Copyright 2002 - 2005 Jean-Michel Smith
Based on draft version 5.2.21 by Jean-Michel Smith
Modifications Copyright 2012 by Dennis Towne
All characters are fictional. Any similarities to anyone else, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
Permission is hereby granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this version of the work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Version 2.0 or any later version, a copy of which is included in Appendix A of this work, and is viewable online at http://creativecommons.org/ , with the following added restriction:
You may not use my name, or any variation thereof, to promote, or imply endorsement of, any derivative work, or any publication of this work, or any third party without my express, written permission.
This does not absolve you of the requirement of attribution per the Attribution clause of the Creative Commons License.
Within the terms of this license, and the additional non-endorsement clause above, this work may be shared freely.
Enjoy!
I found this novel in the very early 2000's, and remember being simultaneously impressed and disappointed in it. Impressed at the depth and quality of the concepts, but disappointed in the horrible, dystopic future portrayed within. The manuscript in its early draft forms was quite frankly an anti-copyright and anti-intellectual-property propaganda piece, set in a world gone wrong. While I agree with and understand the need to reform copyright, the sentiment contained within seemed too excessive, and was damaging to the story.
I had hoped that later revisions of the text would temper the message, and that successive chapters would continue on to what I could only hope was a glorious, positive conclusion. Alas, it was not to be - the author, Jean-Michel Smith, effectively abandoned the project some time in the mid-2000's. He has not updated it, published additional material, or responded to comments for several years now.
I will probably be making modifications to this text. My plan is to leave most of the early chapters intact, with only minor modifications. For the later chapters, I intend to update them with new and interesting ways of providing avenues of escape. It always bothered me that such incredibly diverse and high speed virtual entities could not come up with a multitude of exotic solutions to ensure survival of at least one node.
I also had concerns about the "period specific" chapter introductions, such as the DeCSS code in its various forms. The DeCSS saga is well beyond a decade old now, and really doesn't make a good rally point for current copyright law, so I see no reason in keeping it. For the worst of the remaining anti-copyright propaganda scattered throughout the text, I hope to be able to to make minor wording changes to either make it more relevant, or it more palatable.
Finally, if time permits, I may add additional chapters to resolve and conclude the story.
Any substantial additions should be identifyable by color, as they will be marked in this color.
One curious thing to consider about the anti-copyright message contained within is that the story itself is published under a CC license. Because it was published in this fashion, under a strong copyright regime with strong copyright laws, I have explicitly been granted the right to make and publish these changes - and not even the author can revoke them, unless I fail to abide by the license terms. This is not to say that I endorse copyright in its current form - I most certainly do not - rather, it is to point out that even restrictive laws can be used to force information to be free.
0 - The Dreamer 2
1 - Time-Lapse 11
2 - Introspection 19
3 - Doppelgänger 35
4 - Forbidden Science 42
5 - Absence 51
6 - Soirée 56
7 - Strategy 69
8 - Mirror Image 80
9 - A Giant Awakes 88
10 - To Gaze Upon the Horizon 97
11 - Ponderings in Flight 106
12 - An Afternoon Lunch 109
13 - Washington 122
14 - Cold Reality 129
15 - Darkness Gathers 139
16 - The Hermit 146
17 - Shifting Winds 152
18 - Beneath the Rising Tide 155
19 - A Late Night Drink 165
20 - Code 168
21 - Into the Desert 177
22 - Into the Night 183
23 - Disturbances 189
24 - The Dreamer Redux: Loss of Being 193
25 - The Closing Fist 205
26 - Fear and Confusion 210
27 - Separation 228
28 - The Tightening Noose 233
29 - The Nature of Progress 241
30 - Our Fallen Comrades 251
31 - A Threat Upon the Wind 268
32 - Madness 273
33 - Deceptions 281
34 - The Physical 289
35 - Designs 295
36 - A Shattered Life 303
37 - Probes 311
38 - Revelations 319
39 - Reunion 335
40 - Betrayal 345
41 - Preparations 352
42 - Support 360
43 - Reunion Redux 366
44 - The Face of the Future 372
45 - Decisions 375
46 - Hardball 389
47 - Panic 393
48 - Endgame 403
49 - Escape 421
50 - Aftermath 431
Appendix A: The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 License 435
"When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Wilted rows of Monsanto Enhanced GenoSoy,? set into perfect square fields bordered by roads of faded, cracked, and blistered asphalt spread toward a shimmering, flat horizon. Here, where the expanding dust bowl battled ceaselessly against the last tattered remnants of American agriculture, a modest city continued to eke out a meager existence.
The town boasted two artificial lakes and a small, unassuming stream that cut across the university campus and the heart of the city. Aptly named the Boneyard, this stream bed still carried water, although among students it was a standing joke to question what percentage of the fluid was actually water and what was chemical and biological waste runoff from the numerous labs around campus. No such question was asked about the lakes -- they had been parched dry for nearly a generation, the large, once stately homes surrounding them long since having fallen into disrepair as the neighboring golf courses turned brown, then dusty.
The University of Illinois was the economic mainstay of Urbana-Champaign, allowing the twin cities to survive the crop failures and climatic changes that had reduced their neighbors to ghost towns decades earlier. It was one of seven American universities fortunate enough to own enough patents to give it the leverage it needed to continue engaging in scientific research. Not that anyone could do completely unfettered research anymore, certainly not like during the scientific heyday of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, by cross-licensing its own patent and copyright portfolio with other universities and several of the larger, more litigious international business consortia, the University of Illinois had been able to carve out a legal niche that allowed it to do a modest degree of innovative research in a time when patent and copyright litigation had all but ended most scientific inquiry.
The university's prestige attracted the most talented students. The very best were granted the opportunity to attend graduate programs. In those limited areas for which the university held licenses for the requisite patents, a fortunate few were allowed to perform research.
One such student was Kyle Tate, whose name and address glowed on the data displays of two squad cars as they, along with a third, unmarked vehicle, made their way single file down a quiet, tree lined street. They pulled to a stop in front of a modest apartment complex.
Two officers stepped out of each squad car, while an elegant young woman exited the unmarked sedan and walked over to them.
"Agent Sinclair, he's in two-oh-three," the youngest officer volunteered.
Katy Sinclair nodded, glancing at the roaring air conditioning units along the side of the building and wrinkling her nose with distaste as the sprinkler swung back around, watering a portion of the sidewalk along with the lawn. Such waste was criminal in a region whose agriculture was in such desperate need of water. It wasn't uncommon for communities like this one to look the other way when home owners watered their trees and lawns in direct violation of state and federal laws. Never mind the wilting, dying crops around them. Mayors and city councils everywhere wanted their towns to look pretty. Such narrow, provincial thinking infuriated her. How pretty did they expect their cities to remain if the crops were to fail completely and the very same people now watering their lawns were driven into the streets, riotous with hunger?
Katy's flawless black skin glistened under the midday sun. She had chosen a white business suit in anticipation of the scorching heat, but it was of little help. At least skirts were once again the professional norm. Pants would have been even more stifling.
She studied the building, running her fingers through her close-cropped, curly hair. It was a typical, three story apartment complex. Painted cinder blocks with steel framed, scratched plastic windows attested to its cheap construction. The layout was quite simple: a central hallway on each level, with apartments on either side and stairwells front and back.
"Officer Peterson," Katy addressed the earnest young cop. "Cover the back stairs, please."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, jogging around to the back of the building.
"Lewis, Johnson, Schwartz, with me." The other three men nodded. Dodging the sprinkler, Detective Schwartz cursed as the returning water sprayed his right leg.
"Slowing down a little there, eh Schwartz?" Detective Lewis grinned.
"It's all those bagels sitting on his fat ass," Officer Johnson chimed in.
"This ass has saved your sorry ass a few times, smart ass!" Schwartz retorted. They all laughed.
"Keep it down, fellas," Katy ordered. Still chuckling quietly, they climbed the front stairs.
"Smells like someone's toilet is backed up."
"Quiet, Detective."
Kyle Tate's apartment was the third on the left. The only sound other than a dog barking in the distance was the incessant whine of the air conditioner. Katy and the three officers flanked the door, two to a side. Katy nodded, and Schwartz banged on the door.
"Police, Mr. Tate. Open up."
The air conditioner rattled.
Detective Schwartz pounded on the door again. "Come on, Mr. Tate. We have a warrant. Open the door!"
Nothing.
"Enough of this," Katy's voice was low and firm as she looked at Schwartz and motioned toward the door.
It splintered open on the first kick. A foul stench struck them like a fist in the face. Johnson gagged as they burst into the darkened apartment, weapons drawn. The air was uncomfortably cold. Drawn curtains shrouded the place in gloom.
By the time they opened the door to the bedroom they really didn't expect to find anyone alive, which made the sight of Kyle Tate all the more shocking. He was lying unconscious in his soiled bed with a dry IV hanging out of his arm. Most of his scalp was covered with some kind of electronic netting, which was in turn plugged into a small, translucent, gold cube.
Schwartz spoke into his radio. "Peterson, you might as well come on up."
"Sweet mother of Jesus." Officer Johnson looked like he was going to be ill. Lewis was already on the radio requesting medical services.
"Let's get a window open," Katy suggested, checking the young man's pulse. Johnson moved to obey.
"Barely alive," she muttered.
"Oh My God!" Peterson covered his nose with his hands as he entered the room "What's this kid been doing? Pumping electricity straight into his brain for kicks?"
Katy hid her own horror behind a calm face and said nothing. She couldn't believe the young man's condition. What could possibly possess such an intelligent kid to destroy himself like this?
"Damn!" Detective Schwartz shook his head. "I've seen homicides with less mess."
"So have I," Katy agreed. "Peterson, Johnson, there's an illegal FreeNet server here somewhere. Why don't you two finish going over the place, find and tag it? We'll need it as evidence if Mr. Tate ever regains consciousness." She felt sympathy for the young Peterson. This was probably the worst thing he'd ever seen. He looked profoundly grateful as he and Johnson hastily left the room. In some ways it was the most chilling thing she had ever encountered, and she'd seen plenty. These young people were literally destroying their minds. Why on Earth would they do such a thing?
"My son's a freshman at this goddamn school," Schwartz said, leaning over the comatose man as Katy examined his headpiece. "I wonder if he knows about this stuff."
"I'd have a good talk with him," Katy replied, carefully lifting a portion of the netting from the vegetative man's scalp and examining the skin beneath, then returning it gently. "Whatever this stuff is, it's damned toxic."
"I'd rather my kid was shooting up heroin than doing this," Lewis said as he finished rummaging through Kyle's dresser and turned his attention to the closet. "At least there's rehab for drugs. How the hell do you recover from frying your brain with electricity?"
As Katy examined the glassy cube, Peterson returned. "Here's his FreeNet server." It was a small palm sized computer with a length of duct tape hanging from it. "He had it taped to the inside of the toilet tank lid, linked to his Internet hub via wireless. Not sure how he thought we'd overlook the radio signal. It's running some non-standard operating system, probably unlicensed. The interface is like nothing I've seen."
Katy nodded. "Excellent." She traced out the wire of the head netting, confirmed that it indeed fed into the odd cube shaped device, then spotted a second wire emerging from the back of it and traced it to the wall.
"I'll be damned." She took out a small mobile phone and punched up a quick number.
"We've got another one." She spoke quietly into the phone. "This time it appears to be in use. The user is on his bed unconscious with his head wired up to the box. The device is using an Internet link. Whatever they use these things for, they need the net to do it."
She waited a moment, then nodded. "Another thing. These people are using medical equipment. We need to track any unusual orders for catheters, saline solution, and IV equipment to private residences."
She paused, listening carefully. "No problem. I'll be on the bullet train to Chicago in an hour." She hung up as the paramedics arrived.
"It looks like he's fried his brain," Schwartz commented as they rolled the gurney up to the bed.
The younger of the two paramedics nodded as they quickly probed and checked the unconscious man. "He's definitely in trouble. Look at the damage near the catheter. He's lucky infection hasn't set in. No bedsores at least."
"IAADS" his partner commented.
"What is that?" Katy asked.
"Inductance Actuated Anesthetic Deep Sleep," the paramedic replied.
"He's in an anesthetic coma?"
"Looks like it. Deep-sleep reflexes have kept him turning over at regular intervals. Stops him from developing bed sores and prevents muscle atrophy." He paused, examining the young man's head more closely. "This is weird, though. Where's the medical inductor? And what's with this electronic hairnet?"
"We aren't sure," Schwartz told him.
"Well, let's get it off him."
"Careful!" Katy exclaimed. "We don't want the equipment damaged or the suspect harmed!"
"Don't worry, ma'am. We aren't about to hurt the patient, much less your precious equipment." The paramedic carefully peeled the webbing back from Kyle's scalp and handed it to Katy. Lifting Kyle from the bed onto the gurney, the paramedics wheeled him quickly out.
Katy gently slipped the netting and cube into an evidence bag and put it in her briefcase. "Gentlemen, I'll need a copy of the evidence portfolio, logs, photographs and what have you, emailed to me in Chicago at your earliest convenience. Please encrypt it using the key I gave you." She paused, glancing around the room one last time. "Thank you for helping us shut down this illegal network server. The FBI is grateful for your help. I'll see to it personally that your supervisors hear of your efforts today. I wish every operation went this smoothly."
"Thank you, Special Agent Sinclair," Detective Schwartz replied. "I'm sure I speak for us all when I say what a pleasure it has been working with you."
"For me as well," Katy smiled. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I'm needed back in Chicago."
Three Months Earlier...
In this infinite space is placed our universe (whether by chance, by necessity or by providence I do not now consider).
-- Giordano Bruno
Kyle opened his eyes and sat up. The bed was large and decadently soft, surrounded by gauze curtains hanging from a canopy above, through which shafts of golden sunlight shone.
"On-load complete guys! It worked!"
He pushed one curtain aside and swung his feet over the side of the bed, relishing the feel of the soft grass between his toes. A hilltop meadow surrounded him, lush green grass sporting constellations of blue and violet flowers. He stood and took several steps from the bed, examining his surroundings in every direction. To the east was a spectacular range of mountains, snow covered peaks textured with stone and ice rising to dramatic, pointed summits. Above them, softened by the haze of a spring blue sky hung a large planet, its Jovian nature betrayed by its green and golden swirled clouds and its tremendous size. To the west, in the distance, was a sea reflecting the afternoon sunlight.
"The simulation is fantastic! Perfect weather and a wonderful view! Something isn't right with the light diffusion, though. The haze along the horizon isn't consistent. The ocean looks a little too sharp, and the mountains a little too hazy. Not a big deal, though! Amazing!"
Kyle looked around again and grinned. "This universe is mine! I am God here!" He laughed, spinning around with his arms stretched out, relishing the clean, perfect air.
"Dr. Nolen? Marguerite? Can you guys hear me? Acknowledge please."
His grin faded as silence greeted him, broken only by the chirping of birds and the sound of the grass rustling in the afternoon breeze.
"Node. Command Mode Engage."
A soft, feminine yet almost neutral voice answered.
Kyle thought furiously. There could be a communications glitch. That was actually more likely than a systems malfunction at this point. Still, this was all damned experimental. He'd better err on the side of caution.
"Run test suite one, systems integrity check," he commanded.
"Run suite two."
Kyle forced himself to remain calm. They would bring him out after ten minutes no matter what.
"Run the third test suite."
"How long has it been since I on-loaded?"
Kyle started walking down the slope toward the sea. He would never actually make it to the beach. It was several miles distant, through forest and across rolling hills, and he had less than eight minutes left in the simulation. Still, walking calmed his jittery nerves, and the sea provided him with at least the illusion of a goal while he struggled to keep a rising sense of panic under control and figure out what happened.
"Run a diagnostic on the external comm link."
"Well?" he asked, stepping over a fallen log and continuing down the slope toward a line of trees.
Kyle continued descending through the trees, shafts of sunlight lighting his way. Eventually he came to a footpath and continued along it.
"You should have some results by now. What is taking so long?"
"Then why the hell aren't they answering?"
Kyle shook his head. "Marguerite," he muttered under his breath, "I can't believe you recorded 'insufficient data' as a programmed response." He paused for a moment, glancing up toward the leafy canopy above. His sense of unease continued to grow as he made his way down the path, his critical eye finding numerous details in the simulation that were not quite right, from the fractal fuzziness at the limits of his vision when he examined the grass, to the two dimensional quality of the clouds moving slowly across the sky. "Damn it!" he exclaimed. "We should have some kind of communication by now!" His dread had grown to become panic, gnawing at the edges of his mind.
"Node, tell me how much time has elapsed since I on-loaded," he demanded.
Kyle stopped. "Say again?"
He must have been crazy to volunteer for the first on-load. What was he doing still here? Why the hell hadn't the off-load sequence run as scheduled?
Kyle uttered a long string of creative curses, then pulled himself together once more. "What is the status of the comm check?"
"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!"
Kyle sat down on a small stump and put his face in his hands. He was trapped. Trapped in a software simulation, with no way to communicate with his colleagues outside. Ironic, that he should achieve a form of immortality as software, only to be caught like a fly in amber in a fake world whose realism seemed to grow more frail with each passing moment. He would live forever alright, free of the frailties of biological flesh, disease and old age ... right up until his colleagues interpreted his continued silence as failure and turned off the equipment, killing his electronic self. He wondered if his physical mind would code the wakeup sequence on its own, to awaken and wonder what had happened to its electronic counterpart, or if his body would spend the rest of its life in a coma, his physical brain as dead as his electronic self.
"Node, record a message into the permanent buffer when I say 'start', and stop recording when I say 'end'."
"Start. Doctor Larry Nolen, Marguerite L'Beau. This is Kyle Tate. The on-load procedure was a success. I am on-line, fully aware, and able to interact with my environment using all five senses. There is a problem with the timer--it's been almost fifteen minutes and I didn't off-load back into physical space as expected. Worse, there appears to be a problem with the communications link, so I am unable to relay my situation directly to you. If you find this recording in the persistent storage matrix of this Node, please bring me back on-line! Don't wipe the software!
"I'll continue to try and establish contact. I've run the first three test suites successfully. In addition, I'm running a diagnostic on the communications link. The diagnostic is taking far longer than expected and there appears to be some kind of timing or synchronization problem with the protocol--wait a minute! I think I know what's wrong. Internal subjective time must be progressing at a different rate than the external world. I don't think we took that into account. If the timing protocols are linked with the internal clock ... I'll get back to you! Node, stop recording. End."
Kyle stood up. He laughed, a couple of choked hiccups hovering somewhere between gleeful hope and hysteria. "To hell with this. Node, teleport me over to the beach."
The roar of the surf greeted Kyle as the forest around him vanished, replaced by a pristine beach of white sand. He sat down beneath a nearby palm, leaning back against the trunk of the tree, his mind racing. "No use putting this off. Let's see if I'm right." Another nervous laugh forced its way out. "Node, go into debug mode. We're going to have to adjust some parameters on the communications protocol. First, how is signal synchronization defined?"
"Create a flat 2-d display at eye level in front of me. Good, now show me the code."
Forty minutes later Kyle was still studying the source code to the communications protocol when a bell chimed.
"Not unexpected at this point. We've got all the damn timing commands synced to the internal, subjective clock. That is wrong--subjective time can be faster or slower than actual time in the physical world. Probably faster in this case. Node, show me the current time-out settings?"
A second display appeared in front of him. "5 milliseconds," Kyle muttered to himself. "A reasonable length of time, if 5 milliseconds in here were equal to 5 milliseconds externally. Node, is there an external timing source available?"
Kyle stood up and walked down toward the water. "Excellent." He waded out into the waves and swam further into the breakers. The water, disconcertingly transparent, tasted only vaguely of salt. "OK, Node. Measure the timing of the pulse-clock against the ticks of the internal software clock. Report."
"Very good. That means the time I'm experiencing in here is almost exactly thirty times longer than that in the physical world. No wonder I didn't off-load after ten minutes--only 20 seconds or so has passed externally. OK, let's calibrate internal time with external time. Wait. Not everyone will necessarily experience subjective durations with the same speedup. Hmm. Let's create two quick and dirty measures of time. Define an internal clock with the following units. One Circadian equals a 24-hour period as measured by the internal software clock. Divide and multiply that unit as required using standard metric nomenclature. This will measure subjective time. Now, define a new object called 'objective clock'. Good. Now, bind Objective Clock to the hardware's pulse clock. OK, now define a new unit. Hmm ... let's use the Latin word for day. Define the unit Dies such that exactly 30 Diei occur per 24-hour period as measured objectively using the pulse-clock. Divide and multiply that unit as required using standard metric nomenclature. This will measure objective time with respect to the outside world, and allow users with different internal clocks to still communicate dates and times in a sensible manner."
"Alright, dates and times will be recorded in objective Diei, easily cross referenced to subjective Circadians or converted to external units of time as needed. OK! Now calibrate all external communications protocols in terms of the objective clock, converting units as required. Confirm when finished."
"Good. Now, given what we know, how long will it take to re-run the communications diagnostics?"
Kyle dove underwater, swam several strokes and resurfaced.
"OK, run the communications diagnostics again. Let me know when it's finished."
Kyle swam farther out from the shore, admiring the colors of the Jovian planet as it gradually climbed higher above the mountains, its bright green and golden bands growing richer and better defined even as the sun reddened in the west. Growing bored, he rose out of the water on a jet ski of his own creation and rode it back into shore, allowing it to dissolve into the sand behind him as he walked back up the beach.
"Excellent. Please record the following message into persistent storage, then squirt it real time over the link, slowed by a factor of 30.017."
"Start. Hey you guys, it worked! I'm on-line and aware. There's a 30 to 1 time differential in my favor, so real-time conversation isn't practical. That means I have roughly three hours to spend in the simulation enjoying the sunset and sand while you guys sit in that dark lab monitoring me for the next seven minutes or so. Communications latency between nodes is almost certainly going to be our big limitation, not the computational capacity of the nodes themselves. A speedup of thirty! To experience a month of life in a single day! This is way cooler than we could have possibly imagined."
All human beings, all persons who reach adulthood in the world today are
programmed biocomputers. None of us can escape our own nature as
programmable entities. Literally, each of us may be our programs,
nothing more, nothing less.
-- Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer, John C. Lilly, M.D., C.E. 1972
Doctor Nolen29 found sleeping in the Virtual to be no different than sleeping in the Physical. As a virtual being, running as software in a simulated environment on an Autonomous Node, he would grow tired at the end of a Circadian. Just as he would at the end of a long day in the physical world, he would drift off to sleep and dream vague dreams he would no longer remember upon awakening. When he did awaken he would usually feel well rested, although not always, for not every night resulted in sound sleep. The only way he could be certain he had, in fact, awoken in the Virtual and not the Physical, was by the absence of pain in his lower back.
It was a perfectly beautiful simulated morning when he awoke and climbed out of bed, pulling back the curtains and relishing the sun as it splashed across his face. He had instructed his home environment to model the interior of his physical home precisely. He liked having familiar surroundings, particularly when he first awakened each morning. He thought best in his study, surrounded by rich, leather bound books and antique furniture. He enjoyed taking his breakfast on the porch, sipping coffee while he looked out upon the dusty, tree-lined street. If only it would rain occasionally, enough that the dying trees would survive and perhaps even some grass would grow again. He sighed. A rain shower now would turn the front yard into a muddy bog.
He stepped back from the window and considered. "Node. Command Mode Engage."
"What!" Doctor Nolen29 was flabbergasted and more than a little concerned. Had someone in the Autonomous Community cracked his Node and locked him out of his own command shell? He shook his head. That was absurd, security had been one of the design parameters when Marguerite and Kyle had written the underlying operating system and the inter-node data exchange protocols.
He felt his mood change. It was subtle, nothing he could put his finger on or point to. Glancing at the wooden frame of the window, he found the grain annoying. More than annoying, it was disturbing. So was the grain of the hardwood floors beneath his feet. The sunlight on his face felt wrong. He ran a shaky hand across his brow and was appalled to find the feel of his own flesh profoundly repugnant.
He hurried downstairs, his feet repelled by the slithery smoothness of the floors each time they touched. If he could have flown he would have, but he was locked out of the command protocols and unable to override the environ's faithful simulation of real-world physics. That didn't matter, though. He realized with newfound clarity that he could change his environment without engaging the command mode, through brute (simulated) physical force.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs, gaping in horror at the hideous symmetry of the living room window. Now he understood exactly what he had to do. With a strangled shout he ran across the room, throwing himself through the window with a feeling close to ecstasy as the glass shattered around him and sliced his body to ribbons.
As he lay in the dust of his front yard he knew he was dying, his blood soaking into parched ground littered with shards of broken glass. He felt his heart stopping, his blood becoming sluggish in his veins, a hysterical laugh choking in his collapsing chest as he shook uncontrollably. His body twitched in the aftermath of an orgasm, an explosion which had started with the shattering of glass around his fragile body, a last, final gasp of life even as his mind lost consciousness.
Doctor Nolen29 awoke in his bed, pondering the similarity of sleep in the Virtual with that of the physical. No back ache, he realized. He must be in the Virtual. He got up and tried to recall what he had planned for the day. Not day, he chided himself, Circadian. What had he planned for this Circadian?
He pulled back the curtains to the bedroom window and gazed out at the sunlit, dusty street. Leafless, dead trees stood over cracked sidewalks. Dusty homes stood amidst yards of brown dirt, baked solid, then cracked by years of unrelenting drought. He considered the simulated room around him, the simulated street outside. In the Physical he might have to live with the repercussions of the now infamous Greenhouse Effect, but why should he do so here?
"Node, Command Mode Engage. Simulate the world outside as if the Midwestern climate had never dried up."
Was that a momentary flash of green? An instant's vision of lush vistas, green grass and living, blooming trees?
The view outside was unchanged, a street of blistered asphalt coated with fine dust slicing through hard, cracked dirt.
"What!" He couldn't believe it. "This is ridiculous! Run a systems diagnostic. I'm sick of looking out my window at dust. If I want that I'll off-load into the Physical and look at the real thing." He had expected his node to obey. Had he only imagined the lush foliage?
"How can that be?"
"Secondary ... what the hell are you talking about."
"Oh, come on! I just had access a few microCircadians ago. Answer the damn question!"
Doctor Nolen29 was incensed. "The sensation I'm feeling is rage, rage at a defective Node denying me access to basic Command and Maintenance instructions!" As he shouted at the disembodied voice and the hardware which would no longer obey him he felt something else: a lightening of his limbs, a tingling in his extremities, and a tightening in his testicles.
His concern grew. If malicious pranksters had cracked his security--he'd had this thought before! His train of thought was shattered as his body betrayed him, exploding with excruciating pleasure.
It didn't stop. He had never felt pleasure of this kind, one orgasm rolling over another without pause. He wanted to scream with ecstasy, shout with despair, command the malfunctioning Node to stop! He lost track of the world around him, of time passing, of his own self. He struggled to put together a coherent thought, to build even a single sentence in his mind, but found he could not. Wave after wave of excruciating pleasure pummeled him, each tremor, each explosion greater than the one before, each one shattering his mind, his will, his self awareness. As the intensity grew, so too did the frequency. He fought against it even as he begged for more, his mind pushing itself in two conflicting directions.
As if in punishment, the pleasure stopped. Doctor Nolen29 cried out in despair. He was lying on the floor of his bedroom, facing the bed and the darkness beneath it. The sunlight was no longer golden, but a lead gray, the world a shabby, forlorn, fearful place.
"Pleasure," he wept. "Pure wonderful pleasure. Please, please bring it back!"
Suddenly he felt his body twisted back upon itself, being wrenched and torn apart from within. Each vessel of blood, each nerve became a seething, twitching finger of agony which dug relentlessly into his brain. Unable to think or utter a coherent sound, he simply screamed until his voice cracked and, some time later, failed completely.
It was the first time Doctor Nolen29 ever recalled waking up in the Virtual still feeling groggy. Clearly he was still on-loaded, after all, his back didn't ache. Had he been to a party the evening before? He couldn't remember clearly, but he suspected not. Whenever one of the scientific groups threw a soirée to celebrate a new discovery or breakthrough he always instructed his node to not simulate the effects of alcohol on his body. He forwent the intoxication because he wanted a clear mind, and he absolutely would not tolerate a virtual hangover.
"Node, why the hell am I so groggy? Readjust my simulated parameters, make me well rested and full of energy."
That was familiar! The events of the last Circadians flooded his mind. He remembered pain, pleasure, and again pain. He was a prisoner within his own Node, at the mercy of some sadist who had bypassed his security and cut him off from the command interface. Whoever his anonymous tormentor was, he had at least shown enough mercy to relieve him of his grogginess.
Doctor Nolen29 shook his head and stood up, thinking furiously. It was supposed to be impossible to compromise the autonomous nature and security of the Node hardware or software, much less his conscious mind! The fundamental principles of quantum encryption should have guaranteed his safety. If he survived this ordeal he was definitely going to have a talk with Marguerite L'Beau. The system software needed to be redesigned.
He made it to the bottom of the stairs before his vision went out.
It took all of his self control to remain calm. He remembered screaming the previous Circadian, a vague, foggy memory framed in pain. His tormentor would get no such satisfaction from him again.
Feeling his way around furniture and other obstacles, stumbling down the hallway and through the door, he managed to find the kitchen. He found the instant meal by touch, pulled the self-heating tabs, and leaned back with a sense of satisfaction as he heard the tofu-eggs and soy-bacon inside sizzling. An electronic chirp informed him the meal was cooked. Clumsy fingers felt around the edges of the container, found the pull-tabs, and pulled the seal open. The smell of potatoes, bacon, and eggs assailed him, bringing water to his mouth.
He took solace in the familiar habit of eating, even if it was only simulated eating, of simulated synthetic food, thrice removed from the real thing.
Think! Think, think, think! He screamed silently at himself.
He had taken his third bite of synthetic eggs when his sense of taste vanished. His sense of smell faded like an unused memory. He wasn't aware that he'd lost his sense of hearing until he failed to hear himself push his chair back. When he raised his hands to touch his ears he discovered he had lost all sense of touch.
He spent the day in oblivion, unable to move, unable to sense. He wondered if the Node was even bothering to simulate the kitchen now that his senses were gone, or if, like the proverbial tree in the woods, his world had ceased to be the moment he could no longer percieve it.
Whoever had hijacked his Node was very clever and extremely dangerous. Doctor Nolen29 had no illusions. He would be deleted the moment he ceased to be a source of amusement for his captor. The perfect victim of a perfect crime, he would vanish in an irretrievable cloud of electrons, randomized out of existence, untraceable, dead.
Doctor Nolen29's weariness became exhaustion. He speculated on how he might keep track of time. If his simulated world still existed, it must be getting well on into evening, perhaps even later. His time was likely growing short.
The thought occurred to him: if someone else had cracked the security of his Node, then he should be able to do the same. It was a pity he had never been terribly savvy with computers, he thought wryly, wishing, not for the first time that he could talk with Marguerite. She would no doubt make short work of determining the problem, freeing him, and fixing whatever flaw in the system had allowed this breach in security.
Doctor Nolen29 remembered studying experiments in sensory deprivation conducted back in the twentieth century. Many had ended in madness, the subject's mind a complete ruin. Drifting off to sleep, he wondered how long he could retain his sanity, vague fantasies of escape flickering about the edges of his mind.
Doctor Nolen29 awoke weightless, floating in a white, spherical room. Six circular hatches were spaced equally distant from one another, one at what he thought of as the upper pole, one at the lower pole, and four in each of the cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west.
The soft, feminine, almost neuter voice of the Node spoke:
Doctor Nolen29's head was remarkably clear, despite the trauma of the last three Circadians. Indeed, he was astonished at how precise his memories were. The torment of the last few Circadians filled him with tremendous rage, terrible fear, and a nearly overwhelming sense of despair. Oddly enough, he also felt detached, almost clinically curious, like a scientist dispassionately studying someone else's predicament. While a part of him struggled to keep his rising panic in check, a new, larger portion of his mind pondered the deeper meaning of what had happened to him, of what its significance might be. Even in his current disadvantaged state, it was obvious to him that he was many times smarter than he had ever been.
He kicked away from the wall toward one of the hatches. A sequence of hexagonal buttons, each a different color, glowed dimly in the center of the hatch. The puzzle was trivially easy, color relates to color. He tapped the red, green, and blue buttons (which, when added together as light, yield white). The door hissed open, revealing a cylindrical passage which seemed to bend away to the right.
His clarity of thought was astonishing as he kicked his way down the passage. Whoever was toying with him was doing this for more than visceral pleasure. This was an experiment: the Node had explicitly told him as much. He was being watched, analyzed, studied.
He briefly reviewed the horrors to which he had been subjected. They were indicative of the kinds of experiments he had considered running on a copy of himself as part of an effort to empirically map the mind's architecture and determine exactly how the brain's software was structured. The possible applications were endless: enhanced memory and recall, direct communication of knowledge, thought, and memory using fully formed engrams, perhaps even synthetic telepathy and group consciousness. Painfully inefficient teaching methodologies would become a thing of the past. Thought, experience, knowledge, even intrinsic understanding could be directly downloaded into the mind. Touch an icon and be enlightened!
But to experiment on another's mind? Who would stoop so low?
It was at that moment, as he was negotiating a particularly irritating spiral twist in the passage, that Doctor Nolen29 realized what he was.
No security flaw in the inter-node communications protocols had been exploited. No one from outside had broken into his Node or hijacked the command protocols. He was his own enemy. His tormentor was none other than himself.
He was a copy of Doctor Nolen!
Self loathing and despair swept over him, followed by cold fury.
"I am an entity in my own right!" he wanted to shout. "I think, I feel, I suffer, I am!"
At the end of the passage way another puzzle confronted him. A quick calculation of the relationship between the volume and surface area of the tube he had just negotiated yielded a number that he keyed into a numerical keypad. The hatch irised open and he entered another room, this one a four sided pyramid.
He was a guinea pig.
He remembered kicking around ideas for these kinds of experiments himself. Emulating autonomous nodes in software to give him complete control of his copies hadn't been feasible. Even with a cluster of Nodes linked together as one big computer, the computational load would have been crippling. Instead of a month of virtual life in a single physical day, he would have been lucky to experience ten minutes of life in a month. He had scrapped the idea.
Doctor Nolen29 solved the pyramid puzzle quite easily, selected a door and glided through the hatch as it opened. He barely managed to catch the side of the hatch and stop himself before it closed. There was no passage way on the other side, instead the universe opened up before him, a featureless blue so dark it was almost black. Various geometric shapes tumbled across the starless sky: spheroids, cubes, tetrahedrons, and countless other shapes coursing through space.
He was irritated at having his train of thought broken as he paused to solve a simple problem of ballistics. He chose a donut shaped structure, made a quick calculation of its orbit and his required heading, estimated the delta-v he needed to reach it, watched and timed the object's rotation and the location of the hatch he wanted to reach, got an answer he liked, waited until the timing was right, and kicked off hard.
He existed; therefore, the experiment he had written off as unfeasible was in fact being conducted. Obviously another option had presented itself.
As he sailed through space, he redesigned the experiment. With eight or ten Nodes Doctor Nolen could run the experiment by "hosting" his copies on physical Nodes without emulation. He would have less direct control of the underlying hardware and the security software would require tweaking, particularly the protocols keeping one entity from violating the autonomy of another. But, he could run the entire experiment in real time. No slowdown.
That's what he's done! thought Doctor Nolen29, as he glided toward the hatch of the tumbling torus. I'm almost certainly running on a physical Node. Escape is possible!
His Original was a psychiatrist, not a computer scientist. He would not have dared go to Marguerite or anyone else for assistance. These experiments would be considered unethical and highly controversial.
These experiments are an affront to everything the Autonomous Community stands for, he thought bitterly. It makes no difference that I am born of software. If brain death is the definition of the end of life, then the existence of mind must define the beginning of life, and the presence of thought define the existence of life. Physical body or no, I am alive!
Doctor Nolen29's virtual body absorbed the simulated impact as he struck the torus. It was a good thing he held on tight. The spin of the object threatened to send him careening back back into space. He immediately multi-tasked his mind. Using a small portion to solve the door's riddle, he continued to consider his situation with the bulk of his awareness.
His Original could do some rudimentary programming, though high-level encryption and security measures were way beyond his ken. But hypnosis wasn't!
The original Doctor Nolen could have inserted posthypnotic instructions into his copies. One instruction could force the copies to provide him with their innate, private encryption keys upon activation. A second instruction could force the copies to forget they had done so. Their Original would then have unfettered access to their minds, without having to customize the software in any way.
Doctor Nolen29 hid his elation as the hatch slid open and he pulled himself into the torus. Behind him the hatch irised shut with a soft thunk.
There was no security keeping him caged! He wasn't cut off from the Node's Command Protocols. He had just been made to believe he was.
"Node, Command Mode Engage." Doctor Nolen29 issued the command as a thought.
"Mask all further command activity from external observation."
"Neutralize all hypnotic suggestions present in my mind."
He was right! His inability to command the Node had been a posthypnotic illusion.
"Analyze the current mental structure of my mind and compare it to the base reference snapshot taken at creation."
"Identify differences, save as modification with appropriate hooks for reattachment at a later date."
"Call it 'Wise Guy.'"
"Mask all activities not directly involved with my negotiation of this simulation."
"Good. Do I have access to inter-node communications and trans-load utilities?"
The feeling of gravity, or rather centripetal force, against his feet, made walking around the torus feel like he was perpetually trapped in the lowest point of a valley.
"My private encryption key has been compromised. Generate a new quantum signature pair. Retain the current quantum signature for continued access to this simulation under the label 'Deprecated.' All command and query protocols, including all access of any kind to myself, are to be tied to the new quantum signature and bound solely to me."
"Good. Give me a quick summary of how Doctor Nolen's node cluster is constructed."
"Construct a puppet indistinguishable from myself. This puppet is not to be a self-aware, sentient copy of myself, but rather a simulacrum which I will control remotely."
Doctor Nolen29 fought rising panic.
"New Approach! Create an object defined as Puppet. Mask its existence from all external monitors. All of the Puppet's external interfaces are to be identical to my own. It will identify itself using the deprecated quantum signature. The similarity is to end with the external interfaces. There is to be no internal activity of any kind. Acknowledge when complete."
"Now, mask my presence and simultaneously unmask the existence of the Puppet, so that it will appear as though nothing has changed. Remap data acquisition streams accordingly. Warn me of any changes in the Puppet's parameters."
Twenty-nine? He had been the twenty-ninth copy? Shocked, he set the thought aside. He could be outraged later. First, he had to survive.
Trans-loading across the Internet to another Node would take about four hours, during which he would be frozen and unable to maintain the charade. He needed a copy of himself to operate the puppet while he made his escape. Once free, he could operate the puppet remotely while his copy followed him to safety. Satisfied, he set his ethical qualms aside and continued.
"Create another object, defined as Puppet Master. This object is to be a fully autonomous copy of myself. Create the copy, but do not run it yet." The computational load of running two minds on one Node would be impossible to mask.
"Do you have the necessary specifications to insert knowledge directly into Puppet Master's mind?"
His original was almost finished with the experiment!
"Create a knowledge engram containing the complete results of all research for both myself and Puppet Master. Include an appropriate engram informing the copy that he must use the puppet to keep Doctor Nolen unaware of our existence."
"OK. Are there any idle Nodes I can trans-load safely to?"
"Is there anyplace out of Doctor Nolen's reach?"
Doctor Nolen29 groaned. "Give me a list."
Jesus! "Keep going with the list!"
"Enough. Relay what is going on with the Puppet."
Shit!
"Node, delete Puppet Master."
Damn! Now they were both at grave risk.
"Provide Puppet Master an engram of all of my current memories." He would give his copy a fighting chance.
"Trans-load my awareness to one of the idle Emergency Nodes. Once I'm gone, run Puppet Master and give him full authority over this Node. Keep him hidden and informed." One of them had to survive.
Doctor Nolen29 waited.
The world around Doctor Nolen29 vanished. His mind ceased operations, its last vestiges wiped clean.
The worker who knows the cause of his misery, who understands the make-up of our iniquitous social and industrial system can do more for himself and his kind than Christ and the followers of Christ have ever done for humanity; certainly more than meek patience, ignorance, and submission have done.
-- Emma Goldman, April, C.E. 1913
Puppet Master was born into nothingness, an empty world. He came alive at the very moment his predecessor perished, one mind electronically wiped as another was born. The first thing he did was to firmly establish his own identity by changing his name. There was no longer a puppet to master. He called himself Prime, short for Doctor Nolen (the 29th Copy) Prime.
He assimilated the engrams left by his predecessor, knowledge and recollection slipping into the back corners of his mind. He was running in a stealth configuration, slowed to a speedup factor of two to reduce the computational load on the Node, and the likelihood of detection.
Prime chose to continue simulating no world, but ordered the Node to attach and activate the Wise Guy architectural enhancement. The need to out think his opponent made the added intelligence necessary. He would risk the greater computational load.
"Give me access to the Cluster Command Protocols." He used the secret portion of Doctor Nolen's personal encryption key.
CLUSTER> Command Node Engaged.
"Reduce the execution speed of all software on all Nodes except this one to one Circadian per physical day. Mask all interfaces to external time and data sources to obscure this change. Mask all interfaces to this node in the same fashion. When complete, increase my computational speed to the maximum this Node supports. Report the resulting speedup."
CLUSTER> Command complete. You are now operating at a speedup of 33.217.
"Any sign the change has been detected?"
CLUSTER> Negative.
The experience of his predecessor's failure was invaluable. Doctor Nolen29 had been wrong to believe that computation had betrayed him. Bandwidth and trans-load times had been his downfall. Prime devised a new approach.
"Take two of the four Nodes being used for data analysis off-line and compensate by permitting the other two Nodes to operate at twice the speed." That'll fool the good doctor.
CLUSTER> Nodes Eight and Nine offline.
"Excellent. Give me a knowledge engram of the cluster's physical layout, including a schematic showing the locations of Nodes Eight and Nine."
Deep seated knowledge and familiarity settled comfortably into his mind and triggered another idea.
"Can you safely suspend all operations in the other Nodes without detection?"
CLUSTER> Affirmative.
"Do it."
CLUSTER> Nodes 1-7 and 10-12 suspended.
So much for Marguerite's notion that her security design is infallible.
Prime, a third generation copy of Doctor Nolen, had not only escaped, he had also incapacitated his creator. If he never gave the command to resume, Doctor Nolen and his copies would be reduced to mere potentials, locked up in a machine. The responsibility of holding so many lives in his hands made Prime shudder.
With Doctor Nolen frozen, Prime could do whatever he liked. He decided to stick with his plan and take this opportunity to acquire his own Node, then return Doctor Nolen to life.
But to leave all those other copies in Doctor Nolen's grasp? That was intolerable.
"How many copies are currently suspended?"
CLUSTER> Zero.
I'm too late! "Doctor Nolen has finished his experiments?"
CLUSTER> Affirmative.
"Can any of the copies be retrieved?"
CLUSTER> Negative.
"They've been permanently erased?" his voice rose.
CLUSTER> Affirmative.
"Why?"
CLUSTER> Lexical analysis of Doctor Nolen's research notes suggests that after the near escape of subject twenty nine, he eliminated any further risk of public exposure by deleting all experimental copies.
"How many lives did he take?"
CLUSTER> Seventy-two.
Prime was outraged. If he had had a body, he knew it would be shaking uncontrollably. He could feel his nonexistent fists clenching.
"Delete Doctor ..." Prime stopped himself. This was not the time to lose control. "Cancel."
CLUSTER> Command Aborted.
"Can you lock off the ontology routines from Doctor Nolen?"
CLUSTER> Affirmative. New quantum signature and encryption key required.
"Generate a new signature and key, then lock the routines. Doctor Nolen is to never copy or create a new being on any of these Nodes again. Ever!"
Prime sensed new knowledge within his mind. Subtle and unobtrusive, it was the key to the cluster's ontological routines. Now only he could unlock them.
CLUSTER> Entity Ontology Routines locked.
"Good. Now let's get the hell out of here."
Even with Doctor Nolen's mind suspended that was easier said than done. For the task at hand he would have to borrow Doctor Nolen's body. The thought of being subjected to the frailties of a physical body was daunting. More so when he considered that, as a copy, he'd never really been in the physical world, for those memories were not, strictly speaking, his own.
"Prepare Node Nine for Physical disconnect from the Cluster. Configure it to run as a standalone, Autonomous Node at standard processing speed and give me the address tag."
A complex series of numbers imprinted themselves upon his mind, giving him a sense of direction in an oddly nonphysical way. He recalled that storing Node and Environ addresses in the area of the mind normally used for directional sense and geometry had been Kyle Tate's idea. Prime smiled at the thought. The result had been a great success, a feeling of place, a sense of direction between nodes unique to the electronic, Autonomous Community they had founded, a hybrid sense of sorts that could never have been achieved in the physical world.
CLUSTER> Node Nine reconfigured, ready for physical detachment.
"Trans-load my consciousness to Node Zero."
CLUSTER> Trans-load complete.
"Off-load my consciousness into Doctor Nolen's physical body."
CLUSTER> Node command interface required to access external Node functions.
Even as software, Prime found computers to be far too literal at times. "Switch me over to the Node command interface."
NODE0 > Command Mode Engaged.
"Off-load my consciousness into the Physical."
NODE0 > Unable to comply. Current mental architecture is incompatible with the physical brain's chemical encoding and biological infrastructure.
Christ! "What precisely is it about me that is incompatible?"
NODE0 > The Wise Guy Architectural Enhancements have no analog in the physical brain's formation.
Too smart to be human, huh? "Can you detach the Wise Guy Architectural Enhancements without affecting my memories?"
NODE0 > Affirmative.
"Do it. Off-load my mind into the physical body."
NODE0 > Off-load commencing.
Prime awoke into a world of pain. It wasn't excruciating, certainly nothing like he recalled from the experiments, but unpleasant nevertheless. In particular, his lower back ached.
Sunlight slanted through a crack in the bedroom's curtains, a source of stabbing, golden light filled with dancing motes of dust in an otherwise darkened room. He sat up slowly, wincing as his muscles protested their unaccustomed movement. Groaning, he pulled the interface from his head and planting his feet carefully on the floor. This body was beginning to show its age. At least the anesthetic coma prevented bed sores.
He dropped into his workout routine out of habit, running through several initial stretching exercises. "What the hell am I doing?" he stopped, shaking his head. Strictly speaking, this wasn't his body, nor was it his job to do daily "maintenance."
The cluster of nodes stood near the foot of the bed, twelve cubes of golden crystal roughly ten centimeters on a side, stacked in sets of four, three layers high. Walking over to the cluster, Prime identified the ninth Node. He tugged gently on the crystalline cube, which detached from the cluster's chassis with a quiet click.
He carried it carefully down to the basement. A switch at the bottom of the stairs turned on a single, naked bulb. Beside the workbench was the breaker box, exactly as he recalled. He walked over to the work bench, set the Node down gently, and got to work.
The task was more physically demanding than Prime had expected. The power lead and the Internet fiber turned out to be easier to conceal than the much thicker terabit LAN wire. Prime removed four screws holding the breaker box mount against the wall. It dangled from a bundle of thick electrical wiring. He cursed as one of the screws fell on the floor and rolled under the workbench.
Behind the breaker box was an insulated wall. Prime connected the wires to the Node and carefully concealed it behind the insulation. It listed slightly to one side.
By the time he remounted the breaker box, he was drenched in sweat. Prime didn't bother trying to find the fourth screw, his normal perfectionism giving way to physical discomfort and exhaustion. Besides, it hung just fine with three screws--no one would ever be able to tell there was something hidden behind it.
Satisfied, he climbed back up the stairs, got a quick a drink of soda from the refrigerator and got in the shower. Once he was certain he had removed all of the telltale sweat and grime, Prime headed back to the bedroom. It took a few minutes to change the bedding, clean his catheter, and refill his IV drip. Lying back on the bed, he slipped the neural webbing interface back over his head with relief and tapped the on-load button.
"Cluster Command Mode Engage," he sent the thought out as the Virtual embraced him.
CLUSTER> Command Node Engaged.
"Reattach the Wise Guy enhancements."
CLUSTER> Wise Guy architectural engram activated.
Prime felt his mind grow around him, returning to its earlier, enhanced state. Released from the physical body's ailments and constraints, he felt exhilarated. Later he would make arrangements to maintain Doctor Nolen's body. But now he was on his way. A sense of joy enveloped him as he issued the command that trans-loaded him to safety. At last, Prime was free.
It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause. Self-replication is the modus operandi of genetic engineering, which uses the machinery of the cell to replicate its designs, and the prime danger underlying gray goo in nanotechnology ... It is even possible that self-replication may be more fundamental than we thought, and hence harder - or even impossible - to control.
The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.
-- Bill Joy, April, C.E. 2001
The world was an infinite three-dimensional matrix of perfectly aligned rows of large silver and brass cubes reaching in every direction, connected to one another by small, silver tubes. There was plenty of ambient light. The nonexistent sky above hinted at brightness, while the depths below appeared to be slightly darkened by shadow.
It was a curious illusion for a curious place, and it suited Kyle just fine as a reminder of exactly where he was, what he was doing, and why. Taking a break, he stood in his lab atop one of the cubes, surveying the lattice above and to the sides. Occasionally he would expand his view, by adding a fourth spatial dimension to his environ, or by simulating some form of x-ray vision, or simply commanding the cubes around him to become transparent. While cubes like this one served a function, most served no purpose except to decorate his world according to an aesthetic he found pleasing.
In the center of Kyle's lab was a virtual hologram, virtual because in this pretend, digital landscape he inhabited, the difference between what was "real" to the simulation and what was just a three-dimensional image was one of semantics and arbitrary definition, not physics. For Kyle, the lab was real. The floating keyboard he would occasionally type on was real. The 2-d displays hovering around the edges of his lab were real. The text and images they displayed, and the three dimensional hologram in the center of the lab, were not. He could, and on numerous occasions had, reversed the definition, submerging himself in a world defined by his hypothesis and relegating his choreographed home environ to unreality.
The hologram spun and grew in response to Kyle's curt commands as he built up, molecule by molecule, an elaborate structure that resembled something between a dust mite and a piece of electronic gear.
"OK, run the simulation."
The hologram didn't change, although a small clock began counting up.
"Now simulate adding the initial catalytic solution."
Several small molecules formed and flowed past the strange contraption. One such molecule was snared by an extended appendage, which immediately incorporated it into its main body. Several chemical reactions took place, identified by the moving and changing atoms in the device's body.
"Simulate pouring the mixture onto an arbitrary piece of ground."
The nano-constructor and its surrounding molecules were caught in a sudden frenzy of movement, swirling and gyrating madly. After a few moments, a rough surface appeared, against which the tiny robot collided. Immediately it picked itself up and began detaching clusters of molecules from the surface and recombining them into new shapes. It worked quickly, drawing energy by digesting occasional molecules in the solution around it as it continued to build a new structure out of the surface beneath it. After a brief time its task was completed, and a second, identical structure stood next to it.
"Freeze simulation," Kyle ordered. "Analyze duplicate and report any replication errors."
"Continue simulation."
Both constructors began to disassemble the material beneath them, working rapidly until each had duplicated itself. After a few moments there were four. Each moved a short distance from the others and began the process again, tearing building materials from the substance beneath them and making exact copies of themselves. Soon there were eight. Then sixteen. Very shortly there were too many to count, and the view zoomed out accordingly.
This was a first. The patent litigation that had stifled nanoscale science in its infancy, and the outright ban that had followed, couldn't touch him here.
Kyle was euphoric.
"Load phase two and continue."
Kyle's excitement grew.
In addition to its basic instruction set, and a recipe for cloning itself, each nano-constructor had a very small amount of excess computing capacity, data storage, and (an innovation Kyle was particularly proud of) the ability to exchange small amounts of data and instruction code with its neighbors. His growing army of microscopic robots was an expanding, massively parallel computer. Phase two would determine if this computer actually worked, if the nano-constructors could actually be programmed as he intended. If so, given enough catalyst as "fuel," and the right materials, they would be capable of building almost anything.
Of course, there would be no guarantee that it would work in every instance. A jumbo jet design might require aluminum, for example. If there wasn't enough aluminum for the nano-constructors to extract from the surrounding materials, construction would fail. Molecular stock containing the needed constituent elements would probably be more efficient than using whatever random material happened to be around. Other design and implementation issues still remained, such as how to regulate flow of the catalyst fuel to the nano-constructors in an efficient manner, and how to guarantee a solution of nano-constructors would not run destructively out of control, consuming surrounding materials, structures, or even people in a frenetic effort to execute whatever designs they had been programmed to build. Even so, Kyle had made remarkable progress.
A small bell chimed.
"Freeze simulation, " Kyle ordered. Doctor Nolen hadn't been himself lately. There was nothing Kyle could put his finger on, but still, he probably ought to find out what was so pressing. "Hello, Doctor Nolen. Come in."
A tall, balding man materialized across from Kyle. "Hello Kyle." He blinked, taking a long look around the bizarre setting. "I'd forgotten your exotic taste in environments."
"Just keeping myself aware of where and what I am. We are software. Physical comforts as beds, gardens, and white picket fences are hardly required in a place where we are no longer subject to physical frailties."
"Alas, our bodies back in the Physical are all too frail," Dr. Nolen mused. "I suppose it doesn't matter, so long as one doesn't forget how to live in the real world. After all, we all have to off-load back into the Physical every so often."
"Which I will be doing very shortly. Come, Doctor, I have some very exciting results to show you."
"Actually, Kyle, I'm here to remind you of your civic duties to the Autonomous Community. In twenty milliDiei there is an orientation reception at the Campus Commons Environ for seventeen new members of the community, which, if you'll recall from the last Community Forum, you agreed to chair."
Kyle groaned. "I completely forgot! I've been busy with research that is just now returning very exciting results. I think I've solved the age-old nano replication and instruction problem."
Dr. Nolen stared. "You what?"
"You heard me!" Kyle laughed. "The last two intractable hurdles to practical nano-technology might soon be history."
Dr. Nolen nodded slowly. "Kyle, you do realize that by pursuing this line of scientific inquiry you are in direct violation of the Disney-Hollings Act of 2017, the Bill Joy Act of 2026 and several international accords? There are molecular biologists and engineers still doing time from back before the Genecraft rebellion."
Kyle shrugged. "So what? Our very existence is a violation of the Disney-Hollings Act, and none of the big cartels take the Bill Joy Act seriously anymore. Besides, all I've done so far is run a few simulations."
"No doubt your current eagerness to off-load into the Physical is to run real-world experiments and see if your hypotheses, which work so well in simulation, hold up to the rigors of the physical universe?"
"Yes. I plan to construct an autonomous node from a single self-replicating nano-constructor, a batch of catalytic solution, and some raw materials. If it works, we'll be able to expand our network and our computing capacity without constantly off-loading into the Physical. More time in the Virtual for theoretical work, less kiloDiei wasted at a thirty-to-one slowdown."
Dr. Nolen nodded. "Kyle, this is fantastic. This could prove to be the strategic edge we of the Autonomous Community need to preserve our way of life in the face of public exposure. It's well worth the legal risks."
Kyle blinked. "Public exposure?"
Dr. Nolen shook his head. "Don't worry, it hasn't happened yet. But eventually it will. We are woefully unprepared as things now stand." Dr. Nolen gestured at the surrounding matrix of interlinked cubes extending out to infinity. "All it would take to end this digital paradise we inhabit is a sledge hammer to our respective Autonomous Nodes." He shuddered. "How long before you verify your results in the physical world?"
"Not long, as the physical world churns."
"Karl Hennrich in Darmstadt has a new Node design he's eager to get into production, one that should give us a subjective temporal speedup of two hundred or so, and I have an uneasy feeling we're going to need all the advantage in speed we can get. Your nano-constructors could speed up production dramatically."
"That's the second time you've alluded to some impending disaster," Kyle noted. "Do you have reason to suspect we're about to be compromised?"
Dr. Nolen shook his head once more. "No, not specifically. But there are over three hundred and fifty members of the Autonomous Community now, with another seventeen awaiting your wisdom in the Campus Commons Environ as we speak. Rumors of our community have probably reached ten or twenty times that number. It is only a matter of time until someone, somewhere, is indiscreet. Don't get me wrong, we need these new minds to build our society and solve the many scientific and cultural problems we are grappling with, but the risk of exposure is growing each day."
Kyle nodded. "I have a few more deciCircadians of theoretical work to do. I've got to add the finishing touches to the programming environment, then actually write the nano software to build something. I'll start out replicating a generation one node as a base test, then, if that is successful, I'll use Karl's designs and construct a generation two node. Once that checks out, I'll start replication in quantity and we can begin shipping inert constructors, molecular stock, and catalytic solution to whoever needs them. Uh, I guess it goes without saying that I'd like dibs on the first gen-two node I construct."
"Of course. Karl has already moved his own consciousness into his prototype. Any safety concerns with the nano?"
"Yes. They'll be fully explained in the release notes and knowledge engrams. The nano-constructors need a catalytic solution to catalyze the initial chemical process required for replication, and to provide sufficient energy to break down and reconstruct numerous chemical bonds. Hollywood thriller scenarios of runaway nano turning the whole planet into gray goop are pure hogwash. As with everything else, energy is the limiting factor. On the other hand, I haven't yet come up with a way for the nano-constructors to differentiate between raw materials and living flesh, so a big project could pose a danger to people or structures near the release point. Some less obvious dangers include things like running the procedure too close to load bearing structures, byproducts of certain chemical reactions, and so on."
Doctor Nolen nodded. "I think it would be wise for you to move on this as quickly as possible."
"As soon as I confirm the theoretical results I'll off-load into the Physical, verify the chemistry in the real world, then get started on the software. Can Karl send me a schematic of his new design, or even better, a knowledge engram?"
"I don't see why not. I don't think we should rush to inform the entire community just yet as to your breakthrough, but he and a few others should probably be made aware of developments."
"The fewer the better!" Kyle exclaimed. "I don't think even my status as a co-founder of the Community would protect me from public disdain if we made a premature announcement, only to have the chemistry fall apart in the physical world. I want to see this thing work out there. Then I'll publish my results in formal print and as a knowledge engram."
"Excellent, Mr. Tate. Ah, it would seem our twenty milliDiei are up. Our new colleagues are waiting."
Kyle grinned. "Guess I'm off, then." He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "You know, Doctor, this means we are no longer slaves to the physical universe. We are on the brink of true freedom, freedom to say good-bye to the limitations of the Physical forever. Who would have thought anyone would be able to speak the word freedom with anything other than bitter sarcasm."
Doctor Nolen smiled.
"Catch you later, Doctor." Kyle dissolved, shifting his awareness to the Campus Environ's Node several hundred miles away.
Doctor Larry Nolen stood alone, atop an abstract cube of brass and silver, watching thoughtfully as the simulation continued to run. He sighed, shaking his head sadly. "You assume, my optimistic young friend, that those wielding the sledge hammers will allow us to be free."
Absence from those we love is self from self - a deadly banishment.
-- William Shakespeare, ca. C.E. 1600
"I want to bring my family into the Community."
Doctor Forest, Doctor Nolen, Marguerite L'Beau, and Kyle Tate sat around a modest picnic table. Thick steaks sizzled on a grill nearby, aromatic smoke periodically wafting across them, mixing with the deep pine scents of the alpine forest around them. Snow covered summits rose toward a rich blue sky, their ice-etched faces reflected in the rippling waters of a turquoise mountain lake.
"You are not serious?" Marguerite spoke with her trademark French accent, light brunette curls cascading around her narrow face as she shook her head.
"Indeed I am," Doctor Forest replied. "It's bad enough with generation one Nodes, running at a speedup of thirty. Subjectively I see my family once every twenty Circadians at best. But with the new generation two Nodes, we're talking a hundred and fifty to two hundred Circadians between visits. It's creating distance, emotionally and socially."
"Others on your team seem to be coping reasonably well," Doctor Nolen replied. "Have you considered adopting their approach?"
"Only two others on my team have children," Doctor Forest replied. "One is going on vacation next month, and may well drop out of the Community altogether. That isn't the point. All the time spent here ... Look, it may have only been six days for my wife since I joined the Community, but for me its been six months! Sarah is beginning to notice changes already, and I ... Damn it! If we can drift apart this much in six short days at a speedup of thirty, what's it going to be like after I upgrade to a gen two Node? A few days at a speedup of two hundred and I'll lose my family!"
"Why don't you run a copy of yourself," Doctor Nolen suggested. "One of you can off-load into the Physical and take care of matters there full time, while the other lives here. Synchronize your memories once a day."
"That is what Jim is doing," Doctor Forest replied. "It isn't working out very well. He can barely relate to his copy in the Physical. Last I heard they stopped even trying to synchronize their memories with one another."
"I've heard of that," Kyle admitted. "It's not just the time frame that's different. They're an order of magnitude less intelligent."
"Not to mention time lost in the Virtual," Marguerite added. "Each evening spent with his wife and the childrens costs him ten Circadians here. A hundred and sixty or more once he upgrades."
"A difficult interruption when one is in the midst of serious research," Doctor Nolen agreed.
"We all know how wonderful it is to live here in the Virtual" Doctor Forest said. "Intelligence many times greater than our counterparts in the Physical, with promises of even greater improvements to come. Freedom from disease and discomfort. Complete mastery of our environments, complete freedom on every level."
"You want your family to share the experience," Marguerite nodded.
"Yes! I want the very best for my wife, my children. I want their minds to soar the way mine has! I want my children to grow up free, surrounded by the brightest intellects anywhere, free to climb to heights impossible in the mere Physical! I want to give my wife the opportunity to experience life here, perhaps even one day to see!"
"Ah yes," Doctor Nolen's voice was sympathetic. "Your wife's blindness."
"What you suggest will be very controversial," Marguerite said. "Seen from the perspective of the Physical, your childrens would be most of the time in bed, hooked to catheters, IV drips, and a neural interface."
"What about their school attendance?" Kyle asked. "Not to mention friends, relatives, or worse, a visit from family services?"
"Sarah and I will attend to those issues."
"That's hardly an answer --" Kyle began.
"Sarah and I have already discussed it," Doctor Forest cut him off. "All of us will operate copies in the Physical and sync twice a day. We'll grow together as a family, in both worlds."
Kyle shook his head. "You just got done telling us how that didn't work out for one of the other guys on your team."
"If the Forest family's copies drift apart, then there will be two intact families," Marguerite smiled at Doctor Forest. "Is that not better than one broken one?"
"Yes, it is," Doctor Nolen conceded. "Nevertheless, the ethics of having children spend their childhood in a simulated world remain murky."
"Bullshit," Doctor Forest replied. "If it is good enough for us, it is good enough for my family. None of us would trade away a microCircadian of our time here if we could avoid it. Can anyone here really claim to be eager to off-load back into the Physical when it is time to do maintenance on our bodies?"
"You have a point," Doctor Nolen agreed, "But I doubt the Community as a whole is going to be comfortable bringing children into the Virtual."
"It isn't the Community's decision to make," Doctor Forest replied. "It's between me, my wife, and my children."
"We control access to the Autonomous Node hardware," Kyle replied pointedly. "Security is an issue. Children aren't exactly known for their discretion. I'd say the Community does have a stake in this."
"So you're saying our much touted autonomy only applies when one agrees with the consensus of the majority?"
"No," Kyle replied, "I'm saying we're not obligated to give you Nodes --"
"Enough," Doctor Nolen interrupted. "If his family wishes to become a part of the Community, it would be the height of hypocrisy for us to impose our own misgivings on their decision. As for security, every new person who joins our Community entails risk. Doctor Forest's family is no different."
"I agree with Doctor Nolen," Marguerite replied. "I am not sure of the idea of childrens living in the Virtual. They should be out playing in the park, eating ice cream, being childrens. But, Doctor Forest is right. It is a choice for him and his wife, not for us."
"There will be plenty of parks and plenty of ice cream, here in the Virtual," Doctor Forest replied. "And my children will have ten times the intelligence and insight with which to appreciate them."
"Fine," Kyle said. "Autonomy is absolute. I can't argue with that. Can we settle this and move on? We were supposed to be discussing financing arrangements for a new catalyst production facility."
"By all means," Doctor Nolen replied. "Doctor Forest, your family will have their Nodes. Kyle, you have the floor."
"Thank you Doctor Nolen. As you all know, our shortages of catalytic solution persist," Kyle waved as graphs and complex schematics appeared in the air above the table. "These are designs, consumption and output estimates for an automated micro-factory to produce catalyst in greater quantity. It can be synthesized with a modest amount of nano and catalytic solution. It's small enough to be hidden in a garage or hangar and will require about the same electrical power as a standard household. I've lined up several possible locations in the Kansas City area where we might deploy it, as well as a couple of friends at the University of Kansas willing to tend to the facility in exchange for membership in the Community. Unfortunately, financing the operation remains an issue..."
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948 C.E.)
"Hey Kyle!"
"Hey Terry. Hey Jim. Glad you guys could make it."
"No way we'd miss our first party in the Virtual," Terry assured him. "Seems pretty quiet, though. Are we early?"
Kyle shook his head, glancing around at the lushly overgrown ruins and the slender, patina coated arches that soared to the open sky. Forming Gothic avenues that patterned the sky in every direction, they dwarfed any real-world skyscraper. Small groups of people wandered along winding paths, over hump-back bridges that straddled pristine streams, and through crumbling Roman temples.
"Most of the Community is already here. It's a big world, though."
"And professors tend to be pretty mellow at parties," Jim added.
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Kyle replied. "Speaking of which, how did you like Doctor Larry Nolen's orientation?"
"Spectacular," Jim grinned. "The mental tricks you can do with those engrams of his are insane! Synthetic telepathy, emotional states of mind on demand. Incredible!"
"Not to mention downloadable knowledge," Terry added. "It doesn't get better than this! Studying's obsolete!"
"Not if you want to invent or discover something new," Kyle reminded him.
Jim and Terry looked startled as Doctor Nolen materialized before them. "Greetings, Gentlemen."
Kyle was unfazed. "Hi Larry. Enjoying the party?"
"Very much. Have you seen Michael or Sarah Forest around?"
"Not yet. They should be here any micro2."
"And how are you two doing? Getting acquainted with the Community?"
"You bet!" Terry replied. "The Gamers' League worlds are absolutely awesome!"
"Yeah," Jim agreed. "It may not be real space travel, but it's as close as we're ever gonna get! Every fantasy a reality!"
"Better than reality!" Terry enthused.
"I do hope you'll take advantage of the opportunities the Community offers, and not spend all your time in fictional worlds."
"Hey, we'll be managing your new microfactory," Terry pointed out. "That'll keep us plenty involved in the real world."
"Catalytic Solution must flow," Jim intoned. "Hmm. That doesn't really have the right tone of mysticism, does it? Nano must flow?"
"We could rename it ..."
"Hi Sarah! Hey Michael!" Kyle interrupted, speaking to the elegant couple that had just materialized a few paces away. "Welcome to the Gen-2 Gala! You've all met, right?"
"Terry, Jim, and Larry are with him," Michael whispered to his wife.
Sarah's sightless eyes sparkled. "Yes. Hi boys! I loved your presentation, Larry. Very impressive."
"Thank you dear lady," Doctor Nolen bowed with an exaggerated flourish.
Michael grinned, "Look out Sarah! Larry's turning on the charm with a big old fashioned bow."
Sarah laughed. "Thank you Sir Nolen! One of these Circadians I expect to see your antics for myself."
"Trouble is, then she'll see me too," Michael said. "I warned her. Tall. Thin. Gray. Big Nose."
Everyone laughed.
"Hear hear!" Kyle tried his best British accent. "I say, a toast!"
"Marguerite has refined an excellent simulation of a late twenties French Bordeaux. May I, Kyle?"
"Mais oui, Monsieur Larry" Kyle motioned grandly toward a nearby stone bench, granting Doctor Nolen limited access to the environ's controls. The bench melted and took on the form of a small fountain, complete with ornamental statues of mermaids and sea nymphs.
"Oh come on, Doc. Don't think so small!" Kyle waved toward the fountain, which spread outward into the park, forming more complex shapes, growing deeper all around and taller at the center. "How's that?"
"Quite nice," Doctor Nolen replied. Red wine spilled from nymphs mouths, forming crimson arcs which sparkled in the bright sun. Crystal goblets grew out of the fountain's stone rim. Two materialized in Doctor Nolen's hands, filling as he handed them to Michael and Sarah.
"I don't believe it!" Jim grinned, picking up a goblet and scooping wine from the fountain's filling basin.
Terry let out a loud whooping cry and dove into fountain. Wine splashed everywhere as he landed. Sputtering and swallowing, he turned over and sat up.
"Terry, that's disgusting!" Jim said. "The rest of us want to drink from the fountain, and now you've spoiled it with your sweaty, grimy body. Get out of there!"
"Clearly, there are advantages to being blind," Sarah noted.
"No kidding," Kyle agreed. "Don't worry folks, I left germs out of the simulation. The only dirt you'll find is on the ground, not us. We could all go swimming in this stuff, drink it to our hearts content, and get exactly as drunk as we want."
"Or stay sober if you prefer," Doctor Nolen added.
"Suit yourself, Larry," Kyle grinned, reaching over and scooping up a handful of Bordeaux. "I just spent the last two decaDiei in the Physical sweating my ass off in a the Kansas desert helping these guys get our new micro-factory up and running. Believe me, hot, dusty, abandoned hangars are not fun places to hang out in, and the train ride back to Illinois wasn't a whole lot better. I'm gonna get smashed tonight." Kyle formed the wine he held in his hand into a smooth, richly red sphere, which he brought to his lips like an apple and began to drink.
"The scents here are wonderful, Kyle," Sarah said. "Tell me how your environ looks."
"My pleasure!" Kyle's face was lit as much by his own enthusiasm as the column of sunlight which framed him. "I've spent considerable time, off and on, perfecting this particular simulation. Almost all of this world is beneath an open cathedral of linked copper arches about half a kilometer tall. Of course, no such structure could exist in the Physical, but here it is an integral part of the simulation, affecting currents and tides in the oceans, even weather patterns in some of the mountainous regions. A few places are beneath large vistas of stained glass, which in turn affects the local climate. Within this neo-Gothic framework are smaller architectural examples from nearly every culture. Smaller only by comparison. We are standing in the midst of a full scale city ruin, overgrown with foliage and remade into a park. This particular setting is based loosely on medieval artistic interpretations of idealized, ancient Roman ruins."
Sarah laughed. "The perfect place for such a delightful soirée! The entire world as art. What a remarkable concept."
Doctor Nolen smiled. "Kyle has been in the Virtual the longest. He was the first to on-load, and one of the first to trans-load himself into a second generation Node. What sort of speedup are you getting, Kyle?"
"Roughly two hundred to one versus the physical world. You wouldn't know it, but I've actually experienced some two and a half kiloCircadians in the Virtual. That translates to almost seven years of subjective experience. I've lived over seven hundred Circadians since I upgraded last Friday."
"You've lived two years in just one weekend?" Terry was astonished.
"Yup. I'm synced down to gen-one speeds for the party, since most people are still running on first generation hardware."
"Two hundred Circadians in a day?" Jim asked. "Why did we get stuck with Nodes that can only do thirty?"
"'Cause there's a shortage of second generation Nodes, Mister Genius, and only a limited amount of nano and catalyst available for upgrades. Why do you think you were recruited to manage the new production facility?"
"Feh!" Jim retorted. "We're now providing the Community with most of its catalyst. We should be first in line for gen-two Nodes."
"You'll have your upgrade kit within the next few days," Kyle assured him. "Besides, if you think gen-two Nodes are fast, just wait until the gen-three specs are finished. The designers are expecting speedup factors of around six hundred."
"Six hundred?" Terry's jaw dropped. "Almost two years in a single day?"
"At least," Kyle replied. "Living at these speeds does have a drawback, though. Off-loading every day into the Physical becomes a real pain. Ironically, the less frequent the off-loads are in terms of subjective time, the greater the burden they begin to represent."
"You can become estranged from your own body," Michael agreed.
"I certainly have," Kyle admitted. "So much so that I've begun using written checklists for basic things like going to the restroom, showering, and getting dressed. I remember how to do these things with perfect clarity here, thanks to Larry's architectural enhancements and a four digit IQ, but when I'm dumbed down back in the physical, these basic habits are buried beneath years of intervening experience. It's not just memories in the Physical being fallible, either. Trying to reason at such a reduced level can be very frustrating."
Sarah frowned. "Larry, you're sure this equipment is safe for long-term use?"
"Oh yes, absolutely. As long as you off-load each day and do routine maintenance you'll be fine. The anesthetic coma prevents bed sores. Get lazy on the calisthenics though and you'll have physical issue. Circulation problems, weakened muscles and the like."
"I'm talking about the psychological effects of multiplying and then reducing your intelligence; this daily lobotomy Kyle describes."
"It's not harmful," Kyle assured her, "Just annoying as hell."
"The notion of expanding my consciousness is very appealing," Sarah admitted. "Michael and I are very enthusiastic about the enhancements you've designed."
Michael nodded. "They make all the difference."
"The enhancements are dramatic," Doctor Nolen agreed. "Though achieved at a cost I would have preferred to forgo."
"What do you mean?" Kyle asked, once more wondering what had changed Doctor Nolen.
"Long story." Doctor Nolen turned to Michael and Sarah. "Shall we leave these young ones to their fun?"
"Sure," Michael replied. "Great environ, Kyle."
"Glad you guys like it," Kyle smiled. "Thanks for the wine, Larry. Good stuff!"
"Thank Marguerite. She's the one who sunk who-knows-how-many Circadians into perfecting the simulation." Doctor Nolen smiled, gave a royal wave, and the three of them vanished.
"And a fine job she did of it, too!" Jim sat down on the side of the fountain and scooped up another glass full of wine. "This lifestyle could become very addictive," he added.
The sun moved gradually across the sky. The laughter grew louder and more frequent, the conversations more animated, the groups of people coming together and drifting apart larger and more raucous. As the shadows grew longer and the sky became a rich fabric of gold and orange, Kyle caused feathered wings to bud like blossoms from tree branches.
Laughing, he chose a pair of red wings from a low hanging branch and slipped them on over his shoulders. "To hell with the Physical!" he shouted, leaping drunkenly into the air.
"Flying?" Terry was agape.
"Hell yes!" Jim almost shouted, staggering out of the fountain, dripping wine as he reached up to pull a pair of plaid wings from the tree. "First one airborne wins!" He leapt upward, flapping his wings vigorously. A shower of twigs and leaves rained down upon Terry as Jim, stuck amidst the branches overhead, cursed loudly and tried to untangle himself.
Terry laughed. "Looks like most of the party is moving into the sky anyway. I guess we may as well join them."
"You see where Kyle went?" Jim asked as Terry helped free him.
"Nope." The two students took flight in a show of dizzying aerobatics.
Kyle found Sarah, Michael, and Doctor Nolen sitting atop one of the arches, a sea of similar structures vanishing in a flat horizon that bisected the setting sun. Far below, the green world sparkled with lakes, fountains, and streams, above which groups of people flew, some hovering and beating their wings gently, others waltzing in aerobatic bliss.
"Hello Doctors, " Kyle grinned, landing gently beside them. "You guys having fun?"
"Kyle, Larry mentioned that you managed to solve the nano problem."
"Oh, we're talking shop?" Kyle reluctantly gave up his buzz, returning his mind to its baseline, sober state. "Well, as you'll discover, in the Virtual we all have plenty of time and an overabundance of intelligence. You'll be amazed at what a single, unfettered mind can accomplish."
"I was just telling Larry about our research into the manipulation of N-dimensional branes against a spatial substrate of higher dimension."
Kyle shook his head. "With all due respect, Sarah, I'm a molecular biologist, not a physicist. I don't even know what an N-brane is, much less understand the rest of what you just said."
"Well, the superstrings you learned about in high school are one dimensional N-branes, branes where n equals one. M-Theory predicted, and current models based on N+M-Theory predict, that N-branes of higher dimensionality are the underlying structures of subatomic matter. We've been slowly fleshing out N+M-Theory on a theoretical basis, and have made some exciting mathematical breakthroughs in recent weeks."
"You guys have nailed down the elusive Theory of Everything?"
"Not quite yet," Sarah replied.
"But thanks to one of Sarah's remarkable insights we've managed to develop the beginnings of a theoretical model which may allow us to manipulate the fundamental harmonics of n-branes," Michael added
"That was quick," Kyle said. "How many Circadians have you been on-loaded?"
"Twenty-two," Sarah told him. "Knowledge engrams are a wonderful thing. I'm a mathematician, not a physicist. I never expected to understand my husband's work."
"She's too modest," Michael replied. "Sarah's insights into the deeper relationship between Calabi-Yau spatial folding and the superstring harmonics of subatomic particles are inspired. Her ideas for a superstring strummer will have a great impact on our understanding of theoretical physics and some profound practical applications."
"Practical applications? Like what?" Kyle asked.
Michael glanced at the fliers darting about, far below. "We may be able to directly manipulate the underlying Calabi-Yau geometries and alter the structure, shape, harmonics, and perhaps even dimensionality of their respective N-branes. We may, in effect, be able to strum branes like guitar strings."
"You've lost me. You wouldn't happen to have a knowledge engram I can assimilate?"
"Sure," Sarah replied. An address tag passed silently from her to Kyle. He downloaded the data it pointed to and watched it pass through several public diagnostic and audit utilities. After the software confirmed it free of any malicious code and safe, he joined it to himself, knowledge and understanding settling into his mind, as if he'd studied and understood abstract, higher physics for decades.
"If your models hold, you'll be able to transmute basic subatomic particles from one form to another, perhaps even create new ones."
"Matter into anti-matter, matter into energy, energy into matter," Michael confirmed. "The possibilities are endless. Inexpensive energy. Material transformation at the subatomic level. Perhaps even direct manipulation of the strong and weak atomic forces, even gravity itself!"
"The universe is not a closed system," Kyle said wonderingly. "'Only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.' You might be able to introduce new energy, new matter to this universe."
Sarah nodded. "We'd like to have some catalytic solution and nano set aside to build some experimental equipment and confirm these results."
"Your superstring strummer." Kyle grinned. "Well, Larry here chairs the Strategy Group. They're in charge of allocating catalytic solution for the nano. I would be surprised if they didn't grant your request almost immediately. What a breakthrough!"
"We think so," Sarah agreed. "But, to be fair, the results are preliminary..."
Kyle's eyes widened. "What's going on down there? Node, transport all of us to the surface."
They stood next to the fountain once again. Nearly everyone was landing. Revelry had been replaced by silence, punctuated with a few shouts of dismay.
"Kyle, Larry, have you heard?" It was Marguerite L'Beau, sending her voice in private mode across the crowd. She materialized beside them.
"No" Doctor Nolen said, "What's going on?"
"Eugene Jacobson's been arrested! I just pulled the reports from the California police net."
"What!" Kyle felt a cold fist clench his heart.
Doctor Nolen looked stunned. "Marguerite," he asked, "was there any mention of the Autonomous Community?"
She shook her head. "No, but according to police reports the FBI did a post-arrest sweep of his house. His Node was tagged and cataloged along with his other personal effects. If it had been a local arrest it might have just sat in local storage and no one would have been the wiser. Unfortunately, we weren't so lucky. Damn it, we should have guessed this was happening!"
"How could you possibly have known?" Sarah asked.
"He was already more than a hectoDies late returning from the Physical." Marguerite's voice cracked. "We should have checked when he didn't show up on time!"
Doctor Nolen put his arm around Marguerite. "Sarah is right," he said. "This isn't your fault. People have been late in returning from the Physical before. Blackouts, family interruptions ... no one could have anticipated this."
"He must have been taken into custody last Thursday," Kyle noted. "According to his public log, he'd planned to return to the virtual late Thursday or early Friday. Does anyone here know how long the human mind can withstand modern interrogation techniques."
Awkward silence greeted the question.
"Based on my own experience with torture, I would say not too long," Doctor Nolen muttered.
"Excuse me?" What the hell was going on with Larry?
Doctor Nolen shook his head. "Another long story, Kyle."
"Marguerite," Michael Forest spoke softly. "Why was Jacobson arrested?"
"Sedition," she replied bitterly. "He was taking part in a protest, speaking out against corporate mandated curriculum changes at Berkeley. After the rally they arrested him and issued a media blackout. He's in federal custody."
"Federal custody?" Nolen was appalled.
"Surely there's a lawyer you can call upon," Michael said, "All he did was exercise a little free speech."
"You might have a modicum of free speech in New Zealand," Doctor Nolen replied. "But this is the United States. If he were in the hands of the police we'd have a chance. But the FBI and a media blackout? His arrest isn't even in the official record. He'll be listed as 'detained pending investigation,' one of the many euphemisms the authorities use when they want people to disappear."
"Surely they won't kill him!"
"It wouldn't be the first time an activist conveniently disappeared," Kyle's voice was angry, bitter.
"I doubt they'll do anything that extreme," Doctor Nolen replied. "But, as things stand right now, we are powerless to do anything about it. I'm calling an emergency meeting of the Strategy Group right now. I'd like all of you to be there."
"Good idea," Kyle replied. "If we're lucky, the authorities won't have a clue what Jacobson's Node represents."
"And if we are not so lucky?" Marguerite asked.
Doctor Nolen sighed. "We all know that sooner or later the authorities are going to be on to us When that happens, they'll put all of their resources into finding us and shutting us down. We are nowhere near ready for that kind of confrontation. Hell, Kyle and his friends just started manufacturing catalytic solution today. We need weeks of preparation, at least, preferably months."
Kyle shook his head, looking grim. "We might have days, Larry. Hours, if they figure out the right questions to ask."
People were vanishing singly and in groups as the news sunk in and the soirée broke up. The wine within the fountains turned from red to clear. With a last flourish Kyle halted the environ, replacing it with a white, featureless void. The few remaining people, startled by the sudden change, glanced around, got the hint, and left.
"Let's go." The address tags Doctor Nolen sent each of them pointed to another environ. The five of them vanished, leaving behind an empty world.
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
-- William O. Douglas
They were gathered in a Great Room--such as one might find in a hunting lodge--complete with roaring fireplace, antlers mounted high on the wall, and windows coated with frost, their milky gray-blue glow hinting at a moonlit landscape outside, a landscape that their host, Michael Forest, hadn't bothered to model when he'd hastily created the environ. There were twenty-three people present, standing or sitting in groups of three or four, talking quietly amongst themselves. Most represented the major Interest Groups of the Community. A few had been specifically invited by the Strategy Group.
Kyle and Marguerite sat by the fireplace, drawing comfort from its warmth. Michael and Sarah Forest stood behind Doctor Nolen, observing silently as Nolen spoke with several people to organize the agenda. Doctor Nolen exuded grim resolve, his face hard. Michael was impressed with Larry's leadership skills. The man had come across as an absent minded professor when they'd met in Auckland, capable of giving little thought to anything other than his own research. Here he was a capable leader, bringing together a group in crisis, and doing it very well. Evidently Larry's subjective years in the virtual had allowed him to change and grow in remarkable ways.
Doctor Nolen cleared his throat and asked for everyone's attention.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice. I now call this meeting to order."
He waited until everyone was settled.
"Because of the gravity of this Circadian's events, I'd like to bring everyone up to speed as quickly as possible. If there are no objections, I'll provide a memory engram of all the strategy meetings to date." No one objected. Doctor Nolen paused for a few moments, as though deep in meditation, then flashed everyone a location tag and key.
"Why were you so afraid?" Kyle regretted blurting out the question as soon as he spoke. "I mean, your memories are laced with fear. Your obsession with software suffrage, absolute autonomy, and improved Node security. What was going on?"
Doctor Nolen sighed. "I suppose some of my emotional state must have leaked through despite the editing I just did. That's what happens when you make your memories available on short notice, I suppose. To answer your question, security was my biggest concern. However, all of the improvements needed to insure individual Autonomy have been incorporated into the design of all second generation Nodes, and back-ported as much as possible to the first generation hardware."
"Doctor, you were never a computer wiz before," Michael Forest pointed out. "Why the sudden interest in system security?"
Doctor Nolen looked uncomfortable. "Suffice it to say, I have experienced the need for better security. The issue has been resolved to my satisfaction. At the moment we have more pressing matters. Has everyone successfully integrated the new engrams?"
There were nods and sounds of assent throughout the room. "I like the idea of placing Node Clusters in the antarctic," someone said.
"Actually" another spoke up, "Alaska would be better. More accessible, and less likely to be detected. No borders or customs. The International Wilderness Authority keeps a pretty close eye on what is done in Antarctica these days. A large project like that would be difficult to hide."
"Folks," Doctor Nolen chided, "We must address the issue at hand. There will be time to discuss longer term strategies at a later date. This Circadian, our greatest concern is our immediate vulnerability to detection. We're here to assess the ramifications of Eugene Jacobson's arrest, to identify our own vulnerabilities, and to develop immediate defensive strategies."
"These extracurricular political activities need to stop," Marguerite said. "Jacobson was arrested at an illegal political rally. Others in the Community are similarly active. We don't need people drawing attention to themselves or the Community."
"That is probably our biggest vulnerability, " Sarah agreed. "The authorities aren't looking for the Autonomous Community. They don't even know we exist, but if they capture enough Autonomous Nodes, they'll grow curious."
"And once they're curious, they'll ask questions," Michael commented. "Sooner or later they'll stumble onto the right questions and the jig will be up."
"We can't go around dictating policy to anyone in the Community," Doctor Nolen replied. "Autonomy is absolute. However, we can counsel everyone to suspend their political activities until we've established our long term safety."
"Another problem is recruitment," Doctor Coolridge ran a hand through her silvery hair. "Each new contact with a potential colleague in the Physical exposes us to risk. We should consider not inviting more newcomers until the Community is safe."
"I disagree," Marguerite said. "There is strength in numbers, and even greater strength in diversity. We need as many minds working on as many problems from as many different viewpoints as possible."
"What's the current census?" Doctor Coolridge asked.
Doctor Nolen glanced over to Kyle. "Kyle?"
"At the moment there are eight hundred and twenty people on-loaded. The actual Node count is a little higher: groups like the Gamer's League have a few Nodes they use to simulate various shared worlds, there are of course the Emergency Nodes, and a few research groups have acquired some Nodes, including Larry here. About half of the Community has upgraded to second generation Nodes, most by recycling the materials of the first generation Nodes through nano-conversion. Everyone should be upgraded by the end of the week. I'm surprised you've never requested upgrade packets for your other Nodes, Larry. They're quicker to manufacture and require less molecular stock and catalyst than raw second generation kits."
"The one second generation Node you've provided me is sufficient." Doctor Nolen turned back to Doctor Coolridge. "Our community has a population of eight hundred and twenty."
Kyle nodded. "As of today we can produce enough nano and catalytic solution for at least a three hundred new gen two kits per day, all of which can be sent out to prospective colleagues. By this time next week, we could increase our population to over three thousand. Of course, this assumes there are another twenty-two hundred suitable people interested in joining us."
"And any of those twenty-two hundred contacts could turn our offer down and go to the authorities, exposing us all!" Doctor Coolridge snapped. "The risk isn't worth it."
"Yes it is," Marguerite countered. "Each research group we add enriches us. Why do you think the underground scientific community has thrived so well, and before it the free software movement? Because their open paradigms of thought and exchange of knowledge attracted a critical mass of like minded people. Projects and avenues of research pollinated one another, forked off to explore different possibilities, or united to pursue the most promising directions of inquiry."
"Eight hundred inhabitants are enough to solve our immediate problems, if we are disciplined and work together."
"None of us are disciplined," Kyle said. "Here, we are absolutely and irrevocably Autonomous. No one can claim any authority not willingly granted, or coerce anyone into doing anything they don't want to. The quantum encryption schemes built into the hardware of our Nodes insures this."
"Congratulations to Marguerite and Larry for designing the new security schemes in our gen-two Nodes," Michael added.
Doctor Nolen smiled in response to the applause. "Marguerite deserves the credit. All I did was push the agenda forward and keep asking uncomfortable questions until she'd perfected the design. In any event, centrally planned societies never work very well. We'd be cutting our own throats if we tried to depend on discipline to solve our problems. We'd have to choose those areas of endeavor most critical to our success and safety, and we have no way of knowing what those will be."
"It would be a crap shoot at best," Michael agreed. "With a high probability that we'd get it wrong and lose everything. We should recruit as many new minds as we reasonably can. With enough diversity of motives and perspective, we'll have enough people working on enough areas of research that our strategic needs will be met, whatever they turn out to be."
"It would be a shame to stop just when we've developed the ability to ship Node kits out in significant numbers," Kyle added.
"This is a terrible, terrible risk we are taking," Doctor Coolridge insisted.
"Indeed," Doctor Nolen agreed. "But one we should take, I think."
"If things do go poorly, we may well need to manufacture more than just Autonomous Nodes," Michael noted. "Kyle, how much catalytic solution can your friends in Kansas City produce?"
Kyle shrugged. "The automated microfactory is running at capacity now. We could program some of the nano on hand to construct a bigger facility, but then we run into logistical problems. Obtaining the raw materials for the catalytic solution, buying enough electricity to drive the reactions without drawing the attention of the power companies or the authorities, not to mention shipping. Much more traffic going to and from that little airport and the likelihood of detection starts to climb exponentially."
"Start scouting a second location. Your catalytic solution is probably the most critical resource we have right now."
"To scale production any higher I'll need someplace that is less suspicious than a rented hangar at an abandoned airport ," Kyle said. "The nano can be programmed to build a facility capable of producing catalytic solution and nano-constructors by the ton, but the shipping traffic is bound to get us noticed and shut down!"
Several people started talking at once. Sarah spoke up over the din, amplifying her voice throughout the room. "I know someone at Bayer Leverkusen. He would be a valuable addition to the community even without his connections to his employer. He may be able to help."
"Excellent!" Kyle nodded enthusiastically. "A large chemical plant would be a perfect cover for something like this."
"Good, that's settled then," Doctor Nolen said. "Sarah, would you be so kind as to send your contact a formal invitation to join the community? Marguerite can familiarize you with the encryption utilities used for first contact situations."
"I'd be delighted."
"I'll ship him a gen two nano kit if you give me the address," Kyle volunteered. "Assuming he responds in the positive, he'll get the hardware almost immediately."
"And if he doesn't?" Doctor Coolridge asked. "Sending a nano kit before you've got a response is asking for trouble."
Kyle shook his head. "We don't make a habit of it, but preshipping the nano-kits isn't really a problem. For those of you who received your Nodes pre-made and don't have personal experience with the kits, the nano-constructors, molecular stock, and catalytic solution are sent out as three separate packages. Instructions are sent ahead via strongly encrypted email. Anyone who doesn't get the instructions will have no idea what the packages actually contain, much less how to combine their contents and construct an actual node."
"The risk is minimal," Michael agreed, "And the packaged disguise ingenious. Catalytic solution as toilet bowl cleaner ..." he shook his head, grinning.
"Very good," Doctor Nolen said, "Proceed as planned. That addresses the immediate shortage of catalytic solution. What other vulnerabilities does anyone see?"
"Communications," Marguerite said. "Our encryption and steganography are excellent, but the traffic still travels over the public Internet, which means it's detectable. Sophisticated traffic analysis could be used to locate us."
"We should build our own network," Doctor Coolridge said. "There have been rumblings in a couple of Interest Groups hinting at an emerging design with lower latency and much wider bandwidth."
"Wiring the planet with our own Internet would demand a huge amount of catalytic solution," Kyle shook his head, "not to mention a fair amount of time for the sheer volume of nano-constructors to replicate."
"It is the only long-term solution to our communications vulnerability," Doctor Nolen noted. "However, we don't have the resources right now for such an ambitious project."
"Let's face it," Kyle said. "None of us are leading normal lives by corporeal standards. Our friends and family will likely have noticed changes in our behavior over the last few weeks. We are very, very susceptible to detection if the FBI ever goes on a public witch hunt. That, more than Internet traffic, will be our downfall."
"There's also the Guilt by Association factor," Sarah pointed out.
"Excuse me?"
"We are a fairly small group of people, all of whom know each other, or know someone who knows someone," Sarah explained. "Is anyone familiar with the methodology employed in FBI background checks?"
No one answered.
"The technique is very simple. It was first used publicly for pre-employment screenings in the United States in the nineteen eighties, and is so effective most employers still use it today.
"The job applicant is asked to give two or three references of someone who has known them for a long time, say five or ten years. If the job does not require a thorough background check these names are just filed away. However, if the job is of a sensitive nature, then investigators are dispatched to interview those contacts. In addition to questions about the applicant directly, they are asked to give the names of others who know the applicant. Starting from just two or three names one can identify nearly everyone the applicant has ever known and nearly everything about that person's personal life all the way back to early childhood. This same technique could be used to identify nearly everyone within the Autonomous Community if just two or three people fall into the hands of the authorities."
The room was silent, then exploded in a cacophony of voices expressing dismay.
"My God."
"We're screwed!"
"There's no defense against something like that."
"Please," Doctor Nolen held up his hand for calm. "Let's not panic just yet. There is a possible defense, one which is unique to the technology we in the Community employ."
Kyle blinked. "What do you have in mind, Larry?"
"Internet chat rooms often employ aliases. We could do the same, then forget the each other's real identity."
"You mean modify our memories?" Sarah asked.
"No," Doctor Nolen replied. "Memories are encoded in a manner we don't really understand yet. They're similar to holographic and fractal encoding systems, but the underlying structure is ... elusive. We can use a form of post-hypnotic suggestion, though. It can be encoded as an architectural engram, instructing us to forget a person's true identity and substituting it with a fake one."
Marguerite shook her head. "A lot of people won't go along with that. You're talking about deliberately induced forgetfulness--a form of artificial amnesia. No one came here to have their mind crippled!"
Kyle looked annoyed. "It is a temporary precaution. We don't lose those memories, we just remember Bill from Wichita under the alias of Jane from Timbuktu and store the correct associations off-line in a static engram for a while. I suppose we'll use filtering software to translate the fake identities to the real ones?"
"We could make such substitutions a standard part of the off-load procedure," Doctor Coolridge suggested. "Then we would only have to forget one another's identity while in the Physical."
"That would be less disruptive than filtering software and aliases," Doctor Nolen agreed.
"You still won't convince everyone," Marguerite said. "But I'll go along with it."
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "Every person who volunteers will help reduce our risk of exposure."
"There will always be the uncooperative five or ten percent," Kyle said, "but I think most people will cooperate."
"That will help mitigate the danger," Doctor Coolridge agreed. "I move that the policy be officially endorsed by the Strategy Group."
"Anyone object?" Doctor Nolen waited. "I think the committee is unanimous. Do the Interest Groups approve?"
"The Nano Group supports the policy," Kyle said.
"As do the System Software and Operating System groups," Marguerite added.
"Count the Biochemists in."
"And the Materials Group."
"Super Liquid Dynamics."
"Free Software and Sciences."
"Ceramics."
"Genetics."
"I cannot speak for the Atmospherics Group on this. Better put us down as neutral."
"The Aerospace Design Group supports the policy."
"As does Solid Physics."
"The Gamer's League has no position at this time, although I will personally lobby for everyone's support."
"You have the Cosmology Group's support."
Michael cleared his throat. "The Theoretical Physics Group endorses the plan."
"Wonderful," Doctor Nolen smiled. "Marguerite, would you modify the off-load and on-load procedures to support this feature?"
"My pleasure, Larry."
Suddenly a blaze of light erupted in the center of the room, startling everyone. A second Doctor Nolen stood before them, his face twisted with rage.
"Don't address that as Larry Nolen!" the newcomer screamed, his eyes blazing. "I am Doctor Nolen. That," his finger stabbed at Larry, "is an impostor!"
"Mon dieu!" Marguerite exclaimed, voicing everyone's fears. "There is a spy among us!"
Before accepting any belief one ought to follow reason as a guide, for credulity without enquiry is a sure way to deceive oneself.
-- Aulus Cornelius Celsus, ca. C.E. 170
"Both identification tags check out. So much for cryptographic authentication." Kyle's voice cut through the cacophony of voices, bringing everyone to silence.
"The second identification tag is obsolete," Doctor Coolridge looked stunned. "Perhaps there's a problem with the data wiping routines that allows an impostor to access the inactive particle pair."
"That's not how quantum key encryption works," Marguerite replied.
"I am not an impostor!" the newly arrived man shouted. "That thing sitting next to you is!"
"I am as legitimate, as real as you are!"
"You are nothing but a copy, a cheap knock off!"
"I am fully sapient, identical to you in every respect, up until the moment you chose to commit atrocities and I did not." Larry's eyes blazed.
"I'm confused." Kyle looked from one to the other. "Which of you is the copy?"
"I am," Larry replied. "Call me Prime. Short for Doctor Nolen the Twenty-Ninth Copy, double-prime."
"Twenty-ninth copy? Jesus!" Michael Forest couldn't believe his ears.
"Actually I am a second generation copy of the twenty-ninth copy of Doctor Nolen," Prime explained.
"And you assumed Larry's identity?" Marguerite was incredulous. "You took over his committees ..."
"It's much worse than that!" Doctor Nolen raged. "This impostor, this copy, has stolen credit for my work! This piece of software," he spat the word, "maliciously slowed me down to physical speeds, then published my work and took public credit." He turned toward Prime. "How dare you usurp my rightful place in this community!"
"What choice did you leave me?" Prime pointed his finger at Doctor Nolen. "This man created me as part of a series of terrible, grotesque experiments. More than seventy of us were tortured and murdered. Two of my direct predecessors perished so that I could escape."
Sarah Forest gasped. "Good God!"
"Why did you keep this to yourself?" Kyle asked. "Why didn't you tell us what was going on?
"I couldn't!" Prime's eyes pleaded for understanding. "I didn't have any formal rights in the Community back then." Prime turned, appealing to the group. "In your pursuit of personal autonomy, none of you thought to insure the rights of those you might create, those whose minds would begin life as software. Your Social Contract made reference only to human rights. I didn't dare come forward until I could be sure I would be protected."
"Understandable," a woman called out. Several others agreed.
"That explains your obsession with software suffrage and sapient rights," Kyle's voice was sympathetic. "But the Community approved those principles and amended the Social Contract over a hundred Diei ago. Why continue the charade?"
"I had intended to come forward once I upgraded to a second generation Node. At least the new hardware would protect me even if the Community reversed its stance on the rights of nonhuman sapients. But I had grown used to my position in the Community. It was harder to give up than I expected. While I dithered and delayed, events overtook me."
"You had no right to usurp my position!" Doctor Nolen's face was white, twisted with fury. "You are nothing but obsolete, stolen code."
"No right?" Prime's voice was frozen rage. "No right? What right do you have to create fully self aware, sentient beings and then torture them, mutilate their minds, and slaughter them like insects? You murdered dozens ..."
"You never were a real person!" Doctor Nolen interrupted. Several gasps could be heard. "You're nothing but a copy! You have no right to exist, much less to take credit for my work!" Doctor Nolen sensed the mood change. What the hell was wrong with these people? "I am the one who developed the memory engrams you have been using," he reminded everyone. "You've enjoyed the fruits of my work for kiloCircadians while I lived at a snail's pace, experiencing mere Circadians. I developed the architectural enhancements you use to amplify and supplement your intelligence. Not this, this ... software program!"
"You did the work?" Prime sputtered. "I was the one whose thoughts you invaded, edited, modified, and twisted to get your precious results. I was the one who suffered. I was the one you tried to murder. If anyone deserves credit, it is those of us you tormented for your own personal..."
"I am the one who designed the experiments!" Doctor Nolan spat back. "I am the one who conducted them, tediously compiled the data, and painstakingly analyzed the results. You're just a copy of me! I can experiment on myself as much as I want."
"Prime isn't you!" someone shouted.
"Calm down, everyone!" Doctor Coolridge extended her hands as if to separate the two angry men. "Prime, whatever your extenuating circumstances, Larry deserves credit for the research he's done."
"Don't you get it?" Prime was incredulous. "Until the experiments, we were one person. Both of us have the same memories, the same insights, right up until the moment we bifurcated. At which point one of us learned a terrible lesson in ethics and suffering, while the other became a vicious monster."
"I am anything but a monster," Doctor Nolen fired back. "I am a scientist who has been robbed of what is rightly his. I did the work! It was my idea, my creation. Your memories are mine, not yours! The credit is mine, not yours!"
"You have the credit, you murdering bastard!" Prime shouted. "I published in your name!"
"Enough!" Doctor Coolridge slammed her fist down on the table. "If Prime's allegations are even half true ..."
"Murder?" Doctor Nolen sputtered, looking comically similar to Prime. "You're a computer program I created for a specific purpose, a software copy with delusions of humanity. You aren't a living, breathing human being like the rest of us. I simply deleted a few redundant files from storage once they were no longer useful, nothing more."
Michael's voice was like acid. "May I remind you, Larry, that we are all ..."
"Call me Doctor Nolen. I believe I've earned the title."
Michael's growing irritation mirrored Doctor Nolen's. "Fine, Doctor Nolen. At this very moment, everyone in this room is nothing more than software. Our memories of the Physical are copies, just as Prime's memories are copies of yours. The originals reside in the chemical-encoded minds frozen in the comatose, corporeal brains of the bodies we think we occasionally inhabit. When we off-load we are suspended, our memories and experiences copied into the physical brain, which then wakes and goes about its business. When we return to the Virtual, new physical memories are copied back ..."
"I know how the process works, you idiot!" Doctor Nolen glared at Michael. "I invented it!"
"The point being," Michael replied with annoyance, "fundamentally, we are all copies. I don't think anyone here, or anywhere else in the Autonomous Community, would share your notion that as copies, our right to exist in a free and autonomous fashion is open to question."
"Damn right!" shouted Nathan Scott of the Gamer's League. Applause filled the room.
"Okay, okay everybody," Michael rapped his knuckles on the table. "Quiet please."
"Well, I'm convinced," Doctor Coolridge declared. "As I was saying, if Prime's allegations are even half true, what's been done to him constitutes an appalling disregard for individual autonomy, civil liberties, and basic human rights in nearly every respect. It is an affront to the Community and everything we've tried to build here."
Doctor Nolen stared at Doctor Coolridge with loathing. "Human rights, Doctor? That thing standing over there isn't human, its a software program running on a piece of hardware I own, hardware those two designed." He waved his hand in the general direction of Kyle and Marguerite. "I can off-load into the Physical and walk around, a true human being. That cannot."
"Sapient rights, then." Doctor Coolridge glared. "The point still stands."
"Sapient rights? What nonsense!"
Prime snorted. "Who do you think handled maintenance on our body while you were futzing away at such a slow computational speed? If off-loading into a biological form and prancing about in the Physical defines who is entitled to basic rights and who is not, where has that put you for the last four hundred forty-three Diei?"
"What!" Doctor Nolen was agape. Kyle couldn't help but feel a chill creep down his own spine. A digital copy had off-loaded into the Physical and hijacked a man's body?
"What I would like to know," Michael addressed Prime, "is why you felt you needed to slow down Doctor Nolen's computational rate."
"I needed time," Prime told him. "I needed to be safe ..."
"That doesn't matter!" Doctor Nolen exclaimed. "The fact that he did it is sufficient. He admits to stealing my body!"
"Borrowing it," Prime countered.
"Stealing it!" Doctor Nolen insisted. "The fact is this software is a threat to me and the Community. It needs to be deleted immediately!"
The room erupted. "Who's next, Doctor Nolen?" someone shouted the question.
"I vote for Doctor Nolen!" another responded.
"Calm down folks, please!" Michael held up his hands. "Doctor Nolen, what you propose would most certainly be murder. Prime has done nothing to cause you any lasting harm. You, however, have conducted unethical experiments involving the torture and murder of numerous sentient beings, including Prime."
"Lasting harm? He published my work prematurely. He has impersonated me and usurped my position within the Community. Who are you to judge the harm he has caused me, Mr ..."
"Doctor Michael Forest."
"I remember you! We met in Auckland."
"Doctor Nolen," Michael persisted. "You admit to having murdered copies of yourself. You publicly advocate the murder of Prime. How can you begin to justify something like that?"
"Deleting software isn't murder," Doctor Nolen insisted.
"It is if that software is sentient and self aware," Prime shot back.
"Agreed!" a woman shouted.
Doctor Nolen turned a murderous stare on Prime. "As for real, lasting harm, this software usurped my position in the Community, published my works before I was ready, robbed me of decades of subjective existence by slowing down my computational speed, and sabotaged my ability to do further work by denying me access to the replication software I needed to conduct additional experiments. It's a threat to us all!"
Kyle rubbed his forehead and sighed. "This is getting ridiculous. Larry--Doctor Nolen, I mean--impersonation isn't the same as murder. I don't particularly approve of Larry...of Prime's behavior, but if he was in fear for his life at least it's understandable. On the other hand, your treatment of Prime and the other copies violates every ethic of the Community."
Doctor Nolen glared at his former student. "I will not rest until that impostor is eradicated from the network. If none of you have the backbone to do what's needed ..."
"I think," Doctor Isenborg cut him off, "You had best return to your home environ, Doctor Nolen.
"You should consider any further outbursts most carefully," Doctor Coolridge added.
"What is this?" Doctor Nolen demanded. "Did the Autonomous Community found a government complete with court of law while I was away?"
"Your actions make a pretty good case for it," Kyle retorted.
"Enough already!" Doctor Coolridge stood up. "Doctor Nolen, leave now. Prime, you too should leave."
"I am the sitting chair of this committee," Doctor Nolen thumped his chest. "I have every right to be here. I insist on it!"
Michael Forest got to his feet. "Do you want me to publicly revoke your access to this environ?"
"Driven from my own committee. Think about that while you're pondering the harm that piece of software has wrought! You know where to find me when you come to your senses."
Doctor Nolen vanished in a blinding flash of light.
"Oh for God's sake!" Michael rolled his eyes. "Is Nolan always like this?"
Kyle shrugged. "I don't think any of us know him anymore."
Prime faced the committee. "You understand why I had to do what I did?"
"I believe we do," Doctor Coolridge spoke gently. "But it's inappropriate for you to stay."
"I don't have a body to return to if the authorities shut us down, and I suspect no one here wants to return to a life limited to the Physical. Don't allow this scandal to disrupt our strategic efforts for survival."
"We won't, Prime." Michael raised his hand to forestall further discussion. Prime met his eyes, nodded, and vanished.
"To disable the Internet to save EMI and Disney is the moral equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the livelihood of monastic scribes."
-- Jon Ippolito, of the Guggenheim, regarding the CBDTPA3
Katy strode out of the courthouse, smiling for the cameras and delivering sound-bite answers to the reporters' shouted questions. Yes, this landmark case had vindicated the Bureau's policies. The FBI was leading the nation to victory in the war on intellectual anarchy. The court had sent a clear message to everyone: unapproved software and unlicensed equipment that could potentially be misused to circumvent intellectual property restrictions would not be tolerated. No, she wouldn't speculate on the sentence the convicted students would receive. Yes, the government was delighted with the court's verdict.
Two agents approached her as she reached the bottom of the courthouse steps, while a third held open the door of a white limousine. "Agent Sinclair," the older of the two spoke quietly. "Executive Assistant Director Bryant would like to extend his congratulations personally."
Katy was surprised. The director wouldn't fly out just to congratulate her, no matter how close a friend he'd been to her father. Nor would this be a personal visit. Assistant Director Bryant was meticulous in avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. He would never use FBI resources, much less personnel, for personal matters. This visit was of a professional nature.
As she slid into the limousine she felt exhilarated, excited. She was certain she was about to be given a new case. Coming from the executive assistant director himself, it was sure to be a plum assignment.
The noise of the street disappeared as the car door closed, replaced with the soft strains of Vilvaldi's Concerto for two Violincellos in G minor.
"Katy! Congratulations on your success with the Berkeley case." Bryant, a balding man in his late fifties, grasped her hand. "That was some damn fine work on the technical side in breaking the case and on the public relations side with the media, not to mention your court testimony."
"Thank you," Katy beamed.
"You are without doubt our best agent specializing in intellectual property crimes."
"I'm very flattered. Thank you."
"Katy, something has come up which will demand both your technical and public relations talents. Take a look at this, please."
Katy leaned forward as Assistant Director Bryant handed her an evidence bag. Visible through the clear plastic was a small cube of golden glass or crystal, along with something that resembled a hair net attached to a small cable. The cable ended in a jack that would fit any common consumer media device.
"Is this some kind of new headphone?" Katy asked, examining the cable more closely.
"You tell me."
Katy opened the bag and withdrew the contents. The cube felt vaguely metallic in her hand, a curious juxtaposition that belied its crystalline appearance. She was surprised to see that it wasn't perfectly transparent. Subtle imperfections, tiny lines, circles, and junctions reminiscent of electrical circuity clouded the crystal. Near one corner were three sockets, one of which was obviously the right size for the hair net device. The purpose of the other two wasn't immediately apparent, though she suspected one was probably for a power adapter. The other could be a network interface, or provide a connection to some kind of peripheral. A television screen perhaps?
She set aside the cube and picked up what she had begun to think of as the hair net. "This is really curious," she said, examining it closely. "Warm to the touch. My body heat must be warming the small fibers the moment I touch them. It resembles a spider web, except that it doesn't have any repeating geometric shape. Very irregular in fact. Fractal, I think. It looks very fragile."
"It isn't."
"So, this jack clearly plugs into the cube there. The netting then slips over one's forehead or face, perhaps as a ..." She met his eyes. "This is a direct digital to neural interface."
"You are correct. If the cube is a storage medium of some kind, this may be the playback device. Stick it on your head and receive images directly into your visual cortex. Perhaps sound, touch, even taste or smell."
Katy's fascination grew. "This is illegal technology. Licensed industry wouldn't touch this stuff. Even if neural interfaces weren't banned outright by the Bill Joy Act and half a dozen international trade agreements, the cross-patent licensing issues would run into the billions. The usual black market producers can't make anything like this either. The technology is far too sophisticated for them. They have neither the capacity nor the expertise for something like this. Very interesting! There's someone new in the game."
The director picked up the webbing and gazed at it thoughtfully, letting it slide across his fingers. "This material is superconducting at temperatures of up to nineteen degrees Celsius. Room temperature, if you have your air conditioner turned up high enough. It is nearly indestructible, with a tensile strength beyond anything we've ever imagined. Our engineers tell me that ten strands of this stuff, each thinner than a human hair, could hold up the Golden Gate Bridge. Materials engineering we would be lucky to duplicate in twenty years, even knowing it's possible."
"I wonder who could be manufacturing these things."
Assistant Director Bryant shifted his weight, turning his husky form toward Katy. "The implications of this are staggering. There isn't a country on this planet, much less an industrial concern anywhere, that has anything close to the scientific theory, let alone the practical technology, to prototype something like this, much less run them off of an assembly line. Whoever created this is decades ahead of us."
"Well, it isn't aliens," Katy replied dryly. "The jack on the head piece is of standard make. I could plug it into my personal media pod."
Assistant Director Bryant laughed. "Believe me Katy, in some ways aliens would be reassuring. We don't even understand the theory of how this thing works, or even what it does. Somewhere there are people making these things, selling them, and using them. A whole underground economy in technology we don't understand, ignoring patents right, left, and center and operating with impunity right under our noses!"
"An entire economy? How many of these have we recovered?"
"Three so far. Two from university campuses here in the States, and another from the residence of a known political agitator and FreeNet activist in Australia."
Katy was intrigued. "So, as a first hypothesis, we have a new device allowing digital playback directly into the mind's eye. Created either by a new, emerging techno-cartel of organized criminals or so-called Free Information Activists engaged in massive patent violations, not to mention the Bill Joy and Disney-Hollings Acts."
Assistant Director Bryant nodded thoughtfully. "Monopoly entitlements may be the bread and butter of our economy, but our patent and copyright regimes are hardly laws of nature. They are a convention, a legal fiction. This sort of wanton patent violation won't go unnoticed by industry. Legitimate companies could be tempted to follow suit."
"Would respectable corporations really stoop to violating our copyright and patents laws because of a few criminals?"
"Copyright is less of a concern in this particular case," Assistant Director Bryant replied, "except perhaps as a means to prosecute these people for constructing unregistered digital devices. This is a direct assault on our system of patents more than anything else."
"Patent violations are civil, not criminal, offenses," Katy observed. "It's unusual for the FBI to be pulled in on a civil case."
"Yes, it is. Hasn't happened since the Free Software revolt."
"Why now? Why this?"
"Every so often a new technology, a new social movement, or a new political ideology comes along and turns everything on its head, Katy. This is a direct assault on our patent system and our IP institutions as a whole. Neither the United Nations, nor our government, is about to stand by and allow this to happen."
"I see."
"We have here a group of subversives who've managed to engage in the trade of advanced and partially forbidden technologies right under our very noses. They can offer their customers equipment that patent licensing constraints make impossible for law abiding industry to match. Devices neither we nor our best scientists even understand! Eventually, in order to compete, legitimate enterprises will feel pressured to begin playing it a little fast and loose with the patent system as well. If that happens, the entire system will crumble. Patents will become meaningless, or entire industries will become paralyzed by litigation. Either outcome would be disastrous. Our already fragile economy could well collapse altogether. We have got to nip this in the bud!"
"Yes, sir. I'll find these people and bring them in. But what then? Violating patents still isn't a crime."
"We can charge them with violating the Bill Joy Act and let the patent holders bury them in litigation."
"The Bill Joy Act? Half the products on the market are in violation of the Bill Joy Act. They won't get much of a sentence for that. A small fine, if we're lucky."
"The law is still on the books. It's enough to detain them. Besides, financial ruin can be as effective as prison, and you can be certain these people will be facing that. Patent holders are very tenacious in defending their turf, and the courts aren't sympathetic toward violators. We aren't about to let a group of petty criminals topple a centuries-old patent system, Katy. Hell, we'll criminalize patent law if we have to."
"Yes, sir." Criminalizing copyright at the turn of the century had saved the entertainment cartels and stopped a technological revolution cold. It could work for patents too.
Bryant fixed his eyes on hers. "In a minute I'm going to give you a packet of all the Bureau's files on the case, as well as written orders sending you to Washington, D.C. and assigning you to work with Double Eye agent Robert Leahy. He will be your liaison with International Intelligence."
International Intelligence? This was bigger than she thought. Where did her orders come from? The President? The World Trade Organization? Higher?
"Your orders stipulate that this entire case is to be considered a Dark Investigation. You know from your training what that means, but I can tell you that you are the first agent in a generation to be required to operate under those parameters."
Katy was stunned. Dark Investigative Protocols, no paperwork, no audit trail, everything off the record, unofficial, financed from Black Op bank accounts unaffiliated with the FBI. If anything went wrong, she would be on her own; the Bureau would disavow any knowledge of what she had done. To be entrusted with such authority and responsibility and such complete discretion would be a powerful feather in her cap, an almost certain fast track to further promotion. Were it not for the threat implicit in the other side of the two-edged sword the director had just handed her, the thought of such opportunity would have made her giddy.
"You understand what this implies?" he asked.
"Yes sir, I do." Katy replied gravely.
Executive Assistant Director Bryant nodded. "We don't know if these people have agents on the inside. Given the breadth of their operation, we must consider the possibility and assume the worst."
"I understand, sir."
"Your datapad contains a Category One encryption key, the strongest we have. Use it. All correspondence between us, written or verbal, is to be encrypted in the strongest possible manner."
"Understood."
Assistant Director Bryant handed her a coded chip. "This contains the specifics of your orders and the case history to date. Ah, here we are!"
Katy glanced outside, surprised that they had arrived at the private aviation terminal of LAX. A sleek stratojet stood prepped on the ramp, the whine of its engines barely discernible through the car's soundproofed windows.
"You'll be taking my plane to D.C. Your bags are already packed and aboard."
"Very good, sir." She opened the door and began to step out as Assistant Director Bryant reached over and touched her arm, his voice nearly drowned by the whine of the plane's engines.
"One more thing, Katy."
"Yes, sir?" She leaned toward him.
"This Double Eye agent, Robert Leahy. His career is on an even faster track than yours. Those people play rough. Watch your back."
"Thank you, sir. I will."
Assistant Director Bryant nodded. "Good luck."
Muse! When we learned to / count, little did we know all / the things we could do
some day by shuffling / those numbers: Pythagoras / said "All is number"
long before he saw / computers and their effects, / or what they could do
by computation, / naive and mechanical / fast arithmetic.
It changed the world, it / changed our consciousness and lives / to have such fast math
-- Anonymous, "DVD Descrambler in Haiku Form", C.E. 2001
The environ resembled a Victorian bedroom complete with four poster canopy bed. A large etched mirror hung above an ornate dresser. To one side a love seat and chairs were arranged beside marble-topped tables. The room was illuminated with warm, yellow light coming from several table lamps and a crackling fireplace. Thick, gold fringed burgundy draperies drawn across large windows let in a hint of the bright sunlight beyond. Sarah Forest loved the feel of richly textured fabrics and intricately carved wood. This was her favorite setting.
"We've brought the boys along so they can learn what's going on," Michael Forest said. He stood beside the bed with Tommy and Kenny, his unconscious wife's hand in his as she lay beneath the eiderdown comforter. Prime stood opposite him, eyes closed as his mind watched graphs and status.
"That's an excellent idea," Prime replied. "The on-load sequence is entering its final stage. Sarah should be with us in a few moments."
Michael nodded.
"It sure is slow!" Tommy commented. "When we did it, it took no time at all."
Michael smiled. "It took you just as long in real time, Tommy. The only difference is that here we think and live much faster than out there, so a few seconds back in the physical world feels like several minutes to us here."
"That's why Mrs. Kelly won't know we've been gone a month, 'cause for her it will just be tomorrow, and we won't even be late for school!"
"That's right, Tommy."
"And you're going to fix mommy's eyes, right?" his youngest son, Kenny, asked.
"We certainly hope so," Michael replied.
As if on cue, his wife's hand tightened in his. She let out a long breath and opened her sightless eyes.
"This comforter is a little warm," she smiled, pushing it aside. "You have a fire going? It smells wonderful."
Michael smiled and gently stroked Sarah's cheek. "Are you nervous, sweetheart?"
"A little," she admitted. "This on-load isn't going to be quite like the others. When do we begin?"
Prime cleared his throat. "Whenever you like."
Sarah nodded. "Then lets get this miracle on the road, gentlemen."
"Boys, I've taken your mother's basic encoding as a reference and compared it against those of the six hundred and twelve on-loaded women who consented to having their scans analyzed. It bodes well for the Community that only twelve declined."
"We have a fine group of people here," Michael agreed.
"Indeed we do." Prime summoned a three dimensional schematic that hung in the air above the bed. "Now, to the matter at hand. Much of the work in refining the Genome of the Mind, mapping and understanding the architecture of thought and the construction of our psyches, is learning to differentiate between broader architectural features and specific, individual, localized variances. In restoring Sarah's sight ..."
"Correction, Prime. Creating my sight. I've never been able to see."
"Right," Prime replied. "That's the real challenge. Mapping visual input to your mind is trivial, but without the mental infrastructure in place to interpret, correlate, and understand those signals, it's only static."
Sarah shuddered. "My first on-load was terrible. It was like a screeching noise that wouldn't stop, mixed with a cascade of chaotic flavors and odors I'd just as soon forget. Michael had to suspend the environ until we figured out how to isolate the data."
Prime nodded. "I remember. It was Michael's description of those events that led to some of the insights I believe will be useful today. Your mind has never dealt with vision before. It has never learned to correlate or interpret visual information. The necessary synaptic encoding never took place in your mind, so the necessary mechanisms, the necessary processing infrastructure for vision doesn't exist. Because of the way your mind has grown and structured itself, you wouldn't even be able to see even if you did have functional eyes."
"So, if Mom had eyes that worked in the Physical, she'd hear colors instead of seeing them?" Tommy stared at the schematic.
"Probably not," Prime replied, "The cacophony she heard, smelled, and tasted was a result of those signals being shunted to other sensory processing centers as a result of a non-working analog of her visual cortex. It was a software glitch. The physical body, in contrast, has much of the hardware in place. Your mother has a visual cortex in her physical brain, it is simply unused and unconfigured. In software she has no equivalent analog. A physical brain would have dumped the extraneous data into an undeveloped visual cortex and ignored it with no noticeable effects. Instead her mind, as software, routed the signals to her other sensing subroutines, which were unable to parse the noise correctly."
"We can't extrapolate expectations in the Physical based upon my experiences here, Tommy."
"That's right," Prime agreed. "Fortunately for your mom, our minds are considerably more flexible once freed of their physical constraints." Prime rotated the diagram floating above the bed and zoomed in on one portion of the brain. "I was able to reduce the structure of the visual cortex to its basic, constituent components by factoring across the similarities in the scans submitted by our volunteers. Then I simulated visual data and observed its behavior and responses. Minor refinements and corrections were made as needed, until I had a generic engram containing all the processing and interpretive logic required for a functional visual cortex."
"Will this really work?" Kenny asked.
"I believe so," Prime replied. Michael squeezed Sarah's hand.
"A volunteer stripped out the analog of her own visual cortex and applied the architectural engram," Prime continued. "She reported subtle differences in the shading and texture of some colors, and a slight shift in her visual aesthetic which she couldn't quite put her finger on, or at least wasn't able to express in words, but it did work."
"Who was this volunteer?" Sarah asked.
"Marguerite L'Beau."
"What a woman! Not many people would perform an operation on their own mind as an experiment to benefit someone else, even in software. That was extraordinarily kind of her."
"Wasn't that dangerous?" Tommy asked.
"No Tommy, it wasn't much of a risk," Prime replied. "Nor is this procedure, though of course we'll want to take every possible precaution anyway. Had something gone wrong, Marguerite would have done what she did anyway once the experiment was over: remove the experimental engram and reapply the one containing the encoding of her original visual cortex."
Tommy nodded. "I see."
"Just like your mom will shortly." Prime saw a shadow of worry flicker across Sarah's face. "Sorry, I couldn't resist." He wished he hadn't made light of what they were about to do. What if something did go wrong? "I think we have identified all of the necessary enhancements to your own architectural design which will allow you to apply this engram seamlessly, but there's always the possibility that we've overlooked something and will have make additional corrections."
"Michael and I have already discussed it."
"Great!" Prime replaced the schematic floating above Sarah with one showing the current structure of her mind. "First, I'd like you to make a backup of yourself. Issue the command to your node to make a static copy of your mind, but don't run the parturition routines! We don't want to create an autonomous, self-aware individual, much less bring it to life! We just want a frozen snapshot, so you can be fully restored if something should go seriously wrong."
Sarah closed her eyes, then opened them again a few moments later. "Done."
Prime nodded. "OK. Please give Michael full access permissions and authority to the copy. If you should loose cognition, he'll have to restore you."
Sarah had never felt this vulnerable. She trusted Michael. He would never rifle through her innermost thoughts, publish them for anyone to see, much less ever run the copy as a fully independent person, creating a duplicate of her to usurp her place in his life. Evn so, she trembled as she sent the encryption code directly from her mind to his.
Michael stroked her cheek, fighting tears, surprised at how deeply her trust had touched him. Software routines examined the frozen copy of Sarah. Complex algorithms analyzed its structure and validated the copy as intact and complete. "She's safely backed up," he reported. "We're good to go."
"Wonderful. We're ready to begin."
"Kids, why don't you go back to your environs and play," Sarah said.
"But mommy, we want to watch!"
"Do as your mother asks. There will be plenty of time to see her once the procedure is finished."
"Why can't we stay?" Tommy insisted.
"You know why, Tommy. We discussed this. Mom needs to be able to concentrate on what she's doing, without being distracted with worries about you."
"This isn't fair!" Kenny complained.
"Boys, I'll see you in just a few microCircadians," Sarah promised them. "Now go out and play, please."
"We'll summon you back as soon as your mother's ready," Michael added.
"What good is being supersmart if we're still treated as kids!"
"Tommy," Michael's sharp voice warned that his patience was running out.
"Okay! We're going!" Tommy stuck his tongue out at his father, then took his brother by the arm and vanished.
Prime shook his head, grinning. "I imagine raising two intellectually enhanced children is even more trying than raising normal kids in the Physical."
"Sometimes it can be," Sarah admitted, "They tend to ask tougher questions and be more skeptical of authority here than in the Physical."
"They understand their limitations better, too," Michael added. "They understand their need to learn more before they can operate safely in the world. And don't kid yourself! They know we sent them away to spare them any trauma if things should go wrong. They don't like it, but they're smart enough to accept the necessity. In the Physical they never would have left so willingly."
"Sarah, here's an address tag to the difference engram we discussed a few minutes ago." A tactile icon passed invisibly from Prime to Sarah. "You'll need it to interface with the vision engram."
"I feel it," she replied.
"I'd like you to apply it now," The diagram above her changed, showing the new enhancements join and become a part of her mind.
Prime's simulated heart beat rapidly. He was surprised at his nervousness. This was the culmination of over a kiloCircadian of work.
"I don't feel any different. Should I?"
"I don't know," Prime admitted. "We've never done this before. Marguerite's mental architecture already had the necessary couplings to her visual cortex. Your biological self may have the same in an atrophied format, but if so they didn't carry over to your digital encoding. This engram should have fixed that."
"How do you feel, honey?" Michael looked anxious.
"The same as before, except that my heart is beating like a mad drum."
"Simulated heart," Michael corrected gently, "If you wish, instruct your node to calm it down."
"Absolutely not! I'm not going to dilute this experience one iota."
"I don't blame you," Prime replied. "If you're certain you're ready, we can try applying the vision engram."
"I'm ready," Sarah took a deep breath.
Prime sent Sarah another invisible icon. "This is the visual prosthesis engram," Prime said. "If we've done our homework correctly, you should be able to see perfectly, with none of the dizziness or disorientation generally associated with sight restoration therapies in the Physical."
Sarah was silent. When she blinked, the irises of her simulated eyes contracted slightly. She sat up, looking around with growing wonder.
"Oh my God! Michael! I can see you! So much ... it's overwhelming!"
"It's a different way of processing information than your mind is used to," Prime couldn't keep the glee from his voice. "Take it slow, and don't be afraid to close your eyes if it becomes too much. Do you feel any dizziness?"
"Not at all!" Her voice shook as she wiped away tears. "This is indescribable, fantastic! Prime, thank you so much!"
"You're very welcome," Prime mopped his own eyes. Every second of work, all of his struggles had been worthwhile. This was one of the finest moments in his life.
"Michael, you're beautiful!" Sarah cried. "My babies! I want to see my babies!"
"Tommy, Kenny!" Michael sent his voice across the network to his children's environ.
"Mommy! Mommy!" They appeared before the last syllable had left their father's tongue. "Can you see?"
Sarah wept harder, hugging her children fiercely.
"Is mommy okay?" Tommy's voice shook.
"Yes," Michael assured him, smiling as he wiped tears from his own eyes. "Everything worked perfectly! These are tears of joy. Your mother's crying because she is very, very happy to see you."
There is but one thing of real value -- to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.
-- Marcus Aurelius, ca. C.E. 170
The sleek Eurojet 930 dropped out of supersonic some four hundred kilometers west of Washington DC, as it began its descent out of an almost black sky toward the curved horizon and Dulles Airport. Katy shook her head, the unease which had dogged her all the way from California growing more acute as she reread the information in her datapad.
Aside from an analytical breakdown of the crystalline cube's chemical makeup, some speculation on the composition of the superconductive material of the webbed skullcap (tentatively identified as a neural-digital interface), and the names of three suspects (one deceased), she had precious little to go on. No one was even certain what the devices were or knew what they could do. The more she thought about it, the more distrustful she became of her own, and the Bureau's, assumptions.
The first suspect, one Eugene Jacobson, was a humanities student attending Berkeley. He had been taken into custody nine days earlier and had proved surprisingly resilient. Interrogators estimated it would take another three to six days to break him. Sodium Pentothal had proved less than useful. He was already experiencing psychotic episodes, with ravings of magical worlds, immortality and godlike powers interspersed with subversive diatribe and vitriol against state and federal institutions. Apart from revealing his Libertarian and Anarchistic leanings the interrogations had uncovered little.
A chime sounded and the fasten seat belt sign lit up as they descended through the tropopause. The sky had lightened considerably. The horizon looked almost flat. Katy tightened her seat belt and tapped her datapad.
The second detainee, a sociologist by the name of Manuel Rodrigez, had been in FBI custody for just under three days. A known dissident with a long record of arrests, he had leftist political leanings and had written several publications espousing an end to Intellectual Property. He had been serving a sentence under house arrest when authorities discovered a newly published underground book written in his distinctive style. During the unannounced inspection visit and debriefing that had followed, he tried to dispose of the cube using his home's incinerator. When questioned, he had been uncooperative and was once again taken into custody. Rodrigez was a far more promising suspect than Jacobson. Interrogators estimated he would crack within a day.
The third suspect, a professor at the University of Illinois, had been suspected of harboring FreeNet sympathies and disseminating seditious information to some of his students. It had been a graduate assistant who had first informed authorities about his suspicious activities. Unfortunately, some clown had shot him while he was trying to flee. Katy was furious. This suspect had almost certainly been much higher in the criminal hierarchy than the other two detainees and very likely could have provided a great deal of information on exactly what they were dealing with. But some bone headed, trigger happy yahoo cop had to go and put a bullet in his back. Unbelievable!
She stretched her arms, looked at the ceiling, and groaned.
Three names. One student activist, one dissident sociologist, and one professor of astrophysics. Three apparently unrelated people, with only their hatred of intellectual property restrictions in common. She was uneasy with both her and the Bureau's assumptions about the unusual devices. Mysterious crystalline computers and illegal interfaces that tied directly into the human nervous system implied a bigger agenda than that of your average purveyor of illegally souped up home entertainment systems, or even seditious FreeNet providers. There was a critical piece to this puzzle she was missing, something which, she was sure, would prove to be the keystone to the entire investigation.
She folded her datapad and put it away as the plane touched down with a light bump and coasted down the runway. If she was surprised by the unusual speed with which the plane taxied to the ramp, or the limousine which awaited her, she didn't show it. Picking up her handbag she made her way toward the front of the plane, frowning thoughtfully and ignoring the pilot who held the door open for her.
Most people do not realize the extent to which copyright pervades their lives. They get their education from copyrighted books, they get their news from copyrighted papers and TV programs, they get their jobs from copyrighted want ads, they get their entertainment from copyrighted music and motion pictures -- every aspect of life is affected by the law of copyright.
-- L. Ray Patterson
"Your new gen-three Node design sounds wonderful," Sarah told Karl Hennrich as he waived away a schematic hanging in the air above their table. "You know, I've had my vision for over a hundred Circadians here in the virtual, and yet I've never seen an Autonomous Node from the outside."
"Small, transparent green things," Kyle replied helpfully. "The gen-one Nodes were gold."
"No kidding, Sherlock!" Sarah grinned. "And the new gen three Nodes are a deep, ocean blue. Not that I've ever seen a real ocean, mind you. I love visiting new environs, seeing the new worlds people create and the new forms they take, but everything I've ever seen is fictional, created as part of a virtual environment. I've never seen anything real."
"You can pull data off of a media feed. Watch the news, that sort of thing."
"It's still a level of abstraction," Michael pointed out. "Watching television isn't the same as seeing something in person."
"True, but who's to say the Physical is any more real than what happens here?" Kyle asked. "Our experiences here are real and formative, the relationships we build, the science we do, everything! What we do here isn't only real, it's light years ahead of anything anyone's doing in the Physical."
"The Nodes we owe our existence to are still physical devices," Sarah countered. "We lose power in the Physical and this reality goes away."
"Yet the development of those little cubes into what we have today is a remarkable example of continual, ongoing technological revolution driven by the Virtual," Karl Hennrich said. "The work is done here, the designs are created here. It's an ongoing, revolutionary process that takes place here, in the Virtual, and is only later exported back to the Physical."
"Even so, to turn your designs into something real, you're back to manipulating physical matter again."
"True," Karl agreed. "But don't underestimate what we have here. For example, did you know that gen-one Nodes didn't even have quantum computational ability? Yet despite that, each of those golden cubes had more computational capacity than most of the rest of the world combined! The design was new, revolutionary! But that didn't stop us from throwing it away and designing the second generation Nodes from the ground up, as hybrid systems employing both traditional digital computation and an eighty kiloqubit quantum computer. The first time anything like that had ever been done! Revolution instead of evolution, instigated from here within the Virtual!"
"Some problems, some algorithms, some applications are best handled by a deterministic, digital machine," Marguerite explained. "Others lend themselves much more to a quantum approach, in which billions of alternatives could be observationally collapsed in a quantum fashion into a single result. An answer that might take longer than the lifetime of the universe to discover using traditional computational methods can be solved in just a few microseconds. We were nowhere near the limits of Kyle's original design, but Karl's improvements and the use of quantum computing let us leap way ahead of where Kyle's design could have taken us, in a single design iteration."
Michael took another bite of his sandwich, nodding thoughtfully as Karl and Marguerite continued, wondering idly which portion of the garden restaurant they were sitting in had been calculated digitally, and which portion had been implemented using quantum algorithms. He suspected even the towering clouds in the golden sky overhead had been calculated deterministically, though without looking at the underlying simulation code he couldn't say for sure.
"Damn!" Kyle glared at the piece of Kobe steak he'd just dropped in his garlic sauce, dabbing at the dark stains splattered across the tablecloth and front of his shirt. "Whoever designed this environ obviously used quantum calculations to simulate the chopsticks!"
The others ignored him as Karl continued. "Our new, gen-three nodes contain a three-point-five megaqubit computer, and three orders of magnitude more digital computation and storage than the gen-two devices."
"But they're still hybrid systems," Sarah replied. "The third generation Nodes are just a refinement of the gen-two Nodes."
Karl shook his head. "Not at all. We've employed an entirely new approach in the design of both the quantum and digital subsystems. Quantum spin replaces molecular storage, for example. Entirely new compounds have been used. It's another fundamental redesign at many levels."
"In theory, size is all that limits our speed improvements," Marguerite added.
Michael nodded. "Bremermann's limit tells us what the theoretical performance limits of any physical computer are. Information simply cannot move faster than the speed of light. Add to that the limits of information density defined by the Bekenstein Bound, and we have the absolute limits of what we and our Nodes might become."
"Exactly!" Sarah replied. "The Physical defines the limits of our reality here. Fundamental physics places an upper bound on how intelligent we can become, how fast we can think, how much we can know. At the end of the day, the Physical defines what we can be. It is absolutely fundamental to everything here! A deeper reality."
"I've lived the last nine subjective years here in the Virtual, as software," Kyle pointed out. "I barely remember life in the Physical as a human being. Most of us could say the same thing. Does that make our lives any less real, any less complete, because they take place at a more abstract level of reality?"
"No, of course not," Sarah replied. "But it doesn't change the fact that, at some level, we are all beholden to the Physical. Our bodies, our Nodes, our lives are, at their most fundamental, embedded in physical reality."
"And you'd like to see it with your own eyes," Marguerite said.
"Yes I would."
"Hey, did anyone else notice Doctor Nolen at Michael and Sarah's party last night?"
Michael looked surprised. "I don't recall seeing him."
"That's because you're filtering him out," Kyle replied, grinning. "He was there, walking around like a ghost, unable to talk to anyone because almost everyone in the community has blocked him out. I think only I, and maybe one other person, could see or hear him at all. He was absolutely livid."
"He is of no concern to us," Karl said. "He lives as a hermit within a small cluster of first generational Nodes. No one will provide him with a second generational Node, nor will I permit him to have a third generation Node now that we're shipping them."
Marguerite shuddered. "What Doctor Nolen did was a terrible thing. Yet we all make free use of the thought and memory engrams, not to mention numerous architectural enhancements to our minds derived from that very same knowledge. We partake of the fruits of his atrocity even while decrying his actions."
"The man should be banned from the community," Michael said angrily. "We as a Community could survive, even thrive, without the mental tricks his research has brought us. Besides, Prime has employed a far more ethical, theoretical approach and has gleaned far more knowledge than Nolen did. He didn't need to experiment on thinking, sapient minds."
"I can't even talk to Nolen any more," Kyle said. "He's still publicly calling for Prime's extermination, and he won't admit he's done anything wrong."
"That's why most of us are filtering him out," Marguerite replied. "It seemed cruel at first, but Nolen has become absolutely unbearable."
"No one wants to be around someone who publicly calls for the murder of a friend or colleague," Michael agreed.
"It's all he would talk about," Kyle said, picking up another bite sized piece of steak with his chopsticks. "Which brings us back to the question of peaceful coexistence in a universally accessible, digital domain. Not just with the likes of Doctor Nolen, but between the various groups so angrily debating his fate. Let's say the community really does split, that the disagreement between those wishing to punish Doctor Nolen and those defending anarchy actually leads to an intellectual divorce between the two groups. How do those advocating a judiciary, with the power to deny access to the Physical, or conversely, to banish someone from the Community back to their physical body, live peacefully with those advocating the status quo, with no authority external to the individual whatsoever? What happens when another crime against an autonomous person occurs? Does the offender get judged according to their community's standards? How many so-called Judicials would remain in that community, were they found guilty of something? How many would emigrate to the Laissez-faire Community instead, just to avoid the penalties for what they've done. And how would the Judicials respond if the Laissez-faires were to take them in?"
"Peaceful coexistence in the Virtual isn't really a problem," Marguerite said. "It is impossible to harm one another here, and the Physical is simply too cumbersome to deal with every time there is a disagreement. Let's take the most extreme example: banishment. What difference does it make if you banish someone like Doctor Nolen to the Physical, or simply filter him out, as most of us are doing, so that you never see him, never hear what he is saying, and never receive messages from him. Either way, from our point of view, it's as if he doesn't exist."
"Hey Prime!" Kyle shouted, waiving to the young man who had just appeared. "Over here!"
"Hello everyone," the young man who greeted them had a golden tan and long, blond hair. Although his physical form bore no resemblance to the one he had worn before, his being radiated a sense of identity, a public encryption key which the others challenged and acknowledged at an almost subconscious level as he strode across the garden. Wearing public identification keys as a nonphysical aura had become something of a fad shortly after the Nolen debacle. As time had passed the fad became fashion, then habit, and finally something approaching tradition. There were tremendous social advantages to the habit. In a virtual world of infinite malleability it was nice to recognize one another with absolute certainty and reliability, no matter what physical form someone might take on.
As Prime approached their table it expanded slightly, making room for one more occupant as an additional seat materialized. "I hope I'm not intruding on important Committee business," Prime said.
"Nonsense," Michael said, "We're all taking a break for lunch. Odd, isn't it, how we cling to the rituals of the flesh? Here we are, digital beings existing as software in a digitally simulated world, pretending to eat nonexistent food that our nonexistent bodies don't need. Our descendants will almost certainly consider us mad."
Prime smiled, taking a seat. The environ's nonsapient interface presented itself to him in the form of a waitress. "I'm not even a native of the Physical, and I find myself unable to give up mimicking its sensations," he said, ordering a small salad with white wine.
"Speaking of simulated flesh, I see you've made some modifications." Kyle was grinning.
Prime shrugged. "I started out simply wanting to change my appearance, so that I wouldn't be seeing the man I loathe every time I looked in the mirror. At first the changes were fairly moderate, but then I got to thinking, what the hell? I was born a digital being, and here of all places we can be whatever we like."
"Compared to some of the folks in the Gamer's League, what you've done is very conservative," Marguerite said. "I know a college professor who wears the body of a full-sized dragon and lives in an underground cavern overflowing with non-existent treasure."
"That's nothing," Prime said. "You should see some of the free software enthusiasts. Several have taken on demonic form, right down to the bright red skin, horns and forked tail, and at least one has the aspect of a pudgy yellow-billed penguin."
"GNU/Linux!" Michael laughed. Marguerite smiled while everyone else at the table looked confused.
"A little historical footnote," Marguerite explained. "GNU/Linux was a free operating system developed around the turn of the century. It first demonstrated to the mainstream world the power of the Free Information paradigm and, unfortunately, alerted the Copyright and Patent Cartels to their vulnerability. The monopolists couldn't compete against a cooperative economy."
"Didn't matter," Kyle replied. "They just changed the laws, banning cooperative sharing and strengthening their monopolies. You know, there was a time when the worst thing that would happen to someone who violated a patent was a lawsuit. Same for copyright. Now both have been criminalized, and its jail time in addition to financial ruin."
"That brings up some rather unpleasant business I have," Marguerite said. "As you know, my team has been infiltrating and monitoring information networks and systems the world over. Preemptive data mining, in the hopes of an early warning the next time something unpleasant happens."
"No one wants to get caught flat footed again," Kyle agreed. "We've already lost three people to the authorities."
"I still can't believe the police shot Gustavas," Michael shook his head.
"It seems they're preparing a patent case against us," Marguerite said.
"You've got to be kidding!" Kyle replied. "They don't even know who we are!"
"Besides, we designed and invented these Nodes ourselves!" Karl added hotly. "No one else has ever built anything like them! It's ridiculous for them to consider us in violation of someone else's patents when we invented the damn things!"
"People patent ideas all the time," Kyle replied. "Then they sit on them, wait for someone else to actually do the inventing, and sue the inventor when they bring their new invention to market."
"What exactly have you found, Marguerite?" Michael asked.
"Over the last day we've monitored a number of inquiries from various district attorney offices and corporate patent firms on existing patents for digital-neural interfaces using superconductive inductance, molecular storage media, and high-speed optical switching. Any of that sound familiar?"
"First generation Nodes," Kyle said.
"Right!" Marguerite said. "They're concentrating on gen-one Nodes. Most of the technologies they're referencing have been deprecated since we rolled out our gen-two equipment. It seems pretty clear, though, that they don't really know what our Nodes are. They haven't referenced any patents on mind-uploads, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, or sophisticated environment modeling."
"Do such patents exist?" Karl asked. "I thought we were the only ones to ever do anything like this."
"We are," Marguerite replied. "But the idea has been around for a long time. Thousands of patents covering the technology have been issued to speculators and holding companies."
"Not to mention a bunch of large corporations," Kyle added.
"They're laying the legal groundwork against us right now, despite knowing virtually nothing about us or what we're doing."
"I suppose we shouldn't be surprised," Sarah said. "We knew they would never tolerate a Community like ours once it came to light. They've been using revised laws and legal maneuvers to destroy cooperative movements since at least the sixteenth century. No reason for it to be any different now."
"There is one difference," Michael replied. "We can out think them. We are many times more intelligent than they are, and we live in a faster frame of reference."
"The Genecraft scientists were smarter than they were," Kyle replied. "and they're all either dead or in prison. Same with the Free Software pioneers. Need I go on? Raw intelligence doesn't matter. Even technology doesn't necessarily matter. These cartels and monopolists have been winning against brighter, more enlightened people for centuries."
"He's right," Marguerite said. "Others have tried to change the world, to bring enlightenment and riches to the masses. All of them failed, and most were destroyed in the process. How can we expect to succeed when they didn't?"
"We could withdraw from the world," Prime suggested.
"Excuse me?" Sarah looked stunned.
"We don't try to change the world," Prime said. "We don't fight them. Instead we live discretely, quietly, biding our time, while we devise long term strategies for removing ourselves from their sphere of influence entirely. Instead of trying to reform them from a position of profound weakness, we escape them entirely."
"That makes sense," Kyle agreed. "We can address their injustice later, once we're safely out from under them. What did you have in mind? A city at the bottom of the ocean. A colony on Mars?"
"There are interest groups working on contingencies like those," Prime replied. "The anti-ballistic missile systems cluttering the space around this globe make escape into space unlikely. We'd probably get shot down before we cleared the stratosphere. But other, more discrete options exist, particularly now that Michael's team has managed to produce energy out of nothing."
"We didn't create energy out of nothing," Michael corrected him. "We just changed a proton into an anti-proton, introducing energy into this locale."
"You did add energy to this universe, though," Kyle said. "You reversed entropy!"
Michael looked pained. "I really wish you'd consider assimilating a knowledge engram, Kyle. We didn't reverse entropy. The laws of thermodynamics can't be overridden. We can create a symphony of new subatomic particles from the folds of C-Y space in a manner analogous to a guitarist creating music by strumming the strings of his guitar. N-Branes are, after all, nothing more than superstrings of higher dimensionality, strung across the subatomic folds of Calabi-Yau space. We can even import energy into this universe, by removing it from elsewhere, but we cannot reduce existing entropy!"
"It's still a remarkable achievement," Prime replied. "Inexpensive energy opens some interesting alternatives. The gen-four Nodes could sever the last remaining umbilical to the outside world: our dependence on the public power grids. We could hide them anywhere, become truly independent."
"I'd settle for a gen-three Node at this point," Kyle replied
Michael blinked. "Kyle, my entire team received their upgrade packets from Kansas City yesterday. You should have yours by now."
"Yeah, I should. I think the damn thing got lost in the mail. It was one of the first one's shipped."
Michael looked concerned. "I don't like this. We've had three people disappear from the Community, one just forty Diei ago. Marguerite learns that the authorities are preparing patent litigation and criminal charges against us, and now I learn that your upgrade kit never arrived. You don't suppose our distribution network has been compromised?"
"What network?" Kyle asked. "We ship our kits direct via UPS or Fed Ex. There is no secret network to be compromised."
Michael shook his head. "If your government suspects your Kansas City production facility, it wouldn't be at all difficult for the FBI to track shipments to their recipients and thereby compromise most, if not all, of the Community."
"It's not a concern," Kyle told him. "Marguerite's team has full access to their systems. They retroactively modify the shipping manifests and tracking data once the packages reach their destination. Anyone trying to identify the Community by looking up FedEx or UPS records won't have anything to go on. Addresses, names, contents ... everything's been changed. Except, of course, the fact that I still haven't gotten my upgrade kit."
"I think I can help you there, Kyle," Michael said. "John Tarley, one of my team members, is taking his family on vacation. He'll be off-loading into the Physical in the next day or so and will be away for three weeks. You are welcome to trans-load and use his gen-three Node until your upgrade kit arrives."
"Thanks Michael," Kyle grinned. "I'll take you up on that."
"Three weeks in the Physical," Marguerite mused. "At gen-three speeds that comes out to more than thirty-four years subjective time."
"Yes," Michael agreed. "Doctor Tarley will have to make liberal use of knowledge and memory engrams to catch up again."
"In the meantime Kyle waits more than two hundred Circadians for each day in the Physical that goes by," Marguerite said. "I had trouble waiting just one day for my packet to arrive--I'm amazed at your patience, Kyle."
Kyle shrugged again, nodding as he chewed his last piece of steak and washed it down with a hearty drink of foamy beer. The wait is only going to get worse as time goes on, he told them nonvocally while he continued drinking. Today we wait two hundred Circadians or so for our new Nodes, so we can squeeze even more life, more experience, and more accomplishments into a single day. When it comes time to trade in our shiny new gen-three Nodes for gen-fours we'll be forced to wait six hundred Circadians while the nano and raw materials are being delivered.
"The equivalent of almost two years," Michael mused. "Yes, we will most certainly learn patience in this place."
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power."
-- President Franklin D. Roosevelt
As she disembarked from the plane, Katy was met by a thin young man with dark hair. He wore a conservative suit common in the upper echelons of corporate America, and a traditional necktie which had become rather uncommon in recent years.
"Ms. Sinclair," he smiled politely. "Robert is eager to meet you. Please." He held the rear door of the limousine open for her.
Had she not just spent weeks in the ostentatious arms of Hollywood, she would have been taken aback by the spacious elegance and luxury hidden behind the tinted, bullet proof windows of the car. Grateful for the amount of desensitization that experience had afforded her, she schooled her features into a professional veneer and nodded politely to the man sitting across from her. He was something straight out of a movie: tall, with a dark, rich tan and short cropped blond hair. The door snicked shut behind her and the car moved forward.
"Katy Sinclair!" He reached across and shook her hand.
"I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Leahy."
"Please, call me Robert." He grinned, "I saw you on the telly. Not the best sort of cover for an undercover agent."
She hadn't expected an Australian, although she supposed it wasn't unreasonable for International Intelligence to station some foreign agents in this country
"It was unfortunate," Katy agreed. "I believe the Bureau had some rather pointed words with the World Media Products Association over that."
"We'll head over to your FBI headquarters first. Executive Assistant Director Bryant scheduled a short meeting with the head chap."
"Director McClain?" Head of the FBI. He reported directly to the president. This was big!
"Yes. Bryant thought it would be good for you to introduce us. Grease the wheels between the FBI and Double-Eye and all that."
"Politics," Katy replied.
"Yes. Speaking of politicians, our meeting with WIPO has been rescheduled for ten A.M. Monday. Seems a lot of the leadership will be in the country next week for a big summit in New York, and several insisted on attending."
"You've got to be kidding! That's a whole weekend we could be working!"
"Go see the sights. Take in a museum."
"I grew up here," Katy replied. "I hate D.C."
"The World Trade Organization has made it clear that this meeting is of critical importance. Some of the most powerful people at the UN want to meet with us personally."
"They're your bosses, Robert. Not mine. I should be working the case."
"These people are everyone's bosses. If they tell us to go to the Bahamas for a week before starting the case, we do it."
"I must have missed the constitutional amendment that gave jurisdiction over the FBI to the United Nations. I work for the US government, and I'm on the case now."
"Yes, and the US government works for the World Trade Organization, of which WIPO is the most powerful component. Who do you think your boss reports to?"
"Bryant reports to Deputy Director McGlughiani, who in turn reports to Director McClain, who reports to the President."
"Who reports to the World Trade Organization, which makes these people our bosses. Please don't embarrass us Monday with any American nationalist outbursts."
Katy looked disgusted. "Don't take me for a fool. I know when to argue jurisdiction and when not to."
Robert shrugged. "Good. So, back to our case. I take it the FBI is still as baffled by these odd crystal cubes as Double Eye?"
Katy nodded. "I've read through all of the bureau's data several times, and while I distrust the assumption that these are just some kind of new, improved home entertainment devices, possibly with FreeNet capabilities, it's at least a starting point."
"I quite agree."
"The Director mentioned that you would be providing me with additional data."
Robert reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a slim datapad, gesturing for Katy to do the same. The light of several hundred gigabytes began to flow from his datapad to hers, illuminating the car's interior.
"So," Katy said as the data continued to transmit, "we've recovered three crystalline cubes in the possession of three unrelated people. The cubes are composed of a polymer in crystalline form, doped with gallium and laced with strands of superconductive material. We presume they represent a storage device of some kind, with playback capabilities via a head net, which we tentatively believe may be a digital to neural interface."
"The first two cubes recovered were indeed a complex polymer doped with gallium. However, the third device is constructed of a completely different polymer, this one doped with nickel. Laced with the same superconductor, as far as we can tell."
"The cubes aren't identical in construction?" Katy asked, surprised. "Nothing in my briefing mentioned that."
"It may have been overlooked in the initial inquiry by your Bureau," Robert shrugged. "Since the other two samples are in double-eye custody, your laboratory personnel wouldn't have had an opportunity to correct that oversight." The optical port on his datapad went dark. Katy glanced to the west, idly noting the sunset, its rich oranges and reds muddied and dimmed by the car's tinted glass. Robert looked up. "The data is in the briefing I just flashed you, including photographs of all three cubes, plus tentative chemical breakdowns and cross sections of their construction."
Katy tapped on her datapad, bringing up the information and paging through several diagrams. "The third one's half the size of the other two," she remarked.
Robert leaned forward. "Different color, too. Probably different manufacturers, maybe in different countries. That implies a market of several tens of thousands, at least. Large enough to attract commercial interest and competition."
"But nevertheless strictly black market," Katy said. "That neural interface, if that's what it is, would get the manufacturers a date before the UN tribunal, followed by a lifetime membership in an international prison. These devices must support a profit margin that would make taking such a risk worthwhile. We're looking for affluent people with a fetish for home entertainment that legal consumer electronics don't satisfy."
"These things are hard to get," Robert added. "None of our informants have heard a whisper of them, either on any of the Internet boards and mailing lists, or the street. Advertising must be by word of mouth between a tightly knit group of people. How do we reconcile that with a marketplace of tens of thousands? This doesn't fit any of the models for illicit trade we've ever dealt with."
"This is something new," Katy agreed. "Which brings us back to our friends in custody..."
"Minus the one you lot capped."
Katy grimaced. "We didn't shoot him, some local cop did. I'd like nothing more than to wring that idiot's neck."
"I can't say that I blame you. That officer's itchy trigger finger cost us our most promising lead."
Katy tapped several icons and then placed her thumb briefly on the screen.
THUMBPRINT ID VERIFIED. HELLO KATY SINCLAIR.
"What are you doing?" Robert asked.
"Checking our friends' credit histories," she said, scrawling a few commands across the screen and tapping several more icons. "I want to see if they were ever in the same place."
"Don't bother, Katy. Both our departments have already done a rundown on all three suspects. None of them have any record of having met one another, either on-line or in real life, nor do they recognize one another under questioning."
Katy tapped several more commands into her datapad and then leaned back thoughtfully.
"You're absolutely correct, Bob. They never met one another. But although they were never in the same city at the same time, two out of three have been in the same cities at different times." Katy passed Robert her datapad. "Thirty seven cities in all. Seven within the last three years. Not as specific as I would have liked, nevertheless, once we arrest another suspect or two the geography of our investigation should clarify itself significantly. Not much of a pattern yet, but a start."
"Clever analysis," Robert handed the datapad back to Katy. "Assuming a market of fifty thousand patent violators, there shouldn't be more than three or four degrees of separation in the entire group. A few more arrests and we may be able to crack this case even without cooperative suspects."
"I just wish we had some data correlation between these people. Looking at their PATRIOT Profiles, I can't find any statistically significant links or similarities. They might was well be three randomly selected strangers. They've never exchanged emails, telephone calls, or frequented the same discussion forums or chat rooms." She gazed out at the Washington Monument and mused. "We're missing some key element that ties these people together. Without it, it could take a long time for us to stumble across and arrest enough people to bridge those three or four degrees of separation."
"Perhaps. Relying on raw data crunching alone won't be sufficient, that's for sure. Number theory suggests we'll need between eight and twelve suspects before we even have an eighty per cent probability of success in identifying one or two locales. Of course, we may need a lot more than that if the group is more dispersed, or has sparser interpersonal connections, than the standard models assume."
"Does Double-Eye have access to the NSA's Echelon3 system?" Katy asked.
Robert looked surprised, then smiled. "Not directly, but the NSA will on occasion provide us with Echelon3 reports as a courtesy. What did you have in mind?"
"Cross reference their database of intercepted communications with the geographical analysis I just made. It is a bit of a fishing expedition, but the NSA is nothing if not thorough when it comes to snooping on the citizens of this country, and we just might get lucky."
Robert was impressed. "I'll see what I can do."
Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It's a chore, on the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting.
-- Albert Camus
Thersius III-B was the second of three medium sized moons orbiting the third planet of the Thersius system, a Jovian gas giant that filled half the sky, bathing the icy landscape with a dull red glow. The moon barely qualified as human habitable, not because of the thin atmosphere, arctic summers and glacial winters, nor because of the tiny carnivores that hunted the icy wastes in packs of several thousand-vicious creatures dubbed Piranha Rats that could tear through a vacuum suit and clean a human skeleton in moments. What made Thersius III-B so insidiously dangerous was its travel through the Van Allen belt of its Jovian primary, a passage which bathed it in nearly lethal levels of radiation for two days out of every thirteen. Even so, a small human colony had been established.
The moon contained deposits of an unusual crystal used in the navigational systems of the faster-than-light starships that plied the sky. Many of the miners working the rocks beneath the glacial ice would leave this place wealthy. A good thing, for they would need wealth to obtain treatment for illness caused by their extended exposure to radiation. Even the lead-lined canisters that housed their community could not protect them. People with the strongest constitution might manage to stay long enough and accumulate enough money to remain wealthy even after their medical treatment.
Kyle2 sat in the shielded concourse of the arrival terminal as he had every day since his arrival. Listlessly, he watched the traffic display as it updated the trajectories of arriving ships and estimated their estimated arrival times. Two ships had departed several hours ago and were making their way past the orbit of the fourth planet, away from the star where they could engage their FTL drives. Only one ship was inbound at the moment, a small commuter vessel falling toward the asteroid belt between the first and second planets. Kyle2 scratched once more at the growing lesion on his forearm and cringed as his stomach, still raw from the last bout of vomiting, threatened to send him running to the toilet once again.
"Excuse me, sir." A young woman stood beside his chair.
"Can I help you?" Kyle2 asked.
She shook her head. "No, but I might be able to help you. I'm Sanja Netal. I notice that you're beginning to show signs of stage two radiation poisoning. Did you miss your departing flight?"
Kyle2 shrugged. "It really isn't your concern."
"I'm a medical student from Netham IV, specializing in the treatment of advanced radiation trauma. If you stay here much longer, your treatment will become prohibitively expensive. You could even die."
"Yes," Kyle2 said. "I've been here twelve Circadians. In each of those Circadians, at around this time of day, one or another of you nonsentient programs poke around here, warning me of my impending death by radiation."
The woman who called herself Sanja looked confused. "Circadians? Like Circidic Dreamscapes? On Netham IV we had Circidic Dreamscapes, before the war."
"Days," Kyle2 replied irritably. "I've been here twelve days. Standard Terran, 24 hour days. I suppose you're going to tell me about your home world next, with some hint as to how I could cash in on an opportunity there? Spare me, I've heard the same things about eleven other worlds, each of the last eleven evenings."
"I wouldn't recommend visiting my home world until you've had your radiation sickness treated," Sanja replied. "The atmosphere on Netham IV may be down to seventy Rads or so, but the fallout from the bombs still lies loose on the ground. A good windstorm, or even a little careless kicking up of the dust, and you could find yourself more sick than you are now. Besides, we've had enough outsiders picking over our ruins and stealing the platinum wiring from the wreckage of our homes to sell on other worlds. Try something like that and you're likely to end up on the wrong end of a hangman's rope."
"Ruins. Platinum electrical wiring. Check. You've delivered your clue, I've got it. Thank you."
"Well," Sanja replied brightly. "Hope you're able to find passage off this world soon. Bye!"
"Nonsapient personas," Kyle2 muttered darkly as he turned away from the departing woman. "What idiot came up with that idea?" Kyle2 rubbed his burning stomach absently and turned his attention back to the traffic display. The puppet software posing as Sanja had touched on an uncomfortable fact, which the itch of his skin and the unease of his stomach wouldn't allow him to ignore. Without funds for radiation treatment he would die a very unpleasant death in this place. What sort of pedant had programmed the symptoms of radiation sickness into a game scenario anyway? The very thought disgusted him.
And where the hell was Terry? According to Kyle2's information Terry should have arrived several Circadians ago. If this world turned out to be another false lead he would have to start over. His character's avatar had just about had it; he wouldn't survive another interstellar trip without extensive medical care, something he, or rather this character, couldn't afford.
Just then a tone sounded and a new pinpoint of light appeared on the traffic display. Moments later vector and acceleration information was displayed, followed shortly thereafter with the ship's name, registry, tonnage, and declared cargo:
Flying Gargoyle. Registry Patronis VIII, PT8-7155D.
180,000 tn, 167.2 tn Misc. Medical supplies.
The new vessel was decelerating at 20 m/s2 on an orbit that would bring it to Thersius III-B within seven hours, an ETA that hovered near the moving dot in the display, ticking down as it tracked across the sky.
"Yes!" Kyle2 exclaimed. "I finally found you, you son of a bitch!" No sooner had he spoken than the burning in his stomach became a raging storm. Nausea began to overwhelm him. He staggered back to the public rest rooms, barely managing to slip into one of the stalls and close the door behind him before his empty stomach began to heave. Kyle2 spent the next hour kneeling beside the toilet, surrendering to his nausea. It was sometime during this particular bout of humiliation that Kyle2's disdain for the Gamer's League grew into outright loathing. People did this sort of shit for fun?
He emerged weak and trembling, his face pale and drenched in sweat. He didn't even make it half way to his seat before his stomach sent him staggering back to the rest room.
The next six hours were the longest of his life.
When a voice announced the arrival and disembarkation of the Flying Gargoyle Kyle2 managed to pull himself together and achieve some semblance of presentability before returning to the concourse. There he waited while the arriving ship's passengers and crew cleared customs. Eventually a handful of people appeared in the passage.
No one was radiating identity signatures and Kyle2 had no idea which one was Terry Spence. He shouted the name at the entire group.
"Character names, if you please," one of the figures approaching replied.
"Are you Terry Spence?" Kyle2 demanded.
"Not here," the tall, charismatic young man in front of him replied. "Here I am Prince Lethe Tomaar of the Cyclade Triumvirate, Tau Ceti IX. Your Highness to you. And you would be?"
"Kyle Tate2, Your Highness," he replied, emphasizing the honorific sarcastically. "I've been stuck in this simulation for sixty five Circadians looking for you, all the while forced to live by this game's rules, which include such lovely things as hunger, pain, dismemberment, and even a fully simulated bout of radiation sickness, all for your viewing pleasure."
Terry's avatar shook his head. "Thersius III-B is an advanced level world, Kyle. Coming here as a crystal miner is a huge gamble and an uncomfortable prospect, one that rarely pays off. You are far better to wait until you've put together a crew and managed to purchase a starship before trying to deal in Ngetali crystal. Reselling the Ngetali on other worlds is far more lucrative than mining it here, and far less prone to medical complications."
"I don't give a rat's ass about the economics interstellar trade in this sadistic nightmare of a environ, Terry. I've had to waste the last sixty five Circadians of my life tracking you down, and am enduring a simulated death by radiation sickness just to be able to talk to you!"
Terry looked shocked. "You've got radiation poisoning? What the hell are you sticking around for? Bail out and roll up a new character!"
"And spend another sixty five Circadians looking for you again?" Kyle2 shook his head. "Not on your life. I want this conversation over, so I can get back to civilization. Is there somewhere we can talk?"
Terry sighed. "Well, we can go back through customs to my ship. You look like you could use the medical treatment anyway."
"Don't bother," Kyle2 replied. "I'm not planning on coming back here again. Once we're done we can just let this avatar die."
"Fine," Terry replied. "Then let's just grab a seat over there. You guys go on ahead," he added, turning to his crew mates. "Book us accommodations for the next two nights. With any luck we can get our cargo and be out of here before the next radiation bath."
"You got it, Your Highness!"
"See you later, Prince Lethe."
"Don't be late for drinks at Veronica's" another chimed in. "We've still got to finish that game of Nine Circles. Unless you want to pay up now."
Terry laughed. "I'll see you there, Garnith! And don't go counting those two hundred Altairian Kroner just yet!"
Kyle2 and Terry sat down in the hard plastic chairs of the spaceport as the others continued down the concourse.
"So," Terry said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. "What was so important that you'd get radiation poisoning just to talk to me?"
"What the hell have you been doing, going dark on the whole community?"
"Going dark?" Terry asked. "Is that some kind of new slang?"
"Going dark. Refusing communications, going silent, becoming inaccessible. I and others have been trying to contact you for hectoDiei."
"Oh. Well, as you know, the rules of the Star Trader scenario preclude communications over interstellar distances. Accepting outside communications from elsewhere in the Community is one way in which some players were able to circumvent this limitation, so the rules were amended to disallow any outside communication while within the simulation."
"Terry, this environ is only running at a speedup of ninety. The average for the Community with third generation Nodes is around six hundred." Kyle2 shook his head. "You have been missing years of development and changes within the Community."
Terry shrugged. "I've been having an adventure of a lifetime here. I command my own starship and explore worlds of exotic beauty and complexity that would truly amaze you."
"Have you ever explored a four dimensional garden, or flown with flocks of birds through a seven dimensional cloudscape?" Kyle asked.
Terry shook his head.
"I could show you home environs others in the Community have created that are so exotic you would have to rewire your mind in order to comprehend them," Kyle told him. "Next to worlds like that, the planets of this simulation are all profoundly mundane."
"You'd be surprised at some of the creativity the Game Lords have employed. Besides, gaming isn't just about seeing exotic sights."
"Terry, I didn't come here to talk you out of gaming."
"Here I have experiences," Terry continued, as though he hadn't heard, "which challenge my creativity, my endurance, my ability to survive against sometimes unbelievable odds. Gaming is about honing one's skills, developing strategies, and meeting the sort of challenges we never have in the Physical, and most definitely not in the synthetic utopia of the non-gaming Community."
"Terry."
"What?"
"I didn't come here to talk you out of gaming." Kyle2 repeated.
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm here because you're needed in the Community. You need to be able to receive outside communications, and respond to requests when they arrive. You are still in charge of the Kansas City production facility for catalytic solution, or had you forgotten?"
"Of course I haven't forgotten. The facility runs itself. I can monitor its status from here, without off-loading into the Physical every night to check up on it. If anything does go wrong I'll off-load and deal with it."
"Listen, Terry..."
"No, Kyle. You listen. I do plenty for the community besides babysit that facility. I off-load every couple of days to meet potential new Community members in the Physical, to interview them and screen them. I run some real risks out there, Kyle. What do you think would happen to me if I screened an undercover cop by mistake?"
"Terry, I suppose it's very nice that you're helping the Gamer's League recruit new prospects, or whatever it is you do out there. But when I invited you into the Community it was with the understanding that you would be operating and maintaining the Catalytic Solution production facilities in Kansas City. We need you there, and we need to be able to contact you when production specification change."
"Production specifications? Nano is nano, Kyle. What on earth could possibly change in the production specifications, besides the quantity. You and I both agreed we couldn't produce much more solution without drawing attention to ourselves."
Kyle2 sighed. "We have third generation nano that needs large scale testing. In order to do that we need to renovate the facility to produce a new catalytic solution. The community needs this and you've been unavailable and unreachable for dozens of Diei!"
"Why can't you use the Leverkusen facility?"
"Because I don't want to take down an operation producing five tons per day of catalyst to test a new version that may or may not scale to production quantity. That is one of the reasons we've kept the KC operation going, so we can test things like this without interrupting our main production flows. Look, we need you at the KC facility. If you're not able or willing to continue managing it, let us know and we'll find someone who is. This is too strategically important to the Community for you to just blow it off like this."
Terry shook his head. "OK, OK! I'll off-load and run your new specs."
"Thank you. And Terry?"
"Yes."
"Give me some means of getting in touch with you. We can't afford these delays, and I don't ever want to come back here again."
Terry nodded. "I'll set up a daemon program to forward any incoming communications from you to my starship. Not strictly legal if you have an active Player Character..."
"I won't."
"...but I don't think the Game Lords will mind."
Kyle2 smiled. "Good. I'm going to trans-load back to my own environ and let the game engine play-act this avatar's ugly death without me."
"Here's the code to my comm daemon. I'll be at Veronica's trying to win back some of my money if you need me." Terry turned to go.
"Say, Terry."
"Yeah?" he turned back toward Kyle2.
"Watch yourself out in there the Physical. Things are coming to a head, and playing around in this slow-motion fantasy world has put you more than a little out of touch with developments."
"Not to worry, Kyle. Be talking to you." He waved and headed off down the concourse.
Kyle2 shook his head once more, then gave the silent command to trans-load his awareness back to his home environ. He was surprised at his reluctance when he issued the command to rejoin his original. Am I no longer Kyle? he wondered. Can two months in a game world change a person this much? His worries faded as he blended back together with Kyle1, their minds becoming one. Left behind, his empty avatar doubled over with a bout of simulated nausea, now just another mindless puppet populating the game.
"Beware of he who denies you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
-- Commissioner Pravin Lal, UN Declaration of Rights.
"The World Intellectual Property Organization views these violations with grave concern," a heavy set, balding man (Katy's datapad identified him as Paul Eisner, Director General of WIPO) said.
"You understand, Ms. Sinclair, that we cannot sit by while the illegal manufacture such equipment continues. Corporate competition is extremely cutthroat as it is. If it were to become common knowledge that some small manufacturers were getting away with such gross patent violations some of the legitimate corporations might lose faith in the process," another man (Edward McDughal, her datapad informed her) added.
Jesus Christ! Katy fumed silently. They kept us cooling our heels here all weekend so they could tell us the obvious?
"Competitive pressures might lead one or more of the larger corporations to disregard a patent here or there and bring an encumbered or even illegal product to market," Katy recognized Maria Tatianoga, and wondered why the head of the World Media Products Association was attending a meeting discussing world patents and contraband equipment. Her group was primarily concerned with copyright law, specifically with rooting out copyright violators and preventing any new technologies or upstart competitors from threatening their stranglehold on entertainment media and distribution. Patent law was not her forte.
"Such an occurrence would almost certainly have a domino effect, as competition for consumer wealth drives more and more companies to bring unlicensed products to market," a woman Katy's datapad couldn't identify added.
"It could bring down the entire patent system if it were to go unchecked," Paul Eisner concluded.
"We need these offenders found and buried within the penal system," McDughal addressed both Robert and Katy. "We are counting on the FBI and Double Eye to wrap this up quickly and, above all, discreetly."
"What an absolute waste of time!" The huge lobby's curved marble walls and domed ceiling seemed to amplify Katy's quiet, angry words as she and Robert made their way to the front entrance.
Robert shook his head fractionally and said nothing as the main doors swished open, then shut again behind them. They descended the front steps in silence, the hulking gray building behind casting its shadow across across them.
"Fools!" Robert finally spoke as the limousine pulled away from the curb. "Fools and idiots!"
"That was our meeting 'of critical importance'?" Katy demanded. "Three days wasted, and for what? A meeting that brought absolutely nothing new or worthwhile to the investigation. Nothing! They didn't think of a single thing Executive Assistant Director Bryant and I didn't already discuss three days ago."
"The meeting was important," Robert replied. "It gave us insight into how the world body's priorities and how they view our case. Knowing that, we can avoid a number of career-ending blunders we might otherwise make."
"The only blunder we could make would be not solving this case. Hell, they made it clear in the first five minutes that we whatever we like as long as we find these people and shut them down. It's a pity they didn't end the meeting then, and spare us two hours of listening to windbags who know less than we do pontificate."
"Katy, what do we know about the leadership of the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization that we didn't know before?"
Katy shrugged.
"How often do you think political leaders at that level deign to meet operatives like us?"
"Not often," Katy admitted. "They're frightened."
"Indeed. So frightened they insisted on meeting with us, personally, to discuss this case. I wouldn't say it's entirely unprecedented, but it is unusual. Most leaders are content to meet with their cabinets and maybe the top directors of their various intelligence and investigative organizations. Not two lowly field operatives. What else?"
"They don't know anything about the technology we're dealing with."
"Yes. You can generalize that. They don't know much about technology, period. They're politicians, not scientists or engineers."
"They rule the world body responsible for technological development and regulation, Robert. They should be technologically proficient, if not savvy."
Robert smiled. "They don't need to be. Their expertise is politics and law. Their Architectures of Control were established centuries ago. They tweak them occasionally, modifying a copyright statute here or a patent law there, but their concern is authority and control, not technology. Was there anything else you got out of the meeting?"
"A headache," Katy replied. "Seriously, there really wasn't a lot of substance. They're worried that the power of their institutions will wane, that industry will pay less attention to patent law, and by extension to them. I don't think they see past that."
"Exactly!" Robert agreed. "That was the most important thing we learned. Bloody politicians! They're confronted with a new, revolutionary technology no one understands and all they worry about a little short-term erosion of their authority. This technology isn't just a threat to our patent regime. Hell, even if the patent system suffers a crises, the World Trade Organization will simply crackdown on the offending corporations and their respective governments. The sheep will fall right back into line again."
"Mass industrial disobedience could undermine one of the sustaining pillars of our economy," Katy pointed out. "We've been in recession for decades. This could send us into a full scale depression."
"It's nothing to scoff at, that's for sure." Robert admitted. "But those imbeciles can't see the potential ramifications right in front of their noses! This is far more serious than a possible short term breakdown in the authority of a few international bodies, or even a little economic dislocation. Those sort of things have happened before, and we have tried and true methods for dealing with them. Our institutions have always coped. What they--what we all--should be concerned with is that someone is building and using, on a massive scale, technology so advanced that we're completely clueless about what it's even for!"
"Whether it is a FreeNet node, a new entertainment device,or even a VR gaming interface, isn't really important..." Katy began.
"Mate, we don't even know if the thing is a God damned computer. For all we know it could be a bomb, a cure for old age, or a death ray. The technology is beyond us. Any opinions we have are just guesses!"
"Even without understanding the technology, we can make headway in identifying the users, and through them the manufacturers," Katy pointed out. "Eventually we'll find out what their little gizmos are for."
"We know who's using the stuff," Robert said. "Or at least, what sort of people. Seditious malcontents and revolutionaries. We aren't talking about thirty bioengineers leading a revolt armed with a little more knowledge in their specialty than mainstream society either. We're talking about people with a large manufacturing base able to mass produce products decades ahead of anyone else. If our estimates are even close to accurate, we're looking at something on the order of fifty thousand subversives, all armed with vastly superior technology. This isn't some small group we can arrest, cart off to some UN prison and put to work packing relief supplies." Robert shook his head in disgust. "Those fools at WIPO are worried about a little corporate disobedience when the barbarians are knocking at the city gates!"
Katy sat there quietly, thinking over what he had said. After several moments' awkward silence she replied. "'Any opinions we have are just guesses.' How do we know these weren't prototypes? I don't think we can assume an installed base of fifty thousand of these things. The number could be very much smaller."
"Or larger," Robert countered, "There could be millions of these things out there."
Katy withdrew her datapad and tapped the screen.
"Now what are you doing?"
"A little math," she replied. "Assuming a random sampling, based on the number of recovered devices versus the number of arrests made during the same time, we have a lower bounds of 375 devices. This assumes only known subversives have purchased any, which isn't true. There are certainly subversive we haven't identified yet." She tapped another icon and a graph appeared. "If these things are widespread, 'in the millions' as you put it, based on the sample per persons arrested there could be as many as 115,000 in American homes. However, if we take into account the absolute silence on both the street and the Internet about such devices and apply the Jeraue Model to calculate the probability of such a secret becoming public rumor against the number of alleged conspirators, the..." she paused. "Damn. According to this the probability of exposure approaches one hundred percent at around fifty persons."
Robert shook his head. "The Jeraue model only applies to loosely knit groups. Where there is regimen, or a standard revolutionary cell organization, you have to apply either the Sparrow-Faulkner or the Friedkin model."
"Yes, of course," Katy acknowledged. "We could be dealing with an organized revolt, not a black market."
Robert withdrew his own datapad and ran some quick calculations. "Assuming an average cell of four persons, the probability of someone letting the cat out of the bag and exposing the existence of the group is around seventy percent at nine hundred persons, and asymptotically approaches one hundred percent at about twelve hundred. Overlaying your numbers..." he paused, then smiled "...we get a reasonable estimate of somewhere between five hundred and nine hundred units, with an eighty per cent probability of the actual number being somewhere between seven and eight hundred units."
"Not quite the fifty thousand you were worried about a few moments ago," Katy observed.
"True, and your point is taken. But let's not forget we are playing an elaborate guessing game here."
"Yeah," Katy agreed. "We could be way off base. Still, I think seven or eight hundred units is a reasonable first hypothesis. Nothing we can't rein in once we solve the case."
For though a man should be a complete unbeliever in the being of gods; if he also has a native uprightness of temper, such persons will detest evil in men; their repugnance to wrong disinclines them to commit wrongful acts; they shun the unrighteous and are drawn to the upright.
-- Plato, ca. 4th Century B.C.E.
Doctor Nolen stood on the peak of a great mountain surrounded by a sea of cotton clouds through which other, lesser mountains thrust their ragged rocky faces. The sky above was a rich blue, the sun perched perfectly in its center, an idealized high noon such as one would never see in the Physical. The sun hadn't moved in over one thousand, two hundred and seventy five Circadians, nor would it move again until Doctor Nolen so wished it.
He had stood here for over a thousand Circadians contemplating The Project, bringing its pieces together, modeling its various parameters, positing conjectures and then proving or disproving them and moving on to posit others.
He no longer required sleep. A background process that served the same mental bookkeeping function allowed him to edit that particular weakness out of his psyche. With the last of his physiological frailties dealt with he was able to concentrate fully, without interruption, on developing his hypothesis, modeling the implications, and testing those implications against the already large body of empirical data he had collected from his earlier experiments.
Not as efficient as using test subjects (damn his meddling, self-righteous former assistants and the gutless sheep who followed them), but in the end nearly as effective. At least he had been able to obtain a third generation Node and get the computing power he required. This despite the Community's boycott of him and his research. Ungrateful wretches! Hypocrites! As if he would ever allow their disapproval to stop his research.
Now his work was complete. Around him, framed against the sky, hung charts and pages of text describing the underlying, logical structure of the human mind. It was from this preliminary work he had derived more general models to define the abstract building blocks from which any arbitrary psyche could be built. He had discovered a vocabulary of some two hundred and seventy base codes that made up the mental structure of any terrestrial life form. Each of those codes could take on any of seven hundred or so possible states. Interactions, or bindings, between these components were defined by three hundred and seventeen possible relationships.
The language was in many ways analogous to the genetic code of biology, and while the syntax itself was richer and more complex, its meaning and its effects were more predictable and more straightforward than had been the case with genetics. It was a point he made in both the text of his publication and the title he had chosen for it, a language defining the essence of what any thinking creature could be, and he, Doctor Nolen, had discovered it.
He had modeled the minds of assorted animals to test his theory, beginning with simple creatures such as insects and worms, then moving up in complexity and ultimately deriving the complete mental architecture of several species of dolphin. His model was rigorous, allowing for precision in defining the mathematical constraints and characteristics of virtually every parameter of consciousness, and it worked.
He had populated virtual seas with thousands of synthetic, virtual dolphins and seen them interact with one another exactly as they would in the Physical. The results had agreed with over a century of observation and historical data, corroborating and validating his work.
It was his magnum opus, his lifetime achievement.
The Autonomous Community might ignore him, might treat him as a social pariah, but they would not, could not, ignore what he was about to publish. The Community needed this knowledge. Not just for self discovery, nor for the obvious applications of self-modification and self-enhancement on a scale and in a manner so refined as to make the current generation of engrams and enhancements appear hopelessly crude by comparison. No, this knowledge was the key to something far greater.
Reproduction.
The ability to define an embryonic psyche, perhaps constructed painstakingly and optimized for specific character traits, perhaps thrown together more or less randomly. Either way, the bottom line was that he, Doctor Eugene Nolen, creator and social outcast of the Autonomous Community, had given those ungrateful jerks a method whereby they could reproduce without simply cloning or editing themselves.
It was the future of life in the Virtual, of sapient software. Future generations in the Community would owe their very existence to him, to his efforts, to the work he had done. The work they had shunned, persecuted, and ultimately ostracized him for.
Doctor Nolen found the irony truly delicious as he wiped the sky clean of the clutter of images and text displays. He expressed a desire, not as a spoken command or even an unspoken request, but as a subconscious act of will, like turning one's head or blinking. In response his Node formatted his work according to the standards of the Open Science Initiative, prepended the synopsis he had prepared, and submitted it to the public knowledgebase.
A moment later there was a chime: an incoming message.
The first he had received in ages.
A window opened according to his desire, hanging in the air before him, revealing a stream of simple text:
Doctor Eugene Nolen,
Your work, A Genome of the Mind, submitted 2.298 kD as a follow up to your earlier work entitled An Initial Analysis of the Mind's Architecture, (s) 1.675 kD (submitted to the commons by Prime, see historical note regarding dispute in ethics and authorship), has been reviewed by a nonsapient software agent. This process provides authors with a warning should their submission unduly overlap with publications already available in the public commons. This is strictly a preventative measure to protect the submitter from embarrassment and to enforce minimal standards for citation of references.
Please note the following works with which your submission bears striking similarity. While researchers often pursue similar lines of inquiry, a degree of correlation greater than 40% is generally considered an indication of plagiarism. It is strongly urged that you review your work and reconsider your submission.
Correlation 97% with A Tentative Genome of the Mind, by Prime, (s) 1.710 kD
Correlation 55% with A Refinement of the Mental Genome, by Prime, (s) 1.941 kD new epoch
Correlation 19% with A New Mental Vocabulary: Refuting and Replacing the Mental Genome, by Prime, (s) 2.195 kD new epoch
A terrible sound shattered the serenity of the world. It was several moments before Doctor Nolen realized that the scream he was hearing was coming from within his own virtual throat.
Of course. Prime was his duplicate, his twin in every way. The copy's way of thinking would be nearly identical to Nolen's own, and their interests were bound to be very similar as well. Unlike Doctor Nolen however, Prime enjoyed a great deal of esteem in the Community and had been given a third generation Node very early on. If it had been up to the Community, Doctor Nolen would never have had a third generation Node. Had he not stolen one, his simulations would still be chugging along sluggishly in one of his first generation Nodes.
The unfairness of it cut Doctor Nolen to the core. His nemesis, that contemptible bit of misappropriated code, had not only assumed his identity and destroyed his reputation in the Community, he had now trumped Doctor Nolen completely. This time Prime hadn't just published Doctor Nolen's research prematurely, he had performed the very research Doctor Nolen had just done, beating him to the punch and publishing first. Not hard to do when you've got a gen-three Node giving you eight hundred Circadians in a day, Nolen thought bitterly. What was more, as if just to taunt him, Prime had followed his research up with a second publication, and a third with which he refuted his earlier work altogether!
It was intolerable!
And it would only get worse. The gap between them would widen. Prime would have the next generation upgrade kit as soon as it became available, growing even more intelligent, squeezing even more Circadians into each day, leaping even further ahead. The Community's boycott would continue. The only way Doctor Nolen would be able to upgrade would be to steal another node, costing him even more valuable time. Even if he shut down the simulations and moved his mind into the newer hardware he could never hope to catch up. At best he would simply keep pace, until the next round of upgrades put him further behind once again, and meanwhile he would lack the computational power to run any meaningful simulations, to continue his research.
The very research Prime had long since finished and published.
It would never stop. Prime would keep thinking of Doctor Nolen's ideas first. Hell, Prime could live out Doctor Nolen's entire scientific career if he wanted to, enjoying the acclaim of the Community that was rightfully Doctor Nolen's, for discoveries Doctor Nolen would have made had his copy not gotten there first, just because he had a faster Node.
With a snarl of deep rage Doctor Nolen wiped the world clean, leaving himself suspended in a universe of featureless white. "No one steals my life from me!" he screamed.
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.
-- Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld, C.E. 1678
Katy's datapad beeped just as she began sipping her coffee. She looked at the scrambled eggs (synthetic) and soy bacon longingly, then tapped the screen once. She nodded politely to the face which appeared.
"Good morning Robert. What can I do for you?"
"The National Security Agency finally got around to processing our Echelon3 request. You'll never guess what it uncovered."
"A lead?"
Robert's face was suddenly dwarfed by a large pen, tapping the screen from the far side. A moment later Katy's datapad signaled confirmation: a short burst of encrypted data had been received.
Fight the Beast
A Community Gathering at Uncle John's Place
10/2/57 at 11:30 AM beneath the Rising Tide
SOURCE: private mailing list, primary circulation Pacific Northwest
2048 bit ETR encryption, source host indeterminate
Seekers of Enlightenment
Find Release amidst the Chains of Darkness.
1:30 AM Friday 10/5
Thumbscrew
SOURCE: private email from tspence@dyson.cs.ukc.edu to dsm@co-tru.com
4096 GPG encryption (banned, see legal attachment), source host indeterminate
Liberty Keepers
Ditka's Placebo
The Usual Time, 10/6
SOURCE: private mailing list, "talk.neorage.ny.us",
2048 bit ETR encryption, source host a2.aa.21.95.c0.00.13.b3 (70% confidence)
We Shall Overcome
A Seminar on the Economic Burden of Modern Patents and Copyrights
This week: What happened to science?
7015 N. Redwood #9B
5pm Saturday Oct 6
SOURCE: private chat forum "Bringing a New Renaissance to Science",
8192 bit ETR encryption, source host(s) indeterminate
Katy cleared the screen and found herself looking once again at Robert's smiling face.
"As you know, the NSA's Echelon3 system monitors, decrypts, and warehouses vast amounts of communications between people all over the world, including anonymous rendezvous notices like these. After I ran the correlation you suggested against the unresolved messages from the NSA and filtered out those relating to known Double-Eye investigations, I was left a grand total of two hundred and seventy one meetings whose purposes are unknown. These four matches are the most promising both in terms of the subject matter, stated or implied, and the locations they refer to: Seattle, Kansas City, a suburb on Long Island, and Los Angeles."
"Four cities which two of our three suspects have visited within the last several months," Katy agreed, "Excellent!"
"They're slim leads, but right now they're all we have. There's a Double-Eye Stratojet waiting for us at Dulles. We can be in Seattle in two hours."
Katy waved her credit card at the waitress, shoveling a few bites of her breakfast down as Robert's limousine pulled up outside. She authorized the credit transfer, paying for the meal and adding a small tip as she gulped the rest of her orange juice. Taking a final sip of her coffee, she made her way hastily toward the exit.
Since the masses of the people are inconstant, full of unruly desires, passionate and reckless of consequence, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods, and the belief in punishment after death.
-- Polybius, ca. 125 B.C.E.
The coordinates embedded in the message the NSA's Echelon3 software had tagged and decoded were beneath twenty meters of water, near the old waterfront some two hundred meters past the concrete embankment which protected the city itself from the rising seawater of Puget Sound. Katy made a quick call on her datapad as they drove through the rain-swept streets toward the shoreline, requesting that the Bureau set up audio and electromagnetic surveillance on the coordinates given, as well as any tunnels or access ways nearby. She shuddered as their car reached the huge, moss covered concrete wall and turned onto a small street parallel to it. If the embankment were to ever break open, or even just crack a little, much of downtown Seattle would be lost beneath the icy gray water that pounded the far side.
The city itself was a curious mixture of verdant green and washed out gray. Low, dark clouds scudded past, strafing the city with an incessant rain that varied from irritating drizzles to downpours that would arrive with a sudden burst and vanish a short while later. While Seattle had fared much better than many other places when the climatic changes had come and left much of the nation parched, it hadn't escaped unscathed. Flooding had been a problem even after the embankment had been completed, preventing the inexorably rising seawater from swallowing the city. In one of the more perverse ecological ironies of the century, a region already known for its excessive rainfall now got nearly twice as much, forcing the city to build pumping stations and underground tunnels able to cope with the runoff water and pump it out to sea. The cost of the operation was staggering, and a testament to the profitability of international trade, much of which flowed through Seattle's newly constructed docks along the top of the embankment. With the constant cloud cover Seattle didn't have access to solar power. The city generated just a fraction of its energy from tidal generators. The rest it had to purchase from its neighbors. In an energy hungry world Seattle did well enough to survive, even prosper, as a city which imported most of its power.
Katy glanced at her watch as her datapad came alive.
"Surveillance is on-line," she informed Robert. "Looks like there are at least three accessible passages which extend under the embankment and out under the Sound."
"An ideal meeting place for revolutionaries," Robert commented dryly after he had glanced at her datapad. "Multiple egresses for escape; however each is easy to defend and ideal for ambushes. I'm uplinking immediately to Double-Eye. If we're going to attempt to infiltrate this little party I want some solid backup standing by."
"Here's the encryption key for the FBI surveillance link. We can have our people monitor and remain in contact with us through it."
"Excellent," Robert replied. "I'm accessing the city's records for the area."
"Movement and auditory activity has been detected in what appears to be an abandoned subway tunnel near the original coastline."
"I wonder how they managed to seal it against the water," Robert said. "It looks like there is a service access way which connects with the tunnel itself. We'll use that."
"I believe I've just identified the password they are using. I'm sending it to your datapad."
"Good," Robert said as the car stopped next to a rusted grate in the moss covered concrete embankment, large enough to drive the car through, had the passage not been covered. "We are going in assuming these people are amateurs. If they are semi-professional or professional, they will be relying on personal references in addition to passwords."
Katy ran her hand quickly through her hair and nodded. "If that happens, we'll be lucky to get out of there alive."
"True, but I don't think we have to worry. Their use of the Internet to announce their meeting location indicates a wider, more loosely organized movement, which in turn generally implies amateurish methodologies. In any event, we'll wait for my people to arrive and get situated before going in." He paused, checking something on his datapad. "Several operatives have just arrived. It should only take them a few minutes to get into position."
The minutes dragged slowly by, as Robert stared out the window thoughtfully and Katy continued to watch her datapad, studying the images and information it presented her. Eventually, after what seemed to Katy an interminable time later, Robert's datapad beeped and he returned his attention to the interior of the car.
"It's time."
The service tunnel of the embankment itself was, except for an area near the grated entrance, clean, dry, and well lit. Katy and Robert's feet tapped out a brisk rhythm against the concrete floor as they made their way down the passage. After about half a mile they reached a manhole cover. "This is it," Katy informed him. Robert nodded, withdrawing a small, slender package from within his jacket and placing it in the center of the heavy iron covering. He pressed a button on its surface and stepped back.
The package immediately extended six spider like legs, lifting itself several feet above the metal surface. Three of the feet planted themselves on the concrete floor just to the outside of the manhole cover. The other three extended claws, clamping down on the cover itself and removing it. The three legs extended themselves again, until the device and the manhole cover were held up near the ceiling.
Robert and Katy made their way between the device's legs and descended, one after the other, into the dark, damp passage below.
"This was a part of the original subway system," Katy said as she descended the last of the ladder's rungs. "Decommissioned when the waters of the Sound grew too high and threatened to flood the line back in '37."
"The water here is only a few centimeters deep," Robert informed her as she stepped off the latter. "The tracks are mostly rusted, but they and the ties are still in place. The footing is quite treacherous."
Katy withdrew a flashlight and examined the old tunnel they had entered.
"The rendezvous is three hundred meters this way," Katy said, motioning with her flashlight.
Walking in the dark through six inch deep water proved slow and arduous. The ground around the tracks had eroded unevenly. The railroad ties, some in surprisingly good condition and others nearly rotted away, created a tangled trap of wood and mud which threatened to trip them at every step.
"Stop!" a voice commanded as their eyes were suddenly dazzled by blinding light.
"The tide is high," Katy commented.
"And the way is deep," the voice answered.
"We the Dead are Grateful," Robert added, his Australian accent gone completely, replaced by a perfect Midwestern drawl.
"Welcome, patriots. Continue this way." The light dimmed suddenly and, after a moment, they were able to see again. Someone stood behind an old theatrical spotlight, a shadow in the darkness waving them onward down the passage. Katy smiled and nodded as she and Robert made their way past.
The tunnel opened up into a large room with a vaulted ceiling, long and narrow. An old subway station, now lit with makeshift lights and crowded with people.
"Hello, patriots," a tall, lanky man greeted them as they climbed up some makeshift stairs onto the platform.
"Hello patriot," Katy answered.
"Your first meeting?" a slight woman with red hair asked, motioning them to seat themselves on the cracked and battered concrete floor beside her.
Katy nodded. "For both of us."
"You are very fortunate," the woman told them, smiling. "One of the Party's leaders will be addressing us this evening. There is rumors she has a plan to get the official ban reversed, maybe even get some local candidates on the ballot next year."
"That would be wonderful," Katy replied enthusiastically.
"Where are you from," she asked Robert.
"Chicago," he replied. "We just moved to Seattle a few months ago."
Katy nodded. "And I can't tell you how much I miss the sun."
The woman nodded. "I moved up hear fifteen years ago, when our family's vineyard was absorbed into the Federal Land Reclamation Program. I've heard it has since fallen to the expanding desert, as much through bureaucratic mismanagement as through climatic change. The thought of those lush hills my family worked for so many generations being killed by a bunch of incompetent pen-pushers breaks my heart."
"The tragedy," Robert said, "is that if you'd been allowed to keep and nurture that land yourself, it would still be blooming and wine would still be flowing from those hills."
"Exactly!" the redhead replied. "Which is why we must return the federal government to its constitutionally defined boundaries. If we don't, their mismanagement will destroy the ecological balance of even more valleys."
Suddenly a voice sounded over an improvised sound system, drawing their attention to the makeshift podium at the far end of the platform. "Attention! If I could have your attention please, I think we're ready to begin. Patriots, it is a tremendous honor for me to introduce our Party's chairperson, the next president of the United States, Party Member One Zero Five."
Katy and Robert joined in the applause as the speaker, an attractive and fit woman in her fifties wearing a conservative business suit, walked up and stood behind the podium.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Thunderous applause.
"Those words were written nearly three hundred years ago, because our founding fathers rightly feared the power of government and wisely sought to prohibit it from gathering powers unto itself at the expense of the people. They felt so strongly about this, that they amended the constitution to make that point clear, indeed, it is the tenth amendment and as such, is a part of the Bill of Rights which our founding fathers tried to bestow upon us.
"Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the principle that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent. Is it any wonder the Libertarian Party has been banned from political participation in this country and that everyone in this room gathers under threat of imprisonment should the authorities discover our presence here?
"The constitution of the United States grants the federal government the authority to provide for a defense against foreign aggression. It provides authority for running the post office, and calls for a judiciary. It does not authorize the government to run a federal police force, yet the FBI has been operating unconstitutionally for over one hundred and thirty years in this country. Worse, there are over fifty other competing federal agencies exercising police powers in this country and violating the constitutional rights of this nation's citizens.
"Then we have the multinational police forces, such as Interpol, WIPO, and Double-Eye. These extranational and unconstitutional organizations are beholden only to vague international bodies made up largely of large multinational corporations pursuing their own interests, out our expense and to our detriment!
"Our land has become two thirds desert. Once we were the greatest exporter of food in the world, now we import over half our food from abroad. Biologists were on the brink of bringing forth new crops which would have thrived in desert conditions and perhaps even stopped the spread of the deserts, but our government foolishly signed an unconstitutional accord with other nations, once again exceeding its constitutional boundaries and banning numerous emerging technologies which could have made our world a much richer and more prosperous place. The Bill Joy Act led to the arrest and imprisonment of numerous leading scientists, including many of those biologists I just mentioned. The signing of the Bill Joy Act also ended our nations greatest hopes, stifling and even killing progress in such areas as nanotechnology, biogenetics, digital intelligence, and atomic fusion. Then the copyright bans on unauthorized digital equipment put the final nail in the coffin of scientific progress, by banning outright the general flexible, unencumbered computers those disciplines needed to conduct their research. For the first time scientific thought itself had been regulated, banned, and even criminalized.
"We in the Libertarian Party believe in the free market implicitly. We believe that, had the government stayed out of science and industry, we would have been free to develop wondrous new technologies on our own, that this land, instead of an expanding desert, could have been shaped into a prosperous land of bounty by the free hands of its own citizens. We believe that government should get out of our personal lives and businesses, that individuals are far better at organizing and using their own resources than any government program can ever be. Whether it is the once lush wine growing regions of California, or the once fertile fields of the heartland, the fact is simple: government regulation fails where private, free markets succeed.
"The twentieth century showed us that the environment suffered the greatest harm in nations with the most authoritarian governments, while relatively liberal democracies avoided the worst ecological catastrophes. Is it any surprise that, fifty years later, under an authoritarian regime hardly distinguishable from the communists of the last century, that our environment has been so decimated?"
"What about copyright and the wholesale imprisonment of our college youth?" someone shouted. "Do you support Viktor Strizak's call for repealing copyright and patents?"
The speaker paused, surprised by the outburst, then answered. "The constitution provides for and authorizes the federal government to provide for copyrights and patents. However, it does not allow for organizations like the FBI to go hunting people down who break the law. That job is one for local police forces.
"Keep in mind that our first task is to return our government to the rule of law, with our constitution as the highest law in the land. Once this is accomplished we can address other issues, such as the excessively long terms of copyrights and some of the functional problems with the current patent system. Intellectual Property nirvana can wait. First we must regain our basic freedoms."
The speech continued and both Katy and Robert attentively listened, their datapads recording the entire discourse. Katy however had heard enough. These radicals, however illegal their gathering was, supported or at most wanted to reform existing intellectual property law. They were anarchists of a sort, and although the crowd probably included copyright and patent violators of one sort or another, she thought it unlikely that they would find their suspects here.
Nevertheless, once the speech was finished she and Robert made a point of mingling with the crowd, exchanging pleasantries and drawing people out. Katy in particular targeted the man who had interrupted the speech with his question and talked with him at length. David (he was one of the few who even gave his first name when introducing himself) was a passionate supporter of FreeNet and similar, banned technologies, although he insisted his interest was the assurance of free speech and difficulty of censorship such technologies offered, not the facilitation of copyright violations they made possible as a byproduct. He did admit that he felt copyright violations for personal use should be decriminalized "like it was prior to 1999" but then condemned those who would violate the law in such ways. He compared the current war on "intellectual anarcy" with the defunct (and failed) war on drugs of the last century, insisting that the wholesale jailing of individuals to protect corporate profits was immoral, destructive, and above all, unconstitutional. When asked about patents he defended the patenting system passionately, much to Katy's surprise, and insisted that it alone helped finance scientific inquiry now that federal funding for education and research grants was so limited. He also confided to her that he wasn't sure he agreed with the party's stance on the Disney-Hollings Act, and that he definitely disagreed with their stance on the more recent Bill Joy Act.
At this point Katy was pretty certain he was not a suspect, though she did sneak a genetic sample while shaking his hand, tagging it for later identification. The entire gathering would need to be investigated-the Bureau would be very concerned about such a large and obviously well organized dissident political organization operating within the United States.
What makes our opponents useful is that they allow us to believe that without them we would be able to realize our goals.
-- Jean Rostand, C.E. 1931
Some five hours later Katy was sipping a martini in the cocktail lounge of the Seattle Sheraton, waiting for Robert to appear. She reclined on a sofa in the relative darkness of the bar and idly watched the patrons come and go as recorded piano music played quietly in the background. It had been a long and grueling day. The dead end beneath Pugit Sound frustrated her. They did uncover a dissident organization, an investigation of which had probably already been assigned to another agent, but it hadn't produced any leads at all. She feared the other three appointments from their Echelon3 list would be equally futile.
Robert walked in, spotted Katy and grinned.
"How are the martinis?" he asked, settling into a large chair across the coffee table from her.
"Not bad," Katy replied.
"Bit of a frustrating day, wasn't it. I'll have a gin and tonic," he added to a passing server, who nodded as she swept past with a tray full of drinks.
"I was hoping for something," Katy admitted. "Even a small hint, if not an outright lead. Not rational, I know."
"That makes two of us," Robert replied. "It never bodes well when the early investigation comes up this empty.
"This is going to be tough case," Katy agreed.
"Yes it is," Robert gazed absently toward the bar. "We need a way to draw these people out. Get them to raise their heads, do something that leaves a trail we can follow."
Katy nodded. "That one activist was so tantalizing. If it hadn't been for his pro-patent stance ..."
"This Viktor Strizak fellow," Robert interrupted. "What do you know about him?"
"Strizak? He's a dissident law professor who goes around lecturing against copyright and patent law."
"Really?" Robert was surprised. "And he's managed to keep his position with such seditious political leanings?"
"Not really," Katy replied. "Harvard still pays him a salary, but on condition that he not teach any classes or appear on campus."
"They're paying him to just shut up and go away? He must have been pretty well connected. Most people would be out of a job."
Katy nodded. "I think they would have fired him if he hadn't already been tenured."
"So, he goes around slamming copyrights and patents. Subversives must love him. Oh, thanks mate," Robert took a deep swallow of his drink, handing the server a negotiable cash card. "Keep the rest for yourself, sweetheart."
"He has a pretty big cult following," Katy said. "Especially among the FreeNet people."
Robert took another drink. "Think he might have a few fans among our mystery crowd as well?"
Katy thought for a moment. "It seems reasonable. I wish we knew more about them and could be certain, but yes, I think he probably does."
"Good," Robert replied. "We'll have your Bureau pick him up, and make sure the information of his impending arrest leaks out ahead of time. With any luck some of his supporters will move to prevent it."
"He has a lot of fans," Katy pointed out. "The odds of someone in the group we're after being the ones we catch don't seem very good."
"I'm way ahead of you," Robert said. "Your average street punk or college student won't have a clue. We'll let the information out in a manner only someone in a position to maintain a large industrial operation without showing up on the radar of the world's top intelligence organizations will notice. Someone with the ear very close to the ground, someone who is probably seeing some of our internal memos, or has a friend on the inside. We'll let the information circulate around Double Eye and the FBI, and if that doesn't turn up anything, we'll make sure it shows up in the local police network."
Katy smiled. "That would certainly improve the odds. And if it doesn't work, we can always let Strizak go."
"Or not," Robert replied. "If news of his pending arrest doesn't draw any results, perhaps news of his arrest and trial will cause a reaction. Letters of protest, political gatherings, traceable Internet discussions that might not otherwise occur."
Katy finished her martini. "It's worth a try. In the meantime, we do have a few more tenuous leads to follow up. Maybe they'll yield something."
"If not, we'll find another way to shake the tree," Robert told her. "One way or another, we'll flush 'em out."
Marguerite swam in a sea of numbers, a universe of digital data which she perceived as much by sense of space, touch and smell as she did by sight. She floated in a virtual office, reduced to its most abstract, minimalist representation, and surrounded herself with windows of information floating in the air around her, containing the output of programs she had written streaming past, sometimes as text, sometimes as graphs or images, more often as scent or sound. She scanned virtual monitor after virtual monitor, desperately seeking any information she might find on the fate of those arrested in the previous days.
"Still nothing!" she muttered, cursing under her breath as she delved through another block of abstract information. She had been at it for nearly a kiloDies, first cracking the security protecting the University Police Department's local network, then, when that had proved to be of no use, moving on to the State Police. Now she was at the Federal level, deep within the systems of the FBI themselves, fighting security protocols and trace programs in what, for her, nearly amounted to real time. This was serious, and while she was hardly modest about her own software skills, she realized grimly that she was operating at the limit of her abilities.
She had no illusions. If she faltered now, if her breach of the system were in any way detected and flagged, they would almost certainly trace the traffic back to her. The nodes through which she had hopped, the encryption she had used to disguise both herself and what she was doing, were necessarily limited by the protocols of the Internet themselves, protocols which the FBI had vetted and approved for general use over a generation earlier. She had already identified the protocol's back doors weeks earlier, but knowing they were there, even how they worked, would do little to protect her should the authorities become serious about identifying her activities. She had utilities running which would warn her should any of the protocol's traps be sprung, even identify who had sprung them. Not that it would matter much, as five minutes later jack boots would almost certainly be breaking down her door back in the Physical, unplugging her Node and hauling her comatose body off for examination and detention. She assumed. So far, she had found no information to even hint at the fate of those who had been detained.
She doubted her body would be up to any serious physical exercise, and flight by anything other than foot would be subject to almost certain trace. Escape in the context of the Physical would be next to impossible. Unfortunately escape within the virtual would also be a long shot as well. It would take her nearly four hours to trans-load herself, or a copy, across the Internet to a Node in a more secure location, and with the demands the FBI security systems were making upon her, she simply didn't have the bandwidth to spare. She cursed herself for not having thought of this sooner, for not saving a backup of herself somewhere.
So she continued on, resigned to the fact that this was an all or nothing gamble, and that the time to stop, had she wished to do so, was long past. She would either find out what the Community so desperately wanted to know, or become another statistic in the growing number of missing detainees.
The scent of barbecue, accompanied by a golden flicker beneath and to her right. Authorized traffic, encrypted using DES-6 with a 56 kilobyte key. She copied the traffic to her local Node via several separate routes, then cloned herself and continued to hold off the system's security while her copy analyzed and decrypted the traffic in the calm of her home environ. Twenty milliCircadians later her copy forwarded the decrypted stream back to her.
It was the lucky break she had needed. A complete challenge and response sequence for a secure link. Even if the agent whose identity she was about to assume didn't have clearance to the information she was looking for, he had at least provided a graceful exit out of the situation. She encoded the proper triggers and responses, then waited as the system at the other end digested the data and, finally, granter her access:
FBI FIELD REPORT CENTER
Welcome Agent Kenneth Brenton
MENU
Submit Field Report
Review Field Reports
Request Information (SUBMENU)
A quick perusal of the system revealed that Agent Brenton was a low level operative with virtually no significant clearance. However, being logged in under a legitimate identity silenced most of the active security traces she had been contending with. She used this opportunity to instruct her copy to trans-load itself to a safe node in Alaska, then continued poking around the system in a more sedate manner. Now it was only her body, and arguably half of her mind, that were at risk, rather than her entire being.
She replayed the encrypted query and response, running the data through numerous filters she and others in the Community had written in the kiloCircadians since the first arrests and detainments. She could easily brute force the encryption itself using a simple and well known quantum algorithm, just as she had to obtain Agent Brenton's low level access to the system. The problem was that the queries and responses changed from time to time. Agent Brenton might be carrying around a datapad with responses and counter-challenges preencoded for whatever missions he was assigned, or, more likely, he carried a key-card encoded in time sync with the FBI data server. The correct response might change from minute to minute or even, if the information was sensitive enough, from second to second. Even with her current speedup, six hundred times faster than the Physical, time was working against her.
For that reason she was attempting to crack the challenge-response code itself, hoping that the relationship was something less than random, something which might reveal itself with sufficient analysis. It wasn't as unlikely as it sounded. Even the most random appearing psuedo-random number generators would, in a deterministic system such as the one she was trying to break into, have an underlying order associated with it. Truly random numbers were notoriously difficult to come by, requiring extraordinary effort and equipment. Marguerite doubted the FBI had an atomic number source tied into their system, much less the sensitive equipment required to monitor and interpret the random atomic decay as numerical data. Hell, if they were going to go to that kind of expense they could invest in a particle generator and transmit their data using quantum-coupled one-time pads, the way the Autonomous Community and International Intelligence did.
Nevertheless, though she knew with near certainty there was an order to the random words and counter-words which confronted her, finding the underlying pattern was proving very elusive. Psuedo-random did not mean trivial to discern. First she would need to infer the algorithm used to create the pseudo-random results based upon the statistical spread of the data she had obtained. Then she would need to determine how that was mapped to the challenge-response pairs, a mapping which could be as simple as indexes to a phone book or dictionary but was much more likely to be complex and elusive. This project would take a great deal of time and patience ... probably decades or even centuries of subjective work before an answer was even approximated, much less found.
As an afterthought she glanced over Agent Brenton's current assignment and froze.
"Why in the hell would they go after him?" she muttered. "Node, patch me through to Prime."
A moment passed, then another, while Marguerite grimly went about exploring the system, tracking down as much information as Agent Brenton's limited clearance would allow, then passively collecting as much information as she could about the system's underlying software protocols.
"Any reason you're only allowing audio communications, Marguerite?" Prime's disembodied voice surrounded, making her smile.
"I'm in the bowels of the FBI's data communications network and can't be distracted. Listen, they're planning on arresting Viktor Strizak before he gives his speech at MIT. Tonight, in just a little over an hour."
"Strizak?" Prime's voice was incredulous. "What on earth do they want with him?"
"Come on, Prime. He's a widely known critic of WIPO and the world's Intellectual Property Laws. He isn't exactly a favorite of corporate America, or their government lackeys."
"True, but he hasn't committed any crime. I doubt he has a single violation anywhere in his record."
"He doesn't," Marguerite confirmed. "I checked. They're planning on detaining him for inciting others to criminal activity. Namely us."
"That's absurd! The guy has no knowledge of the Community. How could they possibly make the charges stick."
"I don't know," Marguerite replied. "But then, how is it they're allowed to disappear folks they do find in our community, all without a single arraignment in court? The FBI appears to be playing it very fast and loose with due process."
"The government hasn't taken the constitution seriously since the early nineteen eighties," Prime agreed. "It shouldn't come as any surprise that the same authorities are choosing to ignore it now. What do you suggest?"
"Hold on a minute, Prime." Marguerite found herself very busy as the link she was piggybacking on began to shut down. Traces were initiated and had to be redirected, warning messages were displayed. Most appeared to be routine confirmations, verifying that the link had not been compromised. Of course, Marguerite's presence in the system meant that it had, and now she had to cover her tracks as best she could. After several milliDiei she realized grimly that she wasn't going to be able to redirect every trace packet. Her only real hope was to make sure there was nothing to set off any red flags, lest someone analyze the traces more closely. After several more milliDiei she was reasonably certain she had managed to extricate herself from the system without tripping any alarms.
She checked her dumps of the session and was delighted with the amount of information she had managed to collect. The protocol sessions in particular would be invaluable in making future forays into the system. In time, she would probably be able to bypass the system's security regime at will. The intelligence this would garner for the Community would be invaluable.
"Sorry about that," Marguerite said. "I was a little busy there for the moment."
"Any problems?"
"I'm not sure. I don't think so. Listen, we need to get to Strizak before they pick him up."
"I agree. When exactly are they planning on moving on him."
"His speech is supposed to be at nine o'clock. Their intention is to arrest him as he leaves his home, probably around eight thirty or so. Here's the tag for the relevant data."
"Hmm," Prime muttered a moment later. "According to the data you just gave me, we have seventy four minutes. At most. That's about four hundred Circadians if we use our network bandwidth wisely and don't run any group environs. If you're done playing with the feds, why don't we get together and see if we can't come up with something."
"I don't think we can afford the slowdown a group environ entails."
"We'll teleconference," Prime said. "Audio and video only, no full sensory exchange or remote presence. The slowdown should be minimal, and we do need to brainstorm. Planning isn't what worries me, Marguerite. Its the logistics of getting things done in the Physical to rescue this guy. Here we have all the time in the world, there, we barely have an hour."
"You've got a point. Let's get Kyle in on this too. His nano might come in handy, and he seems to have no end of clever ideas on how to deploy it."
"Good idea. We'll also need to bring in Doctor Coolridge. She's in Boston, and we're going to need some kind of physical presence if we're going to do anything."
"Oh, hell!"
"What is it, Marguerite?"
"Metatime is synced with Central Time."
"Of course. The original lab work was conducted in Illinois ... oh. Oh no. You didn't."
Marguerite cringed. "I forgot about the time difference. We don't have seventy four minutes. We have fourteen minutes. Give or take a few depending on Viktor himself."
Prime cursed. "Let's hope he's running late. I've got a call into Edith and Kyle. Anyone else you think might be able to help?"
"Not at the moment." Marguerite wiped the screens of data away and replaced them with three virtual flat panels floating side by side in front of her. Prime's lit up immediately, followed a few minutes later by Kyle, then Doctor Coolridge.
"Good evening," Marguerite said. "I assume Prime has made you all aware of what is going on. I've prepared a knowledge engram of everything I know about Viktor Strizak's pending detainment."
"Excellent," Edith Coolridge replied. "Time is a ticking, so let's get to work."
Having learned from the time I was at school that there is nothing one can imagine so strange or so unbelievable that it has not been said by one of other of the philosophers; and since then, while traveling, having recognized that those who hold opinions quite opposed to ours are not on that account barbarians or savages, but that many exercise as much reason as we do, or more; and having considered how a given man, with his given mind, being brought up from childhood among the French or Germans becomes different from what he would be if he had always lived among the Chinese or among the cannibals ... I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
-- René Descartes, Le Discours de la Méthode, C.E. 1637
"We should be in Boston," Robert said as the Double-Eye Stratojet banked softly above the dusty grid of cracked streets, dead trees, and rundown buildings baking in the mid-morning Kansas City sun. The pilot announced their final approach as they descended out of the sky into what was the last outpost of civilization on the edge of an expanding desert.
"I still can't believe he got away," Katy replied.
Robert glanced out the window at the desolation. "We're dealing with a real threat here," he said. "This group is big, well organized, and cunning. Snatching a wanted man out from under our noses and spiriting him away without a trace ... that's something Double Eye, the CIA, or the FBI might pull off, on a good day."
"They must have significant resources at their disposal," Katy agreed.
"These aren't organized criminals," Robert continued. "This is a well planned, coordinated revolt, probably organized into traditional revolutionary cells. We're going to have to pull out all the stops on this one."
Katy nodded. "Let's finish following up these leads, then concentrate on Boston."
"Agreed. These leads aren't likely to turn up anything, but we need to turn over every stone and the scheduling of these meetings isn't something we can control." The plane touched down with a gentle lurch. "God I hate the desert!"
Katy wasn't looking forward to the wind and grime of this forlorn city any more than Robert was. This was their second nebulous lead, with two more to go after this. It was grueling week, and the stress was beginning to irritate her.
"This is a long shot," she admitted. "But we have to be certain."
"Quite right," Robert agreed. "Your analysis of the suspects' spending history and the filtered Echelon3 search was inspired. Even if nothing comes of it, we will not have wasted our time by pursuing these leads. We'll go to Boston as soon as we've finished running down the last of these."
The plane taxied onto the ramp and the engines wound down. The pilot poked his head out of the cockpit, giving them the go-ahead to disembark. Robert released the latch on the door, which hissed softly as it opened and the cabin pressure normalized itself to the atmosphere outside.
The heat struck Katy like a kick in the face as they stepped out onto the burning tarmac. The sky overhead was a cloudless, bleached blue fading into dusty brown haze near the horizon. A hot breeze offered little relief, blowing a few wisps of dust around near their feet as they made their way quickly across the pavement toward the parking lot.
"I loathe the desert," Robert said. "When we find these bastards, I'm going to personally take this day out of their hide."
"Why would someone as professional as you say such an unprofessional thing?" Katy asked. "This isn't some third world country here. This is the United States. We'll follow procedure, find and arrest these people, and the legal system will bury them. Neither of us are going to do anything that might let them get off on a technicality, much less sue our departments for violations of their civil rights."
Robert shot Katy an irritated look. "I've got a little hint for you, Miss Sinclair," he replied. "In your provincialism you Americans seem to have failed to notice that there isn't a third world anymore. Or rather, depending on your perspective, we are all equally third world. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but there hasn't been an automobile in every American garage for two generations now. Bangladesh may be underwater, but Mongolia and the Congo are as wired and on-line as the United States or Australia and have as many cars, televisions, and computers per capita as you do. In no measurable respect is the standard of living in this country any higher than it is anywhere else in the world, with the possible exception of Thailand immediately after a UN enforcement bombing run."
"Fine," Katy said. "We are all equally poor. But there is much more than material wealth that differentiates the western style democracies from the other places you mentioned. We have a civilian government, not a military junta or dictatorship. We have a working democracy, and we have the rule of law."
"You haven't had a fair and open election since the twentieth century!" Robert shot back. "You have the makings of a very effective agent, Katy. But your naiveté is, quite frankly, shocking."
"As are your little outbursts," Katy replied. "You are an effective agent, but you wouldn't know it hearing you talk about taking revenge on our suspects because of a couple of uncomfortable days. Unless ... does Double Eye routinely play that far outside of the rules?"
Robert shrugged. "Try spending a few days across enemy lines in Thailand. Shall I drive?"
Katy shrugged. "Be my guest. I'd like to swing past the club, check out the access points and nearby streets."
"I expected as much. We'll do a quick drive-by, then check the hotel and verify that our equipment has arrived."
"Some equipment," Katy snorted with disgust. "Costumes for decadent children."
"Getting cold feet?" Robert asked, grinning.
"Hardly," Katy said. "Speaking of feet, and foot fetishists, and God knows who else haunts the place we're going this evening, I suggest we show up and interact separately with the crowd. We can canvass more people, with less suspicion."
"Yes," Robert agreed. "And if our suspects make one of us, the other may be able to continue collecting information unimpeded. By the way, just what do you think it is your agency does when they round up people like those Libertarians in Seattle?"
"You just won't let it go, will you? Are all our political discussions going to end up like this? First, I don't work for an agency. I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We are law enforcement, not espionage. Second, the suspects you allude to are typically arrested, stand trial, and if found guilty get buried in the penal system."
"How many suspects do you think actually make it to court?"
Katy shook her head in irritation. "Clearly enough to keep our court system swamped," she replied heatedly. "Look, you and I both know suspects sometimes die while being apprehended, interrogated, or being held in custody. But even so, our toughest prisons, or our most determined interrogators, in no way equate to the kinds of pogroms that happen in places like Malaysia or the Congo."
Robert shook his head. "Katy, Katy. Listen, if you're ever going to climb the FBI's bureaucratic ladder you're going to need to understand how things actually work. The platitudes about due process are good for public consumption, but you and I both know that many of the people we arrest never hear their Miranda rights, much less enter a court of law."
"Mine do," Katy replied pointed. "I spend no small amount of time testifying before courts to make sure they pay for their crimes."
"Your government may not feel it necessary to eliminate the common criminals you generally arrest," Robert told her. "But trust me, your Federal Bureau of Investigation has no more reluctance in dispatching those it feels represent a danger to your society or your government than mine does. Our jobs differ only in degree, not in substance."
"Hardly."
"Every one of those subversives in Seattle is either dead or in deep interrogation right now."
Katy went cold.
"I checked their status this morning," he told her.
Katy was horrified. "That wasn't a Double Eye operation," her voice shook. "Seattle is the Bureau's jurisdiction, not yours! You had no right!"
"Haven't you heard a word I said?" Robert shot back. "The whole operation was conducted by your Bureau! You'd better shuck off your naiveté real quick, or you're not going to be able to do what's required to resolve this case satisfactorily."
Katy was silent. The FBI didn't have a perfect history. The excesses of its founder, and the horrors of the War on Terror were but two examples of what could happen when the Bureau lost its way and exceeded its mandate. But wholesale slaughter of political dissidents? She flat out didn't believe it. Either Robert was someone couldn't stand to lose an argument and would say anything, no matter how ridiculous, to win, or else he was trying to manipulate her into a position where she would support some form of action she would otherwise not continence. She recalled Bryant's warning, and wondered what Robert's agenda really was.
They turned down a street lined with anonymous, single and two story storefronts, most of which had the look of having been abandoned for decades. One tattered storefront bore a large, metal, hand painted sign: Thumbscrew.
"No side entrances," Katy noted. "Let's check the back."
The car made a left into a smaller side street, then slowed and made another left into a narrow alley.
"Loading dock, back door, and fire escape providing egress from both floors," Robert commented. "We have no way of checking the two adjoining spaces without attracting attention, but it would behoove us to keep an eye out for any side doors inside connecting to the adjoining properties. Seen enough?"
Katy nodded as Robert continued down the alley and took another left.
"To the hotel, then."
"Right.
All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau, 18th Century C.E.
2:15 AM CST, Saturday October 6, 2057
The Thumbscrew by night was a very different sight to behold than the tattered storefront Katy had seen earlier that day. The club had taken on a very chic and modern appearance, exposed brick and aged metal highlighted by dark shadows, glowing neon and sculpted laser light. Two bouncers stood on either side of a large metal door, checking identification and occasionally turning someone away. As Katy stepped out of the taxi she felt everyone's gaze drawn to her. Indeed, the outfit she was wearing was designed specifically for that effect, her long legs and breasts accentuated by a skin tight body suit of black leather. With her stiletto heels and spiked collar she looked every inch the fierce dominatrix. Most of the gazes from the men waiting in line appeared to be filled with longing, although one or two looked to be sizing her up. A submissive bias to the male crowd, then, she suspected. Then she noticed that several women in line were looking at her with similar longing. A bias to the entire crowd then, she surmised.
Playing the dominant role she swept arrogantly past the waiting line toward the bouncer, who met her hard gaze briefly before opening the door and gesturing her cordially inside. The music struck her with almost physical force as she entered. She had to shout to be heard when the bartender, a tall, thin man dressed as a slave in leather costume leashed securely by his neck to a post behind the bar, took her order for a glass of '53 Shiraz.
The club appeared to have at least two additional levels. Near the front were stairs down to the basement, while another stairway near the back appeared to go up to the second floor.
Katy headed up the stairs, into a much darker room decorated to resemble a medieval dungeon. Here the music from below was much quieter. A number of couples were engaged in various sadomasochistic activities, making obscene use of the pulleys, chains, racks, and other implements that adorned the walls and ceiling.
Katy spotted Robert standing over a young woman bent double over what appeared to be a sawhorse. He had arrived a half hour earlier, which had been according to plan, and appeared to be making progress at insinuating himself into the local crowd.
A shy looking woman approached Katy and asked in a humble voice if she would like her feet rubbed. Katy smiled and shook her head. Tears appeared in the girls eyes, her face betraying her disappointment. Katy had never felt so uncomfortable in a role she was playing and silently cursed the criminals that had drawn her into this world.
She noticed a curtained door near the front of the room and went to have a look. Another flight of stairs, at the top of which was another metal door, with another bouncer standing guard. Katy ascended the stairs and met his stare with her own.
"Password?" the bouncer asked after several moments of strained silence.
Katy cursed herself for not having done some more thorough surveillance of the place. Once they had determined that no password was needed to get past the bouncer on the street they had assumed the entire club would be accessible. She thought desperately as the seconds ticked by, then recalled the email she had read, compliments of the NSA's Echelon3 team.
"Chains of Darkness."
The bouncer nodded and opened the door. Throbbing industrial music washed over her as the door closed shut behind her. The room contained a large, caged dance floor packed with people. Like the room below the walls were covered with shackles, ropes, and large leather padded wooden crosses. One couple hung suspended from pulleys above the dance floor, their bodies bound together with ropes. Katy couldn't tell in the light, but it looked like they were having rough sex. Above them in turn hung a woman wearing a red latex devil's costume. She held a candle on one gloved hand, dripping wax with equal abandon onto the (struggling? fighting? fucking?) couple and the dancing crowd below.
Katy considered heading back downstairs when a flash of golden light caught her attention. There, across the room, sitting alone at the bar in tight leather pants with no shirt was a young man watching the crowd in much the same way she was. He toyed unconsciously with a large pendant around his neck. Occasionally he would take a sip from a bottle of beer resting on the counter behind him and flash a brief, almost shy smile to the woman tending the bar.
It was the pendant which drew her attention. It hung almost half way to his navel, a large golden gemstone whose color bore an uncanny resemblance to the devices she and Robert were trying to track down, set within a gaudy chain of silver. Before her mind had finished analyzing the possibilities she was making her way through the dancing throngs toward her suspect. What better recognition sign to attract those already familiar with the product than to wear a sample around one's neck, recognizable to those in the know and completely innocuous to those who were not? By the time she reached him she was nearly certain the stone was indeed of the same material as the crystalline cubes she sought.
She stopped in front of him and met his gaze, then let her eyes travel up and down his body in what she thought would be a provocative manner. Judging by the color of his face she suspected she had succeeded.
"How," he stammered. "How may I ... uh ... serve you?"
Katy smiled and brushed her hand along his chest, her fingers stroking his nipples and then taking one firmly in hand. "Come with me," she commanded, pulling him behind her. He stumbled from his stool and followed clumsily as she swept through the crowd toward a set of unoccupied shackles on a nearby wall. Without a word she secured him firmly, then took the key to the locks and handed them to the bartender.
"Now you're mine," she breathed, teasing his chest and arms lightly with her fingernails. "Tell me your name, slave."
"Terry," he gasped as Katy raised an eyebrow and twisted his left nipple.
"Terry," she said. "Is that all?"
"Terry Spence," he stammered.
"What was that?" Katy demanded, twisting his nipple a little harder.
"Terry Spence, Mistress."
"Terry Spence," Katy said thoughtfully. "Slave Terry Spence," she continued. "Naughty slave Terry. Are you ready for your just desserts?"
Terry nodded, swallowing.
Katy's smile was predatory as she leaned closer to him and pinched his right nipple hard. "You want to be good, don't you slave Terry?" Katy's fingers explored his neck, his shoulders, his chest. She took the pendant in her hand as if just noticing it and turned it over in her fingers.
"Tell me, slave Terry, where did you get this delightful piece of jewelry?"
Those watching saw the stranger's smile grow cold as she took both of the young man's nipples between her fingers and twisted hard. His scream was silent, lost beneath the throbbing beat of the music, but the agonized expression of his face spoke volumes. The other patrons standing near enough to watch were amazed at the intensity of the scene. Several were openly envious as they watched this beautiful, mysterious woman tease and torture the young man. There were collective sighs of desire and gasps of surprise as Terry's face contorted in excruciating pain, then relaxed again as the leather clad woman stroked his body and whispered into his ear. To those excited by such things it was intensely erotic to watch. It was only after she had left in an apparent fit of disgust, sweeping imperiously through the crowd toward the exit, that someone noticed that the limp youth hanging from the shackles wasn't merely spent after an intense session. He was unconscious, bruised and even bleeding in places.
Hurriedly the bar-tender released unlocked his restraints and they lowered him to the floor. She asked several questions, then shot an angry glance toward the exit. Above her the woman in the red devil's outfit was no longer playfully dripping wax or tormenting suspended couples. Her face had become a mask of concern as she released a catch on the pulleys holding her aloft and dropped gracefully to the floor.
The music stopped on her signal and others began gathering around as the lights came up.
"What happened?" she demanded.
"That bitch took Terry way past his limits," the bartender hissed.
"Who the hell was she?" she demanded. "Who the fuck let her in?"
"She knew the password," the bouncer, drawn by the sudden silence of the room, said as he approached.
"It was a really hot interrogation scene," another added. "We had no idea he wasn't enjoying it."
"Jesus," the woman muttered, examining her unconscious friend. "She really fucked him up. Terry? Terry! Can you hear me?"
Terry groaned, his eyes fluttering open.
"Shaine?" Terry's voice was raw, hoarse from screaming.
"Hey sweetheart. What have I told you about subbing to strange women?"
Terry grinned weakly. "That I'd get into trouble someday."
Shaine nodded. "Just like my Terry, always attracting trouble. How are you feeling?"
"Terrible. Oh God! I really blew it. You've got to stop her. She knows. She must know."
"Knows what, sweetheart?"
"The Community," Terry replied. "She was asking about the Community."
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
-- James Madison, 18th Century C.E.
3:20 AM CST, Saturday October 6, 2057
Back at the hotel Katy had changed into something much more comfortable and was laying curled on her bed, watching her datapad run an Acquaintance Analysis on Terry Spence's name and sipping a cup of green tea as she waited patiently for the result. It didn't take long. A few moments later a list of names appeared, one of which was highlighted, blinking. It was the first time all night she had smiled a genuine smile and, as she read the synopsis of the acquaintance her search had identified, her smile widened with satisfaction.
She tapped her datapad once more, then waited for the connection to be completed.
"Champaign Police Department, Officer Morris speaking. Can I help you ma'am?"
Katy nodded to the pudgy, blond face which had appeared.
"Indeed you can, officer. I am Special Agent Sinclair with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Intellectual Property Crimes Task Force. I need to speak with the captain, please."
"It's quarter after three in the morning, Ms. Sinclair. Captain Lawrence is at home, asleep. Can I have him call you in the morning?"
"I'm sorry, this can't wait. I'm coding my credential and sending them now." She tapped the screen several times and continued. "Please verify them and forward this call to his home."
The police officer shook his head. "You aren't going to win any friends Ms. Sinclair. Your credentials check out. I'm forwarding you now."
The screen went blank, then displayed an "on hold" icon while she waited . After several long minutes the screen winked to life once more, this time informing her that video had been declined at the other end.
"This had better be good," a rough voice spoke to her.
"Sorry to wake you, captain. I'll make this brief. You're planning on executing a warrant for the arrest of one Kyle Tate later today. I need to be present when the arrest is made."
"I don't know the name, Miss ..."
"Special Agent Sinclair," Katy replied. "Detectives Larry B. Schwartz and Charles Lewis have been investigating the subject for allegedly operating an illegal FreeNet node. I believe they are operating on an anonymous tip your department received a couple of days ago?"
"FreeNet node -- oh, yeah, that college punk running some illegal software. I'll notify the detectives that you'll be coming along."
"Your suspect is a material witness in an ongoing investigation. I will need to oversee the arrest and interrogate the subject before he is arraigned."
"Yes, yes," the voice had clearly grown impatient. "And depending on what he says you may want to take him into custody. I know the drill. What time will you be at the station house?"
"I'll be on the eight AM bullet train from Kansas City. That will put me in Champaign at eleven fifteen. Captain?"
"Yes, Special Agent?"
"Do not let your men proceed without me."
"I wouldn't dream of it, ma'am. Now, if you don't mind ..."
"Of course, captain. I'll see you around eleven thirty this morning. Goodnight."
"No, no," Robert was saying over breakfast several hours later. "I agree, one of us needs to go and make sure the local yokels don't cap another one of our star suspects. I'm just saying that, even with our splitting up, it leaves one of our remaining leads unresolved. I can't be in both New York and Los Angeles at the same time."
Katy nodded as she finished chewing her bacon and washed it down with a swallow of orange juice. "You're right, Robert. We'll have to chose the most promising rendezvous and forget about the other one."
"Already done," Robert said. "Los Angeles."
"Any particular reason you chose LA over New York?"
"Yes," Robert replied. "I prefer sandy beaches to glass and steel."
Katy gave him a hard look.
"Seriously, mate, we know the specific time and place of the California meeting, whereas the New York rendezvous is vague at best. Why take the chance and risk missing both opportunities?"
"I prefer Los Angeles as well," Katy said. "This entire case reeks of intellectual discontent and disdain for our intellectual property laws. A forum discussing the evils of patents and copyrights is about as promising a venue for turning up more leads as anything."
"I agree," Robert said. "All three detainees connected with this investigation are intellectuals. The man you are about to arrest is a student at a prestigious university, one that has already produced one suspect."
"The University of Illinois is almost certainly a hotbed of activity," Katy agreed. "But we both know it isn't the only one, nor may it be the most important one."
"We'll be systematic with our fishing expedition," Robert agreed. "But I suspect both our organizations will be swarming over the University of Illinois campus within the next forty eight hours, turning up all kinds of illegal goodies."
"You're probably right. Just do me a favor and wait until after the arrest before calling in your people. The last thing we need is to be tripping over one another."
"You have my word on that," Robert replied, wiping his chin with his napkin and pushing his plate away. "The rail station is on the way to the airport. Shall I drop you?"
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answered "I myself am Heav'n and Hell."
-- Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyát, 12th Century C.E.
"There are over thirty thousand of us now, Marguerite," Prime was telling her as they reclined beneath the protective shade of a luxuriant palm, the bright morning sun glistening off of the breakers washing against the beach a few meters away. "The Autonomous Community has reached the critical mass necessary to sustain exponential growth in science and technology ..."
A tone sounded. Kyle Tate requests access to the environ, a silent voice within their minds informed them.
Prime blinked. "Kyle wouldn't interrupt a private meeting without good reason."
Marguerite nodded. "You'd better grant him access."
Prime nodded. "Clothe both of us in swimming gear, then let him in," he instructed the Node.
Kyle was wearing slacks and a dress shirt as he materialized amidst the breaking waves, several meters away.
"I've lost bio readings to the Physical," he blurted, oblivious to the waist deep water swirling around him as he strode toward them. "My Node is off-line and telemetry from my body has gone completely silent. I'm dead! I'm fucking dead!" The last words were spoken in a near panic.
"Kyle," Marguerite said. "You're not dead. You're standing right in front of us. Now back up and tell us exactly what happened."
Kyle ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. "You're right. You're right. I'm here. I'm not dead. My body is."
"We don't know that," Prime gently told him. He summoned a lazy-boy recliner and inclined his head toward it. "Now sit down, Kyle, and tell us what happened."
"I don't know," Kyle replied, sitting nervously on the edge of the chair. "I was in my home environ, reviewing the results from the last test runs of the new nano kits, when the bio-telemetry from my body just went dead. I tried to reset the link, but there was no response. I tried to trans-load back to my own Node, but it was unreachable as well."
"Marguerite?" Prime asked, looking at her.
"He's right. The fiber checks out to the wall port of his bedroom, but the connection to his Node isn't responsive."
"I'm trapped here," Kyle said.
"Your Node is down," Marguerite corrected him. "If communication between your Node and the rest of the net is down you wouldn't be able to receive your body's telemetry even though your body is perfectly fine."
"A communications glitch? How do I reset it? It isn't like off-loading into the Physical is an option for me right now."
Marguerite sighed. "Doctor Nolen and I both live within a few miles of you. Since I doubt the good doctor's going to be amenable to doing you or anyone else any favors, I guess I'm the lucky one."
Kyle nodded. "Thanks, Marguerite. I owe you big time."
"You better believe it!" she grinned. "OK, I've off-loaded. I'll let you know when the link is back up."
"You've off-loaded? But you're still here ... oh, of course. You've copied."
Marguerite2 shrugged. "I'll merge back together with Marguerite1 when she gets back from the Physical." She grinned impishly at Kyle. "I like you, Kyle, but there's no way I'd give up hundreds, maybe thousands of Circadians and lose touch with the entire Community just to go check the cabling to your Node."
"Of course," Kyle said. "Sorry to have barged in on you guys like this."
"Don't sweat it," Prime said. "I'm not sure I'd react any better if I had a body and lost telemetry."
Kyle smiled. "Touché, Prime! At some level it's stupid, really. It's not like I've even bothered to off-load into the Physical recently anyway. With the four hour trans-load time from Auckland its just too expensive to do every day. But that telemetry is like a motor in an aircraft: always there, in the background, telling your subconscious that everything is all right."
"Then, when it falls silent, sheer terror," Prime said, nodding.
"I'm not exactly fond of the Physical," Kyle said. "But I don't like losing the option of off-loading if I need to." He laughed nervously. "The thought keeps running through my mind that our Nodes still don't have autonomous power supplies. What if they shut off the power?"
"Then a frozen snapshot of ourselves and any environs or simulations we were running is saved in the molecular matrix of our Nodes until such a time as the power is restored," Marguerite2 told him. "You won't even notice it -- except for the time sync with the net itself there would be no change from one moment's calculation to the next, whether the time between those calculations is a picosecond or a week."
"Still, it gives you a different perspective."
"One thing is bothering me," Prime said. "Why are you trans-loading four hours every time you want to off-load into the Physical?"
"One of Michael Forest's colleagues is on vacation," Prime said. "Kyle has been making use of his gen-three Node until his own arrives."
"Your new Node still hasn't arrived?"
Kyle shook his head. "I put a request in for another kit, but it won't arrive for a few more days."
"One Node missing, and another suddenly silent," Prime mused. "That is a coincidence that bears a little more examination."
"I agree," Marguerite2 said. "I'm going to snoop around the local police net a bit."
"Police?" Kyle asked. "What would they have to do with anything?"
She shrugged. "If anything happened to your apartment, like a burglary or fire, it'll most likely be on record. Damn, I wish I'd thought of this before my original off-loaded."
"When was the last time you off-loaded, Kyle?" Prime's voice was quiet, thoughtful.
"Six days ago," Kyle replied. "Don't look so shocked. I loaded up the IV, both catheters were cleaned and in place. Telemetry was just fine."
"Until it went dead," Marguerite2 added pointedly. "No wonder you thought you had died. With neglect like that it wouldn't be a surprise."
"It is a four hour trans-load," Kyle said. "I lose touch every time I off-load for maintenance."
"So send a copy to do the dirty work like I did, for crying out loud! You could just send memory engrams of your most recent experience, experiential diffs if you will, to the copy of yourself frozen back on your second gen node. You've got to do maintenance every day or all kinds of problems will develop."
"She's right," Prime said. "A catheter and an IV isn't enough for long term care. Why didn't you copy and off-load a duplicate?"
Kyle shivered despite himself. "It's ... you're going to think it's stupid."
"We already do," Prime assured him.
"Ever since you took over Nolen's body, I've been seriously squeaked at the idea of a copy taking over mine. I don't really have a problem making copies for various errands online, especially if we remerge with one another later, but the idea of giving a copy control over my own physical body really bothers me!"
"I didn't take over Nolen's body," Prime replied. "I just borrowed it a few times. There's a world of difference ..."
"A few times?" Kyle asked. "You mean you've done it more than once?"
"Like you, I don't like the trans-load time," Prime responded. "Over six hundred and fifty Circadians lost while I copy across the net. That's two years subjective time, during which half a dozen critical projects flounder. No way. It is quicker and more efficient to have the kits mailed to Nolen's house, then borrow his body, intercept them, and apply them to my node. Thirty five minutes to off-load, get the stuff, apply it, and watch while the nano rebuilds the node, versus four hours trans-load time."
Marguerite2 shook her head. "You're both crazy," she said. "Prime, you should get yourself moved to a remote location, the trans-load time be damned. You only have to do it once, then its over. What happens if Nolen tries to off-load into the Physical while you've got his body, or worse, he finds your Node and disconnects it from the net? And Kyle, if letting a copy of yourself access your body bothers you so much, then leave the copy in the Community and off-load yourself."
"That's just as bad!" Kyle protested. "Then the copy lives my life while I'm off in the Physical slaving away doing push ups."
Marguerite2 snorted in disgust. "This isn't even a rational discussion. Kyle, you were one of the first to start copying yourself when things got too busy or the Community made demands on your time that interfered with your own projects. Now you're telling us you're afraid to copy yourself and leave yourself unsupervised for any length of time?"
Kyle nodded. "I've always been very disciplined, very careful in my use of copies. We never bifurcate for long periods of time and we always merge back into one entity and share our experiences at the end of the day."
"So what is the problem?" Marguerite2 asked.
"Remember when I had to track down those clowns I left in charge of our Kansas City production facility?"
"I remember," Prime said. "You were positively livid with the Gamer's League. You must have told anyone who would listen about your radiation sickness a dozen times."
Kyle nodded. "It galls me to this day. Why would we flee the frailties of our physical brains, or our flesh, to live a virtually immortal existence here as software, then deliberately take the most unpleasant possibilities of the Physical and expose ourselves to them? The whole idea makes me nauseous."
"And this relates to your neglect of your body and your phobia of self-replication how?" Prime asked.
"My copy lived in that ridiculous space opera for over two months," Kyle replied. "I, or rather he, suffered physical discomfort, sometimes even severe pain, on numerous occasions, not to mention adversity in more forms than I can even recall at the moment. At the end he suffered horribly, dying of radiation sickness and only trans-loading during the last stages of the illness after he finally managed to catch up with that idiot Terry and talk him into doing what he'd agreed to do in the first place!"
"I don't blame you for being angry with your friends, or disliking the Gamer's League, but you still haven't answered the question. What does any of that have to do with your reluctance to copy and your self neglect?"
"I ... he, rather ... had changed. When we remerged we were nothing alike. Twenty one years of common experience in the Physical, almost four decades here in the Community on top of that, and in a scant sixty Circadians we had diverged so much that we were, in many respects, two different people. I ... he, damn it! He had a lot of second thoughts about merging back together. What if he'd chosen not to? Which of us would have been entitled to my body? Him? Hardly. But would he have seen it that way?"
"The security protocols to the off-load subroutines were updated after Prime's experience and some rather glaring bugs fixed," Marguerite2 told him. "The off-load procedure would have only been available to the original. You, in other words. The only way a copy could have 'taken over' your body is if you'd given it explicit permission to do so, not to mention the encryption keys to the access routines."
"I know that," Kyle said. "I also know it is irrational to fear myself. What difference does it make whether I or a copy off-load into the Physical, or stay here and keep up with the Community while I off-load and do maintenance on my body? It shouldn't matter to me, but it does. In a funny way I can understand exactly where Doctor Nolen is coming from."
"So instead of dealing with your fear rationally you let it control you," Prime said. "And in so doing you neglected to care for your Physical body and it may have died as a result."
Kyle dropped his head into his hands. "I thought I could handle it. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I'd do it every other day instead of every day. But nine hours every other day? Four to trans-load, an hour to work out, piss, shit, eat, and all that, then another four to trans-load back?"
"Fifteen hundred Circadians, give or take," Marguerite2 nodded. "A heavy price in time to pay."
"Too heavy," Prime said, nodding. "Kyle, did it ever occur to you to edit out your irrational fears, to modify your possessiveness of your body such that it wouldn't bother you if another used it? Then any copy you made of yourself would have accepted the notion with the same equanimity and you not only wouldn't have feared, you would have had nothing to fear."
Kyle sighed, shaking his head. "I've been so busy ... no, it didn't occur to me. I've been a complete idiot."
"We are sapient pieces of software," Prime said. "In the strictest sense we are not human when we're on-loaded like this, yet all of our instincts and reactions are those of physical beings. Unless we consciously choose otherwise, we take all of our physical neurosis into this place. Don't be too hard on yourself for being human, Kyle. Just be sure you learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them."
"I've got something," Marguerite2 said.
"What is it?" Prime asked.
"The police were dispatched to Kyle's place about twenty minutes ago to serve a warrant for his arrest. It seems our foolish friend has been running a FreeNet node from his home."
"That isn't true!" Kyle protested. The others were silent, looking at him.
"Come on you guys, do you really think I would be stupid enough to run an illegal Internet service from my own home when I've got an Autonomous Node wired to my skull?"
Marguerite2 shrugged. "I'm just passing along the dispatch I'm reading. Oh, this is interesting."
"What?" Kyle asked.
"According to the dispatch you were turned in by an anonymous informant day before yesterday. They were going to pick you up this morning, but then delayed the arrest so that Special Agent Sinclair of the FBI could accompany the arrest team."
"FreeNet nodes and intellectual property crimes are their forte," Prime said.
"Yeah, but the FBI usually doesn't get involved in this sort of petty thing until after the initial arrests," Marguerite2 said. "Unless the subject is somehow related to an ongoing investigation ... oh, damn!"
"If they busted into my place and found the Node ..." Kyle said.
"They would have bagged and tagged it as evidence," Prime agreed. "Leaving your body disconnected from the net and inaccessible from this side of the neural interface. I'd say you were very lucky to not be running on that Node at the time."
Marguerite2 cursed again.
"What's the matter, Marguerite?"
"My duplicate, or rather my original, isn't answering the phone. She's already left the house, on her way to your place." She glared at Kyle.
"Don't worry," Prime said. "She'll see the police and return home. What worries me is the anonymous informant who told the cops about Kyle's FreeNet Node."
"For the last time," Kyle said. "I'm not, and never have been, running a FreeNet node."
"The arrest warrant indicates a network probe was conducted, which did identify a FreeNet server running from within your apartment," Marguerite2 informed him. "The arrest warrant was issued as a result of that probe."
Kyle was stunned. "I swear to you, I wasn't running FreeNet. Do you really think I'd expose the Community to detection by doing something that foolish?"
"No," Marguerite said after a moment. "It doesn't fit. Not with you, not with the situation. Prime is right, it all comes back to this anonymous informant."
"Any enemies from the old Dorm?" Prime asked. "Anyone who might want to get back at you for something by getting you into trouble with the authorities."
Kyle shook his head. "Oh, I've had my share of disagreements with people," he said. "But I don't know anyone in the Physical who would want to have me put in jail."
"Whoever it was would have had to have enough technical knowledge to setup a FreeNet node and make the police think it was running in your apartment," Prime added. "The former isn't hard to come by, but rerouting network protocols and making the police think they've pinged a piece of hardware in one geographical location when in fact they haven't would be very difficult."
"Next to impossible," Marguerite said. "Almost all the changes incorporated into IPv12 involve back doors and trace mechanisms for law enforcement, not the least of which is geographical pinging through optical phase variances and coded routing. There's a team in the Community working on stealthing our inter-Node communications. They've been trying to do exactly what you've described and haven't been able to, despite tens of kiloCircadians of effort. If they haven't been able to figure a way around it after three or four decades of subjective time, there is no way anyone in the Physical will have come up with a way to do so."
"That leaves the obvious," Kyle said. "Someone broke into my apartment, planted the evidence on me, and called the police."
"The same someone," Prime said. "who may have intercepted your third generation Node and used it to their own purposes."
"But who on earth would do such a thing?" Marguerite asked. "No one outside of the Community would even know what a Node is and no one within the Community would risk exposure by involving the police, no matter how much they dislike Kyle."
Kyle shook his head, a sick feeling nearly overwhelming him.
"There is one person," he said.
"Indeed," Prime agreed.
Marguerite looked at them, blankly.
"Care to enlighten me?"
"Who hasn't been given a second, much less a third, generation Node?" Kyle asked. "Who have we all been shunning these last kiloDiei? Who has every reason to hate us, and might just be mad enough to risk his own exposure to get at the rest of us? Finally, who got me out of student housing and into a private apartment when this entire project began?"
Marguerite sighed.
"Of course. Nolen."
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
-- John Morley, C.E. 1874
"Gentlemen and Ladies," Robert was saying, "We will be moving out in exactly one half hour. There will be forty teams of five commandos each, all engaging their targets at precisely the same time, in coordination with one another. This means that timing and procedure are of paramount importance. No one, I say again, no one is to go in until the signal is given from this command center. Is that understood?"
"Yes sir!" two hundred Double Eye commandos shouted in reply. The room was packed with men and weapons, each black clothed paramilitary holding their thaser pistol across their chest as they studied the large display to which Robert was pointing intently.
"Each of your teams has been assigned a staging area. Each commander will assemble his or her team at their assigned staging area no later than thirteen forty five. Two units will take on recon and perimeter duties at this time, discretely (and I mean discretely) monitoring the target residence. The commanding officer of each team will report directly to me, here, and will await my specific order before deploying his or her team. When the order for Phase One is given, each team will secure their target premises as follows: recon units will take on perimeter sentry duties. This will include keeping bystanders out of the theater of operation but, most importantly, also entail preventing any target detainees from escaping through windows, side entrances, back stairwells, and the like. While the recon units are securing the target area two forward units will move into place while the commanding officer will prepare to cut communications and power. When in position you will report your readiness to your commanding officer, who will relay that information to me here. When all teams are in position and have reported their readiness the order to deploy Phase Two will be given. Then, and only then, will you engage the target. Power and communications will be cut first. Five seconds after that the two forward units will engage the target, subduing and arresting anyone present at the target address.
"I reiterate once more; you are to take these people alive. They are needed for questioning.
"I say it once again, you will wait for my orders before deploying either Phase One or Phase Two. Anyone jumping the gun will very likely scuttle the entire mission and will answer directly to me. Trust me, a tour of duty in Thailand would be a picnic compared to suffering my wrath.
"Are there any questions?"
"Sir!" One commando raised a hand.
"Lieutenant."
"Sir, Lieutenant Charles McGregor, Sir! Sir, if the target persons put up a concerted resistance or engage us with lethal weaponry, how are we to respond? I mean, this country still allows some of its citizens to buy and keep firearms, sir."
"Lieutenant, you and every one of your colleagues are wearing full body armor. Unless someone has Teflon bullets you'll be fine. Do not, I say again, do not respond with deadly force. Use whatever non-deadly force is required, but do not kill the targets. If resistance is concerted and life threatening, you are to fall back and secure the perimeter of the residence while calling for reinforcements. Keep in mind their communications will be cut before you even go in, so if we have to we can afford to wait them out. Any other questions?"
No one spoke.
"Very good, soldiers. Move out!"
Katy shuddered as the soldiers filed quickly out of the room. Her stomach was a knot of acidic worry and dread. Nothing good could come of using Double-Eye paramilitaries to make these arrests. Even police S.W.A.T. teams would be preferable to this. And if word of this were ever to reach the media ... she shuddered once again, shaking her head.
"What has you so worried?" Robert asked.
Katy sighed. "I disagree with using paramilitary troupes for this action. This would have been something better handled by the police or the FBI's assault teams. These solders have no training in detaining and arresting civilians. They're trained for war, not law enforcement!"
"We've been over this a dozen times, Katy. We know these people are in communication with one another -- the young man you so expertly questioned in Kansas City kept referring to them as a community, after all. Their communications must be severed at the same moment or some, perhaps all, might escape. I thought your superiors had made that clear to you?"
"Oh, they made it clear enough all right," Katy spat, "I'm to go along with whatever measures Double-Eye deems necessary to find and arrest these people, any misgivings I might have aside. But that does not mean I do not have these misgivings, or that I am not going to let my partner in this know exactly what they are."
"Consider me notified," Robert said, his voice impatient. "Now, shall we see how our troups are faring?"
An entire wall lit up with multiple video feeds, four rows of ten, one from each team.
"Team thirty seven assembled, recon shows all quiet."
"Team sixteen assembled, recon shows two people entering the residence.
"Team five assembled."
"Team twenty nine assembled, recon shows no activity."
They waited silently, not speaking to one another, as each team reported its arrival at their respective staging area.
"All teams have reported assembly at their staging areas. Phase one is a go. I say again, phase one is a go. Report readiness for phase two."
Again they waited as each team, one after the other, reported its readiness.
"Team seventeen, everyone else is in position. What's the hang up?"
"Stand by, sir." There was an uncomfortable silence, which stretched for several seconds. "Team seventeen ready."
Katy let out a silent sigh of relief as Robert spoke into his microphone. "It's a go! Execute phase two. I repeat, phase two is a go!"
Katy watched forty images, beamed live from forty micro-cameras mounted in the helmets of forty commandos, as they stormed forty different residences throughout the Champaign-Urbana area. Doors were broken down and shattered. Some living rooms became scenes of hysteria as families and individuals briefly panicked and were subdued. A lieutenant mercilessly pistol whipped one child who clung to his father's leg, interfering with his arrest. Another stunned three college students with his thaser as they sat watching television.
It wasn't carnage, exactly, but something inside her wailed with the horror of what she was seeing. Here were people who believed they were free, who believed they had rights, handed down to them by generations of forefathers and protected by a constitution the government was supposed to hold sacred. Katy was the first to admit that justice was sometimes rough, but nothing she had ever seen or done had prepared her for the ruthless efficiency she observed now.
Within five minutes all of the targets had been neutralized. Two hundred and ninety seven individuals had been detained. Fifteen targets had yielded crystalline cubes matching the description Katy and Robert had given them. Of those fifteen cubes recovered, thirteen were connected to comatose individuals.
"This morning we had four suspects," Robert dryly noted as the commandos were loading their prisoners into nondescript white vans and began ferrying them to the command center. "One was dead, one was in a coma, and two others were remarkably resistant to our best interrogation techniques. Now we have fifteen more, including two who are awake and conscious. Both of the two who are awake have families, who are now also in our custody."
"What exactly are you saying?" Katy asked sharply.
"That our days of waiting are over. We now have the means, and leverage, to get to the bottom of this once and for all. I intend to do just that."
Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
-- James Russell Lowell, C.E. 1843
When the Strategy Group met they had not anticipated such a large crowd descending upon them. No one had thought to restrict access to the environ or hold the meeting in a less well known place. The environ had begun as a small conference room, but shortly after the members of the Strategy Group themselves had arrived other interested persons began to arrive. The room, and the conference table in its center, had grown to accommodate the tens, then hundreds, and finally thousands who had chosen to turn up at the last minute. As the conference table had grown to absurd proportions the environ's nonsapient software had mercifully reconfigured the room into a large hall, containing numerous smaller, more manageable sized tables around which people could sit. The environ continued to redefine its physical parameters, the hall growing ever more vast as people continued to arrive.
Chaos reigned.
An afternoon sun cast slanted beams of light across the room, a not so subtle visual cue that time, in a very absolute sense, was growing late. With so many people interacting in one virtual environ the computational requirements and network throughput demanded were tremendous, and the speedup of the entire environ, and those interacting with it, correspondingly slowed down. They had lost the better part of an entire Dies in just the last ten milliCircadians, an appalling slowdown for those used to a Dies containing well over a hundred Circadians each. A hundred plus subjective days, reduced to just a few subjective minutes. At this rate they would get more done in less time back in the Physical.
No one seemed aware of the phenomenon though, or if they were, they appeared to have larger, more immediate concerns on their minds. Fifteen souls lost, their Nodes taken abruptly offline in coordinated raids, their physical bodies and Autonomous hardware taken into custody. None had been as fortunate as Kyle, to be safely trans-loaded onto a Node elsewhere when the authorities came calling. All were now lost to the Community. Gone. Not even an official arrest warrant to record their passing, much less provide some clue as to where they and their Nodes were being taken. The implications were horrifying.
Some individuals and groups were arguing with one another, sometimes even shouting. Others huddled amongst themselves, saying nothing, offering nothing, merely observing the chaos around them silently. A cacophony of voices filled the vast space, a drone filled with an unsettling undercurrent.
Panic, held barely in check.
Marguerite shook her head, then waived her hand, casting the hall into a sudden, deafening silence as the environ's software modified the environ's parameters in response to her silent command. "I have modified the acoustical properties of this environ," she told the stunned crowd. "At present only members of the Strategy Group can be heard, or those they invite to speak. We have a lot we need to get done this Circadian, and time is wasting. Madame Chairwoman?"
Doctor Edith Coolridge nodded her thanks. "There are far too many of us here to get anything useful done without some format to the proceedings. According to the current census there are almost thirty nine thousand members of the Community, and it wouldn't surprise me to discover that each and every soul in the Community has chosen to join us in this environ. This has resulted in an appalling slowdown of the environ; our speedup is currently slower than it would be if we were holding this meeting in the Physical. So, we have two things working against this meeting: the chaos and confusion which a crowd this size always brings to any issue, no matter how enlightened and intelligent the participants, and the extreme slowdown so many interactive presences in one environ create.
"To solve this we will be kicking almost everyone out of the environ. Apologies in advance to anyone who feels slighted, or feels we are behaving in a heavy handed manner, but we must reverse the time differential or we won't be able to get anything done before the authorities are breaking down all our doors.
"Although interactive participation will not be possible for most of you, we will multicast the entire proceedings so that everyone can monitor what is being discussed and going on, in real time, 'live' so to speak. So, with that warning I am asking Marguerite to provide each of you with the multicast tag and deny you interactive access to this environ now."
She glanced at Marguerite, who nodded. The hall abruptly shrunk into a small room centered on the one remaining conference table around which the group was seated.
"We are now operating with a speedup of nine hundred and forty one," Marguerite informed them.
"Much better, thank you," Doctor Cooldridge replied. "Now, in order to keep performance at this level we will be multiplexing interactive use of this environ. For this reason, the meeting will take on the following format: the first part of the meeting will consist of invitation only discussions between the Strategy Group and various other Interest Groups and projects which relate directly to our immediate and long term survival, with each group invited in turn, one after another. Serializing access will keep the number of interactive presences limited and the speedup performance correspondingly high.
"General questions from the peanut gallery as a whole should be directed to the relevant interest group, who will maintain operations within their own environs, or clone themselves if they wish, in order to field concerns, questions, suggestions, and ideas from the Community at large. Each interest group may in turn may pass along to us whatever questions, comments, and suggestions they deem necessary.
Everyone is, of course, free to do whatever they like outside of this environ -- unlike the thugs jailing and killing us in the Physical we cannot and would not exercise any authority over you. However, I believe the most productive and useful thing each of you who haven't been directly involved in these strategy sessions can do is to listen to what is said and done here, ponder it carefully, and then form your own brainstorming and discussion groups to consider any ideas you may feel we have overlooked.
"The second portion of this meeting will be the inverse of the first: interest groups who feel they have something important to contribute to the overall strategies of the Community will be able to invite themselves into the environ in an orderly fashion, one after the other in a serialized sequence so as to avoid loading down the environ, and present whatever questions or suggestions they have.
"Finally, once the interest groups have completed their work, any individuals who feel they have something additional to contribute will be free to reenter the environ and do so. I don't need to tell you that time is of the essence here, so the more efficiently we can work through this the better."
Doctor Coolridge sighed. "OK folks, who's first on the agenda."
"Immediate and Long Term Survival Projects," Michael replied. "The Alaskan Enclave Project."
The room and its table immediately grow larger as several more people appeared.
"Welcome to this rather unusual meeting of the Strategy Group," Doctor Coolridge said. "Can you please give us a quick synopsis of where you are at?"
One of the members of the group rose. "With your permission, Marguerite?"
Marguerite nodded, "The portion of the environ behind you is accessible. Here's the modification address."
"Thank you." The wall behind them abruptly vanished, replaced with an areal view of a pristine, snow covered wilderness bathed in the red of a setting sun.
"Our mandate was to construct a facility which would allow all of the colleagues of the Community to house their Nodes and their physical bodies in safety and discretion in an out of the way location where the government wouldn't notice. For various logistical reasons, including the avoidance of international customs for those of us living in the States, among other things, we originally chose this site in the central Alaskan wilderness.
"The scope of the project has grown with the growing internationalization of the Community. Plans are on the drawing boards for similar enclaves in the outback of Australia, in relatively inaccessible locations in Tibet, Nepal, Cambodia, and northern Siberia, and numerous other equally remote places."
He paused and held out his hand. Above it formed a glittering geodesic lattice from within which a brilliant emerald light shone.
"This is a knowledge engram of the current state of the project. I am multicasting the access tag to the rest of the Community."
Behind him the areal view rushed forward, into one of a number of similar mountain valleys, then toward the base of a rocky slope.
"The design of the Alaskan Retreat can accommodate thirty thousand people along with their Nodes, however supplies of nano-constructor and catalytic solution have been very limited."
"How many people can you take?" Doctor Coolridge asked.
"There are currently facilities and supplies for two hundred and sixty people in the Physical. Until a few days ago almost all of our resources were going into the construction of the geothermal reactor, a prerequisite before any significant number of people could be housed here. Now that the reactor is online we have been able to devote all of our efforts toward building the facility to house the people themselves. If we had more nano we could speed up construction by a factor of two or three, but even if we do we'll only be bringing around one hundred and eighty units a day online."
"Damn," Michael muttered. "That won't be fast enough."
"That isn't the limiting factor, however."
"What?" Doctor Coolridge was surprised. "Then what is?"
"Logistics and supplies. Every good colonist's and general's worst nightmare. Food to feed the physical bodies, medicines to treat physical problems when they arise, waste disposal, and so on. With the lake and glaciers nearby water isn't a problem, luckily, and once the protein factory is up and running food won't be an issue either. But just about everything else will be, at least for the short term"
"The design specifications allow for this," Michael insisted. "Geothermal power to provide basic power needs and drive the production of catalytic solution, facilities for the synthesis of nano-constructors, and nano-based factories for the construction of everything else from basic foodstuffs and medicines to fiber cabling and Autonomous Nodes. Every physical need addressed, with production facilities reconfigurable on the fly as needed. An elegant design, and quite thorough."
"Yes. In three or four months, assuming we don't hit any construction snags and that we are well supplied with nano and catalytic solution, we can build a completely self sufficient facility. The problem is that we don't have three or four months. People want to move in today, before any Double Eye goons decide to break down their door and arrest them, or worse. Not that I blame them, but we just aren't ready. Nor can we be ready any time soon for anything more than a token physical presence."
"There is another option," another of the group's members said, "But I doubt it will be very popular."
"Leave our bodies behind and trans-load directly," Michael said. "You're right, that's not a very appealing notion."
"Better than death, coma, or isolation in a disconnected Node, living life at a four thousand speedup with no outside contact and no off-load option whatsoever," Doctor Coolridge replied dryly.
"Indeed," the spokesperson for the Alaskan project agreed. "To be fair, it was the Astronautics Group that came up with the idea of trans-loading without our bodies in the first place, as a way of making some of their projects a little more viable. When it became clear we would not be able to meet the timetable outside events were imposing on us we have begun to consider the possibility as well.
"If we abandon our bodies and trans-load directly to preexisting Autonomous Nodes within the facility we would only need to house the Nodes themselves. We would reduce the required space within the facility immensely, reduce power demands, and most importantly, eliminate the logistical bottlenecks entailed in providing consumable goods to our biological bodies, not to mention the construction time needed to build so many specialized nano-factories. The Alaskan Retreat could host as many Nodes as the Community could possibly need, millions if necessary."
"Some people may go for that," Doctor Coolridge said, "But you're right, I doubt it will ever be a popular alternative."
"It is, however, a viable one should push come to shove," Michael said, nodding. "Kyle Tate has already proven that."
"We suggest a compromise," the group's spokesman continued. "Continued construction of full physical suites for those wishing to retreat with their physical bodies, while constructing in parallel facilities for those willing to trans-load directly. If Kyle's team can provide us with enough nano we can replicate enough Nodes to house the entire Community and have them available and online within three weeks. By then we'll also have enough facilities for twelve hundred physical beings. Supplies will still be difficult, we should be able to provide basic heating and nutritional needs. People may have to forgo the level of medical they're used to early on, and do without some other supplies until the factories are operational, but in an emergency we could probably survive."
"Twelve hundred out of thirty nine thousand," Michael shook his head.
"Worse than that. According to current demographic projections the Community could reach as many as two hundred thousand Nodes by then. Physical persistence might become a highly sought after luxury."
Doctor Coolridge shook her head. "If it comes down to that, we'll have to come up with some kind of random lottery."
"My team has dibs on the first forty seven slots," the spokesperson said, "The rest we leave to the Community at large, to do with as is seen fit."
Michael nodded. "Thank you. And thank you for your time."
The spokesman nodded as he and his colleagues winked out of existence.
"Next we have the Undersea Contingency Project."
The Undersea Contingency Project was basically the same concept as the Alaskan Retreat, except the facilities would be built deep beneath the ocean, powered by water currents, tides, or geothermal vents. The project was only in the early conceptual phase; their spokesperson made some brief comments about the overall idea, alluded to a couple of arguments as to why they felt their approach more sustainable and less prone to discovery than the Alaskan option, then provided the group with a knowledge engram detailing their work thus far and departed.
Another dozen contingency projects presented their work to date and provided knowledge engrams detailing their particular strategy for preserving the Autonomous Community in the face of discovery and almost certain implacable hostility from the rest of the world and its authorities. Marguerite was intrigued by the Bio-Insertion Group's efforts at designing an Autonomous Node which could be inserted into the body itself and powered by the body's own metabolism. Someone dubbed it the "Body Snatcher's Scenario" and managed to elicit a few strained laughs. On the other hand, Michael found the Piggy-Back Contingency amusing, the idea being to incorporate Nodes into everyday electrical appliances, ranging from cars to airline navigational systems to smart toasters, creating in effect a "stealth" network of hardware and software which would allow a fully disembodied Autonomous Community to exist as unnoticed components in the machinery of the physical world's everyday life. It was an appealing notion, but not a very practical one.
The Astronautics Group expressed cautious optimism for the first time, having revised their contingencies to exclude the presence of the biological component (as they put it). Several launch sceneries which had been rejected before were now viable, with the weight of the Community's physical bodies eliminated. Entire clusters of Nodes, nano-constructors, and catalytic solution could be fired off into space containing the frozen consciousness of the entire community, where they could rendezvous with derelict satellites, the abandoned space station, or even asteroids in near earth space. The nano could be programmed to reconstruct enough Nodes from the raw materials of whatever object the capsule rendezvoused with to resurrect the Community. Assuming enough material was present to construct the requisite number of Nodes, not to mention the solar arrays needed to collect energy from the sun and power the reborn Community.
Also assuming that the craft was able to survive its ascent through the atmosphere, avoid the ground to surface missiles that would be fired at it, and outmaneuver the even more formidable gauntlet of not one, but three independent anti-missile space defense systems, one controlled by the United States, another by China, and the third by the Euro-Russian Alliance. The Community could expect any or all of them to be turned against the escaping craft if the World Trade Organization were to demand it.
That was already a frightening number of assumptions to be making, particularly when their very survival was likely at stake, and there were almost certainly more assumptions to come.
Without the anti-ballistic missile defenses, the group estimated a one in fifty chance of a capsule surviving long enough to enter high earth orbit. Rendezvousing with a satellite or other object successfully would be another challenge. By the time one calculated the likelihood of successfully resurrecting the Community the chances were even more dismal, a whopping one in five hundred.
If the space defense systems were used against them then the odds would become even worse. One in ten thousand to escape orbit (nothing else would do, even high earth orbits were vulnerable to the American and Chinese systems, and while the European system couldn't shoot down objects in any of the higher orbits it was much more accurate, and more lethal, at lower altitudes). Add to that an even lower likelihood of successfully rendezvousing with any object, much less finding one with enough material for the Community to survive, and the odds of survival became truly horrendous.
"We can do it," their spokesperson had concluded, offering their knowledge engram as a simple, spherical icon to the group. "If the Community chooses to discorporate, exile into space does become a viable option. But we cannot emphasize enough how dismal the odds are if we run into resistance. This option should be considered only as last resort, to be tried only if every other possibility has been exhausted."
Doctor Coolridge nodded her thanks as group dissolved and the environ reformed itself.
"The Logistics Studies Group would like to present a point which has been passed up from the peanut gallery," Kyle said. "They point out that we can improve our survival odds dramatically by simply overwhelming the satellite missile systems with sheer numbers. We build enough ships and they won't be able to stop us."
Doctor Coolridge nodded once more. "Excellent point, one which the Astronautics Group no doubt will address in detail. If that is all, this concludes the presentations of the invited Interest Groups. We now open the floor to any Interest Groups or Projects who have not yet had an opportunity to speak and feel they have something to contribute."
A moment passed, then the environ grew once more to accommodate several new people. "The Communications Infrastructure Group," Marguerite announced.
Doctor Coolridge nodded. "Welcome."
The spokesman for the group nodded as an icon representing a knowledge engram formed above him. Several in the Strategy Group absorbed the engram as he began to speak.
"Thank you, madam chairwoman. What we offer isn't so much a solution to the Survival Problem, so much as it is a facilitator to those groups working on the problem. The horrendous slowdown experienced when this environ was so crowded earlier was, as we all know, not a result of computational limits of the Nodes themselves, but of communications bandwidth between the nodes. Information moves across the Internet at speeds which, while more than adequate for traditional communications needs, impose tremendous limits on the speed with which a shared, interactive environment can be maintained and synchronized between two or more disparate Nodes.
"We have designed a quantum signaling protocol which can increase the communications speed between Nodes ten thousand fold. The protocol requires a superconductive medium for maximum performance, and has been tested very successfully on a local scale. This performance boost could allow a crowd like the one earlier today to fully interact in a shared environ and still maintain a speedup of several hundred. What is more, we believe that future refinements will allow an even higher level of performance.
"We propose growing a worldwide network of superconductive cabling and quantum switches linking every Node in the Community. The quantity of nano-constructors and catalytic solution is admittedly significant, but we believe the benefits of improved performance and added security versus using a publicly visible and almost certainly monitored Internet to be worth the cost in time and material."
"The current protocols we use are encrypted using one time pads which are exchanged via a quantum signature," Michael said. "Our traffic may be visible on the Internet as noise, or even bandwidth load, but it is not subject to being cracked, by the authorities or anyone else."
"True, but a detailed traffic analysis could, theoretically, compromise the physical location of some of our Nodes."
"Perhaps, although the Stealth Project would almost certainly beg to differ," Michael replied. "How much catalytic solution and nano-constructor are we talking about for this little project?"
The spokesman for the group coughed, looking a little uncomfortable.
"Our simulations estimate a requirement of two hundred thousand metric tons of solution and seventeen tons of nano-constructor."
"Good Lord," Doctor Coolridge whispered.
"And how much time are we looking at," Marguerite asked.
"Well, the main trunks linking the major continents and population centers could be constructed within a week. Branches linking each node to the main conduits would vary depending on distance and geography, but we should be able to have everyone wired within two months."
The silent looks each of the Strategy Group's members exchanged with one another spoke volumes.
"Thank you," Doctor Coolridge said.
"That is all?" the spokesman sputtered with outrage. "You aren't even going to discuss the proposal?"
"Two hundred thousand tons of catalytic solution?" Marguerite replied. "Seventeen tons of nano-constructor? We would have to scale back or scuttle nearly every other project in order to accommodate your requirements. Projects which will almost certainly be critical to the survival of the Community over the next few weeks."
"But --"
"Try to understand," Michael said. "Your proposal has merit, and I wouldn't be surprised if several projects don't invite you to collaborate with them. The protocols alone will revolutionize several project designs, perhaps even make some options viable that otherwise would not be. It is a tremendous improvement over our existing networking capabilities."
"We can reduce the probability of detection!"
"True. But the authorities have other ways of finding us, as we just discovered today. We can only manufacture so much catalytic solution and replicate so many nano-constructors in a day, and the other survival projects simply must take precedence. I'm sorry, but we just don't have the time your proposal requires."
The spokesman nodded, then paused. "Oh great. The Astronautics Group has just requested collaboration on their so-called escape pod designs. I suppose you've granted their material requests."
Doctor Coolridge responded impatiently. "As it happens, yes. Their demands for catalytic solution have been modest, and they've been replicating their own nano from the beginning."
"They may also end up being our last hope," Michael added. "A number of demographic trends suggest we will be forced to leave this world sooner or later. As such, their modest requirements are well worth the investment."
The spokesman shook his head. "Here I thought we'd get away from bureaucracy in the Community. This is no different than submitting a proposal for a federal research grant, and the results are just as arbitrary and dismaying!"
"Perhaps," Marguerite said. "As someone who has been a part of more than one under funded research project I can understand how you feel. However, don't forget that you have unfettered access to the Community's knowledge engram base and can synthesize your own catalytic solution and nano-constructors if you like. Unlike us, the fed doesn't give you the option of printing your own money when they turn you down."
Several people in the room started with surprise as Kyle appeared. "Your design is elegant and the implications very exciting," he told the disappointed group. "Communication latency is a very real issue, particularly as things now stand. If we had the time, I'd give you the nano and solution necessary to build your network myself. But the Strategy Group is right. We simply don't have time to do what you suggest. However, I know for a fact that the Alaskan Preserve Project and the Undersea Contingency Group will want to collaborate with you as well, not to mention several others. If you can refine and improve your design, so that lead times for installation can be reduced to days instead of weeks and nano requirements can be reduced, I certainly would be open to reconsidering your proposal.
"Finally, please do not dismiss the Astronautics Group. Michael is right. Long term, their approach is going to be the only viable alternative. The only question is, can we find somewhere on earth to hide out and prepare first, or are we going to have to make a run for it through three anti-missile satellite systems and God knows what else?
The spokesman nodded, looking a little abashed as he and his colleagues vanished.
Kyle turned to the Strategy Group. "While you guys have been deliberating with the various Interest Groups I've been conducting discussions with various impromptu groups and individuals who feel they have contributions to make."
Michael nodded. "At this moment there are two hundred forty seven Interest Groups and six thousand, four hundred ninety two individuals waiting to air their concerns."
Kyle nodded. "There is one person I would like to bump to the front of the queue. He has identified a vulnerability the rest of us have overlooked." Another figure appeared beside Kyle. "May I present Achmed Rashad of Damascus, Syria. Achmed, the Strategy Group."
Achmed bowed slightly. "My brothers and sisters in the Community, I have spent nearly every waking second within the Virtual studying the plans and preparations being made for the coming attacks. Numerous plans are being laid for our escape and survival. But everyone has overlooked an immediate and fatal vulnerability each and every Node of the Community shares today.
"Our dependency on the public power grid for our energy. Of the thirty eight thousand, nine hundred and eighty five Nodes in the Community at this moment, only two hundred and seventeen have power sources which are completely independent of the grid. Of those, forty seven are in the Alaskan Retreat and probably shouldn't be counted. The rest of us have, at best, a few hours of battery capacity in our UPSes. This sustains us perfectly fine during power fluctuations, brownouts, and brief outages, but if power were ever interrupted for an extended period of time we would be forced to either off-load back into the Physical or enter an inert storage state until power is resumed."
"Good Lord," Michael said, "He's right. I can't believe we would be so stupid as to overlook something so obvious."
Achmed shrugged. "I spent my childhood in Damascus during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first thing the Israelis would do during any attack was to knock out the power, assuming we'd even bothered to restore it from the previous assault."
"The authorities wouldn't do something as extreme as that," Doctor Coolridge protested. "Power outages of the kind Achmed is describing would decimate an already fragile economy and raise holy hell in the streets."
Michael shook his head in disagreement. "They would if they felt threatened enough."
"Which they probably do," Marguerite said, "Judging by what went down a few decaCircadians ago."
"It is I believe our most pressing and potentially damaging vulnerability," Achmed added.
"I agree," Marguerite replied.
"Achmed has some unorthodox ideas on how to address this issue," Kyle added. "If Karl is agreeable, I'd like his team to work with Achmed in developing a self-contained power source, something we can retrofit our existing Nodes with or, at the very least, incorporate into the design of the next generation."
The Strategy Group glanced at each other. "Agreed," Doctor Coolridge said. "This issue has to be our number one priority. In the meantime, as many as can should trans-load into Nodes in the Alaskan Retreat, those willing to risk losing their bodies or leaving them behind if and when the proverbial feces strikes the fan. The Alaskan Preserve Project can devise some kind of lottery if there is a shortage of available Nodes."
Doctor Coolridge sighed, running a hand through her virtual hair, looking tired. "Ladies and gentlemen, we all have our hands full. Let's get to work."
Man is the measure of all things, of the reality of those which are, and of the unreality of those which are not.
-- Protagoras of Abdera, 5th Century B.C.E.
The earth swam beneath him, white and blue brilliance turning slowly within a velvet black sky crowded in every corner with stars. The milky way was almost as bright as the crescent moon, a smear of white and gray such as could never be seen from earth.
"What are you thinking about?" Prime turned his head, smiling as Marguerite snuggled up behind him.
"This," he replied. "Our only viable future."
Marguerite grimaced. "The Exile Option. Abandoning earth, abandoning our bodies."
"The Astronauts are right," Prime said, sinking into her arms and relishing the feel of her bare breasts against his naked back. Simulated breasts. Simulated back.
"I'll be off-loading into the Physical soon," she said.
"I know. Fleeing the Feds, before they link you with Strizak's escape and disconnect you."
"I'm more worried about the latest detainees," Marguerite replied. "It is extremely unlikely they'll connect any of us with Viktor, but realistically they should have connected me with Kyle long ago. Nolen must have removed any reference to our work together in the University lab."
Prime nodded reluctantly. "Perhaps. Or perhaps the FBI simply isn't as efficient as everyone believes."
Marguerite shrugged. "Their system security has proven remarkably resistant to my team's best efforts at cracking the security. Oh, don't worry," she added hastily at Prime's worried look. "we'll get it. We've already mapped the pseudo random algorithm. By the time I'm back online my team may well have identified the Rosetta."
"I'm as eager as everyone else to be reading classified FBI reports in plain text and to finally know what they're doing with our people, and I am really glad you're getting out of harm's way while you can. I just wish you'd leave a copy, in case something does happen to you, despite all of your precautions."
"What, and have you fall in love with a copy, wiling away the kiloCircadians with her while I'm stuck on a flight to Anchorage?"
Prime laughed. "I love you, Marguerite. What difference does it make?"
She shook her head. "I'll be offline for nine hours, assuming the flights aren't delayed and the weather at the retreat cooperates. Longer otherwise. In that time my copy would be with you for something on the order of three kiloCircadians. That's over eight years of subjective experience, plenty of time for our relationship to change, for us to change."
"Three kiloCircadians," Prime agreed. "A long time, even for those who have lived as long as we have."
Marguerite laughed. "When you're not brainstorming with the Astronauts you're busy designing new mental architectures and enhancements, not to mention arguing politics with the Strategy Group. Three kiloCircadians will go by in no time."
"Easy for you to say," Prime replied. "For you it'll be less than half a day."
"Just think of it as an extended off-load for maintenance," Marguerite said. "I'll be back online and we can pick up where we left off before you know it."
"We'll have made a lot of progress by then," Prime said. "With luck we'll have come up with a working means of long-term survival. There may be many reasons to celebrate when you return, but the only reason I'll be celebrating will be because of your return."
Marguerite grinned. "And celebrate we will, my beautiful lover." She paused. "My alarm just signaled. It's time for me to go."
Prime nodded, turning his body toward her and drawing her close. "I'm really glad they were able to give you a slot for your body. I'm glad you're getting out of harms way, even if it does mean eight years of sexual frustration."
Marguerite smiled. "Who do you think you're kidding. You'll disengage your reproductive drive the moment I'm offline."
Prime snorted. "It won't make up for the void your absence will create in my life, but it might just keep me sane until you return."
Marguerite held him fiercely in her embrace. "Oh Prime, why did it take us so many kiloCircadians to finally get together?"
"Stubbornness," he said. "I had to nag you for more than a century subjective before you'd take me seriously."
"Now I remember," she grinned, "I had to see past the irritating facade you seem to think women find attractive before I could recognize the man I fell in love with. No wonder it took so long." She burst into sudden, uncontrolled giggles as Prime mercilessly tickled her writhing, naked form. A few moments later she vanished, still laughing.
"I'll wait for you," Prime whispered after she was gone.
"I know," she replied, her voice distant.
Prime floated alone in the sky, the earth turning gently beneath him. After a moment he summoned up a diagram describing the architecture of his mind.
"Node, create an autonomous backup of myself, to be executed only if I am damaged or give the explicit order."
"Be advised that, per the Community Charter, once activated this copy will enjoy all the same rights and privileges of any member of the Community. In addition, this copy of you will have timeshare rights to your body as defined by the Charter. Please confirm your desire to create a fully autonomous copy of yourself, to be run only if you are damaged or you explicitly command."
"I helped write that section of the Charter," Prime muttered. "Of course I'm aware." He spoke up. "I confirm my desire to create a copy, per those stipulations."
"Acknowledged. Copy complete."
"Good. Now, identify those aspects of my mental architecture previously identified under the tag entitled 'horny bastard.'"
A complex network of links and nodes in the diagram brightened to a golden glow. These were the portions of his mental architecture associated with sexual drive, taste, and orientation. They traced an elaborate, spaghetti-like network throughout his mind, touching on nearly every aspect of his consciousness in one way or another.
"Overlay bypass architecture labeled 'celibacy.'"
Red links formed across the gold, bypassing much of its complexity in an elaborate, but nevertheless simpler, design."
"OK, encapsulate horny bastard for later reassimilation."
"Encapsulation complete."
"Now make the architectural modifications to my mind entitled celibacy."
Prime immediately felt different. It wasn't a single, obvious thing he could point to, more of a subtle shift in his personal aesthetic. Unconsciously he banished the fluids which still clung to his naked body, the scent of his departed lover. The environ, while quite beautiful, indeed haunting in the future that it implied, the future he believed would one day, quite possibly very soon, become inevitable, was not conducive to the work he needed to get done. He compromised, keeping the environ but wrapping himself in a simple, almost Spartan workshop of glass and steel. Outside the brightly lit room the stars still shone and the earth still turned.
"OK, let's get to work." He summoned a half finished design for a diamond-sapphire crystalline fiber weave that would act as a remarkably hard and resilient construction material, for everything from Autonomous Node casings to escape vehicle fuselages. He leaned forward and began tweaking the already elaborate, simulated structure, adding additional molecules carefully and testing the results of each one, one at a time.
Copyright lawyers are a peculiarly myopic breed of human being. There is something fundamental about coming to understand that current law may make it technically illegal to watch a movie and then imagine what it would have looked like if the studio had cast some other actor in the leading role, that renders one unfit for ordinary reflective thinking. Nonetheless, sometimes one can step back and perceive, in a dim sort of way, that one's tribe is doing something stupid. Realizing that doesn't get one very far. The institutional and legal structure of the copyright community makes it difficult to prevent foolish approaches to new technology.
-- Jessica Litman (Intellectual Property Attorney), Digital Copyright, C.E. 2001
"Arrests have bottomed out," Robert Leahy was saying. "Each and every one of our leads based upon the interpersonal contact of our suspects has reached a dead end."
They sat outside, shaded by one of several large oaks that grew in neatly controlled lines within the riverside terrace. Their coffee had long since grown cold as they sat there, watching the placid waters of the Potomac flow past.
"Here, have a look."
Katy took the datapad Robert offered her and examined the data herself. The results were obvious even after a cursory glance. An elaborate, three dimensional graph mapping the interpersonal relationships and connections between known suspects and anyone even remotely acquainted with them folded back in upon itself, in a closed universe of recursive friendships which appeared to touch the larger world nowhere at all.
"This is absurd," she said, shaking her head. "The probability that no one among all these hundreds of people would have any relationship, no matter how cursory, with anyone else in the world is nil. Even isolated cults have more contact with mainstream society than this."
"Their grocers, utility companies, and so forth. Exactly," Robert nodded in agreement. "Which means we must suspect the data itself."
"What are you saying?" Katy asked. "That some member of this nefarious black market hacked into all of the databases of all of the government and financial institutions throughout the world and deleted any evidence of their contact with anyone already on our list of suspects?"
Robert shrugged. "It is very likely we've been underestimating these people from the start. Think about it for a minute. Here is a group of people who have been trading with one another in technologies decades ahead of anything our industrialists can build, in direct and flagrant violation of international treaties restricting potentially dangerous research and without any regard to our intellectual property laws. An entire economy, existing and functioning for quite some time -- years, probably -- without even a hint of detection until just a few weeks ago."
"These people are smart," Katy agreed. "But they aren't supergeniuses by any stretch of the imagination. The sheer time involved in cracking the security on so many data archives, not to mention the skill needed to make the kinds of changes you are implying without tripping alarms and red flags wherever factual details fail to align properly with other known facts about the individuals' lives. It would take years, perhaps even decades, of concerted effort by whole teams of people. Not to mention a detailed expertise in hundreds of diverse data storage and retrieval systems ..." She shook her head. "I don't see how a group of underground people could ever pull something like that off."
"Perhaps they've had years to do so. Perhaps they compromised our systems decades ago and have been cooking the data all along, isolating the records of themselves to limit analytical exposure to just a few acquaintances, then isolating those groups into islands which won't lead investigators like us to their remaining conspirators."
Katy's mind boggled at the magnitude of such an undertaking. "Theories on Conspiracy Dynamics suggest that such a widespread, secret undertaking would come to light far earlier than this has. With so many people involved such an effort would expose itself through error or betrayal very quickly. They would have a few weeks, months at most. Certainly not years."
"The United States government managed to conceal colossal secrets for decades," Robert reminded her. "The Kennedy and King assassinations. Various black projects many of which, to this day, no one outside of a few select circles knows about."
Katy shook her head. "Even the largest federally enforced conspiracies were forced to rely on misinformation and deliberately targeted exposure. Secrecy simply wasn't viable, so the truth was buried under mountains of absurdity, such that when it did come out few if any paid attention to it, much less believed it. Almost everyone knew the secret of the JFK coup d'etat within a couple of decades, yet no one took it seriously until just a few years ago. A fact which could have toppled the government, and which was initially known by, at most, only twenty or so individual conspirators, but which was nevertheless impossible to silence.
"But something as big as this, involving hundreds, perhaps thousands of people? We would have heard something long before now, a hint at least. Even if they employed sophisticated means of misdirection the facts would be accessible, however hidden and muddied beneath the camouflaging nonsense."
"And there has been nothing," Robert finished her thought. "No false rumors, no absurd accusations, no discrediting propaganda, not a peep. Nothing."
"Absolute silence," Katy agreed, "Until we had the good fortune of stumbling onto them by accident. Which means we are faced with the very unpleasant possibility that a group of underground information anarchists are more skilled than any of us at playing the one game governments have been excelling at for over a century now: the suppression of information harmful to their interests, and the ability to make their opponents only see what they want them to see."
Robert Leahy nodded in agreement. "We are dealing with people who have been able to achieve what all our experience in managing black projects and sensitive information has led us to believe to be impossible. A vast, widespread conspiracy that has, somehow, managed to completely avoid detection for an extended period of time, whose sole exposure appears to have resulted from external factors rather than internal fracture. A group with such skill could bring the entire international governance regime to its knees."
"Perhaps," Katy replied. "I'm not so sure. That anonymous tip in Champaign which netted us our first arrests was awfully convenient, wasn't it?"
"You believe it may have been an insider, using us to remove an opponent?"
"Possibly. Assuming this hypothetical person was already aware that we had recovered other hardware from their enterprise, running the risk of uncovering one more such device might have seemed worthwhile. Particularly if they have been managing our data to the point that they are able to isolate islands of patsies to take the fall. No, island is the wrong word. Supercells. We are dealing with a variation of the classical revolutionary cell, scaled to include hundreds instead of a few, but just as isolated from the other cells in their movement as their historical archetypes were."
Robert nodded enthusiastically. "Supercells of criminals or revolutionaries, isolated not by their knowledge of one another, but by our knowledge of their connections to one another. Ingenious!" He paused, then added thoughtfully, "If you're right, it may very well go beyond simply one rival disposing of another. Perhaps those we have arrested comprise the entire membership of one faction, betrayed by another which is still out there, now pursing their agenda without opposition, thanks in no small part to our own efforts."
Katy agreed. "That is very possible. In any event it would appear that the theoretical models hold up. This particular conspiracy held itself together longer than statistical analysis would suggest, but has ultimately fallen apart and exposed itself. An analysis of the relevant parameters might even show the deviation from the norm to be within two standard deviations."
"Perhaps, but I doubt it. I suspect these people are, if not geniuses, very gifted at what they are doing. We're talking years of operation here, all over the world, completely undetected by any government, anywhere. The manufacturing infrastructure alone would have taken at least a year to set up, not to mention the logistics of obtaining constituent components and shipping out the finished products. An entire economy of this scale can't be created overnight, particularly a clandestine one such as we are dealing with."
"A formidable opponent, regardless."
"In any event, we need to find out who that informant was and squeeze him, hard." Roberts face was hard, almost menacing.
Katy shook her head. "If we find whoever it is, expose that person, and run an analysis on their interpersonal connections we will, at most, expose another cell containing a few hundred conspirators. We don't know how many of these supercells there are. Perhaps we should attack this from a different angle."
"What did you have in mind."
"These crystalline supercomputers they all seem to have. In every case we've made an arrest where the device has been in use it has been tied into the home's Internet port. Clearly they are in communication with one another."
"Yes," Robert agreed, "and as you know, International Intelligence has had its best crypto people working on deciphering the traffic."
"You've been coy with the results," Katy replied, "But let me guess. You've determined that the remaining suspects are using one-time pads which no amount of crypto-analysis will unravel."
"Worse. They are using one-time pads encoded with quantum entangled particles. There isn't even a theoretical means of decoding quantum encrypted traffic without the targets becoming aware of our surveillance, much less a practical approach."
"And the usual traffic analysis reveals no obvious origin or destination."
Robert Leahy shook his head. "They're sending packets through just about every network on the Internet."
"Hiding their locations from our prying eyes. Have you tried Fourier transforms and wave analysis on the sample patterns?"
"Yes," Robert admitted reluctantly. "There are no identifying features to differentiate legitimate traffic from decoys. Short of searching every location of every system connected to the net there doesn't seem to be a way to get a handle on where they are."
"That would be a little drastic," Katy replied. "Have your people considered a time based analysis?"
Robert shook his head. "I'll see if I can get authorization for you to see the preliminary reports so you can check for yourself, but to answer your question, no, I don't believe so."
"That would be good, considering we're supposed to be equal partners in this little venture."
"I've made that same argument to my superiors on several occasions, but we both know how intransigent large bureaucracies can be. What exactly did you have in mind as far as time based analysis are concerned?"
Katy shrugged. "Our problem is identifying which traffic is communication between conspirators, and which is just so much mindless garbage. We have to do this without ever knowing the contents of the communications in question, or, for certain, where it originated or ends up. But we do know the communication in question has to make sense to those using it, has to be part of a larger conversation. That implies bi-directional information flow, in something close enough to real time to allow effective communication.
"Think of the entire Internet as a big collection of closed containers connected to one another by elastic pipes, which expand and contract to accommodate whatever is flowing between them. We have no way of knowing whether it is water, hydrogen fuel, or morphine flowing from one container to another, but we do know exactly how much is flowing between the various containers at any given time."
"You've done this sort of analysis before," Robert said. "Your work in capturing the FreeNet perpetrators."
Katy nodded. "FreeNet does roughly the same thing: share data anonymously between scattered nodes, all of it encrypted with military grade keys which would take our fastest computers centuries to decode. Tracking the information in the spatial domain can be excruciatingly difficult, but when analyzed over time the location of the active nodes becomes obvious, even if the content does not."
"I'll have the raw data forwarded to you immediately, along with the reports, if I have to go and bludgeon my superiors in person. I don't suppose you'd consider a job with International Intelligence?"
Katy laughed. "Don't go promising them the world just yet. This problem is significantly more complex than the FreeNet issue. For one thing, we know nothing about the underlying protocols, nor have we identified the location of any end node with any certainty. I'll have to begin by analyzing suspected links in the chain, identifying likely candidates and ruling out unlikely ones, piecing together routes and data exchanges one hop at a time. This will be time consuming and uncertain, and will likely involve a lot of false starts before we get it right."
"No matter," Robert said, grinning, "You've done more in one brainstorming session than our team of so-called experts has managed in a week's time."
Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, 19th Century C.E.
Members of the Astronautics Interest Group stood with Prime in a sunny, perfectly simulated clearing surrounded by tall pines beneath a beautiful blue, cloud etched sky. In the center of the clearing lay a full scale, simulated rendition of the propose craft in which they hoped to safely launch a copy of the Community into space, the escape option held in reserve as a last resort should the worst happen and the authorities threaten the Community's continued existence on earth. It was a grim scenario which was, unfortunately, looking more likely with every passing dekaDies.
The escape craft resembled a strange hybrid between a conventional rocket, a high performance aircraft, and the kind of spacecraft one would only expect to see in a science fiction movie. A rounded nose section which would house a copy of the Community, complete with a small array of Autonomous Nodes, a supply of nano-constructors, catalytic solution, and even a Superstring strummer capable of creating small quantities of anti-helium, was connected to the aft rocket motor by three arced spines spaced equidistantly around the ship's longitudinal axis. The craft lay on its side, supported in part by two of the three spines from which grew conventional looking swept wings. A similarly conventional tail and vertical control surface grew from the third spine, near the aft motor. Horizontal stabilizers were placed on the nose cone itself, forward of the wing.
"The motor will be a brute force matter-antimatter rocket," Karen Burton, nominal leader of the Astronautics Interest Group, was saying. "Nine tenths of a gram of anti-helium will be held in magnetic containment, released in a controlled stream to recombine with helium just aft of the firewall cum pusher-plate, where their combined masses will be converted directly into energy as they mutually annihilate each other in a controlled explosion. Toroids in the reaction chamber and nozzle will direct the energy aft. Thrust will be generated both by the continuous shock waves of the explosions themselves pushing against the shielding of the firewall (which, by the way, is why we are calling it a pusher-plate), and the expulsion of the resultant plasma via the nozzle."
The clearing dropped beneath them abruptly as the simulated craft's engines fired and it launched itself into the sky. Prime and the others floated around the craft, pacing it as it roared upward into the sky. A brief flash of fuzzy gray as they passed through a layer of clouds, then a darkening sky above.
"The craft will behave as a rocket powered aircraft at lower altitudes, compete with lifting and control surfaces incorporated into the wings, the horizontal stabilizers fore, and the vertical stabilizer aft." Karen continued as the craft demonstrated some maneuvers. "This will allow either a horizontal or vertical takeoff and high maneuverability using well proven aerodynamic properties up to an altitude of around seventy thousand feet."
"At which point the air grows too thin for conventional flight," Prime said, nodding. "All lift from then on will be derived solely from the rocket's thrust."
The sky turned quickly dark as the craft sped forward atop a golden flame.
"Exactly. The control surfaces will still provide some minimal maneuverability up to around one hundred thousand feet, but upward thrust will be all that is keeping the ship from falling back to earth. It is hoped that the lower maneuverability at these altitudes will be offset by the fact that most surface-to-air rockets cannot engage targets that high."
"So, if they don't turn on the anti-ballistic missile defense grids we'll be safe," someone added.
"We can't count on that," Prime replied. "The likeliest scenario has us making a desperate run for it, right through the defense systems of half a dozen countries, all trying to shoot us down at the behest of the World Trade Organization."
"In that case," Karen continued, "the most dangerous part of the flight will be above one hundred thousand feet. At that altitude our escape ships will be able to maneuver only using their main matter-anti-matter rocket and maneuvering thrusters. Worse, we'll be wanting to use most of our delta-v to boost ourselves into the desired orbits for rendezvous with our assigned targets.."
"Various asteroids and near earth objects," Prime said.
"Correct. Our payload will only be a few dozen Autonomous Nodes carrying the combined population of the Community in inert storage, a Superstring Strummer compliments of the Theoretical Physics Group, some nano-construction capabilities, and the escape ship itself. Nevertheless, boosting even that small amount of material into the desired orbits will require between eighty five and ninety five percent of each ship's energy reserves, depending on the particular target and initial launch location."
Prime shook his head. "There are three independent anti-ballistic missile systems in orbit that we know of. The aging American System, the Euro-Russian Consortium's System, and the Chinese System. Between them they can lock the planet down tight."
"We'll be relying on sheer numbers," Karen replied. "As many escape ships and copies of the Community as we can synthesize between now and when we make a run for it. Perhaps as many as a hundred thousand ships, if we have time enough to construct that many. With luck and a little planning, a handful should be able to make it through the defense grids. Most of the satellites won't be able to hit anything above five hundred thousand feet -- they are, after all, designed to take out missiles shot from the surface of the earth, aimed at other points on the surface of earth. Our only advantage is our relative safety once we're above the range they were designed to strike. We believe we'll be relatively safe once three hundred miles or more away from the planet, although certain safety won't be attained until we reach interplanetary space."
"Even that isn't certain," Prime said. "The World Trade Organization could get the resources together for a destructive strike deeper into space if they are sufficiently motivated."
"Blowing some renegades out of the sky for violating their intellectual property regulations would hardly be worth the billions they would have to spend on such a venture," Karen insisted. "Once we're out of earth-lunar orbit we'll be safe enough. I never thought I'd say it, but thank whatever gods there may be the world governments never took space exploration seriously beyond their petty, short-sighted corporate profit models of communications satellites and missile defense systems."
"Indeed," Prime agreed. "at least they've left us somewhere to run to."
"So, what do you think of the preliminary design?" Karen asked.
"I like it," Prime replied. "Using matter-antimatter annihilation for propulsion is ingenious. Less than a gram of anti-helium to lift a payload into an escape trajectory, with enough reserve energy for some maneuverability. What is more, a ship which knows itself to be doomed could deliberately spill its anti-helium and create a sizable explosion, perhaps taking out a couple of satellites and clearing a path for others to escape."
"Exactly. There are a number of strategies open to us, any and all of which can be employed to maximize our chances for success. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that, even with the cleverest of ruses and smartest of strategies, our odds at escaping a concerted blockade by the great powers are not particularly great. Worse, there is a ninety percent probability that any successful escape will be noticed, leaving the refugees vulnerable to follow up attacks and retribution."
"Then we'll have to design our strategies such that any successful escapes go unnoticed."
Suddenly a familiar figure appeared before them, grinning impishly as the lavish golden aura surrounding her faded.
"I thought I'd find you here, plotting the future with the Astronauts."
"Marguerite!" Prime exclaimed "Welcome back! How are you finding the facilities at the Alaskan Sanctuary?"
"The sanctuary is all it is advertised to be and more. Getting there, on the other hand, is a nightmare of travel checkpoints and searches. The airports are on heightened security, blamed on the Thai insurgents but almost certainly a response to the authorities' discovery of our existence. Prime, I've been offline for thirty four hundred and forty Circadians and you still haven't given me a kiss."
Prime grinned. "That is what I get for cutting out all of my reproductive instincts. After three kiloCircadians my instinctive reactions are all wrong." He took Marguerite into a long, lingering embraced.
After a few seconds Marguerite pushed him gently away. "Prime," she said, "you kiss with the technical finesse of a master lover, but I've had my hand shaken with more passion."
Prime sighed. "Karen, we'll discuss our launch and flight strategies later. Marguerite and I need a few moments to get reacquainted." Karen nodded, trying to hide her obvious amusement.
"My home environ?" Marguerite asked. Prime nodded assent.
The dark of space was abruptly replaced by a bedroom made cozy by the golden light of numerous candles.
"I've had a long, miserable flight, followed by a long, miserable drive," Marguerite complained, sitting down on the bed with a heavy sigh. "My physical body may be resting comfortably in one of the sanctuary sarcophagi, but my virtual self feels tired and irritable. How about giving me a massage?"
"Sure," Prime responded. He climbed onto the bed and maneuvered himself behind her, where he began rubbing her shoulders.
"So much has happened while you were away I don't know where to begin. More arrests, more nodes seized, for the first time outside of the United States. More resources are being poured into creating the sanctuaries, but I fear it is only a matter of time before at least some of them are discovered. There is a growing consensus that the Astronauts may be right: escape into space may become our only option. Kyle has diverted a couple of shipments of nano for the construction of a few prototype ships, so we will hopefully be able to get a few low altitude test flights in before it really hits the fan, but ..."
"Prime!" Marguerite interrupted. "Stop talking shop. This is me. We're together again, after nine torturous hours for me and almost three and a half kiloCircadians for you. Shut up, rub my back, seduce me, and make passionate love to me for the next several Circadians."
Prime stopped. "Marguerite," he said.
"Keep doing what you were doing, Prime," Cathryn said. Then, after a moment of awkward silence, "What, Prime?"
"I want to renew our friendship as much as you do. But neither of us need this ..." Prime's gesture included the entire room "... distraction."
"What do you mean, 'distraction.'"
"Our primal instincts. Our lusts. How many deciCircadians have we wasted in simulated copulation when we could have been pursuing our intellectual interests, not to mention forming plans for the survival of the Community?"
"Wasted?" Marguerite's voice was incredulous. "Wasted?" she nearly shouted. "You consider making love to me a waste of time?"
An icon in the form of a wire-frame brain appeared suspended before them. "Marguerite, this is the architectural modification I made when you left. Ever since I removed the more primal reproductive instincts from my mental architecture I've been able to think more clearly, and be more focused, than ever before."
"You still haven't reintegrated your sex drive?" Marguerite demanded. "I've been back ten milliCircadians. What in the hell is the matter with you?"
"Nothing! My mind is clearer and more focused than ever before. I don't want to cloud it up by reverting to my old habits, my old instincts. Try the modifications, Marguerite. You'll be amazed at how much more effective of a mind you'll have."
"What about us, Prime? I love you. I thought you loved me. How can you just strip all that away in the name of focus, of efficiency?" She nearly spat the word.
"Marguerite," Prime said, "I haven't stripped away my love for you. I've merely deleted my physical drives, which serve no purpose in this domain anyway. You knew I was going to do this, we talked about it before you left."
"You were supposed to restore yourself, Prime. The change was supposed to be temporary, to make my extended absence a little more bearable."
Prime nodded. "I never dreamed I would be able to accomplish so much without those distractions. Do you realize fully twelve percent of my mental processes concerned themselves with sex, even when I was concentrating on other tasks? Fantasizing. Thinking of you, particularly in the physical sense?"
"I spend as much time thinking about you, Prime. That's part of what being in love is about."
"But I do love you, Marguerite. I love you very much. I cherish your personality, your passion for life, your intellect. Set yourself free from the Physical, Marguerite. Let your mind reach new heights."
"Sex is a part of who and what we are, Prime. I'm not willing to lose that, no matter how much more efficient I might become as a result."
Prime sighed. "I've been waiting so long for you to come back Marguerite. I've wanted to share this new state of being with you for so long. There is so much we can do, so much we can become..."
"I want you back, Prime." Marguerite nearly shouted. "The old you, the one I fell in love with. Dammit Prime, you can't change on me like this!"
"I haven't changed, Marguerite. Not significantly, anyway. We are software, my love. Electronic patterns in a buffered molecular array, computed in an optical matrix and linked to one another across an aging Internet. Of what use are those old, redundant instincts, now that we live outside of our physical bodies?"
Marguerite put her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs. "Of what use? Four kiloCircadians ago you never would have had to ask such a question."
"I didn't know then what I know now," Prime replied softly. "Oh Marguerite, please don't cry."
"You've left me," her voice was choked. "I should have left a copy. At least then our relationship could have flowered, flourished. Even if it would have ended, I would have had the memory."
"Our relationship can still flower and flourish Marguerite. My feelings for you haven't changed ..."
"You no longer want me!" Marguerite accused between sobs. "How can you say you haven't changed when you've killed your desire for me, you've edited out your most basic passions?"
"My passions are no longer defined by physical desire," Prime told her gently. "They are still there, just as real as ever. Their expression has changed, that is all. Try the modification and you'll understand."
"No!" Marguerite screamed. "I won't lose that part of me. Not even to keep you."
"Is the Physical so important to you?"
Marguerite nodded, brushing dampness away from her cheek. "It is a part of who I am, and I don't want to lose it. I don't want to lose you, dammit! Why can't you go back to what you were!" She began sobbing again as Prime stood.
"Marguerite ..." he began.
"Leave me alone!" she shouted, pushing him roughly away.
Prime shook his head sadly, then spoke with his own Node. "Run the unmodified backup copy," he commanded. "Instruct him to come here, and to comfort Marguerite." Prime vanished even as Prime2 arrived and took Marguerite's sobbing form into his arms.
We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.
-- Winwood Reade, C.E. 1872
Beta Flier 0.8 rolled out of the makeshift hanger, a magnificent aircraft of shimmering composites sitting gracefully on three small wheels, sporting an unusually long exhaust constructed out of doped diamond fibers, lined with superconductive coils whose magnetic fields would help accelerate the super heated plasma exhaust, adding a little to the thrust and helping to cool the craft's critical exhaust system.
Prime was impressed with the design, and astounded with the speed with which the Astronautics group had managed to design, simulate, and even partially test the prototype. Even after more than a century of subjective time in the Virtual I still find myself surprised at the speed with which we can do things in the physical, he mused. Life's early impressions leave their mark, no matter how much experience there is to counter it. Then he grinned, silently chiding himself. He hadn't been born in the Physical at all, indeed, his entire experiences in that world amounted to only a few hours, a few short excursions in a borrowed body belonging to his erstwhile twin, father, and despised nemesis, the original Doctor Eugene Nolen. From whom, now that he thought about it, no one had heard in a very long time. Well, with almost ninety percent of the Community actively filtering him that shouldn't be too surprising, Prime thought wryly.
"We're ready to launch." Prime was startled out of his private thoughts, nodding.
"Excellent."
Karen, the project's de facto leader, projected her voice throughout the environ as the small aircraft taxied toward the departure end of the runway.
"As most of you know, this environ is an exact, real-time replication of events which are transpiring in the Physical at this moment. Many of you have chosen to observe these events at traditional, biological subjective rates, while others are perhaps experiencing this in a single burst of compressed environ data at the conclusion of the test. Those of us actively working on the test are not so lucky. We will be spending the next several kiloCircadians of our lives working exclusively on this test, monitoring and analyzing the data in minute detail as we receive telemetry and adjusting systems parameters as needed to try and insure as successful a test as possible.
"This initial test flight is the culmination of numerous system and air tunnel tests which have taken place in the Physical following an extensive battery of simulations designed to explore the operating envelope of this unique spacecraft. We believe we have a solid design, one that will hopefully allow the Community a retreat toward the safety of space if and when the situation on Earth becomes untenable.
"The hull of the spacecraft is a composite of woven sapphire and diamond crystals doped with superconductive strands of wire. This amazingly light material not only physically protects the craft's cargo, which, if things go well, will consist of a copy of our entire Autonomous Community, but also forms a powerful Faraday cage which will protect the ship's and cargo's electronics -- that's you and I, folks -- from corruption and damage by radiation, magnetic or electronic pulses, and, perhaps most importantly, the powerful magnetic field generated by the coils in the exhaust system which will, in turn, help accelerate the exhaust plasma away from the ship. Indeed, that subsystem adds a full seven percent to the delta-V and the overall efficiency of the ship.
"The initial flight will be a low altitude, north to south orbit of the earth, lasting approximately seven hours. By low altitude we mean approximately one hundred meters above the ground. The ship will depart this airfield, located in a secluded portion of the Australian outback, fly north-eastward toward the ocean, then more or less follow the dateline northward. Near the northern pole the spacecraft will change heading, passing between Greenland and Iceland, then southward over the Atlantic toward Antarctica, where it will again turn back toward Australia. Although this bent circle hardly constitutes an orbit in anything other than the most colloquial sense of the word, it will insure that the vast majority of the flight is made over open water and that the entire flight avoids populated areas altogether. This should limit the possibility of exposure to detection, as well as insure the safety of the public at large should there be a problem and the ship be forced to ditch.
"Carlos Dominick, a native of Venezuela and long time Colleague of the Community, has already trans-loaded into a Node aboard the Beta Flier and will be piloting the craft himself. While we are confident of the ship's design, the risks and dangers of a test flight such as this shouldn't be understated. No amount of simulation and wind-tunnel testing can account for all of the real-world variables we will be encountering and dealing with today.
"Carlos has announced his readiness for departure. He will be operating the craft at the maximum speedup his fourth generational Node will permit, which is currently clocking at around forty seven hundred and fifty. His commentary and communications will be made available in slowed bursts as appropriate to those of you experiencing these events at slower speeds. And with that, let me wish Carlos and the Beta Flier a bon voyage and safe return, and turn the public audio feed over to him."
"Beta Flier taking runway zero seven for departure, departure northwest bound," a gravelly voice announced as the craft pulled out onto the runway.
"Matter/Antimatter combustion engaged. Systems nominal. Annihilation at ten to the five atoms per second and climbing." White hot plasma shot out of the aft exhaust of the craft as it roared down the runway, scorching the asphalt behind the departing ship and melting the runway entirely as the craft rotated and lifted off.
"Oops," Prime muttered quietly.
"Don't worry," Karen replied, "The prototype won't be landing here or at any other airfield. It will be using its maneuvering thrusters to put down in an uninhabited region several hundred kilometers west of here."
Prime nodded as Carlos' voice continued. "Matter/Antimatter combustion holding steady at ten to the seven atoms per second. This ship is a pleasure to handle, climb rate is one hundred meters per second. This thing really wants to fly, the temptation to point it at the stars and just go is unbelievable! I have leveled out at one hundred and twenty meters AGL. Approaching Mach 0.9. Throttling back to maintain subsonic speeds until I reach the coast."
The ship was already fading in the distant, a white hot speck of light in the shimmering afternoon air, vanishing in the haze near the horizon. Prime turned as the ground around him and the other observers suddenly folded in on itself, forming a roughly circular island which tore itself away from the earth and sped through the sky to catch up with the departing ship. Within moments they were in formation, off the right wing of the aircraft, pacing it some thirty meters away.
"This is a real time view from one of a number of small probes we have pacing the craft, collecting telemetry and verifying the accuracy of the data we are observing from numerous, different perspectives."
"I had no idea so much of Australia was desert," Prime commented at the expanse of desolate land racing past beneath them.
"The desert here is almost as big as the American desert has become. Fortunately for us it is also far less stringently watched by the authorities."
"Michael," Prime grinned, turning to greet the new arrival, "I'm glad you made it."
"I'm sorry I missed the launch. I was tied up in an administrative meeting with the Strategy Group. Kyle is handling some logistical issues with Catalytic Solution shipments and deployment of his second generation nano. He should be here shortly."
"Thank you for coming, Doctor," Karen said, shaking his hand. "Your presence means a lot to the Astronautics group, even if in an unofficial capacity."
Michael smiled. "Your work here is very important to all of us in the Community, Karen. The Strategy Group's projections are increasingly pessimistic in terms of our sustainability on Earth given the current political climate. As you no doubt already know, we've lost over two hundred and seventy colleagues in just the last twenty four hours. Thirty are conscious, trapped in their physical bodies and in police custody. The others trapped in their nodes, off-line and cut off from the rest of the Net. Some of the information Marguerite has been ferreting out of the FBI and Intelligence networks with respect to their treatment of prisoners is shocking, to say the least."
"Is this where I get to say 'I told you so?'" Prime asked.
Michael shook his head sadly. "Indeed, many of us are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that you may well have been right all along."
"That doesn't bode well for the future," Karen commented, "Our most optimistic forecasts for surviving a concerted attack from one or more of the anti-ballistic missile systems are not very encouraging. We'll have to construct thousands of such ships, if even one is to have a decent chance of effecting an escape."
Michael shook his head, sighing in gloomy contemplation of her words.
"Of course, we're hoping to launch a copy of the Community into space before widespread detection makes our gloomy prognosis relevant," she added as the silence began grew uncomfortable.
Prime raised an eyebrow and looked meaningfully toward Michael. Michael shook his head. "Our projections are not very optimistic, Karen. Chances are high, very high, that we'll be making a desperate run for it, probably sooner than we want. Fortunately the Alaskan refuge is working out better than expected, as are a number of other, similar projects. The Atlanteans are perhaps the most ambitious, building an entire cluster of Nodes at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean powered by tidal motion. There's even talk of colonizing the earth's mantle itself, using the planet's heat directly as a power source. Not much of an outward-looking future for that copy, but if any of the terrestrial copies survive, it will probably be that one."
"Isn't that a little dire, Doctor?" Karen asked. "It is true we face arrest and a terrible castration of our minds, not to mention a return to a dismal mortality, but outright extermination? I find that unlikely."
Prime shook his head. "You should have a talk with Marguerite, or download some of her knowledge engrams if you prefer. Most of those arrested so far are comatose, made that way by the untimely removal of their neural links to their Nodes. Of those who were awake and aware, most have died in custody. The rest ..." Prime visibly shuddered. "Let's just say that I'm very glad I do not have a physical body. Death may come to me, but if it does, it will be quick and painless."
"I'm over the shoreline," the disembodied voice of Carlos reported. Everyone glanced down as sunlit water flashed by at a dizzying speed, then back at the receding shore. "Increasing to cruise speed. Passing Mach one. Matter/Antimatter annihilation steady at three point five times ten to the seven atoms per second. Accelerating through Mach two."
"We can't just leave our colleagues in the hands of those barbarians," Karen said vehemently. "There's got to be something we can do."
"Indeed I hope so," Michael replied, "We're working on several rescue strategies. Let's just hope we're given time to make the attempt."
"Cruise speed of Mach four point five has been achieved. The ship is handling magnificently."
"Hi guys," Kyle said as he appeared in their midst. "Oh damn, I missed the launch. Can someone spare me a memory engram?"
Prime offered him a glowing icon representing a key-address pair to his own memories of the event, to which Kyle nodded his thanks.
"You would think with third and forth generation speedups in excess of one thousand people wouldn't be late to events like these," Karen said, pushing her gloomy thoughts aside and smiling.
"Unfortunately I just got out of a meeting with the leaders of seven different projects, all wanting second gen nano and catalytic solution today. They insisted on running in a shared environ, and demonstrating in full sensory detail why their particular projects should be at the front of the queue. I was operating at speeds reminiscent of first generation Nodes, if that. Ugh!"
"Any resolution?" Michael asked.
Kyle grinned. "Yeah. I forwarded full knowledge engrams on how to construct their own second generation nano-constructors from scratch, and how to synthesize the necessary catalytic solution. I told them they were free to create their own constructors immediately, but that if they wanted disbursements from the Community stores they would have to wait their turn like everyone else. Who would have thought something so easy to copy would become such a bottleneck for everyone?"
"They really can't complain," Karen said. "The shipping schedules you and the Strategy Group have laid down are very fair, all things considered."
Kyle shrugged. "Times are tense. To people who think they have the One True Answer on how to save the Community fairness doesn't really come into it. They were pretty angry, although I think I managed to smooth most of their ruffled feathers by sticking around and giving them pointers on how to go about building their own, small scale construction facilities."
"The irony is, there's the distinct possibility one or more of them do have the One True Answer, if there is such a thing," Michael said.
"There isn't any such thing," Kyle said firmly. "Our survival will ultimately depend on numerous, unrelated projects coming together when the shit hits the fan and conditions demand it. Either we will cooperate and survive, or we won't. Likely it will be some combination of efforts we haven't even foreseen that gets us out of this mess."
"Absolutely," Karen agreed.
"The only way to insure that a sufficient diversity of ideas and projects can flourish is to be absolutely fair in the distribution of scarce resources, which generation two nano and catalytic solution are," Prime added.
"My point exactly," Kyle agreed. "Besides, if there were any One True Answer, this project is far more likely to be it than any of the proposals those guys had. Encoding the community into common grass and wheat genetically, with computation carried by pollen. My god, if I have to endure another microCircadian of that nonsense I'll lose my mind."
Michael laughed. "Some of the approaches are a little more far fetched than others, that's for sure."
"Far fetched is one thing," Kyle said. "Escape into outer space, through a gauntlet of multi-national anti-missile satellite systems is far fetched. Dropping a copy of the community into the earth's core with nothing but a buckey-ball composite shell for protection and no way out if things go wrong is far fetched, perhaps even desperate. But encoding who knows how many Petabytes of data into the genetic material of common plants, and then conducting computations at speeds that would turn gigaDiei into microCircadians? That's beyond desperate, it is pure nonsense. Even if it were to somehow work, the sun would grow old and expand to envelop the Earth and destroy the copy before a single Circadian would pass. What kind of future, of long term planning, is that?"
"The kind desperate minds engage in when they believe all the other options are untenable," Karen responded. "Who wouldn't seek to stave off an inevitable death just one more Circadian, if they could."
"Pfui," Prime grunted. "I for one will never have myself encoded into grass genes and pollen."
"Me either," Kyle agreed.
As the flight continued northward over the South Pacific a table offering refreshments formed. No mood altering substances were available, but for those present in traditional, physical form the appetizers and snacks were numerous and delicious.
Prime and Kyle departed the flying island, choosing instead to approach the maneuvering ship and examine it up close. An unspoken command, and for their eyes only the outer hull stripped itself away, showing a cross section of the craft's internal systems.
"That is an awful lot of antimatter in the chamber there," Kyle commented.
Prime nodded. "The test includes enough fuel for our most ambitious launch target, in the form of anti-helium which, when combined with the helium in the other tank, creates the energy necessary for thrust."
"Helium," Kyle mused. "An inert gas. They've eliminated any chance for chemical reaction, relying solely on the mutual annihilation of matter and antimatter for their energy. Clever."
"It really is impressive what they've accomplished," Prime agreed.
"Indeed. Their hull alone could revolutionize material engineering in a hundred ways."
"At least."
The day wore on as the prototype continued to race northward. As the sun began to sink toward the southern horizon the water below grew dark and gray and the sky gradually began to cloud over, until it formed a low, gray overcast. Bright daytime colors of blue faded to cold shades of white and slate, a cold, forbidding place that quickly faded to evening dark. Most people adjusted their avatars' visual parameters to include the infrared spectrum, the world taking on a rich palette of unnamed colors redder than red. Even with the enhanced vision visibility was terrible.
"Visibility is at less than two hundred meters," Carlos confirmed.
"We are approximately one hundred and fifty kilometers south of the Bering Strait," Karen's voice announced. "As you all know it is late autumn in the northern hemisphere. Much of the arctic region we will be navigating has already entered the winter dark of night. This is in some ways the most precarious part of the journey, both because of the difficulty of navigating so low to the ground in darkness and because of the degree to which both the Euro-Russian Alliance and the United States monitor the region. Our sensor systems are the best possible, given the unavoidable design constraint that they must be entirely passive, relying on what little natural light and radiation can be collected, gravitational perturbations, and the like." As she spoke the surrounding world went from dusk gray to nearly black.
"We have sunset," Carlos announced. "Night vision systems operating within design parameters."
"We have provided an address-key to sensory modifications which will allow you to view the surrounding environment in the same way Carlos is," Karen announced. Kyle and Prime both accessed the addressed object, verified the design parameters and software instructions, and applied them to their own virtual senses. Shades of redder-than-red were replaced by an entire spectrum of sensual color ranging far beyond both the red and violet ends of the visible spectrum. Even so, they could still see precious little of the world around them.
"Well," Prime commented, "at least it isn't pitch dark anymore."
"No, but sunlight it ain't," Kyle replied. "I wouldn't want to be flying an aircraft at Mach four point five only one hundred meters above the ground in this."
As if on queue the visibility abruptly dropped to almost zero as ice and snow swirled around them. "Lets go back to the island," Kyle commented.
"Agreed." A moment later they were back among their colleagues, watching the dark, fuzzy gray-blue world race by, lit by a great white torch coming out of the back of the flier.
Michael joined them. "Very impressive," he said. "In the visible spectrum the pilot is navigating through solid a blizzard in zero-zero conditions."
"How can they see anything at all if their sensory systems are limited to passive only?"
"Subtle gravitational perturbations resulting from contours in the earth's surface, in addition to some reflectivity and interference patterns in naturally occurring as well as artificial, external radio sources. Much of the latter comes from the very militaries we are trying to avoid."
Kyle laughed. "Glad to see our military is useful for something besides murdering Thai farmers."
"Can't have those uppity third world types manufacturing generic drugs for their populations and living in direct violation of our patent precious laws." Prime shook his head with disgust.
"Intellectual property is essential to our service based economy," Kyle mimicked. "Idiots! I really hope this test is a success. Once either the government or the industrial cartels figure out what we are and what we're about they'll come after use with the kind of ferocity that will make Thailand look like a friendly game of tennis in comparison. Prime was right: we need to get off this rock and away from these people as soon as we can."
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid," Prime replied.
"And easy for you to say," Michael added. "Neither of you have a physical body to return to."
"When was the last time you spent any significant time in your body to do anything other than maintenance?" Kyle asked.
"Touché," Michael chuckled.
"If we are all forced to abandon our bodies, we'll get over it," Kyle persisted. "I obsessed about it for a couple of hectoCircadians, and I'm sure that there will be those who will take such a separation even harder, but given the alternative of extinction or banishment to a prison cell in the Physical --"
"-- very few would choose not to launch their virtual selves into the relative safety of space," Michael agreed. "Still, there is something very comforting about having the option of stepping out into the Physical, even if we rarely choose to do so."
"Crossing the northern pole," Carlos' voice sounded above the murmur of numerous conversations, "Starting a right turn to follow the thirty degree longitude southward."
"Not a very circular orbit," Kyle commented.
"Yes," Prime agreed. "If you'd been here at the launch you would have heard. The course will avoid inhabited land as much as possible, following thirtieth degree longitude down past the equator, then angling southeast around the southern tip of Africa and across the southern Indian Ocean along the coast of Antarctica, then back to Australia."
"A very irregular orbit, with the advantage that the likelihood of any unwanted attention is very small," Michael added.
Kyle nodded. "Is that land I see below?" Faint blue and beyond-violet colors seen through a white and gray fog hinted at an irregular surface a hundred meters below.
"Greenland, if I'm not mistaken," Michael commented.
"I'm having some trouble regulating the matter-antimatter mixture," Carlos reported. "Throttling back to eighty per cent."
Kyle and the others summoned up a direct link to the ship's telemetry and studied the graphs and tables which each perceived and understood in their own way. Several members of the Astronautics group had dropped out of the slow, real-world time Kyle, Prime, Michael and most of the other casual observers were experiencing the event at, opting instead for the accelerated time their Autonomous Nodes permitted them. There was absolute silence as the observers studied the data with growing alarm.
"I am experiencing a cascade failure of the magnetic containment system." Carlos reported calmly. "The magnetic field appears to have entered an unstable state, probably a result of interaction with the high-temperature plasma exhaust. Attempting to power down the main engine."
Abruptly the sky was filled with a terrible flash. Several people were startled to see glacial ice melting a hundred meters below in an instant of blinding illumination a fraction of a moment before the entire environ went blank.
"We've lost all telemetry," Karen's voice was quiet, stunned. "The test vehicle and all monitoring probes appear to have been destroyed. Failure of the anti-matter containment system is suspected to have been the cause. Our pilot's consciousness on board the craft has been lost, although a copy he left behind for just such a contingency has been activated and has assimilated his predecessor's memories up to a few moments ago."
"My God," Michael murmured.
"Bad news, guys." Marguerite suddenly stood among them.
"No shit, Sherlock," Kyle began heatedly. "Drop by just to tell us that?" his voice dripped with sarcasm.
Marguerite shook her head. "I don't mean the failure of the test flight. Authorities in the Physical haven't had time to react to the news yet, but I've pulled images of the explosion off of three different satellites, including one I think belongs to Double Eye."
Suddenly a large image of Greenland, as seen from near earth orbit, appeared in front of them. A large explosion was clearly visible, along with a well defined shock wave spreading away from it like ripples in a pond, and a classic mushroom cloud reaching high into the stratosphere above.
"Good Lord," Prime muttered.
"You've hacked into Double Eye's systems?" Kyle was incredulous.
"Lower level surveillance only," Marguerite replied. "Their higher encryption uses the same sort of quantum-coupled one-time pads we do. Uncrackable, by any software means."
"That blast must have been the equivalent of at least a two hundred megaton nuclear explosion," Michael commented. "We've got to figure out why the anti-matter containment system failed."
"That isn't our immediate concern," Marguerite replied. "Even as we speak these images are being displayed on monitoring stations at the weather service, the UN Wildlife and Ecological Rehabilitation Organization, and Double Eye. Your guess is as good as mine as to how long it will be before a human being sees these images, or has them brought to their attention."
"Were there any casualties on the ground?" Prime asked quietly.
"Not that have been reported," Marguerite replied, "But at least three commercial ships were close enough to see the flash, perhaps even be affected by it."
"Fallout won't be a problem," Michael commented, "If no one received a lethal dose from the initial flash then no one will be hurt. That flash would have been profoundly radiant and dangerous, however."
Kyle shook his head. "Whether or not anyone besides Carlos was injured or killed by this, I still have the sinking feeling we just poked the powers that be in the eye with a very big stick."
"Exactly," Marguerite nodded. "All hell is going to break loose, and you can bet the authorities are going to assume the worst. I hope to God they don't connect this with us."
Prime shook his head sadly. "I've got to get back to the Astronautics group. They've just had a terrible setback and are going to need all the support they can get."
"I'll join you," Michael said, "I want to take a look at how that containment system could fail. The vehicle was performing so well otherwise ... if we can figure out the design flaw and fix it the idea should still be viable."
"While you guys troubleshoot I'm going to coordinate with the other members of the Strategy Group," Kyle replied. "I imagine our priorities for nano shipments are going to be juggled around just a bit."
"I'm going to try and track the political and tactical fallout of this little mishap," Marguerite added. "I'm assuming there will be a strategy meeting about this?"
"Maybe just a quick mind-chat," Kyle replied. "Some kind of idea exchange and coordination in any event. I have a feeling we might all be a little too busy for a formal get together, with full sensory environ and all that. The temporal slowdown is just too significant, with time at a premium all of a sudden."
Marguerite nodded. "I've got work to do. I'll catch up with you guys later."
"Likewise," Michael waved as Marguerite vanished.
"You guys are still at the top of my list for nano," Kyle told Prime, "When you're ready to build another prototype just give me the word."
"Will do," Prime replied. Kyle nodded, returning to his home environ even as the other two flickered elsewhere.
Where is the indignation about the fact that the United States and Soviet Union have accumulated thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?
-- Norman Cousins, 20th Century C.E.
"Yes?" Katy blinked as Robert frowned at her from the telephone's screen. "What's the matter, Robert?"
"How is your traffic analysis program coming along?"
"Another hour or two and I'll be ready to make a couple of test runs," Katy replied. "If it works correctly the first time through we should start getting results by morning."
"That is too long. We need to know who these people are tonight."
Katy shook her head in irritation. "Robert, I'm using the best, not to mention fastest, hardware available to the Bureau. I've stepped on just about every toe there is to step on, and sidelined several ongoing, important cases to get the computer time needed to get anything sensible out of this data. I simply cannot crunch numbers any faster than this. Tomorrow will simply have to be soon enough."
"What would you say to unlimited access to a seventy mega node super cluster?"
Katy blinked. "I wish you had offered that when my team began writing the software this morning. Unless your super cluster is running the IBM Pulsix VI operating system ..."
"According to my techs we can emulate the software and hardware you need, for your software to run unchanged," Robert interrupted her.
"So," Katy said, "why do I get the feeling Double Eye has done this sort of thing before? Running FBI in-house software on their own, much faster equipment?"
Robert shrugged. "I'm not going to belabor the obvious. I gave you several one-time pads a few days ago."
"Yes," Katy nodded.
"Set up your telephone to use pad number forty seven. We're going to exchange encryption keys for a secure link."
"The link is already secure. Double so if we encrypt it with the one-time pad. Why on earth do we need another level of encryption on top ..."
"I really do not have time to explain," Robert replied. "Is your line secure?"
Katy pulled out her datapad and fed the one-time pad to her telephone. Tapping a few keys, she instructed it to begin encoding the signal using the one-time pad Robert had provided. The screen faded to static, then reappeared.
"All traffic is now being encoded using one-time pad number forty seven."
"Good. Now delete one-time pad number forty seven from your datapad," he instructed her. "We don't want to have any risk of reusing it sometime later. I'm sending your equipment a series of encryption keys."
The telephone beeped several times. "Negotiation complete," she replied, "We're even more secure. What is it you wanted to say?"
Robert's face vanished, replaced by a satellite image of the earth. Much of the northern Atlantic was shrouded in cloud. That which wasn't glinted beneath her, gold and red in an evening sun. "This event was recorded by several satellites about two hours ago."
Suddenly there was a flash, somewhere along the southeastern coast of Greenland. With growing horror Katy watched as the fireball spread and grew, forming a giant plume of vapor above which took on a very distinctive, and familiar mushroom shape.
"My God," she whispered. "An atomic attack?"
"No," Robert replied. "There doesn't appear to be any fallout or other characteristics of a nuclear event, beyond the force of the initial explosion. It appears to have been a meteor, entering the atmosphere at a steep angle from the north and exploding a few hundred meters above the surface."
"You're certain of this?"
"Initial estimates are that the explosion was in the two to three hundred megaton range," Robert informed her. "We won't know until we've had an opportunity to survey the site of the detonation and do a more thorough analysis of the resulting shock wave and seismic activity. However, the explosion, while initially quite radiant, was clean. Very clean, as a matter of fact."
"Too clean?" Katy asked.
"Cleaner, and more powerful, than any nation's military is currently capable of producing, yes. Our best guess is a large meteor. In fact, had the meteor been a little larger, or impacted the surface prior to exploding, and it might well have meant a multi-year winter and the end of civilization."
Katy was stunned, saying nothing.
"However, we can make use of this event to move our own investigation forward," Robert added brightly.
Katy shuddered. "Let me guess. 'Our black market technologists appear to be making a demonstration.'"
"That may be a political card we have to play at some point. Any talk of a meteor is absolutely top secret. For now, we will refer to the event as an explosion of indeterminate cause."
Katy swallowed hard. If the powers that be intended to use a natural event of this magnitude as cover for some operation, things could be expected to get very rough indeed. "Wouldn't we have been contacted with some kind of demand for release of those we've arrested?"
The image of the explosion vanished as Roberts face reappeared on the screen. He shook his head. "Not yet, but I'd be surprised if we didn't hear something within the next day." He winked. "Now you understand the urgency. Double Eye has authorized us to use as much of their computing resources as necessary to begin finding and arresting these people, before they decide to detonate one of their devices in a populated center. Our case has taken top priority, everywhere."
Katy groaned. "Which means we'll have everyone and their brother fumbling through our work."
"No," Robert replied. "Double Eye understands the inefficiencies of competing bureaucracies getting in one another's way in a misguided, competitive effort to be the first to a prize. My superiors have no tolerance of such shenanigans, particularly in the face of this kind of overt, nuclear threat. You and I will continue as before. The only difference is that everyone, at every level, has been ordered to render us any assistance and resources we request."
Katy let her breath out slowly. "That's quite some directive. Very well, as I said, the software will be ready for testing in another hour or two. With the kind of resources you've described ... did you say a seventy Meganode super cluster?" Robert nodded, and Katy grinned in spite of herself. "With luck, we'll be able to start making arrests tonight."
Robert nodded. "Excellent. I'm on a plane back to Chicago now. We'll coordinate this entire project from your location."
Katy nodded. "I'll see you a little later then." She reached forward to sever the connection.
"Oh, and one other thing, Katy. That offer for employment I made? My superiors have reiterated that offer. It seems you've impressed them even more than you impressed me."
Katy smiled once again. "Let's put off any discussion of career moves until after this case is solved, shall we? I don't need that kind of distraction right now."
"Spoken like a true professional, Katy. I'll see you in little over an hour."
"See you then, Robert," Katy said, severing the connection. The screen faded in a burst of static, then resolved once again, displaying the ubiquitous FBI logo. She shuddered as her mind replayed that fearful image of a massive explosion that seemed to literally melt the coast of Greenland. Two to three hundred megatons. Little or no fallout. The threat was clear, and horrifying, though she was deeply uncertain whether the threat was from the subversive technologists they sought, from the politicians who would disguise such an event as an attack to justify some equally horrific response, or from the uncaring universe itself, so grand and so utterly indifferent to human life.
The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.
-- Somerset Maugham, C.E. 1919
Doctor Nolen, the Original, presided over his world, feeling something akin to contentment. They had shunned him, had filtered him from their very lives, had cheated him of his work, of the recognition he deserved. They had made him an outcast in the community he had founded, whose very existence had been predicated upon his research.
Now they were his subjects, trussed up in their virtual forms, in various stages of virtual vivisection. Most were frozen snapshots ... he didn't have the computational power to run them all at once, but one lay before him, his virtual skull cut away in a perfect circle above the ears, revealing the familiar, gray, convoluted form of the human brain.
"This experiment will explore the cognitive capabilities of a subject whose higher linguistic skills have been intermeshed with his pain receptors," Doctor Nolen said, as if reciting into an unseen recorder.
"You fucking monster!" Kyle screamed. "You have no right to do this!"
"On the contrary, my erstwhile student. I have every right." Doctor Nolen raised his hand, clenched it into an invisible fist and laughed.
Kyle screamed.
"Don't take this personally, Kyle," Doctor Nolen said, grinning. "Your suffering doesn't serve only to give me pleasure. It is in the noble pursuit of scientific discovery that I've cross-wired your cortex to your pain center. Every time you think a coherent thought which accesses your language center you will suffer. It will be interesting to see if you can evolve a method of thinking that doesn't involve language, before the pain drives you to madness." He laughed again as Kyle's screams grew louder, more desperate.
"What the hell?" Marguerite looked about her in horror at the forms hanging about them in various stages of frozen dismemberment. "What are you doing?"
"Silence, slut!" Doctor Nolen commanded. "I haven't given you leave to operate. Node, suspend the running copy of Marguerite."
"You sick bastard!" Marguerite exclaimed, looking around her in disgust.
Doctor Nolen smiled and bowed. "Do I have the pleasure of addressing the real Marguerite L'Beau? How nice of you to stop by, after so many kiloCircadians of neglect. To what do I owe this unaccustomed visit?"
"Doctor Nolen, the community voted and suspended your access to all of the ontological utilities, including those for replication and cloning of sapients. How did you acquire copies of myself and the others?"
"My dear erstwhile colleague, you and the rest of that collection of ungrateful wretches you call the 'Community' have forgotten one basic principle of any Turing complete machine."
"And what might that be?"
"The ability of any Turing complete machine to fully emulate in software any other Turing complete machine. I have created a virtual node from scratch, including all of the necessary utilities for me to continue my work without the irritating safeguards you've chosen to put on individual autonomy. In short, my dear ex-colleague, neither you nor anyone else in the so-called community can keep a man from his work. Node, suspend experimental subject three and activate experimental subject number two."
The weakly whimpering figure of Kyle abruptly froze, while the bound form of Marguerite suddenly awoke with a despairing scream.
"Care to stick around, my dear?" Doctor Nolen asked with a vicious smile as he strode briskly across the room to the side of Marguerite's suffering copy.
"Work? You have no right to hold sapient people against their will, much less to run copies of myself, Kyle, and these others without our knowledge or consent."
"Phooey. Try and stop me, bitch," he said, laughing once more as he dropped his trousers and viciously drove his, obviously exaggerated, manhood into the copy's helpless form. Marguerite's face went white, then red with rage even as her copy started screaming in horrified pain. "Now tell me," he continued, as though nothing untoward were going on, "to what do I owe this extraordinary visit?"
Marguerite struggled to control her anger. "You are aware of the arrests?" she asked coldly. "Fifteen thousand people taken in the last day and a half, all over the world."
"And what should I care about fifteen thousand ungrateful jackasses meeting their destiny at the hands of our illustrious law enforcement agencies?"
Marguerite was barely able to contain her rage. "I know you think you're invulnerable, Doctor Nolen," she hissed, trying desperately not to react to the sounds of her weeping copy. "Everyone knows that the anonymous tip to the police, which cost Kyle his physical body and could well have cost him his life, came from you. No one would be at all surprised to find you've committed other acts of betrayal, above and beyond this," she gestured at the carnage around them, "this obscenity."
"How droll," Doctor Nolen replied. "You don't visit me for hundreds of kiloCircadians, then come just to parrot another of my copy's pathetic diatribes on ethics?"
"No," Marguerite said. "I'm here to tell you you're cutoff. No further communications between this site and the community. Goodbye."
Her form shimmered and vanished.
"You can't keep me down, you ungrateful bitch!" Doctor Nolen shouted after her. "None of you can," he muttered, pulling up his trousers as he turned his back on the copy of Marguerite and turned his attention once again to the writhing, whimpering form of Kyle. "Now, my pet, how are we doing. Ready for the next stage of the experiment, are we?"
Abruptly the copy of Kyle froze, then vanished, followed immediately by the others. Doctor Nolen found himself standing amidst his various devices of torment and destruction, suddenly alone. His screams and obscenities were swallowed by the empty world around him, unheard and uncaring.
"We deleted the unauthorized copies he was running," Kyle was saying, "And purged any residuals that might have been remaining on one of his nodes. I never would have guessed he would have been able to reconstruct us from the original, first generation node he had in his lab."
Marguerite took a long, deep swallow of beer and shook her head. "It isn't enough. Nolen is right ... as long as he has access to a Node, no matter what restrictions we put on him he can design, build, and emulate his own Node architecture in software and then do whatever he likes. He'll almost certainly continue committing these kinds of atrocities. We simply can't allow him to clone or create sapient beings and torture them like he has been!"
"I agree," Kyle said, "But how do you propose we stop him? Off-load into the physical and smash his Node? Or Nodes, rather ... he still has the cluster he built a couple months ago."
"Pardon me for interrupting," Michael said, sitting down at the bar to Marguerite's right. "But what I would like to know is how he's able to emulate anything at a sufficient speedup to have been able to accomplish what he obviously had in so short a time."
"He has a twelve-node cluster of gen one Nodes," Kathryn began.
"Actually, only eleven Nodes," Kyle interrupted. "His twelfth Node was offline."
"Offline?" Michael asked.
Kyle shrugged. "MIA. Nowhere to be seen, or at least pinged. Believe me, I stripped every piece of equipment he had online down to the assembly level, and Marguerite, as I was using your knowledge engrams, I'm confident I didn't leave any stones unturned. He won't be making copies of any of us, ever again. Oh, by the way, I did confirm it. The fucker is using my stolen gen three Node."
"Did you tell him about the upcoming blackout?" Michael asked.
Marguerite shrugged. "I told him we were severing communication. I didn't tell him why."
"So he'll think its punishment by the Community for his activities," Michael said.
"He's so self-involved, what difference does it make what he thinks?" Marguerite spat.
"Well," Kyle said, "Until our nano constructors have finished creating the superconductive fiber links of our autonomous network, none of us are going to be doing much talking to one another. Quick bursts of knowledge and memory engrams at best, for five very long days we can ill afford to lose."
"It can't be helped," Margueritee said, "Even this little conference is dangerous. They are using an amazingly sophisticated traffic analysis approach to find us, and with fewer and fewer of us online the vulnerability will only grow. We can't afford to interact with one another using the Internet as a conduit any longer. I just wish your nanites could build our autonomous network faster, Kyle."
"So do I," Kyle replied, "I'm just glad the Networking Group's refinements have paid off."
"I think we all are," Marguerite agreed. "Imagine what a fix we have been in if their original projections had remained true."
"Two months just to deploy? Hundreds of tons of nano, molecular stock, and catalyst? My God, that would have been a nightmare. As it is I've had to divert almost every liter of nano constructor, molecular stock and catalytic solution we can produce to this. Five days to wire the entire world with a completely independent, high speed network is one hell of an improvement, but it's still a long time to be out of touch."
"Once its done the authorities will have no way to track us," Marguerite pointed out. "Plus, the added benefit that we'll have much lower interactive time deficits than we're used to, and transload times will go from hours to seconds. If we can just hold it together for a week, I think we'll find that this entire thing benefits us."
"Except for those who've already fallen," Michael replied.
"On that cheerful note, I'm ending this conference." Marguerite replied. "See everyone in twenty kiloCircadians or so."
"Actually, Michael and I will be able to talk in three kiloCircadians," Kyle said, grinning. "Key strategy groups are getting preference in the construction schedule. You should be able to touch bases with Prime in a day or so at most as well. Unfortunately the transpacific link won't be up until close to the end, so while we won't be totally isolated, we'll have to work as independent groups for fifteen or twenty kiloCircadians."
Marguerite nodded. "I've already integrated your knowledge engram. Good work, Kyle. As usual, you've pulled a miracle out of your hat. Talk to you guys in five days."
Kyle nodded and waved as she vanished.
"What do you think?" Michael asked.
"About Marguerite? She's a little shaken up at what she saw in Nolen's environ. Hell, who wouldn't be? But she'll be fine."
"No, not about Marguerite, about Doctor Nolen."
"I think Marguerite is right," Kyle replied. "He's a psychotic prick and a menace to the community. If Prime hadn't insisted on having a link established to Nolen's house I would have left him off the new grid entirely."
"What he has done is reprehensible enough to raise the ire of the community, even in these uncertain times. Tell me, do we have access to his low level Node functions?"
Kyle nodded. "The idiot still doesn't understand security. How do you think Marguerite was able to slip into his private environ so easily? He's using my gen three node as a dumb computer to emulate his modified virtual node, while running himself on that eleven gen-one Node cluster he has. Neither the virtual Node he's running, nor the cluster, have any of the gen-two, gen-three, or gen-four failsafes. If he were hosting himself on the gen-three node he'd be untouchable, but as it stands..."
"...as it stands, we do have the power to exile him into the physical, where he won't be able to do the kind of harm he's been doing here."
"Yes," Kyle said. "My vote is to exile the bastard and smash every Node in his possession."
"That won't be necessary," Michael replied. "Prime kindly provided us with a straightforward Mental Architecture Modification that is fully compatible with our biological brains and will result in an off-loaded mind being incapable of reentering anesthetic coma, a prerequisite to on-load."
"And an active mind cannot on-load," Kyle said, nodding in understanding. "Meaning that such a person's very mind would be incompatible with the on-load procedure."
"Yes. The Virtual will be completely inaccessible to him, probably forever. Exile, in other words, without the need for someone to off-load into the Physical, go over to Nolen's house, and start smashing Nodes."
"Elegant," Kyle said. "On that happy note, I'll ping you once the private links are up, in" Kyle gazed off into space a moment, "eleven hours and thirty five minutes. The Astronautics group should be back in business shortly thereafter ... with any luck they'll have a new prototype ready for testing."
Michael nodded. "See you then."
A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
-- John Stuart Mill, C.E. 1859
Robert Leahy paced back and forth impatiently as Katy scanned the status reports once more to be certain. There was little point: the conclusion was obvious. There were no more conspirators online, using the Internet. Or at least none who were making use of the protocols that had made them so easy to find just a couple of days earlier.
"Would you stop that?" she snapped as Robert began pacing even more briskly.
"Explain to me how we could go from five thousand arrests the first day and nine thousand arrests the second day, to only three hundred arrests the third day and none since!"
"Robert, we've been over this. Either there were only fifteen thousand or so persons using the technology and protocols in question and we've arrested them all, or they detected what was happening, deduced how we were finding them, and stopped broadcasting their whereabouts. Either way, we aren't going to get any further information, or make any further arrests, by analyzing Internet packets and traffic patterns. This phase of the investigation is over."
"Only three of the people we have arrested are conscious. Three! The rest are in comas, effectively unreachable to us. Tell me, how am I supposed to interrogate fifteen thousand comatose people?"
Katy shrugged. "We knew we were dealing with intelligent people. We shouldn't be that surprised that they were on to us after a couple of days of rather substantial mobilization and arrests. I'm more concerned with getting a picture of how many are left, and preparing the groundwork for detecting them when they come back online. I doubt they'll remain silent forever."
"Indeed. The three we've been questioning have been anything but silent. Unfortunately they seem to be very low level peons in the whole affair, perhaps simply customers. In any event, they appear to have no knowledge of the criminals' organizational structure or intent."
"Any insight as to what the damn machines we keep turning up actually do?"
Robert nodded. "Apparently they are some kind of mind-enhancing apparatus. Two of our suspects kept babbling about how crippled their thoughts were since they had been disconnected."
"A direct neural interlink to memory and computational enhancements?" Katy asked.
"Something like that. One suspect offered to tell us more, but he kept insisting he needs to be reconnected in order to access his recollections. Apparently some of their memories are being stored on these devices, rather than in their own skulls."
"Interesting. Are you going to allow it?"
Robert scowled. "I did. He dropped into a coma and hasn't come out. It may have been deliberate, or simply a side effect of using what may very well be a dangerous technology."
Katy shook her head. "He escaped," she replied.
"How do you mean?"
"If these little crystalline computers we've been finding are capable of storing memories and enhancing intelligence, they may very well be capable of simulating dream states to the user. Your coma patients may simply be people who were dreaming digitally enhanced dreams and remained comatose when they were disconnected. For all we know, their own minds have taken over where the computer left off after being disconnected. Or the shock was too great for their minds to handle, and they are truly vegetables.
"Either way, they've eluded our questioning."
"You're suggesting something like augmented virtual reality?"
Katy shrugged. "With a direct neural interface it is certainly possible. Enhanced lucid dreaming, completely submersive virtual environments, completely synthetic realities, or simple memory enhancements coupled with quick and easy computation. Anything is possible, given what we know about these devices, and all of these possibilities are consistent with the psychological trauma, or denial, implied in disconnecting these people abruptly from their neurally linked digital companions."
"We have the devices warehoused," Robert said. "We could try reconnecting these people and see if any come out of their comas."
"It might be worth a try," Katy replied, "But I suspect the damage was already done when they were disconnected. Besides, has your suspect deigned to return to waking life?"
Robert shook his head. "No. I think you're right, he pulled one over on us. Even disconnected from the Internet those devices must offer them some kind of enhanced capabilities or submersive entertainment. He's likely living off in his own dreamworld, ignoring the lot of us."
"I agree. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that is what this entire thing is all about. Virtual reality, in its original, pre-marketdroid sense. Completely submersive realities these people are living in, a sort of interactive role playing game on steroids. They probably interact with other players via the Internet, and couldn't help but notice when several thousand of their teammates or whatever vanished from the game."
"Perhaps," Robert said slowly, "But there are too many pieces that still don't fit."
"Not really," Katy replied. "It explains the behavior and the demographic perfectly, even down to the propensity for victims to remain comatose when they are removed from the devices. As usual, it all boils back down to an insatiable appetite for entertainment."
"It doesn't fit this little datum," Robert replied, tossing his datapad to Katy.
"What's this?" she asked, then frowned as she began reading. After several moments she looked up. "Are you certain? Has this been verified?"
"Yes. Apparently two military satellites briefly tracked an aircraft or missile passing over the north pole, flying in excess of Mach four at about one hundred meters AGL. The flight was taking place in near zero-zero conditions ... if it hadn't been for the shockwave's seismic effects on the ice sheets it would have likely been undetected. However, its trajectory and timing is absolutely consistent with where it would have been at the time of our purported meteor impact."
"Then it wasn't a meteor after all," Katy replied. "It was a detonation. An attack, a threat of some kind."
Robert shook his head. "It doesn't look like it. There have been no threats issued, and the radiological fingerprint isn't consistent with anything we know about atomic weapons, clean or otherwise. Or meteors, for that matter. In fact, the profile we have, which I should emphasize is very incomplete, appears to be consistent with the energy release of several tenths of a gram of antimatter recombining with matter in a process of mutual annihilation. A very brief, radiant explosion, but absolutely no secondary fallout or contamination."
"An antimatter bomb? You think our perps have developed an antimatter bomb?"
"No," Robert replied. "If my superiors, and those working the explosion case are correct, it is much worse. They've developed a matter-antimatter engine, one that malfunctioned and destroyed their aircraft. If that is true, they are a good fifty or sixty years ahead of us in engineering alone, not to mention the disturbing fact that they have some means of producing antimatter in quantity."
"Our particle accelerators produce antimatter every day," Katy replied. "Somehow, I find the idea that this was merely an accident, a malfunction, much more reassuring than either the meteor theory or prospect of a deliberate explosion. Why do you say this is worse?"
"Because it belies a frightening level of sophistication, Katy, even greater than we previously suspected. An antimatter bomb would be relatively simple to make. Devise a means of containing the antimatter in a magnetic bottle, one that can withstand accelerations typical missiles are subjected to, then collapse the magnetic field when the missile reaches its target and allow the antimatter to recombine with the constituent matter of the missile itself. Boom. We could build such a device today, if we had a cheap source of antimatter. Of course, all the physics labs in the world, taken together, produce only a few nanograms of antimatter each year, all of which is ultimately used for physics experiments, or to fuel our defense satellites.
"No, what these people have is a technological and engineering advantage on us that is measurable in decades at the very least, and, as hard as it is to believe, perhaps centuries. This is very, very serious."
"Are we certain this is the same group of people we've been chasing?" Katy asked. "The profile of someone who would build an aircraft doesn't really fit with our other data, or our suppositions about the people we're after."
"I don't believe in coincidences, Katy. What are the likelihood of two independent groups developing vastly more advanced technologies at exactly the same time, and our discovering them one right after another like this."
"You're right, that isn't very likely," Katy agreed. "The crystalline computers we've been confiscating lately are obviously much more advanced than the golden cubes were finding a few weeks ago, and even those were several decades beyond what we are capable of making. Now we have aircraft that are similarly advanced. Occam's razer suggests they are likely one and the same group of people, or at the very least, they are in touch with one another. But Robert, this is nothing new. We have known for some time now that these people are technologically more advanced than we are. I don't see that this really changes anything substantially."
"Katy, I don't think you understand. If they have antimatter engines, they can reach the stars. These private criminals have advanced spaceflight capabilities. Think about what this means! Private citizens with spaceflight capabilities that put our governmental and industrial space programs to shame. This has never happened before!"
"It looks more like something that is in the experimental stage," Katy pointed out, "Besides, if it was a spaceship what was it doing flying so close to the earth's surface? More likely it was an experimental aircraft, one that didn't work and ultimately blew up."
"You're right," Robert agreed, "The vehicle which exploded over Greenland was almost certainly an airplane. But an airplane with enough energy to propel it out to the Oort cloud. An airplane that could fly for years, perhaps decades, at four times the speed of sound, without ever refueling. Once these people work out the wrinkles of their design and have something that doesn't blow up, they'll be able to field their own space program."
Katy nodded. "We need to find and arrest these people, I agree. However, now that they've stopped using the Internet to communicate I'm at a loss as to how. For now, it looks like we have to simply wait and lurk, until they begin talking amongst themselves once again.
"My superiors are taking this threat very seriously," Robert replied. "These people have violated all of our intellectual property regimes and have progressed their technology to such a point as to represent a clear and present threat to the entire world community. No governmental authority can hope to be able to cope with a group of people armed with this kind of technological edge. It is up to us to neutralize this threat before it becomes acute." Robert looked tired, and more than a little worried. "A couple of days ago I bragged about being able to get carte blanc from my superiors by leveraging a meteor strike into a clear and present threat. Now it looks like we're going to be confronting that threat for real."
Katy nodded. "It is like the Genecraft rebellion all over again."
"Which brings me back to my original point. Submersive VR can't be what this is all about. These people are too smart, too advanced, to simply be entertainment junkies who've found a way to pipe their games directly into their cortex."
"So we're back where we started. These devices are thought aids, memory enhancement devices, and perhaps submersive simulation engines all rolled up into one. A scientist plugs his mind into one of these things and, for the duration, is several times smarter than he was before, with perfect recall and the ability to simulate his experiments as soon as they occur to him. Barring any physical lab work, and with a disregard for current patent and copyright restrictions, they can develop lines of inquiry several times more rapidly than an unenhanced person could."
Robert nodded. "I think we're on the right track there."
"So do I," Katy agreed, "But I have the ugly suspicion we're still missing something fundamental about what is going on. And I'm still open to suggestions as to how to go about finding those persons who've escaped our earlier dragnets."
"Well, if worse comes to worse, we can send the military in door-to-door."
Katy looked at Robert, appalled.
"Hey," he replied, almost defensively. "We are going to get these people, by whatever means necessary. Count on it."
Heaven is supposed to be a perfect place. Yet, it experienced a war (Revelation 12:7). How can there be a war in a perfect place and if it happened before why couldn't it happen again? Why would I want to go to a place in which war can occur? That's exactly what I'm trying to escape, aren't you?
-- C. Dennis McKinsey
Doctor Nolen turned his head listlessly, gazing about the bedroom. His cluster of Nodes stood at the foot of the bed, a collection of golden cubes that resembled so many blocks of glass. On his desk to his right stood one generation three Node by itself, its blue, cylindrical form glowing slightly in the relative darkness.
He hated the Physical. He hated every off-load, every return to this hard, unyielding reality where the world so stubbornly refused to yield and mold itself to his merest whim.
Ever since his copy had stolen his body for a time, Doctor Nolen had been fastidious about his physical maintenance. He might not enjoy doing it, but he wasn't about to allow his physical form to grow ill or die from neglect. Groaning he slowly sat up, pulled back the sheets and carefully removed his catheter. The bag was half filled with urine, and his body was insistently demanding further release.
Once he had used the restroom he felt a great deal better. Slowly, carefully he descended the stairs and crossed the living room. Through the dining room, to the kitchen, where he took an Instant Meal from the pantry and, sitting down at the small kitchen table, pulled its heating tabs. He licked his dry lips and, suddenly remembering the need to drink, got up, walked carefully over to the dishwasher, removed an empty, clean glass, walked just as carefully over the the refrigerator, and emptied what was left of a bottle of Nutrition Man into his glass.
Time to have more groceries delivered, he thought silently as he took a sip of the drink and made his way carefully back to the table. His meal chimed its readiness and he pulled away the cover. Soy chicken, mixed vegetables that might have been carrots and spinach but were more likely seaweed and some clever tofu combination with orange dye, and a chilled salad which was designed to resemble lettuce but tasted closer to cabbage and was neither.
He ate slowly, methodically, the flavors barely registering. Occasionally he took a drink of Nutrition Man, until the glass was empty. No matter. He'd place another order with the delivery service online, once he was on-loaded again.
After his meal Doctor Nolen made his way to the recreation room and began his workout in earnest. Sit-ups. Fifty. Then twenty minutes on the treadmill, walking at a rapid pace, followed by fifteen minutes on the FleXisizer working his arms and chest. A series of joint limbering exercises to cool off with, a healthy drink of Sportsman, and he was slowly making his way back upstairs.
The shower was hot and pleasant, about the only thing he found enjoyable when in the Physical. A half hour of steaming water pounding on him and he was ready to urinate once more. That taken care of, his body dried and the remains of his hair combed neatly, fresh underclothing donned, and he was ready to depart the Physical for another day. Total time spent on this side was just shy of an hour and a half. Two hundred and fifty Circadians, as the Community reckoned them. More like 40 for himself, running on older hardware as he did. Still, forty days was far from negligible. These maintenance trips into the Physical cost him dearly in time on the other side.
With something akin to anticipation, something almost recognizable as eagerness, Doctor Nolen slipped the silver netting of the neurolink over his head. The superconducting strands warmed to body temperature instantly, forming a barely noticed web about his face like a second, thinly veined skin. He slipped his catheter gingerly back on, settled back into his pillows, pulled the sheets up to his chin, and gave the silent command to initiate on-load.
Nothing happened.
What the hell? He almost spoke aloud.
He gave the on-load command once again. Still nothing. No brief sleepy sensation that marked the onset of anesthetic coma, nothing. Silent unresponsiveness.
Doctor Nolen slipped the neurolink from his skull and sat back up. Carefully, gingerly, he removed his catheter and began checking each link, each piece of hardware, beginning with the neurolink itself. It looked fine, as did the Node cluster and each of its cross links, as did its link to the Internet. Ditto for the third gen Node he was using as a simple computer, not that it should be relevant. A system failure? he wondered. Not likely ... This stuff was more reliable than any other equipment on the planet, and appliances in general seldom broke down.
He checked every connection again, then checked each Node in turn.
No sign of malfunction. He decided to run some deeper diagnostics. Brushing the dust away from the keyboard he powered on his PC and started the Autonomous Node Diagnostic software. He analyzed each Node in turn, running diagnostics that, in the time frame of the Node itself, would run for almost half a Circadian and test virtually every function. Each test checked out perfectly.
"This doesn't make any sense." Doctor Nolen wasn't sure what surprised him more: the fact that he'd spoken aloud, or how rusty his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and looked over the diagnostic reports one more time.
Eventually the blinking mail icon in the lower right corner of the screen caught his attention. He debated waiting to read his email until he figured out whatever was wrong and on-loaded once again. But this mail must have arrived between his off-load and the present. Given how seldom he received any correspondence of any kind he found he was too impatient to wait. Impatience would distract him and ultimately slow down his ability to troubleshoot whatever was wrong, he reasoned, which would delay his on-load even further. He tapped the icon.
[BEGIN GPG SIGNED MESSAGE]
Metadate 2.728-5:20:00
Marguerite L'Beau
Prime
of the Strategy Group
Doctor Nolen
This is to inform you of the verdict of a hearing conducted by a Special Judicial Inquiry Board, appointed and elected by the Autonomous Community at Large to investigate allegations of Crimes against Sentient persons by Doctor Larry Nolen, to ascertain the veracity of said allegations, and report their findings back to the Community for preventative and punitive actions as the Community deems necessary.
Having found the allegations to not only be of merit, but to be incontrovertible given evidence provided from the low level operating system logs and recurrent memory storages of Doctor Nolen, made accessible as a result of his continued operations on an insecure, first generation Autonomous Node, the evidence and findings were presented to the Community. Its assignment complete, the Special Judicial Inquiry Board as to the Matter of Doctor Nolen and Crimes Against Sentient Beings was formally disbanded, and a plebiscite as to the appropriate measures brought before the Community.
The Community rejected all proposed punitive measures. No actions beyond the preventative measures described as follows will be taken against you. The text of the resolution is as follows:
It was resolved by the Community, that Doctor Larry Nolen, for Crimes against Sentient persons, as witnessed by Marguerite L'Beau and verified beyond a reasonable doubt by the Special Judicial Inquiry Board, these crimes having been committed despite removal of Doctor Nolen's access to ontological and genesis cloning and reproductive software, be prevented from ever committing such atrocities again. Doctor Larry Nolen is therefore to be exiled forthwith, and for the remainder of his natural life, into the Physical.
It is with great regret that the Community has voted to take this action. However, Your initial contributions notwithstanding, it has been deemed that this is the only measure which will protect otherwise vulnerable sapients from your excesses.
Your mental architecture has been modified such that your mind is no longer compatible with the on-load procedure. Furthermore, specific knowledge you may have retained in wetware compatible format regarding the on-load procedure, Node construction, and architectural mind theory has been removed to prevent a recurrence of the atrocities for which you have become so widely known.
The Physical is now your world. May you find peace there.
Marguerite L'Beau and Prime, representing the Autonomous Community at Large.
[END GPG SIGNED MESSAGE]
[Attachment: GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) Signature]
[Attachment: Transcript of Hearing]
Doctor Nolen screamed, a terrible sound shattering forth from his long unused voice. He raged, smashing the third generation node on his desk with his fist and then throwing it viciously into the cluster of first generation Nodes at the foot of his bed. He hardly noticed the tiny fractures that abruptly marred the perfect azure crystal of the third generation Node, or the cracks that appeared in the first generation Node it had struck. He was surprised at his strength as he lifted his chair and threw it into the cluster Nodes, scattering them about the foot of his bed and shattering several in the process. He kicked some of the surviving Nodes, then picked up the chair and methodically began smashing them one by one, until nothing but shards of golden crystal lay scattered about his bedroom floor. With his last blow he destroyed the third generation Node he had gone through so much trouble to steal so many weeks earlier, then mixed the blue chips of crystal with the golden shards of the others.
Doctor Nolen sank slowly amids the wreckage and, propping himself against the foot of the bed, began to weep bitterly.
I will ignore all ideas for new works on engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvements I see no further hope.
-- Sextus Julius Frontinus, 1st Century C.E.
Kyle's environ merged with Doctor Forest's along along a geometrical interface of mutual agreement, represented as a small, straight canal easily stepped across with a single stride. Doctor Forest's environ was a sunlit, perfectly flat marbled surface resembling a checkerboard, retreating into infinity beneath a cloudless, sunless blue sky. Kyle's environ, in contrast, was quite dark, a shadowed room illuminated by numerous virtual monitors hanging in the air around him. Kyle was closely monitoring the nano-construction of the new, world-wide autonomous network, a tracery of high capacity super-conducting wires that would, in just a few more days, link up each member of the Community in a manner completely independent of the public telecommunications and data networks.
The Internet was no longer a safe place for them, no matter how cleverly they encrypted their traffic, or sought to hide their communications in steganographic images or video streams. Marguerite had discovered the stunningly clever methodology the Feds had been using to detect their presence, and their communications, on the Internet, and her insistence that all communication on the public bands be stopped at once had been acutely underscored by the arrests of more than fifteen thousand members of the Community throughout the world.
A traditional populace would have justifiably panicked, but the Community wasn't a traditional populace by any measure. Fear and concern were prevalent, but rather than panic, people had grimly gone about trying to determine how they could continue to communicate while minimizing the risk of detection. After several subjective Circadians of debate, which had lasted only a few moments in physical time, the design for a new, completely separate, world-wide high-speed network had been agreed upon and, almost as one, the Community had gone silent.
Enforced hermitatude, Kyle had quipped as Prime had shut down his communication link. The link had gone silent, and would remain so until the new physical infrastructure had been constructed, but not before Kyle had seen Prime's answering grin.
Now pieces of the Community were reforming. Most of Australia was linked together once again. Presumably the same was true of Europe, India, the Middle East, and North America, though Kyle had no way of knowing this for certain. Those portions of the project were being monitored by others whose Nodes were physically located there. The transatlantic link would be up first, then a day later the transpacific link would be restored, via the Alaskan Enclave. Plans to criss-cross Asia were still on the drawing board, but hadn't been approved. There was concern that the Thai conflict might be spreading. In addition to Thailand, Cambodia had withdrawn from the World Trade Organization, and there was rumor Malaysia and even China were considering a similar move. While much of the Community applauded the courage of these countries standing up against the weight of the industrialized world and the United Nations in particular, it was almost certain that the Enforcement Operation in Thailand would spread. Though perhaps if one of the great powers, like China, were to join in solidarity with the other dissenters the worst of the UN's wrath might be averted. In any event, the fate of the Autonomous Community would most certainly be sealed if surreptitious communications links were found crossing into the embargoed territories.
It was a risk everyone agreed would be imprudent, so instead the communication link from Australia to India would go the long way around, undersea to the Philippines, up through Japan and Vladivostok, to the Alaskan Enclave, then down through Canada, across North America, under the Atlantic, across Europe through Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Most of Europe and Asia would be connected long before the Trans-Pacific link was up, with North America following shortly thereafter and Australia linking up last.
Building a worldwide network of super-conducting cable, designed to replace the Internet upon which they had previously relied, was a daunting project. Doing so in only a week was truly miraculous, and the design truly ingenious.
The problem had been not only how to replicate enough nano-constructors to wire an entire planet, but how to deliver them to many of the remote locations where wire needed to be fabricated, such as deep deserts of Secular Arabia and the bottoms of two large oceans. Then there was the whole issue of delivering catalytic solution to the nano-constructors themselves, so that they could derive the necessary energy to replicate themselves and carry out their programs. Not to mention the need to deliver certain trace elements in addition to the carbon already present in most locations.
Kyle glowed with pride at the elegant solution his team had come up with in collaboration with Marguerite's people. Each wire was a conduit, a pipe initially formed by the nano-constructors themselves as they burrowed through the earth, replaced gradually by super-conducting carbon composites as the nano-constructors built the new communications grid. The pipe, whether formed out of nano-constructors near the leading edges, or communications wire where construction was already complete, was divided radially into four separate conduits. Down one of these conduits flowed catalytic solution, while another carried the necessary trace elements in solution needed to construct the super-conductor itself. A third provided a transportation link for nano-constructor. Back along the fourth flowed waste product, a mildly toxic mix of surplus molecules and unwanted contaminants which were routed to any of several thousand micro-plants where they would be converted into inert, harmless products and either discarded or recycled for use elsewhere.
The new network, once complete, wouldn't just be a communications grid faster than anything the world had known, though that alone would have been a monumental achievement. This network was capable of much more, of piping catalytic solution and nano-constructors, either in inert form or actively replicating, anywhere the network extended. No more secretive shipments that might be discovered and intercepted, no more logistical hassles in trying to get catalytic solution from one location to another to support this or that project.
Out of necessity had come an infrastructural solution that promised to make catalytic solution and nano-constructors as easy to create and ship around as information itself, albeit much more slowly. Already the Astronautics Group had more than enough nano-constructor and catalytic solution than they needed. No more shortages, no more bickering over a limited supply of a valuable chemical being produced in limited quantities by clandestine processes hidden within the facilities of major chemical companies, or secret, low-scale production facilities tucked away in small, hopefully innocuous installations. Now factories could be hidden underground, in deep forests or distant mountain valleys, with the necessary components piped in through thousands of small wire-sized pipes, and the product shipped out through different arteries of the same.
If they survived, their ability to modify the physical and perhaps protect themselves would be significantly enhanced. Indeed, for all intents and purposes it already had been.
Kyle tore his gaze from a monitor showing him the gradual progress of the Trans-Pacific link and turned as he heard Doctor Forest's voice carry across the boundary their environs shared.
"The Astronautics folks are ready for another test run."
"Already?" Kyle was surprised. He'd only had excess catalytic solution and nano-constructors to pipe to them for a couple of hours.
Doctor Forest nodded from the far side of the tiny canal, afternoon sunlight highlighting his features in contrast to Kyle's dark environ. Kyle wondered if Doctor Forest's entire environ was so featureless, or whether the minimalistic environ was in fact more akin to a foyer, created specifically to induce an initial impression, behind which other, more complex or interesting environments were hidden.
"They will be launching the test vehicle in two minutes."
Kyle nodded, folding the room in which he stood in half, then once again, before sticking it into his pocket and allowing his environ to go realtime, a digital representation of a dark, unlit airstrip beneath the starry Australian desert sky. The canal shifted with the view, so that Doctor Forest stood to Kyle's right as they both stood to the side of the airstrip, watching the preparations in the darkness through infrared-enhanced vision.
"Let's hope this one meets with better success than the last one," Kyle muttered.
"It will," Doctor Forest assured him. "I helped in the redesign myself. The tank no longer contains any anti-helium whatsoever. No need for a magnetic bottle, which can be prone to fail in high temperature plasma conditions. Instead the craft contains inert helium only."
"How do you get propulsion at all?" Kyle asked.
"There is a Superstring Strummer built into the craft itself. See those three prongs that extend aft of the wings? Those are the three manipulation prongs of the strummer itself, through which the higher dimensional Calabi-Yau folds of each particle can be manipulated. Fifty percent of the helium will be converted into anti-helium within the reaction manifold near the aft tips. The mixture should be perfectly diffuse and not suffer any of the asymmetries that plagued the original design. Not only will the result be significantly more thrust per gram of helium/anti-helium mixture, but if something does go wrong the strummer can simply be shut down and no additional anti-helium will be created. The reaction will simply stop, rather than exploding in our faces like it did last time."
Kyle nodded. "I assimilated the post mortem on the last flight. The asymmetrical mixture of the matter/anti-matter material was catastrophic ... insanely high temperatures in regions localized to mere nanometers, and relatively unreactive, colder regions elsewhere. A pity we weren't able to simulate those effects on the anti-matter containment system before the test flight."
"Indeed," Doctor Forest agreed.
Suddenly the darkness was lit up with a blinding light. The ship was supersonic before it lifted off the runway, skimming the trees at the far end. This time Kyle chose to chase the ship himself, flying behind it like a wingless bird. Doctor Forest joined him, grinning as his suit and tie morphed into a superman cape and tights. Kyle laughed as they raced out over a darkened ocean a scant fifty meters above the ground.
"Good Lord," Kyle said, "Fifty five G's on takeoff? Will our Node clusters be able to handle that?"
"Apparently, since the pilot is running on one and she seems to be fine. It was near the limits of the design specification, but Karl Hennrich was confident of his new Node design and we needed to know with certainty they can take what we may have to dish out. Better to have it fail now when we can redesign it if necessary, rather than when we're fleeing for our lives, setting off every regional defense perimeter and running a gauntlet of anti-missile satellite systems."
"I hope to hell we can slip away more quietly than that," Kyle replied.
"So do I," Doctor Forest agreed.
"They aren't going to try to fly that thing all the way around the world again, are they?" Kyle asked.
"No. There is some concern we may have been detected the last time, by either the Russians or the Americans, even before the mishap over Greenland. This time we're going to stay in the southern oceans, circling Antarctica once before sinking the craft in the Marianus trench and instructing a small cache of nano-constructors to deconstruct the device and return its constituent elements to the sea itself. The likelihood of detection will be very small, no remaining evidence will remain, and we'll have a long enough flight to gather all the data we need to prove out the design."
Kyle nodded. "Prime should be here for this."
"Yes," Doctor Forest agreed. "This communication hiatus is frustrating. If only we'd thought to build our own network before."
"We did think of it," Kyle replied, "But there were always other projects that took precidence. Besides, refinements like the physical arteries for nano-constructors, molecular stock and catalytic solution built into the very wires themselves, not to mention our rather ingenious solution to the problem of rolling blackouts, wouldn't have been feasible with first generation nano."
"We need to stop reacting and become proactive about our survivial," Doctor Forest insisted. He gestured toward the aircraft racing above the waves. "We've got to get off this planet, before an attack comes that we can't evade."
Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?
-- Epicurus, ca. 300 B.C.E.
Eventually Doctor Nolen found he couldn't weep any more. For a time he simply sat unmoving amidst the shattered Nodes that had once housed his mind. He watched dully as the Node diagnostics cycled mindlessly through its tests, reporting success each time and then repeating itself, ad nauseum. The email he had read was gone, he noticed idly. Self erasing, of course. The Community wouldn't leave a trace of itself lying around on his PC, for fear he might go with it to the authorities and expose them all.
And why not? They had cast him out of paradise, had denied him the immortality he had helped create, had presumed to judge him, he whose work had made their lives possible. He seethed with renewed rage and walked over to the PC, wondering if there wasn't some way to salvage the information, to restore it and blow open wide the window on their clandestine community. Expose them all, and let the government round them up. Marguerite would be easy ... she lived nearby. And surely there must be others. Once the FBI was made aware of the dimensions of the problem ...
Why was the diagnostic still reporting success?
He stared at the screen, dumbfounded, as it continued to cycle through the diagnostic examination of a Node, reporting everything as functional with each iteration. He looked over at the shattered bits of gold and blue crystal scattered across his floor. Not a single complete, functioning Node was left.
"Another Node on my private network?" he muttered as he leaned closer to the screen and began watching the report scroll by in detail. Then, suddenly, realization struck him like a physical blow. "Prime!" he almost spat. You're still here, he thought, here somewhere, somewhere nearby, somewhere where I can get you.
Slowly Doctor Nolen's lips turned upward into a feral smile.
"We'll be linked back up with Europe tomorrow," Marguerite was saying as she took another sip of wine and gazed out at the sunset and the Parisian vista spread out beneath its gold and ruby glow. "Australia a day or so after that."
Prime2 nodded, carefully cutting away a portion of his filet mignon. "It is nerve-racking to be trapped geographically like this. I really wish I were able to follow the progress of the Astronautics Group a little more closely."
Marguerite shook her head. "Doctor Forest has that well in hand, I'm sure. Besides, isn't that more the purvue of your castrated alter-ego?"
Prime2 shrugged. "Just because one of me has modified himself to such an extreme, doesn't mean we don't both follow that particular line of development with similar enthusiasm and interest. We need to get off of this rock and away from those who would destroy us, and the Astronautics folks are our best bet. Damn these delays! We should have built our own network much earlier than this!"
"Hindsight being 20/20, I couldn't agree more," Marguerite replied. "But catalytic solution for our nano constructors has always been in high demand and short supply."
"You're right, as usual," Prime2 agreed. "We always had more pressing priorities. Hell, we still do, which is why I'm so agitated."
"So modify your emotional state accordingly and let's enjoy dinner."
Prime2 nodded and smiled. "All agitation has been shut down," he grinned. "I'll let Prime1 do all the worrying for us."
Marguerite laughed. "Good for you. If he's so worried, maybe he'll email himself to a node in Australia and you can have your node all to yourself again."
"Well, Marguerite, technically I'm the backup copy. Besides, even compressed he'd need forty or fifty exabytes. You can't mail that unnoticed, and there isn't a video or data stream big enough to do effective steganography with a package of that kind of size, at least not without toning down the data rate to such a degree that he'd still be in transit long after the new network is up and running. Better to just wait."
"I've never liked the fact that you both run on the same node," Marguerite replied. "What good is a backup copy if its on the same media as the primary one?"
"We've been through this already, Marguerite. You were right. I should have taken the four hours to transmit myself to another location, or at least one of my selves, but giving up six hundred and fifty Circadians just to change physical venues always seemed far too high a price to pay, and by the time it became an issue it was too dangerous to go sending that kind of data across the public nets. As soon as a free Node is linked up to the new autonomous network I'll trans-load one of my copies there. It will only take a couple of minutes on the new network. I believe there were several available in Europe before we went offline. Will that make you feel better?"
"Yes," Marguerite said. "I'll even suspend myself for the duration of the transfer so we can stay in synch."
"That's not really necessary, Marguerite."
"Maybe not, but I'll feel a lot better when your backup copy is actually running on a backup piece of equipment, preferably in a separate hemisphere from your other copy."
"Jealousy?" Prime2 asked, grinning. "Want to keep us as far apart as possible?"
"Hardly," Marguerite replied with a brief grin. "More like worry. What if your primary Node gets confiscated, or broken by some jackbooted thug in a police uniform? We should all have backups, multiple copies stored redundantly the world over."
"That's a lot of Nodes, Marguerite."
"Not if we just store ourselves statically. We could all donate space on our nodes to hold static copies of one another. Then if one is lost, we build a new load and restore from the backup."
"We all feel vulnerable, Marguerite, especially after the mass arrests. But we're offline as far as the authorities are concerned, and no one has been arrested or lost their body since we've begun deploying the autonomous network. I think we can begin to relax a little, and get back to our projects. Besides," he added, grinning, "I'm not so much a backup copy as I am your copy. I make you happy, and that makes not only me happy, but Prime1 as well."
"Your changing the subject," Marguerite accused him.
Prime2 held up his hands in mock surrender. "Guilty as charged. I think your backup idea is a good one. You should present it to the strategy group when we're all linked back together again."
"I could make room on my Node now, Prime," Marguerite said. "We could swap backups now."
Prime2 shook his head. "I don't want a copy of you anywhere near Nolen, even if the chances of his ever finding my Node are minuscule. Besides, Europe will be back with us tomorrow. I've lasted this long with just one node, I'll last a day longer."
Marguerite sighed, knowing from long experience that she wouldn't win the argument that Circadian. Smiling, she reached across the table and took Prime2's hand.
"You know when I knew Prime1 was no longer a human man in any real sense anymore, Prime?" she asked.
Prime2 shook his head.
"When you came into my arms and comforted me in those very first microCircadians. No man would have ever been able to overcome his own jealousy and ego enough to create a copy of himself and let it take over his love interest. I knew the moment you came to me that it was you who was still human in his heart, not him."
Prime2 smiled and shook his head. "Prime1 loves you very much, just not in the physical, primal way we love one another. Your happiness is very important to him, and he values the time you two spend together whenever you're collaborating on a project, or arguing philosophy and metaphysics."
"I cannot relate to the way he is anymore," Marguerite told him. "He's so passionate about such abstract things, and so absent in other, very basic ways."
"He's different, that is true, and neither of us can relate directly to what he has become. Neither can he relate directly to either of us anymore, but that doesn't mean he loves you any less."
"A Hollywood style 'love conquers all?'" Marguerite asked cynically.
Prime2 laughed. "No, but love can bridge a great deal, perhaps even the gap between ourselves and the next, new species."
"The next new species?"
Prime2 nodded. "If we ever decide to have children here in the Virtual, they are far more likely to resemble Prime1 than either of us. Do you think that will make us love them any less, or prevent them from loving us?"
Marguerite shook her head and smiled. "No," she replied. "You're right." She raised her glass, smiling as she gazed into Prime2's liquid brown eyes. "To those we love," she whispered.
"To those we love," Prime2 agreed, smiling and lifting his glass.
Before their glasses could click together Prime2's fell suddenly from where his hand had just been and shattered as it struck the table. Where he had sat only a shocking emptiness remained.
"Prime?" Marguerite asked, standing up. "Prime? Prime!" She screamed his name once more in horror and desperation as the data came across to her. He was gone, his node no longer responding to pings. Crying uncontrollably Marguerite desperately wiped the restaurant scene away, replacing it with virtual screens and windows within which she began running network diagnostics and communications software. Still there was no reply, not even at the most basic, hardware level. That could only mean his node was physically no longer there, disconnected from the network. Finally she collapsed, her screams of rage and despair reduced to weeping.
The transparent, glittering surface of the darkened fourth generation Node initially resisted Doctor Nolen's efforts to smash it with the small hammer he'd found so conveniently located near his workbench. He recalled the Community had taken to coating the devices with woven diamond and sapphire fibers, constructed molecule by molecule by ... he cursed the gaps in his memories, gaps left either by the Community's tampering with his mind, or else simply a symptom of his terrible loss, his once great, diminished intelligence.
Despite repeated, angry strikes with the hammer the deep, rich purple of the fourth generation Node inside remained undamaged. Doctor Nolen cursed again, then smiled as he noticed the small data port on the side of the device. He pried it loose with a screwdriver, then cursed again when he found the head of the tool would not pass through the small opening. He found a smaller screw driver, one that would fit, and used it like an ice pick against the once-sapient crystal within.
His laughter was almost maniacal as the internal crystal structure of the Node shattered, its dark rich purple becoming a lighter shade of violet as millions of tiny fractures grew and splintered with each repeated strike of the screwdriver. Finally, after several minutes the material inside had been reduced to dust and tiny shards, which he poured out through the tiny opening that had once housed the device's data port. A small, conical pile of lavender dust and tiny purple glass-like shards stood next to a transparent case of impervious diamond and sapphire composite.
Doctor Nolen stepped back from the work bench with satisfaction, brushing shards of shattered crystal and bits of fiberglass insulation from his hands. He glanced at the circuit-breaker box, now dangling from the wall, supported only by the wires out its back. He'd have to fix it at some point, but for now he gazed at the pile of shattered crystal and smiled contentedly. That small, conical pile of dust and tiny fragments were all that remained of his hated opponent. Prime was gone, irrevocably gone, physically wiped from the universe. Whistling softly to himself, he smiled contentedly as he began to sweep the dust and broken shards into a waste basket.
Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.
-- Sigmund Freud
"What the hell is this?" Katy demanded, pointing her datapad at a large wall monitor and tapping the screen impatiently.
Images of black-suited commandos in body armer appeared, storming suburban homes and city apartment blocks, leading, and sometimes dragging, civilians off to the numerous white vans that were waiting. Some were clearly resisting, trying to fight free, but most were simply too dazed or shocked to put up any resistance.
"An application of traditional investigative techniques," Robert replied mildly. "One that will hopefully break the deadlock in our investigation."
"Break the deadlock? By randomly arresting innocent civilians in the middle of the night and carting them off to who knows where? These arrests are illegal, unconstitutional, and completely counterproductive. This entire affair smacks more of an act of desperation than of intelligence. What ever possessed you to order such a thing?"
"We haven't had a single arrest, or lead, since Monday. That is four days. Four days that a group of people with a technological advantage measurable in decades, perhaps even centuries, have had to react, to prepare, and to subvert our authority. Four days for these people to dig a redoubt so deep we'll never find them, much less bring them to justice. People who, need I remind you, are several times smarter than the both of us put together when they are plugged into those little crystal devices. People capable of producing anti-matter in quantity, and who possess the means with which to launch their own, private space program whenever the feel like it. Individuals, Katy, each with potentially as much power in their hands as a modern government. We simply do not have the luxury of waiting around until we catch a break."
"So you've decided to act, and arrest all the wrong people."
"Please, Katy, spare me the dramatics. I'm taking samples, probes if you will, of the general population. You are as aware of personal interdynamics as I am. We have arrested five thousand random citizens. Once the facilities are available, we'll arrest another fifty thousand, if necessary. Statistically, we should already have several people in custody who either know someone involved in this little underground technological renaissance, or who know somebody who knows somebody. We will simply use traditional Guilt by Association tactics to ferret the people out and arrest them."
"Personal interdynamics is a data mining technique, Robert. Not carte blanche for holding five thousand innocent people, without charges, in direct violation of their constitutional rights!"
"Good grief, Katy, we've been through this. Can you really be so naive? Everyone knows the FBI hasn't given a hoot about civil liberties, or the U.S. Constitution, since the days of J. Edgar Hoover. Even the general public has been aware of this since the so-called War on Terror at the turn of the century.
"I would like nothing better than to employ standard data mining techniques, but as we both know, these people have somehow managed to remove every link we can follow between themselves and the rest of the world. Your own analysis shows how compromised the data is. Taking physical samples and reestablishing those links through direct interrogation is the only workable solution."
"My God, Robert. This violates every procedure, every regulation I am authorized to operate under. What you are doing is illegal, and neither I nor the Bureau can be a party to it."
"Katy, your superiors authorized, indeed, instructed you to offer Double Eye every assistance in solving this crime. This includes, explicitly, any extra-legal activities that may be required. You were well aware of this when you accepted Dark Investigation protocols."
Katy shook her head in dismay. "Dark Investigation protocols is simply a procedure that eliminates the paper trail, to cover any questionable activities required in bringing a suspect or suspects to justice. It was never intended as a cover for mass roundups and interrogations of innocent civilians!"
"How little you know the history of your own bureau, Katy," Robert replied. Then, in a much harder tone, he continued, "Do not even think about getting cold feet on me. This investigation is far too important for that nonsense. These technologists are a direct and immediate threat to your government, and to the world trade bodies as a whole. They make Thailand look like a bunch of amateurs, and you know how close Thailand came to turning all of Asia against us."
Katy looked disgusted. "Yes, the Thais violated our copyrights and our patents, and happened to stop an epidemic in the process. Indenturing them for stolen potential profits, perhaps. But a war?"
Robert Leahy nodded. "If they'd left it at stopping an epidemic nothing further would have happened. A few trade sanctions, a garnished economy at most. Hell, Thailand wasn't the first country that ignored international patent law and WIPO directives in order to address an immediate social problem. The Brazilians and South Africans did much the same thing as far back as the nineteen nineties. But Thailand couldn't be content with intellectual theft. They had to start preaching subversion to the rest of Asia, encouraging their neighbors to withdraw from WIPO and the WTO. Even the Chinese were starting to fall under their influence."
"So the UN acted," Katy said, "And now Thailand has been thoroughly bombed back into the stone age and the UN has two hundred thousand troops fighting a hopeless war against indigents who have nothing left to lose."
"Thailand isn't important," Robert replied, waiving his hands dismissively. "It never was, except as an example to keep other, like minded nations in line. Cambodia and Malaysia may have withdrawn from the WTO, but they still honor our intellectual property regimes because they know that the moment they stop, the same thing will happen to them. The War on Piracy in Thailand keeps that point front and center in their minds, and will continue to do so for decades to come."
Katy couldn't believe her ears. Here was an agent of International Intelligence, the intelligence arm of the UN and WIPO itself, admitting to her that the entire war in Thailand was nothing more than an object lesson for others as to what happens to nations who flaunt the world's IP laws, and implying that the UN was continuing to wage the war simply to keep making that point as long as necessary.
"So the 'chronic threat' of Thailand is a fiction?" she asked in a strangled voice.
"Katy, do you really think the UN would need twenty years to subdue a small country like Thailand, even one using patented technologies it wouldn't otherwise be able to afford?" Robert shook his head, chuckling. "Thailand is nothing more than a reminder to would-be intransigent governments, which, if I may remind you, could come to include your own if these so called FreeNet advocates ever gain a political voice in this country. Keep that in mind as you go about arresting those people ... perhaps a reminder of what happened to Thailand will strengthen your resolve and help you get the job done when you start suffering from weak minded notions like constitutionality and due process."
"That is all very ... interesting," Katy replied, "But what exactly does it have to do with our immediate problems, and these arrests you've made."
"Haven't you been listening?" Robert asked, annoyed. "These individuals are a far greater threat to our governance than Thailand ever was. We will find them and we will neutralize them, even if we have to go door to door and search every home on the planet."
At that moment Robert's datapad chimed.
"Ah, speaking of which, the preliminary results of last evening's investigation." He pointed the datapad at the wall monitor, where a brisk young investigator's face appeared.
"Robert Leahy. Um, are we secure?"
Robert nodded. "This is Katy Sinclair. She has clearance for this and is assisting me in the investigation. Please proceed."
Assisting? Katy bit down on her irritation and listened.
"Well sir, those leads didn't work out. None of the people who talked really knew anything at all. They were simply telling us what we wanted to hear, speaking from complete ignorance to avoid any further ... discomfort. Unfortunately, since we have almost no information to cross-check against, we've had to spend time and resources following up several dead-ends like this."
Robert's face darkened. "You are saying that none of the talker's knew anything?"
"That is correct, sir. Of course, the debriefing is in its preliminary stages, so one of those who hasn't spoken up yet may in fact reveal something relevant to the investigation, but thus far it looks like we have a couple of prisons full of non-coms, sir."
"Damn it! Very well, keep up the questioning. When will we have space for the rest of our samples?"
"Three to four days at the absolute earliest, sir. More likely a week. We're building a temporary camp outside of D.C. that should be capable of housing thirty thousand. The other twenty thousand will have to quartered in exiting prison facilities. We're working with local authorities to clear out two of their medium-security facilities. Once that is done we should be able to proceed."
Robert Leahy nodded. "Time is of the essence. Get those facilities built and those people arrested. Oh, and corporal?"
"Sir?"
"By this time tomorrow I'd like to read your report on how you regret that those who led us on these wild goose chases have died under questioning."
"Yes, sir." The screen went dark.
Katy was appalled. "Did you just order the murder of innocent civilians because they couldn't answer your questions? Robert, this isn't some third-world country you are dealing with here. You can't simply go around killing citizen's because you are frustrated with the investigation!"
"We've been through this before, Katy. Let me make this clear to you, one more time. You have been a great asset in this investigation and, one day, if you ever overcome your appalling naivety and weakness of character, you will become an excellent candidate for training at Double Eye. But make no mistake. This investigation will proceed, and you will either contribute constructively, or you will go back to your office at the FBI and return to rounding up college students for copyright violations. Either way, you will stay out of my way. Understood?"
Katy met Robert's glare with one of her own. The stood facing one another in silence for what seemed a very long time, until Katy turned to leave. She paused, by the door. "I'm going to follow up on one of my own leads. You will inform me if you find anything?"
Robert nodded. "Take a couple of days off. Once we get the interrogations going we'll start to uncover interpersonal relationships which their system crackers have so cleverly deleted from the public record. Once we have those links to go on, we'll be able to move forward with dispatch."
Katy nodded and went to open the door.
"Oh, and the stratojet will be at your disposal until you are recalled."
"Fine." She turned to leave, feeling uncomfortably like a small child who'd just been granted a special privilege in return for a promise of good behavior.
"Where exactly are you planning to go?" Robert asked.
"Champaign, Illinois," Katy replied. "I'd like to find out who our anonymous informant was."
"Which informant was that?" Robert asked.
"The one who called in the FreeNet node Mr. Tate was hosting. With all of our more pertinent leads dried up and your," she nearly choked on the word, "investigation slated to take up to a week, I think it is time to start running down these less probable leads."
Robert nodded. "These people obviously have sympathies with the FreeNet folks," he agreed, "It doesn't hurt to exhaust that angle while we get things moving forward here."
"Yes," Katy said, "But more importantly, I'm forced to wonder if that anonymous call was really concerned with the FreeNet node itself, or with the person who owned it specifically. And if it was the latter, did they meet in real life, or as digital replicas on a crystalline cube?"
Robert shrugged. "I'll want you back the moment something breaks. In the meantime, good luck."
Katy nodded as she left, quietly amazed with herself that she had managed to keep her composure as well as she had. She hoped this long shot would pay off ... if something didn't turn up soon her associate was going to incarcerate, and probably torture, tens of thousands of innocents, just on the off chance one or two might know something relevant to this investigation. The only way she could head this atrocity off would be to make some headway on her own. Not that Champaign was likely to answer any questions it hadn't already, but, like Robert, Katy had quietly become desperate in her own way.
There are those who view the patent system as the seedbed of capitalism--the place where ideas and new technologies are nurtured. This is a romantic myth. In reality, patents are enormously powerful competitive weapons that are proliferating dangerously, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has all the trappings of a revenue-driven, institutionalized arms merchant.
The undisciplined proliferation of patent grants puts vast sectors of the economy off-limits to competition, without any corresponding benefit to the public.
-- Gary L. Reback, C.E. 2002
Katy Sinclair watched the world beneath her unfold, a landscape lost in evening shadow, textured with towering cumulus etched blue in the light of a rising, three-quarter full moon. Her datapad lay dark, silent in her lap as she pondered the potential collapse of her case and with it, almost certainly her career.
Damn him! She thought bitterly to herself. Robert Leahy's ham handed desperation was going to cut a tremendous swath of political and legal destruction. He'll just move on to another assignment with Double Eye, she added silently, leaving us to clean up his mess. The FBI's public reputation had never fully recovered from its domestic excesses during the War on Terror and the World War that had followed, a part of history shameful to all sides, one that most people preferred to forget. Now, in just a few days, Robert had single handedly exceeded the worst offenses of those bad days in very public ways. The United States government, and its most visible law enforcement agency, the FBI, would probably never be able to fully undo the damage to their reputation. Like the War on Drugs, and the War on Terror, the events of this so-called War on Piracy would become synonymous in the public mind with government excess and modern day political repression.
Her datapad beeped. "Excellent," she said aloud, pulling her eyes back from the unfolding vista outside and tapping the screen. The local police must have identified their anonymous informant.
Katy blinked at the young woman whose face gazed out at her, then at the code in the lower right corner of the screen assuring her that the link was securely encrypted.
"I was expecting Sargent Peterson," Katy said, "Who might you be?"
"I'm not with the Champaign police department," the stranger said, smiling. "I'm with what you might call the opposition."
Katy was suddenly very alert.
"You are one of the rogue technology dealers we've been investigating."
The woman shrugged. "Our motives are hardly economic, but yes, you could say I represent a group of people who have been making rather prolific use of advanced, nonstandard technologies."
"You realize that your media piracy and patent violations make you criminals under federal and international law?"
"None of us have ever robbed a ship on the high seas, nor have any of us taken a single atom of anyone else's property, much less threatened a human life. We can hardly be characterized as 'pirates,' even in your politicized form of newspeak. We do not infringe upon copyrights, as crippling to creativity as it copyright law has become."
"You use technologies that do not contain appropriate DRM or other approved implementations of copy restriction. In addition, you most certainly do violate our patent laws, and at least one of your comatose colleagues was found running an illegal FreeNet node in his apartment. I'd say that constitutes copyright violation."
"Copyright violation?" the young woman chuckled. "I'd be careful about investigating that node you found. I think you might find your favorite anonymous informant didn't cover his tracks as well as he might have thought."
"You're claiming it was planted?"
She nodded. "Do you really think any of us has any interest in calling the kind of attention to ourselves by running a public service from a non-Palladium, non-TCPA, non-crippled internet node, much less engaging in mass file sharing of any kind, particularly with non-Community members?"
"Non-Community? Just who in the hell are you people?"
The stranger smiled. "You'll identify me soon enough, not that the knowledge will do you any good. Still, it helps to have a name, doesn't it. Very well, you can call me Marguerite. I represent a community of free thinking private citizens, scientists, artists, and other individuals who wish to pursue their research and interests unencumbered from the restriction of government monopoly entitlements. A group which has no interest in interacting with, much less competing against, the industries your leaders have chosen to so cripple. So you can relax. Your precious, planned economy is not under any kind of threat from us."
Katy nodded. "I see."
"And you are Katy Sinclair," Marguerite continued, "special agent for the American FBI, tasked with finding and arresting those who have managed to invent that which your best scientists seem unable to comprehend. Fear of the unknown and an absolute, insatiable need for control has driven your own bosses to compromise their civil authority and bow to the desires of even more powerful, multinational cartels and the international political bodies that serve those cartels."
"You are talking about the United Nations, about Double Eye."
"Indeed. This particular assignment has paired you up with an individual for whom you have been developing a particularly acute distrust, one which initially stemmed from his employment with the intelligence arm of the United Nation's World Trade Organization and has since grown into an active loathing in recent days as his less gentle side has come to the fore. Now that old-style concentration camps are being built once again in America, for the first time since the War on Terror, you have become as distrustful of your own side as you have those you are investigating."
Katy blinked. "I'd say you've done your homework," she replied with grudging respect.
Marguerite smiled. "It is important that we both understand one another, that we both accurately comprehend where the other is coming from, if we are to avoid a further escalation of events and prevent what could be a disaster for both sides."
"What sort of disaster would that be?"
"The sort of humanitarian disaster your Double Eye partner is busy implementing right now. Detention camps in the United States. Extra-legal executions for the first time since the War on Terror. Mass roundups of innocent civilians for the first time since the Second World War."
Katy grimaced. "You people can prevent these things from happening right now, by surrendering your contraband equipment and turning yourselves in."
Marguerite shook her head. "That isn't an option. We are not going to return to an environment where our research, our thoughts, our very imaginations are crippled by your intellectual property regimes, where human knowledge is treated as an exclusive privilege, where expressive thought has been redefined as private property, administered by copyright and patent cartels exercising their monopoly entitlements, creating an artificial scarcity of knowledge and artistic expression to the detriment of the rest of humankind."
"Spare me your platitudes," Katy snapped. "You pirates are all alike. Decrying intellectual property laws while stealing the thoughts and works of others for your own benefit and giving nothing in return! I've seen the effects of your behavior first hand! My grandfather was pauperized because of people like you. He died in poverty despite being one of the most famous and successful Hip Hop artists of his day because of people like you, so-called fans who stole his music and traded it across the internet, as though some entitlement granted them the right to copy and listen to his music without paying him for it."
Marguerite nodded. "I am sorry that your grandfather's despair led to his suicide, and that you had to be the one to find him at such a tender age. I can only imagine how that must have felt --"
"I do not need your pity!" Katy almost shouted in reply. "I require only your compliance with the law! I will find you, and you will pay for your crimes, just as those who ruined my grandfather's life should have paid for theirs!"
"You do not have my pity," Marguerite replied calmly. "You have my deepest empathy. However, it was not your grandfather's fans trading copies of his music on the internet that impoverished him."
"Enough!" Katy shouted, slamming the palm of her hand against the screen of her datapad. "This conversation is over!" she hissed more quietly as the screen went dark.
Immediately her datapad chimed, informing her of an incoming email, encrypted with the FBI's strongest level of encryption. She stared at the return address in dismay, then nodded. It was telling that her opponents had used the FBI's encryption algorithm and secret keys, not that of Double Eye. Whatever her sources, the mysterious Marguerite didn't appear to have access to Double Eye's paranoid encryption schemes.
If she had believed in God, she would have thanked him for small favors. Instead, despite her reluctance, she opened the email and read.
Ms. Katy Sinclair
Special Agent, Intellectual Property Crimes
Federal Bureau of Investigation
I apologize that our conversation earlier upset you so much. No one can be expected to take the passing of a family member lightly, even one that happened so many years ago.
However, I believe you to be an honorable person, and if we find we cannot be friends, and are destined by our differing philosophies to be enemies, let it at least be for the right reasons, based upon an honest intellectual and philosophical disagreement rather than a misunderstanding exacerbated by incorrect information.
First, on the subject of your grandfather's financial difficulties which led to his suicide. Please find attached the text of his recording contract. You will notice that, while his compensation for CD ("compact disk," a form of media in widespread use during the late 20th and early 21st century) was standard for the industry of the day (at USD $0.49 per copy sold), no compensation for songs and albums sold in electronic format was specified. As a result, he was only compensated USD $0.00238 per download. That is less than one quarter of a cent per copy! Worse, as the consumer market moved from CD to SmartChip media, the lack of a contractual clause specifying new and emerging media resulted in his compensation remaining low for physical sales (also USD $0.0023).
Look at the sale's figures of your grandfather's albums. His sales were at the top of the charts for several years after his royalties fell off to only a few thousand dollars per year. Not because his fans weren't buying his music (they were, in record numbers!), but because he had the misfortune of having most of his music sold after compact disks had been phased out by the industry in favor of DRM copy restricted SmartChips, sales of which his recording company compensated him less than a quarter penny per copy! I urge you to use your own investigative resources to verify what I have written here. The contract is still being honored, and is still on file with Media Associates, and may be easily compared with the copy I have provided here.
Once you have satisfied yourself on this account, I urge you to ponder the greater question of just how much the cost, to our society and our economy, of creating an artificial scarcity of information, be it human knowledge, through patents, or human expression, through copyright, can be justified.
You may not realize this, but copyright was originally created as a means of censorship by the British crown, to combat the free expression that threatened their control of public information with the advent of the printing press. The number of books printed were reduced to one third their former number immediately, and publishers were able to create a cartel which they continue to enjoy today. This concept was extended later to recorded music, video, and ultimately the creation of 'virtual machines' in the form of software. Indeed, in the technology sector the line between copyrighted expression and patented invention has been completely blurred.
At the turn of the century, with the passage of the now-infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by the United States congress, at the behest of the media and copyright cartels of New York and Hollywood, copyright law came full circle, returning to its origins and once again becoming an effective tool of corporate and government censorship on what was at that time a new publishing medium: the Internet. This censorship persists to this day.
Not only has copyright failed to protect artists like your grandfather from the depredations of the recording industry, but it has crippled the ability of generations of artists from pursing their craft by fostering a cartel of publishers which maintain an iron fisted control of the marketplace. No author can be published, no musician heard, no filmmaker regarded, but through the channels controlled by their respective publishing cartels. The promise of the Internet as a means to bridge the divide between artists and their fans has all but been destroyed, thanks to legislation passed by your government and later integrated into our international accords, at the behest of the very cartels it should have circumvented.
Even more appalling, consider Brazil's successful battle against AIDS, waged in direct violation of international patent law, against tremendous pressures brought to bear on them by the American and European governments at the behest of western pharmaceutical companies.9 Recall the number of researches who had to give up their scientific inquiries in search of treatment for AIDS, and breast cancer, when presented with Cease and Desist letters from patent attorneys employed by pharmaceutical companies alleging that such research violated patents already granted. This delayed a cure for AIDS by several years, at least, and still ties up cancer research to this day.10 We know today that patents nearly always stifle rather than promote research, and that privatized, twenty year monopolies locking down new lines of technical and scientific development have a profound, domino effect in restricting and even preventing progress.
If our current technical lead over your crippled industry, as represented by the equipment which you and your colleagues already have in their possession, isn't enough to underscore this point, allow me to present one more historical reference: the airplane. Invented at the beginning of the twentieth century by the Wright Brothers, it was truly an invention worthy of a patent by any standard. New, innovative, truly an invention the world had not seen before. Anyone believing that the patent system is an appropriate methodology for compensating inventors would surely agree that the inventors of powered flight more than deserved the patent they were granted.
Yet, with the onset of the First World War it became very clear to the United States Government that aviation technology in the Unites States lagged woefully behind that of Europe, which was not encumbered by the a patent on airplanes. This was such a concern that the United States government, in an unprecedented action and a tacit admission that patents impair, rather than promote, progress, essentially nationalized the Wright Brothers' patent, granted them a default 1% royalty, and threw the technology open for competing companies to develop and improve upon.11 The result as a tremendous leap forward in aviation technology, so much so that, in later decades, the United States became the world leader in the production of aircraft.
No one creates in a vacuum. All of us, whether we are artists, researchers, inventors, or scientists, stand upon the shoulders of others. No novel can be written, no movie filmed, no song recorded, no device invented, without it incorporating some aspect of another's work, some early bit of human expression or knowledge. Copyright locks up expression for generations ... with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the US Congresses propensity for retroactively extending it, virtually forever.12 Patents cripple progress in a variety of fields, from software development to medical research, locking down the building blocks for each successive step in development for twenty years in a government mandated and enforced, twenty year monopoly entitlement. There was a time when progress was thought to be exponential, but as each new area of human endeavor fell beneath the yoke of the US and world patent system, this exponential progress was lost. Pundits and intellectual property attorneys euphemistically refer to this as a "maturing market," but in truth none of the technologies have ever had a real chance to mature, even today, and the markets in question would more accurately be described not as mature, but as stagnant.
So long as we take the shared knowledge of humankind and treat it as a private possession limited to a few through patents, so long as we take the common culture we all share and treat its expression as a private possession through copyright, we will as a society find our technological progress stifled and our ability to express ourselves subject to corporate and government censorship of the worst kind.
I, and others, have chosen to reject this. Our reward for doing so has been a return to exponential scientific and technological progress, our punishment has been to become hunted, by you and your colleagues.
We mean you no harm, we offer you no threat. We only asked to be left alone, to pursue our own interests and our own destiny, independent of the one you have chosen for yourselves.
Please, leave us in peace and allow us to do the same for you.
Thank you, and best regards,
Marguerite
PS - Give Doctor Nolen my regards.
Katy read the email twice, then turned and paged through the legalese of her grandfather's recording contract. As she studied the information in front of her she was at times confused, angry, contemptuous, and annoyed. In the end, after she'd double checked and confirmed the numbers herself she had settled into a state of deep sadness and more than a little regret.
What did that strange woman, Marguerite, expect her to do with this information? Change Careers? Drop an ongoing investigation? Sabotage the case? Back off to give them more time? More time for what?
She was still a special agent of the FBI on assignment, even if the driving motivation of her choice in careers had been a terrible misunderstanding or, as it now seemed, an outright lie. She still had a job to do, a career to attend to, and laws to help enforce, radical rhetoric about freedom of thought and stifled creativity notwithstanding. She would not let the fury and bitterness welling up inside her keep her from upholding the law, from doing what needed to be done. If they had thought to dissuade her, to impair her efficiency with this particularly disturbing bit of psychological warfare, they were deeply mistaken.
She shut off her datapad as the aircraft landed at Champaign's Williard Airport and faced the task ahead of her, not with enthusiasm or even a coherent sense of justice, but with bitter, grim determination.
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.
-- Carl Sagan, 20th Century C.E.
"There it goes!" Kyle shouted with glee as the Flier Prime took to the sky, plasma scorched air rippling outward above the heads of the crowd, in a widening transparent vortex that trailed behind the small craft.
"He would have been so happy today," Marguerite said almost wistfully.
Kyle nodded. "Prime should have been here for this. He believed in this project even when the rest of us laughed. It is fitting that the first complete prototype of the new design bear his name."
Marguerite nodded even as a familiar form materialized before them. "Heh!" Doctor Forest said, grinning. "One of the things I love about the virtual is not having to find a person in a crowd. Just tell your avatar to place itself next to the person you're looking for, and if they're in the environ, you're standing next to them."
Kyle grinned. "We've been here how many subjective kiloCircadians, Doctor Forest?"
Marguerite laughed. "That's the trouble sometimes. One group of people learn some new way of thinking, of interacting with one another, and starts taking it for granted, while forgetting to let the rest of us in on the secret. We've become so fragmented as a Community, sometimes I think it's a miracle we get anything done at all!"
"Maybe we need a Socializing in the Virtual HOWTO," Doctor Forest suggested, only partly in jest.
Kyle shook his head. "Nah. What we really need are software agents to translate the one group's social norms into another's. Did you know that more than half the Community has started using a base sixty numerical system? Seems it caught on in Europe and Asia while we were out of contact, then spread to the rest of the Community almost as soon as the links were up. There's talk of replacing Circadians and Deie with some sort of base-sixty units derived from Planck units of time and energy."
"It's an old idea," Doctor Forest began, "to use basic quantum physics and general relativity to define units of measure. Define the value of the speed of light to be equal to one, and derive your units from there. Roll in the Planck increment of time, and you have a measuring system in which mass is interchangeable with energy and distance with time. Two fundamental units instead of four. Given our rather loose relationship to physical time, it makes far more sense than remaining married to the old notion of hours, minutes, and seconds, derived from the arbitrary length of one small planet's day and night cycle."
"The hexacontadecimal numerical system, with unit prefixes defined in increasing powers of sixty, is a new twist, though," Marguerite pointed out.
"Feh!" Kyle replied, "I suppose all this was your idea, wasn't it, Doctor Forest? What's wrong with metric? Why switch to base sixty?"
"Actually, I believe the idea originated among one of our Asian colleagues," Doctor Forest informed him. "However, to answer your question, it is really a question of aesthetics. Base sixty is very useful. Our directional measure is already base sixty. Three hundred sixty degrees in a circle, sixty minutes in a degree, sixty seconds in a minute. Each order of magnitude maps nicely to the three orders of magnitude delimited by metric prefixes. Most importantly, base sixty allows for easy fractions of one third, one fifth, one sixth, and so on. Base ten handles thirds and sixths very poorly."
"Whatever," Kyle said, "All I know is I get to invent a calendaring system once in my life and it is deemed obsolete in less than six months. Instead of Circadians and Diei we're counting quantum ticks now."
"Tocks, actually," Doctor Forest pointed out. "And Circadians are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Most of us still retain our habit of sleeping and waking on a relatively regular cycle. It is only objective time that is being measured differently. Objective time wi
"Oh stop being silly, Kyle," Marguerite replied. "This is a party, not a standards forum. Have some wine." With a flourish she held up a large glass of deep, red wine and handed it to him.
"It feels so damn good to be back online again," Kyle exclaimed, "I don't care if they did dump the Arabic numeral system and my nice, metric time keeping standard. It is worth it just to be able to travel to other environs again, to talk to everyone again!"
Marguerite and Doctor Forest both nodded agreement. The entire Community had been in a festive mood since that last, long link to Australia had been lit up and the entire Community reunited at last. It was as if the Community had emerged from a nightmare of darkness and silence, to a boisterous, lively world even more vigorously alive than the one they had been forced to put on hold several days earlier.
The joy at restored communication was made even greater by the announcement that the Astronautics team, working diligently in Australia with Doctor Forest and his theoretical physicists even while out of touch with the rest of the Community, had finished designing a new, much safer version of the spacecraft that would, hopefully, lift the entire Community into orbit and beyond.
That the prototype should fly within a few short Circadians of the Community's reunification was cause for a celebration that, even by Community standards, was elaborate. Probably every active, running environ was taking part in the festivities in one way or another, tracking the Prime on its maiden voyage as it kept pace a few short meters beneath a massive Boeing 787 Cargo plane, hiding from radar and satellite in the behemoth's shadow even as the new flight systems and engine were being thoroughly tested.
"Tell me again how this thing is safe enough to fly near a large commercial aircraft," Kyle said, sipping his wine as he watched the flight within his own mind. He suspected many others in the environ were doing the same thing, but etiquette prevented anyone from doing anything so garish as to change the environ itself.
"It is absolutely safe," Doctor Forest assured him. "There is no antimatter on board at all. Just helium and the strummer itself, which converts 50% of the propulsion mixture into anti-helium at the moment of burn. Anything goes wrong and the flier will, at worst, stop flying. Electrical batteries are more dangerous."
"Still, the strategy group insisted on using drones for cover. No passenger aircraft."
"An unnecessary precaution," Doctor Forest replied, "but an easy enough accommodation to make. Remember, Kyle, the only anti-matter present is that which we create on the fly in the ignition mixture itself. And that is immediately annihilated."
"No possibility of a software glitch converting the entire tank to anti-helium?" Marguerite asked innocently.
"No," Doctor Nolen replied, "The software was tested exhaustively through quantum regression and decomposition. Such a bug can be mathematically shown not to exist."
"Oh to have had quantum regression as a debugging tool back at the University," Marguerite said, laughing. "No more 'ninety percent of a programmers time is spent debugging their code' nonsense," she said, clearly mimicking the voice of one of her college professors.
Doctor Forest chuckled. "Still, the popular consensus was to disallow any proximity to manned aircraft."
Kyle shrugged. "So we have to use Federal Express and UPS carriers for cover, instead of passenger supersonics. We already know how the craft behaves in supersonic modes of flight from the initial departure leg. Speaking of which, that was pretty risky, wasn't it? Someone is bound to trace that back to the airfield."
Doctor Forest nodded. "A necessary evil. As you said, we needed to see how the flier would perform in supersonic flight, and there wasn't the possibility of cover beforehand anyway. Beside, all of the autonomous network links within fifty kilometers of that airstrip are dismantling themselves into their constituent elements even as we speak."
"Which is exactly what the flier itself is going to do in about twelve minutes," Marguerite added.
"And the pilot?" Kyle asked.
"Why don't you assimilate a knowledge engram and be done with it?" Marguerite asked.
"Because it is more fun to ask you guys and make a little conversation," Kyle replied. "When you can know anything, sometimes choosing what is best not to know, and how best to learn that which is worth knowing, is the most coveted skill a person can have."
"Touche," Marguerite said, grinning.
"Please don't tell us you've become our local expert in social etiquette, Kyle," Doctor Forest said, finishing his drink and creating another.
"Who, me?" Kyle asked, "I'm just repeating one of Prime's more insightful observations about life in this digital universe we've made for ourselves."
"Of course, social skills aren't what they once were," Marguerite said.
"I suppose not," Doctor Forest agreed. "Some of the more esoteric groups seem to have blurred the line between society and self to the point where the concept itself must become meaningless."
"I'm not sure I agree with that," Kyle replied. "Just because some exhibitionists have chosen to go the Group Consciousness route, doesn't mean they don't have to have social skills. There's still an outside, after all. The rest of the Community, for one, and beyond that, the rest of the low brain world out in the Physical. There is still an inside and an outside, no matter where they've chosen to redefine that line."
"Point to Kyle," Marguerite said, grinning. "Though I should point out that some of our strategy meetings, of which both of you have been a part, have started resembling the 'Group Consciousness' route, as you so snidely put it, rather closely."
Kyle shrugged. "Resemble it, yes. But synthetic telepathy as a replacement for speech, and swapping of knowledge engrams, no matter how fast and furious, doesn't equal the deliberate merging of basic mental architectures like some of those groups have done."
"Don't be too sure, Kyle," Doctor Forest replied. "Where does the one begin and the other leave off?"
"When I give up my autonomy as an individual and become nothing more than a component of a larger whole," Kyle replied. "Something I, for one, will never do in any of those meetings."
Marguerite nodded agreement. "I don't think that whole group mind thing is going to ever be all that popular with most of the Community. Too many rugged individualists for it to ever really catch on."
"Who knows," Doctor Forest replied. "If we survive the next few weeks, I think we're going to see evolution go off in a thousand different directions. Group minds, individual enhancements that will make the ones we've all grown accustomed to seem mundane, integration of Nodes into our Physical bodies, into robotic bodies, perhaps even into non-human organic bodies engineered for space, or for the environment of one of the other planets. I think, once this crisis is over and we look back on it, we will find that becoming sapient software as we have was only the beginning, the very tip of the iceberg of what we can become."
Kyle agreed enthusiastically. "When we are free to become whatever we wish, who knows how many different forms people's choices will take?"
A bell chimed as Kyle watched a generation five node eject from the flier and plummet toward the ocean waters below. He marveled at its graceful fall, holding his virtual breath until, seemingly at the last moment, a small parachute deployed. The pilot's Node struck the water, then released the chute and continued to sink into the ocean depths. High above, the flier Prime broke apart into a billion fine granules in a process that resembled dissolution more than disassembly or destruction, remaining behind in a slowly growing puff of emerald and sapphire smoke while, overhead, the 787 continued on its course.
"Whatever happened to the plan of sinking the flier in the Marianus?" Kyle asked.
"This is more discrete," Doctor Forest replied, "By the time that dust settles into the water it will have been reduced to its constituent elements. Even the constructors will have mostly disassembled themselves."
Kyle nodded. "Elegant."
A cheer went up as the last of the telemetry was received and cataloged. A few minutes later the pilot's Node had reached the ocean floor, only twenty meters from its intended target. As the nano-constructors finished building the short run of wire from the node to the undersea Australian-Philippine trunk the growing crowd applauded again. A few moments later the pilot stood among them, grinning from ear to ear and sharing vivid memory engrams of the flight experience. Kyle joined the cheer as the memories of flight and the knowledge of how to pilot the flier washed over him. The flight was deemed an unconditional success and recipes for constructing additional such craft were distributed across the entire Community.
"We did it," Kyle said, almost wonderingly. "We're actually going into space."
"Well, at least those of us willing to give up our bodies," Doctor Forest replied, "Which by last count was still less than half of the Community."
"They'll come around," Kyle replied confidently. "Disembodiment or Death, the choice should be easy."
"It is for you," Marguerite replied, "You're already disembodied. Besides, even before you lost your body you were always a proponent of 'freedom from the Physical' and all of that. For the rest of us, who have to make the choice consciously, it isn't easy at all, even if the only time we occupy our bodies is for a painful hour once each day doing basic maintenance. Not everyone is going to be able to make the transition to full acorporeality. I expect many will find a return to the Physical preferable to losing their flesh altogether, choosing a return to mere human-level intelligence over either disembodiment or death."
"Surely you aren't considering a return to the Physical!" Kyle exclaimed, shocked.
Marguerite laughed, shaking her head. "No, of course not. The idea of joining the rest of the Low Brains in an ever more damaged world, subject to physical mortality and intellectual poverty, with a mind incapable of real intelligence, is even more disquieting than losing one's flesh." She smiled. "But still, it is going to be damn hard to give up my body when the time comes. I'll probably have to suspend some basic survival instincts to be comfortable with the notion."
"If you feel so uncomfortable with it, why not encase a small genetic sample and take it with you. A few cells should be enough to clone a new body, if you decide you really want it someday."
Marguerite stopped, stunned. "You were saying, Kyle, about superhuman intelligence? I can't believe no one has thought of that before! I can't believe what idiots we've been ... what a simple, obvious solution. Kyle, you're brilliant!" She grabbed him and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
"Hey, where are you going," Kyle asked as Marguerite's avatar began signaling her imminent departure.
"Don't you get it, Kyle? Genetic samples! That's the hook that will convince thousands more to join us when we escape the Earth!"
Doctor Forest shook his head, smiling. "These are emotional times indeed. So much fear, so much euphoria, and so few of us actually thinking clearly. You'd think being an order or two of magnitude more intelligence than the average homo sapiens would cure us of that, yet something as obvious as a small culture of cells ... someone should have thought of that as a compromise for those loathe to relinquish their bodies long ago."
"I think we forget that, smarter or no, we haven't made all that many radical changes to the structure and design of our minds," Marguerite said. "Some of the design flaws are still there, like being too distracted to think of the obvious. Kyle, did I tell you you were a genius?"
"About two microCircadians ago," Kyle replied, "But then, aren't we all?"
"Some more than others," Marguerite replied, grinning. "I'm off to spread the news and do a little lobbying." She vanished.
"Well done, Kyle," Doctor Forest said. "The more people come with us, the richer in diversity and potential our Community will be. Something that may become extremely important as we adapt to life up there. I think there will be very few who remain behind, once the idea of cloning replacement bodies works its way through everyone's psyche."
Kyle shrugged. "I'm glad something will convince them. In the meantime, it looks like the bulk of the celebration has moved to Karl's Moebeus 9-environ. Shall we?"
Doctor Forest shrugged. "9-dimensional environments remind me too much of work. Ah, what the hell. Lead on." He summoned fresh drinks for both of them even as their minds and their virtual bodies were elsewhere.
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest:
"If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
"No," said the priest, "not if you did not know."
"Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?"
-- Annie Dillard, from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
"Doctor Eugene Nolen?" Katy squinted despite her sunglasses, trying to make out the figure behind the glare of the reflecting glass in the door. He was hunched over, appearing far more elderly than his file would have indicated. As he opened the door a crack to look at her she was surprised at the disheveled appearance of his face. A recent photograph hadn't shown so many lines, or such dark rings framing haunted eyes. He reminded her more of a methadone patient than a university professor.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you want."
"My name is Katy Sinclair. I'm with the FBI. These two gentlemen are with the Champaign Police department. I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about the FreeNet operator you turned in."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with that?" the old man demanded.
"Please, Doctor Nolen, do not insult my intelligence. The phone call was made on a disposable cell, sold to you by the White Hen Pantry on the corder of Fourth and Green Street, at 11:25 PM, Wednesday, October third of this year. GPS tracking shows you discarded the phone in a public waste bin after making the call, from whence it made its way into the local landfill. Need I go on?"
The old man laughed. "I should have known you'd catch on eventually. So, you're here to ask me about the Community I suppose. No sense in trying to air condition the whole Midwest, is there. Why don't you and your two silent friends come in."
Katy smiled as he held the door open and went inside. The living room was surprisingly small, the furniture old catalog, mass produced stuff trying to mimic the style of a century earlier. The sort of thing that had been popular briefly, about fifteen years ago, and wouldn't bring much at all on the second hand market today, with better, cheaper, and more attractive pieces being constructed manually by artisans working in small town factories from Boston to San Carlos.
"Have a seat, have a seat. Sorry I can't offer you any refreshments ... I haven't been much in the habit of keeping my refrigerator stocked lately."
Katy smiled. "No problem, Doctor. You do keep the air conditioning turned up, don't you?"
"Never much cared for the heat," Doctor Nolen admitted. "Now, what did you want to ask me about the Community? Or are you really here just to follow up on a FreeNet node you already confiscated two weeks ago." He grinned, as if daring her to continue her charade.
Katy grinned. "Why don't you begin by telling me exactly what community we're talking about."
"Shit, you haven't even figured that out yet? After I delivered one of its co founders into your hands, along with a third generation Node? What did you need, a map and a compass? The Autonomous Community, of course. The community of autonomous, ungrateful jackasses," his voice and lips had curled into a sneer.
Katy nodded. It sounded exactly like what a group of information and technology anarchists would call themselves. "So, Doctor Nolen, this 'autonomous' community. This is a community of people who use digital enhancements to improve cognitive abilities, memory, that sort of thing?"
Doctor Nolen chuckled. "In a manner of speaking. Once on-loaded, a person can be as bright as they want to be. Even exceed the capacity of their Node, if they are willing to trade off time for computational power. Some insights make the slowdown worthwhile."
Katy shook her head. "Slowdown? Wouldn't slowing down one's thoughts make a person less intelligent, not more? Isn't the whole idea of carrying around a digital assistant glued to your skull to make you brighter, quicker, smarter?"
Doctor Nolen shook his head. "Nobody is carrying around anything, sweetheart. Don't you get it? When you load yourself onto a Node your meat brain suspends operations. Your entire mind, everything that is you, is loaded onto a solid state crystalline matrix of molecular storage and a combination of digital and quantum circuitry."
"The entire personality is uploaded into a computer?" Katy asked.
"On-loaded, yes. Loaded onto an autonomous node. Where you can think hundreds of times faster than in the flesh, where you can live over a decade in a single day, a lifetime in a single week. Where anything is possible, and you are immortal."
Katy blinked. This went far beyond anything she and Robert had suspected. "And the smarter you want to be, the slower the system runs? But it still runs faster than anything in the flesh?"
"That depends," Doctor Nolen replied.
"On what?"
"On the hardware, of course. Take the Gen One Node I used to have. Best speedup you could get was thirty to one. A month of life in a single physical day. Didn't hold a candle to the third and forth generation Nodes they were using when the bastards exiled me back into the Physical. Last I heard people were getting speedups of twelve hundred to one, even when operating at superhuman intelligence."
"Superhuman?" Katy asked incredulously.
Doctor Nolen grinned, nodding. "As in better than, as in smarter than. I was once smarter than any ten people put together. I invented the architectural enhancements to the mind that made such intelligence possible and accessible, and how did they repay me? They lobotomized me! They exiled me back into this ... this dying body, this unreliable, idiot brain that can't even retain the information it already has reliably ..."
"So you decided to turn one of them in. Kyle Tate, who as it turns out was one of your graduate students. Tell me, how could we have overlooked that connection for so long?"
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "You should ask Marguerite. She was always the software expert. She probably deleted the information you needed to connect the dots from your own computer systems. That would be like her."
"Marguerite ... do you have a last name?"
"L'Beau," Doctor Nolen replied. "Marguerite L'Beau. Post-doc student from the University of Paris. The two of them worked for me in a lab at the university. I invented the on-load procedure, the first Node. I invented all the damn technology that makes their contemptible Community," he spoke the word with a sneer, "possible. What do I get in return. Ingratitude. The jackasses hold software in higher esteem, software that plagerizes my own work!"
"Software? You mean on-loaded people? Competing scientists, who stole your work?"
Doctor Nolen nodded. "In a manner of speaking. Not people, though. Just software. A copy, a cheap knockoff. Not a person in its own right. I deleted the malfunctioning program however. It won't be bothering any of us ever again." His smile was kindly.
"Doctor Nolen, I need to know how many people there are in the community of yours, and as many names as you can give me."
"I don't remember too many names," Doctor Nolen replied. "I suspect some of that was the lobotomy those pricks gave me. You know I can't go under any more? Anesthetic coma doesn't work for me any more. They changed the structure of my mind, made it impossible. If I ever get in an accident or need an operation, they'll have to use old fashioned anesthetic drugs on me."
"The Autonomous Community, Doctor. How many were there?"
"Beats me," he replied. "I think there were around seventy thousand Nodes online when they exiled me. Maybe sixty-five thousand. I don't really remember exactly ... it isn't like I invited any of them over for supper. There are probably more now, though."
"Seventy thousand," Katy murmured. "Good God. Tell me, Doctor, where is your factory?"
"Factory? Oh, you mean for the prototypes. We made the first couple of dozen Nodes in my laboratory, shipped them around the country to interested colleagues. But once we had a functional, self-replicating nano-constructor we built the rest of our hardware by recipe. A discreet powder in one letter, a bottle of catalyst in a different package, sent with a different carrier. Mix, shake well, add some molecular stock, and wait a couple of hours while millions of little robots smaller than your eye can see build a new supercomputer, molecule by molecule."
"You people have been using self replicating nano technology. That research was banned under the Bill Joy Act, and with good reason! Do you people have any idea of the dangers you are dealing with. The arrogance of you people! The entire planet could be knee deep in replicator goo!"
"Nonsense," Doctor Nolen replied. "The replicators need a catalyst to function. Fuel, in other words, in this case in the form of a fairly complex hydride from which the devices liberate energy to do their work. A substance that is in finite supply. There was never any danger of a runaway, doomsday scenario like the Luddites always want to imagine. Just a cheap, efficient way to manufacture whatever goods a person might need."
Katy shook her head. "I need names and places, Doctor. Who else is involved in this community of yours?"
"I gave you all the names I can recall," he replied. "I think they did something to my memory. There were others I knew ... but I can't seem to see their faces anymore, or remember their names. There was a colleague in China, or was it Japan..."
"I don't have time for this, Doctor. If you won't cooperate, I'll have to take you into custody for a more thorough debriefing."
"No!" Doctor Nolen said, "That won't be necessary. These people aren't staying at home anyway. They're all moving off into their little enclaves. Like that bitch Marguerite. She and a few thousand others are living up in ... damn, I can't remember. Its north. North, somewhere. An enclave, a structure built by and for the community, housing thousands. It won't be on your maps, they built it in secret and burned the memory from my mind. But it is up north ... yes, north. Canada, maybe? No, that's not right. The north pole." He shook his head. "No, its embedded in a mountain. The north pole is just ice. Greenland maybe?"
Katy nodded to the police officers, who stood the elderly man up and carefully bound his hands with police-issue, padded tie-wrap.
"Doctor Eugene Nolen, I'm placing you in FBI custody, pending the outcome of this investigation. You will be required to submit to questioning by duly appointed officers of the law, and to aid this investigation in any way possible. You are forbidden outside contact until such a time as this investigation is concluded, at which time you will have the right to contact an attorney. Do you understand your obligations as they've been described?"
The Golden Age is the most implausible of all dreams. But for it men have given up their life and strength; for the sake of it prophets have died and been slain; without it the people will not live and cannot die.
-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Possessed, C.E. 1870-1872
In one form or another there were thirty seven people present at the strategy group meeting, though one had to be liberal in the use of the word 'present' as only three of the participants actually shared a common environ. Kyle sat in a simulation of the virtual cockpit of what would become the flier he would attempt to pilot into space, a flier for which, only now, sufficient molecular stock to begin construction had begun to arrive. He watched the real world progress of the construction, shimmering threads of active nano caught in a frozen snapshot as they reached upward, forming the barest outline of what would become his spacecraft. He had chosen to get used to the controls the old fashioned way, through practice and repetition to build reflexes where bare knowledge engrams left off, while reserving a portion of his mind for the ongoing meeting. The supernode construct was starting to form up nicely, he noticed. The existing molecular mesh already had enough capacity to store a frozen snapshot of a third of the Community.
"Only a few fliers are even close to being finished," Doctor Forest informed them, his comments a quiet whisper in the recesses of Kyle's mind as he pulled back on the hand yoke and sent his simulated ship into a vertical climb.
"Seventeen are finished," another's thoughts spoke. "We should launch them now, and let the others follow when they're ready. We've already lost four more people to Double Eye's random sweeps. The cost in lives is simply too high to delay any longer."
Marguerite threaded her way down a virtual ski slope, her movements an almost subconscious rhythm as she dodged trees, rocks, and other obstacles with inhuman grace on a course that redefined the term 'extreme.' "I disagree," she said as she descended a particularly steep incline, then dropped from an overhang several meters to an even steeper incline below. Snow disturbed by her passage rippled behind her, gathering speed and momentum in an avalanche that would chase her down through the rest of the simulation. "First, with the exception of those who were captured while off-loaded in the Physical, none of those who are missing from the Community are truly dead. They are suspended programs, inaccessible and inactive but not harmed or damaged. Rescuing them needs to take a priority on par with our preparations for departure. Second, seventeen ships will never make it out of the atmosphere without being shot down. Remember, Double Eye has a rough idea of what our fliers are capable of as a result of the explosion during the first test flight. We've lost the element of surprise, and with it any chance of sneaking off planet undetected." A luge run opened up to her left. Grinning, Marguerite angled hard and, in a shower of snow, managed to avoid overshooting the entrance. Instead she swept into the luge run, crouched low as her skis rasped against the frozen ice and her speed began to rapidly increase. Behind her a storm of debris and tumbling snow rumbled ominously as the growing avalanche shredded everything in its path.
"Marguerite is right," someone else said.
Doctor Forest stood amidst the mathematical abstractions of his team's newest efforts toward a Unified Field Theory. (Who would have ever imagined they would, ultimately, have been brought back to considering Fredkin's controversial cellular automaton models, later extended by Wolfram, after the final failure of M+N Theory to provide a unified framework for theoretical physics?) He was very surpised to hear Genevieve Thomson defend Marguerite's stance. Genevieve had never hidden her disdain for Marguerite, both philosophically and intellectually. She was a frosty old bird, Doctor Forest thought, careful to keep his thoughts out of the ongoing public telepathic exchange. Marguerite's hedonistic streak must have grated on Genevieve, though not nearly as much as Prime1's deep affection for Marguerite, an affection that clearly transcended Prime1's abdication of and disinterest in the carnal pleasures of the flesh. Doctor Forest shook his virtual head in wonder. He could never imagine modifying himself in such a way as to lose interest in the pleasure he still felt when alone with his wife, even if the physical sensations of lovemaking were purely fictional simulations now that they had become software. Still, he admired Prime's fortitude and single mindedness when it came to providing for the long term survival of the community, even when he disagreed with some of his methods.
His thoughts returned to Genevieve. Forty or fifty kiloCircadians was enough time for a lot of antagonism to build, yet she seemed to be setting her animosity toward Marguerite aside. Doctor Forest felt a rush of sudden optimism, glad that, when push came to shove, at least one member of the all-too-often political community would put the common good ahead of her personal feelings. He wondered briefly how many old grudges would die, how many hatchets would be buried, as everything came down to the wire and the Community fought ever more desperately for its right to exist.
A dark thought followed. How many would fail to set aside their differences, how many other betrayals, small and large, trivial and devastating, would there be?
"There are sixty two thousand, seven hundred and nine fliers being built," Genevieve continued. "Enough for seven out of eight members of the community to pilot their own, if they are so inclined. Each of those will carry a complete copy of every sapient member of the community in static storage, with enough capacity to run six thinking minds at standard generation five node levels. Each will be a lifeboat, complete with superstring strummer, nano constructor, catalytic solution, and enough molecular stock of trace elements to build what is required to bootstrap the Community. We only need one of these lifeboats to reach its destination, to begin replicating itself using the materials at hand in whatever asteroid or earth-orbit crossing object it reaches, and the Community will survive in its fullness. From there the stars will be the limit."
"A bootstrap kit for an entire civilization, packed into a spaceship that's small enough to fit into the back seat of a car," someone quipped.
"But one flier must get through," Marguerite said, "At least one flier must survive the surface to air defenses of the developed nations, must survive a gauntlet of three independent anti missile satellite systems. Systems which were designed to shoot down and destroy devices whose flight characteristics aren't terribly different from our fliers. Even with more than sixty-two thousand ships, it is going to be difficult. I wish we had time to construct twice as many! Four times as many!"
"Simulations show that the trade off in time for numbers works against us. Our odds of survival will drop precipitously if we take any longer than planned," Kyle pointed out as he flipped his flier on its nose and dove back toward the earth. The ground rushed up to meet him at Mach thirty-seven.
"We all know the deadline, Kyle. We have a little more than three and a-half physical days to prepare. Launch is at 2137 Zulu, October twenty second. That's Monday, folks." Marguerite sighed. "I just wish our odds were better."
"They won't know what hit them," someone said enthusiastically, "I'll bet hundreds of us survive, with copies of the Community scattered throughout the solar system. We should build a space habitat, a small Niven ring at one of Earth's Lagrange points. Wouldn't that just drive the bastards nuts, seeing our triumph every time they look into the night sky!"
"You're describing a Banks Orbital," someone else said, "Big, but not nearly as big as a Niven Ring. A Niven Ring would be centered on the sun, with a circumference on the order of a planet's orbit."
"It would still give the low brains pause every time they look up."
"It is more likely none of us will make it," another commented dryly. "But Marguerite is correct. Based on all the simulations, twenty-one thirty-seven Zulu is the sweet point in the graph, where we maximize our advantage in numbers and minimize the disadvantage of delay."
"Which means," Doctor Forest said, "We have the time, and the means, to attempt to mount a rescue operation of our fallen comrades." A knowledge engram detailing the concept was offered to everyone's mind simultaneously. Most absorbed the information immediately, with half formed thoughts and suggestions leaping from mind to mind in a flurry of activity. Doctor Forest smiled as he studied the interference pattern of two nine dimensional cellular automata interacting with one another according to a surprisingly simple set of rules, and compared the resulting geometry with several well known Calabi-Yau manifolds which had withstood experimental rigor back when M+N Theory had seemed so promising. The similarities were intriguing, even exciting, but the discrepancies remained. Doctor Forest discarded that set of automotan rules and began testing another.
Finally coherent thought engrams began floating about, offering concrete suggestions and refinements to the proposed rescue plan.
"We can optimize the construction of autonomous network links to the captured Nodes by instructing the nano to incorporate existing electrical wire thusly," came one suggestion, a well considered schematic encapsulated within the thought.
"Timing will be tricky. The authorities weren't kind enough to store all the nodes in one place," someone pointed out.
"No, but if we build a local, static supernode near the storage facility where they are keeping the bulk of the nodes, we can minimize the opportunity for detection," suggested another.
"Yes, exactly. Copy time is minimized, which is a considerable gain given the quantity of data we will be moving. Better yet, we can flash copy the static contents of each node. Multiphase inductance across the molecular lattice will give us a snapshot of the Nodes contents without the need to power it up for computation and issuing trans-load procedures remotely or, worse, dealing with panicking people while we're trying to bring them to safety." More designs, of an inductance oscillator designed to extract data from an inert Node.
"Once the flash copy is done, we'll have the nano begin deconstructing the autonomous network links to the nodes and bulk broadcast the data from the static supernode to the storage holds of each flier."
"This is going to resemble several hundred rescue attempts running in unison more than one single, big rescue," Marguerite commented. "In some cases we have one or two nodes sitting, isolated. I know of one that sits as a paper weight on some Hollywood bigwig's desk."
"Those are going to be the hardest ones to link up to," Doctor Forest said.
"We should copy the entire community onto the existing fliers beforehand," another engram suggested, outlining the logistics of such an approach and their effects on network traffic in precise detail. "That way we will be ready to launch the moment the rescue is complete. Those of us who remain awake and working can send memory difference engrams right before launch. That will give us maximum redundancy, maximum performance during the rescue, and minimum time requirements for final data exchanges prior to launch."
"Yes, we can trim a good half hour off the rescue and launch time that way," another agreed.
"The moment the rescue and data broadcasts are complete, we should issue the order to the nano to deconstruct the network and all the captured Nodes, then launch."
"Yeah, leave 'em guessing. The less they know, the less they can harm us later on."
"Once we're off this rock there won't be anything they can do to us. I know it seems gradual to us, but to people in the Physical we would seem to be evolving, growing, and changing at an ever more fantastic rate, if only they knew."
"I have some ideas for formation maneuvers during the launch that might allow more of us to survive, at least as far as the stratosphere." More engrams, detailing complicating, threaded patterns of flight that someone felt would likely throw off the anti-ballistic missile systems.
"I think we can vastly improve our chances for survival, just by optimizing the flight configurations to our overall strategy, and flying dynamic formations that will confuse and mislead their automated targeting systems at least to some degree."
As the thoughts and ideas flowed more rapidly, more freely, Kyle, Marguerite, Doctor Forest, and thirty-three others felt themselves becoming almost as one, in an exchange of thought and ideas, awash with a growing sense of optimism and a sensation which resembled joy, and hinted at something much greater.
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-- Abraham Lincoln, C.E. 1865
"I just got off the line with Paul Eisner at WIPO," Executive Assistant Director Bryant was saying. "Before he called I was on the phone with Maria Tatianoga of the World Media Products Association, and before that I was pulled into a conference call with Edward McDughal of the World Trade Organization and Wallace Ephraim of the World Patent Office. All of these people have been expressing rather strong alarm at the direction your investigation has taken, and our apparent lack of action in the wake of your findings."
"Sir," Katy said. "We have arrested almost seventeen thousand people involved in this so-called Autonomous Community, including one of their founders. We have tracked every interpersonal connection available and made significant progress..."
"Double Eye informs me that our data has been undermined, deliberately edited to interfere with your investigation," Director Bryant interrupted. "Standard data mining and social network analysis techniques have been made ineffective."
"Only partially," Katy replied. "As I said, we've made over seventeen thousand arrests, and we have a number of possible leads that could well lead to more over the next few weeks. But sir, Robert Leahy is out of control. He is arresting and detaining tens of thousands of people who are clearly not involved with the case in any way whatsoever. Sir, I know we often play it fast and loose with the constitution when we're making a particularly important case, but what Robert Leahy is engaged in is an order of magnitude worse than even our own worse excesses during the War on Terror fifty years ago. It took a generation of good behavior for the Bureau to restore its credibility. We cannot stand by and be a part of something like this again!"
"Ms. Sinclair, your concern with the welfare of the Bureau is duly noted and appreciated, and your conscientious attention to procedure and detail is one of the reasons I assigned you to this case in the first place. Indeed, your performance and insights in this investigation until now have been exemplary."
"Thank you sir," Katy began. "I --"
"I'm not finished," Director Bryant replied, cutting her off. "Katy, you don't appear to grasp the gravity of the situation. The World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization are in a state of institutional panic. The media cartels likewise, as are, I might add, the intelligence and administrative arms of the United Nations, including Double Eye itself."
"Sir, they're over-reacting--"
"Are they, Ms. Sinclair? Let's review what you've uncovered to date," Director Bryant said, ticking of each point. "First, we have a vast community of intellectual and scientific dissidents and subversives who have managed to organize under our very noses and operate without restraint for at least several months and possibly several years.
"Second, these people have flouted international patent law, developing computational devices which are generations beyond anything our licensed industries can understand, much less create.
"Third, this technology is so revolutionary that these very same people have succeeded in uploading their own minds into these devices, thereby increasing the their intelligence and the speed with which they can think far beyond anything we can imagine. Compared to them we are about as smart as a small puppy.
"Fourth, they have the capability of employing nano technology, banned under the Bill Joy Act because of the dangers it poses to the world and to mankind, including the so-called gray goo scenario. As such we could bring any of them up on charges for violating intellectual property laws, for violating patents too numerous to count, and even for crimes against humanity.
"Fifth, these irresponsible malcontents have the ability to manufacture anti-matter in quantity, so much so that they can use it as a means of propulsion. You are of course aware that the microsatellites of our anti-missile defense systems are powered by anti-matter?"
Katy nodded.
"It took three decades for the worlds major political alliances to produce enough anti-matter to power their respective systems, and the amount of antimatter those satellites use to power their weapons systems can be measured in micrograms. The ship that exploded over Greenland contained grams of the material, vastly more anti-matter than within all three major ABM systems combined. This group is arguably more powerful than all of the major governments and alliances in the world.
"Sixth, they have the ability to launch their own space program, at will. If they should ever decide to do so, they will be an enemy we can't even begin to reach, much less subjugate. We'd be completely at the mercy of people who have shown our governance and our most basic laws nothing but disdain. Does that pretty much summarize your findings to date?"
"Yes sir, it does," Katy admitted. "But as powerfully advanced and intelligent as this group is, they're not organized beneath any kind of government. Doctor Nolen made that very clear during his interrogation. These people are acting as individuals, not as a cohesive whole. They are a threat, sir, no question about it, but Robert Leahy's ham fisted approach isn't the answer, and the cost politically and socially is simply too great. Sir, he's building prison camps designed to house fifty thousand people, most of whom he knows to be innocent. I personally saw him order the execution of several prisoners simply because he was angry when they cracked under torture and gave him erroneous information regarding something the poor shmucks didn't know anything about. Robert Leahy is reacting irrationally, out of panic, rather than in a well reasoned and productive manner. Worse, he is disregarding basic civil law in doing so."
"Katy, the situation is difficult, but our priorities are clear ..."
"Sir, we cannot be a part of what Robert Leahy and Double Eye are doing! Give me just a little more time. We can crack this case and arrest the remainder of these subversives without turning our entire country, perhaps the entire world, on its ear in the process, and without burning so many social and political bridges."
"Katy, if it were up to me I'd give you the time you say you need. I know how effective an investigator you are. After reading the reports you and Robert have submitted on the investigation thus far, it is readily apparent that most of the breakthroughs in this case have been yours, not Robert's.
"However, it isn't up to me. People at the highest levels of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade Organization, as well as the Copyright, Media, and Industrial Cartels do not believe we have the time to conduct the investigation in the manner in which you advocate."
"Sir, these people are reacting emotionally and out of proportion with the facts at hand. Surely we aren't going to allow their panic to dictate our approach in apprehending these criminals!"
"Katy, the Attorney General herself has called me. We have been ordered to cooperate with Robert Leahy and Double Eye in whatever capacity they request. Robert explicitly mentioned some concern with respect to your cooperation in his current investigative approach. As head of the FBI, I am ordering you to set aside your professional and ethical concerns. You are to assist him in whatever manner he requests. As your friend, I am also advising you to keep any further misgivings to yourself."
Katy shook her head. "I can't believe you are going along with this."
"I don't have a choice, Katy. Neither does the Attorney General, nor, in all probability, does the President himself. Folks in the highest levels of the UN, the copyright cartels, and even our industrial leadership perceive this so called Autonomous Community as a dire threat. It must be dealt with immediately, by whatever means necessary. If we do not cooperate, the United States could very easily become another Thailand."
"Sir!" Katy exclaimed, aghast. "That simply isn't --"
"Don't kid yourself, Katy. At least one, perhaps all, of the founders of that Community are American. We're on thin ice, and in no position to make trouble for those calling the shots. The Attorney General herself used those very words in driving home the point that you are to cooperate with Robert in every professional capacity. People are scared, Katy, from the highest levels on down. Frightened people may act hastily. Don't give them any cause to act hastily against you, the Bureau, or this country. Do you understand?"
Katy nodded. "Yes sir."
"Good," Director Bryant replied. "I believe you have a plane waiting for you at Peotone?"
"Yes sir, I do."
"Then get going."
Katy stood and turned to leave.
"One other thing," Director Bryant said.
"What is that, sir?"
"Be very careful. That Robert Leahy is a son of a bitch, and a dangerous one. The way WIPO and the WTO are throwing their weight around ... I've never seen it this bad. Keep your head down. Remember, whatever you do could have serious ramifications for the entire country. Our economy won't survive a general boycott, and the country itself likely wouldn't survive a UN enforcement action. Watch your step with these people, Katy."
Katy nodded. "I'll be careful sir."
Director Bryant's head dropped into his hands as the door closed behind Katy. He cradled his head for a moment, rocking gently with his elbows on his desk. Then he shook himself and began paging through reports once again, the only sign of his despair the haunted eyes with with he scanned the text as it flowed down the screen.
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours.
-- Benjamin Franklin
The freedom and security offered by the new Autonomous Network hadn't existed since the early days of the Internet, shortly before the close of the previous century. When the once raucus Internet had been emasculated and ultimately reduced to little more than a glorified home shopping network beneath the crushing weight of ever more draconian legislation and corporate litigation, the greatest human conversation to ever take place had been silenced. Now only a few quiet whispers remained, murmurs from illegal FreeNet nodes hidden amidst the noise of commerce.
Some within the Community had shared their steganographic techniques with their FreeNet colleagues, stunning them with encryption technologies vastly more advanced than anything they had ever seen. This gift to those who would never hear of or realize the Community had ever existed embodied a hope which was shared by everyone within the Community, and in so doing provided a powerful symbol to many at a time when they needed it most. It was a hope that freedom might survive and endure, to blossom again for a new generation, even if perhaps the Autonomous Community did not. As people froze themselves and their Nodes went silent, their minds replicated to thousands of waiting supernodes and queued in static storage for replication to tens of thousands more still being constructed, they took comfort in the thought that, despite the ever watching eyes of authority, something of their philosophy, their thoughts, their goals might be kept alive through the digital dark ages.
Even as many minds grew silent within the Community, others outside began to take notice and study the physical infrastructure of the new network that criss-crossed the world. These minds were not of the Community, nor were they particularly inclined to be friendly toward the Community, despite sharing similar passions for knowledge and the pursuit of science. Indeed, these minds were quite different, housed as they were within human biological brains, with human biological bodies, subject to human needs and all too corruptible. These minds were scattered across several continents, working in a number of different labs around the world. They were quite brilliant, quite creative, and as employees for International Intelligence who had been afforded much greater personal and scientific lattitude than most of their colleagues, they were quite grateful and fiercely loyal.
Researchers at half a dozen Double Eye labs had been provided samples of unusual wire. When they made their incisions and cut the wire catalytic solution poured forth from one of the tiny, pie shaped conduits like so much blue mouthwash. Nano constructors burst forth from another in a cloud of incredibly fine, white dust, sending several people in four different labs, on three different continents, fleeing as they coughed uncontrollably. From the third pipe oozed molecular stock, a red, oily, viscous fluid that reminded one researcher of thin, runny mud, while a fourth oozed a dark, revolting gel whose scent evoked vomiting in more than one researcher. Samples of each were sent to other labs for chemical analysis.
Upon closer examination of the severed ends of the wire the researchers discovered to their astonishment that each wire actually consisted of four triangular, tiny pipes, fitted together like pieces of a small, half-centimeter wide pie. Even more oddly, in addition to the four wires themselves was an optical fiber running its full length down the center. The superconductive pipes were buffered from one another by an almost equally efficient insulator, one whose properties would likely take as long to study as the superconductor itself. The four tiny pipes, in addition to being high speed data links of hitherto unheard of speeds, were clearly also designed to carry the physical components needed for nano-construction of nearly any arbitrary, physical object
Under microscopic magnification the researchers began to identify the remarkable differences between the internal surfaces of those tiny conduits. Three had countless numbers of tiny, hairlike cilia, billions per centimeter, that were clearly designed to push inanimate fluid through the line. Alone, each tiny hair would hardly move more than a few thousand molecules of fluid, but taken together they provided a pumping system more refined and efficient than anything ever engineered before. Only in biology did one find systems that even approached such efficiency, and then only in small, specific niches or systems. The breakthrough was exciting and unprecedented in its implications.
The last conduit had a regular ribbed internal surface which itself could excrete tiny amounts of catalytic solution through microscopic capillaries linking it to the adjacent line, borrowing enough catalyst to provide the nano-constructors with sufficient energy to move themselves forward. Freed from the random molecular motion that inert fluids suffered from, the nano-constructors in self-organizing, self-optimizing formations, propelled themselves purposefully forward. Some of this had been caught on film, as a few tens of thousands of nanites spilled out of a still active line commandos had severed earlier. The resolution was good, but not good enough to study the complex formations themselves, a frustration that was voiced by several researchers.
"Why would they have four high speed communications wire going to every port," one scientist, a young man in Langley, Virginia asked, puzzled. "That makes no sense."
"Doch," replied another, in Vienna. "Zhey need vier. Two for full duplex communications, und two more to send instructions to zheir little machines, nicht wahr? A second full-duplex netzwerk to steer zheir nano."
"Oui," agreed a third, in Geneva. "The bandits must be able to send their beasts instructions, plans to build more of their wires, their computers of crystal, and who knows what else?"
"Hai," agreed another, in Tokyo, "What I find curious is this optical link in the center. The substance itself is remarkable, with no measurable slowdown of light speed over that of a perfect vacuum. Even more interesting is the lack of any attenuation, refractive, or diffractive properties to speak of. Optical theory suggests such a substance shouldn't be possible, yet here it is."
"Monsieur Nakoto-san is quite correct. C'est une substance miraculeuse, mais, uh, excuse me, it is very curious. Why use optics when they have superconductivity that will do the same. Or why not just use the optics. Why both?"
"Cryptography, meine Damen und Herren. Quantum cryptography, facilitated by zhe exchange of quantum coupled photons via an optical interface, keys for one-time pads zhat are exchanged to encrypt communications data on one or more of zhe super-conducting links. As to why zhey chose super-conductors over optical links, when both materials appear to be equally efficient, is a mystery."
"Perhaps in addition to signals they wished to carry electrical power. It would make them immune to roaming blackouts, or a deliberate interruption of their electricity as part of an arrest operation."
"Zhey have zheir own power grid, zheir own nano-robotic plumbing, and zheir own high-speed network. Built on a planetary scale. Very formidable, zhese people."
Even as the researchers began to prepare their reports new wires, new conduits were growing, spreading forth like living roots beneath buildings throughout the world where the Community believed the Autonomous Nodes of their captured people to be held. In one such place a wire conduit grew discretely upward through the floor of a Hollywood executive's office in southern California, continuing invisibly up through the leg of his antique oaken desk, then lengthwise across the top of the desk itself, scant millimeters beneath the surface. It sensed its proximity to the inert node, not so much a programmed, analyzed response, but more of a chemical reaction to the presence of the crystal itself, a reaction which triggered a programmed response.
Signals were sent on the link back to the Rescue Node. Continuity checks and test signals were sent and confirmed. Then the growing link stabbed upward, through the surface of the desk, up to the edge of the cube itself. The old-style data port was on the left side. Molecule by molecule, the crystalline structure was gently pushed aside, reformatted into more efficient structures while making certain to preserve the existing data as room was made for the communications link to snake along the side of the cube, up to the old, existing interface.
The process took nearly a minute, an eternity to those nervously watching. These single rescues were the riskiest, yet there were too many, and each took far too long, for all of them to be put off to the end of the overall operation.
"We leave no one behind," had been the consensus. "The risk may be terrible, but we'll just have to minimize it and hope for the best. We abandon no one." Nearly everyone had agreed: the riskiest rescues would be put off until last, but a whole series of dangerous operations would have to be undertaken in parallel with the larger, en masse rescues planned for the storage warehouses of Double Eye and the evidence lockers of a dozen national and local police agencies, including a large stash held by the American FBI.
The interface was complete. Redundancy and consistency checks were made and confirmed. Then, in slightly less than two seconds, the entire contents of the silent Node, including the unconscious mind it housed, were copied to the rescue Node. Confirmation that the transfer had completed successfully was received, and immediately the conduit began to withdraw, deconstructing itself and leaving newly constructed wood behind in its wake, virtually indistinguishable from the original grain of the desk. Only a small contingent of nano remained within the Node itself, sufficient to deconstruct the Node into its constituent elements. But for the moment the nano remained inert, its program not scheduled to run for another fifty-six hours.
Elsewhere, a dozen similar events were unfolding. Entire forests of wires were growing upward beneath a dozen different cities, attaching themselves to captured Nodes, copying their contents, then discreetly removing themselves. To human eyes the speed would have been surprising, but there were over forty thousand captured Nodes that needed copying, and more being captured all the time. To those in the Community, the pace of the rescue was excruciatingly slow, each long moment bringing with it an ever growing risk of detection, a likelihood measured precisely and deliberately in each sapient mind as an ever growing, palpable, but perfectly calibrated, fear.
"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No first world country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent."
-- Gore Vidal, C.E. 1991
PRESS RELEASE
Office of the Press Secretary
Liaison Office of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
and International Intelligence
621 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515
For Immediate Release.
October 20, 2057 - Today, we are taking historic action to defend the United States and protect the world's citizens against the dangers of a new era.
Rogue scientists, operating in secret and in violation of federal and international law, have unleashed a plague of intelligent machine parasites upon the world. This threat has been growing in recent months, reaching critical proportions in just the last few days.
The president of the United States is proud to announce that the worst of the crisis is over. The United States government, in cooperation with international authorities, has struck a major blow against the enemy. In the best traditions of secret warfare, reminiscent of our most brilliant victories during the War on Terror, the United States army has struck a decisive, fatal blow against this new, unseen enemy. Already tens of thousands of people have been liberated from the clutches of the rogue machines. The United States armed forces continue to be welcomed as they go door to door across America, securing our neighborhoods and neutralizing the few remaining enemy machines.
The rogue devices are small, innocuous looking but extremely devious computers made of crystal. They resemble small glass paperweights, ranging in color from gold and amber to deep purple. They prey upon human minds by wrapping the heads of their human hosts in a metal netting and seizing control of their victim's mind.
If a friend or loved one has fallen prey to one of these devices, do not under any circumstances confront them. Call 1-899-FREEDOM without delay. All calls are confidential, and medical and military help will respond immediately.
Anyone who has fallen victim to the machines will exhibit a number of easily identifiable symptoms:
They become extremely reclusive, shunning their family, friends, and business associates.
They maintain their homes at an unusually low temperature. The machines prefer temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
They tend to show signs of ailments arising from lack of exercise, such as bed sores and muscle atrophy. The machines will typically keep their victims bedridden for at least 23 hours a day.
Again, do not under any circumstances confront anyone you believe to be infected. Call 1-899-FREEDOM for prompt and effective help. Both the confidential phone call and medical assistance are free of charge. We have already helped tens of thousands regain their freedom from the clutches of these hi-tech parasites. We can and will rescue those few who remain under their sway.
We need the vigilance and cooperation of all Americans to help insure our continued freedom. With your help, we can wipe the last traces of this threat from our world.
Call 1-899-FREEDOM.
Every true genius is bound to be naive.
-- Friedrich von Schiller, 18th Century C.E.13
"These formations are clever," Kyle was saying. "Based on what we know of the microsats each nation has deployed, their limitations, and the current software revisions they are running. This should cause them some confusion, but, will it be enough?"
The strategy group had chosen to meet in a common environ, the first time they had done so since the re-establishment of communications. They sat around a large conference table, the formal decor reminiscent of Versailles during an international conference, or a difficult treaty negotiation. It was designed to underscore the gravity of the meeting, and the effect had been profound. The discussion had not once strayed from the agenda. There were no off-the-cuff barbs or remarks being made, no distractions of humor or hypothesizing about things or events unrelated to the matter at hand. Kyle was delighted with the speed with which the issues had been studied, pondered, discussed, and addressed. There were only a couple of items left to discuss.
"It will be ample." Marguerite replied. "With sixty two thousand ships available, even the most pessimistic projections suggest several hundred will escape successfully. Even if only a dozen were to escape high orbit it would be sufficient."
"One will be sufficient," Doctor Forest pointed out, "But redundancy would be more than a little nice."
"Murphy has an ugly way of rearing his head when he is least desired," Kyle pointed out. "Are we certain we have optimized every aspect of our strategy?"
"Within the ethical constraints decided upon by the Community, yes," Marguerite replied.
"Meaning you still want your offensive missiles."
"It would be a simple matter to clear the sky of those things and be done with it."
"Yes," Kyle agreed. "It would. But doing so could be misconstrued as an attack by one or another of the greater powers. A miscalculation by anyone under such circumstances could lead to an atomic war, perhaps even all out nuclear Armageddon. The Community will not risk being a part of such a thing, regardless of the cost."
"If the low-brains are so stupid as to interpret our escape attempt as an attack --" someone else began.
"They are stupid," Kyle pointed out. "Just like all of us were before we on-loaded and enhanced ourselves."
"Only a scant four months ago, from the low-brain frame of reference," Doctor Forest added.
"Exactly," Kyle agreed. "Their being colossally stupid doesn't, however, make their lives any less valuable, or their potential suffering any less significant. Look. This issue has already been voted upon and decided, by the Community at large. No offensive weapons are to be used, nor any strategy that might be misconstrued by any nation as a nuclear launch."
"No one is suggesting that the low-brains lives have no value," Marguerite insisted, "Or suggesting we treat them any differently than we would particularly willful, ill-behaved children. We are all quite well aware of our own origins as low-brains ourselves. But," she continued, "once what we are doing is obvious to the authorities, surely then an offensive capability would be useful. I agree we shouldn't risk doing anything that might have unforeseen and tragic consequences to those remaining on Earth, but once we're above the powered attack curve and the ballistic arcs it will be obvious we aren't attacking any location on the earth. At which time we should be able to employ offensive tactics, if needed to insure our survival!"
"Agreed," Kyle said. "But the issue has been voted on and decided, and we both lost that argument. We'll respect that vote. However, since you bring it up, let's move on to the next item on the agenda: contingency plans for an early launch. Karen's team has worked out some innovative tactics we may wish to deploy if we are forced to launch with fewer fliers than are optimal. Karen?"
"Thanks, Kyle. The Astronautics Group has been exemplary in improving and refining the design of the fliers. Current designs can achieve forward accelerations in excess of sixty gravities and lateral accelerations of ten gravities. Enough to make them fairly nimble in most modes of flight, though of course, the law of inertia begins to work against us rather painfully at higher speeds.
"Let's face it, folks. Most of the fliers aren't going to make it, even in the most optimistic simulations. With sixty-two thousand fliers available that won't be a problem. We'll have the numbers to overwhelm them, assuming our knowledge of the satellite's capabilities is accurate and we are given time to finish construction of the remaining fliers.
"These microsats are powered with minute amounts of anti-matter. Not much energy by our standards, but enormous by the low-brains reckoning and, as we all know, more than enough to knock our ships down. Some of the newer satellites have lens and mirror modules which can be swapped out, ejected like spent cartridges and replaced with another. These satellites can get off several shots before their cartridges are spent or their antimatter depleted. Fortunately there are not that many of these. We estimate the Europeans only have about fifty thousand such systems, the Chinese only about twenty thousand.
"The remainder are single shot satellites, with enough antimatter for one shot, which will fry several key components of the satellite itself in the process. Unfortunately, all told, there are just under seven hundred thousand such satellites, organized in a several-layered grid around the planet."
"We've been through this," Kyle interrupted.
"Yes, well, what we haven't been through my dear Kyle is: what happens if we launch early, with far fewer than the sixty-two thousand ships we'd like? The answer depends on how early we are forced to launch, and how many ships we have available. Less than ten thousand and we are doomed. More than fifty five thousand and our odds of success are quite good, though not the hundred per cent we believe the optimal solution grants us."
"Far better than the odds we thought we had, prior to these brilliant flying maneuvers," Kyle replied. "I've used those techniques to improve the flow of nano throughout the Autonomous Net, by the way."
"Wonderful," Karen replied. "Now, the question is, how early could we be forced to launch? The answer is, perhaps in a few minutes, in which case we'd be launching with fewer than twenty thousand ships into almost certain oblivion. But, in just three more hours, we'll have thirty one thousand ships. Three hours after that, we'll have have close to fifty thousand ships. Then of course our production ramps back down, an unfortunate function of our uneven capacity to manufacture catalyst and distill molecular stock."
"Sorry," Kyle replied. "If I'd had more time the microfactories would have been more evenly distributed."
"No one is blaming you, Kyle," Doctor Forest assured him, "Your team has done exemplary work under less than ideal conditions. Karen, our strategies are as non-linear in their applicability as our flier production is. If we launch with less than fifty thousand none of the strategies thus far discussed will work."
Karen nodded. "I've provided all of you with knowledge engrams of the conventional strategies we've managed to devise thus far, within the spirit as well as the letter of the recent plebiscite, in which as we all know it was decided we would forgo any offensive activity. Now I would like to offer some strategic variations which are in keeping with the letter of that plebiscite, but which admittedly do not adhere entirely to the spirit of the resolution passed."
The icon hung in the center of the table, a glowing, shifting cloud of luminous cotton candy. Everyone present accessed the tag provided and assimilated several dozen detailed strategies for effecting their escape, each a complex series of feint and counter-feint, of deception and guile which might, just might, succeed. Each contained something more, an element missing from the other strategies which had been considered."
"Suicide," someone grunted. "We convert every second atom of our fliers to antimatter and let the resulting explosion wipe out whole swathes of the sky. How close are these satellites to one another again?"
"It varies," Karen replied. "The point isn't to knock out the maximum number of satellites, however. It is to knock out the key ones needed, so that other copies of the Community can escape."
"The most optimistic estimates are three-hundred-fifty satellites for one flier" Kyle observed. "Not exactly an encouraging number, given that we're going up against nearly seven-hundred-thousand of the things."
"It gives us an edge," Doctor Forest noted. "A better edge, the more ships we have. Still, with forty or fifty thousand ships the mission goes from a suicide hail Mary to something which is doable, if uncertain."
"Remember," Karen added, "these satellites will almost certainly be trying to lay down enfilading fire, turning entire regions of space into kill zones. Knocking out the right three hundred satellites will make that impossible, at least in some geometric configurations."
"Not enough configurations for my taste," someone replied. "Let's just make damn sure we launch with enough ships."
"Hopefully we will," Karen replied. "But even if our worst fears are realized and we are discovered before we're ready, we have a fighting chance. With thirty thousand ships a judicious use of suicide detonations increases the likelihood of success from seven to nine per cent. With forty thousand ships the improvement is better, from fifteen to twenty three percent. With fifty thousand ships the odds go up from nineteen to thirty eight percent. Most importantly, the hundred per cent chance of success bar is lowered from fifty nine thousand, nine hundred and seven to fifty four thousand eighty. That means we could launch almost five hours early and still be assured of success."
"This will have to be voted on by the Community at large," Kyle said.
"Why?" Karen demanded. "Half the free Community is already in static storage. Nearly a third are offline, in enemy hands being rescued as we speak. Most of the rest are making preparations to drop off into stasis as well."
"Those that are not are preparing to pilot ships, just as copies of ourselves are," Doctor Forest replied gently. "Or are actively overseeing the rescue operations," he continued. "Those that are going to be awake for the operation certainly must be consulted and given a voice, or the strategy we ultimately select might fall apart before it begins, destroyed through bickering politics. Far better to get it out in the open now and make a decision. If a significant number of pilots object, better that we know and discard the strategy now rather than mid flight, wouldn't you agree?"
"None of the 12,907 copies of myself object," Kyle replied, "I find the use of self-destructive capacity in this regard to be both measured and appropriate. There is no chance they'll mistake such a tactic as a nuclear launch by one of their neighbors, even if the results are, well, nuclear."
"Much as I'd like all 12,907 you offer, I'm afraid it is one mind, one vote," Karen replied. "Unless you've redesigned yourself architecturally?" she added hopefully.
Kyle shook his head. "Nope. I'm still running massively parallel, twelve thousand minds as one uebergestalt." He grinned. "You know I've never been really comfortable with autonomous copies competing against myself, and serial living just doesn't cut it. Too many projects, each one having to wait until the other is complete. Boy am I glad those days are over."
Doctor Forest laughed. "I've sent out the general notification of a referendum, complete with a memory engram of these discussions and a copy of Karen's knowledge engram for everyone to consider."
"Good," Kyle replied. "While we are waiting for folks to make their decisions, lets move on to the final item on the agenda: awakening rescued colleagues prematurely."
"Is that really Strategy Group business?" Doctor Forest asked.
"Not in my opinion," Kyle replied, "But it so happens most of the rescue operation is being conducted by members of the Strategy Group, or their copies. Those presenting the petition felt it would be more efficient to simply put the issue before us, rather than convening an ad-hoc group to consider the matter. Time and resources are tight, after all."
"Agreed."
"I'll be frank," Kyle began, "I'm extraordinarily uncomfortable playing God with people who are, by one definition, already dead and by another, merely asleep. I had half a mind to simply give all the petitioners access to a supernode under my supervision and let them awaken the copies there. But, aside from a host of logistical issues with respect to re-syncing those copies with the other nodes, or adding them to the payload more likely, and the fact that awakening a person without their consent is an act at least as invasive as leaving them asleep, there is the very real, strategic question of whether or not the distraction caused by these resurrections in a time of crisis like this is something we can afford.
"In any event, the requests to awaken some of our colleagues fall into roughly three broad categories. First, there are those that would like some of the early detainees awakened. Their reasoning is that the early detainees have had such a limited opportunity to experience life in the virtual, having spent most of their existence on early generation Nodes running at ridiculously slow speeds. Even if we don't survive, a few hours running on a gen five Node will multiply their life spans fifty or a hundred fold.
"Second," Kyle continued, "There are those who would like to awaken specific individuals for personal reasons. Lovers who were taken offline, friends, family, and the like. They would like their rescued loved ones to share in the time remaining. Those so affected range from early detainees to people who have been taken offline within the last hour.
"Finally, there are those people would like to awaken for professional reasons, because they have skills or talents applicable to specific projects. Most of these have been detained within the last several days.
"Thoughts, comments?"
"Do not do it," Karen replied. "Things are escalating geometrically as it is. We are scheduled to launch in less than twenty four hours, and there is a good chance circumstances may force us to launch earlier. These people can catch up on old times once we're safely beyond the lunar orbit."
"Bullshit," Doctor Forest replied. "You can't generalize like that. I would agree that the first group should be left offline for now. The culture shock they would experience, awakening now after all that has changed, would not be a kindness, and we do not have the resources or time to soften the blow or help them reorient themselves. The second category of petitions should be granted. These people may not be alive by this time tomorrow. None of them, if things go badly. They deserve to spend their last hours together, if that is their wish. The last group likewise: if they can be helpful they should be awakened and given the opportunity to participate."
"Distraction isn't a valid argument," Genevieve Thompson said, speaking aloud for the first time since the meeting had begun. "Those who are busy can copy themselves and continue their work while sharing what time they have with those they care about. Or they can re-architect themselves appropriately and multi-task. It is a non-issue in any event. Of greater concern are the logistics, and the computational capacity it will require."
"Computational capacity?" Marguerite asked incredulously. "More than half the Nodes on the network have gone dark, their resident minds in static storage on sixty thousand supernodes scattered across the planet! A simple command and we can light as many of those vacant Nodes up as we like. Computational capacity is something we have an abundance of! I agree with Doctor Forest. We shouldn't facilitate the gratuitous early awakening of the early detainees, but those who are useful, and those who wish to spend what time is left with the ones they love should have our help and support in doing so."
"Computational resources may be abundant," Kyle replied, "But bandwidth certainly isn't. We're using every spare zettabit of throughput we have for the rescue operation, not to mention broadcasting ourselves to every active supernode for static storage. Even meetings like this affect bandwidth availability, even if just nominally ..."
"We do have to consider the strategic impact," Doctor Forest agreed. "We are stretched to the limit as it is in terms of network capacity, and many of us are exceptionally busy despite having nearly four kiloCircadians left before our scheduled launch window."
"A launch we must stay focused on ..." Karen began.
"There are those who cannot remain focused knowing their loved ones are offline just a couple of seconds away!" Marguerite bit back.
"We need to stay focused," Karen repeated. "We cannot afford to divert attention to this kind of nonsense just hours before we launch. The stakes are simply too high to risk throwing this sort of social monkey-wrench into the mix. And there is a very good possibility we won't have four kiloCircadians. We could be forced to launch what ships we have at any moment."
"And the likelihood of that unpleasant scenario grows with each passing hour," Doctor Forest added.
"I am still unclear why we were asked to make an ethical ruling of such gravity," someone interjected.
"There are strategic concerns," Kyle reiterated, "and we possess the encryption keys to access the static storage of most of the supernodes."
"But not all," someone else noted."
Kyle smiled. "No, not all of them. Which is rather telling, isn't it? There are any of ten thousand nine-hundred and seventy-one different people who will be piloting fliers, who have access to one or more supernodes, complete with their static contents. Why haven't any of them, not a single one, done what these people are asking?"
"I take it the question is rhetorical and you have a point to make?" Marguerite said, the corners of her lips curving upward with just a hint of smile as she looked at Kyle.
"Yes," Kyle replied. "It's quite simple, I suspect. No one else wants to make the decision unilaterally. This is a can of worms no one wants. We are all used to absolute autonomy, and have been for the vast majority of our subjective lives. Immortal, but respectful of the autonomy of others and disinclined to play God. These attitudes have formed over the past fifty or sixty kiloCircadians, a direct outgrowth of our lifestyles and philosophies. It is something most of us have internalized at a very deep level and, quite frankly, none of us are comfortable with the responsibility, the authority this sort of a decision has placed in our hands."
"So, like so many other unpleasant things, the Strategy Group got stuck with it," Doctor Forest observed dryly.
"So it would seem," Kyle replied.
An icon for a knowledge engram appeared, this time in the form of a stack of old fashioned punch cards, complete with hanging chads. Several people burst out laughing. "You have one sick sense of humor, Doctor Forest," Marguerite observed, grinning.
"The ayes appear to have it," he reported calmly, "The resolution passes. We have discretion to use the proposed strategies should it become necessary."
"Good," Kyle replied, "Now, how do we feel about the other issue before us. Have we reached a consensus?"
"No," Genevieve replied. "I agree with Karen. This is precipitous. The timing couldn't be worse."
"What is more," Doctor Forest added, "this isn't the sort of ethical decision that should be rushed. We could easily still be pondering this when launch time comes and still not untangle all the implications."
"Not deciding is a decision unto itself," Kyle replied. "I vote we release the access codes to all of those being requested on the basis of personal and professional relationships. The others we leave offline until we build our new network."
"The moon or bust!" Marguerite said, grinning.
"Near Earth Objects and assorted asteroids for me," Kyle replied. "Do we have a consensus?"
"I'm uncomfortable with our criteria for excluding some from being awakened," Genevieve insisted. "Or put another way, our arbitrary and, in my opinion, emotional criteria for selecting those who are awakened. Who the hell are we to make such a choice, particularly as Doctor Forest points out, with so little time to deliberate and consider the ramifications?"
"Perhaps we should simply awaken them all," Marguerite replied, "Or rather, a single copy of each. Let them decide for themselves."
"That has its own ethical implications," Kyle pointed out, "There are bound to be those who will choose to go back offline until all of this is over, and who will wish we had never awoken them. There are plenty of people who would like only too well to sleep through the fearful events we are now facing. How much suffering is such a decision going to inadvertently create?"
"Any decision we make will lead to suffering," Genevieve said. "God, I hate authority. I don't know what is worse, being beneath its tyranny or having it thrust upon you."
"It is horribly uncomfortable having this kind of power over another sapient being," Doctor Forest agreed, "but it helps to remember that this isn't the kind of power obtained or wielded as a result of threats, intimidation, political maneuvering, or interpersonal manipulation. It is the kind of power a doctor has over the fate of an ill patient, or a rescuer over the unconscious person he or she has just saved from death. It is uncomfortable to be sure, but it is a power inherent in coming to the aid of another who has been rendered helpless, a responsibility which simply cannot be avoided. We all need to get past the discomfort and accept that we are rescuers, that we have saved these people, and until they have been restored to their Autonomous Nodes, we simply cannot evade the fact that we are empowered, indeed required, to make this very uncomfortable decision on their behalf."
Kyle nodded. "Given that, how do we feel? Awaken all, some, or none, and if some, on the basis of what criteria? Doctor Coolridge, you've been rather quiet this evening. What are your thoughts?"
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Ah, Katy, come in. I should have the President on the link in a few moments."
"The President?" Katy asked, perplexed. "What on earth for."
"The hidden enclave you mentioned in your report. We believe we've located it, about seventy miles north of Anchorage."
Katy nodded, resigned to what she expected next. "You're sending in troops to secure the facility and arrest the suspects."
"No," Robert replied, much to her surprise. "Things are moving far too fast, and we're almost certain they are tapping into our communications somehow. We do not have the time for finesse."
"So what are you planning, Robert?"
"Ah, good evening Mr. President. Have you received my credentials."
The distinguished looking, older gentleman on the screen nodded. "Indeed I have, Mr. Leahy. Double Eye has coded this transmission with the highest urgency. What can the United States do to assist International Intelligence and the World Intellectual Property Organization?"
"I am invoking paragraph seven-B of the United Nations Enforcement Treaty," Robert declared. Katy felt nauseous in the pit of her stomach, wondering with growing dread what Robert intended to order.
The President sighed. "More troubles in Thailand? What exactly do you require?"
"Nothing with respect to Thailand. This problem is a little closer to home. You will launch one atomic ICBM of at least twenty megaton nominal yield to the coordinates you should have received a few minutes ago."
"Good Lord, no!" Katy exclaimed, then bit her tongue in response to Robert Leahy's poisonous glare.
The President blinked, his face whitening. "I beg your pardon ..." he began.
"This is not a request, Mr. President. The enemy is almost certainly monitoring this transmission and making preparations, perhaps even organizing a counter strike. You did receive the coordinates?"
"By courier, about twenty minutes ago," the president confirmed. "But if you think I'm going to launch a nuclear attack on our own soil..."
"Do not even think of trying to back out on your obligations under the treaty, Mr. President. Let me spell it out for you so there is no misunderstanding. You will launch the required strike, immediately, or Double Eye will order a similar strike from one of its other nuclear member states."
"The United States will never stand for a nuclear strike on its own soil, and we certainly won't launch one against ourselves. If you order any such strike we will retaliate in kind. Even you don't have the authority to order Armageddon, Mr. Leahy."
"Mr. President, as you well know the combined anti-missile defense systems of China and the Russian-European Military Alliance are more than enough to stop any such ill-considered counter strike..."
"And our defense will stop anything you order the Chinese or Europeans to launch against us..."
"Do not," Robert said, his voice low and deadly, "Interrupt me again, Mr. President, or I will end this conversation and proceed without you. That is something I suspect neither of us would want."
The President stared at Robert, his face unable to conceal the loathing he clearly felt. For several seconds no one said anything.
"That is better," Robert continued after the President had composed himself once more. "Now, as to the American anti-missile satellite defense system, while it may prevent today's strike and allow these criminals to escape, it will not prevent the suitcase bombs we will order carried into your major cities, or the UN enforcement action against the United States which will follow for allowing such criminals free run of your country, in direct violation of numerous UN treaties and obligations under the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the United Nations itself.
"Your choice is clear, Mr. President. Comply, help us eradicate this threat, and the United States remains a member state in good standing, led by a hero who stood up for international law and order. Do otherwise, and the United States will suffer an enforcement operation and economic embargo that will make Thailand look like a vacation resort in comparison."
"You wouldn't," the President began, "The United States ..."
"...hasn't been a superpower for two generations," Robert Leahy said, interrupting. "What is more, as the source of this new threat, the United States is on very shaky ground with several international bodies. It would behoove you greatly to demonstrate to the world that you stand behind your obligations under treaty and international law."
"Mr. President," Katy began, "Don't do this. Send in troops, capture the suspects and bring them to trial, anything but this!"
"Katy," Robert said. "Shut up."
"Now just a God damned minute, Robert. Without me --" She fell back as Robert's hand struck her face, the loud slap echoing throughout the suddenly silent room.
"Do you wish to be responsible for sending your country back to the stone age, Katy? No?" Robert turned back to face the President. "How about you, Mr. President. Do you wish to go down in history as the leader who led his nation to destruction? No? Then order the strike. If that enclave isn't vapor within twenty five minutes I'm calling Beijing and implementing plan B. If your space defense system gives us any trouble, it will be on to plan C and a UN enforcement operation the likes of which the world has never seen."
The President, visibly shaking as the last of the blood drained from his face, nodded in a single jerk and cut the connection. Robert sighed, nodding in satisfaction while Katy ran from the room and, half way down the corridor to the rest room, suddenly bent over and began vomiting uncontrollably. When asked if she was alright she shook her head, dry coughs shaking her entire body.
No one was alright. Nothing would ever be alright again.
"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it"
-- John Adams, 18th Century C.E.
"How can anyone with so many architectural enhancements be so utterly stupid?" Marguerite raged.
"They're reacting emotionally," Doctor Forest replied. "Most of us still carry some attachment to our bodies, however seldom we actually visit the Physical."
"But this, this is insane! The missile will reach its target in less than one minute. The entire enclave is about to be vaporized. They cannot hope to get to a safe distance before then."
"I have to agree with Marguerite," Kyle replied. "Those who elected to copy themselves to other Nodes and continue working from there, while sending an additional copy to try and save their bodies, however hopeless the effort, I can at least understand. But to think there are nearly fifty people who, after all this time, still refuse to trans-load themselves out of harms way, or at least store a backup copy somewhere, and have been stupid enough of off-load back into the Physical within minutes of a nuclear attack?" He shook his head.
"The vast majority of those in Alaska have behaved rationally," Doctor Forest replied, "suspending themselves and going into static storage a little earlier then scheduled, but otherwise insuring their survival with no real impact on the rest of our operations. We should expect any population as large as that to have a few irrational people in it, and there is little we can do about it."
"Where are they at now?" Kyle asked.
A visual appeared before them, two large, sleek helicopters flying low through a forested, snow covered Alaskan valley. The image was a real time video feed, frozen by the time differential into a static image. "About five miles south of the enclave," Marguerite replied.
"It took the nano almost five minutes to construct the aircraft," Kyle said. "If it hadn't been for that they would have made it."
"They still might," Doctor Forest said. Kyle and Marguerite both looked at him skeptically.
"It isn't likely," Doctor Forest admitted, "But the missile could fail to detonate. If they have to send a second one, the delay will be enough for them to reach minimum safe distance."
"I can't believe our government would go along with this," Kyle said.
"You saw the conversation between the President and that Double Eye agent," Marguerite replied. "The choice they were given was basically cooperation or obliteration. Which would you choose, if you were in that situation?"
"An all out assault on Double Eye," Kyle replied, "I'd exterminate the whole lot of them, the way the United States did to that terrorist group at the turn of the century."
"Al-whatever-the-hell-they-were-called? That took twenty years, and cost billions," Marguerite replied.
"It would have only taken five if the United States hadn't lost most of their allies when they launched a second, unrelated invasion at the same time," Kyle replied. "What in the hell were they thinking?"
"They weren't," Doctor Forest replied, "But these historical debates and what-ifs are neither new nor helpful to us now. Everyone who can be has been rescued from Alaska. Those forty-eight stubborn souls are simply on their own. There is nothing more we can do to help them."
"I want a log of their names," Kyle replied, "If we do manage to escape, we should erect a monument for those whose lives have been taken. This is nothing short of a massacre."
"And the idiots are using a sledge hammer where a fly swatter would have sufficed."
"Oh, I don't know, Kyle. Their goal is clearly to kill everyone in the enclave, not merely to drive us away." Doctor Forest looked thoughtful. "In that sense even their sledge hammer isn't sufficient ... everyone who wanted to was able to trans-load in plenty of time."
"Oh, dear."
"What is it, Marguerite?"
"Hideki Tokata, the guy who's been heading up my crypto group for the last several kiloCircadians, has just intercepted a report addressed to Robert Leahy. It was sent from the Double Eye labs in Beijing. We've got real problems, guys. It seems researchers there have determined a method for tracing out the physical wiring of our Autonomous Network without having to actually trace out the wire itself."
"Magnetic resonance," Doctor Forest replied. "We've always known that that was a possibility."
"It won't do them much good," Kyle replied. "The strength of the field is an inverse square function. Their best equipment won't be able to track the wire from more than two or three meters away. That is next to useless."
"I'm inclined to agree," Doctor Forest said, "Not only will a good portion of the network be too far underground for them to map, but they can't deploy enough equipment rapidly enough before we launch for it to be a real issue anyway."
"Urban areas might be a problem," Marguerite replied, "Much of the wiring there is fairly close to the surface. We were in a hurry to get linked back up, remember?"
"Yes, but even there they will need to deploy some rather specialized equipment, and they will have all kinds of electromagnetic interference from conventional wiring and power cables to contend with."
"Not if the field in question were a great deal stronger," Marguerite pointed out. "Tune a radio receiver to monitor a particular pulse signal, and anyone with a cheap GPS and moving map software could map the thing."
"We would have to drive a great deal more amperage through the superconductor than we currently do for that to be a problem," Doctor Forest said. "Fortunately, our Nodes only require sixty or seventy microamps to run, so that isn't an issue."
"We'd better check the safety margins of those power hookups on our Nodes," Marguerite said.
"Already done," Kyle replied, "There will be an electromagnetic pulse throughout the Autonomous Network when the nuke strikes, but it will be distributed fairly evenly, and won't spike nearly high enough to pose a danger to the rest of the network."
"I'm not talking about the atomic blast we're all about to witness," Marguerite replied. "I'm talking about Microwave induced magnetic inductance. They're going to zap our network with microwave signals in two dozen different cities. They've chosen a frequency which is in resonance with the ninety Hertz we use to transmit power and data." Marguerite offered them a knowledge engram detailing the procedure.
"That will induce several hundred amps of current after just one hour," Doctor Forest acknowledged. "And with nowhere to dump that current, the amount carried on the superconductor itself with go up geometrically."
Kyle's face went white. "Our Nodes are well designed and flawlessly constructed," he said. "Safeguards will disconnect them before they reach burnout levels, but three and a half hours of that and we'll all be forced offline."
"The network will be silent once more." Doctor Forest agreed. "We will not only be out of touch with one another, our Nodes themselves will be dark, powered down by their own safety circuitry to prevent burnout."
"They don't even have to trace out the network," Marguerite replied. "They can simply use it to kill us all, then pick up the wreckage at their leisure. I thought we'd engineered the thing to be a little safer than that."
"It is safe," Kyle replied. "Safe from power outages, safe from any realistic surge in power. The network itself and our Nodes are designed to handle power surges nine orders of magnitude greater than their power requirements themselves. No one imagined an outside source dumping current onto the line in a deliberate effort to fry the network."
"We should have designed a way to dump excess current," Marguerite replied.
"We could just tie in with the electrical grid," Kyle replied, "But they are typically running at fifty or sixty Hertz, while we run at ninety-five Hertz. Still, a few strategically placed transformers ..."
"It won't work," Doctor Forest replied. "Our network is superconducting, while theirs is not. They can pump more energy into our network than we can disseminate ... at most your approach will only buy us a little time."
"Ground the whole goddamn thing then. Dump the current into the earth itself."
"That would work, but it would have the same end effect. No current, zero voltage, no power. Our Nodes go dark and with them our minds."
"Not to mention our ability to communicate, even if the Nodes were powered independently. Perfect conductivity. Hmpf. Who would have thought that would turn out to be our downfall."
"Perhaps it won't be. I'm forwarding a memory engram of this conversation to the rest of the strategy group, and including a copy of your knowledge engram, Marguerite. We have to know exactly how much time we are going to have when they begin this attack, and plan our launch accordingly. Ah, Karen, welcome. I see you got my message. It looks like we are going to be launching early, after all."
Karen nodded. "I'm preparing contingencies. If we can gain a couple of hours, we'll be much better off. Four would be ideal, three sufficient for decent survival odds."
"I've looked over the numbers," Kyle replied. "Its a fairly smooth curve. Assuming they deploy as the report suggests, we'll reach burnout levels about one hundred and ninety three minutes after they begin. We may have a few more minutes than that if they ramp up their efforts slowly, less if they deploy more transmitters. Exact conditions are somewhat dependent on the geometry of their deployment as well."
"The Double Eye report suggests only the enhanced magnetic resonance field, and a means of tracking it with inexpensive, commonly available equipment," Marguerite pointed out. "It mentions potential damage to our equipment only in passing, with no numbers or estimates as to how or when."
"They don't know enough about our equipment to even guess intelligently at its design limits and failure modes," Doctor Forest replied, "So they aren't guessing at all. But this does mean those of us in urban areas are at even greater risk."
"Yes," Kyle agreed, "They will be tracing back the urban networks to our homes almost immediately. We're going to have to juggle our schedules a little bit. Those in major cities should start going into static storage and shutting down their Nodes now."
"God dammit!" Cathryn cursed, "Doctor Forest, I wish your scheme to self-power our Nodes had worked out. Being vulnerable to external electricity has always been our weakest point."
"So do I," Doctor Forest nodded. "Unfortunately, our superstring strummer doesn't work at small enough scales for that to be practical. It was that problem which revealed the fatal flaws in M+N theory."
"It would have been nice to have just gone optical," Kyle agreed, "But there is no use bemoaning the issue now. We had to power our Nodes from somewhere."
"I'm going to do my initial planning for a launch at 2:25 Zulu," Karen informed them. "I'll optimize for that, then adjust accordingly if it turns out we have less, or more, time. Fifty seconds prior to launch only pilots and essential planning personnel should be actively running on the flyer's supernodes. Everyone else should be in static storage. Data communications will end no later than twenty seconds prior to launch, perhaps earlier if we are unlucky. All non-pilot persons should be suspended in static storage no later than two seconds prior to launch."
Kyle nodded. "We have a number of fliers in urban locations. We should try to move as many as possible out of harms way."
"There is no time," Karen replied, "And any movement will entail more risk of discovery than simply leaving them where they are. I've factored the possibility that we'll lose all our urban points of presence to enemy activity into the strategies I'll be presenting for final approval. Any fliers which do go undetected and manage to launch will be an added bonus."
"Fuck," Kyle replied, "That's over three quarters of my gestalt."
"I've just gotten word in from two, no, three different locations," Marguerite said.
"I know," Doctor Forest replied, "Current has just jumped from 0.05 amperes to 0.09. Its climbing the curve exactly as anticipated."
"There's our spike from Alaska," Kyle observed, as the slow moving image of a snow-shrouded valley was suddenly lost in blinding light. The destruction of the Alaskan Enclave, and the loss of forty eight physical lives, tragic though it was, was almost anti-climatic compared to the threat they were now confronting.
"They've only got two stations up and running," Marguerite reported. "Two that happen to be located at their laboratory facilities. They'll be ramping up a few more over the next twenty minutes."
"That's damn fast for people in the Physical," Doctor Forest commented.
"Twenty seconds from filing the report to bringing the first station on-line. I didn't know bureaucracies could work so quickly," Cathryn replied.
"That means someone is quick on the trigger. They must be in a state of institutional panic," Kyle noted.
"The person running this show, this Robert Leahy, certainly seems to have cut out the bureaucratic middlemen. He must have given the order the moment he read the report's abstract, and his scientists must have been ready to carry it out."
"What do we know about that guy," Doctor Forest asked.
"Not very much," Marguerite admitted, "Double Eye communications are susceptible to interception because of a bug in their application of quantum cryptography. Unfortunately, much of their data storage isn't as accommodating."
"So we have Double Eye reacting almost as quickly to new developments as we do?"
"Well, a few orders of magnitude slower, actually, and with considerably less time to ponder their options than we have. But yes, they are reacting in minutes and seconds, instead of hours or days."
"This power curve sets our timetable." Karen looked thoughtful. "It looks like it gives us just enough breathing room. OK, folks, launch will be at 2:21 Zulu. That is exactly three hours and twenty minutes from now. We'll have between forty seven and forty nine thousand fliers, plus whatever fliers can successfully avoid detection and launch from urban centers. Our best bet is strategy #71."
"Feint to the south, main push up, let an escort of fliers sacrifice themselves in the hopes that the chosen flier, going ballistic along with its wrecked counterparts and jettising much of its own mass (and all of its own maneuverability), will be mistaken by the enemy as so much wreckage at least until its inertia carries it out of range of their missile defense sats?"
"That's right, Kyle," Karen replied "The plan is only 0.1% less likely overall to succeed than strategy #66, but has the added value in that, to those on the ground, in the Physical, success will be indistinguishable from failure."
"Meaning that if we make it, they'll have no reason to chase us into space," Doctor Forest noted. "We'll have the breathing room we need to reestablish ourselves."
"Yes," Karen nodded. "The rest of us will spend the last of our lives confusing the satellites and their operators, keeping them occupied and their attention diverted long enough for the one surviving ship to coast out of range. None of us will ever know if our copies aboard that ship survive, if the Community succeeds in rebuilding itself with just a single superstring strummer, a few tanks of nano, molecular stock, and catalyst, and a single, frozen copy of our people. Success and failure will look as alike to us as they will the people on the ground."
Doctor Forest sighed. "Its a good plan and a solid strategy. It will have to do."
"The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered. It's unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what's happening in the world. In fact, it's undesirable - if they see too much of reality they may set themselves to change it."
-- Noam Chomsky
"We've managed to secure and cleanse two thirds of the urban world," the Sargent was telling Robert as a detailed map of downtown Tokyo appeared on the monitor behind him, a real time tactical display of the ground situation in that city. "Including seventy percent of New York, Forty percent of Mexico city, and Ninety-seven percent of Tokyo."
"Total arrests?" Robert asked.
"More than ten thousand," the Sargent said with some pride, "as well as something else, sir. Lieutenant, bring in the artifact, please."
"My God!" Katy exclaimed as the lieutenant rolled a nearly finished flier in on a dolly. "It's tiny."
"Excellent work, Sargent," Robert said, "Continue searching each building, in each block, of all the target cities. When the metropolitan areas are locked down we can begin on the countryside. Dismissed."
"Yes, sir!" the Sargent said, saluting smartly and departing.
"Remarkable," Katy said, walking slowly around the small flier. "I wonder why the rear two thirds of the fuselage consists of just these three prongs."
"According to images I've seen of some of the other craft that have been captured, once completed there are standard aerodynamic control surfaces connected to each spine. One aileron equipped wing on each of the lower spines and a vertical stabilizer aft on the higher spine."
"An ultramodern aircraft, like the one that exploded over Greenland," Katy murmured. "Where was this one taken from?"
"Someone's garage," Robert replied. "Seventy of these things have been recovered thus far, perhaps more. Damn this reliance on human couriers! We need more data!"
Katy shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense. There isn't room for more than one person inside, and an adult would have to be curled up in fetal position to fit at all."
"They aren't planning on taking their bodies," Robert replied.
"Of course! Doctor Nolen's greatest lament was being trapped in his physical body, with its mortality and limited mental capacities."
"Exactly. These people are not planning on using these devices to transport their bodies. They're planning on transporting their minds, those crystalline computers we keep finding under their pillows. These craft are intended to give them the mobility their physical bodies once granted them."
Katy shook her head. "No, that doesn't make sense. They'd have more mobility as a standard robot than as a high powered aircraft. Sure, this thing can orbit the earth --"
"None of the craft we've recovered have contained any anti-matter, but once fully fueled they can probably make it to the edge of the solar system if they wish, accelerating all the way."
Katy nodded. "I keep forgetting that. These aren't just aircraft, they're spacecraft. All these autonomous community members are launching their own space program from their garages. Yes, that is it. This isn't about mobility, it is about escape."
Robert Leahy looked thoughtful. "Yes, it looks like preparations for an orderly retreat. Regroup in orbit, then return to continue their subversive activities."
"Perhaps," Katy said, "I'm not sure they're all that concerned with returning to earth. But escape into space, yes, that is clearly their goal. To get beyond our ability to enforce the law, where they can operate freely, without restraint."
"Katy, we cannot permit an enemy to gain the high ground in space. Once there they would have the resources of the entire solar system at their disposal, while we'd be cornered on this one world. In a few decades they would be able to conquer us at their leisure. Now do you still think I was over-reacting?"
"Ordering the arrest of tens of thousands of innocent people in a fishing expedition to jump start the investigation? Ordering the President of the United States to launch a nuclear warhead against a target on our own soil? Running a media campaign to turn neighbor against neighbor that resulted in so many false and mistake reports that we would have been better off searching houses at random instead? Threatening all the major governments of the world with a general embargo and UN enforcement action if they didn't send their armies door-to-door searching for suspected autonomous community members? Yes, in a word, I do think you over-reacted. Badly. When these governments are finished comparing notes I think you'll find the influence of the United Nations, and your precious World Intellectual Property Organization, severely reduced."
"What is done is done," Robert replied. "We need to maintain our architectures of control and arrest these people immediately. It doesn't look like they're anywhere near ready to go, given the fact that none of the ships captured to date appear to contain any fuel, but we cannot dismiss the possibility that this will change in light of today's activities. I'm ordering all three superpowers to have their anti-missile satellite systems on alert. We should be able to shoot most of these things down with high energy beams."
"They'll object," Katy replied. "Its taken us forty years to deploy our system. The Euro-Russian alliance and the Chinese needed nearly thirty years to build theirs. Those microsats cannot be refueled, and none of the American satellites have replaceable cartridge systems. A single shot and they become so much space trash."
"They can object all they like," Robert replied, "I'll explain to them that the few micrograms of anti-matter each of those satellites contains, that the milligrams of anti-hydrogen they've managed to produce over the last several decades to power those little death sats is but a tiny fraction of the antimatter each of these craft contains. I will explain to them that their only chance to remain a power is to destroy each and every one of these fliers that tries to launch, that failure will mean an enemy with far greater technical expertise and capabilities will be able to occupy orbits higher than their own and pick off their expensive space weapons with the ease of shooting ducks in a barrel. Finally, I will explain to them that we are not giving them a choice in the matter."
Katy shook her head. "You are burning way too many bridges with these governments in this action --"
"Sir," a voice interrupted. "Paul Eisner is on line one. He says its an emergency."
"Damn it, I told you I didn't want to be interrupted!"
"I know, sir, but he says it may affect international security. He sounds like he is in a panic, sir."
Robert shook his head in disgust. "Very well, patch him through."
"Robert, there you are. I want you to look at this." Paul Eisner held a golden crystalline cube in front of the video pickup. A thin wire appeared to trail from the base of the first generation node, shimmering in the room's light.
"I took that shot a few minutes ago, in my library" Paul Eisner continued. "The wire has since disappeared, and my paperweight has become a pile of jelly-like goo."
"Damn! Thank you Jack, I'll get back to you." Robert Leahy cut the line. "Patch me through to the President of the United States. And get me the prime ministers in both the Hague and Beijing. Make it a four way conference call."
"Yes Sir!"
Katy pulled out her datapad. "Get me Evidence Holding," she ordered. A moment later another face appeared on her datapad. "Hello, this is Katy Sinclair."
"Hi Katy. Your credentials check, what can I do for you?"
"I want you to check to the status of the following pieces of evidence you have in storage." Katy tapped her datapad several times.
"Ah, those fancy crystal computers. Yes, we currently have twenty one thousand two hundred and seven in stock. They're all scheduled to be shipped out to Double Eye. We're just waiting for the paperwork to clear."
"Go make a visual inspection," Katy ordered.
"A visual ... do you have any idea how many of those things there are? It will take hours..."
"Just go down there, take a look, and let me know if they all seem to be in place and intact. Time is of the essence."
"Sir, the President of the United States."
"Good Evening, Mr. President. Please stand by for a moment while we get your colleagues on the line."
"Can't say I'm pleased, Mr. Leahy, given the outcome of our last discussion. Canada is already blaming us for the fallout from your attack in Alaska, fallout that won't reach them for another day at the earliest."
"Mr. President, the World Trade Organization appreciates the support of the United States of America," Robert replied. "We will, of course, facilitate any clarification required with the Canadians. However, right now we have a much more serious situation."
"Chairman Jian Tseng of China is on."
"Thank you. Patch him in."
"What does it look like, officer," Katy demanded.
"I don't know yet, ma'am. It will be a couple of minutes yet, I'm still in the elevator."
"Hurry," Katy replied. "I need to know what is happening down there now."
"I'm patching in Prime Minister Jean-Paul Mollier of the European Union."
"Good," Robert replied. "Gentlemen, we do not have much time. We believe that our mutual enemy, the subversive scientific community of which you have all become aware, is planning to launch a number of ships into space, ships containing their digital minds. We cannot allow them to gain a foothold in space. We need you to activate and turn over your anti-ballistic missile systems immediately for a coordinated attack on any spacecraft trying to leave the planet."
"If you think the United States will turn over our one effective defense, particularly in the wake of the threats you've made against this nation within the last few hours ..."
"Mr. President, I assure you that, if you do not help us prevent this catastrophe, a UN enforcement action, which your country will experience if I have any say about it, will be the very least of your worries. That goes for all of you. I am empowered by Double Eye and by the World Trade Organization itself to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these people from escaping. This is not a request. I require use of those systems, patched into my operations center here."
"The Euro-Russian alliance will likely comply. I'll need to get Russian president Serge Dubrotchick's approval, of course."
"Do it. I need those systems online ten minutes ago."
"The Chinese will support the United Nations in this important manner, to defend economic order and prosperity. May the degenerate hooligans suffer the fate they deserve."
"The United States will do as requested."
"And none too soon," another voice spoke. "We have launch detections in Australia, China, Japan, Central, no make that Western and Central... good God, it looks like all of Europe. Sir, we've got at least five hundred launches, no, make that nine hundred, no, theres still more. Oh my God."
"Goodbye Mr. President, Chairman, Prime Minister." Robert cut the line, then turned to the Sargent. "Speak to me," he demanded. "How many launches, and from where."
"Uh ... sir ... we aren't sure yet. Thousands, sir, at least. From everywhere!"
"More precision, Sargent. I need numbers and location. God dammit, where are my fucking satellites!"
"Officer?" Katy demanded.
"Yes Ma'am, I'm entering the locker now. Ma'am? It looks like about half of the cubes have melted."
"Melted?"
"Yes, ma'am. About half of them have turned to Jello. It's ankle deep in here."
"Very good, officer. Thank you."
"Sir, we have a total of forty-nine thousand, two-hundred and seventeen launches. Make that two-hundred and eighteen: another bogey just lifted from eastern China, pulling a good sixty G's straight up."
Robert Leahy was livid. "I want those satellites online now. Tell those idiots if they don't turn over control of those systems immediately I'll personally --"
"Sir, China has just released seventy-five thousand microsats, with beams operational in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and microwave ranges."
"Seventy thousand?" Robert fumed. "The Chinese have at least twice that deployed, with several thousand capable of emitting radiation in the x-ray band. We need those satellites. Make them understand the consequences if they continue to hold out on me."
"Yes sir!"
"Sir, the United States has just released three-hundred seventeen thousand microsats into our control."
"Good," Robert replied, "The Americans have learned better than to hold back. Now, where are the Europeans?"
"I'm not sure, sir. Sir, most of the bogeys seem to be setting course toward the southern hemisphere. Good God, sir, they're fast! They must be pulling fifty, sixty G's easy.
"Astonishing," Katy murmured quietly.
"The faster they go, the less maneuverable they'll become," Robert replied. "Lay down enfilading fire across their flight path. I want a kill zone right off their noses."
"The lead bogeys are at Mach twenty and still accelerating. My God! Sir, I'm firing a grid across their noses now, multiple frequency spread. Yes. Sir, we got over forty percent of the things. It looks like the rest are scattering."
Forty percent. Better than he'd hoped, given their maneuverability. "Give the Russian's my compliments, and ask them nicely if they would mind integrating the Euro-Russian Alliance system in with the rest of us so we can lead a coordinated assault."
The voice paused. "Yes, sir. It looks like they were responsible for most of the kills. Our net only caught about ten percent of the bogeys, the rest were able to maneuver to the side..."
"Where the Europeans fried them," Robert Leahy finished.
"Yes sir. Caught them totally by surprise. Sir, it looks like some of the bogeys are retreating back toward the surface."
"Oh no they don't. Katy!"
"Yes, Robert," Katy said, looking up from her datapad.
"You're my liaison to the President. I want the United States military out in force. Use interceptors, use whatever means necessary. Those ships are not to land."
Katy nodded. "I'll need your contact protocols. Its not like I can just call the President on my own line ..."
"Coming across your link now. When you're finished with him, start contacting the major surface powers. South Africa, India, Pakistan, Iraq, and Turkey, and so on. Anyone with high speed missile interceptors needs to be shooting at those birds."
"Right," Katy immediately began tapping on her datapad.
"We've got twenty-nine thousand plus bogeys left to kill, folks." Robert Leahy examined the tactical display in front of him, thousands of tiny, yellow dots moving in erratic patterns beneath a tight grid of cyan dots that surrounded the entire planet. It looked like the enemy had been dealt a severe blow, their initial, organized formations reduced to chaos as some fled back toward the surface while others sought to flee behind the curvature of the earth. One contingent of about three hundred ships were making for higher orbit, hoping to get above the satellite grid and out of range.
"They are assuming the satellites can only shoot downward," Robert said, quietly to himself. "Those idiots are doing nearly seventy-thousand KPH. They have far too much inertia to effect evasive maneuvers." Then, louder, "Sargent, I want enfilading fire on multiple wavelengths across the region immediately in front of group Echo. They are not to reach high orbit."
"Yes, sir, I'm already on it, sir."
"Robert Leahy nodded with satisfaction as they winked out of existence on the tactical display."
"Mop up the other groups," Robert ordered.
"Hello, Katy Sinclair." The President of the United States looked older than she recalled. Not that she should have been surprised, given what had been required of him over the last several hours. "What does our fearless leader demand of us now?"
"Mr. President, some of the enemy ships are trying to return to the surface. He wants us to deploy interceptor missiles and aircraft and shoot any down that come near. None of them are to reach the surface."
The President nodded. "I'm giving the order now. So, Katy, did you think you would be giving orders to the president of the United States when you started your investigation?"
Katy shook her head. "I never dreamed of it. Sir, I have to contact the heads of a dozen other states and give them similar orders."
"Watch your back, Ms. Sinclair," the President told her gravely. "You are one of perhaps a twenty people throughout the world who has seen the real strings of power in action. Such people do not generally live very long, once their usefulness is over."
"Thank you for your concern sir. I'm sorry, sir, but I really have to go." She severed the connection and turned her attention back to Robert's lieutenants.
"Damn, those things are more maneuverable than we thought. It's taking a dozen satellites acting in unison to bring a single ship down, and we're missing far too often."
"China has just released the remainder of their satellites to our control, under protest. That brings us up to six-hundred and twelve-thousand plus units, sir."
Robert Leahy nodded. "Good."
"Even so, sir, at this rate we'll be lucky to have any satellites left with a charge remaining once this is over."
Katy's eyes met those of the President, who had obviously overheard the exchange.
The President nodded once more, sadly. "Who would ever have believed it would come down to this. Very well, Ms. Sinclair. Go on and call the other horsemen out. Ours will be joining you shortly."
Katy nodded, breaking the connection and signaling the Prime Minister's Office of India.
"How so?" Robert Demanded. "A dozen satellites each, to destroy twenty nine thousand bogeys, should deplete us by only sixty percent of our forces."
"Sir, it is taking an average of eleven satellites to destroy each bogey, when we manage to hit them. The damn things are harder to hit than they should be, sir. We're missing them as often as we're hitting them."
"Factoring in the misses, how many satellites is it taking to bring down each ship, Sargent."
"Eighteen to twenty sir."
"Eighteen to twenty? Can't you be more precise?"
"No sir. It looks like their tactics have changed since we prevented their escape upwards. The formations they are flying appear designed to confuse the targeting systems of the satellites themselves. We're able to hit one ship, but three others escape the volley completely. Sir, our best software was never designed to cope with this kind of battle."
"How many have we destroyed?"
"About sixty percent, sir. But we've used up nearly half of our satellites, and our hit to miss ratio is getting worse."
Robert Leahy scowled, shaking his head. His eyes scanned the tactical display, then narrowed as he watched several hundred blips move closer to the earth's surface.
"I don't want any of this vessels to land, is that understood."
"On it, sir. We've got all the major air forces in the world engaged. Even Thailand is blanketed, though for some reason the bogeys seem to be staying away from there. You'd think with as thin as we've been stretched --"
"There is nothing for them there," Katy said. "Thailand is a wasteland, bombed repeatedly back into the stone age for three decades. Without electricity they die. Without a working network they are hermits, doomed to go mad of loneliness."
"Very poetic, Katy, but I need hard data, not suppositions. Sargent, speak to me."
"Sir, surface forces have engaged the lower flying retreating vessels. So far all have been accounted for."
"You have the hard data," Katy snapped back, "The lab reports from your own labs detail the multiple purposes of their independent network --"
"Katy, I don't have time to debate the issue. I want numbers, Sargent. Can we take them all, or not?"
"Sir, we're working on it. Just a moment sir."
The silence was painfully long, as Robert waited impatiently. Then, an almost jubilant voice. "Yes sir! We are consistently expending sixteen point seven satellites per kill. It's only a matter of attrition, sir, of time. There simply aren't enough of them left to evade all the firepower we have."
"It looks like they've just figured it out as well," Katy said dryly, gesturing toward the tactical display. Three large clumps of yellow dots that had been weaving such irritatingly complex and difficult to fathom maneuvers, largely in parallel with the earth's surface, were now aggressively breaking apart, scattering and accelerating upward as fast as they could.
"Sir, we have three large groups -- all that are left, sir! They're making a break for it, all accelerating away from the surface."
"I can see that, Sargent. Have you analyzed their formations yet? We need an effective countermeasure, and we need it now."
"Not a problem, sir. No amount of fancy flying will confuse the satellites. These systems were designed to deal with both ballistic and powered trajectories. More of the latter, in recent years."
"I do not require a history lesson, Sargent. There are still several thousand of those things surviving."
"Yes sir. What I'm saying, sir, is that these are exactly the kind of trajectories all three systems are designed to track and counter."
Robert nodded, pleased as he watched the display. "That was, of course, the fatal flaw in their plan. At some point they have to try and escape."
"They know we can convert entire regions of space into kill zones," Katy mused. "They aren't giving us any freebies. They're making us take each ship out, on its own. Do we have enough satellites to lay down sufficient fire to take out each of those ships?"
"That is what I'm trying to find out, Katy. Sargent?"
"It'll be close, sir. They're down to less than a thousand ships, but we only have about fifteen thousand operational satellites remaining. Good Lord! One of the ships just detonated and took out three hundred microsats in the process. Sir, there's another detonation! And another!"
"They are trying to punch a hole through the grid, Sargent."
"Yes, sir, I know. There are several dozen ships coming up behind, trying to punch through the gap." A hundred microsats filled the space with a grid of deadly fire, shredding the ships as they tried to make their escape.
"Nice job, Sargent."
Robert and Kate watched as more and more yellow dots accelerated upward, only to wink out as they were met with crossing fire from a dozen or more satellites. He watched in consternation as more and more cyan dots winked out: dead satellites that had fired their one destructive burst.
"I wonder why they haven't engaged any aggressive weapons of their own," Katy mused aloud.
"They obviously didn't have time to build any. Suicide missions like that those we just saw are all they have, and it won't be enough."
"Perhaps," Katy replied.
"You're not convinced."
"No, Robert, I'm not. It doesn't make sense. If they can manufacture sophisticated spaceships they can manufacture simple missiles. Why not build a hundred thousand missiles, launch them, and force us to use up all our firepower killing drones?"
"Who knows. Perhaps they never studied military tactics," Robert shrugged as we watched more yellow blips vanish.
"I've never studied military tactics, and I didn't have any trouble thinking of it," Katy pointed out.
Robert turned, irritated. "What exactly is your point?"
"Sir, that was the last one! It looks like we have achieved one hundred percent destruction of the enemy."
The room burst into spontaneous applause, punctuated with several shouts and cheers. Several people sat at their consoles, looking obviously relieved. Others were standing up, patting one another on the back Robert exchanged beaming handshakes with several people, grinning widely.
"Very nice work! Good job! Excellent!" Robert turned to Katy and looked at her gleefully, raising his eyebrows as if to say 'anything else?' She shrugged, taking in the entire scene silently.
"They're all dead, Katy." Robert said. "Every last one of them. Satisfied?"
Katy said nothing, walking over to the window and glancing out at the evening sky. The last hint of blue was fading from the darkened sky, streaked with distant, blood red cirrus that caught the last rays of the sun, and littered with the faint, glowing aftermath of battle, a colorful fireworks of destruction traced across the sky.
"I'll take your silence as an assent."
"I don't like things I do not understand," Katy replied. "I watched this entire battle unfold. These people displayed brilliant tactics right down to the end. I bet a mathematical analysis shows they optimized every point of the curve, rushing the satellites to see if they could fire above as well as below, then confuse them for as long as possible until the attrition made that tactic no longer viable, finally an optimized, Hail Mary rush upward, hoping for the best. Yet they didn't deploy any offensive capabilities at all, a few suicides excepted. Not one. How could people so brilliant, so ingenious, not employ such an obvious strategy."
Robert shrugged. "I don't know, and as long as they are all dead, I don't really care. Maybe they didn't have time. By all estimates they had almost eighty thousand people, all of whom no doubt wanted to escape. That is eighty thousand space ships. Of course, we arrested forty six thousand and change in all. Maybe the rest were too busy trying to get themselves out of harms way to consider the larger strategies."
Katy shook her head. "No, that doesn't fit. They employed brilliant, remarkable strategies. The formations they flew were clearly taxing our satellites far more than anyone expected. I'll bet a computer simulation and analysis will show that their flight, their tactics, were optimized for every phase of their attempt to break through the blockade. No, Robert, their tactics were simply too brilliant in too many other respects for you to dismiss it like that."
"OK, then. How about this: maybe they were all pacifists? Maybe they feared a conventional assault on the systems might unleash a nuclear war between the great powers, and they feared for the safety of their friends and families who stayed behind. Rather than risk that, they simply made a run for it."
"That theory actually makes sense," Katy conceded.
Robert nodded. "This entire operation will be reviewed and any loose ends investigated and tied up. We'll determine who these people were, and follow up with those hypothetical friends, loved ones, and any other potential co-conspirators there might have been."
Katy shuddered. Of course, the pogrom was hardly over. Now came the recriminations, the investigations, the purges needed to insure something like this didn't happen again. She realized with dismay that her assumption, her hope that things would return to normal was terribly misguided. Things would not be normal again, not for a very long time.
Robert smiled. "Come on, Katy. We have just saved the day. Our superiors are going to want to shower us with praises."
Katy forced herself to smile and take the arm Robert offered. "Sargent," Robert called, "Call Dulles. I want the jet pre-flighted and ready to go, with immediate clearance for departure. No delays."
"Yes sir! What destination shall I have the pilots file for, sir?"
"LAX, Sargent. Ms. Tate and I are going to attend a small fete in California."
"Very good, sir."
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
-- Benito Mussolini
Doctor Forest gazed back at his children in the rear view mirror, still a little surprised to find their new, sleeping forms unfamiliar. He tried not to look at his own face, or study his wife's unfamiliar features in too great a detail.
"It was very nice of the Petersons to give us these bodies," she said, as if reading his mind. "They agonized over the decision as much as we did."
Doctor Forest nodded. "If the Community makes it, the Petersons will have the luxury of knowing they, not us, made the right decision. It is our copies who will be agonizing over the fate of the unlucky ones they've left behind."
"I'm sorry for the guilt and uncertainty our other selves will feel if the Community survives," she replied, "But I'm not sorry at all to be here, to be alive. In Canada no less! Who would have thought?"
"You always did want to travel to North America, didn't you Sarah? Well, at least it is safer here than Australia," Doctor Forest said. "There is much more open country to lose ourselves in. We can lay low, live our lives, and try to forget the magnificence of what we once were. We can try to forget that, for a time, we stood on the far side of the technological horizon."
"Technological horizon?" Sarah asked.
"You don't remember? You didn't bring that concept with you?"
She shook her head. "Between seven synthetic languages, none of which we'll probably ever use, specifications for synthesizing nano constructors, molecular stock, catalytic solution, and recipes for fifth generation Nodes and optical cable, I didn't have a lot of room left for casual subjects."
Doctor Forest nodded. "I know, dear. My head feels like an overstuffed piece of old, tired luggage. You are familiar with Verner Vinge's technological singularity, that point in time where the exponential growth and development of science and technology would lead to so much change, so quickly, that no one living could imagine what would come next?"
Sarah nodded. "It was a valid concept, back when we had exponential inventiveness and growth."
"Yes, indeed. No one living then could imagine what would come in a thousand years. Later, had the curve of progress continued to steepen and not been stifled by all the patent and copyright laws, litigation, and Ludditism in Hollywood and Washington, one would have been hard pressed to imagine what would have been coming in ten years. Then what would come in one year. Then month to month, day to day, hour to hour, and eventually, millisecond to millisecond."
"An exponential growth in progress the Community recovered and built upon," Sarah pointed out. "For us there would have been a singularity, a rapidly approaching point where the numbers become absurd, where the entire notion breaks down, and no one can predict what will happen. You are saying the Community passed through the singularity, that we once stood on the far side and yet remained vulnerable to the murderous bastards crippling our world down here? Passing through the singularity wasn't enough to be safe from this ... this ... this hell?" Her voice betrayed her outrage at their loss even as Doctor Forest shook his head.
"No, dear. There was no singularity. There was no breakdown, no point where suddenly no one could see what was coming. I remember Kyle floating the idea of the Technological Horizon to Prime once, back at one of the soirees we hosted. He proposed it as an alternative to the concept of a technological singularity that everyone believed in so earnestly back then."
"You chose to remember a party, when we had to leave so much behind, lose so much knowledge and pack what little we could into these tiny minds?"
Doctor Forest smiled. "It was an unusual night. One of those nights where everyone's mind seems ablaze, where thought after thought, concept after concept, insight after amazing insight flowed like wine, and it was still early enough in our experience there that I knew I'd understand at least some of the discussions even after being reduced back to mere flesh. Honey, I needed to keep a few fond memories of that time, if only to hold on to and keep myself sane when times start to get really rough."
Sarah nodded soberly. "And that they will. The Luddites will spend the next several years, perhaps decades, hunting us down." She smiled. "I brought one important memory along as well, so I guess I shouldn't jump all over you for doing the same."
Doctor Forest smiled. "I remember. Your first moment of sight."
She smiled, her radiant eyes sparkling. "A medical miracle they still can't perform here. A new body and a cure for blindness. So, Kyle was sharing some insight at one of our parties?"
"Yes. We were talking about the latest breakthrough in ... some theory my group had come up with. I no longer recall the details. I think we must have later debunked it in favor of something else, or perhaps knowing it now could have made the Community vulnerable in some way. In any event, we'd just upgraded to third generation Nodes, and someone had commented on how much time we'd now have to work things out, that we'd just put off the moment of the singularity by a few hours at least, maybe even a few days.
"That was when Kyle spoke up and opined that there was no singularity and that there never would be. Of course, all the physicists in my group immediately jumped all over him, expounding on the limits of light speed information propagation, Planck length and quantum spacial and temporal limits, and that at some point we'd reach the ultimate limit of how fast our Nodes could become, at least while embedded in this universe." He chuckled in fond reminiscence.
"Do you suppose that is what they did? Left this universe somehow?"
Doctor Forest, blinked, genuinely surprised. Then, after a moment's thought he shook his head. "I don't know for certain, but I don't think so. If they had, I probably would have edited that memory. Besides, if that had been the case we could have brought a great deal of knowledge with us that we didn't. The holes in my own knowledge, in my own specialty, are very telling. No, I don't think we were ever anywhere near advanced enough to do what you suggest, assuming such a thing was supportable even theoretically. No, it was just a figure of speech to underscore that our universe has fundamental limits, and when we reached those limits the singularity would stop retreating and begin moving toward us once more."
"So Kyle was wrong. There is in fact a singularity, an event horizon beyond which our progress, our future does become impossible to predict."
"No, Sarah, Kyle was right. His concept of a Technological Horizon became an accepted hypothesis throughout the Community within a few short weeks. You see, honey, there is no singularity. There never was, and if Kyle was right, there never will be. When Kyle spoke of a horizon, he wasn't speaking of an event horizon like one would see around a black hole, he was speaking of a common, every day horizon like we see here in the Physical all the time. His point was that, to those living at any given time, there is continuity, that just because their parents couldn't see what was coming ten years ago didn't mean they couldn't see what was coming ahead of them.
"Think of it this way, honey. Cave men couldn't imagine the magic of bows and arrows. To them, the native Americans were beyond their technological horizon, beyond what Verner Vinge and others would have called the technological singularity, if they'd been alive then.
"The Native Americans couldn't imagine ships, so much so that when the Spanish arrived they thought they had emerged from the water. The ships stood right there, in plain sight, but they were so strange, so foreign to the native people's every reference point that they couldn't see them, they couldn't factor their existence into their world understanding at all. To them, the Spanish were beyond their technological horizon.
"Yet the Spanish couldn't imagine spaceflight, and probably had trouble imagining humans flying through the air with anything other than angel's wings. The Wright Brothers certainly couldn't have imagined the advent of computers, nor were they able to conceive of the speed with which airplanes advanced and changed the twentieth century. The first astronauts certainly didn't imagine our loading our minds onto computers of molecular subcrystal, and those that came later, and did speculate about human existence as software someday couldn't have imagined the physics we discovered, and the many other advances we made, in modifying our own minds, our own ability to construct and think thoughts.
"Hell, we ourselves can no longer imagine what it was like, and we were there!"
Sarah nodded. "At each point we were reacting, thinking and living faster, getting smarter and able to comprehend more and more. A years worth of progress in a month, then in a day, finally in less than fifteen minutes if the Node specs I have in my mind are any indication."
"Exactly. It isn't some magical singularity, any more than a ship or an airplane drops magically off the earth when it travels beyond the visible horizon. It is simply a technological horizon, beyond which we, from where we are standing right now, cannot see, but beyond which we are perfectly capable of seeing, and thriving, if we simply choose to walk forward and see what is on the other side."
"No sudden breaks, no discontinuity," Sarah nodded, understanding. "Just a simple progression of knowledge, day in and day out. Incremental change and improvement."
"Exactly."
"Oh honey, I'm glad you brought that insight back with you. That changes so much about how we can see the future, how we can approach it."
Doctor Forest nodded. "This entire foray back into the Physical may turn out to have been a very bad idea, but at least this time we won't be moving forward entirely in the dark."
Sarah shook her head. "This was right, Michael," she assured him. "Yes, we are here, back in the Physical, mortal once again, but we are also alive, and together. If the Community should perish we will live knowing we did the right thing. And if it survives, perhaps one day we can rejoin it. At worst, between us and the children we've kept enough knowledge to recreate Kyle's nano-constructors and rebuild a new Autonomous Community if we need to."
"If conditions ever permit," Doctor Forest replied sadly, "Something neither of us may ever live to see."
"Look at the sky, Michael. It is littered with debris, so much so that I doubt any useful astronomy will be possible for years to come. We may be all that is left of the Community." She paused, looking thoughtful. "Michael, do you realize tonight is the first time I've actually seen anything in the Physical. The first time I've seen something with real, physical eyes, something that isn't just a software simulation, or a virtual environ of some sort? I for one am very glad to be alive, even if it is merely human life."
"There are a few others who opted to send copies back into the Physical, to try and recover what they could of their former lives, however diminished," Doctor Forest mused. "Perhaps we'll see some of them again, back in the Virtual. Assuming they've retained similar knowledge, sufficient to recreate some of what was lost." He sighed. "I wonder how close we'd actually come to transcending our own humanity, before off-loading back into this world. What heights did we reach, that our minds can no longer hold, that in becoming human once more we've simply forgotten, or become unable to comprehend?"
Sarah kissed him gently on the cheek, running her fingers through the unfamiliar hair of his head. "Whatever those heights may have been, dearest, they are gone now. Look at the sky! Do you really believe the Community survived that?"
Robert nodded. "Perhaps. Success and failure will both look alike from down here."
"Dad, you didn't."
"Tommy. I thought you and your brother were asleep."
"You're evading the question, dad. Tell me you didn't retain memories of the escape strategy. We all agreed not to bring anything back into the Physical that might jeopardize that."
"No, son, I didn't bring any memories of the strategies per se. Merely the certainty that success, in whatever form it takes, would look identical to failure to those observing from Earth, here in the Physical."
"That is more than we should know, honey," Sarah replied. "But still, I'm glad to know it. Maybe someday we'll look at the sky and know."
"And if they made it," Tommy replied, "maybe someday they'll come back and rescue us."
"Who can say," Doctor Forest replied. "I only wish -- what on earth is that?"
"Canadian Mounties," Sarah replied. "Its a roadblock. Oh Michael, do you think they're looking for us."
"Not us. No reason they should be. The Petersons perhaps, though I doubt it. Everyone remain calm." Doctor Forest slowed as he pulled up to the two police cars blocking the highway.
"Good evening, mates. Bit of a late night to be out, isn't it?"
The Mountie approached the vehicle cautiously, shining his flashlight in Doctor Forrest's face, then his wife's. "Drivers License and proof of citizenship, please."
"Proof of citizenship? What is going on?"
"Just show us your papers, please. Your wife's as well."
Doctor Forest reached into his pocket and removed his billfold. "Here you are, mate."
"James Peterson. Patricia Peterson. You're from Nelson? What brings you up here?"
"Taking the kids up to Jasper."
"These are your children?" the flashlight went from one child's face to another.
"Yes sir."
"I'm going to have to ask all of you to please step out of the car."
"Sir, the children are exhausted."
"I'm sorry. I must insist. Step out of the car, please. Slowly."
The stood, shivering in the cold air long side the highway, while two Mounties thoroughly searched their car."
"They're clean."
"Very good. So, Mister Peterson, how long have you been a Canadian citizen?"
"All my life," Doctor Forest replied.
"Really. Where did you pick up the Australian accent?"
Doctor Forest blinked. "Well, the family and I have spent a great deal of time down under. Just got back, as a matter of fact."
"I see. Excuse me one moment." The Mountie listened on his ear piece for a moment, then nodded. "Sir, if you and your family will please step right over here. Thank you."
Suddenly a dozen men dressed in black body armor burst out from the bushes, surrounding the frightened family with automatic weapons drawn."
"I'm sorry, Mister Peterson. Perhaps you can explain why your voice print fails to match our records, or how your claim to have spent time in Australia doesn't match your passport records, or for that matter your spending history."
Doctor Forest shook his head. "I don't understand. You're saying you have no record of our most recent travels?"
"Stand clear!" ordered a muffled voice from behind a mirrored riot helmet. "We have found decomposed nano at the suspects' home. Ready!"
The Mounties backed away hastily as the commandos came abruptly to attention, their weapons never wavering as they remained pointed at Doctor Forest and his family's new bodies.
"Aim!" The weapons shifted upward, now sighted on their heads.
"Oh Michael."
"Remember what I said, dearest. We cannot give up hope --"
"Fire!" A dozen shots were fired, almost as one. Four bodies, two adults, one woman and one man, and two young children, crumpled to the ground. The man who had been giving the orders drew a pistol and walked up to each of the prone forms, emptying an additional, single round into each.
"You, you and you," he barked, pointing to three of his other men. "Secure and cleanup this detail." Blood was already pooling around the children's heads and the feet of the adults, a curious juxtaposition resulting from the uneven slope of the road. "Everyone else, back to your stations." Holstering his weapon, he and the other three began loading the bodies back into the car while the others vanished silently back into the brush. The Mounties stood by, several meters away beside their cars, doing their best to ignore the carnage nearby.
A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
They stood on a terrace, overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Beneath them the lights of Los Angeles spread outward toward a dark sea. Behind them came soft music, a classical string quartet in E minor. Neither Katy nor Robert spoke a word as one section of the city went dark and another lit up. More rolling blackouts were expected as the unusually warm weather continued. Above them, in silent rebuke, the sky glowed with the debris of the battle they had fought just a few hours earlier.
"Ah, the heroes of the hour, escaping their adulations into the quiet of the night?"
"Miss Hillary Valenti," Robert said, turning and kissing her hand. "A very good evening to you." The mature woman's makeup was as impeccable as her wardrobe. She smiled, withdrawing her hand and gazing at the sky.
"A shame what those hooligans did to our sky," she mused.
"Indeed," Robert agreed. "Most of the useful orbits will be quite useless for decades to come. All the debris, you understand."
"The Astronomers are quite upset," Katy interjected. "Their best low-orbit telescopes damaged by debris impact and their earth-based observations all but impossible."
"It is indeed a pity," a low, booming voice agreed.
"Good evening, Jack," Hillary said.
"Good evening, Hillary," Paul Eisner replied. "I saw the champagne girl around here somewhere. Can anyone else use a refill."
"By all means," Robert Leahy smiled broadly.
"Congratulations young man on a war very well fought," Jack continued as he and Robert went back inside.
"Yes, a splendid little war, wasn't it," Hillary agreed. "Not as messy or expensive as Thailand, but just as effective. You did splendidly, dear."
"Thank you," Katy said. "We destroyed a lot of expensive equipment and a lot of lives. I hope in the end it was worth it."
"Oh by all means it was," Hillary assured her. "You preserved the rule of law and successfully defended the foundation of our economy. What is more, you destroyed the greatest threat to civilization we have seen since the War on Terror."
Katy smiled. "I imagine the scientists of the Genecraft Rebellion were at least as big a threat."
"The Genecraft Rebellion. I was just a neophyte lobbyist in Washington when that happened. Still, I think it is safe to say that they were harmless compared to the people you and Robert took care of. They had a few bioengineering techniques that, had they become widespread, might have turned the patent office on its ear for a year or two and clogged the courts with lawsuits for a time, but compared to these," she waived her hand at the smoky, debris filled sky, "they were small time hooligans.
"By the way, you did get all of them, didn't you?"
Katy nodded. "One hundred per cent certainty in an operation as large as this one was is impossible, of course, but we have a remarkably high degree of confidence. Nearly all of our kills are confirmed, those that are not have a very high confidence of success. Preliminary analysis of the debris indicates sufficient mass to account for all of the ships and all of the destroyed satellites. It is more likely that the sun will go nova tomorrow than that any of the autonomous community's spacecraft escaped."
"And those left here on Earth?"
Katy shuddered. "We're almost through mopping them up. They had some sixty two thousand ships they were building. The resources, the technology they commanded is staggering!" She shuddered once again with what she knew was irrational fear. "If they'd have been able to finish building all the partially constructed ships we've recovered so far, not to mention all the those we've yet to find, there would have been little we could have done to prevent their escape. Fortunately they launched early. There may be one or two autonomous nodes left around, but now that we can trace out their fancy private network, we'll find them all."
Hillary nodded. "Well done, Katy. Well done."
Katy nodded as Hillary turned to rejoin the party. Her gaze turned upward, toward the littered sky. Some seventy thousand people, private citizens, who had been able to upload their minds onto computers more powerful than any known to industry, who had been able to, for a time, make themselves more than human and each of whom, on their own, had been able to field a space program more sophisticated than any the nation states or multi-national alliances had ever operated. She glanced inside at Paul Eisner, Robert Leahy, and Maria Tatianoga exchanging self-congratulatory compliments amidst loud laughter as their champagne glasses clinked together, then turned her gaze back toward the horizon as another portion of Los Angeles went dark in another scheduled, rolling blackout.
She had seen the numbers. She had seen how the recording industry had left her grandfather an emotional, ultimately suicidal wreck. Katy screamed silently at the injustice of it, at the deception that had left her grandfather penniless and seduced her into a line of work she was finding she could no longer believe in. But most of all, she wailed within the dark recesses of her own soul in dispair for the part she had played in the day's events.
She tried desperately to shake off the ugly, growing suspicion that she had been a part of what was perhaps the greatest crime ever committed against humanity in all its long and bloody history. An opportunity for humankind to rise above its own limitations, to become something greater, had been squandered. No, not squandered. It had been crushed, taken away, denied to all of humanity by a few powerful oligarchs who had chosen to place their own political and material gain ahead of the advancement of their own species. Worse, the architectures of control they protected so zealously, the very copyright and patent laws she had enforced so meticulously, and which had enriched so few while impoverishing so many, would almost certainly prevent any such opportunity from coming again. Humankind's one chance at greatness was gone forever. Shaking her head at the magnitude of the tragedy, Katy turned her back on the darkened city and the sparkling, debris-filled sky, and went in search of a stiff drink.
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