The Sky Woman

by JD Moyer

  “Here’s the deal. If I run the algorithm within the Crucible, I destroy all knowledge of the algorithm. I destroy my life’s work. Not this.” She gestured again, at everything around them. “These are just sketches. My real life’s work – the algorithm itself. I want that knowledge to survive.”

  Zoë looked at Katja expectantly.

  “What?”

  “Will you learn it? I could teach it to you – it’s not that complicated. You wouldn’t need to understand it, just memorize it. Then, if you ever regain consciousness, you can write it down.”

  “What good would that do?” asked Katja.

  Zoë sighed again. “Probably none. Just a long shot. But there’d be a chance – a very small chance – that my life’s work would not be wasted.”

  Both women looked out to the ocean as the last glimmer of orange disappeared over the horizon. Zoë was a fine artist, Katja had to admit, though she did not understand the point of creating a new world when a perfectly good one already existed (most of it unknown and unexplored).

  But she would help the strange hermit woman, if she could.

  Footnote 3. Nested Evolving Network Theory (NENT)

  A twenty-first century theoretical framework for modeling multilevel evolutionary simulations, with variable starting conditions/differing universal constants. NENT models evolutionary processes as layers of networked spaces, with each layer or ‘level of reality’ being completely dependent on structures and processes of all underlying layers for its existence. A network space emerges when an agent-level mutation results in a novel interaction class that facilitates a new level of information encoding and node type. Agents are considered to be nodes (irreducible, encoded structures, individuals) or supernodes (reducible, non-encoded structures, groups). In the Milky Way/Sol/Earth locality, nested networks or ‘levels of reality’ are commonly classified as follows, opposite.

  Network LevelEncoding MutationNode typeSupernode types

  Space-timeSuperinflationParticle-wavePlasma density variations

  AtomicBig Bang coolingElementStars, gaseous clouds, galaxies

  MolecularCovalent bondsMoleculePlanets, solar systems

  BiologicalNucleotide sequencesProkaryoteCrude ecologies,atmospheres

  SomaticTissue specializationPlant, animalEcosystems

  SocialNeocortexSocial animalTribes, kin groups, cliques

  MemeticSpeech/song/poemPersonVillages, towns, nomadic groups

  SymbolicSymbol systems/writingLiterate citizenNations, governments,institutions

  MediaPrinting/broadcast/World citizenCorporations, superpowersanalog replication

  ProgrammaticProgrammable systems/AugmentedGlobal/solar societiesdigital replicationcitizen

  GensynthGenetic manipulation,Enhanced citizenEngineered climate,synthesized lifeformsspace habitats

  MindsynthQuantum neural nets,AutonomousEmergent/evolvingreplicable intelligences entitysim. worlds

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Excerpt from ‘The Four Phases of Earth Depopulation’ by Lydia Heliosmith, age 17, written for Terrestrial Anthropology 1, 22.01.02719:

  Phase 2: The Revival (Part 2 – Extropian Fantasies)

  By the mid-twenty-third century, despite shrinking workforces and contracting revenues, many governments found themselves in possession of budget surpluses. Lower military spending, lower healthcare costs, and an absence of banking bailouts (the private banking sector had been the corrupt lynchpin of the Corporate Age, and was no longer extant) resulted in fat coffers. What to do with the excess? East America, Canada, India, Australia, the Federation of Pacific Islands, Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Botswana, and all the Scandinavian countries lowered taxes, further stoking their economies, while the Pan American Union, West America, Unified Europe, the African Equatorial Alliance, Russia, China, United Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia, New Persia, and the Arabian Emirates launched scientific infrastructure projects on an unprecedented scale. Other nations and regions had negligible surpluses or continued indebtedness.

  Technological progress had blossomed at the beginning of the Corporate Age (when companies had invested heavily in loosely supervised research and development labs), but petered out toward the end (when ‘innovation’ became synonymous with automating tasks for the purpose of replacing human jobs and chasing profits). During the Revival, ambitious R&D efforts came back in vogue (for both corporations and governments), and the individual inventor was empowered with access to polycompound, three-dimensional printing, laboratory and workshop co-operatives, cheap, rentable quantum computing power, and vast public libraries of research, code, schema, and art. Breakthroughs in materials science resulted in a smorgasbord of building blocks: stuff that was ultralight, ultrastrong, superconducting, superinsulating, light-bending, light-absorbing, energy-generating, megabendy, megabouncy, hydrophobic, self-cleaning, image-displaying, and/or intelligent.

  The speculations of the Extropians (a late twentieth-century technology-evangelism cult espousing human enhancement and virtualization) proved prescient. Humans chose to self-modify and enhance, with effectiveness increasing and side effects decreasing as one climbed up through the social classes (which still existed, despite a more egalitarian world order). The power-up menu included cognition-enhancing and recreational drugs, sensory enhancements, epigenetic modulators (to stay lean and youthful, mostly), pharmaceutical implants, artistic body-sculpting and artificial skins, all the way up to full-brain backups. While indulgence in psychotropic compounds and basic medical enhancements transcended class boundaries, only the wealthiest could afford complete brain scans and neuronal virtualization into quantum cores.

  In terms of achieving immortality through brain virtualization (another Extropian fantasy), the Smooth Transition problem was never solved. You could copy a brain, simulate its operation, and situate the quantum core in a grown clone or cyborg, but the resulting person had a different personality. Emotion and motivation, it turned out, were inextricably entwined with complicated neuronal wiring connecting the brain to the heart, gut, and endocrine system. The ‘copy’ had little sense of continuity with (or loyalty to) the ‘original.’ The outcome was usually total alienation from all previous friends and family. The core-clone or cyborg was a new person, one without social context or mooring. The results were messy and unsatisfactory.

  A somewhat better approach, in terms of creating artificial people, was starting from scratch. An infant’s brain and emotional circuitry could be modeled within a quantum core; the infant cyborg body could ‘grow’ via gradual part replacement as the mind developed. A number of synthanima were created this way, and lived for decades in human society with full citizens’ rights, real families, and genuine emotional connections. These individuals were exceptional: they possessed magnificent cognitive abilities, could synthesize and utilize vast amounts of knowledge, and many made significant contributions in their profession or field of study. But these synthanima were not infallible. Their virtualized brains were modeled on human brains and were subject to the same developmental issues and complications (but with strange, difficult-to-understand differences attributable to the quantum core substrate). While not subject to dementia or other age-related brain problems, after a few decades they tended to veer toward one of a grab-bag of known psychological disorders (neuroticism, depression, catatonia, paranoia, psychotic hallucinations) or unfamiliar but equally dysfunctional conditions (related, in theory, to the inability of human brain architecture to handle the vast amounts of storage and processing power enabled by the quantum core substrate; the engine was too big for the frame). Nobody knew how to keep a synthanimus sane in the long-term. After a number of ugly incidents, most societies put an end to their creation.

  Aside from these shortfalls in the realm of artificial people creation, the Revival was an era of invention and ambitious cre
ativity. The space elevators and ringstations were built during this time, enabled by a multitude of novel materials and budget surpluses, fueled by a global lust for exploration and discovery. At least that was the official line. Historical hindsight showed that many world leaders saw the writing on the wall (in terms of Campi Flegrei) and orchestrated their own exit strategies under the guise of scientific progress. In all of human existence, world population had been reduced by more than half only once before, by the ‘bottlenecking’ Toba event seventy thousand years previous. Those who truly understood what was happening to the west of Naples were eager to get as far away as possible, safely encased in a completely independent and self-sufficient biosphere.

  Ringstation culture was an extension of Revival culture, egalitarian and scientifically oriented, with a strong work ethic and emphasis on co-operation. Still, each of the huge space station projects had a unique origin, design, and distinct mission, and small cultural variations among these isolated systems quickly developed into larger differences over just a few generations. The tiny cylindrical Alhazen was majority Muslim, designed primarily as a research oasis for astronomers and mathematicians. The Stanford was (and still is) culturally pluralistic, mostly English-speaking, envisioning itself as a biological and cultural archive for humankind. The whimsically named Hedonark was a huge, wildly successful luxury space park, home to eighty thousand souls, until its unfortunate technical problems and population-culling disaster (attributed, by some, to a lack of P.M.C.4). The Michelangelo started out with an artistic focus, hosting a large number of great works (really an orbiting museum), but became increasingly isolated and paranoid over time, eventually retreating to the outer solar system and relying on an artificial fusion core in lieu of the sun for energy and warmth. The Liu Hui was the largest ringstation, similar in design to the Stanford but three times the size, a diverse metropolis with Mandarin as the lingua franca but with nearly fifty languages in use. It was the only ringstation with significant military capability, giving the others no choice but to trust in the good will and pragmatic tendencies of the Liu Hui leaders. After all, when it came down to it, the Liu Hui could blow them all to smithereens. Fortunately, their leadership had no militaristic ambitions. All they wanted to do was mine asteroids, and perhaps eventually build a wormhole drive capable of interstellar travel.

  Life on Earth, and in space, was good, with only one caveat. Human population was still shrinking. The Revival was a time of hope, optimism, great public wealth, superior human health, and every possible kind of governmental support for fertility and child-rearing. Still, with greater human freedom and education came the universal desire to have slightly fewer children. The most religious countries, with the highest fertility rates, peaked at only 3.2 children per woman, while the global mean dropped to 1.8. By 2387 (the year Campi Flegrei unleashed its wrath), world population had already dropped to 4.8 billion (including the half-million or so in space). Two generations later, that number would be halved, and any notion of technological or cultural ‘progress’ (at least on Earth proper) would exist only in the history books.

  19.05.02727, the Stanford

  Adrian was regretting taking the stairs to Slope-4. The rejuv had restored some of his strength, but he would never be a young man again. His thighs were burning. Every few minutes he had to stop for a short rest.

  He was meeting Townes for lunch. She hadn’t given a reason for the meet-up. Usually he declined appointments if he didn’t know the other party’s agenda, but he was curious. He had to be careful around Penelope Townes. She was clever, ambitious, and she opposed Adrian at every opportunity. Keep your enemies closer….

  During the day, the Starside ports provided the ringstation’s only direct sunlight. Though ‘direct’ was a relative term. The light first passed through a layer of ionized plasma surrounding the ringstation (held in place by magnetic field generators situated along the eight main spokes), then penetrated two decimeter-thick, ozone-filled panes of transparent alumina. Even with these protections, cosmic and solar radiation levels were higher within the torus than on Earth. The Standard Edits mitigated the cumulative damage; nanodrones repaired the remainder.

  Radiation was not the only danger in space. Hull breach was a constant threat, both from object impacts and rotational sheer forces. The outermost hull was protected from space junk and micrometeoroids by a thick layer of extremely low-density metallic microlattice. The nickel-based compound was not only ultralight and ultrastrong, but also flexible. The lattice functioned as a shock absorber, compressing to subsume collisions, then immediately rebounding to its original shape. Areas not covered by the microlattice (such as the viewing ports) were protected by auto-targeting lasers that incinerated any object approaching at high velocity. The targeting algorithms of these lasers were a constant point of debate; archeologists preferred to capture space junk with vast synthisilk nets and catalog the items, and considered the annihilation of orbiting wrenches lost during twentieth-century space missions to be a crime against humanity’s collective cultural heritage.

  He reached Slope-3 and checked the time; he was running ten minutes late. Good, let her wait. She’d arranged the lunch casually, as if it were a social engagement. He’d gone along with it. It wasn’t as if he could rule out the possibility that she wanted to make peace. The power dynamic had changed – Adrian now had more of it – so why not?

  The thought had occurred to him that this might even be a date. Nothing romantic – he knew Townes didn’t like him – but why not casual sex? He was a handsome man (especially after the rejuv), and she knew that he had once been interested. She was older now – no doubt she had fewer suitors. Maybe she was interested in a fling? That would be a peace offering.

  The last flight of stairs was easier (Slope-4 gravity declined all the way to 0.9G). There weren’t any permanent residences this high; bone loss would be too severe. But for bars, clubs, sports venues, theaters, and restaurants, the centripetal reduction provided a ‘lightness of being’ that suited recreational establishments.

  The slope levels were partial, wide shelves running along the center of the torus on both sides. Following the indicator in his m’eye, Adrian soon found himself in the midst of a vast sculpture garden. On one side, a long railing protected view-seekers from the steep drop to Slope-3. The lower slope levels extended farther out, with Slope-1 being the widest. The view of Main was stunning. From this height, everything within the long, shallow valley was a perfect miniature: colorful farms, steamy greenhouses, white buildings, verdant parks laced with curving walkways, shallow pools and tall fountains, transparent pedestrian tubes connecting habitation centers, and people everywhere, going about their lives.

  On the other side of the sculpture garden, Vick’s was tucked away, built right into the hull. The restaurant had no sign (an irritating pretense), but after walking the length of the windowless building he finally found a door hidden in an alcove.

  Inside, Vick’s Lounge was crowded, noisy, and brightly lit, with sunlight streaming in through a long hullside window that ran the length of the dining area. Adrian saw Townes immediately. She had already ordered a plate of grilled seafood and was sipping a pale orange cocktail from a martini glass. She waved him over.

  “Adrian! You’re late – that’s not like you. Help yourself to the shrimp. Let’s get you a drink. Corsican mint, right? Okay, I’ve just ordered it. Sit, sit.”

  He smiled and tried to match her casual, friendly manner. It was difficult; they’d been at odds for so long.

  “It’s brilliant at night,” she said. “You can watch the shuttles dock at Central. The Hedonark has a new shuttle model, you know. It looks just like a cartoon rocket ship, like something out of Tintin.”

  Adrian smiled politely, waiting for her to get to the point. Why the Tintin reference? The twentieth-century Belgian comic books were a common historical reference point within the department, mostly as a post-colonial gestalt
. The international adventures of the young reporter and his white dog perfectly captured the Eurocentric, racist views of the twentieth century; the accounts of Tintin’s interactions with other cultures were a practical ‘what not to do’ anthropological guide.

  “They’ve made a remarkable recovery, don’t you think? The Hedonark? Svilsson consulted for them, during the rebuild. Cultural analysis of their engineering department. They wanted someone from another station. I heard he was very well-paid. Not from him, of course.”

  “He’s very quiet,” said Adrian.

  “But when he speaks, people listen,” said Townes. “Don’t underestimate him.” She locked eyes with Adrian. “How is Car-En?”

  The sound of her name was jarring, and Adrian blinked. Hadn’t that problem already been solved? Well, yes, it had been, but there was still work to be done. It took some effort to think about his former student. Car-En Ganzorig was part of the past.

  “You know her as well as I do,” Adrian said. “Absorbed in her work, and late on all her reports.”

  “When did you last speak with her?” asked Townes, poking at the shrimp with her fork.

  “A few days ago,” Adrian said truthfully.

  It had made his decision easier, talking to Car-En. Not that he had been struggling with it, but her delusional state confirmed, in his own mind, the trueness of his course. What he had initially mistaken for poor decision-making and rebelliousness had actually been the first signs of a full psychotic break. Car-En’s mental state had deteriorated to a point where she was hallucinating, talking about ‘black eggs’ that took over people’s minds, requesting a medical intervention team. He had provided medical intervention, in a way.

  “Why are you smiling?” asked Townes.

  “The impudence of youth – just thinking about Car-En. She and I don’t always see eye to eye on the specifics of her research protocols. She can be stubborn.”