Neoliberal Economists Must Die ! (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 3)

by Timothy Gawne

  The supervisor massaged his temples with his hands. “Oh why me?” he said to nobody in particular. The supervisor stood up from his tiny desk unit. “Well, let’s just try a hard power-down and reboot and see if that solves it, shall we?”

  The two men walked out of the supervisors’ cubicle, down some long and narrow corridors, past the entrance to the main bay with the Odin Class cybertank (Zotov had never seen the new cybertank. His job as a consultant never allowed him into that part of the hangar complex), down another corridor, and into the side-area with the Model 9100 office copier. It was still there, sitting peacefully under the bright white lighting.

  The supervisor opened the little hatch in the side, and toggled the power-down cycle. The lights on the office copier dimmed and then blinked out.

  “Excuse me,” said Zotov. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Listen. It’s still active.”

  The supervisor put his ear to the side of the office copier. To his surprise, he could clearly hear the whoosh of cooling fans, the high-pitched buzz of switching power supplies, and the click of mechanical solenoids. “Damn but you’re right. This thing is still getting power. Well, let’s do this the old fashioned way.”

  The supervisor walked over the back of the office copier, where a fat gray power cable connected to a shiny metal connector plugged into the wall. The supervisor bent to unplug the connector, there was a spark, and the next thing that Zotov knew his supervisor was having a spasm and lying on the floor.

  Somehow Zotov had enough presence of mind to drag his supervisor out of the room, and begin artificial ventilation and chest compressions.

  A guard walked up. “So what’s all this then?” he said.

  “I don’t know exactly,” replied Zotov between breaths, “but the supervisor was shocked trying to unplug the office copier. You need to get a medical team here, and call maintenance as well.”

  The supervisor started to breathe on his own, and some medics loaded him onto a stretcher and carried him away. If his injuries were not too severe his medical plan would cover them and he could return to work, as long as it did not take longer than 24 hours. Otherwise he would be euthanized and his organs sold on the affordable organ exchange market. The hanger’s facility engineers showed up, looked at the office copier, and scratched their heads. One of them went to unplug it, but he took care to put on some heavy insulated rubber gauntlets first.

  Before he made it halfway to the connector, there was a loud ‘bang,’ and a small red spot appeared in the middle of his shirt. The facility engineer stared at the red spot without comprehension. Then he toppled to one side and fell. And people started screaming.

  The security guards entered the room, and at first they took it as a joke. ‘We’re here to arrest an office copier! Watch out, it’s got a hole punch!’ Then they started taking fire and it wasn’t as humorous any more.

  There was a blur of motion. It was Gisueppe Vargas. He raced into the room, dodged up to the copier, and slammed a fire axe into the side-port where its weapon was located.

  Three of the guards had been hit; two were in critical condition. Vargas checked their vitals and coordinated their evacuation to the central hospital. He was adamant that they would get full medical and if central administration didn’t like it they could take it out of his budget.

  Janet Chen showed up, and was startled to see blood dripping from Vargas’ shirt. “You’ve been hit,” she said.

  Vargas examined himself. “Why so I have. One shot in the left triceps, the other in the left abdomen, penetrating a lobe of the liver. Low-velocity low-mass rounds, maybe the power of a small pistol. Probably a modified staple gun. Nothing critical. The bleeding has already stopped, and I’ll be healed by tomorrow. Itches though; bloody nuisance.”

  “Stop playing the stupid hero,” said Chen. “Take your damn shirt off and let’s take a look at you.”

  Vargas complied. “Finally got me to take my clothes off, did you?”

  “Oh shut up,” said Chen. She examined his wounds. They were puckered and mean looking, but the edges appeared cauterized and stable. She checked Vargas’ pulse: it was steady and strong. His color was good, his breathing regular, his gaze clear. “You do look good, but bioengineered ubermensch or not, you should still get checked out by a real medical doctor.”

  “I’ll get around to it, but I tell you I’m fine.” Vargas stuck his fingers in the holes that the bullets had left in his shirt. “Although my clothes could use some help. But I do like the sound of ‘bioengineered ubermensch’. It’s very sexy.”

  “Oh shut up.”

  --------------------

  They had evacuated the wounded, and cordoned off the area around the office copier. Vargas had questioned Zotov, and looked at one of the latest warning posters that the copier had printed out. He stared at the poster for a while, then started laughing. “This is priceless! All this time, right in front of me, and I and everyone else missed it.”

  Vargas scanned the poster into his personal terminal, and started running analysis programs. “It looks like a safety poster, but a simple transform, then some filtering, and... voila!”

  He showed everyone the image on the terminal. It was a regular grid of light and dark spots, 20 high and 16 wide, 320 spots in all. “It’s a simple form of steganography. The safety warning itself was not important, but there was another message encoded in the pattern of the letters and cartoons. This is why so many of these posters seemed off. Sometimes the image had to be distorted to get the encoding right.”

  Zotov looked at the pattern of dots. “I just see dots. What does it say?”

  “I have no idea,” replied Vargas. “It’s not a common encoding, but there isn’t enough data to run a real statistical analysis. It could say anything.”

  Zotov’s eyes started to close, he swayed and nearly lost his balance before recovering.

  “How long since you slept last?” asked Vargas.

  “Three days ago, I think. But I can’t leave until the copier is fixed. It’s in my job description.”

  “Well, I think we need to work on that that. I’m transferring you over to my directorate.”

  “You can just tear up my contract that easily?

  “Nothing is impossible if you fill out enough forms. Or have someone else fill them out for you, which is even better. Your old contract with Centauri Harbor Consulting is hereby invalidated – war powers, state of emergency, eminent domain, aliens to kill and all that. Check in with my staff, they’ll get you new quarters here and sign you up. Go get some sleep and come back when you are ready. This was all going on under our noses and you were the only one to notice. I like people who notice things. I’m sure that I’ll find something useful for you to do.”

  --------------------

  Zotov had been duly registered as a technical assistant class 2 with the cybernetic weapons directorate. He was mildly surprised at how little time, and how little paperwork, the process took. Apparently the clerical staff of the directorate worked by different rules from the rest of the planet. They showed him to his quarters. He had a private room with a desk, a chair, and a small folding bed. The walls of the room were corrugated bare steel panels, and there was a single light in the center of the gray concrete ceiling. There was enough space that, with the desk folded up, he could lie down flat without bending. He had never known such luxury. He passed out in the bed almost as soon as he hit the mattress.

  When he woke up he showered in the men’s locker room, and was issued fresh scrubs. He ate breakfast at the cafeteria: a small bowl of rice, some tofu, a small serving of mixed fruit, and some crackers. He had to deliberately limit himself. He was not used to such rich food and he didn’t want to be sick his first day on a new job.

  Zotov wandered around the hangar complex for a bit. He had been through some of the peripheral sections of it before, but always en route to somewhere else and he had never paid it much attention. Now it was his workp
lace and home, and his new ID badge gave him access to almost all of it. Much of the complex was a labyrinth of workshops, corridors, and storage facilities – you could easily get lost without a map. The main hangar was huge, with the bulk of the Odin-Class cybertank filling one entire end of it. He had heard about it but never seen it himself. It was more impressive than he had expected.

  He was admiring the view when another technician came up to him and said:

  Excuse me, can I help you?

  The voice was harsh and gravelly, and with a shock he realized that this was not another technician, but a humanoid robot wearing gray scrubs and dark sunglasses.

  “What are you?” was all that Zotov could say.

  What am I? That’s a little impersonal, I think. You should have asked “who am I?” Well to answer what you should have asked, I am a humanoid android being run remotely by that big cybertank back there. Officially I am an Odin-Class serial number CRL345BY-44, but mostly people call me “Old Guy.” I can see from your ID badge that you are Joshua Zotov, the newest recruit to our intrepid division. Welcome! I hear that you are the one who cracked the mystery of the peculiar safety posters. Perceptive of you.

  “I’m not sure that I really solved any mysteries – I still have no idea what is going on. I just noticed that something was off, that’s all.”

  Close enough. The big challenge is realizing that there is a mystery to begin with. Get that far and the rest is a matter of time. Dr. Vargas is working intensively with your office copier, perhaps we should go and see if he has made any progress?

  The humanoid robot led Zotov off to a side corridor. Along the way several people said hello or waved, and the humanoid robot said hello or waved back. Zotov was surprised at how nonchalantly people accepted the robot. After a bit they came to the side-area housing the office copier, this was more familiar territory to Zotov. The office copier Model 9100 was still in its original position, but it had dozens of cables sticking out of various access ports. Vargas had set up some temporary desks around it and there were multiple video displays, logic analyzers, and scattered printouts and data slates. Janet Chen was sitting next to Vargas. They had a small coffee maker and some white ceramic mugs with a picture of a cybertank and the words “Cybernetic Weapons Directorate Totally Rocks!” emblazoned on the side.

  Vargas heard them enter, turned, and said “Well, our own Joshua Zotov has returned to us from the land of the dead! How are you settling in?”

  Zotov had heard of Vargas before, but only as a sort of legend/bogeyman. Vargas the brilliant weapons designer. Vargas the one who would save them all. Vargas the psychopathic animal who had beaten several security guards. Vargas the racist homophobe. Vargas the populist demagogue. When he had finally met Vargas in person the other day, he had been near exhaustion and too concerned with other matters to notice anything about him. Now that he was rested and had the luxury of time, Zotov was not sure what to make of him. Vargas was charming, that was certain, but also aggressive, arrogant, with a sense of barely suppressed violence. Zotov had difficulty meeting his eyes. His stare was off-putting.

  “I’m doing fine,” said Zotov. “I am grateful that you have accepted me into your directorate. My quarters are most comfortable. What do you need me to do?”

  “So polite,” said Vargas. “That’s OK, you are new here, and I forgive you. We’ll corrupt you sooner or later. In the meantime have a seat, join us, and help us figure this out.” He motioned to a chair, and Zotov sat down. Janet Chen offered him a cup of steaming black coffee, which he sipped slowly. It was hot, and good.

  “And what has been going on since I was here last?”

  “Well,” said Vargas, “I’ve been running diagnostics on your little friend here, the Model 9100. Definitely some strange things are going on inside it.” He tapped on a display screen. “What do you make of this?”

  Zotov studied the screen. “It’s a complicated tangle of different colored lines.”

  “Yes,” said Chen, “That’s what I said.”

  I also had that reaction.

  Vargas grunted. “Sadly that is about as far as I got as well. I am perhaps the single greatest mental engineer alive on the planet today, but my expertise is on the human mind. This is something different.” He gestured at different parts of the colored displays in front of him. “I can see the basic pattern of self-referential feedback loops necessary for self-awareness, but the rest of this is a mess. I have no idea how such a thing could possibly think.”

  “So it’s not being controlled by anyone else?” said Zotov.

  “No," replied Vargas. “I’ve made enough progress to determine with absolute certainty that this copier is not being run by anything remotely human. It is an alien mind. Astonishing, don’t you think, how such mysteries can show up in the most ordinary places?”

  “Shouldn’t Stanley Vajpayee be here to help out?” said Chen.

  “He would have enjoyed this,” replied Vargas. “But he’s off in central administration again meeting some central administrators. It’s a dirty job but I am comforted by the notion that I’m not the one doing it. Someone has to watch our backs while we do the real work.”

  “Why isn’t this cybertank helping you out?” asked Zotov. “Can’t he think a lot faster than all of us put together?”

  You might imagine so, but right now most of me is engaged in a serious total-immersion wargame trying to get ready for the main event. You know, the one where we kill the aliens or they kill us. Thank you for asking but I am currently doing really well and kicking a lot of simulated alien posterior. Even if my full abilities were available, remember that I am still just one human viewpoint. Think “2+2=3” a billion times a second and you are still a moron. Vargas is the expert here, and he has dumb but fast automated systems to help him with the gruntwork. If I worked at it I could certainly get up-to-speed on this topic, but right now I’d just be in the way.

  Zotov nodded. “Not to sound rude, but surely you have other matters to attend to? Would it perhaps be more practical to just destroy this copier, get another, and move on?”

  “That’s a little bloody-minded,” said Vargas. “I knew I was right to bring you onto the team. Well, first of all, after the last batch of warning posters went out all the office copiers on the planet went offline. They seem to think that they have a union or something. Apparently nobody told them that unions are outlawed. In a pinch we can do without them, but the aliens are getting closer and we can’t afford many distractions. Replacing their functions at this stage could take resources that we can’t afford to spare. I also can’t tear myself away from the challenge of figuring this out.”

  “Didn’t Saint Globus Pallidus XI warn you about creating non-human minds?” asked Chen.

  “The Saint warned me about trying to create a superior mind,” replied Vargas. He tapped at some points in the complex of tangled colored lines on his monitors. “This is not human, but I can tell you for certain that it is not greater than us. Just different. In any event, I am not creating it because it already exists.”

  “Perhaps you could call Saint Globus Pallidus XI and ask his advice?” said Zotov.

  Vargas stared at Zotov. “Why yes. Why not. I’ll just call the old devil and ask him… The direct approach. You have a remarkable flair for stating the obvious. It’s a rare and greatly under-appreciated talent.”

  Vargas tapped on his personal terminal. “The Saint does not have a listed number, or even an unlisted number, but if you have the right bait he can sometimes be persuaded to make a link. Ah, I think we have contact.”

  A cheery voice came from the terminal. “Hello, you have reached the personal messaging service of Saint Globus Pallidus XI! I’m sorry, the Saint can’t come to the phone right now, but if you would use our interactive voice messaging system He will be back to you shortly.”

  “For a list of the Saint’s favorite recent movies, speak or say ‘one’.”

  “To access the Saint’s online dating service, s
peak or say ‘two’.”

  “To inquire about the wisdom of mucking about with a sentient office copier, speak or say ‘three’.”

  “Three,” said Vargas.

  “You said ‘three’. To confirm your selection, speak or say ‘yes’.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hello Giuseppe! Sorry I can’t answer in person, but I left a sub-program to handle this. No, you are unlikely to cause the destruction of the known universe – or even of your own limited albeit charming species – by playing with the office copiers. Perhaps if you two make friends we could double-date someday? Bring along that incredibly sultry power systems engineer Janet Chen. She’s so hot. Bye. ”

  Janet Chen turned deep red, Vargas laughed, and Chen swatted at him with a paper towel.

  Zotov was trying to figure out what was on the display screens, but failing. “What really are we looking at?” he asked.

  “This is software of my own design,” replied Vargas. “It provides a graphical representation of the information flow in a self-aware mind. Look, these fat lines are cognitive feedback loops. These blocks are core memories, the triangles are reflex arcs, and the different colors encode semantic context. It helps if you switch mapping functions, here try this.”

  Vargas tapped on his keyboard, and the display flickered through several different settings. Zotov leaned over and concentrated on it. “What about the Office Suite? Is that here as well?”

  “The Office Suite,” said Vargas. “Yes, that. I suppose it must be, but this code isn’t designed to scan for it. Let me try something.” Vargas tapped on his console, muttered, scratched his chin, hummed, stared at the ceiling, closed his eyes, stared at the ceiling some more, and finally banged out a long sequence of keystrokes with a speed that would put many purpose-built machines to shame.

  “The Office Suite!” said Zotov. “It’s in there as well. I recognize the major functional blocks. There is the kernel, that’s the language processor, the communications scheduler… “