Date: November 22, 2400
United Nations of Earth Sphere
New African Union, Somalia, Mogadishu
Sino-Afro War Museum
Asura stared intently at the holostill depicting a People’s Liberation Army tank ablaze amidst the ruins of war-torn Mogadishu. Widely regarded as the defining image of the Sino-Afro War of 2254, it showed the Chinese war machine in the aftermath of an attack by a NAU Warthog combat drone. The quadrupedal robot could be seen poking its mounted turret behind a pile of rubble.
“Why do you think China attacked the African continent?” Asura asked Untehki Asp, her protective charge and fellow surveyor of museum exhibitions.
Asp rubbed his chin absentmindedly and shrugged. “The Chinese Communist Party's claim was to protect its two-decade-long investments under the Belt and Road Initiative and keep order on the continent.”
“I asked what you believed.”
“What? Don’t believe the glorious voice of the people?”
Asura stared at him in mock amusement. Asp laughed and then returned his gaze to the holo. “I think that’s partly true, but having a monopoly on high-tech industry resources as the world scrambled to put itself back together is probably more honest.”
The corporate titan and assassin both walked away from the holo and to another exhibit, a case displaying a burnt-out computer server and neural interface.
“Alright, how about the Great Quarantine?” asked Asura, “Got theories about that one?”
Asp shook his head in the negative and sighed. “I’d like to think that centuries of increased bandwidth and the hyper-connectivity of computer systems made the Internet wake up like Mike from Heinlein’s 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.'"
“Never read it.”
“It’s pretty good. In brief, the supercomputer running the moon colony of the book became sentient one day and decided to play pranks on the authorities. An engineer catches wind of this, befriends the computer, and through a series of hilarious events leads to the moon’s independence.”
“So how does that relate to the Internet?”
“Simple. The Internet became self-aware, probably recoiled in terror at what it was, and decided to check out early.”
Asura nodded in understanding and followed Asp throughout other parts of the museum. The foundation of Asp’s belief made up most of the explanations offered for the Internet’s mysteriously brief awakening and subsequent deterioration of 2050. Nobody knew why or how it happened exactly, but one thing everybody could agree on was that it changed things politically, economically, and sociologically throughout the Sol System. All anyone could do was isolate their systems and pray for the best.
It became easy to see how the Great Quarantine was the domino that tipped the scales of war between China and the New African Union. While only 5 years old at the time of the collapse, the NAU had proven itself a competent manager of African affairs. Cooperative efforts at food security, infrastructure linking countries together, and close diplomatic channels helped the newborn union stave off the worst immediate effects of the Internet’s termination. The wealth of resources it was sitting on also positioned it to become a major player once things stabilized in the system.
For its part, however, China had begun to feel the effects of an oncoming decline. Instability in the US removed one of its most important trade partners from its economy. A worldwide communication blackout and societal collapse offered the best motivation to invade several sovereign nations for quick and easy resources. Had it not been for the Three Gorges Dam ecological disaster and subsequent civil war that split the Middle Kingdom three ways, they might have succeeded.
Before long, Asura and Asp found themselves approaching a corridor of rented conference spaces offered by the museum. One was where Fernando De La Paz had scheduled a meeting with the widely-known, yet rarely seen in-person, owner of Luminated Ventures, Adam Hummin. Asura scanned the area for the usual tell-tale signs of a corpoboss’ presence: plainclothes bodyguards, civilians making themselves scarce, increased digital security, the works. She detected nothing.
Instead, she and her client found a lightly furnished conference room with a humaniform robot seated at the end of a small table beckoning them inside. As the two took their seats, the blank display that served as the robot's head winked on to show the 3D image of, presumably, Hummin’s own.
Adam Hummin was certainly a sight to behold. He appeared to be in his late 60s, possessed a wave head of grey hair, and sported the largest, most ridiculous set of white sideburns Asura had ever seen.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Hummin grinned sheepishly at the pair and said, “Well, I was expecting Mr. De La Paz, but the illustrious Mr. Untehki Asp will do just as well. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet.”
Asp reached out his hand to shake the robot's and nodded. “From what I hear Mr. Hummin, you’ve shown interest in the workings of Asp Aerospace for some time. I’m surprised we hadn’t met sooner.”
“Please, call me Cheddar, all my friends do,” the robotic corpoboss admitted, “Don’t quite know why, but I’ve stuck with it. Anyway though, rest assured a meeting has been on the top of my list for a while, but my work in Luminated Ventures takes me to all corners of Sol, and I never quite know where I’ll be on any given day.”
“Is that why you’re meeting us via a communications bot?” Asp asked.
“What can I say, I like working remote,” Hummin said with a chagrined smile, “I’m one of those rare evolutionary throwbacks who finds that air and space travel don’t always agree with my biology.”
“Understood.”
Taking note of Asura, Hummin positioned his arm toward her and asked, “And pardon my bad manners, you would be?”
Asura met the gesture and answered, “I go by Asura; I’m just Mr. Asp’s hired muscle for the time being.”
“Well, I promise to be of no threat to Mr. Asp.”
Hummin beckoned the two to wait one moment as he ordered coffee for them and organized some documents he had been examining on the table. After the coffee was distributed, Hummin cleared his throat, producing a brief buzz of static on his comms, and began the meeting.
“Mr. Asp, I’m going to start by addressing the elephant in the room, so to speak. That is, how did I acquire intimate knowledge of your Project: LIGHTSWITCH.”
Asura could see that Asp was taken aback by Hummin’s boldness. “That was something of an unexpected revelation from Francisco, yes. The public knew of the Asp Aerospace collaboration with MexRX, but very little about it.”
Hummin clicked his tongue. “Well, not so airtight on their end, I’m afraid. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume your hiring of the fine Ms. Asura to your right was necessitated by public outcry of the project?”
“So, news of the attempted assassination of De La Paz, and myself by collateral, has reached the news, eh?”
“Indeed, along with Mr. De La Paz’s subsequent purging of those in the corporate sphere responsible for it.”
Damn, he works fast, Asura thought to herself at hearing of this development. Last she saw of De La Paz was him entering his safe house, and within the span of a day, he was already laying down the law. Truthfully, Asura had no great love for corps outside of the revenue their execs could bring in as clients. Still, she could respect power and cleaning house as he was doing showed that De La Paz was not one to trifle with.
“Anyhow,” Hummin continued, “I’ll admit to using good old-fashioned bribery and espionage to glean what info I could about LIGHTSWITCH, but evidently that was money and personnel not needed when MexRX’s own workers were ready to gripe.”
Asp grunted in frustration. “Francisco informed me that many of his employees saw it was a vanity project at best and an expensive distraction at worst when so many other health problems affecting their friends and families.”
“It’s not an invalid point of concern, Mr. Asp. CIGP cases continue to rise as cybertech continues to be a necessity for this high-tech life we live.”
“So let me guess, you’re interested in subsuming MexRx’s work on LIGHTSWITCH so you can kill it? Maybe do that so you get some good PR, sink a big investment on my end, something like that?”
Hummin shook his head. “Not at all, Mr. Asp. My, you must imagine me to be some kind of cutthroat!”
With a wry smile, Asp responded by saying, “Can’t say I see how you’ve stayed in business without anything really definite to show for it if you weren’t.”
Instead of showing contempt or offense over the accusation, as Asura expected he might, Hummin responded with a boisterous belly laugh. “Yes, yes, well, I’ll admit I’ve done my share of playing the great corporate dance. This time though my interest is purely out of a genuine desire to see this project along.”
“And why would that be?” Asp inquired.
“In the past, you’ve made a point of saying that you feel something is getting in the way of humanity’s development. Plenty have labeled you a conspiracy theorist of sorts, but I very much agree with your sentiment. I’ve also been around longer than you know and can attest to seeing many a promising piece of tech or research that might incentivize humanity fleeing the safety of Sol’s womb for the stars up and vanish. That’s why I made Luminated Ventures, a corporation that seeks to preserve these things so the forces that be cannot reach them and strangle them in the crib.”
While she had been paying careful attention to the conversation, Asura redoubled her focus at that statement. On their flight over, Asp had made similar comments to Asura in passing. Admittedly, it did seem conspiratorial in its attempt at blaming some unknown dark force intentionally setting out to harm humanity with himself being a prime target. She did admit that the recent raid on Asp Aerospace at Canaveral looked like pretty good evidence, but corpos and governments tore at each other all the time. She just didn’t see how this was any different. Yet now here was Hummin making similar claims and, allegedly, working to combat it.
Hummin seemed to let Asp process this new information, then moved on. “I intend to allow LIGHTSWITCH to continue development unmolested. The one thing that might prove to be a problem is that I want to have total control of the affair and all rights to it.”
Asp raised an eyebrow in concern, “Excuse me?”
“Just as I said, I want LIGHTSWITCH solely in my hands. Once it reaches a functional state, I intend to make it available via public domain. I’m a philanthropist at heart, Mr. Asp, but I’m a greedy one. The fewer chefs in the kitchen, the better, as recent events in Canaveral clearly show.”
“No.”
The quickness of the response surprised Asura. Asp clearly had no intention of letting go of his work into someone else’s hands, even if the possibility of its protection seemed enticing. “Sorry, “Cheddar”, but I’m greedy too. I want mankind to survive, but this is my work, my achievement. I’ll not have you take that from me.”
Hummin remained seated and frowned. “I would suggest sleeping on it, Mr. Asp. Maybe reclaim the rest of your stolen work and then consider your options.”
“How do you-?”
“I told you, I can dance the corporate dance. But that breach proves my point whether you want to admit it or not. Should you still wish to zealously guard your horde, just know I might use alternative means to safeguard that work that may not be very appealing towards you. We’re on the same side, so I’d rather avoid any messy business.
As Asp and Asura left the conference room, she turned to once more look back at the owner of Luminated Ventures. He smiled at her then his image winked out of existence.