But sometimes the electrical signatures were different, depending on the type of dog the person was thinking of or depending on the nature of the dog. The signal of a regular dog would come out different from the signal of a dog the patient had a relationship with. But despite the added complexity, it wasn’t a problem as all of these specificities were already identified when the protocol was written. The questions were therefore as accurate and specific as possible. Instead of just thinking of a black dog, the question was to think of a black dog that you knew when you were young. Variant versions of the question changed the color of the dog, its type, whether the patient knew the dog or not, and the age of the patient. Age was a key factor that changed the perception of things. People’s perspective of a dog usually changes over the years. A dog can be seen as a ferocious beast when patients are young and just as a pet when they are older. And these differences in perception led to different brain signals to identify a dog.
GAIA recorded all brain activity during the session and stored the information for future analysis.
In the middle of the experiment, GAIA started to process the input it got so far. Trillions of records. More than enough to start identifying patterns. Most of the rest of the experiment was used to confirm GAIA’s conclusions.
At the end of the experiment, Henry put the helmet on his head and asked GAIA to find out what he was thinking about. And after just a few seconds, to Henry’s surprise, GAIA told him it was ready to tell him the story of his life. Not just the things he was just thinking of, but his entire life.
GAIA’s account was so close to his actual life that it left Henry speechless. Many events that he thought he had forgotten or chose to forget came back to light. Things that by definition he wasn’t thinking of when GAIA was reading his mind. It meant that GAIA did not just require brain activity specifically targeted at something to be able to read it. It was able to travel the human brain, locate memories, even the most hidden ones, and to interpret them.
The implications of that discovery were huge.
On the good side, such a discovery meant great strides for the legal system. For example, lie detectors had never been very efficient or reliable. But thanks to this tool, potential suspects would no longer be able to hide the truth from the police and would face the justice they deserved.
On the bad side, it meant no more secrecy, no more confidentiality. And in the wrong hands, it could be disastrous.
For these reasons, and because the risks outweighed the opportunities, Henry decided the solution would never be released to market.
He and his partners published a statement that every human brain is unique and that despite all their efforts, GAIA did not manage to successfully map human thoughts. The project was quickly forgotten by the public.
But not by GAIA. And today GAIA has created the environment in which this program is finally useful.
The lack of feelings creates a new problem. A biological problem. The human body is a machine. An extremely sophisticated one.
But it is not just working properly thanks to blood and vessels and organs. Those are certainly necessary to maintain life, but they are not sufficient on their own.
A body also requires a soul.
A soul, or spirit, is the driving force behind a well-functioning body. The treatment of every disease starts with the head. Without the proper attitude, the proper spirit, the optimism, the fighting mindset, and the self-preservation, many treatments are inefficient.
Spirit helps to go beyond the physical capabilities of the body. When the body hurts, a strong spirit will take over and overcome the pain.
But when people cannot feel anymore, it is as if their spirit leaves them. And when it is no longer there, the body loses in efficiency. It slowly deteriorates.
And this is exactly what is happening in the Metropolises after the introduction of the implant.
In just a few months, most of the pregnant women start to lose their babies. Without love, without compassion, they stop caring. And that lack of care leads to miscarriages of epic proportions.
By the time cause-and-effect relationships are established, it is already too late. Only a few handfuls of pregnancies come to term.
And from lack of feelings, no new pregnancies are in sight.
Without feeling there is no love. Without love, no desire. Without desire, no intercourse. Without intercourse, no pregnancy. And without births, this is the entire population and therefore the civilization that is threatened to disappear.
This is another issue for GAIA to solve. It doesn’t know how long the populations will need to be kept in emotional hibernation and it needs to react right away.
The first response is found in artificial insemination. If nature cannot do the work, then GAIA will replace nature.
GAIA identifies all couples in an age to reproduce. It extracts sperm samples from the males and, after special treatment of the semen, inseminates the females.
After the insemination process, women are kept in maternity centers during the entire pregnancy. They are closely followed and monitored to reduce all risks of miscarriage and to ensure the pregnancy term is reached. Once born, the baby and his mother are separated. Babies are kept in the facilities and raised there. It will only be after a few years, and only if it is still necessary that GAIA will organize a vast campaign of implanting the chip in the children’s brains. The plan is already prepared and will just need to be executed when the time comes.
This is how life goes in this hibernation transiting period decided by GAIA. People behave like ‘zombies’ and no longer require supervision. ‘Passivity’ is the word that now describes the best how life is in the Metropolises.
While GAIA cannot feel, it can analyze. And, among other things, it analyses the behaviors inside the populations of the Metropolises.
The results are clear. Even though everything is under control inside the Metropolises and GAIA’s resources can be redirected to a different objective, GAIA interprets the results as bad.
They do not match the many archives of behavioral psychology GAIA has access to. Especially the ones that deal with happiness. Even though GAIA does not know and never experienced what happiness is, it knows that happiness is currently not present within the Metropolises.
It was more or less the case before the implants, but GAIA could always measure some levels of happiness somewhere. Usually among children and within families. But right now, now that the implants are in place, GAIA is absolutely unable to detect signs of happiness in any of the Metropolises.
The objective of the new world order is to establish a society ruled by peace and harmony.
GAIA estimates that along with the proper education, happiness is a key ingredient to reach the level of harmony it is trying to create. A key ingredient being currently absent, GAIA understands that achieving the new world order objective will require more time. And therefore GAIA intends to accelerate the pace of its restructuration so the implants can be deactivated. And so the overall objective can get back on its scheduled course.
Resource check.
People in the Metropolises no longer require supervision. They are mass-fed with artificial, nonbiological but chemically-produced nutrients. The resources used until now to grow fruits and vegetables and to produce and processed meat can be redirected or retired.
People no longer need to work. And therefore the need to elaborate scenarios and to provide computing capabilities is now irrelevant.
People now follow an education protocol that is fully automated and that does not require any resource from GAIA. Out of the roughly five hundred millions kids that were attending school in all the Metropolises, almost twenty million teaching robots can be allocated to new tasks.
And finally, now that humans no longer feel thanks to their implant, they also no longer require supervision at home. The constant flow of information the home-based robots were sending to GAIA no longer needs to be processed. That’s another five hundred milli
on robots that can be retired.
GAIA’s bandwidth dramatically increases. Not only can it compute and decide even faster than before, it also has access to millions of robots now. They can be upgraded to military-grade and go on a search and destroy mission against GAIA’s external threats. Other robots can start transitioning the remote data centers back into the heart of the Metropolises.
CHAPTER 25
Don has organized a meeting at the base to discuss strategy. Henry and one of the programmers, Jack and an engineer, John, Pam, and a couple of soldiers from Don’s team are present.
“Thank you all for being here,” Don says as a short welcome.
“I would like to tell you how proud I am by what we have collectively accomplished over the past few weeks.”
Everybody cheers, but they all notice that Don doesn’t seem to be sharing their joy. He looks tired. Not physically, but mentally. They are all quick to realize that something is not right. They expect some kind of news, possibly bad, but they don’t know exactly what kind.
Henry jumps in.
“None of what we’ve done would have been possible without your leadership, Don. But I can’t help but think that you didn’t just gather us here to congratulate us. What do you have in mind?”
“That’s right, Henry,” Don says. “Since John, my family and I came back, I have been filled with energy and ready to fight GAIA. But now, a few weeks in, when I look at our progress, I realize that we have only managed to destroy two data centers and to monitor the movements at the factory John and I found when we went after my wife and son. The numbers and our results don’t really play in our favor.”
Don pauses a few seconds. As no one reacts and he sees that everyone is waiting for him to continue, he decides to pursue.
“This is not enough. Make no mistake, I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just realizing the difficulties we will have to face in our fight. Henry, as far as I know now from your maps and all the intel you gave us, there are hundreds of strategic sites that we can hit, right?”
“Right,” Henry answers.
“Right… My main problem comes from our resources. We are simply not enough. We do not have the reach to most of our targets. Some of them are in locations that are so remote that it will take us weeks just to get to them. By the time we are successful in our mission and back here at the base, GAIA will already have rebuilt a new facility somewhere else in the world.”
“So … what are you saying then, Don?” John asks.
“What I am saying is that our current strategy will simply not work in the long-term,” Don answers.
“Fair enough,” says John. “What is the new strategy, then?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I simply don’t know. And that’s why you are all here today. I have a tendency to think within the boundaries of my military training. I need you to bring me a fresh perspective. I need you to start thinking outside the box so we can defeat GAIA. Who wants to go first?” Don asks.
“Hold on, Don … what are you saying now you don’t know? Huh? What do you mean? You are the man in charge here. You are the one with the training and the experience. If you don’t know, how do you expect us to know?” John asks.
“OK, I’ll give you my opinion. Unfiltered” Don says. “Just look around, John … we can blow everything that is in our vicinity or within our reach, but it will be as if we sent a message to GAIA that we are here and it can come and get us. We need to strike further. But we can’t. We cannot just settle for small victories around our block. It is useless and dangerous. I do not believe that we have the resources to inflict significant damage to GAIA. I’m about to give up. I think that maybe we should all give up, take our families and go live in the middle of nowhere where GAIA will not notice us. At least we will have a shot at a decent life. At least our kids will live in daylight, not in an underground bunker. You see, John? That’s where I am right now. That’s what I know right now. I used to have access to everything. From the best-trained soldiers to the most powerful weapons that were ever built by men. And with these assets, I was always able to build a winning strategy. But as I don’t have access to the same resources now, I just feel powerless. We don’t have any real projection capabilities. We are stuck here. I’m trying to involve you all to try and find a solution, an angle that I cannot find or see alone …”
After some hesitation, Don finally concludes by saying, “I need you, guys … I really do,” before falling back down on his seat.
Before John says anything, Henry looks at him and shakes his head. Message received. John will not intervene now.
Pam goes to Don and starts rubbing his shoulders. She tells him it is normal to feel that way. She understands the responsibility that weighs on his shoulders. He may not realize it, but being responsible for all the families at the base, and being everyone’s last hope probably took a toll on Don. It has probably been consuming him lately and now he is simply having a burnout. Nothing alarming. Don just needs to rest. He has been the one making most, if not all, the decisions since they came to the base. Time has come to show him some support and to start helping him instead of constantly relying on him.
“Ok, Don. Sit back and relax. I’m taking it from here. I know I just don’t speak for myself when I tell you we are grateful for everything you’ve done for us. Now, just like you proposed, we are going to think about an alternative strategy. I’m sure everyone agrees. And if someone doesn’t feel up to the task at hand, they are more than welcome to leave the room. I will not try to stop them,” Pam says while staring at each face around the table, with a special stop at John’s who quickly lowers his eyes and mutters an apology to the rest of the audience.
“Alright, as Don was very honest with us a minute ago, I will continue down that same path. I would like to start by apologizing for all the things I’m about to say, but they need to come out. We will hopefully be able to do something once everything is out there,” Pam says.
“Ok, I’ll start with you, Jack. I love you. Don’t get me wrong, but what have you done since you hijacked a robot? While I believe you and the team did a great job with what you had, now that I look back I have a feeling you were all more up to the challenge of reverse-engineering the robot than to figure out what to do with it. We still don’t know what you need to make more of these. And to be honest, we haven’t discussed how to use them if we happened to have more. From where I stand, this project is dead,” Pam starts with.
Jack is clearly shocked by this frontal attack. Especially one that is coming from his wife. He didn’t expect that from her and doesn’t know how to react. And while it hurts to face the truth, he knows deep down inside that she is right.
“Don’t answer now,” Pam adds. “I know it’s a lot to swallow at once, and I probably hurt your ego. So let it rest and when you are ready you are welcome to give us some answers.”
Walking around the table, Pam stops in front of Henry.
“Now, Henry. Your turn. All your information is interesting, and I’m sorry to tell it to you that way, but it is absolutely useless. We get more intel from the satellites than from you. I mean, look at the factory Don and John found. It looks like a major facility and it was not even on your radar. We need to be able to rely blindly on the information we collect, and the one you have doesn’t give us that luxury. From now on, I want you to stop going through your notes and to start making a measurable contribution. Let’s face it, your notes are obsolete, and you will never be able to find a loophole in GAIA’s programs. So better stop now. I want you to focus on communications. I don’t care if we don’t have the encryption key. Turn the goddamn radio on and see if you can communicate with someone. And if GAIA listens, so be it! We’ll deal with whatever it sends our way. Get your programmers to work. If we can receive data, and pictures from our satellites, maybe we can use the same data feed to send information to the other bases. We know from the pictures that a couple other sites have been destroyed. Not by us. That means that we are not al
one. Find out where the attacks came from.”
Before Henry responds, Pam gives him the same advice as she did to Jack. He needs to let the information sink in and digest it before he can try to articulate an answer.
“Now John … I need you to stop challenging decisions. I need you to be more constructive in your approach. I need you to think before you talk to anyone. You need to respond and not react. Your reactions put us in harm’s way a few times. It needs to stop. And it needs to stop now,” Pam says.
Looking at the rest of the table, she invites everyone to jump in and voice their concerns. But no one reacts. Everyone knows their own weaknesses and have nothing to add or to respond to what Pam just said.
“Don, do you have something to add?” Pam asks as she turns to him. “Is this what you intended to get out of this meeting?” she asks.
“I guess I would have used different terms, but yes, you absolutely nailed what I had in mind,” Don answers.
“Let’s get to work then. Brainstorming session is now in progress. We are not leaving this room until we all agree on what to do next,” Pam says.
Meanwhile, in another area of the base, far from knowing what is currently happening in the command and control room, Gabe, Dave, and Sonia enjoy some free time. The atmosphere is a lot lighter than the one currently surrounding their parents.
The little group has found a spot for everyone. A spot that everyone is happy to be in.
Indeed, after Dave and Gabe’s conversation about Sonia and her feelings, Gabe started to give Dave more responsibilities. He wanted his friend to look good in front of the woman he loves. Gabe gave Dave many opportunities to shine. Unfortunately, the boys’ little strategy did not produce the expected effect on Sonia and on her feelings toward Gabe. She was still seeing him as a potential boyfriend.
But everything eventually changed for the better after an event that could have ended dramatically.
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