52
Limpopo
South Africa
CHRISTIAN DRESNER SHIFTED in his chair and the image before him immediately became translucent, showing the details of the room beyond. It was the second version of MIT’s movie app and the safety features had been improved to the point that it was nearly ready for release.
He settled in again and the image darkened, transporting him to the Afghan village of Sarabat just as it was attacked. Women fought desperately, children screamed in terror, livestock bolted. And the men did nothing.
It took barely fifteen minutes to turn a village full of people going about the mundane business of life into a battlefield strewn with bleeding corpses and cheering victors. He’d always thought the study of the past was a bizarre avocation. What use were dates and names and details when a short video like this one could encompass the entirety of human history so completely?
Of course, this scene was set apart somewhat by the Merge prototypes worn by Sarabat’s adult males. Convincing them to use the bulky units had been almost as difficult as developing them, but eventually the villagers had been won over by money, weapons, and the obvious combat benefits of the system. Of course, when the attack came, the software they’d become accustomed to had been shut down in favor of something much more interesting.
Despite its incredible sophistication, though, the application had been the same abject failure in the real world as in the lab. Test subjects derived no happiness or pleasure from the inputs—only confusion and a profound loss of identity.
Above all things, the human brain was an exercise in pointless complexity. It had been modified countless times over millions of years, adding a new function or hijacking an old one for a new purpose in reaction to the constantly changing demands of survival. Now it generated an endless maze of carefully crafted delusions, barely resolved dissonance, and outright lies. A maze that he had failed over and over again to negotiate.
If religiosity was taken away, a profound sense of loneliness was generated—along with an inexplicable degradation in the test subject’s ability to count above the number three. If the propensity toward violence was taken away, empathy was paradoxically compromised. But even those were trivial matters compared with the much more individual concepts of happiness and well-being. For every person who derived contentment from love and peace, another derived it from hate and conflict.
And though he had failed miserably to realize his dream, he had started something that would be taken up by the next generation, building momentum that could never be stopped. It would begin slowly and innocuously, probably with the Merge being used to treat serious mental illnesses like depression and schizophrenia. Or maybe by replacing the illicit narcotics trade with much less harmful lines of code that generated the same effect. These first steps would be necessarily crude, but they’d lead inexorably to a day when humanity would be free to take the path of reason, enlightenment, and peace.
Dresner shut down the Afghan video and brought up a set of graphs depicting Merge adoption. Ninety thousand new units were being sold every day and, because of his targeted marketing strategies, a large percentage of those sales were to people LayerCake deemed dangerous to society.
He refocused on a small icon in his peripheral vision. The gray-and-black human outline appeared only on his unit and had been inspired by the images of civilians vaporized in Hiroshima. A reminder of the seriousness of his undertaking.
It accessed a simple subsystem that he’d built into every unit disguised as battery management hardware and unused upgrade paths. The Merge didn’t have enough power to directly harm anyone, even if fully discharged over a short period of time. What it could do, though, was create a feedback loop in the area of the brain that controlled heart function. He’d learned early in development that if he mimicked the signal the heart sent to the brain to indicate that it was beating, the brain would stop sending the commands for it to continue doing so. With less power than it took to run a simple gaming app, the user’s heart would simply stop.
A phone icon began to pulse at the edge of his vision and Dresner’s brow furrowed. It was a private number only a select few had and unscheduled calls never came in on it. Perhaps it was Craig Bailer’s wife taking him up on his offer to help?
He activated it but discovered that it wasn’t a grieving widow looking for closure. It was the director of the North Korean facility.
“Hello?” he said hesitantly.
“Dr. Dresner. This is Dr. Nang. We are dismantling the facility per your instructions. Do you have concerns?”
“Should I? Why are you calling me about this?”
“Dr. Eichmann and his two assistants are due to arrive in a few hours for their review of our progress. We never talked about that kind of oversight and I can assure you that it isn’t necessary. We’re attending to this in the same way we’ve attended to all your requests over the years.”
Dresner felt his breath catch in his chest. Two assistants?
“Do you want me to give them access to Division D? In the past, Dr. Eichmann—”
“No!” Dresner said immediately, trying to work through what he was hearing. The only plausible explanation was that Smith and Russell had discovered the connection between himself and Eichmann and had somehow coerced the man into talking. How much did they know? What had they discovered?
He took a deep breath that shook audibly as it escaped from his lungs. He needed to calm down and think. Eichmann knew about the long-term studies and about Afghanistan, but little more. It was likely the limits of his knowledge about the North Korean facility that had prompted the two Americans to investigate further. But why just the two of them? Were the other intelligence agencies working through other channels? No. He’d have heard if they were. Was it possible that they were acting on their own?
“I’ll call you with further instructions,” Dresner said, severing the connection and immediately dialing James Whitfield. For the first time, there was no answer.
He dialed again, anger quickly turning to fury. Whitfield always picked up by the second ring. The only explanation was that he was avoiding the call, unwilling to admit to another failure. The graphs still hovered in front of him. Only three and a quarter million people were online—a fraction of what he had planned. Projections suggested nearly full adoption by the malignant elements in the political, financial, and military complex within two years. In order to change the world on the fundamental level necessary to allow it to survive, he needed time. The blow he was going to strike against those people had to be fatal.
He dialed again and this time Whitfield answered.
“Yes.”
“Gerd Eichmann is on his way to the Korean facility with what he says are two assistants.”
“Why is this important to me?”
“Because I authorized none of this. Could these two assistants be Smith and Russell? Is it possible that they’re still alive?”
There was a long pause before Whitfield answered. “I sent three Merge-equipped special ops people—an overwhelming force. We’re not sure what happened yet, but it appears that Smith managed to get hold of one of the men’s units and use it against them.”
Dresner wiped at the sweat starting on his upper lip while he considered what he was being told. Smith had root access to the combat simulation software. Could he have used that?
“It was my understanding that it was impossible to use someone else’s unit,” Whitfield continued.
For all intents and purposes, it was. The suffering Smith must have endured and the will it would have taken to manipulate the icons were almost unimaginable. Yet another confirmation of just how dangerous the man was.
“Why wasn’t I told they survived?”
“Because I’m taking care of it.”
“All evidence to the contrary, Major.”
“By the end of the day, this will all be a non-issue. You have my word.”
“Your personal guarantees are less reassuring than they once were.”
“I’m warning you, Christian. Leave this alone. I’m taking care of it.”
“Then we’ll talk later today. And I expect full disclosure. If you can’t resolve this issue, I will protect myself. Make no mistake about that.”
Dresner severed the connection and shut down the graphs hanging in the air. Mocking him.
He could no long trust anything Whitfield said. The soldier had too many conflicting loyalties: his country, his comrades-in-arms, his outdated fantasy of battlefield honor. Of course, Dresner had always known their paths would diverge, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t happen this quickly. There was no choice now but to take control of the situation and deal with the backlash as best he could.
He dialed another private number, this one in Pyongyang. As usual, General Park let the phone ring endlessly—a display of his importance and the incalculable value of his time.
“Yes, Dresner. What is it?” finally came the accented voice.
“We need to move up the timetable for the sterilization of the facility.”
“Dismantling not finished. Still many scientists and equipment on the site.”
“Three people are on their way there. A German and two Americans. I want them captured.”
“I see. And if capture is impossible?”
It was a question he was prepared for, but not one he wanted to consider. He needed to know what Smith and Russell had discovered and who they had told. And then there was the entirely different matter of Gerd.
“If capture is impossible,” he said, reluctantly. “Then killed.”
“This will all be very expensive.”
It was always about money—the hard currency that kept North Korea’s elite inner circle in luxury and power while their people starved.
On the brighter side, the country’s entire hierarchy had adopted the Merge in a showy display of their technological sophistication. In fact, this call was being handled by Park’s personal unit.
“How much?”
“Fifty million.”
On top of all the other money he’d paid, it was an outrageous sum. But there was little point in arguing.
“Agreed.”
“Then I will take your request to our leader as soon as possible.”
“As soon as possible? For fifty million dollars, I expect this to be handled immediately.”
“He has a country to run. By comparison, your problems are unimportant.”
Dresner fought to swallow his anger. “I appreciate your considering my request.”
“Of course,” Park responded. “And now I have other matters to attend to.”
The line went dead and Dresner put his Merge in standby mode, looking around the empty room with no alterations or enhancements.
Would Park succeed in capturing them and wiping away all evidence of the facility? And even if he did, would it be enough? Dresner needed time to reach the tipping point—the critical level at which the people leading the planet to its destruction couldn’t be seamlessly replaced. But where exactly was that point? He’d calculated two years, but what if he couldn’t wait that long? What if his hand was forced? Would it be enough?