The North African breadbasket, as it had been called, was a Committee attempt to increase food production. Large portions of North Africa were turned over to agriculture; massive populations were relocated southwards – the whole process wiping out many indigenous species. Desalination plants were built to supply extra water but, due to a cost-based political decision, the resultant salt was dumped in storage bays inland. When, in the middle of the last century, the weather took one of its cyclic turns for the worse, resulting in an upsurge of rain in North Africa, billions of tons of salt had dissolved and run out into the fields, turning them barren. Meanwhile, nitrate and insecticide run-off had caused massive algae blooms and fauna deaths in the Mediterranean, shortly followed by an extension of coastal dead zones, until they met up with those extending out from southern Europe. The North Africa breadbasket had killed a large portion of the Mediterranean Sea.
Serene felt a moment of extreme disgust and annoyance. She had always felt that the Committee was utterly inefficient and this story perfectly illustrated why. Its problem, in the end, was that it had not properly rid itself of its human-centric take on governance. While it understood that humans had to be controlled for their own benefit, it had not grasped that they needed to be controlled for the benefit of more than that. They had to be controlled so as to maintain the ideal that was Earth – something she herself could see plainly but other humans apparently missed. It was the right and proper duty of a ruler to ensure everything in the human world ran at optimum efficiency, while also accepting that the human race was a plague on the face of the planet, an aberration which had its natural-world equivalents but was much more dangerous.
She sat back, scanning her garden, and noticed that some of the shrubs which she had thought were dead had put out new buds. Perhaps the nutrients provided directly by her previous horticulturalist were starting to do the trick. A distraction, however, so she returned to her thoughts.
The human race was a problem, and on those terms she must think to the future. While she herself was alive, it was a problem that could be controlled. Though medical research was reporting further breakthroughs in the banishment of senescence, and she could extend her own life, she still might die and whoever took over might not be as resolute.
Senescence . . .
Research into life extension was certainly right and proper for her, and for those she found useful, but perhaps it was time to consider a complete reversal of that concept as regards the bulk of the human race. In the end it came back to her earlier thoughts about modifying humanity.
Serene closed down the feed from the model, did a brief search and opened up some files she had been studying a few months back. The Alexes were an interesting experiment, undoubtedly. Absolute obedience and belief could be inculcated to deep levels – that was evident – but the whole operation was very labour intensive. She needed something better than that, something longer lasting. And in the end, as far as life forms were concerned, that came down to one thing: the immortal genes.
Another search began to render useful results. Telomere repair and extension and other genetic modifications resulted in a limited prolongation of life, but the reverse applied too. Those who had been seeking out how to make people live longer had, in the process, unearthed how very easy it would be, with some small genetic modifications, also to shorten human lives. This idea had its appeal, but Serene could see problems. Limiting the span of people’s lives could result in a loss of useful expertise. Quite obviously you did not want people like Calder dying by the early age of, say, forty. Also, limiting lifespan would not slow down breeding, which primarily needed to be controlled. So what was the answer?
Serene sat back and glanced at the empty bottle of champagne next to her, wondering if now was the best time to consider such things. Next, she turned her gaze up towards the light tubes in the ceiling. No, the sooner she began grappling with these problems the better, and she was starting to get some sense of the shape of a solution.
Truncation of lifespan and control of fertility were essential. The science of eugenics was the answer, and the way of applying that science had been staring her in the face. Wasn’t it obvious that the best way of controlling the human race was precisely the method she had already used? She could spread a plague.
Viral recombination of DNA was a proven science, with a history nearly a century long. It should be possible to manufacture a virus capable of modifying DNA so that those infected would have only a short lifespan and would die quickly at the end of it, without senescence, maybe at some convenient age, say at forty or fifty. Perhaps the same virus, or another one, could be made to render everyone thus infected infertile, but in such a way that turning fertility back on would just be a matter of administering drugs. That solution seemed best: the actual ability to have children being state controlled.
As far as expertise was concerned, she could ensure some meritocratic immunization programme, but only against the life-shortening aspect of the modification. Those demonstrating brains and ability would be allowed to live long lives, but their ability to breed would still be utterly controlled. This would result in humanity diverging into two different strands, but even that would not be a permanent state of affairs. As technology continued to advance, and as robots became more capable and more expert computer systems emerged, there would come a point when that shorter-lived version of humanity would no longer be needed.
It would, she realized, work perfectly. Therefore ordering the future lay completely within her grasp. The knowledge made her feel almost euphoric. However, the good feeling quickly passed as she realized that this was all merely a distraction from her immediate concern, which centred on events millions of kilometres away.
Argus
Feeling utterly cold, Saul watched through many sensors as the attackers worked their way down through Tech Central, blowing out the bulkhead doors that had closed to prevent atmosphere escaping. While this was occurring he considered the work of one of Hannah’s lab assistants, James Allison. For times when this man wasn’t helping her, she had provided him with a research project of his own. She had wanted him to do a comprehensive analysis of the Galahad biochips inside ID implants.
Allison had not been enthusiastic about that at first but, as with all good researchers, he was methodical and precise and soon did become fascinated with the device he was studying. His first report to Hannah concerned the cybernetic virus, shortly followed by the electro-templating method used to produce it from the recipient’s own venous system. He then delved deeper into the chip, revealing how its genocidal purpose was concealed within its professed aim of ensuring that no one but the original recipient of an implant could use it. It was interesting to note that when those involved in the implant black market shut down the chip’s ostensibly prime process of identification, the chip’s real purpose remained untouched.
Allison then detailed for her how the chip was activated. When a microscopic radio receiver within it detected the code of the implant, on the right coded frequency, with the addition of two zeros, it began its work. It was all quite prosaic. Galahad had simply added those two zeros to the implant codes of every zero-asset citizen on Earth, and killed them. Thereafter she had become more selective, still killing at will with two extra digits.
Useful information, if you knew the ID codes of your enemy.
The troops were now nearing the lowest floor, so Saul snapped out of his introspection and set all the robots in motion. The enemy spiderguns had to be dealt with first, because they were the most dangerous. Two construction robots threw themselves at the first spidergun from their place of hiding. It immediately opened fire on them both but, with its firing evenly divided between them, it could not deliver enough of a fusillade to halt their momentum. The two construction robots were almost completely wrecked under fire, but crashed into the spidergun and tangled themselves in among its limbs. Also shuddering under fire, the next two were able to reach it while still functional, if marginally so. They then set their diamond saws running, and in a businesslike manner began hacking it to pieces even while it continued to blow away pieces of their bodies. Other construction robots slammed into the fray until the scene resembled something in a wildlife documentary: ants swarming over a spider and tearing it apart. Eventually the surviving construction robots propelled themselves away, leaving nothing but pieces of the spidergun amid their wrecked fellows.