The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella (26 page)

Roman knew the profile, and had noticed her
attributes the moment he had seen her at the conference. Having
studied the biographies of the participants, he had memorized her
picture and resume. And once he saw her at work, he finalized his
assessment. Kadie was intelligent, attentive, precise, fair, and
fun, in his analysis, a female version of Roman Francon. But she
was a natural, making her singularly more attractive on every
level.

In contrast, Roman was the definition of the
groomed, he had been born into The Alliance. His British father,
Landon Francon founded one of the largest financial investment
firms in the world, Francon Global, and he was The Alliance before
the group was invented. Although the organization did not encourage
nepotism, members did take recommendations from their own, and when
Roman independently showed his promise, he was accepted into the
organization soon after earning a commission with British
Intelligence. Landon had married a Colombian hedge fund owner,
Camilia Fernandez, who was richer than he was. They raised Roman
and his five siblings, all over the world. But New York City was
usually home, and the entrenched preparatory schools lining the
U.S. Northeast coast were the setting for their education, at least
part of the year. The rest of the time, they were learning in
Europe or China or Colombia, living in the cultures and languages
their parents determined were important for their future. The
Francons did not shy away from relentless ambition. Landon and
Camilia had no intention of allowing their offspring to fall into
the middle class, or even upper middle class. They insisted the
children fill their brains with knowledge, even while owning the
technology allowing them to bypass memorization. They had to learn
to construct with their hands, fluently translate, and solve
mathematical equations without a computer. Roman had hated his
parents' insistence on human brain-captured data and information,
until he began to understand the life they were trying to maintain,
and the separation that had come upon the world between those who
paid attention, and those who did not.

In the five-star suite at the Silver Deer
Lodge in Aspen the flames from the fireplace were down, but the
room remained at a comfortable room temperature, 'probably too warm
for Roman,' Kadie thought, pulling the blankets down to their
waists. She was naked too, lying face up. As she rolled over on her
side to run her fingers through Roman's hair, she caught a glimpse
of his com, flashing. Grinning, she whispered, "Nice boy, you
turned off the sound." But her contentment quickly faded, the com
was persistently flashing, firing in red, and she of all people
knew exactly the implications of the color of danger. Carefully she
reached over him to pick-up the com from his side of the bed.
Looking at the screen, she turned towards him with shrinking joy,
and crawled on top of his body. She placed the com at his closed
eyes, kissed his lips, and whispered into his ear, "Somebody wants
you."

*

"Sunlight," Santino spoke aloud, holding his
voice steady, trying not to tremble in response to the persistent
cold nor the waiting drone. He carefully watched as the drone
slowly turned over its light, the purple beam faded to the back of
the box and a glowing yellow-white light emerged in front. Like
transports with headlights, drones were typically built with
illumination capabilities from the straight-line beam of a
flashlight, to the unraveled cone shaped rays mimicking a child's
drawing of the sun. Around Santino, the intense darkness was sliced
off at the edges, brightening marker 56, the tower, the ladder, his
clothes, the trees, and even the stars shining in the night sky
above. Santino adjusted his eyes, blinking repeatedly. Slowly the
brightness broke his fear, and made him feel as if the sense of
abnormality of the last hour had only been a flare of ignorance.
Drones, he knew, responded to specific voice commands. But when he
dared to look back over his shoulder, he saw darkness again, and
stillness. The simulated sunlight he was receiving was only the
limited offering the box was programmed to deliver. Restricted to
the instructions on his com, Santino had no choice but to accept
the words and carry on. Instinctively, he held his com to the light
even though the added brightness to read the screen was
unnecessary. The device continued to display an error message for
marker 56, but provided no further pinpoint location accuracy. As
steadily as his senses stabilized, Santino felt nervous feelings
returning. If the drone had been dispatched to check the error, a
pointed light should have been directly aimed at the reported
problem, instead the machine hovered, waiting. Santino held his com
up over the marker, and selected the 'Locate' icon for the error.
The device narrowed its light, Santino stared in the direction of
the beam, looking up and down and around, but the entire frame
appeared exactly as he had already observed.

"This is ridiculous," he declared, abruptly
pulling back his com and shutting off its light. No updated
instructions appeared on the screen, and no further report was
generated. "Okay..." he continued aloud, "...this is the error."
The idea made him shudder, but he could not imagine another
explanation. No visible problem could be seen, and neither the
drone nor the com was pointing to an exact location he should
review. Even the tower's status lights, illuminating only in green,
confirmed his assessment. Santino looked in all directions for red
or yellow warnings, but none were visible. Sinking further into
distress, he considered that if his suspicions were correct, he had
another problem. 'How could he tell The Network, the error message
was wrong?' The Network had sent for human intervention and was
stuck on an instruction. Without a human taking action to repair
the reported error, The Network would not react. If Santino tried
to leave Sector 2G without fixing the error, he would need manual
control of the Rider. But with no override code for the transport,
if he wanted to return to the Control Room, he would be forced to
claim an emergency.

On the average workday at an industrial
site, there was no human emergency that could not first be analyzed
by The Network. The Network had to view or detect incidents, and
review the data to determine whether to authorize an override code.
Emergencies had to be specific, a human had to be in physical
danger or be suffering from a sudden ailment requiring human
intervention. But at this point in the 22nd century, most diseases
were rapidly eradicated. When unknown illness symptoms manifested,
blood samples could be extracted at an automated biolab, located in
shopping malls, large office buildings, on university campuses, at
residential high-rises, or even the hydro complex, and sent for
analysis to World Health Organization certified labs. Data about
every reported ailment was being collected and processed every
second, and global health labs produced antidotes, vaccines or
other cures based on collated information from around the world. A
broken bone would not help either. A com could detect the status of
bones in the body, and an onsite medical drone could perform a
laser-soldering stabilization procedure before ambulance transport
arrived at the facility. Failed internal organs were typically the
only option left for obtaining immediate medical contact with
another human, but he would actually need an organ to fail, the
diagnosis had to come first from The Network.

An employee at the largest hydroelectric
complex in the middle of North America could not use the excuse of
a medical emergency to obtain an override code for transport to
take him back inside, because he was cold and confused, and unable
to find an error The Network had been reporting for over an hour.
Other types of emergencies would have to be verified with video
from a camera feed or sensor data on The Network. If he tried
external help, no employee at any monitoring station would
understand a disruption instigated by a human, and not The
Network.

Desperately he tried to imagine other
statements he could make or ask The Network that would trigger an
override or response to, at least, allow him to go back to the
Control Room. If The Network had detected an unfixable error, and
the detection was actually also an error, maybe reporting, 'no
visible issue,' would prompt The Network to recognize a human
action, and change its instruction. Deciding the possibility was
worth a try, Santino held up his screen and entered the code for a
human action resolution. The detail screen appeared and he stared
at the features. Using a drop-down selection for previously used
standard reasons for required human intervention actions, he
searched for the simplest option, 'Unable to fix.' Although he
doubted his attempt would be successful, he added 'no specific
location for error indicated, no problem visible,' in the comments
box, and touched, 'Submit.' The screen read 'Resetting,' but a
second later the message returned to, 'Error - Employee
Intervention Required.' Sadly, Santino conceded his idea, as he
suspected, had not worked. He wondered if a human monitor on the
other end would see his message, maybe he should have entered more
information. Quivering in the brisk air, he contemplated his
options again. If he contacted a monitoring station, he suspected
the other end could view only the same instructions, and probably
tell him he had to find the error. He thought about walking back to
the facility, but he was on the opposite side of the complex, maybe
ten miles or more from a human entry point. Humans could only use
their com, face or hand scan to enter doors on the south or west
side of the building, he was to the northeast with only
transmission towers around him. He would not be able to use the
Rider entrance on that side either, because the garage doors were
only programmed to open for transports with entry instructions.

Santino struggled in the sinking cold, 'what
to do?' he wondered. He kept looking at the com hoping the screen
would suddenly display another instruction. He hit the manual
'Refresh' icon again to see if the information would change, but it
was the same. After another minute, he began to speculate about
touching the wire and casings at marker 56, to determine if there
was an issue he could feel, even if he could not see an obvious
problem. Or he could simulate a fix to trigger a Network reaction.
In his subconscious, he knew the idea was ridiculous. The Network
was precise. If he reached out to shake the wire, sensors would
register the movement had taken place at the touch of human fingers
or a tool. But the system would not register a fix unless the error
was genuinely fixed. Still he was out of ideas and getting colder.
If his approach did not work, he would brace for questions he could
not answer and contact a monitoring station. He turned back to
marker 56, looked again at the area where the error had been
detected, and shined the com light back over the spot. Since all of
the wires were high voltage, he would not directly touch a line.
Instead, he would shake the edges of the frame connected to the
wire. Although the action seemed trivial, sometimes there really
was only a hair out of place. Slowly removing the glove from his
right hand, he decided to use his bare fingers to initiate The
Network's cross-reference of his fingerprints with the
authorization records. If an unauthorized person touched the
equipment with bare hands, sensors would trigger an alarm and the
pre-determined security response, dispatching camera drones to the
site. But his prints should only create an authorized notation.

As Santino's skin came into contact with the
frame in front of him, a whirring sound of a slowly revving jet
engine rose from the drone. His hand stuck to the tower, Santino
froze again. Civilian drones operated silently, gliding through the
air without engine or machine noise. 'But this sound…' he
questioned, '…first talking and now…noise? Who operated civilian
drones that made noise?'

*

"Yeah she's a hot chick and she's been
fooling around with me all night," Roman light-heartedly moaned
into his pillow. His eyes were still closed as he spoke, and Kadie
pressed her weight against his back.

"Sorry my love," she said with melancholy.
"Open your eyes."

Roman opened his eyes prepared to roll her
underneath him, but the first visual he saw was the glowing red
screen of his own com. "What?" he proclaimed taking the device from
her hand, and holding it at eye level. Kadie rolled off and lay
beside him.

"It's probably been flashing for a couple of
minutes."

"Yep," Roman responded, entering text into
the device. He rolled over onto his back, hand on his forehead to
hold back his hair as he read. After a minute, he stopped and
looked at his girlfriend.

"Problem?" Kadie asked, knowing that was all
a flashing red message could be.

He leaned over to her face, the com and his
hand brushing against her breasts. "Sorry my love," he entreated,
kissing her. "Good morning." He moved to sit up with his hand still
holding the com, and continued to text. When he finished, he stood
up. "Electricity has gone out."

"What?" Kadie instinctively looked out the
window where streetlights twinkled in the darkened Aspen
streets.

Roman followed her gaze. "Not here. From
Canada, moving down the center grid towards Kansas City."

"What's moving?"

"I do not know, my love," Roman replied, as
he stood and walked towards the bathroom.

"But what are you talking about?" Kadie
theoretically knew electricity could go out, since there was always
a miniscule but possible chance of simultaneous catastrophic
failure in all active and back-up distribution locations at the
same time. But redundancies in the inter-locking grid maximized
resources. No blackout of any length had disrupted a developed
country for decades.