The Invention of Beloved Money

  by Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia

  Story Copyright (C) 2012, Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia.

  Images Copyright (C) 2012, Rudy Rucker.

  8,500 Words.

  It was urgent that my beloved Gina and I got to Geneva from London as soon as possible for the World Economic Forum. Unfortunately Turks, impatient to be part of the European Community, had hijacked and halted a Channel Tunnel train beneath the sea to indicate how pissed off they felt at still being detached from Europe, while the Channel itself was so stormy that all ports were closed. So we were compelled to use the slow method of flying.

  It’s true that short-haul passenger jets fly at about 500 miles an hour, but due to airport security you need nine hours to get on a plane. After arriving at London Stansted and having our bags searched twice before we could check them in—which took three hours, including queuing—we walked to the vast complex of huts which reminded me of bathing cabins at, say, Deauville beach in the 19th century. There, after more queuing, in privacy monitored by CCTVs we had our enemas (sitting one hour upon the cabin toilet which screened our effluent) in case we were Al-Qaeda with plastic explosives in our bowels (the fiends had tried that trick once, in Australia), and we exchanged our own clothes for recyclable paper flight-wear; our clothes would travel separately— the cut-rate Ryanair only charged 30 euros extra for this service.

  Gina emerged from her enema-hut looking smug. Since all women possess an additional tube where they can hide things, women must insert detector dildos which Ryanair hires for 30 or 40 euros depending on whether the dildo merely detects whilst filling up the space or has a vibrator function too. Al-Qaeda had used a womb-bomb to destroy a South Korean 747, and they wouldn’t succeed twice! Gina was vibrating; I wouldn’t have expected less of my Beloved.

  Gay men had demanded dildos too, causing the Gay Alliance to sue the airport owners under anti-discrimination laws, but the airports won. Detector dildos were part of the War Against Terror, not recreational amusements. Of course underage girls and nuns and princesses were exempt, in fact anyone who provided a valid virginity certificate, to be authenticated by a special probe in the enema-cabin.

  “What sane non-virgin,” my Beloved enquired, “would want to be exempt from a dildo?”

  Quite.

  I forgot to mention the Barium meal, the substitute for in-flight peanuts, which we needed to swallow half an hour before we reached the X-ray gate. It was while we were queuing for that gate that an important security announcement came over the speakers. Al-Qaeda in Inner Mongolia, angry at Chinese sovereignty over Moslems, had for the first time used a scrotum-bomb to destroy a plane.

  “They’re using a euphemism,” I said to Gina.

  “Al-Qaeda are? Isn’t a euphemism a musical instrument?”

  “No, that’s a euphonium. I meant that the announcer is speaking euphemistically. A scrotum-bomb is a ball-bomb. Both balls, probably. A suicide volunteer has allowed his testicles to be replaced by mini-grenades, probably powerful American Army ones, stolen or bought. Naturally the devout castrato believes he’ll have his balls restored in Paradise by A– “

  “Don’t say the name! Anyone might be listening!”

  Gina was wise. Starting in Malaysia some years ago, the movement to prevent use by non-Moslems of the Moslem name of God had long tentacles.

  “His balls restored by *ll*h,” I said.

  Gina nodded. “By A**a*,” she agreed.

  “Due to newly tightened security,” continued the speakers, “all males over the age of thirteen are required to demonstrate to CCTV in the disrobing cabins the functionality of their reproductive apparatus before boarding any flight. Special hardware and software to identify erection and ejaculation is being implemented right now.”

  “I’ll lose my place in the queue! By the time I get back I’ll need another Barium meal.”

  “In my own noble nation—before beautiful Italy actually became a nation—randy castrati were still able to fuck and ejaculate,” declared Gina patriotically. “At least according to Anne Rice,” she added, since Gina was very literate.

  “The majority of spunk,” I pointed out, “comes from the seminal sacs and the prostate, not the balls, although I suppose the sacs and the prostate might become discouraged by lack of balls.

  Yet how about male passengers over the age of seventy or eighty who don’t usually get erections?”

  “Unless they’re Picasso. This new security measure isn’t sensibly thought out. Al-Qaeda might use underage suicide boys.”

  “No, because boys can’t deflower virgins in Paradise. I presume the software includes strong porn so that passengers come quickly, but even so… the waste of time!”

  “And of semen too J,” she said before she smiled.

  Grumbling men were already quitting the queue, which therefore brought us closer to the gate and to the eyes of security.

  “Hey Chum, didn’t you hear the announcement?” called a uniform, gesturing me away.

  “We have to get to Geneva!” Gina declared. “The world’s financial future depends on us!” Swiftly she knelt and unzipped me, took out my cock and sucked in her most special way, vibrating happily as she did so. Very soon the inevitable happened; so Gina spat on her palm and showed the security man my DNA in all its wet white wrappings.

  “Scan this,” she said. “Quod erat demonstrandum. Senatus Populusque Romanus. My Beloved functions normally.”

  “Come on quickly,” the security person said.

  I haven’t mentioned the additional crowding of the terminal caused by several dozen British Indignants who were occupying the place, sustaining themselves on a diet of cheeseburgers and tapwater from MacDonald’s, since those youngsters weren’t queuing (except at MacDonald’s). Indignants pledged to march overland to places of economic protest, along with mongrels on string, and not use planes.

  On the plane Gina and I talked magiconomics, rehearsing the arguments that would make us rich, and the world likewise.

  Most money is totally imaginary, consisting of electrons in computers, but it still needs to be backed by something considered real, although there are different definitions of reality. Toxic mortgages given to poor people to buy houses in slums were bundled to produce glamorous derivatives, but this system failed due to lack of faith. Faith is important. There’s even an organization called the Carbon Trust. You must trust it when it tells us that carbon is evil, and that Westerners have too big a carbon footprint—which always makes me imagine walking through a forest after a fire has burnt all the trees to the ground. By carbon they actually mean carbon dioxide, but the single word carbon is snappier; thus people have become very angry with carbon itself, even though carbon is almost 20 per cent of the human body; which is like demonizing one of your own legs.

  “Now,” said Gina, “these cap-and-trade schemes allow polluters to buy from non-polluters permits to emit carbon. So a village in Amazonia which never pollutes, apart from a little smoke from cooking fires, gets a pollution permit which the village then sells to a dirty factory in Rio de Janeiro. Consequently all minimally-polluting communities on Earth have monetary value in their potential to pollute. Pollution licenses from across Amazonia can be bundled as backing for loans.”

  “Lending a new meaning to the phrase dirty money. Of course with their new income the villages might buy lots of jeeps… “

  Gina’s brain often excites me as much as her body, so by now I was becoming aroused again within my paper trousers.

  My Beloved noticed my predicament and went on teasingly, “Once upon a time money was the opposite to religion, as witness Jesus overturning the tables of the money-lenders. I do not speak of the Vatican Bank! Nowadays a lot of people realize that religion is not real, which makes them religious realists. As regards sheer faith, it’s money that people focus on.”

  “Hurry up,” I said, straining, “or I may burst my Ryanair trousers!”

  “Well now, recent events have devastated the supposedly scientific theories of economists, so in future only theologians or magicians will preach the new Bible of Magiconomics. Banks will be different denominations of the great church of money. You’ll have the Jewish Church of Goldman-Sachs, the Lutheran Church of Credit Suisse, the Catholic Church of Santander and so on. The money in your account doesn’t actually exist, thus it has to be created by prayer… “

  Fortunately for the integrity of my paper pants, Gina was interrupted by a passenger from across the aisle, a muscular, hirsute and swarthy individual. His paper suit looked like an Armani Ryanair one.

  “Scusi,” this person said, “I work for the mafia.”

  “Which particular mafia?” I enquired politely.

  “All the mafias.”

  “So what’s your problem, Signor Mammasantissima?” For I deduced he was Sicilian.

  “She says my money don’t exist! La verità is the whole world’s money only exist now grazie to us mafia. We rescue the banks! Ours money is backed by high class cocaine and heroine, which is real.”

  Having spoken, he exhaled aggressively lavish amounts of carbon dioxide as though he had a personal permit; maybe he did.

  Then he gazed at the erect paper outline of my departing erection. “Go on talking that way in Geneva, and you might lose it,” he threatened darkly, even though Gina, not me, had been doing the talking. Maybe the mafia man intuited what sort of loss would most frighten my Beloved.

  “But Sir Don,” I sa id as casually as I could, “what makes you think we’re going to Geneva to talk about anything?”

  “Why else go to Geneva during a World Economic Forum? To wind up the cuckoo clocks? Listen, me I gonna be arguing the case for backing all money from now on with cocaine and heroin. Most US dollars already test positive for cocaine. Then we’ll increase the supply ten times.”

  Soon we were in Geneva. After changing back into our own clothes in a couple of the multitude of booths around the carousel hall, we carried our recovered bags out into crowded Switzerland. Due to the Economic Forum, hundreds of thousands or millions of Indignants must be in Geneva, even out at Cointreau Airport, squeezing into Arrivals. Long dog-strings snaked like those puzzles in kids’ funbooks: which dog belonged to which Indignant? Eventually we were able to consult the Tourist Information desk, resulting in us opting for the 3-star Diplomate Hotel which suited our budget since we’d already spent a small fortune on trademarking the names of… I shall not say what just yet… Also, we might come across some diplomats in a Diplomate hotel, whom we could lobby, in the lobby or at breakfast.

  Our taxi journey of four kilometers took over an hour thanks to the crowds of Indignants, and the hotel proved to be very basic (consequently no diplomats) although, to compensate, the staff were exquisitely polite. Best of all, Don Gino wasn’t sharing our hotel and he could have no idea which one we’d chosen. This old part of Geneva was austere—tall grey stone houses flanking cobbled streets—but from the lake visible out of our fifth-floor window erupted a very high orgasmic fountain. Gina and I celebrated our arrival appropriately, then we took a taxi slowly to the Palais des Nations in its parkland where masses of Indignants roamed, many playing flutes, screamed at by peacocks at whom the many mongrels barked, taking as an economic insult the ostentatious displays of opulent tail plumes.

  We had faxed our proposal in advance to the World Economic Forum; and on registration lo we discovered that the very next morning we’d be able to explain our master plan to the plenary session for ten minutes, extendable if delegates were enthusiastic. Gina and I were already known as the authors of Virtual Everything, discussing such things as virtual coal (which another country digs up for you to burn), virtual carbon (dioxide, which another country pours into the air whilst manufacturing teddy bears and fridge magnets for you to import) and virtual water, bottled and shipped from the clear crystal springs of New Zealand all the way to Scotland and from the clear crystal springs of Scotland all the way to New Zealand. More importantly my Beloved represented The Most Serene Republic of San Marino. Two of Gina’s uncles happened currently to be the two ruling Captain-Regents of this oldest surviving sovereign constitutional republic in the world, lightly populated and so rich it has no national debt; which was why it got a high position in the order of proposals. Gina herself was from nearby Rimini, and her indulgent uncles gave her spokesperson status as a birthday present since the outcome of the Forum mattered not a sparrow’s fart to the prosperous Serene Republic.

  On our very slow taxi ride back to the hotel after registering, we began slowly passing that very same mafioso on the Avenue Something. Wearing a shiny blue silk suit, and beset by yapping hyena puppies, Gino was being assaulted with slogans by a blonde female Indignant, whom he may have propositioned, inspired by her big-bosom t-shirt proclaiming Occupy Twin Peaks! Lynch the Bankers! Could we destabilize Don Gino’s position further? Out of the taxi window I shouted: “There’s cocaine in his pants!” The female Indignant promptly plunged a grasping hand deep into Gino’s trouser pocket, and he commenced dancing his native tarantella while yodeling as if in honor of the Alps.

  The proceedings of the conference were opened by Dragos (pronounced Dragosh) Ætherius Magorius, a gnomelike figure of great charisma based in Zurich, winner of the brand-new Nobel prize for magiconomics, replacing the obsolete Nobel prize for old economics. Born Romanian of a Danish mother, he was known by people au fait both with Romanian and with the grapheme Æ as Dragosh (spelled Dragos) Ætherius, but by most people for simplicity as Dr (pronounced Doctor) Magorius.

  Initially a pupil of chaos scientist Florin Munteanu, Magorius became rich by re-inventing himself as a Feng Shui geomantic esoteric architect. New Age Chinese billionaires commissioned palaces from him. While in Hong Kong, he fell in gay love with a Korean economist, who initiated him amongst other things into his science while economics was still regarded as a science. Being on the cusp of science and mysticism, Magorius sensed the need for innovations in this field. How absurd that economics should cling to mechanistic Newtonian concepts in the Quantum Age.

  First he tried to blend economics with Feng Shui, but it was difficult to create money in tune with the Five Elements or Five Forces. Yet Magorius became increasingly aware of the metaphysically quantum nature of money, to which traditional economists had always been blind. Modern money was like Schroedinger’s cat, both existing and not existing at the same time. It existed only while people believed it existed, provided that only a very limited number of people tried to observe it. As soon as a mass of people tried to get all their money out of banks at the same time, the money would suddenly be nonexistent. This pointed Magorius inevitably towards the development of magiconomics.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” commenced the gnomish Magorius, standing on a box to see over the rostrum, “if I’d been told ten years ago that I’d be here today, opening a conference to determine how money can be restored by way of magic, I’d have said: you’re pulling my legs. But here we are!” Well, what was he to do? Wear stilts? “The catastrophe has changed our lives, which demands a new paradigm. Now we’re all aware of the metaphysical nature of money, which stops being real if we lose faith and all insist on observing it simultaneously.

  “The real problem of the economic crash is disappearance of faith. This isn’t the first time such a thing happened. Time was, when people didn’t need faith in God, since God was the fabric of reality—consequently everyone believed, but nobody knew they believed. When unanimity of faith broke down due to travel to and from differently faithed places, it became clear that believing was an option, not something inevitable, thus believers became aware that they were believing.

  “Now the same has happened with money. We always believed in money without knowing we were believing. When this faith crumbled, money simply disappeared. Now that we need money far more than we need God… “

  A loud uneasy mumble spread through the congregation, um, audience.

  “… Now that we need money almost as much as we need God, we have no choice but to formalize our belief in Money as an act of faith, and to establish all the necessary liturgies… “

  I stopped paying close attention because Gina already said all this on Ryanair, but perked up when Magorius proposed: “What we need is a practical, logical, convincing aesthetic narrative to objectify our faith, a narrative which tells us what our imaginary money stands for. We need a rock-solid set of imaginary real things to back our new imaginary money with.”

  Rock-solid nonexistent things… I broke into a sweat of excitement and clasped Gina’s hand.

  “And that,” concluded Magorius, “is why we are here: to discuss proposed new systems and to vote on one of them.”

  An acolyte of Magorius leapt to his feet to propose thanks to “the luminous Dragos Ætherius,” adding: “Modestly the Master hasn’t even mentioned his discovery that debt—namely, faith in the value of money—preceded actual money. Debit and credit preceded coinage and currency! Faith first, cash-in-hand second! Why, the Sumerians—”

  He would probably have said more except that another person, wearing a full-body Islamic burqa with only a grille for her eyes, leapt to her own feet, pulling off the burqa to reveal: the blonde hair and twin-peaks t-shirt of the Indignant woman, who had assaulted Gino, or vice versa.

  “This is all so fucking ætherial!” she shrieked. “As soon as there was war, soldiers needed cash to pay to fuck prostitutes. The debtologist David Graeber has proved that a government

  relies on debt caused mostly by military spending, monetized as bank notes. No country with a fucking huge army can go broke. That’s why Amerika fights so many fucking wars. Banknotes backed by real fucking corpses is fucking necrofinance! Corpses remain real to me even as fucking bones!”

 

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