“You’ve heard me say many times, ‘This is how we used to live,’” Eldric’s hologram explained. “While it’s true, it is only part of the truth. Humankind has lived a far more advanced existence than what you see in Esh. And if you can believe it … we have also lived more primitively than this life here in the mountains.”
Rena glanced out a window between two bookcases, unable to imagine anything more primitive than living off what the forest could provide.
“Make yourself comfortable in my chair,” Eldric said, extending his hand. The tone of his voice sounded higher than before, and his silver hair had a clumpy texture to it, like he had just showered.
This section had apparently been recorded at a different time, shifting in response to her looking out the window. The paused hologram now flickered, waiting for her to do or say something. Rena walked around the desk and settled into the comfortable chair of pliable leather.
“Excellent. As I was saying …” The hologram shifted back to the other recording, her father’s hair resuming its soft, dry appearance. “I chose to make our home in this setting because I believed it represented our best chances for survival. That it would teach us the skills we had lost over centuries of so-called improvement. To understand my decision, you’ll need to know what drove me to it. So I shall start with what humanity looked like at the beginning of the twenty-first century.”
Rena pulled her knees up to her chest. As excited as she was at the prospect of learning Esh’s forgotten history, she looked forward most to spending time with her father, even in the form of a hologram.
“Imagine, if you will, that hundreds of kilometers away is another city like Esh, with its own population and way of life. And if you were to travel hundreds of kilometers in another direction, you’d find yet another city. Now imagine there are thousands of cities, each with its own sort of distinct personality. Taken as a group, these cities would share many similarities. They might agree on basic laws. Values. Ways of living life. There would also be disagreements, of course. Cities where one law or value was more dominant than in others, and the perspective of the citizens would be slanted in that direction accordingly. This grouping of cities is what we used to call a country.”
“Now picture another country. Thousands of kilometers away. With just as many internal variations, yet a personality of its own when viewed from the outside. This was how the world looked—seven billion people, separated by their differences. Culture, language, race, distance—these were the challenges that kept our interactions limited. What you know as the Collective began as something called the Internet—a global network of communication that changed everything, bringing humanity together in unprecedented ways. The economies of different countries became dependent upon one another. The barriers of language fell. Specializations in technology and information were shared around the world. Values and laws were compared and contrasted, sometimes with deadly results. There were growing pains, to be sure. Military conflicts. Violent social reaction movements. But there was also a greater opportunity for love to bridge the gap between our differences. In my opinion, the most significant thing to come out of that era was a new understanding of what it meant to be human.”
“We applied this understanding to advancements in software, finally overcoming the last hurdles to Artificial Intelligence. Once sentient programs became a reality, it opened up all manner of other possibilities. A breakthrough in one field led to a discovery in others, and so the cycle continued. It was an exciting time. We were using machines to explore distant planets for colonization or mining of resources. We conquered diseases. Life spans extended to a hundred and fifty years or more. It seemed that the future held unlimited possibilities. And then everything changed. Our proud civilization began to crumble. The Sickness, as it was called, began to spread. In reality, it wasn’t one disease but a series of viruses—genetic mutations triggered by the rapid convergence of cultures.”
Rena listened as her father explained, in greater detail, the events Evelyn had told her about. Though he seemed to understand it all intimately. The nature of The Sickness. How it affected different cities. The responses from countries that either slowed or hastened its spreading. It was worse than Evelyn described.
“All fields of technological research and development suddenly shifted to medical concerns. With humanity staring at its own demise, every moral, ethical, and legal restriction was lifted. Yet, despite having a common enemy, the full weight of human ingenuity was not brought to bear on the problem. Wars broke out. Some countries focused their efforts on protecting their populations, while others thought it most efficient to destroy neighboring countries before they could pose a threat.”
Rena cringed at the thought of so many horrible things taking place at once. In response, the recording shuddered and skipped to a different section. Eldric now had his arms crossed as he stared at the ground.
“I suppose it was a natural progression for us to think of a digital experience as a temporary solution. Human to human contact had become a death sentence, whether due to violence or disease. The Internet was the only safe method of interaction. My company was only a few years away from producing a vaccine, but all of us feared our world wouldn’t last that long. By the time we’d deliver a cure, there might not be anyone left to receive it. We had to find some way of stalling. Some way to slow down the deterioration. So I reopened my hardware and software development facilities worldwide and allocated over ninety percent of my personnel to the task of replicating our biological existence in digital form.”
Rena couldn’t help it when her eyebrows rose.
“This may seem like an impossible task,” said Eldric, his position jumping to the right as another recording took over. “But most of the technological pieces had already been developed in one form or another. They simply hadn’t been integrated with each other in the way we needed. Abandoned oil-drilling platforms were everywhere. We converted one to a state-of-the-art server farm with self-sufficient, redundant energy sources. Physically accurate virtual environments had been in use for years in a number of industries, so when Intellectual Property laws were abolished, we took the coding for our own purposes. The challenging part was the transfer of consciousness from biological to digital form. We had to synchronize neural mapping technology to an AI operating system, and then develop a method for the former to modify the latter in real time during the scanning process. From the early days of AI development, the goal had been to create autonomous systems that accomplished what humans couldn’t. So our attempt to replicate the limitations of human consciousness was actually a step backwards.”
He used so many foreign references that Rena could barely interpret the point of her father’s message.
The hologram shuddered again, and Eldric smiled. “I know this is confusing, and that’s precisely why we chose not to explain it to anyone. People fear what they don’t understand. If I had learned anything by that point, it was that we humans are as dangerous as we are marvelous. As disgusting as we are beautiful. So when this new digital existence was ready for its first inhabitants, my company began broadcasting the message that we had a cure. My employees set up vaccination centers in a handful of surviving cities and began treating people. Patients were brought into private rooms and hooked up to scanning equipment before being given a sedative. Once they entered a dreamlike state, their consciousness was transferred to a digital copy of itself while their infected bodies were disposed of. When they woke from their surgery,” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers, “it was to a team of medical professionals inside a helicopter as they were landing at a remote, island location. We escorted each patient from the landing site to an in-processing facility where we informed them that they’d been cured but quarantined from the general population for security reasons. Most of them didn’t care, as their quality of life had become so debased. They were eager to start new lives in this protected colony with food, shelter, and a job suited to their abilities.”
“Back in the physical world, it didn’t take long for the doubtful, non-participants to realize that the patients weren’t returning to prove they’d been cured. We published statements explaining that they’d been sent to a secure, remote location for their own safety. But riots broke out anyway, and my security teams were not equipped to maintain order on such a large scale. I issued a warning for all my employees to make their way to the nearest vaccination center for immediate transfer, but the centers were attacked and destroyed before any of them arrived. At the time, I lived on the server island with four of my senior engineers and my director of security. We were monitoring the incoming data transmissions from the scanning facilities … and there was nothing we could do to save our friends and coworkers. When the vaccine centers stopped transmitting, we watched news footage of what had happened. The people waiting to receive treatment were trampled by crowds of protesters. Rioters tore apart the equipment with their hands and anything they could find to use as tools. Then the buildings were set on fire.”
Rena tried to picture it, but the only event she had for comparison was an adoption rally she’d attended with Marshall and Clarine near the Center. It had been a peaceful march to raise awareness, and the most violent part about it had been a few arguments with wealthy highrates who didn’t appreciate the disruption in their area of the city.
“Weeks later, my engineers and I were still sifting through the data from our various facilities around the world, trying to determine if any employees were alive. We found some internal communications from our medical R&D lab in Switzerland that they had an actual vaccine and were ready to begin human trials, but they never got the chance to proceed. Rumors had spread about my company’s vaccination centers and how they were supposedly being used to cultivate biological weapons for other governments. We were even blamed for starting The Sickness in the first place. Some group of armed rebels drove their vehicles through the lobby doors and proceeded to execute everyone in the building. We’d found a cure, but we had lost the people responsible for developing and administering it.”
“It is difficult to describe the hopelessness my engineers and I felt at that point, but it slowly dawned on us that the digital existence we’d created had become not just a stalling tactic but a refuge against the extinction of the human species. If we attempted to go out into the world and administer the vaccine, there was a good chance we’d be killed in the process. There’d be no one left to bring humanity back from the refuge we’d created. So we decided to make the most of our predicament. We transferred ourselves using the equipment on the server island and got to work cultivating a new society. To motivate ourselves and our citizens, we all watched news reports from around the globe as the devastation continued. We emphasized the need to stay hidden so the violence wouldn’t destroy what we were trying to build. What the citizens didn’t know was that our island only existed in the physical world in the form of an abandoned oil-drilling platform, housing the world’s most sophisticated computer equipment.”
“Eventually, the physical world deteriorated to the point that its power grid failed and the Internet along with it. News coverage stopped altogether, and we lost contact with the outside world. We were citizens of a new humanity, and all of us accepted the idea that we were the only survivors. So we established laws. We planned the expansion of towns. We planted crops. We held wedding ceremonies and rejoiced at the birth of new citizens. We lived productive lives, while outside … our physical island was maintained and expanded by machines. They mined their own resources from the earth. Built and installed additional servers as we needed them. And they monitored the surrounding environment, prepared to defend the island in the event of an attack.”
o o o
The crackle of automatic gunfire came now from the hallway outside Terrell’s office. He’d given Lukas’s execution order, and it was time to escape. The director left his desk and walked through standing water to the door that led to his balcony retreat. When he turned the handle and pushed open the door, gun barrels greeted him instead of the dark, empty hallway he expected.
“DROP IT!” yelled the Outliers.
Terrell stumbled backward into his office, still holding the pistol he’d taken from his desk. The idea of trying to shoot his way out crossed his mind, but when three trained soldiers rushed into the light and spread out, he saw that he was outnumbered and outgunned. He let the pistol slip from his fingers to land with a splash on the floor. Then he put his hands up.
“ON YOUR KNEES! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!”
Terrell dropped to the ground, and before he could even get his hands in position, two of the men grabbed his wrists and wrenched his arms behind his back. Something slid across the fabric of his jacket sleeves before cinching his elbows toward each other. His shoulder muscles ruptured from the strain, but he limited his reaction to a silent grimace.
From the dark hallway, Ryce stepped into the light. His red hair was just as Terrell remembered it, though unkempt and flecked with gray. Now he had a beard to match. He wasn’t tall, but he was thick. And his girth wasn’t due to the insulated clothing he wore.
Terrell’s former protégé strolled across the office and stopped a meter away, looking down. “Checkmate.”
Terrell couldn’t help but smile. He’d taught Ryce how to play chess when he was young. The boy had come close to winning a few times, but victory over his mentor had always remained elusive. He’d been naturally inclined toward offensive strategies, only using defense when absolutely necessary. Setting traps was not his specialty, but it seemed he’d finally learned the art of deception.
“The camp to the east … well-played.”
Ryce squinted and shook his head. “Still desperate for intellectual companionship, I see.”
Terrell would have shrugged if his shoulders still worked. “I never withheld a compliment when it was due.”
“No, but you withheld plenty of other …” Ryce trailed off before smiling and shaking his finger. “Clever. Get me thinking about the past? Make yourself human instead of just the Director of OCON? Then what? I suppose I should tell you all the details of my carefully constructed plan out of some … unmet desire to make you proud?”
One of Ryce’s soldiers put a finger to his ear. “We’re inside. Where are you?” He listened to the response before stepping over to the main door and unlocking it.
Another team of soldiers came into the office, spreading out to allow a short, dark-skinned man to walk past them. He had shaggy, black hair and carried a backpack over one shoulder. Terrell couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he recognized his face immediately. He was the reclusive young founder of Interlink who’d gone missing years ago. The way he looked at Ryce made it clear that he hadn’t been kidnapped by the Outliers—he was a willing conspirator.
The man walked around behind Terrell and set his backpack on the floor with a heavy clank. Then he unzipped it and pulled out two coiled cables attached to something that Terrell couldn’t see over his shoulder. A series of beeping and humming sounds emanated from the backpack, and he felt a scratchy material being slipped over his right hand.
“Ah … you’re going to remove me from the system? Make me an Outlier? How poetic.”
Ryce still looked down on Terrell. He smirked but didn’t say anything.
The humming got louder, and Terrell felt a prickle of electricity crawl up his arm. When it dissipated, the short man reached into the backpack, unplugged something, then pulled out a glove with wires running down the length of each finger. He slipped it on his right hand as he stood and walked to Terrell’s desk. With a wave, he activated OCON’s communications system. The holographic map of Esh materialized in the air above the work surface, revealing the location of every operative and soldier under Terrell’s command. The man looked to Ryce and nodded.
A bolt of fear shot through Terrell’s chest. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. Please …”
“Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing,” Ryce replied. “I had to figure everything out on my own, of course. But once I realized OCON was the problem, not the solution, everything began to make sense.”
“If you really understood, you wouldn’t do this. You always had questions. Let me—”
“So now you want to explain yourself?” Ryce laughed, sliding a pistol out of the holster at his hip.
“Yes! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“The truth would have been a good place to start.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But it’s too late for that.”
The barrel came up, a black hole that couldn’t be escaped, centering itself between Terrell’s eyes.
“No! Wait! I’m a—”
o o o
Terrell’s head pitched backward, taking the rest of his limp body to the floor.
“An old man with too many secrets,” said Ryce, finishing the sentence.
The standing water began to cloud with the director’s blood.
“Here,” said Fijal, handing Ryce another glove.
Ryce holstered his sidearm, then took the glove and slipped it over his right hand. Terrell’s implant had been cloned, and now Ryce was free to access anything or go anywhere his former mentor could, which was probably anywhere he wanted. He turned to the recon team leader who had escorted Fijal into the room. “Let the operatives and assault teams get in close before you engage them. I want their attention focused on this building.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ryce turned to Fijal, who had just powered up the amplified COMM device that would allow him to communicate with recon teams throughout Esh. “Monitor their formations and feed the info to our teams on the ground. We have to keep our enemies packed in tight or the ambush won’t be effective.”
“Of course.”
“And let me know as soon as it’s done.”
Fijal inspected the city map, hundreds of green and blue spheres converging on Esh’s Center. “We shouldn’t need the rating system for very long, sir.”
Ryce nodded before turning to leave the way he’d come. His guards fell into step behind him, and the group ascended the staircase at the end of the hall and walked out onto the balcony. The climbing ropes they’d used to access the balcony still dangled from the roof, coiled on the ground inside the glass-paneled railing. They wouldn’t be needed anymore.
He peered up through the skylight at the Canopy far above, hoping his COMM device would span the distance. He pressed the transmit button. “Barrett. What’s your status?”
“In position, sir. Waiting on you.”
“Excellent. We’re on our way.”
Ryce led his soldiers to the back-left side of the balcony, where several rows of potted trees and shrubs obscured the Canopy’s support column. He wove through them, stopping at the back wall. When he laid his gloved hand on the smooth, white surface, a crack of light appeared in the form of a tall rectangle, defining a doorway. The door slid back and to the side, revealing the chromed interior of an elevator cabin.
Ryce stepped into the elevator, satisfied by the look of surprise on his guards’ faces. OCON’s death was imminent. The era of secrets was coming to an end. Soon, every citizen would be freed from the prison in which they lived. Only then would they be capable of understanding how the Founders’ system had been distorted into a tool for oppression.