The Aden Agreement

Perfect World story (The NOW)- The Professor chapter _

The Professor stood in a darkened room, staring at the only area not engulfed in gloom: A cork-covered wall littered with images of historical events torn from the Encyclopedia-- Lincoln at the theater, Kennedy in the motorcade, Jesus on the cross.

He picked up a small box on the table near an impressive array of machinery, hulking outlines in the gloom, tiny lights blinking throughout, like Christmas as seen from an airplane. He opened the box to reveal a set of professional throwing darts. He fingered one gingerly, removed it from its foam enclosure and, like a professional baseball pitcher, wound up and flung it at the cork board. It hit with a pop.

The Professor approached and pulled out the dart, removing the image it had skewered from the wall as well; he held it up to the light. It was of the dead führer Adolph Hitler.

He walked over to the large bank of instruments in the gloom and snapped on a small desk lamp that wiped a panel of switches with incandescent light. On the computer screen was a set of query boxes. He answered the first one: 'April 30 1945'.

In the second he put 'Reich Chancellery, Germany'.

The third was a series of checkboxes; he clicked on 'visible spectrum', 'heat spectrum' and 'x-ray'. He pressed the 'initiate' button.

The room shook gently as the enormous machinery oriented itself on one small section of the night sky; the Christmas lights quadrupled and flashed diligently. The computer screen was covered with calculations being solved as he watched.

Then, silence.

On the wall a larger screen glowed; a fuzzy picture of planet Earth showed up, gaining clarity with each second even as it loomed larger.

Like from a falling meteorite the image shot towards the planet's surface, correcting itself incrementally as the ground approached. The building was located and captured; the correct set of lenses adjusted themselves into the fray and the roof became immaterial. Heat signatures depicted human activity (and a dog); facial recognition went to work and found him in short order. He was in the basement with his bride Eva Braun, married only one day.

They were alone in the basement in a small evac bedroom, making love furiously. She straddled him, violently gyrating her hips, taking him completely into her. Leaning forward, she paddled his face with her melonlike breasts, fingertips white against the headboard. Blinded by flesh, he never saw her grope behind the headboard and produce a Luger. He reached orgasm at that moment, shouting in German epithets that were halted in a flash of cold gunfire.

He lay dead; she put a cyanide capsule in his mouth and used his teeth to break it. She stood up, separating herself from him. His penis was erect and small, like a gherkin. She picked up a cigarette case, produced one and lit it. She used the phone next to the bed and dressed quickly. The door opened and Otto Gunsche entered. He looked at the dead leader Hitler, then strode over to Eva Braun and caressed her face with a black-gloved hand. He held her in a lover's embrace and while doing so, sank a needle into her neck. She slumped to the floor, dead. His men came in, doused the room and building with gasoline, threw a match and left through the hidden tunnel.

The Professor stopped watching, checked the clock and wrote in a journal:

Verified September 25th 9:17 am- Hitler murdered by Eva Braun during sex. Not suicide. Eva murdered moments later by lover Otto Günsche.

PS Braun probably killed him because his dick is tiny.

PPS Next time please challenge me a little.

He leaned back in his chair, smiling as he hit 'send' on the computer's email program. The journal entry and footage of the event was sent instantly to the White House, placed into the President's private box. The Professor then returned to a project infinitely more important to him-- determining which world leaders could be manipulated, and which would need to be disgraced.

He had completed several profiles already. It was an exhaustive job, following clues through time, over years, to determine the cause of a person's motivation; finding their moments of consequence, observing the blazing triumphs and bitter defeats in their lives and eavesdropping on the heeded advice which drove them, both wise and impolitic. In the end though, a completed profile was a powerful asset in swaying the opinion of power brokers and national leaders. Even a spotlessly clean life yielded guilty moments which, at the proper time, could sway the staunchest of stubborn souls. It was a delicate art, but the Professor did it gladly, in the name of the mother, planet Earth.

Now he finally had given himself permission to seek out the grandest of all dossiers; that of the disputed king of the world, the sitting US President. The man was seen as a saint, an angel who walked among us... it would be very interesting to find out when that started, and how, and how to get around it. Might as well start at the man's birth... if for no other reason than to find out in which country he was really born!

Dinner with the wife and kids was an event all too rare for the most powerful man on the planet, and as such he treasured it above everything else. It was the only time he felt reconnected to the ground and to the world around him, and it allowed him to remove the suit of dignity he seemed at most times to be welded within. It also meant he could play with his online buddy the Professor, who seemed to him to be the actual 'most powerful man on the planet' because of his ability to produce exactly the right crippling information at exactly the right time to stop exactly the right despot.

So tonight, following his wife's delicious salmon croquettes and peppered beet salad, and after games and stories with the children, and after romantic cuddling and voracious lovemaking with his wife, it was time to open the private email account he had established. Oddly enough, though only a few of his most trusted inner circle even knew about the email, the file was just the same filled with offers for breast enlargement and online advanced degrees. He chuckled at one that claimed it could help him earn a doctorate of particle physics in only nine weeks 'in your spare time'.

But the piece of mail which he anticipated most came from the Professor. Professor No Name. Mister Deep Throat Two. Though the man was a mystery he was without question on the president's side-- he prevented an internal power struggle in the White House, and then thwarted an assassination attempt by insisting the President learn to handle firearms. So no matter how quirky this guy was... whatever he had to say, the President would listen.

Today's mail came in the form of a solution to an unknown quantity the President had asked the Professor to reveal. It was a video. It was grainy but clear enough, and looked like pornography from a hundred years ago. He was about to stop it but something looked so unusual he couldn't stop. Soon enough the film made its importance known. He could hardly believe it but he was watching the last moments of Adolph Hitler's life, which ended not in one bang, but two. And rather than committing suicide as had been surmised, it was his own wife Eva Braun who had pulled the trigger, only to be poisoned moments later by her own lover-- and the whole thing, including Hitler's Last Fuck, had been captured on film!

The President shook his head in wonderment. How on Earth did the Professor get his hands on this film? It had captured the fire which engulfed the building, including the people who had set the fire, so why didn't the film and camera burn up with everything else? That man's resources were truly remarkable.

He read the attached file and chuckled. He hadn't noticed Hitler's 'shortcoming'... maybe that's why he had been looking for the Perfect Race!

Beginning a reply, the President pondered where this association of his could be leading. He knew all too well that although he was a popular elected official currently in great power, it was temporary... and moderated with a stringent set of laws. Any other human could be placed into this job. But Mr Who was wielding frighteningly awesome power: He was unelected-- he was anonymous-- and he knew the truth about everybody. That's where Absolute Corruption was born-- from unchecked power.

It was obvious that he would have to deal with this man carefully, try to find out surreptitiously what his goals were, and more importantly, find out who and where he is and to develop a means of controlling him. But this man saw everywhere! Whatever was done to find him, it had better be done with the utmost guile and cleverness.

He began typing. 'How many fingers am I holding up?' He extended seven fingers and hit Send with one of them.

He waited a moment. The computer beeped. Incoming message. 'Seven. Nice robe. Are we playing parlor games now?'

'Just wanted to verify the extent of your intrusion.'

'I had to perform a search to count your fingers, sir. There are far too many cameras for me to monitor, and the monitoring software I use cares only about the parameters I set for it.'

'What parameters do you set in the private quarters of the President of the United States?'

'Safety. I'm alerted if there is unanticipated movement or potential danger in the house or grounds.'

'I guess I can dismiss the Secret Service then-- the Treasury can save a few bucks. What's you're nickname for me? They call me POTUS.'

'Wiseguy.'

'Not a great nickname, Professor.'

'Not a nickname-- I'm calling you a wise guy. Only god has purer intentions than I, sir. My actions all work together to create the next great social system for humanity, which leads to my first request from you, sir.'

Deep in the bowels of the White House basements, a red light blinked in one room of the security office, accompanied by a soft booping.

The sound took only a few moments to rouse the on-duty guard, who swears to this day he was awake at the moment it went off. He read the label: Internet Breach; he called his superior over. One look at that light and the man was on the phone to the Chief of White House security. "Sir, it's on."

"I'll be right down. Start a trace."

"Yes sir."

The Chief hesitated, then broke regulations and put the call in to the CIA assistant director. "The Breach has begun again, Assistant Director Reynolds. We've started a trace."

"What is the president doing right now?"

"It looks like he's engaged in covert text conversation with an unknown agency." The Chief loved using the word 'agency' when describing any outside influence-- it sounded so much more dire.

"Can you read it?"

""No, Assistant Director Reynolds. It's encrypted, and our top codebreaking software can't make heads or tails out of it."

"Hook into Cipher Analysis over here in HQ. We'll let the Supercracker have at it-- it eats tough encryptions for breakfast. And way to be on the ball, Chief Peyton."

"Thank you sir." Peyton smiled. His bump into the CIA would be an easy step if he continued cooperating with Reynolds.

Reynolds hung up the phone and composed an e-mail. "Getting closer to target. Can expose and defeat the whole movement with correct intel at this critical time. Awaiting instructions to proceed." He sent the bundle into the vast black Internet, which expertly navigated the billions of switches and trillions of pathways, correctly dumping itself into the In Box of a computer in Prague.

The President pondered that last sentence. A request. Grant a request to an anonymous, potentially dangerous mad scientist? What would be the consequences of granting it? More importantly, what would be the repercussions for failing to grant it? He's already shown the power he wields-- might as well hear the man out. He typed, 'Well, you saved my life by preventing an assassination, and helped take down a dozen despotic leaders or their lieutenants... I guess I owe you. What do you need?'

'Land. Specific land. Specific government land, and a lot of it.'

'Oh.' The President stopped typing, remembering his scan of the Professor's 'Bible'-- the book called Perfect World which espoused the man's guiding principle, written by another anonymous Samaritan called 'the Founder'. The text called for a process of slow changeover from Capitalism to One Family, wherein both societies would coexist within the same nation, peacefully and without intrusion. Over time, more people were expected to be won over and would move voluntarily into the new society, which would be at first practiced in only one city, a brand new one far from population centers, to be optimistically called 'Aden'. More cities would be built as the concept spreads. When the majority of people shift, many of the old cities would be converted into the new society. In the end only a couple of cities would remain, possibly permanently, and would be the last bastion of Democratic Capitalism in the United States.

He resumed typing. 'Would this be for "Aden"?' Send.

'You've been reading up, sir. Yes. We'll need 50 square miles in a valley ringed with mountains, a hundred miles from the nearest town.'

'I'm guessing you already know the land you want and have the coordinates?'

'Of course.'

'Do you have specs on the city's construction?'

'Just Stage 1-- the first 6 million square feet.'

'Send them.'

The computer paused for the download. The President reviewed the plans; it was an impressively modern city, of sturdy construction and with many alternative energy solutions built into its design. "Hmph... the wonderful things you can create when you design from scratch." He typed 'Do you have a building cost projection for Stage 1?' He received the answer and his eyes bulged. 'How can it be built so cheaply?'

'That brings me to my second request.'

'And that is what?'

'Keep ineffectual and expense-producing government agencies away from Aden construction, like OSHA and Building Safety, to ensure the costs remain low. The city is not only of ultra-modern-design, it employs entirely new construction techniques which make those organizations moot.'

'Seeing as how the whole project's going to be secret I think I can make that happen.'

'Good. Also, we need the government's connection with Aden to be purely financial. Shortly after Stage 1 completion Aden should be running at a significant profit. The plan is to submit half of those profits to the government in the form of taxes; the other half will be used for city expansion and internal projects.'

The President smiled. 'I see a glitch... where will I tell the IRS the money came from?'

'What do you tell them about all the money going into Area 51?'

'Good point. We'll channel your money directly into publics works projects, schools, infrastructure upheaval, green solutions in the form of huge private donations to specific institutions, earmarked for specific projects.'

'That will work perfectly,' the Professor wrote. 'Additionally, I will continue to be at your service. Many of my resources will be useful in carving out the world's political arena favorably for peace and prosperity.'

'I know we discussed it, but I still feel it's cheating. It's plain old spying.'

'Which is something the United States would never do, of course.'

The President addressed the sarcasm in that sentence. 'You think the ends justify the means, Professor? The spying we do is primarily about weapons research, to keep the balance of power on the side of cooler heads. But what you suggest is out-and-out infiltration of every foreign government in the world to learn their secrets and dirty laundry in order to gain the upper hand!'

'Well, yes, but it's the discreet implementation of particular bits of information that makes this plan acceptable. It operates under the accepted benevolent tenets of Perfect World, which places greater importance upon the survival and comfort of our species than on nationalistic pride or advancement, and which puts the healing of planet Earth as its primary goal overall. Because of that, decisions are not based on selfish or greedy motivations, but rather on a deep desire to see the planet in complete balance, which is the only way to insure long term survival of the human species.'

'It's very hard to believe people can act that selflessly.'

'Of course it is... being raised in an environment of competition and rampant egotism does not a kind person make. A child has to be raised by people who believe in Perfect World, in a community of the same, in order to breed that baloney out of them.'

'Isn't greed a biological imperative? Survival of primitive species depended on gathering as much food as possible, even taking it from other individuals when necessary. That's greed, pure and simple.'

'Early man also took his woman as mate when he wanted her... she had no say. That was a biological imperative as well, until we taught ourselves differently. I'm just saying Mr President, that we can only become a better race when we treat each of us with compassion and respect, and stop counting pennies to decide who lives well, and who poorly. We all must live well.'

'Won't that be prohibitively expensive?'

'Not at all. The math has been done, sir, and the numbers check out. If we eliminate all those nonproductive jobs and stop making all those worthless, dangerous and unnecessary products, there will be an enormous amount of available labor and raw material to make this concept come to pass. With a city dedicated to the needs of its inhabitants, all the ordinary fears of life disappear, allowing the population to focus on areas of human achievement instead of human survival. Because of that difference Aden promises to be a Mecca for scientific advancement. And that, of course, would be another income-producing advantage, and would catapult the United States' status in the world's eyes.'

'Well, I like that, Professor. What other requests do you have?'

'Diversion. Your Secret Service is trying to crack our communication at this moment.'

Assistant Director Reynolds walked the halls of the CIA Headquarters in Langley to the Cipher Analysis section, Supercracker computer deep code room. He wanted to see this cipher for himself-- he had been a cryptographer in the beginning, a damned good one, and bet he could tell what was going on in those conversations.

Entering the room he asked, "Is communication still fresh?"

"Hot, sir. They're still communicating. But you need to see this... I have never seen anything like this before. See?"

Reynolds stepped over to the screen, squeezing out the young man with his large frame. The code did not present itself as letters or numbers, or even as dots. As the communication continued, the codex printout showed an enormously complicated, continuously modifying art house photograph. The information painted streaks of color, light and shadow and texture, and strong lines of architecture mingled with vivid pictorial scenes of children playing, sporting events, gratuitous sex and what looked like alien technology.

"What the hell...?"

"My reaction exactly, sir. I don't know where to begin. The communication that has already occurred... it doesn't even stay as a static image. It keeps changing." The young codebreaker looked at his superior, eyes showing bewilderment. "Past communication is set in stone! Why doesn't the pictograph represent that?"

"It could be one of several things. It could be time sensitive, meaning it factors the current time into the cipher. As the time changes, so does the look of the code."

"Yes sir. I thought of that, sir. But when I freeze a section of code in time..." the young man demonstrated, "... it continues to metamorphose! And when I print it out, all that comes up is this." He handed the Assistant Director a sheet of paper; printed on it was an unruly blob of smeared color, shapeless and incomprehensible. There was one area of clarity, however. In the lower right corner was a perfectly formed logo, an intersection of two letters, P and W. "What does it mean, sir?"

"That is a conundrum, son. What does the Supercracker think of it?" His calm exterior belied the inner turmoil he felt. PW? WP? He didn't know if those were the infiltrator's initials, or if they represented an organization. One thing he did know is that this was not the first time he saw them. A growing number of unexplained events had been linked to that very logo, the most recent being the disappearance of the Tanaq ambassador. In the man's office, laying on the chair where he was supposed to be sitting, the Tanaq officials had found only an envelope with a note inside that read, 'The Ambassador Quits'. And on the bottom right was the very same logo, the interlinked PW!

"The computer found several other documents all displaying the logo, but has offered no concrete data about the pictograph. Or any of the previous codes, sir," he added, handing Reynolds a thin file.

A cell phone rang. Reynolds fished it out of his pocket, listened for a moment, hung up and smiled. "All that may be moot, son. The call has been traced to an Internet Cafe here in Langley. Agents will be descending on him very soon, and they'll ask him what he said, first hand. And if he doesn't want to tell us, well, they'll use interrogation techniques approved by the previous administration." He turned and exited the room. "Keep trying, though," he called back to his underling. "We've as good as got him."

Worried, the President typed, 'Are you sure we've been found out, Professor? I've been very careful.'

'I am certain. But, I'm also not concerned about the data-- it's absolutely uncrackable. I'm more troubled about your cover... when you are asked about this communication, you'll need to have a believable and corroborating story to throw them off. I'm in the middle of creating one for you... don't worry about your spooks. Their abilities are decades behind mine.'

'Good. I see the benefit of your actions, but the others might need more convincing. Best to keep them in the dark for now.'

'Agreed. So, how about it? Will the city get built?'

The President considered the Professor's request. The land was remote; with no utility services for dozens of miles, it would not be on anyone's radar for quite some time. A blackout of those coordinates could be arranged so satellite mapping wouldn't be available. It was definitely possible to put a hidden city there!

Not since his election did he feel as unburdened as he did now. He knew that this could be the start of an enormous chain reaction forced by the hordes of people who were being abused by the current system, to shed the bonds of capitalism and consumption and to develop a wiser path for humanity to follow into the future. If it came to pass, and he was beginning to see the possibility, he realized with smug satisfaction that history would remember him as the leader with the vision for change. Healthcare for all, pshaw! This promised to be Allcare for all! He typed, 'I believe both requests can be honored, Professor... I'm looking forward to visiting the city when it's done.'

'Terrific! Just as long as you realize that when you do, you are nothing more than an ordinary citizen there, without pomp or gaiety, and most certainly without your entourage of protection.'

'You believe that bothers me? I tell you now that I would relish it... I am dead sick of all the attention.

My family and I are prisoners of the best kind, but prisoners nonetheless. I might consider retiring there after my tenure as president ends.'

'Might?'

'Looks like you won't have sailing as a pastime, and the city will be a thousand miles away from the ocean, so that's a sticking point. I'm an ardent sailor.'

'I've heard. You may have to wait a little longer, is all... I'm emailing you the plans for a city that floats on the ocean, and will be as impervious to the whims of the sea as a mainland.'

'Now how will you accomplish that? A billion corks?'

'You'll see. Be patient. But you have a point... perhaps we'll need to build a lake nearby.'

'Ambitious.'

'Nothing's too good for the man who makes Aden happen. Oh, and while we're on the subject, there's a man who will be leading this project, a man you are quite familiar with. He and his money will be funding the Aden Project and taking a hands-on approach to the construction.'

'Don't tell me you've brought Donald Trump into this?'

'God no. He's kind of the opposite personality type Aden will host. I'm talking about the CEO of FutureTech.'

'Jacob Reston?'

'None other, though he prefers the moniker 'Jake'. He's been in on this since the beginning. He was contacted by the Founder when in college, who with him established FutureTech.'

'How did he do that?'

'By calling the shots in the beginning. Plus, I helped by donating a few patentable technologies to the cause.'

'That's very generous of you. That's a Fortune 500 company now.'

'I have all the money I need, but thanks for noticing, sir. Anyway, Jake will be your liaison during construction. I will be available to you for maneuvering the political climate when necessary, but otherwise I'll be a ghost. Got to go, sir... I have to misdirect your Secret Service.'

'What do you mean?'

'Your 'secret' email account has been breached by the moll in your protection agency. Nobody will be able to figure out the encryption code-- it's an alphanumeric key 4 million characters long-- so the content remains safe, but they've been able to triangulate my location and are about to get a perplexing clue to my identity.'

The President typed hastily, 'You won't be harming any of the Secret Service agents, right, Professor?'

'Never, sir, I'm not the type. I'll leave the shooting of agents to you.'

The President smiled grimly at the foiled attempt on his life and asked, 'Then how?'

The Professor glossed over the question. 'You'll be contacted shortly by The Colorblind Cause,

the fronting agency for the Aden Project. Arrange a meeting-- Jake will be there in a disguise of sorts and you can discuss particulars. In the meantime, click on this feed and you can watch your Secret Service professionals take me down. We'll be in touch, Mr President.'

The communication terminated and was replaced with a clickable link. The President opened it. It was a live video feed. A man with bushy white hair wearing a white lab coat sat in an Internet Cafe, typing into a computer.

There was motion in the parking lot visible through the window, but he seemed oblivious. The front door swung open and twenty dark-suited Secret Service agents swarmed in, surrounding the man, guns drawn.

The man stood slowly and raised his arms. As he did the lab coat fell open, revealing a complex series of wires and red tubes and flashing LED's that looked for all the world like a bomb wired to his body! The agents scattered and dropped as the man pressed a button in his hand. A white light filled the room and engulfed the man, raging and torrential. Striated arms of color spun round him, increasing in speed even as the man shook and spun in sympathetic vibration. The President watched in horror as a tearing sound came from the light and it imploded, like a silent firework, sparks showering the room. Then it grew dark. The man was gone!

Not a chair had been disturbed, not a dish broken. The Agents stood up warily, uninjured, and carefully approached the table where he had been sitting. The computer was partially gone, as was part of the table and chair-- it was as if a large cylinder of light had descended onto the man and whisked him away, along with anything within its circumference. An arc had been chopped out of the computer, edges as sharp as glass. That's when they noticed that he hadn't really left... well, not all of him. On the floor was a pair of dirty white tennis shoes-- with two legs sticking out of them, severed sharply at the ankles, wisps of smoke rising.

The President saw that and gasped. The Professor!

Reynolds stepped into the evidence processing area and lifted the large plastic bag enclosing the Internet Cafe man's left leg... or what remained of it. The right leg was retained under a microscope. Dr Chowallaman backed away from the eyepiece, muttering, "Amazing... simply amazing.

"What's so amazing, doctor?" The Assistant Director was also interested. This had been a weird one from the start, and he could tell from the doctor's voice that the weird wasn't done.

"The skin on this leg isn't skin." Dr Chowallaman produced a scalpel and sliced beneath the cauterized ankle, deep into the superior extensor retinaculum. Again he said, "Amazing."

Impatiently Reynolds asked, "What? What?"

I don't know if I can explain what I see here," the doctor replied.

"What do you see there?" Reynolds was crowding Chowallaman now, looking over his shoulder at the leg under the microscope. There was no leakage where the doctor had sliced; it looked more like he had cut into a block of cheese.

"Well... it's as though every part of this foot was made from different types of plastic. There isn't anything biological about it. Not the blood, not the bone, not the muscle."

"What? What does that mean? Did the guy have fake legs?"

"No. Assistant Director Reynolds, what you have here is fantastically complex. It looks robotic, no, more than robotic... it looks like how we've defined 'android' in science fiction stories. All the parts are here, but they're not people parts. Even the trace fluid in the veins-- is light blue, and appears to be some kind of nutrient, but to enrich what? Plastic doesn't eat!" The doctor shook his head and threw up his hands. "Was it alive? Was it real? I won't know without the rest of the body. One thing I can tell you, sir..." the doctor lowered his voice and removed his glasses.

"It was never human."

Copyright 2009 Bruce Ian Friedman