Project Monarch: Volume 1: Masonic Techno Color Key

By Joseph Ellis Pereira

A mind-blowing romp of digital poetry in the vein of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, this postbiopunk vision set in the year 2065 is the debut novel of author Joseph Ellis Pereira. The legendary hacker Katnip finds himself the only quantum warrior with the skills to stop a virus that threatens to destabilize reality itself. To do this he’ll need two things – the first being the truth. The Illuminati, itself guided by a mysterious agency run by three E.B.E.’s (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities ) i.e. The Grays exist. In fact, there is far more than a grain of truth to every conspiracy theory you’ve ever laughed about. The truth is these hidden masters’ were never the enemy, nor had they ever had one. Until now. And his weapon is Project Monarch. Seemingly unstoppable. Save for that second thing - Katnip’s girlfriend , Aliza, and the unquantifiable love that binds them. Place your bets – all the way down the rabbit hole.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796085891

Joseph Ellis Pereira

I’m twenty-five and have spent much of my life writing. Although the last two years have been spent building a company, which is now a vendor to the NSA, I have always been certain that I would ultimately publish Project Monarch. I have attended Arizona State University and the New School.

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PROLOGUE

THE ESCHATON CRASH

We’re headed toward a cyber Pearl Harbor.

—Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in 2012

The Eschaton Crash is, and always will be, an international tragedy and radical turning point in history. The world’s population had placed their trust in Eschaton, and perhaps more importantly, so had the governments behind it (governments were the principal powers during that time period). When the Eschaton system crashed, rendering governments blind security-wise worldwide, the stock market completely crashing, the whole of the internet the population was running through Eschaton, and the computer that was meant to be used for gathering data for the press, went down as well, rendering everyone unable to even understand what was going on. Terrorism? No, it was something considerably worse—it was the collapse of the world as we knew it. From the ashes of the Eschaton Crash came a vastly different form of world governance and distribution of power and resources: corporatocracy and the archology. Transnational conglomerates took power, with some celebrating the rise of what they considered to be a meritocracy (albeit undoubtedly technocratic in nature). Regardless of all its flaws, corporate rule was initially so fragile, but yet valuable as a concept to even non-shareholders because nepotism was virtually stamped out and made punishable by incarceration by the U.O. (United Organizations). In the place of the superpowers rose the current two ultra-powers, Triopticom and Baido International.

This shift in the way things operate requires an understanding of how nations, not corporations, held the majority of power—economically and militarily their rule was insurmountable. An argument can be said that vast economic disparity seen between those who live within archologies, and those who live outside, is one of the things we inherited from this system, or that corporations where already its architect—either way, forms of tribalism dominated that no longer exist. Although there were many factors that led to our current international (the term international includes off-world locations, such as the mining operations on mineral-loaded asteroids) system, which has been officially labeled by the UO as a combination of Artificial Super Intelligent (ASI) Hyper-Capitalistic-Technocratic Meritocratic Corptocracy. It is true, however, that many feel that the meritocratic aspect of society may be true in the archologies. It is not true in the lower income areas surrounding the archologies, universally called slums and the population slummers. Those who live in the archology have come to be known as the archology folk.

—E-book, Mr. Chang’s High School

December 8, 2042

Located deep underground in Anatartica, the four quantum computers formed a system—connected by both above-ground solar-powered information-relaying drones and military grade graphene-enforced fiber optic cables - deemed Eschaton by its creators. The name had finally been comprised on—it was fought over in by the attendees of the World Economic Forum in the most secretive and heavily guarded of the gatherings held annually in Davos. The technocrats who had made the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which was now luxurious in a fashion that the plucorates posing the wealth of the previous industrial revolutions had literally been unable to dream of – represented by organizations such as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission -had been engaged in a quarrel over the naming of Eschaton. This argument had promptly ceased when Project Director Dr. Linda Caldwell reminded all the finance leaders that they had to worry more about the project than on the name, as they were spending far more on the project than on the Cold War. It was largely her charisma that was responsible for the merger of government and corporate efforts that was being forged here. The quantum computers—true quantum computing, not like L-Wave had tried in the 2010s—had meaningful names.

The first one planned was Algo 1, a high-frequency trading computer that could increase the speed of the markets at a literally exponential rate. There was Sophia, derived from the Greek word for knowledge, which would allow effectively enabling the six permanent members of the UN Security Council (the People’s Republic of China having become the latest member a few years prior to commencement of Eschaton’s construction) to real-time analysis of the nearly complete topography of man’s existence, digital or physical. Those who understood Sophia’s capabilities knew that the Sophia Algo was the Anthrosposecne’s extinction event for privacy, as man had traditionally known it. There was Politick, whose stated reason was to facilitate information to the press but in fact controlled it. The fourth (named Overclock) - owned collectively by the members of the UN Security Council and several large pan-national conglomerates, was dedicated to the public good for free, mostly in an effort to convince the public to trust Eschaton. It allowed anyone or any institution to use Overclock’s vast and freakingly fast computational might, power virtually unlimited made possible the application of by the virtually unlimited energy produced by Eschaton revolutionary application fusion-based osmotic fuel cells coupled with harvest wide spectrum low-scale vibrations via a nonlinear dynamical mechanism. The governing body the We were, though many, close to technological Singularity, which would be marked, though many, by this network. As genes were the basis of life and memes the basis of culture, then temes (Quantum computers) were the basis of technology. Susan Blackmore, now in a cryogenic storage facility, but a powerful voice in the Singularity movement largely spearheaded by those such as Ray Kurzweil, had written, At the moment temes still need us, but if teme machines become self-replicating, then we humans would be redundant and they could carry on without us. What happened then could either be disastrous or glorious. In general, save for the Luddites who corrugated which the Singularity had ascended mankind. And on December 8, 2032, at 8:04 AM Eastern Standard Time, Eschaton would go live.

People worldwide readied what at the time was the most common method of computer-human interface, virtual reality masks and gloves, although there were some extreme biohackers who had found a way to directly interface a computer with the human mind via nanobots in the bloodstream; those who would use such a resource formed a small community. This required two small cables that extended from holes in the wrist and were held in a bracelet around the flesh connected to Eschaton, the name of the artificial general intelligence (AGI) or human-level-intelligence artificial intelligence connected virtually unlimited computing power and—and this was perhaps the most important of its characteristics—the ability to rewrite and improve its own code as it saw fit. The base of Antarctic operations was the first archology, Extatique, a self-contained environment that in this case was essentially a small city built vertically, with a massive base above the ice under which the computers and some other key components of Eschaton were planted and from which sprouted four large column-like structures filled with offices, living quarters, and the like, which leaned forward slightly in such a fashion so as not to be noticeable to inhabitants but merged at the top.

This design was capable of keeping this small city self-sufficient and was rumored, in conjunction with the Eschaton computers, to have cost about as much as the Great Wall of China would have cost if built in a little under ten years. In theory, in every economic model run, the profits of Algo 1 would make up the staggering costs within ten seconds. This was the promise of true quantum computing, the truly charismatic Dr. Caldwell had persuaded all the invested parties, from corporate to public to those that lay in the gray area in between—and it was great, awesome in the biblical sense of the word, and she had not, behind bug-swept closed doors, been hesitant in describing them.

And economic considerations aside, thought the Illuminati leadership, which had secretly funded the project, was it not worth the cost? This project would bring forth not only a major step forward in worldwide economic prosperity but also boost their powers of surveillance on the populace of the world electronically to new vista, and now social media, as well as the traditional media and alternative media already under their control. This project had cost billions of dollars of propaganda to be seen as a public good, as well as have the world’s best-loved, privacy-advocating technological giants take the credit for building, alongside the new government, which had finally been inherited by the youth from the sixty- to eighty-years-olds, perceived as dangerously out of date with the times. The time was ripe for the information of the world to run through Project Eschaton, running so deep under Extatique.

The world celebrated and held its united breath as the date of Eschaton’s computers, December 8, 2042 (chosen to represent a new age of enlightenment for mankind as December 8 was the date celebrated as the Buddha’s enlightenment), quickly approached.

December 8 came, the computers started running, and immediately, the world changed. Worldwide, financial markets blossomed as transaction speeds increased exponentially. Media and information came faster than ever before, while intelligence communities around the world preached the new ability to keep their citizens safe without impeding their right to privacy. Behind all this was the Illuminati, secretly pulling the string on their greatest project, working not as some secret evil cabal as the public often thought, but as it always had, an enlightened order of people, highly disciplined in their morality, working always to keep humanity moving forward in all arenas. The music and cheers from the celebration in Extatique was so thunderous that it seemed to drown out the millions of other celebrations worldwide.

CHAPTER 1

Order… is information that fits a purpose.

—Ray Kurzweil, author and tranhumanist

Congralations on making it to your final year at Mr. Chang’s High School. This tablet has been codifed specifically for your use alone to optimize lessons plans based on your needs and examination results. Please keep in mind cheating of any kind will be detected. Now, please enter your biometric login creditentials and get ready for your senior year!

—E-book, Mr. Chang’s High School

December 8, 2043 (One year later)

Contractors at Alma Ship Industries had spent years building it- a five thousand two hundred and twenty two-foot twenty-eight-story vessel, displacing over three million tons. Named after the Roman emperor Constantine, the ship was the stuff of legend—for those with the proper clearance. The USS Constantine was the first prison in history to be not only above maximum security in its design but levels above it, using the latest in technology to secure its inmates in the rusted metal of a ship that had never returned to harbor in the time since its conversion into the ultimate prison. It circled deep in the coldest area of the Pacific Ocean, powered by a large nuclear reactor in its bowels and was nearly self-sufficient with a floor dedicated to an indoor garden for food. Any needed supplies were brought via submarine, generally with new prisoners—always so in the beginning, but less often now that the ship’s large holding areas were reaching capacity as every prisoner was there for life.

The crew of the prisoner ship were all private contractors with the necessary security clearances and experience who agreed to stay on board from the beginning of the ship’s tenure as a prison ship until the indefinite time in which it ceased to be so. The pay typically sent to their families and loved ones was too great to be refused. The USS Constantine’s holding areas were large because they housed a very unique method of containing the prisoners. They were held for twenty-three hours a day in cryogenic suspension tanks, opening for an hour a day. The prisoners, shackled together and monitored by a full battalion of men, spent their hour of consciousness out of suspension briefly showering and using the facilities and eating just enough calories to survive. They also spent just enough time in a sun room, which projected ultraviolet rays, so as not to slip into complete insanity. No conversation was allowed, as, aside from when they ate, the prisoners were muzzled. Making noise through the mask or talking during the one meal of the day resulted in no food or drink for the prisoner that day and spending the next cryogenic suspension time awake—alone, paralyzed, freezing. No one talked. Any realistic means of escape was not even deemed possible.

And all this was true of the prisoners—Jihadist leaders, political prisoners, psychopaths with power and the like. Generally—in fact, without exception—the people subjected to this imprisonment would be, in most people’s sense of morality, deserving of it. A few of the most dangerous prisoners were those who had wreaked havoc, sometimes in their pajamas, on a computer, either alone or with teams. One of these had been arrested for a crime so serious it had been labeled Unacknowledged, above the ship personnel’s Undisclosed clearance, which was a step higher than Above Top Secret, before which came Top Secret, then Highly Classified Material (HCM). Everything about this ship was Undisclosed. It was not on the United States of America’s president’s need to-know-list, and neither were the prisoners it kept. The submarine with the prisoners and supply rendezvouses came directly to and from an off-the-grid black site ran by private contractors or black operations personnel. No one knew what crime the Unacknowledged prisoner was guilty of. This man whose gymnastic body had been maintained by the cryogenics had no known name other than Prisoner #AB178. In his mind, however, he had already adopted what would be his new name, and he considered it to be a very fitting one: Constantine.

Then on the fateful day of December 8, 2043, everything dramatically changed. An escape plan so audacious no one could have ever imagined or foreseen it was launched. Like the Titanic, the USS Constantine was thought to be unsinkable and, just as certainly, unescapable. Yet the Titanic now rested on the bottom of the ocean floor. After all, even the president was unaware of the prison ship, and he was aware of more things than the populace could imagine. Presidential clearance was above Top Secret in certain matters but not at the level of Undisclosed, and certainly not at the level above that Unacknowledged. No outbound communications were even possible on the ship—if, for example, it was sinking, then it sunk. It was also constructed as a panopticon and ran as smoothly as a well-oiled machine by Admiral Johnathan Tucker.

The orange sun was setting, its beauty brilliant on the calm waves the evening had brought. A large, unmarked icebreaker ship, which did not appear on the USS Constantine’s radars, appeared in site of the ship’s lookout. He at once announced what he had seen to the officer on watch (OOW). This could not be happening. This location was not on any map in the world, save for those possessed by those in the operation of the USS Constantine, which weekly brain scans had revealed never lied about having no motive but to keep the prisoners on board, on board. Was the icebreaker lost? There were no outbound communications on the ship, so the prisoner ship began blasting Turn your ship around, immediately, or you will be fired upon. The icebreaker continued moving forward, full speed. The admiral lit up a smoke and said, Engage with all weapons. Within seconds of utterance of that command, the water surrounding the USS Constantine was littered with bullet shells, yet the icebreaker kept coming. The ship was too close to fire an electromagnetic pulse or nuclear weapon without frying the USS Constantine’s own systems and releasing all the prisoners, who were currently unshackled in their crypto-cells, and a nuclear blast at this range would merely vaporize both ships. Then another vehicle, also undetected by radar, descended in silence from above. A silent long-range military helicopter reported as destroyed in enemy combat appeared from the skip and from it ziplined down on top and around the bridge, using high-powered machine guns from all sides to quickly annihilate the crew on the bridge and all the primary navigation electronics. The ship’s computer, run by a soft (non-aware) yet quite intelligent artificial intelligence, now had no option but to simply stand still, blind. It watched as the attacking team switched from guns to flamethrowers to take out the rest of the ship’s crew, careful, it appeared to the AI, not to harm any of the prisoner crypto-cells.

The computer could do nothing but log the prisoners’ continuing good health and label more and more of the crew deceased, until it finally took a risk and shut down completely to avoid the risk of being hacked, leaving the fifteen members of the crew who had held up in one of the cells of the brig afraid and alone. The cell had a heavy metal door that locked from the outside, so one young man had bravely offered to lock it and then went to find another place to hide.

The men attacking the ship made their way to the crypto-cell that contained the prisoner who had mentally adopted the name Constantine. They used a small, high-powered battering ram, which took four men to hold, somehow set to just the right power to break through the egg-shaped protective shell of the cell to reveal Constantine after a few rams, the recoil of which was absorbed by the machine itself—this was no cheap toy. The man who led the attacking team injected Constantine, a muscle-bound white male who looked like a swimmer on steroids, six feet tall and in his forties, with a beard that was the result of one hour a day of growth for the last fifteen years. Within moments Constantine woke up with a gasp. Then after taking about five seconds to orient himself, he got up out of the freezing egg and said to his men, I suppose it is time to brace for impact. Lead the way.

A crew member, lost in the chaos, was the first to see the escaped prisoner. He had been a particularly cruel guard; Constantine didn’t know if he should feel joy or disgust at how pitifully afraid he looked now. I-I’m sorry! For everything! the terrified guard exclaimed. I was sentenced to life here … Constantine began in his deep, somehow malevolent voice, grabbing the throat of the guard, who promptly urinated on himself. By a secret court. A kangaroo court. My guilt was determined before I even arrived. What took weeks for them to decide … he continued, was whether to send me to this hell or to execute me. He began applying pressure to the guard’s throat. The young man, an Andrew Devay, began to cough and wheeze, terror rising in his blue eyes.

Constantine pulled him close, close enough to savor the enormity of the fear melting off this man, this man who had left him starving and freezing too many times to count. Too many times for most people. Constantine had counted, keeping a record of every indignity that had been leveled against him on this ship, this floating prison city, and remembering Devay’s record, crushed his windpipe. They decided to send me here. With you, my friend. Devay began turning blue. Seems they made a mistake! And with that exclamation, Constantine squeezed his throat so hard a sickening crunch could be heard by all around and then forcefully slammed his head against the pole on the wall. Constantine had been shackled to poles many times; he shattered the man’s skull with the might of the impact, then tossed him to the ground and forgot about him. He lay there, his body dead but his mind left awake, trapped in horror.

Constantine looked at his men, who were not fazed by this act of unconscionable violence. They had managed to make their way to the crow’s nest—the prison ship, as they knew, had no helipad—right as the icebreaker slammed with a sound so great that men of a time long past would have thought they had arisen the anger of Poseidon.

The men then landed on the icebreaker, which did have a helipad. Is it ready? Constantine yelled over the helicopter’s blades, which were slowing to a halt. Yes. Shall I give the order? asked his second in command, who, like all the others, was wearing heavy black body armor and a black helmet with a reflective visor. He brought a red radio to his mouth. No, replied Constantine. I believe that radio is for me.

The second in command smiled as he handed it to Constantine. Upload Project Monarch. On a tablet, military-grade thick, with threads of data only a hacker could cut through, the signs showed that the virus Constantine and his team had programmed was coming in without a hitch. Constantine, with eyes that saw into you the way infrared saw into the darkness, looked at his men and said, "It will be said that this day was impossible. A fluke, a crash. That is what will be advised, and they will be right. But what they do not know is our plan.

"Our plan … you will not all live to see the day when it comes to fruition. Yet as your faith in me led you to this day with such payoff, let it lead you further. Soon Eschaton will crash. The world will be thrown into disarray. Hundreds of millions will die. And in this time, we will come at them again. One more time. Harder and faster, unstoppable. We are the hurricane, and for the first time in their existence, they will find themselves the cattle."

A few moments later, away, the impossible happened—Eschaton shut down. And the world, so jubilant, went dark, for just a moment. A moment long enough to change everything, as stock markets crashed and government agencies fell into disarray, a moment where the