THE TRUTH
MACHINE
James L. Halperin
A Del Rey® Book
BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey ® Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1996, 1997 by James L. Halperin
Excerpt from The First Immortal copyright © 1997 by James L. Halperin
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Originally published in a slightly different form by Ivy Press, Inc. in July 1996.
www.randomhouse.com
Post your comments on the Truth Machine forum at truthmachine.com
First Ballantine Books Trade Edition: September 1996
First Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition: August 1997
This book is also available in print.
eISBN: 978-0-345-43980-2
v3.0_r1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AND INDIVIDUALS INTRODUCED
Chapter 1
Chain of Fury
Dr. Alphonso Carter
Daniel Anthony Reece, Jr.
Kendall DeLoach
Chapter 2
Two Five-Sigma Events
Judith Sonntag
Randall Petersen Armstrong
Leonard Charles Armstrong
Ed & Liza Armstrong
Cassidy O’Meara
Harry & Tabitha
Chapter 3
Two Worlds Collide
Mark Burns
Marjorie Ann Tilly
Chapter 4
Blackstone’s Paradox
Senator Travis Endicott Hall
Dr. Marshall Imberg
Chapter 5
Escape to Dallas
David West
(born Witkowsky)
Bruce, Joanne, and Philip Witkowsky
Hon. Stanley Norris
Chapter 6
Judgment Day
Jennifer Finley
Kevin Moffat
Chapter 7
Harvard Yard
Professor Howard Gaddis
Skipper
Chapter 8
Gut Course
Charles Scoggins
Chapter 9
The Goddess
Diana Hsu
Larry Dannon
Chapter 10
The Inspiration
Chapter 11
The Debates
Audrey Whitcomb
Chapter 12
Swift and Sure
Senator Garrison Roswell
Leo Boschnak
Chapter 13
The Holy Grail
Maximilian Honeycutt
Chapter 14
The Team
Bill Tannenbaum
Leslie Williams
Carl Whatley
Gene Hildegrand
Haywood Thacker
Chapter 15
Wall Street
Alan Bonhert
Chapter 16
The Trojan Horse
Chapter 17
First Release
Chapter 18
Lottery
Chapter 19
Medical Network
Dr. Sharon Rosenfield
Chapter 20
Confidential Source
Bryan “Dutch” Treat
Alison Kramer-White
Thomas L. Mosely
Chapter 21
Attorney General
Justin West
Chapter 22
Armageddon Averted
Chapter 23
Cryonics
Chapter 24
Senator West
Hon. Joe Bob Barton
Aaron Ben-Gurion
Chapter 25
The Temptation
Chapter 26
Four More States
President Gordon Safer
Chapter 27
Innocent Accused
Harold Edward Kilmer
Colin Douglas Smith
Vice President Gail Connors
Chapter 28
Frustration
Warren Kenneth Fowler
Chapter 29
Second Ballot
Governor Matthew Emery
Chapter 30
The First Official Scip
Chapter 31
Obsession
Chapter 32
On the Brink
Chapter 33
The Second Official Scip
Chapter 34
Quarter-Millennial
Chapter 35
The Mandate
Chapter 36
The Amnesty Laws
Chapter 37
Smaller, Faster, Cheaper
Chapter 38
Diplomacy
Chapter 39
Retirement
President Caroline Whitcomb
The Rev. Dr. Asia Jonas
Chapter 40
A Bright New World
Dr. Leroy Hood
Dr. Maya Helene Gale
Chapter 41
Future Probe
Chapter 42
The Miracle
Chapter 43
Leonard
Leonard Gale Armstrong
Chapter 44
Truth Machine Two
Texas Atty. Gen. Carlton Shaw
Chapter 45
Michael
Michael Edward Armstrong
Chapter 46
The Trial
Judge Curtis Lezar
Chapter 47
Day in Court
Chapter 48
Verdict
Epilogue
Appendix
“AN EXTREMELY INTERESTING AND PROVOCATIVE STORY.”
—Science Fiction Weekly
“Riveting . . . The book may well become a cult classic, if not more.”
—Professor Howard Gardner
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Bestselling author of Frames of Mind:
The Theory of Multiple Intelligence
“I loved The Truth Machine. Once I started the book, I couldn’t put it down.”
—Professor Robert Sternberg
Yale University
Department of Psychology
“Halperin has combined a visionary analysis of the future of brain imaging technologies with a compelling and deeply human story. The Truth Machine is simultaneously fascinating, moving, and chilling. Anyone interested in where society is heading should read this book.”
—Professor Daniel L. Schacter, Chairman
Harvard University Department of Psychology
Author of Searching for Memory:
The Brain, the Mind and the Past
“Halperin has turned the future into a great read. . . . Not since Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead have we had a portrait of a great man that is as convincing and poignant as Pete Armstrong. . . . This is a novel to be discussed and debated by thoughtful readers for years to come.”
—Jonathan M. Winer
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
for Law Enforcement and Crime
The technological and political predictions dated after 1995, although based on extensive research, are fictional.
Truth be told, to observe the future without altering it is a scientific impossibility. But if your views remain fluid, even a false vision is far more valuable than no vision at all.
TRUTH
MACHINE
Intel 22g CP-TLMos
Dallas, Texas—July 15, 2050
Silently, you sit in a courtroom as the evidence unfolds against you. You can only watch and listen—in frustration, fear, and disbelief. You cannot prove your innocence, because there is no Truth Machine. Instead you pray for a miracle, a divine intervention to save your life. But the miracle never comes. Later, as they strap you to a table to receive the lethal injection that will steal your every possession and dream, you wonder if even the people you love, and who love you, secretly believe you are guilty.
That is not fiction. As recently as 26 years ago, before the Truth Machine remade our world, it happened all the time.
As of March 1, 2024, Randall Petersen Armstrong, only 34 years old, had already built the world’s most profitable corporation, becoming the wealthiest person in human history. On that day, for reasons I will try to help you understand, he chose to commit one of the greatest frauds of this millennium. Yet fraud would not be his worst offense. It was only the first in his now-infamous series of crimes that, astonishingly, would remain undiscovered for 25 years.
Since you plan to read these words, you’ll want to know who wrote them. I am an Intel 22g CP (22 billion instructions per microsecond contextual processor) from the series of 2046, specially designed for reportage. I’ve been programmed to write in journalistic style, so don’t expect scintillating metaphors or artistic imagery. If any show up on these pages, please assume they were added during editing, or that I am reporting someone else’s thoughts. What you’ll get from me are facts. When the photons strike just right, I’m even capable of some marginal irony or humor. If you’d prefer to read a composition reminiscent of Hemingway, I suggest you stick with human authors, or at least the output of a 44g PIM (parallel internal memory) computer with full literary mapping applications.
Frankly however, you might wish to endure my writings. Stationed in Dallas, Texas, I have been favored with exceptional access to Randall Petersen Armstrong and David West, the two most influential people of the 21st century. Their stories are complex, and I have accumulated many facts of which you’re certainly unaware.
My owner, Mr. Thomas L. Mosely, became a reporter for the Dallas News Syndicate (at the time it was a “newspaper” called the Dallas Morning News) in June 2010, long before I was manufactured. Over these past 40 years, Armstrong and West have granted him over 700 hours of one-on-one interviews, and I enjoy realtime access to all but the most private of their archives.
Mosely also wrote the only family-authorized biography of Harold Edward Kilmer, who has come to symbolize the Swift and Sure Anti-Crime laws of 2005. Presumably, had Kilmer been given a scip,1 he would still be alive today. Thus, his tragedy eloquently demonstrates the value of the Armstrong Cerebral Image Processor (ACIP), otherwise known as the Truth Machine.
With all this background, and the Armstrong trial so recently concluded, it would seem a waste for me not to write this narrative.
The appeal decision won’t be rendered for at least two weeks, not in time to include before we disseminate this document. Updates will be available later, but may be unneeded. Since his trial has been the most widely followed news story of the third millennium, virtually every person in the world will learn of Armstrong’s fate at the same time.
Thanks to his ACIP, Mosely and I have come to know Armstrong in a way that would not have been possible 26 years ago. Our goal is for you readers of The Truth Machine to understand him as well as we do. We both believe it would be best if the World Tribunal were merciful. Not to underplay the seriousness of his crimes; Armstrong has done you far more good than harm. In fact his invention may have single-handedly diverted the human race’s relentless march toward self-destruction. It seems illogical to kill him or even reduce his capacity to further contribute to scientific progress. Unfortunately the strict sentencing guidelines appear to offer little hope of leniency.
But enough speculation; we will all know the Tribunal’s decision soon enough.
REFERENCE POINTS
You can skip this section if you’d like, but unless you’re a fellow machine, it might be better if you didn’t. Even when a history is accurately portrayed—as I assure you this will be—human readers often come away with misconceptions. Very few of you boast the perfect mnemonic abilities of computers (though I realize you have other valuable attributes). To diminish the confusion that springs from a combination of authorial omission and readers’ distortion, I will provide additional perspectives.
For example, I’ll try to keep you informed of the ages of the people I discuss, but it’s easy to forget that a 50-year-old woman in say, 2010, was quite different from a 50-year-old woman today. Or if I describe a man in 2015 as being 5 feet 11 inches tall, you might think he was somewhat short in stature although actually as an adult male 35 years ago, he would have stood at average height. Also, because inflation has eroded the purchasing power of the dollar, $1,000 in the year 2000 was the equivalent of $41,500 in today’s dollars. Hence I have prepared three charts on age, height, and inflation, which appear in the Appendix at the end of this book. You might wish to refer to these charts during your reading.
This history spans about 60 years and involves many people. The Table of Contents and Individuals Introduced, which precedes these pages, might also be a useful reference.
Each chapter heading bears a date corresponding to the most important event described therein. What’s more, every chapter appears in chronological order. I see no need to be tricky merely for the sake of drama. Drama is nice of course, but I’m more interested in clarity.
Finally, next to the date at the beginning of each chapter I will list a few of the most important news events reported in the media that day. The added historical vantage point should help you better interpret this extraordinary story.
—Intel 22g CP-TLMos
CHAPTER 1
CHAIN OF FURY
Massachusetts State Prison
September 6, 1991—The cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union has just ended following an unsuccessful coup against Mikhail Gorbachev’s reformist government. Gorbachev remains in power, but Boris Yeltsin, whose heroic actions during the coup may have saved Gorbachev’s government, is now a force with which to be reckoned. Communism, for all practical purposes, is dead.—The United States, in the midst of economic recession after the Gulf War against Iraq, is entering a dangerous time of increasing isolationism. Many voters resent seeing America’s resources exploited to solve the problems of other nations and insist their leaders focus attention on problems at home, particularly the economy and violent crime.
“According to your file you were raped by your father and you murdered your mother. Tell me about that.”
Those were the first words Daniel Anthony Reece, Jr., heard from Dr. Alphonso Carter. Reece was shocked. Carter didn’t ask if he had been happy in school, or what his childhood had been like before the “incident,” or any of the other standard questions.
Just my luck, Reece thought. Affirmative action. This monkey should be flipping hamburgers, but instead he’s my goddam shrink.
* * *
In fact, Dr. Carter was famous in criminal psychology circles, and well known even outside his field. Just 31 years old, he had coauthored the best-selling book, Chain of Fury—The Cycle of Savagery in America, and so could afford to pass up the financial enticements of private practice. At Massachusetts State Prison, Carter immersed himself in the study of violence—and those who commit it. Thus he had developed a depth of understanding of the criminal mind exceptional for a man of his time.
Carter’s voice boomed and his diction was perfect, like that of a trained actor. As a boy he had stuttered horribly, the butt of cruel and inevitable teasing by the other kids in the neighborhood, until a drama teacher from the Booker T. Washington Middle School discovered his concealed talent. By the time he graduated from high school, C
arter had played the lead in Othello. Even now his speech often seemed more like performance than conversation. Never did he use contractions or resort to street lingo.
“Mr. Reece?”
Reece sat back in his chair and sucked on a kitchen match. The two were less than four feet apart, separated by nothing—not a desk, not a coffee table. Carter’s legs were crossed, his hands folded, his massive head shaved above a face so black that when he smiled his gums seemed blue.
The Truth Machine Page 1