Broken Symmetries: Age of Illuminati Page 3

  The election was postponed, many people got emotional against all the other competitors and pointed the blame toward them. After one month of the incident, Kogar appeared on TV and promised that he would stay faithful to his beloved wife’s memory and would not marry again. His statement attracted the attention and emotion of many people, even those who didn’t initially support him. It became clear that he would be the clear winner of the election and indeed he achieved 91% of all the votes and became the first governor to gain such massive support.

  His legend didn’t stop here, and during his five year rule, he achieved miracles for Shinar Land. He used science and technology to achieve many things that appeared to be impossible. Because of his social website, he gained a lot of experience analyzing the data collected online using artificial intelligence (AI), and so he was able to predict trends and changes. He could monitor graphs online to see the collective emotion of the people by what they posted on his webpage daily. He could also see how a specific decision made by him changed these trends. His aim was simple: maximize the happiness emotion.

  During his role, he also invested heavily in 3D printing technologies as some Chinese companies had recently started to make and sell relatively cheap, large, general purpose 3D printing machines. The invention of these was labeled to be the humanity’s crowning achievement in the 21st century. With them anything from a small cup to an entire building could be printed, and not only that. Items with dynamic parts, such as cars, generators, utilities could also be printed. It made the process of creation as simple as possible, and to produce anything, all that was needed was a design model inside the computer, the necessary elements for printing and then to hit the print button!

  Kogar invested in many general purpose 3D printing machines and used them to build houses and provide shelter for the many homeless and refugees fleeing from war torn countries. With Kogar’s investment in the technology, the 3D printing industry had a rapid boost in productivity.

  The advantages of the large scale general purpose 3D printers were immense. They sped up construction time and reduced costs by a factor of ten. Despite the job losses due to the new technology, Kogar was still able to secure new jobs for workers.

  During the last year of his rule, he tested another masterpiece of a recently invented new 3D printing technology. This one took advantage of the helmet which recorded and read brain signals and was able to transform imagination into reality. There were currently limitations, the primary one being the fact that the machine couldn’t accurately detect the imagined shape in someone’s mind, but the entire thing was an impressive leap in itself.

  At this point it became clear to Kogar that in the near future he would be able to model reality using his imagination just like in science fiction. ‘With this, I can achieve miracles,’ he whispered in his mind, and then an unexpected thought came to him and he suddenly felt paralyzed! The disturbing thought was that he could sense the presence of a big conspiracy. ‘I’m not the richest person around, nor the smartest, and not even the ruler of a big country. If I can change the trends with my decisions, then others are already capable of doing much more!’

  He remembered that the USA had started using an artificial intelligence program called ‘The Brain Storm’ nearly 60 years ago to predict best outcomes for its political decisions! There was another hyped project trying to build a superhuman called ‘The New ARK’ or TNARK project started 30 years ago in Europe. The Chinese entrepreneur, Lee Shark, the richest person on the planet who owned the biggest 3D company could already build entire cities in a short period of time. Many other rich and highly influential people had already started investing in God playing projects! And they were all ahead of him by miles.

  He remembered all the conspiracy theories in his era which blamed the superpowers for wars and calamities. ‘They could be all true!’ he thought. ‘If I can use my imagination to model reality and change trends, then other superpowers are already ahead of me by light years! I could be the last one who has entered this game,’ Kogar thought. ‘If someone is already playing God by controlling everything, I need to find that person!’ he said to himself.

  In the year 2055 at the age of 35, Kogar resigned from his position as governor. People were urging him to run for another round, as according to the polls, his popularity had increased even further and it was obvious that he could win another round easily, but he rejected them by saying that a change in power was needed and he wanted to give the chance for others to rule.

  “My resignation from power will ensure that democracy will continue and power will be exchanged peacefully,” he said in his last interview.

  “What is your plan after you retire?” the interviewer asked.

  “I will be hiding from the media and public and take some rest for a while,” he answered. “Meanwhile, I will be funding revolutionary science projects. I will also use my money to encourage and fund education and health programs around the world.”

  Chapter 3

  The next morning after his nightmare, Hast called his brother. “Sardar, you will not believe what I saw last night!” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you are OK because I had a bad dream about you.”

  “What did you see?” Sardar asked. “Dreams are normal things.”

  “I thought we were in the Judgment Day and you went to hell. It looked very real. I wanted to save you from the hell, but it would be much easier to save you now before that day comes.”

  “What is the big deal?! Of course you will have such nightmares,” Sardar claimed. “You are always thinking about the apocalyptic fictional Doomsday.”

  Hast realized he couldn’t convince him even a bit over the phone.

  “I will pray for you until you will change your heart,” he said ending the call.

  After getting his degree in theology, Hast taught the subject to 10th graders, and his wife Nergz was a history teacher at the same school. Once she has given birth to their child, they were both given parental leave for six months. During this time Hast had created an online blog and had posted many articles about his views on theology and Abrahamic faith prophecies of the end-days.

  Two days after his dream, he received a call from someone identifying himself as Agent Mark Robinson from Interpol. He had said he wanted to meet Hast to discuss an important topic. Hast agreed to meet Mark the following week in a local coffee shop in his hometown, the city of Erbil, where he and his family lived. He found it strange that someone from Interpol wanted to meet with him. He kept thinking whether posting controversial articles online had anything to do with the call he had received from Interpol.

  ***

  Mark had worked for Interpol for five years and he was also a member of International Conspiracy Private Investigators, known as ICPI. His job was solving puzzling international cases and facilitating the work of Interpol through co-operation with local police in member countries.

  One month ago Mark had received a call from Zaniar, a previous Interpol agent and a close friend of him, he told Mark that Kogar Shervan, the previous governor of Shinar Land, wanted to meet with him on a very important subject. When Mark finally met Kogar, he warned the Interpol agent that someone was trying to play the role of God and was planning to control everyone’s mind. Kogar suspected that someone working for the highly hyped, futuristic TNARK project was already planning to control the world through controlling people’s minds. When Mark asked him what made him so sure, Kogar told him that after he resigned from his position as governor, he made a deal with Virtual-world™, the pioneer gaming company, to produce a shared helmet that had better brain signal detectors and could be used by the clients of both companies, Tek-Brains and Virtual-world™. Kogar claimed to have found shocking evidence that Virtual-world™ and possibly TNARK were trying to control the minds of their users through their suspicious equipment.

  Virtual-world™ was an offshoot of the bigger TNARK project, when a user put on the helmet he would enter into a huge online multiplayer u
niverse that had over a million other users. The helmet acted as a brain signal detector, the gamer used his/her mind to send commands to control the online game without using any controllers. As a side project, the helmet also collected brain data from the users anonymously and provided this information to neuroscientists. The data would then be analyzed to understand how the human brain works, and this ultimately would help to advance the TNARK project.

  During the meeting, Kogar showed Mark the newly designed helmets, the product of his deal with the Virtual-world™ company. There were 120 diodes emitting blue light all over the helmet. Kogar claimed that he didn’t know the purpose of these small blue lights because for him these light emitters were separate and different from the normal 120 sensors that he used as brain signal recorders for his social website, zanzor.com. Kogar told Mark that brain sensors didn’t need to emit any light to record brain signals, so someone working for TNARK or Virtual-world™ company must be up to something suspicious. Hence, Kogar urged Mark to investigate the matter further.

  When Mark began his investigation, it turned out that the designers and engineers working for Virtual-world™ didn’t want to share everything with him! The company’s manager simply told Mark that the purpose of the blue lights on the outer surface of the helmet was just for aesthetics, mainly to make the helmet look more beautiful and technical! Mark didn’t believe them. He urged Interpol to issue a ‘Red light’ and a formal letter to them so that the managers of TNARK and Virtual-world™ company would comply and reveal some of their classified documents to Mark. Meanwhile, he had also started to look online for topics related to mind control. Accidentally, he came across some articles and blogs written by a theologian named Hast about Abrahamic faith prophecies of the end-days and about mind control too!

  Mark soon realized that there were a lot of similarities between what he was looking for and the prophecies of Abrahamic faith which claimed that the Antichrist would appear in the end-days trying to play God and control the minds of people. That moment, Mark decided to meet Hast in person and ask him more about the details of Abrahamic faith prophecies.

  ***

  When Mark met Hast at a local coffee shop in Erbil City, he tried to explain the purpose of his meeting to Hast.

  “Mr. Hast you may wonder why I wanted to meet you,” he said.

  “Please just call me Hast, and yes I’m very curious to find out why an Interpol agent wanted to meet with me,” Hast said. “I don’t recall doing anything outside of the law. Has someone I know done something bad?”

  “No, not at all,” Mark said. “Actually, I just wanted your expertise and advice in regard to something. I hope you don’t mind helping me.”

  Hast thought there was a mistake. “I studied theology, so how can this expertise be useful to Interpol?” he wondered.

  “I know,” Mark said. “I have read your profile and checked your resume and records. You have an impressive knowledge about the history of religions, especially Abrahamic faiths. I have also read some of your online articles and blogs about the end-days and the rise of the Antichrist. I wanted to ask you more about that if you don’t mind.”

  “Is this part of your mission or just a personal interest?”

  “Well, maybe both,” Mark said. “I think it could be related to something I’m working on.”

  “Is it crime related?” he asked. “Could you please tell me more?”

  “In your articles you claim that the appearance of the Antichrist is near,” Mark said. “Would you please tell me why you think that?”

  “Well, because many of the prophecies have already come true,” Hast said.

  “How?” Mark asked.

  “We have already seen the minor signs, and now I’m witnessing the emergence of some major signs too.”

  “What are the minor and the major signs?” Mark asked.

  “The holy§cript describes some signs that will come true before the emergence of the Antichrist and Doomsday,” Hast replied. “Minor signs include: wars, corruption, bankruptcy, earthquakes, drought, disobedience to parents, worshiping money, committing sins publicly, and the appearance of new diseases. All of these will increase before the end-days, and you know more than I do that these things are already happening and increasing. Don’t you?”

  “I see, but this could be due to the increase in population and more effective media coverage nowadays,” Mark proposed.

  “That is one of the explanations, but you can’t deny the minor signs are increasing and there are major signs too which I think I have seen them emerging,” Hast said.

  “Like what?” Mark wondered.

  “In the prophecies it says that before the end of days a talking Beast will come out. People will love to talk to it and believe in what the Beast says. Also the beast can do wonders and miracles,” he claimed.

  “And where is this Beast?” Mark asked.

  “According to scripture the Beast is everywhere,” Hast claimed. “It can travel at the speed of light to everywhere.”

  “And ‘who’ is that by your account?” Mark asked.

  “It’s the AI revolution,” Hast answered. “Can’t you see that chatting bots like Cortana-x and Siri-z are now in every mobile device and in every pocket. They do talk to people, answer their questions, customize what the users like to see in the social media and very soon they will do miracles. We will be increasingly reliant on them.”

  “This is an interesting analogy, but I’m not convinced to be honest,” Mark said. “And do you think that AI is the Antichrist?”

  “No, the Antichrist is a person with blood and flesh. The Beast which the holy§cript describes could be anything and that is why I suspect AI. I think the Beast is the false prophet who appears in the end-days too.”

  “And what does the false prophet do?” Mark wondered.

  “The false prophet is the one who deceives and lures ordinary people to follow the Antichrist. The Antichrist is yet to reveal himself, but I am guessing he is almost here.”

  “OK, that will be helpful in order to identify him,” Mark said. “So you think the Antichrist is someone who uses AI to his advantage to lure people?”

  “I think so because that is in line with the holy§cript which says that the false prophet works under the Antichrist’s command,” he said.

  “So it could be someone from the US government or Google headquarters for example?”

  “It could be an organization in the beginning, but then someone would be controlling everything. I mean it should boil down to one single person who is evil and responsible for everything.”

  “You think it’s a conspiracy like Illuminati?” Mark suggested.

  “Actually, it’s interesting you brought this up because Illuminati is a code name for the Antichrist,” Hast claimed.

  “Seriously?!” Mark wondered.

  “Yes, the Illuminati word itself originally comes from Anti-Illuhim. However, because the word Anti-Illuhim was a very bold word and has caused a lot of irritation to Abrahamic faith followers, the word was changed to a more subtle one by putting the word ‘Anti’ as a suffix to form Illuhim-Anti, then gradually the word was merged to become Illuminati, which is more secretive but has the same intention,” Hast said.

  “So you think Illuminati is a code name for the Antichrist and both words are used interchangeably?” Mark asked.

  “I do think so,” Hast said.

  “If the Antichrist has one power I should be aware of, what do you think it would be?” Mark asked.

  “Mind control,” Hast answered confidently.

  “I think I should end the meeting here,” he said. “Hast, you have indeed been very helpful.”

  “I don’t quite understand your mission yet,” Hast wondered aloud. “Are you looking for the Antichrist?”

  “Kind of… honestly, I don’t quite believe in the Antichrist, but maybe I’m looking for someone who is trying to play God.”

  “I’m interested in tracking that person too. We should
combine our efforts,” Hast said.

  “I wouldn’t recommend you to,” Mark said. “My mission is risky and complex.”

  “I don’t mind. I would like to save people from the Antichrist,” Hast insisted. “Please understand that tracking that person is more important for me than for you,” he claimed.

  Mark saw determination in Hast’s eyes, and although he wasn’t very religious himself, he had a tendency to believe in the religious prophecies especially in his current case where he detected a pattern of similarity between Hast’s warnings about the Antichrist and Kogar’s warnings about the true intention of TNARK’s project. He thought to himself that two minds reaching a similar conclusion independently shouldn’t be taken lightly. Hence, he decided to share more information with Hast to see if he could be more helpful.

  “OK, I agree but you need to promise me that anything that happens will remain confidential between us.”

  “I promise,” Hast said with an eager voice.

  “When you told me that the Antichrist’s biggest power is mind control, I couldn’t refuse your offer to help me because I think your theological knowledge might be useful in my case,” Mark said.

  “Well, I think too much about the Antichrist. I have read a lot about him, how he looks, how he behaves, and basically everything about him. I might even be able to recognize him if he walked down the street in front of us,” Hast said jokingly.

  Mark laughed. “I bet you could!” He continued, “I’m currently investigating a technology built by TNARK and is widely used by gamers. I fear it could be exploited by someone in the company to control the mind of its users!”

  “Actually, that is what I think the Antichrist would do to control people’s minds; use technology!” Hast said.

  Mark thought for a bit about Hast’s claim that he could identify the Antichrist if he met him. “If you don’t mind, we can visit TNARK’s headquarters in Cambridge, England together and meet some people over there,” he said. “You might spot the Antichrist there!”