Transhumanist Wager, The (56 page)

“Idiot,” the admiral shouted into
the receiver. “It's you and your floating hive of transgression that's going to
lose lives.”

The admiral hung up and shouted,
“Lieutenant, he directly threatened us. Only God knows what evil weaponry he
possesses. Order all ships and submarines to fire at will. Arm and initiate
launch sequences. Let's sink that tin can of a city. He's not going to give in
a damn inch.”

The line went blank. Jethro threw
his head back furiously. He knew the admiral’s decision was going to cost
thousands of lives on those boats. Yet, there was no other way, he thought
reluctantly. It had to be done. He needed to show the world—watching on
television, listening on the radio, following online—how strong Transhumania was,
and how badly the rest of the planet’s best were outmatched.

“Janice, make sure the media now
have total live feed from all the cameras and microphones on Transhumania.”

“Already happening, Jethro.”

In the next sixty seconds, the
silence was tangible in the command center. Every so often a lone voice shouted
out an order, or a colleague asked another to test a program. Some engineers
were so nervous that sitting was impossible. They stood in front of their
computers, tapping their feet and chewing gum, their arms outstretched to their
keyboards.

Finally, Oliver Mbaye’s voice rang
out, his words rolling quickly. “Here we go. Chinese first up. Looks like
eighteen missiles on their way. Now the Russians: twenty-six fired, including
four torpedoes from the subs. Americans: forty-four Tomahawks and counting;
plus twelve torpedoes.

Soon the radar showed a plethora of
missiles and torpedoes shooting towards Transhumania. A young programmer in the
command center, watching his computer monitor, looked horrified. His screen
highlighted hundreds of red and green heat trails bound for their small silver
dot of a nation.

Jethro stared at the video feeds in
front of him, beaming images from the supercomputers in the command center. He
looked to the empty sky, then at the water below, then back to the screens.
Thousands of machines on Transhumania were making billions of computations.
Their lives and dreams depended on them all, he thought.

“Josh, make sure each country’s
missiles and torpedoes hit different countries' ships and subs,” Jethro
ordered. “Let them dance over
that
one.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,
sir.”

Eight miles away from their
origination, the first of the rockets began slowly turning away from their
Transhumania-bound course, first zigzagging across the sky, then finally
heading back to the area of ships from which they came. The fired torpedoes
carried out the same slow u-turns in the water. One by one, each weapon that
had been launched performed a similar routine. The American admiral on the
USS
Talbot
—holding a coffee mug branded with an American flag on it—appeared
stunned and confused. His eyebrows narrowed as he stared at the radar in front
of him in the command station, then at the bright sky outside.

Finally, the Admiral turned to his
crew and ordered, “Press the self-detonate buttons, sailors. Press them now!”

The row of seamen near him tried
repeatedly pressing buttons and turning the missile control keys.

“It's not working, sir,” shouted a
sailor.

Navy engineers spread throughout
the command station also desperately tried to override the Transhumanian hacks.
But nothing worked.

“I can’t do anything at all, sir,”
the senior navigation missile specialist yelled. “They’ve somehow hacked into
the system and have total control.”

When there was only fifteen seconds
left before the missiles struck, and ships’ crews began seeing nearby British
vessels explode from other redirected rockets, chaos hit the command stations
of the A10 armada.

“There they are in the sky,” a
petty officer shouted and pointed. He launched out of his chair and abandoned
his computer console. He raced downstairs to a platform where he could dive
into the sea. Others followed by the hundreds, trampling over each other,
desperately squeezing down small stairwells to get outside.

To the armada of A10 ships and
submarines, the mix of incoming missiles and torpedoes appeared random. Indian
missiles hit Brazilian ships. French missiles hit Saudi Arabian ships.
Australian torpedoes hit British submarines. One American Tomahawk missile
changed its course and headed towards a Chinese aircraft carrier. When the men
on deck saw it coming, they tried to shoot it down with their mounted
anti-aircraft guns, but it proved impossible to knock out. Dozens of sailors
jumped overboard from the decks right before the missile struck their warship.
The Chinese commander got on the phone, screaming at the American admiral in
Mandarin Chinese.

On Transhumania, at first there was
excitement that their technology was so efficient. Citizens watched the battle
on the ocean through the skyscrapers' windows. Then the view became sobering.
Around them in every direction were ominous flashes of lights. Every few
seconds, a ship was destroyed or a submarine was sunk. A circle of black smoke
appeared around Transhumania, blown by trade winds. A somber mood slowly took
over. Everyone knew lives were being lost by the thousands—lives that were not
intricately involved with the arrogant decisions of the A10 politicians and
commanders.

Transhumanians watched quietly as
the sea in the distance continued to occasionally flare up. Even the command
center was in the middle of a long moment of silence.

Suddenly, it all changed.

“Red alert, Oliver,” shouted an
engineer. “One missile is not responding.”

The mood was instantly broken, and
everyone began searching the sky or radar screens for it. A Soviet-era X3
missile from a Russian frigate was unable to be reprogrammed in the air.

“What's up, Josh?” Jethro said
calmly, clearing the airwaves.

“We’re having serious issues.
There's a Russian missile freezing up on us. Left quadrant, 3 P.M. Don't know
why.”

“Got it. Do you have an alternative
lock with the defense shield rockets?”

“Not a good one. We’re very late to
the game. Only twenty-six seconds left before impact.”

“Double or triple up on it,” Oliver
said.

“Already done, sir.”

Instantly, everybody realized the
interceptor rockets might not be able to track and collide with the rogue
missile before it struck the city. There just wasn't enough time left to get a
proper lock on its course.

“Are you sure you can't reprogram
the Russian missile?” Oliver asked.

“Cannot. The computers say its
unreadable code. Interceptors are our only hope.”

“Where is it going to hit?” Jethro
asked.

“Near the top of your tower,
sir—almost exactly where you are in the observation hall.”

“It could bring the building down,
Jethro. Get out of there,” shouted Oliver.

“It's too late,” answered Jethro.

Another engineer yelled, “First
collider rocket is off and being programmed in the air. You should see it any
moment in your east. Not sure if we're too late. We'll know in twelve seconds.”

“Got the visual,” Jethro confirmed.

Bypassing their sense of security,
some people in the city pressed closer to windows to watch the outcome. Less
than a half mile off, the first interceptor missile missed the Russian rocket.

“Damn—first one wasn't even close,”
moaned an engineer from the command center.

“Second collider rocket off.”

A quarter mile from Transhumania,
the second interceptor missile also missed and shot lamely into the sky. Gasps
were heard on all intercoms.

“Everyone in Transhumania Tower,
pull away from the windows and get into your bathtubs or under a desk,” Jethro
roared into his headset, sprinting for Langmore. He skidded into the old man
and jerked him down onto the ground in one agile movement.

“Third and final collider rocket
off,” shouted an engineer.

 Jethro and Langmore both looked
up, scanning the sky to see if their last missile would make the intercept.

With four seconds left before the
Russian X3 landed a direct hit on the city’s most populated tower, the final
interceptor missile shot past the skyscrapers. The collider rocket veered hard
left, then right, then left again, a supercomputer controlling its every
millimeter of flight. People held their breaths. There were just moments left
before devastation; thousands of lives and the potential collapse of their
tallest skyscraper were at stake.

In the last tenth of a second, the
interceptor veered hard right precisely 11.2895 degrees and nicked the tail of
the Russian missile, causing a stream of smoke, then fire, from its jet
propulsion. The missile began swirling in the air uncontrollably, like a
deflating balloon gone wild. Even though it couldn’t fly straight, it appeared
the rocket was still going to hit the Transhumania Tower. A moment later the
missile's fuselage caught fire, causing it to detonate twenty meters from the
building. 

The explosion was humungous. It
shot a massive blast of air and fire into the skyscraper, causing its thick
glass siding to bend in a wave. A moment later, ten stories of windows
shattered from the rocket's shooting debris. The observation hall that Jethro
and Langmore were in shook violently. Bolts tore out of the floor near them.
The building’s steel ribs flexed. Glass scattered everywhere. Citizens across
Transhumania felt the city shake and the platform sway from the impact, as if
hit by a giant ocean swell.

The lead engineer shouted into his
headset, “Sir, are you okay? Mr. Knights, are you okay?”

In the background, on the speaker,
only static was heard—and the ominous noise of multiple fire alarms sounding.
People from the other towers rushed to their windows, not sure what they would
see left of the Transhumania Tower. Their first glimpse was of smoke fuming out
through the observation bridge at the top of the building.

“Sir, are you okay?” Oliver Mbaye
asked.

Jethro felt the ocean air from
eighty stories down rush through his hair, cool and smoky. He looked at
Preston, aged and petrified, but safely protected in his arms.

Finally, a voice everyone knew
crackled through. “Yes, we’re okay. Preston and I are okay.” Jethro coughed
from the smoke, then asked, “Janice, are you okay? Everyone else?”

Slowly, everyone chimed in and
announced they were safe.

“Oliver, where are we? Don't
retaliate unless fired upon again,” Jethro said.

“I think they're done, Jethro. No
more missiles or torpedoes have been fired, and every ship and submarine out
there is damaged. Most are sinking and headed for the bottom of the ocean.”

“What about airstrikes from the
jets on the aircraft carriers? Or from bombers?”

“Nothing right now. Carriers and
their planes are all sinking. I don’t think they planned much for
that
type of attack. The big-headed American admiral didn’t think they needed to.”

“Okay, but keep a close eye on the
sky for a thousand-mile radius.”

“The shield system is being fully
armed again and ready to defend.”

“Good.”

“Shall we initiate rescue
operations for survivors now?”

“Of course. Get it going,” Jethro
said, coughing. “I'm going to the roof with Preston where there's less smoke.
Get a fire crew up here immediately. Mostly, it's just the drapes that are
alight. I haven’t seen any serious structural damage yet.”

Jethro roped his arm around
Langmore and assisted him up the fire stairs. On the roof, he seated his friend
and let him breathe in the fresh air. Then Jethro walked to the corner of the
building, trying to be still for a moment, forcing himself to hold his patience
together. Breaking the apprehensive silence of 500 software engineers and
programmers closely listening, he said, “Okay, Josh—what the hell happened?”

“Right. Knew that was coming,” Josh
answered, fidgeting in his seat and adjusting his spectacles. “We’re working on
what went wrong. This is going to sound crazy, but I think that specific
Russian missile was so old, it tricked the reprogramming software. We didn't
anticipate their use of a DOS guidance system from the Cold War era. Honestly,
I wasn’t even born yet when that type of code was in use.”

Jethro couldn't help but smile for
an instant.

“Fine. Make a note and adjust the
programs. Use everyone available. I want a fix in twenty-four hours. I want
every conceivable code ever written, regardless of how simple or obsolete,
covered by our systems. We can't allow a weakness like that to occur again.”

“We're on it. Doesn't look like
we'll be sleeping tonight.”

Jethro shook his head in comic
disbelief, then walked towards another section of the roof to watch the burning
ocean far off in the distance. Already, Transhumanian boats were speeding
through the water to round up survivors and ship them to the nearest island
group, Fiji, which was 200 miles away.

Later, Jethro and Langmore went
downstairs to some of the other damaged areas and began helping people clean
out debris and glass. Mostly, the damage was superficial and construction crews
could repair everything in a few days.

Just after noon, Jethro pulled out
his cell phone and sent a mass text and email to every transhumanist in the
city:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, Transhumania has won
its first military encounter with the outside world, and the first stage of our
greater transhuman mission. Congratulations to all of you who helped save and
support Transhumania. Congratulations to all who remained here to pursue
transhumanism—and to defend our lives and dreams. Your courage and loyalty are
invaluable. Over the next forty-eight hours, we'll be delivering more updates
on any new or urgent Transhumanian developments. For now, it's safe to return to
your offices and get back to work. Good luck with your research and
experiments—and with your preparation to go back out into the world as its new
leaders.