Earthweb

by Marc Stiegler

  Taking a deep breath, Selpha rose and walked quietly back to the computer. This time she turned on the music. The sound of "Tugatigithanio" by Joseph Kamaru, the King of Kikuyu music, filled the room.

  Peter started to relax, and Selpha relaxed as well. For whatever reason, classic Bengan music from before the Crash soothed Peter better than anything else she had ever found.

  Someday, she would be able to hold her son to comfort him, she swore. And they would laugh together, and talk like other families.

  The thing Selpha hadn't told Reggie was her real dream of the future. If she and Peter did well enough helping the Angels with this assault, she would have enough money to explore the hints she'd found on the Web—hints of cures for Peter's autism.

  She could already have cured his blindness, she knew. It would have been expensive, but the technique was straightforward.

  But what was the point of repairing his eyesight if the mind behind the eyes could not see? And if she gave him sight, would he still be able to interpret the things he heard when an Angel tapped on the wall of a Shiva?

  She sometimes felt sharp stabs of guilt, denying him the ability to see, but his blindness was, ironically, the only thing that gave her a chance of helping him. He had to help her earn enough money to bring him all the way home.

  Peter was calm now. She allowed the music to fade away, and began again.

  * * *

  It had been a good interview after all—even a remarkable interview.

  Reggie stood by the window looking out into the dark gray drizzle. Past experience told him that if he were foolish enough to go outside he would have trouble discerning which was thicker, the fog-drowned air or the rain-drenched mud.

  The Predictor was a remarkable fellow. Indeed, his whole family was quite astonishing. Reggie laughed again, remembering Mercedes' reaction upon learning that her father was the Predictor. Her surprise would not wear off any time soon. And that was just fine. She deserved a spot of surprise in her life, as nearly as the Reggie could tell. Quite a fireball! If he put her outside in the wet of Dover, he was not sure who would win—whether her fire would be quenched by the penetrating cold, or whether her personality alone could burn off the fog and bring forth sunshine.

  Reggie was quite sure that she could at least saturate his penthouse with incomparable warmth. Too bad she wasn't here right now—he could feel a cold draft off the window glass, and though he kept his apartment rather warmer than most people, he felt a chill.

  The reason he felt so cold, he rationalized, was that he'd just spent the last week haring off to some of the hottest places on Earth, from Kenya to Mexico. His blood was thinned out by the travel, and the jet lag was catching up with him. This diagnosis led him irrefutably to a sovereign prescription. Turning from the window, he went to the bar and poured himself an armangnac.

  He thought back on the interview with the Predictor again. Paolo Ossa's forecasts were directly responsible for over a dozen planet-saving decisions. He deserved every accolade the people of Earth could provide. For a moment Reggie regretted that he couldn't reveal the Predictor's identity, so that people could thank him directly. But the contract had bound him, and any arbiter in the world would screw him to the wall if he reneged and published that very important detail. Besides, Paolo was probably right that, however justified the accolades, the difficulties of being a public figure would hinder him intolerably.

  At least Reggie could now tell the world that the Predictor really did exist. And more, he could tell the world that the Predictor was for the most part a normal human being—someone just like everyone else, at least in a lot of ways.

  Of course, the Predictor was also a genius. But though Reggie wrote about that genius in his article, the real thrust of his report was to describe the Predictor's ordinariness. That fit in with Reggie's personal contribution to the defense of Earth, and his own private crusade. He smiled, and wandered over to the table where his touchscreen lay. He read once more the summation of his article:

  The Predictor's ascent to greatness highlights this important truth: since Earth Defense started the military 'castpoints, you can help stop Shiva if you can read this article. The method is simple: watch the prizeboards and the 'castpoints for questions and forecasts about matters in which you are an expert. You don't have to be a computer programmer or an explosives engineer to answer these questions. Frequently, a mechanic or a plumber can be the fellow with the right knowledge to find the right solution or make the right forecast. If you buy positions on forecasts based on your expertise, you can do two things at once: you can improve the quality of the military decisions vital to our survival, and you can earn a profit. What could be more noble, more honorable, more just, than doing well by doing good?

  Reggie read the words again, editing out a few commas, crisping up sentences, adding another increment of punch. He wanted this message to be so perfectly stated, so clear and correct, that no one could miss the dazzling truth. After a few more changes, some of which probably hurt rather than helped, he shrugged and stopped. Persuading all of humanity to participate in the defense of Earth was not something to achieve in a single article, or even a series of articles. And actually, humanity had pretty much gotten the point—over two-thirds of Earth's population actively watched the real-time 'castpoints during Shiva assaults, and about twenty percent of those actually put their money where their mouths were, making it the largest single commercial transaction system in history with over a billion financially-active participants.

  And based on what the Predictor said about his system for making forecasts, the number of real participants in Earth's defense could be higher than the estimates. The Predictor wasn't a one-man band—he had a fifty-person team. His team included an architect from Lithuania, a software engineer from India, and an expert systems guru from Seattle.

  Anyway, they all worked together on a set of wildly tortured genetic algorithms that studied the patterns of layouts from all the Shivas. They compared and contrasted this as they watched the assault in real-time, as information about the layout of the current Shiva came in. Then every individual in the team—including the genetic algorithm programs as individuals—participated in an ingeniously customized private 'castpoint using a token economy. The predictions that came from the combined analysis of the Predictor's team were surreal in their reliability—often obvious after the fact, but generally a surprise before.

  Reggie noted in his Predictor article that other people could form teams like this too. Perhaps, Reggie thought, one such team, inspired by his article, might make the difference in saving humanity's skin this time . . . or the next time . . . or the next.

  Keeping that hope in mind, he tapped a button on the touchscreen and published his newest article to the Web.

  * * *

  When Morgan and CJ broke for lunch, Jessica instantly stabbed the button that opened the door of her cocoon. Fresh air and light seeped through. She appreciated the air, but the light was unwelcome. Jessica closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Her head throbbed, and if she could have popped her eyes out of their sockets, she would have done so—she was sure it would have felt better. It would have relieved the cranial pressure . . . or would her brain have oozed out? Well, that might feel better anyway. Cripes, she had a lot to learn.

  Even when she'd been in school she'd never had to learn so much so fast, and she'd quit school when she was sixteen and a half. Of course, she'd quit school as much because it was boring as for any other reason. Jessica's grandmother still fumed that her parents were at fault. They'd sent Jessica to one of the last government-style schools in America. Unbelievable. The school didn't even teach its high school kids basic communication skills, like dissective analysis of advertising hype.

  Still, Jessica doubted that the school's incompetence fully explained her failure. Jessica's grandmother wore her certainties like a coat of armor, and some of her certainties were clearly just the habitual opinions of someone
scarred by the Crash.

  Of course, the truth about the school and her parents didn't make any difference any more, anyway—both school and parents had been wiped out by Shiva II.

  Jessica rubbed her temples, then dimly sensed a presence stopping just outside her cocoon. She didn't have to see, however, to know who it was. "Hi, General," she said with more cheer than she felt.

  The General stepped across the threshold of the cocoon and smiled at her. "I've always hated trying to do more than one thing at a time. Your job would drive me nuts."

  Jessica followed his eyes as he glanced around at the battery of viewscreens and speakers through which she reviewed Morgan's every action. Studying Morgan required that she watch not only Morgan himself, but also the seven viewscreens that he maintained to track the Angels, the prizeboards, and the 'castpoints. Morgan had also mastered the incredible technique of listening to two conversations at the same time, one in each ear. That was the proximate cause of Jessica's headache. "I've done easier things," Jessica confessed. Her voice fell off, "And I've done less futile things as well."

  "Futile?" The General's eyebrows crunched up.

  "Futile." Jessica pulled the 'plugs from her ears and motioned to the General to get out of her way. The General retreated from the cocoon. Jessica stepped out into her office. "I have no real way of knowing if I'm succeeding. How can I tell how well I understand the man?" She shook her head. "Worse, how can I tell if I understand him well enough to duplicate his thoughts years from now? What if my interpretations of him drift?" She squeezed her eyes. "Worse. What if I can't do it after he's gone? What if I panic under the pressure?" Head still hurting, Jessica went around to the front of her desk and opened the bottom drawer, where she kept the orange juice.

  "At least dealing with the pressure will be easy."

  Jessica blinked in surprise.

  "If you break under the pressure, we'll just give you hypnotherapy and drugs till you're calm. Understand, Jessica, that there is nothing I would not do, no extreme I would not go to, no amount of money I would not spend, no law I would not break, no moral or ethical principle I would not corrupt, to ensure that we have a successful replacement for Morgan MacBride."

  Jessica took a gulp of orange juice to clear her head. As the throbbing eased off, she replayed General Samuels' last words with a growing sense of fear. His intensity, his emphasis—both were clues. In that moment, Jessica knew the General was telling her something she needed to understand but couldn't decipher. And she knew that if she asked straight out, he wouldn't tell her. She took another gulp of juice and followed the General out the door.

  "Lunch?" he asked her. She shrugged; she didn't feel hungry, but knew she wouldn't have many chances to pump the General. They strolled toward the cafeteria.

  The General continued where he'd left off. "I can't tell you how to avoid 'drift' in your extrapolations of Morgan's decisions, but you'll get plenty of chances to test your skills. After we've nailed Shiva V, your next training phase begins. You'll learn by doing."

  "Learn by doing?"

  The General smiled. "Jessica, two months from now, unless disaster strikes, you'll be running Angel teams. Or rather, you'll be running candidate Angel teams that are in training the same way you are."

  Jessica looked doubtful. "Maybe, but training's not the same as live action."

  "Oh, but there will be live action. Too much live action."

  Now Jessica was really puzzled. "But, without a Shiva . . . ?"

  The General waved his hand. "Combat teams are not without duties here on Earth, Jessica. Consider the annual EarthDay Festival. Who do you think we send in to the winning country for the cleanup?"

  "Are you telling me the Festival cleanup teams are really Angel teams in training?" Jessica suppressed a laugh; there was nothing funny about the EarthDay Festival. The meaning of EarthDay had evolved quite a bit since its first questionable incarnation as a day to educate children about the environment. It had become a matter of serious action. In theory it was straightforward—send a small team into the country with the most corrupt, vicious government, grab the fifty most powerful people in that government, and cart them away to the World Court at Den Hague. On principle, it was a chilling aspect of the global effort of self-defense—it was hard to put aside the sense of big countries ganging up on little ones, despite the safeguards. In practice, of course, the governments who received the Festival were composed of torturers, murderers, and madmen, and no one regretted their loss. But also in practice, the Festival was always brutal: the worst government bosses knew they were targets, and built up their armies just to protect themselves. "I should have realized that Angels worked the Festivals. After reading Axel's background, it should have been obvious."

  General Samuels shrugged. "Anyway, my people tell me they've heard you muttering, trying to forecast Morgan's next orders. They tell me you're making a lot of good predictions."

  Jessica shrugged. "I guess I'm getting it about half right."

  Samuels stopped and studied her in amazement. "That's fantastic, Jessica! You've only had five days on the job, and you're halfway there!"

  Jessica laughed. "Well, the first half is pretty easy. It's the clever little surprises that are hard to predict. And it's the clever little surprises that make the difference. It's kind of like character recognition on the old paper scanners, when they were switching over to digital—ninety-nine percent accuracy sounded good in the advertising, but the result still wasn't very useful."

  "I see your point. Still, whether you admit it or not, you're doing extremely well for such a short period of study."

  Jessica wrinkled her nose and looked up into the General's eyes mischievously. It was one of her best looks. She enjoyed having the opportunity to use it. "I'll make one shocking forecast right now, General. I know you won't like it, but it's going to happen. This one I'm sure about."

  Samuels raised an eyebrow. "Aha. Well, don't keep me in suspense."

  Jessica shook her head wisely. "CJ is going to get Morgan into bed. He can't hold out much longer."

  The General burst out with a laugh of disbelief. "It can't be. Morgan is too . . . too . . ."

  Jessica watched his struggle for words with amusement.

  ". . . too disciplined to be seduced, Jessica."

  "You wait and see. I'll bet you dinner at Spago's in L.A."

  The General clasped his head in horror. "You're playing for high stakes on that 'cast, lady. Very well. Done." They shook on it.

  "You're going to be sorry, General."

  Samuels shook his head. "I hope not. Morgan is the lynchpin. If he somehow loses his focus . . ." He didn't have to finish the thought.

  Though Samuels had to care first about the impact of a crazy romance on the defense of Earth, Jessica found herself visualizing the impact of such madness on Morgan the human being. If CJ got killed on Shiva V . . . her head ached as she played pinball with the results. The vision left her cold and sick. Her forecast of MacBride and CJ's entanglement didn't seem funny at all any more.

  The two of them turned into the dining room and took a table. Samuels continued to speak. "Still, in a professional sense I hope you're right. If you predict this correctly, you'll show remarkable mastery of your subject."

  A loud laugh broke the hush of the room for just a moment. A brief parrot chuckle followed the laughter. Jessica didn't have to look to know the laughter came from CJ and MacBride's table at the far end of the room. Jessica looked into the General's eyes with a triumphant stare—I told you so, she said with her eyes.

  As she expected, the General looked back into her eyes and sadly nodded his head. "Perhaps I should make the reservations at Spago's now," he muttered.

  They ordered lunch, and the General put his hands on the table. "Meanwhile, there are other things you must learn to become a Controller, Ms. Travis."

  "Really. Such as?"

  "Such as how to read the 'castpoints properly. How much do you know about Web forecasting�
�or 'idea futures,' as they are called by economists?"

  Jessica shrugged. "I know the story of how they started. Earth Defense invented the 'castpoints after Shiva II." She closed her eyes tight in thought. "Didn't somebody make a ten-thousand-dollar bet on something?"

  "The dogs," Samuels prompted.

  "Right. Somebody posted a wager for ten thousand dollars that you could get better recon data on the next Shiva if the first Argo didn't carry any people at all, but instead carried a team of trained dogs with vidcams on their harnesses." She paused. "Then there was a millionaire, right?"

  The General nodded reluctantly. "You're remembering the popularization of what happened, which has the right facts but not the right causality. Go on."

  "Anyway, the bet would have been just one more random chunk of Web junk, but a millionaire saw the bet and plunked a million dollars on the proposal. Then one of his friends dropped two million on the prediction that the Earth Defense Agency was already too bureaucratic to use such a novel idea. Earth Defense was brand-new, and was kind of getting kicked around by the UN and NATO and everybody, so I guess it was acting like a pre-Crash government."