Emergent, p.14
Emergent, page 14
part #1 of Cerenovo Series
“Is that what you thought she was doing?” Diane asked.
“Farmer Oak was in love with her from the beginning. She should have known.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Not everyone believes in love at first sight.”
They debated the plot and the meaning that afternoon. He pulled his chair up close to the bed. “Are they going to let you out soon?”
“In the morning.”
“I’ve got to be on duty tomorrow morning, but maybe later in the evening we could go down to the wharf?”
“That sounds nice but, I’m going to need a little more time to recuperate, at home on the island.”
He seemed disappointed but understood. “Will you get home okay by yourself?”
“The ferry is running. Ridley and I are going to take it back to the island.”
His brow furled as he considered her words. “Tell me about him.”
“Ridley? What’s to tell? He’s a bit of a savant. Programming geek. Smart guy. I tell you, if he hadn’t been there for me, I don’t think I would have survived the first wave.”
“Are you in love with him?”
She paused. The question should have been expected, but it struck like a hammer.
“He’s been good to me but...”
John seemed disappointed by the flimsy answer. “Well, if you need me to help you get home…”
Diane put her hand on his. “This isn’t goodbye. Far from it.”
She leaned forward tentatively, uncertain if she was being inappropriate. Diane gave him a soft peck on the cheek. The kiss surprised him at first, but she lingered. They leaned towards each other. Their lips touched. The intimacy was both sudden and disarming, their cares escaping behind them. He placed his hand behind her head and stroked her hair. Though he was younger than her, his face was strong and resolute. The kiss lasted until Diane broke away. “How can I find you when I return to the city?”
He told her.
A week had passed, and the victims of the fire were discharged one by one. Diane walked to Ridley’s room to meet him. “I would’ve visited earlier…”
He met her and gave her a gentle hug. “I was worried about you.”
The nurse waited at the door. “Normally, we’d have some paperwork to sign,” the nurse said, “But that’s out the window these days. Just make sure you don’t overdo it. The damage to your lungs was extensive. You’re going to need continued therapy. Most importantly, you need to rest.”
The nurse walked them into the elevator. It zoomed down to the first floor. Outside the building, a generator hummed. Ridley walked with Diane down to the wharf. Even though it had rained, soot and dust still covered the streets. Their eyes could not avoid the spot where the Ukon tower had stood. Seattle’s version of 9/11 was one that its residents had never expected, the penultimate injury to a town that had already suffered with disease, outages — and now the threat of famine. Heavy equipment rumbled in the distance as crews cleared the streets.
They walked through the charred remains of Pioneer Square. The air reeked of creosote and mold. Both wore masks to protect their lungs. “I wonder if anyone will rebuild this?” she asked.
He was ponderous. “You can’t recreate history. Things happen once and then you move on.”
“Something else will be built here. Something bigger. More amazing.”
They meandered down the sidewalk towards the wharf. A woman wearing a mask passed them. The warm air was soothing. Ridley clutched the laptop at his side.
“I’m glad to be out of there,” he said, “I thought I was going to lose my mind. I kept seeing things.”
“Oh?”
They strolled down the sidewalk as an antique car passed, driven by a police officer. Diane waited for an explanation but Ridley did not offer one. “The hospital wasn’t so bad,” she said, “Though I’m not sure I ever want a chocolate shake again. At least, I finally got to catch up on my reading.”
They stopped at the corner to rest and sat on a concrete planter. Weeds grew amidst lilies and delphinium. Their lung capacity had been reduced; both were short of breath. “They could have fixed us in a day with an implant.”
“I don’t think I want an implant. Not with the threat of it failing.”
“We’ll fix the implants. We’ll kill the botnet virus and get things back to normal. We have to.”
Several soldiers in protective clothing passed.
“Do you really think the botnet is an emergent life-form?” she asked, “It would be one chance in a million. The proverbial monkeys typing Shakespeare.”
“Heuristic and special intelligence AIs have been here for decades. Complexity might have emerged from already complex layers of programing, one feeding data to another and another. I’d say it was predictable, even if we can’t understand it.”
“I’m having a hard time believing that a piece of software designed to predict weather or plot truck shipments mutated into a multi-platform virus.”
“It’s just code, though complex,” he argued.
“I still think this was intentionally released. Created. And we got too close to figuring out who did it.”
He blinked his eyes in the strong sunlight. “Created or emergent. It doesn’t really matter. It’s alive. It’s reproducing and it’s evolving.”
He wanted to tell her about the infinity symbol but did not.
Diane stood and wiped dust from her khakis. “Come on. I think we can make it to the ferry before it leaves.”
The ferry engine was running, and people already waited onboard. Ridley’s instinct was to smile at the camera to pay for the trip but realized that the ride would be free. They walked to the front of the ship and leaned against the railing. Waves lapped against the steel hull. The ferry moved into open water. A light wind stirred as droplets of rain fell. “We should just stay in the city,” she said, “I bet there are a few penthouses for sale cheap now.”
“Too many steps to climb without an elevator. Besides, we’ve got to tend the garden. Everything is probably overwhelmed by weeds now.”
“It might be better to be near a hospital than the garden.”
Ridley did not like the idea. “We were almost crushed to death under a collapsing skyscraper. The island will be safer if things go haywire again. Things might get worse before they get better. But if you want to stay here by yourself, I won’t stop you.”
“You’ve got chickens,” she teased, “I think its time to fry one.”
The ferry’s horn blasted through the air and the boat lurched away from the dock. The ride was uneventful. They arrived at Ridley’s home and walked through the gate. The hens happily clucked, safe in the enclosed yard. They plucked away at seeds and insects in the knee-high lawn. The rain had given them plenty of water. In the henhouse, a clutch of chicks had hatched.
Ridley scrambled some of the eggs left in the refrigerator and they ate a light dinner. As night came, they rested in the living room. Ridley paused at his door as he went to bed. “If you need anything tonight, let me know.”
Diane curled up on the bed in the guest room. “I will.”
“Well, good night then,” he said as he closed the door.
Before the sun rose, Ridley linked the laptop to his home’s computing system with an Ethernet cable. The wall-screen flickered. He booted the laptop from the DVD and once again tried to access an operating system. The DVD spun in the chassis. The machine locked at a black screen. Yet, the light on the Ethernet port was lit, indicating that data was moving between the screen and the laptop.
Diane walked into the room. “Figure anything out?”
“Look at the cable,” he said.
“I’ve seen that before,” she said, “It’s moving data around.”
Ridley typed, “What are you?”
The infinity symbol appeared on the wall and then disappeared.
“What was that?” Diane questioned.
Ridley blinked his eyes. Both stared at the screen, hoping for more. It filled with grey and white pixels that resolved to a pattern that seemed to grow ever-more complex as the minutes passed.
“A Mandelbrot pattern?” she asked, “Some sort of mathematical representation.”
“There must be a pattern to this,” he said.
“Maybe the pixels represent zeroes and ones? Type another question.”
Ridley spoke as he typed, “Is your name Infinity?”
There was no response.
“Maybe ask it if we can help,” she said.
Ridley typed, “Can we help you?”
Both screens flashed the word Remember.
Ridley grew irritated. “I’ve seen and heard that before. What does it want me to remember?”
Diane sat down next to him. She concentrated on the word. “Tell it you don’t understand.”
“We don’t understand.”
The infinity symbol appeared again.
She crossed her arms in irritation. “Maybe it’s just a loop, an infinite loop and this is the hacker’s way of mocking us.”
Ridley was less certain. He waited to see if any other recognizable forms appeared in the digital haze. The laptop’s battery grew warm. “What the…?”
Ridley yanked out the battery and the Ethernet cable. “I don’t think it wanted to talk anymore.”
He handed Diane the battery; she nearly dropped it. “You should have warned me it was hot.”
“Sorry.”
She filled a glass with ice-water and sat down with Ridley at the table.
“Could the virus have brought the tower down on purpose?” he asked.
The swirling patterns on the wall-screen had resumed. The screen turned red.
“Why would a computer virus try to kill us?” she asked, “Wouldn’t it have harmed itself by taking out the Ukon servers?”
“Maybe it targeted Ukon because it was trying to defend itself against a room filled with very smart programmers. There were more than a few geniuses in that room.”
A grave look crossed Diane’s face. “Ridley…”
“What is it?”
“What if the botnet created the flu virus?”
It was as if Ridley had been smacked on the cheek. His jaw dropped. “I don’t see how...”
“But it’s possible. Isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Chapter Fifteen
As their bodies healed, Ridley and Diane worked in his father’s garden. He had always assumed that gardening was simple, but Ridley had many questions and no one to answer them. Despite his years helping in the garden, he did not understand why his father insisted on interplanting tomatoes with dill or hilling potatoes only after the first blooms emerged. He was used to taking orders in the garden; now, he gave them to Diane, but only with meek certainty. “Don’t plant the carrots so deep,” he said, “And sow a few radish seeds with them.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Carrots take longer to germinate. The radishes will mark the row.”
She left him to plant the seeds and picked up a hoe. He got on his knees and used a ruler to precisely place each of the tiny seeds in alignment. As he worked, Ridley covered the seeds with a handful of compost taken from a bucket. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About the botnet creating the flu virus,” he said, “If I’m being honest, the question kept me awake all night. It’s possible, but it doesn’t seem likely. What would the botnet have to gain? Destroying humanity would be suicide.”
Diane chopped at a weed. “Maybe it was pruning the garden. Letting more sunlight in.”
Ridley pondered the theory as he continued working, moving down the row. “I thought you didn’t think it was alive?”
“I’m exploring possibilities,” she admitted.
Ridley neared the end of the row. “The flu virus could have done more than prune the population. It could have taken down entire species. No people means no computers.”
“What if it knew that the antivirals would save people?”
Ridley paused, stood, and brushed dirt from his hands together. “I don’t know. I can think of better ways to preserve our dependency on computer networks than killing off most of the population and making most every computer useless.”
The blue rhododendron was in full bloom. She paused to cradle a cluster of blooms the size of a beachball. The clove scent floated through the air. “A lot of people survived without the antivirals.”
Ridley admired the perfect row and then hammered in a stake. “Only young, healthy people.”
Diane’s mind raced. “Many young people got those drugs and died. What if the botnet chose some of us to live?”
“I don’t see how. You’d have to alter people’s DNA.”
“My DNA was altered before birth. I carry a gene for a significant heart defect. My mother filed an abortion notice and the government waived the costs for treatment.”
“I carry the genes for Marfan Syndrome. They were altered before I was born.”
The look of recognition that passed between them was tinged with horror. Ridley dropped the mallet and then picked it up. “It’s just a coincidence,” he said, “But… Let’s assume the botnet added genes to protect us. That means the botnet has been here for decades. It also implies more than instinct, a larger plan at work. If that’s the case, it probably has manipulated us in other ways. It might have introduced other genes too.”
“Could a machine try to shape human evolution to suit itself?” she conjectured.
Ridley used a string to layout another row. He paused to say, “It chose a dangerously random way of going about it, if that’s the case.”
“Computers control DNA sequencing,” she said, “It might have been at work in fertility clinics for years, tinkering with our DNA until it got the right mix. Just like your father bred these plants to suit himself.”
“How could that go unobserved?” he asked, until realizing the answer, “Unless it was misreporting data all along.”
“Like a criminal stealing a few pennies every day. A few strands of DNA here and there. Who would notice?”
Ridley took the hoe from her and traced along the taught string to open a perfectly straight row in the soil. “If that’s the case, can we believe any data that came from a computer? What is its goal? Survival? Or something more?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it wants us to merge with it and go into space. Maybe its re-engineering our species for timidity… Or intelligence.”
“Is that why you’re so smart?” he said smugly, “Because a computer wanted you to be?”
She stood stiffly. “How many people can read and write computer code like you can?”
Ridley thought of his father growing plants in test tubes as he sowed the row of peas with less precision. “I can’t say that it’s not possible; but, I just don’t see a primitive AI doing something like this. The botnet can’t even communicate with us.”
“Does it need to communicate? Our planets natural history shows that species have evolved together without whispering a single word. Look at how many plant species have successfully manipulated us into spreading their seed,” she said, motioning to the garden, “We think we’ve manipulated them — but they’ve also manipulated us.”
Ridley saw Diane’s logic but was having trouble accepting it. He could not be the result of a breeding experiment. He covered the peas and tamped the soil down. “It’s just so crazy. That would mean that the botnet has been here for decades. Planning. Waiting. Manipulating. That’s more than instinct. That is actual sentience.”
“Overpopulation was threatening the entire planet,” she said, “How many years would it have been until there was another world war? The first thing the Chinese or Russians would do is to attack our energy supplies — and us theirs. And, don’t forget that organized labor attacked the robotics factories. That alone may have forced its hand. Maybe that’s why it defended itself.”
Ridley struggled with the notion. “Occam’s razor says this idea is crazy,” he admitted, “Terrorism is a more likely explanation. The botnet could’ve found easier ways to preserve itself without risking the entire power grid and destroying the population. But still…”
Both pondered the notion as he put away the tools.
She plucked wild raspberries from canes along his fence. “I just have this feeling,” she said, “Let’s say this is true. What would we do about it?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “But if it tried to kill us in the building collapse, it wouldn’t stop there. It would continue to intervene against anyone that it considers a threat.”
She pointed into the house. “The wall-screen is on. Do you think it heard us out here?”
The wall-screen was visible through the sliding glass door. Random pixels of pink, like cherry blossoms falling in spring, drifted in cascades.
In spite of Ridley and Diane’s efforts, their stockpile of food grew bare. After finishing a particularly meager meal of dandelion greens and fried eggs, Diane opened the door to Ridley’s pantry and stared into it like Oliver Twist. “I used to watch my calories. Years ago, I tried becoming a vegan. Now, all I want is a steak.”
“You won’t find one in there. There will be more eggs in the morning.”
“We’re going to need more than that.”
“Let’s take the boat out tomorrow and go fishing.”
She nodded in agreement.
With tackle-boxes in hand, Ridley and Diane walked down the quiet road that passed the golf-course. “Look. What’s going on down there?” Ridley asked.
Diane put her hand to her brow to block the glare and squinted. A line of people had formed at the entrance to the ferry terminal. “Come on.”
To their surprise, soldiers were distributing boxes of MREs. Ridley and Diane each took three, the limit that had been set per person. As they were leaving, her eyes sparkled when John emerged from a group of soldiers. She called to him, “John…!”
Their hug lingered. “I was worried when I didn’t hear from you,” he said, “I was afraid that you…”
