The Perfect Candidate

"Communication between sun catcher crews is not permitted. I did try to get around this prohibition once or twice, but since all communications go back to earth and I am not very good at building my own communications array I am stuck with "communicating" with earth. This is sad in multiple ways. The only people who would really understand what I am thinking
up here are other sun catcher crews and I am forbidden from speaking with them.

"Communication through the 'net is also not permitted. This is just in case those of us up here figure out a way to communicate using e-mail, forums, or web pages in a way that the Arts can't detect and protect against; it is much easier to jut ban all forms of communication. This also means I can't make any friends on earth. The only way to communicate is to send a message through the command center and if they feel like it, sometimes they might read the message, censor it almost completely, and then pass it on. This form of communication was presented during training but it was an aside; it was clear that we were not really supposed to use this route, after all command center had better things to do. At first, I tried to stay a part of the world by reading the news (almost every news page I was allowed to read, I read twice), by reading the comics (even the ones I used to hate), and by reading some people blogs. But I couldn't talk to anyone about what I read, even my laughing over the comics sounded useless to internal senses.

"All this security against me communicating because it is one of the few places where there aren’t some citizens of every country. We may have been able to convince some Blesseds to come up here, but no Nat would ever come near here. For some reason though, the people at training camp showed no interest in the suggestion that we at least let some Blessed come with me on the ‘Squilla. So I am left on my own, to communicate with only myself. Sometimes I talk to the bots, but they aren’t that much fun. Actually, praying and talking to the stars is much more fulfilling. It is curious that the base that I trained at didn’t have any Nats or Blesseds either (I am pretty sure about this since none of the Arts were wearing their helmets, but I wasn’t given permission to snoop around so I could be wrong).

“This all lead me to wonder how much communicating I really did while I was on that blue, distant ball. In school, I always sat toward the middle of an edge in the rows of desks (when seats weren’t assigned, so I wasn’t part of the teacher’s pets in the front, the slacker’s in the back, or the popular note passers in the middle. Even the teachers pretty well ignored me. My helmet provided me with some isolation, but that didn’t stop most Arts from talking incessantly with other Arts, or occasionally a Blessed. At home, my parents were nice and tried to include me, but I was curiously not interested in their work. So I did what was expected of me to the extent that I didn’t draw attention for doing or not doing things. Perhaps coming up to a sun catcher was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

What Kopper didn't know was that there were Nats and Blesseds who lived next to the base in an area where the out going air is filtered by the same systems used to filter incoming air for the helmets the Arts usually wear. A few Gleaners (not even officially acknowledged by any of the three governments) also lived in the area, just to be on the safe side. These citizens of other countries were picked for their non-curious natures. They just knew that they were paid a stipend by the Arts to live in the area by the base. This wasn’t completely unusual, each government maintained a few secret bases that they populated with other citizens who were willing to be non-obtrusive and it was a reasonably pleasant life to be paid just to live. Occasionally, one of the other countries tried to send a spy to leave near these “secret” bases and perhaps learn what the enemy/friend was doing there. But this was typically fruitless since the behavior patterns and beliefs of the citizens of each country were so deeply ingrained in those willing to spy that they could not hide themselves effectively.

In that time, it was believed that to counter terrorism against nations and peoples that borders should not exist. So each official country distributed its people fairly equally around the earth in such a way that there was never large majority of just one of the nations. There were no borders but there was still immigration, treaties, trade, and armies. Curiously, they did not trust each other enough to send their children to schools that were exclusive either. This resulted in odd classes. Half the classes were attended by all the children and were taught by three teachers. The other half were taught by just one teacher. All the children were expected to be in the classrooms for all the classes, but each used a different blocking device during the classes that were not taught by a teacher from their country.

The Arts were the most effective at blocking this other teaching. They believed in using artificial instrumentation, food, clothing, or whatever; so their students simply turned their helmet speakers off and listened to a prepared lecture while the other classes went on with no option for the students to not listen to this lecture. When the kids were young they listened to a “story” that was propaganda saying how much better Art society is than every other nations. Later these lectures turned to outright political speeches, which were mocked by the students, but they did have an effect and most Arts had an almost tangible superiority complex.

The second most effective nation at codling their young was the Blesseds. They believed in using some artificial technology, but only as directed by the Priests. So during the other lectures the Blesseds listened to religious instruction on ear phones. Again, when the students were young it was stories so most of the kids did listen. For the older students this time was spent listening to someone read religious literature. Since the head phones are easy to remove and the Blesseds didn’t believe in artificial coercion many of the older students ended up pulling the head phones partly off (just enough to listen to the in-person teacher but not enough that they could be directly accused of not listening to the tape) and turning down the volume. So the Blesseds learned quite a bit about the Arts and the Nats. Although some of them did end up immigrating to another nation, most of them did stay a Blessed; a few well placed hell fire stories while the kids were young ensured that many of them were afraid to switch to another nation despite their exposure.

The last official nation was the Nats. These were the least effective at blocking out other teaching but the most effective at outright brain washing. The believed in not using anything artificial, everything must be natural. Sometimes it was a little unclear to outsiders exactly how things were defined but it was never unclear to a Nat. During the other teaching periods these students were encouraged to meditate. When the kids were extremely young, this meant more they were encouraged to draw on a paper or something like that. However, as they got older, the instruction at home intensified and they were fully expected to meditate while in class, those who got distracted easily were permitted some plugs of un-bleached cotton to put in their ears. Most of the Nats heard a great deal of the other lectures, but this didn’t result in many switching to other nations. For one thing, the other two nations didn’t like accepting these people since they were either contaminated by beliefs (like meditation and aura’s) or contaminated by germs (Arts were pretty strict about healthful people). Another driving force that kept people as Nats was the drugs (natural varieties like marijuana and heroin) and the hypnotism. Both were used widely in the Nat culture to create a sense of belonging and generally good feelings.

Now these are generallizations of these nations and generalizations always break down for some examples in a society. Not all Arts were uncaring and aloof, not all Blesseds felt everyone else was doomed and they were superior, and not all Nats used drugs and hypnotism. However, the generalizations do give a feeling for the overall atmosphere at the time that the sun catcher program began.

Kopper grew up as an Art. She was what would be considered a middle class citizen of the Arts and thus knew no immediate hunger or need, but was not rolling in luxury either. It was in this culture that she simply disappeared. Although the support crew for the sun catcher program was chosen from the average population of the Arts, the crew had to be selected a bit more carefully. Although everyone knew that the Arts launched vehicles into space regularly, nobody quite knew what it was for or what was on board. The energy relay station that collected the energy that the sun catchers sent back had a cloaking device of sorts that would confuse the Blesseds radar (the Nats, naturally did not have any radar) into thinking the station was much smaller. The Blesseds didn’t trust that the Arts wouldn’t try to launch some sort of strategic, very focused attack from space and so they tried as hard as possible to figure out what was going on. The Arts were suspicious sorts that didn’t trust that their own people wouldn’t try to do something weird if they knew what was really going on and so they concealed the program. Everyone knew that the Arts were getting their energy from the sun, but most didn’t bother to think on the details of how.s

So the crews of the sun catchers had to be selected to disappear easily. The easiest people to disappear were those with few friends and no family. Second easiest were those with family that wanted or needed to get rid of them. Since the sun catchers required that the crew stay in space for 30 years, the crew was always in their teens. Old enough to teach, naive enough to not know too much, and young enough to live with good vitality during those thirty years. The two tragic pilots were reasonably well selected with one having grown up in an orphanage from the age of eight and the other the fourth child of a couple that was struggling financially and politically. Kopper had been a nearly perfect candidate.

She was unnoticed in school and had few friends in her neighborhood. Her internet activity was sufficiently anonymous, although frequent, that nobody would be able to track who disappeared if anyone noticed. Most important though, her parents had died six months ago.

The Elgins were well known in the Art community for their work regarding artificial intelligence. Their work was also known to some Blesseds and Nats who objected to their work because only God created intelligent beings and we shouldn’t interfere with Mother Nature, respectively. So every paper and progress that was made known to the public that had the Elgins’ name on it was read, re-read, cheered, and derided. It was while they were working on adding speech capabilities to their latest robot that the accident happened. Kopper was never told the entire story, but found out much later. The Elgins worked in a large lab a couple of blocks from their home and employed several Arts and a few Blesseds (who worked doing things not directly involved with the research). After lunch, they had finished assembling all the parts of the robot and started it up. It had taken two years to get everything how they wanted it, the mouth moving, the realistic synthesizing, the ability to have spontaneous (although simple) conversations, and the hand motions to go with it. Each system had been fully tested before the assembly and so the lab was buzzing with excitement to see it all come together. Unfortunately, there was one Art that was not happy with the research.

She had grown up on the poorer side of being and Art. History does not record her name for us, but it does say that the Art citizen council (which designated its citizens using numbers) had voted to put her on probationary citizenship status due to aberrant behavior. Apparently, she had been fraternizing with the Blesseds too often for their liking and so the council was watching her for a year before declaring that she was not an Art anymore, she was not told of this status, but word must have gotten out. Within a month of this vote, she approached a Blessed immigration agency and asked what she could do to obtain citizenship in The Confederated Blessed People. The response was that she had to dedicate herself to prayer, a ceremony, and an act or journey of faithfulness. The prayers and the ceremony were easy enough to arrange and explain, but they had to come after the act of faithfulness. Generally, all the Blesseds performed one act or did a pilgrimage every five years as they chose, though if they didn’t do one sanctioned act or journey at least every seven years the government would send priests around to check on the individual and remind him or her that their salvation was in the balance. To enter the Blessed society the immigrant had to choose an act in accordance with a message from God; this message was usually delivered through a “divinely” inspired priest that regularly receive visions. The message from the priest for this individual was that they had to clearly denounce and show the sin of creating artificial intelligence.

Her plan, initially was to merely destroy the data connected with the project. Unfortunately, this workers mind was devious and brilliant so the act quickly escalated into making the robot destroy the project. This was a good plan because 1) she would not be able to be directly accused and 2) the disaster would discourage further pursuit of the project. She worked desperately for four months to get the robot to do what she wanted when it was assembled and then worked to hide the code. The Elgins were trusting and so they didn’t suspect that she was doing anything but working hard at her assignment to create realistic hand motions.

On the day of the assembly she was conviently sick Being gracious, well-meaning people the Elgins called her and said that they would delay the assembly for a day so she could watch it in person. However, she convinced them to go ahead, that she was eager to see the results even if she only was able to view them. So the video camera feeds were piped to her small apartment and she watched the boot up of the robots systems. After the initial check, the robot was released from its safeties and it strode over to the incoming power conduit, said, “Goodbye you evil doers!” and ripped the power out of the wall and burnt the place to the ground. She was able to watch it quickly use the computer to disable all doors and safety systems before the link was terminated, presumably from the camera being too hot to function.

The Arts knew the whole story but were unable to prosecute because there was no direct evidence and the Blesseds had swept up their convert to a secret place after removing her identification chip. So they told Kopper that there was an accident involving the power at the lab and it was being investigated but they didn’t expect to learn anything except which circuit breaker had failed, but they would let her know what they found. Of course, they never did follow up on their promise to keep her updated and instead begin working toward seeing if she would be workable as a sun catcher crew. This was not difficult since Kopper had so few contacts. There was a large state funeral for the Elgins and it was broadcast on the Net. Kopper was shown briefly, but there was little interest in a 16-year old who was practically old enough to take care of herself and who showed no promise of being as brilliant as her parents. So after only a couple of small mentions of her in the following weeks, she was quickly dropped from all news stories and everyone figured that the country would take care of her until she turned 18. And take care of her they did.