Fabel smiled. ‘I wouldn’t count on it, if I were you.’
Werner Meyer and Nicola Bruggemann came in and sat on either side of Fabel. Werner had a pile of newspapers, which he laid on the floor next to his chair.
‘I see you’re coming mob-handed today, Principal Chief Commissar,’ said Harmsen.
‘Oh? Not really. It’s just that this is the main event, Frau Harmsen.’ Fabel pointed to the wall-mounted camera in the corner of the room. ‘I have to tell you that the rest of my team are all next door, watching us on the monitors. No one wants to miss this.’
Wiegand remained impossible to read. But Fabel knew that, even though she swept the expression from her face almost as soon as it had appeared, Harmsen was concerned.
‘If you’re suggesting that you found evidence of wrongdoing at the Pharos,’ said Wiegand, ‘then I know you are bluffing.’
Fabel smiled. ‘You’re very sure of that, aren’t you, Wiegand? My mistake was to forget that today we live in a world where everything we do, every communication we make, sends out ripples across this ocean of electronic noise. Just preparing for yesterday’s raid on the Pharos, for example. Or the raid on the Guardians of Gaia safe house. Yes, I’m sure we made enough ripples for you to have had sufficient warning to clear out the odd piece of hardware.’
‘If what you say is true, then you have no evidence. Not that there ever was any. But, let’s say there was: it sounds to me that the only way to access it would be to travel back in time…’ Wiegand smiled. A self-satisfied smile that made Fabel feel the impulse to smack it off his face. Instead, he smiled back.
‘I find the whole premise of your cult-’ he began.
‘The Pharos Project is not a cult, Herr Fabel. I resent the use of the word,’ said Wiegand.
‘I find the whole premise of your organisation intriguing,’ said Fabel. ‘And at the head of it is the mysterious Dominik Korn. I placed a call to him yesterday, by the way.’
Wiegand snorted. ‘And what did he say to you, Herr Fabel?’
‘Nothing. He wouldn’t speak to me. But, there again, you already knew that. I just thought that, given all of this trouble you’re having here in Germany, Mister Korn would maybe be interested in discussing it with me. But…’ Fabel shrugged.
‘What particularly interests me about the Pharos Project is its central belief system,’ continued Fabel. ‘This concept of the Singularity, or the Consolidation as you call it, providing the salvation of the environment. I didn’t realise that there were so many similar theories in the world of science. I mean, that some quantum physicists believe that this could all be a simulation — that reality lies somewhere distant on the edge of the universe. If you ask me, it’s all tosh. All of this Singularity, or Omega Point, or Consolidation, or whatever you want to call it. But there are people out there, vulnerable people, some even with mental illnesses, who desperately want to believe in it. It’s no different from the promise of the afterlife that religion has touted for millennia. People want some justification for believing that the lives they lead and hate aren’t all there is. That there’s some great transformational truth awaiting them. In your case, one that is based on pseudoscience and cod philosophy. Too much science fiction and not enough common sense.’
‘Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,’ said Wiegand. ‘But I’ll tell you this — and it’s the truth: I happen to believe that we are entering the next great stage in human evolution, and we ourselves will be the drivers of that evolution. Not Nature. Have you ever thought about how fast things are changing, Fabel? I mean, do you remember when you were a teenager, for example? Think about all of the massive leaps forward we have made in that time — more than in the rest of human history put together. This is the Great Acceleration, Fabel. Think about the differences in technology and population growth between, say, 1200 and 1500. So little advance in three hundred years. Then think of the massive changes between 1800 and 1900, when the industrial revolution changed everything about the way we lived. But when you look at the twentieth century, at the incredible advances in technology and the explosion in human population, then think about the period between 1975 and today — unbelievable change. It’s getting faster and faster. Cybernetic technologies, genetics, genomics, nanotechnology, femtotechnology, even our basic understanding of how the universe around us works — we are now squeezing into a decade what used to take us a century to achieve. Soon it will be compressed into five years, a year… The Great Acceleration, as I said.’
‘Let me guess, only the Pharos Project understands the implications of this,’ said Fabel. ‘Only you can be trusted to steer mankind in the right direction. If that means carrying out vendettas against anyone who criticises or leaves your cult, infiltrating government bodies, even committing cold-blooded murder… then all of that is justified, is that it?’
‘We don’t commit murder. We are a peaceful group.’ Wiegand’s tone was controlled, even. ‘But yes, sometimes it’s almost as if everyone else is blind to what’s happening. As a species we are moving towards something. Our destiny. But there is a very good chance that before we reach that point the damage we are doing to the environment will kill us.’
‘And if we do make it, what does this brave new world of yours hold for us?’ asked Fabel.
‘The time will come — and it will come soon — when we will be building self-aware, intelligent machines capable of accelerating the Acceleration. Technology you’re incapable of imagining. Nanotechnology and femtotechnology will allow us to build inconceivably powerful computers on a microscopic scale: computers built molecule by molecule. And the new science of synthetic genomics has already resulted in the creation of the first purely artificial life… the computers of the future may be as organic as we are. It’s the only hope we have: to disengage from the environment and use technology to offer a higher level of existence, of consciousness. You seem to think that I don’t believe in what the Pharos Project stands for. Well, you’re wrong. I believe it all. I believe it’s the future of mankind.’
Fabel looked at Harmsen, who kept her gaze fixed on the tabletop.
‘But you don’t want to save mankind, Wiegand. You want to save the chosen few. You’re just one more rich guy with a messiah complex,’ said Fabel. ‘People as wealthy as you become so removed from the way everyone else lives their lives that you become totally detached from reality. God knows I can understand how that would affect poor Mister Korn, stuck there in international waters on his luxury yacht, plugged into all kinds of technology just to keep him alive. But what you’re talking about isn’t enhanced humanity. It isn’t even humanity. It’s something less. A diminishment.’
‘You are a man of limited intellect, Fabel. And less imagination. I have no interest in continuing this conversation further.’ Wiegand started to stand up but Werner placed a persuasive hand on his shoulder.
‘You’re not going anywhere, Wiegand,’ said Fabel.
‘Then I think you need to make some specific charges,’ said Harmsen. Fabel could sense that she wished she had stuck to representing TV actresses with botched cosmetic surgery.
‘Do you believe in the afterlife?’ Fabel asked Wiegand, conversationally. ‘You know that Nikolai Fyodorov, way back in the nineteenth century, predicted that we would develop such computational power that we could bring almost anyone back to life?’
‘I do, yes.’
Fabel placed a grey USB memory stick on the table.
‘Do you know, I believe that there is someone alive in there. In that piece of plastic and silicon.’ He paused. Neither Wiegand nor Harmsen said anything, but Wiegand’s cold, hard little eyes remained fixed on the USB stick.
‘The person alive in here was a big man in our world. Literally. According to the pathologist, he weighed one hundred and eighty kilos. He was called Roman Kraxner and he was a deeply flawed individual. Like someone else I met — Niels Freese. But Roman’s main flaw was that he was a genius. And his particular talent was with computer technology. Do you know the name, Herr Wiegand?’