Think or Swim: Part XI

"This is going to be dangerous and expensive, Mao," said Murphy Van Hool.
They had crossed over from Avenue Louise and were strolling towards Tenbosch, a public park in Ixelles popular with retired Eurocrats.

"How much?" asked Mao.
"Each case is different," replied Murphy. "I really can't say, but we'll be dealing with gangsters so I'd advise you to give them what they ask for. You don't want to owe these people money and you don't want them coming after you, either."

Mao fell silent as they entered the park.

"Some of these probably voted for the Irish Exclusion Act," said Murphy, looking at the well-dressed, silver-haired men and women admiring the exquisite landscaping. They stopped and sat on a seat by the high wall that helped make Tenbosch an oasis of tranquillity in busy Brussels.

"OK, Murps. What's the scenario?" asked Mao, as a angry-looking dark dog and its owner, a sturdy woman wearing a heavy green coat and what looked like a man's green hat, embellished with feathers, approached.

After waiting for the odd couple to pass by, Murphy began outlining Mao's future life.

She would deliver his profile to a Basque "businessman" who would manufacture a number of "digital families" for Mao. For a considerable sum of money, of course.

"You won't get to meet him," said Murphy. "So don't ask. It's a secret community, and I've never met him either. They don't like outsiders."

She explained how nothing about Mao in the future would be true. The identity on his communicator wouldn't be his own and his past would be a sham as well.

"If this involves identity theft..." said Mao.

"What's false and what's true is never as it seems," said Murphy, explaining that Mao would be entering a provisional world in which telling lies did not necessarily mean articulating falsehood. If it happened in the future that he had to reveal his identity, it would just be a layer behind which another identity existed.

"I'm going to be an outcast!" Mao said and smiled.

He thought of all the different jobs he could do, depending on the qualifications the Basques would create for him. Maybe he'd become a tennis coach, a recent fantasy, and he pictured the lonely wives he'd sleep with, "grass court widows", whose husbands were off working in Greenland.

"Yes. You'll be an outcast, and if you get caught, you'll be in very deep shit," said Murphy, ending Mao's daydream.

"But there is an alternative to prison, if the nab you," and she outlined the EUSA Admission Programme, which offered amnesty to those who confessed their "alienage". Mao would be expected to name names and if he did, Murphy and her friends could expect harsh consequences.

"Murphy, do you know anything about China's historical ambivalence towards the developed world?" asked Mao.
She looked at him, but couldn't manage a response.
"Because if you did, Murphy, you'd never even think for a second that I'd betray you."