The Light

By Sebastian Wells

Connor is invited to the headquarters of the world's largest technology company to help them with a secret project. Deep underground, a new superintelligence is actively ingesting the internet ten times a second. But there's a problem: it's been mysteriously silent for over a year, despite all attempts at communication. Because Connor's father was the chief architect, the company is hoping Connor might know something they don't. Connor has no interest in digging up the past. And yet, he can't sleep...

What if he does hold the key to solving the mystery?

What if he could make contact with the world's first true superintelligence?

What if the AI has been quietly brewing plans of its own?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sebastian Wells
• Release date: Sep 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9780473636708

Book preview

You should’ve worked harder

The message appeared on a Monday morning, the bold grey text and pale-yellow background filling electronic billboards in the major cities of the world. If commuters didn’t see it out their window, they saw it splashed across ad-banners in their devices.

After a day, it was gone.

Six weeks later, the second message appeared:

You shouldn’t have bothered

The unprecedented scale of the ad campaign became a global news story. But anonymous campaigns weren't a new thing; most people still expected it to turn into the usual messaging from some big bank or insurance company.

In another six weeks:

You should’ve lived in the moment

And six weeks later:

You should’ve planned for tomorrow

When hackers tried to trace the ‘yellow ads’ from the ad services back to the source, they failed. All online communication and payment had been routed through secure servers.

In another six weeks:

You should stay home

Public polls showed increasing dislike for the campaign, the messages voted ‘meaningless’, ‘manipulative’, and ‘irresponsible’. Nevertheless, the global economy took a 1.2% hit following the ‘You should stay home’ message, due to people going out less.

Six weeks later:

You should go out

The global economy saw a 2.5% bump. The yellow-grey plague was now officially the most expensive ad campaign in history. Debates raged on the legality of anonymous campaigns​—​whether the public should have a right to veto such campaigns​—​whether corporations should be allowed such influence while staying anonymous.

Six weeks later:

No one knows who you are

After this, another six weeks came and went with no new message. And then six months, and then a year.

The most talked-about ad campaign in history, which never actually marketed anything, died a quiet death, without ever actually selling anything. Almost two hundred billion dollars had been spent. In all, 130 companies and institutions in the world had the cash to do it. None of them claimed responsibility. Five years later, they still hadn’t.

Chapter 1

That SUV does not belong in this town.

Connor arrived at the thought gradually as he came to a stop behind the bull-bars. Campervans, station wagons, and tattered old RVs choked up the main road. Families were heading out for the long weekend, all of them thinking they’d left it late enough to miss the rush hour, a collective dismay heavy in the air. But the SUV seemed immune and unconcerned. It was a foreign entity, a piece of obsidian reflecting the lanes of traffic in its mirror-tint windows.

He thumped the broken temperature controls, then rolled his window down and hung an elbow out to catch a breeze. The traffic was annoying​—​he used to hate everyone else for traffic, now he hated himself. Hey, it was only an extra hour.

It was only the next three years.

Three years of eighty-hour weeks, then Gary would retire, then Connor might just get ‘Company Director’ on his CV. Hamish and Sarah would be out of school and into jobs. And he was outta here.

Three years.

The cars inched forwards through another cycle of the lights. The body of the SUV didn’t wobble when the wheels rode over the potholes, which meant it had predictive suspension. Other drivers were throwing looks at it now, except for those alongside, who were making hard work of not looking at it.

He wondered if the big-shots in the SUV were nervous being jammed in so close to all this riff-raff. Maybe they were lost.

There was no such thing as being lost anymore.

He directed his gaze downward to the contacts icon in his app bar. His glasses responded sluggishly​—​they were an old model with worn-out chips and a reluctance to cooperate that bordered on belligerence. His contacts list eventually appeared; he scrolled to Sarah​—​she’d be a good distraction. After three rings, the glasses projected a virtual window out over the car bonnet. His pixelated sister sat within it, cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, rolling a cigarette in the lap of her pyjamas. She didn’t look up. What?

I’m stuck in traffic. Five seconds into the call, and the arms of the glasses were already getting hot; they were probably microwaving his brain.

Sarah licked the edge of the paper and swept the tobacco crumbs off her knees. You should call Mum. She misses you.

I know. I will. He wouldn’t. He eyed her pyjamas. You didn’t go to school?

She finished the roll, huffing with that infinite, world-weary exasperation of a young teen. I told you, school is the wrong life choice for me. It’s not on my path right now. I need to take some time out to… She lit the cigarette and blew a thin stream of smoke through her purple fringe. Work out who I am, you know?

This was an invitation to fight. Sarah had once been anxious, sensitive, delicate, smart. Now she just wanted to fight. Particularly with him, it seemed. He took it as a compliment​—​it meant she’d embedded his role as surrogate father.

He lifted his head to face the SUV, blinking on the ‘share video’ symbol. Check this out.

Did you get Hamish’s soccer boots?

Soccer boots? As soon as he said the words, the memory sluiced over him like a bucket of ice water. He’d meant to pick up his brother’s boots from the repair shop on the other side of town. He’d needed to have left work early to get there in time. He’d needed to have pushed the release into production before lunch to clear out his afternoon. He’d done none of those things.

Which meant he’d have to get up early tomorrow morning to pick them up before the game. On his one possible sleep-in of the week. "Fuck it." He said it quietly, but Sarah heard, and smiled.

What’s this? she asked, accepting the video share, squinting into her lenses. What? The black car?

How long until someone throws a brick at it?

She rolled her eyes. Call Mum. Really. She gets lonely.

It’s not on my path right now.

Her eyes half closed in withering disapproval.

I need you to go to school, Sarah. We talked about this. You agreed. Look at me.

She dragged her eyes up.

Just one more week. I’ll get over this hump at work, and then we can talk about it again.

She held still as if deciding. The seconds stretched out. She didn’t blink.

Sarah?

No response. Her image had frozen.

Damn glasses.

Then he saw the small red icon blinking in his app bar. Strange. A yellow skull inside a red circle​—​raw, garish colours from some dodgy third-party creation. He blinked at the icon, and it opened into a second frame alongside Sarah’s, immediately filling with reams of scrolling red text. It flew by too fast to read, but there were familiar shapes: broken connections, missing resources.

Sarah’s image started twitching. His temples started to burn.

Package uploads were appearing at regular intervals like the thump of a heartbeat. Uploads. Which meant​—​and this didn’t make sense, because he didn’t have anything that could possibly be of interest to anyone​—​but it meant he was probably looking at a H-pak.

H-paks destroyed your anti-malware and then sent the entire contents of your device back to the attacker, wiping as they went to remove all evidence of the attack. They were extremely illegal.

A horn blast from the car behind brought his attention back to the road. A gap had opened between him and the SUV; his foot fumbled onto the accelerator and then stamped the brake, bringing the hatchback to a lurching stop an inch off the bull-bars.

Connor? Sarah’s image twisted, flickered. Hello?

Then both panels tore apart sideways, a blast of hard static hit his ears, his app bar disappeared, and his glasses died completely.

He stared at the number plate through the windscreen: GLR24. The letters and numbers stared back at him. He breathed, then snatched the glasses from his face and threw them onto the passenger seat. Just what he needed. Perfect end to a perfect week.

For forty minutes, he had nothing but his own spinning thoughts for company as he snail-crawled out through every traffic light on Deepwater’s main street. When the rear end of the SUV wasn’t blocking the view, he watched the red desert sun setting over the twin peaks of the gravel yard at the edge of town. Deepwater’s blazing stars began to wink on overhead. Brake-lights started to glow. Groups started to appear on the streets. It was Friday night and the town was gearing up to party.

A H-pak. Surely not. More likely he was just losing his mind. Maybe these eighty-hour weeks were catching up with him.

He turned off the main road and started up the gentle incline towards home. The SUV turned, too. When the streetlights came on, their reflections rode over the black bodywork. Every turn he made, at the church, at the rail yard, the SUV made first in the perfect parabolic arcs of autopilot. It turned into his street, pulled up outside his unit, and the headlights went out.

With a strangely empty mind, he drove past it and made a U-turn in the cul-de-sac before parking opposite. He’d already thought back over all the clients he’d ever done work for, searching for bad relationships, weird characters. But they were all local, small businesses, online shops, fintechs​—​no one that would ever, could ever, use a H-pak.

The two front doors of the SUV opened in unison, a woman emerging from one and a man from the other, silhouetted against the purple sky. He was tall and wore a suit. She was shorter, in jeans and heels. They could’ve been an upmarket couple or real-estate agents.

They turned to face his car, and waited.

Shit, he whispered, suddenly realising how mentally unprepared he was to meet these people. He shouldered open his door​—​rusted hinge squealing in the still air​—​and stepped out into the smell of warm tar. Muffled dance music thumped from somewhere nearby.

Connor? Her voice rang like crystal, sharp and clean.

He nodded.

My name is Blair. She flapped a hand at the man. And this is Albert.

The man came around, rolling his shoulders, one foot catching awkwardly on the tarmac. They looked stiff. If they’d come from the city, it was a five-hour drive away.

We’re from Hurricane, the woman continued. Could we talk to you for a few minutes?

Hurricane. It was a fleet vehicle, then. Did you guys have anything to do with that H-pak?

She turned to Albert, hesitating before turning back. Maybe we could go inside?

What’s this about?

We’ll be quick, I promise.

They might not have belonged in Deepwater, but they really, really didn’t belong in his unit. He tried to remember the state he’d left it in that morning. Not good. That was the thing with out-of-towners, they rubbed your own circumstances right up in your face. There’s not a lot of room in there.

It’ll only take a couple of minutes.

He just stood there waiting for other avenues of protest to arrive. But something in that voice was energising, refreshing, like a caffeine shot. He filled his lungs, checked Albert’s immaculate suit a second time, then went back to the car to grab his laptop and glasses.

•

There was an awkward moment in the entrance-way as he fumbled to dig his keys out of his pocket. A cloying reek of damp laundry poured from the walls and steamed from the carpet. He’d forgotten that smell​—​had stopped smelling it, even. And now here it was storming back to suffocate his new guests. He drove the key into the lock and led them inside.

They scanned the space as they entered, gauging the kitchen at one end, bed and desk at the other. He dumped his gear on the bench next to the empty beer bottles. Albert’s eyes lingered on the bottles.

I like your plants. Blair pointed at the sweet-pea and the rosemary on the fridge. I can never keep mine alive.

He shrugged. I feed them pasta water, that’s all they need. Both plants were growing sideways towards the window over the kitchen sink, the single source of light during the day. He’d turned it into a game, seeing how sideways they could get. It had never occurred to him until now that they looked borderline tortured.

So, what’s this all about? he asked, hoping to distract them. He cleared the previous night’s dinner dishes off the table, then gestured at the two chairs.

We’ll be quick, Blair said, casting another glance at Albert. This is something that really needed to be face to face. Have you heard of Hurricane? We’re a technology company, specialising in the public sector​—​transport, city management, that sort of thing. She took one of the chairs and sat down; Albert did the same.

It was a silly question; everyone in the world knew Hurricane. They ran ads with children running over grassy hills towards a sunrise, beneath the Better, for Everyone slogan. She’d left out the other half of what Hurricane did​—​the military drones, the smart bombs, the riot-control bots that were starting to be used by police. H-paks are illegal, he replied. You know that, right?

What’s a H-pak?

He watched her. She didn’t blink.

We want you to come up and give us a hand with a project, she continued. One or two weeks. We’d make you a good offer.

His mouth opened. He looked at Albert, then back to her. What?

Tell me something, Connor, she said, with a small, impish smile. Do you think you’re getting paid enough for your work at SafeTex at the moment?

He cleared his throat and crossed his arms, to give himself more time to think. What?

Your job. At SafeTex.

How old was she? Late twenties? Possibly even younger than him, but that big-city polish and confidence gave her obvious status advantage. You might…you might have the wrong guy.

Blair nodded, and turned to the photos on the wall beside the fridge. That’s your brother and sister, Hamish and Sarah. They live with your godmother, Pip. And that’s Mum. She pointed to the photo of Gaylene on her porch. She lives in a trailer at Rosewater Park. You dropped out of school at fifteen, hacked a bank, then offered to work for them. Now you’re senior penetration tester at SafeTex. Twenty-four years old. A fast riser. You’re paying your mum’s rent and you’re putting your siblings through school. All those bills wouldn’t leave much left over for fun, I’m guessing.

When her eyes came back to him, they sparkled​—​she’d been preparing that one. Even Albert seemed to wake up, sitting forwards and interlocking his fingers on the table. Suddenly, under their shared scrutiny, he felt like a zoo specimen. He reached for the fridge door. You guys wanna drink or something?

She ignored the offer. What’s two weeks of your time worth these days, Connor?

He grabbed two bottles of Red Valley Draught and held them out. Two shaking heads. Suit yourselves. He returned one and cracked open the other. I don’t have two weeks of time. I don’t even have time for this. I’m supposed to be pushing a release. Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on.

Albert answered this one. They were his first spoken words. The voice was high-pitched, smooth, and strangely feminine​—​a surprising mismatch with the gelled hair and suit. We can’t reveal any details of the project until you’re on site, he said. We realise this makes the decision more difficult, which is why we’re prepared to compensate you generously.

Silence. Connor sipped his beer, suppressing a burp. Generously? How generously?

Name a price, Blair said.

He blinked at her. Listen. I’m sorry, I know you’ve come a long way. But you’ve got the wrong guy. And, by the way, is this actually how Hurricane recruits? Because this is ridiculous.

Say a number, Blair said, smiling again.

A number? He tried to laugh. Fifty grand, that’s a friggin’ number.

Albert and Blair exchanged looks. Something invisible happened, something in their lenses. Blair’s smile grew. How does two hundred thousand sound? A hundred now, and a hundred at the end. That’s unconditional. That just commits you to coming up and having a look at what we’ve got.

He was still trying to drink his beer, but a bubble got lodged in his chest. The effort to hide it made his eyes water. What do you mean?

What I said.

His head started bobbing up and down. What is this?

Look, Connor. Blair sat back in her chair. Once we sign a non-disclosure agreement and get you on site, it will all become much clearer. I promise. She pointed at his bobbing head. What does that mean?

It was a good question. He didn’t know.

Suddenly, the booming voice of a newsreader came through the wall over his bed. In the back of his mind, he knew that was Cristian turning on the television, which meant it was eight o’clock. Five hundred thousand dollars, he said. Unconditional. For two weeks.

Albert held him with steady, blue eyes. We can offer four hundred thousand.

The beer hit his synapses, and the floor dropped out from under him. Okay. Deal. Somewhere out there in the shadows of his kitchen, Albert stood and extended a hand​—​pale, slender fingers with smoothly filed nails, waiting.

He put the beer down on the bench, wiped a wet hand on his shirt, then held it up in the air. I’m shaking. As if they possibly could’ve missed it. Then he put it into Albert’s. I don’t believe this is real for a second, by the way, he said, turning to Blair, who was beaming at him as if he’d won a game show. And you owe me a new pair of glasses, because your H-pak bricked mine.

Chapter 2

Connor woke the next morning to a notification from his bank asking if he’d like to move his high credit into a new savings account. He opened the app, checked the balance, and the floor did the dropping thing all over again. Only this time, he never regained contact.

The empty SUV turned up on Monday morning at exactly ten o’clock, same car, different number plate. His bank balance hung in the air as he went out to the car, the zeros forming a long line of pixelated donuts catching the sun. Everything else in his world​—​his job, his future, his family, his home and possessions​—​had seemed to recede from the foreground of reality, but the donuts remained. And they’d still be there after all this was over.

The SUV took him to the rocky plains at the edge of town, where they hit traffic at the exit ramp. There’d been a crash; a car was smashed up against the lane divider, and another was on its side across a lane twenty metres away. Once all the flashing lights were in the rear-view mirror, he turned to the dashboard. What would it take for you to kill me, car? It was his first time in a self-driving vehicle. He’d read about the ongoing moral refinement.

You’re a valuable passenger. I’d need to be avoiding the deaths of four others.

You’d drive me off a cliff if there were four people standing in the road?

Yes.

But not three.

No.

Good to know.

Five hours later, the spires of the city broke the horizon, and the SUV swung up onto a wide, smooth road through pine forest. Hurricane HQ wasn’t actually in the city anymore, even though they still had a city address. Ten years ago, they’d reached that tech-company growth-threshold where suddenly they needed a custom-architected campus out in the sticks somewhere​—​their own little utopian mini-state. They’d found a valley in the hills overlooking the city where the views were inspiring and meditative, a constant invitation to widen one’s perspective, according to their website. What a wide perspective had to do with building smarter weapons software, he didn’t know, but the longer commute had to be annoying. Those rolling beds of pine needles rushing past your window would put you to sleep. They were putting him to sleep, and he was a new guy running on new-guy adrenaline.

And then, without warning, the trees ended and the SUV slipped through a high perimeter wall into a sun-drenched carpark. The full spectacle of the complex spread up into the valley overhead, a landscape of blue glass and chrome, tiered in flowing contour lines like Japanese rice paddies. He’d flown over it in Maps a hundred times​—​from above it looked like a giant blue butterfly, the two wings painted up over the valley walls.

He opened the door and stepped out into cool, terpene-laden air. Nature. Fresh, rich, revitalising. After the air con in the car, it was like breathing life itself.

Blair waved at him from the bottom of a wide flight of steps. He grabbed the new suitcase he’d purchased over the weekend, and made his way over.

You made it, she called, looking very bright under the sun. He hadn’t registered her hair colour in the bad light of the kitchen​—​blonde.

Heya, he replied, sticking out a hand.

He’d been awake basically continuously since the visit, writing a hundred pages of handover documentation for the teams he’d just abandoned at SafeTex. Taking two weeks of leave at two days’ notice wasn’t a good look. It almost got him fired. Technically, he wasn’t on leave, he was working remotely​—​that was the only way Gary could stomach it. Working remotely, and one hundred per cent responsible for meeting the release deadlines.

And then he’d had to explain it to the family.

Blair shook the hand and gave him a pat on the shoulder. I’ll take you up to your room. You can grab something to eat and have a shower if you like, get settled in. Good trip?

Long. He lifted a hand against the blue glare.

The CEO wants to say hi. And the team will want to tee up a meeting pretty quickly I think.

He heard wheels on gravel. He turned to see the SUV disappear into the maw of an underground carpark. Sure.

Most of them head home around five. That gives us about an hour. I’ll need to get your security and access set up but that shouldn’t take too long. She started up the steps.

He followed, his eyes tracking the perimeter wall up around the complex to the top of the valley, where a razor-edged ridgetop sliced across the sky. I haven’t signed anything. I’m guessing I have to sign something?

You didn’t get an email?

No.

She muttered something. Albert’s bloody useless. Okay, we’ll do that, too. Her glasses started to ring. She blinked. Hey, yeah. Yep, he’s here. She glanced at him. Tired. She smiled, blinking again to close the call. Come on, follow me.

•

His room was on the third floor, a short lift from the lobby, and a long walk down a white hallway. Being so far from the city, not to mention the offices of international clients and donors and partners, Hurricane had a whole wing of high-class, high-tech residences designed specifically to impress. He’d taken the virtual tour, and yes, they looked better than his unit.

Blair left him at his door with a promise to return in half an hour. There’s a coffee machine in one of those kitchen cupboards, if you can work out how to use it.

The door slid open, and he stepped through. White walls, white ceilings, white floor. No seams or joins anywhere, thanks to the 3D-printed construction. The cleaners probably just moved all the furniture out and hosed the place down between guests.

The door closed, and he became alone in the quiet. A sleek, white-leather lounge-suite occupied the middle of the room, each piece flexing like a fashion model in a photo-shoot. He dumped the suitcase against a wall and went through the door to the left: large, double bed, white linen. The other door led to the bathroom​—​more white. It looked nice in the photos but this lack of colour was strangely crushing. Did people like this? Were their homes like this? Their minds? He went back to the lounge and sat down on the suede.

This was where he’d be spending the next two weeks, with nothing impinging on his senses except for the soft hum of the ventilation. Maybe that was all part of the plan. He had no obligation to do any work at all while he was here. So maybe they were going to force him out with sensory deprivation.

All of a sudden, his tiredness descended like a heavy blanket. He closed his eyes.

It wasn’t just the lack of sleep. It was the not knowing, the oddball movie surrealness.

It was the prospect of not being busy. The SafeTex teams had his number, but the documents were thorough​—​they’d be fine. How long had it been since he’d had some actual time on his hands? Why did that thought worry him so much?

His glasses chimed. He opened his eyes onto the dreamy white​—​slow to notice the incoming call bouncing in his app bar. Unknown number. He stood, put his game face on, and answered.

The sudden arrival of the caller in the room almost tipped him back over the couch. He should’ve expected it. Full-body captures like this required camera-equipped rooms, but of course Hurricane had these rooms. They’d probably invented