by Kyle Mills
As stunning as the software was, though, he’d been forced to send the industrious students a rejection. The interface allowed the user to stand and take a few steps before the image faded — too dangerous for the general public. But within the confines of his Thai compound, it was a joy.
“In-store demonstrations have declined significantly, but we’ve learned that it’s really a function of the positive word of mouth the Merge has been getting. Feedback is fairly consistent in the under-forty demographic — they want to buy. Cost has overtaken concern over the head studs as the primary barrier to purchase. In fact, stud integration continues to be well above our initial projections. We’re already at almost fifty percent and I feel confident that by the end of the first year, we’ll see eighty-five percent of experienced users integrated. Tooth microphones are running much lower due to the fact that the procedure has to be done by a qualified dentist and because the collar microphones work fairly well. As people go in for checkups, though, we’re expecting to see those numbers come up.”
“What about the older demographics?” someone said.
“The trend continues to move heavily toward adoption. Our campaign highlighting vision correction and the sleep function has been even more effective than we’d hoped. We’re also prioritizing developers whose apps target that market, per Mr. Dresner.”
There were some quiet murmurs, but no protests that rose to a level of being intelligible. His insistence on expending so many resources trying to capture people over fifty had met with significant resistance for financial reasons, but there was more to the Merge than making money. Much, much more.
“How many units are up and running right now?” a woman he’d swear was actually in the room with him asked.
“Usage varies over the course of the day, but our peak to date is four point two million worldwide. Interestingly, the variation in the number of Merges online over a given twenty-four-hour period is flattening very quickly. People are discovering that there’s no reason not to use the sleep system, even if it’s just for the alarm clock function. That’s another thing that’s driving head stud adoption, particularly in older users: Sleeping with the headset just isn’t practical.”
“Satisfaction levels?”
“Stratospheric. About one percent of people simply can’t adapt to the input and we’re giving full refunds on those units. Of course, we also have a small number of people with head stud problems — the occasional infections that we expected. Non-specific complaints like excessive pain have been significantly lower than we projected — probably because of the general satisfaction with the technology.”
“Military adoption?”
“Colonel Smith has authored a number of evaluations and all are glowing to say the least. It’s my understanding that he compared the Merge to the stirrup as a transformational technology. There are already over thirty thousand U.S. soldiers online, many with commercial units they purchased personally. The military has committed to a quarter million Merges with the eventual goal of full penetration.”
“The American military,” someone pointed out.
Mandrake nodded. “The remaining world governments are also testing and all have acknowledged the military benefits of the commercial version. But we don’t know yet how that’s going to translate into sales.”
More quiet mutters from the board. No one liked the exclusive deal, Dresner knew, and he privately agreed. In the end, though, there had been little choice. The admittedly formidable James Whitfield had contacted him years ago when the group he led had somehow become aware of the technology Dresner was developing. Progress had been slow due to financial constraints, and the major’s ability to quietly redirect Pentagon resources had given the project a new life. Of course, as was true with all deals with the devil, there had been a price: A military version would be simultaneously created and the United States would be given sole rights to it.
While problematic, the situation was hardly fatal. It was the U.S. military — not the Chinese, Russians, or even Muslim-led armies — that prompted fear and instability in the world. America spent nearly as much as the rest of the world combined on weapons, it started and fought pointless, protracted wars, it bombed innocents from airborne robots, and it forced the rest of the world to waste trillions to prevent a single country from being the only one with the ability to effectively use violence.
“The remaining militaries will adopt,” Dresner said, speaking for the first time since the meeting started. “Penetration will just be slower.”
“I agree,” Mandrake said, obviously wanting his new position to become permanent. “Soldiers worldwide are adopting at about the same rate as civilians and they’re largely being permitted to use the units at work. Going into combat without the Merge’s commercial vision and audio enhancement just isn’t going to be practical for much longer. And as other apps like language translation and communications are released, the consumer version will become even more advantageous.”
“So all good news,” Dresner said.
“Not entirely,” Mandrake admitted. “We’re still getting bad press over some aspects of LayerCake’s judgment system. With regard to products and services it’s enormously popular, but judgment of people is getting a fair amount of pushback. No one’s really complaining about its accuracy, but we’re adding an entirely new privacy issue to the hundreds out there already.”
“I’m concerned about this,” someone at the table said. “LayerCake is already causing us problems and we’re only running it at about fifty percent of its true capability. Not to mention the fact that we’ve set it to lean toward the positive, right?”
“Correct,” Mandrake said. “It’s obviously still in beta and until we have enough data on individual Merge users to tailor the system to their particular values, we have Javier running essentially a light version.”
“And when we do turn the thing on full-guns? Is this something people really want or is the system going to be providing us a little too much information for our own good? And that’s leaving aside our legal vulnerability.”
Dresner nodded thoughtfully, but it was really just for show. In truth, the public system was running at a far smaller fraction of its actual capability than the board knew — probably closer to twenty percent. Thanks to the brilliant former hacker Javier de Galdiano, LayerCake’s heavily firewalled core had almost limitless access to social networking sites, financial information, websites visited, and products purchased — among a host of other critical data points. De Galdiano considered it nothing more than a control — something to compare the results of their public system to in order to create an algorithm that could mimic the less ethical — indeed illegal — central system. In reality, it was the foundation for everything Dresner had spent so many years planning.
“I think this is something we’re just going to have to allow to unfold,” Dresner said. “We’re about to begin a new marketing campaign revolving around people who have been harmed by misinformation on the Internet — people who have been confused with others with the same name, victims of identity theft, people who have been unfairly attacked through social media and other means. The message is that the information is already out there and that LayerCake will make it much more difficult to game or misuse. Let’s not forget that we’re only three months into this. Considering the revolutionary nature of the technology, it’s going surprisingly smoothly.”
Mandrake nodded his agreement. “We’ve had an extremely positive reaction from the focus groups who’ve seen the ads. I think the momentum is with us and it’s just going to get more powerful. Now let’s move on to finance, where the news gets even better. The surprise retirement of some of our debt yesterday has driven our stock prices up past four hundred dollars a share for the first time.”
The life-sized images of the people in front of him glazed over with greed, causing Dresner’s interest in the meeting to fade. It had been Whitfield’s money, of course, and based on the speed with which he wa
s able to deliver, he had almost certainly anticipated the request. Once again, he’d demonstrated a level of cleverness that would undoubtedly become dangerous in the future. But not yet. At this point, he was still useful.
“I must leave you,” Dresner said. “I think we have every reason to be proud of the Merge’s success and to continue to expect great things.”
He shut down his feed and replaced it with a set of projections from the marketing department. Graphs rose more than three meters high in front of him and he leaned back in the soft leather chair to study them.
Sales projections had been increased to thirty-three million units worldwide by the end of the first twelve months and eighty-four million at the end of the two-year window he was interested in.
Dresner switched views to a set of bar graphs showing Merge units broken down by country. The United States had the best penetration, followed by Western Europe. Sales were also substantial in China, primarily due to the sheer size of the market. Russia was lagging, though the technology was being adopted by its politicians, soldiers, and industrialists — the most important people to him. The Muslim world was one of their weakest markets due to poverty and Islamic prohibitions. His people continued to create Koran apps, court imams, and refine their Arabic-language offerings, though, and the effort appeared to be showing some reward.
He switched views again, reconfiguring the charts in a way that could only be done from his personal Merge. A block of red began rising from the bottom of the bar graphs, representing the people LayerCake’s core processors deemed destructive to society: corrupt politicians, the swelling ranks of financial industry robber barons, criminals, warmongers, and twisted religious leaders, to name only a few of the categories.
It was an ugly view of humanity, with the red portion of the charts rising to almost twenty-four percent — just shy of one and a half million people. Of course, it was also a skewed view. The method of his product’s rollout, which confused so many, had been designed to target those who victimized society.
With every passing year, technology magnified the destructive forces available to the ruling class and brought humanity closer to causing its own end. It was only a matter of time before greed combined with waning resources and ideological fanaticism to wipe out billions of innocents while those responsible profited.
He couldn’t let that happen. Not now. Not when humanity was so close to perfecting itself.
Dresner switched to another view, projecting the growth of deleterious individuals using his system. When it reached six million — the tipping point he’d calculated would bring the world back from the brink — he would activate the subsystem that killed Craig Bailer. In an instant, the world’s militaries would be decimated. Politics and the financial industry would be cleansed of corruption and all-consuming greed. Religious leaders whipping their followers into violent frenzies would finally get an opportunity to discover that their gods existed only in their own minds. For the first time in millennia, the human race would be free.
It would be devastating, of course. All power vacuums — particularly ones of unprecedented size and suddenness — were. But society would quickly knit itself back together and recognize the opportunity offered by the eradication of its parasites and sociopaths.
Not that he was entirely naive. The destructive role vacated by the dead would be soon filled — it was the nature of the smart apes they were so closely related to. But those malignant players wouldn’t be capable of re-imposing their stranglehold on the planet. No, the advanced technologies that had proved so dangerous would finally fulfill their promise of transforming the human race. The destroyers would return, but they would be too late.
36
Near Washington Circle, District of Columbia
USA
Jon Smith twisted around and scooped a handful of CDs from the filthy backseat. “How long are you keeping the car?” he said flipping through them and recognizing precisely none. The dull whistle of wind coming through the gaps in the windows was probably preferable to whoever Psycho Charger was.
“The owner gets back on Thursday,” Randi said.
She didn’t much care for technology, but there was no questioning her grudging mastery of it. She’d undoubtedly strolled through the Dulles long-term parking lot running plates against TSA and airline databases to determine the travel plans of each vehicle’s owner.
“Marty’s house is probably only another fifteen minutes unless we hit traffic,” she added. “Don’t you think you should call him?”
Smith sighed quietly. He had been a friend with Martin Zellerbach since high school, but it was an incredibly exhausting relationship. While Marty was a stunning genius when it came to all things digital, he was the victim of a long list of mental illnesses that combined to make him about as easy to deal with as a bored toddler on a sugar high.
Eighty percent of the fistfights Smith had been in as a kid — and one hundred percent of the high school suspensions — were the result of either protecting Marty from someone he’d insulted or trying to cover up some bizarre prank he’d pulled. His old friend never intended to harm anyone, but it was impossible not to sympathize with the anger he could inspire in others.
Smith grudgingly retrieved his phone and dialed, taking a deep breath and trying to reach the necessary Zen-like state of patience.
“What do you want?”
Marty’s greeting wasn’t intended to be impolite — it was simply the obvious question in light of the fact that Smith didn’t make a lot of purely social calls to him.
“For you to take a look at something.”
“What?” he said, the curiosity audible in his voice. The problems that Smith brought him in the past had nearly gotten him killed on a few occasions, but there was no denying that they were interesting.
“Maybe we could talk in person? We’re on our way.”
“We?”
“Randi’s with me.”
“Randi? She’s with you right now? And you’re coming to my house?”
“She insisted. Been dying to see you.”
Randi took her eyes off the road long enough to give him the same withering stare her sister used to, but he ignored it.
“She said that?” There was a pause that seemed long even for him. “How long until you’re here?”
“Less than fifteen.”
Another silence.
“So Jon. Are you wearing old clothes by any chance?”
It was an odd question, but Smith was used to odd questions from his old friend. “Muddy running clothes. She’s in jeans and a sweatshirt.”
“Are the jeans tight?”
“Focus, Marty.”
“Do you have guns?”
“What?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Are you taking your meds?”
“Yes.”
Smith looked over at Randi. “Do we have guns? Mine’s still in the glove box of the Triumph.”
The roll of her eyes suggested it was a stupid question.
“Yes.”
“Extra clips?”
“I have no doubt.”
“Bring them.”
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Fine. I just need your help with something. Call it the cost of my inestimable services.”
“Can’t I just pay your fee?”
“No.”
The line went dead.
* * *
“Park here,” Smith said. “Let’s not get too close.”
Randi pulled to the curb of the quiet street and they continued on foot, quickly covering the remaining two hundred meters to a gate protecting Zellerbach’s driveway. Out of habit, neither stood in front of it, instead ducking behind a sign that read, “Private property — keep out. No trespassing. No soliciting. No collectors. Go Away.”
“Marty, it’s us,” Smith said, holding down the intercom button. “Open the gate.”
No response.
“Marty! Open the d
amn gate.”
Nothing.
“Shit,” Smith muttered.
What the hell was going on? The intercom wasn’t broken — Marty was physically unable to tolerate electronics that weren’t state of the art and in perfect operating condition.
“Do you think there’s a problem?” Randi said. “Is this why he told us to bring guns?”
Smith shrugged and then let out a long breath — something he did a lot when Marty was involved. “We’re going to have to go in.”
“I have a better idea. Let’s call the police and let them do it.”
Her reluctance was understandable. Marty cherished his privacy enough to spend a fair amount of time and money on a custom security measures that included air horns, stink bombs, and the dreaded fish catapult. It was the latter that had finally caused UPS, FedEx, and the post office to stop serving his address.
Smith just shook his head miserably and began climbing over the tall hedge that acted as a surprisingly effective fence. He dropped into an untended flower bed on the other side and waited a disconcertingly long time before Randi landed gracefully next to him.
Pulling the Glock she’d lent him, he examined the expansive yard and confirmed that it was exactly as he remembered: half dead and half overgrown into a jungle-like mess. Apparently Marty hadn’t been able to coerce his gardeners to come back either.
“House looks fine,” Randi observed. “No broken windows. No damage to the door that I can see from here.”
Smith nodded. “You go left. I’ll go straight.”
He’d made it less than four meters when a mechanical whirring became audible just in front of him. His heart sank when he saw a potted plant start to flip backward on a hinge. If it was the catapult, Marty was going to wish he’d never been born.
It wasn’t. Instead of rubber tubing and out-of-date seafood, the mechanism in front of him had two serious-looking barrels sticking through heavy steel armor.
