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“Just a rich showoff, I reckon,” Isaac objected. “Bet you, he only bought a Harley because he read somewhere how cool it is to have one.”

“What are you saying, bro, where do you think they write that it’s cool to have a Harley?

The Ducati Sport, now, that’s never been like a Harley, and it shouldn’t look like one, and that’s why…”

“Okay, Bikie! But how are you planning to hob-nob with someone from his circle?

‘Hello, I’m a barman with a Harley, what year’s your machine? Are you against Collective Mind? Me too!’ I suggest that if it’s a no go with Wolanski, then we can contact this guy too.”

“Isaac, if you’ve already decided everything, then say so.” Bikie snapped, “I figure a

normal guy will make normal conversation, with money or without. Although, what the heck you consider normal these days, if ridding yourself of your soul has become the norm. Eh? Especially if you don’t happen to have any better way of doing as well as this guy with the Harley.” Bikie was so sure that Link’s invention would ruin the world that it charged Isaac with confidence.

Bikie regarded financial inequality and disparity of opportunities as the main reasons why it had become popular to be a donor. That way everyone got a chance, whether they were from Europe, Asia or Africa. The important thing was how well your head worked. While before, being from Fiji one could expect only the finger.

The first massive wave of creativity downloading came about in countries with negligible opportunities for fighting your way up without heavy connections, for earning enough for your own house, or for getting rich. A large flow of elderly but intelligent people followed from countries with a poorly developed social sphere, in Latin America and Asia.

In the prosperous countries, the young took up downloading. In Hong Kong, Greece, Italy and France, graduates who could not find a good job easily surrendered to it. Yesterday’s students quickly discovered how difficult it was to support themselves independently, let alone to earn enough for a decent house, start a family and live a stable life, no matter what high-level specialists they were. Most of the big-time positions were taken, and some had disappeared altogether thanks to the Einsteiner-generated technologies. Sure, you could scrape by on social support payments, but the money received for OE offered a real opportunity of never having to worry about anything again. That was what they had studied and developed their brains for, you could say. In America, masses of prisoners volunteered to sell their creativity. And it went on and on. After three years it was already pointless to single out specific groups. Everybody everywhere was downloading.

Collective Mind successfully campaigned for the abolition of capital punishment. Rather, an alternative was offered – the downloading of one’s energy instead of electrocution or gassing:

“Let every person serve the society.” It was a shame to waste the resource, if someone got executed his energy would be lost forever. Collective Mind was keenly interested in increasing the Einsteiner volume, and didn’t want a drop of Orange Energy to be wasted. It equipped prisons with download technology, and continuously increased the capacity of the network.

Prisoners who downloaded their OE were offered significantly more comfortable conditions.

A lavish Hollywood movie was made. About a talented young guy, a 3D architect who

through a series of failures takes the wrong path in life. His actions become more and more contemptible and mean, and he loses his job. Computer hacking and doing drugs eventually lead him to homicide. The car he is driving while high on cocaine hurtles off the road and two passengers are killed. Unintentional, but still a homicide. He sunk lower and lower and eventually became a killer. The hero became an antihero. The viewers eventually lost sympathy for him. But in the second half of the film, his profound repentance and his study of the strong and weak sides of prison life lead him to voluntarily donate his energy, in order to improve the lives of prisoners. His OE rating was huge – a valuable contribution to society.

We do not know what this man’s real contribution to the innovations was. But it all looked really great, the movie won an Oscar, and the criminal was even pardoned, although he voluntarily remained in the boarding house since he didn’t want to live anywhere else.

Hollywood is an ideal propaganda mechanism, it treats the public like a lover, who twists a man round her little finger and gets everything she wants out of him by putting him through incredibly profound emotions. The viewers cry and laugh, they live other people’s lives, and then they are ready to accept Hollywood’s ideas and messages in real life.

Isaac and Bikie’s chosen land of residence also had a chance to experience this

miraculous quality of Hollywood. In 1956 the wedding of the famous American film star Grace Kelly and the Prince of Monaco brought floods of tourists from all over the world to the Principality instantly making it a beneficiary of the world’s “Dream Factory”.

Whether a beautiful life or drama, cops who are corrupt or honest, the mafia or

patriotism, Hollywood has always steered people’s hearts and minds any way it liked, and the movie “Energy of Prison” helped many skeptics change their mind about Collective Mind and increased the flow of people wishing to download their creativity.

Of course, there were still exceptions. There were not very many donors among Russian

Orthodox Christians and Israelis. Israel and Silicon Valley rapidly lost their positions on the high-tech market, surrendering leadership to Collective Mind.

The opposition to Collective Mind was gradually disappearing. The opponents of

downloading and pooling creativity did not have serious arguments in any case.

It took a long time for the official Church to come up with a specific position; by and large it remained neutral. It was difficult to go against the fact that the world was being purged of a great number of sins.

“You know what?” Bikie said eventually. “Why don’t I phone this Charles anyway? The

guy with the Harley. Maybe he’ll be OK. We won’t lose anything, and I promise to be very careful. And if it’s a flop – we’ll go to Wolanski.”

For the sake of an amicable, collaborative relationship Isaac did not argue.

Bikie dialed the number and introduced himself. He said he was from a local club and

would like to meet Charles to talk about the rare Harley model that Charles owned and take a few photos for the club’s site. Everything went smoothly and they agreed on seven o’clock that evening. Bikie made thorough preparations. He found a pair of old, tattered jeans, a black t-shirt with the sleeves crudely torn off and a biker jacket. He put on a bandana with a red Harley Davidson logo and a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. He looked really menacing and Isaac liked it.

For this special occasion Bikie washed his bike and pulled out a pretty good Leica camera from somewhere.

“You know what I think, why don’t you skip the meeting and go straight to Hollywood?

They’ll put you in the movies without any screen-tests. Did you know that Harrison Ford worked as a carpenter up until he was spotted by George Lucas? When you end up meeting Lucas or Tarantino, at least text me to say that Bikie won’t be back.”

Bikie smiled his huge, broad smile and winked. He was happy with the way he looked

too. He had taken his time, dressing, with loving care. He didn’t get to go into town dolled up like this very often.

“Admit it, Bikie, you chose this candidate especially so you could have a costume party.”

“You're the Carnival! The time will come when I’ll always be dressed like this. On a

Harley, with a busty blonde on back. You’ll see.”

“Land this guy for us first. And then I promise you two busty blondes.”

“Everything will be okay. Don’t shit yourself!”

Hours later Bikie returned to the apartment quite despondent.

“First of all, that asshole was almost an hour late,” he told Isaac disappointedly. “Then he spent a solid hour telling me how fucking cool he was. He didn’t let me get a word in,

peacocking his plumage like he was trying to impress some bimbo. I soon realized he was a trashy banker after all; the speedometer on his super-rare Harley didn’t even have a thousand

kilometers on it. A beautiful thing but just gathering dust. Although better to gather dust than carry a dumb fuck like that. I tried about ten times to start a conversation about OE and Einsteiner, but the dick kept harping on about how bored he is and what he does to avoid getting rusty: Saint Barth, the Maldives, Bora-Bora, that sort of crap. He told me about all his chicks and how crazy they all about him. Maybe there’s some kind of error in your data base? Or is all his creativity wasted on his stupid stories? I’ve never seen such a clown before.”

“Don’t let it bother you, Bikie, you looked like a million dollars, so he spread his

plumage to impress you.”

Bikie brightened up a bit.

“No shit, Isaac, you’re one of the few normal guys I’ve met just recently. They’ve all

gone cuckoo. Rushing about, no clue what they want in life. No goals, no ideals. Cardboard people. Let’s do some booze today, what you say? Got any more whisky?”

“No whisky, but there’s some awesome Seychelles rum.”

“Never heard of that kind, but rum’s even better.” “At this pace I will quickly become an alcoholic!”

"In vino veritas, my friend. This is my way of protesting. I'd rather drink my creativity away than get downloaded. After I fought my drug-addiction, booze for many years has been my only ally and the way to forget that I one day was supposed to be a great programmer. By the way, if you don't feel like drinking, that's fine, I'm not going to force you.”

“Well, in this aspect I cannot but drink!” Isaac, who decided to befriend Bikie, found it wise to keep him company. “Tomorrow we’ll get round to this Wolanski of yours. And I promise to take it completely seriously. We can’t just go visiting anyone and drawing them into our plans.

That way we could come unstuck. We don’t need anyone else. A bit of money won’t hurt, but we’ll somehow manage the rest...”

That night, drinking and reasoning, Isaac suddenly realized that is was not just the pure idea that was guiding him, but anger and revanchism for not being able to find his place in this society. His failures, hard times with Vicky, his poverty. Looking at rageful Bikie he for a second saw himself, his feeling in the day of the attack. The failure with Charles has got his companion seriously wound up – Bikie was so full of hate towards Einsteiner that he even started to deny its undoubtful achievements. Isaac suddenly felt scared to have this weird outcast as his only ally, whose aggression made him actually defend the Agency, his enemy. As he was getting drunk his thoughts started to scatter. Finally, having decided this all to be but a moment of weakness, he chased the unbidden doubts away.

“Our strong point is that they don't even suspect that we are fighting against them. We are the secret underground. They aren't worried, thinking that everything has always been under control. Believe me, if this ever occurred to them, even a brief analysis of our search in the net would be enough to throw both of us to jail and download!”

Isaac didn't want to get back behind bars. The first trial was more than enough, and as he remembered the tight handcuffs on his own hands, he came to the conclusion that indeed it was their chance that the enemy didn't know about their existence.

“Good morning, could I see Peter Wolanski, please?”

The young guy who had opened the door in the gate looked at Isaac closely and enquired

politely:

“Who’s asking for him… and on what business?”

“My name is Isaac Leroy and I’m here on a personal matter.”

The young guy looked Isaac up and down again, cast a glance at his scooter and opened

the door wider.

“We-ell, all ri-ight,” he said uncertainly, stretching out the words. “Come in,” he added.

He moved aside to let Isaac through.

The house itself was not large, and set on a wide, flat plot of ground – a rarity in the Cap d’Ail district. Six massive, dark-red columns, two of which ran down into a beautiful, sky-blue swimming pool. Windows down to the floor, lots of glass, lots of clear light and fresh air. The obligatory pampered palms trees on the grounds and lots of olive trees. A magnificent view of the sea. If someone lived in a villa like this, their life had come together very nicely. Through the glass walls Isaac saw a collection of modern art, both paintings and sculptures. He didn’t know much about artwork, but even he recognized one of the works as an Andy Warhol print.

“He’s sitting pretty,” thought Isaac. “It’s a shame my parents weren’t rich. But never

mind, I’ll make it anyway.”

“Sit here,” the young guy told Isaac, pointing to a glass table surrounded by wicker

furniture. “Well, I’m listening; tell what this personal matter you have for me is. I’m Peter Wolanski.”

Of course, Isaac had realized immediately that it was Peter himself who opened the gate.

Although he hadn’t found a photo on the internet, the young guy was the right age, plus he had an accent. From the dossier Isaac remembered that Peter had no brothers or sisters, and this guy had studied him too closely to be simply an acquaintance or friend of the villa’s owner. Isaac had been right to pin on his scientific society badge from university. Peter was clearly familiar with the badge and it had a favorable effect.

“So what exactly brings you to see me?”

“I just wanted to meet you. And maybe make friends. We went to the same university,

although at different time. And we’re members of the same scientific society. I’m an inventor, by the way.”

“You are? And what have you invented? And what’s the point of us becoming friends?”

“I’ve developed a couple of gadgets. Right now I’m planning to sell one of them.”

“Not to me, I hope?” Wolanski enquired.

“Of course not,” Isaac smiled. “Although you’re capable of buying, I’m not here to sell you anything…”