Jon Evans - Swarm

“How?”

Jesse looked over at LoTek.

“What can I tell you,” the living legend said drily, “we hackers have always been fascinated by the notion of free phone calls. It’s practically tradition. So I have plenty of fingers in those cellular pies already. Don’t you?”

Sophie shook her head. “I don’t do that any more.”

“No fooling. P2 really is retired. I never believed it. Well, I’m not. Shouldn’t take me more than a couple of hours to let slip my Trojan horses and ride roughshod over the various US cellular networks. Once we’ve established control I doubt we’ll be able to keep it for more than five minutes, but that’s all the time you’ll need, right?”

Sophie nodded.

“James said you think their factory is here in Dubai, correct? That’s why we came here in the first place.” She nodded again. “So if we can find it and get you some free samples, we’ve still got a shot at nipping this in the bud before it goes all mushroom cloud on us. American cell coverage isn’t universal, but it does cover all populated areas. We won’t stop every drone, but we can downgrade the attack from complete apocalypse to something more like the World Trade Center.”

I started to breathe easier. We still had a chance.

Then LoTek continued, “On one condition.”

Sophie blinked. “Excuse me?”

“This master signal by definition can’t stay secret, not if you broadcast it. So I assume it varies over time, keyed on some variable. Clock time?”

Sophie nodded warily. “It’s complicated, but effectively it changes every thirty-seven minutes.”

“Right. So we better establish something right now. I will give you access to the US cell network if and only if you tell us how to calculate that signal. Right now, unless I’m much mistaken, you’re the only one who knows it, and I’m sorry, but that’s too much power in one person’s hands. Either you trade your algorithm for our access, or we do no business at all.”

“Then America goes down in flames.”

The British hacker shrugged casually. “We both know this is much bigger than that.”

They looked at each other coolly.

Long seconds ticked past.

“Wait, what?” I leaned forward. “We’re talking about a massive military attack here, I don’t even know how many innocent lives, worst-case maybe millions, and you two are having some kind of Mexican standoff over a theoretical philosophical point? Are you both fucking crazy?”

He looked at me like I was an insect who needed swatting. “It’s only a standoff if your girlfriend makes it a standoff, mate.”

Sophie said, “I am not giving you that algorithm. End of story.”

Silence hung in the room for a second.

“I don’t understand,” Lisa said, “why you’re even beginning to argue about not doing everything we can to save as many people as we can -“

“We are,” Jesse interrupted. “But we’re worried about tomorrow as much as today. Imagine another decade of miniaturization and Moore’s Law and material advances and economies of scale. You’ll have drones of all sizes, everywhere, doing everything. Drone militaries, drone-based economies. Sophie here wants all of them using her Axon designs so that her handpicked cabal can control them all. Sooner or later that will inevitably turn into 1984 squared. I’d rather see America go down in flames than our entire future as a species.”

“So would I,” Sophie said sharply. “And this Russian attack is nothing compared to what will happen if anyone and everyone can use drones to kill with anonymity and impunity. That will inevitably turn into Somalia squared. No deal.”

Another silence fell.

“Well. Not much point in looking for that factory, then.” LoTek shut the laptop before him with a decisive end-of-discussion flourish. “Fuck it all. What do you say we order some room service and get raging drunk? Cristal and caviar all round! Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow America burns.”

“All right, calm down, all of you.” Danielle sounded tired and exasperated, as if she dealt with social eruptions like this more often than anyone should have to. “Everybody take a few deep breaths and a few steps back, OK? Let’s not get lost in any abstract intellectual house of cards.”

“This isn’t abstract,” LoTek argued, “this is the future of humanity -“

“ This is the future of humanity,” she said, reaching down to touch her own belly gently. “You’re not talking about abstract lives, you’re talking about our baby’s survival. Do you understand?”

Her normally soft voice had a razor’s edge. Nobody dared to reply.

“The immediate problem,” Danielle resumed, soothing again, “the concrete problem, is that Sophie, you need some of their drones to experiment on. And our best bet is probably their factory. Right?” Sophie nodded. “If you can’t do that, then this whole other dispute is completely theoretical anyways. So why don’t we agree to put it aside until we get to the point where it’s actually relevant to the real world?”

Jesse nodded, and quoted Heinlein: “When faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, and then look at it again.”

“I think the problem is we understand this problem perfectly,” Sophie said.

Danielle rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course. You’re all much too brilliant to even imagine that your ideas might be wrong or incomplete or prematurely conceived.”

“I’m not,” I said cheerfully.

“Me neither,” Lisa added.

Jesse, Sophie and LoTek remained resolutely silent.

“Question authority,” Danielle told them. “Especially when you’re the authority.”

Sophie asked her, “What do you think we should do?”

Silence fell, as if Danielle’s vote might decide the issue.

“First, I want you all to lose the hubris,” she said. “Second, I don’t want anybody killed for the sake of a philosophical principle. I almost hate to say it,” she looked apologetically at her frowning boyfriend, “but I’m on Sophie’s side here.”

His expression tightened. Sophie looked triumphant.

“Which makes the vote two to two,” Lisa mused. She looked at me. “Suppose James and I voted the same way. That would be two-thirds. A supermajority. Would that be good enough for all of you? Would you all agree to abide by that decision?”

The offer hung in the air. None of the three geniuses at the table seemed particularly impressed by it.

“Let’s focus on finding that factory,” Danielle said. “Worry about later later.”

LoTek looked at Sophie. She nodded. He responded with a curt nod of his own, and re-opened his laptop. Lisa and I exchanged a relieved look.

“All right,” Jesse said briskly. “All we know is that there’s a drone factory somewhere in the Jebel Ali free trade zone, south of here between the palm peninsulas. That’s a pretty big haystack.”

“Pretty big factory, too,” Sophie pointed out. “A drone assembly line and a chip fabrication plant? Even with today’s tech you’d need major real estate. We might be able to narrow it down to the largest properties from satellite shots.”

LoTek shook his head. “That zone is full to bursting with huge factories and assembly plants.”

“We could go through public records and see who’s hiding something -“

“Sophia,” he said acidly, “do me the courtesy of imagining I’ve thought about this problem myself once or twice over the last few days. Half of those factories are owned by obscure Asian companies, all of whom are paranoid about industrial espionage. I would have found any obvious red flags already.”

“Then what’s your big idea?” Sophie demanded.