The Utopia Experiment

17

The road was in even worse condition than he expected and Craig Bailer began to regret driving himself. The benefit of a little time to mentally prepare for his meeting had been significantly diminished by crossing no fewer than three streams and a mud bog that had very nearly left him stranded. No place for a man born and bred on the Upper East Side.

A building finally came into view, still distant but unmistakably the one he was looking for. Most of his communication with Christian Dresner was over computer links; the few times they had met face-to-face, it was always at one of these remote bunkers. From the outside, they all looked exactly like miniature versions of the swooping, thick-walled research facilities he’d also strewn across the world. It was like a tic.

Bailer eased up to the gate and, for the first time in his life, was just waved through by one of the highly trained guards Dresner seemed to think were necessary to protect him. From what, no one was sure. Former Israeli and U.S. special forces seemed like overkill to keep him safe from a world populated mostly with starstruck fanboys.

Interestingly, the apparent lack of rigor didn’t reflect an easing of Dresner’s obsession with security as much as a simplification of it. The guard’s Merge would have instantly confirmed his identity through both facial recognition and an encrypted system that authenticated brain wave patterns. The latter system was one that was being kept under wraps while the public learned to deal with inevitable privacy concerns, but it had incredible potential for making financial fraud and identity theft a thing of the past. Among other things.

His was the only car in evidence as he pulled up to a heavy front door guarded by yet another broad-shouldered man with eyes hidden by dark sunglasses. There was no need for an escort because the layout was exactly the same as it was in the compounds he’d been to in Scandinavia and South Africa. Predictably, the massive garden Bailer entered was created in the familiar Japanese pattern but populated with local plants.

He found Dresner at the back, sitting alone in an intimate conversation pit shaded by a high wall. He stood and they shook hands with warmth that Bailer assumed wasn’t felt by either side.

“I appreciate you coming personally, Craig. I feel like our first discussion of this should be done in person. That is to say, I’m very excited to hear what you have for me.”

“And I appreciate the invitation, Christian. As always.” It was a lie, of course. This was a spectacularly bad time for him to be away from DI’s headquarters. A much worse time than Dresner could possibly know.

“Please sit,” the old man said, settling back down and pouring Bailer a glass of water. “And tell me how it’s all going.”

“Mostly as projected. The stores can’t handle the demand for demonstrations, but that’s something we anticipated. On the other hand, seventy-three percent of the people who do go through a demonstration, buy.”

“And what does that translate to in numbers?”

“After five days of availability, eighty-nine percent of users still are on the headsets but a surprising fifty percent have immediate plans to get implants. That number is trending steeply upward, as people’s experiences are almost uniformly positive.”

“Age distribution?”

“Not surprisingly, sales are overwhelmingly to people in the twenty-five to thirty-five range. However, adoption among older demographics is on an upward trend that right now looks geometric. The sleep function is probably the most enthusiastically embraced facet of the Merge — I’m not aware of any meaningful negative publicity. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see enormous adoption by seniors who use the system only as a sleep aid.”

“But for that, we have to overcome the hurdle of convincing people my age to get the implants. The headsets are impractical to sleep in.”

“Absolutely. We’re starting the process of trying to get Medicare and a number of European health care systems to provide coverage with a doctor’s recommendation. If we can get that done, I think we’ll see an explosion.”

Dresner reached for his glass and leaned back again, contemplating the sunlight reflecting off it. “It’s my understanding, then, that we’re moving our sales projections upward?”

“No question. By the end of the day today, we’ll have sold six hundred and fifty thousand units worldwide. By the end of the quarter, we’re projecting just under four million civilian units on the street.”

“Military?”

“Impossible to predict at this point. It’s my understanding that Colonel Smith, whom you met, is running an initial field test day after tomorrow. He seems to have been given a great deal of influence over whether the military is going to embrace the Merge — more than General Pedersen as near as we can tell.”

“As it should be,” Dresner said without looking up. “He’s far more impressive than the general and appears to be a thoughtful and intelligent man. As such, I can’t imagine that he won’t recommend full adoption by the American armed forces.”

Bailer remained silent.

“Do you disagree, Craig? If so, please speak up.”

“No, I think we’ll get almost full adoption. But it’s only about a million and a half people, Christian. The combined forces of Europe, China, and Russia total five million. If we opened the market—”

Dresner shook his head, silencing the man. “The other militaries will adopt eventually for the data, communications, and vision enhancement. Those will all be significant advantages.”

“But not immediate, critical advantages. If we had opened up the ability to use military applications and link to offensive systems we could have created—”

“A new arms race?”

“Yes! We would have had millions of people with unlimited funds climbing over each other to integrate as fast as possible. We could have conservatively doubled our first-year sales.”

“And created another military stalemate that benefits no one. That isn’t what I want to be remembered for, Craig. The Chinese are insular and self-interested. The Russians are dangerous and unpredictable. The Europeans are useless. And while the Americans have made their mistakes, they’ve done better than any country in history wielding nearly absolute power. They may be clumsy, but at least they’re clumsy in the pursuit of democracy and stability.”

“But we need the—”

“Chaos won’t help us in the long run.”

Bailer fell silent, trying to swallow his anger and calm the nervous energy he always felt when faced with Christian Dresner. The old man was not only still physically imposing in his late sixties, but unquestionably one of the most successful and intellectually powerful forces of the last century. As he aged, though, his naive belief that he could save humanity — through antibiotics, the Merge, charitable donations to education, his bizarre focus on political and financial applications — grew. He’d become oblivious to the fact that humanity didn’t want to be saved and that it was precisely this trait that could provide the company either endless opportunity or assured destruction. Dresner was leading them blindly into the latter.

“Chaos can’t hurt us, Christian. Because we’re dead already.”

“I think you’re exagger—”

“I’m not exaggerating!” Bailer said, daring to raise his voice. “Even our most optimistic projections aren’t enough to save the company, Christian. Our cash reserves are nearly gone and we won’t be able to meet expenses and debt payments next month. When we decided to go all-in on this technology, our survival was based on worldwide military contracts. Then you shut us out of the market.”

“Craig, we—”

But Bailer kept talking. “Wall Street and the banks are getting nervous. We just rolled out the most transformational technology since the personal computer and our stock only went up a few points. And the pathetic truth is they don’t have any idea of the extent of the company’s financial problems. If they did, our stock would be trading under a dollar and there’d be a moving truck out front carting away your furniture.”

“Are you finished?”

Bailer had never seen anger in Dresner before and he felt a strange twinge of fear. But now wasn’t the time to be blinded by the heavenly light so many people saw emanating from The Great Man. “No, I’m not finished, Christian. If we issue stock at the level we would need to in order to save the company, the markets are going to see our weakness and our share prices are going to plummet to the point that a hostile takeover is almost inevitable. If we don’t, we’re going to have to court a takeover to keep from collapsing.”

“It’s only about money to you,” Dresner said, his brief flash of anger turning to disappointment.

“Wake up, Christian! If we’re taken over or have to file bankruptcy, you lose not only all your privacy, but all your secrecy. What happens when the world finds out just what it took for you to develop your amazing new technology? What’s all your altruism worth then? You can’t afford to let that happen. None of us can.”

Dresner didn’t react other than to turn away and look out over the carefully arranged trees and flowers. The gesture was clear. Bailer had been dismissed.