The green and yellow taxi dropped them off at the top end of The Bund, Shanghai’s two kilometers of European brownstone buildings that harked back to the city’s colonial past. Zhongshan Lu, the road that was sandwiched between the neoclassical fa?ade of The Bund, the Huangpu River and the constantly changing metropolis of Pudong, was a maelstrom of neon, vehicle lights, myriad flyovers and the buzz of a city alive. The view was so breathtaking that Caldwell just stood on the pavement in front of one of the European-style buildings and stared at the Pudong skyline. They’d decided to come here first to test run Kenzo Yamamoto’s console before dealing with the problem of the AI. Mei Lin had also reasoned that following the PLA all the way to the hospital was too dangerous. It was much better to sneak in and catch them by surprise.
Gleaming towers of steel and concrete disappeared into a smog-filled sky, their neons screaming to be noticed. Giant robotic cranes moved slowly between the buildings giving the impression that they were going to crash through the shiny edifices. The logos of countless Chinese, Japanese and global conglomerates pulsated in the night, the horns of shiny cars blared and an ultra-modern version of humanity weaved its way among the buildings. Caldwell reckoned that if you pointed an augmented reality unit in any direction it would be overwhelmed with data. As he took in the views, the time capsule of The Bund, the crazy pedestrian and vehicular traffic of Zhongshan Lu, the nautical traffic on the Huangpu river, the fiery neon and light-refracting steel and glass of Pudong, and the numerous helicopters and other aircraft traversing the sky, he found it difficult not to be overwhelmed. And all the while haunted by that unmistakable feeling of déjà vu.
“I have been here before,” Caldwell said finally.
“Hardly surprising Cad.”
“But I have no memory of it at all, just this overwhelming feeling that I have been here before.”
“Let’s cross over to the banks of the Huangpu. There’s a nice elevated riverside promenade.”
“Yes, let’s see whether this Wang Lin character was just boasting idly or there really is something else out there.”
They crossed Zhongshan Lu via an underground tunnel and emerged on the other side. There was a small crowd of people admiring the night view of Pudong and from this side of the road, with the undulating black expanse of the river in full view, the vista really was breathtaking. They found a park bench in a more secluded spot close to the river tour ferry piers and Caldwell removed the console from his knapsack and placed it on the bench. Mei Lin looked on as he donned the goggles and switched the console on.
“What can you see?” Mei Lin asked with mounting excitement. Caldwell’s heart was beating fast too. This could be the most exciting thing he’d ever set his eyes on.
“Em, nothing, just the command line and the view of The Bund outside.” He turned his head towards Pudong. Nothing. The console was not picking up any networks.
“Maybe you are supposed to issue a command or something,” Mei Lin suggested. The night was a bit chilly and she had her arms folded across her chest and her head hunched into her shoulders.
“Maybe. Augmented Reality Mode,” Caldwell said into the microphone embedded in the goggles.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just issuing a command to the console. OK, we have an AR overlay.”
The goggles’ display was picking up some sophisticated augmented reality data. The buildings in Pudong had changed color and become transparent, showing the various floors and internal structures. Text labels described the corporations in the buildings and logos appeared where they did not exist in real life. Virtual advertising.
The system notified Caldwell that the word “Bund” was of Anglo-Indian origin and described an embankment along a muddy waterfront. For a while, the Bionic Tower in the Pudong metropolis had been one of the tallest buildings in the world and provided work, living and recreation space for more than one hundred thousand Shanghai residents. There were several other arcologies that had since completely dwarfed the Bionic Tower and the AR had detailed information about the construction of those monoliths. With the gloves on, Caldwell guessed that you could manipulate these intelligent buildings in three dimensions and break them apart like Lego to understand their ecology, how they functioned.
“Anything interesting?” Mei Lin asked again. A note of impatience was growing in her voice.
“Standard AR stuff. Wait a minute.”
Caldwell peered through the goggles at the amber-lit exteriors of the buildings on The Bund. He had not been paying attention to the bottom right corner of the screen but it appeared that the console was detecting several networks in the surrounding area. Most of them seemed to be corporate networks.
“You have something?”
“Yes, the console seems to be cycling through all the networks it has detected in the vicinity. There are many, as you’d expect given the density of this place, the sheer number of skyscrapers.”
“Well, that’s good. At least if there is a network it would be picked up.”
“Exactly. It seems to be giving the networks some kind of green light. Probably means it can access them. There are one or two reds in there but most are green.”
“Maybe the PLA network is one of the red ones. Inaccessible.”
“Let’s wait till it loops through all of them. Hey, what if it is actually not simply detecting available networks but actually looking for the network?”
“That’s possible.”
“Which means that ... holy shit ...”
“What?”
“It’s there,” Caldwell shouted. The display had changed. The cross-sectioned skyscrapers in Pudong had been replaced by the real images of the buildings but superimposed on top of the panorama was a totally new skyline and above that the gray smog-laden sky had disappeared, replaced with a crystal-clear gray sky with brightly-lit stars twinkling between fluffy slow-drifting white clouds. Aircraft intermittently criss-crossed the sky leaving white streaks in the gray expanse.
Caldwell couldn’t believe his eyes. In the distance, on the gently undulating surface of the Huangpu river, the boats had been transformed into beautiful marine craft rendered in stunning three dimensions. He could make out people on the promenade in the distance. He turned round to face The Bund. It was still there but the crowds, the lights, the cars and the myriad flyovers had all disappeared. He turned to where Mei Lin was standing. She’d vanished too. Caldwell took off the goggles and found himself staring into Mei Lin’s dark eyes. Caldwell’s face was flushed with excitement.
“You look like you just became a father for the first time.”
“Close, Mei Lin, close. Take a look at this,” he said handing Mei Lin the goggles. She put it on and her mouth opened in disbelief.
“Wow. Wow. Wow,” she exclaimed. Her body was rotating through three hundred and sixty degrees as she took it all in.
“Impressive isn’t it?” Caldwell said, smiling.
“Sure. You think those are real people? They could be bots but I’ve never seen bots move like that. Avatars. They seem to be actually doing something useful. They have a sense of purpose.”
“Yeah.”
“They are heading towards those virtual buildings in Pudong. I don’t think they can see us.”
“I guess this is just like an observation window. You can see them but they can’t see you because we are not actually part of the network,” Caldwell said.
“I am going to take a closer look,” Mei Lin said, walking towards the edge of the river.
“No. It’s too dangerous. What you are seeing may not be an exact match of the physical environment. We don’t want you in the river now, do we? Look at The Bund, it is empty. This park too. Imagine trying to cross that road with the glasses on. You’d be road kill in seconds.”
“I see where you are coming from. This is so beautiful it makes me wonder why we are here. Why destroy something like this?”
Caldwell thought about the question for a while but couldn’t find a suitable answer. It seemed a shame that the Union would want to destroy or booby-trap the technology just because it wasn’t invented there. Caldwell had seen elaborate virtual reality systems before but not one that overlapped the real world with this kind of precision and high resolution graphics. The fact that the console could view it at all, without any discernable lag, was testament to its computing power. He reckoned that if he ever managed to open the impregnable chassis, he’d find a processor unlike any he’d ever seen. In fact that was probably why the console’s creator had built the chassis as an elaborate work of origami. So that it could never be opened, his opus would be interred within the black casing forever. Then a possibility dawned on Caldwell. He wondered why he had never thought about it before.
“The network, I know what it is all about.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing but an elaborate testing ground. I bet this network actually has an economy. It is some kind of digital economy with stock markets, electricity grids, air traffic navigation systems and computer-controlled industrial plants. Those bots we saw are on their way to work.”
“Testing ground for what?” Mei Lin asked, a distinct note of apprehension creeping into her voice.
“For the AI. Inserting the AI into the network is a preliminary step to making sure it does what it is supposed to do.”
“And what is that? Don’t say what I am thinking,” Mei Lin implored.
“The AI is going to control cyberspace.”