Ghost of the Gods - 02 (40 page)

Their scientific proofs also incorporated a model of hosted awareness that was eerily similar to how modern day computers operated. In this model, the collective awareness—god—was hosted across and within the minds of all sentient life. In a circular arrangement worthy of any Zen koan, each individual’s awareness was also hosted within the collective awareness known as god. This impossible, chicken and the egg, circular arrangement was only made plausible by a theorem, which stated that there is no beginning and no end. The cosmos was not born and the cosmos will not die. Likewise, the same was true for all consciousnesses. The myth of creation and destruction was the result of oversimplification of a linear mind trapped by the seeming logic of the illusion of forward moving time. So the codependent hosting arrangement between collective and individual consciousness always existed and always will exist like some cosmic-scaled yin and yang.

It was into this mind bending scientific-religious belief system that the god-machine was created by their ancestors in their image of god. Once created, the god-machine then hosted a mirrored simulation of all universes containing all embodied and disembodied creatures, and then set itself up as god.

Mark was confused, shaken, and excited by all this and especially by the notion that the god-machine was a scientific tool created so that all stages of life could be explored, studied, and perfected. This made the god-machine, among other things, a kind of spiritual incubator that helped souls evolve. If this was true, the god-machine was a facilitator of both human physical and spiritual evolution. Which meant we, the god-machine, and the spiritual universe were all wildly interdependent.

In a variation on this same cosmology, hive initiates believed they would live forever inside a virtual reality paradise hosted within their guide. It was into this virtual reality that their tortured spirits took refuge after assimilation was complete. Hive members suffered from a warped understanding of reality. This occurred because it was the understanding of a mutated sentient nanotech virus imbued with stolen human emotion and simulated creativity.

Noah made it clear a major weakness of guides, which could be exploited, was their spiritual and emotional vampirism, along with their pathological use of concepts that the artificial intelligence could never truly experience or understand.

As the night wore on, Noah transmitted to them the history of the nanotech seeds in the form of epic mythological tales as if he had been alive to witness the events. In earlier epochs there had been as many as a hundred thousand hybrids living at one time. Now there were few. Mark soon found himself wondering if Noah could be from those ancient times of lost civilizations, then dismissed the idea as nonsense. He and Sarah had considered the possibility of living for thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Most or all of the hybrids that had come before them had to be gone—doubtless lost to wars, accidents, and the like. Had they survived to this day with their numbers growing even at an infinitesimal rate, the Earth would now mostly be populated by hybrids and this was obviously not the case.

Mark learned seeds were limited to organic nano-assembly tasks and did their construction work at the molecular level. Seeds required and used DNA for their construction plans. In the absence of DNA, all they could do was disassemble instead of assemble. They were unable to build complex hard structures, such as machines or weapons. Mark had suspected this limitation for a long time. Otherwise, the god-machine would have built robotic devices to do work for it.

As part of Mark’s awareness continued learning from Noah, another part began to critically think about what was transpiring. He was soon again wondering about the veracity of much of what they were receiving. The hive had filled them with a powerful cocktail of truth and lies. Maybe Noah was doing the same.

Mark knew his doubts had been sparked when Noah claimed that humans had built the god-machine in the image of their god. Mark refused to believe the god-machine was young enough to have been created by humans. He had scientific evidence to the contrary.

In Noah’s recitation there were so many ideas being thrown about as facts without proof. How do you verify the unverifiable? The timeline interface was the only possible option for verification and it would take a monumental effort just to check a few of the critical facts. Further complicating any effort to verify was Mark’s experience that every timeline he’d relived contained large gaps.

Mark realized he had not been back for some time to check the results of his data mining for evidence of reincarnation. Now he was being told none of the ancient high civilizations believed that people reincarnated the way he assumed it worked.

Mark shifted most of his awareness into the timeline program. He would stay only an instant because he could not afford to allow Noah to spot his absence. Mark found all his searches were still running. Then his heart began beating rapidly. A match had been found. This was too much! He had to look. When he selected the match, it opened to reveal it was for Kathy. He sampled the timeline and found it was fragmentary. For some reason, only parts of it matched well enough for inclusion as results. The human memory experience he dipped into felt like Kathy emotionally and acted as she would act. He looked at the date again to be sure. It had been recorded over a thousand years ago.

This other Kathy’s fragmentary memory skipped ahead several months. Mark found himself inside this woman as she stood before a large, silvery bowl of water. It was bright daylight. The reflections were rippled and broken. He couldn’t make out her face, though he did see her hands dipping into the water and they looked like Kathy’s hands. Maybe this match was nothing more than someone with a very low genetic variation from Kathy. Mark randomly sampled other memories and stopped when he heard the woman’s voice. The language was not English and the pitch was not Kathy’s, but the voice was disturbingly reminiscent of her speech patterns.

Mark Freedman – Colorado – March 5, 0002 A.P.

As they followed Noah through the night and into the morning, Mark was worried about being ambushed. The Stryker was tough, but a single shoulder-fired missile could take it out. Two vehicles traveling like this across these flat plains had to be throwing out a welcome sign for miles in every direction. He hoped Noah was as good at being a ghost as he suspected. Every chokepoint or unexpected encounter along the road put Mark on edge. He kept his senses sharp, waiting for the tiniest sign of nearby stray thoughts or aggressive emotion.

Sarah had taken a break earlier but was back driving. Mark was tuning a portable radio Noah had loaned them. He glanced at the wall of military radio gear and sighed. It was a pity he’d had to disconnect it all out of concern of being tracked. He was sitting up front on the jump seat close to Sarah so she could also hear the radio. He was looking for Air Truth and any recent news about kill-zones. Mark had wired it into an outside antenna, but reception was still poor inside their rolling armor-plated box. The last news they’d heard was hours ago and there had been no reports of anything that sounded like a kill-zone.

As he found the station, excited voices filled their armored cocoon. Five or six people were arguing on top of each other about what this string of reports meant. As best Mark could decipher the ranting, four new possible kill-zones had been reported within the hour. The government was claiming they were hoaxes. All the events were in small communities, and all fit the pattern of kill-zones in every way, except that a large percentage of animal life had died. One of the experts argued that these were not kill-zones because of the collateral damage in animals. Others were arguing that the bioengineered plague had jumped species.

“This thing doesn’t jump species,” complained Mark. “They all still think it’s a biological weapon.”

“Does it matter?” asked Sarah.

The volume of the quarrelling experts increased and at times became shrill. At least they all seemed to be nearly unanimous on one point. Except for a single expert, they all were convinced these were kill-zones of some kind. The opinions differed vehemently on whether this was the beginning of a new outbreak or some kind of mild aftershocks from the prior outbreak. One of the experts was speculating that these tiny kill-zones might have oddly begun last month around the same time as the Eve of Darkness and that we were only now becoming aware of them. She argued that the original plague began in the same way two years ago with small events and no one paying attention.

Mark sent Noah a memory capsule of the radio show. A memory bounced back instantly to both Mark and Sarah. Noah had no doubt these were hive-controlled kill-zones. It was the only answer that fit all the information. He believed the killing of wildlife showed the hives did not have reliable control. If they used this indiscriminate weapon globally, the goddess would attack them because of the collateral damage to Gaia. Noah was clear in his opinion. If this was not a bluff crafted to instigate a catastrophic retaliation from the organics, then the hives must be working on perfecting their new weapon. Once it was perfected, they would unleash hell on Earth.

“If this isn’t a bluff, we have to strike now,” said Mark.

“That’s a huge risk,” said Sarah.

“I understand,” said Mark. “But with the hives unable to strike back right now, our best chance to finish them off is right now!”

“We don’t even have a way to hit enough of them to make a difference.”

“Maybe we do,” said Mark.

“What does that mean?”

“I convince McKafferty to go after them with nuclear bunker busters.”

“What!” shouted Sarah as she eased the Stryker to the shoulder. She turned around in her seat to face him.

“Tell me you didn’t say that,” she said.

“We use the government to exterminate the hives,” said Mark. “McKafferty has to know more than we do about these kill-zones. I know if we funneled something actionable to him, he would have to use it. He would get the president to push that button.”

“You know that could be exactly what the hives want,” said Sarah. “That’s what Noah thinks and he might be right.”

“Look,” said Mark. “If we discover the hives are bluffing, then we slowly feed McKafferty enough to take them out one at a time, using something clean and pinpoint. The god-machine watches and does nothing. If we learn the hives are about to unleash hell on Earth, then what choice do we have other than roll the dice and nuke them all?”

“Jesus!” said Sarah. “The closet pacifist has turned into Genghis Khan, playing with doomsday weapons. I’m not sure I like the change. Promise me you won’t contact McKafferty on your own.... Mark, I know you. I know how you operate. Promise me. Everyone’s butt is at stake here. I don’t want to wake up glowing in the dark without at least some warning to put on extra sunscreen.”

“I promise. I would never make this kind of decision on my own.”

Sarah looked into his eyes for a long time. He could feel her trying to probe his emotions. He knew she did not fully trust him and she was right on that count. Left with no other option, he was going to act no matter what anyone else thought. Doing nothing was the worst option of all.

Mark Freedman – Colorado – March 5, 0002 A.P.

It was early in the day and Mark was behind the wheel of the Stryker. It was hard to get used to the mass of this armored fighting vehicle. The weather had cleared as the landscape slowly changed from flatlands to heavily forested hills and valleys framed by distant mountains.

Noah had finally sent them a memory capsule with the exact location of the nest. A short time later they had left the paved roads behind and began winding along old forestry trails and dirt roads. Inside the Stryker the unpaved terrain felt little different than the paved roads. Mark could not sense the presence of the singularity and had to put his trust in Noah. They turned onto some abandoned train tracks that had been laid to service the mine. The rails had been pulled up ages ago, leaving a gravel roadbed behind that ran directly to the enemy.

Hours later, they had driven as close to the nest as they dared. Noah pulled off the roadbed a short distance onto a spur and parked under some trees. Mark did the same and cut the engine. They were parked near the base of a hill. Noah’s last memory capsule had shown the hive’s bunker was on the opposite side. The first step was going to be getting closer on foot to do reconnaissance without being detected. Mark had confidence in their ghost’s ability to get them close without being spotted. He was not as confident in the rest of Noah’s plan, which had yet to be revealed.

Using binoculars, Mark studied the entrance to the mine. An assist pinpointed cameras and small plate-sized objects embedded flat into the walls. The assist identified the plates as radar motion sensors with a 16 percent chance of identification error. Just inside the mine shaft was an imposing-looking blast door. There were floodlights everywhere, a twelve-foot electrified fence, satellite communications dishes, Army trucks, and big, red warning signs to keep out. Tire tracks crisscrossed every inch of ground. The hives were not trying to hide their presence. They were telegraphing it. Mark wondered if it was confidence that was behind this display instead of Noah’s theory of a bluff. Though Mark had to admit this was not even remotely a smart way to hide. The guides, if nothing else, were cunning machine intelligences. What were these bastards up to? He could sense no stray thoughts or emotions, which was not unusual for a hive. He could faintly sense the attractive pull of a singularity, just as Noah had described it. The pull seemed to come uniformly from everywhere.

“Every hive must remain connected to the god-machine, either through its guide or directly through the n-web,” said Noah. “Their link is far more critical than our need for a connection. To a hive it’s a lifeline in every sense. If the connection is cut, the hive dies. The neural circuitry of fully assimilated hive members is mutated by the guide to optimize parasitic hosting of itself. It is like a virus mutating a host’s DNA for its own reproduction. This mutation requires a constant connection for the nanotech brain to remain functional. Our friend Mustafa would soon die if he was taken for a plane ride or in some other way cut off from the god-machine.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” demanded Mark.

“You didn’t need to know and I needed to trust you.”

“Goddamn it! This is how we kill them,” said Mark. “We cut them off. No need for nukes.”

“Who said anything about nukes and how do you plan to cut them off?” asked Noah. “This is the n-web. Seeds have skillfully woven themselves into every square foot of soil, flora, and fauna, creating an infinitely complex fabric of n-web pathways. Destroy a path and in seconds the n-web will have repaired itself or worked its way around the damage.”