2080
By Mike
Hoefflinger
As 1984
was written in 1948, so 2080 is written in 2008. Technology has moved forward 72 years, but
President Bartoli’s troubles are straight out of the past. 280AD to be precise. Can a mysterious bot keep history from
repeating itself? © 2007 Mike Hoefflinger and Packet Switched Press http://www.PacketSwitchedPress.com/ Released under the Creative Commons license: Attribution. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform
the work. In return, licensees must give the original author credit. Share Alike. The licensor permits others to distribute derivative works under a
license identical to the one that governs the licensor's work. Noncommercial. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute,
display, and perform the work. In return, licensees may not use the work for
commercial purposes -- unless they get the licensor's permission.
Chapter 1
5 Trillion cells in the human body Francis Collins, Director Human Genome Research Institute It was surprising that something
first isolated in 1869, visualized in 1937, accurately modeled in 1953 and
fully sequenced in 2003 was not yet completely understood in 2080. Much more was now known about the
storage nature of what had previously been considered junk-DNA. Vast regions of the DNA sequence that did
not encode for proteins, but were discovered to carry the equivalent of
software for the biological hardware that is the human body. Long streams of wetware microcode
that carried “memes”, ideas and processes that explained everything from
spiders’ web spinning to complex human thoughts, behaviors and instincts. Things we do, but have not learned from
others. Discovered in 2049, the body used a
method of “sucking spaghetti through a hole” to read, write and act on these
memes (the press had referred to it by its dour scientific name: single-strand DNA nanopore sequencing). In addition, it was learned that
part of the process of evolution involved not only the blending of genes, but
also the so-called hybridization of memes.
However, even 30 * *
* In a run-down apartment in what at
the turn of the century had been one of the pricier residential buildings of
the Haizhu district of Guangzhou, Zhao Xi Na was staring listlessly at the
wall. Before the middle and upper class had
left for the beautiful, terra-formed coastal planes of the glorious New Pearl
River Delta between Annexation was more like it. But, with physical borders and traditional warfare
having become largely irrelevant in a world controlled by financial and
information alliances and sabotage, it had been decades since anyone had
whispered the word. The world was no longer racked by
losing its youth in ground warfare, or by the perfect technological
neutralization of nuclear drones and counter-drones controlled from
warehouses 5,000 miles away. Coming
under the comforting protection of the world’s largest financial and
computing army without shedding a drop of blood or a square mile of land,
felt not only acceptable, but desirable. Or, at the very least, inevitable. In its wake, the information-based
conflict was throwing off the very technology and cottage industries in which
many of the world’s over-educated and under-advantaged twenty-something’s now
made their entirely unremarkable living. A bot farmer like so many others,
Xi Na was staring at thirty square feet of hyperactive statistics projected
onto the wall. The digital exhaust of monitor
bots watching millions of work bots customized and sent into the world to
search, bid, do, negotiate and create on behalf of hundreds of Xi Na’s economically
advantaged clients in Greater China and Greater Arabia. Although the shoebox-sized compute
furnace was sub-par and the gigapixel cold-light projector lacked the latest free-space
three-dimensional interface, the abundance of performance and near-gigabit
wireless connectivity available after the 2058 state-controlled
infrastructure reform left them with enough to satisfy the demands of most of
their far-flung clientele. “Can you believe the situation in
Greater Europe?” Xi Na mumbled, casting a squinting glance at one of the windows
showing video feeds of non-descript men sharing tense faces and aggressive
rhetoric. Across the hallway, staring at a
similar nest of jittering pixels while rushing to consume a bag of pork
rinds, roommate Xu Fu Ning did battle with gravity on a recliner. He belched, rubbed both sides of his greasy
hands over a protruding belly, and spat back a response. “It is of no matter. Greater “Feel prosperous, do you?” “We have everything a citizen of
no consequence desires.” “Except free expression or
economic pursuit with the likes of Greater Europe.” “Who needs to express themselves
freely in times such as these? The
motherland will care for you, as it has since your loving parents retrieved
you from the Guangzhou City Children’s Welfare Institute,” said Fu Ning in
careful jest. The orphanage was old
ground for the two. Expecting an incensed response, Fu
Ning got only silence. Surprised, he
began the process of extracting himself from the recliner to journey across
the hall and prod his roommate into reprisal. Instead, he turned over to get an
eyeful of knees. Xi Na had taken the
initiative to deliver the continuation in person. “Greater Europe—one coalition away
from having nearly as large a financial army as Greater China—is completely politically
destabilized after the assassination of the president’s wife, and you gush of
the motherland?” Furrowed brow and
animated gestures thrown in free. Fu Ning quickly swung two hands
wide to his sides; stained palms open in a gesture of resignation. Pork rinds scattered to the ground. “OK! I’ll gush of other things,” he said, an
exploratory smile playing in the corner of his mouth. “That’s nice! A nation of one billion uninvolved, and I’m
living with their king. Tragedy must be around the corner.” “Look, you know I’m a simple person.” Cursory glance at his gut. “I have little energy as it is. Even less for things I cannot control. The question is,” a finger stabbing the air
in Xi Na’s direction, “what are you
going to do about it?” “I don’t know. I need a break. I’m heading out. I’ll forward my bot alarms to your
screen. Can you put them in stasis if
anything goes off?” “I can,” said Fu Ning, pulling the
pork rinds off the ground and settling back into his idle state. “One day at a time, Jie Jie. One day at a
time.” A little up-river from the old
Haizhu bridge, dwarfed by its newer, taller single-tower suspension sister
and the three unimaginative office towers across the river reaching 1500 feet
into a polluted sky the bio-scrubbers and macro-fans couldn’t keep clear, Xi
Na sat on a railing watching the Pearl River go by. At least the introduction of the
third underground trolley system and surface personal pod transports had
brought about a reduction in traffic.
There had even been talk that the system would be expanded with
multi-level airborne pods like those in Either way, you could finally hear
yourself think out here now. Xi Na had
been thinking a lot of late. The
visions had become increasingly distracting—consuming even—over the past few
months. Uncontrollable instincts, they were so tangible one felt
compelled to move, oftentimes pace restlessly, in response. They were of grand things.
Politics. Economics. Conflict. Things that mattered more at
the dusk of the century than they seemingly had at the dawn, but that through
gigantic, faceless armies of financial and information conflict had been
driven far beyond the reach and comprehension of the commoner. They were, Xi Na was now certain,
flashes of history wrapping back on itself. Some of them visions of the
motherland. Dynasties and vast territories. Others of empires far
away. None of them studied or learned,
but still as vivid as though Xi Na had lived it. All of them were about one man. Chapter 2
“Am I not destroying my
enemies when I make friends of them”? Abraham
Lincoln Antoni Bartoli, president of
Greater Europe, was in crisis. The first region to take advantage
of the trade, technology and manufacturing advantages of financial coalitions
to advance their own standing while stalling that of others, Greater Europe
included the former European Union, Greenland, Iceland, Turkey, Russia and
its former republics and the North African contingent of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia,
Algeria and Morocco. It was a powerful combination of
financial expertise, wealth, advanced technology and low-cost manufacturing,
and its complete isolationist trade protections and financial market
chicanery had caught the Only then, with dramatic maneuvers
of their own, had the Greater North Pacific (US, Canada, Mexico and Japan)
and Greater China (allied with the small, but mighty Greater Arabia of Saudi,
UAE, Oman and Qatar) coalitions responded with powerful alliances of their
own, featuring similar levels of wealth, technological sophistication and
manufacturing. With the exception of risky black
market transactions, which were quickly interdicted by all-knowing and
all-seeing compute power from all sides, trade, travel and diplomacy between
coalitions was non-existent. As was
physical conflict. Instead, massive technological
incursions aimed at the financial and manufacturing arteries of the
coalitions occurred with staggering speed and frequency. It was a sub-atomic arms race of electrons,
airwaves and photons. In the new world
order, the elimination of the means for production, wealth creation and the
quality of life of entire nations carried more weight than nuclear
attack. But, no less fear. By 2042, the world had been redrawn
into Three Coalitions, and a Rest of World group including the likes of Like some economic Pangaea, the
four pieces drifted further apart as the years went on. Until 2054. Science intervened. Talk of the post-petroleum economy
had been around since the beginning of the century, but lack of progress in
the areas of fuel cells as well as cold and plasma fusion had kept the topic
from becoming central. Instead, it was the naval nuclear
propulsion industry, sidelined in the 30’s by the irrelevance of traditional
militaries, which had quietly accelerated its commercial efforts and stunningly
produced commercial and consumer grade nuclear turbines five orders of
magnitude smaller and lighter, and two orders of magnitude more efficient
than their military equivalents. Coinciding
with critical breakthroughs in technologies enabling autonomous consumer and
commercial air and ground transport, the engines experienced an exponential
growth not seen since the beginnings of the Internet. By the late 60’s, they were powering 60% of
what moved the world from point A to point B. Disarray followed. Oil-rich members of the three
coalitions, more disrupted than they had been in a century, looked for new alignments. Unless guaranteed a much higher fraction of
Greater Europe’s investment, A tense period of internal Greater
European politics followed, marked by five different presidents in ten years. No candidate was able to hold the confidence
of a majority of the coalition. The number of people whose way of
life was fundamentally affected had grown to 950 million. Having come into power on a
platform of modest concessions to Unfortunately, more autonomy for
individual countries had led to local politicians flexing their muscle with
ill advised and uncoordinated financial incursions on countries in other
coalitions that were met with punishing reprisals by Greater China and
Greater North Pacific, who had been monitoring—and fomenting—Greater European
discord. By the spring of 2080, the
deterioration of Greater Europe’s overall financial position had created a
flashpoint for all secessionists, whether Russian, North African or Western
European, to re-ignite their grievances. The greatest tragedy of Lucia
Bartoli’s assassination was not that it had been accomplished through rogue minicell
chemotherapy for an intentionally misdiagnosed benign tumor, but that the
number of potential origins of the conspiracy was so large. The weekend following her mother’s
funeral, Natale Bartoli was standing with her father near a window at the end
of a long hallway in their Natale stood nearly as tall as her
father. Short, dark hair. Her mother’s nose in a beautiful, round
face defined by big, almond-shaped eyes.
Irises the color and depth of the darkest amber. 60 million years of pain in a 19-year-old
gaze. These days she did not hold her
chin as high. Her voice did not carry
as far. Her hands were not as animated. Next to her, now on the other side
of 50, graying hair cropped short, Antoni Bartoli’s eyes were still clear and
his head still cocked in confidence. Gravity
and grief, however, were starting to claim his shoulders. One hand supported a hunched upper body on
the windowsill. The other gently held
Natale’s elbow. They stood close to each
other. They always had. “Do you have to go again so soon?” “I’m only in “What are you doing?” “We’re still negotiating the new Russian
concessions.” “How can that possibly matter? What if they were the ones that killed—“ “We can’t think like that—” “We? What do you mean we? Soon, I’ll be the only one left? Or, maybe I’ll be next?” He moved closer to put a finger on
her lips while slowly moving his other hand from her elbow to her cheek,
gently urging her face—eyes shut tight to keep in the tears—to meet his. He waited for her to open them slowly, and
held her gaze silently for a long time before he spoke again. “There is too much at stake for
too many people.” “What about the things I care about? I spent the entire year worried about mom’s
cancer,” turning her head away from him again. “It’s like she died twice.” “I know. I know.
I don’t have the energy either, but I must stand and lead.” “You must not do anything. You
could step down tomorrow. It’s too
late to put these pieces back together again.
Too many things have happened.
What can you possibly do?” Bartoli turned to face the window,
as Natale had. Both hands now on the
windowsill, staring at the carpet, he mumbled to himself. “…for the triumph of evil is that
good men do nothing.” “What?” “Natale, do you ever feel
compelled by an unseen force?” “It’s not that simple.” “Perhaps. But, my life has been about listening to
what compels me. Greater European
unity, cross-coalition dialogue and eventual co-operation, the final goal of stimulating
the entire globe to greater collaboration.
These things compel me the way you and your mother compel me, the way my
body is compelled to draw another breath. “We did not choose this moment, but
in it, we must make a choice. I could
not face you—or the millions that elected me to make these choices—if I merely
walked away.” Natale turned to face him. As he turned in kind, she embraced him
holding his head in her hand and whispered into his ear. “You know
I love you, father. You know I’m proud to be your
daughter. I just don’t know what to do
anymore. There is so little left. It feels so—” eyes shut tight, tears
flowing, she was glad he could not see her, “—we feel so alone.” “I know, figlia mia. One day at a
time. One day at a time.” Their embrace was interrupted by
the quiet approach of Bartoli’s Communication Secretary, Maarten De Ryck, who
excused himself from several feet away with a polite cough. “Mr. President? There is something I believe you need to
see.” A few minutes later Bartoli, De
Ryck, several high-ranking intelligence analysts and information combat
leaders assembled in the residence’s situation room. Bartoli had expected the high
quality, ultra-broadband spatial teleconference that was the signature of the
times. In its place, as though from
another century, a screen featuring only text greeted him. CNah: I am sorry for your loss. CNah: Do you know much about
the 3rd century AD? It is important. Chapter 3
“Those who have hunted men long
enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.” Ernest Hemingway “The bots picked this up four
minutes ago,” De Ryck updated Bartoli.
“We are tracing it from within the Greater European networks. We do not have an assessment yet of whether
this is of machine or human origin.” “Why are you even bringing this to
my attention if there is no clear point of origin? There is not even a visual or audio!” “Because of this.” De Ryck asked one of his analysts to enter
a reply. GEGov1: Identify yourself. CNah: Who I am is not important. It is what I know that matters. GEGov1: Repeat your authenticating
claim. CNah: President Bartoli believes
that to lead is not to dominate. He first
felt this instinct during his childhood. * *
* In a situation room in Wu was one of the pre-eminent information
warriors in all of Greater China, perhaps worldwide. A prodigy bot author and hunter since her teens,
the government had given her everything necessary to build the best
technologies a wealthy coalition could afford. The efficiency and effectiveness of Wu’s innovations—pitted
against increasingly capable external coalitions and dissident internal
factions—were legendary. Bordering on ruthless. At no time since the establishment
of information combat in the 40’s and 50’s had the ability to control
communication and either isolate, or wreak havoc on, coalitions been more
important. With Greater Europe against
the ropes, finding a way to pull Wu’s analyst was looking at the
status of the most advanced bot Wu had ever written—her fifth
generation. From millions of
transactions, it had isolated one in particular. “It’s coming from our networks,
but it’s spoofing an intra-Greater European origin through a machine in the “Use Chalovsky-Kessler decryption
and tighten down the origin filters using the database from a couple of years
ago just in case they’re going back to old domains. I want to know what’s being said, by whom,
from where and where it’s going in two minutes. Less if you know what’s good for you. I trust you see the deputy minister sitting
there?” Wu shot back. * *
* “Mr. President, we now have a 99%
assessment from the heuristics that origin is human. Location is likely the “Marteen, don’t you think this is
unusual? A text message from
someone—or something—spouting trite
assertions about my childhood?” “I understand your concern, Mr.
President, but we wanted you to see it for yourself before we dismissed it.” Bartoli looked back at the
display. As he spoke, his words appeared as
text. GEGov1: You have my attention, but a quote does not
mean you know me. CNah: We have not met. You don’t know me, but I know you. Your distant ancestor, Emperor Augustus,
led the way you lead. Your grandfather
has always been concerned about your ambitions. Your father never became the man he wanted
to be. Your goal is not just Greater
European unity, but collaboration across the globe, even beyond coalitions. De Ryck looked quizzically at
Bartoli. GEGov1: What do you want? CNah: I want to… A pause. CNah: …help. GEGov1: Help with what? CNah: The unity you want to create. GEGov1: How do you intend to do that? CNah: What do you know about the 3rd century
AD? GEGov1: As much as any average student of the CNah: The past is about to repeat itself. Unless we listen. GEGov1: I can study the past on my own. What can you do for me? CNah: It is not just about studying. It is about listening. It is not just about the * *
* “We’ve got assessment. It’s human origin,” looking to Wu for a
decision. “Location?” “Haidian district, near one of the
old universities. One minute for our
nearest officers.” “Send three men. Strangle the transmission until they get
there. Then shut it down. Update filters with this fingerprint.” “It is done. The men are underway. Anything else?” Wu considered. “Yes, keep the socket open long enough to inject
a silent harvest bot underneath an older generation information assault
masked with known Russian characteristics.
Let’s turn this to our advantage.” “Yes, Madame Information
Director.” * *
* GEGov1: CNah: “Mr. President, we’ve lost the
connection. Trying to recover.” “Open a squawk-back socket,”
ordered De Ryck. “Opening now.” All eyes on the display. Suddenly, large sections of the diagnostics
turned red and audible alarms started blaring.” “Incoming information assault.” “Launch countermeasures,” De Ryck
responded instantly. “Countermeasures launched. Assault isolated.” As suddenly as they had started,
the alarms went silent. The color
scheme of the displays returned to calming neutrality. “What the hell was that?” Bartoli
asked, turning to De Ryck. “You tell me, Mr. President. Someone clearly is trying to communicate
with you.” “Sir, diagnostics are showing
information assault as having Russian characteristics,” one of the analysts
standing by the display updated the room. “That could explain it. Your negotiation partners had a little
present for you before your talks,” De Ryck suggested to Bartoli and then put
a hand on his analyst’s shoulder.
“Take all our sockets off-line.
Jam wireless. Re-run your traces.” Bartoli stared at the dialogue floating
idly in front of them. * *
* “Madame Information Director, we
have a report from the location.
Officers broke into the point of origin, but found only an autonomous
terminal. Connection was wireless in,
wireless out. Memory had been wiped
and corrupted. Revised post-processing
traces and assessment now classify communication as machine origin, not
human.” “A disappointing result,” Wu
sniped coldly. “I am not sure you
quite understand how vital every second of our attention is at these
times. To have spent this time pursuing
a bot instead of a dissident is unacceptable.
Very unacceptable.” “Madame Information Director,
begging your pardon, but I am very aware of the importance of our work to the
motherland. It has been a very long
shift, and some of the results of the latest bot generation require
disambiguation.” “Are you suggesting it is our
technology that is inadequate, instead of you?” “No, Madame Information Director,”
the analyst realizing his mistake, bowing his head. Wu, feigning disinterest, waited
several moments, then continued without looking at the analyst. “I find your lack of faith in our
technology disturbing. It will be best
for you to reacquaint yourself with its value by reporting to Information
District 217. Do so now.” “But, Madame Information Director. I have given you two years of dedicated
service. You yourself have rewarded me
with merits.” “Clearly a lapse of judgment on my
part. A warning for me to tighten the
demands on my staff during these essential times. Now, take your leave.” The dejected analyst bowed to Wu
and the deputy minister and left the room. Wu walked to the back of the room. “I apologize for this misdiagnosis
and waste of resources, Mr. Deputy Minister,” she said. “Not to worry, Madame Information
Director. If you did not fail on
occasion, we would not know how good you truly are. Do you think perhaps you were a little
harsh with your analyst,” the minister replied affably. “Hardly. A year of being deeply economically
disadvantaged in the outer provinces will give him time to think about the
quality of his assessments. The
motherland did not achieve its success—nor I mine—on the back of inferior … people,” Wu said with distaste. * *
* “Sir, we’ve run high resolution
post-processing traces on the earlier communication. Revised assessment is that communication
was machine origin. Repeat, machine
origin.” “A bot, then?” Bartoli asked. “Yes, Mr. President. Adaptive conversational rendering. Presumption is that it was sent to mask the
Russian information assault coming in over the same socket.” “How would it—they—know these things about us—me?” Bartoli
asked, pointing to the exchange still on the display. “It’s public domain data
extrapolated to conversation with sophisticated social engineering heuristics,”
De Ryck replied. “You’re saying it got lucky?”
asked Bartoli skeptically. “Essentially.” * *
* “Well, that was close. Here’s to us not doing that again,” Fu Ning
uttered, right hand raised in a mock toast.
He breathed for what seemed like the first time in minutes. Leftovers of their cross-border digital
hide-n-seek hung on the wall innocently, belying the gravity of their
transgression. No response. Xi Na was intently swabbing their
electronic deck, shutting down, redirecting, spoofing and corrupting all compute
and network resources of which they had availed themselves. 23 computers and 15 video bots on 12
networks—including a rare linkage of municipal 400GHz wireless and a recently
decommissioned very-near earth orbit satellite mesh—in seven cities across four
countries and two coalitions. “Customarily this is the part
where you agree with me, denounce your revolutionary tendencies and get me
another bag of pork rinds and a bottle of Tsingtao to heal the wounds of a
friendship taken advantage of,” Fu Ning continued unabated having rallied a
supporting cast of insistent arm waving. Still nothing |
