Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Read online

  “But there’s a point we haven’t touched on yet. And that’s something even scarier than conspiracy theories and the idea of the one percent doing everything in their power to keep the ninety-nine percent in check. And that’s what happens if the Renaissance types themselves go astray?

  “Now you’re fighting more than genius, more than networked minds that can outperform solo geniuses simply by enhancing communication between mediocre minds until they surpass the computing power of any super-thinker. For the Renaissance types are God-infused. Saturated with the divine ground, contiguous with it, there is simply nothing of which they aren’t capable. They’re the stuff superheroes and supervillains are made of. And just one of these going astray is enough to topple the world. And should you get caught in their crosshairs, God help you.”

  They’d put a fair amount of beach sand behind them in the time it took her to get that out. Her lines had been punctuated along the way with faint seagull squalls in the distance. “Don’t you think that corporations are better at birthing the Renaissance types than suppressing them? After all, if it is a game of musical chairs and a dwindling number of jobs for people, then the only way those that remain can continue to survive is by ever-increased cunning and wile. They have to become super-thinkers, super-evolvers in their own right, better actors to play the parts required of them, better manipulators, better at whatever is needed in the moment, as you say.”

  “You’re right, of course. What’s more, you may think you’re arguing against me but you’re actually arguing for me. To put this much power of mind in the service of fear, which is the real coin of the realm in corporate transglobal, can only lead to disaster, for the individual and for entire societies. This much power of mind can only be put in service of the heart.

  “Remember that, and should you get in the crosshairs of one of these Renaissance types who has lost their way, then you have what you need to triumph over them. Heart trumps fear every time.”

  “But certainly those who would seek to manipulate master manipulators themselves, which is what the ruling class turns everyone into who wishes to stay in the game, must realize they can’t con a conman?”

  “The game would seem self-defeating. Because to understand human nature that well, is to ultimately have the keys to the kingdom, to know enough to be able to free yourself from any attempts by anyone to manipulate you. Nothing can stick. No one can press your buttons at this point. You’re right, the machine can make Gods of men.

  “But often times, those that remain in the system too long get addicted to the structure and the control games; they don’t feel they can cope outside of the game itself. So as much as they live to manipulate others, so they live to be manipulated. Again, they may be no less ingenious in the end. But it boils down to a choice of fear versus love, and which you will use to guide you. One leads to the devil, the other to God, speaking colorfully.”

  “I appreciate you cuing me that the rogue Renaissance type is to be feared most of all. I’m not likely to meet the powers that be anytime soon, but I may well run into one of them.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Manny Breakman cut through the throng standing about listlessly at The Lost Souls Club: cops, employees, regents, the hoi polloi. As far as he was concerned, it was all useless distraction.

  Robin Wakefield watched Manny step through the crime scene in the men’s bathroom. Breakman was a bloodhound with a high IQ, who saw the world as made up exclusively of perps and victims. Lately, more of the latter. The more deadpan he played it, the tighter wound he seemed. In his forties, he showed no sign of mellowing. If anything, he appeared more obsessive than ever.

  Manny’s ancestry was Castilian Spanish, but Robin found his look more decidedly Italian. The thick eyebrows sheltered his eyes from everything but the truth. The dense hair on his head was blacker than the polish on his shoes. The chiseled features added to his manly mystique.

  Manny eyeballed the coke, the overdone lipstick, and peek-a-boo dresses. “What do we know about these ‘ladies’ – if you'll pardon the expression?”

  Robin, more than ten years Manny’s junior, knew it was his job to put a good face on "clean slate" personality. To his credit, he knew instinctively what to write down and what not. Then again, the two had been rehearsing their parts for a while now. The dynamic never changed; somehow it fit them on a deep level.

  Robin’s unblemished, baby-faced skin did nothing to undermine the “clean slate” persona. Time remained obstinately ambivalent with what character it was going to carve out of him. Despite being in his early thirties, he had the appearance of a man ten years younger. But it was the pretty-boy looks that really sealed his fate. Once, on a lark, he’d dressed up as a woman for a New Year’s Eve party – and fooled everyone. What emotional scars that incident left, considering all the haranguing from the fellow officers at the precinct, had yet to bubble up to the surface. If Manny didn’t know how to let go, then Robin didn’t know how to hold on, not physically, not mentally, and maybe not emotionally.

  Robin said, “They're college girls getting high in the bathroom. What more do you need to know? And whoever killed them probably feels the same way we do about wasted youth.”

  “A serial killer stalking clueless college kids? We can only hope.”

  Robin realized the gallows humor was meant to deflect tension, no more, though it might be hard to convince eavesdroppers of that.

  The club’s owner leaned over the police tape. “I need this room cleared for business before tonight.” When Manny gave him a searing look, he followed with, “I do lunch daily with the mayor, you hear me? One word from me and this scene will disappear, and so will your careers.”

  Robin held Manny back. “Please let me strangle the little weasel.”

  “Pal,” Robin said, “ask yourself if one mayor trumps pissing off every cop in Berkeley.” The dickhead took the hint, and disappeared into the dark womb of the club’s interior.

  Manny returned his attention to the murder scene, sighed. “I don’t know what these dead bodies indicate exactly—other than a preamble to something way bigger.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You don’t make a statement like this just to fade back into oblivion.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Sitting on the floor in the hall outside Hartman’s class, Spence stared at the photo of his ex-girlfriend in the open leaves of the wallet between his legs. Her eyes functioned well as portals back in time.

  ***

  “Seriously? What guy darns his girlfriend’s stockings?” Spence couldn’t get over the ringing indictment in Victoria’s voice. He buried his nose in the next stitch of the black nylon with the line running up the back of the leg.

  “A guy who loves you completely, utterly, and uncompromisingly,” he said feebly.

  “So what!”

  “So what? What do you mean so what?”

  “I mean, while you’re busy obsessing over me, the world is passing you by. Have you even heard of the People’s Movement? Are you aware some college kids put together The Pirate Party in Berlin, that is the most enlightened thing the western world has ever known?” She held out the magazine coverage for him, shoved it in his face was more like it. “They’re in full support of the People’s Movement that you’ve never heard of. Why? Because you’re preoccupied with this naïve notion love conquers all, that it’s the be-all and end-all of life.” She threw down the magazine. “No,” she said, “love is nothing but a blinder you put on a horse to get it to gallop in a straight line, oblivious to anything that matters.”

  “Okay, maybe I can dial it back a little.”

  “You don’t get it.” She waved her hands in front of her face. “You don’t want to live. You want to cocoon yourself from life in these warm mushy feelings, waiting for what to emerge, exactly?”

  “What’s wrong with wanting to bring a little more love into the world?” The final stocking stitch in place, Spence bit off the thread.

 
“You’re in the fifth of the Buddhist hell worlds, the one with the friendly gods who specialize in surrounding themselves with everything that delights.” She picked up his box of video games and dropped it in front of him. She took out swaths of vintage LPs from the wall-to-wall collection and dropped them on top of the video games. She threw a yardstick’s width of books, which she yanked from their shelves, and threw them on top the pile. “To say nothing of your love for extreme sports.” She pointed Vanna White-like at his bicycle with his bicycle helmet resting on the handlebars before picking up the ultralight bike and throwing it on the pile. The parachute and rock climbing shoes quickly followed. “What about life is so ugly you have to wall it off completely?”

  “You’re right. I have no clue what you’re talking about.” He set the hosiery down, neatly pressed it against the glass coffee table, and reached for the next nylon in need of surgical intervention.

  Victoria let out a primal scream. She stripped off her clothes en route to the shower, exposing her scoliotic spine, making her movements look all the more serpentine. She stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, stepped into the shower, and turned the showerhead to full blast. Spence watched the steam rising from under the door.

  He paced the floor, not knowing how to channel the rising anxiety. He dusted off the pictures of the two of them. He picked up the clothes she shed before making it to the bathroom, and tossed them into the washing machine. He turned the dial on the settings and waited to hear the satisfying sound of the water surging in.

  “If it weren’t for me doting over you, you wouldn’t make it through the day,” he mumbled.

  “I’m in the shower!” she shouted. He put two and two together, and switched the dial on the temperature options of the washing machine from hot to cold.

  Back in the living room, he picked up a newspaper. “The Jurassic Park trilogy is showing tonight at the Roxie,” he bellowed through the closed bathroom door. “You know, the series about people who ought to know better?”

  ***

  Chad found Spence with his back against the wall outside Hartman’s class. He was staring at a photo of his ex, still inside the wallet. His eyes were so bloodshot they looked as if he hadn’t blinked since yesterday, for fear of losing track of her forever.

  Chad made it a point never to get overly involved with anyone; it was just too damned exhausting. There was no such thing as a relationship that wasn’t high maintenance. As to why people came busted and overly needy, well, that was more a question for Hartman, and for people who could be bothered to do more than just identify the patterns. He was giving serious thought to the perks of becoming asexual. All the same, Spence was seriously endangering the reputation of all men everywhere by carrying on like this in public, necessitating that Chad intervene.

  “Come on, big guy. Five minutes with Hartman, and the pain of your ex will seem like a vacation,” Chad said, lifting him by the arm. “I swear, you’re a different person when you’re around me. The actor in you comes right out. I guess you need a jumpstart.”

  Spence brightened immediately. “Right back at ya, buddy. I remember when you were a passionate hothead about everything. You spent more time in Sproul Plaza behind some banner than you spent in class.”

  “I remember those days,” Chad said. “I don’t miss ’em though.”

  ***

  The lecture hall in UC Berkeley’s philosophy building that was at Hartman’s disposal, though small, still boasted stadium seating. The all-wood surfaces, from the continuous arcing shared desktops and benches, to the concave walls, conveyed ironic warmth, considering the tone of Hartman’s lectures of late, Jeannie thought.

  A sweep of the room revealed the rest of the students waiting restlessly for him to arrive.

  Lorie sported a copy of The Marriage Plot on her desktop; book-name dropping being the quickest way to make friends in Berkeley, providing one chose wisely. If one accidentally tossed a copy of a Roland Barthes book in one of the public trash tins, after pulling a copy of Twilight out of one’s backpack and zealously turning to the final pages, this was considered more than adequate grounds for public humiliation. Jeannie knew from personal experience.

  A row down and to Jeannie’s right, Spence bumped shoulders with Chad. “You think he finally did it?” Spence said.

  “What? Offed himself? Why should he, when he can vent at us?”

  “I'm just saying, when this guy blows – I want to be watching it on the Discovery Channel.”

  “Discovery Channel? He’s not an ape.”

  “Whichever one has the series on hoarders. You know, the nutcase network?”

  Eavesdropping on the banter, Jeannie smiled.

  “Will you let it go, already?” Chad whispered a little too forcefully.

  “It's called focus, my friend. Seriously, you think he killed himself?”

  Chad just sank into his chair, tuned him out with earplugs and his iPod.

  Upon quietly entering from the highest point in the room, Hartman walked past Spence and Chad, overhearing the last part of their conversation. They had a paradoxical effect on his mood. Jeannie noticed the extra bounce in his step.

  “Hey, doc! Feeling better?” Adam asked exuberantly, hoping his sunny nature would shed some light on the stern professor.

  Hartman said, “Actually, yes. Sometimes it helps to let out a little steam. Keeps you from entirely blowing your lid.”

  “I'm telling you, man, you want to survive the news, Jon Stewart's your guy,” Adam said, still convinced he could tutor someone with three times his IQ.

  Hartman chuckled. Maybe he felt good enough today to ease off the browbeating campaign, Jeannie thought. “Okay, who's got something for me?” he asked. It was how he began all his classes.

  Adam gestured to Jeannie. “Hey, I'm tired doing all the heavy lifting around here.” He was referring to his role as mood-moderator.

  “Unlike you, I don't aspire to be a suck up,” Jeannie whispered a little too loudly in his ear, not much caring who heard.

  “Finals tomorrow,” Adam murmured.

  Jeannie didn’t need any more incentivizing. On a dime, she slipped into character with the most honeyed persona in her repertoire of sycophantic alters. “We were just thinking that it's— I don't know, game over, you know? I mean...”

  “The corporations have all the money and power to buy all the laws and legislators they need. We play by their rules or else,” Adam chimed in, coming to her rescue. Taking a second to think about what he was saying, he gathered some steam. “So, of course, we escape into video games, books, and movies.”

  “That's good, Adam,” Hartman said supportively. “But you're still not seeing the big picture. People, having no wriggle room to do anything but what they're told...” Hartman paced the room, successively making eye contact with his students. “…No chance to test their mettle in the real world, are caving in under the pressure. Losing what remains of their humanity.

  “We discover who we are, after all, and what we’re made of, struggling against insurmountable odds. But there still has to be hope of success, however small, which is lost when there’s a sense that the game is fixed. The hopelessness puts an end to the struggle, and consequently to any opportunity for growth.”

  Hartman picked up the iPad on Spence’s desk, waved it. “The cyber-identities we don to escape that sense of hopelessness are not wholly without interest, maybe even valuable for detached, informed insight into ourselves; but they hardly suffice at forging a whole person.” He tossed the iPad back on the desk. “After all, why be incarnate in the physical world at all, if all you can gain access to is virtual reality? And is the videogame designer, moreover, interested in helping you get over yourself, or in feeding your addiction?”

  He glared at Murray almost confrontationally. “Even when you see makeshift heroes popping up, which in this down economy would almost have to take the form of entrepreneurs, they seem malformed, missing any number of necessary virtues
to be of much use to humanity. They’re hence unable to stand on their own. Like a tree growing in the shade, they grow crooked until they fall over. Ironically, the only place we can find well-rounded people anymore is on TV, as a well-crafted illusion created by our best writers. We watch them to learn how to be real, week after week, never quite able to pull it off ourselves. They’re not more heroic because they have fewer flaws, but because they are determined to overcome them, in an effort to be whole, and to do whatever they have to in order to obtain their goals. But you can role model a way of being all you want to people. Absent the proper growth medium, it never quite sticks because it really isn’t adaptive to their situation.”