The Filter Trap (47 page)

“That’s the answer!” Jill exclaimed, interrupting the narration. “Fermi’s Paradox. If all other intelligent life is kept too far away for their signals to reach us, we’d never see them. And the Great Filter before that is nuclear proliferation, just as many on Earth have proposed.”

“The nuclear apocalypse,” Lee said. “Dr. Strangelove.”

“Yes,” the tardigrade confirmed.
“Self-annihilation seems to be a consequence of burgeoning intelligence for tool-using species.”

“Meaning if we evolved under water things would be different?” Amanda asked.

“In general, yes. There are millions of planets without significant land mass that have evolved highly intelligent life under water, and have escaped apocalypse and the Elders’ quarantine.”

“Douglas Adams was right,” Lee whispered.

“So we’re in a prison for intelligent apes?” Amanda asked.

“Intelligent anything that transmits radio waves,” the tardigrade said. “Even us.”

“But how? We just saw you build a ship, manipulate matter like a God!” Amanda asked.

“With that power comes great risk. The Elders now know that one of us is space-borne again.”

“You were hiding back there, weren’t you?” Kam surmised.

“Yes, after the Elders used our own communication methods to find intelligent life to quarantine, most of us went into hiding. When the Elders realized we could be a threat, they attempted to destroy those they could find.”

“But why help us escape? Why show yourself now?”

“We show ourselves when new intelligence presents itself. In a way, the Elders have made our task easier, by pooling you all and bringing intelligent life
to
us.”

“What is that task, exactly?” Amanda asked.

“The Choice.”

“Yes, we were hoping you would explain that . . .” Jill said, frustrated.

“We will, now that we’re in range of your leaders. This is not a decision to be made in a vacuum.”

Their avatars looked back and forth.

“In a vacuum?” the tardigrade said again, gesturing its tiny hands around for emphasis.

“We usually don’t make puns when deciding the fate of our species,” Jill explained.

“Like I said before, we just need to work on your comedic timing,” Lee said. “That’s half the funny.”

“We still have much to learn about you,” the tardigrade said. “This is why you will explain the Choice to your leaders in your own words.”

“What choice!” the four humans asked in exasperation.

“To be the death of nothing, or everything.”

“Very descriptive,” Lee said.

“I thought you did not joke at times like this,” the tardigrade asked, confused.

“We’ll teach you about sarcasm later.”

“We will look forward to it, if we meet with you again
.”

“Again?” they asked. “Where are you going?”

“We are meeting, not far from here. Your choices soon will determine not just your own species’ fate, but possibly ours and every other living thing in the galaxy. You see, the Elders are on the verge of the second singularity now. Their deliberations about new intelligences have slowed. What normally would have been a quick decision, whether to wipe you out or quarantine, took twenty years in your case. No more than an instant for a species with practical immortality, but that delay means their mind is on something else. And when one has the mind of God at their disposal, being distracted can only mean one thing.”

The humans looked lost, so the tardigrade continued.

“The Elders are millions of years ahead of you in technological development, but they still have a problem of scale, of some of the universal constants that even you have discovered. They already exist as a substrate on the continuum of matter in the universe, energy quantized across all other matter. That allows them to be nearly anywhere superficially by tapping quantum mechanics, specifically the nonlocality bonds in tandem quarks. It took them a billion years, but they were able to propagate enough quarks throughout the universe to enable them to create matter via quantum tunneling in any solar system. Their ability to parse data, however, is boundless, untied to matter, but rather the building blocks of reality itself.

“However, as your own scientists have speculated, there are limits to the universe. Matter itself is not the dominant property in the universe, but rather the lack of it. The universe is virtually empty, and all matter is pushing ever farther apart at a faster rate. My species has never approached the edge; it still recedes too far and too fast, but where our minds may go, the Elder beings may go. If the universe is indeed a temporary illusion state of a physical equation on the edges, we may all collapse if a species were to find that equation and move beyond its constraints.”

“What?” Lee asked.

“Holographic Universe Model,” Jill gasped. “It’s real.”

“It
may
be real,” the tardigrade corrected her.
“The Elders are intent on proving it. If they do, they will attempt to collapse matter into a new singularity, a one-dimensional point, and sidestep this universe entirely.”

“I still don’t get it,” Lee said. “The universe is a hologram. We’re in a computer game? So what?”

“So what do you think happens when somebody else wins the game before we do?” Kam said.

“What is this choice you’re gonna give us? What power?” asked Amanda.

“To crash the computer.”

Deep in the water, under six miles of hydrogen and oxygen, live things that don’t need sunlight. The great cold deep opened up again, molten earth spewing energy and heat, the spark of life where the rays of a star can’t reach. Natalie wondered if they noticed.

Had news that the old Sun had left carried along with the heat trapped under the waves? Life there existed in antithesis to life anywhere, even life in space. Until yesterday, Natalie had no idea anything could survive in space, but now it seemed easier than down there, six miles below the plane she sat in and six miles again to the bottom.

‘Life persists,’ she thought. ‘Most often in unexpected ways. The easiest way to ensure survival is unpredictability.’

She certainly didn’t expect an invitation into United States restricted airspace. Not after hacking half of Asia’s radio towers and sending hypnotic signals to spread the instructions to the rest of the world. Natalie had birthed the most successful virus since the common cold, but nobody knew just what for yet. That was up to the architects of the virus, and they weren’t here.

She begrudgingly accepted maybe she wasn’t going crazy when her brief stay at police headquarters in Jeokseon-dong ended with a radio call from the American Secretary of State, on radio towers she’d opened up.

For all the tardigrades didn’t understand about humanity, they understood motivation. Her love for Kam opened the lines of communication that now extended across the globe. The patch that opened the relays dug deeper into the floundering hubs of the Internet. The planet’s communications had coalesced into one central chain that was everywhere and nowhere at once. More importantly, the message broadcast included subvocal conditioning, to accept the perpetrator of the take-over, Natalie Cho.

Before the Event, a global communications hack like this, no matter the reason, would have resulted in life without parole in a dungeon at best, public execution at worst. The Secretary of State hurriedly told her they wanted her at the control room when Kam entered range. Her own viral message, which Natalie could not hear from the confines of her jail cell, told everyone else that Kam and the other three Americans would be in Earth’s orbit again in less than three days.

She’d use half a day just getting to Colorado, but it would be worth it. Something told Natalie that Kam wouldn’t be coming home, at least not yet. He was destined for something greater.

She was sure the plans the tardigrade had for her would be nothing compared to his mission. The message the world heard, of course, only hinted at this. She read it over; it was reassuring and troubling at the same time. Humanity would have a friend for the end of the world.

“In forty hours, depending on earthbound location, the four humans captured by the bearantulas will return to orbit. Your communications networks have been superseded by a sentient alien species, not either of the two you have observed after the Earth was moved to this solar system.

“We intend to offer you a choice, something that may bring finality and hope to your people. Prepare your governments now to make a decision about what you will do. Upon arrival in Earth orbit, Kam Douglass, Jill Tarmor, Lee Green, and Amanda Silversun will be the emissaries of this mission; the ambassadors for our kind and the power we are prepared to grant you.

“As a token of our benevolence and to engender good faith, please note that your communications networks have been restored by the radio patch coded by Natalie Cho originating in Seoul South Korea. Please use them to prepare as necessary. Your planet must decide together when the time comes.”

‘As usual,’ Natalie thought, ‘big ideas, few answers.’

She hadn’t heard a peep from the other voice in her head since she’d taken the VR helmet off in the server room. It left her to deal with the sirens, the swarms of police, and the ensuing media outcry alone.

But as soon as the message and its hidden undercurrent swept through every radio transmitter and Internet-connected device, she moved from Hitler to hero. She wasn’t sure which role she was better prepared for. The Americans were going to want answers, she knew that, but she didn’t know what they’d do when she couldn’t give them any.

“I can understand Kam’s motivation to come home now,” Pith joked as he shook Natalie’s hand. She struggled to ignore the veiled insult. She was much more than a pretty face, and she thought the entire world knew that now.

“Kam’s mission, as I understand it, is going to help all of us,” she replied. “Not just me.”

“I meant it more as a compliment to him, than an insult to you. You’re a hell of a lot more pleasant than that Doctor Tarmor that was making googly eyes at him before they got captured.”

The look on her face must have been transparent.

“Oh don’t worry, whatever little love triangle they had going is long gone now.”

Natalie’s mind scattered. That name, in the radio message: Jill Tarmor. Kam had never been forthcoming about previous relationships. Given that theirs never technically had time to flourish, Natalie never got to ask those awkward questions. Pith assumed she knew about this Jill already, but knew what? Had they slept together? Were they still sleeping together? Had she flown back to America in this time of greatest crisis only to be reverse-cuckolded by this man that she perhaps barely really knew at all? If the tardigrade could read their minds, why didn’t it say anything about this?

“Are you okay, miss?” Pith asked, grabbing her arm.

“I’m fine!”

Her questions for Kam would be different than the rest of the Earth’s.

Pith led her from her plane to a waiting black military vehicle, heavily armored and flanked by other smaller, conspicuous gunned trucks. The entourage rolled through the night on highways that seemed abandoned, leading up into the Rocky Mountains, west of Denver. As the hills soared, the windows dimmed.

“As if I’d know where I was anyway,” she said sarcastically.

“Same protocol for everyone, ma’am,” a soldier riding behind her stated flatly.

“You’re about to be within a hundred feet of the president,” Pith reminded her. “We don’t want any ICBMs to be able to guess that within fifty miles.”

“I don’t have any friends with ICBMs.”

“It seems you got plenty of more powerful friends now. Just be glad we’re on the same side.”

“I get the feeling there is no side, General.”

He harrumphed and said little the rest of the way.

After two hours the vehicle stopped. They emerged into a well-lit and heavily fortified underground garage. Pith and the soldiers walked Natalie down an endless maze of corridors, each often displaying an LCD with a counter. She realized it was a countdown until Kam’s ship would slow in orbit and radio contact would be initiated.

Pith pointed at a door. “Six hours. You can sleep in that room there till I come for you.”

“You aren’t going to question me?”

“We’ve already got everything you told the cops in Seoul. Just get some sleep for now, we need you on your toes tomorrow. As the only other person to communicate with these other aliens, you’ll be our living polygraph if things get weird.”

After what she’d already gone through she could only imagine what “weird” might entail, but she saw no point in arguing; sleep on the plane had been impossible, her mind swirling with possibilities. The deprivation had caught up, and she gladly oozed into the small cot in the room no larger than her cell at Jeokseon-dong. Maybe this was all a dream and she’d wake up there again. It made more sense than the other possibilities she’d come up with.

A little over five hours later a soldier rapped on her door. Natalie had been back in the corporate office again in Seoul, compiling and checking code. In real life she used to end her days that way, her own version of meditation that her father could never understand. It was the one time of day that was off limits. Ostensibly for the company’s benefit, after all, a problem with the code caught in the wild could cost the company millions. They both knew that gift of time was her father’s small way of giving her back something of her own, in a world built and maintained by him.

They held that unspoken agreement until he died, and the first time her phone rang after 7pm it scared her more than the reports of the aliens landing in China. If her father was going to haunt her, that’s when and where he knew to find her.

It wasn’t her father, though, it was a reporter that spoofed her digital gatekeeper. Resources, both digital and real, spent tremendous effort to isolate Natalie Cho in a bubble away from the media after she returned to Seoul from America, the last Korean to do so.

The soldier had interrupted that quiet, now found only in her dreams, a second time.

“Let’s go, Miss Cho.”

It was a statement, not a question. He had a gun, but they all had guns. She wouldn’t have refused anyway, as excited to hear Kam’s voice as anyone. Sleeping on it helped her decide not to ask him about Doctor Tarmor, at least not with the American generals listening.

When they reached the control room it was clear it wouldn’t just be American generals listening, but the entire world. Screens filled the retrofitted amphitheater, some with locations of military assets, many more with faces of presidents and dignitaries.

No longer concerned with homegrown threats, the United States could pool everyone important in one room. Even the president and vice president sat in a box near the center, surrounded by advisors hurrying to and from nearby monitors.

To her surprise, the soldier guided Natalie to a seat directly behind that box. To her even further surprise, the president turned to shake her hand.

“You’re the young woman who set this all up, right?” his face betraying no emotion.

“I—yes, sir. That was me.”

“And I understand you know one of the Americans on that ship,” he pointed at one of the big boards, showing a blip on the end of a big white curved line, approaching Earth from the smaller interiorly orbiting planet.

“Knowin’ in the biblical sense I think, sir” Pith’s voice lacquered the air between them as he appeared on the president’s right and put his big palm on Natalie’s shoulder.

She gritted her teeth, wanting to slap the general, but not in front of the American president.

“If that’s right, even better,” the president said. “You can tell us if it’s really him or not.”

“Or . . .
not
, sir?”

The president nodded gravely. “With what we’ve seen the past few weeks, I’m not convinced this isn’t an elaborate trick of some kind. Our folks sneak onto an alien ship, get trapped there and
another
alien decides to bring them back?

“Why didn’t this godlike alien just stop the whole thing from happening in the first place? I understand the other aliens were slaves. Why let that happen? It’s an awful lot of effort for just a few people. I’d never say that in public, you understand, but I’ve had to make decisions every hour since the Event that pit the future of the human race against the interests of individuals. It seems like our new ‘friends’ didn’t do that. I need to know why. My trust in them is going to rely on you and the general here.”

“Because he ‘knew’ the other three?” Natalie quipped and sent the general an evil glance.

“Not as well as you did,” Pith said. “But I had the advantage of a full psychological workup, which I’m sure you did on Kam in your own way-din’cha?”

“General.” The president put his hand up. “Whatever reason caused you and Doctor Douglass not to get along I need you to put it behind you.”

“Fine with me, sir, though I think I might have some competition for that position.”

“General!” the president fumed. “This is not Camp David! Do you see a cigar in my hand? If everything goes well today Miss Cho may have had a hand in saving our species—our planet—from . . . well from what we’re not even sure yet, but what’s happened so far has been bad enough. If you can’t live up to your rank I’ll take it away from you.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Pith looked down, then back up and saluted before twisting and walking away, a stiff toy soldier just moved to the back of the toy box.

“I apologize, Miss Cho,” the president said. “Ever since I cut funding for the F-35s, things have been testy between us. That was his baby, something he worked on before I even became a senator, let alone his boss.”

“Maybe he’s worried you’ll throw out the bathwater too,” Natalie said.

The president smiled politely. “The big clock says we only have a few minutes left. If you hear anything abnormal from Doctor Douglass, a crack in his voice, words he doesn’t normally use,
anything
, you tap my shoulder, okay?” The president looked left and right at his Secret Service detail, making sure they knew to let her do it if necessary.

The president didn’t wait for her to respond and she realized it wasn’t really a question. She nervously sat in the small chair in her box. The room buzzed with more activity as the big board got closer to zero, but things in her area, the nucleus, seemed to move like primordial magma.

The president conferred, and the military men gave orders, a slow-moving chromatin just around her. Beyond that, well-dressed men and women shuffled and in many cases ran back and forth, talking into headsets and connecting the last dignitaries to digitally arrive.