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She had never been more certain of anything in her life.

But couldn’t a transcendent intellect create these powerful feelings within her, even if they were false?

She shook her head. This thinking led to madness. If you could never trust your memories, where did that leave you? If what you were striving for was based on false pretenses . . . it was unthinkable. As Desh had pointed out, most of the time their enhanced selves were trapped in a small room, furiously writing down epiphany after epiphany, so their normal selves never had any indication they might be deceived. Until now.

Kira’s eyes moistened.

“Kira? Are you okay?” asked Desh, reaching out and taking her hands in his.

Kira shook her head. “I feel like giving up,” she said softly. “It’s just too hard. Too many obstacles. They never end. The universe is against us. The speed of light is impossible for even an advanced alien species to crack. The military is after us again, with a group capable of using my therapy pulling the strings. After all of our efforts to disappear. And now this. It’s hard to believe this will end in any way other than disaster.”

“Things seemed just as bad when we first met, and we made it through. Against ridiculous odds. And it wasn’t just luck. We made our own luck. We’ll do it again.”

“I don’t think so,” said Kira, as the moisture in her eyes grew. “Not this time. I think we’ve used up all of our miracles.”

“You have every right to feel that way. You’ve been through the trials of Job. And it’s cruel and unfair. You’re are one of the greatest scientists in history—maybe
the
greatest—and one day you’ll be celebrated like Einstein or Galileo. But you know they didn’t have it easy all the time either. Einstein faced anti-Semitism in Germany and couldn’t get a job in his field, even after he published his revolutionary papers. Galileo was excommunicated from the church and put under house arrest until his death.” He paused, and then smiled sheepishly. “I have to admit, none of them had to go up against scores of special forces operatives. But you know, different times, different crosses to bear.”

Kira smiled and used her napkin to dab away the few tears that had fallen. “You’re right,” she said, strength returning to her voice. “I was just feeling sorry for myself. Sorry for being so weak.”

Desh laughed out loud. “
Weak?
Your will is stronger than any man or woman I’ve ever known. And that’s why we’ll succeed, despite everything thrown against us. I’m sure of it. When Jake first told me you were trading yourself for us, I was terrified. I thought I’d never see you again.” He shook his head. “I was a fool. Hard to believe that I could still underestimate you.” He paused. “I won’t make that mistake ever again,” he vowed.

“And I feel very sorry for anyone who does,” he added with absolute conviction.

32

David Desh gazed at his wife sleeping soundly beside him and once again reflected on just how exceptional she was. She was a sleeping goddess, a Helen of Troy who would have a greater impact on the world because of her brains than Helen had because of her beauty. And while she was undeniably appealing physically, this was true of any number of women. The truth was that a person’s personality and intelligence affected how others perceived their looks. A beautiful woman with an ugly personality wasn’t quite so beautiful anymore. But a beautiful woman with
Kira’s
personality was beyond breathtaking.

In other rooms, Griffin and Connelly were sleeping as well, although certainly not as majestically.

Desh himself had slept poorly. The entire night was spent searching his memory, as if by repeatedly going over the same neuronal real estate he would somehow find the memory of his throat-slitting actions like a roach hidden under the floorboards. But as hard as he strained, he kept coming to the same conclusion: he had done nothing more than search the men for ID.

But then his mental unrest took a troubling turn. He thought about his interactions with Kira. Of discrepancies between her words and actions he had noticed over the past few years. Times when she had said she was one place but he had seen evidence she had been somewhere else. When he noticed a slight change in the location of her laptop and she had later lamented that she’d been unable to do any work on the computer all day. Minor discrepancies to which he had previously paid no attention. Kira was overworked and overwhelmed. Who could blame her if, like Einstein and other great scientists before her, she could be a little scatterbrained on occasion.

But now it was possible to see these discrepancies in a more troubling light.

He slipped from beneath the covers silently and pulled on a blue silk robe, cinching it at the waist, and quietly exited the bedroom. It wasn’t rare for one or the other of them, having trouble sleeping, to steal away for several hours during the night to continue to nibble at their never diminishing mountain of work.

Only this time would be different. This time he wasn’t being whisper quiet so as not to wake his beloved Kira. This time he was leaving to
spy
on her. And himself.

What had happened, or what had not happened, in the basement of a safe-house years ago was driving him mad. Had he really killed three men in cold blood? Or had Kira made this up for reasons of her own? But for
what
reasons? And had the video been faked, despite Kira’s certainty to the contrary?

And if it
was
real, was it possible that some of the evidence Jake had against Kira, which they had yet to see, was real as well?

Desh had to know. He would investigate himself, and while he was at it, her as well.

He removed her laptop from its charging station and crept soundlessly through the halls until he reached the enhancement room, relieved not to have run into Connelly or Griffin in the wee hours of the night, which would have forced him to abort the exercise. He entered the enhancement room, set the timer on its vault-like door for eighty minutes, and closed himself inside.

He slid his left thumb over his keychain and a gellcap fell into his other hand, the replacement for the one he had dropped in the woods. Kira had the keys to the pills, and this was the only way to become enhanced without her being aware of it. Which would mean he wouldn’t have an emergency dose if he needed it. But this couldn’t be helped.

Fireworks erupted in his mind.

Like a neuronal big bang, his consciousness expanded to fill a universe that hadn’t existed the moment before. A feeling that was now quite familiar to him, but was always exhilarating.

He knew instantly. The video footage Kira had seen was accurate. All of it.

Desh could see himself killing the men in the safe-house basement in his mind’s eye like it was happening that moment. He felt the handle of the knife as its sharp blade sliced through each man’s carotid artery with surgical precision. He knew his slower self would find the memory grisly, and would find the utter helplessness of these men horrifying. But he knew it was neither. Killing them had increased his and Kira’s chances of success and survival, nothing more.

But there was no longer any reason not to let his dimwitted self have access to these memories, given the circumstances. Suspecting he had a false memory was driving this other Desh mad, and maintaining this fiction would help neither of them any longer.

He searched his mind in an instant and knew he harbored no other secrets from himself. Other than this one false memory of the events in the basement, he had played it straight with his dimwitted alter ego.

His normal self would remember his enhanced self had not been hiding anything else, but of course, that version of him could never know for certain if this was just another implanted memory. Not even he, with all of his brilliance, had an answer for this conundrum.

He manipulated Kira’s computer, digesting entire screens of information in a literal blink of the eye. He caused the computer to spit up page after page of time-stamped logs, indicating to the tenth of a second every session Kira had ever had on the computer. He crosschecked this against his memories, which he could pinpoint precisely in time to match the records of the computer.

A pattern emerged. For several hours each week, Kira Miller was engaged in computer work that she either didn’t know about, or was concealing from him. He found hidden files, imbedded in innocent programs, which were set to automatically transfer to yet another file
—
this one not only well concealed but tightly protected.

And even he couldn’t break in.

There was no encryption that could be written by a normal, no matter how expert, that he couldn’t break through in minutes in his current state. Which meant this one was built by another enhanced mind. It was the only possibility. A mind even more capable than his own.

Laptops were prohibited from the enhancement room. Only the main Icarus computer could be accessed from here to ensure online activity was properly monitored and controlled to prevent the sort of mischief Jake had taken part in. But Kira had obviously disregarded this rule, had encrypted this large file on her laptop while enhanced. She was the keeper of the pills, and accounted for them, so she could use them off the record any time she wanted.

Desh continued searching, probing; trying to piece together and read whatever tea leaves he could find, no matter how ephemeral. He made attempt after attempt, beating his genius against the computer’s will like a diamond sledgehammer.

Finally, a measure of success. Hints of files that had been erased, but which he could reconstruct just enough of to make them somewhat meaningful. A little more than two and a half years ago Kira had done considerable research on world affairs, wars, infighting, political systems, dictatorships, and nuclear capabilities of countries around the world. She had actively searched for the Achilles’ heels of world governments, gaps in their defenses, pressure points. She had studied the effects of various stimuli; military, political, and economic, on world order, paying particularly close attention to those that would cause widespread devastation. This work was barely concealed at all.

A few months later she had broken into classified government computers that held detailed information on the construction of weapons of mass destruction, both nuclear and biological. But this work, which had occupied her for considerable time, was far better encrypted, so much so that even with a mind of incalculable power, he was only able to nibble around the edges.

Then, abruptly, she must have instituted an even tighter layer of security, and he wasn’t able to catch even a whiff of the skunk she had trapped inside her files. He was completely shut out from that day forward.

What did this all mean? Had she thrown in the towel? Had she given up on faster-than-light travel, on infinity, and decided to take matters into her own hands and thin the human herd
—
for its own good? To reduce the population so her longevity discovery could be revealed?

Good for you, Kira, he thought. Finally making the tough choices without artificial ethics and morals
—
throwbacks to early human development that were now as unnecessary as a pair of tonsils
—
getting in the way.

Or was her intent something else entirely? He had only seen the tip of the tip of the iceberg, and since this was being orchestrated by the enhanced version of Kira Miller, it could be one hell of an iceberg.

Regardless, he needed to find out. And his dumber half could assist in this effort.

But better to keep this from Kira herself. Whether she knew about it or not, anything he did to tip her off would tip off her enhanced self as well.

And if that were to happen, then his investigation would be over before it started.

And as arrogant as he was in his current state, as supremely brilliant, an enhanced Kira Miller was the one entity against whom he knew he would be overmatched.

33

Desh knocked on the door of the yellow one-story home that was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Small but impeccably well kept, with a bright white picket fence in front that was as quaint as it was cliché.

An older man opened the door. He had white hair and was obviously retired, but he had a vigor to him that suggested his retirement had been recent and he continued to stay active.

“Dr. Arnold Cohen?” said Desh.

“Yes,” replied the man at the door. “And you must be Detective Nelson.”

“That’s right,” said Desh, “David Nelson.” He held up a fake badge, which was a flawless forgery, but which he might as well have pulled from a cereal box for all the scrutiny Cohen gave it.

Desh gestured to Jim Connelly beside him. “And this is my associate, Lieutenant Jim Tyler. Thanks for agreeing to meet with us.”

Since Desh had made the initial contact, they had decided he would do most of the talking while Connelly would take notes.

Cohen shook their hands, invited them in, and sat them at his kitchen table. “Can I offer you anything to drink? My wife just made up a batch of iced tea before she left for her book club.”

Both men politely declined. “As I mentioned over the phone,” said Desh, “this has to do with an investigation we’re conducting. Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to disclose the nature of the investigation. But I appreciate your cooperation.”

Cohen nodded. “Glad to help in any way I can.”

 
Desh had begun trying to learn who Eric Frey had become, what new Phoenix had arisen from the old psychopath’s ashes, right after his dinner with Kira a week before. He had immediately discovered that two weeks after Frey’s supposed suicide, the detective on the case had turned up dead. The papers quoted police sources who speculated his death was related to several murder cases he had been working on, but Desh knew better. The detective must have discovered evidence that Frey wasn’t as dead as he had been led to believe, and had paid for it with his life. Learning of this had only served to rub salt in Desh’s wound. If he had done even the smallest amount of follow-up, the situation would have been obvious, and Frey would have been removed from the board long ago.