by PJ Manney
The four students traded shocked looks, then grinned.
“See?” said Arun. “You got ’em hooked already.”
“Okay, okay, ya wore me down,” said Dr. Who. “Let’s take this rig on the road and see how she handles.”
“She?” asked Arun.
Dr. Who’s vast bosom jiggled with laughter for the first time in weeks. “Hell yeah, son. Ya think somethin’ that stands ya up, sits ya down, and wipes your ass is male?”
The image cut to a live feed. Dr. Who sat in her exochair and wheeled around a tiny yard. It looked to Tom like California. A coast live oak grew in the corner. Manzanitas edged the yard. Someone respected the native foliage. Dr. Who was hiding her geolocation. He guessed she was with family, but then again, maybe not. She certainly looked much happier among the dirt and greenery than she ever had on the water.
“Arun so wanted ya to see that,” she said. “He misses ya all somethin’ fierce.”
“I miss him,” said Tom.
“Bet ya do,” she said. “Honey, you’re in a heap ’a manure right now.”
“I know, Mama. And you should call me from inside.”
Dr. Who nodded. “You’re right. But I missed my hands in dirt. Best healer there is. Hey, check this out.” The chair rose on a cushion of air, pivoted, and landed without a jostle. “Even my baby Talia left ya?”
“Yeah. And I understand if you do, too. You have much longer loyalty to her than to me.”
“To quote a wise man, ‘I’m too old for this shit.’”
“Mama, I don’t know how I would have done it differently.”
“Why would ya?” asked the Doctor. “From my perspective, you saved my ass, child. An’ I can see my family again. That’s not nothin’. I know ya don’t think like your old biological self anymore. Relyin’ on logic, ya coulda just focused on Carter’s bigger game. Most AIs woulda focused on the top-down goal. But ya didn’t. You ’n’ Talia tried to help all kinds ’a people. Most woulda died anyway, child. And who knew an AHI could feel so sorry for itself?” She laughed, and her copious bosom heaved with mirth.
It made Major Tom a little happier to see her laugh again. “How so?”
“We’re havin’ this conversation, right? There’s still some Peter Bernhardt left in ya. And don’t ya dare let ’em convince ya otherwise.”
“Mama, why do the people I love hate me?” he asked.
“Oh, child,” she said with a sigh. “Bein’ out on the ocean taught me this: there’s no one right way to do anythin’. And too much ’a anythin’ turns into disaster. Ya showed ’em there’s no right answers, but nobody wants ta hear that! The people who love ya the most will hate ya the most, just for showin’ ’em they ain’t got faith in ya. Think ’a what ya meant to those four people. They loved ya. You showed ’em the great paradox at the center of existence, and they lost their worldview. Nobody gets awards for that.”
“So what do I do now?” he asked.
“We figure out their goals, their strengths, and their weaknesses. And then we fight.”
“We?”
“Honey, I may be old, but I’m ornery, too. Foxy was fun, but this here’s a better thrill than any virtual world. And ya got my girl, Veronika. She’s a hoot ’n’ a half, but no one’s got your back like her. And Cai/Ye is my new pen pal. Never lets me forget he’s around, within state security and diplomatic parameters, of course. Anyway, he says he’s there when we need him. We’ll see. And let’s get Arun back on board. His kids did a great job with this hunk ’a junk.” She banged on the armrest of her exochair. “I know he ain’t done fiddlin’ in that brain ’a yours, and I got some crazy ideas. Might just work.”
“Oh . . . oh, Mama . . . ” He wanted to cry, but they’d be happy tears. For the first time, he felt hope. With Dr. Who, Veronika, Arun, his son, and perhaps even the Chinese government with him, he wasn’t alone after all.
Veronika sent them yet another Veronika’s Veil, the morphed face of Tom comprised of tiny portraits of all the people who had supported Peter Bernhardt and Thomas Paine, or who had been helped by him: his new family, his pop, Ruth’s father, the employees who worked at Biogineers and Prometheus, the mercenaries he had employed over the years to help him run every kind of vehicle and vessel, the survivors of the Meropis and the crew of the Savior, the refugees who escaped on the CAS Theodore Roosevelt and the Zumwalt. There were thousands of them. Together they made up the face of her composite, a new banner for them all to march behind.
They weren’t what most would call a family. And not an army, either. But they were his. And maybe through their eyes, he might finally figure out who he was, and why he was here, attempting the impossible.
When he died the first time, it had felt like all the love in his life had gathered together and showed him the way. He had lost so much. He had proved that the road to hell was paved with good intentions and their unintended consequences. But he couldn’t stop now, just because he’d alienated his best friends. There were bigger priorities, and he hoped he could help them all see that someday. It might take a war, but he hoped they could forgive him.
EPILOGUE
Tom, Veronika, Dr. Who, and Arun watched in real time as the story of Major Tom changed yet again in blockchain servers around the world.
He wasn’t just a terrorist.
He wasn’t just a destabilizing force for the entire world.
He was the juggernaut, the ceremonial wagon that pulled the Hindu Lord Vishnu from his temple and crushed the devout, in their desire to be near him, under its wheels. He was a rogue technology, relentless, thoughtless, cruel, bent on destroying anything in his path. He was the ultimate enemy.
But Peter Bernhardt’s story had changed, too. He was a good person, with a brilliant mind, until he had experimented on himself with brain prostheses, nanowire implants, and nanomedicine. Peter was a victim of his own hubris, a symbol of the dangers of technology without ethics. He was a victim who wanted to be a hero, until the thing he had become undid him. Perhaps, the new story suggested, Peter Bernhardt could be used to protect the world from his monstrous creation.
News stories proliferated. “To make America whole again, we must fight the forces of dissolution and disruption.” “The only way to stop Thomas Paine and Major Tom from destroying that which we hold dear is a battle for the Union of America!” Port Everglades was cast as the new Fort Sumter. President Conrad was the new Lincoln. Tom was the new Jefferson Davis, instigating anarchy and divisive disasters in his wake.
It wasn’t literature, but it worked as propaganda in a world turned upside down.
For the first time, Major Tom, as a human being, a digital being, and a member of his new little tribe, committed to a purpose that gave him an identity. He would lead his band, save as many people as possible, and put an end to the suffering promised in Carter’s vision of the future.
Civil War 3.0 commenced.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
As with (R)evolution, Major Tom solves problems and cognates musically, even in his new nonorganic substrates and adopted bodies. Like him, my daughter experiences her life through a continual soundtrack and builds her mental world with music as its foundation. She is my model. And I think that’s supercool.
(ID)entity was inspired by the work of David Bowie and his creation Major Tom. After Bowie wrote “Space Oddity,” in 1969, the character of Major Tom took on a life of his own, not only throughout Bowie’s later music and videos, but in music and artwork created by many others. I’ve touched on a handful of references in (ID)entity. Don’t worry, Bowie fans, there will be more in the next book, (CON)science.
Since my creative process is cyclical, moving between music and writing, there are many more songs that inspired the book than made the final cut. I mentioned fewer songs in (ID)entity because it just felt right.
While you can enjoy (ID)entity without listening to the playlist that follows, doing so adds a layer of Tom’s thought process within his hacked ’n’ jacked brain. There are some Easter eggs
within the lyrics, too, so I hope you take as much pleasure puzzling them out while listening to this playlist as I did in making it.
(ID)ENTITY PLAYLIST
(in order of appearance)
“One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others),” Joe Raposo, Jon Stone, and Bruce Hart/Sesame Street
“Heaven,” Talking Heads
“Space Oddity,” David Bowie
“Sound of Silence,” Simon & Garfunkel, The Paul Simon Anthology live solo version
“42,” Coldplay
“Born to Synthesize,” Todd Rundgren
“Ashes to Ashes,” David Bowie
“Seminal,” Jonny Sonic
“Hallo Spaceboy,” David Bowie, with the Pet Shop Boys (1996)
“Mrs. Major Tom,” K.I.A.
“Doppelgänger,” The Antlers
“Brainville,” The Flaming Lips
“Ease on Down the Road,” Charlie Smalls/The Wiz
“Tin Man,” America
“Sound of Silence,” Simon & Garfunkel, covered by Disturbed
“El Chapo,” The Game featuring Skrillex
“The Blacker the Berry,” Kendrick Lamar
“Ghost Ship,” Blur
“Like Humans Do,” David Byrne
“Glory,” Radical Face
“Both Sides Now,” Joni Mitchell
“Killing a Little Time,” David Bowie
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As in all things in life, my mistakes are my own.
So many people deserve thanks. I have wonderful friends and acquaintances with expertise on many subjects who are willing to suffer through my newbie questions about things they’ve thought through and pursued with rigor for many years. Thank you to: Itamar Arel, James Clement, Nikola Danaylov, J. Dax Hansen, Randolph Hencken, Orna Isakson, Alex Kawas, Richard Loosemore, Oscar Morales, Joe Quirk, Christopher Rasch, Sophie Robert, Edwin Rosero, Russell Rukin, Peter Turchin, Reichart von Wolfschield. And the biggest thank-you possible to Monica Anderson. I couldn’t have done this without you.
For this series, I relied on the writings and work of Theodore W. Berger, James D’Angelo, Robert Freitas, Benjamin Goertzel, James Hughes, David Levy, Rodolfo Llinas, Ralph Merkel, Steve Omohundro, Bruce Schneier, and Wendell Wallach.
I’d like to praise these books as great primers on their subjects: Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick and Liberate Humanity from Politicians, by Joe Quirk with Patri Friedman; Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey; American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodard; The Nine Nations of North America, by Joel Garreau; and most especially, War and Peace and War, by Peter Turchin, researcher in the remarkable discipline of cliodynamics. These are important works that more people should read to understand where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Thanks to my great lawyers, Neal Tabachnick and David Hochman at Wolf, Rifkin, Shapiro, Schulman & Rabkin. I know you have my back.
To those who lent your names: let’s see, one of you was resurrected, one creates AI, one is a great friend, one is a brain surgeon, and one ran away to sea. And my two college housemate physicians are still smushed into one. My work here is done.
To my dearest friends who always have my emotional and creative back: Karen Austin, Belinda Todd, and Jonathan Westover. Go mishpucha!
My incredible team at 47North/Amazon Publishing really is the best in the business. Jason Kirk, you are the most wonderful editor a writer could hope for, even beyond all our weird connections and coincidences. I am one lucky author. Thank you to copyeditor Josh Overbey and proofreader Jill Schoenhaut for making sure this dyslexic and grammatically challenged author writes in English. Kristin King, and formerly Britt Rogers and Sarah Shaw, of the Authors Relations department, you always know how to take tender loving care of our 47North tribe. Laura Costantino, thank you for marketing this book so well. And Kimberly Cowser, PR gal extraordinaire, you are a joy to work with. To Adam Martinakis, the remarkably talented artist behind my beautiful and evocative book covers: I am so grateful we get to work together. Your work is magnificent! And thank you to Ray Lundgren for your excellent design skills in putting all the visuals together.
Thank you to Richard Manney, my science-fiction-fan father, who fed me a constant diet of SF classics. And my mother, Gloria Manney, who doesn’t know Yoda from Yogi Bear, you are my eternal representative of the vox populi.
As always, my work is a family affair, and this series wouldn’t exist without them as teachers, helpmates, and motivators. Nathaniel, thank you for the endless discussions on plot, characters, cryptocurrencies, cliodynamics, the blockchain, history, economics, and politics. And thanks for lending your hair and the Green Bay Packers. Hannah, I could never have written two characters in this series without your life as my inspiration. Your story and character instincts are so good, you’re my go-to brainstorming gal. And to my husband, Eric, you are my partner in all things. Thank you for your tireless editing, action ideas, flights of fancy, backrubs, and endless support. I’m the luckiest person on earth. I lurve and luff you all.
Los Angeles, California,
2017
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Kevin Warn
PJ Manney writes the same way she lives—with an abiding passion for exploring new, exhilarating, and utterly unique experiences. A devotedly positive futurist, she was chairperson of the board of directors of Humanity+, an international nonprofit organization that advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capabilities. Manney has also been active in communications, public relations, and film production. To date, she has written numerous scripts for television pilots and has also worked on shows such as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. She has lived as far afield as New York and New Zealand and loves delving into the cultural landscape of wherever she finds herself. Whenever she’s not working on her novels, she continues to expound on her perspective of a technology-driven posthumanity while encouraging hopeful visions of the future. She lives with her husband of twenty-eight years and their two children.
