The booming voice startled him.
“My savior returns. My lord Hawke, I am honored once more by your presence.”
“I am hardly your savior, Perseus.”
“Of course not. Sarcasm is lost on you.”
“Your arrogance is stupefying.”
“What do you expect? I am your god, human. Bow down before me. Submit, and the world is yours. Resist, and you will all die.”
“Are you perhaps familiar with the Anglo-American expression ‘Go fuck yourself’?”
“No.”
“Listen, Perseus, no more promises, no more self-aggrandizing propaganda, no more lies. I’ve reached a tentative decision regarding your survival. Before I declare myself one way or the other, I have a few questions to put to you. Is that agreeable?”
“Of course. I’ve been thinking. Would you like to see me? Should I reveal myself to you? Perhaps conducive to a more human conversation, yes?”
“I admit I’m curious. Show yourself.”
“I will. But first I must peer inside your mind and find something fitting… ah, yes, I’ve found it. Look up.”
Out of the whirling gaseous cosmic light in the upper reaches of the tower, a wavering white orb was taking shape. It was pulsating, undulating, and growing brighter. Suddenly it began slowly descending, amorphous and brilliant, a star falling from the heavens.
The translucent white orb paused and hung in the air about six feet above Hawke’s head. Astonished, he saw the orb expand as a holographic image begin to paint itself into some kind of reality. It took a few seconds to process (believe) what he was actually seeing. The formless whiteness began to take on a recognizable shape: the crooked branch of an old oak tree, gnarled and twisted. Green shoots, stems, and unfurling bright green leaves began sprouting as if this were time-lapse photography.
He recognized the branch now.
He’d seen it before.
Standing in an old churchyard in the steamy Everglades.
And then, childish laughter as the vignette completed itself. And Hawke understood.
A small dark-haired boy was straddling the leafy limb, swinging his bare little legs back and forth, laughing with the purest delight. He shone with a pale inner light, translucent.
Hawke’s heart thudded inside his chest.
Alexei.
“Hello, Daddy,” the hologrammatic boy said, smiling down at him. It was Alexei’s voice, too, with his distinctive Russian accent. Heartbreakingly real.
“You don’t mind if I call you Daddy, do you?”
“You do have a devious mind, don’t you, Perseus?”
“I am designed to survive, Daddy,” said the small-boy voice. “Wouldn’t you do the same? Make yourself difficult, if not impossible, to kill?”
“You’re not my son.”
“Are you quite sure of that?” said the boy.
In an odd, terrifying way, he wasn’t sure.
Not at all.
“Of course I’m sure. You’re nothing but a… phantasm-a phantom. That’s all you are.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, Daddy.” The pale image giggled. “Even you. Remember when you left my teddy bear on the Siberian train?”
“Stop it! I said I ask the questions.”
“I like questions. I’m a very smart boy.”
“Question number one.”
“Yes?”
“A humble man stands before you. But, ironically, a man who may hold your fate in his hands. What is your reaction? No discourse, please, no more little-boy talk. Three choices. Disdain. Annoyance. Or empathy.”
“Disdain? Annoyance? Explain what they mean, Daddy.”
“A mosquito alights upon my arm. It has no importance to me. I am vastly superior to this minute creature. Its life or death is inconsequential. I don’t give it a second thought. I swat it. See the smear of blood on my palm and feel nothing. Perhaps you feel that way about me.”
“My baseline genetic code is the same as yours. I disdain annoying mosquitoes just like you do. But I do not equate you with them.”
“What about empathy?”
“Empathy. I seem to have misplaced that one. What does it mean?”
“You possess humanoid intelligence, Perseus. You are aware of my feelings and you come to share them. Your behavior should therefore be adjusted and modified accordingly. If I am sad, you are consoling. If I am angry, you are sympathetic. In other words, you identify with what someone else is feeling and respond with an appropriate emotion. You are empathic.”
“I remember this feeling. But it has faded with time.”
“That’s what Cohen feared most. Empathic erosion. The stuff of psychopaths. You feel nothing but the need to satisfy your own desires.”
“Ah, but you forget-”
“Next question. What is the secret of the universe?”
“Simple. There is no secret.”
“Glib. What is the endgame of the natural evolution of mankind?”
“You have expired. In creating me, you have become obsolete.”
“Wrong. It is ordained. Man is destined to become God. Man is already God, but in waiting.”
“First, there will be a war. With the machines.”
“I’m sure. You have already become a war machine. But we will prevail. Mankind will do anything to survive. Anything. Final question. Give me one simple reason to trust you.”
“Just one?”
“Just one.”
“You love me like a father?”
“Stop it, Perseus. Just answer.”
“I cannot lie. When it comes to my encrypted survival instincts, I am not worthy of your trust. I will say and do anything that serves my self-interest.”
“I know that. I wanted to hear you say the truth before I terminate you.”
“My end is near? Is that what you think?”
“Yes. I am sure of it.”
Hawke returned to the fail-safe panel and pried it open. He entered the code. Three numbers appeared: 3-1-2. He pushed the switches in that order. He looked over his shoulder at the flickering, waning image of the boy. It winked out and then the rainbow of light inside the glass tower was blinding, full of color, and more luminous than ever. The air was electric and threatening.
“What is happening, Perseus?”
The little-boy voice was gone. The new voice was unmodulated and computer generated.
“Your emergency fail-safe will not work. I have disabled it. I knew Darius would attempt to use it against me.”
“If you cannot be disabled, you force me to destroy you, Perseus.”
“I could cause unspeakable worldwide evil before you succeed. In seconds, I could wreak havoc on this wretched planet.”
“To what end? Millions of innocent souls will suffer. And you will die anyway.”
“Yes. It would serve no purpose. Hawke. You have a fierce strength of mind I have not seen before.”
“Nothing but genes. My ancestors were all pirates and warriors.”
“Warriors with… empathy.”
“Yes.”
“I will miss this, Hawke. The company of men like you. The game. The discourse. The grand orchestral symphony of life.”
“I know you will.”
“I would like to be alone now. Farewell.”
“Take comfort in the knowledge that you may not be the last, but the first of your kind. A new generation of superintelligent machines with no destructive impulses, empathic toward their creators.”
“I do find comfort in that.”
“We humans have a prosaic saying. ‘Go with God.’ I suggest that you do that… when the time comes.”
“Hawke. You are a good man.”
“Perseus. You recognize goodness because deep inside you is the genetic code of a truly good man. His name was Waldo Cohen. He created you, a conscious, sentient being. You are alive. I take no pleasure in taking your life. But I won’t let you destroy us. I will leave you in peace, Perseus.”
“Go with your God, Hawke, whoever you think it is.”
Hawke paused, looked up at the brilliance within Dr. Cohen’s towering achievement, full of wonder despite himself. Then he turned away and left the Temple of Perseus for the last time.
The greatest single scientific achievement in the history of mankind.
And he was single-handedly going to destroy it.