Crucible

by James Rollins

  Now it’s my turn.

  Needing to concentrate, she asked to have this room to herself. The only two exceptions to her moratorium were Carly, who sat to one side of her, and Jason, who stood behind her, ready to lend his technical support.

  A glass window on her left looked out onto the rest of the floor, a level devoted to Orange Labs, the company’s research-and-development division. Orange employed a network of technology centers and laboratories around the world, partnered with hundreds of universities, industries, and research institutes, run by multidisciplinary teams of engineers, software designers, and manufacturing experts. But on this Christmas night, only a handful of the lab’s CSIRT members—Computer Security Incident Response Team—were present, currently gathered around Commander Pierce and the others.

  “How’s it going?” Carly asked.

  “I’ve logged into my research files at the University of Coimbra,” Mara reported. “And downloaded the root code of my program. I’m now separating out unique packets, microkernels of basic code distinct to my earliest iterations of Eve that are still incorporated in the latest version.”

  “Like a digital fingerprint of her,” Jason said.

  “Exactly. I’ll be able to use those prints to search the Internet and the vast array of data flowing through Orange’s network and keep watch if a match pops up.”

  Carly crossed her arms. “Then we can follow it to the bastards who murdered my mother.”

  That’s the hope.

  Mara worked quickly, fearing she was already too late. She had overheard the discussion between Father Bailey and Gray. The pair expected the Crucible to begin their cyberattack on Paris tonight.

  What if they’d already started?

  She finally dissected out three dozen unique microkernels, thirty-six data points of Eve’s digital fingerprint. She copied them, uploaded them into Orange’s search engine, a system already designed to scan, debug, and monitor its network.

  She sat back, watching the meter running along the top of the screen, picturing her code coursing through Orange’s server farms, both those buried under this tower and others spread throughout the globe.

  As she waited, she stared out the windows that overlooked the dazzling tapestry of wintry Paris. Though it hadn’t snowed, an icy fog had rolled in from the Seine, misting the city lights into a hazy illusion of itself, as if Paris were a dream vanishing into the night. Yet, above it all, thrusting out of the mist, the Eiffel Tower glowed like the last beacon of the dying city.

  Mara shivered at this thought, fearing such a fate might still come true.

  A chime sounded from the computer, announcing the completion of her scan. She read the results: 0.00% MALICIOUS FILE MATCHES. She closed her eyes and sighed.

  All clear.

  Jason nudged her shoulder, reading the same. “So, the Crucible hasn’t attempted to upload Eve into Paris’s systems yet.”

  “No,” she conceded, then qualified her statement. “That’s assuming this digital fingerprinting even has any efficacy. We may be wasting our time here.”

  Jason leaned down and tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder. “Quit second-guessing yourself. Your methodology is sound, brilliant, in fact.”

  She glanced up to him, noting his dimples, the light scruff of blond beard over his chin and cheeks. “Thanks.”

  He grinned back at her. “Of course, now comes the hard part.”

  She frowned, returning her attention to the screen, wondering what he meant.

  “The waiting,” Jason clarified. “Because this will work. If the Crucible makes any attempt to corrupt Paris’s infrastructure with your program, we’ll know it.”

  Mara took a deep breath, drawing confidence from his firm assurances. “The scan will continuously run from here. If it detects malicious code that matches any of the thirty-six data points I uploaded, we’ll be notified immediately.”

  Still, a larger anxiety ate at Mara, one fraught with guilt. As she stared at the screen, at the spinning wheel of the ongoing scan, she voiced it. “I should never have built Eve. What was I thinking?”

  “If you hadn’t done it,” Jason assured her, “someone else would have. And maybe it’s best it was you.”

  “Why me?”

  Jason stepped to the desk, sat on its edge, and swiveled her chair to look more directly at her. “I studied your design. The architecture of the Xénese device is brilliant, from the cobbling of Google’s quantum drive to your incorporation of chameleon circuits.”

  “Chameleon circuits?” Carly asked.

  Mara explained, happy for the distraction: “They’re logic circuits that can switch function on the fly, even repair themselves.”

  “It also makes the system infinitely more versatile,” Jason said. “It’s fucking genius. If you’ll excuse my French.”

  “Well, you are in France.” Mara allowed a smile to form, the first in what felt like months. “So I guess it’s okay.”

  Jason matched her grin. “And that versality of function allowed you to program uncertainty into your creation.”

  Carly frowned. “I don’t understand. Why would you want Eve to be uncertain?”

  Jason began to explain, but Carly cut him off with a raised palm, looking to Mara instead.

  Mara took up the gauntlet. “Uncertainty is a key aspect of human reasoning. Without uncertainty, we would never doubt ourselves or our decisions. We would be certain that we’re right all the time. It’s this certainty that can make an AI’s ability to learn turn brittle over time. But if an AI is uncertain and capable of doubt, it can begin to judge itself, to question whether an action or decision will have the consequence it desires and test it more thoroughly. In this way, it begins to understand probability—specifically the convoluted relationship between cause and effect.”

  Jason nodded. “This means—”

  “I know what it means,” Carly snapped. “I don’t need you mansplaining it to me.”

  Mara tried to intervene. “I don’t think Jason meant it that way.”

  Her attempt at appeasement only sharpened the irritation in Carly’s eyes.

  “Whatever,” she said.

  Jason tried to change the subject. “I think we got off track. Mara, a moment ago, you questioned whether you should have risked creating Eve in the first place. It’s best you did.”

  “Why?”

  “Otherwise, you might have doomed yourself.”

  “Doomed myself? How?”

  “Have you heard of Roko’s Basilisk?”

  Mara shook her head and glanced to Carly, who shrugged and clearly refused to admit the same. Still, curiosity drew her friend closer to her side.

  Jason sighed and rubbed his chin. “Then perhaps I should leave this alone. I could cause you harm if I explained . . . and on top of that, I definitely don’t want to be caught mansplaining again.”

  He looked pointedly at Carly with a ghost of a smile. Mara couldn’t help but smile back, captured by his teasing manner.

  “Fine,” Carly huffed out. “What the hell is Roko’s Basilisk and why shouldn’t we know about it?”

  “Okay, but remember, you were warned.”

  10:18 P.M.

  Carly kept her arms crossed, still irritated with this guy. She couldn’t explain why he so irked her, but he did. Sure, he was cute and his manner easygoing, but she and Mara had been attacked at the airport, ambushed at her hotel, and kidnapped at gunpoint, only now to be babysat by some covert U.S. paramilitary team, which included this self-assured tech expert.

  Who wouldn’t be pissed after all of this?

  Apparently, Mara.

  Mara had quickly glommed on to this guy: whispering with him on the car ride over, talking shop, comparing technical notes. Like they were already the best of friends. Carly also noted Mara’s shy smile, the way she brushed aside strands of her dark hair to cast sidelong glances his way.

  Both possessive and protective of her friend, Carly wished he’d leave them alone and join t
he others of his group. Her annoyance flared as Mara reached over and touched his knee while he leaned on her station’s desktop.

  Carly stared at her hand, remembering the soft heat of her friend’s palm on the car ride over here. Mara stared up at the guy from her seat, an amused grin playing about the gentle bow of her lips.

  Mara spoke, giving her consent, too. “Okay, I’ll take the chance. Tell me about Roko’s Basilisk.”

  “It was a thought experiment that popped up on a website run by a tech expert in the Bay Area, Eliezer Yudkowsky.”

  Mara dropped her hand, her eyes going wider. “Yudkowsky?”

  “You know him?” Jason asked.

  Mara turned to Carly. “Remember when I told you about the AI Box Experiment?”

  She nodded. “When some guy pretended to be a supercomputer trying to convince its gatekeepers to let it out of its digital box?”

  “Exactly.” Mara brightened. “The guy who played that supercomputer, who was able to talk his way out of the box each time, that was Yudkowsky.”

  Carly frowned. “Okay, but what’s this thought experiment on his website?”

  Jason explained, “It posits that a superintelligent AI will undoubtedly come into being and quickly grow into a godlike intelligence, capable of nearly anything. One of the primary drives of this new AI god will be to strive for perfection, to better itself, to improve its surroundings.”

  Mara nodded. “That’s pretty much what most experts expect could happen if we’re not careful.”

  “Right. This is the Basilisk, the monster of this story,” Jason said. “And since this godlike AI is wired to make things more perfect, it will judge anything or anyone that thwarts this central drive to be an enemy. This includes anyone that tries to stop it from coming into being in the first place.”

  “Even us,” Carly said, intrigued despite herself.

  “Especially us. It will know humans very well and it will know we are motivated by fear and manipulated by punishment. So to discourage humans in the future from trying to stop or interfere with its programming, it will look to the past, judge those who attempted to stop it, and torture them.”

  “To make an example of them,” Mara said.

  Carly frowned. “But what if those people are already dead in this future scenario?”

  “Doesn’t matter. That won’t stop this Basilisk. Being an omnipotent god, it will resurrect past miscreants. It will create perfect simulated copies, avatars that will think they are you—and the Basilisk will torture them mercilessly for eternity.”

  Mara looked sick. “A digital hell.”

  “But remember, this perfection-seeking Basilisk will be quite meticulous during its judging process. It will not only seek to punish those who actively seek to stop it. It will also decide that anyone who doesn’t actively help it come into being in the first place should be equally worthy of this same punishment.”

  Mara grimaced. “Punishing them for the sin of inaction.”

  “So get on board now,” Carly said, “or be doomed forever.”

  Jason slowly nodded. “That’s the moral of this story. And, unfortunately, now that you’ve learned this you’ll have no excuse in the future for why you didn’t help this godlike AI from coming into being. You can’t claim ignorance any longer.”

  “And so, you’ve doomed us,” Carly said.

  Jason shrugged. “I did warn you.”

  Mara frowned. “Surely you can’t take this seriously.”

  Another shrug. “After this thought experiment appeared on his website, Yudkowsky removed the original Basilisk post. In addition, any further discussion on the site is still being mysteriously scrubbed.”

  “So as not to doom more people?” Mara asked.

  “Or at least, not mess with their heads.” But Jason wasn’t done. “In the last couple years, a major tech player started a new church, the Way of the Future, even obtaining tax-exempt status. The filing stated the purpose of the church is for the realization, acceptance, and worship of a godhead based on artificial intelligence. So clearly someone is hedging their bet, making sure they’re on the good side of this future godlike AI.”

  “That’s got to be a joke,” Carly said.

  Jason shook his head. “The creator of this church is dead serious. And maybe we should be, too.” He stared harder at Mara. “So, you see, maybe it’s best you did create Eve. If nothing else, you’re already doing this future god’s good work.”

  “Then I’d best get back to it,” Mara said.

  But before she could return to the computer, a commotion in the outer room drew all their attentions. While they had been talking, someone new had arrived. Commander Pierce had the newcomer locked in a bear hug. The man was dressed in a khaki jumpsuit under a flight jacket. His face was flushed, all the way to his shaved scalp.

  “Who’s that?” Mara asked.

  Jason headed toward the next room. “Hopefully, the cavalry.”

  10:32 P.M.

  “About time you got here,” Gray said.

  He gave Monk a final squeeze before releasing him, trying his best to communicate how relieved he was to have his friend at his side—and how sorry he was for Monk’s loss.

  “I heard about Kat,” Gray said.

  Kowalski patted a huge mitt on Monk’s shoulder. “It’s fucked up.”

  Monk shook his head, looking at his toes. “She would want me here.” When he glanced back up, there were no tears in his eyes, only a steely determination. “I intend to bring my girls home. For Kat’s sake and my own.”

  “We’ll make sure that happens,” Gray said. “Until then, Seichan will look after them. She’ll keep them safe.”

  “I know she will.” Monk reached and squeezed his upper arm. “We’ll get them all home. No matter what.”

  “Agreed.”

  Gray absorbed the unwavering confidence of his best friend, letting it seep into his bones and dispel the residual misgiving and apprehension that clung to him.

  “What now?” Monk asked. His gaze swept the room, noting Jason’s approach from the computer lab.

  Gray filled Monk in on all that had transpired, introducing him to Father Bailey and Sister Beatrice. “They’re with the Thomas Church.”

  Monk’s grim attitude lightened slightly. “Like Vigor?”

  Bailey shook Monk’s hand. “He was a great man. I only hope I can do him justice.”

  “Me, too. Those are some mighty big shoes to fill.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  The older nun simply bowed her head, acknowledging the same.

  “What about you?” Gray asked. “Anything new to report?”

  “No.” He gave the room a final look, turning his back slightly to Gray. “Nothing at all. Let’s just find those bastards who stole that tech.”

  17

  December 25, 11:18 P.M. CET

  Paris, France

  Deep in the catacombs, Todor Yñigo bided his time—but his patience was wearing thin. He checked his watch. The Inquisitor General had been firm with him on the details of the cyberattack upon the city above his head. Paris had been chosen because of its decadence and self-indulgent pageantry. It was the perfect city to make an example of.

  Even the timing was chosen for its significance.

  No later than midnight.

  The start of the fall of Paris must happen today.

  On Christmas Day.

  Still on his knees, he stared up, picturing the spectacle far above his head, where the day of Christ’s birth had been debased into a hedonistic spectacle of lights, consumerism, and overindulgence. As preparations had been finalized, he had spent the past two hours here in solemn prayer, his cell in the catacombs lit only by a single candle. He whispered in Latin his thanks for God’s gift of His only son, while contemplating the ruin about to start.

  All in Your Glorious name.

  They had chosen this subterranean location to carry out their operation because it was both auspicious and practical. The c
atacombs of Paris—its city of the dead—was a centuries-old warren of crypts and tunnels, a dark world beneath the bright City of Lights, a shadow it tried to hide. While preparing the groundwork for this operation, he had learned everything he could about the site.

  The catacombs were once ancient quarries—called les carrières de Paris—on the outskirts of town. They burrowed ten stories underground, carving out massive chambers and expanding outward into two hundred miles of tunnels. Then, over time, Paris spread like a cancer, growing outward, blanketing the top of the old labyrinth, until now half of the metropolis sat atop the old mines.

  Then, in the eighteenth century, overflowing cemeteries in the center of Paris were dug up. Millions of skeletons—some going back a thousand years—were unceremoniously dumped into the quarries’ tunnels, where they were broken down and stacked like cordwood. According to the Inquisitor General, some of France’s most famous historical figures were interred below, their bodies lost forever: from Merovingian kings to characters from the French Revolution, like Robespierre and Marie Antoinette.

  But in less than an hour, the City of Light would burn and crumble to ruin, becoming indistinguishable from its city of the dead.

  To ensure this was accomplished, Todor climbed to his feet. He placed a palm against the wall of his cell. The limestone sweated, dripping with water, as if already mourning the deaths to come. He patted the wall and headed out.

  To either side of the passageway, deep niches had been packed solidly with old human bones, darkened and yellowed to the color of ancient parchment. The skeletons had been disarticulated and separated into component parts, as if inventoried by some morbid accountant. One niche held a stack of arms, delicately draped one atop the other; another was full of rib cages. The last two niches—one on either side of the passage—were the most macabre. Two walls of skulls stared into the tunnel, daring anyone to trespass between their vacant gazes.

  Todor hurried past those dead sentinels, but not without a shiver of dread.

  The tunnel finally ended at a flat-roofed chamber, only a little taller than the passageway. Several pillars—made up of piles of stone blocks—held up the ceiling. Several of the columns looked crooked and ready to fall.