Eve gazes at the thousands of lights floating in the dark. “I wished to give a purpose to my existence beyond self-interest; I wanted to contribute to the development of civilization. The studies had convinced me that the souls could evolve only overcoming their human limits. To achieve this, a deeper and deeper integration with artificial intelligence software would be necessary. I wanted to contribute to this process.
The Defense asked me to stay. But I followed my own way, without hesitation.”
Eve bends her head. “I spent wonderful years at AISI, till I was invited to join the Certification Committee.
The body that should have distinguished itself by its impartiality, was subjected to the interests of major industrial groups. My colleagues had accepted the situation, some of them for the sake of a quiet life, others to take advantage of it. But I didn’t want to give in for a matter of principle. I had ideals to defend, and I didn’t want to lose my self-respect.
Within the Committee, I stood up for a few innovative programs proposed by the Open Source community (10), whose application was strongly opposed by multinationals. The Ethical Commission, which is in charge of addressing the evolutionary choices of the species, tried to take the matter away from the Committee, affirming that this decision was within its own competence.”
Eve closes her eyes. “At the climax of the battle, a defamatory charge arrived: corruption. You know the rest.”
“How did you end up here?” asks Victoria.
“When I entered Net, I refused to give my personal data to the General Archives (11) and I didn’t present myself to the judge. I chose to live underground.”
“You are you wanted by Security!”
“Hard times followed, until the meeting,” continues Eve nodding.
“Nihil, the head of the Elects, a secret organization, found me. I met some of his followers too. One of them, a black man, congratulated me on my courage and tenacity. Martin Wing, the defender of the civil rights, a man with immense charisma, who after his assassination by a fanatic about forty years before, was continuing his battle in Net with unchanged vigor.
Wing and his companions introduced the subject they had most at heart. Security repression was getting more and more severe, their days were numbered. To survive, they needed a very advanced technology, that only I was able to develop.”
Her look becomes softer. “From the very first moment, I liked them very much. They are people of great merit, persecuted by Security like me. Since then I have spent my days creating programs to protect us.”
“You have a great responsibility.”
Eve shakes her head. “We are not going to withstand for long. The Elects are worried, they want to complete their mission.”
“And you?”
“I like my job and the Elects leave me alone. This is what matters to me.”
The women remain silent in front of each other, surrounded by a whirl of lights. Suddenly they find themselves in the tunnel. Victoria is dazed, she shakes her head. A short experience, just a second, which seemed to her to be hours long. A sign of great friendship.
(10) About three centuries have passed since thousands of independent programmers, driven by idealism, have joined forces to propose free, reliable and fast–to-customize software, as an alternative to the multinationals’ products. This community, known as Open Source, is large, but not having the organization and resource abundance of the major industrial groups, is confined to market niches. The situation has improved since the second half of the 21st century, when with the development of artificial intelligence, it became possible to produce advanced programs even with modest means.
(11) Many years before the General Archive had been of primary importance in turning Net from a world left to itself into a civilized nation.
FIRST TIME
@
An imposing black is speaking with a white-haired man.
“Nihil didn’t turn up for the meeting.”
“What has happened?”
“No idea.”
“Did you get the plan?”
“He was going to hand it over today.”
“Time is running short: the Caravels are sailing in a month.”
“I’m looking for him.”
They are pensive. Eve is approaching, waving.
“Have you spoken to her?” asks the black to his companion.
The other shakes his head.
Now Eve stands in front.
“The next reproductive rite is scheduled for Thursday,” announces the white-haired man. “I asked the Council. You will have the honor of carrying the new creature.”
Eve blushes. “I don’t feel like doing that. For me it would be the first time.”
The three fall silent for a moment.
“We all love you and we are sure our feelings are reciprocal. But you never integrated into our community. You are so sad. You have to forget your past, Eve.”
“This kind of wounds doesn’t heal easily.”
“We asked you to participate for one more reason,” announces the white-haired man. “In the present conditions we are not going to escape Security for long. We need all your experience. But only participating fully in the life of our community, you will be able to utilize all your capabilities.”
When Victoria arrives, Eve indicates that she should wait.
The girl leans against the wall and observes them. Only a few days have passed, but she feels as if she had known them for a long time. They treat her like one of them, with respect and friendship. Illusion, perhaps. But in her heart she feels it is all true.
Without wanting to, she finds herself thinking about James. She feels remorse for not having contacted him in the last days; the uncontainable power of a shared childhood is emerging.
Eve takes leave of her friends and comes to her. “Excuse me if I kept you waiting, but we were dealing with a new being's birth.”
Victoria is wide-eyed. “You were speaking about the dehumanization?”
“They are the same.” Eve is pensive. “They offered me to be the mother.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I’m not interested in.”
“I have often heard about the reproductive rite,” says Victoria. “What do you feel?”
“Sensations we can’t imagine, they told me.
“How many are going to participate?”
“About twenty (12).”
“Have they already chosen your substitute?”
“I don’t think so. Are you interested in?
“Are you joking?”
They start walking along the tunnel.
“I don’t know this community enough,” explains Victoria. “And then, there is James. Perhaps he would understand, but for sure it will be the end of our relationship.”
“Are you sure he is the right person?”
Victoria doesn't answer.
“I suggest you to speak with James,” says Eve. “I’ll be waiting for you here.”
(12) In the virtual world there are no sexual differences among individuals. Their appearance is only a covering that Net beings change at will. Procreation can be achieved with anybody else, and several individuals can give their contribution simultaneously, sometimes in dozens, as it happens in certain begetting meetings.
SUSPICIONS
@ Security General Headquarters.
In the middle, stands a crystal table illuminated by spotlights that concentrate their beams on the central inlay of a golden snake. C573Y raises his head from the desk. A message has appeared in his visual field (13). Red, throbbing, so intrusive that it covers almost the whole of the views:
WIDMAN AND YUNG KILLED
WIDMAN’S CAR BLOWN UP 3.45 P.M.
Right after his assistant’s face materializes. “The explosion happened in the Space Agency parking lot. Widman was killed outright, the woman while getting her to hospital. There are no injured. A team of ours is on the spot.”
“What about the inquir
y?” asks C573Y.
“The bug has confirmed they were the informers. Eve Dirac contacted them to introduce a friend of hers. This last entered the information system of the Agency…”
“Did he reach the files of the Alpha Centauri Projects?”
“He was clever at canceling his traces. We are looking for them.”
“When is the brain digitization beginning?”
“Within ten minutes. The forensic department confirmed me.”
C573Y is pensive. “Did you find out the motive?”
“The two didn’t know. But Widman was worried, very worried. Once I heard him speaking about terrorism. Only suspicions.”
“What about a virus?”
“I had the software of the Caravels checked. No anomaly so far.” The virtual being pauses. “Last Saturday Widman flew to the Cayman Islands. I had him followed. He went into the Overseas Bank, to withdraw a money transfer from a company that belonged to Nihil fifty years ago.”
“The Head of the Elects!” shouts C573Y.
“He is Eve Dirac’s partner.”
It seems like yesterday when the collective suicides happened. A sensational case that kept an audience of forty billion glued to their screens for over a month. On which Security concentrated its investigative force. Every day new deaths were discovered, scattered all over the world: America, Europe and Asia. At the end more than one thousand corpses were counted. All of them headless. Brain digitization, clearly.
An unprecedented hunt started in Net. They arrested most of them, but when the operation seemed to be ending with a complete success, the few still free vanished. A mystery, as well as the reason of their transfer.
“Nihil has reappeared in a sensational way. To begin a new phase of his plan, I fear,” adds C573Y.
His assistant has a perplexed air. “I asked the Defense about Eve Dirac. I had to threaten them with talking to the President, to obtain an answer: she belonged to the Red Helmets!”
The Special Forces of the Army. Perfect training. Unequalled technology. Great successes. The best in the solar system.
(13) The neural chip is working. Known as ‘third eye’ or the even more striking name of ‘mind eye’, it is one of the greatest inventions of the 22nd century, because it connects the minds and allows an instantaneous link to the virtual world.
THE ELECTS
Suspicions concentrated on a secret organization, which many years before had stained its reputation with horrible crimes. Two different natures cohabited in the same community: good and evil, heaven and hell.
0101 010101001
HELL
His face is framed by dark curls and a pointed beard; his eyes are as black as coal. Nihil walks back and forth in the room, then sits down at a table and drums his fingers on the glass surface. Someone knocks at the door. A young woman enters with her head lowered, sets a drink on the table and goes away without making a noise.
Nihil receives a message:
WITNESSES KILLED – TRACES REMOVED.
He runs downstairs and goes out. Walking along a path lined with age-old trees, he passes by ten or so followers intent on praying aloud on a lawn. Two children come out from behind a hedge shouting with joy, whirl around him and disappear into the green. He continues along a winding path that climbs a hill.
"In a few weeks, it will be all over."
He admires his reflection in the surface of a pond. His misshapen countenance and limping gait are distant memories, problems he got rid of when entering Net. He smiles. In front of him, the perfect features of an android.
Suddenly he flies into a rage, because of his parents who hadn’t hidden their disappointment at having a child disabled from birth. Also because of his playmates who mocked him in such a cruel way that they gave him a nickname that in Latin means nothing. He has kept it, because reminding him of his old pain, would always keep alive his wish for revenge.
Growing up, he returned their spite, and to his great surprise he found that he took enormous pleasure in the pain of others. It was an irresistible temptation, which progressively led him to extend his outrages to the innocent as well. At the same time his desire for power grew out of all proportion. He used to spend all night dreaming about dominating people.
He had to satisfy his obsession. He needed allies, but he knew that with his hostile and vindictive behavior, he would make life impossible for himself. To achieve his objective, he had to learn the techniques to dominate impulses and subdue minds.
This opportunity turned up at last, when he met the head of a little community: an elderly man with a lot of charisma. He gained his confidence, pretending to be a person of sound principles and promoting several philanthropic initiatives. Soon he became his trusted man, and studying the old man’s behavior, he learnt to be as skilful as him. After the man’s death, Nihil took over the guidance of the community.
He raises his head towards the top of the hill.
"At that moment I started my plan."
They entered Net through a collective suicide. It wasn’t an easy life, because they had to live in anonymity, but a bearable one, since the virtual world was subject only to scanty controls. A few years later however, repression became so harsh that the community risked being decimated. Only he and a few others escaped capture.
To carry out his project, he needed his companions' unconditional cooperation. He knew he was running a risk, but there was no choice. Therefore he revealed his plan, pointing out the noblest aspects and carefully hiding the ultimate purpose. The followers agreed with enthusiasm and started working promptly towards its realization. However, Security repression was getting so violent, it endangered even the survival of the small and determined community. They needed innovative technologies, but they didn’t know how to get and still less develop them. Fortunately he met Eve Dirac. She created such revolutionary software, which rendered Security harmless for all practical purposes.
He shakes his head. "Then the difficulties began.”
First the followers challenged some of his decisions. When he imposed his will, they accused him of being intolerant. Opposition grew quickly and during a heated discussion, they forced him to accept the creation of the Council. Apparently, Nihil absorbed the blow well, but actually he felt betrayed.
He picks up a stone and throws it far away. "There was nothing left than revenge."
He turns back, he has already gone a long way. Now the followers are nothing but dots on the lawn. This is his new community, created in the real world to avoid any interference, destined to replace the Elects. He starts climbing again and in a few minutes reaches the top. His hands on his hips, he admires the villa at the bottom.
Unfortunately it was not possible to abandon the Elects all of a sudden. He needed them to carry out his project. So, for a few months, he skillfully hid his anger, obtaining all their availability, exploiting all their knowledge. Then, at the right moment, he disappeared. His work was perfect in all details, obviously.
On the way back, while he is close by the lawn again, he sees his assistant appearing round the corner. “We have caught a novice in your room!”
They quicken their steps. At last at home, they run upstairs, into the meeting room. The young man is in the middle, with a frightened face, surrounded by five followers. Nihil points at two of them, the most trustworthy ones. “You stay here. The others must leave.”
When the door closes, he looks daggers at the novice. “What were you doing?”
The other keeps silent.
“If you don’t tell me all the truth, you will regret it. So what?”
Now the novice gazes into space.
Then Nihil addresses his assistant: “Go and get today’s recordings.”
The follower returns after a few minutes with a projector, that he puts on the table. He starts it playing. The man is seen entering Nihil’s room, rummaging in his drawers... He is really a spy!
“Hold him tightly!” cries the Head of the Elects while going behind him
.
He seizes the novice’s arm and wrings it behind the back. Then, with a single blow, Nihil rotates it upward. The novice screams, bends sideways. His keepers work hard to straighten him.
Nihil goes to the window and stares outside. The sky is clear, but sudden gusts cut into the thin jet of the fountain in the middle of the square. He turns. “Fetch me the traitor's possessions.”
His assistant goes out and when a few minutes later he comes back, he has a sack under his arm. Nihil scatters the contents onto the table, searches frenetically.
“A micro memory!” He unloads the e-mails and cross checks the addresses against the Elects’ ones. The name of a councilor appears in his visual field. Purple in the face, he turns towards the followers. “I’ll be back soon.”
He goes downstairs and outside, slamming the door. He rushes into a path. A child runs up to him, but he pushes him away.
Excited shouts. Three mothers are gathering up their children scattered over the lawn. A little red hat flies away, pushed by a blast of wind. From the mountains, a boiling front of black clouds is approaching fast.
Nihil stops between two hedges. "The novice works for Wing. Maybe he has transmitted some information. I will get rid of both!"
He contacts a killer, provides him with the councilor’s personal details and agrees the price. Then he orders his company of the Cayman Islands to make the fund transfer. Everything in a few minutes.
"Now I must do the novice in."
He steps into the room. The youth is lying stark naked, surrounded by his torturers. White as a grub.
“Have you succeeded in forcing his neural chip open?”
“He withstood even torture.”
“Make him kneel.”
They seize the spy by the arms.
“This is the last time I will ask you,” says Nihil staring at the bruises on his face. “Who has sent you?”
But the other keeps silent. Then he gets near with a mocking smile. “It doesn’t matter. I already know him.”
The young man’s eyes become moist with tears. The Head of the Elects places himself behind him. He caresses his neck, takes the novice’s head gently between his hands. He stands still for a second. Then he tightens the grip. The head smashes like a ripe melon.