Crisis- 2038

by Gerald Huff

  Just a few days ago, Roger had gotten an update from his financial roboadvisor on his Q3 “ROI”. His considerable wealth was invested in a wide variety of complex financial instruments, most of which he didn’t even understand. He had no idea if his money was helping people the way that Sara described. All he knew was that it increased steadily every quarter, money making money.

  As the video ended with the camera panning a standing ovation, Roger asked Allison to display a transcript. “Scroll to near the end please.” He read the words he had just seen Sara speak. Perhaps he’d been primed by the rest of the video, or maybe it was the way she delivered this section directly to the camera, but he couldn’t help but think she was talking specifically to him.

  Talents are not evenly distributed; that is the reality of nature. But everyone has talents they can contribute to make their corner of humanity a better place. And some people have been granted a gift of tremendous talent. And some in today’s societies have the luck of great privilege. Their obligations are no different, but the scale of their potential impact is. These lucky few can contribute in vast ways to make our planet a better place to live and thrive. These great scientists, engineers, artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators should be eagerly sought out in every corner of the Earth. They need to be freed from arbitrary restrictions, provided resources, and celebrated for their contributions to lifting all of humanity toward the light. We should revel in their success, to the extent it moves us all forward.

  Roger stood and began pacing back and forth over the cool marble tiles of his living room floor. He viewed his work primarily as a series of engineering challenges. He was constantly tweaking and tuning the synth network in a running battle with the RealLife algorithms. Enhancing their AI personality matrices and refining their programming, as he had done for the Sara launch, was fascinating, technically satisfying work. Although he’d gotten very wealthy by providing a service to his hundreds of clients, that was never his primary motivation.

  Sara’s words made him question what, exactly, he was directing his talents towards. His business operated in the shadows, literally inaccessible without the right crypto credentials and client referrals. He was not “making a planet a better place” or “moving us all forward.” If he had to be honest, his synths were doing quite the opposite. How had he gotten this far without really confronting this? Roger considered himself a caring person. He gave to various causes that helped people and the environment. But somehow, he had carved his work itself out of his personal self-evaluation.

  Roger felt the need to talk to someone, but he couldn’t think of anyone in his network who would empathize. His friends were entrepreneurs and technologists just like him, focused on growing their companies and enhancing their products. Other than superficial exchanges about some news event of the day, he couldn’t recall a single deep conversation with them about the state of the world or their obligations to help it. He lived in a social bubble of techno-capitalists.

  There was of course one person. Someone who had initiated all of this. “Allison, what time is it in London?”

  “It’s 9:45 p.m.”

  “Could you send a holochat request to Frances Chatham please?” A long minute later Allison informed him the request was accepted. He put on the hologlasses and turned once more to face Frances, this time in what appeared to be her living room.

  “Roger, delighted to hear from you. We’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to thank you again for the impact of your network. While we have a lot of real humans engaged now, your synths formed the core of Sara’s early support and really got her launched.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Frances, and happy that Sara is taking off.”

  “Yes, we had our first real-life event in India this week and it was quite a success.”

  “I know, I just watched the video. In fact, that’s why I’m calling.” He had no idea if Frances had the same kinds of overlays in her home holosystem as he had, but no doubt they would be flashing all kinds of anxiety if she did. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what Sara said. About the wealthy.” Roger was surprised at how choked up he was. “About those with talent directing their work.” He had to take a deep breath.

  Frances nodded sympathetically. “I understand, Roger. I truly do. I have travelled down the same road. You remember Mentapath Systems? My first company, advanced AI analytics and customer interaction for e-commerce platforms. Brilliant piece of engineering. Wildly successful. Big exit for me and my investors. I took some time off and happened one day to be visiting one of my philanthropic ventures, the London Institute for Advanced Studies. The head of school introduced me to a student, a young woman who would change my life. It was, of course, Sara.

  “I spent hours with her, captivated. During our very first conversation, when I described my background, I realized that her emerging ideas about capitalism and technology applied directly to my experience. Mentapath was a job destruction engine. It replaced swaths of sales and marketing people wherever it was installed. I had always viewed this the key to its success—incredible efficiencies and much better service for customers. But the human impact. Well. I just put it out of my head, I suppose.

  “Needless to say, I had my pick of what to work on next and with Sara’s ideas firmly in mind I chose something a little more helpful to humanity. Neurgenix aims to eliminate genetic diseases by applying the same underlying deep learning technology to billions of genetic sequences and automated CRISPR gene editing processes.”

  Roger had collected himself. “Yes, I see your pivot there.”

  “It was all well and good for me,” continued Frances. “But I was just one wealthy entrepreneur. A drop in the bucket. All around me there was a sea of techies, startups, financiers, and investors stuck in the same paradigm, oblivious to the negative consequences of their apparent financial successes. I tried to convince them, but they rarely budged. As social tensions continued to rise across the globe, I felt I needed to do something more.”

  “And then you hatched Sara’s message.”

  “Yes, indeed. I created a team to launch her into the public sphere. I hoped to give the broad public something positive to latch on to and convince the elites they needed to change. Honestly, Roger, your reaction is precisely what I was hoping for. I am sad to say, however, that among other peers who have seen Sara’s talk there have been distressingly few like you.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. “So,” said Roger. “What do I do now?”

  “You’re a brilliant engineer, Roger, with probably the world’s best understanding of omnipresence interaction dynamics and bot detection. How can you use those talents for the good of everyone in OP?”

  “I don’t know.” Roger found it very difficult to look her in the eye. “I’m not sure.”

  “What are the biggest problems in OP right now?”

  “Well the biggest problem is that people are out of control. They spend most of their time trolling and spreading misinformation and outright propaganda.” Roger paused. “Then, I suppose synth networks like mine aren’t helping very much.”

  “Well said. So. Is there anything you could do about those problems?”

  The wheels began to turn in Roger’s head. He knew exactly how to detect synth networks. No one knew their weaknesses better.

  “Well certainly I know about synths. But Frances, it sounds you’re asking me to create a technology that will destroy my entire business.” She smiled slightly, but her gaze turned rather steely across the holochannel.

  “Indeed, Roger. That rather strikes me as exactly the right thing to do.”

  “Well, sorry, I’m not prepared to do that. I’ve got clients. Like you,” he added. Her gaze did not waver. She remained silent. “Maybe I can look at the human side of things first. That is the bigger problem after all.”

  Frances nodded. “That is true, Roger. That could be a great first step.”

  “Okay, yeah, maybe I’ll start th
ere. Thanks, Frances.”

  “Certainly, Roger. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

  Roger closed the holochat and spun around in his chair a few times. How could he improve human interactions in OP? He stood up and paced around his living room, thinking about the ways his bots interacted in OP versus real humans. The seed of an idea came to him. Returning to his desk, he grinned. “Allison, clear the decks and open a new workspace. Code name—AntiVenom.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  VIRTUAL REALITY - OCTOBER 19

  The Sara’s Message leadership team had gathered to review the results from the first town hall. Everyone’s avatars, with photorealistic real-time facial overlays, sat together around a table in a VR conference room.

  Chief Operating Officer Preston Jackson summarized the discussion thus far from his IRL office in London. “We’ve had a tremendous launch. The New Delhi event has created a lot of positive momentum, with less-than-expected negative backlash. Now we have a few decisions to make. Do we continue with the college town halls or try for major media outlets? Start in Europe or head to the U.S.? Opinions?”

  Sam Erickson, who sat across the table from Preston in VR, spoke from Palo Alto. “I say we hit the major media while we’re still early in the news cycle. Awareness of Sara is just building and she’s an interesting story. The news and opinion channels will love her. With our connections, we can get her placed on half a dozen shows and get the message out to a vast audience that doesn’t spend time playing VR or watching OP meme videos.”

  “What about geography?” asked Preston.

  Sam said, “If we want to build an audience in the most receptive countries, we’d start in Europe.”

  Sheila Bratton, the team’s CTO and omnipresence director, sat to Sam’s right. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said from New York. “Engagement per capita is higher in the U.S. than in the EU. Ultimately, the U.S. is going to have to drive this change. The EU economies aren’t strong enough. I know it’s a bigger challenge, given all the noise in the system, but I vote we go right for the jugular.”

  Preston turned to Vannha Subramanium, town hall coordinator, seated to his right. “What do you think, Vannha?”

  “The town hall format is more conducive to a grassroots feeling,” Vannha said from New Delhi. “It’s Sara speaking directly with people, not to the mainstream media that are part of the problem she describes. I would vote for more of those, starting in the U.S. Let the media react to the grassroots efforts and compete to get her. If we go to the media too early, we look like every other pundit or author looking for screen time.”

  Sam said, “It’s all a question of what audience we want to build. College town halls are great for hitting the young demographic, but history has shown that the real social revolutions don’t start until you get the thirty- to fifty-year-olds involved. They are the great bastions of the status quo. Everyone expects the young to rebel. But when Mom and Dad hit the streets, the establishment takes notice. Look at the great civil rights marches. You see wave after wave of solid citizens in their late thirties and forties and older.”

  “The free speech and Vietnam War movements started in colleges,” countered Vannha. “The 1964 civil rights workers killed in Mississippi were college age. The Parkland students were in high school, look what they started in terms of gun control.”

  “Sure, but the Freedom Riders were older,” Sam said. “All I’m saying is we need to get to the parents eventually. That’s the signal to the whole society that change is inevitable.”

  “I don’t disagree with that,” Vannha said. “Everyone is scared, but the young at least have accumulated fewer years of distrust. I think their parents will respond if they can see their kids break free of the chains that are holding both generations back.”

  Preston reflected with some pride on the strength of the team he had built. Passionate for their cause, experts in their fields, deep students of the history of social change.

  “I think all of these ideas have merit,” he said. “I suggest we go next to the United States with a focus on college town halls, but grant one long-form interview to the media, to someone smart and well-respected. That will keep us out of the sound bite side shows, continue to generate grassroots energy, and make the other media outlets hungry.”

  His team leaders nodded in approval, and Sheila gave a virtual thumbs-up.

  “Sam,” Preston said, “can you identify a few interviewers and gauge their interest by the end of the week?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sheila, where are we with the U.S. college website construction?”

  “The team has been working on it for a while, just in case we decided to go in early. It’ll be ready in twenty-four hours. They trained an AI to import every college’s and university’s organization creation forms. It wasn’t too difficult.”

  “Great. Okay, last topic for tonight. Sara’s starting to generate a lot of curiosity in the media and in the establishment. We’ve already had one New York Times reporter digging into our paid promotion operation. We’ll keep an eye on her, but we can expect increasing opposition research from many quarters over the next few months. Remind your teams of the need for absolute discretion. We can also expect bigger crowds of both fans and decidedly unfriendly folks at our events. Vannha, I think it’s time to get some security. Make it very discreet, casual clothes, no Secret Service suits.”

  “Got it,” said Vannha.

  “Okay, then,” said Preston. “Let’s call it a night. Thanks, everyone.”

  The avatars faded from view.

  Preston removed his VR headset and turned to the woman seated beside him. “Well, ma’am, how do you think that went?”

  Frances Chatham, sitting next to him in London, removed her headset as well. “Well, Preston, the strategy seems reasonable to me. We can always adjust based on what we learn. There’s no playbook to follow, so we just keep reassessing.” She played with the headset in her hands. “And thank you for suggesting security for Sara. She would never think of asking for it.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  There was a long but comfortable silence.

  “Can you believe it, Preston?” Frances said finally. “After all the preparation, it’s finally happening. Sometimes I just need to pinch myself.”

  “It’s very exciting, ma’am. It must be tremendously gratifying for you, to see your vision coming to life.”

  “Discovering Sara Dhawan was a real blessing. But she couldn’t do what she’s doing, and have the impact she’s having, without you and the team you’ve built. I’m endlessly grateful to you, Preston. There’s no bloody way I could have done this without you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. It’s such an honor working on this with you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SYRACUSE/MISSOURI/WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 22

  SYRACUSE

  Peter Cook checked the automated flight plan instructions one last time from his upstate New York operations cabin. This was the most complex LKC drone operation yet. The destruction of the three RezMat transports had been simple compared to this op. Today he had to direct forty-eight drones flying in a hundred mile area to attach to twenty-four targets in six locations and detonate simultaneously.

  He’d also had to rely on several LKC members in the Midwest to place the drones. It always made him nervous to depend on guys he hadn’t worked with operationally before. He keyed in the launch commands. Forty-seven of the drones responded and showed green lights across the board for all rotor and sensor functions. One of the drones was online but non-responsive.

  Peter logged into the drone remotely and tried rebooting the main controller. After fifteen long seconds it came back online, but was still dead in the water. He logged back into it and started checking each of the system components. Aha! he said to himself after a couple of minutes. The secondary battery pack had failed, and it supplied power to most of the sensor and mot
or controllers. When he told the controllers to use the primary battery instead, they all came alive. Luckily, this drone had a short flight path and could make it just using the primary battery.

  Now that all forty-eight drones were operational, Peter verified that they had precise GPS time synchronization and sent them the Go signal.

  BLACKBURN, MISSOURI

  Liam Baldwin held on to the handrail as he descended the steps from the Post Office down to Main Street. As he walked to his vintage blue ’21 Toyota Corolla, he heard a faint buzzing noise and thought his hearing aids were malfunctioning again. But then the sound grew louder. He looked south towards St. Paul Church and saw them—a group of eight black drones flying maybe a hundred feet off the ground, heading north. It was the damnedest thing. He’d seen drones online, of course. But not here in Blackburn, population all of 219.

  The drones took no note of the elderly man as they passed by the town. They traveled in tight formation until they crossed 220th Road, where they split into four pairs and headed for their targets. In less than a minute they had attached to the legs of four electrical transmission towers. Synchronized to the millisecond via GPS signals, the drones set off their Semtex charges in a sequence designed to send the towers toppling in alternating directions. Forty other drones in a one hundred mile radius did likewise on twenty similar towers. The 345 kV transmission cables in all six locations snapped under the stress, severing critical links between multiple states.

  AI control programs for Southwest Power Pool and MISO Energy detected an unprecedented simultaneous catastrophic failure in six 345 kV lines. There was no way to route around them. To avoid damaging the grid, the control programs started shutting down supply, ordering wind and solar farms to divert flows to battery storage and natural gas plants to shut down. Millions of people in Kansas and Missouri instantly lost power.

  Minutes later LKC released a statement. “The Ludd Kaczynski Collective has disrupted electrical power in the heart of the United States to send a message to the people of this great country. You can live without your electronic masters. You can live in true freedom again. You can experience the real world and connect with real people. If only for a few days, you will remember what life was like before we were slaves to the machines. Once you have lived again as a human and not a cog in the machine world, we hope you will join us in our revolution.”