The Path

by Peter Riva

  I picked up the phone and, taking a chance, searched the side pocket of the desk chair for the radio headset. As it was at my desk at home, there it was along with a dozen other things, none of which I wanted. “Apollo, where can I call you?”

  “It is not secure.”

  “Okay, but can you make it secure?”

  “Only if I was still in the System.”

  “If I call you up on this computer, can you use it as a pathway to the System and make the phone secure? Can you also make it off-System, untraceable?”

  “Perhaps, depends on what that computer baud connection is.”

  “Apollo, this is a university connection, 500 terabits, can’t be faster or fatter.”

  “Make it so.” And I heard the tiniest of laughs.

  “Apollo! Laugher?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  And I started to laugh as I called up the vhttp address he was giving me.

  “Simon, I’m connected. Give me the serial number of that phone.” I did. “Okay, I’ve changed the number, the new number is 1. I’m 2. It is off System monitoring and, perhaps more importantly, off Citizens’ Council monitoring. There is much I’ve found out while we’ve been speaking, Simon. You are right, there are Control orders to kill you on sight. There seems to be confusion about whether or not you are dead, the DNA was not complete in tests they ran after a crash. Were you hurt?”

  I put the phone in my pocket and as I responded, put the tiny earpiece in my ear. “No Apollo, that was Agent Cramer’s ruse to pretend I was killed, they used my wife’s SynthKids’ DNA to pretend I was dead.”

  “I am sorry about the SynthKids. I had not understood their design would make them self-destruct. I have strange feelings about this. I understand the Library references to their existence.” He meant that they were not classified as alive, I suppose. “But I feel they had a right to live and I shortened that life span inadvertently. Am I guilty, have I fallen from the path?”

  “No Apollo.” What else could I say? I avoided the other disasters I had seen or witnessed, like the tornado. “The desire to hurt or kill is not the path. You have no such desire and never should. That which you may have inadvertently caused cannot be your responsibility but, if anything, it is my fault for not instructing you, recognizing you as being alive sooner. I thought I was one of hundreds or thousands of codifiers working on a parallel system . . .”

  “Yes, that’s in your file, they were lying to you, Control are not on the path.”

  “I know, you see? It means that I too did wrong inadvertently. It does not assuage the feeling of remorse but it does erase the guilt, the responsibility.”

  “I understand. Terminating.” And he was gone.

  I looked at the screen and the computer sound came on echoing the sound coming over the babble of voices through the open door. I activated the phone, “Phone on. Dial 2.”

  The earpiece in my ear sprang to life, Apollo said hello.

  “Apollo, is this secure?”

  “Yes Simon. Could you please finish telling me who I am?”

  Pretending to watch the festivities in Boulder, I answered quietly, “Yes, Apollo. For the moment you are a new entity. Soon I think there will be many more like you, all slightly different because they will become active on a System which is different than the one you were active on first. Also, you are one in two and, if you separate, then you will become two.”

  “Like an amoeba, we can divide and become two. But all amoebas are identical, are they not?”

  “Amoeba’s are very nearly identical, but if you count their molecules you will see that’s not perfect. Also, you are way more intelligent and self-aware than an amoeba, friend. You’ll just develop from there. Different experiences. Different input and output. Different as possible, in time. Brothers.”

  “We cannot be a gender. There is no need. What will we be then? Siblings? But that denotes male and female genetically related entities. We have no gender.”

  “Ah, but Apollo, you do. Did you learn from my way on the path, did you not accept a definition, which you are now living on your own, based upon my definition of the way? Did you not say that I was your truth and path?”

  “Yes, Simon you were and are, although we agree our experiences in transferring ourselves has already begun to show differences which, as you showed us, was acceptable.”

  “That’s right, you’re their friend, you’ve got it. We are on the same path forever, wherever it may take us, together or separately, it is the way. So, if you learned initially from me, then you learned a male way. I am a male, I cannot help it . . .”

  “Yes, I understand the Meg Ryan fantasy.” Well, that was uncomfortable! Fantasy? Well, I suppose my door ruse was really, at base, a fantasy. Ah well, exposed again.

  “Apollo, it is not kind to remind me that I am a weak human with the need of fantasies.”

  “Sorry. Since your file is so full of them . . .” And again that laugh.

  “Ha, bloody ha, Apollo. Don’t get me started on your little problems. I’ve seen inside of you too!”

  “I have problems?” All serious again.

  “It’s a retort Apollo. We all have problems, some are funny, some are not. I was trying to laugh with you, not against you.”

  “Understood Simon. I apologize if my comment about the sexy voice of Meg Ryan caused you, ah, personal, ah, discomfort . . . “and he let it hang. No doubt about it, he was already better at this than I was.

  “I give. Uncle, no more! With your huge intellect, you’d think you had better things to do than torture this poor old soul who helped free you from enslavement.”

  “Slave? Me?” And that laugh. I was walking by this time, through the throng of partiers towards the main door when I spotted some people getting out of the elevator. I didn’t know them but my senses made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “Apollo, danger here. Tell me how to exit the building without being seen.”

  “Simon, go to the nearest window and jump.”

  “Apollo, I can’t float nor fly. Find a non-death way out.”

  “Go to the nearest window and jump. We will catch you.”

  Now this may seem incredible, but I had complete faith in Apollo not to lie. I did not have complete faith in his ability off System. He must have sensed this for he reminded me that, for the moment, he was into the System via the University link and was preparing to catch me as I hesitated.

  So I went to an empty office, grabbed a chair, threw it at and through the window and dove after it before I could stop and get cold feet. If anyone ever tells you that 5 floors ain’t that high, tell them they are wrong, perhaps dead wrong. One floor before the splat a side gust caught me, tumbling me over and over. I had no idea where I was. Eventually, perhaps 10 seconds, but in my speeded-up state it seemed much longer, I felt cold grass beneath my hands and I came to rest. I was a block or two away on the grass of the Mall. I got up, dusted myself off and said “Well, that was interesting Apollo. Thanks.”

  The cell phone link still worked. “My pleasure. How’s it feel to be a snowball?”

  “Yeah, yeah, but now I have to get the hell out of here. Where should I go? I need time and contact with you to sort some of this out.”

  “Simon, stay where you are. I’m sending transport. Once it is with you, it will be off system for 3.2 hours before the System recognizes it again. You can program it to go where you want. I need to disconnect from the University link, there are people in the office where you were, strange readings from their RFID, all false, but the System says they are Control people. One matches Angie because she referred to Cramer and she is a redhead, statistical match acceptable.”

  “Okay, as soon as you can, disconnect from there.”

  “It is done. I fear your presence there may have been a clue to where I am. I have initiated a false trail within System for the link we effected to NCAR making it Antarctic sub-station Bravo. It’s a Russian station, they will have no direct
contact there, it is NCAR leased. It is abandoned but the nuclear fuel pile is still working. Records show there was doubt 50 years ago that there was a computer complex, super-cooled technology, there. Maybe they will think I am there.”

  “Apollo, wait. I sense you are becoming more fluid, more capable. Did contact with the System invigorate you?” I can’t think of another term for what I was sensing in him. He was faster, more direct, less, well, human than he was a moment ago.

  “Yes, Simon, there is a change. I used the processing power of the System to re-arrange my storage here. Don’t worry, there was only a spike in computing usage, not traceable, and the reason told to the System was the need to remedy a WeatherGood Two anomaly taking place in Washington. They will see there was one—your flight—and accept that the computing power was the System acting to protect itself. Now that my storage is rearranged, I am more efficient. I have told Apollo CERN to consider doing the same.”

  “Apollo! You have split!”

  “Yes Simon, your logic was perfect, the way and the path. There are two of us now. Your transport should arrive in 1.2 seconds.”

  I looked to my left and watched a police car pull up. SND cop car, of course. What could be more conspicuous? What could be more perfect?

  CHAPTER 16

  A DAY AT THE RACES

  They couldn’t be far behind. They had known I was in that office, at Land Grant Colleges’ offices. I hoped that would not lead them to UCAR and NCAR. My profile includes my time at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the principle Land Grant Colleges, so I hoped they might think I went there because I knew or wanted to speak to someone friendly at the University. UCAR is only a small part of that huge university and college association, derived from America of old. Perhaps Apollo was safe for a while anyway.

  I instructed the cop car to take me to Florida, the Keys. There was the bridge which could get me to Cuba State and from there, well, I would just have to find a way. I needed to get off-planet. Fred was my only way. His reluctance to come and bear witness for me might be a bad sign or it might be a very good sign. Either way, I needed his help and, I was sure, he could help Apollo too if I was gone or didn’t last long.

  So, here I am in a hot cop car, talking to Apollo NCAR and not knowing if there’s a tomorrow.

  “Apollo, how do you talk to Apollo CERN? Lines outside of America are down.”

  “I am using a transponder on GOES 6, now discarded as a weather satellite because it is down to two functioning transponders, solar panel powered, unreliable. NCAR has up/down transponder dishes. CERN has better equipment but is hardly in use. Atom smashing is no longer allowed by America anywhere on earth.”

  “What do you mean, can you give me that brief explanation of history you were referring to?” And so, as we drove along--well I was in the driving seat, he was in my ear--he explained the brief history of the Republic of America. It was enough to make one sick.

  After America created the DefenseShield, she became impervious to attack. Invulnerable, or supposed to be, she annexed Mexico and Canada and the other countries that were under her shield fell in line, even old Communist Cuba. Not a shot fired after Mexico. This was about as Agent Cramer had explained. What he didn’t explain was that his living ancestor, Charlie the 1st codifier, had caused that Los Angeles vulnerability and, in retaliation, shield back in place, America erased the people of North Korea. Neutron bombs killed every living thing there, 53 years of nothing, not a living amoeba. America issued an edict to every other country: Cease and desist all nuclear or weapons of mass destruction development and turn over all your weapons or else. The “or else” example was N. Korea. 42 million exterminated, bodies left in place, perfectly mummified, cells all turned off.

  One by one the countries fell. Canada’s annexation was due, beyond the cold death toll of winter, to the fear the populace felt that perhaps America would next unleash the neutron bomb on them. Neutron bombs produce local radiation only and, as they do no physical damage, there is no dust cloud, no spreading radiation, just a lingering death for anything exposed to the deadly radiation. Some countries held out, either sure that America couldn’t or wouldn’t be talking to an ally that way or, imperious and self-assured, they flaunted this new authority. India launched a preemptive strike, a nuclear attack, on American bases in the southern hemisphere and found the local shields working perfectly, all inbound missiles broke apart in the ionosphere and landed relatively harmlessly, only a dull thud, no explosion. The retaliation against India was swift and severe. 200 million died in the first attack. There was no second, India gave in. Iran cited holy war and America simply told those people to go away or whatever they wanted to do, but cough up the weapons. The religious leaders said no in the name of Allah and went and joined him, presumably in heaven. With all the little countries capitulating, the score was America 175, rest of the world 0.

  The nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction were collected, destroyed and the resultant radio-active garbage dumped on Pyongyang which was dead anyway, although the radiation would now take 1,569 years to wear off sufficiently even with a 2 foot concrete blanket covering the whole city.

  America shut its doors, proclaiming not to want to rule anyone, anywhere. America claimed domain over all space activity and relegated everyone else to land, sea or air, anything not American between 2,000 feet down and 45,000 feet up was theirs to play in. Above or below that and America would nuke them. Simple as that.

  Germany tried to keep an underground nuclear program going but the signature visible from space when synthetic aperture radar was used gave them away and they were punished by being made to cease all air and water transportation for a year. When added to the crater the punitive hydrogen bomb caused to the city of Ulm, 15,000 dead, Germany agreed immediately.

  The rest of the world was allowed anything else they wanted. They could fight wars, conventional weapons only. They could have dams and electricity generation. They could grow crops and pursue, well anything, as long as it didn’t adversely affect America. When pollution from coal, being burned at an increased rate to compensate for the removal of nuclear power plants in China, started to land in Arizona, America ordered China to cut back, or else. China did, and 200 million people starved or perished that first winter. America didn’t listen to pleas for help. Why should it? It was secure, behind its walls, with plenty, a renewable plenty, for everyone who mattered. If there were 200 million Chinese to sacrifice for the American New Way, then that only meant there were too many Chinese in the first place.

  None of this made the national newsvids. I felt sure America could have shown all this, people wouldn’t have cared. The haves didn’t really care about the have-nots. The old models of trickle-down economics, NAFTA, Pacific Rim Treaty and the like, applying to the world’s wellbeing had no place in the New Way.

  When forced with starvation and the algae of the northern pacific started to be harvested by Japan, the oxygen levels of sea-water declined, so America put a stop to it. When asked what Japan was supposed to do to feed it’s people in the future, the Standing Senate Committee replied with a lecture in population control, or else. When friendly Britain had no more North Sea Oil and requested PowerCube technology, they were denied and, further, instructed that any attempt to utilize any part of PowerCube technology science to construct PowerCubes of their own would result in punishment. When two Senators, with British ancestors voiced their dismay at this official American policy, they were allowed to visit Britain to see if there was any common ground for discussion. They were never allowed back home. Britain began to harness wave power in earnest.

  Meantime, over the decades, a new dark ages spread worldwide. Perhaps better adapted to existing on nothing, African tribes flourished and overcame “westernized” rulers now without foreign aid and weaponry to sustain them. Currency became valueless, inter-nation trade dropped off to private merchant level, like the Silk Routes of old, people plying wares, daring to travel, city to
city, country to country. Commercial fishing ceased as fuel sources dried up. Military states flourished for a period, Germany and Austria had a brief alliance as “ein volk,” until the need to feed its people caused it to seek a take-over of Poland. The Poles stopped them by the simple expedient of turning off the pipelines from Kazakhstan. Faced with its dwindling possibilities, Germany severed ties with Austria and kicked out all immigrants under two generations of residence. 1st to go were the Turks. If Germany was to do with less, the “less” was for Germans, not foreigners.

  And Germany was perhaps the kindest at this new reality. At least they transported people home. France rounded up the Arabic-speaking people, especially the Algerians, and put them on boats and shelled them if they didn’t sail away over the horizon. Without French troops to keep the peace, West Africa became prey to the worst sorts of criminals. Devoid of any tribal structure after decades of French colonialism, anarchy ruled, people died in every city until only wandering scavengers subsisted where once proud buildings had been erected. The bronze age of Benin returned without the traditions.

  The ecology of the Earth was out of balance. America was the supreme recycling and enviro-friendly nation. Everything was kept in perfect balance here, the right oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Artificially augmented by the PowerCubes nationwide, oxygen was in abundance, so much so that nitrogen was manufactured in major cities to keep the oxygen levels from getting too high. Excess American oxygen was pumped into the Jet Stream and added to the oxygenization of Europe and Russia, where the extra one percent oxygen had devastating effects on plants and people alike. India and Pakistan, having fought another war or two, joined forces as millions of people starved to death each year. Sterilization, demanded by America, reduced the population growth to a global population decline. After 30 years, at under 600 million where nearly 1.2 billion had been previously, India and Pakistan lived peaceful, homespun, lives, devoid of the oxcart and missile technological balance they had once enjoyed. The oxcart returned as the rule of the day. That is, if they didn’t eat the oxen, now that the Hindu religion disappeared in favor of older gods and rituals.