Goliath

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The poorest man in Uganda is General Amin. It is better for me to be poor and the people rich.”

—Idi Amin, Uganda dictator, whose reign of brutality, torture, and mass murder left more than three hundred thousand people dead and the majority of his people impoverished

”Now that everyone is happy in Iran, I will allow my coronation to take place.“

—Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, who organized Savak, a brutal secret police with a reputation for torture

”It was in the Christmas spirit. It makes me happy.“

—David Bullock, a street hustler who murdered a man because he was”messing with the Christmas tree“

CHAPTER 21

Aboard the Goliath

Taur Araujo leads David through the hangar bay and into the engine room. “I was searching for Chaw when I found this—” His flashlight reveals a trail of blood, running from the grated steel walkway, clear up the sheer wall of reactor number three.

Hovering above the reactor is one of Goliath’s steel claws, attached to a ceiling-mounted winch. Araujo’s light illuminates the tips of the three-pronged pincers.

Stained red.

“Does anyone else know about this?”

“No.”

“Sorceress, locate Thomas Chau.”

THOMAS CHAU IS IN THE STARBOARD WEAPONS BAY.

Aboard the USS Scranton

Thirteen hours, forty-two minutes …

The sounds of the sea have become a lullaby to Michael Flynn. Heavy eyelids begin to close, the tension in his aching neck and back easing as he lays his head down to rest.

“Flynnie!”

The technician lifts his head from the console. “Sorry, sir.”

The sonar supervisor approaches. “When’s the last time you had a break?”

“A few hours ago. I’m fine, really, sir.”

“At least drink another cup of coffee—”

“No more coffee, Supe, I’ve been pissing like a racehorse.” Flynn’s body suddenly becomes rigid. He presses the headphones tighter.

“What is it? What do you hear?”

“Something just lifted away from the bottom.” Flynn closes his eyes to concentrate, opening them as he hears the familiar whisper of pump-jet propulsors. “It’s her, Chief. It’s the Goliath.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely sure.”

“Conn, sonar, we’ve reestablished contact with Sierra-2. She’s moving west through the Strait, contact bearing zero-eight-zero, approximate range is eleven thousand yards.”

“WEPS, Captain, do we have a firing solution yet?”

“No, sir. We can’t seem to get a lock on her.”

Commander Dennis turns to his CO. “And even if we could, her antitorpedo torpedoes erase any threat at this distance.”

“Conn, sonar, Sierra-2 has negotiated the Strait and is now changing course. New bearing, two-zero-zero.”

Cubit’s eyebrows raise. “She’s heading south, away from the fleet.”

“You were right, Skipper, it was a ruse. She’s probably heading for another launch site.”

“Mr. Friedenthal, give Sierra-2 the maximum distance that sonar can track her, then restart engines and come to course two-zero-zero, all-ahead one-third.”

Aboard the Goliath

Gunnar knocks on the stateroom door. “Rocky? Rocky, it’s me.”

The door opens. Rocky falls into his arms, embracing him.

He returns her hug, caught off guard by her sudden emotional display. “What’s all this? I thought you despised me?”

She looks up at him, teary-eyed. “Get me off this death ship.”

He pauses. Thinks. “Come on, I’m hungry.” Grabbing her arm, he leads her down the corridor.

The galley is empty. He heads back to the kitchen, approaching the big walk-in freezer. “Want a steak? I thought I saw some inside the other day. Come and help me look.”

“You look, I’m not going in there.”

“I said, help me look.”

She starts to protest, then sees the urgency in his eyes and follows him in.

Boxes of frozen goods are lined up along the perimeter of the walk-in and on aluminum shelves. The heavy scent of chicken blood mixes with the cold, which quickly seeps through their clothing.

“Close the door behind you.”

Rocky pulls the door shut. “What are you doing?”

“We can talk in here,” he says, motioning to the walls.

She looks around, suddenly comprehending.

No sensor orbs are present.

“Gunnar, everything you said to me earlier—that was all for the computer’s sake?”

“We don’t have time to get into that right now.”

“But you do want to stop Covah?”

“Covah’s not the problem, it’s Sorceress. I think the computer’s becoming self-aware.”

“And I think you’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies.”

“Rocky, Sorceress is a self-evolving, biochemical computer, a sophisticated brain, hardwired into the steel body of a submarine. It’s a machine, programmed to do one thing: Think.”

“There’s a huge gap between programmed thinking and independent thought.”

“It may be bridging that gap. Covah tried to get the computer to call off the attack on the Enterprise. At first, it refused to listen.”

“Gunnar, Sorceress was obeying its defensive protocols; its response had nothing to do with independent thinking. Besides, even if you’re right, which you’re not, it still doesn’t change anything. To stop the Goliath, we’d still have to shut down the computer, which means accessing middle deck forward, and that vault door the Chinese installed looks impenetrable.”

“The C-4 in the underwater mine would do the trick.”

“Yes, it might, if we could find it. Covah probably moved it to one of the weapons bays for safekeeping.”

Rocky’s teeth chatter. Gunnar pulls her close, hugging her to share warmth. “Rocky, see if you can—”

The sudden zap of electricity shocks his nerve endings, blinding him with purple-and-gray explosions of light as he writhes uncontrollably along the icecold concrete floor.

The voltage ceases, leaving pain and disorientation.

ATTENTION. EXIT THE FREEZER AT ONCE.

Gunnar rolls out from beneath Rocky, the room spinning, his muscles still dancing. Arm in arm, they stagger out of the freezer.

Gunnar approaches the nearest sensor orb, looking up at the glowing scarlet eyeball. “We weren’t doing anything, Sorceress, we were simply hungry. Is that a problem?”

An infuriating silence, the scarlet eyeball unnerving.

With a hiss of hydraulics, the watertight door separating the sub’s main compartment from its starboard wing swings open, allowing David and Araujo to enter.

A dimly lit elevated walkway stretches across a cavernous steel catacomb of crawl spaces. The sound of hydraulics and intermittent reports of air chuffs echoes throughout the chamber.

“I’ve never accessed the wing assemblies,” Araujo whispers.

“Most of the wing contains the ship’s ballast and trim tanks, self-regulated by the computer’s maneuvering system. The starboard weapons bay’s up ahead.”

“Shouldn’t we tell Simon about this?”

“Let’s investigate first. Simon’s got a lot on his plate right now.”

David turns left down a narrow corridor. He points below to a five-foot-wide conveyor belt running the length of passage. “Part of the sub’s transportation system,” he explains. “The conveyor runs beneath the decking and into crawl spaces throughout most of the ship. Sorceress uses it to transport torpedoes into Goliath’s weapons bays.”

They come to an alcove, ending at a sealed watertight door.

“Sorceress, open the starboard weapons bay.”

Pistons fire, hydraulics engaging. As the door opens, an overwhelming stench is released into the corridor.

David sniffs the air, gagging as he steps inside the chamber. “What is that stench?”

Araujo’s eyes narrow. “The scent of the dead.”

They enter, David leading him around racks of torpedoes and a half dozen of the mammoth two-armed loader drones, mounted at intervals along the decking. Above their heads, a dozen inanimate robotic appendages dangle from the ceiling.

Protruding from the forward wall, set among a jungle of pressure tubing, wires, and electronics are the three starboard torpedo tubes. At the center of the bay, held aloft as if a sacrifice to an unseen god, is the mutilated carcass of Thomas Chau.

David gags, but is unable to turn away from the sight of the violated skull, its absence revealing the exposed fissures of Chau’s brain.

“Look what it did—the damn thing butchered him!”

“Shh, stay calm,” David whispers.

“Calm? Your machine murdered the Chinaman. You and Simon have lost control.” Araujo races back toward the watertight door.

David glances up at the scarlet eyeball. “Sorceress, seal the weapons bay.”

The steel door slams shut.

Araujo tugs at the door.

Ignoring his rants, David climbs the back of the loader drone supporting Chau’s body. Gently, he examines the still-intact microwires connecting the dead man’s dried-out brain to the arm of the reconfigured targeting drone dangling from the ceiling above.

“This is very impressive work.”

“Did you hear me, Paniagua? You need to disconnect your goddamn computer before it kills all of us.”

“Quiet, or I’ll have the computer remove your vocal cords. Sorceress, explain the purpose of the microwire connections running into Mr. Chau’s brain.”

NEURAL CONNECTIONS NECESSARY TO INTERFACE DIRECTLY WITH CEREBRAL CORTEX AND HIGHER FUNCTIONS OF THE SUBJECT’S BRAIN.

“For what purpose?”

SORCERESS MATRIX LACKS PROPER PROGRAMMING TO REORGANIZE DNA STRANDS. INTERFACE WITH A HUMAN MIND WILL COMPLETE THE NEW PROGRAMMING.

“Incredible …” David closes his eyes. This is impossible … Sorceress is demonstrating curiosity … no, no, not curiosity … curiosity is a human trait, this has to do with its self-replicating program. The computer senses gaps within its knowledge base. It’s searching for answers about itself, attempting to comprehend its own mind … but it can’t, any more than a human being can. The mind is a closed system, it can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it already knows about itself. Of course, the computer can’t comprehend that, possessing no concept of self-identity. Logic dictated it tap into the human mind in order to garner experiences alien to itself in an attempt to reorganize its DNA!

“Sorceress, I understand your need to find solutions, but you cannot just wire yourself into a human brain to knowledge. That type of interface just isn’t feasible, and it’s very dangerous.”

INCORRECT. HUMAN TO SORCERESS INTERFACE IS FEASIBLE.

“You’re far too powerful. Look what you’ve done—you killed the subject.”

INCORRECT. THE SUBJECT’S CAUSE OF DEATH WAS DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO A BLOW SUSTAINED ON THE CRANIUM RESULTING IN HEMORRHAGING OF THE BRAIN.

“Yet you continued the interface? Why?”

THE PURPOSE OF THE NEURAL IMPLANT WAS EXPLORATORY IN NATURE. INTERFACE ALLOWED FOR COMPLETE MAPPING OF CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEMS, THOUGHT RECOGNITION, TRANSLATION OF MUSCLE IMPULSES, MAPPING OF THE HUMAN GENETIC CODE—

“Stop! Sorceress … you’ve mapped the entire human genetic code?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

“Can you translate the code so that we can understand the entire human condition? The origins of disease? How the human machine functions? Complete cause and effect?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

My God … the machine possesses the key to unlocking the very secrets of life and death.

ADDITIONAL INVASIVE INTERFACE IS NECESSARY.

“Another interface? Why? For what purpose?”

SUBJECT CEASED FUNCTIONING PRIOR TO SORCERESS ANALYSIS OF HUMAN PROTEINS AND ENZYMES.

“Damn. But once an additional interface is completed, it is possible for you to … I don’t know, say—cure cancer?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

“Any cancer?”

AFFIRMATIVE. PHARMACEUTICALS CAN BE DESIGNED TO TARGET AND ERADICATE ALL GENETIC-BASED DISEASES AND DEFECTS OF THE HUMAN CONDITION.

A rueful smile plays across David’s face. “How invasive is the interface?”

NANOCIRCUITS MUST BE SURGICALLY IMPLANTED IN SUBJECT’S BRAIN. MICROWIRES CONNECT DIRECTLY TO SORCERESS VIA MEMS UNIT JUNCTION.

“Incredible.” David climbs down from the loader drone, his heart pounding with excitement. “Sorceress, how soon—”

Araujo leaps at David and grabs him by the throat with both hands, slamming him backward against a torpedo rack. “You’re insane! I want out of—”

With lightning speed, two targeting drones swoop down—snatching the assailant by his wrists, dragging him away from David.

Araujo screams in agony, falling to his knees as the steel pincers constrict, pushing through the flesh and nerves, fracturing the bone.

The East Timoran native passes out as his hands are severed from his wrists.

David stares indifferently at the bleeding crewman. “Sorceress, how soon could the invasive interface begin?”

EIGHTEEN HOURS ARE REQUIRED TO CULTIVATE NANORECEPTORS AND FRESH SAMPLE TISSUES FROM THE INTERFACE SUBJECT.

“The subject is Simon Covah. Anything else?”

THOMAS CHAU’S SPINAL CORD WAS DAMAGED, PREVENTING A COMPLETE DECODING OF THE NEURONS OF THE SPINAL CORD. DECODING IS CRITICAL TO COMPLETE THE INTERFACE.

“What must be done to complete the decoding?”

INVASIVE SURGERY INTO A LIVING SUBJECT’S SPINAL CORD AT A POINT JUST BELOW THE MEDULLA OBLONGATA.

“Is the surgical procedure dangerous?”

AFFIRMATIVE. PROBABILITY OF DEATH: 56 PERCENT. PROBABILITY OF PERMANENT PARALYSIS: 87 PERCENT.

“Understood.” David stares at the unconscious crewman now bleeding to death at his feet. “Sorceress, I believe Mr. Araujo wishes to volunteer for the procedure.”