Dawn of the Unthinkable (34 page)

The flight had not been successful, and the
pilots were caught. They were looking at jail time and were going
to give up their sponsors, but they didn’t know Willows’ name, so
he managed to dodge the bullet this time. His friend was not so
lucky, however, and ended up having to plead guilty to a less
serious charge than smuggling. He got probation and was so strictly
monitored that he could no longer pursue his lucrative sideline. So
he half-cajoled and half-threatened Willows into taking over
arranging the flights. He gave him the information and told him
where to have it delivered for distribution. The first flight
Willows organized had gone well but exposed him to a class of
criminal that truly scared him, men that would actually kill him.
This had increased his stress level to the point that he was now
taking tranquilizers to offset the effects of too much cocaine. He
whole situation left him a physical and mental mess, causing him to
start failing at work and socially. The models he used to date no
longer returned his calls, as word went out quickly when one moved
into the “smuggler” class, which was looked down on due to its
seedy participants. So in order to bolster his ego, he had taken up
harassing his secretary into having sex with him, who was doing it
to keep her job.

So now, his once promising life was in
ruins, and then here was his partner to give him more grief. Of
course, he had a right to; Willows had treated him pretty poorly
over the last year or so. Willows didn’t know if he wanted to
continue the partnership any longer either, as Riven was a nice guy
who didn’t deserve the shit that he was pulling. But Willows wasn’t
in any shape to survive on his own or search for another job at
this point. So he had to convince Riven to keep it going until he
had something else to fall back on, something safer than being a
drug smuggler.

He smiled at Riven and said disarmingly,
“Guilty as charged,” and caught him off guard with his honesty. He
continued, “Man, I don’t know where it all went wrong. I got hooked
up with this group of people who lead a faster lifestyle than I’m
used to, and before I knew it, I’m trying to imitate them. So that
caused me to get involved with the powder, which is ruining my
judgment. That’s why I’m messing with Heather. I know that’s not
right, but I can’t help it. And I know I’ve been screwing you over,
too, man. I’m sorry about that.” He said the last very sincerely,
and he did mean it, but it was also calculated to gain some
sympathy and buy some time. It worked.

Riven shook his head sadly. He had seen many
on the street go through this or similar types of burn out. The
lure of money overcame many brokers and traders (He remembered the
film
Ghost
, and the black icons claiming the trader’s soul
still made him shudder.) and caused them to do all kinds of crazy
things. He had thought that Willows was more well-balanced, having
come from a small town with supposedly rock-solid virtues, but
greed was a universal affliction. He himself had felt it several
times but was always brought back to Earth by a sensible wife who
knew that prosperity was something earned by long, hard, honest
work. So Riven stuck with his grind-it-out method of good customer
service, and he was gradually being rewarded with increasing
wealth. Indeed, one of the few black clouds in his life was his
unstable partner.

Riven said, “Well, I didn’t mean to jump
down your throat like that, but it has been pretty frustrating to
keep covering for your sorry ass. You’re the one that wanted to
move to this fancier office, and now I’m left covering your share
of the rent. Well, I’m tired of it, and I need to see some
improvement. That means no more office drug use and preferably not
at home either, but I can’t regulate that. Also, leave poor Heather
alone; we hired a secretary, not a call girl. If she sued us for
sexual harassment, I’d have to back her up, which would have the
same effect as shooting myself in the foot. Not only would we have
to settle with her, but also I’d have trouble with my women clients
once word got out. And for God’s sake, get some rest and exercise;
you’re starting to make me look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.” They
both had a laugh at this, as the last person in the world that Joe
Riven resembled was the former body builder. The laugh reminded
them of their early, carefree days, and for a moment they were
silent, remembering good times.

Willows broke the moment. “Look, you’re
right, I need some help, and I plan to get some. I know you might
be thinking about getting out of our deal, but I’m asking you to
just hold on. I’ll get myself together. Please?” He knew he could
still charm Riven when he had to, but his case of silver bullets
was running low.

Riven was really not looking to dump him,
but at the same time, he had to be firm enough to convey his point
that his friend’s reckless lifestyle was starting to impact him.
“Okay, if you’re going to get help, fine. But I’m going to be
dusting Heather for fingerprints, so keep your hands off her, and
no repercussions to her either for me talking to you about her.
I’ll trust you to clean up your own affairs and to come up with the
rent you owe. Fair enough?” Riven thought this sounded fair,
although he wasn’t sure, as he had never had to deal with anybody’s
drug problem before. Willows jumped on it like it was a life
preserver.

“Thanks, man. That is very cool of you.
You’re a good man, Joe Riven.”.

Riven half-smiled and smirked and said,
“Yeah, right, whatever.” He left the office, leaving Willows to
figure out how to comply with everything he had just agreed to. He
didn’t have a clue, and he was dying for a snort. Damn shit, he
wished he had never tried it. But no time for regrets; he had to
find some for one last blow before he quit. Cold turkey, that was
the way for him. Yessir, he’d have this thing licked in no
time.

He wondered if Heather would give him back
any of the stash he had given her.

Winter 1994

Charles Lao worked in the Statistical
Analysis Department of the Brookings Institution. He was a Ph.D. in
Applied Mathematics, and working in the Institution was a dream job
for a numbers cruncher like him. They had the best computers
available, and the Institute was always willing to purchase
whatever he felt he needed to do his job correctly. His job was
interesting; the Institution was called upon to give their opinion
to the feasibility of various political and economic alternatives
that were very complex and had a huge amount of variables. It was
Charlie’s job to program them into an algorithmic model that would
sort out the possible from the fanciful and then rank the
probability of success of each one. The problems were so complex
that it often took him two weeks or more just to chart the
variables before he could figure out the proper algorithm to use.
Then he had to run the problem through several or many permutations
to find out if the answers made sense. That is, were they coming
out anywhere near the expected range?. That would give him an idea
as to whether he was on the right track. This type of mental
guessing game excited him, for although his numbers had to perform
precisely once they were in their place; it took creativity to
figure out where to put them. He knew there was probably no more
than several hundred mathematicians in the world who could do what
he did, and the fact that he had a nice secure place to do it made
him very happy. All in all, he was a lucky guy.

He was finishing up an analysis of
tightening monetary controls in a third world nation when a new
assignment came in. It was a confidential analysis for Senator
Kennedy, who was a favorite of Lao’s. His record on civil rights
spoke for itself, and as a minority in this great country, he knew
how important it was to have powerful sponsors. They wanted a
standard success/failure scenario and analysis for a new economic
system. Standard enough so far. He had done dozens of these, what
with everyone trying to convert to democracies these days. But as
he read further, he began to grow excited, then amazed. What the
author was talking about was doing it
here
, in the United
States, not some backwater ex-Communist/dictatorship. And what he
was talking about was not tweaking the current system or devaluing
the money to battle inflation, but doing away with it altogether!
Is this guy nuts
? Lao thought.
And how did he get a
senator to propose it to Brookings for him? He must be
connected
, Lao thought, as the Institution didn’t do its
expensive studies for just anyone. And it was a confidential study
at that, which may not ever earn the Institution a dime in
publishing rights or intangible influence gain. So this was out of
the ordinary, and gave Lao all types of delicious opportunities to
make his armies of numbers dance and sing.

He looked over the plan which was very vague
as to details and tried to imagine what his algorithm would look
like. There was no way a system like this could work long term in a
paper-based system. Lao recognized that soon the Internet would be
widespread throughout the country and that people with varying
computer skills would need to adopt computers as part of their
daily lives. Not only would implementation of technology be a
social (and costly) issue, but people would need to overcome
varying degrees of greed, avarice, , and a healthy dose of
skepticism from those in the majority who usually followed the
rules. They would have to be serviced by the system to the point
that initial resistance would eventually be overcome by gradual
recognition of the benefits of eradicating poverty.

The system would therefore have to be
efficient enough to do the trillions of variables that ordinary
commerce took care of every day, and do it dependably enough so as
not to have much down time, which could create panic. This was a
wonderful challenge, Lao realized. The advancements that would be
needed to create the technology for this kind of a program weren’t
that far away for people in the know, but it could jumpstart
society into a free-for-all of shared knowledge. If he could prove
that it could be done and show even a rudimentary working model of
it, the senator would have some heck of a speech to make. It would
be something way out of the ordinary for a guy who had broken quite
a few molds. Lao wondered about the author, Ryan. Not much
information was provided about him. He must be quite an independent
thinker to come up with something like this, but Lao bet he had no
idea how complex a computer project he was laying out when he wrote
it.

Lao had been experimenting with Artificial
Intelligence on his super computers, and if ever there was a need
for it, this was the problem. His system would lay out the basic
program, which would control the main inventories of goods and
services, but the in-home computers would have to “learn” their
master’s preferences and anticipate needs. This would allow
planning of production and allocation of resources, which would be
critical to the system’s success.
Kind of like anytime they
opened their mouths to complain, somebody would be there to cram a
donut in it
. Lao laughed to himself. No, there would have to be
more to this than just satisfying short term needs; there would
also have to be goals and achievement points built in, too, to
satisfy societies high flyers.

Before he started, Lao
asked himself the first question any good scientist asks before he
wastes a lot of time and effort—that is, what was the hypothesis?
Could he create a model that would reflect this society as
proposed? Lao didn’t see why not.
After all, the first cavemen
did not have money, and they survived, or we wouldn’t be here
,
he reasoned.
So, if they, with brains not as well developed as
our own, were able to survive and thrive in a tough environment,
then he ought to be able to develop a computer system that mimicked
their primitive system.
So, yes, he could do it. Now, what were
the first steps? Identify the variables.
No problem there
,
he thought.
Only several trillion to account for
, but then
the thought struck him:
No, why not simplify things? Why not
reduce the amount of items that the system tracks in minute
quantities
? He would devise a system that created five
lifestyle classes, from beginner to advanced, with ten combinations
of products available in each, for a total of fifty different
lifestyles. He quickly drew a flow chart on a piece of paper. The
classes would be assigned by life achievement like the article
said, and a person could pick a style with items that they valued
most. People who valued a better car than what type of house they
lived in would get to pick from several high-level cars but would
not have as nice a house as someone who valued their home more.
Food packages available in each class would be on a continuum also,
with those who liked to eat at home more with family being granted
additional housing, car, or vacation allowances. He also drew on
his chart the elements that would make up variable choices and
those commodities that would not be regulated by the system. His
chart looked like this: