George nodded slowly. “Okay. Still with you. But it still sounds good. Interesting, at least.”
“No. Not good at all. Because after that, it’s impossible to predict what will happen. The day after an NP solution is like a black hole – there’s no way to see what happens on the other side. Which is why we call that day the singularity.”
George shook his head. “Nope. Lost you.”
Jacob sighed. “If a computer could make up ideas, it would totally change the way we live. They could make even smarter computers on their own, and those new computers would come up with even better new ideas, and even better computers, and so on.”
“Okay,” George said. “Smarter and smarter, and then it just accelerates from there.”
“Right. Now, some people – ridiculous, ignorant people – think the singularity will mean some kind of apocalypse, some summer-movie nonsense about computers and robots taking over and enslaving the human race.”
George rolled his eyes, but Jacob waved him off. “No, I know that’s stupid. Those people haven’t actually thought about it. But I have, and I know what I’m talking about. This is my field. And what’s scary, what’s really terrifying about the singularity, is that the robot-apocalypse people don’t know the half of it. It’s worse than what they think.”
Now Jacob pushed himself up to a standing position again. A rare feat, twice in two days. “The singularity will not be the end of us,” he went on. “But it will be the end of the human mind. All of this – ” He gestured to the walls of the huge apartment, to the contraptions and inventions, to the framed blueprints, and to the countless paintings higher up. “ – all of this will be rendered useless. Obsolete. Our brains will be obsolete.” Jacob lowered his head and sat down, looking unsteady and out of breath.
George watched him uneasily. His brother was speaking nonsense, obviously. But he was also clearly convinced by his own ranting. He believed what he was saying.
“I’m serious,” Jacob insisted, his voice rising again. “Once you give up the creative spark, you can’t reclaim it. And that spark is all we have. That spark is what separates us from the animals, what brings us closer to God. Sure, a monkey can use a tool to capture ants, and yes, a bird can build a nest, just as a spider can spin a web. But who designed the nest? Not the bird. And who thought up the web? Not the spider. Anyone can follow instructions; anyone can follow a plan. But when you’re the one who makes the plan, you’re doing something ethereal, something that only humans and God can do. Creating an idea is no less amazing than creating an entire world. The ability to invent even the simplest notion, to generate something from nothing, is the only ability that matters. And I’m not willing to give that ability away.”
George was silent for a minute, thinking. He seemed to have no inclination to try dissuading his brother from these strange beliefs; Jacob had always been the stubborn one, after all. But George also seemed completely unimpressed. And he was still waiting. “You said you were going to explain what we were doing,” he said finally.
Jacob sighed. “You’re right. Here it is. Pascal Billaud might be close to solving an NP problem with a computer, which would mean he’s found a short-cut to the singularity. Because NP problems are related to all kinds of super-complex computing problems. And if you solve one, you solve them all.”
George nodded, encouraging his brother to continue. He didn’t seem to feel that anything had been explained.
“Billaud is the problem,” Jacob went on, “but he’s also the key. He’s the only one who can do it.”
“The only one?”
“Pascal Billaud is one in a million. In a billion. One in seven billion. I met him once, several years ago, at a conference in Washington. I could barely follow what he was saying. And I’m good at this stuff.”
George gave a grudging nod. With this, at least, he was willing to agree.
“Anyway, Billaud is an anomaly. He might be able to solve this problem, but nobody else could. Not even if he tried to explain it to them, or if he gave them all his notes. He’s like a professor working with third graders; they couldn’t help him if they tried. He either solves the whole thing, right to the end, or no one does.”
Jacob paused, then frowned deeply. “Of course, until recently he’s been totally inaccessible. Locked away in some bunker while he works on this stuff.”
“Nobody sees him?”
“Well. Government people, I suppose. But nobody else.” Now a little smile found its way onto Jacob’s face. “Except for one thing. Mr. Billaud’s son just happens to go to school right here in Manhattan. A private, all-boys elementary school only a couple of blocks away from this apartment. And it turns out that Mr. Billaud is a bit of a softy. My sources say he’s going to show up at parents’ day next Friday.” Jacob put his hands up triumphantly, a prize fighter celebrating before the match had even begun.
“So we’re going to go find him,” George said, finally understanding. “You’ll go talk to him on parents’ day and explain the risks. Why you think he should walk away from this project of his.”
Jacob sat back slowly in his chair, and a small sigh escaped him. He waited a minute before answering. “George,” he said gently, “we’re not going to talk to him. He won’t agree, he won’t be convinced. And this is too important.”
George waited for his brother to go on. But Jacob was silent. He stared back at him, and there was another long moment of quiet. Finally George turned and looked over his shoulder, at the mirror leaning against the wall. Then he got up and walked back to his chair in the far corner of the room. Jacob let him go.
He turned to his computer, and then he called up the menu that let him place calls. In another moment a connection was made. The Organizer’s face came back into view.
“Yes?”
“Send him here,” Jacob said quietly.
“Who?”
“The man who killed the officer. I want to talk to him.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning. Send him to my apartment.”
“He’ll be there.”
Jacob tapped the keyboard to end the call. He looked again in the direction of his brother. George was back in his work corner, drawing what looked like practice sketches for his next painting. His large hands moved steadily over the broad sheet of paper, and his head was leaned to one side. He was calming himself.
He’ll come around, Jacob thought. But first we have to deal with this cop-killing idiot.
Jacob began typing on his computer. The path was still clear – he knew what had to be done – but he didn’t like the idea of spilling blood this early in the process. Staying on schedule was key.
The schedule might have to be modified, he thought.
He pulled up a calendar application.
Plan B. Just in case.
Part 3 – Crashing
Embarrassing Yourself
Kevin tried to pull himself together. He showered and shaved, and Andrew fed him a good breakfast. Kevin thanked him and tried to put on a brave, now-I-can-do-it face, but he still felt like throwing up. He was simply too tired. And his mind was going in circles, jumping from one thing to another without warning. He couldn’t focus.
The fourteenth floor; an office that’s not really an office, it comes and goes as needed, like a cheap movie set.
A huge apartment and an assistant. Great, except all the doormen have been replaced recently, not counting the one who spoke to me. The one who disappeared last night.
No memory of the last three months, but a memory like a computer when it comes to new stuff. Spanish and physics, for example.
Not a wink of sleep for three days
Inconsistent time.
Beautiful Emily Beck.
That last one almost brought a smile. He managed to keep an image of her in his mind for a few seconds, and this was enough to get him on his feet and out the door. Andrew tried to push some kind of pastry into his hands before he left, but he waved him off. He didn�
�t want to lose his momentum. He thought of Emily’s light blue skirt and her simple white shirt and those fierce, bright eyes, and he was able to push the button for the lobby. He was able to walk out of the building and head uptown. He was moving slowly, taking tiny little steps that made it look as though he had injured himself somehow, but at least he was moving.
Emily.
The last three days had been maybe the worst, most confusing days of his life, but there was no denying the wonder of that woman. She glowed like the birthday girl at the party, the bride at the wedding. She seemed to smile more often than everyone else, and yet it seemed only natural that she would be smiling, as natural as it was for Ron Clemson to be scowling. Kevin tried to picture her coming up to him, tried to imagine her talking to him and smiling that beautiful smile, and he followed this dream all the way to 74th street, followed it like a dog following the mechanical rabbit around a race track. He didn’t care that it was a dream, didn’t care that he was chasing a mirage. It pulled him forward, and that was enough.
He saw Danny at the entrance, greeting students as he had been the day before, and Kevin wrenched himself out of his fantasy. Prepared himself for friendly banter. But before he could say anything, he saw Danny’s expression fall. Again like yesterday, but this was more severe.
“Kevin,” Danny said. His voice was a whisper. He propped the entryway door open with a small wooden wedge at his feet and left the students to walk in on their own. His eyes were dark with concern. “My friend, you look terrible. Talk to me.”
Kevin shook his head. He tried to smile sheepishly as he had the day before. “Had a couple of drinks,” he said, and did his best to make it sound like a devilish admission, an acknowledgement that things did not look good, but that it was all in good fun. That he would be fine in a bit, once he got himself hydrated, or did a few stretches, or ate half a banana. Or something.
But Danny’s look of concern did not soften. He put his broad hands on Kevin’s shoulders, as though worried that Kevin might topple over without warning. “You need some sleep,” Danny said.
“I know.”
“I’m serious. Go home. Take a day. Sleep this off, whatever it is.”
Kevin shook his head. “No way,” he said, and meant it. He suddenly realized that he needed to be here, that he wanted to be teaching a class right now.
I’m not going back to my huge, silent house and my trim, mercilessly efficient butler. Not before I’ve had some normal human interaction. Middle-school kids are better than nothing.
He shook his head again and then looked back steadily at Danny, and he tried to show him that he would not be persuaded. Neither man blinked.
For a moment Kevin was worried time might be slowing down.
Oh, Jesus. Say something. Move. Anything to –
But then Danny sighed, dropped his hands from Kevin’s shoulders, and pressed his lips together in a way that made him look briefly like Andrew; it was the same resigned, worried expression. “Okay,” he said quietly, and turned without another word to resume his greeting duties.
Kevin brushed past him, walked into the building, and headed upstairs as fast as he could.
Which was not very fast.
He had only two classes scheduled before lunch, but even this was almost too much. During the first one he had to sit down without warning; he found himself breathing hard, as if he had just been running vigorously in place rather than writing an example on the board. He caught several of the students giving him strange looks, but they were now far too wary of him to say anything. Mr. Brooks was not someone to be trifled with, and asking him why he looked as if he were about to keel over seemed risky. Maybe the question would come out sounding rude, and he would send you to Principal Stewart or, far worse, hurl you against the wall, which was rumored to be Mr. Brooks’ preferred method of discipline. Not to mention that Mr. Brooks, even in his clearly weakened state, looked like a man who could throw an 8th-grade boy against a wall as if that boy were nothing but a medium-sized piece of Play-Doh. In the students’ imaginations, the hurled boy would stick to the wall for a moment – just like Play-Doh would – before sliding slowly down to the ground in a regretful and well-kneaded heap.
So they kept quiet and stole glances at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. He noticed, but he was too tired to care.
He made it through the class, through his free period, and then it was time to head down to the lab. Walking down the stairs was a challenge, and when he arrived he had to put his hand on the doorframe and puff a few times, much the way Ron Clemson had done on the first day. But at least he was there. And now he could sit.
He gave them a project to work on and hoped they would ignore him. Which they did, for the most part.
But then, halfway through the class, Anselm Billaud came to speak to him.
Suddenly here was this boy, Anselm, in front of him, his face very serious, his brows knitted together under his thick curtain of blond, bowl-cut hair, as though he had come to report to Mr. Brooks that his computer had begun to melt or that he needed very badly to visit the bathroom. He stood there for a moment, so silent and serious, and Kevin grew worried.
“Anselm?”
“Mr. Brooks.” His voice the barest whisper.
“Yes. I’m right here.” Kevin tried to mirror the tone, the confidential, careful secrecy of the boy’s voice. “What is it?”
Anselm paused. His face grew even more serious, his lips tight and bloodless. “You should go to a doctor,” he said finally.
Kevin let his eyes shut for a moment. He was absurdly touched by Anselm’s concern, the more so somehow because of the boy’s age, and in his surprise and gratitude he could not summon the proper excuse. The proper lie. Kevin opened his eyes. “You might be right,” he said, without thinking. A nearly unforgivable act, to let such a boy shoulder even a fraction of a teacher’s burden, an adult’s burden, by confessing to a life outside the school, a life that could be anything but seamless. An E.R. attending did not tell the patient with the blood infection that he had been working for thirteen hours straight; a firefighter did not tell the grandmother with the charred third floor that he had not slept in the last two days, or that he had not seen his family since the weekend. These were private things, separate things, and Anselm should not have had to hear his concern justified. He should have been shooed away with a shake of the head and a smile, told that his teacher had eaten a bad bunch of scrambled eggs that morning, eggs that were just working their way through his system. But Kevin Brooks was not himself, and he allowed himself a moment – a single moment – to let this 10-year-old boy share a small piece of what had become, at last, an unbearable load.
Anselm was up to the task. He did not look away, did not repeat his recommendation that Kevin see a doctor. He stood there and gave support, simply by sharing the knowledge that Mr. Brooks was in pain. And by saying nothing more.
At last Kevin took a breath and sat back, and finally he was able to do what was necessary. He nodded once, curtly and with a forced strength, and thanked Anselm as though he were thanking him for a neatly-typed homework assignment. “Everything’s okay,” he said, and he pointed the boy back to his chair.
Anselm waited an extra half-second. Then he turned and walked back to his computer. He resumed work, and did not seem distracted. Kevin went back to giving advice and answering questions, and the clock kept ticking. Anselm did not look his way again.
Lunch time came, and Kevin felt an easing in his chest, something close to eagerness.
Emily would be there.
Maybe they could even sit together, assuming Elias Worth managed to avoid getting his skull cracked today. There was a subdued air in the cafeteria; many of the teachers were watching the student area more closely than usual, hoping to avoid – for the rest of the year, the rest of the decade, the century – anything like what had happened to Elias the day before. Kevin was glad for the relative calm; he wanted noise, discussion, activity… but not ch
aos. He chose his food carefully, trying to skip things that would nauseate him the way breakfast had, and by the end of the cafeteria line his tray held only a plain baked potato and a small saucer of green Jell-O. He looked up and scanned the room for Ms. Beck, hoping for an empty seat. And perhaps Clemson or Jean nearby, for deniability.
No, what? I’m not sitting next to you. I’m just sitting across from my pal Ron. On the first day, he told me I didn’t seem like a jackass. And he’s impressed by all my money. He’s kind of a dick, but he’s my boy, you know?
Kevin spotted her, and he walked as quickly as he could to the table where she was sitting. Jean was right there, bless him. Who didn’t like Jean? Kevin nodded at him and sat down gingerly, privately congratulating himself for not dropping his tray on the way over. He was enjoying a surge of energy from the prospect of talking to Emily, and he even managed to pull his chair under himself smartly, and to sit up almost straight. He was on the point of leaning over to her and saying something, saying anything to start a conversation, but at that moment she turned and looked at him as though he had insulted her. She picked up her tray, gave him a withering look while wrinkling her nose, and stood up briskly. Then she was gone.
Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) Page 15
