In the past the construction of such an elaborate network would have been impossible without detection from local authorities or even from people within MNR, but given that most of the construction of each facility was conducted by robotic labor and managed by job site AI, it made it possible to obscure what was being added to each building or site without drawing attention. Even local building and permitting departments could be fooled as often times they sent unmanned drones to run inspections. Powered by Dumb AI, they were easily usurped by Patterson’s more advanced software and were then used to send reports that were falsified but genuine in appearance.
Automation meant that while this plan was global in its scale, an incredibly small number of people were needed to carry it out. In fact, just twenty of the twenty one members of the board of directors were involved. It hadn’t taken much to get them to agree with the idea of dominating the planet to gain unlimited access to its wealth. The fact was they had been toying with the idea since the news of what was going on in North Korea had been released to the world. Their conversations were why he had decided to get out ahead and take control of the situation. He understood that if he didn’t act, the future would be written by those who were motivated by greed and the acquisition of power.
Rather than let them control this vast endeavor, he took the reins. Fewer people involved meant a lower risk of error and, therefore, discovery. Jacob made certain to only issue tasks to members of this conspiracy that, while necessary, would not jeopardize the plan if revealed. Simply put, he worked with these people because he had to in order to accomplish his goals at this scale, but he didn’t believe them to be competent or trustworthy.
This was why they weren’t a part of his long term planning. He verified quickly that the override key still existed with each system company wide. He had, as a part of his plan, had to ensure that all the members of the board, their families, and chosen acquaintances received a vaccine for the plague that would begin to ravage the population in just a few short hours. This bought trust among most of them and decreased their belief that he might try to harm them. After all, why prevent them from becoming ill if he planned on killing them?
The override codes would be used in approximately two weeks, which was when his thousands of simulations predicted the combination of viral outbreak, disruption to communications, artificially initiated rebellion, and surgical strikes from drone forces would end all resistance that posed any sort of challenge to his plans. At which point, he’d activate the code and take control of all of the systems that the members of the board were relying upon. He’d turn their own Spires, facilities, and drones against them. The few that weren’t wiped out by their own forces would be no match for his. With them removed from the picture, he would be free to create a world where he could restart the human race, free from the evils of organized religion, corruption, and poverty. In essence, within the next three months, he would zero everything out to give humanity the chance to begin anew and make it possible for it to be directed by evidence and morality.
He laughed to himself thinking about morality while plotting the death of ten billion people. He knew his behavior was evil. He had no delusions about how the future of the human race and hopefully, if he and Eva raised her right, Maria would view him. He would be seen as a monster, and rightfully so. But hundreds of billions, possibly into the trillions, would be able to live a life that saw them reach the peak potential of our species. They should hate him. He hoped his daughter would after she found out, but by that time she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The deed would be done and the foundation for their entire future would be poured. They would live, not separated by the tribalism that was the result of five thousand years of recorded history, but instead with the knowledge that they all shared the same DNA.
The first generation would be raised by unbiased artificial intelligence and later their legal system guided by it. The AI wasn’t based on thoughts that were hijacked by emotions and lack of information but by research and discussion with others. Some might say that this would turn humanity into emotionless robots, but he absolutely disagreed. Instead it would free them from the restrictions placed on them by dogma and artificial strife, to direct all of their passion at their dreams. The machine infrastructure he left behind after he departed would provide all the necessities for life, ensuring that all people had the opportunity to find and pursue their own passions without fear of having to fight over the basics. It would educate them, not in what he deemed most important, but in a variety of fields from a diverse base of scholars, professors, and people experienced in their areas of passion.
That was possibly the only part of this whole process he had enjoyed, sitting down with the team of academics he had assembled to create a new K-12 curriculum. He had used the cover that he was planning on establishing advanced charter schools throughout the world to implement their ideas. It was deceptive of course, but he needed to be sure that the educational content the future generation studied came from multiple viewpoints and not just his own. While he might be resetting the human race, he was not going to erase or pick and choose its history, that would be preserved and shared with the generations to come as a way to show them what worked and what didn’t.
But for any of this to happen, all the existing generations had to be removed. If they lived, they would taint the results using their experience and cunning to sway the next generation to follow them and then the entire cycle of history would just repeat. This meant that when the time came and everything that could be done was, he and Eva would have to leave establishing Maria, his little girl, as the go between the old world and the new. To help guide the new generation and direct them in avoiding the mistakes of the past.
Then he and Eva could enjoy eternity together. He smirked; she was always hounding him about going on vacation.
A meeting reminder flashed in the corner of his vision, and he minimized all of the open screens taking up his attention. He activated the conference system and a long table with twenty chairs appeared before him. Within five minutes every one of them was filled by a member of the board except, predictably Jeffery Chen. He was fashionably late as always, yet another one of the ways he tried to assert his dominance over others, like the endless hours spent sculpting his body and the fact his chair was always the tallest in the room.
Jeffery was intelligent, but he was also predictable. Patterson knew that Jeffrey would do this, so he began the meeting on time getting status reports from the other members of the board, information he already knew from his review of the data directly from their servers. They didn’t know that though. Asking them made them feel integral to the plan, giving them the false impression that he needed them to implement their endeavor and manage the global empire after the embers of civilization had cooled. At six minutes into the meeting, Chen appeared.
“Was takin’ a piss,” he said, unprompted.
Gisela Warin, the head of operations in mainland Europe based out of the Spire in Hamburg, Germany, looked at him from across the virtual table, her contempt for him clear. “If it takes you five minutes to ‘piss,’ you should get a prostate exam."
“Well, when your dick is as big as mine, it takes some time to get it out and to stuff it back in."
Groans erupted from the table and Chen grinned, saying, “Alright Patricia, catch me up. How is operation ‘Kill Everyone’ proceeding?”
“You can review the first five minutes of the meeting in the recording, moving on,” Patterson stated, putting an end to Chen’s attempt at taking control of the meeting. Chuckles greeted his statement as other members of the table realized what he had done. Jeff just nodded his head.
“It would appear that our attempts at using social media to incite and direct seditionists in each of our respective regions has had the desired effect. Existing government systems are struggling to deal with the panic caused by the extensive civil unrest. In one hour, our AI programs will begin to disrupt global communications whi
le simultaneously distributing false government messages by masquerading as officials from each region in both text and video.“
“Are we sure that the reproductions will be good enough to fool people?” Eneas Silva of the Sao Paolo Spire asked, clearly worried that one of the key points of their plan might not pan out as expected.
Jacob pulled up a demonstration video that had yet to be released and shared it with the members of the meeting. It featured two videos of the same man, a Sheriff from Maricopa County. The men were absolutely indistinguishable in appearance and style of dress. Their syntax and accent were exactly alike, even their subconscious ticks were the same; for instance, they both scratched their noses at the same time. However, they were talking about two completely different topics. One was speaking about how the Arizona Cardinals were the greatest team in the nation while the other laid out a compelling case for why the Cardinals were the worst. An argument based on the idea that they were only good at disappointing Arizona.
“Which is the real Sheriff?” Patterson asked.
Silva stared intently for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I can’t tell."
Jacob nodded, “The average person won’t be able to either."
Chen interrupted the discussion with a barking laugh. He mimed wiping a tear from his eye. “You guys opened the meeting by holding a moment of silence for Robert? Oh for fuck’s sake, he was a tool! We chose him for that very reason.”
Patterson arched an eyebrow, apparently Chen had reviewed the video. Gisela glared at him. “God, you’re such an asshole I can’t stand it. The moment we had for him was the decent thing to do.”
Chen leaned forward, resting on his elbows as a predatory grin stretched across his face, “If who I am bothers you so much, then why do you spend so much time on your hands and knees whenever we’re in the same city?”
Gisela’s face went bright red and the other board members snickered and exchanged looks. “You son of a”
Patterson continued, interrupting her response, “The information people get will be what we want them to hear. As populations begin to realize what is happening, as they are bound to do, trust in all communication outside of each person’s ‘tribe’ will evaporate, making it impossible for the government to establish control of the situation even if they clear out our programs. Parallel to this our global facilities will begin dispersing concentrated amounts of the pathogen into municipal water systems and into the air."
Gamal held up a finger and Jacob motioned for him to speak. “Have we produced enough drones globally to not just disrupt local attempts at reunification but also protect us? I’m a little concerned at the numbers I have given how many people live around my Spire in Cairo.”
Noa Coleman of the Tel Aviv Spire, who sat next to Gamal, shook her head slightly,. Her short cut locks barely moving as she did. “No worries my friend, with how densely packed we are here, the pathogen will be more effective. I’ll be able to spare some units,” she responded.
Gamal smiled at her, “Thank you.”
Jacob smiled and laughed internally, who would have thought that all it would take to make Jews and Arabs work together was the shared vision of eradicating humanity for the purpose of absolute control over all the world’s resources.
“I can also direct some of our Eastern Africa production facilities to deploy units your way once everything begins,” Jacob stated, typing in the sequences necessary. “Expect several cargo ships coming though the Mediterranean in the next few hours.”
He looked over the entire room. “I know this is a short meeting and feels strange given the monumental undertaking we have ventured upon, but you’ve all worked hard for the last year making this a reality and ensuring its smooth launch. This new world we are about to create is entirely because of you.”
George Creighton, based in the Vancouver Spire and responsible for North American West Coast operations cleared his throat and an emergency window appeared in Patterson’s vision. George was talking, but Jacob tuned him out as he watched as data from their Hawthorne California Research Facility began to vanish. First the primary data streams and then the secondary. Before the last one disconnected, the AI in charge of the campus sent out a series of data bursts on what it was experiencing along with a security video that it tagged as unusual.
He opened it and watched a five second video clip of a security drone bursting into pieces and the swirling smoke caused by its unexpected death. He watched it again, this time focusing on the smoke. Something was there. One more time and his brain processed what it was that he was seeing. It was an upper arm and bent elbow, a brief flash that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Something had moved through the smoke and was made briefly visible as it came in contact with the particles that were hanging in the air. Then a second screen popped up in his vision of the exact same video. He closed out both from his virtual vision and refocused on the meeting.
George had received the same alert and rather than review it calmly had instead shared the video with everyone. He spoke rapidly, looking over his shoulder in panic, “Did you see that!”
“See what?” Gisela asked, squinting her eyes to get a better look. A meaningless behavior given that the video was displayed in her virtual vision, but old habits were hard to break.
Chen stifled a yawn, “The Navy SEAL wearing one of those cool new optical camouflage suits, that just blew that bot to pieces.”
“Yes!” George cried. “Moving through the smoke!”
The conversations from before evaporated from their thoughts, and Jacob could feel the anxiety and paranoia rippling across them all. “We need to initiate the final phase of the plan now!” George shouted.
The table burst into a chorus of agreement, and Chen rolled his eyes in an overly dramatic fashion. “These VR systems are too damn good. I can smell the pool of piss you’re sitting in George. Grow a pair."
“Go to hell, I don’t want some bad ass guy from SOCOM cutting me a new smile!”
Gisela, still flustered from the earlier exposure of her secret and the realization of the effects it would have on her marriage when it inevitably made it back to her husband, looked directly at Patterson. She was clearly aware that regardless of what any of them said or wanted, his decision was the one that mattered. “George isn’t wrong to be concerned. If they tracked our programs through all the servers located in the shell companies you established to the server located at the Hawthorne facility, it won’t be long until they realize that our systems weren’t coopted and they start coming for us all. The American intelligence agencies have a strong relationship with German Federal Intelligence Service, so it won’t be long until I get a visit from the Spezialkräfte.”
Jacob nodded. “We knew that there was always the possibility that we might be uncovered prior to the final phase being initiated, but the sequencing of events is paramount. We can’t accelerate it again,” he said, giving a look to Chen, who responded with a smile and a nod.
“However, I do have a plan.”
All side conversations ceased and nineteen pairs of eyes were focused on him, even Chen who for all of his bravado had to be concerned about Taiwanese or even Chinese intervention. “There are only three points of entrance into our facilities, the ground floor, upper level hanger and the roof service access. If the hangar is closed, it is nearly impossible to breach. Send two thirds of your internal security officers to the lower floors and the remainder to the upper levels. The ten lowest floors consist of blast resistant translucent material. Breaching those floors would require a significant detonation that most governments won’t be willing to carry out in heavily populated urban areas. I’ll also program our AI direct protestors outside of our Spires. That should stop any immediate attacks from armed forces and by the time they are willing to strike, they won’t have the ability to.”
Noa leaned back in her seat and asked, “If we place our security forces on full alert, won’t that make it harder for us to deal with them?
”
“Yes,” he said blandly, as if it didn’t matter. A few nervous chuckles came out in response. “You’re looking at having to replace a few extra drones in the end. They won’t be expecting it regardless of their readiness. If it assuages your fears, I’ll send you a plan in the next fifteen minutes on how to quickly dispatch most of them.”
A reminder popped up in his vision, “We stay with the time line. Now if you will all excuse me I have to meet my wife and daughter.”
“Are you really going to cut our last and most important meeting short so you can have a bit of family time?” Chen said critically.
“You might not know this Jeffery, but they came very close to dying several times today. I feel it necessary to check on them.” He glared at Chen for a moment while the other members of the board looked around uncomfortably, not entirely sure what was transpiring but sure that it was not positive.
Jacob moved to end the conference when Chen spoke up one more time, “Hold up, I’ve got a bit of news I need to share.”
He let out an imperceptible sigh but nodded to Jeffery, “I’m a firm believer in double checking everything, especially the kind of shit that my life relies on. So I had a few select members of my staff reviewing various aspects of our security.”
Jacob's eyes opened slightly wider, his pulse beginning to pound. “You exposed our plan to people outside this room?”
Jeffery waved him away, “I sectioned it off and gave them small pieces. They can’t put the whole picture together. I’m not a god damn moron. Anyway my computer coding nerd made an interesting discovery when he was doing a deep dive into the base levels of the operating system that we have running all our facilities.”
The Spire Page 6