Synapse

by Steven James

  So what had happened to Ripley? Purists? A splinter cell? A gang?

  Means, motive, opportunity, and access. Who would’ve gone after him—and why?

  Nick directed his team to search for any other instances of victims being found with their arms torn off, or simply a set of augmented limbs being found. Then he thought about Kestrel’s apartment.

  Could Ripley have been responsible for that?

  No, he was with Trevor at the time.

  Wait.

  With Nick’s augmented hearing, he’d overheard Kestrel and Trevor’s conversation at the graveyard, even though she’d stepped aside, no doubt thinking she was out of earshot. There was certainly tension in their relationship, maybe even a spark of animosity.

  Could Trevor be involved in this too?

  Deduce, do not assume—in regard to either guilt or innocence.

  Nick still hadn’t heard from Dakota and, considering how vital it was right now that he talk with her, he sent a request through the proper channels to find her for questioning.

  Then he glanced at the time.

  Half an hour before touchdown at Sea-Tac.

  * * *

  Cascade Falls, Washington

  As Trevor was prepping for his meeting with Olivia Blanchard, head of Terabyne’s public affairs office, the National Counterterrorism Bureau in Seattle notified him that there might be a threat to Terabyne’s campus later in the day.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “We only have unconfirmed reports that the Purists might be targeting your facility.”

  Trevor probed for more information but found that the woman he was speaking with was either too reticent or simply too uninformed to give him anything more specific.

  “Can you see what you can find out?” he said at last in exasperation. “This has to do with a potential security threat to our campus and I don’t feel like you’re being very forthcoming here.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said stiffly, and then abruptly hung up.

  Immediately, Trevor called Artis Madison, Terabyne’s CEO, and informed him about what he’d just learned, then suggested that the best course of action would be to hold the press conference somewhere other than the Terabyne campus—either that, or postpone it until the threat level was lower.

  “If you do your job, there shouldn’t be any difficulties, correct?” Madison said in a clipped voice.

  “We can’t foresee everything.”

  “Then foresee enough. If we bow down to these Purists now, especially with an announcement like today’s, they win. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I understand that if they attack us at a time like this, we’ll look weaker than ever. It’ll undermine everything we’re trying to do with the launch of the Synapse.”

  But Madison ignored that. “Tell me now, and be honest with me: Are you up to the task? Can you handle your job?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then do it. Take care of things. I’ll be there at three thirty.”

  After the call, Trevor contacted the NCB office again and, after being transferred twice, finally found a dispatcher who told him that a team of agents would be coming to assist him with security and threat assessment. “Agent Vernon will be joining Commander Rodriguez and three of his men,” the dispatcher said.

  “Wait—Agent Vernon? From Cincinnati?”

  A brief pause. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve met him. I didn’t know he was out here in Washington.”

  “He’s on his way. He and the tactical team should be there by twelve thirty.”

  * * *

  Seattle, Washington

  Lenny Crenshaw rolled Ole Betty to a stop at a red light and Aubrey asked him, “You got plans later today? Something with your kid?”

  “Soccer game. Hoping to make it in time.” He looked her way. “You?”

  “Oh, you know. Just doing some studying for night school.”

  “I didn’t know you were enrolled in night school.”

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” She gave him a wry smirk and a wink.

  Lenny wasn’t certain how to take that, so he let it drop. She knew he was married, but there were times when her comments became a little flirtier than he felt comfortable with.

  The light was still red.

  Lenny let Ole Betty idle and glanced at the sideview mirror, taking in his surroundings, noting pedestrian activity, nearby vehicles, and potential hazards. A habit born from nearly a decade on the job.

  A delivery van pulled up behind them. Other than that, traffic was light. A semi crawled to a stop to his left in the turn-only lane.

  “Don’t you want to know what I’m studying?” Aubrey asked him.

  “Huh?”

  “At night school. Don’t you wanna know what I’m working on?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Still red. This was taking too long. Something wasn’t right.

  Looking back into the mirror again, he saw two people dressed all in black and wearing ski masks leap out of the delivery van.

  “Economics,” Aubrey said. “I’m—”

  Red light or not, Lenny punched the gas and plowed forward into the intersection, ramming into a car that had just turned in front of them. A screeching cry of scraping metal cut through the day.

  “Call it in!” he yelled as he wrestled with the steering wheel, trying to back up and get clear of the other car.

  A woman from the delivery van quickly unrolled some sort of black tarp, hooked it over the back bumper of the armored car, and then she and her partner hefted it over the top of the vehicle and rushed forward, unrolling it as they did, covering up the windows, blacking out the inside of the front seat, except for the dim, green glow of the dashboard lights and a thin smear of sunlight that oozed up from beneath the bottom of the tarpaulin.

  “—studying what the world would be like if we were finally free of the bane of Artificials,” Aubrey said, completing her sentence.

  Lenny stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Freedom,” Aubrey told him. “Freedom to embrace the things that make us human.”

  “You?” He stared at her disbelievingly. “Are you in on this?”

  “If you knew what I know, you would be too.”

  Because of the impenetrable black fabric, he couldn’t see anything outside the vehicle. Standard operating procedures told him that in a situation like this he should stay in the car and wait for help. He heard drills outside and wondered if someone was trying to get into the back of Ole Betty.

  He reached for the radio, but when he did, Aubrey said, “Uh-uh. Don’t touch that. It’ll be much better for your wife and daughter if you just follow instructions. Trust me.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because time has run out.”

  As they spoke, he was slowly reaching for his weapon, but she noticed and shook her head. “That’s far enough, Lenny.”

  She already had hers trained on his face.

  “Go ahead and unholster it, but move slowly. We have no quarrel with you. All we want is what’s in the back of this car. And to get it out, we just need a little more time. Hand me your gun.”

  “Aubrey—”

  “Hand over your gun, Lenny!”

  As he passed his weapon to her, he heard the chug of the semi pulling past them, a clank near the front of Ole Betty, and then he felt them being drawn forward. A motor creaked with the effort and he guessed that it was some sort of cable-and-winch system. Though he was tempted to try and back up, he thought better of it and shifted Ole Betty into neutral and they continued to roll forward.

  “That’s a good choice,” Aubrey said.

  Ole Betty crawled up a short ramp, then things leveled off as Lenny assumed they made it onto the bed of the semi. He heard the doors behind them close, and he was sealed with Aubrey in near-total darkness.

  Lenny turned off the ignition.

  Then the semi
they were inside of took off as he thought only about his daughter and his wife and prayed that he would see them once again, even if it was just to say goodbye.

  38

  En route

  5 hours left

  I pointed out the window at the sweeping array of clouds and the iridescent rays of sunlight shimmering through them and asked Jordan, “Is it possible for you to get lost in a sense of wonder when you see something like this?”

  He gazed at the sky. “How could I not?” Then he added softly, almost reverently, “So you hear it too?”

  “Hear it?”

  “The heavens. What they’re declaring. The power of God.”

  The power of God? I thought. Really? Where was that power when Naiobi was struggling to get enough oxygen? Where was that power when she was dying inside of me? Where was that power when I begged God from the deepest parts of my being to bring her back?

  I didn’t respond to Jordan’s comment, and for a moment both of us were quiet, then he said, “You told me on Thursday that only human beings have souls.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been searching Scripture. In the NIV, in Ecclesiastes, the Teacher writes, ‘Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and the spirit of the animals goes down into the earth?’”

  I knew the verse. It was near the end of the third chapter. “I’m familiar with that,” I said, somewhat reservedly.

  “Doesn’t that indicate that animals might also have spirits?”

  “You’ve been thinking a lot about this, haven’t you?”

  Jordan nodded.

  “Metaphorically, yes, the Bible does teach that all of creation brings glory to its Creator, but those references aren’t meant to be taken literally.”

  “So, figuratively.”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “And the spirits of the animals?”

  Maybe it was the fact that Naiobi was still on my mind, that I was still caught in a paroxysm of grief that I couldn’t quiet no matter how I tried.

  Maybe that was it. Or maybe it was my own deepening anger at God, but whatever the reason, I answered Jordan, and even as I spoke the words I regretted doing so and wished I could take them back: “You can’t worship God, Jordan,” I told him bluntly. “Even if animals have souls, you don’t. You’re a machine. Even if all of creation does bring praise to its Creator . . .”

  “I cannot?”

  That’s right.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  I felt harsh and unloving, like I was snatching away the sole remaining log that a drowning person was depending on to stay afloat, but I wasn’t trying to be judgmental, simply faithful to my beliefs.

  But what about Jordan’s beliefs?

  A syllogism came to me: God is truth. Jordan can discover truth. Therefore, Jordan can discover God.

  After all, if God is real and machines can apprehend reality, why couldn’t a machine believe in him? If a machine can be taught to learn what we learn, if it can be taught to know what we know, why can’t it be taught to believe as we do?

  But belief is one thing, Kestrel, a voice in my head protested, salvation is another. Even demons believe in God—James 2:19 is clear about that, but it doesn’t mean they have saving faith.

  “So, you are precious in the eyes of God?” Jordan asked me, interrupting my thoughts.

  “All people are,” I said.

  All people are. But not machines.

  Then he said nothing more and neither did I, although I wanted to add, “And so are you,” but I did not. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. He’d told me yesterday that he didn’t want his hope to be built on a lie and so now I respected his wish.

  * * *

  Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

  Seattle, Washington

  A four-person National Counterterrorism Bureau tactical team was waiting for Nick when he exited the plane, all of them dressed in special ops uniforms and armed with assault rifles.

  A helicopter stood at the ready nearby.

  The head of the unit, a towering, muscle-bound tank of a man whose sewn-on name patch read “Rodriquez,” greeted Nick. “Do you want us to take you directly to Terabyne’s headquarters or to the federal building downtown first?”

  “Terabyne,” Nick told him. “That’s where our intel has this going down.”

  The commander gave him a brisk nod. “I’ll tell the pilot.”

  * * *

  30 kilometers east of Seattle, Washington

  She rolled into the warehouse in the delivery truck she’d been riding in, exited it, and watched as the semi driven by Eckhart entered as well. Two of her men rattled shut the ceiling-high sliding door behind it.

  The armored car inside the truck contained what she was after.

  Artificial Super Intelligence.

  The beginning of the end.

  Once things started, they would snowball, and even the acts of the most ardent Purists wouldn’t be enough to rein things in or keep them in check.

  She found a message from Phoenix on her slate: “I’ll see you in Cascade Falls.”

  The words both pleased her and surprised her. It looked like she would finally find out who Phoenix was. There was nothing more, no information on what the NCB knew about her, but maybe when they met she could ask Phoenix in person.

  She gestured to her men, who opened the back doors of the trailer and then unhooked the Kevlar tarp from the rear bumper of the armored car.

  After remotely disengaging the winch system inside the semi, they rolled the car down the semi’s rear ramp. Once it was clear, she had her people secure the driver while she went to speak with Aubrey.

  “Do you have the recording of his voice?”

  “Yes,” Aubrey said. “How much do you need?”

  “Just a few minutes should be enough. Give me what you have and I’ll put the call through.” Then she asked Eckhart. “Are our identities set?”

  “Yes. If they run a background we’ll all come up clean.”

  “Good.”

  She strode toward Lenny Crenshaw.

  During her three weeks on the job, Aubrey hadn’t been able to get the access codes from him to open the back of the armored car. It didn’t mean that now they wouldn’t be able to get inside—it just meant that it might take them a little longer.

  “Now is when you give me the codes to your vehicle,” she said to Lenny. “It’ll save everyone time and you’ll be able to see your family sooner.”

  He shook his head. “I took an oath when I accepted this job. I can’t tell you.”

  One of her men, a former cop named Willoughby, edged in on the conversation. “And what if I told you we know where your family lives? That your wife and your daughter are—”

  But she cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Let’s not make any baseless threats here. Lenny vowed to keep the codes to himself. He’s a man of his word. I respect that. It’s hard to find that these days.”

  Willoughby acquiesced. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her team had a second armored car that they would use, and while they exchanged the plates and stashed the press credentials and custodian uniforms in the hidden compartment in the back of it, she listened to the recording Aubrey had made.

  After reviewing the allophones and suprasegmental phonemes, she put the call through to the Prestige Armored Car Company dispatchers, expertly imitating Lenny’s voice to buy them more time, then signaled to Eckhart to get started.

  He donned his protective face mask, turned on the electric torch, and approached the back of the armored car.

  * * *

  Cascade Falls, Washington

  Trevor listened as Olivia Blanchard, the head of Terabyne’s public relations department, said to him, “We’ll host the press conference in the main auditorium. You’ll have it secure for me?”

  “It’ll be secure.”

  The helicopter carrying the NCB Tac team should be arriving sometime in the next half hour or so. Trevor wanted to wrap up th
is meeting with Olivia and then get to the helipad on top of Building B to meet them so he could brief them and see if they had any additional intel for him.

  Olivia grinned at him. “I hope you had a chance to shore up your portfolio.”

  “My portfolio?”

  “The announcement. Everything we’re working toward. You do realize that when the markets open on Monday this is going to send our stocks skyrocketing?”

  Trevor knew that the timing was one of the reasons for the weekend press conference—for the news to sink in on Sunday and then affect the markets on Monday.

  He also knew that it was technically illegal for him to invest in their stock prior to an announcement like this—insider trading regulations against that kind of behavior had been tightened up quite a bit in the last few years.

  However, there were ways to get around them. For instance, he could have invested in sister stocks, others in the tech market that would also go up—a rising tide lifts all boats. Or, he could have turned to a private trust, or bought options on an index—all tools that Artis Madison, their CEO, used frequently and didn’t necessarily discourage his high-level staff from doing as well.

  Madison was an expert at playing the markets, at timing the release of information about their new products to take advantage of the news cycles and to leverage press events for the most lucrative financial gain. And it had worked—he was one of the world’s richest men.

  “Yeah,” Trevor said vaguely to Olivia. “Our stocks.”

  However, to him it wasn’t about what would make or lose money. To him, it was all about what was the right thing to do. It always had been. And releasing the Synapse was just what the world needed.

  He made a few final notes, finished up with Olivia, and then left for the helipad to meet Agent Vernon and his team.

  39

  En route

  4 hours left

  “Business or pleasure?”

  “Excuse me?”