Герман Садулаев - The Maya Pill

Even your average, clueless CEO spends all his time thinking about this stuff. A clever business owner, though, even as he signs his annual contract with a major client, is only thinking about how he’s going to get fellated tonight by some glamorous new whore. There’s no reason for him to worry about the details of his business deals. All the necessary programs have been loaded into the brains of mid-level managers specially hired for that purpose. It’s called “delegating authority.”

It is quite convenient, really. The new-generation “Mid-Level Manager Processor IV” comes in on his own accord, hooks himself into the system, connects to the other processors, disconnects as necessary, maintains himself at his own expense during his free time, and at the end of his life, when he’s all used up, removes himself from the system. The ideal device!

All the corporation needs to do is protect him from viruses.

Because although innumerable resources exist to keep the system functioning smoothly—magazines, books, and TV shows that provide processors with useful information about how to keep themselves in working order, how to improve their productivity and even how to find meaning and take satisfaction in their work—you never know when some dangerous new malware might pop up out of nowhere, making your processor suddenly start thinking about itself, about the server through which he works, about his ISP, and other matters that ought not trouble anyone beneath the rank of SysAdmin.

But even then, countermeasures exist to combat that eventuality: the Security Service, the Institute for Family Values, and the Holy Sanhedrin.

Maximus understood all of this, but he was powerless to change the system. He could only allow himself one little act of deceit: Given the fact that his individual operating system allowed for multitasking, he was able to launch several programs at once, some of them performing the operations for which he was being paid, and others—or, say, just one—allowing him to meditate upon forbidden topics.

Everything is fine so long as you can close the subversive windows in time.

Maximus had already figured out the Khazar problem, more or less. But his study of the history of the Khaganate had spawned another problem for his inquisitive mind: the problem of the elites, how they replenished their ranks, and the basis for their legitimacy. He would have written an essay on this topic as well, but his new virtual friend Hakan spared him the unnecessary labor. On Hakan’s site Semipyatnitsky discovered a lengthy manifesto that answered all his questions about the secrets of the elect.

This manifesto was so much like Maximus’s own thoughts on the subject that it even seemed to him that he could have written it himself.

And maybe he had.

Ever since Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece and Robinson Crusoe’s journey to that uninhabited island lo those many years ago, all possible variants of the sea-odyssey plot have been repeated over and over in world literature. And even the plot of repeated plots has been exploited by the genius librarian Jorge Luis Borges.

The third millennium after the birth of Christ holds no new themes, heroes, or plots. All we can do is write about what’s already been written and about what’s been written about what’s been written. Our books no longer contain people, things, and places. We are now writing books about books.

But books themselves have become heroes, plots, and settings in our lives. We are no longer interested in criticism. Texts, ancient or modern, have become parts of our contemporary reality and thus have entered the virtual world; we now judge texts based upon the validity of their premises more than their other qualities: That is, we judge them based upon whether they’re able to create a more complete sort of reality than the one on this side of the screen…

Where we’re currently located.

The only fantasy novels I can get through are by Terry Pratchett. I think he’s British. The back cover of the one I have here bears a photograph of the author surrounded by drawings of his heroes: He’s a jolly-looking fellow with a bushy white beard. If the bio is accurate, he quit his job in an office ten years ago and devoted himself exclusively to writing fantasy novels about this Discworld that he dreamed up.

Unlike our world, which has any number of different theories purporting to explain it, everything is much clearer with Discworld. It’s a disk resting on the backs of four elephants, who themselves stand on the back of the Giant Star Turtle A’Tuin. The dirtiest and most densely populated city on the Disc is called Ankh-Morpork. The Disc is populated, along with people, by gnomes, trolls, elves, werewolves, and a whole bunch of other creatures traditionally found in fantasy novels.

There are writers who seem to be describing our own reality, but in fact are creating a completely impossible world. A world in which Cinderellas inevitably marry princes, where savvy and noble investigators always catch criminals, and where the chaste supermodel Maria spends her whole life waiting for Juan, the noble stockbroker…

Terry Pratchett created what would seem to be a completely alien world, floating on a tortoise’s back, but in fact he’s describing our own reality. In his Ankh-Morpork (New York, of course), speciesism (racism) is rampant and the gnomes hate the trolls, which feeling the trolls fully reciprocate. Cinderellas here do NOT marry princes, though this fact causes them a great deal of suffering; modest tailors do not instantaneously become successful businessmen, but remain just what they are, modest tailors; in this world, professional hit men have the right to take anyone’s life with impunity so long as there’s a contract involved (and presuming they’re up to date on their Murderers’ Guild dues), and those who don’t have someone out there trying to kill them scrupulously pay a special tax supporting the Murderers’ Guild to keep it that way. So Terry Pratchett’s world is no more fantastical than Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Foolsville with its seats of power occupied by bears.

One of Terry’s novels, Lords and Ladies, tells the story of an attempt by elves from a parallel universe to invade a provincial town in Discworld. These elves are not like those cute storybook elves that we’re used to. They are cruel and bloodthirsty, power-hungry, envious, greedy, and heartless. Ugly, too.

They strut around looking like improbably beautiful, elegantly dressed, mythological heroes with perfect physiques, astride fierce warhorses that instill dread and respect in all who see them—but occasionally their spell weakens, and people see them as they really are, with their ugly triangular faces, their awkward bodies clothed in gaudy, tasteless garments, and their scrawny nags. But then the spell kicks in again, and again the mortals are cowed.

What makes elves so powerful is their ability to make people feel weak in their presence. The elves slaughter everyone in their path, and the people can’t raise their weapons and resist. The mere sight of the elves renders people utterly powerless.

Yes, we the people are absolutely nothing. We are losers. We are pathetic, lowly creatures; nothing ever works out for us. And that’s as it should be. It’s fate. Whereas they, they are great and beautiful; they are on top of the world, and so on top of us. They’re free to do whatever they want, and we have no right to resist. For they are successful, and we are losers. So it has been, is, and always shall be. O how beautiful they are, how worthy of our adoration! What are we by comparison? No, give in, submit, endure; nail horseshoes on your door, abase yourself, go outside at night with a bowl of your finest, most delicious cream, and stand there by the doorway waiting to give it to the first elf who comes along. Stand by quietly while they deign to ravish your wives and daughters. Afterward, should they choose to bestow on you their unbearable mercy, they will put you out of your misery and kill you.