Blasphemy (29 page)

“O my friends! What blasphemy is this?
What blasphemy is this
?”

FORD ARRIVED ON THE BRIDGE AT eight o’clock. As he entered the room he glanced at Kate, at her workstation. Their eyes met. Not a word was exchanged, but the glance itself said a lot. The rest of the scientists were hunched over their various workstations, Hazelius directing the show from his swiveling captain’s chair in the center. The machine hummed, but the Visualizer remained black.

The others noted his arrival with few nods and distracted greetings. Wardlaw gave him a long stare before turning back to his security board.

Hazelius beckoned him over. “How are things up top?” he asked.

“I don’t think we’ll have any problems.”

“Good. You’re just in time to see us make contact at CZero. Ken, how are we?”

“Holding steady at ninety percent,” said Dolby.

“The magnet?”

“Still good.”

“Then we’re ready to roll,” said Hazelius. “Rae? Take up your position at the detector control panel. As soon as the logic bomb goes off, I want you on top of it. Julie, back her up.”

He turned. “Alan?”

Edelstein raised his head slowly from his workstation.

“Monitor the backup servers and the main computer simultaneously. At the first sign of instability, switch control of Isabella over to the three p5 595s. Don’t wait for a full crash.”

Edelstein nodded, gave a few sharp raps on the keyboard.

“Melissa, I want you monitoring that hole in space-time. If you see anything, I mean
anything
, that indicates a problem, an unexpected resonance, unknown superheavy or stable particles—especially stable singularities—sound the alarm.”

A thumbs-up.

“Harlan? We’re going to run at a hundred percent power for as long as it takes. It’ll be your job to keep the juice coming in strong and clean—and to monitor the wider grid for third-party power issues.”

“Sure thing.”

“Tony, even if we switch over the three servers as backup, the security systems will remain online. Don’t forget we’ve got some protesters up there, and they might do something stupid, like scale the perimeter fence.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked around. “George?”

“Yes?” Innes said.

“Normally, you don’t have much to do during a run. But this run’s different. I want you to position yourself near the Visualizer so you can
read
the output from the logic bomb and analyze it psychologically. A human being wrote this slag code, and it may contain clues to its creator. Look for insights, ideas, psychological quirks—anything that might help us identify the perpetrator or nail this logic bomb.”

“Excellent idea, Gregory, I certainly will.”

“Kate? I’d like you at the control keyboard, typing in the questions.”

“I—” Kate hesitated.

Hazelius arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“I’d rather not, Gregory.”

The intense blue eyes studied her, then turned to Ford. “You’ve got nothing else to do. Would you like to ask the questions?”

“I’ll be glad to.”

“What you ask isn’t important—just keep the malware talking. Rae’s going to need a steady output to trace this thing. Don’t get hung up asking long or complicated questions—keep them short. Kate, if Wyman falters or runs out of questions, you be ready to jump in. We can’t waste a second.”

Ford walked over to her workstation. She rose, offered him the seat. He laid a hand on her shoulder. He bent down, as if to examine the screen. “Hello,” he whispered, taking her hand and squeezing it.

“Hi.”

Kate hesitated, and then said, sotto voce, “Promise me, Wyman, that no matter what happens here—
no matter what
— we’re going to start over again. You and me. Promise me that . . . what happened on our ride out there on the mesa wasn’t just a one-time thing.” Her face was intensely flushed. She bent down to hide it, her black hair hanging down like a curtain.

He gave her hand a squeeze. “I promise.”

Hazelius had finished discussing various details with certain team members, and he returned to the center of the Bridge. He cast his flashing blue eyes across the group. “I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again. We’re sailing into unknown waters. I won’t kid you: what we’re about to do is dangerous. There’s no alternative: our backs are against the wall. We’re going to find this logic bomb and destroy it. Tonight.”

In the long silence that followed, the singing of the machine rose and fell.

“We’re going to be out of touch with the outside world for a few hours,” he said. His fierce eye ranged about the room. “Any questions?”

“Um, I do.” Julie Thibodeaux responded. Her face was slick with sweat, and the dark circles under her eyes seemed almost translucent. Her hair was long and stringy. It shook as she moved.

Hazelius gazed at her. “Yes?”

“I—” She faltered.

Hazelius arched his eyebrows, waiting. She pushed her chair back suddenly and rose. The rollers snagged on the carpet, causing her to stumble. “This is insane,” she said, her voice loud. “We’ve got a warm magnet, an unstable computer, malware— and now we’re going to pump a few hundred megawatts of power into the machine? You’re going to blow the shit out of this whole mountain. You can count me out.”

Hazelius’s glance flickered briefly toward Wardlaw, then back to Thibodeaux.

“I’m afraid it’s too late, Julie.”

“What do you mean, too late?” she yelled. “I’m out of here.”

“The Bunker doors are closed, locked, and sealed. You know the drill.”

“Bullshit. Ford just came in.”

“By previous arrangement. Now, no one can leave until dawn. Not even me. It’s part of the security arrangement.”

“Bullcrap. What if there were a fire, an accident?” She stood defiantly, her body quivering.

“The only person with the security codes who can open the door before dawn is Tony. It’s his decision as SIO. Tony?”

“No one can leave,” said Wardlaw stolidly.

“I refuse to accept that answer,” she said, her voice rising in panic.

“I’m afraid you must,” said Hazelius.

“
Tony. I want out, now, goddamn you
.” Her voice rode up toward the edge of a scream.

“I’m sorry,” Wardlaw said.

She rushed at him, all five feet three inches of her. He let her come on. She raised her fists and he caught them neatly as she flung herself on him.

“Let me go, you bastard!” She twisted and turned helplessly.

“Easy, now.”

“I’m not going to die for some machine!” She slumped against him and began to sob.

Ford looked on incredulously. “If she wants out, let her out.”

Wardlaw gave him a hostile stare. “It’s against protocol.”

“She’s no security risk. Look at her—she’s falling apart.”

“The rules are there for a reason,” said Wardlaw. “No one leaves Isabella during a run except in the case of a life-threatening emergency.”

Ford turned to Hazelius. “This isn’t right.” He looked around. “Surely the rest of you agree.” But instead of agreement, he saw uncertainty. Fear. “You
can’t
keep her here against her will.”

Until now he hadn’t realized how much they had fallen under Hazelius’s spell. “Kate?” He turned to her. “You know this is wrong.”

“Wyman, we all signed on to the rules. Even her.”

Hazelius walked over to Thibodeaux and nodded to Wardlaw. The SIO released her into Hazelius’s arms. She tried to break free but he held her, firmly but gently. Her sobs began to subside to whimpers and gulps. He cradled her gently, almost lovingly. She leaned into his chest, crying softly, like a little girl. Hazelius patted and stroked the back of her head and brushed away her tears with a thumb, all the while murmuring into her ear. A few minutes passed and she calmed down.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He patted her, smoothing her hair, running his hands sensually over her plump back. “We need you, Julie.
I
need you. We can’t do it without you. You know that.”

She nodded, sniffed. “I lost it. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He held her until she was quiet. When he released her, she stepped back, eyes on the floor.

“Julie, stay here with me. You’ll be safe—I promise.”

She nodded again.

Ford stared after her in amazement, until he noticed Hazelius looking at him with a sad, kind face. “Are we all right now, Wyman?”

Ford met the blue eyes and would not speak.

IN HIS TRAILER, PASTOR RUSS EDDY sat in front of the twenty-inch screen on his iMac. The live Webcast of
Roundtable America
had just ended. Eddy’s brain was afire, his soul burning, the words of Reverend Spates still reverberating in his mind. He, Russell Eddy, was the “devout Christian on-site” who had exposed the Isabella project. “A pastor just like me,” Reverend Spates had said to millions. It was Eddy who had gathered the critical information at great personal risk, guided by the invisible hand of the Lord. These were not normal times. The righteous wrath of the Lord, with all its immense power, was surely coming. Not even the rocks would hide the pagan scientists from the vengeance of the Almighty Lord.

Eddy sat before the quiet blue screen, his mind reeling with the glory of God. The grand design was starting to show its outlines. God’s plan for him. It all started with the death of the Indian, struck down by God’s own hand, a direct sign to Eddy of His coming fury. The end was upon them. “
For the great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand
?”

Slowly, Eddy’s consciousness drifted back to the trailer. It was so quiet in the shabby bedroom—as if nothing had happened at all. Yet the world had changed. God’s plan for him stood revealed. But what was the next step? What did God intend him to do?

A sign . . . he needed a sign. He clasped his Bible, his hands trembling with emotion. God would show him what to do.

He laid the book spine down and let it fall open where it would. The well-worn pages whiffled past until almost the end, where they settled flat, open to the book of Revelation. His eye fell randomly on a sentence: “
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies . .
.”

His spine seemed to contract with the chill. The passage was one of the clearest and most unambiguous references to the Antichrist in the entire Bible.

Confirmation
.

EVEN WITH THE TENSION IN THE room, Ford thought, the run-up to the top of the power spectrum was even duller the second time around. By ten o’clock, Isabella reached 99.5 percent power. Everything was happening as before: the resonance, the hole in space-time, the strange image condensing in the center of the Visualizer. Isabella hummed; the mountain vibrated.

As if on schedule, the Visualizer went blank and the first words appeared.

We speak again
.

“Go to it, Wyman,” Hazelius said.

Ford typed,
Tell me all about yourself
. He could feel Kate leaning over behind him, watching him work.

I can no more explain to you who I am than you could explain to a beetle who you are
.

“Rae?” Hazelius asked. “Are you getting it?”

“I’m trolling.”

Try anyway
, Ford wrote.

I will explain instead why you cannot understand me
.

“George,” said Hazelius, “are you following this?”

“I am,” said Innes, delighted to be consulted. “It’s clever—telling us we won’t understand is a way of avoiding being tripped up by detail.”

Go ahead
, typed Ford.

You inhabit a world scaled midway between the Planck length and the diameter of the universe
.

“Seems to be a bot program,” said Edelstein, examining the output on a screen. “It copies itself to another location, erases the original and covers its tracks.”

“Yeah,” said Chen, “and I’ve got a bunch of hungry bot-wolves roaming Isabella, looking for it.”

Your brain was exquisitely fine-tuned to manipulate your world—not to comprehend its fundamental reality. You evolved to throw rocks, not quarks
.

“I’m on its trail!” Chen cried. She hunched over the keyboard, like a chef over a hot stove, working maniacally. Code was racing by on four flat panels in front of her.

“Main computer’s crashing,” said Edelstein calmly. “Switching control of Isabella over to the backup servers.”

As a result of your evolution, you see the world in fundamentally erroneous ways. For example, you believe yourselves to occupy a three-dimensional space in which separate objects trace smoothly predictable arcs marked by something you call time. This is what you call reality
.

“Switchover complete.”

“Cut the power to the main computer.”

“Wait,” said Dolby sharply. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“We want to make sure the malware isn’t in there. Pull the plug, Alan.”

Edelstein smiled coldly and turned back to the computer.

“Jesus Christ, wait—!” Dolby leapt up, but it was too late.

“Done,” Edelstein said, with a sharp rap on the keyboard.

Half the peripheral screens went blank. Dolby stood, swaying, uncertain. A moment went by. Nothing happened. Isabella continued to hum along.

“It worked,” said Edelstein. “Ken, you can relax.”

Dolby flashed him an annoyed look and settled back down to his workstation.

Are you saying
, Ford typed,
that our reality is an illusion
?

Yes. Natural selection has given you the illusion that you understand fundamental reality. But you do not. How could you? Do beetles understand fundamental reality? Do chimpanzees? You are an animal like them. You evolved like them, you reproduce like them, you have the same basic neural structures. You differ from the chimpanzee by a mere two hundred genes. How could that minuscule difference enable you to comprehend the universe when the chimpanzee cannot even comprehend a grain of sand?

“I swear,” Chen cried, “the data’s streaming out of CZero again!”

“Impossible,” said Hazelius. “The malware’s hiding in a detector. Force-quit and restart the detector processors, one at a time.”