The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella (25 page)

Santino recognized the purple light, but not
the drone. His apprehension rising again, he looked at his com to
search for the drone's identification record. But there was no
report and no displayed coordinates for a drone in the vicinity. He
hit 'Refresh,' and the screen re-emerged in less than a second. His
instructions were still there, but no drone indicator. Confused,
Santino knew he should not be able to see a drone's light, if there
was no drone. Repair drones were stored at locations all around the
complex, and The Network could dispatch one to any location to fix
an operational problem. But the system would never send a human and
a drone to look at the same error at the same time. If animals or
the weather had damaged a line, drones equipped with cameras,
mechanical arms or industrial equipment, could make the repairs
without humans. A human employee could view the repair operation
from the Control Room using the fixed surveillance cameras, the
repair drone's camera, or even dispatch a specific camera drone to
record the action. Company management or law enforcement could also
dispatch camera drones at any time to look at incidents around the
site. The Network would recognize the internal instruction and
update an employee's com. Occasionally a specific authorization was
required to be advised if a drone was on site, but that advisory
usually depended on security issues, which Grand Rapids never
had.

Santino's puzzlement was quickly turning to
outright fear. He desperately considered if the situation had a
valid explanation. He wondered if he was looking at a camera drone
a human monitor had sent to view the error. Although he was the
only human at the complex, he was not exactly alone. The electronic
surveillance was extensive and omnipresent. The complex's
operations could be monitored from the company's operational
facilities 1,100 miles to the south in Kansas City in the United
States. After Kansas City, the data was continuously backed up to a
server farm in Iceland, and its backup was in Liberia. Because
hydroelectric power was a strategic and vital resource for millions
of people, the Canadian Defense Force Command Centre near Ottawa
monitored all of the connected sites, and the North American
Defense Command outside Denver monitored all monitoring. Mexican
officials kept their eyes on activity from their surveillance
complex in Toluca, west of Mexico City. The Chinese and Europeans
were also likely to be paying attention, but their surveillance was
not considered official, and was politely ignored. At least one
Santino-level employee, but not many more, worked at every
monitoring site. The locations were responsible for continuously
viewing all security at all energy plants, reservoirs,
sub-stations, and along thousands of miles of transmission lines
stretching across the North American continent. Santino expected
the individual who sent the drone to be aware a human was at the
same location, but it was also possible human operators did not
have the same information. Disturbingly, he had no definitive idea
which options were operational. He had never interacted with the
information, equipment and protocols available to the monitoring
teams around the world. He could only be almost certain, although
not completely, that The Network would detect any drone at the
complex, and he should be able to see the detection on his com.
'This is strange,' he considered, looking around. Grand Rapids had
10,124 cameras and sensors, all visibly on. Each networked security
device could register the difference between a black bear, wind, an
authorized human employee, and an unauthorized intruder. An
unknown, unidentified detection would trigger an intruder protocol.
After analyzing evidence from camera and sensor data, The Network
would activate an investigatory drone to deploy to the incident
site. Since the company had the right to be advised of all drones
inside its complex, if this one was not an authorized drone, the
unauthorized intrusion protocol should already be in progress.
Either way The Network must be aware a drone was here and inform
the human employee. Santino should have the information on his com,
but he did not.

Abruptly, the sound of metal cracking ice
emerged from the Rider. Santino spun around to face the sight of a
ladder unfolding from the transport's side panel, and ascending
like a stretching coil up the narrow steel edge of the tower. The
transport remained parked alongside the base, and Santino observed
the action with increasing nervousness. The ladder inched up, and
at every two-foot mark automatically unrolled a clamp to attach to
the tower's frame. Although The Network could continuously measure
the voltage traveling in any direction, and the chance of a
miscalculation was negligible, the absorption ladder was a
precaution used as a barrier to protect humans from electrical
currents. If charges were unbalanced, The Network sensed and
corrected the difference, by redirecting electricity across the
appropriate wires to cut voltage to an overcharging section, or
increasing production to one reporting a shortage. Santino eyed the
ladder's resolute rise up and out of his sight. Holding his com up
to eye level, he noted his next displayed instruction was to climb.
He moved over to the affixed steps, but stopped and stood with one
foot on the lowest rung. Sucking in a deep breath of the ice-laced
air, he uncomfortably realized he had come all of the way out to
Sector 2G, and did not know why. 'What was the repair work that
could not be completed by a drone or The Network?' Feeling
increasingly unnerved in the bitter Canadian cold, Santino finally
decided he should read the entire Network error report.

Gripping his com, he scrolled the text back
to the point where the error message had first appeared. All
company messages were configured to a specific employee by prior
education, experience and duties. If an engineer pulled up the same
report, the details would contain technical language and
schematics, for Santino the display was basic points explained in
plain English. The report began with the surcharge, but did not
state the source, next were instructions he had already witnessed,
leading to the pending step for a human action to ascend the
ladder. None of this information was a revelation to Santino, but
the fact he was standing out in the cold did not add up. Now if he
wanted to return indoors, he would have to follow The Network
instructions or the transport would not process his efforts and
take him back inside. The temperature felt like it was dropping by
the minute, forcing his questions and concerns to be clipped at the
same precipitous pace.

As sheer spots of frost began to develop on
the waiting ladder, Santino realized the error must be
unrecognizable by a drone or The Network, or both, and this
possibility terrified him. He was a technician, not an engineer or
an electrical tower designer. 'What did The Network conclude he
could do?' The report on his com had stopped at action for a human,
and he was the one who had been brought to the site to complete the
task. 'Maybe this was some new, unknown type of damage.' Although
The Network could assess any error, and determine a repair
protocol, an unforeseen problem may have intervened with the
process. Suddenly, Santino felt better. 'Yes,' he decided. 'It's an
unknown type of damage The Network cannot interpret, that's why a
human is required.' But as he began to climb the ladder steps,
apprehension swept over him again. 'What could be an issue he would
encounter that The Network could not detect, analyze and manage on
its own?' All information was in The Network, all of the data
humans knew. The entire hydro complex - the electrical systems,
transmission towers and programming for the servers - had been
designed and built by computers. As Santino climbed the ladder, he
ached to imagine the problem he would find, and failed to process
any potential scene.

Rising up the transmission tower were
sensors placed at two-foot intervals. The tower stood at 216 feet,
and his com indicated a red light flashing at marker 56, 112 feet
up, high enough that as Santino began to climb, he would not be
able to see the sensor above him until he drew nearer. As he
continued to ascend, another confusion wave rolled over him. Part
of The Network's standard error assessment was to send photos or
video of the problem for review prior to transporting the employee
to the site. Yet he was climbing without any diagnostic or repair
tools. After only visually noting the error, he would have to input
findings into his com, and wait for The Network to determine his
next action, including if necessary, delivering required tools.
With each step Santino's incomprehension soared. The lack of
visuals, he realized, must be an error within the error.

A minute later, reaching the 100-foot mark,
he emerged into the unidentified drone's defined purple glow
illuminating the flat black sky around him. By silently hovering,
the drone complied with laws protecting birds and other flying
creatures from audio disruption to their natural rhythms by
man-made airborne devices. But the accommodation ended there. The
machine was a two-foot square box coated black except for one side
featuring a clear plastic viewing window, a popular feature Santino
enjoyed because a human could see directly in to the electronics.
Despite the ease with which drones fit into human life, an interior
view reminded humans, the drones were machines. Unlike flying
creatures, drones did not require wings, but many people, the
opposite of the interior-view types, added the feature as if to
reassure themselves the machines were more ecological, members of
the bird family, and not an output from a gadget factory. The
movement of the box reflected its gravity-defying support. The
device made an almost imperceptible rocking motion, adjusting up
and down and side-to-side, which aided in remaining steady in the
blowing air. Seeing the drone waiting with balanced calm, Santino
stared and offered, under his breath, a slight moaning "hmm" as a
greeting when his eyes and hands reached level with marker 56, 112
feet above the ground on the transmission tower in Sector 2G.

"Good evening," the machine greeted him in a
clear, steady news announcer's voice.

The drone's verbal reaction locked Santino
into a reflexive shock. His hair stood up at the back of his neck,
and his hands gripped the ladder frame as he thwarted an instinct
to jump. Drones did not talk. Not only could a human turn off all
talk instructions from Network-connected electronics, but also by
law and common practice, company drones, law enforcement, military,
all standard, work-related drones, did not talk. Emergency rescue
drones had a speaker function humans used for communicating in
disaster areas when drones were used to look for survivors. And
many civilians had personal talking drones. But flying a talking
drone in public airspace with the talk function turned on was
illegal. Under no normal circumstances would a drone dispatched to
an industrial work site talk, no circumstances at all. Drones were
not robots, robots could talk, and everyone knew that. But
governments, and most citizens, did not want to hear talking from
boxes or bags with wings. Public spaces were already disturbed by
the miniaturization of coms, making humans always appear to be
talking to themselves. But the confusion would escalate if tens of
thousands of inanimate objects also spoke randomly and
simultaneously aloud. Part of the ease felt with the flying devices
humans had come to tolerate was awareness that the machines did not
talk. "A talking drone," Santino whispered under his breath, while
glancing at the box. The machine did not reply. Santino could now
hear his own heart beating loud and fast beneath the layers of
winter clothing. 'A talking drone,' he silently repeated, staring
at the machine. For the first time in the evening, he was
absolutely certain the incident was not routine, but forced outside
of his experience, education, training and knowledge of human life.
Drones did not talk. Humans and drones were not sent to repair the
same error at the same time. And the error at marker 56 was not an
error that had ever been seen before.

*

Khadrian Laltanca could not believe she and
Roman Francon had managed to be in the same place, at the same
time, for more than one night, for the first time in two months.
She stared at his naked back as he lay face down beside her in bed.
Over his torso, she could see the peaks of the Rocky Mountains in
Colorado breaking through the horizon as snow sprinkled the frozen
ground, and crystal snowflakes formed on the window. 'The best way
to enjoy winter is indoors,' she thought slipping deeper beneath
the down blanket, and closer to Roman's warm body.

Their relationship had begun exactly where
prohibited, at a top secret international conference where they
were not only representing different countries, but were also on
opposite sides of the issue. Every time she had made a point in
counterclaim to his delegation's argument, he would look at her
from across the meeting table and grin. If his action had been a
negotiating tactic designed to attract her attention, he had been
right on track.

At the time, she was one of her country's
top strategists, working behind the scenes to allow private
companies to build technology infrastructure projects in other
countries, without revealing the nation's research and development
secrets. A diplomat and a lawyer, Kadie interacted with every
interest group, balancing their demands against one another in
search of a viable solution. Within the past year, the United
Nations had asked her to take on the same role for the world,
Commander of the U.N. Security Council Special Command for Cyber
Security, the unit within the global security organization
authorized to address and settle cross-border cyber conflicts. The
U.N. role was her official post. But an obscure global group called
The Alliance had solidified her professional future by reaching
out, quietly as they always did, to place her among those who
showed notable promise as unfaultable global leaders. Working
outside official channels, The Alliance preferred to encourage
people who had multiple ties to countries around the world,
transitional language skills, and the ability to blend in among
individuals as diverse as a medic in a refugee camp, or a donor at
a ten-star charity dinner. The unseen organization was even more
specifically impressed that she had independently built her skills,
a natural was always an unfailing bet over the groomed. The
naturals knew the life they wanted and pursued their objectives
without regard to obstacles falling onto their paths. The groomed
always needed a little handholding. Kadie had grown up on the flat
dry lands of the upper Midwest, and worked her way through
increasing levels of education, with one clear objective in mind,
independence. She preferred to be her own boss, but if she had to
answer to a higher ranked official, then that person had to be a
broader thinker than she was, an individual from whom she could
still learn. Kadie traded jobs when people failed to live up to her
expectations, resigning was her way of not settling, of always
extending to achieve more than the envisaged.