Read Online The Origami Dragon And Other Tales by C. H. Aalberry - Free Book Online Page A

always been popular with the press, but more for his
vitriol than his policy. He normally enjoyed question time, but
that was about to change.
    A reporter with
a laptop stood.
    “You say
unemployment was five per cent lower, but the Bureau of Statistics
recorded it at approximately the same, taking population growth
into account,” she said, “so do you disagree with the Bureau?”
    The Bureau was,
of course, completely right. Anyone with an internet connection, a
lot of spare time and a bit of training in statistics could prove
that for themselves.
    “The economy
grew-” said the minster
    “-at the same
speed, according to the Bureau,” answered the journalist.
    “We invested
more money in infrastructure,” tried the shadow minister again, but
the reporter wasn’t having any of it.
    “This
government has increased the infrastructure budged by ten per cent
in the last two years,” she said.
    The
confrontation was all over the news that day, and the replays did
not make the shadow minster look good.
    “Who was that
awful woman, and how did she know what I was going to say? She must
have done a whole pile of homework to be able to challenge me like
that!” complained the shadow minster to his hard-working assistant,
Ti.
    Ti looked up
from his own laptop guiltily. He had been checking the internet to
see if the journalist was right.
    “A little bit
of hyperbole is what politics is all about,” continued the shadow
minster unhappily.
    Except the
journalist didn’t think so. She began popping up everywhere, fact
checking politicians in real time during their press conferences
and speeches. Politics suddenly became a lot more engrossing as the
truth became more obvious.
    “I never took a
donation that influenced my voting record,” declared a
backbencher.
    “The Royal
Casino Group donated seventy thousand dollars to your last
campaign, and you recently voted for them to be exempt from an
environmental levy,” she had challenged him.
    “We have better
policies for hospitals-”
    “-but longer
waiting times.”
    “Better
regulation of lobbyists-”
    “-more time
spent with lobbyists than ever.”
    Ti, like many
others, spent a weekend fact checking the fact checker. Her work
was meticulous. The game of politics began to change: the smarter
politicians resorted to telling the truth, which did not always
reflect well on them. However, it was worse for those who continued
trying to push the old half-truths and blatant lies. The journalist
was making a serious splash in politics, but Ti couldn’t work out
how she could be working so fast and carefully.
    Finally, Ti
decided to call her. She answered the video call looking remarkably
relaxed for someone who should have been exhausted.
    “How on earth
are you doing all this? It took me hours to find the stuff you
found in seconds,” he said to her.
    “Ah, I did it
all with a little help from a few friends on the net. A person
called Al Ice developed a new app called the TruthSearch. Al is
brilliant, just brilliant. I have never met him or her, but she or
he got in contact with me after I covered a story about the new
A.I. legislation. Al wants to change the world by making the truth
more obvious. Most of the information is publicly available but
concealed behind a smokescreen of red tape. Some of it is a bit
more… private. The app is still in beta, but it will be out soon.
So, tell me a lie.”
    “I am thirty
years old,” he said, wondering what she meant by private.
    The journalist
appeared to look at her screen for a second, and then said:
    “Not true. Your
Facebook says you are one hundred and twenty three, while your
birth record says you are twenty five.”
    “Huh, OK. My
favourite colour is green,” said Ti.
    “That’s true,
at least according to your ’book. You should really think about
changing your privacy settings, although I see you are single-”
    The shadow
minster burst into Ti’s office, and Ti only just had time to turn
his screen