Robert Sawyer - Triggers

Suddenly, she became conscious of geography. All of the minds touched so far were nearby, part of the wave front, the leading edge.

A song from her youth—from everyone’s youth—came to her, to them: We don’t stop for nobody! We don’t stop for nobody! And as the world spun on its axis, as the sun came up, the wave front moved inexorably westward. But she was baffled about why South American cities weren’t included. Parts of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru were due south of Washington, and yet there seemed to be no mental contact with anyone from there. Could it be that South America was too far away to be included?

No, no—that wasn’t it. Lessons from her college studies of geography came back, reinforced by the memories of countless others who knew the same thing. Earth’s axis was tilted 23.5 degrees to the plane of the solar system. The swath of the Earth being affected was following the dawn line, the terminator. None of South America had yet been included.

The dawn, Susan thought, and the dawn echoed a thousand others. As people looked up, or woke up, as they recalled previous sunrises, they were brought in—and if they didn’t note the dawn, they were soon brought in anyway, as others willed links to them.

She’d almost expected everyone to topple over; there had been much wooziness during the early stages yesterday, after all. But it seemed that each new mind that came on board—and thousands were popping in every minute now—brought new strength and stability. Agent Dawson (she found herself thinking of her in the third person), Agent Hudkins, President Jerrison, Professor Singh, and all the rest seemed to be capable of going about their normal tasks, but—

But she looked on in fascination, as if from a great height now; perhaps—ah, yes, she was linked to a traffic reporter in a helicopter over Washington, giving an update on the morning commute. Everything was flowing smoothly. Despite icy conditions on I-295 and Ridge Road Southeast, there had not been a single accident reported so far, and all roads, including the Beltway, were moving well. It was as if the combined vision and reflexes of all the drivers were enough to overcome any potential problems. It was precisely what one might expect of a…

Susan herself didn’t know the phrase, but others did, and they shared it. Group mind: a collective consciousness, the aggregate will of countless people, each one still separate, each a nexus, an individual, but each also linked, connected, networked. Unlike a hive with expendable drones, those who were joined now composed a vast mosaic, every stone precious, each member cherished, no one ignored or discarded or forgotten.

The world continued to turn. Dawn broke over Ottawa, Ontario; over Rochester, New York; over Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; over Atlanta, Georgia. The squares were subdividing so quickly they seemed to flicker.

She thought again about the motorways and their myriad drivers. Those individuals spurring their cars to action were…a term she’d learned from Singh’s memories: excitatory inputs. Those that counseled inaction were inhibitory inputs. And, in a true democracy, greater than what Washington or any other place had ever seen or could hope to aspire to, the excitatory and inhibitory inputs were summed, and the whole—the collective, the gestalt —acted, or not, depending on the result.

Sudbury, Ontario, saw first light, as did Saginaw, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Memphis, Tennessee. Millions of additional voices joined the choir.

But surely, Susan and countless others thought, a species could not operate that way. Individual will was necessary! Individual will was what made life worth living!

It was individual will that let someone try to assassinate me.

It was individual will that let someone abuse me.

It was individual will that let someone kill my child.

It was individual will that let someone set off a bomb in my city.

The sun rose over Green Bay, Wisconsin; Columbia, Missouri; and Dallas, Texas. Daylight was spreading across the continent. Tens of millions were now interconnected. And with each passing second, more who weren’t yet connected turned to face east, face the dawn, face the new day, and they recalled a dozen, a hundred, a thousand similar mornings as the Earth spun on.

On any given day, about 150,000 people die, almost all peacefully from natural causes. When Josh Latimer had been shot, only Janis Falconi had been linked to him. But behind each person dying now stood millions of others, all connected to him or her. As lives slipped away, the gestalt strained to hold on to the expiring individuals: first this woman; then this man; then, tragically, this child. With the attention brought by millions, with the scrutiny of the legions, each demise was examined in detail and seen for what it was: the piecemeal dissolution of self. It didn’t depart all at once, it didn’t transfer from here to there, it didn’t go anywhere. Rather, it decayed, crumbled, disintegrated, and ultimately vanished.

And so, reluctantly, sadly, the majority began to accept what the minority had always known. The dead hadn’t passed on; they were gone.

But, at least now, they would never, ever be forgotten.

Pteranodon —the E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Post—continued its westward flight through the darkness, the black waters of the Pacific far below.

Susan Dawson—the physical body of the Secret Service agent—was still in President Jerrison’s office at Camp David. She had previously doubled over in pain but now fought to dismiss it from her mind.

Alyssa Snow—again, the body called by that name—was attending to the form called Seth Jerrison, who also had been experiencing great pain.

Susan felt herself simultaneously inside and outside her body, and what Singh knew about observer and field memories came to her: sometimes you remembered things as your eyes had seen them, and sometimes you saw yourself in your memories, as if observing from a distance. But this was both simultaneously—both an in-body and an out-of-body experience. She looked at Dr. Snow—and looked at herself looking at Dr. Snow—and saw in Alyssa’s eyes that she must be experiencing the same duality.

The president’s face was a battleground, with grimaces coming into existence and then being suppressed. Susan watched for a moment in concerned fascination, but then saw a preternatural calm come over Prospector’s face, as if he was now drawing strength from all the linked minds. “My God,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”

Perhaps fifty million people were linked together now—but there were still seven billion who weren’t. The daybreak line would continue to sweep across Canada, the US, and Mexico, but it would be four hours until New Zealand—the first non–North American landmass of any size—saw the dawn, at about the same time that Ketchikan, Alaska, did. If it really was going to take a full day for the effect to circle the globe, covering fifteen degrees every hour, then the United States would be fully absorbed long before Russia or China or North Korea.

“We’re not safe,” Susan said. “If those who aren’t linked decide that we’re an abomination, they could nuke us. We have to maintain the appearance of normalcy until tomorrow morning—until the transition is complete.”

“But how?” asked Jerrison. “Everyone would have to act in concert to maintain the illusion, and…oh.”

Susan nodded. “Exactly. We’re linked; we’re one.”

“E pluribus unum,” said Jerrison, his voice full of awe. He looked at Singh, then back at Susan. “Still, it can’t be that everyone wants this. Why’s it happening?”