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EPILOGUE
One hundred years later...
The alarm buzzed inside Louis Santino's apartment at 6:37 am. Santino had not set the alarm as humans had to do in the past. The Network automatically calculated his wake-up time based on data stored in his individual profile. Using his expected commute time including adjustments for real-time weather or traffic conditions; the amount of time he took for breakfast; and his grooming and morning exercise routine, The Network determined how many minutes he would take from rising out of bed to arriving at work.
Picking up his com, a palm-sized, flat-screen plastic electronic device the size of a playing card with a velcro-like adhesive attachable to any type of clothing, Santino fell back onto the bed to view his daily schedule. All communication devices, or electronic tools with similar features, were called a com, the abbreviated term replacing a range of recognizable words like phone, radio, television, camera, or personal electronic device. Although a com could be any size or shape, and manufactured to operate within almost any device, all had one shared function, wireless connectivity to The Network. After selecting an icon on the device, a daily calendar image opened as a transparent screen suspended in the air in front of Santino's eyes and displayed his activities for the day. Santino rarely checked his schedule, but the action was a convenient delay tactic to avoid instantly getting out of bed.
His schedule was automatically adjusted and updated using factors from his life, work and habits. The Network accounted for every minute of Santino's day except bathroom breaks. No technology had yet been developed to predict exactly when an individual would require a bowel movement. Although Santino looked at the activities on his schedule, his gesture bordered on indifference, he would not be deviating from any instruction sent by The Network, he never had. Standing up, he performed a few quick stretching exercises and went to the bathroom. In the shower, he selected the 'water on' button. The Network had warmed the water to his desired temperature and when the stream came out, the nozzle provided exactly the pulse and intensity he desired before automatically shutting off to allow him to soap up. He hit 'on' again when he was ready to rinse off. By holding down the button for an extra three seconds, he could override the automatic water conservation features. Santino lived in northern Canada where water shortages were not an issue. In the southern U.S. states, prolonged drought forced people to ration water supplies, and water-control showers were mandatory in every installation. In those areas, The Network maintained control over how long water ran during each shower use.
The Network had several other manual overrides and options for humans to retake control of activities the system was programmed to manage. But most humans accepted defaulted commands for their life actions. With the exception of profoundly underdeveloped areas, every human born on earth, or in outer space, received a Network profile with the generation of a birth certificate. From that day forward, The Network populated the profile with data about the individual and used the data to generate life instructions for those willing to accept the convenience. The Network continuously scanned servers, even those not exposed to the public Internet to retrieve, cross-reference, and integrate data inputted as official government records, generated education results, consultations, food consumption, text and voice communications, videos and photos, and employment reports. In public areas, recorded movements from cameras and sensors tracking all manner of human activity were also automatically stored on servers, and retrieved when facial recognition and body movement software was used to identify suspicious individuals. The mass of data files was aggregated through a variety of government or business software applications to create and send appropriate daily life instructions, specifically prepared for each individual's com. The Network provided access to millions of programs and applications designed to continuously repurpose data to feed a human's com, and the human reacted accordingly.
Santino dried off, dressed and wandered towards the kitchen. He lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in one of the few mid-sized high-rises built along the main road in the small hydroelectric power station town of Grand Rapids. In major cities, population densities prompted urban planners to build all spaces vertically, and the population lived, worked and played within inter-connected high-rises. But small towns maintained separate buildings unconnected by tunnels or subways or people movers or mass transit stations. Santino could look out his window and see rows of bungalows and two-story houses with driveways and backyards. In the cities, only the wealthy and the highest-paid professionals lived in individual family houses in suburban residential areas. No one else could afford the maintenance costs for private utilities that the neighborhoods had to pay to remain connected to The Network controlled electricity, water and sanitation systems. Approaching his mid-forties, Santino would have preferred to be in a house, he enjoyed the idea of space and access to private land. But he was hoping to find a wife first, and move into a house with children. Most days, he devoted a few hours to online dating. But although women enjoyed speaking with him, they were reluctant to travel to a small town in the cold Canadian north to spend time with a man, when the amusements and options in the city were readily accessible. Still he hoped one day he could entice a woman to at least visit him. If only he could convince a woman to make the trip, he could demonstrate his ability to offer a family a comfortable life, including vacations in warm weather locations, and all the amenities and conveniences available in advanced societies.
Maybe this weekend he would receive a positive response, Santino thought as he entered the kitchen. Lights illuminated and the coffee maker automatically began brewing when he passed by sensors in the doorframe at the kitchen's entryway, which cross-referenced his presence to the time of day. From his fridge, he extracted two eggs, bread, butter, and orange juice. He preferred his own cooking to the processed options available to order online or buy in a store, especially since The Network monitored eating as part of creating health alerts. The system cross-referenced the food items with his medical records and recommended changes if his vital signs showed any signs of stress. But too many alerts led to an increase in health insurance premiums, which healthy people always tried to avoid. A sensor recorded the items removed and replaced from the fridge, and an electronic grocery list on the fridge door flashed a message if any product was running low. A similar list appeared on his pantry door. Santino could add or delete items as desired, but he never actually read the grocery list. His fridge was never empty, he never went grocery shopping, and he was never without his preferred food on any given day. The grocery lists indicated the current amount of each item and noted when replenishment items would be automatically ordered for delivery by a commercial drone. The kitchen list information was connected to the closest grocery store, which delivered replenishments when necessary, without prompting.
Along with the lights, a monitor screen had lit up and was displaying the broadcast from a sports channel. Santino listened to the commenters talking about football. Today was Sunday and he would have professional games on all day while at work. Another screen was projected above the sports, and displayed the temperature and news headlines. Trying to remain engaged with the broader world, Santino checked news every morning to ensure he was not missing any important world events. In general, he was interested in other regions still experiencing civil unrest or threats from hostile neighbors or violent crime. These stories were always intriguing since global surveillance using cameras and sensors made criminal activity difficult to plan and execute outside the vision of official electronic eyes. Still, a large segment of the population, more than the government cared to admit, were diligently working to avoid The Network. Some were vocal and public about their activities, living in rural towns and remote areas and encouraging the broader populace to join them; others were hiding from law enforcement or seeking to sabotage The Network's control of personal information. Santino was never really sure what
to make of these people. He could not imagine functioning without The Network, the whole world ran on the inter-connection of electronic devices. Still he sometimes felt he should do more on his own volition, but often he could not imagine exactly what 'more' would mean.
Besides the international news, he glanced at domestic headlines, but he was less engaged in the pronouncements of governments who claimed to have appealing ideas aimed at creating a more productive life. The national government used The Network to set policies and to calculate taxes to pay for announced plans. Since The Network could predict government revenues to the minute, taxpayers fought for stricter fiscal spending and less debt. Depending on the administration, the response was action or indifference. Either way, Santino avoided listening to government excuses. His life, he determined, was sufficient, although not ideal, but the missing pieces were hardly the purview of any government to satisfy, at least not yet.
Finishing breakfast, he placed his dishes in the dishwasher. The machine determined the capacity, but did not start since a cycle had run two days earlier and the pieces inside were not enough to indicate Santino would soon run out of clean dishes. As he walked out of the kitchen, the coffee, lights and TV monitor turned off. With his com attached to a strap on his belt, he took a look in the mirror and walked out. The Network locked his door and turned down the heat in his apartment.
Arriving in the lobby of his apartment building, Santino greeted his neighbors who were waiting for their transports, driverless vehicles with the functionality to hover through the air forward, backward and sideways, or to move with wheels on bare floor, carpet, gravel, grass, cement, ice, snow and heated terrain. Through the building's glass front doors, Santino could see the snow and ice covering the town's landscape, but neither he nor any of his neighbors wore coats, boots or other cold weather gear. Instead they waited as each transport came directly to the door. Since only one transport could fit in the lobby's vestibule at a time, they patiently allowed each other to proceed in the order of the transport's arrival. Humans owned personal transports or hired the vehicles on a usage basis. Either way each trip was programmed and automatically controlled via The Network and average commute times were calculated for each distance traveled, for every trip ever taken. The Network would also know weather and traffic conditions for the day. Despite transports' flying flexibility, to avoid disturbing people in their residences or disrupting the tranquility of parks and public areas, all vehicles were programmed to travel on or above the routes laid out by paved roads. No significant traffic congestion resulted from this directive, transports automatically adjusted to other vehicles, drones, birds, and other objects in the air, to avoid collisions. However speed concessions were made when more flying entities were moving at the same time, and snow or heavy rain could interfere with the controls and force slower, more cautious routings.
Santino traveled to work in his own private transport, which permitted him to keep the vehicle stocked with his favorite drinks and snacks. On arrival, the lobby door opened at the same time the transport door opened and he climbed in without feeling a blast of cold air. As the transport door closed, the vehicle's sensors read data from Santino's com, and a monitor screen popped up to display the same sports channel he had been viewing over breakfast. He reclined in his chair, which was set to his height and comfort levels, and lay back to watch the show as the vehicle rose off the ground and pointed in the direction of his workplace.
Less than half of the employed population physically went to work each day, but Santino was a technician in the hydroelectric power station. His job, which was to monitor the operations for issues, required his presence inside the facility. Built at the top of two lakes in Manitoba, a province in the middle of Canada, the power station was one point of a multi-billion dollar interlocking grid of clean energy plants, reservoirs, sub-stations, and thousands of miles of transmission lines stretching across North and Central America for 6,000 miles from the Arctic mining towns at the furthest northern end to south of the Panama Canal. The grid was a significant source of electrical power for a dependent population of over seven hundred million people, and a vital distributor of water for the agricultural centers of the continent. To ensure continuous production, the Grand Rapids complex had more than 10,000 cameras and sensors, dozens of operational drones, and one human employee on site per shift.
Upon arrival at the plant, a garage-like door automatically opened as the transport carried Santino into the facility. The departing overnight employee was already waiting inside his own transport to leave as soon as Santino arrived. His colleague immediately passed by with a brief nod of greeting before the garage door rolled back down again. Santino climbed out of the transport. Sensors registered his arrival by locking on the signal from his com. The Network automatically noted his arrival time, which was within three minutes of the time determined from the moment Santino had woken up at the sound of his alarm.
He walked into the control room and glanced around. All data and sensor readings were green. No issues were reported. Santino felt obligated to do his initial glance around even though he had never had an issue reported in his sixteen years on the job. The employee personal monitor screen turned on to his sports channel, and Santino settled in to his chair for the day. A drone flew into the room with a cup of coffee, its grasping claws carefully placed the steaming mug in the cupholder on the armrest of Santino's chair, not a drop was spilled as the cup handle was turned in towards Santino's hand. He took a sip and focused on the screen.
After two hours, Santino's com beeped, he had a mandated walk around inside one of the facility's server rooms. There was no issue in the server room, but government healthcare regulations prompted The Network to schedule exercise for employees who might otherwise be sedentary throughout an entire shift. Projecting a screen from his com to continue watching his sports entertainment as he walked, Santino noted the message stating he was required to remain moving for twenty minutes. Since he completely disliked voice commands, The Network projected a step-by-step directional guide for Santino to follow while the com registered his movement and The Network recorded his compliance. If Santino did not complete the walk, The Network would note his deviation and his health insurance premiums would be adjusted to reflect his lack of exercise. If he substituted the walk with separate exercise at a local gym, the adjustment would be made again. To have a run in the open-air count on the medical records, he would have his com monitor his heart rate and send the workout report to his medical file. But Santino did not run in the open air, especially in winter months, his mandated workday walks, and morning stretches, were the only exercise he actively undertook.
With no specific task to complete inside the server room, except to keep walking as his directed workout, he completed the round within the twenty-minute timeframe and returned to the Control Room. Arriving back, he dropped into his chair. When a live football game featuring his preferred team began, the monitor automatically switched channels and displayed the game broadcast. Santino had not moved from his chair. But he knew after two hours another walk alert would appear, and he would once again project a screen from his com to keep watching the game as he moved around.
At mid-day, a drone flew into the room carrying a miniature-heated oven, about twice the size of a lunchbox, and run on battery power. The drone placed the oven on the table in front of Santino and used its long pincer claws to place a hot meal - a burrito, tortilla chips and a soft drink - on the table before him. When he had first moved to Grand Rapids, Santino had manually ordered lunch from every nearby restaurant with delivery options to the hydro station. After selecting his favorites, he had programmed the preferences into his com, and every workday a delivery message was automatically sent to the next restaurant selection on his list to bring his lunch at a scheduled time and charge the cost to his credit account. Since the drone was pre-cleared for delivery, the facility's doors automatically opened when the ma
chine arrived and projected an admittance request message at the entryway sensors. The programming also directed the drone to the control room and pinpointed the table where the meal should be placed. Santino was feeling hungry and had expected the meal to arrive at any moment. When the drone completed the meal set-up, he did not take his eyes off the game, but mechanically moved towards the table and began to eat.
When Santino had finished eating, he selected the cleanup icon on his employee monitor. A robot appeared holding a trashcan in one metal hand. The machine was made from refurbished steel and built to resemble a human with two legs and two arms but with a monitor screen head displaying text messages. Proceeding directly to the table, the robot used one mechanical hand to pick up all of the paper and leftover trash and placed the items in the trashcan. Santino was not exactly aware of the robot's next movements but he knew the machine carried the trash to a waste disposal station where sensors separated all material for recycling as paper, plastic, food or other waste. As the robot departed, Santino settled back across his chair once again.
Santino's daily routine was also his life. The Network required no thinking, no additional input, no pro-action, and no consent. Around the world, billions of people employed in programmed jobs or staying around their homes, were stepping through their day based solely on instructions coming from The Network, with no awareness or consciousness of how they had arrived at this point. The system had always been there, as a protector and guide whose primary singular purpose was security, but whose primary singular functionality had become, human control.
Late in the afternoon of Santino's routine day, generation of data inside The Network would ignite a physical reaction, a fire, burning inside a data cord in a server room at the hydro station facility. Initially no human, machine or Network action would respond.
The careful, relentless Network programming designed to identify every anomaly in electronic operations would pause.
The human selected by evolution to operate by virtue of a thinking brain, at an advanced level over all other species, would be inert.
The machines requiring either a human or a networked-system to operate would be immobile.
With the exception of the background noise of the football game, silence would continue throughout the facility. But unlike a human who can decide to stop moving, The Network's mandate was to continue functioning on a faultless, inflexible schedule of productivity. A machine programmed to action, reacts. And unknown to an unwilling Santino and an unaware world, The Network's response would push humanity beyond all habitual routine, as the first signal was received that the humans and The Network had begun to diverge from their shared point of origin.
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Life Online is just beginning...
Read the bonus excerpt Chapter One of The Motion Clue to find out what happens next with Santino and the unexpected disruption to his routine day.
Learn more from The Origin Point story by reading selected redacted documents from the Contents on the Mystery Flash Drive.
Find much more about the Life Online series at Case Lane's website.