters took note of important things such as
the location of entrances the security guards and the cameras.

Isaac
approached Bikie and Pascal and shared his thoughts that had been bothering him
since yesterday.

“Listen,
Pascal, are we sure about your amplifier?”

“Yes,
of course! Everything will run like clockwork. I don’t know what fancy stuff
Link has cooked up, but I’m not worried about my part.”

“OK.
Bikie, remember that Japanese woman? We never saw her again. I just thought
that she is probably developing an exit plan for the Professor. I think Pascal
should go back we can do here without him.”

“I
agree, he’s no big loss,” Bikie said with his usual sarcasm. “There’s no point
in the whole crowd scurrying about here, with no back up at home.”