The Pole Shift

Macka Ponders

Macka returned to a secure room in the city. It was one of a few he worked from. He knew there were other operatives working in the same way he did, monitoring the population for supposed signs of ability, then mentoring them when the time was close. The time was very close. Gone were the days when he wondered why they just didn't round them up and take the 'special ones' to high ground. Was it a game? Was his subjects  ultimate test their actual survival? He had no way of knowing, Prophet would never answer questions on the greater picture.

                The individuals he was tasked with monitoring had all made moves that could be considered different from the norm. He had to hand it to Prophet, or really the software writers, the coders, that utilised CCTV, the drones, the satellites and the behaviour patterns of internet activity. He had to hand it to the people watchers who understood body language, verbal language, facial expression. To the algorithms that put it all together to make predictions of future action. Not only that, Prophet could trace a targets life back, sometimes as far back as the 90s. Old footage, old photos, criminal records, old CCTV. Information Prophet used to make predictions. Playback.

                He could interface with Prophet verbally, it knew his voice. Could read his lips. It was always watching, as if they were always on an invisible phone.

                "What will Sally Waters do." There was a pause, there always was when a new subject was asked about. Then through the ear piece embedded in his ear lobe Prophet answered:

                "She has tempted Sean with a proposal for reuniting. Sean has rejected her, she has become an observer, waiting for an opportunity."  He thought for a moment, Sean was probably thinking about Lett.

                "Why did he reject Sally?"

                 "Sean's mind is on Lett, he suspects she will return. He hopes to form a partnership." Macka couldn't let that happen, they had to go it alone that was in his terms of reference. Their personalities had to be ring fenced from each other, that was explicit. He started watching them all, first from the Orbiter where her could see them as a whole, then through the atmospheric gliders, down to the never dying flies. Jimmy was surfing the net.

                "What's he looking at?" He said aloud. Prophet reported the web pages and the last hours history. Survival websites. "Does he ever look at porn? That's all he should be doing at his age." Rarely, reported prophet.  Sean Waters looks at ten times as much he thought to himself.  Just to be clever he mirrored Sean's PC, sure enough he was on a big boobs site. Macka sighed, then looked for Lett. She was at the run down house at the foot of the hill, they had been planning a party, a full on hedonist one it seemed. The parties were very popular across all personality types, and were cauldrons of strong emotions . He couldn't get over how free people had become with sex, in full view sex. There was violence at the parties, and sorrow.

                Plenty of randoms were invited through social media and he was planning on going himself. Prophet said Lett expected him and he had the absurd sense of not being in control, that he himself was a subject being manipulated by higher powers. It was true that he had a job to do, and it had been made implicit that if he survived the Shift it would be up to him, no safe harbour up on the mountains awaited him. If he made it, he would have the use of Prophet and the peripherals it controlled. In effect he was one of his own subjects and that was his motivation .  If they made it, they would have incredible advantage over the remaining population, the predicted few thousands of them. They would lead them, germinate new societies based on their personalities,  backed up by their use of Prophet. He pondered, a society based on Sean, of Lett, and of Mnem?  It was Jimmy who held the most promise, the kid was, good. He thought back to the school, where had seen Jimmy lost for the first time. Finally he wondered what a world be like based on his personality, what Kampong would he create? What God would the villages pray to?

                 He stopped thinking about it, he wasn't supposed to, the slightest sign that he was becoming self involved would put in jeopardy his position. He had to get the others through before he could worry about his own survival . Tomorrow he would engage with Jimmy, let him know he had powerful systems available to him.