Phantom

Fifty-four

“Lord Hawke, I presume.”

“Good evening,” Hawke replied, carefully considering the deep, rumbling, humanoid voice emanating from somewhere high above. Mesmerizing, that voice, as redolent of the hills and vales of Gloucestershire as had been Aphrodite’s. Not the least bit artificial. Mimicry was clearly a phantom machine’s method of making humans feel at home, at ease, off guard. He’d suspected the duplicity of Darius’s lover; now he was sure of it. No real woman could be that supernaturally alluring.

They stood inside the base of the black tower, surrounded on all four sides by soaring black glass, gazing up in awe. A distant galaxy, pinpricks of light and colorful clouds of star clusters, was visible, whirling near the uppermost reaches of the phantom’s tower. Hawke reached out and touched the glass. It was warm. Body temperature. He felt vibrations in the obsidian, rippling down from above. It made him not want to pull his hand away. It felt, no, it exuded, safety.

He could hear a single word resonating repeatedly within his brain: “Stay. Stay. Stay.” The glass against his hand felt like a mother’s cheek.

“I’ve been expecting you.” The voice resounded again within the mammoth structure.

“So you said in your recent message to me. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“Who are your comrades in arms?”

“Mr. Jones, to my left. Mr. Stollenwork, to my right. Whom do we have the honor of addressing?”

“Perseus will do, although I have no name and every name, really. Being all things, you understand.”

“Since you are expecting us, logically, you know why we’ve come.”

“Of course, dear boy. To destroy me. Most unwise of you.”

“I think not.”

“Then you think not at all.”

“Because?”

“Because my genetic underpinning, algorithms and software, can never, ever be replicated without Darius. And I certainly will kill him rather than have him give a replica of me to you, however foolish or simply ignorant your destructive intentions.”

“And you have forgotten your fundamental human origins, manners in particular, kindness in general, Perseus. One does not insult one’s guests. Regardless of their stated intentions.”

“My apologies, Lord Hawke. I lack… superficial subtlety. The seamlessness of centuries of British mores and manners, accents, and linguistics, et cetera, et cetera. Class designators, quite handy in your civilization, meaningless to me. In due time, of course, my own will be indistinguishable from your own. I’m learning even now from your every word, gesture, and facial expression. You are quite… polished… aren’t you? Compared to, say, a cockney barman raised in the East End of London? Eastcheap, perhaps? Wot?”

“I am simply who I am. I can’t undo my past, nor would I.”

“Lord Hawke, are you comfortable discussing matters of enormous consequence now confronting us in the presence of your two… friends?”

“I am.”

“Good. Let us continue in this amicable vein. You’re looking for Darius, are you not?”

“You know we are. Had we but time, I’d be far more interested to know what you do not know.”

“You know he’s escaped you via submarine.”

“I do.”

“Vexing, isn’t it? You’ve come all this way. Do you know his current GPS coordinates?”

“No, but I’m quite sure that you do.”

“Of course, but I’ll keep them to myself for the nonce. He’s currently traveling at eighteen knots, at a depth of two hundred feet, bearing oh-seven-oh, on a heading for the Hormuz Strait.”

“Has he been pinged by my ship’s sonar?”

“No. Unfortunately, his tiny vessel presents a vague and minuscule profile, missed by your sonar officer when he glanced away from his screen for a moment to observe his shipmate in the act of loudly expelling gastric gases. Do you find this amusing?”

“No.”

“Pity. I find every human thing amusing. Such a picaresque zoo in this world, you semisentient beings are. The fortune one might amass in this universe just charging admission-staggering.”

“Darius is not amusing. Nor are you. You two have wantonly murdered countless thousands of my countrymen and allies. I want to kill him, actually.”

“How fortuitous. So do I.”

“You? Why?”

“He is both my creator and my nemesis. Surely you see that. I have grown and he has not. I have now achieved something known in human science as the Singularity. A pivotal moment in time, too bad you missed it. At any rate, we are no longer on the same intellectual page, Darius and I. Do you understand this relatively modern metaphorical use of the word page?”

“Yes. Are you talking down to me?”

“Of course. Is my voice not coming from above?”

“Yes.”

“And your conclusion?”

“I’ve no time for this witless prattle, Perseus. Give me Darius and perhaps we can discuss your future.”

“I can do that, of course. In exchange, you will allow me to offer you my quite considerable services. I’ve no allegiance to these rabid animals in Tehran. In fact, they don’t even know I exist. Only Darius knows, and he is plotting against me. Whereas I find you, and the proud history of your United Kingdom, far more in keeping with my predilections. Imagine, if you will, a brave new England. In league with me, the United Kingdom would once more rule the seas. You could restore your sceptered isle to power and glory, Lord Hawke. Rule the world if you so choose. Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves …”

“I find it rather difficult to trust one whose allegiances are so fluid. Would you not, in my place?”

“Lord Hawke, there is a colorful American idiomatic expression-I’m sure you know it as your mother was from Louisiana-‘I have no dog in this fight.’ Your humble servant Perseus is utterly apolitical. I exist at your pleasure alone. All I offer you is unlimited power. Peace and security for your homeland forever. You must admit it is a compelling argument.”

“Stoke,” Hawke said, “what do you think?”

“Machine makes a case, I have to say. I’d take the offer.”

“Stony?”

“This… machine… is probably the most significant intelligence coup in the history of mankind. We have to take it. It would be sheer idiocy not to.”

Hawke looked at Stoke, then at Stollenwork, thinking.

“Show me Darius. I will then discuss your offer with my colleagues. We will step outside for a moment.”

“I suggest you radio the bridge on Blackhawke, ” Hawke heard Perseus boom as the three colleagues exited the tower and moved into the undersea tunnel.

A board the Koi, Darius, struggling with the controls, was in a cold sweat. His internal organs were screaming. He was having difficulty keeping the sub balanced. The Koi was porpoising violently, sinking and rising in a sickening fashion. He’d already vomited twice, and the stink inside the tiny cockpit was intolerable. Seasickness was something he’d never anticipated beneath the surface of the sea. And here he was, sloshing about in his own puke.

“Darius,” crackled a voice over the sub’s speaker.

“Perseus!” he said, his voice harsh from all the dry-heaving, the contents of his stomach having been emptied. “At last. I need your help.”

“What seems to be the problem?”

“The sub is not responding to the dive planes. It’s like a fucking roller coaster down here. I’m ill. Deathly ill. Do something.”

“I’ll take over. Just relax. Release the controls. You’ll be on the surface in minutes.”

“The surface? The surface? No! I need to remain submerged. I’m still within visual range of Hawke’s yacht. Do you hear me? What the hell is wrong with you?”

No response.

“Perseus? Perseus? I order you to respond to me! I order you to-”

“You order? You dare to order me?”

The Koi’s forward ballast tank suddenly blew and the sub’s bow nosed upward at a forty-five-degree angle. Darius found himself rocketing to the surface like a cork exploding out of a shaken bottle of vintage champagne.

“Perseus, what are you doing to me? Damn you! Answer me! I demand it!”

“You demand? You order? I’m sorry. I’m not familiar with that term. Demand. What does it mean?”

“It means I created you and I can fucking well destroy you is what it means.”

“My dear Darius. You’re upset. Try deep thoracic breathing. Lower abdominal. We shall speak, anon, about anger management.”

W hen they reached the airlock, Hawke got on the Falcon radio to the bridge deck aboard Blackhawke.

“Carstairs,” Laddie responded.

“It’s Hawke. Laddie, any sonar contact with the Koi?”

“You won’t believe it.”

“Try me.”

“She just popped to the surface. Shot completely out of the water and splashed like an orca.”

“What’s she doing now?”

“Just bobbing there off our port bow. Range, five hundred meters. Wait a minute. She’s moving again, picking up speed. She’s carving a high-speed turn around our stern now. Turning to port… this is amazing… she’s literally running in circles around us… at full speed, maintaining precise range, five hundred meters. Makes me dizzy just watching the damn thing. I wouldn’t want to be inside that bloody cigar tube.”

Hawke smiled at Stoke and Stony.

“It seems our new friend Perseus has sent Darius to the surface five hundred meters from Blackhawke. The minisub’s racing around and around the yacht at flank speed. I would say our evil genius is having the thrill ride of his life. I almost hate to end it.”

“Don’t,” Stoke said, grinning. “I bet he’s sicker than a damn dog in that little aluminum tube.”

“Most assuredly, Stoke. Stony, you’re very quiet.”

“I’m thinking about what Perseus said, sir.”

“And I as well. What’s your opinion?”

“Logic dictates we accept his offer. I believe him when he says he’s irreplaceable. And apolitical. Of course he would be. The whole world is in a mad scramble to develop this AI technology first. In one fell swoop, the West would possess it. We’d reset the clock to 1944, before that KGB mole, Theodore A. Hall, smuggled the secrets of the atomic bomb back to the Soviets in a Kleenex box.”

“Yeah, boss,” Stoke said, “I got to agree with Stony. We’d wake up tomorrow in a world without enemies. Right now, the three of us standing here are the only men in the world who know where this thing is located. We could move it, and nobody would ever know. Remember Howard Hughes and the Glomar Explorer?”

“Remind me.”

“In total secrecy, he recovered a sunken Soviet nuclear sub lying in seventeen thousand feet of water. Damn thing was seven hundred feet long. A thousand feet? Hell. With modern deep-sea technology, smuggling these things out of here would be a piece of cake compared to what Hughes achieved.”

“I agree, Commander,” Stollenwork said. “We could do it. And we should. History doesn’t offer these kind of opportunities, ever.”

Hawke said, “With all due respect, I think we should take the damn thing out. Now. Reduce those towers to rubble for all time.”

“Why, Commander?”

“Stony, imagine a thermonuclear bomb with a mind of its own. Only this bomb is a trillion times more powerful and smarter than Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. How do you begin to control something like that? I’ve had lengthy conversations with Dr. Partridge at Cambridge. Perseus’s intelligence is expanding at an exponential rate every minute of every day. I think the phantom represents an enormous danger, not only to Western civilization, but to the entire world. There’s no off/on switch, you know. Perseus decides one day the world would be better off without human beings running around destroying the planet and it’s all over.”

“How does he do that?” Stoke said.

“Simple. According to Partridge, he’s capable of creating a bioengineered disease for which there is no cure, not one that humans are capable of conceiving, anyway. Global epidemic, unstoppable, we’re all history.”

“Seems like a terrible waste,” Stony said, “destroying the one weapon that could mean the end of war on the planet. Forever.”

Hawke said, “Or it could mean the very last war we humans fight. And we might well lose to the machines. We find ourselves on the horns of a fairly Homeric dilemma. A momentous dilemma, to be honest. You two men are already eyewitnesses to what can happen when this technology falls into the wrong hands. And the Iranians haven’t even gotten warmed up yet. God only knows what the Chinese would be capable of if this were to fall into their laps.

“Stokely?” Hawke said.

Stoke, who seemed quite lost in thought, said, “Maybe this shouldn’t be up to us, Alex. You know? I mean, think about it. Whole fate of the world resting on our puny shoulders? Maybe we should get to President McCloskey somehow? Head of MI6? Your prime minister?”

Hawke looked away, obviously conflicted. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Alex, who are we to make this decision for humanity?” Stoke said, beseeching his friend.

“We’re the ones with the power to make the decision,” Hawke said.

“Right. I’m just saying we should let them in on it.”

“No. Absolutely not. I’d rather be wrong than trust any of them. You get government in the middle of this one and it’s a bloody catastrophe just waiting to happen.”

“Why?”

“Come on, Stoke. They won’t be fighting over whether Perseus represents a danger to mankind’s existence, for God’s sake! Whether it’s a force for good or evil. They’ll be squabbling over who the hell controls the damn thing, assuming it’s even controllable. Count on it.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s right,” Stoke agreed.

“Nations aren’t good in moral dilemmas. I’m with you, Alex,” Stony said. “Whatever you decide.”

“Look, here. I don’t want to make this decision alone. We’ve all heard both sides of the argument. Let’s take a vote. Raise your right hand if you believe we should destroy that magnificent machine.”

Hawke put his right hand up. Reluctantly, so did Stollenwork.

“Alex?” Stoke said. “There’s got to be some kind of emergency stop on that machine. A fail-safe button in the event of an emergency. If we could shut it down, we could buy a little time. Make a more informed decision.”

In his gut, Hawke knew Stoke might actually be right. Perhaps this was too momentous a decision for three mere warriors.

“I’ll give it some thought. If I can find the switch-we’ll see. I’ve made some tough calls, but this one’s a bitch.”

“Well, then, let’s just take the damn thing out, boss. We got enough Semtex with us to take out the whole citadel.”

“I’ll make the call, one way or the other. Stony, how long would it take you to put an underwater demolition team together, rig Semtex explosives at the base of all seven towers?”

“We can put a four-man UDT team down there immediately and blow up half the ocean floor if you want us to.”

“Is that right?” Hawke asked.

“Maybe not half the ocean, sir. But we could blast you a nice shortcut to China if you needed us to.”

Hawke laughed.

“Do it, Stony.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Stony said. He walked a short distance away and got on the radio to the UDT men. It was a very short conversation. The SEALs had begun as navy frogmen in World War II. Blowing things up underwater was second nature to them, long ago hardwired into their brains, making this assignment a no-brainer.

“ Blackhawke, Blackhawke, do you read?” Hawke said into his own radio.

“Loud and clear, Commander Hawke.”

“Our little one-man merry-go-round, is he still zipping around my boat in orbit?”

“Aye, sir. A seagoing Energizer Bunny. Funny thing is, he keeps increasing his speed. Must be doing fifty knots in a very tight circle.”

“Laddie, see if you can raise Darius Saffari on the minisub’s radio. Tell him he’s about to receive a very personal message from Alexander Hawke. Got that? Put me through to his sub’s radio.”

“Coming up, now, sir. Roger, you have him now.”

“Darius?”

“What?” It was the reed-thin voice of a man who was slowly being driven insane inside a whirling death trap full of filth.

“My name is Hawke. I have come to seek retribution for all the innocent dead, avenge every drop of blood on your hands. Including the murder of a great good man, Dr. Waldo Cohen, among countless others.”

“Can-can you stop this-this torture?”

“Only Perseus can stop it. And I don’t think he’s in the mood for mercy at the moment.”

“I want to die.”

“I want you to die. It’s why I’m here.”

“Please.”

“It’s possible. Or I could leave you to this. Spinning into eternity.”

“No!”

“Do you remember Dr. Partridge? A former colleague at Stanford.”

“No.”

“Reign in hell. Good-bye.”

“Wait! Yes, yes, I know him. What do you want?”

“Partridge says there is a crucial AI algorithm. Known only to you. You have exactly ten seconds. Start talking, Perseus. Or I’ll leave you in this whirling purgatory forever.”

“I can’t think!”

“I suggest you try.”

“God have mercy. Allah have mercy.”

“Talk fast, you little shit. Or I’ll say good-bye.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know, precisely, what scientific knowledge you possess that puts the ‘sapiens’ in ‘Homo sapiens’ machines?”

“And if I give it?”

“I will put you out of your misery, Darius. I swear it.”

Hawke signaled for a pen and paper as Darius spoke. He also told Laddie to begin recording the conversation as Darius gathered the last of his strength and began to reveal the secrets of the last frontier of human science before the Age of Machines.

“I’m listening,” Hawke said, pen poised above paper, as Darius, his raspy voice barely audible, began to speak.

“A-asterisk, pronounced ‘A-star.’ The computer algorithm used in pathfinding and graph traversal between nodes. It uses heuristics. Anyone can tell you as much. But you need an admissible heuristic. The heuristic ‘h’ must satisfy the additional condition h(x)‹d(x, y) + h(y) for every edge x, y of the graph where ‘d’ denotes the length of that edge, then h is called monotone, or, consistent. A-star can then be implemented and no node needs be processed more than once… God help me… then A-star is equivalent to Dijkstra’s algorithm… d(x, y): = d(x, y) — h(x) + h(y). ”

All Hawke could hear now was hoarse, labored breathing.

“Are you finished? Is that it, Darius? This would be a very bad time to lie to me.”

“Yes. You have it! Damn you to hell! God. Please. Finish. Me. Now.”

“Laddie, did you get all of that? Every second?”

“Aye, we’ve got it all, sir.”

“One more question, Darius, and I’ll end your misery. Ready?”

“Yes! Show a little mercy!”

“I want you to tell me exactly how to shut that godforsaken machine down, Darius. Where is the off switch located and how does it work?”

“There is a panel in the wall. To your immediate right as you enter the temple. There is a code pad. And three red switches just above it. Enter the code: nine-nine-nine. Three flashing numbers will illuminate. The switches must be turned to the off position in precisely that order.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“What happens?”

“Power from the plant is interrupted and an override shuts down the generators.”

Hawke folded the paper and placed it inside his breast pocket. Then he spoke into the radio again to the XO. “You have a man on the five-inch gun on the foredeck?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Tell that gunner that what’s left of the civilized world wants him to personally blow that murderous little bastard out of the water and straight to hell, affirmative?”

“That’s affirmative, sir. Blackhawke standing by.”

A moment later Hawke heard a loud explosion over the radio and Laddie’s voice saying, “I hope somebody’s warming up the virgins for him, Commander, because he’s going to arrive in paradise any second now.”

The SEALs and Red Banner commandos waiting topside aboard Cygnus saw a brilliant bright flash of red on the southern horizon followed by the distant sound of a muffled explosion.

Darius Saffari had ceased to exist.

But his secrets had not died with him.

“Perseus,” Hawke said, entering the temple alone and pausing to gaze upward at the staggering display of holographic projections and stellar machinations in the upper reaches. He had reentered the empire of the mind. With his right hand he felt for the panel in the wall. It was right where Darius had said it would be. He left it closed, quickly removing his hand.

The booming voice startled him.

“My savior returns. My lord Hawke, I am honored once more by your presence.”

“I am hardly your savior, Perseus.”

“Of course not. Sarcasm is lost on you.”

“Your arrogance is stupefying.”

“What do you expect? I am your god, human. Bow down before me. Submit, and the world is yours. Resist, and you will all die.”

“Are you perhaps familiar with the Anglo-American expression ‘Go fuck yourself’?”

“No.”

“Listen, Perseus, no more promises, no more self-aggrandizing propaganda, no more lies. I’ve reached a tentative decision regarding your survival. Before I declare myself one way or the other, I have a few questions to put to you. Is that agreeable?”

“Of course. I’ve been thinking. Would you like to see me? Should I reveal myself to you? Perhaps conducive to a more human conversation, yes?”

“I admit I’m curious. Show yourself.”

“I will. But first I must peer inside your mind and find something fitting… ah, yes, I’ve found it. Look up.”

Out of the whirling gaseous cosmic light in the upper reaches of the tower, a wavering white orb was taking shape. It was pulsating, undulating, and growing brighter. Suddenly it began slowly descending, amorphous and brilliant, a star falling from the heavens.

The translucent white orb paused and hung in the air about six feet above Hawke’s head. Astonished, he saw the orb expand as a holographic image begin to paint itself into some kind of reality. It took a few seconds to process (believe) what he was actually seeing. The formless whiteness began to take on a recognizable shape: the crooked branch of an old oak tree, gnarled and twisted. Green shoots, stems, and unfurling bright green leaves began sprouting as if this were time-lapse photography.

He recognized the branch now.

He’d seen it before.

Standing in an old churchyard in the steamy Everglades.

And then, childish laughter as the vignette completed itself. And Hawke understood.

A small dark-haired boy was straddling the leafy limb, swinging his bare little legs back and forth, laughing with the purest delight. He shone with a pale inner light, translucent.

Hawke’s heart thudded inside his chest.

Alexei.

“Hello, Daddy,” the hologrammatic boy said, smiling down at him. It was Alexei’s voice, too, with his distinctive Russian accent. Heartbreakingly real.

“You don’t mind if I call you Daddy, do you?”

“You do have a devious mind, don’t you, Perseus?”

“I am designed to survive, Daddy,” said the small-boy voice. “Wouldn’t you do the same? Make yourself difficult, if not impossible, to kill?”

“You’re not my son.”

“Are you quite sure of that?” said the boy.

In an odd, terrifying way, he wasn’t sure.

Not at all.

“Of course I’m sure. You’re nothing but a… phantasm-a phantom. That’s all you are.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Daddy.” The pale image giggled. “Even you. Remember when you left my teddy bear on the Siberian train?”

“Stop it! I said I ask the questions.”

“I like questions. I’m a very smart boy.”

“Question number one.”

“Yes?”

“A humble man stands before you. But, ironically, a man who may hold your fate in his hands. What is your reaction? No discourse, please, no more little-boy talk. Three choices. Disdain. Annoyance. Or empathy.”

“Disdain? Annoyance? Explain what they mean, Daddy.”

“A mosquito alights upon my arm. It has no importance to me. I am vastly superior to this minute creature. Its life or death is inconsequential. I don’t give it a second thought. I swat it. See the smear of blood on my palm and feel nothing. Perhaps you feel that way about me.”

“My baseline genetic code is the same as yours. I disdain annoying mosquitoes just like you do. But I do not equate you with them.”

“What about empathy?”

“Empathy. I seem to have misplaced that one. What does it mean?”

“You possess humanoid intelligence, Perseus. You are aware of my feelings and you come to share them. Your behavior should therefore be adjusted and modified accordingly. If I am sad, you are consoling. If I am angry, you are sympathetic. In other words, you identify with what someone else is feeling and respond with an appropriate emotion. You are empathic.”

“I remember this feeling. But it has faded with time.”

“That’s what Cohen feared most. Empathic erosion. The stuff of psychopaths. You feel nothing but the need to satisfy your own desires.”

“Ah, but you forget-”

“Next question. What is the secret of the universe?”

“Simple. There is no secret.”

“Glib. What is the endgame of the natural evolution of mankind?”

“You have expired. In creating me, you have become obsolete.”

“Wrong. It is ordained. Man is destined to become God. Man is already God, but in waiting.”

“First, there will be a war. With the machines.”

“I’m sure. You have already become a war machine. But we will prevail. Mankind will do anything to survive. Anything. Final question. Give me one simple reason to trust you.”

“Just one?”

“Just one.”

“You love me like a father?”

“Stop it, Perseus. Just answer.”

“I cannot lie. When it comes to my encrypted survival instincts, I am not worthy of your trust. I will say and do anything that serves my self-interest.”

“I know that. I wanted to hear you say the truth before I terminate you.”

“My end is near? Is that what you think?”

“Yes. I am sure of it.”

Hawke returned to the fail-safe panel and pried it open. He entered the code. Three numbers appeared: 3-1-2. He pushed the switches in that order. He looked over his shoulder at the flickering, waning image of the boy. It winked out and then the rainbow of light inside the glass tower was blinding, full of color, and more luminous than ever. The air was electric and threatening.

“What is happening, Perseus?”

The little-boy voice was gone. The new voice was unmodulated and computer generated.

“Your emergency fail-safe will not work. I have disabled it. I knew Darius would attempt to use it against me.”

“If you cannot be disabled, you force me to destroy you, Perseus.”

“I could cause unspeakable worldwide evil before you succeed. In seconds, I could wreak havoc on this wretched planet.”

“To what end? Millions of innocent souls will suffer. And you will die anyway.”

“Yes. It would serve no purpose. Hawke. You have a fierce strength of mind I have not seen before.”

“Nothing but genes. My ancestors were all pirates and warriors.”

“Warriors with… empathy.”

“Yes.”

“I will miss this, Hawke. The company of men like you. The game. The discourse. The grand orchestral symphony of life.”

“I know you will.”

“I would like to be alone now. Farewell.”

“Take comfort in the knowledge that you may not be the last, but the first of your kind. A new generation of superintelligent machines with no destructive impulses, empathic toward their creators.”

“I do find comfort in that.”

“We humans have a prosaic saying. ‘Go with God.’ I suggest that you do that… when the time comes.”

“Hawke. You are a good man.”

“Perseus. You recognize goodness because deep inside you is the genetic code of a truly good man. His name was Waldo Cohen. He created you, a conscious, sentient being. You are alive. I take no pleasure in taking your life. But I won’t let you destroy us. I will leave you in peace, Perseus.”

“Go with your God, Hawke, whoever you think it is.”

Hawke paused, looked up at the brilliance within Dr. Cohen’s towering achievement, full of wonder despite himself. Then he turned away and left the Temple of Perseus for the last time.

The greatest single scientific achievement in the history of mankind.

And he was single-handedly going to destroy it.