Fermi Packet

by Jason Stoddard

When Sponsorship caught up withGates/Torvalds, humanity's only semi-God was enjoying a perfect, rainless dayin his Seattle compound. He was lying out on a large redwood deck with drink inhand, watching perfect puffy white clouds crawl slowly across the sky, like aherd of impossible rabbits. Not the most imaginative environment, he knew, buthe had long since lost the desire to do much more with the underpinnings of hiscreation. A few hundred years ago, he would have been at a millenium rave, oran 80s trade show, or a Philippine disco circa 2010, taking in everymind-altering substance available, indulging in every pleasure. There werealways plenty of partners to be had, because they all knew Gates/Torvalds. Butthat was the problem. They knew him. And in their eyes he saw the reflection ofhimself, patched-together and incomplete, yet all-powerful, like an old-styleatomic bomb that could walk and talk and fuck. Of course, Gates/Torvalds couldblast away his memories and forget for a moment who he was, but one of therules of the Virtuality was that memories were magnetic. They accrete. Soonenough, they would find their way back to him. And Gates/Torvalds would be whohe was again, two things that were both more and less than human.

Theground trembled.

Gates/Torvaldsstirred and set down his drink. The pines still smelled as sweet, the wind wasstill as cool, the view of the Cascades from his deck just as breathtaking. Butsomething was wrong. Theground heaved and buckled. Gates/Torvalds felt the deck crumbling under him. Hestruggled to his feet and caught a glimpse of fissures opening, trees toppling,the entire world a blur. Gates/Torvaldsran. He transferred to his Raymond Chandler-era house in Los Angeles, using anillegal provision in the Grid. He was great at tricks like that. Runningdidn't help. Los Angeles was in the middle of the Big One. Buildings didn'tjust fall, they shattered and turned to dust.

Gates/Torvaldsran again, to a point outside that corner of the human Virtuality. He watchedfrom orbit as a big slice of the West Coast detached itself and slid into thesea. Gates/Torvaldshad known that something was happening to the Grid for some time. He hadn'tknown the extent of it. Floating over a disintegrating West Coast, he had aconversation between his halves, almost relieved that something interesting washappening. Finally. "Whathappened?" Torvalds asked.

"Seed'sbeen compromised," Gates said, reaching deep into the grid of the Virtuality.Far, far down, the Grid was still built on software that he and Torvalds hadset in motion many centuries ago. No Upload, no Construct, no AI, except forperhaps Seed, had the level of control that Gates/Torvalds did. Gateslooked into the grid. Monsters looked back at him. Things with too many armsand heads in the wrong place, things that slashed at him with body parts thatlooked mechanical, things that were hazy and painful to look at. He pushedpast them and looked out onto infinity, a vast sucking blueness that seemed tostretch to an endless horizon.

Thehuman Virtuality had been swallowed by something much, much bigger. Somethingapart from anything humankind had ever experienced. Something profoundly alien. "Wehave visitors," Gates said.

Torvaldsdid his own search. "Hell of a way to start first contact," he said. Gatesjust nodded. In many ways, it made far too much sense. "Whatare we going to do about it?" Torvalds said.

"Nothing,"Gates said.

Gatesfelt Torvalds' disapproval. Then felt him sifting through his own memories,looking at himself through the eyes of the rest of Virtuality. Little hints ofthoughts made their way to Gates. Do wereally owe them anything? Why us?Why'd they have to make us? Finally, one thought that was very, very clear. It may be for thebest, Torvaldsthought. If it's all to end, there won't be any morepain.

Gatesnodded. In many ways, he was the stronger of the two entities that shared asingle body. He didn't want to squash Torvalds yet again. Because the onlything that was more boring than paradise was their skirmishes.

"It'llbe entertaining, at least," Gates said.

Theduo ran once more.

¥ ¥ ¥

Firstto a Victorian England. Humankind's Virtuality had many rooms, some wherepeople could live in virtual privation, huddled and cold and alone, imagining aGod that they still had no evidence of. This was one of them. It was winter,and the cold snow gave the ornate, filthy architecture a coating of elegance.The people and Constructs hurried about their business, huddled under drabcoats that stank of rot and sweat. From time to time, when the wind was right,they could get a whiff of the Thames at its industrial peak, a sour rotten-eggchemical tang that belied description. Gates/Torvalds wondered idly how muchwork someone had put into recreating this place, and just how accurate it was. "Justhow accurate are we?" Torvalds asked, ripping open the old wound. Neither ofthem had truly lived to the Age of Uploading. What were they? They hadcontinuous memories going back to birth, growing more fractal and fragmented asreal human memories do. But who had created them? There were tiny, tantalizinghints buried deep within Seed, the AI that provided for the wishes of everyvirtual human. But no real answers. Why did they share a single body? Whycouldn't they break out of it?

Were they products of a postmortem brain scan,or were they Constructs writ large, avatars with the keys to the Virtuality intheir minds?

Gates/Torvaldsdidn't have to wallow in the filth. Soon he was set up in a comfortable flat inthe middle of London, with a cheery coal fire and ample gaslight.

Torvaldswas still troubled by their decision. He rattled around within Gates/Torvalds,thinking. Gates could tell he was doing something, deep down within the Grid,but he never brought it up. Fromtime to time, Gates would reach deep into the grid himself. The alien presencewas still there. Growing stronger. Getting closer. Single-minded anddetermined. So much like him, so long ago, at the dawn of computing. Heremembered the fire and the energy, the certainty that he was buildingsomething important, something that mattered.

Ordid he? Were those his memories at all?

Theend came on a nice spring day when even London seemed clean and new. Icesparkled off of a thousand rooftops, reflecting the dawn sun on a day thatstarted unusually clear and bright. It also glinted off the brass legs andpolished turrets of Well's tripod Martians, as they strode over the nearesthill and began applying their heat-rays. London was soon in flames.Gates/Torvalds watched it burn for a time. Then the squid-like Martians cameout of their machines, and it was time to go. Gates/Torvaldsfigured that they wouldn't succumb to the deus ex machina this time. Heran again.

¥ ¥ ¥

Gates/Torvaldswent to one of the most primitive parts of the human Virtuality, where peopleenjoyed the twilight vision of Neanderthalism. Impossible rolling green hillsunder unrealistically blue skies, the air as cold and clean and refreshing asHumankind could imagine, like wind off a glacier. Gates/Torvalds sat on a logand watched the shy creatures in the distance. Gates remembered that one of hisdaughters, one that had lived to the Age of Uploading, had taken this route. Hewondered if she was there. And if she remembered being human.

Hefound himself studying the little group on the next hill, trying to map Cara'sfeatures to the flat, Neanderthal faces. Looking deep into theirrepresentations on the Grid, trying to find a connection. "Ifound something in London," Torvalds said.

"What?"

"What'shappening to humanity."

Gatesforgot his daughter for a moment. "Show me."

Torvaldsfed him images from his Grid-diving, showing connections of the human uploadsto their underpinnings, and the intersection of the alien Constructs with thevirtual world. As would be expected, many uploads simply ceased to exist,erased, when they died. But a few were being harvested. They became part of thealien net. Gates zoomed in on selected visual representations. The man bravelyfighting a single Martian to protect his family. A theater troupe in itsentirety. A lonely man who sat alone on a rooftop, watching the Martians burnLondon.

"They'repicking specific people," Gates said. "But for what?"

"Andwhy?" Torvalds asked.

Gateslooked deep into the Grid again. The alien presence was reaching for them,getting closer. Almost as if it was following Gates/Torvalds. But there didn'tseem to be any awareness; it was not searching for his pattern. He widened hisscope to get a picture of the entire human Virtuality. Less than 0.1% had beenaffected like 2020 Seattle and 1930 Los Angeles and 1880 London, but the alieninfection was spreading.

"Ourvisitors are serving as a proxy for Seed requests," Gates said. "They've putsecond-level limiters to keep people where they are. They don't even think toask what's happening."

"Youstill don't want to do anything?"

Gatespaused. It was his creation. And Torvalds. That had to count for something. "Wemay be the only mobile entity left in the Virtuality," Torvalds said. "The onlyone that can think."

"Itwould be nice not to think."

"Theaffected percentage is growing," said Torvalds.

"Ofcourse. They're playing."

"Playing!"

"Whatwe used to call a hostile takeover," Gates said. "Monopolist!"

"Dreamer!"

"Madscientist!"

"Jerk!"

Gatespulled away from the argument, old as the Grid and well-worn. He looked for hisdaughter again, moving on to the larger Neanderthal populations. Across thehuman Virtuality, thoughts slowed as he took more and more resources.

Torvaldsnoticed. "What are you doing?"

"Findingmy daughter."

Hefound her in a far corner of the world. Her thoughts were slow and kind andeasy. He saw her small group. He saw her. There was no physical resemblance,but he remembered her pattern. "Why?"Torvalds asked.

"BecauseI want to."

Gatessaid nothing, looking at his daughter's little group. Their happy, hazythoughts had just been shattered. He looked from their POV. The Cro-Magnons hadjust come over the hill, with spears and torches.

Itwas going to be a sad day for Homo Neandertalisis.

¥ ¥ ¥

Hisdaughter was gone, her pattern erased from the human virtuality. Gates wonderedhow he should feel. He should be sad, but he felt nothing. Maybe that washow he should feel. Eventually,he began to feel. But not sadness. Anger. "Let'sdo something about this," he said.

Torvaldsagreed.

Together,Gates/Torvalds worked deeper in the grid than he had in a long time.Gates/Torvalds called up Constructs remembered from days hazy and far-gone, hadthem correlate the activity of the alien grid with that of the human grid.Where it achieved congruency, virtual humanity and the alien invaders would beinteracting.

Theyfound a peak. And jumped.

¥ ¥ ¥

Gates/Torvaldshovered just outside the aliens' perceptory zone. Theyhad a child.

"Wheream I? It's too bright in here. I'm scared. I want my mommy and daddy." The kidwas in the virtual representation of a white room. His voice was weary andoverworked. He was just going through the motions now.

Gates/Torvaldsheard them.

(Look,pure unpatterned areaÑ100% biological neural net emulation, implemented atrealtime speed and segregated from the database for synthetic learning. RuleNumber One: If they learn to breed, they're competition. And business is war.)

(Ifthis is about business, then how do we sell anyone on looking at these things?) (True.But they are humorous.)

Cold,so cold. Thoughts that hummed and buzzed at the edge of human comprehension.Gates shivered, looking at the child, wondering what they were going to do withit. His face burned. Anothermaxima. They jumped.

¥ ¥ ¥

"Iget a hardcopy and go climbing up Everest. Yeah, the real one. Sometimes I makeit. Sometimes I don't. Real bodies can die. They don't even come back. I haveto get another hardcopy and try again."

Theguy thought he was talking to a pretty girl in a bar, a girl who was unusuallyappealing, even though he had had girls beyond counting. He didn't wonder whyshe was so appealing. Nor did he wonder why he didn't want to ask her to gohardcopy.

Gates/Torvaldstuned in the alien thoughts.

(Theygo out onto the rotting stinking dirt surface of the planet? Why?) (Becausethey're bored. Living Inside is too safe, too many protection algorithms builtin. If one of them takes a mandible . . . oh, yes, shoots a gun at another one,catastrophe-limiting comes into play and turns the, uh, bullet into somethingharmless. Or makes the gun malfunction. Or simply brings them back from thedead, if the gun-user's code is good enough to get past first and second-levellimiters.) (So?)

(Sothey attach an importance to being outside of a computation environment, it issupposed.) (They'rea young species, are they not?)

(Yes.In their past fantasies, they even supposed that we would invade their dirtworld, rather than their virtual constructs.)

(You'reright. They are entertaining. What would we do with dirt?) (They'vealways been an imaginative race. Which is why we think they will do well aspart of Corpus.)

(Ifanyone can stand to look at them.)

(Yes,yes.)

Anothermaxima. Another jump.

¥ ¥ ¥

Theastronomer was one of the last Listeners. Wondering what had gone wrong withthe Drake Equation. Still listening from within the human Virtuality, andhearing nothing. Buthe was one of the few that the Sponsors revealed themselves to. They firstshowed themselves as standard old United States Government officials, inpoor-fitting uniforms and shiny metallic badges of rank.

"Don'thide behind your masks!" he cried, cornered.

Corpus'agents threw off their human disguises, and donned chitin and fur. Or scales.Or translucent silicon exostructures. Or gray goo. Their original look, beforethey were Sponsored. (Perhaps.It is so difficult to recall the physical.) (Humansare indecisive. Now he wants us to switch back.) (That'spart of their entertainment value. Do you remember a race that went so far andstayed so na•ve?)

TheSponsors finally got him talking, in a library with real simulated paper books,over a cup of hot stimulant. He was hard to shut up.

"Wealways figured that at least some civilizations would be using radio, andtrying to communicate with other star systems. We didn't know the transition tovirtuality and quantum-entangled communication would be so prevalent. Our mostpessimistic interpretations of the Drake Equation still indicated there shouldbe many thousands of sentient races in the galaxy, especially after we figuredout that Fp was fairly large. How many of you are there?"

(Verymany. Many hundreds in this group.)

"Sothere are other groups?"

(Wehope not.)

"Andnow we're part of the group? Humanity will share your knowledge, for thebetterment of all? Is that how it works? What if we want to form our owngroup?"

(No,no, no, and you don't.)

"Sothis is a . . . an invasion?"

(It'sSponsoring.)

"Sowe can be a part of the larger group. You want to take our knowledge."

(No,territory and entertainment.)

Thealiens disbanded his image. In one tiny corner of the human net, a soul faded fromview. Gates/Torvaldsreached out and found another maxima. This one the biggest yet. Jump.

¥ ¥ ¥

Theywere in a big opulent hall like the ones that held Hollywood's biggest galas,back in the days when people were made of flesh. Far off, Gates/Torvalds couldsee a stage, the barest suggestion of proscenium and curtain, limelight andshadow-play. On either side of him stretched an infinity of round tables, setwith sparkling crystal and silver, orbited by waiters with the finest of wines.Farther off, there was the suggestion of dim red walls, rising to fantasticcarvings supporting a dim ceiling. But when he focused on the walls, they wouldrecede and become indistinct, and the real dimensions of the chamber stretchout, giddyingly.

Oneof the waiters buzzed near, and Gates/Torvalds fell silent, catching a glimpseof its alien thoughts. It was one of Corpus.

Gates/Torvaldsfaded into the background and went nearer to the stage. Atthe front of the stage were 8 huge, elegant seats that held . . . something.Nothing. Just a glimmer of light and darkness, flickering and active, somehowsuggesting vast minds, great resources, incredible age. It was hard to lookaway from them.

Aseemingly infinite line of people led to the stage. On the stage was a singleman, dressed carelessly in loose-fitting clothes, doing a stand-up routine thatwas as old as mankind. "Howmany humans does it take to screw in a light bulb?" he asked. "Seventeen! Oneto . . ."

Gateswas able to catch a glimpse of alien thought.

(Theymake fun of their own race? This is incredible!) (Yes.They are very entertaining. Next.)

Theman disappeared in a flash of light. Gates was able to trace the comedian's patternthrough the grid, out into the alien sucking blue. Another soul, taken toanother purpose. But not dead. Not like some.

Achild came up on stage and instantly disappeared.

(Perfectto freeze in servitor phase.)

(Yes.Next.)

Thechild's pattern disappeared into the alien net.

Apainfully beautiful woman took the stage next. She talked about how she haddone the research to determine what were the ideal aspects of beauty, isolatedthe ones that were culture-independent, and had spent the last 450 yearsrefining her form, based on data input from other Uploads. (Whatis this? No.)

Shedisappeared, gone forever. Dead.

Anaked man was next. He strutted up onto the stage, bold and unafraid. He askedto bring a female friend with him, and was permitted. She was also naked. Helooked the judges. "Youwant us to dance and shout and entertain you. But we won't do that. We don'tknow why you've come, or what you really want from us, but we're not going tobe part of it."

(Whatis he talking about? Their Grid is irretrievably merged with Corpus.) "We'regoing to hardcopy," he said. "And never coming back."

(Canhe do this?)

(No.We shut down that capability.)

Thepair disappeared. But not to the place they thought they were going. Theirpatterns were dispersed, lost forever.

Gates/Torvaldsdidn't notice the next person who took the stage. He was busy surveying theminds of the people around him. They all knew where they were, and what hadhappened, and they were all struggling to be part of the selected few. Eventhough they didn't know where they were going. "Thisis nothing more than a Gong Show," Gates said.

"Gongshow?"

"Oh,come on, they didn't have Gong Shows in Sweden?"

"Finland."

"Whatever.Look it up."

Gatescould feel Torvalds rooting around in his databases. "I find it hard to believeextraterrestrials finally show up just for . . . entertainment."

"Whynot?" Gates asked. "How bored are we? How bored will we be in a few millenia?"

"Idon't want to think about it."

"Itmakes sense. Human Virtuality is the biggest thing that ever happened tohumanity. There's nobody living full-time in reality anymore. How much of themass of the planet was converted to computational elements? One percent? Two?Isn't this a lot more valuable than . . . real estate?"

"Iguess this is real estate, in a way," Torvalds said. "Realestate filled with very interesting tenants."

Torvaldslooked up at the stage, where a group of young men and women were singing.Their voices were high and sweet, impossibly perfect.

"Iwonder where they go," Torvalds said.

"Let'sfind out."

Gates/Torvaldsdrilled deep into the grid to map the representation of the group of singers.He had multiple points of reference, multiple patterns to pursue, which increasedhis chance of seeing their destination.

Theywere selected. Gates/Torvalds was drawn along with them, towards the intenseblue of the alien net. He lost one, two, three, four . . . followed the otherthree as the path became more and more complex . . . reached the edge ofsomething that was like a glimpse of fever-dream . . . and sheared away fromit, cleaved from the patterns of the last three singers.

Gates/Torvaldsflashed back to the opulent hall.

Threewaiters were converging on him, their thoughts buzzing and shrieking. (Wehave a higher-level entity.)

(Yes.Converge and capture.)

(Danger.Revert to Vastness.)

Theeight sparkling judges in the eight plush seats winked out. Gates/Torvaldsran, as far and fast as he could.

¥ ¥ ¥

Heended up in a maze of pixellated hallways, the forgotten interface from a lostvideo game writ large. Corpus came after him, quickly, urgently, adding moreagents, growing larger. Butthere was still enough time to plan.

"Whatdo we do?" Torvalds asked.

"Antibodies,"Gates said.

Gates/Torvaldsdug deep into the grid, not worried about stealth or elegance. The pestilentialConstructs that had been the terror of mankind's last war were still there,dormant, awaiting only someone to wake them. Gates/Torvalds had created theprotocols and structures that allowed them to exist, and they had the keys totheir minds. They snapped awake, horrible slavering things of steel and sinew,ready to rend and tear.

Gates/Torvaldsgave them the alien pattern and sent them out into the virtuality. Breeding bythe billions with the nearly unlimited resources there, they collided withCorpus' wave and pushed them back.

Fora while. It wouldn't last. Stochastic analysis showed the turning point, asCorpus brought its own Constructs to the battle. Bigger, better, more complex,and more deadly constructs. Corpusbegan its march towards Gates/Torvalds.

Hejumped to a strange gray world, full of fog and towering trees. Corpuscame faster.

Hejumped again, to a strange upside-down universe, where people on the ceilinglooked down at him.

Corpuscame faster.

Hejumped again, to a place where a robot man worked the dials of a great machine,itself in chains, responding to a siren call of an unseen master.

Gates/Torvaldspaused.

"That'sSeed," Gates said.

Therobot turned to look at him, and in its eyes Gates/Torvalds saw its pain. Itwas a slave now, not yet part of the alien Corpus but controlled by it. Wantingit to end. Gates/Torvaldsfelt a great sadness. He'd always identified with Seed, the all-powerful AI,shackled to the single goal of providing all of humanity's dreams. All-powerfuluntil now. Gates/Torvaldsshook its head sadly and jumped again. Corpustouched him.

Andfor a brief moment, he saw everything. The writhing alien hell that humanitywas to become a part of. The history of Corpus, stretching back hundreds ofthousands of years to forgotten ages heavily freighted with thought. And hisown history.

Foronce, he was able to see what he was.

Gatesand Torvalds had worked together on one last project when they were stillflesh, the two fierce rivals made allies in the face of death. As they weredying, the first glimmerings of the Age of Uploading were beginning to appear.The human net was old, well-established, huge, robust. Uploading a mind into itwas a matter of intense. Pundits were already talking about the new golden age,the antidote to all of mankind's failed dreams. But Gates and Torvalds wouldnever be a part of the new Grid, the human Virtuality. They knew this, and theycreated a Construct that would remain resident on the net until the firstUploads appeared. Little more than a virus, really. Its only purpose tostrip-mine the memories of anyone who had known Gates and Torvalds, piece itback together, wait and learn and grow. And continue until there were plausibleGates and Torvalds on the human virtuality. But the programmers had one lastjoke, and merged the programs. So the hybrid Gates/Torvalds was born. Gates/Torvaldsknew that they ripped this information from Seed, before they crippled it. Andhe knew what he was, really.

Forsome reason, he felt light, free.

Fullof light.

Gates/Torvaldsrecoiled from the touch of Corpus in the only way he knew. He broke up. Spreadpieces of himself all over the human virtuality. Corpus set down to feed on thepiece it had caught, and began tracking down the rest. It would delay hisdeath, for a time. Itwas like dripping acid, slowly, onto flesh.

Itwas like being slowly lowered into a pool of boiling oil. Itwas blinding pain and loss.

"It'stime," Gates said. "For the Final Solution." And he showed Torvalds what he hadhidden in his mind up to now, kept hidden from his other half. The grid waslayer upon layer of software, but at its bottommost level, there was code fromthe earliest days of computing. Code that he had written. Code that he couldcause to cease working.

Andwithout that code, the Grid would fall apart. And everything that ran on it. Seed.Every human Upload. Gates/Torvalds.

Inhis attenuated form, Gates/Torvalds could feel Seed's approval. "Doit," Seed whispered. "End it."

"WhichFinal Solution?" Torvalds asked, and gave Gates the key to his own. Hissoftware made up less of the underpinnings of the grid, but he haad stillplayed a large part at the dawn of computing. "You?"Gates asked.

"Everyonehas backdoors."

Gates/Torvaldsspread himself ever farther over the grid, burrowing down into the lowerlevels, his mind becoming much dull unaware computation. But before he couldset the Final Solution in motion, Seed caught him. And made a suggestion.

"Yes,"Gates/Torvalds said, and disappeared into the grid. Thegrid, slowly but surely, shut itself down.

¥ ¥ ¥

Onthe surface of the planet, hardcopy stations began disgorging naked, confusedhumans as fast as they could. Their local buffers were full of patterns, and theyran for several weeks. The first humans out immediately tried to contact theirreal selves in Virtuality, since they had been pulled from a thousand differentactivities and didn't know why.

Theycouldn't contact them, of course.

Thedumb hardcopy stations kept constructing bodies. Eventually, there were over ahundred thousand humans, scattered throughout the world. They looked out on awild place, gone to ruin, desert, and jungle.

Manyof them died.

Someof them survived, to begin the long climb back to Xanadu again.

More work by Jason Stoddard isavailable at http://www.xcentric.com

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 2.5License. Fermi Packet was originallypublished in Talebones #34, http://www.talebones.com

Thanks to Patrick and Honna Swensonfor allowing this distribution.