(R)evolution (Phoenix Horizon Book 1)

by PJ Manney

  That was a lie. Carter knew Peter Bernhardt was the first person.

  “It’s too unstable a device at present,” continued Carter. “We’ve alpha- and beta-tested it with the Pentagon on military personnel. About a dozen to date. So far, there’s too high a percentage of postimplant military psychosis to mass-market it yet.”

  What are the new bots designed to do? Tom asked Chang.

  Like Hunter/Seeker virus. Permanently bond with serotonin neurotransmitters and receptors. Happy pills . . . happy pills . . . happy pills . . . giggled Chang’s mind. Tom held Chang’s madness at neuron’s length. It was too easy to fall into, like an ice-cold lake on a stifling hot day.

  “Military psychosis?” echoed Tom to Carter.

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder, postcombat dissociative behaviors, hallucinations,” replied Carter. “We think that quick-onset, induced hyperthymesia—remembering too much—makes them regain moral autonomy, which military training is designed to eliminate . . .”

  “They’re not wantin’ to kill anymore, or we can’t control their killin’ when they do!” complained Josiah. “What good’s a soldier like that?”

  What club members were involved in 10/26? Tom asked Chang.

  Brant organized technoterrorist synergy. Lobo ran it. But was only a practice run . . .

  Practice run for what?

  7-28

  Happy pills on July 28? It was July 24. How will the bots be released?

  Water. Happy water . . . Happy . . .

  “We need selective memory features we can control,” corrected Carter. “Chang demonstrated the same behavioral change of increased moral autonomy.”

  Leaning against a wall and bored with psychobabble, Bruce checked the time on his watch. “He refused to take orders. End of story. Can we get on with it?”

  Tom understood. The implant expanded Chang’s mental context and allowed the whole world to make an impression. Not just the parts his brain chose to select. Knowing more meant he understood more, which meant he realized he was wrong. And he wanted to stop.

  It was like murdering his twin.

  Why did you do it, Chang? What could you possibly gain?

  Gain . . . gain . . . gain . . . gain . . . nothing ventured, nothing gained . . . gain . . . gain . . . gain . . .

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”: the words technologists live by. He wanted to be angry with the man who had created the tech to murder thousands, but how could he? Hadn’t he done the impossible just to see if it could be done?

  Would Peter have wanted you to do that?

  All Tom could perceive inside Chang’s brain was laughter. He was laughing at Peter.

  “So what am I here to do?” Tom asked Josiah.

  “Good for you, son. I knew you’d catch on.” Josiah carefully placed a 9mm Glock in Paine’s hands. “You need to aim at the heart to preserve his brain implants. And there’s only one bullet, so make it count.”

  Gingerly fingering the object to identify parts and not accidentally pull the trigger, the inescapable repetition nearly flattened him.

  “You realize since I can’t see the man, I don’t know if this person is really Chang Eng. Not that it would matter. I didn’t know him anyway.” Tom sighed. “Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘blind trust.’ ”

  “Excellent observation, son. Think of this as one of many times you’ll have to trust your brothers to do the right thing. You’ve come this far with us, haven’t you?”

  Chang shook at the sight of the gun. Peter? Where’s Peter? Help me, Peter!

  I’m holding the gun. Tom regretted it the moment it came out of his brain.

  Eyes rolled back, his body spasmed stiff, catatonic with fear. Chang tried to scream, but the gag muffled him. Inside his head, Tom could hear, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH . . .

  Tom lurched from the mental anguish, almost dropping the weapon.

  Josiah was sympathetic. “Tom, son, I know how hard this is. But we need to know you would do anything for club and country. Especially since I’ve got big plans for you. You can do it, son, I know you can.”

  Chang still screamed. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH . . .

  Tom tried to concentrate: Chang was just another traitor, a necessary sacrifice to his enemies’ destruction. Pull the damn trigger . . .

  It was a lesson that it paid to forget, because he couldn’t turn off his own processor. The fear he’d remember this scene gripped his gut, twisting his bowel in knots. Holding the gun toward the floor, his left hand fumbled the bloody shirt, unable to locate Chang’s heart.

  But he had to destroy Chang’s processor, because now recordings of Peter Bernhardt and Thomas Paine were on it.

  “I can’t find the spot.” He reached his left hand out. “Carter, I need your help.”

  The blond man blanched, but stood next to Tom and placed his left hand on Tom’s right wrist, guiding the barrel to press hard against Chang’s breastbone. They were close enough to see blood surge through Chang’s strung-out neck veins as he hyperventilated in terror.

  Tom hyperventilated, too. He had to pull the damn trigger . . . Their hands wavered under the victim’s heaving chest.

  “Hold it steady,” urged Carter.

  Carter’s fingers slipped around Tom’s, two hands making one double-handed pistol grip. Physical contact amplified Carter’s conflicted feelings. He wanted to be here. And not. He wanted Tom to succeed in this. And not. Tom was sure Carter shared some of his own déjà vu, unable to forget the last moments he had spent with Peter Bernhardt. But did he feel as sick as Tom did at this moment?

  Unable to look at Chang, Carter watched Tom. “Ready?”

  “On three,” replied Tom. “One . . .”

  Chang rhythmically shoved his breastbone against the barrel to dislodge it. It was harder to hold it steady. No! No, Peter!

  “Two . . .”

  Chang pressed down with his feet onto the floor, bouncing the front two legs of the chair off the floor. Please, Peter, noooooo!

  “Jesus . . .” muttered Carter.

  The chair bashed against Tom’s legs, tipping back . . .

  “Three . . .”

  Tom leaned in with the gun, tipping the chair farther back, aligning for the kill . . .

  Nooooooooooooooooooooo, Peeeeeeeeteeeeeeerrrrr!

  . . . and together, the men squeezed, the large gun kicking as they pulled the trigger. Chang’s chest fell away, the bullet flying in a direct line to his head.

  Nooooooooooooooooooo . . .

  Chang’s skull burst, and the chair toppled onto the concrete floor.

  Bull’s-eye.

  But the connection wasn’t dead. Not yet. There was a spasm of electrochemical activity, a churning of neuronal waves, images Tom fought to resist, and didn’t understand.

  Then the room went dark. Sound was sucked into the void. Agony transcended to oblivion. The gun floated to the floor. Tom staggered and Carter caught him.

  Fighting to keep his eyes open and not black out in a dead faint, Tom could see the tiny hole on Chang’s forehead gave lie to the viscous eruption of gore in the back. Blood pooled and flowed in rivulets to a floor drain. His recurring dreams of red and blood the night after Chang’s first death rushed back. The fake blood’s color and liquidity was more movie blood than what a bioengineer would have witnessed in the OR. His implants tried to alert him to the lie the rest of his brain accepted without question.

  “Oh, shit,” muttered Carter, bowing his head to cover a tremor of fear, his hands holding up Tom’s sagging body several adrenalized heartbeats longer than necessary.

  Noticing this, Josiah’s bushy eyebrows raised slightly. Carter lowered Tom to sit on the floor and retreated to the wall.

  “What happened?” gasped Tom.

  “You killed him, son. But in the wrong place. It’s unfortunate. I do hope we haven’t lost all that information.”

  “Fucking retard!” erupted Bruc
e, rushing to examine the bloody pulp. “Can’t you do anything right?”

  “Bruce . . .” warned Josiah.

  “Guess we know who the next Praetor Maximus is . . .” Bruce snarked to Carter.

  “Enough!” barked Josiah.

  Lobo glared, annoyed at Josiah’s outburst, as he poked at Chang’s skull with his sneaker toe to look in the back, never flinching at the bits of brain. “It’ll take a few days to figure out what’s lost.” He bent down and raised the skull by Chang’s hair to look more closely. “I’d say a week to piece it together.”

  “I’m so sorry . . . I really am,” said Tom as he groped the floor for his Hoover cane. “But I warned you, I wasn’t the type to give a gun to anytime soon.”

  “I know, I know. We’ll get it all sorted . . .” Josiah reached down to take Tom’s arm and helped him stand. “Regardless, I want to thank you, Tom, for risin’ to the occasion and protectin’ your country from those who would harm her. I knew you’d be the kind of man I’d be honored to call my brother, son.” He took Tom’s trembling hand and shook it.

  “Thank you, Josiah,” said Tom.

  “I do believe it’s time to continue the tour.” Josiah placed Tom’s hand on his elbow to be led. Josiah didn’t give Chang Eng a backward glance. Carter and Bruce dutifully followed.

  Captured in Tom’s Hippo 2.0 were the final minutes of Chang Eng’s interior life. It would transfer that data, to be saved forever in his Cortex 3.0. He had never excised data before, but he was desperate to figure out how to do it now.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  The four men took the elevator down to the ninth floor. The doors opened on a similar, bare-bones corridor, which they followed for fifty feet.

  “What I wish you could see, Tom, is an extraordinary nanomanufacturin’ facility built by Carter and Bruce. Right after the attacks, we successfully reprogrammed nanomanufacturin’ for a specific mass use, as well as explorin’ protective technologies against potential terrorist groups. We got floors of nanofabricatin’ machines churnin’ out our own little nanobots.”

  Josiah didn’t exaggerate. They walked past a dozen labs and factory floors behind clean-room glass, each holding dozens of nanofabricators. Since nanovirus and nanorobotic work was illegal in almost every country on earth, they had collected all that hardware and put it to work.

  “For what?” asked Tom.

  Josiah sighed, looking all of his seventy years. “You know, Tom, it’s hard out there for a leader. You said it yourself: The uneducated masses aren’t fit to direct their leaders. And the public doesn’t like our messages anymore. I guess if we’re honest with ourselves, they can only stomach so much media-cooked fear with generous helpin’s of mind-numbin’ bread and reality-show circuses before they get sick. That combination was enough to control ’em over the last century, but it isn’t enough anymore to create the consensus politics we need to move in the direction we must go in the future. We tried surveillance, watchin’ over them from the top of society to find the troublemakers, but the people countered with sousveillance. That’s them watchin’ us from the bottom. And let’s face it: Transparency’s a bitch! Societal consent has got to be created in more permanent ways to get us out of this annoyin’ loop of snoop or be snooped. Let’s, for a moment, call it ‘compassionate coercion.’ ”

  Compassionate coercion . . . Chang had said, Hunter/Seeker virus. Permanently bond with serotonin neurotransmitters and receptors. That meant the bot would pair and bind permanently, like a key in a lock, with specific proteins in the brain to increase the uptake of serotonin. Like a one-time-only, permanent dose of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—antidepressants. The neural location and the proteins involved with decision making and contentment were well known. If you bound the bots to neurotransmitters that fuel discontent or dissent, the victim would be complacent. Forever.

  “And there’s a bigger problem on the horizon: the democratization of everythin’,” continued Josiah. “What people don’t get is if everythin’s judged by individuals, social media takes over from traditional media, and the public decides what’s important, what has value. Not us. That’s never happened in the whole of human history. The people at the top have always told the rest of the tribe what to think. It’s how we’ve survived as a species.

  “But even more important is what happens when you add these mighty clever nanofabricators, here. If they can snap together bots with their little atomic buildin’ blocks, what’s to say they can’t make other stuff? Your clothes, food, shelter. Make a big enough machine, add the right chemicals, and it can make . . . anythin’. Even another machine. And what if everybody has one ’a their own? Supply and demand disappears. If markets don’t exist, what happens to corporations? Currency? Energy? The world’s economy crashes. That’s anarchy, Tom. Soon, we won’t have control over anybody or anythin’ and our entire economic system is based on that. Make somethin’, tell ’em it’s important, then sell it to ’em. Keeps factories workin’, people in jobs, schools full, money flowin’. What do you do when all that could come to a screechin’ halt?”

  “Make sure they can’t do it in the first place,” said Tom.

  “Exactly. We were given a golden opportunity to gather all the machines, so we did. And now we’re puttin’ ’em to good use creatin’ our compassionate coercion. Just think. No more conflicts. No more wars . . . never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  “And when will this happen?” asked Tom.

  “Soon,” said Josiah vaguely.

  Chang had said July 28. In four days. And in water, which meant the water supply. They would release nanobots in the country’s water supply to brainwash the populace.

  “And how do you all fit in?”

  “Prometheus oversaw the R and D,” said Josiah, “Lobo Industries will oversee the implementation, and I will oversee the information content, and help with any implementation problems that might arise.”

  “There won’t be any,” said Bruce, scowling.

  “And what about the rest of the world? They’re not exactly complacent,” Tom said.

  Josiah smiled. “All in good time, son.”

  Of course, Tom understood it meant a political administration that could do anything it wanted: pass bad laws, elect crooked legislators, appoint cronies, start wars, become a totalitarian state, enslave its people, all in the name of protecting the nation. With no backlash.

  And if they released it overseas . . .

  In rooms all around him was the transition from one method of control to another. From 1984 to Brave New World, replacing Orwell’s fear and propaganda with Huxley’s engineered complacency. He had always found Huxley’s vision far more terrifying and realistic than Orwell’s. At least in 1984, people realized they were slaves to the government. In Brave New World, they were too stoned on contentment to care. It was the ultimate weapon of mass distraction.

  “How is the club protecting its members?”

  Carter replied, “Attendance this year was mandatory. Our food and water was already laced with protective, permanent bots that render these useless. The others get flushed from our systems. Don’t worry. You’re fine.”

  “Gentlemen? What can I say?” said Tom. “It’s brilliant. The world will be grateful they have you to take care of them. But why am I here?”

  Josiah smiled and took hold of both Tom’s hands. “Because, son, you’re goin’ to be the president of the United States.”

  Tom hadn’t expected that. “But I’ve never even held political office!”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve worked with several presidents in my many years on God’s green earth and while the more ignorant or malleable have been well suited as Figurehead of the Western World, that just won’t cut it in this game. Politics has always been zero-sum, but now it’s for keeps. Whoever wins now wins forever. But my stumblin’ block with this entire scenario was who to put in the driver’s seat. Every potential candidate was either needed elsewhere in my plan or temperamentally u
nsuitable.” He eyed Carter and Lobo knowingly, acknowledging Carter’s indiscretions and Lobo’s vicious demeanor were obvious to all. “I was only missing one thing: an heir. I was afraid I’d never find someone with all the qualities I needed. I’m no youngster, and I need an equal participant with the charisma to lead, hold his own, and cover our backs when I’m gone. I’m done with mouthpieces. Every man wants to leave behind a legacy. And you will be part of mine.”

  Beyond the stunned looks, cogs in Carter’s head were visibly turning to twist his new partner to his advantage.

  Lobo’s face reddened, puffed with barely contained rage. “Are you fucking nuts, Josiah?”

  Josiah regarded Lobo like an insect. It was the same pitiless stare he had given Chang. “Bruce, you are not indispensable.”

  What would a mere mortal do when offered the kingdoms of the world by the devil himself? Part of Tom reeled even as he knew he’d never be commander in chief. The world would change course in a few days.

  “But I have no experience!” he said.

  “You’re a brilliant and perceptive manager who sees the big picture and excites the population. That’s all you need. I’ll be there to teach you. And how long, Carter? Two years for your new implants to give him sight back?”

  “If we focus on it, two years at most,” Carter replied.

  “Just in time to take office. And we’ve done all kinds of pollin’ over the years and even without the bots’ . . . encouragement . . . Americans want a straight, white, Christian male, ’specially someone as photogenic, articulate, and glamorous as you, if you tell them what they want to hear. Your Russian problems were hard enough for us to find. We’ll make sure they disappear. You’re such a blank slate historically, we can make you anything we want. You had the right instincts before when you referenced a Roosevelt, but we’d position you as a combination of the two Roosevelts: above corruption, protective of your constituents, with enough smarts, life experience, diplomacy, and backbone to defend them from the rest of the big bad world out there and who’s overcome his disability to the extent that it’s meanin’less. Demonstrates character. Your disability is a metaphor for the psychic disability our nation must overcome, and you’ll lead the way. Of course, the bots will make sure of it.”