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“And you’ve discussed this with other experts on your team?” said Dutton

Griffin nodded.

“And they think it will work?”

Griffin grinned. “No freaking way. They think it’s impossible. Beyond impossible. Except they’ve been getting used to me
doing
the impossible, so they aren’t so sure. And Super-Matt has already done the programming. So it’s all ready. We just need access to the Matrix.”

“I’ll get you access to the U.S. version,” said Dutton. “I’ll have it ready for you within the hour.”

Griffin shook his head. “Let’s go with four hours from now. The last time I took a gellcap I calculated that three hours from now was the earliest I could go under again and survive. There are limits to how often you can do this, and I’ve been testing them. As it is, it’s going to take me a month to recover.”

“Okay, four hours from now,” agreed Dutton. “How fast until you get results?”

“How fast is the computer that runs your Matrix program? On the fastest desktop,” explained Griffin, “we’re probably looking at years.”

 
Dutton and Jake glanced at each other questioningly. Neither had any idea.

Kolke shook his head in amusement. “Twenty petaflops,” he said matter-of-factly.

Griffin whistled. “
Now
we’re talking.” He paused in thought for several long seconds. “At that speed, I’d say we can get our answers in less than an hour. Maybe less than thirty minutes. But we need to boot everyone else off the system so we get the entire bandwidth. We’ll need to run the nanite through the simulation thousands of times or more to be sure we capture its programming holistically. I’ll run it with just my top lieutenants with me to analyze the results, which I can present across all shipboard channels. Let’s alert everyone on the
Copernicus
to stand by for new information in five and a half hours.”

“I admire your optimism,” said Dutton. “But you still don’t know if you can really do this.”

“True, but I never bet against Super-Matt,” said Griffin with a smile. “If he thinks we’ve laid enough groundwork, made enough breakthroughs, to give these nanites the Matrix experience, who am I to argue against him.”

“And has Super-Matt calculated the odds that the purpose of these nanites is positive rather than negative?” asked Jake.

“He has no idea,” said Griffin. “Personally, I’m hoping the nanites assemble into a quantum computer containing all the secrets of the cosmos.”

Jake nodded, and he forced out an anxious smile. “Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said with a sigh. “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” he added grimly.

52

David Desh and Morris Jacobson stood alertly outside the cabin door while the bearded giant within slumbered, trying to recover from the repeated abuses to which he had submitted his body and brain. Four other American men patrolled the corridors leading to this particular cabin, bodyguards for the most important person on earth who was about to undertake the most important task ever attempted—when he awoke from his catnap. And Andrew Dutton was arranging for Griffin’s sole use of a classified computer programmed with the most complete model of the real world ever built.

Desh had spent most of his time with the colonel since he had boarded. Jake’s job was to watch Desh and Icarus’s prized software genius, Matt Griffin. Desh’s job was to watch Matt as well, helping him in any way he could and making sure that he was safe from anyone with malicious intent, both inside or outside of Jake’s group of men. So in the final analysis, since both men’s job was to watch Matt,
and
each other, they spent most of their time together by unspoken agreement.

Desh had only spoken with Kira twice, using a borrowed cell phone, but each conversation had been brief and in his view, stilted. He needed to get to the bottom of what was going on back home: what she was involved with and how Ross Metzger fit in. Not knowing was eating at his psyche like a marauding colony of army ants, but there was too much happening for him to make any progress on that front, so his fears festered like an open sore.

Jake nodded at him. “I’ve had some of my people back in the States check out your story, like you asked.”

Desh raised his eyebrows. “And?”

“And it checks out. Adam Archibald disappeared, like you predicted, although given the condition of his yacht, he’s assumed drowned.”

“Go on.”

“After considerable digging, my people have verified that Archibald is the reincarnation of Eric Frey, a genetic engineer from USAMRIDD wanted for a lot of bad shit.” He shook his head. “They told me the identity switch was flawless. If they weren’t already tipped off that Archibald was really Eric Frey, they’d have never made the connection.”

“Ready to believe we aren’t the villains you think we are yet?”

Jake smiled. “Let’s just say my mind continues to be open to additional evidence. Your problem is that you and Kira are so creative and clever. And deceptive.”

Desh considered. “I get that,” he admitted. “You can never be certain you aren’t being played when dealing with someone of Kira’s capabilities.” He frowned. He knew the feeling well. “But I have every confidence if you keep digging you’ll find a truth that can’t be faked.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Jake simply.

“So back to Frey,” said Desh. “Can I assume you’re having people outside of your normal sphere take the next step?”

 
“The next step?”

“Come on, Colonel.”

Jake smiled sheepishly. “You’re right. Not sharing information gets so ingrained it becomes reflexive. Yes. I’m having someone I trust outside of my organization look for any communication or connection between Frey and any of my people. But since
you
gave me the heads up on this one, even if we find a connection we can’t know if it’s real.”

Desh sighed. “I know,” he muttered in frustration. “But keep digging. You’ll get to the bottom of it. At some point, you get to information that’s beyond even Kira’s ability to plant.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Jake for a second time. “I really do.”

53

Every monitor on the ship was tuned to Matt Griffin, broadcasting alone from his stateroom in front of a stationary camera. More than ten thousand
Copernicus
passengers looked on. Many in their own cabins, or gathered in dining rooms, nightclubs, restaurants, auditoriums, or theaters. Hundreds of passengers sat in the atrium-like park, gazing at the fifteen-foot screen Griffin had used when he had first came on board. Others watched on laptop and tablet computers from deck chairs overlooking the South Atlantic. But all had their eyes glued to the screen, wherever they happened to be.
         

Griffin looked haggard, as though he had aged a decade in the few days he had been on board. His continuous snack-food gluttony while on board had become almost as legendary as his genius, and rumors abounded that he either had the mother of all tapeworms, or else he was actually an alien himself.

A medic had attached him to a small, battery powered IV pump several hours earlier, since his enhanced mind had burned through glucose like rocket fuel, and he needed to become enhanced one last time, long before it was healthy to do so. The camera was in tight on his face so his left arm, with plastic tubing extending from a vein in his hand, was hidden from view.

“Time is short,” he began, his voice weak and his body language screaming total exhaustion. He had purposely scheduled the broadcast for after he had returned to normal, so the message wouldn’t be delivered by the arrogant, caustic version of himself. “So I’ll get right to it. Several members of the
Copernicus Nanite Team
just completed an analysis of data generated by tying nanites into a computer simulation—fooling them into revealing their future plans. I won’t go into technical details. Suffice it to say it was a success.

Griffin took a deep breath. “I wish I had better news, but I don’t. In a nutshell, the nanites have been programmed to replicate and spread until every square foot on the planet contains at least a few. A saturation level. I’m also afraid to say that they can detect uranium and plutonium from many miles away and migrate to it preferentially.” He paused for effect. “At a predetermined time, they will detonate enough nuclear bombs to end the vast majority of human life on this planet.”

Griffin paused, imagining the gasps from thousands of viewers and their horror stricken faces. He gave them only ten or fifteen seconds to digest this news and then forged ahead. “Members of my team are sending every official on this ship a copy of the software code and protocols used to tie the nanites into the simulation, which enabled us to reach this conclusion. I ask the representatives of the world’s governments assembled here to send these instructions back home, where your own people can run simulations, so there can be no doubt as to the veracity of our findings. All of you have access to nanites, of course. We used a very sophisticated model of the world, but you should get the same results on any supercomputer with even a modest simulation. I would also ask that any governments with access to free uranium or plutonium verify the nanites preference for these materials, as well.

 
“At time zero the nanites communicate and decide which warheads to blow, among thousands of different possible combinations. The goal seems to be to ensure worldwide radiation coverage and global initiation of nuclear winter using the fewest number of detonations.

“For any unfamiliar with the concept of nuclear winter, basically this is when so much smoke and soot are released into the atmosphere as a result of multiple nuclear blasts, that the sun is blotted out for extended periods of time, leading to catastrophic cooling.”

Griffin knew that in every corner of the great cruise ship, the esteemed passengers were being shaken to their cores, and he was glad he had decided to make the announcement alone so he could do it quickly and not have to pause as the audience reacted. “After detonating the bombs,” he continued, “the surviving nanites—those not directly in the blast zones—reproduce to saturation levels once again. And then they phone home—well, not exactly home, but I’ll go into that in a moment. We have no idea what message they are trying to send, but something like, ‘mission accomplished,’ wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

“After this the nanites differentiate. Some are designed to clean up radiation, and they multiply to fantastic levels to do so. Some are designed to seed the atmosphere—changing its composition, reducing the nitrogen and oxygen content and increasing argon, helium, and nitrous oxide to such an extent that the atmosphere becomes poisonous to the plant and animal life currently on Earth.”

Griffin paused, knowing this was another stunning revelation, but also that by now the news couldn’t get much worse, no matter what he said, and his audience was likely getting numb from repeated bombshells. “The nanites broadcast to space two more times, twenty-one and twenty-five years after the explosions. Conducting a sort of triangulation on their broadcasts, however, indicates they are transmitting to a large armada, traveling directly toward Earth, at near light-speed, in the same way as did their probe. While the armada is limited to light speed, judging from the timing and positioning of broadcasts, the broadcasts themselves are sent at speeds far beyond light, probably taking advantage of quantum entanglement in some way. The nanites act as though their messages reach the ships instantaneously, and I have no reason to doubt this.”

Griffin paused. “The bottom line is that the aliens sent their probe to terraform our planet—or rather to do the opposite, transform it into one conducive to
their
biology. To de-roach the hotel and make sure a chocolate mint is waiting on the pillow for their occupying force. They were clearly aware of the content of our atmosphere and the existence of our nuclear weapons. The chronology of events the aliens are apparently hoping will come to pass is as follows: the probe they send arrives and disgorges nanites. The nanites infect and detonate our nukes. The nanites then clean up the radiation and modify our atmosphere to fit their needs, which we calculate they will accomplish in approximately twenty-five years. Approximately nine years later—thirty-four years from now—the alien armada arrives to colonize a planet sanitized of life, and tuned to their biology.”

Matt Griffin took a deep breath. “After running thousands of simulations, we have pinpointed time zero with great precision,” he reported grimly. He glanced at his watch, swallowed hard, and then turned back to the camera. “The nanites are set to trigger Armageddon in a little over five hours from now.”

54

Kira had cancelled all activities. The Icarus team was effectively in limbo, but this didn’t matter. The entire world was doing little more than holding its breath at this point, waiting for someone in authority to tell them what was going on, what it all meant, what these alien machines were doing here.

The cold war had been psychologically taxing to people around the world. The terror war being waged by jihadists against all of modern civilization had also dramatically elevated the level of global stress. But nothing could compare to the fear, paranoia, and psychic fragility provoked by the alien nanites.

Kira had been through some pretty crazy and consequential months before, but never like this one. Nor had anyone, for that matter.

She had been entirely alone at headquarters before. Being the sole inhabitant of a building so extensive tended to magnify the feeling of isolation. But if she stayed in her and David’s quarters, she couldn’t tell she was anywhere other than a high-end apartment, other than the absence of a yard or deck, and she could ignore the unseen presence of conference rooms and labs just beyond the confines of her humble abode.

A mental image of David Desh and Matt Griffin jumped into her mind. David, rugged and insightful, decisive and competent. Matt, lovable and unpredictable. Never using a small word when a bigger one was available. What were they doing at this instant? She hadn’t heard from either one in almost twenty-four hours.