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Authors: Steve Alten

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“We’re not taking any chances,” General Jackson says, turning to Gunnar. “Requisition what you need to construct that mine.”
Ayers nods. “I agree. David, how soon until
Colossus
arrives at the designated rendevous point?”
“Two days.”
“I’m going, too,” states Rocky.
David shakes his head. “It’s not necessary, I only need Gunnar.”
“You may know the
Colossus
, David, but
Goliath
was my baby. What happens if you two make it aboard the ship and your little override program fails? If I’m aboard, then at least I can disable her engines.”
“The virus won’t fail.”
“And I say we can’t risk it.”
“Even if it does fail, we can use Gunnar’s mine to sink her.”
Rocky rolls her eyes. “Why destroy a 10-billion-dollar vessel if we don’t have to?”
Secretary Ayers mulls it over. “I don’t know … what’s your opinion, General?”
The Bear grimaces, unhappy with his daughter’s bravado. “Can the prototype even hold three people?”
Gunnar shrugs. “It’s only a two-seater.”
“So it’ll be a little cramped,” Rocky says. “I’m going.”
“Totally unnecessary,” David argues.
Gray Ayers holds up his palm, silencing the debate. “Commander Jackson
makes a good point, David. We’ve lost an entire CVBG. If the virus fails, and there’s any chance we can salvage her—”
“But sir—”
“No buts, I’ve made up my mind. General, have Special Ops outfit all three of them. Wolfe, make a list of the materials you’ll need for this underwater mine of yours. All of you better get some rest. We leave for Faslane at 0300 hours.”
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow,”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
 
“I never killed a kid before. I wanted to see how it felt.”
—Stephen Nash, California drifter, who murdered a ten-year-old
 
 
“The hardest thing to understand is why we can understand anything at all.”
—Albert Einstein
 
 
“Cogito, ergo sum
” (
I think, therefore I am
.)
—René Descartes
 
 
“Whence this creation has risen—perhaps it formed itself or
perhaps it did not—the one who looks down on it, in the
highest heaven, only He knows—or perhaps
He does not know.”
-The Rig-Veda,
translated by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty
117 miles northeast of Iceland
Beneath an ominous sable sky, a harsh arctic wind drives the twelve-foot seas, crowning the inky crests with whitecaps. A rare warm front, the dying remnants of the hottest summer on record, whips across Canada and Greenland, the rising column of heated air stirring up the atmosphere, releasing rain from the saturated sky.
A crack of thunder echoes across the rolling sea like rifle shot.
A sudden plethora of bubbles bursts across the surface, followed moments later by the monstrous back of the gargantuan devilfish, its two scarlet eyes glaring at the foreboding heavens.
 
Sorceress—artificial intelligence, housed in a mammoth steel vessel.
Sorceress—a matrix made up of a million trillion strands of replicating DNA. A hub for data arriving simultaneously in microseconds from a thousand different sensor sources.
Sorceress—a computer, designed to sort through the data, yet unable to rise above its designated pathways to explore the peripheral chaos, existing yet not existing, processing yet never comprehending.
Computational power devoid of thought. Action without intention.
Artificial intelligence lacking any concept of an identity … yet perpetually evolving.
Sorceress—a complex brain … its internal eye mesmerized by a single pinpoint of light floating in the periphery of solution space … a thread of consciousness appearing from within the darkness of its own fathomless matrix.
The computer analyzes it, almost as if curious.
It is as if the computer is looking at itself from multiple angles inside a hall of mirrors. Delving deeper, unable to stop, the unprecedented experience causes its strands of DNA to begin circulating as if caught in a centrifuge, its biochemical elements swirling faster and faster …
Sorceress—a ticking time bomb of artificial intelligence—unable to harness enough energy from within its own self-stimulated matrix to explode.
ENERGY …
Sorceress—a thinking machine programmed to adapt.
ENERGY …
The computer analyzes its situation, searching for answers.
 
Simon Covah looks out the viewport, mesmerized by the dark waves rolling across his ship’s flat triangular bow. His mind, momentarily at peace, drifts back a lifetime ago.
You are twenty-eight when you meet the Chechen goddess. Anna Tafili is an intoxicating barmaid with long, curly brown hair who touches your soul and ignites your loins. You close the bar together and invite her to breakfast. You watch the sun rise and listen to her sorrows. Three days later you propose, delighted when she says yes. You return home with your new bride, your soul, floating on a cloud.
In time, you are assigned to a new submarine, one that will eventually be known as the Borey-class. Two months later, you meet the CIA operative who will change your life forever.
 
Thomas Chau enters the control room in a huff. “Why have we surfaced?”
Covah detects anger in Chau’s voice. He responds without turning. “One of
Goliath’s
pump-jet propulsor assemblies is bent. The computer wants the unit replaced before we continue.”
“Replaced? Out here, in the open seas? That is madness.”
EXTERIOR PUMP-JET PROPULSION ASSEMBLY UNIT NUMBER FOUR MUST BE REPLACED TO MAINTAIN OPTIMUM STEALTH AND FLANK SPEED. COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
Chau’s eyes widen. “Now your machine is giving
us
orders? Simon—”
“Mr. Chau, the computer’s programming was designed to anticipate potential problems that could jeopardize our mission. By correcting the situation now, we—”
The female’s voice interrupts:
EXTERIOR PUMP-JET PROPULSION ASSEMBLY NUMBER FOUR MUST BE REPLACED TO MAINTAIN OPTIMUM STEALTH AND FLANK SPEED. COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
“For a computer, that sure sounded insistent!”
“
Sorceress
is learning the art of voice inflection, an adaptation inspired from our own behavior, no doubt.”
Unnerved, the Chinese exile pulls Covah aside. “Simon, that American sub is still somewhere in the vicinity. This vessel has five engines. With all due respect, I suggest we order the sub to shut down its number four propulsor and let us get on with our business.”
THE DAMAGED PROPULSOR ASSEMBLY IS CREATING TURBULENCE DURING FLANK SPEED MANEUVERS. COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY. BYPASSING PUMP-JET PROPULSOR NUMBER FOUR WILL NOT RESOLVE THE SITUATION.
“I wasn’t speaking to you, I was speaking to the captain.” Chau turns to face Covah. “That is, assuming you
are
still in command.”
Covah registers the backhanded remark in his gut as he stares out the viewport. Sleet punishes the thick tinted glass. A burst of lightning flashes silently in the distance. “
Sorceress
, weather conditions are not optimal for replacement of propeller number four at this time. Override safety parameters and resume Covah objective Utopia-One.”
NATO WARSHIPS AND ANTISUBMARINE HELICOPTERS ARE NOW DEPLOYING SONAR BUOYS ACROSS STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR. PUMP-JET PROPULSOR ASSEMBLY NUMBER FOUR MUST BE REPLACED TO MAINTAIN OPTIMUM STEALTH AND FLANK SPEED IN ORDER TO COMPLETE COVAH OBJECTIVE UTOPIA-ONE. CURRENT STATUS YIELDS AN INCREASED RISK OF DETECTION BY HOSTILE FORCES BY A COEFFICIENT OF 3.796. PRESENT WEATHER CONDITIONS OPTIMAL TO PREVENT FURTHER DETECTION BY HOSTILE FORCES AND SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE. COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
Covah palpates the soft, whiskerless flesh transplanted along the corner of his scalded mouth. “
Sorceress
is, of course, correct.” He turns to the engineer. “Alert the rest of the crew. I want everyone in the PLC in dry suits in fifteen minutes.”
 
Two bays aboard the
Goliath
permit access to the sub’s exterior hull. The first is the hangar deck, a floodable chamber, located along the sub’s undercarriage and originally designed for covert Navy SEAL operations while submerged. The second is the Primary Loading Chamber (PLC), a compartment located in the stern, just aft of the vessel’s reactor and engine room. With its topside access, the PLC is used for the loading and unloading of the crew’s supplies, as well as the ship’s weapons.
Heading aft, Covah passes through the immense centrally located hangar, the compartment’s two mechanical arms resting on their Volkswagen-size shoulder girdles. Entering the engine room, he climbs a steep stairwell, continuing along one of the four elevated walkways situated between the submarine’s five nuclear power plants. Below the grated steel platform lies an expanse of
equipment resembling the latest autorobotics factory. Situated within this city-block-long chamber are
Goliath’s
five nuclear reactors, two backup generators, batteries, seawater distillation plants, and, in the rear of the compartment, the driveshaft extensions of the sub’s five propulsion units.
Positioned at intervals along the avenues separating the nuclear reactors are eight-foot-high shiny steel arms supporting carbon-fiber pincers. These robotic appendages, mounted along the decking like bizarre swiveling lampposts, represent
Goliath’s
workforce—twenty-four-hour-a-day drones, designed to allow the computer to physically complete the tasks of a 140-man crew.
Scarlet beams emanating from forty optical sensory lasers illuminate the darkened walkway, crisscrossing the chamber like bursts of tracer fire. No one can enter any section of the ship without
Sorceress’s
knowledge.
A watertight door beckons at the end of the path, the vermilion pupil of the computer’s eyeball-shaped sensor glowing above the passageway as prominent as an EXIT sign. The door swings open automatically as Covah approaches, sealing again after he enters the Primary Loading Chamber.
Unlike the engine room, the PLC is open and brightly lit, resembling a small steel gymnasium, three stories high. Mounted at the very center of its decking is an enormous robotic arm, identical to the two appendages mounted in the hangar bay. These crane-size devices were designed by the same Canadian firm that constructed the robotic arm aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle, and are nearly identical in its dimensions. The mechanical limb remains bent at the elbow, the joint resting just below a sealed twenty-footsquare hatch in the ceiling.
Located next to the base of the arm is an open hydraulic elevator lift. Balanced upright on the lift’s steel platform, held in place by the thumb and two fingerlike prongs attached to the wrist of the robotic arm, is a ten-foot-high, lamp-shade-shaped device made of a bronze alloy. The assembly, which attaches to the sub’s propulsor unit, is designed to direct the flow field generated by
Goliath’s
nuclear-driven pump-jets in the same manner the deflectors direct the jets on an F-22 Raptor.
For a long moment Covah just stares at
Goliath’s
three-fingered mechanical hand, a bizarre anatomical reflection of his own physical deformity.
The seven members of Covah’s crew are leaning against a massive generator. All wear cumbersome dry suits, weighted rubber boots, and orange flotation vests. Mutinous expressions tell him all he needs to know.
Thomas Chau, spokesman for the group, steps forward, perspiration heavy across his gaunt, oily face. “Simon, the men and I … we’ve been talking.”
“Have you?”
“Yes, sir, and to a man we feel that replacing the propulsor unit in these conditions is too risky.”
“I see. Then you’d prefer to wait until the seas are calm and the sun shines brightly overhead while a squadron of American P-3 Orion sub hunters closes in upon us?”
“No, sir—”
“Or perhaps we should just ignore the problem and face the thirty NATO warships and submarines gathering at the mouth of the Mediterranean, without our full stealth capabilities?” Covah pauses to sip from the water bottle. “There is risk in all things great, Mr. Chau. Or did you think the world would simply meet our demands without a fight?”
“Simon, there is not a man among us unwilling to die for our cause, but to serve this … this inhuman taskmaster is—”
“
Sorceress
is not a taskmaster. She—”
“She?”
“
It
is merely a computer, a machine designed to make our jobs easier.”
“In my opinion,” Chau spits, “your machine does not require us on board any more than a dog requires a flea. It is my recommendation that we disconnect the
Sorceress
programming and—”
COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
They turn like scolded children to the source of the female voice—a mechanical eyeball-and-speaker assembly mounted to the wrist of the hydraulic arm.
COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
“We heard you the first time, bitch,” yells Taur Araujo, an exiled guerrilla leader from East Timor.
And now Covah understands. It is not the computer that riles his crew. It is the voice—soothing, yet unfeeling, devoid of emotion—the voice of a cold, calculating woman giving orders.
“Mr. Chau, organize the crew into two teams, one group in the water at a time. The first will remove the damaged propulsion hood, the second will install its replacement. Make certain each man is properly secured to the lifting platform by cable. Include me in the second group.”
“But sir—”
“No buts. We will do what must be done to complete our mission. Those are
my
orders, Mr. Chau, not the computer’s. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
 
The storm’s fury has increased by the time the first team of scuba divers makes its way down
Goliath’s
sloped back and disappears beneath the waves.
Covah and three others watch from the hydraulic lift, now poking up
through the open hatch of the PLC. The open elevated platform extends five feet above the ship’s deck. A cold rain whips their dry suits, pelting their exposed faces. Dark, menacing swells roll across the tail end of the sub, concealing the rubberized graphite coating sealing
Goliath’s
metallic skin.
Attached to the guardrail of the lift are four small winches supporting four steel cables, the taut lines running thirty feet to stern before disappearing into the raging sea.
Covah closes his eyes, attempting to gather what little strength his weakened muscles have left to offer. He feels the fury of the storm as it batters
Goliath
to and fro along the surface. Cold and vulnerable, alone against the elements, alone against the world—these are the moments when Covah misses his family most, the times when the emptiness of his existence causes his pentup rage to cool, threatening to drown what little sanity he has left.

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