The Levelling

Prologue.

The world had turned upside down and was now past the point of no return. Most of its inhabitants had noticed what was happening around them, but it was only the tiniest of minorities who were actively trying to save the planet and the people who were stood upon it.

Tom stared at the TV.

His Sunday night had passed like many before it. Households everywhere were huddled on sofas trying to forget that Monday morning loomed large like a lingering bad odour.

Outside his window the economy had tanked and the Government pushed ahead with more cuts and punitive budgetary discipline which of course hurt everyone, except the wealthy. Unusually for a modern western economy, the middle classes seemed to be hurting as much as he poor. The moderately comfortable had become the just about managing and all that held them back from the precipice of poverty, which had already claimed thousands of the less fortunate, was easy access to credit, equity in their property or the trickle down of inheritance. Now even those ropes were fraying as the chasm beneath them yawned even wider.

The top two percent of the world owned ninety five percent of the wealth and boy did they flaunt it! The world had never seen such financial disparity. Gold plated Super-cars mocked the hungry as they cruised arrogantly past the tents pitched on pavements and the cardboard lined doorways. Manufacturers of luxury goods competed to create ever more vulgar trinkets to attract the buyer to spend more and more on less and less. The hurricane of excess tore apart the lives of all except the people who had actually created and fed this diamond encrusted storm. The wealthy, insulated from the consequences of their greed, were blissfully unaware that a new storm was threatening to rip their complacency away from its fragile foundation.

Anger twisted wrists into fists and the air was full of threats of revolution, upheaval or collapse, all of which, it seemed was just a day or two away. It had somehow been that way for too many years, little changed, little progress was made, perhaps the excessive power of the top table had finally made them as untouchable as it had made them oblivious to the needs of the wider world around them.

The political Left had never been more popular but lacked the focus to get elected. The right was loud, selfish and disturbing. The right characteristically lacked all morality and decency, which ironically made them perfectly qualified to be the government in power for the majority of nations. Commentators predicted that it was only a matter of time before the far right stepped up their game and a new kind of social and political hell would once more boil to the surface.

..

It was Seven AM Monday morning. The news presenter barked endless updates of the same story, Fresh morsels of information were hastily delivered on printed A4 pages into nervous news anchor hands.

’We are getting reports from the Sydney stock exchange that some unusual trading activity has forced emergency closure of all of its trading floors countrywide. All trading has been suspended. No official statement has been released yet but indications are that some sort of computer malfunction or hack may be behind this unusual emergency measure.’

Very soon New Zealand, Japan, China and India were all reporting similar banking anomalies and trading on most stock exchanges had now already been suspended as a precaution.

In the 30 minutes since the last update things were changing at quite a pace. Now the reporters were on the streets of the UK and Brits were telling the same story. Bank accounts in complete disarray money missing, money added. The London stock exchange had not yet rung its opening bell and the trading floors stood eerily quiet. Traders made frantic phone calls to international colleagues as they tried to make sense of the financial glitch. The Frankfurt stock exchange had bucked the global trend and had decided to open trading an hour earlier, stocks immediately went into free fall, the plug was pulled and just ten minutes later with billions gone, investors and institutions began to panic.

Then, one tweet. One tweet from Michael Mathers account, Amazon’s global chief finance officer, in what seemed at the time a move towards total global take over by a corporation. This tweet was the beginning of the end, or maybe the beginning of the beginning, depending on where you were in the unequal & imbalanced financial strata.

The Tweet had a link to a video which was just a picture of the earth from space narrated by the voice of what sounded like a mature woman with an international European English accent.

‘The Levelling is here. Change is long overdue, it’s time for a reset.’

Simultaneously globally news organisations broadcast the video.

’We are The Mothers of The Earth. Greed and inequality have been allowed to flourish for too long. Despite financial and social injustices globally, the powers that govern and represent us not only refuse to address the biggest issues we face but most make them worse by creating schemes that make the rich, richer, whilst the poor starve and all this at the same time as we race headlong towards certain environmental disaster.

We have decided to take direct action because our leaders and those representing us refuse to do so. Collectively we have irreversibly levelled the global financial systems. We have emptied all bank accounts, both corporate and individual and every electronic means of holding funds. Firstly, we wiped out all debt for everyone, and then we have then re-distributed all the monies collected, equally amongst everyone alive today.

As each country wakes up their financial systems will automatically share its part of the global fund between all its citizens.

Please be warned; Any government, organisation or individual who tries to reverse this action by whatever means, will face sanctions. All individuals within that government or organisation that attempts to reverse the Levelling, including all investors, subscribers and employees, will all, without exception, have their entire Levelling share removed from them immediately. They will be left with nothing and their access to the internet or other future means of electronic funds will also be blocked.

This as a new beginning. This is an opportunity for us all to rebuild our world in a fair and just way. From this moment on, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Richard Branson and Mark Zuckerberg will all have the same net worth as the homeless guy you passed sleeping in a doorway yesterday.

Everyone’s cash share will be offset against their property holdings leaving many who have multiple properties who will now be without any funds whatsoever until all their properties except their main home are relinquished.

The share-out equates to approximately five thousand dollars per man woman and child on the planet. This will be given out in five hundred dollar increments every month over the next ten months. Provision has been made for those without bank accounts to also receive their share. All currencies will be at parity. For example; one Yen will be worth one dollar and one dollar will be one Euro etc.

A second and equally important effect we hope The Levelling will have is, that it will for a time, check rampant global consumerism, mining, manufacture and distribution of all kinds, including oil. This, we hope, will have a positive effect on reducing pollution an the climate and will thus buy the planet a little more time to heal and recover.

For our children and their mothers, for our fathers and their sons this is The Levelling and we are The Mothers of The Earth!

Tom stared at the TV: ‘Oh Fuck!’

Chapter 1.

For the majority who were lucky enough to live in the western world most had good food, they had comparatively clean water and decent healthcare. They also had a reasonably good standard of living compared to the majority of the people on the planet. You would think this would give them little too actually to complain about, but that didn’t stop them giving it a bloody good go. They complained about their jobs, rent, the price of food and their mortgages. They moaned about the neighbours, their friends and their lot in life. Once all these avenues were exhausted, they often complained about the weather and always, always complained about the government.

Tom was one of these people, an ordinary guy who hated his job but adored his children and plodded through life without making waves. His job was as an area sales manager for a construction firm. Tom had been married ten years to Nicola who was a corporate accountant. Nicola was ambitious but balanced, she loved her work but loved her family more.

He was educated at Leeds University and earned a degree in business management and they now lived in Treading simply for its easy commute to London. No one lived in Treading for any other reason than its proximity to London. It was a faceless characterless commuter town. Many who defended it or justified their life there did so by saying;

‘Well, at least it’s not London, we really didn’t want to live in London.’

It was like somehow, they wanted to tell you that they had made a great life choice. That living in a dusty lifeless suburb outside of London was somehow better than the same dusty suburb inside of the big ring road. This minor trick of geography was not good reason for Treading to be held in any sort of esteem, but people grabbed at whatever positive they could, however tenuous.

Tom and Nicola’s house was a standard style new build on an estate of identical looking houses. It was less than five years old and was listed as detached, although on autumn days, even the sunlight couldn’t pull its stomach in hard enough to squeeze through the gap between the houses. Four bedrooms and two bathrooms. A bedroom for them, one each for Harry and Sophie, eight and nine years old respectively. One guest room filled with the excesses of modern life, exercise equipment used once, golf clubs used never, suitcases and general flotsam, all of which only ever got moved and redistributed around the house on the rare occasion that a visitor came to stay overnight.

In front of the house was the standard square block of lawn with a generic family car parked beside it on a driveway barely wide enough to contain it. There was a garage for the car, but once inside said garage, the driver would have to remain in the car until the next time it was required, as the space was barely four inches wider than the car itself and made door opening impossible.

Even if the garage was big enough to park a car it was already occupied by Tom’s sister Grace and her husband Andy’s furniture. They left it there temporarily two years ago whilst they were buying a house in London. Grace and Andy have been gazumped four times and had given up hope of ever buying another home. London prices had gone up so rapidly they were now stuck in rented accommodation and priced out of any area which had a school with a good enough rating for them to consider sending the children to.

Now they were facing having to move to area which was a little more ‘vibrant’ than they were expecting, which on the one hand meant great nightlife, great restaurants but on the other, not such good schools. Even the well-heeled middle classes were struggling to attain what they saw as their basic rights; a home bought with a mortgage with their name on it in an area in which they felt safe and represented, a good school for the kids and regular skiing trips to the Alps.

So, on a seemingly ordinary Sunday night Tom was slumped in front of the TV. Nicola had just gone up to bed as was usual at around nine. Tom would usually find his way up there around eleven having fallen asleep on the sofa several times before admitting defeat.

Tom was channel surfing between ‘Angry Cops with Cameras’ and ‘Buy a new Place under some Sun.’

Predictably he had fallen asleep and as he woke ready to head for bed, he accidentally flicked onto the 24 hour news. He rarely watched the news these days, as it was almost always depressing and however hard he worked and however hard he voted and however vociferous he was on Facebook and down at the pub, his world incrementally got a little bit harder day after day.

Tom leaned forward, turned up the volume slightly to glean a little more from the news flash. The report basically just repeated the same confusing information over & over again about a suspected banking software error and promised to keep the viewer updated as soon as more information became available.

Tom hit the red button on the remote, switched off the table lamp, checked that all the external doors were locked and wearily trudged up the stairs to bed.

Chapter 1

Monday morning was now upon him. Tom awoke far too early and was soon back down watching the TV in the living room. His wife Nicola also awake, sat up in bed browsing her phone and thumbing through an endless stream of benign non news on her Facebook feed.

Tom quickly checked his emails on his phone through his sleep fudged eyes and then headed up to bed to kiss Nicola good morning. He then went straight to take a shower. As Tom entered the bathroom, which was at the back of the house, he became aware that the world was a little quieter than normal. Their house backed onto a pretty busy main road which was only about fifty meters away. Because of its position so close to the road, his ears had become used to the steadily increasing build and thrum of traffic noise which accompanied the beginning of every day. He checked his phone, yes, it was definitely Monday.

Hey honey. Tom said to Nicola. The road is very quiet today. Nicola looked up briefly, glanced at the curtains and said ‘oh’ in a rather uninterested manner.

Tom. Nicola inquired. Have you looked at Facebook this morning, or the news?

Tom reached over for his phone as Nicola continued.

There seem to be a lot of people saying that overnight money has gone out of their accounts. It’s almost every other post now, some are saying they think they have been hacked. I have looked at the news pages and they all seem to be focused on the emergency closure of the Sydney Stock exchange. I wonder if there is some kind of connection.

Tom by this point was thumb flicking his way through countless pages and comments on his social media feeds. He looked over to Nicola.

Yeah, I’ve been watching it on TV downstairs, and it’s all over Twitter too. He says. A number of countries seem to be experiencing data or software issues. Must have been one hell of a glitch for this many people to have noticed already.

Do we need to check our account? Nicola asked.

I have, it’s all a bit weird. Tom replied.

Weird? she paused and smiled. I tell you what, it doesn’t matter, before any of that, put that phone down Tom, and come and give me a cuddle before I have to get up for work.

Tom’s hands darted beneath the covers and tickled Nicola’s ribs, she squirmed and giggled and threw her phone towards the bottom end of the bed and excitedly dived beneath the covers with him as they tangled and reassured each other with the last moments of comfort and safety before the jagged edges of the Monday morning world invaded and tore holes in their warm and hard won weekend.

Several minutes later Tom disentangled himself and kissed Nicola on the forehead. Time to go sweetie, he said wearily.

Nicola leaned forward and grabbed her phone again. I am going to check our account, no harm to be absolutely sure.

I have! Don’t bother. Please, it’s better to leave it until it’s all sorted out. I’m sure things will be back to normal pretty quickly.

Tom got up and headed again for the shower.

A minute of two later, Nicola uncharacteristically burst into the bathroom.

Tom! Tom you have got to see this! She waved her phone screen at him. The bastards have got us as well. They have left us just five hundred pounds in our account! What are we to do? They have cleared us out! The mortgage is due on Thursday!

Tom rinsed his face, turned the shower off and stepped towards her, looking at the phone screen over her shoulder.

Look. He says. Have you also noticed that the loan and the credit cards are now at zero, so look on the bright side, it’s not all bad!

I spotted that too, shame it’s not permanent eh? I have tried to ring the bank. She continued. But the machine says they are not open until nine for inquiries.

Tom smiled and reassured her. Don’t worry sweetie, I am sure this will be sorted out by the bank as soon as things start moving this morning. Banks have all sorts of back-ups and guarantees in place. Tom gave her a kiss, grabbed his towel and headed downstairs, switching the television back on.

Five more minutes. He muttered to himself.

Nicola grabbed her dressing gown and joined him on the sofa, she snuggling into his side and peered at the TV with her face buried in his shoulder.

The TV news report was delivered with the usual unemotional manner was now reporting scenes of chaos at the Tokyo stock exchange and all trading there was also suspended following the similar scenes at the Sydney exchange. Speculation was rife with many random financial experts hurried out of bed to deliver whatever insight was possible at this stage and to theorise on what was happening. Each commentator had to be careful that their speculation didn’t step over the line and become too incendiary to be broadcast by nervous news editors. Therefore, all were saying the same thing, which in total was actually pretty much nothing.

The general consensus was that this must be some sort of computer error, but the fact that it had affected stock exchanges in different countries whose servers and systems are mainly independent, was worrying even the least knowledgeable of commentators. Whilst the news rolled on, the ticker-tape headlines at the base of the screen were now reporting more. Specifically that a suspected banking software error was responsible for virtually emptying the accounts of many people in various parts of the UK.

We are now going to break from our main news story for a moment as reports are coming in, mainly from social media and a number of our roving correspondents of a possible software error that has affected many thousands of people. These reports are as yet unverified but those claiming to be affected are all reporting a similar thing, which is, that overnight many bank balances have been radically altered and many members of the public are stating, very oddly, that their accounts are now showing just five hundred pounds. Others are saying that they had no money in their account over the weekend and now they have five hundred pounds that they didn’t have before. Some are also reporting that their debts, credit cards, mortgages etc. have all gone to zero when viewed through their online portals. There have even been a few calls from people telling us their accounts have been wiped out altogether, that all their money gone. There are queues already forming at ATM’s as people try to take the cash out of their accounts before it disappears altogether.

We have on the line our banking and financial expert Drew Porter: Drew, thank you for joining us this morning. What do you make of the reports coming in that many people’s bank accounts have seemingly been tampered with or altered in this way? Do you think it’s simply a software glitch of something a little more serious or even sinister?

Morning Katy, Drew responded. I have spent the last forty minutes trying to get through to the spokesman for the bank of England or any of the major banking emergency information lines and no one is picking up. I have just been informed that the Governments emergency committee Cobra has been called into session and that a number of top officials from the major banks were woken quite early and ordered into Whitehall as a matter of urgency. However, none of my sources can ascertain any details about what might be causing this anomaly with some bank accounts. I suspect it’s simply a software error which will right itself as soon and their systems fully switch on at eight AM. You see Katy, many banking systems reboot overnight and that’s why some online banking transactions don’t normally appear until after eight or nine AM the following morning. I have also heard from another reliable source that some corporate bank accounts have also been affected in a similar way. Now, if on the other hand some of the rumours and speculation are true, and I must emphasise, that in this sort event there is always much uncorroborated speculation, but if the speculation is to be believed there is also a possibility that this is some sort of hack. If it is a hack, who did this or why is completely unclear. No group is claiming responsibility. I must emphasize however that this is all mere speculation, we have had no official announcements from the banking world or from any government officials. Please be assured Katy that our banks have systems in place to deal with eventualities like this. If it is a software malfunction then all accounts will be pretty quickly restored using the many back-up systems they have in place. Similarly, if it is some sort of hack or malicious attack then again, they have processes in place to quickly rectify things and compensate people for any temporary loss this attack may have caused them. Although for some this error may prove to be a temporary inconvenience, it will be quickly rectified and normal service should be restored within the next hour or so, I am sure of it. The important thing is not to panic, the banks have systems and procedures to deal with this. They have meticulously rehearsed for situations like this and procedures will kick in to sort any glitch or hack that might have happened.

Thank you Drew for your report. Please stay on the line and keep us updated of any new developments.

Tom rose from the sofa clutching his towel around his waist. Look Honey I guess there is nothing we can do right now. I’m going to get ready for work. I’m going to be quite late as it is.

Nicola remained on the sofa with the controller in hand silently firing at the television, surfing one news channel to the next in an attempt to get more information or another version of events.

Tom dressed with his usual Monday morning reluctance.

Nicola shouted up the stairs.

Tom it’s happened in other countries too. Australian people are on the news saying their accounts have just five hundred dollars in, someone in Paris also just five hundred Euro’s. This is weird Tom, I’m properly frightened! Tom! Are you listening? Don’t go to work! Please stay let’s take the day off and wait to see if this all blows over. I’m worried Tom!

Tom didn’t reply. He then went into the girl’s bedrooms, ruffled their hair kissing them each on the forehead. Time to get out of bed my miniature heroes. As was customary he pulled the quilt back off their feet and gave each foot a little tickle as he departed their rooms.

Tom went down the stairs, suit on, tie tied and shoes in hand.

Look love, he assured, I’m not sure we can do anything or solve anything by staying at home! I really have to go to work. I have such a busy day ahead. If I don’t go in today it will make the rest of my week much worse than it normally is!

Tom sat on the bottom stair and tied the laces on his shoes. Nicola was now stood next to him in the living room doorway with her back to him her eyes fixed on the TV. The TV remote and her phone were gripped in each of her hands like silver pistols in an old Western shoot out.

Tom stood, embraced her from behind, kissed her cheek and said. Time to get the kids up! Stay in touch, keep me up to date. I will have the news on in the car. Call me if you need to.

Nicola didn’t reply.

The front door shut and Tom stepped into the Monday morning air. The distance between the front door and his car was less than 20 feet but in that short distance Tom was struck by how quiet the street was. Most of the cars which had usually, by this time, left their drives and would be by now forming a queue to join the main road, were still parked in place outside each of his neighbours house. The usual thrum of the main road was probably sixty percent quieter than normal. Tom leaned against the car, scanning the scene around him. Tom then checked his phone, it’s definitely Monday. He checked it again. It’s definitely not half term or bank holiday. He climbed into the car ready to set off along on his usual route. Easiest start to a Monday ever, he thought with a little smile. I will sail virtually unencumbered by other traffic straight onto the main road and down the two mile stretch to the big intersection which will take me swiftly onto the motorway. He was quite excited by the fact that the quieter roads would make his morning so much less stressful than normal.

The car however, seemed to sense there was something wrong and refused to start. Over and over he spun the starter, but it simply wouldn’t fire. It felt like one of those days he had as a boy when he was all set to go to school and the phone would then ring and he would then be informed by his Mum that the school was closed because the boiler had broken down or the roof was leaking. It was like a free unexpected holiday day.

Locking the car, he joined Nicola back on the sofa, her attention was still fixed on the TV.

You are right. He said. It’s a proper weird one, car is dead, I have called the breakdown company, but they can’t give me a time, so I’m taking the morning off, let’s see how this thing pans out.

This was the moment the global news channels simultaneously broadcast a message from a group calling themselves The Mothers of the Earth!