Geosynchron (58 page)

The level III geosynchrons have learned how to ameliorate an
uncounted number of weather events to ensure not only the continuing
survival but the continuing comfort of the human race. Working in
tandem, they have shunted aside or lessened the severity of storms,
hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and drastic shifts of tectonic
plates. They are the reason the champion Delhi Chakras have never
missed a single game in their outdoor stadium even during the heaviest of the monsoon season. They are the reason why tens of thousands
of hoverbirds can lace the skies with ribbons of vapor exhaust simultaneously and barely have to factor turbulence into their flight plans. But
even level III geosynchrons must occasionally consult their superiors.

If the level Ills are the lords of pattern recognition, then the level
IV geosynchrons are the sovereigns of resolution. They sit isolated in
their protected data havens and chart a course through the choppy seas
ahead. There has not been a lightning strike fatality in fifty years, yet
even now they are analyzing the data, measuring the performance of
past actions, working through the possibilities handed to them by
their subordinates, teasing out ever-better weather directives. Their
goals are more efficiency, less inconvenience, more predictability, and
less chance of that one infinitesimal possibility slipping through the
cracks and wreaking havoc. Should the Earth suffer a devastating
nuclear apocalypse or asteroid strike, it is believed that the level III
geosynchrons will be able to restore the planet's complete habitability
within twenty years.

But the coming storm will test the level IV geosynchrons in a way
they've never been tested before. Routines will be interrupted. Helper
programs will be called in as reinforcements. Other projects heretofore
considered crucial will be shoved aside in an all-out effort to deal with
this, the storm of storms, the eventuality of eventualities.

What to do?

The level IV geosynchrons bombard the statistical models with all
manner of possible interventions in search of a way out. An avoidance
strategy. But it quickly becomes apparent that there can be no
avoiding this storm. There can be no delaying it or bartering with it.
The test must come, and humanity must face it.

And so the level IV geosynchrons ask the questions: If the storm
cannot be avoided, can it perhaps be distributed? Can the brute force
of the storm be divvied up through the globe so all suffer equally?
Maybe the fury of the universe can be channeled towards the strongest
and most capable elements of society, the ones with the most abundant
resources that will be quicker to recover. Or perhaps the weakest struts
of society should be sacrificed, the deadwood of humanity, on the
theory that humanity will emerge the stronger for it-assuming it
emerges at all.

It is not the place of the level IV geosynchrons to make these decisions. They are not equipped to handle such far-reaching ethical quandaries. Their job is to prepare the eventualities, to calculate all the
pathways to the desired endpoint. No, the decision must rest with the
final arbiter: the level V geosynchron.

To say there is only one level V geosynchron would be incorrect, but
neither would it be accurate to speak of many level V geosynchrons.
There are many, and there is only one. And it is with these machines that
the Makers have laid out the priorities of the human race.

There is a spark in the nothingness at the center of the universe. It
has come from nothingness and will eventually return to nothingness.
Just as the world has given birth to this spark and encouraged it to
grow, the world is also constantly working to snuff out that spark, to
bring back stasis and equilibrium to the void, to bring the nothingness
back to nothingness.

The level V geosynchron has a single priority above all others: keep
that spark burning as long and as brightly as possible.

And the only way that can be achieved is through balance.

The geosynchrons have the numbers at their virtual fingertips.
They can see the eventualities, the possibilities, the probabilities. They
can measure the sheer monstrous immensity of that void and the
ridiculous insignificance of the spark that continues to burn in its
midst. The geosynchrons know that in ninety-nine of a hundred possible universes, that spark will be overwhelmed, defeated, crushed, forgotten. If not this storm, then the next one.

The odds for survival are infinitesimal, a sliver of a sliver of hope.

But haven't they always been?

38

Margaret Surina is rejuvenated.

She hovers wraithlike in the thin membrane between existence and
nothingness. Skin the olive tinge of the Indian subcontinent, robe a
billowing tent of blue and green, fingers long and precise as praying
mantises. Hair tar black but streaked with white, manifestation of the
paradox behind those sapphire eyes.

That Natch can see her at all is miracle enough. In this place he has
no eyes, no face, no corporeal presence whatsoever. It is a cocoon of
pure mind, where there are no points on the compass and where even
Time loops upon itself and disappears in a dizzying spiral of infinite
improbability. Here in this place, Margaret is merely a perception of a
perception, like an awareness or a manufactured memory.

Towards Perfection, Natch, the bodhisattva begins in a voice that is
not audible. A voice that is, in many respects, Natch's own.

If you are listening to these words, then I can safely assume that you have
an understanding now of what that phrase really means. It was not idly or
randomly chosen. The man who coined that phrase believed in Perfection. He
believed it was attainable by human beings, and he believed it was the destiny
of the human spirit to strive for that summit.

Onwards and upwards. That was the dream of Sheldon Surina, my
ancestor and the father of biollogics. Towards Perfection, no matter what the
cost. But it was not Sheldon Surina's fate to pay that cost, any more than it
was Marcus Surina's-any more than it is mine.

Now that fate has fallen to you and you alone, Natch. You are the geosynchron of the human race.

If you are listening to these words, then we have failed Sheldon Surina's
acid test you, me, perhaps everyone from here to Furtoid. If you are listening
to this recording implanted in your OCHREs, then you have reached the point of no return. Either you have concluded that the human race cannot hike the
steep path to Perfection that Sheldon staked out for us-or it has become abundantly clear that Sheldon's path will only lead to tyranny and madness. You
have become convinced that there is no hope.

Should that come to pass and should you be listening to these words, Natch,
then you and you alone will have the power to rid the human race of Sheldon
Surina's monomania. You alone will have the option to stake out a new path.

These are words of despair, but I speak them from a very peculiar place.

Right now, I am standing at the top of the Revelation Spire, tallest structure in the world, and I am staring at all the preparations below for the imminent unveiling of MultiReal to the world. Tomorrow will be the four hundredth
birthday of my ancestor Sheldon, and there are celebrations happening all over
Andra Pradesh. Creed Surina is indulging in a very rare occurrence of jubilation-I can see the devotees in the courtyard right now shooting fireworks into
the sky.

I feel hope stirring within me, Natch. Hope that this unveiling of MultiReal will go off as planned, hope that the soldiers of Len Borda will not march
on the compound, hope that the trust I have laid on you has not been misplaced.

And yet, if you are listening to these words, then that hope has failed and
I am surely dead.

As I said, a very peculiar place.

How will I die? It is not an easy or a comfortable thing to contemplate one's
own death. But if I must swim in the Null Current so soon, it will likely be
because of a Council black code dart in my back. Or maybe a shuttle explosion,
like the one that took the life of my father. The authorities will probably present
my death to the public as an "unfortunate accident."

But even with the most powerful prognostication engine in the history of the
world, one cannot see all possibilities. I'm sure you've discovered that by now,
Natch. I imagine you listening to these words in your apartment, awaiting the troops of the Defense and Wellness Council. You have exhausted all resources,
you have explored all avenues, and now it is simply a question of hours before
Borda arrives at your doorstep and demands MultiRealfor his own use. Or perhaps you maintained hope even past that point. And now you have been thrown
into one of Borda's orbital prisons where you await the torturer's bite, and you
know the fight is truly over...

Enough. Do you see how even in my hopeful moments I drift off into melancholy? Do you see why my lover constantly threatens to leave me?

She lets out a quiet and morbid laugh.

Let me get back to the subject at hand, Margaret continues. Sheldon
Surina believed that the only path to Perfection is continual progress, without
exceptions, without limits. He would say that the world wanted biollogics and
the universal law of physics and teleportation to come into existence, just as it
wants MultiReal today. In his eyes, there is nothing that can be done to alter
this-and if humanity must suffer through a thousand years of Defense and
Wellness Council tyranny because of it, well, then that too is necessary. Even if
our hubris should bring us to another Autonomous Revolt, Sheldon Surina
would insist we stick to the path of progress. He would insist we pass MultiReal out far and wide without fear of consequences.

You may be surprised to hear it, but Sheldon Surina did not despise the
Autonomous Revolt. He did not hate or fear the Autonomous Minds of Tobi Jae
Witt. He saw what they did as a much-needed cleansing and strengthening of
the species.

Not a nice man, Sheldon Surina. We tend to forget that.

Nonetheless, my ancestor charted a course for us towards Perfection three
hundred and fifty years ago. Freedom from the tyranny of Biology. Freedom
from the tyranny of Nature. Freedom from the tyranny of Distance. Freedom
from the tyranny of Time. And finally, freedom from the tyranny of Cause and
Effect. He taught his children and his successors undeviating adherence to this
course, as did Prengal, as did Marcus. Though I did not know it at the time,
this is what I was taught and raised to believe from the day I was born.

But I have decided not to pass these values on to the next generation. Why? I think it is for the same reason that I slip into morbidity when everyone around
me engages in celebration. The same reason that I make this recording and try
to convince myself it will never be heard.

I stopped believing in the dream of the Surinas, Natch. And it was an
Islander who showed me why.