“‘The cigar is contemplative,’ I explained. ‘You have to smoke it slow or you’ll feel ill. It’s not like a cigarette—you can’t suck it down on a five minute break at work. You take two puffs a minute at most, and that forces you to slow down, and that makes you appear, to observers, contemplative. People don’t register this consciously, that they’re forming these opinions, but it’s adaptive for humans to form opinions and impressions quickly—this hypothetical man is kind, this hypothetical woman is heroic, this hypothetical man is selfish, this hypothetical child is a prodigy—in your case, this man is contemplative. The cigar is a semiotic message, just like suits on politicians tell us they’re professional, that the opulence of capitol buildings is meant to denote authority, that the armoured vehicles that we’re sitting in tell the bus driver not to intervene when you abscond with his young passenger in the night. All of these are signs to our subconscious—and semiotics is the language of signs.’ I gestured with a nod to Aisha. ‘Your subordinates are programmed to follow the man that appears contemplative.’ My eyes went back to Morgan. ‘The calm one. And you’re exploiting their lack of awareness of the inner workings of their own minds.’”
“No one spoke for a moment, but the look on Morgan’s face said it all. ‘Jesus,’ he finally whispered, apparently sincerely impressed. ‘You’re one in a billion, Captain Paine. One in a billion. You’re right. Dead right. I wouldn’t’ve expressed it in such intricate detail, but let me be a little more succinct—a little more blunt. I look at it this way: the guy with the cigar is the guy in charge.’ He leaned forward, lit the lighter, so I put the cigar in my mouth and leaned toward it. He coached me like I was a toddler putting tooth paste on my tooth brush for the first time. ‘Puff a few times to get it going. That’s it…’”
“After the first few puffs, I took the cigar out of my mouth and tried not to recoil. Heh, I thought it tasted terrible—I acquired the taste later—but in the meantime, Morgan’s point had been made…”
Paine wiggled his cigar for Old-timer and Samantha, “and I didn’t forget it.”
“Morgan leaned back and admired his new acquisition—his new protégé. ‘And now we’re in charge, Captain Paine. This is why I couldn’t let you go. You are the man for this job—the most important job in the history of humanity. And I mean that. It’s more important than any job I aspire to—more important than the presidency—by far.”
“Then he turned to Aisha and Dee. ‘Pull us over.’ Dee spoke into a chest mounted mic and the three heavily armoured vehicles pulled over to the side of the road. When we were stopped, Morgan followed with another order. ‘I’d like to be alone with the captain for the rest of this conversation.’”
“Dee did not like that. ‘Sir, he’s still too dangerous to be alone with—’ but Dee stopped his protest mid sentence when Morgan turned his gaze to him directly. Morgan didn’t have to speak a word to scare the bejesus out of the three-hundred plus pound behemoth who’d bashed me to the ground without breaking a sweat. Now why was that? What did Dee know? What had he seen? Clearly, Morgan owned him too. I remember thinking: Now that’s power.”
“Dee and Aisha exited without another word. They both went to the next car in the line and the convoy pulled out onto the road once again. ‘They hate it when they’re not in the loop,’ he shared, and it was clear as day what he was doing—his tone suddenly changing—relating an observation about the others so that I’d immediately feel as though I’d been taken into his confidence. It was impressive double think on his part. On the one hand, he acknowledged my ability to read people, to see through manipulations like this, but maybe he just couldn’t help himself. Maybe he just couldn’t shut off being manipulative. I decided to play along, just as I had with Aisha earlier—I’m not above letting someone think they’re manipulating me…if I like the manipulation.”
“Then he said, ‘He’s right, even though he’s hobbled you, I bet if you wanted to, you’d be able to gut me like a fish before anyone could stop you.’ Admittedly, the idea had crossed my mind. He didn’t seem worried though. ‘But you won’t. He’s just thinking about your arms, your legs, the glass in the bar that you could smash and use to slit my throat. I understand it. It’s his job to think that way. But I’m not thinking in those terms—I don’t need a gun to protect myself because I’m thinking about the only weapon you have that matters.’ He pointed to his temple. ‘Intelligence. You won’t hurt me because you’re too smart to do something so illogical. You’ve worked it all out, and I’m sure you had before I’d even painted the picture for you. Today is the only day I’m going to have where I have the advantage of knowing some things you don’t. I’ll never have you at a disadvantage again, and I’m sure you’ll be several moves ahead of me from here on out. I need someone like that for this job. You’re the young man I’ve been looking for. And thank God, I found you.’”
“He took another puff of his cigar. I looked down at the cigar in my hand and, somewhat hesitantly, did likewise. And there we were, two men sitting there, smoking in the back of an SUV. That’s how the fate of the universe was decided. Right then and there. We weren’t any more special than two ants walking over the button and accidentally pushing it. Ultimately, it was much ado about nothing—our fates were sealed.”
“‘I’m sincerely sorry for bringing up your mother.’ He sighed. ‘Appearances. You know. Heavy is the head upon which the crown sits. You can’t consolidate the power around you unless the people around you fear you. But I don’t want you to fear me, Captain. You’re too smart for me to put under my thumb with a few threats. Given enough time, you’ll figure out a way around them. That’s the thing about intelligence. It has no limits.’ He puffed his cigar again. ‘You’re familiar with Machiavelli, of course?’”
“‘Of course,’ I replied.”
“‘Well, I’m the prince. That’s the truth. I’ll only turn forty next year, but I represent a safe state—I have time. I’ll never lose an election, no matter how bad these wars go, no matter how bad the economy gets, I can’t be beaten. Hell, I could probably make a heck of a run at the presidency when the next election rolls around, but I’m patient. Why rush? I’ve got longevity, and that makes me more powerful in practice than the president, and he damn well knows it. He’ll be gone in a term-and-a-half, giving five hundred dollar-a-plate speeches and opening libraries with his name, clearing brush in Texas or watching baseball games, but I’ll still be in power, pulling leavers he won’t be able to touch. And I’m aiming to be in the top job right about the time our little project brings superhuman-level-machine-intelligence online. That’s my moment. Roughly, we’re looking at about twenty years of scaling up V-SINN and rigorous testing of Gibson’s whole brain emulation. Maybe a breakthrough moves the time table up, maybe a setback makes it longer. Either way, what I’m telling you, Captain, is I’m going to be around for a long, long time, and I’ll be ready. From now until we’ve achieved superhuman machine intelligence, I’m running the show, and I want you to be my partner.’ He stopped to correct his own word choice. ‘You are my partner.’”
“I wanted to resist. But the man was right. There’s nothing more powerful than intelligence and logic—correctly applied. My old life was over as soon as Universe X transgressed into ours and left its technology there for us to find—there was no escaping this conclusion.”
“Then the man who was so concerned with evincing power suddenly made an admission that surprised me: ‘V-SINN scares the hell out of me, Captain,’ Morgan said quietly, with a slight nod, and there was something in the way his eyes drifted from mine that made me believe it. For a moment, he wasn’t looking at me anymore—he was imagining the same things I had–things that, at that moment, were nothing more than nightmares too horrific to be viewed directly…they had to be glimpsed out of the corner of your mind’s eye, or else they were too horrible—too profane—to be viewed at all. ‘I was watching your conversation with the professors, Captain, as you’ve probably already guessed. T
here wasn’t a thing you said that I didn’t agree with. And that’s why I know you’re the man for this job. Sanha—that son-of-a-bitch—is a classic cynic. He doesn’t see the power—the danger right in front of his face. He won’t believe superhuman intelligence can kill him until the moment right before it does. But his background in theoretical physics is why he’s the guy to understand the quantum processors we acquired and to make the ones we’ve built actually work. And Aldous…’ Morgan had a pretty accurate take on him too, ‘he’s smug as hell. He thinks he’s outsmarting all of us. I admire the ideal he’s chasing, I admire that he wants to take us to this technological promised land, but he’s not the man to lead. The man who leads can’t be a true believer. A true believer will blind himself to the dangers. I need someone who knows this technology can work—knows it has to work—knows it’ll happen one way…’ and then he paused for a beat as he considered the next, foreboding phrase, ‘…or the other—and who realizes our only chance, if we even have a real chance, is to make sure it’s not the other.’”
“‘I know it has to work,’ I told him. ‘But if you understood what I said to them, then you should bury this project. There’s no guaranteed safe option with machine super-intelligence—none—but letting it develop slowly, in billions of iterative steps, that’s the only way I can imagine to at least give it a chance of—’”
“‘Why?’ he cut me off. He seemed genuinely curious, rather than disgusted or impatient. ‘Why ask me this? You already know the answer, so why waste time?’”
“‘I don’t think it’s a waste of time,’ I answered firmly. ‘We don’t need this tech to stay ahead of any other country militarily or otherwise. The argument that we’ve got the secret to build the most dangerous weapon ever built, a weapon that by its very definition we know we can’t control, so we better build it fast before the patent expires—that just doesn’t hold water.’”
“‘There’s a civilization that has attacked us once already, Captain, and they—’”
“Irrelevant on so many levels, Senator,’ I cut him off. ‘Whatever happened that day, no matter how advanced their tech, we’re still here. They haven’t returned. Risking our entire civilization in some mad dash rush against a ghost isn’t worth—’”
“‘They have returned,’ Morgan replied as he exhaled another breath of smoke.”
“What?” Old-timer asked as his spine suddenly stiffened from astonishment and bolted upright.
“What?” Samantha echoed, equally stunned.
“Sorry,” Paine answered her with the slightest of grimaces. “That was top secret. But I figure, all things considered, spilling the beans now is all right.”
“Someone from my universe infiltrated your universe after the initial incursion on Sept. 11th?” Old-timer asked, enunciating every world carefully, making sure there was no confusion.
“That’s right, Doc,” Paine confirmed.
“James, did you copy that?” Old-timer asked.
Inside the Purist complex, James was already stepping away from the repair platform as he answered, “I heard it, Old-timer. I’m on it.”
“James,” Alex began as he held his hand up to prevent James from retreating further from the repair platform, “the nans’ effectiveness decreases dramatically if you leave the base platform.”
“I’m fine,” James answered as he stepped on unsteady legs—legs with temporary prosthetics on them that he’d never used before; it felt to him as though he was borrowing someone else’s appendages. Regardless, he soldiered on toward the exit. “Can you confirm that Aldous is in his quarters?” he asked Alex over his shoulder.
“I believe so,” Alex replied as he searched online for a confirmation. Their communication moved to their mind’s eyes as Thel followed James.
“I’m coming with you,” she insisted. “He’s not like he used to be. He’s dangerous. Powerful. Psychotic. You’ll need back up.”
“I can handle him,” James replied confidently.
“Even so—”
“I just want to talk. Aldous modified the Planck platform design between when Old-timer and the A.I. entered 332 and when I found the old designs in the A.I.’s database. Now we know why. He visited 332. The question now is: what for? What was he doing?”
“James, I have some…disturbing news,” Alex cut in.
“What is it?” James asked.
“I’ve located Aldous, but…” Alex trailed off.
“What is it, Alex?” Thel asked after Alex failed to finish his sentence.
“I’m not sure how to describe this,” Alex replied. “He appears to have been…damaged.”
“What do you mean, damaged?” James asked. “How badly?”
“Catastrophically,” Alex replied. “I’m afraid it’s highly unlikely that Aldous Gibson is still functioning.”
MESSAGE FOR YOU FROM THE AUTHOR
Tribe! I missed you!
If you’re a card-carrying member of the Post-Human tribe, welcome back! And enjoy the two chapter preview of book 6 that you’ll find at the end of this 1-5 collected edition of the series!
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Thank you!
David Simpson (January 29th, 2018)
BOOKS BY DAVID SIMPSON:
POST-HUMAN SERIES:
SUB-HUMAN (BOOK 1)
POST-HUMAN (BOOK 2)
TRANS-HUMAN (BOOK 3)
HUMAN PLUS (BOOK 4)
INHUMAN (BOOK 5)
(BOOK 6) COMING SOON
(BOOK 7) COMING SOON
HORROR NOVEL
THE GOD KILLERS
Post-Human 5 Book Boxed-Set: (Limited Edition) (Plus Book 6 Preview Chapters) Page 111