FREEDOM CODE: THE INVISIBLE WAR FOR HUMANITY’S FUTURE: Chapter 2 The First Steps

Imagining our future with ChatGPT 4o mini

Chapter 2: The First Steps

Scene 1: The Bar—After the Drink

The atmosphere of the bar was beginning to shift as the night wore on. David, having shaken off the initial discomfort of Beate’s challenging questions, was more relaxed now, after a few drinks, but his mind still churned with what they had discussed. Beate, on the other hand, felt her curiosity growing. She had gotten under his skin. She knew it.

After a brief silence, Beate glanced at her watch, realizing that she had to leave soon. The buzz from the drink was wearing off, and she felt the weight of the conversation settling in her mind.

“Before I go…,” Beate said, reaching for her bag. “I’d love to stay in touch. There’s so much more to discuss.”

“That’s fine.” David nodded.

She wrote her number on a piece of paper. “By the way, my friends call me Bea.”

“And mine call me David”, replied the professor. “Perhaps a bit surprising to call me by my last name...” They shook hands.

He reached into his jacket’s pocket and pulled out a business card, but not the kind you’d expect. Instead of a name, address, or even a title, the card was mostly blank except for a QR code printed in grey-scale. She noticed a faded image, but clear enough that the blurry outline of his portrait could be made out. Still, it looked more like a data cloud than a personal picture, almost as if he was presenting himself as a concept, an idea more than a person.

“This is all I have with me,” he said, handing it to her. “Scan it. It will reveal all the contact details you need. Email, phone—everything.”

Beate raised an eyebrow. “A QR code? Is this the future?” She smiled playfully, intrigued despite herself.

David grinned, his earlier irritation replaced by a more humorous tone. “In the future, contact information will be just a scan away. Don’t tell me you’re still using one of those old-fashioned phones?”

Beate smirked. “Actually, I am. One of those dumb phones. The kind you don’t have to worry about—being hacked or monitored. Just calls, no distractions. The old-fashioned future, I guess.”

David’s chuckle softened. “Well, you’ll need a friend to help you out with that. But hey, I’ve got to go. I’ll look forward to hearing from you, Bea. It’s rare I meet someone who’s willing to look at these technologies with… a little more caution.”

She took the card, though she wasn’t sure whether she would be able to get anything meaningful from the fading QR code. But for some reason, the idea of trying to decrypt it intrigued her. She wanted to see what kind of person David really was beyond the lecturer he performed.

“I’ll be in touch,” she said, “And by the way, I was inspired by your talk tonight. I think I’m going to write a theatre piece on the era of converging technologies, how things might unfold, and the unintended consequences—you know, shifting realities, like in the famous dramas where technology or society takes an unexpected turn. Maybe I’ll even include examples from real-world events.” Her eyes twinkled with mischievous humour, as if she had already imagined the piece forming in her mind.

David looked surprised. “Now that sounds interesting. If you do decide to write it, I’d be curious to see how you frame it.”

“I’ll let you know if I need any research assistance,” she replied with a smile. “I might need a few quotes from the guru himself.”

She stood up and left, still holding the QR code card in her hand, feeling the familiar rush of ideas beginning to flood her mind. She was already imagining how she would intertwine the ethics of converging technologies with the narrative threads of power and control, much like tragic heroes lost in the machinery of their own creation.

Scene 2: The Morning After

The next day, Beate was sitting at her kitchen table, sipping coffee and looking over the card in her hand. She frowned at the blurry QR code. What should she do with it? Certainly, her  dumb phone wasn’t going to be of any help.

It wasn’t until later that afternoon that she met with her friend Mia, a tech-savvy hacker, who had worked in IT for several years. They had known each other since their childhood. Mia had a fascination with digital encryption.

“Do you mind?” Beate asked, handing the card over to her.

Mia raised an eyebrow, taking it from her. “This is Prof. David’s business card, you say? A QR coded picture instead of a regular card? That’s kind of cool!”

“Exactly. I guess I’m supposed to scan it to get his contact details. Can you make sense of it?” Beate asked, half joking, half serious.

Mia chuckled and immediately pulled out her phone, scanning the code. After a few moments of processing, the screen flickered. A photograph, several lines of text, and even a series of links appeared on Mia’s phone.

“Well, there’s a lot here, including his email, a calendar link for meetings, and—wait—something strange.” Mia’s eyes narrowed as she scrolled through the data. “There’s a file here labelled ‘ID_09137939134’. That’s odd. It’s encrypted, though. I’ll need to break the code to see what this is.”

Beate frowned. “Do you think it’s important?”

Mia glanced up, eyes flashing with a mixture of curiosity and concern. “This is interesting, I’d say. Something is up, I can tell. But I’ll have to dig deeper.” She typed a few more things into her phone before looking back at Beate. “But, yeah—be careful. This is more than just a business card. There’s something else happening here. I even wonder whether this has anything to do with Prof. David.”

Beate couldn’t shake the feeling that Prof. David’s work and his passion for converging technologies was surrounded by mysteries. What was going on here? Should they be hacking this? What would they get into, if they proceeded? Was it dangerous? Where would the innocent promise of curing diseases and improving human lives lead them? 

Scene 3: David’s Own Doubts

Meanwhile, David was in his office, scrolling through the news on his tablet. The lecture and the conversation with Beate kept coming back to him. She had posed questions that, despite his earlier defensiveness, gnawed at him. And, oddly enough, he had found a news story that seemed to be linked to the incident outside the lecture hall.

A police report from the same night, detailing a shooting incident, had emerged on a minor news site. According to the article, an entire family had been found dead. The reasons were unclear. But there were rumours of a black Jeep seen in the area earlier that night.

David had a growing feeling that something wasn’t quite adding up. He had been too distracted by Beate’s challenge to think it through properly, but now, the story seemed to hint at something much bigger.

He clicked on the link and scanned the details. Something about the timing, the location, and the lack of clear answers was bothering him.

He couldn’t help himself. He picked up the phone and dialled Beate’s number. He wanted to talk to her again. She had raised the questions, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready for the answers.