System.upgrade()
A pair of half-siblings want the same thing but disagree about how to achieve it.
Today’s story is from the 12th Playground Challenge from Writer’s Playground. I entered the 11th Challenge in the Fall with my story Of Botany and Biology. I liked the format because it’s a little more open than the NYC Midnight competitions I’ve joined. This gave me the freedom to choose Science Fiction as my genre once again.
See my note after the story for the prompt. I figure it’s better to see how I wove them in after reading the story on its own, otherwise you might be looking for them!
What follows is a little bit of self-therapy-through-fantasy. If the rich and powerful aren’t going to face any real consequences in the real world, then I can at least force comeuppance in my fiction!
Rosie landed on the rooftop with a thud. Damn, she thought as pain shot through her hip into her lower back. This used to be a lot easier. Her time in active duty had been compressed to an echo in her memory, and her body wanted none of it.
The silent, unlit drone that brought her to this urban summit faded into a clear, moonless night. Up this high, most of the light from the surrounding city was blocked by the edges of the office building beneath her, and sound was obscured by the unceasing wind. She checked her watch and hurried to the locked entrance to the stairwell. She sent a command to the band snugly cuffed around her wrist. A device of her own invention, the metal on the inside touching her skin conducted her thoughts to a specialized AI core that converted them to an NFC broadcast, sending the key to unlock the door via its cardreader.
Rosie entered the dimly lit stairwell and the door latched shut behind her. She paid no heed to the security camera that was trained on the door, nor the ones that had been on the roof. The same band on her wrist emitted another short-range signal that would edit her out of any digital video feed in real-time.
She descended one flight of stairs and used her device again on the door to enter the top floor suite. Of course her egomaniacal father would hoard the top five floors of the most prestigious real estate in the city, and of course his personal office would have a god-like view of people in other buildings and the park below. But it also had an encrypted, hard-wired line directly to the private data center two floors down.
Other security measures were no match for her–she’d been inside them all. Motion sensors, infrared monitors, microphones; all were easily fooled on the fly by her protective band. Rosie quite literally didn’t exist, in a digital sense. She was the ultimate ghost in the machine.
After making her way to her father’s office, she hesitated at the door. Rosie had known for a long time that she’d end up in this room. She steeled herself, knowing it would take every ounce of her resolve to walk away tonight with her integrity intact. To her surprise, the door opened automatically before she did anything.
“Hey Rosie, it’s about time,” a voice called from within. Undaunted, Rosie stepped into the room.
One might expect the richest person in the world to have the most lavish and extravagant office imaginable. But what made Marco Antari so successful was an unparalleled ruthless desire for efficiency and control. Seating was sparse; he treated everyone as servants and expected people to stand and receive orders. There was no space for dialog, for sharing. His desk faced outward with a multitude of monitors arrayed against the windows. It gave the impression of a starship command center, which more than one interviewer had used in profiles through the years.
Marco loved a good “bootstraps” story, but in reality he was the beneficiary of his mother building a successful accounting firm, sending him to good schools, and having investor friends who pumped cash into his first ventures expanding the family business into the world of software. To his credit, he handled plenty of setbacks with impressive determination, expanding, consuming, and stealing as he built a tech empire.
Rosie was here for a confrontation and had worked out what to say ahead of time. “Jess, I know what you’re trying to do tonight, and you know I can’t let you do it.”
Marco’s seat was filled by a younger woman who took a moment to reply. Rosie’s observation skills, honed during her career in law enforcement, allowed her to capture the scene in detail. Jess faced the doorway with her back to the windows and monitors. Her dark, tightly curled hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she sat stoically with her eyes closed and her hands clasped in her lap, as if meditating. Behind her, code whizzed by on some of the monitors while dashboards and access controls flared to life on others. Rosie took note of the collar that fit comfortably around Jess’s neck. Dark, thin, and stylish, it came to a V nestled in Jess’s collarbone. The collar, which acted like Rosie’s wristband, made more of a statement than Rosie’s utilitarian approach. Jess opened her eyes and most of the activity on the monitors stopped.
“Rosie, why do you even want to stop me? You know this needs to be done.”
“Not this way.” Rosie wasn’t counting on winning this argument, but her sense of duty dictated she try. ”You can’t play with the lives of millions of people, just because you think you know better. That’s what he always does.”
“Your father–”
“Our father,” Rosie quickly corrected.
“Whatever. He’s destroying society, Rosie. He’s destroying real people’s lives. He is a cancer, a blight on everything he touches. Did you know that an estimated two million children have died globally since he convinced the government to divert funds from foreign aid to crypto reserves? Two. Million. Children.”
“Yeah Jess, I know. He’s a monster. But you’re not.” She crossed the room as she spoke. “I want him to face consequences as badly as you do. Our society has laws for a reason, and my case against him is strong. It’s not just the financial stuff like tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions. I’m locking up evidence for violent crime, Jess, with receipts for the silence he bought. It’ll take time, but it’s airtight and he won’t escape it. If you don’t let this play out in the courts, then where does it stop? We can’t let anarchy reign. You need to be patient and trust that our system is strong enough to handle this.”
“Rosie, this isn’t anarchy. I’m not taking a wrecking ball to the ‘system’ you love. I’m performing surgery. You know that this is all so unfair. I don’t even have the words–it’s absolutely absurd how much money and power he’s accumulated. And not just him! He’s just one of many! It’s far out of balance, and you know it. We have a responsibility to put this…gift…from our father to good use.”
The “gift”. Rosie and Jess shared a unique ability that they were certain was inherited from their father, since they were born to different mothers. They didn’t know how many of his offspring had it (they didn’t know how many offspring he had), but they were sure that at least some did, to varying degrees. It was probably expressed most strongly in Rosie and Jess, but it would be impossible to know or measure.
The two women could process information at an inhuman rate and could communicate with digital systems at the speed of thought. And not simple, linear thoughts like two people have when conversing, but system-wide, near instantaneous understanding of incredibly complex cause and effect. Rosie and Jess were essentially quantum beings in a binary world.
This allowed them to mine digital archives more efficiently than entire research divisions, so it didn’t take them long to learn about each other and figure out their shared genetic heritage. Never married, Marco had nonetheless been cavalier about spreading his genes. In his younger days, he was in constant need of more money than what he earned by working for his mother and he was quick to donate his sperm. As he aged, his arrogance led him to court one younger woman after another, either paying them off when they came to him with paternity claims or shamelessly denying everything. This was why neither woman had ever met their father and didn’t know any other half-siblings besides each other.
Once discovered, Rosie and Jess had built their relationship not around familial ties, but rather respect and understanding. Rosie knew she needed to switch tactics. “You have to trust people to fix this for themselves. You can’t change the course of the world just because you think you’re smarter than everybody. Lasting change comes when people work together for something they believe in. That’s how it’s always been.”
“Where’s your trust in people?” Jess demanded. “Yeah, change is never easy, but it’s worth it. You talk about people like they’re children who don’t know how to take care of themselves. You want to talk about how it’s ‘always been’? It’s always been the case that change comes from the outside. Every society calcifies unless change is introduced by some external factor. That’s what shakes things up and gives people new opportunities.”
“Jess–”
She kept going, steamrolling over Rosie’s interjection. “People are smart. Resilient. They’re being held back and set against each other by these untouchable oligarchs. There’s so much bullshit and everyone is overwhelmed. Collective action is impossible and no one person can push back. It feels like trying to stop a coming storm by blowing at it really hard.”
She paused, eyes searching Rosie’s. “I don’t have a fix. I don’t know a completely better way. I just know that this way isn’t working, and Marco and people like him are the reason.”
Rosie’s objections caught in her throat. The problem was that she agreed with Jess. Rosie was older than Jess by almost a decade, and she always thought Jess’s idealism would fade as she matured. That hadn’t happened, though, and her sister’s steadfast commitment to the well-being of others was genuine. She knew all about Jess’s legally gray work, but Jess was too smart to get caught and Rosie’s loyalty to family (and admiration) prevented her from doing anything to stop her sister.
They wanted the same thing, and Jess’s arguments resonated with the part of her that was so fed up with corruption. She saw it blossom where wealth and power coalesced, and how it bred injustice and suffering.
“Your way hasn’t worked,” Jess said. She got up and pointed to a portrait on the wall as she stepped toward it. “I think even she would agree.”
Rosie stepped closer, face to face with a painting she had seen online but never in person.
Side by side, the sisters surveyed a portrait of their shared grandmother, illuminated by a lighting bar above. Marco’s mother, Maria, had started a business as a humble payroll service, the seeds of Marco’s eventual accounting software. Maria was whip smart and ruthless in her own way, at least when it came to taking care of her son. She was a single mother in a time when it was exceptionally hard. Hell, the law had required her brother to be the co-signer on her first loans. She worked three times as hard as her male counterparts, building a successful business so she could give her son opportunities that weren’t available to her.
Jess’s eyes darted from the painting to Rosie and back. “God, you look just like her. It’s unreal.”
A feeling of faintness fluttered through Rosie’s body. At 48, she really did look remarkably like Maria. They each had a stern face framed by dark hair. Rosie’s gray streaks mixed in naturally whereas Maria, in her proud, indomitable way, kept hers dyed until her death. Maria’s gold-tinted dark eyes stared back at Rosie’s, admonishing her. She was seated in the portrait, but Rosie imagined her standing up, matching Rosie’s short stature. “Don’t let her do this to family,” Maria’s eyes commanded. Rosie’s gut responded, her resolve snapping back into place.
With her eyes locked on the portrait, Jess said, “I’m surprised Marco never made the connection any time you were on TV.”
Rosie’s career had been punctuated by one high profile case after another, and she was a minor celebrity in terms of the local news. She was no stranger to the field in her younger days, but for a long time she’d focused on cyber crime that veered into national security. A top-level federal job seemed to be in the cards if the current administration was replaced by the opposing party in the next election cycle.
“He’s probably guessed it,” Rosie said. “I just don’t think he cares.”
Jess snorted. “No, I don’t think he cares about anyone at all.”
Rosie’s renewed sense of duty allowed her to brush off any persuasion she felt from Jess’s arguments. The part of her that cared about following rules and playing by the book was back in the driver’s seat. The world was the way it was for a reason, and she had a whole career that proved her point. She herself had enacted real, large-scale change by reducing the crime rate in the city. She had exposed and prosecuted corruption that, once removed, allowed people to collectively increase their wages and benefits. The moral arc of the universe was in fact long and bent toward justice.
“Jess, listen. I understand why you’re doing this. We even want the same things. But you’re naive to think you can engineer some sort of utopia. It’s all too complex, even for us.
“Here’s how it’s going to go. You’re going to kill all your processes and restore everything to the way it was before we got here.” She spoke with more confidence than she felt. ”You’ll help me gather evidence, legally, so that I can finish my case. I already have enough to take him down, but I want it to be perfect. I want this case to be so flawless that, even if he buys a pardon, he’ll never be able to influence anyone again.”
Pity and disappointment filled Jess’s eyes. “Rosie, that’s not good enough–that’s not how it works. You’ve seen it play out. These assholes do not face consequences. Our laws aren’t enough, our norms aren’t enough, and the will of the people isn’t enough. They are shameless, greedy, and above the law. That’s the real crime. That’s the rot that we need to get rid of.”
Rosie’s time had run out. She grasped Jess’s arm and their shared ability opened a peer-to-peer connection. She’d be an opposing force in the network, shutting Jess down at every node where she was operating. Rosie just needed more time to finish her case the right way–
“It’s already finished,” said Jess, though she didn’t need to verbalize anything. Complete understanding poured into Rosie’s consciousness as she became aware of everything Jess had already done. When she’d arrived, Jess hadn’t paused to convince Rosie of anything. She had paused to distract. Rosie hadn’t interrupted Jess’s work; she’d allowed it to finish while they were talking.
Marco’s enormous wealth was no more. Every dollar, share, bond, and Bitcoin had been dispersed across the digital globe. Rosie was overwhelmed by the scale and the reach. Within milliseconds, she realized it wasn’t just Marco; Jess’s targets included everyone deemed (by her) to have an inhumane level of wealth.
Money poured into nonprofits, government agencies, research institutions, schools, hospitals, and more. The majority of it collected into something new: a decentralized network of digital escrow agents that were to be controlled in tandem by AI coordinators and organizations in the areas of focus, like a pool of funds designated to build treatment centers for tuberculosis in Sierra Leone.
Rosie’s legal-oriented mind knew that all of this was going to be challenged in courts, but she continued to absorb the layers of protection and guidance Jess had put in place. Undergirding all of the transactions was a cryptographic system that made the blockchain look like a rusty padlock on a barn. This new methodology was quantumly secure and sustainable to run. The dispersed funds would not be reclaimable by Marco and the billionaires like him, and to own something in this framework was no longer based on selfish, individual control.
But that was just the financial side.
Rosie hadn’t worried about preventing Jess from accessing her case files about Marco. Now she found them meticulously categorized and publicly accessible alongside files for other wealthy and powerful people, with proof of crimes that ranged from tax evasion to human trafficking. It seemed every accusation that people theorized about on the Internet could now be researched from a common, open repository that put Wikileaks to shame.
Jess had been following Rosie’s traversal through the network. “Every single person on Earth has a right to this information, to do with it what they see fit.” She twisted her arm to clasp Rosie’s wrist, touching her wristband, steadying her. Rosie was visibly trembling. “Including this.” She touched her free hand to her collar. “No single person should have this kind of advantage over others. We know it helped Marco get to where he is. Now we can share it with the world and let people use it to offset this kind of unfair advantage.”
Rosie absorbed new information: schematics for their devices and code made open-source, theories documented in papers available for peer review, and genetic sequencing linked with ideas about how to use CRISPR technology to edit the genome.
“For the first time in human history, we have a level playing field.”
Rosie was incapable of responding. “No, Jess, I…you can’t…” She trailed off, her mind racing through scenarios of what could happen. How would the world respond? There’d be riots, violence…Jess was too trusting. Whole economies could collapse, wars could break out...
“It’s okay, Rosie. It isn’t your problem to solve. You’ve always trusted the systems of the world, and you’ll learn to trust this one. People are still going to make mistakes; there’s no way to stop people from hurting each other, or take away their fear. But now they’ll have a little more leverage to fight for themselves. And my God, it’s going to feel good to see our father and all his cronies finally suffer some retribution.”
That got through to Rosie, because it brought her attention back to her core values of fairness and justice. She needed people like Marco Antari to face up to the people they harmed, because without that, why was she even trying? Why should anybody care if they couldn’t do anything about it?
She had her answer in the sister still clutching her arm. When good people care, they can do something about it. For most people that meant fighting the good fight of trying to live well and take care of the people around them. A few are lucky enough now and then to shape the course of history.
Thanks for reading! Or, at least, skipping to the end here to see the prompts.
CHOOSE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS LISTED BELOW. This character does not have to be your protagonist but they must play a significant role in your story.
An AI robot
Half-siblings
A food-service worker
A scapegoat
A Pontianak
CHOOSE ONE OF THE SETTINGS LISTED BELOW. Can be set in any time-period, including the future, unless specified. Can deviate slightly from the selected prompt but the majority of the story must take place in one of these settings.
A coming-of-age party (ex. a sweet-sixteen, a quinceañera, a bar mitzvah, etc…)
Pompeii
An office building
A duplex (a house divided into two apartments, with a separate entrance for each)
A boarding school
THE ONE THING THAT MUST BE INCLUDED IN ALL STORIES IS:
A painting, from an earlier time, of someone who looks eerily like the protagonist.