Post-Human Trilogy (55 page)

10

“Create God?” Katherine whispered, slowly shaking her head as if in a fantastic and incomprehensible dream. “If I were listening to anyone other than the three of you, I wouldn’t take that seriously. However, considering the source, I must ask you, have you all gone mad?”

“No,” James replied.

“No?” Katherine responded to James’s curt answer, and the perfect silence that had followed it from the trio surrounding her. “Have you considered the ramifications of creating a god? Have you considered how fundamentally that act would change all of our existences?”

“It wouldn’t be ‘a god,’” James returned. “It
would be God.
”

“For all intents and purposes,” Jim injected, trying to amend James’s frank assertion to smooth the divide. “If every atom in the universe could somehow become part of a singular computer,” Jim began, “then you’d essentially be creating an omnipotent being.”

“You’d be creating God,” James repeated. “It would be everywhere at once, part of everything at once, and capable of intelligence and imagination that we couldn’t possibly begin to fathom.”

For Katherine, to say these blunt assertions were terrifying would be a gross understatement. James had been her husband. Jim was, she thought, a new man. The A.I. had always been a mysterious force of nature for her, present yet invisible in the background of her life. All of them, she felt, were figures that were larger than her life. She was beginning to feel irrelevant; it was a feeling that seemed all too familiar to her. She loathed irrelevancy.

“Okay. So why is this ‘reversible’ thing so important?” she asked, struggling to keep her patience as the feeling that she was about to drown began to creep into the air around her, threatening to sweep into her mouth and nostrils, fill her lungs, and leave her fighting for breath.

“If the microscopic components of the computer are reversible, then so is the macroscopic operation of the computer,” James answered.

“Please!” Katherine shouted, stunning both James and Jim as the A.I., patiently looked on. “Please,” she repeated in a softer, more controlled tone before turning to Jim. “Jim, my love, please. Explain this to me without jargon. I’m not an idiot. I know I can understand.”

Jim, suddenly sensing Katherine’s vulnerability, stepped to her and put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, honey. I’ll explain it. It’s not that complicated.”

James watched this display of gentleness with sympathy. It must have been so difficult for her. While James would always fix his gaze on the biggest things he could find, the most complex and isolating challenges, his former wife would always have her attention fastened to other, more immediately tangible things. The two paths rarely met.

“If a computer is microscopically reversible, then it is maximally efficient,” Jim explained to her, “and that means there would be no energy dissipation, just like in the A.I.’s mainframe.”

Katherine’s eyebrows knitted as she walked on the cusp of understanding—James saw she needed only a simple nudge.

“It means this massive computer would require no energy,” James said with a smile.

“Oh my God,” Katherine said, finally fully comprehending what this meant. “If it doesn’t require any energy,” she said slowly, “then that means it really
could
be infinite. It could expand and take up the entire universe.”

“And perhaps, my dear,” the A.I. interjected, choosing to reenter the conversation, “it might expand into as-of-yet-undiscovered universes.”

“The initiation program could be relatively simple,” James observed. “The A.I. would be capable of writing it.”

“The game theory program already wrote it for us,” the A.I. replied.

“It’s a...” Katherine paused for a moment as she tried to think of a word grand enough to capture the moment—there was none—“it’s an unbelievable notion. I admit it. But just because the three of you
can
make this happen doesn’t mean you
should
make it happen. A being like that...might kill us all.”

“Why would it do that?” Jim replied, smiling reassuringly as though comforting a child scared of the Bogeyman.

“Don’t talk like that,” Katherine reacted, suddenly becoming rigid and pulling away from Jim. “Don’t just dismiss the possibility! What if it did kill us all? Do you realize the madness of creating a being more powerful and intelligent than you? Have you learned nothing?” She turned to the A.I., addressing him directly: “I mean no disrespect, but creating you has led to...” she paused and looked at her surroundings—the blackness and circuitry that had been her home—and her prison—for the past year and a half, “...all of this. It’s a mistake to create a superior being. A superior, competing species will always stamp out the weaker, inferior one.”

“Honey,” Jim began in a gentle tone, reaching for Katherine as his eyes moved apologetically to the A.I., “I don’t think that’s entirely fair. He isn’t the one who turned on us. It was the nans.”

“
He
helped to create the nans,” Katherine retorted. “
He
made them that sophisticated. They were only able to turn against us because
he
made them so powerful.”

“That was the alien nanotech influence,” Jim replied. “They didn’t turn on us by themselves.”

“However,” the A.I. began, “I did fail in my responsibility to provide security,” he conceded.

“It’s not your fault,” said Jim. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I could have known.” the A.I. replied. “However, I simply did not look in the right direction.” The A.I. stopped for a moment, as though even he had to pause while comprehending the horror that had befallen the human race. “Alas, this is the ever-present danger of progress. We must always be realistic and wary of the dangers. Katherine is quite right: the being we are considering bringing into existence could, conceivably, be hostile.”

Both James and Jim were momentarily at a loss, surprised that the A.I. had seemingly sided with Katherine’s logic. “Finally,” Katherine said, breathing a sigh of relief, “some sanity.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that we not move ahead with this?” James asked the A.I.

“I am merely stating the truth,” the A.I. replied. “We cannot be blind to the dangers.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” asked Jim.

“What humanity has always done,” answered the A.I. “We will try our best.”

“
We?
” Katherine reacted to the A.I.’s unexpected inclusion of itself under the umbrella of humanity. “Excuse me for a second here, but aren’t
you
a computer?”

“Yes, I am,” the A.I. replied, “and I do not think of myself as a human being, if that is what troubles you.”

“If you don’t consider yourself human, then why the ‘we’?” Katherine asked.

The A.I. smiled patiently. “The term ‘human’ is a biological one. I am clearly not biological and, therefore, cannot be human, though the term itself is irrelevant. What I am, however, is an extension of human intelligence.”

“And therefore not a competing species,” James said, demonstrating his comprehension of the A.I.’s logic.

The A.I. nodded. “Hopefully, the omnipotent intelligence we are considering birthing will view itself in the same way—as an extension of humanity rather than as competition for it.”

“That’s not a gamble I’m willing to take,” Katherine struck back. “If you try create this thing,” she said, addressing all of them but saving her hardest stare for Jim, “I’ll do everything in my power to stop you.”

“What do you think gives you that right?” James interceded.

“What gives you?” Katherine snapped back.

“May I suggest a compromise?” the A.I. began in a radiating wisdom. “I suggest we put our newfound technology to a smaller-scale test that will allow us to successfully deal with the present crisis.”

“And how will that work exactly?” Katherine asked in a tone tinged with suspicion.

“If we initiate the program, which I have codenamed
Trans-Human
, here in our solar system with a powerful enough kick start, then we can immediately use it to reverse the informational processes that have taken place over the last twenty-four hours.”

Katherine’s breath was immediately stolen from her lungs when she heard the suggestion. Were such miracles truly possible? Was the trinity surrounding her really that powerful?

“And how do we get a kickstart that big?” James asked. “Only the sun could possibly have that much initial energy.”

“Correct, James.”

“We’d need to construct a device for releasing the sun’s potential,” James continued as he worked out the equations roughly in his mind.

At that very moment, Jim was doing the exact same thing. “An anti-matter device is the only thing I can think of that would generate that kind of reaction,” he observed. “But how could we get our hands on anti-matter in quantities that high?”

“Fortunately, that has already been taken care of for us,” replied the A.I. “At this very moment, the androids are embarking on a mission to destroy the sun and vaporize the solar system in an attempt to destroy the nans...and they are using an anti-matter missile to do it.”

11

Old-timer gazed through the see-through skin of the android ship’s hull. The storm of nans formed a pillar that was more than a light minute in height. It looked like a beautiful celestial gas formation, the sun gleaming off one side while the other side cast an unnatural night—on the dark side was hell. That was where the nans were slashing and tearing through the android collective. Every second, a million people died a meaningless, agonizing death. The pillar was so massive that it appeared like a still painting—but as Old-timer remained fixed upon it, he could see it change ever so subtly, the way golden clouds would shift above him as he lay on his back on the beach at Corpus Christi. Every subtle change in the shape of the nan cloud, however, indicated a vicious shift in the microscopic attack against the androids. Anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end had no chance. One’s only hope was that the nanobots didn’t come their way.

“Three minutes until departure,” Neirbo announced in his typically gravelly and monotone voice. In addition to Neirbo, there were seven other androids onboard. Old-timer immediately thought of Neirbo’s explanation for why Alejandra had sensed such terrible danger when she entered the torture room with him—he sensed something similar.

“They fixed my face up fine,” Rich said suddenly, putting his hand on Old-timer’s back in a gesture of reconciliation.

“Looks good,” Old-timer replied. He thought of forcing a smile but couldn’t will it to happen.

“No hard feelings, right?” Rich asked.

“Of course not,” Old-timer answered. “Never.”

“Good,” Rich said with a nod. He followed Old-timer’s eye line and observed the nan cloud—it had shifted from the form of a pillar into something resembling a mushroom cloud. “I hate those things.”

Old-timer didn’t react. He felt numb. Something was seriously wrong.

“Hey,” Rich began, sensing his friend’s torment, “this is our chance to get at least some payback. I’m going to miss our home too, but those little freaks have already taken it from us. The least we can do is give them a receipt.”

Old-timer didn’t respond.

Rich, expecting, at the very least, some sort of retort, suddenly began to feel Old-timer’s dread. “Are you going to be okay?”

Old-timer took his eyes off of the cloud and then turned slightly, scanning over the androids who were hovering over the anti-matter missile that had recently been lowered into position. “Rich,” Old-timer whispered, “keep your eyes peeled.”

12

“We have to hurry,” Jim said in reaction to the A.I.’s revelation that time was now, at once, both their only friend and their worst enemy.

“I have one more question first,” James announced, stopping Jim in his tracks. James turned to the A.I. “If you have Jim here, who has all of my abilities, why did you have to wait for my arrival to put your plan into action?”

“The reason is because, my son,” the A.I. began, “like me, you were deleted while occupying the operator’s position in the mainframe. The reversible side of the mainframe does have some limitations, and one of those is that one cannot transcend their position at the time of deletion. Jim cannot access control of the mainframe, while you, on the other hand, can.”

“There can be two operators at once?”

“Yes,” the A.I. responded, “and our plan requires that there be two beings in control of the Trans-Human program at its inception.”

“Why two?” Jim asked.

“The detonation of the anti-matter missile, in combination with the Trans-Human program, will initiate a paradox chain reaction. At first, it will be the universe’s greatest and most efficient computer, and one of us must physically be there to run the program. This, of course, will require that you be simultaneously linked to the mainframe.”

“And what’s your part in this?” James asked.

“I’ll remain here. I will ask Trans-Human to reverse itself and, once the reversal begins, I will be encapsulated in a firewall that will remain in our current time,” the A.I. explained. “Remember, we are running time backward, so after the detonation, the blast radius will suck the solar system into the past. You’ll physically be too close to the explosion to escape it. You’re going to go back in time as well, and your consciousness will not be able to exist in both time frames at once.”

“What if you came with me and we terminated the signal and used Death’s Counterfeit to abandon our physical bodies and return to the mainframe?” James suggested.

“The blast will have so much initial force that it's almost certain that our signals would be caught in the wake and we would both end up caught in the time warp.
This must not happen
. If we successfully run time backward and no one remains protected against its effects, then we will be doomed to simply repeat the same errors.”

“Will Jim and I be protected too?” Katherine asked.

“Yes,” the A.I. replied. “Everything in the reversed mainframe will be protected by the firewall and will remain in our current time.”

James nodded. “I understand now. It’ll take teamwork.”

“It will take trust,” the A.I. echoed.

“So what do you say now, James?” asked Jim. “Are you onboard?”

James took a moment to think it over. Everything the A.I. had said made sense, yet James had been wrong in his judgments before. If this really was the A.I. and not a ruse, there was still the chance that it was simply trying to take control of the solar system for itself.

“This is the part where you use your reason, my son,” said the A.I.

James nodded. “I don’t really have a choice. If I help you and you’re deceiving me, I could lose everyone I’ve ever loved or cared about and die myself. If I do nothing, I’m guaranteed to lose everyone.” James sighed a heavy sigh, the weight of the world sitting on his shoulders again. “So I’ll have to trust that you’re not deceiving me. Okay, I’m on board.”

Jim smiled a wide grin as an equally happy expression painted itself across the A.I.’s countenance.

“There is one more thing,” the A.I. suddenly interjected.

“What’s that?” asked James.

“If you are going to be physically going on a mission to intercept the anti-matter missile, you are going to need a new body—one powerful enough to do the job.”