“Ten seconds to detonation,” whispered Finn, and he began to count it down.
“And contact,” he said.
Nothing.
“Well, at least the pizza was —” said Nicks.
An explosion detonated in the distance, the blast wave shaking the recycling bin a bit.
They waited the next hours for the morning pickup in silence broken only by the occasional siren going by. It was just reaching early morning when Finn finally decided to bring it up again.
“Conan, I’m serious,” Finn whispered. “What was all the noise upstairs about? Are Skip and Sharon okay?”
“Yeah, they’re fine,” Conan said quietly. “Let’s stay focused on the mission.”
Wal-Mart Headquarters, Bentonville, Arkansas
“The act is so questionable in law as to make it positively un-American.”
Jake Colby’s talking points had been produced by analytic software and then checked by Legal and Public Relations. Both had advised Colby, the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, that the most effective approach was to flip the script and paint the White House’s proposal to use the old Defense Production Act from 1950 as something out of the Directorate playbook.
The act, passed at the start of the Korean War, gave the U.S. president the power to require any American company to sign any contract or fill any order deemed necessary for national defense. The CEO was now explaining to the shareholders that Wal-Mart was joining a coalition of leading multinational firms that, using both the courts and congressional lobbying, would attempt to block the act’s resurrection.
“Losing is un-American!” a seventy-year-old woman in a denim pantsuit shouted back at him. He knew not to ignore her. Lee-Ann Tilden was a multibillionaire who owned 4 percent of his outstanding shares, and yet she still worked as a greeter at the Tulsa store.
The CEO tried to repeat the talking points’ core premise, that a corporation’s status as a legally defined individual meant that the government couldn’t tell it what to do, even in a time of war.
“Legally defined individual?” Tilden retorted. “Mr. Colby, you know that’s bunk and you know that Sam would want to help the country any way he could.”
Before he could reply, another voice broke in. A Swiss-German accent. One of the institutional investors, in this case representing a sovereign wealth fund from Qatar that had bought a 17 percent position when the share price collapsed after America lost Hawaii. “Madame, I appreciate this company’s quaint practice of letting anyone speak at these forums, but you simply fail to understand the multinational nature of this enterprise now. The global shareholder base must come first. This concern is not in the business of any one nation’s war. No matter where it is based, it is a global retail chain, definitively neutral in its activities and intent,” he said. “The desires of Uncle Sam, or whatever your outdated idea of a patriotic patriarch in a funny hat is, is now beside the point.”
Hearing the crowd growl, Colby winced at the fund manager’s gaffe. So typical. The internationals loved the company’s returns but didn’t bother to understand its story. She meant Sam Walton, you moron. Hell, the company founder’s desk was on display in the museum just down the road, the papers he’d been working on the day he died still on it, as if he had just stepped out for a coffee break.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s try to keep focused,” the CEO interceded. “This is not just about the U.S. government overstepping its powers, however limited those now may be. We’re on the razor’s edge. The Directorate has rigged our corporate network with enough tripwires and viruses that we might lose control of the company if they don’t like the way I part my hair.”
“Then what do we have to lose?” said Lee-Ann. “I’m calling a vote.”
There was no loss of life at Lee-Ann’s Revolt, as it would become known nationwide once the viz of the meeting leaked out, but it was nonetheless momentous. The voting bloc of sovereign wealth funds proved unable to stop the small investor pool once it was mobilized. And by the end of the meeting, shareholders were no longer voting about whether to resist U.S. government rationing schemes. Instead, Wal-Mart declared war on the Directorate.
The color drained from Colby’s face as he stared out at the thousands of cheering people in the company auditorium. Two thoughts crossed his mind as the tunnel vision took over. The first was that he’d have a hard time finding another job after this debacle. And the second was that America now had a new kind of logistical backbone the likes of which had never been seen in war before.
USS Zumwalt, Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Mike found Vern hunched over, running her hands along the thick fiber cabling that ran behind the bulkhead. The smell of ozone hung heavy in the air, a reminder of her insistence that they cut open the ship’s bulkhead so she could get access to this very point. What exactly she was doing was beyond him, Mike knew. But he liked the change it brought on in her. She might have had a PhD, but it was clear to Mike that in her heart, she was maker, a doer, like himself.
She abruptly ordered the rest of the engineers out of the area to let her work on her own. “Mike, you teach her to talk like that?” said one of them on his way topside for a smoke.
She spent more time aboard than at the shore-side network data center, and, to the best of his knowledge, she had not left the shipyard in a week. She no longer talked about her life pre-Z. He knew the feeling, and how all-encompassing it could be.
He set a bottle of cold water down next to her. She continued to look at the tablet on her lap without acknowledging his presence. He stood back and studied her as she craned her neck to look behind the bulkhead. He pulled out an LED light and knelt down next to her, his knees cracking.
“Let me help,” he said. “A little light.”
She smiled and kept working as he held the light, shining it where she told him to in her clipped diction. He had to lean in close enough that she could appreciate how long it had been since he had had a free moment to shower. She did not recoil, however.
After about five minutes, Mike got ready to leave.
“Keep the light,” he said. “I need to get back topside. They’re pulling the rail-gun turret and it’s a damn foggy night. If you need anything, just holler.”
Vern didn’t say anything; she just kept poring over her tablet computer and peering into the dark behind the bulkhead.
He stood up unsteadily and walked away with careful steps.
Just as he ducked through a hatch, he could have sworn he heard her say, “Thank you.”
He stopped and turned around.
The eleven paces back to her hunched-over form seemed a long way for Mike. He needed to know something, and now was the time to ask it.
“Dr. Li, a minute with you?” said Mike.
“Now?” asked Vern.
“Yes, please,” said Mike.
“Well?” said Vern.
“What I have to say, or ask, really, isn’t easy but it’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up for a little bit now,” said Mike.
She stood up and pushed her viz glasses up onto her forehead, brushing a bead of sweat off the tip of her nose.
“This is hard to say, so I’ll just outright say it,” said Mike. “The rail-gun power system, something’s wrong with it. Am I right? That’s why you’re pushing both the crew and the geeks so hard. You know something they don’t.”
He expected her to dismiss him. Instead, she smiled.
“You’re right, it’s not going to pass the test,” said Vern.
“Shit,” said Mike. “This is going to kill the captain.”
“And maybe all of us,” said Vern. “We’ll have to see.”
“I need to tell him,” said Mike.
“You care for him,” said Vern.
“If the ship can’t fight, well, he can�
��t,” said Mike.
“He’s your son; why wouldn’t you want it all to work out for him?” said Vern.
“I’ll get going, then, Dr. Li,” said Mike.
“There’s something else you forgot to ask me, isn’t there?” said Vern.
“Uh, what would that be, Dr. Li?” said Mike.
“The big question,” said Vern. “The most important one.”
Mike looked at her quizzically.
“Will it ever work?” said Vern.
He smiled. “Well, I guess that will depend on you.”
“Give it time,” said Vern. “An old guy like you should know how to be patient.”
Fort Mason, San Francisco
Jamie Simmons slipped into bed, but he was too wired to fall right asleep. He thought of all the cobbled together Ghost Fleet ships in the Bay. His own ship, the one that the country needed most, was turning out to be the weak link. He lay back, studying the fog bank, now at the deck level of the Golden Gate Bridge. Its rise was almost imperceptible until it obscured something big from view. There was nothing you could do to drive it away. It did not have the tide’s regularity, and for that reason it was all the more spectacular when it robbed you of the sight of something you took for granted, like the bridge.
A loud gurgle of the pipes woke Lindsey, who groggily turned over.
“You’re here. I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.
“Yeah,” he whispered, “I didn’t want to wake you. What’s all that with the pipes?” he asked.
“Toilet,” she said, starting to wake up. “Broken again.”
“Damn it,” he said. “I’ll take a look in the morning.”
“When? You’re always out so early,” she said.
“Then when I get home,” he said.
“And when will that be, Jamie? You can get a warship fixed up, but the toilet is too much to handle?” she said. “I’m sure that makes sense to somebody, just not me anymore.”
There was an old Navy saying that ships were like mistresses: beautiful, alluring, mysterious, requiring lots of attention, and, ultimately, marriage killers.
“I’ll look at it right now,” he said. The edge in his voice caused her to prop herself up on one elbow and study him.
“You can say it, Jamie,” she said. “Whatever you want, just say it.”
He kissed her on the forehead, not trusting anything that might come out of his mouth. His heavy footsteps said enough. The same frustration he felt at work was now part of his home.
After a half hour of struggling in vain with the toilet, he gave up and went back to the bedroom to find the kids asleep in bed with Lindsey. He must have woken them with all the rummaging around with the tools his father had left wedged behind the sink. He sat down in the old leather recliner in the corner of the room and watched them in the near darkness, trying to let the sounds of the trio’s breathing drain away his stress and frustration. What he wanted to fix most, he feared he could not.
When he woke, it was just past five in the morning. Shit. He had overslept by an hour.
“Did you fix the potty, Daddy?” asked Martin groggily from the bed.
“No, sweetie, it’s still broken,” he said.
“Call Grandpa! He can fix it,” said Claire.
“You should call him,” said Lindsey, eyeing him warily.
He shook his head as the room’s sensors picked up their movement and began to gradually brighten the overhead lights. “I said I’m gonna fix it and I will.”
“We want Grandpa!” Claire and Martin shouted.
“It’s not time to get up yet, kids,” said Lindsey, shooing them out of the bed. “Back to your rooms.”
“We’re not calling him,” said Jamie in a whisper as she walked past, leading the kids down the hall.
He went to the bathroom and showered. Under the unrelenting spray of the cold water he cursed himself. There were too few days before he went out to sea for them to have a night like this. He turned off the shower and shivered. Was this how his dad had felt when he helplessly watched his connection with the family fray? Or had he just been unwilling to try to fix it? That was the difference; his dad hadn’t wanted to try. It had to be the difference. Jamie was not willing to give up.
I’m a better man than my dad, Jamie told himself as he blinked away the fatigue and cold water. Even on my worst days.
Honolulu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone
Carrie wiped her hands on the front of the old black Hurley pullover that she’d worn to the beach. Then she took her backpack into the bathroom and shut the door.
She pulled her still-wet bathing-suit bottom out of the bag, tossed it into the shower, and rinsed out the sand in the hot water. Then, as the bathroom filled with steam, she undressed, looking at herself in the fogged mirror. The naked body she saw, its beauty obscured by the moisture on the glass, could have been anybody’s. She was anonymous.
After she got out of the shower, she pulled a small makeup compact from the backpack. She tapped it twice on the counter and the cover popped up. She licked her index finger on her right hand and rubbed it around the rim of the compact. There.
She held up her hand to the light and saw the hair. She pulled her fiancé’s black plastic brush from the jewelry box on the counter. She blew gently on her finger, and the hair fell onto the brush. Carefully, she put the brush back in the box.
Carrie sat down on the toilet and closed her eyes. Now she saw them again. Then she saw her fiancé, and, finally, she saw her father.
The inch-long cuts she made on her left thigh wiped the images of the men away. Eyes still shut, she didn’t see the blood dripping onto the blue tile at her feet. The clatter of the scissors on the floor jarred her back from the moment. She stifled a cry of pain and began to wipe the blood away with her palms. She moved to the sink for a towel and then stopped. The fog on the mirror receded just enough for Carrie to look herself in the eyes. I am not anonymous, she told herself. I am death.
Wal-Mart Printing Facility, Ogden, Utah
In many ways it was like watching an old Xerox copy machine in action. A thin layer of graphene chips was sprayed down by a roller that moved from one side of the table to the other. Essentially carbon atoms laid out in the same hexagonal structure of chicken wire, graphene was light and strong, and it was a great conductor. But more important, it was made from the same carbon atoms that formed everything from graphite to charcoal, so it could be sourced easily. Indeed, the graphene in this run of the machine had been pulled from the smoke of a coal-fired power plant.
There was a burning smell as a laser fired, igniting a tiny flame where the light beam came into contact with the graphene dust, melting and fusing the particles together. Then the roller swept back in the other direction, laying down another thin layer, the laser firing again, back and forth, back and forth.
In each microscopic layer, the laser carved out new shapes in the powder. Slowly, a form began to rise, akin to pieces of paper stacking up. As the laser fused it all together, the form grew into an intricate latticework, almost like a honeycomb. The roller paused as a robotic hand reached over, turned the object thirty degrees, and inserted a feed of electrical wire, and then the layering began again. In ten minutes, the form was complete. The robotic hand reached back in and lifted it up, and a spray of air blew off the remaining dust that clung to the object. The arm then moved the object outside the machine and put it in a cardboard box. After sixty forms had been placed in the box, an alarm rang.
A human worker scurried over, quickly closed the box, and ran a line of packing tape over it, sealing it shut. He slapped a barcode sticker on it, and another worker loaded the box onto a robotic pallet mover that drove itself down the aisles. Where once garden gnomes and children’s bicycles had been stacked and stored, ready for distribution across the r
etail network, there now stood boxes of reverse-engineered spare parts, from machine-gun belts to wheel brackets to, in this case, a power coupling needed at Mare Island. Outside the warehouse, an eighteen-wheeler truck waited with a manifest for the various items that would be distributed and delivered by the next day.
Back inside, the direct-digital manufacturing machine, also known as a 3-D printer, continued its work. A new software package had been downloaded, and now the device began to build an entirely different object. The process had the efficiency of an assembly line but the flexibility to shift on demand and build any design that could be modeled with computer software.
And, even better, it could reproduce itself. The protocol, as voted on by Lee-Ann’s shareholders, dictated that every tenth run would produce parts for additional 3-D printers. These would then be sold at a discount to the firms that had originally been in Wal-Mart’s supply chain. The seeds of both a manufacturing revolution and a new kind of defense industrial complex were being sown within the world’s largest retail chain.
Lotus Flower Club, Former French Concession, Shanghai
Ritual could be deadly. But ritual also offered its own protection. If you followed the same patterns day after day after day, those watching knew that you had nothing to hide.
So Russian air force major general Sergei Sechin had been going to the Lotus Flower Club now for three years. The same girl. He never asked her name. He knew her only by her number: Twenty-Three.
Twenty-Three wore her jet-black hair short, cropped in a spiky mess that looked sultry, not sloppy. She might have been from Tibet; he wasn’t sure. He never asked, never bothered her with fake conversation. Maybe that was why her dark eyes seemed to light up just a slight bit whenever she saw Sechin, which was once every two weeks. That was enough. He was no longer a young man.
She was chipped, of course. His Chinese counterparts could have all the biofeedback they wanted of an old man’s best effort at screwing his way toward a fleeting moment of escape from age and decay. But at the Lotus Flower Club, that also meant she was wired into the room’s screens on all four walls and the ceiling. The screens pulsed colors depending on her level of arousal. Whatever pills she took worked, because the explosions of light that finished off each session were unlike anything Sechin had ever seen. It was like an aurora borealis in the bedroom.
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