CHAPTER ONE - THE BROKEN SILENCE
An intense burst of energy surged through a plain plastic and copper data cord. Internally, the physical piece of hardware succumbed to the overload pressure created by an unexpected wave of digital code. Externally, the cord burned until the wire split in half, and the pieces fell into the organized rows of connectors hanging, u-shaped like jump rope, between the server racks. No human saw the break happen, and no human intervened. On monitor screens from twenty feet to eight thousand miles away, an error message appeared. Error messages occurred from time to time, then disappeared after a Network fix. By design, The Network functioned on a continuous, seamless, unyielding schedule programmed to direct all electronically-managed activity. But to The Network's surprise, this error message was not reacting to the design.
Louis Santino, a burly, 43 year old former professional football player from down south in Fargo, North Dakota, was the technician in charge, the only human located at the 148-acre hydroelectric power facility on the craggy lakeside in northern Manitoba. Inside the fiberglass walls of the main Control Room, Santino could not see the error message displayed on a monitor two feet above his line-of-sight. He was lying across his chair watching a football game. Enraptured by the competition, Santino kept his eyes on the screen, his ears tuned to the loud volume, and his body balanced across the industrial furniture. Like many humans, he relished viewing a spectacle of men engaged in dangerous, physical hand-to-hand competition. To keep the game at levels of continuous brutal contact, professional football players wore body armor shields. Fans logged on to watch hulking men of swift athletic skill tangle with skilled players with lightening hands, directed by coaches using thought strategies to outwit their opponents. Eagerly anticipating trick plays, spectators waited for the novelty of witnessing humans execute unpredictable options by using only their brains and bodily strength. But the coaches also used The Network. They had computer applications, called apps for short, running pattern simulations on completed games, and analyzing player moves and statistics over his lifetime. Still, most fans ignored the programmed assistance in favor of the thrilling live play.
Santino focused on the intensifying game action until, without warning, the words 'Alert Signal' displaying in 64-point red block letters, flashed, like the bullet from a firing gun, directly in front of his eyes. Shocked into a swiftness that recalled his own playing days, Santino jumped straight up and out of his chair. Having never previously seen the alert message projection function used, he stood stock still in the center of the room. Without prompting, the game volume on the viewing monitor decreased, and The Network switched his viewing preference from 'live' to 'record.' The Network knew Santino would continue watching the game at a later time, and its automatic behavior prediction feature reacted by saving the broadcast for him.
As his shaking legs settled into an upright place, Santino slowly lifted his handheld com to eye level. All of the facility's operations, the signals, reports and alert data, could be tracked through his com, a palm-sized, flat-screen, black-rimmed, plastic electronic device he had strapped to his belt. All communication devices, or electronic tools with similar features, were called a com even though the equipment had a range of fading names like phone, radio, television, camera, personal electronic device, or palm, because most literally fit into a hand. Some were branded after fruits including berry, apple, cherry or orange, but those were favored by children. The choice of size, shape and materiel used to manufacture coms was almost limitless, but all had one shared function, all were wirelessly connected to The Network.
People in cities usually kept the com functionality attached to a part of the body like the wrist, or to clothing like a flap on a shirt pocket, but Santino preferred holding the physical device, and the feel of identifiable material between his fingers. The display screen fit snuggly into his large hand tightly grasping the edges as he guardedly read the message The Network was displaying - Employee Intervention Required - for an error, an electrical shortage on the grid in Sector 2G. In sixteen years on the job, Santino had never received an alert requiring him to personally engage in an error repair action. Puzzled, he took a deep breath and began to feel slightly anxious.
Within the minute passing by, a transport silently rolled into the Control Room, and the sight of the driverless vehicle prompted Santino to jump again. The transport, an IO Rider for indoor-outdoor, was sized and shaped like an old snowmobile, with a closed, clear fiberglass box cab on top, and space for two passengers sitting one behind the other. With functionality to hover forward, backward and sideways, or move on bare floors, carpet, gravel, grass, cement, ice, snow and heated terrain, the Rider automatically adjusted to the ground beneath its wheels. Santino stared at the transport and his anxiety deepened.
The Network had processed Santino's transport preference against the intended destination, detected his com location, cross-referenced his image from the surveillance camera in the Control Room, and sent the Rider directly to where he stood. Knowing Santino had little history of leisure walking, certainly not to the distance of Sector 2G, and almost never in winter temperatures, The Network calculated he would not walk to the error location. With his profile, even if Santino had preferred to walk, the transport would follow him, and his com screen would not change instructions until he accepted the ride. He had no override code for the transport's operations. Without another option, he climbed into the Rider, and as The Network registered the pressure of his buttocks on the seat, the cab door slowly closed. Santino did not want, or have to, look at the dashboard screen in front of him as the data updated to display the destination. Although all of his next required actions were automatically uploaded to his com, he was too confused to view the information.
The Rider departed the Control Room, but as the vehicle approached the facility's garage style exit doors, the wheels rolled to a stop at a walk-in closet lining one of the walls, and waited next to a table holding a set of clothing neatly separated from other varying sizes hanging inside. Using Santino's already stored measurements, The Network had selected a coat, snow pants, hat, scarf, gloves and boots, and arranged the items, distributed by conveyor belt, at the closet entrance. Santino stepped out of the transport and walked up to the table. He did not examine the clothing, which was not only his size, but also his color. Putting the items on, he would not normally question why he was dressing warmly, but a flash in his memory considered that if the transport had stopped for winter clothing, The Network not only wanted him to go outside of the facility, but also to step out of the vehicle. The building temperature was a comfortable 71 degrees Fahrenheit, and Santino was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Outdoors the atmosphere was minus 20, but now in January, the biting air would feel like minus 36. The vast, empty expanse of semi-permafrost and razor thin trees encircling the complex was an occupied home dominated by black bears and gray wolves. The facility at Grand Rapids, the westernmost outpost of Canada's Hudson Bay Hydroelectric and Water Reservoir Complex, was on the 53rd latitudinal parallel, north. In winter, the terrain was surrounded by ice and snow as far as the eyes could see, and there was no cover from the elements. Humans rarely ventured into the open air as part of their daily functioning. The outdoors was for adventurers, sportspeople, environmentalists, and the occasional daring family with children who wanted to ensure the next generation knew about natural trees and flowers. In cities, both icy and tropical weather populated areas had connected most buildings through tunnels, underground shopping centers, transport stations, subways, overhead crosswalks, and covered people movers. Designated industry employees, like agricultural managers, occasionally worked outside, but only when The Network signaled a problem that could not be remotely fixed, which did not happen often.
Fully dressed for the temperature change, Santino returned to the Rider and, still avoiding the dashboard panel, stepped in and sat down. A few extra seconds would pass as the Rider recalibrated his weight to detect he had su
fficient cover for his required pending activity. Satisfied, the transport closed its door and moved towards the garage opening. On approach, the garage door began to rise, and at exactly the spot where the entry panel was three feet over Santino's head, the transport crossed from the controlled environment of the facility into the unmanaged wilderness. The moment the transport cleared the exit, the door rolled back down. The silent descent was not unknown to Santino, but he turned back to follow its close. From his vantage point, the entryway was a gray cut in a wall of snow, unknown as the access to a billion dollar facility currently without a single human inside the walls. As the transport moved forward, he continued to watch the door shrink and fade away from sight.
Despite being inside a heated cab, Santino immediately felt the bitter cold. Living in the North did not inure him to experiencing the region's winter. As the Rider followed an expected path to Sector 2G, the wind whipped around the transport, and cut through gaps in Santino's additional clothing. Defrosters kept the cab windows from fogging and icing over, and he could see the mix of nature and human destruction all around him. The facility's land was covered in short pine trees, limping in the frozen bog of winter, black and white in every direction. But the man-made structures were gray and silver, cement and steel walls pushed up against a body of water, flowing even in the cold, as liquid rushing through the barrier with a force turning the world's largest turbines, and pushing electrons out over wires for thousands of miles. Santino did admire the engineering, and all of the details required to create the facility, but the construction operated on a relatively ancient design, vulnerable to terrorists, remote and disruptive to the natural environment. Clean air had a price, humans had learned that lesson decades ago.
The Rider traveled 50 mph, and for a minute Santino considered he had no idea where Sector 2G was located. When he had first obtained the hydro job, he had been told not to expect to know the layout of the complex, The Network would lead him to any location he was required to visit. But in his idleness with the employment's tasks, he would scroll through distraction options on his com, which led occasionally to searching The Network to view maps and blueprints for the facility. Coms had an endless array of features, but the only portal for accessing all functions was The Network. Every business used The Network for operations, administration, sales tracking, inventory ordering, marketing and forecasting, and since employees needed the information for their work, instant access was available through their coms. The same device facilitated personal lives by displaying The Network links to data inputted into computers as text and voice communications, government records, education results, employment opportunities, sports scores, movie reviews, consultations, nutrition advice, weather warnings, and all other information stored on globally-connected servers. Recorded movements from cameras and sensors tracking the timing and changes in human activity were automatically stored on servers too. The Network continuously scanned servers, even those not exposed to the public Internet to retrieve, cross-reference, and integrate data within controlled spaces. Aggregated data was used to create and send appropriate daily life instructions, specifically prepared for each individual's com, and all other coms interacting with an individual. Avoiding The Network was considered impossible. Some people tried diminishing its role in their lives, but few completely avoided the functions. The Network managed personal lives, businesses, organizations, and government operations with efficiency and accuracy, directing individuals throughout the day, and even allotting time for relaxation and socializing. Millions of programs and apps recalculated and redefined data every second, and the data fed the human's com, and the human reacted accordingly.
But The Network did not ignore the surfing of its own files. If an unexpected search pattern was recorded, a protocol determined if the issue should be escalated. After Santino had executed several similar search requests about the facility, The Network had sent a text message asking him to define the information he was looking for, and the reasons for his search. After one warning, if an employee persisted with unexplained research, The Network would implement a punishment tailored to the employee's preferences. When Santino had tested the protocol once too often, The Network blocked his access to Internet sports and entertainment sites for 24 hours. He had been left with the silence of the Control Room. Since that day, he had not bothered to look at the facility's layout again.
Without an awareness of his current location or intended destination, Santino patiently sat as the Rider continued to fly across the terrain, automatically making speed adjustments to account for the surroundings, the activity in the area, and the presence, or lack of, other vehicles. All transports had sensors for assessing the environment around a route. If no other movement was detected along the travel path, the transport could accelerate across the snow and ice like the wolves in pursuit of prey in the forest nearby. Santino let the wind, snow and trees pass by him as a cascade of debris from a sneeze, and considered for a moment that he might be enjoying the ride. But when the vehicle began slowing down, his anxiety returned. Sector 2G arose no special memories for Santino. He was not near the main dam, but out along the high voltage electrical power lines running away from Grand Rapids to all defined destinations. The dashboard was displaying the coordinates for the area, but he was still not interested in registering detailed information. As the Rider came to a stop at the base of an electrical transmission tower, Santino leaned back against the seat, and the cab door slowly opened.
Looking out into the bleak of the fading daylight, Santino waited for his instruction. But after another minute, he realized the transport would not be in talk mode. He was one of the few employees who hated voice instructions. Transport voices could be any modulation, a soprano lady, a child, your own, but Santino preferred not to respond to electronically-spoken instructions. Other people did not mind, especially if they were around humans all day. But Santino had decided in the absence of working with humans, having a computer talk to him seemed a little desperate. His home system had available voice commands, but since The Network already knew he had most audio turned off, the system waited for him to read his instructions from the Rider dashboard screen or his com. Choosing to ignore both options, Santino braced for the cold and stepped out of the cab. A sensation overcame him he rarely felt, surprise. He stared up at the rising extended stretch of tower steel, glanced down at his com, and back at the Rider.
The transmission tower was one of thousands of identical steel structures built to the sky on needle-like precision that minimized wind shear and maximized height. Santino could not see the top, only sensor lights illuminating in red, yellow or green, offering the same advisory as streetlights. At first glance, all he saw was green. But as he looked straight up the spine of the tower, another shockwave slowly rolled over him. Santino felt the unfamiliar sensation again, surprise, cloaked in an even more unexpected awareness of rising trepidation. In the near night sky glowed the unmistakable purple light of a hovering drone.
Unmanned aerial devices operating one hundred percent automatically on instructions from The Network, or automatically with a human override, or one hundred percent by a human with a manual remote control were, by common understanding, a drone. The machines could be any size, and had a variety of functional uses including carrying products from instruction documents to packages to emergency kits to repair tools, to assisting with construction and structural repairs or disaster rescue, and targeted surveillance. Drones could be any geometric shape even balls or triangles, or resemble miniature versions of helicopters and other flying machines. For delivering packages in a city, drones were predominately one-foot square boxes, but for military maneuvers in the desert, the machines were the size of single-passenger airplanes. Humans co-opted the name 'drone' from military aircraft used for missions in the last century’s desert wars. The military and drone manufacturers had desperately tried to encourage an independent civilian name for the machines,
but the term had long ago passed into popular use, easy to say, spell and remember. With unlimited specs, drones could also be manufactured in a variety of facilities, and be equipped with weapons, legally or not. Businesses, organizations, professionals and individuals ubiquitously used civilian drones in all aspects of their daily lives and operations. Humans appreciated the conveniences provided by the machines, and most were placidly comfortable with the devices moving above them at work, in streets, parks, homes and office buildings. Drones and humans were considered completely compatible.
On an industrial site, the machines were work-tools, programmed to lift heavy objects, patrol remote facilities, and ferry goods around complexes. By law, the devices emanated a unique fluorescent light created under patent through a color simulation of royal purple and aquamarine blue unavailable for use by any other aerial object. Civilian drones had to be distinguishable from every other status light or active device in the sky. All recognized nations had signed a treaty solidifying, for governments, companies, and international service organizations, the unified rules for the use of commercial drones. In most countries, individuals could own personal drones and the action lights could take on any hue. But the status light color humans and The Network saw, as the drone moved through the sky, or hovered nearby, had to be drone purple.
Santino recognized the purple light, but not the drone. His apprehension rising again, he looked at his com to search for the drone's identification record. But there was no report and no displayed coordinates for a drone in the vicinity. He hit 'Refresh,' and the screen re-emerged in less than a second. His instructions were still there, but no drone indicator. Confused, Santino knew he should not be able to see a drone's light, if there was no drone. Repair drones were stored at locations all around the complex, and The Network could dispatch one to any location to fix an operational problem. But the system would never send a human and a drone to look at the same error at the same time. If animals or the weather had damaged a line, drones equipped with cameras, mechanical arms or industrial equipment, could make the repairs without humans. A human employee could view the repair operation from the Control Room using the fixed surveillance cameras, the repair drone's camera, or even dispatch a specific camera drone to record the action. Company management or law enforcement could also dispatch camera drones at any time to look at incidents around the site. The Network would recognize the internal instruction and update an employee's com. Occasionally a specific authorization was required to be advised if a drone was on site, but that advisory usually depended on security issues, which Grand Rapids never had.
Santino's puzzlement was quickly turning to outright fear. He desperately considered if the situation had a valid explanation. He wondered if he was looking at a camera drone a human monitor had sent to view the error. Although he was the only human at the complex, he was not exactly alone. The electronic surveillance was extensive and omnipresent. The complex's operations could be monitored from the company's operational facilities 1,100 miles to the south in Kansas City in the United States. After Kansas City, the data was continuously backed up to a server farm in Iceland, and its backup was in Liberia. Because hydroelectric power was a strategic and vital resource for millions of people, the Canadian Defense Force Command Centre near Ottawa monitored all of the connected sites, and the North American Defense Command outside Denver monitored all monitoring. Mexican officials kept their eyes on activity from their surveillance complex in Toluca, west of Mexico City. The Chinese and Europeans were also likely to be paying attention, but their surveillance was not considered official, and was politely ignored. At least one Santino-level employee, but not many more, worked at every monitoring site. The locations were responsible for continuously viewing all security at all energy plants, reservoirs, sub-stations, and along thousands of miles of transmission lines stretching across the North American continent. Santino expected the individual who sent the drone to be aware a human was at the same location, but it was also possible human operators did not have the same information. Disturbingly, he had no definitive idea which options were operational. He had never interacted with the information, equipment and protocols available to the monitoring teams around the world. He could only be almost certain, although not completely, that The Network would detect any drone at the complex, and he should be able to see the detection on his com. 'This is strange,' he considered, looking around. Grand Rapids had 10,124 cameras and sensors, all visibly on. Each networked security device could register the difference between a black bear, wind, an authorized human employee, and an unauthorized intruder. An unknown, unidentified detection would trigger an intruder protocol. After analyzing evidence from camera and sensor data, The Network would activate an investigatory drone to deploy to the incident site. Since the company had the right to be advised of all drones inside its complex, if this one was not an authorized drone, the unauthorized intrusion protocol should already be in progress. Either way The Network must be aware a drone was here and inform the human employee. Santino should have the information on his com, but he did not.
Abruptly, the sound of metal cracking ice emerged from the Rider. Santino spun around to face the sight of a ladder unfolding from the transport's side panel, and ascending like a stretching coil up the narrow steel edge of the tower. The transport remained parked alongside the base, and Santino observed the action with increasing nervousness. The ladder inched up, and at every two-foot mark automatically unrolled a clamp to attach to the tower's frame. Although The Network could continuously measure the voltage traveling in any direction, and the chance of a miscalculation was negligible, the absorption ladder was a precaution used as a barrier to protect humans from electrical currents. If charges were unbalanced, The Network sensed and corrected the difference, by redirecting electricity across the appropriate wires to cut voltage to an overcharging section, or increasing production to one reporting a shortage. Santino eyed the ladder's resolute rise up and out of his sight. Holding his com up to eye level, he noted his next displayed instruction was to climb. He moved over to the affixed steps, but stopped and stood with one foot on the lowest rung. Sucking in a deep breath of the ice-laced air, he uncomfortably realized he had come all of the way out to Sector 2G, and did not know why. 'What was the repair work that could not be completed by a drone or The Network?' Feeling increasingly unnerved in the bitter Canadian cold, Santino finally decided he should read the entire Network error report.
Gripping his com, he scrolled the text back to the point where the error message had first appeared. All company messages were configured to a specific employee by prior education, experience and duties. If an engineer pulled up the same report, the details would contain technical language and schematics, for Santino the display was basic points explained in plain English. The report began with the surcharge, but did not state the source, next were instructions he had already witnessed, leading to the pending step for a human action to ascend the ladder. None of this information was a revelation to Santino, but the fact he was standing out in the cold did not add up. Now if he wanted to return indoors, he would have to follow The Network instructions or the transport would not process his efforts and take him back inside. The temperature felt like it was dropping by the minute, forcing his questions and concerns to be clipped at the same precipitous pace.
As sheer spots of frost began to develop on the waiting ladder, Santino realized the error must be unrecognizable by a drone or The Network, or both, and this possibility terrified him. He was a technician, not an engineer or an electrical tower designer. 'What did The Network conclude he could do?' The report on his com had stopped at action for a human, and he was the one who had been brought to the site to complete the task. 'Maybe this was some new, unknown type of damage.' Although The Network could assess any error, and determine a repair protocol, an unforeseen problem may have intervened with the process. Suddenly, Santino felt better. 'Yes,' he deci
ded. 'It's an unknown type of damage The Network cannot interpret, that's why a human is required.' But as he began to climb the ladder steps, apprehension swept over him again. 'What could be an issue he would encounter that The Network could not detect, analyze and manage on its own?' All information was in The Network, all of the data humans knew. The entire hydro complex - the electrical systems, transmission towers and programming for the servers - had been designed and built by computers. As Santino climbed the ladder, he ached to imagine the problem he would find, and failed to process any potential scene.
Rising up the transmission tower were sensors placed at two-foot intervals. The tower stood at 216 feet, and his com indicated a red light flashing at marker 56, 112 feet up, high enough that as Santino began to climb, he would not be able to see the sensor above him until he drew nearer. As he continued to ascend, another confusion wave rolled over him. Part of The Network's standard error assessment was to send photos or video of the problem for review prior to transporting the employee to the site. Yet he was climbing without any diagnostic or repair tools. After only visually noting the error, he would have to input findings into his com, and wait for The Network to determine his next action, including if necessary, delivering required tools. With each step Santino's incomprehension soared. The lack of visuals, he realized, must be an error within the error.
A minute later, reaching the 100-foot mark, he emerged into the unidentified drone's defined purple glow illuminating the flat black sky around him. By silently hovering, the drone complied with laws protecting birds and other flying creatures from audio disruption to their natural rhythms by man-made airborne devices. But the accommodation ended there. The machine was a two-foot square box coated black except for one side featuring a clear plastic viewing window, a popular feature Santino enjoyed because a human could see directly in to the electronics. Despite the ease with which drones fit into human life, an interior view reminded humans, the drones were machines. Unlike flying creatures, drones did not require wings, but many people, the opposite of the interior-view types, added the feature as if to reassure themselves the machines were more ecological, members of the bird family, and not an output from a gadget factory. The movement of the box reflected its gravity-defying support. The device made an almost imperceptible rocking motion, adjusting up and down and side-to-side, which aided in remaining steady in the blowing air. Seeing the drone waiting with balanced calm, Santino stared and offered, under his breath, a slight moaning "hmm" as a greeting when his eyes and hands reached level with marker 56, 112 feet above the ground on the transmission tower in Sector 2G.
"Good evening," the machine greeted him in a clear, steady news announcer's voice.
The drone's verbal reaction locked Santino into a reflexive shock. His hair stood up at the back of his neck, and his hands gripped the ladder frame as he thwarted an instinct to jump. Drones did not talk. Not only could a human turn off all talk instructions from Network-connected electronics, but also by law and common practice, company drones, law enforcement, military, all standard, work-related drones, did not talk. Emergency rescue drones had a speaker function humans used for communicating in disaster areas when drones were used to look for survivors. And many civilians had personal talking drones. But flying a talking drone in public airspace with the talk function turned on was illegal. Under no normal circumstances would a drone dispatched to an industrial work site talk, no circumstances at all. Drones were not robots, robots could talk, and everyone knew that. But governments, and most citizens, did not want to hear talking from boxes or bags with wings. Public spaces were already disturbed by the miniaturization of coms, making humans always appear to be talking to themselves. But the confusion would escalate if tens of thousands of inanimate objects also spoke randomly and simultaneously aloud. Part of the ease felt with the flying devices humans had come to tolerate was awareness that the machines did not talk. "A talking drone," Santino whispered under his breath, while glancing at the box. The machine did not reply. Santino could now hear his own heart beating loud and fast beneath the layers of winter clothing. 'A talking drone,' he silently repeated, staring at the machine. For the first time in the evening, he was absolutely certain the incident was not routine, but forced outside of his experience, education, training and knowledge of human life. Drones did not talk. Humans and drones were not sent to repair the same error at the same time. And the error at marker 56 was not an error that had ever been seen before.