The Future Men - 1

It's people who shape future reality for so many others, but do they have the power to shape their own?

I woke up this morning with a vague memory of dreaming about being in a semi-abandoned warehouse, looking down on families of vagrants with a sense of foreboding that they were someone's unwitting prey. I had that dread-like feeling the dream was either an important but impossible-to-grasp harbinger, or just discomfort from the peculiarity of the dream. The feeling faded as I spoke a recitation to focus my mind.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

There's a huge amount of truth and insight in that quote. Karl Rove was disarmingly honest when he supposedly said that, but no one paid attention because what it means is disturbing. What he said doesn't just apply to an empire and its agents, but right down to the individual carving out their own little version of reality while affecting and studying the realities of those around him. It's all a question of perspective.

Joseph's been here for three hours over lunch, for a final review of the latest operations. The file's half an inch thick and covers three jobs. A raid on a jewellers, a bus bombing and a later trap of the cops investigating both those jobs. The trap will suggest terrorism in a vague sense, enough for a narrative to go out.

We're into the exit phase now. This is part of the exit strategy, although you won't know it if you’re dumb enough to read the news. Blending crime and terrorism is the angle. We started planting the seeds ages ago, now it's time to take the next step.

This doesn't guarantee an exit though, and it doesn't depend on an exit.

Joseph's one of our field commanders in the Netherlands. We don't really need to get down into the weeds anymore - we’re managers - but we need to stay close to network management, even the grotty stuff.

“Good work,” I say. “Confirm your readiness level.”

“Minimum 85%. All prerequisites are satisfied, as you've seen. Ready.”

“Authorisation granted,” I say. He nods in reply. “Now, what's the state with the Ukro supplier network?”

“The Ukro network is reliably inconsistent. Of our ten feeds, 7 started playing the price hike or theft game.”

“Quantities? Root cause?”

“Price is up by 20-40% in three weeks. Anything up to fifteen percent missing. Sometimes both. It's coordinated. Excuses are the same - risky, en route costs - all shit. It's discontent and lack of awareness.”

“Do you know where all their caches are? What's happening to the stock?”

“Yeah. They're building up a single sale to an Egyptian contact for forward trade. They've got it in Gdansk. It'll ship from there.”

“What's your plan for rectification?”

“Two crews are leading. They manage the Gdansk stash and coordinate with the others when they make a buy from us in Rzeszów. They need crushing to get the other five crews back to basics permanently. A light touch will just lead to retribution. They're all fucking dumb dumbs and scum. Real street scum. I've looked at them closely, in case there's some talent there but it's all shit really. When we finally close this network, they'll all need to be completely burned. You know what they are.”

“OK. Do as you suggest then. Make it a lesson by crushing them as you want. Re-establish order. Can you preserve the Egyptian contact?”

“Depends how they react to me changing their dealer. If you want that preserving, easier to wait till the deal's done. I could cut in before I finish the lesson but it'd be much more work for me.”

“Let them do all the work closing the deal, then move in. Recover all the funds. How big's the margin?”

“Seven million for two tons of mixed infantry tools. No vehicles. That's a 4 mill margin.”

“That's pushy. Sign of the times.” I raise my eyebrows in acknowledgement of the spike in price and violence. “You'll get one mill for yourself, spread a half across your team, keep a half for your float and I'll take the rest. When's the buy?”

“Next Monday.”

“Get that done first then start the ops. No point risking spooking the Egyptians with a bang somewhere. Let's get their deal done first.”

We're finished. I like Joseph because he's easy to work with. We quietly enjoy lobster tails from the buffet cart and chat about what he makes of life in Amsterdam. He's not really Dutch but you wouldn't tell. Tall and lanky with a clean accent. We were always taught to perfect accents otherwise we'd fail, even if we were fluent. When he's gone, Renata comes out from the suite's study. She's ready to front a meeting with the farmers and the interface is active for me to monitor everything. She isn't as pretty with the mask on. The nose is bigger, the brow heavier and balance of the cheeks and chin is not very attractive. And that's exactly the point. She doesn't look radically different but she doesn't really look the same at all. A real world approach to disguise is a technical field skill that we still use as managers. It's insurance you can't afford to ignore. Modern tech makes monitoring and overwatch from the back pretty straightforward. Clothing has integrated surveillance kit that can't be detected with metal detectors or pat downs. Super thin wires of copper and now graphene compounds make surveillance kit disappear. Masks or disguise aren't that Mission Impossible crap, it's much more subtle and therefore effective than that, but it's careful work to use them. That's a reason why we work in bonded pairs.

“What's your agenda?”

“Nicola Lannetti, non exec director of Lustra,” she says in a Spanish accent that I love. “Afternoon meeting with the farmers’ protest leadership as a low key sponsor. Then I'll deliver the cash and intel. No advice, they need to be left alone to read the material and do whatever. Not my business until they involve me. Not sure if they've got anything else on their minds. Three to four hours max.”

It took me a long time to stop reacting emotionally to how little people flounder and piss around trying to cope with politics, realpolitik and any form of action or activism. They're so fucking clueless and disorganised. There's so much room for literal idiots to enter the fray right at the grass roots level and think and act like they're leaders. The Dunning Kruger effect is real and it’s on display all over the place when you know what to look and listen for.

I used to get wound up and frustrated because I had the wrong expectations. I expected more of people because I'm not like them, and my mistake was to think that I was. Now, I know enough to no longer have an emotional response. Work got a lot easier and more enjoyable after that. Mancetti coached me through this, but it still took time and it only clicked after his mentorship ended, when I made sense of it in my own way and time. There's a massive downside - you become disconnected. I thought I'd lost empathy for certain aspects of humanity, and it really worried me that I'd shifted along a few scales - sociopathy, psychopathy - but I had that wrong. I haven't lost empathy, I just haven't got the time or the tolerance for persistent, voluntary ignorance and boxed in, belief-based thinking as a basis for meaningful actions.

“Why do you think or feel that?” is a favourite question of mine. Just the question itself can put a lot of people on edge and make them disconnect. They get threatened by someone who asks them to explain themselves or self-analyse because then they have to think and look inside. Often they find there's little or nothing in the wet paper bag they've been carrying around from the Opinion Store.

Fifteen years ago I'd have rejected the “chess game” or “Go game” analogy: everyone is a piece in a game as big as you want to and can make it. Now, I agree with and accept it, because it’s a valid, relevant perspective that acknowledges that human relations are manipulation at the lowest level. But it's not a definitive analogy. It's not the whole story. It's a useful, functional perspective that makes work easier, for sure. It might also be the basis for living life, if you're full blown dark triad.

We've brought the farmers protest group on a long way. They were a shit show at first, as to be expected. Panicked, emotional, confused and disorganised. Unclear leadership. Matthias was installed as General Manager at Udval Flower and Food, a few years ago before the objectionable public policies were ever floated. He naturally, gently, bubbled up as the farmers came together to resist the policies and the forced farm purchases. He's not a leader in their view of their reality. In our view of reality he's our controller and he is the leader because he's guided 80% of the movement’s strategic formation, leadership and control. The movement’s choice of tactical objectives and methods are obvious and predictable because we control so much of its key information and steer it through key control points. In their structure, Matthias looks like an upper player with a foot in the inner circle. His job is to be an under-recognised, quiet, genuine and caring gem whose occasional insights are disproportionately smart. But he's not really leadership or public-facing material. He's too shy and stammers a bit under pressure, by design. He's a mixture of stage manager and choreographer.

Ren is a different form of control and leadership. They think they found her, which makes her trustworthy. To them, she's not Renata. She's Nicola Lannetti, a non executive director of Lustra, a Franco Spanish Dutch food corporation that buys and sells across Europe and has an ounce of morality left. Just enough morality to let its people turn up at protests and eventually become a quiet sponsor of the protest movement.

Matthias and Nicola are how a shit show citizen circus can shape up and get effective. They provide guiding voices and resources, gently steer the people and softly back, support and educate those who'll be the best leaders and organisers. “Best” is a relative term that we manage for our interests. If we need clowns running the show, we’ll start making that happen. Right now, we need organisers and efficiency to manage a growing herd, get it where it needs to be and make it have the right effect.

Renata's been with them for four hours now. A lot of seemingly personal and inane chat throughout the afternoon, but it’s all essential to build and maintain relationships. She's gives a lot less than she takes, but she gives enough. Pictures and stories of a semi real life lived in Spain, with some knowledge of farming and agriculture, with a full-on shift into organic and regenerative techniques that she is trying to encourage in her suppliers, to directly challenge the “farmers are bad for the climate” bullshit fake political narrative that justifies land confiscation in Holland. She is loved for this by the protest's people. This is all real enough. Influence comes from that kernel of truth and reality. I like listening to her Spanish accent. There's a different warmth to her voice and speech that makes me imagine gentle images, regardless of what she's actually saying.

In private she hands over the money and a file of intelligence that she bought through Lustra. Private investigators ran background checks and did some digging on people in the movement’s upper and middle layers to find chaos agents. There are names in the file. This helps the farmers and it helps us. We control the network by letting them think they’re controlling it. In the file, we identify two police officers, a Dutch intelligence service agent, and various info about civilians. It's all true. We're giving the leaders the illusion of control by leading them to decide what to do. But it's the information we gave them that controls them. We have forced them into a decision process they don't have the skills for by revealing all these players. Nicola's only advice is to just do nothing and think. She doesn't know what to do either. No rush, don't be hasty. The leaders will come to understand that's good advice, and they'll come back to involve Nicola again. Meanwhile, Matthias will provide his own analysis and offer an idea or two, completely independently. This is just a facet of the dance in this bit of a network.

I listen to and scan Ren's video feed while I prep for Berlin. A bonded pair monitor each other as much as possible for clarity and redundancy. It's rare we front something without the other at the back. It's not so much about escape from a tricky spot, it's much more about consistency and analysis. If I didn't listen to Ren with the farmers, I'd be relying on her secondhand summary explanation, know nothing of the interactions and have no ability to be a second brain in the whole thing. By listening and watching, I am there and we more than double our power. It's a micro network effect. All those other things about “spying” like back up and extraction doesn't really apply here. This isn't a dangerous environment today. We're network managers. We keep our hands clean most of the time.

She's dropped at the airport and we go straight to Berlin where I've got a night round to do with the BND, MAD and KSA service contacts. I hand over a data file with updated intel on the Dutch farmers and they tell me whatever they want to share about the weapons and other networks coming out of Ukraine. The Germans have decided to maintain a porous border on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 10pm to 2 am, for correctly marked vehicles who use a signal. That'll remain in place for the next three months. They don't want any weapons caches or dumps within 50 miles of Berlin. German ops need a month in advance warning so they can layer whatever level of reality they want on top to make everything look authentic for a German audience. Sometimes, an outsider's style breaks their illusion. We've been at this forever and know what we're doing, but it's a fair point and I'm not in a position to argue. In it together, and all that. I get an update on the German farmer protests as well. I'll compare it to the Dutch and look for overlap before the end of the week. This way of meeting is faster than going through formal channels via the British Embassy and Foreign Office, then waiting for authorisation and a formal meet. No one's auditing us. We're judged on results and a lack of detectable infractions.

Ren drives us down to the first cache at a farm just north of Luckenwalde, then another a little way West, at a go kart track. Everything's in order and to standard. Unless something changes, nothing's happening in Germany until we need to extract from the war and withdraw support, which could be a few months or more than a year, depending on how the frontline moves. The caches are for attacks that enable an escape narrative, in case there's a risk that we’ve gone too far against Russia and need to shut down the overt, hot war aspect. Attacks in Germany will be framed as Ukrainian acts of retaliatory terror for insufficient EU/NATO support as Russia keeps grinding and beating Ukraine into oblivion. We’ll label the Ukrainian administration “nut jobs gone rogue” and have the excuse to shut them off from Western support. This is why we blamed Ukraine for Nord Stream. No one bothered to ask why the dwarf just accepted this blame story or why the clear commander, Zaluzhny, was kept on as a hero (but clearly incompetent) General when he was obviously a terrorist of Europe.

There'll be a coup. We’ll just make up something to justify one. If the dwarf is still in power he'll be Mussolini'd or whatever fits with what the narrative writers decide at the time. Easiest thing is to just acknowledge how much he's stolen then no one will bat an eyelid when he's ripped apart. Then the replacement authority will sign a peace deal. Vilifying the dwarf allows us to push all the blame for rot, incompetence, blood lust and anything else onto him then wipe the slate clean when he gets wiped. The Robert Fico hit job helps support the “angry and hurting person driven to become an assassin” idea, which is a seed that easily amplifies into the backlash of a whole nation against losing a war it could never win. Meanwhile, there'll be internal crackdowns across Germany to get a handle on the Ukrainian terror threat, and round ups and deportations will start. There's already traction in the country for our new “Germany is for Germans” earbug campaign.

Nord Stream has scared the shit out of the continent but also laid the foundation for the whole anti-foreigner thing, provided that targets are sensibly identified. Being caught blowing up stuff is a very justified reason to be vilified and ejected. Amongst the people of Europe, Ukrainians aren't Europeans, no matter what bullshit the EU Commission and political leadership spouts. Everyone knows it. This crack in the reality dam was always deliberately fostered for the exit and reversal phase. Everyone needs an enemy at the highest and lowest levels. The Russian Slavs are getting it right now. Soon we'll turn up the heat on the Ukroslavs and tap into the Germans’ natural character and their pain from Nord Stream. That sentiment will spread across other countries when more operations go off, and the Ukroslavs will mostly get pushed back into their new smaller box. They'll work for fuck all so the European and American reconstruction firms make double bubble, and they'll be happy in their new micro flats or else. Then they'll go back to farming the land they no longer own while pioneering the digital slavery systems that are pretty much built. The Ukro beta test will then roll out across Europe. The crime and terror narrative will give another load of pretend reasons to further delay and cancel Ukraine's EU membership that was never really happening.

There will be real and increasing violence inside whatever new Ukraine looks like because they'll finally understand they got fucked over. But it's like Covid: they're complicit in their own demise because they were all stupid enough to go along with it and run around being actual Nazis in plain view. Yes, they got encouraged but it doesn't take a genius to think, “based on history, this whole thing has limited appeal and lifespan”. Game's over, dummies. Only the top boys got rich, the rest got dead. That's par for the course for showy, visible Nazis and other flavours of flash-in-the-pan, room temperature IQ whackos. In the big plan, as long as the real shooting stays inside new Ukraine, no one will care. It's like Russia post Yeltsin: a decade or more where it was no bother to anyone while it drowned in its own shit. That makes it easy to exploit, which is the whole point of this exit strategy. If the rump state gets divvied up, the violence will bleed across Poland and Romania. Orbán won't accept such unstable territory. We'll get some of that meltdown to manage, no doubt. So much money will disappear “purging” the Ukronazis from the institutions and positions of power. It'll be a decade before anyone claims to have cleaned them out and between then and now, there'll be ongoing right wing violence to keep everyone busy and paid.

In the Russian territories, things will improve and stabilise very fast, like after Chechnya and now in Mariupol and Crimea, because the Russian piece is in an ordered ascendancy phase that makes money from strategic order, while Europe is disordered descendency that haemorrhages cash in sclerotic chaos.

---

We got back from the caches to the hotel super late but there's no meetings today, just a big breakfast, a video call to check in with our bundle of chubbiness and then admin.

Michel will be three next month. I've never felt more in love with anyone or anything in my whole life. It's lucky that we don't have regular jobs and get to set most of our own schedule. I've already decided he'll be home schooled and I spend all my time with him, trying to make everything a fun learning contact so his brain is kept busy. We speak a different language every day. He's so lively and cuddly and wondrous. He can count and read, his coordination is great and we keep him super active. When I watch him toddling and smiling and wondering what is in front of him the world disappears. He is my freedom, even when he's at his most demanding. Ren thinks I cuddle him too much but I can't help it, it's just what feels natural. He's never rejected me and he always focusses or eats better or calms down when I'm holding or connected to him. When we're quiet, I can still sense him thinking to me so I just send love back. I try to use telepathy by holding his gaze and thinking instead of talking, just in case. Ren would piss herself laughing if she knew.

It's not the same with Ren. There's love and trust, but under everything there's reality that is mine alone. It's the reality where she is gone or betrays me and I must survive and so must Michel. A bonded pair is exactly what it sounds like. We sort of pick each other early in our careers while we're training, learning and operational. We don't graduate to management alone, but as a pair once we've bonded. Looking back, I didn't feel in love with her. It was a different kind of attraction made up of youthful lust, respect for her intellect and skills, the bonds of strong shared experiences, commonality of purpose. Those kind of things all added up over time. We were attracted to each other at the beginning like normal, but the rest takes time. I still don't think that what I feel is real, deep love. That's what I feel for Michel, and it’s different. Ren serves another master, just as I do, and we both know a lot about that master. We aren't free to resign. We've never met anyone who did our job who retired. Why would we? They're all secret or, more likely, dead. We have forms of retirement plans, but that's probably window dressing to keep us believing. It takes a while to realise that once you've seen a certain number of layers of reality, resigning gets harder and harder. The choice is to be content and take opportunities that are presented, or start planning for answers to hard questions. I'm certain the key is to never show discontent; never give them a reason to question or doubt you.

“We should have another baby,” says Ren, after we end the video call home. “That's our way to happiness.”

She's right and I'm glad it comes from her.

“Right now?” I smile. After all these years it’s still so easy to get lost in her hair and kisses. My daily recitations began to include a prayer several years ago in which I give thanks for her but also beg that the Ren I know is real and for that reality to last. The problem is that I know what I keep from her and therefore assume she keeps the same from me, so I know I can't trust and love her like I do Michel. The hardest bit is to lock the most real part of yourself up and never show it to anyone who could use or damage or destroy it. Michel is the only one who gets to access that part of me. Hopefully he won't be the only one for much longer.

It's 11 am. We're going over management reports, checking network readiness, capabilities, actions and status. Then we check current and distant objectives, then narrative. We have to work layer by layer and network by network, although it sounds harder or more complicated than it is. If you know what's real and how everything fits together, it's easy. Obfuscating reality with nonsense or complexity is a form of protection.

Fico didn't die. It actually doesn't matter. The message is the same. He was just a tool or means. If he'd died, his replacement would probably be very similar because of the zeitgeist around him and his party. An obvious stooge to a broad narrative being shoved in as a replacement wouldn't be accepted; it'd trigger a secondary layer of high and grass roots level political instability that would massively increase our workload and resource burden.

I laughed out loud when I saw the Fico hit. Really low budget stuff. The protection team gave it away because they were so obvious. Not a single one of them body blocked after the shooting started. Fico was wide open for ages while they all bunched up at the barrier. No close protection team acts like that. It just tells the world that they knew there was only one shooter. Dead giveaway. Of course, this'll never come up in the press and those who know what to look for will get the message, as they should. But it didn't need to be so fucking obvious. Still… Nord Stream has literally put the bar on the floor, set it on fire then pissed and shat all over it, so I guess we can get way with any old crap now.

“Shall we just ditch all our standards now?” I asked Ren. She sprayed her coffee when she saw it.

“No way, babe. Not until they make us. We worked too hard getting good to be that shit.”

The day after the Fico op, fringe reporters floated that the shooter has an intel history.

We have to put this out there because no one actually believes in lone wolf political assassins anymore. The more credible thing is to hint he's part of a vague plot and never give any answers.

It's the same pattern as Nord Stream, just amped down. The power of the Nord Stream plot is that no one cares to identify who really did the biggest state sponsored, economic terrorist act in history so the threat and the shadow lingers at the edge of the mind. Ren & I aren't directly on the Fico op but my expectation is that the shooter will have a mental health history that was supposed to be well managed with chemicals, and he'll have a seriously hard time in prison before the in camera anti-terror trial that no one ever gets to read about because “national security”.

Aleksandar Vučić has just made a statement warning that the EU is at risk.

Orban is reported as calling out EU & NATO's thirst for war with Russia and his opposition to it.

One question is how much force it will take after Fico to realign Vučić & Orban. Another is whether we'll need to activate ops directly in Serbia & Hungary, or whether they'll take the hint via the Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere. This depends upon the narratives that accompany those ops, as well as low level and back channel actions, communications and pressure. To plaster over Vučić & Orban's disruptive statements, we released a diversion from Macron that's meant to overshadow Vučić & Orban: “the whole EU and the fabric of democracy is at risk”.

This robs the disruptors and their observations and concerns of the limelight by spinning and aggressively distorting their message into something ridiculous that actually gets used to pave the way for our policy actions across the bloc.

Fear is a pliable, frangible thing. When you weave the future, you mould fear into any form, size and pattern you want, and with it you keep the herd shuffling along the continuum into the future they deserve.