The Deplosion Saga

by Paul Anlee

  LaMontagne chuckled. “This isn’t even close to legal. It might not perfectly replicate Dr. Leigh’s considerable intellectual abilities, but it will be close enough for our purposes.”

  Trillian’s eyes lit up, and he reached for the capsule before the Reverend could change his mind.

  LaMontagne’s hand snapped shut, denying the gift. “Such power, such capabilities, can only be available to a true servant of Yeshua. Are you such a servant?” His eyes bore into the prisoner.

  Trillian kneeled beneath the determined power of the man’s glare. He dropped his gaze to LaMontagne’s feet and rasped, “I am that servant.”

  “I didn’t hear you, son. Are you such a servant?”

  The Reverend’s booming voice sent shivers up Trillian’s spine. He felt the full weight of the question. He knew that his answer would not be taken lightly and, therefore, must not be given lightly.

  The prisoner stood and met LaMontagne’s eyes directly and earnestly. “I will be a true servant to Yeshua, to His Church, and to you, Reverend.” His voice was quiet but steady and firm.

  LaMontagne smiled and opened his fist. “Welcome to the next level, son.”

  21

  Kathy inspected the polished brown cube she’d prepared in secret for today’s visit to the megafactory.

  It contained a semiconductor lattice imprinted with the traits—the data—that defined her unique concepta and persona. She was determined to fit it into one of the Cybrids scheduled for launch next week.

  The restrictions the G26 Project Vesta Supervisory Committee had placed on her Cybrids were ridiculous.

  She didn’t mind so much that Cybrids would be permitted to operate only in outer space; there was more than enough work to be done around Vesta to employ them all. The harsh vacuum, low gravity, and hard radiation environment of outer space was exactly what they were designed for. Project Vesta was creating a lot of employment for people on Earth, too. Limiting Cybrids to space and letting the humans dominate the job market on Earth would help minimize human complaints and resentment. She got that.

  She was a little less happy with the restrictions the Committee had placed on Cybrid power supplies. It would have been so easy to siphon off enough power from their matter-antimatter propulsion systems to generate electricity for their silicene nanoribbon brains. But the Committee was full of cynics and paranoids who demanded the ability to ‘pull the plug’ on the robotic Cybrids at their discretion. They refused to permit them energy independence, shackling them instead to comparatively short-lived batteries and ultracapacitors. Completely unnecessary and a pain, but I can work with it—Kathy thought.

  What she resented most was that it wasn’t enough for the Committee that the Cybrid brains were restricted to human-level conceptas and human-replica personas. They put additional limitations on the machines’ overall computational capabilities. They would allow Cybrids to function at a level equivalent to a human of moderately above-average intelligence, and no more.

  “Are you kidding me? What a ridiculous waste of computational power and precious time,” she’d argued. “We need all the help we can get. Don’t you see that?”

  She’d showed them how it would be such a simple tweak to permit deeper, ungrounded node-searching in the Cybrid concepta. It would be so easy to produce and accommodate the moderately larger brains needed to support IQs in the 500 range.

  The Committee adamantly refused, saying it would approve only the specific additional abilities needed to navigate and work in space. It would not sanction any higher level of general intelligence.

  “We will not be responsible for making a super-human intelligence and letting it roam freely in our solar system. Our survival depends on that intelligence. We refuse to manufacture our own robot overlords.”

  Kathy fumed and railed against their ignorance and blind xenophobia to no avail.

  She and Greg had been among the first million people selected to be downloaded into Cybrids. Their understanding of the technical portion of the project was unrivaled, and their contributions were critical. They knew that. The Committee knew that. And yet, Committee members insisted on hobbling even their Cybrid brains with IQs around 130, lower than their human pre-lattice enhancement levels.

  “I can’t imagine my Cybrid alter-ego waking to consciousness and finding herself turned into such a dummy,” Kathy complained. It’s cruel, unjustified, and short-sighted. We could achieve so much more and in shorter amount of time, if you’d please just reconsider.”

  The Committee held blindly steadfast. They wouldn’t budge.

  She had no choice. She cheated.

  The Cybrid’s silicene brain was bigger and heavier than a biological human brain. It was constructed as an enormous programmable array using conventional three-dimensional integration techniques.

  The imprinting process selected optimal pathways to lay down the basic human concepta, the knowledge and belief structure of its paired human.

  Preferences, tastes, and basic emotional tendencies were then overlaid, and the Cybrid brain became an astoundingly accurate simulation of its human counterpart.

  The neural pathways of the human were optimized by physical changes of axons, dendrites, and synapses. To replicate such optimization in the semiconductor lattice would require a level of nanotechnology that echoed the chemical complexity of living organisms.

  Such technology had not been invented yet and Kathy didn’t have time to develop it, so they took a shortcut.

  It was quicker and easier to simulate what they needed in the software. Many of the possible array connections remained inactive, creating a host of redundant circuits.

  With minimal effort, she found a way to use the redundant circuitry to provide additional levels of computational power. It made the circuits of her silicene counterpart a uniquely-twisted mess. But, at least her Cybrid self would not be hampered by the absurd biases of the Committee.

  This was her tenth trip to the Cybrid factory in Shanghai in the past two years, but today’s visit was doubly special.

  Today, the first hundred Cybrids would roll off the fabrication line. She and the others, whose minds had been selected for downloading, were reporting in person to place their “brains” into the selected Cybrids.

  As the designer of the robots and Chief Engineer on the Vesta Project, Kathy and her considerable contributions could have been honored, at no additional cost to the Project, simply by assigning her Cybrid counterpart with Serial Number 1.

  Was this one small consideration too much to ask?

  Apparently, it was. The Committee decided no Cybrid was to receive special designation. Each would be assigned a randomized three-letter plus six-digit code. End of discussion.

  In protest, Kathy hacked their computer system and assigned the three-letter prefix “DAR” to her Cybrid and to Greg’s. She let the algorithms randomly assign the rest of the code.

  A subtle but fitting tribute to a mentor and friend. To you, Darian.

  Now, just one final tweak and the program won’t assign the DAR prefix to other Cybrids.

  Her spur of the moment honoring of Darian made her a little sad.

  He’d be pleased to see how far we’ve come, don’t you think?—she said to herself.

  She inspected the serial number stamped onto the surface of the processing unit. DAR143147. The name has a nice ring to it.

  * * *

  “Hey, Kath, you almost ready?” Greg entered the bedroom of their hotel suite. He had been hovering all morning, nervous to get this event over with. She’d finally sent him to watch television so she could dress in peace. Today was her day; he would get the opportunity to put his silicene brain into a Cybrid next month. Another committee decision.

  He watched her turn the cube over in her hands. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  She almost told him, right then, what she’d done. They didn’t use to have secrets between them. Lately, he’d been acting a bit strange, a little d
istant, like he was having a hard time figuring out how to behave around her.

  She didn’t doubt that he still loved her as much as she loved him, but something in him had changed shortly after they’d started working on Vesta. She suspected he was hiding something but, even with their close lattice connection, she couldn’t guess what.

  Sometimes he seems like he’s a million miles away. She hadn’t worked up the courage to confront him about it yet. She hoped it was simply because he was busy with work. She frowned—Like me.

  Over the past few months, they hadn’t been on the same continent more than half the time.

  Her jaw tightened. This was going to be her gift to her Cybrid. Maybe she’d talk to him about it tomorrow. Maybe he could make similar modifications to the brain of his own Cybrid. Later.

  Kathy smiled at him. She hoped it was a reassuring smile. She placed the brownish cube back in its special carrying case. The “brains” were tough, tougher than she might have expected.

  She didn’t have to worry about getting finger oils on them; there was no way they were going to corrode. Anyway, the optico-electronic interfaces would be cleaned to remove any contaminants before they were placed into the Cybrid bodies.

  She put on her coat and tucked the case in her pocket. She pulled her sleeves crisply toward her wrists, and checked her reflection in the dresser mirror.

  “Okay, let’s do this.”

  22

  “I think you should see this, Reverend.”

  John Trillian didn’t knock; he never knocked. He just barged into LaMontagne’s study whenever he felt like it.

  Jeff, the Reverend’s henchman, had been on the verge of “liquidating” the arrogant hacker more than once. And he might have done just that, had it not been for LaMontagne’s firm belief that Trillian’s usefulness outweighed his lack of proper socialization. More to the point, he’d directly ordered Jeff to give the exasperating consultant a little leeway. It took an awful lot of leeway, as it turned out.

  Objectively speaking, even Jeff had to admit that Trillian had proven his worth in the ten weeks since the Reverend “recruited” him. The hacker had already infiltrated all of the major systems of the Vesta Project and placed backdoors into the BIOS chips of their most important computers. He’d accessed blueprints and engineering specifications for their Cybrids, the rockets, and the asteroid colony itself.

  The hacker’s most recent feat was subverting the project’s candidate selection system. LaMontagne could now bump anyone he wanted to the top of the evacuation list at any time.

  The Reverend was ready; he’d been operating his own covert recruitment process for months. Thanks to Trillian’s work, his hand-selected Church members would be guaranteed to form a disproportionate number of Vesta colonists.

  LaMontagne didn’t give much thought to John Trillian, the man, except in terms of what he could do for the Church. He believed that so long as he kept John challenged and busy, he posed little threat. He began to relax his guard around the hacker, even exploring and experimenting with the microverse technology when the man was in the room.

  Trillian observed the Reverend toying with all manner of floating microverses in the study, but he had no particular interest in the spheres. Since ingesting the dendy-virus capsule, he’d been lost in his own world, a world that was expanding daily as his lattice grew within him. His capabilities as a software programmer, hardware designer, and hacker were improving rapidly.

  He was loving his new work, the many challenges it presented, and the promise of exponential intellectual growth that came with his new lattice. For now, he was happy to stick to the hardware and software, and leave the physics, politics, and religion to the Reverend. Especially the physics; he wasn’t sure he could follow the advanced math, anyway. The other areas were mildly interesting in their own ways, but Trillian was more captivated by virtual reality than the real thing. His games and hacks, whether serious or for amusement, gave him deep satisfaction and joy.

  Across the room on the stiff, leather-bound sofa, a five-year-old boy disconnected from his internet “playtime” and shifted his gaze to Trillian, whom he immediately disregarded with bored disdain.

  In the brief hours when he wasn’t connected to LaMontagne’s lattice and having the Reverend’s every experience and thought forcefully pumped into him, the boy was permitted to read the classics. Greek mythology, the Bible, the Torah, The Quran, Socrates, The Prince, and The Art of War were providing him with varied windows into the human psyche.

  The Reverend had enough knowledge of basic developmental psychology to realize the importance of exposing the boy to some external influences. Providing they were closely monitored, of course. As “soul” father, he selected what the boy could read, and with whom he could talk and play. He wanted to foster healthy development, not independence. There had to be some limits; the one who would inherit his spirit must be carefully cultivated.

  LaMontagne enjoyed the way his own thoughts and memories were being duplicated inside the young boy’s brain. My true essence will be immortalized in a way the world has never seen. Once the boy was fully grown, the two of them would be more mentally, psychologically, and spiritually alike than any two people in the history of the world.

  LaMontagne let his current microverse fizzle and blink out. He looked up from the keyboard of the RAF generator.

  “What have you found for me, John?”

  “They’re going to blow up Vancouver,” Trillian said.

  That got LaMontagne’s attention. Even the boy perked up. “Who is? When? How?”

  “The Russians, Chinese, and us. In a few hours. Three nuclear cruise missiles with hundred-kiloton yields.” Trillian answered all three questions without a trace of emotion.

  “Why?”

  “A number of the world leaders have convinced themselves that Drs. Mahajani and Liang control the demands of Alum, or could actually be Alum. They also believe a large atomic blast could eliminate the Eater threat. It seems they’ve been planning this for a while.”

  “Why are you telling me this only now?”

  “I’ve just been able to assemble all the necessary evidence in the past hour.”

  “Show me,” commanded LaMontagne.

  Trillian pushed the RAF generator to one side and set his laptop on the desk in front of the Reverend. “I found video from a secure online meeting held last week among our friends. I was aware of their discussions but it proved impossible to listen to them in real time. Fortunately, the Japanese Prime Minister recorded the whole thing.”

  He opened his laptop and activated a saved video. “This is the most relevant section.”

  President Mitchell: Ms. Hudson had no problems with sharing the recording from the conference room at the G26. She’s convinced that Drs. Mahajani and Liang were in no way involved but, then again, she didn’t lose a trusted adviser. I had our people go back and analyze the changes in micro expressions of the two scientists’ right after the incident; they found sufficient reason to doubt Ms. Hudson’s conclusion.

  President Olev: The timing seems suspicious. It was too convenient. As soon as opposition to the plan is raised, some unexplained deep sleep overcomes the room? I don’t buy it. Our FSB experts don’t either. I believe what they said was, they hope those two are better scientists than they are actors.

  President Chu: We have agreed then, to abandon efforts to simply remove Drs. Mahajani and Liang?

  President Mitchell: If they’re holding us all hostage to their plans, how do we know they don’t have this Eater on a deadman switch? Killing them could threaten the planet. No, we must strike their weapon as well as them.

  PM Akira: Our scientists are confident we can destabilize and collapse the matter-absorbing capabilities of this Eater with a sufficiently large thermonuclear explosion. Their analysis of the descriptive formulae suggests a payload of around fifty kilotons, to be effective. I’ve had them transmit their calculations to your people for confirmation.

  P
resident Chu: Yes, our physicists agree, based on the mathematical characterization as provided by the Pacifica scientists. But instigating such an explosion over a populated area like Vancouver would be considered an Act of War. Could we avoid a subsequent escalation?

  President Mitchell: We’d have to act in concert and demonstrate to PM Hudson that this was a limited strike for the good of humanity. We still have friends in high command within the Pacifica military structure. If asked, I’m sure they could give us the time we’d need to convince her of the wisdom of avoiding any retaliatory nuclear exchange.

  PM Singh: The Vesta Project is making a mockery of all our efforts to reduce global deficits and return our economies to sustainability. We can’t afford this leap into space colonization; it’s insanity. These two Pacifica scientists are holding the entire planet hostage to their schemes. Once we make our evidence public, the world will agree with the necessity of our actions.

  PM Akira: Our nation is as much against the unnecessary use of atomic force as any on the planet. That said, I’m convinced of the necessity for this action. If we don’t destroy the Eater, the entire planet will be consumed and everyone will be killed. I support the detonation of the Eater. Immediately after the missiles strike, we’ll read a prepared statement to advise our people of the catastrophic nature of the threat and reveal how we were all, the whole world, being held hostage by two people who would sacrifice the entire planet to build a space colony. Sacrificing one city to thwart their plan and save the world will be seen as a sad, but trivial and necessary price.

  President Mitchell: I propose we send three one-hundred kiloton cruise missiles by three different means, to assure at least one meets its target. We can arrange an overland launch from Idaho.

  President Chu: We have a suitable submarine within striking distance of the Vancouver area.

  President Olev: One of our long-range bombers can easily reach the city from Kamchatka.

  PM Akira: Shall we say, one week from today at 2:00 pm, Pacific Time? We can request that both Drs. Mahajani and Liang are available for a conference call from the laboratory at that time.