Around the table, people talked about doomsday scenarios. Rayburn had been very good at enforcing
his policy interpretation, that D'Arcy was a mole for the IUF, and that was how this was being interpreted. D'Arcy had blown his cover because the IUF was using Zimmerman and the missing Daedalus for some massive terrorist act.
An act that was being committed as they sat here.
Fitzsimmons had thought he knew better. He had believed that D'Arcy had been engaged in his own rogue pursuit of national security. The IUF was some misguided attempt to control the operation of Mid-East terrorism. But, given the events of the past few hours, Fitzsimmons wasn't so sure.
"We have estimates that we have, at most, another hour before we have a major catastrophe at one of our disabled airports," Colonel Mecham was saying. "We have unconfirmed reports already of midair collisions in Brazil, Hong Kong, Rome, Mexico City, and half a dozen other cities. None in the US so far." He flipped over a page on the clipboard he was reading and continued. "We've had failures and shutdowns in at least forty power plants across the country; there is a blackout affecting the entire West Coast, as well as outages in the Gulf States and the Midwest affecting approximately fifty million people. With the exception of short-wave and some secure satellite communications, voice and data lines are down—or unusable—across the country. The Internet, all of it, is completely dead."
It was a litany of disaster that just kept going on and on, every networked computer in the country—in the world, maybe—seemed to have simultaneously shut down or gone off on its own agenda. It was happening in the NSA, in NASA, and in AT&T. Over the past hour every system with some connection to the outside had become inoperable. The only systems that seemed immune were specially isolated systems designed to be ultimately secure—such as the communication system the military was forced into using now.
"This thing," Mecham said, "is affecting everything from PCs to LANs to mainframes to NSA's own supercomputer." He set down the clipboard. "However, we do have some idea where this all might be originating." He took a satellite photograph off of the table in front of him and passed it around to his left. "Before all our resources went down, we had several alerts to an unusually high volume of digital traffic off of one of our satellites. The destination is marked on that photograph."
The picture came around to Fitzsimmons. He rotated it a couple of times to see what looked like some woods, a snow-covered field, a barn, and a rambling farmhouse.
"Gentlemen," Mecham said, "I don't think there's any question that we need to move immediately."
D'Arcy took Gideon out of the office area, to a pair of folding chairs set against the barn wall, flanked by a pair of Kalishnikov-wielding guards. Ruth was already seated there watching the project going on around her. Other than Julia going around from terminal to terminal, there wasn't much to watch. Half a dozen people in various cubicles, bent over computer terminals, Julia softly talking to them.
Mike Gribaldi stood with two others that Gideon recognized from the ET Lab picture. They leaned on the wall opposite him and Ruth, out of earshot. The trio watched the goings-on intently; it was probably more interesting when you knew exactly what was going on at each station.
"Does this seem right?" Gideon whispered mostly to himself.
"What?" Ruth asked.
The guards didn't seem to mind their talking. Even so, Gideon leaned toward Ruth and whispered, since everyone else out here seemed to speak in hushed tones. "Your sister's smart enough to realize what D'Arcy's doing here."
"And what is he doing?" Ruth whispered.
"He's set up the IUF of his as a scapegoat. All the nasty illegal things can be blamed on the terrorists, and the software can be seized when the terrorists are taken out—"
"D'Arcy's here, Gideon—"
"He didn't plan it that way. Maybe someone connected him with the IUF." Gideon lowered his voice even more. "If that's the case, this 'AT might be his only bargaining chip—"
"Maybe D'Arcy isn't smart enough to realize what Julia is doing here."
"When news of D'Arcy's operation gets out, all hell will break loose in Washington. Offering an AI to the government may be the only thing between a quiet retirement and a trial for treason." Gideon looked at Ruth. "What do you mean, D'Arcy doesn't realize?"
"Julia knows D'Arcy," Ruth said. "D'Arcy's irrelevant to her." She was speaking softly, staring intently at the activity around the cubicles.
"Irrelevant? If D'Arcy has just a little streak of self-preservation, he knows that no one in Washington needs to deal with him as long as the people in this room can repeat the process." Gideon looked at her,
Ruth seemed distant, like her sister had. "Once they do this thing, D'Arcy needs them to disappear. Are you hearing me?"
Ruth nodded. "It's too late, already."
Gideon looked at the two guards. They hadn't moved, and showed little sign of paying attention to them. There was probably some chance that they didn't even speak English. He looked around the barn and while none of the scientists seemed to have noticed, there had been a steady increase in the number of Kalishnikovs in the barn. Gideon saw Volynskji talking in hushed tones to D'Arcy, away from everyone else, near the new front door.
"What did Julia say to you?" Gideon asked Ruth.
It now seemed ominous how the generators and the Daedalus were separated from the workspace. Almost designed so that stray shots wouldn't damage the supercomputer or its power supply.
Gideon watched Julia as she moved from cubicle to cubicle. She didn't seem fully here, in the barn. Her eyes were looking out at some other place that only existed behind those deep gray eyes.
She had to realize the danger here.
"What did she tell you?"
"Everything," Ruth said. "What she's looking for, really."
Julia had to have walked into this knowing that she was expendable to D'Arcy as soon as the project was complete. She had to have seen that as soon as she was set up in this place, isolated, away from any legitimate oversight. Even Mike, for all his alleged naivete, knew that they were all involved in a rogue operation. Julia would have to know what that meant.
She went ahead with this anyway.
"What is she doing?" Gideon couldn't see why she would do this. She wasn't self-destructive. Was D'Arcy's AI worth the risk for her? Gideon didn't see it. . .
Then he noticed a small piece of paper tacked up on one of the cubicle walls. It was a familiar symbol,
" N"
"Ruth, what is she doing?"
Someone called out from one of the terminals. "We have some spontaneous activity through the uplink, from our end."
"We've collected enough. He's starting to contact other pieces of Himself." In Julia's voice, Gideon could hear the capitalization.
"Ruth?" Gideon grabbed her arm and pulled her to face him.
"What's happening?" D'Arcy said, echoing Gideon's own thoughts. D'Arcy's voice was calm, but he had the bearing of someone confronted with something beyond his expectations.
Julia maneuvered to a free terminal and started tapping at the keyboard. "This is expected. Don't concern yourself with it."
"Ruth?" Gideon shook her shoulder.
Ruth shook her head and spoke as if she didn't quite believe what she was saying. "God," she said.
"What?"
"She's looking for God."
3.07 Fri. Mar. 26
WITHIN minutes after Rayburn's approval, three Sikorsky Blackhawks escorted by a pair of Cobra gunships lifted off from Hanscomb Air Force Base outside of Boston. The Blackhawks carried two units of special forces, experts in domestic counter-terrorism. The units on those helicopters bore orders that came directly from President Rayburn by way of General Harris of the Joint Chiefs.