Spark: A Novel (39 page)

A young man was working in one of the cubicles while two men and two women were shredding paper and wrapping computer equipment. The staff of We Speak for Freedom were all in their twenties. They wore jeans, ratty sweaters, or flannel shirts and looked like graduate students on a ski holiday.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” Thomas said. “As you can see … Bobby’s plan worked perfectly. This is Emily Buchanan, the young woman who contacted me. And the gentleman tied up in the wheelchair is the employee from the BDG investment bank who was trying to take back the liberated information.”

Thomas handed the flash drive to a dark-haired young woman wearing an ankle-length skirt. “Lidia, open this up on the quarantine computer, then run the Ghost Killer program. For all we know, this could be a clever plan to infect our system with spyware.…”

Lidia took the flash drive and inserted it in the data port of a laptop computer covered with skull-and-crossbones stickers. A piece of masking tape ran across the top of the computer screen with the word
QUARANTINE
in black letters.

“And Emily … would you please explain to the group what they’re supposed to be looking for?”

“Most of the data is about the black money transactions of an Indian company called the Pradhani Group. But there are three
coded files that I couldn’t read. A man named Jafar Desai was killed in Paris a few days ago. The coded files might explain why.”

“Don’t do this,” I said. “The people I work for—”

“Won’t be happy?” Thomas smiled. “Good. I like that possibility. That’s the goal of our Web site … to defend the weak and challenge the powerful.”

“It’s not worth it.”

“That’s Emily’s choice.”

“I’m connected to what happened to Jafar and his family,” Emily said. “I have to do something.”

“Action requires courage,” Thomas said. “Inaction only requires excuses. Bobby, please take Mr. Underwood to the cottage and wait there. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Bobby wheeled me back outside and pushed me down another pathway past a stone-lined sluice gate that fed into a pond. The concrete frame of the gate was stained and the water in the pond had a dark red color.

“What’s wrong with the water?”

“Looks like blood, don’t it? There’s iron in the dirt around here.”

Patches of shadow and light. The smell of evergreen trees. Looking up, I saw a hawk tracing a slow ellipse in the sky. The path followed the logging ditch to a one-room shack with a porch in front. The shack was set back in the forest, concealed by tall weeds and an overhanging spruce tree. It had a stone chimney and a tar-paper roof covered with dead pine needles. Bobby yanked the wheelchair up onto the porch. Hinges squeaked as he pulled back shutters and opened the door, then he pushed me into the building.

Sunlight streamed in through the windows and illuminated a single room filled with rusty bicycles with flat tires and cardboard boxes filled with junk. A worktable was in the middle of the room and was covered with strips of sheet metal, gear wheels, and a half-dozen cans of paint. Artist’s paintbrushes were scattered across the table; each brush displayed a dry blob of color. At the center of the table was a wind toy: a sheet-metal silhouette of a man sitting in a chair while he held a book with two hands. A drive shaft was attached to his head.

Bobby searched the dusty room and found a wooden toolbox. He opened it up and began searching through each drawer. “Bet you think you’re smart.”

“I’m functional.”

“Maybe that’s true in the city, but you’re not functioning real good today. I’ve seen you lookin’ around, trying to figure out a way to break free. Well, that’s not gonna happen.”

Bobby found some more cable ties in the tool chest and used them to attach my legs to the wheelchair footplates. When the lower part of my body was secure, he fastened both of my arms to the armrests and used three ties linked together to restrain my chest and shoulders.

I heard nails clicking on the concrete floor and turned my head toward the doorway. The two dogs entered the cottage and began sniffing around, searching for food. Thump of shoes on the porch, and then the screen door squeaked open and Thomas Slater stood in front of me.

“There’s water in that blue jerry can, Bobby. Pour some into those old hubcaps. I think our canine friends are thirsty.”

Newton and Hildy lapped up the water, making loud slurping sounds while Thomas inspected the wheelchair. “Mr. Underwood looks very secure.”

Bobby spat into the corner. “He ain’t going nowhere.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to him alone.”

“Well, I do mind, Mr. Slater. I don’t think you’ll be safe with him.”

“Put some more ties on if you wish, but it looks like there’s more than enough.” Thomas stepped forward and checked my arm restraints. “He can’t even scratch himself.”

“He’s dangerous, Mr. Slater. Don’t forget, he was carrying two handguns.”

“Dangerous in
potential,
but not in
actuality.
” Thomas reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small radio transmitter. “I’ve got my two-way radio, Bobby. I promise to contact you right away if Mr. Underwood causes any trouble.”

Bobby considered this idea for a few seconds, then nodded and opened the screen door. “I’m keeping my radio on.”

“Thank you. That’s a good plan.”

The door slapped shut and Bobby marched back to the bunker. Thomas scratched behind Hildy’s ears and then began sorting through his tools.

“This is where I make my whirligigs. Maybe you’ve seen some of them scattered around the compound. Helen thinks it’s amusing that I’ve spent most of my life designing computers and software programs, but … up until now … I’ve never really
made
anything.” He picked up a small fan. “The windmill propellers are salvaged from discarded air conditioners. The chains and sprockets come from old bicycles. Bobby sorts through the junk at the local dump and brings some of it back in his pickup.” Thomas scooped up a handful of bolts and dumped them into a plastic tray. “I’ve decided to leave them all here when we abandon this outpost. It might be childish, but I hope they’re not thrown away. Who knows? The so-called Slater Gates I invented thirty years ago are obsolete. They aren’t being used by the new generation of computers. Perhaps I’ll only be remembered for my whirligigs.”

“You’re leaving this place?”

“Yes. Definitely. Helen said that you lay down on the backseat of the car, but that’s not going to help us. Now that you know our general location, a drone could find this place in a few hours. I see myself as an amiable sort of person, but a surprising amount of people want to kill me. Tonight Bobby will dump you into the trunk of a car and take you to another part of the forest. He’ll leave you there, unharmed, and you’ll have to find your way back to civilization. By the time you return with your associates, we’ll be working at another safe location.”

Thomas poured some turpentine into a glass jar and pushed in the old paintbrushes. “But you and I still have enough time for a conversation. You’ve sparked my curiosity, Mr. Underwood. I have a dozen questions that only you can answer.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Who hired you to find Emily? Do you know their names? Did they give you written instructions?”

“I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“There’s no reason to be loyal to those bastards. They’d sell you out in a second.”

“I’m not loyal to anyone. I do my job and get paid. We see the world in different ways. You
believe
in something.”

Thomas shook his head. “I wouldn’t put a label on my beliefs, and I’m definitely not a member of some political party. Nowadays true ideology has vanished, replaced by fear and fantasy. The right wing wants corporate control and a return to a past that never existed. The left wing wants government control and a future that will never exist. Both groups lose sight of the essential question: How can the individual speak and think and create freely? New ideas are the only evolutionary force that will save us from destruction.”

“Say whatever you want. I’m not telling you who hired me.”

“Of course, Mr. Underwood. So why don’t we go outside? It’s a better view.”

Thomas propped the screen door open with a brick, then pushed me out onto the porch. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was touching the tops of the trees. All the colors that surrounded us—the forest ferns with their curling tips, the dead leaves lying on the wet ground, the blue sails of a whirligig windmill—looked darker, heavier, as the day fell toward night.

“This used to be a logging camp. Bobby’s great-grandfather helped dig the ditch from here up to Cato Springs. Once they had the ditch, everything else was easy. They’d fell a tree, trim off the branches, roll the log into the water with a cant hook, and float the wood downhill to the catch basin.”

Thomas left me alone for a few minutes and then returned with a bottle and two paper cups. “Would you like some Irish whiskey, Mr. Underwood? I know it’s awkward, but I could hold a cup to your lips.”

“No.”

Thomas sat down on a bench, poured himself an inch of whiskey, and gazed out at the forest. “Before we came here I didn’t know how to identify the different trees.” He pointed his finger and began to recite. “White oak. Holly. Maple. Beech. Hardwood trees near
the house. White pine and pitch pine around the bunker. I can’t tell you why, but it makes me happy to know the names of all the things that grow around here. It’s going to be difficult to leave.…”

“That’s your choice, Mr. Slater.”

“I agree. But you’ve also made some choices. Haven’t you? Emily told me a little bit about what happened in New York City. You were supposed to kill her, but you refused to follow orders. So why did you say no? What was going through your mind?”

“I just did it. There doesn’t have to be a reason.”

“And does that choice put you in danger?”

“It’s possible.”

“So you rejected machine thinking and made a free choice. That means the two of us have a starting point for a larger conversation. Have you ever heard of the French philosopher René Descartes? He established an entire method of thinking based on a single premise—”

“Cogito, ergo sum,”
I said. “But most people get it wrong. Just because something thinks, doesn’t mean that it exists.”

“That’s right, Mr. Underwood. And this isn’t just a trivial philosophical distinction. It took me years to realize that a computer would never truly be able to say
cogito, ergo sum,
although dozens of lurid Hollywood movies about robots want to leave that impression. A computer
thinks
 … that is, it realizes it has been switched on … but it doesn’t know it
exists.
”

“After you figured that out, you wrote ‘The Decision and the Choice.’ ”

Thomas raised his paper cup filled with whiskey. “Here’s to you, Mr. Underwood. I’m impressed that you’ve read my work.”

“I wanted to know more about you, so I told my Shadow to find a few articles.”

“ ‘The Decision and the Choice’ was my attempt to show that
thinking
does not mean
reasoning.
Our instincts, our emotions, and our moral consciousness shape the way we think.”

“The article said that you designed artificial-emotion software. You were going to teach computers how to cry.”

Thomas took another sip of whiskey and smiled. “The entire
project was a complete failure. Or, as Helen would say, ‘a full-face fall into pig shite.’ I designed programs that could imitate the human emotional response, but the machines were never really
aware
of anything. A Shadow can be programmed to say ‘This makes me sad.’ But it won’t
feel
sad. Human beings don’t think like computers. Our human consciousness is a spectrum of different kinds of thinking with different levels of intensity. Do you ever daydream, Mr. Underwood?”

“Sometimes. But I don’t like it.”

“And why is that?”

“When I close my eyes and see memories, it feels as if I’m wandering through a shadow land.”

“I feel the same way,” Thomas said. “I have high-focus thoughts when I’m solving a problem, and that gives me the illusion that I can control my thinking. But as the focus level falls, I lose control of my thoughts. This is when I can free-associate and relive memories. No machine can daydream. When they’re not switched on, they’re as cold as a toaster in a midnight kitchen.”

“So machines can never be human.”

“That’s right. Not unless we alter our definition of humanity. My own life changed when I realized that fact. I wrote books and made speeches around the world, but nobody wanted to listen. They were impressed when the nubots told jokes and sold them subway cards. And the Shadows whispering in our ears were supposed to be as real as your best friend.

“Eventually, I stopped thinking about the
function
of these new machines and began to ask myself: What is their
purpose
in our society? After the mass arrests that followed the Day of Rage, I began to have ‘political’ opinions. The fact that the EYE system and nubots are watching us and controlling our lives gives those in power an easy way to hide their manipulations. Artificial intelligence is a concept that obscures accountability. Our problem is not machines acting like humans—it’s humans acting like machines.”

“Maybe we are machines,” I said. “A scientist named Morris Noland told me that our minds make a decision a half second before our conscious thought.”

“Yes. Of course. Benjamin Libet’s experiments.” Thomas reached into his shirt pocket, found two treats, and tossed them to the dogs. “But Libet also proved that even though we have the ‘readiness potential’ to do something, we also have the power to say no. That potential is always there, always waiting. ‘No—I won’t believe this. No—I won’t do this. No—I refuse to go along.’ Keep saying no and you can change your life.”

“I had an accident several years ago, and it transformed me. I can’t change that fact.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to work for people who want to control our thoughts and actions. What they want isn’t just wrong or misguided—it’s evil.”