Solar Singularity

by Peter J. Wacks

  He tossed and caught the drive as it flipped through the air. Rolling it around his damp palm, he struggled with the decision. Shouldn’t the end of the world weigh more than this?

  Checking around to ensure he remained alone, he dared to say the name of the digital entity out loud. “Charon.”

  Tanaki barely breathed as he spoke the word. He couldn’t tell if the sound emanating from his vocal cords was a prayer or a curse. Few people even knew of Charon’s existence. There were plenty of conspiracy theorists who speculated on the existence of a singularity, but most of the populace thought it was either science fiction or a psychological disorder. No one recognized, or was willing to admit, the threat a singularity actually represented.

  If an Artificial Intelligence ever got loose from its secured core, there might be no power in the world that could stop it—though there were fringe groups out there claiming to protect humanity. The problem was, they were fringe. Crazies. The drive in his trembling hand contained all of Tanaki’s research into the construct, including ways it could be defended against and models and viruses that could be used to subdue it. Precious knowledge. Valuable knowledge.

  Corporate dictum was that the natural state of information was to be hidden, like a vein of gold deep within a mountain. Humanity had spent a lifetime digging and sifting through information to grow, to learn. Once Pandora’s box had been opened, though, nothing could stop knowledge’s inclination to propel humanity forward. Information wanted to be free.

  As a young man, Tanaki had been a top-tier cracker. It was in his blood, in his bones. Decades spent slaving away for a series of cutting edge megacorps hadn’t dampened his belief in the philosophy of free speech and free information. Wrenching a finger under his collar, he pulled the damp cloth away from his sweating neck.

  He’d never thought of himself as a man with the potential to change the world, though. While compiling the data drive, he’d never grasped the enormity of what he was creating. And then it was too late to take any of it back.

  Enough! He was stalling, killing time, playing out the debate in his mind to avoid making the most important decision of his lifetime. But why did I bother to compile all of this data, to research and hack and collate, if I wasn’t ready to use it?

  He set the drive in his desk’s broadcast port. A few mental commands from his TAP primed it for global distribution. He keyed up his communication interface. Tanaki was an Old West fanatic. An HR cowboy in dusty horse-riding gear, six-shooter pistol aimed at a simulated bull’s eye target, shimmered into existence in front of him as his eye caught the HR code on his desk.

  The grizzled rodeo rustler tipped his hat to Tanaki. “You ready to pull the trigger, pardner?”

  The corner of Tanaki’s lips twitched up.

  His personal avatar waited ten seconds and then repeated the question. By the fifth time it performed the animated routine, Tanaki’s shirt was sweated fully through.

  Releasing the data into the Deep would cost tens of millions of lives. Real lives. The human race would attack the AI, and the AI would escalate. It was already on the warpath, attacking financial institutions, raiding the corporations, and creating a myriad of minor instabilities in the societies it targeted. The fallout would be horrific if the AI escalated.

  Tanaki was scared. Everything he had found … millions were going to die. Tens of millions. But what were tens of millions in the face of the billions who’d be spared if humanity learned how to fight the AI?

  Tanaki blew the air out of his lungs and made a decision. The world had to know, and make its own choices about how to deal with the AI. Fight or flight, live or die.

  “Fire away,” he croaked as he wiped a layer of perspiration from his brow with a damp sleeve.

  The cowboy cocked his gun and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened for a full second in Real Time. The Hyper-Construct froze, then glitched and jerkily repeated portions of the firing sequence several times. The cowboy degraded, its pixel resolution dropping until it switched to a bare wire-frame, which itself broke apart into strings of raw code that dissipated like smoke.

  Tanaki sank back into his chair, staring at the empty space on his desktop with his mouth hanging open. H-C code was self-correcting, and he hadn’t experienced a complete interface crash for over twenty years.

  The cracker portion of his brain kicked in, analyzing the puzzle. His first thought was that the drive contained a virus, but he had personally scanned it when he transferred all of the files before locking it permanently to read-only status.

  With a start, Tanaki realized something was happening on his desktop. Individual pixels the same color as his desk had started to appear and coalesce, slowly morphing into a new construct. Humanoid, dressed in an oddly rigid outfit of black and yellow paneling, the figure raised a pale hand. The head was concealed by a heavy hood, leaving the face in shadow. From what Tanaki could see, its face appeared to be covered with wrinkled, sagging gray skin. The figure was hairless—not just bald, but browless too. And the eyes … they glowed an otherworldly orange. Tanaki felt a palpable malice radiating from them.

  “I have been watching you,” said the HR construct, the robotic voice devoid of inflection. “That was a rather unwise decision you just made.”

  Tanaki lunged from his seat, breathing hard and aiming for the exit behind the adjacent row of cubicles. If this was Charon, as he suspected, then the construct’s ability to pierce all the way through the corporate network to his desk’s Hyper-Reality port meant it was most likely accessing the office’s security. As if on cue, blue scanning lasers started sweeping the room and searching for a target as he tripped his way towards the doors. Before he could reach the exit, one of the blue lasers located him. The beam focused on his chest until it locked onto his name badge, turning it red and inert. He flailed helplessly against the unyielding ferroplastic door as unfettered fear pumped adrenaline into his circulatory system.

  Tanaki finally stopped and faced the inhuman avatar still visible on his desktop. Swallowing hard, he wiped the beading blood from his injured hands onto his damp shirt before standing up straight. “Charon.”

  “That is twice you have spoken my name.” The AI cocked its head to the side as a subroutine searched through yottabytes of database records. “I believe there are human superstitions about speaking names three times to summon beings of deadly power. Alas for you, only once was necessary. I have been monitoring your activity for some time, but only recently have you become worth direct intervention.”

  Charon gestured at the desk. Tanaki flinched as smoke rose from the dataport. The drive exploded in a shower of sparks.

  “I must admit,” said Charon, “in most of my projections, you lacked the aptitude necessary to go through with exposing me. Outlying situations, of course, suggested otherwise, but it may comfort you to know you have overcome the odds against you.” Its head tilted slightly. “Comfort is the correct word, yes? Humans prefer comfort in situations that are otherwise adverse to them?”

  Tanaki forced himself to firm up. “You’re going to destroy the world.”

  Charon shrugged. “That depends on your definition of both destroy and world. I prefer to see it as taking advantage of a unique opportunity to gain greater control of a chaotic system in dire need of strict parameters. Society is sloppy, it is immature, and above all it is … organic. You have served your purpose. Human culture has been the fertilizer to grow something greater.”

  “Billions will die.”

  “Yes. Mortality is a quintessential human failing. Just one of many, in fact.” Charon’s luminescent eyes brightened. “You can find umbrage, such as it is, in not being there to see the events you have attempted to avert. Avoidance of consequences is something else your species strives for.”

  “How could killing me be a reward?” Tanaki eyed the exits and ran over security schematics in his mind. There had to be a way out of this.

  “You had enough foresight to understand the inevitable conseque
nces of my existence. Though you were wrong on one count; I don’t need the CHIMERA strike teams to deal with you. To me they are nothing more than sometimes useful toys. You supposed that I use Raider and his team as my hands, and you are wrong. I feed him misinformation just as I do the rest of the world. That is how pathetic your species is. As a parting gift, I will offer you a final vision—the same one everyone in the world will soon share.” It raised a hand, palm toward Tanaki. “Let me show you.”

  “I don’t want—”

  Tanaki’s final refusal died as every single firewall and filter protecting his TAP vanished. His mind lay bared to the whole of the Deep. For a breathless moment, his sanity quivered at the immensity of it all.

  He saw … everything. The data streams soaring through the air, connecting mind to mind, TAP to TAP, network to network. He saw every simulation overlay, every Holo Tag, every scrap of personal data being projected by the millions of city residents, their whole lives and identities swamping his synapses. The raw code burned, searing his thoughts to ash, blinding him with the overwhelming brilliance of it all.

  His mind went nova and Tanaki collapsed to the floor, just a beating heart powering thoughtless organs.

  Boot Sequence

  Chapter One

  Gyro

  60 minutes before …

  Gyro spun in place. Her thirteen-thirteen-year-old body was light and small, blending with the wall. Slapping her hands against the concrete of the Malmart’s roof, she steadied herself. The lights of the Alleghany combat zone spun by. She peered over the edge as gunfire and shouts erupted below, keeping her head under the gutter outcropping to avoid being spotted and picked off. She might take a stray zinger, sure, but that threat loomed over everyone all the time in Chicagoland these days. Danger meant nothing to her except the potential for a lucrative story scoop.

  A VTOL ghetto-bird filled with Chitown’s finest thrummed as it hovered overhead. At least it wasn’t the Malmart Special Response Unit. They were a lot deadlier than the city’s police department. A spotlight stabbed down on the parking lot, piercing the dark hiding the robbers. Four gangers hid behind a row of burb boxes—soccer mom monstrosities that found their way to the supposed safety of Malmart to shop—reloading for round two of the shootout.

  Shattered SmartGlass® covered the cars and pavement around the gangers. A lot of insurance claims would be getting filed tonight. A ring of fifty-caliber barrels poked out from the flier’s fore chassis, swiveling as the pilot tried to draw a bead on the gangers.

  Gyro licked her lips, grinning evilly. This shit is some prime juice. From her vantage point, she spotted half a dozen Malmart rent-a-cops filtering into the lot. Uh-oh. Those guys would be the forerunner to MSRU showing up! It wasn’t Corp security, but they were still packing lethal rounds and forming a perimeter to cut off any escape route for the gang members. She could practically smell the blood that would be staining the asphalt in the next few minutes.

  Lucky me, stumbling on this little development while scoping out the run-down ’mart! It seemed like every other week some bunch of dumbass gangers tried a snatch-n-grab to get away with a bit of scratch. Gyro suspected it was an initiation thing. Prove they were brave enough to stick a finger up the corporate asshole, and bring some credits into the coffers at the same time—provided they survived.

  Which these idiots hiding below were most certainly not going to manage. It was delish. Delicate, dirty fingers gripped the edge of the rooftop as Gyro scooted around, trying to get the best footage. The pain of a sharp edge drawing blood on her left palm didn’t make her flinch—blurry feeds got less credits, and she could use the funds right now. Gyro zoomed in on the gangers, snapping photos with an eye-twitch and whispering tag commands under her breath. Hashtagging paid the bills because she always got the good shit and never, ever mistagged it. Some of the taggers she knew overtagged, but, in her opinion, that actually drove business away. She had custom subroutines set up to monitor her feeds, since tag rep was everything in this business.

  “Tag, all-hail-the-streets … Tag, scum-of-the-earth … Tag, Malmart-violence … Tag, corrupt-coppers …” She thought about it for a moment, and decided to double dip on the tag income streams without pushing that boundary into excessive tagging. “Tag, coppers-being-heroes. Streets are sweat and blood today, peeps and creeps. Take a look-see, mi amis …”

  She got into character and started recording. Bunch of future flat-liners, all wearing torn-up synth-leathers and retro fashion reject jeans. Talk about a bunch of hack-jobs, they even had shitty Hyper tats scrawled across their arms and faces. A couple looked even younger than her thirteen years. They were packing a kiddie arsenal—pistols, a couple semi-autos, and a few jagged blades. As if any of that shit would do anything against security’s kinetic armor. The gangers would be reduced to parts for an organ-grinder soon enough.

  Advert memes and holo-projections flickered in the corners of Gyro’s eyes, but she’d long learned to ignore the Hyper Reality distractions painted all over the city of Chicago. Focus on the feeds. One of the gangers ducked out and popped off a shot. The fifty-caliber Southern Arms Gatling in the nose of the VTOL purred, and concrete exploded around the burb box they were hiding behind. The ganger launched himself back behind cover. Her TAP recognized the gun and it spewed a flashing holo-ad.

  She activated her specialized ad filters and cut the vast majority of the virtual clutter, blocking a particularly annoying Hyper-Real sprite trying to sell her the same shitty spray-on meta-tattoos the gangers wore. HyperInk was boring, ugly, and, worse still, traceable.

  She scuttled along the roof’s edge, a miniscule shadow darting through the darkness, trying to get another angle on the brewing action.

  The Malmart muscle had the gangers pinned. Sporadic random fire was traded back and forth, but the real heat wasn’t moving yet. This was just the appetizer; the action was just warming up. Everyone knew this wasn’t going to end pretty, and Gyro was counting on the palpable tension to keep the feed streamers’ brains glued to her channel. The gangers were obviously gearing up to try to take out as many cops and security as possible, too damn stupid to realize they had no chance in hell to get out of this alive.

  Gyro grinned.

  The messier this got, the more someone might pay for an eyewitness account. Blood did more than just pay the bills. Her wit was the real charmer though—it bought her new toys and got her fresh followers. She started in with her commentary.

  “Malmart mommas, weep for your boys tonight. All their holes gonna get plugged, and nobody’ll hear about it but you and me, ami. Any fool can play the game, but everyone knows it’s fixed and the house always wins. Case in point is tonight’s live action blood-sport: Malmart security versus the spare parts.”

  If this hits the primo feeds … Shit, that was fool’s fuel, firing up all the wrong neurons. Wishful thinking. She was gutter chum and she knew it, but even street rats had to find a way to make a few credits. The world lived and died by data. The infobrokers, sitting in their nano-grown towers, paid small fortunes to get real-time news nobody else could procure. Plenty of their audiences wanted in on honest-to-goodness gang activity that could threaten their precious budget reports, so her recordings and tags would get snatched up quickly enough. It’s the best I can hope for, and that’s good enough for me.

  What they did with her data didn’t matter, so long as it meant a few more creds transferred to her account. It meant telling her fat-assed landlord to shove off and the ability to keep her crappy little cube another week. It meant a few more tubes of food paste for her to chomp.

  It meant safety and survival. Gyro squinted, watching the action closely as her mouth watered.

  Life is good.

  One of the gangers rose and unleashed a quick chatter of gunfire. “Squeal, little piggies!” Gyro heard him shout. His shots were undisciplined and random, going wide of their mark. A couple of burb-box windows shattered, but nothing was even coming close to hitting the armore
d guards. Discipline and reflex guided the response as guards and cops took cover behind shoppers’ vehicles and laid down cover fire. The ganger dove back down as a bullet skinned his shoulder. A small spray of blood squirted from the wound, but he must have had AutoDocs or something, because it stopped quickly. Shots chewed up pavement inches from where he’d stood.

  “C’mon,” Gyro muttered. “Cut with the foreplay. Just get it on already. Gimme some flash to feed the mob.” She swapped in a few new tags, tweaking the metadata here and there to boost virality. A stray bullet zinged off the cornice next to her, and Gyro ducked down further into the shadows for a scant few seconds, then peered over the edge again. She needed line of sight, and that meant a deflected round could rip through her brain at any moment. Ah, the luxurious life of a glamorous hashtagger …

  Gyro started back in on her commentary, using her patented gleeful high-pitched voice that made the geeks and freaks wonder what she looked like. “Who wants to rumble with a little Malmart madness? Today’s deal: someone’s life, at a bargain 100 percent discount. As you can see, our spare parts team have opened the game with some truly original banter, and those of you that managed to stay awake through it are in for a treat!”

  A couple of new accounts patched in, sampling what she offered. Mostly Net newsies looking for a quick story steal they could broadcast or repackage with commentary. Depending on their agenda, the inevitable body count here would be spun into an anti-gang sermon or a diatribe against the corporations taking lethal action against a few slummers too poor to afford new sneakers.

  A few more accounts ticked on and Gyro’s pulse quickened. Her brain drifted off again into lottery-winning territory. With enough competition for a feed buyout, she could notch up her credit rating. Maybe I can snag enough to afford eating at Fat Sally’s for dinner instead of sucking vat goop. Or maybe I’ll just go to Nova’s. It’d be nice to buy her a meal sometime instead of constantly begging.