Immortality (76 page)

“Gentlemen, we are not completely in the dark,” said McKafferty. “We do have some indications of what will happen when this nanotech monstrosity is destroyed. We have isolated people from the machine, using aircraft. You are isolated from it right now at twenty thousand feet. Have your mental functions declined? Are you dying or retarded? Of course not… Nothing happened to you when you lifted off in your jets and lost contact with the super colony. Nothing, that is, except you are now safe from kill zones and safe from any repercussions from attacks we initiate. By nuking this threat, we will cause nothing more than what you experienced when your jets lifted off. We will yank this nanotech beast’s plug from the wall and free all of mankind from its clutches, and no one will feel a thing. Could I be wrong? Yes, I am the first person to admit the possibility. Could Freedman’s doomsday prediction of instant death come to pass? Yes, it could; but we must take that risk. Gentlemen, I would rather die a free man, defending my country than live as a slave under some machine, which is exactly what will happen if we do what Freedman suggests!”

McKafferty moved away from the video camera, leaving his battle plan visible on split screen. He took his seat. He folded his hands. He tried to look as calm as possible. His temples were thumping with every beat of his heart. The room was silent. He had just given the speech of his life. He had done the right thing and done all he could. His wife would be proud of him. His children would be proud of him. The decision was now in higher hands.

“Thank you, General,” said the President. “I am seriously considering your recommendations for nuclear attack and I am inclined to agree.”

“Mr. President!” shouted Chief of Staff Martin Ross.

“Calm yourself, Martin,” said the President. “I will consider all opinions presented today. I have not made up my mind. I will reach a decision within twenty-four hours. Now I want recommendations about what to do with Professor Freedman and this woman Sarah Mayfair. If they have been taken over…”

Mark woke up out of god-machine-conjured nightmares and saw Kathy awake and staring out the office windows. Today was the day they were leaving. Kathy had prescribed sleeping pills to try to give him a full night’s rest. He’d been having difficulty sleeping for days. The cause was more than insomnia and nightmares; his body just didn’t seem to need sleep anymore.

Kathy was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. They’d finished preparing to leave last night, before going to bed. A pair of bags were packed and standing in the middle of the floor. A kitty cage with its door open was next to the bags. They were both leaving much of what they owned behind, partly out of necessity, but also out of realization that their lives, going forward, would be utterly different than what their lives had been; and that most of their possessions from their past would be of little use in their future.

Mark silently watched Kathy for a long time. She didn’t know he was awake. The sun was streaming in the window and shining on her face. She was perfectly motionless, staring off into space. There was a sound out in the hallway. She turned and saw Mark. She smiled at him with dampness in her eyes that he hadn’t seen. She’d been crying. For an instant, he was overwhelmed by a thought coming so clearly from her like a single musical note of sorrow. This was the first time he had ever perceived her thoughts, and maybe would be the only time; and she was imagining what it would be like to lose him. They were heading out today toward an unknown future. With all that could go wrong, with all the sacrifices that might be demanded, her only worry was of losing him. Mark’s heart was breaking. The end wouldn’t happen like that. She wasn’t going to lose him. More likely, he would be the one losing her. His potential lifespan was now far greater than hers. If she chose not to take the next step, then someday he would be alone. He got up and hugged her with all the emotions that were inside him.

“Are you ready?” he finally asked.

“I think so.”

The exodus had been scheduled with the motor pool as a field expedition into Atlanta to conduct hospital site surveys. Mark and Sarah had been left off the roster. The excuse for the expedition was a little implausible, but apparently few of the remaining soldiers really cared. Morale had fallen in the military just as it had in the civilian sector. Some soldiers had taken bribes to allow people to leave with Humvees and other equipment they didn’t own. Mark and Kathy walked into Carl’s office.

“Are we all set?” asked Mark.

“There are twenty-nine people waiting down by the Humvees,” said Carl. “Sarah is unaccounted for. No one’s seen her and her dog’s missing too.”

“Don’t worry about Sarah,” said Mark. “She’ll be there.”

There were seven light-armored military Humvees lined up in rows by the curb. They had been requisitioned for the field trip. Everyone had agreed to limit personal items. Dragging a long procession of suitcases out to the trucks would arouse suspicion as well as limit space for more important items like food and medical supplies. Carl had made arrangements to meet up with an old friend of his, a major in the National Guard and the commanding officer of a base on the outskirts of Atlanta. They’d get fully supplied for the exodus there. Major Franklin had a collection of fully provisioned trailers ready to be hooked up to the Humvees. The Major and his family were coming along for the ride.

Mark, Kathy, and Carl climbed up into the lead Humvee. Mark was hit with memories of the last time he had been inside one of these vehicles. It had been in Los Angeles a lifetime ago. Other people were loading up the vehicles behind them. He and Kathy were in the back seat; Carl was in front. The passenger seat was empty.

“I’m getting worried about Sarah,” said Carl. “She may have decided to go on her own. She was a loner before she came to Atlanta.”

“She’ll be here,” said Mark. “She’s walking up behind us right now. Turn around.”

Kathy and Carl both turned around. Mark smiled and continued to look straight ahead. He knew what they were seeing. Sarah and Ralph were walking up the driveway toward them. She was dressed in a black sweatshirt with a thin bulletproof vest hidden underneath, a baseball cap with a police logo, and a backpack. He’d just experienced memories containing all of this and far more from Sarah. There were hours of her life compressed into the sphere which had just blossomed in his mind. He had memories of her turning before a mirror in a bulletproof vest adjusting the straps, of her standing up after sitting in a field of damp grass, of her walking through the woods back to the CDC facility. The last part of the memory capsule was of her seeing the line of Humvees. Mark felt the tailgate of the Humvee open and heard Sarah talking to Ralph.

“Come on, boy,” said Sarah. “Sorry about the crummy accommodations. I know you hate cats, but this beats walking; and they are behind bars. Keep an eye on ’em.”

There was a soft bark. A moment later, Sarah climbed into the passenger seat and buckled up. She looked tranquil and alert, no smile and no frown. She had a very business-like presence for the moment. Carl punched up directions for the first leg of the trip on the GPS. Mark remembered a line out of a book from his youth.

“Every journey begins with the first step,” he said.

This exodus was clearly a first step, but there had been so many other first steps all chained together and unbreakably leading to this single moment. There was the step that led him to discover COBIC so many years ago, the step that originally brought him from California to the CDC, the step when he’d discovered nanotech seeds, and the step which had changed him into something that was physically no longer what some people would consider human.

“My first step was this morning when I woke up,” said Sarah. “I don’t believe in the past anymore.”

“Show me your hand,” said Carl.

Sarah held up her palm. There was a nasty looking pink scar that appeared to be fully healed over. Mark saw that the gash was knitting itself together even faster than he would have expected. That single scar held almost spiritual significance for him. It had convinced twenty-nine people to trust him with their lives.

“That’s a future I believe in,” said Carl.

~

They’d been on the road for an hour. At first, they’d headed northeast toward Atlanta. Once they were halfway into the city, they’d left the highway, reversed direction and were now heading southwest on surface roads. The plan was to make it difficult for anyone following their trail. All the military two-way radios built into the Humvees had been turned off and the antennas unplugged, just to make sure. Everyone had been warned not to bring cell phones, wireless PC tablets, or any other electronics that might give up their position. Few people on the streets paid any attention to the small caravan of Humvees. Military vehicles were a common sight these days; and the drivers did everything possible to not standout. No one had said anything for some time. The only sounds were the rattling of the Humvee as it went through pot holes.

“I was inside Alexander body,” said Sarah breaking the silence. “That’s why I was late. I was in the woods behind the CDC where it was quiet and easier to concentrate. At first I didn’t think I was going to succeed at crawling into his skin; most of the time the remote vision – or whatever it is – just refuses to focus in, but I keep trying. I had to find out if he was sensing our escape. I think he knows something has changed, but he doesn’t know what. He was agitated.”

“Maybe he felt you inside him and that’s why he was agitated,” said Mark.

“I don’t know, maybe, but at some point, he’ll learn we’ve slipped through his fingers. I heard him talking to some of his men. It sounded like he was frustrated waiting for the kill zone to hit the CDC. He thinks it could still be days, but he’s not sure. He’s just sitting and waiting somewhere at the outskirts of Atlanta. It’s creepy. I had no idea he was that close. He knows he can’t risk attacking until the kill zone hits. If his army’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, then he could lose all his fighters in a single kill zone.”

“We know he’s subliminally accessing the interface,” said Mark. “Look at what he’s managed to do just from it leaking into his dreams. It would be a disaster if he discovers how to restructure the interface and gains control.”

“They’re all against us,” said Sarah. “Every one of them… Some think we’re spies, others think we caused the plague. Some of them even believe we’re trying to start a new race of people to replace them.”

Carl looked away from the road for a moment and stared at Sarah. He seemed startled by what she’d said. Maybe the human race will be replaced, thought Mark. Maybe no matter what anyone did to disrupt the god-machine’s plans, the struggle would all end with the last homo sapien drawing its last breath a year from now, or centuries from now, as some new race inherits the Earth. Hybrids like him and Sarah could be transitional links to that new race. There were compelling reasons to believe that the next evolutionary step for mankind would be a hybrid of human and machine. Mankind had been going in that direction for decades with artificial body parts, and before that with powered machines, and before that with hand tools. Humans had always been machine augmented in one way or another; and always carried the nanotech inside without knowing it. Mankind had been part of the ultimate machine and never used it. The next step would be conscious integration of man and machine, but that integration was only a small part of the changes to come. Mark had cured himself of diabetes. He had no illusions that the cure had been accomplished in any way other than changes to his DNA. Just as he’d genetically engineered bacteria in his Los Angeles lab to produce new designer species of bacteria, the nanotech seeds had meddled with his genes in some way to produce a new designer human, one that was free of diabetes. Was mankind evolving into a self-modifying species with self-modifying genes? Was this exodus nothing more than a small collection of half-human seeds being cast into fertile soil?

After five days of relentless and uneventful travel, they had found their first enjoyable place to stay overnight, a deserted mall with underground parking. Electrical power was still working and so were the lights. Kathy had gone off to the far side of the garage for some privacy which had become a precious commodity since they’d set out from the CDC. She was sitting on steps which led up to a mall entrance. The vehicles and trailers were parked in a circle in the center of the first floor of the garage. They parked in the same way every night. The circle was a wall of armored protection in case of attack. A group of people were talking within the center of the ring of Humvees. She heard Mark’s voice and put down her journal for a moment and listened. He had changed on this journey. There was an aura of wisdom that surrounded him. He’d never shouldered life and death responsibilities on this scale before, but he was now their leader and he was carrying it well. He was growing into the role with a natural ease. Everything he did felt evenhanded and wise. She could still see mild surprise register in his eyes when his smallest suggestions were followed without hesitation. Their tiny band of travelers, their tribe as Kathy thought of them, was quickly growing to love and respect the man she loved.

Kathy opened her journal and found the page she was working on. She’d started keeping the journal after the first night on the road. She felt it was her contribution to the exodus. For days, they had traveled west on small roads, avoiding all highways because their limited access carried risks of ambush and naked exposure to anyone looking down from the sky. Their path was often diverted long distances north or south to avoid places kill zones had previously hit. The confusing routes also served another purpose; it made it difficult for anyone that might be in pursuit.

Since leaving the CDC, they’d camped overnight five times and always under some kind of cover. They had to keep their vehicles out of sight. Alexander was a concern, but the bigger worry at night was the government. If the military wanted them badly enough, then satellites and aircraft could be looking for them with infrared sensors. At night, the heat of their engines would standout as bright spots for hours after the Humvees were shutdown. Kathy remembered the satellite images Lieutenant Kateland had shown them. She could almost feel emotionless mechanical eyes looking down, even now. They had to be careful. It truly felt as if they were being hunted.