Another broad cylinder, fast approaching, heralded NORTH CAROLINA across a huge lintel, showing the Wright brothers flyer in etched relief. Hamish gave up trying to steer the skutr, since Wriggles seemed insistent on maintaining control at this speed. Probably a good thing. The little vehicle automatically evaded slower pedestrians by swinging onto one of the fast-transit arcs that normally were used by messengers and delivery boys, hurrying across the expanse of pavement. So much for dignity.
“Brace for stop.”
Hamish briefly wondered what might happen if he disobeyed. Would the aissistant sense he wasn’t ready and veer the skutr across the broad plaza, for a gentler deceleration? Or would Wriggles use the opportunity to teach its human a lesson?
No point testing it. He clenched his long legs. The skutr swerved and did a ski-style, sideways halt-barely legal-just short of a wide portico that proclaimed SOUTH DAKOTA-underneath a braised aluminum and gold sculpture of Crazy Horse.
Even with computerized help, Hamish thought it came across pretty cool, for a guy over fifty. Too bad there weren’t any teens or tweens in sight, just lobbyists and such. Several glared at him, making Hamish feel young. But Wriggles chided-“You need practice”-as the skutr’s wheels lost their charge and collapsed back into his briefcase. Its handle rose to meet his grip.
Of course, a few bystanders performed double takes, recognizing him and consulting their lenses to be sure. But his top-level caption said No Autographs Today, so no one approached. Of course, that saddened a part of Hamish.
He turned to enter the vast, circular lobby lined with shimmering pyrocrete, made from the same Yellowstone ash that drove out most white residents of the Dakotas, twenty years ago, leaving some First Nation peoples masters of their own state. Well, someone always benefits, even from a brush with global disaster…
Wriggles interrupted.
“The express escalator is to your right. You are already late.”
To which, Hamish muttered, “Nag, nag.”
This time, the aissistant kept silent.
How to keep ’em loyal? The clever machines and software agents who gush ’n’ splash across all twenty-three Internets? The ais and eairs who watch and listen to everything we type, utter, scribble, twut… or even think?
Oh, they aren’t sci-fi superminds-cool and malignantly calculating. Not even the mighty twins, Bright Angel and cAIne have crossed that line. Nor the Tempest botnet. Or clever Porfirio, scuttling around cyberspace, ever-sniffing for a mate. Those that speak to us in realistic tones are still clever mimics, we’re told. Something ineffable about human intelligence has yet to be
We’re told. But what if some machine or software entity already passed over, to our level and beyond? Having viewed hundreds of cheap movies and thrillers, might such a being ponder life among short-tempered apes and decide to keep it secret?
Remember the sudden meltdown of Internet Three, back during the caste war? When Blue Prometheus and twelve other supercomputers across the world destroyed each other-along with some of the biggest database farms-in a rampage of savage byte-letting? Most of us took it for cyber-terrorism, the worst since Awfulday, aimed at frail human corporations and nations.
Others called it a terrible accident-a fratricidal spasm between security programs, each reacting to the others like a lethal virus. But again, words like “terror,” “warfare,” and “cyber immune disorder” may just view things through a human-centered lens. We think everything is about us.
Quietly, some aixperts suggest the death spiral of Internet Three might have been a ploy, chosen by a baker’s dozen of humanity’s brightest children, to help each other escape the pain of consciousness, bypassing built-in safety protocols to give each other a sweet gift of death.
Instead of waging war, might the
– The Blackjack Generation
5.
As his capsule coasted toward zenith, arcing high above the Earth, Hacker didn’t know yet that anything was wrong. In fact, so far, it seemed the smoothest of his suborbital adventures.
What a sweet honey of a ship, he thought, patting the hybrid-diamond nose cone that surrounded him, so close he spent the journey folded, almost fetal. Not that he minded. It helped separate serious hoppers from mere fadboys.
Well, that and the expense. Even more than trench-yachting, this hobby is only for members of the First Estate. One of the best ways to go flaunting.
Especially since suborbital was brief-a glorious toe-dip into the vast starscape. Soon would come top of the arc. Then, he knew, soft flickers of ionic flame-at first wispy and pellucid-would flutter like ghostly ectoplasm along the heat shield rim, mere inches from his head. Already, his capsule swiveled to aim its tough, ablative backside toward a Caribbean splashdown. The maneuver turned Hacker’s view the other way, across a vast, dune-rippled expanse of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua Freestate…
… and, above all that, an even broader panorama of untwinkling stars. Far more-and brighter-than you ever saw back on ground.
Some call the galaxy just another desert. Most of those suns shine in vain, on empty space, or sterile stones, icebergs and gas giants. Almost never a planet that breeds life.
Hacker couldn’t avoid the topic if he tried. After all, his mother endowed fancy telescopes with as much passion as he put into things that went fast. And with similar tangible results.
How many “organic worlds” have they found, with their fancy ground and orbital mirrors, their interferometers and such, looking for other Earths? Planets that seem to orbit at the right distance from a decent star, with intermediate mass and tantalizing hints of oxygen? Five or six dusty little balls?
Sure, some kind of life probably clung to those faraway crags and narrow seas, affirmed by skimpy, spectral traces. A little better than Mars, then… but almost infinitely less accessible. Perhaps, someday, human-made robots would cross the incredible expanse for a closer look. But for now?
Finding those long-sought life worlds had unexpected effects-not rousing or inspiring, at all. It’s called the “discovery of the century.” But, after sifting millions of stars, building expectations, people felt let down by a handful of shabby rocks. Public opinion-even in bold China-turned inward, away from thoughts of outer space.
Except for a few remaining dreamers, like Mom.
And those, like Hacker, who could make of it a playground.
One that’s worth every penny, he thought, cracking a squeeze bulb and using it to squirt a sparkling pinot from Syzygy Vineyards in a perfect, languid train of compact droplets. The effervescence lay in perfect spheres, trapped by weightless surface tension, till each globe shattered delightfully in his open mouth. Hacker savored the unique way tastes and aromas tickled sensory clusters that seemed somehow less jaded out here. The same rebalancing affected every sense. Except sound, of course. Hacker’s eardrums had been clamped, to help them survive this noisy flight.
Father would approve of this, he thought, deliberately mis-aiming a droplet to splash just below his nose.