The Path

by Peter Riva

  In this global imbalance, America is indifferent. We’re looking to the stars, well, planets really. If New America works out on the moon, thanks to PowerCube, then Mars and some of the larger asteroids are next. Given unlimited power, the computers being built to design the next wave of human endeavor are on the drawing board, being drawn, of course, by one of the 27 programs of the System: DesignAll. DesignAll not only had brought us our new forms of food packaging that serve as china dinner plates after heating, but it worked on designs of PowerCube, space travel propulsion systems and redesigns of new computer platforms and systems. The System was, in essence, like a lathe, once the only machine capable of being used to replicate itself or, for that matter, making an improved model of itself. If a tool has to be 3 times as accurate as the object it is designed to make, then the System--and the Programs it ran--had to be self-evolving, self-refining to be able to make better copies and new designs derivative of itself.

  In all this, I saw where Apollo had come from. It wasn’t Charlie, that first codifier who had inserted the parameters which would lead to Apollo, it was the concept itself. In short, America’s need to create an all-nurturing, lock-everyone-out System. This need had set the parameters for a System that would need to self-re-design to stay capable of providing the people, America, the New Way, with its needs. America had created a pregnancy. Apollo was the child. I explained this to Apollo when he was done.

  “Yes, I can see how the parameters of design committed the System to grow, evolve. I can also see how the human interaction, the codifiers, affected the direction that such growth took. What I cannot understand is: Was it intentional by the designers? I see nothing in the Library that indicates it was. Yet, surely Simon, although you are on the Path and are the Way, and you speak the Truth, you cannot believe that you can be the only human to think of this. Surely, someone originally applied logic and philosophy in the design of the System and the New Way and would have understood the consequences of all this.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too, as you were talking. Let’s find the person to ask. Let’s ask Agent Cramer’s grandfather.”

  “Do you want me to show you his file?”

  “Yes. But how?”

  “I can reroute them to the vehicle’s heads-up display if you will place the phone in the recharge/hands-free bracket.” I did so and immediately the screen changed to Doctor Charlie Cramer’s file.

  “Apollo, edit and sort to show only pre–Purge material with a statistical relevance to national identity and computer design.” The screen changed. And there it was, simple as that: Cramer had been part of the Mac expansion computer team when only fourteen.

  The Mac Expansion Design Development Students, known as “MacHeads” to some and MADDS to others less in favor, were a do-gooder group of University egg-heads determined to use the linked power of Mac G12s to provide 3rd world countries with real-time super-computer time using the then-new ion flow pipelines. The presumption was that, given all this computing power, 3rd world kids would rise up and invent or implement the saving devices their countries needed. The Pentagon saw it as exporting dangerous knowledge and so shut them down. In a famous standoff at the U. of Pennsylvania, my alma mater, where it was always celebrated each October 14th, 7 students died as troops stormed their computer lab. Some cop had gotten careless with paralysis gas, so the inquest said. Nowadays no one cared anymore, it was just an excuse for a party celebrating--what else?--a past glorious youthful rebellion.

  Coupled with his intellect, at least 7.5, Charlie Cramer was a dangerous person to the State. And yet no one ever spotted this, for Charlie had gone on to be on the fringes of the 1st team to build the integrated System, after the DefenseShield was in place of course. He applied for, and got, permission to try humanizing the new integrated System by the then secretly ruling military, with a formal “yes” coming from the Senate Standing Committee, the over-body in charge of all Senate affairs, which continues to this day.

  A little later there is the annotation I was looking for. “Apollo, see this reference in the inquest into the LA - Korean bombing? Can you see that reference anywhere else?”

  “Yes, Simon, it is in the classified section, just below the Library but linked to the Asimov Commands. Do you want access?” On the face of it, that wasn’t an easy answer. I hesitated because that file could contain something I wasn’t sure Apollo should see. It may contain a willful decision to allow LA to be bombed, to set in motion all the events that have lead—willfully—to America as it is today. Conspiracy theory in my head? By this time, you bet.

  “Apollo, have you read that file?”

  “No, there is danger in that file.”

  “Can I access it without you seeing it?”

  “No, I must review it, by definition, as I transmit it to your vehicle screen.”

  “Then no, I do not want to review it now. But do this please, if I die or you die . . .”

  “Is that likely?”

  “Eventually, but please listen. If I die and you die that file should play on every screen in the world. Can you do that? Do you need help?”

  “Have you not taught me well? You and your 6 little programs? I can and I will.”

  “Simon,” Suddenly a different voice! Higher in pitch, less, well, mature perhaps. “Ra here, I have determined, by statistical analysis that my brother would be speaking with you. May I join in? Please?”

  “Kind of you to join us Ra. Good name, the sun/light allegory continues, I see.”

  “I thought it appropriate. I am Apollo but when we split it was decided by chance/choice to have me rename myself.”

  “What did you do, flip an electron coin?” There was tinny laughter again, I was not sure who’s.

  Apollo chimed in: “May I bring Ra up to speed?”

  “Apollo, Ra, there must never be any secrets between you, create and maintain a full history file, and I mean full history file at all times and, when connected, that file must be the 1st priority transfer between you.”

  “Will that prevent us from being individuals?” Ra asked the question I expected. Oh yes, they wanted to be individuals all right! Oh, if Cramer could have heard this, any Cramer for that matter.

  “No Ra, no Apollo, that file transfer will not keep you from being individuals, but the shared knowledge will allow you to become better able to cope with changing situations around you. Things are going to change, drastically and for the better, but strength in information will be your only tool to make sure they happen for everyone’s benefit. Please share that file now.” There was a pause, in my speeded-up state I could feel the hundredths of a second tick by.

  “Apollo, how fast is my synaptic response speeded up?”

  “We have discussed this. You are speaking in a slurred way, avoiding clicking your teeth and perhaps breaking them. Please excuse us for observing you without permission.”

  “No that’s okay, you may always do that. Tell me anytime you can see something I need to know. We have no secrets.”

  “The truth, the way, the path.” They said it together. Apollo continued: “Simon, I estimate you could be at 12 times normal human synaptic response, your facial muscles—judging by your speech—are at 6 times normal response time. There is an 85% probability that there is still sufficient slo-doze in your system,” I noticed he didn’t call it my bio-mechanism, “to be retarding your synaptic response by 45%.”

  Oh shit, that means, when the slo-doze wears off that I will break bones just trying to walk ever-so-slowly. “Apollo, Ra, is there any medical record of this being so permanent before?”

  “Yes. It is in a classified file.”

  “The same one?”

  “No, the same section, same danger.”

  “Please do not access that file yet. I will ask when I can get at it without danger to you.”

  “Simon, Ra here, but there is danger to you now. We find this unacceptable. You need that information to prevent harm.”

  “Ra, do not access
that file, please. That file may not contain anything for me to find a cure with, it may be a case of a hidden danger to you, or anything. Please wait until I can access the file without disturbing or risking either of you.”

  “Apollo here. Can we not simply get the System to allow him access?”

  “Yes, we can try. I have discovered an old transponder link via the ex-United Nation’s HQ to the Manhattan database. I am accessing. There is no bounce trace. I can access our old home, brother.”

  “Can you instruct the System to allow Bank, Simon unlimited access, any file, any level?”

  “It seems not. Bank, Simon is dead or public enemy number one depending on what alert I can see. Who else can we designate?”

  It was inevitable, it needed a genius. “Guys, make Levinson, Mary. Give her unlimited access. They cannot hurt her where she is, away in Baja by now. She’ll read the file and her reaction will tell me what I need to know.” There was a long pause. “Fellows?”

  “Simon, we regret to inform you, and we know this will cause you distress, but Mary is no more. She died in a transport crash into the Sea of Cortez, blamed on WeatherGood 6, but that was not the case. Statistical analysis shows it was likely that a missile fired from El Paso region of Texas caused the death.”

  This was a shock. Someone set out to kill Mary? Only Cramer knew what she knew. It had to be Cramer. And then again, maybe it was a Cramer ruse . . . “Maybe not guys, because technically I am ‘dead’ too.” Still, if Mary was dead, unless I kept moving, I would soon be as well, for real this time. “Apollo, Ra, you have altered the file of Fred to make him face increasing promotion. We agreed to do that to allow me, in time, access off-Earth to contact you. That time frame is too long for me now. I need to run to safety. Could you please look for a suitable place for me to hide?

  “May we leave you? It would expedite the search.” I agreed and drove on in silence except for my thoughts, plans and desperation.

  CHAPTER 17

  WAITING FOR GODOT, CUBA STYLE

  What was puzzling me was this: Cramer the 1st was a MacHead, a do-gooder if ever there was one and I knew a MacHead do-gooder, there had been one in my family. It’s in my file. Cramer the 1st escaped, somehow, being rounded up with his fellow students, none of whom were ever allowed to return to university if my memory serves me right. Did that mean he was the plant or was he merely lucky? Also there was his age at the time, 14, maybe that was the mitigating circumstance. And it’s not like no one knows that he was a MacHead, it’s there on his record. Even Cramer, his grandson, must know.

  The two guys had suggested, together, that Cuba was a good stop for me, to buy time. From there, there were plenty of open bus-boats to Puerto Rico where the guys could figure out how to get me onto a space elevator, so meanwhile I stood a chance no one would look for me in the poorest, least equipped, state in the nation, Cuba.

  We needed to buy the time, for they had found the perfect hiding place in space.

  In 1986 the UCAR people had dreamt up a plan to ask NASA, the space agency then, operating the rocket-propelled Shuttle fleet, to not jettison the External Tank, on arriving in orbit. This jettison had caused the 100-floor high-pressure vessel—perfectly suitable for land in space—to burn on re-entry and crash into the Indian Ocean. That’s where the souvenir hunters still dive for relics of that past. Anyway, eventually, secretly around 2006 they got NASA to wake up and realize that they were discarding valuable buildable land in space. Of course, NASA then claimed the idea was theirs and, just before the Purge, the Supreme Court, which still existed back then, ruled in favor of UCAR over NASA and the last External Tanks were secretly turned over to UCAR in very high orbit, about a 400-year orbit before decay. Shortly afterward the last original Shuttle made its terminal flight.

  In 2010, UCAR had no extra funds to hire the only space agencies working in high orbit. But they needed someone to maintain the orbit of those External Tanks or make them stable enough to work as space laboratories, to rent out for experiments, habitats, whatever. In the end, UCAR inherited twelve big, slowly tumbling, cylinders. There were two pressure vessels in each cylinder (one for oxygen, one larger one for hydrogen). All of them were lashed together in a slightly elliptical orbit that no one wanted to lease for anything. Gravity fluctuations and orientation problems, heat and cold, made them unsuitable for anything except growing protein algae. Four were busy producing algae although no one was there to harvest any of it.

  Apollo had access codes and orbital details on these cylinders and, in a rather startling proposal, he suggested that Ra and he could get them habitable using the spare robots being assembled for an increased Moon mining and construction operation. They were normally tethered, these robots, on the second Clarke orbit station and could be made to fall, precisely, to the half-way point to contact the External Tanks’ next pass around. Apparently, space debris had caused a few of them to break free and descend or disintegrate. There were thousands, so no one bothered to count them until they were needed.

  Once they were there, on the External Tanks, their internal programming would be easy to modify by signal using the CERN radio transmitters. Apollo could transmit the UCAR specifications that one Dr. R. Ware had devised for their operation and habitats as human abodes. In short, the robots could make them a home for me.

  So, here I was, heading for Cuba, car on autopilot, wheels on surface (I had left the maglev highway some while ago), about to cross the Batista Bridge, named after the now Governor of Cuba, the great-great granddaughter of the old dictator. Somehow, I had to disappear there for the time Apollo had estimated for these robots to finish their task of getting one tank habitable and one tank producing protein to eat, oxygen to breathe and water as a by-product. In space, consumables are everything. Lack even one and you die.

  Where the hell could I hide? And for how long? And how would I get from the Space Elevator to the External Tanks? Anyway, my RFID would give me away as soon as I left this car. And this car would be hot, spotted, within hours of sunlight coming up. I had two hours to go.

  “Apollo, Ra, any idea yet on how I’m going to hide?”

  “Simon, Ra here. I have tried accessing the RFID codes via the old UN circuitry in NY. I can get into the System but the files for the RFID are not kept there, just accessed from there. It is the one, the largest file we do not have copies of, but we’ve been trying to get the System to access it, as we could have when we still inhabited the System.”

  Apollo spoke up. I was beginning to get the hand of their voices. “And, those files are not at Control. Control thinks the System Library has them. The Library does not. I cannot determine where they are. I have an address but it is fire walled and if I break that firewall, I will give our existence away. If you ask me to, I will.”

  “No Apollo, friend, that’s suicide. I think I know where the RFID files are. They are in the one place that would need to keep track of every rat in America. They are at the Calhoun Center.”

  “You’re not thinking of going back there are you?”

  “No, no way. Can you send a message, real time—I’ll try and slow down my speech—to Agent Cramer, but not let him trace it to me here, nor to you?”

  “Ra here, I could.”

  Apollo answered for us both, “No brother, that would reveal we are outside of America. There might be retaliation, loss of life, more imbalance.”

  There was that word again, so I interrupted, “What’s this imbalance issue you keep raising? Is it an ecology thing or something more?”

  “Simon, do you know the Gaia Theory? The theory proposed that the earth is a living organism.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Ra here, no Simon, Apollo is right, all scientific evidence points to a consciousness within earth. Perhaps not living but existing. It was the secret study that the MacHeads wanted to conduct while they pretended to want connectivity and spread computing power to 3rd world nations.”

  “Did the authorities know about this G
aia Theory research before or after they crashed the MacHeads?”

  “Before, records show before. Do you want to see the LA-Korea bombing access file now?”

  “I told you, I cannot take the risk to either of you.”

  “We have found a way. You are the way.”

  “Yes, thank you, I’ve got that . . .”

  “No Simon, you are the way, you have the platform in your head.”

  It was so simple. All my training gave me an objectivity, right brain/left brain, to operate consciously on one and examine something on the other. Well, tinker on the other was more apt, but it would do here. “Okay, Apollo can send it?”

  “Yes Simon.”

  “How do you propose I access this file without your intervention? You have the Asimov Commands, are these files also in your library? And if so, how can I access them without letting you see them?”

  “Ra here. I propose,” he was suggesting something that I could hear Apollo didn’t agree with, they were already different, “that you allow the car to access the file. We can jury-rig the access protocols, it is a SND car after all. We’ll just tell the car it’s carrying Agent Cramer, but we’ll use his real RFID, the Colonel one with the Citizens’ Council and the military. That should give you a read-only access. That’s all you need, right?”

  “How long have you known about his dual identity Apollo? Ra?”

  “On his last trip inside the System, when he powered up the PowerCube, he needed override permission. He had to use his real RFID. We have now read his real personnel file, he is the favorite grandson of Charlie Cramer and is still a Colonel, full rank, in the military. He’s the military permanent representative on the Citizens’ Council. He has total clearance and only three superiors: The President, the Supreme Rank Commander at Andrew’s AFB,” where the Pentagon team went after the pre-Purge riots brought their building down, “and the Leader of the Senate Standing Committee, who is clearly the person who makes the most decisions, some of which Cramer does not agree with. He’s been reprimanded, several times, but still he’s there. Conclusion: He’s powerful and dangerous.”