At the climax of the battle, a defamatory charge arrived: corruption. The president of the Committee called for her urgently. “We must avert every suspicion from the institutions.” He stared at her in silence, and then uttered his request: “I want you to resign.”
Words like daggers. Eve reacted with anger: “You, who knows me better than anybody else, have doubts about my integrity?”
“I don’t question it,” he answered with bitterness. “But we cannot fight a battle already lost from its very beginning.”
She resigned, and left with a feeling of complete failure. At that moment she decided to end it all.
After her death, Eve reached Net. Being disillusioned by society, she chose to withdraw from the world, and then to live underground. She first of all refused to give her personal data to the General Archives, an institution that many years before had been of primary importance in turning Net from a world left to itself into a civilized nation. Hard times followed, escaping Security, until the meeting.
The head of a secret organization, the Elects, found her. She met some of his followers too. One of them, a black man with an imposing figure, congratulated Eve on her courage and tenacity. Martin Wing, the defender of the civil rights, a man with immense charisma, who after his assassination by a fanatic about forty years before, was continuing his battle in Net with unchanged vigor. Wing and his companions introduced the subject they had most at heart. Security repression was getting more and more severe, their days were numbered. To survive, they needed very advanced technology, that only Eve was able to develop.
Her look becomes softer. From the very first moment, she liked them very much. They were people of great merit, persecuted by Security like her.
She stops in the middle of the room and stares into space. A flowchart appears. She skims through the directories and then chooses a program. She studies it as far as the single code lines, introduces a few modifications and starts a simulation.
At the end, she smiles. "Security will no longer bother us."
(*) The Committee, which authorizes the use of programs supplying the virtual beings with new features, is formed by a narrow circle of scholars appreciated for their competence and integrity.
(**) About three centuries have passed since thousands of independent programmers, driven by idealism, have joined forces to propose free, reliable and fast–to-customize software, as an alternative to the multinationals’ products. This community, known as Open Source, is large, but not having the organization and resource abundance of the major industrial groups, is confined to market niches. The situation has improved since the second half of the 21st century, when with the development of artificial intelligence, it became possible to produce advanced programs even with modest means.
RENDEZVOUS
It is only a squat black cylinder about thirty centimeters high, in a dark corner of the room. A small excrescence sprouts from its surface as smooth as glass, and begins a fast and silent growth. Billions of microscopic machines stack on top of each other, forming a trunk from which new protuberances stem. Some of them are immediately reabsorbed, but others keep on lengthening, till a slim body takes shape. Black, absolutely black. From a foot rises a multicolored wave. A rainbow of lights spreading along the legs, the stomach and the chest, up to the face and the hair. After a few seconds, a woman with a bronze complexion appears.
Nicole is sitting on a sofa in front of a panoramic window, with a dark chocolate bar in her hand.
The being moves its first step. The floorboards creak. The girl turns abruptly, wide-eyed. She jumps to her feet, runs to her guest. “What a lovely surprise!”
They hug.
Victoria looks around. “Not bad here!”
In the slate fireplace, fir logs crackle and spark. In the air, the pungent smell of resin. From a wall hangs a time-worn pair of wooden skis.
“All original. And the valley is marvelous,” explains Nicole.
They turn towards a robot in a blue uniform, gazing at them from a corner. “He is in charge of protecting me.”
The girls throw themselves onto the sofa. Thick soft cushions.
Victoria puts one of them on her knees and rests her elbow on it. “Did you undergo the memory analysis?”
“It happened during the flight.”
“May I see what they found out?”
Nicole transmits the file to Victoria’s neural chip.
She finds herself in an aircraft with about twenty seats. She is wearing her friend’s sweater. She rummages in her bag, takes out a little mirror and looks at her face: she has Nicole’s features! From the end, two civilians are staring at her.
They approach. “We have to analyze your mind.”
They escort her to a couch next to the cockpit, and make her wear a helmet.
She is in an empty room.
Suddenly, the floor opens.
She plunges down.
Into an abyss.
Towards a faint light…
Here she is, in the discotheque of Sydney. Laughter from a group sitting next to her. Victoria is dancing with Abel in the middle of the floor, her head on the man’s shoulder. A waiter removes some empty glasses. She turns her eyes towards a platinum blond woman on a stool next to the bar bench. In her hand a cocktail, with an orange slice on the rim.
Noise, from the floor. People observing intrigued. Abel is bent double. He can’t breathe… He rushes to the exit, Victoria behind. Nicole springs to her feet, reaches them in front of the cloakroom.
Now they are all three on the sidewalk near the entrance. Abel is leaning against the wall, panting. Victoria asks him how he is. Nicole grimaces, she has forgotten her purse on a chair. She tells Victoria and goes back inside. In the hall, she brushes against the woman…
Victoria wakes up with a start. “The killer shadowed us all evening!”
After an exchange of opinions, they pass to other subjects and before leaving, Victoria transmits a file to Nicole. “Use it when you feel lonely.”
She reaches the point from where she moved her first step. Then she stops, gazing into space. Arms and head decompose; bust and legs melt like wax. In a few seconds the being recovers its cylindrical shape.
Nicole retires to her room. Beside herself with curiosity, she opens the file, letting the neural chip take possession of her mind.
A stadium. The heavy humidity of a summer night. Under the searchlights, a sea of young people, many of them lying down on the grass with an absent glance. Others are kissing each other or busy preparing a cigarette. In the air, a sweetish smell.
Old-fashioned clothes.
A hand taps on her shoulder. Victoria!
“I thought you would like to spend a few hours more with me. We are in a reconstruction of the 20th century. A file registered by an ancestor of mine and transmitted from generation to generation. I enhanced it with the last virtual reality techniques.”
“You are back, then!”
“I am Victoria’s reproduction, even if a reduced one. However you can’t distinguish between us.”
A young man with a flowered shirt and flared blue jeans, holds out his hand to Nicole. “I’m John, Victoria’s ancestor.”
He turns towards the stage, leans forward and concentrates on a spot. “Down there the view is nice. Follow me!”
They squeeze through the crowd. On his shoulder the man holds an ancient camcorder with celluloid film, exactly alike the one displayed in the multimedia museum of Sydney. Nothing like modern recording techniques on the neural chip. They place themselves about ten meters from the loudspeakers.
When the singers arrive, the crowd greets them with thunderous applause. Their head, a tall skinny man wearing an unbuttoned shirt and black leather trousers, stretches his arms out and replies with a shout.
Then he bends over his guitar. Frenzied notes. Despairing vocals. Deafening music that enters the bodies, making them vibrate.
Around, an expanse of passionate people waving their arms to the
sky.
The whole night.
At dawn, they have dark circles round their eyes. The ancestor snatches a kiss from Nicole and the promise of meeting again.
The girl finds herself in her room. She yawns, but can’t sleep. She wanders between drawing room and kitchen with a glass of water in her hand, then puts on a heavy jacket and goes outdoors. In the porch, she sits down in a wicker armchair. Her legs stretched on a pinewood table and her hands in the pockets.
Cold.
The moon covers the mountains with a silver veil and the stars twinkle against the absolutely black sky. From time to time, the hollow cries of a barn owl in the distance.
Then a metallic whistle. The surveillance drone skims over the roof and disappears into the dark.
CONTACT
@ Two days later.
Victoria is walking briskly along a dimly lit street, looking around all the time. She stops in front of a maze of lanes.
"What trouble have I got into?"
She resumes her walk. Around, sidewalks full of rubbish. In the air, stench of rotten food. Every now and then shabby people cast menacing glances at her. She reaches the middle of the lane, and following a smelly drain, quickens her steps.
Impossible to find the way.
She didn’t have to take that short cut!
A drunk bumps into her and continues staggering as if nothing happened.
She feels uneasy. She buttons up her dustcoat.
Then a whistle, from afar.
She doesn’t notice it.
A second one, closer.
Victoria stops dead.
She looks back out of the corner of her eye. Three dark figures are staring at her under a street lamp, a hundred meters away. Nobody else.
She springs forward, her heart in the mouth.
Neglected warehouses. Doorways boarded up with panels.
She glances right and left.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
She stops in front of a wall blocking the road. Impossible to climb over it. She turns her head towards a dark corner. Hidden by a rubbish heap, there is a small door… Half-closed!
She rushes into and bolts it.
She gropes for a switch, then looks around. She has ended up in a storehouse. Without windows and secondary exits. A cage!
She runs up the stairs to an inner balcony.
Meanwhile the three have reached the entrance. Their chief, a guy with his face half blue half red, indicates the sides of the building. Short orders. Then he reaches the main entrance. He puts his hand up. Black gloves, cut at the knuckles. Claws as sharp as knives, able to terminate any program. A few slashes on the hinges. The door crashes to the ground.
Victoria watches the scene from the balcony. She springs towards a dark corner. An emergency exit! She flings open the door, looks down.
On the sidewalk, a large and squat being is waiting for her. Long folded limbs, like a toad’s. On its face, iridescent scales. With a gurgle, it jumps onto the rungs, covers two of them at a time, helping itself with the handrail.
Victoria rushes inside. She flies towards a pile of goods and curls herself among the sacks.
In the meantime the chief has reached the balcony. He stops, looks around, smells.
Loud steps.
Nearer and nearer.
She holds her breath.
Silence.
Now he is in front. Bloodshot eyes. His claws by his sides.
It’s all over.
Then a whisper: “Run to your right. I am going to open a tunnel five meters away.”
She jumps, and even before touching the ground, the passage closes behind her. She tumbles down onto a stony surface. With an aching shoulder, Victoria looks around: she is in a cavern. A dark figure is standing straight in front of her.
REVELATION
@
Victoria bursts into tears.
“Here you are safe.” The stranger with golden hair kneels down and hugs her.
Victoria gradually calms down.
“How did you get into your head to go to that place?”
“I lost my way. I never do anything right…”
“What else?”
The girl emits a sob. “Two weeks ago, in Sydney, a young man I met in a disco was killed. I saw him dying!”
“A robbery?”
“He told me he had heard a talk among criminals…”
“About what?”
Victoria looks at the angelic face of her saver who seems worried.
“They had entered the information system of the Space Agency. A killer was waiting for us outside. It’s a miracle I’m alive!”
The other stands up, starts wandering round. “A few days ago in Sydney a skyscraper blew up. What do you know about that?”
“He lived there.”
The woman stiffens. “Don’t move.”
She goes to her companions. They begin a lively argument that after a few minutes becomes worse.
Victoria follows them carefully.
Agitated gestures. One of them is about to leave. The others wave him to come back. After a short delay, he rejoins the group. They speak again. The atmosphere calms down. They come to Victoria, besieging her.
“Give me your personal details,” starts the woman.
“What for?”
“Answer!”
“Victoria Medici, code VM37456F.”
“We need more details about your story. Come with me.”
“But…”
“Let’s go!”
The group, with Victoria in the middle, walks along a corridor to a room with some pieces of equipment against the walls and an examination couch at the center.
“Lie down.”
The girl stretches out on the metallic surface. The others arrange themselves around it. The woman places herself behind, raises the girl’s wavy hair and places her palms against Victoria’s temples.
After a few seconds, Victoria finds herself in the discotheque of Sydney, in the middle of the floor, with Abel.
"I promised a friend of mine who lives in the town of the Space Agency, to go and see him," says Abel. "We were going to visit the Museum of Exploration. This morning I contacted him… Just before saying goodbye, a noise started. I couldn’t hear my friend any more, but other voices… They were talking about the Space Agency!"
"Are you sure?" asks Victoria.
"They were criminals! I have recorded the call on my neural chip."
"May I listen to it?"
"Victoria, I’ve only met you today. And then, I could get you into trouble…"
…
Victoria has just transmitted the help request to James. A few explanations and the registration.
She has to wait, now.
Still in the middle of the floor. Without thinking.
Embracing Abel, while he gazes at her with a puzzled expression.
After a few minutes, a massage arrives. Top priority:
REMAIN IN THE BUILDING!
SECURITY SQUAD ARRIVING.
On awaking, Victoria looks around: the woman is standing beside her, but the others have left.
She helps the girl to get up and walks arm in arm. “They are waiting for us.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the Council.”
They enter a crypt, where other souls are gathered in a circle. The woman goes to the center, and makes Victoria sit in front of her.
“The mind analysis has confirmed your story. We have learned you know James Bogart, the Head of Security.”
All eyes turn toward the girl.
“Why are you so interested in my story? Besides, why do you treat me this way?”
“We are the Elects.”
PRACTICAL PROBLEMS
Shortly after the announcement, by the artificial intelligences, about a new brain emulation method, that was opening the way to the transfer en masse of souls to Net, important ethical matters were faced. The discussions began in the rich countries, w
hich were going to introduce the new technology first, but spread fast all over the world, involving governments, media, religious organizations and communities.
Above all, mankind wondered whether it was right to apply mind extraction before death. From a technical viewpoint, both the living and the dead could undergo the operation, as long as their brain was in good condition. But according to ethics, the two systems were not at all equivalent, because the process involved the destruction of gray matter and its application to living people would cause their physical death. Public opinion was passionately divided. The interventionists maintained that the body was only a mere support for the soul and that it wasn’t worthwhile worrying about it, the opponents declared that the operation was an act against nature or using an even more explicit term, a real homicide.
Beyond these incompatible positions, it became clear that the indiscriminate application of mind extraction to living people would have dreadful repercussions on society. A person digitized when young would leave a family, relatives and a job, in short a gap that simply couldn’t be filled. It was easy to imagine that this action on a large scale would produce social and economic drawbacks that would throw the whole of society into a profound crisis.
To be on the safe side it was agreed to employ this technology only on the dead. Later on it was also extended to dying persons. Therefore euthanasia, about which in the past there had been much disagreement, was included among human rights and carried out in all states. A severe law against those who committed suicide in order to reach Net, was promulgated and enforced both on Earth and in the virtual world.
On the principle that the right to eternity had to be inserted in the Bill of Man, a large consent was achieved. But it was not applied uniformly. The wealthy nations followed their initial timing. In the other countries instead, the implementation of the plans proceeded at the pace of their economic development and the distribution of international loans. However, at the beginning of the 23rd century, this method was used by the world population, with the exception of conscientious objectors and those whose brain damage was reported to be so severe that it would make the treatment impossible.
The brain digitization was accepted with great enthusiasm and the belief spread throughout the population that death was conquered forever. It is true that the new system represents a good substitute for eternity, but it also clear that it is not the ultimate solution yet. Even in the digital world it is possible to die: accidents and diseases lie in wait. Various negative experiences underlined the problem. From then on the virtual people have developed an unprecedented security system. Mankind deems it excessive: why worry so much about death if life expectations are so high? The opposing group answers back that the future holds terrible threats and that it is necessary to do everything possible to prevent them. It looks like a dialog of the deaf as the visions are divergent, but this is actually due to the different time horizon of the two races: what has a remote possibility of happening in a short human life, becomes an awful threat for those who yearn for eternity.
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