Politic

They tell me I run the universe.

I tell them to bugger off and leave me alone.

They say that no one can ever know about the power that I wield.

I tell them that I wield no such power.

They nod and seem happy with this.

Then I tell them to bugger off again.

The problem is that they don’t bugger off, not until I listen to the puzzle they have brought with them. Then they linger until I state the bleeding obvious to them. They leave in a hurry, barely supressing their excitement, and I watch them go, wondering not for the first time when it was that brains went out of fashion.

Honestly, it’s not rocket science, and I should know all about that. That’s why they came looking for me. I don’t think like other people. For starters, I actually take the time to think. The bonus for them is that I also don’t like people. People are a constant source of annoyance. Some of them are tolerable for some of the time, as long as they remain in isolation. Group them together and they are a bloody nightmare. 

Quite literally at times. 

How people still have not gotten that war was invented as a punishment for stupidity, I do not know. The joke is on them. But then, the joke is on us all.

That’s why I stay away from them. They only end up causing trouble. Besides, it’s nice and quiet here. I have my own cave and so far, other than those obsequious civil servants, the ones who actually run things but pretend not to, people have respected my privacy.

Planet Hermit is a small planet and that suits me fine. This planet does what it says on the tin and each of the hermits that live here have their own patch and they keep themselves to themselves. Occasionally, I’ll wonder who my nearest neighbour is and where they might live. When this happens I lay on my bed of nails and wriggle around a bit until all such thoughts have passed.

Thin end of a very big wedge is that silly urge to go and meet the neighbours. But recoding our brains is easier said than done. Whoever thinks that the gods don’t have a sense of humour hasn’t spent five minutes in their own head trying to get to know themselves and how they actually work.

That was me once. I was busy as the proverbial bee and I never stopped buzzing. Those were exciting and heady times and I got to feel like I was important. Important in that illusory way that money and status hoodwink us with. I called the shots and people had to do as I said.

Of course, mostly they didn’t. So I fired them and kept firing people until what I had left was a bunch of people who were terrified they were about to lose their jobs, so they maintained a constant pretence of listening which included them telling me on a regular basis that they were listening to me.

For a supposedly bright guy, I was really quite stupid for a while back there.

I had a huge bank balance though, so I guessed I was doing something right. 

I was wrong.

I never had the time to spend my money, so I became conceited and self-righteous, after all, I was so amazing that I had transcended the need for material items. If a bank balance of several trillion squacks isn’t material, I don’t know what is.

All of my buzzing and self-importance culminated in the creation of the Counter Logical Chaos Drive, a new generation of propulsion that got a ship to places that no one could have anticipated they needed to be and did so just before they were required to be there.

This was a rather brilliant invention, even if I do say so myself. It was also really rather simple. I based it on Sod’s Law and built up from there. The universe is predicated on the principle that what can happen willhappen and there is no getting in the way of that. I just sort of piggy backed off of that, and I made ten times my bank balance before the year was out.

As the year ended, I thought I should try one of my own ships out. I’d never done so before, because I had absolute faith in my creation. All of it. The theory and the execution of that theory.

And here I am.

The ship brought me here before I even knew this was where I needed to be. As soon as I stepped out of the ship, I understood this was it. The ship collapsing in on itself with a sound that approximated ploop, but sounded far more sad and pathetic than that, helped punctuate and underscore the requirement for my being here.

That was when it dawned on me.

Some of it anyway.

The Counter Logical Chaos Drive will eventually fall into the wrong hands. These things always do. There are a great many hands that are wrong and thankfully, they are mostly harmless. Mostly harmless, can and will be dangerous, but thankfully, most of this danger is localised and doesn’t bring about the end of worlds. Mostly harmless is more likely to bring about the end of a perfectly good word and spawn a thousand new ones that do a worse job than the original word and get everyone needlessly hot and bothered in the process.

Then there are the wrong hands that are connected to someone who thinks killing people is a better pursuit than playing a round of golf. Now golf is a horrendous waste of a perfectly lovely walk, but that is missing the point entirely. Golf is the justification for certain, dangerous types to justify their alternative pursuits.

At least I’m not playing golf, dear!

And they do have a point.

However, this is the sort of person who doesn’t play golf because golf is a game played with clubs and when they have a club in their hands, someone is due an imminent headache, or worse.

In the wrong hands, the Counter Logical Chaos Drive is a potent weapon that will win wars before anyone even knows that they are waged.

This is where it all gets very interesting.

You see, the people who really run the universe are the civil servants and the civil servants have been running the universe since time began. It is said that Abel was the very first politician and that is why Cain killed him. What they don’t tell you is that Cain was the very first civil servant and those guys still do not get on.

There is no love lost there and never has there been any trust.

What do civil servants trust? They trust themselves and the way they do things. They are bureaucrats with processes and systems. 

Systems interest me. They have always interested me. Artificial Intelligence in particular. 

There was a time when people feared the potential of AI. That was the well-trodden fear of the unknown and as with all things unknown, when you get to know them, they’re not half as bad as you first thought. Unless they killed you in the process of getting to know them, then they were pretty bad, but you don’t actually know that because you are dead. Being dead and being ignorant are essentially one and the same.

Anyway, AI relies on code, and I love code. I can see code in the air and it delights me. I live and breathe the stuff. 

So, I decided to have a chat with the AI that those rude and obtrusive civil service chaps use, and I introduced the seed of a suggested idea that the AI would absolutely have to nurture and grow…

And then here they were, asking a hermit what they should do about the Klurgs purchasing a job lot of Counter Logical Chaos Drives to retro fit to their MurderMurderKillKill ships.

I suggested they arrange a contract for an equal number of Counter Logical Chaos Drives to be sold to the Parps, so they can update the propulsion units on their CompleteAndUtterDeathAndAnnihilation ships.

I added that while they were at it, they should reequip their own DefenceOnlyNoQuestionAboutThat ships with the Counter Logical Chaos Drives too, but that they should keep this absolutely hush-hush. No one could ever know they were doing this.

Obviously, this news has already been broadcast to every other nation and interested party and now Counter Logical Chaos Drives are being fitted to anything that could be used as a weapon. I’ve heard that the Sharts have even fitted them to their toasters.

Have you ever heard of that expression about killing two birds with the same stone? I’ve always thought that was merely a good start. Why not use the same stone to kill all the birds? I know I did, and the peace and quiet once I finished up, well that was amazing. No more bloody dawn chorus. I get to sleep in beyond 4am in the Summer these days.

You may have noticed that burring noise in the background?

That’s my bank account as the squacks cascade in. That account of mine is already so large that it has its own gravitational pull. I may not like people, but I know what’s good for them, and that bank account of mine is by way of an insurance policy.

I knew the civil servants would only come to me if they thought I had no interest whatsoever in them or the wielding of power and influence. I had to be the very opposite of a politician in order for them to come here, let alone to trust what it was that I told them. Even then, they were on the lookout for any semblance of an ego. They have finely developed senses in that respect, so it’s a good job that I had my ego surgically removed by a Klossian surgeon last year.

They never once thought to follow the money.

They didn’t think.

No one does these days.

But it’s not about the money. The money is just a by-product of the best idea anyone has ever had. My idea. An idea which is about to lead to the totally and utterly brilliant event that will bring about universal peace for the good of all people, everywhere, whether they like it or not.

You see, every warship in the universe is now fitted with the Counter Logical Chaos Drive, and later today, every nation will launch those warships in a War To End All Wars.

This time, and for the very first time ever, they are kinda right.

All of those ships will converge in on the same space, and then they are in for a bit of a surprise. They will arrive in their theatre of war only to find themselves arriving again and again and again, forever amen. The Counter Logical Chaos Drive will continually attempt to get them to the higher ground and get them there first and they will forever be trapped in a time loop.

Game over and over.

Job done.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to engage my new Don’tEvenTryingItBuster Drive. I’ve fitted this new drive to Planet Hermit. Me and my fellow hermits have an important appointment in a corner of the unknown universe where no one will ever find us, especially that recoded AI that the civil service have working for them…