Breakpoint

by Richard A. Clarke

  Susan stared out at the beautiful, manicured valley below, thinking about the questions the technology breakthrough raised. Then, realizing where she was, she snapped out of her trance and headed for the tasting room, trying to remember Soxster’s definition of malolactic. Twenty minutes later, frustrated by the tasting room’s refusal to pour any chardonnay and having decided that she did not really care for their semillon blanc, she drove up to Gaudium’s winery, Bacchanalia. She arrived twenty minutes early for her appointment and sat in the car in the tasting room parking lot. The tasting room seemed modeled on its famous neighbor, Kistler: small, with extensive fieldstone work, granite outcroppings, and small ponds. There seemed, however, to be a Japanese or Zen touch to the flora and garden architecture. It also offered an even more breathtaking view of the broad valley below.

  Susan noticed that there were only two other vehicles in the parking lot, both Cadillacs, a DTS sedan and a hydrogen-cell Escalade SUV. Before she could get out of her rental car, a small gaggle bustled out of the Bacchanalia tasting room. Susan recognized the appearance of the group, the way the men and women looked, neat in their blue blazers and ties, the way they placed themselves relative to one another, the way they moved. It looked like a small Secret Service detachment doing an OTR, an Off the Record event, a private activity by a protectee. Now she saw who that protectee was, presidential candidate Senator Alexander George, the man in the center of the half dozen agents. He looked less coiffed than he had at the Kennedy School forum. He was wearing a windbreaker and jeans. So I’m not the only one who wants Gaudium’s advice, she thought as she waited for the three-vehicle convoy to pull out.

  Once inside, she was politely ushered into a special tasting room. Wood-paneled and appointed with modern leather couches, the room was all about the view. Its two picture windows showed the vine-filled valley below with a crispness and clarity that almost made them seem unreal, like an image on the new Very-High-Definition screens. “May I offer you some of our 2010 pinot?” Gaudium said as he entered the room holding a bottle in one hand and offering the other to shake. He was taller than she had expected for some reason, with a thick crop of unruly brown hair and a weathered face. In an old checkered shirt and worn jeans, he might have been mistaken for the viniculturist just in from his fields. “Thank you for coming up here to see me. I almost never get down to Menlo Park anymore.”

  “No, no. Thank you for seeing me, especially on such short notice,” Susan said, shaking his hand. His grip was strong and the skin felt callused, coarse. “I hope my coming didn’t drive the senator away. I know how little he cares for those of us in the federal bureaucracy, except perhaps his Secret Service detail.”

  Gaudium motioned toward two chairs by the window. He waited until he was opening the bottle of pinot noir to respond. “Actually, Senator George is a very thoughtful man. We’ve been talking on and off for almost six years. I’m supporting him for President. I paid for some of the March on Washington last year.” He poured some of the dark ruby-colored wine into two wide, stemless crystal glasses. “But you’re right about him not wanting to have too many federal employees. Those guards were private. He doesn’t think the taxpayers should have to pay for the protection of candidates at this stage in the campaign.”

  He spun the wine in the glass, sniffing its aromas. Susan copied his hand motion and breathed in a surprisingly strong but pleasant nose of fruit flavors. “Very nice,” she offered after tasting a sip. “Light and smooth, but with so much flavor, and in waves.”

  “Rain came late that year. I’m so glad we delayed the crush. Everybody up here did. Best pinot since the 2004.” Gaudium beamed. “Westside Road is its own little microclimate, and its been producing the best pinot for almost forty years now.”

  He closed his eyes as he sipped and held the wine in his mouth a moment, then swallowed and opened his eyes again to look at his guest. “But it’s not the wine you came to talk about, if I understood your message correctly.”

  Susan put down her glass. “No. It’s information science, computer technology. We’re trying to understand why there’ve been these attacks on the internet beachheads and the Globegrid labs, on CAIN and SCAIF, and why now.” Gaudium spread some cheese and fig on a plain cracker as Susan spoke.

  “And you have a theory and you want me to react to it, right?”

  “I do. Very good,” she said, regretting her tone as she did. “I’m beginning to realize that computer science is about to make a major leap, at least in some countries.” Gaudium nodded and sipped again at his wine. Susan continued, “Living Software that is close to flawless, massively parallel processors linked together, direct brain-machine interfaces. Put it all together and it’s a big change, one that has somehow escaped Washington’s collective consciousness.”

  Gaudium smiled knowingly. “Information technology is a tremendous addition to our planet. I know—I was there at the beginning of the internet explosion in the early nineties. That’s how I can afford to be a winemaker with some of the most expensive patches of grapes in the country. But like anything else, it can be taken to an illogical conclusion, if you’ll excuse the pun.” Susan hadn’t noticed a pun and Gaudium kept going.

  “So, we are at an inflection point, a vector point with IT. And most people have not noticed. Living Software will never be flawless, but it will be close enough to make it difficult for us to regain control of it. And don’t doubt for a minute that we have lost control of it. Humans did not write that software and we really do not know what’s in it. All the operating systems and major applications have gotten so complex now.

  “Then there came the 2009 Cyber Crash, and the government funded this Living Software monstrosity in response. It keeps changing, improving—and when it’s combined with Globegrid, it’ll be in most of the networks and systems in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.” Gaudium’s mood had changed as he spoke, growing more serious and agitated.

  “Is it a threat to China, or to other nations not in the consortium?” Susan asked casually as she reached for a wafer.

  “Of course. So, they say that the consortium will open up to the entire world at some point, but they don’t say when. Naturally, China, Russia, and the others feel left out. But they may eventually be glad they are. Who knows what LS will decide to do once it examines the major networks and systems in this country? It could shut some of them off or create new ones. What if its efficiency criteria eventually decide humans aren’t efficient? I know, I know, it sounds like some film you saw as a kid, but we really are moving in that direction. Machines are better at most things than people. Most people you see all day long are doing jobs that machines could do, and do better. How long will it take LS to figure that out and start acting on it by creating programs to do those jobs?

  “And once people start buying BEPs, brain-enhancement packages, that connect them to cyberspace, LS will be inside human brains, too. So who wouldn’t want a BEP that prevents Alzheimer’s and other diseases of the brain, speeds up memory and thinking, provides direct linkage to all the public databases, makes it possible for all sensory experiences to be heightened? You’d pay the hundred thousand for that, wouldn’t you, if you had that kind of money?” Gaudium paused, looking at Susan’s expression. “No, I’m sensing that maybe you wouldn’t. But most people would.”

  Susan looked out at the valley. “No, I wouldn’t. But I am not a purist, I do take memory-enhancement pills now. The Center pays for them. It’s just that I think that if you have a brain-computer connection, it runs a risk of blurring what it means to be human.”

  “Precisely!” Gaudium almost screamed in the tasting room. “What people should be focused on first, the greatest threat, is what the genomics and biological sciences are doing to what it means to be human. Bio Fabs are creating life to do the work of machines. Human Machine implants are silicon doing the work of carbon-based life.” Gaudium jabbed his finger at the tabletop.

  “I’m confused. I thought we were talking about the grow
ing influence of computer science, not biology,” Susan responded, feigning naïveté.

  “Both are problems, and they’re linked. But it is all about humans changing what it means to be human, creating a new species, splitting off a race that will soon enough look no more like we do today than we look like Neanderthals. That’s what has already started with genomics moving beyond fixing to enhancing. Fixing was all right, because it meant raising people up to the norm by repairing genetic mistakes, like Tay-Sachs syndrome, diabetes, the rest. But enhancement? What enhancements do we order? Who is to decide? And who gets them? We know the gene that gives superior IQ by thickening the prefrontal cerebral cortex. Let’s make it even bigger, see what that does.”

  As Gaudium’s speed and volume rose, he did, too, leaving his chair and standing with his back to the picture window above the valley, focused on Susan. He had gone from mellow winemaker to furious evangelist. “Sure, replacing defective organs by having your own good stem cells grow a new bladder or liver is fine, but turning off the aging process in cells? Pretty soon the rich will never die, except by accident or violence. As if we didn’t already have a population problem.

  “And now they want superchildren! Believe me, it’s further along than you think. They’ve gone underground because of the states that have passed laws against genomic engineering. But my investigators have found them. They’re creating superkids, with all the flaws taken out and all the genetic enhancements designed in. Tall, blond or red haired, brilliant, everlasting. Our own little gods and goddesses. That’s what people should be really worried about. That’s what this election will be about!” He turned his head toward the valley, then back at her. “I’m sorry if I get excited…”

  Susan stood up to reduce the physical distance between them, but even when she was standing, Gaudium towered over her. “No, it’s okay. I think I understand, or at least I’m beginning to. I’m supposed to uncover secret activity by other governments, and I think what I’m uncovering is activity here in the U.S. that has been kept secret from most of us, maybe because we just don’t understand it.”

  “No, Susan, it’s more than the fact that it’s just written up in technical journals that only scientists read. After the fights about abortion and then stem cells and evolution, the Transhumanist science community stopped revealing their research at conferences and in journals, as scientists normally would. They pretended it was to protect patents and intellectual property, but it was really because they feared the public’s reaction would nip their science in the bud before they had a chance to develop it into marketable products. Once they get treatments that prevent cellular degeneration, boost IQ, replace eyes and ears with enhanced sensors, tie humans directly into the grid…then they will market their inventions to the rich and famous. Then everything will change….” Gaudium took a deep breath to calm himself and then sipped the last of the wine in his glass.

  She followed suit, then added: “That’s what Senator George was talking about at Harvard. The rich will actually be smarter, instead of just thinking they are.” Susan sat down on one of the tasting room’s oak-backed chairs. “And if they turn off cellular degeneration, combine that with organ regeneration…those motherfuckers will live forever.” She blushed. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, no, I love your passion. And you’re right. Death, for the Enhanced, will only result from violence and accidents.” Gaudium poured more pinot. “But they’d still be human. Except that when they add electronics into the body, nanobots roaming our bodies fixing things, when they allow the brain to connect to the grid to access data and to automatically report malfunctions, the way OnStar automatically tells the police when you have an accident in your car…Then they’d begin to become parts, just parts, of a larger network.”

  “A larger network whose software will have been written by…by software?” she added.

  “Right. You see it, too.” Gaudium opened another wooden panel on the wall, revealing a whiteboard. He began drawing. “So, here is a farm growing Frankenfood, some genetically enhanced fruit or vegetable. Humans act as the pickers, because in most cases we don’t yet have machines that can do that well. Then the machines take over. They wash, destem, package it into cartons with bar codes or RFID tags. The machines decide what trucks the packages go on, what rail cars, or planes. They decide what stores they go to, based on what other machines have told them about inventories and sales. They decide on the price based on a sales intelligence software. You buy the box of tomatoes and the RFID tag tells the checkout system, and deducts funds from your account when you wave your debit card near the reader. When you get home, if you have one of those new intelligent fridges, your refrigerator reads the RFID tag so that it can tell you when the tomatoes are about to go bad. Perhaps it also tells a marketing intelligence system that Susan buys tomatoes twice a week….”

  “It’s a good thing I can’t afford one of those fridges then. Do most people know when they’re using something connected to the internet?” she asked.

  “All new devices are connected to your home wireless system, which is connected to the internet,” he said in a dismissive tone, as if stating the obvious. “But don’t you see the important thing here? Look at the flow of this system,” he yelled, and moved the red marker across the whiteboard. “In that entire process with the tomatoes, the human is reduced to doing manual labor, the things requiring the least intelligence. I can show you hundreds of examples where the humans are reduced to being beasts of burden and the computer-controlled systems do the work requiring higher cognition. The Enhanced won’t be doing the beast of burden jobs, of course. No, they will be interacting with machines at higher levels. Gold men. Silver men. Bronze.”

  Susan smiled. “I’ve heard that argument before. Plato’s Republic. The classes cannot mix and order is preserved by the Magnificent Myth that keeps the bronze men under control.”

  “Absolutely right. End of democracy as we know it. End of humanity as we know it. Yes! That is the problem in a nutshell,” Gaudium said, shaking his head in quick little moves. “The Magnificent Myth or Noble Lie that Plato had in mind was telling the bronze men that the gods intended this three-tiered system and that the gold men were made better, even though they may not be. But with this neo-eugenics, these Enhanced humans will actually be better than any normal human. And so, eventually, the Enhanced humans will rule the lesser life-forms like us.”

  He stood there, still shaking his head. “Look, I’m going to Infocon Alpha in Vegas tomorrow morning in my VLJ. I’m giving the keynote. Why don’t you come with me?”

  Now she was going to have to explain to Sol and Rusty why she was flying off to Vegas with a man she had just met, in his personal Very Lite Jet, a man who seemed to be the prototype for the brilliant mad scientist. But she’d bet anything Gaudium knew where some of these underground labs were, and if she could find them, warn them about the attacks…. “I’d be glad to,” she told him.

  “You can spend the night in the guesthouse, then. And will you join me for dinner at seven?”

  1730 PST

  Twentynine Palms, California

  “You’d better be right about this, Foley,” Major Mike Zerbrowski was saying into his mouthpiece as the helicopter lifted off from the Marine base. “It’s goin’ to be hard to explain why I used Marines to go after a civilian complex.”

  Yes, I had better be right, Jimmy Foley thought. It had been a bad day so far. TTeeLer had missed the meet at the 7-Eleven and the FBI had eventually given up and most of them were lying around a pool at the Red Roof Inn.

  Foley and the Marines watched the videotape from their Remotely Piloted Vehicle again. Flying out toward Bagdad, as Soxster had suggested, it had come across a fenced-off area with a security gate up a dirt road. It was a big ranch spread out on the way to the copper concentrate leach facility, at about forty-one hundred feet above sea level. It was at the seam of the Mohave and Sonoran Deserts. There were both Joshua trees and yucca, a
private airstrip, three large satellite dishes, four large buildings, and maybe twenty cabins. Over two dozen vehicles were parked, but there were few people outside. It was listed on the county tax rolls as “American Energy & Mineral Research Corporation,” with a corporate headquarters in the nation of St. Kitts. Folks at the nearby Miner’s Diner said they never met anyone from the place.

  Jimmy had spent the day convincing the colonel commanding the 7th Marines that he had discovered the location of the culprits who had attached Echo Company by drugging them and taking control of their exoskeleton suits. Foley was convinced this was the place where the Chinese were using American hackers to monitor and subvert the military’s work, maybe also the place from which they had sent the signals that sent the Pacific satellites off.

  It had been harder to persuade the colonel to put Marines back in exoskeletons after what had happened to Echo Company, but Dr. Rathstein had been persuasive. “If we shut off the Netcentric functions, then there will be no data entering or leaving the suits. No one can hack in again. The guys will just have tactical radio links, voice, like in the old days.” He also produced over two dozen exoskeleton-experienced volunteers from Bravo Company. What got the colonel to say yes was Jimmy’s argument that the 7th had been attacked and the colonel had inherent authority to act in self-defense; if he waited for Washington to approve a plan, the bad guys would be gone.

  With the sun starting to go down, Jimmy watched the two other UH-85 Arapahos lift up, one on either side of the bird he was in. Each of those two helicopters carried four Marines in exoskeleton suits with the new M-912 combined individual weapon. The M-912 was a double-stack multiple-grenade launcher, an electronically initiated, very-high-rate-of-fire 9mm Lugar parabellum automatic rifle and Taser-style stun gun in one weapon. It would have been too heavy for troops without the lifting strength provided by the exoskels. Jimmy and the major in the lead Arapaho wore standard body armor and carried only side arms. Three Marine criminal investigators and two counterintelligence officers were sitting in the back of Jimmy’s chopper. “Military forces can act in their own protection, even in the states. It’s in the rules of engagement. And you can act without warrants and higher-level approvals when you think there is an imminent national security threat. Trust me, I know this posse comitatus stuff,” Foley bluffed.