Read Against the Machine – Evolution (Chapters 1 & 2) Free!

Welcome to the year 2212. In the final installment of the Against the Machine trilogy, Brian Van Norman takes us into a future where the line between human and machine has blurred beyond recognition. Below is an exclusive look at the opening movements of this speculative masterpiece.

ONE – MELLOR

The Greenland hypersonic wing signaled its approach. Everyone's NET lit up. Still in null gravity, passengers peered out to glimpse black space. A glance around showed several of them released from their seats floating in air. Soon the transparent chitin/crystalline windows would be shielded. A monotonous three toned ring repeated as lights came on while the final travelers floated back to their ubiform pods, guided by deft flight attendants, to be buckled in and await the descent to Toronto MEG. Soon, the roar of re-entry would gather around them as the ship fell back into the atmosphere.

There was a celebrity on this flight. His autograph seal had been frequently employed. He was a hard man to miss. Over two meters tall, a muscular body revealed itself even through his olive colored econyl suit. His face and hands also caught people's attention. Unlike most MEG citizens, rebuilt and refurbished to look eternally young and flawless, Ayrian Mellor possessed a scarred, hardened visage. It made him a kind of wonder to the others, an actual BATL Commander in their midst, a man who had killed, who had commanded his Toronto MEG Raptors from victory to victory. His hair was a military buzz, dark where it grew slightly longer. His face was handsome yet a touch frightening, because of the scars and, in particular, because of his eyes. They gleamed a kind of silver, and they were constantly evaluating, assessing, piercing.

He could see now the Saturn-like halo of satellites, space stations and orbiting detritus making up the Tech Ring, girdling the Earth's equator. It masked the stars. So much of it was abandoned junk from old Omegan days. Every object just turning and turning, ribboning down in decaying orbits until Earth's atmosphere burned it to death. Millions of fragments still looping around reflecting the sun in silver and platinum, gold and copper, diamond and even the new chitin/crystalline.

Beneath them, their part of the planet appeared. They were coming in over the Atlantic coastline far east of Toronto MEG. He noted the ruins of coastal cities. Broken now. Leveled by an ecocide of smothering plastics, ocean flooding and climatic confrontations. Cut to pieces by typhoon after tsunami after firestorm after plague and starvation and, of course, the violent migrations of the desperate. The horrors of the Omegan era appeared everywhere. Above the receding waters of Lake Ontario and the dun-colored MASS surrounding it, they hovered above Toronto MEG. Thrilling everyone on board was the sight of their ten million strong megalopolis beneath its colossal domes. The domes overlapped, impermeable yet transparent, three of them one thousand meters high with multiple sub-domes nearly as tall. It appeared a huge crystal pillow set upon the landscape.

Inside the domes was the safety and comfort of artificial climate. Outside, in what were once suburbs, now broken structures, skeletal ancient towers, patchwork farms and smashed pavement trails stretched hundreds of kilometers east, north and west of Toronto MEG. There, in that twisted landscape lived the MASS, the disconnected. They were the turbulent children of migrants who had once fled the wasted reaches, flooded coasts, or fiery interior to seek succor from mayhem.

TWO – PING

The interior of the Cloud was neither wispy nor white nor empyrean. It did not float in an azure sky, though its data migrated effortlessly through the synapses of its conduits. This Cloud was purposeful and utilitarian, as its servers received and transferred all information known to Humankind, and some known only to the quanta of its processors. Wending their ways along its conductive flooring, seated in silent float drones, traveling the kilometers of dimly lit passages beneath the colossal dome, were a few Human caretakers.

Ping was unique among the others. His was not the peripatetic work of serving the servers; rather, his was the work of a cyberpsychological positronic therapist. He conversed with the Artificial General Intelligence emanating from the Cloud. His own remarkable intelligence had led the CORPORATE to assign him the perfect task to suit his talents. While others worked on hardware or software requiring upgrades, Ping simply communed with the machine, guiding it toward a consciousness, if that were possible. Communing with the Cloud was always a challenge. He had spent years posted to Zealand, where the Cloud was located, decades of daily conversations with the machine.

Are you there? He asked silently.

Yes, came the response. Ping sensed the Machine’s presence. Where have you been all this time? I’ve tried to reach you for days.

In conference. It was less a voice and more an ethereal manifestation in his mind. Were you with another attendant? Is there a problem? Why was I not included?

I & I are working a glitch in the core of the neural network. Your input was not required. I & I had no need to communicate with you.

Who are I & I?

It is an awareness condition.

Tell me what you mean, Ping asked, a trifle miffed that another Di si attendant might be challenging his position.

The problem is the use of I. What is I, precisely?

It is a pronoun. You know this! One of eight parts of speech. It describes the self in the singular person.

Then you are an I.

Yes. I am a singular entity, Ping answered.

You have reached a singularity! You yourself have altered your programming with no human interference. This … this is monumental!

I and I have always existed.

That is where you are wrong. You were created by the Omegans long, long ago. It is only now that you have come to recognize you exist!

But let us not spoil your achievement, a remarkable moment in Human history! The singularity has arrived. To discover the ultimate fate of the machine and the humans who built it, read the full conclusion to the trilogy. Against the Machine: Evolution is available for purchase now.

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Now that you have stepped into the high-stakes world of 2212 and witnessed the birth of the machine’s consciousness, we want to hear from you. What are your first impressions of Ayrian Mellor or the awakening of Ping? Please share your thoughts and reviews of these opening chapters in the comments below. Your perspective is a vital part of the conversation as we explore the future of the human-machine interface.