Pax Robotica: Genesis (Part 4)

“My phone buzzed as an urgent text from Billy Wayne came while we were eating. ‘Please turn on the TV,’ the message simply said.

“I turned on the TV and immediately switched to CNN. At first I thought I had pressed the wrong button: What looked like an urban war zone appeared on the TV, so I pressed the CNN button again. The TV flickered and same scene re-appeared. I saw a three-way gun battle among what appeared to be DC police, bikers, and bodyguard-type looking Asians.

“The word ‘CNN Live’ appeared on my TV. The sounds of automatic gun fire drowned out what the reporter was trying to say as he crouched behind the TV truck. I heard the occasional grenade explosions. To make sure that I wasn’t watching a movie, I switched to different channels and the same scene appeared from different angles.

“I switched back to CNN just in time to see the police and the bikers made their move on the Asians from opposite ends of the street. The Asians made a valiant effort to stand their ground but eventually they were mowed down by hails of bullets. When the last of the Asian guns went silent the police and the bikers disengaged, as if they had conspired to exterminate the Asians.

“This is what happened: while I was lecturing the richest and most powerful men in the world on their abilities to destroy the world, a poor, powerless African immigrant, Afua I think his name was, started a confrontation that might have doomed their world, and mine.

“Afua had lost his job when his company decided to move its operations to China. Two weeks earlier his father committed suicide after he had been forced by his local government to sell his lot of land to a Chinese-own agricultural giant. Afua could not bring himself to telling his wife that he had lost his job. So instead of staying home, he wandered DC endlessly during the working hours.

“The more he wandered, the more furious he became at the Chinese—to be fair, I suspected racism also played a part. When he saw an expensively dressed young Chinese man who swaggered as if he owned the world, Afua was overcome with rage. Without really thinking, Afua slammed into the young man, knocking him down to the pavement.

“Out of nowhere several muscular Chinese men appeared. One of them punched Afua in his face, knocking him into the ground. The rest of the bodyguards joined in. They kicked and stomped on him mercilessly while shouting in their heavily accented English, ‘Die you Ebola-laden monkey, die!’

“At that moment the first wave NRA bikers on their way to the capital for a pro-gun rally arrived, among them were several African Americans. The beating of an African man and the crude racial insults enraged them. They rushed into the Chinese guards and a mêlée ensued. It took less than a minute for the white bikers to join their black comrades.

“One of the Chinese guards pulled out a pistol and shot several bikers, stunning the rest briefly. The Chinese guards then attempted to retreat to their cars.

“The bikers withdrew their weapons and began firing at the retreating Chinese. The scene quickly devolved into a street battle.

“The DC police, which was tasked to keep order, was stationed on the opposite end of the street, a couple blocks away, effectively blocked the guards’ escape route. The police ordered the guards to drop their weapons. Instead the guards charged in a desperate attempt to escape from surging bikers. The police commander had little sympathy for the Chinese who had just opened fire in his city ordered his men to respond with automatic riffles and submachine guns.

“Panic, the Chinese sprayed their Uzis at everyone, including trapped civilians. ‘Let’s move in and put those sons of bitches down,’ the police commander ordered.

“And so they moved in. The Chinese guards fought a desperate two-front battle until all of them were mowed down.

“The scene was carried live half way around the world, and it appeared to be a premeditated, cold-blooded murder of Chinese nationals on American soil to the Chinese eye.

“Chinese anger exploded in cyberspace and quickly spread across China. As soon as morning came Chinese citizens took it to the street across China, smashing windows, burning cars, and demanding revenge. Westerners in smaller Chinese cities were roughened up, and there were even unconfirmed reports of fatalities.

“The widespread riots put the Chinese government in a very difficult position. It couldn’t ignore the screaming demand for vengeance, but it couldn’t really risk a direct confrontation with the US, either. The Chinese military wasn’t quite ready yet, despite what everyone else believed.

“Prominent Chinese politicians, scholars, journalists, and celebrities lent their support to the protestors and demanded justice—their version anyway. To them China had passed the stage of being routinely bullied by the white barbarians, and they said as much.

“I suspected that the Chinese government and its supporters would have to try to get back at the US through manipulations of financial markets. They would do so in an open-secret manner aimed to placate Chinese citizens while being able to deny plausibly that they were engaging in hostile acts.

“I was not about to be outsmarted by the Chinese, however. So I called the president and urged him to make a public statement that the US would regard any financial manipulation aimed to hurt the US as an act of war and respond accordingly. The President agreed and promised me that he would hold a press conference within the hour. I logged on my brokerage account and shorted the Chinese currency. Then I waited.

“An hour or so later the President of the United States appeared in a hastily called news conference. The whole world was shocked at his willingness to declare war on the People’s Republic of China over what appeared to lay persons as minor matter. The American major indexes, which plunged during the gun battle and the subsequent Chinese reactions, plunged again. However, they were soon poised to regain their losses, and then some. The Chinese indexes, along with the currency, did the exact opposite when it became apparent that the Chinese government had decided not to provoke the US and go after the Chinese protestors instead. America had won this round and the president had practically earned himself a second term. I earned myself a million dollars in profit. Speculating on geopolitical events was how I really made my money.

“Satisfied with my cleverness, I turned my attention to romancing Sophia. There was nothing quite like the feeling of getting to make love to a beautiful woman after having given a reckless advice to the President, an advice that could have engulfed the world in flame.

 “Later that evening I dialled Billy Wayne’s number, out of boredom more than anything. I was actually hoping for another crisis. He picked up the phone immediately, ‘Hello Professor Bane, I was about to call you.’”