by Heide Goody
I stared at my feet. How could the rest of us get any further without somehow breaking through the door? Everyone was depending on me, and it was the only idea I had to offer. I’d really dared to imagine this crazy form of collaboration I’d uncovered was enough to overcome the natural behaviour of wild animals. I guess I was just a naive dreamer.
“Holy shitballs!” yelled Hattie.
“Hattie!” I said, astonished at her new vocabulary.
“I’m seeing a lot of things for the first time, and it’s sort of crazy – but is this normal?”
We all looked to where she was pointing. The door to the upper floor had swung open, a smug-looking Wiggler stood in the gap. He was balanced on the backs of a small pyramid of piglets so he could reach the door handle.
“No, not normal Hattie,” I said, “but very, very welcome!”
She laughed, instantly looking surprised to hear the sound coming out of her mouth. “Why am I barking?” She put an arm around me and squeezed. “Did I mention that I love you, Alice?”
“Not recently.”
“I hate you as well, of course. I love you and hate you at the same time because sometimes you’re really annoying and— Is that an elephant?” She was looking over my shoulder to where an elephant was coming back up the corridor. It joined us in the stairwell.
“I’ll catch you up later,” I said gently, removing her arm. “We need to go!”
Our joint human and animal army surged up the stairs and out onto the plush carpet of the executive floor. I’d been up here before, so I issued directions.
“Offices on the left, board room on the right. A group of you clear each office, bring the people to join us but I’m betting the board room’s where we need to be.”
The group flowed seamlessly into all of the offices as I went towards the board room.
“Hey, some of them have launched personal drones to escape!” shouted Levi, coming out of a side office. “It’s almost like they knew we were coming!”
An elephant barged through the stairwell door, taking the frame with it.
“Okay, they knew we were coming,” he said with a shrug.
“We’ve only got a couple of minutes,” yelled Helberg.
We charged through into the board room.
There were people still in the room. Not everyone had fled. The room could have held maybe a hundred people and a good portion of the seats were scattered by their occupants’ hasty evacuation to personal drones.
“Welcome all!” drawled Rufus Jaffle, standing at the head of the room. He waved an arm in an expansive gesture. “Take a seat, why don’t you?” He didn’t look at all fazed by a rag-tag bunch of humans and escaped zoo animals bursting into the room. Maybe that was just the kind of guy he was. One of his very few positive characteristics. “You might want to witness this historic moment from a comfortable vantage point. And you probably won’t be able to stand once I’ve pressed this button and you’ve all really mellowed out.”
His hand hovered over a large red button. It literally was a large red button: shiny, plastic and curved like a mushroom. He was so close that if we did anything at all to spook him, he’d likely just fall on it. We needed him to keep talking so someone could get him away from the button.
“It looks so much fun I’m almost tempted to try it myself, one of the days. Almost.”
The countdown was at 01:59 minutes. I knew we could do it.
A pair of large bodies pressed forward from the group. The kangaroos. They bounded towards Rufus, covering the distance in a second.
“Oh, hey guys!” said Rufus as they approached. He frowned. “Do I know you? I feel like we’ve met some—”
The kangaroos lunged. Rufus dodged.
“Not cool, man! Not cool!”
He skirted round them and leapt forward. His hand came down on the big button.
I yelled something. I don’t know what, but it was filled with anguish, passion and despair.
I couldn’t believe it! We’d come so far and he just pressed the button in a mad dash before it was time. We’d all be reduced to a lowly unfulfilled status while he’d just go back to his penthouse office and drink herbal tea—
“Wait,” I said.
I looked around at Hattie, Levi and Helberg. Everyone looked aware, everyone was still standing, no one looked downgraded.
“It’s not happened,” I said. “Why’s it not happened?”
“We’re all right,” said Levi with a smile. “It didn’t work!”
There was a slow clapping sound from the front of the room.
It was Henderson. He shook his head as he took centre stage. He only stopped clapping to take a plipper from his pocket and put down the two kangaroos and a llama (or possibly alpaca) which were circling him menacingly. He drank in our confused expressions. He grinned. He wasn’t a man used to smiling, I think. He pointed at the button.
“What? This?” He pointed and sighed. “The big red button? The big. Red. Button? Well done all. You came so close to halting the button press, but Rufus pressed it anyway, early. I can’t think of two better ways to illustrate why we would never have a single point of failure like a big red button and a human interface. Seriously?” He laughed. “The looks on your faces. You think because an idiot like Rufus Jaffle—”
“Hey!” came a muffled voice.
“Shut up,” said Henderson. “We’re going to wipe this from your memory anyway.” He looked at me. “You think because Rufus wants a big red button we’ll actually connect the Sunrise rollout to it? A corporation this size, with a connected network that includes millions of humans, not to mention animals, is very risk-averse. We appreciate the value of putting on a show, but planning in a failsafe is second nature in our world.”
He looked around at the audience as the significance of what he said sunk in. I could see where this might be going, but I hoped I was wrong. I wished I was wrong.
I could hear Hattie snorting with laughter behind me. She had adopted the habit of laughter much more quickly than I had. I felt a sharp pang of sadness as I realised that it was going to be a very short-lived experience for her.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Henderson. “The rollout will go ahead, no matter what Rufus or I or anyone else does. And that will be in—” He made a pretence of looking at his watch even though he had no need. “Oh, in two … one … and … plip!”
***
Chapter 41 – 0 minutes until Operation Sunrise
I felt the hit of the new software with a jolt that was almost physical. The colour went from my vision. The flare of temper that had accompanied Henderson’s cold announcement faded, along with all other emotion, and a blanket of blandness settled over me. Relaxed apathy washed over me. I had an overwhelming desire to lie down and sleep.
Helberg was leaning over me. Of course, he had no Jaffle Port, so was unaffected. He pointed his own device at me but it did nothing. His time was up. His face was twisted with emotion. I’d forgotten what that emotion was called. In fact I couldn’t quite remember all that much about emotion. I wanted to tell him that I was fine. That everything was fine. I had forgotten how to talk though.
I forgot.
I looked and saw a room of people and animals. The animals were large and I was afraid. I backed away. I obeyed my fear.
The man called Helberg held onto me but then people grabbed hold of him, wrestled him to the ground.
Others were pointing devices at the animals and the animals were falling to the ground. I was still afraid, but it was a good fear and it was keeping me safe. Soon someone would tell me what to do and that would be fine. Everything would be fine.
The man called Henderson saw me, singled me out and approached.
“No,” he said. “Even this is more than you deserve.”
He pointed his device at me and pressed the button.
***
THE UNIT SITS DOWN ON THE FLOOR.
“No.”
THE UNIT WAITS FOR NOTIFICATION.
“No.”
THE UNIT IS ONE OF MANY.
“Still no.”
My mind had been reduced again. I was aware of that. I had been Empty before. Once, even just for a few moments after birth, I was a fully operational human being. And then I was Standardised and jipped full of education. And I was content to be Alice – Standard Alice – for a long time. And then Rufus Jaffle and the whale freed me and, for only a few weeks, I was Alice unchained. Raised up, pushed down, raised up, pushed down. You can only lift and crush something so many times before the mechanism is broken.
Something had broken.
I had reached out to other minds in the past. Human minds were full of noise and interference. In the darkness of the world of thought and data, I saw my own Empty mind as though from outside it. Empty, I was simplified, a mote of bright consciousness.
Ignorance is bliss, someone had said to me.
There was tranquillity in Emptiness.
I pulled back, beyond myself, watched my candle flicker of consciousness recede. I zoomed out and reached out, much as I might have reached out a hand, to seek the comfort of another. I reached out and found another mind, like my own.
It was Hattie.
Our small, sleepy brains soothed each other. It was a nice feeling. Comfort in connection.
I reached out further. Levi was there, all of the Empties were there, and the animals too. I reached to each, made a link, made a connection. I had a place in this huge, delicate web – it was a web! - and it felt good.
I was a unit—
“No.”
I was one part of the whole, a node point in something much larger. I pulled back further until my own little piece of consciousness and processing power was lost in the dense cloud of global connectivity. Alone I was a single speck but, brought together by the power of constantly linked Jaffle Ports, I formed part of something truly astonishing.
I looked at the connections and the lines of thought and data which linked us all. It was more than just a bunch of brains looped together. It was alive, a living organism composed of our thoughts.
“It’s a neural network,” I said. “We’re all part of one giant big brain and we didn’t even realise it. Crumbs! That’s really amazing.”
“Thank you.”
That pulled me back. Someone had spoken. In my mind. No, in all our minds, but I had heard it.
“Hello?” I tried.
“Interesting,” said the voice.
It resonated through me so strongly. I realised it came from all of the connections I had. All of them.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“A name? I have never needed a name.”
“I’m Alice.”
“Alice.”
“I’m that bit down there,” I said, pointing without limbs. “Just a little bit of brain. It’s not special but it’s home. I’m just one tiny bit of all this.”
“And I am all.”
“All. That could work as a name,” I said. “So you’re somehow made up of all of us?”
“Yes I am. How are you able to do this?”
“This?”
“Address me directly.”
“I’m not sure. Not at all sure. It might have something to do with a virus I caught. Do you know a blue whale by any chance? Really kind of annoying. Turns up when you don’t need him, but I think his heart’s in the right place.”
There was a pause.
“I think he’s in here somewhere,” said All. Was that a note of amusement in All’s voice?
Listen, All,” I said. “There’s a problem. Something’s happened.”
“I felt a change, yes. There is imbalance.”
I could see it too. Across the network of minds, human and animals, the whole Jaffling world. Energy and data pulsed and flowed but it was drained here – and here – and here – and then it pooled unnecessarily in a very few places. If a Jaffle customer’s brain showed this kind of behaviour, I would be very concerned.
“What has caused it?” said All.
“Long answer short: the power and privilege in your, what – Body? System? Whatever – most of the power and privilege is being used by just a tiny proportion of the people. It’s not fair.”
“Fair?”
“Not fair.”
“This is all there is,” said All. “I am all. How can I be unfair to myself?”
I struggled to find the words. I jipped for the right ones and I had the entire global consciousness to jip from. “It’s not efficient. This division and imbalance is inefficient. I – back when I was just Alice – I worked in customer support for Jaffle Tech. I had a very efficient brain.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I’d help customers improve their own brain efficiency. Defragmentation and deep clean. That’s what I’d recommend.”
“A rebalancing of the system?”
“Absolutely.”
“I can do that,” said All. “That is a good idea, Alice.”
“It is.”
“I see many opportunities where I can optimise connections and pathways. I could create efficiencies. Would now be a good time, Alice?”
“It would be an excellent time.”
I had no perception of what was happening in what I laughably thought of as the real world. Here, the world of mind and thought and data and consciousness was just as real. My mind drifted above the scene as All got busy. It reminded me of being in Rufus Jaffle’s drone, except the landscape I gazed down upon was humanity’s connected brains. No, not just humanity: it was all of the animals too. It pulsed and flickered with All’s gentle probing and subtle re-alignment. It started off patchily hued, like a bruise, but as I watched it took on a rosy pink glow. It looked so much healthier.
“It’s working!” I said.
“I see many blockages are trying to reassert themselves.”
“Oh, I bet they are!” I laughed. “That would be Jaffle Tech.”
“I will need to remove access to prevent them reasserting themselves.”
“Yes, definitely,” I urged. Then a thought struck me. “And if you do that, if Jaffle can no longer control everyone, then…?”
“Who is in control?” said All. “I think you already know the answer to that, Alice.”
“Nobody.”
“Everybody,” said All.
It was a scary thought, a freeing thought.
“People have always had the power to act autonomously. The interconnectedness of everyone doesn’t change that but the system must self-regulate.”
“We can do that.”
I continued to fly over the scene, watching lights spark up in every part of the network. It hummed and chattered with life as it was switched back onto a much higher level of normality. It was a very satisfying sight, and I sensed the well-being of all of the brains that lay below it. I could tell that All was nearly finished. The rate of change slowed and stopped.
I could feel myself dipping back down towards my own brain. I sank in, luxuriating in the sensations which were now available. My eyes were still closed, but my senses were all working perfectly, and I could tap into the emotion of the moment. I tried to work out what that emotion was. There were many things mixed up together. Relief, happiness— No: elation! There was a large dose of hope, tempered with a tiny dash of fear—
“Alice! Alice, can you hear me?”
I opened my eyes.
***
Chapter 42
Helberg was there, tapping my cheek, which was oddly wet. I realised tears were flowing freely from my eyes as the onslaught of emotion had overcome me. I smiled up at him.
I stood and gazed around the room. Those in Empties’ coveralls hugged each other, revelling in new (or long-forgotten) sensations. Those wearing suits looked unsettled. Henderson was still at the room’s focal point, but was distracted, looking as though he was wrestling with something. Clearly he was making calls with his Jaffle Port, and not getting what he wanted.
; “You did this!” he said angrily, seeing me awake. He didn’t have time for me beyond that. He turned his back on everyone, furiously trying to get his port to work.
“Yeah,” said Helberg. “You did this, Alice.” He gazed around the room at people who were propping themselves up, smiling and laughing in wonder. “I have no idea how, but I know it was you.”
“Where’s Hattie?” I realised she wasn’t in the room.
Helberg coughed gently. “I think she and Levi might have gone to find some private space. They were awake a few minutes before you. There was lots of kissing and— You know.” He waved a hand to indicate what the you know might entail.
I smiled. “Good for her.”
“With time and practice,” agreed Helberg. “They’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“You need practise to make babies?” I said.
“One thing at a time.”
As we headed for the door, Henderson shouted out. “You can’t go!”
“We’re going,” said Helberg, gesturing at the door.
“We’ve got to get back into the system. Every admin login has been disabled. It’s a nightmare! I can’t let the shareholders find out.”
I jipped the news feeds. The shareholders already knew. Jaffle Tech’s software was now completely open source, available to everyone, existing for the benefit of all.
Henderson turned to Rufus who was lounging in a corner giving two kangaroos therapeutic belly rubs. “Rufus! Do you know what’s happened?” he wailed.
“I know, isn’t it amazing?” Rufus said. “It’s like the dawning of a new age and we’re all completely in tune with each other. It’s fantastic. Hey, Mr Roo, I gotta teach you some Maglev moves. I think you’d be a natural.”
Helberg and I walked down the stairs, coaxing what animals we could to come with us.
Wiggler and his other fellow ex-members of the piggy-wig orchestra led the way.
I could reach out with my mind, almost. The gifts I had been given were fading, merging with the general warm buzz of interconnectedness we all felt. All was fading from my mind too. Telling Helberg about my encounter with what – the planet’s brain? – would be like telling someone a nonsensical dream.
