Harbinger (The Janus Harbinger Book 1)

by Olan Thorensen

  Part of the reason he stayed was that he disagreed with everyone’s claims about Simeon’s recalcitrance. Simeon warned of global warming dangers and volunteered his assistance. Refined models created with Simeon’s help projected steadily warming conditions that would lead not only to the melting of most of the major ice worldwide, but local fluctuations of weather that would be, at least for some locales, devastating.

  To Huxler’s and Mueller’s dismay, human institutions were unable to deal with the warnings. If the improved models predicted that one African country would receive more rainfall and thus be able to expand its agriculture, another country not far away would have its agriculture decimated by long-term drought. There was no mechanism or political will to address the changes.

  Simeon also predicted that commercial fishing was leading not only to a collapse in fish yields but to the extinction of several major food fish species. Although Simeon’s input matched and expanded on many human research models, there was no international framework for controlling deep-sea fishing. Japan and Russia, plus numerous smaller fishing nations, simply denied that the models proved anything and said that to stop fishing would have unacceptable economic and political consequences within their countries. The United States might have been able to impose fishing restrictions if it had had the help of China, the world’s second largest economy. Unfortunately, China would not agree to force other countries to limit their fishing because it might set a precedent for pressuring China on other issues.

  Pointing out problems with the world’s increasing population went nowhere. No nation or international institution was willing to address the consequences. Uganda issued a report that it was having problems meeting basic services for its 30 million population. A week later, Uganda issued another report projecting its population to reach 100 million within forty years. Although China had managed to stabilize, India was merrily heading for 2 billion people, with no hint of how to slow the population growth or what the result would be. The litany went on and on.

  When Simeon tried to warn people about the long-term prospects for humanity, the typical response was, “It’s not politically feasible at this time.” At what time it would be feasible was nebulous.

  The lack of further progress did not include those items already agreed on by Simeon. For those who noticed, Simeon remained persnickety in keeping to the letter of anything he had committed to: advanced computer processing algorithms, increased computer memory storage and processing power, advanced astronomical telescope designs, and better batteries and light bulbs.

  The authorities became hesitant to develop even technology that initially might seem both benign and beneficial. The light bulbs were a welcome addition to the everyday lives of everyday citizens. However, because they were longer-lasting, the improvement eventually ended up costing thousands of jobs—longer-lasting light bulbs meant fewer were needed. In addition, although light generation was widely appreciated, cities became so glaring with light and color at night that a new medical syndrome was born—Dark-Deficiency Syndrome (DDS). The explosion of colored signs, marquees, video screens, and so on during the dark hours played havoc with the brains of a fraction of the human race. The human brain had evolved to expect periods of darkness. Those humans whose ancestors lived anywhere except the extreme northern and southern latitudes were subject to DDS, with as many as 30 percent having some detectable response. As many as 5 percent had to avoid light exposure at night to maintain their sanity. The neurological basis of the effect was under study, but DDS was theorized to trigger contradictory responses in some regions of the brain.

  These effects, the stagnation at FANDARC, and the slow leaking of information that something was going on finally led Chesterton, with the acquiescence of the Canadian prime minister, who was no longer Harper, to decide to make a public announcement. Because it would come out anyway, they might as well try to make themselves look good by “sharing” all knowledge with other nations. After all, they weren’t getting anything new.

  CHAPTER 50

  THIRTY MONTHS LATER

  FANDARC, Ellesmere Island

  Ralph trudged into the dining hall and looked for a friendly face, an objective that was becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. He moved a few feet several times to get reasonable views of everyone already eating. The room was four times the size of the original dining hall after they remodeled the old main building. There were also two eating shifts for each meal to accommodate the nearly eight hundred people working in the research area.

  Finally, he spotted the back of a woman’s head, which helped narrow his search because the ratio was about four to one, men to women, different than the near-equal balance during Site 23 days.

  He joined the serving line, only half noticing what he put on his tray before weaving to Chunhua’s table, where she sat with Mueller and Huxler. When they saw him, their expressions told him they already knew. He put a tray on one of the three empty spots and plopped into a chair.

  “I guess I’m the last to know. Jason interrupted me while I advised one of the new people who want to work with Simeon in the VR. We went outside and he told me.”

  “Yes, Jason and Freddie are leaving,” said Huxler. “I think it’s a good situation for both of them, and we have to admit the authorities did well by them. Jason will be on the mathematics faculty at Dartmouth University, and Freddie will be a research fellow. His parents will take care of him in an isolated home they moved into not far from the campus. Jason and other mathematicians can work with Freddie out of his home, so he won’t need to go places where there are too many people he doesn’t know.”

  “I was surprised the powers-that-be agreed to provide them with a link to Simeon to continue their work,” said Mueller. “Not that I have any idea what the setup is.” The last words were half-snarled, Mueller having been totally cut off from Simeon for over a year.

  “Why do you think MIT relented with Jason and gave him his doctorate?” asked Chunhua.

  “When I first heard the news, I suspected someone in the government put in a good word for him,” said Mueller. “Now, I think I was being too generous once Jason gave me his theory. The same professor who screwed him over had a complaint filed against him by a female graduate student for verbal abuse. Jason thinks they were looking for an excuse to get rid of the guy and pulled out Jason’s records to bolster their case.”

  “Maybe,” said Huxler, “but I wouldn’t discount MIT wanting some level of credit when Freddie and Jason’s work gets more attention.”

  Ralph shook his head, sadly. “Still, I’m personally sorry they’re going. That’ll just leave the four of us from the original Level 3.”

  “Well . . . people who knew about Level 3, anyway,” said Huxler. “Klaus Christiansen and Jeff Rotham had faculty positions and administrations that wouldn’t give them more sabbatical time. They left last year to avoid losing those positions.”

  “I think they would’ve stayed longer if they felt it was worthwhile,” said Mueller.

  “So, what does that make me?” asked Chunhua. “I was in the same boat and chose to stay. Now, if I leave, I’ll have to find another position.”

  No one had an answer for her—or, if they did, they didn’t want to voice it.

  Chunhua wasn’t waiting for an answer and shook her head hard, her dark hair sweeping across one shoulder, then the other. “Although I can’t say it wasn’t expected, not after Elizabeth left.”

  The elderly exo-biologist had been in nirvana when Simeon promised to give her access to physiological and biochemical data on an extinct sentient race. It never happened. When the expansion began, an influx of biological scientists and medical doctors had been mandated to extract information that had practical applications.

  “They kept promising her she’d have more time with Simeon once they had more to show the president,” said Mueller. “Okada got put in charge of the Life Sciences Department and wouldn’t budge. Why they ever thought the head of a medical sch
ool’s cancer center was a person to put in that position will always be beyond me.”

  “Yet however they picked him, it must have to do with their trying to get disease help from the aliens,” said Huxler. “We warned them we thought Simeon was serious about not revealing anything that would increase the Earth’s population pressure, but they ignored us.”

  Chunhua slammed her fork angrily on the table, causing several people to look their way. “At first, I thought it was arrogance. That they were so sure they could pull more out of him than we could. Now I think I was being too generous. It’s self-interest. After failing, they are afraid of losing their own positions if they admit failure.”

  “I have some sympathy for them,” said Ralph. “The promised technical enhancements such as better telescopes, more efficient batteries, solar power, and others are good but not the super blockbusters that people like Chesterton hoped for. You know . . . limitless power, more food, curing all diseases, stuff like that. Once we gave Simeon everything we know about human genetics, physiology, and biochemistry, he did come up with plausible approaches to a number of conditions—Alzheimer’s, macular degeneration, and osteoporosis. It made everyone, and I include myself, envision how much more Simeon would help.

  “I think the politicians overplayed their hand. Chesterton and the others got too greedy, eager to tap down negative reactions to revealing the Object’s existence. Now they’re scared it’s going to backfire when it comes out that Simeon won’t help with anything that extends humans’ lifespans. Treating the debilitating but not necessarily fatal conditions of old age is one thing, but we told them he’s not going to give us anything that puts more resource pressure on the human race until there’s population control. The politicians are afraid of groups on all sides demanding things like a cancer cure, maybe even people thinking it could be forced out of Simeon.”

  “Fat chance of that working,” said Chunhua. She sighed dejectedly and picked her fork back up. “How are you going to force the Object to do anything? Anyway . . . in the usual manner, our leaders will blame someone because they couldn’t possibly be at fault, so Simeon and the Object are the fall guys.”

  She looked at Huxler. “What do you think will happen when Chesterton makes the big announcement tonight?”

  The Site 23 ex-counselor/psychologist shifted uneasily in his chair. “I hope I’m being paranoid, but I’ve been getting some vibes that make me worry about a dramatic shift. I don’t know what it could be, but I’m anxious whether the original plan of portraying the Object as benign might change. Another possibility is they still think there’s a chance to make it all go away. I’m sure that’s always been most political leaders’ first choice. How they could do that, I don’t know, but we’ll find out in a few hours.”

  When the others left, Huxler sat alone, staring at a nearby wall. Like them, he was curious and anxious about what Chesterton would say that evening and the worldwide reaction to it. But something else was on his mind. He had a secret, which, by definition, he had not shared with anyone else. Well . . . anyone except Simeon . . . sort of.

  During those months when the VR system was first activated, he had become casually suspicious about the tenor of Simeon’s questions during sessions. Although the number of users was limited, Huxler had noted differences in how Simeon interacted with various people. When he checked past recordings, it seemed that a pattern had developed. Initially, Simeon would ask a similar range of general and personal questions of each user. But as time passed, his focus on personal questions declined with some VR users and increased with others.

  When asked about the differences, Simeon deflected, as he usually did when no answers would be forthcoming. Huxler had categorized the issue as interesting but not important. Nothing changed until a year after the Chinese raid, and the site operations transformed during the expansion and new leadership. For a reason Huxler couldn’t now remember, he was reading the transcript of Simeon’s meeting with Chesterton and Harper. A disturbing thought burst into his consciousness when he got to the section where Athena revealed that one purpose of Simeon was to serve as an avatar of the human race—a “backup” model of humanity in case humans and their civilization vanished, as Athena claimed usually happened with sentient races.

  Jeff and Chunhua had argued for Simeon being considered sentient, even if constrained by Athena. The opinion was not widely shared by all the Level 3 staff members, but Huxler knew he believed the argument that Simeon more than fulfilled the criterion of the Turing Test. Named after Alan Turing, the English mathematician, the test proposed that if a computer’s conversation could not be distinguished from that of a human, then the computer was said to exhibit intelligent behavior. The test’s criticisms were widely accepted, but Simeon’s behavior was so complex that Huxler had long ago quit thinking of the AI as “merely” a computer program. He had often wondered what the result would be if the Object had the ability and the reason to transfer Simeon’s “being” into a mobile robotic system. Could humans accept him/it as sentient? Huxler believed the answer for himself was yes, but for most humans, no.

  Then came the VR system. As sophisticated as the system was, Huxler didn’t doubt the Object possessed the ability to create a far more complex environment. But why bother if Simeon was alone? If he had truly been developed to serve as a model/avatar/whatever for humanity, a solitary existence seemed incompatible. Not all humans required constant human interaction, but Huxler couldn’t conceive of an accurate human simulation existing alone forever.

  But what if it didn’t have to be alone? What if Simeon’s emphasis on personal questions had a hidden motive? Could the Object/Athena create an accurate representation of an existing human? No matter how well Simeon seemed to ape human behavior, he would still be an alien creation beginning from scratch. With technology available that humans had not even begun to appreciate, could the Object/Athena generate models/avatars using real humans as the templates?

  Although Huxler hadn’t been among the VR users, he worried about the others. Could the Object be gathering information to create companions for Simeon? The thought made Huxler shiver when he first imagined what it would be like if an avatar such as Simeon were activated in a VR and thought itself to be Zach, Ralph, or any of the others, only to find it had no physical body and existed within a generated reality, never to escape. No matter how ideal the scenario, how many years or millennia would pass before a human would finally go insane? Or worse, be prevented from even that escape.

  Huxler sat staring at a wall once again, as he had many times, and tried to dismiss what he thought was unlikely and only a figment of his mind. He knew the thought would come again, and again he would try to categorize it as part of his own coterie of personal demons that all humans possessed.

  He shook his head. Time to find a TV, watch Chesterton, and begin to get clues about where the world was going next.

  Coos Bay, Oregon

  With his work shift over and the last of the requisite paperwork completed, Zach exchanged greetings with the sheriff, Lester Hamilton. Zach liked him. Zach appreciated that Hamilton was competent, respected by the other department members, and especially good at the public relations part of the job—something Zach, to his surprise, had a better feel for after two years as a deputy.

  He got into his patrol vehicle and headed north on 101. Home lay seventeen miles away. It would take him about twenty-five minutes. He drove the route scores of times each month, enough that only part of his attention was on the road, while the rest reflected on his life.

  In contrast to his opinion of the sheriff, the lieutenant in charge of patrols was something else. Nick Allen was an unmitigated ass, by Zach’s assessment. Allen had yet to accept that Zach paid him less respect than was due his exalted position. Zach’s patrol district occupied the northernmost part of the county, with home only three miles from the border to Douglas County. It meant that Zach only spent time about twice a week at the sheriff’s department in Coos City, Alle
n’s full-time duty station.

  Zach knew he should make more of an effort with Allen. Why promote discord unnecessarily? Unfortunately, when he occasionally had such thoughts, he ended up thinking, Fuck him. Half embarrassed, he admitted to Jill that it was one of his little pleasures in life. Probably a remnant from years of dealing with other, far more odious and dangerous bureaucrats.

  Then again, Nick Allen really was an asshole. Of course, Zach knew he took advantage of the fact that Allen had no real supervisory control over him. It had been made clear, unofficially, that Zach’s position was inviolate. Allen had tried to find out how Zach had been dumped into the position of patrol deputy sheriff without going through the usual required application hurdles, such as interviews, public background checks, and so on.

  What Allen discovered only increased his curiosity—a sketchy record of Zach’s education level, no physical condition test required, and no apparent prior knowledge of basic law enforcement procedures or Oregon laws. Most puzzling was an Oregon driver’s license issued the same day as Zach’s appointment to the job. Allen had persisted in his own private investigation of Deputy Marjek up the point of connecting that Zach’s appointment coincided within weeks of the Coos County sheriff’s department receiving a significant federal grant for new equipment—a grant to be potentially renewed yearly, dependent on unspecified conditions from an unnamed federal agency.

  At this point, Sheriff Hamilton learned of Allen’s nosing around and reamed him a new orifice. He made it clear there would be dire consequences if Allen didn’t mind his own business and didn’t get along with the new deputy.

  A truce resulted. Allen played the role of administrator and Zach the dutiful staff member. Zach didn’t go out of his way to erode Allen’s position, at least in public, and Allen left Zach alone to do his job.