Let+it+Burn

Let It Burn

"Take a song. Any song, as long as it was spawned from one of the major labels. Now to most people, that song is just a set of lyrics sung to a melody. Maybe the lyrics are clever or catchy, maybe the instrumentals are really good, maybe the song gets stuck in your head for hours whether you want it to or not. The song itself doesn't matter, because it is really just a vehicle for an information payload. Let's start with just the lyrics. Any corporation or government today will have a team of neuro-linguists and psycho-linguists who are payed lots of money to tie words together in such a way as to bypass your brain's idealogical defenses, the immune system of the brain. They'll use clever word plays, subtle inflections, any of a million tricks that will allow them to insert an idea into your mind. The first time you hear the lyrics, the idea, the meme, will be implanted into your subconscious, and every subsequent listen will reinforce the idea, making it harder to dislodge. After that they'll work on the melody, infusing it with hypnotic sounds and subliminal messages that will either further strengthen the lyrics or insert their own memetic payload. In all likelihood, they'll add a little something that will make you want to keep listening to the song, a carefully designed catchy tune or subliminal message. Now take all of that and turn it into an album of about twelve songs, with some eye catching cover art and you can very quietly and efficiently change someone's entire belief system of the world." I got this far before I realized that Gregor, my audience, wasn't listening to a word I was saying. Not that surprising, burners being completely uninterested in anything except their work. Still, it was a little irritating to find that everything I'd been ranting about for the past minute or so had completely missed him. Especially given that my job is to be able to get through to people, to disseminate the truth whether anyone wants to hear it or not.  "Think about it, Greg. That's just one music album. Now translate that to films, books, TV, anything. Both corporate and governmental interests, not that there's any difference these days, have a stranglehold on the beliefs and biases of the public. They are able to tailor people's opinions to support their agendas. Fox, NBC, CNN, all of the major media monopolies can tailor news so that anything that makes them look good or is inconsequential is accepted instinctual, while factual news is blocked by or filtered through their programmed biases. Come on, Greg, don't you find any of this interesting or angering?" Greg stopped painting for a moment to consider the question. This is itself was a minor victory, giving what Greg was. He paused for exactly one second, then turned back to his latest masterpiece.  "Not really. Hey Teeth, what do you think of what I've got here?" The painting was as usual magnificent. It depicted to lovers in a tight embrace, as if they were seeing each other for the first time in a long while. Gregor's technique was perfect, but there was that little unquantifiable element that made it heartrendingly beautiful.  "It's good, Greg, real good. Anyway, I just came in to let you know that you need to eat. It's been three days." He nodded, his attention already lost to his work. Most likely, I'd have to remind the genius to feed himself at least three more times before he would actually drag himself away. My name is Jonathan Cooley, but my friend's call me Teeth. Don't ask why. I live in a burner household, the only norm in residence. For those of you unfamiliar with burners, I'll inform you.  Burners are one of a couple thousand alternative lifestyles that have developed within the U.S. in the last decade. Burners are creative geniuses, artists on the age, people who are willing to do anything, sacrifice anything to perfect their art. So, they undergo a series of procedures, bio mods, and genetic infusions of smart drugs, that when all is said and done, takes that spark of genius and fans into a forest fire. Hence the word Burner. Of course, it all comes at a price. Burners have about eight to ten years to live after they've finished with the alterations. Ten years at the bleeding edge of their craft and then their bodies give out. Another side effect of becoming a burner is obsession. They only need to two hours sleep every couple of days and they can go without food for even longer, so they spend every waking moment working. Working so intently that they've been known to die of starvation because they simply couldn't be bothered to take a lunch break. Which where I come in. I get to live in the house rent free, and in exchange I keep the seven or so artistic wonders from creating themselves to death. The rest of my time is spent working on my own endeavors. I'm an activist, specializing in combating the type of authoritarian belief control I was ranting about earlier. I use the same tricks to do it, though I don't force manipulate people. I've got two methods of fighting the douche-bags in power. Strategy A is Truth. Basically I write up a news story, usually about either corps or the government abusing their power or violating people's rights. But while I'm writing the story, I use neuro-linguistics and some other tricks to fortify the story, to make sure that it goes right through any biases or prejudices someone has. No persuasion, just information downloaded right into their brain and designed so that they'll think about it, really think about it rather than just filtering it through their preconceptions and forgetting it. Strategy B is Defense. In this case, I create a pamphlet, a poster, or a little book of poetry designed to strengthen a person's defenses. They take in the payload and after that the suits have a harder time programming them. I work with my brother, Samuel. He's an organizer, setting up protests and rallies. Sam's older than me by five years, but we could be twins. The same long, narrow faces, high cheekbones, and thin lips. Same sandy hair, and dark eyes. He's a lot more sociable than I am, better at getting people to do things and to get them to care. Me, I'm a geek. But a useful one. So, with my obligations as a nurse maid to obsessed artists temporarily fulfilled, I could work on my latest book. It was a Strategy B poem book, titled "The Spirit of '76". A collection of angry poems about the abuse of power and the theft of freedoms. It was also my best memetic vaccine yet. I was about halfway through it, and I wanted to make sure it was done before Sam's next rally. We could have some of the our people hand out copies. The rally was today at six, but I was just making some finishing touches on the book, so I was confident I'd have it done on time. While I worked on threading together some bulletproof mental armor, I also directed some attention towards a story on corporate exploitation of Third World countries for cheap labor and tax free status. The Third World was so desperate for any kind of economic stimulation that they set up free trade zones, places where tariffs and taxes are lowered or eliminated temporarily for any corp that sets up there. The corps would move in, hire labor, oftentimes women and children, for a pittance and then as soon as the tax exemption ran out, they'd close shop and move elsewhere. What's worse, the people in these countries are so desperate for income that any attempt at unionizing is aggressively put down, I read up on at least a couple cases where would-be union organizers were murdered by the very people they were trying to help. My workshop was a thing of beauty, painted across the augmented reality of the household. Augmented Reality, also known as AR, was the evolution of the internet, a virtual world placed right on top of the real one. It allowed people to interact with both the Net and meat-space simultaneously. As long as I had my Augmented Reality contacts in and my pen computer out, I could do draw up any stories, fliers, or programs I needed in a matter of hours. Anytime, anywhere, I was set up to combat the manipulations of authoritarian forces. In short, I was heavily armed, pissed off, and decked out memetic warrior. It didn't take long for me to get both the "Spirit of '76" and the news story, as well as a protest song I threw together on the way out of the house. It was ten minute walk to my brother's apartment, which functioned as a kind of makeshift HQ for our activities. All of my publishing equipment was their, because the burners couldn't stand the noise the thing made. The fact that it allowed me to mass produce both hard and soft copies of everything I put together was beside the point. It wasn't too much of a hassle though, since I was able to start it up remotely. By the time I walked in the door, about half of the work had been already done. A couple minutes longer and I'd have enough material to flood the virtual world around the rally with informational prophylactics and cold, hard, undeniable facts, while also providing plenty of copies for the protesters to hand out to people. Sam's accommodations weren't as nice as mine, as he didn't have several wealthy patrons giving him, or rather his roommates, financial backing. On the other hand, he didn't have to share his living space with half a dozen obsessed geniuses, nor did he have to remind said geniuses to feed and cloth themselves. Overall, he had a kitchen, a bathroom, and a room that functioned as both a living room and bedroom. My brother himself was sitting on his couch/bed, talking with a couple of our friends, giving them a nice little pep talk. It seemed to be working, as the more he spoke, the more the body language of our would-be reformists changed for the better. As I walked over to give the charming devil a hug, I turned on some recording software on my comp-pen. The tiny, pen shaped, roll-out supercomputer would record everything my brother said, as well as everything he had just said. I figured I could break what he was saying down, isolate the factors that made it particularly encouraging, and incorporate it into some songs or phrases. Hell, I could probably do well just putting a slogan on a t-shirt and giving them out at rallies. Sam stood up when he saw, and snagged me in a bear hug. He was smiling his usual toothy grin, another piece of sensory input I'd thought about trying to make use of. Natural leader types like Sam were a wealth of information that could be used to bolster people's confidence or put them at ease. "Hiya little brother, you ready for today's mischief?" I flashed him a smile of my own, and nodded the affirmative. "Yeah, I'm ready. Got a couple things put together. Some attention grabbing, outrage inspiring knowledge, with a side course of memetic immunization. Y'know, the blue plate special." "Good. We've been making some noise lately, so expect for the parasites to make an appearance. They'll do whatever they can to disrupt the protest, or give themselves an excuse to crack down. Can't be too careful." Two hours later, we were out on the streets, ready to show these exploitative, cocaine snorting, jackals what we thought of their lies and oppression. There was a better turn out that we'd ever had, lots of people I didn't even recognize bolstering our numbers beyond counting. It looked like we'd finally gotten the public support we'd been hoping for. I was standing in the middle of the crowd, observing and recording everything. After the rally I would go back through everything I'd seen, and look for anything I could make use of, or just see how well my creations worked. Sam wasn't there with me, he was off a ways giving a quick interview. Sam was our face, the one who lead the people and attracted all the attention. Me, I was the secret weapon, which meant that I kept to the background. Everyone knew that I was the brains behind our songs, and writings, but only Sam and a couple others knew what else I did. My brother didn't take long with interview. As soon as he was able to politely excuse himself, he was up on the makeshift stage, with a microphone in hand. I'd written his speech, put in all kinds of little handles that would make sure that people would pay attention and seriously think about what he said. I didn't manipulate people though, so whatever conclusions anyone got out of the speech would be their own. The cops were out there with us, standing quiet vigil over the protest in full riot gear. They were like a pack of wolves waiting for the shepherd to abandon his sheep. If anything went wrong, if there was anything that could be made to look like violence, they'd sweep in with armored fists and tear gas. We had made sure though to make it clear that we were a non violent group, so there was little chance of anything happening. Still, they made me nervous. Halfway through Sam's speech I realized that something was wrong. The crowd wasn't reacting like they were supposed to. The speech was an uplifting, power of the people, kind of thing, and yet I was reading aggression everywhere I looked. Then I noticed that some of the signs being waved around weren't ones I'd designed, nor did I recognize some of the pamphlets being handed out. Something was very wrong, and I was afraid that I knew what it was. I pulled out my computer and sent it to work, analyzing everything it had recorded for subliminal messages or neuro-linguistics. My pen computer was as the name suggested, shaped and sized exactly like a pen. There was a button on one side of it that when pushed, would project a touch screen into the space in front of me, though it could only be seen with AR enabled. Simple, portable, and incredibly effective, it had cost me a lot of money and several favors to get. But it performed. Despite the ludicrous amount of data I had it sifting through, it took all of three minutes for it to provide me with a full analysis. The protest had been compromised. The signs and pamphlets I had noticed were set up specifically to make people angry, to make them violent. In a thousand and one different ways, the authorities was transforming a peaceful protest into a riot, all while neatly moving around my defenses. The worst part, the coup de grace of their sabotage, was what they'd done to my brother. Somehow, the Authorities had managed to get to our sound system and alter it so that everything my brother said was broadcasting hatred and violence to the crowd. He'd be blamed for the riot, the effect of his words obscuring what he'd actually said. And not just that, but when the time bomb blew, when this crowd went insane, my brother would be at the center. I started pushing my way through the crowd, trying to get to Sam before it was too late. "Cut the sound! Cut it now!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, but between the Sam's speaker enhanced voice and the noises of the crowd, I might as well have been whispering. My brother went right on talking, not realizing what his word's were doing to people. The shift from placid congregation to lynch mob was sudden, without warning. People began shoving each other, shouting, throwing things. The sleeping tiger had been woken up and it was not happy. Poor Sam saw what was happening too late and was trying to get people to calm down. No chance. The police swarmed in, right on cue. Skulls cracked beneath heavy truncheons, and eyes bled from tear gas grenades. I was still recording everything, though I didn't realize it until later. I saw a group of cops working on some poor shmuck, their heavy boots stomping his face into the pavement even as he tried to crawl away. A kid no older than eight, probably brought along by his parents, got hit with a rock, thrown by who knows who, went down, wasn't given a chance to get back up. Another kid, this one college age, was getting it especially bad. He'd tried to make a run for it, but got run down by a police motorcycle. The kid's legs were crushed beneath the wheels and after that he was just another statistic being beaten to death in the street. Above the sounds of battle, or rather of massacre, a shot rang out. I turned to the stage just in time to see Sam go down, a red badge on his chest. I tried to get to him, tried so hard, but the current kept pushing me away. Something hit me in the side of the head, and I went down. After that my memories get hazy, just flashes in and out of consciousness. Someone dragged me out of the fight, got me out of their. Not sure who, they didn't stick around to take a thank you. The next day, the riot was front page news. It blamed the riot on Sam, who was described as "incendiary" and "hate mongering". Not that it mattered much what they called him, he bled out on the stage as our revolution was hijacked beneath him. Every mainstream news source heaped praise on the police, who valiantly risked their lives to put down the anarchist rioters. The video clips of the riot didn't show the guy who's legs were shattered or the child who was trampled to death beneath combat boots. In fact, according to confidential sources in the department, several officers were going to receive medals for their actions during the riot. I stumbled into the house the following morning, my clothes covered in dirt and stained with blood. I'd spent the entire night just wandering around the city, thinking about what had happened, and what I was going to do. I'd thought about it plenty of times, just imagining what I could accomplish. But the price had always seemed to high. Not anymore. I went straight to Gregor's room and went in. He was in front of his easel, just where I'd left him the previous day. Too him, nothing had happened. Nothing at all. "Hey Greg, you said once that you could get me a patron. Y'know to pay for me becoming a burner." "Yeah. There are some people who'd pay for what you do. Want me set something up?" Usually a burner wouldn't go out of his way to do anything not involving his art, but Greg liked me. He'd make the sacrifice of precious painting time. "Yes. Do that." With a sigh of pure exhaustion, I laid down on the floor and stared at the ceiling. I was going to go through with it. I was going to burn. The Authorities had taken everything. They sabotaged our protest, slandered our movement, stolen our revolution. They'd murdered my brother, as I had no doubt as to where that bullet had come from. I had nothing left except my art and the damage I could do with it. Could I bring this entire corrupt, abusive, apathetic system down in ten years? I don't know. But I'm going to give it my best shot. I'm going to burn it all.