“The feeling’s mutual.”
“I assume that after what happened to the major, you’ve generated some theories about my plan?”
“You’re going to murder millions of people whose lifestyles you don’t approve of,” Randi said.
“Ah, Ms. Russell. A woman who doesn’t mince words.”
Smith glared at her in the rearview mirror. She flipped him off.
“And is Mr. Zellerbach there, too?”
“Yes,” Marty said, looking more in awe than scared.
“My compliments to you. I identified thirty-nine people worldwide whom I believed had a chance at finding that subsystem and you weren’t on the list. I apologize for underestimating your abilities.”
“Uh, that’s okay.”
Dresner let out an incongruously warm laugh. “I see that you haven’t informed anyone of consequence. I’m sure Mr. Zellerbach told you that I’d be watching all aspects of the network for unusual fluctuations.”
“He did mention that,” Smith said. “The message seems to be that if we do anything, an enormous number of people will drop dead.”
“One million, seventeen thousand, six hundred and twelve as of this moment.”
“As of this moment…” Smith said. The seemingly offhand phrase was the last piece of the puzzle he needed. “It’s not enough for you.”
“Once again, I’m impressed,” Dresner said. “No, it’s not enough. This isn’t about vengeance or killing people who will be immediately replaced by others just as malignant. It’s about fundamentally changing society. It’s about making certain we survive long enough for someone to succeed where I’ve failed.”
“In turning the Merge into something that perfects us as a species.”
“Your phrasing is a bit melodramatic but it’s substantially accurate.”
“So if we try to stop you now, you’ll murder just over a million people. But if we don’t, a few years from now, ten times that many will die.”
“Closer to five times based on my projections. But these are people whose lives are about destruction, Jon. Hate. Greed. People who turn—”
“According to you.”
“Not really true. You’re ignoring the fact that one of LayerCake’s main functions is to temper our judgments with facts. Whatever biases I have because of my life experiences are eradicated by the system. I think you’d be surprised at how many people I personally judge negatively that LayerCake doesn’t. I’m not overriding a single one of those decisions. As you know, the system works. Extremely well.”
It was true. The system did work. In Smith’s extensive experience, LayerCake’s judgments of people and things had proved almost preternaturally accurate. And to the degree it erred, it erred to the positive.
“Even your moderated biases, though, are your biases,” Randi said. “Didn’t Hitler believe he was right? Didn’t Stalin? Didn’t they believe that they were creating a Utopia?”
“I’m not trying to protect my own power, Ms. Russell. I’m not a racist or a sexist. I’m not promoting a political ideology. And my accusations are being vetted by the most unbiased judge ever created. If our species is going to survive to take the next logical step, something has to be done. The weak and the innocent have to be protected from men with access to technology that Hitler and Stalin only dreamed of.”
“And so we should just accept that you’ve checkmated us,” Smith said. “We should just stand by and do nothing.”
“You think too small, Jon. That’s not at all what I’m proposing. I believe that we should form an alliance.”
“Excuse me?”
“The adoption of the Merge has been strongest in the United States for a number of reasons, including your undeniable talent at developing systems useful to your soldiers.”
Smith felt the breath drain from him. Dresner was right. His confidence in the Merge’s potential had handed Dresner a weapon that could decimate America’s defenses in precisely eighteen seconds.
“Adoption by foreign militaries is fairly low still, largely due to the exclusivity agreement Whitfield insisted on. Penetration in Muslim countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran is coming along, but is also still low — even with the upper class. In China, there’s poor overall adoption because of the poverty in rural areas but also because of the limited effectiveness of the commercial unit in combat situations. Also, there’s not a great deal of online information in those countries for LayerCake to base its judgments on.”
Smith knew where this was going and wasn’t happy about it. “So you have my country dead to rights. If you activate now, we’re the ones who get hit the hardest.”
“Overwhelmingly so,” Dresner said. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. Whitfield forced me into the exclusivity agreement. I propose a leak of the military operating system that would allow other countries full access. You’d see an immediate spike in adoption by your opponents and I’d stand by while you slow — but not reverse — the usage by the U.S. military. This would also give me more time to market to the Muslims and the ruling classes of Africa and Southeast Asia, whom I think you’d agree the world would be better without.”
“So I’d be responsible for the deaths of millions of people.”
“Terrorists, dictators, people involved in the Iranian and Pakistani nuclear efforts, criminals, military leaders in China, Russia—”
“And the men that I’ve led and fought with.”
“LayerCake has no interest in killing a hundred thousand foot soldiers, Jon. In fact, I think you’d be surprised at how few of your military people have been selected. The system is interested less in people who fight wars than the people who court and promote them. Besides, you can’t save them. For all intents and purposes, they’re already dead.”
Smith didn’t respond.
“In the next fifty years, we’ll be able to use the Merge to become what we’ve always aspired to be, Jon. Can you imagine what humanity could accomplish if we didn’t spend so much of our time and energy looking for ways to destroy ourselves? Will my actions cause the deaths of millions of people? Yes. But how does that compare with the wars of the last century? The genocides? The countless massacres throughout history where the peaceful and defenseless were the first to die? How many innocent lives will my actions save? Humanity has a chance, Jon. A chance to survive. To thrive. Think about what role you want to play in that.”
The connection went dead and there was silence in the car for a few moments.
“Thoughts?” Klein said finally.
“Talk about a Faustian bargain,” Randi said.
“Yeah,” Smith said. “What he’s talking about doesn’t save American lives so much as it takes foreign ones. I’m more patriotic than most, but that’s a lot of blood on my hands.”
“Agreed,” Klein said over the phone. “We’re not bargaining with this man. There has to be a way to stop him. We’re just not coming up with it.”
Smith glanced over at Marty, who was staring blankly out the window tapping his foot in a monotonous rhythm.
“Marty?”
He didn’t answer.
“What about a virus, Marty? You write it and I’ll get it into any network you want. You can crash the whole world.”
Again he didn’t answer.
“It won’t crash,” Zellerbach said. “It’s won’t, it won’t, it won’t.”
Smith had seen him like this before. His mind was going a thousand miles an hour in a hundred different directions. His brilliance was unchained, but also spinning out of control. They were going to have to stop at a pharmacy.
“It’s not about the networks,” Zellerbach continued. “It’s not.”
Randi leaned up through the seats. “Then what is it about? How can we stop him from triggering it?”