It Looks Like You're Writing a Letter
Chapter 6

"We are facing a threat unlike any we have faced before."

Senator Joseph Rigsby stood in front of a sea of rapt faces in the Oklahoma Dome. His aides estimated an audience of 50,000 and that looked accurate from where he was standing, behind a rostrum on the stage. Banners and placards bobbed in the mass of people, all of whom had come to hear what he had to say.

Rigsby was an all-American male with close-cropped chestnut hair and a deep tan. He always wore his shirt sleeves rolled up after something his father once told him about being seen to get his hands dirty. He was an everyman, popular and well liked. But being in government these days was a different ball game than the one his father had played. The stakes were higher, there were new rules and new paymasters, and the job of politician bore little resemblance to its dictionary definition.

He looked through the holographic autocue and paused for effect. "We have been negligent, I feel, as a country and as a civilisation and now here we are with a behemoth that is out of control, with seemingly no way to stop its progress."

The crowd fell silent. "Every one of us has gladly and freely signed our lives away, and without knowing it we have lost what we once were. Ladies and gentlemen I feel we have lost our very identity to Ora, and by extension given the essence of who we are to OraCorp."

At the mention of the corporate giant, whoops and hollers arose from the throng. This was what they'd come to hear.

Rigsby went on. "Now, you know I have no secrets. I want to be as transparent as possible so you all know where I stand. You may have heard in the news and in the scandal sheets that I was a shareholder of OraCorp and yes - that was indeed true. But, as of the tenth of last month, I sold every single share and item of stock I had in that company and gave the proceeds to charity."

The crowd erupted. The few doubters were now fully won over by this gesture, and nobody saw it for the tax write-off it really was. Rigsby, now more than ever, was one of them. No more ties to the evil empire.

"And you know what? It felt great!" he laughed, flashing perfect white teeth. "Now we can start to do the good work required to regain control of our information, our lives. This isn't about money - it's about our families and our privacy. We need to reclaim the American home for America!"

Applause. He lapped it up, basked in it. His tone took on a darker tone as he continued. "But people, let us not forget how we got here. In the beginning Ora was just a useful tool and we all used it to find our movie times and our cheap plane tickets and the nearest medical centre that took our insurance plan and everything was great. Then Ora started to turn its focus not on the search, but the searcher. It started to collect more information than it gave out, and this was done by degrees. Before we knew it, we were the product that OraCorp would sell - we were data.

"And we told ourselves we didn't mind! We told ourselves that it was a small price to pay to get all those fantastic services, and it was great to have advertising targeted directly to us so we never had to see marketing messages that weren't relevant and we kept on getting those cheap flights didn't we?"

Murmurs bubbled from the crowd. Some members of the crowd started to look at their feet, but he went on. "Bit by bit, our privacy got worn away as we volunteered more and more information, not just about ourselves but about others too. Tagging our friends, filling in the blanks in their profiles for them, checking in to locations with them without their permission, all the while the belly of the beast was getting fuller and fuller, and the bigger that beast became, the more power it had.

"But that's not all! Ora told us we were safer the more it knew about us. They said bad people couldn't live in the shadows, because there were no shadows. Crime rates dropped, investigations got shorter and there were no more concealed weapons on our streets. We lost our privacy but we told ourselves we had nothing to hide, so we had nothing to worry about. I don't know about you good people but I sure do have something to hide!"

The crowd rallied again. Rigsby hollered over the din of mass approval. "I've got plenty to hide from you OraCorp! I've got pictures of my daughter's third birthday I want to hide! I've got my musical taste I want to hide! I've got what I've eaten and who I ate it with I want to hide! I've got my location I want to hide! OraCorp I say to you now - it is my right as an American citizen to hide whatever I damn well please!"

Rigsby's face was red by this point, his fist striking the air with each exclamation. The crowd waved its banners reading "GIVE US BACK OURSELVES OC", "MY DATA = MY LIFE" and "HELL NO, U DON'T NEED 2 KNOW".

Rigsby brought the tempo and volume down. "Now, I know what the lapdogs of this corporation tell us. They say 'but Joe, just take off your arm piece, log out, cancel your subscription' but it's gone too far for that now. I still want access to publicly available information in the same way I expect to be able to walk into a library and read a book. But the point is, the authors of those library books made a conscious and informed choice to put their books into that library, they're not there by default. I think Ora at its heart is a good service, and it does do what they say - brings people together, keeps communities closer and allows for organisation on a global scale, but the price we have to pay is too high. It's just too damn high. The pendulum has swung too far over to OraCorp's side and they've grabbed it and they won't let it swing back.

"If I thought throwing away my arm piece would relinquish the grip that OraCorp has on America and the world, I would toss it away today. But we all know that until we can provide a united voice it would be a drop in the ocean. We have to come together as a world and say 'enough is enough'!"

Rigsby motioned to the Security Forces lining the front of the stage, dressed in full navy blue riot gear. "Who remembers the Police? Remember when that was a public service, delivered by public servants? Not since OraCorp bought it out. Same goes for medical care, schooling, the media, transport, parks and recreation. All owned in full or in part by you know who."

Rigsby laughed bitterly and paused. "Government. You're all smart people, you're switched on, you read the gutter rags and the unofficial scandal sheets and the blogs. Not everything they say is true but you don't need me to tell you that a good proportion of your incumbent administration is on the payroll, directly or indirectly. Democracy is run remotely, from OraCorp hardware using OraCorp software. They can put whoever they damn well please in charge. That's why you'll never see a monopoly investigation in any of the industries where OraCorp dominates. That's why by raising my voice to you good people today I'm putting myself in an impossible situation."

Fifty thousand eyes stared at him, some wet with tears. "Without getting elected to the Presidential office I don't have the power to make changes from the top down. That's why it's up to you - us - to start to turn this ship around. You know I can't use the word 'revolution' without our friends in blue here getting mighty upset, but I'll leave that to your own consciences. Thanks so much for coming out today, think on what you can do and how you can change your relationship with Ora and your arm pieces, and make those changes right now!"

Rigsby was almost pushed back on the podium by the applause and cheering of his rapt flock. He beamed a radiant white smile, waved energetically and was ushered off the grandstand by his bulky, conspicuous aides.

Backstage, Rigsby changed his sweat-drenched shirt and sipped on a bottle of iced water. He unmuted his arm piece and scrolled absent-mindedly through the thousands of notifications that had appeared during his brief time on stage. The reviews were already pouring in as the crowd shared their reactions before they had even left the venue.

"Good reaction today boss," said Shelworth, his right hand man and chief of security with a small 'S', "you really got 'em eating out of your hand."

"Yeah," replied Rigsby wistfully, "if I only knew what good it was going to do. You saw the crowd Shelworth - people are sick of the way things are. I just hope we can make a difference."

"Lot of people travelled a long way to get here boss," said Shelworth, gathering up Rigsby's discarded clothing and stuffing it into a suitcase. Sweat ran off Shelworth's bald head and down where his neck would have been if he had one. Opaque black sunglasses hid any sign of weariness, but he had done this tour every year for the past three years and he hadn't seen any changes in the world.

"That's good, right? Fifty thousand people!"

Shelworth shrugged. "If they've travelled, it's most likely they already saw you in another state. It's not fifty thousand new people."

Rigsby deflected. "Come on Shelworth you big lunk - what does it matter, the faithful will tell their friends and that's how our message will spread, right?"

Shelworth admired his employer's positive attitude and almost child-like belief in himself. But Shelworth saw the other side, the side he and his colleagues tried to keep hidden from Senator Joe. It was getting harder and harder to book these engagements. The traditional conference and speaking circuit was a closed shop, as most of the corporate sponsors were either subsidiaries or affiliates of OraCorp, who were well aware of Joe and his unchanging message.

The death threats and hate mail were getting more frequent too. All Rigsby's mail was forwarded through a specialist mail screening service, which scanned every message for malicious code, kidnap ransoms, compromising photographs (real or faked) and other such unpleasantness. The service was expensive and the bills were mounting up. His employer was on the brink of bankruptcy.

But if Rigsby didn't talk, what would he do? Government was really just a library of figureheads. They changed places every few years, to give the general public the illusion that they were in some way shaping their country's future. In some small way they were - OraCorp would never let a candidate win that they didn't control, but equally the person who got the job would have to be likeable enough that when they delivered on-brand messages they were believed. The motions they proposed would pass with the minimum amount of fuss. If OraCorp had one particular skill above all others, it was convincing the public that any action the company took was in the best interest of the man on the street.

Sadly for Rigsby's career, he would have been the perfect OraCorp stooge. He had morals and an old-fashioned obsession with family, community and doing the 'right thing', whatever that was. As things were, he was going nowhere.

Shelworth liked Rigsby. Compared to some of the politicians he'd worked for over the past twenty years, this guy was relaxed, pleasant and passionate. Shelworth would ride this out until it became untenable and then part ways with no hard feelings.

"Where are we tomorrow my good man?" said Rigsby.

Shelworth checked the itinerary on his arm piece. "Tennessee."

"Fantastic. Come on, let's get back to the hotel, I need to freshen up."

Shelworth gathered up Rigsby's personal effects and strode two steps behind his boss towards a waiting car, very much looking forward to an air-conditioned drive back to the hotel.

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