Brainbox

  Title

  License

  Part 1

  Part 2

  Part 3

  Part 4

  Part 5

  Part 6

  Part 7

  BRAINBOX

  by Christian Cantrell

  This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license.

  PART ONE

  The Amazon hadn't flowed in almost a hundred years. It froze from the outside in, the thousands of tiny capillaries infused throughout its great basin solidifying like veins of quartz, the bubbling groundwater of its tributaries hardening into permafrost. The cold continued severing appendages until the main artery of the mightiest river in the world finally stopped flowing, and the fresh water ice met the brackish white sheets of the southern Atlantic Ocean.

  The skeleton of the Macapá Biosphere was just west of the frozen mouth of the river in what had once been northern Brazil. The massive structure was complete, but only half of the triangular plastic panels had been installed. Inside the complex latticework was a snow-covered courtyard enclosed by whitewashed buildings with red clay roofs.

  Miguel dos Santos Vásquez stood in the entrance of the main courtroom with an American soldier posted on either side. It was a military court, and nearly everyone wore the dirty white camouflage of the frozen tundra. The judge was not present, but she presided over the room through a wide suspended sheet of plasma glass. Her hair was caught in the transition between soft blond and wiry gray, and her piercing blue eyes watched Miguel with interest. The galleries were crowded but motionless, every awestruck gaze turned toward the back of the room. Miguel could see the young uniformed Colonel sitting at the bar table in the front, the corners of his mouth characteristically upturned in their enigmatic smirk.

  "Bring him in," the judge said. Her voice descended from speakers mounted around the perimeter of the ceiling and reverberated off the white concrete walls.

  The soldiers escorted the prisoner down the center aisle until he stood before the judge's enormous countenance. Miguel normally wore dark glasses to conceal his sunken white eye, but the soldiers had made him cover it with a patch instead so that he could address the judge with due respect. His curly black hair and stiff beard were long and matted, and his dark skin was dry and scaly from the cold dry air. His request for formal clothing had been denied, so he wore the same one-piece jumpsuit he'd been given on the day of his arrest over three months ago. It was cut from a bright orange material that was designed to stand out against the white and barren Brazilian landscape, and to retain as little body heat as possible. The restraints he wore were synthetic woven belts which permitted gradual and deliberate movement, but would instantly arrest any sudden forceful motion.

  "Mr. Vásquez," the judge began, "the state has elected to drop all charges against you save one." She spoke with conviction, but without disdain. She struck Miguel as a fair judge, maybe even a kind woman. "You stand accused of high treason. How do you plead?"

  Miguel cleared his throat in a way that indicated he had not spoken in some time. Out of the corner of his good eye, he could see the Colonel slowly rise to his feet. Miguel dropped his gaze for a moment, then looked back up and spoke directly into the enormous eyes on the plasma glass panel.

  "I plead guilty."

  There was movement in the galleries behind him. The judge's expression did not change.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Vásquez," she said, "but I cannot accept your plea."

  Miguel shook his head. "Why not?"

  "Because the court will not allow you to make a martyr of yourself."

  "I don't want to be a martyr," Miguel said. "I want to get this over with."

  The judge regarded Miguel for a moment before responding. She leaned back in her chair and twisted from side to side. She narrowed her eyes and pinched her lip momentarily between her teeth.

  "Miguel," she said with sudden informality, "let me ask you a question. Are you aware that you are considered the most dangerous man alive right now?"

  Miguel was unprepared for the judge's new direction and answered hesitantly. "Yes."

  "Are you aware that you might just prove to be the most dangerous and destructive human being in history?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you know what the other charges against you were? The ones that were dropped?"

  "Yes."

  "What were they?"

  "Murder, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to overthrow the state, and twenty-two separate acts of terrorism."

  "Those sound pretty bad, don't they?"

  "Yes."

  "So why do you think the state chose to drop all those charges and just focus on high treason?"

  "I don't know."

  "Do you think it was so you could walk in here, plead guilty, and, as you put it, get this over with?"

  "No."

  "No. It wasn't. It was because treason is the worst crime anyone can possibly commit. Do you know why that is?"

  Miguel knew the theory. But he also knew the judge was determined to spell it out. "No, I don't."

  "Because the most important thing we have is our state. It's more important than you. It's more important than me. It's more important than anyone in this room. It's more important than any single person on the entire planet. Our government not only keeps us alive every single second of every single day, but it's the only thing that promises to give us any kind of a future on what's left of this bleak and wasted planet. What you did, Miguel — what you intentionally, deliberately, and knowingly chose to do — has directly jeopardized the government's ability to do that. Treason, therefore, isn't just a crime against the state. It's a crime committed against every remaining living soul, not just in the American Territory, but in the entire world."

  The judge paused to see if Miguel had anything to say. He shifted his stance and blinked, but did not speak. The judge leaned forward and peered into his one good eye.

  "This trial will proceed," she told him, "if for no other reason than to make an example out of you."

  The courtroom was still. The only sound Miguel could hear was the creaking of the Colonel's chair as he slowly sat back down.

  PART TWO

  As soon as it was proven that the earth was cooling, the wars began. The scorching of the planet a century before had taught the world that cataclysmic climate change didn't have to take thousands of years anymore. The process had clearly been expedited, the safeties designed to work in tandem with evolution somehow circumvented. It could happen over the course of decades now, advancing with exponential ferocity, and any nation who wasn't prepared inevitably became the subject of those who were.

  During the scorching, migration had been toward the poles, and the advantage went to those nations who either had access to the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, or who had the resources to gain access and hold it. But the cooling of the earth had the opposite effect, shifting the pressure toward the belly of the planet. Initially, anything south of the Tropic of Cancer and north of the Tropic of Capricorn was expected to remain habitable, but the extent to which the glaciation was self-perpetuating had been poorly understood. Everyone knew that the more of the planet that became covered with ice, the more solar radiation would be reflected back out into space, but other variables had proven much more difficult to account for. Nobody realized how well the earth had adjusted to industrialization until human displacement radically reduced the greenhouse gas emissions it had come to rely on. And rather than algae dying as the oceans became encased in thick layers of opaqueness, the water froze just slowly enough to eject impurities from the forming ice crystals which allowed enough sunlight to penetrate that autotrophic organisms actually flourished. These immense new underwater forests converted centurie
s of dissolved carbon dioxide into oxygen molecules which seeped up through the ice and into the atmosphere where they scrubbed away the high concentrations of heat-trapping methane. These were the theories that were circulated and endlessly debated among the world's climatologists. Although nobody knew for certain all the reasons it was happening, the end result was indisputable: the planet's habitable band would continue to narrow until it held only a single degree of latitude above and below the equator.

  The majority of the death and destruction had occurred as the United Russian Republics cleared a savage path with ever diminishing opposition through Western Europe and into Northern Africa, then Sub-Saharan Africa, and eventually into Kenya, Uganda, and the Congolese Republic. The Chinese proactively attacked the Korean peninsula and Japan before forming the Sino Archipelago across what had been Indonesia, Singapore, and the Malay Peninsula. American forces were technically and legally invited into South America, but found themselves under constant attack by well organized and merciless bands of guerrillas speaking Spanish and Portuguese. No official records of troop movements or military tactics existed, but evidence of the liberal use of nuclear and biological weapons to reduce competition in the northern latitudes was abundant, tapering off into the use of more conventional methods inside the tropics in an attempt to preserve habitable geography. As what remained of the human population converged on the middle of the planet, warfare become increasingly primitive and brutal, and territory was gained one exhausted, malnourished, and tenacious life at time.

  This period was referred to as the Equatorial Migration as though it were spurred by natural human instinct, and therefore somehow immune to moral review. But once the last three remaining habitable regions on the planet turned on each other, all pretense was dropped. The Equatorial Wars had been openly and unambiguously declared.

  PART THREE

  Miguel once saved the Colonel's life. The Colonel traveled across the American Territory on the Trans-equatorial Railway to Quito, then took a military tracker south toward Miguel's last known location. After several hours of travel, the Colonel's tracker was disabled by what he discovered to be a tiny quadrapedal robot designed to fry electrical systems with electromagnetic pulses. The Colonel was amused and, realizing he had to be close, loaded supplies from the tracker into a pack and continued on foot. When Miguel found him four hours later, he was ensnared in a relatively shallow white depression which had appeared to the Colonel to be ice, but turned out to be some sort of hardened ceramic material which was completely impervious to crampons. He was curled up at the bottom, dehydrated, nearly hypothermic, and considerably less amused.

  "It's best not to call unannounced," Miguel shouted down at the Colonel. The Colonel did not turn his head, but slowly nodded in resignation.

  Miguel's tracker was warm and well stocked with rations, and by the time they reached their destination, the Colonel was once again focused on his mission. Miguel's home was a series of what appeared to be aviation hangers: corrugated metal cylinders half buried in the frost. He maneuvered the tracker through a wide opening in the closest structure and parked it beside two identical trackers. The outside doors automatically slid closed on their tracks behind them.

  The voluminous space was interspersed with several well lit workstations: benches, plasma glass displays, spools of wire, bins of hardware, precision hand tools arranged on peg board, microchips, stacks of printed circuit boards. The far side of the room was occupied by dark rows of tall shelves, and there was an enormous white refrigeration locker against the opposite wall. The Colonel's attention was focused on a canvas-covered mound in the center of the room about the size and shape of a horse, but without its head.

  "This way," Miguel said.

  The Colonel followed Miguel into a corner toward what must have passed as living quarters: a grimy kitchenette, a table, two plastic chairs, and a small springy cot. The two men sat down and looked at each other across the table. Miguel had replaced his goggles with a pair of dark glasses.

  "So this is the lair of the great Miguel dos Santos," the Colonel said. His voice was higher pitched than Miguel expected, and it fit well with his boyish appearance. He didn't look nearly old enough to be a Colonel, and Miguel suspected it was something other than years of service that had earned him his rank. His smile told Miguel that despite the minor setbacks he encountered in locating his objective, he was now back in control. "What's in the other buildings?"

  "My creations."

  "And what is it that you create?"

  "Only what I need to survive."

  The Colonel smiled. "Do you realize that you live further south than anyone else in the AT?"

  "No."

  "Why the isolation?"

  "Why not? I'm not a citizen, so why pretend like I am?"

  "What if I told you I could change that?"

  "Why would I want to be a citizen?"

  The Colonel looked surprised. "Doesn't everyone want to be a citizen?"

  "I can't speak for everyone, but I'm doing fine down here by myself."

  "Look, Miguel," the Colonel said, "I know your story. I know about your father and what he did to your family."

  "What my father did," Miguel told the Colonel, "was not his fault."

  "Whether it was his fault or not is irrelevant. It still happened, and the result is that you live out here like a hermit. I'm offering you a way to become a citizen, to finally serve your country, to start all over again."

  "In exchange for what?"

  "In exchange for continuing your old research. That's all I ask."

  "I don't think you realize how dangerous my research was."

  "It's only dangerous if it gets out of control. We won't let that happen."

  "The moment you create something that is autonomous, self-replicating, and truly creative, you've already lost control."

  "There are safeguards that can be put in place," the Colonel said. "I know it can be done. And I know you're the only one who can do it."

  "Your war doesn't concern me anymore."

  "It concerns everyone, Miguel, because if we don't do this, our enemies will. It's just a matter of time. There are only so many resources left on the planet, and if we don't take them, our enemies will. I don't like it any more than you do, but those are the facts. We have to be realistic."

  "You don't have to justify your war to me. If you want to fight, go fight. Just leave me out of it."

  "We can't leave you out of it. We need you. I know what you build down here. I know what you're capable of building. And I also know what's being built right now in the Sino Archipelago. And in the New Russian Republics. This isn't something we want to do, Miguel, but we don't have a choice anymore."

  "What about me?" Miguel said. "Do I have a choice?"

  The Colonel reached down without taking his eyes off of Miguel, removed his sidearm, and placed the heavy weapon gently on the table. "Of course," he said. "There's always a choice."

  Miguel looked past the Colonel at the canvas-covered mound in the middle of the room, then looked back at the Colonel. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said.

  "It wouldn't do any good," the Colonel said. He re-holstered his weapon. "Even if you killed me, even if you buried me out there somewhere where nobody could ever find me, it wouldn't change anything. Your future is already decided, Miguel. You know that. You knew that the moment you saw me down in that pit."

  Miguel watched the Colonel from behind his dark glasses for a long time before he spoke. "If I help you," he said, "it's purely to clear my father's name. I don't want to be a hero. I don't even want to be a citizen. I just want to restore my father's honor. That's it."

  "I promise you," the Colonel said, "if you can pull this off, you can have anything you want."

  PART FOUR

  Miguel grew up in Mitad del Mundo, the Middle of the World, in two small rooms at the foot of the extinct Pululahua volcano. He qualified for school on the American military base where his father trained, and
the two of them walked together every morning through the fog, passing an old skinned football across the frozen ground and talking about what they were learning. Miguel was already studying engineering, and his father was training as a weapons specialist. Miguel's two younger sisters stayed home with his mother.

  When Miguel's father shipped out to the Sino Archipelago, Miguel had to quit school and find a job. He became a programmer at the munitions plant where he wrote instructions for some of the smart weapons his father had been trained to use. He became known for writing code that made weapons do things that even their designers hadn't intended or anticipated. By the time he became a lead programmer, he was helping to engineer several of the weapons his team was responsible for. Three years later, his father still gone, Miguel had his own division dedicated to prototyping the first generation of truly autonomous weaponry.

  The munitions plant had adjoining barracks where Miguel began spending a few nights a week. His younger sisters were getting older, and were less willing to share their room with him. He was able to eat for free at the barracks, and he sometimes brought home bags of leftovers that had been set aside as animal feed.

  Miguel came home late one evening to find his family sitting quietly around a man he didn't recognize. It wasn't until he saw his mother's expression that he realized the man was his father. He was missing his right arm above the elbow, and the right side of his face was encased in thick pink scar tissue. His head was tilted to the side, and Miguel could see a portion of a metal plate protruding from his skin where his ear had been.

  "Papá," Miguel said, but his father didn't respond. The man watched his son through his one good eye without any sign of recognition.

  Miguel tried to be home as much as he could to be with his father, but the drugs his father took left him comatose for most of the day. When he was awake, he spent his time either sitting alone in the dark, or listening to whatever unencrypted military transmissions he could pick up on the handheld receiver Miguel had built for him.