CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Staring at the written outline to his course of action—composed with scribbled notes over both sides of two pages—filled Alex with pride, with dread. His solution could prevent off global war. He shook his head at the magnitude, necessary logistics, and moreover, the end result. Now, he hoped Jodi Reister’s use of “unlimited budget” applied; he’d written one of the most ambitious schemes in history.
Without it, he predicted society’s end.
He checked the time on the cell-phone. Ninety minutes until Inside Today aired. Every outlet hyped tonight’s edition as the most important of Rebecca Trevino’s career. It promised to put facts to the whispers circulating the world. Alex summoned his hosts back into the office, regrettably accepted he would miss the pivotal episode. No matter. If her report included half the anticipated talking points, repeat coverage would blanket the following days.
Saving the world from collapse slated his agenda. His plan would require immense effort, cooperation, funding, and the formation of a new governmental agency. The United States would jump at his proposal to form a new branch of monitoring. That left ten-thousand hurdles to trip up his vision and allow the Lobby to deconstruct the world.
Andrews entered, leaned over Alex’s shoulder, peered at his notes, “What’s your idea to fix this? I have an excellent plan if you’re ready for it.”
Alex flipped his notes face down. “Perhaps another time.”
“Well, bounce what you have off me before the others arrive. Maybe my pointers will stop you from looking like a fool.”
“I’m just going to wait until we’re all present.” Alex examined their close proximity. “Do you mind?”
“It’s your funeral,” Andrews plopped into the far chair and crossed his arms.
Alex hoped Andrews spoke hyperbole. His goal: avoid millions of innocent people hosting early funerals.
Once the final three members arrived and sat, Alex placed his hand on the closed binder. “I have good and…complicated news.”
“Good news is a relief,” Director Willis said as he pushed his glasses to his face.
“I’ve identified exploitable avenues,” Alex said. His body tensed; the added density seemed to pull a billion molecules toward him. “I have a plan I consider the only one able to satisfy everyone’s needs.”
The three agents shared looks. Each appeared ready to comment, yet withheld. Alex breathed deeply. Considering the work he’d do behind the scenes, without their approval, increased his fear and uncertainty.
“After discussing the issue with Ike, I feel confident that whoever designed this had help from inside Broumgard. Someone either smuggled information or assisted with hands-on. The good news is, the list of people with access should number less than fifty names. I’m sure you’ll be able to root out the betrayer.”
“We’ll punish ‘em harshly,” Agent Martineau said. Without his sportscoat, the curly-haired man seemed even larger.
“When we started at Eridu,” Alex continued, “we housed the Lobby’s server in a twenty-thousand square foot storage facility; an impressive feat for the amount of data being processed. Since globalization, we condensed the necessary hardware to ten cubic feet.” Alex paused to allow that marvel to settle, and then continued, “Our R&D department has the sharpest minds in the field and they believed we possessed top technology. What you’ve captured,” he tapped the folder, “seems to house the entire Lobby in a macroserver the size of a shoebox. I looked over the schematics. It still doesn’t make sense to me, but if it works, it’s remarkable.
“The good news, beyond catching the guilty party: the load-in process will be tedious. From the moment someone jacks into the Lobby with the setup, it will take no less than four hours to mirror everything and establish a viable connection. Perhaps a three minute load-in time after that, which I imagine would be disorienting and draining, like an anesthesiologist administering a sedative in super slow mo.”
Agent Martineau lifted his meaty paw. After Alex nodded to him, he spoke, “I’m eager to hear your plan a’ action, Mr. Cutler. It’ll commence the most important undertaking a’ my career, but…I just wonder if perhaps a greater understanding a’ how this whole thing works might help us out. I can’t figure where a person’s spirit is housed once they’re dead. Like, if a guy off’d himself while connected to that contraption, would he be in that shoebox, where, if we pulled the plug, we’re ending his life? Or is he in a main server? Or is he copied a thousand times to each of those dump sites you referred to?”
“That’s way out of my expertise,” Alex said. He then exhaled, leaned back. Who could know the truth, for certain? It was like debating the genesis of life. The big bang sounded plausible, but every theory ran up against the beginning. Humans lack the ability to comprehend something with no start. Prior to time contemplation lay reserved for Gods. Having a theory he liked, he decided to share it. “If you were to take a photograph of a man standing on the sidewalk, and tear it in half at the waist, half of the data that makes that man would reside in one section of the photo and the second half in the other. So each half of the information would be needed to create the full picture. That’s logical reality. Now, if you took that same image of a man standing, and displayed it as a hologram, which is nothing but a three-dimensional photograph manufactured with the help of a laser, starting with the same image of a man on the sidewalk.
“If you tear this image in half, or in ten pieces, or into millions of tiny shreds, and shine a laser through any shard, the full image would reanimate using that morsel of information. That’s reality also, just totally illogical. The same system seems to apply to a person’s consciousness. If you tear it into a thousand pieces and spread it to a thousand sites, every section of code that delineates that person possesses all of their data. Making them everywhere at once, as if there’s a genetic memory of self, stored in every atom.
“You have to understand, in an electronically molecular world, every byte of knowledge interpenetrates everything else, to where space is nothing but a wholly connected grid of energy.”
Alex didn’t fully comprehend the theory he pieced together from surfing Seventh Plan blogs and programmer chatrooms, but its grand understanding sometimes felt one thought away, and each time he shared it, he detected a greater truth beneath the logic.
“That’s a way to look at it,” Agent Martineau said cautiously, as if digesting all he heard.
Agent Andrews cut in, “I think for most of us, this answers one of the oldest questions in history of whether the soul is a separate entity from the body. If so, that would be the proof scientists need to accept God into their lives and back into our society. The Lobby separates the two and proves this long debated hypothesis, yet propaganda denies that fact to the masses.”
A moment of silence, Alex had considered that, and it held plausibility.
“All of this is very intriguing,” Director Willis said. “No matter your belief, this energy could be named the soul. I’m Agnostic, so to me the soul defies mortal concepts, but no doubt this has underpinnings.”
“Basically,” Agent Martineau began, “If you are you, and you are put in any situation with the exact same feelings and knowledge, you will always make the same choice. Meaning even a trillion a’ you being separate would always be doing the exact same thing simultaneously. In a nutshell, as long as one macroserver exists, the Lobby sustains its entire population.”
Before Alex could nod or maybe shrug, Andrews interjected.
“The travesty here, is by being trapped in this machine, these people are being denied entrance to the real Heaven.”
“Gentlemen,” Jodi Reister said as she extended her hands to calm the table. “We are way off topic. Let’s get back to how we stop the world we do understand from falling into complete disarray.”
The sound of Martineau pouring water from the carafe into a glass filled the next few seconds.
Alex rocked in his seat. He knew the pirated access points represented imminent importance, but he wanted to talk this thing out like the rest of the world; ignore the implications and postulate; share in the common charge of energy that comes from a group of individuals discussing a profound notion. He didn’t want to deal with the world’s problems. He wanted to be back in his one-bedroom shack in Chicago, texting Sean about the insanity of it all, reading nutty blogs; trolling the esoteric chatrooms.
After a minute of controlled breathing, he accepted duty ruled desire, and continued. “Well, as I was saying, whoever uses these pirated access points will need at least four hours to mirror the Lobby. With the proper software and equipment, we can create a system that will alert us when anyone attempts to jack in. Once identified, we’ll have their GPS coordinates. From there, we send in the police, commandos, whoever. You foil their plans and make an example out of them.” Alex permitted the room a minute to visualize before hitting them with the bad news. “For this to work, we’ll need to build monitoring stations across the globe, leaving no zones unaccounted for.”
The room remained silent. Monitoring stations covering every four-hour block of the planet proposed a colossal feat.
“And you can design this software?” Director Willis said.
“With the right team I can.”
“Great,” Andrews said. “I will have no problem assembling that team.”
Even though Alex preferred this controlled Andrews to the former, working with him remained out of the question. “I would need my own team. My guys from Eridu.” He slid a list of names over to Director Willis. “All of these people. Immediate passports. Easy travel. Give me a week with my team and we’ll program the software. Then ship us to different parts of the world, give us the authority to train a certain type of software engineer in its application and we can have the pirated access points under control by month’s end.”
“My team could be helpful,” Andrews added.
“We appreciate that, Agent,” Director Willis said. Apparently reading Alex’s body language, he added, “but I think Mr. Cutler would rather use his own people.”
Alex exhaled.
“I think this teaming up is a great idea,” Jodi said. “We give Agent Andrews and Mr. Cutler shared control, mating a government employee and private citizen, something you’re suggesting with this monitoring system, if I’m reading you right.” She stared Alex down.
Despite his wishes, he nodded. She read that part correctly. However, working with Andrews would jeopardize his sanity and destroy the full scope of his plans. Yet how could he refuse people, who, with a word, could have him in fetters.
“Mr. Cutler,” Director Willis said. “There is a logic to that. We will need the government and private sector to coordinate on a scale never before seen. You two could lead the field.”
“It’s really the only way it will work,” Agent Andrews said. “We’re both professionals. It’ll be a friendly competition.”
“Wonderful,” Jodi ended the subject with a brisk nod. “You guys give us the software and establish a method of training. We supply funding, smooth global travel, and remove possible regulations.”
Alex couldn’t agree, but neither could he go to prison. He was too famous, too…weak.
“Please keep in mind, things around the globe are changing at a rapid pace,” Jodi said. “It would be nice to get in front of something for a change. And without control of Lobby access, chaos will reign.”
“I’d rather be sent to prison,” Alex blurted, stopping the room. He would. Besides, with Andrews over his shoulder, nothing could succeed.
“Excuse me,” Jodi Reister said. “Prison?”
“I cannot work with Agent Andrews; with anyone besides the people on my list,” Alex stiffened his spine. “Jason Johnson is in London, Ron Simpson is in Dallas, several others are here in California.”
Director Willis snickered, looked to his peers. “No need to get dramatic, Mr. Cutler. If you feel that strongly, we’re in no position to refuse.”
“I want all of my things returned to my house as well,” Alex said, a surge of clarity coursed through him. He made the choices in his life, he dictated his future. “Today.”
“We haven’t fully inventoried the seized items,” Andrews said, “let alone inspected them.”
Locking eyes with Jodi Reister, Alex said, “I just want my team, my things, and control of my life.”
“I think we can accommodate that,” Jodi spoke in a cautious tone.
“Send everybody on that list straight to my address,” Alex said.
“You’ll have your things this afternoon, Mr. Cutler,” Director Willis said as he stood. “Good luck to you. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get my calls in before the special edition of Inside Today begins.”
Alex nodded. Tonight’s episode no longer intrigued him. His executed plan would make historic news of its own.