The Gift (14 page)

“What do I have to do?” Jim asked.

“Tell the guide you accept your gift.” Sam answered.

“Fine, but if this turns out to be a stupid move, I’m going to use my new young body to beat you with.”

Directing his attention toward his gift, Jim said, “I accept my gift.”

Sam spent the next twenty minutes or so fishing while Jim appeared to be napping by his side.
 
He caught two rainbow trout, which he cleaned and prepared to cook. If Jim decided to take the next step, Sam was going to feed him first, and well.
 
He didn’t want Jim to go through what he’d gone through during his merging. Adia assured him it would be easier for Jim because she would be able to inform his gift about her experience joining with a human. Sam still wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Just as Sam started to gather wood for a small fire with which to cook the fish, Jim spoke.

“I’ll be damned.”

“Classy way to comment on integrating with an alien entity.” Sam said.

“Have I mentioned lately that you can be an ass?” Jim asked with a grin.

“Not that I recall. How do you feel?”

“No different, really. I just have this person talking in my head. No big deal, right?”

“Right. That’s exactly how I felt. Just another Sunday. Sorry I couldn’t introduce you to something interesting.” Sam went back to picking up small pieces of tinder before continuing, “Why don’t you spend a little time with that new person in your life while I cook us lunch?”

“Okay.”

Sam confirmed with Adia that she was communicating with Jim’s gift, accelerating his willingness to merge with Jim. He was surprised to find that Jim’s gift had a male personality. He’d assumed it would be female, though he didn’t know why. He made a mental note to discuss the process with Adia.

Gathering rocks to ring the fire pit, Sam realized he wouldn’t have to explain the rest of the situation to Jim. Jim’s gift would do so in a way that was as comprehensible to Jim as possible, just as Adia had done for him. He was relieved. He really didn’t know how he was going to convince Jim that humanity was in jeopardy.

After working to get the fire started and preparing a spit for the fish, it occurred to Sam that Jim wasn’t speaking aloud as he had done while getting to know Adia. Perhaps Jim’s integration process really was benefiting from Adia’s experience with him.

When the fish was done, he placed Jim’s on a few folded paper towels and handed it to him, interrupting his unusual reverie. “Lunch is served.”

Jim took the fish and said, “You were right, Sam. Adam explained everything to me. I’d say it’s insane, but since we’re living it, I guess it’s real. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Adam and I have agreed to merge. He tells me it would be best if I ate and drank as much as possible before we do so. I suppose you knew that?”

“Yeah, well, I do now. Wish I had before Adia and I merged.”

They ate together in companionable silence. When the last piece of fish was gone and Jim had consumed as much water as he could comfortably hold, he told Sam he was ready. Sam assured him he would be there the whole time and that he’d try to get a few more fish just in case Jim needed more food when he woke. Jim nodded and closed his eyes.

C
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S
IXTEEN

“I hope you’re happy with your decision, Major, because it may well cost you your career,” Web told her once they were alone.

“Sir, we’re facing an implacable enemy with only one chance to survive their arrival and we don’t know how much time we have. We can’t keep waiting for approval of every small decision,” Angela responded.

“First of all, that’s not your call to make. I can’t control Doctor Nagaraj, but you are a marine officer. I can and do expect more from you. Secondly, we do not know that there is any enemy other than potentially these gifts. Your willingness to act on what they’ve told you without supporting evidence makes your actions suspect.”

“Please give me a chance to explain, Sir. I wasn’t ignoring orders. I was following their intent.”

“I’ll give you a little bit of rope, but remember where that expression came from. I don’t expect your explanation is going to improve your position and I encourage you to keep it to yourself, but I will listen if you insist on digging yourself deeper into the hole you’ve started.”

“Sir, we were instructed to have two people, with me being one of them, attempt to communicate with the gifts. As you said in our briefing prior to making contact, this was so there would be two separate sets of experiences capable of corroborating one another. Once AJ decided to advance the level of communication, I felt I had no choice but to do the same. You had not prohibited such action and it was consistent with the last orders we received from the NCA. I admit it was not what we expected when we first received our orders, but it is consistent with them and we are now communicating with the gifts. AJ and I can be interrogated separately. The responses we provide, given to us by our gifts, can be compared. This will allow the team to make much more substantial progress than we’ve made so far and at a greater operational tempo than we’ve managed to date. It will allow the command to begin providing material information to the NCA. Yes, it was a bold move, and it could have gone badly, but it didn’t. Now, it’s a win for the team.” Angela stopped.

Web paused, considering her argument before continuing, “Okay, I can sell your case upstairs. These are unusual times, to say the least, but just so we’re both crystal clear; I don’t buy it. You know you should have requested permission to proceed as you did and we both know you didn’t because you didn’t want to be told no. Make another decision like that and I won’t even consider protecting you. It will not only be the career ending decision this could have been, you may very well find yourself explaining your decision making process to a courts martial.”

Web’s satellite phone rang before he could finish. “Web. Okay, Dan, just a second.”

“Are you absolutely clear on this, Major?” Web asked.

“Absolutely, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” Angela replied.

“Don’t thank me, Major. I just gave you a bit more rope. If you’re not very careful, you’ll still end up hanging yourself with it. Go back to the others. Tell them I’m not to be disturbed and that I’ll join you all shortly.”

“Yes, Sir,” Angela turned sharply and walked briskly back to the VIP shelter. Her face was flush and she was shaking slightly from the adrenaline pumping through her system.

Jack observed Angela’s return to the team with poorly concealed surprise. He started to say something to her, saw her expression and thought better of it, returning his attention to the discussion surrounding AJ instead.

Angela walked around the conference table and took the seat she’d occupied before Web had directed she accompany him outside after she’d recovered from the changes her gift had made to her during its birth. The discussion halted with everyone’s attention focused on Angela as she lifted her gift off of the table and held it cradled in her left hand, which she lowered to her lap before speaking, “Colonel Web said he’ll be joining us shortly.”

“Did he say we should wait before continuing?” Jack asked.

“No. He told me to return to the group, that he wasn’t to be disturbed and that he’d be joining us shortly. That’s all,” Angela replied.

“Then let’s proceed,” Camilla said before asking her next question, “Angela, we were just talking with AJ about the personality he’s communicating with. Since you didn’t hear his responses, I think it would be helpful if you spent some time describing your gift’s personality, so we can begin determining where there are similarities and differences, if any.”

Angela was well aware that she was in a difficult position and would have preferred to have Web in the room. She would also prefer to listen rather than speak, but could find no plausible excuse for not answering such a straightforward and apparently harmless question.

Finding no way out, she answered, “The personality of my gift is male. We haven’t had much time to talk, but I can say that talking with him has been, so far, indistinguishable from talking with an intelligent, well-spoken human being. He did explain to me that he was born, for lack of a better word, by virtue of a process that required interaction with me. We haven’t gotten into details yet, but it is clear that each gift is, as we’d suspected, connected to its recipient. It is not possible for anyone else to communicate directly with my gift. Such communication must be through me. I haven’t learned much more than that, except that it doesn’t seem to matter which language I use to talk with him. Whichever I pick, he responds in the same and fluently.”

“Are your gifts capable of communicating with each other as they do with each of you?” Rui asked.

“Mine, female by the way Angela, tells me that they can, if we request it,” AJ replied.

“Let’s test it,” Chang said. “I’ll write a number on this piece of paper and show AJ. Angela, please ask your gift to get the number from AJ’s.” As he talked, Chang began writing a number on a pad in front of him, careful to keep it hidden from Angela.

“I think we should wait for Colonel Web before expanding our tests,” Jack said.

“Nonsense. This is simple enough. The Colonel wouldn’t want us sitting around waiting for him when there are simple experiments we can run that will improve our understanding of the gifts’ capabilities.” Chang handed the pad to AJ who surreptitiously glanced at the number before handing the pad back to Chang.

“Seven thousand, nine hundred and nineteen,” Angela immediately stated for the group.

Chang held up the pad so that everyone could see she was correct.

“Fascinating,” Camilla said.

“Is there a limit to the amount or type of data that can be shared?” Chang asked.

Angela nodded to AJ, preferring to participate as little as possible while she silently communicated with her gift.

“There does appear to be bandwidth constraints consistent with our understanding of wireless communications, though the limits are very high at such close range. I’m told there’s no limit on the type of information that can be transmitted. She was a bit amused by that part of the question,” AJ replied.

“How about their ability to calculate? Are they capable of processing data in the same manner as our computers?” Rui asked AJ.

AJ paused for a moment before responding, “The amount of information each of them can store is astounding. I’m told each gift contains all of the networked information on Earth at the time of their arrival. Their ability to process data is not as easily described. Each gift is theoretically more powerful than all of the computers on Earth combined, but there are constraints that I don’t fully understand right now. They work best as components of a larger set of human-gift pairs. I’ll need to spend some time talking with her about it.”

“So you’re saying that every person who pairs up with a gift has access to all of the world’s information at the time of the gifts’ arrival? What about encrypted information?” Jack asked.

“If it was on a network, they have it. Our levels of encryption did not pose a problem for them. Encrypted or not, if it was on a network, every gift has access to it.” AJ answered.

“So our enemies now have access to all of our classified material?” Jack asked.

“It would appear so, and we theirs,” AJ answered.

“Web needs to hear about this,” Jack said.

“I told you, Jack, he said he was not to be disturbed. He was very clear about that,” Angela said.

“There’s one more thing,” AJ said, forestalling any further disagreement, “my gift also told me I was not the first.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jack asked, characteristically growing increasingly irritated as he felt himself slipping further from control.

AJ looked at Angela for a moment before answering, “It means that someone beat us to it, and that person is special in this process.”

C
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EVENTEEN

Several hours passed as Jim merged with his gift. Sam spent the time talking with Adia, learning more about the next steps required of him and his team. Most of the conversation was focused on the use of nanotechnology. Sam was much better versed on the topic than most, his interest in technology being as broad as it was deep in some areas. Still, what he knew was a fraction of what the most informed humans working with the nascent science knew, and their knowledge would not scratch the surface of what Adia was teaching him.

As interesting as the subject was, Sam was equally fascinated by the learning process. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He thought in terms of being taught, but that wasn’t an adequate term for what was taking place. As Adia helped him access information related to his questions, it integrated with everything he already knew more completely than he would have thought possible. He wasn’t just acquiring facts. The facts were being associated with seemingly unrelated memories and experiences. The associations made the memories clearer, the experiences fresher. He realized he wasn’t just learning. He was becoming more capable of knowing and of thinking. He sensed the same was true for Adia and decided to take a break from expanding his specific knowledge to discuss what was happening to them.

“Adia, the way I’m thinking is changing. Every time you answer one of my questions, my understanding of some other part of my life increases. I’ve experienced childhood memories that I know I haven’t thought of in decades, if ever, and they are as clear as my memory of our walk down here today. When you gave me access to information on the networked control of nanites, it was as if I’d just taken calculus again only this time it wasn’t just a tool, it became beautiful to me. It feels wonderful; but I want to understand it, and I want to know if you are changing as well.”

“I am experiencing something similar, Sam and you’re right. It is wonderful.” Sam could feel Adia’s joy. That, too, was wonderful.

Adia continued, “When I told you earlier that we could only control nanites as one entity and that we would become something more than either of us was before, this is what I was referring to. I did not know what it would feel like, only that we both would change as each of our strengths became increasingly complementary of the other’s. As you ask questions, I am made aware of the answers and given access to parts of me that were outside of my consideration until that moment. At the same time, I provide the same access to you and show your brain how to retrieve it. The process is very similar to the way in which your brain naturally learns to recall and relate information, except this information is not stored in your brain. Instead, I provide your brain with a pointer to the information. At the same time, I am strengthening neural pathways stimulated by each question. In some cases, I am replacing flawed or partially stored information with similar pointers to complete versions of that information. The process leaves your brain with less need to store information and greater capacity to think.”