by A. G. Riddle
“Consequences?” Yuri asked.
“Massive. Human society saw its biggest change in history. Up until this point, all of our ancestors had been tribal. Small groups, mostly migratory. We were at the mercy of our food supply. Every human on Earth coasted on fumes, literally chasing our next meal to feed our over-sized brains.
“But those enormous brains should never have existed. They’re a mystery, a biological anomaly.”
“Explain.”
“The human brain uses way too much of the caloric energy a human takes in. For millions of years, the brain would have been an evolutionary disadvantage—that is, up until this transcendental mutation, the advent of imagination, came about. Imagination, fictive simulation, is what propelled our species across the planet—literally—and enabled us to conquer it. But for thousands of years after we developed fictive simulation, we were still struggling to survive—and to power the massive resource hog.”
Yuri raised his eyebrows. “Resource hog?”
“In the extreme. Consider this. Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. Life, in some form, has existed for 3.8 billion years—beginning with single-cell prokaryotic life, bacteria perhaps. Since then, the history of life on this planet has been a series of fits and starts—a biological roulette wheel testing combinations that would ultimately arrive at this device, the human brain, a biological computer, something that by the laws of nature shouldn’t exist. The human brain consumes twenty percent of the calories we ingest, but it accounts for only two percent of our weight. No species in the history of the planet has ever dedicated so much of the calories they consume to their brains.
“But the advantage it provided was unimaginable. We are the first species to ever command the planet, to imagine what it could be and reshape it based on the images in our minds.
“And it was agriculture that enabled this intellectual revolution to scale up. Grain and livestock provided a renewable, sustainable source of power for our biological computers. Cities networked them together, enabled minds to share ideas and focus on innovation like never before. And this revolution—the advent of cities—came with consequences, some bad, but some very, very good. Before agriculture, our ancestors had never organized themselves in permanent, high-density settlements. The formation of cities resulted in a concentration of brainpower. It’s like…”
Desmond grasped for an analogy and found one from his own past. “It’s like the personal computer. In the eighties, they got more powerful all the time. But they were isolated. They sat in our homes, running programs and games, but their data stayed local. That changed when local area networks became ubiquitous. The servers stored data, clients ran productivity programs, and workers could collaborate and share ideas. Efficiency went up. The speed of commerce accelerated.”
Yuri stood to join Desmond at the window, smiling. Desmond was filled with energy. He felt that he was on the cusp of a breakthrough. Here, in the place where his life had disintegrated, he sensed that he was on the verge of making a discovery that would help him put it back together. Peyton. His brother. His own limitations.
“The third seminal event that turned the history of humanity was another cognitive revolution. A new kind of software for operating the human mind. You asked how the Western Europeans were different from the rest of the world. Why the Spanish conquered Central and South America. Why the British flag flew across the world. The examples are incredible. In 1519, Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico with no more than 550 men. Within two years, he had defeated the Aztec empire, which had almost five million inhabitants. The Aztecs’ capital, Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, had over two hundred thousand residents, roughly the same size as Europe’s two largest cities: Paris and Naples. In the war, the Spanish and their allies lost a thousand men. The Aztecs, over two hundred thousand.
“Pizarro conquered the Incan empire with even fewer soldiers—168.
“The British in India were even more remarkable. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, India had over three hundred million inhabitants, yet the British ruled it with about five thousand officials and less than seventy thousand soldiers. Remarkable.”
Desmond sat back down. “The key to this success? People like you, Yuri. Individuals dedicated to science.”
“The Chinese and Indians had scientists.”
“True. But science is only half of European colonists’ breakthrough. Capitalism is the other half. This combination of scientific capitalism is what drove them. Capitalism provided a platform—a societal construct, if you will—for distributing value across a population, in particular to reward minds that imagined and implemented things that brought advantage to others. Case in point: a Spanish conquistador who established a new trade route enriched himself as well as the monarchy that supported him and that monarch’s subjects. Even more to the point, consider the Dutch East India Company—one of the first joint stock companies in history. They issued shares to investors, gave them part of the profit, distributed the risk across a larger pool of people. This dual system is the most powerful construct to date: capitalism to manage risk and share rewards; science to expand efficiency and resources.”
Desmond paused. “The Citium. It wasn’t just the atomic bomb they created. It was all the things before. In those archives in San Francisco, there are mentions of the electric telegraph, the steam turbine, and even bigger discoveries like gravity and natural selection. The world we live in is the product of scientific capitalism.”
“The consequence?”
“Globalization.”
“Implication?”
“Our fate is reflected in our most famous invention: the computer. Those local area networks that sprang up like cities in the eighties and nineties got connected at the turn of the century by the internet. Just like European colonization connected the globe. Globalization is to the human race what the internet is to computers—a method for sharing resources and ideas. Ideas can now move around the world in nanoseconds. We have a platform for enabling the strongest minds to transform their thoughts into reality—and deploy that reality for the good of the masses.
“If you think about it, vision—fictive simulation—remains the most powerful human ability. Look at the Forbes list of the richest people. The individuals listed are very different, but they all share one trait: vision. The ability to imagine a future that doesn’t exist—to imagine what the world would be like if something changed, if a product or service existed. And these people’s fortunes were made because their visions were accurate—they correctly predicted that something that didn’t already exist both could be created and would be valuable to a specific group of people.
“Take Bill Gates. He saw the power of the personal computer, but so did thousands of others. But his vision also told him that there would be many computer makers, and many software makers, and that there would need to be a ubiquitous operating system that every computer used so that it could run any software. That same sort of fictive simulation occurs every day in companies everywhere; right now there are internet companies like Amazon and Ebay who are imagining what life will be like with their products. The question is whether their simulations are right. But if they are, they’ll be worth a huge amount of money. In every walk of life—business, politics, military, art, fashion, everything—the quintessential ability is simulating the future accurately.”
Desmond stopped there, sure that he had satisfied Yuri’s great test.
The older man sat back down. “Now tell me what comes next.”
“What?”
“Desmond, we are on the cusp of a fourth and final revolution. Consider this: in February of 1966, the Soviet Union soft-landed a space probe on the moon. Humanity has been launching programs ever since. NASA launched Voyager 1 in September of 1977. In 2012 it became the first satellite to reach interstellar space. At some point, Voyager will fall into the gravity well of a planet, or asteroid, or even another planet’s moon. Possibly a black hole. The point is that it will crash somewh
ere—maybe on a place like our moon, but orbiting another planet, very far away.” Yuri smiled. “And if that’s true, then why has it not happened here—on our moon, which is over four and a half billion years old? The greatest mystery in the world is why our moon isn’t covered with space junk.”
“Space junk?”
“Interstellar probes—like Voyager 1—from other sentient species across the universe, launched long before we evolved, launched long before there was even life on our world.”
Desmond turned the question over in his mind. It was incredible. A mystery in plain sight—of staggering implications.
“What are you telling me?”
“I’m showing you evidence of our future. An event we can’t avoid. One that’s closer than you realize. Right now, Desmond, there are humans who think differently. I’m one of them. And I believe you’re one of them, just as I said to you months ago. You are awake.
“Very soon, the next revolution will begin. It will be more profound than the emergence of fiction. Or agriculture. Or the scientific revolution, or global capitalism, or the internet—though they were all necessary precursors. This revolution will change everything. Forever. And we are creating it. The Citium is creating it. Look closely. Consider what you’ve learned. The next step is inevitable. Do you see it? It’s written in the pattern of history.”
Desmond pondered Yuri’s words, what he’d learned, the long arc of human history. He saw a pattern now, pieces fitting together, the wide view—as if his eyes had been mere inches from a painting, but now he had stepped back and could see it all, understand it.
The pieces were there, in history—the stepping stones that had created the modern world. The first event: brains that operated like simulation machines. Then agriculture and cities to power them. Cities to network them together. Ships to trade goods and ideas, then railroads, the electric telegraph, telephone lines, fax machines, dial-up modems, fiber-optic lines. Faster and broader networks, facilitating access to calories and the exchange of information. He saw it all, and for the first time, he saw where it was going.
He glimpsed the Looking Glass, and he was in awe.
Chapter 30
Conner sat in Lin Shaw’s kitchen, the refrigerator and freezer door open, the blast of cold air barely dampening the heat from the blaze. Sweat dripped from his face onto his body armor.
Major Goins entered and squatted down in front of him. “Sir, we have to go.”
“We stay, Major.”
“Sir—”
“You have your orders.”
Goins marched into the garage. Conner heard muffled voices, men arguing with Goins’s orders, threatening to mutiny and leave.
The conflict steeled Conner. He thrived on opposition. It had been the key to his survival as a child.
He walked to the doorway, watched as the men fell silent.
His voice was calm. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”
A tall, short-haired man with a scar on his chin glanced at the five mercenaries gathered behind him. “Will that be before or after we burn to death?”
Conner let his hand fall to the gun holster at his side. “If you open your mouth again, it will be after I kill you.”
Silence. The man’s gaze softened and fell to the concrete floor. With each second the roar of the fire grew louder, like a wind tunnel being turned up.
“Load up,” Conner said. “I’ll be driving.”
That was the only way to guarantee the van didn’t leave before he was ready.
As they filed into the van, he leaned close to Dr. Park and whispered, “Time, Doctor?”
“Minutes. Not long.”
Conner got behind the wheel, buckled up, and rolled the windows down.
A voice called over the radio. “Zero, Unit two. We’ve got a problem. X1s are using El Camino Real as a firebreak—they’ve got air support dumping suppressant on the road. It’s impassable. They’re doing the same on Valparaiso Avenue. They’ve got checkpoints set up. They’re cataloging evacuees and routing them to Stanford. Flame-retardant barricades are set up at the other intersections.”
“Use the drone,” Conner said. “Find a weak checkpoint and converge a block from there. Wait for us. We’ll breach it together.”
Assuming the fire didn’t arrive first.
If Conner did make it to the checkpoint, he knew everything would change: the X1 troops would know for sure a sophisticated adversary was operating in their theater. They would likely assume that Conner’s team had set the fire. The X1 units would then turn Menlo Park upside down looking for them. He hoped the next Labyrinth location was far away.
To Desmond, the world looked completely different than it had just a second before. The past made sense. The future was clear.
In the hotel room overlooking Victoria Park in Adelaide, Yuri finally spoke. “Tell me what you see, Desmond. What is our destiny?”
“A world where only one thing matters: the strength of your mind. Where it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you look like. A world where all wounds can be healed, even the ones in our minds. Where a person can start over.”
“You understand now.” Yuri stood, and Desmond followed suit. “We’re building that world. Will you help us?”
“Until the end.”
Yuri nodded.
“How?” Desmond asked. “Tell me exactly how the Looking Glass will function.”
Yuri spoke at length, describing the one Citium conclave that had been removed from the archives. He described a device of breathtaking ambition. Desmond asked question after question, and each time, Yuri had an answer. Much of the technology would still need to be created, but there was a roadmap to do just that.
“Where do I fit in?” Desmond asked.
“Soon. You’ll know soon.”
“Then where do we start?”
“With the ones we love. The ones we’ll save.”
Desmond’s mind flashed to a smiling face, framed by dark hair, lit by the glow of the moon behind her. He saw them lying on a blanket in the sand dunes, wind whistling off the sea, Peyton kissing him with reckless abandon. Then he saw a baby’s face, sitting in a high chair, smiling at him. The memory of Conner was the last he had.
“Would you like to see your brother again?”
They rented a car, and Desmond drove while Yuri recited directions from memory. The route took them north, out of Adelaide, into industrial areas and high-crime suburbs. Well-kept neighborhoods turned to dive bars and run-down strip malls, then warehouses and body shops. They entered Port Adelaide. Desmond took it all in. There were signs for the rubbish dumb north of A9. The fisherman’s wharf. Train and bus stations.
“You knew,” Desmond said. “He was here all along.” What he didn’t say was, And you let me search in vain.
But Yuri answered the unspoken accusation. “It’s natural. You couldn’t help but look for him. I would have.”
“What happened to him after the hospital?”
Yuri stared through the windshield. “Turn left here.”
The apartment building was in bad shape, with tarps over several sections of roof. Motorcycles and old beat-up muscle cars sat in the parking spaces.
“Park near the back,” Yuri said.
Desmond did so and turned the car off. He pulled the door handle.
“Stay.”
Desmond glanced at Yuri, who whispered, “You need to see him first.”
Desmond pulled the door closed, now worried. He watched the apartment complex’s outdoor staircase as people filed out and headed to work.
“Not long now,” Yuri said.
Desmond wondered if he would recognize Conner. It had been twenty years. He had been a baby then. But Desmond had read the reports. Third-degree burns over thirty percent of his body. Sadly, his brother would be easy to pick out. And he was.
On that overcast day in late May, in the early days of the South Australian winter, Desmond saw his brother for the first time as an adult.
Conner trudged up the stairs from his garden apartment, grungy, long hair hanging down over his face. Thick burn scars covered his right cheek, chin, and forehead. Mottled flesh pulled at his right eye, making him look like a photograph that had been rained on, the image partially washed away, the damage irreversible.
He lit a cigarette and swapped it from hand to hand as he pulled on a hooded sweatshirt, covering the red marks and bruises in the crook of his elbow. As he walked away, Desmond realized something.
“He’s why you chose me, isn’t he? You knew, even before you came to my office.”
“He’s only half the reason.”
Desmond waited.
“There’s a piece of the Looking Glass that only a mind like yours can create.”
“What is it?”
“Rendition.”
Desmond saw it then—the true sequence of events, how everything was connected. Him and Peyton. Lin Shaw had seen her daughter’s despair, had gone to Yuri, suggested they bring Desmond in and use the Looking Glass to help both of them. Yuri had researched Desmond, discovered that he could be useful—and more, that he could be controlled. But Yuri likely concluded that Peyton wouldn’t provide enough leverage to control Desmond; after all, romantic love could be fickle. Conner was the key.
Desmond felt that he understood Yuri a little more then. The man had said before that his specialty was knowing what people would do, but the truth was darker than that—Yuri needed to control people. That’s how he knew what they would do. The revelation brought Desmond pause, but even then, he knew he was already committed. He couldn’t walk away from his brother. And Yuri might hold the only hope of healing his wounds.
