[2016] Infinity Born

by Douglas E. Richards

  What had begun as a way to enhance survival prospects had ended as the most horrific thing that could possibly happen to a man.

  When Volkov had threatened Riley, Jordan had decided to upload his consciousness into a duplicate and send this duplicate to the church after her. Hopefully, the duplicate would be able to work a deal to free Riley. But if anything went wrong, Jordan would give his copy an edge. He would install a subroutine that would let Jordan Two trigger a clock-speed-avalanche with a single mental command.

  Both Jordans prayed this would never be required. But if it was necessary to save Riley’s life, Jordan Two would do what he had to do, hoping that his adversaries were in close proximity to each other so he would be spared a living hell unequaled in the annals of history.

  After Carr had interfered with Jordan’s plans and freed Riley from the church, himself, this option hadn’t proved necessary.

  Until now. Until Volkov had made it unavoidable.

  Everything around Jordan now appeared frozen in time. It wasn’t, but his view would change at a pace that was maddeningly slow, like a movie that was being shown to him at one frame per hour.

  Jordan had done the math long ago, when he had first experimented with changes to clock speed. The speed of normal human thought was so complex it was impossible to pin down precisely. In general, neuronal communication operated at a maximum speed of between two to three hundred miles per hour. Since brain cells were packed so tightly together, these relatively modest speeds were plenty quick enough to allow a helpless ape to ascend to the top of the food chain.

  Still, the speed of light was incomprehensibly fast. Almost seven hundred million miles per hour. So even if the speed of normal human thought was as high as seven hundred miles per hour, the speed of light would still be a million times faster.

  After lengthy calculations, research, and guesswork, Jordan had finally calculated that a runaway emulation would increase the speed of thought a hundred thirty thousand fold. Actually far less of an increase than would have been possible if the system were optimized for speed.

  Still, a hundred thirty thousand fold increase had profound consequences. Jordan Two’s mind was now operating so much faster than normal that every second that passed was now the equivalent of just over thirty-six hours. A full day and a half.

  Every second!

  In thirty-eight seconds, Volkov had vowed to kill Marsha Stephens. At the rate that Jordan’s mind was now operating, this was almost two months away.

  Jordan had a single image stuck in his visual cortex, one of Yakov Urinson, Marat Volkov, and the screen of a laptop computer being held to face him. In all the time he had been reflecting upon his condition this image had yet to change, a horrifying reminder that this endless nightmare had only just begun.

  His mind would be active and thinking for the equivalent of thirty-six hours for every second that passed. And now that his sleep emulation was destroyed, he couldn’t retreat into unconsciousness to spare himself from any of it.

  If his body were as fast as his brain, this would be a much different story. But no body made of matter could come close to approaching the speed of light, much less a biological one.

  As it was, the speed of his brain and the speed of his body couldn’t have been more of a mismatch. So much so that he was no longer in a body, but inside the ultimate prison.

  While his neuronal operations had been replaced by photonic gates, his muscles remained fully human. He could give instructions to his body as quickly as he wanted, but his nervous system and muscles were going to take their own sweet time in carrying them out.

  Forcing a man to spend just a few days in solitary confinement was considered a brutal torture. But at least such a prisoner could move, could feel, could sleep.

  Jordan Two, on the other hand, was condemned to a state of being that made the harshest solitary confinement look like a mercy. Condemned to do nothing but think for an eternity, without sleep, and in a state of almost perfect paralysis inside a body whose every blink seemed to take hours to complete.

  Jordan had known what he would be asking his duplicate to endure—if it came to that. In preparation, he had done the best he could to tweak the biology of his new body, to soup up its muscles and reflexes and enhance its speed of reaction. This would do nothing to relieve the agony that Jordan Two would experience—since this increase in body speed was but a drop in the ocean of what was needed—but it would ensure he would be fast enough to defeat those who were holding Riley hostage.

  He could now move roughly six times faster than a normal man, and with perfect precision, given that he had all the time in the world to plan his movements. A hundred-mile-per-hour fastball crossed the plate in under half a second, but if he were the batter, he would have the equivalent of fourteen hours to watch it hang in mid-air, inching its way toward him.

  Ironically, tragically, a lack of patience was Jordan’s biggest failing. Now he would have an eternity to develop this capacity. An act as simple as texting the word help, which he could now do faster than any human on Earth, would seem to him to take hours. He could order a finger on to the next letter all he wanted, but he could do nothing but wait for it to respond.

  Knowing all of this, he had delayed entering the abyss for as long as he could, avoided triggering a personal hell so cruel that even Satan would be terrified of entering. He could only pray that the Russians wouldn’t find Jordan One in the guest house of the mansion, which would only make their hand that much stronger. He prayed that Carr would come through.

  If Safin had come back to the room, had been reachable within a few seconds of real time, Jordan would have acted sooner. But as it was, Volkov’s threats had left him with no other choice. He had finally run out of time.

  Ironic, since time was now all that he had.

  Jordan had a feeling Carr was making more progress than Volkov was letting on, or the Russian wouldn’t have taken the measures he had. But even assuming Volkov’s men succeeded at the mansion and captured both Riley and Jordan One, it was possible that killing Volkov, cutting off the head of the snake, would turn the tide in their favor. Greshnev wasn’t likely to be as formidable as his boss, giving Jordan One a better chance to eventually turn the tables. At minimum, Volkov’s death would create disarray and buy Jordan’s people time.

  No matter what, Volkov needed to die. Which Jordan Two calculated would occur in less than three seconds.

  Three seconds that for Jordan would stretch out into the equivalent of four 24-hour days of sleepless thought, trapped in a prison, pulling the levers on his own body and waiting forever for his commands to be carried out.

  No books, television, or other entertainment to help pass the time. No conversation, Internet, or scientific projects to engage in. Just hour after hour of himself in the ultimate solitary confinement, being alone with his thoughts, paralyzed, watching the world pass by one lingering frame at a time.

  Jordan had tricked Volkov into revealing where he kept his knife, but this wasn’t much of an accomplishment. The Russian would have happily told him if he had simply asked, certain that he had the upper hand.

  But Volkov’s upper hand would only last a few more seconds, at least from the Russian’s perspective. Jordan had long since decided on the exact path he would use to achieve his goals, the most efficient way forward.

  But for now, all he could do was wait.

  And fight to hang onto sanity for as long as he could.

  60

  Marat Volkov’s mood was darkening. The operation at the mansion was getting away from them. He had lost contact with Ivan Makarov, his third-in-command, and none of the others had comms that could reach him.

  Just because Makarov was likely out of commission didn’t mean the rest were. Only one man was needed to complete the mission. Carr may have been able to take out most of them, but getting them all was a much different story. The American was the luckiest man Volkov had ever come across, but his luck was bound to run out at so
me point.

  Still, it had been nearly forty minutes now since Volkov had captured Jordan. Almost twenty minutes since Greshnev’s team at Jordan’s mansion had killed two guards, had penetrated perimeter security, and had begun their assault.

  Volkov was satisfied that the room he was in was free of bugs. Urinson had scanned for them quite thoroughly, and Volkov wasn’t surprised by their absence. After all, Volkov wasn’t supposed to know that two Jordans were possible, or that Brennan had brought him here to kill one of them, under their orders. So they wouldn’t risk a bug being found and arousing suspicion, nor would they see the need for it. Jordan wanted his duplicate killed or kidnapped, after all, not rescued.

  But the biological Jordan would surely have a way to check on the proceedings. And if there was no indication that his duplicate had been killed or moved, he would become antsy. The operations here and at the mansion had been coordinated so the free-ranging Jordan wouldn’t get suspicious until they had Riley in their pocket.

  Volkov had too much respect for the man, his capabilities, and his organization to allow him to remain at large much longer without having his daughter to control him.

  Volkov wasn’t sure if killing a man or woman in the facility below every two minutes would really get Jordan’s duplicate to divulge the location of the original, but he didn’t have much to lose. This wasn’t ideal, since he intended to press these people into service, but he could spare five or ten of them without too much trouble. And he expected to get word any minute that his men had finally captured Riley. They probably had already, but weren’t yet able to communicate this fact.

  As soon as one of the survivors on the team remembered that only Greshnev and Makarov possessed command comms that could reach him, this would change. Stealing a comm from a dead man was a bit ghoulish, but they would do what was necessary in order to report.

  Volkov checked to be sure Jordan still had his eyes fixed on the laptop screen, which continued to show a helpless woman named Marsha Stephens with a gun to her head. The red digital numbers continued to tick down on the screen.

  If Jordan thought Volkov was bluffing, he would learn differently in less than a minute. The major was even in less of a mood to be merciful than usual, having lost Greshnev, one of the few men he had truly respected.

  “I have your knife,” said Jordan out of the blue.

  This was a ridiculous claim, but Volkov checked to be sure. “You’ve lost your mind,” he said in contempt.

  “Not yet,” said Jordan enigmatically. “But very soon.”

  The Russian didn’t reply to this odd statement.

  “Believe it or not,” said Jordan, “I envy you.”

  Volkov’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. Of all the things Jordan might have said, this was among the most unlikely.

  “How so?” he replied.

  “Because you’ll at least have the mercy of dying quickly.”

  Before Volkov could even digest this threat, Jordan moved—with superhuman speed—rising and lunging at Urinson a few feet away.

  Urinson shot, intending to injure rather than kill, since Volkov had made the value of their prisoner clear, but Jordan twisted in mid-lunge to avoid the bullet. It missed him by less than a millimeter, as if he had guessed the shot’s trajectory before it had even been fired and could control his body with micron precision.

  In another blink of an eye, Jordan reached up, twisted the gun from Urinson’s hand, shot up through his chin and into his brain, and spun the gun to point at Marat Volkov. The major was as quick on the draw as anyone, but he had just begun to raise his own gun when half of his face disappeared in a spray of blood.

  Jordan snatched the laptop from the Russian’s hand as he fell, hit a command to have a still photo of the major’s gory visage sent to Safin, and snatched the knife from the sheath on Volkov’s ankle—all before Volkov hit the ground.

  Jordan used the knife to free his hands while simultaneously texting a message to Safin.

  Coming 4 U, he wrote.

  This completed, Jordan pocketed Urinson’s handgun and sprinted off for the hexagonal building and the elevator it contained, moving at a speed Usain Bolt would have envied, somehow managing to type a message into the laptop at superhuman speed as he ran.

  61

  Carr left the bedroom first and shouted as loudly as he could for Roberto Estrada, letting him know the threat had been neutralized. Once Estrada had joined them, the entire group worked their way to the kitchen to get some much-needed hydration, pausing along the way for Jordan to retrieve an expensive first-aid kit.

  Jordan shook his head as they arrived at their destination. “I have to tell you, I’ve had neater houseguests,” he said with a grin, picking his way across dumped garbage and the contents of numerous drawers strewn haphazardly across the floor.

  “How do you know the intruders didn’t do this?” said Carr impishly.

  “Is that the best story you can come up with, Lieutenant?” said Jordan in amusement as he handed out cold bottles of water to his guests.

  “Pretty much,” said Carr with a smile. He winced. “And sorry about burning down the guest house. Kind of makes trashing the kitchen not look so bad anymore, though, doesn’t it?”

  Jordan laughed. “I shouldn’t laugh,” he said. “This is serious. But it’s hard not to be in a good mood after escaping what seemed like certain death. The only concern I have about the guest house is that there isn’t an easy way for firefighters to get here. And I don’t want them here if I can help it. But I think we’re okay. It’s a very still day, and I think the fire will just consume the house and burn itself out.”

  Trish had begun to work on cleaning and sealing Carr’s and Estrada’s wounds while Jordan spoke.

  The billionaire blew out a heavy sigh. “I guess it’s time to tell you why I doubt Volkov will be a problem.”

  He went on to explain how Jordan Two had the ability to increase his mental clock speed, and all that this meant, and the sacrifice he suspected his double was in the process of making. He had spent some time imagining what this would be like, and his description of the torture his double would suffer was as powerful as it was horrifying.

  When he finished, no one spoke for some time.

  Jordan accessed a tablet computer and entered codes to kill the cell phone and Wi-Fi suppressors he had set up.

  The instant the signals were active again, Jordan’s phone indicated he had a message on an email address he had given to only a handful of people.

  He had a sick feeling he knew what this was. He and Jordan Two thought nearly exactly alike, after all, not having much time for their patterns to diverge. If Jordan Two had invoked the doomsday scenario, his double would have eons to diverge, but would get so little new external input and stimulation that Jordan suspected he would still have a strong handle on Jordan Two’s thinking.

  He took a mental breath and opened the inbox in question. Sure enough, it was what he had feared. A message from himself. He closed his eyes tightly and braced for what he might read.

  “Everything okay?” said Riley worriedly.

  Jordan explained that he had a message from his double, and what he knew the message would be. On one hand, it meant that they were out of the woods entirely. On the other, it was a portent of unspeakable suffering.

  “Let me read it to myself,” he said, “and then I’ll read it out loud.”

  There were somber nods of support for this plan all around.

  Without another word, Jordan opened the message and began to read.

  Hello, Isaac. Greetings from hell.

  Volkov is dead. Unfortunately, one of his men took over the emulation facility, and I need to kill him also. I’m not sure I’ll succeed. The killing part will be child’s play, but he’s minutes away—six months to a year for me—and I can’t see how my sanity can possibly hold for that long.

  But I’ll give it everything I have. I know the importance.

  I’m typing this as I ru
n for the elevator, waiting hours between each letter, as you know. But writing to you at least gives me a purpose as the weeks and months in this purgatory accumulate. If not for my determination to communicate one last time, I’d have lost my sanity already.

  Funny, anyone watching me in real time wouldn’t believe their eyes. I’m running faster than anyone ever has. While I’m doing this, I’m also balancing a laptop and typing faster than anyone ever has. Much faster. Boosting one’s speed of thought over a hundred thousand times does seem to help with multitasking, at least.

  Any watchers would envy my balance, speed, and body control. They would think no one has ever moved their body faster. But I know the truth. No one has ever moved their body more slowly. They could look at me as I run and never guess I’d be jealous of a man who is paralyzed from head to toe. Never guess I’d be willing to sell my soul to the Devil to change places with him. (Good joke, right, since even if a soul exists, you’re the one who has it)

  We thought this would be a torture that was inconceivably cruel. We were wrong. It’s far worse than that.

  I’ve lost track of days at a time. Sometimes I scream in agony inside of my head for many hours straight. Sometimes I drift off and begin hallucinating. But so far I’ve always managed to pull myself back to sanity, eventually, and continue typing the next letter in this message.

  I’m now waiting for the elevator to open. If I remember right, this requires ten seconds of patience for the normal man. Which means fifteen days in hell for me. Brutal, tedious, endless twenty-four-hour days. Days without sleep or diversion, with the image of an elevator door my only companion. Hour after hour of existence with no purpose, thought with no outlet, most of it consisting of nothing but mental screams of agony. Punctuated by brief instances of directing a finger to type the next letter.

  And I can assure you, it’s not nearly as fun as it sounds.