David Brin - Existence

“Used to be, we’d get lots of fuzzy glimpses on spotty film, a few hundred meters from a road or town. Today, encounters only seem to happen in the deep desert, or midocean. Or it’s amateur astronomers, reporting strange lights near the Moon and Mars. Wherever the panopticon still has gaps, allowing tantalizing…”

Hamish meant to go on, milking a riff that he hadn’t used in a while. But the stocky woman interrupted.

“Mr. Brookeman, do you mind? Most of us know your views on UFOs, from The Elf. One of your sillier movies, by the way. But can we please stay on topic? You seem to be an hour or two out of touch!

“In fact…,” she continued, while slowing down, tapping the edges of her specs and waggling the fingers of her other hand in open space. “As a matter… of fact… even as we speak…”

She slowed to a stop, going slack-jawed, staring at images projected on the inner surface of her web-spectacles, and finally breathed a single word.

“Wow!”

The islands of distraction now became a babbling archipelago, as individuals hurried to follow her attention trail. Clusters of people flashed tags to each other. Some of them gasped in their own turn, pointing and commenting to each other with low whispers. Facing a sea of flickering lenses and waving hands, Hamish cleared his throat.

“Um, did something just happen? Will someone please explain-”

Another audience member stood up, this time from the very front row. She was svelte and tall, wearing clear specs that carried plenty of gear-like a floating gel-lens-while also revealing her sharp, pale-brown eyes.

“Tor Povlov, of MediaCorp’s show, The Povlovian Response .” Wriggles identified the woman. “Call her Miss Tor.”

Hamish cursed his slow thought process. He could have subvocalized a command to Wriggles and got a summary of whatever news everyone was tizzying about. Too late now. He nodded toward the newcomer. “Yes, Miss Tor?”

The conference center’s live acoustic walls responded by shifting priority to the reporter, bathing her in light and amplifying her voice.

“Since you aren’t linked-in, Mr. Brookeman, let me explain what’s going on, then ask your reaction. Apparently, someone-moments ago-issued more than a terab of purloined data from the NASA Marti Space Center. Images showing highlights of their effort to communicate and translate with the Object.”

No one could mistake the capitalization of that final word.

“Really?” Hamish raised his voice to be heard over a rising murmur from the crowd. Even the dampers were getting strained. “Well, I shouldn’t have to tell you that leaks can’t be trusted. Almost anything can be faked and viral-released, even through an official site. I wouldn’t go molten over uncredentialed vids.”

By now, a clear majority had dived into full-immersion. It irked Hamish to have so few actually looking his way. Of those left in the here-and-now, most seemed more interested in the reporter than him. Except for Roger Betsby, that is. The bearded poisoner kept his gaze firmly on Hamish.

Tor Povlov shook her head.

“Then I guess you haven’t heard the rest, Mr. Brookeman. NASA and the Department of Foresight have already issued a nondenial. No more calm-downs or distractions. Nor any outright disavowals of the leak. Only a promise to find the persons responsible and hit them with a prematurity fine. ”

The phrase provoked chuckles and derisive smirks. That slap on the wrist never stopped anybody. At least, no one who had Guild protection and a plausible claim of public interest.

Hamish blinked, abruptly wishing he could be somewhere else. In contact with his own people. Or the Prophet’s.

While I stood here, blathering to extropians about their silly fantasies, the real-world situation has spun out of control.

Tor Povlov continued in a friendly tone. “All morning, MediaCorp has been tracking a sharp spike in diplomatic encrypt traffic, between various national alliances, cartels, and WCNs. Clearly, they were being given advance warning and consultation about something big. But a wave of perplexes and distracts kept us from zeroing in on which rumored event it was all about.”

That would have been the Prophet’s doing. At least it worked for a few hours.

“Only now…” She paused for a moment of artfully divided attention, then gracefully resumed. “… it appears the White House has scheduled a plenum press conference for three o’clock eastern time. Just under an hour from now. And MediaCorp’s forcaister gives a ninety-two percent confidence projection that it will be a public confirmation of the Havana leak, followed by full disclosure.”

In what must be a dramatic concession, for someone of her generation, Tor Povlov reached up and flipped the lenses of her vir-spectacles, in order to give Hamish the courtesy of her full attention, here-and-now. Of course that tiny gel-lens kept transmitting to her point-of-view audience, around the world.

“Hence, my question for you, Mr. Brookeman. You’ve just spent an hour scolding these would-be godmakers,” she said the word with a lilt that conveyed her own level of skepticism. “Hectoring them with a stark litany of worries about a dangerously disrupted future.

“And lo, the future has arrived! This disruption-or disturber, to use your own term-is likely to be a doozy. Perhaps even like in your stories.

“Only, human foolishness seems to have had little to do with it, this time. And, unlike what always happens in your novels, this cat isn’t likely to get hushed and stuffed back in the bag, before the denouement.

“So, what I’d like to know, Mr. Brookeman, is how do you suggest we deal with this new thing?

“A bottle appears to have washed onto our shore, from far away. It contains a message.

“And it talks.”

Always, before, whenever one culture went into decline, there were others ready to take up the slack. If Rome toppled, there was light shining in Constantinople, then the Baghdad Caliphate and in China. If Philippine Spain turned repressive, Holland welcomed both refugees and science. When most of Europe went mad, in the mid-twentieth century, the brightest minds moved to America. When America grew self-indulgent and riven by new civil war, that migration sloshed and shifted East.

Only this time, things are different! It isn’t just one part of the world, deciding whether to rise or fall. Whether to seize confidence or forsake it. Whatever separates our tribes, today, it’s not geography. Rapid connections can spread trouble, as quickly as commerce and hope, as we learned during the Cybersneeze, the Big Heist, and the Sumatran Flu. Already, the EU and GEACS and at least twenty American states have set up commissions to supervise scientists and inventors, aiming to “advise and guide” them toward responsible progress.

Or none at all? To avoid collapse, scholars from the Diamond Futurological Institute prescribe one hope-to imitate the few human societies that learned to live sustainably within their means-like the Tokugawa Shogunate and Polynesian Tikopia. Ecologically stable, they savagely protected forests and limited the spread of farmland. Those “ideal societies” also banned the wheel. Or take the Kaczynskyites, who don’t bother persuading. If it’s new, or technological, they’ll try to blow it up.

Finally, we have the Movement. Calm and reasonable, it helped ease our world past the last great crisis, a decade ago, midwifing the trade-offs restoring balance among the ten estates, bringing about the Big Deal. Only now they’re urging humanity to “take a pause.” To reflect on the pitfalls and opportunities, before resuming our forward march. Letting wisdom catch up with technology. But don’t we need to get new solutions faster, not slower?