LIGHTNING LINK
I’ve been using the Lightning Link that Max set up a year ago. It’s a highly sophisticated form of interstellar communications technology that’s years ahead of anything here in Anticlockwise. Max knew that it would be important to have an effective
communication channel with anyone out there not in sympathy with the Anticlockwise Empire. So, he went to great pains to get it up and running. The important thing is that the Snoops don’t know that it exists.
They have their suspicions of course but they’ve never been able to track it down. It’s beyond their crude levels of expertise. So, when I’m on the Link, I feel safe. It’s the only place in the Anticlockwise Empire where I can say what I really think without worrying all the time about being overheard by the authorities. It’s the site where I’m publishing my blog posts. Without the Link I’d be reduced to scribbling notes on bits of paper with only a snowball’s chance in hell of anyone ever reading them.
What’s interesting about the Link is that Max is using it as a means of communicating with the inhabitants of a distant lost planet – Outer Neblus. By pure chance his scientists rediscovered Outer Neblus when they were trialling the Link. Everyone thought that the planet had been destroyed by a giant meteor a hundred years ago. So the discovery was a major scientific event. That’s what gave Max the idea of asking me to get involved.
It wouldn’t have been safe for me to engage with anyone in Safronika. The Safronikans would have used this as a publicity stunt in a propaganda war to attack Anticlockwise. That would definitely not have been good for my health. The Anticlocks don’t take kindly to dissenting voices. So Outer Neblus was a good opportunity to test the viability of Max’s latest technological gadget.
Max was extremely careful about who he let into the secret of the Link. He spent a lot of time emphasising that it was top secret and that I couldn’t inform anyone else about it, not even Tia or Clancy. I knew just from the tone of his voice that using it would be dangerous. But I wasn’t deterred. I’d reached a point in my existence where I had to do something to react against the Anticlocks.
The technical equipment was installed behind an air conditioning panel in my room one night when I was on duty. It had to remain hidden from the Snoops of course. I was surprised how small it was – just a small screen and a keyboard. Enough, though, to communicate messages to unknown Outer Neblusians millions of miles away.
The Lightning Link to Outer Neblus also gives me the chance to speak in different languages. Almost as many languages are spoken on Outer Neblus as in Safronika. Unlike before when we lived in the Safronika Confederation where more than twenty different languages are spoken, in Anticlockwise only one language is allowed: Guttural, a strangely aggressive and rasping tongue. When you hear it spoken it’s like listening to two people trying to eviscerate each other linguistically. I find speaking and writing Guttural depressing. That’s really why I learned to speak Esperanto. It’s a refreshing antidote to Guttural.
The Link is the one thing that makes my life bearable here in Anticlockwise. I’m so grateful to Max for that. I’ve finally got the chance to say what I really think without having to speak in some kind of coded spy language. Not only that, I’ve genuinely got the impression that I’m no longer speaking in a void. I sense that I’m in direct contact with people who are interested in what I have to say. That’s you, you know, my target audience: everyone out there who doesn’t like what’s going on here – all the escapees from this crazy Empire where they’re trying to turn the clock back. I’ve no idea who you are but if you’ve managed to access the Link and are reading what I’ve got to say, then I can only assume that you’re not a natural ally of the Anticlocks.
At least, I hope so…
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