The Progression Switch Read online

  The Progression Switch

  By

  Brian Krogstad and Damien Darby

  Copyright ©2012 Brian Krogstad

  All Rights Reserved

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  This e-book is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all materials in this book.

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  Forward

  Throughout the history of life on this planet there have only been a handful of brief evolutionary moments when creation radiantly bursts ahead, expressing itself in unique forms and sometimes complementing those already struggling to survive and dominate.

  Humanity has been given a handful of powerful blessings by Mother Nature since we stood up and began to branch out into undiscovered territory. From opposable thumbs to abstract thought and enhanced central nervous systems capable of comprehending the potential future and recalling the distant past, bestowed upon the human animal are the attributes of gods.

  Seeding our numbers throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, over the Bearing Straight and onto every available landmass, we broadened our horizons and multiplied.

  So did our technology, especially in the last hundred years or so. The species, riding on the back of innovative ways to harness energy and produce petrol-food, ballooned from less than one billion in number to more than seven.

  In the contemporary era, and just as the progression switch was flipped, we stood upon the precipice of true artificial intelligence, the verge of sending off a self-sustaining greenhouse to Mars, and finally starting to discover some of the universe’s most coveted secrets.

  We were about to initiate mining asteroids, genetically engineer our food supply, and get to distant planets with big solar blankets that collect protons from starlight. Robotics, augmented reality, and smart technology were taking over the role of living and working from mortals.

  No one saw it coming, though - perhaps not even the cosmos itself. Fate mistakenly thought he was bluffing.

  Life’s plan to reach out from Earth and evolve on distant destinations was immediately halted without warning by one suicidal factory worker from the heart of China.

  In the end it wasn’t a doomsday comet, our planet wasn’t invaded by an advanced civilization, nuclear war didn’t break out, and we didn’t go back to the Stone Age because of a really nasty bug.

  Nope, it was a lonely Chinese genius named Báo. Well, that’s how history records his name, anyway. The character stands for retribution, but the word doesn’t come draped in negativity like it would in English.

  Instead, as defined in the Chinese language, it’s neutral and refers to the natural consequences of one’s actions. To understand, just tie in the idea of karma, or the Yin and Yang theory, and avoid preconceived judgments of good/bad and right/wrong.

  One of our own threw the switch, and maybe, just maybe, it was that decision that ended up saving us.

  The global reaction wasn’t as savory as some of our more romantic historians like to claim. While the brunt of modern civilization was still in shock, the machine halted and even the angels held their breath.

  What would we do next?

  Imagine an electromagnetic pulse going off that is so immense it takes out everything on the entire planet in the span of a few weeks. It explodes like a fusion bomb or a huge incoming object from space. The only difference, it just takes out the internet and anything attached to it.

  Yeah…

  No internet, folks. Sorry, nothing to see here, move along.

  Once shock wore off, and people began to get a taste for how deeply connected everything was to the digital world, things got dicey fast.

  That was the first round. While the net went down, mobile technology was failed at the same time.

  Imagine that the world is encased in glass and anchored below water in a huge celestial fishbowl. Now, the water outside our protective shell is absolutely pristine. Ok, so the water, that’s mobile data streaming everywhere around the planet, but data will not make it inside the encasement.

  If we could see it, and some forms of telescopes can with specialized types of infrared, it would look like a brilliant sweeping river of information. Our thoughts and those of our creations floating through the cosmos.

  Perhaps it would resemble countless shooting stars, in fast forward, darting from one major hot spot to another and branching out between satellites.

  Some believed that mobile data in the air was so thick just before the Progression Switch was engaged that if for some reason it did materialize and could be seen with the naked eye, there would never be any darkness. Instead, at night there would be this luminescent and rhythmic blue glow with sparks of bright light zooming here and there like flaming marbles inside data tubes.

  If someone comes along and adds a few drops of red dye into our proverbial fishbowl, what happens? Soon it spreads throughout our container until all the water is contaminated.

  Once the net fully went down people tried to make calls or check their email, but it was pointless. The brunt of our technology shut off.

  A Progression Switch engaged that started with a note from a desperately oppressed genius in one of the worst parts of this world.

  Ch.1 - Message in a Box

  It’s Christmas Day, 2012, in Pine Tree Harbor, Washington and an enthusiastic single mother named Stacy Woods is helping her five year old, Hazel, open a present. It’s a Disney Minnie Mouse phone, pink with hearts and plenty of annoying sounds that get unbearable after about three minutes. The wrapping was no match for childish vigor, but the youngster wasn’t strong enough yet to tackle industrial cardboard and masking tape of the phone’s packaging.

  Sure, mom didn’t like being forced to buy cheap Chinese-made goods from megastores, but in her small island town there was no other choice.

  That this particular toy was engineered to get even toddlers used to relying on smartphones for entertainment and communication didn’t seem to make a difference though. What could a single mother do in the face of profit-driven and materialistic globalism? Whether she liked it or not, Hazel got what every other kid got; Chinese goods bought and made cheaply.

  In her position, she couldn’t afford to pay another thirty or forty percent for American-made products from the locals. One way or another, consumer cattle were hoarded into these Chinese outlet malls, and one dollar at a time, siphoned away the future of their children.

  Here’s the best part of her story - she works as a waitress in town at a local Chinese food restaurant.

  Inside, mom found the colorful shiny plastic toy, a thin booklet of instructions and warnings in multiple languages. The usual stuff, meant to protect companies from various lawsuits if their product is misused.

  Then, she noticed a curious object.

  It wa
s a handwritten note with what looked like broken English and foreign symbols, or letters. Apparently, someone in one of the Asian manufacturing countries snuck it into the package like a sort of message in a bottle, except it found her through a sea of global consumerism.

  Here is what it said.

  ..*

  This is a final call for help. If you often buy product from China, please contact World Human Rights Organization.

  Countless like me persecuted relentlessly thank you.

  This product produced by Unit 12, Department 23 of the Pashanlua Labor Camp, Phenying, Laonun China.

  (Under this was a long trail of Mandarin characters that basically said the same thing with more finesse.)

  People like me that work in this place here 15 hours each day without break. No weekend, no holiday.

  If refuse, we tortured.

  (More characters that went deeper into the word “tortured” in a way someone who could read his language would grasp.)

  Maybe beaten, maybe receive yelling and many rude statements (more Chinese), or even work without payment (10 Yuan/ few dollars a month).

  ..*

  After that it gets a bit harder to fathom. He goes on about more suffering under cruel headmasters and armed guards; protests about the lack of any justice on workers’ behalf and makes a desperate plea that action be taken for the innumerable victimizations ongoing.

  To speak out for them meant an early grave one way or another.

  Globalized servitude of epic proportions.

  The world’s middle and upper classes speckled here and there, living the good life on the backs of wage slaves in factories that can be seen from the upper atmosphere over China. Like gigantic smog clouds drifting over the sea and invading Japan, to the point people in Tokyo had to avoid walking the streets.

  We all knew what was going on, gruesome revelations leaked out of the country every now and then. Consumer culture shrugged its shoulders, went shopping, and continued thriving in a shroud of self-imposed ignorance.

  China wasn’t innocent either. It was harder for them to have to screen official warnings from the public sector instructing people not to go outside and breathe the air. If they must, it was a good idea to wear masks and drive slow because no one could see too far into the distance.

  Think about that…

  The rich disguised, veiled, and hid their wealth to paint a different picture of income disparity.

  While the Chinese government flaunted outlandish Gross Domestic Product numbers and increases in middle income spending, the opulent in China were hoarding gold bullion, sporting Rolls-Royces, cruising around in yachts, and wearing only the best European designer’s signature threads.

  They couldn’t spend the money they made off the slaves fast enough. Or completely decimate their land with enough vigor. Their rivers began to turn red from overzealous mining operations and terrible run-off, and caused Bible thumpers online to flip their noodles.

  Unchecked government power, coupled with an unregulated atmosphere, turned air pollution into an art form that Westerners in the heart of Los Angeles knew nothing about.

  Toxicity levels shut down factories, caused flight cancellations (as it was so thick it could take down a plane), and all the pretty ladies sunbathed on the beaches in surgical masks.

  Sporting events were regularly rescheduled and soup-like sludge was a covered film on everything. How long would it be before Chinese citizens got used to seeing random people dropping dead in major cities?

  You’re headed to work, someone drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes next to you while in the crosswalk no one notices because it happens so often. A cleanup crew waiting nearby spots the corpse or struggling individual and nabs them up and out of sight.

  Pollution warnings in China were nothing like in Europe or in the States. Rather than being a particular city, section of town, or near some specific spill or explosion, in China they affected hundreds of millions of people at once.

  What was happening to the next generations in the cities, being born from middle-aged parents who grew up in that? Genetic anomalies abounded!

  Maybe Báo was a mutant of some kind, his mind heavily drenched in unnatural chemicals; spinal cord oozing, that somehow turned him into a strange machine. That would explain his uncanny ability to mold technology through will alone and many hours of hard work.

  Did you know that before the collapse, rich Chinese were flying in American escorts so they could have them silently stand around like arm-candy at private parties?

  Yeah…

  As if in some oxymoronic way, emulating a high class American lifestyle was worthy of praise. Western capitalism was already collapsing. Its steady decay began years before the net was taken down.

  More tell-tale signs of the reality on the ground in China lurked in media dens. For example, why were so many Chinese ditching the country once they finally managed to crawl out of the rural areas?

  Why were Chinese investors buying billions of dollars worth of American real estate? Did they presume US citizens would be fine with Chinese cities being erected on their land?

  Try to picture the old south, with drinking fountains sporting little signs that said “White” or “Colored.” Now, replace the word “Colored” with “Chinese” and then ask yourself how plausible that scenario really is. Through debt-leverage, taking advantage of America’s financial collapse, commodity hoarding, and currency games, the Chinese came in and began setting up opulent gated neighborhoods…

  Casually, stories would air about rich Chinese sending their kids to America, buying them fabulous homes from recently foreclosed, down-on-their-luck Americans, while millions squirmed around in lethal dirt back home.

  Well, it seems that out of all those countless poor Chinese individuals stuck in the trenches, faceless, unknown to the world, pitiable, and locked in a filthy existence of servitude and blatant exploitation - one of them decided to fuck shit up.

  This anonymous and demoralized young adult happened to be born a genius, much craftier than technology tycoons, retail cartels, global hacker communities, and government forces. Because of Báo’s circumstances, countryside upbringing, and a vicious inferiority complex, he ended up like the rest of the men in his village.

  Where Báo is from, it got to be pretty common for children and even the mentally handicapped to get snatched up, kidnapped, and then sold into slavery.

  His parents were nothing special. They were very traditional old school Chinese from a time that was rapidly passing away. History for them was in the land, away from cities, wars, revolutions, revolts, and as much pollution as possible.

  Both of his brothers died of infection in kiln camps. They were dirty places of mud and ovens churning out bricks for use in the cities. Neither of them made it to thirty years old, and spent the brunt of their existence covered in mire until their hands barely looked human anymore.

  While Americans, rich Chinese, and Europeans knew little of what it took to support their way of life, these atrocities were like sign posts along the highway of inequality.

  It’s a dead-end road; always has been.

  As far as the media was concerned, China would soon rule the world. Even the American military, along with other allied forces, were transitioning from north of Africa into the highly tense waters around China and Japan. Insignificant islands renewed old wounds from the days of the World Wars and turned into full scale territorial disputes. Furthermore, China’s Navy was building and expanding, and she was gaining confidence by the day.

  Great. China can construct the world’s tallest buildings in a matter of days and pump out new battleships and spacecraft with ease… while the majority of their citizens withered under pitiless enslavement.

  How easy is it to boast of innumerable trained engineers when you have a billion citizens? Humans were livestock for the empire, far worse than how things were turning out in the west.

  Those who tried to fight back were hit hard and fast. r />
  Well, throughout history every empire implodes and behind the destruction are slaves who’ve grown irrationally pissed off beyond the point of no return.

  When the average person has nothing left to lose, that’s all she wrote. “Burn it down!” they scream, foaming at the mouth, starved of meaning and humanity. In Báo’s mind, it was better somehow to be in a deep, dark place of venomous spite, than to be a part of the small privileged community in China.

  Was it ironic that income disparity in the communist nation mirrored that of America in magnitude? The two were totalitarian cousins! A tag team of corruption; The Crony Capitalist Brothers. Out of more than a billion people, only a group the size of the US was living an upper-middle to high-class life.

  Picture decent cars versus hand-me-down, fixed-up bikes, astounding residences away from the smog versus slums covered in the pollutant gunk, and women painting their faces with creams and mud when they visit the affluent zones. For a lady to have even the slightest tint to the skin on her face was low class.

  What finally set Báo off was a letter he came across on China’s prominent forum, Tianya Club. It was written on behalf of more than 800 parents of children that they believed were abducted and sold into slavery and never to be heard from again.

  After he finished designing the initial virus, the note he snuck into the package one day at work was his final call for attention and action. But it was also a warning to the universe.

  The experience was frightening, but in reality, no one around him paid any attention. They were packed like sardines in that retail goods and assembly factory along huge production lines. Everyone kept their eyes down, numb to existence.

  No guards saw him and his movements were fast and natural enough that sensitive cameras wouldn’t likely catch anything conspicuous.

  He had to crumple it up and then hope that no one responsible for overseeing final packaging details discovered his secret document. It would be all over for him if he was caught. The whole thing would get blown wide open.