Split second, p.26
Split Second, page 26
“Yeah, we get that part,” said Jenna impatiently.
“When you arrive,” continued Cargill, “your transmitter knows you aren’t in this room anymore, and instantly transmits a signal to the time travel device here. The signal does two things. It tells the computer to cancel the time machine’s upcoming operation so it won’t send you back in time yet again. And,” he paused for effect, “it causes the device to flash incinerate the old you, the one waiting to go back in time.”
He arched an eyebrow. “There are some complexities that would need to be worked out. And Knight would have to make improvements in incineration technology, but he didn’t think this would be all that challenging.”
Blake knew he wasn’t following all the intricacies involved, but the take-home message was clear. And horrifying. “So basically, teleportation creates a copy of you, and Edgar Knight’s solution to this,” he said incredulously, “is to kill one of the copies each time?” He shook his head in disgust. “Really?”
“Really,” repeated Cargill.
“That’s awful,” said Jenna, aghast. “Beyond awful. I don’t even have words for it.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Walsh.
“I feel the same way,” said Cargill. “But Knight didn’t. He argued this was exactly the way the transporter machine worked in Star Trek, which never seemed to trouble anyone.”
“But this isn’t how it works in Star Trek,” said Blake. “We’ve just been over that.”
“I’m afraid it probably is,” said Cargill. “I didn’t realize this either before Knight brought it up. Physicists have analyzed a number of episodes of the show, and most agree this is how the transporter machine works, more or less. How such a device would have to work. You step onto the Enterprise’s transporter pad. Your information, your pattern, is scanned into a computer. And then you’re destroyed, basically melted down. And a second later a copy of you is reconstituted on the planet below.”
“That can’t be right,” said Blake. “It’s still the same you on the planet.”
“No it isn’t. A number of episodes reveal this. Episodes in which a crewmember’s information is trapped in the pattern buffer, and there is a delay in reconstitution. Or in which two copies of a transporting crewmember are produced. Or in which the transporter errs and creates kid versions of adults.” Cargill shook his head. “So even in the show, the person standing on the planet isn’t the same you who was standing on the ship. That you was disintegrated.”
“Wow,” said Jenna, dumbfounded. “No wonder Dr. McCoy had such an aversion to the damn thing.”
Cargill smiled. “Amen to that,” he said. “And while it seems pretty horrible for the one getting flash fried, Edgar argued that in practice you would say to the computer, ‘I want to go to the grocery ten miles away.’ It would calculate the right number of forty-five microsecond intervals it would need to send you back in time to get there. And the correct polarity and orientation of the field to move in the exact right direction. You would give the order, and the next thing you would know, you’d be at the store. The budding off and incineration of your alter ego would be all but simultaneous, and you wouldn’t have any awareness of it at all.”
“But the other you would feel the pain of being fried,” said Blake.
“Not if you did it fast enough. No pain. Just disillusionment, like on Star Trek. It really would be the same. All you know is that you’re standing on the transporter pad one moment, and the next you’re standing on the planet—or inside a grocery store.”
“Could you really signal your arrival from a hundred miles away before the time travel device triggers a second time?” asked Jenna. “We are only talking half a second.”
“Easily,” said Cargill. “Modern cell phones can take your voice, digitize it, bounce it off satellites, and reconstruct it, so your friend a thousand miles away hears you say hello, with much less than a half-second delay. Admittedly, the cell phone industry was having problems with conversational latency several years ago, but the improvement since then has been dramatic.” He shrugged. “Not that you would use a cell phone for this, anyway. But bottom line, a half-second to communicate an instruction a hundred miles is child’s play.”
“So Knight was convinced such a teleporter was feasible,” said Jenna.
Cargill nodded. “Working out clean, instant incineration was the only real hurdle, and Knight estimated he could clear this within five years.”
“So was this his utopia?” she asked. “A world with Star Trek transporter devices that eliminate cars and congestion, but with just one tiny little unfortunate side effect—you have to die every time you use it.”
“This is part of his utopian vision, yes,” replied Cargill. “But he also envisioned a world of free energy, unlimited food, and unlimited wealth. You can see the potential for this even with the suitcase-sized version he described.”
Cargill paused. “But there was so much more he wanted to do. He also saw a world with unlimited copies of Einstein. Of Mozart. Of Da Vinci. You think a tennis final between the two greatest tennis players in history, Federer and Nadal, would be a close match. Knight wondered what a match between Federer and himself would be like.”
“It’s demented,” said Jenna, “but I can’t deny the benefit of a thousand Einsteins. But if you could make endless copies of the best people in every field, where would everyone else fit in? How would they get jobs?”
“That’s just one of a multitude of ethical issues you run into,” said Cargill, taking a page from Blake’s book and pouring himself and the two men seated beside him glasses of ice water.
“Another is who gets to make these calls,” said Walsh. “Who decides how many copies of Einstein to make? Who decides which people in the population are impressive enough to warrant being copied?”
Blake marveled at how quickly they had all started thinking of the process truly as duplication, and not time travel.
“I’m guessing Knight wanted to be the one making these decisions,” said Jenna.
“That’s for sure,” said Cargill. “If someone had to play God, he figured he had as good a case for it as anyone. He is one of the most brilliant people of his generation, and he did invent the device.”
“So what do you want to do with this technology?” asked Blake. “You meaning Q5. What would you plan to do with Nathan’s work?”
“What Edgar said I wanted to accomplish is largely true,” said Cargill. “Other than the part about me being evil and greedy and wanting to use it to gain more power and line my pockets.”
Cargill took a drink of water from his newly filled glass and then continued. “It was my idea to start the shell company to make pharmaceuticals that were impossible for the industry to manufacture, by the way. But the part about using the devices to duplicate wealth and weapons, to help with the war on terror, is correct. And what Knight didn’t mention, because he couldn’t let the conversation go there, are the possible military uses of teleportation, even if human teleportation is prohibited.”
“Right,” said Blake, nodding slowly as he considered the possibilities. “You could teleport explosives behind enemy lines. You’d just have to set your bomb on a short delay, so you’d have time to turn your version off once you’ve verified the time-traveling version arrived. You could teleport bombs inside fortresses, inside the homes of terrorist leaders, anywhere.”
“You got it,” said Cargill. “But once again, Knight wanted to push the military uses of this technology to its limits. Imagine if sending humans back in time, copying them, didn’t trouble you? Imagine what you could do? You could teleport hundreds of copies of SEAL Team Six behind enemy lines, or into a terrorist leader’s residence. They’d even be somewhat expendable, since the originals, so to speak, would be back at headquarters, lounging by the pool.”
Walsh’s eyes narrowed. “But you’d have to set up your device at the exact right distance and direction,” he pointed out. “You know, field orientation, polarity, the stuff that Knight told us was required. Which means you’d have to get close enough to your target for it to work.”
“We have mobile units as well as stationary,” said Cargill. “This wouldn’t be a problem.”
Jenna nodded. “You build the devices inside semis, don’t you?”
“Yes. This was Knight’s idea. To get mobility and directionality. And also to get to within fifty-eight feet of a potential target, which is our current limit. We haven’t used it as a weapon in this way before, but it made sense to have a number of devices in tractor-trailers to provide maximum flexibility.”
He paused and took another drink. “But getting back to the much more aggressive military use Knight favored, he also wanted to push the intelligence possibilities. Beam a guy into Kim Jong-un’s bedroom in North Korea when he’s asleep. Keep him that way with chloroform or gas. Then teleport a copy of him back out.”
Blake nodded in appreciation. “When the fearless leader wakes up the next morning, he’d have no idea you were ever there. Meanwhile, you’d have a copy of him. You could torture him. Learn all his secrets. All his passwords and codes. Everything. And yet no one in the world would suspect how you were doing this, and no one would be looking for him. Because he wouldn’t be missing.”
“That’s right,” said Cargill. “The possibilities are nearly endless. Knight argued that we should do this sort of thing. And while you can do a lot more with a hundred-mile range, much of what he proposed would be possible, even limited to fifty-eight feet.”
“So weren’t these arguments a clue that he was developing delusions of grandeur?” asked Blake.
Cargill frowned deeply. “Yes, but not as much as you might think. He argued his case in a lighthearted, intellectual, abstract way. He lobbied for what he thought best, but he pretended that he was mostly on the fence. Basically, he played me like a violin.”
“In Lee’s defense,” said Joe Allen, “he did express concerns. We discussed them. And Lee began secretly videoing Knight during their sessions, the ones in which Knight was pushing to exceed the bounds the rest of us supported.”
Greg Soyer now came to life as well. “These two explained the situation to me, at length,” he said. “I didn’t believe a word of it. Until I saw demonstrations of duplications that couldn’t have been faked. They also played the videos of Knight they just mentioned. I’m sure they’ll do the same for you when we’re through here. But the bottom line is that I’ve verified everything they’ve been telling you.”
Blake extended a hand across the wide table. “Looks like I owe you an apology, Greg,” he said earnestly. “I’m sorry for doubting you.”
Soyer shook the offered hand. “Thanks, Aaron. But no need to apologize. Who could blame you? And even though I had my reasons, I did betray your trust. And I did shoot you with a tranq dart from two feet. I’m guessing that didn’t tickle.”
Blake grinned. “No. That pretty much sucked,” he said. “But you had compelling evidence to believe we were in danger, and that this was the best strategy.”
With this said, all eyes turned once again to the head of Q5.
Cargill cleared his throat. “Knight always told me he enjoyed our little debates as intellectual exercises,” he continued. “He said he knew he’d never really persuade me, and that it was probably lucky I was in charge, because he was aware of the Pandora’s Box he might be opening. Even so, after a short while, in addition to taping our sessions, I kept a close watch on him.”
“Apparently, not close enough,” said Blake.
Cargill’s jaw clenched. “No. Not nearly close enough,” he said in disgust. “I failed to realize that what he was pushing me to do with the technology was just the tip of the iceberg. He had far grander plans for himself, once he decided to set out on his own. And I was unaware that he had won over some of my best people to his way of thinking.”
“When the people you have spying on someone are actually in that person’s camp,” said Allen, “you don’t get great intel.”
“So the reports all came back that he was behaving,” guessed Blake, “ and was as harmless as a baby chick, right?”
“I’m afraid so. Until he and his recruits waged a civil war, took many of the mobile units, and killed many of my best men. That was almost a year ago.”
“You mentioned that his plans were even bolder than he had let on,” prompted Blake.
“Yes. During our little civil war, we captured some of the people who had sided with him, so we know what he’s been gearing up to accomplish since he split from us.”
Cargill paused as though even he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Basically, Knight wants to take over the world. Become the ultimate global authority.”
Jenna shook her head as if her ears weren’t working properly. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” she said.
“Yes, I do. But do you know how possible it is? Especially with Nathan’s work likely making a half-second possible. Brainpower isn’t an issue. Want to field fifty different project teams, each with its own Jobs and Edison and Zuckerberg and Einstein? No problem. Money isn’t an issue,” added Cargill, ticking these points off on his fingers. “Even if Knight couldn’t duplicate wealth, which he can, he could duplicate the richest men in the world, torture them for their passwords and bank account information. He could force them to withdraw funds from their accounts. While other versions of these people go about their business in blissful ignorance. And he could do the same to any dictator, terrorist, or world leader, including the President of the United States.”
“President Janney has been read into this, right?” said Blake.
“Yes,” replied Cargill, “but I’ve been treading carefully. I limit the information he has, in case Knight does manage to obtain a duplicate of him. Q5’s responsibilities are too great, and too profound, to have an obvious target like a president involved. And we need to stay above political whims. Fortunately, President Janney agrees with me, so he’ll be the last president with any knowledge.”
“Leaving you with absolutely no oversight,” said Blake.
Cargill blew out a long breath. “I’m well aware of the need for someone to be a check on me. On us. I’m trying to figure out how to do that. But as it stands right now, my goals are to push the genie back into the bottle as much as I can, and be ready in case Q5’s unique capabilities are needed to ward off a disaster.”
Blake wanted to discuss checks and balances on Cargill’s power at length, but for now, Edgar Knight posed the more immediate problem. “Let’s get back to Knight,” said Blake. “I have to agree with you that he really could take over the world, given time. The darkest secrets of any leader are potentially accessible to him. And manpower, an army, isn’t an issue either. It’s a lot easier to build an army when you can, you know, literally, build an army.”
“And what an army,” said Cargill. “He can duplicate the modern equivalent of five hundred Sun Tzus. A thousand Pattons. Five thousand MacArthurs. Ten thousand copies of the best sniper on Earth, the best commando, the best pilot.”
“All this,” said Blake, “and he can make them magically appear anywhere. Hardly seems fair.”
“And that’s really the point,” said Cargill. “These capabilities are so profound he probably would never need to use them in this way. Just threaten to. He could pull strings from off-stage to build his world government. He’d just need to demonstrate to world leaders what he can do. You teleport a commando team inside a world leader’s bedroom and he’ll never feel safe again. At that point you own him. Not to mention that Knight could have duplicates of world leaders that he, almost literally, does own. With the right combination of money, power, intimidation, and coercion, he can get leaders to gradually work their way toward consenting to a global government, with himself at the helm. Without firing a single shot.”
“What I find the most insidious about this,” said Joe Allen, “is how fervent, how zealous, his followers seem to be. Even if they don’t always like his personality, they believe in his cause.”
“His cause?” said Jenna in disgust. “Ruling the world is a cause?”
“No. He claims this is only a means to an end,” explained Cargill. “Stabilizing the world. He’ll be a benevolent ruler. He’ll wipe out terrorism in a single fell swoop, which is appealing to more and more people as this problem continues to build.”
Blake had to admit this was an appealing prospect. Ridding the world of this blight could well save all of humanity.
“He’ll tear down totalitarian regimes,” continued Cargill. “Democratize the world. Well, to some extent. Everyone will have the illusion of self-rule, but he’ll be the ultimate authority. The followers we captured claim that he wants to exert as little power as possible. Well, that is after he makes the entire globe a single nation under his domain, destroys terrorism, reduces crime, and returns society to civility. And the technology breakthroughs his teams of duplicated geniuses will be able to make will revolutionize industry after industry. This, and his ability to duplicate food, water, precious metals, what have you, will vastly increase the wealth and quality of life of every person now alive.”
“I can see why his vision would have a certain appeal,” said Walsh.
“If it weren’t for all the eggs he’ll need to break to make this omelet,” said Cargill, “it doesn’t sound all that bad. Except that he also believes that the least intelligent people in our world are reproducing far faster than the most intelligent.”
“Idiocracy,” whispered Jenna under her breath, but too softly for anyone to hear.
“Because of this belief,” continued Cargill, “Knight also plans to sterilize everyone not in the top ten percent in intelligence, and limit population growth in general.”
