Chasing Shadows: Visions of Our Coming Transparent World Page 6

  “That idiot,” Plato said, shaking his head back and forth, as soon as the report had finished. “That bloody idiot.” He looked first at Chin and then at Hauptmann, and spread his arms. “Of course, there was a lot of pairing-off during our mission, but Johnstone had been alone. He kept saying he couldn’t wait to get back on terra firma. ‘We’ll all get heroes’ welcomes when we return,’ he’d say, ‘and I’ll have as many women as I want.’”

  Hauptmann’s eyes went wide. “He really thought that?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Plato. “‘We’re astronauts,’” he kept saying. ‘We’ve got the Right Stuff.’”

  Hauptmann glanced down; his weblink was dutifully displaying an explanation of the arcane reference. “Oh,” he said.

  Plato lifted his eyebrows. “What’s going to happen to Johnstone?”

  Chin exhaled noisily. “He’s finished,” he said softly.

  “What?” said Plato.

  “Finished,” agreed Hauptmann. “See, until now he didn’t have a trustworthiness rating.” Plato’s face conveyed his confusion. “Since the day we were born,” continued Hauptmann, “other people have been commenting about us on the web. ‘Freddie is a bully,’ ‘Jimmy stole my lunch,’ ‘Sally cheated on the test.’”

  “But surely no one cares about what you did as a child,” said Plato.

  “It goes on your whole life,” said Chin. “People gossip endlessly about other people on the web, and our weblinks”—he held up his right arm so that Plato could see the device—“search and correlate information about anyone we’re dealing with or come physically close to. That’s why we don’t need governments anymore; governments exist to regulate, and, thanks to the trustworthiness ratings, our society is self-regulating.”

  “It was inevitable,” said Hauptmann. “From the day the web was born, from the day the first search engine was created. All we needed were smarter search agents, greater bandwidth, and everyone being online.”

  “But you spacers,” said Chin, “predate that sort of thing. Oh, you had a crude web, but most of those postings were lost thanks to electromagnetic pulses from the Colombian War. You guys are clean slates. It’s not that you have zero trustworthiness ratings; rather, you’ve got no trustworthiness ratings at all.”

  “Except for your man Johnstone,” said Hauptmann, sadly. “If it was on the news,” and he cocked a thumb at the wall monitor, “then it’s on the web, and everyone knows about it. A leper would be more welcome than someone with that kind of talk associated with him.”

  “So what should he do?” asked Plato. “What should all of us from the Olduvai do?”

  * * *

  There weren’t a million people on the Mall this time. There weren’t even a hundred thousand. And the mood wasn’t jubilant; rather, a melancholy cloud hung over everyone.

  But it was the best answer. Everyone could see that. The Olduvai’s lander had been refurbished, and crews from Earth’s orbiting space stations had visited the mothership, upgrading and refurbishing it, as well. The cost had been borne in part by sale of data from Franklin’s World, and partly by Earth’s kooky minorities—some of the compassion clubs had stepped in, along with anachronism associations and space-nut interest groups. Hauptmann had surprised himself by donating some points, via one of those.

  And why not? he thought, a bit defensively. It’s my money! I can waste some, if I want to! Indeed, those clubs, with their spiking memberships, seemed to be the only clear winners out of this sad affair.

  Captain Plato looked despondent; Johnstone and the several others of the ten or so who had now publicly contravened acceptable standards of behavior looked embarrassed and contrite.

  Hauptmann and Chin had no trouble getting to the front of the crowd this time. They already knew what Plato was going to say, having discussed it with him on the way over. And so they watched the faces in the crowd—still a huge number of people, but seeming positively post-apocalyptic in comparison to the throng of a few weeks before.

  “People of the Earth,” said Plato, addressing his physical and virtual audiences. “We knew we’d come back to a world much changed, an Earth centuries older than the one we’d left behind. We’d hoped—and those of us who pray had prayed—that it would be a better place. And, in many ways, it clearly is.

  “Half of our crew think so! The dozen or so who will stay here on Earth … they have contracts—with companies and clubs and various filliations—to teach archaic skills, or tell vivid stories, or consult for drama shows about exploring the universe … perhaps helping to reignite that part of the human spirit, a part that—despite your unparalleled comfort and freedom—you seem to have lost.”

  Plato’s bitterness showed through, in that sentence, but he perked up.

  “Their places on our crew have been taken by a dozen modern volunteers! New crewmates, from both Earth and the orbitals, who will join us on a second mission, this time heading out to a world where better instruments now confirm there is life!

  That much of his speech, Plato had discussed with Hauptmann and Chin. Only there was more.

  “Perhaps we’ll find a new home,” Plato continued. “Or else, we’ll return to find how you have changed, yet again. In the same way that technology empowered you all to rise above the need for accountability to be imposed from above … ending any need for ‘government’ … perhaps the next generation—or the next—will find ways for sovereign individuals to come together and behave with a little big-picture vision.

  “Perhaps even with a little class.”

  The crew of the Olduvai all nodded, and climbed aboard the lander, as the crowd murmured softly in confusion. Nannybots whirled around as a busybody safety club urged folks to step back. Hauptmann refused and Chin stayed by his side, near the edge of the zone of blackened grass.

  “Do you get a sense we were just … insulted?” Chin asked.

  Hauptmann nodded. But his queries to the web didn’t offer back any explanation. It seemed that the confusion was worldwide, slowing response times to a crawl, even as the lander warmed up to depart.

  Well, never mind. Someone, somewhere, would figure it out, and offer a translation soon, in exchange for tiny royalties from everyone who looked at it. Pay-as-you-go. This was, for certain, a better way of doing things. And for certain, a better world.

  A classic, early vision

  of transparency and accountability.

  THE CIRCUIT RIDERS

  R. C. FITZPATRICK

  It was a hot, muggy, August afternoon—Wednesday in Pittsburgh. The broad rivers put moisture in the air, and the high hills kept it there. Light breezes were broken up and diverted by the hills before they could bring more than a breath of relief.

  In the East Liberty precinct station the doors and windows were opened wide to snare the vagrant breezes. There were seven men in the room: the desk sergeant, two beat cops waiting to go on duty, the audio controller, the deAngelis operator, and two reporters. From the back of the building, the jail proper, the voice of a prisoner asking for a match floated out to the men in the room, and a few minutes later they heard the slow, exasperated steps of the turnkey as he walked over to give his prisoner a light.

  At 3:32 pm, the deAngelis board came alive as half-a-dozen lights flashed red, and the needles on the dials below them trembled in the seventies and eighties. Every other light on the board showed varying shades of pink, registering in the sixties. The operator glanced at the board, started to note the times and intensities of two of the dials in his log, scratched them out, then went on with his conversation with the audio controller. The younger reporter got up and came over to the board. The controller and the operator looked up at him.

  “Nothing,” said the operator shaking his head in a negative. “Bad call at the ball game, probably.” He nodded his head toward the lights on the deAngelis. “They’ll be gone in five, ten minutes.”

  Throughout the long, hot, humid afternoon the board held its reddish, irritated overtones, and occasional
readings flashed in and out of the seventies. At four o’clock the new duty section came on; the deAngelis operator, whose name was Chuck Matesic, was replaced by an operator named Charlie Blaney.

  “Nothing to report,” Chuck told Charlie. “Rhubarb down at the point at the Forbes Municipal Field, but that’s about all.”

  The new operator scarcely glanced at the mottled board; it was that kind of a day. He noted an occasional high in his log book, but most signals were ignored. At 5:14 he noted a severe reading of 87 which stayed on the board; at 5:16 another light came on, climbed slowly through the sixties, then soared to 77 where it held steady. Neither light was an honest red; their angry overtones chased each other rapidly.

  The deAngelis operator called over to the audio controller: “Got us a case of crinkle fender, I think.”

  “Where?” the controller asked.

  “Can’t tell yet,” Blaney said. “A hothead and a citizen with righteous indignation. They’re clear enough, but not too sharp.” He swiveled in his chair and adjusted knobs before a large circular screen. Pale streaks of light glowed briefly as the sweep passed over them. There were milky dots everywhere. A soft light in the lower left-hand corner of the screen cut an uncertain path across the grid, and two indeterminate splotches in the upper half of the scope flared out to the margin.

  “Morningside,” the operator said.

  The splashes of light separated; one moved quickly off the screen, the other held stationary for several minutes, then contracted and began a steady, jagged advance toward the center of the grid. One inch down, half an inch over, two inches down, then four inches on a diagonal line.

  “Like I said,” said Blaney. “An accident.”

  Eight minutes later, at 5:32, a slightly pompous and thoroughly outraged young salesman marched through the doors of the station house and over to the desk sergeant.

  “Some clown just hit me…” he began.

  “With his fist?” asked the sergeant.

  “With his car,” said the salesman. “My car—with his car—he hit my car with his car.”

  The sergeant raised his hand. “Simmer down, young feller. Let me see your driver’s license.” He reached over the desk for the man’s cards with one hand, and with the other he sorted out an accident form. “Just give it to me slowly.” He started filling out the form.

  The deAngelis operator leaned back in his chair and winked at the controller. “I’m a whiz,” he said to the young reporter. “I’m a pheenom. I never miss.” The reporter smiled and walked back to his colleague.

  The lights glowed on and off all evening, but only once had they called for action. At 10:34 two sharp readings, of 92.2 and 94 even, had sent Blaney back to his dials and screen. He’d narrowed it down to a four-block area when the telephone rang to report a fight at the Red Antler Grill. The controller dispatched a beat cop already in the area.

  At 11:40 a light at the end of the second row turned pinkish but no reading showed on the dial below. It was only one of a dozen bulbs showing red. It was still pinkish when the watch was changed. Blaney was replaced by King.

  “Watch this one,” Blaney said to King, indicating an entry in the log. It was numbered 8:20:18:3059:78:4a. “I’ve had it on four times now, all in the high seventies. I got a feeling.” The number indicated date, estimated area and relation to previous alerts in the month, estimated intent, and frequency of report. The “a” meant intermittent. Only the last three digits would change. “If it comes on again I think I’d lock a circuit on it right away.” The rules called for any continuous reading over 75 to be contacted and connected after its sixth appearance.

  “What about that one?” King said, pointing to a 70.4 that was unblinking in its intensity.

  “Some drunk,” said Blaney. “Or a baby with a head cold. Been on there for twenty minutes. You can watch for it if you like.” His tone suggested that to be a waste of time.

  “I’ll watch it,” said King. His tone suggested that he knew how to read a circuit, and if Blaney had any suggestions he could keep them to himself.

  At 1:18 am, the deAngelis flared to a 98.4 then started inching down again. The young reporter sat up, alert, from where he had been dozing. The loud clang of a bell had brought him awake.

  The older reporter glanced up and waved him down. “Forget it,” he said, “some wife just opened the door and saw lipstick on her husband’s neck.”

  * * *

  “Oh, honey, how could you? Fifty dollars…” She was crying.

  “Don’t, Mother—I thought I could make some money—some real money.” The youngster looked sick. “I had four nines—four nines. How could I figure him for a straight flush? He didn’t have a thing showing.”

  “How could you?” sobbed the mother. “Oh, how could you?”

  * * *

  A light on the deAngelis flashed red and showed a reading of 65.4 on the dial. When the deAngelis went back to normal, the operator went back to his magazine. The bulb at the end of the second row turned from a light pink to a soft rose, the needle on its dial finally flickered on to the scale. There were other lights on the board, but none called for action. It was still just a quiet night in the middle of the week.

  * * *

  The room was filthy. It had a natural filth that clings to a cheap room, and a manmade, careless filth that would disfigure a Taj Mahal. It wasn’t so much that things were dirty, it was more that nothing was clean. Pittsburgh was no longer a smoky city. That problem had been solved long before the mills had stopped belching smoke. Now, with atomics and filters on every stack in every home, the city was clean. Clean as the works of man could make it, yet still filthy as only the minds of man could achieve. The city might be clean but there were people who were not, and the room was not. Overhead the ceiling light still burned, casting its harsh glare on the trashy room, and the trashy, huddled figure on the bed.

  He was an old man, lying on the bed fully clothed, even to his shoes. He twisted fretfully in his sleep; the body tried to rise, anticipating nature even when the mind could not. The man gagged several times and finally made it up to a sitting position before the vomit came. He was still asleep, but his reaction was automatic; he grabbed the bottom of his sweater and pulled it out before him to form a bucket of sorts. When he finished being sick he sat still, swaying gently back and forth, and tried to open his eyes. He could not make it. Still asleep, he ducked out of the fouled sweater, made an ineffectual dab at his mouth, wadded the sweater in a ball, and threw it over in front of the bathroom door.

  He fell back on the bed, exhausted, and went on with his fitful sleep.

  * * *

  At 4:15 in the morning a man walked into the station house. His name was Henry Tilton. He was a reporter for the Evening Press. He waved a greeting to the desk sergeant.

  One of the morning reporters looked up and said, “Hello, Henry.” He looked at his watch. “Whoosh! I didn’t realize it was that late. Time to get my beauty sleep.”

  Tilton went over to the deAngelis board. “Anything?” he asked.

  “Nah,” said King. He pointed to the lights. “Just lovers’ quarrels tonight; all pale pink and peaceful.”

  Tilton smiled and ambled back to the cell block. The operator put his feet up on his desk, then frowned and put them down again. He leaned toward the board and studied the light at the end of the second row. The needle registered 66. The operator pursed his lips, then flicked a switch that opened the photo file. Every five minutes an automatic camera photographed the deAngelis board, developed the film, and filed the picture away in its storage vault.

  King studied the photographs for quite a while, then pulled his log book over and made an entry. He wrote: 8:20:19:3142:1x. The last three digits meant that he wasn’t sure about the intensity, and the “x” signified a continuous reading.

  King turned to the audio controller. “Do me a favor, Gus, but strictly unofficial. Contact everybody around us: Oakland, Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze, Lawrenceville, Bloomfield
… everybody in this end of town. Find out if they’ve got one low intensity reading that’s been on for hours. If they haven’t had it since before midnight, I’m not interested.”

  “Something up?” the controller asked.

  “Probably not,” said the operator. “I’d just like to pin this one down as close as I can. On a night like this my screen shows nothing but milk.”

  * * *

  “Give you a lift home?” the older reporter asked the younger.

  “Thanks,” said the cub shaking his head, “but I live out by the Youghiogheny River.”

  “So?” the older man shrugged. “Half-hour flight. Hop in.”

  “I don’t understand,” the cub said.

  “What? Me offering you a lift?”

  “No,” said the cub. “Back there in the station house. You know.”

  “You mean the deAngelis?”

  “Not that exactly,” said the cub. “I understand a deAngelis board; everybody broadcasts emotions, and if they’re strong enough they can be received and interpreted. It’s the cops I don’t understand. I thought any reading over eighty was dangerous and had to be looked into, and anything over ninety was plain murder and had to be picked up. Here they’ve been ignoring eighties and nineties all night long.”

  “You remember that children’s story you wrote last Christmas about an Irish imp named Sean O’Claus?” his companion asked him.

  “Certainly,” the cub said scowling. “I’ll sell it some day.”

  “You remember the fashion editor killed it because she thought ‘See-Ann’ was a girl’s name, and it might be sacrilegious.”

  “You’re right I remember,” the cub said, his voice rising.

  “Like to bet you didn’t register over ninety that day? As a matter of fact, I’ll head for the nearest precinct and bet you five you’re over eighty right now.” He laughed aloud and the young man calmed down. “I had that same idea myself at first. About ninety being against the law. That’s one of the main troubles, the law. Every damn state in the dominion has its own ideas on what’s dangerous. The laws are all fouled up. But what most of them boil down to is this—a man has to have a continuous reading of over ninety before he can be arrested. Not arrested really, detained. Just a reading on the board doesn’t prove a thing. Some people walk around boiling at ninety all their lives—like editors. But the sweet old lady down the block, who’s never sworn in her life, she may hit sixty-five and reach for a knife. And that doesn’t prove a thing. Ninety sometimes means murder, but usually not; up to 110 usually means murder, but sometimes not; and anything over 120 always means murder. And it still doesn’t prove a thing. And then again, a psychotic or a professional gunsel may not register at all. They kill for fun, or for business—they’re not angry at anybody.