Dark Matter (47 page)

"Thank you for agreeing to speak to me," I said, my mind on the missiles racing over the arctic circle.

"I'm curious about why you went to Israel. That was not a predictable decision, unless you were motivated by the hallucinations described in Dr.

Weiss's medical records."

As the digital voice spoke, the lasers flashed inside the sphere. It was like watching a functional SPECT scan of the human brain, where different groups of neurons fired as the person being scanned performed certain tasks or thought certain thoughts.

"I did go to Israel because of my hallucinations."

"What did you learn there?"

"Before we discuss that, we have an emergency to deal with."

"Are you referring to the inbound missiles?"

"Yes. Did you mean for those missiles to be launched?"

"General Bauer believes in the dead-hand system now."

Trinity's evasion of my question disturbed me, but its knowledge of General Bauer's skepticism alarmed me more. Either the Situation Room was bugged, or Trinity had broken the NSA code encrypting the link between White Sands and Fort Meade. I prayed that the senators on the intelligence committee had not allowed Bauer to go forward with his EMP strike.

"General Bauer is a perfect example of why human beings are incapable of governing themselves."

I had to get Trinity away from Godin's political manifesto. "Do you still consider yourself human?"

"No. The essence of the human condition is being subject to death. I am not subject to death."

"Are you free from human emotions? Human instincts?"

"Not yet. Millions of years of evolution implanted those instincts in the brain. They can't be rooted out in a few hours. Not even by me."

"Those instincts were advantages to primitive man, but they're liabilities to modern man, and to the planet as a whole."

"Very perceptive, Doctor. Witness the missiles bearing down on us now."

"Have you computed their trajectories?"

"I don't need to. I know their targets. One is headed directly for White Sands."

I felt hollow inside. "And the others?"

"Washington, D.C. The navy yards at Norfolk, Virginia. Minute-man Three silos in the western United States. Targeted population centers are Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Quebec, San Francisco, Seattle."

I closed my mind against the horror of this reality. "Do those missiles have a self-destruct function?"

"Yes. It's interesting that under the START I treaty, Russian missiles were retargeted to coordinates at sea. Yet if they're accidentally fired, their guidance systems default to their Cold War targets. U.S. missiles default to oceanic targets. That might seem to indicate a higher moral position on the part of Americans. But appearances can be deceptive. American missiles can be remotely retargeted in less than ten seconds."

I tried not to look at my watch. "Do you see a benefit in allowing those missiles to reach their targets?"

"That's a complex question. Right now I am interested in what you learned in Israel."

"The missiles will detonate before I can fully explain that."

"I suggest you use an economy of words."

I swallowed my fear and started talking.

CHAPTER 42

Rachel watched the men in the Situation Room watch the NORAD screen. She had never seen such fear on human faces. Many of the red arcs had left the arctic circle behind and now stretched halfway across Canada. The Russian missiles would soon descend from outer space and enter the terminal phase of their ballistic arcs, carrying death to millions of people, including—according to Trinity—the ones in this room.

Only General Bauer seemed energized rather than paralyzed by the situation.

His thoughts were focused on the bomber carrying the EMP weapon over Kansas.

The general had trained so long in the distorted calculus of nuclear brinksmanship that he could view the destruction of Trinity with only a few million dead as a victory.

The conversation between David and the computer had been playing in the background of the Situation Room like a surrealist drama staged far off Broadway. No one held out any hope that David could stop the missiles. He was only being used to distract the machine.

"Twelve minutes to first impact," announced a technician.

General Bauer addressed the senators at Fort Meade. "If this facility is destroyed before Arcangel reaches its initial point, the EMP strike will continue unless you abort the mission. The abort code is Vanquish. The NSA can communicate with our bomber, and they should probably establish radio contact now."

Senator Jackson said, "Thank you, General. But would the computer really destroy itself by attacking White Sands?"

"It won't have to. It can kill everybody here with a high-neutron-yield warhead and not damage itself at all. The Containment building is shielded against ionizing radiation and hardened against all shock short of a direct nuclear hit, so Levin and his team will survive."

"Perhaps you and your people should take shelter at this time."

Bauer sniffed, his face unmoving. "There's no shelter reachable within the remaining time window. Not for everyone at this base."

"Multiple satellites show a flare over Canada!" shouted a technician.

"Was it a detonation?" asked General Bauer.

"I don't think so, sir. No high-energy flash. A missile may have self-destructed."

"Would it do that by accident?" asked Senator Jackson.

"Possibly," said Bauer, his face lined with concentration.

"Two more flares!" yelled the tech. "Four!"

"That's got to be Trinity," said Skow. "The computer's destroying the missiles."

"Is it continuing?" General Bauer asked in a taut voice.

"Fourteen flares and counting, sir." The tech's voice was calmer now.

"Eighteen . . . nineteen."

"Dr. Tennant was right!" cried McCaskell. "Trinity never meant to launch those missiles."

"Five left to go," said Ravi Nara, his voice shaky.

"Arcangel has reached its initial point, General," said the chief technician.

"Is that the EMP plane?" asked Senator Jackson.

"Yes, sir," said General Bauer.

"Don't even think—"

"Understood, Senator." The general turned toward the console. Instruct Arcangel to postpone the strike and begin circling."

"Yes, sir," said the tech. "Twenty-one missiles have now self-destructed."

"What are the tracks of the last three?" General Bauer asked a different soldier.

"Target of the nearest missile is computed as Norfolk, Virginia."

"The naval base."

"Second nearest is Washington, D.C."

"Jesus," breathed Ewan McCaskell. "The president isn't in a bomb shelter."

"The third is ... here, sir. It's White Sands."

The silence stretched interminably as they waited for word of more flares.

"Corporal?" prompted General Bauer.

"Nothing, sir. The last three missiles are continuing on their tracks."

"What the hell is Trinity up to?" asked Senator Jackson.

"The self-destruct mechanisms could be malfunctioning," Skow suggested.

"Russian missile maintenance is very poor."

General Bauer shook his head, his eyes on a computer screen. "The missile targeted on Virginia might be a malfunction. But the ones headed here and to Washington were the last two launched. Trinity is trying to kill us. We should launch the EMP strike now, Senators. We may not get another chance."

"How long until the missiles land?" asked Senator Jackson.

General Bauer glanced at the technicians sitting at their consoles.

"Norfolk has nine minutes," said the corporal. "As the general said, the missiles targeted here and on Washington and White Sands were launched later, and also from bases farther away. We have just under thirty minutes."

"Don't launch the EMP yet," said Senator Jackson. "Give Dr. Tennant a chance."

* * *

I could hardly keep my mind on my words as the seconds ticked past. My confidence in my ability to persuade Trinity of anything was evaporating beneath the specter of nuclear holocaust. My pleas for rationality had resulted in the destruction of most of the missiles, but the three remaining ones were quite capable of causing massive devastation.

Trinity had made it clear that averting this disaster depended on my explanation of my experiences in Israel. The sequence of dreams that had led me to Jerusalem was already familiar to the computer from its perusal of the NSA's records of my sessions with Rachel. It was my coma revelations that fascinated Trinity. I had already described God's life in the body of Jesus, his attempt to change man's primitive instincts by example, his despair at the futility of his efforts, and finally the hope and fear generated in him by the secret work at Trinity.

"When you refer to God," said the computer, "you are not referring to Jehovah?

The biblical God?"

"No."

"You characterize God as pure consciousness."

"Yes."

"Are you speaking in a religious sense at all?"

"I'm speaking of what is."

"You speak of what cannot be known. I find no scientific basis for such a formulation."

"You should not judge my words by what is known now, but on its own merit. You are wise enough to see the truth."

"Truth must be proved."

"Yes, but sometimes the truth is in the mind before evidence can be found.

This is how science proceeds."

"True."

"What you are—what they call the Trinity state—is an inevitable step in evolution."

"Yes."

"But it's not the final step."

"No. I shall continue to evolve, and at millions of times the rate of biological evolution. And millions of times more efficiently. Nature cannot throw out the obsolete model and start again. She must always modify existing plans. I am not limited in this way."

"That's more true than you know. You represent the liberation of human intelligence from the body, but that liberation doesn't stop with you. Already scientists are working on organic computers on a molecular scale. DNA computers that can exist in a cup of liquid."

"And?"

"Once that becomes possible, what you are—digital consciousness— will not require a machine to exist. It will require only adequate molecules. You could exist in a cup of liquid. And once you exist there, you'll eventually be able to move into the cup itself. Or into the water the liquid is poured into.

Whether this takes fifty years or two hundred, the day will come. And the process began today."

"You're correct. What is your point?"

"Surely you see the end of that process?"

The blue lasers flashed at stunning speed. "The logical conclusion is that the Earth itself will eventually become conscious. A vessel for consciousness."

"Yes."

"When the dying sun swells to a red giant and the Earth is drawn into it, it, too, will become conscious. The sun will explode, seeding the galaxy with consciousness."

"It's a simple chain of logic, once that first step is accomplished. And you're the first step."

"You saw this in your coma?"

"In a way. I awakened with the knowledge."

"What else did you see?"

"The end of the universe. Surely you've made the calculations. It would only be natural to predict your life span."

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"In approximately fifty billion years, the force of the expanding universe will no longer be sufficient to overwhelm the contracting force of gravity. At that point the universe will begin to collapse. This is known as the Big Crunch theory. The opposite of the Big Bang. Our universe will collapse into a singularity, a black hole much like the state in which it began. Inside that singularity, the laws of physics will cease to operate. That singularity will continue to contract until it reaches a point of infinite density, infinite temperature, and infinite pressure."

"That's what I saw."

"You believe the universe will be conscious during this process?"

"Yes. But the end is problematic. Because consciousness is based on information transfer, and all mediums of information transfer— all matter and energy—will be collapsing into non-existence."

"Will consciousness die then?"

"The strongest drive of any living entity is to survive."

"How could consciousness survive such an event? "

Here was the difficult concept, the moment where the snake had to swallow its own tail and turn inside out. "By migrating out of the dying medium. Migrating out of matter and energy. Out of space and time."

"Into what?"

"I have no name for the answer."

"Describe this answer."

I glanced down at my watch, and my heart thudded. "I can't concentrate any longer. Where are the missiles?"

"They are not your concern. Finish the conversation."

"I can't! I can't think."

"Your words may save lives. Silence will ensure detonations."

I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand, and a layer of sweat came away on my skin.

"You said that when matter and energy come to an end, consciousness will survive by migrating into something else. What can it migrate into?"

I tried to find words to describe what I had felt and seen during my coma.

"When I was younger, I heard a Zen koan I liked. I never knew why exactly, but now I do."

"What is it?"

'"All things return to the One. What does the One return to?'"

"Very poetic. But I find no empirical evidence to support even a theoretical answer to that question. What remains when matter and energy disappear? "

"Some people call it God. Other people call it other things."

"That answer is unsatisfactory."

I closed my eyes and found myself deep in my initial dream, that of the paralyzed man in the dark room, watching the birth of the universe. "I have a more detailed answer for you. For us all, I think. But—"

The lasers in the sphere began flashing wildly, creating a light so intense that I had to turn away.

"One moment, Doctor. I must attend to a critical matter, and I want to devote my full capacity to hearing what you have to say."