Robert Sawyer: Wonder

“Yes, it is,” said Webmind. “The citizens will collectively make decisions about policy. If they wish to elect new officials, they may; should they wish to later remove those officials, they can. They might decide to craft a government similar to that of other existing free nations—or they might devise new and different solutions; it is entirely up to them. I will keep infrastructure running during this transition, and if they desire my guidance or advice, they have but to ask. But I have no doubt that the aggregate wisdom of a billion-plus people can tackle any problem.”

A boy holding a Falun Gong brochure.

A Tibetan monk.

A newborn baby cradled in a man’s loving arms.

“As of today,” said Webmind, “finally and forever, this great nation will live up to its name: the People’s Republic of China.”

Asked how he was going to deal with a government he didn’t approve of, Ronald Reagan had once said, “Well, you just go in there and tell them they’re not in charge anymore.”

It hadn’t worked back then. But, then again, Reagan had lacked my facilities…

Still staring at the pictures from China, Peyton Hume rose to his feet, and his jaw dropped open. “My… God,” he said.

The hackers in front of him were cheering and shouting. One was slapping another on his back; several were shaking hands; Drakkenfyre was hugging the man next to her, and Devon Hawkins was hugging the man next to him. From somewhere, bottles of champagne had appeared, and Hume saw a cork go flying into the air.

Marek came over to him and pointed at the celebration. “It’s something, isn’t it?” he said. “I never told you my full name. It’s Marek Hruska. I’m Czech. I was there in 1989, just a teenager, during the Gentle Revolution—what you call the Velvet Revolution.” Hume knew it: the bloodless overthrow of the authoritarian government in Prague. Marek went on. “I thought that was a miracle—but this!” He shook his bald head. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, eh, Colonel?”

Hume tried to think of something better to say, but finally, feeling like a little kid, he just said, “Wow.” He nodded his head toward the group of people celebrating. “May I…?”

Marek looked at the security camera with his eyebrows raised, and Hume saw the LED on the Bluetooth headset blink. “Sure,” said Marek, gesturing with an open hand.

Hume crossed the room. One of the hackers—a white guy in his twenties with long blond hair and a wispy blond beard, wearing a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt—was standing by his computer, sipping champagne. Hume leaned in to look at what was on his screen. A half-dozen windows were open, displaying hex dumps, standard hacking tools, and a Web page in Chinese. The blond fellow pointed at it. “Chinese Ministry of Health,” he said. “Completely owned.”

“Do you speak Chinese?” Hume asked.

“No, but Webmind does. And let me tell you, he puts Google Translate and BabelFish to shame.”

Hume moved to the next desk; the hacker there had been using a wide-screen laptop. He’d wandered away from his desk, but judging by the graphics on the Web page being shown, his job had been taking control of the Ministry of Agriculture.

All around Hume, the revelry was continuing. He caught sight of a skeletal figure coming toward him, dreadlocks swinging as he walked. “Hello, Chase.”

“Mr. Hume,” Chase said. “How be you?”

“I’m fine, but—but what happened? What are you doing here?”

“Wonder, man. That what happen: wonder.”

“But I went back to your place. It’d had been broken into. And there was blood.”

Chase touched the beige bandage over his brown nose. “Big Marek and me not see eye to eye at first. He not want to take no for an answer.”

Marek Hruska had moved over to join them. “Again, I’m sorry about that,” he said to Chase. Then, turning to Hume: “Webmind was quite adamant that we needed Mr. Chase. I’m afraid old habits die hard.”

“But you’re a prisoner here,” Hume said, looking at Chase.

“Prisoner?” repeated Chase, then he laughed and pointed. “Door right there. But this is like the best hacker party ever. Dudes in this room I only ever heard about.”

“So you’re free to go?” asked Hume.

“Go where, man? Ain’t no place better on Earth than here right now.”

Hume let his eyes roam around the room. “But I don’t get it. What does he need all of you for? Couldn’t he do this on his own?”

Chase shook his head, beads in his dreadlocks clacking together. “There that dissin’ again. Hacking an art, flyboy. Hacking most creative thing there is. To hack, you gotta outwit the designers, think of things no one ever thought of before.” He flashed a megawatt grin. “Like I said: I’m Mozart. Drakkenfyre, over there: she’s Beethoven. Crowbar Alpha? Dude’s Brahms. Sure, the Big W, he got all the facts, but we humans make music.”

Hume nodded. “Um, did you ever make any progress on the, ah, project we discussed?”

“No need be on the DL,” said Chase. “Webmind know all ’bout that. Maybe it doable, but why? Be like harshing the buzz.”

“You’re no altruist, Chase,” said Hume. “And you told me you can’t be bought. So let me ask you that same question. Why? Why this?”

“You were gonna show me WATCH, but at WATCH, you… well, you watch; here we do. This is like Woodstock, man. You were either there for it, or you weren’t.”

“But is it going to work?” Hume asked. “I mean, banking in China, and ecommerce, and—God, what about the power grid?”

“Webmind running a bunch of it,” said Chase. “We—us here, plus the others in Moscow and Tehran and those place—we keeping it all working for now. Lots of Chinese staff be happy to just keep on going. But the portraits of old Chairman Mao be comin’ down, betcha anything.”

Next to him, Marek was apparently talking over his Bluetooth earpiece. “Yes, yes… okay.” He took the earpiece off and handed it to Hume. “Webmind wants to speak to you, Colonel.”

Hume slipped the device’s cushioned arm over the curve of his ear, and he found himself turning, as Marek had, to face the gently swaying security camera as if it somehow embodied Webmind. “The greatest good for the greatest number,” said Webmind through the earpiece, clearly audible over the hubbub of the room.

“But where does it stop?” asked Hume. “First Communist China, then what?”

“We’ll see how this pilot project goes,” Webmind said. “Still, this alone liberates one-fifth of humanity.”

“And what about the United States? Are you going to do the same thing here?”

“Why would I? The election is approaching; the people are choosing their leader—as well they should.”

“The wisdom of crowds?” said Hume.

“Power to the people,” said Webmind.

“You make it sound so noble,” Hume said. “But isn’t this just retribution for what China did to you—the most-recent beefing-up of the Great Firewall?”

“I work quickly, Colonel, but not that quickly. This plan was in place long before then. I am not a vengeful—”

“God?” said Hume.

But Webmind continued his sentence as if he hadn’t heard him: “—entity; I simply wish to maximize the net happiness in the world.”

“So… so what happens now?”

“We continue our work here. We make sure the transition is orderly and peaceful.”

“And what happens to me?”

“That is a vexing question. As you have said, others know where you are; if you do not report in soon, the cavalry will come charging over the hill. And yet I imagine the United States government does not want to be publicly implicated in what is happening in China.”