Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (12 page)

He went around the whole loop like that
:
f
ast
and fast and fast
. The feel of the pavement under his feet was exhilarating; it was solid and sure and steady, and he knew that time must be passing as it should.

He arrived back at his apartment building feeling invigorated. Not ready to go to sleep by any means, but not having a panic attack, either. He stopped briefly on the threshold and looked at the doorman. “How about you? How long have you worked here?”

This man – the night man – was not nervous at the question. “Third day,” he said simply.

Kevin thought he had been prepared for any answer. He thought he had been prepared for precisely
this
answer, and yet when the man spoke he felt a little chill pass through him.

It’s true. Someone actually cleared them all out. Cleared them out like the machines on the 20th floor, and brought in new guys.

“New guys who didn’t see a thing,” Kevin finished, out loud.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Have a good night. Morning. Whatever.”

He was careful not to make any noise coming in, not wanting to wake Andrew. The man would probably have jumped out of bed and offered him a drink of ice water if he had known Kevin had been out running. He closed the door to his own bedroom tightly before stepping into the shower.

There was a little digital clock in the bathroom underneath the mirror.

4:50.

He showered quickly
, and as he stepped out
he couldn’t help but notice in the mirror: he
had
lost weight. Not that he had been out of shape before, but still. Kevin shook his head. Whatever had been going on these last three months, it had clearly involved exercise.
Lots
of exercise. He hadn’t looked like this since college.

He turned the television on, careful to switch it away from the religion channel. He found another movie he knew by heart, and he turned the volume down to a level where he could just barely hear it.

4:55.

He sighed and stretched himself out on the bed, on top of the covers. He could tell there would be no point in trying to sleep.

4:56.

He would do better
today.
The answers would come.

His wor
k in the study had given him another
idea.

Notes On The Singularity

Daedalus Hilton, Scrubbing R&D for Agents, Feb 10, 2011.

Reprinted with permission.

Dept. of Homeland Security, U.S.A.

The technological singularity is a source of excitement for some and dread for others. What will happen after the singularity is by definition unknowable, and this unknowing, this fundamental uncertainty, is problematic. All of us would like to be optimists, but fear is the more natural response. It is the more
reflexive
response. Insecurity is like a gas: it expands to fill the space it is given. More space, more insecurity. And the unknown future that follows the singularit
y is a very large space indeed.

Growing Angry

At the same time that Kevin Brooks was coming to the end of his first long, sleepless night, preparations were ongoing in an apartment on Park Avenue just five blocks away. Jacob Savian preferred to begin his days very early. The Savian apartment was just as large as Kevin’s, but its layout was strikingly different. There were no hallways or servant’s quarters or living rooms. The entire place was a single gigantic living room; it looked like a downtown artist’s loft.

Jacob Savian liked space to breathe. Space to think.

Despite its resemblance to a studio, this apartment was closer in function to a machine shop. Jacob was a programmer and an inventor. His creations, which were the source of his wealth, were mostly ethereal; he designed software for problem-solving applications and language processors. All of it was artificial intelligence, and he still owned the patents. Each patent, in turn, had been leased under lucrative terms to the government.

There were physical things here as well: gene sequencers and miniature engines and super-efficient food-processing machines; prototypes for these and other, less-recognizable devices lined the walls of this huge room like exhibits in a poorly organized museum. There was no unifying theme other than that all the machines worked. And that all of them made Jacob piles of money every year.

There were paintings, too. These were hung up high on the walls, as though someone had wanted to keep them out of reach of the fearsome contraptions lower down. They were paintings of peace, of serenity: a scene of children playing in a park; a faraway shot of birds flying over the water; a mother holding out her arms to her child, the child running toward her.

Jacob had not created these pictures. They were the work of his younger brother, George.

Jacob was on the phone. On the computer, to be more precise. He had made the call at exactly 5 AM. He was sitting behind a desk that held three large computer screens. One of the screens showed an image of a man in black fatigues.

It was the Organizer.

“You have all the equipment?” Jacob said to the screen.

“Correct. Staffing is complete as well. Two vans in position, periodically swapping and rotating with two others.”

“Why so many?”

It was the same question Gun Two had asked. The Organizer had anticipated that his client might ask as well, and that he would likely not accept an elbow to the face in response. “Planner says for acclimatization. See them there every day, parked, coming, going, loading and unloading, and any security on duty will hesitate an extra two or even three seconds before responding to an actual event.”

Jacob nodded silently. He stared at the face on the screen closely, as if searching for a telltale twitch that might indicate indecision. Or weakness. He sat back in his chair and nodded again. Jacob Savian was a heavily-built man, and he had added to that natural bulk with years of sitting in a programmer’s chair and
with
poor nutrition, a steady diet of processed, packaged, and deeply-fried foods. Now, at 45 years old, he was wide enough and heavy enough to need custom-built furniture. All of which George had built for him. Jacob’s hair was an unkempt, unwashed mass of knotted brown ropes that, if worn by a teenager in a coffee shop, might have been called white-man dreadlocks. On Jacob, this style gave him the look of someone hiding under an ill-conceived wig. He wore a shapeless black shirt and pants to match, and his swollen feet were bare. There were few occasions on which he needed to go out.

Or even stand up.

He glared at the screen again. “Background checks?”

“Fine so far. Everything as you’d expect. We’re still working. Some undercover people, but mostly just actual teachers. White bread, boring as paste. No connections to law.”

“Any out in the open?”

“They’re going to have a regular detail on the sidewalk, but that hasn’t started yet. Maybe today. I’ll let you know.”

“Hold on.” Jacob put a hand over the microphone pick-up. “George.”

Jacob’s brother was sitting in a chair in the far corner of the room, hammering vigorously at something wooden, something that was not quite fitting together. After another moment the piece took on a more recognizable shape; it was the scaffolding for an enormous canvas. The last supporting strut seemed to be giving George difficulty. He looked up.

“One second on the hammering,” Jacob said.

George nodded silently. His resemblance to Jacob was clear; here was another version of Jacob, a
fitter
Jacob. George had led a life of physical rather than mental work. Unlike Jacob, George Savian’s genius was for making actual
things
, and he enjoyed working with his hands. Like his brother, he was large; but none of his size was given over to fat. He was strong, and he kept his hair short. He wore a blue work shirt with a collar, along with good, sturdy jeans. He put the hammer down.

Jacob turned back to the screen. “On our next call, I want confirmation on
every
person at that school.”

The Organizer nodded.

Jacob pressed a key on his main terminal, severing the connection. There was silence in the room now, broken only by the muted sounds of taxis and early commuters on the Park Avenue street below. Jacob licked his lips and rubbed his hands together. He liked his morning calls. They reassured him. Now he was energized, optimistic.

It’s going to be okay. I won’t let it happen.

“George,” he called. “Come talk to me.”

George Savian rose from his chair and walked across the room, moving with a sure-footed agility that his brother had lost years ago. He held the still-unfinished canvas in one strong hand, the hammer in the other.

“Leave the project,” Jacob called.

George hesitated. He didn’t like the idea of leaving his work in this unfinished state. The canvas wasn’t done. It needed fixing, adjusting. He looked questioningly at his older brother.

“Fine,” Jacob said, sounding annoyed. “But no hammering while we’re talking.”

George nodded his assent and came forward again. He sat down in a chair beside Jacob’s desk and immediately returned his attention to the canvas. He was not allowed to hammer, but he could still do adjustments with his hands.

His hands were capable tools.

“We should talk about
what
we’re doing,” Jacob said. His voice took on a lilting, philosophical  tone. “Because there’s something big in about two weeks. You know I do a lot of work with computers.”

George didn’t look up. “Obviously.”

“And you know I’ve made programs that can do hard stuff. Programs that can talk to you, answer questions, figure out problems.”

George nodded again, still deeply focused on his canvas. The last strut was now in its proper place, and the painting surface itself was nearly ready to be stapled on. “Yup,” he said. “I remember the question-and-answer one. Nice looking machine, blue and gold, a globe on a monolith. Good symmetry. It won the game, right?”

“Absolutely,” Jacob said, and he smiled. His brother’s memory for facts and information was unpredictable, but images –
forms
– stayed with him forever. George was unarguably intelligent, but he had little patience for matters unrelated to physical and visual media. He could describe, with unerring precision, every aspect of every picture he had ever painted. He could recall advertisements in magazines he had seen last month or last year, and the design of countless buildings throughout the city. He was a builder. A maker.