Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
I had ignored the message with the strange invitation. After some ten days, I had forgotten about it. But then, there was a new one :
“Loxuru!
We represent a group of rich, powerful and influential people, whom are concerned about the future of humanity, in view of climate change, population growth, shortage of natural resources, environmental pollution and other threats. We have trustful connections with many world leaders and world organizations!
We are concerned about the fate of mankind during the 21st century! Yet, we believe that there is still hope for a good future. This will however need a drastic change of mentality. People will have to contend themselves with less! With less living space, with less privacy, with less civil rights and liberties. These will have to be replaced by a regime of social cohesion, mutual support and common identity, as a way to achieve common wealth for the future. Working ethos, community commitment and family values shall have to be the dominant virtues for a future society! We expect everybody would submit, preferably voluntarily, to this program. I repeat, we do this for the best of mankind!,
Unfortunately, to make this future come true, society will have to be purged from asocial, renegade and opposing views and from those who could adhere to or spread them! To ensure a collective welfare for mankind, all faces should look at the same direction.
Individuals with a risk of rebellious attitudes, will be singled out. A competent firm, Palo Alto Analytics, has been entrusted to track suspicious individuals, profile them, and find out whether they still can be converted to the right track and whether they still can be expected to contribute to the necessary shaping of the ideal 21st century society!
Loxuru! According to the profile drawn up from you, you are too much an adherent to obsolete and useless ideas of liberty, civil rights, privacy and individualism. Your views and opinions will be a burden and a danger for the development of the future society and its virtues. Considering your age and background, your reputed obstinate stubborn wisecrack mentality, your abhorrence for authority and for submitting to security measures, and your habit of cynical individualistic criticism to matters of social identity, your social profiling report concludes that attempts to reshape your views towards a more desired attitude, would be useless and unprofitable. You were ranked as ‘category black’, meaning, to a category of people, society should not be compelled to waste precious resources to. Considering you fall in the highest category of unwanted individuals, it has been advised to take steps to remove you from society as urgently as possible.
After following you for some time, we discovered you have an erotic kink for crucifixion and some other execution fantasies. Judging by the stories, drawings and pictures you have posted and your own revelations, your report concludes you dream of being crucified. You crave for your cross.
With the information we have gathered about you, we can at any moment expose your twisted fantasies to anyone whom it might interest. We can reveal them to the whole world. If necessary, we can add a lot more gore to it! We wonder how you will be able to defend yourself, if you would show up in a staged snuff act! We can link you to cocaine trade whenever we want! We have witnesses which are prepared to testify against you on all these crimes! Keep in mind, crime investigation forces and the justice system are on our side!
Your life will be over!
Because of your harmful viewpoints on society and your twisted desires we believe you actually deserve to be crucified.
But don’t worry! We offer you a way out! A way which will cope with your fantasies.
There are persons very interested in witnessing a group crucifixion.
Not because they are sadists or perverts, but because they deem such actions a necessary step in the remediation of our society. They do not want to evade their responsibility and the sometimes harsh consequences of this transition!
We want to take care of it. So be at (certain place, in a big Mediterranean island) the (a date in about one month time, early in the morning) and you will be crucified as you dream and deserve. Yours won’t be the only cross.
If you don’t show up, you will regret it for the rest of your uninteresting life. So do show up!
If you need it, we may cover your travel expenses.
(Contact data for requesting travel arrangements)
Signed:
The Cross Headmistress.”
This sounded already completely different. But still, I had received more weird messages, such as ‘Congratulations, you have inherited one million dollar from a nephew, you probably had never heard about, and who lived in Kazakhstan! I was appointed to execute his will. In order to carry out the compulsory administrative duties, I need some pre-financing. Please could you transfer thousand dollars to my account…’ or ‘Business opportunity in Nigeria! Profit return of 150%! Don’t miss this occasion! Invest ten thousand dollars in…’.
Who were these ‘rich and influential people’? Some internet criminals who had pierced the firewalls of CF? But why didn’t they simply try to blackmail me with my CF membership, instead of proposing a trip to some kind of a Mediterranean resort, on their expenses? Or was it a trick to fish after my bank account access codes? The only ‘hardpoint’ I had, was that ‘Palo Alto Analytics’. A quick Google search learned me that there was indeed a company with that name. I knew, Palo Alto was a place somewhere in the neighbourhood of San Francisco Bay, California. The company with that name was specialized, apparently, in data mining and analysis. Big business in the internet era! San Francisco was half a planet away from the Old Continent, but still I wondered, whether e-criminals could get away for long by abusing their name. On the other hand, there was not only the crux kink, which they could have obtained from tracking my internet behavior (despite my precautions). Also my character description (stubborn, individualistic, cynical traits, stuck to rights and liberties), was, I have to admit, a somewhat dark but fairly accurate description of what I call my liberal mentality.
I envisaged to contact Palo Alto about this matter, but I hesitated, since I would have to send the message, with reference to my crux kink, to a data mining shark. Before I could make up my mind, however, something else happened.
I was asked to report to the police office. A detective asked questions about my whereabouts, five days ago. Apparently it had to do with a shooting related to cocaine traffic, in a nearby town. All I could say that I had been at home that evening, without witnesses. What had I been doing? Browsing on the internet. On what sites? Just browsing, new sites, Wikipedia, others,… (I rather avoided to reveal I had been on CF all evening).
They had let me go, but it had been scary to be associated with a crime on a place I had never been in my life. Back home, I searched my place thoroughly. Suppose those sneaky coppers had taken profit from my presence at their office to hide some cocaine in my home, or high-jack my computer to put some incriminating data on it, while me being ignorant of it, and then frame me for it! I did not trust these guys for an inch!
It had been intimidating at the police office, particularly because the police had claimed that they had traced my presence at the crime site by tracking my cell phone history. That was ridiculous, I had stated, because it had been with me, at my home, all the time. Not according to our data, he had replied. I had told him that these were the consequences of the mass surveillance culture developed during the last years, instigated by the paranoid attitude of the state and the security forces. Sooner or later, a mistaken identity would come up! He had answered that, according to the police, there was no question of a mistake and he had warned me not to criticize the work of the security forces, since they protected the people against crime and terrorism, and it would be appreciated from the population to cooperate and submit without critics, for their own good. After some hesitation, I had submitted to their request to let them take a DNA sample. Yet I had left the office in doubts. The increased security measures have been defended for the protection of society, and those who had nothing to hide, had nothing to fear, they always said. But it was clear the security forces, including the police, were making their own laws, and it was up to their judgement whether someone had to hide something or not.
Back home, I took a drink, and did a little bit browsing. CF seemed normal, until a message popped up!
“Loxuru!
How was your evening?
This was just the beginning!
Your cell phone has been traced at the crime site. Your DNA will also match!
You have no alibi! We have witnesses!
Your life is over!
The only way out is to accept our offer!
Tomorrow, there will be more!
Signed:
The Cross Headmistress.”
The next day, in the morning, I discovered that my bank account had been blocked!
PS (to Carloscruz : I like the concept of this thread a lot. Yet, I prefer a little bit darker context as an incentive to accept the invitation, and maintain some suspense. I hope you don’t mind this personal touch).
