The combined public outrage from these events led to a steep drop in popularity of President Owen Asher and a marked increase in public support for laws restricting research into genetics, cloning, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and any approach to creating "super-human" beings.
Public response led to the Chandler Committee hearings of 2030-2031, the passage of the Chandler Act, and the creation of the ERD. These events also played a role in the presidential campaign of 2032, contributing to the election of Governor Miles Jameson as President and Senator (now President) John Stockton as Vice President, and in the 2035 drafting of the Copenhagen Accords on Global Technological Threats.
History of Advanced Technological Threats, ERD Library Series, 2039 [Unclassified]
6
EXTERNAL CONDITIONS
"I'll do it," Kade told them.
"Good," Becker nodded. "You're making the right choice."
"So who am I spying on?"
Becker tapped his slate and the wallscreen came to life.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL IS CLASSIFIED:
TOP SECRET CITADEL FOUR
DISCLOSURE OF THIS MATERIAL TO UNCLEARED INDIVIDUALS IS A FEDERAL OFFENSE PUNISHABLE BY UP TO 30 YEARS IN PRISON.
The twin logos of the Department of Homeland Security and the Emerging Risks Directorate within it bracketed the security clearance warning.
"You're about to receive top secret information. Do you understand that disclosure of this information, to anyone, is a felony with severe penalties?"
Kade swallowed. "Yes."
"Good," Becker said. He tapped his slate with a finger.
The wall screen advanced to the next slide. On it was a picture of a tall, elegant Asian woman in her early forties, caught looking to one side and smiling warmly at someone outside the image. Kade had seen her face before.
"Her name is Su-Yong Shu," Becker said. "You've probably heard of her."
Kade was momentarily speechless. Su-Yong Shu? A murderer?
Su-Yong Shu was perhaps the most impressive neuroscientist in the field. Asked to pick a working scientist who would one day win the Nobel Prize, Kade would have named her. She had done more to unlock the neural encoding of abstract reasoning, beliefs, motivations, and knowledge than anyone alive. Kade's work used statistical methods layered on top of models built in Su-Yong Shu's lab. She and her students put out a fire hose of top-notch papers. She was one of the most respected neuroscientists alive.
"You're calling Su-Yong Shu a murderer?" Kade asked. "Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Do you have any evidence to back that up?"
Becker tapped his slate. The screen changed again. Now it showed a picture of a man in the orange robes of a Buddhist monk, his shaven head bowed forward, kneeling in what looked to be a stone courtyard.
"This is a file photo of Lobsang Tulku, the Buddhist monk who shot and killed the Dalai Lama and two of his bodyguards in Dharamsala in 2037, and then took his own life."
Kade nodded. "I remember. He just snapped one day, right?"
"That's the story," Becker said. "We have reason to believe that's not what actually occurred. Instead, we believe that someone turned this man into a kind of puppet and used him to commit a political assassination."
Becker advanced the presentation again. The wall screen now showed a gruesome image of a twenty-something Asian man in monk's robes in a pool of blood, two bullet wounds in his head. The Dalai Lama. Kade felt his stomach churn.
"Lobsang had no history of owning or using firearms," Becker said. "So far as we know, he'd never even touched a gun until a week before this event. Yet his marksmanship was impeccable. He fired six times, twice for each of the two bodyguards, and twice for the Dalai Lama. Every one was a head shot. He didn't miss with a single bullet."
Holtzmann looked at Kade thoughtfully. "You could do something like this, couldn't you? Make a person into a robot?"
Kade stared at the photo. In theory… With enough time…
He said nothing.
Holtzmann watched him for a moment, then nodded.
Kade cleared his throat, trying to hold onto his skepticism. "Maybe there were things you didn't know about him. Maybe someone was training him all along, or planted him."
Becker cocked his head to one side. "Lobsang was a close associate of the Dalai Lama. They grew up together. He was an apparently devoted follower and friend of the Dalai Lama, an activist for Tibetan freedom, until one day he decided to kill his lifelong friend, and did so with the skills of a professional assassin."
Becker continued. "We know that Lobsang was detained in Tibet by the Chinese a few months earlier. He was in custody for forty-eight hours and was then expelled from the country. Lobsang claimed that he spent most of that time in silent meditation in his cell, but if someone used a neurotechnology to alter his memories…"
It's possible, Kade thought. Nexus would make a great assassination tool.
He shook his head again. Propaganda is the first tool of government, Wats had said. Skepticism. He would hold onto it.
"What does this have to do with Su-Yong Shu?"
"We'll get to that in a moment," Becker said.
He advanced the slide again. A ruined building appeared, obviously the site of an explosion. Bodies and wounded were strewn about, some of them in military uniform.
"Grozny, Chechnya, 2038. After nearly five years of peace, a young woman named Zamira Zakaev – a woman associated with a disarmed and peace accord-abiding Chechen independence group – blows up a nightclub popular with the Russian army. The event, which killed seventy-four civilians and thirty Russian soldiers, set off a wave of reprisals, which in turn set off more bombings. Russia moved three divisions of the Russian army back into the North Caucasus. The situation remains inflamed today."
"I don't see the connection," said Kade.
"Zamira Zakaev had traveled to China earlier in the year, and had also been held for two days by the Chinese authorities, for no obvious reason."
"Why would China want to bomb a club in Chechnya?"
"It distracts the Russians. Forces them to move their attention and their forces away from China."
Kade tried to absorb this. What did it have to do with Shu?
"One more," Becker said. "And then we'll get to why we think Su-Yong Shu is involved."
Becker tapped his slate again. The screen now showed an Asian man in a suit, fist raised in triumph or defiance above him, standing at a podium surrounded by a throng of people, some waving banners.
"This is Chien Liu, now president of Taiwan. This picture was taken on the eve of his election victory last year, in 2039. President Liu was the head of the DPP, the primary opposition party in Taiwan, and ran his campaign on an anti-Beijing platform. He pledged to roll back major pieces of integration. On the campaign trail he leveled sharp criticism at China on human rights, foreign policy, and its lack of internal reforms.