The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [65]
‘Uh - no, okay, point taken!’ Khoil smugly dismissed the display. ‘So what are you planning on doing with all this information? Blackmail everybody who’s ever used the internet?’
‘No. I am going to bring about the end of the Kali Yuga.’ He said it with the same flat, robotic matter-of-factness that characterised the rest of his speech. ‘The collapse of present civilisation is inevitable, but because it is part of the cycle of existence, restoration - a new Satya Yuga, a new dawn of virtue - is also inevitable. My computer models have told me that the sooner the Kali Yuga ends, the shorter the period of chaos before the Satya Yuga begins. As I said, it could take fifty years for the collapse to happen naturally, fifty years of decadence and decay, meaning the recovery would begin from a lower point. It could take a century for the new era to begin - a century of pain and suffering. But if the collapse were to happen now . . . it would take only ten years.’
‘That’s still ten years of chaos.’
‘Better ten than a hundred.’ He stepped closer to her. ‘I am not a passive man, Dr Wilde. I rose from the slums by seeing opportunities and taking them, changing the world around me to my advantage. This will be the ultimate opportunity, and I must take it, for the good of all humanity. I will end the Kali Yuga - but I will also guide the beginning of the Satya Yuga.’
‘The downfall of civilisation as a business opportunity, huh?’
‘More a guiding hand. I have been assembling resources worldwide - people with vital skills, stockpiles of food and shelter, secure data archives in remote locations like Mongolia and Greenland, a satellite communications infrastructure that will be unaffected by wars on the ground. They will all be put to use to help those in need following the collapse.’
Nina narrowed her eyes. ‘With strings attached, I’m guessing.’ ‘The world must learn that Shiva is the one true lord of creation. Which is why I hired Urbano Fernandez. Some of the items he obtained for me were for their protection; they are irreplaceable cultural treasures that would surely be stolen or destroyed during the chaos.’
‘And they’ll just happen to be in your private collection for “safekeeping” while all this is going on, right?’
‘But,’ he went on, ignoring her, ‘the others will provide me with leverage in places where the word of Shiva might not be heard.’ ‘Places like Saudi Arabia,’ she realised. ‘If there’s a global collapse, nobody’ll be paying for their oil - and they don’t have a hell of a lot of other resources. So then you tell them, “If you want help, if you want the Black Stone back, I want something in return.” ’
‘Correct. Money may not be much use after the collapse, but influence will be. Having power over the Saudis gives me influence over Islam, power over the Italians gives me influence over Roman Catholicism, and so on. I will use it to spread the word of Shiva - the true, uncorrupted word that waits inside the Vault.’
‘Sounds kinda far-fetched, if you ask me,’ Nina scoffed. ‘You won’t turn over centuries of belief and tradition with blackmail.’
‘People will do anything when they are hungry and desperate. When one god has failed them and another offers them hope, will they take it? I think so.’
Nina slowly circled him, Tandon shadowing her. ‘So how are you planning on bringing all this about? I don’t see how a search engine can be a harbinger of the apocalypse.’
‘Then you are short-sighted, Dr Wilde. Qexia will play a vital part.’
She could tell that he was itching to impress her with his cleverness; the question was, how much would his ego let slip? She injected a disbelieving, faintly mocking note into her voice. ‘You’re going to end the world with search results? How?’
He raised his hands, the virtual keyboard appearing on the screens. Some commands, and the walls lit up with numerous pages from news sites around the globe. ‘People choose sources of information not because they trust them to be impartial, but because they reflect their own view of the world. Their biases