Crusade Against the Machines

by Franklyn Santana

  I pressed a button and the inside of the windshield turned into a 3-D TV screen. This meant that we couldn’t see exactly where we were going, but it didn’t matter because the autopilot steered the car by itself anyway. The face of a newsreader appeared on the screen. »... there were renewed violent protests in Jakarta. According to eyewitnesses, many were injured, both among the protesters and the police.« Behind the newsreader, burning vehicles were seen and a couple of hooded men throwing Molotov cocktails.

  »Let’s see if they have yesterday’s baseball scores somewhere,« I said and wanted to change the channel.

  »No, wait!« O’Neil stopped me. »I’m interested. This is about the Indonesia Crisis.«

  The newscaster continued: »The bloodiest riots took place around the factory premises of the Chinese company Shanghai Robot, where security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets against the demonstrators.

  As I watched the newsreader, it occurred to me that the entire news program was probably created without any studio or human employee in the station’s computing center. The pictures came from automatic cameras; the texts were compiled by computer programs based on various press releases. And even the newsreader was not a real human being, but generated by a computer. I even installed a program yesterday on my way home for fun, with which the appearance of the newscaster could be customized at will. That’s why the newsreader now looked like the famous porn star Betty Boobs and wore a tightly cut sexy top, whose generous neckline allowed a deep view between her enormous breasts. She also looked seductively into the virtual camera, which did not fit at all with the serious subject she was covering. I only hoped that the Old Man wouldn’t suspect that I had tampered with the settings of the TV. It was likely he wouldn’t recognize Betty Boobs, as he probably wasn’t watching porn. After all, his party was advocating a ban on pornography. That was part of this planned Human Dignity Act. Another good reason to vote for the Democrats!

  »A spokesman for the protesters, Sheikh Walid Khan, called the operation of the Shanghai Robot company blasphemy and called on all believers to resist what he called godless human arrogance and presumptuousness. The Quran, according to the sheikh, forbade the creation of human images. The creation of intelligence is the sole prerogative of God.« One could now see a bearded Mussie cleric in the background yelling some fanatical speech, while some people in the crowd were shouting their usual »Allahu akbar!« The virtual image of Betty Boobs winked at the camera and licked her wet red lips seductively.

  Behind me Neil O’Neil said a bit surprised: »Well, I don’t know, but this newscaster is acting a bit strange today... Is this really Fox News? Where is Peter Klerk today?«

  Peter Klerk was the anchorman for the morning news. Of course, it was digitally generated just like the Betty Boobs animation I replaced it with. It was again amazing how naive O’Neil was. He probably also believed that the CGI-generated Humphrey Bogart, who had just released a new film starring Marilyn Monroe, was a real person, even though all of these original actors had been dead for almost a hundred years. But what could you expect from someone who was born in the last century? In this respect, the Old Man was too naive for the present day.

  The image of the crazy sheikh was now replaced by a fat Chinese man in an expensive suit and tie. The Betty Boobs animation continued: »Meanwhile, in Bangkok, the USEAN Security Commission met to discuss the crisis in Indonesia. During a brief interruption of the talks, Chinese Foreign Minister Hu Kiang declared that his country would not tolerate any vandalism against Chinese property. Under the USEAN agreement, he said, the Security Commission is keeping all options open in case the Indonesian authorities prove unable to guarantee the protection of Chinese capital and personnel.« All this was accompanied by the Foreign Minister’s gibberish in unintelligible Chinese.

  »Well, well, well,« commented O’Neil. »Anti-technocratic protests are taking place in USEAN as well. Who would have thought?«

  »Well, this is Indonesia, some Mussie Third World shithole,« I said. »The USEAN would probably be glad to get rid of them. They’re anyway doing nothing but beating each other’s brains in all the time.«

  »You are mistaken, my dear Dexter,« O’Neil disagreed. »Indonesians are not Arabs who know nothing but anarchy. As you should know, USEAN emerged from the ASEAN Plus Three group. Indonesia currently has over 350 million inhabitants and was a founding member of ASEAN. You’re not going to see Indonesia leaving the Union. This is one of the most important markets in Southeast Asia.«

  Actually, I didn’t really care what happened in Indonesia and whether they were kicked out of USEAN or not. It was the other side of the world. There could hardly be anything less important to my personal life. If they wanted, they should kill each other.

  »How much longer do we need?« Neil O’Neil asked impatiently.

  I switched off the TV so that the windscreen became transparent again and we could look outside. »I think we’re almost there.«

  »Very good,« hummed O’Neil contentedly. »We’re still gonna have to come up with an excuse as to why we’re late.« After a short pause he went on: »Oh, and Dexter...! This meeting is a rather, um, how shall I put it... well, a rather delicate matter. It would be rather unwise for campaign reasons, if somehow it became known that I was meeting with representatives of robotics companies and the Fed. Especially if journalists got hold of any records of it, you know what I mean.«

  I smiled. Yeah, I knew what the Old Man meant. It wouldn’t be smart if some of his corrupt little deals went public. And preventing that was part of my job. I took something out of the glove compartment and gave it to O’Neil. »Here, slip this cuff over your left forearm. This will shield your implanted RFID chip.«

  Most people today carry an implanted RFID chip. It was used for identification. It was not mandatory to have an RFID chip, but without it you only got the lowest security clearance. This means that you could not enter an airport or other security zones. In addition, you were often detained for several hours at vehicle checks and checkpoints until your identity could be clearly established. Neither a man of O’Neil’s rank nor I as a security employee could therefore do without such an implant considering our job. The disadvantage was, however, that the wearer of such a chip implant could be tracked even over a greater distance with the appropriate equipment. In addition, many retail companies and department stores automatically registered the identity of their visitors and created movement protocols. Fortunately, as a security specialist, I also knew the necessary countermeasures. A bracelet made of metal-containing fabric worn over the chip shielded it sufficiently from scanners, which restored anonymity if necessary. O’Neil had wound up his shirt and pulled the cuff over his forearm. I also took my cuff out of the glove compartment but did not put it on yet.

  In the meantime our car was again on a road at ground level. We were not far from our destination. Then I saw the restaurant before me. It was a multistory building, obviously of the upper class. The entrance to the parking lot was secured by two guards. They wore old-fashioned porter uniforms, but you could tell by their metal heads that they were robots. When the car stopped next to one of the robots, I lowered the windowpane and stuck out my left arm. The machine man held his own arm against mine, and an integrated scanner read my chip and identified me.

  »Thank you, Mr. Dexter. You may pass. Welcome to the New Willow Restaurant,« he said in a well-sounding male voice. Our car drove on and stopped in front of the entrance. I got out.

  O’Neil remained seated for the time being. »Well, you may proceed, Mr. Dexter.«

  I nodded. While the car with O’Neil drove on to park, I put on my special augmented reality interface sunglasses. I connected two tiny wires from the collar of my jacket to the temples of the glasses. Then I also pulled the cuff over my left forearm. Now I was ready. The fun could begin.

  I entered the restaurant and looked around. Only a few people were sitting in the main dining room to have their breakfast. They seemed to be busin
essmen. Most of them wore business suits or formal costumes. A few had an e-reader or a computer in front of them, reading the latest business news or something similar. One was having a conversation over his smartphone.

  A bizarre looking service robot came rolling towards me. He was about five feet tall, white and had a cylindrical shape. The upper pivoted end was hemispherical rounded. A camera eye, a loudspeaker, a microphone and some other sensors were on it. Obviously it represented the head of the robot. Four mechanical arms were attached to the side of the cylinder body. On the ventral side was a monitor showing the logo of the restaurant. Above it was painted the number 17, obviously the ID of the robot, so that one could distinguish it from its colleagues. The underside of the cylinder seemed to have rollers built into it, which the robot used to move around. They were not visible, however.

  The robot turned his eye on me and greeted me with a melodious but genderless voice: »Good morning, Mr. Dexter. Welcome to the New Willow Restaurant.« So the doorman robot in front of the parking lot entrance had already transmitted my identity to him via a wireless connection. I was really gonna have to be on guard here to protect the privacy of O’Neil.

  »Um... I... I’m, uh, expected by a certain Mr. Jensen. Is he here yet?« I asked the robot. I scanned the room with my ARI glasses. On the inside of the eyeglasses, a couple of flashing square frames showed me the places where the glasses had detected suspicious infrared light sources. Most surveillance cameras used invisible infrared light to get a better picture in poorly lit rooms. I focused my eyes on the identified IR sources one by one, raising my right hand in an unsuspicious movement to the temples of the glasses, as if I wanted to adjust them. In doing so, I pressed a small invisible button and fired a 2000 Milliwatt infrared laser beam, invisible to the eye, at the camera lens, which would permanently blind it.

  Meanwhile, the robot said, »Yes, sir. Please follow me to the private dining room.«

  »Yeah, sure,« I said. After I had eliminated all cameras with active infrared light, my ARI glasses identified all other suspicious places where CCTV cameras could be located. I confirmed them by pointing a crosshair at them and firing the laser built into the temple of the glasses. The 2000 Milliwatt beam was strong enough to burn through cameras protected by an IR filter. When I was sure that all cameras in the room were neutralized, I followed the robot, which rolled to a corridor opposite the entrance. Everything had happened completely silent and invisible. Somewhere in the surveillance center, the security program would now wonder why all the cameras in that area had failed, supposed that a computer program had the ability to wonder. Probably it would soon send some repair units to check what had happened. However, it would take some time before the cameras were repaired or replaced, and O’Neil and I would have left the restaurant by then.

  While the damage to surveillance cameras was not entirely legal, the storage of image data was not legal either and, according to a recent Supreme Court ruling, violated the right to one’s own image. All private security agencies did it anyway. It was unlikely, however, that they would press charges for damage to their cameras, as they would then have to answer for the illegal storage of personal image data without consent. And no security agency wanted the authorities to scrutinize their practices too closely. As a result, sabotage of surveillance cameras usually had no legal consequences.

  I followed the robot through the corridor. Somehow it reminded me of a rolling ethanol pump at a gas station, with the difference that they didn’t roll around, of course. On the way, I turned off all the other cameras I spotted in the corridor. We reached the lift. The robot went with me to the second floor. Normally I would have taken the stairs for that, but the service robot was not able to do that with its wheels. I also neutralized the surveillance camera in the lift cabin. Then the robot led me to a door at the end of the corridor on the second floor. Before he could open it, I said to him: »Wait a moment. I have to go get my business partner.«

  All surveillance cameras on the way to this room were now successfully neutralized. The senator could come in now. I went back, but this time I took the stairs. I called O’Neil on my smartphone. »All clear, sir. The area’s secure. You can come in now. I’ll meet you at the entrance. Don’t forget to leave your smartphone in the car.«

  »What? Why is that? But I need it,« O’Neil said upset.

  »A smartphone can be tracked,« I explained. »Your phone company keeps a log of its movements. And we’d like to avoid that.«

  »But how am I gonna pay the bill?« O’Neil asked.

  »If you pay a bill here, your participation in the meeting will probably not be a secret, because the transaction will be recorded. Let’s hope our friends invite us.« I could hear O’Neil growling with displeasure. Then he ended the call.

  Like most people, O’Neil was unaware of the level of surveillance to which every citizen had become subjected. Only a security specialist like myself had a chance to reasonably protect his privacy. O’Neil knew that, of course. That’s why he had employed me.

  I waited outside the entrance until O’Neil appeared.

  »The meeting is in a private dining room on the second floor,« I told him. »I hope you left all electronic equipment in the car.« At the same time, I glanced into his briefcase.

  »I only brought my laptop,« he replied.

  I made a grimace. »It has a 6G adaptor with a unique hardware address. You might as well leave your business card here.«

  »I can turn off the Internet connection,« he suggested.

  »It is never completely switched off; it only goes on stand-by. The telephone company tracks you anyway,« I explained.

  »We’ll just take the battery out.«

  »The built-in button cell for the system clock is sufficient as power source for the adapter. Also, the computer must have an RFID chip.«

  O’Neil cursed, took his computer out of his pocket and gave it to me.

  »What about your watch?« I asked. »It’s electronic too.«

  »Surely it’s not being tracked by the phone company. They just tell you the time.«

  »And doesn’t it synchronize time with a clock on the Internet?« I reminded him. »About any electronic device of any kind, you can be sure that it has an RFID chip built in.«

  My explanations got O’Neil thinking. Without a word he handed me his watch.

  »I’ll be right back,« I said. »Go ahead inside! Out here in the open you can be seen by every drone that happens to be passing by.«

  The entire urban territory of Washington, D. C. and its environs was normally monitored by flying drones. These were tiny computer-controlled helicopters equipped with infrared cameras. The data went directly to the Homeland Security Department or the city police. But since there was a low security alert level at the time, I assumed that only a few drones were allowed to patrol the area. It was still safer if O’Neil didn’t show himself outside for too long.

  The senator held up his sunglasses. »What’s with these? It’s got electronics in it.«

  »It’s clean,« I said. »It was built especially for this purpose. Put it on before you go in.«

  »How do you know it’s clean?« O’Neil asked doubtingly. He had now become skeptical about everything.

  »Well, you gotta trust somebody. Otherwise you’d get paranoid. Of course there is never absolute security, but you can minimize the risk as much as possible. And the glasses come from a trustworthy source.«

  The glasses had invisible infrared diodes that flared up so brightly in the invisible infrared spectrum that they would dazzle any surveillance camera and made it impossible to recognize the face. Most cameras produced monochrome images, so that infrared light sources appeared to them like extremely bright headlights. And indoor cameras usually did not have infrared filters, but used the entire spectrum to achieve better image quality due to the poorer lighting conditions. The glasses were an additional safety measure in case I had missed a camera.

  O’Neil wasn’t convinced whe
n he put the glasses on. »We’ve gone too far with all this. The computerization, the whole surveillance state – this can’t be right. This is not my country anymore, the Land of the Free, where I was once born.«

  »It probably already wasn’t when you were born,« I said.

  »Maybe. But things haven’t exactly improved since then. We’re on a very wrong track. But that will change if we win the elections and the GOP takes over Congress.«

  The GOP, the Grand Old Party, that was the Republicans. But I doubted that the Republicans would really change anything if they took power. The proposed bill to save human dignity would be completely watered down by the time it was passed. They’d probably really outlaw pornography, human genetic manipulation, and humanoid androids. But computer technology and the high-tech surveillance state would remain, not least because of such corrupt politicians as Neil O’Neil, who secretly met with representatives of the robotics industry. I could already imagine what would be discussed at that meeting. Well, I was free to vote Democrat. At least they were less hypocritical on this issue. And they wouldn’t ban pornographic movies in particular. At least I hoped they wouldn’t.

  I went to the car, whose parking lot I had located with the smartphone and put O’Neil’s computer and his wristwatch there. Then I returned to the restaurant entrance. O’Neil was waiting for me inside. I gave my smartphone to a service robot behind the counter. It was number 09, but it looked just like number 17 except for its ID.

  »Here, take care of this,« I said. Then I led O’Neil to the second floor. He had handed me his briefcase again by then. Robot number 17 was no longer waiting outside the door, but that wasn’t necessary either. I was the first to enter the private dining room and checked the area for surveillance cameras. But the room seemed to be clean so that O’Neil could enter without any worries.