by Hammond, Ray
Now there was only one more formal barrier to be passed – the security check at the gate which would match truck with load, but there was still a chance that customs officers could suddenly appear and demand a last-minute physical search.
Not that they would find anything that looked particularly dangerous, thought Harding. Although the container certainly did not contain immediately recognisable scientific instruments, neither a further scan nor a search by hand would discover explosives or weapons; just highly-technical electro-mechanical equipment whose use would be apparent to almost nobody. However, any physical search would almost certainly result in the precious cargo being delayed or even lost.
The check at the gate seemed perfunctory. Through the night-vision glasses Domenech watched the truck driver sign his vehicle and its contents out of the port and then, with a jerk, the truck rolled out of the yard and onto Hedon Road, heading towards the ring road.
‘That’s the last one safely in,’ breathed Harding. Then he turned to his companion. ‘O.K., let’s go. We want to keep him in sight.’
*
I’ve been through the Makowski files and picked out the most important bits, Carl said in Nicole’s inner ear. Want to see them now?
The ATA agent nodded and told her VA to project what he had found on her office wall screen.
This newspaper cutting tells you everything, said Carl as he flashed an old page from the New York Times onto the display.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
October 4th 2036
SOFTWARE PERSONALITY TO TESTIFY AT PRESIDENTIAL PLANE CRASH INQUEST
Mondo software entity to take the oath
by Linda Boardman, chief political correspondent
When the inquest into the death of former President Gerald T. Weeks and 483 other people who died in a mid-air plane collision last July reopens tomorrow, a software personality manufactured by the Mondo Corporation will give evidence. The software entity was in charge of Illinois air-traffic control at the time of the crash and it will testify under sworn oath. It will be the first time a virtual computer-based personality has testified in a U.S. court of law.
Lawyers for the Mondo Corporation and for the Illinois Air Traffic Board say that a thorough investigation of the records of air traffic movements exonerate the software personality and the ATC system from any blame. Air accident investigators are still sifting through the recovered wreckage of the two aircraft in an attempt to discover whether there was a technical malfunction or whether the collision was caused by pilot error.
Stanford Professor To Challenge
Legality Of Virtual Witness
Professor Alexander Makowski of Stanford University, whose wife, two children and widowed mother died on board the United Boeing 797 that collided with the executive jet carrying former President Weeks, is mounting a legal challenge to force the court to disbar the virtual air traffic controller from giving evidence
‘It is the Mondo Corporation and the Illinois Air Traffic Control Board who should be in the dock,’ Professor Makowski told the New York Times. ‘It is far to risky to hand anything as important as air traffic control over to machine intelligence.’
So that’s how it all started, mused Nicole.
Yes. But Makowski’s protests got him nowhere, said Carl as he flashed another news story up onto the screen. He was convinced that a Mondo software personality had killed his entire family. He only had the two children and they died along with his wife and his widowed mother.
Nicole shook her head as she imagined the shock and the grief that the physics professor must have suffered.
He tried to sue Mondo himself but his case was thrown out, continued Carl as another news item filled the screen. The air traffic control records made it clear that the Mondo VA had acted properly all along. He’d been desperately trying to contact the human pilot of the jet that was carrying President Weeks.
‘So Makowski decided to take justice into his own hands?’ Nicole murmured, half to herself, half to Carl.
Another news story flashed onto the display.
Well, The Humans First Party was a legitimate lobbying group at first, Carl explained as Nicole read the news item. Makowski made a lot of speeches saying that humans must not put their faith in computer technology. He attracted a lot of young people to his cause but none of his peers took him seriously and he couldn’t get any traction with politicians.
So he started to bomb people to make them agree with him? Nicole said ruefully.
That’s how it seems, agreed Carl.
Three
It had been a hot Friday in London and a welcome breeze was wafting up from the Thames. Harry Floyd paid off his taxi at the south end of Vauxhall Bridge and walked eastwards along the Embankment. It was almost 10.30 p.m. and the tide was at its highest, the Victorian lamps along the towpath glittering on the water.
Pity you’re in a hurry, observed Maria, his embedded virtual assistant. It’s a beautiful evening.
Inside the heavily fortified building known simply as 85, Embankment, Vauxhall Cross, Floyd saw that the alert status board displayed the word ‘Severe.’ He gave his bio-pass to one of the security men, nodded at the two armed policemen while it was being checked and then stepped into the air-tight electronics, weapons and explosives detector. When the air puffs, scans and a sweep for non-approved wireless transmissions had been analysed and passed, the door hissed open and he headed for the lift that would take him down to the area occupied by the British Counter-Terrorism Unit.
Despite the lateness of the hour the underground CTU control centre was a hive of activity. Floyd entered the outer room and then pushed through the opaque white wall of a shimmering isolation sphere, a globe of magnetic force-fields and doppler wave generators that kept the inner sanctum secure from electronic porosity. The shielded interior was at a lower light level and Floyd paused momentarily as Maria adjusted his optical sensitivity.
Thin laser 3D display screens filled the large black space, shimmering in shades of green and blue as they were projected vertically from slots in the floor and the ceiling. Small groups of analysts and operations support staff were standing at each one, examining images streaming in from the field or data pulled from remote sources. Glancing round, Floyd saw the man who had mind-linked him at a restaurant to summon him back into the office so late on a Friday evening.
‘What up?’ he asked as he arrived at a brightly lit display which showed a large satellite image of the South American continent.
‘Venezuela, FARC, Alexander Makowski and the HFDA,’ said Ray Fox succinctly as he turned to face the Counter Terrorism Unit’s best and most experienced covert field agent.
‘You’re kidding!’ Floyd objected. ‘I thought the yanks took that bastard out straight after New York.’
‘That’s what they told us,’ agreed the Director of the CTU. ‘But this has just been uploaded to the web.’
Reaching out his hand, Fox touched an icon and the semi-transparent laser display solidified to become a video screen. Floyd knew the face before him well, but the man had aged. His hair was now mostly grey and he was even more gaunt than Floyd remembered.
‘On behalf of the Humans First Party, I am proud to claim responsibility for the termination of the transhumanist and cyborg, Harrold Darrenbaum,’ said the image of Alexander Makowski in a flat London accent. He was starting fixedly into the camera lens. ‘The human species stands ever closer to the brink of extinction and transhuman capitalists like Darrenbaum are hastening the end of natural humankind for their own profit. Our democracies have been replaced by technocracies. We demand that all political leaders with transhuman implants must immediately resign from office. Our world must be run by human beings, not machines.’
Makowski paused to let the gravity of his words sink in.
‘The president of the United States, the prime minister of Great Britain and many other political leaders around the world have already enhanced and extended their natural human abilities t
horough biological interfaces to computer intelligence. They are now transhumans and, as such, are disqualified to lead their people. I repeat, they must resign immediately.’
Floyd noticed that the Humans First leader hadn’t blinked once as he delivered his organization’s demands. He’s either drugged or psychotic, Maria whispered in his mind, her words as soft and transparent as his own thoughts.
‘Further, governments must outlaw human-machine biological interfaces, all human enhancement technologies, advanced robotics, nanotechnology, genetic rejuvenation and computer systems with cognitive capability beyond human levels. If they do not do so immediately HFDA volunteers will embark on a new global campaign that will use massive and overwhelming force to halt finally all irresponsible forms of technological development that threaten the future of our species.’
As the video clip came to an end the image froze.
‘No doubt that it’s him?’ asked Floyd gazing at the image of the man to whom he had once sold a dud, but very convincing, nuclear warhead.
‘Voice print matches, facial comparison is ninety-eight per cent. It’s him,’ said Fox. ‘He’s obviously been lying low all these years.’
‘Fuck,’ said Floyd and he ran his fingers angrily through his thick fair hair. ‘FUCK!’
Your blood pressure is now 140 over 90, Maria warned him. Floyd muted her angrily.
‘I know,’ said Fox consolingly. ‘I know.’
Floyd had spent almost a year posing as a black market arms dealer and winning the trust of HFDA intermediaries. After the HFDA terrorist cell had been picked up in Manhattan the Americans had been adamant that Maskowski had been killed in a series of intense and sustained cruise missile attacks on FARC training camps in Venezuela. But they’d botched it!
‘And he’s back in Venezuela?’ asked Floyd.
‘He probably never left,’ mused Fox staring up at the frozen image. ‘I should think FARC have been hiding him in the jungle while he put Humans First and the HFDA back together. They were furious at the way the Americans hit their camps and they’ve been out for revenge ever since. Supporting and funding Makowski is one way of achieving that.’
Floyd pursed his lips in disgust. The FARC communist guerrillas had been fighting their anti-capitalist wars for generations and they never seemed to run out of energy or money. Their control of the global cocaine trade saw to that.
‘And there’s something else that’s worrying us,’ said Fox turning away from the display. ‘We think Makowski may be trying to build his own nuke this time. Cheltenham intercepted a high-energy physics formula. We don’t know what it means – we’ve copied it to the Americans to see if they know.’
Floyd shook his head at the irony. As a violent anti-technology group run by a former physicist, Humans First and their HFDA military wing never hesitated themselves to use the most advanced forms of technology in an attempt to further their own retrogressive ends.
‘It means you’re going to have to go in as a new HFDA volunteer– and fast,’ said Fox turning to face his infiltration specialist. ‘And you’ll have to go in naked. No VA, no mind-link, no sensory augmentation, no muscle boosters, no electronic support. Like the old days.’
The director touched the display again and the screen morphed into a giant overhead view of a brown and yellow landscape.
‘This is middle Mexico,’ Fox told his agent as the high-definition satellite lens zoomed closer and closer, details of mountains, desert and roads becoming more clear even as the two men watched.
Floyd saw a red dot moving across the country.
‘And this is Gary Tipton,’ said Fox as the satellite camera lens closed in to show a young man driving an old, red, open-topped sports car that was speeding along an otherwise empty highway. ‘He’s an Essex lad, a former soldier, violent by nature and violently anti-tech. We’ve had him under obs for over a year. He’s just flown from London to Phoenix and now he’s driving down to Caracas to join the HFDA as a volunteer for direct action. They know all the flights to Venezuela are watched so they tell recruits to take the long way down, by the back roads.’
The red car was throwing up a cloud of dust as it made its way quickly through the desert.
‘He’s going to have a road accident in a few minutes’ time,’ said Fox. ‘He’ll be taken to hospital and when he’s discharged, you’ll be him.’
Four
‘Professor, could this equation possibility describe any type of weapon or explosive device?’ asked Nicole Sanderson holding out a printed sheet.
The ATA agent was wearing her usual ‘uniform’ of a black trouser suit and white shirt. She was seated cross-legged in brilliant sunshine on the neatly-mown lawn at the rear of the Fermi Institute in Chicago. For this meeting, Carl was muted; sometimes when Nicole met new people her VA could be so wittily cutting about them that she could not help but burst out laughing. Seated on the grass opposite her, was Professor Alain Nagourney, director of research at the Institute’s Department of Theoretical Physics. It was lunch time and the grass was dotted with students and faculty members enjoying the mid-day sun. The physicist took the print-out of the equation and studied it intently.
After a few moments of contemplation, Nagourney ran his fingertips over the dark stubble on his chin.
‘Am I allowed to have my VA Mondo this?’ he asked, flicking the paper.
‘Sure, but you won’t find anything,’ Nicole told him. ‘I’ve already checked.’
‘Don’t your own advisors have any idea what this might be?’ he asked.
‘Well, we’re told it may describe some sort of high energy physics process,’ said Nicole, looking up to find the man’s enquiring eyes focussed squarely on her. ‘Our main concern is whether it could be part of a description of a high-energy weapon.’
‘And am I to presume this came from a suspected terrorist source?’ asked Nagourney. Following the Humans First Party’s claim of responsibility for the Darrenbaum assassination, speculation about the return of global anti-tech terrorism was once again dominating the media.
The professor had a faint French accent – French Canadian, Nicole knew from the brief background check Carl had made before she contacted him. Nagourney had been born in Quebec but had spent all of his adult life teaching and researching in American universities. He was ranked as one of the world’s top half-dozen theoretical high-energy physicists.
Nicole nodded but added nothing further in reply to the academic’s question. He understood her reticence and produced a wry smile.
‘Well, if it’s any comfort, this looks more like astrophysics than nuclear physics to me,’ he ventured at last. ‘Of course, without knowing the operators and symbols intended, I can’t be sure, but I’d say the first part of this equation is very similar to the temperature of a black hole emitting Hawking Radiation.’
‘I’m afraid I know nothing about astrophysics,’ she admitted, lifting her shirt collar to circulate some air over her upper body. It was hot in the noonday sun. ‘Do you mean “Hawking” as in Stephen Hawking?’
‘That’s the man,’ confirmed Nagourney, studying the print-out again. ‘Much of his life was spent studying black holes – you know, gravitational singularities in space, formed when giant stars collapse. Everybody thought that nothing, not even light, could escape from a black hole, but Hawking used quantum mathematics to prove that eventually matter did escape, albeit in the form of radiation. This looks like a modified version of his proof – but there are some secondary operators I don’t understand.’
Nicole shook her head doubtfully. She found it hard to imagine that Makowski or any other would-be terrorist would have an interest in astronomy.
‘So it’s nothing to do with a weapon, then?’ she asked.
‘Not any sort of weapon I know anything about, Agent Sanderson,’ said the professor. ‘And no one would deliberately try to create black holes.’
‘Why not?’ asked Nicole. ‘If they could use them as a weapon?’
T
he physicist blew out his cheeks and rubbed his chin again. ‘O.K.,’ he began carefully. ‘Look, sub-atomic scale black holes are produced accidentally all the time in particle colliders – have you ever visited a particle accelerator?’
The agent shook her head. The physics she had once studied had been far more basic.
‘They’re absolutely enormous. This Institute has just built a new one at Batavia, just outside the city. The collider ring is sixteen miles long! And it takes all that size and power to accelerate electrons fast enough to create tiny black holes that live for only few attoseconds. And there’s so little mass produced that the black holes evaporate almost immediately – thank God.’