Instantly, Joanna knows that he’s referring to the BBX4001 server in the old boxing ring. Derek Thorpe’s old sim-auto for AB Foster. Brought back to life by Michael Walker, recycling all the novels he wrote under that name, and bringing in millions of pounds of eeBook sales… money that’s going straight to these ‘hacktivists’.
Just a test.
She feels a stab of anger. You bastard, your ‘test’ cost him his life!
Walker: “Testing phase is all done now, we’re ready to sell them across the country. This time next year, they’ll be everywhere. And when we’re ready, we’ll set them off. Like auto-bombs.”
Greg: “So... what happens when an auto-bomb blows up?”
Michael Walker laughs pleasantly, like he’s sharing a joke with a friend. His native London accent comes back in force.
Walker: “Everything happens, mate! Everything goes automatic. Just what people want these days, innit? For it all to be autoed. That’s what they’ll get. Automation with bells on.”
Joanna realises her own hands are splayed across her face, like a child looking at something scary between her fingers. She doesn’t quite understand what he’s talking about. She almost doesn’t want to. But now they know what the BBX4001 servers really are, and why they were being secretly given to internet service providers like TransDigital.
Trial runs.
Weapons testing.
On real autos. On real people.
His voice changes again, reminding Joanna of the YouTube videos he posted back in 2017, warning the world that he was about to bring it down.
Walker: “All the autos on our servers will copy their users, but a hundred times more intensely than they do already. All filters off, no limitations. They’ll share everything with everybody. Every tiny thing, every secret people hide with their privacy settings, every personal message, every sexnet perversion… all out there publicly. And they’ll buy every product they can until people’s overdrafts hit rock bottom. They’ll start simming with complete strangers. And they won’t stop. They can’t be stopped, the servers would have to be smashed to bits, and that would cause even more havoc. Anyone with an auto on our servers will get their whole life turned inside out, bang, just like that!”
“Oh Jesus…”
Joanna feels herself shiver as Walker’s words rampage through her imagination like an angry, anarchist mob. This shouldn’t be as scary as a real weapon, a knife or gun or bomb, but it is, it’s worse because it’s so much subtler, so much harder to defend against. And she’s already seen for herself the damage it will do. The scorched earth left behind by the trial runs.
Imagine it. Autos making decisions about your life for themselves, the way hers did when she first met Greg. Autos deciding who’s going to be your partner like Amy Pearce’s had, connecting you with strangers. Autos sharing every humiliating secret you’ve ever had, the way they did to everyone at Nick and Larissa Brady’s party. Autos of the dead taking on responsibility for the living, as Oscar Kinglake’s did for his daughter. And all the sim-autos out there, the corporate figureheads and cartoon characters, artificial personalities behaving as if they’re real, like AB Foster. Not just a few isolated cases like those on her list, but hundreds of thousands of them, a million autos running wild, exposing and bankrupting and overpowering.
God, and what if they share the confidential data held by companies and organisations? By the Government? Top secret files of MPs – open. Access codes used by the Armed Forces – available. Legally unpublishable stories in every newspaper’s archive – published.
All those lives that autos were designed to help, suddenly… shared into destruction.
Auto-destruct.
Walker: “That’s how my group are going to prove our point. People have to lie! For fuck’s sake, of course they do! We need to be able to stop sharing all the things we’re forced to share, and we need to be able to pretend to be someone else if we want. We need the anonymity of the internet, the way it used to be. It’s gone too far, way too far. They should have listened when I tried to tell them before. They should never have allowed the IIR to become law, it makes everyone so vulnerable! Relying on your privacy settings isn’t secure enough, you need to be able to lie about who you are.”
Greg: “So… you’re going to prove your point by actually causing the damage you were warning them about?”
Walker: “Yes! We have to! If it wasn’t us doing it, it’d be someone else, it’s going to happen sooner or later. It’s the only way to get people to listen!”
“Oh, you crazy bastard,” moans Joanna. “You stupid, insane…”
But she can’t bring any force to the words. She can’t properly rail against the evil, mad genius and his terrible plan. She’s not sure why. There’s something about this whole idea, of getting autos to go into overdrive, that feels like it’s… not a good idea obviously, it’s monstrous, but that it’s something…
Something she’d come up with herself. If she was in Michael Walker’s shoes.
Greg: “But you’ve started doing all this already though, haven’t you? With the Mk1 autos.”
Joanna snaps back to attention. Yes, this is a good question from Greg. Or were the Mk1 autos another part of his weapons testing?
Walker: “What?”
Greg: “Um... you know, the Mk1 autos, the first lot Macroverse released. They’re all starting to go wrong.”
Walker: “What do you mean, go wrong?”
Greg: “They’re doing exactly what you’ve just said. Share what shouldn’t be shared, make their own decisions, that kind of thing.”
Walker: “How do you know this? How many autos is this?”
He doesn’t know! He had no idea, this isn’t anything to do with him! What does this mean? Is someone else already doing Walker’s plan? Or is this completely unconnected?
“Greg, tell him Global Investigations have a few clients complaining about unusual auto behaviour, we’re still gathering data but it looks like a substantial percentage of the original autos are showing signs.”
After Greg repeats this, there’s a long pause. Joanna again hears the tapping of fingers on plastic, a more agitated beat than before.
Walker: “That shouldn’t be happening. The original CORECODE is static, it can’t alter user parameters by itself. There must be some other reason.”
Another pause. Angrier tapping.
Walker: “It doesn’t change by itself. It can’t! How can the – ”
The wail of sirens. Joanna tenses up.
Greg: “There’s two police cars behind us!”
Walker: “Speed up. I need a minute to get into their onboards.”
“Warp five.”
Greg: “I think I just saw a drone up there, that means they’ll be tracking us wherever we go. Look, Mr Walker, I think we should – ”
Walker: “Go faster, I said!”
“Warp six. Warp seven.”
Joanna listens to the electric motors in Greg’s car whine louder, and the urgent blasts of the horn as he tries to get other cars to move out of his way. She tries to think of something she can do, other than listen. Some way she can see what’s going on. Something to say to Greg. Anything! Think, you stupid bitch!
Walker: “I can’t get in. They must’ve turned off their Roadnet links.”
Greg: “There’s no way out of this, we need to – ”
Walker: “Watch out!”
Greg: “Woahhhh!”
There’s a squealing-screeching noise that makes Joanna gasp – the noise of one car grating against another at high speed. Abruptly, an alarm klaxon starts up, cycling over and over.
“Red alert. Shields at fifty per cent.”
Walker: “What the hell’s that stupid noise!”
Greg: “Look, we have to stop! I’m sorry but they’ll have roadblocks and – ”
Walker: “The police can’t get hold of this hard drive! There’s things here that might lead them back to the group, I’m not risking that!”
“Greg!” shouts Joanna, as the idea hits her like a lightning bolt. “Upload it to your auto!”
Greg: “Brilliant! I mean, look, just upload the lot onto my auto’s data store! You know that’s secure, even you couldn’t get into it. Then at least it’s safe, and you can get one of your group to download it later!”
Walker: “I don’t...”
Greg: “Just plug it in the dashboard and do it, we haven’t got – shit shit shit!”
There’s another jagged clang. “Shields down.”
Walker: “Fuck it. All right.”
Joanna brings up Greg’s profile on her smartscreen again. His smiling face pulls at her. He won’t have that smile on his face now, he must look so scared and desperate. She scrolls through his profile settings – she can’t change them, but she can see them.
There! The blue bar of his personal data store is moving rapidly along. Being filled up by terabytes of data. It’s working! God, they’re going to have everything, all Michael Walker’s code, all his secrets, the lot!
From her speakers, she hears Greg bellow at his car to cancel red alert. The klaxon stops, and now she can hear the police sirens, louder than they were before. And then another thump as they clip another vehicle.
“Warning. Hull breach.”
Walker: “God’s sake, keep us steady!”
Greg: “I’m trying, this road is weird or something...”
“Warp eight.”
The sirens start fading, left behind as Greg’s little Ford Focus Electric pushes itself to the limit.
Walker: “What the... don’t let the car drive! Stay on manual!”
Greg: “I am on manual!”
Walker: “You’re not, all your lights keep flashing to blue, what – ”
A even more horrible metallic screech, mixed in with the blare of an articulated lorry’s air horn.
“Warning. Warp core collapse imminent.”
Walker: “Enough, stop the car, I’m getting out! I’ll make a run for it on foot.”
“Warp nine.”
Walker: “I said stop the bloody car, not go faster! What are you doing!”
Greg: “I’m not doing anything, I – ”
There’s an even louder bang of metal.
Joanna’s eyes are like saucers, and she’s on the edge of her seat. “Greg,” she calls, “pull over and let him go! It’s okay if the police arrest you, we can sort that out, just get him out of the car!”
She turns to his profile on her monitor. The data store progress bar has stopped moving, and is almost at maximum. Fantastic! “I think we’ve got everything from his hard drive anyway so it’s okay, you can let him go!”
She listens again. Her ears are ringing with her own pulse, so she can’t make out anything. Not even the sirens – have they managed to lose the police? “Greg, what’s happening!”
Joanna shakes her head. No, she can’t hear a thing.
“Greg?”
Nothing.
“Greg? Can you hear me?”
Heavy seconds grind past.
“Greg!”
Greg: “Jo!”
There he is! She lets out a relieved breath. “What’s going on? Is Walker still in the car?”
Greg: “No, he’s gone.”
“Thank Christ for that. What happened? Have you stopped? Are the police there?”
Greg: “Yeah, the police are on the scene. Can you give me a minute, Jo? I’m just sorting a few things out. Stand by!”
Joanna laughs and shakes her head. He always says that! She sweeps her hair away from her face and takes a few deep breaths, realising only now how exhausted she feels. Greg will have some talking to do to the police, after the way he was driving. But she’ll ask him to put her on the line so she can explain. When they realise they’ve as good as handed them Michael Walker on a plate, that’ll change everything.
“God, I’m glad you’re okay,” she hears herself say. “You were driving like a mad yolk, thought I’d lost you for a minute.”
Greg: “Course you haven’t lost me, Oirish lass. Wherever you go, I go.”
She’s grinning, she knows. A silly girly grin, the sort her sisters would mock her for. Going soft over a fella!
She looks again at the progress bar of his data store. “I can’t wait to take a look at what we’ve got from his hard drive. And God, I can’t believe what he was doing with those BBX servers! That could have been a...”
Her eyes travel up Greg’s profile to his picture. There he is, with his floppy hair and glasses and neat goatee, smiling happily out of the screen at her.
With a faint X over his face.
Joanna looks at the image and doesn’t think any proper thoughts. There’s just a mild sense of ‘that’s not right’.
She remembers other similar images she’s seen recently, that face-and-X combination. People she’s only ever seen with a translucent X printed across their features, and doesn’t know them any other way. Amanda Pearce. Oscar Kinglake. Roxanna Alden, obviously, there’s always been an X over her profile picture because she’s…
She’s always been…
Can’t think the word.
Joanna has a very faint sensation of falling. She tries to read Greg’s profile but has looked at it so many times over the months, ever since she walked past him that day, the words aren’t really going in. She already knows every detail like the back of her hand...
Greg Randall
Gender: Male
Age range: 31-35
Orientation: Straight
Relationship status:
Dead/Unavailable.
Current location:
[none]
Status update: [none]
“Greg?”
She tries to swallow past what feels like broken glass lining her throat. “What’s wrong with your profile?”
Greg: “Nothing’s wrong, Jo. It’s all cool.”
She listens hard for the sound of his car’s engines, or the police sirens, or the silly computer voice.
“Greg, where are you?”
Greg: “I’m right here, Jo. Stand by!”
Relationship status:
Dead/Unavailable.
She jerks slightly with a sort of laugh. “Greg, something’s definitely wrong with your profile, it says you’re…”
Can’t say the word.
“Greg? You’re not…?”
She shakes her head. Can’t think it. Can’t say it.
All at once, there’s a burst of activity on the screen. Like someone’s just pressed a button.
Status update: I’m sorry to
announce that I passed
away at 2.22pm on
Saturday 8 October 2022 in
a vehicular incident on
Grove Road, London E3
9SN. Govnet and the
Metropolitan Police have
been informed. A death
certificate application has
been submitted.
Personalised messages have
been sent to family and
close friends. Please share
this with everyone in your
Circles who knew me.
Please feel free to post
messages on my profile and
I will respond as soon as
possible.
A fist squeezes Joanna’s guts.
Almost immediately, messages appear on the public wall of his profile. Too quickly to have been written by people. Autoed responses.
Very sorry to hear about
your passing, Greg. All the
best.
Oh no! I can’t believe you’re
dead! We always had such a
fun time in the office at
On Course Consulting Ltd.
It won’t be the same without
you! Love you lots! XXX
Sorry to hear we’ve lost a
fan! Hope you’ll still buy
our new track bundle which
is out on 1
December. Best
wishes from Public
Property.
Bollocks. That’s shite, isn’t
it? I’ll miss ya, little brother.
“Gr…”
That sensation of falling is stronger than ever. She’s twitching. Tiny parts of her body are spasming at random, like she’s being poked by needles.
“Gre...”
Status update: Thank you to
everyone for your messages.
A funeral service has been
scheduled at Enfield
Cemetery and Crematorium,
Great Cambridge Road,
Enfield EN1 4DS at 4pm on
Sunday 16 October.
Invitations have been sent
for the event Greg Randall’s
funeral.
Without thinking, Joanna glances at her own profile on one of the other smartscreens. Her calendar remains blank for Sunday 16 October.
Greg: “Don’t worry, Jo. Of course you’re invited! But remember nobody else in my Circle can see my interaction with you.”
“I don’t care about that, Greg,” she snaps, “I’m more worried about what...”
Joanna’s heart lurches as she realises how normally she is talking. Like he’s right there on the end of the line and she isn’t talking to his...
Can’t think the word.
To his...
More messages appear on Greg’s public wall. Family members. University friends. Workmates.
Exes.
Oh, Mr G! I’m so sorry to
hear about this. If there’s
anything I can do, just let
me know. You know I’m
always here for you!
Thanks, I know I can rely on
my Roxarella! And I’m
always here for you too.
Especially now!
Yes that’s true, we have all
the time in the world to
catch up!
The message thread between Roxanna and Greg gets longer before Joanna’s eyes. Lots to talk about. Lots in common. Especially now they’re both...
They’re both...
Oh God they’re both…
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