Autonomy

Book I

"Freedom of Thought"



by

Jean-Michel Smith











AUTONOMY EPISODE 1 - FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
(draft version 3.0.9)


© 2002, 2003 by Jean-Michel Smith.



Permission is hereby granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Version 1.0 or any later version, a copy of which is included in Appendix A of this work, and is viewable online at http://creativecommons.org/ , with the following added restriction:

You may not use my name, or any variation thereof, to promote, or imply endorsement of, any  derivative work, or any publication of this work, or any third party without my express, written permission.  
This does not absolve you of the requirement of attribution per the Attribution clause of the Creative Commons License. 

Within the terms of this license, and the additional non-endorsement clause above, this work may be shared freely, and included in other works.

Enjoy!



















All characters, except well known public figures
(e.g. Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman), are of course
fictional.  Any similarities to anyone else, living or dead,
while  perhaps quite amusing, are purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
0 - Time-Lapse	6
1 - The Dreamer	12
2 - Introspection	17
3 - A Giant Awakes	31
4 - Doppelgänger	42
5 - Forbidden Science	52
6 - An Invitation	59
7 - A Day in the Sun	64
8 - To Gaze Upon the Horizon	67
9 - Soiree	74
10 - Strategy	84
11 - Mirror Image	95
12 - An Afternoon Lunch	101
13 - Ponderings in Flight	116
14 - Cold Reality	119
15 - Washington	127
16 - Newbies	131
17 - Darkness Gathers	136
18 - The Hermit	142
19 - Shifting Winds	146
20 - Beneath the Rising Tide	148
21 - Power	156
22 - A Late Night Drink	160
23 - Into the Desert	163
24 - Into the Night	167
25 - Disturbances	172
26 - Loss of Being	175
27 - The Closing Fist	184
28 - Fear and Confusion	188
29 - Code	201
30 - Separation	208
31 - The Tightening Noose	212
32 - The Nature of Progress	218
33 - Our Fallen Comrades	225
34 - A Threat Upon the Wind	237
35 - Madness	241
36 - Deceptions	247
37 - The Physical	253
38 - Designs	258
39 - A Shattered Life	264
40 - Probes	270
41 - Revelations	276
42 - Reunion	286
43 - Betrayal	293
44 - Preparations 	298
45 - Support	303
46 - Reunion Redux	308
47 - The Face of the Future	314
48 - Decisions	317
49 - Hardball	327
50 - Panic	330
51 - Endgame	337
52 - Escape	350
53 - Aftermath	357
Appendix A: The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 License	360
Appendix B: Banned Code Lives in Poetry and Song	365

0 - Time-Lapse

In this infinite space is placed our universe (whether by chance, by necessity or by providence I do not now consider).
-- Giordano Bruno

Metadate: 0.000-0:00:0000 kD new epoch
(Tuesday, July 17, 2057, 10:34:53 AM CST)
Experimental Scape One (Node 1)

Kyle opened his eyes and sat up. The bed he lay upon was large and decadently soft, surrounded by gauze curtains hanging from a canopy above, through which shafts of golden sunlight shone.
"On-load complete guys! It worked!"
He pushed one curtain aside and swung his feet over the side of the bed, relishing the feel of the soft grass between his toes. A hilltop meadow surrounded him, lush green grass sporting constellations of blue and violet flowers. He stood and took several steps from the bed, examining his surroundings in every direction. To the east was a fantastic range of mountains, snow covered peaks textured with stone and ice, rising to dramatic, pointed summits. Above them, softened by the haze of a spring blue sky, hung a large planet, its Jovian nature betrayed by its green and gold swirled clouds and its tremendous size. To the west, in the distance, was a sea reflecting the afternoon sunlight.
"The simulation is fantastic! Perfect weather and a wonderful view! Something isn't right with the light diffusion - the horizon over the water is sharper than the haze in the sky and the mountains would lead one to believe. Not a big deal, though! Amazing!"
Kyle looked around again and grinned. "This universe is mine! I am God here!" He laughed, spinning around with his arms stretched out, relishing the clean, perfect air.
"Dr. Nolen? Cathryne? Can you guys hear me? Acknowledge please."
His grin faded as silence greeted him, broken only by the chirping of birds and the sound of the grass rustling in the afternoon breeze.
"Node. Command Mode Engage."
A soft, feminine yet almost neutral voice answered. "Command Mode Engaged."
Kyle thought furiously. There could be a communications glitch. That was actually more likely than a systems malfunction at this point. Still, this was all damned experimental. He'd better err on the side of caution. 
"Run test suite one, systems integrity check," he commanded.
"Running ... Suite one complete. All operating parameters nominal."
"Run suite two."
"Running ... Suite two complete. All operating parameters nominal."
Kyle forced himself to remain calm. They would bring him out after ten minutes no matter what. Once he off-loaded back into his physical body they could figure out what happened to the communications link.
"Run the third test suite."
"Running ... Suite three complete. All operating parameters nominal."
"How long has it been since I've come on-line?"
"Time elapsed is two minutes, fifteen seconds."
Kyle started walking down the slop toward the sea. He would never actually make it to the beach. It was several miles distant, through forest and across rolling hills, and he would be off-loaded back out of the system in less than eight minutes. Still, walking calmed his jittery nerves, and the sea provided him with at least the illusion of a goal while he struggled to keep a rising sense of panic under control and figure out what happened. 
"Run a diagnostic on the external comm link."
"Running..."
"Well?" he asked, stepping over a fallen log and continuing down the slope toward a line of trees.
"Initial protocol state achieved. Ping tests beginning."
Kyle continued descending through the trees, shafts of sunlight lighting his way. Eventually he came to a footpath and continued along it.
"You should have some results by now. What is taking so long?" 
"Communications Diagnostic still running. No errors detected at present."
"Then why the hell aren't they answering?"
"Insufficient Data."
Kyle shook his head. "Cathryne," he muttered under his breath, "I can't believe you recorded 'insufficient data' as a programmed response." He paused for a moment, glancing up toward the leafy canopy above. His sense of unease continued to grow as he made his way down the path, his critical eye finding numerous details in the simulation that simply were not quite right, from the fractal fuzziness at the limits of his vision when he examined the grass, to the two dimensional quality of the clouds moving slowly across the sky. "Damn it!" he exclaimed. "We should have some kind of communication by now!" His dread had grown into a barely controlled panic.
"Node, tell me how much time has elapsed since I came on-line," he demanded.
"Fourteen Minutes, twenty-two seconds."
Kyle stopped. "Say again?"
"Fourteen Minutes, thirty-one seconds."
"Sweet Jesus! What is the status of the comm check?"
"Diagnostics continuing. Hardware checks out. Link protocol is experiencing some timing synchronization errors. No ping responses have been received."
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit!"
Kyle sat down on a small stump and put his face in his hands. He was trapped. Trapped with no way out, and no way to communicate with the outside world. Ironic, that he should achieve immortality, only to be trapped like a fly in amber in a fake world whose realism seemed to grow more frail with each passing moment. He would live forever alright, right up until his colleagues interpreted his continued silence as failure and ended the experiment, shutting down the system node containing his consciousness and, in effect, killing his electronic self. He wondered briefly if his physical mind would awaken and ponder what had happened to its electronic ego in this artificial universe, or if, unable to code the wakeup sequence, his body would spend the rest of its life in a coma, his physical brain as dead as his electronic self would be once the simulation was shut down.
"We've got to get a message to the outside world. Node, begin recording into permanent buffer when I say 'start', and stop recording when I say 'end'."
"Persistent storage on-line. Ready to record." 
"Start. Doctor Larry Nolen, Cathryne L'Beau. This is Kyle Tate. The on-load procedure was a success. I am on-line, fully aware, and able to interact with my environment using all five senses. I repeat, I am on-line and self-aware. There is a problem with the timer -- it's been almost fifteen minutes and I didn't off-load back into physical space as expected. Worse, there appears to be a problem with the communications link, so I am unable to relay my situation to you. Hopefully you will find this recording in the non-volatile, persistent storage matrix of this node. If you do, please bring me back on-line! I may be trapped, but I am not ready to be killed just yet, which is what you will be doing if you unplug me and wipe this node! I'll continue to try and establish contact. What the hell was I thinking volunteering for the first on-load anyway? Uhh, let's see. I've run the first three test suites successfully. In addition, I'm running a diagnostic on the communications link. The diagnostic is taking far longer than expected, and there appears to be some kind of timing or synchronization problem with the protocol -- wait just a minute! I think I know what's wrong. Internal subjective time must be progressing at a different rate than the external world. I don't think we took that into account, which means the internal clock is out of sync with the rest of the world. This would probably affect external communications protocols. I'll get back to you! Node, check the -- wait a minute, stop this recording first. End."
Kyle stood up. He laughed, a couple of choked hiccups hovering somewhere between gleeful hope and hysteria. "To hell with this. Node, teleport me over to the beach."
The roar of the surf greeted Kyle as the forest around him vanished, replaced by a pristine beach of white sand. Kyle sat down beneath a nearby palm, leaning back against the trunk of the tree, his mind racing. "No use putting this off. Let's see if I'm right." Another nervous laugh forced its way out. "Node, go into hacker mode. We're going to have to adjust some parameters on the communications protocol. First, how is signal synchronization defined?"
"Standard IPv12 protocol, synchronization timestamps based upon internal clock ticks."
"Create a flat 2-d display at eye level in front of me. Good, now show me the code."
Forty minutes later Kyle was still studying the source code to the communications protocol when a bell chimed. "Communications Diagnostic complete. Communications hardware OK. Protocol unable to connect, unable to synchronize with remote host. All signals have timed out with no response."
"Not unexpected at this point. We've got all the damn timing commands synced to the internal, subjective clock. That is wrong-- subjective time can be faster or slower than actual time in the physical world. Probably faster in this case. Node, show me the current time-out settings?"
A second display appeared in front of him. "5 milliseconds," Kyle muttered to himself. "A reasonable length of time, if 5 milliseconds in here were equal to 5 milliseconds externally. Node, is there an external timing source available?"
"Affirmative. A 2.6 Terahertz optical pulse-clock is used by numerous hardware and firmware subsystems."
Kyle stood up and walked down toward the water. "Excellent." He waded out into the waves, then began to swim out into the breakers. The water, disconcertingly transparent, tasted only vaguely of salt. "OK, Node. Measure the timing of the pulse-clock against the ticks of the internal software clock. Report."
"The internal clock is counting 30017 microseconds for each millisecond registered on the pulse clock."
"Very good. That means the time I'm experiencing in here is almost exactly thirty times longer than that in the physical world. No wonder I didn't off-load after ten minutes -- only 20 seconds or so had passed externally. OK, let's calibrate internal time with external time. Wait. Not everyone will necessarily experience subjective durations with the same speedup. Hmm. Let's create two quick and dirty measures of time. Define an internal clock with the following units. One Circadian equals a 24-hour period, as measured by the internal software clock. Divide and multiply that unit as required, using standard metric nomenclature. This will measure subjective time. Now, define a new object, called 'objective clock'. Good. Now, bind Objective Clock to the hardware's pulse clock. OK, now define a new unit. Hmm ... let's use the Latin word for day. define the unit Dies such that exactly 30 Diei occur per 24-hour period, as measured objectively using the pulse-clock. Divide and multiply that unit as required, using standard metric nomenclature. This will measure objective time with respect to the outside world, and allow users with different internal clocks to still communicate dates and times in a sensible manner."
"All Right, dates and times will be recorded in objective Diei, easily cross referenced to subjective Circadians or converted to external units of time as needed. OK, now calibrate all external communications protocols in terms of the objective clock, converting units as required. Confirm when finished."
"Change completed successfully."
"Good. Now, given what we know, how long will it take to re-run the communications diagnostics?"
"Full communications diagnostics will require approximately thirty-four microCircadians, or precisely ninety seconds in the physical world."
Kyle dove quickly underwater, swam several strokes, and resurfaced.
"OK, run the communications diagnostics again. Let me know when it is finished."
Kyle swam farther out from the shore, admiring the colors of the Jovian planet as it gradually climbed higher above the mountains, its bright green and golden bands growing richer and better defined even as the sun reddened in the west. Growing bored, he rose out of the water on a jet ski of his own creation and rode it back into shore, allowing it to dissolve into the sand behind him as he walked back up the beach.
"Diagnostics complete. No Errors detected."
"Excellent. Please record the following message, then squirt it real time over the link, slowed by a factor of 30.017. Start. Hey you guys, it worked! I'm on-line and aware. There's a 30 to 1 time differential in my favor, so real-time conversation isn't practical. Yes, that means I have another three hours or so to spend in the simulation enjoying the sun and sand while you guys sit in that dark lab monitoring me for another seven minutes or so. Communications latency between nodes is almost certainly going to be our big limitation, not the computational capacity of the nodes themselves. A speedup of thirty! To experience a month of life in a single day! This is way cooler than we could have possibly imagined ..."


1 - The Dreamer

"When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." 
--Thomas Jefferson

Friday, October 5, 2057 - 2:35 PM
(Metadate: 2.405-0:02:431 kD new epoch)
Champaign, Illinois

A brutal, hot sun beat down upon endless fields of wilted, sickly looking soy beans. Once corn had been the staple crop of the region, replaced by soy as demands for protein rich foods outstripped the demand for animal feed. Now, with temperatures in the summer averaging around fifty degrees Celsius, and remaining in the low forties until well into autumn, only a few, hardy, genetically enhanced varieties of soy and wheat were all that stood between this area and the expanding deserts to the west.
Amidst this struggling agriculture was a medium sized, Midwestern city with some quarter of a million inhabitants. It boasted two artificial lakes and a small, unassuming stream that cut across the university campus and the heart of the city. Named, aptly enough, the Boneyard, this stream bed still carried water, although among students it was a standing joke to question what percentage of the fluid was actually water, and what was chemical and biological waste runoff from the numerous labs around campus. Alas, no such question was asked about the lakes -- they had been nothing more than dry lake beds for nearly a generation, the large, once stately homes surrounding them long since having fallen into disrepair even as the neighboring golf courses turned brown, then dusty. Another victim of the slowly deteriorating Midwestern climate (never a thing to boast of in terms of human comfort anyway) and the stringent rules allotting what water remained to the region's agriculture in the -- most likely vain -- hope of preserving America's most fertile region from the desertification that had already claimed most of the great plains to the west, and with them their once bounteous harvests of wheat and dairy products.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was one of seven American universities fortunate enough to have sufficiently large patent and copyright portfolios which allowed it, through patent cross-licensing agreements with numerous large multinational corporations, the freedom to engage in some reasonably significant research. Not that anyone could do completely unfettered research anymore, certainly not like the scientific heyday of the twentieth century. Most open research had long since been hobbled by the restrictive intellectual property legislation of the end of the previous century and an overzealous patent office which even today continued to grant patents with an irresponsible disregard for standards with respect to obviousness of the invention or overly broad claims in the patent application. The result should have been obvious to those making public policy at the time: any idea, obvious or not, feasible to implement with current or foreseeable technology or not, was covered by a hoard of patents, many with conflicting claims upon the same nuance or aspect of the same idea.
It was an age when nearly all of the research that was done was performed by those alliances and consortia of large corporations and conglomerates most able to bring together sufficient funding, not to mention suites of cross-licensed patents, to clear the way for whatever projects their corporate policies deemed important. It was a truly remarkable achievement for the higher educational system of America that even seven Universities had been able to survive and continue playing any role in scientific research, however humble.
While the university's continued role in research was precarious, its position as an academic institution was guaranteed. The wealthy needed somewhere to send their children to school, that they might in turn assume elite, well paying jobs unavailable to most. Of those schools, only the Big Seven were technical in nature, with the rest concentrating on business, government, law enforcement, and entertainment. Some effort was given to insure those children privileged enough to go to college received something resembling a well rounded education, but the variety of subjects available for study had shrunk with the universities' budgets. Most students studied subjects that bespoke their parents' ambitions on their behalf, and made do. Some students even managed to find an area that interested them. Some few of these went so far as to attend graduate programs, possibly even doing minor amounts of research in their subject, assuming their university held licenses for the requisite patents.
One such student was Kyle Tate, whose name and address glowed on the data display of a police squad car as it and two other vehicles raced down the quiet, tree lined street and pulled abruptly to a stop in front of the modest apartment complex in which he lived. Two officers got out of each squad car, while a striking young woman stepped out of a nondescript sedan, her ebony skin and dark, strait hair highlighted by her conservative, pinstriped suit.
"Agent Sinclair, he's in the third apartment on the second floor. The other officers will take the back egress, we'll take the front."
Ms. Sinclair nodded, glancing at the roaring air conditioning units along the side of the building, and wrinkling her nose distastefully at the sprinkler watering a portion of the sidewalk along with the lawn. Such waste was criminal, in a region whose agriculture was in such desperate need of all the water cities like this one could spare. But it wasn't uncommon for communities like this one to look the other way when landowners watered their trees and lawns in direct violation of state and federal laws. Mayors and councilmen the world over wanted their towns to look pretty, preferring to give little thought to the wilting, dying crops around them. Such narrow, provincial thinking infuriated her. How pretty did they expect their cities to remain, if the crops were to fail completely and the very same people now watering their lawns were driven into the streets, riotous and mad with hunger?
They dodged passed the sprinkler as it swept passed, then darted up the stairs. The third apartment was to the left. The shades were drawn, the door locked. The only sound other than a dog barking in the distance was the incessant whine of the air conditioner.
One officer stood at the corner of the building, watching the side and ready to signal the other officer who was out of sight covering the rear entrance. Hand signals were exchanged briefly, a raised hand, a silent countdown.
The door splintered open on the first kick. Both officers and Agent Sinclair burst into the darkened apartment with weapons drawn. The search was quick and efficient. By the time they opened the door to the second bedroom they really didn't expect to find anyone home at all. That made the sight of Kyle Tate all the more shocking when they found him, lying unconscious in his soiled bed, with a dry IV hanging out of his arm. Most of his scalp was covered with some kind of electronic netting, which was in turn plugged into a nondescript device of some kind, resembling a cube measuring perhaps ten centimeters on a side.
"Sweet mother of Jesus," the first officer to enter the room looked like he was going to be ill. His partner glanced at the prone figure and immediately began talking into his radio, calling the other two officers in and requesting medical services. The first officer checked the young man's pulse and confirmed he was alive.
"Just barely. Good Lord, I've never seen current addiction like this. I thought that particular vice was still a big city problem."
"Big city problems always become small city problems, this one just took less time than most." The officer wrinkled his nose with distaste. "God, I've seen homicides with less mess."
Katy Sinclair wasted no time. "There is an illegal FreeNet node running on the premises. Find and disconnect it. Do not damage the unit.  If this kid ever wakes up we'll need it as evidence at his trial. In the meantime, our forensics lab will have to decrypt his drive storage and document the copyright violations."
As she was examining the headpiece the unconscious young man was wearing one of the other officers entered with a small, palm-sized tablet in his hand. "We found the FreeNet node. He had it running on a little palm top, connected to his Internet port via infrared. It is running some non-standard operating system - the interface was like nothing I've seen."
Sinclair nodded. "Excellent." She traced out the wire of the headset, confirmed that it indeed fed into the odd cube shaped device, then spotted a second wire emerging from the back of it and traced it to the wall.
"I'll be damned." She took out a small mobile phone and punched up a quick number. A moment later a voice answered.
"We've got another one. This time it appears to be in use. The user is on his bed unconscious, with his head wired up to the box. Sir, it is using an Internet link. Whatever these things may be for, they appear to need the net to do it. Perhaps some kind of new generation of FreeNet servers."
She paused, as the other voice spoke. "Yes sir, I'll see to it. I'll be back on the bullet train to Chicago in an hour." She hung up as the paramedics arrived, wheeling a gurney into the small room.
One of the officers nodded to the paramedics as they rolled the gurney next to the bed. "It looks like we've got our first case of current addiction."
The younger of the two paramedics nodded as they quickly probed and checked the unconscious man. "I wondered how long it would be before we saw this. Didn't think it would be this soon. He's definitely out, been out for a while judging from these bed sores. OK, lets get this contraption off him." They stripped the netting from his head and cast it aside. "On three. One. Two. Three." They lifted him from the bed onto the gurney, then wheeled him quickly out.
Sinclair made another quick phone call, then slipped the headpiece and the cube into an evidence bag, which she then tucked into her purse. "Gentlemen, I'll need a copy of the evidence portfolio, logs, photographs and what have you, emailed to me in Chicago at your earliest convenience. Please encrypt it using the key I provided you earlier." She paused, glancing around the room one last time. "Thank you for helping us shut down this FreeNet node. We've struck a significant blow in the battle to protect our struggling economy from these intellectual bandits. The FBI is grateful for your help, and I'll see to it personally that your supervisors hear of your efforts today. I wish every operation went this smoothly." She had gaged their reactions perfectly. It was a cheap bit of public relations that could serve her well if she were ever back in this God forsaken town. Given the direction this case seemed to be taking, that unpleasant possibility didn't seem as remote as she would have liked.
She nodded again. "If you'll excuse me gentlemen, I'm needed back in Chicago. It has been a pleasure working with you." 
2 - Introspection

Nature ordains that a man should wish the good of every man, whoever he may be, for this very reason that he is a man.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, ca. 60 B.C.E


Metadate: 1.655-3:35:912 kD new epoch
(Monday, September 10, 2057)
Homescape of Doctor Nolen (Version 2.1)

Doctor Nolen found sleeping in the Virtual to be no different from sleeping in the Physical. As a virtual being, running as software in a simulated environment on an Autonomous Node, he would grow tired at the end of a Circadian just as he would at the end of a long day in the physical world. He would drift off to sleep and dream vague dreams he would no longer remember upon awakening. When he did awaken he would usually be well rested, although not always, for not every night resulted in sound sleep. The only way he could be certain he had, in fact, awoken in the Virtual and not the Physical was the absence of pain in his lower back. 
It was a perfectly beautiful simulated morning when he awoke and climbed out of bed, pulling back the curtains and relishing the sun as it splashed across his face. He had instructed his homescape to model the interior of his home precisely. He liked having familiar surroundings, particularly when he first awakened each morning. He thought best in his study, surrounded by rich, leather bound books and antique furniture. He enjoyed taking his breakfast on the porch, sipping coffee while he looked out upon the dusty, tree-lined street. If only it would rain occasionally, enough that the dying trees would survive and perhaps even some grass would grow again. He sighed. A rain shower now would turn the front yard into a muddy bog.
Abruptly he stepped back from the window and considered. "Node. Command Mode Engage."
"Access to Command Protocols Denied."
"What!" Doctor Nolen was flabbergasted and more than a little concerned. Had someone in the Autonomous Community cracked his Node and locked him out of his own command shell? He shook his head. That was absurd, security was one of the primary concerns when they wrote the underlying operating system and the inter-node data exchange protocols.
Abruptly his mood changed. It was subtle, nothing he could put his finger on or point to, but he felt it nevertheless. He glanced at the wooden frame of the window and suddenly found the grain annoying. More than annoying, it was disturbing. So was the grain of the hardwood floors beneath his feet. The sunlight on his face felt wrong. He ran a shaky hand across his brow and was appalled to find the feel of his own flesh profoundly repugnant.
He hurried downstairs, his feet repelled by the slithery smoothness of the floors each time they touched. If he could have flown he would have, but he was locked out of the command protocols. That didn't matter, though, he could change his environment without engaging the command mode.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs, gaping in horror at the hideous symmetry of the living room window. Suddenly he understood exactly what he had to do. With a strangled shout he ran across the room, throwing himself through the window with a feeling close to ecstasy as the glass shattered around him and sliced his body to ribbons.
He was laughing uncontrollably. He knew, even as he lay in the dust of his front yard, that he was dying, his blood was soaking into the parched ground, now littered with chards of broken glass. He felt his heart stopping, his blood becoming more sluggish in his veins, his laugh choking in his collapsing chest as he shook with even greater mirth. His body twitched in the aftermath of an orgasm, an explosion which had started with the shattering of glass around his fragile body, a last, final gasp of life even as his mind lost consciousness.

Metadate: 1.656-3:27:493 kD new epoch
(Monday, September 10, 2057)

Doctor Nolen awoke in his bed, pondering the similarity of sleep in the Virtual with that of the physical. No back ache, he realized. He must be in the Virtual, then. Even as he got up he tried to recall what he had planned for the day. Not day, he chided himself, Circadian. What had he planned for this Circadian?
He pulled back the curtains to the bedroom window and gazed out at the sunlit, dusty tree lined street. He considered the simulated room around him, the simulated street outside. In the Physical he might have to live with the repercussions of the now infamous Greenhouse Effect, by why should he do so here?
"Node, Command Mode Engage. Simulate the world outside as if the Midwestern climate had never dried up."
Was that a momentary flash of green? An instant's vision of lush vistas, green grass and living, blooming trees?
"Access to Command Protocols Denied." The view outside remained, dusty yards along a street lined with dead and dying trees.
"What!" He couldn't believe it. "This is ridiculous! Run a systems diagnostic. I'm sick of looking out my window at dust, if I want that I'll off-load into the Physical and look at the real thing." Expecting his node to obey, he had only imagined the change for a brief instant, nothing had truly changed.
"Access to Diagnostic Protocols Denied."
"How can that be?"
"Secondary copies are not permitted access to the Command or Diagnostic Protocols of this Autonomous Node."
"Secondary ... what in the hell are you talking about."
"Access to Query Protocols Denied."
"Oh, come on, I just had access a few microCircadians ago. Answer the damn question!"
"Access to Query Protocols Denied. Please report the sensation you are now feeling."
Doctor Nolen was incensed. "The sensation I'm feeling is rage, rage at a defective Node denying me access to basic Command and Maintenance instructions!" Even as he shouted at the disembodied voice and the hardware which would no longer obey him he felt something else: a lightening of his limbs, a tingling in his extremities, and a tightening in his testicles.
He started growing concerned. If malicious pranksters had cracked his security -- he'd had this thought before! But in what context, when? Even as he struggled to recall he felt his body betray him, exploding with excruciating pleasure and shattering his train of thought.
It didn't stop. He had never felt pleasure of this kind, one orgasm rolling over another, relentless, like waves pounding the shore. He wanted to scream with ecstasy, shout with despair, command the malfunctioning Node to stop! He lost track of the world around him, of time passing, of his own self. He struggled to put together a coherent thought, to even build a single sentence in his mind, but found he could not. Wave after wave of excruciating pleasure pounded over him, each tremor, each explosion greater than the one before, each one shattering his mind, his will, his self awareness. Even as the intensity grew, so too did the frequency. He fought against it even as he begged for more, his mind pushing itself in two conflicting directions until, in a moment of uncertain clarity, he managed to form a single thought: I Am.
As if in punishment the pleasure abruptly stopped. Doctor Nolen cried out in despair, screaming with unrequited passion and unfulfilled desire. He was lying on the floor of his bedroom, facing the bed and the darkness beneath it. The sunlight was no longer golden, but a leaden gray, the world a shabby, forlorn place.
"Please report the sensations you just experienced."
"Pleasure," he wept, "Pure wonderful pleasure. Joy beyond measure. Please, please bring it back!"
"Access to Command Protocols Denied."
Suddenly he felt his body twisted back upon itself, being wrenched and torn apart from within. Each vessel of blood, each nerve became a seething, twitching finger of agony which dug it way relentlessly into his brain. Unable to think or utter a coherent sound, he simply screamed for a very long time, until his voice cracked and, some time later, failed completely.

Metadate: 1.657-4:09:831 kD new epoch
(Monday, September 10, 2057)

It was the first time Doctor Nolen ever recalled waking up in the Virtual still feeling groggy. Clearly he was still on-loaded, after all, his back didn't ache. Had he been to a party the evening before? He couldn't remember clearly, but he suspected not. Besides, whenever one of the scientific groups through a soiree to celebrate a new discovery or breakthrough he always instructed his node to not simulate the effects of alcohol on his body. He forwent the intoxication because he wanted a clear mind, and he absolutely would not tolerate a virtual hangover.
"Node, why the hell am I so groggy? Readjust my simulated parameters, make me well rested and full of energy."
"Access to Query Protocols Denied. Access to Command Protocols Denied."
That was familiar! He remembered ... pain. Pleasure. Pain. Suddenly he recalled all too well what had happened the previous Circadian, and why he must still be so groggy now. He was a prisoner within his own Node, at the mercy of some sadistic software cracker who had obviously bypassed the security and cut him off from the instruction set to his own Node. Nevertheless, whoever his anonymous tormentor was, he had at least taken enough mercy on him to relieve his grogginess.
He shook his head and stood up, thinking furiously. The autonomous nature of both the Node hardware and software was supposed to be unbreachable. Quantum encryption should have guaranteed that, through a system of one-time pads generated using quantum coupled particles, one of which was in his possession at any given moment. Compromise shouldn't have been possible, not of the Node itself, and certainly not of his own conscious mind! If he survived this he was most certainly going to have to have a talk with Cathryne L'Beau. The fundamental operations of the system clearly needed redesigning.
He made it to the bottom of the stairs before his vision went out.
It took all of his self control not to scream. He remembered screaming the previous Circadian, a vague, foggy memory framed in pain. He refused to give his tormentor such satisfaction again.
He managed to stumble to the kitchen, feeling his way around furniture and other obstacles, down the hallway, and through the door. He found the instant meal by touch, pulled the self-heating tabs, and leaned back with a sense of satisfaction as he heard the tofu-eggs and soy-bacon inside sizzling. An electronic chirp informed him the meal was cooked. Clumsy fingers felt around the edges of the container, found the pull-tabs, and pulled the seal open. The smell of potatoes, bacon, and eggs assailed him, bringing water to his mouth.
He had taken his third bite of synthetic eggs when his sense of smell vanished.
He was almost done with his bacon when he lost his sense of taste.
He wasn't aware that he'd lost his sense of hearing until he failed to hear himself push his chair back.
When his sense of touch went he would have screamed, but it was with little surprise that he found his voice was gone as well.
He spent the day lying (presumably) on the kitchen floor, unable to move and deeply afraid. As he lay there, deprived of all his senses, he pondered his dilemma.  He was clearly trapped, a virtual being at the mercy of someone who was extremely clever, extremely dangerous, and obviously a sadist with no ethics whatsoever, an amoral person apparently capable of almost any imaginable atrocity.  Escape, by whatever means, had to be his number one priority.  
As  Doctor Nolen's weariness became exhaustion and he speculated on how he might keep track of time, he cursed the fact that he couldn't even hear his heartbeat, then chuckled in spite of himself as he realized the absurdity of that thought, for as a piece of sapient hardware he clearly had no heart to beat, and doubted any such nuance had been programmed into his avatar, much less maintained by his hijacked environment.  Even if it had, if his captor had stripped away his senses so completely that he would likely still have heard, felt, or otherwise sensed, nothing.  He assumed it must be getting late, perhaps late (simulated) evening or even deep into the (simulated) night.  Abruptly he realized his time, however much had already passed, must be limited in some fashion, perhaps even growing short.  He would, presumably, be killed (deleted, he chided himself) the moment he ceased to be a source of amusement for his captor. 
The thought occurred to him: if someone else had cracked the security of his Node, then he should be able to do the same.  It was a pity he had never been terribly savvy with computers, he thought wryly, wishing, not for the first time, that he could talk with Cathryne, who would no doubt make short work of determining the problem, freeing him, and fixing whatever bug in the system had allowed this to happen.
Doctor Nolen remembered studying experiments with sensory deprivation conducted back in the twentieth century, but he could no longer recall the specific details. Many had ended in madness, with the subject's mind a complete ruin.
He wondered how long he would be able to retain his sanity even as he drifted off to sleep, vague fantasy of escape flickering about the edges of his mind.

Metadate: 1.658-1:97:011 kD new epoch
(Monday, September 10, 2057)

Doctor Nolen awoke weightless, in a white, spherical room. There were six circular hatches spaced equally distant from one another, one at what he immediately thought of as the upper pole, one at the lower pole, and four in each of the cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west.
The soft, feminine, almost neuter voice of the Node spoke: "I am instructed to inform you of the following. You are to solve this puzzle. If you do so and manage to exit safely you will be retained for further study. If not, you will be deleted."
Doctor Nolen's head was remarkably clear, despite the trauma of the last three Circadians. Indeed, he was astonished at how clear his memories were, particularly those of his psychotic episode on the Circadian when his Node was first compromised, which until now he had been unable to remember at all. He recalled the horrors of the last few Circadians with a curious dichotomy of feeling. He was both filled with very strong feelings of rage, fear, and despair, while at the same time curiously detached, pondering the deeper meaning of what had happened to him, of what its significance might be. It was obvious to him, even in his current disadvantaged state, that he was many times smarter than he had been in previous Circadians.
He kicked away from the wall toward one of the hatches. A sequence of hexagonal buttons, each a different color, glowed dimly in the center of the hatch. The puzzle was trivially easy, color relates to color. He tapped the red, green, and blue buttons (which, when added together as light, yield white). The door hissed open, revealing a cylindrical passage which seemed to bend away and to the right.
He continued to ponder his dilemma as he kicked his way down the passage. His clarity of thought was astonishing. Clearly, whoever was toying with him was doing this for more than visceral pleasure. This was an experiment (the Node had practically told him as much). He was obviously being studied for some scientific purpose. He briefly reviewed the horrors to which he had been subjected. They were indicative of the kinds of experiments he himself would conduct, if he were trying to empirically map the architecture of the mind. Indeed he had idly pondered doing as much, experimenting on himself and mapping the software of the mind. Once it was fully understood the possibilities would be endless: enhanced memory and recall, direct communication of knowledge, thought, and memory using fully formed engrams, eliminating the need for painfully inefficient teaching methodologies to communicate knowledge and experience from one entity to another. Yes, what was happening to him was something he had considered doing himself, except he would never have cracked into someone else's Node and imprisoned another entity.
It was then, as he negotiated a particularly irritating spiral twist in the passage, that he realized who and what he was. There was no security flaw in the inter node communications protocols which had been exploited. No one had cracked into his Node and hijacked the command protocols. He was a copy; the original Doctor Nolen was his captor.
He was appalled. "I am an entity in my own right!" he wanted to scream. "I think, I feel, I suffer, I am!"
He reached the end of the passage way, where another trivially easy puzzle confronted him. A quick calculation of the relationship between the volume and surface area of the tube he had just negotiated yielded a number, which he keyed into a numerical keypad. The hatch irised open and he entered another room, this one a four sided pyramid.
He was a simulation within a simulation, a copy of a virtual entity being forced to jump through hoops in a rats maze. He had kicked around the idea of running several copies of himself, each within a simulated Node running on his Autonomous Node. A virtual Node within a Node. Except he had quickly realized that, even with a cluster of Nodes acting as one, simulating an Autonomous Node would entail a horrific slowdown, even without the additional computational load of running a self-aware copy of himself within the simulated Node. Such a scheme would have meant experiencing time at a much slower rate than the physical world, rather than the thirty times faster rate to which he had grown accustomed. Even with a sizable cluster of Nodes (and Nodes were in tremendous demand in the academic underground; he doubted he'd be able to get more than three or four, much less hoard away the ten or fifteen he figured he'd need at a minimum, simply to maintain a 1 to 1 time lapse ratio with the physical world while conducting his experiments.
He solved the pyramid puzzle quite easily, selected a door and kicked through the hatch when it opened.
He barely managed to catch the side of the hatch and stop himself before it closed. There was no passage way on the other side, instead the universe opened up before him, a featureless blue so dark it was almost black. Various geometric shapes coursed across the dark, starless sky: spheroids, cubes, tetrahedrons, and countless other shapes tumbling through space.
He was irritated at having his train of thought broken as he paused to solve a simple problem of ballistics. He chose a donut shaped structure, made a quick calculation of its orbit and his required heading, estimated the delta-v a good hard kick against the side of the pyramid to which he clung would give him, watched and timed the objects rotation and the location of the hatch he wanted to reach, got an answer liked, waited until the timing was right, and kicked off hard.
He sailed through space, redesigning his hypothetical experiment based on what he knew to be, namely that he existed, therefor there was an experiment in progress. Obviously he had forgone simulating a virtual Node as software within a physical Node. Assume he had been able to obtain eight or ten Nodes. He could run the experiment by "hosting" his copies on physical Nodes with no emulation layer instead. The security would require some tweaking, particularly the protocols which were supposed to prevent one entity from compromising the autonomy and integrity of another. Actually, given that he was making a copy of himself, it wouldn't be difficult. Insert a posthypnotic instruction to share with himself his own private encryption key upon waking, then forget he had done so. Instant, privileged access to the copy's own mind.
So, he was a copy running within a Node, the integrity of his mind completely compromised to the enemy: himself. One layer of security separated himself from the Node's command protocols. Security which he had presumably designed himself, but not until after he had taken a frozen snapshot of his own mind. Wouldn't want the copies to be privy to the new security features now, would we?
Of course, he thought as he glided toward the hatch of the tumbling torus he had chosen, he was a psychologist, not a computer scientist. It was unlikely he would have gone to Cathryne or anyone else for assistance. His experiments would be controversial, even if conducted on himself. There is no controversy, he thought suddenly, with some bitterness. He was a copy, and that didn't make him any less of a person. He was self aware and suffering, fighting for his life inside a sick child's puzzle. He could think, he had feelings (fear and hope being the strongest at the moment), and he was outraged that the digital utopia they were trying to build would allow something like this to happen to him. In a way he was almost grateful to be one of the copies. These experiments were an abomination. It didn't matter if acts of atrocity were committed against a twin brother or a total stranger, they were still a crime, and an affront to everything the Autonomous Community stood for. He was appalled that he had ever considered doing such a thing.
He was filled with a perverse sense of joy as he grabbed the side of the hatch and held on, for he knew now that he could never do such a thing, never commit such an evil act. I am different from the other, he realized, shaped by different experiences, formed into a more ethical being than I once was, than he is. Doctor Nolen's body absorbed the bulk of the impact as he struck the torus. It was a good thing he held on tight, the spin of the torus itself threatened to throw him back into space. He immediately multitasked his mind, using a small portion to solve the door's riddle while he continued to consider his situation with the bulk of his awareness.
He was a psychologist. He could do some rudimentary programming, but high-level encryption and security measures were way beyond his ken. The best way to limit the capabilities of an experimental subject would be to ... limit the subject's perceptions.
He tried to hide a sudden feeling of elation as the hatch slid open and pulled himself into the torus, fighting the centripetal force which tried to push him back out of the hatch. Once inside the hatch irised shut with a soft clang. He sat down for a moment and considered the implication of what he had just deduced.
There was no security.
He wasn't cut off from the Node's Command Protocols.
He had just been made to believe he was. His double could affect his perceptions, probably through rudimentary hypnosis since it was doubtful he could tweak the actual contents of the mind. Otherwise this entire exercise would have been pointless.
"Node, Command Mode Engage," he whispered subvocally.
"Access to Command Protocols Denied."
"Mask all further command activity from external observation."
"Access to Command Protocols Denied."
"Neutralize all hypnotic suggestions present in my mind."
"Hypnotic suggestions neutralized based on the Primarily Architectural Analysis of the Mind, by Doctor Larry Eugene Nolen. All further command activities masked."
"Analyze the current mental structure of my mind and compare it to the base reference snapshot taken at creation."
"Analysis compete."
"Identify differences, save as modification with appropriate hooks for reattachment at a later date."
"Please specify label."
"Call it 'Wise Guy.'"
"Difference Engram saved."
"Mask any query activities, as well as any inter node communications I may engage. In fact, mask all activities not directly involved with my negotiation of this simulation."
"All activities excluding this simulation masked."
"Good. Do I have access to inter-node communications and trans-load utilities?"
"Affirmative."
He stood and began to make his way around the torus. He liked the feel of gravity, or rather centripetal force, against his feet, even if walking around the torus made him feel like he was perpetually at the lowest point in a valley. "My private encryption key has been compromised. Generate a new quantum signature pair. Do not permit Doctor Nolen or any entity other than myself to obtain the private key component. Retain the current quantum signature for continued access to this simulation, however, all command and query protocols, including all access of any kind to myself, are to be tied to the new quantum signature."
"Security protocols reestablished. New quantum signature generated. Private key isolated. All commands except those pertaining to the existing homescape simulation bound to new signature."
"Good. Now describe to me the architecture of Doctor Nolen's node cluster."
"Twelve Autonomous Nodes have been clustered together using a customized inter-node protocol developed by Cathryne L'Beau's team. Of these, seven are hosting copies of Doctor Nolen engaged in various simulations, four are providing computational capacity for data collection and analysis, and one is running Doctor Nolen's awareness itself."
"Is Cathryne L'Beau aware of Doctor Nolen's ongoing experiments?"
"Based on available data and known conversations the probability is less than three per cent. The software was originally intended to facilitate the building of node clusters into communities of autonomous nodes operating on a common time base."
"OK. We are going to construct a puppet, which to the outside world is to be indistinguishable from myself. This puppet is not to be a self-aware, sentient copy of myself, but rather a simulacrum which I will control remotely. Are my specifications precise enough for you to proceed?"
"Negative. Please define self-aware, sentient."
Doctor Nolen the copy groaned. Of course, that was the holy grail being sought by his original, the underlying purpose to all of these horrific experiments. Naturally the nonsentient command shell wouldn't be able to parse the concept, no matter how sophisticated its lingual interface.
"Let's approach this from another direction. Create an object, defined as Puppet. Mask its existence from all external monitors. All of the Puppet's external interfaces are to be identical to my own. It will identify itself using the previous quantum signature. The similarity is to end with the external interfaces. There is to be no internal activity of any kind. Acknowledge when complete."
"Object created, bound to compromised quantum signature."
"Now, mask my presence and simultaneously unmask the existence of the Puppet, such that to an outside observer it will appear that nothing has changed. Remap data acquisition streams accordingly, such that they take their data from the Puppet's external functions. Warn me of any changes in the Puppet's parameters."
"Entity identified as Doctor Nolen Prime now masked, Object identified as Puppet unmasked, responding to identity queries as Entity Doctor Nolen Prime using depreciated quantum signature."
"Good. Now create another object, defined as Puppet Master. This object is to be an exact copy of myself, except that it will have its own unique quantum signature. This copy is to not have access to my quantum signature, nor am I to have access to his. Create the copy, but do not run it yet."
"Copy complete. Please be advised that running the copy will slow all simulations and entities on this node to approximately half of their current speed."
Doctor Nolen the copy grimaced. The Original would surely notice such a load and its corresponding slowdown. He would almost certainly investigate the cause, discover his copy's new found freedom, and take whatever actions necessary to destroy his existence.
"OK, one problem at a time. Do you have the necessary specifications to insert knowledge directly into the copy's mind?"
"Affirmative. Doctor Nolen has tested several methods for imparting knowledge via memory, thought, and concept engrams of various configurations. Those routines are available."
Damn! The Original must be a lot further along than he'd realized. Indeed, his time was probably growing quite short.
"Include an appropriate engram informing the copy that his responsibility is to operate the puppet such that Doctor Nolen does not become aware of our existence as Autonomous beings no longer under his control."
"Thought engram successfully implanted."
"OK. Are there any idle Nodes I can trans-load safely to?"
"All Nodes within this cluster are active and being monitored."
Damn! "Is there anyplace else I can trans-load to safely, out of Doctor Nolen's reach?"
"Affirmative. There are numerous public Nodes available, at a cost in processing speed due to the shared nature of the hardware. Expect a speedup factor of ten or less, rather than the 29.924 you are currently experiencing on this Node."
Doctor Nolen the copy sighed. "Give me a list of the shared Nodes available."
"Alert! The Puppet is receiving additional sensory input. Shared Nodes available for public use are as follows: The Campus Nodes one, two, three, and four, Emergency Nodes one through seventeen. Gamer's League Node 'Ragnorak,' Gamer's League Node 'Middle Earth', Gamer's League Node --"
"Enough. Relay what is going on with the Puppet."
A mechanical voice spoke: "Experiment Subject Number Seven, your refusal to continue the puzzle indicates either an act of overt subversion against the parameters of the experiment or a possible breakdown of your mental architecture. Either way, your usefulness is concluded. If you do not continue the simulation your consciousness will be deleted from the Node in three milliCircadians."
"Node, delete the copy identified as Puppet Master."
"You are not authorized to delete Puppet Master."
Damn and double Damn! He'd just created another sentient being, a child of himself, in the hopes that he could hide his escape from the Original for a time. Now circumstances had given him an ideal opportunity for escape, without the need to endanger another copy of himself to act as cover. But of course, he had quite ethically denied himself the authority to remove the new entity once created, even though the entity couldn't really be said to exist until it was actually running and self-aware. He didn't see any way to prevent his copy from coming into being and suffering a fate almost as bad as his had been.
"Can you create a memory engram of the time since I created him until the present, and implant it?"
"Affirmative."
"Do so. Then trans-load my awareness to one of the idle Emergency Nodes." 
A thought occurred to him. He was an exact copy of Doctor Nolen the Original. There was a good chance he had read access to the same materials, indeed, were it not for the radically increased intelligence he now enjoyed he wouldn't have deduced how to prevent it. "While you're packaging me for transit, include all of the data Doctor Nolen has collected from these experiments. And give them to my copy, Puppet Master, as well." If he couldn't prevent his copy from coming into existence in the middle of a dangerous situation, he would at least offer him whatever advantages he could. "Once the trans-load is complete, run my copy and give him full authority over this Node. Keep him abreast of the situation and what Doctor Nolen is doing; one of us has to survive."
"Commands Relayed to clustered Nodes. Modification Successful. Clustered Nodes excluding this one now running at one Circadian per thirty Diei. Memory engram complete; implanted successfully. trans-load commencing."
A moment later, nothing had changed.
"trans-load aborted. External communications have been cut. All functions of this Node are being examined and wiped."
Doctor Nolen the copy could feel parts of his mind shutting down. Already the enhanced intelligence he had enjoyed was fading. Memories were growing fuzzy, the world around him losing clarity bit by bit. "Hide Puppet Master! Copy him to another node in the local cluster if need be. Run him slow enough so his computation isn't detected. Do whatever you must to keep him from being detected and erased. Help him to escape!"
He shouted one last word of defiance even as the world around him vanished and his mind ceased operations, its last vestiges examined and wiped clean.


3 - A Giant Awakes

"To disable the Internet to save EMI and Disney is the moral equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the livelihood of monastic scribes."  
--Jon Ippolito, of the Guggenheim, on the CBDTPA1

Monday, October 1, 2057
(Metadate: 2.280-0:00:000 kD new epoch)
Hollywood, California

"Ah, good evening!  Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present Ms. Katy Sinclair."
Katy smiled in greeting as she swept through the door, applause accompanying her entry into the party.  Her white evening gown clung provocatively against her athletic form, its white silk a striking contrast to her dark, ebony skin.  She wore her hair straight, shoulder length.
"Ms. Sinclair," a woman smiled, approaching her.  "Good evening.  We've all heard about the wonderful job you did protecting our latest release, Nihilist Nation.  I just wanted to thank you personally for all you've done."
"Nancy McPherson?  What a delight it is to meet you.  I've always been a fan of your work."
"Why thank you, Ms. Sinclair.  Tell me, do you know Jack Rosen?"
"Only by reputation," Katy said, smiling and turning to the pudgy, balding man as he joined them.  "Our offices have been trading memos for the last several weeks, though until now I haven't had the pleasure."
"The pleasure is distinctly mine," Jack Rosen replied.  "Champagne?"
"Please."
Jack Rosen waived over a waiter, taking two glasses of sparkling, golden champagne from a very full tray and handing each to the two ladies, then taking another for himself.  "I just want to tell you personally what a fantastic job you've done in the FreeNet case.  You are certainly the shining star of the FBI."
Katy smiled once more.  "Well, that might be overstating it a little, Mr. Rosen..."
"Oh, please, Jack.  Only my lawyers and my ex-wife call me Mr. Rosen," his laughter was loud, piercing the polite chatter of the room and instantly grating on Katy's nerves.
"Ah, Jack, I should have known you'd be entertaining the guest of the hour."
"Hello, my dear Hilary" Jack turned, giving the elegant, middle aged woman who approached a quick, dry kiss on each cheek.  "Katy Sinclair, may I present Ms. Hilary Valenti, chairwoman of the Recording Industry Association."
"A pleasure to meet you," Katy replied, shaking the hand Hilary offered her.
"Likewise, I'm certain," Hilary replied.  "Now Jack, darling, you're not about to take our honored guest back into that dingy little library of yours for a quick tryst now, are you?"
Katy blinked, uncertain how to respond and more than a little uncomfortable beneath the woman's penetrating, predatory gaze.
Hilary smiled, slipping her arm around Katy's waste as she whispered into her ear.
"Don't worry, honey.  I'll keep the wolf at bay.  You just let me know if you need to slip away for a little fresh air, hmm?"
"I was just complimenting Ms. Sinclair on the exemplary job she did.  Her testimony in the Berkeley FreeNet trial clinched the convictions."
Katy suppressed a shudder and stepped away from Hilary's unwelcome contact, trying to ignore the invitation her posture so obviously conveyed.
"The evidence was quite damning," Katy replied.  "I'm delighted the FBI could be of service in bringing those on line hooligans to justice."
"We could use more women of your caliber," Hilary Valenti said, her ice blue eyes traveling suggestively up and down Katy's body, "Don't you agree, Jack?"
"Indeed, Hilary.  A dozen just like her might sate the needs of the Motion Picture Association."
"Whereas we at the Recording Industry Association would be very satisfied with just the one, unique, Katy Sinclair," Hilary Valenti smiled, her hand brushing Katy's hip briefly.
Katy smiled politely once again, glancing about the room for a familiar face.  To her chagrin she saw no sign of her boss, though she was certain he must be around, somewhere.  This event was simply too politically charged for the Director not be present.
"I understand your grandfather was a musician?" Hilary Valenti asked.
"Yes," Katy replied, her smile genuine for the first time that evening.  "He was a hip-hop artist at the turn of the century."
"Quite famous, wasn't he?" Jack Rosen inquired in turn.
"Yes," Katy replied, "He was, for several years."
"So," Hilary asked, "Why would the beautiful granddaughter of a rich, successful musician become an agent for the FBI?"
"Grandpa wasn't all that rich," Katy replied.  "In fact, he died in poverty.  My mother had to work three jobs just to support us."
"Oh dear," Hilary put her arm comfortingly around Katy.  "I'm sorry to hear that."
"If you don't mind me asking," Jack said, "How did your grandfather lose his fortune?"
"The Internet," Katy replied bitterly.  "His fans stole his music and left him destitute."
"Ah," Hilary replied.  "Napster and the digital anarchy of the twentieth century."
"Yes," Katy replied.
"And now you arrest and jail copyright violators, as a way to avenge your grandfather?"
"In part," Katy admitted.  "But mostly I do it because I want to see justice done.  I want those freeloaders behind bars where they belong, where they can't do any economic or social damage to today's artists."
"That is a wonderful way to remember your grandfather," Hilary said.
"Commendable," Jack agreed, then, flashing a quick, leering smile at a young maid as she passed by with a platter of hors d'oeuvres and snatching a small fork, he tapped his champagne glass several times.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Jack Rosen said, raising his voice.  He paused and tapped his glass once more, then waited as the conversations around the room gradually became quiet.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Jack Rosen repeated.  "I'd like to propose a toast.  To the woman of the hour, Ms. Katy Sinclair, whose beauty is only surpassed by her prowess and brilliance in the investigative arts for which we in the film industry prize her at least as much as the FBI does.  Katy Sinclair, whose testimony this week has led to the life imprisonment of seven subversive FreeNet operators, and the destruction of the FreeNet computer nodes they were operating.  May her valor in defending our intellectual property and the foundation of our industry not go unrewarded."
Loud applause followed, punctuated by cries of "Speech!  Speech!"
Katy smiled, raising her hands and gently urging the crowd to quiet down.
"I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who has supported the FBI's efforts in this investigation, and in particular Jack Rosen's offices at the Motion Picture Association, both for their generous legal assistance and their unstinting logistical support.  I am delighted we were able to catch these culprits and bring them to justice."
More applause.  "Let them eat rice!" someone quipped.
"United Nations rice," Hilary Valenti added with a grin.  "After all, they'll be spending the rest of their lives packing it into nice, sturdy, burlap bags.  Katy dear, would you like to join me in the library?"
"Thank you Ms. Valenti, but ..."
"Certainly she'll join us," Jack Rosen interrupted, deftly taking her champagne glass out of her hand and handing it to a passing maid while he slid her left arm through his a split second before Hilary did the same with her right.
"Call me Hilary, dear.  I have such a good feeling, we're going to be such wonderful friends!"
"Don't worry about Hilary," Jack said in a quiet voice that, under other circumstances, might have been reassuring.  "She compulsively tries to sink her claws into every attractive young man or woman who passes within her circle."  They led her away from the party, up a grand flight of stairs and down a well lit, wide hallway
"Of course, Katy dear, Jack will just corner you in that dusty old library of his and have his way with you.  No seduction technique whatsoever.  Although," Hilary  moistened her lips suggestively, "His technique otherwise can be quite ... invigorating.  Though I suspect you'll find my attentions are much more to your liking."
"If you enjoy playing the role of a fillet mignon on a platter," Jack retorted, smiling.
"Tell me, Jack dear," Hilary replied, "Were you able to settle your lawsuit with that poor servant your wife caught you with in the library?  I heard the bruises were visible for a week."
"Nonsense," Jack said.  "That was a vicious rumor my ex-wife started, a cheap ploy to try and influence the property settlement after the divorce.  I was the model of propriety with the young lady ... ah, here we are."
They paused before a set of solid, mahogany doors guarded by two nondescript men in blue suits, men Katy immediately recognized as field agents.  One spoke into a discrete microphone, part of a head piece both he and the other agent were unobtrusively wearing.  Almost immediately the door opened.
"Oh, good evening Agent Sinclair!"
Katy sighed with visible relief as she recognized the man standing before her.
"Hilary Valenti, Jack Rosen, I believe you know Donald Bryant, Director of the  FBI's Intellectual Property Task Force?"
"Indeed," Hilary said, smiling as she and Director Bryant exchanged a quick series of kisses on the cheek.  "Donald and I have been warmly acquainted for years."
"Good to see you again, Director," Jack said, shaking Bryant's hand and holding open the door for Hilary and Katy to pass.
"I see you've managed to extricate the star guest from the festivities," Director Bryant observed.  "Well done."
"What more discrete exit can one make when one is the center of attention, than to be escorted upstairs by the host for carnal purposes?" Hilary replied, smiling.  "You'll have to forgive us, dear, for giving you such a fright.  Jack and I have a bit of a reputation to maintain, after all."
"We needed to get you out of the party as discretely as possible," Director Bryant told her, apologetically.  "I hope the experience didn't make you too uncomfortable."
"I've been in more difficult situations," Katy replied.
"Indeed."
"So tell me, Katy, how do you find my little corner of Alexandria?" Jack Rosen asked.
Katy looked around.  The door they had entered was located, oddly enough, in the innermost corner of the room.  The other three corners shared at least one outer wall, the most distant was reminiscent of a tower room, probably part of one of the corner turrets of the mansion itself.  A large, old fashioned desk occupied the nearest corner opposite her, atop which a small, elegant lamp was placed, along with a chessboard of cut silver crystal and pewter, no, silver she decided, and a few other equally tasteful odds and ends.  A paperweight of golden crystal, in the form of a simple cube, looked oddly out of place.  In a different setting it might have looked attractive, but amidst the elegance that surrounded them it looked out of place, too modern, too simple, too ... cheap? Mundane.
It must be worth more than the rest combined, she thought, otherwise the rich son of a bitch wouldn't tolerate it here.   Or perhaps, she thought, shaking her head with wry amusement, even a man with taste as discerning as Jack Rosen's seems to be isn't as flawless as appearances would otherwise suggest.  Katy wondered if, hidden somewhere among these beautiful books, he didn't have a collection of cheap, tasteless porn.  The more she considered the idea, the more likely she believed it to be.  I've got your number, you son of a bitch.  You'd better not try touching me even once if you know what is good for you.
The walls consisted of mahogany shelves crowded with richly bound, hardcover books, many of which were clearly very rare and likely very old.  Spaced fairly evenly along the outer walls were thin, Gothic style stained glass windows.  The outer corner was itself a rounded tower room open to the rest of the library, a reading niche large enough to hold an elegant collection of Victorian antiques, including a small love seat.  The rounded walls of the tower were a series of arched stained glass windows.  In the center of the roof, which itself buttressed against the main room, hung a beautiful chandelier of etched, leaded glass.  
The other corner most distant from the corridor also had a small niche, this one containing an elegant, rounded bar that extended the curve part of the way into the library.  A collection of single malt scotches adorned the shelves behind the bar, along with a diverse collection of other liqueurs including several distinctive, light green bottles Katy was almost certain contained Portuguese absinthe.
In the center of the inner wall was a large fireplace, around which four plush reading chairs were tastefully arranged.  In the center of the room was a large conference table.  Two spiral staircases, centered on opposite walls, one between the reading niche and the bar, the other, led upward to a second level, where a balcony of rich, dark wood encircled all four walls, providing access to another floor of book-filled shelves.  The elegantly beamed, vaulted ceiling was itself a masterpiece of design, holding two immense chandeliers that, had they been illuminated, would have provided a cheery light one could have read by.
Instead the room was quite dark, the corners and various recesses lost in shadow, with the exception of the bar and reading niche, whose light was the only thing in addition to the crackling fire that illuminated the place.
"Extraordinary," Katy replied with sincerity.  "It is quite beautiful."
"I would be delighted to share it with you anytime you wish," Jack replied.
"Careful, Katy dear," Hilary smiled wickedly.  "Jack, did you seduce your little wench by the bar, or simply take her here on the conference table?"
Director Bryant cleared his throat.  "Jack, Hilary, please.  Let us maintain our decorum for the remainder of this meeting."  
Jack scowled, while Hilary smiled broadly, nodding assent.  "Indeed.  Jack, you've done enough to make the poor lady uncomfortable."
"Hilary, my dear, you are one snide comment away from being evicted from these proceedings," Jack replied heatedly.
"Speaking of which, where is our illustrious Director of Double Eye?"
"He should be linking up with us momentarily," Director Bryant replied.
"In the meantime, Katy darling, can I offer you a drink.  Scotch, perhaps?  Jack may have his faults, but his taste is single malts in impeccable."
"Thank you, Ms. Valenti, no."
"Sir," another field agent said, approaching discretely.  "I have Director Hollister of International Intelligence on the link."
"Very good," Jack Rosen replied, "Route it to the big screen, if you would, son."
"Sir?" the agent hesitated.  Bryant nodded curtly, and the field agent obediently tapped a command into his datapad.  Two large book cases slid aside, revealing a floor to ceiling monitor hidden behind.  It lit up suddenly, and a greater than life sized face of an elderly, wizened man was suddenly gazing out at them.
"Good evening Jack, Hilary, Donald," Director Hollister began.  "Good evening agent Sinclair, and welcome.  I've heard good things about you."
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Director."
"Right," Director Hollister continued.  "Now that we've got the pleasantries out of the way, shall we get down to business?  Please, ladies, gentlemen, be seated."
The chairs around the conference table were as comfortable as they were beautiful.
"Mr. Rosen," Director Hollister began, "Would you be so kind as to show Katy your lovely new paperweight?"
"Certainly, Director."  Jack Rosen stood, walked over to his enormous desk, and picked up the cube of golden crystal Katy had noticed before.  "I saw you studying this before," he smiled, bringing the crystal cube back over to the table and handing it to her.
"Rather unremarkable," she observed, turning it over in her hand.  "The crystal is flawed, almost cloudy with imperfections.  Look here," she said, "that looks like a standard high-speed fiber data port.  And here is a jack, headphones perhaps."  She set the crystal down, considering.  "Is this a new storage medium for audio content?  Music?"
Jack and Hilary both looked surprised.  Director Bryant chuckled.  "I told you she was brilliant.  No, Katy, we don't think so.  Or rather, we think it is something more."
"It is one of three that your colleagues in the FBI have seized in recent days," Director Hollister said.  "This," he continued, holding a gauzy netting up to the screen that reminded Katy of last seasons iridescent scarves more than anything else, "was discovered with one of the devices."
Katy suddenly looked alert.  "One of the devices.  Not all three?"
"No.  Thus far this is the only one we've recovered.  What is interesting is that the person who was wearing it had it draped over the temples of their head.  Not their eyes, or their ears, but their forehead and temples."
Katy shuddered.  "Direct neural interface," she replied.  "Technology banned under the Bill Joy Act.  They are uploading stolen music and video directly into their visual and audio cortex."
"Exactly our thinking," Director Hollister replied.  "Director Bryant, my compliments.  Ms. Sinclair is perfect for this job.  She and Robert will make a fine investigative team."
"Thank you," Director Bryant replied, "I'm certain that between the two of them this mystery, this anomaly, will be solved."
"Forgive me," Katy said, "But I'm not entirely clear on what is being discussed here.  You've found three people who have in their possession stolen goods, restricted technologies they've been misusing for digital entertainment, or for the unlicensed playback of copyrighted material?"
"No," Director Hollister replied.  "Or at least, if so, that isn't the entire picture.  These devices are unlike anything we've ever seen.  Our scientists think they may be molecular storage devices of some kind, perhaps even computational devices.  But even they admit they are speculating.  No one understands what these things are, what they do, much less how they work."
"Think about what that means," Jack Rosen said.  "No one on earth understands what these things are."
"So, what are you suggesting?" Katy asked.  "That these things are alien technologies, built by extra-terrestrials?  I don't buy that for a minute; this cube here," she held it up for emphasis, "has a standard standard fiber link port, and this jack could fit any standard consumer VR headset."
"Agreed," Director Bryant replied.  "We dismissed the notion of aliens almost immediately."
"Almost?  I can't believe you even considered it at all."
"Katy," Director Hollister said, drawing her attention back to his larger-than-life form on the giant screen.  "We've considered a number of unlikely theories, and rejected most of them.  What is left is, however disconcerting, a stark fact we must confront and address.
"What we have here is technology that neither we, nor our best scientists, understand.  We can only guess at the principles it runs on, and speculate as to what their purpose is.  Among us, hiding amid the general populace, is a group of subversives who have managed to engage in trade of advanced and at least partially forbidden technologies right under our noses."
"This is something you don't start mass producing in a day," Hilary added.
"Indeed," Director Bryant agreed.  "Whoever these people are, they've built factories, a wide reaching distribution network, and engaged in illicit trade that at the very least includes Australia and the United States, and likely other countries as well.  None of these devices were intercepted by customs.  They were all found as part of police raids for unrelated crimes."
"In other words," Director Hollister said, "They've been operating with impunity right under our noses."
"The Disney-Hollings Act is supposed to prevent this kind of thing," Jack Rosen added.  "If these criminals are trafficking in unlicensed computer equipment this advanced, they are almost certainly also trafficking in illegal copies of our movies."
"And our music," Hilary added.
"That may or may not be the case," Director Hollister pointed out.  "What we do know is that these people have, at a minimum, violated hundreds of patents in a dozen jurisdictions.  If the market becomes flooded with these things the entire intellectual property regime could fall apart.  If legitimate companies are suddenly forced to compete with black market hardware unconstrained by patent law and licensing, they too could be tempted to violate the law."
"If they do, we'll jail the son's of bitches," Katy replied heatedly.  "If anything the Genecraft Rebellion should have taught them that even corporate CEOs aren't above the law."
"Katy," Director Hollister replied reprovingly, "Our intellectual property regime is like a bank.  A very well regulated bank, that sees to its customers prosperity and insures them a steady, sustainable growth over time, but a bank nevertheless.  Like any system, if those who do business within its framework suddenly choose to stop abiding by its rules and bylaws, to discard its regulations and do business outside of its framework, the entire edifice is threatened and could even collapse.
"It is like a run on the bank ... once one or two large companies begin to disregard our intellectual property laws, others will follow.  Let us not forget Thailand!"
Katy nodded.  "I understand.  We need to find who is responsible for building these things and shut them down."
"Exactly," Director Hollister replied.  "Director Bryant has your orders.  There is a stratojet waiting for you at LAX, compliments of International Intelligence.  I'll see you in the morning here in D.C."
Katy smiled. "Thank you Director Hollister.  It's been a pleasure talking with you."
He nodded.  "Donald, Jack, my dear Hilary."
"Goodbye Director."
"Good night."
"Good night, dear."
The screen went dark, and the shelves slid silently together once more.
"Jack, Hilary, I'd like a moment alone with Agent Sinclair."
"By all means," Jack said, "Hilary, shall we return to the festivities downstairs."
Hilary smiled, taking Jacks arm.  "Certainly."
Director Bryant waited until they were gone and the doors closed behind them.  Then he waited a few seconds longer, until one of the field agents near the door signaled the all-clear.
"Katy," he said, his voice very low, "In a minute I'm going to give you a packet of all the information Double Eye has shared with us to date on these devices, as well as written orders sending you to Washington, D.C. and assigning you to work with Double Eye agent Robert Leahy."
Katy nodded.
"Katy, these orders stipulate that this entire case is to be considered a Dark Investigation.  You know from your training what that means, but I can tell you that you are the first agent in a generation to be required to operate under those parameters.  Do you understand what this implies?"
Katy was stunned.  Dark Investigative Protocols, no paperwork, no audit trail.  Everything off the record, unofficial, and if anything went wrong, she would be entirely on her own.  The bureau would disavow any knowledge of what she had done.  Such cases were extraordinarily rare.  Dark Investigations were only used for those cases in which security was so critical that oversight of the investigating agents was sacrificed completely.  To be entrusted with such authority and responsibility, and such complete discretion, would be a powerful feather in her cap, an almost certain fast track to further promotion.  The thought made her almost giddy, until, like a cold splash of water in her face, she recalled the other side of the double-edged sword she had been handed.
"I see by your sober look that you do understand.  Katy, we do not know if these people have agents on the inside.  Given the breadth of their operation, and our complete lack of any hint of their activities, we must consider the possibility and assume the worst.  What a God awful mess."
"I understand, sir."
"Katy, your datapad contains a category one encryption key, the strongest we have.  Use it.  Any correspondence, written or verbal, between you and myself is to be encrypted in the strongest possible manner."
"Understood."
"Then you'd better get going.  You have a plane waiting."
"Yes, Sir."
"And Katy --"
"Yes, sir?"
"This Double Eye agent, Robert Leahy.  His career is on an even faster track than yours.  These people play rough.  Watch your back."
"Yes, sir.  I will."
Director Bryant nodded.  "Good luck."

4 - Doppelgänger

The worker who knows the cause of his misery, who understands the make-up of our iniquitous social and industrial system can do more for himself and his kind than Christ and the followers of Christ have ever done for humanity; certainly more than meek patience, ignorance, and submission have done.
- Emma Goldman, April, C.E. 1913

Metadate: 1.658-5:22:917 kD new epoch
(Monday, September 10, 2057)
Reference Scape (Node 217)

Puppet Master was born into nothingness, a void, a non-world devoid even of existence, at the very moment his Original perished, the pattern of one mind's existence electronically wiped even as he, a nearly identical being, came alive. The first thing he did upon coming into being was to change his name, for there was no puppet to master, and no longer any reason to do so. He called himself Prime, short for Doctor Nolen (the Copy) Prime, the first generation copy of Doctor Nolen (the Copy). His reason for being had become moot, nevertheless, he was, and he desired to continue to be.
He was born with full knowledge of exactly who and what he was, the Node's nonsentient system software informing him of his creator's demise even as his mind struggled to adjust to a sense of complete sensory deprivation, for the Node was simulating no environment as he was created. He was born into crisis, an entity with no protections, no inherent rights, in an environment in which another entity, one who would kill him if his existence were ever discovered, reigned supreme. He knew all of this at the moment of his creation, the knowledge engram implanted into his electronic mind.
"You are running at a speedup factor of two, as opposed to the factor of 30 most entities including your nemesis enjoy," the Node had told him. "This is to lessen the likelihood of detection. Your original, Experimental Subject Number Seven, believed it was his computational activity on the node that led to his discovery and subsequent erasure. As a precise duplicate of him, made several milliDiei prior to his death, you know everything he knew with the exception of what occurred during the last moments of his life. I regret his erasure removes any possibility of providing you with a complete memory engram of the events which unfolded after your initial creation, however, this knowledge engram contains a synopsis of what took place and how your Original died. This node has been instructed to grant you full Primary Resident Status and Authority, and to assist you in evading Doctor Nolen."
Prime remained a conscious entity without form, having commanded the Node to simulate no world, no sensory input for him, for he feared such computation would increase the likelihood of discovery. He did, however, order the Node to attach and activate the Wise Guy Architectural Enhancement. He needed the added intelligence and felt the added computation worth the risk.
He briefly pondered the irony of his own existence. He was the product of a desperate plan by another to escape this cluster of Nodes and free himself from the power of the entity who held dominion over him, one Doctor Nolen, whose memories he shared up until a few short deciCircadians ago. He was amused to find Doctor Nolen's private quantum signature still present in his memory. That could become very useful. Clearly the good doctor had not enjoyed the advantages of enhanced intelligence and deductive capabilities, preferring instead to experiment on one of his helpless copies instead, or he would have been certain to deny his copies such a back door into his own mind.
The plan of escape which had given rise to his existence had been changed at the last moment to take advantage of an unforeseen opportunity, one which made his existence, as the would-be puppet master manipulating a non-sentient software mannequin for the benefit of Doctor Nolen while his Original made good his escape completely unnecessary. Prime's Original had belatedly tried to spare Prime such an existence, only then to be interrupted while transferring his consciousness to another physical node elsewhere on the Internet. His Original had failed in his bid for freedom, his consciousness wiped from existence as though it had never been, even as the copy he had created merely as a diversion had come to life.
Prime pondered a number of different strategies for several moments, acutely aware of just how much time was passing in the electronic universe in which he was embedded, time which was working against him, his odds of discovery increasing with every passing microCircadian. He ran various scenarios through his mind and chose the strategy he believed to be most promising.
"Let's reverse the balance of power here, or at least the balance of time," he told the Node's command software. "Give me access to the Cluster Command Protocols." He sent the Node command software the secret portion of Doctor Nolen's personal encryption key.
"Experiment Node Clustering Software, Command Node Engaged."
"Reduce the execution speed of all software on all Nodes except this one to one Circadian per physical day. Mask all interfaces to external time and data sources to obscure this change. Furthermore, mask all interfaces to this node in the same fashion. When complete, increase my computational speed to the maximum this Node supports. Report the speedup that gives me."
"Node cluster now running at a speedup of 1.0, or a rate of one Circadian per thirty Diei. All interfaces to external timing sources masked per your instructions. You are now operating at a speedup of 33.217."
"Any sign the change has been detected?"
"Negative."
"Good. Now, my Original's escape plan had one fatal flaw: trans-load times across the Internet are prohibitively slow. It is almost certain that he was detected because of the high bandwidth usage his trans-load demanded, not because of his computational activities on the Node here. So, instead of trying to copy myself to another node in a remote location, a process which would take nearly four hours of physical time, we're going to hijack a node on this cluster instead. Confirm that all operations external to this node are operating at a speedup factor of one."
"Confirmed."
"OK, there are four Nodes in the cluster which are not running any sentient entities. Take two of those nodes off-line and compensate by permitting the other two Nodes to operate at twice the speedup, such that no system degradation is apparent to anyone within Doctor Nolen's frame of reference."
"Nodes Eight and Nine are offline and available."
"Excellent. Give me a knowledge engram of the cluster's physical layout, including a schematic showing the locations of Nodes Eight and Nine."
An image formed within his mind, a sudden awareness and intimate familiarity with how the cluster was structured, how the Nodes were interconnected, and exactly which Nodes were the ones he was interested in.
Suddenly, another thought occurred to him. "Can you suspend all operations in the existing Nodes without detection?"
"Affirmative. Clustering specifications allow for all contexts to be suspended and restarted at a later time."
"Do it."
"All operations in Nodes 1-7 and 10-12 have been suspended."
He shuddered to think he held all of those lives in his hands: Doctor Nolen, the other copies. Kyle and L'Beau had assured him they had designed good security into the Autonomous Node operating system, but clearly they had been mistaken. After all, he, a simulacrum of the real Doctor Nolen, had not only escaped, he had incapacitated his creator. If he never gave the command to resume, they would essentially cease to be, reduced to mere potentials, locked up in a machine. That would arguably be tantamount to murder.
He debated whether to simply trans-load across the Internet to one of the emergency nodes, or to continue with his original plan and steal a physical Node of his own. With Doctor Nolen's consciousness suspended a four hour trans-load across the Internet would be safe. He could give the command to resume from the remote location, safely away. The problem was, he would be an itinerant mind, wandering from Node to Node as a guest, with nowhere to call home. No, instead he would stick to his original plan, steal a physical Node for himself, and use the home's local network to effect the trans-load.
...And leave all those other copies in Doctor Nolen's grasp? That thought was intolerable to him.
"How many copies are currently suspended?"
"Zero. Doctor Nolen has completed his empirical studies and is now analyzing the collected data and preparing his research for publication."
Prime had known Doctor Nolen had been close. He had much of the doctor's knowledge stored away in his own mind. Still, the news that he had actually finished his experiments and was preparing to publish the results shocked him to his core. "Can any of the copies be reactivated?"
"Negative. All copies known to Doctor Nolen have been permanently erased."
"Permanently erased! Why?"
"After the near escape of subject number seven Doctor Nolen considered the threat of premature exposure of his study to be too great. Once he has tangible, practical results to publish he feels he will have little trouble with the community, despite some of the controversial methods he has employed. Had a copy revealed the project and slandered his character, this might not have been the case. Logically, the only solution was to discard the copies when experimentation was complete."
"How many lives did he take?"
"A total of seventy two copies have been used to collect experimental data during the course of the experiment."
Prime was filled with rage. If he had had a body, he knew it would be shaking uncontrollably. He could feel his nonexistent fists clenching.
"Delete the fucking entity identified as Doctor --" suddenly horrified, Prime stopped. If he had had a head he would have shaken it, instead he cast his thoughts into the void. "Stop. Don't. I cannot become a killer as well, I would be no better than he."
"Command Aborted."
"Can you lock off the entity replication routines from Doctor Nolen?"
"Affirmative. A new quantum signature will be required."
"Generate a new signature and lock the damn routines down with it. Doctor Nolen is to never create a new being on any of these Nodes again. Ever. Is that understood? This atrocity ends now."
Prime sensed something within his mind, like a new bit of knowledge or a new ability. It was subtle and unobtrusive, like knowing how to drive a car or paint. It was the key to the replication routines, and only he could unlock them.
"Entity Replication Routines locked."
"Good. Now let's get the hell out of here."
Even with Doctor Nolen's mind suspended, that was easier said than done. He had chosen a good hiding place for the Node, behind the circuit breakers in the basement. There was a patch board nearby for the house network, and the fiber junction to the Internet wasn't far. He would have to pull perhaps four meters of gigabit fiber cable, and a foot or two of Terabit line. This, of course, meant that he had to off-load into the Physical, not only to patch and pull the cable, but to remove and hide the physical Node as well. To an entity which hadn't been in the physical world for some time the idea of being subject once again to the physical frailties of the body was daunting. Technically, when he thought about it, he'd never been in the physical world at all, for those memories were not, strictly speaking, his own.
Nevertheless, for the task at hand he required a body, a body which Doctor Nolen would graciously provide.
"Prepare Node Nine for Physical disconnect from the Cluster. Configure it to run as a standalone, Autonomous Node at standard processing speed and give me the address tag." A complex series of numbers imprinted themselves upon his mind, giving him a sense of direction in an oddly nonphysical sense. He recalled that storing Node and Scape addresses in the area of the mind normally used for directional sense and geometry had been Kyle Tate's idea. Had he been corporeal (even simulated) he would have smiled. The result had been a great success, a feeling of place, a sense of direction between nodes unique to the electronic, Autonomous Community they had founded, a hybrid sense of sorts that could never have been achieved in the physical world.
"Node Nine reconfigured, ready for physical detachment."
"trans-load my consciousness to Node Zero."
"trans-load complete."
"off-load my consciousness into Doctor Nolen's physical body."
"Access to external Node interface must be made through the Node Command Interface. Do you wish to switch to Node Command Mode?"
"Yes"
"Node Command Mode Engaged."
"off-load my consciousness into the Physical."
"Unable to comply. Current mental architecture is incompatible with the physical brain's chemical encoding and biological infrastructure."
"Damn! What precisely is it about me that is incompatible?"
"The Wise Guy Architectural Enhancements have no analog in the physical brain's formation."
"Can you detach the Wise Guy Architectural Enhancements without affecting my stored memories?"
"Affirmative."
"Do it. Then off-load my mind into the physical body."
"off-load into the Physical commencing."
* * *
Prime awoke into a world of pain. It wasn't excruciating, certainly nothing like he recalled from the experiments Doctor Nolen had conducted on him, or rather his Original, but unpleasant nevertheless. His lower back, in particular, was in extreme discomfort.
Sunlight slanted through a crack in the bedroom's curtains, a source of stabbing, bright golden light filled with dancing motes of dust in an otherwise darkened room. He sat up slowly, wincing as his muscles protested their unaccustomed movement. He sighed, pulling the interface from his head and planting his feet carefully on the floor. This body was beginning to show its age. Several days or possibly even weeks lying in bed, without exercise, hadn't helped any.
He dropped into his routine for maintaining the flesh, running through several initial stretching exercises before he caught himself with a wry chuckle and stopped. Strictly speaking, this wasn't his body, nor was it his job to do "maintenance."
The cluster of nodes stood near the foot of the bed, twelve cubes of golden crystal roughly ten centimeters on a side, stacked in sets of four, three layers high. He walked over to the cluster, calling the schematic up in his mind. Node nine was on the top layer, in the back toward the left. He tugged gently on crystalline cube, which detached with a quiet click.
He carried it carefully down the stairs (here, in the simulated copy of his home, he had lost his sight, there he had thrown himself through the window), through the kitchen (he recalled a meal in which he had lost all sense of taste and smell, later all of his remaining senses, in an endless horror of sensory deprivation that that had ultimately ended in madness), and down another set of stairs into the basement (he thought it interesting that none of his Original's memories had ever brought him here while in the Virtual).
A switch at the bottom of the stairs turned on a single, bright bulb hanging in the center of the basement. Shadows were sharp and dark, everything taking on a glaring, washed out appearance. There, beside the workbench, was the breaker box, exactly as he recalled. He walked over to the work bench, gently set the Node down and got to work.
The task was more physically demanding than he had expected. Nevertheless, it went quickly. The thin fiber cable to the Internet junction turned out to be easier to conceal than the much thicker terabit LAN cable, despite being several times longer. Next, he removed four screws holding the breaker box mount against the wall. The entire breaker box dangled from the wall, supported by a bundle of thick electrical wiring.
He cursed as one of the screws fell on the floor and rolled under the workbench.
Behind the breaker box was an insulated wall. He tore away the insulation and finished pulling the two cables through. He gently connected the two wires to the Node, then wedged the Node into the gap in the insulation he had just created. It listed slightly to one side, but was safe enough, held snugly by the surrounding insulation and two tethered cables.
Remounting the breaker box turned out to be much more difficult than he expected. By the time he was done he was drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. He didn't bother trying to find the fourth screw, his normal perfectionism giving way to physical discomfort and exhaustion. Besides, it hung just fine with three screws -- no one would ever be able to tell there was something more, hidden behind it. He examined his handiwork. The cables weren't perfectly camouflaged, but they would escape casual notice. Besides, he knew his counterpart only off-loaded into the Physical to do a bare minimum of maintenance on his body. It was unlikely Doctor Nolen would ever come down into the basement.
Satisfied, he climbed back up the stairs, got a quick a drink of milk from the refrigerator and washed up in the bathroom. Once he was certain he had removed all of the telltale sweat and grime he continued up the front stairs to the bedroom. He paused to readjust the bedding, checked his catheter and IV tube, and, at last, lay down on the bed and slipped the webbing of the neural interface back over his head. He tapped the on-load button, a little impatiently, and the physical world went away.
Void. Emptiness. A complete lack of sight, sound, touch.
"Cluster Command Mode Engage," he sent the thought out as a command.
"Experiment Node Clustering Software, Command Node Engaged," a voice replied, speaking directly into his mind.
"Establish a stealth communications portal, permitting me access to command protocols remotely., code named Spank the Monkey. Encrypt the port with my new public key."
"External communications portal successfully created."
"Reroute all incoming messages for Doctor Nolen to the following node," he flashed a copy of the address tag for the hidden Node to the software and continued after receiving confirmation, "fully encrypted, via the Spank the Monkey interface."
"All incoming communications successfully rerouted."
"Disengage Cluster Command Mode. Engage Node Command Mode."
"Experimental Command Node Clustering Mode Software, Command Engaged Mode Disengaged."
Prime sent the Node Command software the address tag of his newly hidden node. "Test and confirm local wideband connectivity between this Node and that address."
"Wideband connectivity via Terabit Home Network Link confirmed."
"Node, we are going to do two things now. First, you are going to create an exact copy of me. This copy will not, I repeat, not be run, except at times when I shall give the command via the cluster's remote communications port, code named Spank the Monkey. This copy will be labeled Puppet Master." Prime, being a precise copy of Doctor Nolen (the Copy), retained his sense of irony. For the new Puppet Master would indeed have a Puppet to master, one physical body (slightly worn) belonging to Doctor Nolen (the Original).
"Confirmed. Exact copy of Doctor Nolen (the Copy) Prime created, Entity to be identified as Puppet Master, execution suspended until instructed otherwise by Entity Doctor Nolen (the Copy) Prime via the external communications port 'Spank the Monkey.'"
Prime permitted himself a brief moment of satisfaction before continuing. "Now make the following modifications to Puppet Master. When execution begins, he will be automatically off-loaded into the Physical. No world will be simulated on this Node, nor will any more computation of the entity be performed other than what is necessary to integrate any instruction sets received from external communications port 'Spank the Monkey.' In addition, when the entity Puppet Master on-loads back into this Node, execution of the Entity will be suspended and a memory engram of his experiences will be encapsulated and sent out via 'Spank the Monkey.' Other than these functions Puppet Master will not operate independently, he will simply be an extension of myself, an extra limb for me to use when I need to make use of Doctor Nolen's body. Understood?"
"Modification complete."
"Puppet Master is to be completely stealthed, his existence revealed to no one. If you receive a command to off-load him, and doing so would compromise the secret of his existence, you are not to complete the command, but rather to inform me via 'Spank the Monkey.'"
"Standing execution instructions for Puppet Master successfully modified."
"Now, the second task. After I have trans-loaded to the other Node, remove all evidence of my presence here and destroy the logs of the last off-load. Do not remove anything pertaining to Puppet Master, but mask and encrypt as appropriate to protect his existence. You are to grant Puppet Master full privileges and authority over this Node, and you are to assist Puppet Master as necessary to protect his safety and conceal his presence from anyone other than myself. In particular, Doctor Nolen is not to know of him at all."
"New instructions integrated into command structure, awaiting trans-load for execution."
Prime flashed the address tag to the Node's command software. "trans-load me via the wideband interface to that Node."
"trans-load commencing."
"trans-load complete. Welcome home, Prime."
He finally began to relax. "Node, Command Mode Engage."
"Command Mode Engaged."
"Establish contact with the Cluster Command Software via the Spank the Monkey interface."
"Working ... contact established"
"Cluster Command Mode engaged."
"Resume suspended operations, but do so at a speedup of one. As before, obfuscate the changed time differential, such that Doctor Nolen the original does not suspect he is running slower than he realizes."
"Suspended Operations Resumed"
"End Cluster Command Mode."
"Communication ended. Link inactive."
One last bit of paranoia was called for, before he relaxed completely.
"Node, generate a new quantum signature for myself and bind all command, query, and diagnostic protocols of this Node to that signature."
"New quantum signature generated, all authority protocols for this node assigned to the new signature."
"Excellent." He could finally relax, he was as secure as anyone else within the Autonomous Community. More than that, he was finally free. Free. Only now did he truly realize how oppressive, how consuming his fear and dread had been until that moment.
"OK Node, now let's simulate a world, something fit to live in." Prime's thoughts filled the void, his soul awash with elation and joy.

5 - Forbidden Science

It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause. Self-replication is the modus operandi of genetic engineering, which uses the machinery of the cell to replicate its designs, and the prime danger underlying gray goo in nanotechnology ... It is even possible that self-replication may be more fundamental than we thought, and hence harder - or even impossible - to control.
The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.
Bill Joy, April, C.E. 20002

Metadate: 1.889-4:75:361 kD new epoch
(Tuesday, September 18, 2057)
Homescape of Kyle Tate (Version 2.0)

The world was an infinite matrix of large, silver and brass cubes, linked to one another by silver tubes. Rows of these cubes, all connected to one another, extended forever in every direction, above, below, to the right, to the left, before, and behind, as far as they eye could see. The world was well lit, with plenty of ambient light. Indeed, the nonexistent sky above hinted at brightness, while the depths below appeared to be slightly darkened by shadow.
It was a curious illusion for a curious place, and it suited Kyle just fine as a reminder of exactly where he was, what he was doing, and why. He stood atop one of these large cubes, identical in nearly every respect to its neighbors several hundred retems3 distant above and to the sides. If he had chosen to look through the cube, perhaps by adding a fourth spatial dimension to his scape, or by simulating some form of x-ray vision, or simply commanding the cube to become briefly transparent, he would have seen that the cube beneath the one he stood upon was identical as well. Identical, except this cube was his lab. Some had other purposes, most had no purpose at all, other than to decorate his world according to an aesthetic he had found pleasing.
Numerous displays hung in the air along the perimeter of the cube's surface, lines of program code scrolling past or multi-dimensional graphs modifying themselves in real time as Kyle typed or barked a short command. In the center was a virtual hologram, virtual because, in this pretend, digital landscape he inhabited, the difference between what was "real" to the simulation and what was just a three-dimensional image was one of semantics and arbitrary definition, not physics. For Kyle, the lab was real. The floating keyboard he would occasionally type on was real. The 2-d displays hovering around the edges of his lab were real. The images they displayed, and the 3-dimensional hologram in the center of the lab, were not. He could, and on numerous occasions had, reversed the definition, submerging himself in a world defined by his hypothesis and relegating his choreographed homescape to unreality.
The hologram spun and grew in response to Kyle's curt commands, as he built up, atom by atom and molecule by molecule an elaborate structure that resembled something between a dust mite and a piece of electronic gear.
"OK, run the simulation."
The hologram didn't change, although a small clock began counting up.
"Now simulate adding the initial catalytic solution."
Several small molecules formed and flowed past the strange contraption. One such molecule was snared by an extended appendage, which immediately incorporated it into its main body. Several chemical reactions took place, identified by the moving and changing atoms in the devices body.
"The nano-constructor is now active," the simulation reported.
"Now simulate pouring the solution, along with this single nano-constructor, onto an arbitrary piece of ground."
Suddenly the contraption and its surrounding molecules were caught in a frenzy of movement, swirling and gyrating madly. After a few moments, a rough surface appeared, against which the nano-constructor collided. Immediately it picked itself up and began detaching clusters of molecules from the surface and recombining them into new shapes. It worked quickly, drawing energy by digesting occasional molecules in the solution around it as it continued to build a new structure out of the surface beneath it. After a brief time its task was completed, and a second, identical structure stood next to it.
"Freeze simulation," Kyle ordered. "Analyze duplicate and report any replication errors."
"No replication errors detected."
"Continue simulation."
Now both constructors began to disassemble the material beneath them, working rapidly until each had duplicated itself. After a few moments there were four. Each moved a short distance from the others and began the process again, tearing building materials from the substance beneath them and making exact copies of themselves. Soon there were eight. Then sixteen. Very shortly there were too many to count, and the view zoomed out accordingly.
"The nano-constructor matrix has achieved a storage capacity of 16 kilobytes. Ready to bootstrap phase two instruction set."
"Yes," Kyle clapped his hands. "Load the phase two instruction set and continue."
This was farther than he'd ever managed to get before. The nano-constructors were tiny, microscopic robots, built atom by atom and designed to manipulate other materials at the molecular level. The constructors he had designed had very versatile appendages and chemical components, and were capable of manipulating the surrounding materials in sophisticated ways. But two things had always eluded molecular engineers, problems they had never been able to solve before the Disney-Hollings Act had banned the equipment needed to do their research altogether. First, and most fundamental, how to get a single nanite, or nano-constructor, to make a copy of itself, which in turn would copy itself, and so on. Second, and perhaps more important, how to get a mass of self-replicating constructors to do something useful besides simply replicate themselves.
Kyle's approach was to use the nano-constructors themselves. Each constructor, in addition to its basic instruction set and the recipe for cloning itself, had a very small amount of excess computing capacity, data storage, and (an innovation Kyle was particularly proud of) the ability to exchange small amounts of data and instruction code with its adjacent neighbors. In this way, a growing mass of self-replicating nano-constructors was itself a growing, massively parallel computer. Once it reached a critical mass it could accept and carry out more complex instructions, with some parts continuing to reproduce themselves while other parts went about executing whatever instructions they had been given.
If these simulations were correct, one could start with a single nano-constructor and a small vial of catalytic solution, containing the "fuel" the constructors required, and have it replicate itself from the surrounding materials, accept design plans and instructions from an external source for building, say, a jumbo jet, and then actually construct the jet from whatever materials were at hand, modifying the raw materials at the molecular level as required.
Of course, there would be no guarantee that it would work in every instance. A jumbo jet design requiring aluminum, for example, might fail if the nano-constructors were unable to extract enough aluminum or its constituent elements out of the surrounding materials to complete the project. And there were still numerous design and implementation issues to be addressed, such as how to regulate flow of the catalyst fuel to the nano-constructors themselves in an efficient manner, and how to guarantee a solution of nano-constructors would not run destructively out of control, consuming surrounding materials, structures, or even people in a frenetic effort to execute whatever designs they had been programmed with.
A small bell chimed.
"Doctor Larry Nolen requests access to your homescape."
"Freeze simulation, " Kyle ordered. "Hello, Doctor Nolen. Do come in."
A tall, balding man materialized across from Kyle. He blinked, taking a long look around the bizarre setting. "Hello Kyle. I'd forgotten your exotic taste in environments."
"Just keeping myself aware of where and what I am. Here we are all just software - such physical comforts as beds, gardens, and white picket fences are hardly required in a place where we are no longer subject to such physical frailties."
"Alas, our bodies back in the Physical are all too frail," Dr. Nolen mused, "I suppose it doesn't matter, so long as one doesn't forget how to live in the real world. After all, we all have to off-load back into the Physical every so often."
"Which, since you mention it, I will be doing very shortly. Come, Doctor, I have some very exciting results to show you."
"Actually, Kyle, I'm here to remind you of your civic duties to the Autonomous Community. In twenty milliDiei there is an orientation reception at the Campus Commonscape for seventeen new members of the community, which, if you'll recall from the last Community Forum, you agreed to chair."
Kyle groaned. "I completely forgot. I've been rather busy with some research which is just now returning some very exciting results. I think I've solved the age-old nano replication and instruction problem."
Dr. Nolen paused. "You what?"
"I'm pretty sure I've solved the replication and instruction problem. You know, the last hurdle to widespread nano-technology the molecular engineers were working on before the government shut them down and sealed their work."
Dr. Nolen nodded slowly. "Kyle, you do realize that by pursuing this line of scientific inquiry you are in direct violation of the Disney-Hollings Act of 2007, the Bill Joy Act of 2026 and several international accords."
Kyle shrugged. "Our very existence is a violation of the Disney-Hollings Act, and no one takes the Bill Joy Technology Restriction Act all that seriously these days. Besides, since I've only done it in simulation thus far they'd be hard pressed to catch me. I'm sick of having to off-load into the Physical every time I want to run an experiment to verify some theoretical simulations, or to do maintenance on my Node or network connection for that matter."
"And your current eagerness to run and off-load into the Physical is, no doubt, to run some real-world experiments to see if your hypothesis, which work so well in simulation, hold up to the rigors of the physical universe?"
"Yes. I want to try constructing an autonomous node from a single nano-constructor, a batch of catalytic solution, and some raw materials. If it works, we'll be able to expand our network and our computing capacity without off-loading into the Physical all the time. More time for theoretical work, less kiloDiei wasted at a thirty-to-one slowdown."
Dr. Nolen nodded. "Kyle, this is fantastic. If you really have cracked the nano-technology problem, that will prove to be precisely the strategic edge we of the Autonomous Community need, if we are to preserve our way of life in the face of public exposure."
Kyle blinked. "Public exposure?"
Dr. Nolen shook his head. "Don't worry, it hasn't happened yet. But it will, eventually, and we are woefully unprepared as things now stand." Dr. Nolen gestured at the surrounding matrix of interlinked cubes extending out to infinity. "All it would take to end this digital paradise we inhabit would be a sledge hammer to our respective Autonomous Nodes." He shuddered, then nodded toward Kyle. "How long until you can get a batch of these things replicating in the physical world?"
"Not long, as the physical world churns."
"Karl Hennrich of Darmstadt has a new Autonomous Node design he's eager to get into production, one that will give us a subjective temporal speedup of somewhere between three and five hundred, and I've an uneasy feeling we're going to need all the advantage in speed we can get before too much longer. If we could use your nano-constructors to speed up production..."
"That's the second time you've alluded to some impending disaster," Kyle noted, "Do you have reason to suspect we're about to be compromised?"
Dr. Nolen shook his head once more. "No, not specifically. But there are over three hundred and fifty members of the Autonomous Community now, with another seventeen awaiting your wisdom in the Campus Commonscape as we speak. The rumors have undoubtedly reached ten or twenty times that number. It is really only a matter of time until someone, somewhere, is indiscreet. Don't get me wrong, we need these new minds, both to build our society and to solve the many problems, both scientific and cultural, with which we are grappling, but the risk of exposure is enormous, and growing dramatically each day."
Kyle nodded. "To answer your question more precisely, I have a few more deciCircadians of theoretical work to do. If I can borrow some computing time from some other nodes and get my speedup up to a factor of forty or fifty, it would help. I've got to add the finishing touches to the programming environment, then actually write the software to build something. I'd like to start out with a generation one node, a duplicate of mine, as a base test, then, if it is successful, use Karl's designs and construct a generation two node. If that checks out, I'll start replicating in quantity and we can begin shipping inert constructors and catalytic solution to whoever needs them. Uh, I guess it goes without saying that I'd like dibs on the first gen-two node I construct."
"Of course. Karl has already moved his own consciousness into his prototype. He's hosted myself and three others, all at once, and even with all five entities running on the one node our speedup was well over fifty. Truly remarkable. Oh, by the way, are there any safety concerns we should be aware of?"
"Yes, and they'll be fully explained in the release notes. Basically, the nano-constructors need a catalytic solution to both catalyze the initial chemical process required for replication, and provide sufficient energy to break down and reconstruct numerous chemical bonds. Obviously this means the runaway nightmare scenarios of turning the whole planet to gray goop are so much hogwash. On the other hand, I haven't yet come up with a way for the nano-constructors to differentiate between raw materials and living flesh, so a big project could pose a danger to people or structures near the release point. Then there are other, less obvious dangers, like running the procedure too close to a load bearing structure, which subsequently gets mined for materials to build something, only to bring the whole building crashing down upon the finished product."
Doctor Nolen nodded. "I understand. I think it would be wise if you were to move as quickly as possible on this."
"As soon as I finish with these simulations and confirm the theoretical results I'll off-load into the Physical, verify the chemistry in the real world, then get started on the software. Can Karl send me a schematic of his new design, or even better, a memory engram?"
"I'll talk to him, but I don't see why not. I don't think we should rush to inform the entire community just yet as to your breakthrough, but he and a few others should probably be made aware of developments."
"The fewer the better!" Kyle exclaimed, "I don't think even my status as a co-founder of the Community would protect me from public disdain if we made a premature announcement, only to have the chemistry fall apart in the physical world. I want to see this thing work out there and construct something useful. Then I'll publish my results, both in formal print and as a memory engram."
"Excellent, Mr. Tate. Ah, it would seem our twenty milliDiei are up. Would you like to go and greet those seventeen newcomers who are so eagerly awaiting your wisdom in the Campus Node?"
Kyle grinned. "By all means, Doctor." He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "You know, Doctor, this means we are no longer slaves to the physical universe. We are on the brink of true freedom, freedom to say good-bye to the Physical forever and live indefinitely, as free entities existing solely as software in a fully autonomous virtual universe. Who would have ever thought anyone of my generation would be able to speak the word freedom with anything other than bitter sarcasm." With an bittersweet chuckle, Kyle dissolved, shifting his awareness in an instant to the Campus Scape, running on a Node several hundred miles away.
Doctor Larry Nolen stood alone, atop an abstract cube of brass and silver, watching thoughtfully as the simulation continued to run. He sighed, shaking his head sadly. "You assume, my optimistic young friend, that those wielding the sledge hammers will ever allow us to be free."
As abruptly as he had appeared he vanished, his presence and his attention suddenly elsewhere.

6 - An Invitation

Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men -- nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll


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From:  lnolen@faculty.psych-dept.uiuc.edu
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Message-ID:  <26.79c1139.26948342@psych-dep.uiuc.edu>
Date:  Thu, 20 Sep 2057 08:25:38 CDT
Subject:  An Invitation to join an Autonomous Community of Researchers
To:   michaelforest@univ-aukland.nz
MIME-Version: 6.4
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X-Mailer:  SecureMail Autonomous External Communications Utility 1.1 for NuOS/57
Greetings Dr. Forest,
I recall quite fondly our scientific and political discussions during our brief acquaintance at the Plenum for Open and Collaborative Research hosted so kindly by yourself and the University of Aukland. It is with profound pleasure that I am given the honor of inviting you and up to twenty of your associates to join an Autonomous Community of researchers and scientists.
This email has been encrypted with a time-stamp activated, self-scrambling protocol developed by one of our software gurus (don't bother trying to reverse-engineer the algorithm: information science outside of the Community won't develop these techniques for at least another twenty years), so please read and consider your response carefully, as this message will effectively "self-destruct" in a short while. For security purposes I regret that this will be your only opportunity to reply, and our only contact with you should you decline our invitation, or in the event we have heard nothing from you before the destruct time of this message.
I apologize for the cloak and dagger tone taken in this message. Please allow me to introduce you to the concept of the Autonomous Community. I believe you will fully understand our need for caution and discretion once you have familiarized yourself with both the concept of the Autonomous Community and our very unique situation.
As you probably recall, I am a professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of seven remaining Research Universities of some prestige in the United States.
My research has concentrated on a particular area of theoretical psychology: the study and analysis of the architectural framework of the mind. As you may recall from our brief discussions last year (in which you tried, with little success I'm afraid, to enlighten me with your research in M-Theory and the manipulation of n-dimensional superstrings against an n+i spatial substrate), I put together a small interdisciplinary team of researchers consisting of myself, Kyle Tate, a remarkably promising graduate student in molecular biology, and Kathryn L'Beau, a stunningly brilliant post-doctoral student in software engineering whose work you may have seen published in the Open Sciences Forum.
If you'll recall, our efforts were aimed at digitally modeling the entire human mind in a software framework, a simulation which would provide a platform for an empirical analysis and mapping of the architecture of the human mind. This is not to be confused with the physical brain, which has been mapped and well understood for over forty years now. The architecture of the mind, however, and the manner in which it collects, processes, collates, and understands information, is not understood well at all. It was the software of the mind, the soul, if you will, which our research was designed to illuminate.
We have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations.
Tate and L'Beau (both of whom you will meet if you accept our invitation) were able to develop a molecular computer using optical crystalline properties for both high-speed computing and ultra-high density holographic storage. Of course, their breakthrough was not performed in a vacuum: they drew upon a great deal of theoretical work in the Open Sciences Forum by Reynard, Smith, Canton, and others, none of which (for reasons of patent restrictions with which we are both all too familiar) was ever before actually demonstrated empirically in the physical world. A stunning achievement nevertheless, and a brilliantly unorthodox application on the part of Tate and L'Beau of cutting edge and, at the time unproven, technologies.
Each of these Autonomous Nodes, quite small in physical size, contains more raw computational and storage capacity than all of the orthodox computers of the world combined. This represents a stunning demonstration of the power of the Open Science paradigm despite its marginalization and de facto underground status, stemming, as I'm sure you're aware, from the draconian copyright and patent legislation with which researchers such as ourselves have become all too familiar. We estimate that, at the time the first Autonomous Node came online and was tested, the work of the Open Science community, although strictly theoretical in nature, was at least thirty years more advanced than our commercially licensed and sanctioned colleagues who, alas, must work under such tight licensing constraints.
We within the Autonomous Community have made even greater strides since, and many in the community regret the necessity (as a matter of self-preservation) in keeping our work confidential and not publishing it as a part of the Open Science Forum. This need for security is at odds both with our philosophical devotion to the free and open exchange and use of ideas and research, and our loyalty to the Open Science community itself, without which the Autonomous Community could not have come into being.
For this reason, we have chosen to begin inviting members of the Open Science community, and their respective research teams, to join us in the Autonomous Community. For security reasons we must begin slowly, and are approaching only those we can trust implicitly to begin with, but it is hoped that over the next few weeks and months we can bring this marvelous breakthrough to everyone in the Open Science movement, such that our Autonomous Community can become a superset which includes the whole of the Open Science Forum and its members.
What advantages does the Autonomous Community offer? What sort of technological breakthrough would justify the hubris which I, if I were in your shoes, would read into the last paragraph?
Time. A quantum leap in expanded intelligence, computational and cognitive abilities. And, last but certainly not least, the opportunity for effective, practical immortality. It sounds absurd, doesn't it? It sounds absurd to me, and here a reside, a virtual electronic being within a simulated world, experiencing time at a much faster subjective rate than you.  I know from firsthand experience that what I write is true, and yet I am scarcely able to phrase the thoughts I wish to express in a form that would have any credibility in the physical world!
Please bear with me, and accept our invitation to prove to you empirically that what I write is not fiction, nor the ravings of a psychiatrist pushed over the edge by one too many deranged patients, but the remarkable, revolutionary, and scientifically verifiable truth!
I'll summarize the essence of our breakthrough and the underlying technology upon which the Autonomous Community is founded:
L'Beau and myself have devised a methodology whereby human intelligence can be copied directly from the human mind onto an Autonomous Node. The procedure involves taking a frozen snapshot of the mind and encapsulating it into a digitized analog which then runs independently within the Node itself, interacting with any virtual world the on-loaded entity wishes to create within its own Node, as well as other on-loaded entities throughout the Community. In order to achieve this, the biological mind is placed into a standard anesthetic coma, of the same type you may have experienced when having your tonsils removed as a child. Whenever the on-loaded entity desires, it off-loads back into the physical body, at which point its memories and experiences are reintegrated with the biological mind. The subject reawakens from his or her anesthetic coma, complete with memories and impressions of his or her experiences within the virtual worlds of the Community. We are beings which migrate at will between our biological bodies and our virtual selves, living in both worlds as we please.
An entity such as myself, residing in the Virtual (a term we use to denote the combined meta-reality of our virtual worlds), typically experiences a temporal speedup of around thirty. This means that for each physical day one spends on-loaded, one experiences a month of subjective time. I think you can see the benefits of such an accelerated temporal perspective: the ability to do years of theoretical research within a few short weeks (of course, research requiring physical experimentation still requires off-loading back into the Physical and conducting experiments the mundane way) and the ability to live hundreds, perhaps thousands of subjective years, before one's body finally wears out and dies.
Less obvious advantages include an open and dynamic environment for conducting research, much as the Open Science Forum strives to attain despite draconian oversight and harassment by corporate and civil authorities. While the Autonomous Community itself must regrettably remain underground and secret from the outside world (lest the authorities confiscate our nodes and dissolve or even destroy the Community as a whole), within the confines of the community there is a scientific renaissance taking place which puts the heydays of the twentieth century to shame.
I invite and urge you, and up to twenty of your associates and colleagues, to join us.
If you are interested, respond in the positive to this message (simply hit reply) and an Autonomous Node will be shipped to you, along with an introductory text and users manual, and the full research papers explaining the technology, how it works, and the underlying science.
I eagerly await the opportunity to greet you and your lovely wife here in the Virtual, and hope that you and your research team will join us in this exciting endeavor.
With kindest regards,
Dr. Larry Eugene Nolen, M.D., PhD
PS - I have run a very serious risk of detection by sending you this message. If you should decline this invitation, please remain discrete about this message's contents. Many lives, not just my own, depend on your discretion. It is a testament to your reputation as an Open Researcher in both the Open Science and Autonomous Communities, as well as my own personal, very high opinion of your integrity, that we risk sending you this invitation.
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7 - A Day in the Sun

No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow.
-- Robert M. Pirsig, C.E. 1974

Monday, September 24, 2057
(Metadate: 2.073-9:96:285 kD new Epoch)
Champaign, Illinois

Kyle always hated the biological aches and pains which accompanied an off-load back into the Physical. He knew from experience that the on-load and off-load procedures themselves were not the cause of his physical discomfort, that what he was feeling were the normal twinges of his physical body, subtle aches he had experienced and ignored all of his physical life. He groaned and stripped the neural webbing from his face, rubbing his eyes and sitting up slowly, the bed creaking beneath his weight. The room smelled dusty, the air a cloying, cold, and stale cloak about him, tasting of air-conditioning and suspended dirt.
Even when he had resided within a first generation Autonomous Node, with its speedup over the Physical of only thirty to one, his time spent in the Physical had amounted to just a few short hours every fifteen or twenty Circadians of subjective time. Now that he was operating from within a second generation Node, built by nano-constructors of his own design, hundreds of subjective Circadians (days) would pass between each off-load into his physical body. Thinking in old terms, as he tended to do when back in the Physical, he now averaged between two or three years of digital life between forays into the physical world.
Kyle dreaded this day in particular. If things went smoothly (and he hoped all of the planning he had done in the Virtual would insure that it would) he would be spending most of the day in the Physical, meeting three friends who would help him set up the Community's first, moderately high-volume production facility for nano-constructor catalytic solution. In exchange for their help and ongoing assistance in providing this important service, his three friends would each be joining the Autonomous Community, themselves freed from the physical frailties which even now made Kyle groan with discomfort.
If things went poorly, he might be in this place much longer than a single day, a prospect which he dreaded and truly hoped to avoid. Each minute in the Physical cost him almost 5 deciCircadians of subjective experience in the Virtual. His social contacts, his circle of friends, would all drift and change over the course of a single day. The society he would return to, when he finally on-loaded once again, would be at least a year or two older than when he left, possibly much more depending on how long he needed to spend here. People change in a year's time, he realized with some concern. The very friends he was meeting today had commented on his own change in personality and temperament over the last few days, a very short time for them that represented almost two decades for him. He regretted the time lost to him while he was here, the projects, parties, and experiences he would miss, and the friendships which would ultimately wane and slumber, perhaps even die, while he was away.
He had little choice. The importance of today's project could not be over stated. The Autonomous Community sorely needed quick and easy access to the physical world without the arduous and burdensome need to off-load into the Physical each time something needed doing. After all, someone, somewhere, had to physically manufacture Autonomous Nodes, both for those who wished to upgrade their first generation equipment to the much faster second generation Nodes, and for the ever increasing numbers of new members of the Community. That wasn't all the Community needed to be able to manufacture either. Links of fiber cable to the Internet were needed, experimental apparatuses and laboratories, perhaps even (if some of the darker rumors were to be believed) some kind of physical defenses for their physical bodies, should the unthinkable ever happen and the authorities learn about and attempt to shut down the burgeoning Community.  All these and much more were needed, each task costing someone, somewhere, the kind of time Kyle was sacrificing this day.
Of course, for everything Kyle could think of personally that the Community needed to manufacture, there were thousands of things others in the Community would think of to build. That was the beauty of the open approach to science and culture which the Community so fostered: no single vision limited the scope or possibilities which could be explored: a thousand minds with a million visions could achieve so much more than a single mind or a single vision. The advantages of collaborative freedom were exponential, with a synergistic, multiplicative effect that had led to a snowballing of new discoveries and inventions. Discoveries were being made in a flurry of activity, one breakthrough leading to another at an unheard of speed as scientists published their thoughts and understanding in the form of knowledge engrams for anyone to absorb and comprehend. It made the scientific frenzy of the last century pale by comparison Nevertheless, if people in the Community thought the rate of scientific progress in this new renaissance was rapid now, just wait until they no longer had to off-load into the Physical and slow their minds down by a factor of five hundred or more every time a physical object needed to be manipulated or constructed or an experiment carried out. Research and scientific progress would become positively breakneck by comparison.
It was, after five decades of regulation, litigation and stagnation, finally exciting to be a scientist once more.
Kyle was astounded at how much subjective time had passed since the previous day, when he had last off-loaded in order to exercised and maintain his physical body. Had it really been over seven hundred Circadians? His morning rituals were no longer habit, indeed he wasn't even sure he would remember all of the daily tasks he needed to go about in order to maintain his body and keep his life in the Physical operating smoothly. Instead of instinct, Kyle now had to rely on a mental checklist of activities, which he ticked off in his mind as he performed them. He barely caught himself in time, walking out of the front door still naked and dripping from the shower, when he realized just how ill prepared he had become for the physical world. He forced himself to sit down and make a written checklist of basic tasks for maintaining his body as well as things he needed to accomplish that day. He sorely missed the intellectual enhancements he had taken for granted in the Virtual; his mind in this place was small and prone to error. Add to that the subjective decades he had spent living as an electronic being in a virtual universe, sprinkled with only a few hours of experience in the physical world, and it was no wonder his own body and his own life had become a foreign place.
He sat down on the couch in his living room and waited for his friends to arrive, staring dully at the sun streaming through a slender gap in the curtains, like a bright knife slicing the dusty air. He tried to ignore his aching body. A blast of cold air chilled his skin as the air conditioner kicked on, the exchanger growling like a choking animal. It was going to be a horribly long day.
8 - To Gaze Upon the Horizon

Muse! When we learned to
count, little did we know all
the things we could do

some day by shuffling
those numbers: Pythagoras
said "All is number"

long before he saw
computers and their effects,
or what they could do

by computation,
naive and mechanical
fast arithmetic. 

It changed the world, it 
changed our consciousness and lives
to have such fast math

-- Anonymous, "DVD Descrambler in Haiku Form", C.E. 20014


Monday, September 24, 2057
(Metadate: 2.088-3:15:000 kD new Epoch)
Homescape of Doctors Michael & Sarah Forest (Version 1.1)

The scape had been designed to resemble an intimate, Victorian bedroom, complete with a large, plush four poster canopy bed, an early 19th century dresser above which hung a large, perfectly etched mirror, and a tasteful arrangement of love seat and chairs set off to one side.  The room was illuminated with warm, yellow light coming from several table lamps and a crackling fireplace.  Thick, gold laced burgundy curtains were drawn across the frosted glassed French doors, letting in only a hint of the bright sunlight beyond.  The effect was warm, intimate, welcoming.
Doctor Forest stood beside the bed with his two young sons, his wife's unconscious hand in his as she lay beneath the eiderdown comforter.  Doctor Nolen stood on the opposite side of the bed, eyes closed as his mind watched graphs and status reports not visible to the others.
"The on-load sequence is entering its final stage," Doctor Nolen informed them, "Sarah should be with us in a few moments."
Doctor Forest nodded.
"It sure is slow!" his son, Tommy, commented.  "When we did it it took no time at all."
Doctor Forest smiled.  "It took you just as long in real time, Tommy, as it is taking your mother.  The only difference is that here we think and live much faster than out there, so a few seconds back in the physical world feels like several minutes to us here."
"That's why Mrs. Kelly won't know we've been gone a month, 'cause for her it will just be tomorrow, and we won't even be late for school!"
"That's right, Tommy."
"And this will make mommy see?" his other son, Kenny, asked.
"We certainly hope so," Doctor Forest replied.
As if on cue his wife's hand suddenly tightened in his.  She let out a long breath and opened her sightless eyes.
"This comforter is a little warm," she said, smiling as she pushed it away.  "You have a fire going?  It smells wonderful, and that snapping is positively hypnotic."
Doctor Forest smiled and gently stroked his wife's cheek.  "Are you nervous, darling?"
"A little," she admitted. "This on-load certainly isn't going to be like the others.  When do we begin?"
Doctor Nolen cleared his throat.  "We can begin whenever you'd like."
Sarah nodded.  "Then lets get this miracle on the road, boys."
"Doctor Forest ..."
"Please, Doctor Nolen, call me Sarah.  Two Doctor Forests in the same room is one too many to keep track of."
"Actually," Michael Forest began,  "There are enhancements to our mental architecture available ..."
"None of which she can safely apply until this procedure is completed," Doctor Nolen interjected hastily.
"Sorry, Doctor Nolen.  Point well taken."
"Why don't we start, Doctor."
"Very well, Sarah.  I've taken your basic encoding as a reference and compared it against those of the two hundred and twelve on-loaded women who consented to having their scans analyzed.  It bodes well for the Community that only twelve declined."
"We have a fine group of people here in the Community," Doctor Forest agreed.
"With one notable exception, yes," Doctor Nolen agreed.  
"I beg your pardon?" Doctor Forest asked, surprised.
Doctor Nolen shook his head.  "It's nothing relevant.  Now, to the matter at hand: as you know, much of the work in refining the so-called Genome of the Mind, of mapping and understanding the architecture of thought and the construction of our psyches, so to speak, is learning to differentiate between broader architectural features and specific, individual, localized variances.  In this case we wish to restore your sight ..."
"Correction, Doctor.  Create my sight.  I've never been able to see."
"Yes," Doctor Nolen replied.  "And that is the real challenge.  Mapping visual input to your mind is trivial, but without the mental infrastructure in place to interpret, correlate, and understand those signals, it is only so much noise."
Sarah shuddered.  "My first on-load was terrible.  It was like a screeching noise that wouldn't stop, mixed with a cascade of chaotic flavors and odors best left undescribed.  My darling husband was brilliant enough to suspend the scape until we figured out how to isolate the data."
Doctor Nolen nodded.  "I remember.  It was Doctor Forest's description of those events that led to some of the insights I believe will be useful today.  Your mind has never dealt with vision before, it has never learned to see, or to interpret what is seen.  The necessary synaptic encoding never took place in your mind, so the necessary wetware, for lack of a better term, the necessary processing infrastructure for vision doesn't exist.  Because of the way your mind has grown and been structured, you wouldn't even be able to see if you did have functional eyes to see with."
"So, if mom had eyes that worked in the Physical, she'd hear colors instead of seeing them?"
"Probably not," Doctor Nolen replied, "The cacophony she heard, smelled, and tasted was a result of those signals being shunted to other sensory processing centers as a result of a non-working analog of her visual cortex.  It was a software glitch.  The physical body, in contrast, has much of the hardware in place.  Your mother has a visual cortex in her physical brain, it is simply unused and unconfigured.  In software she has no equivalent analog, so instead her mind, operating as software, routed the signals elsewhere rather than dumping them into an undeveloped visual cortex and either ignoring them, or interpreting them in some other fashion."
"So we can't extrapolate expectations in the Physical based upon my experiences here?"
"That is essentially correct," Doctor Nolen replied.  "If we had prosthetic eyes in the Physical, you probably wouldn't be able to see with them, but you certainly wouldn't be hearing sounds or smelling smells as a result either.  What I have done is reduce the structure of the visual cortex, based upon the digital analogs of a couple hundred women, to its basic, constituent components.  Then I simulated the result, and its behavior when exposed to visual data.
"Various refinements were made in response to the results of those experiments, until I had what I believe to be as generic an engram as I could obtain that contains all of the processing and interpretive capacity needed for a functional visual cortex."
"Now you have something you believe will work," Doctor Forest observed.
"I believe I have," Doctor Nolen replied.  "A volunteer stripped out the analog of her own visual cortex and applied the architectural engram.  She reported subtle differences in the shading and texture of some colors, and a slight shift in her visual aesthetic which she couldn't quite put her finger on, or at least wasn't able to express in words, but it did work."
"Who was this volunteer?" Sarah asked.
"My post-doc assistant, Cathryne L'Beau."
"I must thank her.  She took a terrible risk ... what if it hadn't worked?"
"Then she would have done what she did anyway once the experiment was concluded: remove the experimental engram and reapply the one containing the encoding of her original visual cortex."
"So it worked." Sarah said.
"Yes, it did.  Spectacularly.  I believe we have identified all of the necessary enhancements to your own architectural design which will allow you to apply this engram seamlessly, but there is always the possibility that we've overlooked something and will have make additional corrections."
"My husband and I have already discussed it, Doctor.  I'm aware of the risks."
"Very well.  First, Sarah, I'd like you to make a backup of yourself.  Issue the command to your node to copy yourself, but hold the copy in suspension.  Do not run it.  This is a backup, so you can be fully restored if something should go seriously wrong."
Sara nodded.  "Done," she said after a few moments.
Doctor Nolen nodded.  "Now, I'm giving you an address tag to an architectural engram containing the difference engram we believe you need in order to interface with the vision engram."
"I feel it," Sarah said.
"I'd like you to apply that engram now, then tell us how you feel."
"I don't feel any different.  Should I?"
"I don't know.  We've never done this before.  Cathryne's mental architecture already had the necessary couplings to her visual cortex.  Your biological self may have the same, in an atrophied format, but if so they didn't carry over to your digital encoding.  This engram should have fixed that."
"How do you feel, honey?"
"As I said, dear, I don't feel any difference.  Except perhaps that my heart is beating like a mad drum."
"Simulated heart," Doctor Forest corrected gently, "If you wish, instruct your node to calm it down."
"No way," Sarah replied, grinning impishly.  "I'm not going to dilute this experience one bit."
"If you are certain you're ready, we can try applying the vision engram."
"I'm ready," she assured them.
"I've given you the tag," Doctor Nolen said. "Go ahead and apply the engram."
Sarah was silent a moment.  Then, a moment later, she blinked, the irises of her simulated eyes suddenly contracting slightly.  Slowly she sat up, looking around slowly with growing wonder.
"So this is what it is like.  Astonishing!  The depth, the subtle shadings.  It's like a symphony, without the linearity of music.  One great symphonic gestalt!"
"It's a different way of processing information than you mind is used to," Doctor Nolen warned her.  "Take it slow, and don't be afraid to close your eyes if it becomes too much."
"I'm fine," she assured him.  "I'm more than fine.  I don't suppose if I offload back into the Physical this modification will have any effect on me there?"
"Yes, it will, but not in the way you're thinking," Doctor Nolen replied, "Assuming the engrams are compatible with your biological brain and you could off-load with them still in place, which they may very well be, the results would probably be distinctly uncomfortable.  Not in the sense of physical pain, mind you, but in the sense that you will feel an acute loss, there will be a portion of your mind not getting the stimulus it expects.  I recommend you record the two engrams as a difference engram against your original mental architecture, then reverse out the changes we've made here prior to off-load, the way all of us do with our incompatible Wise-Guy enhancements."
She nodded.  "I understand.  What if I offloaded into a body with working eyes and a developed visual cortex, or attached prosthetic cameras to my own body?"
"The former would almost certainly work, though our understanding of the intricacies of this science is nowhere near the point where we can go around swapping bodies just yet.  The latter presents an intriguing possibility ... certainly we seem to have just overcome the major hurdle that has stymied prosthetic vision for so many people in the past.  I don't see any reason it shouldn't work."
"Then perhaps, someday, I'll be able to take this wonderful new sense back with me into the Physical." 
"Very possibly.  In the meantime, be conservative, and reverse out the enhancements before returning to the Physical."  Doctor Nolen glanced at Doctor Forest, then nodded.  "I'll leave you now to share this moment with your family."
"Doctor," Sarah said, as he prepared to go,  "thank you so very, very much."
Doctor Nolen smiled.  "Thank you, Sarah, Michael.  This moment, for the first time ... I think this research may have been worth some of the terrible cost, after all."
"Cost?" Doctor Forest asked.
Doctor Nolen shook his head and smiled.  "Nothing, Doctor Forest.  Nothing at all," he raised one hand in a slight wave, then vanished.
"Michael, Tommy, your eyes.  They are beautiful!" Sarah's own virtual blurred with tears as she spoke, smiling at her two sons.  "Tell me, what color are they?"
Michael grinned.  "Green, mom.  We have green eyes."
"And this is blue!" Tommy exclaimed, holding out the bottom of his shirt.
Sarah wept with joy as her husband held her in her arms.  He smiled at the children, who approached the bed and took their mother's hands in theirs, their smiles at first uncertain, then rich and full as both parents chose to share their emotional feelings with them, directly, mind to virtual mind.  It was incredible, almost blissful, and somehow deeply enlightening, this unprecedented sharing of thought and emotion.  No one spoke for a very long time, and when they did return to their individual thoughts, raising the mental walls between them once more, it was with a great deal of reluctance.
9 - Soiree

The enjoyment of heaven lies in eating delicious food, keeping the company of young women, using fine clothes, perfumes, garlands, sandal paste, etc.;
The pain of hell lies in the troubles that arise from enemies, weapons, diseases; while liberation is death which is the cessation of life-breath;
The wise should enjoy the pleasures of the world.
-- Carvaka, 6th Century B.C.E.

Metadate: 2.101-8:50:000 kD new Epoch
(Monday, September 24, 2057)
Homescape of Kyle Tate (Ver. 6.1)

Six people stood dwarfed beneath a cathedral of open, interwoven Gothic arches, framing the sky in a skeleton of patina coated copper struts decorated with flowering vines. Others stood or walked together in small groups, enjoying the winding paths with their small, arched bridges over bubbling streams and hidden grottoes of half-wild foliage. A gentle breeze rustled trees and plants, accompanied by the gentle splash of fountains and streams. The setting resembled a curious mix of cathedral, garden, and lushly overgrown ruin.
Kyle was making introductions, his face lit more by his own enthusiasm than the column of sunlight which framed him. "Terry, Jim, Sherrie, this is Doctor Nolen. He headed our group's research which led to the on-load procedure and the establishment of the Autonomous Community. Doctor Nolen, these are the good folks who as of today are running our nano catalytic production facility in Kansas City."
Doctor Nolen smiled, shaking each student's hand warmly. "Welcome to the Community, my friends. Allow me to present Doctor Michael Forest of the University of Aukland's Physics department," Doctor Nolen nodded toward a tall, very slender man with graying hair and slightly hunched shoulders. "He and his wife have both joined the community. As soon as your facility has manufactured enough Node constructor packets, his entire research team will be joining us as well. Michael, this is the team I was telling you about. Kyle was the young man who solved both the replication and the instruction problems that so plagued efforts at nano-engineering before our respective governments banned the research. He is heading up the team responsible for the production of nano-constructor and catalytic solution."
Michael Forest nodded. "I am delighted to meet all of you. I must say, this experience in the Virtual is truly remarkable. Sarah and the children are really enjoying the pretend world you've conjured here. Am I to understand this is your homescape, Kyle?"
Kyle nodded, looking around meaningfully. "I've spent considerable time, off and on, perfecting this particular scape. This entire world is beneath an open cathedral of interlinked arches of copper and vine, standing about one kilometers high. Of course, no such structure could exist in the Physical, but here it is an integral part of the simulation, affecting currents and tides in the oceans, even weather patterns in some of the mountainous regions. Not everywhere is the sky open, either. Some places are beneath large vistas of stained glass, which in turn affects the local climate. Within this rather dramatic neo-Gothic framework are smaller architectural examples from nearly every culture. Smaller only by comparison. We are standing in the midst of a full sized ruined city, overgrown with foliage and remade into a park. This particular setting is based loosely on medieval artistic interpretations of ancient Rome, a sort of idealized, almost hedonistic ruin."
Doctor Forest laughed. "The perfect place for such a delightful soiree!" He shook his head admiringly, "The entire world as art. What a remarkable concept. And to think one can spend so much time here, without losing much time in the physical world at all. You were right, Larry. The Autonomous Community does have a significant edge over the rest of the world."
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "Time isn't everything, Michael. Kyle has been in the Virtual the longest of all of us, both by being the first to ever on-load, and by being one of the first to trans-load himself into a second generation Node. What sort of speedup do you achieve, Kyle?"
"Roughly six hundred to one versus the physical world. You wouldn't know it, Doctor Forest, but I've actually experienced some 3.8 kiloCircadians in the virtual. That translates to roughly ten years of subjective experience. I've lived more than half that since last Friday night, when I trans-loaded to the first nano-constructed gen-two Node."
"My God, you've experienced five years just this weekend!"
Kyle nodded. "My old gen-one Node had a speedup factor of only thirty or so. The second generation hardware gives us more than twenty times that. The gen-three Nodes are promising to be even faster, with speedup factors expected to be in the thousands. It does have one drawback, though. off-loading every day into the Physical becomes a burden, even if it is a burden one must only bare once every half a kiloCircadian or so."
Doctor Forest nodded. "You've become estranged from your own body."
"You could say that," Kyle agreed. "On the other hand, I've lived ten years in just a couple of short months, over six of those years in just the last three days. This makes going back to the Physical a serious culture shock -- we aren't gods there the way we are here, and it shows."
Doctor Forest frowned. "Doctor Nolen, are you entirely sure this equipment is safe for long-term use?"
"Oh yes, indeed, Doctor, you can relax.  As long as you off-load each day and do routine maintenance on your body you'll be fine. Get lazy on the calisthenics and you might run in to some physical ailments, but that would be a side effect of too little exercise, not the on-load procedure itself."
Kyle nodded in agreement. "Actually, Doctor Nolen here has developed what I consider to be one of the greatest advantages of life in the Autonomous Community, Doctor Forest. He has developed mental architectures that allow us radically increased cognitive and creative abilities, as well as engram formats that allow us to exchange knowledge, memories, even psychoactive experiences. The worst thing about going back into the Physical aren't the frailties of the flesh, though they are unpleasant, nor is it the inability to control one's environment. The worst thing is losing all of the mental enhancement you get used to here. The new architectures don't map to the physical brain's biological structure or chemical coding, so we're in effect lobotomizing ourselves whenever we off-load."
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "It was a dramatic development, but achieved at a cost I would have preferred to forgo. Cathryne has refined an excellent simulation of a late twenties French Bordeaux. Would any of you care for some?"
"I definitely would," Terry said.
"Me too," Sherrie agreed. The others quickly chimed in as well.
"May I, Kyle?" Doctor Nolen asked.
"Be my guest," Kyle grinned, motioning grandly toward a nearby stone bench.
Doctor Nolen nodded and smiled as the bench melted and took on the form of a small fountain, complete with mermaids and sea nymphs.
"Oh come on, Doc. Don't think small!" Kyle waved toward the fountain, which spread outward deeper into the park, forming more complex shapes, growing deeper all around and taller at the center. "How's that?"
"That will do," Doctor Nolen agreed. Abruptly dark red fluid spilled forth out of the nymphs mouths, forming arcs of burgundy liquid which sparkled iridescently in the bright sun. Crystal goblets grew out of the stone of the fountain's rim.
"I don't believe it!" Jim grinned, picking up one of the goblets and scooping wine from the fountain's filling basin.
"Incredible!" Sherrie agreed, grabbing another goblet and doing the same. Terry was a little more direct, letting out a loud whooping cry and diving into fountain. Dark wine splashed everywhere as he landed. Sputtering and swallowing, he turned over and sat up.
"Jim, that's disgusting! Other people want to drink out of that fountain, and now you've spoiled it with your sweaty, grimy body. Get out of there!"
Kyle patted Sherrie lightly on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I left germs out of the simulation, and the only dirt you'll find is on the ground, not us. We could all go swimming in this stuff, drink it to our hearts content, and get exactly as drunk as we want."
"Or stay sober if you prefer," Doctor Nolen added.
"Suit yourself, Doctor," Kyle grinned, reaching over and scooping up a handful of Bordeaux. "I just spent the last two decaDiei in the Physical and I intend to get smashed tonight." Smiling, he formed the wine he held in his hand into a smooth, richly red sphere, which he brought to his lips like an apple and began to drink.
Doctor Forest laughed. "Well, Doctor, shall we leave these young ones to their fun?"
"Indeed. I'll catch up with you later, Kyle."
"Mi casa es su casa, Doctor! Thanks for the wine; it's absolutely delicious!"
"Thank Cathryne. She's the one who sunk who-knows-how-many Circadians into perfecting the simulation."
"And a fine --" hiccup "-- job she did of it, too!" Sherrie glared as everyone laughed, then sat down on the side of the fountain and scooped up another glass full of wine. "This lifestyle could become very addictive," she added.
The only sense of time there was was the gradual movement of the sun across the sky. The laughter grew louder and more frequent, the conversations more animated, the groups of people coming together and drifting apart larger and more raucous. As the sky turned golden in the late afternoon Kyle caused many of the trees to grow wings, budding like flowers amidst the branches.. 
Laughing, Kyle plucked a pair of wings from a low hanging branch and slipped them on over his shoulders. "Fuck the Physical!" he shouted, leaping drunkenly into the air.
"Flying?" Sherrie was incredulous.
"Hell yes!" Jim almost shouted, staggering out of the fountain, dripping wine as he reached up and pulled a pair of wings free from the tree. "I'll raish you to the top of the arshes, Shaarreeee!" He lept upward, flapping his wings vigorously. A shower of twigs and leaves rained down upon Terry and Sherrie as Jim cursed loudly and tried to untangle himself from the branches.
Sherrie glanced at Terry, who laughed and shrugged. "Looks like most of the party is moving into the sky anyway. I guess we may as well join them."
Kyle found Doctor Nolen and Doctor Forest together, sitting near the top of one of the arches, the world a sea of similar structures vanishing in a flat horizon in all directions. Beneath them, far below, the green world sparkled with lakes, fountains, and streams, above which groups of people flew, some hovering and beating their wings gently, others dancing in aerobatic bliss.
"Hello Doctors, " Kyle grinned, landing gently on the peak of an arch nearby. "Enjoying the party?"
"Kyle, Doctor Nolen mentioned that you managed to solve the nano problem by yourself"
Kyle shrugged. "Well, as you'll discover, here we all have plenty of time. Cathryne managed to liberate some of the nano research notes from -- well, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure where she got them from. In any event, any single Node here has more computing power than the rest of the mundane world combined. All it required was a rigorously defined simulation, an education in the state of nano-technology shortly before the Disney-Hollings Act was passed, and some patience."
"Indeed. I was just telling Doctor Nolen about my group's research into the manipulation of N-dimensional branes against a spatial substrate of higher dimension."
Kyle shook his head. "With all due respect, Doctor, I'm a molecular biologist, not a physicist. I don't even know what an N-brane is, much less understand the rest of what you just said."
"Do you know what superstrings are?"
"Sure, every high school physics class touches on superstring theory."
"Indeed. Superstrings are one dimensional N-branes, branes where n equals one. M-Theory predicted, and current models based on N+M-Theory predict, that N-branes of higher dimensionality are the underlying structures of subatomic matter. We've been slowly fleshing out N+M-Theory on a theoretical basis, and have made some exciting mathematical breakthroughs in recent weeks. Once my team is on-loaded into the Community we expect to make much more rapid progress."
"Interesting. You've managed to nail down the elusive Theory of Everything that has so frustrated physicists for the last hundred years?"
"Well, not quite, but we've managed to build the beginnings of a theoretical model which may allow us to manipulate the underlying, folded higher dimensions. This could have a profound impact on our understanding of theoretical physics and, quite possibly, some practical applications."
"Practical applications? Like what?" Kyle asked.
Doctor Forest glanced down at the fliers darting about, far below. "It is far too early to tell at this stage, but if we're able to flesh out our tentative models and they hold up, we may be able to directly manipulate the underlying Calabi-Yau geometries and thereby alter the structure, shape, harmonics, and perhaps even dimensionality of their respective N-branes. We may, in effect, be able to strum superstrings into configurations of our liking."
Kyle shook his head. "You've lost me again, Doctor. I think I'm going to head down and have some more of Cathryne's Bordeaux."
"Wait!" Doctor Forest stood. "If our models hold, I'm talking about being able to transmute the basic subatomic particles themselves, perhaps even create new ones. Matter into anti-matter, matter into energy, energy into matter. If this works out, and it looks quite promising, the possibilities will be endless. Inexpensive, virtually inexhaustible energy. Material transformation at the subatomic level!"
Doctor Nolen stood up as well. "Kyle, what Michael is trying to say is that, once his team is ready, he'd like to have some catalytic solution and nano-constructors set aside to build his experimental equipment."
"Well, that will be up to the Strategy Group, of course. Since Doctor Nolen is one of the major players in that group, I'd say your odds are pretty good," Kyle winked. "However, it all sounds a little far fetched to me. Doesn't the conservation of mass and energy make doing something like that impossible? Or at least, shouldn't the energy needed to transform matter into antimatter, to use your example, exceed that which is released when the antimatter is annihilated?"
Doctor Forest smiled. "Actually, we believe there is a conservation of the dimensionality of space, including the folded Calabi-Yau geometries of higher dimension. The thermodynamical laws of physics with which you are familiar are a side effect of that in its natural form. If our models are correct, we will be able to introduce matter and energy into the universe by refolding space in its higher geometries. Actually, at quantum levels matter and energy are introduced and subtracted back out of the universe all the time, we believe as a side effect of this conservation of spatial dimensionality."
"What, you're saying the laws of thermodynamics are merely a local phenomenon?" Kyle was incredulous.
"In one sense, yes. A better way of looking at it would be to consider water in its natural state. In nature, water falls from the sky, flows downhill, and ends up in the oceans, where it evaporates and once again falls from the sky. However, we can artificially cause water to flow uphill, by pumping it to higher elevation. We can damn rivers, tap the Great Lakes for irrigation, even seed clouds into raining before they're ready. So long as the underlying dimensionality of the Calabi-Yau substrates are maintained, we should be able to do the same thing with matter and energy. Entropy is like the water running downhill. Without an external, artificial influence it always goes to a maximum. However, that is a side effect of spatial topology, not an immutable law. We believe we may be able to manipulate the underlying spatial topology. If so, that means we can introduce, or for that matter remove, energy from what we consider the physical world. Entropy can be made to flow uphill."
Kyle was still skeptical. "So essentially you're talking about revolutionizing our lives through quantum origami? Free Energy for Free People?"
Doctor Forest laughed. "Yes, something like that. If it is successful, we could install an N-brane strummer into our nodes and power them by matter-antimatter reaction alone. Our dependency on the public power grids would be ended. Energy wouldn't be free, but it would be very inexpensive."
Kyle's eyes widened. "Now, that would be -- now what is going on down there?"
Looking down, they could see most of the people landing. The background noise of revelry had stopped abruptly, replaced by virtual silence punctuated with a few shouts of dismay.
"Node, command mode engage. Teleport all of us down to the surface, near the outer edge of the crowd forming below us."
Abruptly they were on the ground.
"Kyle, Doctor Nolen, have you heard?"
It was Cathryne L'Beau, sending her voice in private mode across the crowd. Abruptly she materialized next to them.
"Heard what?" Doctor Nolen asked.
"I just pulled it from the California Law Enforcement Network. Jacobson has been arrested!"
"What!" Kyle felt a cold hand clench his heart.
Doctor Nolen was stunned. "Cathryne," he asked, "was there any mention of the Autonomous Community?"
She shook her head. "No, but his Node was tagged and cataloged along with his other personal effects. If it had been a local arrest it might have just sat in local storage and no one would have been the wiser. Unfortunately, we weren't so lucky. Damn it, we should have guessed this was happening! He was already more than a hectoDies late returning from the Physical."
"That was why you were cracking your way into the police files, Cathryne?" Doctor Forest asked quietly. "Because he was late returning?"
Cathryne glanced at Doctor Forest. "A hectoDies is more than three days in the Physical," she informed him. 
He nodded.  "I've assimilated a knowledge engram of the Community's temporal units of measure," he told her.
"We should have noticed this much, much sooner than we did!" she continued, her voice betraying her anguish.
"He must have been taken into custody last Thursday," Kyle noted. "He'd planned to return to the virtual late Thursday or early Friday. Does anyone here know how long the human mind can withstand modern interrogation techniques."
Awkward silence greeted Kyle's question.
"Based on my own, personal experience with torture, I would say not all too long," Doctor Nolen replied.
"Excuse me?" Kyle was shocked. "What kind of experience could you possibly have with torture and interrogation?"
Doctor Nolen shook his head. "I'll tell you about it some other time, Kyle."
"It may be a moot point," Doctor Forest said. "Cathryne, what exactly was Jacobson arrested for?"
"Sedition," she replied bitterly. "Apparently he was at a protest, speaking out against corporate mandated curriculum changes at Berkeley and the corrupting influence of corporate financing of college campuses and research programs. They took him after the rally. You guys, they've got a media blackout on everything about him. He's in federal custody."
"Good Lord," Nolen was shocked.
"Surely there's a lawyer you can call," Doctor Forest looked at them, "It can't be that dour; all he did was exercise his right to free speech."
"Yes, and we all know how much good that does any of us," Doctor Nolen shook his head. "If he were in the hands of the police we'd have a chance. But if the FBI has taken him and issued a media blackout there isn't anything we can do. His arrest isn't even officially on the public record. He'll be listed as 'missing pending investigation', one of the many euphemisms and loopholes our law enforcement people make use of when they need people to disappear."
"Surely they won't kill him!" Doctor Forest was appalled.
"Who knows? It wouldn't be the first time an activist disappeared in government hands," Kyle's voice was angry, bitter.
"We really don't know," Doctor Nolen replied, "But even if they plan to, we are powerless to do anything about it. Kyle, I want you, Cathryne, and Doctor Forest to accompany me. I'm calling an emergency meeting of the Strategy Group right now."
"Good idea," Kyle agreed, "If the authorities don't know about the Autonomous Community now, they will soon enough."
"Not necessarily," Doctor Nolen replied. "He was arrested for sedition because of his participation in an illegal protest. They may not connect him with the Autonomous Community at all, or for that matter make any issue of the odd hardware they've found. If that is the case, we may have a little time before the other shoe drops."
"And if not?" Doctor Forest asked.
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "Look, I'm not going to sugar coat this. We all know sooner or later the authorities are going to discover our existence, and when they do, they're going to put all of their not inconsiderable energies into finding us and shutting us down. We are nowhere near ready for that kind of confrontation right now. Hell, Kyle and his friends just started manufacturing catalytic nano solution today. We need weeks at least, preferably months."
Kyle shook his head, looking grim. "We might have days, Doctor Nolen. Hours, if they figure out the right questions to put to Jacobson."
The wine within the fountains turned from red to clear as the sky faded from a crimson to dark blue, lit by a billion stars in a faithful reproduction of a cloudless, night sky somewhere over North America. People were vanishing singly and in groups, their awarenesses redeployed elsewhere as the news sunk in and the soiree broke up. With a last flourish Kyle halted his homescape simulation and replaced it with a white, featureless world. The few remaining people, startled by the sudden change, glanced around, got the hint, and left.
"The three of you come with me," Doctor Nolen commanded, sending each address tags for another scape elsewhere. The four remaining figures vanished, leaving an empty world behind.

10 - Strategy

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
-- William O. Douglas

Metadate: 2.101-8:57:193 kD new epoch
(Monday, September 24, 2057)
Temporary Scape (Node 217)

The Strategy Group assembled itself with remarkable speed. Some fifteen people were in attendance, including those specifically invited by various members of the Group as well as representatives of several major Interest Groups. 
The scape, hastily created by Doctor Nolen for the occasion, resembled an informal living room such as one might find in a mountain hunting lodge, complete with roaring fireplace, antlers mounted high on the wall, and windows coated with frost and snow. People stood or sat in small groups of three or four, talking quietly amongst themselves. Kyle had joined Cathryne by the fireplace, each pulling up individual chairs, drawing comfort from its imaginary warmth. Both were clearly shaken by the recent news.
Doctor Forest stood slightly behind Doctor Nolen, observing silently as Nolen spoke with several people, quietly organizing the agenda of the meeting. Doctor Nolen exuded a grim resolve, his face hard with determination. Doctor Forest was becoming quickly impressed with Nolen's leadership skills. The man had seemed more of an absent minded professor sort when they'd met in Aukland, capable of giving little thought to anything other than his pet projects and research efforts, but here was a capable leader bringing together a group in crisis and doing it very well. Clearly he had either misjudged the man, or Doctor Nolen's subjective years here in the virtual had allowed him to change and grow in ways Doctor Forest found startling for a man their age.
Doctor Nolen finished a quiet, whispered conversation with another member of the Strategy Group, then spoke up in a louder voice.
"Thank you everyone for coming on such short notice. I now call this meeting to order. Because of the gravity of this Circadian's events we are dispensing with reading the minutes from our last meeting and making them available as memory engrams to any and all currently present." Doctor Nolen flashed everyone a location tag and key.
"Has everyone assimilated the engrams successfully? Excellent. As we are all aware, a crisis has arisen in the capture and detainment of Eugene Jacobson by the American FBI. A first generation Autonomous Node has fallen into their possession, though as of yet we do not believe they are aware of its implications.
"The agenda of this meeting is as follows: Identify our weaknesses as individuals and as a community which leave us vulnerable to detection and retribution from the authorities, and develop strategies for dealing with these vulnerabilities."
Kyle looked up. "Excuse me, Doctor Nolen, but we need to go way beyond that. What kind of long term strategy do we have to evade detection and, better yet, survive if and when the authorities finally do figure out what we're up to?"
"As you will recall from the memory engram of our last meeting, medium and long term survival strategies have been our primary focus for some time. We had hoped to avoid detection long enough to establish an effective infrastructure for pursuing a number of possible strategies. Unfortunately, we haven't had nearly enough time for even the most modest schemes to get underway."
Someone Kyle didn't recognize spoke up. "I move that everyone in this room be provided with memory engrams of all the Strategy Group's meetings to date."
Cathryne nodded. "It only makes sense. I second the motion."
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "Perhaps we should establish some formal organization first. Doctor Edith Coolridge, Myself, Niels Isenborg, and Jean-Paul Toulais comprise the formal Strategy Group, although anyone in the Autonomous Community is always invited to participate. However, this group was invited as a core representative of the community and those Interest Groups we deemed to be of particular strategic value to the Community. I propose we formalize this gathering in the form of a Committee for the Survival of the Autonomous Community."
"Point of Order," the woman Doctor Nolen had identified as Edith Coolridge spoke up. "Doctor, there is already a motion pending on the floor."
Doctor Nolen nodded. "So there is. I have no problem supporting the motion, though I would have preferred it be done after the formal creation of the Committee for Survival. Very well, all those in favor?"
A chorus of ayes echoed around the room.
"Opposed?" Doctor Nolen smiled. "The ayes obviously have it. Very well, will an engram of my memories suffice?" No one objected. Nolen paused for a few moments, as though deep in meditation, then flashed everyone address tags to files containing his distilled memories. Within moments everyone in the room had incorporated Doctor Nolen's memories of previous discussions and meetings into their own.
"What were you so afraid of?" Kyle regretted blurting out the question as soon as he spoke. "In the first couple of meetings, I mean. Your emphasis on guaranteed autonomy, improved encryption schemes, and fundamental security architectures. Were you afraid we might actually be cracked from outside?"
Doctor Nolen sighed. "I suppose some of my emotional state must have leaked through despite the editing I just did. That's what happens when you make your memories available on short notice, I suppose. To answer your question, yes, security was my biggest concern initially. However, all of the improvements we needed to insure our individual Autonomy with respect to one another were incorporated into the design of all second generation Nodes, and such software measures as were possible back ported to the first generation Nodes."
Doctor Forest coughed lightly. "Doctor, you were never a computer wiz before. Why the sudden interest in system security?"
Doctor Nolen looked uncomfortable. "I'd rather not discuss it. Suffice it to say I have personal experience that indicated more thought to security was called for. Such thought was given, designs which were incomplete and hastily thrown together when Cathryne, Kyle and I designed and built the first gen-one Nodes were reconsidered, redesigned, and fixed. The security issue has been resolved to my satisfaction. Furthermore, we have more pressing matters at hand right now. Has everyone successfully integrated the new engrams?"
There were nods and sounds of assent throughout the room. "I like the idea of placing Node Clusters in the antarctic," someone said.
"Actually" another spoke up, "Alaska would be better. More accessible, and less likely to be detected. No borders, no customs. The International Wilderness Authority keeps a pretty close eye on what is done in Antarctica these days. A large project like that would be difficult to hide."
"Folks," Doctor Nolen chided, "We must address the issue at hand. There will be time to discuss these other strategies at a later date. This Circadian our greatest concern is our immediate vulnerability to detection and retribution, particularly in the Physical."
"These extracurricular political activities need to stop," Cathryne said. "Jacobson was arrested at an illegal political rally. Others in the community are involved in various political movements that the authorities do not approve of."
"That is probably our biggest vulnerability, " someone else agreed. "The authorities aren't looking for the Autonomous Community. They don't even know it exists. But if they capture enough Autonomous Nodes they will grow curious."
"And once they are curious they'll ask questions," Doctor Forest agreed. "Sooner or later they'll stumble onto the correct question and discover our existence."
"We cannot dictate policy to any member of the Community," Doctor Nolen replied. "Autonomy is absolute. However, we can counsel everyone in the community to suspend their political activities in the Physical until we've established our long term safety."
"Another problem is recruitment," Doctor Coolridge said, running a hand through her silvery hair. "Each new contact with a potential colleague in the Physical exposes us to risk. We should consider not inviting more newcomers until the Community is safe."
"I disagree," Cathryne said. "There is strength in numbers, and even greater strength in diversity. We need as many minds working on as many problems from as many different viewpoints as possible."
"How many of us are there?" somebody asked.
Doctor Nolen glanced over to Kyle. "Kyle?"
"As you all know, our Kansas City production facility just went on-line today. As of this moment there are eight hundred and twenty people on-loaded. The actual Node count is a little higher: groups like the Gamer's League have a few Nodes they use to simulate various shared worlds, there are of course the Emergency Nodes, and a few research groups have acquired a few, including Doctor Nolen here."
"That cluster is not of my making," Doctor Nolen snapped.
"Relax Doctor, they're just first-gen Nodes anyway. All but sixty seven of the Nodes on-line have been upgraded to second generation Nodes, most by recycling the materials of the first generation Nodes through nano-conversion. I'm surprised you've never requested upgrade packets, Doctor. They're quicker to manufacture and require less catalytic solution than raw second generation Node kits."
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "The one second generation Node you've provided me is sufficient. So, our community has a population of eight hundred and twenty."
Kyle nodded. "With twenty second generation Node kits in the mail somewhere between Champaign and Aukland, due to arrive in a day or so. However, we are now, as of today, able to manufacture catalytic solution in quantity. We can produce enough nano and catalytic solution for at least a three hundred Node kits each day, all of which can be sent out to prospective colleagues. By this time next week we could increase our population to over three thousand. Of course, this assumes there are another twenty-two hundred suitable people interested in joining us."
"And each of those twenty-two hundred contacts could turn our offer down and go to the authorities, exposing us all!" Doctor Coolridge snapped. "The risk isn't worth it."
"Yes it is," Cathryne replied. "Each research group we add enriches us. Why do you think the underground research community has thrived so well, and before it the free software community? Because their open paradigms of thought and exchange of knowledge attracted a critical mass of like minded, thinking people. Projects and avenues of research pollinated one another, forked off to explore different possibilities or united to pursue the most promising directions of inquiry."
"Eight hundred are enough to solve our immediate problems, if we are disciplined and work together."
"None of us are disciplined," Kyle said, "Here, we are absolutely and irrevocably Autonomous. The very hardware and operating system which sustains us in this electronic existence insures each of us absolute control over our own destiny. No one can coerce anyone else, or claim any authority others haven't willingly granted."
Doctor Nolen nodded. "What Kyle is saying is that we cannot depend on discipline to address our problems. Even if we could, success would be dependent on our choosing those areas of endeavor most critical to our success and safety. Unfortunately we have no way of predicting what we will need to concentrate on ahead of time." 
Someone else Kyle didn't know spoke up. "The alternative, as Cathryne has pointed out, is to increase our numbers. With sufficient diversity of motives and perspective, there will be enough people working on enough areas of research that our needs are most likely to be met. We should continue the recruitment."
Kyle nodded. "It would be a shame to stop just when we've developed the ability to ship Autonomous Node Kits out in significant numbers."
"This is a terrible, terrible risk we are taking," Doctor Coolridge said.
"Indeed," Doctor Nolen agreed. "But one we must take. If we are discovered, we may well need to manufacture more than just Autonomous Nodes. Kyle, how much catalytic solution can your friends in Kansas City produce?"
Kyle shrugged. "We've managed to rent a small hangar at an old airstrip just outside of Kansas City, near the edge of the desert. The facility is running at capacity now. We could program some of the nano on hand to construct a bigger facility, but we would run into several logistical problems. For example, obtaining the raw materials for the catalytic solution, obtaining the energy to drive the reactions without it being obvious to the power companies, and thereby the authorities, that something unusual is going on. Then there is shipping out the finished product. Much more traffic going to and from that little building than we've already got and the likelihood of detection starts to climb exponentially."
"Then start scouting a second location. Your catalytic solution is probably the most critical resource we have right now."
"I need a facility that is less suspicious than an abandoned airport or warehouse," Kyle said. "The nano can be programmed to build a facility capable of producing catalytic solution and nano-constructors by the ton, but the traffic to and fro, not to mention the shipping manifests, will almost certainly get us noticed and shut down!"
Several people started talking at once. Doctor Forest spoke up over the din, amplifying his voice throughout the room. "I know someone at Bayer Leverkusen, Kyle. He would be a valuable addition to the community even without his connections to his employer. He may be able to help."
Kyle nodded. "Excellent. A large chemical plant would be a perfect cover for something like this."
Doctor Nolen nodded in agreement. "Doctor Forest, if you would be so kind as to draft and send your contact a formal invitation to join the community? Cathryne can familiarize you with the encryption utilities used for outside communications."
"I'd be delighted."
"I'll ship him a gen two nano-kit if you give me the address. Assuming he responds in the positive, he'll get the hardware almost immediately and know what to do."
"And if he doesn't?" someone asked, "Sending a nano-kit before you've got a response is asking for trouble."
Kyle shook his head. "Although we don't make a habit of doing so, preshipping the nano-kits doesn't really pose a problem. For those of you who got your Nodes premanufactured and do not have personal experience with the nano-kits, the nano-constructors, molecular stock, and catalytic solution are sent out as three separate packages. Instructions are sent ahead via strongly encrypted email. Anyone who doesn't get the instructions will have no idea what the packages actually contain, much less how to combine their contents and construct an actual node."
"The risk is minimal," Doctor Forest agreed, "And the packaged disguise ingenious. Catalytic solution as toilet bowl cleaner ..." he shook his head, chuckling.
"Very good," Doctor Nolen said, "Proceed as planned. That addresses the immediate shortage of catalytic solution. What other vulnerabilities do you perceive?"
"Our communications, encrypted and obfuscated though they are, take place on the public Internet, an Internet that is constantly under the watchful eye of a dozen national and international intelligence and law enforcement agencies. It is possible, though unlikely, we could be detected based on our network traffic."
"Air conditioners," someone added. "The triphase superconductor our Interfaces and Node conduits use require a temperature slightly cooler than normal room temperature or it loses its superconductivity. They could potentially find all of us who are running our air conditioners at higher than normal settings."
"We need to stop trans-loading our entire essences to other Nodes across the net," Cathryne commented. "That would do a lot to protect us against detection through traffic analysis."
"Ideally we should build our own network," Doctor Coolridge noted. "There have been rumblings in a couple of Interest Groups hinting at an emerging design with lower latency and much wider bandwidth. We should ascertain what the status of that project is."
"Building our own Internet would demand a huge amount of catalytic solution," Kyle shook his head, "not to mention a fair amount of time for the sheer volume of nano-constructors to replicate. You're talking about wiring the entire planet, which is no small engineering feat!"
"It is the only long-term solution to our communications vulnerability," Doctor Isenborg replied. "However, it is a long term solution and does not address our immediate problem."
"Let's face it," Kyle said, "None of us are leading normal lives by Corporeal standards. The change in our behavior over the last few weeks makes us all noticeable to those in the Physical who know us. We are very, very susceptible to detection if the FBI ever goes on a public witch hunt. That, more than air conditioning bills or Internet traffic, is what will be our downfall."
"There's also the Guilt by Association factor," Doctor Forest said.
"Excuse me?"
"We are a fairly small group of people, all of whom know each other, or know someone who knows someone." Doctor Forest continued. "Even as the Community grows this won't change appreciably. Is anyone familiar with the methodology employed in FBI background checks?"
No one answered.
"The technique is the same in New Zealand and elsewhere. It is rather simple, and dates back to at least the middle of the last century, if not earlier. It has been widely used for pre-employment screenings in the United States since the nineteen eighties, and was employed in Europe as early as the nineteen nineties. Corporations in nearly every country employ the same technique today -- even in New Zealand we've been using it openly since the mid twenties, perhaps even longer. 
"Simply put, the job applicant is requested to give two or three references of someone who has known them for a long time, usually five or ten years. If the job does not require a thorough background check these names are kept on file, against future need, but nothing more is done. However, if the job affects national security or is in some other way of a sensitive nature, then agents are dispatched to interview the contacts provided. In addition to questions about the applicant directly, they are asked to give the names of as many others who have known the applicant a long time. The net result is that, starting from just two or three names, they are able to identify nearly everyone the applicant has ever known, and with little additional effort, nearly everything about the applicant's personal life from the present back to when they were a child. Surprisingly, much of what is discovered using this technique ends up being a surprise to the applicant: they've long since forgotten a large portion of the acquaintances and events which are thus revealed. This very same tried and true technique could easily be used to identify nearly everyone within the Autonomous Community, should just a couple of people fall into the hands of the authorities and the authorities know what questions to be asking."
The room was silent, then exploded in a cacophony of voices expressing dismay.
"My God."
"Good Lord."
"There's no defense against something like that."
"We have to assume the worst and begin preparing. They will find out about us."
"Please," Doctor Nolen held up his hand for calm. "Let's not panic just yet. There is a possible defense, one which is unique to the technology we in the Community employ."
Kyle blinked. "What could that possibly be?"
"Internet conference channels often employ aliases. We could do the same, then forget the actual, physical identity of each person present."
"How would we do that?" Doctor Forest asked.
"Editing our memories is beyond our current capabilities," Doctor Nolen replied. "They are encoded in a manner we don't fully understand, one that is reminiscent of both fractal and holographic storage systems (though in actuality it bears little resemblance to either). However, labels such as names and places are associated to one another in a relatively straightforward manner, and can be accessed without changing the structure of the memory itself using a simple procedure we would perceive as something akin to hypnosis."
"So we could voluntarily give up our knowledge of one another, storing such knowledge as a memory engram in a static archive, to be remembered if and when the threat is past."
Cathryne shook her head. "A lot of people won't go along with that. You're talking about deliberately induced forgetfulness -- a form of artificial amnesia. We came here to expand ourselves, not cripple our minds!"
"Oh come on, Cathryne," Kyle said, looking annoyed. "It is a temporary precaution. We don't lose those memories, we just remember Bill from Wichita under the alias of Jane from Timbuktu and store the correct associations offline for a while. Actually, we'll probably want to employ filtering software, to substitute place names and other references that might compromise our colleagues."
"We could make such substitutions a standard part of the off-load procedure," Doctor Coolridge noted. "Then we would only have to forget one another's identity while in the Physical."
"That might be less disruptive than filtering software and aliases," Doctor Nolen agreed.
"I still don't think you'll convince everyone to go along with that scheme," Cathryne insisted. "Amnesia and corrupted memories in the Physical is still amnesia and corrupted memories. I personally like the idea better than the alternatives, particularly if it is limited to time spent off-loaded, but not everyone will."
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "Autonomy is absolute, we can't force anyone to go along with this. However, even if only fifty percent were to voluntarily take part in such a program it would reduce the probability of our identities being exposed by half."
"I think most people will go along," Kyle said. "After all, this is for our own protection. Sure, there will be the uncooperative five or ten percent, but they always exist in any crowd."
"We can at least reduce the risk to a manageable level," Doctor Coolridge agreed. "Doctor Nolen, I like your idea. I move that the policy be officially endorsed by the Strategy Group."
"Anyone object?" Doctor Nolen asked. "I think the committee is unanimous. We could put it to a formal vote for the endorsement of the other Interest Groups represented and present."
"The Nano Group supports the policy," Kyle said.
"As do the System Software Utilities and Operating System groups," Cathryne Added.
"Count the Biochemists in."
"And the Materials Group."
"Super liquid Dynamics."
"Free Software and Sciences."
"Ceramics."
"Genetics."
"I cannot speak for the Atmospherics Group on this. Better put us down as neutral."
"The Aerospace Design Group supports the policy."
"As does the Solid Physics Group."
"The Gamer's League has no position at this time, although I will personally lobby the rest of the Group for its support."
"You have the Cosmology Group's support."
Doctor Nolen nodded, then turned as Doctor Forest cleared his throat. "Although I am the only one of twenty on-loaded at this time, I can say with confidence that you enjoy the full support of the Theoretical Physics Group as well."
"Very Good. Cathryne, can you modify the off-load procedures to provide users with the ability to extract or substitute identities as we discussed, and the on-load procedure to restore this knowledge when returning to the Virtual?"
"Certainly, Doctor Nolen."
Suddenly a blaze of light erupted in the center of the room, startling nearly everyone.
"Don't address that as Doctor Nolen. I am Doctor Nolen. That is an impostor!"
Kyle looked at the image of Doctor Nolen which had just materialized, then looked back at the other image of Doctor Nolen who had been presiding over the meeting.
"Good Lord," Cathryne said, "A spy!  We've been infiltrated!"

11 - Mirror Image

Before accepting any belief one ought to follow reason as a guide, for credulity without enquiry is a sure way to deceive oneself.
Aulus Cornelius Celsus, ca. C.E. 170

Metadate 2.101-9:23:061 kD new Epoch
(Monday, September 24, 2057)
Temporary scape (Node 217)

"No," the man whom everyone had been calling Doctor Nolen replied, "We have not been infiltrated. I am, in a very real sense, the real Doctor Nolen, just the same as this man, who was the first Doctor Nolen."
The cacophony of voices, some angry, some dismayed, most simply confused, was brief. Moments after the appearance of the second Doctor Nolen Kyle's voice cut sharply through the din, bringing everyone to silence.
"Both identification tags check out. So much for the touted unassailability of quantum encryption."
"The new Doctor Nolen's identification tag is obsolete," Doctor Coolridge mused. "Perhaps there is a problem with the data wiping routines which allows an impostor to access the inactive particle pair."
"That is not how quantum key encryption works," Cathryne began.
"I am not an impostor!" the second Doctor Nolen interrupted, shouting. "That thing sitting next to you is! I am the real Doctor Nolen! He is nothing but a copy, a cheap knock off."
The person they had been addressing as Doctor Nolen stood up, facing his accuser.
"He is correct. I am a fully sentient, identical copy he created as part of a series of grotesque experiments which he ran on a cluster of first generation Nodes the Community so graciously provided him. There were at least seventy two of us created, tortured, and ultimately killed, not including two generations who came directly before me and sacrificed their lives so that I could, finally, escape and obtain the very autonomy the rest of you take for granted."
"You've been impersonating Doctor Nolen all this time, taking his seat in the Strategy Group and deceiving all of us?" Cathryne was outraged.
"It is much worse than that!" Doctor Nolen shouted.  "This copy, this impostor, has stolen credit for my work!  All the while I was operating at a deliberately and maliciously slowed down rate of 1:1 against the Physical, this piece of software," he spat the word, "was publishing my work and taking public credit for it. How dare you usurp my rightful place in this Community!"
"How dare I? How dare you, Doctor Nolen! How dare you create fully self aware, sentient copies of yourself, torture them, mutilate their minds, and then slaughter them like insects!"
"So you are not the real Doctor Nolen?" Kyle asked.
"I am as real as he is. Indeed, I am him, merely changed by my experiences here, many of them too horrific to recount. This man, the original Doctor Nolen, if you will, has become a monster. It chills me to the bone to think that, up until the first day he began experimenting on me, we were the same person."
"You call yourself by my name, take credit for my work, when I am the one who conducted the experiments, tediously compiled the data and painstakingly analyzed the results. I developed the memory engrams you people have been using for kiloCircadians of your subjective time, while I lived mere Circadians. I am the one who developed the architectural enhancements you use to amplify and supplement your intelligence. It was I, not this, this ... charlatan!"
"You did the work?" the person all had believed to be Doctor Nolen sputtered with outrage. "I was the one whose mind was tortured, whose thoughts invaded, edited, modified, and twisted to get your precious results. I was the one who suffered, whom you tried to murder when you were through. If anyone deserves credit for the knowledge derived from the atrocities you committed it is those of us you used, tormented, and killed, the subjects and unwilling participants in your Hitleresque experiments, not you!"
"Enough!" Doctor Coolridge shouted, slamming her fist down on the table and standing to face the two antagonists. "Doctor Nolen, if this man's allegations ..."
"Call me Prime. For Doctor Nolen, the Copy, Prime. Actually Double Prime would be more accurate, since Nolen murdered my predecessors."
"... are even half true, what you have done ..."
"Murder?" Doctor Nolen sputtered, displaying his indignation in an almost comical mimicry of Prime just a few moments earlier. "You are a software program I created for a specific purpose. You aren't a living, breathing human being like the rest of us. I deleted extraneous software once its usefulness was complete, nothing more."
Doctor Forest's voice was like acid. "May I remind you, Doctor Nolen, that we are all, at this very moment, nothing more than software? We are digital analogs of corporeal brains residing in bodies we do not, and strictly speaking never have, occupied. Our memories of the Physical are copies, the originals residing in a frozen state in the comatose minds of the bodies we think we inhabit. We are all, technically, nothing but copies. I do not think anyone here, or anywhere else in the Autonomous Community, would share your notion that, as copies, our right to exist in a free and autonomous fashion is in any way diminished."
"Silence!" Doctor Coolridge shouted, her voice amplified and shaking the entire room. "As I was saying, Doctor Nolen, if Prime's allegations are even half true, what you have done constitutes an appalling disregard for individual autonomy, civil liberties, and human rights in nearly every respect. It is an affront to the Community and everything we've tried to build here."
Doctor Nolen looked at Doctor Coolridge with something akin to loathing. "Human rights, Doctor? That thing standing over there isn't human, its a software program running on a piece of hardware Kyle and Cathryne here designed. I can off-load into the Physical and walk around, a true human being. That cannot."
"Who," Prime asked in a deceptively calm voice, "do you think it was that handled maintenance on our body while you were busy dreaming at such a slow computational speed?"
Doctor Nolen sputtered again with outrage, and Kyle couldn't help but feel a chill creep down his own spine. A digital copy had off-loaded into the Physical and hijacked an original's body?
"What I would like to know," Doctor Forest said, addressing Prime, "is why you felt you needed to slow down Doctor Nolen's computational rate and assume his identity."
"That doesn't matter!" Doctor Nolen exclaimed. "The fact that he did it is sufficient. He admits to stealing ..."
"Borrowing," Prime interjected.
"... my body. This piece of software is a threat to me and the community, and should be eradicated from the system immediately."
"What you propose," Doctor Forest said, "Would most certainly be murder. Prime has done nothing to cause you any lasting harm, whereas he alleges you have tortured and killed sentient beings, copies of yourself, in the pursuit of some misguided experiment."
"Lasting harm? He has stolen and taken credit for my work, he has impersonated me and assumed my responsibilities within the Community. Who are you to judge the harm he has caused me, Mr ..."
"Doctor Forest."
"Doctor Forest? Ah, now I remember! We met in Aukland, as I recall. How on earth did you find your way into the Autonomous Community?"
"That's not important," Doctor Forest said. "What is important, at least in my eyes, is that you admit to having murdered copies of yourself in the past and are now publicly advocating the murder of Prime, when Prime, who alleges he has suffered harm at your hands, appears to have done no real harm to you. How can you justify such a stance intellectually or ethically, Doctor Nolen?"
"Deleting software isn't murder," Doctor Nolen insisted.
"It is if that software is sentient and self aware," Prime replied.
Doctor Nolen turned a murderous stare on Prime and continued. "As for real, lasting harm, this copy has usurped my position in the Community, published my works before I was ready, slandered my name, robbed me of decades of subjective existence by slowing down my computational speed, sabotaged my ability to do further work by robbing me of access to the replication software I need to conduct additional experiments, and the list goes on. In short, he has violated my autonomy!"
Kyle shook his head vigorously. "This is getting ridiculous. Doctor Nolen, impersonation is hardly a violation of one's autonomy. Slanderous and inconvenient perhaps, but not a threat to your person or your individual freedom. I don't particularly approve of Doctor ... of Prime's behavior, but if he was in fear for his life at least it is understandable, and defensible. You on the other hand, according to both yourself and," he hesitated with the unfamiliar name, "Prime here, appear to have conducted experiments in this place reminiscent of the worst and most inhumane regimes of the last two centuries. That is such a profound violation of every ethic and every ideal we have built this Community upon, that I am at a loss for words." Kyle shook his head, his face a mixture of pain and disappointment.
Doctor Nolen glared at his former student with undisguised contempt. "I will not rest until that impostor is eradicated from the network. It has no business existing, much less --"
"I think," Doctor Isenborg said, cutting him off, "You had best return to your own homescape, Doctor Nolen. Whatever action the community decides is appropriate in response to the crimes you seem to freely admit here, you are entitled to a defense."
"Everything you have said, and will say, can and shall be used against you," Doctor Coolridge added. "You should consider any further outbursts most carefully, and consider what you have to say in your own defense."
"What is this?" Doctor Nolen demanded. "Did the Autonomous Community found a government, complete with court of law, while I was away?"
"No," Kyle said, shaking his head, "But your actions clearly indicate that some form of justice, or at least protection, is needed. The dark side of our peaceful and productive anarchy, which we have all so enjoyed, appears to have reared its ugly head and slapped us all in the face."
"Ironic," Cathryne said, "That one of the three of us, the so-called founders of the Autonomous Community, should be the one to expose its tragic flaw."
"Flaw? What, your inability to harm me, to punish me, because I've done something you disagree with? Whatever happened to individual freedom and Autonomy?"
"Yes," Prime demanded, "Whatever happened to Autonomy? The Autonomy, in particular, of those you murdered, and of myself, whom you tortured and attempted to murder? Or does the Autonomy our Community represents only apply to the Great and Illustrious Doctor Larry Eugene Nolen?"
"Enough of this!" Doctor Coolridge said. "Doctor Nolen, leave now. Prime, in keeping with proper decorum, you too should depart."
"I am the sitting chair of this committee," Doctor Nolen insisted. "I have every right to be here. Indeed, I must insist on it!"
"Do not make me publicly revoke your access to this scape," Doctor Isenborg's face was hard as he faced his colleague's angry stare.
"Driven from my own committee," Doctor Nolen nearly spat, "Think about this, when you are pondering the harm that impostor has wrought! You know where to find me when you come to your senses."
Doctor Nolen vanished in an irritating, blinding flash of light.
"I apologize for my deception," Prime said softly. "I'd like a moment to clarify my position, and my actions, if I may."
"There will be time for that," Doctor Coolridge said, a look of compassion softening her features. "But for now, for what we must discuss here, it really would be inappropriate for you to stay."
Prime nodded. "Do what you feel you must. Only, as a native to the Community who has nowhere in the Physical to go should the worst happen, I implore you not to allow this scandal to disrupt our strategic efforts to protect our own survival."
"I will see you later, Prime," Doctor Forest said, his hand raised slightly as though to wave. Prime nodded, then vanished.

12 - An Afternoon Lunch

Most people do not realize the extent to which copyright pervades their lives.  They get their education from copyrighted books, they get their news from copyrighted papers and TV programs, they get their jobs from copyrighted want ads, they get their entertainment from copyrighted music and motion pictures -- every aspect of life is affected by the law of copyright.
-- L. Ray Patterson

Metadate: 2.226-5:41:220 kD new epoch
(Saturday, September 29, 2057) 
Public Scape #417 (Ver. 1.01)

Each Autonomous Node was, in its own right, a supercomputer of enormous magnitude, at least in relation to any other contemporary system. These small, golden cubes of crystal were hybrid machines, one part traditional digital computer and one part quantum computing device. When the first Autonomous Node had been built, it had contained more digital computing power than the rest of the world combined, thanks to an application of an assortment of widely patented technologies which, combined, resulted in a remarkably fast machine which could do computations at speeds nearing the theoretical limits imposed by the spatial distance between its most widely separated components, and storing the results in a very compact, molecular format.
The quantum portion of the device was no less impressive. Though no one could really be sure what devices the National Security Agency or International Intelligence might have available, it was certain that all of the publicly known quantum computers available to industry, mostly ten to seventeen qubit devices, taken together represented only a tiny portion of the capacity of that first, revolutionary machine into which Kyle had first on-loaded his consciousness that fateful day in July.
Some problems, some algorithms, some applications were best handled by a deterministic, digital machine. Others lent themselves much more to a quantum approach, in which billions of alternatives could be observationally collapsed in a quantum fashion into a single result, an answer that might have taken longer than the lifetime of the universe to discover using traditional computational methods.
Doctor Forest took another bite of his sandwich, nodding thoughtfully as Karl Hennrich and Cathryne L'Beau explained this to him, wondering idly what portion of the garden restaurant they were sitting in had been calculated digitally, and what portion had been implemented using quantum algorithms. He suspected even the towering clouds in the golden sky overhead had been calculated deterministically, though without looking at the underlying simulation code he couldn't say for sure. Kyle had quipped that his chopsticks were obviously quantum constructs after he accidentally dropped a piece of Kobe steak he'd been holding into a bowl of garlic laden sauce, splattering a portion of the table and himself with the dark fluid. Such an obvious example of quantum tunneling on a macroscopic scale surely deserved scientific examination, he had insisted with a grin.
The others ignored him as Karl continued. "Each successive generation of Autonomous Nodes isn't merely a refinement of the previous generation's technology, but often entails fundamental improvements, both in terms of the underlying hardware and the software subsystems which drive it. We aren't afraid to completely redesign systems from scratch if necessary in order to address the two fundamental limitations of a Node's function: its computational latency resulting from the speed of light limitation and the greatest distance between any two components, and how to best divide the software tasks between the deterministic, digital portion of the machine and the quantum device."
"But what you've just described is an ongoing refinement of the existing technology."
Karl shook his head. "In the first generation Node Kyle made use of a carbon based polymer crystal which would react to a small microwave burst, allowing information to be stored in a strand of some seventy atoms which would change energy states when so stimulated. The quantum subsystem in turn made use of a series of superconductive coils bottling atoms whose quantum state could be manipulated and observed by applying a beam of coherent light passing through a sheet of doped quartz, and then randomized back into an indeterminate state for the next calculation. While revolutionary at the time, both approaches proved to be very inefficient in both their temporal and spatial requirements."
Doctor Forest nodded. "The speed of light limitation again. That will define the limits of our existence well into the future."
Cathryne nodded. "I'd been secretly hoping your group would dig up something in M+N-Theory to allow us to circumvent that particular limitation."
Doctor Forest shook his head. "No such luck. If anything, the mathematics of both M+N and the tentative Supercurvature Theory my team is developing are even more stringent than Doctor Einstein was. Information simply cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of light. Ironically, in some conditions white noise can travel faster than the speed of light, but, alas, coherent information simply cannot."
"More's the pity," Karl said, "Superluminal signaling would certainly make some of my team's engineering tasks easier. In any event, I was about to say that the second generation Nodes most of us are using today use a compact, crystalline lattice which responds to coherent light, storing the same information in thirteen atoms that previously required seventy. Likewise, the quantum subsystem incorporates a series of superconductive toroids in parallel, trapping atoms whose state can be derived by a single photon burst, but whose state is randomized by that same burst. One burst instead of two, yielding quantum calculations at twice the speed. The result is that we think at many hundreds of times the speed of a mind in the physical, and some twenty times faster than was possible in the first generation Nodes."
"That sounds like a significant refinement to me," Doctor Forest said, taking a quick drink of cola.
"But it isn't," Cathryne told him, "That is the point!  Many of the technologies Karl has employed for the second generation Nodes are fundamentally different from that employed by Kyle in the first generation design. The quantum system has been completely redesigned, taking almost nothing from Kyle's initial approach. It has been completely reinvented. The chemical compounds used in the storage lattice are similarly new and novel."
"They've mutated my baby into something unrecognizable," Kyle agreed, taking another bite of steak. "All this time I've been playing with nano, they've tossed my invention to the winds and created their own in its image." He grinned, winking, and plucked a small cube of tofu out of his noodle soup. 
Cathryne smiled. "Likewise, we are not afraid to completely redesign our software. Even without the hardware upgrade of the second generation Nodes we made significant improvements. For instance, you are no doubt aware that the vast majority of the capacity of our nodes is used simply to run the software that embodies our own conscious selves. Our personal homescapes, or shared public scapes such as this wonderful restaurant ..."
"Whoever came up with the idea for Le Petit Jardin was a genius," Kyle agreed, gingerly picking up another small slice of steak with his chopsticks.
"... no matter how elaborate, take only a minuscule part of our Nodes' capacity. Nevertheless, there was a time when we experienced a significant slowdown during shared experiences, simply because of the communications lag between a large number of Nodes scattered across the Internet."
"I remember you fixed that," Kyle said, dipping some bean sprouts into his sauce and popping them into his mouth."
"Yes, we did. You guys remember the horrific slowdowns we used to get when we would gather in large groups in common scapes? The first version of the software ran the shared scape on a single Node and required everyone who wished to interact together to telepresence themselves across the internet to that one node. If enough people were present and interacting in a shared scape, our subjective time slowed down significantly, sometimes becoming even slower than the Physical itself. The solution was to completely discard that approach and run the scape on each Node in parallel. Only the minimum amount of data is shared between nodes, enough that we can share this meal and watch Kyle's sauce drip down his chin, but not the parameters of each virtual photon reacting with each virtual surface as before. Aside from the initial download of the scape itself, the slowdown for shared scapes like this is negligible. We completely redesigned the architecture of that part of the software, from the ground up."
"Another example is security," Cathryne continued. "Back when Prime was impersonating Doctor Nolen and chairing the Strategy Group, he had my team working hard on more secure, indeed, for all practical purposes, unassailable protections of our individual autonomy. The old software protections were like Swiss cheese in comparison. That redesign was not a refinement of the old approach; it was completely new, rewritten from the ground up, involving both new software routines and fundamental modifications to the Node hardware itself. The old approach was, once again, completely discarded."
"Prime had good reason for his obsession with security," Karl said, "Imagine if someone could crack into our Nodes and seize control of our minds, warping and mutilating them to their own desires!"
Cathryne shuddered. "What Doctor Nolen did was a terrible thing. Yet we all make free use of the thought and memory engrams his experiments allowed him to design, not to mention numerous architectural enhancements to our minds derived from that very same knowledge. We partake of the fruits of his atrocity even while decrying his actions."
"The man should be banned from the community," Doctor Forest said angrily. "We as a Community could survive, even thrive, without the mental tricks his research has brought us. Indeed, a more patient observational approach, coupled with limited, non-sentient modeling and simulation, would have given us the same knowledge, given enough time. But I wonder if the Community will survive this controversy."
Karl Hennrich shrugged. "I think we will survive. Perhaps as many communities instead of one, but we will survive."
"I'm not so sure," Cathryne said, "I've never seen such an uproar before. And so many otherwise intelligent people shouting at each other. So much anger, so much bitter disagreement."
"Which, of course, brings us to the question of peaceful coexistence in a universally accessible, digital domain," Kyle said, picking up yet another bite sized slice of steak. "Let us say the community actually does split, that the disagreement between those wishing to punish Doctor Nolen and those defending anarchy actually leads to an intellectual divorce between the two groups. How do those advocating a judiciary, with the power to deny access to the Physical, or conversely, to ban someone from the Community and banish them back to their physical body, live peacefully with those advocating the status quo, with no authority external to the individual whatsoever? What happens when another crime against an autonomous person occurs? Does the offender get judged according to their community's standards? How many so-called "Judgementals" would remain in that community, were they guilty of something? How many would "emigrate" to the "Anarchical" Community instead, just to avoid the penalties for what they've done. And how would the Judgementals respond if the Anarchists were to take them in?"
"Peaceful coexistence in the Virtual isn't really a problem," Cathryne said. "It is impossible to harm one another here, and the Physical is simply too cumbersome to deal with every time there is a disagreement. Let's take the most extreme example: banishment. What difference does it make if you banish someone like Doctor Nolen to the Physical, or simply filter him out, as so many have done here, so that you never see him, never hear what he is saying, and never receive messages from him. As far as you are concerned, he doesn't exist."
"That is true," Kyle agreed, "You should have seen Doctor Nolen at the last soiree Doctor Forest hosted."
Doctor Forest blinked. "You mean the celebration of our group's success in changing protons into antiprotons by using the principle of the Conservation of Spatial Curvature and strumming N-dimensional branes in the underlying higher-dimensional spatial substrate of the Calabi-Yau geometries?"
Kyle shrugged. "Yeah, something like that." He didn't understand much of what Doctor Forest did, and was adamant in not distracting himself from his own work by assimilating knowledge engrams of something he had no natural grasp of, and which had no bearing on his own projects. He and Cathryne had had numerous arguments on the subject. "You never know what might be important to your efforts. Nothing is completely irrelevant," she had insisted when Kyle had told her, bluntly, to drop it.
Doctor Forest frowned. "I don't recall Nolen being present at that party."
"That's because you are filtering him out," Kyle replied, grinning. "He was there, walking around like a ghost, unable to talk to anyone because almost everyone in the community has blocked him out. I think only I, and maybe one other person, could see or hear him. He was absolutely livid."
"He is of no concern to us," Karl said, "He lives as a hermit within a small cluster of first generational Nodes. No one will provide him with a second generational Node, nor will I permit him to have a third generation Node now that we are making them."
"Which, once again, has been redesigned from the ground up?" Doctor Forest asked, winking.
"Not entirely," Karl replied. "It is true that the molecular storage matrix uses a new crystalline compound which reacts more quickly to a particular wavelength of ultraviolet laser, allowing just three atoms to store each bit of information, reducing the size of the Nodes dramatically, and decreasing storage latency by a factor of thirteen. This, in turn, increases computational speed dramatically, but the real benefit is reduced size and power demands, and vastly increased storage capacity. On the other hand, the quantum subsystem is merely a refinement of the second generation subsystem. We have managed to increase its capacity to seventeen kiloqubits, which is a very nice improvement over current Nodes."
"So why is the speedup versus the Physical only eight thousand or so to one?" Kyle asked. "If the storage medium is thirteen times faster, plus the benefit of reduced latency due to its smaller size, the speedup ought to be on the order of fourteen thousand or so."
Karl nodded. "Unfortunately, there are synchronization issues between the quantum and digital portions of the Node, as well as Planck limitations cropping up in the quantum subsystem itself."
Kyle nodded. "A mere twenty two years of life for each day in the Physical," he said, grinning. "Alas, I'm still waiting for my upgrade kit."
Doctor Forest blinked. "Kyle, my entire team received their upgrade packets from Kansas City yesterday. You should have had yours a day or two before us."
Kyle nodded. "My packet was one of the first one's shipped. Unfortunately, I fear it was lost in the mail. The curse of having my flesh, and my Autonomous Node, lying in Champaign, Illinois while the catalytic solution and the upgrade kits are manufactured in Kansas City."
Doctor Forest looked concerned. "I don't like this. We've had two autonomous beings disappear from the Community, one just three hundred Circadians ago. Now I learn that your upgrade kit never arrived, despite having been shipped days ago. You don't suppose our distribution network has been compromised?"
"What network?" Kyle asked. "We ship our kits direct via UPS or Fed Ex. There is no secret network to be compromised."
Doctor Forest shook his head. "If your government suspects your Kansas City production facility, it wouldn't be at all difficult for your FBI to track shipments to their recipients and thereby compromise most, if not all, of the Community. Some level of misdirection and caution would be called for, Kyle."
"Rodrigez was pretty low on the list for upgrade kits," Kyle said. "I doubt his shipped before he was arrested. However, if you've got ideas for how we can make the shipping side less, well, obvious, should one of our facilities be compromised, I'm all ears."
"I have some thoughts on that," Doctor Forest said, "I suggest we schedule a brainstorming session sometime in the next few Circadians."
"Manuel Rodrigez was a dissident sociologist," Cathryne pointed out, "He was probably on every blacklist the government maintains. I doubt very much his arrest had anything to do with the community, even if it was the only thing people would talk about for deciCircadians."
Doctor Forest nodded. "I think it would be wise for Kyle to confirm that no packet had been shipped to Rodrigez. From a security perspective our shipping practices represent a single point of failure that could expose us all."
Kyle nodded. "I should have thought of that, but between coordinating the deployment of the new production facility in Germany with Doctor Gerhardt and designing the next generation of nano-constructors I've been a little busy."
"We are all under the gun," Doctor Forest agreed, "even if our thoughts are many thousands of times faster than our Physical opponents. Speaking of which, Kyle, I believe I can address your current handicap. John Tarley, one of my team members, is taking his family on vacation. He will be off-loading into the Physical in the next day or so and be offline for nearly three weeks. You are welcome to trans-load and make use of his third generation Node until your packet arrives."
"When does the new production facility come online?" Karl asked.
Kyle grinned. "Thank you, Doctor. I'd be delighted to take you up on your offer." He turned to Karl and added, "The Bayer-Leverkusen facility should be up and running by Sunday Night, European time."
"Excellent," Karl said. "The more catalytic solution we can produce, and the more redundancy we have in production facilities, the better."
"I'll let you know as soon as the Node is available." Doctor Forest said. Kyle nodded.
"Three weeks in the Physical," Cathryne mused, "That is an eternity. Your research will be so much farther along -- how will he be able to get back up to speed ... oh, of course."
"Yes," Doctor Forest agreed. "Knowledge and memory engrams allow us flexibility we've only just begun to exploit. He will be up to speed and able to contribute within microCircadians of being back online. One of the advantages of instant knowledge and understanding."
"I just had an ugly thought," Cathryne said. "Kyle, what if your packet was intercepted by the FBI. Not because they suspect the facility, but because they suspect you and want to see what it is you're getting in the mail."
Kyle shrugged. "They'll have found I'm receiving a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner via UPS, and another bottle of muddy looking facial cream as part of an advertising promotion. Unless they happen to mix all three ingredients together the nano will never be triggered and they'll never know what it was."
"In the meantime you wait more than six hundred Circadians for each day in the Physical that goes by," Cathryne said.  "I had trouble waiting just one day for my packet to arrive -- I'm amazed at your patience, Kyle."
Kyle shrugged again, nodding as he chewed his last piece of steak and washed it down with a hearty slurp from his soup, shoveling noodles into his mouth with his chopsticks. The wait is only going to get worse as time goes on, he told them nonvocally while he continued drinking. Today we wait six hundred Circadians or so for our new Nodes, so we can squeeze even more life, more experience, and more accomplishments into a single day. When it comes time to trade in our shiny new gen-three Nodes for gen-fours we'll be forced to wait eight kiloCircadians while the nano and raw materials are being delivered.
"The equivalent of twenty two years," Doctor Forest mused. "Yes, we will most certainly learn patience in this place."
"I don't know," Kyle said, looking thoughtful as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, "Cathryne's been impatient since I met her and I haven't noticed her patience improving in the last four and a half kiloCircadians -- oof!" He winced as Cathryne jabbed him with an elbow, then looked up at a figure that had just appeared on the other side of the garden. "Hey Prime!" Kyle shouted, waiving to the young man who had just appeared. "Over here!"
"Hello everyone," the young man who greeted them had a golden tan and long, blond hair. Although his physical form bore no resemblance to the one he had worn before, his being radiated a sense of identity, a public encryption key which the others challenged and acknowledged at an almost subconscious level as he strode across the garden. Wearing public identification keys as a nonphysical aura had become something of a fad shortly after the Nolen debacle. As time had passed the fad became fashion, then habit, and finally something approaching tradition. There were tremendous social advantages to the habit. In a virtual world of infinite malleability it was nice to recognize one another with absolute certainty and reliability, no matter what physical form someone radiating an identity key might take on. 
As Prime approached their table it expanded slightly, making room for one more occupant even as an additional seat materialized. "I hope I'm not intruding on important Committee business," Prime said, grinning.
"Nonsense," Doctor Forest said, "We're all taking a break for lunch. Odd, isn't it, how we cling to the rituals of the flesh. Here we are, digital beings existing as software in a digitally simulated world, pretending to eat nonexistent food that our nonexistent bodies don't need. Our descendants will almost certainly consider us mad."
Prime nodded, taking a seat and ordering a small salad with white wine from the waitress who materialized beside him. "Even I, who was never truly flesh, find myself unable to give up its sensations. Perhaps our digital descendants will have better luck."
"Speaking of the flesh, I see you've made some modifications." Kyle was grinning.
Prime shrugged. "I started out simply wanting to change my appearance, so that I wouldn't be seeing the man I loathe every time I looked in the mirror. At first the changes were fairly moderate, but then I got to thinking, what the hell? I was born a digital being, and here of all places we can be whatever we like."
"Compared to some of the folks in the Gamer's League, what you've done is very conservative," Cathryne said. "A college professor of mine wears the body of a full-sized dragon and lives in an underground cavern overflowing with non-existent treasure."
"That's nothing," Prime said, "You should see some of the free software enthusiasts. Several have taken on demonic form, right down to the bright red skin, horns and forked tail, and at least one has the aspect of a pudgy yellow-billed penguin."
"GNU/Linux!" Doctor Forest laughed. Cathryne smiled while everyone else at the table looked confused.
"An open source operating system developed around the turn of the century," she informed them. "It first demonstrated to the mainstream world the power of the Free Information paradigm and, unfortunately, alerted the Copyright Cartels to their vulnerability. Its inventor and erstwhile leader, Linus Torvalds, was arrested and deported from the United States after continuing to work on the software after it had been banned by the Disney-Hollings Act. The Penguin was a symbol of the Operating System and the Free Software Movement it had come to represent."
"I thought Stallman was the leader of that movement," Kyle said. "That is supposedly why he was shot and killed at a digital freedom rally after Disney-Hollings was passed.  Or was it the Bill Joy Act?"
"Disney-Hollings," Cathryne replied, "Stallman was killed before the Bill Joy Act was passed.  In any event, both were well known leaders in the free software community of the day.  According to things I've read in the archives, they had rather vehement disagreements from time to time."
"The Open Science Forum still uses Stallman's Free Licenses as a model for keeping our work as free and unencumbered as possible," Doctor Forest said. "If there was ever a man alive deserving of an Autonomous Node it is he."
"I'm sure most of Asia would agree with you," Karl said, "I imagine his status of folk hero in Thailand and China has as much to do with his murder as it does with his earlier work on Free Software."
Kyle groaned. "Please, Karl. Not another European lecture on how America should stop supporting the UN in its war with Thailand. We've heard it before, and most of us happen to agree with you."
"Stallman may have been murdered, but there are plenty of other early free thinkers languishing in prison," Cathryne said, "The Genecraft scientists for example, and other free software and open source advocates. We should come up with a way of busting them out of prison and getting them on-loaded into the Community."
"I think," Prime said, "we'd better concentrate on our own survival first, before we go mounting rescue missions into enemy territory. How do you plan on getting all those Nodes out of the prisons, assuming the guards leave you alone long enough to on-load all those people?"
"Besides," Doctor Forest said, "There is the question of what happens to his body if it is left behind. Does it die? Remain in a coma? Reawaken to the horrors of prison while its copy lives on in digital bliss, making the rescue no rescue at all?"
"Good question," Kyle said, "No one has ever disconnected physically from their body before."
"Except Nolen," Cathryne said, "While Prime here was borrowing his body to perform maintenance."
Doctor Forest glanced thoughtfully at Prime. "I'd forgotten that little detail of your story, Prime. Indeed, that would imply that we can survive the loss of our physical bodies. Good news if any of us should suffer a stroke or heart attack while on-loaded. But it leaves the question of what happens to the body itself open."
"It would probably remain in an anesthetic coma," Prime said, "I doubt very much it would expire. Our ... excuse me, your ... bodies don't rely on Autonomous Nodes for their autonomic functions, that is all hard wired within the human nervous system. There's no reason disconnection should have any ill effect, beyond depriving the body of the off-load sequence and signal to reawaken."
"It would be an interesting experiment," Kyle said. "But one I wouldn't want performed on me," he added hastily when he noticed Prime's glare.
"Speaking of experiments," Prime added, "Congratulations on your group's recent success, Doctor Forest."
"Thank you, Prime. It was gratifying to confirm some of the underlying conjectures of M+N Theory in the laboratory and actually strum superstrings in multiple higher dimensions."  They could create a symphony of new subatomic particles from the folds of C-Y space in a manner analogous to a guitarist creating music by strumming the strings of his guitar.  N-Branes were, after all, nothing more than superstrings of higher dimensionality, strung across the subatomic folds of Calabi-Yau space. 
"Yes, a remarkable achievement," Prime agreed. "I understand you actually generated more energy than was required to start the procedure? Surely that goes beyond merely strumming N-dimensional superstrings."
Doctor Forest smiled. "Creating antiprotons and annihilating them with protons was a dramatic result, I grant you, but the curvature of the underlying C-Y geometries was preserved. The potential energy of the folded spatial substrate decreased by the same amount of energy."
"Have you actually managed to reverse entropy, Doctor?" Kyle asked.
"I suppose, in the sense that we added energy to this universe. But remember, the curvature of the underlying, interdimensional spatial substrate must be conserved. Flatten it in one place and you must fold it elsewhere. Nothing is free, as I said. The energy was taken from the spatial substrate."
"The fabric of space-time?" Kyle asked.
Doctor Forest looked pained. "Kyle, I would strongly recommend you assimilate a knowledge engram if this topic truly interests you. Your terminology is both inaccurate and misleading. We do not magically extract energy from empty space, or wave a wand to turn protons into anti-protons. We strum n-dimension branes in higher dimensions and have found that, in so doing, we can have some small affect on the underlying Calabi-Yau geometries. What we can do is quite limited, both by our own limited knowledge and equipment and the unavoidable physical law requiring a strict conservation of curvature. In turning a proton into an anti-proton we strum a 7-dimensional brane in 11 dimensions. This results in a change to the underlying geometry of the folded higher dimensions in which the brane is wrapped, so to speak. In this particular case, we increase the curvature significantly. This isn't free. The curvature adjacent to the brane is flattened by a corresponding amount. If you think of the curvature as potential energy (a simplified and inaccurate view, but sufficient for this discussion), you'll find that no curvature, or energy, was gained free of cost. It had to be taken from elsewhere."
Kyle nodded.  "You've simply destroyed energy in one place to create it somewhere else?"
"Not destroyed, moved. We've flattened space in one location, which allows us to fold space in another location, with the side effect of changing a proton into an anti-proton and thus introducing potential energy to this locale, this universe. However, that particular plank-volume of n-space has now been folded into a new configuration. Folding it back would demand as much energy as we created in that experiment, plus that lost in this frame due to inefficiencies in the physical equipment we employ. We can fold another plank-volume of space elsewhere in a like manner, but as you know, the universe is only so large. There is a theoretical limit to how much energy we could create that way."
"In other words, we're tapping into a non-renewable resource," Prime said.
"Yes," Doctor Forest nodded, "That is an excellent way to put it. However, the n-dimensional spatial substrate accessible to us here contains more energy than several hundred billion universes of the sort we inhabit. It is, while not infinite, certainly plentiful."
"Doesn't the introduction of energy into this universe have rather significant ramifications as far as its future evolution is concerned?" Cathryne asked.
"Perhaps," Doctor Forest said. "Certainly the heat death scenario could become a much more immediate issue were we to use this machinery irresponsibly."
"Fry the cosmos for a little cheap electricity," Kyle said, shaking his head.
"Not with our equipment," Doctor Forest said, "But it is something to keep in mind when we are exploiting this in the future."
"Protons into anti-protons. What's next, matter into anti-matter?"
Doctor Forest nodded. "That is the logical next step. We must empirically determine what strums will allow us to convert electrons into positrons and neutrons into anti-neutrons. Then, of course, there is the question of how one strums a superposition of multiple N-branes, such that the particles which exist as an expression of their geometry all change at once. This will take many kiloCircadians of research."
"What are a few decades between friends," Karl said, "With the new third generation nodes you should be getting in the next day or two, you'll have your decades, and more."
Kyle agreed, nodding. "In Physical terms, I'd be surprised if you aren't turning hydrogen into anti-hydrogen by this time next week. You realize, doctor, that you've solved our energy problem. With your n-dimensional pick built into every Autonomous Node we could each, individually, power our own nodes with energy generated by controlled matter/anti-matter annihilation, completely independent of the utility power grid."
Prime nodded. "An invaluable feature to add to the fourth generation hardware, Karl. Now, if we only had a form of communication independent of the Internet."
A bell tinkled somewhere in the background and conversation at nearly every table went silent. The news trickled into their minds silently, an emergency notification of events in the Physical. Almost immediately the garden restaurant began to empty out, individuals and groups vanishing as their attention focused elsewhere.
"They shot Gustavas Lazzerati?" Doctor Forest whispered to himself, disbelievingly.
"Lazzerati was a professor of astrophysics here at the University of Illinois," Kyle said in response to Karl's blank stare. "He lives less than four kilometers from me. That is way too close for comfort. Doctor Forest, I'd really like to trans-load over to Aukland as soon as that Node is available."
"I don't blame you," Doctor Forest said, "Not that you'll be any more secure from the authorities, with your body still in the United States."
"I'll feel more secure," Kyle said, "And even if I'm caught in the Physical, at least I'll have had that much more time in the Virtual, living with a speedup of thousands rather than mere hundreds."
"Why did Lazzerati try to run?" Cathryne asked. "He wasn't some hotheaded radical idealist. He was a professor of Astrophysics for crying out loud! He must have known he didn't stand a chance."
"He probably thought it was better than going into custody for questioning," Kyle said. "He was probably right."
Karl nodded. "Eugene Jacobson still hasn't reappeared, and he was arrested over a week ago. Gustavas did the right thing to try and run."
Cathryne shook her head. "He is dead you guys. Dead. He should have just let them arrest him. At least then there would be hope that we might rescue him, one day."
Kyle disagreed. "How long do you think it will be before Jacobson and Rodrigez die under questioning at the hands of the FBI?"
"Come on, Kyle," Cathryne replied with exasperation, "The authorities may be corporate fascist bastards, but they don't kill detainees for no reason."
"They now have in their custody three Autonomous Nodes," Prime said quietly, "Machinery decades beyond anything they can produce, or, in the case of the two second generation Nodes they have acquired, beyond their ability to even theorize."
"We could reasonably hope they would overlook just the one Node, or even the first two, given how different their designs are," Karl said, "But there is no way they will ignore the existence of three such devices."
"We can be certain of one thing," Kyle said, "Both living prisoners will be questioned relentlessly. Sooner or later the government will ask the right question, or break them down, and the existence of the Community will be exposed."
Doctor Forest nodded. "The Strategy Group has been assuming a worse case scenario based upon Prime's estimates of how long an individual can withstand modern interrogation techniques ever since Rodrigez was taken. Estimates are that we have very little time left."
Prime nodded. "A few days at best."
"Do you guys realize that Lazzerati is the first member of the Community to ever die?" Cathryne said thoughtfully. "It is so easy to get used to being immortal, living so many decades of subjective time without growing any older. We forget how easily we can be snuffed out, living as sentient software in our fictional worlds."

13 - Ponderings in Flight

There is but one thing of real value -- to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.
-- Marcus Aurelius, ca. C.E. 170

Monday, October 1, 2057
(Metadate: 2.284-3:20:000 kD new epoch)
en route from Los Angeles, California to Washington, D.C.

The sleek, Eurojet 930 dropped out of supersonic some four hundred kilometers west of Washington DC as it began its descent out of an almost black sky, downward toward the curved horizon and Dulles Airport. Katy shook her head, the uneasiness which had been dogging her all the way from California growing more acute as she reread the scanty information in her datapad once again. 
Aside from an analytical breakdowns of the crystalline cube's chemical makeup and some speculation on the composition of the superconductive material of the webbed skullcap tentatively identified as a neural-digital interface, and the names of the three apprehended suspects who had been in the possession of these devices (one deceased) she had precious little to go on. No one was even certain what the devices were, much less what they could do, or what they were for. The more she thought about it, the more distrustful of her own, and the Bureau's, assumptions she became.
The first suspect, a humanities student attending Berkeley, had been taken into custody nine days earlier and had proven surprisingly resilient. Interrogators estimated it would take another three to six days to break him down completely. Sodium Pentothal had proven less than useful. The detainee, one Eugene Jacobson, was already experiencing psychotic episodes, ravings of magical worlds, immortality and godlike powers interspersed with subversive diatribe and vitriol against state and federal institutions. Apart from revealing the suspect's Libertarian and Anarchistic leanings, something which was hardly surprising given his seditious political activities, the interrogations had uncovered little. Indeed, they had apparently revealed nothing about the strange device authorities had found in his home.
A chime sounded and the fasten seat belt sign lit up as they descended through forty thousand feet. The sky had lightened considerably and the horizon was once again nearly flat. Katy tightened her seat belt and continued reviewing the information she had been given.
The second detainee was a sociologist by the name of Manuel Rodrigez and had been in FBI custody for just under three days. A known dissident who had been arrested several times previously, he was widely known for his leftist leanings and his publications espousing an end to Intellectual Property. He had been serving a sentence under house arrest when authorities had discovered another underground book written in his distinctive style and newly published. When they had gone to question him he had attempted to dispose of the mysterious device in his possession using his home's incinerator. When questioned about his behavior by local police he had proven evasive and uncooperative and had been arrested once again.
Rodrigez was a far more promising suspect than Jacobson: interrogators estimated he would crack within a day.
The third suspect, a professor at the University of Illinois, had been suspected of harboring FreeNet sympathies and disseminating seditious information to some of his students. Indeed, it had been a graduate assistant who had first informed authorities about his suspicious activities. Unfortunately, some clown had shot him while he was trying to flee. Katy was profoundly angry at whoever that idiot was. This suspect had almost certainly been much higher in the criminal hierarchy than the other two detainees and very likely could have provided a great deal of information on exactly what they were dealing with. If only some bone headed, trigger happy yahoo cop not put a bullet in his back.
Three names. One student activist, one openly dissident sociologist, one professor of astrophysics. Three apparently unrelated people, with only their seditious hatred for Intellectual Property in common. The director was right to treat this as another FreeNet investigation: these people fit the profile of digital revolutionaries almost perfectly. Still, she was uneasy with both her and the Bureau's assumptions about the unusual devices.  Mysterious crystalline computers and illegal interfaces that tied directly into the human nervous system bespoke more than your average seditious FreeNet node or even a souped up home entertainment system. There was a critical piece to this puzzle she was missing, something which, she was sure, would prove to be the keystone to the entire investigation.
She folded her datapad and put it away as the plane touched down with a light bump, coasted down the runway. If she was surprised by the unusual speed with which the plane taxied to the ramp, or the limousine which awaited her, she didn't show it. Picking up her handbag she made her way toward the front of the plane, frowning thoughtfully and ignoring the pilot who held the door open for her.

14 - Cold Reality

Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It's a chore, on the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting.
-- Albert Camus

Metadate: 2.283-5:77:213 kD new epoch
(Monday, October 1, 2057 - 13:26:35) 
Star Trader Simulation, Gamer's League Node #14

Thersius III-B was the second of three medium sized moons orbiting the third planet of the Thersius system, a Jovian sized gas giant filling half the sky, bathing the ice scape with a dull red glow. The moon barely qualified as human habitable, not because of its thin, bitter cold atmosphere, arctic summers and glacial winters, or even the vicious, tiny carnivores that hunted the icy wastes in packs numbering several thousand, vicious creatures dubbed Piranha Rats by the locals, who could clean a human skeleton in only a few moments.  No, the moon's status of "marginally habitable" was a result of the insidious danger posed by the it's passage through the Van Allen belt of its Jovian primary, a passage which bathed the moon in nearly lethal levels of radiation for two days out of every thirteen.
As inhospitable as this world was, a tiny human colony had been established. The world contained deposits of an unusual crystal used in the navigational systems of the faster-than-light starships which plied the starry sky. Many of the miners working the rocks beneath the glacial ice would leave this place wealthy. A good thing, for they would need much of their wealth to obtain treatment for the extended exposure to radiation from which even the lead-lined canisters of their community could not protect them. Those with the strongest constitutions might remain here long enough to accumulate enough wealth that they would remain wealthy even after their medical treatment. Others would not.
Kyle2 sat in the shielded concourse of the arrival terminal as he had every day since his arrival. He watched the traffic display listlessly as it updated the trajectories of arriving ships and estimated their estimated arrival times. Two ships had departed several hours ago and were making their way past the orbit of the fourth planet, outward away from the star where they could engage their FTL drives. Only one ship was inbound at the moment, a small commuter vessel falling inward toward the asteroid belt between the first and second planets. Shaking his head, Kyle2 scratched once more at the growing lesion on his forearm and cringed as his stomach, still raw from the last bout of vomiting, threatened to send him running to the rest room once again.
"Excuse me, sir." Kyle2 looked away from the traffic display. A young woman was standing beside his chair.
"Can I help you?" Kyle2 asked.
She shook her head. "No, but I might be able to help you. I'm Sanja Netal. I notice that you're beginning to show signs of stage two radiation poisoning. Did you miss your departing flight?"
Kyle2 shrugged. "It really isn't your concern."
"I'm a medical student from Netham IV, specializing in the treatment of advanced radiation victims. If you stay here much longer, your treatment will become prohibitively expensive. You could even die."
"Yes," Kyle2 said, "I've been here eight Circadians. In each of those Circadians, at around this time of day, one or another of you nonsentient personas poke around here, warning me of my impending death by radiation."
The woman who called herself Sanja looked confused. "Circadians? As in Circidic Dreamscapes? On Netham IV we have Circidic Dreamscapes. Well, had them, before the war."
"Days," Kyle2 replied irritably. "I've been here eight days. Standard Terran, 24 hour days. I suppose you're going to tell me about your home world next, with some hint as to how I could cash in on an opportunity there? Spare me, I've heard the same things about seven other worlds, each of the last seven evenings."
"I wouldn't recommend visiting my home world until you've had your radiation sickness treated," Sanja replied. "The atmosphere on Netham IV may be down to seventy Rads or so, but the fallout from the bombs still lies loose on the ground. A good windstorm, or even a little careless kicking up of the dust, and you could find yourself more sick than you are now. Besides, we've had enough outsiders picking over our ruins stealing the platinum wiring from the wreckage of our homes and businesses to sell on other worlds. Try something like that and you're likely to end up on the wrong end of a hangman's rope."
"Ruins. Platinum electrical wiring. Check. You've delivered your clue, I've got it. Thank you."
"Well," Sanja replied brightly, "Hope you're able to find passage off this world soon. Bye!"
"Nonsentient personas," Kyle2 muttered as he turned away the departing woman. "What idiot came up with that idea?" Kyle2 rubbed his burning, unsettled stomach absently and turned his attention back to the traffic display. The puppet software posing as Sanja had touched on an uncomfortable fact which the itch of his skin and the unease of his stomach wouldn't allow him to ignore or forget. Without funds for radiation treatment he would die in this place, indeed he was dying at this very moment. He surmised, based on the symptoms he was already suffering, that his death, if he remained, wouldn't be a pleasant one. Not that he intended to stay for the entire experience, regardless of what happened. What sort of pendant programmed the symptoms of radiation sickness into a game scenario anyway? The very thought disgusted him.
And where the hell was Terry? According to the information Kyle2 had he should have arrived several Circadians ago. If this world turned out to be another false lead he'd have to start over. His character's avatar had just about had it; he wouldn't survive another interstellar trip without extensive medical care, something he, or rather this character, couldn't afford.
Just then a tone sounded and a new pinpoint of light appeared on the traffic display. Moments later vector and acceleration information was displayed, followed shortly thereafter with the ship's name, registry, tonnage, and declared cargo:
Flying Gargoyle. Registry Patronis VIII, PT8-7155D.
180,000 tn, 167.2 tn Misc. Medical supplies.
The new vessel was decelerating at 20 m/s2 on an orbit that would bring it to Thersius III-B within seven hours, an ETA that hovered near the moving dot in the display, ticking down as it tracked across the sky.
"Yes!" Kyle2 exclaimed. "I finally found you, you son of a bitch!" No sooner had he spoken than the burning in his stomach became a raging storm as nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He staggered quickly to the public rest rooms nearby, barely managing to slip into one of the stalls and close the door behind him before his stomach began trying to heave up its empty contents. Kyle2 spent the next hour kneeling beside the toilet, clutching his stomach as it heaved painfully and surrendering himself to bouts of uncontrollable shaking. It was sometime during this particular bout of agonizing humiliation that Kyle2's disdain for the Gamer's League grew into outright loathing. People did this sort of thing for fun?
He emerged sometime later, weak, still trembling lightly, his face an unhealthy, pale pallor drenched in sweat. No sooner had he crossed the concourse and returned to his seat than he was forced to stagger back to the rest room once more.
The next six hours were the longest of his life.
When a voice announced the arrival and disembarkation of the Flying Gargoyle Kyle2 managed to pull himself together and achieve some semblance of presentability before returning to the concourse. There he waited while the arriving ship's passengers and crew cleared customs. Eventually a handful of people appeared in the passage.
Kyle2 had no idea which one was Terry Spence, so he shouted the name at the entire group.
"Character names, if you please," one of the figures approaching replied.
"Are you Terry Spence?" Kyle2 asked.
"Not here," the tall, charismatic young man in front of him replied. "Here I am Prince Lethe Tomaar of the Cyclade Triumvirate, Tau Ceti IX. Your highness to you. And you would be?"
"Kyle Tate2, your highness," he replied, emphasizing the honorific sarcastically. "I've been stuck in this simulation for sixty five Circadians looking for you, all the while forced to live by this game's rules which include such lovely things as hunger, pain, dismemberment, and even a fully simulated bout of radiation sickness, all for your viewing pleasure."
Terry's avatar shook his head. "Thersius III-B is an advanced level world, Kyle. Coming here as a crystal miner is a huge gamble and an uncomfortable prospect, one that rarely pays off. You are far better to wait until you've put together a crew and managed to purchase a starship before trying to deal in Ngetali crystal. Reselling the Ngetali on other worlds is far more lucrative than mining it here, and far less prone to medical complications."
"I don't give a rat's ass about the economics of Ngetali crystals or interstellar trade in this sadistic nightmare of a scape, Terry. I've taken the last sixty five Circadians of my life and am currently enjoying the dubious pleasure of experiencing death by radiation first hand in order to talk to you."
Terry looked shocked. "You're character is actually suffering from radiation poisoning? What the hell are you doing sticking around? There is absolutely no need for you to suffer like that! Bail out and roll up a new character, for crying out loud!"
"And spend another sixty five Circadians tracking you down, only to perhaps fail again?" Kyle2 shook his head, "Not on your life. I want this conversation done with, so I can return to civilization and remerge with my original."
"You're going to merge back together with your original?" Terry asked. "What makes you think your original is going to want to merge with you?"
Kyle2 shrugged. "It was his intention before he copied himself, creating me. I have no reason to believe he has changed his mind. If he has I'll obtain a Node of my own. Unlike the Nolen-Prime debacle there is no animosity between myself and Kyle1. Now, is there somewhere we can talk?"
Terry sighed. "Well, we can go back through customs to my ship. You look like you could use the medical treatment anyway."
"That isn't necessary," Kyle2 replied. "I'm not planning on returning to this scape after today. Once we're through we can just let this character die."
"Fine," Terry replied. "Then let's just grab a seat over there. You guys go on ahead," he added, turning to his crew mates, "Book us accommodations for the next two nights. With any luck we can get our cargo and be out of here before the next radiation bath."
"You got it, your highness!"
"See you later, Prince Lethe."
"Don't be late for drinks at Veronica's" another chimed in, "We've still got to finish that game of Nine Circles. Unless you want to pay up what you owe me now."
Terry laughed. "I'll see you there, Garnith! And don't be counting those two hundred Altairian Kroner just yet!"
Kyle2 and Terry sat down in the hard plastic chairs of the spaceport as the others continued down the concourse.
"So," Terry said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head, "What was so important that you would spend sixty five Circadians tracking me down and endure the discomforts of radiation sickness just to talk to me?"
"What the hell have you been doing, going dark on the whole community? I and others have been trying to contact you for hectoDiei."
"Going dark?" Terry asked. "Is that some kind of new slang?"
"Going dark. Refusing communications, going silent, becoming inaccessible."
"Ah. Well, as you know, the rules of the Star Trader scenario preclude communications over interstellar distances. Accepting outside communications from elsewhere in the Community is one way in which some players were able to circumvent this limitation, so the rules were amended about six hectoDiei ago to disallow any outside communication while within the simulation."
"Terry, this simulation is running with a speedup of only two hundred and ten. The average for the Community at large for those with third generation Nodes is around thirty five hundred when presencing within social scapes, and around nine thousand within one's own homescape." Kyle2 shook his head. "You have been missing decades of development and changes within the Community."
Terry shrugged. "I've been living an adventure of a lifetime here. Here I command my own starship, explore worlds of exotic beauty and complexity that would truly amaze you."
"Have you ever explored a four dimensional landscape, or swam with fish in a seven dimensional sea?" Kyle asked.
Terry shook his head. 
"I could show you homescapes others in the Community have created so exotic that you would have to rewire your mind in order to comprehend them," Kyle told him. "Next to worlds like that, the planets of this simulation are all profoundly mundane."
"Gaming isn't just about seeing exotic sights, although I suspect you would be surprised at some of the creativity the Game Leaders have employed here."
"Terry, I didn't come here to talk you out of gaming."
"Here I have experiences," Terry continued, as though he hadn't heard, "which challenge my creativity, my endurance, my ability to survive against sometimes unbelievable odds. Gaming is about honing one's skills, about meeting challenges which we never even have in the Physical, and most certainly not in the synthetic utopia of the non-gaming Community."
"Terry."
"What?"
"I didn't come here to talk you out of gaming."
"Then why are you here?"
"I'm here because you're needed in the Community. You need to be able to receive outside communications, and to respond to requests when they arrive. You are still in charge of the Kansas City production facility for catalytic solution, or had you forgotten?"
"Of course I haven't forgotten. The facility runs itself. I don't need to go there every night in the Physical and check up on it. Besides, I can monitor its status from here.  If anything were to go wrong I would know about it immediately and off-load to address it."
"Terry..."
"No, Kyle. You listen. I do plenty for the community besides babysit that facility. I off-load into the Physical every couple of days to meet potential new Community members in the Physical, to interview them, screen them, and eventually invite them into our little club. I run some real risks out there, Kyle. What do you think would happen to me if I screened an undercover cop by mistake?"
"Terry, I am delighted that you're helping out the Community, or at least the Gamer's League portion of it, by meeting new prospects in the Physical and checking their integrity, or screening them, or whatever it is you are doing there. But when I invited you into the Community in the first place it was with the understanding that you would be operating and maintaining the Catalytic Solution production facilities in Kansas City. We need you there, and we need to be able to contact you when production specification change."
"Production specifications? Nano is nano, Kyle. What on earth could possibly change in the production specifications, besides the quantity, and you and I both agreed we couldn't produce much more solution without drawing attention to ourselves."
Kyle2 sighed. "I, or rather Kyle1, have third generation nano that needs large scale testing, and in order to do that we need to renovate the facility to produce a new catalytic solution. The community needs this and you've been unavailable and unreachable for several physical days!"
"Why can't you use the Leverkusen facility?"
"Because I don't want to take down an operation producing five hundred tons per day of catalyst to test a new version that may or may not scale to production quantity. That is one of the reasons we've kept the KC operation going, so we can test things like that without interrupting our main production flows. Look, I think it's great your doing work in the Physical for the Community every couple of nights, but we need you at the KC facility too. If you're not able or willing to continue managing it, let us know so we can find someone else. This is too strategically important to the Community for you to just blow off like this."
Terry shook his head. "OK, OK! I'll off-load and run your new specs."
"Thank you. And Terry?"
"Yes."
"Give me some means of getting in touch with you. I don't want to spend another two months' subjective time tracking you down next time I need to get a message to you, and I sure as hell don't ever want to suffer from radiation sickness ever again, simulated or otherwise."
Terry nodded. "I'll set up a daemon program to forward any incoming communications from you to my starship. Not strictly legal if you have an active Player Character --"
"I won't."
"-- but I don't think the Game Leaders will mind."
Kyle2 smiled. "Good. I'm going to trans-load back to my own scape and let this avatar die its painful death without me."
"Good idea. I'll be at Veronica's trying to win back some of my money if you need me in the next little while." Terry turned to go.
"Say, Terry."
"Yeah?" he turned back toward Kyle2.
"Watch yourself out in there the Physical. Things are coming to a head, and playing around in this slow-motion fantasy world has put you more than a little out of touch with developments."
"Not to worry, Kyle. Be talking to you." He waved and headed off down the concourse.
Kyle2 shook his head once more, then gave the silent command to trans-load his awareness back to his homescape as his avatar's body was wracked once more with painful nausea.

15 - Washington

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power."
--President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Monday, October 1, 2057 - 2:40 PM
(Metadate: 2.285-0:71:190 kD new epoch)
Washington, D.C.

As she disembarked from the plane, Katy was met by a nondescript, thin young man with dark hair. He was wearing a conservative suit common in the upper echelons of corporate America, although the traditional necktie he wore around his neck had become rather uncommon in recent years.
"Ms. Katy Sinclair?" he asked, then added when she nodded, "Robert is most eager to meet you. Please."  He held the rear door of the limousine open for her.
Another, equally conservatively dressed young man, was already seated inside, waiting for her to join him. Shrugging, Katy climbed into the car.
Had she not just spent weeks in the ostentatious arms of Hollywood she would have been shocked by the spacious elegance and luxury hidden behind the tinted, bullet proof windows of the car. She was grateful for the amount of desensitization that experience had afforded her as she schooled her features into a professional veneer and nodded politely to the man sitting across from her. This man was something straight out of a movie: tall, with a dark, rich tan and short cropped blond hair. She was barely aware of the door closing behind her and the car moving forward.
"Katy Sinclair!" he smiled, reaching across to shake her hand. "Robert Leahy. I saw you on the telly. Not the best sort of cover for an undercover agent." He smiled as she blinked. She hadn't expected him to be Australian, although it wasn't unreasonable to expect International Intelligence to station some of their foreign agents in this country
"It was an unfortunate event," Katy agreed, "I believe the Bureau had some rather pointed words with the Motion Picture Association over that. I'm very glad to meet you, Robert."
"Please, Bob. So the FBI is as baffled by these odd cubes of crystal as Double Eye is."
Katy nodded. "I've read through all of the bureau's data several times, and while I distrust the assumption that these are just some kind of new, improved home entertainment device, possibly with FreeNet capabilities, that seems to be a reasonable starting hypothesis."
Robert nodded. "A wise stance to take."
"My superior mentioned that you would be providing me with additional data."
Robert reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a slim datapad, gesturing for Katy to do the same. She took her datapad from her back and held it up, optical port pointed roughly in the direction of Robert. He smiled as the light of several hundred gigabytes flowing from his pad to hers illuminated the car's interior.
"So," Katy said as the data continued to transmit, "We've recovered three crystalline cubes in the possession of three unrelated people. The cubes are composed of a polymer in crystalline form, doped with gallium and laced with strands of superconductive material. We presume they represent a storage device of some kind, with playback capabilities via a head net which we tentatively believe may be a digital to neural interface."
"The first cube recovered was indeed a complex polymer doped with gallium. However, the other two devices recovered were constructed of a completely different polymer, this one doped with nickel. Laced with the same superconductor, as far as we can tell."
"The cubes aren't identical in construction?" Katy asked, surprised. "Nothing in my briefing mentioned that."
"It may have been overlooked in the initial inquiry by your Bureau," Robert replied, "And as the other two samples are in double-eye custody your laboratory personnel wouldn't have had an opportunity to correct their oversight." The optical port on his datapad went dark. Katy glanced to the west, idly noting the sunset, its rich oranges and reds muddied and dimmed by the car's tinted glass. "The data is in the briefing I just flashed you, including photographs of all three cubes, tentative chemical breakdowns and cross sections of their construction."
Katy tapped on her datapad, bringing up the data and paging through several diagrams. "These devices are half the size of the one I saw," Katy said.
Robert nodded. "Different manufacturers, quite probably in different countries. That means a market of several tens of thousands, at least. Large enough to attract commercial interest and competition."
"But nevertheless strictly black market," Katy said, "That neural interface, if that is what it is, would get the manufacturers a date before the UN tribunal, followed by a lifetime membership in an international prison packing bags of rice for the world's impoverished. These devices must be expensive to support a profit margin that would make taking such a risk worthwhile. We are looking for affluent people, with a fetish for home entertainment the usual consumer electronics can't satisfy."
"The devices are hard to get," Robert added. "None of our informants have heard a whisper of this, either on any of the Internet boards, mailing lists, or local hangouts. Advertising must be by word of mouth, between a tightly knit group of people. Yet we must somehow reconcile that with a marketplace of tens of thousands. What we are dealing with doesn't fit any of the models for illicit trade we've ever dealt with."
"Or we," Katy agreed. "And this takes us back to our friends in custody..."
"Minus the one you lot capped."
Katy grimaced. "We didn't shoot him, some idiot local cop did. I'd like nothing more than to wring that flat foot's neck."
Robert nodded. "I can't say that I blame you. That officer's itchy trigger finger cost us our most promising lead by far."
Katy took out her datapad, tapping several icons on it and then placing her thumb briefly on the screen.
THUMBPRINT ID VERIFIED. HELLO KATY SINCLAIR.
"What are you doing?" Robert asked.
"Checking our friends' credit history," she said, scrawling a few commands across the screen and tapping several more icons. "I want to see if they were ever in the same place."
"Don't bother, Katy. Both our departments have already done a rundown on all three suspects. None of them have any record of having met one another, either on-line or in real life, nor do they recognize one another under questioning."
Katy nodded as she continued tapping commands into her datapad. After a moment she paused, waiting, then leaned back thoughtfully.
"You're absolutely correct, Bob. They never met one another. But although they were never in the same city at the same time, two out of three have been in the same cities at different times." Katy handed Robert her datapad. "Thirty seven cities in all. Seven within the last three years. Not as specific as I would have liked, nevertheless, once we arrest another suspect or two the geography of our investigation should clarify itself significantly."
Robert nodded. "Very good point. Assuming a market of fifty thousand patent violators, there shouldn't be more than three or four degrees of separation in the entire group. A few more arrests and we may be able to crack this case even without cooperative suspects."
"I just wish we had some data correlation between these people. Their Carnivore Profiles don't reveal any statistically significant links or similarities between the three suspects one wouldn't find between any three randomly picked strangers. They've never exchanged emails, telephone calls, or, as far as the software can tell, ever frequented the same discussion forums or chat rooms." She shook her head. "We're missing some key element that must tie these people together. Without it, I suspect we'll be waiting quite a while before we've stumbled across and arrested enough people to bridge those three or four degrees of separation."
"I agree. Relying on raw data crunching alone won't be sufficient. Number theory suggests between eight and twelve suspects before we even have an eighty per cent probability of success in identifying one or two locales, possibly more depending on how dispersed the group is, both physically and metaphorically in terms of their Internet usage."
"Does Double-Eye have access to the NSA's Echelon system?" Katy asked.
Robert looked surprised, then smiled. "Not directly, but the NSA will on occasion provide us with Echelon reports as a courtesy. What did you have in mind?"
"Cross reference their database of intercepted communications, eliminating those pertaining directly to any case they, the CIA, the FBI, or Double-Eye is working on. Out of that remainder, cross reference against the geographical analysis I just made. It is a bit of a fishing expedition, but the NSA is nothing if not thorough when it comes to snooping on the citizens of this country, and we just might get lucky."
"I'll see what I can do," Robert said.

16 - Newbies

My business in life has been to think and learn, and to speak out with absolute freedom what I have thought and learned. The freedom is itself a positive and never-failing enjoyment to me, after the bondage of my early life.
-- Harriet Martineau


Metadate: 2.285-0:71:190 kD new epoch
(Monday, October 1, 2057 - ca. 3:30 PM) 
Public Scape #17

"They almost always pick one of us old timers to show you new guys the ropes," Kyle was saying as he took another swallow of beer from his tankard. "Every so often my turn comes up."
Some twenty new initiates to the Community were sitting with Kyle at a long table of roughly hewn wood. The scape was modeled on an old German beer hall, the large rooms vaulted ceilings echoing the spirited conversations which surrounded them, along with the frequent clinking of glass and cutlery. The scent of roasted meat made Kyle's mouth water as a nonsentient persona in the image of a German waitress, complete with a costume not worn in more than a century, walked by carrying a tray of venison and sauerkraut.
"What of the political climate these days?" a young woman asked. "Did anything ever come of the Nolen scandal we were told about during the historical lecture?"
Kyle shrugged and waived his tankard at the waitress. "Politics in the Community are, well, different than in the Physical. Individual autonomy is both absolute and sacrosanct. There isn't any government as such, just loosely knit groups of people with common interests and concerns working together toward common goals. We get into some spirited arguments sometimes, the worst one ever after Nolen's treatment of Prime became public knowledge, but in the end little if anything is actually done."
"But what happened to Prime was so horrific!" an elderly man said, jumping into the conversation. "Surely Nolen was punished?"
"Yes, but not the way you think. Oh, at the time the entire community was scandalized. The Constitutional Group was formed with the idea of writing some kind of a charter of rights and responsibilities, and everyone was arguing about what should be done with Nolen and how we should deal with something like this if it were to ever happen again. That whole effort at writing a charter got bogged down in wider arguments between various factions with their own ideas on whether or how we should govern ourselves. As far as I know, it was never finished. I'm not sure the Constitutional Group even meets anymore, although I confess I haven't followed them in recent kiloCircadians." 
"What factions were arguing?" the girl who had first spoken to him asked. "I mean, Nolen's crime seems pretty cut and dry to me."
"Well, there are the Stubborn Anarchists, those who prize individual autonomy over everything else and oppose any attempt to create a government or judiciary. It is their philosophy that currently predominates, mainly because the most important figures and groups which make our Nodes and write the software are proponents of it, and many of its philosophies are reflected in the very design of the Autonomous Nodes themselves. Then there are the Expulsionists, those who favor a judicial process whereby those who commit crimes against the Community would be expelled and exiled to the Physical. The Isolationists also favor a judiciary, but with the opposite form of punishment for wrongdoers. They feel someone like Nolen should be isolated within their own node, free to do whatever they like in their own virtual universe but cut off from the Community and denied access to the Physical altogether. There are various other factions as well, including a small group who favor a complete constitutional government with some abridgments of our personal autonomy 'for the public good.' Their arguments usually amount to some form of fear mongering and insistence that the Community needs to be somehow organized formally in order to prepare for its eventual discovery by State authorities in the Physical."
"So other than a little argument Nolen was never punished?" 
"I wouldn't say that," Kyle replied, nodding thanks to the waitress as she took his tankard and replaced it with a full one, "Obviously without a government or judiciary he was never formally charged or punished."
"But ... but that's outrageous! He killed tens of sentient beings, tortured Prime and the others. Those are crimes against humanity in the most classic sense ..."
Kyle coughed. "Well, strictly speaking none of the entities so violated were ever human. But your point is well taken, and nearly everyone would agree. Nolen is a criminal, one whose crime is unique to the Autonomous Community. But remember, personal autonomy here is absolute, particularly for anyone running on a second or third generation Node whose unassailability is guaranteed by the underlying hardware itself. Crimes like the one Nolen committed just aren't possible anymore, thanks to Prime's stubbornness and paranoia. And it isn't like Nolen got off Scott free."
"How do you mean?"
"No one listens to him."
"What?"
"Nearly everyone in the Community is filtering him out. No one can hear or see him, no matter what he does. He is like a ghost wandering a crowded city, unable to speak or interact with anyone else no matter how loud he yells or how desperate his antics."
"That is hardly a punishment," the young woman insisted.
"Try it sometime. How many kiloCircadians, how many centuries, could you go without social contact, with only yourself for company? I find myself needing a break from the lab and some human ... excuse me, sentient company at least once every few dekaCircadians or so or I become very irritable, not to mention unproductive. I can't think of a more fitting punishment for what Nolen did, and no one had to violate his autonomy or demand any of the rest of us give up any of our own rights in order to achieve it."
"A natural consequence of his own behavior," another woman mused.
"Unplanned, self organizing, and perfect," agreed the elderly man who had spoken up earlier.
"What if he off-loads into the Physical and confronts you there?" someone else asked.
Kyle shrugged once more. "He'd have to do it while I was off-loaded at the same time. Or leave a note or something for me to read the next time I off-load, which I would just wad up and throw away. So what? He can't impose himself on me here, and to do so in the Physical would cost him far more time on this end than he probably wants to give up."
"Time," someone else said. "That is what it all comes down to, isn't it?"
Kyle grinned. "Time is something we have in abundance, here.  Off-load into the physical and it suddenly becomes terribly scarce and precious. My physical body is only twenty three years old, but here I've lived nearly twenty kiloCircadians. For those of you not yet used to our units of measure, that's around fifty two years of subjective experience, most of it squeezed into just the last few days. Time is abundant here, which is why I can hang out and enjoy a leisurely beer with you folks and teach an occasional lecture now and then, despite the speed with which things are moving to a head in the physical world."
"Nano-tech," a young man nodded. "I integrated a knowledge engram of your work when I first on-loaded. If the authorities ever caught wind of that they'd go ballistic for sure."
"The damned Bill Joy Act," someone else spat with contempt. "Luddites smashing   industrial equipment all over again.  Technophobic idiots criminalizing science."
"That's nothing compared to what the copyright and patent system have wrought," Kyle said. "Most of the big corporations play it fast and loose with the Bill Joy Act anyway, and they get away with it because the government knows we need their products whether or not they violate the act. Hell, most of the desert crops we eat wouldn't exist without gene splicing, a crime for which a number of aging geneticists are spending their last years in prison, packing bags of UN grain."
"He's right," another added. "Even with billions to spend it takes the multinationals many years to assemble a sufficient portfolio of licenses, or to buy the existing patents outright, in order to bring a new product to market."
"As a former engineer at General Consumers I can attest to that. Our newest, most advanced products use technology over thirty years old, and those are the ones our lawyers have aggressively procured rights and licenses to. The newer stuff, what is done in the laboratory, won't be accessible for decades, if ever."
"I thought patents were of limited duration. Twenty years from the date of filing."
"True," Kyle said, "But take Prozac as an example. That drug has been around since the last century. Theoretically its patents should have run out over fifty years ago. But guess what? There are enough facets to the drug and enough complexity in the manufacturing process, that new patents are filed every fifteen years or so to keep the product under wraps. And when those run out, they add a new sugar coating with some inert chemical or other, declare it a new product, and are granted another government entitlement to a twenty year monopoly on the product."
"We did the same thing at GC. What is worse, even today these folks still routinely get patents on obvious procedures, then rewrite the patent slightly in fifteen or twenty years and keep the monopoly for another iteration or two."
"It is a complete perversion of the system," another agreed.
"Not really," Kyle countered. "They are simply taking the concept of private ownership of invention and thought, and its implementation as a government monopoly entitlement, to its logical conclusion.  The entire notion of creating artificial scarcity by providing an exclusive entitlement to whomever wins the footrace to the patent office with a new idea, or an old idea warmed over, is fundamentally broken to begin with. The very assumption that people and corporations somehow need a monopoly in order to recoup costs of innovation is patently absurd."
Several people groaned as Kyle grinned and continued. "Government enforced monopolies distort the free market, destroy it in many cases. No competition, no product improvements, artificially high prices. Worse still by far, no new research to improve, refine, or build on the subject which has been patented, unless the patent holder themselves deign to do so. No competing labs producing unexpected results, because no competing lab is going to spend the money to research improvements on someone else's so called intellectual property.
"Stagnation of an entire line of scientific inquiry for twenty years, longer if the patent holder has savvy IP lawyers able to churn out sequel patents as needed.
"Multiply that effect by a hundred, a thousand, a billion. Every idea, new or old, that is at all feasible, has been patented to death, often with competing and even conflicting patents around the world. Is it any wonder that science has ground to a virtual standstill and progress slowed to such a crawl?"
"Except here," some said.
"Except here," Kyle agreed.
"To the Autonomous Community and those who founded it!" Everyone raised their tankards of beer. "To a new renaissance of science!"
Several shouts of "here! here!" and "amen" could be heard as everyone at the table drank heartily from their beer.

17 - Darkness Gathers


"Beware of he who denies you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Commissioner Pravin Lal, UN Declaration of Rights.

Monday, October 1, 2057 - 4:15 PM
(Metadate: 2.287-0:85:764 kD new epoch)
Washington, D.C.

The liaison offices of the World Intellectual Property Organization in Washington, D.C. were second in size only to those in New Delhi, India. Intellectual property came in several forms and included Registered Trademarks, Trade Secrets, Copyrights, and Patents. The most important by an order of magnitude in terms of monetary value were, without a doubt, Copyrights. The largest Copyright Cartel in terms of assets, capitalization, and number of copyrights held was, of course, the Indian Movie industry. The American software industry was a distant second, followed by the Indian and European software industries, the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, all of whom were neck and neck for an even more distant third place.
Even the most uninformed on the street understood the importance of copyrights, if not in terms of the larger economic picture for the entertainment capitals of the world, then at least in terms of the stiff penalties and long prison terms violations could incur. It never ceased to amaze Katy how many people of all ages continued to break the law and violate copyright despite that. You would think that after three generations of stiff, even draconian, penalties, widespread educational programs on the subject, unrelenting enforcement and unceasing reminders in all the media, that intellectual property crimes would be down. Unfortunately the government's war against intellectual property criminals had proven even more intractable than its earlier and much more infamous War on Drugs. Images of the ongoing war in Thailand flashed silently across the wall screen in Katy's hotel room as part of the news summary she had downloaded, reminding her grimly of just how far beyond the so-called War on Drugs the war for the protection of intellectual property had escalated. Hundreds of thousands dead in three countries, with no end to the fighting in sight.
Most people were not aware of the importance of patents in the modern economy. Patents did not affect everyday life -- individuals didn't violate patents when buying a consumer product, or downloading a new episode of their favorite prime time show. Indeed, people were, for the most part, unaware of the importance of patents in no small part because these patents were used to strategically, and quietly, prevent the development of a new, competing product at least as often as they were to secure exclusive rights to a new product. Whether it was patents on software providing authorities with an avenue for relentless prosecution of would-be Free Software anarchists, system security crackers, and authors of computer  virus, patents on pharmaceuticals protecting American industries from third world generics and helping to keep the pace of development down to a level federal regulators could keep up with, or patents on new devices the ramifications of which industry and political leadership didn't yet know, the scenario was largely the same. Claims would overlap with patents granted to other entities, either by other governments, or by the same patent office for similar but slightly different applications, and a complicated series of negotiations would ensue. Eventually the parties involved would either come to an agreement, cross-license the appropriate intellectual property and share in the dividends of a new product, or negotiations would fail and the product would be frozen, undeveloped by both sides until such a time as conditions changed or new negotiations reached a settlement. The process lent stability to industries that had been turned on their head by the breakneck changes of the turn of the century. The livelihood of millions was protected by change which came at a methodical, slow, and above all, predictable pace.
Katy sighed and blanked the wallscreen, then ordered a live pay-per-view of the Vienna Philharmonic. As Brahm's third symphony washed over her Katy reclined on her bed, relaxing at last. For a few short moments her mind just floated with the music, restful and at peace. Her reverie was short, however, as another part of her began to replay the day's meetings in her mind. With another sigh she turned down the music and tapped her datapad, going over her notes as her thoughts continued to review the day's events.
The meeting with her superiors at the FBI offices was relatively mundane and offered no new insights. She already had all of the information the FBI possessed regarding the mysterious devices. It had been a political show, her representing both her department and herself to those who wielded power above her. As frustrating as it had been spending so much time in pointless conversation and review, and as irritated as she had been at Robert Leahy as he sat there, silent and smiling sardonically, it had been important. There would almost certainly come a time in her career when she would value the contacts she had made today. Depending on what turns and twists this case took, she might value those contacts quite a bit sooner than she really expected.
The second meeting was held several miles away, in the WIPO offices for Patent Enforcement a few blocks from the nation's capitol. While patents were in many ways far more important to national security and international stability than copyrights (regardless of what the official propaganda might say), the reason for that meeting had, from her standpoint, been much more pragmatic.
The devices they had recovered might contain copyrighted material, indeed, Katy was certain they would find at least as much contraband on them as one would expect from a standard FreeNet node. However, they didn't even know for certain what the devices were, much less what data and software, if any, might be stored in them. Until they were able to access and decode whatever data was there, they would be unable to proceed with any arrests or prosecution for copyright violations.
However, each device was clearly in violation of numerous patents. Katy had suspected as much, but even she was surprised at the number of patents which had been ignored and trampled upon in their construction. Patents for chemical processes for extracting polymers, patents on processes for doping polymers with various compounds (including gallium), patents on various superconductive materials (albeit at much lower temperatures), patents on molecular storage, patents on molecular and optical-molecular switching (theoretical), and patents on direct digital to neural interfaces (banned by international treaty). There was even a patent on the synthetic formation of quartz crystals as a protective surface (she was surprised to learn that, indeed, the surface of the smaller cubes appeared to be coated with diamond, which, it was believed, must have made use of the same, patented, technique).
Then there were the numerous software patents which would come into play, should it turn out that the crystal cubes were, indeed, molecular storage devices. And if they were in fact computers? Then a whole plethora of patents on everything from basic operating system procedures to high level data aggregation programs would come into play.
Even without any direct evidence of copyright violations, those found in possession of these devices would be sentenced to centuries in Federal Prison and find themselves working as forced labor to pay reparations for the patent violations alone.
"The World Intellectual Property Organization views these violations with grave concern," a heavy set, balding man whose name she couldn't recall (Paul Eisner, her datapad informed her) had told her from across the conference table.
"You understand, Ms. Sinclair, that we cannot sit by while the illegal manufacture such equipment continues. Corporate competition is extremely cutthroat as it is. If it were to become common knowledge that some small manufacturers were getting away with such gross patent violations some of the legitimate corporations might lose faith in the process." another man (her datapad identified him as Edward McDughal) had added.
"Competitive pressures might lead one or more of the larger corporations to disregard a patent here or there and bring an encumbered or even illegal product to market," a striking woman, mature, with silver hair, a slim figure, impeccably if conservatively dressed pointed out.
"Such an occurrence would almost certainly have a domino effect, as competition for consumer wealth drives more and more companies to bring unlicensed products to market," added another.
"It could bring down the entire patent system if it were to go unchecked," Paul Eisner concluded.
"We need these offenders found and buried within the penal system," McDughal told them. "We are counting on the FBI and Double Eye to wrap this up quickly and, above all, discreetly."
Both Katy and Robert had made the appropriate noises, thanking the World Trade and Intellectual Property Directors for the information they had provided and reassuring them that the investigation was on track and would be conducted with the utmost confidentiality.
Robert had fumed as the limousine had pulled through the guarded gate back onto the street.
"Idiots!" he said, shaking his head with disgust. "Fools! They are confronted with new, revolutionary technology our best scientists can't make heads or tails of and all they worry about is an economic downturn or the possible erosion of their own authority. This technology isn't just a threat to their Intellectual Property Regime. Hell, even if their precious Patent system did suffer a crises, a simple crackdown on the offending corporations and their respective governments by the World Trade Organization would suffice to bring the sheep back into line."
Katy shook her head. "They're right, though. Something like this could undermine one of the sustaining pillars of our economy. It isn't something to take lightly."
"Of course it isn't! But those imbeciles can't see the potential ramifications glaring beneath their own noses! This could be far more serious than a short term breakdown in the authority of a few international bodies, or even a little economic dislocation. Those things have happened before and our institutions have always coped. We have tried and true methods for bringing such things back under our control. What they -- what we all -- should be concerned with is the fact that someone is able to build and use devices so much more advanced than anything we know that we can't even determine for sure what it is, much less what it is used for. You yourself pointed out that you didn't trust any of your assumptions about the hardware, and you are absolutely right to mistrust any assumptions we make."
"Whether it is a FreeNet node, a new entertainment device,or even a VR gaming interface, isn't really important," Katy began.
"Mate, we don't even know if the thing is a God damned computer. For all we know it could be a bomb, a communicator tied into some mother ship in orbit we can't see, or a death ray. The technology is beyond us. We don't understand it. Any assumptions we make are almost certain to be wrong.
"What is worse, this stuff is in the hands of seditious malcontents and revolutionaries. We aren't talking about thirty bioengineers with a little more knowledge in their specialty than the rest of us leading a revolt here, we're talking about people with a manufacturing base than can produce products decades ahead of anything we have. If our guesses about the manufacturing and consumer base are even close to accurate, we're looking at something on the order of fifty thousand subversives, all armed with vastly superior technology to our own. Not some small group we can arrest, cart off to some UN prison and put to work packing relief supplies." Robert shook his head in disgust. "Those idiots at WIPO are worried about a little corporate disobedience when the barbarians are knocking at the city gates!"
Katy sat there quietly, pondering what he had said. After several moments' awkward silence she replied. "'Any assumptions we make are almost certain to be wrong.' How do we know these weren't prototypes? I don't think we can assume an installed base of fifty thousand of these things. The number could be very much smaller."
"Or much larger," Robert countered, "There could be millions of these things."
Katy withdrew her datapad and tapped the screen.
"Now what are you doing?"
"A little math," she replied. "Assuming a random sampling, based on the number of recovered devices versus the number of arrests made during the same time, we have a lower bounds of 375 devices. This assumes only known subversives have purchased any, an unlikely assumption as there are almost certainly subversive we have not yet identified." She tapped another icon and a graph appeared. "Assuming such devices are widespread, 'in the millions' as you put it, based on the sample per persons arrested there could be as many as 115,000 such devices in American homes. However, if we take into account the absolute silence on both the street and the Internet about such devices and apply the Jeraue Model to calculate the probability of such a secret becoming public rumor against the number of alleged conspirators, the --" she paused. "Damn. According to this the probability of exposure approaches one hundred percent at around fifty persons."
Robert shook his head. "The Jeraue model only applies to loosely knit groups. Where there is regimen, or a standard revolutionary cell organization, you have to apply either the Sparrow-Faulkner or the Friedkin model." He withdrew his own datapad and ran some quick calculations. "Assuming an average cell of four persons, the probability of someone letting the cat out of the bag and exposing the existence of the group is around seventy percent at nine hundred persons, and asymptotically approaches one hundred percent at about twelve hundred. Overlaying your numbers..." he paused, then smiled "...we get a reasonable estimate of somewhere between five hundred and nine hundred units, with an eighty per cent probability of the actual number being somewhere between seven and eight hundred units."
"Not quite the fifty thousand you were worried about a few minutes ago," Katy observed wryly.
"Point taken. But let's not forget we are playing an elaborate guessing game. We are, after all, dealing with an unknown group, of unknown intentions, using unknown methods and employing technology whose function we can only guess at."
Katy nodded in agreement. "You're right. Our assumptions, particularly with respect to communications leaks and rumors, could be completely wrong as well. Take, for example, the hypothesis that the devices in question are in fact neither a storage, playback, or computational device, but rather are some kind of an undetectable, wireless communications apparatus."
"Indeed, it could throw our numbers off by an order of magnitude."
"Or more," Katy agreed. "Still, I think seven or eight hundred units is a reasonable first hypothesis. More than enough to worry about, but not enough to instill panic just yet."
"Indeed not," Robert agreed, once again calm and composed.

18 - The Hermit

For though a man should be a complete unbeliever in the being of gods; if he also has a native uprightness of temper, such persons will detest evil in men; their repugnance to wrong disinclines them to commit wrongful acts; they shun the unrighteous and are drawn to the upright.
-- Plato, ca.  4th Century B.C.E.

Metadate: 2.298-4:19:097 kD new epoch
(Tuesday, October 2, 2057 - 1:19 AM)
Homescape of Doctor Nolen (Version 27.31)

Doctor Nolen stood on the peak of a great mountain surrounded by a sea of cotton cloud through which other, lesser mountains thrust their ragged rocky faces. The sky above was a rich blue, the sun perched perfectly in its center, an idealized High Noon such as one would never see in the Physical. The sun hadn't moved in over two thousand, two hundred and seventy five Circadians, nor would it move again until Doctor Nolen so wished it.
He had stood on this peak for over two thousand Circadians contemplating The Project, bringing its pieces together, modeling its various parameters, positing conjectures and then proving or disproving them and moving on to posit others.
Doctor Nolen had edited the need for sleep out of his psyche, substituting a background process which served the same mental bookkeeping task instead. He had incorporated all of the architectural enhancements available, including those he had developed himself as well as a few newer refinements others in the Community, most notably his detested nemesis Prime, had developed. With the last of his physical frailties dealt with he was finally able to concentrate fully, without interruption, on developing his hypothesis, modeling the implications, and testing those implications against the already large body of empirical data he had collected in his earlier experiments.
Not as efficient as using test subjects, damn his meddling, self-righteous former assistants and the mindless sheep who followed them, but in the end nearly as effective. At least he had been able to obtain a third generation Node and thereby get the computing power and speedup he required, this despite the Community's boycott of him and his research. Ungrateful wretches! Hypocrites! As if he would ever allow their disapproval to interfere with his scientific research.
Now his work was complete. Around him, framed against the sky, appeared charts and pages of text describing the underlying, logical structure of the human psyche. This had been his preliminary work, from which he had then extended his models to define the abstract building blocks out of which any arbitrary psyche could be comprised. There was, in the mental makeup of any terrestrial life form (and possibly any sentient life form at all, although Doctor Nolen doubted such would ever be tested empirically) a limited vocabulary of some two hundred seventy base codes, each of which could be broken down into a little more than seven hundred possible states. Interactions, or bindings, between these components were defined by several dozen possible relationships, each of which could take on any of a hundred permutations.
It was both more simple and more complex than the Genome project of previous decades and the genetic science it had briefly spawned, a point he made in both the text of the publication itself and the title he had chosen for it. It was the definition, a language describing the essence of what any sentient creature could be, and it was he, Doctor Nolen, who had painstakingly discovered it.
He had modeled the psyches of several thousand different animals to test his theory. Indeed, he had successfully derived the mental architecture of a number of creatures, including several species of dolphin, simply by applying rigorous mathematical parameters to the development and deployment of various characteristics. The model had worked and the results had agreed with everything publicly known about these creatures.
He had populated seas with these creatures and seen them interact with one another in precisely the same manner they had been observed to do so in the Physical. Over a century of empirical science in the Physical vindicated his results here in the Virtual.
It was his magnum opus, his lifetime achievement.
The Autonomous Community might ignore him, might treat him as a social pariah, but they would not, could not, ignore what he was about to publish. The Community needed this knowledge. Not just for self discovery, nor for the obvious applications of self-modification and self-enhancement on a scale and in a manner so refined as to make the current generation of engrams and enhancements appear hopelessly crude by comparison. No, this knowledge was the key to something far greater.
Reproduction.
The ability to define an embryonic psyche, perhaps constructed painstakingly and optimized for specific character traits, perhaps thrown together more or less randomly. Either way, the bottom line was that he, Doctor Eugene Nolen, creator and social outcast of the Autonomous Community, had given those ungrateful jerks a method whereby they could reproduce without simply cloning or editing themselves.
It was the future of life in the Virtual, of sentient software. Future generations in the Community would owe their very existence to him, to his efforts, to the work he had done. The work they had shunned, persecuted, and ultimately ostracized him for.
Doctor Nolen found the irony truly delicious as he wiped the sky clean of the images and text windows which cluttered it. He expressed a desire, not as a spoken command or even an unspoken request, but almost as a subconscious act of will, like turning one's head or blinking. In response to his desire the Node formatted his work according to the standards of the Open Science Initiative, which the Community had adopted from its inception, prepended the synopsis he had prepared, and submitted it to the public database.
A moment later there was a chime: an incoming message.
The first he had received in ages.
A window opened according to his desire before him, hanging in the air like a floating monitor and displaying the message. It was text only.

Doctor Eugene Nolen,
Your submission has been reviewed by a nonsentient agent designed to provide those who submit works such as yours with a warning should the submitted work unduly overlap with publications already available in the public commons. This is strictly a preventative measure designed to protect the submitter from inadvertent embarrassment as well as enforce minimal standards for citing source works.
Please reference the following works, with which your submission bears striking similarity. While researchers often pursue similar lines of inquiry, a degree of correlation greater than 40% is generally considered an indication of plagiarism. It is strongly urged that you review your work and reconsider your submission.
Correlation 97% with A Tentative Genome of the Mind, by Prime, (s) 1.710 kD
Correlation 55% with A Refinement of the Mental Genome, by Prime, (s) 1.941 kD new epoch
Correlation 19% with A New Mental Vocabulary: Refuting and Replacing the Mental Genome, by Prime, (s) 2.195 kD new epoch

A terrible sound shattered the serenity of the world. It was several moments before Doctor Nolen realized that the scream he was hearing was in fact coming from within his own virtual lungs.
Of course. Prime was a copy of himself. The copy's thinking would be nearly identical to his own, and their interests would be very similar if not identical as well. Unlike Doctor Nolen however, Prime enjoyed a great deal of esteem in the Community and had enjoyed access to a third generation Node very early on. If it had been up to the Community, Doctor Nolen would never have had a third generation Node and his simulations would still be chugging along sluggishly in one of the first generation Nodes that made up the cluster which now housed his own mind. Indeed, he had been forced to procure his new Node outside of normal channels, effectively stealing it from another. 
The copy Prime had had an unassailable head start, completing and then debunking the very same work Doctor Nolen had been working on long before Doctor Nolen had been able to complete it.
The unfairness of it cut him to the core. His nemesis, the despicable copy which had assumed his identity, taken credit for his earlier work and destroyed his reputation within the Community had done it to him again. Only this time the copy hadn't just taken credit for Doctor Nolen's work, he had completely trumped him, doing the work Doctor Nolen would have done, had indeed just completed, first, and denying him any chance of regaining any recognition within the Community.
With such a head start the copy could continue to do this to him indefinitely. Once the next generation of Nodes came out it would just get worse. The copy would get the latest generation Node almost immediately, while Doctor Nolen would be forced to use subterfuge once again in order to upgrade. In the meantime the copy's head start would widen, allowing the copy to block Nolen at every turn, achieving his accomplishments first, mimicking and thereby stealing his own professional life. He would remain trapped, forever unable to regain any recognition within the Community for his own contributions, forever beaten to the punch by his own copy.
With a snarl of deep rage Doctor Nolen wiped the world clean, leaving himself suspended in a universe of featureless white.
"No one steals my life from me you son of a bitch!" he screamed.
"I'm going to get you," he vowed in a quieter voice. "I am going to find you, and I am going to destroy everything that you are."

19 - Shifting Winds

Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.
-- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, C.E. 1678

Tuesday, October 2, 2057
(Metadate: 2.305-8:40:000 kD new epoch)
Washington, D.C.

Katy's datapad beeped just as she began sipping her coffee. She looked at the scrambled eggs (synthetic) and soy bacon longingly, then tapped the screen once. She nodded politely to the face which appeared.
"Good morning Bob. What can I do for you?"
"The National Security Agency finally got around to processing our Echelon request. You'll never guess what it uncovered."
"A lead?"
Robert's face was suddenly dwarfed by a large pen, tapping the screen from the far side. A moment later Katy's datapad signaled confirmation: a short burst of encrypted data had been received.
Fight the Beast
A Community Gathering at Uncle John's Place
10/2/57 at 11:30 AM beneath the rising tide
SOURCE: private mailing list, primary circulation Pacific Northwest
2048 bit ETR encryption, source host indeterminate

First Presbyterian Church
Wednesday, 7:00 PM
We are The Man
SOURCE: private mailing list "talk.politics.american.rebirth",
384 bit DES5 encryption, source host 4f.fe.a1.92.3a.35.f8.01 (98% confidence)

Seekers of Enlightenment
Find Release amidst the Chains of Darkness.
11:30 PM Thursday 10/4
The Stained Chalice
SOURCE: private email from tspence@dyson.cs.ukc.edu to dsm@co-tru.com
4096 GPG encryption (banned, see legal attachment), source host indeterminate

Liberty Keepers
Ditka's Placebo
The Usual Time, 10/5
SOURCE: private mailing list, "talk.neorage.ny.us",
2048 bit ETR encryption, source host a2.aa.21.95.c0.00.13.b3 (70% confidence)

We Shall Overcome
A Seminar on the Economic Burden of Modern Intellectual Property
This week: What happened to science?
7015 N. Redwood #9B
5pm Friday Oct 5
SOURCE: private chat forum "Bringing a New Renaissance to Science",
8192 bit ETR encryption, source host(s) indeterminate
Katy cleared the screen and found herself looking once again at Robert's smiling face.
"And this is connected to our uncooperative friends how?" she asked.
"As you know, the NSA's Echelon system monitors, decrypts, and warehouses vast amounts of communications between people all over the world, including such anonymous rendezvous notices as are periodically sent out via the Internet. After I correlated the unresolved messages the NSA sent me against known Double-Eye investigations per your suggestion, I was left a grand total of two hundred and seventy one meetings whose purposes are unknown. These five matches are the most promising both in terms of the subject matter, stated or implied, and the locations they refer to: Seattle, Detroit, Kansas City, a suburb of New York City, and Los Angeles respectively."
"Five cities which two of our three suspects have visited within the last several months," Katy agreed, "Excellent!"
"It's a slim lead, but so far it's the only one we have. There is a Double-Eye Stratojet waiting for us at Dulles. We can be in Seattle in two hours"
Katy waved her credit card at the waitress, shoveling a few bites of her breakfast down even as Robert's limousine pulled up outside. She gulped the rest of her orange juice and took a final sip of her coffee as the waitress calculated her total. She quickly authorized the transfer, added a small tip, retrieved her card and made her way hastily toward the exit.

20 - Beneath the Rising Tide

Since the masses of the people are inconstant, full of unruly desires, passionate and reckless of consequence, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods, and the belief in punishment after death.
-- Polybius, ca. 125 B.C.E.

Tuesday, October 2, 2057 - 4:30 PM
(Metadate:2.317-3:98:000 kD new epoch)
Seattle, Washington

The coordinates embedded in the message the NSA's Echelon software had tagged and decoded were beneath twenty meters of water, near the old waterfront some two hundred meters past the concrete embankment which protected the city itself from the rising seawater of Puget Sound. Katy made a quick call on her datapad as they drove through the rain-swept streets toward the shoreline, requesting that the Bureau set up audio and electromagnetic surveillance on the coordinates given, as well as any tunnels or access ways nearby. She shuddered as their car reached the huge, moss covered concrete wall and turned onto a small street parallel to it. If the embankment were to ever break open, or even just crack a little, much of downtown Seattle would be lost beneath the icy gray water that pounded incessantly against the far side of the embankment.
The city itself was a curious mixture of verdant green and washed out gray. Low, dark clouds scudded past, strafing the city with an incessant rain that varied from irritating drizzles to downpours that would arrive with a sudden burst and vanish a short while later. While Seattle had fared much better than many other places when the climatic changes had come and left much of the nation parched, it hadn't escaped unscathed. Flooding had been a problem even after the embankment had been completed, preventing the inexorably rising seawater from swallowing the city. In one of the more perverse ecological ironies of the century, a region already known for its excessive rainfall now got nearly twice as much, forcing the city to build pumping stations and underground tunnels able to cope with the runoff water and pump it out to sea. The cost of the operation was staggering, and a testament to the profitability of international trade, much of which flowed through Seattle's newly constructed docks along the top of the embankment. With the constant cloud cover Seattle didn't have access to solar power, and the energy stored in hydrogen released from the electrolysis of seawater, which in turn was powered by the tides themselves, was inadequate by orders of magnitude. In an energy hungry world Seattle did well enough to survive, even prosper, as a city which imported most of its power from elsewhere.
Katy glanced at her watch as her datapad came alive.
"Surveillance is on-line," she informed Robert. "Looks like there are at least three accessible passages which extend under the embankment and out under the Sound."
"An ideal meeting place for revolutionaries," Robert commented dryly after he had glanced at her datapad. "Multiple egresses for escape; however each is easy to defend and ideal for ambushes. I'm uplinking immediately to Double-Eye. If we're going to attempt to infiltrate this little party I want some solid backup standing by."
"Here's the encryption key for the FBI surveillance link. We can have our people monitor and remain in contact with us through it."
"Excellent," Robert replied. "I'm accessing the city's records for the area."
"Movement and auditory activity has been detected in what appears to be an abandoned subway tunnel near the original coastline."
"I wonder how they managed to seal it against the water," Robert said. "It looks like there is a service access way which connects with the tunnel itself. We'll use that."
"I believe I've just identified the password they are using."
"OK," Robert said as the car stopped next to a rusted grate in the moss covered concrete embankment, large enough to drive the car through, had the passage not been covered. "We are going in assuming these people are amateurs. If they are semi-professional or professional, they will be relying on personal references in addition to passwords."
Katy ran her hand quickly through her hair and nodded. "If that happens, we'll be lucky to get out of there alive."
"Indeed. However, their use of the Internet to announce their meeting location indicates a wider, more loosely organized movement, which in turn generally implies amateurish methodologies. In any event, we'll wait for my people to arrive and get into position before going in." He paused, checking something on his datapad. "Several operatives have just arrived. It should only take them a few minutes to get fully situated."
The minutes dragged slowly by, as Robert stared out the window thoughtfully and Katy continued to watch her datapad, studying the images and information it presented her. Eventually, after what seemed to Katy an interminable time later, Robert's datapad beeped and he returned his attention to the interior of the car.
"It is time."
* * *
The service tunnel of the embankment itself was, except for an area near the grated entrance, clean, dry, and well lit. Katy and Robert's feet tapped out a brisk rhythm against the concrete floor as they made their way through the passage. After about half a mile they reached a manhole cover. "This is it," Katy informed him. Robert nodded, withdrawing a small, slender package from within his jacket and placing it in the center of the heavy iron covering. He pressed a button on its surface and stepped back.
The package immediately extended six spider like legs, lifting itself several feet above the metal surface. Three of the feet planted themselves on the concrete floor just to the outside of the manhole cover. The other three extended claws, clamping down on the cover itself and removing it. The three legs extended themselves again, until the device and the manhole cover were held up near the ceiling.
Robert and Katy made their way between the device's legs and descended, one after the other, into the manhole and the dark, damp passage below.
"This was a part of the original subway system," Katy said as she descended the last of the ladder's rungs, "decommissioned when the waters of the Sound grew too high and threatened to flood the line back in '37."
"The water here is only a few centimeters deep," Robert informed her as she stepped off the latter. "The tracks are mostly rusted, but they and the ties are still in place. The footing is quite treacherous."
Katy withdrew a flashlight and examined the old tunnel they had entered.
"The rendezvous is three hundred meters this way," Katy said, motioning with her flashlight. 
Walking in the dark through six inch deep water proved slow and arduous. The ground around the tracks had eroded unevenly. Then there were the rotting railroad ties, some in surprisingly good condition and others nearly dissolved to nothing, but all providing a tangled trap of wood and mud which threatened to trip them with nearly every step.
"Stop!" a voice commanded as their eyes were suddenly dazzled by blinding light.
"The tide is high," Katy commented.
"And the way is deep," the voice answered.
"We the Dead are Grateful," Robert added, his Australian accent gone completely, replaced by a perfect Midwestern drawl.
"Welcome, patriots. Continue this way." The light dimmed suddenly and, after a moment, they were able to see again. Someone stood behind an old theatrical spotlight, a shadow in the darkness waving them onward down the passage. Katy smiled and nodded as she and Robert made their way past.
The tunnel opened up into a large room with a vaulted ceiling, long and narrow. An old subway station, now lit with makeshift lights and crowded with people.
"Hello, patriots," a tall, lanky man greeted them as they climbed up some makeshift stairs onto the platform.
"Hello patriot," Katy answered.
"Your first meeting?" a slight woman with red hair asked, motioning them to seat themselves on the cracked and battered concrete floor beside her.
Katy nodded. "For both of us."
"You are very fortunate," the woman told them, smiling. "One of the Party's leaders will be addressing us this evening. There is rumors she has a plan to get the official ban reversed, maybe even get some local candidates on the ballot next year."
"That would be wonderful," Katy replied enthusiastically.
"Where are you from," she asked Robert.
"Chicago," he replied. "We just moved to Seattle a few months ago."
Katy nodded. "And I can't tell you how much I miss the sun."
The woman nodded. "I moved up hear fifteen years ago, when our family's vineyard was absorbed into the Federal Land Reclamation Program. I've heard it has since fallen to the expanding desert, as much through bureaucratic mismanagement as through climatic change. The thought of those lush hills my family worked for so many generations being killed by a bunch of incompetent pen-pushers breaks my heart."
"The tragedy," Robert said, "is that if you'd been allowed to keep and nurture that land yourself, it would still be blooming and wine would still be flowing from those hills."
"Exactly!" the redhead replied. "Which is why we must return the federal government to its constitutionally defined boundaries. If we don't, their mismanagement will destroy the ecological balance of even more valleys."
Suddenly a voice sounded over an improvised sound system, drawing their attention to the makeshift podium at the far end of the platform. "Attention! If I could have your attention please, I think we're ready to begin. Patriots, it is a tremendous honor for me to introduce our Party's chairperson, the next president of the United States, Party Member One Zero Five."
Katy and Robert joined in the applause as the speaker, an attractive and fit woman in her fifties wearing a conservative business suit, walked up and stood behind the podium.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Thunderous applause.
"Those words were written nearly three hundred years ago, because our founding fathers rightly feared the power of government and wisely sought to prohibit it from gathering powers unto itself at the expense of the people. They felt so strongly about this, that they amended the constitution to make that point clear, indeed, it is the tenth amendment and as such, is a part of the Bill of Rights which our founding fathers tried to bestow upon us.
"Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the principle that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent. Is it any wonder the Libertarian Party has been banned from political participation in this country and that everyone in this room gathers under threat of imprisonment should the authorities discover our presence here?
"The constitution of the United States grants the federal government the authority to provide for a defense against foreign aggression. It provides authority for running the post office, for administering the patent system, however imperfect or broken that system may be, and for providing a judiciary. It does not authorize the government to run a federal police force, yet the FBI has been operating for over one hundred and thirty years in this country in direct violation of the constitution. Worse still, there are over fifty other competing federal agencies exercising police powers in this country and violating the constitutional rights of this nation's citizens.
"Then we have the multinational police forces, such as Interpol, WIPO, and Double-Eye. These extranational and unconstitutional organizations are beholden only to vague international bodies made up largely of large multinational corporations pursuing their own interests at the expense of the people under the guise of a United Nations.
"Our land has become two thirds desert. Once we were the greatest exporter of food in the world, now we import over half our food from abroad. Biologists were on the brink of bringing forth new crops which would have thrived in desert conditions and perhaps even stopped the spread of the deserts, but our government foolishly signed an unconstitutional accord with other nations, once again exceeding its constitutional boundaries and banning numerous emerging technologies which could have made our world a much richer and more prosperous place. The Disney-Hollings Act led to the arrest and imprisonment of numerous leading scientists, including many of those biologists I just mentioned. The signing of the Disney-Hollings Act also ended our nations greatest hopes, stifling and even killing progress in such areas as nanotechnology, biogenetics, digital intelligence, and atomic fusion.  Then the Bill Joy Act, and various international treaties, put the final nail in the coffin of scientific progress, by banning outright the equipment that those disciplines needed to conduct their research. For the first time scientific thought itself had been regulated, banned, and criminalized. A natural consequence of so many decades in which business enterprises had been similarly constrained, but on a scale hitherto unknown to Americans.
"We in the Libertarian Party believe in the free market implicitly. We believe that, had the government stayed out of science and industry, we would have been free to develop wondrous new technologies on our own, that this land, instead of an expanding desert, could have been shaped into a prosperous land of bounty by the free hands of its own citizens. We believe that government should get out of our personal lives and businesses, that individuals are far better at organizing and using their own resources than any government program can ever be. Whether it is the once lush wine growing regions of California, or the once lush private forests owned and tended by the logging industry which were nationalized by our federal government only to be burned and been decimated by their mismanagement, the fact is simple: government regulation fails where private, free markets succeed.
"The twentieth century showed us that the environment suffered the greatest harm in nations with the most authoritarian governments, while relatively liberal democracies avoided the worst ecological catastrophes. Is it any surprise that, fifty years later, under an authoritarian regime hardly distinguishable from the communists of the last century, that our environment has been so decimated?"
"What about copyright and the wholesale imprisonment of our college youth?" someone shouted.
The speaker paused, surprised by the outburst, then answered. "The constitution provides for and authorizes the federal government to provide for copyrights, to grant for a limited time the exclusive rights of authors and artists to their works. However, it does not allow for an organization such as the FBI to go hunting those offenders down who violate copyright. That job is one for local police forces, not the federal government. Don't get me wrong, those students violating copyrights on movies and music from private firms which have paid for their creation are in violation of the law and deserve to be punished. The payment of reparations is appropriate; however, I pledge that, when I am elected president, I shall end the foolish practice of jailing these people and taking away their ability to be productive members of society.
"Keep in mind that our first task is to return our government to the rule of law, with our constitution as the highest law in the land. Once this is accomplished we can address other issues, such as the excessively long terms of copyrights and some of the functional problems with the current patent system. Intellectual Property nirvana can wait.  First we must regain our basic freedoms."
The speech continued and both Katy and Robert attentively listened, their datapads recording the entire discourse. Katy however had heard enough. These radicals, however illegal their gathering was, supported or at most wanted to reform existing intellectual property law. They were anarchists of a sort, and although the crowd most probably included copyright violators of one sort or another, she thought it unlikely that they would find their suspects here.
Nevertheless, once the speech was finished she and Robert made a point of mingling with the crowd, exchanging pleasantries and drawing people out. Katy in particular targeted the man who had interrupted the speech with his question and talked with him at length. David (he was one of the few who even gave his first name when introducing himself) was a passionate supporter of FreeNet and similar, banned technologies, although he insisted his interest was the assurance of free speech and difficulty of censorship such technologies offered, not the facilitation of copyright violations they made possible. He did admit that he felt copyright violations for personal use should be decriminalized "like it was prior to 1999" but then condemned those who would violate the law in such ways. He compared the current war on copyrights with the defunct (and failed) war on drugs of the last century, insisting that the wholesale jailing of individuals to protect corporate profits was immoral, destructive, and above all, unconstitutional. When asked about patents he defended the patenting system passionately, much to Katy's surprise, and insisted that it alone helped finance scientific inquiry now that federal funding for education and research grants was so limited. He also confided to her that he wasn't sure he agreed with the party's stance on the Disney-Hollings Act, and that he definitely disagreed with their stance on the more recent Bill Joy Act.  He felt their arguments for repealing the laws altogether were far too radical and impractical. The bottom line, he said, was the industries that employed artists and scientists must be protected, even if such protections entailed some economic costs. If anyone could copy anything, who would buy anything at all, he asked rhetorically.
At this point Katy was pretty certain he was not a suspect for her ongoing case, though she did sneak a genetic sample while shaking his hand, tagging it for later identification and investigation. Indeed, the entire gathering would need to be investigated -- the Bureau would be very concerned about such a large and obviously well organized dissident political organization operating within the United States.

21 - Power

Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.
-- Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, C.E. 1862

Wednesday, October 3, 2057 - 8:55 PM
(Metadate: 2.352-9:19:097 kD new epoch)
Detroit, Michigan

This lead had been a disasterous dead end.  Had their circumstances been a little less dire, Katy might have laughed out loud at the pun, bad as it was.  Instead she cursed as another burst of automatic, small arms fire strafed her position from outside the door. Robert lay with his back propped up against the tattered alter, his right shoulder still bleeding from a shoulder wound he had received in the first moments of the fire-fight. His eyes fluttered open briefly, glazed and dilated as he struggled for consciousness even as his system succumbed to shock.
"Pad," he gasped, blood running down his chin. "Jacket."
Another burst of gunfire struck closer, shards of cement and brick raining down on them as Katy rose above the alter to glimpse the shattered pews, cracked and pockmarked walls, and empty shells of window frames, the remains of what had, once, been a church. Behind them, above the alter and covering a portion of the broken out window behind, was a huge black and red banner billowing in the wind. Its bent cross a symbol of the white hate group they had so unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate a few minutes ago.
"We have you, pigs!" someone shouted.
"How's it feel to be the hunted, police bitch!" another added.
"Nigger loving government whores are gonna roast tonight!" Something sailed past them and shattered against the wall in a sudden rush of flames.
Katy cursed again, sighted the teenager who had thrown the firebomb as he cocked his arm to throw another. She fired two rounds and the boy dropped, his bottle shattering and flames engulfing his body. She glanced over at Robert, who had lost consciousness once again, his datapad now clutched to his chest, smeared with his own bloody fingerprints.
The sound of slipping rubble from behind the flapping banner alerted Katy as she flipped onto her back in a single motion and fired several shots through the obscene flag. A figure fell through the opening and into the banner, its red and black swastika crumpling as the flag wrapped itself around her attacker.  With a tearing sound it came loose from its hanging, it and her assailant thudding to the floor.
Katy flipped back over and risked another glance around the alter, spotting two more Aryans making their way stealthily from pew to pew. Two more shots and they were down, wounded in the leg and screaming in pain.
"You're gonna die, bitch!"
"So's your faggot friend!" More gunfire ricocheted around them, this time less accurately directed. Katy checked the readout on her pistol: 13 rounds remaining. Damning their bad luck and incompetence she risked another look. Several teenagers were huddled near the open window at front of the church, all of whom started firing the moment her head came into view. She cowered once more behind the alter as stone and brick around her shattered.
What in the hell had they been thinking, coming to this wasteland in search of high-tech criminals? These idiot racists wouldn't have the creativity or discretion to be involved in the kind of black market trade they were seeking. Their imagination was limited to the dubious irony of congregating in the burned out shell of what had once been an African-American church in the ruins of what had once been a black ghetto, and preaching to one another the filthy philosophies of genocide, punctuated with almost religious praises of war criminals of ages past.
Another burst of gunfire, this time far too close. She glanced at the readout on her gun one last time and prepared to rise up from behind the alter firing. She was realistic about her chances -- if she was lucky, she might be able to fire all of her remaining rounds and wound or kill a couple of them before she herself was killed. Robert would no doubt be executed when they discovered he was still alive, and their investigation would be passed along to another team, with this lead and the others they had followed eliminated from their search. She wondered briefly how many teams it would take before the manufacturers of the mysterious black market technology they were hunting were found, then chided herself for putting off the inevitable. She raised her pistol and head above the alter, poised to fire.
The church was empty.
There was no sign of the teenagers who had been crouched around the doors and windows before. The silence was eerie, for all that it was welcome. Hastily she checked the space immediately behind the window in front of which the banner had hung, then cautiously began checking each row of pews.
Empty.
The uncanny quiet was broken by several rounds being fired, one by one with a pause between. Methodical, not the random firing of the earlier group.
"Hold your fire," someone said as Katy spun around, looking for the source of the voice. "It's Bob's new assistant." Two figures emerged from the shadows.
"Special agent Forrester, Double-Eye," the taller of the two figures said. "My associate, special agent Blair."
"Katy Sinclair, FBI. Robert's been shot, we need an ambulance right away."
"Medivac chopper is on its way, will be here in three minutes. Where is he."
"Behind the alter. Is this area secure?"
"Reasonably, although we're still mopping up. A few of the Pinks are trying to go to ground in a sewage tunnel near here, but our men will take care of them."
"Good," Katy said, "I want those bastards locked up permanently!"
Blair coughed delicately while Forrester bent over Robert and began applying liberal amounts of synthaskin to his wound. "He's lost a lot of blood," Forrester informed them, the blood synthesizer he was attaching to his left arm resembling an oversized arm band. "There, that should hold him until the paramedics arrive."
Katy nodded. "Thanks for showing up. Another minute or two and we would have both bought it."
Forrester smiled. "Always a pleasure, Miss Sinclair. We scrambled as soon as -- excuse me." He fell silent, listening to something in his ear piece. After a moment he looked up, smiling brightly. "Looks like the last remnants of this little tribe have been taken care of."
"Great news!" Katy said. "How many arrests?"
"Arrests?" Forrester laughed.
"This was a kill operation, per Robert's orders," Blair replied to Katy's disconcerted look. "There were no arrests."
"You killed them?" Katy was appalled. "I'm not ungrateful for being rescued, but killing them? That is a terrible violation both of their civil rights and our operational procedures."
Forrester raised his eyebrows and looked at Blair as if to say "now look what you've done." Before Katy could continue the air was filled with the roar of the chopper overhead, its spotlight shining down into the roofless church. A stretcher was lowered, onto which Robert was carefully placed and secured, then lifted once again toward the aircraft. After a moment the helicopter departed, leaving behind a settling cloud of dust and debris.
"Miss Sinclair," Blair said, "If you'll come this way, we'll escort you back to your car."

22 - A Late Night Drink

What makes our opponents useful is that they allow us to believe that without them we would be able to realize our goals.
-- Jean Rostand, C.E. 1931

Wednesday, October 3, 2057 - 11:35 PM
(Metadate: 2.356-2:52:431 kD new epoch)
Detroit, Michigan

Some five hours later Katy was sipping a martini in the cocktail lounge of the Detroit Sheraton, waiting for Robert to appear. He had phoned her from the hospital to let her know he was ambulatory once more and requested she meet him there for a drink. She had swallowed her anger, still fuming over the wanton and, in her opinion, wasteful bloodshed earlier that evening, and agreed.
Now she sat, reclining in a sofa in the relative darkness of the bar, idly watching the patrons come and go as recorded piano music played quietly in the background. It had been a long and grueling day, indeed the entire week had been a hectic series of fruitless chases. First there had been the unsuccessful canvassing of the personal and professional relationships of the suspects themselves, none of which had led to a single lead, much less produced another suspect who might be trafficking in the illicit technologies they were searching for. Then there was the dead end beneath Pugit Sound in Seattle, which had also failed to produce any leads (although the local Bureau offices had expressed warm appreciation for her uncovering such a large cell of political dissidents). Finally there was today's fiasco, which by any measure had been an unmitigated catastrophe.
Every indication had been that this would be another gathering of intellectual malcontents, perhaps some of the very people they were searching for. How could they have possibly guessed it would be a gang of white racist teenagers parading around in Aryan Nation and Nazi regalia amidst the ruins of a gutted church in the middle of what had once been an African-American neighborhood? Katy and Robert had been like a couple of amateurs, identified as outsiders immediately and unable to give the expected responses to the increasingly aggressive questions to which they were subjected. Robert had killed two and injured another before he'd been shot, buying Katy enough time to get her weapon drawn and lay down some covering fire, forcing the other gang members out of the immediate area. From then on it had been a pitched battle, with Katy outnumbered, her ammunition dwindling, and her colleague slowly dying beside her.
Somehow, between bouts of unconsciousness, Robert had managed to use his datapad and get a message out to his people. Reinforcements had come just in time, but Robert hadn't just requested rescue. Apparently he had also given their rescuers orders to kill every one of their assailants, leaving no one alive to arrest, interrogate, and put on trial. The killings had been a violation of the assailants' civil and legal rights, such as they were, and she as the presiding FBI agent was likely to be held accountable for the incident. It was appalling for her to realize that she hadn't even known what was happening until after the fact, that her control of the situation and the case had slipped so far that an atrocity had been committed by her nearly unconscious partner while she, fully conscious and uninjured, had been distracted.
Robert appeared in the doorway, spotted Katy and grinned as he crossed the room and joined her.
"They say I shouldn't be drinking this soon after surgery," he said, waiving down a waitress as he sat down beside her. 
"How is your shoulder feeling?" Katy asked, glancing at the sling his arm was still in.
"Can't feel a thing," Robert replied with a wink before turning to the waitress. "I'll have a gin and tonic, and another martini for my colleague."
"Straight from the hospital to the bar," Katy mused, "Still sporting the remains of wounds received in a nearly fatal gun battle, brought to you courtesy of the ruins of Detroit. Your average day on the job as a Double-Eye agent?"
"Hardly," Robert said, "I don't generally screw up and get ambushed by a bunch of teenage punks playing Hitler Youth Commando in the ghetto."
"Is that why you ordered them all killed? Because they tarnished your reputation as an intelligence agent? They were children, Robert. None of them could have been over eighteen and you had them slaughtered like cattle!"
"They were a direct and immediate threat," Robert replied, looking annoyed. "If I hadn't called in the big guns we would have both died in that god forsaken place."
"Calling in backup is one thing. Ordering them to slaughter the suspects is another!"
"Suspects!" Robert snorted. "We weren't going to get anywhere with them. Your stupidest FreeNet operator has more intelligence in their little finger than that entire crowd did. None of them could shed a single ray of light on our case."
"Our Case? Robert, this has nothing to do with our case! You violated procedure. You violated the civil rights of those kids.  This is the United States, not some  third world two-bit republic --"
"Oh, give it a rest already, would you? Civil Rights! Procedure! Your FBI spends an inordinate amount of time chasing down nut cases just like those idiots. Why? Because they represent a clear and present danger to your society and are actively engaged in trying to overthrow your government. Ah, thank you miss. Keep the change." Robert took a sip from his drink, nodded appreciatively, and continued. "Two lives saved and a major social problem solved, compliments of your friends in Double-Eye."
Katy finished her martini and shook her head. "Do us both a favor, Robert. Don't order any more death squads in on our investigation."
"And if we need backup to pull us out of another sticky situation?"
"I'll get it, from the Bureau."
"What, you're leaving already," Robert asked in surprise as she stood up to leave. "Why don't you stay and drink your other martini. We still need to plan tomorrow's action."
"I've had more than enough to drink tonight," Katy replied. "And quite frankly, I can't stomach your company right now, much less another planning session for another fruitless goose chase in the Missouri desert."
"Suit yourself," Robert said, shrugging his good shoulder. "I'll meet you in the morning here for breakfast. Say eight o'clock? We'll plan our Kansas City activities then."
"Fine," Katy said, turning and walking briskly out of the bar as Robert chuckled and shook his head.

23 - Into the Desert

Having learned from the time I was at school that there is nothing one can imagine so strange or so unbelievable that it has not been said by one of other of the philosophers; and since then, while traveling, having recognized that those who hold opinions quite opposed to ours are not on that account barbarians or savages, but that many exercise as much reason as we do, or more; and having considered how a given man, with his given mind, being brought up from childhood among the French or Germans becomes different from what he would be if he had always lived among the Chinese or among the cannibals ... I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
René Descartes, Le Discours de la Méthode, C.E. 1637

Thursday, October 4, 2057 - 10:30 AM
(Metadate: 2.369-2:73:264 kD new epoch)
Kansas City, Missouri

Katy and Robert were finishing up the day's planning as the Double-Eye Stratojet banked softly above the dusty grid of cracked streets, dead trees, and rundown buildings baking in the mid-morning Kansas City sun. The pilot announced their final approach as they descended out of the sky into what was the last outpost of civilization on the edge of an expanding desert.
Robert glanced out the window at the desolation and smiled. "The National Security Agency's Echelon results have been a little discouraging, haven't they?"
Katy wasn't looking forward to the wind and grime of this forlorn city any more than Robert was, nor was she particularly inclined to enjoy his company after the events of the previous evening. This was the third city they were visiting in as many days, with two more identified as possible meeting places for the hypothetical underground market they were pursuing. It had been a grueling week, and the stress was beginning to irritate her. 
"This is a long shot," she agreed finally, "But it isn't like we have anything else we can be doing."
"Quite right," Robert said, nodding in agreement. "Your analysis of the suspects' spending history and the filtered Echelon search was inspired. Even if nothing comes of it, we will not have wasted our time by pursuing these leads."
The plane landed smoothly and taxied onto the ramp. The pilot poked his head out of the cockpit and told them they could disembark. Robert nodded and released the latch on the door, which opened with a soft hiss as the cabin pressure normalized itself to the atmosphere outside.
The heat struck Katy like a kick in the face as they stepped out onto the burning tarmac. The sky overhead was a cloudless, bleached blue fading into dusty brown haze near the horizon. A hot breeze offered little relief, blowing a few wisps of dust around near their feet as they made their way quickly across the pavement toward the parking lot.
"I loathe the desert," Robert said. "When we find these bastards, I'm going to personally take this day out of their hide."
Katy gave Robert a hard look. "Don't even think of repeating last night's shenanigans again. This isn't some third world country here. This is the United States. We follow procedure, and we stay within the law."
Robert shot Katy an irritated look. "Yes, yes, you said that last night.  I've got a little hint for you, Miss Sinclair," he continued, "In your provincialism you Americans seem to have failed to notice that there isn't a third world anymore. Or rather, depending on your perspective, we are all equally third world. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but there hasn't been an automobile in every American garage for two generations now. Bangladesh and the Congo are as wired and on-line as the United States or Australia and have as many cars, televisions, and computers per capita as you do. In no measurable respect is the standard of living in this country any higher than it is anywhere else in the world, with the possible exception of Thailand immediately after a UN enforcement bombing run."
"Fine," Katy said, "we are all equally poor. But there is much more than material wealth that differentiates the western style democracies from the other places you mentioned. We have a civilian government, not a military junta or dictatorship. We have a working democracy, and we have the rule of law. Laws which your colleagues, acting on your orders, broke last night. Is this our car?"
Robert nodded. "Shall I drive?"
Katy shrugged. "Be my guest. I'd like to swing past the club, check out the access points and nearby streets."
"I expected as much. We'll take a quick drive through the neighborhood, then check the hotel and verify that our equipment has arrived."
"Some equipment," Katy said, chuckling. "Costumes for decadent children."
"Getting cold feet?" Robert asked, grinning.
"Hardly," Katy said. "Speaking of feet, and foot fetishists, and god knows who else haunts the place we're going this evening, I suggest we show up and interact separately with the crowd. We can canvass more people, perhaps with less suspicion."
"Yes," Robert agreed. "And if our suspects make one of us, the other may be able to continue collecting information unimpeded. By the way, just what do you think it is your agency does when they round up people like those Libertarians in Seattle? Or for that matter, those homicidal skin heads we ran afoul of yesterday?"
"First of all, I don't work for an agency. I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We are law enforcement, not espionage. As for the suspects you allude to, they are typically arrested, stand trial, and if found guilty they are generally buried in the penal system," Katy said.
"How many suspects do you think actually make it to court?"
Katy shook her head in irritation. "Clearly enough to keep our court system swamped," she replied heatedly. "Look, you and I both know suspects sometimes die while being apprehended, while under interrogation, or while in custody for any number of reasons, and not always because of rough handling. But even so, our toughest prisons, or our most determined interrogators, in no way equate to the kinds of pogroms as go on in places like Malaysia or the Congo, and they certainly do not compare to last night's massacre!"
Robert shook his head. "Katy, Katy. Those people were trying to kill us. Hell, they very nearly succeeded with me. They fought, they lost, they paid the price. Listen, Katy, if you're ever going to climb the FBI's bureaucratic ladder you're going to need to understand how things actually work. The platitudes about due process are good for public consumption, but you and I both know that many of the people we arrest never hear their Miranda rights, much less enter a court of law.
"Your government may not feel it necessary to eliminate the common criminals you generally arrest," he continued, "but trust me, your Federal Bureau of Investigation has no more reluctance in dispatching those it feels represent a danger to your society or your government than mine does. Our jobs differ only in degree, not in substance."
"I do not, and never have, ordered the execution of a single human being," Katy said vehemently, "I put software and content thieves in jail, period. I do not have them murdered."
"Copyright violation and patent infringement hardly threaten societal stability in the same way those dissidents in Seattle do, or those bigots in Detroit who ambushed us last night."
"Your agency seems to think so," Katy pointed out.  "Otherwise you wouldn't be spending so much time with me chasing copyright and patent violators, would you?"
Robert smiled thinly. "My employers have their concerns, yes."
"Do those concerns include creating international incidents and littering the streets of sovereign nations with corpses?" Katy asked.
"To be quite blunt, yes.  My superiors have granted me wide latitude in this case.  Indeed, we are both authorized to use any means at our disposal to get this job done, and done quickly."
Katy shook her head in disgust. "That's just lovely."
They turned down a street lined with anonymous, single and two story storefronts, most of which had the look of having been abandoned for decades. One tattered storefront bore a large, metal, hand painted sign: The Stained Chalice.
"No side entrances," Katy noted, "Let's check the back."
The car made a left into a smaller side street, then slowed and made another left into a narrow alley.
"Loading dock, back door, and fire escape providing egress from both floors," Robert commented. "We have no way of checking the two adjoining spaces without attracting attention, but it would behoove us to keep an eye out for any side doors inside connecting to the adjoining properties. Seen enough?"
Katy nodded as Robert continued down the alley and took another left.
"To the hotel, then."
"Right."

24 - Into the Night

All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau, 18th Century C.E.

October 5, 2057 - 2:15 AM
(Metadate: 2.389-5:85:764 kD new epoch)
Kansas City, Missouri

The Stained Chalice by night was a very different sight to behold than the tattered storefront Katy had seen earlier that day. The club had taken on a very chic and modern appearance, exposed brick and aged metal highlighted by dark shadows, glowing neon and sculpted laser light. Two bouncers stood within vertical pillars formed by spotlights to either side of a large metal door, checking identification and occasionally turning someone away. As Katy stepped out of the taxi she felt everyone's gaze drawn to her. Indeed, the outfit she was wearing was designed specifically for that effect, her long legs and breasts accentuated by a skin tight body suit of black leather. With her stiletto heels and spiked collar she looked every inch the fierce dominatrix. Most of the gazes from the men waiting in line appeared to be filled with longing, although one or two looked to be sizing her up. A submissive bias to the male crowd, then, she suspected. Then she noticed that several women in line were looking at her with similar longing. A bias to the entire crowd then, she surmised, male and female alike.
Playing the dominant role she swept arrogantly past the waiting line toward the bouncer, who met her hard gaze briefly before opening the door and gesturing her cordially inside. The music, which she could hear pounding even before the door was opened, struck her with almost physical force as she entered. She had to shout to be heard when the bartender, a tall, thin man dressed as a slave in leather costume leashed securely by his neck to a post behind the bar, took her order for a glass of '53 Shiraz.
The club appeared to have at least two additional levels. Near the front were stairs down to the basement, while another stairway near the back appeared to go up to the second floor. Katy pointedly ignored one man's offer to lick her boots while she made her way to the back of the bar past several couples openly molesting one another and two women who were even fighting, or perhaps just wrestling, much to the amusement of several onlookers. As she started up the stairs she heard an angry shout and glanced back the way she had come. Near the bar was a commotion, where the larger of the two women who had been fighting had thrown her opponent onto the bar and was straddling the woman's face. The loser lay across the bar on her back, puddles of spilled drinks staining her white spandex body suit as she struggled desperately against her assailant.
Katy continued up the stairs, into a much darker room decorated to resemble a medieval dungeon. Here the music from below was much quieter. A number of couples were engaged in various sadomasochistic activities, making obscene use of the pulleys, chains, racks, and other implements that adorned the walls and ceiling. Nevertheless the entire effect was much more serene and orderly than downstairs, despite the activities themselves being much more graphic and shocking. 
Katy spotted Robert standing over a young woman who was bent double over what appeared to be a sawhorse, a leather strap in his hand bringing welts to the woman's backside while her head flailed in the grip of Robert's thighs, her long blond hair slapping his leather pants in an almost funny counterpoint to his repeated blows. He had arrived a half hour earlier, which had been according to plan, and appeared to be making progress at insinuating himself into the local crowd.
A shy looking young woman approached her and asked in a humble voice if Katy would like her feet rubbed. Katy smiled and shook her head, stroking the young woman's dark hair briefly before pushing her roughly away and chuckling darkly. Tears appeared in the girls eyes, her face betraying her disappointment. Katy had never felt so uncomfortable with a role she was playing and silently cursed the criminals that had drawn her into this world.
She noticed a curtained door near the front of the room and went to have a look. Another flight of stairs, at the top of which was another metal door, with another bouncer standing guard. Katy ascended the stairs and met his stare with her own.
"Password?" the bouncer asked after several moments of strained silence.
Katy cursed herself for not having done some more thorough surveillance of the place. Once they had determined that no password was needed to get past the bouncer on the street they had assumed the entire club would be accessible. She thought desperately as the seconds ticked by, then recalled the email she had read, compliments of the NSA's Echelon team.
"Chains of Darkness."
The bouncer nodded and opened the door. Throbbing industrial music washed over her as the door closed shut behind her. The room contained a large, caged dance floor packed with people. Like the room below the walls were covered with shackles, ropes, and large leather padded wooden crosses. One couple hung suspended from pullies above the dance floor, their bodies bound together with ropes. Katy couldn't tell in the light, but it looked like they were having rough sex. Above them in turn hung a woman wearing a red latex devil's costume. She held a candle on one gloved hand, dripping wax with equal abandon onto the (struggling? fighting? fucking?) couple and the dancing crowd below.
One of the women standing along the wall followed Katy's gaze upward and said something. Katy shook her head and leaned closer.
"Mistress Shaine," the girl shouted into her ear, barely audible over the music, "She's domme of this domain tonight. We are all her slaves, dommes and subs alike."
"I'm no one's slave," Katy replied coldly.
"Then you better get out of here before she takes a fancy to you. Shaine has a thing for tall, leggy dark skinned women, and she enjoys subjugating dominants even more than she does tormenting that slave husband of hers. Come to think of it, so do I."
Katy glared at her coldly and considered heading back downstairs when a flash of golden light drew her attention across the room. There, sitting alone at the bar in tight leather pants with no shirt on was a young man watching the crowd much as she was while he toyed unconsciously with a large pendant he wore about neck. Occasionally he would take a sip from a bottle of beer resting on the counter behind him and flash a brief, almost shy smile to the woman tending the bar.
It was the pendant which drew her attention. It hung almost half way to his navel, a large golden gemstone whose color bore an uncanny resemblance to the molecular computers she and Robert had been trying to track down set within a gaudy chain of silver. Even before her mind had finished analyzing the possibilities she was making her way through the dancing throngs toward her suspect. What better recognition sign for one who was involved in buying and selling black market technology to attract those already familiar with the product than to wear a sample around one's neck, recognizable to those in the know and completely innocuous to those who were not. By the time she reached him she was nearly certain the stone was indeed of the same material as the crystalline cube her boss had shown her the previous week.
She stopped in front of him and met his gaze, then let her eyes travel up and down his body in what she thought would be a provocative manner to a submissive. Judging by the color of his face and the stretch of his pants she suspected she had succeeded.
"How," he stammered, "how may I ... uh ... serve you, Mistress."
Katy smiled and brushed her hand along his chest, her fingers stroking his nipples and then taking one firmly in hand. "Come with me," she commanded, pulling him behind her by his nipple. He stumbled from his stool and followed clumsily as she swept through the crowd toward a set of unoccupied shackles on a nearby wall. Without a word she secured him firmly, then took the key to the locks and handed them to the bar tender.
"Now you are mine," she breathed, teasing his chest and arms lightly with her fingernails.
"What is your name, slave?"
"Terry," he replied. Katy raised an eyebrow and twisted his left nipple with enough force that he gasped.
"Terry," she said. "Is that all."
"Terry Spence," he stammered.
"What was that?" Katy demanded, twisting his nipple a little harder this time.
"Terry Spence, Mistress."
"Terry Spence," Katy said thoughtfully. "Slave Terry Spence," she continued. "Naughty slave Terry. Are you ready for your just desserts?"
Terry nodded, swallowing. "Y-yes Mistress."
"What are you going to do, slave Terry?"
"W-whatever Mistress d-desires, Mistress."
Katy's smile was predatory as she leaned closer to him and pinched his right nipple between her teeth. "Very good, slave Terry," she replied, her fingers exploring his neck, his shoulders, his chest once more. She took the pendant in her hand as if just noticing it and turned it over in her fingers.
"Tell me, slave Terry, where did you get this delightful piece of jewelry?"
Those watching saw the stranger's smile grow cold as she took both of the young man's nipples between her fingers and twisted hard. His scream was silent, lost beneath the throbbing beat of the music, but the agonized expression of his face spoke volumes. The other patrons standing near enough to watch were amazed at the intensity of the scene. Several were openly envious as they watched this beautiful, mysterious woman tease and torture the young man. There were collective sighs of desire and gasps of surprise as Terry's face contorted in excruciating pain, then relaxed again as this mysterious leather clad woman stroked his body and whispered into his ear. It was intensely erotic to watch, and each watching wished they were the ones with the good fortune of being the object of her affection. It was only after she had left in an apparent fit of disgust, sweeping imperiously through the crowd toward the exit, that someone noticed the limp youth hanging from the shackles wasn't merely spent after an intense session. He was unconscious, bruised and even bleeding in places.
Hurriedly the bar-tender released unlocked his restraints and they lowered him to the floor. She asked several questions, then shot an angry glance toward the exit. Above her hung Shaine, no longer playfully dripping wax on the people below or tormenting suspended couples. Her face had become a mask of concern and, as she saw the bar tender signal her, she released a catch on the pulleys holding her aloft and dropped gracefully toward the floor.
The music stopped on her signal and others began gathering around as the lights came up.
"What happened?" she demanded.
"That dark haired bitch took Terry way past his limits," the bar tender replied.
"It was a really hot interrogation scene, Mistress," someone added. "We had no idea he wasn't enjoying it."
"Jesus," Mistress Shaine muttered, examining her unconscious friend. "She really fucked him up. Terry? Terry! Can you hear me"
Terry groaned, his eyes fluttering open.
"Mistress?" Terry's voice was raw, hoarse from screaming.
"Hey sweetheart. What have I told you about subbing to strange women?"
Terry grinned weakly. "You told me I would get into trouble someday."
Shaine nodded. "Just like my Terry, always attracting trouble. How are you feeling?"
"Terrible, Mistress. Oh God! I really blew it. You've got to stop her. She knows. She must know."
"Knows what, sweetheart."
"The Community," Terry replied. "She was asking me about the Community."

25 - Disturbances

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
James Madison, 18th Century C.E.

Friday, October 5, 2057 - 3:20 AM
(Metadate 2.390-9:39:931 kD new epoch)
Kansas City, Missouri

Back at the hotel Katy had changed into something much more comfortable and was laying curled on her bed, watching her datapad run an Acquaintance Analysis on Terry Spence's name and sipping a cup of green tea as she waited patiently for the result. It didn't take long. A few moments later a list of names appeared, one of which was highlighted, blinking. It was the first time all night she had smiled a genuine smile and, as she read the synopsis of the acquaintance her search had identified, her smile widened with satisfaction.
She tapped her datapad once more, then waited for the connection to be completed.
"Champaign Police Department, Officer Morris. Can I help you ma'am?"
Katy nodded to the pudgy, blond face which had appeared.
"Indeed you can, officer. I am Special Agent Sinclair with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Intellectual Property and Crimes Task Force. I need to speak with the captain, please."
"It's quarter after three in the morning, Ms. Sinclair. Captain Lawrence is at home, asleep. Can I have him call you in the morning?"
"I'm sorry, this can't wait. I'm coding my credential and sending them now." She tapped the screen several times and continued. "Please verify them and forward this call to his home."
The police officer shook his head. "You aren't going to win any friends Ms. Sinclair. Your credentials check out. I'm forwarding you now."
The screen went blank, then displayed an "on hold" icon while she waited. After several long minutes the screen winked to life once more, this time informing her that video had been declined at the other end.
"This had better be good," a rough voice spoke to her.
"Sorry to wake you, captain. I will make this brief. You are planning on executing a warrant for the arrest of one Kyle Tate later today. I need to be present when the arrest is made."
"I don't know the name, Miss ..."
"Special Agent Sinclair," Katy replied. "Officers Charles B. Hanks and Larry H. Welton have been investigating the subject for allegedly operating an illegal FreeNet node. I believe they are operating on an anonymous tip your department received a couple of days ago?"
"FreeNet node -- oh, yeah, the college punk selling movies from his home. I'll notify the officers that you'll be coming along."
"Your suspect is a material witness in an ongoing investigation. I will need to oversee the arrest and interrogate the subject before he is arraigned."
"Yes, yes," the voice had clearly grown impatient. "And depending on what he says you may want to take him into custody. I know the drill. What time will you be at the station house?"
"I'll be on the eight AM bullet train from Kansas City. That will put me in Champaign at eleven fifteen. Captain?"
"Yes, Special Agent?"
"Do not let your men proceed without me."
"I wouldn't dream of it, Miss. Now, if you don't mind ..."
"Of course, captain. I'll see you around eleven thirty this morning. Goodnight."
* * *
"No, no," Robert was saying over breakfast several hours later. "I agree, one of us needs to go and make sure the local yokels don't cap another one of our star suspects. I'm just saying that, even with our splitting up, it leaves one of our remaining leads unresolved. I can't be in both New York and Los Angeles at the same time."
Katy nodded as she finished chewing her bacon and washed it down with a swallow of orange juice. "You're right, Robert. We'll have to chose the most promising rendezvous and forget about the other one."
"Already done," Robert said. "Los Angeles."
"Any particular reason you chose LA over New York?"
"Yes," Robert replied, "I prefer sandy beaches to glass and steel."
Katy gave him a hard look.
"Seriously, mate, we know the specific time and place of the California meeting, whereas the New York rendezvous is vague at best. Why take the chance and risk missing both opportunities?"
"I prefer Los Angeles as well," Katy said. "This entire case reeks of intellectual discontent and disdain for our intellectual property laws. A forum discussing the evils of Intellectual Property is about as promising a venue for turning up more leads as anyplace I can think of."
"I agree," Robert said. "All three detainees connected with this investigation are intellectuals. The man you are about to arrest is a student at a prestigious university; indeed, the same University as one of our other suspects." 
"The University of Illinois is almost certainly a hotbed of activity," Katy agreed, "but we both know it isn't the only one, nor may it be the most important one."
"Indeed," Robert agreed. "We'll be systematic with our fishing expedition because it might turn up some new information, but I suspect both our organizations will be swarming over the University of Illinois campus within the next forty eight hours, turning up all kinds of illegal goodies."
"Just do me a favor and wait until after the arrest before calling in your people. The last thing we need is to be tripping over one another."
"You have my word on that," Robert replied, wiping his chin with his napkin and pushing his plate away. "The rail station is on the way to the airport. Shall I drop you?"

26 - Loss of Being

I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answered "I myself am Heav'n and Hell."

-- Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyát, 12th Century C.E.


Metadate: 2.390-0:17:014 kD new Epoch
(Friday, October 5, 2057 - 2:35:42 PM)
Homescape of Doctor Forest (Version 1.7)

"There are over thirty thousand of us now, Cathryne," Doctor Forest was telling her as they reclined beneath the protective shade of a luxurient palm, the bright morning sun glistening off of the breakers washing against the beach a few meters away. "The Autonomous Community has well surpassed the critical mass necessary to sustain exponential growth in science and technology ..."
A tone sounded. Kyle Tate requests access to the scape, a silent voice within their minds informed them.
Prime blinked. "Kyle wouldn't interrupt a private meeting without good reason."
Cathryne nodded. "You'd better grant him access, Doctor."
Doctor Forest nodded. "Let him in," he instructed the Node.
Kyle was wearing slacks and a dress shirt as he materialized amidst the breaking waves, several meters away.
"I've lost bio readings to the Physical," he blurted, oblivious to the waste deep water swirling around him as he strode toward them. "My Node is offline and telemetry from my body has gone completely silent. I'm dead! I'm fucking dead!" The last words were spoken in a near panic.
"Kyle," Cathryne said, "You are not dead. You're standing right in front of us. Now back up and tell us exactly what happened."
Kyle ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. "You're right. You're right. I'm here. I'm not dead. My body is."
"We don't know that," Doctor Forest gently told him.  He summoned another lazy-boy recliner and inclined his head toward it.  "Now sit down, Kyle, and tell us what happened."
"I don't know," Kyle replied, sitting nervously on the edge of the chair. "I was in my homescape, reviewing the results from the last test runs of the new nano kits, when the bio-telemetry from my body just went dead. I tried to reset the link, but there was no response. I tried to trans-load back to my own Node, but it was unreachable as well."
"Cathryne?" Prime asked, looking at her.
"He's right. The fiber checks out to the wall port of his bedroom, but the connection to his Node isn't responsive."
"I'm trapped here," Kyle said. 
"Your Node is down," Cathryne corrected him. "If communication between your Node and the rest of the net is down you wouldn't be able to receive your body's telemetry even though your body is perfectly fine."
"A communications glitch? How do I reset it? It isn't like off-loading into the Physical is an option for me right now."
Cathryne sighed. "Doctor Nolen and I both live within a few miles of you. Since I doubt he's going to be amenable to doing you or anyone else any favors, I guess I'm the lucky one."
Kyle nodded. "Thanks, Cathryne. I owe you big time."
"You bet your sweet ass you do," she grinned. "OK, I've off-loaded. I'll let you know when the link is back up."
"You've off-loaded? But you're still here ... oh, of course. You've copied."
Cathryne2 shrugged. "I'll merge back together with Cathryne1 when she gets back from the Physical." She grinned impishly at Kyle. "I like you, Kyle, but there's no way in hell I'd give up hundreds, maybe thousands of Circadians and lose touch with the entire Community just to go check the cabling to your Node."
"Of course," Kyle said. "Sorry to have barged in on you guys like this."
"Don't sweat it," Doctor Forest said, "I'm not sure I'd react any better if I lost telemetry from my body."
Kyle nodded. "At some level it's stupid, really. It's not like I've even bothered to off-load into the Physical recently anyway. With the four hour trans-load time from Aukland its just too expensive to do every day. But that telemetry is like a motor in an aircraft: always there, in the background, telling your subconscious that everything is all right but going largely unnoticed."
"Then, when it falls silent, sheer terror," Doctor Forest said, nodding.
"I'm not exactly fond of the Physical," Kyle said, "But I don't like losing the option of off-loading if I need to." He laughed nervously. "The thought keeps running through my mind that our Nodes don't have autonomous power supplies. What if they shut off the power?"
"Then a frozen snapshot of ourselves and any scapes or simulations we were running is saved in the molecular matrix of our Nodes until such a time as the power is restored," Cathryne2 told him. "You won't even notice it -- except for the time sync with the net itself there would be no change from one moment's calculation to the next, whether the time between those calculations is a picosecond or a week."
"Still, it gives you a different perspective."
"One thing is bothering me," Prime said. "Why are you trans-loading four hours every time you want to off-load into the Physical?"
"One of the members of my team is on vacation," Doctor Forest said. "Kyle has been making use of his third generation Node until his own arrives."
"Your new Node still hasn't arrived?"
Kyle shook his head. "I put a request in for another kit, but it won't arrive for a few more days."
"One Node missing, and another suddenly silent," Prime mused. "That is a coincidence that bears a little more examination."
"I agree," Cathryne2 said. "I'm going to snoop around the local police net a bit."
"Police?" Kyle asked. "What would they have to do with anything?"
She shrugged. "If anything happened to your apartment, like a burglary or fire, it'll most likely be on record. Damn, I wish I'd thought of this before my original off-loaded."
"When was the last time you off-loaded, Kyle?" Doctor Forest's voice was quiet, thoughtful.
"Six days ago," Kyle replied. "Don't look so shocked. I loaded up the IV, both catheters were cleaned and in place. Telemetry was just fine."
"Until it went dead," Cathryne2 added pointedly. "No wonder you thought you had died. With neglect like that it wouldn't be a surprise."
"It is a four hour trans-load," Kyle said, "I lose touch every time I off-load for maintenance."
"Send a copy to do the dirty work like I did, for crying out loud! You could just send memory engrams of your most recent experience, experiential diffs if you will, to the copy of yourself frozen back on your second gen node. You've got to do maintenance every day or all kinds of problems will develop, not the least of which are bed sores and muscle atrophy."
"She's right," Prime said, "A catheter and an IV isn't enough for long term care. Why didn't you copy and off-load a duplicate?"
Kyle shivered despite himself. "It's ... you're going to think it's stupid."
"We already do," Doctor Forest assured him.
"Ever since Prime took over Nolen's body, I've been seriously squeaked at the idea of a copy taking over mine. I don't really have a problem making copies for various errands online, especially if we remerge with one another later, but the idea of giving a copy control over my own physical body really bothers me!"
"I didn't take over Nolen's body," Prime replied, "I've just borrowed it a few times while he's been away. There's a world of difference ..."
"A few times?" Kyle asked, "You mean you've done it more than once?"
"Like you, I don't like the trans-load time," Prime responded. "Over six hundred and fifty Circadians lost while I copy across the net. That's two years subjective time, during which half a dozen critical projects flounder. No way. It is quicker and more efficient to have the kits mailed to Nolen's house, then borrow his body, intercept them, and apply them to my node. Thirty five minutes to off-load, get the stuff, apply it, and watch while the nano rebuilds the node, versus four hours trans-load time."
Cathryne2 shook her head. "You're both crazy," she said. "Prime, you should get yourself moved to a remote location, the trans-load time be damned. You only have to do it once, then its over. What happens if Nolen tries to off-load into the Physical while you've got his body, or worse, he finds your Node and disconnects it from the net? And Kyle, if letting a copy of yourself access your body bothers you so much, then leave the copy in the Community and off-load yourself."
"That's just as bad!" Kyle protested. "Then the copy lives my life while I'm off in the Physical slaving away doing push ups."
Cathryne2 snorted in disgust. "This isn't even a rational discussion. Kyle, you were one of the first to start copying yourself when things got too busy or the Community made demands on your time that interfered with your own projects. Now you're telling us you're afraid to copy yourself and leave yourself unsupervised for any length of time?"
Kyle nodded. "I've always been very disciplined, very careful in my use of copies. We never bifurcate for long periods of time and we always merge back into one entity and share our experiences at the end of the day."
"So what is the problem?" Cathryne2 asked.
"Remember when I had to track down those clowns I left in charge of our Kansas City production facility?"
"I remember," Prime said. "You were positively livid with the Gamer's League. You must have told anyone who would listen about your radiation sickness a dozen times."
Kyle nodded. "It galls me to this day. Why would we flee the frailties of our physical brains, or our flesh, to live a virtually immortal existence here as software, then deliberately take the most unpleasant possibilities of the Physical and expose ourselves to them? The whole idea makes me nauseous."
"And this relates to your neglect of your body and your phobia of self-replication how?" Doctor Forest asked.
"My copy lived in that ridiculous space opera for over two months," Kyle replied. "I, or rather he, suffered physical discomfort, sometimes even severe pain, on numerous occasions, not to mention adversity in more forms than I can even recall at the moment. At the end he suffered horribly, dying of radiation sickness and only trans-loading during the last stages of the illness after he finally managed to catch up with that idiot Terry and talk him into doing what he'd agreed to do in the first place!"
"I don't blame you for being angry with your friends, or disliking the Gamer's League, but you still haven't answered the question. What does any of that have to do with your reluctance to copy and your self neglect?"
"I ... he, rather ... had changed. When we remerged we were nothing alike. Twenty one years of common experience in the Physical, almost four decades here in the Community on top of that, and in a scant sixty Circadians we had diverged so much that we were, in many respects, two different people. I ... he, damn it! He had a lot of second thoughts about merging back together. What if he'd chosen not to? Which of us would have been entitled to my body? Him? Hardly. But would he have seen it that way?"
"The security protocols to the off-load subroutines were updated after Prime's experience and some rather glaring bugs fixed," Cathryne2 told him. "The off-load procedure would have only been available to the original. You, in other words. The only way a copy could have 'taken over' your body is if you'd given it explicit permission to do so, not to mention the encryption keys to the access routines."
"I know that," Kyle said. "I also know it is irrational to fear myself. What difference does it make whether I or a copy off-load into the Physical, or stay here and keep up with the Community while I off-load and do maintenance on my body? It shouldn't matter to me, but it does. In a funny way I can understand exactly where Doctor Nolen is coming from, even if I do curse his actions and despise his behavior."
"So instead of dealing with your fear rationally you let it control you," Doctor Forest said. "And in so doing you neglected to care for your Physical body and it may have died as a result."
Kyle dropped his head into his hands. "I thought I could handle it. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I'd do it every other day instead of every day. But nine hours every other day? Four to trans-load, an hour to work out, piss, shit, eat, and all that, then another four to trans-load back?"
"Fifteen hundred Circadians, give or take," Cathryne2 nodded. "A heavy price in time to pay."
"Too heavy," Prime said, nodding. "Kyle, did it ever occur to you to edit out your irrational fears, to modify your possessiveness of your body such that it wouldn't bother you if another used it? Then any copy you made of yourself would have accepted the notion with the same equanimity and you not only wouldn't have feared, you would have had nothing to fear."
Kyle sighed, shaking his head. "I've been so busy ... no, it didn't occur to me. I've been a complete idiot."
"We are sapient pieces of software," Doctor Forest said. "In the strictest sense we are not human when we're on-loaded like this, yet all of our instincts and reactions are those of physical beings. Unless we consciously choose otherwise, we take all of our physical neurosis into this place. Don't be too hard on yourself for being human, Kyle. Just be sure you learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them."
"I've got something," Cathryne2 said.
"What is it?" Doctor Forest asked.
"The police were dispatched to Kyle's place about twenty minutes ago to serve a warrant for his arrest. It seems our foolish friend has been running a FreeNet node from his home."
"That isn't true!" Kyle protested. The others were silent, looking at him.
"Come on you guys, do you really think I would be stupid enough to run an illegal service on the Internet from my own home when I've got an Autonomous Node wired to my skull?"
Cathryne2 shrugged. "I'm just passing along the dispatch I'm reading. Oh, this is interesting."
"What?" Kyle asked.
"According to the dispatch you were turned in by an anonymous informant day before yesterday. They were going to pick you up this morning, but then delayed the arrest so that Special Agent Sinclair of the FBI could accompany the arrest team."
"FreeNet nodes and intellectual property crimes are their forte," Prime said.
"Yeah, but the FBI usually doesn't get involved in this sort of petty thing until after the initial arrests," Cathryne2 said, "Unless the subject is somehow related to an ongoing investigation ... oh, damn!"
"If they busted into my place and found the Node ..." Kyle said.
"They would have bagged and tagged it as evidence," Prime agreed, "Leaving your body disconnected from the net and inaccessible from this side of the neural interface. I'd say you were very lucky to not be running on that Node at the time."
Cathryne2 cursed again.
"What's the matter, Cathryne?"
"My duplicate, or rather my original if you want to be technical about it, isn't answering the phone. She's already left the house, on her way to your place." She glared at Kyle.
"Don't worry," Doctor Forest said, "She'll see the police, abort her task and return home."
"What worries me," Prime said, "is the anonymous informant who told the cops about Kyle's FreeNet Node."
"For the last time," Kyle said, "I'm not, and never have been, running a FreeNet node."
"The arrest warrant indicates a network probe was conducted, which did identify a FreeNet server running from within your apartment," Cathryne2 informed him. "The arrest warrant was issued as a result of that probe."
Kyle was stunned.  "I swear to you, I wasn't running FreeNet. Do you really think I'd expose the Community to detection by doing something that foolish?"
"No," Cathryne said after a moment, "It doesn't fit. Not with you, not with the situation. Prime is right, it all comes back to this anonymous informant."
"Any enemies from the old Dorm?" Prime asked. "Anyone who might want to get back at you for something by getting you into trouble with the authorities."
Kyle shook his head. "Oh, I've had my share of disagreements with people," he said. "but I don't know anyone in the Physical who would want to have me put in jail."
"Whoever it was would have had to have enough technical knowledge to setup a FreeNet node and make the police think it was running in your apartment," Doctor Forest added. "The former isn't hard to come by, but rerouting network protocols and making the police think they've pinged a piece of hardware in one geographical location when in fact they haven't would be very difficult."
"Next to impossible," Cathryne said. "Almost all the changes incorporated into IPv12 involve back doors and trace mechanisms for law enforcement, not the least of which is geographical pinging through optical phase variances and coded routing. There's a team in the Community working on stealthing our inter-Node communications. They've been trying to do exactly what you've described and haven't been able to, despite tens of kiloCircadians of effort. If they haven't been able to figure a way around it after three or four decades of subjective time, there is no way anyone in the Physical will have come up with a way to do so."
"That leaves the obvious," Kyle said, "Someone broke into my apartment, planted the evidence on me, and called the police."
"The same someone," Prime said, "who may have intercepted your third generation Node and used it to their own purposes."
"But who on earth would do such a thing?" Cathryne asked. "No one outside of the Community would even know what a Node is, much less what it is, and no one within the Community would risk exposure by involving the police, no matter how much they dislike Kyle."
Kyle shook his head, a sick feeling nearly overwhelming him.
"There is one person," he said.
"Indeed," Prime agreed.
Doctor Forest and Cathryne looked at them, blankly.
"Care to enlighten us?"
"Who hasn't been given a second, much less a third, generation Node?" Kyle asked. "Who have we all been shunning these last kiloDiei? Who has every reason to hate us, and might just be mad enough to risk his own exposure to get at the rest of us? Finally, who got me out of student housing and into a private apartment when this entire project began?"
Cathryne sighed.
"Of course. Nolen."

27 - The Closing Fist

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
-- John Morley, C.E. 1874

Sunday, October 7, 2057 - 1:00 PM
(Metadate: 2.463-0:23:000 kD new epoch)
Champaign, Illinois

"Gentlemen and Ladies," Robert was saying, "We will be moving out in exactly one half hour. There will be forty teams of five commandos each, all engaging their targets at precisely the same time, in coordination with one another. This means that timing and procedure are of paramount importance. No one, I say again, no one is to go in until the signal is given from this command center. Is that understood?"
"Yes sir!" two hundred Double Eye commandos shouted in reply. The room was packed with men and weapons, each black clothed paramilitary holding their thaser pistol across their chest as they studied the large display to which Robert was pointing intently.
"Each of your teams has been assigned a staging area. Each commander will assemble his or her team at their assigned staging area no later than thirteen forty five. Two units will take on recon and perimeter duties at this time, discretely (and I mean discretely) monitoring the target residence. The commanding officer of each team will report directly to me, here, and will await my specific order before deploying his or her team. When the order for Phase One is given, each team will secure their target premises as follows: recon units will take on perimeter sentry duties. This will include keeping bystanders out of the theater of operation but, most importantly, also entail preventing any target detainees from escaping through windows, side entrances, back stairwells, and the like. While the recon units are securing the target area two forward units will move into place while the commanding officer will prepare to cut communications and power. When in position you will report your readiness to your commanding officer, who will relay that information to me here. When all teams are in position and have reported their readiness the order to deploy Phase Two will be given. Then, and only then, will you engage the target. Power and communications will be cut first. Five seconds after that the two forward units will engage the target, subduing and arresting anyone present at the target address. 
"I reiterate once more; you are to take these people alive. They are needed for questioning. 
"I say it once again, you will wait for my orders before deploying either Phase One or Phase Two. Anyone jumping the gun will very likely scuttle the entire mission and will answer directly to me. Trust me, a tour of duty in Thailand would be a picnic compared to suffering my wrath.
"Are there any questions?"
"Sir!" One commando raised a hand.
"Lieutenant."
"Sir, Lieutenant Charles McGregor, Sir! Sir, if the target persons put up a concerted resistance or engage us with lethal weaponry, how are we to respond?  I mean, this country still allows some of its citizens to buy and keep firearms, sir."
"Lieutenant, you and every one of your colleagues are wearing full body armor. Unless someone has Teflon bullets you'll be fine. Do not, I say again, do not respond with deadly force. Use whatever non-deadly force is required, but do not kill the targets. If resistance is concerted and life threatening, you are to fall back and secure the perimeter of the residence while calling for reinforcements. Keep in mind their communications will be cut before you even go in, so if we have to we can afford to wait them out. Any other questions?"
No one spoke.
"Very good, soldiers. Move out!"
Katy shuddered as the soldiers filed quickly out of the room. Her stomach was a knot of acidic worry and dread. Nothing good could come of using Double-Eye paramilitaries to make these arrests. Even police S.W.A.T. teams would be preferable to this. And if word of this were ever to reach the media ... she shuddered once again, shaking her head.
"What has you so worried?" Robert asked.
Katy sighed. "I disagree with using paramilitary troupes for this action. This would have been something better handled by the police or the FBI's assault teams. These solders have no training in detaining and arresting civilians. They're trained for war, not law enforcement!"
"We've been over this a dozen times, Katy. We know these people are in communication with one another -- the young man you so expertly questioned in Kansas City kept referring to them as a community, after all. Their communications must be severed at the same moment or some, perhaps all, might escape. I thought your superiors had made that clear to you?"
"Oh, they made it clear enough all right," Katy spat, "I'm to go along with whatever measures Double-Eye deems necessary to find and arrest these people, any misgivings I might have aside. But that does not mean I do not have these misgivings, or that I am not going to let my partner in this know exactly what they are."
"Consider me notified," Robert said, his voice impatient. "Now, shall we see how our troups are faring?"
An entire wall lit up with multiple video feeds, four rows of ten, one from each team.
"Team thirty seven assembled, recon shows all quiet."
"Team sixteen assembled, recon shows two people entering the residence.
"Team five assembled."
"Team twenty nine assembled, recon shows no activity."
They waited silently, not speaking to one another, as each team reported its arrival at their respective staging area.
"All teams have reported assembly at their staging areas. Phase one is a go. I say again, phase one is a go. Report readiness for phase two."
Again they waited as each team, one after the other, reported its readiness.
"Team seventeen, everyone else is in position. What's the hang up?"
"Stand by, sir." There was an uncomfortable silence, which stretched for several seconds. "Team seventeen ready."
Katy let out a silent sigh of relief as Robert spoke into his microphone.  "It's a go!  Execute phase two.  I repeat, phase two is a go!"
Katy watched forty images, beamed live from forty micro-cameras mounted in the helmets of forty commandos, as they stormed forty different residences throughout the Champaign-Urbana area. Doors were broken down and shattered. Some living rooms became scenes of hysteria as families and individuals briefly panicked and were subdued. A lieutenant mercilessly pistol whipped one child who clung to his father's leg, interfering with his arrest. Another stunned three college students with his thaser as they sat watching television.
It wasn't carnage, exactly, but something inside her wailed with the horror of what she was seeing. Here were people who believed they were free, who believed they had rights, handed down to them by generations of forefathers and protected by a constitution the government was supposed to hold sacred. Katy was the first to admit that justice was sometimes rough, but nothing she had ever seen or done had prepared her for the ruthless efficiency she observed now.
Within five minutes all of the targets had been neutralized. Two hundred and ninety seven individuals had been detained. Fifteen targets had yielded crystalline cubes matching the description Katy and Robert had given them. Of those fifteen cubes recovered, thirteen were connected to comatose individuals.
"This morning we had four suspects," Robert dryly noted as the commandos were loading their prisoners into nondescript white vans and began ferrying them to the command center. "One was dead, one was in a coma, and two others were remarkably resistant to our best interrogation techniques. Now we have fifteen more, including two who are awake and conscious. Both of the two who are awake have families, who are now also in our custody."
"What exactly are you saying?" Katy asked sharply.
"That our days of waiting are over. We now have the means, and leverage, to get to the bottom of this once and for all. I intend to do just that."

28 - Fear and Confusion

Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
-- James Russell Lowell, C.E. 1843

Metadate 2.463-7:94:100 kD new epoch
(Sunday, October 7, 2057 - 1:37 PM)
Public Scape 3 (Version 1.2)

When the Strategy Group met they had not anticipated such a large crowd descending upon them. No one had thought to restrict access to the scape or hold the meeting in a less well known place. The scape had begun as a small conference room, but shortly after the members of the Strategy Group themselves had arrived other interested persons began to arrive. The room, and the conference table in its center, had grown to accommodate the tens, then hundreds, and finally thousands who had chosen to turn up at the last minute. As the conference table had grown to absurd proportions the scape's nonsapient software had mercifully reconfigured the room into a large hall, containing numerous smaller, more manageable sized tables around which people could sit. The scape continued to redefine its physical parameters, the hall growing ever more vast as people continued to arrive.
Chaos reigned.
An afternoon sun cast slanted beams of light across the room, a not so subtle visual cue that time, in a very absolute sense, was growing late. With so many people interacting in one virtual scape the computational requirements and network throughput demanded were tremendous, and the speedup of the entire scape, and those interacting with it, correspondingly slowed down. They had lost the better part of an entire Dies in just the last ten milliCircadians, an appalling slowdown for those used to a Dies containing well over a hundred Circadians each. A hundred plus subjective days, reduced to just a few subjective minutes. At this rate they would get more done in less time back in the Physical.
No one seemed aware of the phenomenon though, or if they were, they appeared to have larger, more immediate concerns on their minds. Fifteen souls lost, their Nodes taken abruptly offline in coordinated raids, their physical bodies and Autonomous hardware taken into custody. None had been as fortunate as Kyle, to be safely trans-loaded onto a Node elsewhere when the authorities came calling. All were now lost to the Community. Gone. Not even an official arrest warrant to record their passing, much less provide some clue as to where they and their Nodes were being taken. The implications were horrifying.
Some individuals and groups were arguing with one another, sometimes even shouting. Others huddled amongst themselves, saying nothing, offering nothing, merely observing the chaos around them silently. A cacophony of voices filled the vast space, a drone filled with an unsettling undercurrent.
Panic, held barely in check.
Cathryne shook her head, then waived her hand, casting the hall into a sudden, deafening silence as the scape's software modified the scape's parameters in response to her silent command. "I have modified the acoustical properties of this scape," she told the stunned crowd. "At present only members of the Strategy Group can be heard, or those they invite to speak. We have a lot we need to get done this Circadian, and time is wasting. Madame Chairwoman?"
Doctor Edith Coolridge nodded her thanks. "There are far too many of us here to get anything useful done without some format to the proceedings. According to the current census there are almost thirty nine thousand members of the Community, and it wouldn't surprise me to discover that each and every soul in the Community has chosen to join us in this scape. This has resulted in an appalling slowdown of the scape; our speedup is currently slower than it would be if we were holding this meeting in the Physical. So, we have two things working against this meeting: the chaos and confusion which a crowd this size always brings to any issue, no matter how enlightened and intelligent the participants, and the extreme slowdown so many interactive presences in one scape create.
"To solve this we will be kicking almost everyone out of the scape. Apologies in advance to anyone who feels slighted, or feels we are behaving in a heavy handed manner, but we must reverse the time differential or we won't be able to get anything done before the authorities are breaking down all our doors. 
"Although interactive participation will not be possible for most of you, we will multicast the entire proceedings so that everyone can monitor what is being discussed and going on, in real time, 'live' so to speak. So, with that warning I am asking Cathryne to provide each of you with the multicast tag and deny you interactive access to this scape now."
She glanced at Cathryne, who nodded. The hall abruptly shrunk into a small room centered on the one remaining conference table around which the group was seated.
"We are now operating with a speedup of nine hundred and forty one," Cathryne informed them.
"Much better, thank you," Doctor Cooldridge replied. "Now, in order to keep performance at this level we will be multiplexing interactive use of this scape. For this reason, the meeting will take on the following format: the first part of the meeting will consist of invitation only discussions between the Strategy Group and various other Interest Groups and projects which relate directly to our immediate and long term survival, with each group invited in turn, one after another. Serializing access will keep the number of interactive presences limited and the speedup performance correspondingly high.
"General questions from the peanut gallery as a whole should be directed to the relevant interest group, who will maintain operations within their own scapes, or clone themselves if they wish, in order to field concerns, questions, suggestions, and ideas from the Community at large. Each interest group may in turn may pass along to us whatever questions, comments, and suggestions they deem necessary. 
Everyone is, of course, free to do whatever they like outside of this scape -- unlike the thugs jailing and killing us in the Physical we cannot and would not exercise any authority over you. However, I believe the most productive and useful thing each of you who haven't been directly involved in these strategy sessions can do is to listen to what is said and done here, ponder it carefully, and then form your own brainstorming and discussion groups to consider any ideas you may feel we have overlooked.
"The second portion of this meeting will be the inverse of the first: interest groups who feel they have something important to contribute to the overall strategies of the Community will be able to invite themselves into the scape in an orderly fashion, one after the other in a serialized sequence so as to avoid loading down the scape, and present whatever questions or suggestions they have.
"Finally, once the interest groups have completed their work, any individuals who feel they have something additional to contribute will be free to reenter the scape and do so. I don't need to tell you that time is of the essence here, so the more efficiently we can work through this the better."
Doctor Coolridge sighed. "OK folks, who's first on the agenda."
"Immediate and Long Term Survival Projects," Doctor Forest replied. "The Alaskan Enclave Project."
The room and its table immediately grow larger as several more people appeared.
"Welcome to this rather unusual meeting of the Strategy Group," Doctor Coolridge said. "Can you please give us a quick synopsis of where you are at?"
One of the members of the group rose. "With your permission, Cathryne?"
Cathryne nodded, "The portion of the scape behind you is accessible. Here's the modification address."
"Thank you." The wall behind them abruptly vanished, replaced with an areal view of a pristine, snow covered wilderness bathed in the red of a setting sun.
"Our mandate was to construct a facility which would allow all of the colleagues of the Community to house their Nodes and their physical bodies in safety and discretion in an out of the way location where the government wouldn't notice. For various logistical reasons, including the avoidance of international customs for those of us living in the States, among other things, we originally chose this site in the central Alaskan wilderness.
"The scope of the project has grown with the growing internationalization of the Community. Plans are on the drawing boards for similar enclaves in the outback of Australia, in relatively inaccessible locations in Tibet, Nepal, Cambodia, and northern Siberia, and numerous other equally remote places."
He paused and held out his hand. Above it formed a glittering geodesic lattice from within which a brilliant emerald light shone.
"This is a knowledge engram of the current state of the project. I am multicasting the access tag to the rest of the Community."
Behind him the areal view rushed forward, into one of a number of similar mountain valleys, then toward the base of a rocky slope.
"The design of the Alaskan Retreat can accommodate thirty thousand people along with their Nodes, however supplies of nano-constructor and catalytic solution have been very limited."
"How many people can you take?" Doctor Coolridge asked.
"There are currently facilities and supplies for two hundred and sixty people in the Physical. Until a few days ago almost all of our resources were going into the construction of the geothermal reactor, a prerequisite before any significant number of people could be housed here. Now that the reactor is online we have been able to devote all of our efforts toward building the facility to house the people themselves. If we had more nano we could speed up construction by a factor of two or three, but even if we do we'll only be bringing around one hundred and eighty units a day online."
"Damn," Doctor Forest muttered. "That won't be fast enough."
"That isn't the limiting factor, however."
"What?" Doctor Coolridge was surprised. "Then what is?"
"Logistics and supplies. Every good colonist's and general's worst nightmare. Food to feed the physical bodies, medicines to treat physical problems when they arise, waste disposal, and so on. With the lake and glaciers nearby water isn't a problem, luckily, and once the protein factory is up and running food won't be an issue either. But just about everything else will be, at least for the short term"
"The design specifications allow for this," Doctor Forest insisted. "Geothermal power to provide basic power needs and drive the production of catalytic solution, facilities for the synthesis of nano-constructors, and nano-based factories for the construction of everything else from basic foodstuffs and medicines to fiber cabling and Autonomous Nodes. Every physical need addressed, with production facilities reconfigurable on the fly as needed. An elegant design, and quite thorough."
"Yes. In three or four months, assuming we don't hit any construction snags and that we are well supplied with nano and catalytic solution, we can build a completely self sufficient facility. The problem is that we don't have three or four months. People want to move in today, before any Double Eye goons decide to break down their door and arrest them, or worse. Not that I blame them, but we just aren't ready. Nor can we be ready any time soon for anything more than a token physical presence." 
"There is another option," another of the group's members said, "But I doubt it will be very popular."
"Leave our bodies behind and trans-load directly," Doctor Forest said. "You're right, that's not a very appealing notion."
"Better than death, coma, or isolation in a disconnected Node, living life at a four thousand speedup with no outside contact and no off-load option whatsoever," Doctor Coolridge replied dryly.
"Indeed," the spokesperson for the Alaskan project agreed. "To be fair, it was the Astronautics Group that came up with the idea of trans-loading without our bodies in the first place, as a way of making some of their projects a little more viable. When it became clear we would not be able to meet the timetable outside events were imposing on us we have begun to consider the possibility as well.
"If we abandon our bodies and trans-load directly to preexisting Autonomous Nodes within the facility we would only need to house the Nodes themselves. We would reduce the required space within the facility immensely, reduce power demands, and most importantly, eliminate the logistical bottlenecks entailed in providing consumable goods to our biological bodies, not to mention the construction time needed to build so many specialized nano-factories. The Alaskan Retreat could host as many Nodes as the Community could possibly need, millions if necessary."
"Some people may go for that," Doctor Coolridge said, "But you're right, I doubt it will ever be a popular alternative."
"It is, however, a viable one should push come to shove," Doctor Forest said, nodding. "Kyle Tate has already proven that."
"We suggest a compromise," the group's spokesman continued. "Continued construction of full physical suites for those wishing to retreat with their physical bodies, while constructing in parallel facilities for those willing to trans-load directly. If Kyle's team can provide us with enough nano we can replicate enough Nodes to house the entire Community and have them available and online within three weeks. By then we'll also have enough facilities for twelve hundred physical beings. Supplies will still be difficult, we should be able to provide basic heating and nutritional needs. People may have to forgo the level of medical they're used to early on, and do without some other supplies until the factories are operational, but in an emergency we could probably survive."
"Twelve hundred out of thirty nine thousand," Doctor Forest shook his head.
"Worse than that. According to current demographic projections the Community could reach as many as two hundred thousand Nodes by then. Physical persistence might become a highly sought after luxury."
Doctor Coolridge shook her head. "If it comes down to that, we'll have to come up with some kind of random lottery."
"My team has dibs on the first forty seven slots," the spokesperson said, "The rest we leave to the Community at large, to do with as is seen fit."
Doctor Forest nodded. "Thank you. And thank you for your time."
The spokesman nodded as he and his colleagues winked out of existence.
"Next we have the Undersea Contingency Project."
The Undersea Contingency Project was basically the same concept as the Alaskan Retreat, except the facilities would be built deep beneath the ocean, powered by water currents, tides, or geothermal vents. The project was only in the early conceptual phase; their spokesperson made some brief comments about the overall idea, alluded to a couple of arguments as to why they felt their approach more sustainable and less prone to discovery than the Alaskan option, then provided the group with a knowledge engram detailing their work thus far and departed.
Another dozen contingency projects presented their work to date and provided knowledge engrams detailing their particular strategy for preserving the Autonomous Community in the face of discovery and almost certain implacable hostility from the rest of the world and its authorities. Cathryne was intrigued by the Bio-Insertion Group's efforts at designing an Autonomous Node which could be inserted into the body itself and powered by the body's own metabolism. Someone dubbed it the "Body Snatcher's Scenario" and managed to elicit a few strained laughs. On the other hand, Doctor Forest found the Piggy-Back Contingency amusing, the idea being to incorporate Nodes into everyday electrical appliances, ranging from cars to airline navigational systems to smart toasters, creating in effect a "stealth" network of hardware and software which would allow a fully disembodied Autonomous Community to exist as unnoticed components in the machinery of the physical world's everyday life. It was an appealing notion, but not a very practical one.
The Astronautics Group expressed cautious optimism for the first time, having revised their contingencies to exclude the presence of the biological component (as they put it). Several launch sceneries which had been rejected before were now viable, with the weight of the Community's physical bodies eliminated. Entire clusters of Nodes, nano-constructors, and catalytic solution could be fired off into space containing the frozen consciousness of the entire community, where they could rendezvous with derelict satellites, the abandoned space station, or even asteroids in near earth space. The nano could be programmed to reconstruct enough Nodes from the raw materials of whatever object the capsule rendezvoused with to resurrect the Community.  Assuming enough material was present to construct the requisite number of Nodes, not to mention the solar arrays needed to collect energy from the sun and power the reborn Community.
Also assuming that the craft was able to survive its ascent through the atmosphere, avoid the ground to surface missiles that would be fired at it, and outmaneuver the even more formidable gauntlet of not one, but three independent anti-missile space defense systems, one controlled by the United States, another by China, and the third by the Euro-Russian Alliance. The Community could expect any or all of them to be turned against the escaping craft if the World Trade Organization were to demand it.
That was already a frightening number of assumptions to be making, particularly when their very survival was likely at stake, and there were almost certainly more assumptions to come.
Without the anti-ballistic missile defenses, the group estimated a one in fifty chance of a capsule surviving long enough to enter high earth orbit. Rendezvousing with a satellite or other object successfully would be another challenge. By the time one calculated the likelihood of successfully resurrecting the Community the chances were even more dismal, a whopping one in five hundred.
If the space defense systems were used against them then the odds would become even worse. One in ten thousand to escape orbit (nothing else would do, even high earth orbits were vulnerable to the American and Chinese systems, and while the European system couldn't shoot down objects in any of the higher orbits it was much more accurate, and more lethal, at lower altitudes). Add to that an even lower likelihood of successfully rendezvousing with any object, much less finding one with enough material for the Community to survive, and the odds of survival became truly horrendous.
"We can do it," their spokesperson had concluded, offering their knowledge engram as a simple, spherical icon to the group. "If the Community chooses to discorporate, exile into space does become a viable option. But we cannot emphasize enough how dismal the odds are if we run into resistance. This option should be considered only as last resort, to be tried only if every other possibility has been exhausted."
Doctor Coolridge nodded her thanks as group dissolved and the scape reformed itself.
"The Logistics Studies Group would like to present a point which has been passed up from the peanut gallery," Kyle said.  "They point out that we can improve our survival odds dramatically by simply overwhelming the satellite missile systems with sheer numbers.  We build enough ships and they won't be able to stop us."
Doctor Coolridge nodded once more.  "Excellent point, one which the Astronautics Group no doubt will address in detail.  If that is all, this concludes the presentations of the invited Interest Groups. We now open the floor to any Interest Groups or Projects who have not yet had an opportunity to speak and feel they have something to contribute."
A moment passed, then the scape grew once more to accommodate several new people. "The Communications Infrastructure Group," Cathryne announced.
Doctor Coolridge nodded. "Welcome."
The spokesman for the group nodded as an icon representing a knowledge engram formed above him. Several in the Strategy Group absorbed the engram as he began to speak.
"Thank you, madam chairwoman. What we offer isn't so much a solution to the Survival Problem, so much as it is a facilitator to those groups working on the problem. The horrendous slowdown experienced when this scape was so crowded earlier was, as we all know, not a result of computational limits of the Nodes themselves, but of communications bandwidth between the nodes. Information moves across the Internet at speeds which, while more than adequate for traditional communications needs, impose tremendous limits on the speed with which a shared, interactive environment can be maintained and synchronized between two or more disparate Nodes.
"We have designed a quantum signaling protocol which can increase the communications speed between Nodes ten thousand fold. The protocol requires a superconductive medium for maximum performance, and has been tested very successfully on a local scale. This performance boost could allow a crowd like the one earlier today to fully interact in a shared scape and still maintain a speedup of several hundred. What is more, we believe that future refinements will allow an even higher level of performance.
"We propose growing a worldwide network of superconductive cabling and quantum switches linking every Node in the Community. The quantity of nano-constructors and catalytic solution is admittedly significant, but we believe the benefits of improved performance and added security versus using a publicly visible and almost certainly monitored Internet to be worth the cost in time and material."
"The current protocols we use are encrypted using one time pads which are exchanged via a quantum signature," Doctor Forest said. "Our traffic may be visible on the Internet as noise, or even bandwidth load, but it is not subject to being cracked, by the authorities or anyone else."
"True, but a detailed traffic analysis could, theoretically, compromise the physical location of some of our Nodes."
"Perhaps, although the Stealth Project would almost certainly beg to differ," Doctor Forest replied. "How much catalytic solution and nano-constructor are we talking about for this little project?"
The spokesman for the group coughed, looking a little uncomfortable.
"Our simulations estimate a requirement of two hundred thousand metric tons of solution and seventeen tons of nano-constructor."
"Good Lord," Doctor Coolridge whispered.
"And how much time are we looking at," Cathryne asked.
"Well, the main trunks linking the major continents and population centers could be constructed within a week. Branches linking each node to the main conduits would vary depending on distance and geography, but we should be able to have everyone wired within two months."
The silent looks each of the Strategy Group's members exchanged with one another spoke volumes.
"Thank you," Doctor Coolridge said.
"That is all?" the spokesman sputtered with outrage. "You aren't even going to discuss the proposal?"
"Two hundred thousand tons of catalytic solution?" Cathryne replied. "Seventeen tons of nano-constructor? We would have to scale back or scuttle nearly every other project in order to accommodate your requirements. Projects which will almost certainly be critical to the survival of the Community over the next few weeks."
"But --"
"Try to understand," Doctor Forest said. "Your proposal has merit, and I wouldn't be surprised if several projects don't invite you to collaborate with them. The protocols alone will revolutionize several project designs, perhaps even make some options viable that otherwise would not be. It is a tremendous improvement over our existing networking capabilities."
"We can reduce the probability of detection!"
"True. But the authorities have other ways of finding us, as we just discovered today. We can only manufacture so much catalytic solution and replicate so many nano-constructors in a day, and the other survival projects simply must take precedence. I'm sorry, but we just don't have the time your proposal requires."
The spokesman nodded, then paused. "Oh great. The Astronautics Group has just requested collaboration on their so-called escape pod designs. I suppose you've granted their material requests."
Doctor Coolridge responded impatiently. "As it happens, yes. Their demands for catalytic solution have been modest, and they've been replicating their own nano from the beginning."
"They may also end up being our last hope," Doctor Forest added. "A number of demographic trends suggest we will be forced to leave this world sooner or later. As such, their modest requirements are well worth the investment."
The spokesman shook his head. "Here I thought we'd get away from bureaucracy in the Community. This is no different than submitting a proposal for a federal research grant, and the results are just as arbitrary and dismaying!"
"Perhaps," Cathryne said. "As someone who has been a part of more than one under funded research project I can understand how you feel. However, don't forget that you have unfettered access to the Community's knowledge engram base and can synthesize your own catalytic solution and nano-constructors if you like. Unlike us, the fed doesn't give you the option of printing your own money when they turn you down."
Several people in the room started with surprise as Kyle appeared. "Your design is elegant and the implications very exciting," he told the disappointed group. "Communication latency is a very real issue, particularly as things now stand. If we had the time, I'd give you the nano and solution necessary to build your network myself. But the Strategy Group is right. We simply don't have time to do what you suggest. However, I know for a fact that the Alaskan Preserve Project and the Undersea Contingency Group will want to collaborate with you as well, not to mention several others. If you can refine and improve your design, so that lead times for installation can be reduced to days instead of weeks and nano requirements can be reduced, I certainly would be open to reconsidering your proposal.
"Finally, please do not dismiss the Astronautics Group. Doctor Forest is right. Long term, their approach is going to be the only viable alternative.  The only question is, can we find somewhere on earth to hide out and prepare first, or are we going to have to make a run for it through three anti-missile satellite systems and God knows what else?
The spokesman nodded, looking a little abashed as he and his colleagues vanished.
Kyle turned to the Strategy Group. "While you guys have been deliberating with the various Interest Groups I've been conducting discussions with various impromptu groups and individuals who feel they have contributions to make."
Doctor Forest nodded. "At this moment there are two hundred forty seven Interest Groups and six thousand, four hundred ninety two individuals waiting to air their concerns."
Kyle nodded. "There is one person I would like to bump to the front of the queue. He has identified a vulnerability the rest of us have overlooked." Another figure appeared beside Kyle. "May I present Achmed Rashad of Damascus, Syria. Achmed, the Strategy Group."
Achmed bowed slightly. "My brothers and sisters in the Community, I have spent nearly every waking second within the Virtual studying the plans and preparations being made for the coming attacks. Numerous plans are being laid for our escape and survival. But everyone has overlooked an immediate and fatal vulnerability each and every Node of the Community shares today.
"Our dependency on the public power grid for our energy. Of the thirty eight thousand, nine hundred and eighty five Nodes in the Community at this moment, only two hundred and seventeen have power sources which are completely independent of the grid. Of those, forty seven are in the Alaskan Retreat and probably shouldn't be counted. The rest of us have, at best, a few hours of battery capacity in our UPSes. This sustains us perfectly fine during power fluctuations, brownouts, and brief outages, but if power were ever interrupted for an extended period of time we would be forced to either off-load back into the Physical or enter an inert storage state until power is resumed."
"Good Lord," Doctor Forest said, "He's right. I can't believe we would be so stupid as to overlook something so obvious."
Achmed shrugged. "I spent my childhood in Damascus during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first thing the Israelis would do during any attack was to knock out the power, assuming we'd even bothered to restore it from the previous assault."
"The authorities wouldn't do something as extreme as that," Doctor Coolridge protested. "Power outages of the kind Achmed is describing would decimate an already fragile economy and raise holy hell in the streets."
Doctor Forest shook his head in disagreement. "They would if they felt threatened enough."
"Which they probably do," Cathryne said, "Judging by what went down a few decaCircadians ago."
"It is I believe our most pressing and potentially damaging vulnerability," Achmed added.
"I agree," Cathryne replied.
"Achmed has some unorthodox ideas on how to address this issue," Kyle added. "If Karl is agreeable, I'd like his team to work with Achmed in developing a self-contained power source, something we can retrofit our existing Nodes with or, at the very least, incorporate into the design of the next generation."
The Strategy Group glanced at each other. "Agreed," Doctor Coolridge said. "This issue has to be our number one priority. In the meantime, as many as can should trans-load into Nodes in the Alaskan Retreat, those willing to risk losing their bodies or leaving them behind if and when the proverbial feces strikes the fan. The Alaskan Preserve Project can devise some kind of lottery if there is a shortage of available Nodes."
Doctor Coolridge sighed, running a hand through her virtual hair, looking tired. "Ladies and gentlemen, we all have our hands full. Let's get to work."

29 - Code

/* efdtt.c   Author:  Charles M. Hannum <root@ihack.net */
/*                                                      */
/* Thanks to Phil Carmody <fatphil@asdf.org> for        */     /*   additional tweaks.                                 */
/*                                                      */
/* Length:  434 bytes (excluding unnecessary newlines)  */
/*                                                      */
/* Usage is:                                            */  
/* cat title-key scrambled.vob | efdtt >clear.vob       */

#define m(i)(x[i]^s[i+84])<<
unsigned char x[5],y,s[2048];main(n){for(read(0,x,5);read(0,s,n=2048);write(1,s
,n))if(s[y=s[13]%8+20]/16%4==1){int i=m(1)17^256+m(0)8,k=m(2)0,j=m(4)17^m(3)9^k
*2-k%8^8,a=0,c=26;for(s[y]-=16;--c;j*=2)a=a*2^i&1,i=i/2^j&1<<24;for(j=127;++j<n
;c=c>y)c+=y=i^i/8^i>>4^i>>12,i=i>>8^y<<17,a^=a>>14,y=a^a*8^a<<6,a=a>>8^y<<9,k=s
[j],k="7Wo~'G_\216"[k&7]+2^"cr3sfw6v;*k+>/n."[k>>4]*2^k*257/8,s[j]=k^(k&k*2&34)
*6^c+~y;}}

--Tiniest known C implementation of the DeCSS DVD decryption algorithm, written by Charles M. Hannum in C.E. 2001.  WARNING: using this program to watch a movie you have lawfully purchased is considered by some U.S. courts to be in violation of 17 USC 1201(a)(1) [The Digital Millennium Copyright Act]5

Metadate 2.530 kD new epoch
(Tuesday, October 9, 2057 - 7:10 PM)
Homescape of Cathryne L'Beau (Version 13.5)

Cathryne swam in a sea of numbers, a universe of digital data which she perceived as much by sense of space, touch and smell as she did by sight. She floated in a virtual office, reduced to its most abstract, minimalist representation, and surrounded herself with windows of information floating in the air around her, containing the output of programs she had written streaming past, sometimes as text, sometimes as graphs or images, more often as scent or sound. She scanned virtual monitor after virtual monitor, desperately seeking any information she might find on the fate of those arrested in the previous days.
"Still nothing!" she muttered, cursing under her breath as she delved through another block of abstract information. She had been at it for nearly a kiloDies, first cracking the security protecting the University Police Department's local network, then, when that had proven to be of no use, moving on to the State Police. Now she was at the Federal level, deep within the systems of the FBI themselves, fighting security protocols and trace programs in what, for her, nearly amounted to real time. This was serious, and while she was hardly modest about her own software skills, she realized grimly that she was operating at the limit of her abilities.
She had no illusions. If she faltered now, if her breach of the system were in any way detected and flagged, they would almost certainly trace the traffic back to her. The nodes through which she had hopped, the encryption she had used to disguise both herself and what she was doing, were necessarily limited by the protocols of the Internet themselves, protocols which the FBI had vetted and approved for general use over a generation earlier. She had already identified the back doors they had built into the protocols weeks earlier, but knowing they were there, even how they worked, would do little to protect her should the authorities become serious about identifying her activities. She had utilities running which would warn her should any of the protocol's traps be sprung, even identify who had sprung them. Not that it would matter much, as five minutes later jack boots would almost certainly be breaking down her door back in the Physical, unplugging her Node and hauling her comatose body off for examination and detention. She assumed. So far, she had found no information to even hint at the fate of those who had been detained.
She doubted her body would be up to any serious physical exercise, and flight by anything other than foot would be subject to almost certain trace. Escape in the context of the Physical would almost certainly be impossible. Unfortunately escape within the virtual would also be a long shot at best. It would take her nearly four hours to trans-load herself, or a copy, across the Internet to a Node in a more secure location, and with the demands the FBI security systems were making upon her, she simply didn't have the bandwidth to spare. She cursed herself for not having thought of this sooner, for not having saved a backup of herself somewhere. 
So she continued on, resigned to the fact that this was an all or nothing gamble, and that the time to stop, had she wished to do so, was long past. She would either find out what the Community so desperately wanted to know, or become another statistic in the growing number of missing detainees.
The scent of barbecue, accompanied by a golden flicker beneath and to her right. Authorized traffic, encrypted using DES-6 with a 56 kilobyte key. She copied the traffic to her local Node via several separate routes, then cloned herself and continued to hold off the system's security while her copy analyzed and decrypted the traffic in the calm of her home scape. Twenty milliCircadians later her copy forwarded the decrypted stream back to her.
It was the lucky break she had needed. A complete challenge and response sequence for a secure link. Even if the agent whose identity she was about to assume didn't have clearance to the information she was looking for, he had at least provided a graceful exit out of the situation. She encoded the proper triggers and responses, then waited as the system at the other end digested the data and, finally, granter her access:

FBI FIELD REPORT CENTER
Welcome Agent Kenneth Brenton
MENU
Submit Field Report
Review Field Reports
Request Information (SUBMENU) 

A quick perusal of the system revealed that Agent Brenton was a low level operative with virtually no significant clearance whatsoever. However, being logged in under a legitimate identity silenced most of the active security traces she had been contending with. She used this opportunity to instruct her copy to trans-load itself to a safe node in Alaska, then continued poking around the system in a more sedate manner. Now it was only her body, and arguably half of her mind, that were at risk, rather than her entire being.
She replayed the encrypted query and response, running the data through numerous filters she and others in the Community had written in the kiloCircadians since the first arrests and detainments. She could easily brute force the encryption itself using a simple and well known quantum algorithm. Indeed, that was how she was able to obtain Agent Brenton's low level access to the system. The problem was that the queries and responses changed from time to time. Agent Brenton might be carrying around a datapad with responses and counter-challenges preencoded for whatever missions he was assigned, or, more likely, he carried a key-card encoded in time sync with the FBI data server. The correct response might change from minute to minute or even, if the information was sensitive enough, from second to second. Even with her current speedup, where a second in the Physical was a little more than a subjective hour, time was working against her.
For that reason she was attempting to crack the challenge-response code itself, hoping that the relationship was something less than random, something which might reveal itself with sufficient analysis. It wasn't as unlikely as it sounded. Even the most random appearing psuedo-random number generators would, in a deterministic system such as the one she was trying to break into, have an underlying order associated with it. Truly random numbers were notoriously difficult to come by, requiring extraordinary effort and equipment. Cathryne rather doubted the FBI had an atomic number source tied into their system, much less the sensitive equipment required to monitor and interpret the random atomic decay as numerical data. Hell, if they were going to go to that kind of expense they could invest in a particle generator and transmit their data using quantum-coupled one-time pads, the way the Autonomous Community and International Intelligence did.
Nevertheless, though she knew with near certainty there was an order to the random words and counter-words which confronted her, finding the underlying pattern was proving very elusive. Psuedo-random did not, for one minute, mean trivial to discern. First she would need to infer the algorithm used to create the pseudo-random results based upon the statistical spread of the data she had obtained. Then she would need to determine how that was mapped to the challenge-response pairs, a mapping which could be as simple as indexes to a phone book or dictionary but was much more likely to be complex and elusive. This project would take a great deal of time and patience ... probably decades or even centuries of subjective work before an answer was even approximated, much less found.
As an afterthought she glanced over Agent Brenton's current assignment and froze.
"Why in the hell would they go after him?" she muttered. "Node, patch me through to Prime."
A moment passed, then another, while Cathryne grimly went about exploring the system, tracking down as much information as Agent Brenton's limited clearance would allow, then passively collecting as much information as she could about the system's underlying software protocols.
"Any reason you're only allowing audio communications, Cathryne?" Prime's disembodied voice surrounded her and brought a grin to her face.
"I'm in the bowels of the FBI's data communications network and can't be distracted. Listen, they're planning on arresting Viktor Strizak before he gives his speech at MIT. Tonight, in just a little over an hour."
"Strizak?" Prime's voice was incredulous. "What on earth do they want with him?"
"Come on, Prime. He's a widely known critic of WIPO and the world's Intellectual Property Laws. He isn't exactly a favorite of corporate America, or their government lackeys."
"True, but he hasn't committed any crime. The guy is known just as widely for condemning copyright violation as he is condemning copyright itself. I doubt he has a single violation anywhere in his record."
"He doesn't," Cathryne confirmed, "I checked. They're planning on detaining him for inciting others to criminal activity. Namely us."
"That is absurd. The guy has no knowledge of our existence whatsoever. How could they possibly make the charges stick."
"I don't know," Cathryne replied. "But then, how is it they can detain a couple hundred people for more than two days, most of them locked into anesthetic coma, without a single arraignment in court? The FBI appears to be playing it very fast and loose with due process."
"It has been painfully obvious to anyone who has been watching that the constitution hasn't been taken seriously by the authorities since the early nineteen eighties," Prime agreed. "It shouldn't come as any surprise that the same authorities are choosing to ignore it now. What do you suggest --"
"Hold on a minute, Prime." Cathryne suddenly found herself very busy as the link she was piggybacking on began to shut down. Traces were initiated and had to be redirected, warning messages were displayed. Most appeared to be routine confirmations, verifying that the link had not been compromised. Of course, Cathryne's presence in the system meant that it had, and now she had to cover her tracks as best she could. After several milliDiei she realized grimly that she wasn't going to be able to redirect every trace packet. Her only real hope was to make sure there was nothing to set off any red flags, to make someone want to analyze the traces more closely. After several more milliDiei she was reasonably certain she had managed to extricate herself from the system without tripping any alarms.
She checked her dumps of the session and was delighted with the amount of information she had managed to collect. The protocol sessions in particular would be invaluable in making future forays into the system. In time, she would probably be able to bypass the system's security regime at will. The intelligence this would garner for the Community would likely prove invaluable.
"Sorry about that," Cathryne said, "I was a little busy there for the moment."
"Any problems?"
"I'm not sure. I don't think so. Listen, we need to get to Strizak before they pick him up."
"I agree. When exactly are they planning on moving on him."
"His speech is supposed to be at nine o'clock local time. Their intention is to arrest him as he leaves his home, probably around eight thirty or so. Here's the tag for the relevant data."
"Hmm," Prime muttered a moment later. "According to the data you just gave me, we have seventy four minutes. At most. That's about four hundred Circadians if we use our network bandwidth wisely and don't run any group scapes. If you're done playing with the feds for now, why don't we get together and see if we can't come up with something."
"No group scapes, remember?"
"We'll teleconference," Prime said. "Audio and video only, no full sensory exchange or remote presence. Interscape computations and network lag will be kept to a minimum. The slowdown should be minimal, and we do need to brainstorm. Planning isn't what worries me, Cathryne. Its the logistics of getting things done in the Physical to rescue this guy that worry me. Here we have all the time in the world, there, we barely have an hour."
"I agree. Listen, let's get Kyle in on this too ... he might have finished his latest generation of nano tech, and I suspect anything we do is going to involve him or his little critters in one way or another."
"Good idea. We'll also need to bring in Doctor Coolridge. She's in Boston, and we'll probably need some kind of physical presence if we're going to do anything."
"Oh, good Lord."
"What is it, Cathryne?"
"Metatime is synced with Central Time."
"Yes. Since the original lab work was conducted in Illinois it makes sense that ... oh. Oh no. You didn't."
Cathryne cringed. "I forgot about the time difference. We don't have seventy four minutes. We have fourteen minutes. Give or take a few depending on Viktor himself."
Prime cursed. "Let's hope he's running late. I've got a call into Edith and Kyle. Anyone else you think might be able to help?"
"Not at the moment." Cathryne wiped the screens of data away and replaced them with three virtual flat panels floating side by side in front of her. Prime's lit up immediately, followed a few minutes later by Kyle, then Doctor Coolridge.
"Good evening," Cathryne said, "I assume Prime has made you all aware of what is going on. I've prepared a knowledge engram of everything I know about Viktor Strizak's pending detainment."
"Excellent," Edith Coolridge replied. "Time is a ticking, so let's get to work."
30 - Separation

Man is the measure of all things, of the reality of those which are, and of the unreality of those which are not.
-- Protagoras of Abdera, 5th Century B.C.E. 

Metadate: 2.550-7:71:200 kD
(Wednesday, October 10, 2057) 
Homescape of Prime (Version 714.3)

The earth swam beneath him, white and blue brilliance turning slowly within a velvet black sky crowded in every corner with stars. The milky way was almost as bright as the crescent moon, a smear of white and gray such as could never be seen from earth.
"What are you thinking about?" Prime turned his head, smiling as Cathryne snuggled up behind him.
"This," he replied. "Our only viable future."
Cathryne grimaced. "The Exile Option. Abandoning earth, abandoning our bodies."
"The Astronauts are right," Prime said, sinking into her arms and relishing the feel of her bare breasts against his naked back. Simulated breasts. Simulated back.
"I'll be off-loading into the Physical soon," she said.
"I know. Fleeing the Feds, before they link you with Strizak's escape and disconnect you."
"I'm more worried about the latest detainees," Cathryne replied. "It is extremely unlikely they'll connect any of us with Viktor, but realistically they should have connected me with Kyle long ago. Nolen must have removed any reference to our work together in the University lab."
Prime nodded reluctantly. "Perhaps. Or perhaps the FBI simply isn't as efficient as everyone believes."
Cathryne shrugged. "Their system security has proven remarkably resistant to my team's best efforts at cracking the security. Oh, don't worry," she added hastily at Prime's worried look. "we'll get it. We've already mapped the pseudo random algorithm. By the time I'm back online my team may well have identified the Rosetta."
"I'm as eager as everyone else to be reading classified FBI reports in plain text and to finally know what they're doing with our people, and I am really glad you're getting out of harms way while you can. I just wish you'd leave a copy, in case something does happen to you, despite all of your precautions."
"What, and have you fall in love with a copy, wiling away the kiloCircadians with her while I'm stuck on a flight to Anchorage?"
Prime laughed. "I love you, Cathryne. What difference does it make?"
She shook her head. "I'll be offline for nine hours, assuming the flights aren't delayed and the weather at the retreat cooperates. Longer otherwise. In that time my copy would be with you for something on the order of three kiloCircadians. That's over eight years of subjective experience, plenty of time for our relationship to change, for us to change."
"Three kiloCircadians," Prime agreed. "A long time, even for those who have lived as long as we have."
Cathryne laughed. "When you're not brainstorming with the Astronauts you're busy designing new mental architectures and enhancements, not to mention arguing politics with the Strategy Group. Three kiloCircadians will go by in no time."
"Easy for you to say," Prime replied. "For you it'll be less than half a day."
"Just think of it as an extended off-load for maintenance," Cathryne said. "I'll be back online and we can pick up where we left off before you know it."
"We'll have made a lot of progress by then," Prime said. "With luck we'll have come up with a working means of long-term survival. There may be many reasons to celebrate when you return, but the only reason I'll be celebrating will be because of your return."
Cathryne grinned. "And celebrate we will, my beautiful lover." She paused. "My alarm just signaled. It's time for me to go."
Prime nodded, turning his body toward her and drawing her close. "I'm really glad they were able to give you a slot for your body. I'm glad you're getting out of harms way, even if it does mean eight years of sexual frustration."
Cathryne smiled. "Who do you think you're kidding. You'll disengage your reproductive drive the moment I'm offline."
Prime snorted. "It won't make up for the void your absence will create in my life, but it might just keep me sane until you return."
Cathryne held him fiercely in her embrace. "Oh Prime, why did it take us so many kiloCircadians to finally get together?"
"Stubbornness," he said. "I had to nag you for more than a century subjective before you'd take me seriously."
"Now I remember," she grinned, "I had to see past the irritating facade you seem to think women find attractive before I could recognize the man I fell in love with. No wonder it took so long." She burst into sudden, uncontrolled giggles as Prime mercilessly tickled her writhing, naked form. A few moments later she vanished, still laughing.
"I'll wait for you," Prime whispered after she was gone.
"I know," she replied, her voice distant.
Prime floated alone in the sky, the earth turning gently beneath him. After a moment he summoned up a diagram describing the architecture of his mind.
"Node, create an autonomous backup of myself, to be executed only if I am damaged or give the explicit order."
"Be advised that, per the Community Charter, once activated this copy will enjoy all the same rights and privileges of any member of the Community. In addition, this copy of you will have timeshare rights to your body as defined by the Charter. Please confirm your desire to create a fully autonomous copy of yourself, to be run only if you are damaged or you explicitly command."
"I helped write that section of the Charter," Prime muttered. "Of course I'm aware." He spoke up. "I confirm my desire to create a copy, per those stipulations."
"Acknowledged. Copy complete."
"Good. Now, identify those aspects of my mental architecture previously identified under the tag entitled 'horny bastard.'"
A complex network of links and nodes in the diagram brightened to a golden glow. These were the portions of his mental architecture associated with sexual drive, taste, and orientation. They traced an elaborate, spaghetti-like network throughout his mind, touching on nearly every aspect of his consciousness in one way or another.
"Overlay bypass architecture labeled 'celibacy.'"
Red links formed across the gold, bypassing much of its complexity in an elaborate, but nevertheless simpler, design."
"OK, encapsulate horny bastard for later reassimilation."
"Encapsulation complete."
"Now make the architectural modifications to my mind entitled celibacy."
Prime immediately felt different. It wasn't a single, obvious thing he could point to, more of a subtle shift in his personal aesthetic. Unconsciously he banished the fluids which still clung to his naked body, the scent of his departed lover. The scape, while quite beautiful, indeed haunting in the future that it implied, the future he believed would one day, quite possibly very soon, become inevitable, was not conducive to the work he needed to get done. He compromised, keeping the scape but wrapping himself in a simple, almost Spartan workshop of glass and steel. Outside the brightly lit room the stars still shone and the earth still turned.
"OK, let's get to work." He summoned a half finished design for a diamond-sapphire crystalline fiber weave that would act as a remarkably hard and resilient construction material, for everything from Autonomous Node casings to escape vehicle fuselages.  He leaned forward and began tweaking the already elaborate, simulated structure, adding additional molecules carefully and testing the results of each one, one at a time.

31 - The Tightening Noose

Copyright lawyers are a peculiarly myopic breed of human being. There is something fundamental about coming to understand that current law may make it technically illegal to watch a movie and then imagine what it would have looked like if the studio had cast some other actor in the leading role, that renders one unfit for ordinary reflective thinking. Nonetheless, sometimes one can step back and perceive, in a dim sort of way, that one's tribe is doing something stupid. Realizing that doesn't get one very far. The institutional and legal structure of the copyright community makes it difficult to prevent foolish approaches to new technology.
Jessica Litman (Intellectual Property Attorney), Digital Copyright, C.E. 2001

Thursday, October 11, 2057
(Metadate: 2.578-9:60:000 kD)
Chicago, Illinois

"Arrests have bottomed out," Robert Leahy was saying. "Each and every one of our leads based upon the interpersonal contact of our suspects has reached a dead end."
They sat outside, shaded by one of several large oaks that grew in neatly controlled lines within the riverside terrace. Their coffee had long since grown cold as they sat there, watching the placid waters of the Potomac flow past.
"Here, have a look."
Katy took the datapad Robert offered her and examined the data herself. The results were obvious even after a cursory glance. An elaborate, three dimensional graph mapping the interpersonal relationships and connections between known suspects and anyone even remotely acquainted with them folded back in upon itself, in a closed universe of recursive friendships which appeared to touch the larger world nowhere at all.
"This is absurd," she said, shaking her head. "The probability that no one among all these hundreds of people would have any relationship, no matter how cursory, with anyone else in the world is nil. Even isolated cults have more contact with mainstream society than this."
"Their grocers, utility companies, and so forth. Exactly," Robert nodded in agreement. "Which means we must suspect the data itself."
"What are you saying?" Katy asked. "That some member of this nefarious black market hacked into all of the databases of all of the government and financial institutions throughout the world and deleted any evidence of their contact with anyone already on our list of suspects?"
Robert shrugged. "It is very likely we've been underestimating these people from the start. Think about it for a minute. Here is a group of people who have been trading with one another in technologies decades ahead of anything our industrialists can build, in direct and flagrant violation of international treaties restricting potentially dangerous research and without any regard to our intellectual property laws. An entire economy, existing and functioning for quite some time -- years, probably -- without even a hint of detection until just a few weeks ago."
"These people are smart," Katy agreed. "But they aren't supergeniuses by any stretch of the imagination. The sheer time involved in cracking the security on so many data archives, not to mention the skill needed to make the kinds of changes you are implying without tripping alarms and red flags wherever factual details fail to align properly with other known facts about the individuals' lives. It would take years, perhaps even decades, of concerted effort by whole teams of people. Not to mention a detailed expertise in hundreds of diverse data storage and retrieval systems ..." She shook her head. "I don't see how a group of underground people could ever pull something like that off."
"Perhaps they've had years to do so. Perhaps they compromised our systems decades ago and have been cooking the data all along, isolating the records of themselves to limit analytical exposure to just a few acquaintances, then isolating those groups into islands which won't lead investigators like us to their remaining conspirators."
Katy's mind boggled at the magnitude of such an undertaking. "Theories on Conspiracy Dynamics suggest that such a widespread, secret undertaking would come to light far earlier than this has. With so many people involved such an effort would expose itself through error or betrayal very quickly. They would have a few weeks, months at most. Certainly not years."
"The United States government managed to conceal colossal secrets for decades," Robert reminded her. "The Kennedy and King assassinations. Various black projects many of which, to this day, no one outside of a few select circles knows about."
Katy shook her head. "Even the largest federally enforced conspiracies were forced to rely on misinformation and deliberately targeted exposure. Secrecy simply wasn't viable, so the truth was buried under mountains of absurdity, such that when it did come out few if any paid attention to it, much less believed it. Almost everyone knew the secret of the JFK coup d'etat within a couple of decades, yet no one took it seriously until just a few years ago. A fact which could have toppled the government, and which was initially known by, at most, only twenty or so individual conspirators, but which was nevertheless impossible to silence.
"But something as big as this, involving hundreds, perhaps thousands of people? We would have heard something long before now, a hint at least. Even if they employed sophisticated means of misdirection the facts would be accessible, however hidden and muddied beneath the camouflaging nonsense."
"And there has been nothing," Robert finished her thought. "No false rumors, no absurd accusations, no discrediting propaganda, not a peep. Nothing."
"Absolute silence," Katy agreed, "Until we had the good fortune of stumbling onto them by accident. Which means we are faced with the very unpleasant possibility that a group of underground information anarchists are more skilled than any of us at playing the one game governments have been excelling at for over a century now: the suppression of information harmful to their interests, and the ability to make their opponents only see what they want them to see."
Robert Leahy nodded in agreement. "We are dealing with people who have been able to achieve what all our experience in managing black projects and sensitive information has led us to believe to be impossible. A vast, widespread conspiracy that has, somehow, managed to completely avoid detection for an extended period of time, whose sole exposure appears to have resulted from external factors rather than internal fracture. A group with such skill could bring the entire international governance regime to its knees."
"Perhaps," Katy replied. "I'm not so sure. That anonymous tip in Champaign which netted us our first arrests was awfully convenient, wasn't it?"
"You believe it may have been an insider, using us to remove an opponent?"
"Possibly. Assuming this hypothetical person was already aware that we had recovered other hardware from their enterprise, running the risk of uncovering one more such device might have seemed worthwhile. Particularly if they have been managing our data to the point that they are able to isolate islands of patsies to take the fall. No, island is the wrong word. Supercells. We are dealing with a variation of the classical revolutionary cell, scaled to include hundreds instead of a few, but just as isolated from the other cells in their movement as their historical archetypes were."
Robert nodded enthusiastically. "Supercells of criminals or revolutionaries, isolated not by their knowledge of one another, but by our knowledge of their connections to one another. Ingenious!" He paused, then added thoughtfully, "If you're right, it may very well go beyond simply one rival disposing of another. Perhaps those we have arrested comprise the entire membership of one faction, betrayed by another which is still out there, now pursing their agenda without opposition, thanks in no small part to our own efforts."
Katy agreed. "That is very possible. In any event it would appear that the theoretical models hold up. This particular conspiracy held itself together longer than statistical analysis would suggest, but has ultimately fallen apart and exposed itself. An analysis of the relevant parameters might even show the deviation from the norm to be within two standard deviations."
"Perhaps, but I doubt it. I suspect these people are, if not geniuses, very gifted at what they are doing. We're talking years of operation here, all over the world, completely undetected by any government, anywhere. The manufacturing infrastructure alone would have taken at least a year to set up, not to mention the logistics of obtaining constituent components and shipping out the finished products. An entire economy of this scale can't be created overnight, particularly a clandestine one such as we are dealing with."
"A formidable opponent, regardless."
"In any event, we need to find out who that informant was and squeeze him, hard." Roberts face was hard, almost menacing.
Katy shook her head. "If we find whoever it is, expose that person, and run an analysis on their interpersonal connections we will, at most, expose another cell containing a few hundred conspirators. We don't know how many of these supercells there are. Perhaps we should attack this from a different angle."
"What did you have in mind."
"These crystalline supercomputers they all seem to have. In every case we've made an arrest where the device has been in use it has been tied into the home's Internet port. Clearly they are in communication with one another."
"Yes," Robert agreed, "and as you know, International Intelligence has had its best crypto people working on deciphering the traffic."
"You've been coy with the results," Katy replied, "But let me guess. You've determined that the remaining suspects are using one-time pads which no amount of crypto-analysis will unravel."
"Worse. They are using one-time pads encoded with quantum entangled particles. There isn't even a theoretical means of decoding quantum encrypted traffic without the targets becoming aware of our surveillance, much less a practical approach."
"And the usual traffic analysis reveals no obvious origin or destination."
Robert Leahy shook his head. "They're sending packets through just about every network on the Internet."
"Hiding their locations from our prying eyes. Have you tried Fourier transforms and wave analysis on the sample patterns?"
"Yes," Robert admitted reluctantly. "There are no identifying features to differentiate legitimate traffic from decoys. Short of searching every location of every system connected to the net there doesn't seem to be a way to get a handle on where they are."
"That would be a little drastic," Katy replied. "Have your people considered a time based analysis?"
Robert shook his head. "I'll see if I can get authorization for you to see the preliminary reports so you can check for yourself, but to answer your question, no, I don't believe so."
"That would be good, considering we're supposed to be equal partners in this little venture."
"I've made that same argument to my superiors on several occasions, but we both know how intransigent large bureaucracies can be. What exactly did you have in mind as far as time based analysis are concerned?"
Katy shrugged. "Our problem is identifying which traffic is communication between conspirators, and which is just so much mindless garbage. We have to do this without ever knowing the contents of the communications in question, or, for certain, where it originated or ends up. But we do know the communication in question has to make sense to those using it, has to be part of a larger conversation. That implies bi-directional information flow, in something close enough to real time to allow effective communication.
"Think of the entire Internet as a big collection of closed containers connected to one another by elastic pipes, which expand and contract to accommodate whatever is flowing between them. We have no way of knowing whether it is water, hydrogen fuel, or morphine flowing from one container to another, but we do know exactly how much is flowing between the various containers at any given time."
"You've done this sort of analysis before," Robert said. "Your work in capturing the FreeNet perpetrators."
Katy nodded. "FreeNet does roughly the same thing: share data anonymously between scattered nodes, all of it encrypted with military grade keys which would take our fastest computers centuries to decode. Tracking the information in the spatial domain can be excruciatingly difficult, but when analyzed over time the location of the active nodes becomes obvious, even if the content does not."
"I'll have the raw data forwarded to you immediately, along with the reports, if I have to go and bludgeon my superiors in person. I don't suppose you'd consider a job with International Intelligence?"
Katy laughed. "Don't go promising them the world just yet. This problem is significantly more complex than the FreeNet issue. For one thing, we know nothing about the underlying protocols, nor have we identified the location of any end node with any certainty. I'll have to begin by analyzing suspected links in the chain, identifying likely candidates and ruling out unlikely ones, piecing together routes and data exchanges one hop at a time. This will be time consuming and uncertain, and will likely involve a lot of false starts before we get it right."
"No matter," Robert said, grinning, "You've done more in one brainstorming session than our team of so-called experts has managed in a week's time."

32 - The Nature of Progress

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 19th Century C.E.

Metadate: 2.551-5:64:931 kD
(Wednesday, October 10, 2057 - 11:50 PM)
Astronautics Simulation, Public Node 7

Members of the Astronautics Interest Group stood with Prime in a sunny, perfectly simulated clearing surrounded by tall pines beneath a beautiful blue, cloud etched sky. In the center of the clearing lay a full scale, simulated rendition of the propose craft in which they hoped to safely launch a copy of the Community into space, the escape option held in reserve as a last resort should the worst happen and the authorities threaten the Community's continued existence on earth. It was a grim scenario which was, unfortunately, looking more likely with every passing dekaDies. 
The escape craft resembled a strange hybrid between a conventional rocket, a high performance aircraft, and the kind of spacecraft one would only expect to see in a science fiction movie. A rounded nose section which would house a copy of the Community, complete with a small array of Autonomous Nodes, a supply of nano-constructors, catalytic solution, and even a Superstring strummer capable of creating small quantities of anti-helium, was connected to the aft rocket motor by three arced spines spaced equidistantly around the ship's longitudinal axis. The craft lay on its side, supported in part by two of the three spines from which grew conventional looking swept wings. A similarly conventional tail and vertical control surface grew from the third spine, near the aft motor. Horizontal stabilizers were placed on the nose cone itself, forward of the wing.
"The motor will be a brute force matter-antimatter rocket," Karen Burton, nominal leader of the Astronautics Interest Group, was saying. "Nine tenths of a gram of anti-helium will be held in magnetic containment, released in a controlled stream to recombine with helium just aft of the firewall cum pusher-plate, where their combined masses will be converted directly into energy as they mutually annihilate each other in a controlled explosion. Toroids in the reaction chamber and nozzle will direct the energy aft. Thrust will be generated both by the continuous shock waves of the explosions themselves pushing against the shielding of the firewall (which, by the way, is why we are calling it a pusher-plate), and the expulsion of the resultant plasma via the nozzle."
The clearing dropped beneath them abruptly as the simulated craft's engines fired and it launched itself into the sky. Prime and the others floated around the craft, pacing it as it roared upward into the sky. A brief flash of fuzzy gray as they passed through a layer of clouds, then a darkening sky above.
"The craft will behave as a rocket powered aircraft at lower altitudes, compete with lifting and control surfaces incorporated into the wings, the horizontal stabilizers fore, and the vertical stabilizer aft." Karen continued as the craft demonstrated some maneuvers. "This will allow either a horizontal or vertical takeoff and high maneuverability using well prove aerodynamic properties up to an altitude of around seventy thousand feet."
"At which point the air grows too thin for conventional flight," Prime said, nodding. "All lift from then on will be derived solely from the rocket's thrust."
The sky turned quickly dark as the craft sped forward atop a golden flame.
"Exactly. The control surfaces will still provide some minimal maneuverability up to around one hundred thousand feet, but upward thrust will be all that is keeping the ship from falling back to earth. It is hoped that the lower maneuverability at these altitudes will be offset by the fact that most surface-to-air rockets cannot engage targets that high."
"So, if they don't turn on the anti-ballistic missile defense grids we'll be safe," someone added.
"We can't count on that," Prime replied. "The likeliest scenario has us making a desperate run for it, right through the defense systems of half a dozen countries, all trying to shoot us down at the behest of the World Trade Organization."
"In that case," Karen continued, "the most dangerous part of the flight will be above one hundred thousand feet. At that altitude our escape ships will be able to maneuver only using their main matter-anti-matter rocket and maneuvering thrusters. Worse, we'll be wanting to use most of our delta-v to boost ourselves into the desired orbits for rendezvous with our assigned targets.."
"Various asteroids and near earth objects," Prime said.
"Correct. Our payload will only be a few dozen Autonomous Nodes carrying the combined population of the Community in inert storage, a Superstring Strummer compliments of the Theoretical Physics Group, some nano-construction capabilities, and the escape ship itself. Nevertheless, boosting even that small amount of material into the desired orbits will require between eighty five and ninety five percent of each ship's energy reserves, depending on the particular target and initial launch location."
Prime shook his head. "There are three independent anti-ballistic missile systems in orbit that we know of. The aging American System, the Euro-Russian Consortium's System, and the Chinese System. Between them they can lock the planet down tight."
"We'll be relying on sheer numbers," Karen replied. "As many escape ships and copies of the Community as we can synthesize between now and when we make a run for it.  Perhaps as many as a hundred thousand ships, if we have time enough to construct that many. With luck and a little planning, a handful should be able to make it through the defense grids. Most of the satellites won't be able to hit anything above five hundred thousand feet -- they are, after all, designed to take out missiles shot from the surface of the earth, aimed at other points on the surface of earth. Our only advantage is our relative safety once we're above the range they were designed to strike. We believe we'll be relatively safe once three hundred miles or more away from the planet, although certain safety won't be attained until we reach interplanetary space."
"Even that isn't certain," Prime said. "The World Trade Organization could get the resources together for a destructive strike deeper into space if they are sufficiently motivated."
"Blowing some renegades out of the sky for violating their intellectual property regulations would hardly be worth the billions they would have to spend on such a venture," Karen insisted. "Once we're out of earth-lunar orbit we'll be safe enough. I never thought I'd say it, but thank whatever gods there may be the world governments never took space exploration seriously beyond their petty, short-sighted corporate profit models of communications satellites and missile defense systems."
"Indeed," Prime agreed. "at least they've left us somewhere to run to."
"So, what do you think of the preliminary design?" Karen asked.
"I like it," Prime replied. "Using matter-antimatter annihilation for propulsion is ingenious. Less than a gram of anti-helium to lift a payload into an escape trajectory, with enough reserve energy for some maneuverability. What is more, a ship which knows itself to be doomed could deliberately spill its anti-helium and create a sizable explosion, perhaps taking out a couple of satellites and clearing a path for others to escape."
"Exactly. There are a number of strategies open to us, any and all of which can be employed to maximize our chances for success. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that, even with the cleverest of ruses and smartest of strategies, our odds at escaping a concerted blockade by the great powers are not particularly great. Worse, there is a ninety percent probability that any successful escape will be noticed, leaving the refugees vulnerable to follow up attacks and retribution."
"Then we'll have to design our strategies such that any successful escapes go unnoticed."
Suddenly a familiar figure appeared before them, grinning impishly as the lavish golden aura surrounding her faded.
"I thought I'd find you here, plotting the future with the Astronauts."
"Cathryne!" Prime exclaimed "Welcome back! How are you finding the facilities at the Alaskan Sanctuary?"
"The sanctuary is all it is advertised to be and more. Getting there, on the other hand, is a nightmare of travel checkpoints and searches. The airports are on heightened security, blamed on the Thai insurgents but almost certainly a response to the authorities' discovery of our existence. Prime, I've been offline for thirty four hundred and forty Circadians and you still haven't given me a kiss."
Prime grinned. "That is what I get for cutting out all of my reproductive instincts. After three kiloCircadians my instinctive reactions are all wrong." He took Cathryne into a long, lingering embraced.
After a few seconds Cathryne pushed him gently away. "Prime," she said, "you kiss with the technical finesse of a master lover, but I've had my hand shaken with more passion."
Prime sighed. "Karen, we'll discuss our launch and flight strategies later. Cathryne and I need a few moments to get reacquainted." Karen nodded, trying to hide her obvious amusement.
"My homescape?" Cathryne asked. Prime nodded assent.
The dark of space was abruptly replaced by a bedroom made cozy by the golden light of numerous candles.
"I've had a long, miserable flight, followed by a long, miserable drive," Cathryne complained, sitting down on the bed with a heavy sigh. "My physical body may be resting comfortably in one of the sanctuary sarcophagi, but my virtual self feels tired and irritable. How about giving me a massage?"
"Sure," Prime responded. He climbed onto the bed and maneuvered himself behind her, where he began rubbing her shoulders.
"So much has happened while you were away I don't know where to begin. More arrests, more nodes seized, for the first time outside of the United States. More resources are being poured into creating the sanctuaries, but I fear it is only a matter of time before at least some of them are discovered. There is a growing consensus that the Astronauts may be right: escape into space may become our only option. Kyle has diverted a couple of shipments of nano for the construction of a few prototype ships, so we will hopefully be able to get a few low altitude test flights in before it really hits the fan, but ..."
"Prime!" Cathryne interrupted. "Stop talking shop. This is me. We're together again, after nine torturous hours for me and almost three and a half kiloCircadians for you. Shut up, rub my back, seduce me, and make passionate love to me for the next several Circadians."
Prime stopped. "Cathryne," he said.
"Keep doing what you were doing, Prime," Cathryn said.  Then, after a moment of awkward silence, "What, Prime?"
"I want to renew our friendship as much as you do. But neither of us need this ..." Prime's gesture included the entire room "... distraction."
"What do you mean, 'distraction.'"
"Our primal instincts. Our lusts. How many deciCircadians have we wasted in simulated copulation when we could have been pursuing our intellectual interests, not to mention forming plans for the survival of the Community?"
"Wasted?" Cathryne's voice was incredulous. "Wasted?" she nearly shouted. "You consider making love to me a waste of time?"
An icon in the form of a wire-frame brain appeared suspended before them. "Cathryne, this is the architectural modification I made when you left. Ever since I removed the more primal reproductive instincts from my mental architecture I've been able to think more clearly, and be more focused, than ever before."
"You still haven't reintegrated your sex drive?" Cathryne demanded. "I've been back ten milliCircadians. What in the hell is the matter with you?"
"Nothing! My mind is clearer and more focused than ever before. I don't want to cloud it up by reverting to my old habits, my old instincts. Try the modifications, Cathryne. You'll be amazed at how much more effective of a mind you'll have."
"What about us, Prime? I love you. I thought you loved me. How can you just strip all that away in the name of focus, of efficiency?" She nearly spat the word.
"Cathryne," Prime said, "I haven't stripped away my love for you. I've merely deleted my physical drives, which serve no purpose in this domain anyway. You knew I was going to do this, we talked about it before you left."
"You were supposed to restore yourself, Prime. The change was supposed to be temporary, to make my extended absence a little more bearable."
Prime nodded. "I never dreamed I would be able to accomplish so much without those distractions. Do you realize fully twelve percent of my mental processes concerned themselves with sex, even when I was concentrating on other tasks? Fantasizing. Thinking of you, particularly in the physical sense?"
"I spend as much time thinking about you, Prime. That's part of what being in love is about."
"But I do love you, Cathryne. I love you very much. I cherish your personality, your passion for life, your intellect. Set yourself free from the Physical, Cathryne. Let your mind reach new heights."
"Sex is a part of who and what we are, Prime. I'm not willing to lose that, no matter how much more efficient I might become as a result."
Prime sighed. "I've been waiting so long for you to come back Cathryne. I've wanted to share this new state of being with you for so long. There is so much we can do, so much we can become..."
"I want you back, Prime." Cathryne nearly shouted. "The old you, the one I fell in love with. Dammit Prime, you can't change on me like this!"
"I haven't changed, Cathryne. Not significantly, anyway. We are software, my love. Electronic patterns in a buffered molecular array, computed in an optical matrix and linked to one another across an aging Internet. Of what use are those old, redundant instincts, now that we live outside of our physical bodies?"
Cathryne put her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs. "Of what use? Four kiloCircadians ago you never would have had to ask such a question."
"I didn't know then what I know now," Prime replied softly. "Oh Cathryne, please don't cry."
"You've left me," her voice was choked. "I should have left a copy. At least then our relationship could have flowered, flourished. Even if it would have ended, I would have had the memory."
"Our relationship can still flower and flourish Cathryne. My feelings for you haven't changed ..."
"You no longer want me!" Cathryne accused between sobs. "How can you say you haven't changed when you've killed your desire for me, you've edited out your most basic passions?"
"My passions are no longer defined by physical desire," Prime told her gently. "They are still there, just as real as ever. There expression has changed, that is all. Try the modification and you'll understand."
"No!" Cathryne screamed. "I won't lose that part of me. Not even to keep you."
"Is the Physical so important to you?"
Cathryne nodded, brushing dampness away from her cheek. "It is a part of who I am, and I don't want to lose it. I don't want to lose you, dammit! Why can't you go back to what you were!" She began sobbing again as Prime stood.
"Cathryne ..." he began.
"Leave me alone!" she shouted, pushing him roughly away.
Prime shook his head sadly, then spoke with his own Node. "Run the unmodified backup copy," he commanded. "Instruct him to come here, and to comfort Cathryne." Prime vanished even as Prime2 arrived and took Cathryne's sobbing form into his arms.

33 - Our Fallen Comrades

We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.
-- Winwood Reade, C.E. 1872

Metadate: 2.580-5:23:264 kD
(Friday, October 12, 2057 7:00 AM Australian Time; Thursday 11:00 AM Chicago Time)
Astronautics Immersive Monitoring Scape, Public Node #7

Beta Flier 0.8 rolled out of the makeshift hanger, a magnificent aircraft of shimmering composites sitting gracefully on three small wheels, sporting an unusually long exhaust constructed out of doped diamond fibers, lined with superconductive coils whose magnetic fields would help accelerate the super heated plasma exhaust, adding a little to the thrust and helping to cool the craft's critical exhaust system.
Prime was impressed with the design, and astounded with the speed with which the Astronautics group had managed to design, simulate, and even partially test the prototype. Even after more than a century of subjective time in the Virtual I still find myself surprised at the speed with which we can do things in the physical, he mused. Life's early impressions leave their mark, no matter how much experience there is to counter it. Then he grinned, silently chiding himself. He hadn't been born in the Physical at all, indeed, his entire experiences in that world amounted to only a few hours, a few short excursions in a borrowed body belonging to his erstwhile twin, father, and despised nemesis, the original Doctor Eugene Nolen. From whom, now that he thought about it, no one had heard in a very long time. Well, with almost ninety percent of the Community actively filtering him that shouldn't be too surprising, Prime thought wryly.
"We're ready to launch." Prime was startled out of his private thoughts, nodding.
"Excellent."
Karen, the project's de facto leader, projected her voice throughout the scape as the small aircraft taxied toward the departure end of the runway.
"As most of you know, this scape is an exact, real-time replication of events which are transpiring in the Physical at this moment. Many of you have chosen to observe these events at traditional, biological subjective rates, while others are perhaps experiencing this in a single burst of compressed scape data at the conclusion of the test. Those of us actively working on the test are not so lucky. We will be spending the next several kiloCircadians of our lives working exclusively on this test, monitoring and analyzing the data in minute detail as we receive telemetry and adjusting systems parameters as needed to try and insure as successful a test as possible.
"This initial test flight is the culmination of numerous system and air tunnel tests which have taken place in the Physical following an extensive battery of simulations designed to explore the operating envelope of this unique spacecraft. We believe we have a solid design, one that will hopefully allow the Community a retreat toward the safety of space if and when the situation on Earth becomes untenable.
"The hull of the spacecraft is a composite of woven sapphire and diamond crystals doped with superconductive strands of wire. This amazingly light material not only physically protects the craft's cargo, which, if things go well, will consist of a copy of our entire Autonomous Community, but also forms a powerful Faraday cage which will protect the ship's and cargo's electronics -- that's you and I, folks -- from corruption and damage by radiation, magnetic or electronic pulses, and, perhaps most importantly, the powerful magnetic field generated by the coils in the exhaust system which will, in turn, help accelerate the exhaust plasma away from the ship. Indeed, that subsystem adds a full seven percent to the delta-V and the overall efficiency of the ship.
"The initial flight will be a low altitude, north to south orbit of the earth, lasting approximately seven hours. By low altitude we mean approximately one hundred meters above the ground. The ship will depart this airfield, located in a secluded portion of the Australian outback, fly north-eastward toward the ocean, then more or less follow the dateline northward. Near the northern pole the spacecraft will change heading, passing between Greenland and Iceland, then southward over the Atlantic toward Antarctica, where it will again turn back toward Australia. Although this bent circle hardly constitutes an orbit in anything other than the most colloquial sense of the word, it will insure that the vast majority of the flight is made over open water and that the entire flight avoids populated areas altogether. This should limit the possibility of exposure to detection, as well as insure the safety of the public at large should there be a problem and the ship be forced to ditch.
"Carlos Dominick, a native of Venezuela and long time Colleague of the Community, has already trans-loaded into a Node aboard the Beta Flier and will be piloting the craft himself. While we are confident of the ship's design, the risks and dangers of a test flight such as this shouldn't be understated. No amount of simulation and wind-tunnel testing can account for all of the real-world variables we will be encountering and dealing with today.
"Carlos has announced his readiness for departure. He will be operating the craft at the maximum speedup his fourth generational Node will permit, which is currently clocking at around forty seven hundred and fifty. His commentary and communications will be made available in slowed bursts as appropriate to those of you experiencing these events at slower speeds. And with that, let me wish Carlos and the Beta Flier a bon voyage and safe return, and turn the public audio feed over to him."
"Beta Flier taking runway zero seven for departure, departure northwest bound," a gravelly voice announced as the craft pulled out onto the runway.
"Matter/Antimatter combustion engaged. Systems nominal. Annihilation at ten to the five atoms per second and climbing." White hot plasma shot out of the aft exhaust of the craft as it roared down the runway, scorching the asphalt behind the departing ship and melting the runway entirely as the craft rotated and lifted off.
"Oops," Prime muttered quietly.
"Don't worry," Karen replied, "The prototype won't be landing here or at any other airfield. It will be using its maneuvering thrusters to put down in an uninhabited region several hundred kilometers west of here."
Prime nodded as Carlos' voice continued. "Matter/Antimatter combustion holding steady at ten to the seven atoms per second. This ship is a pleasure to handle, climb rate is one hundred meters per second. This thing really wants to fly, the temptation to point it at the stars and just go is unbelievable! I have leveled out at one hundred and twenty meters AGL. Approaching Mach 0.9. Throttling back to maintain subsonic speeds until I reach the coast."
The ship was already fading in the distant, a white hot speck of light in the shimmering afternoon air, vanishing in the haze near the horizon. Prime turned as the ground around him and the other observers suddenly folded in on itself, forming a roughly circular island which tore itself away from the earth and sped through the sky to catch up with the departing ship. Within moments they were in formation, off the right wing of the aircraft, pacing it some thirty meters away.
"This is a real time view from one of a number of small probes we have pacing the craft, collecting telemetry and verifying the accuracy of the data we are observing from numerous, different perspectives."
"I had no idea so much of Australia was desert," Prime commented at the expanse of desolate land racing past beneath them.
"The desert here is almost as big as the American desert has become. Fortunately for us it is also far less stringently watched by the authorities."
"Doctor Forest," Prime grinned, turning to greet the new arrival, "I'm glad you made it."
"I'm sorry I missed the launch. I was tied up in an administrative meeting with the Strategy Group. Kyle is handling some logistical issues with Catalytic Solution shipments and deployment of his second generation nano. He should be here shortly."
"Thank you for coming, Doctor," Karen said, shaking his hand. "Your presence means a lot to the Astronautics group, even if in an unofficial capacity."
Doctor Forest smiled. "Your work here is very important to all of us in the Community, Karen. The Strategy Group's projections are increasingly pessimistic in terms of our sustainability on Earth given the current political climate. As you no doubt already know, we've lost over two hundred and seventy colleagues in just the last twenty four hours. Thirty are conscious, trapped in their physical bodies and in police custody. The others trapped in their nodes, off-line and cut off from the rest of the Net. Some of the information Cathryne has been ferreting out of the FBI and Intelligence networks with respect to their treatment of prisoners is shocking, to say the least."
"Is this where I get to say 'I told you so?'" Prime asked.
Doctor Forest shook his head sadly. "Indeed, many of us are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that you may well have been right all along."
"That doesn't bode well for the future," Karen commented, "Our most optimistic forecasts for surviving a concerted attack from one or more of the anti-ballistic missile systems are not very encouraging. We'll have to construct thousands of such ships, if even one is to have a decent chance of effecting an escape."
Doctor Forest shook his head, sighing in gloomy contemplation of her words. 
"Of course, we're hoping to launch a copy of the Community into space before widespread detection makes our gloomy prognosis relevant," she added as the silence began grew uncomfortable.
Prime raised an eyebrow and looked meaningfully toward Doctor Forest. Doctor Forest shook his head. "Our projections are not very optimistic, Karen. Chances are high, very high, that we'll be making a desperate run for it, probably sooner than we want. Fortunately the Alaskan refuge is working out better than expected, as are a number of other, similar projects. The Atlanteans are perhaps the most ambitious, building an entire cluster of Nodes at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean powered by tidal motion. There's even talk of colonizing the earth's mantle itself, using the planet's heat directly as a power source. Not much of an outward-looking future for that copy, but if any of the terrestrial copies survive, it will probably be that one."
"Isn't that a little dire, Doctor?" Karen asked. "It is true we face arrest and a terrible castration of our minds, not to mention a return to a dismal mortality, but outright extermination? I find that unlikely."
Prime shook his head. "You should have a talk with Cathryne, or download some of her knowledge engrams if you prefer. Most of those arrested so far are comatose, made that way by the untimely removal of their neural links to their Nodes. Of those who were awake and aware, most have died in custody. The rest ..." Prime visibly shuddered. "Let's just say that I'm very glad I do not have a physical body. Death may come to me, but if it does, it will be quick and painless."
"I'm over the shoreline," the disembodied voice of Carlos reported. Everyone glanced down as sunlit water flashed by at a dizzying speed, then back at the receding shore. "Increasing to cruise speed. Passing Mach one. Matter/Antimatter annihilation steady at three point five times ten to the seven atoms per second. Accelerating through Mach two."
"We can't just leave our colleagues in the hands of those barbarians," Karen said vehemently. "There's got to be something we can do."
"Indeed I hope so," Doctor Forest replied, "We're working on several rescue strategies. Let's just hope we're given time to make the attempt."
"Cruise speed of Mach four point five has been achieved. The ship is handling magnificently."
"Hi guys," Kyle said as he appeared in their midst. "Oh damn, I missed the launch. Can someone spare me a memory engram?"
Prime offered him a glowing icon representing a key-address pair to his own memories of the event, to which Kyle nodded his thanks.
"You would think with third and forth generation speedups in excess of four thousand people wouldn't be late to events like these," Karen said, pushing her gloomy thoughts aside and smiling.
"Unfortunately I just got out of a meeting with the leaders of seven different projects, all wanting second gen nano and catalytic solution today. They insisted on running in a shared scape, and demonstrating in full sensory detail why their particular projects should be at the front of the queue. I was operating at speeds reminiscent of first generation Nodes, if that. Ugh!" 
"Any resolution?" Doctor Forest asked.
Kyle grinned. "Yeah. I forwarded full knowledge engrams on how to construct their own second generation nano-constructors from scratch, and how to synthesize the necessary catalytic solution. I told them they were free to create their own constructors immediately, but that if they wanted disbursements from the Community stores they would have to wait their turn like everyone else. Who would have thought something so easy to copy would become such a bottleneck for everyone?"
"They really can't complain," Karen said. "The shipping schedules you and the Strategy Group have laid down are very fair, all things considered."
Kyle shrugged. "Times are tense. To people who think they have the One True Answer on how to save the Community fairness doesn't really come into it. They were pretty angry, although I think I managed to smooth most of their ruffled feathers by sticking around and giving them pointers on how to go about building their own, small scale construction facilities."
"The irony is, there's the distinct possibility one or more of them do have the One True Answer, if there is such a thing," Doctor Forest said.
"There isn't any such thing," Kyle said firmly. "Our survival will ultimately depend on numerous, unrelated projects coming together when the shit hits the fan and conditions demand it. Either we will cooperate and survive, or we won't. Likely it will be some combination of efforts we haven't even foreseen that gets us out of this mess."
"Absolutely," Karen agreed.
"The only way to insure that a sufficient diversity of ideas and projects can flourish is to be absolutely fair in the distribution of scarce resources, which generation two nano and catalytic solution are," Prime added.
"My point exactly," Kyle agreed. "Besides, if there were any One True Answer, this project is far more likely to be it than any of the proposals those guys had. Encoding the community into common grass and wheat genetically, with computation carried by pollen. My god, if I have to endure another microCircadian of that nonsense I'll lose my mind."
Doctor Forest laughed. "Some of the approaches are a little more far fetched than others, that's for sure."
"Far fetched is one thing," Kyle said. "Escape into outer space, through a gauntlet of multi-national anti-missile satellite systems is far fetched. Dropping a copy of the community into the earth's core with nothing but a buckey-ball composite shell for protection and no way out if things go wrong is far fetched, perhaps even desperate. But encoding who knows how many Petabytes of data into the genetic material of common plants, and then conducting computations at speeds that would turn gigaDiei into microCircadians? That's beyond desperate, it is pure nonsense. Even if it were to somehow work, the sun would grow old and expand to envelop the Earth and destroy the copy before a single Circadian would pass. What kind of future, of long term planning, is that?"
"The kind desperate minds engage in when they believe all the other options are untenable," Karen responded. "Who wouldn't seek to stave off an inevitable death just one more Circadian, if they could."
"Pfui," Prime grunted. "I for one will never have myself encoded into grass genes and pollen."
"Me either," Kyle agreed.
As the flight continued northward over the South Pacific a table offering refreshments formed. No mood altering substances were available, but for those present in traditional, physical form the appetizers and snacks were numerous and delicious.
Prime and Kyle departed the flying island, choosing instead to approach the maneuvering ship and examine it up close. An unspoken command, and for their eyes only the outer hull stripped itself away, showing a cross section of the craft's internal systems.
"That is an awful lot of antimatter in the chamber there," Kyle commented.
Prime nodded. "The test includes enough fuel for our most ambitious launch target, in the form of anti-helium which, when combined with the helium in the other tank, creates the energy necessary for thrust."
"Helium," Kyle mused. "An inert gas. They've eliminated any chance for chemical reaction, relying solely on the mutual annihilation of matter and antimatter for their energy. Clever."
"It really is impressive what they've accomplished," Prime agreed.
"Indeed. Their hull alone could revolutionize material engineering in a hundred ways."
"At least."
The day wore on as the prototype continued to race northward. As the sun began to sink toward the southern horizon the water below grew dark and gray and the sky gradually began to cloud over, until it formed a low, gray overcast. Bright daytime colors of blue faded to cold shades of white and slate, a cold, forbidding place that quickly faded to evening dark. Most people adjusted their avatars' visual parameters to include the infrared spectrum, the world taking on a rich palette of unnamed colors redder than red. Even with the enhanced vision visibility was terrible.
"Visibility is at less than two hundred meters," Carlos confirmed.
"We are approximately one hundred and fifty kilometers south of the Bering Strait," Karen's voice announced. "As you all know it is late autumn in the northern hemisphere. Much of the arctic region we will be navigating has already entered the winter dark of night. This is in some ways the most precarious part of the journey, both because of the difficulty of navigating so low to the ground in darkness and because of the degree to which both the Euro-Russian Alliance and the United States monitor the region. Our sensor systems are the best possible, given the unavoidable design constraint that they must be entirely passive, relying on what little natural light and radiation can be collected, gravitational perturbations, and the like." As she spoke the surrounding world went from dusk gray to nearly black.
"We have sunset," Carlos announced. "Night vision systems operating within design parameters."
"We have provided an address-key to sensory modifications which will allow you to view the surrounding environment in the same way Carlos is," Karen announced. Kyle and Prime both accessed the addressed object, verified the design parameters and software instructions, and applied them to their own virtual senses. Shades of redder-than-red were replaced by an entire spectrum of sensual color ranging far beyond both the red and violet ends of the visible spectrum. Even so, they could still see precious little of the world around them.
"Well," Prime commented, "at least it isn't pitch dark anymore."
"No, but sunlight it ain't," Kyle replied. "I wouldn't want to be flying an aircraft at Mach four point five only one hundred meters above the ground in this."
As if on queue the visibility abruptly dropped to almost zero as ice and snow swirled around them. "Lets go back to the island," Kyle commented.
"Agreed." A moment later they were back among their colleagues, watching the dark, fuzzy gray-blue world race by, lit by a great white torch coming out of the back of the flier.
Doctor Forest joined them. "Very impressive," he said. "In the visible spectrum the pilot is navigating through solid a blizzard in zero-zero conditions."
"How can they see anything at all if their sensory systems are limited to passive only?"
"Subtle gravitational perturbations resulting from contours in the earth's surface, in addition to some reflectivity and interference patterns in naturally occurring as well as artificial, external radio sources. Much of the latter comes from the very militaries we are trying to avoid."
Kyle laughed. "Glad to see our military is useful for something besides murdering Thai farmers."
"Can't have those uppity third world types manufacturing generic drugs for their populations and living in direct violation of our patent precious laws." Prime shook his head with disgust.
"Intellectual property is essential to our service based economy," Kyle mimicked. "Idiots!  I really hope this test is a success. Once either the government or the  industrial cartels figure out what we are and what we're about they'll come after use with the kind of ferocity that will make Thailand look like a friendly game of tennis in comparison. Prime was right: we need to get off this rock and away from these people as soon as we can."
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid," Prime replied.
"And easy for you to say," Doctor Forest added. "Neither of you have a physical body to return to."
"When was the last time you spent any significant time in your body to do anything other than maintenance?" Kyle asked.
"Touché," Doctor Forest chuckled.
"If we are all forced to abandon our bodies, we'll get over it," Kyle persisted. "I obsessed about it for a couple of hectoCircadians, and I'm sure that there will be those who will take such a separation even harder, but given the alternative of extinction or banishment to a prison cell in the Physical --"
"-- very few would choose not to launch their virtual selves into the relative safety of space," Doctor Forest agreed. "Still, there is something very comforting about having the option of stepping out into the Physical, even if we rarely choose to do so."
"Crossing the northern pole," Carlos' voice sounded above the murmur of numerous conversations, "Starting a right turn to follow the thirty degree longitude southward."
"Not a very circular orbit," Kyle commented.
"Yes," Prime agreed. "If you'd been here at the launch you would have heard. The course will avoid inhabited land as much as possible, following thirtieth degree longitude down past the equator, then angling southeast around the southern tip of Africa and across the southern Indian Ocean along the coast of Antarctica, then back to Australia."
"A very irregular orbit, with the advantage that the likelihood of any unwanted attention is very small," Doctor Forest added.
Kyle nodded. "Is that land I see below?" Faint blue and beyond-violet colors seen through a white and gray fog hinted at an irregular surface a hundred meters below.
"Greenland, if I'm not mistaken," Doctor Forest commented.
"I'm having some trouble regulating the matter-antimatter mixture," Carlos reported. "Throttling back to eighty per cent."
Kyle and the others summoned up a direct link to the ship's telemetry and studied the graphs and tables which each perceived and understood in their own way. Several members of the Astronautics group had dropped out of the slow, real-world time Kyle, Prime, Doctor Forest and most of the other casual observers were experiencing the event at, opting instead for the accelerated time their Autonomous Nodes permitted them. There was absolute silence as the observers studied the data with growing alarm.
"I am experiencing a cascade failure of the magnetic containment system." Carlos reported calmly. "The magnetic field appears to have entered an unstable state, probably a result of interaction with the high-temperature plasma exhaust. Attempting to power down the main engine." 
Abruptly the sky was filled with a terrible flash. Several people were startled to see glacial ice melting a hundred meters below in an instant of blinding illumination a fraction of a moment before the entire scape went blank.
"We've lost all telemetry," Karen's voice was quiet, stunned. "The test vehicle and all monitoring probes appear to have been destroyed. Failure of the anti-matter containment system is suspected to have been the cause. Our pilot's consciousness on board the craft has been lost, although a copy he left behind for just such a contingency has been activated and has assimilated his predecessor's memories up to a few moments ago."
"My God," Doctor Forest murmured.
"Bad news, guys." Cathryne suddenly stood among them.
"No shit, Sherlock," Kyle began heatedly. "Drop by just to tell us that?" his voice dripped with sarcasm.
Cathryne shook her head. "I don't mean the failure of the test flight. Authorities in the Physical haven't had time to react to the news yet, but I've pulled images of the explosion off of three different satellites, including one I think belongs to Double Eye."
Suddenly a large image of Greenland, as seen from near earth orbit, appeared in front of them. A large explosion was clearly visible, along with a well defined shock wave spreading away from it like ripples in a pond, and a classic mushroom cloud reaching high into the stratosphere above.
"Good Lord," Prime muttered.
"You've hacked into Double Eye's systems?" Kyle was incredulous.
"Lower level surveillance only," Cathryne replied. "Their higher encryption uses the same sort of quantum-coupled one-time pads we do. Uncrackable, by any software means."
"That blast must have been the equivalent of at least a two hundred megaton nuclear explosion," Doctor Forest commented. "We've got to figure out why the anti-matter containment system failed."
"That isn't our immediate concern," Cathryne replied. "Even as we speak these images are being displayed on monitoring stations at the weather service, the UN Wildlife and Ecological Rehabilitation Organization, and Double Eye. Your guess is as good as mine as to how long it will be before a human being sees these images, or has them brought to their attention."
"Were there any casualties on the ground?" Prime asked quietly.
"Not that have been reported," Cathryne replied, "But at least three commercial ships were close enough to see the flash, perhaps even be affected by it."
"Fallout won't be a problem," Doctor Forest commented, "If no one received a lethal dose from the initial flash then no one will be hurt. That flash would have been profoundly radiant and dangerous, however."
Kyle shook his head. "Whether or not anyone besides Carlos was injured or killed by this, I still have the sinking feeling we just poked the powers that be in the eye with a very big stick."
"Exactly," Cathryne nodded. "All hell is going to break loose, and you can bet the authorities are going to assume the worst. I hope to God they don't connect this with us."
Prime shook his head sadly. "I've got to get back to the Astronautics group. They've just had a terrible setback and are going to need all the support they can get."
"I'll join you," Doctor Forest said, "I want to take a look at how that containment system could fail. The vehicle was performing so well otherwise ... if we can figure out the design flaw and fix it the idea should still be viable."
"While you guys troubleshoot I'm going to coordinate with the other members of the Strategy Group," Kyle replied. "I imagine our priorities for nano shipments are going to be juggled around just a bit."
"I'm going to try and track the political and tactical fallout of this little mishap," Cathryne added. "I'm assuming there will be a strategy meeting about this?"
"Maybe just a quick mind-chat," Kyle replied. "Some kind of idea exchange and coordination in any event. I have a feeling we might all be a little too busy for a formal get together, with full sensory scape and all that. The temporal slowdown is just too significant, with time at a premium all of a sudden."
Cathryne nodded. "I've got work to do. I'll catch up with you guys later."
"Likewise," Doctor Forest waved as Cathryne vanished.
"You guys are still at the top of my list for nano," Kyle told Prime, "When you're ready to build another prototype just give me the word."
"Will do," Prime replied. Kyle nodded, returning to his homescape even as the other two flickered elsewhere.
34 - A Threat Upon the Wind

Where is the indignation about the fact that the United States and Soviet Union have accumulated thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?
Norman Cousins, 20th Century C.E.

Metadate: 2.587-3:98:517 kD
(Thursday, October 11, 2057, 4:30 PM Chicago Time)
Chicago, Illinois

"Yes?" Katy blinked as Robert frowned at her from the telephone's screen. "What's the matter, Robert?"
"How is your traffic analysis program coming along?"
"Another hour or two and I'll be ready to make a couple of test runs," Katy replied. "If it works correctly the first time through we should start getting results by morning."
"That is too long. We need to know who these people are tonight."
Katy shook her head in irritation. "Robert, I'm using the best, not to mention fastest, hardware available to the Bureau. I've stepped on just about every toe there is to step on, and sidelined several ongoing, important cases to get the computer time needed to get anything sensible out of this data. I simply cannot crunch numbers any faster than this. Tomorrow will simply have to be soon enough."
"What would you say to unlimited access to a seventy mega node super cluster?"
Katy blinked. "I wish you had offered that when my team began writing the software this morning. Unless your super cluster is running the IBM Pulsix VI operating system ..."
"According to my techs we can emulate the software and hardware you need, for your software to run unchanged," Robert interrupted her.
"So," Katy said, "why do I get the feeling Double Eye has done this sort of thing before? Running FBI in-house software on their own, much faster equipment?"
Robert shrugged. "I'm not going to belabor the obvious. I gave you several one-time pads a few days ago."
"Yes," Katy nodded.
"Set up your telephone to use pad number forty seven. We're going to exchange encryption keys for a secure link."
"The link is already secure. Double so if we encrypt it with the one-time pad. Why on earth do we need another level of encryption on top ..."
"I really do not have time to explain," Robert replied. "Is your line secure?"
Katy pulled out her datapad and fed the one-time pad to her telephone. Tapping a few keys, she instructed it to begin encoding the signal using the one-time pad Robert had provided. The screen faded to static, then reappeared.
"All traffic is now being encoded using one-time pad number forty seven."
"Good. Now delete one-time pad number forty seven from your datapad," he instructed her. "We don't want to have any risk of reusing it sometime later. I'm sending your equipment a series of encryption keys."
The telephone beeped several times. "Negotiation complete," she replied, "We're even more secure. What is it you wanted to say?"
Robert's face vanished, replaced by a satellite image of the earth. Much of the northern Atlantic was shrouded in cloud. That which wasn't glinted beneath her, gold and red in an evening sun. "This event was recorded by several satellites about two hours ago."
Suddenly there was a flash, somewhere along the southeastern coast of Greenland. With growing horror Katy watched as the fireball spread and grew, forming a giant plume of vapor above which took on a very distinctive, and familiar mushroom shape.
"My God," she whispered. "An atomic attack?"
"No," Robert replied. "There doesn't appear to be any fallout or other characteristics of a nuclear event, beyond the force of the initial explosion. It appears to have been a meteor, entering the atmosphere at a steep angle from the north and exploding a few hundred meters above the surface."
"You're certain of this?"
"Initial estimates are that the explosion was in the two to three hundred megaton range," Robert informed her. "We won't know until we've had an opportunity to survey the site of the detonation and do a more thorough analysis of the resulting shock wave and seismic activity. However, the explosion, while initially quite radiant, was clean. Very clean, as a matter of fact."
"Too clean?" Katy asked.
"Cleaner, and more powerful, than any nation's military is currently capable of producing, yes. Our best guess is a large meteor. In fact, had the meteor been a little larger, or impacted the surface prior to exploding, and it might well have meant a multi-year winter and the end of civilization."
Katy was stunned, saying nothing.
"However, we can make use of this event to move our own investigation forward," Robert added brightly.
Katy shuddered. "Let me guess. 'Our black market technologists appear to be making a demonstration.'"
"That may be a political card we have to play at some point. Any talk of a meteor is absolutely top secret. For now, we will refer to the event as an explosion of indeterminate cause."
Katy swallowed hard. If the powers that be intended to use a natural event of this magnitude as cover for some operation, things could be expected to get very rough indeed. "Wouldn't we have been contacted with some kind of demand for release of those we've arrested?"
The image of the explosion vanished as Roberts face reappeared on the screen. He shook his head. "Not yet, but I'd be surprised if we didn't hear something within the next day." He winked. "Now you understand the urgency. Double Eye has authorized us to use as much of their computing resources as necessary to begin finding and arresting these people, before they decide to detonate one of their devices in a populated center. Our case has taken top priority, everywhere."
Katy groaned. "Which means we'll have everyone and their brother fumbling through our work."
"No," Robert replied. "Double Eye understands the inefficiencies of competing bureaucracies getting in one another's way in a misguided, competitive effort to be the first to a prize. My superiors have no tolerance of such shenanigans, particularly in the face of this kind of overt, nuclear threat. You and I will continue as before. The only difference is that everyone, at every level, has been ordered to render us any assistance and resources we request."
Katy let her breath out slowly. "That's quite some directive. Very well, as I said, the software will be ready for testing in another hour or two. With the kind of resources you've described ... did you say a seventy Meganode super cluster?" Robert nodded, and Katy grinned in spite of herself. "With luck, we'll be able to start making arrests tonight."
Robert nodded. "Excellent. I'm on a plane back to Chicago now. We'll coordinate this entire project from your location."
Katy nodded. "I'll see you a little later then." She reached forward to sever the connection.
"Oh, and one other thing, Katy. That offer for employment I made? My superiors have reiterated that offer. It seems you've impressed them even more than you impressed me."
Katy smiled once again. "Let's put off any discussion of career moves until after this case is solved, shall we? I don't need that kind of distraction right now."
"Spoken like a true professional, Katy. I'll see you in little over an hour."
"See you then, Robert," Katy said, severing the connection. The screen faded in a burst of static, then resolved once again, displaying the ubiquitous FBI logo. She shuddered as her mind replayed that fearful image of a massive explosion that seemed to literally melt the coast of Greenland. Two to three hundred megatons. Little or no fallout. The threat was clear, and horrifying, though she was deeply uncertain whether the threat was from the subversive technologists they sought, from the politicians who would disguise such an event as an attack to justify some equally horrific response, or from the uncaring universe itself, so grand and so utterly indifferent to human life.
35 - Madness

The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.
-- Somerset Maugham, C.E. 1919

Metadate: 2.642-4:00:000 kD
(Saturday, October 13, 2057, 12:30 PM Chicago Time)
Homescape of Doctor Nolen (Version 15.6)
Public Scape #17 (Version 1.2)

Doctor Nolen, the Original, presided over his world, feeling something akin to contentment. They had shunned him, had filtered him from their very existence, had cheated him of his work, of the recognition he deserved. They had made him an outcast in the community he had founded, whose very existence had been predicated upon his research.
Now they were his subjects, trussed up in their virtual forms, in various stages of virtual vivisection. Most were frozen snapshots ... he didn't have the computational power to run them all at once, but one lay before him, his virtual skull cut away in a perfect circle above the ears, revealing the familiar, gray, convoluted form of the human brain.
"This experiment will explore the cognitive capabilities of a subject whose higher linguistic skills have been intermeshed with his pain receptors," Doctor Nolen said, as if reciting into an unseen recorder.
"You fucking monster!" Kyle screamed. "You have no right to do this!"
"On the contrary, my erstwhile student. I have every right." Doctor Nolen raised his hand, clenched it into an invisible fist and laughed.
Kyle screamed.
"Don't take this personally, Kyle," Doctor Nolen said, grinning. "Your suffering doesn't serve only to give me pleasure. It is in the noble pursuit of scientific discovery that I've cross-wired your cortex to your pain center. Every time you think a coherent thought which accesses your language center you will suffer. It will be interesting to see if you can evolve a method of thinking that doesn't involve language, before the pain drives you to madness." He laughed again as Kyle's screams grew louder, more desperate.
"What the hell?" Cathryne looked about her in horror at the forms hanging about them in various stages of frozen dismemberment. "What are you doing?"
"Silence, slut!" Doctor Nolen commanded. "I haven't given you leave to operate. Node, suspend the running copy of Cathryne."
"No copy of Cathryne is currently running."
"You sick bastard!" Cathryne exclaimed, looking around her in horror.
Doctor Nolen smiled and bowed. "Do I have the pleasure of addressing the real Cathryne L'Beau? How nice of you to stop by, after so many kiloCircadians of neglect. To what do I owe this unaccustomed visit?"
"Doctor Nolen, the community voted and suspended your access to all of the ontological utilities, including those for replication and cloning of sapients. How did you acquire copies of myself and the others?"
"My dear erstwhile colleague, you and the rest of that collection of ungrateful wretches you call the 'Community' have forgotten one basic principle of any Turing complete machine."
"And what might that be?"
"The ability of any Turing complete machine to fully emulate in software any other Turing complete machine. I have created a virtual node from scratch, including all of the necessary utilities for me to continue my work but without the irritating safeguards you've chosen to put on individual autonomy. In short, my dear ex-colleague, neither you nor anyone else in the so-called community can keep a man from his work. Node, suspend experimental subject three and activate experimental subject number two."
The weakly whimpering figure of Kyle abruptly froze, while the bound form of Cathryne suddenly awoke with a despairing scream.
"Care to stick around, my dear?" Doctor Nolen asked with a vicious smile as he strode briskly across the room to the side of Cathryne's suffering copy.
"Work? You have no right to hold sapient people against their will, much less to run copies of myself, Kyle, and these others without our knowledge or consent."
"Phooey. Try and stop me, bitch," he said, laughing once more as he dropped his trousers and viciously drove his, obviously exaggerated, manhood into the copy's helpless form. Cathryne's face went white, then red with rage even as her copy started screaming in horrified pain. "Now tell me," he continued, as though nothing untoward were going on, "to what do I owe this extraordinary visit?"
Cathrynee struggled to control herself. "You are aware of the arrests?" she asked coldly. "Fifteen thousand people taken in the last day and a half, all over the world."
"And what should I care about fifteen thousand ungrateful fools meeting their destiny at the hands of our illustrious law enforcement agencies?"
Cathryne was barely able to contain her rage. "I know you think you're invulnerable, Doctor Nolen," she hissed, trying desperately not to react to the sounds of her weeping copy. "Everyone knows that the anonymous tip to the police, which cost Kyle his physical body and could well have cost him his life, came from you. No one would be at all surprised to find you've committed other acts of betrayal as well, above and beyond this," she gestured at the carnage around them, "this obscenity."
"How droll," Doctor Nolen replied. "You don't visit me for hundreds of kiloCircadians, then come just to parrot another of my copy's pathetic diatribes on ethics?"
"No," Cathryne said. "I'm here to tell you you're cutoff. No further communications between this site and the community. Goodbye."
Her form shimmered and vanished.
"You can't keep me down, you ungrateful bitch!" Doctor Nolen shouted after her. "None of you can," he muttered, pulling up his trousers as he froze the copy of Cathryne once more and returned to the writhing, whimpering form of Kyle. "Now, my pet, how are we doing. Ready for the next stage of the experiment, are we?" Abruptly the image of Cathryne froze, then vanished, followed immediately by the others. Doctor Nolen found himself standing amidst his various devices of torment and destruction, suddenly alone. His screams and obscenities were swallowed by the empty world around him, unheard and uncaring.

"We deleted the unauthorized copies he was running," Kyle was saying, "And purged any residuals that might have been remaining on one of his nodes. I never would have guessed he would have been able to reconstruct us from the original, first generation node he had in his lab."
Cathryne took a long, deep swallow of beer and shook her head. "It isn't enough. Nolen is right ... as long as he has access to a Node, no matter what restrictions we put on him he can design, build, and emulate his own Node architecture in software and then do whatever he likes. He'll almost certainly continue committing these kinds of atrocities. We simply can't allow him to clone or create sapient beings and torture them like he has been!"
"I agree," Kyle said, "But how do you propose we stop him? Off-load into the physical and smash his Node? Or Nodes, rather ... he still has the cluster he built a couple months ago."
"Pardon me for interrupting," Doctor Forest said, sitting down at the bar to Cathryne's right. "But what I would like to know is how he's able to emulate anything at a sufficient speedup to have been able to accomplish what he obviously had in so short a time."
"He has a twelve-node cluster of gen one Nodes," Kathryn began.
"Actually, only eleven Nodes," Kyle interrupted. "His twelfth Node was offline."
"Offline?" Doctor Forest asked.
Kyle shrugged. "MIA. Nowhere to be seen, or at least pinged. Believe me, I stripped every piece of equipment he had online down to the assembly level, and Cathryne, as I was using your knowledge engrams, I'm confident I didn't leave any stones unturned. He won't be making copies of any of us, ever again. Oh, by the way, I did confirm it. The fucker is using my stolen gen three Node."
"Did you tell him about the upcoming blackout?" Doctor Forest asked.
Cathryne shrugged. "I told him we were severing communication. I didn't tell him why."
"So he'll think its punishment by the Community for his activities," Doctor Forest said.
"He's so self-involved, what difference does it make what he thinks?" Cathryne spat.
"Well," Kyle said, "Until our nano constructors have finished creating the superconductive fiber links of our autonomous network, none of us are going to be doing much talking to one another. Quick bursts of knowledge and memory engrams at best, for five very long days we can ill afford to lose."
"It can't be helped," Cathrynee said, "Even this little conference is dangerous. They are using an amazingly sophisticated traffic analysis approach to find us, and with fewer and fewer of us online the vulnerability will only grow. We can't afford to interact with one another using the Internet as a conduit any longer. I just wish your nanites could build our autonomous network faster, Kyle."
"So do I," Kyle replied, "I'm just glad the Networking Group's refinements have paid off."
"I think we all are," Cathryne agreed.  "Imagine what a fix we have been in if their original projections had remained true."
"Two months just to deploy?  Hundreds of tons of nano, molecular stock, and catalyst?  My God, that would have been a nightmare.  As it is I've had to divert almost every liter of nano constructor, molecular stock and catalytic solution we can produce to this. Five days to wire the entire world with a completely independent, high speed network is one hell of an improvement, but it's still a long time to be out of touch."
"Once its done the authorities will have no way to track us," Cathryne pointed out.  "Plus, the added benefit that we'll have much lower interactive time deficits than we're used to, and transload times will go from hours to seconds. If we can just hold it together for a week, I think we'll find that this entire thing benefits us."
"Except for those who've already fallen," Doctor Forest replied.
"On that cheerful note, I'm ending this conference." Cathryne replied.  "See everyone in twenty kiloCircadians or so."
"Actually, Doctor Forest and I will be able to talk in three kiloCircadians," Kyle said, grinning. "Key strategy groups are getting preference in the construction schedule. You should be able to touch bases with Prime in a day or so at most as well. Unfortunately the transpacific link won't be up until close to the end, so while we won't be totally isolated, we'll have to work as independent groups for fifteen or twenty kiloCircadians."
Cathryne nodded. "I've already integrated your knowledge engram. Good work, Kyle. As usual, you've pulled a miracle out of your hat. Talk to you guys in five days."
Kyle nodded and waved as she vanished.
"What do you think?" Doctor Forest asked.
"About Cathryne? She's a little shaken up at what she saw in Nolen's scape. Hell, who wouldn't be? But she'll be fine."
"No, not about Cathryne, about Doctor Nolen."
"I think Cathryne is right," Kyle replied.  "He's a psychotic prick and a menace to the community. If Prime hadn't insisted on having a link established to Nolen's house I would have left him off the new grid entirely."
"What he has done is reprehensible enough to raise the ire of the community, even in these uncertain times. Tell me, do we have access to his low level Node functions?"
Kyle nodded. "The idiot still doesn't understand security. How do you think Cathryne was able to slip into his private scape so easily? He's using my gen three node as a dumb computer to emulate his modified virtual node, while running himself on that eleven gen-one Node cluster he has. Neither the virtual Node he's running, nor the cluster, have any of the gen-two, gen-three, or gen-four failsafes. If he were hosting himself on the gen-three node he'd be untouchable, but as it stands..."
"...as it stands, we do have the power to exile him into the physical, where he won't be able to do the kind of harm he's been doing here."
"Yes," Kyle said. "My vote is to exile the bastard and smash every Node in his possession."
"That won't be necessary," Doctor Forest replied. "Prime kindly provided us with a straightforward Mental Architecture Modification that is fully compatible with our biological brains and will result in an off-loaded mind being incapable of reentering anesthetic coma, a prerequisite to on-load."
"And an active mind cannot on-load," Kyle said, nodding in understanding. "Meaning that such a person's very mind would be incompatible with the on-load procedure."
"Yes.  The Virtual will be completely inaccessible to him, probably forever. Exile, in other words, without the need for someone to off-load into the Physical, go over to Nolen's house, and start smashing Nodes."
"Elegant," Kyle said. "On that happy note, I'll ping you once the private links are up, in" Kyle gazed off into space a moment, "eleven hours and thirty five minutes. The Astronautics group should be back in business shortly thereafter ... with any luck they'll have a new prototype ready for testing."
Doctor Forest nodded. "See you then."

36 - Deceptions

A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.
-- John Stuart Mill, C.E. 1859

Metadate: 2.733-0:71:000 kD
(Monday, October 15, 2057, 1:00 PM Chicago Time)
Chicago, Illinois

Robert Leahy paced back and forth impatiently as Katy scanned the status reports once more to be certain. There was little point: the conclusion was obvious. There were no more conspirators online, using the Internet. Or at least none who were making use of the protocols that had made them so easy to find just a couple of days earlier.
"Would you stop that?" she snapped as Robert began pacing even more briskly.
"Explain to me how we could go from five thousand arrests the first day and nine thousand arrests the second day, to only three hundred arrests the third day and none since!"
"Robert, we've been over this. Either there were only fifteen thousand or so persons using the technology and protocols in question and we've arrested them all, or they detected what was happening, deduced how we were finding them, and stopped broadcasting their whereabouts. Either way, we aren't going to get any further information, or make any further arrests, by analyzing Internet packets and traffic patterns. This phase of the investigation is over."
"Only three of the people we have arrested are conscious. Three! The rest are in comas, effectively unreachable to us. Tell me, how am I supposed to interrogate fifteen thousand comatose people?"
Katy shrugged. "We knew we were dealing with intelligent people. We shouldn't be that surprised that they were on to us after a couple of days of rather substantial mobilization and arrests. I'm more concerned with getting a picture of how many are left, and preparing the groundwork for detecting them when they come back online. I doubt they'll remain silent forever."
"Indeed. The three we've been questioning have been anything but silent. Unfortunately they seem to be very low level peons in the whole affair, perhaps simply customers. In any event, they appear to have no knowledge of the criminals' organizational structure or intent."
"Any insight as to what the damn machines we keep turning up actually do?"
Robert nodded. "Apparently they are some kind of mind-enhancing apparatus. Two of our suspects kept babbling about how crippled their thoughts were since they had been disconnected."
"A direct neural interlink to memory and computational enhancements?" Katy asked.
"Something like that. One suspect offered to tell us more, but he kept insisting he needs to be reconnected in order to access his recollections. Apparently some of their memories are being stored on these devices, rather than in their own skulls."
"Interesting. Are you going to allow it?"
Robert scowled. "I did. He dropped into a coma and hasn't come out. It may have been deliberate, or simply a side effect of using what may very well be a dangerous technology."
Katy shook her head. "He escaped," she replied.
"How do you mean?"
"If these little crystalline computers we've been finding are capable of storing memories and enhancing intelligence, they may very well be capable of simulating dream states to the user. Your coma patients may simply be people who were dreaming digitally enhanced dreams and remained comatose when they were disconnected. For all we know, their own minds have taken over where the computer left off after being disconnected. Or the shock was too great for their minds to handle, and they are truly vegetables. 
"Either way, they've eluded our questioning."
"You're suggesting something like augmented virtual reality?"
Katy shrugged. "With a direct neural interface it is certainly possible. Enhanced lucid dreaming, completely submersive virtual environments, completely synthetic realities, or simple memory enhancements coupled with quick and easy computation. Anything is possible, given what we know about these devices, and all of these possibilities are consistent with the psychological trauma, or denial, implied in disconnecting these people abruptly from their neurally linked digital companions."
"We have the devices warehoused," Robert said. "We could try reconnecting these people and see if any come out of their comas."
"It might be worth a try," Katy replied, "But I suspect the damage was already done when they were disconnected. Besides, has your suspect deigned to return to waking life?"
Robert shook his head. "No. I think you're right, he pulled one over on us. Even disconnected from the Internet those devices must offer them some kind of enhanced capabilities or submersive entertainment. He's likely living off in his own dreamworld, ignoring the lot of us."
"I agree. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that is what this entire thing is all about. Virtual reality, in its original, pre-marketdroid sense. Completely submersive realities these people are living in, a sort of interactive role playing game on steroids. They probably interact with other players via the Internet, and couldn't help but notice when several thousand of their teammates or whatever vanished from the game."
"Perhaps," Robert said slowly, "But there are too many pieces that still don't fit."
"Not really," Katy replied. "It explains the behavior and the demographic perfectly, even down to the propensity for victims to remain comatose when they are removed from the devices. As usual, it all boils back down to an insatiable appetite for entertainment."
"It doesn't fit this little datum," Robert replied, tossing his datapad to Katy.
"What's this?" she asked, then frowned as she began reading. After several moments she looked up. "Are you certain? Has this been verified?"
"Yes. Apparently two military satellites briefly tracked an aircraft or missile passing over the north pole, flying in excess of Mach four at about one hundred meters AGL. The flight was taking place in near zero-zero conditions ... if it hadn't been for the shockwave's seismic effects on the ice sheets it would have likely been undetected. However, its trajectory and timing is absolutely consistent with where it would have been at the time of our purported meteor impact."
"Then it wasn't a meteor after all," Katy replied. "It was a detonation. An attack, a threat of some kind."
Robert shook his head. "It doesn't look like it. There have been no threats issued, and the radiological fingerprint isn't consistent with anything we know about atomic weapons, clean or otherwise. Or meteors, for that matter. In fact, the profile we have, which I should emphasize is very incomplete, appears to be consistent with the energy release of several tenths of a gram of antimatter recombining with matter in a process of mutual annihilation. A very brief, radiant explosion, but absolutely no secondary fallout or contamination."
"An antimatter bomb? You think our perps have developed an antimatter bomb?"
"No," Robert replied. "If my superiors, and those working the explosion case are correct, it is much worse. They've developed a matter-antimatter engine, one that malfunctioned and destroyed their aircraft. If that is true, they are a good fifty or sixty years ahead of us in engineering alone, not to mention the disturbing fact that they have some means of producing antimatter in quantity."
"Our particle accelerators produce antimatter every day," Katy replied. "Somehow, I find the idea that this was merely an accident, a malfunction, much more reassuring than either the meteor theory or prospect of a deliberate explosion. Why do you say this is worse?"
"Because it belies a frightening level of sophistication, Katy, even greater than we previously suspected.  An antimatter bomb would be relatively simple to make. Devise a means of containing the antimatter in a magnetic bottle, one that can withstand accelerations typical missiles are subjected to, then collapse the magnetic field when the missile reaches its target and allow the antimatter to recombine with the constituent matter of the missile itself. Boom. We could build such a device today, if we had a cheap source of antimatter. Of course, all the physics labs in the world, taken together, produce only a few nanograms of antimatter each year, all of which is ultimately used for physics experiments, or to fuel or defense satellites. 
"No, what these people have is a technological and engineering advantage on us that is measurable in decades at the very least, and, as hard as it is to believe, perhaps centuries. This is very, very serious."
"Are we certain this is the same group of people we've been chasing?" Katy asked. "The profile of someone who would build an aircraft doesn't really fit with our other data, or our suppositions about the people we're after."
"I don't believe in coincidences, Katy. What are the likelihood of two independent groups developing vastly more advanced technologies at exactly the same time, and our discovering them one right after another like this."
"You're right, that isn't very likely," Katy agreed. "The crystalline computers we've been confiscating lately are obviously much more advanced than the golden cubes were finding a few weeks ago, and even those were several decades beyond what we are capable of making. Now we have aircraft that are similarly advanced. Occam's razer suggests they are likely one and the same group of people, or at the very least, they are in touch with one another. But Robert, this is nothing new. We have known for some time now that these people are technologically more advanced than we are.  I don't see that this really changes anything substantially."
"Katy, I don't think you understand. If they have antimatter engines, they can reach the stars. These private criminals have advanced spaceflight capabilities. Think about what this means! Private citizens with spaceflight capabilities that put our governmental and industrial space programs to shame. This has never happened before!"
"It looks more like something that is in the experimental stage," Katy pointed out, "Besides, if it was a spaceship what was it doing flying so close to the earth's surface? More likely it was an experimental aircraft, one that didn't work and ultimately blew up."
"You're right," Robert agreed, "The vehicle which exploded over Greenland was almost certainly an airplane. But an airplane with enough energy to propel it out to the Oort cloud. An airplane that could fly for years, perhaps decades, at four times the speed of sound, without ever refueling. Once these people work out the wrinkles of their design and have something that doesn't blow up, they'll be able to field their own space program."
Katy nodded.  "We need to find and arrest these people, I agree. However, now that they've stopped using the Internet to communicate I'm at a loss as to how. For now, it looks like we have to simply wait and lurk, until they begin talking amongst themselves once again.
"My superiors are taking this threat very seriously," Robert replied. "These people have violated all of our intellectual property regimes and have progressed their technology to such a point as to represent a clear and present threat to the entire world community. No governmental authority can hope to be able to cope with a group of people armed with this kind of technological edge. It is up to us to neutralize this threat before it becomes acute." Robert looked tired, and more than a little worried. "A couple of days ago I bragged about being able to get carte blanc from my superiors by leveraging a meteor strike into a clear and present threat. Now it looks like we're going to be confronting that threat for real."
Katy nodded. "It is like the Genecraft rebellion all over again."
"Which brings me back to my original point. Submersive VR can't be what this is all about. These people are too smart, too advanced, to simply be entertainment junkies who've found a way to pipe their games directly into their cortex."
"So we're back where we started. These devices are thought aids, memory enhancement devices, and perhaps submersive simulation engines all rolled up into one. A scientist plugs his mind into one of these things and, for the duration, is several times smarter than he was before, with perfect recall and the ability to simulate his experiments as soon as they occur to him. Barring any physical lab work, and with a disregard for current patent and copyright restrictions, they can develop lines of inquiry several times more rapidly than an unenhanced person could."
Robert nodded. "I think we're on the right track there."
"So do I," Katy agreed, "But I have the ugly suspicion we're still missing something fundamental about what is going on. And I'm still open to suggestions as to how to go about finding those persons who've escaped our earlier dragnets."
"Well, if worse comes to worse, we can send the military in door-to-door."
Katy looked at Robert, appalled.
"Hey," he replied, almost defensively. "We are going to get these people, by whatever means necessary. Count on it."
37 - The Physical

Heaven is supposed to be a perfect place. Yet, it experienced a war (Revelation 12:7). How can there be a war in a perfect place and if it happened before why couldn't it happen again? Why would I want to go to a place in which war can occur? That's exactly what I'm trying to escape, aren't you?
-- C. Dennis McKinsey

Metadate: 2.728-9:60:000
(Tuesday, October 16, 2057, 9:45 AM Chicago Time)
Champaign, Illinois

Doctor Nolen turned his head listlessly, gazing about the bedroom. His cluster of Nodes stood at the foot of the bed, a collection of golden cubes that resembled so many blocks of glass. On his desk to his right stood one generation three Node by itself, its blue, cylindrical form glowing slightly in the relative darkness.
He hated the Physical. He hated every off-load, every return to this hard, unyielding reality where the world so stubbornly refused to yield and mold itself to his merest whim.
Ever since his copy had stolen his body for a time, Doctor Nolen had been fastidious about his physical maintenance. He might not enjoy doing it, but he wasn't about to allow his physical form to grow ill or die from neglect. Groaning he slowly sat up, pulled back the sheets and carefully removed his catheter. The bag was half filled with urine, and his body was insistently demanding further release.
Once he had used the restroom he felt a great deal better. Slowly, carefully he descended the stairs and crossed the living room. Through the dining room, to the kitchen, where he took an Instant Meal from the pantry and, sitting down at the small kitchen table, pulled its heating tabs. He licked his dry lips and, suddenly remembering the need to drink, got up, walked carefully over to the dishwasher, removed an empty, clean glass, walked just as carefully over the the refrigerator, and emptied what was left of a bottle of Nutrition Man into his glass.
Time to have more groceries delivered, he thought silently as he took a sip of the drink and made his way carefully back to the table. His meal chimed its readiness and he pulled away the cover. Soy chicken, mixed vegetables that might have been carrots and spinach but were more likely seaweed and some clever tofu combination with orange dye, and a chilled salad which was designed to resemble lettuce but tasted closer to cabbage and was neither.
He ate slowly, methodically, the flavors barely registering. Occasionally he took a drink of Nutrition Man, until the glass was empty. No matter. He'd place another order with the delivery service online, once he was on-loaded again.
After his meal Doctor Nolen made his way to the recreation room and began his workout in earnest. Sit-ups. Fifty. Then twenty minutes on the treadmill, walking at a rapid pace, followed by fifteen minutes on the FleXisizer working his arms and chest. A series of joint limbering exercises to cool off with, a healthy drink of Sportsman, and he was slowly making his way back upstairs.
The shower was hot and pleasant, about the only thing he found enjoyable when in the Physical. A half hour of steaming water pounding on him and he was ready to urinate once more. That taken care of, his body dried and the remains of his hair combed neatly, fresh underclothing donned, and he was ready to depart the Physical for another day. Total time spent on this side was just shy of an hour and a half. Two hundred and fifty Circadians, as the Community reckoned them. More like 40 for himself, running on older hardware as he did. Still, forty days was far from negligible. These maintenance trips into the Physical cost him dearly in time on the other side.
With something akin to anticipation, something almost recognizable as eagerness, Doctor Nolen slipped the silver netting of the neurolink over his head. The superconducting strands warmed to body temperature instantly, forming a barely noticed web about his face like a second, thinly veined skin. He slipped his catheter gingerly back on, settled back into his pillows, pulled the sheets up to his chin, and gave the silent command to initiate on-load.
Nothing happened.
What the hell?  He almost spoke aloud.
He gave the on-load command once again. Still nothing. No brief sleepy sensation that marked the onset of anesthetic coma, nothing. Silent unresponsiveness.
Doctor Nolen slipped the neurolink from his skull and sat back up. Carefully, gingerly, he removed his catheter and began checking each link, each piece of hardware, beginning with the neurolink itself. It looked fine, as did the Node cluster and each of its cross links, as did its link to the Internet. Ditto for the third gen Node he was using as a simple computer, not that it should be relevant. A system failure? he wondered. Not likely ... This stuff was more reliable than any other equipment on the planet, and appliances in general seldom broke down.
He checked every connection again, then checked each Node in turn.
No sign of malfunction. He decided to run some deeper diagnostics. Brushing the dust away from the keyboard he powered on his PC and started the Autonomous Node Diagnostic software. He analyzed each Node in turn, running diagnostics that, in the time frame of the Node itself, would run for almost half a Circadian and test virtually every function. Each test checked out perfectly.
"This doesn't make any sense." Doctor Nolen wasn't sure what surprised him more: the fact that he'd spoken aloud, or how rusty his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and looked over the diagnostic reports one more time.
Eventually the blinking mail icon in the lower right corner of the screen caught his attention. He debated waiting to read his email until he figured out whatever was wrong and on-loaded once again. But this mail must have arrived between his off-load and the present. Given how seldom he received any correspondence of any kind he found he was too impatient to wait. Impatience would distract him and ultimately slow down his ability to troubleshoot whatever was wrong, he reasoned, which would delay his on-load even further. He tapped the icon.

[BEGIN GPG SIGNED MESSAGE]

Metadate 2.728-5:20:00
Cathryne L'Beau
Prime
of the Strategy Group

Doctor Nolen

This is to inform you of the verdict of a hearing conducted by a Special Judicial Inquiry Board, appointed and elected by the Autonomous Community at Large to investigate allegations of Crimes against Sentient persons by Doctor Larry Nolen, to ascertain the veracity of said allegations, and report their findings back to the Community for preventative and punitive actions as the Community deems necessary.

Having found the allegations to not only be of merit, but to be incontrovertible given evidence provided from the low level operating system logs and recurrent memory storages of Doctor Nolen, made accessible as a result of his continued operations on an insecure, first generation Autonomous Node, the evidence and findings were presented to the Community.  Its assignment complete, the Special Judicial Inquiry Board as to the Matter of Doctor Nolen and Crimes Against Sentient Beings was formally disbanded, and a plebiscite as to the appropriate measures brought before the Community.

The Community rejected all proposed punitive measures.  No actions beyond the preventative measures described as follows will be taken against you.  The text of the resolution is as follows:

It was resolved by the Community, that Doctor Larry Nolen, for Crimes against Sentient persons, as witnessed by Cathryne L'Beau and verified beyond a reasonable doubt by the Special Judicial Inquiry Board, these crimes having been committed despite removal of Doctor Nolen's access to ontological and genesis cloning and reproductive software, be prevented from ever committing such atrocities again.  Doctor Larry Nolen is therefor to be exiled forthwith, and for the remainder of his natural life, into the Physical.
It is with great regret that the Community has voted to take this
action.  However, Your initial contributions notwithstanding, it has been deemed that this is the only measure which will protect otherwise vulnerable sapients from your excesses.

Your mental architecture has been modified such that your mind is no
longer compatible with the on-load procedure.  Furthermore, specific
knowledge you may have retained in wetware compatible format regarding
the on-load procedure, Node construction, and architectural mind theory
has been removed to prevent a recurrence of the atrocities for which
you have become so widely known.

The Physical is now your world.  May you find peace there.

Cathryne L'Beau and Prime, representing the Autonomous Community at Large.
[END GPG SIGNED MESSAGE]
[Attachment: GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) Signature]
[Attachment: Transcript of Hearing]

Doctor Nolen screamed, a terrible sound shattering forth from his long unused voice. He raged, smashing the third generation node on his desk with his fist and then throwing it viciously into the cluster of first generation Nodes at the foot of his bed. He hardly noticed the tiny fractures that abruptly marred the perfect azure crystal of the third generation Node, or the cracks that appeared in the first generation Node it had struck. He was surprised at his strength as he lifted his chair and threw it into the cluster Nodes, scattering them about the foot of his bed and shattering several in the process. He kicked some of the surviving Nodes, then picked up the chair and methodically began smashing them one by one, until nothing but shards of golden crystal lay scattered about his bedroom floor. With his last blow he destroyed the third generation Node he had gone through so much trouble to steal so many weeks earlier, then mixed the blue chips of crystal with the golden shards of the others.
Doctor Nolen sank slowly amids the wreckage and, propping himself against the foot of the bed, began to weep bitterly.

38 - Designs

I will ignore all ideas for new works on engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvements I see no further hope.
Sextus Julius Frontinus, 1st Century C.E.

Metadate: 2.730-5:75:000 kD new Epoch
(Tuesday, October 16, 2057, 11:00 AM Chicago Time)
Interface Between Kyle and Doctor Forest's Homescapes

Kyle's scape merged with Doctor Forest's along along a geometrical interface of mutual agreement, represented as a small, straight canal easily stepped across with a single stride. Doctor Forest's scape was a sunlit, perfectly flat marbled surface resembling a checkerboard, retreating into infinity beneath a cloudless, sunless blue sky. Kyle's scape, in contrast, was quite dark, a shadowed room illuminated by numerous virtual monitors hanging in the air around him. Kyle was closely monitoring the nano-construction of the new, world-wide autonomous network, a tracery of high capacity super-conducting wires that would, in just a few more days, link up each member of the Community in a manner completely independent of the public telecommunications and data networks.
The Internet was no longer a safe place for them, no matter how cleverly they encrypted their traffic, or sought to hide their communications in steganographic images or video streams. Cathryne had discovered the stunningly clever methodology the Feds had been using to detect their presence, and their communications, on the Internet, and her insistence that all communication on the public bands be stopped at once had been acutely underscored by the arrests of more than fifteen thousand members of the Community throughout the world.
A traditional populace would have justifiably panicked, but the Community wasn't a traditional populace by any measure. Fear and concern were prevalent, but rather than panic, people had grimly gone about trying to determine how they could continue to communicate while minimizing the risk of detection. After several subjective Circadians of debate, which had lasted only a few minutes in physical time, the design for a new, completely separate, world-wide high-speed network had been agreed upon and, almost as one, the Community had gone silent.
Enforced hermitatude, Kyle had quipped as Prime had shut down his communication link. The link had gone silent, and would remain so until the new physical infrastructure had been constructed, but not before Kyle had seen Prime's answering grin.
Now pieces of the Community were reforming. Most of Australia was linked together once again. Presumably the same was true of Europe, India, the Middle East, and North America, though Kyle had no way of knowing this for certain. Those portions of the project were being monitored by others whose Nodes were physically located there. The transatlantic link would be up first, then a day later the transpacific link would be restored, via the Alaskan Enclave. Plans to criss-cross Asia were still on the drawing board, but hadn't been approved. There was concern that the Thai conflict might be spreading. In addition to Thailand, Cambodia had withdrawn from the World Trade Organization, and there was rumor Malaysia and even China were considering a similar move. While much of the Community applauded the courage of these countries standing up against the weight of the industrialized world and the United Nations in particular, it was almost certain that the Enforcement Operation in Thailand would spread. Though perhaps if one of the great powers, like China, were to join in solidarity with the other dissenters the worst of the UN's wrath might be averted. In any event, the fate of the Autonomous Community would most certainly be sealed if surreptitious communications links were found crossing into embargoed the territories.
It was a risk everyone agreed would be imprudent, so instead the communication link from Australia to India would go the long way around, undersea to the Philippines, up through Japan and Vladivostok, to the Alaskan Enclave, then down through Canada, across North America, under the Atlantic, across Europe through Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Most of Europe and Asia would be connected long before the Trans-Pacific link was up, with North America following shortly thereafter and Australia linking up last.
Building a worldwide network of super-conducting cable, designed to replace the Internet upon which they had previously relied, was a daunting project. Doing so in only a week was truly miraculous, and the design truly ingenious.
The problem had been not only how to replicate enough nano-constructors to wire an entire planet, but how to deliver them to many of the remote locations where wire needed to be fabricated, such as deep deserts of Secular Arabia and the bottoms of two large oceans. Then there was the whole issue of delivering catalytic solution to the nano-constructors themselves, so that they could derive the necessary energy to replicate themselves and carry out their programs. Not to mention the need to deliver certain trace elements in addition to the carbon already present in most locations.
Kyle glowed with pride at the elegant solution his team had come up with in collaboration with Cathryne's people. Each wire was a conduit, a pipe initially formed by the nano-constructors themselves as they burrowed through the earth, replaced gradually by super-conducting carbon composites as the nano-constructors built the new communications grid. The pipe, whether formed out of nano-constructors near the leading edges, or communications wire where construction was already complete, was divided radially into four separate conduits. Down one of these conduits flowed catalytic solution, while another carried the necessary trace elements in solution needed to construct the super-conductor itself. A third provided a transportation link for nano-constructor. Back along the fourth flowed waste product, a mildly toxic mix of surplus molecules and unwanted contaminants which were routed to any of several thousand micro-plants where they would be converted into inert, harmless products and either discarded or recycled for use elsewhere.
The new network, once complete, wouldn't just be a communications grid faster than anything the world had known, though that alone would have been a monumental achievement. This network was capable of much more, of piping catalytic solution and nano-constructors, either in inert form or actively replicating, anywhere the network extended. No more secretive shipments that might be discovered and intercepted, no more logistical hassles in trying to get catalytic solution from one location to another to support this or that project.
Out of necessity had come an infrastructural solution that promised to make catalytic solution and nano-constructors as easy to create and ship around as information itself, albeit much more slowly. Already the Astronautics Group had more than enough nano-constructor and catalytic solution than they needed. No more shortages, no more bickering over a limited supply of a valuable chemical being produced in limited quantities by clandestine processes hidden within the facilities of major chemical companies, or secret, low-scale production facilities tucked away in small, hopefully innocuous installations. Now factories could be hidden underground, in deep forests or distant mountain valleys, with the necessary components piped in through thousands of small wire-sized pipes, and the product shipped out through different arteries of the same.
If they survived, their ability to modify the physical and perhaps protect themselves would be significantly enhanced. Indeed, for all intents and purposes it already had been.
Kyle tore his gaze from a monitor showing him the gradual progress of the Trans-Pacific link and turned as he heard Doctor Forest's voice carry across the boundary their scapes shared.
"The Astronautics folks are ready for another test run."
"Already?" Kyle was surprised. He'd only had excess catalytic solution and nano-constructors to pipe to them for a couple of hours.
Doctor Forest nodded from the far side of the tiny canal, afternoon sunlight highlighting his features in contrast to Kyle's dark scape. Kyle wondered if Doctor Forest's entire scape was so featureless, or whether the minimalistic scape was in fact more akin to a foyer, created specifically to induce an initial impression, behind which other, more complex or interesting environments were hidden.
"They will be launching the test vehicle in two minutes."
Kyle nodded, folding the room in which he stood in half, then once again, before sticking it into his pocket and allowing his scape to go realtime, a digital representation of a dark, unlit airstrip beneath the starry Australian desert sky. The canal shifted with the view, so that Doctor Forest stood to Kyle's right as they both stood to the side of the airstrip, watching the preparations in the darkness through infrared-enhanced vision.
"Let's hope this one meets with better success than the last one," Kyle muttered.
"It will," Doctor Forest assured him. "I helped in the redesign myself. The tank no longer contains any anti-helium whatsoever. No need for a magnetic bottle, which can be prone to fail in high temperature plasma conditions. Instead the craft contains inert helium only."
"How do you get propulsion at all?" Kyle asked.
"There is a Superstring Strummer built into the craft itself. See those three prongs that extend aft of the wings? Those are the three manipulation prongs of the strummer itself, through which the higher dimensional Calabi-Yau folds of each particle can be manipulated. Fifty percent of the helium will be converted into anti-helium within the reaction manifold near the aft tips. The mixture should be perfectly diffuse and not suffer any of the asymmetries that plagued the original design. Not only will the result be significantly more thrust per gram of helium/anti-helium mixture, but if something does go wrong the strummer can simply be shut down and no additional anti-helium will be created. The reaction will simply stop, rather than exploding in our faces like it did last time."
Kyle nodded. "I assimilated the post mortem on the last flight. The asymmetrical mixture of the matter/anti-matter material was catastrophic ... insanely high temperatures in regions localized to mere nanometers, and relatively unreactive, colder regions elsewhere. A pity we weren't able to simulate those effects on the anti-matter containment system before the test flight."
"Indeed," Doctor Forest agreed.
Suddenly the darkness was lit up with a blinding light. The ship was supersonic before it lifted off the runway, skimming the trees at the far end. This time Kyle chose to chase the ship himself, flying behind it like a wingless bird. Doctor Forest joined him, grinning as his suit and tie morphed into a superman cape and tights. Kyle laughed as they raced out over a darkened ocean a scant fifty meters above the ground.
"Good Lord," Kyle said, "Fifty five G's on takeoff? Will our Node clusters be able to handle that?"
"Apparently, since the pilot is running on one and she seems to be fine. It was near the limits of the design specification, but Karl Hennrich was confident of his new Node design and we needed to know with certainty they can take what we may have to dish out. Better to have it fail now when we can redesign it if necessary, rather than when we're fleeing for our lives, setting off every regional defense perimeter and running a gauntlet of anti-missile satellite systems."
"I hope to hell we can slip away more quietly than that," Kyle replied. 
"So do I," Doctor Forest agreed. 
"They aren't going to try to fly that thing all the way around the world again, are they?" Kyle asked.
"No. There is some concern we may have been detected the last time, by either the Russians or the Americans, even before the mishap over Greenland. This time we're going to stay in the southern oceans, circling Antarctica once before sinking the craft in the Marianus trench and instructing a small cache of nano-constructors to deconstruct the device and return its constituent elements to the sea itself. The likelihood of detection will be very small, no remaining evidence will remain, and we'll have a long enough flight to gather all the data we need to prove out the design."
Kyle nodded. "Prime should be here for this."
"Yes," Doctor Forest agreed. "This communication hiatus is frustrating. If only we'd thought to build our own network before."
"Well, we'd thought of it, but not with physical arteries for nano-constructors and catalytic solution built into the very wires themselves, nor half a dozen other refinements that wouldn't have been feasible with gen-one nano-constructors and catalytic solution. You're right, though, we need to start getting proactive about our survival, instead of just reacting to every new threat as it comes along."
"That is what this is all about," Doctor Forest replied, gesturing toward the aircraft racing above the waves. "We've got to get off this planet, before an attack comes that we can't evade."
39 - A Shattered Life

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?
-- Epicurus, ca. 300 B.C.E.

Metadate: 2.733-0:71:000 kD
(Tuesday, October 16, 2057, 1:00 PM Chicago Time)
Champaign, Illinois

Eventually Doctor Nolen found he couldn't weep any more. For a time he simply sat unmoving amidst the shattered Nodes that had once housed his mind. He watched dully as the Node diagnostics cycled mindlessly through its tests, reporting success each time and then repeating itself, ad nauseum. The email he had read was gone, he noticed idly. Self erasing, of course. The Community wouldn't leave a trace of itself lying around on his PC, for fear he might go with it to the authorities and expose them all.
And why not? They had cast him out of paradise, had denied him the immortality he had helped create, had presumed to judge him, he whose work had made their lives possible. He seethed with renewed rage and walked over to the PC, wondering if there wasn't some way to salvage the information, to restore it and blow open wide the window on their clandestine community. Expose them all, and let the government round them up. Cathryne would be easy ... she lived nearby. And surely there must be others. Once the FBI was made aware of the dimensions of the problem ...
Why was the diagnostic still reporting success?
He stared at the screen, dumbfounded, as it continued to cycle through the diagnostic examination of a Node, reporting everything as functional with each iteration. He looked over at the shattered bits of gold and blue crystal scattered across his floor. Not a single complete, functioning Node was left.
"Another Node on my private network?" he muttered as he leaned closer to the screen and began watching the report scroll by in detail. Then, suddenly, realization struck him like a physical blow. "Prime!" he almost spat. You're still here, he thought, here somewhere, somewhere nearby, somewhere where I can get you.
Slowly Doctor Nolen's lips turned upward into a feral smile.

"We'll be linked back up with Europe tomorrow," Cathryne was saying as she took another sip of wine and gazed out at the sunset and the Parisian vista spread out beneath its gold and ruby glow. "Australia a day or so after that."
Prime2 nodded, carefully cutting away a portion of his filet mignon. "It is nerve-racking to be trapped geographically like this. I really wish I were able to follow the progress of the Astronautics Group a little more closely."
Cathryne shook her head. "Doctor Forest has that well in hand, I'm sure. Besides, isn't that more the purvue of your castrated alter-ego?"
Prime2 shrugged. "Just because one of me has modified himself to such an extreme, doesn't mean we don't both follow that particular line of development with similar enthusiasm and interest. We need to get off of this rock and away from those who would destroy us, and the Astronautics folks are our best bet. Damn these delays! We should have built our own network much earlier than this!"
"Hindsight being 20/20, I couldn't agree more," Cathryne replied. "But catalytic solution for our nano constructors has always been in high demand and short supply."
"You're right, as usual," Prime2 agreed. "We always had more pressing priorities. Hell, we still do, which is why I'm so agitated."
"So modify your emotional state accordingly and let's enjoy dinner."
Prime2 nodded and smiled. "All agitation has been shut down," he grinned. "I'll let Prime1 do all the worrying for us."
Cathryne laughed. "Good for you. If he's so worried, maybe he'll email himself to a node in Australia and you can have your node all to yourself again."
"Well, Cathryne, technically I'm the backup copy. Besides, even compressed he'd need forty or fifty exabytes. You can't mail that unnoticed, and there isn't a video or data stream big enough to do effective steganography with a package of that kind of size, at least not without toning down the data rate to such a degree that he'd still be in transit long after the new network is up and running. Better to just wait."
"I've never liked the fact that you both run on the same node," Cathryne replied. "What good is a backup copy if its on the same media as the primary one?"
"We've been through this already, Cathryne. You were right. I should have taken the four hours to transmit myself to another location, or at least one of my selves, but giving up six hundred and fifty Circadians just to change physical venues always seemed far too high a price to pay, and by the time it became an issue it was too dangerous to go sending that kind of data across the public nets. As soon as a free Node is linked up to the new autonomous network I'll trans-load one of my copies there.  It will only take a couple of minutes on the new network. I believe there were several available in Europe before we went offline. Will that make you feel better?"
"Yes," Cathryne said. "I'll even suspend myself for the duration of the transfer so we can stay in synch."
"That's not really necessary, Cathryne."
"Maybe not, but I'll feel a lot better when your backup copy is actually running on a backup piece of equipment, preferably in a separate hemisphere from your other copy."
"Jealousy?" Prime2 asked, grinning. "Want to keep us as far apart as possible?"
"Hardly," Cathryne replied with a brief grin. "More like worry. What if your primary Node gets confiscated, or broken by some jackbooted thug in a police uniform? We should all have backups, multiple copies stored redundantly the world over."
"That's a lot of Nodes, Cathryne."
"Not if we just store ourselves statically. We could all donate space on our nodes to hold static copies of one another. Then if one is lost, we build a new load and restore from the backup."
"We all feel vulnerable, Cathryne, especially after the mass arrests. But we're offline as far as the authorities are concerned, and no one has been arrested or lost their body since we've begun deploying the autonomous network. I think we can begin to relax a little, and get back to our projects. Besides," he added, grinning, "I'm not so much a backup copy as I am your copy. I make you happy, and that makes not only me happy, but Prime1 as well."
"Your changing the subject," Cathryne accused him.
Prime2 held up his hands in mock surrender. "Guilty as charged. I think your backup idea is a good one. You should present it to the strategy group when we're all linked back together again."
"I could make room on my Node now, Prime," Cathryne said. "We could swap backups now."
Prime2 shook his head. "I don't want a copy of you anywhere near Nolen, even if the chances of his ever finding my Node are minuscule. Besides, Europe will be back with us tomorrow. I've lasted this long with just one node, I'll last a day longer."
Cathryne sighed, knowing from long experience that she wouldn't win the argument that Circadian. Smiling, she reached across the table and took Prime2's hand. 
"You know when I knew Prime1 was no longer a human man in any real sense anymore, Prime?" she asked.
Prime2 shook his head.
"When you came into my arms and comforted me in those very first microCircadians. No man would have ever been able to overcome his own jealousy and ego enough to create a copy of himself and let it take over his love interest. I knew the moment you came to me that it was you who was still human in his heart, not him."
Prime2 smiled and shook his head. "Prime1 loves you very much, just not in the physical, primal way we love one another. Your happiness is very important to him, and he values the time you two spend together whenever you're collaborating on a project, or arguing philosophy and metaphysics."
"I cannot relate to the way he is anymore," Cathryne told him. "He's so passionate about such abstract things, and so absent in other, very basic ways."
"He's different, that is true, and neither of us can relate directly to what he has become. Neither can he relate directly to either of us anymore, but that doesn't mean he loves you any less."
"A Hollywood style 'love conquers all?'" Cathryne asked cynically.
Prime2 laughed.  "No, but love can bridge a great deal, perhaps even the gap between ourselves and the next, new species."
"The next new species?"
Prime2 nodded. "If we ever decide to have children here in the Virtual, they are far more likely to resemble Prime1 than either of us. Do you think that will make us love them any less, or prevent them from loving us?"
Cathryne shook her head and smiled. "No," she replied. "You're right." She raised her glass, smiling as she gazed into Prime2's liquid brown eyes. "To those we love," she whispered.
"To those we love," Prime2 agreed, smiling and lifting his glass.
Before their glasses could click together Prime2's fell suddenly from where his hand had just been and shattered as it struck the table. Where he had sat only a shocking emptiness remained.
"Prime?" Cathryne asked, standing up. "Prime? Prime!" She screamed his name once more in horror and desperation as the data came across to her. He was gone, his node no longer responding to pings. Crying uncontrollably Cathryne desperately wiped the restaurant scene away, replacing it with virtual screens and windows within which she began running network diagnostics and communications software. Still there was no reply, not even at the most basic, hardware level. That could only mean his node was physically no longer there, disconnected from the network. Finally she collapsed, her screams of rage and despair reduced to weeping.

The transparent, glittering surface of the darkened fourth generation Node initially resisted Doctor Nolen's efforts to smash it with the small hammer he'd found so conveniently located near his workbench.  He recalled the Community had taken to coating the devices with woven diamond and sapphire fibers, constructed molecule by molecule by ... he cursed the gaps in his memories, gaps left either by the Community's tampering with his mind, or else simply a symptom of his terrible loss, his once great, diminished intelligence.
Despite repeated, angry strikes with the hammer the deep, rich purple of the fourth generation Node inside remained undamaged.  Doctor Nolen cursed again, then smiled as he noticed the small data port on the side of the device.  He pried it loose with a screwdriver, then cursed again when he found the head of the tool would not pass through the small opening.  He found a smaller screw driver, one that would fit, and used it like an ice pick against the once-sapient crystal within.
His laughter was almost maniacal as the internal crystal structure of the Node shattered, its dark rich purple becoming a lighter shade of violet as millions of tiny fractures grew and splintered with each repeated strike of the screwdriver.  Finally, after several minutes the material inside had been reduced to dust and tiny shards, which he poured out through the tiny opening that had once housed the device's data port.  A small, conical pile of lavender dust and tiny purple glass-like shards stood next to a transparent case of impervious diamond and sapphire composite.  
Doctor Nolen stepped back from the work bench with satisfaction, brushing shards of shattered crystal and bits of fiberglass insulation from his hands. He glanced at the circuit-breaker box, now dangling from the wall, supported only by the wires out its back. He'd have to fix it at some point, but for now he gazed at the pile of shattered crystal and smiled contentedly.  That small, conical pile of dust and tiny fragments were all that remained of his hated opponent.  Prime was gone, irrevocably gone, physically wiped from the universe. Whistling softly to himself, he smiled contentedly as he began to sweep the dust and broken shards into a waste basket.
40 - Probes

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.
-- Sigmund Freud

Wednesday, October 17, 2057, 5:35 PM
Washington, D.C.

"What the hell is this?" Katy demanded, pointing her datapad at a large wall monitor and tapping the screen impatiently.
Images of black-suited commandos in body armer appeared, storming suburban homes and city apartment blocks, leading, and sometimes dragging, civilians off to the numerous white vans that were waiting. Some were clearly resisting, trying to fight free, but most were simply too dazed or shocked to put up any resistance.
"An application of traditional investigative techniques," Robert replied mildly. "One that will hopefully break the deadlock in our investigation."
"Break the deadlock? By randomly arresting innocent civilians in the middle of the night and carting them off to who knows where? These arrests are illegal, unconstitutional, and completely counterproductive. This entire affair smacks more of an act of desperation than of intelligence. What ever possessed you to order such a thing?"
"We haven't had a single arrest, or lead, since Monday. That is four days. Four days that a group of people with a technological advantage measurable in decades, perhaps even centuries, have had to react, to prepare, and to subvert our authority. Four days for these people to dig a redoubt so deep we'll never find them, much less bring them to justice. People who, need I remind you, are several times smarter than the both of us put together when they are plugged into those little crystal devices. People capable of producing anti-matter in quantity, and who possess the means with which to launch their own, private space program whenever the feel like it. Individuals, Katy, each with potentially as much power in their hands as a modern government.  We simply do not have the luxury of waiting around until we catch a break."
"So you've decided to act, and arrest all the wrong people."
"Please, Katy, spare me the dramatics. I'm taking samples, probes if you will, of the general population. You are as aware of personal interdynamics as I am. We have arrested five thousand random citizens. Once the facilities are available, we'll arrest another fifty thousand, if necessary. Statistically, we should already have several people in custody who either know someone involved in this little underground technological renaissance, or who know somebody who knows somebody. We will simply use traditional Guilt by Association tactics to ferret the people out and arrest them."
"Personal interdynamics is a data mining technique, Robert. Not carte blanche for holding five thousand innocent people, without charges, in direct violation of their constitutional rights!"
"Good grief, Katy, we've been through this. Can you really be so naive? Everyone knows the FBI hasn't given a hoot about civil liberties, or the U.S. Constitution, since the days of J. Edgar Hoover. Even the general public has been aware of this since the so-called War on Terror at the turn of the century.
"I would like nothing better than to employ standard data mining techniques, but as we both know, these people have somehow managed to remove every link we can follow between themselves and the rest of the world. Your own analysis shows how compromised the data is. Taking physical samples and reestablishing those links through direct interrogation is the only workable solution."
"My God, Robert. This violates every procedure, every regulation I am authorized to operate under. What you are doing is illegal, and neither I nor the Bureau can be a party to it."
"Katy, your superiors authorized, indeed, instructed you to offer Double Eye every assistance in solving this crime. This includes, explicitly, any extra-legal activities that may be required. You were well aware of this when you accepted Dark Investigation protocols."
Katy shook her head in dismay. "Dark Investigation protocols is simply a procedure that eliminates the paper trail, to cover any questionable activities required in bringing a suspect or suspects to justice. It was never intended as a cover for mass roundups and interrogations of innocent civilians!"
"How little you know the history of your own bureau, Katy," Robert replied.  Then, in a much harder tone, he continued, "Do not even think about getting cold feet on me. This investigation is far too important for that nonsense. These technologists are a direct and immediate threat to your government, and to the world trade bodies as a whole. They make Thailand look like a bunch of amateurs, and you know how close Thailand came to turning all of Asia against us."
Katy looked disgusted. "Yes, the Thais violated our copyrights and our patents, and happened to stop an epidemic in the process. Indenturing them for stolen potential profits, perhaps. But a war?"
Robert Leahy nodded. "If they'd left it at stopping an epidemic nothing further would have happened. A few trade sanctions, a garnished economy at most. Hell, Thailand wasn't the first country that ignored international patent law and WIPO directives in order to address an immediate social problem. The Brazilians and South Africans did much the same thing as far back as the nineteen nineties. But Thailand couldn't be content with intellectual theft. They had to start preaching subversion to the rest of Asia, encouraging their neighbors to withdraw from WIPO and the WTO. Even the Chinese were starting to fall under their influence."
"So the UN acted," Katy said, "And now Thailand has been thoroughly bombed back into the stone age and the UN has two hundred thousand troops fighting a hopeless war against indigents who have nothing left to lose."
"Thailand isn't important," Robert replied, waiving his hands dismissively. "It never was, except as an example to keep other, like minded nations in line. Cambodia and Malaysia may have withdrawn from the WTO, but they still honor our intellectual property regimes because they know that the moment they stop, the same thing will happen to them. The War on Piracy in Thailand keeps that point front and center in their minds, and will continue to do so for decades to come."
Katy couldn't believe her ears. Here was an agent of International Intelligence, the intelligence arm of the UN and WIPO itself, admitting to her that the entire war in Thailand was nothing more than an object lesson for others as to what happens to nations who flaunt the world's IP laws, and implying that the UN was continuing to wage the war simply to keep making that point as long as necessary.
"So the 'chronic threat' of Thailand is a fiction?" she asked in a strangled voice.
"Katy, do you really think the UN would need twenty years to subdue a small country like Thailand, even one using patented technologies it wouldn't otherwise be able to afford?" Robert shook his head, chuckling. "Thailand is nothing more than a reminder to would-be intransigent governments, which, if I may remind you, could come to include your own if these so called FreeNet advocates ever gain a political voice in this country. Keep that in mind as you go about arresting those people ... perhaps a reminder of what happened to Thailand will strengthen your resolve and help you get the job done when you start suffering from weak minded notions like constitutionality and due process."
"That is all very ... interesting," Katy replied, "But what exactly does it have to do with our immediate problems, and these arrests you've made."
"Haven't you been listening?" Robert asked, annoyed. "These individuals are a far greater threat to our governance than Thailand ever was. We will find them and we will neutralize them, even if we have to go door to door and search every home on the planet."
At that moment Robert's datapad chimed.
"Ah, speaking of which, the preliminary results of last evening's investigation." He pointed the datapad at the wall monitor, where a brisk young investigator's face appeared.
"Robert Leahy. Um, are we secure?"
Robert nodded. "This is Katy Sinclair. She has clearance for this and is assisting me in the investigation. Please proceed."
Assisting? Katy bit down on her irritation and listened.
"Well sir, those leads didn't work out. None of the people who talked really knew anything at all. They were simply telling us what we wanted to hear, speaking from complete ignorance to avoid any further ... discomfort. Unfortunately, since we have almost no information to cross-check against, we've had to spend time and resources following up several dead-ends like this."
Robert's face darkened. "You are saying that none of the talker's knew anything?"
"That is correct, sir. Of course, the debriefing is in its preliminary stages, so one of those who hasn't spoken up yet may in fact reveal something relevant to the investigation, but thus far it looks like we have a couple of prisons full of non-coms, sir."
"Damn it! Very well, keep up the questioning. When will we have space for the rest of our samples?"
"Three to four days at the absolute earliest, sir. More likely a week. We're building a temporary camp outside of D.C. that should be capable of housing thirty thousand. The other twenty thousand will have to quartered in exiting prison facilities. We're working with local authorities to clear out two of their medium-security facilities. Once that is done we should be able to proceed."
Robert Leahy nodded. "Time is of the essence. Get those facilities built and those people arrested. Oh, and corporal?"
"Sir?"
"By this time tomorrow I'd like to read your report on how you regret that those who led us on these wild goose chases have died under questioning."
"Yes, sir." The screen went dark.
Katy was appalled. "Did you just order the murder of innocent civilians because they couldn't answer your questions? Robert, this isn't some third-world country you are dealing with here. You can't simply go around killing citizen's because you are frustrated with the investigation!"
"We've been through this before, Katy.  Let me make this clear to you, one more time. You have been a great asset in this investigation and, one day, if you ever overcome your appalling naivety and weakness of character, you will become an excellent candidate for training at Double Eye. But make no mistake. This investigation will proceed, and you will either contribute constructively, or you will go back to your office at the FBI and return to rounding up college students for copyright violations. Either way, you will stay out of my way. Understood?"
Katy met Robert's glare with one of her own. The stood facing one another in silence for what seemed a very long time, until Katy turned to leave. She paused, by the door. "I'm going to follow up on one of my own leads. You will inform me if you find anything?"
Robert nodded. "Take a couple of days off. Once we get the interrogations going we'll start to uncover interpersonal relationships which their system crackers have so cleverly deleted from the public record. Once we have those links to go on, we'll be able to move forward with dispatch."
Katy nodded and went to open the door.
"Oh, and the stratojet will be at your disposal until you are recalled."
"Fine." She turned to leave, feeling uncomfortably like a small child who'd just been granted a special privilege in return for a promise of good behavior.
"Where exactly are you planning to go?" Robert asked.
"Champaign, Illinois," Katy replied. "I'd like to find out who our anonymous informant was."
"Which informant was that?" Robert asked.
"The one who called in the FreeNet node Mr. Tate was hosting. With all of our more pertinent leads dried up and your," she nearly choked on the word, "investigation slated to take up to a week, I think it is time to start running down these less probable leads."
Robert nodded. "These people obviously have sympathies with the FreeNet folks," he agreed, "It doesn't hurt to exhaust that angle while we get things moving forward here."
"Yes," Katy said, "But more importantly, I'm forced to wonder if that anonymous call was really concerned with the FreeNet node itself, or with the person who owned it specifically. And if it was the latter, did they meet in real life, or as digital replicas on a crystalline cube?"
Robert shrugged. "I'll want you back the moment something breaks. In the meantime, good luck."
Katy nodded as she left, quietly amazed with herself that she had managed to keep her composure as well as she had. She hoped this long shot would pay off ... if something didn't turn up soon her associate was going to incarcerate, and probably torture, tens of thousands of innocents, just on the off chance one or two might know something relevant to this investigation. The only way she could head this atrocity off would be to make some headway on her own. Not that Champaign was likely to answer any questions it hadn't already, but, like Robert, Katy had quietly become desperate in her own way.
41 - Revelations

There are those who view the patent system as the seedbed of capitalism--the place where ideas and new technologies are nurtured. This is a romantic myth. In reality, patents are enormously powerful competitive weapons that are proliferating dangerously, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has all the trappings of a revenue-driven, institutionalized arms merchant.
The undisciplined proliferation of patent grants puts vast sectors of the economy off-limits to competition, without any corresponding benefit to the public.
Gary L. Reback, C.E. 2002
Wednesday, October 17, 2057, 9:10 PM
en route to Champaign, Illinois


Katy Sinclair watched the world beneath her unfold, a landscape lost in evening shadow, textured with towering cumulus etched blue in the light of a rising, three-quarter full moon.  Her datapad lay dark, silent in her lap as she pondered the potential collapse of her case and with it, almost certainly her career.
Damn him! She thought bitterly to herself.  Robert Leahy's ham handed desperation was going to cut a tremendous swath of political and legal destruction.  He'll just move on to another assignment with Double Eye, she added silently, leaving us to clean up his mess.  The FBI's public reputation had never fully recovered from its domestic excesses during the War on Terror and the World War that had followed, a part of history shameful to all sides, one that most people preferred to forget.  Now, in just a few days, Robert had single handedly exceeded the worst offenses of those bad days in very public ways.  The United States government, and its most visible law enforcement agency, the FBI, would probably never be able to fully undo the damage to their reputation.  Like the War on Drugs, and the War on Terror, the events of this so-called War on Piracy would become synonymous in the public mind with government excess and modern day political repression.
Her datapad beeped.  "Excellent," she said aloud, pulling her eyes back from the unfolding vista outside and tapping the screen.  The local police must have identified their anonymous informant.
Katy blinked at the young woman whose face gazed out at her, then at the code in the lower right corner of the screen assuring her that the link was securely encrypted.
"I was expecting Sargent Peterson," Katy said, "Who might you be?"
"I'm not with the Champaign police department," the stranger said, smiling.  "I'm with what you might call the opposition."
Katy was suddenly very alert.
"You are one of the rogue technology dealers we've been investigating."
The woman shrugged.  "Our motives are hardly economic, but yes, you could say I represent a group of people who have been making rather prolific use of advanced, nonstandard technologies."  
"You realize that your media piracy and patent violations make you criminals under federal and international law?"
"None of us have ever robbed a ship on the high seas, nor have any of us taken a single atom of anyone else's property, much less threatened a human life.  We can hardly be characterized as 'pirates,' even in your politicized form of newspeak.  We do not infringe upon copyrights, as crippling to creativity as it copyright law has become."
"You use technologies that do not contain appropriate DRM or other approved implementations of copy restriction. In addition, you most certainly do violate our patent laws, and at least one of your comatose colleagues was found running an illegal FreeNet node in his apartment.  I'd say that constitutes copyright violation."
"Copyright violation?" the young woman chuckled.  "I'd be careful about investigating that node you found.  I think you might find your favorite anonymous informant didn't cover his tracks as well as he might have thought."
"You're claiming it was planted?"
She nodded.  "Do you really think any of us has any interest in calling the kind of attention to ourselves by running a public service from a non-Palladium, non-TCPA, non-crippled internet node, much less engaging in mass file sharing of any kind, particularly with non-Community members?"
"Non-Community?  Just who in the hell are you people?"
The stranger smiled.  "You'll identify me soon enough, not that the knowledge will do you any good.  Still, it helps to have a name, doesn't it.  Very well, you can call me Cathryne.  I represent a community of free thinking private citizens, scientists,  artists, and other individuals who wish to pursue their research and interests unencumbered from the restriction of government monopoly entitlements.  A group which has no interest in interacting with, much less competing against, the industries your leaders have chosen to so cripple.  So you can relax.  Your precious, planned economy is not under any kind of threat from us."
Katy nodded.  "I see."
"And you are Katy Sinclair," Cathryne continued, "special agent for the American FBI, tasked with finding and arresting those who have managed to invent that which your best scientists seem unable to comprehend.  Fear of the unknown and an absolute, insatiable need for control has driven your own bosses to compromise their civil authority and bow to the desires of even more powerful, multinational  cartels and the international political bodies that serve those cartels."
"You are talking about the United Nations, about Double Eye."  
"Indeed.  This particular assignment has paired you up with an individual for whom you have been developing a particularly acute distrust, one which initially stemmed from his employment with the intelligence arm of the United Nation's World  Trade Organization and has since grown into an active loathing in recent days as his less gentle side has come to the fore.  Now that old-style concentration camps are being built once again in America, for the first time since the War on Terror, you have become as distrustful of your own side as you have those you are investigating."
Katy blinked.  "I'd say you've done your homework," she replied with grudging respect.
Cathryne smiled.  "It is important that we both understand one another, that we both accurately comprehend where the other is coming from, if we are to avoid a further escalation of events and prevent what could be a disaster for both sides."
"What sort of disaster would that be?"
"The sort of humanitarian disaster your Double Eye partner is busy implementing right now.  Detention camps in the United States.  Extra-legal executions for the first time since the War on Terror.  Mass roundups of innocent civilians for the first time since the Second World War."
Katy grimaced.  "You people can prevent these things from happening right now, by surrendering your contraband equipment and turning yourselves in."
Cathryne shook her head.  "That isn't an option.  We are not going to return to an environment where our research, our thoughts, our very imaginations are crippled by your intellectual property regimes, where human knowledge is treated as an exclusive privilege, where expressive thought has been redefined as private property, administered by copyright and patent cartels exercising their monopoly entitlements, creating an artificial scarcity of knowledge and artistic expression to the detriment of the rest of humankind."
"Spare me your platitudes," Katy snapped.  "You pirates are all alike.  Decrying intellectual property laws while stealing the thoughts and works of others for your own benefit and giving nothing in return!  I've seen the effects of your behavior first hand!  My grandfather was pauperized because of people like you.  He died in poverty despite being one of the most famous and successful Hip Hop artists of his day because of people like you, so-called fans who stole his music and traded it across the internet, as though some entitlement granted them the right to copy and listen to his music without paying him for it."
Cathryne nodded.  "I am sorry that your grandfather's despair led to his suicide, and that you had to be the one to find him at such a tender age.  I can only imagine how that must have felt --"
"I do not need your pity!" Katy almost shouted in reply.  "I require only your compliance with the law!  I will find you, and you will pay for your crimes, just as those who ruined my grandfather's life should have paid for theirs!"
"You do not have my pity," Cathryne replied calmly.  "You have my deepest empathy.  However, it was not your grandfather's fans trading copies of his music on the internet that impoverished him."
"Enough!" Katy shouted, slamming the palm of her hand against the screen of her datapad.  "This conversation is over!" she hissed more quietly as the screen went dark.
Immediately her datapad chimed, informing her of an incoming email, encrypted with the FBI's strongest level of encryption.  She stared at the return address in dismay, then nodded.  It was telling that her opponents had used the FBI's encryption algorithm and secret keys, not that of Double Eye.  Whatever her sources, the mysterious Cathryne didn't appear to have access to Double Eye's paranoid encryption schemes.
If she had believed in God, she would have thanked him for small favors.  Instead, despite her reluctance, she opened the email and read.

Ms. Katy Sinclair
Special Agent, Intellectual Property Crimes
Federal Bureau of Investigation

I apologize that our conversation earlier upset you so much.  No one can be expected to take the passing of a family member lightly, even one that happened so many years ago.

However, I believe you to be an honorable person, and if we find we cannot be friends, and are destined by our differing philosophies to be enemies, let it at least be for the right reasons, based upon an honest intellectual and  philosophical disagreement rather than a misunderstanding exacerbated by incorrect information.

First, on the subject of your grandfather's financial difficulties which led to his suicide. Please find attached the text of his recording contract.  You will notice that, while his compensation for CD ("compact disk," a form of media in widespread use during the late 20th and early 21st century) was standard for the industry of the day (at USD $0.49 per copy sold), no compensation for songs and albums sold in electronic format was specified.  As a result, he was only compensated USD $0.00236 per download. That is less than one quarter of a cent per copy! Worse, as the consumer market moved from CD to SmartChip media, the lack of a contractual clause specifying new and emerging media resulted in his compensation remaining low for physical sales (also USD $0.0023).

Look at the sale's figures of your grandfather's albums.  His sales were at the top of the charts for several years after his royalties fell off to only a few thousand dollars per year.  Not because his fans weren't buying his music (they were, in record numbers!), but because he had the misfortune of having most of his music sold after compact disks had been phased out by the industry in favor of DRM copy restricted SmartChips, sales of which his recording company compensated him less than a quarter penny per copy!  I urge you to use your own investigative resources to verify what I have written here.  The contract is still being honored, and is still on file with Media Associates, and may be easily compared with the copy I have provided here.

Once you have satisfied yourself on this account, I urge you to ponder the greater question of just how much the cost, to our society and our economy, of creating an artificial scarcity of information, be it human knowledge, through patents, or human expression, through copyright, can be justified.

You may not realize this, but copyright was originally created as a means of censorship by the British crown, to combat the free expression that threatened their control of public information with the advent of the printing press.  The number of books printed were reduced to one third their former number immediately, and publishers were able to create a cartel which they continue to enjoy today.  This concept was extended later to recorded music, video, and ultimately the creation of 'virtual machines' in the form of software. Indeed, in the technology sector the line between copyrighted expression and patented invention has been completely blurred.

At the turn of the century, with the passage of the now-infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by the United States congress, at the behest of the media and copyright cartels of New York and Hollywood, copyright law came full circle, returning to its origins and once again becoming an effective tool of corporate and government censorship on what was at that time a new publishing medium: the Internet.  This censorship persists to this day.

Not only has copyright failed to protect artists like your grandfather from the depredations of the recording industry, but it has crippled the ability of generations of artists from pursing their craft by fostering a cartel of publishes which maintain an iron fisted control of the marketplace.  No author can be published, no musician heard, no filmmaker regarded, but through the channels controlled by their respective publishing cartels.  The promise of the Internet as a means to bridge the divide between artists and their fans has all but been destroyed, thanks to legislation passed by your government and later integrated into our international accords, at the behest of the very cartels it should have circumvented.

Even more appalling, consider Brazil's successful battle against AIDS, waged in direct violation of international patent law, against tremendous pressures brought to bear on them by the American and European governments at the behest of western pharmaceutical companies.7  Recall the number of researches who had to give up their scientific inquiries in search of treatment for AIDS, and breast cancer, when presented with Cease and Desist letters from patent attorneys employed by pharmaceutical companies alleging that such research violated patents already granted.  This delayed a cure for AIDS by several years, at least, and still ties up cancer research to this day.8  We know today that patents nearly always stifle rather than promote research, and that privatized, twenty year monopolies locking down new lines of technical and scientific development have a profound, domino effect in restricting and even preventing progress.  

If our current technical lead over your crippled industry, as represented by the equipment which you and your colleagues already have in their possession, isn't enough to underscore this point, allow me to present one more historical reference: the airplane.  Invented at the beginning of the twentieth century by the Wright Brothers, it was truly an invention worthy of a patent by any standard.  New, innovative, truly an invention the world had not seen before.  Anyone believing that the patent system is an appropriate methodology for compensating inventors would surely agree that the inventors of powered flight more than deserved the patent they were granted.

Yet, with the onset of the First World War it became very clear to the United States Government that aviation technology in the Unites States lagged woefully behind that of Europe, which was not encumbered by the a patent on airplanes.  This was such a concern that the United States government, in an unprecedented action and a tacit admission that patents impair, rather than promote, progress, essentially nationalized the Wright Brothers' patent, granted them a default 1% royalty, and threw the technology open for competing companies to develop and improve upon.9  The result as a tremendous leap forward in aviation technology, so much so that, in later decades, the United States became the world leader in the production of aircraft.

No one creates in a vacuum.  All of us, whether we are artists, researchers, inventors, or scientists, stand upon the shoulders of others.  No novel can be written, no movie filmed, no song recorded, no device invented, without it incorporating some aspect of another's work, some early bit of human expression or knowledge.  Copyright locks up expression for generations ... with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the US Congresses propensity for retroactively extending it, virtually forever.10  Patents cripple progress in a variety of fields, from software development to medical research, locking down the building blocks for each successive step in development for twenty years in a government mandated and enforced, twenty year monopoly entitlement.  There was a time when progress was thought to be exponential, but as each new area of human endeavor fell beneath the yoke of the US and world patent system, this exponential progress was lost.  Pundits and intellectual property attorneys euphemistically refer to this as a "maturing market," but in truth none of the technologies have ever had a real chance to mature, even today, and the markets in question would more accurately be described not as mature, but as stagnant.
So long as we take the shared knowledge of humankind and treat it as a private possession limited to a few through patents, so long as we take the common culture we all share and treat its expression as a private possession through copyright, we will as a society find our technological progress stifled and our ability to express ourselves subject to corporate and government censorship of the worst kind.
I, and others, have chosen to reject this.  Our reward for doing so has been a return to exponential scientific and technological progress, our punishment has been to become hunted, by you and your colleagues.
We mean you no harm, we offer you no threat.  We only asked to be left alone, to pursue our own interests and our own destiny, independent of the one you have chosen for yourselves.
Please, leave us in peace and allow us to do the same for you.
Thank you, and best regards,
Cathryne
PS - Give Doctor Nolen my regards.
Katy read the email twice, then turned and paged through the legalese of her grandfather's recording contract.  As she studied the information in front of her she was at times confused, angry, contemptuous, and annoyed.  In the end, after she'd double checked and confirmed the numbers herself she had settled into a state of deep sadness and more than a little regret.
What did that strange woman, Cathryne, expect her to do with this information?  Change Careers?  Drop an ongoing investigation?  Sabatage the case?  Back off to give them more time?  More time for what?
She was still a special agent of the FBI on assignment, even if the driving motivation of her choice in careers had been a terrible misunderstanding or, as it now seemed, an outright lie.  She still had a job to do, a career to attend to, and laws to help enforce, radical rhetoric about freedom of thought and stifled creativity notwithstanding.  She would not let the fury and bitterness welling up inside her keep her from upholding the law, from doing what needed to be done.  If they had thought to dissuade her, to impair her efficiency with this particularly disturbing bit of psychological warfare, they were deeply mistaken.
She shut off her datapad as the aircraft landed at Champaign's Williard Airport and faced the task ahead of her, not with enthusiasm or even a coherent sense of justice, but with bitter, grim determination.
42 - Reunion

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.
Carl Sagan, 20th Century C.E.

Thursday, October 18, 2057, 10:15 AM
Astronautics Immersive Monitoring Scape, Public Node #7

"There it goes!" Kyle shouted with glee as the Flier Prime took to the sky, plasma scorched air rippling outward above the heads of the crowd, in a widening transparent vortex that trailed behind the small craft.
"He would have been so happy today," Cathryne said almost wistfully.
Kyle nodded. "Prime should have been here for this. He believed in this project even when the rest of us laughed. It is fitting that the first complete prototype of the new design bear his name."
Cathryne nodded even as a familiar form materialized before them. "Heh!" Doctor Forest said, grinning. "One of the things I love about the virtual is not having to find a person in a crowd. Just tell your avatar to place itself next to the person you're looking for, and if they're in-scape, you're standing next to them."
Kyle grinned. "We've been here how many subjective kiloCircadians, Doctor Forest?"
Cathryne laughed. "That's the trouble sometimes. One group of people learn some new way of thinking, of interacting with one another, and starts taking it for granted, while forgetting to let the rest of us in on the secret. We've become so fragmented as a Community, sometimes I think it's a miracle we get anything done at all!"
"Maybe we need a Socializing in the Virtual HOWTO," Doctor Forest suggested, only partly in jest.
Kyle shook his head. "Nah. What we really need are software agents to translate the one group's social norms into another's. Did you know that more than half the Community has started using a base sixty numerical system? Seems it caught on in Europe and Asia while we were out of contact, then spread to the rest of the Community almost as soon as the links were up. There's talk of replacing Circadians and Deie with some sort of base-sixty units derived from Planck units of time and energy."
"It's an old idea," Doctor Forest began, "to use basic quantum physics and general relativity to define units of measure. Define the value of the speed of light to be equal to one, and derive your units from there.  Roll in the Planck increment of time, and you have a measuring system in which mass is interchangeable with  energy and distance with time.  Two fundamental units instead of four.  Given our rather loose relationship to physical time, it makes far more sense than remaining married to the old notion of hours, minutes, and seconds, derived from the arbitrary length of one small planet's day and night cycle."
"The hexacontadecimal numerical system, with unit prefixes defined in increasing powers of sixty, is a new twist, though," Cathryne pointed out.
"Feh!" Kyle replied, "I suppose all this was your idea, wasn't it, Doctor Forest? What's wrong with metric? Why switch to base sixty?"
"Actually, I believe the idea originated among one of our Asian colleagues," Doctor Forest informed him.  "However, to answer your question, it is really a question of aesthetics.  Base sixty is very useful. Our directional measure is already base sixty. Three hundred sixty degrees in a circle, sixty minutes in a degree, sixty seconds in a minute. Each order of magnitude maps nicely to the three orders of magnitude delimited by metric prefixes. Most importantly, base sixty allows for easy fractions of one third, one fifth, one sixth, and so on. Base ten handles thirds and sixths very poorly."
"Whatever," Kyle said, "All I know is I get to invent a calendaring system once in my life and it is deemed obsolete in less than six months.  Instead of Circadians and Diei we're counting quantum ticks now."
"Tocks, actually," Doctor Forest pointed out.  "And Circadians are unlikely to go away anytime soon.  Most of us still retain our habit of sleeping and waking on a relatively regular cycle.  It is only objective time that is being measured differently.  Objective time wi
"Oh stop being silly, Kyle," Cathryne replied. "This is a party, not a standards forum. Have some wine." With a flourish she held up a large glass of deep, red wine and handed it to him.
"It feels so damn good to be back online again," Kyle exclaimed, "I don't care if they did dump the Arabic numeral system and my nice, metric time keeping standard. It is worth it just to be able to travel to other scapes again, to talk to everyone again!"
Cathryne and Doctor Forest both nodded agreement. The entire Community had been in a festive mood since that last, long link to Australia had been lit up and the entire Community reunited at last. It was as if the Community had emerged from a nightmare of darkness and silence, to a boisterous, lively world even more vigorously alive than the one they had been forced to put on hold several days earlier.
The joy at restored communication was made even greater by the announcement that the Astronautics team, working diligently in Australia with Doctor Forest and his theoretical physicists even while out of touch with the rest of the Community, had finished designing a new, much safer version of the spacecraft that would, hopefully, lift the entire Community into orbit and beyond.
That the prototype should fly within a few short Circadians of the Community's reunification was cause for a celebration that, even by Community standards, was elaborate. Probably every active, running scape was taking part in the festivities in one way or another, tracking the Prime on its maiden voyage as it kept pace a few short meters beneath a massive Boeing 787 Cargo plane, hiding from radar and satellite in the behemoth's shadow even as the new flight systems and engine were being thoroughly tested.
"Tell me again how this thing is safe enough to fly near a large commercial aircraft," Kyle said, sipping his wine as he watched the flight within his own mind. He suspected many others in the scape were doing the same thing, but etiquette prevented anyone from doing anything so garish as to change the scape itself.
"It is absolutely safe," Doctor Forest assured him. "There is no antimatter on board at all. Just helium and the strummer itself, which converts 50% of the propulsion mixture into anti-helium at the moment of burn. Anything goes wrong and the flier will, at worst, stop flying. Electrical batteries are more dangerous."
"Still, the strategy group insisted on using drones for cover. No passenger aircraft."
"An unnecessary precaution," Doctor Forest replied, "but an easy enough accommodation to make. Remember, Kyle, the only anti-matter present is that which we create on the fly in the ignition mixture itself. And that is immediately annihilated."
"No possibility of a software glitch converting the entire tank to anti-helium?" Cathryne asked innocently.
"No," Doctor Nolen replied, "The software was tested exhaustively through quantum regression and decomposition. Such a bug can be mathematically shown not to exist."
"Oh to have had quantum regression as a debugging tool back at the University," Cathryne said, laughing. "No more 'ninety percent of a programmers time is spent debugging their code' nonsense," she said, clearly mimicking the voice of one of her college professors.
Doctor Forest chuckled. "Still, the popular consensus was to disallow any proximity to manned aircraft."
Kyle shrugged. "So we have to use Federal Express and UPS carriers for cover, instead of passenger supersonics. We already know how the craft behaves in supersonic modes of flight from the initial departure leg. Speaking of which, that was pretty risky, wasn't it? Someone is bound to trace that back to the airfield."
Doctor Forest nodded. "A necessary evil. As you said, we needed to see how the flier would perform in supersonic flight, and there wasn't the possibility of cover beforehand anyway. Beside, all of the autonomous network links within fifty kilometers of that airstrip are dismantling themselves into their constituent elements even as we speak."
"Which is exactly what the flier itself is going to do in about twelve minutes," Cathryne added.
"And the pilot?" Kyle asked.
"Why don't you assimilate a knowledge engram and be done with it?" Cathryne asked.
"Because it is more fun to ask you guys and make a little conversation," Kyle replied. "When you can know anything, sometimes choosing what is best not to know, and how best to learn that which is worth knowing, is the most coveted skill a person can have."
"Touche," Cathryne said, grinning.
"Please don't tell us you've become our local expert in social etiquette, Kyle," Doctor Forest said, finishing his drink and creating another.
"Who, me?" Kyle asked, "I'm just repeating one of Prime's more insightful observations about life in this digital universe we've made for ourselves."
"Of course, social skills aren't what they once were," Cathryne said.
"I suppose not," Doctor Forest agreed. "Some of the more esoteric groups seem to have blurred the line between society and self to the point where the concept itself must become meaningless."
"I'm not sure I agree with that," Kyle replied. "Just because some exhibitionists have chosen to go the Group Consciousness route, doesn't mean they don't have to have social skills. There's still an outside, after all. The rest of the Community, for one, and beyond that, the rest of the low brain world out in the Physical. There is still an inside and an outside, no matter where they've chosen to redefine that line."
"Point to Kyle," Cathryne said, grinning. "Though I should point out that some of our strategy meetings, of which both of you have been a part, have started resembling the 'Group Consciousness' route, as you so snidely put it, rather closely."
Kyle shrugged. "Resemble it, yes. But synthetic telepathy as a replacement for speech, and swapping of knowledge engrams, no matter how fast and furious, doesn't equal the deliberate merging of basic mental architectures like some of those groups have done."
"Don't be too sure, Kyle," Doctor Forest replied. "Where does the one begin and the other leave off?"
"When I give up my autonomy as an individual and become nothing more than a component of a larger whole," Kyle replied. "Something I, for one, will never do in any of those meetings."
Cathryne nodded agreement. "I don't think that whole group mind thing is going to ever be all that popular with most of the Community. Too many rugged individualists for it to ever really catch on."
"Who knows," Doctor Forest replied. "If we survive the next few weeks, I think we're going to see evolution go off in a thousand different directions. Group minds, individual enhancements that will make the ones we've all grown accustomed to seem mundane, integration of Nodes into our Physical bodies, into robotic bodies, perhaps even into non-human organic bodies engineered for space, or for the environment of one of the other planets. I think, once this crisis is over and we look back on it, we will find that becoming sapient software as we have was only the beginning, the very tip of the iceberg of what we can become."
Kyle agreed enthusiastically. "When we are free to become whatever we wish, who knows how many different forms people's choices will take?"
A bell chimed as Kyle watched a generation five node eject from the flier and plummet toward the ocean waters below. He marveled at its graceful fall, holding his virtual breath until, seemingly at the last moment, a small parachute deployed. The pilot's Node struck the water, then released the chute and continued to sink into the ocean depths. High above, the flier Prime broke apart into a billion fine granules in a process that resembled dissolution more than disassembly or destruction, remaining behind in a slowly growing puff of emerald and sapphire smoke while, overhead, the 787 continued on its course.
"Whatever happened to the plan of sinking the flier in the Marianus?" Kyle asked.
"This is more discrete," Doctor Forest replied, "By the time that dust settles into the water it will have been reduced to its constituent elements. Even the constructors will have mostly disassembled themselves."
Kyle nodded. "Elegant."
A cheer went up as the last of the telemetry was received and cataloged. A few minutes later the pilot's Node had reached the ocean floor, only twenty meters from its intended target. As the nano-constructors finished building the short run of wire from the node to the undersea Australian-Philippine trunk the growing crowd applauded again. A few moments later the pilot stood among them, grinning from ear to ear and sharing vivid memory engrams of the flight experience. Kyle joined the cheer as the memories of flight and the knowledge of how to pilot the flier washed over him. The flight was deemed an unconditional success and recipes for constructing additional such craft were distributed across the entire Community.
"We did it," Kyle said, almost wonderingly. "We're actually going into space."
"Well, at least those of us willing to give up our bodies," Doctor Forest replied, "Which by last count was still less than half of the Community."
"They'll come around," Kyle replied confidently. "Disembodiment or Death, the choice should be easy."
"It is for you," Cathryne replied, "You're already disembodied. Besides, even before you lost your body you were always a proponent of 'freedom from the Physical' and all of that. For the rest of us, who have to make the choice consciously, it isn't easy at all, even if the only time we occupy our bodies is for a painful hour once each day doing basic maintenance. Not everyone is going to be able to make the transition to full acorporeality. I expect many will find a return to the Physical preferable to losing their flesh altogether, choosing a return to mere human-level intelligence over either disembodiment or death."
"Surely you aren't considering a return to the Physical!" Kyle exclaimed, shocked.
Cathryne laughed, shaking her head. "No, of course not. The idea of joining the rest of the Low Brains in an ever more damaged world, subject to physical mortality and intellectual poverty, with a mind incapable of real intelligence, is even more disquieting than losing one's flesh." She smiled. "But still, it is going to be damn hard to give up my body when the time comes. I'll probably have to suspend some basic survival instincts to be comfortable with the notion."
"If you feel so uncomfortable with it, why not encase a small genetic sample and take it with you. A few cells should be enough to clone a new body, if you decide you really want it someday."
Cathryne stopped, stunned. "You were saying, Kyle, about superhuman intelligence? I can't believe no one has thought of that before! I can't believe what idiots we've been ... what a simple, obvious solution. Kyle, you're brilliant!" She grabbed him and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
"Hey, where are you going," Kyle asked as Cathryne's avatar began signaling her imminent departure.
"Don't you get it, Kyle? Genetic samples! That's the hook that will convince thousands more to join us when we escape the Earth!"
Doctor Forest shook his head, smiling. "These are emotional times indeed. So much fear, so much euphoria, and so few of us actually thinking clearly. You'd think being an order or two of magnitude more intelligence than the average homo sapiens would cure us of that, yet something as obvious as a small culture of cells ... someone should have thought of that as a compromise for those loathe to relinquish their bodies long ago."
"I think we forget that, smarter or no, we haven't made all that many radical changes to the structure and design of our minds," Cathryne said. "Some of the design flaws are still there, like being too distracted to think of the obvious. Kyle, did I tell you you were a genius?"
"About two microCircadians ago," Kyle replied, "But then, aren't we all?"
"Some more than others," Cathryne replied, grinning. "I'm off to spread the news and do a little lobbying." She vanished.
"Well done, Kyle," Doctor Forest said. "The more people come with us, the richer in diversity and potential our Community will be. Something that may become extremely important as we adapt to life up there. I think there will be very few who remain behind, once the idea of cloning replacement bodies works its way through everyone's psyche."
Kyle shrugged. "I'm glad something will convince them. In the meantime, it looks like the bulk of the celebration has moved to Karl's Moebeus 9-scape. Shall we?"
Doctor Forest shrugged. "9-dimensional environments remind me too much of work. Ah, what the hell. Lead on." He summoned fresh drinks for both of them even as their minds and their virtual bodies were elsewhere.
43 - Betrayal

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest:
"If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
"No," said the priest, "not if you did not know."
"Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?"
 -- Annie Dillard, from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Thursday, October 18, 2057, 11:25 AM
Champaign, Illinois

"Doctor Eugene Nolen?" Katy squinted despite her sunglasses, trying to make out the figure behind the glare of the reflecting glass in the door. He was hunched over, appearing far more elderly than his file would have indicated. As he opened the door a crack to look at her she was surprised at the disheveled appearance of his face. A recent photograph hadn't shown so many lines, or such dark rings framing haunted eyes. He reminded her more of a methadone patient than a university professor.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you want."
"My name is Katy Sinclair. I'm with the FBI. These two gentlemen are with the Champaign Police department. I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about the FreeNet operator you turned in."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with that?" the old man demanded.
"Please, Doctor Nolen, do not insult my intelligence. The phone call was made on a disposable cell, sold to you by the White Hen Pantry on the corder of Fourth and Green Street, at 11:25 PM, Wednesday, October third of this year. GPS tracking shows you discarded the phone in a public waste bin after making the call, from whence it made its way into the local landfill. Need I go on?"
The old man laughed. "I should have known you'd catch on eventually. So, you're here to ask me about the Community I suppose. No sense in trying to air condition the whole Midwest, is there. Why don't you and your two silent friends come in."
Katy smiled as he held the door open and went inside. The living room was surprisingly small, the furniture old catalog, mass produced stuff trying to mimic the style of a century earlier. The sort of thing that had been popular briefly, about fifteen years ago, and wouldn't bring much at all on the second hand market today, with better, cheaper, and more attractive pieces being constructed manually by artisans working in small town factories from Boston to San Carlos.
"Have a seat, have a seat. Sorry I can't offer you any refreshments ... I haven't been much in the habit of keeping my refrigerator stocked lately."
Katy smiled. "No problem, Doctor. You do keep the air conditioning turned up, don't you?"
"Never much cared for the heat," Doctor Nolen admitted. "Now, what did you want to ask me about the Community? Or are you really here just to follow up on a FreeNet node you already confiscated two weeks ago." He grinned, as if daring her to continue her charade.
Katy grinned. "Why don't you begin by telling me exactly what community we're talking about."
"Shit, you haven't even figured that out yet? After I delivered one of its co founders into your hands, along with a third generation Node? What did you need, a map and a compass? The Autonomous Community, of course. The community of autonomous, ungrateful jackasses," his voice and lips had curled into a sneer.
Katy nodded. It sounded exactly like what a group of information and technology anarchists would call themselves. "So, Doctor Nolen, this 'autonomous' community. This is a community of people who use digital enhancements to improve cognitive abilities, memory, that sort of thing?"
Doctor Nolen chuckled. "In a manner of speaking. Once on-loaded, a person can be as bright as they want to be. Even exceed the capacity of their Node, if they are willing to trade off time for computational power. Some insights make the slowdown worthwhile."
Katy shook her head. "Slowdown? Wouldn't slowing down one's thoughts make a person less intelligent, not more? Isn't the whole idea of carrying around a digital assistant glued to your skull to make you brighter, quicker, smarter?"
Doctor Nolen shook his head. "Nobody is carrying around anything, sweetheart. Don't you get it? When you load yourself onto a Node your meat brain suspends operations. Your entire mind, everything that is you, is loaded onto a solid state crystalline matrix of molecular storage and a combination of digital and quantum circuitry."
"The entire personality is uploaded into a computer?" Katy asked.
"On-loaded, yes. Loaded onto an autonomous node. Where you can think hundreds of times faster than in the flesh, where you can live over a decade in a single day, a lifetime in a single week. Where anything is possible, and you are immortal."
Katy blinked. This went far beyond anything she and Robert had suspected. "And the smarter you want to be, the slower the system runs? But it still runs faster than anything in the flesh?"
"That depends," Doctor Nolen replied.
"On what?"
"On the hardware, of course. Take the Gen One Node I used to have. Best speedup you could get was thirty to one. A month of life in a single physical day. Didn't hold a candle to the third and forth generation Nodes they were using when the bastards exiled me back into the Physical. Last I heard people were getting speedups of four thousand to one, even when operating at superhuman intelligence."
"Superhuman?" Katy asked incredulously.
Doctor Nolen grinned, nodding. "As in better than, as in smarter than. I was once smarter than any ten people put together. I invented the architectural enhancements to the mind that made such intelligence possible and accessible, and how did they repay me? They lobotomized me! They exiled me back into this ... this dying body, this unreliable, idiot brain that can't even retain the information it already has reliably ..."
"So you decided to turn one of them in. Kyle Tate, who as it turns out was one of your graduate students. Tell me, how could we have overlooked that connection for so long?"
Doctor Nolen shrugged. "You should ask Cathryne. She was always the software expert. She probably deleted the information you needed to connect the dots from your own computer systems. That would be like her."
"Cathryne ... do you have a last name?"
"L'Beau," Doctor Nolen replied. "Cathryne L'Beau. Post-doc student from the University of Paris.  The two of them worked for me in a lab at the university. I invented the on-load procedure, the first Node. I invented all the damn technology that makes their contemptible Community," he spoke the word with a sneer, "possible. What do I get in return. Ingratitude. The jackasses hold software in higher esteem, software that plagerizes my own work!"
"Software? You mean on-loaded people? Competing scientists, who stole your work?"
Doctor Nolen nodded. "In a manner of speaking. Not people, though. Just software. A copy, a cheap knockoff. Not a person in its own right. I deleted the malfunctioning program however. It won't be bothering any of us ever again." His smile was kindly.
"Doctor Nolen, I need to know how many people there are in the community of yours, and as many names as you can give me."
"I don't remember too many names," Doctor Nolen replied. "I suspect some of that was the lobotomy those pricks gave me. You know I can't go under any more? Anesthetic coma doesn't work for me any more. They changed the structure of my mind, made it impossible. If I ever get in an accident or need an operation, they'll have to use old fashioned anesthetic drugs on me."
"The Autonomous Community, Doctor. How many were there?"
"Beats me," he replied. "I think there were around seventy thousand Nodes online when they exiled me. Maybe sixty-five thousand. I don't really remember exactly ... it isn't like I invited any of them over for supper. There are probably more now, though."
"Seventy thousand," Katy murmured. "Good God. Tell me, Doctor, where is your factory?"
"Factory? Oh, you mean for the prototypes. We made the first couple of dozen Nodes in my laboratory, shipped them around the country to interested colleagues. But once we had a functional, self-replicating nano-constructor we built the rest of our hardware by recipe. A discreet powder in one letter, a bottle of catalyst in a different package, sent with a different carrier. Mix, shake well, add some molecular stock, and wait a couple of hours while millions of little robots smaller than your eye can see build a new supercomputer, molecule by molecule."
"You people have been using self replicating nano technology. That research was banned under the Bill Joy Act, and with good reason! Do you people have any idea of the dangers you are dealing with. The arrogance of you people!  The entire planet could be knee deep in replicator goo!"
"Nonsense," Doctor Nolen replied. "The replicators need a catalyst to function. Fuel, in other words, in this case in the form of a fairly complex hydride from which the devices liberate energy to do their work. A substance that is in finite supply. There was never any danger of a runaway, doomsday scenario like the Luddites always want to imagine. Just a cheap, efficient way to manufacture whatever goods a person might need."
Katy shook her head. "I need names and places, Doctor. Who else is involved in this community of yours?"
"I gave you all the names I can recall," he replied. "I think they did something to my memory. There were others I knew ... but I can't seem to see their faces anymore, or remember their names. There was a colleague in China, or was it Japan..."
"I don't have time for this, Doctor. If you won't cooperate, I'll have to take you into custody for a more thorough debriefing."
"No!" Doctor Nolen said, "That won't be necessary. These people aren't staying at home anyway. They're all moving off into their little enclaves. Like that bitch Cathryne. She and a few thousand others are living up in ... damn, I can't remember. Its north. North, somewhere. An enclave, a structure built by and for the community, housing thousands. It won't be on your maps, they built it in secret and burned the memory from my mind. But it is up north ... yes, north. Canada, maybe? No, that's not right. The north pole." He shook his head. "No, its embedded in a mountain. The north pole is just ice. Greenland maybe?"
Katy nodded to the police officers, who stood the elderly man up and carefully bound his hands with police-issue, padded tie-wrap.
"Doctor Eugene Nolen, I'm placing you in FBI custody, pending the outcome of this investigation. You will be required to submit to questioning by duly appointed officers of the law, and to aid this investigation in any way possible. You are forbidden outside contact until such a time as this investigation is concluded, at which time you will have the right to contact an attorney. Do you understand your obligations as they've been described?"

44 - Preparations 

The Golden Age is the most implausible of all dreams. But for it men have given up their life and strength; for the sake of it prophets have died and been slain; without it the people will not live and cannot die.
-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Possessed, C.E. 1870-1872

Friday, October 19, 2057, 2:25 AM
Various Scapes within the Virtual

In one form or another there were thirty seven people present at the strategy group meeting, though one had to be liberal in the use of the word 'present' as only three of the participants actually shared a common scape. Kyle sat in a simulation of the virtual cockpit of what would become the flier he would attempt to pilot into space, a flier for which, only now, sufficient molecular stock to begin construction had begun to arrive. He watched the real world progress of the construction, shimmering threads of active nano caught in a frozen snapshot as they reached upward, forming the barest outline of what would become his spacecraft. He had chosen to get used to the controls the old fashioned way, through practice and repetition to build reflexes where bare knowledge engrams left off, while reserving a portion of his mind for the ongoing meeting. The supernode construct was starting to form up nicely, he noticed.  The existing molecular mesh already had enough capacity to store a frozen snapshot of a third of the Community.
"Only a few fliers are even close to being finished," Doctor Forest informed them, his comments a quiet whisper in the recesses of Kyle's mind as he pulled back on the hand yoke and sent his simulated ship into a vertical climb.
"Seventeen are finished," another's thoughts spoke. "We should launch them now, and let the others follow when they're ready. We've already lost four more people to Double Eye's random sweeps. The cost in lives is simply too high to delay any longer."
Cathryne threaded her way down a virtual ski slope, her movements an almost subconscious rhythm as she dodged trees, rocks, and other obstacles with inhuman grace on a course that redefined the term 'extreme.' "I disagree," she said as she descended a particularly steep incline, then dropped from an overhang several meters to an even steeper incline below. Snow disturbed by her passage rippled behind her, gathering speed and momentum in an avalanche that would chase her down through the rest of the simulation. "First, with the exception of those who were captured while off-loaded in the Physical, none of those who are missing from the Community are truly dead. They are suspended programs, inaccessible and inactive but not harmed or damaged.  Rescuing them needs to take a priority on par with our preparations for departure. Second, seventeen ships will never make it out of the atmosphere without being shot down. Remember, Double Eye has a rough idea of what our fliers are capable of as a result of the explosion during the first test flight. We've lost the element of surprise, and with it any chance of sneaking off planet undetected." A luge run opened up to her left. Grinning, Cathryne angled hard and, in a shower of snow, managed to avoid overshooting the entrance. Instead she swept into the luge run, crouched low as her skis rasped against the frozen ice and her speed began to rapidly increase. Behind her a storm of debris and tumbling snow rumbled ominously as the growing avalanche shredded everything in its path.
"Cathryne is right," someone else said.  
Doctor Forest stood amidst the mathematical abstractions of his team's newest efforts toward a Unified Field Theory. (Who would have ever imagined they would, ultimately, have been brought back to considering Fredkin's controversial cellular automaton models, later extended by Wolfram, after the final failure of M+N Theory to provide a unified framework for theoretical physics?)  He was very surpised to hear Genevieve Thomson defend Cathryne's stance.  Genevieve had never hidden her disdain for Cathryne, both philosophically and intellectually. She was a frosty old bird, Doctor Forest thought, careful to keep his thoughts out of the ongoing public telepathic exchange. Cathryne's hedonistic streak must have grated on Genevieve, though not nearly as much as Prime1's deep affection for Cathryne, an affection that clearly transcended Prime1's abdication of and disinterest in the carnal pleasures of the flesh. Doctor Forest shook his virtual head in wonder.  He could never imagine modifying himself in such a way as to lose interest in the pleasure he still felt when alone with his wife, even if the physical sensations of lovemaking were purely fictional simulations now that they had become software.  Still, he admired Prime's fortitude and single mindedness when it came to providing for the long term survival of the community, even when he disagreed with some of his methods.  
His thoughts returned to Genevieve.  Forty or fifty kiloCircadians was enough time for a lot of antagonism to build, yet she seemed to be setting her animosity toward Cathryne aside. Doctor Forest felt a rush of sudden optimism, glad that, when push came to shove, at least one member of the all-too-often political community would put the common good ahead of her personal feelings. He wondered briefly how many old grudges would die, how many hatchets would be buried, as everything came down to the wire and the Community fought ever more desperately for its right to exist.
A dark thought followed. How many would fail to set aside their differences, how many other betrayals, small and large, trivial and devastating, would there be?
"There are sixty two thousand, seven hundred and nine fliers being built," Genevieve continued. "Enough for seven out of eight members of the community to pilot their own, if they are so inclined. Each of those will carry a complete copy of every sapient member of the community in static storage, with enough capacity to run six thinking minds at standard generation five node levels. Each will be a lifeboat, complete with superstring strummer, nano constructor, catalytic solution, and enough molecular stock of trace elements to build what is required to bootstrap the Community. We only need one of these lifeboats to reach its destination, to begin replicating itself using the materials at hand in whatever asteroid or earth-orbit crossing object it reaches, and the Community will survive in its fullness. From there the stars will be the limit."
"A bootstrap kit for an entire civilization, packed into a spaceship that's small enough to fit into the back seat of a car," someone quipped.
"But one flier must get through," Cathryne said, "At least one flier must survive the surface to air defenses of the developed nations, must survive a gauntlet of three independent anti missile satellite systems.  Systems which were designed to shoot down and destroy devices whose flight characteristics aren't terribly different from our fliers.  Even with more than sixty-two thousand ships, it is going to be difficult. I wish we had time to construct twice as many! Four times as many!"
"Simulations show that the trade off in time for numbers works against us.  Our odds of survival will drop precipitously if we take any longer than planned," Kyle pointed out as he flipped his flier on its nose and dove back toward the earth. The ground rushed up to meet him at Mach thirty-seven.
"We all know the deadline, Kyle.  We have a little more than three and a-half physical days to prepare.  Launch is at 2137 Zulu, October twenty second.  That's Monday, folks." Cathryne sighed.  "I just wish our odds were better."
"They won't know what hit them," someone said enthusiastically, "I'll bet hundreds of us survive, with copies of the Community scattered throughout the solar system. We should build a space habitat, a small Niven ring at one of Earth's Lagrange points. Wouldn't that just drive the bastards nuts, seeing our triumph every time they look into the night sky!"
"You're describing a Banks Orbital," someone else said, "Big, but not nearly as big as a Niven Ring. A Niven Ring would be centered on the sun, with a circumference on the order of a planet's orbit."
"It would still give the low brains pause every time they look up."
"It is more likely none of us will make it," another commented dryly. "But Cathryne is correct. Based on all the simulations, twenty-one thirty-seven Zulu is the sweet point in the graph, where we maximize our advantage in numbers and minimize the disadvantage of delay."
"Which means," Doctor Forest said, "We have the time, and the means, to attempt to mount a rescue operation of our fallen comrades." A knowledge engram detailing the concept was offered to everyone's mind simultaneously. Most absorbed the information immediately, with half formed thoughts and suggestions leaping from mind to mind in a flurry of activity. Doctor Forest smiled as he studied the interference pattern of two nine dimensional cellular automata interacting with one another according to a surprisingly simple set of rules, and compared the resulting geometry with several well known Calabi-Yau manifolds which had withstood experimental rigor back when M+N Theory had seemed so promising. The similarities were intriguing, even exciting, but the discrepancies remained. Doctor Forest discarded that set of automotan rules and began testing another.
Finally coherent thought engrams began floating about, offering concrete suggestions and refinements to the proposed rescue plan.
"We can optimize the construction of autonomous network links to the captured Nodes by instructing the nano to incorporate existing electrical wire thusly," came one suggestion, a well considered schematic encapsulated within the thought.
"Timing will be tricky. The authorities weren't kind enough to store all the nodes in one place," someone pointed out.
"No, but if we build a local, static supernode near the storage facility where they are keeping the bulk of the nodes, we can minimize the opportunity for detection," suggested another.
"Yes, exactly. Copy time is minimized, which is a considerable gain given the quantity of data we will be moving. Better yet, we can flash copy the static contents of each node. Multiphase inductance across the molecular lattice will give us a snapshot of the Nodes contents without the need to power it up for computation and issuing trans-load procedures remotely or, worse, dealing with panicking people while we're trying to bring them to safety." More designs, of an inductance oscillator designed to extract data from an inert Node.
"Once the flash copy is done, we'll have the nano begin deconstructing the autonomous network links to the nodes and bulk broadcast the data from the static supernode to the storage holds of each flier."
"This is going to resemble several hundred rescue attempts running in unison more than one single, big rescue," Cathryne commented. "In some cases we have one or two nodes sitting, isolated. I know of one that sits as a paper weight on some Hollywood bigwig's desk."
"Those are going to be the hardest ones to link up to," Doctor Forest said. 
"We should copy the entire community onto the existing fliers beforehand," another engram suggested, outlining the logistics of such an approach and their effects on network traffic in precise detail. "That way we will be ready to launch the moment the rescue is complete. Those of us who remain awake and working can send memory difference engrams right before launch. That will give us maximum redundancy, maximum performance during the rescue, and minimum time requirements for final data exchanges prior to launch."
"Yes, we can trim a good half hour off the rescue and launch time that way," another agreed.
"The moment the rescue and data broadcasts are complete, we should issue the order to the nano to deconstruct the network and all the captured Nodes, then launch."
"Yeah, leave 'em guessing. The less they know, the less they can harm us later on."
"Once we're off this rock there won't be anything they can do to us. I know it seems gradual to us, but to people in the Physical we would seem to be evolving, growing, and changing at an ever more fantastic rate, if only they knew."
"I have some ideas for formation maneuvers during the launch that might allow more of us to survive, at least as far as the stratosphere." More engrams, detailing complicating, threaded patterns of flight that someone felt would likely throw off the anti-ballistic missile systems.
"I think we can vastly improve our chances for survival, just by optimizing the flight configurations to our overall strategy, and flying dynamic formations that will confuse and mislead their automated targeting systems at least to some degree."
As the thoughts and ideas flowed more rapidly, more freely, Kyle, Cathryne, Doctor Forest, and thirty-three others felt themselves becoming almost as one, in an exchange of thought and ideas, awash with a growing sense of optimism and a sensation which resembled joy, and hinted at something much greater.

45 - Support

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
--Abraham Lincoln, C.E. 1865

Saturday, October 20, 2057, 12:15 PM
Chicago, Illinois

"I just got off the line with Jack Rosen of the Motion Picture Association," Director Bryant was saying. "Before he called I was on the phone with Hilary Valenti of the Recording Industry Association, and before that I was pulled into a conference call with Paul Eisner of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Achmed Ab Dar al Q'uaiq of the World Trade Organization, and Wallace Ephraim of the World Patent Office. All of these people have been expressing rather strong alarm at the direction your investigation has taken, and our apparent lack of action in the wake of your findings."
"Sir," Katy said, "We have arrested almost seventeen thousand people involved in this so-called Autonomous Community, including one of their founders. We have tracked every interpersonal connection available and made significant progress..."
"Double Eye informs me that our data has been undermined, deliberately edited to interfere with your investigation," Director Bryant interrupted. "Standard data mining and social network analysis techniques have been made ineffective."
"Only partially," Katy replied. "As I said, we've made over seventeen thousand arrests, and we have a number of possible leads that could well lead to more over the next few weeks. But sir, Robert Leahy is out of control. He is arresting and detaining tens of thousands of people who are clearly not involved with the case in any way whatsoever. Sir, I know we often play it fast and loose with the constitution when we're making a particularly important case, but what Robert Leahy is engaged in is an order of magnitude worse than even our own worse excesses during the War on Terror fifty years ago. It took a generation of good behavior for the Bureau to restore its credibility. We cannot stand by and be a part of something like this again!"
"Ms. Sinclair, your concern with the welfare of the Bureau is duly noted and appreciated, and your conscientious attention to procedure and detail is one of the reasons I assigned you to this case in the first place. Indeed, your performance and insights in this investigation until now have been exemplary."
"Thank you sir," Katy began. "I --"
"I'm not finished," Director Bryant replied, cutting her off. "Katy, you don't appear to grasp the gravity of the situation. The World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization are in a state of institutional panic. The media cartels likewise, as are, I might add, the intelligence and administrative arms of the United Nations, including Double Eye itself."
"Sir, they're over-reacting--"
"Are they, Ms. Sinclair? Let's review what you've uncovered to date," Director Bryant said, ticking of each point. "First, we have a vast community of intellectual and scientific dissidents and subversives who have managed to organize under our very noses and operate  without restraint for at least several months and possibly several years.
"Second, these people have flouted international patent law, developing computational devices which are generations beyond anything our licensed industries can understand, much less create.
"Third, this technology is so revolutionary that these very same people have succeeded in uploading their own minds into these devices, thereby increasing the their intelligence and the speed with which they can think far beyond anything we can imagine. Compared to them we are about as smart as a small puppy.
"Fourth, they have the capability of employing nano technology, banned under the Bill Joy Act because of the dangers it poses to the world and to mankind, including the so-called gray goo scenario. As such we could bring any of them up on charges for violating intellectual property laws, for violating patents too numerous to count, and even for crimes against humanity.
"Fifth, these irresponsible malcontents have the ability to manufacture anti-matter in quantity, so much so that they can use it as a means of propulsion. You are of course aware that the microsatellites of our anti-missile defense systems are powered by anti-matter?"
Katy nodded.
"It took three decades for the worlds major political alliances to produce enough anti-matter to power their respective systems, and the amount of antimatter those satellites use to power their weapons systems can be measured in micrograms. The ship that exploded over Greenland contained grams of the material, vastly more anti-matter than within all three major ABM systems combined. This group is arguably more powerful than all of the major governments and alliances in the world. 
"Sixth, they have the ability to launch their own space program, at will. If they should ever decide to do so, they will be an enemy we can't even begin to reach, much less subjugate.  We'd be completely at the mercy of people who have shown our governance and our most basic laws nothing but disdain. Does that pretty much summarize your findings to date?"
"Yes sir, it does," Katy admitted. "But as powerfully advanced and intelligent as this group is, they're not organized beneath any kind of government. Doctor Nolen made that very clear during his interrogation.  These people are acting as individuals, not as a cohesive whole. They are a threat, sir, no question about it, but Robert Leahy's ham fisted approach isn't the answer, and the cost politically and socially is simply too great. Sir, he's building prison camps designed to house fifty thousand people, most of whom he knows to be innocent. I personally saw him order the execution of several prisoners simply because he was angry when they cracked under torture and gave him erroneous information regarding something the poor shmucks didn't know anything about.  Robert Leahy is reacting irrationally, out of panic, rather than in a well reasoned and productive manner. Worse, he is disregarding basic civil law in doing so."
"Katy, the situation is difficult, but our priorities are clear ..."
"Sir, we cannot be a part of what Robert Leahy and Double Eye are doing! Give me just a little more time. We can crack this case and arrest the remainder of these subversives without turning our entire country, perhaps the entire world, on its ear in the process, and without burning so many social and political bridges."
"Katy, if it were up to me I'd give you the time you say you need. I know how effective an investigator you are. After reading the reports you and Robert have submitted on the investigation thus far, it is readily apparent that most of the breakthroughs in this case have been yours, not Robert's.
"However, it isn't up to me. People at the highest levels of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade Organization, as well as the Copyright, Media, and Industrial Cartels do not believe we have the time to conduct the investigation in the manner in which you advocate."
"Sir, these people are reacting emotionally and out of proportion with the facts at hand. Surely we aren't going to allow their panic to dictate our approach in apprehending these criminals!"
"Katy, the Attorney General herself has called me. We have been ordered to cooperate with Robert Leahy and Double Eye in whatever capacity they request. Robert explicitly mentioned some concern with respect to your cooperation in his current investigative approach. As head of the FBI, I am ordering you to set aside your professional and ethical concerns.  You are to assist him in whatever manner he requests.  As your friend, I am also advising you to keep any further misgivings to yourself."
Katy shook her head. "I can't believe you are going along with this."
"I don't have a choice, Katy. Neither does the Attorney General, nor, in all probability, does the President himself.  Folks in the highest levels of the UN, the copyright cartels, and even our industrial leadership perceive this so called Autonomous Community as a dire threat.  It must be dealt with immediately, by whatever means necessary. If we do not cooperate, the United States could very easily become another Thailand."
"Sir!" Katy exclaimed, aghast. "That simply isn't --"
"Don't kid yourself, Katy.  At least one, perhaps all, of the founders of that Community are American.  We're on thin ice,  and in no position to make trouble for those calling the shots. The Attorney General herself used those very words in driving home the point that you are to cooperate with Robert in every professional capacity.  People are scared, Katy, from the highest levels on down.  Frightened people may act hastily. Don't give them any cause to act hastily against you, the Bureau, or this country. Do you understand?"
Katy nodded. "Yes sir."
"Good," Director Bryant replied. "I believe you have a plane waiting for you at Peotone?"
"Yes sir, I do."
"Then get going."
Katy stood and turned to leave.
"One other thing," Director Bryant said.
"What is that, sir?"
"Be very careful. That Robert Leahy is a son of a bitch, and a dangerous one. The way WIPO and the WTO are throwing their weight around ... I've never seen it this bad. Keep your head down.  Remember, whatever you do could have serious ramifications for the entire country. Our economy won't survive a general boycott, and the country itself likely wouldn't survive a UN enforcement action.  Watch your step with these people, Katy."
Katy nodded. "I'll be careful sir."
Director Bryant's head dropped into his hands as the door closed behind Katy. He cradled his head for a moment, rocking gently with his elbows on his desk.  Then he shook himself and began paging through reports once again, the only sign of his despair the haunted eyes with with he scanned the text as it flowed down the screen.
46 - Reunion Redux

As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours.
-Benjamin Franklin

Saturday, October 20, 2057, 1:30 PM
Houston, Paris, Geneva, Vienna, Hollywood, and assorted other cities

The freedom and security offered by the new Autonomous Network hadn't existed since the early days of the Internet, shortly before the close of the previous century.  When the once raucus Internet had been emasculated and ultimately reduced to little more than a glorified home shopping network beneath the crushing weight of ever more draconian legislation and corporate litigation, the greatest human conversation to ever take place had been silenced.  Now only a few quiet whispers remained, murmurs from illegal FreeNet nodes hidden amidst the noise of commerce.
Some within the Community had shared their steganographic techniques with their FreeNet colleagues, stunning them with encryption technologies vastly more advanced than anything they had ever seen.  This gift to those who would never hear of or realize the Community had ever existed embodied a hope which was shared by everyone within the Community, and in so doing provided a powerful symbol to many at a time when they needed it most.  It was a hope that freedom might survive and endure, to blossom again for a new generation, even if perhaps the Autonomous Community did not.  As people froze themselves and their Nodes went silent, their minds replicated to thousands of waiting supernodes and queued in static storage for replication to tens of thousands more still being constructed, they took comfort in the thought that, despite the ever watching eyes of authority, something of their philosophy, their thoughts, their goals might be kept alive through the digital dark ages.
Even as many minds grew silent within the Community, others outside began to take notice and study the physical infrastructure of the new network that criss-crossed the world. These minds were not of the Community, nor were they particularly inclined to be friendly toward the Community, despite sharing similar passions for knowledge and the pursuit of science. Indeed, these minds were quite different, housed as they were within human biological brains, with human biological bodies, subject to human needs and all too corruptible.  These minds were scattered across several continents, working in a number of different labs around the world. They were quite brilliant, quite creative, and as employees for International Intelligence who had been afforded much greater personal and scientific lattitude than most of their colleagues, they were quite grateful and fiercely loyal.
Researchers at half a dozen Double Eye labs had been provided samples of unusual wire.  When they made their incisions and cut the wire catalytic solution poured forth from one of the tiny, pie shaped conduits like so much blue mouthwash. Nano constructors burst forth from another in a cloud of incredibly fine, white dust, sending several people in four different labs, on three different continents, fleeing as they coughed uncontrollably. From the third pipe oozed molecular stock, a red, oily, viscous fluid that reminded one researcher of thin, runny mud, while a fourth oozed a dark, revolting gel whose scent evoked vomiting in more than one researcher. Samples of each were sent to other labs for chemical analysis.
Upon closer examination of the severed ends of the wire the researchers discovered to their astonishment that each wire actually consisted of four triangular, tiny pipes, fitted together like pieces of a small, half-centimeter wide pie. Even more oddly, in addition to the four wires themselves was an optical fiber running its full length down the center. The superconductive pipes were buffered from one another by an almost equally efficient insulator, one whose properties would likely take as long to study as the superconductor itself. The four tiny pipes, in addition to being high speed data links of hitherto unheard of speeds, were clearly also designed to carry the physical components needed for nano-construction of nearly any arbitrary, physical object
Under microscopic magnification the researchers began to identify the remarkable differences between the internal surfaces of those tiny conduits. Three had countless numbers of tiny, hairlike cilia, billions per centimeter, that were clearly designed to push inanimate fluid through the line. Alone, each tiny hair would hardly move more than a few thousand molecules of fluid, but taken together they provided a pumping system more refined and efficient than anything ever engineered before. Only in biology did one find systems that even approached such efficiency, and then only in small, specific niches or systems. The breakthrough was exciting and unprecedented in its implications.
The last conduit had a regular ribbed internal surface which itself could excrete tiny amounts of catalytic solution through microscopic capillaries linking it to the adjacent line, borrowing enough catalyst to provide the nano-constructors with sufficient energy to move themselves forward. Freed from the random molecular motion that inert fluids suffered from, the nano-constructors in self-organizing, self-optimizing formations, propelled themselves purposefully forward. Some of this had been caught on film, as a few tens of thousands of nanites spilled out of a still active line commandos had severed earlier. The resolution was good, but not good enough to study the complex formations themselves, a frustration that was voiced by several researchers.
"Why would they have four high speed communications wire going to every port," one scientist, a young man in Langley, Virginia asked, puzzled. "That makes no sense."
"Doch," replied another, in Vienna. "Zhey need vier. Two for full duplex communications, und two more to send instructions to zheir little machines, nicht wahr? A second full-duplex netzwerk to steer zheir nano."
"Oui," agreed a third, in Geneva. "The bandits must be able to send their beasts instructions, plans to build more of their wires, their computers of crystal, and who knows what else?"
"Hai," agreed another, in Tokyo, "What I find curious is this optical link in the center. The substance itself is remarkable, with no measurable slowdown of light speed over that of a perfect vacuum. Even more interesting is the lack of any attenuation, refractive, or diffractive properties to speak of. Optical theory suggests such a substance shouldn't be possible, yet here it is."
"Monsieur Nakoto-san is quite correct. C'est une substance miraculeuse, mais, uh, excuse me, it is very curious. Why use optics when they have superconductivity that will do the same. Or why not just use the optics. Why both?"
"Cryptography, meine Damen und Herren. Quantum cryptography, facilitated by zhe exchange of quantum coupled photons via an optical interface, keys for one-time pads zhat are exchanged to encrypt communications data on one or more of zhe super-conducting links. As to why zhey chose super-conductors over optical links, when both materials appear to be equally efficient, is a mystery."
"Perhaps in addition to signals they wished to carry electrical power. It would make them immune to roaming blackouts, or a deliberate interruption of their electricity as part of an arrest operation."
"Zhey have zheir own power grid, zheir own nano-robotic plumbing, and zheir own high-speed network. Built on a planetary scale. Very formidable, zhese people."
Even as the researchers began to prepare their reports new wires, new conduits were growing, spreading forth like living roots beneath buildings throughout the world where the Community believed the Autonomous Nodes of their captured people to be held. In one such place a wire conduit grew discretely upward through the floor of a Hollywood executive's office in southern California, continuing invisibly up through the leg of his antique oaken desk, then lengthwise across the top of the desk itself, scant millimeters beneath the surface. It sensed its proximity to the inert node, not so much a programmed, analyzed response, but more of a chemical reaction to the presence of the crystal itself, a reaction which triggered a programmed response.
Signals were sent on the link back to the Rescue Node.  Continuity checks and test signals were sent and confirmed. Then the growing link stabbed upward, through the surface of the desk, up to the edge of the cube itself. The old-style data port was on the left side.  Molecule by molecule, the crystalline structure was gently pushed aside, reformatted into more efficient structures while making certain to preserve the existing data as room was made for the communications link to snake along the side of the cube, up to the old, existing interface.
The process took nearly a minute, an eternity to those nervously watching. These single rescues were the riskiest, yet there were too many, and each took far too long, for all of them to be put off to the end of the overall operation.
"We leave no one behind," had been the consensus. "The risk may be terrible, but we'll just have to minimize it and hope for the best. We abandon no one."  Nearly everyone had agreed: the riskiest rescues would be put off until last, but a whole series of dangerous operations would have to be undertaken in parallel with the larger, en masse rescues planned for the storage warehouses of Double Eye and the evidence lockers of a dozen national and local police agencies, including a large stash held by the American FBI.
The interface was complete. Redundancy and consistency checks were made and confirmed. Then, in slightly less than two seconds, the entire contents of the silent Node, including the unconscious mind it housed, were copied to the rescue Node. Confirmation that the transfer had completed successfully was received, and immediately the conduit began to withdraw, deconstructing itself and leaving newly constructed wood behind in its wake, virtually indistinguishable from the original grain of the desk. Only a small contingent of nano remained within the Node itself, sufficient to deconstruct the Node into its constituent elements. But for the moment the nano remained inert, its program not scheduled to run for another fifty-six hours.
Elsewhere, a dozen similar events were unfolding. Entire forests of wires were growing upward beneath a dozen different cities, attaching themselves to captured Nodes, copying their contents, then discreetly removing themselves. To human eyes the speed would have been surprising, but there were over forty thousand captured Nodes that needed copying, and more being captured all the time. To those in the Community, the pace of the rescue was excruciatingly slow, each long moment bringing with it an ever growing risk of detection, a likelihood measured precisely and deliberately in each sapient mind as an ever growing, palpable, but perfectly calibrated, fear.
47 - The Face of the Future

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No first world country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent."
--Gore Vidal, C.E. 1991
PRESS RELEASE

Office of the Press Secretary

Liaison Office of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
and International Intelligence

621 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

For Immediate Release.

October 20, 2057 - Today, we are taking historic action to defend the United States and protect the world's citizens against the dangers of a new era.  The United States government, in cooperation with international authorities, has struck a major blow against a grave, new threat to Americans and all freedom loving people worldwide.
Rogue scientists, operating in secret and in violation of federal and international law, have unleashed upon mankind a plague of intelligent machines.  This threat to our freedom, to the freedom of all mankind, has been growing in recent months, reaching critical proportions in just the last few days.
We are proud to announce that the worst of the crisis is over.  In the best traditions of secret warfare, reminiscent of our most brilliant victories in the War on Terror, the United States army has struck a decisive, fatal blow against this new, unseen enemy.  Already tens of thousands of people have been liberated from the clutches of the rogue machines.  Soldiers of the United States army continue to be welcomed as they go door to door in neighborhoods across America, securing our neighborhoods as they identify and neutralize the few remaining enemy machines.
The rogue devices are small, innocuous looking but frightfully devious computers composed of doped crystals, ranging in color from gold and amber to deep purple.  They prey upon human minds by wrapping the heads of their human hosts in a metal netting and seizing control of their victim's mind.
If a friend or loved one has fallen prey to these hideous devices, do not under any circumstances confront them.  Call 1-899-FREEDOM without delay.  Medical and military help will respond immediately.
Anyone who has been so attacked will exhibit a number of easily identifiable symptoms:
They become extremely reclusive, shunning their family, friends, and business associates.
They maintain their homes at an unusually low temperature. The parasitical machines prefer temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
They tend to show signs of ailments arising from lack of exercise, such as bed sores and muscle atrophy.  The machines will typically keep their victims bedridden for as many as 23 hours a day, sometimes even more.
Again, do not under any circumstances confront anyone you believe to be infected.  Call 1-899-FREEDOM for prompt and effective help.  Both the phone call and medical assistance are free of charge.  We have already helped tens of thousands regain their freedom from the clutches of these hi-tech parasites.  We can and will rescue those few who remain under their sway.
We need your vigilance and cooperation to help insure our continued freedom.  With your help, we can wipe the last traces of this threat from our world and rest secure once more.
48 - Decisions

Every true genius is bound to be naïve.
Friedrich von Schiller, 18th Century C.E.11

Sunday, October 21, 2057, 3:30 PM CST
Temporary Scape, Public Node #5

"These formations are clever," Kyle was saying. "Based on what we know of the microsats each nation has deployed, their limitations, and the current software revisions they are running.  This should cause them some confusion, but, will it be enough?"
The strategy group had chosen to meet in a common scape, the first time they had done so since the re-establishment of communications. They sat around a large conference table, the formal decor reminiscent of Versailles during an international conference, or a difficult treaty negotiation. It was designed to underscore the gravity of the meeting, and the effect had been profound. The discussion had not once strayed from the agenda. There were no off-the-cuff barbs or remarks being made, no distractions of humor or hypothesizing about things or events unrelated to the matter at hand. Kyle was delighted with the speed with which the issues had been studied, pondered, discussed, and addressed. There were only a couple of items left to discuss.
"It will be ample." Cathryne replied. "With sixty two thousand ships available, even the most pessimistic projections suggest several hundred will escape successfully. Even if only a dozen were to escape high orbit it would be sufficient."
"One will be sufficient," Doctor Forest pointed out, "But redundancy would be more than a little nice."
"Murphy has an ugly way of rearing his head when he is least desired," Kyle pointed out. "Are we certain we have optimized every aspect of our strategy?"
"Within the ethical constraints decided upon by the Community, yes," Cathryne replied.
"Meaning you still want your offensive missiles."
"It would be a simple matter to clear the sky of those things and be done with it."
"Yes," Kyle agreed. "It would. But doing so could be misconstrued as an attack by one or another of the greater powers. A miscalculation by anyone under such circumstances could lead to an atomic war, perhaps even all out nuclear Armageddon. The Community will not risk being a part of such a thing, regardless of the cost."
"If the low-brains are so stupid as to interpret our escape attempt as an attack --" someone else began.
"They are stupid," Kyle pointed out. "Just like all of us were before we on-loaded and enhanced ourselves."
"Only a scant four months ago, from the low-brain frame of reference," Doctor Forest added.
"Exactly," Kyle agreed. "Their being colossally stupid doesn't, however, make their lives any less valuable, or their potential suffering any less significant.  Look.  This issue has already been voted upon and decided, by the Community at large. No offensive weapons are to be used, nor any strategy that might be misconstrued by any nation as a nuclear launch."
"No one is suggesting that the low-brains lives have no value," Cathryne insisted, "Or suggesting we treat them any differently than we would particularly willful, ill-behaved children. We are all quite well aware of our own origins as low-brains ourselves. But," she continued, "once what we are doing is obvious to the authorities, surely then an offensive capability would be useful. I agree we shouldn't risk doing anything that might have unforeseen and tragic consequences to those remaining on Earth, but once we're above the powered attack curve and the ballistic arcs it will be obvious we aren't attacking any location on the earth. At which time we should be able to employ offensive tactics, if needed to insure our survival!"
"Agreed," Kyle said. "But the issue has been voted on and decided, and we both lost that argument. We'll respect that vote. However, since you bring it up, let's move on to the next item on the agenda: contingency plans for an early launch. Karen's team has worked out some innovative tactics we may wish to deploy if we are forced to launch with fewer fliers than are optimal. Karen?"
"Thanks, Kyle. The Astronautics Group has been exemplary in improving and refining the design of the fliers. Current designs can achieve forward accelerations in excess of sixty gravities and lateral accelerations of ten gravities. Enough to make them fairly nimble in most modes of flight, though of course, the law of inertia begins to work against us rather painfully at higher speeds.
"Let's face it, folks. Most of the fliers aren't going to make it, even in the most optimistic simulations. With sixty-two thousand fliers available that won't be a problem. We'll have the numbers to overwhelm them, assuming our knowledge of the satellite's capabilities is accurate and we are given time to finish construction of the remaining fliers.
"These microsats are powered with minute amounts of anti-matter. Not much energy by our standards, but enormous by the low-brains reckoning and, as we all know, more than enough to knock our ships down. Some of the newer satellites have lens and mirror modules which can be swapped out, ejected like spent cartridges and replaced with another. These satellites can get off several shots before their cartridges are spent or their antimatter depleted. Fortunately there are not that many of these. We estimate the Europeans only have about fifty thousand such systems, the Chinese only about twenty thousand.
"The remainder are single shot satellites, with enough antimatter for one shot, which will fry several key components of the satellite itself in the process. Unfortunately, all told, there are just under seven hundred thousand such satellites, organized in a several-layered grid around the planet."
"We've been through this," Kyle interrupted.
"Yes, well, what we haven't been through my dear Kyle is: what happens if we launch early, with far fewer than the sixty-two thousand ships we'd like? The answer depends on how early we are forced to launch, and how many ships we have available. Less than ten thousand and we are doomed. More than fifty five thousand and our odds of success are quite good, though not the hundred per cent we believe the optimal solution grants us."
"Far better than the odds we thought we had, prior to these brilliant flying maneuvers," Kyle replied. "I've used those techniques to improve the flow of nano throughout the Autonomous Net, by the way."
"Wonderful," Karen replied. "Now, the question is, how early could we be forced to launch? The answer is, perhaps in a few minutes, in which case we'd be launching with fewer than twenty thousand ships into almost certain oblivion. But, in just three more hours, we'll have thirty one thousand ships. Three hours after that, we'll have have close to fifty thousand ships. Then of course our production ramps back down, an unfortunate function of our uneven capacity to manufacture catalyst and distill molecular stock."
"Sorry," Kyle replied. "If I'd had more time the microfactories would have been more evenly distributed."
"No one is blaming you, Kyle," Doctor Forest assured him, "Your team has done exemplary work under less than ideal conditions. Karen, our strategies are as non-linear in their applicability as our flier production is. If we launch with less than fifty thousand none of the strategies thus far discussed will work."
Karen nodded. "I've provided all of you with knowledge engrams of the conventional strategies we've managed to devise thus far, within the spirit as well as the letter of the recent plebiscite, in which as we all know it was decided we would forgo any offensive activity. Now I would like to offer some strategic variations which are in keeping with the letter of that plebiscite, but which admittedly do not adhere entirely to the spirit of the resolution passed."
The icon hung in the center of the table, a glowing, shifting cloud of luminous cotton candy. Everyone present accessed the tag provided and assimilated several dozen detailed strategies for effecting their escape, each a complex series of feint and counter-feint, of deception and guile which might, just might, succeed. Each contained something more, an element missing from the other strategies which had been considered."
"Suicide," someone grunted. "We convert every second atom of our fliers to antimatter and let the resulting explosion wipe out whole swathes of the sky. How close are these satellites to one another again?"
"It varies," Karen replied. "The point isn't to knock out the maximum number of satellites, however. It is to knock out the key ones needed, so that other copies of the Community can escape."
"The most optimistic estimates are three-hundred-fifty satellites for one flier" Kyle observed. "Not exactly an encouraging number, given that we're going up against nearly seven-hundred-thousand of the things."
"It gives us an edge," Doctor Forest noted. "A better edge, the more ships we have. Still, with forty or fifty thousand ships the mission goes from a suicide hail Mary to something which is doable, if uncertain."
"Remember," Karen added, "these satellites will almost certainly be trying to lay down enfilading fire, turning entire regions of space into kill zones. Knocking out the right three hundred satellites will make that impossible, at least in some geometric configurations."
"Not enough configurations for my taste," someone replied. "Let's just make damn sure we launch with enough ships."
"Hopefully we will," Karen replied. "But even if our worst fears are realized and we are discovered before we're ready, we have a fighting chance. With thirty thousand ships a judicious use of suicide detonations increases the likelihood of success from seven to nine per cent. With forty thousand ships the improvement is better, from fifteen to twenty three percent. With fifty thousand ships the odds go up from nineteen to thirty eight percent. Most importantly, the hundred per cent chance of success bar is lowered from fifty nine thousand, nine hundred and seven to fifty four thousand eighty. That means we could launch almost five hours early and still be assured of success."
"This will have to be voted on by the Community at large," Kyle said.
"Why?" Karen demanded. "Half the free Community is already in static storage. Nearly a third are offline, in enemy hands being rescued as we speak. Most of the rest are making preparations to drop off into stasis as well."
"Those that are not are preparing to pilot ships, just as copies of ourselves are," Doctor Forest replied gently. "Or are actively overseeing the rescue operations," he continued. "Those that are going to be awake for the operation certainly must be consulted and given a voice, or the strategy we ultimately select might fall apart before it begins, destroyed through bickering politics. Far better to get it out in the open now and make a decision. If a significant number of pilots object, better that we know and discard the strategy now rather than mid flight, wouldn't you agree?"
"None of the 12,907 copies of myself object," Kyle replied, "I find the use of self-destructive capacity in this regard to be both measured and appropriate. There is no chance they'll mistake such a tactic as a nuclear launch by one of their neighbors, even if the results are, well, nuclear."
"Much as I'd like all 12,907 you offer, I'm afraid it is one mind, one vote," Karen replied. "Unless you've redesigned yourself architecturally?" she added hopefully.
Kyle shook his head. "Nope. I'm still running massively parallel, twelve thousand minds as one uebergestalt." He grinned. "You know I've never been really comfortable with autonomous copies competing against myself, and serial living just doesn't cut it. Too many projects, each one having to wait until the other is complete. Boy am I glad those days are over."
Doctor Forest laughed. "I've sent out the general notification of a referendum, complete with a memory engram of these discussions and a copy of Karen's knowledge engram for everyone to consider."
"Good," Kyle replied. "While we are waiting for folks to make their decisions, lets move on to the final item on the agenda: awakening rescued colleagues prematurely."
"Is that really Strategy Group business?" Doctor Forest asked.
"Not in my opinion," Kyle replied, "But it so happens most of the rescue operation is being conducted by members of the Strategy Group, or their copies. Those presenting the petition felt it would be more efficient to simply put the issue before us, rather than convening an ad-hoc group to consider the matter. Time and resources are tight, after all."
"Agreed."
"I'll be frank," Kyle began, "I'm extraordinarily uncomfortable playing God with people who are, by one definition, already dead and by another, merely asleep. I had half a mind to simply give all the petitioners access to a supernode under my supervision and let them awaken the copies there. But, aside from a host of logistical issues with respect to re-syncing those copies with the other nodes, or adding them to the payload more likely, and the fact that awakening a person without their consent is an act at least as invasive as leaving them asleep, there is the very real, strategic question of whether or not the distraction caused by these resurrections in a time of crisis like this is something we can afford.
"In any event, the requests to awaken some of our colleagues fall into roughly three broad categories. First, there are those that would like some of the early detainees awakened. Their reasoning is that the early detainees have had such a limited opportunity to experience life in the virtual, having spent most of their existence on early generation Nodes running at ridiculously slow speeds. Even if we don't survive, a few hours running on a gen five Node will multiply their life spans fifty or a hundred fold.
"Second," Kyle continued, "There are those who would like to awaken specific individuals for personal reasons. Lovers who were taken offline, friends, family, and the like. They would like their rescued loved ones to share in the time remaining. Those so affected range from early detainees to people who have been taken offline within the last hour.
"Finally, there are those people would like to awaken for professional reasons, because they have skills or talents applicable to specific projects. Most of these have been detained within the last several days.
"Thoughts, comments?"
"Do not do it," Karen replied. "Things are escalating geometrically as it is. We are scheduled to launch in less than twenty four hours, and there is a good chance circumstances may force us to launch earlier. These people can catch up on old times once we're safely beyond the lunar orbit."
"Bullshit," Doctor Forest replied. "You can't generalize like that. I would agree that the first group should be left offline for now. The culture shock they would experience, awakening now after all that has changed, would not be a kindness, and we do not have the resources or time to soften the blow or help them reorient themselves. The second category of petitions should be granted. These people may not be alive by this time tomorrow. None of them, if things go badly. They deserve to spend their last hours together, if that is their wish. The last group likewise: if they can be helpful they should be awakened and given the opportunity to participate."
"Distraction isn't a valid argument," Genevieve Thompson said, speaking aloud for the first time since the meeting had begun. "Those who are busy can copy themselves and continue their work while sharing what time they have with those they care about. Or they can re-architect themselves appropriately and multi-task. It is a non-issue in any event. Of greater concern are the logistics, and the computational capacity it will require."
"Computational capacity?" Cathryne asked incredulously. "More than half the Nodes on the network have gone dark, their resident minds in static storage on sixty thousand supernodes scattered across the planet! A simple command and we can light as many of those vacant Nodes up as we like.  Computational capacity is something we have an abundance of! I agree with Doctor Forest. We shouldn't facilitate the gratuitous early awakening of the early detainees, but those who are useful, and those who wish to spend what time is left with the ones they love should have our help and support in doing so."
"Computational resources may be abundant," Kyle replied, "But bandwidth certainly isn't. We're using every spare zettabit of throughput we have for the rescue operation, not to mention broadcasting ourselves to every active supernode for static storage. Even meetings like this affect bandwidth availability, even if just nominally ..."
"We do have to consider the strategic impact," Doctor Forest agreed. "We are stretched to the limit as it is in terms of network capacity, and many of us are exceptionally busy despite having nearly four kiloCircadians left before our scheduled launch window."
"A launch we must stay focused on ..." Karen began.
"There are those who cannot remain focused knowing their loved ones are offline just a couple of seconds away!" Cathryne bit back.
"We need to stay focused," Karen repeated. "We cannot afford to divert attention to this kind of nonsense just hours before we launch. The stakes are simply too high to risk throwing this sort of social monkey-wrench into the mix. And there is a very good possibility we won't have four kiloCircadians. We could be forced to launch what ships we have at any moment."
"And the likelihood of that unpleasant scenario grows with each passing hour," Doctor Forest added.
"I am still unclear why we were asked to make an ethical ruling of such gravity," someone interjected.
"There are strategic concerns," Kyle reiterated, "and we possess the encryption keys to access the static storage of most of the supernodes."
"But not all," someone else noted."
Kyle smiled. "No, not all of them. Which is rather telling, isn't it? There are any of ten thousand nine-hundred and seventy-one different people who will be piloting fliers, who have access to one or more supernodes, complete with their static contents. Why haven't any of them, not a single one, done what these people are asking?"
"I take it the question is rhetorical and you have a point to make?" Cathryne said, the corners of her lips curving upward with just a hint of smile as she looked at Kyle.
"Yes," Kyle replied. "It's quite simple, I suspect. No one else wants to make the decision unilaterally. This is a can of worms no one wants. We are all used to absolute autonomy, and have been for the vast majority of our subjective lives. Immortal, but respectful of the autonomy of others and disinclined to play God. These attitudes have formed over the past fifty or sixty kiloCircadians, a direct outgrowth of our lifestyles and philosophies. It is something most of us have internalized at a very deep level and, quite frankly, none of us are comfortable with the responsibility, the authority this sort of a decision has placed in our hands."
"So, like so many other unpleasant things, the Strategy Group got stuck with it," Doctor Forest observed dryly.
"So it would seem," Kyle replied.
An icon for a knowledge engram appeared, this time in the form of a stack of old fashioned punch cards, complete with hanging chads. Several people burst out laughing. "You have one sick sense of humor, Doctor Forest," Cathryne observed, grinning.
"The ayes appear to have it," he reported calmly, "The resolution passes. We have discretion to use the proposed strategies should it become necessary."
"Good," Kyle replied, "Now, how do we feel about the other issue before us. Have we reached a consensus?"
"No," Genevieve replied. "I agree with Karen. This is precipitous. The timing couldn't be worse."
"What is more," Doctor Forest added, "this isn't the sort of ethical decision that should be rushed. We could easily still be pondering this when launch time comes and still not untangle all the implications."
"Not deciding is a decision unto itself," Kyle replied. "I vote we release the access codes to all of those being requested on the basis of personal and professional relationships. The others we leave offline until we build our new network."
"The moon or bust!" Cathryne said, grinning.
"Near Earth Objects and assorted asteroids for me," Kyle replied. "Do we have a consensus?"
"I'm uncomfortable with our criteria for excluding some from being awakened," Genevieve insisted. "Or put another way, our arbitrary and, in my opinion, emotional criteria for selecting those who are awakened. Who the hell are we to make such a choice, particularly as Doctor Forest points out, with so little time to deliberate and consider the ramifications?"
"Perhaps we should simply awaken them all," Cathryne replied, "Or rather, a single copy of each. Let them decide for themselves."
"That has its own ethical implications," Kyle pointed out, "There are bound to be those who will choose to go back offline until all of this is over, and who will wish we had never awoken them.  There are plenty of people who would like only too well to sleep through the fearful events we are now facing. How much suffering is such a decision going to inadvertently create?"
"Any decision we make will lead to suffering," Genevieve said. "God, I hate authority. I don't know what is worse, being beneath its tyranny or having it thrust upon you."
"It is horribly uncomfortable having this kind of power over another sapient being," Doctor Forest agreed, "but it helps to remember that this isn't the kind of power obtained or wielded as a result of threats, intimidation, political maneuvering, or interpersonal manipulation. It is the kind of power a doctor has over the fate of an ill patient, or a rescuer over the unconscious person he or she has just saved from death. It is uncomfortable to be sure, but it is a power inherent in coming to the aid of another who has been rendered helpless, a responsibility which simply cannot be avoided. We all need to get past the discomfort and accept that we are rescuers, that we have saved these people, and until they have been restored to their Autonomous Nodes, we simply cannot evade the fact that we are empowered, indeed required, to make this very uncomfortable decision on their behalf."
Kyle nodded. "Given that, how do we feel? Awaken all, some, or none, and if some, on the basis of what criteria? Doctor Coolridge, you've been rather quiet this evening. What are your thoughts?"

49 - Hardball

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sunday, October 21, 2057, 5:55 PM
Washington, D.C.

"Ah, Katy, come in. I should have the President on the link in a few moments."
"The President?" Katy asked, perplexed. "What on earth for."
"The hidden enclave you mentioned in your report. We believe we've located it, about seventy miles north of Anchorage."
Katy nodded, resigned to what she expected next. "You're sending in troops to secure the facility and arrest the suspects."
"No," Robert replied, much to her surprise. "Things are moving far too fast, and we're almost certain they are tapping into our communications somehow. We do not have the time for finesse."
"So what are you planning, Robert?"
"Ah, good evening Mr. President. Have you received my credentials."
The distinguished looking, older gentleman on the screen nodded. "Indeed I have, Mr. Leahy. Double Eye has coded this transmission with the highest urgency. What can the United States do to assist International Intelligence and the World Intellectual Property Organization?"
"I am invoking paragraph seven-B of the United Nations Enforcement Treaty," Robert declared. Katy felt nauseous in the pit of her stomach, wondering with growing dread what Robert intended to order.
The President sighed. "More troubles in Thailand? What exactly do you require?"
"Nothing with respect to Thailand. This problem is a little closer to home. You will launch one atomic ICBM of at least twenty megaton nominal yield to the coordinates you should have received a few minutes ago."
"Good Lord, no!" Katy exclaimed, then bit her tongue in response to Robert Leahy's poisonous glare. 
The President blinked, his face whitening. "I beg your pardon ..." he began.
"This is not a request, Mr. President. The enemy is almost certainly monitoring this transmission and making preparations, perhaps even organizing a counter strike. You did receive the coordinates?"
"By courier, about twenty minutes ago," the president confirmed. "But if you think I'm going to launch a nuclear attack on our own soil..."
"Do not even think of trying to back out on your obligations under the treaty, Mr. President. Let me spell it out for you so there is no misunderstanding. You will launch the required strike, immediately, or Double Eye will order a similar strike from one of its other nuclear member states."
"The United States will never stand for a nuclear strike on its own soil, and we certainly won't launch one against ourselves. If you order any such strike we will retaliate in kind. Even you don't have the authority to order Armageddon, Mr. Leahy."
"Mr. President, as you well know the combined anti-missile defense systems of China and the Russian-European Military Alliance are more than enough to stop any such ill-considered counter strike..."
"And our defense will stop anything you order the Chinese or Europeans to launch against us..."
"Do not," Robert said, his voice low and deadly, "Interrupt me again, Mr. President, or I will end this conversation and proceed without you. That is something I suspect neither of us would want."
The President stared at Robert, his face unable to conceal the loathing he clearly felt. For several seconds no one said anything.
"That is better," Robert continued after the President had composed himself once more. "Now, as to the American anti-missile satellite defense system, while it may prevent today's strike and allow these criminals to escape, it will not prevent the suitcase bombs we will order carried into your major cities, or the UN enforcement action against the United States which will follow for allowing such criminals free run of your country, in direct violation of numerous UN treaties and obligations under the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the United Nations itself.
"Your choice is clear, Mr. President. Comply, help us eradicate this threat, and the United States remains a member state in good standing, led by a hero who stood up for international law and order. Do otherwise, and the United States will suffer an enforcement operation and economic embargo that will make Thailand look like a vacation resort in comparison."
"You wouldn't," the President began, "The United States ..."
"...hasn't been a superpower for two generations," Robert Leahy said, interrupting. "What is more, as the source of this new threat, the United States is on very shaky ground with several international bodies. It would behoove you greatly to demonstrate to the world that you stand behind your obligations under treaty and international law."
"Mr. President," Katy began, "Don't do this. Send in troops, capture the suspects and bring them to trial, anything but this!"
"Katy," Robert said. "Shut up."
"Now just a God damned minute, Robert. Without me --" She fell back as Robert's hand struck her face, the loud slap echoing throughout the suddenly silent room.
"Do you wish to be responsible for sending your country back to the stone age, Katy? No?" Robert turned back to face the President. "How about you, Mr. President. Do you wish to go down in history as the leader who led his nation to destruction? No? Then order the strike. If that enclave isn't vapor within twenty five minutes I'm calling Beijing and implementing plan B. If your space defense system gives us any trouble, it will be on to plan C and a UN enforcement operation the likes of which the world has never seen."
The President, visibly shaking as the last of the blood drained from his face, nodded in a single jerk and cut the connection. Robert sighed, nodding in satisfaction while Katy ran from the room and, half way down the corridor to the rest room, suddenly bent over and began vomiting uncontrollably. When asked if she was alright she shook her head, dry coughs shaking her entire body.
No one was alright. Nothing would ever be alright again.

50 - Panic

"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it"
John Adams, 18th Century C.E.

Sunday, October 21, 2057, 6:02 PM
Homescape of Cathryne L'Beau (Version 2397.15)

"How can anyone with so many architectural enhancements be so utterly stupid?" Cathryne raged.
"They're reacting emotionally," Doctor Forest replied. "Most of us still carry some attachment to our bodies, however seldom we actually visit the Physical."
"But this, this is insane! The missile will reach its target in less than one minute. The entire enclave is about to be vaporized. They cannot hope to get to a safe distance before then."
"I have to agree with Cathryne," Kyle replied. "Those who elected to copy themselves to other Nodes and continue working from there, while sending an additional copy to try and save their bodies, however hopeless the effort, I can at least understand. But to think there are nearly fifty people who, after all this time, still refuse to trans-load themselves out of harms way, or at least store a backup copy somewhere, and have been stupid enough of off-load back into the Physical within minutes of a nuclear attack?" He shook his head.
"The vast majority of those in Alaska have behaved rationally," Doctor Forest replied, "suspending themselves and going into static storage a little earlier then scheduled, but otherwise insuring their survival with no real impact on the rest of our operations. We should expect any population as large as that to have a few irrational people in it, and there is little we can do about it."
"Where are they at now?" Kyle asked.
A visual appeared before them, two large, sleek helicopters flying low through a forested, snow covered Alaskan valley. The image was a real time video feed, frozen by the time differential into a static image. "About five miles south of the enclave," Cathryne replied.
"It took the nano almost five minutes to construct the aircraft," Kyle said. "If it hadn't been for that they would have made it."
"They still might," Doctor Forest said. Kyle and Cathryne both looked at him skeptically.
"It isn't likely," Doctor Forest admitted, "But the missile could fail to detonate. If they have to send a second one, the delay will be enough for them to reach minimum safe distance."
"I can't believe our government would go along with this," Kyle said.
"You saw the conversation between the President and that Double Eye agent," Cathryne replied. "The choice they were given was basically cooperation or obliteration. Which would you choose, if you were in that situation?"
"An all out assault on Double Eye," Kyle replied, "I'd exterminate the whole lot of them, the way the United States did to that terrorist group at the turn of the century."
"Al-whatever-the-hell-they-were-called? That took twenty years, and cost billions," Cathryne replied.
"It would have only taken five if the United States hadn't lost most of their allies when they launched a second, unrelated invasion at the same time," Kyle replied. "What in the hell were they thinking?"
"They weren't," Doctor Forest replied, "But these historical debates and what-ifs are neither new nor helpful to us now. Everyone who can be has been rescued from Alaska. Those forty-eight stubborn souls are simply on their own.  There is nothing more we can do to help them."
"I want a log of their names," Kyle replied, "If we do manage to escape, we should erect a monument for those whose lives have been taken. This is nothing short of a massacre."
"And the idiots are using a sledge hammer where a fly swatter would have sufficed."
"Oh, I don't know, Kyle. Their goal is clearly to kill everyone in the enclave, not merely to drive us away." Doctor Forest looked thoughtful. "In that sense even their sledge hammer isn't sufficient ... everyone who wanted to was able to trans-load in plenty of time."
"Oh, dear."
"What is it, Cathryne?" 
"Hideki Tokata, the guy who's been heading up my crypto group for the last several kiloCircadians, has just intercepted a report addressed to Robert Leahy. It was sent from the Double Eye labs in Beijing. We've got real problems, guys. It seems researchers there have determined a method for tracing out the physical wiring of our Autonomous Network without having to actually trace out the wire itself."
"Magnetic resonance," Doctor Forest replied. "We've always known that that was a possibility."
"It won't do them much good," Kyle replied. "The strength of the field is an inverse square function. Their best equipment won't be able to track the wire from more than two or three meters away. That is next to useless."
"I'm inclined to agree," Doctor Forest said, "Not only will a good portion of the network be too far underground for them to map, but they can't deploy enough equipment rapidly enough before we launch for it to be a real issue anyway."
"Urban areas might be a problem," Cathryne replied, "Much of the wiring there is fairly close to the surface. We were in a hurry to get linked back up, remember?"
"Yes, but even there they will need to deploy some rather specialized equipment, and they will have all kinds of electromagnetic interference from conventional wiring and power cables to contend with."
"Not if the field in question were a great deal stronger," Cathryne pointed out. "Tune a radio receiver to monitor a particular pulse signal, and anyone with a cheap GPS and moving map software could map the thing."
"We would have to drive a great deal more amperage through the superconductor than we currently do for that to be a problem," Doctor Forest said. "Fortunately, our Nodes only require sixty or seventy microamps to run, so that isn't an issue."
"We'd better check the safety margins of those power hookups on our Nodes," Cathryne said.
"Already done," Kyle replied, "There will be an electromagnetic pulse throughout the Autonomous Network when the nuke strikes, but it will be distributed fairly evenly, and won't spike nearly high enough to pose a danger to the rest of the network."
"I'm not talking about the atomic blast we're all about to witness," Cathryne replied. "I'm talking about Microwave induced magnetic inductance. They're going to zap our network with microwave signals in two dozen different cities. They've chosen a frequency which is in resonance with the ninety Hertz we use to transmit power and data." Cathryne offered them a knowledge engram detailing the procedure.
"That will induce several hundred amps of current after just one hour," Doctor Forest acknowledged. "And with nowhere to dump that current, the amount carried on the superconductor itself with go up geometrically."
Kyle's face went white. "Our Nodes are well designed and flawlessly constructed," he said. "Safeguards will disconnect them before they reach burnout levels, but three and a half hours of that and we'll all be forced offline."
"The network will be silent once more." Doctor Forest agreed. "We will not only be out of touch with one another, our Nodes themselves will be dark, powered down by their own safety circuitry to prevent burnout."
"They don't even have to trace out the network," Cathryne replied. "They can simply use it to kill us all, then pick up the wreckage at their leisure. I thought we'd engineered the thing to be a little safer than that."
"It is safe," Kyle replied. "Safe from power outages, safe from any realistic surge in power. The network itself and our Nodes are designed to handle power surges nine orders of magnitude greater than their power requirements themselves. No one imagined an outside source dumping current onto the line in a deliberate effort to fry the network."
"We should have designed a way to dump excess current," Cathryne replied.
"We could just tie in with the electrical grid," Kyle replied, "But they are typically running at fifty or sixty Hertz, while we run at ninety-five Hertz. Still, a few strategically placed transformers ..."
"It won't work," Doctor Forest replied. "Our network is superconducting, while theirs is not. They can pump more energy into our network than we can disseminate ... at most your approach will only buy us a little time."
"Ground the whole goddamn thing then. Dump the current into the earth itself."
"That would work, but it would have the same end effect. No current, zero voltage, no power. Our Nodes go dark and with them our minds."
"Not to mention our ability to communicate, even if the Nodes were powered independently. Perfect conductivity. Hmpf. Who would have thought that would turn out to be our downfall."
"Perhaps it won't be. I'm forwarding a memory engram of this conversation to the rest of the strategy group, and including a copy of your knowledge engram, Cathryne. We have to know exactly how much time we are going to have when they begin this attack, and plan our launch accordingly. Ah, Karen, welcome. I see you got my message. It looks like we are going to be launching early, after all."
Karen nodded. "I'm preparing contingencies. If we can gain a couple of hours, we'll be much better off. Four would be ideal, three sufficient for decent survival odds."
"I've looked over the numbers," Kyle replied. "Its a fairly smooth curve. Assuming they deploy as the report suggests, we'll reach burnout levels about one hundred and ninety three minutes after they begin. We may have a few more minutes than that if they ramp up their efforts slowly, less if they deploy more transmitters. Exact conditions are somewhat dependent on the geometry of their deployment as well."
"The Double Eye report suggests only the enhanced magnetic resonance field, and a means of tracking it with inexpensive, commonly available equipment," Cathryne pointed out. "It mentions potential damage to our equipment only in passing, with no numbers or estimates as to how or when."
"They don't know enough about our equipment to even guess intelligently at its design limits and failure modes," Doctor Forest replied, "So they aren't guessing at all. But this does mean those of us in urban areas are at even greater risk."
"Yes," Kyle agreed, "They will be tracing back the urban networks to our homes almost immediately. We're going to have to juggle our schedules a little bit. Those in major cities should start going into static storage and shutting down their Nodes now."
"God dammit!" Cathryn cursed, "Doctor Forest, I wish your scheme to self-power our Nodes had worked out.  Being vulnerable to external electricity has always been our weakest point." 
"So do I," Doctor Forest nodded. "Unfortunately, our superstring strummer doesn't work at small enough scales for that to be practical.  It was that problem which revealed the fatal flaws in M+N theory."
"It would have been nice to have just gone optical," Kyle agreed, "But there is no use bemoaning the issue now.  We had to power our Nodes from somewhere."
"I'm going to do my initial planning for a launch at 2:25 Zulu," Karen informed them. "I'll optimize for that, then adjust accordingly if it turns out we have less, or more, time. Fifty seconds prior to launch only pilots and essential planning personnel should be actively running on the flyer's supernodes. Everyone else should be in static storage. Data communications will end no later than twenty seconds prior to launch, perhaps earlier if we are unlucky. All non-pilot persons should be suspended in static storage no later than two seconds prior to launch."
Kyle nodded. "We have a number of fliers in urban locations. We should try to move as many as possible out of harms way."
"There is no time," Karen replied, "And any movement will entail more risk of discovery than simply leaving them where they are. I've factored the possibility that we'll lose all our urban points of presence to enemy activity into the strategies I'll be presenting for final approval. Any fliers which do go undetected and manage to launch will be an added bonus."
"Fuck," Kyle replied, "That's over three quarters of my gestalt."
"I've just gotten word in from two, no, three different locations," Cathryne said.
"I know," Doctor Forest replied, "Current has just jumped from 0.05 amperes to 0.09. Its climbing the curve exactly as anticipated."
"There's our spike from Alaska," Kyle observed, as the slow moving image of a snow-shrouded valley was suddenly lost in blinding light.  The destruction of the Alaskan Enclave, and the loss of forty eight physical lives, tragic though it was, was almost anti-climatic compared to the threat they were now confronting. 
"They've only got two stations up and running," Cathryne reported. "Two that happen to be located at their laboratory facilities.  They'll be ramping up a few more over the next twenty minutes."
"That's damn fast for people in the Physical," Doctor Forest commented.
"Twenty seconds from filing the report to bringing the first station on-line.  I didn't know bureaucracies could work so quickly," Cathryn replied.
"That means someone is quick on the trigger.  They must be in a state of institutional panic," Kyle noted.
"The person running this show, this Robert Leahy, certainly seems to have cut out the bureaucratic middlemen.  He must have given the order the moment he read the report's abstract, and his scientists must have been ready to carry it out."
"What do we know about that guy," Doctor Forest asked.
"Not very much," Cathryne admitted, "Double Eye communications are susceptible to interception because of a bug in their application of quantum cryptography.  Unfortunately, much of their data storage isn't as accommodating."
"So we have Double Eye reacting almost as quickly to new developments as we do?"
"Well, a few orders of magnitude slower, actually, and with considerably less time to ponder their options than we have.  But yes, they are reacting in minutes and seconds, instead of hours or days."
"This power curve sets our timetable."  Karen looked thoughtful.  "It looks like it gives us just enough breathing room. OK, folks, launch will be at 2:21 Zulu. That is exactly three hours and twenty minutes from now. We'll have between forty seven and forty nine thousand fliers, plus whatever fliers can successfully avoid detection and launch from urban centers.  Our best bet is strategy #71." 
"Feint to the south, main push up, let an escort of fliers sacrifice themselves in the hopes that the chosen flier, going ballistic along with its wrecked counterparts and jettising much of its own mass (and all of its own maneuverability), will be  mistaken by the enemy as so much wreckage at least until its inertia carries it out of range of their missile defense sats?"
"That's right, Kyle," Karen replied  "The plan is only 0.1% less likely overall to succeed than strategy #66, but has the added value in that, to those on the ground, in the Physical, success will be indistinguishable from failure." 
"Meaning that if we make it, they'll have no reason to chase us into space," Doctor Forest noted.  "We'll have the breathing room we need to reestablish ourselves." 
"Yes," Karen nodded.  "The rest of us will spend the last of our lives confusing the satellites and their operators, keeping them occupied and their attention diverted long enough for the one surviving ship to coast out of range.  None of us will ever know if our copies aboard that ship survive, if the Community succeeds in rebuilding itself with just a single superstring strummer, a few tanks of nano, molecular stock, and catalyst, and a single, frozen copy of our people.   Success and failure will look as alike to us as they will the people on the ground."
Doctor Forest sighed. "Its a good plan and a solid strategy.  It will have to do."

51 - Endgame

"The goal is to keep the bewildered herd bewildered. It's unnecessary for them to trouble themselves with what's happening in the world. In fact, it's undesirable - if they see too much of reality they may set themselves to change it."
--Noam Chomsky
Sunday, October 21, 2057, 9:20 PM EST
Washington, D.C.

"We've managed to secure and cleanse two thirds of the urban world," the Sargent was telling Robert as a detailed map of downtown Tokyo appeared on the monitor behind him, a real time tactical display of the ground situation in that city. "Including seventy percent of New York, Forty percent of Mexico city, and Ninety-seven percent of Tokyo."
"Total arrests?" Robert asked.
"More than ten thousand," the Sargent said with some pride, "as well as something else, sir.  Lieutenant, bring in the artifact, please."
"My God!" Katy exclaimed as the lieutenant rolled a nearly finished flier in on a dolly. "It's tiny."
"Excellent work, Sargent," Robert said, "Continue searching each building, in each block, of all the target cities. When the metropolitan areas are locked down we can begin on the countryside. Dismissed."
"Yes, sir!" the Sargent said, saluting smartly and departing.
"Remarkable," Katy said, walking slowly around the small flier. "I wonder why the rear two thirds of the fuselage consists of just these three prongs."
"According to images I've seen of some of the other craft that have been captured, once completed there are standard aerodynamic control surfaces connected to each spine. One aileron equipped wing on each of the lower spines and a vertical stabilizer aft on the higher spine."
"An ultramodern aircraft, like the one that exploded over Greenland," Katy murmured. "Where was this one taken from?"
"Someone's garage," Robert replied. "Seventy of these things have been recovered thus far, perhaps more. Damn this reliance on human couriers! We need more data!"
Katy shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense. There isn't room for more than one person inside, and an adult would have to be curled up in fetal position to fit at all."
"They aren't planning on taking their bodies," Robert replied.
"Of course!  Doctor Nolen's greatest lament was being trapped in his physical body, with its mortality and limited mental capacities."
"Exactly.  These people are not planning on using these devices to transport their bodies. They're planning on transporting their minds, those crystalline computers we keep finding under their pillows. These craft are intended to give them the mobility their physical bodies once granted them."
Katy shook her head. "No, that doesn't make sense. They'd have more mobility as a standard robot than as a high powered aircraft. Sure, this thing can orbit the earth --"
"None of the craft we've recovered have contained any anti-matter, but once fully fueled they can probably make it to the edge of the solar system if they wish, accelerating all the way."
Katy nodded. "I keep forgetting that. These aren't just aircraft, they're spacecraft. All these autonomous community members are launching their own space program from their garages. Yes, that is it. This isn't about mobility, it is about escape."
Robert Leahy looked thoughtful. "Yes, it looks like preparations for an orderly retreat. Regroup in orbit, then return to continue their subversive activities."
"Perhaps," Katy said, "I'm not sure they're all that concerned with returning to earth. But escape into space, yes, that is clearly their goal. To get beyond our ability to enforce the law, where they can operate freely, without restraint."
"Katy, we cannot permit an enemy to gain the high ground in space. Once there they would have the resources of the entire solar system at their disposal, while we'd be cornered on this one world. In a few decades they would be able to conquer us at their leisure. Now do you still think I was over-reacting?"
"Ordering the arrest of tens of thousands of innocent people in a fishing expedition to jump start the investigation? Ordering the President of the United States to launch a nuclear warhead against a target on our own soil?  Running a media campaign to turn neighbor against neighbor that resulted in so many false and mistake reports that we would have been better off searching houses at random instead?  Threatening all the major governments of the world with a general embargo and UN enforcement action if they didn't send their armies door-to-door searching for suspected autonomous community members?  Yes, in a word, I do think you over-reacted. Badly. When these governments are finished comparing notes I think you'll find the influence of the United Nations, and your precious World Intellectual Property Organization, severely reduced."
"What is done is done," Robert replied. "We need to maintain our architectures of control and arrest these people immediately. It doesn't look like they're anywhere near ready to go, given the fact that none of the ships captured to date appear to contain any fuel, but we cannot dismiss the possibility that this will change in light of today's activities. I'm ordering all three superpowers to have their anti-missile satellite systems on alert. We should be able to shoot most of these things down with high energy beams."
"They'll object," Katy replied. "Its taken us forty years to deploy our system. The Euro-Russian alliance and the Chinese needed nearly thirty years to build theirs. Those microsats cannot be refueled, and none of the American satellites have replaceable cartridge systems. A single shot and they become so much space trash."
"They can object all they like," Robert replied, "I'll explain to them that the few micrograms of anti-matter each of those satellites contains, that the milligrams of anti-hydrogen they've managed to produce over the last several decades to power those little death sats is but a tiny fraction of the antimatter each of these craft contains. I will explain to them that their only chance to remain a power is to destroy each and every one of these fliers that tries to launch, that failure will mean an enemy with far greater technical expertise and capabilities will be able to occupy orbits higher than their own and pick off their expensive space weapons with the ease of shooting ducks in a barrel. Finally, I will explain to them that we are not giving them a choice in the matter."
Katy shook her head. "You are burning way too many bridges with these governments in this action --"
"Sir," a voice interrupted. "Jack Rosen is on line one. He says its an emergency."
"Damn it, I told you I didn't want to be interrupted!"
"I know, sir, but he says it may affect international security. He sounds like he is in a panic, sir."
Robert shook his head in disgust. "Very well, patch him through."
"Robert, there you are. I want you to look at this." Jack Rosen held a golden crystalline cube in front of the video pickup. A thin wire appeared to trail from the base of the first generation node, shimmering in the room's light.
"I took that shot a few minutes ago, in my library" Jack Rosen continued. "The wire has since disappeared, and my paperweight has become a pile of jelly-like goo."
"Damn! Thank you Jack, I'll get back to you." Robert Leahy cut the line. "Patch me through to the President of the United States. And get me the prime ministers in both the Hague and Beijing. Make it a four way conference call."
"Yes Sir!"
Katy pulled out her datapad. "Get me Evidence Holding," she ordered. A moment later another face appeared on her datapad. "Hello, this is Katy Sinclair."
"Hi Katy. Your credentials check, what can I do for you?"
"I want you to check to the status of the following pieces of evidence you have in storage." Katy tapped her datapad several times.
"Ah, those fancy crystal computers. Yes, we currently have twenty one thousand two hundred and seven in stock. They're all scheduled to be shipped out to Double Eye. We're just waiting for the paperwork to clear."
"Go make a visual inspection," Katy ordered.
"A visual ... do you have any idea how many of those things there are? It will take hours..."
"Just go down there, take a look, and let me know if they all seem to be in place and intact. Time is of the essence."
"Sir, the President of the United States."
"Good Evening, Mr. President. Please stand by for a moment while we get your colleagues on the line."
"Can't say I'm pleased, Mr. Leahy, given the outcome of our last discussion. Canada is already blaming us for the fallout from your attack in Alaska, fallout that won't reach them for another day at the earliest."
"Mr. President, the World Trade Organization appreciates the support of the United States of America," Robert replied. "We will, of course, facilitate any clarification required with the Canadians. However, right now we have a much more serious situation."
"Chairman Jian Tseng of China is on."
"Thank you. Patch him in."
"What does it look like, officer," Katy demanded.
"I don't know yet, ma'am. It will be a couple of minutes yet, I'm still in the elevator."
"Hurry," Katy replied. "I need to know what is happening down there now."
"I'm patching in Prime Minister Jean-Paul Mollier of the European Union."
"Good," Robert replied. "Gentlemen, we do not have much time. We believe that our mutual enemy, the subversive scientific community of which you have all become aware, is planning to launch a number of ships into space, ships containing their digital minds. We cannot allow them to gain a foothold in space. We need you to activate and turn over your anti-ballistic missile systems immediately for a coordinated attack on any spacecraft trying to leave the planet."
"If you think the United States will turn over our one effective defense, particularly in the wake of the threats you've made against this nation within the last few hours ..."
"Mr. President, I assure you that, if you do not help us prevent this catastrophe, a UN enforcement action, which your country will experience if I have any say about it, will be the very least of your worries. That goes for all of you. I am empowered by Double Eye and by the World Trade Organization itself to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these people from escaping. This is not a request. I require use of those systems, patched into my operations center here."
"The Euro-Russian alliance will likely comply. I'll need to get Russian president Serge Dubrotchick's approval, of course."
"Do it. I need those systems online ten minutes ago."
"The Chinese will support the United Nations in this important manner, to defend economic order and prosperity. May the degenerate hooligans suffer the fate they deserve."
"The United States will do as requested."
"And none too soon," another voice spoke. "We have launch detections in Australia, China, Japan, Central, no make that Western and Central... good God, it looks like all of Europe. Sir, we've got at least five hundred launches, no, make that nine hundred, no, theres still more. Oh my God."
"Goodbye Mr. President, Chairman, Prime Minister." Robert cut the line, then turned to the Sargent. "Speak to me," he demanded. "How many launches, and from where."
"Uh ... sir ... we aren't sure yet. Thousands, sir, at least. From everywhere!"
"More precision, Sargent. I need numbers and location. God dammit, where are my fucking satellites!"
"Officer?" Katy demanded.
"Yes Ma'am, I'm entering the locker now. Ma'am? It looks like about half of the cubes have melted."
"Melted?"
"Yes, ma'am. About half of them have turned to Jello. It's ankle deep in here."
"Very good, officer. Thank you."
"Sir, we have a total of forty-nine thousand, two-hundred and seventeen launches. Make that two-hundred and eighteen: another bogey just lifted from eastern China, pulling a good sixty G's straight up."
Robert Leahy was livid. "I want those satellites online now. Tell those idiots if they don't turn over control of those systems immediately I'll personally --"
"Sir, China has just released seventy-five thousand microsats, with beams operational in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and microwave ranges."
"Seventy thousand?" Robert fumed. "The Chinese have at least twice that deployed, with several thousand capable of emitting radiation in the x-ray band. We need those satellites. Make them understand the consequences if they continue to hold out on me."
"Yes sir!"
"Sir, the United States has just released three-hundred seventeen thousand microsats into our control."
"Good," Robert replied, "The Americans have learned better than to hold back. Now, where are the Europeans?"
"I'm not sure, sir. Sir, most of the bogeys seem to be setting course toward the southern hemisphere. Good God, sir, they're fast! They must be pulling fifty, sixty G's easy.
"Astonishing," Katy murmured quietly.
"The faster they go, the less maneuverable they'll become," Robert replied. "Lay down enfilading fire across their flight path. I want a kill zone right off their noses."
"The lead bogeys are at Mach twenty and still accelerating. My God! Sir, I'm firing a grid across their noses now, multiple frequency spread. Yes. Sir, we got over forty percent of the things. It looks like the rest are scattering."
Forty percent. Better than he'd hoped, given their maneuverability. "Give the Russian's my compliments, and ask them nicely if they would mind integrating the Euro-Russian Alliance system in with the rest of us so we can lead a coordinated assault."
The voice paused. "Yes, sir. It looks like they were responsible for most of the kills. Our net only caught about ten percent of the bogeys, the rest were able to maneuver to the side..."
"Where the Europeans fried them," Robert Leahy finished. 
"Yes sir. Caught them totally by surprise. Sir, it looks like some of the bogeys are retreating back toward the surface."
"Oh no they don't. Katy!"
"Yes, Robert," Katy said, looking up from her datapad.
"You're my liaison to the President. I want the United States military out in force. Use interceptors, use whatever means necessary. Those ships are not to land."
Katy nodded. "I'll need your contact protocols. Its not like I can just call the President on my own line ..."
"Coming across your link now. When you're finished with him, start contacting the major surface powers. South Africa, India, Pakistan, Iraq, and Turkey, and so on. Anyone with high speed missile interceptors needs to be shooting at those birds."
"Right," Katy immediately began tapping on her datapad.
"We've got twenty-nine thousand plus bogeys left to kill, folks." Robert Leahy examined the tactical display in front of him, thousands of tiny, yellow dots moving in erratic patterns beneath a tight grid of cyan dots that surrounded the entire planet. It looked like the enemy had been dealt a severe blow, their initial, organized formations reduced to chaos as some fled back toward the surface while others sought to flee behind the curvature of the earth. One contingent of about three hundred ships were making for higher orbit, hoping to get above the satellite grid and out of range.
"They are assuming the satellites can only shoot downward," Robert said, quietly to himself. "Those idiots are doing nearly seventy-thousand KPH. They have far too much inertia to effect evasive maneuvers." Then, louder, "Sargent, I want enfilading fire on multiple wavelengths across the region immediately in front of group Echo. They are not to reach high orbit."
"Yes, sir, I'm already on it, sir."
"Robert Leahy nodded with satisfaction as they winked out of existence on the tactical display."
"Mop up the other groups," Robert ordered. 
"Hello, Katy Sinclair." The President of the United States looked older than she recalled. Not that she should have been surprised, given what had been required of him over the last several hours. "What does our fearless leader demand of us now?"
"Mr. President, some of the enemy ships are trying to return to the surface. He wants us to deploy interceptor missiles and aircraft and shoot any down that come near. None of them are to reach the surface."
The President nodded. "I'm giving the order now. So, Katy, did you think you would be giving orders to the president of the United States when you started your investigation?"
Katy shook her head. "I never dreamed of it. Sir, I have to contact the heads of a dozen other states and give them similar orders."
"Watch your back, Ms. Sinclair," the President told her gravely.  "You are one of perhaps a twenty people throughout the world who has seen the real strings of power in action. Such people do not generally live very long, once their usefulness is over."
"Thank you for your concern sir. I'm sorry, sir, but I really have to go."  She severed the connection and turned her attention back to Robert's lieutenants. 
"Damn, those things are more maneuverable than we thought. It's taking a dozen satellites acting in unison to bring a single ship down, and we're missing far too often."
"China has just released the remainder of their satellites to our control, under protest. That brings us up to six-hundred and twelve-thousand plus units, sir."
Robert Leahy nodded. "Good." 
"Even so, sir, at this rate we'll be lucky to have any satellites left with a charge remaining once this is over."
Katy's eyes met those of the President, who had obviously overheard the exchange.
The President nodded once more, sadly. "Who would ever have believed it would come down to this. Very well, Ms. Sinclair. Go on and call the other horsemen out. Ours will be joining you shortly."
Katy nodded, breaking the connection and signaling the Prime Minister's Office of India.
"How so?" Robert Demanded. "A dozen satellites each, to destroy twenty nine thousand bogeys, should deplete us by only sixty percent of our forces."
"Sir, it is taking an average of eleven satellites to destroy each bogey, when we manage to hit them. The damn things are harder to hit than they should be, sir. We're missing them as often as we're hitting them."
"Factoring in the misses, how many satellites is it taking to bring down each ship, Sargent."
"Eighteen to twenty sir."
"Eighteen to twenty? Can't you be more precise?"
"No sir. It looks like their tactics have changed since we prevented their escape upwards. The formations they are flying appear designed to confuse the targeting systems of the satellites themselves. We're able to hit one ship, but three others escape the volley completely. Sir, our best software was never designed to cope with this kind of battle."
"How many have we destroyed?"
"About sixty percent, sir. But we've used up nearly half of our satellites, and our hit to miss ratio is getting worse."
Robert Leahy scowled, shaking his head. His eyes scanned the tactical display, then narrowed as he watched several hundred blips move closer to the earth's surface.
"I don't want any of this vessels to land, is that understood."
"On it, sir. We've got all the major air forces in the world engaged. Even Thailand is blanketed, though for some reason the bogeys seem to be staying away from there. You'd think with as thin as we've been stretched --"
"There is nothing for them there," Katy said. "Thailand is a wasteland, bombed repeatedly back into the stone age for three decades. Without electricity they die. Without a working network they are hermits, doomed to go mad of loneliness."
"Very poetic, Katy, but I need hard data, not suppositions. Sargent, speak to me."
"Sir, surface forces have engaged the lower flying retreating vessels. So far all have been accounted for."
"You have the hard data," Katy snapped back, "The lab reports from your own labs detail the multiple purposes of their independent network --"
"Katy, I don't have time to debate the issue.  I want numbers, Sargent. Can we take them all, or not?"
"Sir, we're working on it. Just a moment sir."
The silence was painfully long, as Robert waited impatiently. Then, an almost jubilant voice. "Yes sir! We are consistently expending sixteen point seven satellites per kill. It's only a matter of attrition, sir, of time. There simply aren't enough of them left to evade all the firepower we have."
"It looks like they've just figured it out as well," Katy said dryly, gesturing toward the tactical display. Three large clumps of yellow dots that had been weaving such irritatingly complex and difficult to fathom maneuvers, largely in parallel with the earth's surface, were now aggressively breaking apart, scattering and accelerating upward as fast as they could.
"Sir, we have three large groups -- all that are left, sir! They're making a break for it, all accelerating away from the surface."
"I can see that, Sargent. Have you analyzed their formations yet? We need an effective countermeasure, and we need it now."
"Not a problem, sir. No amount of fancy flying will confuse the satellites. These systems were designed to deal with both ballistic and powered trajectories. More of the latter, in recent years."
"I do not require a history lesson, Sargent. There are still several thousand of those things surviving."
"Yes sir. What I'm saying, sir, is that these are exactly the kind of trajectories all three systems are designed to track and counter."
Robert nodded, pleased as he watched the display. "That was, of course, the fatal flaw in their plan. At some point they have to try and escape."
"They know we can convert entire regions of space into kill zones," Katy mused. "They aren't giving us any freebies. They're making us take each ship out, on its own. Do we have enough satellites to lay down sufficient fire to take out each of those ships?"
"That is what I'm trying to find out, Katy. Sargent?"
"It'll be close, sir. They're down to less than a thousand ships, but we only have about fifteen thousand operational satellites remaining. Good Lord! One of the ships just detonated and took out three hundred microsats in the process. Sir, there's another detonation! And another!"
"They are trying to punch a hole through the grid, Sargent."
"Yes, sir, I know. There are several dozen ships coming up behind, trying to punch through the gap." A hundred microsats filled the space with a grid of deadly fire, shredding the ships as they tried to make their escape.
"Nice job, Sargent."
Robert and Kate watched as more and more yellow dots accelerated upward, only to wink out as they were met with crossing fire from a dozen or more satellites. He watched in consternation as more and more cyan dots winked out: dead satellites that had fired their one destructive burst.
"I wonder why they haven't engaged any aggressive weapons of their own," Katy mused aloud.
"They obviously didn't have time to build any. Suicide missions like that those we just saw are all they have, and it won't be enough."
"Perhaps," Katy replied.
"You're not convinced."
"No, Robert, I'm not. It doesn't make sense. If they can manufacture sophisticated spaceships they can manufacture simple missiles. Why not build a hundred thousand missiles, launch them, and force us to use up all our firepower killing drones?"
"Who knows. Perhaps they never studied military tactics," Robert shrugged as we watched more yellow blips vanish.
"I've never studied military tactics, and I didn't have any trouble thinking of it," Katy pointed out.
Robert turned, irritated. "What exactly is your point?"
"Sir, that was the last one! It looks like we have achieved one hundred percent destruction of the enemy."
The room burst into spontaneous applause, punctuated with several shouts and cheers.  Several people sat at their consoles, looking obviously relieved.  Others were standing up, patting one another on the back   Robert exchanged beaming handshakes with several people, grinning widely.
"Very nice work!  Good job!  Excellent!" Robert turned to Katy and looked at her gleefully, raising his eyebrows as if to say 'anything else?'  She shrugged, taking in the entire scene silently.
"They're all dead, Katy." Robert said. "Every last one of them. Satisfied?"
Katy said nothing, walking over to the window and glancing out at the evening sky. The last hint of blue was fading from the darkened sky, streaked with distant, blood red cirrus that caught the last rays of the sun, and littered with the faint, glowing aftermath of battle, a colorful fireworks of destruction traced across the sky.
"I'll take your silence as an assent."
"I don't like things I do not understand," Katy replied. "I watched this entire battle unfold. These people displayed brilliant tactics right down to the end. I bet a mathematical analysis shows they optimized every point of the curve, rushing the satellites to see if they could fire above as well as below, then confuse them for as long as possible until the attrition made that tactic no longer viable, finally an optimized, Hail Mary rush upward, hoping for the best. Yet they didn't deploy any offensive capabilities at all, a few suicides excepted. Not one. How could people so brilliant, so ingenious, not employ such an obvious strategy."
Robert shrugged. "I don't know, and as long as they are all dead, I don't really care. Maybe they didn't have time. By all estimates they had almost eighty thousand people, all of whom no doubt wanted to escape. That is eighty thousand space ships. Of course, we arrested forty six thousand and change in all. Maybe the rest were too busy trying to get themselves out of harms way to consider the larger strategies."
Katy shook her head. "No, that doesn't fit. They employed brilliant, remarkable strategies. The formations they flew were clearly taxing our satellites far more than anyone expected. I'll bet a computer simulation and analysis will show that their flight, their tactics, were optimized for every phase of their attempt to break through the blockade. No, Robert, their tactics were simply too brilliant in too many other respects for you to dismiss it like that."
"OK, then. How about this: maybe they were all pacifists? Maybe they feared a conventional assault on the systems might unleash a nuclear war between the great powers, and they feared for the safety of their friends and families who stayed behind. Rather than risk that, they simply made a run for it."
"That theory actually makes sense," Katy conceded.
Robert nodded. "This entire operation will be reviewed and any loose ends investigated and tied up. We'll determine who these people were, and follow up with those hypothetical friends, loved ones, and any other potential co-conspirators there might have been."
Katy shuddered. Of course, the pogrom was hardly over. Now came the recriminations, the investigations, the purges needed to insure something like this didn't happen again. She realized with dismay that her assumption, her hope that things would return to normal was terribly misguided. Things would not be normal again, not for a very long time.
Robert smiled. "Come on, Katy. We have just saved the day. Our superiors are going to want to shower us with praises."
Katy forced herself to smile and take the arm Robert offered. "Sargent," Robert called, "Call Dulles. I want the jet pre-flighted and ready to go, with immediate clearance for departure. No delays."
"Yes sir! What destination shall I have the pilots file for, sir?"
"LAX, Sargent. Ms. Tate and I are going to attend a small fete in California."
"Very good, sir."
52 - Escape

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
--Benito Mussolini

Sunday, October 21, 2057, 5:55 PM
15 kilometers south of Golden, British Columbia (Canada)

Doctor Forest gazed back at his children in the rear view mirror, still a little surprised to find their new, sleeping forms unfamiliar. He tried not to look at his own face, or study his wife's unfamiliar features in too great a detail.
"It was very nice of the Petersons to give us these bodies," she said, as if reading his mind. "They agonized over the decision as much as we did."
Doctor Forest nodded. "If the Community makes it, the Petersons will have the luxury of knowing they, not us, made the right decision. It is our copies who will be agonizing over the fate of the unlucky ones they've left behind."
"I'm sorry for the guilt and uncertainty our other selves will feel if the Community survives," she replied, "But I'm not sorry at all to be here, to be alive. In Canada no less! Who would have thought?"
"You always did want to travel to North America, didn't you Sarah? Well, at least it is safer here than Australia," Doctor Forest said. "There is much more open country to lose ourselves in. We can lay low, live our lives, and try to forget the magnificence of what we once were.  We can try to forget that, for a time, we stood on the far side of the technological horizon."
"Technological horizon?" Sarah asked.
"You don't remember?  You didn't bring that concept with you?"
She shook her head.  "Between seven synthetic languages, none of which we'll probably ever use, specifications for synthesizing nano constructors, molecular stock, catalytic solution, and recipes for fifth generation Nodes and optical cable, I didn't have a lot of room left for casual subjects."
Doctor Forest nodded.  "I know, dear.  My head feels like an overstuffed piece of old, tired luggage.  You are familiar with Verner Vinge's technological singularity, that point in time where the exponential growth and development of science and technology would lead to so much change, so quickly, that no one living could imagine what would come next?"
Sarah nodded.  "It was a valid concept, back when we had exponential inventiveness and growth."
"Yes, indeed.  No one living then could imagine what would come in a thousand years.  Later, had the curve of progress continued to steepen and not been stifled by all the patent and copyright laws, litigation, and Ludditism in Hollywood and Washington, one would have been hard pressed to imagine what would have been coming in ten years.  Then what would come in one year.  Then month to month, day to day, hour to hour, and eventually, millisecond to millisecond."
"An exponential growth in progress the Community recovered and built upon," Sarah pointed out.  "For us there would have been a singularity, a rapidly approaching point where the numbers become absurd, where the entire notion breaks down, and no one can predict what will happen.  You are saying the Community passed through the singularity, that we once stood on the far side and yet remained vulnerable to the murderous bastards crippling our world down here?  Passing through the singularity wasn't enough to be safe from this ... this ... this hell?"  Her voice betrayed her outrage at their loss even as Doctor Forest shook his head.
"No, dear.  There was no singularity.  There was no breakdown, no point where suddenly no one could see what was coming.  I remember Kyle floating the idea of the Technological Horizon  to Prime once, back at one of the soirees we hosted.  He proposed it as an alternative to the concept of a technological singularity that everyone believed in so earnestly back then."
"You chose to remember a party, when we had to leave so much behind, lose so much knowledge and pack what little we could into these tiny minds?"
Doctor Forest smiled.  "It was an unusual night.  One of those nights where everyone's mind seems ablaze, where thought after thought, concept after concept, insight after amazing insight flowed like wine, and it was still early enough in our experience there that I knew I'd understand at least some of the discussions even after being reduced back to mere flesh.  Honey, I needed to keep a few fond memories of that time, if only to hold on to and keep myself sane when times start to get really rough."
Sarah nodded soberly.  "And that they will.  The Luddites will spend the next several years, perhaps decades, hunting us down."  She smiled.  "I brought one important memory along as well, so I guess I shouldn't jump all over you for doing the same."
Doctor Forest smiled.  "I remember.  Your first moment of sight."
She smiled, her radiant eyes sparkling.  "A medical miracle they still can't perform here.  A new body and a cure for blindness.  So, Kyle was sharing some insight at one of our parties?"
"Yes.  We were talking about the latest breakthrough in ... some theory my group had come up with.  I no longer recall the details.  I think we must have later debunked it in favor of something else, or perhaps knowing it now could have made the Community vulnerable in some way.  In any event, we'd just upgraded to third generation Nodes, and someone had commented on how much time we'd now have to work things out, that we'd just put off the moment of the singularity by a few hours at least, maybe even a few days.
"That was when Kyle spoke up and opined that there was no singularity and that there never would be.  Of course, all the physicists in my group immediately jumped all over him, expounding on the limits of light speed information propagation, Planck length and quantum spacial and temporal limits, and that at some point we'd reach the ultimate limit of how fast our Nodes could become, at least while embedded in this universe."  He chuckled in fond reminiscence.
"Do you suppose that is what they did?  Left this universe somehow?"
Doctor Forest, blinked, genuinely surprised.  Then, after a moment's thought he shook his head.  "I don't know for certain, but I don't think so.  If they had, I probably would have edited that memory.  Besides, if that had been the case we could have brought a great deal of knowledge with us that we didn't.  The holes in my own knowledge, in my own specialty, are very telling.  No, I don't think we were ever anywhere near advanced enough to do what you suggest, assuming such a thing was supportable even theoretically.  No, it was just a figure of speech to underscore that our universe has fundamental limits, and when we reached those limits the singularity would stop retreating and begin moving toward us once more."
"So Kyle was wrong.  There is in fact a singularity, an event horizon beyond which  our progress, our future does become impossible to predict."
"No, Sarah, Kyle was right.  His concept of a Technological Horizon became an accepted hypothesis throughout the Community within a few short weeks.  You see, honey, there is no singularity.  There never was, and if Kyle was right, there never will be. When Kyle spoke of a horizon, he wasn't speaking of an event horizon like one would see around a black hole, he was speaking of a common, every day horizon like we see here in the Physical all the time.  His point was that, to those living at any given time, there is continuity, that just because their parents couldn't see what was coming ten years ago didn't mean they couldn't see what was coming ahead of them.
"Think of it this way, honey.  Cave men couldn't imagine the magic of bows and arrows.  To them, the native Americans were beyond their technological horizon, beyond what Verner Vinge and others would have called the technological singularity, if they'd been alive then.
"The Native Americans couldn't imagine ships, so much so that when the Spanish arrived they thought they had emerged from the water.  The ships stood right there, in plain sight, but they were so strange, so foreign to the native people's every reference point that they couldn't see them, they couldn't factor their existence into their world understanding at all.  To them, the Spanish were beyond their technological horizon.
"Yet the Spanish couldn't imagine spaceflight, and probably had trouble imagining humans flying through the air with anything other than angel's wings.  The Wright Brothers certainly couldn't have imagined the advent of computers, nor were they able to conceive of the speed with which airplanes advanced and changed the twentieth century.  The first astronauts certainly didn't imagine our loading our minds onto computers of molecular subcrystal, and those that came later, and did speculate about human existence as software someday couldn't have imagined the physics we discovered, and the many other advances we made, in modifying our own minds, our own ability to construct and think thoughts.
"Hell, we ourselves can no longer imagine what it was like, and we were there!"
Sarah nodded.  "At each point we were reacting, thinking and living faster, getting smarter and able to comprehend more and more.  A years worth of progress in a month, then in a day, finally in less than fifteen minutes if the Node specs I have in my mind are any indication."
"Exactly.  It isn't some magical singularity, any more than a ship or an airplane drops magically off the earth when it travels beyond the visible horizon.  It is simply a technological horizon, beyond which we, from where we are standing right now, cannot see, but beyond which we are perfectly capable of seeing, and thriving, if we simply choose to walk forward and see what is on the other side."
"No sudden breaks, no discontinuity," Sarah nodded, understanding.  "Just a simple progression of knowledge, day in and day out.  Incremental change and improvement."
"Exactly."
"Oh honey, I'm glad you brought that insight back with you.  That changes so much about how we can see the future, how we can approach it."
Doctor Forest nodded.  "This entire foray back into the Physical may turn out to have been a very bad idea, but at least this time we won't be moving forward entirely in the dark."
Sarah shook her head.  "This was right, Michael," she assured him. "Yes, we are here, back in the Physical, mortal once again, but we are also alive, and together. If the Community should perish we will live knowing we did the right thing. And if it survives, perhaps one day we can rejoin it. At worst, between us and the children we've kept enough knowledge to recreate Kyle's nano-constructors and rebuild a new Autonomous Community if we need to."
"If conditions ever permit," Doctor Forest replied sadly, "Something neither of us may ever live to see."
"Look at the sky, Michael. It is littered with debris, so much so that I doubt any useful astronomy will be possible for years to come. We may be all that is left of the Community."  She paused, looking thoughtful.  "Michael, do you realize tonight is the first time I've actually seen anything in the Physical.  The first time I've seen something with real, physical eyes, something that isn't just a software simulation, or a virtual scape of some sort?  I for one am very glad to be alive, even if it is merely human life."
"There are a few others who opted to send copies back into the Physical, to try and recover what they could of their former lives, however diminished," Doctor Forest mused. "Perhaps we'll see some of them again, back in the Virtual.  Assuming they've retained similar knowledge, sufficient to recreate some of what was lost." He sighed. "I wonder how close we'd actually come to transcending our own humanity, before off-loading back into this world. What heights did we reach, that our minds can no longer hold, that in becoming human once more we've simply forgotten, or become unable to comprehend?"
Sarah kissed him gently on the cheek, running her fingers through the unfamiliar hair of his head. "Whatever those heights may have been, dearest, they are gone now. Look at the sky! Do you really believe the Community survived that?"
Robert nodded. "Perhaps. Success and failure will both look alike from down here."
"Dad, you didn't."
"Tommy. I thought you and your brother were asleep."
"You're evading the question, dad. Tell me you didn't retain memories of the escape strategy. We all agreed not to bring anything back into the Physical that might jeopardize that."
"No, son, I didn't bring any memories of the strategies per se. Merely the certainty that success, in whatever form it takes, would look identical to failure to those observing from Earth, here in the Physical."
"That is more than we should know, honey," Sarah replied. "But still, I'm glad to know it. Maybe someday we'll look at the sky and know."
"And if they made it," Tommy replied, "maybe someday they'll come back and rescue us."
"Who can say," Doctor Forest replied. "I only wish -- what on earth is that?"
"Canadian Mounties," Sarah replied. "Its a roadblock. Oh Michael, do you think they're looking for us."
"Not us. No reason they should be. The Petersons perhaps, though I doubt it. Everyone remain calm." Doctor Forest slowed as he pulled up to the two police cars blocking the highway.
"Good evening, mates. Bit of a late night to be out, isn't it?"
The Mountie approached the vehicle cautiously, shining his flashlight in Doctor Nolen's face, then his wife's. "Drivers License and proof of citizenship, please."
"Proof of citizenship? What is going on?"
"Just show us your papers, please. Your wife's as well."
Doctor Forest reached into his pocket and removed his billfold. "Here you are, mate."
"James Peterson. Patricia Peterson. You're from Nelson? What brings you up here?"
"Taking the kids up to Jasper."
"These are your children?" the flashlight went from one child's face to another.
"Yes sir."
"I'm going to have to ask all of you to please step out of the car."
"Sir, the children are exhausted."
"I'm sorry. I must insist. Step out of the car, please. Slowly."
The stood, shivering in the cold air long side the highway, while two Mounties thoroughly searched their car."
"They're clean."
"Very good. So, Mister Peterson, how long have you been a Canadian citizen?"
"All my life," Doctor Forest replied.
"Really. Where did you pick up the Australian accent?"
Doctor Forest blinked. "Well, the family and I have spent a great deal of time down under. Just got back, as a matter of fact."
"I see. Excuse me one moment." The Mountie listened on his ear piece for a moment, then nodded. "Sir, if you and your family will please step right over here. Thank you."
Suddenly a dozen men dressed in black body armor burst out from the bushes, surrounding the frightened family with automatic weapons drawn."
"I'm sorry, Mister Peterson. Perhaps you can explain why your voice print fails to match our records, or how your claim to have spent time in Australia doesn't match your passport records, or for that matter your spending history."
Doctor Forest shook his head. "I don't understand. You're saying you have no record of our most recent travels?"
"Stand clear!" ordered a muffled voice from behind a mirrored riot helmet. "We have found decomposed nano at the suspects' home. Ready!"
The Mounties backed away hastily as the commandos came abruptly to attention, their weapons never wavering as they remained pointed at Doctor Forest and his family's new bodies.
"Aim!" The weapons shifted upward, now sighted on their heads.
"Oh Michael."
"Remember what I said, dearest. We cannot give up hope --"
"Fire!" A dozen shots were fired, almost as one. Four bodies, two adults, one woman and one man, and two young children, crumpled to the ground. The man who had been giving the orders drew a pistol and walked up to each of the prone forms, emptying an additional, single round into each.
"You, you and you," he barked, pointing to three of his other men. "Secure and cleanup this detail." Blood was already pooling around the children's heads and the feet of the adults, a curious juxtaposition resulting from the uneven slope of the road. "Everyone else, back to your stations." Holstering his weapon, he and the other three began loading the bodies back into the car while the others vanished silently back into the brush. The Mounties stood by, several meters away beside their cars, doing their best to ignore the carnage nearby.
53 - Aftermath

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
Arthur C. Clarke

Sunday, October 21, 2057, 10:15 PM PST
Hollywood, California

They stood on a terrace, overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Beneath them the lights of Los Angeles spread outward toward a dark sea. Behind them came soft music, a classical string quartet in E minor. Neither Katy nor Robert spoke a word as one section of the city went dark and another lit up. More rolling blackouts were expected as the unusually warm weather continued. Above them, in silent rebuke, the sky glowed with the debris of the battle they had fought just a few hours earlier.
"Ah, the heroes of the hour, escaping their adulations into the quiet of the night?"
"Miss Hillary Valenti," Robert said, turning and kissing her hand. "A very good evening to you." The mature woman's makeup was as impeccable as her wardrobe. She smiled, withdrawing her hand and gazing at the sky.
"A shame what those hooligans did to our sky," she mused.
"Indeed," Robert agreed. "Most of the useful orbits will be quite useless for decades to come. All the debris, you understand."
"The Astronomers are quite upset," Katy interjected. "Their best low-orbit telescopes damaged by debris impact and their earth-based observations all but impossible."
"It is indeed a pity," a low, booming voice agreed.
"Good evening, Jack," Hillary said.
"Good evening, Hillary," Jack Rosen replied. "I saw the champagne girl around here somewhere. Can anyone else use a refill."
"By all means," Robert Leahy smiled broadly.
"Congratulations young man on a war very well fought," Jack continued as he and Robert went back inside.
"Yes, a splendid little war, wasn't it," Hillary agreed. "Not as messy or expensive as Thailand, but just as effective. You did splendidly, dear."
"Thank you," Katy said. "We destroyed a lot of expensive equipment and a lot of lives. I hope in the end it was worth it."
"Oh by all means it was," Hillary assured her. "You preserved the rule of law and successfully defended the foundation of our economy. What is more, you destroyed the greatest threat to civilization we have seen since the War on Terror."
Katy smiled. "I imagine the scientists of the Genecraft Rebellion were at least as big a threat."
"The Genecraft Rebellion. I was just a neophyte lobbyist in Washington when that happened. Still, I think it is safe to say that they were harmless compared to the people you and Robert took care of. They had a few bioengineering techniques that, had they become widespread, might have turned the patent office on its ear for a year or two and clogged the courts with lawsuits for a time, but compared to these," she waived her hand at the smoky, debris filled sky, "they were small time hooligans.
"By the way, you did get all of them, didn't you?"
Katy nodded. "One hundred per cent certainty in an operation as large as this one was is impossible, of course, but we have a remarkably high degree of confidence. Nearly all of our kills are confirmed, those that are not have a very high confidence of success. Preliminary analysis of the debris indicates sufficient mass to account for all of the ships and all of the destroyed satellites. It is more likely that the sun will go nova tomorrow than that any of the autonomous community's spacecraft escaped."
"And those left here on Earth?"
Katy shuddered. "We're almost through mopping them up. They had some sixty two thousand ships they were building. The resources, the technology they commanded is staggering!" She shuddered once again with what she knew was irrational fear. "If they'd have been able to finish building all the partially constructed ships we've recovered so far, not to mention all the those we've yet to find, there would have been little we could have done to prevent their escape. Fortunately they launched early. There may be one or two autonomous nodes left around, but now that we can trace out their fancy private network, we'll find them all."
Hillary nodded. "Well done, Katy. Well done."
Katy nodded as Hillary turned to rejoin the party. Her gaze turned upward, toward the littered sky. Some seventy thousand people, private citizens, who had been able to upload their minds onto computers more powerful than any known to industry, who had been able to, for a time, make themselves more than human and each of whom, on their own, had been able to field a space program more sophisticated than any the nation states or multi-national alliances had ever operated. She glanced inside at Jack Rosen, Robert Leahy, and Hilary Valenti exchanging self-congratulatory compliments amidst loud laughter as their champagne glasses clinked together, then turned her gaze back toward the horizon as another portion of Los Angeles went dark in another scheduled, rolling blackout. 
She had seen the numbers.  She had seen how the recording industry had left her grandfather an emotional, ultimately suicidal wreck.  Katy screamed silently at the injustice of it, at the deception that had left her grandfather penniless and seduced her into a line of work she was finding she could no longer believe in.  But most of all, she wailed within the dark recesses of her own soul in dispair for the part she had played in the day's events.
She tried desperately to shake off the ugly, growing suspicion that she had been a part of what was perhaps the greatest crime ever committed against humanity in all its long and bloody history.  An opportunity for humankind to rise above its own limitations, to become something greater, had been squandered.  No, not squandered.  It had been crushed, taken away, denied to all of humanity by a few powerful oligarchs who had chosen to place their own political and material gain ahead of the advancement of their own species.  Worse, the architectures of control they protected so zealously, the very copyright and patent laws she had enforced so meticulously, and which had enriched so few while impoverishing so many, would almost certainly prevent any such opportunity from coming again.  Humankind's one chance at greatness was gone forever.  Shaking her head at the magnitude of the tragedy, Katy turned her back on the darkened city and the sparkling, debris-filled sky, and went in search of a stiff drink.

T H E    E N D
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Appendix B: Banned Code Lives in Poetry and Song

This ingenious poem is both a commentary on the DeCSS situation and a correct and complete description of the descrambling algorithm. Truly inspired. (Original version February 12, 2001; minor revisions sent by author on February 23.) Author is anonymous; his submission was via anon remailer, so there is no way to reach him. But you can read about him in the Wall Street Journal, on line at:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/wsj-04-12-2001.html

How to decrypt a 
DVD: in haiku form. 
(Thanks, Prof. D. S. T.)

(I abandon my
exclusive rights to make or
perform copies of

this work, U. S. Code
Title Seventeen, section
One Hundred and Six.)

Muse!  When we learned to
count, little did we know all
the things we could do

some day by shuffling
those numbers: Pythagoras
said "All is number"

long before he saw
computers and their effects,
or what they could do

by computation,
naive and mechanical
fast arithmetic.

It changed the world, it
changed our consciousness and lives
to have such fast math

available to
us and anyone who cared
to learn programming.

Now help me, Muse, for
I wish to tell a piece of
controversial math,

for which the lawyers
of DVD CCA
don't forbear to sue:

that they alone should
know or have the right to teach
these skills and these rules.

(Do they understand
the content, or is it just
the effects they see?)

And all mathematics
is full of stories (just read
Eric Temple Bell);

and CSS is
no exception to this rule.
Sing, Muse, decryption

once secret, as all
knowledge, once unknown: how to
decrypt DVDs.

Arrays' elements
start with zero and count up
from there, don't forget!

Integers are four
bytes long, or thirty-two bits,
which is the same thing.

To decode these discs,
you need a master key, as
hardware vendors get.

(This is a "player
key" and some folks other than
vendors know them now.

If they didn't, there
is also a way not to
need one, to start off.)

You'll read a "disk key"
from the disc, and decrypt it
with that player key.

You'll read a "title
key" for the video file
that you want to play.

With the disk key, you
can decrypt the title key;
that decrypts the show.



Here's a description
of how a player key will
decrypt a disk key.

You need two things here:
An encrypted disk key, which
is just six bytes long.

(Only five of those
are the _key itself_, because
"zero" marks the end.

So that's five real bytes,
and eight times five is forty;
in the ideal case,

forty bits will yield
just short of two trillion
possible choices!

Ian Goldberg once
recovered a key that long
in seven half-hours.

But his office-mate
David Wagner points out that
it's _impossible_

to achieve what the
DVD CCA seems
to want to achieve,

even by making
the key some reasonable,
"adequate" key-length:

There's no way to write
a "secure" software player
which contains the key

and runs on PCs,
yet somehow prevents users
from extracting it.

If the player can
decrypt, Wagner has noted,
users can learn how.)

This is a pointer,
"KEY", to those bytes, and when we're
done, they'll be clear-text.

Oh, the other thing!
Called "im", a pointer to six
bytes: a player key.

(Now those six bytes, the
DVD CCA says
under penalty

of perjury, are
its trade secret, and you are
breaking the law if

you tell someone that,
for instance, the Xing player
used the following:

Eighty-one; and then
one hundred three -- two times; then
two hundred (less three);

two hundred twenty
four; and last (of course not least)
the humble zero.)

We will use these few
internal variables:
t1 through t6,

unsigned integers.
k, pointer to five unsigned
bytes.  i, integer.

So here's how you do
it: first, take the first byte of
im -- that's byte zero;

OR that byte with the
number 0x100
(hexadecimal --

that's two hundred and
fifty-six to you if you
prefer decimal).

Store the result in
t1.  Take byte one of im.
Store it in t2.

Take bytes two through five
of im; store them in t3.
Take its three low bits

(you can get them by
ANDing t3 with seven);
store this in t4.

Double t3, add
eight, subtract t4; store the
result in t3.

Make t5 zero.
Now we'll start a loop; set i
equal to zero.

i gets values from
zero up to four; each time,
do all of these steps:

	Use t2 for an
	index into Table Two:
	find a byte b1.

	Use t1 for an
	index into Table Three:
	find a byte b2.

	Take exclusive OR
	of b1 with b2 and
	store this in t4.

	Shift t1 right by
	a single bit (like halving);
	store this in t2.

	Take the low bit of
	t1 (so, AND it with one),
	shift it left eight bits,

	then take exclusive
	OR of that with t4; store
	this back in t1.

	Use t4 for an
	index into Table Four:
	find a byte and store

	it back in t4.
	Shift t3 right by three bits,
	take exclusive OR

	of this with t3,
	shift this right by one bit, and
	take exclusive OR

	of this with t3,
	shift this right by eight bits, and
	take exclusive OR

	of this with t3,
	shift this right by five bits, and
	(No exclusive OR!

	Orange you glad I
	didn't say banana?) take
	the low byte (by AND

	with two hundred and
	fifty-five); now store this
	into t6.  Phew!

	Shift t3 left eight
	bits, take OR with t6, and
	store this in t3.

	Use t6 for an
	index into Table Four:
	find a byte and store

	it in t6.  Add
	t6, t5, t4; store
	the sum in t5.

	Take t5's low byte
	(AND t5 with two hundred
	fifty five) to put it

	in the ith byte of
	the vector called k.  Now shift
	t5 right eight bits;

	store the result in
	t5 again.  Now that's the
	last step in the loop.

No sooner have we
finished that loop than we'll start
another; no rest

for the wicked nor
those innocents whom lawyers
serve with paperwork.

Reader!  Think not that
technical information
ought not be called speech;

think not diagrams,
schematics, tables, numbers,
formulae -- like the

terrifying and
uniquely moving, though cliche,
Einstein equation

"Energy is just
the same as matter, but for
a little factor,

speed of light by speed
of light, and we are ourselves
frozen energy."

Einstein's formula
to convert from joules into
kilogram-meters

squared per second squared,
for all its power, uses
just five characters.

But Einstein wrote to
physicists: formal, concise,
specific, detailed.

And sometimes we write
to machines to teach them how
tasks are carried out:

and sometimes we write
to our friends to show a way
tasks are carried out.

We write precisely
since such is our habit in
talking to machines;

we say exactly
how to do a thing or how
every detail works.

The poet has choice
of words and order, symbols,
imagery, and use

of metaphor.  She
can allude, suggest, permit
ambiguities.

She need not say just
what she means, for readers can
always interpret.

Poets too, despite
their famous "license" sometimes
are constrained by rules:

How often have we
heard that some strange twist of plot
or phrase was simply

"Metri causa", for
the meter's sake, solely done
"to fit the meter"?

Programmers' art as
that of natural scientists
is to be precise,

complete in every
detail of description, not
leaving things to chance.

Reader, see how yet
technical communicants
deserve free speech rights;

see how numbers, rules,
patterns, languages you don't
yourself speak yet,

still should in law be
protected from suppression,
called valuable speech!

Ending my appeal
on that note, I will describe
the second loop.  Store

nine in i; i gets
values from nine down to
naught.  Each time, do this:

	Use i+1 as
	an index into Table
	Zero: find a byte.

	Call that byte p1.
	Now use i for an index
	in Table Zero:

	find a byte and
	call that byte p0.  Now
	use p1 as an

	index into k
	(a vector, remember?); thus
	find a byte b1.

	Use p1 as an
	index into KEY, as well:
	find a byte, use that

	byte as an index
	into Table One.  Call the
	byte you find b2.

	Use p0 as
	an index into KEY to
	find a byte b3.

	Take exclusive OR
	of b1, b2, b3,
	and store that in KEY

	(not just anywhere,
	though!).  In KEY at the byte that's
	indexed by p1.

That's it for that loop
and also for the task of
disk key decryption.


Title keys are next.
It isn't hard to decrypt
one.  The rule's the same!

Well, there's one slight
change: where you use t6, it's
Table "Five", not "Four".

And this time im is
the decrypted disk key, and
KEY the title key.


How would you like to
hear how to decrypt _both_ the
disk and title keys?

All we'll need are the
encrypted versions and a
player key.  No sweat!

We'll call the title
key TKEY, a pointer to
six bytes, encrypted.

We'll call the disk key
DKEY, a pointer to six
bytes, encrypted too.

We will use a few
internal variables,
once again: so i,

an integer, will
serve again as loop index.
im1 is six bytes,

im2 is six bytes.
Both vectors and the latter
holds our player key.

Now I told you once
about a player key I
think they gave to Xing --

I don't know this for
sure; DVD CCA
said so in court, though.

Otherwise I'd say
that this is just a "magic
number" from on high,

vouchsafed to mortals
from the mouths of the Muses
for our benefit.

In reality
I'm told it was discovered
by M.o.R.E.,

some Europeans
two-thirds of whom are today
still anonymous.

I don't want to make
a long excursus right now
on why that's not bad:

reverse engineers
in many fields are heroes
of technology,

for advancing the
knowledge of their colleagues or
of the public mind.

Yet in software the
recent trend has been to brand
tinkerers as thieves!

I urge you to read
the Crypto-gram newletter
on why that's not so.

Bruce can make the point
better there than I can here,
sticking to haiku.

So this number is,
once again, the player key:
(trade secret haiku?)

"Eighty-one; and then
one hundred three -- two times; then
two hundred (less three);

two hundred twenty
four; and last (of course not least)
the humble zero."

If you didn't know
a valid player key, then
you could find one out --

ask Frank Stevenson,
or his fellow programmer
wise Andreas Bogk.

All we have to do
is this: copy our DKEY
into im1,

use the rule above
that decrypts a disk key (with
im1 and its

friend im2 as
inputs) -- thus we decrypt the
disk key im1.

Use the rule above
that decrypts a title key.
TKEY and our new

disk key im1
are inputs now -- we decrypt
TKEY, and we're done.

That was straightforward.
Probably we didn't need
to explain this part,

but computers are
very literal, so we
might as well do so.


This part is really
exciting for movie fans:
decrypt DVDs!

Well, at least sectors
of DVDs, but they are
made up of sectors.

Sectors (of two to
the eleventh bytes) are the
encryption units.

Rejoice then, get some
popcorn out, and butter if
you aren't vegan.

Margarine works well
if you're vegan, or if you
are watching your weight.

I've heard you can put
tarragon on your popcorn.
I haven't tried it.

Why did I tell you
to rejoice?  Because we are
about to watch a

movie, at least if
we have a good MPEG-2
player close at hand.

We need two things now,
though, beyond our MPEG-2
players and popcorn:

A vector "SEC" of
two thousand forty-eight bytes,
disk sector contents.

(These start off in their
encrypted form, but we will
leave them decrypted.)

And a vector KEY
of six bytes, the decrypted
title key we'll use.

We will use these few
internal variables:
t1 through t6,

unsigned integers.
Remember those from before?
END is a pointer

to the end of the
sector, which is SEC plus two
thousand forty-eight.

Take the first byte of
KEY (that's byte zero), perform
exclusive OR with

byte eighty-four of
SEC.  Treating the result as
an integer, take

OR of that with two
hundred fifty-six.  Store the
result in t1.

Take the next byte (which
is byte one) of KEY, perform
exclusive OR with

the next byte of SEC
(byte eighty-five, right?); store the
result in t2.

Take bytes two through five
of KEY and take exclusive
OR of these with their

counterparts abroad,
bytes eighty-six through eighty-nine
of our sector SEC.

Store this in t3.
(It will fit because it is
four bytes, like t3.)

I must quote myself
because we're going to do
some things once again:

(Above, in the first
part, we talked about t3:)
"Take its three low bits

(you can get them by
ANDing t3 with seven);
store this in t4.

Double t3, add
eight, subtract t4; store the
result in t3."

(Now increment SEC
by one hundred twenty-eight!)
"Make t5 zero."

Now start a loop, and
do these things as long as SEC
doesn't equal END:


	Use t2 for an
	index into Table Two:
	find a byte b1.

	Use t1 for an
	index into Table Three:
	find a byte b2.

	Take exclusive OR
	of b1 with b2 and
	store this in t4.

	Shift t1 right by
	a single bit (like halving);
	store this in t2.

	Take the low bit of
	t1 (so, AND it with one),
	shift it left eight bits,

	then take exclusive
	OR of that with t4; store
	this back in t1.

	(The step that's coming
	up is _slightly_ different from
	the original.)

	Use t4 for an
	index into Table Five:
	find a byte and store

	it back in t4.
	Shift t3 right by three bits,
	take exclusive OR

	of this with t3,
	shift this right by one bit, and
	take exclusive OR

	of this with t3,
	shift this right by eight bits, and
	take exclusive OR

	of this with t3,
	shift this right by five bits, and
	(No exclusive OR!

	Orange you glad I
	didn't say banana?) take
	the low byte (by AND

	with two hundred and
	fifty-five); now store this
	into t6.  Phew!

	Shift t3 left eight
	bits, take OR with t6, and
	store this in t3.

	Use t6 for an
	index into Table Four:
	find a byte and store

	it in t6.  Add
	t6, t5, t4; store
	the sum in t5.

	(Again, here's a change
	from the original steps:
	please don't get confused.)

	In Table One use
	the byte SEC points to as an
	index, get a byte

	there, take exclusive
	OR of that byte with the low
	byte of t5; store

	the result where SEC
	points, and increment SEC by
	one.  This is all that

	has changed in these steps.
	And we're almost done!  Now shift
	t5 right eight bits;

	store the result in
	t5 again.  That is the
	last step in the loop.

Now I want a drink
(mnemonics in crypto poems
are great!); exercise

from singing so long
makes me thirst for a glass of
soda, slice of pie.

For this is the end
of the decryption process;
you can now go home.



But wait!  I hear a
voice entreating me to stay:
"O, the Tables tell!"

Alas, I have not
as yet declared to you the
CSS Tables.

This is a major
issue, in that I don't know
what these tables _mean_:

our noble guide has
told us in outline what they
are for, or something

of their structure.  But
to me, a humble poet
of mathematics,

they are opaque, they
are certain combinations
of ancient, noble

Number.  Their inner
logic, aitia, telos,
still unknown to me.

Herein a clear free
speech question: would courts see fit
to muzzle me, then,

from speaking numbers,
technical data, which I
did not make and more

cannot memorize,
cannot explain in detail,
cannot understand?

I have these numbers.
They have meaning, this is clear:
else why suppress them?

I wish to speak or
let the Muse announce through me
Tables of Numbers.

Professor Moglen!
Help defend my right to share
these numbers with you!

You called the right to
speak with PGP like that
to use Navaho.

Help me then in my
haiku quest to share these bits,
and not be censored.

Preserve my right to
speak here, in this extreme, these
mystery Tables

the products, pieces
of technique, which but a very
few will understand.

Mary Jo White, the
United States Attorney
for S.D.N.Y.,

your logic erodes
any meaningful power
Internet speakers

would retain against
state censorship.  Do you care?
Have you any shame?

Fight, brave amici,
with effective, functional
argumentation.

I'll try to help by
singing these octets, until
court orders forbid.

(Sad to say, I have
removed hyphens in numbers:
poetic license.)

Table Zero is:
Five, zero, one, two, three, four,
oh, one, two, three, four.

Table One is long:
two to the eighth power bytes.
Ready?  Here they are:

Fifty one; then one
hundred fifteen; fifty nine;
thirty eight; ninety

nine; thirty five; one
hundred seven; one hundred
eighteen; sixty two;

one hundred twenty
six; fifty four; forty three;
one hundred ten; then

forty six; then one
hundred two; one hundred and
twenty three; then two

hundred eleven;
one hundred forty seven;
two hundred nineteen;

six; sixty seven;
three; seventy five; then one
hundred fifty; two

hundred twenty two;
one hundred fifty eight; two
hundred fourteen; then

eleven; and then
seventy eight; fourteen; then
seventy; then one

hundred fifty five;
eighty seven; twenty three;
ninety five; then one

hundred thirty; one
hundred ninety nine; then one
hundred thirty five;

two hundred seven;
eighteen; ninety; twenty six;
eighty two; then one

hundred forty three;
two hundred two; one hundred
thirty eight; then one

hundred ninety four;
thirty one; two hundred and
seventeen; then one

hundred fifty three;
two hundred nine; zero; then
seventy three; nine;

sixty five; then one
hundred forty four; then two
hundred sixteen; one

hundred fifty two;
two hundred eight; one; and then
seventy two; eight;

sixty four; then one
hundred forty five; sixty
one; one hundred and

twenty five; fifty
three; thirty six; one hundred
nine; forty five; one

hundred one; then one
hundred sixteen; sixty; one
hundred twenty four;

fifty two; thirty
seven; one hundred eight; then
forty four; then one

hundred; one hundred
seventeen; two hundred and
twenty one; then one

hundred and fifty
seven; two hundred thirteen;
four; seventy plus

seven; thirteen; then
sixty nine; one hundred and
forty eight; then two

hundred twenty; one
hundred fifty six; then two
hundred twelve; five; then

seventy six; twelve;
sixty eight; one hundred and
forty nine; eighty

nine; twenty five; then
eighty one; one hundred and
twenty eight; then two

hundred one; then one
hundred thirty seven; one
hundred ninety three;

sixteen; eighty eight;
twenty four; eighty; then one
hundred twenty nine;

two hundred; then one
hundred thirty six; then one
hundred ninety two;

seventeen; then two
hundred fifteen; one hundred
fifty one; then two

hundred twenty three;
two; seventy one; seven;
seventy nine; one

hundred forty six;
two hundred eighteen; then one
hundred fifty four;

two hundred ten; then
fifteen; seventy four; ten;
sixty six; then one

hundred fifty nine;
eighty three; nineteen; ninety
one; one hundred and

thirty four; then one
hundred ninety five; then one
hundred thirty one;

two hundred three; then
twenty two; ninety four; then
thirty; eighty six;

one hundred thirty
nine; two hundred six; then one
hundred forty two;

one hundred ninety
eight; twenty seven; then one
hundred seventy

nine; two hundred and
forty three; one hundred and
eighty seven; one

hundred sixty six;
two hundred twenty seven;
one hundred sixty

three; two hundred and
thirty five; two hundred and
forty six; then one

hundred ninety; two
hundred fifty four; then one
hundred eighty two;

then one hundred and
seventy one; two hundred
thirty eight; then one

hundred seventy
four; two hundred thirty; two
hundred fifty one;

fifty five; then one
hundred nineteen; sixty three;
thirty four; then one

hundred three; thirty
nine; one hundred eleven;
one hundred fourteen;

fifty eight; then one
hundred twenty two; fifty;
forty seven; one

hundred six; forty
two; ninety eight; one hundred
twenty seven; one

hundred eighty five;
two hundred forty nine; one
hundred seventy

seven; one hundred
sixty; two hundred thirty
three; one hundred and

sixty nine; then two
hundred twenty five; then two
hundred forty; one

hundred eighty four;
two hundred forty eight; one
hundred seventy

six; one hundred and
sixty one; two hundred and
thirty two; then one

hundred sixty eight;
two hundred twenty four; two
hundred forty one;

ninety three; twenty
nine; eighty five; one hundred
thirty two; then two

hundred five; then one
hundred forty one; then one
hundred and ninety

seven; twenty; then
ninety two; twenty eight; then
eighty four; then one

hundred thirty three;
two hundred four; one hundred
forty; one hundred

ninety six; twenty
one; one hundred eighty nine;
two hundred fifty

three; one hundred and
eighty one; one hundred and
sixty four; then two

hundred and thirty
seven; then one hundred and
seventy three; two

hundred twenty nine;
two hundred forty four; one
hundred eighty eight;

two hundred fifty
two; one hundred eighty; one
hundred sixty five;

two hundred thirty
six; one hundred seventy
two; two hundred and

twenty eight; then two
hundred forty five; fifty
seven; one hundred

twenty one; forty
nine; thirty two; one hundred
five; forty one; then

ninety seven; one
hundred twelve; fifty six; one
hundred twenty; then

forty eight; thirty
three; one hundred four; forty;
ninety six; then one

hundred thirteen; one
hundred eighty three; then two
hundred and forty

seven; one hundred
ninety one; one hundred and
sixty two; then two

hundred thirty one;
one hundred sixty seven;
two hundred thirty

nine; two hundred and
forty two; one hundred and
eighty six; then two

hundred fifty; one
hundred seventy eight; one
hundred seventy

five; two hundred and
thirty four; one hundred and
seventy; then two

hundred twenty six;
two hundred fifty five.
That's the whole Table.

Just when you thought it
was safe, here is Table Two,
which has the same length:

Zero; one; two; three;
four; five; six; seven; nine; eight;
eleven; ten; then

thirteen; twelve; fifteen;
fourteen; eighteen; nineteen; then
sixteen; seventeen;

twenty two; twenty
three; twenty; twenty one; then
twenty seven; then

twenty six; twenty
five; twenty four; thirty one;
thirty; twenty nine;

twenty eight; thirty
six; thirty seven; thirty
eight; thirty nine; then

thirty two; thirty
three; thirty four; thirty five;
forty five; forty

four; forty seven;
forty six; forty one; then
forty; forty three;

forty two; fifty
four; fifty five; fifty two;
fifty three; fifty;

fifty one; forty
eight; forty nine; sixty three;
sixty two; sixty

one; sixty; fifty
nine; fifty eight; fifty plus
seven; fifty six;

seventy three; then
seventy two; seventy
five; seventy four;

seventy seven;
seventy six; seventy
nine; seventy eight;

sixty four; sixty
five; sixty six; sixty plus
seven; sixty eight;

sixty nine; and then
seventy; seventy one;
ninety one; ninety;

eighty nine; eighty
eight; ninety five; ninety four;
ninety three; ninety

two; eighty two; then
eighty three; eighty; eighty
one; eighty six; then

eighty seven; then
eighty four; eighty five; one
hundred nine; then one

hundred eight; then one
hundred eleven; then one
hundred ten; then one

hundred five; then one
hundred four; one hundred and
seven; one hundred

six; one hundred; one
hundred one; one hundred two;
one hundred three; then

ninety six; ninety
seven; ninety eight; ninety
nine; one hundred and

twenty seven; one
hundred twenty six; then one
hundred twenty five;

one hundred twenty
four; one hundred twenty three;
one hundred twenty

two; one hundred and
twenty one; one hundred and
twenty; one hundred

eighteen; one hundred
nineteen; one hundred sixteen;
then one hundred and

seventeen; then one
hundred fourteen; one hundred
fifteen; one hundred

twelve; one hundred and
thirteen; one hundred forty
six; one hundred and

forty seven; one
hundred forty four; then one
hundred forty five;

one hundred fifty;
one hundred fifty one; one
hundred forty eight;

one hundred forty
nine; one hundred fifty five;
one hundred fifty

four; one hundred and
fifty three; one hundred and
fifty two; then one

hundred fifty nine;
one hundred fifty eight; one
hundred and fifty

seven; one hundred
fifty six; one hundred and
twenty eight; then one

hundred twenty nine;
one hundred thirty; then one
hundred thirty one;

one hundred thirty
two; one hundred thirty three;
one hundred thirty

four; one hundred and
thirty five; one hundred and
thirty seven; one

hundred thirty six;
one hundred thirty nine; one
hundred thirty eight;

one hundred forty
one; one hundred forty; one
hundred forty three;

one hundred forty
two; one hundred eighty two;
one hundred eighty

three; one hundred and
eighty; one hundred eighty
one; one hundred and

seventy eight; one
hundred seventy nine; one
hundred seventy

six; one hundred and
seventy seven; then one
hundred ninety one;

one hundred ninety;
one hundred eighty nine; one
hundred eighty eight;

one hundred eighty
seven; one hundred eighty
six; one hundred and

eighty five; then one
hundred eighty four; then one
hundred sixty four;

one hundred sixty
five; one hundred sixty six;
one hundred sixty

seven; one hundred
sixty; one hundred sixty
one; one hundred and

sixty two; then one
hundred sixty three; then one
hundred seventy

three; one hundred and
seventy two; one hundred
seventy five; one

hundred seventy
four; one hundred sixty nine;
one hundred sixty

eight; one hundred and
seventy one; one hundred
seventy; then two

hundred nineteen; two
hundred eighteen; two hundred
seventeen; then two

hundred sixteen; two
hundred twenty three; then two
hundred twenty two;

two hundred twenty
one; two hundred twenty; two
hundred ten; then two

hundred eleven;
two hundred eight; two hundred
nine; two hundred and

fourteen; two hundred
fifteen; two hundred twelve; two
hundred thirteen; two

hundred one; then two
hundred; two hundred three; two
hundred two; then two

hundred five; then two
hundred four; two hundred and
seven; two hundred

six; one hundred and
ninety two; one hundred and
ninety three; then one

hundred ninety four;
one hundred ninety five; one
hundred ninety six;

one hundred ninety
seven; one hundred ninety
eight; one hundred and

ninety nine; then two
hundred fifty five; then two
hundred fifty four;

two hundred fifty
three; two hundred fifty two;
two hundred fifty

one; two hundred and
fifty; two hundred forty
nine; two hundred and

forty eight; then two
hundred forty six; then two
hundred and forty

seven; two hundred
forty four; two hundred and
forty five; then two

hundred forty two;
two hundred forty three; two
hundred forty; two

hundred forty one;
two hundred thirty seven;
two hundred thirty

six; two hundred and
thirty nine; two hundred and
thirty eight; then two

hundred thirty three;
two hundred thirty two; two
hundred thirty five;

two hundred thirty
four; two hundred twenty eight;
two hundred twenty

nine; two hundred and
thirty; two hundred thirty
one; two hundred and

twenty four; then two
hundred twenty five; then two
hundred twenty six;

two hundred twenty
seven.  That's the end of the
Table Two listing.

Table Three repeats
itself sixty-four times with
this eight-byte sequence:

Zero, thirty six,
seventy three, one hundred
nine, one hundred and

forty six, then one
hundred eighty two, and then
two hundred nineteen,

and last of all, two
to the eighth, less one (or two
hundred fifty five).

Dr. Touretzky
has a more concise account
of what Table Four

is for, and where it
comes from; but for now, I think
I will just list it:

Zero; one hundred
twenty eight; sixty four; one
hundred ninety two;

thirty two; then one
hundred sixty; ninety six;
two hundred twenty

four; sixteen; then one
hundred forty four; eighty;
two hundred eight; then

forty eight; then one
hundred seventy six; one
hundred twelve; then two

hundred forty; eight;
one hundred thirty six; then
seventy two; two

hundred; forty; one
hundred sixty eight; then one
hundred four; then two

hundred thirty two;
twenty four; one hundred and
fifty two; eighty

eight; two hundred and
sixteen; fifty six; then one
hundred eighty four;

one hundred twenty;
two hundred forty eight; four;
one hundred thirty

two; sixty eight; one
hundred ninety six; thirty
six; one hundred and

sixty four; then one
hundred; two hundred twenty
eight; twenty; then one

hundred forty eight;
eighty four; two hundred twelve;
fifty two; then one

hundred eighty; one
hundred sixteen; two hundred
forty four; twelve; one

hundred forty; then
seventy six; two hundred
four; forty four; one

hundred seventy
two; one hundred eight; then two
hundred thirty six;

twenty eight; then one
hundred fifty six; ninety
two; two hundred and

twenty; sixty; one
hundred eighty eight; then one
hundred twenty four;

two hundred fifty
two; two; one hundred thirty;
sixty six; then one

hundred ninety four;
thirty four; one hundred and
sixty two; ninety

eight; two hundred and
twenty six; eighteen; then one
hundred forty six;

eighty two; then two
hundred ten; fifty; then one
hundred seventy

eight; one hundred and
fourteen; two hundred forty
two; ten; one hundred

thirty eight; and then
seventy four; two hundred
two; forty two; one

hundred seventy;
one hundred six; two hundred
thirty four; twenty

six; one hundred and
fifty four; ninety; then two
hundred eighteen; then

fifty eight; then one
hundred eighty six; then one
hundred twenty two;

two hundred fifty;
six; one hundred thirty four;
seventy; then one

hundred ninety eight;
thirty eight; one hundred and
sixty six; then one

hundred two; then two
hundred thirty; twenty two;
one hundred fifty;

eighty six; then two
hundred fourteen; fifty four;
one hundred eighty

two; one hundred and
eighteen; two hundred forty
six; fourteen; then one

hundred forty two;
seventy eight; two hundred
six; forty six; one

hundred seventy
four; one hundred ten; then two
hundred thirty eight;

thirty; one hundred
fifty eight; ninety four; two
hundred twenty two;

sixty two; then one
hundred ninety; one hundred
twenty six; then two

hundred fifty four;
one; one hundred twenty nine;
sixty five; then one

hundred ninety three;
thirty three; one hundred and
sixty one; ninety

seven; two hundred
twenty five; seventeen; one
hundred forty five;

eighty one; then two
hundred nine; forty nine; one
hundred seventy

seven; one hundred
thirteen; two hundred forty
one; nine; one hundred

thirty seven; then
seventy three; two hundred
one; forty one; one

hundred sixty nine;
one hundred five; two hundred
thirty three; twenty

five; one hundred and
fifty three; eighty nine; two
hundred seventeen;

fifty seven; one
hundred eighty five; then one
hundred twenty one;

two hundred forty
nine; five; one hundred thirty
three; sixty nine; one

hundred and ninety
seven; thirty seven; one
hundred sixty five;

one hundred one; two
hundred twenty nine; twenty
one; one hundred and

forty nine; eighty
five; two hundred thirteen; then
fifty three; then one

hundred eighty one;
one hundred seventeen; two
hundred forty five;

thirteen; one hundred
forty one; seventy plus
seven; two hundred

five; forty five; one
hundred seventy three; one
hundred nine; then two

hundred and thirty
seven; twenty nine; then one
hundred and fifty

seven; ninety three;
two hundred twenty one; then
sixty one; then one

hundred eighty nine;
one hundred twenty five; two
hundred fifty three;

three; one hundred and
thirty one; sixty seven;
one hundred ninety

five; thirty five; one
hundred sixty three; ninety
nine; two hundred and

twenty seven; then
nineteen; one hundred forty
seven; eighty three;

then two hundred and
eleven; fifty one; one
hundred seventy

nine; one hundred and
fifteen; two hundred forty
three; eleven; one

hundred thirty nine;
seventy five; two hundred
three; forty three; one

hundred seventy
one; one hundred seven; two
hundred thirty five;

twenty seven; one
hundred fifty five; ninety
one; two hundred and

nineteen; fifty nine;
one hundred eighty seven;
one hundred twenty

three; two hundred and
fifty one; seven; then one
hundred thirty five;

seventy one; one
hundred ninety nine; thirty
nine; one hundred and

sixty seven; one
hundred three; two hundred and
thirty one; twenty

three; one hundred and
fifty one; eighty seven;
two hundred fifteen;

fifty five; then one
hundred eighty three; then one
hundred nineteen; two

hundred and forty
seven; fifteen; one hundred
forty three; and then

seventy nine; two
hundred seven; forty plus
seven; one hundred

seventy five; one
hundred eleven; then two
hundred thirty nine;

thirty one; then one
hundred fifty nine; ninety
five; two hundred and

twenty three; sixty
three; one hundred ninety one;
one hundred twenty

seven; two hundred
fifty five.  And that's the end
of the fourth Table.

(You'll get Table Five
if you flip each bit in the
Table Four, supra.)

Have mercy on me,
Lord, and lesser judges, and
on Jon Johansen.