Praise for The Last Firewall
“The Last Firewall is awesome near term science fiction. Hertling is completely nailing it, right up there with Saurez, Doctorow, and Stross.”
—Brad Feld, Foundry Group managing director
“The Last Firewall is an insightful and adrenaline-inducing tale of what humanity could become and the machines we could spawn.”
—Ben Huh, CEO of Cheezburger
“A fun read and tantalizing study of the future of technology: both inviting and alarming.”
—Harper Reed, former CTO of Obama for America, Threadless
“A fascinating and prescient take on what the world will look like once computers become smarter than people. Highly recommended.”
—Mat Ellis, Founder & CEO Cloudability
“If you love stories of a post-scarcity world where humans are caught between rogue AIs, or just like having your mind blown, read this book. It’s a phenomenal ride!”
—Gene Kim, author of The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
Praise for Singularity Novels
“Highly entertaining, gripping, thought inspiring. Don’t start without the time to finish”
—Gifford Pinchot III, founder Bainbridge Graduate Institute, author of The Rise of the Intelligent Organization
“Chilling and compelling”
—Erik Wecks, Wired.com
“Alarming and jaw-dropping tale about how something as innocuous as email can subvert an entire organization.”
—Gene Kim, author of The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
“A fascinating look at how simple and benign advancements in technology could lead to the surprise arrival of the first AI”
—Jason Glaspey, founder paleoplan.com, bacn.com, and unthirsty.com
Other novels by William Hertling
Avogadro Corp: The Singularity is Closer than it Appears
A.I. Apocalypse
For more information, visit
http://www.williamhertling.com
THE LAST
FIREWALL
A Singularity Novel
William Hertling
liquididea press
PORTLAND, OREGON
THE LAST FIREWALL
Copyright © 2013 William Hertling
A liquididea press book / August 2013
UUID# 68607BE0-DF44-11E2-A28F-0800200C9A66
ISBN: 978-0-9847557-7-6
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Cover Design by Maureen Gately based on art by cosmin4000
Cover © 2013 William Hertling
Formatting for ebooks by:
E-QUALITY PRESS
Keywords: singularity, technological singularity, artificial intelligence, ai, robotics, transhumanism, cyberpunk
http://www.williamhertling.com
The name e-Quality Press and its logo, consisting of the letters “EQP” over an open book with power cord, are registered trademarks of E-QUALITY PRESS.
www.e-qualitypress.com
PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For Erin Gately.
CONTENTS
Part One
Chapter 0
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Part Two
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Part One
* * *
0
* * *
SHE DICED ONIONS until she had a neat pile, and went to work on the red peppers, humming to herself as she worked. A blue cloth, candles, and a bottle of her favorite red decorated the table. She glanced at the clock; twenty minutes until he arrived.
A biting pain cut through her head, her vision flashing white before fading to dark. Startled, she dropped the knife and pressed hard against her temples, afraid her implant was malfunctioning.
The pain doubled, then quadrupled in seconds. She gasped and gripped the counter for support as her knees weakened.
A memory surfaced, unbidden. Her mom and dad; they were young again, and smiling. Her mother clapped her hands. Crisp and vivid, the vision cut across forty years with a glaring intensity. As quickly as it came, the moment was torn away, only to be replaced by another.
Oh, God, no. She was dying.
The next memory was as crystal clear as the chopped vegetables in front of her. She was fumbling with the stick shift in her father’s car, while learning to drive. Glancing over, she saw him sitting calmly, the corner of his mouth upturned.
She sank to the floor, crying, as the memories continued to ambush her, coming and changing, faster and faster. Her husband, handsome in the suit she’d bought him, smiling the day before he won the election and a Congressional seat. She was visiting him at his office; they were going to have lunch together. His colleague, Congressman Lonnie Watson, walked in. The men spoke, paying her no attention. She couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Then, her son’s first steps at the museum. A look of pure joy on his face, his fists clenched, he squealed with delight. She reached out, but it all dissipated before she could touch him.
She panicked, realizing she wouldn’t see these people again. Wouldn’t have a chance to watch her son grow up. She hugged her knees as she sat on the kitchen floor.
Another memory: coming home with her son from a baseball game. Lonnie Watson again, talking to her husband in his office. Her attention was gripped by the expression on her son’s face, his disappointment at bei
ng ignored by his father. She felt the memory slow and intensify. The conversation between the congressmen played out and then repeated, the curves of their lips moving in slow motion through the glass French doors. They were working on artificial intelligence legislation.
Her final memory was of her son. The feel of his hair under her fingertips as she’d said goodbye to him just hours ago. A blistering pain spread across her head. She screamed out one final time, before going silent, her mouth open and frozen in place. She tried to stand, but fell sideways, and was dead before she hit the floor.
1
* * *
CATHERINE SHRUGGED ON her shirt and looked back to the bed where Nick slept. She watched him breathe, while gazing at his stubble of day-old beard. Cute, but not so smart. She gathered her blonde hair into a ponytail, then checked the mirror, mentally reversing the words on her t-shirt: Life without geometry was pointless. Smiling, she headed for the hallway.
She padded down the stairs. Always the first to get up, it hadn’t taken her long to learn housemates don’t like early risers.
Downstairs, Einstein, a puppen, or half cat-half dog hybrid, slept on an eastern windowsill, catching the opening rays of morning sunlight. Catherine tickled her ears until she purred. The feline part of Einstein’s heritage dominated; at first glance, you saw only a big cat. But take Einstein to a park, and she’d fetch a stick.
Catherine slid out the kitchen sliding glass door into the courtyard, where plants had gone wild around the central patio of reclaimed fireplace bricks. She faced east, toward the house, and started Ba Duan Jin, or Eight Treasure, qigong. She moved slowly, synchronizing the physical movement of the ancient Chinese form with the flow of qi, or life force, within her body. Her eyes unfocused, she followed the prescribed footsteps, her arms tracing graceful arcs through the air. She distantly noticed the breeze in the leaves of the small trees, a neighbor’s wind chime, her breath. She repeated the form twice, paused for a few meditative breaths, then started Jade Body.
When she finished qigong, she bowed once. The peaceful motions of qigong were gone now, replaced with the hard, quick snaps of Naihanchi, her first karate kata. Forty minutes later, she completed Kusanku and bowed again. Her body sank gratefully into seated meditation, legs crossed, hands on knees. A slight sheen of sweat covered her skin, her muscles warm and limber. The sounds of the coffee pot gurgling, laughter, and the toilet running filtered quietly from the house. As thoughts came in, she let them go. Empty mind. Empty mind.
Ninety minutes after she’d gone outside, she opened her eyes and gazed anew at the world. She watched the sunlight play on leaves, then stretched her arms and legs wide.
Some people said they had a hard time meditating, their minds always wandering, becoming trapped in thoughts. She didn’t understand. If they wanted to meditate, why would they think about other things?
She padded barefoot up the porch steps, and pushed the door open. After the cool morning air, the house was stuffy. Her housemates were in the kitchen now.
“Hello, Karate Kid,” Tom said, his tone affectionate. He waved a coffee cup in her direction, his distraction suggesting he was deep in cyberspace.
Catherine concentrated, and switched her neural implant on. A moment later, her vision flickered as the implant came online. Syncing with the net, it revealed a status bubble above Tom’s head: “Busy.”
“How was last night?” asked Maggie, the self-appointed mother of their little group. Everyone who wanted to stay sane found some way to define themselves now that the artificial intelligences, or AI, had taken all the jobs.
“I met this guy, Nick,” Catherine said. She smiled. “He’s upstairs.” She held one hand over a cup, trying to keep Maggie from pouring her coffee. “No, it’ll spoil the effect of meditating. Are those eggs I smell?”
“Quiche coming up in five minutes,” Maggie said, giving up on the coffee.
“Yum.” It was blissfully peaceful in the kitchen. With a sudden suspicion, Catherine asked, “Where’s Sarah?”
“I thought I heard her up,” Maggie turned away in a sudden rush to check the oven.
Catherine looked toward the ceiling, then turned and stalked silently across the living room. She climbed the staircase, the old carpeting masking her approach.
At the top of the stairs, Nick and Sarah came into view in the hallway between the bedrooms. Sarah rested against the wall in a bra and underwear. Nick leaned but an inch from her body, his hands on either side of the wall above her head. Cat couldn’t mistake the expressions on their faces: they had linked. Through the net, she saw the high bandwidth connection between the two, a thick blue stream connecting their heads loaded with an exchange of sensory data.
Catherine’s fingernails pressed into her palms as she balled up her fists. She squeezed harder, the pain barely registering. She waited a second, but Nick and Sarah were too deep in the throes of virtual sex to even notice her presence.
She focused on her implant, reaching out through the net to find Sarah and Nick’s link, and severing it. The blue datastream connecting the two vanished. Nick flew back across the hallway, screaming and grabbing his head. Sarah rocked back and pressed two fingers up to her temples, staring at the wall. “Come on, Cat, don’t do that.”
“Don’t sleep with the guys I bring home.” Her voice broke, but she fought against the urge to cry.
Sarah stood up and stared at her. “You were the one going on about how dumb he was last night in the bar. I don’t see why you care.”
“Because—”
“Stay out of my head,” Sarah said, as she walked toward the bathroom. “Don’t mess with my implant. Just because you can, you don’t have the right.”
Nick watched Sarah walk down the hallway, and turned to Catherine. “What did you do to my head? Look, I—”
She held up her hand to stop him. “Shut up and get out.” She wasn’t going to give any explanations to him. Not about her ability to manipulate the net, or anything else for that matter.
Catherine turned and went back downstairs, where she found herself crying in Maggie’s motherly hug a few seconds later. Stupid damn guys. Stupid implant. She was the only one in the world, it seemed, who couldn’t link with another person.
She lifted her head off Maggie’s shoulder and dried her eyes on her own sleeve.
Tom sat, oblivious to the drama, still lost in the net.
Maggie pushed her onto a barstool and forced her to sit at the kitchen counter. A steaming slice of quiche sat on a plate, the smell of goat cheese and leeks tempting her. Maggie held out a fork.
Catherine took the utensil and stabbed the quiche.
“Don’t take it out on the food, honey. Just eat.”
She ate a few bites, but it stuck in her throat. Finally the thud of the front door closing indicated that Nick left. When she’d pushed around the food on her plate long enough to be civil, she stood up. “I’m going to school,” she said to no one in particular.
“I’m sorry, hon,” Maggie said, coming to put an arm around her.
Sarah chose that moment to make her reappearance, now dressed. “Why bother? None of us are ever going to do anything.”
Catherine stared at Sarah and willed her heart rate to slow down. “My educational stipend pays for the house. A little gratitude, please.”
Catherine stomped past Sarah, heading for the front door.
2
* * *
OUTSIDE, CATHERINE RUSHED down the block to put distance between her and the house. She couldn’t even be pissed at Sarah. They’d shared guys before. The real problem was that everyone used their neural implants for sex—everyone except Cat, who, due to some defect in her implant, gave off painful feedback, like the squeal of speakers during a rock concert.
Nick’s look of disappointment when she wouldn’t link last night spoke volumes, and even if this morning hadn’t happened, he still would have taken off soon. Her love life was a series of disappointing one and two night stands.
On the next block, lined with big leaf maples, she walked through dappled sunlight. A small red android, about the size of a boy, picked through the neighbors’ garbage pile. The bot came up with a handful of discarded electronics, then carefully placed each one into a rusted green cart.
Catherine sent an automatic “Good morning” back to the bot through the net. The red bot shied away as Cat grew closer, and didn’t respond. As she passed by, she did a double-take. Someone had attacked the bot, the right side of its head smashed in, optic sensors dangling. She stopped. “Are you OK?” she asked.
The robot didn’t respond, except to grab the wagon handle and walk off, the loud whine of a servo evidence of yet more damage.
Catherine stood watching, her mouth open, as the bot made its way down the street. She’d never seen anything like that before.
Damn. Roommates sleeping with boyfriends. Boyfriends sleeping with roommates. Abused robots. The world had gone to hell.
After a moment, she resumed her walk, unconsciously shaking her head.
When she came to the avenue, she paused. The heavy traffic was mostly conventional ground cars, although the occasional exotic hovercraft floated by, half a foot above the pavement. A solitary flying aircar swooped down from a thousand feet up, joining the ground traffic.
She would normally step into traffic, expecting the autonomous vehicles to avoid her, but two Fridays ago, a pedestrian died crossing this street. Thrill-seekers had disabled their AI and gone for a high-speed joyride around the city.
She reached out for the space-time predictions of the AI drivers. She smirked. Sarah hated Cat’s unique ability to manipulate the net. Cat didn’t tell anyone else. She was too afraid her ability would draw attention to herself.
Looking left and right, her implant overlaid white glowing lines in her vision, showing the future plots for approaching cars. The lines faded to gray in the future. Impulsively, she scanned farther, stretching beyond line of sight, until the entire city of Portland was visible in her mind. In the downtown area, white lines tinged pink, showing AI uncertainty in the dense environment. On the highway, bulges of red displayed where AIs adapted at the speed of electrons to the few manually piloted cars. Nearby everything was clear.
The Last Firewall Page 1