Pete always programmed his screen to display news stories involving David, Diana, Tilly, Jennifer, Scoggins, ATI, or himself. And his processor continuously searched worldwide for any new information about Truth Machine research.
The first article he noticed that morning was a piece by Tom Mosely, about Harold Edward Kilmer’s wrongful execution.
By 2023, virtually all security guards had been replaced by machines; we were already better at it than humans and much less expensive. Most security guards were retrained for other work, but some couldn’t adapt. One casualty of this automation was Warren Kenneth Fowler, who resembled Kilmer. Fowler had been caught after another robbery and confessed that he had been Smith’s true accomplice in the Addison, Texas, robbery. Mosely’s article discussed Fowler, but went into greater detail about Kilmer and his family, and David West’s efforts on his behalf.
Pete rocked his body back and forth violently, attempting to keep himself calm.
He read the article with mixed emotions. He was happy for David, who several months earlier had gone public with Safer’s refusal to delay Kilmer’s execution. Kilmer’s exoneration would be a benefit to David’s primary campaign. But Pete was furious with himself. If only I’d worked a little harder and a little smarter, maybe the ACIP would have been ready in time to save that man’s life.
The more he read, the more outraged he became. What happened to Kilmer could happen to anyone—and probably happens a lot, he thought, now considering his own friends and Jennifer and his parents. What if it had been one of them?
Then he thought about Daniel Anthony Reece, who had been released from prison 16 months earlier. Reece had killed Leonard, but was a free man. And Kilmer, who had hurt nobody, was dead.
Pete’s anger and frustration displaced all other emotions, causing him to commit the first of a great series of mistakes.
Had Jennifer been in town, things might have been different; he would have needed to explain his absence to her. Maybe if she hadn’t been in New Jersey, he would have simply gone home that evening and later decided against his plan. Perhaps she could have even somehow talked him out if it. We will never know.
Instead, he sat at his desk, rewrote the stolen Renaissance code in his head, and decided to use it. It would never be provable because the new code looked very different. Who’s to say it’s plagiarism? Pete thought.
Only Pete himself would know for sure it wasn’t ATI’s software—until they SCIPed him about it. Although there were changes in the syntax and the ordering of the instructions, it used the same algorithms; algorithms that ATI had not created independently. Thus he would be incapable of passing the SCIP that the Truth Machine Panel was obliged to administer before approving the ACIP.
But Pete had a plan, so he worked the new code into the ACIP software anyway.
Then he locked himself in the laboratory downstairs, alone with the prototype ACIP, and tested it on himself. He tested and recorded his brain patterns, and wrote new software. He remained locked in the laboratory all night. It took over 10 hours to add about 400 clandestine lines of new code; cleverly devised, covert instructions that would allow Pete, if he concentrated on a certain poem, to override the ACIP.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Each human brain has its own wave patterns, as unique as DNA. While the patterns change continuously, certain aspects remain constant, particular to the individual. The ACIP was now programmed not to indicate deceit only as long as Pete recited that poem in his mind during false answers. But if another person lied to the ACIP, even while concentrating on the same poem, it would not have the desired effect. The ACIP’s red light would flash and a bell would chime. Only Pete’s unique brain waves could override the machine, and he would be able to do so for as long as he lived.
Finally the Truth Machine was working. And Pete Armstrong was the only person alive who could fool it.
The next morning, he called Charles Scoggins. “I think the ACIP is ready.”
“That’s great!” replied Scoggins. “How’d you overcome the fatal flaw?”
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say something I read inspired me. Please test it this morning. If you agree it really works, I think you should submit it for government approval this afternoon.”
“Consider it done.”
Scoggins left his office for the laboratory downstairs, using his security code to lock the lab door behind him. There would be no interruptions.
After he finished talking to Scoggins, the voice summoned him again. Go ahead, Petey. Make the call. Pete made his second critical decision of the day. He called Alphonso Carter in Massachusetts.
“Dr. Carter, I’d like to meet Daniel Reece.”
CHAPTER 29
SECOND BALLOT
Dallas, Texas
August 2, 2024—Governor Matthew Emery of Virginia clinches the Republican presidential nomination after winning 15 of his party’s final 18 state primaries.—The government Truth Machine Panel announces it is satisfied that the Armstrong Cerebral Image Processor (ACIP) functions properly according to the terms of the Truth Machine Bill. Subject to Randall Petersen Armstrong’s successful testimony, the ACIP will receive full and immediate government approval for use in judicial process. President Safer signs an executive order granting a stay of execution to any death-row inmate claiming to be innocent of the charge, pending ACIP testing.—Jacques Peureux, the French software magnate, becomes the first human being to be successfully cloned. The resultant child, the first ever from a single parent, is named Claude Luc Peureux.—Serial killer Samuel Wesley Conwell is executed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The former food-processing executive was convicted of murdering 12,626 persons in nine states using genetically altered and therefore deadly pineapple juice.
Even in 2024, most of you were still consuming food in “meals,” usually three or four per day. This although an FDA study released eight years earlier, in July 2016, had proven constant eating, or “grazing,” was the healthiest way for humans to receive nourishment. The correctness of the FDA’s conclusion became especially apparent after machines began to advise you on what and how much to eat.
Pete Armstrong and Jennifer Finley, both health-conscious, seldom ate meals. They watched the Democratic Convention on the 18-foot screen in Pete’s living room; it wasn’t the largest screen in the house, but was the one closest to the kitchen, which made grazing much more convenient.
Pete and Jennifer still lived together, but ever since he’d reprogrammed the ACIP, he had begun to distance himself from her emotionally. He knew he had a secret he could never share and it affected his attitude. He even rationalized that his detachment was the only way
to protect her. But Jennifer kept no such important secrets from Pete and, against her will, found herself becoming more attached.
She snuggled up to him on the couch, running her fingers through his hair.
Such a sweet woman, he thought, and wondered if she’d let him go to sleep that night without making love to her yet again. We’ve been together nearly two years and still she’s insatiable.
Once a day was plenty for him and they’d already done it twice—once that morning and again just three hours ago. By the time they got to bed, he’d be exhausted. He had a lot of work to do tomorrow and needed rest, but it was difficult to get any sleep with Jennifer around. How can I possibly tell her that without hurting her feelings?
When the delegates reached Tennessee in the voting, Pete calculated that no Democratic candidate would be selected on the first ballot.
“It’ll be close,” Pete explained to Jennifer, “but Safer doesn’t have enough votes among the remaining delegates to win a majority. David’s got a shot at the nomination on the second ballot.”
“This is exciting. Can you imagine—President David West?”
“I’ve been imagining it for over 20 years.”
She looked at him. Why do I stay with him? He doesn’t need me and he’ll never love me the way I love him. Why can’t he? Is it because of Leonard? Or his incredible mind? Or because he thinks he has to save the world first? God, he has such power over me.
Then she kissed him. Amazingly, he found himself aroused once again. Maybe one more time, he thought, before they start the second ballot.
It had been a nasty campaign. Safer’s people discovered and exploited David’s juvenile court records, and slipped second-hand reports of his high school sexual escapades to the media.
Then there was the potentially embarrassing fact that Diana Hsu, now David’s wife, had been slightly under 17 years old, the legal age of consent, when the two had started sleeping together at Harvard. David shrugged that one off with typical good humor. “At least my intentions were honorable—for the most part anyway.”
One member of Safer’s campaign had made an issue of the fact that West’s name had been changed from Witkowsky, a patently anti-Semitic attack. The aide was immediately dismissed from the campaign, later to be quietly rehired.
But the two biggest issues Safer used against David were justifiably raised: David’s support of the unpopular World Government theories championed in his wife’s book, and his relationship with ATI and friendship with Randall Petersen Armstrong.
David had always stressed honesty and principle over politics, confident that when the Truth Machine inevitably came into use in election campaigns, his political capital would skyrocket. He didn’t worry about appearances; as long as he told the truth, his statements could be extreme, even outrageous. And he saw no reason to follow the political traditions of the past. His loyalty was to the public, not party or supposed political allies. He accused Safer of being a phony and an old-style politician, and played the Kilmer fiasco for all it was worth.
At one rally in Minnesota, David had asked a cheering crowd, “Do you know what Gordon Safer told me after he refused to grant Harold Edward Kilmer a stay of execution? He said he couldn’t because he and I might be blamed for any related delays in our court system. Gordon Safer played politics with the life of a man who Safer himself admitted to me was probably innocent. He didn’t ask himself, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ He asked himself, ‘What’ll get me reelected?’ Is that the man you want representing our party?”
The crowd shouted back, “No!”
“Is Gordon Safer the man you want to lead our country?”
“No!”
Safer was furious. His opponent had used their private conversation against him and there was nothing he could do about it. It would have been unthinkable to deny he’d said those things or even claim his words had been taken out of context, because Safer was convinced that David West lived a documented life. Such a denial would be an invitation for David to release digital recordings and transcripts of their conversations.
During the late 20th century, some experts had assumed recordings and photographs would become useless as evidence once digital data became the standard. They had argued that digital photographs and sound recordings were too easy to manipulate; alterations could be undetectable. The same logic extended to other forms of evidence. Therefore our judicial system would again rely on human eyewitnesses rather than physical evidence, as in centuries prior to forensic science.
Of course those experts were wrong. In fact, forensics became even more useful thanks to notarized central storage, a federally regulated field then dominated by Eastman Kodak, Sun Microsystems, and ATI. Digital data sent to any computer could simultaneously transmit to a central storage facility for time-dating. As long as the sender remained alive, only that person could retrieve the data, but its timing and authenticity became provable.
Even in years prior to the Truth Machine, it was becoming more difficult to lie and get away with it.
True to Pete’s prediction, David did force the vote to a second ballot. Nonetheless, Gordon Safer was eventually nominated that night. Safer would seek reelection, politically crippled and backed by a divided party. He would be forced to run against a popular Republican governor, Matthew Emery, with a powerful mandate from a united Republican party.
Pete was deeply disappointed, but David felt confident and content. He had done his best and believed he had nothing to apologize for. Safer’s political career was almost over, but at 39 years of age, David West’s was just beginning.
CHAPTER 30
THE FIRST OFFICIAL SCIP
Dallas, Texas
August 6, 2024—Mitsubishi releases a 13-ounce version of its phenomenally successful artificial gill. By converting water into oxygen, the electronic device allows humans to breathe underwater for days at a time. Over 100 million units are expected to be sold during the first 12 months of availability, at a suggested retail price of $294 each.—Los Angeles suffers the most powerful earthquake in its recorded history. The tremor, measuring 9.6 on the Richter scale, causes $250 billion in property damage, nearly all to highways and buildings constructed before 2005. Only three deaths and nine serious injuries are reported. The incipient quake was detected several days prior to its occurrence and early warning and safety precautions presumably saved thousands of lives.—A terrorist plan to release radioactive gas in downtown Chicago is foiled by an FBI undercover operation. U.S. Attorney General Gregory Vartian asserts that, had the scheme been successfully executed, as many as three million Chicagoans could have perished.
Scoggins shut the door to Pete’s sparsely furnished, brightly lit office on the 44th floor of ATI Tower, and asked him to turn off his recording devices.
Pete spoke into his wristband. “Stop six.”
“I know what you did, Pete.”
“What are you talking about?” Pete refused to admit he had been caught, even to himself.
“I know you used the Renaissance code. You also devised a way to override the ACIP. Otherwise you could never pass the SCIP tomorrow and I know you’d never put yourself in that position.” Scoggins looked straight at him. “The trouble is, they’ll probably want to SCIP me and now I know, too.”
Pete answered cautiously, in case Scoggins was bluffing, “What makes you think I used Renaissance’s code?”
“I had my 750M Software Scanner compare the new code to the old one. Other than about 400 lines I didn’t understand at all and that I assume is your override code, all the new stuff was just a reworked version of the Renaissance algorithms. But don’t worry. The software’s proprietary, so people outside ATI will never see it, and I’m sure nobody else here will think to look. Needless to say, your secret’s safe with me.”
Scoggins had him dead-to-rights. “Look, Charles, the Kilmer thing got to me. I couldn’t stand the idea of any more executions of innocent people.”
“I realize you held out
for as long as you could. I think you did the right thing.”
“What do you suggest I do now?”
“We don’t have much choice, do we? I think you’d better reprogram the ACIP so I can fool it, too. Otherwise I won’t be able to back you up.”
Pete thought about it. Charles obtained the Renaissance code to begin with, so we’ve both broken the law. Our interests are aligned; we both want to get the ACIP into use without our crime being discovered. It would be good to have a confidante rather than going it all alone.
He nodded his acquiescence.
Once alone in his office, Pete called home.
“Jennifer, please,” he commanded his wristband.
Her face appeared instantly on the screen, since her wristband was programmed to take Pete’s calls immediately, day or night, an important concession he had yet to make to her. Pete had all his calls screened, feeling it rude to accept calls during meetings. Or maybe it just felt safer to keep his distance.
“Hi, darling,” she greeted him.
“Bad news, Jen. I’ve got a late meeting tonight.”
“I’ll wait up for you. What time?”
“Around midnight, I’d say.”
“That’s okay. I have plenty of work to do. See you when you get home.” Then she smiled. Smiled. If any of his former girlfriends had been so understanding, Pete would have been suspicious. But Jennifer Finley always understood.
“Okay. Sorry about that.”
“I love you, Pete.”
“I love you, too. I’ll make it up to you.”
“You’d better!”
That was almost too easy, Pete mused.
The Truth Machine Page 20