The Great Debacle: Book Three of the Ashoka Chronicles

By Alan Bassett

“The Great Debacle was, as predicted, a time of unspeakable horrors. The Four Horsemen mercilessly ravaged the planet, their ferocity intensified by natural disasters without end. The Master tells me that my work is to continue writing, not as a futurist but as a historian who records the end of time. He says it will be the last history book ever to be written.
“There is another world that emerges in my dreams even more vivid than the waking nightmares of the Third Dimension: It is a world eerily illuminated by a fiery comet.”
Arthur Asquith-Doyle, 2016 A.D.

The Third World War is reaching a climax as the Western Coalition and the Empire of China risk the annihilation of the human race in their quest for global domination. The only force that can stop them is the alien power source controlled by the Ashoka Circle of Nine.

The mystics have called forth a comet from the far reaches of outer space to transform the consciousness of humanity before time runs out. But it seems that the Ashoka Circle of Nine has no intention of saving the planet from destruction as they play out their multi-dimensional designs for purposes known only to them.

When the Last Adept is sent on a mission to stop the Wheel of Time, the unpredictable result may spell doom for the human race.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Bassett
• Release date: May 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452473239

Alan Bassett

Alan Premesh Bassett is a historian, therapist, novelist, and world wanderer. The Ashoka Chronicles Trilogy was inspired by the author's ten years in India, his meditations with Osho, and his travels through India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. For the past two decades, he has been leading transpersonal therapy and meditation groups in Europe, India, Brazil, and the United States. He presently lives in Spain with his lovely partner Meerananda, where he spends much of his time and energy writing visionary fiction novels and short stories.

Book preview

Preface

The crucified planet Earth, should it find

a voice and a sense of irony,

might now well say of our abuse of it,

"Forgive them, Father.

They know not what they do."

The irony would be that we know

what we are doing

When the last living thing has died

on account of us,

how poetical it would be if Earth

could say, in a voice

floating up perhaps from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

"It is done.

People did not like it here."

Kurt Vonnegut

Prologue

2013

"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority,

but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

Marcus Aurelius

COUNTDOWN TO CATASTROPHE

From the moment he opened the front door of his home that evening, he knew something was terribly wrong. He entered the darkened doorway and switched on the light. Chaos. Everything was in a shambles, furniture overturned, bookshelves and drawers ransacked, a portrait of total disarray. For a fastidious obsessive-compulsive who depended upon order and control in his personal living space, his sole defense against a world degenerating into war and anarchy, it was a virtual nightmare become reality.

An even greater fear erupted in his mind. He dashed upstairs to his office.

This time it wasn’t the chaos that drove him to panic and desperation. It was the vacuous spaces where things should have been but weren’t. His computers, his printer, all the high tech equipment that fed his insatiable appetite for data was gone, the storage banks for his research stolen; and gone with the hardware and software was his sole remaining reason to live.

The alarm bells rang in his head, warning him of imminent attack. He was hyperventilating, his body going into the early stage of spasms. He fought the urge to control, remembering to employ the yoga asanas and breathing exercises which had so often saved him from spastic fits of turmoil and violence.

After fifteen minutes, his pulse and breathing returned to normal as his emotions subsided with the passage of the storm. Exhausted, he lay on the floor until his hand touched the broken glass. He sat up and saw the shattered frames and photos of the only three people he had ever loved. The associated memories nearly drove him to tears, and from these he had no defenses.

Benjamin Willoughby was a sleeping volcano in a human body. By the age of three, he was tested and diagnosed as a savant with borderline autistic traits, a blessing and a curse visited upon him by blind forces without his consent. The only person he allowed to make physical contact with him was his mother; otherwise, a human touch or display of emotion could set him off in an uncontrollable frenzy of sound and fury.

Realizing that prescription drugs calmed him at the enormous expense of dulling his mind and his senses, his parents sought out natural remedies that could temper his emotional reactions while allowing his genius to flower to its full potential. For young Ben, this was the beginning of his lifelong daily regimen of yoga that provided him a fail-safe strategy for maintaining emotional equilibrium. His father, a former marathon champion, introduced his son to the euphoric states of long distance running as an antidote to mental overstimulation. His mother, an accomplished pianist, taught him to play Bach piano concertos as a means to channel his stormy moods into musical notes of mathematical precision.

Ben’s father was the first Afro-American astronaut to join the NASA space shuttle program. His mother was a Russian geophysicist who had defected from the Soviet Union and was granted political asylum by the United States government in 1970. His parents married the following year, and twelve months later Benjamin, their only child, came into the world.

Sitting on the floor of his office, he stared at the family photo, the last one ever taken only hours before his father’s first shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral in 1986. Seventy-three seconds after take off, mother and son watched the space shuttle Challenger explode and disintegrate in flight. Overwhelmed by the emotional trauma, Ben made use of the safety device he had learned from his father: he started running. Ninety minutes later, the police found him eighteen miles from the launch site; he was still running then, and somewhere deep inside himself he knew he had never stopped running since.

By age sixteen, Ben was already midway through his second year of studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had just completed his semester exams when his mother called to confirm their plans for spending the Christmas holidays together. She had finished presenting the results of her research on global warming at the London Climate Change Conference, and she wanted to meet him at JFK International Airport in New York. Sorry, Sweetie, I know it’s inconvenient but I would love it if you would hop a commuter flight from Boston and meet me when I arrive. It’s British Airways, flight number 1093. That’s right... December 22, landing about 10 p.m.

He waited all through the night until he was informed by the airlines staff that Flight 1093 had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Iceland. No word yet on any survivors. It wasn’t until the following day that Ben heard about the midair explosion of the airliner, rumored to have been caused by a terrorist bomb. This time there were no alarm bells warning of spasms and loss of control. A hollow space opened inside him, absorbing and numbing all emotions. There was a memorial service for the victims, but he couldn’t shed a tear. He wondered if he would ever feel anything again.

In the weeks that followed, his vision drastically deteriorated. The doctors attributed it to trauma. Ben welcomed wearing the glasses that allowed him to look at the world through prescription goggles as thick as coke bottle bottoms. At the same time he started wearing thin silk gloves to protect him from skin contact with others. The gloves and the glasses became trademarks for the eccentric savant, serving to keep the world at a distance and to insulate him from the threat of social interactions.

He returned to university and immersed himself in his studies. Although he isolated himself from others, there were a number of young women in his classes who were attracted to him. He had a handsome face, curly black hair, a tall, athletic body, and honey-brown skin. Ben developed a strategy for fending off females; when they approached him, he walked the other way, and when they tried to start a conversation, he said nothing until they walked away. His one-dimensional lifestyle and emotionless demeanor won him the nickname ‘Spock’ from his fellow students.

Ben earned his Ph.D in quantum physics with a minor in statistics at Stanford University. When his doctoral dissertation on the space-time continuum was published in scientific journals, he attracted international acclaim. Time magazine labeled him as ‘the new Einstein.’ The U.S. government declared him a national treasure. He was only twenty-one-years old, he had no family or close friends, but he did have a sense of idealism and purpose. As a tribute to his parents, he decided to dedicate his life to the advancement of science, which in his mind was the only salvation for mankind’s social, economic, and political ills.

He went to work for the National Science Foundation. Most of his research was known only to the world of scientists, but his findings on meteors in 1996 became public and caused a sensation in the international media. In an interview published in Newsweek magazine, Ben stated, "Due to magnetic disturbances on Saturn, the asteroids that compose Saturn’s rings are demonstrating signs of increasing instability. We can expect the breakup of some of these asteroids into giant meteors which will be propelled out of that planet’s gravitational field.

I am not talking about the small meteors that strike our planet each year, the vast majority of which burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. The meteors I am referring to may be larger than the asteroid that crashed into the Earth sixty-five million years ago and destroyed not only the dinosaurs but nearly all the species existing at the time. The trajectory of many such asteroids from the Rings of Saturn will at various times of the year find Earth revolving squarely in the way of their path as they are pulled toward the Sun.

When asked about the probability of such a catastrophe happening within the next century, Ben made an ominous prediction. I calculate an 86% chance of such an event occurring within the next twenty-five years. I feel a great sense of urgency about this. We are not talking about a catastrophe that could happen during the lives of your great-grandchildren. This is very likely to happen during my lifetime and yours.

The deputy director of the NSF was outraged and threatened to withdraw the federal grants for the young scientist’s research projects. "I don’t care how goddamned smart people think you are, Ben, you don’t go biting the hand that feeds you; and that hand belongs to Uncle Sam, just in case you’ve forgotten! I’m already getting angry calls from the White House asking who authorized this leak of information. You’ve just created the biggest science fiction sensation since Orson Welles’ broadcast of War of the Worlds.

"What in the fuck were you thinking? You want to create an epidemic of mass panic? I’ve already got some of our best people at NASA downplaying your research; that’s right, I said downplaying, not discrediting, though I don’t know why I’m covering your ass. Next time you have some theory proclaiming the sky is falling, you had better defer to the chain of command around here. The New York Times just published an article today referring to you as ‘Doctor Doom.’"

Ben was more than disillusioned; he was bitter. The scientists who had previously supported his findings now gave his work little or no credibility. One of them apologized. Sorry, Ben, but there is no such thing as a scientific community of independent researchers who are free to inform the public about what it needs to know. The government controls all of us by subsidizing our research projects, and the government decides what information will be released to the public and what information will be suppressed. You either play their game or get blacklisted. Welcome to the real world, my friend.

Besides creating a ripple of interest in the news, the strongest popular response to Ben’s research had been generated by the Hollywood movie Armageddon. Paradoxically, the film calmed the fears of the general public by demonstrating that American bravado, ingenuity, space technology, and nuclear weapons could protect the planet from the onslaught of any doomsday asteroid.

Ben was undeterred. He carried on his research in private, and for a very compelling reason: he had discovered evidence of a cosmic event. His asteroid project had opened up a much greater mystery to explore, one that could have astonishing implications not only for this planet but for the whole solar system. The comet that had showered the Earth with astral dust over 40,000 years ago had given him the clue. It had left an indelible imprint, sending a fragment of itself crashing into the Himalayas and creating the Tibetan Plateau.

What other traces the comet had left he would have to discover for himself before it returned for another visit, and from his early calculations it was due to make a comeback soon. The comet’s last arrival had coincided with the evolutionary shift from the predominance of Neanderthal Man to that of Cro-Magnon Man, the prototype of modern humans. Was another evolutionary leap in human development about to take place?

He hesitated to call the astral voyager a comet anymore; it was something far more powerful, a prime mover. This much he could hypothesize from his preliminary investigations: there was something out there, far beyond the stars. It’s origin was as old as the universe itself. Its size was inestimable. The density of its mass was incalculable. Its energy was beyond measure. It was heading toward our sun. Its arrival in our solar system was imminent, give or take a few decades. Whatever it was, it could be the cosmic agent of a metamorphosis inconceivable in scale.

This time he would tell no one, not the government, not his fellow scientists, not the general public. His intuition told him he was not the first to suspect the astral visitor. There were others who not only suspected but almost certainly knew. There must be! If he could locate them, communicate with them, he would no longer be alone, working in secret. For the first time in his life, he would be able to learn from and share with those who understood one of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos. But who were they? Where were they? China, India, Russia, Tibet, or some other place as invisible as the knowers themselves?

Until he identified and contacted them, he would continue his investigations on his own. He had discovered the effects of the prime mover already: energy currents and waves, spawned by a monstrous cyclone of plasma crossing the vast ocean of outer space, creating irregularities in the space-time continuum. What else could explain the ever-increasing wobble in the Earth’s rotation and the shift in its axis, not to mention the recent violent activity on the Sun’s surface that was provoking electromagnetic disturbances beneath the Earth’s crust?

There were many questions to answer. He would play the government’s game and give its leaders the scientific information they wanted, howsoever they might misuse it. ‘They think they are using me, but I will beat them at their own game. They will grant me access to all the data, the supercomputers, the space telescopes, everything I need to explore a power greater than any politician has ever dreamed of, a power that can invalidate all their plans and schemes for the future. It’s all just a matter of time, and when the crisis comes, I will be the one who has the answers.’

THE DEVIL’S BARGAIN

After weeks of uncertainty about his future as a scientist, Ben received a telephone call from an aide to Bob Ratcliff, the Director of the National Security Agency. Mr. Ratcliff wants you to know that your research about the potential threat of asteroids has not gone unappreciated, and that all of your files on the subject have been sent to the highest levels of the Department of Defense. Furthermore, the Director has requested that you pay him a call at his office tomorrow morning at 11:30. He has something important to discuss with you, which means you should plan to have lunch with him.

The physical features bestowed upon Bob Ratcliff were proof that the Creator had a twisted sense of humor. He exhibited a practiced military bearing and sense of command, but his mannerisms betrayed a tense, concentrated effort to keep his nerves under control. Ben might have felt some empathy if it hadn’t been for the man’s close-set eyes, pinched face, and prominent two front teeth. These features, in combination with the sloping forehead and close cropped peach fuzz hair, conspired to give him an uncanny resemblance to a rat. ‘His name was already a dead giveaway,’ thought Ben, ‘but why did Nature have to add insult to injury?’ The thought almost gave birth to a laugh, which was quite something for a young scientist who had no sense of humor at all.

He resumed an air of gravity while he listened to Rat-man Ratcliff sell him on a job position he had already decided to take. ‘One thing is for sure, I’ll have to watch my back with this guy,’ he mused while he looked Ratcliff in the eyes and shook hands on the devil’s bargain that would determine the next fifteen years of his working life.

He was given a GS-16 rank, a salary of almost 100,000 dollars a year plus benefits, and after a thorough background investigation he was granted the second-highest level security clearance of all government employees. You will have access to top secret data, Willoughby, information few eyes ever see. I don’t need to remind you about the perils of leaking this kind of sensitive material to the media or, even worse, to the enemies of our country. There is a fine line between what the general public needs to know and what the public needs not to know. I think you learned your lesson from the asteroid fiasco. We’re trusting you, Ben, so return the favor by trusting your superiors. We know what we’re doing, and we always decide what’s best for everyone concerned.

Ben decided not to entertain himself anymore by looking his new boss in the face, so he kept his eyes focused on the knot in Bob Ratcliff’s necktie. I’m curious about why you hired an astrophysicist for this position, Chief. He had been informed that Ratcliff required all his subordinates to address him by this title. You’re not anticipating an extraterrestrial invasion, are you?

I’ll choose to take that as a joke, Willoughby, replied the chief without cracking a smile. "We are more concerned about earthly aliens who intend to harm the people of this nation. You’ll know what I’m talking about soon enough. We didn’t hire you for your brilliance in astrophysics, Ben. We need your expertise in information gathering and interpretation. You are the only one who has the genius to handle vast amounts of statistical data, to sort out the essential from the extraneous, and to come up with pinpoint accurate predictions.

We need to know the probabilities in worst case scenarios both at home and abroad. We need you to reduce the variables to a plus-minus factor of one to two. You will be on loan to the best think tanks in the country, both government and private. Presidential decisions will be made based on your calculations, Ben, decisions ultimately involving war or peace. We’re trusting you to bring the right stuff to meet these monumental threats to our way of life and thus serve the best interests of this nation and the world.

This time, Ratcliff did manage a smile, although it looked more like a painful smirk. As Ben turned to leave the office, the Chief added, By the way, the President has approved your request to continue your research on climate change. Soon he will have to decide whether to support the proposed Kyoto guidelines on reducing greenhouse emissions. The information and conclusions you come up with may be pivotal in his decision-making process. I seem to recall that your mother was a pioneer in this field of research, so I know how much this project means to you.

The next seven years were a harrowing experience. Much of his time was spent at the Pentagon evaluating war game strategies and calculating the probable results. At other times, he was sent to Langley to prognosticate outcomes for CIA operations. He became an authority on war material, resources, and weaponry.

There were other studies initiated by various government and corporate agencies: projections of world population growth and scenarios for reducing the global population by half; trends in human migration shifts and optimum strategies for managing or obstructing them; control of the worldwide production and allocation of food and fossil fuel resources; environmental impact studies resulting from unrestricted exploitation of natural resources; feasibility studies for reducing subject populations to feudal or slave status; the relative merits and disadvantages of employing weapons of mass destruction, including target-specific biological and chemical weapons in times of war; and configurations of sustainable human and material loss estimates in the event of a nuclear holocaust.

Nagging questions arose. The politicians, the corporate leaders, the generals, and the bureaucrats who served them... Were they preparing to protect humanity from these catastrophic possibilities, or were they planning to inflict these horrific schemes on the world population? Why was he aiding and abetting their insane strategies of domination, exploitation, destruction, and control? There were times when he thought he was going mad himself, and even the yoga exercises and long distance running failed to provide any peace of mind. A new obsessive-compulsive habit developed: the Pontius Pilate syndrome that kept him busy washing his hands twenty times a day.

Feelings of paranoia added to his worries. He felt like he was being watched. Everywhere he went, shadowy figures appeared out of the corners of his eyes. Whenever he turned to face them, they shifted their gaze or walked off in another direction. His anxiety increased. He couldn’t stand the creepy feelings any longer. He confronted Bob Ratcliff about it.

No reason to be suspicious, Willoughby, replied Rat-man. Just standard procedure. We always take security precautions to protect our most valuable people. It wouldn’t do to have you kidnapped by Arab terrorists or assassinated by Chinese agents. After all, you are a national treasure. I’m beginning to think you have no sense of appreciation for how well we look after you.

‘Maybe on your time, you beady-eyed bastard,’ Ben thought to himself, ‘but not on my time.’ He vowed to evade Ratcliff’s goon squads and find a place beyond their reach. A strategy formulated in his mind, a plan for waging a private war, a one-man insurrection to expose the power maniacs and regain his independence. His plan called for refining his tactics of evasion and escape on weekends and holidays. One day he would vanish from Big Brother’s sight forever without leaving a trace. When the time was ripe, he would be ready.

* * *

A week of hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains had helped to pull Ben out of his most recent bout of depression, and he faced his return to work with a stoic attitude. When the two secret service agents met him at the entrance to the National Security Agency headquarters, he knew Rat-man was calling him on the carpet again. He was led into the Chief’s private smoking room, a sure sign that the Rat’s latest attempt to overcome his tobacco addiction had failed.

Where in the hell have you been, Willoughby? I’ve been trying to track you down all week. Something important has come up, and there you are playing games with my people and giving them the slip. It must give a genius like you a lot of satisfaction to outsmart the FBI. He threw an electronic device down on the table and lit a cigarette. Orders from the top, Ben. You are to wear this beeper phone at all times, whether you’re on holidays or not. We just put a GPS tracer on you as a backup. You are to be available for contact by your superiors around the clock. Is that clear?

Without waiting for a reply, Rat-man handed Ben a five-page document. Look this over and tell me if you’re familiar with this report.

Ben scanned the pages. I see reports like this all the time, Chief. What makes this one so special?

I’ll tell you what makes this one so goddamned special! Ratcliff’s neck veins bulged and his face turned a livid shade of red. He grabbed a newspaper from his file cabinet and slammed it down on the table. Just take a look at the front page of this British tabloid. Read it carefully, Ben, because I want to get to the bottom of this, and right now I’ve got this sneaking suspicion you’ve been leaking intelligence information to the whole fucking world!

Ben picked up the newspaper and quickly read the article.

THE OMEGA REPORT

Climate change over the next 10-15 years could result in a global catastrophe costing hundreds of millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.

A secret report, suppressed by US defense chiefs, warns that major European and Asian cities will be sunk beneath rising seas while nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world within the next decade.

According to the experts, the most catastrophic consequence of global warming could be the sudden collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf that buttresses the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. When that happens, sea levels around the world will rise dramatically by an estimated twelve to fifteen meters, flooding many of the most densely populated areas on earth.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries prepare to use nuclear weapons to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

Already, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 catastrophic shortages of water and energy supplies will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'To put it even more bluntly, warfare will define human life as never before.’

This has got your stamp on it, Willoughby, another doomsday scenario to provoke public hysteria. What do you have to say for yourself? Ratcliff demanded.

Ben stared back at his boss and addressed him in a flat tone of voice. "If I’m not mistaken, a series of these top-secret studies was completed around the end of 2007. Last year, all the documents related to climate change as a catalyst for war and anarchy were declassified. The paper documents were sent to the shredder and the computer files were deleted. The original master files were locked and stored in the War Archives.

News hackers are always snooping into declassified materials, whether they dig them out of data banks or trash dumpsters. In my opinion, if you want to tighten security, take a look at who authorized this declassification and then follow the paper trails through the disposal process. If you do, you won’t just find a leak; you will find a bureaucratic sieve.

Ratcliff’s face lost its color, but his eyes were shooting daggers. You’ve always got a rational explanation for everything, Willoughby, but that doesn’t clear you of suspicion. In case you haven’t noticed, you are not well-liked or trusted in this agency. You’ve earned yourself a reputation as a contrary, a cynic who resents his job, who is contemptuous of his colleagues, and who lacks a patriotic love for his country and a sense of loyalty to its leaders. You don’t know what it is to be a team player, Ben, and one of these days you’re going to pay a heavy price for playing the outsider.

Is that all, Chief?

"That’s all, except for your marching orders. As of today you are no longer working for me. You have been invited for an audience with the Magister, one of the most powerful people on Earth. No one gets such an invitation unless you are being considered as a member of his inner circle. He and his people are convinced that a global nuclear war is imminent, so they are making certain preparations.

You will be introduced to his template for the postwar world, the defining blueprint for the future of human civilization. Only those persons who occupy the most powerful positions in this government are aware of the plan and are a party to it. I am far down the totem pole, but I serve as their liaison with people like you. The Magister and his multinational steering committee know they are running short of time, so they are enlisting your scientific genius to transform his vision into reality before it’s too late. My advice to you, Ben, is to pledge your allegiance to this man and follow his directions to the letter; otherwise, you will cause yourself difficulties and hardships you cannot even imagine.

Ben was startled by the announcement, and even more so by the linguistic terminology Ratcliff was using. His mind instantly processed the meaning of the words. ‘Magister is a medieval term that stands for His Majesty or more precisely the Majestic One. Taken together with the term audience, the words imply that I have been summoned by the Emperor to serve as his liege! This is the weirdest...’ His analytical process was suddenly interrupted by the clear voice of his intuition: The Magister is the puppet master, the ultimate power behind the worldly thrones. The rest is all theater, just political plays to entertain the masses.

A limousine will pick you up at your home tomorrow morning at 0800. As preparation for your meeting with the Magister, you will spend this afternoon in my private conference room reading some top secret materials. I will collect these documents personally when you have finished and return them to the Consortium.

Ben wrinkled his brow. What do you mean by the Consortium? I never heard of it.

You will find out soon enough, my friend.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Ben’s eyes grew wide with alarm when he read the opening page of the thick document.

THE CONSORTIUM MISSION STATEMENT

The august members of this Consortium unanimously concur in adopting the guiding principles, societal structures, and controls for the New World Empire as described by Aldous Huxley in his prophetic novel entitled Brave New World. Although the author wrote his book as a warning against such a future world state, we cannot fault him for being a man of his times, limited by the ideals, illusions, and prejudices that were common among the intellectuals of the early twentieth century.

Almost one century later we can stand on the shoulders of Mr. Huxley and see the absolute necessity for instituting the very system he so vehemently condemned. We are about to enter into a Third World War, the war to end all wars. Rather than view this event as a catastrophe, we see it as an opportunity to create a new world state free of the past, free of its unattainable ideals, its violent conflicts, and its burdensome traditions.

We believe it is ill-advisable and counterproductive to enter into such a war without first having a detailed blueprint for a new world order and the means to establish it. Once the old order is reduced to ashes, the New World Empire must be immediately installed in its place with bold resolve. In the eyes of the surviving populations of the world, it must be seen as a fait accompli.

* * *

Ben felt nauseous. He had read Huxley’s classic novel years ago as a relief from the boredom of his university studies, but it had made such a deep impression that he could still remember it vividly. The futuristic story described in stark detail how the world population was enslaved by a rigid caste system and how the subjects were conditioned to love their servitude. The world controllers enforced their rule through sophisticated mind conditioning methods and mood altering drugs that deprived the citizens of individual freedom, intellectual curiosity, creative expression, natural childbirth, and feelings of love for other human beings. ‘Yes, Huxley was right,’ he mused. ‘The only sane alternative to living in such a world is the one chosen by the protagonist at the end of the novel, when he hangs himself from a tree.’

The rest of the Consortium’s document laid out the design for the political, economic, and social organization of the New World Society, at times expanding Huxley’s model of the Brave New World to incorporate modern advances in science and technology. Other documents dealt with the specifics of social engineering, eugenics, human fertilization and incubation laboratories, cloning, enforced euthanasia, neuropsychology, mass hypnosis, neurolinguistic reprogramming, educational conditioning, and pharmacology.

‘What kind of Orwellian nightmare is this!’ Ben thought to himself as he tried to control his quivering facial muscles. ‘A world state that robs its inhabitants of all the qualities which previously defined them as human beings! The Magister is the twenty-first century version of Dr. Frankenstein, the mastermind of an artificially manufactured social monstrosity programmed to serve the ruling elite, and the Consortium is the apex of the pyramid.’ He desperately sought an avenue of escape from the clutches of this monster, but only two words registered on the screen of his mind: ‘No Exit.’

* * *

The Magister’s estate was located only an hour’s drive from Ben’s office and not far from the President’s retreat at Camp David, Maryland. Ben marveled at the beauty and grandeur of the stone mansion until a butler in uniform ushered him through the palatial entrance and down a long corridor. He was shown into a British colonial style library with an impressive collection of books. A large teakwood desk dominated one corner of the room. The butler offered him a seat in one of the overstuffed leather chairs and silently went about serving him hot tea and cinnamon rolls.

Just as he was finishing his breakfast, the butler drew the window curtains closed and tapped some keys on a computer. A color image of a vacant office appeared on a wall-size flatscreen monitor directly across from his chair. He saw an elderly man with an ivory walking stick enter the room and seat himself behind the desk. The man looked directly into the camera for some time, saying nothing. Ben was certain his host was examining him carefully, sizing him up on his own closed-circuit monitor. The whole situation felt very bizarre and not at all what he had been expecting.

From what he could observe, the Magister was an imposing figure despite his advanced years. He had curly gray hair and a clean-shaven face with a prominent nose, wide-set crystal blue eyes, thin lips curled into a permanent scowl, and a square jaw. His chin jutted out like a boxer who enjoyed intimidating his opponents. He sat at the desk with an erect spine and squared shoulders, giving an impression that he was all business and not well-disposed toward polite chatter.

You are Benjamin Franklin Willoughby? the man asked. The gruff voice was tinged with an unusual accent. Ben recognized it as belonging to the Slavic language group, possibly Serbian.

Yes, said Ben, and not knowing what else to say, he didn’t try to say anything more.

"That’s what I like! Keep it simple and don’t add any information unless I ask for it. I notice you are a man of color. Rest assured that I do not discriminate according to race, although some of my colleagues do. Never mind, because you won’t have to deal with them; your relationship to this organization will be conducted directly and exclusively through me.

I’ve seen your files, so I know as much about you as you know about yourself; however, the investigative summary didn’t report anything about your religious beliefs or affiliations, so you can tell me about these yourself.

His tone made clear that it was a command. Ben wondered if the Magister had been a high-ranking military officer. Everything he said sounded like an order, and despite the distance between them, Ben could feel the man’s eyes boring holes into him from the televised image.

I am a scientist, he replied. My parents were also scientists. My father was raised as a Catholic, but he never attended mass or practiced any rituals. My mother had an interest in the teachings of a Russian mystic, but she kept her spiritual ideas and practices to herself. I have no particular religious beliefs, so I guess you could say I am an agnostic. Ben hid his contempt for orthodox religions. In his opinion the leaders of those archaic institutions had consistently stood in the way of scientific progress for over fifteen hundred years.

This won’t do, not at all! the Magister objected in a raised voice. In the minds of many influential people, agnosticism and atheism are partners in perdition. If our association is to flourish, Benjamin, you must adopt a respectable religion. We have entered an era of religious fanaticism that is leading to a global war. Being affiliated with the Christian church is like buying a health insurance policy. You cannot afford to be without one. The Catholic religion is as good as any, so let’s get this settled. Get baptized, take your First Communion, and be done with it. I won’t have any of my people being accused of heresy!

Ben bristled at the command, but he neither consented or objected. There was that telling use of language again. ‘My people’ suggested the Magister was accustomed to owning people and protecting them like property as long as they did what they were told. ‘And what happens when somebody like me doesn’t follow his orders?’ he wondered.

"Let’s move on. I suppose you are wondering why you are here, Benjamin. There is much to tell you in a short amount of time, so please hold your questions until later. I have created what is known to select individuals as The Consortium, an inner circle composed of those far-sighted captains of industry and technology who are ready to fulfill the role bequeathed to them by their superior genetic inheritance. I know what hard choices and sacrifices must be made to create the ideal world of tomorrow, so I have recruited this group of like-minded individuals who possess the iron will and steel nerves to help me forge a new society for the new humanity.

"Through our plutocracy, we have amassed the greatest concentration of wealth and power the world has ever seen; thus, we control the resources necessary to build a whole new world. The gods of the old religions have failed. We shall fill the vacuum by assuming our responsibility as the Supreme Architects of the new order of Mankind. We shall determine the destiny of the future generations of our species, and we shall determine the conditions under which they will live and thrive.

"We will not make the mistakes of the twentieth century dictatorships. We intend to rule with a silk glove rather than an iron fist. The masses must be seduced rather than forced to follow their rulers. People cherish the illusion of freedom, but what they most yearn for is security and comfort. The truth is that they have an innate fear of freedom. As long as they enjoy a modest degree of material abundance, they prefer to avoid the uncertainty, the anxiety, the instability, and the chaos that freedom introduces into their lives. People want to be led. They long for the good shepherd.

"We will provide the people with the form of government they most earnestly desire: a benevolent despotism that takes care of them and provides for their needs, that educates them to know what to think and what to do, that entertains them so they never suffer from boredom, and that supplies them with advanced pharmaceutical drugs, thus liberating them from the tyranny of disturbing feelings and emotions. We have even developed a miracle drug we call soma, the same name Huxley used, for inducing states of bliss and ecstasy. No doubt it will be the best selling product in our future world of consumerism.

"The most critical time in human history is now bearing down upon us. We, the members of this Consortium, have ruthlessly exploited the human and natural resources of the Earth for many decades, but we make no apologies. Our actions have been motivated by our vision of a grand and noble future. If our species is to survive the coming crisis and prosper, it must have a new kind of leadership and a new social order; therefore, we have dedicated our lives and our fortunes to the creation of the New World Empire.

We are well aware that the means for accomplishing our great endeavor has impoverished the planet and stretched its population to the breaking point. The masses are rising up in protest, and it won’t be long before violent insurrections, pandemonium, and anarchy break out. If our vision is to become a reality, we must seize this moment to divert the passions, frustrations, and aggressions of the masses into holy wars between the competing world religions. It is out of this fiery crucible that a new world will be born!

Ben stifled his shock at the megalomaniac’s rantings and seized the opportunity to ask questions. You act like the New World Society is ready to be established and ordained. You cannot seriously assume that people are willing to give up their old beliefs and customs for a whole new system unlike anything they have ever known. How will you enlist their cooperation to make the transition happen peacefully?

"How will the transition take place between what was and what will be? People are most vulnerable to the art of persuasion during times of war. There will be war, Benjamin, a Third World War that will begin within the next few years. You have calculated the probability estimates of the loss of human life yourself. One-third of the Earth’s population will die in the nuclear holocaust. Nearly another third will die of radiation sickness, disease, starvation, and natural disasters provoked by the explosive force of thousands of nuclear warheads. The human race will be forced to live under conditions very much like those during the Dark Ages.

"In the same way that people in the medieval times sought refuge inside the walls of the local warlord’s fortress, the postwar survivors will be willing to sacrifice their most sacred beliefs and most valuable possessions to a world state that can offer them security and salvation. We have prepared ourselves to do so. The fortresses of the New World Empire are already designed and ready to be constructed!

One thousand cities will be spread across the face of the Earth, each one populated by approximately three million people. Each population center will be located in an earthquake-free zone far from the danger of rising sea levels. The cities will be climate-controlled, safely enclosed within vitreous domes impermeable to the natural elements. The human species has evolved beyond the need for interaction with Nature, Benjamin. We have suffered enough from earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, droughts, and hurricanes. Our Chinese friends in the Consortium are already financing the construction of the first prototype of our domed cities two hundred kilometers inland from Shanghai.

Ben struggled to control his reactions by asking another question. What about the natural environment and the habitat for non-human species? How do you plan to restore and preserve it after such a devastating war?

"We are not concerned with the natural habitat. The radiation storms of the holocaust will make much of the planet uninhabitable, so the surviving species will be left on their own to evolve or face extinction. Either way, they no longer serve any useful purpose. Of course, we will continue to exploit the energy reserves and raw materials necessary to sustain human life in the cities, but new technologies will soon find ways to liberate us from our