Barbara looked me in the eye. “What I love or don’t love, or hate or don’t hate, has nothing to do with anything. What’s important—what I originally wanted to learn from you, and why I saved you from Yoobie a little while ago—is your expertise. I could use your help. And you could use mine.”
“Another joint venture?”
“Yes, but this one has a nobler goal. We’re going to overthrow Yoobie.”
“Wow,” I said. “You and I are that powerful?”
“Don’t be so cynical. Yes, you and I. With a little help from our friends.”
“Who are?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now I need to do some work.” She rose and went to the door. “It’ll take me about an hour. I suggest you stay here. I won’t try to stop you from leaving, but if you do, you can’t get back in. And remember, you’re wanted now.”
“You’re not exactly on friendly terms with Yoobie either, are you? I bet they still don’t know anything about you. The truth, I mean. They still think Arden was the one who made the discovery.”
“So? Who cares what Yoobie scientists think? I don’t need them, nor want them. I don’t take the drug because I’m one of the few people who don’t need it. The drug doesn’t interest me. What I want is the same as what you want: to destroy Yoobie.”
“And replace the government with what?”
“With something less intrusive. We’ll talk about that later. The important thing for now is that you need me and I need you. And we can both sink each other if we choose. I could hand you over to Yoobie, and you could tell them about me and my lab. But since neither of us wants to go to rehab, I assume we’ll both keep our mouths shut.”
“Who are those friends you mentioned? The advanced AIs?”
“As I said, you’re a bright fellow.”
“Barbara, there’s no way that you and I and a few AIs can conquer millions and millions of people—”
Her eyes flashed in anger. “How can someone so smart be so blind and dumb? You and your silly Opposition don’t seem to understand that you’re the majority.”
I laughed. “I think you know better than that. If we’re the majority, how come Yoobie pols keep getting elected? The elections aren’t rigged. Loyalist pols get the most votes, but what can you expect when more than two-thirds of the citizens are on the dole? People vote for who gives them money. It’s the old bread-and-circus routine. Keeps the people happy so they don’t revolt—in the street or the ballot box.”
“The people in this country are slaves. And while most of them are stupid, even stupid slaves know they aren’t free, no matter what Yoobie’s mass media tell them. Slaves resent their masters. They obey their masters to get their bread and circuses, as you put it, but they’ll revolt the minute they get a better alternative.”
She saw my stunned expression and gave me a smug look. “Sometimes I think the Opposition is as dumb as Yoobie. You’re just playing games. You confine yourselves to your cells and little operations where one cell doesn’t know anything about the others, and you get giddy using your code words and your speakeasies and your vices and never realize that you are running this country about as much as Yoobie is.” She started to go. Before she closed the door she said, “I’ll be back in about an hour. You staying?”
I nodded. I needed the time to think.
By the time Barbara returned I’d made up my mind.
I’d reevaluated my position on a lot of things. The Opposition, for instance. Barbara had shocked me with some of the things she’d said, but what was more shocking was that I found myself unable to refute her argument. Amazing what hearing a fresh perspective will do for your outlook, especially when the perspective comes from someone who’s perceptive. And that someone tells you things that have perhaps been stealthily working their way into your mind for some time.
I belonged to an organization that essentially consisted of a bunch of adults playing children’s games. We laughed and thumbed our noses at Yoobie and got away with as much as we could and called it freedom. But we weren’t doing much good. We weren’t striving for meaningful change, we had instead settled down into childish bouts of tag or hide-and-go-seek. That surely wasn’t the primary reason the organization had been founded.
Did I want to topple the government or not? If so, then shouldn’t I pitch my tent with rebels who were talented and serious? People like Barbara.
Sounded good. Except when I dug a little more deeply.
I figured I had a good idea what Barbara was planning. Although we might be able to bring Yoobie to its knees, I worried about what would come next. Change isn’t necessarily always for the better. The alternative could be a whole lot worse.
What could be worse than an incompetent tyrant? A competent one.
Barbara was brilliant in some ways, terribly immature in others. I believed she’d go ahead with her plan with or without my help. That presented a dilemma. I had started contemplating the unthinkable. I might end up fighting for the status quo—and defending, of all things, Yoobie. The very thought crushed my spirit. I’d have no identity, no soul after that.
But I had a third option, and that’s the one I chose. It would be the riskiest move I’d ever made, and in addition, I’d also be putting Barbara at risk. But the risk wasn’t great if the argument she’d put forward, and evidently believed, was valid.
She came into the room and sat down in a chair. She lit a cigarette and eyed me warily. “You want to know the plan?”
I nodded.
“We place AIs at strategic points in the system, secretly replacing the existing AIs. Dispatch, routing, financial services, transportation, etcetera. The AIs can be easily trained. I don’t know how to write the code but I don’t have to—we already have a template, constructed by computer experts. All I have to do is add some code to simulate the genetic processes that make them truly intelligent. I can handle the AIs, but what I need is someone who understands and can manipulate Yoobie’s networks, otherwise we can’t install them where we want without Yoobie getting wise. That’s where you come in. Daddy said you’re one of the best.”
“I’m assuming you want to wait until all the AIs are in place before activating them?”
“They’ll be functional the moment they’re installed, but at first they’ll do Yoobie’s bidding, so government officials won’t notice anything’s wrong. The AIs will dispatch agents, gather and analyze data from sensors, keep traffic flowing normally, distribute and schedule the slaves’ bread and circuses, and so forth. But then, when we’ve got everything ready, we switch the AIs into a different mode a few weeks or months before the next election. We don’t want them to stop working or behave erratically because Yoobie could recover from that. We want them to maximize Yoobie’s distress. Send their transports crashing into one another. Feed them ‘actionable intelligence’ that some of their prominent pols are members of the Opposition. Send all the benefits to the wealthy instead of the poor.”
“And while Yoobie is in chaos, we foment revolt?”
“I think revolt will happen without our help because Yoobie will lose big at the polls, but if you want to lend a hand, that’s fine. After Yoobie falls, we can use the AIs to guide the reconstruction. I don’t much care what kind of political system replaces the Bureaus—I presume it will be something inefficient and unwieldy, but as long as it doesn’t try to live my life for me and tell me what I can and can’t do, it’s okay with me. I just want a big science budget. Remember that, if you become a pol. Money for science.”
“That’s your bread and circus?”
Barbara gave me a long look. “Very funny. Science is truth, not entertainment. There’s a lot left to be learned.” She inhaled a lungful of smoke. As she blew it out she said, “Want some advice? Distribute the wonder drug to people, even if they don’t want it. Do it secretly if you have to. Smart people can handle freedom whereas ignorant people can’t. Isn’t that what Thomas Jefferson once said?”