“Then what exactly is your end goal?”
“As I said before, the human race is already doomed and there’s nothing anyone can do. You and I belong to the last generations of humans who will walk the Earth.”
“Get to the point, Director. What is the true purpose of the Controller Program?”
Looking down, Ethan struggled to come up with the right words to describe his work for the past 25 years. He would not be given enough time to go over the details but so much was at stake.
“Evolution,” he finally said.
Councilman Anderson reclined back on his chair and sighed with exhaustion. The other two looked at him then each other for guidance. Clearly Ethan had managed to stir some degree of doubt in the minds of the Troika Council. For a while, Anderson rested his elbows on the arms of his exquisite leather chair, while holding his chin on his hands and never for a moment breaking eye contact with Ethan.
“Director,” Troika Councilman Paul Anderson finally said, his voice calm and calculated. “I can’t shake the feeling you are working very hard to push your alarmist scenarios on this Council for the purpose of avoiding your responsibility in the fall of Francisco Citadel. Your arrogance has blinded you to the point where you have convinced yourself to be some sort of savior to the human race when in reality you are but a prime example of what happens when scientists go unchecked and become desensitized to the moral implications of their work.”
“Please illustrate to me how my work is immoral,” Ethan heard himself meekly saying, running out of arguments to convince them to change their minds.
“The first thing we did once it was clear Francisco Citadel had been destroyed by the Controller onsite was to review all documentation we could find on the Program. I personally have spent the last twelve hours reviewing it with our science advisors. I feel it is a terrible indicator of your moral fiber when it has to be spelled out for you how unethical some elements of your Program are.”
“I don’t believe so. When the future of the entire species is jeopardized, the suffering of a few individuals is justified.”
“Justified,” Councilwoman Perez interjected. “What a righteous word. Do you believe that the deaths of twenty-seven children and the irreparable psychological damage done to thirty-two more, all at your hands are justified?”.
“Councilor, I remember all their names and faces. Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of their terrible sacrifice.”
“You claim to not be good with words but I must commend you in your mastery of rhetoric,” Anderson said. “These children did not make a sacrifice. They were not old enough to understand what you were doing to them.”
“Councilor, will all due respect, you don’t understand. My research called for young encephalons with malleable minds.”
“Is that so?” Councilwoman Perez asked. “Is that the reason you adopted test subject number 61? Was her mind malleable enough for you?”
“If you have children you will understand a child’s psyche inherently needs to gain the acceptance and pride of their parents. At that point in my research, I believed that a father figure, an authority figure would provide that drive for the child to become a Controller.”
“Do you hear yourself, Director?” Perez continued. “Your behavior borders on mental abuse. Test subject number 61 was a homeless seven year old orphan that somehow slipped through the social welfare system. I think the real reason you adopted her was to save at least one of them from yourself.”
“That’s not true, Madam Counselor. The primary reason was aligned with my research but after that, she grew on me. Alexia fulfilled a need to nurture I didn’t even know I had. The Program gained its second stable Controller and I was rewarded with a stepdaughter I love as much as if she was my own.”
The Madam Counselor shook her head ever so slightly in disapproval then reclined back on her chair. Anderson had been listening in silence. From the moment Ethan had showed up in Troika Hall, the Councilor hadn’t seem open to accept any convincing arguments in favor of keeping the Program unmolested. At that moment, Ethan realized he had not been summoned to a hearing but instead he was just there for the Troika to point and blame him for everything that had gone wrong in the last few hours so they could wash their hands in the eyes of the electorate. There was no point in defending himself any further if the result was going to be the same regardless.
“Director,” Anderson said. “The Controller Program has always been a controversial part of daily life in the Citadel. Our predecessors didn’t seem to mind perhaps believing that these so-called test subjects were sacrificing their lives for some greater good. Lucky for you, Controller Alexia is the face of the Program and the people happen to love her. However, due to recent events, we can’t allow it to continue. We still don’t know if the daemons will be stable enough to fully replace a real Controller. The Council doesn’t have a choice but to follow through with the one week plan to fall back Citadel operations to human control.”
“What will happen to her?” Ethan asked, defeated.
“You don’t need to worry for the welfare of Controller Sommers,” Councilor Perez answered. “After the recon party is back from their initial assessment mission in Francisco Citadel, we expect your cooperation in removing her stemlink as well as any assistance you can provide to restore whatever damage the Program caused to her mental health.”
“That is all for now,” Anderson said. “You will be summoned once we have selected our panel.”
The Troika Council banged their gavels acknowledging their agreement to end the session then stood up and left out of doors behind the benches. One of the guards that had been standing by the door approached Ethan and signaled towards the exit. He was being politely asked to leave. Absentmindedly, he picked up the documents still on the table and put them back in his suitcase then locked it and stood up. As he followed the guard out of the hall, he kept trying to think of a way to maintain control of the Program but his mind was blank. Eventually he exited the old courthouse and began the short walk to the Administration building only four blocks away.
It was late in the evening and all around him, aeroponic farms dominated the landscape. They stood in rows as far as the eye could see as amazing proof of human ingenuity and how the first generation who lived under the barrier had managed to repurpose the temporary housing structures into greenhouses that would yield crops at far superior efficiency than soil-based farmlands. How when the need for more greenhouses arose, they had managed to demolish the useless concrete buildings that remained to make room for them. As far as he knew, the original Citadel design called for underground mushroom farms and other artificial lighting techniques for growing plants but the resulting food was something that was alright for surviving in the short term. People eventually wanted tastier vegetables and so the plan was changed.
Adaptation.
The first step towards evolution.
Humans adapt easily and so their creations shall too.
Scents of fresh vegetation circled all around him as he reached the entrance to the familiar building where Controllers had been thought up, designed, created and maintained. He and his team had worked so hard for so long to realize his vision. The Director was not about to let some politicians scared of their approval ratings destroy it. Standing there, he contemplated his options. Either he could go back to his office, call Mikhail and they could figure out what to do now between the two of them or he could follow his advice of adapting to events as they unfolded. Then he walked away from the Control Administration building towards one of the entrances to the underground alleys up north. Mikhail was an excellent source of knowledge but not a very good advisor when it came to current events. There was no point in calling him.
Some of the night shift maintenance laborers walking on the streets between greenhouses glanced at him probably because it was not normal for a well-dressed high ranking Citadel administrator to mingle with the commoners. They watched him with curiosity for a mi
nute then went back to their daily routines. From that moment onwards, his actions would be recorded in the history books as acts of treason but he still walked away from the building that had been his home for the last thirty years with the peace of mind of knowing that it was all for the greater good. Or at least he hoped so.
Eventually he arrived at one of the many entrances to the alleys. An old service stairwell that had once been part of a building and now was secured from unauthorized access by a door with an ID chip reader lock. There was no point in carrying the suitcase around so he tossed it down a storm drain along with his lab coat which he took off, exposing the microcomputer mounted on his wrist which gave him root control over the daemon that lingered in the Citadel network. He typed a few commands to give himself access then swiped his hand on the reader, unlocking it. As he walked in and locked the entrance behind him, Director Ethan Sommers disappeared in the underground maze of the Citadel alleys.
Alexia
THE ELECTRONICS AFFIXED to the encephalon in the glass container appeared to not be simple implants but to replace entire sections on the left hemisphere. Towards the back, the unmistakable cylindrical shape of a stemlink protruded from underneath the cerebellum. A cable connected it to a socket on the base. It all floated in a greenish solution of a tone that reminded Alexia of the tint left behind on the skin of farmers caused by aeroponic nutrients inside the greenhouses.
I don’t understand, Alexia whispered, for a moment forgetting Solis and Joel were standing behind her.
It would appear the Gea entity is somewhere within this encephalon, Aurora remarked, her voice echoing in Alexia’s mind. That data space I traversed in search of Sophia’s daemon is contained most likely in it too.
I get that, what I mean is someone went through all this trouble to deceive Sophia-
“Well?” Captain Solis interrupted her train of thought. “Do you have any idea what this brain is doing here?”
Alexia turned around to face Solis and Joel who looked just as puzzled as she felt. “I don’t know,” was all she could mumble.
“That’s unfortunate. The Chief here with all his years of experience in the field couldn’t come up even with an educated guess,” Solis said, crossing his arms and looking at Joel who shrugged in response.
“I can’t think of any reason for this,” Alexia said, crossing her arms too. “Even if someone in this citadel came up with the strange idea of using a disembodied encephalon as a central processing unit, as far as I understand, neither the reactor nor its core systems require any computing power.”
“That’s correct,” Joel said, facing Alexia. “Power routing, balancing and prioritizing are done by a Controller. All the reactor does is feed the Citadel’s capacitors. From there, about 99% of its effective output goes to the barrier and the rest is managed by the Controller onsite.”
At that moment, a Citpol officer who appeared to have been waiting for an opening in their conversation stepped in the reactor room. Alexia noted the assault rifle he was carrying which she had only seen in historical pictures of pre-Sync Earth. No one else in the group had been armed so far and she wondered what they needed protection from.
“Captain,” the officer said. “We’ve reached the evacuation staging area.”
“The lowest level junctions?” Solis asked.
“Yes.”
“Good, show me.”
“Yes, sir. There’s no rush though,” the private said, probably trying to tactfully communicate there had been no survivors, just as Ethan had predicted.
“I know but I still need to document everything, let’s go,” Solis signaled for the guard to move to the antechamber. “Chief, I need you to do whatever it takes to get the reactor back online,” he added as he faced Joel.
“There’s no need,” Joel replied. “The reactor never stopped working, it’s just that power routing was locked by Controller Garland right before she died.”
“Whatever the problem is, solve it. That’s what you’re here for,” Solis added then walked away and motioned to Diaz to follow him. They joined the other officer to exit the antechamber through the airlock.
Alexia returned her attention to the black box while Joel looked around the room, apparently unsure of what to do next. The rack where the strange device was installed contained other equipment but the mess of power and data cables did not connect them to it. Except for the high-speed fiber uplink running from a socket on the black box to the patch panel port Joel had found.
That’s the correct assumption, right? Alexia whispered. The reactor doesn’t need a CPU.
Correct, Aurora echoed. My guess is that this encephalon has somehow been forced into a data processing mode similar to the state yours goes into while in an isolation chamber pseudo coma.
But that’s horrible. Does that mean they’re going to harvest host encephalons for this purpose? Is this the next stage of the Controller Program?
I don’t know. But it may very well be. It makes sense if you think about it. For all we know, Ethan could have a warehouse somewhere storing the encephalons of the Program failed test subjects so they can be used like this.
Alexia was disturbed by the indirect accusation and the frightening implications of taking the Program in that direction. He might have his secrets but I doubt he is so demented as to be an organ harvester.
Alexia, the Program was developed by him and him alone. From a strictly utilitarian standpoint it makes sense. The host would be unaware of their condition while unconscious in a permanent pseudo coma and the Controller would have complete access to Citadel systems at all times while making use of the neural network’s full capacity for information processing.
No, Alexia interjected. I refuse to even think-
“Is this the plan?” Joel interrupted as he stood next to her. “We stare at the brain until an explanation comes to us?”
Alexia sighed, annoyed then without facing him said “Joel, please I need some time to gather my thoughts.”
The engineering Chief then scoffed and walked away.
It would be a sickening thing to do, Aurora continued. I don’t agree with this solution but it still makes sense nonetheless.
Okay then let’s suppose for a moment Ethan is a monster doing the wrong things for the right reasons. How would the Gea entity fit in all this? Alexia asked.
Hard to say. Ethan claims to be capable of rewriting an encephalon’s neural groups at will. It could be the original host consciousness in this particular encephalon was reshaped until it was convinced to be this absurd Gaia entity Sophia spoke of.
Alexia shook her head in disagreement. For what purpose, though? Even if Ethan is harvesting host brains, why trick Sophia with this modified host consciousness and have her kill everyone in her own citadel?
Sophia was convinced humans are responsible for the sync incident. The genocide of her citadel was of her own devise.
Yes, while Gea gave her all the reasons-
“I wonder whose brain this was,” Joel interrupted again.
“Will you please give us some space?” Alexia snapped at the engineer. “Give me some space,” she corrected herself.
“You surfacers are all the same,” Joel remarked defensively. “There’s a brain in there and no one has bothered to consider who it belonged to. Probably some nobody from the alleys, but who cares about those, right?” He turned around and walked towards the antechamber by the airlock then sat down in one the chairs by the desk where the helmets were. Alexia looked down and turned away, embarrassed. When she looked up again, she was facing the perfect chrome sphere of the reactor core which floated there, humming monotonically.
And then there’s these reactors, she whispered in her mind.
I can think of no reason for this encephalon to be here, Aurora replied. The only way a Controller interacts with a reactor is by routing power and it’s not even done directly on it but rather on the capacitors outside of this room. However, there’s something we can do to find out what�
�s going on.
Oh yeah? What is it?
You often miss important details in your field of view. Look at the encephalon container again.
Alexia faced the black box and observed the glass container inside. The only other thing she noticed was a tube thicker than the data and power cables that was running from the base of the brain where a spinal cord would normally attach. The tube ran to the base of the container too and she guessed it was meant to feed some sort of nutrient flow to the organic sections of the encephalon. Then, she returned her attention to the base where the fiber uplink was connected. Next to it, there was an available high speed universal socket.
You want to fast-converge with it, Alexia whispered, surprised.
We don’t know what kind of equipment is behind that socket. The smallest variation in data transfer rates or power flow could kill us. But I think it’s worth the risk.
Is it?
I still think Ethan is keeping information from you and no matter how many times you ask, I doubt he’s going to share it. This appears to be the only way to bypass him and get to the truth.
Yes, but… we could die, Alexia said as she felt her heartbeat speed up.
The sisters went silent for a while. Only the humming of the reactor core could be heard in the artificial chamber. Alexia realized the events of the last 24 hours had left her little room to think about how much their relationship had changed. When she recalled her childhood days back when Aurora had awoken she thought of her as an intrusive, unwelcome spectral entity that seemed to be angry all the time. At that young age, she had been convinced she was being haunted by a ghost. It took months of therapy and many explanations from Ethan to understand the nature of her sister who was in fact and alternate personality construct. There was nothing supernatural about Aurora but still, her control over Alexia’s dreams, sight and hearing had been very hard to cope with. But now she had a better idea of how hard it must have been for her too. Trapped inside her head, all alone. Ever since Aurora had been firewalled, they had actually talked to each other. Now the only subject creating friction between them was Ethan and the growing evidence that the Controller Program he designed had been the wrong thing to do for so many reasons.
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