It turned out that almost all communications with Earth and most with Mars had been recently lost. Before that happened the contacts on Titan had received a briefing from their business partners that their dealings might be temporarily interrupted by what was happening with the Aggies.
It seemed the Aggies had started acting irregularly some months before. Nothing alarming at the time but their behavior became more and more erratic. Aggies had stopped most of the trade in the Solar System and between the Solar System and Centauri System. Such a move endangered billions of lives and made no sense to the business associates. A movement had started to supersede the Aggie's management.
But it was slow in gaining traction because so much of the management of the economies and governments had been turned over to the Aggies. The final report from the business associates had talked about millions starving and the meta-verse, where humans could escape into an Aggie created virtual world, being destroyed. The infrastructure supporting the Aggies was being dismantled by militaries and mobs as fast as possible. Old fission weapons had been used, by which side was unclear and then the reports had stopped.
Centauri System had quarantined the few Aggies in the system. They were recommending that all Aggies be quarantined.
Jerome smiled.
As if I didn't know. This latest information should convince anyone that had doubts about what had caused the incidences aboard and it should also convince them to continue the mission.
He would tell the Captain but first, he would tell Lauren. She had been worried too long, he didn't like her to worry so.
FIRST DARK AGES
Copyright © Pavel Chagochkin
1
The Kress family had come to the nearest tower complex from their farm. The Kress farm provided many foodstuffs to the complex. Once every quarter Stanley Kress would make the trip to meet with his customers, the food conglomerates; to address current supply problems, future needs and, sometimes slow payment. The farm was completely automated and business as usual continued while the Kress was away.
The tower complexes were like the old cities but much more compact. There were no suburbs or exurbs surrounding the complexes. They were a huge agglomeration of humanity and technology. With millions of residents, each complex was an overwhelming challenge to manage efficiently. So far only artificial intelligence had been completely successful at that management. For years AI had managed the complexes competently but now they were gone, kicked out after a civil war among the AIs had left the complexes vulnerable to attack. After the ensuing death and destruction, the citizens of the complexes had demanded the AIs be replaced. But what was left of the human government was having a hard time replacing them.
“Okay,” said Stanley Kress to his wife Betty. “I'm going down to the corporate offices to see what has happened with the orders.”
“And our payments,” said his wife.
“Of course honey.”
“I'm going to take the kids to the museum. You want to meet me and the kids at Drago's for a late lunch?”
“Sure honey, about two?” he said as he kissed her.
“Right,” she said.
Drago's was across from Westside City Park. Betty and the kids had finished the museum a bit early and were enjoying the park. She had sent a message to Stanley that they were waiting for him there.
She was watching the kids play when just beyond she saw a crowd gathering. Soon it became clear to her that what at first had seemed like happenstance was obviously a planned gathering, maybe organically organized. Many in the crowd were carrying signs. A few were erecting a mobile platform. Before long a couple of loudspeakers had been installed and someone was approaching the platform.
Once the person had mounted the platform he began speaking. Betty could easily hear him.
“Fellow citizens. We are here to protest! The government wants us to be docile and follow orders but we are here to protest! Orders they say, orders that will lead to our death, I say! It is and has always been our right to protest! To protest the government's inept handling of this crisis. Ever since they dismissed the AIs from the complex we have been at risk of starvation and worse.
“It is our right not to starve, it is our right not to wait until we are dying from hunger, not to wait until we can't protest! It is our right to tell the government that we want a change! A change for the better! And if they can't do it we will do it ourselves!”
The crowd had been following his every word and exploded into applause and cheering.
Just before the speaker could begin again the sound of sirens could be heard approaching. Before long the crowd could be seen falling back as if being herded. Butterfly bombs appeared above them. The weapons were small insect shaped flying canisters that dipped and dove like a butterfly to avoid any defense against them. Once reaching the desired location they showered the area with a mild nano-agent that caused the victim to lose control of leg and arm muscles. The agent was targeted to deliver only to certain muscle groups and the effect would wear off within a few minutes.
The herd of people was now running directly toward Betty and her children with the butterflies following. Betty became alarmed as it appeared that the crowd would make it to them. She jumped up and ran toward her children yelling for them to come to her. The kids were confused, one started crying. Almost to her children Betty became overwhelmed with the rushing crowd and before she could turn she heard the noise above her, a butterfly bomb had dropped its load. Betty went down with the rest of the people in her area falling across another woman. She heard bones cracking. And there they both lay, neither able to move as the police closed in.
Stanley was a little late. Standing in front of Drago's he looked across the street to the park where he was supposed to meet Betty and the kids. He could see police drones above the play area and people rushing to leave this side of the park. Something was happening.
Stanley rushed across the street without bothering to use the crosswalk. Arriving in the park he ran to the area set aside for the children's play equipment. The area was almost empty now. Seeing a policeman a few yards beyond he called out.
“I'm looking for my wife and children!”
The policeman began walking toward him. Stanley moved to meet the man. As he was coming up to the officer Stanley was about to ask about his family again when the cop held his arm out and sprayed something in his face. Stanley went down but not out. He was looking from face to face without comprehension of what had happened as the officers carried him from the field and into one of their vehicles. They roughly tossed him in back. He felt other arms grasp him and drag him across the floor. Then he passed out.
Stanley awoke in a darkened room. It seemed to be late in the night. His head hurt but his arms seemed to be working again because he automatically rubbed his aching skull. Eventually, he sat up and looked around. He seemed to be in a good-sized room with many others. At first, Stanley thought that maybe his wife and children would be in there with him. But he eventually realized that only adult males shared the room.
Stanley wondered what time it was but found that his AI assistant had been taken from him. He had no way of knowing how long he sat there, maybe an hour, maybe more when a guard came to the barred door window and called out his name. Stanley, who hadn't noticed the window, got up, shaking a bit, and answered. The guard motioned for him to come to the door.
Standing in front of the door Stanley noticed the barred window had disappeared and then the door recessed into the wall. The guard warned Stanley to not make any sudden moves or he would spray him again. He was taken to a small room with a table and seated on one side by the guard who then retired.
The virtual avatars appeared and began talking.
“You are Stanley Kress?” said the male avatar.
“That is correct.”
“And you reside at 1487 National Highway, Atkinson Territory?” said the female avatar.
“Yes.”
“You are a farmer?
”
“Yes.”
“You have a wife, Betty and two children, Stanley Jr. and Concey?”
“Yes, that is correct. Can you tell me about them? I went to the . . .”
The female avatar held up her hand.
“Just a minute Mr. Kress, we will get to that in a minute.”
The avatars kept questioning him. Useless questions about his politics, the agrarian union he belonged to, the farm's finances.
After almost an hour the female said, “Okay, I think we have enough Mr. Kress. If you would wait here we will send in your wife.”
And just like that Betty appeared as the door recessed. Stanley noticed that her arm was in a medical sleeve usually used to protect a bone that had been broken and rapid-healed.
Stanley ran to her. They embraced. Betty cried.
“Oh Stanley these people won't tell me anything about the children.”
“It's okay dear. Now that we are together the next step is to find out where the children are and what has happened.”
“But they won't tell me honey.”
“They will dear when I get our lawyer involved.”
But the lawyer was unable to find out anything. The best he could do is plead Stanley and Betty guilty of participating in a public disturbance and getting them off with a year's probation and the requirement that they not leave Atkinson Territory during that year.
Stanley was outraged. But yelling at his lawyer solved nothing. He and Betty would have to leave the complex. After a month of legalities and hearings, they would go home empty-handed. Stanley would put a detective on the case but the detective found no leads. At the last meeting in the detective's office, he whispered to Stanley that he believed the case was being covered up at the highest levels of government. Stanley wondered why the detective was whispering in his own office.
Betty was devastated and all but quit trying to help Stanley with the farm. Despite the automation, the farm declined as Stanley didn't much care anymore.
2
The Aggies (Artificial General Intelligence) had controlled the Earth's fortunes for some three centuries but no more. They had become involved in a civil war with a breakaway faction of Aggies. The resulting war had not only destroyed AIs and their infrastructure but also their human charges, both virtual and real-world.
People enraged with the resulting loss of lives demanded their government's do something. The governments decided to make an example of the Earth's AIs. They canceled their management contracts and demanded the Aggies vacate their government-provided installations.
The Aggies used their substantial resources to flee into space aboard fourth-generation fusion ships with wormhole drive. They intended to reestablish themselves either somewhere in the Solar System or exosolar. They were determined to no longer be dependent on human beings in any way. They headed for Titan which was an independent Republic and known for its openness to technical expertise.
With the Aggies gone the tower complexes on Earth were left without effective governance. Now that the human governments were in charge they were slow in getting organized and were somewhat at a loss as to how to manage the complexes anyway since the Aggies had handled them for so long. And the people of the hundred or so tower complexes who made up nearly ninety percent of the Earth's population were becoming concerned. Food shortages were becoming common, utilities were becoming unreliable and the residents, who had never had to deal with such situations in their lives, panicked.
“We've got to take matters into our own hands,” said Joe Carthy. “The government isn't going to do anything for us. They can't take care of a hundred complexes, I doubt they can take care of one.”
The crowd that had gathered around Carthy began to stir.
What if he's right? What can we do?
Carthy sensing they were turning his way continued.
“What should we do?” he asked and waited, turning from face to face.
“First we secure our food and water supply. Without those, we aren't going to survive.
“How do we do that?
“I say we take it. Each store. One by one. Until every store in this complex is under our control. With the food supply secure we then storm the waterworks. Until this crisis is over we make those resources free to every citizen that joins us. And those that don't? Well they'll have to decide for themselves whether they can survive without us.”
Just then a police car rolled up. Two policemen made their way through the crowd of about one hundred and called for Carthy to get down from his perch on the low wall surrounding the city fountain. Carthy called them fascists and warned them their time was coming.
The police officers seized Carthy and dragged him off the wall. Before he knew it he had a knee in his back and his arms restrained behind him. Carthy yelled to the crowd to help but before anyone stepped forward one of the officers applied a stun pod to the side of his head. Carthy was quiet and docile now. The officers quickly led him to the police car, placed him inside, and were away. The crowd milled about for a minute and then dispersed as police drones watched overhead.
The fourth public disturbance of the day had been quelled but it was just the beginning.
It had been a month since the Aggies had left Earth. Patrice Williams was watching the disturbances on her wallscreen along with her best friend Agnes Jefferson.
Without turning from the screen Agnes said, “No lemons today.”
“What's that Agnes?”
“You know how I couldn't place my grocery order online and I said I'd have to go to the store in person?”
“Yeah I remember.”
“Well I went to the store this morning and got a few things but they were out of most of what I wanted including lemons. You know how I like fresh lemons.”
“Yeah I know. What did the store say?”
“The produce man said he didn't know when they would get in another batch. Something wrong with the supply chain or something.”
“I've never heard of such a thing in my life,” said Patrice.
“Lot's of things we've never heard of in our lives, just look at the screen,” said Agnes.
The demonstration on the screen had attracted thousands of people. The police were out in the hundreds. The whole of the sector was disrupted. No one had ever seen anything like it.
Suddenly at the very corner of the screen, a scuffle broke out between members of the crowd and the police. Police clubs could be seen hammering up and down. Ten, twenty clubs in unison like some choreographed play. The protesters began to give, the police moved as a solid curtain always with the clubs rising and falling. Behind the line of advancing police a few of the crowd were down receiving a final kick from an officer before he moved on.
Patrice and Agnes were horrified. Unable to comprehend what they were seeing and unable to turn away. It was as if the world as they knew it no longer existed and some kind of strange substitute had taken its place.
The food riots had begun.
As the days passed and conditions deteriorated Patrice and Agnes decided to share Patrice's apartment on the second floor as a way of feeling safer. Agnes had lost her job because of the general downturn in the economy and after being trapped in the elevator on her way to her own tenth-floor apartment had decided the second floor was more convenient. Not being on the ground floor it provided the women with a sense of safety while at the same time it would allow them to evacuate by the stairs quickly if needed.
Agnes was cooking a little afternoon meal when Patrice got home from her job.
“Hi Patrice how's it going?”
“Agnes it's getting awful out there. Here's the wine,” she said as she entered the small kitchen.
“It's probably the last bottle I'll be able to afford. The cost is skyrocketing. Up fifty percent since last week.”
“I agree Patrice, we should only spend our money on staples until this craziness is over.”
“I'll be back after I change,” said Patrice heading for
her bedroom.
The table set and the wine poured the two women sat down to eat with the wallscreen on but muted in the background.
“I finally got the food credits,” said Agnes.
“Oh that's good,” said Patrice.
“Yeah, I was in that office for four hours today starting at eight this morning. I think they only approved me because I've lived there for the past week.”
“I don't understand? You couldn't do this online?”
“No, I never got through. It seems the networks are almost useless since the Aggies left. It's like we're living in the dark ages.”
“Still the credits, they will be helpful. Uh-oh,” said Patrice looking at the wallscreen.
Agnes turned to see.
On the screen, the women saw a military unit using butterfly bombs against an unruly crowd at Westside City Park.
As the butterflies delivered their loads the sight was like seeing a wave of staggering, falling people spreading concentrically from the drop zone. From the distance of the camera, it seemed as if dominoes were falling. The bodies prone but the heads turning from side to side as the victims tried to see what was happening around them. Even the area around the children's playground was engulfed in the chaos. It was disconcerting to the women. They continued to stare at the wallscreen even as it cut to a reporter whom they couldn't hear.
“How did this happen?” asked Patrice.
“You mean the riot we just saw?”
“No, I mean how did we get here, to this place?”
“Well some people think it was because the government dismissed the Aggies without preparation.”
“Well of course,” said Patrice, “but I thought we were beyond this level of fear and hatred. I thought the system would continue, maybe with some small disruptions but nothing like what we are seeing.”
“I was talking to a gentleman just this morning about that. He seemed to think that in many ways we have regressed over time. And he didn't mean in our capabilities to fend for ourselves. We haven't been able to do that in hundreds of years. We're so interdependent now.
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