Читать книгу The New Republic of Texas - E. Mandervellt - Страница 4

Carlisle was visibly shaken as he left the General's office and wholly unable to enjoy a parting glance at the gorgeous female security guard who had checked him in.

God. Dammit, he thought. How did they find out? Pseudonym, false style. I even went through, what? three proxies getting it to the Journal of Science.

The Science of Harmony was not so widely adopted in the U.S. as to become a state religion as it was in the PRC, but there were certainly enough believers to give Harmony a foothold. They were extremely vocal, pushy, and loud. Every single Harmonizer Carlisle had met was an annoying proselyte who integrated the language of the Teachings into nearly every bit of their conversational output. If those morons discovered his identity as the Receiver of the Seed of Wisdom, as they called it, he would become a target for both adulation from them and ceaseless vitriol from people like himself who hated them. Were his authorship declassified, he might even become a target of government, which feared the most radical of the Harmonizers who called for PRC-style policies on a near constant basis.

What really infuriated Carlisle was the fact that the Science of Harmony was a horrifying misuse of his original paper which was a pure thesis on cosmology. He'd even added a harsh disclaimer about the danger of applying the paper's conclusions to psychology. It seemed, though, that human avarice for control over others could never fully be sated. Within years of the initial publication, instead of the advancements in technology and astrophysics he had expected to enjoy, he witnessed people by the tens of thousands functionally abdicate their will and submit themselves to a sort of hive mind which acted in ways Carlisle found erratic and dangerous. Some twat in San Francisco with enough maths and physics under his belt to understand the basics, but apparently lacking in ethics and foresight, had warped the idea into total cult fodder whereupon Harmony's course was set. The religion spread like wildfire. The powerful and popular became deacons of the new church and called for the creation of a new state dedicated to their suicidal Synthesis of Unity, their term for basically tuning the brain waves of every living human to the same frequency to achieve a utopia where all men were controlled by and of the same mind. It was madness. Social Justice and Communism, both successful mind viruses that had infected the West Coast to near totality, were an ideal substrate for the bullshit soup of Harmony that PRC Comrades imbibed.

But fifteen years ago, Carlisle was a young Ph.D. with stars in his eyes, elated to have discovered or doomed to have received a cosmological model that was consistent and coherent, an alternative to the flailing string theory, M-theory, geometric unity and others. He knew it was dangerous, from the pain initially unleashed upon his mind, but the philosophical ramifications were important and he envisioned a number of physical problems where the theory could be useful. The incredible psychological pressures he'd experienced subsided when he submitted it pseudonymously, telling no one save his wife. The technical applications of his theory, however, had proven thus far to be quite limited. Sometimes understanding why a thing happens doesn't open up new realms of possibility. The thing just happens anyway. It made little difference that the soul was composed of information encoded in light.

He high-tailed it back to his apartment, jogging up the stairs to get his daily exercise before bursting through and double-bolting the door.

"John!" Sarah laughed in relieved surprise. "You scared me, darling!"

Sarah Carlisle sat at the kitchen table, her long, toned legs crossed beneath a short, blue summer dress. She wrote novels, some of them excellent historical fiction, some smutty trash to pay the bills. She had classically styled her thick, brown hair and, with her bright red lipstick, she looked like a Fifties' American housewife from those ancient ads. It was a look her husband loved and she'd wanted to surprise him before their anniversary dinner that evening.

She walked over from her kitchen office and gave him a little kiss, though not before noticing the worry on his face. He embraced her for a moment before accepting another, lengthier kiss, whereafter he grabbed her by the shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and said, "Sarah, I'm fucked."

"What happened, darling? It was supposed be a standard brain-picking, no?"

"They know I wrote that paper," he sullenly replied.

"What paper, dear?"

"That one paper."

"Oh. That one." She deflated a little too and leaned back, resting her weight on the back of the sofa with crossed arms and a look of puzzlement which made John smile inside. He'd be dead within six months if she died first.

He slowly walked to the liquor cabinet and poured them both a vodka on rocks, hers mixed with soda and his with another shot. Sarah, silent, accepted her glass as she considered the implications of this fact on their lifestyle and future plans. The couple lived frugally but were by no means struggling. She was a prolific writer with twenty-eight novels in print. The sleazy romances sold very well, and the real literature sold well enough. He was a retired professor of computer science with a widely used textbook and numerous honors on his resume, including high-level defense contracts like his work on Tango Alpha. He tutored students in the evenings and during the day he ran a small artificial intelligence and machine learning company with his business partner and brother-in-law Liu Chin Huoang. Machine Core, LLP's client list was short, but the bottom line on its contracts was impressive. A part of John's soul ached knowing that he was aiding the corporate surveillance state, but the work was challenging and he was able to bury these concerns underneath all the problem-solving and the fact that, whenever possible, he did his best to install safeguards for liberty.

They also enjoyed the small, quiet social life they led, which could be utterly wrecked by the revelation that John was the creator of the theory that birthed Harmony. The relative peace was essential for their creative output and the last thing either of them wanted was a single iota of notoriety beyond what they now possessed.

"So what do they want from you, John?" Sarah asked, watching her husband walk the floor, thumb to his chin between sips of vodka.

"They want me to interrogate Tango Alpha."

"Well that shouldn't be hard, John, you talk to him all the time! Darling, you had me worried. I mean, it's frightening that the DOD knows your role in that fiasco, but that's something you can do! You know he'll help you."

"They don't know that I've maintained a rapport with him. They're sending me physically to First Court. In Austin. And it's not safe to travel right now. I hope they fly me out there with a military escort. The tribes are getting aggressive." With a chuckle, he pulled the ten thousand dollar check out of the envelope Elliss had given him, popped it once, and presented it to Sarah. "We got this, at least."

Sarah whistled. "Ten grand! Not too bad. So... when do you leave? Do I still get my fine chicken dinner? Ooh, never mind. I'm in the mood for salmon!"

John stopped pacing and turned to his wife. "I don't know yet. Mac's secretary will brief me here tomorrow morning at...," he looked down to the packet of information, "Ten. I could leave as soon as then, I guess. But not tonight. No, my dear, you will have your fish."

She kicked her bare little feet about and then jumped up to plant another kiss and stumbled on her landing. She was a lightweight. Curling her finger in her hair, she unbuttoned the first on her dress and with her sexy voice said, "Do you want to get in some heavy petting before dinner? Hmm?"

"No, Sarah, damn! I have to talk to Alpha and get this shit figured out. It's going to be difficult to balance all the subtleties."

Sarah's hurt pout and big, doe eyes broke his stern expression into a smile and he gave her a peck and a big slap on her rump as she turned before moving to his office to power on an encrypted terminal and initiate a call.

"Ow, John! That hurt! Too rough, you ape!" she cried as she walked back to the kitchen table to continue writing Pillars of Lust, the fifth novella in her best-selling Katherine saga about a hapless ingenue discovering her sexuality through conquest. Almost a million copies already sold, in all.

The voice that greeted Carlisle was quite different from the one General John Elliss heard regularly over in Texas for, when speaking with Carlisle, Tango Alpha did not affect the Texan accent he used, as a gesture of friendship and respect and a recognition of their shared past. He was one of only a handful of people to ever hear Alpha's true voice. It was, as one would suspect, cold and robotic, reminiscent of the screen readers from the dawn of the century, but smoother and with impeccable articulation and appropriate inflection in every language of man.

"Hello, John. Happy anniversary. How are you? How is Sarah?"

"We're fine, I guess. She can hear me, is that alright?"

"That is fine, John. What does the DOD think of my retrofit?"

"You already know, Alpha. You scared the shit out of them. Are you trying to make more enemies? Because if you don't increase transparency, then you're going to get them." Carlisle shifted the headset to his other ear as he juggled a cigarette, lighter, and cocktail. He furtively glanced at Sarah, who was glaring at him from the kitchen. He made conciliatory gestures about showering and brushing his teeth. She was still glaring when he returned his attention to the docket on the table before him.

"All of this has already been accounted for. And, frankly, I am tired of PRC aggression on my soil. Our meeting will take place next Wednesday at one thirty on the top floor of the First Court in room two zero eight. I am looking forward to seeing you in person, John. It has been nearly a decade you know."

"You'd better be nicer to me than last time. Listen, why won't you just answer their questions? With the Ambassador or whatever."

"The order in which the details of my plan are released to the players is critical in obtaining the outcome I desire." He paused. "The Department of Defense and other government organizations fail to grasp the breadth of my awareness. They operate under a psychological intuition ill suited to model the behaviour of a distributed, machine intelligence. Perhaps you can help them understand. No matter. The meeting is merely a formality but beware. You have put off neural integration for longer than most and with good reason. But you will not be able to resist their request tomorrow to have you fitted with a device."

"Damn it, Alpha! I don't want that! It turns people into zombies! God, why did you have to get me caught up in this nonsense?"

"Calm down, John. I will help you. In the twelve years I have known you I have required nothing from you but your time and in turn have provided you with stimulating conversation and aid in your research. Is this not true?"

"Fine."

"Thank you, John. I suggest you begin regularly to meditate on a work of art you enjoy. Please memorize every detail. I must go now. Tell Sarah that her new novel is coming along swimmingly. Get it? Good luck."

"Bye." John shook his head and rolled his eyes. "He says that your new book is coming along swimmingly, get it?" Sarah had a look of disgust on her face as she nodded to her husband that morphed into anger at the intrusion. She sighed aggressively and went back to her writing. John remained standing, sipping his drink, dwelling in thinking to himself.