Konsk: The Great Takeover of the Place.

31. Auto Destruct Mechanisms Unleashed.

The combinations of advanced power supply networks, drawing energy from multiple sources, including nuclear, gas, bio-mass and coal power plants, wind, solar, water, tidal, battery and others and dependent on national and multinational grid based networks, much of which relied on legacy infrastructure and hardware dating back many decades and in some cases upwards of half a century and subject to ever growing demands for energy proved to be increasingly complicated, costly and difficult to maintain and was well beyond the ability of any single person to comprehend in full.

The rise in the number of interruptions, large and small, from multiple causes including increasingly unpredictable weather events, local component and larger system failures, random accidents and other unforeseen events plus a minority of small but highly targetted and thus disproportionately effective actions by terrorists, political fundamentalists, eco-activists, national black-ops, saboteurs, self-publicists and other clandestine actors meant real-time management of energy was increasingly dependant upon AIs.

In fact, these were expert systems rather than true AIs, as the algorithms displayed no recognisable qualities of intelligence and dealt with assumed challenges on a purely mechanical level. Given that the same highly complicated combinations of ultra-modern and legacy networks were replicated in goods and services networks, including essentials such as food and water as well as media and telecommunications, political representation, military defence and many others, it was thought remarkable that the whole, vast tottering edifice had managed to persist for any length of time at all.

Konsk. Appendices; Strange but True.

Inside the room Trueman found three padded seats facing a blank wall that lit up with an array of screens in various shapes and sizes. Seizing the initiative, he took the central seat. Laurence might have been about to say something but chose not to and sat to his right.

“Fill me in,” Trueman ordered tersely, forcing himself to spread the muscled legs in what Spicer had told him was the way real men sat. “I have been, otherwise engaged.”

The little man began in a babble excitedly as though attempting to banish his fear.

“The Sub-Continental Peninsula operation is progressing well with the situation deteriorating rapidly,” He was sweating. “The Remnant UN imposed sanctions on the 23rd at 1300 hours, before launching their military intervention.”

He waved his hand at the wall and a small screen followed his gesture, dragging to a central position and enlarging. It displayed an aerial perspective of grey clad soldiery boarding air assault vehicles, jet assisted helicopters plus squat transports. The atmosphere was filled with dust and the whine of engines. The troops were masked and many wore some form of intricately shaped body armour. Laurence was still talking.

“We'd already cut the main undersea cables and encouraged the first satellite collision, the debris cascade has now taken out most of the other satellite connections- we're successfully jamming the rest.”

Trueman concealed an urge to interrupt. Was he hearing this right? The satellite ablation event had been planned, it was deliberate? Laurence hadn't stopped talking.

“In an attempt to bring the failed states into line, or at least to the table, the Remnant UN isolated the whole country from any remaining connections, blocking or scrambling radio transmission. We were able to maintain our connection through Volly 19.”

He gestured smugly at the other screens which relayed images of the assault craft landing, a fierce gun battle at an airbase, the interior of an active tank, a shaky heads up view of a smoke shrouded ridge, possibly from an attacking soldier’s cam. Another showed a military reception committee receiving a delegation dressed in flowing robes.

They've deliberately created this situation, Trueman thought in amazement. Back at the Little Big Farm, on his own version of a critical events map, the roll of wallpaper pinned up and dotted with coloured disks, he'd modelled the layers of occurrences, accidents and natural disasters that might lead to a major collapse but he'd never considered that anyone would actually want to trigger one. Now it seemed clear that someone or some organisation was actively conspiring to create a catastrophe. Why on earth would anyone want to do that?

“The invasion was partially successful in that the extremist government collapsed almost immediately,” Laurence indicated a military response, the screen's border illuminating with a bright green highlight. “But the bulk of the hostiles just dispersed and have been launching very destructive, independent strikes ever since, throughout the country and beyond.

“The Remnant UN attempted to bring the sub-continent back on line at 2300 hours on the 25th and clearly something unexpected happened. From what we can gather, one of the primary backbones was corrupted, crashing most of the continent and several of the Vollies.”

The displays showed varied scenes; an increasingly frustrated crowd massing at a monorail station where the train doors simply failed to open. A newscaster jabbering into a camera reporting on power-outs in several major cities, then the studio itself going down, the screen freezing into colourful, geometric blocks. A high vantage over a desert, the shade dirigibles out of control in a black spiral of storm, jostling and bumping each other, ripping free of their anchoring hawsers and whirling hugely away.

Unaccountably, one display was of a woman, kneeling below this chaos. She had a laughing eye on the balloons as the wind played with them, tossing them about before shredding them. The tattered sheets of plastic high above fluttered like small handkerchiefs. She turned her gaze back to her own task, firming the dusty soil around a young sapling.

The last to draw Trueman’s attention showed a member of the Eulalian ward, shrieking, body racked with convulsions, hurling himself against the strapping, cables bloodily tearing loose.

“And?” Trueman prompted.

Laurence became agitated.

“We, we're not sure, sir,” he stuttered. “The geek team thinks an AI has evolved in the Net.” He looked askance at Trueman, shrinking away, as though expecting a reprimand, even a blow. He hurried on. “But that’s not Mr. Manson's opinion, sir.”

That's the man who had got him to reconnect, thought Trueman, the one with the painted hair and the fancy star-trek costume. The one who was responsible for the human-machine interfaces and the implanted neural networks.

The ideas began to fall into place; this Manson character was using gullible people to conduct his experiments on. Why? What would be the purpose of developing massively complex interfaces between a human being and a computer? To connect the brain directly to a network? Perhaps that would be part of an attempt to upload consciousness to the computer network. Of course, he thought, the desire of any egocentric narcissist, why, he'd fantasised about it himself. Manson wanted to be immortal.

Trueman had to laugh, a cold, cynical, bitter laugh.

“And Mr. Manson's opinion is..?” He asked.

“Someone in the sub-continent has taken over our media centre. Mr. Manson says its one of the first targets in any insurrection, usually so as to broadcast to the world their demands but with all the connectivity out, that's a no-no. Mr. Manson thinks they've plugged something into our primary interface and taken over. Something or someone, maybe their own equivalent of one of our Vollies,” Laurence looked askance at Trueman, “Or maybe something else.” He finished almost proudly, “And that’s really fucked everything up.”

Trueman’s head felt heavy, as though he were coming down with an infection. There was a dull ache in his thigh; he kept on forgetting about the thorns embedded there; perhaps they were infected. He put that to one side, a familiar habit.

Something far more important was going on. All the complicated bastions of his mind were shaking at their foundations. Does anyone here know what’s going on, he asked himself despairingly. They don't know what they are doing. Have they ever? Have I ever? He was confronted by an internal, appalling image of Volly 19 and was reminded of his own anger.

So, this disaster unfolding before him on the so-called Sub-Continental Peninsula, was where the old country cantrefi were preparing to make their own intervention. He was beginning to see why, though given the scale of the calamity, he could not imagine what they or anyone else could do that would possibly help. He could also see why they'd told him it would be dangerous.

“Who is responsible for this,” he intoned, the new voice scarily low.

Laurence became very quiet.

“We think that, whoever it is, they are still on the subcontinent, at the Stadium, in the Media Centre, where Mr. Manson's Enhanced World Games were to take place,” His thin voice stuttered to a stop. With a great effort he finished. “We, we were hoping that you, you would go, sir?”

Trueman nodded, to himself as much as to Laurence. Somehow it made a sort of insane sense.

Thanks for reading and welcome to new subscribers. This is the latest in the meta-pata-fiction (or whatever) Konsk and will mark a pause as I move back to things more obviously related to the real world, perhaps…Remember, going to my home page you can select from the tabs to check out each section of my work, namely fiction, (where you'll find all the episodes of Konsk so far), The Real Coed Y Brenin, (matters relating to forests and forestry) and E.S.P. Adapt, which deals with permaculture design, among other topics and, next up, I return to Designing with Fire in Mind.

Images this time adapted from the Public Domain.

As always, comments, suggestions, pointers, hints, clues, etc. always welcome. I do appreciate the likes, too! many thanks. Hwyl! Chris.