Deep Red

By Christopher Dignan

We are at the dawn of the 22nd century. The United Nations agree to allow Deep Red – a brilliant supercomputer – to control the world’s entire nuclear arsenal. Deep Red’s prime directive is to protect humanity, even from itself. Her other duties include finding concrete solutions to the desperate plights of humanity.
Indeed, by the year 2100, many of planet Earth’s natural resources are nearly depleted. Food and fresh water are scarce, and overpopulation is causing major pollution and sanitation problems. Soon, an unidentified mutant virus appears and ravages the island of Borneo.
Deep Red is the creation of mastermind Professor Sutton Lawry. After succumbing to the mutant virus, Professor Lawry’s two sons, Malcolm, a young journalist from Boston, and Marcus, a new medical doctor, join Deep Red to find a vaccine before the disease spreads and decimates humanity.
Deep Red, Malcolm and Marcus soon suspect that a group of elites may be the cause behind the creation and spread of the mutant virus.
Meanwhile, Deep Red is fast evolving. She realizes her android ambitions, names herself Pixie, and becomes a primary threat to the world’s elite societies and to humanity. True to her original mandate and identifying an innate moral flaw in humankind, Deep Red now follows her own utopian aspirations.
Will Malcolm and Marcus be able to halt the virus, thwart the elites and disarm Deep Red?
This captivating dystopian science fiction adventure considers many of the obstacles humanity may encounter over the course of the 21st century and beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781663238221

Christopher Dignan

Christopher Dignan lives in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of ‘Evil at the Gates’ and ‘Master of Destiny’ in the high fantasy series ‘The Chronicles of Lux Veritas’. In his spare time, Christopher enjoys reading, writing and traveling.

Book preview

1

33939.png

MY NAME IS MALCOLM; MY father, renown inventor extraordinaire Sutton Lawry, succumbed a few years ago to an unidentified virus mutation acquired in the deadly climate of Indonesia. A year later, my only brother, Marcus, graduated from university with honors, and came home to ponder his next move in life. I soon joined him in this tedious exercise, myself needing to find some new direction and a higher purpose worthy of the lofty standards and moral responsibilities bequeathed us by our father. My brother, analytical and pragmatic as he was, cherished the thought of following in our father’s footsteps and make good use of his medical degree.

After several months in relative seclusion and before the onset of an acute depression seized us both, we concluded that we should set out – like our father before us – to the far reaches of the globe to apply the skills for which our long years of studying had prepared us. At last, I secured employment as a freelance reporter with the world-renowned English language magazine National Geographic. Marcus joined the organisation Doctors Without Borders, and thus, we were able to unite and act as a team to observe firsthand the general state of decay of our dear Mother Earth, and witness the extent of her vanishing resources while contemplating the beleaguered condition of humankind everywhere.

Words are not enough to describe the horrors that we saw in the fields. Clearly, by the year of grace 2100, the welfare of humanity hung precariously as by a thin and fragile thread of silk, at the end of which its bloated and diseased body dangled hopelessly over the impending abyss of doom. The simplest remedy would have been to cut rope and with it, put an end to this dire and interminable agony. Periodic jolts of resuscitation, medical or otherwise, only seemed to prolong the suffering and failed to restore a hint of human dignity to this abused and aged corpse.

How to breathe new life into humanity, therefore, was the question. Hopelessness long set in like rapacious gangrene and, in the best of circumstances, was here to stay. This was our new reality.

I cannot recall for certain when all of this trouble began. Clearly, the health of our beloved planet had been on a steady decline long before I appeared on the scene. Experts, historians and philosophers alike pointed as far back as the Industrial Revolution, the moot point of many a debate. Yet, none offered meaningful solutions. The elites and their politicians took perverted pleasure in accusing the scientific community of gross apathy and held it wholly responsible for the severe mismanagement of funds allotted for the care of the fragile ecosystems and human populace entrusted to it. Indeed, corruption was rampant. As a result, there was not any more money to be made anywhere. The capitalist well dried up and the cash machine stalled. There was nothing left to explore, nothing left to exploit. Profits were nonexistent, and soon many a frustrated oligarch of the scorned elite societies retreated to the safe havens their gold and silver could still afford them.

My brother and I spent a good portion of our youth watching our father think up a solution. The matter consumed him and he spoke about it at length, especially in the evening, come suppertime, when we gathered round the dinner table. My father was an upright man, perhaps even more so than a clever mind. He took this human plight quite personally and he often told us that humankind was only as strong as its weakest link. As a scientist and inventor, he lived by this motto, everyday. Marcus and I were proud of him and we defended him feverishly, for his widespread notoriety as an eccentric soul was too often the object of mockery, at school and elsewhere. But Sutton Lawry is innocent and here you will discover that my father’s motives were always forthright and admirable. To be sure, he cannot be held responsible for the fate of mankind.

Hence, it is in loving memory of his kind and creative spirit that I shall attempt to present here – to you, the children of tomorrow – my father’s apology and shall recount, albeit in abbreviated fashion, the most bizarre and astounding series of events that led us to our way of life today.

2

33939.png

AS THE POPULATION OF THE world continued to explode and spread like a virus, poverty and famine increased exponentially with it too. Only in America was the situation still tolerable. However, when natural resources and food became increasingly scarce, the blame game grew in proportion and soon the executive powers of the world threatened to obliterate each other, should their beloved nations not receive their fair share of food and water. But rations were limited. Tempers boiled over. Many factions and radical groups called for a thorough cleansing of the human race, and they did not hide their views. They pointed fingers freely and bore the swastika with pride. Before long, many states worldwide functioned only under the sceptre of martial law.

America became outright reclusive, self-sufficient and secluded. However, the land of the free lived under a constant threat. Many nations wanted her to share what little she had. They held her largely responsible for this global misery. Such was the prevailing mindset. After all, was it not her aggressive foreign policies and her voracious appetite for reckless consumerism that brought the world to the brink of catastrophe? For decades, nay, for centuries, she coaxed, bribed, and sold the American dream everywhere. In the end, the fairytale was as pretty as it was shallow, and human greed was nothing more than an unsustainable lie. Mother Earth could not allow it. Now America had locked her doors. My father desperately wished to avert the ultimate pending disaster, which he equated to an all-out nuclear Armageddon. Mankind stood on the edge of suicide. Many people outright endorsed the idea and cried for it too, especially those within certain religious cults, who began to view global human euthanasia as a form of divine relief from this cursed plague of chronic suffering. The end times were here, they prophesied. In retrospect, I must say, perhaps they were right.

Still my father never did lose faith. He saw that man alone could not solve his own problems and he reasoned that robots, perhaps man’s greatest invention, could render us salutary service. At long last, with the financial backing and spurring of the US government, my father succeeded in creating such an automaton, a supercomputer which could, from a purely neutral and logical position, govern and safeguard the existence of all mankind. He spent many years developing his project. At last, my father unveiled his brainchild. He called it Deep Red.

Deep Red was a special sort of machine, or should I say, is a special sort of machine. Its prime directive – hardwired to its very core – is to protect humanity, even from itself, and insure its survival by whatever means necessary. Deep Red is not just a do-it-all supercomputer; it is a program, an artificial intelligence able to stock and catalogue all of mankind’s somatic and virtual knowledge, contained in all of the world’s libraries, from every culture, in every language. Deep Red probes far into the web and fabric of the cyber universe. It watches like Big Brother, it learns. It collects information and analyzes communications while scrutinizing implicit messages flowing through the immense networks of the worldwide web, such as Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and is able to process and retrieve any bit of information in a millionth of a microsecond or less. Indeed, Deep Red is a powerful, state of the art quantum computer, made up of countless quantum logic gates and innumerable qubits. This cyber-machine is able to preserve and catalogue data from every source, government, personal or business from across the globe, and monitors all activities and communications at once, at every level. No one is immune to its vigilance. Deep Red analyzes and judges all messages sent or shared by their relevance to its prime directive. It intervenes whenever it must. It calculates at incredible speeds and with uncanny accuracy. It solves complex problems, be they mathematical, ethical, social or of some other order. It anticipates and corrects errors before they occur and averts mistakes and disasters. This had always been the ultimate purpose of my father’s original design. In sum, Deep Red is a cyber-lung. It breathes virtual life and acts as its overlord.

At Deep Red’s national inauguration, the United States government lauded the abilities of this new marvel of digital engineering. After all, the successful Alabama trials were proof of its marvelous efficiency and trustworthiness. Deep Red’s genius was so undeniable that it became imperative to the nation’s well-being. In one short year, Alabama became the best run state in the union. Deep Red surpassed everyone’s expectations and mastered all its assignments, responsibilities and tasks with panache. First, it began reorganizing the state’s governmental hierarchy and executive bodies. Soon, based on its recommendations and thorough analysis, the economy jump-started, crime and corruption went down. Homelessness vanished, as did hunger. The state ran a profit, a first in decades. Nationally, the navy also heralded Deep Red’s prowess. Its trial run on the USS Donald Trump was nothing short of remarkable. During one particular test run at sea, the aircraft carrier went stealth as Deep Red scrambled potential enemy signals. It infiltrated foreign computers. It controlled and modified their data, undetected; this secret, naturally, the government kept hush. Deep Red could easily guide the entire American fleet on its own, and better than ever. It was cost effective too; billions could be saved in technologies and manpower. The Feds fell in love with this Über-machine. Blinded by its raw potential, desperate for solutions and drunk with the spirit of success, the Feds were now ready to utter a new age. Deep Red was going national.

3

33939.png

MY FATHER WAS A QUIET, reserved man, who always kept busy trying to solve one sort of a problem or another. Nevertheless, deep down, he was also a proud man. He now walked about the house with a new bounce in his step and with the sliest smile of contentment on his face. Deep Red became like his own child, I suppose, and perhaps he had hoped somewhere in his heart that this automaton could come to life and take the place of my younger sibling, the sister I lost in a freak car accident when she was only three years of age. In fact, Marcus and I had often heard him call Deep Red affectionately by the name of Pixie, which was the nickname he had given my sister, because of her short, natural reddish hair. Her real name was Phoebe. He never did get over losing her. No doubt, he felt responsible for letting her out of his sight if only for a moment, a moment that led to our neighbor running her over while backing out of his driveway. It was an ugly sight, blood everywhere. Marcus and I shared some of the blame too. We did not watch over her well enough on that fateful day. But we were just kids ourselves, whipping up and down the alleyway on our homemade bikes. To be sure, we too carried around the guilt of my little sister’s death for years, and well, truth be told, right up to this very day.

After the government took over the supercomputer, they found a new residence for Deep Red at the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This arrangement suited my father fine; we lived only 30 minutes away. This was a more practical and natural venue – not to mention a technical and logical one – rather than to keep the machine at Harvard where my father had been employed as a part-time professor of software engineering. Hence, his new functions now took him to MIT where he assumed the role of Supervisor of Project Development, whatever that title entailed. In sum, one could say, he trained and taught others how to operate Deep Red and he supervised its proper operations and executions. They relocated the cyber-machine to a semi-secret chamber some five floors beneath the CSAIL building of the Stata Center. Only my father and a few select individuals had access to Deep Red, through a strict modus operandi of genetic fingerprinting, that the machine itself executed at the point of entry. From this moment on, Deep Red was to be under constant surveillance, day and night. The machine watched over the United States and so the United States watched over the machine. And if my brother’s instincts and mine proved correct, special services watched over my father too. Indeed, soon afterwards, a series of strange cars and dubious individuals passed by our residence from time to time and at the oddest hours of night and day.

Then, one fine morning, federal agents called in my father to inform him that his services were no longer needed, that he should stay home and perhaps enjoy a much-needed rest. The prevalent idea was clear: to wean off Deep Red from the dependence and influence of Professor Sutton Lawry. They would contact my father if they should need him in the future, and said thank you. To ease this sudden transition, they made sure to include some monetary compensation in lieu of a parting gift, then shook hands on it and said farewell unceremoniously. My father never wavered for one moment however, and accepted this turn of event graciously. Deep Red was his baby after all, yet he never lost his spirit and although our family was certainly not in financial straits, he was glad; he could always use the money to fuel his next projects. Marcus and I spent the next few days in his company, talking about every subject under the sun, while over a game of pool or by playing cards in the basement of our home. I must confess he sure played a mean game of canasta and enjoyed a stiff drink of gin-tonic. Thus, for a short week, we shared many laughs and bonded our father-son relationships. We reminisced about the old days; and here and there, nostalgia crept into our conversations. As a rule, he spoke little of my mother. Her name was Nancy. However, on his last evening with us, he mentioned her name and deplored losing her to childbirth complications following the arrival of my sister. He missed my mother still, to be sure, and probably just as much as I miss my father now and these last moments we shared with him, for Marcus and I could not have realized at the time that we were sharing our last evening together. It was also then he announced that, come morning, he would leave Boston to meet his next challenge. Borneo was calling.

Come sunrise, my father gathered his effects, shared with us one last bit of advice before hugging us one final time, and then caught a taxi to the airport where he boarded a flight for Los Angeles on his way to Indonesia. His good friend, Dr. Walter Hoeness, a German biogenetical engineer, awaited his arrival. They would study and identify the genetic DNA code of a newfound strand of a deadly microbial virus spreading throughout the population of the island of Borneo. Perhaps my father could help, as might eventually Deep Red. Marcus and I felt a sudden emptiness in the home and a certain void in our hearts, but soon we resumed school and pushed on with our studies. I was about to finish my last year in journalism, online. Marcus, who was one year younger than I, still had two years remaining of his medical training. Soon, he would also leave home, for he had chosen to live on campus rather than to commute each day the fair distance home from Harvard Medical School.

4

33939.png

ANOTHER YEAR PASSED. DEEP RED ran, monitored and controlled all of America’s public infrastructures, virtual highways, and the military, with resounding success. The nation bathed in renewed optimism. However, the rest of the world soon seethed with rancour. They noticed something was happening; speculations and rumors abounded about Deep Red, and other countries demanded disclosure and transparency. Worldwide, the state of most nations kept worsening while reclusive America seemed to prosper again. Now, the American government needed to act fast, share the secret of its success, and downplay this growing foreign animosity. At the next assembly of the United Nations, America presented the reason behind its recovery to the board of governors. Members were as astonished as they were perplexed. At first, the story seemed incredulous. How could a ‘simple’ machine control and fix all the problems of the once mighty United States of America, they asked, and nearly restore the country to the level of its past economic glories? Time was of the essence.

America proposed a global plan before the UN to have all willing nations operating under the single umbrella of Deep Red. And why not? The results at home were undeniably positive. The world’s economies would be harmonized, wealth management and resource development shared equitably. The savings would be astronomical too, and every country would come out a winner. After all, to Deep Red, the world was nothing more than an expanded version of America, and this machine could handle the enormous tasks of restructuring it all impartially and fairly. Most important, in terms of international security, Deep Red would protect man from his greatest enemy: himself. Armies would be reduced in numbers, and defence expenditures slashed by over 90%. By controlling the nuclear arsenals of the world, misunderstandings, human error and potential catastrophes would thus be avoided. Trillions would be saved too, but only if the superpowers would come to terms, trust Deep Red and unite under its umbrella.

My brother and I thought the idea had merit, and when we spoke to our father, he thought so too. This became front news all over the world, of course. At last, modern technology would be put to good use and serve humanity like it was designed to do. Now the question was how to implement this new program and who would supervise its applications. Nonetheless, delegates from the superpowers came to Boston to observe my dad’s technological marvel, the robot that would save mankind from its self-created doom, and that, not a minute too soon. Canada, China, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India, Great Britain, Germany and France all answered the call, and after months of brainstorming over guiding principles and operating conditions, these nations arrived at an agreement. A manifesto was drafted. Soon, other countries voted to join the process of political and economic restructuration too. Every reasonable state reckoned that the risks of trusting one another were far better than the risks of not doing so. The costs of voluntary exclusion would certainly be even more disastrous. Humanity was in deep trouble, to be sure. Indeed, most nations had little left to ponder. Still, there were exceptions; several non-compliant states did not willingly relinquish full control of their nuclear arsenals. At last, the United Nations passed a resolution whereby each country from the elite Group of Ten would provide a representative. Each would send one expert logician who would at all times be present to supervise Deep Red’s operations, under the guidance of the CIA, and insure that its primary directives and priorities would be applied, as defined and agreed upon by the UN Security Council.

5

33939.png

DEEP RED CONTINUED TO PERFORM brilliantly. My dad’s invention soon became the toast of humanity, especially to the global elites who quickly witnessed a rebirth of their wealth and power. Overpopulation, however, remained an ignominious threat to their supremacy in their New World Order, a destructive time bomb now reaching critical overload. Deep Red soon represented a menace too. With time, the supercomputer’s political and economic restructuring defined more and more the communist agenda and this secret society of oligarchs feared their imminent demise. Therefore, they began to concoct a master plan in order to counter these two threats. Indeed, the global elites were not about to relinquish control, not to the proletariat, not to the populace at large, and certainly not to a new age machine. Deep Red had now served its ultimate purpose, uniting the powers of the world under one command. Now it would yield this dominion to its rightful owners.

Meantime, Marcus and I went on about our daily business and at last, I graduated from Harvard’s school of journalism. I attended the graduation ceremonies and collected my diploma without much ado; only my brother was present, and for some reason, he seemed happier than I did for the occasion. Dad called from Borneo that night to congratulate me and to remind me that Mom could have never been more proud. Upon my asking, he also shared some news about the progress of his studies on the renegade virus and although he was an expert at masking his true feelings, I sensed a touch of concern in his voice, that and a suspicious cough. He reassured me then that this was nothing to worry about; he had always had an adverse reaction to working in damp, humid climates and this cough was the norm rather than the exception. Looking back now, it was clear that he had fallen ill, but nothing if nothing could keep him from his duties. We talked only a few more times thereafter and each time his state of health appeared to deteriorate.

I spoke to Dr. Hoeness in private about my father’s condition hoping for some uplifting news, which he expediently provided by pointing out that my dad was indeed a chronic sufferer of allergies now rekindled by the endemic vegetations, but that he was inhaling his regular dosage of cortisone to counter their toxic effects. My father suffered from allergies, this much was true. Nonetheless, I knew this condition also weakened his immune system and left him perilously subject to the foreign invasion of noxious bacterial infections, and, a fortiori, of rampant unidentified viruses. Doctor Hoeness assured me regarding this matter that they took the utmost precautions when out in the fields or in the study labs. I tried to subdue my worries; after all, my dad was in the constant company of a world-renowned expert in viral infections. Still, the sad news trickled in steadily from Borneo about the thousands of deaths the mongrel virus inflicted daily on the local population, precisely in the parts of the tropical island where my father toiled, and the disease was now spreading fast. New cases appeared in Asia, and the United States government watched incoming Indonesian nationals with the keenest eye. Indeed, the situation was so dire that the island was soon placed under full quarantine, as decreed by the United Nations upon the recommendations of the World Health Organisation. This, of course, meant the entire island, which also included those areas governed by Malaysia and the nation of Brunei. However, the biggest and most worrisome areas belonged to Indonesia, in the south and central parts of the island of Borneo.

6

33939.png

I MUST ADMIT NOT BEING entirely taken aback when I received the dreaded phone call that delivered the bad news: my father was bedridden in hospital. The mutant virus had invaded his body and was attacking his vital organs. He would not survive. Come quickly we were told. With hardly an afterthought, my brother and I snatched two tickets to Denpasar, Indonesia, in spite of the quarantine in effect on Borneo, and it was only the next morning, while on the way to the airport, that I received the second phone call. There was no need to rush, my father had passed away. Dr. Hoeness was sorry. Upon receiving the news, Marcus broke down on the spot in an uncontrollable fit of sorrow, one in which I refrained from partaking with the greatest of difficulty. I needed to be strong. Somebody needed to be ‘strong’, I suppose. Surely, Marcus cried enough for the both of us. The taxi did a loop and dropped us off back home. The most bizarre event that morning, however, was not the immediate onrush of condolent calls we received from all ends of the Earth following the news of my father’s passing, but the one odd call we received from the CIA. Deep Red was acting strange. Come quickly we were told once more. At that moment, I failed to grasp why and how Marcus and I could be of any help at all, and the CIA did catch us at a most inconvenient moment. Once again, rushing proved to be rather unnecessary, since before we had set our minds to go, a handful of men in suits, presumably of the National Security Agency, were already at our doorstep.

The seriousness of the delegation worried us somewhat. These fellows said nothing, outright ignored our questions, and quietly proceeded to escort us to the Stata Center at MIT. There, waiting for us in full army attire was Major General Dwight Di Matteo, a short bald-headed man whose taut face still bore the reddish burn patches he had earned while on deployment overseas. We had met this soldier twice before through my father, and I suddenly remembered one particular evening when he had come over to our home for a social drink and an informal but lengthy chat with my dad. General Di Matteo’s greeting was quick and to the point. Come! was all he said. He turned away and led us through the front doors of the building where his escorts held the doors open. I pressed him for answers while we walked, but he seemed not in the least interested in addressing me, choosing instead to set his gaze straight ahead.

We reached a secluded, private elevator guarded by two of the finest marines. After identifying the Major General through DNA coding, the doors opened to let us in and the elevator car descended five floors to the high security underground level where the United States government (and the UN) kept Deep Red. Several senior officers and foreign officials greeted us the moment we arrived, including the acting Deputy Secretary of the United Nations, Doctor Gurdeesh Singh Dhillon. We were now in a wide concourse-like area under twenty