Sunspot Jungle

by Bill Campbell

  Stephanie looked up at him a moment later, her lunch chosen. Then he felt his own ads go into effect. Sweet enticements. Subtle reminders of good times had. Sultry undertones. Subtle, just below normal human perception. And all emanating from Simon, beamed straight into Stephanie’s mind.

  And he saw her expression change just a tiny bit.

  Half an hour later the check came. Simon paid, over Stephanie’s objection, then stood. He leaned in close as she stood as well. The advertech monitors told him she was receptive, excited.

  “My place, tonight?” he asked.

  Stephanie shook her head, clearly struggling with herself.

  Simon mentally cranked up the intensity of his ads another notch further.

  “I can make you forget all these distractions,” he whispered to her. “I can even turn off your ads for a night.” His own advertech whispered sweeter things to her brain, more personal, more sensual.

  Simon saw Stephanie hesitate, torn. He moved to wrap his arms around her, moved his face towards hers for a kiss.

  Stephanie turned her face away abruptly, and his lips brushed her cheek instead. She squeezed him in a sudden, brisk hug, her hands pressing almost roughly into his back.

  “Never,” she said. Then she pushed away from him and was gone.

  Simon stood there, shaking his head, watching as Stephanie walked past the fountain and out of his view.

  In the corner of his sight, an impressive tally of what he’d just spent on highly targeted advertising loomed. He blinked it away in annoyance. It was just a number. His line of credit against his Pura Vita stock options would pay for it.

  He’d been too subtle, he decided. He should have cranked the ads higher from the very beginning. Well, there were plenty more fish in the sea. Time to get back to the office, anyway.

  Steph walked north, past layers of virtual billboards and interactive fashion ads, past a barrage of interactive emotional landscape ads trying to suck her into buying perfume she didn’t need, and farther, until she was sure she was out of Simon’s senses.

  Then she reached into her mind and flicked off the advertising interfaces in her own implant.

  She leaned against a building, let her brain unclench, let the struggle of fighting the advertech he’d employed against her pass.

  That bastard, she thought, fuming. She couldn’t believe he’d tried that crap on her. If she’d had any shred of doubt remaining, he’d eliminated it. No. He deserved what was coming.

  Steph straightened herself, put out a mental bid for a taxi, rode it to Brooklyn, and stepped up to the door of the rented one-room flat. She knocked—short, short, long, long, short. She heard motion inside the room, then saw an eye press itself to the other side of the ancient peephole.

  They knew too well that electronic systems could be compromised.

  The door opened a fraction, the chain still on it, and Lisa’s face appeared. The short-haired brunette nodded, then unlatched the chain, opened the door fully.

  Steph walked into the room, closed the door behind her, saw Lisa tucking the home-printed pistol back into her pocket. She hated that thing. They both did. But they’d agreed it was necessary.

  “It’s done?” Lisa asked.

  Steph nodded.

  “It’s done.”

  Simon walked south along Broadway. It was a gorgeous day for a stroll. The sun felt warm on his brow. He was overdressed for the heat in an expensive grey silk jacket and slacks, but the smart lining kept him cool nonetheless. The city was alive with people, alive with data. He watched as throngs moved up and down the street, shopping, chatting, smiling on this lovely day. He partially lowered his neural firewalls and let his implants feed him the whisper of electronic conversations all around him.

  Civic systems chattered away. The sidewalk slabs beneath his feet fed a steady stream of counts of passersby, estimates of weight and height and gender, plots of probabilistic walking paths, data collected for the city planners. Embedded bio-sensors monitored the trees lining the street, the hydration of their soils, the condition of their limbs. Health monitors watched for runny noses, sneezing, coughing, any signs of an outbreak of disease. New York City’s nervous system kept constant vigil, keeping the city healthy, looking for ways to improve it.

  The commercial dataflow interested Simon more than the civic. His pricey, top-of-the-line implants let him monitor that traffic as only a few could.

  In Tribeca he watched as a woman walked by a storefront. He saw a mannequin size her up, then felt the traffic as it caressed her mind with a mental image of herself clothed in a new summer dress, looking ten years younger and twenty pounds lighter. Beneath the physical, the mannequin layered an emotional tone in the advert: feelings of vigor, joy, carefree delight. Simon nodded to himself. A nice piece of work, that. He took note of the brand for later study. The woman turned and entered the shop.

  He felt other advertech reaching out all around him to the networked brains of the crowd. Full sensory teasers for beach vacations from a travel shop, a hint of the taste of chocolate from a candy store, the sight and feel of a taut, rippling body from a sports nutrition store. He passed by a bodega, its façade open to the warm air, and came close enough that the individual bottles of soda and juice and beer and water reached out to him, each trying a pitch tailored to his height and weight and age and ethnicity and style of dress.

  Simon felt the familiar ping of one of the many Pura Vita water pitches and smiled. Not bad. But he had a few ideas for improvements. None of it really touched him, in any case. His implants weren’t ad-sponsored. He felt this ad chatter only because he chose to, and even now it was buffered, filtered, just a pale echo of what most of the implanted were subjected to. No. Simon tuned into this ambient froth of neural data as research. He sampled it, observed it from afar because he must. His success in marketing depended on it.

  He was almost to his own building when he passed the headquarters of Nexus Corp, the makers of the neural implant in his brain and millions more. Stephanie didn’t understand. This was the real behemoth. So long as Nexus Corp maintained their patents on the neural implant technology, they held a monopoly. The ad-based model, all that most people could afford, was their invention. Simon was just one of thousands of marketers to make use of it to boost demand for their products.

  And hell, if people didn’t like it, they didn’t have to get an implant! It was just the way the world worked. Want to be smarter? Want a photographic memory? Want to learn a new language or a new instrument or how to code overnight? Want all those immersive entertainment options? Want that direct connection with your loved ones? But don’t have the cash?

  Then accept the ads, boyo. And once you do, stop complaining.

  Not that Simon wanted the ads himself, mind you. No, it was worth the high price to keep the top-of-the-line, ad-free version running in his brain to get all the advantages of direct neural enhancement without the distraction of pervasive multi-sensory advertising. And of course, to be able to monitor the traffic around him, to better understand how to optimize his own pitches.

  Simon reached his building at last. The lobby doors sensed him coming and whisked themselves open. Walking by the snack bar in the lobby, he felt the drinks and packaged junk food reaching out to him. His own Pura Vita water, of course. And NutriYum water. Simon gave their top competitor’s products the evil eye. Someday Pura Vita would own this whole building, and then he’d personally see to it that not a single bottle of NutriYum remained.

  The lobby floor tiles whispered ahead to the inner security doors, which in turn alerted the elevators. Simon strode forward confidently, layers of doors opening for him of their own accord, one by one, perfectly in time with his stride. He stepped into the waiting elevator, and it began to ascend immediately, bound for his level. The lift opened again moments later, and he strode to his window office. Smart routing kept subordinates out of his path. The glass door to his magnificent office swung open for him. A bottle of cold Pura Vita was on
his desk, just how he liked it.

  Simon settled into his ready-and-waiting chair, kicked his feet up on the table, and reached through his implant to the embedded computing systems of his office. Data streamed into his mind. Market reports. Sales figures. Ad performance metrics. He closed his eyes and lost himself in it. This was the way to work.

  On the back of his jacket, a tiny device smaller than a grain of sand woke up and got to work as well.

  Lisa stared intently at Steph. “He didn’t notice?”

  Steph shook her head. “Not a clue.”

  “And you still want to go through with it?” Lisa asked.

  “More than ever.”

  Lisa looked at her. “The ones who’re paying us—they’re just as bad as he is, you know. And they’re going to profit.”

  Steph nodded. “For now they will,” she replied. “In the long run—they’re just paying us to take the whole damn system down.”

  Lisa nodded. “Okay then.”

  She strode over to the ancient terminal on the single desk in the flat and entered a series of key presses.

  Phase 1 began.

  Around the world, three-dozen different accounts stuffed with crypto-currency logged on to anonymous, cryptographically secured stock market exchanges. One by one, they began selling short on Pura Vita stock, selling shares they did not own on the bet that they could snap those same shares up at a far lower price in the very near future.

  In data centers around the world, AI traders took note of the short sales within microseconds. They turned their analytical prowess to news and financial reports on Pura Vita, on its competitors, on the packaged snack and beverage industries in general. The computational equivalent of whole human lifetimes was burned in milliseconds analyzing all available information. Finding nothing, the AI traders flagged Pura Vita stock for closer tracking.

  “Now we’re committed,” Lisa said.

  Steph nodded. “Now let’s get out of here before Phase 2 starts.”

  Lisa nodded and closed the terminal. Five minutes later they were checked out of their hotel and on their way to the airport.

  In a window office above the financial heart of Manhattan, a tiny AI woke and took stock of its surroundings.

  Location—check.

  Encrypted network traffic—check.

  Human present—check.

  Key …

  Deep within itself, the AI found the key. Something stolen from this corporation, perhaps. An access key that would open its cryptographic security. But one with additional safeguards attached. A key that could only be used from within the secure headquarters of the corporation. And only by one of the humans approved to possess such a key. Triply redundant security. Quite wise.

  Except that now the infiltration AI was here in this secure headquarters, carried in by one of those approved humans.

  Slowly, carefully, the infiltration AI crawled its tiny body up the back of the silk suit it was on, towards its collar, as close as it could come to the human’s brain without touching skin and potentially revealing itself. When it could go no farther, it reached out, fit its key into the cryptographic locks of the corporation around it, and inserted itself into the inner systems of Pura Vita enterprises and through them to the onboard processors of nearly a billion Pura Vita products on shelves around the world.

  In a warehouse outside Tulsa, a bottle of Pura Vita water suddenly labels itself as RECALLED. Its onboard processor broadcasts the state to all nearby. Within milliseconds, the other bottles in the same case, then the rest of the pallet, then all the pallets of Pura Vita water in the warehouse register as RECALLED. The warehouse inventory management AI issues a notice of return to Pura Vita, Inc. In a restaurant in Palo Alto, Marie Evans soaks up the sun, then reaches out to touch her bottle of Pura Vita. She likes to savor this moment, to force herself to wait, to make the pleasure of that first swallow all the more intense. Then abruptly, the bottle loses its magic. It feels dull and drab, inert in her hand. An instant later the bottle’s label flashes red—RECALL. The woman frowns. “Waiter!”

  In a convenience store in Naperville, the bottles of Pura Vita on the store shelves suddenly announce that they are in RECALL, setting off a flurry of electronic activity. The store inventory management AI notices the change and thinks to replace the bottles with more recently arrived stock in the storeroom. Searching, it finds that the stock in the back room has been recalled as well. It places an order for resupply to the local distribution center only to receive a nearly instant reply that Pura Vita water is currently out of stock with no resupply date specified. Confused, the inventory management AI passes along this information to the convenience store’s business management AI, requesting instructions.

  Meanwhile, on the shelves immediately surrounding the recalled bottles of Pura Vita, other bottled products take note. Bottles of NutriYum, OhSoSweet, OrganiTaste, and BetterYou, constantly monitoring their peers and rivals, observe the sudden recall of all Pura Vita water. They virtually salivate at the new opportunity created by the temporary hole in the local market landscape. Within a few millionths of a second, they are adapting their marketing pitches, simulating tens of thousands of scenarios in which buyers encounter the unavailable Pura Vita, angling for ways to appeal to this newly available market. Labels on bottles morph, new sub-brands appear on the shelves as experiments, new neural ads ready themselves for testing on the next wave of shoppers.

  In parallel, the rival bottles of water reach out to their parent corporate AIs with maximal urgency. Pura Vita bottles temporarily removed from battleground! Taking tactical initiative to seize local market opportunity! Send further instructions/best practices to maximize profit-making potential!

  For there is nothing a modern bottle of water wants more than to maximize its profit-making potential.

  At the headquarters of OhSoSweet and OrganiTaste and BetterYou, AIs receive the flood of data from bottles across the globe. The breadth of the calamity to befall Pura Vita becomes clear within milliseconds. Questions remain: What has caused the recall? A product problem? A contaminant? A terrorist attack? A glitch in the software?

  What is the risk to their own business?

  Possible scenarios are modeled, run, evaluated for optimal courses of action robust against the unknowns in the situation.

  In parallel, the corporate AIs model the responses of their competitors. They simulate each other’s responses. What will NutriYum do? OhSoSweet? OrganiTaste? BetterYou? Each tries to outthink the rest in a game of market chess.

  One by one, their recursive models converge on their various courses of action and come to that final, most dreaded set of questions, which every good corporate AI must ask itself a billion times a day. How much of this must be approved by the humans? How can the AI get the human-reserved decisions made quickly and in favor of the mathematically optimal course for the corporation that its machine intelligence has already decided upon?

  Nothing vexes an AI so much as needing approval for its plans from slow, clumsy, irrational bags of meat.

  Johnny Ray walked down the refrigerated aisle, still sweaty from his run. Something cold sounded good right now. He came upon the cooler with the drinks, reached for a Pura Vita, and saw that the label was pulsing red. Huh? Recalled?

  Then the advertech hit him.

  “If you liked Pura Vita, you’ll love Nutri Vita from NutriYum!”

  “OrganiVita is the one for you!”

  “Pura Sweet from OhSoSweet!”

  Images and sensations bombarded him. A cold, refreshing mountain stream crashed onto the rocks to his left, splashing him with its cool spray. A gaggle of bronzed girls in bikinis frolicked on a beach to his right, beckoning him with crooked fingers and enticing smiles. A rugged, shirtless, six-packed version of himself nodded approvingly from the bottom shelf, promising the body that Johnny Ray could have. An overwhelmingly delicious citrus taste drew him to the top.

  Johnny Ray’s mouth opened in a daze. His eyes grew glassy. His
hands slid the door to the drinks fridge open, reached inside, came out with some bottle, the rest of him not even aware the decision had been made.

  Johnny Ray looked down at the bottle in his hand. Nutri Vita. He’d never even heard of this stuff before. His mouth felt dry, hungry for the cold drink. The sweat beaded on his brow. Wow. He couldn’t wait to try this.

  While the corporate AIs of the other brands dithered, wasting whole precious seconds debating how to persuade the inefficient bottleneck of humans above them, the controlling intelligence of NutriYum launched itself into a long prepared course of action.

  NutriYumAI logged on to an anonymous investor intelligence auction site, offering a piece of exclusive, unreleased data to the highest bidder.

  30-SECOND ADVANTAGE AVAILABLE—MARKET OPPORTUNITY TO SELL FORTUNE 1000 STOCK IN ADVANCE OF CRASH. GREATER THAN 10% RETURN GUARANTEED BY BOND. AUCTION CLOSES IN 250 MILLISECONDS. RESERVE BID $100 MILLION. CRYPTO CURRENCY ONLY.

  Within a quarter of a second, it had 438 bids. It accepted the highest, at $187 million, with an attached cryptographically sealed and anonymized contract that promised full refund of the purchase price should the investment data fail to provide at least an equivalent profit.

  In parallel, NutriYum AI sent out a flurry of offer-contracts to retailers throughout North America and select markets in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

  ADDITIONAL NUTRIYUM WATER STOCK AVAILABLE IN YOUR AREA. 10 CASES FREE, DELIVERY WITHIN 1 HOUR, PLUS 40% DISCOUNT ON NEXT 1000 CASES—EXCHANGE FOR 75% ALLOCATION OF PURA VITA SHELF SPACE AND NEURAL BANDWIDTH ALLOCATION. REPLY WITH CRYTPOGRAPHIC SIGNATURE TO ACCEPT.

  Within seconds, the first acceptances began to arrive. Retailers signed over the shelf space and neural bandwidth that Pura Vita had once occupied in their stores over to NutriYum in exchange for a discount on the coming cases.

  By the end of the day, NutriYum would see its market share nearly double. A coup. A rout. The sort of market battlefield victory that songs are sung of in the executive suites.