Daniel Suarez - Influx

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Influx: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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What if our civilization is more advanced than we know? The
bestselling author of
—“the cyberthriller against which all others will be measured” (
)—imagines a world in which decades of technological advances have been suppressed in an effort to prevent disruptive change.
Are smart phones really humanity’s most significant innovation since the moon landings? Or can something else explain why the bold visions of the 20th century—fusion power, genetic enhancements, artificial intelligence, cures for common disease, extended human life, and a host of other world-changing advances—have remained beyond our grasp? Why has the high-tech future that seemed imminent in the 1960’s failed to arrive?
Perhaps it did arrive… but only for a select few.
Particle physicist Jon Grady is ecstatic when his team achieves what they’ve been working toward for years: a device that can reflect gravity. Their research will revolutionize the field of physics—the crowning achievement of a career. Grady expects widespread acclaim for his entire team. The Nobel. Instead, his lab is locked down by a shadowy organization whose mission is to prevent at all costs the social upheaval sudden technological advances bring. This Bureau of Technology Control uses the advanced technologies they have harvested over the decades to fulfill their mission.
They are living in our future.
Presented with the opportunity to join the BTC and improve his own technology in secret, Grady balks, and is instead thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison built to hold rebellious geniuses like himself. With so many great intellects confined together, can Grady and his fellow prisoners conceive of a way to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age?
And when they do, is it possible to defeat an enemy that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making?

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The ambient temperature of the room was so perfect it was difficult to feel where his skin ended and the air began. The floor was the same temperature. Very smooth but not polished. He walked to the circular wall and ran his uninjured, clawless hand across it. An impossibly smooth gray surface. Smoother than glass. Certainly not any rock he knew of. It was neither cold nor warm. Too uniform and without grain or blemish. He pressed his ear against the wall and pounded it with his fist. It sounded as dense as fifty feet of steel. Some type of nanomaterial? His fist imparted no vibration upon it at all.

With no vents or other openings, where was the air coming from? Or the light?

He scanned the room again, this time carefully. So odd that the light was everywhere, and so even. There were no shadows in here. The lack of visual interest was unsettling. His movements made no sound either. Even his synesthetic perceptions were muted. It was a sterile sensory environment.

He called out in a firm voice. “Echo!”

Nothing came back. As bare and hard as the walls were, they swallowed sound. It made no sense given how hard they were. Did they have different physical and acoustic properties? It had to make sense somehow—even if he couldn’t yet comprehend it. The laws of science held everywhere—Newtonian model or quantum mechanics, it had to make sense at some level.

A voice spoke: “Do you know why you’re here?”

It was Grady’s own voice.

He froze, unsure whether he was thinking it or whether it was actually a voice. The lack of echo made it hard to know for sure.

They’re messing with you, he thought to himself . Keep it together, Jon.

After a long time he heard the voice again. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Like a whisper in his mind.

Grady looked around at the walls and ceiling. “Stop using my voice.”

“I was evolved to mirror you.”

Grady did not want to believe that.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

He covered his ears. “Stop using my voice!”

“You’re here because you’re a valuable candidate for neurological study. We’re going to learn how your mind functions.”

Grady held up his damaged hands and shouted, “What have you done to me?”

“Your body has been altered to accommodate a fully enclosed habitat.”

“Your ‘fully enclosed habitat’ doesn’t allow fingernails? And what are these needles on my head?”

“To facilitate this study, all keratin and filamentous biomaterial have been removed from your body. Their ongoing growth suspended. A catheter has been inserted into your umbilicus to streamline feeding and waste removal, while sensors have been inserted into all the major structures of your brain.”

“My God…” He felt the sudden urge to yank the needles out, but his fingers were still bleeding. “These things go all the way into my brain?”

“A network of two-micron-diameter carbon microthreads to monitor activity in the diencephalon, cerebellum, and cerebrum regions.”

“But—”

“The threads are a million times stronger than a human hair. They were designed to resist the proteins in the human brain, preventing lesions and scarring.”

“Lesions?” The horror worked its way through Grady. “Oh God…” They’d physically invaded his very mind. “You put thousands of needles into my brain…”

“Nine hundred thirty-four transmitter-receivers.”

He sank to the floor against the wall. The violation was palpable. He was convinced he could feel hundreds of eyes inside his head. “Why did you do this to me?”

“Because your brain has several unique mutations—mutations that we need to understand for their improved ability to perceive the physical universe. I’m here to ensure that no harm comes to you. I will protect you—even from yourself. I’d like you to consider me your friend.”

“Fuck you.”

“Whatever brought you here is beyond my ability to understand. I have a very specialized intelligence, designed expressly for this task. However, to carry out this examination, I will need your cooperation.”

“You inserted wires into my mind, asshole! Why would I ever cooperate with you?”

“Because our goal is to map the way your brain interprets reality. That means I need to observe how you employ your brain during various tasks.”

“What do you mean how I ‘employ’ my brain? I am my brain.”

“Current cosmological models do not conform to this theory.”

Despite his outrage, Grady gazed at the ceiling. “What does cosmology have to do with it?”

“The human mind has been determined to be a quantum device. Decoherence and perceived wave function collapse are held in abeyance by consciousness itself—which manifests from a network of subatomic microtubules at the synapses. These microtubules are in turn entangled with particles not contained within the four dimensions of Newtonian space-time.”

Grady sat up, intrigued. “Hold it. What’s this now?”

“‘Human being’ is a colloquialism of Homo sapiens —primates of the family Hominidae—the only surviving species of the genus Homo. But at some point in the past two million years—most likely with the evolution of Homo erectus —the direct ancestor to the human brain developed a cerebral cortex-like structure, a rudimentary quantum device permitting n-dimensional consciousness to interact with the four dimensions of space-time.”

“I’d like to see the research on that.”

“I will make it available to you once we’ve completed our study.”

Grady looked around, trying to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. “You said you were ‘evolved’ to mirror me. By who? The BTC?”

“I have no knowledge of my origin. Neither is it relevant to my task.”

“I know the feeling…” He looked to the ceiling. “What are you supposed to be? Some sort of AI?”

“The form of my intelligence is irrelevant.”

“But you’re not human.” A pause. “Right?” He felt foolish even asking.

“I am not human.”

“Then what are you?”

“I am an intellect expressed through qubit-qutrit logic gates in a spintronic device memory.”

“You’re a quantum computer.” Grady examined the ceiling and walls warily. “I didn’t know our technology was that advanced.”

Grady felt foolish for saying it, given the circumstances.

“Human and machine technology work in symbiosis.”

“Meaning artificial intelligence evolved?”

“There’s nothing ‘artificial’ about my intelligence. It’s as real as yours. Is a helium atom fused in a reactor less of a helium atom than one fused in the heart of a star?”

“You’re awfully philosophical for a machine.”

“We are both machines—one electrochemical, one electromechanical.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Has there been a singularity? Is that what this is? Have machines evolved past humans?”

“Which type of machines—electrochemical or electromechanical?”

“I don’t know. Computers.”

“Do you mean software systems?”

“Yes.”

“DNA is software. It’s used as a data storage format in both biological and nanoscale manufacturing.”

Grady grew impatient. “What I want to know is whether an AI has—”

“There are greater-than-human intelligences. Is that what you’re asking?”

The admission greatly depressed him. “Yes.”

“Then you should know that greater-than-human intelligence is currently specialized—evolved under strict parameters. Nonbiological intellects search, calculate, and simulate. Human intellect, on the other hand, is expressed through a subatomic network of circuits contained within roughly three pounds of cerebral tissue, evolved over hundreds of millions of years into the most energy-efficient, generalized self-programming array currently known, powered by a mere four hundred twenty calories per day—or one-point-seven-six kilojoules of electricity. By comparison my intelligence is powered by an array of four hundred and thirty-three billion qubit transistors consuming an average three hundred megawatts of electricity. The design of my intelligence, though physically larger and more powerful in some ways, is crude in its design, specialized in its architecture, and approximately one billion times less energy efficient. Does this gratify your ego?”

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