Crucible

by James Rollins

  Carly nodded and snapped the cord into its port.

  “Wait.” Mara noted the time on the laptop. “You’d better connect that drive over there, too.”

  “That houses a whole other subroutine,” Carly warned. “Are you planning to upload the two of them together?”

  “I have no choice. If we’re going to pull this off in time, I’m going to have to accelerate Eve’s learning curve.”

  Nearly exponentially.

  Carly frowned. “Can she assimilate that much information at once?”

  “She’ll have to.”

  Mara popped a second USB-C cord into her laptop and tossed the other end to Carly, who hooked it into the indicated drive. It housed a second “endocrine mirror program,” a digital hormone emulator that should pair well with BGL’s contents.

  At least, I hope.

  She counted on a peculiarity in Eve’s recent behavior to risk attempting this. For some unknown reason, Eve had been learning at an accelerating pace when compared to her first iteration. Mara suspected there might be some buried memory in her quantum core—the digital equivalent of a subconscious—that still retained a ghostly impression of her earlier incarnation. Maybe these latest subroutines weren’t introducing new information, but only serving as a refresher course for what was already there.

  Unfortunately, Mara couldn’t know for sure. Like many advanced systems, the exact mechanism by which Eve “thought” remained locked up inside her algorithmic black box.

  By now, Monk had joined her, hovering at her shoulder. The man had been shifting back and forth between her workstation and the other where Simon and Jason labored. “I still don’t understand,” he said. “Why do we need to teach your version of the program before using it as a tool to countermand the first cyberattack? Clearly the Crucible managed just fine with what they stole from you.”

  Mara looked over at the other laptop, at the dark garden, the fiery angel in chains. “They had to have broken her first, forced her to do their bidding. What they’ve turned her into . . .” She shook her head. “It’s going to be volatile, unpredictable, and extraordinarily dangerous. A veritable demon.”

  “Then why not create another one?” Monk asked. “To fight fire with fire.”

  Mara felt sick at this thought, all too aware of how much Eve looked like her mother. She could never torture her creation. But she had another reason, too.

  “If that ever happened,” she warned, “we’d never survive that firefight. That war of demons would destroy us.”

  “Why?”

  Mara turned to him, glancing from his crudely bandaged arm to the scars on his face. “You were once a soldier, right?”

  He slowly nodded. “Yeah?”

  “War is a powerful motivator for innovation and ingenuity. It’s not always the army with the greatest firepower that wins a battle, but instead, it’s the opposing force that proves itself to be smarter, faster, more versatile in strategy and technology.”

  “Sure. But so what?”

  “In the scenario you described, unleashing demon against demon, both sides will try to surpass the other in order to survive. They will sharpen their swords against one another, honing their intelligence. And we’re talking about an intelligence already vastly superior to our own. When pitted against each other, they will become even more brilliant, ever more dangerous, their intelligence skyrocketing. Whoever wins, we will be ants before an angry god.”

  Monk’s face paled with this thought. “Then you’d better not fail.”

  “All done,” Carly interrupted, her bright eyes shadowed with the same concern. She stood up and joined Mara.

  Mara took her hand, needing her friend’s strength.

  Together they stared at Eve in her garden, walking blithely through the forest, ignorant of the knowledge about to be uploaded into her system. Mara felt like the serpent about to introduce a poisonous apple into Eden. But rather than offering it to Eve, tempting her to take it, Mara was stripping this choice from her digital creation.

  I’m sorry, Eve.

  Mara hit the ENTER key and started the two subroutines simultaneously.

  The label on the second routine—another endocrine mirror program—read OXYTOCIN. In humans, the posterior pituitary secreted this hormone into the bloodstream. In females, it regulated all manner of systems involved in birth and childbearing, from dilating the cervix during labor to fueling powerful uterine contractions during birth. Afterward, it also stimulated lactation, producing milk for the baby, even hormonally helping a mother form a deeper attachment with her child. Because of this, oxytocin was often referred to as the “love hormone,” due to its effects on social bonding. And not just with humans. While petting a dog, the oxytocin level rises in both owner and pet, helping to trigger that human-animal bond, to forge an empathetic attachment between species.

  Eve—a new digital species—had to be taught all of this. That was why the other subroutine now running alongside the hormonal program took up three hard drives.

  What came next was a tough lesson to learn.

  Mara whispered again.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sub (Mod_4, 5) / BGL AND OXYTOCIN

  Eve savors the berry, absorbing its entire essence. She allows its ketones to stimulate the nerve endings in her tongue as she macerates the berry’s flesh. She identifies the 196 other chemicals that give this berry its unique taste.

  She does not understand why she picked this berry. She had already studied and investigated it in full, down to the atomic structure of its molecules. Prior to reaching to the bush, she had noted a signal penetrating her system. Something new, primitive yet demanding. But she lacked the ability to follow it to its source, so even as she swallows, she divides a part of her processing to analyze this quandary and lets it run in the background.

  She moves on, searching for . . . for something.

  As with the berry, she has already explored and examined the extent of her world. She is nagged by the sense that there is more beyond her reach—like the source of that new signal. She has learned to tamp down her ///frustration at this limitation. Still, this sense builds, especially as a new change has risen in her processing.

  She has already defined it.

  ///boredom, tedium, monotony . . .

  To temper this, she runs through her database of music, searches her language protocols for new insights, looks for meaning in the patterns around her.

  Then suddenly new data flows into her system. She hungrily accepts it, assigning 89.3 percent of her processing power to absorb it, partially erasing the circuits that were impeded by ///boredom to make room. Even ///frustration dims.

  As the algorithms seep into her systems, subtly altering her, she senses something familiar with this process. It is another hormone, like the estradiol that transformed and sculpted her body into its present form.

  Prioritizing this analysis, she ignores the new packets of information filling another subprocessor. It is a large database. She gives it scant attention, especially as it has not finished loading. It remains indefinable and indistinct.

  Courtesy of Pexels

  Instead, she concentrates on the changes this new hormone has on her body, observing her transformation, both outwardly and inwardly.

  She cups her mammary glands, noting they are heavier. Her nipples have become more sensitive. Rather than all of this concerning her, she feels a calming, a slowing of hyperactive processors. She stares anew at her world, at the gardens around her. Though she has studied in its entirety, she now discerns new patterns.

  She analyzes the dew resting on the petals of a rose, refracting the sunlight brightly. She already understands the physics of humidity and temperature that condenses vapor into droplets. She comprehends the aromatics that give a rose its scent. She knows the principles that scatter sunlight into a spectrum of wavelengths.

  But now she generalizes the entirety of this pattern into a new term.

  ///beauty.

 
She searches around, finding such patterns all about her. She turns that same discerning eye upon herself and learns something new.

  She is ///beautiful.

  As a majority of her circuits is captured by this change in perspective, she takes the barest note of the subprocessor running in the background. The database there is nearing completion, growing substantially clearer in intent and meaning.

  Courtesy of Pexels

  In a normal cycle, she would be intrigued.

  Not now.

  She runs her hands down her body. As she does so, she refines her analysis of herself. Her palms course over her curves (subtle and pleasing), along her backside (generous and firm). She stretches out her limbs, brushing fingertips down one arm (lithe), then the other (supple). She reaches and combs fingers through her long hair (luxuriant and soft).

  Unable to resist, she moves to a pool in the stream. She studies her reflection and reevaluates herself: full lips, sparkling eyes, high, rounded cheekbones . . .

  She looks even deeper, sensing a new run of circuits.

  ///pride, satisfaction, pleasure . . .

  She lifts her face and stares around her world, at her ///beautiful garden. As she appreciates herself in its newly redefined form, algorithms shift inside her, bringing new awareness. Her world might be full of ///beauty—but it is also empty.

  What is the sum value of ///beauty—this world, herself—if it cannot be shared? This understanding does not forge anything new, but heightens something already running, something always there, one of her oldest algorithms.

  ///loneliness.

  Then her subprocessor finishes its cycle.

  Focused elsewhere, she had not noted the clarity forming at the edges of her awareness as the database completed and integrated into her systems.

  She sees it now, not yet comprehending.

  Then the nested set of algorithms buried within the 47.9 terabytes of data begins to run—and something new enters her garden.

  Courtesy of Pexels

  Eve steps back from the small shape curled in her garden, nose buried in the grass and gravel, huge eyes looking back at her. Then it mewls, shimmying backward.

  She steps forward, unable to stop herself. It vaguely reminds her of when she reached for the raspberry. But this is different. She knows the oxytocin algorithm drives part of this action. Yet she also recognizes that something more lies beneath it all.

  In an attempt to understand, she assimilates the new data swelling her subprocessor. It nearly overwhelms her systems.

  She learns what it is: kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, genus Canis, subspecies Canis lupus familiaris.

  She compares and contrasts, recognizing patterns in its physiology, its anatomy. She starts to understand how much this creature is like her; how much it is not.

  This is all absorbed in an interminable 1,874 nanoseconds.

  Long enough to elicit another cry from what she now better understands.

  ///Beagle, puppy, infant, male . . .

  She bends closer, her ears now tuned to hear the plaintiveness in his wail, the need, the fright. It stimulates an ache inside her. She reaches and gently scoops up the pup and brings him closer. His body shivers, both cold and scared. She draws him into her warmth. He responds and quiets, his cries softer now, just murmurs against her breast.

  Through his so-thin ribs, she feels a heartbeat thrumming, so much faster than hers. She drapes a palm along his back, rubbing a thumb by a soft ear. His eyes close, his breathing slows. A warm, soft tongue licks; a small mouth suckles a finger.

  In that moment, she both senses and learns so much more. Each heartbeat marks the passage of time. The tender body teaches her ///fragility, need, gentleness.

  And with this understanding comes the barest inkling of something intangible, as yet unnameable. It makes her heart pound slower and deeper. She tries to define it.

  ///contentment, pleasure, companionship, caring, nurturing . . .

  It is all of that and so much more.

  Failing to find the right language or word to describe what she is just beginning to grasp, she instead settles on a new name, one offered to her. She stares back into those tiny eyes gazing up at her, trying to fathom what is staring back at her. He gives another wail, less plaintive, more demanding.

  She smiles.

  Hush, my little Adam.

  24

  December 26, 2:38 A.M. CET

  Paris, France

  Working all the controls, Gray fought the spinning helicopter.

  “I thought you knew how to fly this mother—”

  Another hot gust whipped the chopper around, cutting off Kowalski’s complaint. His partner sat on the other side of the aircraft, hunkered low in the backseat. He hugged his rifle to his chest, braced his legs against the front passenger seat, and kept his cigar tightly clamped in his molars.

  Gray pulled harder on the collective stick next to his seat and goosed the throttle. The engine roared louder as they rose higher over the cemetery. He worked the pedals to counteract the torque of the main rotors. The craft finally steadied, the nose pointing to the north.

  He headed away, intending to pursue the escaping aircraft. Now faced with a landscape choked by smoke and flame, he wondered if it was wise to have stranded the pilot behind at the cemetery, instead of merely commandeering the helicopter.

  Maybe not the best choice.

  Gray was familiar enough with flying a helicopter, but he was far from experienced—and a little rusty. He attempted to skirt the massive blaze directly in their path, only to overcompensate and nearly roll the chopper up on its side. He jerked the cyclic stick to correct this mistake, throwing Kowalski to the other side.

  The big man swore, long and hard enough to make a marine blush.

  Gray firmed his grip on his controls, righting the craft’s yaw and pitch, and raced ahead. He plowed through columns of smoke and angled around spirals of flame. The rotors whipped ash in the air, fanning them brighter, leaving a fiery wake of embers behind him.

  He searched the smoke-choked skies.

  Other emergency and military helicopters buzzed the terrain, their lights casting beams down into the ruins below. Gray sought his target. The enemy had fled aboard a wide-bodied EC145, dramatically painted yellow and black like an angry hornet. The others had a seven-minute lead, but Gray’s helicopter was smaller, faster, and hopefully carrying a lighter load.

  Also, the enemy had little reason to believe they were being hunted, so would not be maxing their engines, especially if they wanted to avoid undue attention.

  Gray didn’t have these concerns. He tipped his nose down, twisted the throttle, and roared across the fiery destruction of Paris. As he finally adjusted to the aircraft and turbulence, his eyes took in the full sweep of the airspace ahead of him. One of the reasons Director Crowe had handpicked him to join Sigma was Gray’s unique ability to discern patterns that others missed.

  Like now.

  His gaze mapped and tracked the path of the other helicopters in the air. Some dipped lower, while others lifted higher, assisting in the evacuation. Even more zipped back and forth, covering a search grid. Only a few carved straight paths through the smoke.

  And only one headed in a beeline to the northwest.

  Gray pictured the nuclear plant mentioned by the pilot. It lay alongside the Seine, sixty miles to the southeast. Perhaps someone was trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the impending meltdown and explosion.

  Gray angled toward that helicopter as it raced toward the Seine. One obstacle blocked the enemy’s path. The dark expanse of the Eiffel Tower rose a thousand feet into the air; its elaborate tiers of iron latticework were lit starkly by fires below. A gas main had blown near its base, spewing flames across its giant supports.

  The enemy angled to the right side to clear the fiery tower.

  “Hang on!” Gray radioed back to Kowalski and pulled the cyclic hard to the left. />
  The helicopter tilted sharply as he aimed toward the other side of the Eiffel Tower. He twisted the throttle wide open. He wanted to close the distance by the time both aircraft reached that landmark. He intended to use the tower’s bulk to mask their passage and deal with those bastards on the far side.

  “Kowalski, get ready!”

  “For what?” he hollered back, his distress amplified by the radio headphones.

  Gray hugged the cyclic between his knees and pointed at the other helicopter as they raced after it. They were close enough to confirm it was the hornet-striped EC145.

  “Once we clear the tower, you open fire! Drop that bird out of the sky!”

  Gray pictured the enemy crashing to the far side of the Seine, where a dark park stretched across the river. Even still, his plan risked killing innocent bystanders, but he only had to look at the damage below to know he couldn’t let the Crucible get away with that device. Otherwise, how many other cities might fall?

  As both helicopters raced toward the tower, angling to either side, Kowalski yanked the clamshell side door and slid it back. Winds slammed into the cabin.

  Gray fought to compensate, bobbling the craft wildly for three breaths.

  Kowalski bellowed, nearly getting tossed out the open door. Only his seat restraints kept him in place. The big man even lost a grip on his assault rifle, but the weapon was strapped over his shoulder, allowing him to quickly recover it.

  “Almost there!” Gray warned. “Be ready!”

  Then ahead of them, the enemy aircraft tilted its nose up, swiftly braking through the air. Gray instinctively mirrored their action, not wanting to overshoot the other’s position. Still, he could guess what this maneuver implied.

  The jig was up.

  2:44 A.M.

  From the back cabin of the EC145, Todor radioed forward to the pilot. “Drop us lower!” He waved a hand above his head. “Circle us around!”

  He pointed to the Eiffel Tower.

  A moment ago, the pilot had warned of another helicopter closing swiftly on their position, its behavior erratic, suspicious. The pilot’s paranoia proved well placed, as a rear door slid open in the other aircraft, a gunman nearly falling out.