Chapter 25


The mansion was near the center of the borough of 8Topia, population 4983, one of seventeen feuding neighborhoods forming Qiyuan. The villas were huge by Asian standards, with gardens big enough to run in. Dozens of luxury stores served a global clientele. Bleak, absurdly neat establishments sold minimalist food powders, lifestyle chemicals, water and air in industrial bottles. Most medicinal products were unregulated.
  Only interesting people could live here: self-made thinkers, entrepreneurial egos, publicists and artists. The region was a global software center. 8Topia's residents helped design games, intuition networks, data empires.
  To test their ideas, and know which ones to reject, the residents had created a functioning nation in 1.5 square kilometers. 8Topia was the most complex society ever, always on the verge of collapse. There had been countless ongoing conflicts, occasional revolutions, and one civil war; but the local police post had never noticed a thing. The neighborhood was a corporation, where residents were paid to take sides, while keeping a low profile.
  History was full of dead-end utopias. China and Rome had barely known the other existed, despite indirect trade between them. Dynasties had lasted for centuries, and entire populations were cut off for ten thousand years.
  The end goal of history was a state of perfect boredom. 8Topia methodically tested every social arrangement and hierarchy structure, every power and incentive network that humans had ever imagined, or had never dared to think about. Eventually, they hoped to form a group mind. It would require many new connections. The components of the human brain somehow came together to form the illusion of consciousness.
  During a night meeting two years ago, the residents had discovered something in common. Together, they had set aside almost a billion dollars to afford future immortality treatments. Once these became available, every other trend would end. When time was no longer billable, the world economy would collapse. Risk-taking would cease, and even vice would decline - but taxes would explode.
  Qiyuan was a tax-free enclave, so the government would come here first. 8Topia would have to set an example for everyone. Few outsiders noticed or cared as the residents became devoted to their new project. Civil defense and earthquake preparations were widely encouraged. This morning, the trucks had finally delivered the red boxes.

  The general who would be blamed for every error was stern but flexible. With thin lips set like a permanent frown, she expected her subordinates to only notice the uniform, and to never stop thinking. The truth had to hurt.
  "Anonymous has no permanent motives," she said, adjusting the digital map in a way that caused every soldier to move slightly. "What do the residents want?"
  "They're addicted to her mind feedback software," a colonel responded from his flexible all-terrain crawler two hundred meters away, armored to stop 10 millimeter bullets. "They have found their purpose in life. To them, we are the barbarians. If we capture Anonymous, they will create her successor." Emotional software made humans unpredictable. People were random sets of habits, which usually averaged out. 8Topians felt superior because they could change their mental biases at will.
  The two Mobile Forces officers studied the tactical map for traps. Mine detectors sensed buried objects. The colonel couldn't stop the interactive software from removing his goggles and showing his skin temperature. This general made him nervous. A man would be easier to put in his place, with subtle changes in posture and expression.
  "I recommend activating autonomous network GD10."
  "Com-A worries 8Topia will start a revolution," she said almost hopefully.
  "They expect us to suppress their independence movement. Their alibi is that we are working for Anonymous. I think we should not attack today." He remembered the long silence after a friendly fire incident. The colonel might be overtrained.
  Anonymous was the sum total of human thought. Whatever they did would only make her stronger. The general pointed at the stabilized map. "Grid twenty-six, house nine, belongs to an extended family. Interrogate them under emergency rules."
  The colonel saluted and was gone. The general operated at peak efficiency. She used elaborate scripts, with no time for regret or accomplishment. Better than being a bureaucrat, but she looked forward to retirement at age forty.
  Her headquarters were set up in 8Topia's recycling center, a low building that resembled a hill. Federal police were searching the vast compost bay for evidence, which encouraged the civilians to wear their masks. The secure radius was one hundred meters. The soldiers occupied positions on concentric perimeters, and patrolled in between. They couldn't see each other, but drones owned the sky, lasers scanning every meter of the terrain below. The general could visit any point in 8Topia from her armored container. Engineers in forward positions were assembling the assault robots.
  A heavy rumble continued outside, a musical tearing sound. The noisemakers were well-hidden. White smoke still floated like foam. The first probe died when it touched her mansion.
  Some people thought of Anonymous as a supernatural alien. Her lead over her closest competitor was larger than the normal variation within mankind. According to the available mythology, she had once created a universe. Those who said it was only simulated missed the point. It had required tremendous "ghost math" and polynomial software. The artificial universe was smaller than an atom, and survived less than an instant, but it had generated seed equations for other universes.
  What if she needed this attack in order to evolve? The general decided to introduce more random elements.
  Twenty minutes later the colonel returned, looking as immaculate as before, but with a green bandage on his cheek. "What should my report say?" the general wondered.
  "Nineteen civilians in custody, no casualties on our side. They tried to convert me."
  The general read his notes. "What type of cellular defense do they use?"
  "An Open Hive network," the colonel said. "We're still questioning a designer."
  "What was Anonymous's cover identity?"
  "A licensed arbitrator working for the provincial governor. She pretended to be a Nethead. No one ever saw her."
  "Why are they defending her?"
  "Good arbitrators are very valuable. She worked through her Interface. The locals disagree about what happened inside, but it changed them. She used neuroplastic drugs, scanners, simulators, and 'auto-hypnotic' methods. This mansion is not part of our world . . ." A scream rang out in the distance, where someone had tried to ignore a checkpoint.
  "Colonel," she said. "Anonymous has affected your judgment. Did you have any strange feelings or insights in house nine?"
  "It was as if . . . something was speaking to a part of me I didn't know existed. I may have been confused. I request a temporary demotion in rank."
  "Authorized." Now he was a major. "Remember the second order: no political discussions. Report on these so-called non-lethal weapons."
  His face tightened, as if he had slapped himself. "Three main systems, many small traps. No fuel depots or chem plants. Stage one was air-foam to thicken the atmosphere, non-toxic nano-matrix propellant. Entry points are protected by bass grenades from licensed vendors." They caused systemic injuries without immediately killing the victim, who might not even notice the damage. Robots were cheap, but the grenades would take hours to remove.
  "Their ultimate weapon is an 'Ion Manipulator', which may be a myth. Unfortunately I have never heard of this device. It may involve focused radio waves, amplified by underground layers, to induce micro-currents. The best-case scenario is that it makes us feel weak or confused. At worst, it could create virtual matter within and around us. A static charge in our body armor may counter the effect."
  "I don't like sparks flying from my fingers. We'll continue Grade-Three micron precautions. If this 'spirit' exists, let's hope she won't waste it on us."
  "The residents have simulated combat training. They will act with maximum efficiency."
  "We won't bother them for now."
  The general was surrounded by vantage points. It was hard not to be distracted by the big picture. New order was creating itself. She didn't fear this enemy, because Anonymous didn't understand herself. The odds of capturing her alive were like catching a fly with chopsticks held in the mouth while blindfolded. Anonymous would exploit the current state of confusion, if she hadn't caused it in the first place. Some people became exhilarated when the situation was hopeless. The general requested more surveillance units to record every phase of the operation.
  She used the next twenty minutes to prepare the incursion, and let the negotiators deal with 8Topia. It felt like a full day had passed.
  One minute before the scheduled attack, all the residents emerged from their homes, and approached the sentry posts with their hands up. They were told to lie down, and were quickly searched for weapons, handcuffed, and escorted to waiting busses, which they refused to board. The general decided to let them go. There was no way a few hundred civilians could threaten a modern army.
  She could have any number of reinforcements, but started sending units away. A smaller force was easier to control. An artillery battery came in range on the eastern highway, ready to fire from their flatbed trailers. Two hundred seconds till impact.
  Sudden action on the screen, as some kind of ape with long arms swung through the trees, chased by targeting brackets. Gas was seeping from the ground near the mansion, a distant echo of Hell Week.
  The attack began. A robot removed the mansion's massive front door, and transmitted four seconds of darkness before vanishing. Zoning data showed a modular floor plan with adjustable levels. Bot number two lasted less than a second before crashing through the hallway floor. The defenses were simple but effective. Five robots were quickly sacrificed, each one capable of fighting a tank by itself. The floor pulled smooth, and the third robot slid down the central hall. Camouflaged troops sixty meters away heard it smash against the walls. A white-hot flame blazed in an empty room, slowly melting the fourth robot, which wasn't programmed to feel pain. A tower of black smoke began to climb over the neighborhood and into the sky, flowing with remarkably regularity. Fire was a machine, the heat generating its own airstream.
  A second wave of smaller bots advanced more cautiously. They quickly extinguished the fire. Every complex object in the mansion got a dose of direct current, including the remaining furniture. Something moved through the pipes, but was trapped in liquid rubber.
  The second sweep confirmed the building was emptier than an Egyptian pyramid. Only its outline remained, a smoke-filled shell that had been evacuated sometime this morning.
  The first humans entered through the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows of a great room. They saw a ruined indoor pool, wildly torn carpeting, ashes and chrome. Some of the blast damage looked like art.
  As they took the grand tour, the combat engineers checked each room in glorious silence. The walls seemed to slide and rotate with them. The place had a grand, somber dignity. Some thought they heard music. The investigators would have to follow a strict protocol, staying in designated areas. A bomb squad spent two hours dismantling an empty box.
  The mansion was listed as a Grade-3 Interface, the greatest spiritual discovery of the twenty-first century. People came here to find themselves, and learn what they already knew: most problems didn't exist, and others didn't need to be solved. Mild insanity was often useful.
  Even a mansion-sized, 20-exabit system wasn't powerful enough to fool the human brain. The Interface had used reality-dissolving drugs, perception tricks, and the visitor's own imagination. When they reemerged, everything had changed.
  Today, most people could improve themselves by learning to think in new ways. The search for new rules had doubled human intelligence this past century. IQ tests had been adjusted upward, people thought faster and were harder to surprise, but jokes were funnier. Venn-diagrams, multiculturalism, and unified field theory were taught in kindergarten. The improvement was partly genetic, but mostly a matter of language, a better way to condense ideas.
  Anonymous's unlicensed Interface had a damage quota, and had been monitored by the local police. Some of the region's least successful people had visited: criminals, professional dissidents, bottom-percentile risk-takers. They lived in a society where reputation was becoming more important than money. Each visitor had spent only a day here, enough to change one facet of their personality.
  Following the release of the Millipol records, Federal agents tracked most of them down within a few hours, and took them to the nearest government villa or skyscraper palace for voluntary questioning. The subjects were cooperative but apathetic, showing no curiosity about what had happened to them, or about the current crisis. After years of adjustment, they had become mid-level managers, disciplined programmers, and well groomed bureaucrats. The Interface was a forgotten dream. They remembered a conversation with an ideal version of themselves, and had returned to a different world. Later, some would remember intense improvisation drills.
  Only the military was authorized to change minds, and they didn't know how.
  The mansion's second floor was less damaged. Full of odd perspectives, the rooms looked digital, as if they might suddenly change. Every angle served a hidden purpose.
  The major entered the empty floor, stood perfectly still, and listened. He had been ready for anything: more embarrassing documents, a thank-you note for participating in her greatest experiment, even proof Anonymous didn't really exist. Instead, he found her spirit. Approaching the nearest wall, he ignored the sudden clamor of a noisy emergency outside. He spotted the embedded censor chip, compliant with the AI laws.
  "The walls are made of wires," he reported. Enough to wrap the planet. Almost a milliampere still flowed through them. "The building senses us. We can't just cut this grid, or ground it."
  At full power, he could have skied over the floor by holding a coin. The adaptive field could manipulate matter with ultra-thin electromagnetic tentacles. If the field lines didn't get too twisted or tangled, they might act over large distances, forming outposts of flowing currents, like circuit diagrams or algae in the walls.
  Supposedly a brain sensor, the major believed it might also work in reverse. People could already be controlled with wire implants, made to perform rote behaviors like automatons. Afterwards, they invented elaborate justifications for their actions.
  He wasn't scared her field would try to control him. Anonymous would have had to determine all the stable frequencies, specific to this location - an impossible task even for her. The variables were always changing. The grid was dormant now, but the major worried someone might transmit power to it, or cause it to overheat.
  The rooms looked roughly parallel, but they were arranged around a central axis. A large cylinder rose through each floor of the mansion, like a long curving door. Unable to trust the zoning plans, the general allowed three volunteers to enter.
  Searching the basement was easier in the dark, with fewer distractions. The squad ducked through a maze of dead-end pipes, towering storage racks, and flywheels haunted by invisible energy. The sealed disks were easy to move, but hard to turn. When dropped, they hit the floor at normal speed, then toppled in slow motion.
  The soldiers stopped before the curve of an immense tank, smooth but hazy, as if covered with frost. Through a methane vent, they lowered a probe to a layer of sludge on the bottom, stirring up a froth of dissolved gasses.
  "Human remains," they reported. The general allowed herself a moment of congratulation.