I2: The Parable of the
Informer
by Jim McPherson
James McPherson
has enlivened trillions of nervous systems in this galaxy as the mythic image of
chivalrous idealism and rakish gallantry.
Jim McPherson's
Evolutionary Agentry was geared for rescue. On planet-after-planet he set up
base camps -- from which he would sally forth whenever a Time-Traveler was
trapped in local hive webs. McPherson's protean ability and master
hive-bureaucratic skills and his ability to use the local taboos to free
Out-Castes made him a galactic TV hero. He is also famous for his textbook
Intel-Legal Tips, the classic field guide for Evolutionary Agents throughout the
galaxy.
James
McPherson, it should be noted, won the Solar-system award for Best Husband three
times -- 1983, 1998, and 2042.
In July 1974 an
Intelligence Agent posing as a cashiered psychologist, was brought in handcuffs
to Terminal Island, a Federal prison, and placed in the "hole." The hole was
the name of the punishment cell-block.
When he protested
he was told that he was being kept off the main-line because his sentence (ten
years for the possession of a half ounce of marijuana) was too lengthy for a
medium-security prison.
He was then
visited by a notorious hardass Federal agent, who made the following statement:
"If you double-cross me I'll have you put on the main-line of a Federal Prison
with the jacket of a snitch. Do you know what that means?"
I2 indicated that
he understood the threat.
He was actually in
prison for acting as an "informer." An informer is one who communicates facts
which someone else (usually a bureaucrat) does not want communicated. He had
publicized information about human intelligence which certain espionage agencies
and information bureaus wanted to keep secret.
Stuart Bland
was one of the most effective evolutionary agents of the 20th century. He was
first activated to mutant status by ingesting LSD with the Merry Pranksters in
1964 -- during which Vulnerability he was exposed to the first picture of Planet
Earth taken from high Orbit.
Bland's role
became most complex. In order to facilitate Space Migration and Galactic
Pranksterism, Bland agreed to become a deep-cover agent. For ten years he posed
as a puritanical, drab, ultra-respective stoic, anti-hedonic spokesman for the
Ecological Fascists -- growing moss on his own back, publishing dozens of
Luddite, anti-technology periodicals, derogating the profit-motive, promoting
games in which people hit each other with foam-rubber bats, editing essays about
Voluntary Poverty, Limitation of Growth, the Satisfactions of Renunciation,
Doomsday Meditations, Postponement of Pleasure.
The cover
worked! By 1976 this I2 agent had infiltrated the inner councils of the
Terminal Adult Establishment (liberal division), cunningly demonstrating that
the only way to return to the Puritan-Home-Owner Past was to build Space
Colonies.
Nothing
frightens hive-establishments more than the prospect of non-limits. Bland,
accordingly, soothed the Ecologists by resurrecting the classic Stoic Motto --
"Oh yes, it will happen, but not in our lifetime!"
In 1996 Bland
arranged his own kidnapping by an Intelligent Task Force, comprised of beautiful
women. He was shanghaied into a Space Shuttle, dosed with a longevity-pill and
transported to the Pleasure Plan-It of his own secret Prankster design.
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