Here's the latest installment of my current dark scifi project. This is chapter 40. If you're just tuning in, consider starting with chapters 1 and 2. Be advised that this work considers difficult subjects, including suicide. If you're in crisis, please seek help. Help is available here.
The Hope Gazette took a few days to vet the leaked Chaos Guard materials. Unlike other media outlets, the Gazette allowed genuinely anonymous submissions, and had a system in place for receiving these, so the identity of the leaker remained unknown. Tom's editor Jimmy was elated to discover the existence of John Frank. Jimmy allowed Tom to drop everything and fly back to DC to interview Frank in person, which meant that Tom could reunite with Jo sooner than planned.
They tried to keep their initial reunion quiet, with John sitting or nervously pacing in the living room, but wore silly grins when they finally exited the bedroom. John raised an eyebrow but withheld comment. "If we're just about ready, how do you want to do this?" he asked.
"A young man named Peter will be arriving shortly," said Jo. "He'll handle the tech side of things, so we three can just relax and do our thing. I've asked him to lead us in a meditation beforehand, if that's okay."
"Couldn't hurt," said John, shrugging.
"We're going to be live, so everything you say will be on record," said Tom. "Are there any areas you'd prefer we avoid?"
"Try to keep the focus on the leaked documents and their implications," said John. "By publicly confirming their authenticity, I'll be committing crimes, but I'd like to commit as few crimes as possible."
A knock on the door signaled Peter's arival. He opened the door wearing a heavy backpack and greeted everyone. "Nice to meet you," he said to John. "What you're doing is really cool."
"So you're a technician of some sort?" asked John.
"I'm a psychic in training, but I help Tom out with tech stuff sometimes," said Peter.
"We want to go live at six," said Tom. "That enough time for you to set up and do your meditation?"
Peter set up a laptop and a tripod, then placed a bulky microphone on the coffee table in front of the couch. He connected and tested everything, finding no problems. Then he sat down and looked at the others. "You ready to meditate?" he asked.
"I'm ready to try it out," said John.
"Great," said Peter. "Close your eyes and slow your breathing. Breathe into your whole body and just focus on inhaling and exhaling for a while."
"Now," said Peter. "Picture a space of infinite possibilities. A space with no beginning or end, only promise. As you breathe, relaxing more and more deeply, watch this space give rise to the cosmos. To the solar system. To the planet. To the oceans and mountains. Then to the first stirrings of life."
"Watch as this possibility space gives birth to all creatures," Continued Peter. "To humans. To civilizations. To us, sitting here, plugged directly into the same creative spirit that brought all of this about. Sit with this incredible reality for a moment."
"Now, shift gears," said Peter after a minute. "From the infinite potentials of possibility space to the more ordered space of what is probable. Where everything that comes next grows out of what came before. Where the world and everything in it is a tree growing from the seed of creation. Feel your past like branches growing out of this tree. Feel your present moment as the blossoming of a flower at the tip of your branch. It could be anything. Anything is possible. But only some forms of growth are probable. Breathe into this space of probabilities. Feel your own purpose in the fine structure of this space. Hold this purpose, then let it go."
After the meditation, everyone was calm, their words and movements slightly more purposeful. Slightly more deliberate. Peter started recording. Tom introduced the segment, described the Chaos Guard leak, then turned the floor over to John, who talked at length about Chaos Guard and his use of its predictive capabilities for the government. They ended with a brief discussion of what all of it implied.
Afterwards, Peter gave them the all clear signal and looked patiently at John. "Can I ask something off the record?" asked Peter.
John nodded.
"The prediction engine," said Peter. "It's just a neural net, isn't it? With every data type a feature? You'd need a fire hose of data, from the past and present. But that's it, isn't it. Just a simple neural net to process all of that? How many dimensions are you using to represent people?"
"Perceptive," said John. "Our model uses 321 dimensions to represent individuals, though this figure can be scaled up in special circumstances."
"And you can run simulations of anyone?" asked Peter.
"More or less," said John. "But the whole point of the program was to prove that 321 could've been predicted and stopped. We never got there. Or even close. It could tell you an individual's likely whereabouts and purchases, but could never account for mass events. Networks of people are too unpredictable, it turns out."
"Wait," said Peter. "So you have a total social graph?"
"Ninety percent," said John. "Several agencies have access to the information."
"Shit," said Peter.
"What is it?" asked Jo.
"A digital shadow world," said Peter. "Populated by ghosts made of 321 characteristics each."
"Sounds morbid," said Jo.
"Wow," said Tom, checking his phone. "Half a million people watched the livestream."
The color drained from John's face. "So that's it, then," he said. "I should get clear to keep you out of it when they come for me."
"The Gazette has an excellent lawyer for stuff like that," said Tom.
"I'm not running," said John. "I'm going to go home. Tomorrow I plan to go into work like nothing happened. I doubt they'll see that one coming."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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