The Infinite when it was Two Digits Old Read online

  The Infinite when it was Two Digits Old

  By Allen I. Fleishman, PhD

  Copyright 2009 Allen I Fleishman

  Smashwords Edition

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication and Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Year 11.3 Prelude – Norton Hatches a Plan

  Year 16.4 ComHead – Master of the Universe

  Year 16.5 Act Normal and we’ll Pass For Human

  Year 16.7 No Need to Bow

  Year 16.9 Monster? Where?

  Year 17.20 If you want to double your Successes, You Need to Triple your Errors

  Year 17.21 Kiss me, I’m a Genius

  Year 17.5 Ask me Anything. Like your Measurements

  Year 17.6 Run! He knows Math.

  Year 17.6 Give Yourself over to Absolute Pleasure

  Year 17.61 Don’t worry, Dad’s bark is worse than his bite

  Year 17.8 Out to Launch. Will Return Shortly.

  Year 18.4 Watt do you want?

  Year 19.2 Uncle David’s Pick-up and Delivery

  Year 19.5 I’m with Stupid
  Year 19.8 Mine is bigger

  Year 62.6 Epilogue – It’s tough being the Former Overlord of Earth

  About the Author - Allen I. Fleishman, PhD

  Other Works by the Author

  DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I dedicate this book to my wife, Sue, who always enjoyed reading my work and inspired me to take the plunge. I don’t think I would have written a word, but for her.

  Although I had thought of ComHead (David Klein) complete with his abilities, and limitations, before reading Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, Kurzweil’s influence permeates these books. Kurzweil’s book was the most exciting, intriguing, and horrifying book I have ever read. His ideas were horrifying because his predictions are based on very realistic projections. This will happen, folks! In contrast to Ray, I believe that the singularity will cusp on human, rather than machine, intelligence.

  David also is based on the work of the great psychologist, Louis Terman. Terman observed that geniuses accomplish more, but aren’t necessarily happier. As a statistician, I concluded that the correlation was near zero. Further, as a former psychologist, I ‘wanted’ to make David an unhappy individual (trait), but ‘he’ wouldn’t let me. Instead, I had to settle for periods where he was situationally unhappy (state). Luckily, I’ve met two true geniuses. They were genuine, loving people, and were very tolerant of those of us who were less gifted. Thank you Drs. Tucker and Lewis.

  On the other hand, my book is a complete fiction. Any, and all characters and events, are products of my own creativity and are not based on any other living or fictional character. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. I do wish some of them existed, however.

  Allen I. Fleishman, PhD

  March 20, 2008

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book replaces the traditional chapter numbers with Years. The time between a typical chapter 1 and 2 and between chapter 9 and 10 are not necessarily the same. Years offer far greater understanding of time intervals. Currently, the calendar most modern people use has dates approximately relative to the birth of a Jesus Christ. Previous to that, it was based on other individuals, such as the Roman consuls, or Chinese regents. This book does not tell the story of those religious or political leaders. The years in this book are related to the birth of the originator of the next human epoch.

  Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the superman – a rope stretched across an abyss. – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

  Hey, whodoya think make that rope and then stretched it across the abyss? Come on, take a guess? Oh, could you please put those torches and pitchforks outside? My wife will kill me if you make a mess of the ceiling. – ComHead

  YEAR 11.3 PRELUDE – NORTON HATCHES A PLAN

  David was seated slouched by the kitchen table facing a wall. He had just finished a chocolate milk (with a splash of carbonated water) and a peanut butter sandwich, cut into four perfect squares without the crusts. It was near the end of a four hour home schooling session with his father. He was home schooled seven days a week.

  The eleven year old boy had long dark hair which covered the back of his shirt. The white sweatshirt with black letters said ‘Norton Hatches a Plan’. It showed a sweating, rat-faced elephant that looked almost human. One of David’s sneakers was untied and was swinging from his big toe.

  His father, Martin Klein, was looking at the Zenith 24 inch TV which currently was presenting four lines of a document at a time.

  Now once in a jungle, or so the tale goes, there lived a strange bird that most everyone knows. His name, it was Tracy. He was mean as could be, and never seemed happy while crossing the sea. Sighed Tracy, this crazy Boyd hatching his plan … .

  Martin Klein smiled at his eleven year old son, “Very good David. Horton Hatches an Egg is a children’s story to be read to toddlers plus or minus five years. In fact, my mother tape recorded and played it daily while I was in utero. She said she got sick of it. However, she was startled when I perked up as she first read it the day after I was born. You took the tale and modified it into the first part a detective story. You captured the complete flavor of Horton. How did you keep it up?”

  “Dad, I did a word frequency count for both nodal and collocate words. I wrote a subroutine to emulate the cadence of the rhymes for the poetry. The usual.”

  Martin crossed his arms over his chest, “David, one second. We talked about this. How many shirts are you going to make and use for just a single day?”

  The young boy looked down, “But dad. I bought them in a lot of 2,800 and a single CompuHead hard drive paid for eight years worth of shirts. We sell hundreds of drives per month. I don’t ask for books, or video games, or sports equipment.”

  “You’re missing the point David. You wear a shirt once and discard it. It’s environmentally wasteful.”

  “But dad, I’m not discarding it. I’ve been donating them to charity. The shirts have only been used once. They’re practically new. So it could be used for many years.”

  Martin shook his head, “No. ‘Norton Hatches a Plan’ is completely unintelligible to everyone except us and them. And what happens if one of their agents saw the sweatshirt and made the linkup between Norton and Horton?”

  “Uh, all of them are in the Virginia area. They wouldn’t see the shirt.”

  “David, think New Jersey too – one state away from New York. Work on the probabilities. Let’s say the shirt is worn forty times. No, we triple it, one hundred twenty times because the person buying it is poor and can’t afford many shirts. How many people would see it per day, include bank and other video surveillance cameras? What would happen if the shirt’s new owner read about Robert Norton going to jail or see a picture of Norton? Don’t you realize that the Thrift shop keeps full records of donations for tax reasons? You’ve got to be more careful. Or do you want ComHead to be caught. How likely would it be for a Fed to see the shirt?”

  David sighed, but he agreed with the inescapable conclusion, “Six percent dad. I’ll dispose or save ‘em and be more careful with what I put on the shirts.” David knew that if you throw the dice often enough you will eventually roll snake-eyes. T
he chance of the sweatshirt being seen by an agent was more than twice the chance of rolling two ones on a pair of dice.

  Martin hesitated, “OK, where did you send the information out from?”

  “I zombied a computer at a bank in Singapore, and yes I erased my program 256 times from their computer and the dozen computers between me and them.”

  “OK son, this will end our coverage of children’s books. Tomorrow’s assignment is to read ‘Of Mice and Men’, summarize and integrate thirty-five different papers about the story, each at Master’s thesis or higher, include five summaries of the historical and social dynamics of that day. Then give me original thinking of the difference in the ways they treated Lenny in that period in contrast to now. Make it 40 pages long and in English this time!”

  David smiled because this was an easy assignment, no doubt a reward for the Norton work.

  ***

  The large FBI conference room number 4 was divided into a podium for four speakers and an auditorium for the fifty-three other attendees. A secure video link-up had two agents from the Newark New Jersey branch. All attendees were cleared for Top Secret. At 4:04 PM the doors were locked and the attendance list removed.

  “Thank you all for attending today’s emergency briefing. I am George Boxwood, senior agent in charge of domestic terrorism. By now, you all have received and studied the briefing document from a well established informant, Sea Lab. The document, which you all have a copy of, alleges that Robert Norton with the assistance of Tracy Boyd have devised a scheme to blow up the Claremont Tower in Newark with explosives in a van, in order to incite a race riot attributing the attack to blacks. The Claremont Tower is the New Jersey FBI Headquarters.” Boxwood nodded toward the video conference monitor. “Our video conferenced guests are currently calling from there. Both Norton and Boyd have known links to the KKK and right wing militia groups in Indiana. We were able to verify the purchase of the ammonium nitrate, nitromethane, the cell phones, and the theft of the van. The lead by Sea Lab that the van was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, driven by Norton was verified by use of the photographs taken by the turnpike authority. Their ETA to New Jersey is expected to be 7 PM tonight. Sea Lab believes that the actual attack will take place three days from today. Yes, a question?” Boxwood turned to the video monitor.

  “Michael Hempstead, Newark. Two questions: First how accurate is the threat appraisal and second, how good are the time estimates?”

  Agent Boxwood had a grim smile, “We’ve been actively following these two for eight years. We were able to verify that they got one hundred pound bags of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane or Nitro. We are in the process of getting the receipts to compare signatures. They purchased enough material to make 7,000 pounds of high performance explosive. And it looks like they are on the way. Yes, the ETA of 7 PM appears to be accurate given rush hour traffic. As for the attack alleged to be three day from today, we cannot verify or deny at this point. However previous intelligence from Sea Lab has proven to be extraordinarily accurate. I’ve learnt to trust his leads, especially when corroborated with motive, means, and the demonstrated action by the alleged terrorists.”

  “Michael Hempstead with a follow-up question: Are you certain this is Sea Lab, your informant. Only once in the document did the informant use that name. The original mail came allegedly from a bank in the Orient. I thought I heard that the digital signature of the text was unlike any used by him in the past.”

  Boxwood nodded. “That has been the exact modus operandi of Sea Lab. He sends the message always to the same e-mail account at the Agency. The linguistic profile and each communication have always been unique, and follows the exact style of a noted domestic or international author. To return to your question, even the apparent accuracy of the information is his ‘calling card’, so to speak. Yes, we are fairly certain that the building you are in is the target of 7,000 pounds of high performance explosive material. If it were triggered, it may topple all twelve floors of the building and Boyd was an Army demolitions expert.

  “To continue as we are in a rush, we will have six surveillance teams following the van with an initial car starting in Lancaster, later rotated with two new cars from Philadelphia. Teams will converge on their location and will bug their rooms and their van, if possible. Our lawyers are currently getting a wire-tap from a federal judge on an expedited basis. Agent Weissborn will coordinate with local authorities”, Boxwood looked down at his notes, “and 70 locals. He will provide recommendations for the best site for a take-down. We’d like to take down the entire cell and we believe there are local members either in Trenton or converging on Trenton to provide a get-away vehicle. We do believe they are armed and the van is likely to be bobby trapped. Sea Lab reported two AK47s and over 1,500 rounds of high penetration bullets.”

  “Any additional questions? … No, OK I would like those working on the Sea Lab identification unit to remain. The rest of the task forces are to reconvene in Trenton. Once the terrorist’s rooms are identified, we will monitor what they say in their rooms by lasers focused on their windows and other physical bugs. So we expect you to bring all necessary equipment. Vans are waiting downstairs in departure area C. They will depart in exactly 12 minutes. Thank you.”

  The video hook-up was turned off and the power cord removed. The majority of the audience quickly left the auditorium, leaving ten members in the audience. Each of the remaining members led a team from 5 to 38 other agents. After nervously looking around, one of the ten men moved into one of the front seats. The other nine shortly followed.

  Agent Boxwood simply asked, “Any initial report?”

  A tall grey bearded man stood, “As was reported, it was a variant of Horton Hatches an Egg. I did an analysis and confirmed the word frequency. There was a 99.6% concordance with the words of the actual story. The deviations come from the words unique to the mission, like ‘AK47’ and ‘nitro’.”

  A heavy balding man stood, “We identified that the message was sent at 14:23 EST which corresponds to 2:23 Singapore Time Zone. We tracked it down to Maybank in Singapore. Additional work will be needed to identify which computer was the zombie. We will attempt to obtain the hard disk, but it is likely not to have any additional information based on prior experience.”

  Boxwood immediately interrupted, “But you will make the attempt. He is bound to make a mistake sometime. What about routing computers?”

  The balding man said, “Normal web patterns.”

  Boxwood then asked, “Crypto, any leads?”

  A short man shook his head no, “Not yet, but we haven’t had much time to analyze it.”

  Boxwood shook his head no, “Any possible leads in the manner in which Sea Lab obtained his information?”

  One man seated to Boxwood’s left said, “We think he got in through the Visa credit card, or cell phone discussions, or even infiltration of the Pennsylvania Turnpike camera data base. We have agents working on checking for back doors to those systems right now. When we apprehend Norton and Boyd we will take the entire Indiana militia and KKK cells into custody to see if one of them leaked the information to Sea Lab.”

  A second man at the dais interrupted, “I’d like the reference of a he or a she to be stopped. Sea Lab is obviously a large organization, with at least four native-born linguistics experts, a few hackers, database and communications experts, criminologists, chemists and physicists. Thinking of Sea Lab as a single person will limit our search.”

  There was an interruption from the floor, “And I need to remind you that the personality profile is that of an immature person in his low twenties. He would be incapable of leading a large group.”

  The man on the dais retorted, “Our psychologists say this playful immaturity is a planned red herring.”

  Boxwood angrily turned from his associate and said, “I want him or her or them found, … NOW, gentlemen. This has high priority from the Director and indirectly from the President. We will reconvene after Boyd and Norton are apprehended
. Perhaps they will provide some leads. We will also proceed with the steps to apprehend the militia and KKK groups. However, our first priority is to prevent the attack. Dismissed.”

  As the others began to exit, one member of the audience, with white hair and an unlit pipe clenched upside down in his jaw said out loud, “I’d again like to remind the group that while we would like to speak to the Sea Lab group, they are obviously white hats, albeit Bruce Wayne types. Without Sea Lab’s intervention two to four thousand lives would have likely been killed three days hence. And that is only from today’s missive. Our limited information running tally is forty seven thousand lives saved. We don’t have permission to share information, even with our own CIA, to get better, and likely higher, counts. Do we really want to stop this highly benevolent organization? Please don’t confuse idiosyncratic with malignant, just because they have a higher ratio of successful operations than the Agency. Need I remind you all that the Agency has received all the credit and convictions from the Sea Lab organization? Do you want to jeopardize that by threatening them?”

  Boxwood’s eye narrowed at the speaker, but did not respond as he left.