Silicon Uprising

by Conor McCarthy

He sat down.

  “I must apologize,” Lowgrave said. “I was in a bad mood when I made that comment about Brad. You have my sincere condolences.”

  “Thank you,” Jason said. He never knew what to believe about this guy.

  “I always wear formal dress when I dine here. It signifies that the workday is over, and sloppy dress leads to a sloppy mind.”

  “I sure haven’t looked this neat in a while.”

  “You worked on the deployment of AI systems for Zarather’s company?” Lowgrave asked. “That’s not an accusation, by the way. It’s a very effective company.”

  “My manager said I’m not brilliant like Brad, but he promoted me because my drive and willingness to take risks are perfect for the uncertainties of deploying new systems for customers who are unsure what they want.”

  “Your manager is a wise man. I admire Zarather’s ability to hire the right people, even though he’s a traitor.”

  The compliment sounded sincere, but maybe that word meant nothing when applied to the commander of the secret police.

  A woman brought in two plates of roast lamb with mint sauce, roast potatoes, and vegetables. Plain fare but with restaurant-quality preparation. The interruption relieved Jason of the need to reply to Lowgrave’s sweet talk. Starving, he grabbed the cutlery and ate a chunk of lamb.

  “Did you eat well when you lived with your parents?” Lowgrave asked.

  Jason spoke past the food. “Yeah, they did great, sometimes with few ingredients.” He stopped chewing for a second as he remembered his last dinner with his parents back in ’32. Discussion of the many signs that society was stabilizing had brought an upbeat mood to the table. But the next day they never returned from a trip to the store—ambushed on the way home.

  “One thing we agree on,” Lowgrave said. “We will prevent those conditions from recurring.”

  Jason nodded, and then remembered the Sunday evening before his life blasted out of control. He’d dined with his grandparents, but later his grandfather had solemnly collected all the phones and put them in a back room to allow the conversation to turn to censorship and social control.

  Maybe their last memory of him would be of that night. They’d try to figure out if their only grandson had been taken and why.

  Lowgrave must have noticed his distraction. He made nothing of it.

  “You enjoy dealing with complex problems, situations where your information is incomplete,” Lowgrave said.

  “I do. It’s good work.”

  “Dealing with people, as I do, is much the same. But you do a lot of that too.”

  “I deal with clients. Some of them think the AI is some kind of creative genius that will dream up new products to take the market by storm.”

  “The world is full of fools. The CMC is an excellent government because AI can account for more variables than the greatest human genius. A fact worth remembering.”

  Jason wanted to tell him that human beings had an incalculable, irrational element that out of pure spite would seek to destroy any plan the CMC implemented in revenge for its meddling. But it would have been a serious error to say it.

  Besides, maybe the CMC had factored that into its plan. Maybe it did have the answers and Zarather’s people were misguided in thinking that it was wrong. Or maybe Zarather really wanted to be a dictator.

  Jason looked down at his half-eaten meal. “I acted on the only information available, from people I trusted.”

  “Soon I’ll have evidence enough to convince you that your trust was misplaced.”

  Jason looked him in the eyes. “I look forward to seeing it.” He meant it as a challenge as well as a promise to accept the evidence. He would die rather than lie to himself to justify his cooperation. Now Lowgrave knew it.

  “You were a boy during the Strife. Let’s see, you’re twenty-three now, so thirteen to sixteen. Must have been tough. I was a man and knew the score.”

  “We spent nights in the basement with electronic intrusion detection and a kind of airlock in case someone threw smoke or gas in. For a last resort we dug a tunnel out to a concealed exit by the back fence. Shored up inside and everything. My father got shit done. At first I thought he was kidding. The times changed him.”

  “How many times did you need to fight?”

  Jason spent a moment in silence.

  “Twice. We could shoot through a slot in the steel basement door. The second time was during the worst winter, ’30 to ’31. My parents let me fight. That’s when my brother died.”

  “Thomas, died January of ’31. But by ’34 the CMC had restored order and amazingly you were able to attend college.”

  Jason slowly poked his fork into a piece of broccoli. “I don’t doubt that I owe a lot to the CMC, but if it’s going to—” He’d nearly said “make us into zoo animals.” But even if Lowgrave kept that to himself, electronic eyes watched them. Every cell of his body said so.

  “You have information,” Lowgrave said. “They told you.”

  “The Black Doves know of the CMC’s theory about human flaws. I don’t know how they got that information, but they’ve formed their own contrary ideas. The chaos wasn’t eliminated—it was buried. At some point it will explode because the CMC will cause it to. Crimson Unity are a symptom of that.”

  Lowgrave laughed. “So they call themselves the Black Doves, and this is their ideology. Interesting. Crimson Unity are a remnant. They will be buried.”

  “And then what? A perfect world?”

  “The best that can be designed. Then we colonize space. Want to explore Mars? I can get you into the program if you pass minimum testing. Not the first mission next year, of course. Your job with me will be unfinished, anyway.”

  “Never thought of it. I guess the trip in Zarather’s toy was enough.”

  In fact he’d devoured every detail of the Mars mission, living in space in his imagination, descending to the surface and walking out across the red desert. He had explored the vessel’s interior in virtual reality. But too much agreement with Lowgrave felt like weakness.

  “I too protected my family in the Strife,” Lowgrave said. “One night three raiders attacked my house. I killed one and pursued the other two as they fled. I wanted to kill them too and I did. But when I returned, there stood the one I thought I’d killed. The shot had blown away a piece of his skull. I could see his brain. And yet he stood there holding my son and cutting his throat. My son would be nineteen now. The raider had already shot my wife.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine it.”

  “Somehow I hauled the killer to my basement without damaging his exposed brain. I nailed him to a post and left him there to die. I added a couple of nails later when I couldn’t get to sleep. I slept after that. Whenever I felt angry, I added another nail. He lasted for three days.”

  “Well,” Jason said, and gulped, “I guess he made his choice.”

  “And he paid. But he failed to find my daughter, and I made sure nobody ever got into my house again. I never spread the word about what I did to the raider, but the experience of doing it gave me power.” Lowgrave clenched his fist. “People see me and they know that I’m capable of that. The power flows in my blood, dwells in every cell of my body. My daughter is twenty-two now and getting married. I will have grandchildren. We made this computer system and got it installed in government to ensure a future for those children. I won’t have it spoiled by upstarts who think they know better.”

  Jason replied with great caution. “Of course. I understand.”

  “That girl you’re interested in—Emily. Yes, the system can tell. An executive has proposed to her and she’s still deciding. But you can have her. You can be more important, more powerful than them.”

  “I don’t know. It depends on how she feels—”

  “It’s inevitable. Think about what you most want to do after finishing with me. The best opportunities in AI, a trip to Mars, or something else.” A superior grin spread across his face. “Yes, I
know you’re a Mars enthusiast.”

  The woman returned to remove the empty plates. Lowgrave stood and Jason followed.

  “I don’t eat dessert,” Lowgrave said. “Think about our discussion. You know, when dealing with the likes of Crimson Unity, the CMC’s lack of human irrationality enables it to tell us who’s guilty and needs shooting. So we shoot instead of tying up the criminal justice system and releasing dangerous people. Understand that and your conscience will be clear.”

  “Okay.”

  “These Black Dove people seem to have information in advance about CMC policy, which suggests a high-level source.”

  Jason succeeded in not gulping from the shock. In fact his straight-faced reply surprised him. “They never said anything about that. I only heard what I told you.” Which was true. Now Lowgrave would hunt down the source if they had one. But was the source doing more harm than good by leaking information? He didn’t know how to feel about it.

  The jailer arrived at the door. Lowgrave made no reaction to Jason’s reply. Instead he addressed the jailer.

  “As a reward for Jason’s civilized behavior at dinner, put him in cell one.”

  Twenty-Eight

  CELL ONE WAS two levels above and twice the size of his previous one. It had a larger and more comfortable bed, a chair, and a desk where he found an ebook reader loaded with material. He missed the constant hypnotic sound of coolant flow down below the pipes, but that was a small price to pay. The next morning the jailer brought Wilberforce to join Jason for exercise in the desert. They set off jogging together while the jailer climbed to his usual spot on the roof and lit a cigarette.

  “Lowgrave’s an interesting character,” Jason said. “He went through some heavy shit protecting his family back during the Strife.”

  “He’s dedicated,” Wilberforce said. “A few years ago I thought we could put a permanent end to that mess by restoring traditional democracy.” His face dropped and he looked more ashen than usual in the predawn chill. “I was wrong. We couldn’t handle what’s happening without this system.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Many of us thought you were right at the time.”

  They jogged in silence for the duration. Sometimes Jason glanced over at the former political heavyweight. His face appeared shrunken, his expression distant, as if his spirit dwelled in some faraway place.

  When at last they returned to the building, the jailer was puffing away on his tobacco, seemingly disinterested. Breathless, the prisoners descended with him again into the earth.

  Jason felt comfortable enough in cell one to spend weeks there if it was necessary before he reached a common understanding with Lowgrave. The man had a hard edge but seemed more reasonable than Jason had feared. Maybe the times called for such a man.

  After a robot took away the remains of Jason’s breakfast, Lowgrave came to the cell and took him to the interrogation room.

  “I want you to know,” Lowgrave said, “I sincerely regret Brad’s death. We need men like him in our society. I’m sorry he’s gone and that you’ve lost his friendship.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell me more about him. What was he like?”

  Jason laughed. “He paid a lot of fines for things he said online.”

  “Amusing, I’m sure, but the fines are levied for a reason.”

  “People need to let off steam, voice dissatisfaction, joke—”

  “This is a symptom of the disease we are trying to eliminate. It may seem trivial, but crap like that takes on a life of its own. It becomes amplified until you have the level of dissent behind Crimson Unity.”

  “We can have online dissent without causing that. It’s necessary. In fact Crimson Unity resulted from oppression—”

  “That kind of radical talk is the mark of a traitor.” Lowgrave’s booming voice burst out at full volume and shocked Jason’s ears. “Guard!”

  Lowgrave sat still and glared at him. Jason looked at the table in silence. Suddenly he became aware of the rush of coolant in the background.

  The door clanged open and the jailer swaggered in. His hand, heavy as a gorilla’s, clamped Jason’s arm and hauled him off to the water-drip cell. He took Jason’s shoes before pushing him inside.

  At first Jason sat meditatively. He had no need for sleep as it was morning. He told himself he could contemplate the overall situation and ignore the drips. But annoyance piled up within him until one last tiny whack on the crown of his head sent him flying off the bed to kick the door. Immediately he regretted it and sat down. He focused on the drips and began a game of slow sideways movement that shifted the impacts toward the edge of his body. He started to feel he’d achieved a small victory when it was about to hit only his loose clothing.

  The next came from a different hole. A petulant slap on his forehead just above his right eyebrow.

  “Fuck you,” he shouted.

  He could almost feel the presence of the great intelligence, watching, calculating. Look at this specimen and how it reacts in anger. It has poor self-control.

  Defiant, he tried again, adjusting his clothing to provide a target with no flesh underneath. He edged along the bed, spine erect and face solemn. A drip hit loose cloth. It felt less annoying than a direct hit.

  The next drip fell into the toilet. Doink. The sound seemed to reverberate off the steel door and back at him. A little message from the machine. I know what you’re doing.

  Another drop fell moments later on his wrist. Tick.

  He lay down, stretched, spread out defiantly on the bed, and focused on the rage that kept welling up inside him. It rose, he relaxed even further to prevent a reaction, it fell again.

  A drip fell right on his crotch. Pock. He remained still.

  Another hit his closed eye. Splat. Still.

  One right in the center of the solar plexus. Bop. No reaction.

  The next splattered on his bare foot just behind the toes. He needed all his strength to stop himself from kicking the wall.

  Again on the crotch.

  He leapt from the bed and put his full momentum into kicking the door. The force stung his bare foot and pushed him back to the center of the cell, where he stood still for half a minute, his chest rising and falling with fierce breaths. He settled onto the hard concrete cross-legged and sat in silence for a long time. The drips became a distant phenomenon. He saw dream images while fully awake. A clown blowing bubbles at him. Each drip was a bubble drifting into him and bursting. The clown became a dark faceless form that poked him with a cold stick while water oozed from it. The figure dripped with water and Jason sat in a pool six inches deep. He remained there until pain in his legs forced him up.

  On the bed he settled into a fitful storm of thoughts about the events since Zarather had disappeared. He felt as if he needed to solve an incalculable problem. Every choice, all the alternatives, each scrap of information demanded analysis in an endless infinite project. Hours passed in torment.

  The door clanked open. The jailer returned him to the comfortable room. He sat on the bed and looked at the ebook reader as if the words belonged to an absurd alternate reality. Aliens had written them. He had never seen such things before.

  He lay down and fell asleep.

  Twenty-Nine

  JASON AWOKE TO the groaning of the cell door. Lowgrave entered carrying a tablet. He beamed as if he were celebrating.

  “I admire your endurance,” Lowgrave said. “With training, your anger can be mastered and channeled to vast effect. You’ll go far with it.”

  “Didn’t feel like I was going anywhere but hell.”

  “You feel much better this morning, don’t you?”

  Sleep had done him good. He vaguely remembered a sound in the cell while he slept, and that it had somehow made him sleep well.

  “I feel okay.”

  Lowgrave started a video playing and presented the tablet to him. “During the Strife, a group of high-level bankers were held captive at their lakeside accommodations. Reco
gnize anyone?”

  Jason remembered the case. The raiders had beaten and eventually shot the bankers. The official word was that some of the raiders from that incident later joined Crimson Unity.

  Two men, aged maybe seventeen or eighteen, grinned at the camera and showed off their pistols. A bank executive knelt behind them, bound and gagged. His head hung down. One of the teens placed his pistol against the back of the banker’s head and pulled the trigger. The camera zoomed in on blood pouring from the wound as the body lay on the floor. Someone offscreen was laughing gleefully. The camera zoomed out to show two teenage girls kneeling, their hair gripped by two raiders, forcing them to watch. The girls’ eyes looked through the scene into the distance, as if they were zombies.

  The gunman was Eddie. The madman had sure gotten around in those days.

  Lowgrave paused the video.

  “The same man who enjoyed drilling. There’s no rule of law, no due process with these people,” Lowgrave said. “Determination of guilt is arbitrary. They may stop with executives. Later their families could be guilty too. Then they might shoot friends or people the executives liked or worked closely with. But maybe middle management should be shot too. Or all business owners. Anyone who owns stock. Who knows where it will stop.”

  Lowgrave was no fan of due process, but Jason dared not say it. Instead he pointed at Eddie.

  “He led the group when we attacked the house.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Eddie. Probably not his real name.”

  “What are the names of his terrorist comrades?”

  “I don’t know. Not going to describe them since I don’t know if they’re murderers.”

  Lowgrave’s finger jabbed at the screen. “This character leads one of the most effective cells in North America and knows the lead planners and propagandists personally. Now give me all that you have on his comrades. The fact that these people associate with him tells you all you need to know about them. The more I know about each strand of this web the easier it will be to catch what lurks at its center.”