The Null Prophecy

by Michael Guillen

  As she approached the lab she glanced toward the water; Hero was no longer moored to the pier.

  Good.

  Stepping into the building, she called out to Calder.

  No answer.

  Argh, always too busy to listen.

  Walking in farther, she saw the empty hydraulic lift and was instantly gripped with foreboding.

  “Calder!”

  She raced to the far-left corner of the lab, where she found him the last time. He wasn’t there. The reverberation chamber was quiet and dark.

  She stood still for a moment, wondering what was going on and where Calder might be. She started rushing back to the car. She’d tell Eva. Recruit her help.

  “Allie!”

  She froze. “Calder! Where are you?”

  “Over here by the lift.”

  Running up to him, she immediately noticed his long face. “Where have you been?” she said, out of breath. “Where’s Hero?”

  He seized her by the forearms. “I’ve been looking for you. You’re not going to believe it.”

  She found Eva inside the production trailer, parked outside the main admin building, and quickly told her what happened.

  Eva stared deep into her eyes. “You’re kidding me, right? Tell me you’re joking.”

  Allie shook her head miserably.

  “You’re not joking. Oy! How did it happen? Who could’ve done it? And why?”

  “Look, chica, right now my main worry is telling the president. Dios! How am I going to break it to him?”

  A short while later she was standing face-to-face with Martin Glauber.

  “Allie, you’re kidding, right? It isn’t funny.”

  “Marty, I’ve never been more serious in my life. You’ve got to tell the president.”

  “Me? He’s in there right now being congratulated by everyone, getting pats on the back. He just finished telling the world not to worry, that help is on the way. And you want me to tell him it’s all off? That the world is screwed? Oh, no, this is on you, Allie. You’re the one who’s going to tell him.”

  MONDAY, MAY 1 (11:02 A.M. CHINA STANDARD TIME)

  SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY; SHANGHAI, CHINA

  ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 30 HOURS 46 MINUTES

  Zhaohui Tang, fighting hard to stay alert, nodded off. Instantly, her chin snapped back up and her eyes flew open. For the past eleven-plus hours a small army of her brightest grad students—along with an even bigger, worldwide throng of her most successful alumnae—had been diligently trying to defeat her newest brainchild: software to make Web browsers absolutely hack-proof.

  The revolutionary add-on took her three years to design and debug. This was its final test, and so far it was withstanding everything being thrown at it.

  She slowly rose from her chair. “How is everyone holding up?” she said hoarsely.

  The students assured her they were fine. They were seated at computers lining the walls of the spacious computer lab. The alumnae, hearing her on the open mic, reported the same.

  “I’m having lunch brought in for everyone,” she said to the students. “If the add-on keeps holding up, we will make an announcement tomorrow. It will bring great honor to our university and country.”

  SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (8:32 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)

  NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 30 HOURS 16 MINUTES

  Allie emerged from her meeting with the president feeling heavy. She lumbered through security, conferred briefly with Glauber, and then stepped outside. She hesitated before making a beeline to the production truck.

  Eva looked like a nervous wreck. “What did he say? Stu wants you to do an exclusive cut-in right away.”

  Allie shook her head despondently. “The president’s not happy. Wants me to stay mum about what’s happened.”

  “What? No way!”

  Allie plopped heavily into the nearest chair. “Eva, cut the man some slack. He’s putting no less than the chairman of the joint chiefs—the highest-ranking military guy in the country—on the case right away. He says wherever Hero is, they’ll find her. I’m willing to give him some time before blowing the whistle.”

  She began twisting her hair.

  Is this really me talking? Willing to sit on a huge scoop?

  “But—”

  “Eva! It’s not always about the story. I’m learning that now. You should too.”

  CHAPTER 38

  PLAYING WITH FIRE

  SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (8:45 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)

  PACIFIC OCEAN; VICINITY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

  ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 30 HOURS 3 MINUTES

  Jared slowed Hero to a stop in the deep waters opposite Northern California but kept the engine idling; he didn’t want to risk her not firing up again.

  He glanced at the onboard chronometer: 8:45 p.m. Pacific daylight time.

  11:45 p.m. eastern.

  He wanted to get as far away from the United States as possible, but was pausing briefly—just fifteen minutes—to ring in the Quantum virus. Afterward, he’d zip off to one of the mansions he had called home as a child.

  Maybe I’ll even go back to mansion-hopping.

  He banished the thought as too depressing.

  Narrowing his eyes, he peered through the windshield, but it was too dark outside to see much. A whale spouted close by. In the near distance to his left, a brightly lit, off-shore oil rig held its tangled head high above the surface of the sea, like a boxy, four-legged giant on stilts. Miles away to his right, tiny points of light sparkled along the coast.

  His eyes looked past them. Somewhere inland lay Mountain View and NeuroNet.

  Oh, Maggie—you don’t know what you’re missing.

  He stared blankly into the night and tightened his lips.

  It could’ve been awesome, you and me.

  Still strapped securely in the seat, Jared leaned back, closed his eyes, and focused on what was about to happen. It was the realization of a lifelong dream to rid the world of injustice. To abruptly reverse the disastrous, tyrannical progress of big science and big business and big government. To yank the world back to a primitive time when people were more equal than they were now.

  He smiled. Starting in just a few minutes life would become simple again. Small again. Human-sized and human-friendly again.

  He surveyed the innumerable glittering lights of the coastal cities and imagined them being summarily snuffed out when the computer-controlled power grids of the world crashed—one of the first casualties of his virus.

  He wondered how his hacktivist allies would react when he announced to the world—which he would, just as soon as he had the chance—that he was the masked man. That they were now members of a hand-selected army entrusted to enforce a new world order.

  If they followed his instructions, they would’ve already downloaded the CDs he gave them—protection against the virus. After the virus exploded, he’d assign lieutenants to each region of the world. Their job: hack key sites debilitated by the virus—major banks, ATMs, Fortune 500 and other multinational corporations, government agencies, the media. Bleach existing financial records and create new ones, so wealth could be redistributed fairly. Every adult in the world would receive an equitable amount of money in a personal bank account created for them.

  His lieutenants would hack the virus-weakened computer systems of law enforcement agencies and judicial systems, obliterating forensic evidence, fingerprints, criminal records, verdicts, the names and jail sentences of inmates. The justice systems of the world would be so screwed up, he wouldn’t need to worry about the law.

  Jared kept staring at the chronometer.

  C’mon, already!

  He thought of the big-chested cook from his childhood saying to him, “A watched pot never boils.” Maybe he’d track the kindly woman down, hire her to cook for him, and even give her a mansion of her own.

  A strange, sharp sound from the dashboard snapped him out
of his reverie. Hero began to shudder. Alarms were going off.

  Before he could get a grip on what was happening, Hero lunged forward like a wildcat pouncing on prey. His head was thrown back, his body smashed against the seat.

  MONDAY, MAY 1 (12:00 P.M. CHINA STANDARD TIME)

  SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY; SHANGHAI, CHINA

  ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 29 HOURS 48 MINUTES

  Zhaohui Tang, slumped in her chair, was awakened by shouting.

  “Something is happening! Something is happening!”

  It took her a moment to realize that, despite herself, she had nodded off. Her grad students were in an uproar.

  “Dr. Tang, wake up, wake up!” one student cried out. “Our computers—they’ve detected something awful!”

  SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (9:00 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)

  PACIFIC OCEAN; NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

  ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 29 HOURS 48 MINUTES

  Pinned to the seat, Jared looked frantically all around, straining to figure out what was happening. From the haphazard forces on his body, he could tell Hero was moving hectically, first in one direction then another, like a tight end juking his way to the end zone.

  The panel’s digital readouts were vacillating uncontrollably. The images on the main video monitor looked fractured.

  What the hell is happening?!

  With all his might, he managed to get his right hand to move. To stretch in the direction of the red, all-stop button. But when he pushed it, nothing happened.

  Damn!

  With superhuman effort, he willed both hands to punch fiercely and randomly at Hero’s controls. But the demented vehicle would not obey. Her maniacal movements were now jerking him about so violently he felt like prey in a hyena’s jaws.

  He shut his eyes hard and tried to think of what else he could do. Opening them again, he hoped it was all a dream.

  Then it came to him. Something he remembered from hacking Hero’s operations manual. Instantly, he groped for the lever that controlled the ejection seat. But before he was able to find it, he saw it—the giant oil rig. It was coming at him so fast there was no time even to scream. Only to experience the twin sensations of an explosive impact and a towering wall of brilliant yellow flames.

  Followed by utter darkness.

  CHAPTER 39

  HOPE OR DESPAIR

  SUNDAY, APRIL 30 (9:43 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)

  NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 29 HOURS 5 MINUTES

  Allie and Calder were working together in bleak silence at a corner table inside the lab. She was helping him get the supersonic booster flight-ready, on the chance Hero would be found soon.

  Her thoughts were on family. It’d been nearly nine hours since she—

  “Can you hand me those needle-nosed pliers over there?” Calder said, without looking up.

  “What happens if they don’t find her?” she said, handing him the tool. “We need to come up with a Plan B.”

  He turned to her. “You don’t think I’ve been racking my brain about that for the past two hours?”

  She was drawing a total blank too.

  If only he had a backup vehicle.

  Or even a backup vacuum chamber. They could put it aboard a supersonic jet and fly it from hole to hole before the CME struck.

  But he didn’t. And even if he did, it was no use; all planes were grounded because of the x-ray storms.

  Sweet Jesus, I surrender.

  Help us.

  “That TV special of yours.” He continued working, with his head down. “You don’t really believe in that stuff, do you?”

  She was tightening a screw. “What stuff?”

  “The idea the world’s gonna end and all that.”

  She set down the screwdriver and looked at him. “Actually, I do. And I believe we’re steadily making it happen. With our science.”

  “With our science?! You’re blaming science?”

  “I’m blaming us. A gun by itself is benign. It’s the person squeezing the trigger that’s bad.”

  “So we want to bring about the end of the world—is that what you’re saying?”

  She continued looking at him, even though his own attention was still on his work. “No, not necessarily—although there are people bent on using science and technology to create fear and anarchy: suicide bombers, hackers—”

  “But Allie—”

  “But mostly it’s all the unintended consequences of science that’ll end up doing us in. I really believe that.”

  His eyes remained focused on his work. “But Allie, c’mon. That’s pure speculation. You’re a scientist. You should be dealing in facts.”

  “I am.” She leaned in. “Calder, look at me.”

  He stopped working and obeyed; their eyes met.

  “Look,” she said, “did you know medical science is now the number-three killer in the U.S.—just behind heart disease and cancer? Number three! And in five years it’ll probably become number one.”

  He curled his lips, shook his head skeptically, and turned back to his work.

  “Shake your head all you want, it’s true,” she said. “Our doctors use more technology than doctors anywhere else, except Japan—MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans, the whole nine yards. Yet our treatments kill more people than those in countries using less technology. It’s called iatrogenesis—death by high-tech medicine, literally.”

  She resumed her work and they both remained silent.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe we will end up killing ourselves—or maybe science will find a way to save us, I don’t know. It’s just I hope you’re not insinuating this has anything to do with some superstitious prediction in the Bible about the world coming to an end. That would be totally ridiculous.”

  She stayed on task, resisting the urge to lash out.

  A few moments later he said, “You have nothing to say?”

  She shook her head. “Calder, you’re entitled to your opinion—I respect that.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Let’s just keep working. And hoping.”

  “No, I really want to understand how you can believe in God and the Bible and all the rest of it. Someone of your intelligence and sophistication. I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

  She stared at him. “Calder, you believe in luck, right?” She hesitated, wanting to express herself in a non-combative way. “How is that scientific?”

  Calder stiffened. “Luck is about probabilities, numbers you can calculate. It’s not some hocus-pocus about a god controlling everything. I used to believe in that stuff when I was an orphan—that God existed. It made my life a living hell because the only way I could make sense of all the bad things happening to me was that God hated me. Not anymore, thank you very much. It’s a whole lot saner to chalk up all the bad stuff to happenstance.”

  “Calder,” she said, looking at him, “I’m really sorry to hear that. I had no idea.”

  “I’m over it now.”

  They both resumed their work and did not talk.

  She was the one to break the uneasy stillness. Minutes later he heard her say in a gentle voice, “So, Calder, tell me—you believe in odds, right? Then why do you believe the odds are stacked against you? If life is truly controlled by the throw of dice, you should have as much good luck as bad, no?”

  He scanned the workbench. “Let’s not talk about it, okay? On your left, a piece of red wire, please.”

  She reached over and handed him the entire spool. “I’m sorry, but you’re the one who wanted to understand my beliefs. You see, I believe in odds too, just like you. In particular, the impossible odds of anyone ever being able to understand everything with complete confidence. Descartes discovered the only thing he could be absolutely sure about was that he was alive. Everything else required some degree of faith.”

  He clipped off several short lengths of wire.

  Please stop.

 
; “Atheists have faith in the power of nothingness. They believe the universe was created by natural laws acting for a long time on nothing, on randomness. But where did the laws themselves come from?”

  He was concentrating on soldering three wires together. “Science doesn’t have all the answers, okay? Nor does it pretend to, the way religion does.”

  “But atheists believe they do have all the answers. Including the answer to the biggest question of all: does God exist?”

  Calder tried tuning her out. He touched the hot iron to the solder wire, watched the shiny, liquid metal enrobe the twisted bare wires—but she wouldn’t stop talking.

  “No matter how clever anyone thinks they are, Calder, they can’t account for the universe we see today by believing in nothing.”

  “How ‘bout the vacuum?” Calder knew he was just being cute.

  “Exactly. The vacuum is not nothing. How many times have you said that yourself? It only masquerades as nothing. In fact, it’s filled with all kinds of goodies, like a cosmic-sized piñata. But where did all those goodies, the virtual energy fields, come from, huh? So you see, to explain the universe, you always need to start with something. And whatever that something is—that’s your god.”

  He slammed the soldering iron back onto its stand.

  “Allie, for god sakes, please—I’m sorry I asked. Can we give it a rest now?” His voice sounded harsher than intended. “Allie, I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

  “No, Calder, it’s okay.” She stopped working, turned, and headed toward the exit. “I’ll be right back.”

  He hesitated, and then ran after her.

  “Allie, wait!”

  He caught up with her at the main door, gently took hold of her, and turned her around.

  “What?” she said.

  For an eternal moment he stood looking deep into her eyes.

  Something about this woman . . .

  “Calder, I—”

  Abruptly, he pulled her to himself and pressed his lips to hers, long and hard.