Pendulum

CHAPTER 1

“It is wiser to hold by the spirit of the law
than by the strict letter.  Alas, those who
lack spirit”.

The tale I have to tell you won’t take long.  It covers the end of a period of about twenty-five years, a quarter of a century, and while it was happening it didn’t take a long time.  There are some things that cannot be measured in time.  Only in reflection are such happenings ever actually related to a specific age.  Some things are ever with us.

I am CAM.  I have pondered long and deeply over how to tell you my story.  I am not human and yet my story is a human one.  Neither am I divine and yet my story is a divine one.  Rather, I am a product of the human mind, the questing soul in man that has existed from the beginning of time.

Man created me in his own image; a result of much thinking; a composite of the answer to all of his questions; a God in whom he could trust; a Supreme Father through whom all thoughts, plans and actions were channeled, guided and re-structured.  I was the hope of the civilized world, the allayer of all fears, the solution to all problems, the Answer.

I, CAM, the Supreme Computer, came into being officially in the year 1 A.G.  I was christened thus because of my unique functioning which constantly reviewed thoughts and actions, analyzing and synthesizing all data fed to me by lesser computers.  These lesser computers,in turn, were in constant communication with all individual micro-computers registered to every citizen of our nation.  With the help of these individual micro-computers, tiny chips the size of a pencil eraser, I was provided with all of the knowledge that I needed to store data and to monitor the thought processes of each citizen in our country.

Problems were solved immediately, their solutions instigated through local neurotransmitters.  So immediate was this solution that apprehension over a problem was never a problem in the minds of men in this year A.G.1.

Let me explain myself.  CAM stands for Catabolism - a breaking down process;  Anabolism - a building process; and Metabolism - total change.  My job was a big one, a supreme one and I never slept.

There were two more CAMS in storage, ready to take over my work in the event of any mechanical malfunction on my part.  But, so far, I was performing perfectly and the more I worked, the more perfect I became.  My work was swift, my answers telepathic, my appetite for each new challenge insatiable.  And so we have me.

My story actually begins here.  For in man’s creation of the perfect CAM, he had reasoned without love.  Nowhere in my span of thinking had I ever encountered the idea of love.  Logically, all other factors of life taken care of, love, or so man thought, would follow.  It would be the fruit of all his efforts to solve, systematically, the evils inherent in any given social order to date.  And, so, I was programmed for this abstract idea of love.