The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella (22 page)

He walked into the control room and glanced
around. All data and sensor readings were green. No issues were
reported. Santino felt obligated to do his initial glance around
even though he had never had an issue reported in his sixteen years
on the job. The employee personal monitor screen turned on to his
sports channel, and Santino settled in to his chair for the day. A
drone flew into the room with a cup of coffee, its grasping claws
carefully placed the steaming mug in the cupholder on the armrest
of Santino's chair, not a drop was spilled as the cup handle was
turned inwards, towards Santino's hand. Santino took a sip and
focused on the screen.

After two hours, Santino's com beeped, he
had a mandated walk around inside one of the facility's server
rooms. There was no issue in the server room but government
healthcare regulations prompted The Network to schedule exercise
for employees who might otherwise be sedentary all day. Projecting
a screen from his com to continue watching his sports entertainment
as he walked, Santino noted the message stating he was required to
remain moving for twenty minutes. Since he completely disliked
voice commands, The Network projected a step-by-step directional
guide for Santino to follow while the com registered his movement
and The Network recorded his compliance. If Santino did not
complete the walk, The Network would note his digression and his
health insurance premiums would be adjusted to reflect his lack of
exercise. If he substituted the walk with separate exercise at a
local gym, the adjustment would be made again. To have a run in the
open-air count on the medical records, he would have his com
monitor his heart rate and send the workout report to his medical
file. But Santino did not run in the open air, especially in winter
months, his mandated workday walks, and morning stretches, were the
only exercise he actively undertook.

With no specific task to complete inside the
server room, except to keep walking as his directed workout, he
completed the round within the twenty-minute timeframe and returned
to the Control Room. Arriving back, he dropped into his chair. When
a live football game featuring his preferred team began, the
monitor automatically switched channels and displayed the game
broadcast. Santino had not moved from his chair. But he knew after
two hours another walk alert would appear, and he would once again
project a screen from his com to keep watching the game as he moved
around.

At mid-day, a drone flew into the room
carrying a miniature-heated oven, about twice the size of a
lunchbox, and run on battery power. The drone placed the oven on
the table in front of Santino and used its long pincer claws to
place a hot meal - a burrito, tortilla chips and a soft drink - on
the table before him. When he had first moved to Grand Rapids,
Santino had manually ordered lunch from every nearby restaurant
with delivery options to the hydro station. After selecting his
favorites, he had programmed the preferences into his com, and
every workday a delivery message was automatically sent to the next
restaurant selection on his list to bring his lunch at a scheduled
time and charge the cost to his credit account. Since the drone was
pre-cleared for delivery, the facility's doors automatically opened
when the machine arrived and projected an admittance request
message at the entryway sensors. The programming also directed the
drone to the control room and pinpointed the table where the meal
should be placed. Santino was feeling hungry and had expected the
meal to arrive at any moment. When the drone completed the meal
set-up, he did not take his eyes off the game, but mechanically
moved towards the table and began to eat.

When Santino had finished eating, he
selected the cleanup icon on his employee monitor. A robot appeared
holding a trashcan in one metal hand. The machine was made from
refurbished steel and built to resemble a human with two legs and
two arms but with a monitor screen head displaying text messages.
Proceeding directly to the table, the robot used one mechanical
hand to pick up all of the paper and leftover trash and placed the
items in the trashcan. Santino was not exactly aware of the robot's
next movements but he knew the machine carried the trash to a waste
disposal station where sensors separated all material for recycling
as paper, plastic, food or other waste. As the robot departed,
Santino settled back across his chair once again.

Santino's work routine was also his life.
The Network required no thinking, no additional input, no
pro-action, and no consent. Around the world, billions of people
employed in programmed jobs or staying around their homes, were
stepping through their day based solely on instructions coming from
The Network, with no awareness or consciousness of how they had
arrived at this point. The system had always been there, as a
protector and guide whose primary singular purpose was security,
but whose primary singular functionality had become, human
control.

Late in the afternoon of Santino's routine
day, generation of data inside The Network would ignite a physical
reaction in the human world, a fire, burning inside a data cord in
a server room at the hydro station facility. Initially no human,
machine or Network action would respond.

The careful, relentless Network programming
designed to identify every anomaly in electronic operations would
pause.

The human selected by evolution to operate
by virtue of a thinking brain, at a superior level to all other
species, would be inert.

The machines requiring either a human or a
networked-system to operate would be immobile.

With the exception of the background noise
of the football game, silence would continue throughout the
facility. But unlike a human who can decide to stop moving, The
Network's mandate was to continue functioning on a faultless,
inflexible schedule of productivity. A machine programmed to
action, reacts. And unknown to an unwilling Santino and an unaware
world, The Network's response would push humanity beyond all
habitual routine, as the first signal was received that the humans
and The Network had begun to diverge from their shared point of
origin.

###

The Life Online series is just beginning...

Read the bonus excerpt
Chapter One of The Motion Clue
to continue with Santino and the unexpected disruption to his
routine day.

Learn more from The Origin Point story by reading
selected redacted documents from the
Contents on the Mystery Flash
Drive
.

Find much more about the Life Online series at
Case Lane's website
.

THE CONTENTS ON THE
MYSTERY FLASH DRIVE

A Note from Dallas Winter

In the early morning hours of Easter Sunday in 2014,
I was given a USB flash drive containing documents I believe where
created by the United States Federal Security Commission, known as
FedSec. These documents outlined a detailed strategy to create an
online system for tracking every individual on earth. The documents
were classified TOP SECRET. I am not permitted to reveal any
details including the names of participants, the physical locations
of server farms and other information about the foundational
origins of the system, which would eventually be called The
Network. To be fair, out of context, the entire set of documents
has too much detail for general release.

But to provide you with an idea of the issues we
will be dealing with as a society, I can release a one-page summary
of selected topics that essentially captures the concept proposed
in the document. It is hoped that releasing these summaries will
generate discussion about the issues, and the legal and policy
implications for the future.

DISCRIMINATION

Preventing the next Dr. King or Ms. Steinem from
Gaining a Foothold: Hiding Race and Gender Bias in Website Code

THE ISSUE:
Businesses will be able to program race and
gender discrimination into the software code of websites,
preventing targeted groups from obtaining a product or service, or
a fair price.

Hanging a “Whites Only” sign outside of your
business is likely to generate the wrath of civil rights groups,
the boot stomp of law enforcement flying the flag of the 14th
amendment, and no end of taunting from local teenagers. The local
Better Business Bureau will know to disown you, and what few
patrons that remain will only gingerly offer support, usually
behind the barrel of a shotgun.

But if you code “Whites Only” into the
software code of your business’ website, you may be able to
circumvent all of this unrest with no pushback.

The decision of Internet companies, retailers
and other organizations to collect online personal data that can be
used to create individual profiles, may lead to the creation of
cyber Jim Crow for businesses that want to carefully manage their
clientele. This not only applies to traditional bias along race and
gender lines, but also discrimination by profession, zip code,
education and every other factor that is being secretly collected
by entities that consumers do not know.

Businesses are already in a position to
readjust rates and prices based on invisible factors. Creating
another level of adjustment for the consumer’s demographics would
not be a difficult leap. A resort hotel trying to avoid journalists
could code “no vacancy” when a user with that profession attempts
to make a reservation. A business looking to encourage an affluent,
youthful clientele could provide limited customer service when an
undesirable age or zip code makes an inquiry. The question is – how
would you avoid getting caught?

In the past, a person would try and rent an
apartment, which is available when calling about it, and then
rented as soon as the landlord sees the prospective tenant. The
prospective tenant would send a different demographic friend to try
the same approach, and document the results. In the cyber world,
where data is updated second by second, consumers would find it
difficult to prove that a “no vacancy” at a particular point in
time was only directed at one user. Complainants would have to
subpoena the offending code, and then have the program deciphered
to prove that it was set-up to avoid specific groups. Right after
an allegation, a business could easily replace or re-program the
code, removing any trace of suspect software. A consumer would have
a difficult time conclusively detecting discrimination, and making
a valid claim.

The real issue for consumers is that Internet
companies have made these practices possible by collecting and
distributing personal information, without transparent standards.
This action, by itself, has opened the door for the future civil
rights violators.

THE PROBABILITY:
Easy to do and difficult to prove, the current competitive
marketplace may only be delaying what businesses could determine is
an acceptable risk.

EDUCATION

Happy 4th Birthday, Please report to a computer:
Requiring an Online-Only Education

THE ISSUE:
The entire school curriculum for a one-hundred
percent online education could be made available as a complete
alternative to attending traditional school. The goals would be to
end childhood stress from bullying and teacher complacency and
bias, and to save billions of dollars.

What is an education? It is a process used to
provide a human with basic skills such as reading and writing
required for operating in a modern civilization, and a common basis
of information that can be used as a foundation for future
knowledge. Whether the objective is spread out over 2,500 leisurely
days, or crammed into half that time, hardly makes any difference
to the child’s eventual standing as an adult who has retained the
information. If the process could be completed without the
organizational, social and logistical headache of forcing every
child through a common school system, it may end up improving
focus, accelerating learning, instantly updating to changing labor
demands, and saving billions in one sweep of a keyboard.

Access would begin as soon as a child turns
four years old, when parents receive notification that an account
has been established for the child in the public school education
online system. The entire curriculum from pre-K to Grade 12 plus
advanced placement courses would be made available, complete with
lectures, books, tests, exercises and a suggested study schedule.
There would be no set school year, no defined beginning or end
time. Parents could schedule the school day exactly against the
hours of their own working and commuting time, and continue through
the summer or other holidays based on the family’s vacation plans.
In most communities, children would report to a study hall where
monitors would patrol the cubicles. Each child would be scanned in,
and all online time would be recorded. Cameras in common areas
would record all activity. Breaks would be programmed based on the
students pace of work, for example every 90 minutes. Students could
test out of material they already know, and accelerate towards
completion long before their 18th birthday. They could also
complete college-level coursework, removing one or two years of
higher education loans from their future.

To ensure compliance, students would be
required to report for testing at their current level, every 90
days, and if they fail to achieve a passing grade they would have
to report to a traditional teaching environment for at least one
year. Even if only half the children in the country have the
discipline to succeed in this system, the resources that would be
saved would be enormous.