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  BUILDING GOD

  JESS KURAS

  Building God

  © 2013 Jess Kuras

  All rights reserved. Published 2013.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is entirely coincidental.

  They told us we were defying nature, playing God. We replied that we were not simply playing at it – we were building God.

  As the car rolled up to Global Central, I saw protesters surrounding the doors. The group had enlarged over the past few weeks, but all the regulars were still in there. I had gotten so that I could even recognize some of them, would notice when they changed signs. When they saw my car, they all surged forward, yelling obscenities. I smirked. With all their holier-than-thou attitudes, they certainly didn’t seem to uphold to their mighty values when it came to language. The guards shoved the people back as I stepped out of the car to be escorted to the building entrance.

  One of the mosquito-like protestors (their voices had a tinny, whining drone that I found particularly irritating) managed to squeeze her way between some of the guards, straight into our path. “You should be ashamed,” she screeched, “trying to convince our children that free will doesn’t exist.” I paused and looked at her. Even her face resembled an insect – overly large forehead, tiny chin, her large eyes wide with determination.

  I scoffed. “Free will? Free will is an inability to predict the future. No one’s stopping you from living in your ignorance. I’m not responsible for what you teach your children.” The reporters in the crowd had shoved microphones between us and I hurried off, knowing it was one more quote for the papers. I would have to make up for that little slip-up later. The protesters had resumed screaming behind me, but as I stepped through the glass doors of Global Central, the doors automatically closed and locked behind me and muffled the roar. I smiled my gratitude at the security guards who stayed at the door to guard it against the more adventurous reporters or protesters.

  As most people had learned over the last few years, I defied the typical stereotype of a scientist. If it was a demure woman in a flapping lab coat and high heels you were after, you would have to look elsewhere. My boots squeaked against the freshly waxed floor as I strode toward the Global Modeling section of the building – GM for short. Of course, nowadays most people had renamed GM the “God Machine.” Although I would never publically endorse the nickname, I had to admit it was rather fitting. Over every doorway, the number 99.999% flickered in red and I couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride at the numbers. So close, so close.

  My first stop for the morning was the computer interface. It was deep inside the building, through a long elevator ride and a maze of hallways. Only a few people had access, but I wasn’t surprised to find the room already swarming with several of the others. With so little time left until the computer went “live,” most of us were working nearly 24/7 on the final preparations. “How’s everything looking?” I asked the man tapping on the screen.

  He started and jumped away from the screen, ushering me toward it. “Fine, fine, Ms. Riese. Just running the morning calibrations on the new data. Everything seems to be going smoothly.” I nodded. Ugh, Ms. Riese. I hated that name even more than the ones the protesters called me.

  “That’s fine, go ahead.” As he stepped back toward the screen, I could see his hands trembling. “And really, you can call me Catharine.” He nodded, but I knew he never would. None of them would. Frustrated, I left the room, greatly aware of the huge amount of space the others gave me. They resembled a crowd of squirrels – just keep a 5 foot distance and you’ll be fine. Chatter away once the danger has turned its back.

  I headed to my own office where I knew no one would dare venture unless something catastrophic occurred. As I switched on my own personal computer to watch the day’s preparations from a distance, the phone rang. My mother’s face popped up on the screen. Ah, of course. Today would be an anxious day for her as well. I picked up the receiver and fastened it around my ear. “Heya, mom.”

  “Hey sweetie!” Her enthusiasm did a poor job at concealing her concern. “How’s everything going down there?”

  “Not bad,” I replied. “It’s getting busy out there. How’s dad?”

  She paused and I knew she was searching for a way to skirt around the truth. “Oh you know. It’s a hard day for him. He was hoping this day wouldn’t come for a long time yet.” Until after he’s dead, I knew she meant. All this trouble he’s caused me and he can’t even appreciate the results.

  “I don’t see how he can just cut himself off from the project like this,” I said coldly.

  “It’s not that simple. You know he still feels guilty for bringing you into this, making you the first child implanted with the monitor.”

  I reflexively touched the back of my neck where I could feel the hard edge of the monitor embedded under my skin. It gave me a sense of reassurance to know that it was constantly monitoring my vitals, my hormone levels, my every movement and sending it all into the GM. “Oh mom,” I sighed. “I know that’s not what made him step away from everything.”

  I could almost hear her shrug through the phone. I honestly felt bad for her. She was in this just as much as the rest of us. But she chose him over the project. “You know how it is,” she said softly, “with the church and all.”

  Really, his actions made no sense to me, but I pretended to understand. “I know, mom. You could always come back, you know.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right. No, this is your moment, hon. Enjoy it! You know, I saw you on TV last night.” I sat back and let her chatter on for a little while, checking my e-mail as I waited for her to finish. Hundreds and hundreds of interview requests. “Well sweetie, I should let you go. I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you.”

  “Yep. Watch for me on the news though.”

  “Of course. I will.”

  “Give dad my love.”

  “Okay, have a good day now.”

  We hung up and I groaned, glancing at the clock. Only twenty more minutes until my first interview of the day. I stood and walked over to the window as I waited, looking at the ground far below. As the sun crawled by overhead, peering out between skyscrapers, the crowd of demonstrators steadily grew, spilling out into the street and blocking the sidewalk. I shook my head at the absurdity of the situation. Was this really the biggest problem in their simple little lives? What scared them so badly about the future?

  The phone rang again, and I hurried back over to answer it. The National Guiding News logo had popped up on the screen, slowly spinning and I took a deep breath, leveling the cam toward my face. As I fastened the receiver on my ear, my cam switched on and I saw my face pop up on the screen alongside a picture of the still-empty news studio.

  “Hello?” I ventured.

  A tech-man popped up on screen. “Good morning, Ms. Riese! Everything looks fine on our end. Just hang tight for a few and we’ll get you going in about ten minutes.” I nodded, slightly adjusting the cam. People began to file into the studio and I wondered what I looked like on their end – was my face plastered on a giant screen? I tried to look pleasant. This was absolutely my least favorite part of the job, but it was necessary. We had to try and get the public on our side, regardless of my numerous blunders with the media.

  I watched as the news segment began and they introduced me, our project. Was it still necessary to introduce all t
hat? I suppose it was mandatory, but really, who didn’t already know about it all? I gave a final steadying breath as the screen gave a quick green flash. I was live.

  “Ms. Riese! Welcome!” The news anchors were all make-up, wavy blond hair, and perfectly white smiles. So unlike myself.

  I gave my best forced smile and nodded. “Good morning. And please, call me Catharine.”

  They laughed as if it was a joke and one of them gave me a concerned look. “Well, Ms. Catharine, we’re sorry you couldn’t join us in the studio today, but we heard there’s quite the demonstration going on outside.”

  I nodded, furrowing my brow. Darn, how did they get so good at looking concerned on command? I just looked angry. I dropped the expression. “Yes, safety concerns and all.”

  They nodded in unison. “Well, lucky for us that we have the gift of technology at our hands and you can join us from your office.” I let my eyes dart toward the clock in the corner of the screen. This was the news. Surely this couldn’t last too long. I was already impatient for it to end. “So we heard today is the big day! The Go – er, Global Model is going live today.”

  The audience cheered, covering her mistake. I smiled thinly. The God Machine, indeed. “That’s correct,” I replied. “We’ll be running our first simulations at midnight tonight.” I glanced at the numbers flashing over the doorway. 99.9999%. “We’re inputting all the last stray data today to bump up the accuracy as high as possible. We will continue to input data as it runs, but we are very nearly at 100%.”

  The news anchors gasped in fake-surprise. “That’s incredible,” one of them said. “But before we get too deep into the technical stuff, can you give us a quick rundown on how the GM came to be?”

  I nodded. “Of course. Well, the project began as a simple weather model. We have been using computers to predict weather and climate changes for many, many years. As we gain a greater understanding of all the feedback loops involved, they grow more and more accurate. My father,” I paused for a moment, catching a glimpse of the screen behind the news anchors, showing an old, imposing photo of my dad to the audience. “My father spear-headed the GM project as an attempt to create the ultimate model. Now, the universe is really ruled by only a few key laws. We know now that there is no real randomness to it. If you can gather enough data, down to the molecular level, you can use a hyper computer like the GM to predict exactly how each molecule will react with one another, then compress it all into useable information.”

  The news anchors eyes had started to glaze over. “So how did that grow into the monitor-movement?”

  “Well that was my mother’s idea.” I heard the audience laugh at my tone. “She was a student at the time and attended one of my father’s seminars on the project. She had the idea to include the human element and he hired her on the spot. If there was some way to monitor all the molecules – even ones embedded in our own systems, we could create the ultimate model. One that could essentially predict the future. The easiest way to do so was to begin implanting monitors in people to record and transmit all that data to the GM. In fact, I was the first baby implanted with a monitor.”

  I knew what was coming next and I braced myself for the question. “So how did you become the head of the project? I understand your parents stepped down some years ago.”

  “Well, it wasn’t an easy decision, but I grew up working on this project. I know it better than anyone, so when my parents retired, it was the logical choice.”

  It wasn’t what they were asking and I knew it wouldn’t suffice. “Yes, but why did your parents retire so suddenly? It wasn’t a planned decision, was it?”

  I hesitated, knowing my mom was probably watching the live feed. My dad too, maybe. “There were some personal issues,” I said shortly. “My father had a strong religious upbringing.”

  The news anchors adopted a look of sympathy. It was a good enough answer. I wasn’t off the hook yet, though. “Let’s talk about that,” one of them said. “There has been a lot of controversy with this project. Many people have expressed outrage at the compulsory monitor-installation laws. What about the issue of privacy?”

  I shrugged. “There are countless instances where the monitors have saved lives. Children can no longer go missing, the homeless no longer die on the streets, the elderly no longer suffer in their homes, unable to call for help. The monitors alert the authorities at the first sign of stroke, seizure, hypothermia, insulin-drop, or other medical emergency and are able to direct help to the person’s exact location. I believe these life-saving measures are worth the slight price in privacy. Don’t you?” I was directly addressing the news anchors, but really, I was addressing the world that was listening in.

  The news anchors all nodded eagerly. “And what about the others, the ones who say you’re playing God, that we’re not meant to know the future?”

  I tried to maintain a pleasant face, but I felt like screaming in frustration. Always this stupid argument. “Well, technology has often come into conflict with religion. We try to maintain a separation between the two, here at Global Modeling. We respect the religious views of our opponents and we hope they will respect our advances in technology.” We all knew it wasn’t what I was quoted on saying during numerous occasions, but it would have to do.

  My frustration was enhanced as I heard my office door slide open. Who the hell would dare-I glanced over and saw the man from the morning – the nervous one who had been inputting more data into the GM. He looked even more terrified now, his paunchy jaw quivering loosely. I turned my attention back to the interview. The anchors hadn’t seemed to notice my inattention and were congratulating me and wishing me success with the GM. I nodded, thanking them and wishing them well, and finally breathed a sigh of relief as the screen flashed red. We were done.

  “Uh, Ms. Riese?” the man was carefully edging closer.

  “What?” I snapped, shutting off the cam. “Didn’t you notice the closed door?” I heard the rustle of loose papers and noticed he held something in his hands. “What is it?” I asked tiredly.

  “It’s just…here.” He thrust the papers out toward me and I grabbed them, briefly leafing through the bundle. A thin black line snaked through the papers, zig-zagging up and down. I let the papers unfold to their full length and watched as the line zigged high and higher up the page, then crashed straight down to crawl along the bottom margin.

  “What is-“ My words went unfinished as I found the title of the graph. Population – Global. I quickly leafed back to the great drop-off point and found someone had scrawled something illegible by it.

  “What is this?” I asked again, spreading the papers on my desk and jabbing my finger to the drop.

  “It’s just a preliminary graph of the population, using most of our data. Just to see if everything’s working right for the full test tonight.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand that.” It was me, after all, who decided our first run of the GM should predict the world’s population for the next century. Easy to understand, easy to track, useful information, and most importantly of all, nonthreatening to the public. Population had been being predicted for years, slowly becoming more accurate. This would be nothing new or shocking. I pointed at the graph again. “But when is this?”

  He paled. “Tonight. A little after midnight. I kept printing off pages, but they were all the same.” He picked up the tail end of the graph, where the line edged along the bottom margin of the page and threw it back down in disgust. It just keeps saying the population drops to zero tonight.”

  I shoved the papers to the floor. “You, what’s your name?”

  “Timothy Mayer.”

  “Well Tim, you are to let no one find out the machine is acting up. How much data did you use? Could it be too little?”

  He shook his head, his limp brown hair swishing across his forehead. “It was at 99% accuracy when I ran it. It could be off by a couple million people, but not the entire population. There’s something not right about all this.” />
  I gave him a sharp look. “All that’s not right is that the machine’s temporarily dysfunctional. I don’t want to hear any end-of-the-world crap from you, understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Now this is what I want you to do. Start running more tests. Do population by each country individually. Run simulations for natural disasters. Anything you can think of. Start a live print-out of world population immediately and look for any discrepancies. See if the GM is correctly predicting all this positive population growth up until midnight.”

  He nodded quickly and rushed out of the room. “And remember, don’t tell anyone,” I stressed again as he left. The office door slammed behind him and I sank into my chair, carefully picking the print-out off the ground. Folding it up neatly, I placed it on my desk and opened up my Internet browser. If this wasn’t some fluke of the machine, if it really was accurate, what kind of event could cause such devastation? Trying to keep in mind that this was simply a worst-case scenario, I started pounding in keywords. Meteors, black holes, sun expansion, anything. I even briefly opened up an article on the Top 10 Ways Scientists Think the Earth Will End, but quickly closed it as the possibilities became overwhelming. Surely scientists would see something like this coming, right? Or perhaps more importantly, scientists would tell us if something like this was coming…right?

  Feeling restless and claustrophobic, I paced over to the window to try and think. The mass of people below was still growing, extending in every direction down the streets. I could hear the muffled sound of the roar below, even through the window pane, so high up. I wondered where the police were, if they were going to clear out all the protestors blocking the streets. It couldn’t be legal. Then again, maybe the police were already down there, amongst the protestors, encouraging it to go on. I sighed and turned away. It was going to be a long time until I was able to get home if the police didn’t start clearing them up soon. What was it about these people that made the idea of free will so essential to their lives? What was wrong with knowing there was only one future and being able to predict it with such certainty?