Machines of Eden (27 page)

The plans showed that there
were several giant fans in the facility capable of forcing air out
through vent tunnels like the one he’d used to gain entrance
earlier. Once the nanobots were airborne and out in the wild, it
wouldn’t take long for the prevailing winds to spread them far and
wide. That way they weren’t dependent on a path that could be
severed, like a pipeline to the mainland. Floating on the breeze
like a long-lived virus, it would only be a matter of time before
the nanos found something to eat.

Starting small in number
but growing exponentially as they came in contact with new sources
of raw synthetic material, the nanobots would convert these
materials into more of themselves, tiny machines that would remain
active for fifty years and then quickly break down into dirt. The
entire structure of the human world would be disassembled at the
atomic level and reorganized into soil components so that plant
life would be able to subsume it all into the natural
cycle.

Janice had mapped out
connections between civilization points to ensure that the chain
reaction wouldn’t break down too quickly. The prewar days of rapid
over-building and urban spreading had effectively sealed humanity’s
fate: with all the pipelines, cable runs, and highways, it was
unlikely that the bots would ever reach the end of the line. They
would eat mankind right off the earth.

Not that they’ll attack
mankind directly. Sure, jewelry and dental fillings and hearing
aids will dissolve, and it won’t go well for those with pacemakers
or artificial hip replacements. But the real damage will be done by
the violent and sudden loss of housing, infrastructure, and
tools.
Images filled John’s mind of
buildings collapsing into mountains of soil, burying their tenants
alive, and streets crumbling into dirt.
Machines, computers, vehicles, everything not made of wood or
stone will become useless. It’s sick, and it’s
ingenious.

The plans predicted that
humanity would fade from the earth overnight. Without all the
luxuries of technology and civilization, and evolved too far past
their primitive roots, the people of the world would disappear
along with all that they had built. That would leave the earth back
in its primeval, natural state.

Now that he was in on the
fullness of Janice’s plans for a global ecophagy, the percentages
at the end of each header on the main summary document made him
shiver. All the hatred and threats Janice had been spewing were
clearly based on solid capability. With the power of Eve at her
fingertips, she had brought the plan within reach of
execution.

And now, for whatever
occult reasons, I arrive at the eleventh hour. How did Eve bring me
down from the sky? And an even more pressing question:
why?

He walked back into the
sleeping area, curious if anything there would tell him more about
the woman he was up against. There was a cot, and he wondered how
long it had been since he had woken up on the beach. He couldn’t
imagine sleeping right now even if it were safe, though.
Not with the end of the world weighing on my
mind.

There were various small
hygiene items and some clothes. A tiny bamboo shoot grew in a jar
with a miniature ultraviolet lamp clipped to it. There was a
reading slate with a few books on it that he glanced through. He
hadn’t heard of any of them:
The Fall of
Kings
,
Ecological
Spectacle Vol. 1
, and
Cries of Our Mother
.

And there was a notebook
written in pen. Its pages were actual paper, not plasti-matte, and
he smirked as he remembered the endless circles the media had spun
about whether it was better to kill trees to make biodegradable
paper or to create “unnatural” products that wouldn’t harm forests
directly but caused other problems. Evidently Janice favored
killing the trees to save the forest.
And
killing the people to save the forest, too.

Janice had terrible
handwriting. There was a short poem entitled
Earth Dying/Mother Crying
and a
drawing of two children holding hands, a boy and a girl. It was
interesting to see the attempts at humanity that came out of a
woman that had been through the very worst the Green Army offered.
An interesting revelation appeared on the next page.

“
A message reached me from
my brother today. It seems I am not the last of our family after
all. I never looked back after leaving Durban, but I actually
experienced nostalgia. He sounds committed to the ideals we always
shared. I’m thinking about replying.”

And a page later: “My
brother says he is not well. He was gassed with something nasty
while fighting with the Greens in Myanmar and hasn’t been the same
since. The doctors can’t do anything for him, of course. Maybe I
should bring him here. He would be a loyal ally for me if things
end up going the way I think they will with Glenn.”

So she’s human after all.
But who’s the brother?
John skipped
ahead.

“
Big brother arrived today
with a few other workers. He’s in worse shape than I feared. I
don’t think he will be of any use; his mind is gone half the time,
and he told me in a moment of coherence that it’s getting worse.
The weapon that did it to him was Gray in origin, he said, but it
was the Greens that were using it in Myanmar. I told him I hated
them all equally for what they did, but he was already mumbling to
himself about something else. Glenn is uncomfortable having him
here, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. As long as he
doesn’t interfere with the work, I guess we’ll just let him have
the run of the island.”

Nut! That’s why she lets
him live. Even though he has no memory of her now.

The other entries focused
more on the day-to-day of Janice’s work with Glenn, but there was
one page that caught his eye near the end. It started as a poem,
but broke off and there were several lines that were angrily
scribbled out. Then two pages followed, written in harsh, dark red
pen.

I only asked for a little
commitment.
I was
committed
—all the way to the end. But now
they
commit
people like me to asylums.

I wanted to help, to
destroy the Grays and save Mother. I gave everything for it, more
than anyone else, and now what? They shake hands and kiss up,
soiling themselves and the rest of us, and they brush their darker
sins under the rug. But sins don’t like hiding, and I don’t want to
be forgotten like an uneaten crust!

I spent six years
infiltrating Glenn and the Gray systems of academia that spawned
him, and I did it better than anyone could have dreamed. I had him
feeding from my hand! Him, with his lazy pacifism and his “show
them a better way” drivel. I suffered through it all to turn it
around, to make the ultimate weapon out of it. They knew I had
succeeded, and they knew it would work—just months away. And they
just cut me loose like a tangled fishing line.

I would have been at the
top. I would have rocketed to the very crest of the victory wave,
but now they don’t want that anymore. They just let it all fall
apart into a circus of “peacemaking”. How sweet. Well, I stayed
true, truer than them or anyone, true enough to make the whole
human race pay for its folly.

Glenn knows where peace
gets you. It was almost funny to hear him begging and pleading
before I offed him. Soon everyone else will learn what he did,
firsthand. EVERYONE. Even if I can’t see them all beg, I’d like
them all to see and know what is about to happen to them before
they blink out like dying embers.

I want that, but I don’t
need it. Earth doesn’t need it. She just needs them
GONE.

Give me six more months,
give me some working nanos and a sustainable post-resurface design,
and I will give them everything they deserve. Please, Mother, just
give me that.

Please!

She certainly had a way
with simile, although the prose wasn’t very good in general.
I like the poetry better. Anyway, here’s written
proof of Janice murdering Glenn. Not surprising, but good to
know.

Putting the papers aside,
John went back to the computer room and got down to some real
hacking on the main console. Finally he had everything in place to
reset Eve back to the prime directives Glenn had set, closing out
all of Janice’s introductions to her psyche. It would take several
minutes to compile the routines and execute in a way that Eve
couldn’t block and that Janice wouldn’t be notified of. He set it
running and stood up.

He studied some of the more
detailed maps and diagrams of the island’s systems until he had a
solid understanding. Then he checked on the code he was running
(88%), and decided he needed to get going. He memorized the diagram
of the vents and cooling systems for the Facility, and then walked
to the door opposite the one he’d entered through.

It will be nice to have
Eve under her own power again-- I much preferred having a single
deranged A.I. to deal with; the schizophrenic slave version was
harder to deal with. But I still need to shut her down fast. Her
plans will do as much damage to the earth as Janice's, just in
different ways and not as quickly.

The closed-circuit camera
showing the area just outside the room’s exit looked all clear, so
he unsealed the door and stepped out.

“—
you are, like a rat in
the sewer! Come on!”

It was Janice’s voice, and
it was ringing out shrilly over the intercom system. Inside John
had been totally deaf to the noise, with no earpiece connection or
outside audio line.

She’s probably inside the
Facility now, but apparently not close enough to stalk me silently.
That’s good.

“
Janice, I kind of liked
that radio silence thing,” he answered. “All this verbal abuse is
starting to hurt my feelings. I had to go have a good cry in the
bathroom just now because of all your hounding.”

“
You haven’t
begun
to cry. Your
pitiful counterattack failed, and your bots are scrap metal. You’re
next.”

Shutting the door and
jamming it electronically behind him, he slinked up a short
stairwell and peeked out into the hallway it ascended to. It was
clear, so he hurried down it. “But I feel like I know you so well,
now, Jannie baby. I got to read your nice poems, see all your cool
plans…”

Dead silence.
I thought that would do it.

“
Janice, in all
seriousness,” he continued, “I need to tell you this as one human
being to another: you’re dangerously out of touch with reality, and
your plan is going to smother the entire planet. I know you hate
humanity, but for the Earth’s sake, I’m going to ask you once to
please come to your senses. You are going to kill your
‘mother’.”

Her reply was whispered.
“No. I’m going to save her the only way that’s left to
us.”

“
Our planet can never
survive a total resurfacing like that. You will turn it into a
wasteland that will never recover.”

“
That’s what your
ridiculous Green tribal leaders thought. They got scared once I
told them it was actually possible, and they backed out. But I’m
not backing out. I’ve almost got my finger on the button, and
believe me: I
will
push it. Earth will recover; she always does. It will be even
easier with no parasites.”

“
Okay, if that’s how you
want it,” John replied. “Just had to warn you, in good conscience.
Eve, do you have anything to say?” He was hoping for proof that his
code had completed and worked.

“
I’m afraid she’s right,
Adam. We worked it all out. The Plan has no flaws.”

She called me
Adam.

He headed for the nearest
elevator shaft that would take him to Level 5.

Nut watched as Janice
entered the Facility. She couldn't see him, and that was how he
liked to keep it these days. She was not a forgiving woman. At the
moment she was carrying a large rifle and looked rattled. The
gunshots and explosions outside had drawn him to his upper-floor
vent lookout, but he had missed most of the action.

He knew the man he had met
earlier was around somewhere, causing trouble. He knew that Janice
was in a killing rage. And he knew that Eve had been quite
flustered recently. It all added up to one thing in Nut's
perilously unbalanced mind.

Janice has found my cache
of hose bibs and stopcocks, and now she will try to take them away
from me! Or kill me for the violation. But I do not want her to do
that.

Crawling swiftly back
through the web of ceiling tunnels, vertical shafts, and catwalks
that were his safe routes, he returned to his secondary lair and
took up his weaponry. It had come down to this after all, and his
careful preparation had not been vain. He would now have the fight
of his life, with one or the other falling, or perhaps both. Nut
meant to do everything he knew how to make Janice be the one that
fell, and the plan started with an elaborate ambush.