Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow (48 page)

“
Between us? Such as?”

“
How about your habit of bargaining for human souls?”

“You know I am tapering off on that.”

“Yes, but hear me out. That very act says you get your way absolutely. You offer something easy to give in exchange for eternal domination over someone. That is the seed of the patriarchy. Tharcia was brilliant in asking you to give that up. Brilliant.”

“
She is a mortal, uninformed.”

Lylit dives,
a graceful swooping arc before his eyes. “Not as uninformed as you think, and deeply intuitive. For millennia, tribal cultures honored and respected women for the ability we alone possess, the creation of human life. The negative image of Lylit now is a warning to any woman who would defy male authority, who might be successful on her own. Tharcia is a woman who knew she could live without a man. Now, she understands how to be the equal of any man, and she will be unstoppable. You cannot believe how she defends Clay. Against me in particular.”

“Well, what should I do about it?”

“Lian, the way you say that is the very core of the problem! It is not for you to decide alone. It is for me and you to decide. You made me for your other half. Equal. The way a female would solve the problem is bring everybody into it.”

“You are right. Are you thinking of the outcome of the bet?”

“Absolutely. We cannot let Tharcia lose. The things she wants…”

“Would be good for
human progress.”

“
Yes. We’ll work it out together. Know what?”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I am thinking of how we will love each other when this is finished.”

“
Ah. A worthy topic. I am growing impatient.”

“Impatient? You?”

And who are th
ese who choose to take the chance, these who determine they will remain awake through a long and unknown darkness? Some follow no intention, they simply feel wakeful when most begin to fall asleep. They see sleepers around them go inside their houses, fall or lie down where they are, find that those cannot be touched, each safe in transparent cocoon.

Some of t
hese desire domination, seek with force to place others in submissive positions, to indulge their own power fantasies, to be master and judge of all. Out for whatever they can find, many load themselves with guns and ammunition, dress themselves in boots and camo. Among them the online gamers, the Minutemen, backwoods militias and armed neighborhood watch groups, mofos from the hood. All these who believe they can seize an advantage while others sleep, win the biggest game of all, emerge into new life as Masters of the World. Win the biggest lottery. It’s recess, teacher is asleep, let’s play!

Among
the sleepless are criminals, politicians, patriarchs, dark angels, those grappling with anxiety, anguish, dread, despair, boredom, guilt, loneliness… minds wracked with self-deception, sick with meaningless insignificance in their lives. From these visions and delusions waking nightmares flow out across the Earth, deformity and madness grow from imagined fears and distorted longings. The images are legion. The sleepless are in love with the dark side of the human psyche, the irrational parts, the love and terror of superstition, blind faith and voodoo. If not, then those forces are in love with them.

For
these, the Sleep is the Gamer culture made real, overheated automatic weapons in bloody fists, shoulders slung with lethal bandoliers. But after the first six hours of the night, gunpowder stops working. Mobs of furious unarmed Wakers charge in with anything they can pick up and throw, with shovels, knives, clubs, metal chairs. It’s not pretty but it’s been waiting to happen.

A
lso among the wakeful are those whose sights fasten on bright horizons, who walk into evening hush sensing the wings of hope, projecting long-held dreams of pushing humanity to exceed itself. Their visions find quieter realities, they are fearless and untouchable as they give gratitude for the health of Mother Earth, the safety of the whales, the well-being of all mortals. Some of these find a key, understand for the first time the way realities come to be, the reason consciousness exists. To manifest the brightest dreams for the growth of every living thing.

There is the one called Junipero Garcia, who wisely with his wife and two teenage daughters makes camp in their living room
. Inflatable mattresses, snacks and drinks in the cooler, they lie close talking quietly as the Sleep comes for them. Many hours later Garcia will wake first. Silent with his dreaming family, he will begin visualizing a job he would like to do, Director of the Girls and Boys Club. Yes, the family would like that.

And
there is the solitary driven man called Christopher Strand, beyond simple fatigue when he notices it’s four hours past time to lie down, sleep and be safe. Fearsome sounds echo in the streets, he has no idea if Solberg’s guard detail is still with him. He lashes himself forward, cutting away the most dangerous passages of Whalesong. He’ll work at it until he’s about to collapse, then delete the source. It is simply too dangerous, the world unready. He scratches absently the itchy place on the back of his hand.

A
knock at the door jerks Strand to attention. He listens in the foyer. The knock comes again. A woman’s voice faint through the door.

“Hey B
oss, you in there?”

Strand, holding his pistol, opens the door a crack. A familiar
outline. Sami. She is not alone. Four shadowy figures stand away, at the edge of the dark street.

“Get in here,” he pulls her through by the arm
, slams the door. Her flesh is hot.

In the light,
shorts and white sports halter, fine-grained flesh. Barefoot, she moves like an animal. Her eyes once hazel-dark, now clear tiger amber. Every muscle of legs and shoulders outlined, her head turns side to side, seeking predators. Or prey.

She glances at the pistol,
cocked grin. “Those things stopped working hours ago. Got any beer?”

“Fridge.”

As Sami walks past, Strand’s eyes fall captive to the movement of her thighs. He looks away. She takes five bottles out, opens all of them, drinks two down as fast as she can, brings the others to the table where Strand’s gear is laid out. He tries to keep his eyes on the computer screen.

“Whatcha workin’ on
Boss?” Her smile familiar, with a feral edge.

“Let me get you a shirt.”

“Nah. Too hot as it is. Thirsty.”

He follows a plunge of sweat
into the halter top. “Sami, are you alright? Who are those people out there?”

She laughs, a different sound to it now
, confident. “Just some mates. Some folks who feel the way I do. What’s this?”

Strand across from her,
trying to conceal his shock, to keep his eyes at the level of her face. He’s never known her to wear clothing this revealing. But now he’s certain her breasts are larger, nipples as grapes in the stretchy bra.

“Whalesong.”

“You decided to let it out?”

Strand shakes his head forcefully. “Had a talk with Solberg. He agrees with me. Turned over 100% of NOAA cycles to me for 24 hours. I am cooking.”

“What you going to do?”

“Redact some, delete the rest. As much as I can get done before I drop in my tracks.”

“You’re an idiot. You shouldn’t be holding this back. But it won’t matter. The Singularity will blast it out soon enough,” she says smugly. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Yah yah. Based on your mistaken assumptions about reality.”

Sami tilts a fresh bottle to her mouth and consumes half of it. “You jive. Within a year, we’ll have the means to create superhuman intelligence. The human era will be finished.”

“
Oh, sure. And then what of us?”

“You’ll have Transforms, like me.” She glares back at him proudly, “to carry the race forward.”

“It’s horsepucky,” Strand says, slashing with his hand as if wiping pieces from a chessboard. “The Singularity depends on a mechanistic view of the brain. It’s not a machine. Grace would tell you.”

“How the fuck
would you know what Grace thinks?”

“It’s in her article, genius. Dated seven years from now. In the Whalesong. Consciousness transcends the brain. It’s closer to the probabilities of quantum physics than the chemical behavior of synapses. Vinge and all the other scientific thinkers have no comprehension of where reality resides.”

“So Grace survives,” Sami muses. “And she is exactly right.”

“Her article says that consciousness is the
only eternal, unchanging thing. Physical reality is what’s mutable. What we think is real is constructed of our interpretations.”

“When I’m in deep trance, I see it that way. Or like right now, tonight.” She looks at him, serious, the old Sami. “I remade myself, Chris.”

“On a macro scale, objects appear to be separate. On the subatomic level, everything in the universe is tied to every other thing. At that scale there are no objects, only relationships.”

“Hey would you rub my shoulders?” Sami
turns her body in the chair. The view of her sweat-beaded back sends a jolt through Strand’s crotch. He cautions himself. Sami is a friend.

“Remade yourself
, Sami. How?”

“That demon thing, the Devil…”

“Not the Devil. Something else.”

“Anyway, it said that instinctive drives would become real tonight. I used that. I am transforming myself into something stronger. Others are too.” She
angles her chin toward the door.

“What did you do, Sami?”

“Started by meditating. Told you. Been doing it for eighteen years. Tonight I re-imagined myself. This is the result. So far. I could pick you up and break your back, Chris. I am that strong. I am smarter than I was, two hours ago.”

“Nice kitty,” Strand says, trying to keep it light.

Sami laughs, full in her throat. Strand’s gaze lost in the shaking of her captive breasts.

“Check this out,” Sami says.
Rests a bare arm on the table between them. She’s looking fixedly at her forearm. Strand watches. A patch of skin grows darker, a faint purple cast, a bruise. Breath catches in Strand’s throat. Amber eyes regard him solemnly. The color grows redder, the shape clearer, until there, on Sami’s smooth forearm, a bright red Valentine heart.

Strand sits back. “Sami, what…”

“Grace. Something she said that night, about beings that can move outside of time. The whale tattoos. This is how they did it.”

“The whale messages?”

Sami nods. “With their minds, Chris. They do it with their minds.”

The mathematician
’s eyes widen. “Sami, what have you found?”

“
The whales, Chris. They are more evolved spiritually than we are. They are asking us to do something with the Whalesong. You can’t hold it back.”

“What
do they want?”

Sami shakes her head in frustration. “I don’
t know! That is why you can’t stop decoding. The whales know the mind controls the brain. If you can learn how to direct the mind. When the Singularity hits, survivors will need bodies like mine.”

“No Singularity Sami
. It depends on materialist culture. Not soul. Soul is crowded out by ego-toys of technology. We have to unplug from all the techno-crap.”

Her rich laugh
. “Chris, Chris, Chris. Computers calculate much faster than a human ever will, remember much more. What Vinge missed was the human body. I met people tonight who have thought it through. Something in the air out there, it might not come again. The possibilities…”

Strand shakes his head violently
as though trying to subdue the feral sexuality across the table. The Ph.D. number theorist Samantha Lang, whom Next History has employed for six years, is now something else. An animal with amber eyes and blinding intelligence. He and Sami always friends. Strand, feverish, fights to keep himself talking, force his eyes from her body.

“
Sami,” he says patiently, “where is the soul in string theory? The computer will never know what drives consciousness to create the brain, because we can’t tell it. No matter how much a computer tries to emulate the brain, it will not arrive at consciousness.”

Sami chugs the rest of the beer. “Never say never, Chris.”

He sees her losing interest in the conversation, pushes ahead. “Nobody knows how memory works. I’m almost willing to bet it’s stored in Grace’s Akasha.”

“Chris, you are right about one thing. Humans are powerful
conscious beings who can create their own reality. I am creating mine. I wish you would listen. I want you to be one of us.”

Strand feels hot, sweat
beads on his brow. “Sami do you want to take a shower? Eat something?”

“You drinking your beer?” Sami gestures at the last full one on the table.
He shakes his head no. She raises the bottle to her lips and chugs it down.