Analog SFF, September 2010 (22 page)

Rebbin suddenly spoke up. “Got it!” she cried triumphantly.

"Hurry,” said Grange. “We only have a few minutes before it passes over the horizon."

A printer underneath Rebbin's feet began whirring. Paper spewed into the output tray.

Three professors scrambled onto the stage and grabbed at the sheets of paper. Several pages got ripped during the tussle.

Timms quickly separated the professors, pushing them away from the stage. “I expect the faculty at this university, even at a time of great stress, to behave as reasonable and intelligent adults.” He gathered and sorted the printer output, carefully folding the torn pages.

"Lost it,” said Rebbin, frowning.

"But you did a great job,” said Timms. He stacked the pages in a neat pile. “Since you're the one who got us this information, Sandra, you should be the first to look it over.” He gave her the paper.

As she was reading, Timms looked at Quinton and Mark. “We contacted our satellite on its previous orbit,” he explained. “Earlier today we heard a rumor on the ham radio that some scientists in Chicago had found and studied one of DCC's zombie computers. It contained some data concerning a frightening plan."

"Plan?” asked Quinton.

"Extermination,” said Grange. “But I couldn't hold the connection long enough to learn more."

Timms frowned. “Not extermination. The solution to the overpopulation problem. I guess DCC decided that the problem warranted a drastic solution. Better to kill half than for the whole population to suffer catastrophic failure."

"Insanity,” said Grange.

"Not to an AI,” said Timms. “The food riots in Los Angeles, Moscow, Rio, Paris, and elsewhere probably tipped the scales. Too many people, not enough resources."

"Which half?” asked Quinton. He tried to keep his voice as steady as his thesis advisor.

"Which half to eliminate?” Timms shrugged. “That's the big question. We're hoping to find out soon. I suspect it'll be random. Some kind of virus, perhaps. Sandra managed to program the satellite to communicate with Chicago as it flew overhead. Apparently, it succeeded in uploading some of their results."

Grange said, “We've got to finish wresting control away from that machine and its minions. It's gone crazy."

"If it's a virus,” said Timms, “we might be able to use antivirals or some other means to neutralize the infection. Then later we can deal with DCC."

"My god,” said Rebbin. Her face had gone even paler than usual. She handed some sheets to Timms. He scanned them quickly.

"DNA inactivation?” he said, eyebrows raised. “Ingenious. Diabolical, but ingenious. It's going to silence critical sequences that are carried by about half of the population."

Quinton's mouth gaped open. And then he shut it quickly, hoping nobody noticed.

I know how to prevent it, he thought.

Quinton's research thesis, which he'd chosen himself, was on DNA inactivation. He'd kept working through the tumult—what else was there to do? Home was 1,000 miles away in South Carolina, and there was no way to get back there. So he'd stayed busy in the laboratory and applied himself; it was therapy, taking his mind away from negative thoughts. He'd made some important discoveries, which he hadn't told anyone about—no way in the present crisis to publish and ensure you got credit for your work. He had found an unusual reagent that precluded DNA inactivation. At the time he'd considered the finding interesting, but the technique wasn't useful to his research—he was studying the effects of DNA inactivation and why some genes became inactive at certain times, so he wanted to initiate the process rather than prevent it—but now he realized it could possibly foil DCC's plan.

But there were problems. He wasn't entirely sure he could replicate the results. He didn't know if the procedure was safe for humans—it worked in a cell culture, but he hadn't even tested it in animals. And even if it was safe and effective, he only had enough material to protect perhaps a dozen people, and there was little chance of replenishing supplies.

Despite Timms's calming influence, the meeting occasionally degenerated into shouting matches as a mixture of panic and resignation began to set in. Several professors scrambled home to their families—to do what, nobody knew. No details of DCC's plan emerged; how DCC would carry it out, and when, was unknown, although the Chicago group apparently believed it would happen shortly, perhaps within a few days or a week at most. Rebbin couldn't re-establish contact with the satellite when it again flew overhead. She said it may have been disabled—DCC could have detected the transmission. Grange had insisted on launching a strategic attack on DCC, but in the absence of communication and the means of coordination with other communities, little could be done.

A few hours after the meeting had begun, the building's solar power cells were almost fully depleted. The lights faded and the electrical equipment quit working. Timms dismissed the remainder of the faculty. He said that he would post the Chicago news at the central bulletin board because it was the fastest way to get the word out. Everyone, they agreed, should be told as soon as possible. He asked people not to panic. “I know it's tough, but try to stay positive,” he said, as the remainder of the assembly numbly drifted toward the exit. “We'll try to think of something to do, some kind of counteraction. And Bill Grange will keep monitoring the radio for more information."

Quinton followed Rebbin at a discreet distance. He waited until she had gotten outside and started walking down a street where many of the professors lived. The night was dark—no moon, so brilliant stars filled the sky. Quinton couldn't help looking up at them every once in a while; he had never realized there were so many. He never saw very many stars in Charleston, or anywhere else. Up until now, there'd been almost nowhere in the world to get away from city lights, which obscured the light from most stars, since the world's population had grown so large that the cities and suburbs had spread even to mountains and deserts. He'd read somewhere that virtually all astronomers had been forced to rely on orbiting telescopes.

Rebbin switched on a flashlight. Quinton wasn't carrying one; he hadn't expected to be out so late.

A car passed along the street. It was the only sound in the quiet night—a soft humming of the engine. One of the professors had managed to recharge his electric car's batteries with a relatively high-capacity solar power cell somewhere—he refused to reveal where —but he could only go about ten miles on the charge. Persistent rumors of a cache of gasoline on campus had failed to yield any results.

Quinton had wanted to blurt out his secret during the meeting. Could they use the satellite to transmit his research discovery to everyone? Anyone?

His indecision was agonizing. He'd said nothing, but had come close. He had caught Timms staring at him once or twice. Timms had probably noticed Quinton's internal debate.

Increasing his pace, Quinton caught up to Professor Rebbin. She whirled around, shining the flashlight in Quinton's face. “Who's there?"

Quinton said, “Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

Rebbin aimed the flashlight at Quinton's chest. Her voice remained unsteady. “What do you want?"

Quinton realized that she might misinterpret the reason why he'd followed her. Reports floated all over campus that one of the female professors and two female graduate students had been attacked. Most of the campus cops had stopped coming to work—no way to get to the campus unless they lived nearby. “The satellite,” said Quinton hurriedly. “I was wondering if there was any way to contact it again, and configure it to send a message."

"I believe I made myself clear at the meeting. The satellite went silent. No signal at all."

Quinton struggled for the right words. “I heard what you said. But I thought maybe there was something you weren't saying."

"Sandbagging?” Rebbin sounded suspicious. “No, I wasn't holding back."

"So the satellite is definitely gone?"

"Ask Professor Timms. He knows more than I do about it.” She paused. “What sort of message did you want to send?"

"Never mind. Sorry to bother you.” Quinton began walking back to the campus.

"What's there to do?” shouted Rebbin. “We're helpless! And there's only a day or two until . . ."

Quinton didn't answer. The flashlight beam shined on his back and he saw his shadow in front of him until Rebbin turned to go. Then the darkness enveloped Quinton, but the stars shined so brightly that he could see the hazy outline of the concrete sidewalk.

A gentle breeze blew. The air had become fresh in the last few weeks and smelled pure—no exhaust fumes.

The campus was quiet, like a graveyard. Almost all the undergraduate students had gone home or were staying with friends in the city, though many graduate students had stayed because most of them, like Quinton, weren't from the area. A few candles lit up dorm windows, and the student lounge was occupied. Things hadn't gotten bad on and around campus yet. Stragglers coming from other parts of the city told horror stories about the lawlessness they had witnessed, but the campus remained relatively safe.

Quinton wondered what would happen when the “population solution” began to take effect. Would DCC really carry out the plan? Could it succeed? How? Several DNA inactivation molecules had been identified, but how could the machine and its helpers expose so many people? Aerosol dispersion, perhaps. But worldwide? I could be torturing myself for nothing, Quinton thought. It all sounded a little bit far-fetched.

But Distributed Computer Control maintained its grip on the world's digital and electronic infrastructure, and apparently some loyal government workers still served it. There'd been stories in the newspapers, just before the blackout, of a few government employees wearing swastika armbands. And some people apparently had begun worshiping DCC, maybe even offering sacrifices in horrific ceremonies.

It had seemed like such a good idea to put an advanced artificial intelligence in charge of the world. A world without politics, no more bias. It was a worthy goal. Rational decision-making would prevail. Or so people thought.

Was it rational to kill half of the world's population? Even if you were convinced it was ultimately necessary to save the other half? Perhaps there'd been a bug in DCC's programming. But people had insisted on an enormous variety of safeguards before handing over control, and computer experts had tested DCC for years before implementation. Yet experts clearly underestimated the degree to which civilization relies on infrastructure—and also underestimated DCC's ability to introduce small but precisely directed glitches that snowballed into debilitating problems.

Which half would be chosen? With genetic sequences, you could do it randomly or you could target a specific trait, depending on the sequence. DNA varied, with some people having one sequence and others having a slightly different one. Sometimes the sequences varied in ways that didn't seem to be important—the result of convergent evolution, with distinct genes having evolved to perform the same function. In these cases the sequence differences were irrelevant, and randomly distributed among the population; select one or the other of these sequences, and your targets would be random. You could also select repeating sequences whose number and location seemed to vary randomly in the population. On the other hand, genetic differences often led to functional or behavioral differences. Pick one of these sequences and you could attack a specific trait.

Which would it be? The Chicago scientists had indicated the selection would be random, but they weren't 100 percent certain.

He desperately wanted to talk to someone. But whom could he trust?

Quinton stopped beside the biology building that housed Timms's laboratory and the other biomedical labs. Rays of light shot out of a couple of windows. A few people had lamps with batteries recharged by solar power that would last well beyond midnight; Quinton's flashlight began to fade around ten o'clock if he left it on, so he conserved it as much as possible.

Something stirred in the shadows behind the bushes. The branches rustled.

Probably cats, thought Quinton. Some people had turned their pets loose because they could no longer care for them or they had left town and set them free. Cats swarmed the campus.

The rustling stopped.

Quinton paused, then looked at the dorm, situated on the other side of the pedestrian walkway at the heart of the campus. The twenty-story building loomed into the starry sky, blocking a large swath of precious starlight.

He took a few steps when he heard the bushes rustle again. And then something that sounded like voices. Quinton stood still, straining to hear. Definitely voices.

Quinton ran toward the dorm. His path was lit by solar lamps that threw out a ring of fading light around the statue of the university's founder, at the center of campus. He reached the dorm entrance and raced to the stairs. Lights were dim but not extinguished. Twelve flights went by, and he paused only once, at the ninth floor, to catch his breath.

He remembered that Mark Leidenhauser had stared at him a couple of times during the meeting. He and Timms both had noticed something. They had probably noticed the struggle, Quinton's internal debate.

Professor Timms didn't know what project Quinton had chosen for his thesis because Quinton hadn't told him yet. Quinton hadn't assembled his thesis committee yet—the first year at the university had been filled with class work and laboratory rotations, although Quinton had spent all of his time since then working on DNA activation because he found it fascinating. Nobody knew why the body silenced certain genes and DNA sequences at certain times.

And nobody could have guessed that DCC would hit upon the scheme of inactivating critical sequences at inappropriate times for genocidal purposes.

Timms may have had a vague idea what Quinton had in mind for his thesis project because they had discussed DNA inactivation a few times, but Timms was a well-funded researcher with an army of postdocs and more than a dozen graduate students besides Quinton and Mark Leidenhauser. He couldn't possibly keep track of everything that went on in his lab.