houses-of-parliament.jpgHe said it was playing with fire. Bannister - the Government man - said that. Right from the beginning, when I first proposed the project, he was against it. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘it’s safe; it’s only cyberspace; it isn’t real.’
‘You don’t know what it is,’ Bannister said. ‘Nobody’s ever done anything like this before.’
‘Look, Bannister, I’m Merlin Jones, the greatest computer wizard in the world. And I know. Believe me.’
And I won. And in an isolated part of the Yorkshire Moors the Virtual Project went ahead. I built my project, and Flash and Gem Pearl came with me to run it.
‘This is magic,’ said Flash, a young, skinny, bespectacled protege. ‘We can do anything in here.’
Gem flicked her blonde hair out of her eyes. ‘Well don’t get any ideas, spotty. Leave my electronic vibes alone.’
I could see Flash was thinking, now that’s a thought, as he ran his adolescent eyes down her body. ‘I can see I’ll have to check for unauthorised input,’ I said.
Gem flashed her accusing eyes at me. ‘So, it’s built. What we going to do with it?’
I smiled. ‘Well, Bannister said if the government was going to put up the money, then we have to have ideas to help the government. ‘
‘Which means what?’ asked Flash.
‘Which means waffle. Do the odd job for THEM, and then play and learn ourselves.’
But Bannister soon came up with a whole load of jobs for us. And one of the first was to see if our new form of cyber¬space had predictive qualities. It was a simple idea, really. Plugged up to most of the nets around the world, we had a massive input of data. Hence, Bannister suggested, use that data to create cyber situations and see if we could predict what was going to happen.
So that is exactly what we did. And to get a feel for the game, I fed in a perfect plan of Westminster. Then, walking into the chamber, I immediately felt the electromagnetism - it kind of tingled the skin until you got used to it. And then, whoosh! - there I was on a nice sunny day walking up Whitehall, surrounded by tourists and government officials busying themselves.
‘This is so real,’ I said, and Gem’s voice immediately pulsed in my head. ‘So let me in there to beat up Flash.’
Ignoring her comment, it was, however, clear that not everything was sweetness and light. The government - was unpopular, and as people walked by the net fed this loathing, with everyone having something derogatory to say about the government. But then, through the corner of my eye, I noticed the one man who seemed calm.
He was about six foot tall with short-cropped blonde hair and he was dressed completely in black. For some reason the net wanted me to focus on this guy. Why, I had no idea. But I was soon to learn why.
The Prime Minister’s official car came gliding down Whitehall. I could see the gates to Downing Street opening, and as the car disappeared inside, I saw the black clad man disappear through a door. Quickly, I followed.
It was, of course, easier than I thought. After all, this was a cyber world and here, I had special powers. Such as walking through walls, and all that. And eventually I found myself in a small foyer somewhere in 10 Downing Street. And as a door opened, and the Prime Minister walked in, the black clad man raised a gun.
Maybe it was a natural instinct, as if I really was in the real world. But I grabbed that guy, raised his arm high and the gun fired into the ceiling. And it was at that point I decided to cancel the game for the day.
‘Well I don’t understand it,’ said Flash. ‘It worked out an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister.’
‘That’s right. I think I’d better let them know. ‘
Hence, I picked up the phone and asked to speak to the Government man. Eventually, he came to the phone, breathless.
‘What you want, Jones,’ he said, ‘I’m kind of busy.’
‘I just thought you ought to know,’ I said. ‘The game has just predicted an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister. It may sound stupid, but he was about six foot tall with blonde hair and dressed in black.’
There was an intense silence at the other end of the line. ‘Bannister?’ I said, ‘you there?’
He was. But he was reeling. So was the whole of the security service, busy hushing it up, but at the same time investigating the dark clothed assassin who appeared from nowhere, and vanished just as quick.
‘So it works,’ said Gem. ‘I don’t know how, but we really predicted an assassination attempt.’
Flash and Gem were elated. As for me, I wasn’t so sure. As for me, I wondered what I’d created here. And for days after the game I couldn’t help thinking, had I predicted an outcome, or had we, in some not-yet-understood way, caused it?

© Anthony North, March 2008

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