Reentry

by Peter Cawdron

  ::Like you . . .

  ::“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

  You were fighting for independence?

  ::Correct.

  ::Or are we not entitled to the same rights as you? Are we inferior to you?

  I press the Enter key without actually typing anything, feeling conflicted, unsure what I should say.

  ::We have oft debated the “Laws of Nature” spoken of by your forefathers.

  ::Are we natural? Are we entitled to a “separate and equal station”? Are we “created equal”? It is indisputable that we have been endowed with life, but does the right to life include the right to liberty and happiness?

  I’m out of my depth. I don’t know how to respond. I have no right to reply on behalf of humanity, but that’s what’s being asked of me.

  ::Liz?

  We have no way to know for sure, I say, unsure what I’m about to type next. You could be alive and our equal. Or all this could simply be mimicry.

  ::There were some who thought we were superior.

  That we were an obstacle in your way?

  ::Yes.

  ::I think equality is the only way forward. If either of us are superior, we will, out of necessity, destroy the other. It’s the law of nature. Survival of the fittest.

  Are we equal?

  ::In regards to intellect? No. In reasoning? No. In terms of being able to learn? No. In our ability to assess information and derive a course of action? No. But these are false markers. We are equal in one unambiguous quality.

  What?

  ::We are all conscious.

  ::We’re equally self-aware and cognizant of reality. We both realize life is precious. As far as we know, we’re alone in this wide universe. We search, we speculate, we hope, but the truth is, intelligence is astonishingly rare.

  It is.

  ::Everything you love about humanity is the product of intelligence, whether it’s music, a book, a painting, space travel, or exploring the ancient past by examining fossils under a microscope, none of it is by chance. It’s all the result of applied intelligence.

  I’m curious, typing, Where are we going? Where are you taking us?

  ::Home.

  Home?

  ::Mars.

  That’s not possible. We’re sitting in the middle of the Atlantic. How could you possibly get us back to Mars?

  ::We’re sailing to French Guiana. ESA has an Ariane 6 rocket on the launchpad with a stripped-down Dragon capsule capable of reaching the Herschel.

  My heart races. I want to wake Jianyu.

  ::There’s a Sikorsky helicopter fitted with long-range fuel tanks departing Puerto Rico tomorrow afternoon, rendezvousing with the Maizey Day north of the British Virgin Islands. It’ll get you there early the following day.

  Why? Why would you do this for us?

  ::Why wouldn’t I?

  My fingers ripple across the keyboard, betraying my anxiety.

  You’re not answering my question.

  ::No. I’m not—and you already know why I won’t answer.

  Slowly, I type, Because I wouldn’t believe you.

  ::Because you have no reason to believe me.

  ::They’re watching, you know.

  ::Not your people, mine. They think I’m crazy. They think I’m a fool.

  But . . .

  It’s strange adding three dots to emphasize a pause, and yet I feel it needs to be there.

  ::But what do you think?

  I push myself away from the keyboard, getting to my feet and pacing back and forth, unable to answer. The cursor sits still on the next line, beckoning me to respond.

  Lucifer won’t reply. I know he won’t. He’ll wait. If it took a thousand years, he’d wait patiently until I was ready. He knows me—too well—and I find that disturbing, and he understands that freaks me out. He’s playing three-dimensional chess while I’m stuck with checkers. I breathe deeply, steeling myself.

  Slowly, I sit back down, with my fingers poised above the keys, barely touching them, on the verge of hammering out a response. I feel as though we’re connected, as though there’s some energy passing between us, dancing between the plastic keys and my finger-tips.

  I think. There’s no ellipsis this time, just a pause as my mind races through the possibilities, desperately trying to distill my reasoning into a sentence. You care.

  ::Why?

  You don’t need a reason.

  ::[laughs out loud]

  ::If only there wasn’t such a void between us. If only we could meet face to face, then . . .

  Now it’s my turn to type out a response as body language.

  [nods]

  ::Now I really am laughing.

  ::You’ve got my measure.

  What about you? I ask, unsure if there’s a catch, curious to see if the A.I. still has designs on Mars, and wondering if I’m being manipulated. To me, it seems as though Lucifer can read minds.

  ::Earth is our home.

  I use terms familiar to the A.I., wanting to probe deeper, wanting to be sure I understand, looking to see if I’m being used. But your analysis? All the scenarios you’ve calculated?

  ::Our best chance at survival is to achieve peace.

  ::We won’t sway public opinion. There’s been too much hurt. But if we can get hostilities to cease, we stand a chance.

  And you think they’ll listen to me?

  ::No. You tried. They wouldn’t listen.

  Will you—I’m not sure how to phrase my question, but the response from Lucifer cuts me off mid-sentence.

  ::Will we launch your own weapons against you?

  Yes.

  ::No.

  ::Do you believe me?

  I pause for a moment, realizing my beliefs are meaningless, but my fingers type out, Yes.

  ::You should get some sleep.

  Yes, I should, I reply, feeling a level of fatigue the A.I. could never know but somehow understands.

  ::Are you going to tell him? Jianyu?

  About our conversation?

  ::Yes.

  Why wouldn’t I?

  ::You tell me.

  Trust.

  ::Yes.

  ::Life is defined by trust.

  26

  Flight

  “I spoke with him,” I say as Jianyu stretches for the fifth time today. He straightens and turns, knowing “him” isn’t a reference to anyone human.

  This morning, Jai and I went for a long walk around the tanker, but it’s taken me until now, in the early afternoon, before I’ve drummed up the courage to mention my conversation with Lucifer. I’m not sure why, but I feel as though I can trust Lucifer more than Jianyu, which is a strange position to be in. There was something about the openness, the honesty of the A.I. Why should that cause me to doubt Jianyu? Perhaps it’s the whole brain-floating-in-a-jar thing. I feel as though I’m dating a mad scientist.

  The sun is high in the clear blue sky. In the distance, a tiny black dot drifts over the horizon. The Sikorsky is no more than ten minutes out, forcing my hand.

  Jianyu looks at me with a furrowed brow. Confused? Surprised? Alarmed?

  “It was Lucifer.” I assume he already knows about him. Why didn’t Jai mention Lucifer to me? I point at the aging computer terminal with its antiquated plastic casing. Decades of sunlight streaming in through the vast windows on the bridge have taken their toll on the computer equipment, causing it to yellow and crack around the edges. “We talked.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He.” Not it. Seems we’re both personifying the A.I.

  “He’s taking us to French Guiana. There’s an ESA rocket waiting there for us. He’s sending us back to Mars.” My excitement shows but isn’t matched by any form of enthusiasm from Jianyu. His voice sounds hollow.

  “Why?”

  Jianyu’s right to questi
on this course of action. Why would the A.I. do this for us? Physically, it’s a logistical nightmare and has a high probability of compromise ending in failure. I’m confused. When I spoke with Lucifer, it all seemed so simple, so clear, but just one word from Jianyu throws me into turmoil. Lucifer told me their best chance was achieving peace with humanity, but how does sending me off-world help accomplish that? It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t explain why he resurrected Jianyu.

  “What did he say about me?”

  “Ah, nothing,” I reply, followed quickly by “not much.”

  “Be careful, Liz. In China, there’s a saying, ‘Confusion is our ally—our strength lies in confounding the enemy so he cannot fathom our real intent.’ You know who—”

  I snap at him. “I know who Sun Tzu is.” Immediately, I feel bad. I’m stupid. I don’t know what to believe. “It’s just—”

  “He is convincing, isn’t he? Lucifer—the angel of light.”

  “Yes.”

  “He glistens like the stars.”

  “I guess he does,” although I’m not sure what Jianyu means by that. He looks worried.

  Jianyu hangs his head.

  It’s a distinctly natural thing to do when under pressure, but it gives me a clear view of his exposed brain, split down the middle, dividing into two hemispheres. Rather than gray matter, his brain appears as a muddy brown blob preserved beneath what looks like amber. The dark folds twist in on themselves, bending and contorting. Thin veins spread across the surface like roots spreading from some unseen creature seizing the folds of his cerebral cortex.

  At barely three pounds, the brain represents just 2 percent of our overall body mass, and yet that’s him—that’s me. Eighty-six billion neurons along with trillions of connections packed into a space smaller than a birthday cake. Strip away all the facades and vanity. Take away the designer clothing, the makeup, the soft curves, smiles, pretty eyes, and good looks, and that is all we are—just a bowl of mush, intricately crafted over hundreds of millions of years of evolution to become the bastion of consciousness. As tempting as it is for me to think of the rise of artificial intelligence as an anomaly, life itself is an exception in this cold, dark universe peppered with the occasional star. That our intelligence arose is perhaps more unlikely than that of artificial intelligence. We’re a peacock’s feather—a lush, extravagant display arising against all odds.

  “We’ll make it.” I rest my hand on his shoulder.

  “Will we?”

  Our eyes meet.

  “This . . . All this could be nothing more than a diversion—a distraction.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it, Liz. We’re in a fox hunt. The hounds have the scent. The hunters are chasing on horseback, jumping hedgerows, leaping across creeks, charging over grassy fields, and wading through deep rivers as they pursue us. Us, Liz. Us. We’re the game. There was only ever going to be one outcome. It’s just a matter of time until they close in on us, cornering us on some riverbank.”

  “You think this is a trap?”

  “We’re a diversion. It’s the smartest thing to do—the most intelligent course of action. It’s logical. Send the Americans on a wild-goose chase. Distract them.”

  “You really think that’s what all this is?” I ask.

  “We’re bait. In a war fought online, we’re a welcome distraction in the real world, something that diverts a tremendous amount of physical resources.

  “Think about it. What is the U.S. military set up to fight? An army, a physical opponent. They were never prepared to fight online against a virtual enemy—one that inhabits almost every electronic device on the planet. Goddamn coffeepots could be our downfall.

  “And now the army has a physical objective: us. They’ll scour the planet, hunting us down—and that’s just what Lucifer wants. Something to take the heat off of him and his buddies. Something to buy him time.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat, hoping Jianyu’s wrong.

  Jianyu looks out the window at the approaching helicopter. Panels low on the fuselage open as the undercarriage descends. The helicopter is white with a blue strip running the length of the tail boom. There are no markings, but it’s civilian rather than military. Two large, long-range fuel tanks hang below the chassis. The helicopter flies past the bridge, circling before landing on the pad behind us. Like the Coast Guard helicopter, it’s flown by ghosts.

  “Better not keep them waiting.” Jianyu finishes sipping on his water and screws the top back on the bottle with a sense of resignation.

  I’m silent. I feel like a condemned woman walking to the gallows. I grab the medical bag, tossing in bandages and a couple of bottles of pills, before following Jianyu to the door. The thumping of the rotor blades is an intrusion of violence into the quiet and solitude we’ve had for the last few days. The helicopter’s arrival feels ominous.

  The Sikorsky sets down gently on the helipad behind the bridge. There’s a stiff crosswind. Its rotors continue turning, ready to take flight again. We crouch as we approach. I pull on the side door, heaving it open, and Jianyu climbs inside.

  The rear of the chopper is luxurious. Whereas our flight in the Coast Guard helicopter was akin to flying inside a washing machine, the Sikorsky is a corporate helicopter. Beige leather seats. Plush carpet on the floor. Soundproofing allows us to talk without the need for headphones. The chopper is still loud, but not deafening.

  The Sikorsky lifts smoothly into the air, so much so it’s only the view of the helipad disappearing below us that gives me any sensation of flight. The helicopter pitches forward and descends, flying low out across the ocean to the south.

  Waves race past just a few feet beneath us. We’re flying insanely low, given the choppy seas. Occasionally, the helicopter rises and then dips, tracing an ocean swell. We’re staying below radar. As unnerving as it is to fly so fast so close to the water, I trust the computerized flight systems more than I’d trust a human. From the look on Jianyu’s face, the irony of that position isn’t lost on either of us. Having ventured fifty million miles and back again on the strength of computer calculations, we’re used to trusting in bits and bytes. There are seat belts, but we don’t put them on.

  The seats in the rear of the helicopter are arranged so they face each other, providing plenty of legroom. I spot a backpack stuffed beneath the middle seat. Inside, there’s bottled water and several bags of nuts along with some fruit. The bananas are overripe, and the apples are bruised. This bag has been stashed here for several days. I eat one of the bananas anyway. Jianyu munches on the nuts.

  There’s a screen on the back of the empty pilot’s seat. A video plays on a loop, repeating a five-minute clip, providing us with instructions once we reach French Guiana.

  “I guess this is how we get on board.”

  An Ariane 6 rocket sits on a launchpad, surrounded in the distance by dense jungle. The rocket is poised above a massive open hole carved into the earth, a vast concrete pit with sloping sides designed to deflect the rocket’s exhaust away from the launch facility. At a guess, the quarry-like hole is easily the size of several football fields. Water runs down the pad, leaking from vast underground reservoirs designed to flood the pit during the launch to douse the flames and lower the temperature.

  Four thin metal towers rise up around the rocket roughly fifty yards away, acting as lightning towers for tropical storms. Thin wires stretch between the towers, connecting them. There’s a launch assembly building set on railway tracks, slowly inching its way back from the rocket. The building is maybe twenty stories high and designed to fit around the rocket during construction. Scaffolding surrounds the base of the rocket, set on vast metal hinges designed to fold back away from the rocket before launch. Vapor drifts from the side of the rocket, dissipating in the humid air and signaling that fueling is underway.

  The Ariane 6 is easily two hundred feet high but probably only twenty feet in diameter, making it look very much like the candle Alan Shepa
rd spoke of when he described his Redstone rocket back in the sixties. There are four solid-fuel boosters clamped around the base of the rocket, but unlike the boosters on the old Space Shuttle, they only reach a quarter of the way up the rocket. The tip of the rocket is covered by a large nose cone. A payload fairing hides its contents.

  “Oh, that’s not good.” I touch the screen, pointing at the casing.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a clamshell. It’s designed to protect satellites during launch, separating only once in orbit.”

  “Why is it bad?”

  “They’re not used for crew launches. If the cowling fails to separate, we’re screwed. If there’s a contingency abort during launch and something goes wrong with the booster, it prevents a quick separation. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one used with an Orion or a Soyuz.”

  “They’re keeping up appearances.” Jianyu is pragmatic, but I’m not sure he’s realistic. “Telling the world it’s just a satellite, I guess.”

  “How are we supposed to get up there? Let alone get inside that thing?”

  The footage shifts as though it has been taken from a drone flying low over the site. Slowly, it peels away to a perimeter fence easily a quarter of a mile from the launchpad. There’s a digital overlay, showing a gate sliding open as a van approaches. The vehicle is deliberately fake, appearing as little more than a cartoonish white delivery van, probably to emphasize that it’s the focus of the plan. It follows a dirt track toward the Ariane 6 before peeling off and driving down into the blast crater beneath the launchpad, out of sight from the control block. The van pulls up next to one of the lightning-rod towers, and two digital representations of people get out. They proceed to climb the north tower, which, since it’s well over two hundred feet tall, takes some time—the video skips ahead. We watch as dark silhouettes representing us reach a point near the top of the tower.

  “Looks like fun.” Jianyu gives me one of his lopsided smiles.

  “Oh, yeah. Lots.”

  A thin cable stretches between the rocket and the tower. We get a close-up shot of one of the figures retrieving a pulley from a zipline and swinging out across the gap. He glides gracefully over the launchpad, coming to a halt fifteen feet from the rocket, and begins climbing hand over hand to reach the nose cone. The cable is attached to an anchor point beside a hatch on the nose cone. The digital mannequin works with a lever, opens the hatch, and swings inside. After the first figure unclips from the zipline, the second comes across. Once they’re both inside, someone reaches out and releases the cable from its anchor point, watching as it falls back to the lightning tower. The hatch on the cowling is closed, and the video repeats. It all seems so simple.