There was a wiry Latino man standing beside the register. He was reading a paper, but he was not drinking coffee. Instead he was shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, shimmying his arms around as though preparing to step onto a dance floor. He was moving to the steady background rhythm of barely-audible Samba music piping through the store’s speakers. He seemed to be having a good time.
“One of those, please,” Kevin said, pointing.
The man looked up. Without breaking the rhythm of his dance, he turned smoothly and retrieved the item Kevin had asked for. Kevin paid, took his little box, and was gone.
Once back in the apartment, he opened the package and read the label carefully.
Andrew saw what he had bought, and he appeared a moment later with a glass of water.
Kevin shook one – no, two – of the Tylenol-PM sleeping pills into his hand, and then he used the water to gulp them down.
He waited for a moment in the entryway, as though expecting or perhaps hoping to fall down unconscious instantly, on the spot. When nothing happened, he instead went into the living room and sat down on the couch. He was not going back to that silent, solitary bedroom where Father Time was evidently taking some sort of vacation. Here, on the other hand, there was the comforting presence of Andrew, who was still gliding back and forth from the dining room to the kitchen, tidying things up and shining things and dusting things… and all of those little chores took time, had to take time, so this was the place to be.
Suddenly he was aware of silence. It worried him.
“Andrew?”
He was there in a moment. “Sir?”
“Where’d you go?”
Andrew hesitated. “I thought I would busy myself in the kitchen for a while, so as not to disturb you.”
“No. I want you doing stuff where I can see you, or at least hear you. I need distraction, not quiet.”
“You want noise?”
“Right. Or you could even just walk back and forth through here. I need maybe ten minutes of that.”
Andrew considered. “There are still things that need doing in this portion of the house,” he said. “I will address those first.”
Kevin relaxed back into the soft cushions of the couch. He waited ten minutes, but he didn’t feel anything. Another ten. Andrew was doing his best to draw out the chores, but Kevin could tell that the living room and dining room were nearing a state of maximum order. The Queen of England could have visited these two rooms now without complaint.
Ten more minutes.
Now it had been a half-hour since taking those pills, but the only thing he could feel was a dull throb in his head. As if he had had too much to drink.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, and stood up. “Andrew, do I have a study or something?”
Andrew stopped and pointed. “First left off the hall. I put your papers there, the ones you brought home this afternoon. Your textbooks are there as well.”
Kevin walked out of the living room and found the study. It was a beautiful room with deep red wallpaper and a wide, well-lit desk in the middle. There was a little leather open-top box of good pens at one corner of the desk, and a short stack of clean white paper in a slot under the top drawer. He sat down in the sturdy, spindle-backed chair and opened the Algebra I book that was lying there. He leafed through his lesson plans – there were just five of them – and then he turned to the chapter in the book that came next.
He took out a pen, grabbed a fresh sheet of paper, and started writing.
He was not sure how much time had passed – it was probably useless to guess, given his track record with clocks today – but at one point he looked up and discovered a small sandwich on a plate next to him on the desk.
Long enough for Andrew to make me a sandwich, he thought. That’s pretty good.
He ate quickly, and then he went immediately back to work. He filled page after page with notes. Finally he sat back in his chair and looked at what he had done.
The book was complete. He had written out something like nine solid months’ worth of lesson plans.
“Andrew!”
Faintly, from the back: “Sir?”
“What time is it?”
He heard Andrews quick footsteps. The man did not like to yell. When he had reached the study, he answered, “Nearly twelve-thirty.”
Kevin sighed. He was not going to write out lesson plans for computer programming; that information was tucked securely in his head, and writing it out would have been like writing himself notes on how to walk. Which meant that he had done all the work he could possibly do to prepare for his current job.
It had taken him just under two hours.
“Not bad,” he said quietly.
Actually, it was better than that. It was incredible. His mind had not wandered for an instant while he was working. More important, he had not felt panicked or worried in the least. Not for one second.
But what do I do now?
“Sir, I was hoping – ”
Kevin looked up. Andrew was still there. He was hesitating. “I would normally retire to my quarters at this point,” he said gently.
Kevin was ashamed. “Of course. I’ll be fine. I’ll put on the television.”
“And you’ll get some rest?”
“I hope so.” Kevin thanked him again, and then he remembered to ask one last thing. “I do have a television somewhere?”
“In the cabinet in your bedroom.”
Someone Cleared Them Out
It was a gigantic television. The built-in cabinet in his bedroom did a good job of making it unobtrusive, but with the doors open the machine dominated the room. He found the remote and retreated to his bed, sat down and began flipping through channels. It looked as though he had… all of them.
He chose a movie he had seen a hundred times, then climbed back in between the sheets.
Time passed as it was supposed to, but he didn’t fall asleep. When the movie was finished he went looking for a different channel. He needed something numbing. He found a 24-hour religion channel.
Perfect.
There was a priest giving a sermon at the pulpit, and Kevin settled in. This was better than sleeping pills. No one could possibly endure this kind of speech for very long.
He checked the digital clock on the cable box: it read 3:30 AM.
I can still squeeze in two or three hours of sleep.
But the priest’s sermon did not have the effect Kevin had hoped for. He began listening to the words, listening to the actual message the man was delivering. He couldn’t help it; he seemed to have developed a sort of automatic instinct to focus all of his attention on whatever was in front of him.
When he paid attention, everything else went away.
So now there was only the priest and his voice, this voice that sounded not tired or lulling but accusatory. He sounded angry and urgent. “Who are you?” the priest demanded, raising his head and looking out at the unseen audience. “Who does God want you to be? Have you heard Him? Have you listened?”
Kevin pushed himself back into the pillows behind him. This man was not making him sleepy. He felt as though he were enduring a pep talk.
“Why are you on this earth?” the priest said, and now the camera moved in for a close-up. The high definition of Kevin’s enormous television made the priest seem life-size, made him seem to lean forward and shout right into the bedroom. “What is your purpose?” the man bellowed, and little flecks of spit were collecting on his lips. “When you realize who you are, will you be prepared? Will you be ready?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Kevin whispered. He grabbed the remote and turned off the television, and then he went quickly to the dresser. He opened the top right-hand drawer, which is where he would ordinarily find –
Yes. Exactly where he would have chosen to put all his exercise clothes.
Right where he had put them all, he supposed. Though he had no memory of such a thing.
He dressed quickly, grabbed hi
s keys, and was out the door. In the lobby, the night doorman did not bat an eye. Did not ask why Mr. Brooks had decided that 3:45 in the morning would be a good time for a jog. He opened the door and said “Good morning” without a hint of irony in his voice.
Kevin headed straight for Central Park. If sleeping pills wouldn’t work, if writing over a hundred lesson plans, watching an old movie and, for the love of Jesus, listening to an actual Catholic sermon wouldn’t work, then he would physically run himself into the ground.
He went out fast – too fast, on purpose – making his way to the 10-kilometer loop that went winding through the park itself. He was only half-shocked to see a scattering of other people already on the road. It was a city with all kinds of folks on all kinds of schedules. People got their exercise when they could.
What was shocking was that he did not seem to be slowing down.
He passed over the hill on 78th, and now he was coming up on the Metropolitan Museum. There was a homeless man on the grassy expanse there on the right, tending to his collection of worldly goods in bags and a shopping cart. The man looked up as Kevin passed, and he gave Kevin a little good-morning wave.
Kevin put up a hand and kept going, still waiting for his breath to grow short. Still waiting for his legs to start feeling heavy. He had been a good, quick quarterback in his time, but he had never felt like this. He was not a runner, after all. He was not built for endurance.
Somehow it was easier now. He felt not only stronger, but lighter.
He went around the whole loop like that: fast and fast and fast. The feel of the pavement under his feet was exhilarating; it was solid and sure and steady, and he knew that time must be passing as it should.
He arrived back at his apartment building feeling invigorated. Not ready to go to sleep by any means, but not having a panic attack, either. He stopped briefly on the threshold and looked at the doorman. “How about you? How long have you worked here?”
This man – the night man – was not nervous at the question. “Third day,” he said simply.
Kevin thought he had been prepared for any answer. He thought he had been prepared for precisely this answer, and yet when the man spoke he felt a little chill pass through him.
It’s true. Someone actually cleared them all out. Cleared them out like the machines on the 20th floor, and brought in new guys.
“New guys who didn’t see a thing,” Kevin finished, out loud.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Have a good night. Morning. Whatever.”
He was careful not to make any noise coming in, not wanting to wake Andrew. The man would probably have jumped out of bed and offered him a drink of ice water if he had known Kevin had been out running. He closed the door to his own bedroom tightly before stepping into the shower.
There was a little digital clock in the bathroom underneath the mirror.
4:50.
He showered quickly, and as he stepped out he couldn’t help but notice in the mirror: he had lost weight. Not that he had been out of shape before, but still. Kevin shook his head. Whatever had been going on these last three months, it had clearly involved exercise. Lots of exercise. He hadn’t looked like this since college.
He turned the television on, careful to switch it away from the religion channel. He found another movie he knew by heart, and he turned the volume down to a level where he could just barely hear it.
4:55.
He sighed and stretched himself out on the bed, on top of the covers. He could tell there would be no point in trying to sleep.
4:56.
He would do better today. The answers would come.
His work in the study had given him another idea.
Notes On The Singularity
Daedalus Hilton, Scrubbing R&D for Agents, Feb 10, 2011.
Reprinted with permission.
Dept. of Homeland Security, U.S.A.
The technological singularity is a source of excitement for some and dread for others. What will happen after the singularity is by definition unknowable, and this unknowing, this fundamental uncertainty, is problematic. All of us would like to be optimists, but fear is the more natural response. It is the more reflexive response. Insecurity is like a gas: it expands to fill the space it is given. More space, more insecurity. And the unknown future that follows the singularity is a very large space indeed.
Growing Angry
At the same time that Kevin Brooks was coming to the end of his first long, sleepless night, preparations were ongoing in an apartment on Park Avenue just five blocks away. Jacob Savian preferred to begin his days very early. The Savian apartment was just as large as Kevin’s, but its layout was strikingly different. There were no hallways or servant’s quarters or living rooms. The entire place was a single gigantic living room; it looked like a downtown artist’s loft.
Jacob Savian liked space to breathe. Space to think.
Despite its resemblance to a studio, this apartment was closer in function to a machine shop. Jacob was a programmer and an inventor. His creations, which were the source of his wealth, were mostly ethereal; he designed software for problem-solving applications and language processors. All of it was artificial intelligence, and he still owned the patents. Each patent, in turn, had been leased under lucrative terms to the government.
There were physical things here as well: gene sequencers and miniature engines and super-efficient food-processing machines; prototypes for these and other, less-recognizable devices lined the walls of this huge room like exhibits in a poorly organized museum. There was no unifying theme other than that all the machines worked. And that all of them made Jacob piles of money every year.
There were paintings, too. These were hung up high on the walls, as though someone had wanted to keep them out of reach of the fearsome contraptions lower down. They were paintings of peace, of serenity: a scene of children playing in a park; a faraway shot of birds flying over the water; a mother holding out her arms to her child, the child running toward her.
Jacob had not created these pictures. They were the work of his younger brother, George.
Jacob was on the phone. On the computer, to be more precise. He had made the call at exactly 5 AM. He was sitting behind a desk that held three large computer screens. One of the screens showed an image of a man in black fatigues.
It was the Organizer.
“You have all the equipment?” Jacob said to the screen.
“Correct. Staffing is complete as well. Two vans in position, periodically swapping and rotating with two others.”
“Why so many?”
It was the same question Gun Two had asked. The Organizer had anticipated that his client might ask as well, and that he would likely not accept an elbow to the face in response. “Planner says for acclimatization. See them there every day, parked, coming, going, loading and unloading, and any security on duty will hesitate an extra two or even three seconds before responding to an actual event.”
Jacob nodded silently. He stared at the face on the screen closely, as if searching for a telltale twitch that might indicate indecision. Or weakness. He sat back in his chair and nodded again. Jacob Savian was a heavily-built man, and he had added to that natural bulk with years of sitting in a programmer’s chair and with poor nutrition, a steady diet of processed, packaged, and deeply-fried foods. Now, at 45 years old, he was wide enough and heavy enough to need custom-built furniture. All of which George had built for him. Jacob’s hair was an unkempt, unwashed mass of knotted brown ropes that, if worn by a teenager in a coffee shop, might have been called white-man dreadlocks. On Jacob, this style gave him the look of someone hiding under an ill-conceived wig. He wore a shapeless black shirt and pants to match, and his swollen feet were bare. There were few occasions on which he needed to go out.
Or even stand up.
He glared at the screen again. “Background checks?”
“Fine so far. Everything as you’d expect. We’re still working. Some undercover people,
but mostly just actual teachers. White bread, boring as paste. No connections to law.”
“Any out in the open?”
“They’re going to have a regular detail on the sidewalk, but that hasn’t started yet. Maybe today. I’ll let you know.”
“Hold on.” Jacob put a hand over the microphone pick-up. “George.”
Jacob’s brother was sitting in a chair in the far corner of the room, hammering vigorously at something wooden, something that was not quite fitting together. After another moment the piece took on a more recognizable shape; it was the scaffolding for an enormous canvas. The last supporting strut seemed to be giving George difficulty. He looked up.
Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) Page 7
