Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire

by Joel Shepherd

  “Men too,” Mustafa agreed. “And who can reproach them, if that’s how they wish to live?”

  Sandy nodded. “Vanessa gets upset about it, she’s more activist. The old word was feminist. But I don’t really care. I suppose that comes from being an outsider; I just never really minded if other people’s ideas didn’t agree with me. But Vanessa was born here. She doesn’t always have that luxury.”

  “I feel we could be at one of those turning points in history now,” said Mustafa. “Regarding GIs. The anti-GI forces in the Federation were always right about one thing—artificial humanity does have the potential to change the entire course of humanity. Whether that course is changed for the better or the worse, whether we ride on the upside of the wave you described, or the downside, depends largely now on events in New Torah.”

  “Yes,” Sandy agreed, with relief. It felt good to finally be in the company of someone who really understood. “GIs are like any group of humans. We have strong points and weak points. So long as our development is contained within a balanced environment, we’ll have that balance of good and bad in us. But there’s no balance in New Torah. I’ve had nightmares about what I think GIs could become. Those nightmares got worse after Jane. And now they’ve got worse again after Pyeongwha. That was in straight humans, but it’s GI tech. I think Ari knows, though he hasn’t talked about much yet. He never likes to share his work until he’s finished and certain.”

  “I should tell you about Ari,” Mustafa said somberly. “I feel responsible in a way, for the two of you breaking up.” Sandy stared at him. “I gave him some information. Technical data, very advanced quality. It’s not my area of specialty so I only understood parts of it. But I thought Ari would appreciate it, and . . . well, as you saw, he became quite obsessive about it from that point on.”

  “Neural Cluster Technology?”

  Mustafa nodded. “Our scientists know the tech. They never followed that particular line of research as far as they might. They saw the dangers and stopped the experiments. Pyeongwha was the first large-population-scale experiment, if you will.”

  “With technology that rewrites people’s brains faster than they can rewrite the technology,” Sandy said sourly.

  “It works on GIs too, as you suspected. As Ari suspected. It was about that time that he felt he needed distance from you. That an entire planet’s fate may hang upon his objectivity.”

  Sandy sighed. “You didn’t break us up. It was always going to be something, with Ari. His actions are his own responsibility, as my actions are mine. But it’s good to know where that came from.”

  “Oh, he was already very interested. He talked with me about it a few times, and he already knew a lot. I steered him a bit further. The ISO has no interest in seeing NCT spread. There are those in the League too eager to revisit it themselves. The ISO disagreed.”

  “The faceless men behind the fate of worlds,” Sandy remarked.

  Mustafa shrugged. “Faceless and useful. What do you know about Compulsive Narrative Syndrome?”

  Sandy frowned. “It’s basic human psychology. About four hundred years old, I think, it grew into a whole family of cognitive laws. One of the founding laws of modern artificial intelligence. What does that have to do with NCT?”

  “Neural Cluster Technology interacts with it in worrisome ways. Tell me what you know of the syndrome, so I know you’ll understand what I tell you next.”

  Sandy leaned her back against the column, yet there was no sensation of pressure. If she moved too much, too quickly, the VR would start to break down. The lowering sun half-lit Mustafa’s face in profile.

  “Compulsive Narrative Syndrome describes the brain’s use of pattern recognition to organise information inputs,” she said. A person who wondered what she was, studied psychology. That person, studying psychology, very quickly ran into Compulsive Narrative Syndrome. She’d read quite a lot about it. “A narrative is just another form of pattern. There’s too much information in the world for us to process all at once; we need to prioritise. So we learn to focus our attention on specific activities, and take in only information related to that activity, discarding all unrelated information.”

  “Why?”

  “So we don’t waste brain space processing irrelevant information. The first AIs used to process everything. They didn’t know what was important and what wasn’t. It was only when they learned to discard irrelevant information, by prioritising the important stuff, that they began to really speed up.”

  Mustafa nodded. “So it’s task oriented.”

  “Yes. Information not related to specific tasks is discarded, improving efficiency and focus. So to do that we have pattern recognition, identifying patterns that relate certain information as relevant to certain tasks. We do it all the time in everyday activities. If I’m making tea, the teapot, the cups, the water temperature are important. The colour of a chair across the room is not, so likely I won’t notice it. I’d be incredibly slow making a cup of tea if I was always getting distracted by things that had nothing to do with the task.

  “But the problem comes when people move into abstract concepts, politics, ideologies and religions. The human brain is trained to look for and identify patterns, but in abstract concepts, fixed and unarguable facts are hard to find. So the brain looks for narratives instead, stories that can tie together various ideas and facts in a way that seems to make sense, to make a pattern. And the human brain, always seeking a pattern as a basic cognitive function, will latch onto a narrative pattern compulsively, and use that pattern as a framework within which to store new information, like a tradesman honing his skill, or someone learning a new language. That’s why religions tell such great stories, the story makes a pattern within which everything makes sense. A synchronicity of apparent facts. Political ideologies, too. Humans are suckers for a great story because we can’t resist the logical pattern it contains.

  “When you’re learning a new skill, discarding irrelevant information and organising the relevant stuff within that framework is good. But in ideologies, it means any information that doesn’t fit the ideological narrative is literally discarded, and won’t be remembered . . . which is why you can argue facts with ideologues and they’ll just ignore you. They’re not just being stubborn, their brains are literally structurally incapable of processing what they perceive as pattern-anomalous data. That’s why some ideologues get so upset when you offer facts that don’t match their pattern, it’s like you’re assaulting them. So what Compulsive Narrative Syndrome really says is that being a one-eyed partisan isn’t just a matter of taste or values, it’s actually a cognitive, neurological condition that we all suffer from to some degree. And it explains why some people’s ideologies can change, because sometimes a new pattern is identified that overrides the old one. And it explains why the most intelligent people are often the most partisan and least objective, because pattern recognition is a function of higher intelligence. If you want an objective opinion, ask a stupid person.”

  “And a lot of people still don’t like Compulsive Narrative Syndrome for exactly that reason,” Mustafa agreed. “They don’t like the idea that all human intelligence is only possible because of bias, and that there’s no such thing as an objective opinion. They like to think that intelligence and accuracy are synonymous, when it’s more correct to say that intelligence and complexity are synonymous. But complexity is no guarantee of accuracy, and is sometimes the death of it.”

  “But some biases are good,” Sandy countered. “I’m quite happy to be biased toward individual freedom and dignity. If CNS didn’t exist, people wouldn’t have the good biases or the bad ones, and that would be even worse than the problems CNS creates. Ideological narratives are the only reason morality exists in society.”

  “That’s what Dr Lo Shao-ho argued in his counter theories,” Mustafa conceded. “I love his work.”

  “But CNS is far more than a theory now. Questioning it is a bit like questioning evolution—it’s been
pretty comprehensively proven.”

  “And some religious types on Callay still don’t like evolution, either. But here’s the thing. New Torah is reactivating study on Neural Cluster Technology, for GIs in particular. NCT is good for military uplink tech. It carries a far higher data baseload than current uplinks can.”

  “I know,” Sandy said somberly. “On both counts.”

  “Ever wonder what it does to the Compulsive Narrative Syndrome process?”

  “Yes,” said Sandy. “Some friends had some ideas.” Ari and Anita in particular. “NCT is almost like telepathy. Technological telepathy. Even emotions are shared, though at a lower level. Ari said there were multiple mechanisms at play on Pyeongwha, partly that the brain’s natural rewiring processes were accelerated over several generations by NCT, and partly that there’s just a natural synchronicity that develops between closely linked brains. It begins to erode individuality after a while, and thus the society’s value of individuality, leading eventually to the creation of hostility toward anyone displaying overt individuality.

  “But he also said there was a pattern recognition thing going on. Did you know that Pyeongwha’s internal security services were actually stretched before we hit them? It probably made our job easier; they were distracted.”

  “Why?” asked Mustafa.

  “The last decade saw the eruption of a number of extremist movements. Radical right wingers, radical left wingers, religious radicals, you name it. They had bombings, shootings, they had a mass suicide out in Abanda where nearly a thousand people poisoned themselves because of some religious prophecy that one of Pyeongwha’s moons would crash into the planet. Three hundred children among them.”

  “Children aren’t linked to NCT until at least ten,” Mustafa said somberly, no doubt guessing the answer to his unasked question.

  “Their parents killed them,” said Sandy. “And this is the most conformist society you’ve ever seen, everyone loves the administration and pledges undying loyalty to their world and its values. So why the radical breakaways, in many cases attacking that world and its institutions and people?”

  “You think it’s narrative pattern recognition?”

  “Ari does. NCT alters the brain’s information environment. Data processing is radically increased, most of it in socialisation. Humans are group animals, evolution programmed us for group behaviour, so that accentuates the conformity instinct even more. There’s so much more data to find patterns in, Ari’s studied some of the data secretly compiled by psychologists who weren’t affected and were watching what was going on. He says Compulsive Narrative Syndrome was just taking off in some social segments. People’s brains were becoming hyper-analytical and hyper-focused, memory retention was both increasing and decreasing, on pattern-matching and pattern-anomalous data respectively.”

  “Yes,” Mustafa said somberly. “That matches our hypothetical research exactly. They were being turned into drones.”

  “Except where a few individuals would suddenly identify a pattern that the mainstream society never tried to force upon them,” Sandy continued. “A conspiracy theory, a new permutation of a pre-existing value structure, usually a persecution complex of some sort. Zodiac signs were big on Pyeongwha—it’s a cultural thing. No one really took it seriously in a scientific sense, and of course all the star constellations look completely different on Pyeongwha, like they do on every planet. But in one instance, there was a pocket of people based around several cultural centers—sports clubs, a university, a youth center—who somehow identified a pattern from random data that convinced them that Gemini were conspiring against Pisces, first in some sport results, then in placement for some volunteer jobs, then in criminal activity and accidental injuries. It escalated into fist fights, then into a gun battle. One psychologist’s report for the police described prison cells filled with about fifteen to twenty individuals who were absolutely adamant that members of this other zodiac sign were trying to kill them for no other reason than their date of birth, because they had selectively latched onto that information that ‘proved’ it, while ignoring all non-compatible data. And that whole incident started several copycats, narrative pattern recognition spreads like ripples with NCT, it’s absolutely frightening.”

  “Astonishing,” Mustafa murmured. He seemed astonished. And grim. Mustafa rarely let his emotions show so clearly.

  “Not that astonishing,” said Sandy. “There are people here who still insist I’m a League government plant after all these years. And that the League actually won the war and that all this talk of Federation victory is just an elaborate conspiracy to fool people and hide what really happened.”

  Mustafa nodded. “Conspiracy theories are an obvious manifestation of CNS. The individual buys into the narrative structure of deceptive governments because it allows the individual an illusion of control over uncontrollable events, allowing him to ‘take back’ and control the narrative from an evil government which in reality has no more control over the events in question than he does. It’s an empowerment narrative, feeding off the subconscious fear of disempowerment, which is very common amongst regular humans. It’s an exact fit with textbook CNS because any evidence contrary to the conspiracy theory will be interpreted by the subject as just another part of the conspiracy, which thus becomes an unfalsifiable law, impossible to disprove no matter how stupid. It’s perfect.”

  Sandy thought of some of Ari’s more wild conspiracy theories, and restrained a smile. He wasn’t as self-assured as she was, certainly, but she’d forgiven him for it. It was all that Freudian stuff again, that regular humans did that she didn’t.

  “Our psychs have been looking at Eduardo,” said Sandy. “The killswitch that killed him looks like it was triggered by the structural realignment of his thought processes away from what his creators intended. He didn’t have NCT, though. I think that’s the next step. New Torah corporations are only interested in GIs as weapons. NCT will improve their soldiering effectiveness, no doubt, but it could also create new forms of mind control. I’m not going to sit and wait for it to happen.”

  “Me neither,” said Mustafa. “And my superiors continue to feel the same as they did before. New Torah needs to be stopped. But we need more high-designation GIs for the job. Are you still in?”

  Sandy nodded immediately. “Yes.”

  “Even if it means defying Ibrahim?”

  “Yes.”

  Ibrahim sipped coffee and watched the sun rise from the Director’s office atop the primary building of the FSA compound. The skyline looked different from here, visible across only half of the sky, as Montoya District was on the present day perimeter of Tanusha, along with most of the new, Federal institutions. The CSA compound had been south-central, with towers on all sides.

  Uplinks and his desk screen showed him the switchover nearly complete. It was a huge task, recalibrating the entire Federal Security Agency network to an emergency, alternate mode. For the few minutes while it was happening, nothing worked, communications were down, passcodes deactivated. And when it came back up again, everything would be new, and all the old codes and passes would need to be reissued. Right now, that was the least of his worries.

  Tselide came in from the neighbouring room. “Done,” said the FSA’s network chief. “All done, it looks good.”

  Ibrahim nodded, sipping coffee. “Do you think she can break back in?”

  Tselide shrugged. “Technically I don’t think there’s much she can’t break into, not even this network. But there’s no way to do it quietly. She’ll give away her location, her status, everything. Normally that would be no advantage to us because we’d already know where she is—shooting her way into the complex, as she’s designed.”

  Tselide’s expression was anxious. Ibrahim shook his head in reply to the unasked question. “No, we’re a long way from that, here.”

  “Director, Commander Kresnov isn’t the only one with network access we have to worry about. And I don’t just mean the other GIs. I
’m a lot more worried about Agent Ruben and Commander Rice, to name just two.”

  “I know,” said Ibrahim. “We’re dealing with that.”

  “They’re being arrested?”

  “Only if they leave me no choice.”

  “The phrase isn’t arrest, it’s ‘watch and contain.’”

  “Arrest is too public,” said Vanessa, fully armoured, in the command seat of her flyer. “Sandy’s a public figure, Callay’s security is undermined by the scandal if she’s arrested. She’s the hair-trigger on a whole bunch of political landmines Ibrahim can’t afford to trip.”

  Not the least of which was that she was the single most useful asset either the CSA or the FSA possessed. Behind her, SWAT One were watchful. The atmosphere was tense in a way Vanessa had only rarely seen before.

  “Ricey, tell me we’re not going after Sandy?” Captain Arvid Singh sounded very worried.

  “Only Ibrahim can tell you that,” Vanessa replied. “Right now, it’s a standoff. Ibrahim and Chandi have reconfigured the entire FSA and CSA networks, even I’m locked out right now. We’ve got independent tacnet, but all the encryptions are different. I can’t access anything off the main construct.”

  “Yeah, well he doesn’t trust you, does he?”

  Vanessa exhaled shortly, thankful the main network changes would also render this tacnet communication entirely silent. “I think there’s a lot of people he can’t trust right now. Han, Weller, Khan and Ogun didn’t show up to work today, for one thing.”

  “Well you could expect that with the GIs. What about Rhian?”

  “Rhian’s here. She’s on standby with SWAT Six.” She was a section leader in SWAT Six, technically second-in-command. “So I guess SWAT Six is out of the question, too.”