This all-encompassing surveillance had a range that extended throughout the courtyard and connecting streets. The audio systems could record and identify different audio tracks from a growing library of over thirty thousand different sounds. It could even distinguish between individual heartbeats, and with the microsecond it took to access medical records from Coalition Healthcare, identify whom the heartbeat belonged to instantaneously.
The cost for this technological upgrade was “proprietary” but rumored to be in the hundreds of billions. But if the Fortress Beta-test of full-scale surveillance proved successful, the Coalition had every intention of selling the system to governments worldwide, governments that the Coalition had also helped form, as a way to keep their populations safe. Like all things that the Coalition touched, it would eventually turn an enormous profit.
The Coalition Fortress weapon defense systems that backed up the surveillance were state of the art as well and mostly hidden from public view. In addition to the Black Hawk helicopters on each of the helipads that every Fortress building had, the private, well-guarded garage systems below street level had rows and rows of pristine and heavily armored BearCat transports, as well as military grade Humvees, including several that were mounted with fifty caliber rifles.
Building Four of the six was the home of both the armory and Coalition Assurance team, which at any given time housed up to seven hundred ex-Special Forces soldiers, ready to go active at a moment’s notice, to any Coalition launch point facility around the world. On the floors just below the barracks was where the armory was located. It included Coalition-made RPGs, M-16 rifles, as well as 9mm handguns, KA-BAR knives, Kevlar armor, night-vision goggles, with hundreds of thousands of rounds of the necessary ammunition.
There were enough men and combat equipment in the Coalition Assurance Building to overturn all but a handful of countries. And the Los Angeles Fortress facility was only the beginning.
The third floor of the Coalition Assurance Building was also where the containment apartments, or holding cells were located. Under heavy guard, there were twenty-four containment apartments, ranging from bare-minimum prison cells designed to approximate those in Leavenworth to the more luxurious accommodations like the one that currently held Alex Luthecker.
The domineering presence of the Coalition Fortress complex in Los Angeles had encountered its share of political opposition, but it was nothing that a few million dollars of lobbying money couldn’t take care of.
The Coalition’s long range planning for not only the Los Angeles center but for all of its Fortress hubs around the world was an interconnected nation-state status, using Vatican City as a model.
It was the board of directors’ hope that the Coalition Fortress Los Angeles, along with its other worldwide holdings, would be politically connected and recognized as one entity, with its own economy, and subject to only its own rules and regulations. Over time, they would even require passport level identification to enter or exit. The Coalition had more than enough money to make this happen, and they controlled more natural resources than any other business entity, more than many nations even, and they had their own army.
In the mind of the board, why should they be subject to rules that were not of their own design? Why shouldn’t they be their own country?
It was with all of this in mind that Glen Turner felt perfectly comfortable holding Alex Luthecker for as long as he wanted. With the level of security and power the CEO had, there would be little that Luthecker or the outside world could do that would interfere.
And when Turner had gotten all that he could from Luthecker, squeezed everything useful from the irritating soothsayer, he would then have him executed.
Luthecker had been a nuisance for the Coalition long enough, and the Fortress was more than capable of disposing of a body, particularly that of someone who lived off the grid.
The Coalition Chairman had avoided dealing with Luthecker for as long as he could, considering him only a minor annoyance, but fate had seemed to intervene, and now Turner would finally have to deal with the young man. So be it. But at least Turner could accomplish what his two predecessors could not—kill Alex Luthecker.
But first, Luthecker would be a very useful tool for Turner—first in getting Luthecker’s hacker girlfriend to shut down her renegade program, then getting rid of the traitor, Ivan the Barbarian, and then finally in disposing of the intransigent nuisance that was Doctor Mark Kirby.
Turner had to admit to himself that Luthecker’s storied abilities seemed to be real, and watching him work was indeed fascinating. And in regards to destroying the Barbarian, the goal was nearly complete.
“You think your words matter to me?” the Barbarian asked Luthecker. Tears ran down the big Russian’s cheeks, and his voice echoed throughout the luxury cell. “Yes, my father beat me. That is not so strange in this world. And did you know that my mother tried to poison me? Perhaps more strange than most, but who cares?
“This is the way things are, the way things have been since mankind crawled out of a cave. For most in the world, suffering is all that there is to know. I’m sure that you are aware of all of this, about not only myself but also many others, although I do not know how it is that you know. Nor do I care. It does not matter.
“They were brutal people, my people, and I am a brutal man because of it. And you probably know that I killed them both. As you say, I made that decision early on, that I would be stronger than them. And I have killed many others along the way. So what?
“Look at all I have accomplished. Look at all that I have. I have lived a life full enough for a thousand men. It is what I wanted all along. I do not regret it, and there is no other why. If today is my last day, so be it.
“Your end will come soon, demon. No different than me. There is no plan or reason to life. And when it comes to death, all men are equal, and both horrible sins and works of grandeur are all equally vanquished.”
The Barbarian got within inches of Luthecker.
Luthecker did not move.
“As I said, I do not fear you. And if I chose to, I could break you in half right now. Maybe that is what is supposed to happen next, no?”
“No,” Luthecker responded. “You killing me will not be what will happen next. If you tried, you’d fail, and your battle-hardened instincts know this, otherwise, you’d have done so already. And isn’t rage only a cover for fear? Wouldn’t you attacking me only prove that you do, in fact, fear me?”
Both men stood unmoving for several seconds.
Finally, the Barbarian backed off.
“Whether or not you fear my abilities is not relevant to the reason you are in here with me,” Luthecker continued. “And if you do not wish to know more of who you really are, that is your choice. But I promise you that before you breathe your last breath, you will know.
“As you admit, your death is imminent, and with it will come the answers that you cannot escape. At this stage, the momentum behind your collective choices is too strong for me to intervene. You will die slowly in a cell and not in a burst of violence like you think you will, and it will also not unfold how you think it will. That is not the reason you’re here. And you know this already. You’ve planned for it.”
“Oh? What do you know of my reasoning? What reason am I here, according to your wizardry?”
“You think you’re here because others fear you, and you intend to confirm that fear, in what you believe is grand fashion. But the reason you are here is because I need you to be. Make no mistake, none of this is by chance or by your design.
“And what those who fear you don’t know and I do, is your plan. The one card you have left to play, that you intended to play all along, if all else failed and you ended up being held captive by your more powerful adversary. It has to do with the nuclear warhead-equipped Russian submarine that you recently purchased from the Russian Navy that is headed this way at full speed.
“It will be in range of this facility very soon. It�
�s the reason you’ve been reminding us all again and again that you don’t fear death. You remind us of this because you believe it’s coming. It was your final card. It’s always been your final card, and it’s one that you displayed to me the moment you were put in here with me.
“This facility, and all within it, will be reduced to ash, unless you choose to stop it. And you will only stop it if you’re released and properly compensated for your inconvenience.
“But you are also tired of it all. And at this point, you are unsure if you even want to be released. You believe that you are sincere with your fatigue over it all, but that is your denial, your inability to face who you really are, because deep down you are very afraid, and the machinations of fear and denial are exhausting.
“Because of all this, you stay quiet. You’re willing to let things end, here and now. You are torn between survival and wanting your final act before leaving this world to allow you to be remembered as the man who set the world on fire.
“But now that I’ve given voice to your darkest secret, that scenario won’t unfold now, will it?”
“You truly are a demon. But no matter, I win either way,” the big Russian replied.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“I understand more than you know. You have yet to make your move. Now I see what Lucas Parks saw in you. Now I see how you could bring the world to its knees.”
“Son of a bitch,” Turner said. “How the fuck could I miss that?”
He turned to Kirby, who continued to watch the exchange between Luthecker and the Barbarian with complete fascination.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth about the nuclear sub? Or do you think he’s bluffing?” Turner asked.
The tone in his voice revealed that, for the first time, he felt he was not in control of the situation. Kirby did not miss it.
“I can’t say. But the point is you really can’t take that chance, now can you?” Kirby answered. “He played you both, and it was awesome to watch.”
“Wipe that stupid fucking smile off your face, or I’ll have you shot,” Turner said before he hit the intercom.
Turner understood that either Luthecker, or Ivan, or both had played him, and now he couldn’t kill either one until he knew for sure.
“Get Ivan the hell out of there and bring him to my office, now.”
28
Trusting the Enemy
“Understand that by allowing you access to PHOEBE, I’m trusting you with everything I’ve ever done,” Nikki said as she led Muranaka into the second bedroom of the two bedroom Terminal Island apartment that housed Nikki’s computer station.
“Understood,” Muranaka responded. She felt her heart race from anxiety and was surprised by her physical reaction.
The Coalition programmer had long studied PHOEBE from afar and had imagined what this moment would be like, when she would finally have access to the program. Her imagination did not predict that it would unfold like this.
She tried not to appear too eager as she looked over the half hexagon of high definition screens, keyboard, and small computer server.
Nikki sat down at her workstation. She went to log onto PHOEBE but hesitated at the last moment. PHOEBE had prevented every access attempt Nikki had tried since Alex had returned from Mexico with Maria. But then the software algorithm had put Nikki and Muranaka in contact with one another.
If Nikki had guessed right about PHOEBE’s intentions, it was because PHOEBE wanted the two women to work together. Nikki would have her answer the moment she tried to log on.
She realized that she was risking everything by exposing her software program to Rika Muranaka, Coalition Properties employee, and she had no idea if Muranaka would turn against her.
She hoped that her instincts about her own software were correct because if she was wrong, it would be the end of everything that Winn, Alex, Mawith, Kunchin had preached, and the rest of the family had worked so hard for.
If she was wrong, the Coalition and everything the super-conglomerate stood for would win.
Nikki took a deep breath, hit the keyboard, and typed in her twenty-six-digit password that led to her user-ID that led to a second eight-digit password.
Nikki held her breath for several seconds as the computer did nothing. She let out a huge sigh of relief when the monitors blinked to life.
“Sure, now you talk to me,” Nikki whispered under her breath.
“Holy smokes,” Muranaka reacted to what she saw.
The half hexagon arrangement of large high definition monitors showed highly detailed images of the city of Los Angeles defined solely by its electrical activity. Temperature signatures indicated hot spots, fluctuating from red to yellow to blue based on energy consumption.
Countless Internet nodes moved data in pulses that looked like blood cells flowing through capillaries. Cell tower and satellite activity were represented by a translucent dome over it all, looking like a digitized and squirming layer of skin.
Underneath this electromagnetic skin, the Fortress resembled a living, breathing organism that was city shaped, with the building frames providing the skeletal structure. The entire scope of digital information moved about like an angular cardiovascular system, one that existed around human activity, a digitized dimension hidden from view.
“I call this half layer resolution,” Nikki said.
“Which is roughly half the data that PHOEBE can or does monitor at any given moment,” Muranaka said, completing Nikki’s thought.
“Correct. Full data analysis makes the images too dense to distinguish anything usefully. And as humans, we have limited capacity to distinguish detail.”
“In other words, we can’t see other worlds beyond our five senses, including the digital one.”
“That’s part of it. Right now, people have access to more data in one hour than previous generations did in an entire year, and look how it’s tearing the world apart. People can’t distinguish because processing too much detail immobilizes them.
“The animal brain is hard wired for survival. You don’t need to count the hairs in a tiger’s face to recognize it’s a tiger and you better run. But because of this they can’t see the intricate connections. People are literally drowning in information, but with no higher wisdom or trained capacity to process it.
“So it helps to limit the data in order to actually see what you’re looking at. More importantly, to know what you’re looking for in that endless sea of data.”
Nikki hit a few keys, and the images gained a level of resolution. “Right now, this is just a base template of power consumption and information movement, but trust me, PHOEBE’s watching and processing a whole lot more data.”
“How much of this design is you, and how much of this is PHOEBE building herself out on her own?”
“It’s less and less me every day,” Nikki answered, almost to herself. She turned toward Muranaka. “At first, I could get her to turn things on and shut things off via command. Electronic door locks, security cameras, getting past firewalls, padding or deleting bank accounts, pretty basic stuff. Before long, I could get her to hack into any system, punch through any firewall, break through any encryption.”
“And then you hacked into the most heavily encrypted security system ever designed and brought down the world’s largest military drone.”
“I stopped the world’s largest military drone from killing my friends and me. That’s the part you’re missing. I didn’t have much choice. I did what I had to in order for us to survive. It was after that hack that things began to change.”
“So what happened after that? How did PHOEBE all of a sudden start acting out on its own?”
“After we returned from Trans Dniester, our goal was simple. We only wanted to free people from both physical and mental slavery. Companies like the one you work for have a problem with our doing that, as slavery in one form or another is the basis for both their ideology and their business.
“However, in order for us
to free people, we needed to be able to travel the globe with complete freedom and invisibility, and so providing that freedom of movement became PHOEBE’s primary use.
“But to do that successfully, she needed some autonomy to deal with the constantly changing security measures and computer access protocols that I simply couldn’t account for. I just couldn’t see it all, no human could, and she needed to be able to see it all in order to be one step ahead of every system.
“And because of that she needed to be able to do this without having to check in with me first. In other words, she needed to be allowed to make decisions on her own, and be smarter than current human capacity to make the right decisions.
“And before she could ever achieve that level of proficiency, she needed to develop a language all her own to communicate with other systems, one that by design had to be far more complex and far faster than any known human language. It was the only way it could be done.”
“And language is the first step necessary for any species to become self aware.”
“Yes. It all starts with communication. We have to be able to talk to one another. But PHOEBE’s communication abilities have to be able to handle the volume and complexity of her world, which makes it beyond ours.”
“And it wasn’t long after she started talking on her own to other systems that she started thinking and acting on her own.”
“Bingo,” Nikki said. “And she couldn’t wait for us to catch up before she started making her own choices.”
“So what’s the basis of the choices she’s making? What’s her mandate?”
“I don’t know for sure. I never really programmed her with an overall mandate, other than to take care of the family and the people we freed. But I think in her own way, she’s trying to create balance.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s what the universe instinctively does.”
“But she has no moral compass. Even if what you say is true, she could wipe out entire cities and kill millions of people in order to achieve what some self-generated algorithm we don’t even understand is telling her is necessary in order to create this so-called balance that’s been defined by yet another self-generated algorithm.”
Revolution: Luthecker, #3 Page 21
