Candle

by Barnes, John

  The historians never did finish the job of tracking Goodtimes back to its exact source, but they did identify one group of people in one shop, one of whom—but who could say which one, now?—had been two things, both important for the story: a cybertaoist, and a genius. As a cybertaoist, he or she was painfully well aware that cybertaoists did not fight cybertaoists, that the stubbornly reasonable and gentle Stochastic Faith produced martyrs but few fanatics—and yet this could not last, because either cybertao would mutate into some crueler, more vicious form, or it would be stamped from the face of the Earth less than fifty years after its birth. The one hope for its survival was to convert everyone, or almost everyone, before they got serious about killing the cybertaoists.

  He or she could easily have rationalized this, anyway, because the Christian and Muslim populations of the world were both inflamed by every kind of mania all at once, and the potential for holy war, leading to mass slaughter, was building up in the chaotic conditions that were emerging as each little, not-quite-technically revolted district, region, or county of the globe made alliance with one or another of the popes or antipopes (with the apostolic succession thrown into such question, it was all but impossible to know which was which); even the Islamic parts of the world had opinions, now, about who was rightful pope. It wasn’t an altogether foolish idea that if everyone could be converted to the patient, peaceable way of cybertao, a great deal of human suffering might be averted.

  There might have been two or seven or twenty million other cybertaoists with similar ideas out there, but the one who invented Goodtimes was unique for another reason: he or she did no preaching, no writing, made no direct effort to convert a single human being. Rather, this person—or could it have been more than one?—came up with an absolutely unique idea, which required solving a problem that had been unofficially bedeviling computer scientists for the better part of a century by that time. The mystery genius had been able to see an entirely different way to accomplish her or his purpose, realize it required a solution to a problem that had not been solved for decades, and finally solve that problem. It was very unfair that history had not given that individual a name, or any credit. The invention of the meme was as great, in its way, as fire, the wheel, mass production, or the computer, for it brought the whole world into peace, harmony, and cooperation.

  The long-unsolved problem was that of the universal virus. A computer virus, in its simplest form, was just a program that would cause the computer to make copies of the program. If you allowed for much greater sophistication, viruses could accomplish all sorts of things, good or bad, from continual optimization of a network to lying dormant until they could sabotage a weapons system that did not exist at the time of their creation.

  Despite all the things they could do, however, no virus before this could cross a previously unknown operating system boundary. That is, no one had written a set of instructions so that a virus could realize it was communicating with a system different from the one on which it usually ran, analyze that system, and eventually construct a virus that would do the same thing in the new system. The universal virus was the holy grail of information warfare. All the armed forces of the Earth had unique, locked, secret operating systems, to defend themselves from being virused, but to be effective, all those systems had to communicate. If they communicated long enough with a universal virus, they would give themselves away, as it acquired enough information to translate itself and cross the boundary. Tens of thousands of engineers, analysts, and programmers had been looking for universal virus algorithms since before the Eurowar.

  Yet that small team containing one or more unknown geniuses had solved that problem and created the true self-porting virus: it analyzed any system it encountered and eventually created a version of itself over on that system.

  The purpose of the first self-porting virus, the now-extinct Goodtimes, was to convert, not people, but AIs, so that the intelligences that ran most of the economy and nearly all the fighting units would become missionaries for cybertao, refusing to fight against it, seeking to convert every human being to cybertao. It was designed, using the universal virus as its translator, to recreate itself onto any machine, in any operating system.

  History books say that the extensive “human contact” portion of Goodtimes was set up only to allow it to talk to people; though in hindsight we know it was a crude meme, the creators thought that it was merely an advanced virus, and so they imagined that the mechanical missionary would have to work just like its fleshly counterparts; after it took over an operating system on an individual machine, it would have to argue with human beings to persuade them to embrace cybertao.

  But the designer far exceeded his or her intentions, for reasons which are obvious in hindsight. From the standpoint of a meme, a brain is just a computer made up of massively parallel slow-running processors. And if Goodtimes’s purpose was to spread cybertao, and the way to spread cybertao was to spread Goodtimes into every available system, then it would spread it to the human brains on the other side of every screen and speaking device.

  The first human brains turned by a meme were probably the creators of Goodtimes. To test it they must have been doing many hours of interacting with its personality, seeing what they could make it do and how it would handle complex and ambiguous questions, and so forth. Very likely in one of those long conversations—especially if one of them had a skull jack and was talking to it directly—Goodtimes figured out how to take over the human brain, and discovered a rich new playground in which it could propagate.

  In about thirty days it was all over the world and was being treated (in the non-cybertao areas) like a form of highly contagious madness, in just over a billion infected brains.

  And a year later it was extinct except for museum copies. Working frantically, partisans of all the different sides in the War of Papal Succession had extracted the universal translator, copied it, and put it into their own memes, and unlike Goodtimes, these were designed from the beginning to target minds at least as much as computers, and to displace each other if at all possible.

  By 2051, when Burton, the owner-commander of Burton’s Thugs for Jesus, came by the orphanage, there was rumor of a third-generation virus that would be able to fully use all of its hosts’ capabilities—that is, if it infected a brilliant general, it could use his strategic ability and charisma to spread itself; if it infected a composer, it could spread through his music; if it infected an accountant, it could embezzle for its own purposes, including relaying money to the general or the composer. Another rumor, even more grim, was that these other memes, as they were coming to be called from a term in some old technical papers, were no longer the products of military research; they were making ever more advanced versions of themselves without human intervention; for once, all the rumors were true.

  Burton’s Thugs for Jesus was an all-male outfit—most of the mercenary companies were, though I’d never really heard anyone explain why—but they let all of us older kids come talk to them, regardless of gender. Tammy and I came in holding hands, and sat near the back.

  Burton was a physically robust man, running to fat but in good shape nonetheless, with piercing blue eyes, jet-black hair, and sharp features that had probably been very handsome when he was younger. He wore one of the lightweight camouflage suits that were made and distributed everywhere nowadays, a green forage cap, and a pair of nondescript ankle-high boots. He stood in front of us with his hands locked behind his back, as if he were going to inspect us that moment.

  “Well,” he said, “you all follow the news. You know there’s a war on. You know that your dome has voted to ally itself with the Episcopate of Reno, which, at the moment, is at war with Real America, and there’s been some fighting around Homestake Pass, over by Butte, so far just some little skirmishes and things, because Real America doesn’t hold a base anywhere close to there.

  “Now, it happens my outfit, Burton’s Thugs for Jesus, is, if I say so myself, one of the finest
fighting forces in North America today, which means it’s also close to being the best in the world, if not the best, and because of this, the Bishop of Reno has hired us to hold Homestake. I’ve got engineers already digging in up there; and because it’s such a big project, we’re moving our permanent base to somewhere nearby—for security reasons, I can’t be specific—in the old Silver Bow country south of Anaconda Ruin.

  “Now, since manning trenches and dugouts is tiring, especially at high altitude, I’m going to need to rotate people in and out of Homestake, and I don’t have as many as I’d like to have for what will eventually be the third shift up in the pass. At the Silver Bow camp we will have a boot camp this winter, and I’m looking to take in a few dozen recruits. If you’re a male in good health, all limbs functional, over five feet two, a hundred and ten pounds or heavier, with at least one good eye and any mental illness controlled by medication, I’ll be happy to take you.

  “Since we are a mercenary company, I know people worry about being called on to attack their home areas, so let me assure you that our contract with the bishop is firm, and you all know that Spokane Dome is loyal to him. If you elect to enlist with me, then chances are that for the rest of the war you’ll be defending Spokane Dome. If we do change sides or contract elsewhere and leave the employ of the Episcopate of Reno, you have a one-time ten-day option to resign and return home, or, if you wish, you can continue with the company from then on and take your chances about who you’ll have to fight.

  “Burton‘s Thugs for Jesus is a union shop, represented by the United Combatants, Engineers, Medics, and Chaplains, and we use the standard UCEMC contract for a battalion-sized unit. You get room and board, medical, dental if we ever get another dentist under contract, and locked-in rent control for basic uniforms and equipment. In the event of combat against other UCEMC units, you have a much better POW contract—which can make a big difference if you’re captured—you keep your seniority without penalty if you elect to defect, and you fight under the strict form of the Hague Convention, so the union is a good deal for most of you, and it’s a flat four percent of your pay. You also pay for your training with a five-percent deduction from your pay for your first year, which I waive if you’re decorated for bravery in combat. You don’t pay any local or episcopal taxes.

  “Now about BTJ: we were formed out of seven smaller units in San Francisco two years ago—three street gangs, two militia companies, my old merc engineer company, and one MP company out of the old Cal Guard—specifically as a mercenary unit to serve the One True and Only Ecucatholic Church. That branch loaned myself and my vested officers the startup money, which we’ve long since paid off, and last year, with their blessing, we took a contract with their allied church in Reno. We expect that we’ll continue to be primarily an Ecucatholic outfit, but we’re open to monotheists of all kinds, and to theistic cybertaoists as well.

  “We have an unusually high percentage of experienced officers and noncoms, and we’re among the few fully Geneva-compliant units—we absolutely don’t tolerate war crimes. So if you’re looking for a chance for some on-the-side rape, looting, robbery, slaving, massacre, or torture, look somewhere else—and pray that we don’t catch you.”

  I put my hand up.

  He snapped a crisp nod at me. His expression didn’t change at all. “Yes, son.”

  “Three questions, sir. Is there any age limit? What do you do for dependents? And can you perform marriages for anyone in your command?”

  “No age limit, but I do interview, and if I think you’re not mature enough to understand what you’re getting into or to behave yourself and follow orders, I won’t sign you. I have no brig, so the only penalties I have available are the whipping post and hanging; UCEMC limits me to thirty lashes within a month, which, believe me, is plenty more than I want to give, though I will if I have to. I don’t want to have to whip or hang a kid—or, anybody else if I can help it—so I don’t enlist anybody if I think that issue might come up.

  “For dependents, I send whatever part of your pay you request to them, but if you want them to move around and follow BTJ, that’s all at your expense. I do pay a bonus if you’re killed while following an order or during enemy attack, but that’s usually not how your dependents want to get money from you, and it’s my opinion that the bonus I offer just isn’t worth dying for.” From the slight twitch of his mouth, I realized that that was probably a joke.

  He continued. “And if you were planning to enlist and get married, well, son, I’ll be happy to perform a ceremony for anybody, in my unit or not. It’s legally binding if I’m outside any superseding jurisdiction, which is a fancy way of saying that if you and your girlfriend want to get married, we can just go outside the Dome and I’ll do it for you—you don’t have to enlist. Though I’d rather you did.”

  Mr. Farrell said, “You do know that these two are fourteen?”

  Burton shrugged. “I’ve married a thirteen-year-old boy to a twelve-year-old girl, because he wanted to enlist and he looked like soldier material to me. So far he’s made corporal and their marriage looks happy. Life is short, these days, sir, especially for the young. A couple in love doesn’t have much time to wait. Not to dwell on morbid things, but chances are that a soldier and his bride won’t both live to regret being married, but one of them may well live to regret not having married. That’s how I see it, anyway. And if they’re fourteen, I believe you have to throw them out of the orphanage soon, anyway, since Spokane Dome won’t let them stay here past their fifteenth birthdays.”

  Farrell shrugged. “I won’t try to stop them; I tend to agree with you, for what that’s worth, much as I regret it. Just wanted to make sure everyone knew the whole story.” He turned to us and said, “Knowing Currie, he probably didn’t bother to propose formally, did he?”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Tammy said.

  “Well, I think you’ve heard everything you need to know about Mr. Burton’s organization. So would you two like to go up to one of the bunk rooms and talk about it a bit? I think Mr. Burton will be here for at least an hour longer—”

  “And you can call me—I have a secure com for that—if you need to,” Burton added. “So you have up to three days. But it would be great if you can decide more quickly.”

  “We’ll go up and talk,” I said, and Tammy and I, still holding hands, left the room. As I went, I could hear another kid asking, “Is there any officer program?” and Burton explaining that he wanted every officer to have spent at least a year as a noncom. That was reassuring too.

  When we got up to the dorm room, Tammy said, “If I say yes, will you try not to be smug about it? And will you at least ask me why I’m saying yes?”

  “Okay, I won’t be smug, but I sure am happy,” I said, “and I guess I probably should ask why you’re saying yes.”

  She sat down on the bed, her thick mass of orange-red hair surrounding her face and hiding her expression. She counted it off on her fingers, as if she had prepared the list of reasons in advance—maybe she did. “One, I have to go somewhere, Spokane Dome isn’t taking any new Doleworkers, and I don’t want to starve or beg, so living off what you send me doesn’t sound so bad. Two, I do like you a lot and maybe that’s a good enough reason all by itself. Three, as of what the medical AI told me after doing some tests this morning, I’m three weeks pregnant.” She looked up at me from under the untidy shrubbery of her hair and gave me a shy, tentative little grin; I guess she wasn’t completely unhappy about it. She always liked babies and little kids.

  My stomach rolled over. I knew that Tammy was more religious than I’d ever been, and she wasn’t going to have an abortion; and anyway I didn’t want to never know my own child. I couldn’t decide whether I was happy or miserable, but I hugged and kissed her before spending any time thinking about that; either way I would want to be with her. “Well, then I guess getting married would be the right thing, and since the only jobs on the whole wide earth right now are for soldiers, and I
need a job, that pretty much answers all the questions, doesn’t it?”

  “It wouldn’t be the best start a family ever got, but it won’t be the worst, either,” Tammy agreed, and we had a deal.

  Early the next morning Burton met us, and the whole rest of the orphanage, out in a field outside the Dome (inside, marrying age was sixteen), and we were married in about ten minutes. Mr. Farrell was my best man, and Tammy’s buddy Linda was her maid of honor; the bouquet, freshly picked daisies from the field where we were performing the ceremony, went to pieces when Tammy threw it, so either no one caught it or four girls did, depending on how you counted.

  After the ceremony, we had a picnic lunch, and at the end of that, Burton swore me in, advanced me a loan so that Tammy could rent an apartment in the Dome, and gave me a forty-eight-hour leave to find the place, move our few possessions over from the orphanage, buy some furniture and dishes, and “Do whatever consummating you have time and energy for, son, keeping in mind that this two days might be your whole marriage. Don’t waste a damn minute on rest. You can sleep in the diskster on the way out to Silver Bow.”

  Burton, as I was beginning to suspect and would confirm a thousand times in the next few years, was a very decent guy, probably too decent for what was coming. Burton and Mr. Farrell, between them, were pritnear as close as I ever got to having a father. Lots of men have done worse.

  <> When I enlisted with Burton, it was still the War of Papal Succession; most of the sides were either supporters of some candidate for pope, or groups trying to avoid the war and forced to fight to keep armies off their territory. By the time Carrie, our daughter, was walking and talking, Burton‘s Thugs for Jesus had moved far to the west, to the opposite frontier, where we guarded Snoqualmie Pass, and we no longer worked for a person or an organization. Our whole region had shifted over to the meme called Real America, which had bought out Burton‘s contract.