Genocide of One: A Thriller (56 page)

Early spring sunlight
filtered into the Rose Garden. President Burns stood at the window of the Oval Office
and thought back to the beginning of Operation Nemesis. It had been a different season
but the same kind of morning. He’d been standing right here, waiting for the members
of his daily briefing team to assemble.

“Mr. President,” Chief of Staff Acres said. “Shall we begin?”

Burns turned and saw a familiar lineup, along with one new face. Everything is just
as it was on that day, he concluded. Melvin Gardner’s successor as presidential science
adviser was seated on the sofa, looking distinctly uncomfortable. What was his name
again? Lamont?

Burns took his seat, and, as always, Watkins, director of national intelligence, passed
him a leather binder. “Today’s PDB, sir.”

The first critical item dealt with the assassination of the vice president.

An analyst from the NSA who had accompanied Watkins was in charge of briefing the
president. “Regarding Vice President Chamberlain’s tragic death,” he intoned, “we
have to admit we were mistaken. We had suspected the Chinese cyberattack unit of having
a hand in it, but we found there was more to it than that.”

Burns, not exactly a digital expert, cut him off. “Make this as simple as you can.”

“Certainly, sir. We concluded that someone hacked into the Chinese People’s Liberation
Army mainframe and used that as a springboard for the attack on us.”

“Then who actually carried it out?”

“Unfortunately, it’s been difficult to determine. We can say, though, that it was
not the work of the Chinese.”

“Are you telling me that whoever assassinated the vice president of the United States
didn’t leave a single clue behind?”

“I’m afraid so,” the analyst admitted with a pained look.

But Burns wasn’t angry. He was scared. This unknown person, whoever he was, could
come after him next.

Watkins added, “We were overestimating the threat from China. In the National Security
Council meeting today I think we’d best discuss a review of our policy toward the
Chinese.”

CIA director Holland, seated next to him, nodded. “We all agree, I believe, that we
should freeze the military options we’d been considering against China.”

Burns didn’t respond but turned the page in his briefing book and asked about the
second item. “We also don’t know who’s behind the cyberattack on the entire United
States?”

The analyst had to confirm this. “I’m sorry to say so, but that’s also true. We found
out later, too, that another strange thing happened. The attack made a complete shambles
of data from all the financial institutions in the country, but now the data’s back
to normal. If it hadn’t been restored, our economy might have collapsed.”

“Why would the enemy do that?”

“I’m just speculating, but I think it was a demonstration of power.”

Perhaps worried that the analyst had been a bit too frank, Watkins hurriedly cut in.
“Right now maintaining order is the most urgent task at hand. We need to make it mandatory
for any entity connected with public infrastructure, as well as all financial institutions,
of course, to come up with countermeasures against cyberattacks.”

“And that will sufficiently protect us?”

No one could answer the president’s question.

Burns cleared his throat sullenly and went on to the third item in the report. “Now
about this crash of the F-22s: What happened?”

“This gets kind of technical, so I asked Dr. Lamont to join us,” Watkins said, and
urged the newly appointed presidential science adviser to speak.

Lamont, seated at the end, removed his reading glasses and turned to the president.
“The four fighter jets crashed at almost the same time, but this was not the result
of an attack. It was the result of a natural disaster.”

Burns frowned. “Natural disaster?”

“Correct. The deep seafloor off the Florida peninsula contains large amounts of a
substance called methane hydrate. Under extremely cold conditions and high pressure,
methane gas that normally would have turned into natural gas gets trapped in water
molecules. On the day we scrambled our fighter jets these crystals started to break
down, and a huge amount of gas was released into the atmosphere all at once. Unfortunately
the F-22s were flying at low altitude through that gas at just the wrong time.”

The president looked unconvinced, and Lamont continued. “What happened was the fighter
jets and the missiles they fired all had jet engines burning as they passed through
the middle of this combustible gas. Either their engines experienced incomplete combustion
or they exploded. The pilot’s final transmission, ‘The sea is burning,’ probably indicated
that pieces of burning wreckage had ignited the gas gushing out on the surface of
the sea.”

The officials seated in the Oval Office weren’t sure whether to accept the scientist’s
explanation.

“Is this substance, methane hydrate, found only off Florida?” Holland asked.

“No. It’s found in both North and South America and the oceans in the Far East.”

“Then shouldn’t there be similar accidents all over?”

Lamont shook his head. “Only the sea off Florida meets the right conditions. This
has to do with the Gulf Stream. A warm current from the African continent moves west
into the Gulf of Mexico, changes direction, and then flows into this area of the ocean.
This is the only part of the ocean where methane hydrate is exposed to such high temperatures.
This high water temperature itself triggers the release of the gas.”

“So,” Burns said, “you’re telling me that the Raptors’ destruction was the result
of an unfortunate coincidence?”

“I’m afraid so. Their pass through that area was just bad timing.”

“Could this accident have been planned?”

“No; that’s impossible,” Lamont declared. “No one can predict when large amounts of
methane gas will be released. And no human would be able to time it precisely enough
to lead supersonic jets to pass through that area right when it happened.”

“No human,” Burns repeated in a small voice. “Did that young man prepare this report?”
he asked Holland.

“Do you mean Arthur Rubens?”

“Yes.”

“No, sir. He resigned. Another analyst wrote the report.”

Burns nodded and was silent. He felt as though he were being watched.

Eyes that shouldn’t be trained on the commander in chief were watching him. Eyes that
could see through everything.

Burns thought of Arthur Rubens’s gaze during the night briefing in this very room.
The young man had gazed at him with the same look.

No; those weren’t human eyes.

What made him most afraid was the gaze looking down on him from above. An omniscient,
omnipresent gaze that always knew where he was and what he was doing. Vice President
Chamberlain hadn’t escaped this gaze. Someone had watched him, held him in thrall,
and then brought down judgment.

“May we move on to the next item?” Acres asked. “The situation in Iraq?”

This gaze would be with him until the day he died, Burns concluded somberly.

Rubens was seated in the simple yet tasteful living room. The sunshine outside the
window showed that even in Indiana spring had arrived. A single thread of steam rose
from the teacups that had just been placed on the table.

He was enjoying a peaceful moment with the great scholar. Now there was no need to
be concerned that others were listening in.

“So it’s safe?” Heisman asked as he lifted the teacup, which his wife had brought
in, to his lips.

“Yes. The operation’s over. They’re calling it a success, though Nous is secretly
heading toward Japan as we speak.”

Rubens related the details of what happened after the vice president’s assassination.
When he was done, Heisman gave a satisfied smile. The face of a sensible citizen shouting
for joy that a despot had been defeated.

“I also finally figured out the answer to the question you asked me last time,” Rubens
said. “The answer is that there is a second Nous. Am I right?”

“Correct. From the beginning there was no chance of winning. Tell me, do you know
the other’s age and whereabouts?”

“All I know is she’s in Japan. And that she’s eight years old and named Ema Sakai.”
Rubens explained how the pregnant Pygmy woman came to be in Japan. “My understanding
is that Yuri Sakai, who raised Ema, is a very responsible, loving person.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Heisman said, nodding. “A mother’s love is the foundation
of all peace.”

“What will they do now?”

Heisman took on a thoughtful, scholarly expression again. “They’ll keep out of sight
until their race is established. In the meantime they’ll study the habits of these
lower primates called Homo sapiens and begin exercising their power. But in a hidden
way.”

“Specifically, what do you imagine them doing?”

“I can’t say. I’m one of those lower primates myself, after all,” Heisman said with
a laugh. “But if I put myself in their place, I think eliminating nuclear weapons
would be their first priority. Throughout the world they were born in, they see apes
fighting for territory with their fingers on the launch buttons for nuclear missiles.
Or else they might target political leaders who seek war and kill them all.”

So the meek shall indeed inherit the earth, Rubens mused. “What about in the long
term? As you wrote in your report thirty years ago, will we be exterminated?”

“It depends on how brutal they are. And how fast they propagate. Until they reach
the numbers needed to sustain their race, they might keep us alive to ensure there’s
a sufficient workforce.”

Rubens recalled an interesting historical example of sexual selection. There are males
on the Eurasian continent who have a special Y chromosome, and, using a biological
marker called a molecular chronometer, scientists were able to determine the time
period and area where this chromosome first appeared. It turned out this matched the
route Genghis Khan took in his conquest. This king of the Mongol Empire, who spent
his life killing, looting, and raping, took the most beautiful women in conquered
territories for his harem and had an unbelievable number of progeny. And now, eight
hundred years later, some sixteen million men and the same number of women carry Genghis
Khan’s genetic material—thirty-two million people in all. Probably Genghis Khan himself
didn’t realize it, but this might have been the real goal of the campaign he led.
This cruel tyrant, known as the Blue Wolf, was, as his name suggests, a magnificent
specimen as an animal. Though not, of course, as a human being.

Given this, how quickly could Ema and Nous, the only two members of a new race, increase
their number of descendants? Instead of a harem they had modern reproductive techniques
to aid them. Considering that both of them were born from the wombs of present-day
human beings, they could possibly use artificial insemination and surrogate mothers
to increase their number in a single step. They also had the intelligence to revolutionize
medical technology, so having tens of millions of descendants in eight hundred years
was no pipe dream.

If worse came to worst, the human race might be eliminated before the thirtieth century.
But until a few decades ago humans expected to be wiped out soon in a nuclear war,
so nine hundred years would actually be a generous life span.

“I really wanted to see this next generation of humans myself,” Heisman said. “If
you don’t mind my saying so, I do pray they will be a race that cherishes peace.”

Rubens imagined the world Ema and Nous’s descendants would create. One not bound by
nations. A borderless world that modern humans could never build themselves. Their
home would be no single country but the entire earth.

“What are your plans now?” Heisman asked.

“I’m going to look for a job in an institute and work on a new research study. What
might be called biopolitics.”

“What sort of research, exactly?”

“I’d like to examine territorial disputes between animals armed with technology and
show how animal nature influences decision making in all these solemn-looking leaders.
I’ll also examine the psychopathology of leaders who order their countries to war,
so it will be a pretty interdisciplinary study.”

“Sounds interesting,” Heisman remarked with a mischievous look. “I hope you do a thorough
job of it.”

“I will. I want to expose their animality and determine the boundary separating animals
and humans.” Rubens suddenly looked up. “I remember the last time we met you defined
humans beings as the only species that commits genocide against its own kind—”

“Yes, I believe I did.”

“I thought of some counterevidence.”

Heisman leaned forward expectantly. “Really? What would that be?”

“The sheer number of human beings. For large mammals, six and a half billion individuals
is an incredible number. Can’t you conclude from this that altruistic acts outnumber
acts that harm others? In other words, don’t we have a tendency to be slightly more
good than evil, and that’s how we—just barely—maintain our reputation as people who
help each other?”

“Not at all. It’s all economics.” Heisman was, as always, cool toward the human race.
“People help each other because they profit by it. Here’s an example: the overseas
development assistance sent by first world nations to developing countries is an investment.
When Africa really gets going economically, these countries will be able to guarantee
their share of the continent’s natural resources and acquire a new set of consumers.
And think about the medical field. When it comes to developing new drugs to combat
disease, profit is paramount. Drug companies don’t develop drugs to fight rare diseases
if the number of patients is low simply because these drugs would not be profitable.”

Rubens smiled. He felt as if he’d seen a ray of light break through a gap in the clouds
of an overcast sky. “Okay, but how about people who put their lives at risk to save
others for nothing in return? The person at the railroad station who jumps down to
help someone who’s fallen onto the tracks? Or the person who risks his life to develop
a new drug? People like that
do
exist.”