Coyote Fork. James Wilson

      Coyote Fork

      A Thriller

      Copyright © 2020 James Wilson. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Slant

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5378-0

      paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5379-7

      ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5380-3

      Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

      Names: Wilson, James.

      Title: Coyote fork : a thriller / James Wilson.

      Description: Eugene, OR: Slant, 2020.

      Identifiers: isbn 978-1-7252-5378-0 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-7252-5379-7 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-7252-5380-3 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: FICTION / Thrillers/ Technological | FICTION / Literary | FICTION / Political

      Classification: PR6123.I57 C69 2020 (print) | PR6123.I57 (ebook)

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. August 31, 2020

      For Paula, Tom, and Kit,

      with my love

      1

      THE GLOBAL VILLAGE BUILDING in Santa Carla, California is a huge perfect circle, studded at regular intervals with windows and solar panels. When you see it, what immediately comes to mind is spaceship. As if, when the moment is right, Evan Bone will just say lift off, and it will rise up, its rockets flattening the grey-green semi-desert scrub, ruffling the evil-smelling waters of the Bay, and carry our species to its destiny among the stars.

      That’s the impression you get inside, too. It was a sultry evening when I arrived, the air electric with the sound of crickets, the knapped-flint range of mountains on the horizon shimmery with heat haze, but when I walked into the lecture hall, I suddenly found myself on the ice-cool command bridge of the USS Enterprise. Overhead monitors streamed live images from the International Space Station, a blue slice of earth framed by spars and struts, as if we were already out there, looking back at what we’d left behind. The whole rear wall was a giant screen masquerading as a window on the night sky.

      All around the podium were banks of switches. Their shape was mirrored in the raked tiers of seats—1,800 in all, according to the publicity, and arranged with the geometric perfection of the cells in a honeycomb. On the walls above hung a series of banners: Global Village: The Community of the Future. Global Village: We are. Are you?

      As the crowd filed in—faces glowing, eyes wonderstruck—you could feel the anticipation arcing across your skin. This was the holy of holies, where the ultimate secret of human life was steadily being revealed, one technological miracle at a time.

      I was seated in steerage class, towards the back. All around me was a sea of beards and buns and baseball caps, with here and there a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that looked as if it had been cut from one of those Mr. Big-Nose faces you used to find in joke shops. There was talk, but it was the hushed conversation of a congregation waiting for the ceremony to begin. I started to compose an opening paragraph in my head:

      I lost my job because of Evan Bone. My friend Anne Grainger lost hers because of him, too—and, when she protested, was subjected to a hideous campaign of online trolling. I loathe the social media network he has created, and the way it encourages that kind of virtual mob rule. I detest his attitude to language, to writers, to the truth. And yet here I am, sitting in the secular cathedral he built with billions of our dollars. Any moment now, one of his minions will unveil the latest weapon in his virtual Blitzkrieg on my profession. I should be immune to the revival-meeting atmosphere—but oddly, I’m not. It seems the desire to see the future is infectious. My heart is doing a lively warm-up act in my chest. I’m almost as excited as the next man—who, in this case, is an uncoordinated twenty-something with a t-shirt saying Measure Everything . . .

      Looking back, I realize that—though nothing could have been further from my thoughts at the time—this was more or less my last moment of innocence.

      The crowd suddenly fell quiet. A lone figure walked to the podium. From his worn jeans and trainers, the relaxed roll of his hips, you’d have thought he’d been on his way to get a coffee and come through the wrong door. He turned unhurriedly towards us, blinking in the glare of the spotlight. He had an untidy flop of dark hair and a pale, unformed face, with thick eyebrows that looked as if they’d been smeared on with chocolate. I switched on the voice recorder on my phone.

      “Hi. Hi,” he said. “Welcome to Global Village. My name’s Jeff Lamarr. I’m one of the engineers on the Tomorrow’s News program. And I’m going to be talking about a new product we’re developing. You may have seen stuff, heard rumors. But I guarantee, you won’t know what it’s called.” He laughs. “Because we didn’t know ourselves till a couple days ago. So-o-o . . .” He half turned, to look at the wall behind him. “Please welcome—”

      The night sky vanished. A jumble of huge primary color letters took its place:

      Global Village News: Tomorrow’s News Today

      TOLSTOY

      “Yep: TOLSTOY. The most enhanced predictive personal profiling software ever developed.” He paused for a little outbreak of Yeahs and All rights, then went on, “If you saw the talk Evan did in Vancouver a few months back, you’ll know what the end-point is for Global Village. It’s—”

      “Mars!” yelled someone close to the front.

      Lamarr smiled. “That isn’t what I was going to say. But OK, let’s think about Mars for a moment. If we’re going to get to Mars, colonize Mars, go beyond Mars and colonize the galaxy, what are we going to need? Not just better rockets and survival shells. We’re going to need improved human hardware, too. And that means—”

      “Neural implants!” called another voice.

      “Yeah,” said Lamarr. “Neural implants. Because when we have them, they will massively enhance our cognitive abilities, and allow us to instantaneously process a whole different order of data. The order of data you have to be able to process to survive in a totally alien environment.” Another smile. “Don’t get too psyched: we’re still a ways off from that right now. But the TOLSTOY program does take us a big step closer. So what does that mean? Well, what it means, first off, if you’re a blogger, and I guess most of you are, is that using TOLSTOY, you could leverage your impact by a factor of five, ten, maybe even twenty.”

      There was an audible aaaah. Lamarr acknowledged it with a nod. Yeah, you heard that right: five, ten, even twenty. He was more animated now, his voice less affectless.

      “So how’d we do that? By a paradigm shift in the way we collect and use data. Up till now, we could track what people bought, who they communicated with, the kinds of movies they watched, the sports and music they were into. And as you know, that can give you a pretty good profile, a close to 90 percent probability you’ll be able to predict income, educational level, religious background, what kind of car they drive. Which is useful, if you’re selling a movie or a car or a religion. But it’s still just a profile. It’s still only looking at the outside. You want to get any further, you have to go inside. Understand the stories they listen to, and how they connect with the stories they tell themselves.”

      A distant buzz started to sound in my ears. Jeff Lamarr turned towards the screen again. A new image appeared: what looked like