The Biocrime Spectrum (Books 1-4)

by Erik Tabain

  “We’ll see,” Lestre said, signaling to Lumbardo that it was time to go.

  As they both got up from their tables, Lumbardo’s shirt advertising showed a new animated advertisement: ‘See something. Report something’. He won’t receive a fee for this one. It was a community service promotion, but as the ultimate beneficiary of crime reporting and monitoring, he wasn’t too fussed to give up valuable advertising space for something that he would benefit from in the long term.

  As they left The Old Soviet café, they didn’t receive a bill, but they knew it was €22 each, including gratuities. The amounts were taken away from their universal income accounts and deposited to The Old Soviet account, for a total of €44. The transaction was split into all of its components and distributed immediately. The human waiter instantly received their €4 payment, an amortized rental of €4 was paid to the landlord, €2 to the energy supplier, €4 to the company that maintained the footpath and walkway to the café, €8 to the supplier of the food paste, €2 to the synth coffee supplier and so on, to all the various suppliers. And €14 to the owners of The Old Soviet. Every transaction was sliced into its small portions and distributed automatically and instantly through the continuum. It was the modern way.

  Eight

  The Movement is coming

  ‘The Movement’ was a term first used in the early part of the twenty-first century to co-ordinate a lose alliance of extreme populists and economic nationalists in the America and Europe zones, but it was a short-lived experiment at the time and its influence waned and dissipated towards the end of the 2020s. By the mid-2400s, but there was debate about the antecedents and original meaning of ‘the Movement’, and its use by nationalists had been largely forgotten about. Essentially, the new iteration of the Movement had no relationship at all with the original invention and the name was adopted around the time Technocrats first started to outnumber natural humans, only two-hundred years after Technocrats first started being cloned.

  Technocrats first appeared after the 2214 London Convention, where it was agreed human cloning was ethical and, therefore, permitted, and legalizing the practice was partially to standardize an underground and illegal market. Humans had been cloned since 2050, where radical experiments carried in the late twentieth century on animals were first performed on sheep and then, chimpanzees. There was much resistance to concepts about human cloning and stem cell research and development, essentially from religious figures and conservative political leaders, but as religion became less reliable as a basis for human ethics, and religious and theological thought less influential in social life, science became the clear replacement, and there was a common belief that the clearest pathway to existentialism and theories about the existence of Gods and other celestial beings was through science and technology.

  The practice of cloning had its roots in the successful clone of a sea urchin by Hans Driesch, a biologist from Germany in the Europe Zone in 1885, but then moved onto more sophisticated molecular structures, through research developed by geneticist John Haldane, in the 1950s in the republic of England in the Northern Europe Zone. The first successful clone of a sheep occurred in 1996, followed cloning of a monkey in the year 2018 and by 2100, there was trade in human cloning, mainly from citizens that saw it as a process where their lives would be prolonged through a replica of their own image, albeit with a different and unique consciousness.

  After legalization, clones became known as ‘Technocrats’, mainly to differentiate from science fiction and popular cultural depictions of clones as rampant robotic creatures. Technocrats were seen as a novelty initially, regarded as the future of humanity: cloned humans that had their own thoughts, their own free will, and were created, essentially, equal. But they had less emotional thought than natural humans, almost to a psychopathic level, and were fully subscribed to the notion of technological advancement, science and introduction of whatever means were available to implement this. Attachment theories developed over many centuries determined that full emotional capacities were only achieved in the mother’s womb: a human developed in an incubator, no matter how closely science tried to replicate the uterus in an artificial environment, was no match for the emotional powers created by the attachment relationship between mother and child.

  Over time, Technocrats were considered to have too much control over the direction of humanity, and numerically, they had a significant advantage, eventually making up almost seventy per cent of the world population.

  Natural humans relied on the emotion of yesteryear, bringing up the hot ethical debates from the 2000s and 2100s, where there were many concerns about cloning and stem cell research, culminating in the 2149 two-week international symposium: What Does It Mean To Be Human? Although this symposium mainly dealt with the negative consequences of cloning, it was seen as the turning point for human cloning and accelerated the acceptance of this practice.

  What Does It Mean To Be Human? also explored robotics, androids and artificial intelligence. Robotics had already been in development for some time, mainly as ‘human helpers’ and law enforcers, but to achieve the type of advancement robotics needed to fully replicate human life would take thousands of years and, besides, the technology to clone humans was already available.

  Robotics reached its final level of advancement in the early 2500s, where robotic androids shaped like sophisticated mechanical humans were able to respond to voice instructions and follow rudimentary but essential tasks. They became commonly used as robot police officers, or ‘robocops’, and robot service officers, or ‘robohelpers’ but never reached a level of advancement where they could act independently or take on intricate actions, and usually functioned under the command of a human instructor.

  Physically, robocops were slender versions of the popular culture representations of androids in the late twentieth-century, popularized by the franchised RoboCop movies. Modern robocops were usually a dark color or black, helmeted and made from a combination of hard-plastics, computerized machinery and robotic gadgetry. They were acquired and manufactured by Biocrime, and operated on a relatively sophisticated level but, unlike their representations in historical popular culture, where they were depicted as autonomous and high-functioning killing machines, in reality, they simply operated as an adjunct service in law enforcement and surveillance.

  Robohelpers, due to the nature of their service support work, were clad in a less threatening manner, usually in neutral or lighter colors, and tended to be slightly smaller than the more prevalent robocops.

  The common scientific understanding was that artificial intelligence could only develop fully through a symbiotic link between biology and biochemistry, and these concepts from the What Does It Mean To Be Human? symposium led to future developments such as the continuum, genetic recording and lightcapture. Which, eventually, led to creation of Biocrime.

  Natural humans generally moved towards communitarian ethics and values, whereas Technocrats followed free thought, radical libertarianism and free markets and supracapitalism. By the mid-2400s, there was a view among natural humans that the question of What Does It Mean To Be Human? had lost its meaning and relevance, where scientific development and technological change happened too rapidly, and communitarianism was on the way out.

  Radical libertarianism meant new ideas and thoughts about humanity were introduced, adopted or dispensed with, modified, discarded at too fast a pace, and the only ones who could cope seamlessly were Technocrats, or the few like-minded natural humans. It was the dialectic method on hyperspeed, where opposites engaged with each other to produce new theories of existence.

  And now, with Technocrats making up around seventy per cent of the world’s population, the mid-millennial fears about their rise were well-founded.

  Natural humans wanted to reclaim ‘what it meant to be human’, and this reclamation was considered to be the basis of ‘the Movement’. The Movement started off and remained as an underground collective, in most cases literally, to avo
id future surveillance methods, and at the time, was considered by nearly all Technocrats and most humans to be a radical counter-establishment movement. But, over time, as natural human populations decreased relative to the Technocrat population numbers, the Movement became more of an accepted resistance by natural humans, with ‘the Movement is coming’, becoming a clarion call for a return to human values and providing the answer to the question of ‘what it meant to be human’.

  The main considerations in the contemporary world were: Technocrats had become too powerful, social and technological change had become too extreme, and there was no turning back. But there was a belief that ‘the Movement was coming’, and that it would only be a matter of time—whether it be fifty, five-hundred, or a thousand years, the times would suit them at some point in the future.

  Nine

  The affair that crossed the divide

  Sunrays were beaming through the window of the small ground-floor apartment, lapping the edge of the bed where Greta Banda slept. She preferred to wake to the natural light, rather than anything assisted by technology, as if she was paying homage to her fallen predecessors and resisting the relentless push of the Technocrats. She knew it was only a weak resistance but, like so many other members of the Movement, subscribed to the theory of ‘snowflake’ activism—every act of resistance contributed to ‘the Movement’, and Banda started off every day in this way. Her apartment was like many others in this area of South San Francisco populated by natural humans—small, but large enough for one person to carry out their regular life and business, and hers was one of a hundred and forty-four in this block—arranged according to Fibonacci mathematics and golden ratios, an architectural style that was repopularized in the late 2600s.

  She was an idealistic on a mission, obsessed with and committed to ‘the Movement’. She held the underlying belief that to take on any existing order based on injustice, five committed adherents were needed to create the ‘Shining Path’ and she was one of the self-appointed group known as the Revolution Five. There were currently four members: she was number two, and number one was reserved for their highest priority—the recruitment of Jonathan Katcher.

  Like many other obsessives, she knew about the work and the history of Katcher’s work, his detentions and experience of almost being sent to a universal penal zone, but she wanted to meet Katcher and re-recruit him to the Movement. She was a leader within her tribe, and believed she had access to the right people that could infiltrate and bypass Biocrime, which would lead to a reunification with Katcher and overthrow the world of Technocrats.

  Banda was fit, active, thirty-five years old and trained in weaponry use and explosive handling. Her serious looks were only occasionally peppered with laughter, and her piercing blue eyes and deep black hair portrayed a cynic on a quest for justice and retribution.

  She was also a high-level scientist and engineer, a quick thinker able to sweet-talk her way out of anything, with grand intentions. For as long as she could remember, she had always been committed to the Movement. She was a radical, an upcoming intellectual for the Movement and a technological wannabe, was well connected with a number of tribes and subculture groups, but clever enough to avoid registering any links to a Biocrime profile. She was highly ambitious and believed the return of the Movement was a non-negotiable outcome, if the world was to break away from the shackles of a citizen-based police state. But, like many activists for the Movement, although she was highly radicalized, she was also impatient and naïve. She despised Technocrats and, because they were cloned, she didn’t consider them to be human and didn’t rank their intellect. She was potentially violent and was prepared to do whatever it took for the Movement.

  Her parents were active in ‘the Movement’—too active for their own good, but now gone. According to Banda, they were victims of Technocrat neglect, denied access to the BioMed system and nanomeds, even though they could afford them. It was the typical hypocritical way of the Technocrat world—‘do no evil’ on the surface but behind the veneer, a hardline passive method that achieved the opposite result—it put natural humans in their place, especially the radicals and troublemakers.

  Although she was born off-grid—and wanted to remain that way—through a range of fabricated Lifebook accounts, she managed to trace her lineage to the South Asia Zone, the former republic of Indonesia, in the small earthquake-prone area of Banda Acheh. In her research, she was surprised to learn the area was nominated as a potential universal penal zone after it was removed of all citizens in the year 2750, but was considered to be too close to other heavily populated areas in the South Asia Zone. As part of the free movement of human resources in the late 2100s, Banda’s ancestors moved to the America Zone, and into the San Francisco region in the 2800s.

  As part of their activism, Banda’s parents always emphasized it was important to be ‘off-the-grid’, to avoid scrutiny, and lay low. For Banda and others like her, living outside of the continuum—as well as Lifebook, Biocrime profiling, the lightcapture system and the world memory bank—was critical. She was part of an underground resistance movement with around a thousand hardline activists, spread out across a number of different cells in different zones around the world, with access to different facilities and different networks. Lightcapture technology couldn’t access subterranean or submarinal areas, so, underground was the best way to work.

  Biocrime’s reputation among citizens was one of infallibility, a system where every move and every action could be recorded, stored, and used against counter-community activists and recidivists. But Banda knew this was not the case—there were software glitches within Biocrime—and with the help of a Technocrat insider, she worked the system. The rumors Gordon Lumbardo talked about with Marine Lestre were actually true.

  The sunrays were now encroaching on Banda’s eyes; she could feel the warmth on her cheeks, and she woke once this warmth reached her eyelids. Banda never slept deeply, and when she opened her eyes, she still needed to remind herself of her surroundings, her small and sparse apartment room, with a naked male body next to her.

  In her bed, Banda leaned over to the male’s ear and whispered: “Michael, it’s time to go.”

  “Just a few more minutes…”

  She reached under the bed sheets and over Michael Kransich’s slightly aroused body. The sex was mechanical and it was what Banda expected from a Technocrat man but, ultimately, it was a pleasurable action that enabled her to engage her mind for the day ahead. Three minutes later and it was all over.

  “You’ve got to go,” Banda said, finally encompassing the aroma of whisky on Kransich’s breath after seeing the empty bottle lying on the floor. It was the only item out of place in an otherwise impeccably arranged bedroom.

  “It’s okay, there’s no rush today. I’m not expected at Biocrime until eight-thirty.” Kransich searched the side cupboard for a standard nanomed—he had a splitting headache but once the paracetamol and barbituates sunk into his synapses, his pain would be gone and he would feel totally refreshed, as if last night’s late-night drinking session never happened.

  “Oh, and the documents?” enquired Banda, seeking the exchange of secret documents Kransich usually delivered from Biocrime.

  “Sure. I’ll transfer from my cell—there’s some interesting stuff in there. Tech, malware, phishing software, schedules for underground inspections. Should keep you busy for a while.”

  The sounds of a bathroom shower followed, the slither of Kransich’s clothes onto his body, a passionate kiss and then he was gone. There was a bypass serum in Kransich’s bloodstream—a serum injected by Biocrime which deactivated and removed his DNA from the continuum—which meant he was invisible to genetic memory recording, lightcapture, and Lifebook. Unless someone actually witnessed him in motion, no-one would ever find out about his relationship with Banda. Or his sale of Biocrime secrets to the Movement.

  And, in addition to this, Banda used decoder software attached to her cell device, a system developed
by the Movement with secrets extracted from Biocrime, a system which allowed her to deceive genetic memory capture and avoid Lifebook detection.

  Banda’s highly surreptitious affair with Kransich had been going on for three years—relationships between Technocrats and natural humans weren’t frowned upon, but they were unusual and could potentially raise interest from Biocrime. Because of this, and the ineffectiveness of genetic recording in subterranean areas, Banda had initially instructed Kransich to use a narrow tubed pathway tunnel which had been excavated between Banda’s ground floor apartment and the back end of a nearby autotram tunnel—his movements couldn’t be traced easily by Biocrime, but it had to work both ways. Banda didn’t want his movements or the relationship to be known by natural humans either. But over time, and growing in the confidence the chances of being discovered were negligible, Kransich avoided the tunnel after dark and only used it during daylight hours.

  After Kransich left, Banda washed herself down with a long ten-minute shower. She didn’t hate the Technocrat man that was in her midst, but she didn’t like the thought of having remnants of him left on her body either.

  Michael Kransich was a muscular dark-haired Technocrat, coming up to his thirty-fifth year since inception. He was an outsider in life, but he was different to most Technocrats—he queried the meaning of life; his life, and the life of natural humans, and their question of ‘what does it mean to be human’. He was perplexed about how his life was created in the incubator in a hospital, rather than inside the womb of a mother and how and why his psychometry was different to natural humans, and many other Technocrats.

  He was ‘recruited’ by Banda through sex and bribery when she considered it was possible to bypass Biocrime surveillance. She didn’t know how, but surmised the best way to find out was to get the information directly from Biocrime. Her plan was high-risk but after six months of research and engaging with different affairs with Technocrat men and women, she seduced Kransich at The Alchemist, a popular late night bar in the Castro District. After a bout of audacious and drunken sex in a darkened laneway, Kransich ended up in Banda’s apartment, and the access through a hidden tunnel to reach the destination added to the mystique and the intrigue of their assignation. Having never had anything to do with natural humans before, Kransich was opened up to a completely new world by Banda, a world he found seductive.