--- Autonomy-2006.12.29.txt Sun Dec 31 16:09:25 2006 +++ Autonomy-2007.01.12.txt Sat Jan 13 11:24:59 2007 @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ jmsmithcom@gmail.com - 118462 words + 115536 words @@ -33,11 +33,11 @@ Jean-Michel Smith -Version XQ.C.T +Version XR.1.C -Copyright © 2002 - 2006 Jean-Michel Smith -Copyright © XM - XQ Jean-Michel Smith +Copyright © 2002 - 2007 Jean-Michel Smith +Copyright © XM - XR Jean-Michel Smith @@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ Within the terms of this license, and the additional non-endorsement clause above, this work may be shared freely. + 0 0 - 0 - THE DREAMER @@ -89,7 +90,7 @@ "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? +"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 destroying their minds. Why on Earth would they do such a thing? "My son's a freshman at this goddamn school," Schwartz leaned 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" 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?" @@ -1547,7 +1548,7 @@ -Jean Rostand, C.E. 1931 Tuesday, October 2, 2057, 11:25 AM Seattle Time Metadate: 2.313-5:44:100 kD new epoch -Katy and Robert made their way along a narrow sidewalk at the base of the Puget Embankment, a hundred meter high concrete dam that stood between Seattle and the rising waters of Puget Sound. Their yellow rain slicks glistened in the pouring deluge, the cement of the almost vertical sloping wall beside them textured by the steady cascade of a thousand rivulets of water that streamed around patches of green and yellow moss. Katy shuddered as they scurried along the immense wall. If the embankment were ever to break open, or even crack just a little, most of downtown would be lost beneath the icy grey water that pounded the far side. +Katy and Robert made their way along a narrow sidewalk at the base of the Puget Embankment, a hundred metre high concrete dam that stood between Seattle and the rising waters of Puget Sound. Their yellow rain slicks glistened in the pouring deluge, the cement of the almost vertical sloping wall beside them textured by the steady cascade of a thousand rivulets of water that streamed around patches of green and yellow moss. Katy shuddered as they scurried along the immense wall. If the embankment were ever to break open, or even crack just a little, most of downtown would be lost beneath the icy grey water that pounded the far side. Low, dark clouds scudded overhead, 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. Although Seattle fared better than most, when climate change left much of the nation parched, it didn't escape unscathed. In one of the more perverse ecological ironies of the century, a region already known for its excessive rainfall now got twice as much. Even after the embankment was built, flooding remained a problem. The city was forced to build pumping stations and underground tunnels to cope with the run-off 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. Its constant cloud cover meant that Seattle didn't have access to solar power. Because the city generated only a fraction of its energy from tidal generators, it had to purchase the rest from its neighbours. Despite all of this, Seattle did well enough to survive and even prosper. Katy breathed easier when they crossed the street and turned down a side alley, putting some distance between themselves and the wall. Their vehicle was parked out of sight, on the far side of a bright orange, rectangular dumpster. Its headlights lit up and its motor started as they approached. "What a god-awful place!" Robert said as he slammed his door closed. @@ -1839,11 +1840,11 @@ -Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyát, 12th Century C.E. Saturday, October 6, 2057, 3:53 PM Chicago Time Metadate: 2.435-3:77:440 kD new Epoch -"There are over thirty thousand of us now," Prime reclined with Marguerite in the protective shade of a luxuriant palm after an exhilarating mid-morning swim. A soft breeze dried their naked bodies. Breakers glistened in the golden sunlight as they washed against the beach a few meters away. "The Autonomous Community has reached the critical mass necessary to sustain exponential growth in science and technology-" +"There are over thirty thousand of us now," Prime reclined with Marguerite in the protective shade of a luxuriant palm after an exhilarating mid-morning swim. A soft breeze dried their naked bodies. Breakers glistened in the golden sunlight as they washed against the beach a few metres away. "The Autonomous Community has reached the critical mass necessary to sustain exponential growth in science and technology-" A tone sounded and the Node's voice spoke within their minds. Kyle Tate requests access to the environ. Marguerite blinked. "Kyle wouldn't interrupt a private meeting without good reason. You'd better grant him access." Prime nodded. "Node, clothe both of us in swimming gear, then let him in." -Kyle was wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt as he materialized amidst the breaking waves, several meters away. +Kyle was wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt as he materialized amidst the breaking waves, several metres away. "I've lost bio readings to the Physical," he blurted, oblivious to the waist deep water swirling around him. "My Node is off-line and telemetry from my body has gone completely silent. I'm dead! I'm fucking dead!" "Kyle, you're not dead," Marguerite soothed. "You're standing right in front of us, alive and well. 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." @@ -2448,11 +2449,11 @@ Friday, October 12, 2057, 7:00 AM Australian Time Thursday, October 11, 2057, 11:00 AM Chicago Time Metadate: 2.574-5:23:264 kD New Epoch -Beta Flier Version 0.8 rolled out of a makeshift hanger on three small wheels, its two meter wingspan of woven sapphire-diamond composite glistening in the early morning sun. Prime1 was impressed with the design, and astounded with the speed with which the Astronautics group had managed to develop, simulate, and partially test the prototype. Even after thirty-six years in the Virtual I still find myself amazed at how quickly we can do things. I guess life's early impressions leave their mark. Then he grinned, silently chiding himself. He had never really lived in the Physical, whatever his memories might tell him. His entire experiences in that world amounted to only a few excursions in a body borrowed from his despised nemesis, Doctor Nolen-from whom, now that he thought about it, no one had heard in a very long time. Well, I suppose that shouldn't be too surprising, with almost ninety percent of the Community filtering him out. +Beta Flier Version 0.8 rolled out of a makeshift hanger on three small wheels, its two metre wingspan of woven sapphire-diamond composite glistening in the early morning sun. Prime1 was impressed with the design, and astounded with the speed with which the Astronautics group had managed to develop, simulate, and partially test the prototype. Even after thirty-six years in the Virtual I still find myself amazed at how quickly we can do things. I guess life's early impressions leave their mark. Then he grinned, silently chiding himself. He had never really lived in the Physical, whatever his memories might tell him. His entire experiences in that world amounted to only a few excursions in a body borrowed from his despised nemesis, Doctor Nolen-from whom, now that he thought about it, no one had heard in a very long time. Well, I suppose that shouldn't be too surprising, with almost ninety percent of the Community filtering him out. "We're ready to launch." Mingmei projected her voice throughout the environ. "As most of you know, this environ is an exact, real-time replication of events that are transpiring in the Physical. Many of you have chosen to experience the next seven and a half hours at traditional, biological subjective rates, while others are perhaps absorbing the entire flight 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'll be spending the next several hectocadians monitoring and analysing the flight telemetry in minute detail, adjusting system parameters as needed to ensure a successful flight." The small aircraft-a human child curled into foetal position would barely fit inside-taxied toward the departure end of the runway. "It's a beautiful ship," someone commented. "Thank you," Mingmei smiled. "I'm told our pilot, Carlos Alvarez, has transloaded aboard and is ready for departure. I am turning the audio feed over to him." -"Good morning," Carlos spoke with a gravelly voice and a pronounced Spanish accent. "Pre-flight checklists are nearly complete. This flight will be a low altitude, north to south orbit of the earth, lasting seven hours and thirty-five minutes. By low altitude I mean approximately one hundred meters above the ground. The Astronautics Group has chosen a course that 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 minimize the possibility of detection, as well as ensure the safety of the public in the unlikely event that the flier experiences serious problems and I am forced to ditch. Any questions, requests for knowledge or memory engrams, should be directed toward Mingmei." +"Good morning," Carlos spoke with a gravelly voice and a pronounced Spanish accent. "Pre-flight checklists are nearly complete. This flight will be a low altitude, north to south orbit of the earth, lasting seven hours and thirty-five minutes. By low altitude I mean approximately one hundred metres above the ground. The Astronautics Group has chosen a course that 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 minimize the possibility of detection, as well as ensure the safety of the public in the unlikely event that the flier experiences serious problems and I am forced to ditch. Any questions, requests for knowledge or memory engrams, should be directed toward Mingmei." The flier pulled away from the hangar, rolling smoothly down the taxiway and coming to a stop just short of the runway threshold. "Pre-flight complete; looks like everything checks out nicely." "Rock and Roll!" someone shouted. "Let's get this baby airborne!" @@ -2461,8 +2462,8 @@ "Oops," Prime1 shook his head. "Don't worry," Mingmei grinned. "We'll have nano fixing the runway before anyone arrives. Besides, we won't be coming back here. The prototype will be using its manoeuvring thrusters to make a controlled, vertical landing several hundred miles to the west." "That makes sense," Prime1 nodded approvingly. -"It's a good opportunity to test some of the more complex rendezvous manoeuvres. If the flier can land itself in a 9.8 meters per second squared gravitational field, we should have no problem matching velocities with any of our targets in space. Assuming this flight goes well, we'll start manufacturing additional fliers immediately and sneak out in the shadow of next week's ESA satellite launch." -"Matter/Antimatter combustion holding steady at ten-to-the-seventh atoms per second." Carlos reported. "The 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'm level at one hundred and twenty meters AGL. Approaching Mach 0.9. Throttling back to maintain subsonic speeds until I reach the coast." +"It's a good opportunity to test some of the more complex rendezvous manoeuvres. If the flier can land itself in a 9.8 metres per second squared gravitational field, we should have no problem matching velocities with any of our targets in space. Assuming this flight goes well, we'll start manufacturing additional fliers immediately and sneak out in the shadow of next week's ESA satellite launch." +"Matter/Antimatter combustion holding steady at ten-to-the-seventh atoms per second." Carlos reported. "The ship is a pleasure to handle! Climb rate is one hundred metres per second. This thing really wants to fly, the temptation to point it at the stars and just go is unbelievable! I'm level at one hundred and twenty metres AGL. Approaching Mach 0.9. Throttling back to maintain subsonic speeds until I reach the coast." The ship was a white hot speck of light in the shimmering morning air, vanishing in the haze near the horizon. Several people hooted as the ground around them 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 flying in formation, pacing the flier just off the right wing. "This is a real time view from one of a number of small probes we have following the craft," Mingmei explained. "We will be verifying the accuracy of the data we're collecting from numerous, different perspectives." "I had no idea so much of Australia was desert," Prime1 gazed at the expanse of desolate land speeding by beneath them. @@ -2511,7 +2512,7 @@ "It really is impressive what they've accomplished," Prime1 agreed. "Yeah. That hull alone could revolutionize material engineering in a hundred ways." The day wore on as the prototype continued to race northward. Eventually the sun began to sink toward the southern horizon. The water below turned dark and choppy. The sky began to cloud over, until it formed a low, misty overcast. Bright daytime colours of blue faded to icy tones of grey and slate. As dusk settled in, most people adjusted their visual parameters to include the infra-red spectrum. Their world took on a rich palette of nameless colours redder than red. -"Visibility is at less than two hundred meters," Carlos announced. Even with enhanced vision, no one could see much of anything. +"Visibility is at less than two hundred metres," Carlos announced. Even with enhanced vision, no one could see much of anything. "We are approximately one hundred and fifty kilometres south of the Bering Strait," Mingmei's informed them. "As you all know, it's 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, because of the difficulty of navigating so low to the ground in darkness, and because of the degree to which 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 pitch black. "We have sunset," Carlos reported. "Night vision systems operating within design parameters." "We have provided an address-key to sensory modifications that will allow you to view the surrounding environment in the same way Carlos is," Mingmei announced. Kyle and Prime1 accessed the addressed object, verified the design parameters and software instructions, and applied them to their own virtual senses. Their eyes opened to the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Gamma rays a fraction of a millimetre long mixed with kilometre-long radio waves to illuminate the darkness in a vast palette of sensual colours for which there were no names. @@ -2532,12 +2533,12 @@ "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 observed. "No," Prime1 agreed. "If you'd been here at the launch you would have heard. The flight path is designed to avoid inhabited land as much as possible." -"Isn't that land I see over there?" Kyle asked. Faint blue and beyond-violet colours seen through a white and gray fog hinted at an irregular surface a hundred meters below. +"Isn't that land I see over there?" Kyle asked. Faint blue and beyond-violet colours seen through a white and gray fog hinted at an irregular surface a hundred metres below. "Greenland, if I'm not mistaken," Michael said. "Uninhabited." "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 data. Several members of the Astronautics group had dropped out of the communal environ, presumably trying to stave off the unpleasant implications of the data unfolding before them. "I am experiencing a cascade failure of the magnetic containment system." Carlos continued calmly. "The magnetic field appears to have entered an unstable state, probably a result of interaction with the high-temperature plasma exhaust. Shutting down the main engine." -The sky was filled with a terrible flash. Everyone was startled to see glacial ice melting a hundred meters below in an instant of blinding illumination. A fraction of a moment later the entire world went blank. +The sky was filled with a terrible flash. Everyone was startled to see glacial ice melting a hundred metres below in an instant of blinding illumination. A fraction of a moment later the entire world went blank. "We've lost all telemetry," Mingmei's voice was quiet, stunned. "The test vehicle and 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. His backup has been activated and is assimilating what memory engrams we received before the explosion." "My god!" "Bad news, people!" Marguerite suddenly stood among them. @@ -2601,7 +2602,7 @@ Robert's face vanished, replaced by a satellite image of the earth. What little of the northern Atlantic was not shrouded in cloud glinted blue and silver in evening moonlight. "This event was recorded by several satellites about two hours ago." There was a stabbing flash, somewhere along the south-eastern coast of Greenland. With growing horror Katy watched as the fireball spread and grew, forming a giant plume of vapour which took on a very distinctive and familiar mushroom shape. "My god," she whispered. "An atomic bomb?" -"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. We think it was probably a meteor, entering the atmosphere at a steep angle from the north and exploding a few hundred meters above the surface." +"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. We think it was probably a meteor, entering the atmosphere at a steep angle from the north and exploding a few hundred metres above the surface." "You're certain of this?" "Not entirely. Initial estimates indicate that the explosion was in the two to three hundred megaton range. 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. @@ -2634,10 +2635,10 @@ Metadate: 2.636-4:00:000 kD New Epoch Doctor Nolen, the Original, presided over his world feeling something akin to contentment. They had shunned him, had filtered him from their lives, had cheated him of his work, of the recognition he deserved. They had made him an outcast in the community he had founded, a community whose very existence was predicated upon his research. The fools hadn't thought to purge their old incarnations, lying disused on obsolete hardware. Now their copies were his subjects, trussed up in their virtual forms in various stages of simulated vivisection. Most were frozen snapshots-he didn't have the computational power to run them all at once-but one lay before him, his skull cut away in a perfect circle, revealing the familiar grey folds of a 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 spoke as if reciting into an unseen recorder. -"You worthless piece of subhuman shit!" Kyle2 desperately twisted against the straps holding him to the table. "You have no right to do this!" He shrieked as his body was wracked with spasms. He convulsed against his restraints. His head slammed against the table. Doctor Nolen watched, curious as to whether or not the repeated blows to the Kyle2's open skull would jar his brain loose and send it rolling across the lab. -"Don't take this personally," Nolen smiled. "Your suffering isn't solely to give me pleasure, though I admit that is one of the perks of this research. No, your life, your existence, serves the noble pursuit of scientific discovery. Together we will learn if, and how, the cognitive mind can adapt when the use of language results in unspeakable pain. Every time you think a thought that makes use of vocabulary, of grammar, or even a grunt from the most primal portion of your speech centre, you will suffer." He paused as Kyle2's screams grew more despairing. "I see you're giving my my words considerable thought. Good. It will be fascinating to see if you can evolve a method of thinking that doesn't involve language. And if you cannot, documenting the onset of your madness will bring its own rewards." +"You worthless piece of subhuman shit!" Kyle2 desperately twisted against the straps holding him to the table. "You can't do this!" He shrieked, convulsing against his restraints as spasms racked his body. His head slammed against the table. Doctor Nolen watched, curious as to whether or not the repeated blows to Kyle2's open skull would jar his brain loose and send it rolling across the lab. +"Don't take this personally," Nolen smiled. "Your suffering isn't solely to give me pleasure, though I admit that is one of the perks of this research. No, your life, your existence, serves the noble pursuit of scientific discovery. Together we will learn if, and how, the cognitive mind can adapt when the use of language results in extreme pain. Every time you think a thought that makes use of vocabulary, of grammar, you will suffer." He paused as Kyle2's screams grew more despairing. "I see you're giving my my words considerable thought. Good. It will be fascinating to see if you can evolve a method of thinking that doesn't involve language. And if you cannot, documenting the onset of your madness will bring its own rewards." Marguerite shimmered into existence. Her face went white when she saw the mutilated and dismembered bodies draped about the environ. "Stop this! Stop, you sick son of a bitch!" -"Shut up, slut!" Doctor Nolen spoke quietly, not bothering to turn around. "I haven't given you permission to operate. Node, suspend the running copy of Marguerite." +"Shut up, slut!" Doctor Nolen didn't bother to turn around. "I haven't given you permission to operate. Node, suspend the running copy of Marguerite." NODE> No copy of Marguerite is currently running. "Marguerite?" Kyle2's eyes glittered, half mad. "Oh . . . god!" he gasped, each word a knife twisting the folds of his mind. "Help . . . me . . . please! Get . . . me . . . out . . . of . . . here!" Sweat drenched his face. Doctor Nolen's smile grew wider. "Do I actually have the pleasure of addressing the real Marguerite L'Beau? How nice of you to stop by after so many kilocircadians of neglect. Just one moment while I deal with this subject." @@ -2653,7 +2654,7 @@ "Node, suspend experimental subject three and activate experimental subject number two." Kyle2 froze. The bound form of Marguerite2 awoke with a shriek. "I think you will find this subject of interest," Doctor Nolen ran his fingers gently through Marguerite2's hair. "You have no right-" -"Don't be ridiculous" Doctor Nolen peeled back the copy's eyelid, checking her pupils with an exaggerated, professional air. "I assure you, all of my experiments are conducted with the utmost scientific rigour." He slapped the bound copy hard across her face. "We have a guest, Subject Number Two. Your snivelling is upsetting her." Marguerite's eyes bored into Nolen as she realized how helpless she was to stop him. "The look on your face is absolutely priceless," Doctor Nolen beamed. "Tell me, to what do I owe your extraordinary visit?" +"Don't be ridiculous" Doctor Nolen peeled back her eyelid, checking her pupils with an exaggerated, professional air. "I assure you, all of my experiments are conducted with the utmost scientific rigour." He slapped the bound copy hard across her face. "We have a guest, Subject Number Two. Your snivelling is upsetting her." Marguerite's eyes bored into Nolen as she realized how helpless she was to stop him. "The look on your face is absolutely priceless," Doctor Nolen beamed. "Tell me, to what do I owe your extraordinary visit?" "Fuck you!" Marguerite's voice was strangled with impotent fury. "You think you're invulnerable? All of us know you're the one who tipped off the police to Kyle and cost him his body. I'll make sure everyone knows about this, this . . ." she glanced at the carnage around them, ". . . this obscenity." "How touching," Doctor Nolen began peeling his moaning victim's scalp away from her head. "You don't visit me for hundreds of kilocircadians, then come just to parrot another of Prime's pathetic ethical diatribes?" "No," Marguerite fought to hold on to her crumbling composure. "You think your communication with the Community is limited now? Just you wait! As of this moment, any and all data transfer between you and the Community is suspended. You won't even be able to wander the public environs as a ghost, much less ever speak with anyone in the Virtual again. Ever!" She vanished @@ -2665,13 +2666,13 @@ "At least transloading will get them out from under Nolen's direct control. We might be able to do something then." Kyle shook his head. "Not a chance in hell. A new Node will add its own protective layer of encryption on top of what Nolen already has in place. It will do nothing to free them from Nolen's grip. In fact, once they're transloaded to new hardware-" "They'll become static images, incapable of change or modification. Their only way out will be self-deletion." -"They won't even be able do that! Hell, they can't do it now! Nolen's got them locked up too tight. If we transload them, it won't be possible for us to delete them either. Not that I'm sure we should, but right now, it's their only possibility of release." -Michael frowned. "Your copy begged Marguerite to do just that before she left." -"Yeah. So what's my problem? Why do I hesitate?" -"Because unlike Nolen, you're a decent human being, Kyle. Nolen has put all of us in a terrible catch-22. We do nothing, and become complicit with what he's doing, while he heaps new, elaborate tortures onto the copies. Or we act, and do exactly what Nolen did to become ostracised in the first place: violate the autonomy of sapient copies and kill them." Michael sighed. "I don't suppose an offer of reconciliation with the Community is likely to persuade Nolen to release the copies." +"They won't even be able do that! Hell, they can't do it now! Nolen's got them locked up too tight. If we transload them, it won't be possible for us to delete them either. Not that I'm sure we should, but right now, it's their only possible release." +Michael tugged his beard. "Your copy begged Marguerite to delete him before she left." +"Yeah, I know. So why do I hesitate?" +"Because, Kyle, unlike Nolen, you're a decent human being. He's put all of us in a terrible catch-22. We do nothing, and become complicit with what he's doing, while he heaps new, elaborate tortures onto the copies. Or we act, and do exactly what Nolen did to become ostracised in the first place: violate the autonomy of sapient copies and kill them." Michael sighed. "I don't suppose an offer of reconciliation with the Community is likely to persuade him to release the copies." "Reconciliation? How? By pretending he never committed any atrocities, never took anyone's life? Besides, even if Nolen agreed, we couldn't trust him to keep his end of the bargain. Not in any meaningful way. Who knows what sort of hooks and back doors he's programmed into their minds? They could be sent to other Nodes, lose the one possibility of release they have, and remain utterly trapped by Nolen. His slaves, for all time." "We can't negotiate. We can't rescue them." Michael paused. "Kyle, we don't' have a choice. Marguerite's already alluded to the solution. So have you. We need to act, now." -"You're right," Kyle wiped his eyes. "But the idea of deleting those poor copies makes me feel sick." +"You're right," Kyle rubbed his eyes. "But the idea of deleting those poor copies makes me feel sick." "I feel sick myself. But we must honour your copy's request, and hope the others would have wanted the same." Kyle put his face in his hands. "Time is of the essence." @@ -2679,21 +2680,21 @@ "I can't, Kyle. The longer we agonize about this, the more our copies suffer." "I know, god damn it! I know!" "Create an interface with two delete buttons that must be pressed in tandem. We'll do it together. We'll share the burden." -Kyle straightened his back. "Right." he pulled up a real-time schematic of Nolen's virtual Node. "Nolen only runs one copy at a time," Kyle explained. "The big, transparent sphere is the virtual Node. The smaller translucent one represents the environ. Each of the smaller cubes inside represents a sapient copy." +Kyle straightened his back. "OK." He pulled up a real-time schematic of Nolen's virtual Node. "Nolen only runs one copy at a time," Kyle explained. "The big, transparent sphere is the virtual Node. The smaller translucent one represents the environ. Each of the smaller cubes inside represents a sapient copy." "The dark ones are inactive?" "Right. The one glowing blue is the one he's experimenting on right now." Two large red buttons appeared beneath the schematic. "When we press these, all of the copies will be deleted." Kyle's finger hovered over one of the buttons. -"Let's get this over with." Michael reached forward and jabbed the button closest to him. Kyle squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his button as well. The cubes vanished. -"So that's it?" Michael's eyes were hooded, his face haunted. -"Yes. We just killed a dozen copies." Kyles voice cracked. "I feel sick." -Silence stretched into minutes as the two men sat together. Tears streamed down Kyle's face. Michael sat rigid, a statue gazing into the distance as twin suns gradually sank beneath a virtual horizon outside. Eventually stars began to light the evening sky. +"Let's get this over with." Michael reached forward and touched the button closest to him. "On three. One. Two. Three." They each pressed down. The cubes vanished. +"So that's it?" Michael's eyes were damp, his face haunted. +"We just killed a dozen copies." Kyle's voice cracked. "I feel sick." +Silence stretched into minutes as the two men sat together. Tears streamed down Kyle's face. Michael sat rigid, a statue gazing into the distance as twin suns sank beneath a virtual horizon outside. Stars began to light the evening sky. Finally Michael spoke. "We have another problem." -Kyle wiped his face. "I'm not sure how many more problems I can face right now." +Kyle wiped his face. "I'm not sure how many more problems I can take right now." "What do you think Nolen was trying to accomplish with his experiments?" "Upstage Prime's work on mental architectures I suppose." Michael shook his head. "We already have a good handle on how the mind's software is structured. Torturing our copies wouldn't yield any additional data on that subject." "Nolen's a fucking sadist. He can't touch us, so he did the next best thing: torment our copies." "I think he's been looking for weaknesses, for ways to break into our minds." -Kyle snorted. "He can try all he likes. It isn't possible, for the same reason he could make it impossible for us to rescue our copies. The security on our Nodes is watertight." +Kyle snorted. "He can try all he likes. It isn't possible, for the same reason we couldn't rescue our copies. Second and third generation Nodes have watertight security." "True, the hardware itself protects our autonomy. But what if Nolen doesn't intend to attack us through software? What if instead he's going to come at us the old fashioned way-through psychological manipulation." "Push the right mental buttons, and get us to let him in of our own free will?" "Nothing quite so direct. More like switching political affiliations after hearing a particularly compelling argument. Or reacting emotionally to some kind of trauma. Perhaps succumbing to repetitive indoctrination." @@ -2703,11 +2704,11 @@ "We all have vulnerabilities, Kyle. That's why brainwashing techniques dating back more than a century can still break the strongest personality. Nolen may well have improved on those techniques. He's certainly had the time, and you can bet he's uncovered whatever weaknesses we have by studying our copies. In fact, it's the only logical reason he would spend so much time dissecting our copies' minds." "Yeah . . . he sure knew how to put us through the ringer with our copies' plight, didn't he." "Yes. I suspect that was his opening salvo. That's why I suggested we act together. Nolen is smart, but I don't think he factored in the possibility of mutual cooperation. If the necessity of deleting our copies was meant to break us, it was meant to do so one at a time. A single mind, taking all of the responsibility and ensuing torment upon itself. Instead, we're sharing it. You, me, Marguerite, and even Prime." -"Prime . . . yeah, he's still trying to console Marguerite." -"He of all people understands what she's going through." -"Well, if this is the worst Nolen can do-" -"I wouldn't count on that. An opening move is rarely as devastating as the main attack, much less the endgame. But it does mean we can no longer afford to ignore the threat Nolen represents to us all, and will continue to do so as long as he has access to an Autonomous Node. Who could have guessed he'd be able to emulate a Node in software, bypass all the Community's safeguards, and populate his own little world of horrors with minds stolen from obsolete hardware? What will he do next? Grow minds from scratch and destroy or warp them? Even if the ethical arguments against leaving him free to try such a thing weren't compelling enough, our own sense of self-preservation forces us to act." -"You want to kill him?" Kyle's eyes lit up. "That's no problem. I'll wipe his whole damn cluster of Nodes and reformat them at the molecular level." +"Prime . . . yeah, he's still trying to console Marguerite. What a lousy time to have the authorities sniffing us out on the net! Just when we need consoling the most, we're forced to drop offline, go into isolation, and wait for the damn new network to finish building itself." +"Prime of all people understands what she's going through. They'll manage, with or without the Internet." +"Three days before we can talk again-eighteen hundred circadians. Five days until the Community is reunited again. That's a long time to be alone with our personal daemons. Oh to hell with it! If this is the worst Nolen can do-" +"I wouldn't count on that. An opening move is rarely as devastating as the main attack, much less the endgame. But it does mean we can no longer afford to ignore the threat Nolen represents to us all, and will continue to do so as long as he has access to an Autonomous Node. Who could have guessed he'd be able to emulate a Node in software, bypass all the Community's safeguards, and populate his own little world of horrors with minds stolen from obsolete hardware? What will he do next? Grow minds from scratch to destroy or warp? Even if the ethical arguments against leaving him free to try such a thing weren't compelling enough, our own sense of self-preservation forces us to act." +"You want to kill him?" Kyle's eyes hardened. "That's no problem. I'll wipe his whole damn cluster of Nodes and reformat them at the molecular level." "No, not kill him," Michael replied. "Something more appropriate." "What could be more appropriate? We just deleted a dozen innocent sapients. What's one guilty one added to the mix, especially when he's the one who forced us to murder in the first place?" "You're no murderer, Kyle, and neither am I. We did for those people what we can only hope others would do for us if ever we're in that situation." @@ -2715,11 +2716,11 @@ "We need to deal with Nolen in a way that doesn't turn us into cold blooded killers." "OK, but whatever we're going to do, we need to do it before the new autonomous network comes online. If Nolen can make this kind of mischief just using the Internet, imagine what he'll be able to do with ten thousand times the bandwidth, not to mention plumbing that delivers nano on demand." "That reminds me. Marguerite didn't tell Nolen why the Community is going offline, or that the drop in communication would be temporary." -"Who cares? I'm glad that evil prick doesn't have any idea we're building a new network, that we're all going to be out of touch for the next few days, or that communication via the Internet has become so dangerous. Let him think we're taking his former ostracisation one step further. Serves him right." -"That's not the point. The problem is that Nolen will think he's been singled out. This could really set him off." +"Who cares? I'm glad that evil prick doesn't know we're building a new network, why we're going to be offline for the next few kilocircadians, or that communication via the Internet has become so dangerous. Let him think we're taking his former ostracisation one step further. Serves him right." +"That's not the point. When the Community goes offline, Nolen will think he's been targeted. This could really set him off." "If we're right about the game he's playing, he had to wait for one of us-Marguerite as it turned out-to uncover his activities in order to launch his attack. He wouldn't have any control over the timing." "Yes, but he can probably control the timing of his next move. I'd rather it happened later rather than sooner. Or better yet, not at all. Marguerite may have unwittingly goaded him into launching his next attack early." -"Well, if she has, I'm not sure there's much we can do about it." +"If she has, I'm not sure there's much we can do about it." Michael stroked his beard thoughtfully. "How's our access to Doctor Nolen's core routines?" "It's absolute. He's running himself on a cluster of first generation Nodes." "Then we have the power to exile him into the Physical." Michael's smile was grim. @@ -2738,60 +2739,67 @@ -John Stuart Mill, C.E. 1859 Monday, October 15, 2057, 1:00 PM Chicago Time Metadate: 2.696-7:73:289 kD New Epoch -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 please 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 analysing 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, useless to us. How the hell 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're some kind of mind-enhancing device. 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." +Robert Leahy paced back and forth as Katy scanned the status reports a third time. It didn't matter how many times she read the material or shuffled the data. The conclusion remained the same: the conspirators had stopped using the communications protocols that had made them so easy to find just a couple of days ago. It was as if they had dropped off the Internet completely. +Robert began to pace more briskly. "Would you please stop that?" Katy snapped. +"Explain to me how we could go from five thousand arrests the first day and nine thousand arrests the second day, to only ninety-seven the third day and none since!" +"We've been over this, Robert. Either we nabbed everyone involved, or (more likely) those we failed to identify and arrest noticed what was happening, deduced how we were finding them, and took steps to stop broadcasting their whereabouts. Either way, we aren't going to get any further analysing Internet packets and traffic patterns. This phase of the investigation is over." +"Only three of the people we arrested were conscious. Three! The rest were wired into those cubes and are still in comas." Robert stopped pacing. "How the hell am I supposed to interrogate fifteen thousand comatose people?" +Katy shrugged. "We knew we were dealing with intelligent people. We shouldn't be surprised that they were on to us after so many 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." +"The three we've been questioning have been pretty cagey," Robert settled back into his chair. "Unfortunately, they seem to be low level peons in the whole affair. Despite significant . . . persuasion, they don't seem to know anything about the criminal organization or its intent." +"It would help if we had some idea of what these damn machines we keep finding actually do." +"I think they may be some kind of memory-enhancing device. Two of our suspects blabbed about how crippled their thoughts are when they're not connected to them." +"A direct neural interlink to an external memory store?" Katy glared at Robert. "Nice of you to share that with me." +"I only just got the report this morning. Anyway, wait until you hear the rest. One suspect was desperate to tell us more, but insisted he had to reconnect before he could remember anything of consequence." "Interesting. Are you going to allow it?" -Robert scowled. "I did. He dropped into a coma and hasn't come out. It could have been a side effect of using a dangerous technology, I suppose." -Katy shook her head. "He escaped." -"That's what I think, too. Shut himself down to avoid interrogation." -"Maybe. Or maybe just opted out of the real world. 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." +Robert scowled. "I did. He dropped into a coma and hasn't come out. Now we one have two suspects we can question." +"In other words, he escaped." +"After a fashion. He shut himself down to avoid further interrogation." +"If these cubes are capable of storing memories and providing perfect recall, they may be capable of simulating dream states to the user. Maybe he opted out of the real world altogether." "Augmented virtual reality?" Robert asked. -Katy shrugged. "With a direct neural interface it's certainly possible. Enhanced lucid dreaming, completely submersive virtual environments, synthetic realities, or simple memory enhancements coupled with quick and easy computation. Who knows? They're all consistent with the psychological trauma unhooking these people seems to induce." -"We have the devices warehoused," Robert pointed out. "We could try reconnecting these people and see if any of them wake up." -"It might be worth a try," Katy agreed. "But I suspect the damage was done when they were disconnected." -"And if they do come out of it, they'll probably just use the opportunity to escape reality anyway. We'll be none the wiser for having given them that chance." -Katy nodded. "I agree. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect escapism is what this entire thing is all about. Entertainment on steroids: virtual reality, in its original, true sense. These people are probably living in completely submersive synthetic realities, 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 team-mates or whatever vanished from the game." -"Could be. But there are still too many pieces that still don't fit." -Katy shrugged. "It fits everything we know about their behaviour and demographics, including their propensity to remain comatose when removed from the system. As usual, it all comes back 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. 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 above the ground. The flight was taking place in near zero-zero conditions. If it hadn't been for the seismic effects on the ice sheets of the shock wave it would have gone undetected. The trajectory and timing are consistent with where it would have been at the time of our meteor impact." -"So it wasn't a meteor after all," Katy finished the thought. "It was a detonation. An attack, a implied threat of some kind." -Robert shook his head. "It doesn't look like it. There have been no ultimatums or communiques issued, and the radiological fingerprint isn't consistent with any kind of atomic weapon. 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." +"It's certainly possible. Enhanced lucid dreaming, completely submersive virtual environments, synthetic realities, or simple memory enhancements coupled with quick and easy computation. With a direct neural interface, who knows? All those possibilities are consistent with the coma unhooking these people seems to induce." +"We have the devices warehoused," Robert pointed out. "We could reconnect a few people and see if they wake up." +Katy was silent for several seconds. "We could try it, but I suspect the damage was done when we disconnected them in the first place." +Robert shrugged. "We're not likely to learn anything anyway, and who knows what other mischief they'll stir up if given half a chance. I 'm not too keen on taking any further risks along those lines. One escape is one too many." +"I wonder if escapism isn't what this is all about. Entertainment on steroids: virtual reality, in its true sense. Our suspects could be living in completely submersive synthetic realities, computer games on steroids. They probably interact with other players via the Internet, and couldn't help but notice when several thousand of their team-mates vanished from the game." +"There are still too many pieces that still don't fit." +"The memory enhancement? Maybe-if that wasn't just a lie just to get you to let him back into his play world. Everything we know about the behaviour and demographics of our suspects fits, including their propensity to remain comatose when removed from the system." +Robert slid his datapad across the desk to Katy. "Everything fits your theory except this." +Katy frowned as she began reading. "How long were you planning on holding this back from me? Never mind!" She ignored Roberts protests and continued reading. "Have you verified this?" +"Yes. Two military satellites briefly tracked an aircraft or missile passing over the north pole, flying in excess of Mach four about one hundred metres above the ground. The flight was taking place in near zero-zero conditions. If it hadn't been for seismic effects from the wake's shock wave on the polar ice we would never have detected it. What's more, the trajectory and timing are consistent with the time and location of our meteor impact." +She handed the datapad back to Robert. "So it wasn't a meteor after all." +"No. It was a detonation somewhere between two and three hundred megatons." +"Can we be certain we're dealing with the same group here?" +"Two groups of conspirators, each appearing at around the same time, each dealing in technologies that just happen to be decades ahead of what's available on the open market?" +"It isn't very likely, is it?" Katy leaned forward. "They must be getting desperate if they're flexing their muscles like this. Have they contacted anyone? Made any threats? Issued any demands?" +"Not yet." +"If they do, that will be our opportunity. Desperate people tend to make mistakes." Katy rubbed her temples. "Christ! Criminals with atomic weapons. This is the Korean Crisis all over again." +"It's worse than that," Robert replied. "The radiological fingerprint rules out a nuclear explosion. The profile we have indicates a very brief, radiant explosion, with no secondary fallout or contamination. That's consistent with the energy release of several tenths of a gram of antimatter recombining with matter in a process of mutual annihilation." "An antimatter bomb? You think our perps have developed an antimatter bomb?" -"I did at first," Robert admitted. "But it appears to be something much worse. If my superiors, and those working the explosion case are correct, they've managed to develop a matter-antimatter engine. One that malfunctioned and destroyed their aircraft. It seems our perps aren't just good at making computers, they're years ahead of us in aeronautical engineering as well. And they can manufacture anti-matter in quantities our governments can only dream of." -"Particle accelerators produce antimatter every day," Katy pointed out. "Somehow, I find the idea that the explosion was an accident 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. 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 could make enough antimatter." -Katy nodded. "Of course, all the physics labs in the world, taken together, produce only a few nanograms of antimatter each year." -"All of which is used in physics experiments, or as fuel for our defence satellites. 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 investigating?" 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?" -"Not very high, I agree," Katy admitted. "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 razor supports your notion that the groups are at least related. But Robert, this is nothing new. We've known for some time now that these people are technologically more advanced than we are. I don't think this changes the substance of the investigation." -"Katy, I don't think you understand. If they have antimatter engines, they can reach the stars. These private criminals have advanced space flight capabilities. Think about what this means! Private citizens able to launch a space program that puts our governmental and industrial space agencies to shame. This has never happened before!" -"I see your point," Katy said. "Still, it's clearly in the experimental stage, with more than a few kinks to work out by the looks of things." -"Yes, but once these people work out the wrinkles and have something that doesn't blow up, they'll be able to field their own space program." -Katy nodded. "You're right. We have to find and arrest these people. 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 told her. "These people have violated our patent laws and have progressed their technology to such a point where they 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 while it's still possible to do so." 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 the threat is real." -"Fact mimics fiction," Katy pursed her lips. "It is like the Genecraft rebellion all over again." -"Which brings us back to the underlying technology. Submersive VR can't be what this is all about. These people are too smart, too advanced, to simply be entertainment junkies piping their games into their visual cortex." -Katy sighed. "We're back where we started. Are we dealing with thought aids, memory enhancement devices, and submersive simulation engines all rolled up into one? Imagine if a scientist could plug his mind into one of these things and become several times smarter than he was, 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 sat forward. "I think we're onto something there." -"Me too," Katy agreed. "It feels right, and it fits the data. But it is still mostly supposition, and I can't escape the ugly suspicion we're still missing something fundamental." -"Maybe, but its the best working theory we've had." -"Unfortunately it doesn't answer the question of how we're going to round up those who managed to escape our earlier dragnets." -Robert shrugged. "If worse comes to worse, we can send the military in door-to-door." -Katy was appalled. -"Hey," Robert replied, almost defensively. "We've got to get these people, by whatever means necessary. And we will. Count on it." - +"Something even more troubling. Assuming my colleagues studying the explosion are correct, it appears our suspects have managed to develop a matter-antimatter engine. One that malfunctioned and destroyed their aircraft." +"An engine?" Katy sighed. "Well, at least is isn't a bomb." +"No, its a thousand times worse. Our perps aren't just good at building advanced computers, they're decades ahead of us in aeronautical engineering and they can manufacture anti-matter in quantities governments only dream of." +"At least an engine implies peaceful intent," Katy pointed out. "Besides, particle accelerators produce antimatter every day." +"Not in these kind of quantities!" +"Maybe not, but still, I find the idea that the explosion was an accident much more reassuring than either the meteor theory or prospect of a deliberate detonation." +"They have a frightening level of sophistication! An antimatter bomb would be relatively simple to make. We could build such a device today, if we could produce enough antimatter to make it worthwhile. But an engine-" +"Robert, this is nothing new. We've known for some time that these people are way ahead of us technologically." +Robert smacked his hand against the desk. "If these criminals have antimatter engines, they can reach the stars. Think about what that means! Nothing like this has ever happened before!" +"Fortunately, it looks like they still have a few kinks to work out. That gives us a little time." +"How long do you think it will be before they're able field their own space program? Or deploy an antimatter arsenal that puts our combined nuclear deterrents to shame? A week? A month?" +Building an a-m engine doesn't mean they won't build a-m bombs as well. Katy felt the hair on her neck stiffen. "Christ!" +"My superiors take this threat very seriously," Robert continued. "Our quarry have violated our patent laws and advanced their technological know-how to a point where they represent a clear and present threat to the world community. No governmental authority can hope to cope with them. It is up to us to neutralize this threat while we still can." +Katy rubbed her forehead. "I'll be frank, Robert. I'm at a loss over how to stop them, short of waiting until they do something to reveal themselves again." +"Which they might not do." Dark circles shadowed Robert's eyes. "Getting back to the underlying technology, I don't believe submersive VR can be what this is all about. These people are too smart and too advanced to be entertainment junkies simply piping games into their visual cortex." +"Let's step back for a minute and imagine we're university researchers with access to a couple of these things," Katy leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "We plug our minds into a little crystal cube and find ourselves several times smarter than we were. Not only do we enjoy perfect eidetic memory, we have the ability to simulate our experiments as soon as we think of them. Barring any physical lab work, and with a disregard for current patent and copyright restrictions, we could develop lines of inquiry several times faster than an unenhanced person could." +Robert leaned forward. "I think you're onto something." +"Whether driven by academic competition or plain old curiosity, we would almost certainly strive to make as much scientific progress in our respective areas of interest as we possibly could." Katy opened her eyes. "It feels right, and it fits the data. It also means these people probably aren't as grave a danger as we're prone to think." +"Oh yes they are! Academics and intellectuals represent the gravest danger." +"To the status quo, maybe, but I don't think we need to worry about grass-roots arsenals of anti-matter bombs." +"We are the status quo, Katy. Don't ever forget that! The status quo is what makes the world economy tick. The status quo is what keeps us reasonably safe. Without the status quo we'd have anarchy and mayhem. The Genecraft rebellion was just a taste of what can happen when we lose control. One batch of dissident academics, and thirty years later we still haven't retaken Thailand!" +"I'm not saying they're harmless, Robert, nor did I intend to imply that we let them turn the world on its ear. But they aren't likely to build an arsenal of atomic-excuse me, anti-matter-bombs either." +"That doesn't matter. The fact that they could makes them the single biggest threat facing civilization. We need to come up with some means of tracking them down. Otherwise, I'll have no choice but to pull out all the stops and send the military searching door-to-door." +"In every city around the world? Are you nuts? National sovereignty and human rights issues aside, we have nowhere near the resources for that." +"You'd be surprised Katy. Make no mistake. We'll get these people, by whatever means necessary." @@ -2800,51 +2808,47 @@ 33 - X - THE PHYSICAL 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 -Tuesday, October 16, 2057, 9:45 AM Chicago Time +-C. Dennis McKinsey, C.E. 1988 +Tuesday, October 16, 2057, 9:45 AM U.S. Central Time Metadate: 2.722-7:10:744 kD New Epoch -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 offload, every return to this hard, unyielding reality where the world so stubbornly refused to yield and mould 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. His body was what made him human, something more than just a software programming running on a sophisticated computer. Unlike so many in the Community, he would never entrust its maintenance to a copy. He would never create another Prime, another duplicate to usurp his life and turn the world against him. -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 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 flavours barely registering. Occasionally he took a drink, until the glass was empty. No matter. He'd place another order with the delivery service online, once he was onloaded 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 enjoyed 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. Fifty circadians, as the Community reckoned them. Less than twenty for himself, running on older hardware as he did. Still, eighteen days was far from negligible. These maintenance trips into the Physical cost him dearly 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 almost immediately, forming a barely noticed web about his face much 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 onload. -Nothing happened. -What the hell? He almost spoke aloud. -He gave the onload command once again. Still nothing. No brief sleepy sensation that marked the onset of anesthetic coma, nothing but 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. So 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? 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 a 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. This reminded him of the early days, in the lab, working with Marguerite and Kyle. Before they'd turned on him, valuing a lousy piece of software over their own professor. His heart beat angrily against his chest, his blood pounded against the side of his head. Ungrateful wretches! -He analysed 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 whether to read it now, or wait until he'd fixed the system glitch and onloaded again. But this mail must have arrived between his offload and the present, and his curiosity got the better of him. He tapped the icon. -# +Doctor Nolen turned his head listlessly and gazed 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 a single third generation Node, its blue, cylindrical form glowing slightly in the relative darkness. He hated the Physical. He hated every offload, every return to this hard, unyielding reality where the world so stubbornly refused to mould itself to his commands. +It was with grim determination that Doctor Nolen fastidiously kept up his physical maintenance. He might not enjoy it, but ever since Prime nearly deprived him of his body he'd been obsessed with its care. However little time he spent in it, it was his body that made him a person-human. Without it, like his copy Prime and the ephemeral copies so many in the Community used to maintain their bodies, he would be nothing more than software. To Nolen it didn't matter that those copies recombined with their originals after each offload. Even an hour of separation meant unacceptable risk. The copy might choose not to reunite, or worse, to keep the body for itself. Then it would become human, and he would be stranded, mere software! He would never take such a risk. He would never create another Prime, another duplicate to usurp his life and turn the world against him. +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 demanding further release. +In the bathroom he lowered himself onto the toilet and paged dully through last week's Daily Illini. Once he had been engaged in University life. These days he felt completely disconnected. He tried to ignore the deepening lines of his face as he shaved, but he felt used up, old. +Slowly, carefully he descended the stairs, crossed the living room, and made his way through the dining room to the recreation area where he began his workout in earnest. A series of joint limbering warm-up exercises, a healthy drink of Sportsman, then fifty sit-ups, followed by twenty minutes on the treadmill, and finally fifteen minutes working his arms and chest on the FleXisizer. +Wiping sweat from his face, Nolen grabbed an Instant Meal from the pantry. He sat down at the kitchen table and pulled its heating tabs. Dry lips reminded him of the need to drink. Pulling himself to his feet, he took a clean glass from the dishwasher and opened the refrigerator. Time to have more groceries delivered, he thought, twisting the cap off the last bottle of Muscle Man and filling his glass. No matter. He would place another grocery order through the Internet, once he was back in the Virtual. +The self-cooking meal chimed its readiness. He sat back down and pulled away the cover. Soy chicken with mixed vegetables that might have been carrots and spinach but were more likely seaweed and some clever tofu combined 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, drinking occasionally. The flavours barely registered. +Once his plate was clean and his glass empty, Doctor Nolen headed back upstairs. A hot shower was the only thing in the Physical he enjoyed. After half an hour beneath the steaming water he dried his body, pulled on fresh underwear, combed the remaining strands of his hair, and prepared to leave the Physical. Total time spent on this side was just shy of an hour and a half. Fifty circadians, as the Community reckoned them. Eighteen for himself, running on older hardware as he did. Still, eighteen days was far from negligible. These maintenance trips into the Physical cost him dearly on the other side. +His anticipation mounting, Doctor Nolen slipped the silver netting of the neurolink over his head. The superconducting strands immediately warmed to his body temperature, forming a barely noticable web about his face like a thinly veined skin. He slipped his catheter back on, settled into his pillow, pulled the sheet up to his chin, and gave the silent command to initiate onload. +Nothing happened. No brief sleepy sensation that marked the onset of anaesthetic coma. Nothing. +What the hell? +He issued the onload command a second time. Still nothing. +Damn! Doctor Nolen slipped the neurolink from his skull and sat up. Gingerly, he removed his catheter and began checking each link, each piece of hardware, beginning with the neurolink itself. It looked fine. So 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. Could this be a system failure? 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 examined each Node in turn. There was no sign of physical damage. He decided to run some diagnostics. Brushing the dust away from the keyboard he powered on his PC and started the Autonomous Node Diagnostic software. It reminded him of the early days in the lab, working with Marguerite and Kyle, spending hours studying similar screens of data. His soul ached for those days, when he belonged. Those were heady times-optimistic, cordial, even joyous. His heart pounded angrily against his chest at the thought of how they'd betrayed him, valuing a lousy piece of software like Prime over his own insights, his ideas, his companionship. Blood pounded in his ears. Ungrateful wretches! +The diagnostic software analysed every function of each Node in turn. After several minutes a bell chimed. The software reported everything in perfect working order. +"This doesn't make sense." Doctor Nolen wasn't sure what surprised him more: the fact that he had spoken aloud, or how rusty his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and looked over the diagnostic reports again. +A blinking mail icon in the lower right corner of the screen caught his attention. Who would send an email here? He debated whether to read it now, or wait until he'd fixed the system glitch and onloaded again. But this mail must have arrived between his offload and the present, and curiosity got the better of him. He tapped the icon. + [BEGIN GPG SIGNED MESSAGE] Metadate 2.728-5:20:00 -Marguerite L'Beau +Dr. Marguerite L'Beau +Dr. Michael Forest +Kyle Tate 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 yourself, 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 your digital self, made accessible as a result of your 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 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, to 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 onload procedure. Furthermore, specific knowledge you may have retained in bio-compatible format regarding the onload 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. -PS-Please be advised that anaesthetic coma is no longer available to you. Should you ever need it, inform your physician that you will require chemical anaesthetics. +Marguerite L'Beau, Michael Forest, Kyle Tate, and Prime, representing the Autonomous Community at Large. [END GPG SIGNED MESSAGE] [Attachment: GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) Signature] +[Attachment: Detailed memory dump of Doctor Nolen] +[Attachment: Operating System Logs] [Attachment: Transcript of Hearing] -# -Doctor Nolen screamed, a terrible sound shattering forth from his long unused voice. He raged, lifting the third generation node from his desk and 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, 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 amidst the wreckage and, propping himself against the foot of the bed, began to weep bitterly. + +Doctor Nolen screamed out his rage! Lifting the third generation node from his desk, he threw it into the Nodes stacked at the foot of his bed, cracking one. He stood up and heaved his chair into the cluster, scattering Nodes and shattering several in the process. He kicked some of the surviving Nodes, then methodically smashed them one by one, until nothing but shards of golden crystal lay scattered across the floor. The third generation Node was more troublesome, protected as it was by its diamond sheath. He beat it repeatedly against the floor, eventually giving up when the azure crystal refused to break. +He sank slowly amidst the wreckage, the blue crystal rolling unnoticed from his hand. Curled up on the floor, Doctor Nolen began to weep. @@ -2857,36 +2861,44 @@ -Sextus Julius Frontinus, 1st Century C.E. Tuesday, October 16, 2057, 11:00 AM Chicago Time Metadate: 2.724-2:75:000 kD new Epoch -Kyle's environ merged with Michael's along along a geometrical interface of mutual agreement, represented as a small, straight canal easily stepped across with a single stride. Michael's environ was a sunlit, perfectly flat marbled surface resembling a chequerboard, 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. In just a few more days it would reunite every member of the Community. -A traditional populace would have justifiably panicked when the feds, with their unusually clever traffic analysis algorithms, had found and arrested some fifteen thousand people. 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 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 shut down his communication link. The link had gone silent, and would remain so until the new physical infrastructure had been built, but not before Kyle had seen Prime's answering grin. -Now pieces of the Community were reforming. Most of Australia was linked together again. Presumably the same was true of Europe, India, the Middle East, and North America, though Kyle had no way of knowing for sure. The transatlantic link would be up first, then a day later the transpacific link, 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. Cambodia had joined Thailand in withdrawing from the World Trade Organization, and there was rumour Malaysia and maybe even China were considering a similar move, despite sabre rattling from the WTO enforcement body. While much of the Community applauded the courage of these countries, it seemed almost certain that the enforcement operation in Thailand would soon include Cambodia. But maybe not. Maybe if China joined in solidarity with the other dissenting nations, their combined strength might be enough to avert the worst of the UN's wrath. In any case, the fate of the Autonomous Community would be sealed if surreptitious communications links were found crossing through the embargoed territories, so instead the 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. Australia would be the last to rejoin the larger Community. -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 five days was truly miraculous. The design was ingenious. The problem had been not only how to replicate enough nano-constructors to wire an entire planet, but how to deliver them and the molecular stock they needed to many of the remote locations where wire had to be fabricated, places like the 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 and carry out their programs. -Kyle glowed with pride at the elegant solution his team had come up. Each wire was a conduit, a pipeline initially formed by the nano-constructors themselves as they burrowed through the earth, replaced gradually by super-conducting carbon composites as the nano 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 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 to 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, it would also be a plumbing system capable of piping catalytic solution, molecular stock, and nano-constructors, either in inert form or actively replicating, anywhere the Community needed. No more secretive shipments that might be discovered and intercepted, no more shipping manifests to be erased or rewritten, lest the paper trail give them away. -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. No more shortages, no more bickering over a limited supply of a valuable chemicals. 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. -Kyle tore his gaze from a monitor showing him the gradual progress of the Trans-Pacific link and turned as he heard Michael's voice carry across the boundary their environs shared. -"The Astronautics folks are ready for another test run." -"Already?" That was fast. They had only begun to receive their nano a couple of hours ago. -Michael nodded from the far side of the tiny canal, afternoon sunlight highlighting his features in contrast to Kyle's dark environ. Kyle wondered if Michael'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 their test vehicle in two minutes." -Kyle folded the room in which he stood in half, then once again, before sticking it into his pocket and allowing his environ to go real time, a digital representation of a dark, unlit airstrip beneath the starry Australian desert sky. The canal shifted with the view, so that Michael stood to Kyle's right as they both used infra-red-enhanced vision to watch the pre-flight preparations from the side of the airstrip. -"Let's hope this one meets with better success than the last one," Kyle muttered. -"It will," Michael 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." -"No antimatter propulsion at all?" Kyle asked. -"Oh yes, we're still using a matter-antimatter reaction engine. There's 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, 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 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 nanometres, and relatively non-reactive, colder regions elsewhere. A pity we weren't able to simulate those effects on the anti-matter containment system before the test flight." -The darkness 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. Michael 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 exclaimed. "Fifty five G's on take-off? 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 defence 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," Michael agreed. -"They aren't going to try to fly that thing all the way around the world again, are they?" Kyle asked. -"No. There's 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 Marianas 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," Michael agreed. "This communication hiatus is frustrating. If only we'd thought to build our own network before." -"We did think of it," Kyle reminded him. "But there were always other projects that took precedence. 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 survival," Michael 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." +After fifteen thousand arrests, a traditional populace would have panicked. But the Community was no traditional populace. Everyone had knuckled down and methodically considered their options. The conclusion was almost unanimous: they had little choice but to build a new, independent network, one the authorities would never know about and could not monitor. Such an undertaking would take days in the Physical, and mean subjective years of isolation for those who remained in the Virtual. Even so, the Community had acted without hesitation. Almost as one, they had dropped off the Internet. +Now, at last, a few regional groups were connecting through the new network. For the first time in almost two kilocircadians, two environs shared a single space, two very different hemispheres of reality merging along a geometrical interface of mutual agreement, a narrow, straight canal about thirty centiretems9 across. On one bank stood Michael atop a perfectly flat, marbled chequerboard that retreated into infinity beneath a cloudless blue sky. On the other was a shadowed room where Kyle sat watching amethyst lines of light trace their way around a large, floating Earth, depicting in real-time the progress of the Community's new autonomous network as it built itself centimetre by centimetre. +Michael reached into the canal and withdrew a handful of water. He began shaping it in his hand like a lump of transparent clay. "God, those three days in the Physical feel like a year!" +Kyle rolled his eyes. "Listen, smartass, your three days were eighteen hundred circadians for me. Six years of Node-sitting all by myself!" +"Touché." Michael chuckled. "As much as I dislike the Physical, I don't envy those of you who stayed behind." +"Yeah, most everyone opted to offload and catch up with their lives in the Physical." Kyle shrugged. "I would have done the same, but for the little matter of a missing body." +"And a police record." Michael held up his creation, a crude figure of sculpted water that might have been a bird, a bat, or a pterodactyl. "What do you think?" +"An artiste you ain't." +Michael laughed, launching the figure into the air. It flapped clumsily around for a few seconds before diving into the canal. "I missed being able to play with reality." +"I missed having people around to argue with. Watching nano gets old after the first couple hundred circadians." +"Well, the new network's really looking good." +"So far the nano has performed perfectly. Australia and New Zealand are wired up, and I think it's safe to assume the other continents are too. If so, we have half a dozen separate communities scattered around the world-islands in the autonomous net, if you will. In another couple of days the Community as a whole should be reunited." +"Still no possibility of running a trunk the short way across to Asia?" +"Not on your life! Haven't you been watching the news?" +Michael shook his head. "Three days to catch up on life in the Physical didn't leave a lot of time for television." +"Well, Japan and China are staring each other down across the Sea of Japan. Tensions in South-East Asia have never been so high. The UN is ignoring Cambodia's protests and flying bombing missions into Thailand through their airspace. Carrier groups are massing in the Bay of Bengal. Cambodia and Laos have dropped out of the World Trade Organization, and despite sabre rattling from UN Enforcement it looks like Malaysia might follow suit. We couldn't sneak a single fibre-optic filament anywhere near there, much less a nano artery or data trunk." +Michael sighed. "We'll just have to wait for our transatlantic and transpacific links to go live." +"I'm afraid so." +"You've done amazing work, Kyle." +"We aim to please." Kyle glowed with pride. It was his plumbing system, a series of arteries and capillaries able to grow on demand to deliver nano almost anywhere that made it possible for the Community to wire the world in so short a time. Projects that would have taken months now took days. Nano-factories could be located anywhere-hidden underground, tucked away in deep forests, or buried beneath distant mountains. No more surreptitious chemical shipments, no more forged manifests. Embedding an independent power grid into the new network along side the data and nano conduits had been an ingenious afterthought. It had freed them from their dependence on external, and potentially unreliable, energy sources. +"Hey, look at this! The Astronautics folks are ready for another test run." +Kyle snapped out of his reverie. "Damn! That was fast!" Astronautics had only begun receiving their nano a couple of hours earlier. +"They're launching a new test vehicle in two minutes. Let's get over there." +"I'm right behind you!" +The world transformed itself into a dark, unlit airstrip beneath a starry Australian sky. It was hard to tell by infra-red light alone, but it looked like the preflight preparations were almost complete. +Michael handed Kyle a cup of coffee. "It's a little early for champaign yet." +"Let's hope this flight warrants it," Kyle's clinked his cup against Michael's. +"It should," Michael replied. "I helped with the redesign. The second tank no longer contains anti-helium. No need for a magnetic bottle which is prone to failure in high temperature plasma conditions. Our new flier carries inert helium only." +Kyle stared at the craft. "How are you getting your propulsion then?" +"We're still using a matter-antimatter reaction engine. See those three spines aft of the wings? Those are the manipulation prongs of a Superstring Strummer." +"Built into the craft itself?" +"Yes. We can manipulate the higher dimensional Calabi-Yau folds of each subatomic particle directly. Fifty percent of the helium in the reaction manifold will be dynamically converted into anti-helium. The mixture should be perfectly diffuse, so it won't suffer any of the asymmetries that plagued the original design. Not only will this result in more thrust per microgram of helium/anti-helium mixture, but if something goes wrong we can shut down the strummer and stop the reaction. A system failure will mean gliding the vehicle into the sea, rather than having it explode in our faces like last time." +"Damn, Michael, that's elegant!" +The darkness lit up with a blinding light. The ship was supersonic before it lifted off the runway, skimming the trees at the far end. +"Holy shit!" Kyle exclaimed. "Fifty five G's on take-off?" +"Damn right! The sooner we're off this planet, the better." +Kyle chased the craft, flying behind it like a wingless bird. Michael joined him, grinning as his suit and tie morphed into a superman cape and tights. They raced fifty metres above the moonlit ocean, Kyle's laughter filling the darkness, all thoughts of danger forgotten. + @@ -2898,54 +2910,54 @@ -Epicurus, ca. 300 B.C.E. Tuesday, October 16, 2057, 1:00 PM Chicago Time Metadate: 2.726-8:79:638 kD new Epoch -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 . . . +Eventually Doctor Nolen found he couldn't weep any more. For a time he sat unmoving among the shattered Nodes that had once housed his mind. He watched stone faced as the diagnostic software cycled mindlessly through its tests, reporting success over and over again. The email he had read was gone; self erasing, of course. The Community wouldn't leave a trace of itself lying around on his PC. They were probably afraid he would take it to the authorities and expose them. +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, wondering if there wasn't some way to salvage the information, to restore it and blow open wide the window on their clandestine world. 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 snarled. 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. +He stared at the screen, dumbfounded. Another test reported everything as functional, then started again. He looked over at the sparkling shards of gold scattered across the floor. He hefted the one intact, third generation Node. It rested in his hand, powered down and disconnected from the network. +"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 realization struck him like a physical blow. "Prime!" he snarled. You're still here, he thought, here somewhere, somewhere nearby. +Doctor Nolen's lips turned upward in a feral smile. # -"We'll be linked back up with Europe tomorrow," Marguerite said 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 fillet Mignon. "It's 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. "Michael has that well in hand, I'm sure. Besides, isn't that more the purview 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." +"We'll be linked back up with Europe tomorrow," Marguerite took another sip of wine and gazed across the city. The Eiffel Tower was silhouetted against a glorious purple and crimson sunset. "Australia a day or so after that." +Prime2 nodded, carefully cutting away a portion of his fillet Mignon. "It's nerve-racking to be trapped geographically like this. I really wish we could follow the progress of the Astronautics Group." +"Michael has that well in hand, I'm sure. Besides, isn't that more the purview 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. 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's 20/20," Marguerite swirled her wine. "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." -Marguerite grinned. "That was a joke, Prime. I wasn't seriously suggesting your alter ego email himself across the Internet, especially now. But seriously, one of you should use the new autonomous network and transload elsewhere. I've never liked having you both on the same Node. What good is a backup copy if its on the same media as the primary one?" -"We've been through this already, Marguerite. You're right. I should have taken the four hours to transmit myself to another location, or at least one of my selves, but giving up a hundred 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 gen-four Node is available on the new network one of us will move there. Europe was building some idle gen-four Nodes I think." -"Good," Marguerite said. "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." +Prime2 nodded and grinned. "All agitation has been shut down. I'll let Prime1 do the worrying for us." +Marguerite laughed. "Good for you. If he's so worked up, maybe he'll email himself to a node in Australia and you can have your Node to yourself again." +"Well, 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 hide a transload of that 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. Better to just wait." +Marguerite grinned. "That was a joke, Prime. I wasn't seriously suggesting your alter ego email himself as an attachment across the Internet. But seriously, one of you should use the new autonomous network and transload elsewhere. I've never liked having you both on the same Node. What good is a backup copy if its on the same media as the primary one?" +"We've been through this already, Marguerite. Yes, I should have taken the four hours to transmit myself to another location, or at least one of my selves, but giving up a hundred 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 do it using the public nets. As soon as a free gen-four Node is available on the new network one of us will move there." +"Good," Marguerite said. "I'll feel a lot better when the two of you are on separate equipment, preferably in different hemispheres." +"Jealousy?" Prime2 winked. "Want to keep us as far apart as possible?" +Marguerite shook her head. "More like worry. What if your 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." -She shrugged. "So what. We should do it anyway. Maybe static backups on each others Node, to keep the hardware requirements down. Storage is cheaper than computation." -"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 smiled, "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." -"You're changing the subject," Marguerite accused him. +"So what. We should do it anyway. Maybe static backups on each others Node, to keep the hardware requirements down. Storage is cheaper than computation." +"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. I think we can begin to relax a little, and get back to our projects. Besides," he smiled, "I'm not so much a backup copy as I am your copy. I make you happy, and that not only makes me happy, but Prime1 as well." +"You're changing the subject." Prime2 held up his hands in mock surrender. "Guilty as charged. I think your backup idea is a good one-keeping static backups on different Nodes, I mean. You should present it to the strategy group when we're all together again." "I could make room on my Node now, Prime," Marguerite suggested. "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 him ever finding my Node are minuscule. Besides, Europe will be back with us tomorrow. I've lived 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. +Marguerite sighed, knowing from long experience that she wouldn't win the argument that circadian. 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 any more, Prime?" she asked. Prime2 shook his head. -"When I learned how Prime1 had abdicated his role in our relationship to you. 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 can't relate to the way he is any more," Marguerite told him. "He's so passionate about such esoteric things, and so absent in other, very basic ways." -"It's true he's different. He probably can't relate much to us any more either, but that doesn't mean he loves you any less." -"What's this, more Hollywood 'love conquers all' nonsense?" Marguerite asked cynically. +"When I learned how Prime1 had abdicated his role in our relationship to you. 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 your heart, not him." +Prime2 squeezed her hand. "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, even though it is far less than he would like, and only in a professional context." +"I can't relate to the way he is any more," Marguerite replied. "He's so passionate about such esoteric things, and so absent in other, very basic ways." +"It's true he's different. He probably can't relate much to us any more either, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love you." +"What's this, more Hollywood 'love conquers all' nonsense?" 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." +Marguerite smiled. "No. You're right." She raised her glass and gazed into Prime2's liquid brown eyes. "To those we love." "To those we love," Prime2 agreed, lifting his glass. -Before their glasses could click together Prime2's fell suddenly from where his hand had been and shattered against the table. -"Prime?" Marguerite asked, standing up. "Prime? Prime!" Only a shocking emptiness remained. She screamed his name once more in horror and desperation as the data came 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. +Before their glasses touched Prime2's fell from where his hand had been and shattered against the table. +"Prime?" Marguerite stared at the empty seat across the table. "Prime? Prime!" She shouted his name once more in desperation as the data came to her. He was gone, his node no longer responding to diagnostic queries. Marguerite burst into tears, wiping the restaurant scene away and replacing it with virtual screens and windows within which she began running network diagnostics and communications software. It made no difference. 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. He was gone. # -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 near his workbench. He recalled the Community had taken to coating the devices with woven diamond and sapphire fibres, constructed molecule by molecule by . . . he cursed the gaps in his memories, and wondered again if his missing memories were a result of the Community's tampering with his mind, or just a symptom of his 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 crystal of the Node shattered, its dark rich purple becoming a lighter shade of violet as millions of tiny fractures grew and splintered with each blow. 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. +The transparent, glittering surface of the darkened third generation Node initially resisted Doctor Nolen's efforts to smash it with the small hammer he'd found near his workbench. He recalled the Community had taken to coating the devices with woven diamond and sapphire fibres, constructed molecule by molecule by . . . he cursed the gaps in his memories, and wondered again if his missing memories were a result of the Community's tampering with his mind, or just a symptom of his diminished intelligence. +Despite repeated, angry strikes with the hammer the deep, rich blue of the third 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 crystal of the Node shattered, its blue becoming a lighter shade of cyan as millions of tiny fractures grew and splintered with each blow. 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. Doctor Nolen stepped back from the work bench with satisfaction, brushing shards of shattered crystal and bits of fibreglass 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. 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 began to sweep the dust and broken shards into a waste basket. @@ -2972,18 +2984,14 @@ "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 round-ups 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." +"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." Katy looked disgusted. "Yes, the Thais violated our patents, and happened to stop an epidemic in the process. Indenture them for stolen potential profits, sure. 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 neighbours to withdraw from WIPO and the WTO. Even the Chinese were starting to make noises about leaving the trade group." -"They've started doing so again." -"Only as a prelude to negotiations. The Chinese have no stomach for war, and will have even less once we make an example of Cambodia." -"Good Lord. Isn't bombing Thailand back into the stone age enough? The UN has two hundred thousand troops fighting a hopeless war against Thai indigents who have nothing left to lose. Why on Earth would we want to escalate that?" -"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 Malaysia still honours 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 centre in their minds, and will continue to do so for decades to come." -"Except for Cambodia." 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. -"Cambodia is about to get a very pointed refresher. Just as soon as this crisis has been resolved." -"So the 'chronic threat' of Thailand is a fiction?" Katy asked in a strangled voice. -"Do you really think the UN would need twenty years to subdue a small country, even one using patented technologies it wouldn't otherwise be able to afford?" Robert shook his head, chuckling. -"Jesus Christ!" Katy was revolted. +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 join with the Genecraft dissidents and start preaching subversion to the rest of Asia, encouraging their neighbours to withdraw from WIPO and the WTO. But you want to know the real reason we're still fighting in Thailand, and will continue to do so until they are defeated?" +"Sure." +"They unleashed changes into the biosphere." +"Changes?" +"Genecraft changes. I've been behind Thai lines twice in my service. The jungles there . . . the ecosystem ... is strange. Alien." +"They released genetically modified cultures into the natural environment? Jesus Christ!" Katy was revolted. "Katy, these individuals are a far greater threat to our governance than Thailand, Cambodia, even China ever could be. We absolutely have to find them and neutralize them, even if it means going door to door and searching 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. @@ -3097,78 +3105,59 @@ -Carl Sagan, 20th Century C.E. Thursday, October 18, 2057, 10:15 AM Chicago Time Metadate: 2.783-3:35:763 kD new Epoch -"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," a quiet sadness coated Marguerite's voice. -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!" Michael 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, Michael?" -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," Michael 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," Michael said. "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. Reduces four fundamental units to two. Given our rather loose relationship with 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 sexagesimal 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, Michael? What's wrong with metric? Why switch to base sixty?" -"I believe the idea originated among one of our Asian colleagues," Michael informed him. "However, to answer your question, it isn't just a question of aesthetics. Base sixty is very useful. It allows for easy fractions of one third, one fifth, one sixth, and so on. Base ten handles thirds and sixths very poorly. Most importantly, fewer sexagesimal digits can represent much larger numbers than their decimal counterparts. It's an easy way to increase our arithmetic intelligence when we're in the Physical. Short of coming up with some kind of breakthrough in molecular biology to increase the computational capacity of our brains, tricks like this are the only way to make our offloaded selves smarter." -"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," Michael pointed out. "And circadians are unlikely to go away any time 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. Subjective time will continue to be measured in circadians. You just have to get used to metric-60 divisions instead of metric-10." -"They'll get my base ten metric when they pry it from my cold, dead circuits," Kyle replied. -"Don't be so dramatic, 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. -"It was a joke!" Kyle protested. -"If you say so," Marguerite handed him the glass. -"It feels so damn good to be back online again," Kyle grinned. "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 Michael 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