FUTURES RESEARCH

9013 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND 

We must have docked during the night. The crew usually arranged it that way, so the islanders wouldn't get in the way of what could - in a matter of moments - become a very dangerous manoeuvre. Despite all the modern technology which otherwise surrounded them, it was winches pulling on massive hawsers which brought the island those last few feet into contact with the dock. Should one of those cables break, a not unknown situation, it could smash nearby spectators to bloody pulp.

As the auto-butler raised the shades of my apartment, I could see the shuttlecopters already ferrying impatient islanders to the mountains in the far distance. Mixed in with them were even some airliners taking the richer citizens to the more exclusive resorts beyond. Such people were so anxious to set foot on dry land, or in this case on rather wet snow, that they would happily pay the first day premium. I didn't feel that confined by the island's boundaries; otherwise I wouldn't have made it my home. It was true that it was one of the older, and accordingly smaller, islands; barely a mile across. But this meant that it could squeeze into most of the old-time favourite locations. Some of the larger islands couldn't even enter the Mediterranean. Even within its square mile, however, it contained everything I needed for a comfortable life. I was in no way imprisoned on it. In any case, though the 5,000-foot runway wouldn't take the larger jumbos, regular shuttle services always ran to the nearest points on the mainland.

Today, almost as a gesture against those neurotics roaring away on their first-day jaunts, I determined to concentrate on work. Indeed, the only trip I had so far booked was for the series of seminars I was due to run with the students of the Polar University. As a free-lance lecturer on the Web I supported students across the world, as I would be doing any minute now. One of the joys of islands life, however, was that from time I could also meet them face to face. I didn't make these visits for the scenery; in reality, almost any lecture theatre looks like any other, Indeed, at the South Pole such scenery as there was was hidden from sight, since all the buildings were below the surface. But it was nice to see the students in the flesh. Perhaps vidwall meetings were almost as good, but they were not quite the same thing as pressing flesh! Enough of reminiscences, I must get on with work. My flat was small, as befits a bachelor, and as was determined by the high cost of floor space on the island. But the limit on space was offset by the quality of the technology. The kitchen was only a series of cupboards, but it contained everything I needed. In any case, I ate most meals out; for there was every possible type of restaurant where I could eat in comfort with my friends. The bathroom was separate, though minute, and again it catered to my every need; as did the 'bedroom', which simply emerged from the wall of the main room. If I ever wanted for more, and I rarely did, the rooms in the 'honeymoon' hotel could be rented by the hour! Best of all, at the other end of the room was my office. It had every bit of electronic gadgetry your heart might ever desire, with immediate access to all the knowledge of the universe - and to my students!

My first task for the day was to hold a tutorial for some of my students in the Asian time zone; for them it was the evening and - as part-time students - this was when they could study. At this tutorial, thanks to the vidwall computers without which our lives would have been so much poorer if not impossible, I appeared to be seated not at my desk but at a circular conference table; around which were spread all eight of the students. I followed a well-established routine, starting with a prepared pitch on the latest unit of the course. But as soon as possible I switched into the dialogue which is essential to the best tutoring. This was probably the most fun part of my work. I learned from them as much as they learned from me. As a result, the experience was often more stimulating than any drug high. Incidentally, in case your files are ever officially scrutinised, let me make it clear that I banned performance-enhancing drugs from these sessions. In fact, this was not because I object to their use, indeed I think their use is almost essential for many knowledge workers. It was simply that they got in the way of my understanding how much each student was actually getting out of the tutorial. I guess, though, the most important measure is how much they think they are getting out of it. All I can say is that they keep coming back year after year for more!

After an hour of that intellectual pressure I needed to relax. Tutorials are great fun, but like any other theatrical performance they are hard work! So I took myself off to the fitness centre, just two minutes away from my front door by 3D lift; for my morning workout. As this was a regular routine, I found two of my friends already waiting there to offer some competition. A coffee in the centre's lounge and it was back to my office for my next stint of work - researching the new course unit I was nearly ready to write. My agents were waiting for me when I opened my desktop, loaded with what they thought were useful items of information. As always, I discarded the greater part of these. The sorts of agents I can afford have a level of intelligence somewhere between a mouse and a cat - and accordingly have difficulty telling the difference between chalk and cheese. But they continue to learn, so - I fervently hope - some day I will spend less of my time despatching their hard-won gifts to the dustbin. But they are necessary for my job. I couldn't personally afford the endless hours they spent trawling the vastness of the Net on my behalf. So, I gratefully gave them an electronic pat on the head, to reward them for their successes and to help teach them which were the most suitable selections. Then I sent them on their next hunt.

At this stage of my work the academic framework was more or less complete, so what I was looking for was almost decoration; pieces to flesh out this skeleton - to give an aesthetically pleasing effect. It was like completing a vast jigsaw. With all the various pieces scattered over the vidwall in front of me, it even looked like that. But, using the various keyboards and mice connected to the three work screens below the glass top of my desk, I could immediately open any element of the jigsaw; and, beneath the top level, there lay all the nested layers of information that I had gathered. It was almost like a fractal, a Mandelbrot where new pictures emerged every time you went further in. But, and this was the key part, it was pleasing to my eyes; to the educational artist inside of me. There were very few elements left to add, the masterpiece was almost complete.

The timing was good - albeit almost fortuitously so - for that afternoon I was meeting with the other members of the course team. This was to be the key meeting, the handing over of the D1, the first draft which would for the first time show the real shape of the unit. The D0, the previous stage three months or so before had, as always, only been an educated guess. Now, with most of the research behind me, I would be backing up that hunch with facts. It was an important milestone in the whole development process, so the whole team would take part in the conference. The editors, designers and software specialists would be there as well, since they needed to understand, as early as possible, what was going to be demanded of them. But the real targets for the presentation of my ideas were the four fellow academics who would then take the written material away and digest it. They would, indeed, tear it to pieces - nobody, least of all myself, was allowed to avoid this most intense of academic scrutinies.

It always amazed people that co-operatives, such as ours, could produce creative work by committee; but the proven reality was that we could! The secret, I suppose, was that the creative responsibility still lay with one person - in this case me! It was my sole responsibility, though it takes a brave academic to totally flout the suggestions of his peers. But, given the correct team chemistry, these suggestions can be magic. I have long since recognised that I do not have the monopoly on good ideas. I almost thirst for the input from the other members of the team. So it was that day. It would be some weeks before their final judgement was in. But even in that first cut, the couple of hours we spent around the conference table in cyberspace, I began to see the shape of an even more powerful unit emerging.

While the experience was fresh in my mind, I made a few notes; strategically placed on my jigsaw. But, once again, after such an intellectual marathon I needed to relax. I was tempted to leave my office once more and indulge in another of the island's attractions; another workout, perhaps a sport, or one of the artistic workshops, or a theatrical production - as a member of the audience or of the cast - or just coffee with a friend in one of the themed lounges. But I knew that, with backlog of work filling up my in tray, I had to have some rigour in my life. So, in the late afternoon and early evening - before I took the tutorials in my own time zone - my time was dedicated to my personal research project. It could not be said that it was a labour of love; it was more of a painful obsession. It had started out as just an interest in what made managers successful, and in particular in what the new performance enhancers had to offer. In this context, the most obvious problem was that my biomedical knowledge was non-existent, and that of experimental psychology was even worse. But something about the topic fascinated me. So I researched the one aspect of the problem I could handle; the data. I am not a statistician, and I intuitively distrust the pictures the computers paint when all I can see is randomness. But I have always been good at finding pictures of my own; in unrelated data sets that others would never have considered associating.

Thus it was that I stumbled on the tenuous connection which some say made me famous; rather more would say infamous. I had examined almost every facet of management success, consolidating the whole range of performance databases held by everyone from McDonalds to the ILO. It was deadly dull work, as is most academic research. You only hear about the few exciting successes. You are never told about the endless wasted hours looking at tables of statistics that turn out to mean nothing. To my regret I had found nothing new. The few times I had yelled 'Eureka' had turned out to be false dawns. A subsequent search had each time found a paper, albeit in an obscure journal, which reported much the same results; and the one way to commit academic suicide is to 'plagiarise' other's discoveries! With ultimate failure staring me in the face, I was now bent on exploring innovation. This was perhaps the most controversial topic of all, and the stamping ground of some of the worst snake-oil consultants ever likely to pop up on your vidwall.

The classic story about academic work in the field was told to me in one of my preliminary interviews. The president of a large food supplier, my interviewee was renowned for launching one of the most innovative new food products; one of the outstanding recent successes in his industry sector. Before my interview with him I had read the reports of a number of other interviews, in which he carefully laid out all the steps, classically recommended by market theorists, which had led to the innovation. The even larger number of papers by others, which explained how - using their beloved theory - he must have achieved his success, showed how well the snake-oil merchants had done their job. I don't know why, maybe he was bored with repeating the same old story or maybe he just wanted to shut down the interview and move on to his next meeting, but - after swearing me to strict secrecy - he proceeded to tell me a very different version. In this one he had been simply mowing his lawn one Sunday morning when the idea, fully formed, came to him. Astonished by this volte-face, I asked him why he had perpetrated the previous myth. "My fellow CEOs would never have accepted the truth!" He was, of course, correct. As I could not name the individual or his corporation, and you will gather I still can't, the 'scoop' was worthless. But even if I had chosen to break this confidence, nobody would have believed me either! Snake-oil is a very pervasive, and persuasive, commodity.

I would have said that this was the low ebb in my researches, but it had continued downhill even after that. The classical measures of innovation were crude, developed to support each snake-oiler's own gimmick, and seemingly unrelated to any of the others. Only now, exploring Hathaway's idea of 'outsiders', was I making any headway. For once, there did seem to be some correlation between major innovations and the fact that their innovators were 'outsiders'. Thus, a surprising number of innovators in earlier generations had been immigrants, or homosexuals, or just plain eccentric; and were clearly located 'outside' of the main traditions of their societies. Fortunately for them, but possibly unfortunately for society, such categories were no longer seen as outsiders - and accordingly had become less important as sources of such innovations. But the historical patterns were there to be seen, and it was these that had started Hathaway on his own research programme. As a result, the concept was now ingrained in sociographic tests. These were widely used, for everything from subscriptions to free trade journals to screening for management positions. As a result millions of standardised tests were conducted every year; providing vast amounts of data for researchers like myself.

My own entry into this strange world was through the vast databases held by dating agencies. On the electronic networks through which our modern society made most of its contacts, the opportunities for boy to meet girl - for a steady relationship or a one-night stand - were often quite limited. So we almost all, at one time or another, resorted to the dating agencies; of which there were literally thousands on the web, with specialists to cater for every strange taste. I myself had occasionally used them, for a change from the necessarily limited fare which my round of activities on the island exposed me to. Even so, I had not used some of the marginal agencies, which looked, to me at least, very risky prospects - often emphasising danger rather than romance. On the other hand, the more mainstream agencies used the sociographic tests responsibly to match their clients. The 'tests' were not known as 'psychographs', since the clinical terminology had been known to put off the more shy applicants - so the most popular pseudonym was 'love matching'. On the other hand, though the questions may have been disguised by the more romantic terminology, the process was very much the same; and the resulting data well suited my needs. It covered almost all of the population and, most important, was open to me as a registered researcher.

Amongst the mass of data, which lay before to me, was literally millions of tests for 'outsider' status. When I eventually ran these records against the much smaller number of 'innovation' indices which were available I immediately hit the jackpot. Here, at last, was a dramatic correlation. But it was, as I already knew, one which had classically reported by Hathaway; and then elaborated on by dozens of later researchers. It had even become a cause celebre on the web-jockey shows. Can you make your children outsiders, so they can become entrepreneurs and support you in your old age? Is child abuse really good for them?

Continuing my so far unrewarding trawl of the data, I moved on to specifically explore the impact of I37. This was the most recently marketed performance drug. Derived from the LSD group of drugs developed in the last century, the unfortunate side effects - 'bad trips' - had been removed; as years of clinical testing had proved. I did not believe the suggestion, buried in the advertising, that Einstein had used it, but it was generally supposed to safely increase creativity by more than fifty per cent. Sure enough, my own research results - fortunately the dating agencies found it advisable to ask about all drugs their clients used - showed much the same result for the general population. But that too was old hat; it was even featured in the tag line of the advertising for the brand. The shock came when I finally ran this factor against the series of historical data I had accumulated on outsiders. Although there were few examples, the result was shattering; in a totally unexpected way. The outsiders who took the drug didn't show different patterns, they simply didn't record any at all; indeed they just disappeared from the record! I don't mean that they showed no improvement. I mean that they literally removed themselves from the agencies' files. Again, it wasn't that they simply closed their accounts. No, the actual records disappeared. Indeed, according to the agencies' records, they had never even been clients. Only my own copies of these records belied this. Widening the search, I instructed my agents to find these individuals on the other databases. But they were no longer to be found anywhere. Once more they only existed in my records. Otherwise they literally had never existed; for it was impossible to exist in our day and age without leaving some form of electronic trace.

It was such an unusual finding that, even though I did not recollect hearing of it, I set my agents to unearthing any reference to a paper which would have a bearing on the subject, and might explain the phenomenon. Perhaps I was being unduly pessimistic, but my previous experience had shown that there was almost no such thing as a new discovery. In the morass of data that was spewed out by researchers around the world, someone somewhere would have beaten you to the draw. As the hours went by, however, and my agents reported no success, my spirits began to rise. Perhaps, at last, there was a new discovery which I could claim as my own.

Uplifted by the prospect of at long last being able to publish a learned paper on a subject which had not already been looted by others, I withdrew my agents from this task. Instead, I set them to unearth any other outsiders who had recently taken I37. As it was a new drug I was not surprised to find that they only found a dozen of them in total. I was surprised, and indeed excited, to find that - when I checked back on the agents' findings - these individuals no longer existed. Every single one of them had seemingly disappeared from the agencies' records Again, only the records brought back by my agents showed otherwise. Indeed, only ten of them now showed any previous history anywhere; and, as I watched, even these were picked off one by one. By the end of the week, not one of them had any history. Not even a credit card transaction could be traced to their name! As I watched the last of them disappear, however, all hell broke loose; as my own system came under virus attack from literally hundreds of different directions. In an instant my files were destroyed. Indeed, as the environmental systems of my apartment blinked on and off several times, I assumed that - such was the thoroughness of the assault - even the island's central computers had been attacked.

Fortunately I had, for once, taken a printout of the key data. These days nobody uses printers for their day to day work. It is so much easier, and safer, to keep your scribblings on the electronic systems. But it was those infallible systems which had just been so thoroughly destroyed; though nobody expects an electronic war to break out on your doorstep. Anyway I did have that printout, and there was nothing I could do about the war being waged around me. Indeed, the best I could do was shut down and leave the scene of the crime. So I did just that. I turned my back on the electronic mess in my office and retreated to my window seat. There I mused on the piece of paper in front of me.

Outside, at least, the scene was calm. Life still went on. Far below I could see trucks crossing the loading ramp with supplies to restock the island. But the shuttlecopters had finished their day's work, and the skies were clear - so that I could appreciate the pure beauty of the snow-capped Munro Kerr Mountains in the far distance. I was used to magnificent scenery, that was after all one of the main reasons for living on the island. I could curl up on my window seat and face a new vista every few weeks. The view was constantly changing as we moved from country to country, from continent to continent. The special attraction of the scene I was then looking at was the pristine freshness of this as yet undeveloped continent. The snow that covered the peaks really was dazzlingly white, the air was sparkling clear. Excluding the narrow strip of habitation alongside which we lay, the whole view, to the far peaks was untouched by any polluting human hand.

Everywhere else the land by the coasts was already destroyed by over-development. Not much of it was used for industry; though the vast factories - whose production lines poured out the enormous caissons around which the islands were built - necessarily had to take some space on the least developed shores of the Sahara. Soon, though, even these were due to be built over. The fitting out industries had already retreated to float in mid-Atlantic; and had become tourist attractions in their own right; where there was little else to see on the islands' treks from America to Europe. Now the real villains were the variety of human habitations, mostly expensive apartment blocks, on the coast. Each one claimed a 'sea-view', but itself destroyed the view from the opposite direction! From the point of those of us at sea, they did at least hide the endless stretches of suburbia on which they so expensively turned their backs. Though my reverie, promoted by the beauty of the scene in front of me, lasted a few minutes it had the usual calming effect.

But then my eyes fell once more on the few pieces of paper in my hands. Just a dozen names, accompanied by the barest of personal details. What was I to do with them? With the trails broken, and rapidly going cold, there was little I could do. There are many advantages to island life, but searching cities for missing persons is not one of them - at least not once your electronic umbilical is cut. But, then, one item did leap at me from the paper. One of the addresses was in Polar City, where I was scheduled to be in just two days time. This was good fortune indeed, but the stroke of luck ran even deeper. There were only a hundred thousand or so citizens who had chosen to live in this wasteland city. What was more, the address given was in the exclusive neighbourhood alongside the university where I would be giving my tutorials. Best of all, the citizens of Polar City, isolated as it was, developed closer links to their neighbours than those in most other places did. In that respect it was rather like island life. Outsider this guy might be, but even he would have had difficulty in avoiding contact with those neighbours.

Two days later I sat in my usual position of power, at the focus of a semicircle of my students. This part of my job was pure ego-trip. A few of my colleagues used the privilege to seduce the more suggestible of their nubile young students - male and female! I eschewed anything like that. It was not just that it was dangerous; although the result of exposure - which was almost inevitable when you took into account all the electronic surveillance systems which followed our every move there - was instant dismissal; and just possibly a custodial sentence. In my case, however, it was that I valued their on-going intellectual stimulation more than the few moments of physical pleasure they might offer. Today, for once, I had even weightier things on my mind, and - where I normally savoured each delicious moment - I almost raced through the class. I had carefully planned my excursion that afternoon, using the paper systems in the island's extensive library; I did not want to attract the attention of my attacker again, though I suspected that he or she was still watching me. Thus, I knew exactly how to reach my target's home - it was just a few minutes walk away. I also knew the location of the few print repositories which might have details of the family's previous lives.

 Their home, when I found it, spoke of some affluence. It even had its own garden, a great luxury under the polar dome. But, otherwise, it didn't shout out any obvious other aspects of the owner's character. On the other hand, it did clearly display a 'for sale' sign, with a 'sold' sticker over it. In an age when almost all commercial transactions were carried out through the web, this was a quaint hangover from earlier times. But estate agents still used such signs as advertising sites when all other such hoardings were now banned. More important, though, it offered me one more lead to follow up later. I pressed the button on the intercom next to the door. But, as I had expected, there was no answer. The house was obviously empty. Talking to the neighbours proved, on the other hand, rather fruitful. They reported that the couple who had lived there, with their two children, had moved out suddenly a few days ago. It was true that the family hadn't mixed that much with the local community; but the neighbours had seen enough of them to consider them pretty average. He worked for government, but then so did most people at Polar City. He was some sort of data researcher, but then again so were many government employees. She, on the other hand, was a sales rep for a data association. Where selling was almost always now over the web, her remote location posed no problems - though, presumably, she still had to have the rare vidwall presence needed for the job. According to the neighbours they had both seemed quite upset when his government department had decided to move him at such short notice. But, it seemed to me, they were clearly the sort of people who went wherever the husband's job sent them - even though that was a rarity these days.

Apart from an enduring image of steadfast normality, I had no better a feel for my target. I got much the same response when I finally tracked down the local office of the government department in which he had worked. It had handled his personal records, but he had taken them with him when he was suddenly been posted, and they remembered even less about the family than the neighbours. Their reason for his sudden move was, however, quite different from that given by the neighbours. As they remembered it, he had suddenly inherited money, and had to rush off and claim it. The estate agent gave much the same explanation. His possessions, neatly containerised, had left by air freighter only the day before I was there - but, of course, they could find no record of where they had gone, and one anonymous container lost somewhere amongst the billions which now litter the planet looks much like another. The money from the sale would, I was sure, also disappear into an electronic vacuum. In any case, I had no time for any deeper investigations, I had to get back to the island; it waited for nobody, and departure was scheduled for that night. The detective stories of old could allow for patient waits on the doorsteps of suspects. Modern life didn't! In any case, I was no detective - and the island still awaited me.

Over the next few weeks I tracked a dozen or so more disappearances; and each time my files were destroyed. But I did manage to keep enough printed material to allow me to talk, electronically, to some of their neighbours. Much good it did me. The story was very much the same in each case. A sudden job move was invariably the reason given. At the same time I tried to talk to the drug's manufacturer. In this case, however, none of the wide variety of communications media at my disposal, including the ones that were by law supposed to produce a mandatory reply, succeeded. All failed to elicit any response whatever.

With this experience still in my mind, I convinced myself that it was a classic case. The manufacturer had a fortune to lose, literally billions of dollars. Even in our enlightened age, a hired gun was not impossible to find, and was often still the cheapest solution to such embarrassing problems. But I simply couldn't work out how the drug company knew what was happening before I did. Furthermore, it was clear that, in all the cases that I had investigated, the families had seemingly conspired in their own disappearances. In each case it had been the husband, often accompanied by the wife, who had made all the arrangements. It was true that they had appeared very rushed, sometimes even excited, but that could be explained by the speed at which they were being decanted from their previous lives. Were their children being held as hostages, in some ghastly plot? But again there was no evidence. The one and only positive link was that between the use of the drug and the disappearance of the families. Unfortunately, even then I was certain that the drug manufacturer would manage to stop publication of any paper on this subject. Journal editors were edgy enough about controversial material at the best of times. Throw in a possible defamation suit and they would run a mile.

Finally, after a number of months during which the evidence which I was collecting grew steadily, I could stand no more; and took the route which many 'green' activists still chose. I distributed copies of my report - suitably sanitised so that it was not easy to prove its authorship - across the 'underground' web sites which specialised in scandalous, and often scurrilous, news. The result was, as I had known it would be, a full-blown scandal. The drug company was subjected to investigation by every agency under the sun, and its share price was halved almost overnight, but nobody ever found the smoking gun needed to prosecute them. In fact, the company was more devious than I had allowed for. I was certain that they would at least give me my time in court before destroying me, but they set up a 'straw-man' - claiming to be the perpetrator - who very publicly recanted; leaving me no further ammunition to use. Anonymity can be a two-edged sword in such circumstances! Even so, the company did add 'outsiders' to the list of contra-indications on the instructions for use of the drug; they didn't want to be hit by any law-suits themselves. As a result, the number of individuals I was still tracking dried to a trickle. I consoled myself with the thought that at least I had saved some families from a horrible fate; but I still didn't know what that fate was.

After a suitable interval, though, I was visited personally by a smart-suited lawyer. This was a rare event, where electronic communications were the norm, even when a physical visit doesn't call for you to drop in on one currently travelling in the Indian Ocean. His first action was to sweep my apartment for hidden bugs! Only when he had satisfied himself that there were no eavesdroppers did the blandishments start to flow. On the other hand, if I didn't drop my investigations the drug company would tie my whole life in knots with constant lawsuits covering every aspect of my activities. On the other, if I did choose to drop the issue they would be suitably grateful, and suitably generous. The blandishments fell on fertile ground. I was an academic, looking for a comfortable life, not a martyr; and I didn't want to be persecuted any longer. More important, I had in fact already dropped my investigation. No matter how hard I tried I could get no further. I still had no inkling where my targets had gone. As far as I could see there might just as well be a latter-day pied piper spiriting them away. There was nothing more I could investigate. So I took the money, after some bargaining to raise the amount, and ran! But to this day I still wonder where they went to; and where they are now. Perhaps they will get in touch with me one day; but until then all I can do is wish them well.

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