Collective Mind by Vasily Klyukin Read Free Book Online Page B

it said that the downloading of Pike’s
creativity had been postponed once again. Probably it had just been another of
his PR moves, so he could announce to the press how high his level was.
    Isaac
clicked the mouse on other tables in the data base. He went into the top 100 of
those who had already downloaded their creativity. Among them he recognized the
name of a celebrated artist, Andrei Sharov. He was a Veggie now, he didn’t make
art any more, but the pictures he had created became world-famous.
    Isaac
recalled the story that had been all over the media. The artist, solitary and
unsociable, never left his studio, scraping by on occasional sales of his
pictures, which were not especially popular. Not a single serious art gallery
wanted to take him on. After all, you see, he hadn’t invented anything
conceptually new, had he? He burned down the garage containing his unsold works
and was one of the first to download. His creativity index turned out to be
astronomical. Of course, they wrote about it in all the newspapers. The
artist’s works were suddenly noticed, and the rush started. His few remaining
works were declared masterpieces, and not a single critic dared to say anything
derisive about them anymore. The owner of a tiny local restaurant, who took
pity on the artist and used to feed him in return for his pictures, received a
lot of money for them. The six works hanging in the dark little restaurant
ended up moving to the National Gallery and they even brought the artist to the
opening. Only he didn’t care any longer about the fame that had suddenly
descended on him.
    Isaac
went back to the table that included Link. Where was he now, this professor?
Isaac wanted to meet Link face to face and tell him what he thought about him.
All about UNICOMA, and the Veggies, and people like Isaac, who were stuck on
the sidelines of life. Link probably read the avalanche of ecstatic articles
about him, so let him hear a different opinion for a change. Isaac wondered why
he had disappeared and why he was hiding. He ought to be held accountable for
what he had done, and for what was happening now, and for what it would all
lead to in the future. What did he think now that his invention had been at
work for seven years?
    The
ideal thing would be to make him destroy the system for integrating creativity.
If he knew how then he would need to convince him, pressure him or ultimately
threaten him. The world was turning into a new goddamned Matrix, only not in
the movies, but for real. Isaac recalled the old film with Keanu Reeves. People
seemed to be alive, but they were asleep, they lived in cocoons, in illusions,
believing that their world was real. What real point was there in being born,
living a quiet life, always toeing the line, and dying? In erasing your
individuality?
    If
Link had managed to build his invention, he would surely be able to destroy it.
Destroying is easier than building if one knows what to destroy. The technology
was classified and hard to get at, but Link ought to know how to do it.
    Isaac
went back to the previous file that mentioned his name and scrolled up and
down, then up again. The names of creativity-carriers who, like him, had their
levels measured, but haven’t yet been downloaded. And as it happened, there
were quite a lot of them.
    Isaac
winced at the title ‘Creativity Carriers’, “What kind of crap was that name?
They’re just normal people who have not sacrificed their singularity. They had
to realize what Isaac had discovered about Coma. Maybe they have already
realized that? Maybe they have known it a long time ago, and Isaac was the only
one who had taken so long to see the light? Today they download creativity,
tomorrow people’s sense of humor, memory, emotions? The dismemberment of a
person’s individuality.
    “Let’s
take a look,” Isaac said to himself, using the mouse to select a random name
from the local list. He stopped at the name Eric Delangle. Just as he