Hideo nods once. “Downtown Los Angeles.”
Right as the person reaches the convenience store entrance, the dark red oval representing his mind suddenly flares, flashing bright. As I look on, the NeuroLink’s new algorithm resets the colors. The deep scarlet turns into a mild mix of blues, greens, and yellow. On the live view, the man freezes. He stops pulling out his gun. There is a strange blankness on his face that sends a shiver through me. Then, as his face calms, he blinks out of it, exits, and moves on down the street, the convenience store forgotten.
Hideo shows me other videos, of events all happening simultaneously around the world. The color maps of billions of minds, all controlled by an algorithm.
“As time goes on,” Hideo says, “the code will adapt to each person’s mind. It will fine-tune itself,improveitself, adding to its automated responses every specific detail about what a person might do. It will turn itself into a perfect security system.”
Judging from the footage, people don’t even know what had hit them—and even if they had, the code will stop them from thinking about it now. “What if people don’t want this? What if they just stop using the NeuroLink and their lenses?”
“Remember what I told you when I first gave you a set of them?”
I recall his words at the same time he says this.The lenses leave behind a harmless film on the eye’s surface that is only one atom thick. This film acts as a conduit between the lenses and your body.
That lingering film on the eyes will keep someone connected to the NeuroLink, even when they take the lenses out.
I’d understood Zero’s plans all wrong. He had wanted to destroy this with the virus in those rigged Artifacts. He had wanted to assassinate Hideo to stop him from moving forward. He had bombed our dorms in an attempt to keep me out of the games and from carrying out Hideo’s final goal. And maybethisis why Hideo had not stopped the final game when he saw that things were going wrong. He’d wanted me to stop Zero so that I could triggerhisplans.
He’s doing this because of Sasuke.He created all of this so that no one would ever have to suffer the same fate as his brother, that no family would ever go through what his did. Our conversation comes back to me in a flash.You created Warcross for him,I’d said. And he’d responded,Everything I do is for him.
Does Kenn know about this plan? Was everyone always in on it?
“You can’t,” I finally say, hoarse.
My question doesn’t stir him. “Why not?” Hideo asks.
“You can’t be serious.” I let out a single, desperate, humorless laugh. “You want to be a...dictator? You want to control everyone in the world?”
“Not me.” Hideo gives me the same piercing stare that I remember from our first meeting. “What if the dictator is an algorithm? A code? What if that code can force the world to be a betterplace, can stop wars with a single breath of text, can save lives with an automated system? The algorithm doesn’t have an ego. It doesn’t lust after power. It is programmed solely to do right, to be fair. It is the same as the laws that govern our society—except it can also enforce that law immediately, everywhere, all the time.”
“But you control the algorithm.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “I do.”
“No one chose you,” I snap.
“And have people been so great at choosing their leaders?” he snaps back.
“But you can’t do that! You’re taking away something that makes us fundamentally human!”
Hideo steps closer. “Andwhatis it that makes us human, exactly? The choice to kill and rape? To war and bomb and destroy? To kidnap children? To gun down the innocent? Isthatthe part of humanity that shouldn’t be taken away? Hasdemocracybeen able to stop any of this? We already try to fight back with laws—but law enforcers cannot be everywhere at once. They cannot see everything. What ifIcan? I could have stopped the person who stole Sasuke—the NeuroLink can stop anyone who might do the same now to another child. I can make ninety percent of the population crime-free, allowing our law enforcement to focus only on the remaining ten percent.”
“You mean you’llcontrolninety percent of the population.”
“People can still live their lives, pursue their dreams, enjoy their fantasy worlds, do everything they’ve ever wished to do. I’m not standing in the way of any of that. They can do anything they want, as long as it is not a crime. Nothing in their lives changes except for this. Sowhy not?”
Everything about Hideo’s words seems contradictory, andI find myself standing in the middle, not sure what to believe. I think of my own city, how I have a job as a bounty hunter because the police can no longer keep up with the rising crime in New York. I think of how the same has been happening everywhere.They can do anything they want, as long as it is not a crime. Nothing in their lives changes except for this.
Except for giving up their freedom. Except the thing that changes everything.
“It’s an essential part of everyday life, the NeuroLink,” Hideo says. “People work inside it and build businesses on top of it and are engulfed in the entertainment it offers. Theywantto use it.”
And I realize that, of course, he’s right. Why would anyone give up the perfect fantasy reality just because they have to give up their freedom? What’s the point of freedom if you’re just living in a miserable reality? It would be like telling everyone to quit using the internet. And even as my skin crawls at the knowledge that I’ve worn the NeuroLink lenses—amstill wearing them—I still feel a sharp pang at the thought of never logging back into the Link, a reluctance to abandon them.
Even without the film against the eyes, people would never stop using it. They probably won’t even believe that it’s doing this to them. And even if they did start arguing with each other about the implications of the NeuroLink’s manipulation, their lives now revolve around it. Anyone not logged in to the NeuroLink right now will use it before long, triggering this new algorithm the instant they do. Eventually, everyone will have this installed in their minds. And that will give Hideo control over each of them.
Maybe no one would even care.
“What about protestors?” I press. “What about fighting for what’s right or making mistakes or even just respecting peoplewho disagree with you? Is it going to stop people from passing laws that are unjust? What laws is it going to enforce, exactly?” I clench my fists. “How is your artificial intelligence capable of judging everyone in the world, or understandingwhythey do what they do? How do you know you won’t go too far? You aren’t going to bring about world peace all by yourself.”
