Dawn of the Unthinkable (37 page)

Kincaid tried to think of ways to regain
control and get the upper hand in this relationship. He decided he
needed more information about her to try to find a weak spot that
he
could exploit. For that, he would need a private
detective, as there were few places he could go in Washington
without being recognized. He had one in mind that his wife had
hired to look into his activities, and this guy had found out
everything. He placed a quick call to him and arranged a meeting.
No one gets over on me forever
, he thought and smiled
grimly.

Lao had finished his report and was pleased
with the results. Several million computer simulations had shown
that the system could work and that society could exist without
money. It was ironic that the complexity of society in the
20
^th
century was the exact thing that would allow this
system to work. That is to say that when society first started,
peopled traded actual goods to obtain what they needed. This became
more difficult as man evolved, and a simple trade of one type of
animal for another wouldn't satisfy the need for tools, clothes,
and other necessities. So, the concept of an agreed upon medium for
exchange was created and flourished. Now, the evolution of man's
ability to communicate new ideas had grown to the point that it was
possible to do away with an antiquated system and use computers to
really change people's lives. And here he, Charlie Lao, had proved
it! He couldn't be more proud than if he had created the concept
himself.

He was scheduled to present the report to
the full committee at ten o'clock. Just before the rime, he went
into the bathroom to check his look. He put on his horn-rim glasses
even though he wore contacts usually. Better to appear as
professional as possible; he had to work at overcoming his boyish
appearance. He went into the conference room and was surprised by
the turnout. The normal attendance for a report synopsis was about
a half dozen; only those who really had much to do with it came.
This time, there were at least fifty people, and most of them were
top managers, not just the usual Under-Secretary to the Assistant
Deputy he was used to. He had a momentary flash of nervousness but
took a deep breath and settled into his chair.

His boss had already sat down next to him
and asked, "You ready?”

Charlie shook his head and laughed. "Not for
this crowd, but I'm going to pretend I'm not nervous".

She patted his arm. "Don't worry; you'll be
fine. But beware of Kennedy's chief of staff over there," she said,
nodding towards Karen Strock. "A lot of men get caught up in her
looks and are then surprised when she slashes them to bits with her
brain. She's a Mensa. So stick to the numbers. Don't get caught up
in the subjectivity of the topic." Charlie nodded and laid out his
report summary, keeping the five hundred pages of back-up data in
his briefcase. He looked up and caught the chairman's eye and
signified that he was ready. The chairman called the meeting to
order.

The chairman was a respected researcher
nearing the end of his career. He was financially secure after many
years of cranking out reports of a rather bland but important
nature. The Institution's minute analysis of developing countries’
economies were necessary for creating policy and were the less
glamorous part of the United States’ attempts to help the rest of
the world's governments. He often briefed senators and congressmen
before they went overseas on issues they could discuss that would
really grab the ear of one new potentate or another. Often, when
someone was denouncing the United States as some type of evil
entity, they were actually making a deal for increased technology
behind the scenes. Sometimes this went wrong, and the government
inadvertently ended up sponsoring some type of terrorist, but
usually the carrot instead of the stick worked well over the long
haul. So the chairman had contented himself with an influential but
unseen role.
Today's topic might change all that, though
, he
thought.
This one is way out there.

He cleared his throat and tapped the
microphone. "Ladies and Gentlemen, if you could take your seats,"
he announced in a soothing voice. "Thank you," he said when
everyone had settled in. "First, I'd like to thank you all for
coming. This is somewhat larger a turnout than we're used to," he
said, and a small ripple of polite laughter ran through the crowd.
I also must remind you that Senator Kennedy, who requested this
confidential report, has asked that it remain secret until such
time that he would care to release it. We are prepared to honor
that request and ask that you do so as well. The senator could not
be here himself today, but we are honored to have his chief of
staff, Ms. Karen Strock, in attendance. That's her over there," he
said, motioning in her direction. The men in the room were grateful
for an official invitation to stare at her, and more than one let
their eyes tarry longer than necessary.

Even in conservative dress, her figure and
mane of hair were striking, even to jaded politicians and
bureaucrats. She smiled and acknowledged the attention, while
turning to an aide and whispering, "Bunch of horny old goats. I
could make a fortune with a Viagra concession here, when the FDA
approves it, that is." The aide laughed; Strock had a genuinely
enjoyable wicked wit.

The chairman continued. "You probably have
been given an indication of today's topic. We were asked to analyze
the feasibility of changing the socio-economic basis of American
society to a non-monetary system where the government would become
a conduit to funneling assets to where they were needed. The key
point of the system would be that all of members of society of a
responsible age would have the opportunity to help determine how
the assets were allocated, instead of today's methods where those
who have accumulated wealth and influence make many of those
decisions. The technology of our society would make this possible.
We were naturally skeptical of the idea, which was presented as a
position paper by a trio of activists from Philadelphia to Senator
Kennedy's office. We assigned one of our top computer statistical
analysts, Dr. Charles Lao, to test the theory. I will now turn the
meeting over to Dr. Lao, who will inform you as to his findings.
Dr. Lao," the chairman said, motioning in his direction. Charlie
Lao stood up, trying to remember to minimize any trace of his
accent, which lessened any "foreign" person’s creditability in the
United States.

"Good morning, everyone. I echo my
chairman's welcome to you, and I think we can promise you a fairly
interesting morning. I'd like to start by giving you a brief, and I
emphasize brief, explanation of the method used to test this idea.
We realize that there are limitations to computer modeling for
testing real-life situations, but advances in artificial
intelligence have allowed for the unpredictability of human
behavior and randomness of life in general to be accounted for. So
what we did was..." He launched into an overview of how the model
was developed and tested before any actual data was run. He
appropriately used a computer presentation program and started to
hurry when he heard his audience getting restless. He wrapped up
this part of the presentation by concluding, "The model that was
created was reviewed and approved by the most senior researchers
here at the Institution, including the chairman. The next step was
to run some actual demographic data from the United States and see
what happened. I must tell you, the results surprised even us." He
could sense everyone come back to attention. This is what these
people came to hear.

He took a deep breath and said, "In short,
the idea works." He could hear gasps of astonishment and snorts of
derision, and he hurried on. "Our computers ran millions of
iterations of the basic idea, with one variable after another
introduced. While we can't claim to be able to duplicate every
situation that will arise in the course of a society's existence,
we did take into account wars, recessions, depressions, political
instability, terrorism, natural disasters, hacking, and many other
factors of everyday life. No matter how many variables we put in,
it showed that it could provide the necessities of life for 260
million Americans with a much higher standard of living for those
currently at the poverty level. The obvious associated effect of
this was that the upper class had less wealth than they did before,
but we agreed that mandatory, phased divestment could handle this.
We realize that this would be a tough sell politically, but we did
not allow that to influence our moving forward with the analysis,
as it would not be our responsibility to sell it."

Lao paused and looked out at the crowd who
was murmuring with disgust at the thought of having to part with
their hard-earned wealth. He broke into their muttering, saying,
"Getting back to the study, we found that the biggest hurdle would
be foreign relations, as convincing our own culture would be one
thing, but convincing many others, many of whom distrust us, would
be quite another. Many of those cultures prize the dollar above
their own currencies, and to deprive them of it could seriously
destabilize their socio-economic systems. With some of those
countries having nuclear capabilities and/or terrorist tendencies,
it is a point that would create the most complexity in implementing
the system. But here in the United States, what we found was that
after an eighteen-year shakeout and adjustment period, the majority
of people’s standards of living rose, there was less crime, and
greater participation in civic activities and educational
opportunities. The computer didn't measure societal satisfaction
ratings, although it could, because we did not want it to seek ways
to tweak the basic premise and skew the results. We tried to make
the model as objective as possible and frankly were quite amazed
when we found that something as complex as the United States
economic system could, in effect, be replaced."

The audience sat stunned for a second as
they contemplated this, then burst out with shouted questions. They
were feeling threatened and hostile to this idea, as they were
mostly comprised of the landed gentry who had the most to lose from
enacting it. Lao knew that Kennedy's people were the most important
in the room, even though there was an undersecretary from Treasury
there and a staffer from the White House. So out of the sea of
raised hands and shouted questions, he picked out Ms. Strock to
answer first. The room quieted to hear what she had to say. Most of
the men in the room were aware she was quite intelligent and were
interested in her reaction.

She chose her words carefully. "As you may
be aware, this idea was first presented officially to the senator,
who has a long history of helping those who are disadvantaged. He
was interested to the point that he commissioned this study, and as
his representative, I'd like to thank the Institution for their
usual thorough job. What I would like to know is that given that
the analysis stands up to scrutiny of other think tanks and
researchers, does the Institution actually recommend proceeding
with this idea?" It was a good question, and all attention focused
back on Lao.

Lao's eyes grew wide at being asked a
question outside the scope of his normal research duties. He
glanced at his boss, and she nodded at him to proceed. With another
quick glance over to the chairman, who appeared ready to intercede,
he decided to answer.

"The Brookings Institution has determined
that as the idea is feasible, it is advisable to test it in one
community in the United States. The potential gains to society are
too valuable to be ignored, and no computer model in the world can
take into account every variable that comes into play in normal,
everyday life. Therefore, we recommend that a community should be
picked and established as a "Free Zone," where dollars and credit
cards will not be accepted and the people will vote on the
distribution of the town's assets, and virtually all of the
necessities of life will be free."

He allowed that idea to sink in before
proceeding. "This community will be subjected to the additional
stress of being the first and only one, so they will be a good
determinate of how the idea will work on a larger scale and who
will not have the pressure of being alone. We would take a
moderately-sized community in the approximate middle of the
country, so that there won't be a massive influx of citizens
wanting to take advantage of the presumed temporary governmental
insanity. We will allow migration to and from this city, with those
moving to it having to sign one-year occupancy agreements and those
departing not being allowed to "clean out" the inventory. The
government would act as broker to those companies that would deal
with the community from the outside and make sure that they were
duly compensated. But to the greatest maximum extent, the community
would be encouraged to be self-sufficient and its people cooperate
instead of competing."

One of the undersecretaries piped up. "That
sounds like the Biosphere idea, where people were stuck in a bubble
with no outside intervention. That idea failed, as far as I know.
What would make these people different?"

Lao nodded to indicate that he was familiar
with that experiment and said, "This idea is obviously different in
that you'll have a large population of people who can interact with
those outside, and they are free to come and go as they please with
some small restrictions. I think the Biosphere failed for not
allowing for the diversity of human experience that most people,
especially Americans, crave. It’s the same reason long-term
astronauts who spend months on a space station sometime become
depressed, that is, lack of diversity of companions and settings.
The people in the Free Zone won't have to deal with that."