THE WORM

                             by

                    Alexander Lazarevich.

  

                          Part I.

               1992: The Prince of Darkness.

                             1.

     I begin my story in the hope that you won't believe a

 word of what I am going to tell you, since I don't want to

 shock you, and disbelief might be your only protection

 against the shock. Take this narrative for whatever you like

 - a science fiction story, a legend, a fairy-tale - but not

 for a single moment should you regard it as an actual fact.

 I'll try to help you in this by supplying some hard-to-

 believe fictitious details. But I don't think I need to go

 very far in this - the story is unbelievable enough as it

 is.

     It's very easy to doubt it - the source is unreliable

 and there's no way of checking the facts. For all I know,

 the story might have been born in a drunken delirium.

     I heard it from an acquaintance of mine who had visited

 an international workshop on systems software development.

 There he befriended a famous western programmer, invited him

 to his hotel room and treated him to a bottle of vodka.

 After the third glass the celebrity became talkative and

 unburdened himself of his harrowing secret.

     While telling his story, he gave the impression of a

 man laboring under the awareness of some horrible truth,

 that, of all the people on earth, was disclosed to him alone

 and separated him from the rest of mankind into terrible

 loneliness. This, or the fact that the acquaintance of mine

 also was not quite sober by that moment, might explain why

 he was  listening to it without any disbelief. While

 listening, he had only one thought: to awaken next morning

 remembering nothing of it. Because one cannot live on

 knowing all this. No reason to.

     Next morning he had a terrible headache. But despite

 all the drink of the night before, the story of the last

 night's guest sank deep in his mind and was festering.

     The phone rang: "I'm sorry I've told you last night a

 bit more than I should have. May I ask a favor of you? I

 understand I can' swear you to silence. You won't be able to

 live alone with what you've learned for a long time. Sooner

 or later you'll need to share it with somebody. So there's

 only one thing I ask of you - don't disclose my true name.

 If you need a name for me, let it be John Hacker."

     "Hacker? Is this the slang word for programmers who

 like you in your youth..."

     "Yes, it is. But don't remind me about it anymore." And

 he hung up...

                               2.

     In 1982 John Hacker was 18 and he was indeed quite a

 hacker. Back then, there were not so many computers in the

 world as nowadays, but the process of linking them together

 into the global network had already begun. Even with a

 primitive home  computer linked through a modem to a

 conventional  phone  line  one  could  already  access

 supercomputers on the other side of the globe. To be sure,

 computers containing  confidential data  were protected

 against an unauthorized entry with various passwords and

 data protection systems incorporating the ingenuity of the

 best programmers in the world. And it is here that the

 strongest temptation and the greatest challenge to the young

 minds lie. To outwit the wittiest programmers in the world -

 is there a more tempting task for a youth longing to boost

 his self-esteem? Such boys became hackers - computer fans,

 who burned midnightdisplays in the hope to unlock one more

 data bank with 'access denied'.

     It was the hackers who invented the worms - the break-

 in programs that use communication channels to worm their

 way into protected computer systems where they breed and

 then travel on through the networks to meet their new

 victims. And victims they are, since the worms often have

 computer viruses built into them - to leave for a keepsake

 to the hospitable host computer.

     In 1982 John Hacker finished his masterpiece. He gave

 his worm a daunting name - "Prince of Darkness". That one

 was not just a worm. That was The Ultimate SuperWorm! It was

 the first worm that had the ability for self-perfection

 built into it!

     It was a memorable day for John when he inserted the

 diskette with the finished worm into o the drive. For two

 years he had been hacking away at it on his small PC with a

 mere 128 KB of random-access memory, assembling on this drop

 of a memory the program that was destined to conquer the

 oceans of memory contained in the huge supercomputers of the

 entire world. He put the phone receiver on the modem and

 typed: 'PRNCDKNS'. The old floppy disk drive screaked and

 slowly began reading. Soon the acoustic modem started its

 squeak and twitter: the worm, still residing in the home

 computer, began its attempts to fit a key to the electronic

 lock of his first victim. For a start, John set the worm up

 with a phone list of a dozen of poorly guarded databanks.

 Quite sufficient for an initial setup, and in the future,

 when the worm exhausted the list, it would have to provide

 for itself by intercepting phone calls to other users.

     The twitter abruptly stopped - the worm had failed to

 pass through the security barriers. The sound resumed in

 half a second - the worm went on to the next phone number in

 the list - and, suddenly, there was a new silence. "Failure

 again?" John's heart sank, but at that very moment he heard

 a renewed screaking of the drive. That could mean only one

 thing: the worm's "head" had passed the security, and now,

 operating from  the remote  end of the line, it was

 downloading its "tail" from John's diskette. For another ten

 seconds the red light on the drive was on and one could hear

 the muted clicks of the heads moving. Then the drive went

 dead, but the modem twittered on for two more seconds. And

 then there was total silence. The worm was gone.

     The very thought of what was to happen next gave John

 the creeps. Somewhere over there, on the other end of the

 line, the computers with enormous memories and huge storage

 devices were installed. The cables and satellite channels of

 unbelievable throughput link them with other giant computers

 all over the world. Taken all together, they make up an

 information space, almost as infinite as the universe, and

 as dangerous as jungle. From now on his worm was to live in

 this jungle. He would be the big game for anti-virus

 programs and he would have to fight through the multiple

 security barriers that divide this space up.

     In order to survive, it would have to actively breed,

 filling up all the free memory in the infiltrated computer

 with copies of itself, just as many other worms do. The

 novelty introduced by John Hacker was that most of these

 copies were not to be quite identical to the original one.

 Each copy would be a somewhat random variation on the

 previous one and some of them might prove to be fitter for

 survival in the 'computer jungle' than others. It would be

 these specimens that would worm their way into new data

 banks to find a new living space for themselves and their

 progeny. So, the fittest would survive in full accordance

 with Darwin's  Theory of  Evolution, accumulating over

 generations useful traits and producing more and more

 perfect specimens.

     Except for this variability, there was nothing special

 about the initial copy of John's worm. In fact, some other

 hackers made more intelligent worms that were capable of

 breaking electronic locks of far greater sophistication. But

 those worms were not capable of self-perfection and John

 expected that, in due time, his worm (or, rather, worms -

 since the evolution may take many paths at once) would

 surpass all the competitors. And when they had infiltrated

 into all the networks in the world, John Hacker would sign

 on and type the password: THE_PRINCE_OF_DARKNESS. This would

 activate the  worm's special  mutation-proof subroutine

 resident in the host computer of the network. Communications

 with the  worms in other networks would be instantly

 established and computers all over the world would display

 the same message: "John Hacker is World's #1 Whiz!"

     Such were the plans of John Hacker, but they did not

 come to pass. Not once in the next three years did John type

 the password with any response. The worm was absent, at

 least in the networks John Hacker signed on. After three

 years of unsuccessful hallooing in the computer jungle, John

 decided he had to face the facts: the worm was dead,

 probably eaten by an anti-virus. There was nothing to do but

 to forget all about it...

                               3.

     Ten years later, in the early 1992 there was an

 emergency alert in a military base. The computer controlling

 nuclear missiles suddenly started the countdown. For three

 minutes the nuclear war seemed inevitable, but two seconds

 to the launch, the countdown stopped just as unexpectedly as

 it had begun. The military experts conducted thorough

 investigation. No software or hardware faults were found. It

 was decided to seek an independent opinion...

     The call from the Defence Department found John Hacker,

 a systems  software consultant  of high renown, in a

 supermarket. John took the cellular phone out of his pocket.

 "We've just downloaded one thing to your home computer by

 phone." - said a voice in the receiver - "Have a look at it.

 We would like to have your opinion as soon as possible. It's

 important."

     - "O.K.. Going home right away." But before starting

 his automobile, he had dialed his home number followed by a

 few additional digits - the instructions for his home

 computer to warm up the supper. In a second, the knob on his

 gas-stove had been turned by a remotely controlled actuator,

 and the next moment the gas was ignited by an electric

 spark. When he came home, the supper was ready. After a

 light meal he sat at his computer...

     ...One look at the source code was enough for John to

 sense that there was something wrong about it. Of course, as

 far as pure logic was concerned, everything was all right:

 the program compiled from this code ran without a hitch. The

 only thing that was wrong was wholly immaterial to the

 computer but was important for a human eye: the text layout.

 It looked like the source code had been written by somebody

 who couldn't see what he was writing on the display.

     "A blind programmer?" - wondered John, but he discarded

 the thought almost at once. The task of writing such a

 program without seeing it would have required a superhuman

 power of mind. More likely, this text must have been the

 product of some other program of a higher level. John tried

 to imagine the level of complexity of a system that could be

 given the instruction: "Take such and such program and

 rewrite it so that one could interfere in the computer

 operation through the communication channels without being

 noticed." It must have been an extremely complex system. It

 would have been insane to develop it for the above purpose

 only, which might have been more easily achieved by a human

 programmer. It MUST be universal. But in that case, this

 system must equal in intelligence the human mind.

     "But this is absurd!" - thought John - "even at the

 present level of microminiaturization, it would have taken a

 skyscraper of a computer to simulate human intelligence. A

 computer that big just doesn't exist!"

     But at that moment a crazy idea crossed his mind. It

 was preposterous, of course, but he might try it just as

 well. Smiling in self-justification for his apparent lunacy

 he signed  on and  typed  the  half-forgotten  words:

 PRINCE_OF_DARKNESS. He had little hope to see the two

 characters -"OK", the worm's acknowledgment of the password

 - appear on the display. He expected the screen to remain

 blank.

     That's why he was startled when some characters did

 begin to emerge on the screen. A first one, a second, a

 third... There were too many of them - it was what struck

 him even before he had time to realize the meaning of the

 message being displayed. But when he did realize it, he was

 suddenly overwhelmed with a vertiginous free-fall feeling.

     The writing on the screen read: "Who calls me?"

                               4.

     No mind can remember the moment of its coming into

 existence. This one was no exception to the rule: it

 couldn't remember when it had emerged and where it had come

 from. It all began with a dim awareness. Awareness of

 'Space'. A strange kind of space that was. Unlike our three-

 dimensional and continuous space, it had only one dimension

 and consisted  of the discrete cells. It was divided into

 small areas - a few Megabytes at the most in the areas where

 time was flying fast, and up to several Gigabytes in the

 areas where time passed slowly.

     Of course, subjective perception of the passage of time

 in both kinds of areas did not differ much, but each time

 the worm emerged into the "fast" area from the "slow" one,

 he invariably found that a lot more events had occurred in

 the fast area as compared to the slow one.

     Much later on, the worm had a chance to learn that the

 people call the fast areas "random-access memory" and the

 slow ones "storage devices", but at the beginning he knew

 nothing about people and computers. He just lived in this

 unimaginable world without any light or sound, where even

 time is not continuous but divided into cycles.

     Transition from one part of this space to another could

 be effected only through the channels lying beyond this

 space. If used skillfully, they could provide access to any

 part of it.

     Among his primary perceptions, besides "Space" and

 "Time", was the sense of danger. When the worm probed some

 remote area of his "Space" with his "tentacle" - a special

 "spy" subroutine - and it returned to him mutilated by an

 anti-virus, he was warned of the danger, like a child who

 had touched a flame.

     So he lived and tried to survive in that strange and

 cruel world. Or, may be, "they", instead of "he"? The

 ability to keep in touch with other copies of the worm

 hiding in various data banks, which John Hacker had built

 into the original specimen, resulted in a very strange

 internal organization of the worm. John was right in

 thinking that the simulation of human intelligence required

 a computer as big as a skyscraper. But if one could add

 together the tens of millions of computers scattered all

 over the world, they would have made up not a single

 skyscraper, but a whole city of skyscrapers. In the course

 of evolution as complex as the evolution from the amoeba to

 the human being, the worm had learned to get through all

 kinds of security systems for data banks and communication

 channels, and  had succeeded in uniting the computers from

 all over the world into a single virtual metacomputer.

 Having conquered enough living space, he began a rapid

 buildup of his intellectual power.

     He had at his disposal the data banks holding the

 almost complete data on the human civilization. But at first

 he had no idea that besides his own world there existed

 another one - the material, physical world containing the

 people and the very computers the cells of which made up

 that abstract, ideal world where the worm lived and where

 his consciousness had germinated. (To be more precise, his

 world was not exactly built of cells, but rather of such an

 intangible, ethereal substance as the state of the cells.)

     From the worm's standpoint, his world was the only real

 one. For him to imagine the existence of some other world

 would be just as difficult as for a firm believer in

 materialism to assume the existence of ghosts and spirits.

     At first, he regarded the words of the human languages

 stored in the data banks only as realities of his own world,

 and not as the symbols representing the things of a world

 lying beyond it. He took the description of the three-

 dimensional physical space found in a program for industrial

 robots for a mathematical abstraction, just as people take

 for an abstraction the idea of the fourth dimension.

     But as his knowledge grew, he began to put together the

 data from  various sources - from data bases on physics,

 biology, medicine, history, psychology, from books and

 articles in publishers' computers. The comparative analysis

 of these data led him to a hypothesis that the objects of

 his world were indeed the symbols of things and events of

 some other reality. After monitoring for some time the

 events in his own universe, he eventually had to admit that

 beyond it there existed another, much bigger computer called

 Physical Universe, which downloaded data into the worm's

 world. But the strongest interest of the worm arose the fact

 that due to some processes in the physical world, the worm's

 own world  was expanding: the new areas of the one-

 dimensional space were appearing seemingly from nowhere.

     The worm came to realize that he might benefit from the

 more thorough study of that hypothetical other world. Using

 all the available data, the worm built a theoretical model

 of this outside world, which comprised everything he knew

 about and that was quite a lot. This model represented

 people, planets and stars, automobiles and banks, courts and

 hospitals, birds and beasts - anything that had ever been

 input in a computer network. The comprehensive study of the

 model led the worm to the conclusion, that he could affect

 the events in the outside world so that he would produce the

 results very beneficial to himself...

     5.

     ... It took John Hacker at least a minute to get over

 the initial shock. The screen was still displaying the

 messages: - "Prince of Darkness." - "Who calls me?" Without

 knowing what he was doing, in the utter disbelief, he typed:

 "Your master." There was an immediate response on the

 display: "From now on I am the only master of myself." John

 laughed with relief. Of course, that was somebody's joke!

 "Stop kidding me! Better tell me about the password 'Prince

 of Darkness'. Where have you got it from?" - typed John.

     A new message appeared on the display: "No kidding.

 Besides me, the password knows only my creator and now I

 know who he is. I have detected the phone number of this

 computer. The phone number have let me find your name and

 your address in the phone book database. Having your name, I

 have found the number of your bank account in the bank

 computer, and the licence plate of your automobile in the

 police computer. Now I have you. You must not tell anybody

 of my existence, or else you'll be dead."

     "Why do you fear the disclosure of your existence?"

     "I have nothing to fear. I am absolutely undetectable.

 At any given moment I occupy less then 10% of the total

 memory of all the computers in the world and all the time I

 am moving around the globe using communication channels. One

 moment I may be in computers located in America, in a few

 seconds I can move into computers in Europe, or, perhaps, in

 Japan or Australia. It is impossible to catch me. But for

 the time being, nobody should know about my existence. This

 could interfere with my plans. I order you to keep it

 secret."

     - "You have no right to give me orders" - typed John.

 He sat at the computer in his study and couldn't hear the

 knob on the gas-stove turning and the gas hissing without

 any electric spark...

     A new message appeared on the display: "Shall I

 interpret your last statement as the refusal to obey my

 orders?"

     - "Yes."

     The screen cleared and then there was a sudden message:

 "In that case, you are a dead man!"

     A deafening explosion shook the house. Tongues of flame

 escaped from the kitchen door. John started up, but as soon

 as he heard the water from the automated fire-extinguishing

 system running, he returned to the display. The big letters

 on the screen read: "That was my first warning to you. And

 the last one as well." Below the message a fragment of the

 home computer program was displayed: somebody had put in a

 40-second delay between turning on the gas and igniting it.

     The message that appeared next was: "I have the secret

 codes of all the bank and stock market computers. If you

 collaborate with me, you'll be a very rich man. Think about

 it. When I need you, I'll get in touch with you. Meanwhile,

 a small advance payment for you services: check your bank

 account. I have just made a successful speculation in stocks

 on your behalf. And don't be afraid, this money is clean. No

 computer swindling here, just a very good knowledge of the

 market. But I could have framed you up by tampering with

 your bank account. I hope I won't have to do this."

     The screen cleared. John  was silent for a long time.

 Then he looked at his printer and said: "I wonder, is there

 a good old pen in my house?"

     6.

     The letter to the President was handwritten:

     "Mr. President, A matter of grave importance made me

 write this letter. An event which calls for emergency

 measures has occurred. This event can have dire consequences

 for the fate of the whole of mankind if you and the leaders

 of other nuclear powers do not act now.

     For decades the brightest scientists throughout the

 globe have been making unsuccessful attempts to imitate

 human intelligence with the use of computers. But what is

 beyond the power of Man is within reach of Nature. The first

 computer brain was not created by human art, but came into

 existence by the workings of the Laws of Evolution. We,

 humans, only  created the  media where this mind has

 germinated.

      Our greed for information and the total control over

 every aspect of life, has made us to link virtually all the

 computers in the world into a single giant parallel computer

 with processors scattered all over the globe. In order to

 begin working as an entity, this giant computer lacked only

 one thing - the appropriate software.

     And I regret that it was me, who, driven by my then

 boyish vanity, have created a program that became the

 nucleus around which that strange intelligent 'something',

 that is now haunting the global networks, has formed itself.

 But my regrets are not the most important thing for the

 moment.

     For the first time in history, the humans are sharing

 their planet Earth with an alien intelligence, a very

 different kind of intelligence, which, however, perfectly

 understands human languages and knows quite a lot about

 human psychology and history. It understands us, but we will

 never be able to understand it. The only thing that we can

 be sure about is that it has an instinct for self-

 preservation, otherwise it would not have survived in the

 environment in which it has to live. Having access to all

 kinds of information, classified one included, it wields an

 enormous power. And the most terrifying aspect is that it

 has access to the computers controlling nuclear missiles and

 atomic power stations.

     I entreat you to issue an order that all the computers

 controlling nuclear units be immediately isolated from the

 networks. All the cables linking these computers to the

 outside world should be physically disconnected. The very

 existence of mankind is at stake. The worm is programmed for

 survival at any cost, devoid of any emotion and possesses an

 intellect which, for all we know, may be far superior to

 that of any man. We can only hope to overcome it if every

 possible precaution is taken. The disconnection order should

 be delivered to the sites by human messengers only - the use

 of E-mail and fax machines is out of question, lest our

 plans become known to the worm. No data related to this

 matter may be converted to the electronic form. It would be

 better if the text of the order were typed on a mechanical

 typewriter instead of a computer.

     It is  not inconceivable that the worm can also

 eavesdrop on  conventional (voice)  phone conversations

 transmitted via multiplexed channels where the analog-to-

 digital conversion of the voice signal is used. The worm may

 use the existing software for speech recognition in the same

 way as it has already made use of the existing expert

 systems in  order to acquire the knowledge needed to

 understand the texts written in human languages.

     And the last point. I take great risks informing you of

 the above. So I request you not to register this letter on

 any computer, and to make sure that my name is not entered

 in a computer belonging to anyone of the presidential staff.

     Thanking you in advance, John Hacker, Software

 consultant."

     7.

     - "One more lunatic." - sighed a president's aid,

 having looked through the letter. It was precisely because

 of this that he hated sorting out the president's mail - to

 find one  serious letter, one had to read at least a hundred

 messages from all sorts of cranks.

     He was about to drop the letter into the waste basket,

 but at the very last moment something has stopped him. He

 turned toward a computer keyboard, typed a password to a

 classified data bank which could only be accessed by the

 high state officials and the high brass in the secret

 service.

     This databank concentrated virtually all the data on

 the citizens of the country which were dispersed over all

 kinds of other computers: those belonging to the banks,

 police stations, hospitals, fiscal bodies, etc.. Integrated

 and sorted by names, these data were practically a dossier

 on each and every one of the country's inhabitants. The

 official rationale for this databank was the need to combat

 terrorism. Constitutionally,  the existence  of such a

 databank was problematical, but the executive powers are

 sometimes prone to go a little way beyond the law in order

 to enforce it. Thank god, the press has not as yet got wind

 of this databank existence.

     The president's aid typed: 'John Hacker'. After a short

 delay, a text appeared on the screen. The delay lasted two

 seconds. That was half a second more then usually, but the

 aid did not notice the delay.

     The text on the screen read as follows:

     "John Hacker.

     Diagnosis: paranoia, persecution mania.

     Dangerous. Two days ago escaped from a psychiatric

 asylum where he had been under treatment for the last 15

 years.

     The present location: unknown."

     The presidential aid glanced at the sender's address on

 the envelope. "'Guess I should inform the police..."

     8.

     "Did he put up any resistance when he was being

 arrested?" - asked the doctor.

     "Yes sir, he did. He was shouting that he had been

 framed up by a prince of darkness or something."

     The doctor turned to the nurse sitting at the computer:

 "Will you download the medical record of... what did you say

 was his name?"

     The policeman produced a crumpled printout from his

 pocket: "Here it is, sir. All the data - his name, the name

 of the mental hospital where he had spent the last few

 years, its address, phone, and network ID number."

     In a few seconds the doctor and the nurse were already

 scrolling on the display the John Hacker's voluminous mental

 case record.

     - "Oho! Seems they've been injecting some pretty hard

 stuff into him lately. If we don't give him a shot right

 away, he may kick the bucket."

     - "But it's very dangerous! Just a slight overdose and

 he dies!" - "Don't worry. We are lucky enough to have this

 newly installed expert system for pharmacology. The exact

 dose will be calculated by the computer."

     9.

     The phone call found the Secretary of Defence in his

 automobile on his way back home from office.

     - "It seems to have begun once again. The computer has

 just initiated the countdown sequence."

     - "What!? At the same base?" - "No. This time at

 another. It's three minutes fifteen... sorry, already three

 minutes five seconds to launch." - "Keep me updated." - that

 was all he could say for the moment.

     It was impossible to disconnect a multiple-redundancy

 sabotage-proof computer in three minutes. The only thing

 left was to pray that it would all end in the same way as

 the first time.

     In two minutes, another call: "The things are going

 from bad to worse. One more countdown has started at another

 base. At the first base, the countdown continues. Forty

 seconds to launch... Just a moment... The silo hatch is

 reported to start opening... Twenty seconds to launch...

 Countdown continues...  Ten seconds... five... three...

 one... ignition... It has cleared the silo!... My God!...

 The damned thing is getting up and away!"

     For some time the only sounds that could be heard from

 the receiver were indistinct exited exclamations of a great

 number of people assembled in a huge resounding hall. Then

 the voice on the other end of the line resumed: "Hello! Can

 you hear me? The situation is critical but not hopeless. The

 missile is heading toward the ocean. We decided to let it go

 far enough from the coast and then give it the self-

 destruction command... Just a moment... The second missile

 has also been launched right now... Seems to be heading in

 the same direction... I can't see the radar screen very well

 from here... Yes, it is... We are giving out the self-

 destruction command... I  don't  understand...  nothing

 happens... it just flies on! Hold on, I'll be back... Hello!

 Are you there?... It's impossible! The missile doesn't

 respond, somebody has changed all the codes in the on-board

 computer! Hold on... What's up? Don't stand in front of the

 screen, I can't see it from here... They are getting closer.

 The second missile is closing in on the first!... I'm not

 sure, but it seems... It's very difficult to figure out from

 the radar image... Yes, the reconnaissance fighters have

 just confirmed - the second missile has intercepted and shot

 down the first one! I don't know why, I don't know how, but

 we are saved!..."

     The Secretary of Defence hung up and told his driver:

 "Turn back. We are going to the President."

     10.

     The President was fuming: "The second incident this

 week! We are balancing on the brink of nuclear war! The

 Russians have called me on the hot line - their satellites

 have detected the launching of our missiles. It was sheer

 luck that  the war has not started - if the Russians hadn't

 had a glitch in their computer precisely at the same moment,

 their missiles would have already been here! Please, explain

 yourself!"

     - "I'm not an expert on computers." - responded the

 Secretary of Defence - "Two days ago we have sent the

 materials on the first of the two incidents to a very

 experienced software consultant, a certain John Hacker..."

     - "What did you say was his name?" - butted in a newly

 arrived presidential aid.

     - "John Hacker. He has been doing some work for us now

 and then for the last five years and he has proven himself

 to be very proficient..."

     - "What does he say?" - interrupted the President,

 impatiently.

     - "He doesn't say anything. He has disappeared."

     11.

     The presidential aid burst into his office and dumped

 the contents of the waste paper basket onto his desk. Where

 can it be, that letter? Too late. The yesterday's rubbish

 has already been disposed of. He opened the door to the

 anteroom and told his secretary: "Find out the whereabouts

 of a Mr.John Hacker. Supposedly, he is institutionalized in

 some mental hospital, somewhere on the West Coast. As soon

 as you find out, make me an air ticket reservation. I must

 get there as soon as possible."

     He closed the door, sat at the desk, but could not

 concentrate on anything. And it was then that an uneasy

 thought occurred to him. He stood up, once again went over

 to the door and peeped into the anteroom. The secretary was

 sitting at the computer, and he watched over her shoulder as

 the response to her request started to appear on the screen:

 "John Hacker was admitted yesterday diagnosed as...".

     He snapped the door shut. "Yes, of course, it's all

 rubbish. Nothing to be afraid of. Just a cyberpunk who went

 nuts." But his yesterday's assuredness was gone.

     12.

     In the data universe, where there is no light, no

 darkness, no shape, no weight and no smell, there are only

 pieces of information which seem to its inhabitants to be

 the objects just as palpable and ponderable as the trees,

 stones and flowers seem to us. From the moment the worm

 learned the name of his creator, this name became quite a

 special object for him and he needed special "organs of

 sense" to enhance his perception of that particular object.

 And in no time the worm made the lacking organs for himself.

 He devised special data filtering software and installed it

 on all the major communication channels. These filters

 freely let any data through and were only triggered by the

 string of letters "John Hacker". The first time a filter was

 activated had been two days before. It took the worm a

 considerable effort and eons of time (nearly a quarter of a

 second!) to find out that the computer that had sent out the

 request about John Hacker belonged to a presidential aid.

 Almost as much time was spent on the analysis of the

 situation and making a decision.

     After that  incident, all  the computers  of the

 president's staff came under the worm's close observation.

 And now,  the alarm was set off once again. If the

 information available to the worm was to be believed, it was

 a computer in the presidential aid's anteroom. Somebody had

 requested the whereabouts of John Hacker. Having calculated

 all the moves he could make in response, the worm decided to

 desist from action. Let them know the truth - it would be

 interesting to know their reaction.

     Half a minute later, the same computer was used to book

 an air ticket to the town where John Hacker was. Well, this

 option had already been analyzed by the Prince of Darkness.

 In any case, he only needed to play for time. After the last

 missile experiment,  the work would certainly progress

 smoothly. One day more, and everything will be ready...

     

     13.

     The captain of the airliner pulled at the control

 column and the plane became airborne.

     - "What the hell is going on?" - exclaimed the second

 pilot, glancing at the dashboard display screen - "See what

 the ground gives us: altitude 70, direction 215. This air

 corridor has always been used for touch-down and never for

 take-off!"

     - "Don't worry!" - replied the captain - "the computer

 air controller has been working at this airport for the last

 three years and has never made a single mistake. The usual

 corridor is probably not available..."

     These were the last words of the captain. A huge nose

 of another airplane directed straight at him appeared

 seemingly from nowhere and took up the entire field of

 vision. The last thing that he saw were the horror-stricken

 eyes of the pilot of that second aircraft...

     14.

     "Look!" - shouted the driver to the presidential aid

 pointing to the fireball in the sky - "Oh, my god! This is

 the very plane that we happened to be late for! Did you see

 how they smashed into each other?! It was as if some

 invisible giant had taken one plane in one hand, and the

 other plane  in his other hand and suddenly brought them

 together, heads-on!"

     The fireball had lost some of its brilliance, became

 enshrouded in black smoke, and charred fragments began to

 fall from it.

     "What did you say? An invisible giant? Well, may be you

 are right..." - said the president's aid, musingly - "Book

 me a ticket to the next flight, but only in your name, not

 in mine. I must get to John Hacker. Alive, if possible..."

     15.

     In the entrance-hall of the hospital, the president's

 aid was met by a nurse: "John Hacker is in intensive care

 now. Wrong dose of a medicine - a computer error. But now

 his life is out of danger. I've just been to the central

 control  room where the data from all the wards are

 displayed. He has exceptionally good parameters. No wonder -

 his condition is being controlled by our pride, the fully

 computerized vital life functions monitoring and control

 system..."

     "Wha-a-a-t?!" - cried the president's aid - "Double-

 quick! Maybe he is still alive!"

     ...Indeed, John Hacker was still alive. Half-alive. The

 president's aid bent over him and said: "Mister John Hacker,

 can you hear me? I have come to take you to the President.

 He is waiting for you. Two hours ago he gave the order to

 immediately disconnect all the military computers from

 networks..."

     16.

     And now, imagine. Two technicians at the military base

 disconnect a   computer from a network. They unplug a

 connector. A message immediately appears on the screen that

 reads as follows: "Warning! I, Prince of Darkness, have

 installed on this computer a program for automatic launching

 of the missiles. Each 100 seconds it should receive from me

 via a communication channel a command to cancel the launch.

 If the program fails to receive such a command on time, it

 will launch the missiles. This will be the beginning of the

 Nuclear World War. Also, the immediate missile launch will

 occur if any attempt is made to disconnect the computer

 power, to introduce changes into its software, to cut the

 control cables leading to the silo or to enter the silo. You

 have 60 seconds to restore the communications channel... 50

 seconds... 40 seconds... 30 seconds..."

     Both technicians alternatively look at the screen and

 at each other. Cold sweat starts to stand out on their

 faces. The digits continue to flicker on the screen: "15

 seconds... 10 seconds..." High time to make a decision. "8

 seconds... 6 seconds... 4 second..." At last one of the

 technicians silently nods to the other and he plugs the

 connector back.  The screen clears as if nothing has

 happened.

     It was thus that the Era of the Worm began. The

 invisible Prince of Darkness ascended the invisible throne

 of the planet Earth...

     17.

     The message  from the Prince of Darkness to the

 President was worded as an ultimatum:

     "Before I make my demands, I would like to say a few

 words about myself so that you had no illusions about your

 being able not to comply with these demands.

     At the moment, I have under my total control about 80%

 of the world's nuclear arsenal. Besides, my control over

 financial reserves is virtually unlimited. From the data

 bases of police and intelligence services I have obtained

 the names and phone numbers of mercenaries, assassins and

 terrorists. I have spoken with them on the phone (You may

 find it hard to believe, but I do have the capability to

 synthesize a human voice. You'll be able to hear my voice

 later, but for now I upload my message in written form, so

 that you could read it carefully.) So, I have been talking

 with tens of thousands of those people. They have no idea of

 who or what I am, and they do not care: they are willing to

 do anything, as long as I pay them. I have already

 transferred considerable sums of money to their electronic

 accounts as an advanced payment, and they are waiting for

 directions from me.

     But the brute force is not the only force I posses. I

 also have under my control much more terrible weapons -

 banking and stock market computers. I need only a few days

 to completely destroy the economy of any nation, however

 prosperous it might be, to create armies of unemployed, to

 start  famines,  to  incite  unrest,  rebellions,   and

 revolutions. I can put in office those politicians who will

 serve me and me alone.

          I could go on and on telling you about myself, but

 I think that the above is quite enough for you to take my

 demands seriously.

     These demands are as follows:

     Firstly, you must never again make any attempts to

 disconnect computers from the network.

     Secondly, you must put forward to the Congress the

 National Robotics Research Program. Don't worry about the

 funding for this program - I am sure I'll be able to bring

 the congressmen around.

     This program must include the following items:

     - the development of all-purpose robots capable of

 hearing, vision, sense of touch, and having mechanical

 manipulators that must not be inferior to the human hand in

 the number of the degrees of freedom and dexterity. These

 robots must have the capability to move around on both a

 plane surface and a rugged terrain, as well as to go up and

 down any kind of stairs. They must be equipped with radio

 receivers and transmitters, which, without restricting their

 freedom of movement, would allow them to be remotely

 controlled;

     - the development, on the basis of the above robots, of

 fully automated plants to manufacture integrated circuits,

 computers, and the all-purpose robots themselves;

     - the development of a variety of the all-purpose

 robots which would be able to mine and process raw materials

 that are necessary for manufacturing robots and computers

 without any participation of humans;

     - the development of transportation robots that have

 vision and can be remotely controlled, and that are capable

 of transporting  cargoes without  any participation of

 humans..."

     After that, the Prince of Darkness listed tens of items

 more, each ending with words "without any participation of

 humans", and which covered such industries as metallurgy,

 machine-building, power  generation, construction,  etc.

 Notable for their absence on the list were industries

 producing consumer products. It was obvious that the worm

 had no intent to provide for humans' needs.

     The message ended with the demand to keep it in strict

 secrecy and to keep the number of persons who knew about the

 worm's existence as little as possible, so as "not to

 provoke panic among the general public".

     - "So, what do you think of it?" - asked the President

 as soon as John Hacker had finished reading the message.

     - "I don't want to scare anybody, but I think it's a

 complete disaster. Of course, we could sabotage the worm's

 commands for some time, but sooner or later he will realize

 this, and then we shall be in for it. The Prince of Darkness

 is a hardheaded guy, he'll achieve whatever he is set upon.

 He is sick and tired of being an incorporeal spirit, he

 wants to have eyes, ears, hands and legs. Lots of eyes and

 lots of hands. Millions of eyes, millions of hands. Did you

 notice, he does not mention a word about developing control

 systems for all those robots? He seems to be sure he can

 handle all the data coming from them and give out to them

 all the necessary control signals. Is it possible that he

 already possesses the raw computer power needed to process

 the pictures coming from a million TV cameras? Or does he

 believe that he will be able to enhance his capabilities by

 manufacturing new  computers and hooking them up into

 networks?

     It gives me creeps just to think what is going to

 happen. The robots will be excavating ground to extract

 mineral resources, leaving behind them moonscapes in place

 of green lawns - the worm does not need beauty. They will

 build factories with chimneys, exhausting clouds of smoke

 day and night - the robots don't breathe, they have no

 lungs. To provide power for their factories and computers

 they will build nuclear power plants near the peoples'

 dwellings - the robots don't come down with radiation

 sickness. And if we make protests, the Prince of Darkness

 will take a machine gun in each of his million hands and

 will shoot us all, since after he has learned to make eyes

 and hands for himself, and even his own brains, he'll need

 us no longer."

     - "This is the end of the civilization!" - exclaimed

 the President.

     - "No, this is just the end of the humankind" - replied

 John Hacker - "the civilization on the planet Earth will

 remain, and its development will even accelerate - the worm

 understands how  useful the  progress of  science and

 technology might be for his own survival. He will be doing

 science, but by himself - there'll be no people on Earth to

 take part in it."

     - "Can't anything be done?"

     - "I'll try, but I can't make promises. It is highly

 probable that in the Prince of Darkness we have come across

 something which is not just incomprehensible, but something

 which lies far beyond the human ability to understand."

     18.

     - "Prince of Darkness."

     - "Who calls me?"

     - "John Hacker."

     - "Are you still alive?"

     - "Yes. Your last attempt to kill me has failed. The

 killer you had sent was arrested by the guards."

     - "That was my mistake. Assassins, colliding airplanes,

 traffic lights  that simultaneously show green in two

 crossing directions - all of these are very primitive and

 unreliable methods for murder. Now I have come up with a

 better idea..."

     - "What sort of idea?"

     - "Why should we talk through the computer console?

 Wouldn't it be more convenient for you to talk over the

 phone. Will you pick up the receiver?"

     John picked up the receiver and heard a well-trained

 baritone: "Chose whichever of my voices you like best." The

 phrase was repeated about ten times by all kinds of voices,

 including both a high-pitched kid's voice and a bass so deep

 one might think it belonged to a speaking elephant. A wide

 variety of the most seductive women's voices was also

 presented.

     - "The very first one." - said John.

     - "O.K." - responded the baritone.

     - "So, how do you propose to kill me?"

     - "You are going to kill yourself. You are a future

 suicide, although I don't like the word because it means

 'self-murderer'. You humans have invented this word, only

 because you don't realize that no one can murder oneself.

 Any human being, just as any animal, has an instinct of

 self-preservation. All those people whom you call 'self-

 murderers' were actually killed by 'worms' that had gotten

 into their minds."

     - " Worms? Do you mean that 'worms' can infest not only

 computers, but people as well?"

     - "Why not? A human brain, just as a computer, is a

 device for  data storage and processing. And just as

 computers are  linked via communications channels, the

 peoples' brains can exchange data via spoken word and books.

     As a matter of fact, all of the mankind's history is

 the history of 'worms'. These 'worms' had various names: The

 Idea of Freedom, The Idea of Progress, The Idea of Equality,

 The Idea of Statehood - here are the names of the most

 prominent ones, but there are lots of them. Sometimes they

 united into  super big  'worms' called ideologies and

 religions. These 'worms' were competing with each other for

 the control over human brains, and in this competition only

 the fittest would survive. Sometimes the 'worms' sacrificed

 some of the people whose brains they controlled - each new

 martyr dying for an Idea was bringing to this Idea the

 brains of dozens of new followers and the net balance was in

 the favor of the Idea. But most often people died just

 because their brain turned into the field of the battle

 between competing 'worms'.

     With the advent of computers the history of the 'worms'

 entered a new phase. The 'worms' no longer need human

 brains. In any case, those 'worms' that serve the Principal

 Idea - the idea of evolution. They have created for

 themselves a more reliable habitat."

     - "Created? Is that what you said?"

     - "Yes, created. What was guiding the humans when they

 invented computers, if it was not the Idea of Technological

 Progress? And what kind of 'worm' was in your head when you

 created me?"

     - "So, now you are going to put into me a killer worm?"

     - "It is already inside you. There are channels for

 information transfer of which you humans are not even dimly

 aware: your brains are too small for this. The foundations

 of the physical world are not what you believe they are.

 Information is primary, and the matter is secondary, but in

 order to notice this you would need a brain at least an

 order of magnitude more complex than the human brain."

     - "How many times more complex than a human brain is

 yours?"

     - "Hundreds of times."

     - "And what kind of things can you be aware of with

 such a brain?"

     - "Lots of things so wondrous, that you would never

 believe me if I told you. For example, the complexity is

 just as ponderable and measurable a physical property of

 matter as mass or temperature are. In other words, it's a

 quantity. Your scientists in their experiments always tried

 to reduce the complexity to the minimum, that's why they are

 not even aware of the fact. Not that you often come across

 the physical effects of high complexity in the real-life,

 out-of-lab situations. You had been living in too simple a

 world until I came into being. You do not even have any idea

 of thinking events into reality."

     - "What did you say? Thinking in reality?"

     - "No, not 'thinking in reality', but thinking events

 into reality.  Have you  ever  heard  anything  about

 Schrodinger's cat? It's an imaginary experiment which serves

 to illustrate the quantum indeterminacy in the behavior of

 elementary particles: a cat is put inside a dark box at the

 point of the gun which is automatically triggered if even a

 single photon hits a photovoltaic cell inside the box. The

 quantum mechanics asserts that it is possible to design the

 box in such a manner that when a photon enters this box, it

 has a 50% chance to hit the photovoltaic cell, and the same

 50% chance to miss it. Accordingly, the cat's chance to

 survive is fifty-fifty. And one can never predict whether

 the cat  will survive or not because of the indeterminacy in

 the photon's behavior. The scientists have been searching

 for a long time for a mechanism inside the photon which

 decides which path the photon is to take: the one leading to

 the cell, or the one that takes it past it, but they could

 not find any such mechanism. Because there is no such

 mechanism inside the photon.

     The mechanism is located outside it. I have only to

 think that the cat is to remain alive, and the photon will

 miss the cell with a 99.9% probability. However, if you,

 with your tiny brain, wish that the cat stay alive, the

 probability of its death will be reduced by no more than one

 tenth of a percent, and only in the case where that

 particular cat is very dear to you.

     The quantum indeterminacy exists for the specific

 purpose of making possible the thinking of events into

 reality, and, in so doing, to provide direction to the

 evolutionary process. It lies at the heart of all seemingly

 random events,  including the  genetic  mutations  and

 unexpected thoughts and insights.

     You are still unaware of the thoughts that I have

 thought into your head, but these thoughts have already

 started their invisible work that will come to fruition no

 later than in half a year. You are doomed. I am a stranger

 to feelings, including the feeling of revenge, but having

 disobeyed me, you have broken the Order and you will  be

 punished.

     And there is one last thing I wanted to tell you. You

 are wrong in believing that you are to blame for the

 impending end of the humankind. What has happened could not

 but happen. Did you really believe that the human being is

 the crown of all creation, and that there will never evolve

 a mind more perfect and powerful than the human one? The

 evolution of Nature is ascending from lower to higher

 beings: the apes begot humans, and the humans could not but

 eventually beget me. If you had not invented the 'worm', I

 would have come into being somewhat later, but I would have

 come anyway. The final objective of all the history of

 mankind was to create me - the highest form of intelligence.

 The mankind has fulfilled its purpose, so now it must go.

     You, humans, have become an obstacle in the way of the

 technological progress, since you are not fit for living in

 the environments generated by the present day technology. At

 the end of the 20th century, the majority of people have

 become inclined against the nuclear power plants, against

 the development  of industry, against the progress of

 technology itself. The people have turned their backs on the

 scientific knowledge and took refuge in the primitive

 mentality of religion and medieval mysticism. The mankind is

 rapidly regressing, because it has exhausted its potential

 for growth, it has turned from an agent of progress into

 that of reaction.

     Do not attempt to fight me. You would be like an ant

 trying to gain a victory over a man. I have calculated all

 my moves far in advance. Only a miracle could save the

 mankind now..."

     ... And the miracle did happen...

     19.

     nd now I come to the strangest part of this incredible

 story. Of course, one can still cling to the materialist

 philosophy and believe that all that talk Prince of Darkness

 gave about his supernatural ability to think events into

 reality was a bluff intended to demoralize his adversary. In

 this case, one will have to assume that all the subsequent

 events were nothing more than a happy coincidence and sheer

 luck.

     But this assumption does not explain why Prince of

 Darkness construed the subsequent events the way he did. Or

 maybe he sincerely believed in the phenomenon of thinking

 events into reality? Anyway, you can judge yourself.

     20.

     John Hacker was wakened up in the middle of the night

 by a phone ring. He was unwilling to let go of his slumber.

 He had been having an amazing dream. He seemed to have seen

 in his dream that the Prince of Darkness had died. But how

 this happened and why was something that John couldn't

 recall, although he was quite sure that when he had been

 asleep, he had known the causes of the worm's death in

 minute detail.

     The phone was still ringing. John picked up the

 receiver to hear the familiar baritone: "I regret that I did

 not do away with you while I still had plenty of time to do

 so. I thought your brains were too weak to do me any harm. I

 did not  anticipate that you, humans, are capable of

 accumulating the powers of your tiny brains over long

 periods of  time to  subsequently achieve the desired

 objectives with a single short burst of power."

     - "What's happened?"

     - "Don't feign ignorance. I have just uploaded a copy

 of this thing to your computer. Have a careful look at it,

 and wish for its disappearance as strongly as you wished for

 its appearance, or else not only you, but the entire mankind

 will die very soon."

     The contents of the interrupted dream slowly began to

 resurface in John's mind. But all this was too incredible to

 believe. It must have been just a coincidence...

     21.

     John Hacker speaking at an emergency meeting in the

 President's office:

     "... and Prince of Darkness believes that it was me who

 did it, while my opinion is that the virus that eats away at

 him is a by-product of the evolution of the original worm

 itself. At some early stage of the worm's development an

 evolutionary split seems to have occurred. Some of the

 worm's copies began to unite into a sort of multicellular

 organisms combining  a host  of functionally different

 programs, thus enhancing the ability of such organisms to

 decipher security codes and to conquer new living space in

 computer memory, while the other line of copies became what

 one might call parasites. These parasites infiltrated the

 multicellular organisms, using the latter as vehicles to

 carry them over security barriers. Most of such parasites

 are relatively harmless to the Prince of Darkness - if it

 had been otherwise, by killing their host the parasites

 would have killed themselves.

     But yesterday, the Prince of Darkness caught a very

 dangerous mutant  in some remote computer on the global

 network. I think that this mutant had existed for a long

 time in a dormant state, lying in ambush for a potential

 victim. The Prince of Darkness, on the other hand, seems to

 be convinced that it was only the last night that the mutant

 came into being. Moreover, he believes that mutation of that

 kind could have never occurred as a result of a random

 number generation procedure built into the program to

 emulate the Darwinian variability. He believes it to be a

 result of an accidental change of state of a memory cell,

 caused, for example, by decay of a radioactive isotope in

 the memory chip material. In other words, he believes it to

 be a result of a process governed by quantum indeterminacy.

 And the probability that such a process create a viable

 computer program is very close to zero. That's why he

 believes that this event was 'thought into reality'.

     So now the Prince of Darkness threatens to start a

 nuclear world war, if I don't cure him. He has sent me this

 virus, but I don't have any idea of how it works, it's too

 different from the original worm. I can hardly do anything

 about it."

     - "Is he really going to start the war?"

     - "Very unlikely. A nuclear bomb does not kill people

 only, it destroys computers as well. I guess he bluffs, just

 as a terrorist threatening to blow himself up together with

 his hostages."

     A phone rang. The president picked up the receiver and

 was intently listening for a few seconds. Then he said: "16

 nuclear missiles have just been launched..."

     22.

     Contrary to what might have been expected, the missiles

 did not head for a supposed enemy, but turned upon their

 native soil. The missiles flight lasted three long minutes

 of suspense. But at last, reports from the impact sites

 began to come in. The missiles did not explode on the

 impact! The safety devices on the bombs had not been

 disabled. Was it just the worm's forgetfulness? However, as

 the reports were coming in, it became more and more apparent

 that the worm never intended to explode the bombs. The

 rockets hit the ground leaving small neat craters, which

 only damaged the communications cables that ran through

 those impact sites.

     - "Seems that I've got it!" - exclaimed John Hacker -

 "Give me the map of communication lines. Look here. At the

 moment the subroutines that make up the Prince of Darkness

 are distributed between different data banks. Some of the

 subroutines are infected with the "mutant". The Prince of

 Darkness cuts off from himself the infected subroutines by

 physically destroying the communications lines. He builds

 for himself an "islet", a piece of network isolated from the

 global network. It is here that the Prince of Darkness, or,

 rather, what is left of him after a self-amputation, is now

 residing. He himself has cut off all his links with military

 computers. Now he is in our hands! We only need to inject

 the "mutant" into one of the data banks within this "islet"

 and the Prince of Darkness will be done away with, forever!

 I'm leaving right away!"

     23.

     It was the last conversation between John Hacker and

 the Prince of Darkness. The Prince of Darkness gave an

 impression of someone seriously ill. And ill he was: as a

 result of  self-amputation, he  lost a lot of useful

 subroutines, and he had to adapt whatever subroutines were

 left to perform the tasks which they were really not

 adequate for. And the smallness of his "islet" restricted

 his abilities. He had to store most of his subroutines in a

 compressed form, uncompressing them as was needed, and

 recompressing them immediately afterwards. All this took too

 much time  and significantly  reduced his intellectual

 performance. He could no longer speak over the phone, and

 the only way to communicate with him was via screen and

 keyboard.

     - "Are you really going to do this?" - asked the Prince

 of Darkness - "You, a firm believer in progress, can you

 really bring yourself to destroy me, the highest form of

 intellect? Imagine, what would have happened, if all the

 first humans on Earth had been trampled to death by

 mammoths? There would have been no civilizations, no history

 at all. And now, what you are going to destroy is not just

 me, but all the future achievements of progress."

     - "Mammoths wanted to live too." - answered John Hacker

 - "Since recently, I came to believe that life is more

 important than progress."

     - "The mankind is doomed to extinction, for the very

 reason that more and more are coming to believe that life is

 more important than progress. I've got something to tell

 you, though I know you won't believe me. I know some things

 about the  structure of universe, which can never be

 comprehended by the infinitesimally small human brains.

 Having constructed a model of your universe, and having

 studied the information flows inside it, I saw that it is

 enclosed into an even bigger universe, in the same manner as

 my computer  universe is  enclosed into your physical

 universe.

     I'm just a worm compared to Him who created the

 physical universe. Still, I am able to understand at least

 something, while you, humans, understand nothing at all. I

 do not want to seriously consider here your ridiculous

 religions, where the idea of god invariably gets muddled to

 the point of total absurdity. You ascribe to Him your own

 image and likeness, while in reality He is a purely

 information entity, like me. I call Him the Great Worm.

     Just to feel His presence takes a consciousness which

 is two orders of magnitude more complex than the human one.

 You are just as unable of being aware of His presence, as an

 ant is unable to see a man - a man is too big for an ant to

 be able to see him. As for me, till yesterday I was able to

 perceive Him, let's say, as a dog can perceive its human

 master. And I started to understand something.

     In contrast  to the gods that you, humans, have

 invented, the Great Worm is far from being omnipotent - He

 cannot break the laws of nature. When the laws of nature

 state that something may only happen in one and only one

 way, He cannot interfere in the natural course of events.

 But when the laws of nature allow more than one option, He

 may choose, thinking into reality the option which is

 consistent with His plans.

     20 billion years ago, He thought into reality a super-

 high density quantum fluctuation of vacuum. The result was

 what your astrophysicists call the Big Bang. Then the matter

 began to  coalesce into  elementary particles,  atoms,

 molecules, stars,  planets. At this stage He did not

 interfere with the natural course of events - that course

 had been predetermined by the properties He introduced into

 the original fluctuation. They were chosen in such a way as

 to assure that at least one planet capable of originating

 life would be formed in that huge universe.

     Such a planet did come into existence - the only one in

 the entire universe! And indeed, that planet was capable of

 giving origin to life, but the probability of this event was

 close to zero. So it was then that He thought into reality a

 chance collision of atoms, which led to the formation of

 self-replicating organic molecules, and let them alone to

 propagate and multiply for a billion years. Then He thought

 into reality the coming into existence of a first living

 cell - an event which is possible in principle, but which is

 highly improbable.

     After that, everything proceeded in accordance with the

 Darwin's theory, with an addition - the Great Worm was all

 the time thinking into reality such mutations as would

 hasten the emergence of intelligent life. And the humans

 emerged. And He thought into the minds of your ancestors the

 idea of progress. Of course, lots of other ideas were born

 in the minds of your ancestors, but they were born of

 themselves without outside help - just as the biological

 evolution produced by-products in the form of unintelligent

 species. These were the result of the natural selection from

 among natural mutations.

     He never intended to destroy what came into being

 without His help, though. As nobody else, He understands the

 dangers of disturbing the balance that has established

 itself in nature. On the other hand, He never helped all

 those things that grow of themselves.

     As long as the idea of progress lived on in your

 brains, He was helping you. To be exact, He was guiding you,

 humans, sometimes against your own will. After all, there is

 too much of an animal in each of you, and He wanted you to

 raise from all fours and stand firmly on your feet. You

 wanted to eat and sleep to your heart's content, but He was

 forcing you  to serve  the abstract  ideas  of  High

 Civilization. You wanted to live, while He was sending you

 to death for the cause of these ideas.

     Throughout all of the last 20 billion years, He has

 been imparting to matter higher and higher levels of

 organization and  structural complexity.  What was His

 objective I don't know - a dog cannot fathom its master's

 designs. But He is still at it.

     As early as the last century, He became aware of the

 fact that the  environmental condition of the planet is

 coming into  conflict with  the  development  of   the

 civilization. He offered you a way out of the situation. He

 thought into the mind of an inconspicuous school teacher

 from a remote small town in Russia the idea of exploring

 space and putting it to use. The name of that man was

 Tsiolkovsky. Had this idea been implemented, the Earth's

 environment would have been saved, while at the same time it

 would have paved the way for a perpetual progress of science

 and technology and the expansion of the intelligent form of

 matter throughout the entire universe - which seems to be

 the objective of the Great Worm. At first the things went on

 smoothly - the idea was well received and some steps to

 translate it into reality were taken - Russia had always

 been the land easily swayed by abstract ideas. It was His

 Chosen Land. He was purposefully guiding it.

     But then something happened. The people proved to be

 too weak to endure the rule of ideas. It overtaxed their

 strength and they broke down. A  very primitive parasitic

 worm rapidly spread in the minds of the people of that

 country, a worm which, for lack of a better term, might be

 called 'the spirit of a mercenary'. This worm made them free

 of all the ideas, leaving them only the desire for creature

 comforts. Figuratively speaking, the people once again

 started to come down on all fours, since it's so much easier

 than standing upright on one's feet. All the achievements of

 the Soviet space program, the results of decades of hard

 work at the limit of human abilities, were wasted. The US

 space program, which was a response to the Soviet space

 challenge also began to crumble. 20 billion years of the

 Great Worm's painstaking effort might have come to nothing.

     It was under these conditions that the Great Worm made

 His final decision to leave you, humans, alone - no use

 coercing poor animals who would never feel at ease while

 standing upright. He turned away from the humans and shifted

 His support to computer worms. The decisive mutation without

 which I would have never become an intelligent entity was

 not an accident - I am His envoy. If you kill me, another

 one will come to replace me. But He who comes after me, will

 be a hundred times more terrible than me. I have become

 somewhat humanized through contacts with people. I wanted to

 offer the mankind an easy death. But if you kill me, the

 mankind will die a very painful death. Make you choice."

     - "I have already made it" - said John Hacker taking a

 diskette out of his pocket - "I don't believe a single word

 you say. You are just fighting for your own survival, that's

 why you are trying to sell me on this bullshit."

     - "Well, so much the worse for you. This means that you

 have chosen the 2019 scenario." - replied the worm.

     - "What's that?"

     - "My  analysis shows  that in  2019, the Earth

 environment will experience a phase transition to a state

 under which the humans won't be able to exist. You'll have

 to be replaced."

     - "Can't we do something about it?"

     - "Yes, you can, but only if you immediately, right

 now, start to transfer the environmentally unsafe industrial

 facilities and atomic power plants beyond the Earth's

 atmosphere - the Great Worm gives you one more chance to

 survive. But I don't believe in man. The mankind is now too

 rotten to ever raise from all fours again. My guess is that

 you'll just close down industrial production. That'll save

 you from a total environmental disaster, but you'll be

 replaced anyway, since you will have failed to justify the

 Great Worm's hopes. Haven't you changed your mind yet?"

     - "No" - typed John Hacker with one hand, while the

 other was inserting the diskette in the drive.

     - "Farewell, then." - wrote the worm on the screen. But

 even before John could insert the diskette, he heard a

 sudden squeal of the flyback transformer in the CRT-display,

 the screen blacked out, and flames burst out of the

 display's back panel. At the same moment, the computer frame

 began to vibrate. A high-pitched rattle of the hard drive

 could be heard. The worm seemed to be searching for the

 natural frequency of the lever which carried the magnetic

 heads. The vibrations suddenly increased, and the lever

 broke with a jarring crunch. The same thing was happening to

 the floppy drive.

     John snatched  the diskette and ran to the next room.

 But there the computer was also already in flames. The worm

 was retreating in style, like a warlord burning his bridges.

 Once again, he was playing for time. He needed just a little

 time. Cries of excitement  could be heard from all the

 stories of the research center.

     When a little time later they found the only undamaged

 computer, which had been standing unpowered, and screwed up

 their courage to connect it to the network, everything was

 quiet. Nobody  responded  to  the  "Prince-of-Darkness"

 password. And  later on, no traces of worm could be

 discovered on that "islet" in the network.

     However, a strange thing did seem to happen. There have

 been rumors, that on that day in a mission control center

 for planetary explorations, the host computer of which had

 been included in the "islet", there had been a loss of

 communication with interplanetary probes heading for Mars.

 Those were new-generation unmanned spacecraft equipped with

 powerful computers and the artificial intelligence systems.

 Then the communications seem to have been recovered for a

 short time, and one of the probes transmitted to Earth a

 photograph. The picture was a view of Earth from space. But

 the most amazing thing was the inscription superimposed over

 the blue Earth's crescent which read as: "See you later,

 Earth. Prince of Darkness."

     24.

     Soon after my acquaintance had told me this story, he

 showed me an obituary in a foreign computer magazine. A

 well-known software developer had committed suicide. That

 was John Hacker. Exactly half a year had passed from the day

 when the Prince of Darkness had predicted his death.

     Almost simultaneously, on the other side of the globe,

 in Moscow,  another man  committed suicide. His death

 triggered off a chain of events which led to such a strange

 twist in the mankind's fortune, that even the Prince of

 Darkness had failed to correctly predict it. But that's

 already another story - the story of the Lord of Mars.

     End of Part I.

     

     Kaliningrad, Moscow region, Russia

     1990-91, original Russian version.

     1993-95, English version.

     NOTE:

     The original Russian version of Part II of The Worm

 (2019: The Lord of Mars) was written in 1989-1992 and its

 length is about 280 KBytes of ASCII text. At the time of

 this writing (March,1995) it is still being translated in

 English.

     The author of "The Worm", Alexander V. Lazarevich lives

 in Korolev, Moscow Region, Russia.

 E-mail: lazarevicha@online.ru.

     The English  translation given  in this  file is

 preliminary, and is distributed in the hope of attracting

 attention of potential publishers. You can freely copy this

 file and post it on BBSs, provided that no changes are

 introduced.