The epilogue event, p.1
The Epilogue Event, page 1
First published in Great Britain in 2024 by
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Copyright © 2024 S G Bell
The right of S G Bell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
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This work is entirely fictitious. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or actual events, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978 1835741 160
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Rachel
Contents
Acknowledgements
Part 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Part 2
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
Baptised and Newly Born
Acknowledgements
In my migration from academic to novelist I have made just about every mistake imaginable.
This book only exists because friends and family have not given up on me, have helped me, corrected me, encouraged me and, when needed, stopped me from doing silly things.
Thanks to so many but most importantly, Frank Beran, Charles Cutting, Rachel Furze, Megan Bradbury, and all the students on Writing Fiction: Next Steps. Special thanks to Kathy Joy, Simon Clarke, Noelia F. Lens and Steve Jones.
Part 1
Cynosure: a person or thing that is the
centre of attention or admiration.
1
22 October 2010
Two months before cynosure – Langley
It had been during a lengthy period of media sampling and manuscript scanning, early on in his tenure as Director at the Outré Literary Agency, on a cold Monday afternoon, in the autumn of 2010, that Doctor Gordon Langley had been caught by the baited hook intended for him, or, as he would understand it, when he came across the greatest story of his life.
Depressed by dreary derivative scripts, he had folded his long, lean body into one of the uncomfortable designer steel frames which were elegantly dispersed around his immense office. Distractedly he searched on his computer, coasting some of the less obvious news sites. The world was in recession and the underpinnings of capitalism were subtly reforming themselves to meet the needs of the new order. Langley gloomily considered the bonfire fed by the detritus of the burning world of ruinous loans and failed financing.
Like the movement of long grass on the plain, denoting the hidden presence of the predator, Langley fantasised that he detected an unseen narrative was in play; hiding in the conflagration, something potent, original, unique was forming, maybe even more powerful than that which was being swept away.
Langley shook his head, surprised at the lapse. He detested idle thoughts.
Thrusting the musing aside he refocused his concentration, by reviewing one of the mediocre manuscripts from a wannabe author.
As he opened the PDF recommended by one of his editors, a work of fiction by some plagiarist of Orwell or Haig; Eco or Bradbury, Langley halted, mid-mouse clicks.
The manuscript with the message had been security code enabled. As he watched, it opened and the page slid, revealing text:
Langley, this is for you. Just for you.
If the editor who had processed the work had seen this, they had not mentioned it. And surely, they would. This was for his eyes only.
“Clever,” Langley breathed, his curiosity peeked.
Resting his narrow chin on his open palm and scrolling down the virginly open page, he read:
The way forward for you is as you thought. Can you find that thought? We are already there. Are you coming?
Langley, long trained in mental torture of the innocent, was an old cynic. He thought he understood motivations of all kinds, and he thought he understood what this was too.
But it was amusing. As he typed an anodyne response, a ‘time-to-breath’ tactic, he murmured to himself,
It would seem that someone with a high degree of self-conceit wishes me to join them dans un voyage incomparable.
He read on.
Don’t assume you know who, what, or why we are. But we have something you have wanted for some time. We are what you have sought for your entire life.
Langley’s PA, Esther, would have been shocked to hear the director guffaw. Langley glanced up from his screen – the doorway to his office was void; no sound came from beyond. Returning to his computer with a degree of scepticism and mockery:
Are you indeed that which purports to be what I am seeking?
He grinned, a mirthless smile. But he was completely captivated.
He did not know it, but it was at this exact moment, as he leaned into the noetic algorithm associated with the viral meme held in the document on his computer, that he was mentally snared and secured for use at light speed. But the virus jump was subtle, the transition from digital to analogue, liquid. It moved imperceptibly, below the level of Langley’s consciousness. He thought he was still in command of his actions. He continued to type, to probe. Let’s see how deep the rabbit burrow goes.
Langley flattered himself as being excellent at critical reading and critical thinking. Newsworthy items, bestsellers, and public fodder were all well understood by him. He prided himself that he could detect a good, sellable story from worthy, well-written froth from the title page, and certainly by the end of the first paragraph. But he was getting something different here. As the implications of the story that was unfolding grew in his mind, he found himself being focused, channelled. His only conscious thought was that, maybe, just maybe, this could be important.
Reading on, absorbed even as he was reeled in, he was allowed to understand more and more of the implications of the plan. A degree of belief was needed, but the credentials of the sender were impeccable.
Dr Langley, you have been ruthlessly selected from a pool of thousands. We have a power, a capacity, and you have been identified as having the necessary qualities to act as our medium, the cynosure.
Langley was a word professional, a man who had made his money, his fortune, and forged his weapon from words. But even he had to think, to remember the meaning of the archaic term. Cynosure, didn’t it mean centre of attention? He was confused by this, but he understood and liked the rest. Particularly that he had been ruthlessly selected. Here was power.
He was already far too gone in his capture to understand the real meaning of the message:
“Langley, you have been carefully targeted with just the kind of bait which we know you will find irresistible. We have you now.”
Langley could not see the predator, but cold, hard fangs were already fastening their grip on his mind. For now, Langley was super-charged with a torrent of information, and through it all, he thought he saw through a deliberately constructed veil. The economic recession and the mess of the world were the smoke and mirrors hiding the point of it all.
Plunging ever deeper into the trap, Langley thought, This is not what most people see. Fools, they suffer the consequences, the company closures, the job losses and mortgage failures: these common experiences, the daily news.
Langley despised news, he had always thought it a distraction. Now he knew it for what it was, that which stops people from true informing. He read on.
The vast majority of people do not see the great beast coming into being, stretching, and sensing in the deep waters of the chaos which it has formed to hide itself.
Langley was thrilled.
All they see is what they are intended to see, the movements of the waves.
Langley was not thinking original thoughts, from the moment of his enchantment, he ceased to be himself; he was a cypher for another purpose.
But unwitting vassal that he was, his contempt for the rest of humanity, those he considered to be slaves, remained acute and the perfect cloak for his own serfdom. Reflecting on recent events, he noted to himself, A new black president in the USA, the crashing of Air France flight 447 killing 228. Michael Jackson’s death. Some people might be attentive to the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty. But that is unlikely, he reflected. Most people only take note of the 3D movie Avatar, released just in time for a ‘wonderful family Chr
*
Over the next few days Langley was to learn much more about the deep waters he was submerging in. He was told that he would soon be provided with a handler, someone inside the conspiracy selected to mentor him. So, he had not been surprised when, soon after his initial exposure, his PA told him that a Professor Mike Riordan MBE had arrived without an appointment.
“Let him in, Esther,” Langley said good-naturedly.
No doubt this was his counsellor. Langley stood to welcome his guest but the man, large, silver-haired and bullish, strode into Langley’s office and chose to sit, not in front of Langley’s white steel and glass desk but rather in one of a pair of handsome minimalist armchairs, arranged with a good view over Holborn Viaduct and London dipping towards the River Thames. Having taken control, Riordan beckoned for Langley to join him.
Langley was piqued to be invited to sit in his own office, but the chain of command was still forming. He consoled himself with hatred for Riordan and sat as indicated.
Unsmiling, without preamble, Riordan said, “It’s good to meet you, Doctor Langley.”
But his tone indicated that it was nothing more than a necessary bore to meet Langley. Providing Langley with no opportunity to respond, he continued as if picking up on a conversation started long ago, “As you guess, the big understory of the recession interests very few; the powerful forces coming together far deeper down, the union of finance and information technology in what we call, what everyone will soon refer to as, Fintech. This is not of interest to the mob, the many. But dive further, Langley. Go deeper down, a long way down. What do you see?”
Not waiting for Langley, Riordan answered himself, “Some people try to imagine the future, but very few note the alarming and revolutionary developments in General Artificial Intelligence, the universal engine driving the Fintech changes. This is far below the consciousness threshold of 99.99% of the world. Christ! Most of my colleagues in my Cambridge college don’t have a clue, but by 2020 they will be shaken from their dreaming. For now, realise, this has been brought to your attention by those who instruct me.”
Despite himself, as Riordan told Langley what he was to do, the literary agent could not help feeling flattered by his selection for the conspiracy.
*
In the days that followed, and obeying Riordan’s instructions, Langley sought and found a mosaic of hidden messages on the internet. And the messages interested him very much. Some gave cryptic guidance on the way in which he was to conduct himself, on his manner and presentment. Some offered insights into a worrying halt in human evolution. Some provided pleasing narratives around the nano-second advantages of certain trading platforms; about internet speed which literally bent time, meaning that financial decisions could be made before the events which supposedly triggered them.
It was unbelievable. Langley saw how change was happening, how wealth in new digital forms, harvested from unwitting investors by sly minds, could sustain a revolution. The knowledge he was gaining prompted and intensified his curiosity.
In his yearning, his ardent desire to be part of this inner circle, he opened himself and was more deeply caught. He was so immersed in the grandeur of his discovery, that he did not notice as he was impaled with a grappling iron, tailor-made from his desires; he was not to know, but it was the same process which had caught and retained Riordan months earlier.
Langley felt no pain. Rather, he was fascinated by the power and speed of the super-human agency, of amoral movements at huge scale. He found it sexy, alluring, enthralling, dazzling.
He pursued the lead and eventually was drawn in and down to the story, the deep within the deep. He found more minds there, like and different from Riordan’s, more narratives and erupting dialogues.
Welcome, Dr Langley. We are busy. We have a task for you.
He smiled.
“I appear to be a little late for the event. The story seems to be well into its third act, the climax. I may need to race to catch up!”
He was aware that some of the themes were unusual, odd, inhuman. He was repelled and enthralled, but he persisted and became aware as his commitment to the exercise grew, and his hands typed rapid responses to probing questions, as he revealed things about himself which already appeared to be known, of understandings which he had only guessed at.
Langley knew that he was being groomed for something, allowed in, to a secret reality which was incredible.
He was penetrating a circle which had waited patiently for him, waited to welcome him, to promote him to the apex of the project, the point of the spear. He knew he was paying a price for his admission, and he knew that he was not sure what this was, but he was long past being able to stop.
Somewhere, a whisper, he heard of a secret within a secret and the name, the code for the opening, the Epilogue Event.
*
Back in his office, in the swiftly transforming world, Langley stared remotely at his own reflection in the window looking out over Holborn Viaduct in the rain. This was pretty much as close to the centre of things, of conventional power, influence, and authority as he could get. He had always sought power. If it could be said he loved anything, then he loved dominance. It was a carnal passion and he liked to find where it was and, whenever possible, draw it to himself, close and tight. Now, he knew that he was on the cusp of getting closer to a much more potent and prescient source of authority.
At his last meeting with Riordan some days earlier, the professor had made it clear that now Langley was part of the project, the invisible authority would determine the when, what, and how of events. But it wanted Langley’s input immediately.
“Dr Langley,” Riordan emphasised Langley’s title in such a way, as if to silently promote his own degree of Professor, a mute, childish statement of superiority, “we need you as the cynosure, but it must be a subtle outlet for the meme. We can do the rest. Just make sure it is captured in your delivery.”
Riordan had smiled hugely, in a voracious interpretation of friendliness.
Langley knew and understood that kind of smile. He had no real power and was running to keep up. Despite his loathing of Riordan and his hatred of being instructed, he had put his part of the project into effect as quickly as he could, quicker than he would have chosen. He was desperate to know more about the Epilogue Event but knew he would only learn more when he had proved himself.
Shortly after meeting Riordan, Langley deliberately created an accidental encounter with Dr Randall Munroe. He knew where the facile, little man watered. He ‘bumped’ into him, literally, enjoying the spilt coffee, and offering Munroe his large handkerchief to mop his gaudy camouflage shirt. Of course, he did not apologise. Munroe managed to stutter, “No matter, Gordon, no matter. So very good to see you.”
“Ah, Munroe, I enjoyed bumping into you. You were on my mind. We really must find time to discuss your research. It will be a great addition to our outreach social sciences catalogue, in due course. I feel sure of it, I sincerely do.”
But these were just words, the hook to buy Munroe’s assistance. The academic had barely begun to reply before Langley moved him on again. “So, as I mentioned on the phone, do we have the dates for my little talks to your fine college of contrarians?”
Munroe was nodding, happy to be helpful, as Langley ploughed on, “I am so looking forward to presenting my meagre and limited yet, I think you will agree, significant monologue at, what is the name of the venue? Oscars Place or something…”
Randall’s forehead creased in alarm as he corrected his sponsor, “It’s Oliver’s Smokey Den, Gordon, OSD. Just off the Bayswater Road.”
Langley didn’t bother to acknowledge the correction. But the Open Mic Night dates were agreed, the 30th of November and the 22nd of December, mid-winter’s day, the darkest day.
Randall is so easily manipulated, Langley thought. The boring idiot’s desperate to find a good publisher for his anodyne, obviously autobiographical manuscripts about post-Marxian betrayal.
Langley had known exactly which buttons to press to make Munroe extend the invitations.
