by Mark Goodwin
Josh grimaced at the thought of this side mission eating up his entire day on Monday, but he still felt that Emilio was doing him a favor. “Okay. I’ll come get you. We’ll get up first thing tomorrow morning, get gas, and then go pick up the vehicles.”
“Thanks, buddy. I owe you one.”
He remembered everything Emilio had done for him over the years. Josh considered how his friend had covered for him with the shooting incident, even though Josh hadn’t wanted him to. “No. I’m sure you’ll still have a few more favors to cash in—even after this.”
***
It was close to midnight when Josh arrived in Williamsburg, Kentucky where Emilio and Nicole had stopped. They’d parked in the empty parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, just off the I-75 exit. Josh checked the surroundings before getting out of his pickup. He looked at Emilio’s truck. “Empty?”
“We coasted in on fumes.” Emilio pulled a suitcase out of the back seat.
“You left the BMW in Tennessee?” Josh began loading Nicole’s belongings into the bed of his truck.
Emilio nodded. “Sweetwater.”
“Thanks for coming to pick us up.” Nicole removed the rest of her luggage from the bed of the truck. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to your advice. I won’t ignore you like that again.”
“You’re safe. That’s what matters.” Josh headed back to the cab.
“New truck?” she asked.
“It’s for work. The back seat is a little small. Not much legroom. You should probably let Emilio ride up front.”
“I can sit in the middle,” she said.
“It’s going to be tight.” Josh watched Emilio and Nicole looking at each other.
Emilio replied, “I don’t mind.”
“Okay then.” Josh waited for them to get situated, started the engine, and made his way back to the interstate. “We’ll take the side roads once we get to Mount Vernon. The president has enacted martial law. The military was setting up roadblocks in Lexington when I came through.”
“But you’ve got a badge. They’ll let you through, right?” Nicole asked.
“I’m sure they would, but it’s a lot of commotion that I’d prefer to avoid,” Josh said.
Emilio shook his head. “I can’t believe the military is wasting resources on Lexington. I don’t see that city being a problem.”
“I know. But the president’s orders are to secure all metropolitan areas with populations larger than 150,000. The whole world is melting down. Paris, London, Madrid, Munich, Rome, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Lima, Montreal… riots are breaking out all over.”
“No curfews have been put in place where we’re going?” Nicole inquired.
“So far, no. But all the interstates run through major cities. Supply lines are going to grind to a halt. Even if you want to pay $8 for a loaf of bread, it’s not going to be available.”
“This thing with the dollar just started last Monday. It’s been exactly one week.” Nicole wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t understand how everything fell apart so fast.”
“You need a functioning currency to keep the system moving. Without money, nothing works.” Josh saw few other travelers on the road.
“You said the truck is for work. Are you changing jobs or something?” Nicole let her hand rest on Emilio’s leg.
Josh pretended not to notice. “It’s for an undercover assignment.”
“I bet Stephanie is thrilled about that,” she said.
“Yeah. Ecstatic. But I don’t have a choice.” He glanced over at Emilio. “Which reminds me, did you mention to the tactical coordinator that you and I are close?”
“No. I didn’t want to seem like I was name dropping—you being the big shot undercover agent and all.”
“Well, don’t.”
Nicole asked. “What’s that about? Are you afraid Emilio is going to make you look bad?”
“No! But I’ve got some concerns about the investigation they have me on. And it might be best for everyone if the bosses didn’t know that Emilio and I are tight.”
“They’re gonna know we came from the same office,” Emilio said.
“Yeah, but they don’t have to know we’re friends.”
“I can play like I think you’re a jerk. It’s not that much of a stretch, to be honest.”
Josh pressed his lips together. “Seriously, though. I’m going to send you some videos. One of the presenters is a little over the top with his theatrics, but he makes some good points.”
“Video?” asked Emilio. “About what?”
“Some people might call them conspiracies. At least that’s what I would have called them before all of this started. But now, I’m not so sure.”
“If it’s about NASA faking the moon landing, I don’t want to know,” Emilio joked. “Buzz Aldrin was my hero growing up. It will shatter everything I believe about the world we live in.”
“It’s not about the moon landing, but prepare to have your worldview radically shaken.”
“I want to know!” Nicole said.
“You can watch with me,” Emilio said.
“What are we going to do for food?” Nicole asked. “If the trucks can’t get through?”
“Your brother has been stocking up,” said Emilio.
She inquired, “For all of us?”
“Yes,” said Josh.
“Thank you.” She smiled at her brother. “I’m sorry to be a burden.”
“You’re not a burden. I even have a room set up for you at the house.”
She bit her lip and turned to Emilio. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Emilio had offered to let me stay with him.”
Josh laughed. “What did you think I was going to do? Drag you up here and make you stay in a tent?”
“I already accepted Emilio’s offer.”
Josh lowered his brow. “Oh, you want to stay with Emilio.”
“Well, they have a gym in Shelbyville,” she replied.
“Franklin has a gym. Although I’m not sure any of them will be open much longer.” Josh glanced over to see them holding hands.
“Thanks, but—I’ve already decided.”
Josh looked over at Emilio and pressed his lips together.
“Sorry, bro. I didn’t mean to cause any problems,” said Emilio.
“You’re both adults. You can do what you want. Even so, it seems kind of fast.”
“Oh, it’s not like that,” she protested. “He has a second bedroom. And it’s just for a week or so. We’re going to check out the area together. Besides, we’ve known each other from the gym for more than a year.”
Josh was familiar with his sister’s attempt to soft pedal a subject. “I can’t go all the way to Shelbyville and back. It’s too late. You’ll both have to sleep over at our house. I’ve got an impressionable teen in the house, so Emilio can take the couch, and Nicole, you can sleep in the guest room.”
CHAPTER 13
Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, “Come and see.” And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.
Revelation 6:1-2
Josh awoke late Monday morning to the soft touch of Stephanie’s hand on his back. He rolled over to look at her. The smell of coffee permeated the air.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” She smiled and ran her fingers across his chest. “I was going to let you sleep…”
He grinned. “But you’ve obviously reconsidered that insane notion.”
Her smile faded. “WNN is getting ready to air an interview that I thought you’d want to see.”
“More than sleep?” He closed his eyes. “I doubt that.”
“Lillian Lopez is interviewing Lucius Alexander. He’s the CEO of that big AI tech company which basically runs the internet now. Omni-something.”
His eyes shot open, and he sat up as if hit with a jolt of electricity. “I know who he is. It’s call
ed Omniscience.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, he’s part of a group from Silicon Valley who say they have a solution to the crisis.”
He jumped from the bed forgetting about the tenderness in his knee.
Stephanie caught his arm when he wobbled. “Careful.” She handed him his jeans.
“Thanks.” Josh got dressed and hurried to the living room where the interview was about to begin.
Emilio sat up on the couch, his eyes still half-closed, having just woken up himself. “What’s going on?” His voice was whispered and gravelly.
Josh sat on the loveseat. “Lucius Alexander is getting ready to announce the new global economic system.”
Stephanie brought her husband a cup of coffee and took a seat next to him. “I didn’t say that. I just said he has some ideas about how to fix the crisis.” She looked at Josh carefully. “But you’re trying to tell me something that you can’t say.”
Josh sipped from his cup. “Thanks for the coffee.”
Nicole came out of the guest room quietly and took a seat on the couch.
Emilio seemed to come around quickly. “May I get a cup of coffee?”
“Help yourself.” Stephanie motioned toward the kitchen.
Josh looked over his shoulder to see Micah standing behind the couch.
Looking pretty and composed as always, Lillian Lopez sat behind her studio news desk. “This morning’s guest is Lucius Alexander. Most of you know him as the creator of Omniscience, the company which brought us the first AI quantum computer by the same name. Omniscience, both the company and the AI computer, have been credited with bringing the internet to the next level of evolution. What many of you may not know is that Lucius Alexander was the youngest person ever to receive a Ph.D. from MIT and that he was tapped by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency before the ink dried on his doctorate. He worked with DARPA and NASA for more than a decade prior to venturing out on his own to start Omniscience.
“Dr. Alexander, thank you for being with us today.”
“Thank you for allowing me the opportunity.” Lucius Alexander smiled, revealing big white sparkling teeth. But even more white than his teeth was his prematurely white hair. He wore his trademark white turtleneck, which against his pale skin and fluorescent blue eyes made him look altogether otherworldly.
“Doctor, I’m not going to waste your time nor bore our viewers by recapping the traumas which the world is experiencing right now. But suffice it to say that we’ve hit bottom, both from an economic standpoint as well as geopolitically speaking. Everyone watching this show right now is feeling the pain and most think the situation is hopeless.”
Lucius nodded with deeply empathetic eyes. “I understand their distress. Although I think I would characterize our predicament as challenging rather than hopeless. As long as you’re breathing, you have hope.”
“I appreciate your optimism, Doctor Alexander, but I don’t see an end to this dilemma.”
“I’ve been working with some of my colleagues from other large tech companies. These people are the best and brightest humanity has ever seen. They’ve overcome hurdles which would cause the average politician to crawl under a rock and pray for death. I don’t mean to belittle the men and women who have dedicated their lives to public service, but let’s face it, most wouldn’t last ten minutes in the world of Silicon Valley startups.
“When I began soliciting my first round of funding for Omniscience, the naysayers were certain that quantum computing was as impossible as time travel. Machine learning was in its infancy. Imagine asking investors to believe in a company that was going to tackle both of those mountains at the same time. It’s like saying you want to colonize Mars so you can cure cancer.
“Getting the funding was only the first impossible hurdle. I can’t tell you how many setbacks, breakdowns, engineers who burnt out; if I believed in the word hopeless, I’d probably be working as a mid-level IT tech right now. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’ve always felt that I was meant for more.”
“You’ve certainly achieved more. Forbes has you listed as the richest man on the planet.”
“Money isn’t everything.” Lucius smiled. “Although it does provide you with opportunities that you otherwise wouldn’t have. Most importantly, people listen to you when you have money. Unfortunately, a lot of the world’s population is ignored because they’re not in the top 1%. I want to give those people a voice.
“I also want to alleviate the suffering that they’re experiencing right now. And, as I alluded to earlier in our conversation, I think we’ve come up with something that will work.
“I can’t take all the credit, because like I said, it’s been a group effort. We’ve run this series of strategies through Omniscience, and the only thing that could possibly hinder a successful outcome is a lack of political will.”
“Have you floated your ideas to the leaders of the world?”
Doctor Alexander replied, “We have. Most are on board, but it must be accepted by the people as well. The old adage is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
“But is that fair? I mean if most of us want to drink from the well of hope, could a handful of malcontents ruin the party for everyone else?” Lopez asked.
“That’s a good question, Lillian. We’ve obviously seen that scenario play out in this country over and over. Whether the issue is gun control, or health care, or equality, or any number of social challenges, we get a small pocket of the population who are afraid of change and they allow that fear to derail what could be a brighter future for all of us. I can’t answer the question you’ve posed. Obviously, I have an opinion, but that decision is going to have to be made by the citizens of the world. What I can tell you is that unless we address the crisis, and do it fast, we’re going to experience a global population die-off like this planet has never seen.”
“Can you share your plan with us?”
“I’ll try.”
“Please keep in mind that most of us don’t have backgrounds in machine learning or quantum computing.”
“Of course,” Lucius Alexander gave another glowing smile with his big white teeth. “Prior to this century, economies have been local. Certainly, nations have traded with other nations, but the culture, banking, investment, and a large part of any given nation’s consumables came from their own people. Thus, it made sense for each country to have its own currency, its own rules, laws, and leadership.
“However, in recent years, we’ve become one large global network, a world community. Take America for example, since that’s where most of your viewers reside; the country imports about 2.5 trillion dollars’ worth of goods annually. But, because of specialization, that’s not a bad thing. If other countries are willing to take on the bulk of the manufacturing industry, that frees up Americans to be involved in more innovative fields.
“At any rate, the global neighborhood is getting smaller. The world has been getting more integrated for a long time now. It’s been changing slowly, but we’ve been using the same separate currencies with no significant changes to the banking system over that period.”
Lucius retrieved a rubber band from his pocket, strung it between his thumbs and began to stretch it. “So, like a rubber band being stretched ever so gradually, the monetary system finally snapped.” The rubber band broke, recoiling violently against each of his thumbs, but he didn’t seem to be affected by it. “We need a new global currency that can function with a global economy rather than pulling against it.”
“I love the analogy, Doctor Alexander, but isn’t the US largely to blame for the collapse? I mean, haven’t our politicians abused the dollar’s reserve currency status?”
“Yeah, but you know what, Lillian? The world’s politicians are going to point fingers and assess blame for the next five decades over this. In the end, no one will go to jail, no one will get their pound of flesh, and we’ll all end up wasting a lot of energy focusing on our anger
. Where is that going to get us?”
“Nowhere, I suppose.”
“Did it get us anywhere after 2009? Did anybody go to jail? Did anyone get their IRA or their house back?”
“No.”
“If Silicon Valley operated like that, we’d still be running DOS on a dial-up modem. When someone spills a glass of milk, we can all argue about who spilled it, why the glass was so close to the edge of the table in the first place, assign committees to study the type of dishwashing liquid we’re using to see if it’s leaving a greasy film on the glasses, and so on, and so on.
“Or, we can work together to clean up the mess, give the person who spilled the milk a plastic sippy cup, and move forward.”
Lillian smiled. “So are you saying we should give Congress and the central bankers all sippy cups?”
He smiled mischievously. “Those are your words, not mine.”
“What does this new global currency look like? Are you proposing a physical currency or will this be blockchain-based, like Bitcoin?”
“Fantastic question, Lillian. Physical currencies have outlived their usefulness. Besides being targets for counterfeiters, they enable terrorism, human trafficking, theft, and so many other evils the world could do without.”
“But what about Bitcoin? Isn’t it widely used by criminals?”
“It is, but I’m not recommending Bitcoin as part of our solution. Not to bore you with technical details, but Bitcoin is, as you said, blockchain-based. Blockchain technology, and Bitcoin, in particular use an immense amount of energy. Obviously, we don’t want to solve one problem only to create a whole new one. Additionally, a Bitcoin transaction can take up to an hour to verify. Even then, it’s not what cryptocurrency analysts call Byzantine fault-tolerant. That’s a technical definition concerning how a distributed ledger technology reaches consensus, and I won’t make your viewers’ eyes glaze over by getting into that today.”
“Oh, thank you.”
Lucius continued. “The global mark, the currency we’re proposing, would, like Bitcoin, use a distributed ledger technology, but not the inefficient blockchain. Instead, it uses hashgraph technology, which uses such a minute amount of energy that programs can be run on a cell phone. Additionally, consensus is achieved in seconds and is completely Byzantine fault-tolerant, not merely pBFT, or practically Byzantine fault-tolerant, as is the case with Bitcoin.