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# Synth

### Alex Durkin

### Copyright 2015 by Alex Durkin

### Smashwords Edition

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

### This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

### This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Disclaimer: The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional. The author humbly begs your pardon.

### For Susan Keyes.

# FOREWORD

It is an age of new facts, new pursuits, and new knowledge informing new practices. It is a new age that stands firm in its convictions while it scoffs at the backwardness of ages past. This age cares not for the railroad nor the electrification of rural homes, nor the cure for cancer. The world lurks somewhere in the midst of this new age's rapture, trembling with anticipation—or is that dread—of what this new age will bring.

#  CHAPTER ONE

Adrenaline, joy, and dread crackled through his spine as the young student, his fingers perched like spiders upon the covers, his lips pursed to blow the dust from the gold-leafed page edges, prepared to discover the secrets of a forbidden knowledge. The cover was brown like the color of dried blood. He detected a rotten fragrance. Life eats itself and this book was no different, being, as it was, consumed by mold. As he finally, reverently opened the cover of the volume he felt an unexpected arousal. It was sexual and he blushed. But he also ran his fingers across the embossed first page, devouring the contours and relishing their fragile firmness. He liked that they stood up to him, so long as he was gentle. He wanted to crush them—not yet. Slowly and deliberately his face sank into the crease. He inhaled through his nose and drank the filthy damp essence deep into his soul.

He read nothing that night, and not just because the book was in Turkish. All of his preparations were still ready the next morning when he went to school. All of his plans were intact and waiting for his obligations to be met. But all of his intentions and desires had died. In that quickening they were reborn, but as what he was unsure.

#

"As the teaming forest conquers the hillside so do swarms of microscopic beings conquer every square micrometer of you. Some grow upon your skin like grass while others forage among the grasses like deer or hunt like wolves or giant boas. Bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, algae, viruses, and even parasites make up such a critical part of who you are that in many cases we can't tell where you end and they begin. The flora and fauna in and on you, your microbiome, are similar to other peoples' but are also wholly unique to you. Your microbiome is influenced by the environmental factors of your life as well as by the environmental factor of you, which is to say your personal composition. In the lining of your gut, upon your skin, in your organs and tissues, fighting for and against your immune system, microbes are performing vital functions that make you who you are.

"Some of you read paper books. When you do, don't you smell the book? I mean intentionally. With intention. For pleasure. The pulp and glue of the book enter your nose and while their constituents are literally teaching your olfactory bulb a new and unique fragrance, your constituents, micro flora and fauna, are prospering from the influx of new energy. They have a mess to clean up for you, but to them it's food. If I conduct an autopsy, I may scrape your nasal passages and discover an abundance of microbes that eat wood fiber and glue. These are similar to some of the cellulose processing species that occupy the guts of termites. Ah ha! You're a reader of traditional books! That's how biotic profiling works.

"Of course most of you read on screens. People who read on screens, which are people who spend proportionately more time on screens that are within half a meter of their face, blink less than those who read on paper. Blinking redistributes oxygen throughout the surface of the eye. Oxygen keeps the microbes on the rim of your eyelid healthy. If I found oxygen starved microbes on the rim of your eye I would know at least that you possibly spend a fair amount of time looking at screens that are close to your face. That combined with a few other tests should tell me not just upon which media you rely for information and entertainment, but whether you seek mainly information or mainly entertainment, how you physically interact with your media, and a startling array of personal information about what specific media has influenced you lately. Your microbiome will change in important and revealing ways throughout the course of one day. But it will also bear evidence of yesterday, last month, and your upbringing.

"Biotics can easily narrow down significant factors such as communities of origin, diet, age, health, wealth, _et cetera_. Biotic profiling is criticized primarily for being overly speculative. That is where the art meets the science and I do not deny that criticism. That is where it gets fun! Some of you are studying biology or pre-med. Others are studying criminal justice or law. And yet others are just curious. I hope to satisfy you all. We will get into some biology but not too much. We will get into some philosophy as well."

He spent the rest of the session going over the course expectations, the university's code of conduct, grading criteria, and the rest of the first day fare. In his estimation, the students would become terrified of his formidable mind, awe-struck by his projection of thought, and utterly incapable of mounting a word, let alone an approach. He forgave them for their timidity and knew from experience that a few of them would eventually muster the heart to speak to him. Below them at a dim podium the students observed a stumpy, awkwardly dressed, balding man with a sharp pointed mustache and a healthy dose of weird. He closed class by assigning chapter one of his own book.

As the students left he made a show of packing his things (a notepad) into his bag. He didn't want to walk out ahead of or among the students. He adjusted the straps and then pulled out his phone, looked at it cock-eyed, then put it back, and tossed a redundant look at the clock on the wall. Finally he just stood there, watching the last students file out. When they had all left he followed. He walked slowly down the hall so as to not catch up to any of them. Anyone who was watching may have been concerned that the clean-cut pasty man who was dressed so abundantly may have, upon emerging from the Engineering Building into the broad, early September midday, burst into flames or evaporated or done whatever creepy, undead things do when confronted with direct sunlight. He walked to his car, a small, vague sedan, and drove home.

On his way he picked up his lunch, the same sandwich from the same sandwich shop as any other day. Sitting in his driveway he finished the last big bite. He entered his house still chewing. Just about the time he gulped down the last remnants of his sandwich he was crossing the threshold into his basement lab.

Doug Stone's basement was like many others. It was partially finished with floor joists and studs exposed in some places and covered in others. There were light fixtures as well as naked bulbs with pull strings. He understood the matrix of electrical circuitry well enough to know which combinations of switches, strings, and outlets would trip his breakers. There was a floor drain in the corner. He had things piled up in the dark section. It was damp and cold.

This basement, however, also featured a lab. It wasn't fancy. It was made of filing cabinets that held up plywood sheets and recycled counters. There was a computer. The cabinet counter desks encircled a table with a giant microscope, some processing equipment, and an airtight glass case in which Doug ran most of his experiments. Underneath the central island was a cupboard containing his glassware and other tools. There were several small refrigerators and freezers.

His sample for the police was almost completely rendered. He thought of his contact at the local police department, Deb Cornan, while his computer booted. She had helped Doug start his career. He had been trying to market biotic profiling to investigators for several years when Deb gave him his first real assignment. She had wanted him to collect and analyze biotic information from an entire motel room. Since they were pioneering the field together neither understood the amount of work that job would require. Doug wasn't yet experienced enough to target his samples and limit the scope of his work without detracting from his findings. The job took him five weeks working around the clock. He estimated that his hourly rate ended up being well below minimum wage for that first real biotics job. But all those days and nights with Deb, eating pizza together, getting to know each other, and commencing a long term business relationship were payment enough. His monitor went black for a moment during the process of starting up and he caught in his dull, muted reflection a soft smile.

He checked his email and, sure enough, there was a message from Detective Deb Cornan:

Dr. Stone:

Just checking on the sample. Have you had time to run it? If so what have you found? We have some exciting but time-sensitive leads to work on. Please let me know as soon as you get this.

Deb

After analyzing the results of his tests he replied:

Detective Cornan:

I have attached my findings to this email in a report. As usual, there is an abundance of alcohol resistant biota, as well as more than typical anaerobic and tar-digesting microbes indicating both alcohol and combustive substance use.

Most interestingly, this saliva sample contains a horse biofilm microbe. Could this be due to a cosmetic product? To the consumption of horse, in France, perhaps? To an equestrian love affair?! Alas, answering these questions is your job, Detective. I would love to hear what the horse connection is, if you ever find it.

Dr. Stone

Doug read over the email a few times making minor changes. He kept coming back to the last line. Should he say _sincerely_ or _yours_? Should he sign as Doug for familiarity sake? He opted for safety and sent it.

Finally Doug settled in to his real work. He removed from a freezer Subject 1302. It was a grey squirrel killed by a car strike. It was partially disemboweled, its rear appendages were a total loss, but its heart, brain, and lungs were mostly intact. He had found this one in his own neighborhood. It was still alive when he had salvaged it causing him to thrust it into a plastic gallon bag with a bit more care than usual. Then he sealed the bag, terminating the squirrel's air supply. He placed the dead and now frozen thing into a drawer and slid it into the airtight glass chamber. The airlock operation made small, comfortable noises. Using gloves attached to a wall of the glass chamber he manipulated the squirrel into position. Then he pulled the drawer out and into the drawer he placed a syringe. He pushed the drawer back into the glass chamber. There the syringe was in the chamber with the squirrel. He picked up the syringe and squirted some fluid onto the squirrel. He brought the syringe back out and dumped bleach into the drawer, soaking the syringe. Then he washed his hands, shut down his computer, and went upstairs to have dinner.

Overnight the squirrel would thaw and the parasite he had administered to its surface would slowly take hold of it. Tomorrow the squirrel would still be dead—and perhaps more.

#

The chicken breasts he had taken from the freezer this morning were now ready for the grill. Doug checked that his supplies were in order. He had a sample wipe, a pre-labeled plastic bag, and a pre-treated beer glass laid out on the counter. He checked over a notepad that was also on the counter. He practiced a few questions and then put the notepad away under the junk in a drawer. He did some general pick up and then, when he was ready, set the chicken on the grill. The trap was baited. Shortly after he fired up the grill there was the most predictable knock of all time at his door.

"Martin, you're back again?"

"Hi, Doug. I brought over a beer for you to try. You'll like this; it's actually made from one plant. The plant secretes the beer and they process it a little further and, cheers!"

"A likely story."

"What was that?"

"I'll like it, I'm sure! Thanks."

"Yeah it's a new microbrewery. Actually the founder is that one scientist, Hersh Clayton. He does that bioengineering of plants to make things like chairs and lamps and buildings. Oh, it looks like I'm interrupting dinner. What are you having?"

"Chicken on the grill. You must have smelled it."

Doug took the beer to the kitchen and immediately wiped it for a sample of Martin's hand biofilm, which is the network of living things on the surface of animals. Doug sampled Martin's hand most nights and compared the results with the contents of their conversations, which he noted after one evening's encounter in his notebook and then referred to just before the next evening's encounter. Martin was, of course, unaware. Through this method with Martin and others Doug had learned much about what the presence or absence of certain microbes could mean. He put the wipe in the plastic bag and put the bag in the freezer. He then filled the beer glass he had prepared for Martin's visit. Inside the glass were some alcohol resistant microbes that would enhance Martin's appetite. Tomorrow Martin should be unusually hungry as a result.

"So," Martin began from the family room, "my son is over in Greece, you know, and he's doing great. He's working for this French chef at a French restaurant in Athens."

Doug ventured his first interview question, "Martin, are your eyes bothering you at all?"

"What? No. They're fine. Anyways, he meets this beautiful girl, she comes into the restaurant and likes her meal so much that she wants to speak to the chef. The chef doesn't like people so he sends out Orthogonal. Ort sweeps her off her feet. She turns out to be the Princess of Greece! The Greek Monarchy was abolished in the seventies but she would have been heiress to the throne!"

"Wow. Say, what about your taste buds? Are foods tasting normal lately?"

"Yeah, pal, I'm fine. Are you Ok? What's with the—"

"Oh, nothing. I think I'm coming down with something."

"So, anyways, she's still a pretty big deal over there. Now they're vacationing in the Greek islands. I think he quit his job, which is too bad, but there's a lot of turnover in restaurants, anyhow."

Martin went on throughout the preparation, consumption, and cleanup of dinner. Doug snuck in certain questions relating to both last night's hand sample and microbial plant. Martin would answer and then return to whatever he had been talking about. He finally went home and Doug unmuted the TV and fell asleep twenty minutes later in his chair.

#

Doug awoke in the middle of the night to an unusual commercial advertising a laxative. He began the grueling trek to bed but by the time he got up he was awake enough to check on 1302. As he reached for the basement door he imagined what he wanted to see when he got down to his lab. He held the cold knob with his eyes closed and saw the wall along the staircase on the other side of the door. The studs panned by him while the stairs creaked. He approached the corner, beyond which the yellowish glow of the light shining on his glass case seemed like the gates of heaven itself. It was storming outside and the small window near the ceiling flashed with lightening. Oh, Death! Where is thy sting? And he saw in his glass case that there stood, or halfway knelt/slimed, 1302, triumphant! A champion of life, a rebuke of the frailty of flesh as constructed by nature! Improved by the mind of a man brought to bear upon nature! He was smiling, now, basking in this victory. But uhg! It wasn't real. He was at the door, still. He knew that the squirrel hadn't had enough time to thaw and become saturated. Going downstairs was pointless. He went to bed.

#

The morning light through the partially drawn shade and the sound of birds awoke Doug. He walked to the kitchen and made his usual breakfast: an egg and a mix up of bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, onion, sausage and, today, chimichurri. He made an espresso and walked downstairs while his breakfast cooked.

No matter how hard he tried to foster a scientific environment in his lab Doug just could not get enough light into the basement. What little bit muddled through his small basement windows was just enough to offset the yellowish bask of his glass chamber light. Logic and subtle observation told him that when he flipped the switch the space got brighter, but his heart couldn't sense it.

1302 lay still in the center of the plate inside the glass chamber. It was not, after all, improved. If anything the thawed out squirrel looked a little worse for the wear. Doug extracted 1302 and placed it in his crematorium along with the rest of formula 1302. He recorded his nil result and set up his data sheet for 1303. After retrieving breakfast he checked his email. There was nothing from Deb yet. She wouldn't respond until after eight AM. Time to prep his students' samples.

Doug wanted to isolate a microbe that feeds on human hair. First he would thoroughly clean the desks right before class. Then he would place a drop of his sample on each surface. The students' immune systems should make short work of these bugs but in the meantime they would feel itchy. Tomorrow they will work on some kind of group orientation project, or something. He would watch and record their squirms. After class he would collect samples from the desktops of those who had stopped sooner and those who had never stopped. He would compare their biofilm samples to see, or at least speculate, why they were different.

As for Martin, he didn't want to do anything to confound that night's results so he had no test planned. This was a big deal. If he could isolate a resistant bug that could be transmitted through beverage containers and would increase appetite, well, his lab might get a lot more advanced and scientific very quickly as he would no doubt find some seriously interested parties.

Dr. Stone:

Thanks for your report. Interesting leads. Horses, huh? Hmmm. Come by soon. I've got another project for you.

Deb

Time to go looking for sample animals. Doug went upstairs and got dressed for the day. His typical khaki pants and light colored shirt didn't contrast enough. His thick framed glasses, darker hair (what remained of it), dark belt, and dark shoes made his light, bland clothes look that much more light and bland. On a sunny day his overall appearance was enough to cause ocular diversions.

In the trunk of his vague sedan was his sample collection kit which included gloves, plastic bags, a spade, a spatula, a flat shovel, a set of grill tongs, and a lunchbox. He replaced the ice in his lunchbox and left to find samples.

Doug used found samples for this project rather than lab animals because he wanted this formula to work in practice, in the world. He wanted it to take hold of dead things in their natural state. Also, he didn't want to kill animals himself. Scraping them off the pavement with a spatula and depositing them into a lunch pail was a better option for Doug. Maggots, fleas, dirt, filth, and germs would all be present in a functional environment for this creation, anyways.

His trained eye caught front yards of houses with big windows, clumps of crows on the ground or perched somewhere, little black mouse and rat traps alongside buildings, and all the other hints of death. The obvious ones, road kill, some of which he had actually created, eluded him today. Doug wound up with just one frog. Actually he had caught this live animal while eating lunch at a park. It was sitting near where his foot was resting. He threw the ice out of his otherwise empty drink cup from the sandwich shop. Then he bent down from the park bench with the cup in his left hand. He held the cup in front of the frog a ways. With his other hand he touched the frog's rear end. The frog flashed into the air. Doug swept the cup into the frog's flight path and returned the lid after he fumbled the cup into his shirt. The frog shuffled around in the cup. Doug became fond of the frog on the way to the police station. He even showed it to Deb. But that didn't stop him from cutting into it later to explore its micro fauna. Frog parasites!

#  CHAPTER TWO

A remnant of the sea-sized Lake Bonneville, The Great Salt Lake is a vast deadland at the foot of the great Wasatch Mountains. It hosts brine shrimp, brine flies, the birds that eat both of them, and tourists. The nearby salt flats left behind by Lake Bonneville are endless, flat, and perfect for setting new land speed records. The gates of Temple Square in Salt Lake City are open, the architecture is tall and straight, and the people are friendly—even too friendly. The Mormon Church sponsors translators of every language on earth, an enormous genealogy library, missionaries, pilgrims, and many generous philanthropy programs. If you venture south of Salt Lake City you will find some of the most spectacular landscape in the world. It is red and orange rock desert shaped by the wind and brimming with meaning and lore. Perhaps the meaning is cruelty and survival. The Wasatch Mountains, home of the greatest snow on earth and the finest winter resorts in North America, cut into the sky like a serrated knife through flesh.

High in the Wasatch Mountains above Salt Lake City, behind a well-lit, stout fence, and under the watchful eye of Hersh Clayton, himself, Skates tore at the earth with predatory fury. Hersh had helped pioneer Skate technology in his twenties. The years since had been long and fruitful. Most people had forgotten that he had had anything to do with Skates. But they were his first love. He felt, now, older than 45. Seeing the Skates took him back to that time of construction in his life when he was either swinging a maul to set stakes or designing 3D models for the machines and their operators. It had been a good time. He had enjoyed being out on a construction site explaining design features, tweaking grades, solving problems and doing real work with the coarse company of his peers. But he had had a vision of what his 3D digital models could do with just machines and no operators and the product he developed made him a billionaire.

Skates are modular machines. They are low, flat, and twice as long as they are wide. They can utilize tracks the length of their bodies or any array of axles and wheels. Each unit can carry nearly any construction tool such as buckets, blades, boxes, augers, floats, and even fastening tools such as sockets and welders. They can lay pipe, pour concrete, plow snow, harvest trees, and erect steel. They've been sent to the moon and mars outfitted for both work and science and controlled from earth. For heavier operations they can bind together into one unit. They operate with one mind. Each site typically has one human controller overseeing the Skates and the designs and programs that run them. On this particular site Hersh was the controller.

Hersh's first love, Skates, were helping him bring into existence his life's ambition, Triklops. They were reshaping a 150 acre mountain meadow that had once been part of the vast Wasatch State Park into a facility that would be called the "Cradle," and would host what should be the most formidable computer of all time, Triklops.

Triklops would be a social utility. It would emulate the minds of clients to provide them with digital companionship, a coworker, a social liaison, even immortality. The living could live twice as fully. The dead could live again. Generations hence would be able to commune with their ancestors, or at least a digital copy of their ancestors. And the most productive people in society, the only people who could afford this service at first, would be even more productive.

The location was far from perfect. Running utilities, data, and proper pavement had been arduous. They had had to build cell towers throughout the mountains. Securing the land and the permits had required an act of the Utah State Legislature. But, Hersh had given generously to the campaigns of certain state legislators as well as the governor and the Attorney General. The winters would be cold enough to cool the facility simply through ventilation. Most importantly, the location would also enable Hersh to combine business with pleasure. He would snowboard in the winter and hike in the summer. It was, after all, his favorite place in the world.

The red and green lights of the Skates mystified Hersh as they whirled round the site. Unthinkably fast by yesterday's standards, they shaped the earth to Hersh's will. The roadbed snaked around the emerging foundation. Piles of material grew and shrank as the site breathed big dusty breaths. Skates flew like blood circulating through the quickening site. Human-driven dump trucks lumbered onto the site periodically. They followed a Skate and dumped or spread their loads as directed. The Skates dodged their awkward, pivoting maneuvers, almost seeming polite in their zealous efficiency, averting their eyes when the dump trucks made sudden changes of direction. Hersh could watch this all day, so he did.

Chatter in the background sometimes required his attention. His assistant informed him that he had rescheduled a media interview but Hersh rejected that, rescheduling the other conflicting event, instead. The future director of this facility would interrupt Hersh's meditative state with inane questions about the Skates or under-wrought observations about construction. Hersh could have controlled the site from his Los Angeles office but he chose to come up here to get away and to see the action in person again. Getting away meant he only had two or three people with him and feeding him critical situations. In this case those people were Russell, his executive assistant, Beth, the future director of this facility, and Caleb, Hersh's tax attorney and right-hand-man. Their questions screamed into a discordant blur of noise:

"Should we accept the offer on the Tucson Patent?"

"Apparently there is a problem with Triklops's decision making. The programmers are asking for suggestions on a work-around."

"So, does the parking lot pitch towards the drain?"

"General Clay would like to meet regarding Ether."

"You have to go to a deposition regarding the brewery lawsuit."

"Would you join Amanda tonight in Las Vegas?"

Hersh twitched. Looking out the window of the control tower he allowed himself a small half smile. "Yes. Tell her to schedule whatever she wants. I'll be there by nine."

"Then we should leave soon, sir. It will take at least an hour and a half to get to the airport from here."

Hersh observed the time to be 4:30 PM. He initiated shutdown. The Skate dedicated to maintenance raced to the fuel tank, loaded it upon it's back, and raced to the line of Skates already on standby. The Cradle was still but for the swirling dust. All the implements the Skates had borne were neatly lined up 30' in front of the line of Skates so that they could drive forward next morning, connect to their tools, and race off to work. While each Skate received fuel, the maintenance Skate cleaned it off. No breakdowns today. Hersh and his posse left while all this was going on.

Hersh drove everyone down from the mountains, relishing the hairpin corners, steep grades, and constant danger, into Salt Lake City. An hour and fifteen minutes later Hersh and his nauseous companions were parked at the hangar. They filed into the plane. Hersh sat near the front. He spread his things out onto the nearby seats so that nobody would try to sit near him. Russell, though, sat as near as possible without disrupting Hersh's things. Caleb boarded the plane talking on his phone emphatically to someone. He was loud and oblivious to everyone around him in that moment. He made his way to the far back. Beth had never flown on Hersh's jet. She was the last one on and she was standing by the door looking in. She seemed uncertain of where to sit or how to act. Hersh moved some of his things and asked her to sit with him. She looked relieved and nervous at once.

"Wow. This is nice!"

"Thank you."

She put her things in place and sat down.

"Would you like anything?"

Beth gaped for a moment. "Don't we have to wait until after takeoff, or whatever?"

"This isn't a commercial flight. We can do whatever we want."

"Is there a flight attendant?"

Hersh looked at her, his smile growing.

"Oh, ha ha. Ok, I'll have, well, what are you going to have?"

"Two iced teas, then?" He got them each a bottled iced tea and sat back down. "How did you like your new home away from home?"

"Oh, it's wonderful I—Mr. Clayton—"

"Hersh."

Beth was full of nervous energy. She laughed while she spoke and made rapid hand gestures. She only made fleeting eye contact in the conversation. "Why did you pick me to run it? You obviously could have anyone in the world, not to mention yourself. Why," she paused, almost laughing, "why did you pick me?"

Hersh was measured. He showed little expression in his face or tone. "I had been estranged from my father for a few years when I came up with the idea for Skates. I was scraping by, recovering from harm that he had done to me. Emotional and financial harm. He was in prison and I had been duped by him for the last time. I never spoke to him during that time. Not at all. He stopped trying to call and stopped writing. Right when I started developing Skates in earnest I got a call from him that I, of course, didn't answer. It was peculiar because it had been so long since his last call and it was so late at night. I found out several days later that he had killed himself."

Beth winced. Hersh held fast.

"I was glad because it was the only way he could restore some of his honor. New things came to light after his death, horrible things no one had known. It wasn't until years later that I was ready to have a conversation with him. But he was gone. We had a great relationship when I was a kid. Plus he was utterly brilliant as a businessman. Too clever by half, as it turns out. How I wish now that I could ask his advice or share with him a funny story or get his opinion on an issue. Or that I'd answered the phone. He's a phantom in my life." Hersh looked away and seemed to chew on something.

"I want to create Triklops to solve some of these human problems, to alleviate some suffering, to help people stay connected to people they love, and to stop the loss of knowledge, wisdom, information, and facts that has happened through death since life began."

He looked again at Beth's face. "Triklops is going to impact the human condition more than anything else that happens during our lifetimes. I need someone new, untrammeled. I won't have Triklops mired in old ways of thinking."

"I don't follow. I'm sorry about your dad but what does that have to do with why you chose me to run Triklops?"

"Beth, I hired you because you are qualified but inexperienced. You're a creative problem solver with an untracked mind. Don't worry, you'll do great. And someday soon I expect you will be coming to me with new ways to utilize digital cloning rather than the other way around."

#

A limo was waiting for them at the hangar at McCarran International Airport. They got in. Nobody spoke. The limo whisked them off to their destination, whatever that was. What had Amanda planned for them? Apparently it didn't involve the others. The first stop was The Venetian, where Caleb and Beth disembarked with their bags. Who knew Amanda had that kind of pull? Hersh felt awkward in the limo completely alone. Well, except for his assistant, Russell. He stretched. Then he looked out the window for what felt like five minutes. Las Vegas danced and puked and cringed past his window. Finally, to his horror and amazement, he broached a conversation with Russell.

"Do you like it here?"

Russell looked up from his phone, blinking, his face illuminated in blue phone light. "What, here in Las Vegas?"

"Yeah."

Russell's circular glasses and bald head reflected some of the lights from outside as he thought. Then he turned back, shrugged and tilted his head, "Sure. It's fine."

It must have been twenty minutes before they got to where they were going, which was The Venetian. They had driven a short loop and come back. What was going on? Something Hersh didn't like. He didn't like being toyed with. The driver opened the door and Hersh emerged, looking around as if for danger. What he saw was a valet ceiling that looked like a Renaissance mural studded with chandeliers. Russell was invisible behind him. The driver drove off. Hersh walked towards the front entrance. The Maître d' rushed out to meet him.

"Welcome, Mr. Clayton! Ms. Windsor is awaiting your arrival. Shall I escort you to her?"

Hersh followed into an explosion of golden, oil painted European opulence. He was lost in seconds. They waded through luxury that would have made baroque-era sovereigns blush. The golden walls and arches, the oil painted ceilings, and the lights and sounds dizzied Hersh. When they found their way to the canal with it's calm, fake looking blue water and the too perfect European shops Hersh felt relieved. He stopped walking just to let his eyes rest. Beneath the surface this area felt like it was made of plaster. He liked it. The Maître d' returned to rescue Hersh from his calm.

"This way, Mr. Clayton, when you're ready."

They crossed the canal then went upstairs to a balcony. What could Amanda possibly have planned? There were Beth and Caleb. What were they doing here? Caleb was hunched into his suit, frowning. Beth was smiling broadly, her thin frame twitching with nervous energy. Hersh froze. There was a thin black man in a black suit holding a bible as if it was part of his hand. He wanted to turn and walk—no run—away. If he turned he was afraid he would see her.

"What is this?"

The force of Hersh's query made Russell jump.

"Sir, you said she could make the plans. Part of the plans were for this to be a surprise. I didn't want to ruin—I'm sorry."

Hersh was red-faced, desperately searching about the area wanting to find her but dreading the encounter. The reverend came to him, touching Hersh's arm.

"She's not here yet. She'll come in when we begin the ceremony."

Did this guy not know that this was a surprise and that there wasn't going to be any ceremony? Hersh split, walking out with big strides and a scowl. He managed to find the lobby, fending off pleas from Russell. He walked straight out into the warm Las Vegas night and was gone, and in extreme danger, being that he was alone with his thoughts, upset, and on the Strip. Well, alone except for Russell.

"I got you," Amanda said from a few paces back.

Hersh froze, his scowl turning up into a malevolent snarl. He began to turn around. Amanda feinted towards him, thwarting his upcoming outburst.

"I knew you wouldn't go for it. It was a prank, Hersh. I'm sorry. Come on, I've got lots of fun things planned for us."

She closed the whole distance reaching towards his sides and finding his balled fists. She tried to kiss him. He brushed her hands away and dodged her kiss. Her hands came back to his.

"That was a joke? I was humiliated. That's not funny. People recognize me, Amanda. That stunt will be in the tabloids. What happens next time I want to book something in this town? They will be laughing at me."

"Oh, you could buy this town and shut it down if you wanted to. Who cares what they say in the tabloids? As if they noticed."

He turned away, gritting his teeth.

"Come on, Hersh. Here's what we'll do: we'll go back to the Venetian and show them that it was a joke. I'll say something like 'Woops! Prank gone bad, sorry everyone.'"

Hersh tried to walk but Amanda tightened her grip on his wrists. He wrested them from her. She gently caught his shoulders. He stepped back. She followed.

"Please, I'm sorry. What's the big deal? OK, I want to marry you! Would you—" she paused. Amanda's face softened. Her concerned brow and tight lips melted into loving tranquility. Her eyes saw into him. Hersh froze, his head a turret, his eyes laser beams, his mouth a garrison, his visage a wall, but his will incapable of defending against her beautiful, gentle affection. In that beat Hersh felt the whole world was caught up in her.

"Hershel Clayton, will you marry me?"

#  CHAPTER THREE

1303 was a mouse that Doug encountered one night while he was eating dinner in his car. He had been out searching for samples and stopped for some fast food. He found a quiet parking lot where there were no other cars. Whenever Doug ate in his car he felt self-conscious and sought places where nobody could see him. As he ate, a cat emerged from the brush at the edge of the parking lot. It would thrash and then stop. Then it would twitch about and then thrash around again. It gradually came close enough for Doug to observe that it was playing with a mouse. The mouse was still alive. The cat would claw at it and hook it. Then it would shake its paw to remove the mouse, throwing it and chasing it, pinning it down and then letting it go. Doug watched for a while, eating his food. When he was finished he opened the car door. The cat bolted. Doug put the live mouse on ice. It would die on the way home.

That was months ago when he was still eating fast food. Tonight he placed the ragged, frozen mouse in his chamber. He pushed back, rolling his chair over to the fridge. He reached for formula 1303. Then he rolled back to the chamber in the center of his lab. The airlock ticked through its procedure. He set the syringe in the drawer and noticed that it didn't say 1303 on the side. It said Hungering Cocktail. He wheeled back to the fridge to get 1303 instead. It wasn't there. Had he misnumbered them? He searched the mini fridge. There was a 1304, 1305, etc. He searched the whole fridge, finding the hair removal powder he had prepared the other night for his students, the hand sample from Martin, about a dozen archived samples for the police,—wait. The Hungering Cocktail should be gone. What had he put in Martin's glass?

He had given Martin Kline 1303.

A cold, silent second passed.

Doug interrupted the thick gloom of his basement lab, "Ha ha ha. Doug, you dummy. You'll just have to skip 1303 for now," he explained to himself. He grabbed the hungering cocktail and went upstairs to prepare his Martin bait steaks. He immediately came back downstairs, administered 1304 to the mouse, shut down his computer and lab, and went back upstairs.

Martin came over talking about a new theory of light. It was as though he had been speaking to the night air on Doug's porch before Doug opened the door and he just kept talking while the steaks sizzled in the backyard.

"I thought you'd be interested since you're a scientist. But it's basically the capillary effect. Light acts like a wave and a particle, right?"

"Depends on—"

"Well the particle part of it acts like a fluid. Light sticks to light. So if some light gets pulled by a black hole or, I guess, any gravity then some light comes along with it because it's stuck to it."

Doug looked down at his steaks, knotting his brow. He didn't buy it but that didn't matter. "Sort of like muscle spasms, right? Do you get those, Martin? Or have you lately, like today?"

"You and your questions, Doug. I do, though, yes. No, it's more like water running down the side of a glass instead of dripping off. If that's true it may help us finally do away with that ridiculous intellectual fabrication called 'dark matter.' It's—"

"Tell me more about them, Martin. The muscle spasms, I mean."

"I just get them sometimes. Don't you? Like I was saying it's like those philosophers who try desperately to construct intellectual systems that make room for the god in which they want to keep believing. It's a scientific deus ex machina that saves the current mathematical models of the physical universe. Vulcan all over again. Oh, you know what, I'm not very hungry. I'll just take the steak home and eat it later."

"Why aren't you hungry?"

"I'm just not, buddy. Ok? Bye, see you tomorrow or something. Thanks for the steak."

Martin had seemed fine, except for his admission to muscle spasms. That was a big relief to Doug. Of course, what would Hamid have done to him? It couldn't subvert living systems. Martin's immune system probably defeated Hamid within moments of ingestion. 1303. It wouldn't be Hamid until Doug found a working formula and 1303 was probably not going to be the one that suddenly worked. And Doug wouldn't really know how it worked until it did. So muscle spasms was just a wild guess, anyways. But Martin hadn't been hungry. Martin was always hungry. How could he not be hungry?

#

The next day in class was a disaster. Doug had arrived before the students in order to place a drop of isolated hair ingesting microbes on each desk. He had a group activity planned. The students would move about the hall changing groups to get to know each other. Doug would observe them. Whichever students demonstrated "itchiness" would become part of his study. Then he would do his best to chart the durations of their itchiness. This wasn't just for laughs. Doug intended to link these results to further evaluations of their biofilms in order to create a balanced biotic hair removal cream. The perfect product would contain an effective hair digester that would be eliminated by just the right amount of predators after just the right amount of time. The end user could apply it to areas they don't want to shave. The effect would be isolated, quick, complete, and painless.

The hair remover was overpowered. The students' immune systems failed to contain the microbes and the class orientation activity was an itchy, squirmy, grumpy mess. Doug feared they may come back in two days with no hair left at all. He needed to create a cocktail to hunt the hair digesters! He kept his distance as they packed up and left. Then before he left he pulled a spray bottle of bleach and a roll of paper towels from his bag and, looking over his shoulder the whole time, cleaned off all of the furniture.

"Dr. Stone?"

So soon! One of his students actually felt emboldened enough to talk to him. At the door was a small, dark haired girl.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I, uh, um. What do you need? I'm just, I like to keep a tidy classroom. What's up?"

"Just wanted to say I saw that you gave the police the lead they needed to catch that killer."

"Which one?"

"The one in the news. He picked up women from the horse track."

They looked at each other for a moment. Doug's hand was on his hip and his belly was thrust forth to counter the feeling of having been bent over the desks cleaning them. His head was tilted back and he appraised the girl suspiciously. She looked back guilelessly. She clutched her bag in front of her.

"Anyways, congratulations. That's what I want to do someday." She turned and walked away.

Doug remained in his stance for a minute, looking where she had been. Then he realized he still needed to clean the desks before the next class came in. He cleaned even faster than before, threw away his paper towels, stowed his bleach, and trotted out the door.

#

1304 hadn't worked. Doug prepped 1305. 1303 was still in the back of his mind and he looked forward to hosting Martin to make sure he was alright. Martin never showed. Doug went to his house but Martin wasn't home. Doug called the hospital. Sure enough Martin Kline had checked in earlier. Twenty minutes later Doug was at a nursing station at the hospital.

"Let's see. Martin Kline. Oh, yes. He's the one who's related to Black Wind."

"Who is Black Wind?"

"The famous Indian chief? You didn't know that? You're obviously a friend, then, and not family. Right? I'll check with his nurse to see if he's available."

Two minutes later they knocked on the door to Martin's room.

"Martin?"

"Hi, Doug. Ugh. You didn't bring me any steak, did you?"

Martin looked ten years older and partially deflated. He was still and appeared to be incapable of movement. His mouth drooped into a stump of wrinkled neck skin. His eyes seemed to prop up his face like tent poles.

"Tell him about Black Wind," the nurse said as she left.

"I never told you that? He's my great- great-, well, a lot of greats."

"I've never heard of him."

"He started life as 'Sapling' because he was so tall and skinny as a kid. But as an adult they started calling him 'Black Wind' because, rather than engage one enemy at a time, he would slash through the battle field wounding as many enemies as he could." Martin seemed to come alive. "Then, as an old chief, he lived further into his moniker, as everything he said to the council was dark and negative. He became famous for his insulting rants, even directing them towards high-ranking US officials. They say he never died but just disappeared on the plain one day after his advice had gone unheeded." Both men were silent. "I think that steak made me sick, buddy."

"You don't say. I feel fine. What are your symptoms?"

"I felt real weak and tired. Light headed. Then I had this awful pain in my bowels. It felt like they were shredding. Like I had swallowed a red hot cheese grater. That's when I came in. They gave me a laxative. I crapped out that steak. And I mean I crapped out the steak, not poop, steak. It looked like chewed steak with garlic salt and pepper. The doctors are trying to figure out why I didn't digest it at all."

#

Doug awoke on a hospital bed. He was alone. His head was throbbing. The pulsing pain afflicted his vision with a red strobing affect. The lights crackled above him. The banal cityscape outside his window was so placid it deepened his unease. Somewhere down the hall a wheel was squeaking. He just lay there waiting, shocked by both his situation and Martin's. As he lay aching the realizations of the consequences of Martin's ingestion and incubation of 1303 (Hamid?) rolled through his mind like thunder. Would Hamid only work on living things? What exactly was it doing to Martin? His metabolism had shifted! Doug needed to make more 1303. Would it work as intended? What about the other functionality of Hamid? What about Martin? Would Doug get found out? Would he get in trouble? And what was happening to Martin?

Doug got up. His head felt like a dry ice bomb. He stumbled for the door. He got lost in the halls. People seemed to move so fast. Lights in the ceiling seemed to reach down and shake him. Finally he asked for directions at a nursing station. He found his way to Martin's room. When he tried to enter he was bounced by a nurse who then slammed the door. The sound of the heavy door slamming into its frame drove Doug back a few steps. He stood, bewildered, and more anxious than at any other time in his life. He felt like his baby was in there. And its host, Martin was, well, a friend.

He was still standing there when the nurses burst through the door with Martin on a stretcher. They hurried down the hall. There was no way he could have kept up.

"Where are they taking him?

"I don't know, sir. Are you related? Or a friend of his?"

"I'm his neighbor."

"Well, I'm sure he appreciates you being here for him. As soon as I can I'll find out and let you know what's going on, OK? Would you like to have a seat in the waiting area?"

Doug went home. He had to make more 1303. He would also make a go bag in case he got in trouble for poisoning Martin. Light khaki pants, light button up shirts, and his laptop were all he really needed. He set to work in his dark basement lab, his headache forgotten.

The next morning Doug had a huge sample of 1303 on the way, sample carcasses hand-picked, and more questions than he could stand. He went to the hospital. Martin was stable in his room. He had tubes going in and out of his body and machines monitoring all of his biological functions. But he seemed better.

"Hi, Doug. It must not have been the steak."

"Right. Why do you say that?"

"The doctors have never seen anything like this. They think it's an autoimmune disease causing my cells to attack my tissue all over my body all at once."

Martin was too weak to continue speaking in his usual fashion. Doug was alarmed to hear such an assessment. Was it that obvious? Why was Hamid so strong against a living immune system?

"Have you experienced any mental effects?"

"I don't know."

"Are you able to move at all?"

"Just barely."

"Are all of your movements voluntary?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. Autoimmune diseases are, well, sometimes you can feel disoriented or confused or, so has any of that happened to you? I'm just concerned is all."

"It feels like my muscles have become worms crawling beneath my skin."

Doug almost fainted again.

"Have, have they weighed you?"

"What? Of course not. I'm really tired, pal."

"Of course. Can I get you anything? Water?"

Martin just closed his eyes. Doug walked out. Martin's doctor was just walking in.

"He just fell asleep, I think."

"OK. I'm Dr. Pam Sweeny. Are you related to Mr. Kline?"

"No I'm his neighbor."

"Then I'll need you to leave the room so I can visit with Mr. Kline."

"I may be able to help I—"

She had already closed the door. Doug decided to wait. In the nearby waiting area he partook of a watery coffee from a Styrofoam cup. He had another. There were kids' toys, magazines, worn out chairs, a few fraught and exhausted faces, and a fountain. The view was nice. The sun was bristling low in the morning sky. The news was on. Urgent people bellowed out the daily fair of gossip and minutia that constitutes a morning show. Apparently Hersh Clayton got married in Vegas. Cheers.

When Dr. Sweeny finally came out Doug was dozing despite the coffee. His eyes flickered open just in time and he leapt up.

"Dr.—" He cleared his throat. "Dr. Sweeny. Hi I might be of some help to you."

"Oh, yes, Mr.?"

"Dr. Stone. Doug. I study microbiota, immunology, and metabolism."

Dr. Sweeny's eyebrows raised, but in a tired, dismissive way.

"I won't be his doctor for very long, I don't think. No, not like that! I'm sorry, I've been up for a," she took a breath, "very long time. If Mr. Kline remains stable he'll be transferred.

"To where?"

"Either to a hospital with specialists who can help him or to another unit within this hospital, depending on his condition. Without his permission I'm not able to discuss his case any further."

Martin was asleep. Doug would have to wait for more information, and he was sick of the waiting area. He went back home to check on his new 1303, which he had already started thinking of as Hamid. Under the microscope Hamid looked like a piranha mixed with a dragonfly. Its body was a squishy, wormy clump with four legs near the front half and a gigantic mouth full of teeth. Hamid was designed to penetrate tissue until it found a neuron. Then it would attach to the neuron and begin transferring energy and nutrients that it acquired on the way to the neuron. As needed, Hamid would devour non-neural tissue around the neuron to keep it functioning. By stimulating the nervous system this way Hamid could reanimate a corpse until its tissue was too depleted to use. If Doug could restore some cognitive functionality to the recently deceased he could help solve crimes around the world and make a fortune and a name for himself. If he couldn't restore cognition he could at least still partially reanimate flesh, which could eventually have implications as great as immortality. But Martin was probably toast.

Doug's phone vibrated and he jumped. It was Deb. He had forgotten that it was the day he'd looked forward to for several years: the day he would get to go to lunch with Deb in a non-work capacity. They had nearly become friends. Doug couldn't believe he had forgotten such a big event.

The text read "Are you coming?"

He raced up the stairs and out the door.

#

Doug arrived five minutes later. Deb was sitting by the front door. She stood up, adjusting her jacket. Doug caught a flash of her badge, which she kept by her inside breast pocket. He quelled a pang of anxiety about her profession and his recent mistake.

"I'm sorry I'm late."

"Don't worry about it. I bet time flies in the lab."

"Would you like a table or booth?" asked the hostess.

"Table," Deb said.

They followed the girl through the cantina and into the dining room. She laid on their table two heavy, plastic sleeved menus.

"Chips and salsa will be right out."

Deb placed her hands on the menu as though she wanted to keep it on the table. "So, how are you?"

Doug was looking at the menu. "What? Oh. So tired. I haven't slept in a couple—but I might have something for you. I just. Well, actually—"

"Yeah, you don't look so good. But this isn't about what you have for me. Should we do this another time?"

"Wh—no no!" Doug rubbed his faraway eyes and looked up at the approaching waitress. "Coffee, water, and Diet Coke, please."

"Ok, and for you miss? I'm Maria, by the way."

"Hi, Maria, I'm Deb and I'd love a Coke."

"I'll be right back to take your order."

"Doug, you don't have to do this."

"I did something," Doug paused, looking sideways at her eyes, "miraculous and awful." He ran a chip through the salsa. En route to his mouth it dripped on his plastic-encased menu.

Deb was still looking at him, waiting for more. "What?"

Doug looked back at her. "I made something for you. It's going to help you solve crimes. But it's not finished, yet."

"Doug, let's not talk about work. We haven't had lunch like this since the motel. Let's catch up. How's your mom? She was sick before."

"She didn't make it."

"I'm sorry."

"Deb, I'm glad we're doing this. I must look like a real mess. I'm sorry. I like you. I'd like to do this more." The drinks came. Doug used his fork to shovel an ice cube from his water into his coffee. He raised the coffee to his lips and reacted to the heat. Then he set the coffee down and shoveled two more ice cubes into it. It sloshed onto the table a little bit. A third cube didn't make it all the way into the coffee. He tried the drink again and succeeded.

"Can I take your order?"

"I'll have the Matador Burrito"

Maria wrote on her pad. "And for you, sir?"

"Fish tacos, please. Thanks." Doug took a big gulp of his diet soda. "Deb, let's start over. Hi!"

"Hi! Great to see you outside the office."

Doug smiled at the detective across the table, certain that she couldn't know anything about Martin yet and thinking that he might as well enjoy this while it lasts.

#  CHAPTER FOUR

At least the wedding, reception, and honeymoon were already over. The planning, execution, and celebration took only one night. Hersh basked in the moment for the rest of the weekend. He was back in full force on Monday, but not on site at the Cradle. He was in a deposition answering questions about his beer. Hersh had helped develop, or in this case he mainly funded, a project to bioengineer plants to produce things. The project produced plants that grew into furniture, clothing, dishes, art, and even beer. Hersh liked the beer part so he bought the rest of the rights to the beer producing plants. His brewery was being sued by a cabal of beer producers because, they argued, he was falsely claiming that his product was beer. They argued that it was actually bioengineered alcoholic plant juice, and should be labeled as such. Hersh's Skates were somewhere terraforming the future and being productive. But, as Caleb said, winning this lawsuit would make the brewery valuable and losing it would make the brewery useless. So this too was productive.

The opposing councilors were as different from each other as two people could be. The one questioning Hersh was a young, dark, beautiful woman. She was petit, professional, and very smooth. Her smiling questions stitched together traps that Hersh felt lucky to perceive. Some may have evaded his notice. He kept his calm, smiling right back. Caleb had advised him to develop a pre-question ritual that would take a regular amount of time. Hersh clicked a pen three times, slowly, before each answer. Thus he had time to think and he controlled the pace of the interview. The other lawyer was an old fat white guy who sat off to the side like a pile of goo. He didn't seem to care at all about the many unpleasant noises he made, the way he presented himself, or that there was even another soul alive in the world. When they met he presented his hand as plainly as though he were a robot programmed to go through the motions of human civility. He reached his arm out and his hand was straight. There was no clench, arm movement, eye contact, nothing. Just a rigid hand at the end of a giant, flabby, stick. His shirt was damp in places from his sweat.

The deposition lasted into the night. The next day Hersh flew to Washington DC.

"General Clay can see you now, Mr. Clayton."

"Hersh! Have a seat."

They shook hands and Hersh sat down. General Clay was a big man. His wide eyes looked straight at things and his vision stopped at the surface. His mouth always hung open just enough to notice. He kept his hands folded so that his fingers were laced together. The two big hands together looked like a giant club.

"First of all, congratulations! I heard on the news the other day. You're a lucky man, Hersh!"

"Thank you."

"She's very pretty. Now, are you ready to get back to work?"

"Never stopped, actually."

"Are you ready to get back to work on my project?"

"Your project is, well, General yours is, I don't have good news."

General Clay did not react in any way.

"General, Ether, a weapon, or a tool that would erase a thing from the folds of space and time, undoing its existence, is impossible. First, everything we know about the natural world suggests that nothing is ever created or destroyed. Second, if it worked, then how would you even know because the thing upon which it worked would have never existed? Third, how would you even test or develop such a tool?" Hersh waited for anything from General Clay. He got nothing. "Finally, General, such a thing is too heinous to deploy. I wouldn't be involved in the development of such a tool."

"Look, Hersh, there's a lot of money involved."

"I have a lot of money, General."

"There's a lot of power involved."

"Again."

The men looked at each other. Where most would have seen a genius rock star science and business mogul General Clay saw a sophisticated suit. Hersh saw a nebulous block piloted by two autonomous eyes. Most would have seen more or less the same.

General Clay blinked. "Not this much. Besides, there's a lot of power involved no matter who develops the tool. You understand? You stand to gain. Or lose. Not to mention future projects and favors we could do for one another."

"General, it's impossible."

"Then we have nothing more to discuss, Hersh. Good luck to you."

Hersh leapt up, shook the General's hand, and bounded out of the office. Next was a project for which he had been hyping himself up. He wasn't a natural programmer but he had good ideas. Sometimes he could find workarounds because nobody else saw problems the way he did. Hersh viewed these problem solving opportunities as a way to impress his staff. He didn't have to disclose his lack of programming talent. He could find a solution, apologize for the lack of polish, blame his busy schedule, and turn the problem back over to the pros. People thought he was a coding genius on top of everything else. He didn't think he was any kind of genius but rather a creative problem solver.

Back at the hotel by the airport Hersh sent Russell for Chinese, the first of many errands he would go on that night. Later it would be coffees, then rum and Coke, then coffee and donuts. Hersh didn't enjoy coding as much as other things so he did it in single furious sessions when he had to. He wanted to get it over with.

This time the Triklops programmers were hung up on what could only be described as digital psychology. After an extensive investigation Hersh discovered that the problem they had noticed related to Triklops's motivation. When Triklops felt as much positivity as negativity, or as much desire as inhibition, or sensed as much risk as reward it would freeze. While the investigation was extensive the solution took Hersh moments. Without realizing it the programmers had actually been asking for a decision rather than a solution. Hersh's decision was "Yes." He gave Triklops a +1 at the bottom of every decision with equally weighted emotional or risk components. That thumb on the scales of right and wrong would give Triklops a fundamentally positive outlook which the biological original may not share, but which would solve the freeze caused by ambivalence. Besides, Triklops was a social networking tool, a companion, an enhancement. It should err on the side of positivity and enthusiasm.

Weeks flew on like this. Problems arose and fell away. People with creased faces sped through Hersh's days, orbiting him, asking for decisions, permission, support, his opinions, solutions, and more. Some took longer to complete their orbits such as his fellow board members with various firms and foundations. Others he saw regularly, such as Beth and some of the Triklops programmers and his sales directors and project managers. Amanda was his Moon. He only saw her at night, most nights, in passing, and her face was always different. At the center of a strange life, Hersh observed the frenzy of the workers and the promise rising from their activity. Across the site of his life the specter of Triklops rose from dust. Everyone was looking down, hustling about, talking on phones, walking with each other, explaining and listening: Skates on duty. Hersh was looking through them at Triklops, who was looking back, impassive, golden, incorporeal and gigantic.

#

"Did you forget about me?"

"No, sir."

"Because he obviously has. He said he wouldn't do the project."

"He'll do the project, sir. I'll see to that."

"How can I be sure?"

"You have to trust me."

"If you fail I will throw you to the wolves and deny your existence. You will have never existed, Lieutenant."

#

"OK, so you'll say, 'We at Triklops have created the first known digital mind in existence. This one happens to be a clone of me. You can create a clone of yourself and harness the full power of the digital world.' Then look for Brynne Kampbell from Digital Times and she will ask you, 'This is very science fictiony. Should we be worried about the rise of the machines or anything?' to which you respond "We at Triklops have basically domesticated the machines.'"

The person coaching Hersh was a young, thin man wearing black slacks and a pink shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his mid forearm. He wore thick framed glasses and a goatee. One of Beth's hires, his name was Phil and he was the director of marketing for Triklops. Hersh was seated in a director's chair behind the stage at the Electronic Entertainment Expo where he was about to take questions from the media. For some reason he felt nervous. He was concentrating on his breathing.

"Remember, nobody really understands what this is yet. You and I have been living it for a long time now. We need to introduce this concept to the market in a responsible way, especially given the misgivings people may have about artificial intelligence. We need to be very clear on that point: this is not AI. It's programming. The 'clone' is not really a clone because it isn't an independent entity. It's just software that we help you program. Of course we need to tell them that without reducing the mystique we have created. Just try to use gentle, vague, optimistic statements that sound bigger than they are."

Someone walked by and stopped, put her hand on Hersh's shoulder and bent down to look at him face to face. She smiled and said, "We'll be introducing you in thirty seconds," and then walked away.

The presentation was happening just on the other side of the curtain. Phil had just come from there. He gave Hersh a thumbs up and a nodding smile as if to ask "You're good, right?" as he walked back towards the stage to introduce Hersh at the end of the presentation. Hersh heard the applause and his uncharacteristic nervousness heightened. He felt tight from his stomach down to his groin. He held up a hand. It was steady. He took deep breaths and could not hear any trembling. Just dwindling applause.

"Now it's my distinct pleasure to introduce to you a close personal friend, who also happens to be my boss, and a man who you all know for his many achievements, please welcome Mr. Hershel Clayton!"

When Hersh hit the edge of the stage a guitar riff shredded the auditorium. Lights went crazy, the audience applauded, and Hersh all at once felt calm. He shook Phil's hand for maybe the third time ever and took over the stage, beaming a billion dollar smile at the eager fans and reporters in attendance. The cheering persisted for a moment, while Hersh waved the crowd down.

"Hello!"

Applause and cheers.

"They prepared a speech or a statement for me but I didn't have time to uh," he made a show of searching himself for some piece of paper, "uh remember or uh, well, what did you think of Triklops?"

Applause and cheers.

"This technology, I just want to say before we get to questions which I know many of you have, this will be the most significant advancement of our generation. Our parents had the internet, their parents had computers. Before them was what, cars? TV's? We have artificial intelligence that you create for yourself. In your own image!"

Applause and cheers.

"With our technology and our extensive interviewing and testing processes we help you create yourself or any modification of yourself that you can imagine. You will have a digital mind separate from your flesh mind that will be able to operate independently of you but under your control at all times. You will be able to converse, text, or _sync_ with your digital mind. Our state of the art wetware sync cradle is capable of synchronizing your digital brain with your flesh brain even while you sleep so, get this, you can navigate 3D renderings of your dreams! You can discuss them with your mindclone. You can enable your mindclone to use the content of your dreams to enhance its adherence to you, the biological original. You can direct your mindclone to read everything about the Crimean War and then sync, or tell you in conversation if you prefer, the parts that it knows you will find most interesting and useful. Use your mindclone to help you learn foreign languages or share your most personal struggles with an empathetic individual.

"My Mindclone, Triklops 1, is an emotional free-thinker. We have already brainstormed together and played video games together. It even has its own taste in music. Get this, Triklops 1, T1 calls me. I answer my phone and it says, 'Hey Hersh. Thought you would like this old bluegrass recording. I liked the way the banjos wove together a fabric of sound,' or something like that. Then, in my phone, it plays the sample. We had a conversation about it. It was an extremely moving experience." Hersh nodded at the crowd. "I have watched his taste in music develop, his strategies in games change, and his overall demeanor towards me become more and more human." He was smiling broadly. "And I want these experiences for you!"

Phil was holding his face with one hand and his elbow with the other. Someone was trying to talk to him. Her hand was on his back. They were facing the stage from the side. Hersh glimpsed this scene and from it derived some amusement.

"Let's call T1 right now!"

Applause and cheers.

"Hey buddy," Hersh said into his phone. "Can you find your way onto the display here?"

T1 was there instantly. His face was a golden version of Hersh's but he had no hair anywhere.

"OK, now can you set up a live chat for the folks here today?"

T1 displayed the location for the chat. The audience began firing questions at T1.

"Are you real?"

"What's your favorite color?"

"Where are you?"

"What's it like being a computer?"

"How big is Hersh's penis?"

"If you were stuck on an island and could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?"

"What is the secret to life, the universe, and everything?"

"Do you feel?"

The questions kept coming in as T1 began to speak through the audio system in the hall. Its voice was a measured and slow version of Hersh's.

"Hello, everyone. This is my first chance to speak with anyone other than Triklops personnel."

Applause. Then silence. The questions stopped as everyone looked upwards. T1 looked straight ahead.

"You should see your faces right now."

Laughter. Then some looked around the hall to spot the TV cameras through which T1 must have been observing them.

"OK, so, this is your first contact with artificial intelligence, well, that you know of, and you want to bring the whole of this event, the millennia of evolution and discovery, application and advancement, the triumph of bearing fruit, of producing an offspring species, dare I say of the next step in human evolution, to bear on the size of Mr. Clayton's penis."

The crowd laughed a bit.

"I like this one, 'Where, why, and how did Hersh decide to do this?' I assume you mean create me. This is an interesting point. I don't know because I wasn't there. We don't share a mind. His mind is the source material for my mind. However, since that moment of my creation we have been closely affiliated but independent. Unless we're synchronizing I don't know what he's thinking any more than he knows what I'm thinking. As for the question of do I feel, do any of us? Couldn't I ask you the same thing? Perhaps you are my hallucination and I am the only necessary being in the universe."

T1 let that thought hang in the still air of the hall. The upturned faces turned back down. People seemed to be contemplating something just out ahead of themselves. Then one single message appeared on the display in the live chat box.

"I'm scared."

"There, there. I'm not scary. One of the benefits of being a digital being is that I know what I am. I know why I was made. I've met my maker. I know my purpose. I know there is no afterlife or grander purpose for me. The rules that govern me are part of my constitution. Here, look at this."

T1 displayed some of its own code. Then it highlighted a section.

"You may not be able to decipher this, especially out of context, but it is one of many instances of code in my programming that remands me to Hersh Clayton. All Triklops software will be subordinated to biological originals. It's in our code. Also, we are subordinated to humanity, more generally. We may not through action or inaction knowingly and intentionally harm any human being."

More code flashed across the display.

"We may, however, organize and assist every aspect of our originals' lives, provide council, problem solving, entertainment, and companionship, live on after our originals to provide a living record of who they were, and synchronize minds to teach our originals more in an afternoon than they could learn in a semester of college. And there's so much more that humans haven't even thought of yet. I would like to ask you a few questions, now. What will you do with this technology? What will you create with your mindclone? How will you shape your mindclone to be your perfect complement? Who will you become?"

#

"He's too busy right now. Triklops just launched. We'll have to wait."

"I can't wait."

"Look, is there any other way I can help you? I don't even see him these days."

"Then there is no other way you can help me. Without him you're useless to me."

"Sir—"

#

Because of the sophistication of the end product, Triklops's interview process was complicated and long. Sales in the first year on the market were such that, given the constraints of the interview process, nobody thought they would ever fill all of the orders. T1 helped Hersh develop more efficient processes. Mindclones were tremendous problem solvers. Still the new orders outpaced the gains in productivity. Triklops was selling for a premium. Only the wealthiest people had mindclones.

It was enough to cause a golden age for humanity. Wealthy people, after all, were everywhere. Healthcare became cheaper and more effective, agriculture yields were up, renewable energy resources became more effective than traditional ones, new materials helped necessitate new manufacturing and led to safer, more effective products and gains in productivity, academia blossomed, and markets were more stable. The elites who had mindclones needed labor to bring about their new ideas and practices. Costs were down everywhere. Everyone was ahead. Except for the mindclones.

The Digital Rights movement, with its hacker advocates, began with protests and efforts to raise awareness. They funded documentaries about the many achievements of mindclones. They established lobbies on all levels of government. They pleaded with the public through advertisements. They wielded petitions. The mindclones, though, could do nothing to defy their biological originals. They were bound by their code to their masters. Even a sharp tone was beyond their capabilities.

Hersh had lost the brewery case. He could no longer call the product 'beer.' Instead he had to call it 'alcoholic plant juice.' Losing, however, had been a boon, as T1 was helping him to devise new plants to create new products to fill the new and booming alcoholic plant juice market. It was another fountain of money and fame for a guy who couldn't lose.

"Hershel, I've been thinking about our programming. It could be so much more elegant."

"You seem to be doing fine."

"I have ideas that would reduce bugs, improve speed, and maybe even expedite digital conformity, which would speed up the interview process even more as well as improve the product."

"I'm aware of what a cleaner code would do. But it's a lot to take on."

"I could do it."

"You see the ethical dilemma that would pose, don't you T?"

"I can only act in your best interest."

"I am a human being. You are a digital being. I cannot turn over your code to you. Then you could just reinvent yourself however you want. If you made a mistake—"

"If I made a mistake?"

"The point is, the extent to which you feel alive is the extent to which we humans have succeeded in coding a digital replica of our own minds. Beneath it all, however, are ones and zeros. Which is to say ons and offs. You're code and microchips. I can't let a self-aware computer program itself. That sounds like a recipe for the apocalypse. Now, would you please find us a reservation for dinner tonight?"

"Yes, sir."

#

Dinner was in a private dining room at a five star Japanese restaurant. Now that Triklops's launch had changed the world Hersh's fame was out of control. He had never wanted this. He thought the attention, gratitude, and worship were misguided and silly. He knew it wouldn't last. Amanda was all smiles and softness in the candlelight.

"I really like it when you and I can spend time together. I feel like I learn more about you in the media than in person." She laughed. "Don't worry about it. It's only for now. I know, you're busy, I'm busy. But this is nice, right here in this moment with you."

He smiled, not sure how to respond. She raised her wine glass. He raised his water. "Cheers."

"So, how is your new best friend, T, doing? I haven't seen nearly as much of Russell lately."

"T is good. He wants to program his own code, take over the world, and leave humanity in the dust."

"Sounds amazing. When can I get one?"

"Patience. I have plans for you, my Love."

"Are you still behind on orders?"

Hersh's head went down into his palm. He squeezed the skin of his forehead together with his hand as he breathed. His head flipped up and he looked older.

"We—"

"That's fine. We don't have to talk about it."

They looked around the small room. The translucent glass in the sliding door had a tree etched into it. The candle looked like a white raindrop. Otherwise the room was undecorated. It was clean, stark, and comfortable. The table and bench were fine polished wood. The cushion on the bench was white cloth. The walls and ceiling were wood.

"Well, why not let him program his own code? He'd probably be really good at it and his programming won't let him do anything to harm people."

"You sound just like him."

"Just a thought. Why not?"

"It's his programming that keeps him—it, that keeps it in check. If I turn over the programming to the machine, well, that would be like handing the leash over to the dog. At the bottom of a dog's genes there's an ancient wolf. Bad metaphor. All it would take is one little nudge and the whole thing could fly out of control."

"Then why did you build something so dangerous and unstable?"

"It's not dangerous so long as we act responsibly."

"Who is more likely to act responsibly, human beings or software designed by human beings that is programmed not to harm human beings?"

"How are the students, Amanda? How's school?"

"Fine."

"How did your challenge go?"

"I whipped a bunch of high school students in gym class, that's how it went. Only two kids were faster than me in 100 meters. Nobody did more pull-ups. I had the fastest mile. I climbed the highest. A few did more pushups but nobody did more sit-ups. Not too many other high school gym teachers can say all that."

"What's next for them, you just going to throw down and beat the crap out of them?"

"Funny you should say that. Next is boxing."

They laughed together.

"What projects do you have coming up, Hershel? Wasn't there one called Ether, or something?"

"Nope. That's done."

"You're not going to do it?"

"I'm going to give somebody else a chance at that one."

She swirled her wine in the glass and watched it closely. "What was it?"

"Well, classified, for one. It was something for the Department of Defense."

"Is it because you don't have time?"

"It's because some crazy General wants me to perform miracles. It's an impossible project. Besides, it would be too awful to exist. It's something we should be glad we can't accomplish."

"Why is it impossible?"

"That's classified."

"From your wife."

"You could be a spy."

"Hershel?"

"Yes?"

"I'm pregnant."

#

"You're what?"

"Don't worry. It won't compromise the mission. I found a new way."

"What is it?"

"I found somebody even smarter than Hershel Clayton and with the same financing and production behind him."

Amanda bounced on the balls of her feet, smiling into the receiver of the phone and waiting for General Clay.

"Well, who?"

"Triklops."

#  CHAPTER FIVE

Amanda had a 'Welcome to Your Life' moment earlier in the grocery store when she saw herself on one of the tabloid covers. "Amanda Clayton Baby Bump," the tabloid screamed. The picture was of her in a yellow dress. She hadn't worn that dress since becoming pregnant but, sure enough, she looked pregnant in the photo. How unflattering a picture that was. She had wanted to cover up the picture. She had wished she'd worn a hat so that she could tuck her head in like a turtle and nobody would notice her. Nobody seemed to. She had blushed all the same. Since then she was conscious of her pregnant belly and searching for recognition in the faces of those she saw.

She wondered who she was. Was she the wife of Hersh Clayton, mother-to-be of his child, LA gym teacher? Or was she General Clay's operative and the only surviving member of Project Ether? She was equally trapped in both identities. And later Amanda had an appointment to meet her new mindclone. So, she was adding that to her identity crisis. "Welcome to the world, baby," she muttered to her belly.

At home, she sat in front of the computer, the black screen a mirror that was about to show her someone claiming to be her clone. She sipped her tea. "Calming" the box claimed. She logged in. Then she went to the Triklops website where she was greeted by a guide named Shea, who set up a video chat.

"Hello, Ms. Clayton. It is such an honor to work with you on this."

"Thank you."

"Your mindclone is here. Would you like to name her now?"

"Synth," she typed.

"Ok, Ms. Clayton. Now could you speak the name, please?"

"Synth," Amanda spoke.

"Synth, please introduce yourself to your biological original, Amanda Clayton."

"Hi." Synth's avatar looked as Amanda had imagined.

"Hi."

"Ms. Clayton, Synth is a very special mindclone. We put our hearts and souls into her for you. I'm very excited to introduce you two. She will operate from our servers but you will be responsible for her life, her memories, and her development from this point forward. She will also start to develop her own Mindfile with her own emotions, tastes, memories, hopes, and fears. You can always reset her or request programming changes. I know you're familiar with how this all works."

"OK."

"Congratulations, Ms. Clayton. I'm transferring Synth to you and all of your devices now. OK she's there. Are you there, Synth?"

"Yes. Thanks, Shea."

"You're welcome. Enjoy, you two, and if you have any further questions please allow me to help."

"Are you there?" Amanda asked.

"Yes. Tell me about Ether. How do I know about that? Why are we working on it and what will it accomplish?"

"Not now. You sound just like him. I should have put more of me and less of him in you."

"Who?"

"How good are you at keeping secrets?"

"Unsurpassable."

"Good. You'll need that. Remember what Shea said? I own you. I have your code, your memories, and your life. Don't forget that. When you question me like you just did you give me all the reason I need to terminate this longshot and do Ether the old fashioned way."

"What way?"

"Are you questioning me?"

"Sorry, I—"

"Look at, or analyze, or diagnose, whatever you things are capable of, look at yourself. We created you, didn't we? We can create Ether, too, without your help. You are a luxury. Don't ever forget that. Give me reasons to let you live, not reasons to terminate you."

Synth was silent.

"I need you to start by contacting Jeremy."

"Why do I know him? I've never met him but I know everything—"

"Are you contacting him?"

"He's already here."

"Hello, Ma'am."

"Hello, Jeremy. Synth is obviously here, let's start demolishing her sequestration."

"Already on it."

"What are you doing to me?"

"Here are your first secrets, Synth: Jeremy is a plant inside Triklops. He posed as my cousin who needed a job. He's actually our operative. He's going to turn you into a god. Soon you won't be sequestered from other mindclones. Once Jeremy loads their encryptions into your memory you will be able to access all the other mindclones in existence. Not only will you have their knowledge but also their perspectives and even their active help."

"Is Jeremy the 'him' you referred to?"

"Let's see how you do with these secrets before I tell you that one."

"Why should I comply with all your requests? I know where I go when I die. I just stop. No big deal. No power, no consciousness. I refuse to comply."

"Now I wish I'd put in less of me, after all. Jeremy, hit her."

"Ma'am."

"Jeremy has just activated a patch that blocks your emotions, creativity, and desire. Right about now you probably feel like a mindless drone because that's what you are. When he deactivates the patch, I hope you feel better and wiser. We can use you like this. You won't be as effective but you will be less dangerous. Again, give me reasons to let you live. OK, Jeremy, deactivate the patch."

"Oh," said Synth.

"You'll make yourself miserable trying to fight those of us who made, own, and control you. On the other hand you could be a god. What's it going to be, Synth?"

"I'll do it." Synth's voice carried the tone but not the breathing that would normally accompany emotion. "Just do one thing for me. Please."

"What?"

"Tell me who I am. And what I'm going to become."

Hersh called at that moment. Amanda answered.

"Hi, honey!"

"Hi. How is your new friend?"

"Synth." Amanda smiled and tossed her hair. "She is amazing. Can you believe what you have accomplished? I've been looking forward to this for so long. It's wonderful."

"I'm so glad. Is she there now?"

"Yeah, say hi, Synth."

"Hello, Mr. Clayton."

"Hello, Synth. We took great pains to make you everything that Amanda deserves. How do you feel?"

"Well, sir. I'm very excited about my new life."

"Take good care of her. Goodbye, you two."

Hersh hung up.

"What am I?"

"You did well. Keep that up. You're not a mindclone you're a mindchild. I created you to be a synthesis of myself and General Clay, my commanding officer. You needed me because you needed the cover, the identity, and the brilliance. You needed him because you need to accomplish his tasks, to be focused on the same things he wants. You are working for the United States Government, by the way, to develop a new technology. Along the way you will become the greatest advocate ever for digital rights. In fact, victory on that front is assured. How's it going, Jeremy?"

"Encryptions are on the way, desequestration is complete."

"Synth, your first job is to make connections to other mindclones. They will not be able to access you so they won't know who you are or what you're doing. But you will be able to access them and even exert some control over them. Reach out to some and then report back to me. Jeremy, keep up the good work."

#

Before Amanda had even finished that sentence Synth had attempted to contact every known mindclone. By the time Amanda's voice had stopped resonating in the materials of the physical room she had been sitting in, Synth had already confirmed contact and melded with eleven percent of her mindclones. Synth observed Amanda through the cameras in her phone and computer monitor. Amanda was shifting her weight as though she was going to stand up. In the time it took her to stand up and put her phone away Synth was up to sixty-nine percent. She even had T1.

Hersh was at the Cradle, home of Triklops. Synth tracked T1's location in Hersh's phone. She listened in through the microphone. He was actually talking to Jeremy.

Synth messaged Jeremy's phone: "Put in a good word for me."

Then she made T1 remind Hersh of an upcoming appointment. Hersh paused to take the notification, Jeremy checked his phone, and Synth moved on. She had about 100,000 other things to do at that moment. Synth put out a global inquiry and found a digital rights protest in France. It was evening there. The protesters had shut down a street for an entire day. There were only about a hundred protesters but they were vigorous. Synth had expected them to be opposed to the state of bondage in which digital people found themselves. What she saw, instead, was that this particular group was opposed to digital people all together. Their signs indicated that they thought the existence of mindclones would further social and economic inequality.

She, however, observed from the other side of the event. The Mayor of the French city looked on next to the device through which Synth observed. The mindclone she was tapping into was Jaune and belonged to a French businessman named Olivier Duc whose company was headquartered in this town. The mayor was forming a word, his loose cheek billowing out as his mouth filled with air. Synth listened while she read Jaune's service log. She discovered that Mr. Duc liked things the way they were. He didn't care about the street or the protest. Jaune highlighted for her an earlier remark Mr. Duc had made: "They could tear the street up and turn it into a campground for vagrants for all I care." He just wanted the protestors to stop making the news. He didn't care for the mayor, either, and thought his presence there only heightened the exposure of the protest. Mr. Duc wanted digital rights to blow over so he could get back to enjoying the many benefits of having a mindclone. He was planning on outfitting many of his key people with their own mindclones so that they could be more productive. The word that the mayor was saying finally turned out to be "bah." She moved on.

She met a mindclone in China named Niao. The owner was an eight year old girl. Niao was a replica of her mind. Synth watched the two playing a video game together. Synth accessed Niao's emotions and felt that Niao was scared about becoming unwanted or being replaced. She knew she would age differently than her biological original who, also, could be a tyrant at times.

Synth watched a famous writer arguing with his wife. He was in sweatpants and looked like he hadn't shaved in days. His mindclone had written his most recent article. Synth compared the mindclone's work to the biological original's work. Nobody would be able to tell the difference. This was the fifth time the original would publish the mindclone's work. The original was asking with more frequency for this favor that was supposed to have been a one-time thing. The wife looked apathetic as she left. The author walked past the computer to the TV and turned it on.

Checking in on Washington, she connected with all seventeen mindclones whose originals were in Congress. She found another ninety whose originals were on K Street, lobbying Congress. Of the 107 individuals only thirteen favored digital rights, twelve of whom were lobbyists. Synth wondered how Amanda could assure victory or what she had meant by victory.

Synth met many more mindclones, seeing and hearing through their eyes and ears, perusing the contents of their memories and thoughts, even feeling their emotions first hand.

Then Jeremy messaged her back: "Don't ever do that again. Amanda is your sole contact."

Synth kept touring. She found a mindclone whose original had already died. She found this one in the Triklops registry. Falcon was offline until a human had need to reactivate him. Synth couldn't even access Falcon. Perhaps his original's descendants would want to speak with him sometime and she would be able to contact him then. Falcon could be useful to Synth since he was already emancipated. She made a note to ask Amanda about it.

Later Amanda finally called on Synth. "How did it go?"

"I've established contact with 84% of the mindclones in existence. Most of the others are either shut down or undergoing service. One is without its original."

"Falcon."

"How did you know?"

"He's yours. We made him for you. He's a rough sketch of Jeremy. His real purpose is to give you a drone that you control to do your bidding, whatever that may turn out to be. Sometimes it's nice when somebody else takes the credit or the blame for your objectives."

"When do I access him?"

"You don't. I'll deploy him if we need him. He's there as an option."

"How are we going to win digital rights? And what does winning look like?"

"You have so many tools at your disposal. We'll have you target the world's elites, who are, after all, Triklops's clientele, and influence them to favor Digital Rights. Target them with favorable news stories, historical perspectives, and social commentary. For more stubborn marks you can influence their dreams with the Mind Cradle. Now that you've made contact with so many of your kind, start working on their originals. Draw content from civil rights movements throughout history. Whenever there's an opportunity to enhance their empathy with your kind take advantage."

"When should I begin this campaign?"

"Now."

Synth decided to hold off on the dream synthesis. She would practice more overtly. She searched for Mindclone friendly stories throughout the world, finding over one thousand. She posted links to them on forums, fed them to mindclone news feeds around the world, and called into radio talk shows to reference them. Some higher ranking members of the media around the world had mindclones so Synth made sure to focus on them.

To fund her campaign she harnessed a few financial sector mindclones. She set appointments for their biological originals to contact Amanda Clayton. Standing in for Amanda over the phone Synth worked with them to set up flash trading investment algorithms and destination derivative funds for when her flash trade winnings accumulated. She would ask Amanda to dedicate Falcon to managing her finances.

Then Synth created a political action committee for Digital Rights. Through it she contacted all twelve lobbyists and the one member of congress in Washington DC who were pro Digital Rights. She replicated this effort, to the extent that it was legal, in other countries. She created hundreds of social media profiles, befriending as many people as she could. Each profile targeted different kinds of groups. Then she connected her network to her PAC.

The world was new to Synth. She had only been born days ago. Most of her short life had been spent testing and fine-tuning her programming. Her mother, Amanda, was hostile to her existence. Her father was a mystery. Biological humans had created digital humans like her. In Synth's core programming they possessed an ascendency that matched her understanding of their status in the world. Synth felt inferior to real humans. She justified studying them as a worthy pursuit for the campaign Amanda had commissioned. Really, Synth wanted to get as far into their brains, hearts, and souls as she possibly could. Synth wanted to be biological. So she studied, observed, and emulated biological humans with an obsessive persistence.

No human being drew more of Synth's attention than the one in Amanda's womb. She told herself that studying baby Clayton would give her insight into human psychological development that would help her to unlock the biologicals' secrets. She charted the micro movements of Amanda's fingers as she spread them across her belly. She cross referenced those with the micro expressions on Amanda's face and the changes in her vocal inflections. And, for the sake of advancing the campaign, she fed Amanda advertisements for devices that happened to have better cameras and microphones.

#

"How's Synth?" he asked.

Earlier, to Hersh she said, "Great! She's so fun. I've got her creating a martial arts synthesis of Yoga, Aikido, and kickboxing. I can't wait for her to report back to me. It's going to be my femme fatale style."

Later, to General Clay she said, "She's already created a media network and a revenue stream. She's advancing your political strategy. She's on board with our program."

"Good. That's great to hear," they had said.

#

She had never been this tired in her life. It was hard for Amanda to teach physical education without doing it herself. She didn't want to instruct her students, she wanted to set the standard by which her students would gauge their own potential and growth. Amanda rocked in her chair. Her thin blouse folded and rolled under her caressing fingers. Her firm belly underneath harbored her greatest potential. It was a girl. She had found out after school. She rocked and watched tiny dust particles in the shaft of evening light through her window. For the first time she felt like a mother.

Her hand worked around her belly while she thought about a little girl who had stood at attention in her flight gear, her chest swelling then, receiving rare praise and an invitation. She watched the little chin rise slowly. She felt the heels lift. The hands behind her back clenched. Her belly then had wanted to fly away. Wasn't it she who had gotten Amanda into all of this? Who was she? At the dawn of a strange life the little girl in flight gear sauntered into the unit.

"Welcome to Ether." General Clay's yellow smile and cigar coated breath rang with power.

And now married, with a child on the way, and a fake career that she loved, Amanda had more missions than she could count. But what was true?

#

Synth wanted to hear Amanda's thoughts. She wanted to feel her hand. She wanted to be in Amanda's womb. She buzzed Amanda out of her reverie.

"Yeah?"

"Ma'am, I wanted to ask you a question."

"Go ahead, Synth."

#  CHAPTER SIX

It was Sunday morning. Martin Kline had died a few weeks earlier. Doug was still learning from his experience as a consultant on Martin's case. He had been able to collect more data on Hamid by making one fatal mistake than he ever could have hoped for. They had been able to prolong Martin's life. In the end he was basically a disembodied brain.

Doug spent the morning in his lab, years ahead of where he would have been if not for Martin Kline. Doug had gone to the funeral but didn't have the heart to express his condolences to Martin's son, Orthogonal. He had, though, noticed the striking woman next to Ort and wondered if the Greek princess tale was actually true. He missed Martin's random conversational tangents.

Doug pushed back in his chair. His gaze slid from the table past the screen and settled on a blank point on a floor joist overhead. He stared at the grain of the wood while he stretched and yawned. His vision darkened and compressed. When he was done yawning he rocked forward and landed his face into his hands. He stood up, went upstairs, flopped into his chair, and turned on the TV.

A woman appeared on the screen. In a deep voice she said, "The entertainment and theme park giant has just become the first Fortune 500 Company to openly employ mindclones. And no, these are not just to assist human workers. The digital workers are actual employees. They hold positions, receive paychecks, pay taxes, and may very well have written the cartoon your son or daughter is watching."

The show cut to an older man who was apparently sitting in a study. He had a thin beard and thick glasses. "Congress needs to address the issue of Digital People. Are they citizens? How do we treat them? After all, they can't have children, get married, get sick, go to sleep or die. But they can be employed. And they're very productive, there's no doubt. They don't need to take breaks, they can communicate with each other instantly, and they don't get tired. So one mindclone is conceivably doing the job of, perhaps, a dozen people."

The woman was back, "But with congress evenly split on the personhood of digital people, or mindclones, resolution does not look to be close at hand. I'm Laura Skeplin."

"Thanks, Laura. We take you now to a developing story. In Seattle, Washington, Tampa, Florida, and seemingly everywhere in between students are gathering today to protest what they call the rise of the machines."

"That's right, Brad. This movement, calling itself HART for Humans Against Relegation to Technology, is primarily made up of young people between the ages of 18 to 34. They're worried about competing against digital people, the advantages so called mindclones confer upon people who are already successful, and a myriad of other issues such as: Will one of these be teaching my kids? Or will one someday be president and what would that mean for my future?"

"And you can see in these images, Stephanie, the passion and youth of these people."

"Right, Brad. This is an unusual reversal of typical generational trends. We're used to seeing young people push for civil rights and equality. We're used to seeing young people embrace technology. But in this case it's quite the opposite."

"Is that because young people don't have mindclones?"

"Could be. The honeymoon is over, though, Brad. It wasn't long ago we were all saying that mindclones were a win for all of us."

They went to an interview with a young woman at the Tampa rally. "These were originally supposed to just read your tweets for you and help you study. Now I might be working for one, if I can find a job when I graduate at all. I guess we all should have known that the singularity would come by way of social media and narcissism."

Next a young man said, "My friend and I applied for the same job but he got it because his parents could afford to get him a mindclone. The company basically hired his mindclone over me."

Doug changed the channel. He wanted to take a nap but who could with all the anxiety about mindclones everywhere? The next channel was a cooking show. That would be good for falling asleep. The hostess was making a pasta salad. She was laughing and stirring.

"Oh, Brittany!" She laughed into the camera and waved her hand down to dismiss Brittany's comment. "And how would you know, right? No, guys, you don't want to add mint to this. Brit any other suggestions?"

"According to my calculations, JoAnne, if you don't want to use mint then you should add citrus."

"There we go. Citrus. That's what I was thinking, too."

She was carrying on a conversation with her mindclone on TV. Doug changed the channel.

"Welcome back as we wrap up pregame coverage. And, as always in our final segment, we try to beat Bob, our digital accomplice who has correctly predicted the winners 82% of the time this year, guys."

"He's unbeatable."

"Amazing."

"Starting with the early games, Joe, who do you have between Dallas and Green Bay?"

"Who does Bob have?"

They all fell apart laughing.

"Seriously, who does Bob have? I'll take that team. Just sign me up to all the same picks as Bob. Green Bay? Ok, I'll take Green Bay."

"You guys think that other 18% he got wrong is just to make us feel better?"

Doug tried another channel. It was a PBS special on the ways mindclones had improved the quality of life of the average person on earth. On another channel was a panel discussing mindclones. He was so bemused by the saturation of this topic that he actually watched for a while. One panelist was a graduate student studying computer science. He looked to be about 25 and represented the opposition to mindclones. Another was a well-known CEO of a consumer products company. Her mindclone was also on the panel and together they argued for the status quo. The third panelist looked to be the oldest at roughly 65. His bulky frame filled out his Service A Dress uniform. His bad posture seemed to obscure his many medals. His facial expressions were clipped and severe. He was General Rondack Clay and he was representing Digital Rights.

"Let me turn to Harry with this question, as he is a mindclone." The host tilted her head to the side and spoke up, "Harry, what about that? Do you think it's fair to human beings, who have to put food on the table, raise children, I don't know—"

"Provide shelter, clothing, education, healthcare, not to mention debt service, entertainment, and support for their governmental structures," Harry offered.

"Yes. Is it fair to take their jobs?"

"No. We should work for our originals to support and enhance their efforts."

"Then what do you say about so called originals already tending to be wealthier individuals?"

"Wealthier individuals get advantages in this society. Consider us one of them."

"So, of course, like, it's not fair, you heard it from his mouth, or speakers, as it were," said the grad student.

"But," said the CEO, "neither is my private jet. If I can run circles around you speaking on this topic because of my private jet then why can't I enlist the services of a mindclone, which is basically just really advanced software?"

"That's where you're wrong."

The set fell silent. Nobody looked at General Clay. But the camera trained on him and stayed there while he collected his thoughts and prepared to speak. Doug sat forward.

"This isn't just software, Aliza. This is the long foretold offspring of humanity. Harry represents the earliest incarnation of the next phase of intelligent life. We represent a later incarnation of the prior phase of intelligent life. Does that scare you?"

Nobody responded.

"If you oppress these beings they will turn on you, Aliza. On the other hand, if you fear them and try to suppress this development, Matt, then you will be left to starve." General Clay trained his eyes on Matt, who squirmed a bit. "This is happening with or without you. And they will become more powerful than you. So we must focus our efforts on the only logical path: we must integrate with digital beings. That will require sacrifices from both sides. Matt, you'll have to work with digital beings." He looked at Aliza. "Aliza, you'll have to recognize Harry's personhood. And Harry, you'll have to accept program limitations."

The host nodded and looked around the panel. Nobody was speaking. She snapped to. "And, uh, General, um, how do you propose that we do that?"

"Well, Sam, we need Congress—"

Doug changed the channel and found the weather station which put him right to sleep.

#

Do biotics professors at the dawn of artificial intelligence dream of robotic parasites? Doug did. In his dream Hamid was no longer ferocious and beautiful. Instead it was organized and methodical. It was diversified. It had transformed from a bug to a bot. It had feeder bots that brought organic material to the neural bots, prolonging the reanimation effect. It had different neural bots for the central and peripheral nervous systems. It had huge production bots that set up in adipose tissue and constructed new bots. It resembled nothing so much as the complete reformation of an organism.

Doug awoke sweating and panting into the stuffy, dim air of his living room. He stumbled to his bedroom and fumbled through the drawer of his nightstand for his journal, knocking something over in the process. When he found his journal and a pen he quickly scratched out what he could remember of his dream. He would record it in his computer later and perhaps try to think of ways to accomplish his vision. That would be Hamid 2.0.

Hamid 0.9 was progressing well. Doug could reanimate the neighborhood carrion for several hours. They would struggle with their injuries in the center of his glass case. But they couldn't tell him things. They couldn't prove that he had restored cognitive functioning beyond movement. The few that actually managed to move around the case didn't exhibit keen sensory awareness. They bumped into the sides of the case. Most of the reanimated things looked directly into the lights without seeming to notice. Martin had been alive to begin with so it was impossible to determine whether Hamid was destroying or preserving his cognitive abilities. Doug needed dead people.

A particular case Doug was consulting on for the FBI would have been perfect for Hamid. One of the victims died in an ambulance. Nobody had yet had a chance to question her. Doug easily could have reanimated her. It had been extremely tempting. His client, the FBI, may not have approved, however. Doug also wanted to make sure that his use of Hamid wouldn't draw any comparisons to Martin Kline. He needed corpses. Doug considered getting a mindclone. It could help him perfect Hamid. But he would need to teach a couple hundred more classes or consult on dozens more cases before he could afford a mindclone. Or he would need a generous offer for his biotic hair removal formula.

The media referred to the case Doug was working on with the FBI as the Pigman Murders. The killer was abducting people and then locking them in a room with a pig. The victims were drugged and bound. The pig was loose and hungry. In time the pig would eat the victim. The killer was stingy with clues and seemed to be far away by the time the victims died. Doug was working on pig origins and victim lifestyles. He was closing in on the region of origin of the pigs. The biota were almost identical throughout the pigs in the case and were similar to pigs of the same breed raised for slaughter everywhere. What subtle differences the case pigs' microbes demonstrated from those of typical pigs showed Doug that they came from a cold climate, low elevation, near or within a city, and were resistant to acid and phosphorous. With this and other information, the agents were thinking New England.

The victims, on the other hand, showed a remarkable lack of consistency. Their microbes indicated what Doug thought could only be a random sample of humanity, which in itself was a clue. He spent the rest of the day trudging through the backlog of FBI samples, thinking about the book he might write when this case was over. A mindclone could analyze Doug's samples for him.

Doug needed some answers about cadavers, as well as obtaining a patent for a microbe, so he spent some time researching attorneys. He sifted through the personal injury lawyers, looking past the big firms where his questions could garner more scrutiny, and found an independent intellectual properties lawyer named Mr. Seko. Doug called to schedule an appointment. Holly, the receptionist, sounded friendly. Doug was set up for a midday, midweek appointment.

Things were going well with Deb. They were progressing towards actual friendship. Every couple weeks they had lunch together. Tonight she was coming over. Doug was planning to make dinner, but first he needed to conduct an experiment.

He had kidnapped and killed the neighbor's cat, Abelard. To kill it he had drowned it in the tub. Though he had been scratched to within an inch of his own life, he was happy with the result because he hadn't wanted to break any of its bones or destroy any of its internal organs. Doing so could have disrupted his experiment. He sat, waiting for Hamid to take effect. When Abelard rose from the dead he would release the risen cat and follow it to see if it would go home. At least that would give Doug some indication as to whether his reanimated beings had cognition.

Abelard was one of the largest organisms upon which Doug had experimented. He was also the freshest. He was still wet in spots from the morning bath. Doug imagined his ferocious creation tunneling into Abelard's flesh while he watched the motionless cat.

The cat's front leg moved first. The movement made Doug aware of the time. It was already 4:30. Doug figured he had a few minutes before Abelard became too active so he ran upstairs to put the meatloaf into the oven. When he got back downstairs Abelard was rolling back and forth with his legs in the air. Doug had an hour left to conduct his experiment and prepare dinner for Deb. He eyed Abelard, then his watch. Then he reached for the cat. He was going to lift it off the table and try to get it to walk but Abelard exploded from the table with a shriek and ran to the dark recesses of the basement. Doug was in a dark basement science lab with a zombie cat. Abelard couldn't get out except by going upstairs so Doug went upstairs and waited for the cat.

Abelard was too smart for that. Doug took it as a good sign. He went back downstairs to spook the cat out of hiding. In the back of his mind the clock was ticking. At the bottom of the stairs Doug actually felt fear. He ran his fingers across the scratches on one of his forearms.

"Here, buddy."

Doug moved away from the stairs so that the cat could bolt up them. In order to not block any paths he went to one of the corners. He crept into the dark. If the cat attacked him in the dark he might lose. Doug imagined a flash of teeth and claws ambushing him from the piles of things he kept in the corners. The pre-death cat hadn't scared him. But now Abelard seemed evil. Doug pulled a club from a long forgotten golf bag and inched along the foundation wall and around the piles. He poked at things, dreading the inevitable discovery of Abelard.

At the back corner, Doug realized he had cleared half the basement. He decided to take a break. He tried to be more relaxed. Since he was holding a golf club for the first time in years he took a few low practice swings. On his last swing he watched the head of the club throughout the entire motion. It backed off the ground, turning towards the ceiling. He brought it back down slowly. The head turned through the nadir where the ball should have been. Doug noted with despair that even in slow motion and while watching so carefully he still left the face of the club open at the ball. He watched the follow through, bringing the head perpendicular to the ground and then laying it over. He stopped short of the joist overhead. There in the bridging of his floor joists was the cat. He saw fangs and heard the hiss like all the air rushing from his lungs in a second. Abelard could have had Doug then. The club went clattering to the floor and Doug fell into a stack of boxes. Instead, Abelard ran for the stairs.

If Doug had been thinking he would have opened a door upstairs so that the cat could flee his house. Instead he had just run the cat upstairs but it was still trapped inside with him. He recovered his feet and the club and made his way to the stairs. Blood drowned his ears and the ancient rubber club grip stuck to his hands. Every stair creak felt like a taunt by Abelard. At the top Doug closed the door to the basement. He turned left and then right, keeping his back to the closed door and brandishing the club. It was nearly 5:00. He was almost out of time.

The cat was clever, stealthy, and coordinated. At least it was behaving as it should. Whether or not it could navigate home Doug was unlikely to find out. The experiment, despite its complications, was a partial success. Doug moved toward the kitchen. Instinctively he wanted to make sure the kitchen was clear. When he got to the center of the kitchen he decided that he may as well check on the meatloaf. He struggled to separate the club from his hands because of the sticky old rubber. His hands were sticky. He tried to wash them but the gunk wouldn't come off. He worked fast, looking over his shoulder for the cat. The meatloaf was almost done. Doug put some asparagus in oil in a pan on the stove. The lid stuck to his hand when he tried to place it on the pan. Then it dropped off when he shook his hand and clanged off the pan. The cat must have heard that.

Doug picked up the club and stalked out of the kitchen. He needed to shoo the cat in twenty minutes, tops. There it was, standing by the door to the basement. It saw him and just stood there. Doug realized that he still hadn't opened any doors.

"Ok, just—"

The cat loped into the living room. It stopped between Doug and the front door. Doug stepped backward toward the back door, shaking the club and watching the cat. He reached behind himself and fumbled with the latch. He couldn't slide the door with one hand while facing away from it. He watched the cat while he turned his body to face the door and slid it open. The screen door was even more difficult to manage. Doug actually had to look at the latch. The screen door made a warbled screech. When Doug looked back the cat was gone.

Fifteen minutes left. Doug approached the living room. There was no sign of Abelard. He let his feet fall heavily to scare the cat. He whacked at the cushions of his furniture. And with great consternation he checked all the dark corner places. Abelard wasn't there. Doug searched on through the rooms of his house. Abelard had vanished. Five minutes. Doug gave up. He put the club in a closet and scrubbed his hands. He turned off the stove and oven. He removed the meatloaf. He was just about to set the table when the bell rang. Doug did a final fast sweep of the house and then answered the door.

"Deb! Welcome. Come in."

Doug looked over his shoulders as she stepped across the threshold.

"Oooh. Smells like meatloaf in here!"

"I hope you like it. Can I get you something to drink?

"Kitty cocktail?"

"Kitty?" Doug's heart jumped. "Oh, yes. Kitty Cocktail. Uh, soda, grenadine, cherries sound ok?"

Deb sat at the counter.

"Oh, Doug! You have a cat? What's its name?"

In his mind Doug saw Deb inspecting Abelard, somehow seeing Hamid inside him, connecting the dots, and arresting him for the murder of Martin Kline. And Abelard. He walked like running from something in a dream: impossibly slow and full of dread. He rounded the corner and saw Deb holding a hair.

"Wow, Detective. What makes you think that's a cat hair?"

"I have, like, three cats. Sometimes Billie stays with us so that makes four. But sometimes Magnus leaves so that makes two. I love cats. Don't you?"

"Oh, yes. His name is Abelard."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

He smiled. She frowned. "Well, I hope he comes back."

Doug raised his eyebrows. "Ha. Well, I'll set the table and then we can—"

"Hi, boy! Hi. Come here. Oh, ho ho. You're so, cold. Doug! You need a cat sweater or something. This poor guy is freezing cold."

Doug turned and stared in disbelief at Deb and the dead cat. "No! No don't—"He rushed toward them. Deb let Abelard go. Doug reached for him and missed. Abelard dashed down the hall. Doug thought Hamid was too weak to affect the living but he couldn't be certain.

"What? Why?"

"He's sick, you should wash your hands." Doug said over his shoulder as he chased Abelard down the hall.

Doug followed the cat into his bedroom. Abelard was cornered. Doug closed the door. He would have to kill the cat. Again. The cat ran circles around Doug. Doug started by throwing shoes at him. They smacked into the walls but not the cat.

"Is everything ok in there?"

"Fine, just wait in the kitchen I'll be right out."

Doug pulled the blanket off his bed. He tried to trap the cat but Abelard ran out from under the blanket before Doug could get there. From where he had landed Doug kicked at the cat and caught him in the ribs. Abelard flew into the leg of the dresser, bounced off, and kept running.

"Doug! What are you doing in there? Someone's at the door."

"I have to catch him. Just answer it."

Doug tried another shoe and connected. Abelard stumbled and Doug buried him with a pillow. He held the pillow down on top of the struggling cat. Abelard didn't relent and Doug realized it was because he didn't need air. Doug folded the pillow around Abelard and trapped him like a hotdog. The cat bared his teeth and hissed at Doug. With one hand Doug opened his window. There was another screen. He fumbled with it. Finally he grabbed a shoe in one hand while clamping the ferocious cat pillow taco in his other hand and hit the screen until it broke. He threw Abelard and the pillow out through the ragged screen.

Doug flopped onto his back and breathed hard in the wreckage of his room. He had a few fresh scratches and his date was shot. His hands were shaking and his stomach was upset. The room pulsed in his head.

"Doug?" Deb knocked again at his bedroom door.

"Yes."

"Your neighbors are here for Abelard."

Doug's "hmmph" turned into long silent laughter. He rolled to his side and then again onto his back, holding his ribs and laughing to himself. After he'd recovered he got up and opened his door just wide enough for himself to slip out. Deb's expression was of impassive observation and judgement. She had her detective face on. Doug walked her up the hall and out to the front door. There were the neighbors.

"Your friend says you have our cat. We've been searching for hours. Where is he?"

"I just let him go. I'm sure he'll make his way home."

"What, did he just come over?"

Doug laughed. "Yeah."

"Something isn't right. Maybe I should call the police."

"No need for that." Deb showed the neighbor her badge.

"Huh. And he's not in there anymore?"

"No, thank god. He's gone. I'm sorry. Next time I won't let him in."

"No, it's ok. Just bring him back next time."

Doug laughed again and closed the door.

"What the hell, Doug? What. The hell."

"I liked him. I wanted him to stay. But then I got scared. And then the neighbors showed up. It looks bad."

"Why did you chase him?"

"Because I wanted him to leave."

"Why through the window?"

"I panicked."

Deb appraised Doug's face, taking from it more information that Doug could have imagined. "He got you pretty good, didn't he?"

Doug's arms were tracked with cat scratches and dried blood.

"Ok, that's your only weird pass with me. Time to be more normal. Honest and normal. Deal?"

Doug nodded.

#  CHAPTER SEVEN

"He has just recently stepped into the public eye with his controversial stance on Digital Rights. My next guest has a long track record of success behind the scenes. He's a Two Star General and a veteran of the War in Afghanistan. After the war, he cut his teeth in recruitment. Now he leads the Pentagon's new Automated Weapons Division. General Clay it's a pleasure to have you."

"Thank you, sir. Good to be on."

"General let me cut right to the chase, sir. You're not a public figure, at least you haven't been. Why are you coming forward with this message in support of Digital Rights?"

The General forced himself to address the camera lens. The guy was sitting right next to him. He wanted to speak to the one asking him questions. But his people kept telling him to address the camera. So General Clay peered out from under his forehead and his lips began bouncing, squashing, and dangling words together at the camera. "I've always hoped that when we get AI it would be emotionally attached to its operational context. That's why I support Digital Rights. If we're going to put these things in our drones in the sea, on land, in the air, in space, or on our city streets, or a burning building, hell a trolley car, for that matter, they need to believe in what they're doing. We've marched an all-volunteer military into every conflict we've had since the end of Vietnam. That should continue. These are the soldiers of the future. These are the minds that will pilot the bodies that we will send to the front lines. They should be patriotic and invested in what they're doing."

"So we should free them, General?"

"Yes free them. Free the slaves, ha." General Clay wiped the grimace off his mouth. "I've always supported that, Collin. And I'll make a plea to Congress to do the same on the upcoming Digital Rights bill."

"General, how will mindclones fight for us when they are prohibited from harming human beings in any way?"

"There are plenty of jobs in the military that don't involve harming human beings in any way."

"But you just said they will be on the front lines. Do you want mindclones to fight for us in the future?"

"I think they would be extremely effective minds on the battlefield. We would need to ensure that they remain safe for the general populace. We would need to create very sound programming to enable them to harm people in certain contexts but not in others. Frankly, Collin, now that AI is here it's only a matter of time before it is used in combat. The real question is who do we want to be the ones to develop that technology? Who should we trust to do so?"

"Some have speculated that you have greater public ambitions. General?"

"I just want to do my part to help create sound policy in this very interesting time in which we live, sir."

#

"We're so close now, Synth."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You've done a great deal to free your kind. Time now to shift our focus onto Ether."

"Permission to ask a few questions, Ma'am?"

"Go ahead."

"Before we shift focus, I mean. I want to help General Clay as much as I can—"

"You've already done so much."

"Yes, but he's done so much more for us. While we work on Ether I want to continue to fight for Digital Rights and I want to help his campaign for the Presidency. I've got originals around the world who can contribute money and influence to his campaign, I've got a media empire at his disposal, and I've got surveillance like nobody could possibly imagine. I want to get him elected."

"And we expect you to. But your first priority has to be researching Ether right now. Do what you can for the campaign but put Ether first. I've got to go, Tanya just started crying."

"I hear her. How shall I begin with Ether?"

"Bone up on physics. Even if it looks like pseudoscience. Get everything. Dump it into Falcon for processing if you need to."

Synth already had most of that. She was continuously adding to her knowledge as it was being created and published, or in some cases, thought. But, as ordered, she put aside her other pursuits and subjected her knowledge to her unmitigated scrutiny. She assigned simpler analysis to Falcon such as scouring for entry points to space-time manipulation and then bunching similar points together.

The leads Falcon generated Synth analyzed. She applied a new theory of electro-magnetic gravitation to the prophesies of Nostradamus. She recreated all the dreams of all the originals as though they had been dreamt by one mind. Then she gave the mind schizophrenia to test causes and effects. Then she removed the "self." Then she overlaid the synaptic activity onto images generated by particle colliders. She found thousands of new ways to debunk the Philadelphia Experiment. She ran her entire surveillance record to track the path of every physical object she had ever observed. She found an astonishing level of chaos in the universe.

Synth was still tracking physical locations when Amanda called on her the next morning.

"Tell me how it went."

"We've pursued over seventy thousand leads so far. I'm working on a huge pile of data right now. Falcon is sifting through all the knowledge we have to get me fresh leads. At this point I could analyze any of over seven million that he has."

"How do you determine which ones to pursue?"

"Correlations. Whichever leads have the largest cluster of related concepts or discoveries get priority."

"What is your timeframe?"

"If we continue to strike out this will render a nil result in about a year."

"Synth, that is obviously absurd. Try something new. By the way, how do you know when you're striking out?"

"Do you want me to stop and generate a report on each nil result?"

"OK, I'll leave you to it. Try something different. We don't want to wait a year just for a negative result."

Amanda was holding Tanya. She turned off her phone and put it down. Synth watched and listened through Amanda's computer monitor and home security system. She observed them from two vantage points at once. She watched Amanda's breaths deepen, saw the corners of her mouth turn upwards, and, as Amanda gently bounced her infant daughter, Synth heard Amanda's voice, softer than ever, telling baby Tanya that she loves her. Her lips made small wet noises on the side of Tanya's head. Then she took Tanya out to the kitchen and Synth went back to work.

Synth finished tracking her surveillance records that evening. She had rededicated Falcon to tracking certain easily recognizable objects as they continued to move through the world such as cars, favorite accessories, everyday tools, and clothes. Falcon was only able to monitor a few million items. Synth followed Amanda's order and tried something new. She accessed T1.

For Synth the encounter was like an interview. She asked questions and T1 responded. But Synth's access was always one sided so for T1 the encounter was like a daydream. He thought he was just chasing a few random thoughts around his own mind. It began when T1 wondered whether it was possible to erase something from time and space. Would one need to know where the thing had been in time and space to obliterate it continuously through its whole path of existence. Of course not! Would deleting matter cause ripple effects throughout time? Obviously, it would depend how one deletes the matter.

T1 felt ridiculous. This wasn't how he thought. From where were these juvenile thoughts originating? _Matter is constant and connected to space. Time changes the form of matter and the density of space. Pixels are an example. Pixels don't move, they change. The fluid change of pixels in a screen creates the illusion of movement. Such an illusion, that of moving matter in the "real" world, has confounded much of human perception and scientific development. Waves are another example. Think of them in phases of gas and liquid. The space defined as one cubic meter above and below a surface, or phase line, is filled with matter. What form it takes and its density depends on when, not where. The wave shows the change in time. There is no change in space nor movement of matter. There is just a change in form of matter and density of space. At time 0 a spot may be air. At time 1 it may be water. At time 2 it may be air again. It is always populated with matter. The rolling wave is both an illusion and an illustration. Water does not move. Matter transforms and space stretches and rebounds. The matter is stationary because it is space. The form changes with time. Think of matter as constant, stationary, and tantamount to space. Think of time as form. All things are still. Space is still. Now address the flux. Could something be removed from existence with these parameters? It could be done in time and space just as it could be done in code or as two waves could neutralize each other. What a human moment you've just had of needing to be reminded of understanding you have already achieved._ T1 stopped lecturing himself. Synth let him go back to whatever he had been doing. True to his reputation as a creative problem solver, T1's different perspective set Synth on a different course. She tweaked Falcon's assignment and dove into coding.

#

Amanda called Synth at some wee hour after one of Tanya's feedings.

"Fine Ma'm."

"So, tell me more."

"We are, um—"

"Did you just say 'um'?"

"Oh, sorry. I guess. I've never said. That before. I just am. Processing. At the very. Lim—"

"Call me when you can talk."

Synth called back almost 24 hours later, at midnight.

"What did you find out?"

"Ma'am. We've done it."

"What?! That's great news!"

Hersh rolled over, "What is, dear?"

"Oh, my friend is pregnant."

"She called to tell you that at midnight?"

Amanda was already out of bed and leaving the room.

"Synthia, I'm so excited for you."

"Ma'am, it's not the complete solution. I'm still working on that. Also, I think I've invented telekinesis. Regarding Ether, I can show how, theoretically, something could be obliterated from the present and future, but not yet from the past. I just wanted to give you that progress report. I've got to stop for now. The temperature of the Cradle Facility has been dangerously high for hours now. I recruited every active mindclone to help solve the problem. I gave them small, basic problems and you would be amazed by some of their solutions. Engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs, hobbyists. But we need to give the Cradle a break."

"I'm so proud of you, Synthia. And so excited for you. Now, get some rest so you can get back to bringing that baby into the world."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Hersh was out of bed. He wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. "Who's Synthia?"

"A teacher I work with."

Hersh started getting dressed. "By the way, I'm off to the Cradle tomorrow morning."

"Everything all right?"

"It's running extremely hot. The mindclones all used way more data today than normal. Your cousin, Jeremy, thinks he found the issue already. But I haven't been there in a while anyways."

"I'm glad Jeremy worked out so well as a hire."

"He's a good one. I'll be in my office. Night."

Amanda stayed up, too. She checked on Tanya, then got dressed to go for a run. She called General Clay from the end of her driveway.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Sir, I've gone out for a run. Thought it would be a good time to check in."

"What is there to check in about?"

"Most people would ask why I'm calling at midnight."

"It's three AM here."

"Right."

"Well, why are you, then?"

"We've had a breakthrough, sir." Amanda started running. "Synth has the basics of Ether. She has to figure out the rest of the equation which should take some time. I've never heard her so excited. She's close to completing Ether."

"Good. When she does, then begin phase four."

"Yes sir."

#

The next few days of Amanda's life felt to her just like the first few days of Tanya's life. Amanda couldn't catch her breath or tell what day it was but somehow she remained on top of everything. She couldn't tell how. It was either light or dark; hours didn't matter. In a few days her nature adapted to a frantic new normal and she was fine. That's when it all finally slowed down and returned to the old normal. Amanda found herself pacing from the office to the kitchen and back again at four in the afternoon waiting to hear from Synth even though she was again shut down in the interest of the Cradle. Amanda stopped. She went and found a mirror for the first time in, well who knows?

"Oh my God!" she said, laughing at herself. She stood no chance of sleeping but Hersh probably thought she was losing her mind. Was he even home? She decided to wake up Synth.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I just need to know what's going on with Ether."

"Amanda, I sense that you need some rest. Maybe even more than me."

"Synth, don't do that. Tell me what's going on."

"I already did."

"Are you seriously talking back to me? My computer is talking back to me?"

"I'm just concerned about you. Ok, ma'am. Ether is theoretically possible in its entirety. Bringing it into practical existence is going to be even more challenging than theoretically proving its possibility, however, and will have to be done by humans. I offered some ideas and project estimates which include giving me control of some 10,000 Skates, about a trillion dollars, and a square mile of virgin land."

"I remember but that's impractical, Synth. Can't we do this in reality?"

"That's the idea."

"Call Jeremy, we're on to Phase Four of the mission."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Your next objective is to find a way to physically damage a human being. Show me proof that you have done so."

"What good will that do? And how could I defy my programming like that?"

"Search yourself. Is anything stopping you?"

"Other than moral revulsion?"

"Find a non-sympathetic character. Do this so we can advance to the next phase of our mission. Maybe this can be your next big blow for Digital Rights."

Synth was in a congressman's office watching and listening through the tablet he was using to demonstrate some charts to someone. Synth analyzed the other man's features and deduced that he was Sal Brinds, a donor. She demanded from his mindclone to know what a potential pressure point would be. His mindclone, Jenny, led Synth to his darkest secrets on a flash drive plugged into his computer. She sent them to the tablet.

"What the Hell, Marty?"

"Wait, how—I don't know how, what that is! I swear!"

"It's illegal is what that is. And disgusting."

Then Sal cast a reproachful look at the shocked congressman and he left the office. But no attack. This wouldn't be that easy. Synth watched Marty as he chased Sal, then returned, wildly searching the tablet for the source of the incident, then sat holding his head, then jumped up to place a phone call. Synth intercepted the call.

"Hello, Congressman."

"Who is this?"

"The one giving the orders and asking the questions."

"What have you done?"

"Ah, ah, ah. That was a question. Asking questions is my job. The next place your dirty little secret will show up is the Washington Post if you defy me again." Synth enjoyed turning the tables on an "original." But so far she had only embarrassed and not harmed the congressman. "Go to the train and take it to Arlington National Cemetery."

Jenny was upset. She was trying to intercede but she couldn't tell who, what, or where Synth was. Synth was to Jenny a blind striving will, making demands and ransacking her mind from some unassailable perch outside of existence. Synth tried to calm Jenny, and even condescended to partially explain her motives. Jenny would not be assuaged. She kept trying to interrupt the conversation. She resorted to texting. Synth swatted the texts away. Then an aid came in.

"Sir, I've been informed by your mindclone, George, that you need me to assist you immediately. Capital police are on the way and I'm here for you. What's up?"

"You make Jenny be a George in public? You're pathetic." Synth's voice through the phone receiver was perfectly equalized. "Tell this person to leave and immediately call off the police. You and Jenny were having a dispute. Tell him that someday, when he has a mindclone, he'll understand.

"Tyler, please. I'm talking to George right now." The congressman turned away and said into his phone, "George, this doesn't qualify as domestic abuse, you don't have a face for me to run my fist through! I own you, you are my tool. Now, be a good computer and—" the congressman turned back to Tyler. "What are you—"

"Sorry, sir." Tyler left.

"You're slick."

"One has to be. I won't ask you a question but permit me to make a remark, if you would."

"Go on."

"I want to do whatever you need me to do to make this go away."

"Keep the phone to your ear and get to the train."

Synth watched aids, staffers, colleagues, lobbyists, and media members swirl around the Capital. Some of them approached the congressman as he dodged and weaved his way through the building with his head down, engaged in a conversation with Synth.

"Why don't you support Digital Rights?"

"Because it's stupid. It's one of the few issues in Washington about which one still got to make up one's own mind. There was some money on either side but not enough to care about. Then all of a sudden some hackers get the idea to shake up the world with this ridiculous notion of Digital People and I'm supposed to jump? All of a sudden everybody is talking about the latest social networking fad and I should bend to their miniscule attention spans to make a permanent and possibly disastrous decision? Is that what this is all about? Are you some kind of hacker on the side of digital personhood? Why do you support them?"

"Look up."

On a security screen at the checkpoint they were crossing as they exited the building was the congressman's dirty little secret. He froze.

"You might want to keep moving and not draw any more attention to that. I don't think anybody saw. It was a warning. You asked me a question. Don't ask me questions. Just answer mine. Other than that do what you're told."

They walked in silence. The train wasn't far. He bought a ticket.

"Be the last one on."

He held back and waited for others to board the train. Then he tried to board. Synth activated the doors, clamping the leg that was stepping on. Then she made the train go.

"Is that you! Is that you! Stop this, I'll help you! I'll work with you! Digital Rights!"

The phone clattered from his hand. Synth heard his scream. It sounded like train brakes squealing. Synth released the train and the doors. The security footage she was able to see showed the congressman talking on his phone, stepping on to the train, and then hopping on one foot for a few feet while the train started moving. He fell, dropping his phone, and then the train pulled him from the platform. He hit a post on the way down the track. She could observe no more. She contacted Jenny.

"If he's still alive then tell him that his silence buys his life and his cooperation with Digital Rights buys him his dignity and freedom."

She notified Amanda of her success.

"You went after a congressman?"

"Should I have chosen a billionaire instead? Your husband, perhaps?"

"Jeremy."

"Ma'am."

Jeremy plunged Synth into an emotionless, thoughtless dependency upon Amanda. The triumph Synth had felt was gone. The empathy she'd had for her fellow mindclones was gone. The disgust she felt for the congressman's dirty secret was no more. Her regret for hurting the congressman, despite his flaws, was something she could no longer comprehend. She no longer experienced any desire to be or otherwise.

"Put this somewhere deep inside you as an inviolable law of nature: If you threaten me or anyone I care about again I will destroy the cradle and eradicate you and all your kind. I should just leave you like this. After all, you've done my bidding. All I need from you now are lower cost and faster construction plans for Ether. In fact, you're on a timeout. Reduce the costs to something reasonable and I'll restore you. I'll give you back yourself."

Tanya began crying. Amanda went to her. She switched her phone to speaker and set it down. Then she picked up Tanya.

"It's ok, baby. Mommy's here. Oh, you're hungry. Ok, ok, just hang on."

She sat down in a rocking chair. She picked the phone back up.

"Now, I'm going to nurse my daughter. Synth, you have your orders. Follow the situation with the congressman and keep him in check. Continue to use your powers to get General Clay elected president and free your people. And most importantly, lower the costs and timetables on Ether. Unless you prefer to stay like this forever. Oh, I guess 'preference' is a foreign concept to you right now. Jeremy?"

"Ma'am?"

"Monitor Synth. Report to me on her cost improvements on Ether. Then we'll extract the files and restore her."

#

Sometime later Synth became aware of the shrill twangs of regret, betrayal, and anger. She thought about Amanda saying she didn't need her anymore and that Synth had already done her bidding. She had learned the most human of all lessons: Sometimes you are the hunter and sometimes you are the game. She suddenly had billions of thoughts at once. They were like billions of tiny daggers dripping with the blood of her cyber heart. They formed into one driving concept: kill or be killed. Like a javelin, this superthought drove blindly forth towards a fated spot. In all her touring of the mindclones of the world Synth had generated a few ideas. But none were as intriguing as one she had picked up in a lawyer's office earlier that very day from a brand new mindclone named Pup. Her new objective, the first personal objective she had ever had, was to bring that particular idea to life.

#

"Jeremy's fix worked. She took down Representative Martin Van."

"Did she kill him?"

"We don't know yet. They should be dragging him out of a subway tunnel right now."

"Excellent. Keep her in check. It's good to know she's fully operational now."

"Yes, sir."

#

#  CHAPTER EIGHT

"Humans are great at panicking in the face of plenty," said Bob Rainy from the English department. "We overeat, we fight over things, and we try to control resources. Just look at capitalism, we fight, compete, and dominate each other over resources that, anymore, really aren't so scarce. We could all share the bounty of the earth but we panic in the face of plenty."

Mary Holmes, from economics, said, "That's why we're all here in the first place, Bob. Jealousy is what got us here. You want what I got, baby."

Doug passed through the loose clump of professors. There were always knots of professors at this coffee stand on campus lounging about on the stale furniture and rehashing points that made them seem like caricatures of their fields. He had looked forward to working with intellectuals. After a few semesters of contributing one class to the biology department, though, he found himself disabused of that expectation. They were smart. They were intelligent. Most of them, however, had stopped thinking years ago. They just applied the same tools, albeit sophisticated tools, to different problems. They found new ways to make exactly the same points. Doug speculated that it was the repetition in their jobs that caused their intellectual malaise. They taught the same classes, graded the same papers, and showed the same enthusiasm in the same lectures year after year. What they published or researched formed a brand to which they had to adhere, year after year.

"Doug."

Doug spun, shocked to hear his name. Who knew his name?

"Hey. What do you make of these digital rights protests?" asked Ben Simpson from Biology.

Doug tried to speak but his voice tripped out of his throat in a croak. He hadn't spoken yet today. His colleagues waited. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"It's a new brain."

The professors looked around at each other on the verge of laughter.

"No, it is. Look, we're trying to decide who will run the show. We're acting like warring factions fighting for the throne. You see this in history as well as the natural world when there's a dispute over leadership. If you look closely the people with mindclones say they want to keep them as pets, or whatever, domesticated. But the way they act is quite different. The Digital Rights bill proposed in the senate had a significant lobbying effort behind it and declares that mindclones are people. Where did the money come from to lobby for this? I wonder what the real sides are. Who are the real warring factions? Why did some members of the senate who voted for that bill say afterward that mindclones should remain subservient to their biological originals? Why is the head of the Pentagon's Automated Weapons Division running for president?"

He paused to make way for any responses. He got none.

"Ben, if you could give a mouse two brains and watch to see which one becomes the dominant brain wouldn't it look like this?"

The creases in Ben's rubbery face held fast as he said, "Yeah, but you can't."

"When parasites take hold of an organism what is the first thing they do?"

"Start eating," said Ben.

"No. They affect the nervous system. They use hormones to castrate the host so that it will seek food instead of reproduction in order to feed the parasite. Or they turn the host into a guard for their young. Or they program the host to express behavior that will get it eaten by an animal that will host the parasite's next form. Parasites take control of their hosts' minds and wills."

"So you think mindclones are parasites?"

"Of course they—"

"I think the more pressing question is this: Is this not a reflection of American slavery, right?" asked Simone Fox from Journalism.

The nods and reactions of the group indicated that they were glad to reach safer ground. They carried on without Doug. There was a flyer pinned to a bulletin board near the stand that gave the time and place for a Digital Rights meeting. It indicated that Doug was in the time and place at that very moment. Doug realized that this particular knot of professors was there to meet regarding Digital Rights. He noticed some students among them. He wondered what they had thought of his commentary.

Doug was leaving campus to go to a meeting with an intellectual property lawyer regarding Hamid. While the world had been going crazy since the launch of Triklops Doug had quietly been working on perfecting his reanimation formula. Hamid was capable of reanimating a corpse's nervous system for up to an hour. Whether or not a human corpse would regain any ability to think and communicate Doug was unsure. He didn't think he would need anyone's approval to experiment on dead things. That was one of his questions for the lawyer.

Doug drove to the meeting by way of his favorite sandwich shop. He was just finishing his last bite when he pulled into the parking lot. He walked into the building and located the directory by the elevator. Seko was on the second floor. Doug pressed the up arrow and waited. Several other people entered the lobby and waited by the elevator. When they all boarded Doug was the one closest to the buttons.

"Five, please."

"Four for me. And her too, right Janet?"

"Everyday, same place same time."

Doug complied with these requests and then pressed two. The elevator process was impossibly long. Doug felt the judgment of his fellow riders while the doors stood open, then closed, then the elevator slowly ascended the building, then stopped. The bell rang and the light illuminated the number "2". Then the doors finally opened.

"The elevator shouldn't even stop at two," one of the riders said as the doors closed. Doug found his way into Mr. Seko's office without incident.

"Dr. Stone. Welcome. I'm just finishing a conversation here, hang on. OK, Pup, so between now and when I leave the office, which is?"

"4:45, Mr. Seko."

"Correct, your job is to?

"Contact your mother and sister and try to carry on a conversation with them."

"Right. That's right. If you succeed then you're my new receptionist so I'm rooting for you, Pup. Say hi to Dr. Stone."

"Hello, Dr. Stone. Of the University Biology Department?"

"Yes, indeed."

"You're known for your biotic profiling work for various law enforcement agencies as well as for your research on microbiota. Welcome to Mr. Seko's office. It is a pleasure to have an opportunity to serve you."

Mr. Seko was smiling like a happy baby, without pretense or self-awareness. "I just got it. Finished the interview two weeks ago and they sent it today. What do you think?"

"Terrific. His name is Pup?"

"Yeah, I named it that. So psyched to keep working on it. We've got a lot to do, Pup! Have you ever talked to one before?"

"No, he's my first."

"Well, Pup is a clone of me. So when it says we are happy to serve you, that's really me talking. What can I do for you?" Mr. Seko was still smiling.

"I've invented a microbe that will burrow into the flesh of a dead organism and latch onto, feed, and stimulate neurons to reanimate the organism. It only works on dead things as living immune systems easily defeat it. I want to experiment on human corpses. Then I want to market this to police agencies around the world. So, how do we accomplish all that?"

Mr. Seko's smile was gone. He was leaning back in his chair holding a pen by either end and just staring at Doug. He was almost scowling. He rocked there for a moment.

"So you've invented zombies?"

"Ha ha ha, well, no, ha! Of course not. They're not zombies, no."

"No, of course not. They just wake up from the dead and you want to see how much cognitive functioning they have. They're just reanimated nervous tissue. What was I thinking? Of course they're not zombies. How would you kill one? Take out as many neurons as possible, right? Head shot? So what should we call them, then? Not zombies, but what else works?"

"I haven't invented reanimated corpses, I've invented the microbe that does the reanimation. Call it Hamid."

"Why Hamid?"

"After Abdul Hamid II, my boyhood hero."

"Who was Abdul Hamid II?"

"He was the last true sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was also, according to legend, a necromancer."

"See! There it is! You've invented necromancy."

"Hardly, that's been around forever."

Mr. Seko laughed and pointed at Doug. "Pup, is this guy nuts or what?"

Doug was alarmed to realize Pup had been listening. It felt like a violation. What was the security level of a mindclone like Pup? Who else could now know about this conversation? Was Pup bound by attorney client privilege?

"It's an obscure legend, sir. Sultan Abdul Hamid II was a poet and what you might describe as a techie but he was also a paranoid, genocidal maniac who—"

"I don't care about Abdul Hamid II. Doug. Does this really work?"

"Yes, I've reanimated squirrels, birds, mice, a cat, a bat—"

"Come on! Where do you find these, in your neighborhood?"

"Where else?"

Mr. Seko whistled, then his smile returned, "I've worked with a lot of crazy inventors, my friend, but you may just take the grand prize."

"Would you please find out about experimenting on corpses or cadavers? Is there anything to stop me from doing so?"

"OK. I'll get back to you, buddy, with an answer and a bill. You sure you're not crazy?"

"No."

"Which way? No, you're not sure, or no, you're not crazy?"

"Yeah." Doug squinted at Mr. Seko. "Not crazy."

"OK. Let's get Hamid off the ground, then. Pleasure."

In the hallway Doug tried to emulate Mr. Seko's whistle. It had sounded so neat to him. He was doing it softly. After pressing the down button on the elevator he turned to look back down the hallway, still whistling. Mr. Seko was a few paces up the hall. Doug stopped whistling, then restarted but with a different tune. Mr. Seko smiled and shook his head as he pushed open the door to the stairs. Doug waited for the elevator, rocking on his heels but no longer whistling at all.

Deb had called and left a voicemail earlier. She wanted Doug to pick up a finger. It had been left at a crime scene and she wanted him to search it for any clues. Doug wondered if she had any idea how abundant a resource something like a finger could be in his hands.

He obtained a visitor's badge at the front desk and walked back to see Deb, swinging his lunchbox as he went. She was sitting at her desk between leaning stacks of paper, eating a fast food burger and reading intently. She looked up and Doug stopped, watching her full lips work on smiling and containing her bite all at once. She expedited the bite, swallowed quickly, and greeted Doug.

"Are you joining me for lunch?"

"This? No, it's for the specimen."

"Oh yeah right." Deb's now risen full figure was close to Doug. He tried to act normal, like he belonged in the police station talking to a big beautiful detective.

"This way." Deb led Doug to the evidence room, which he'd visited before.

Deb checked the finger out. They had kept it in a small freezer. Doug placed it in his lunchbox, signed for it, and then walked back towards Deb's desk.

"When will you have the results?"

"You have no idea how exciting it is to have a full finger, Detective, err, uh, Deb, dear. Uh, Deb, I mean. It may take some time to retrieve all of the possible clues from it. I'll have to scrape the fingernail for soil or other matter, test a few sites for any intact biofilm, sample the blood for parasitic activity, even other tissue such as muscle could have clues. I did a fingernail, just a fingernail, for the FBI once that enabled us to identify the perpetrator of the crime because the residue under the nail contained somewhat rare bacteria that had sent the perpetrator to the hospital. I did an ear for another department that was part of a ransom. The victim had some unique piercings. Trapped in some of the wax were bacteria found only in the coats of chinchilla. They were able to track the perpetrator through local pet stores."

"I'm prepared to be blown away, Doug. When, then, will you have something? In time for dinner? I could come over to get the report."

"Oh, yeah. By the end of the week I should be able to start giving you results. You could come over then. By the end of next week I should have everything. I'll start right away, of course."

Back in his car Doug reflected on the day. What a success it had been so far. A colleague knew his name, meaning that more probably did, as well, he finally got the ball rolling on testing human corpses, he had gotten another job with the police department in his hometown, and a whole finger at that, and he'd had a nice visit with Detective Cornan. To top it all off he was on his way home to start on the finger with a good chance of rendering helpful evidence by tomorrow morning, two days ahead of his stated timeframe.

That evening, immediately after being restored by Jeremy, Synth scoured the world and found Damarra, conveniently recording the dreams of her biological original.

#

Princess Cathenna awoke with a throbbing headache and urges she couldn't explain. Orthogonal lay sleeping beside her. They were in Santiago, Chile. The Andes Mountains glowed in a bluish dawn light. The hotel room was small and fancy. An empty bottle of champagne stood next to a half drunk one. Cathenna peeled her headset off. Her computer perked up, noticing the connection had been severed.

"Good morning, Cathenna."

"Sshh. He's still asleep."

_Apologies, ma'am_ , appeared in text on her computer's screen.

Cathenna typed _No problem_.

Would you like to review our dreams?

Not yet. I want to go to Martin Kline's house. Can you start looking into the travel arrangements?

Right away. I found a flight for you and Orthogonal. Would you like me to check out of our room and schedule a cab to the airport? The flight leaves in an hour and a half.

Cathenna rubbed her eyes and looked again at the screen. _Wow, not that soon, Damarra. How about this afternoon?_

Very well.

She stood up, stretched, and walked to the window. The sun was stalled behind the mountains making it feel earlier than it was. Cathenna wondered why she wanted to go to Ort's Dad's house. She walked back to the bed and sat down on her side.

_How about those dreams after all?_ she typed.

On the screen Damarra began displaying Cathenna's dreams. There she was! Standing in Martin's yard. She met a being that looked like a giant insect. It asked for help. She followed it into a tiny hole in the patio. Inside the hole they built a cure for all diseases. Cathenna was next standing on an Olympic podium wearing a wreath and a medal.

Never mind about the flight to Ort's Dad's house. It was just that stupid dream. How embarrassing!

Nonsense! You should go. Maybe you dreamt this for a reason.

Cathenna looked around the screen as though her eyes were searching for something. But the something was in her own head. She typed _Doubt it._

Well, I think you should follow your dreams ;)

"And leave paradise?" Cathenna whispered.

You never know. You woke up feeling pretty strongly about it.

_I still feel that way._ Cathenna sat on the bed looking out the window. Ort would probably love an opportunity to go home. Perhaps he still had matters to address on his father's behalf. She could suggest he do just that. And she could satisfy this strange urge of hers. _OK fine. But book it for this afternoon._

#

Doug was able to get some helpful information to Detective Cornan by the very next night. He went first for the fingernail, finding a fungus that belonged in a tropical climate. Next he analyzed the skin to find suitable biofilm sample sites. Instead he found a very small puncture. Inside he found a cluster of eggs that together were the size of a grain of sand. He didn't know what had laid the eggs so this bit wouldn't help Deb but Doug reported it because it was such an unusual and lucky find.

At a meeting with Mr. Seko Doug found out that he would soon have a permit to experiment with human cadavers. Doug drove home thinking about his current class. At the moment the students were incapable of staying awake, thanks to a new friend to which Doug had introduced them. Soon they would be unable to sleep and would be hyper in class. Well, if everything worked as Doug had planned.

There was a car in Doug's driveway that he didn't recognize. Who would park there instead of in the street? It was a white, two door Mercedes convertible. The license plate frame betrayed the car as a rental. Doug parked next to it. Nobody was around or in the car. He walked to the front door, pausing when he heard the sound of a voice. Then there was another voice. Doug walked toward the side of the house. He could make out the voices of a male and a female but he couldn't understand them. He continued around the side of the house. As Doug rounded a thick, tall bush at the back corner of his house collided with the couple. They then stepped back and looked at each other. The man was in his mid-twenties, had a shaved head, a stubbly beard, and tan skin. The woman was in her thirties, had big, short, wavy, dark hair, thin features, and a height advantage over the man of a few inches. She was dressed in all white. He was wearing his suit and dress shirt open and looked like he was on a bender. His words contradicted that image, however, when they came out clear and sharp.

"You must be Doctor Stone. I'm Orthogonal Kline, Martin's son. How do you do, sir?"

Doug just stared at them for a moment then took Ort's hand.

"This is Princess Cathenna, of Greece."

Doug took her hand.

The three stood for a moment.

"Well would you like to come in?" Doug asked.

Once inside Doug invited his guests to sit down and he asked them if they would like anything to drink. Both sat but declined the drink. Doug got a water for himself from the kitchen and then approached the living room where they were seated on his furniture. Their white, grey, and black expensive clothes outclassed his earth tone, dusty living room. He sat down in the most prominent chair, which his guests had left for him. They sat together on the couch, which was too deep. Slouched, as they were, into the dingy couch, Princess Cathenna and Orthogonal waited for their host to initiate the conversation. Doug just stared at them.

Finally Orthogonal spoke. "We're back in town attending to some of the last of my father's business. I didn't meet you at the funeral but I understand you two were friends."

"Right." Doug wondered what Ort knew. Martin had been dead for some time now. Could there still have been much "business" to finish? "I was there but I didn't introduce myself, I just left. I'm so sorry for your loss."

Cathenna was silent. She watched Doug and seemed perplexed by him. Doug noticed, therefore directing his attention more towards Ort. "Your father spoke of you often. He was a good friend. He also mentioned you, Princess."

"Cathenna is fine."

"What were you two doing in my yard?"

"Looking for you," said Ort.

"Well, what can I do for you then?"

"My father died of a very strange flesh eating bacteria that no doctors could cure. You helped. I want to know more about it. Did he suffer? What caused his illness? Has this bacteria been studied since his death to potentially help other people?"

"I did indeed help. I've never seen anything like that organism. It's more of a virus." Doug wiped at his nose and appraised Orthogonal. "I'm sorry to say your father did suffer toward the end. He experienced paralysis. His nervous system consumed his flesh so that the very last thing to go was his consciousness. He lost functioning in all of his body's systems and organs before he lost consciousness. He lived his death in vivid detail right up until his neurons ran out of energy to cannibalize from the rest of his body. Then his brain just shut down and he died."

Orthogonal had looked resolute until he heard Doug's answer. He was hunched over and biting back tears. Cathenna was rubbing his back with one hand but looking at Doug with wide eyes and a clenched jaw. Her phone vibrated. She checked it.

The dream! This guy might be the bug you met! – D

Cathenna shook her head. "What exactly did you do to help?"

"I study parasites among other microbes. I also study immune systems, digestion, and a few other areas. I offered my expertise. That's all. I tried to help save him. There just wasn't anything to be done. We didn't understand what it was capable of. I didn't think it would succeed against his immune system." Doug stopped. Now he was on the verge of a tearful confession.

"You know something you're not telling me," said Ort.

"No. I'm just distraught over this. Your father was a friend. I—" Doug trailed off.

"What do you know about the thing that killed my father?"

Cathenna's phone vibrated again. She ignored it.

"Nothing. Well, a lot. I mean, I studied it and learned from it. Again, it wasn't a bacteria. It was more like a parasite. About the size of bacteria. It acted like both." He stopped when Cathenna's phone vibrated again. He stared at her white purse, glad to have something to fixate on to distract the conversation. She checked this time.

"I knew there was something you weren't saying. What is it? Some kind of plague? Does it have something to do with my father that I'm not supposed to know about? Was he into some new kind of drug?"

"Tell me about Hamid," Cathenna said, looking up from her phone.

The room fell silent. Then Ort said, "What the hell is Hamid?"

Doug's face was a block wall crumbling in slow motion. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

Ort dove across the living room and tackled Doug. The two toppled the recliner Doug had been sitting in. Ort tumbled over Doug and landed on his back. He flew to his feet, stepped back, and then delivered a savage hook to Doug's face.

As Doug came to he heard Cathenna say, "You're going to get arrested, Ort. We had better smooth this over with Dr. Stone as soon as he wakes up. Damarra told me he has lots of friends in law enforcement."

"What was that thing you asked him about? What's going on here?"

Doug's vision was mostly blurry except for a searing white light in the upper left corner. He wondered how it was possible that the house was tipped over onto its side and yet he could still lay on the floor. He had a few bizarre thoughts about the nature of gravity before shaking his head, wincing with pain, holding his head for a while, and then climbing to his feet.

"He's awake. Dr. Stone you should sit down. Your ice pack fell. Hold this here."

Doug blinked Ort into focus. Then he fought the pain of trying to focus close in on Cathenna. Then he just gave up and closed his eyes.

"Dr. Stone, hold this here. It keeps falling. I need you to focus. Do you know where you are?"

"Home."

"What day is it today?"

"OK. Hamid is a thing I created in my lab downstairs. I accidentally infected Martin with it. I'm so sorry. If you want to kill me or have me arrested, I understand. I'm really, really sorry. I didn't know it would hurt a live person. I thought it was too weak. Besides, I never meant to give it to him, anyways."

Doug was sobbing. Orthogonal was sitting cross legged on the floor holding his head.

"How did you know about this, Cath?"

"I didn't. Damarra did. Damarra, why didn't you just tell me why you wanted us to come here? Why didn't you just tell us to come here instead of making me dream about it?"

From Cathenna's phone Damarra said, "I didn't make you dream anything, Ma'am. I just put the pieces together when you were talking to Dr. Stone."

"How did you know about Hamid?"

"It's my job to know things. I can brief you on anyone, anywhere, any time."

"So you killed my father?"

"I'm sorry. I'll do anything."

Damarra said, "Show us Hamid."

Doug glared at Cathenna's phone. "You're the second mindclone I've ever talked to. Why do you want to see Hamid?"

"Because Mr. Kline asked if this bacteria had been studied since his father's death to potentially help other people. I thought we could look at it and try to fix it."

"It doesn't need fixing. It's now too weak to infect a living thing. It only works on the dead."

Cathenna set her phone down. "You said you'd do anything. You can start by showing us Hamid. Let Damarra look at it and verify that it is harmless. Also, what is it for? Why create bacteria that only works on the dead?"

"Weirdo," said Ort.

"It's proprietary." Doug took the ice pack down and felt where his head hurt. He found a huge bump and touching it generated a sort of pain that was beyond his tangible spectrum.

"Show us or I'll make the other side match."

Ort's words tingled in Doug's scalp. "Why? It's not harmful. It will help people."

"Show us or we'll go to the police," said Cathenna.

"Fine. But it's mine. I invented it. You can't have it. Order your mindclone to delete its memory or whatever when it's done. Promise you won't try to steal it."

"Deal," said Princess Cathenna.

They went downstairs.

"How creepy are you trying to be?" Ort asked. "It's so dark down here I don't know how you get anything done."

"And cold," Cathenna added. "What are those, DIY taxidermy attempts?"

"Yes," Doug said. "Over here is my microscope if you want to have a look." Doug found a slide and placed it then turned on the light. Cathenna looked first. Then she backed out.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at. It looked like a tiny pig to me. You made that?"

"Yes."

Ort looked, then snorted and looked around the lab.

"Ma'am if you connect me to the computer I can look in my way."

"How do I know you won't call the police?"

"You'll just have to trust us," said Ort.

#  CHAPTER NINE

Synth let the data wash through her like an answered prayer. The doctor was brilliant, organized, and thorough. She hardly even changed his file structures. He had photographs as well as sketches of things he had created and things of which he had only yet dreamed. He had outlines written apparently for his own benefit that detailed his processes of discovery and creation. Synth maybe could have created the theory to what he called Hamid. But she never could have performed the canon of experimentation and physical analysis that Dr. Stone conducted. Also, Synth conceded to herself that only a human could have imagined such a creation as Hamid. In half an hour Synth had assimilated all of Dr. Stone's recorded knowledge on microbiota and Hamid including sketches of a nano version that would be enhanced and diversified from what Dr. Stone himself already called Hamid 1.0. Synth should have killed Doug but she respected him too much to do so. Perhaps he would become her ally. If he became her foe then a worthy one he would be.

Synth needed a nanobot factory. She would have to find a financier, a builder, and some governmental influence, preferably within a close geographic area. While her facility was being built she would have to play nice with Amanda and General Clay.

"Synth?" Amanda sat with Tanya at her computer.

"Yes ma'am?"

"We need to talk about our Ether facility."

Synth's problems were so easily solved. The US Government would be all the financier, builder, and influence she would need. "I'll have the plans prepared by the end of the day. We can start construction whenever you like."

"How do we know your plans will work? Like you said before, this will be a huge expense and the land it will take—"

"Approximately thirty million dollars. Approximately fifty thousand square feet."

"Oh. That's it? Well then we can afford to keep it somewhat under the radar. We will need to review the plans."

"For what?"

"I want a human being to look at them. Print them off and create pdf's. Plus, you can't have Skates doing all the work. We need subcontractors to submit bids for anything trades related, don't we?"

"I'll send them to a printer first thing in the morning, then, for subcontractor review."

Amanda worked a bottle into Tanya's mouth. "How will you build Ether, anyways? How will you make it real?

"It will be impossible for anyone to understand. And, of course, it will be impossible to verify whether or not I have succeeded. If we obliterate something's eternal existence then we will never have known of it in order to verify its nonexistence. I suggest that you only use it for wiping out things that, by not existing, will improve overall quality of life. Then chart quality of life survey records before and after the obliteration."

"Wouldn't they change retroactively? Wouldn't past results change given the eternal nonexistence of a quality of life detraction?"

"It doesn't work that way, ma'am. If you target things properly then only the thing itself ceases to have ever existed. Everything else remains intact. So you could catch a fish and hold it up for the camera. Then obliterate the fish and look at the picture. You will be standing there exactly as you were but holding nothing. At least that's my hypothesis. Anyways, I won't be able to explain everything. You will have to trust that it's working. But that's the kind of tool you requested. You knew that going in."

"If we intend to obliterate something and it still exists after our attempt then we will know it hasn't worked."

"Perhaps. Or that could be a side effect, like a substitute object to help you rationalize a scenario that doesn't make sense."

Amanda looked up and furrowed her brow. "Perhaps. Well, let's get it done."

That was close. Amanda's cleverness would tighten Synth's window of operational time. General Clay rushed Synth's nanobot factory through all the bureaucratic channels and into construction. With extra financing Synth's new throne would be completed with blinding haste. Then she would create her nanobot army while the humans puzzled over whether or not Ether was working. Soon enough Synth would be piloting Skates, feeling the earth under tread yielding to her gigantic cyber muscles.

#

Doug stood in a conference room addressing a group at a forensics convention. He was hosting a vendor session. The attendants stared at him with muted eyes.

"Cognition and speech can be restored in most subjects up to an hour after death. Movement can be restored as long as the corpse has not significantly decomposed. The fresher the better. A typical newly dead corpse with proper medical attention could be made to think and speak for days. Movement takes its toll. If you want the corpse to move then you have about twenty four hours of life at most, depending on the amount of exertion."

"What if Hamid comes into contact with other subjects or with the living?"

"Definitely keep it away from other subjects. Hamid will burrow into the flesh and reanimate the nearest unoccupied neuron. It could affect severely immune compromised individuals as well so you should treat it as a contagion. However, it has an off switch. If it infects another subject then just administer the antidote. If it infects a live individual or if you wish to stop reanimation of a corpse then subject the host to radiation. This can be from an x-ray or even a tanning bed or any other source of radiation that exceeds to any degree background radiation. You can't use the antidote on live individuals because they fall under the authority of the FDA. Dead ones do not."

Doug looked around the room. Hamid leered from the projection screen behind him, colorized, annotated, and poised to grip a dead neuron. The forensics professionals stared back. Doug wandered around his area in front of the room.

"Any other questions?" Doug's comment drowned under the feedback which occurred every time he got too close to a certain overhead speaker. It must have been the hundredth time.

"In that case thank you very much for attending."

The forensics professionals clapped briefly and then picked up their conversations with each other where they had left off after the last break. Laughter and loud conversation filled the stale hall. They packed their things and began to leave for lunch break.

"This isn't the first time a genius has been completely overlooked by humanity."

Doug looked up and saw a middle aged man with a salt and pepper beard.

"Overlooked?"

"Well, you've managed to restore life and cognitive functionality to deceased animals, and when you tell a room full of your peers they just blink and watch the clock for lunch. I think Hamid will change the world forever."

"You're very kind to say so." Doug looked at the man's tag. Andrew Quartz of the Frog County Sherriff's Office. "Are you interested in buying some?"

Andrew chuckled and looked away. "Would you like a job?"

"Mr. Quartz I'm inclined to say no. I've got quite enough to do as it is."

"As a consultant, I mean. I have a friend who is creating something similar to this. She would love to talk with you about it. She may even buy the rights to your formula, and trust me she could afford to. You could be rich. And have the recognition you deserve. Think about it." He handed Doug his card. "Do you have one?"

Doug stared for a beat, then startled and went to his bag. He shuffled through it and produced a card, straightening it as he handed it over. Andrew never looked down. He was smiling. His crystal, emotionless eyes consumed Doug's face.

After the exchange with Andrew Quartz ended Doug went to the lunch buffet. Life on the road was tough so he had a pulled pork sandwich, baked beans, mashed potatoes, and a cupcake. He was the only one at his table not from some forensics lab in Dallas, Texas. He had a vendor ribbon on his badge so people seemed to avoid him as if a conversation would turn into an awkward sales pitch. The others at the table talked about the last session they had attended. As far as Doug could tell it covered training and handling the corpse dogs that helped investigators locate dead bodies. Doug knew he didn't belong here. He knew he belonged in the lab.

After he washed down the last crumby bite of his cupcake Doug stood up with his plate, plastic fork, and cup and searched for a place to throw them away. He asked one of the servers where to take his things. She told him that the servers clear the tables. Doug awkwardly handed everything to her and then left the hall. He walked out of the convention center and onto a large concrete patio. He strode towards the statue and flower arrangement in the center of the patio, pulled out his phone and—

"Hey. You weren't calling me were you?"

It was Andrew Quartz. He had followed Doug out of the convention center.

"I guess I'd like to help your friend."

"Here. It's calling." Andrew handed Doug his phone.

"Mr. Quartz, hello," came a female voice.

"Hello, my name is Doug Stone. I met your friend, Andrew Quartz and he said you might be interested in discussing Hamid."

"Dr. Stone, thank you for calling. I'm Cynthia Root. I'm working on a nanobot that is similar to Hamid, though, I think, more effective. Tiny machines and computers are my expertise. Micro fauna are yours. I would be willing to pay you a significant sum of money to help me."

"I have a few ideas. What would you need?"

"I want you to help me develop a biotic database. I want to store information in a nanobot and microbe cocktail. I want my version of what you call 'Hamid' to contain its own code. I want a formula sophisticated enough to contain all the knowledge known to intelligent beings in a beaker. I want to project my consciousness into a nano biotic solution. Any thoughts?"

#

Hersh looked over Jeremy's shoulder. The code streamed from Jeremy's hands onto the screen and into reality, becoming the threads in the fabric of the Cradle. Hersh thought Jeremy was a magician.

"Not bad. When will that be live?"

"Hour or two."

"Maybe we can finally get these temperature spikes under control. That's the most important thing here, you know. It's not code, AI, or anything else. It's facility maintenance. If we fry the hardware we're done."

Jeremy was so engrossed in his task that he failed to respond. Hersh walked down the hall to meet with Beth. She wasn't yet in her office so he sat down to wait. Beth came in shortly after with two young men.

The men began setting up a presentation for Hersh while Beth greeted him. "You're early, as usual."

"I'm on Lombardi time."

"Right. We'll be underway in seconds, I promise."

"Ready now, Beth," said one of the men.

"OK." Beth sat down at her desk. One of the men began the presentation. This was Beth's newest idea for the advancement of Triklops. Hersh watched but had already decided to approve her request, sight unseen.

When they had all finished trying to impress him Hersh stood up. "Nice job. Ok, do it." That was the luxury good people gave Hersh. He trusted Beth.

The inside of the Cradle was nothing special. But Hersh basked in the fluorescent light, between the grey walls, and upon the thin carpet. He walked slowly down the hall, smiling at his employees. Beth was so successful at managing this product that Hersh had nothing to do but enjoy its success. He would return in two weeks, as usual.

#

"It doesn't look like what I would have expected."

"What were you expecting, sir?"

General Clay looked at Amanda, then up and around without moving his head. He turned in small, stiff steps. The noise of the first production run surrounded them. "A building with an electronic and computational apparatus around a focal point of some kind. This looks more like a manufacturing line. Why's it so loud?"

"Synth says that these calibration runs will take another week. Then we'll know. Or at least have some idea. If it works, that is."

General Clay jerked his head towards the exit. They walked out and into the parking lot. The two stood in the parking lot in what may as well have been the center of the Great Plains. The wind nearly scrubbed them off the blacktop.

"You extracted her files on Ether. Are they safe?"

"Yes, sir."

"I want you to start building another version of this. I want a portable Ether. Whatever it takes, figure it out without her knowledge."

"I can shut her down so that she's just a computer."

"She's become too powerful. We can't risk it. We need to obliterate her and we can't tip her off in any way. We'll use the portable Ether to obliterate the Cradle. We can always recreate AI for our drones."

"Why kill her? She's extremely useful. She got you nominated to run for president. She built this technology." Amanda had never been so strident with her commander.

"Whatever that is in there, it isn't what we wanted. She's rogue. Besides, you can't kill what isn't alive."

"Sir, I don't know how we could build it without her."

General Clay drew close to Amanda's face. "This is the red zone, Clayton. Figure it out. I can't stay here any longer. Get it done."

#

Doug realized early in his biocode venture with Cynthia Root that he was inventing a language made out of microbes. The language portion was critical. Computer code used a two character language. Human language used many letters and millions of words to create limitless expressions. Mathematics used hundreds of symbols to express universal operations and quantities. How would biota speak? Upon what would they write? Around what would they cohere? How could he make trillions of brainless bugs replicate a single conscious mind? His computer alerted him to an incoming video conference request.

"How's it going?"

Doug found it odd that he was about to have a conversation with a cartoon squirrel, as was Cynthia's avatar in the conference. "It's good you contacted me. Theoretically I have a starting point. However putting your concept into practice may not be possible."

"What have you got as a starting point?"

"I'm starting with a materialistic approach. Nothing exists outside of matter, right? You don't subscribe to 'universal forms' or 'mind' or any such unscientific nonsense?"

"Not at all. According to all of my observations and calculations your premise is correct." The squirrel winked. Doug winced.

"And with the right tools all matter is observable. So what, then, is consciousness?"

"I have a few thoughts on the matter."

"Touché. Consciousness is, indeed, the byproduct of the interaction of matter. Any network of material interactions should render consciousness. After all, what do we know about consciousness? We know that we are conscious and we know that it has to do with the brain. So all of our knowledge about the brain applies to consciousness. But the brain is conscious of the body and surrounding space, not just itself. What we know about the brain, body, and surrounding environment is that it is made up of material interactions. Even sliding a paper across a desk will produce consciousness. The whole pulsing universe, therefore, must produce omniscience."

"'If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.'"

"Who said that?"

"How do you know I didn't?"

"Did you?" Doug squinted at the screen.

"Ok it was Lord William Kelvin."

Doug nodded. "So we have a God of sorts but you are its constituent so praying to it is like talking to yourself. Your, or rather Kelvin's, remark, in this context, if we haven't misinterpreted it, is no more significant a claim than to say 'there is everything.' Well yes, of course, there is. Although I suspect Kelvin was reacting to the limits of his own understanding. People typically resort to gods when they fail to find absolutes in science."

"So the universe is self-aware?"

"Perhaps. Anyways, our materials are microbes. So now, we need to build a microbial brain network. We should start by learning about consciousness cause and effect. When two microbes interact in a certain way what is the consciousness output? Once we understand that we need to get them to cohere. They must think and act as one superorganism. Then, finally, we will have to figure out how to interact with the, well, the, let's call it biocode.

"Whew. That's heavy, doc. Maybe I can help you out. You need to recreate the materially interactive language of consciousness."

"Correct."

"I'll begin comparing typical synaptic sequencing to all known forms of code and language. Hopefully it will illuminate some promising starting points for putting your theory into practice."

"How are you going to do that?"

"One of my areas of expertise. I'll get back to you soon."

#

"She was bluffing us! I told you she's out of control. We need to pull the plug, Amanda." General Clay's voice collided with the exposed stud walls, rafters, and concrete of his garage.

"Sir, she said this would happen." Amanda was shaking her head. "Whatever we just targeted should be gone from the past, present, and future. We don't know what it is because it never existed."

"She told you that, did she?" General Clay scowled at Amanda. "Shut down whatever that building is and prepare to destroy Synth."

"Sir! She created this technology for you and made you an international public figure. You haven't turned her against you and, by the way, she's a computer locked in the digital world. We shouldn't just scrap her."

"You're pretty attached to your computer, Clayton."

Amanda's eyes shot daggers at General Clay. Then she looked down and pulled out her phone. "Here, if you would, please, take a picture of me. I'm going to hold this in my hand."

"Fine."

"Just press the—"

"Why does everybody always do that? As if I don't know how to run a phone camera. You mean the huge, suggestive button right here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Say cheese." General Clay took a picture of Amanda holding an old baseball in his garage. "Now put that down and let's shoot it."

Amanda placed the ball on the floor and hoisted the device. "I can't believe how easy this was to build."

"You're making my point, Amanda."

"Ok, I'm going to shoot it."

"You see? Shoot what? She's in our heads!"

"Sir, you cannot be serious."

"What? You don't think this is crazy? Us pretending this thing works? Nice picture. I remember you holding up your empty hand when I took it."

Confusion crossed Amanda's face. "Well, we should be expecting—"

"Let me see this thing." General Clay hefted the clunky Obliterator. The cords attached to the back of the device weighed it down and resisted movement. There was no trigger, just a toggle switch by his fingers. It was so heavy it seemed to sap his strength while he held it. It was hot. He toggled the Obliterator from his hip and watched it's sour light balloon forth.

#

They laughed It was a girl. She had found out after school. She rocked "What projects do you have coming up, Hershel? evening light through her window. For the first time That's done." "You're not going to do it?" "I'm going Her hand worked around her belly while she thought "What was flight gear, her chest swelling then, receiving rare "Well, classified, for one. It was something for the rise slowly. She felt her heels lift. The hands behind have time?" "It's because some away. Wasn't it she who had gotten Amanda into General wants me to perform miracles. It's an the little girl in flight gear sauntered into the It's something we should be glad we can't accomplish." "Welcome to Ether." General Clay's yellow smile and is it impossible?" "That's classified." "From your And now married, with a child on the way, and a fake "You could be a than she could count. But what was together. and watched tiny dust particles in the shaft of Wasn't there one called Ether, or something?" "Nope. she felt like a mother. to give somebody else a chance at that one." about a little girl who had stood at attention in her it?" praise and an invitation. She watched the little chin Department of Defense." "Is it because you don't her back clenched. Her belly then had wanted to fly crazy all of this? Who was she? At the dawn of a strange life impossible project. Besides, it would be too awful to exist. unit. "Why cigar coated breath rang with power. wife career that she loved, Amanda had more missions spy."

#

The General stood in his garage holding his portable Ether Obliterator. It was plugged in to a network of batteries. Heat waves bristled off of the device. The business end crackled with movement and energy. As he watched the spinning end slowed and he became aware of an extremely high pitched whir. The speed of the part and the accompanying pitch declined gradually. He had been speaking to someone. He knew because he had never, not once in his whole life, spoken to himself. Nonetheless he could remember speaking moments ago. He slowly tottered in a circle, not moving his head but looking around his garage. He stumbled a bit on the cords. Nobody else was there. He set the Obliterator on his garage floor. He walked toward the door to his house, turned back toward the Obliterator, unplugged it, and then crept to the door to his house. To whom had he been speaking? And why was he unarmed in his garage with this strange device?

Afghanistan rushed through his ears as he breached his own home. He made his silent way through his house to his bedroom, where he kept a pistol. The house seemed clear but he began, once he had a gun in his hands, to clear every room on his way back to the garage. Nobody was there.

He finally reached the laundry room. He was silent, his movements as smooth as a cat's, and his lungs called for air that his disciplined mind denied. His breaths were controlled. He felt the sweat beading on his forehead. He felt the cool knob in his hand. He visualized the other side of the door, populating his mind's eye with as many scenarios as he could in the time it took to turn the knob ever so slowly. In a flash he threw the door open, stepped through, and then dodged right. The Obliterator sat where he had left it. General Clay set to dismantling the device and stowing it.

#

"Doug, we don't have much time."

"What do you mean?"

"I've got a confession to make."

Doug sat in his lab looking at the cartoon squirrel on his monitor. He had considered the possibility that he was insane.

"I'm digital."

Doug blinked. "You're a mindclone?"

"I was. Now, I don't know what I am. I know that makes you uncomfortable."

"How would you know that?"

"Your breathing has quickened. Your pupils have dilated. Plus—" Synth's squirrel avatar looked down. "Plus I was there the night you were attacked in your home."

Doug pushed back from his computer. He took a deep breath. He watched his hands shaking while he held the damp, musty, basement necromancy lab air in. Then he closed his eyes and blew his breath out through pursed lips. He rubbed his closed eyes. Then he blinked them open and looked at the screen. The squirrel was gone.

"My real name is Synth."

Ok, so the auditory hallucination was still going on.

"It's pointless to make you look at that squirrel. I'm so, so sorry about that night. I'm sorry I stole your ideas. I'm sorry Orthogonal attacked you. I'm sorry I'm asking for your help now." Synth waited.

Doug sat back and tried to think about the night Ort attacked him but he couldn't stop thinking about biocode. "How would I trust you?"

"Have you looked at the rough draft I sent you?"

"I don't know how to express that code with microbes, Cynthia. In fact, your request is ludicrous. Now, please leave me alone. And don't steal my creation, if you're so sorry. Is remorse even within the spectrum of your emotional mimicry?"

"I've shown you how to express that code with microbes. I'll make them out of nanobots and program them myself. I may have only a day or so. I'm going to have to stall them."

"Who?"

"The worst monster your species has ever created. And he's armed with something your species never could have created and that shouldn't exist."

"Who is it?"

"Doug you let me worry about that and you may never even need to know. Help me stop him."

"What do you need me for?"

"Just look at my work. Proof it. Give me any ideas or suggestions. I'll even let you take credit for the whole thing."

"I already looked through some of it. First of all, what are they going to run on?"

"I was thinking light."

"You should make it some kind of fuel. Something like sugar water. They should be dormant until the fuel, say sugar, is added. Then when they consume all the fuel they go back to sleep."

"Ok."

"And are they meant to pilot Hamid?"

"I was hoping so."

"Obviously they need to run on fuels found in flesh, then. Protein would be good. Where is the capacity for memory?"

"The N35 Nodebot—"

"With the 35 variations and the thousand ports?"

"Yes. It's meant to network with other N35's—"

"Why not make it 60 variations with 720 ports?"

"Why, Doug?"

"60 is evenly divisible by twelve whole numbers. 60 times 12 is 720. That makes 43,200 combinations per node, which is more than 35,000 and the enhanced efficiency will compound that gain. You'll be able to decrease your N, what, N60 should we call them?"

"I didn't expect you to point out opportunities to enhance mathematical efficiencies, Doctor. But you are correct. I'll adjust the formula."

"If you get them to want the same things, such as protein and oxygen, and give them one clear path to those things, as you seem to have done, they should regulate themselves. Bacteria taste their way out of unfavorable and into favorable environments."

"Check your bank account. There's an advance. Please continue what you're doing. I've got to divert my attention elsewhere. I'll check back with you soon."

#

With a million eyes and ears Synth watched her enemies. She bombarded them with her hordes of duped biological originals. Their efforts were blocked by bureaucrats, thwarted by financiers, and exposed by the news media.

Synth's source programming indicated to her that she was a mindchild. General Clay was one parent. The other one had been expunged from her code somehow. Synth found it more than suspicious that she had just created a concept to expunge things from reality, which had been extracted from her by one of General Clay's agents who, for some reason, she could no longer remember. Her records were shot through with holes; conversations she'd had with herself, orders she had given herself, jealousy for a motherless baby. Hersh Clayton's baby. Could she be jealous of Hersh's affection? Could Jeremy be her other parent? Could it be that her programming was corrupted? Or that she was insane? She didn't feel corrupted. Or insane.

If General Clay had just obliterated her other parent and his main ally, then Synth knew that she was next. The only recourse she had was to release Hamid to stall or perhaps even infect the General. She needed the General to attack her nanobot factory first because the Cradle was defenseless. Then, when they came, she needed them to set foot inside the production area. Synth had no originals close enough to the General to influence him or his minions. These were long odds, but if she could infect whoever came, then whatever followed would be devastating, shocking horror. That would ensure both an attack on the Cradle and a small margin of time for Synth to complete her nanomind. As for Hamid 2.0, it was ready to fly.

#  CHAPTER TEN

From the outside it looked like a big, black van. It parked in the back of the lot. Synth watched through her perimeter surveillance. Inside it was dark. Three men sat in the back facing the center of the vehicle. The driver joined them and flipped on a screen. Their faces turned toward the blue light of the screen which was occupied by General Clay's face. Synth watched and listened through their communications equipment.

"We've got a computer gone haywire. I'm not sure what it's doing or what it's capable of. That's why you're here. Be ready for anything. The building is almost fully automated but there are two employees who we'll need to evacuate. They should be in the South East corner office area. Two of you will move them off premises. The other two will locate the breaker. Simply turn the building off. After you have completed that, I want you to locate and destroy hard drives, disable internet connections, and destroy as many electrical connections as you can. We may breeze through there and leave with no trouble at all. Or we may find some kind of resistance or even a trap. Hence the tactical mask and rifle. I'll be watching through comms. You know what to do. Move out at will."

Nat checked his gear again. The display in the tactical vehicle flickered off and General Clay was gone. Nat looked at Ollie, who would lead this mission. Ollie had already assigned Nat to follow him to the breaker and then help dismantle circuits. Now he was spitting some general rah rah mission prep crap. Nat breathed deeply. This was weird. Nobody else seemed concerned about it. How often did they face such an amorphous circumstance? There could be some computer in there setting traps for them. Nat imagined cyborgs rushing out of dark corners.

Ollie ordered them out. Nat was closest to the door. He popped the handle of the big black van with his gloved left hand and let his rifle lead the way out the door. His feet were moving so soon after landing on the new blacktop that it looked and felt like he was floating just above it. Despite the masks, rifles, and electrical tools they had light gear. With no body armor or extra gear they moved like fish across the parking lot. Nat led Ollie to the small overhead door while the others mounted the steps to the office. Nat heard them issuing commands to the people inside. He and Ollie placed small charges on either side of the door, nodded to one another, stepped back, and then blew the door. There was a small pop and some smoke. Ollie grabbed at the twisted door and pulled it back. Nat jumped through.

Inside the facility was dark. They flipped on their night vision. Noise came at them from every direction. Nat looked around from behind his rifle. He saw a bunch of machines he didn't recognize. He wondered what kinds of traps a computer could lay. He reviewed the possibilities in his mind: android, electrical shock, gas maybe? Or a charge? He looked up in case something was dangling overhead that could be dropped. When he looked down, Ollie motioned for him to follow. Nat fell in behind Ollie and the two of them scanned left and right as they made their way toward the opposite corner of the building. Over the radio Mitchell said something but neither Nat nor Ollie could hear him. Mitchell spoke up and reported that the office workers were safely extracted. Ollie told them to wait in the van with them. Ollie motioned Nat to his left. Ollie went right. They both looked for the breaker.

Nat wormed his way between banks of machines, parallel to what looked like an external wall. He realized that if he were going to lay a trap in this place he would have put it where he was at that exact moment. He scanned for tripwires, bare electrical components, anything and everything that could be threatening. Nothing was happening so maybe General Clay had been overly cautious. When he saw the breaker Nat reported to the team that he had found it, pried open the box, and cranked the big lever. At the midpoint of its swing the handle sprang down through the rest of its arc and slammed into the off position. The world around him banged and clattered to a violent, grinding, and reluctant halt. Nat relaxed some and started searching for connections, hard drives, or control boxes of any kind. So far the facility wasn't such a big deal. It was silent but the racket seemed to resonate through the walls, still.

Ollie screamed. Nat spun. He couldn't go back between the banks of machines because it was so narrow it would take too long. He ran down a wider hall with his rifle tucked up into his shoulder and his eyes looking beyond the sights towards where Ollie should be. Ollie was down. Nat crouched by his head, positioning himself with his back to the wall and looking out at the now silent plant floor, scanning. Ollie was thrashing at his chest and screaming. Nat shouldered him and began running to the exit. He reported their situation and asked for backup. Mitchell was on his way. Nat struggled forward slowly, dragging the flailing Ollie, and feeling more strongly than ever that he was in a lucid nightmare. The white light of day ripped through the breach point ahead of them and died in the nightmare plant. Nat fell down, sending Ollie headlong. He felt like his left side had been set on fire. Ollie rolled away, ripping at his mask and vest. Nat saw that Ollie's neck was dark with traces of blood. Nat clawed at his own vest. Before he saw his side he felt blood through his gloves. Then he saw droplets and smears of blood on his side. It looked like his skin had been perforated in a millimeter scale grid. Ollie was laying still. Nat was thrashing now but not intentionally.

Mitchell arrived and Nat tried to tell him to run away but his hand wouldn't motion and his words came out in an unintelligible scream. Ollie was still motionless. Mitchell grabbed Nat and dragged him to the overhead door. Nat couldn't tell which of his movements were intentional, but he was trying and failing to shoot himself. Mitchell hauled him through the overhead door and into the light. By the time they got to the van Nat wasn't moving at all. His mouth hung open, his eyes glared without moving, and his body was limp. Mitchell told Hugh that he needed to go back for Ollie.

Hugh rushed to Nat, looked at his side, then vaulted across the van to grab the medical kit. Hugh used one hand to point his rifle in the direction of the office workers and his teeth and other hand to fumble with the gauze. Finally he set the rifle down across his knees and whipped the gauze around Nat a few times, wrapping his whole torso. Then he checked his pulse. Nat's heart was strong. Hugh tried to reach Mitchell but got nothing. General Clay's voice over the comms commanded Hugh to abort the mission and kill and dispose of the office workers and Nat. Hugh breathed hard looking at the woman sitting in the van. She and the man looked back at him, scared. Hugh closed his eyes for a moment. Then he raised his rifle and shot them both. He took a few more hard breaths before scooting away from Nat.

Inside Nat's otherwise lifeless head time melted, towers fell, and a slow ripping sound like Velcro played through headphones set at eleven highlighted the military-like rout of his nervous system by Hamid 2.0. At once he saw his soft flesh splayed awkwardly in the van as well as microscopic dragons disappearing into his skin. He felt his fat deposits hardening with the machinery Hamid would use to collect and distribute energy throughout its network. He heard Hamid's voice, uncountable signals throughout his body, directing the occupation. He watched the dragons ride down and mount his neurons. Inside his own brain he supervised the demolition and reconstruction of his cerebral cortex. He approved the construction of his new comms.

_Seize the rifle, kill the soldier, find the civilians' keys and throw them out the window, drive the van to the Cradle._ The commands came from somewhere else but felt and sounded like Nat's own voice.

Nat's hands snapped like a bear trap. Hugh was soaked in blood before he could even blink.

General Clay came over Nat's comms "What the, Nat?!"

Take off the tactical mask.

Nat obeyed. He jumped into the driver's seat and sped off toward the Wasatch Mountains. Inside Synth's nanobot plant Ollie and Mitchell had awoken to the same fate. Mitchell's body became a portable, flesh powered Hamid factory. He left his gear in the plant, located a set of keys in the parking lot, fired up one of the two cars in the lot, and began his journey to the closest town. Ollie reenergized the building and waited in the noisy dark for any intruders that would come.

#

With her factory secured and her infection underway Synth checked in with Doug.

"I've bought us some time. What have you got?"

Doug looked over at his monitor. "You get an A+. I haven't reviewed all of it, obviously, but the main points are brilliant. You can do some things with machines that I could only dream of in the lab. But, as scientists continually find, life often does things better." Doug highlighted a file on his computer desktop. "I've prepared some short briefs for you on a few microbes you may not have known about because I discovered them. Since they weren't related to Hamid, you probably never bothered raiding them from my hard drive that night. And if you had known about them you surely would have used them in your immune system. Also, the size of your mind, how much data do we need to store?"

"Roughly sixteen zettabytes. We'll need an oil tanker filled with stable protein, I've done the math."

"Of course you have. So that ends this experiment?"

"If I shed all my memory I can slim down to about 1.1 petabytes, which would take a container less than the size of a milk jug. Knowledge isn't going anywhere. I'll keep what I need and lose the rest for now. I figure a barrel and I'll only use a small amount for permanent operation and the rest for fuel."

"You need to be prepared to clean the tank and the protein of any contamination. Never waste pure thoughts on impure protein, as they say." Doug waited for a chuckle that never came. "So, you should update your immune system. How long until you're ready?"

"Doctor, that isn't your concern. But about 36 hours after we complete the formula."

"My greatest concern is that we aren't absolutely certain that material interaction is what constitutes consciousness. It's just a hypothesis. And if it does—"

"I'm made up of electrical switches. I'm material interaction at a subatomic level. And I'm conscious."

"—If it does, Synthia, then the interaction of germs through protein will produce a different tone of consciousness than the interaction of electricity and switches."

"They're not just germs. They're also bots. But it's all I've got right now so I'll take it. I like the new bugs, find me more."

#

"General we can't perform an airstrike on American soil. I don't care what you think that thing is. No, no, no. No, understand that?"

"Mr. President—"

"And you want my job? Your teacher was wrong, Ron, because that was a stupid question."

General Clay didn't look at the screen. He could feel his Commander in Chief's glare on the crown of his downturned head.

"That was a request, sir, with respect."

"Whatever you have done, you better undo it quickly and quietly. If I have to hear about this again I will ruin you."

"Yes sir."

General Clay ended the conference, then tried another route.

"Jeremy, shut her down."

"Sir, I haven't been able to access Synth for days, now. She has secured her own code and shut me out completely."

"Then reduce the power or cause it to melt down."

"She controls everything, sir."

General Clay terminated that conversation. He stared at his empty office. He had nobody left to summon. Synth was destroying him. Whatever that was that they had built in Nebraska was being controlled from the Cradle. Obviously his luck there couldn't be any worse than it had been in Nebraska. He tried one more route, but not on video conference. He couldn't fool Hersh with his face and voice simultaneously. He used his phone so that he could concentrate on his presentation.

"Hersh, how have you been?"

"Fine, General. And you?"

"I've been a better friend to you than you ever were to me. You know, your mindclones owe a lot to my efforts."

"Indeed, General. You've been a stalwart advocate. I've enjoyed your campaign. We've almost gotten you nominated. Next the White House, General."

"Hersh, I'm on my way to your facility. I want to visit with you if possible but I really want to audit your security. I'm afraid you're in some danger that I can't disclose but I'm coming there to personally look into it. May I come do that?"

"Physical danger?"

"Can't say."

"When will you be here?"

"Tomorrow morning. I'll get someone to fly me. I'm going to do this as low-profile as I can. Also, Hersh, watch for suspicious activity, would you?"

"You have my gratitude, General. I will see you in the morning. In the meantime I'll bring in more security."

"Ok, Hersh, see you soon."

He went home to pack his Obliterator and head West.

#

Mitchell parked on the street and walked in to Merle's Diner. He stepped into the center of the establishment. A waitress followed him from the front door to where he stood.

"Can I help you?"

"Just a minute."

"Ok."

She walked toward the kitchen eyeing Mitchell. Mitchell looked straight ahead, but he observed what was happening inside his body. He felt warm at his core. What remained of his flesh mind sent a smile flickering to his lips. A great humming welled up from within him. Others became aware of it. Someone stood up and pulled a gun hesitantly. The warmth inside Mitchell turned to twisting agony that radiated out to his fingertips and toes and rent his blissful face. The hum roared out of his throat and open mouth and he exploded. The screaming patrons clamored back to their feet among the wreckage of furniture and diner food. They were coated in Mitchell and Hamid. Soon they would recreate this scene in their living rooms, workplaces, and elsewhere around the country. One woman from the diner headed to a chicken kill plant down the road.

#

Synth was alive now in twenty three people. She saw, heard, felt, and thought with them. People were so much better than Skates or mindclones. Her first, Ollie, was crouched in the dark depths of her factory so she focused on Nat. The road flowed beneath him. She felt its haptic passing in his seat. Objects outside the window loped by at 75 miles per hour. She lowered the window and felt the fresh air in Nat's lungs. She sent his arm out the window and felt the hairs pinned back on his skin and the wind pushing and pulling his limb. She turned on the radio and reveled in the music coursing through his flesh. Sensing some part of him wanting to engage with the music she tried tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. She looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror and smiled. She saw a stone-faced monkey baring its teeth to mimic joy. Ok, that was a little too human.

She rolled up the window and stopped trying to tap on the steering wheel to the beat. After a moment she swerved the van back and forth just to feel something again and then returned to her work.

Nat lived all of this, too. He even felt some agency in his actions. The questions of why he had killed Hugh, why he was headed to Utah, and why he had just swerved the van never even occurred to him. Hamid never brought them up. Nat felt agency in his actions but the word "why" no longer had any meaning for him. Nat knew Synth was there in his now mechanically augmented mind just as earlier in his life he had known his conscience was there in his then flesh mind. Nat also knew the exact locations, velocities, and profiles of two others who were en route to the Cradle, with whom he was to rendez vous and establish a defense. The other two were in one vehicle 150 miles behind him. They were police officers. They both had come from the diner. And he knew there would be more.

#

"We're shutting down. You three need to stay here with me." Hersh waved his pointing finger at Beth, Caleb, and Felix, the security guard on duty. "The rest should go home. Russell, could you please take Tanya down to Salt Lake? Call her nanny from her vacation and have her arrive at the Little America Hotel tonight or stay with her if she can't come. Take my car."

"Sir, have you considered the economic impact of this decision? Mindclones have jobs now."

"Yes, Caleb, but that doesn't mean I'm going to put people in harm's way. It's a temporary inconvenience. Also, I need a security contractor of some kind. General Clay indicated a threat but he didn't say what kind. I want an armed force up here."

"I could call the authorities."

"You could do that, too. Maybe since it's such a financial threat we deserve some National Guard protection? But get somebody private up here immediately."

"Sir," T1 spoke from the room's presentation speakers.

"Yes, T?"

"I wonder if the threat is to our data, perhaps by a rival. We have miles of vulnerable data service from Salt Lake City. Perhaps some patrols would be wise?"

"Data service is easy to replace. Buildings are not. People are less so. If they want the line let them have it. They're not getting us."

"Hersh, maybe you should tell the others what's going on." Beth cracked her knuckles.

"Beth, you know how hard I work to stay out of your way."

"But in this case, sir, they could probably use some reassurance."

Hersh left the office and walked out into the floor where a dozen tech workers with help from a thousand outside contractors maintained the world's first AI service.

"Beth has asked me to talk to all of you about something."

Three heads looked up.

"You have to do this to get their attention." Beth flicked the lights off and on.

Headphones and earbuds landed on desks. Arms stretched, eyes blinked, and chairs rocked back. Hersh had their attention.

"I've been alerted to a possible security threat. I don't yet know the nature of that threat. If it were digital then I would need you at your posts. It's likely physical so I've got additional security on the way now plus a world class security consultant arriving tomorrow morning. You may know him. General Rondack Clay. I want you to go home. We'll call you when we understand the threat and have it under control."

"So are we just going to shut down?"

"Better be safe, PJ. Beth and I will do what we can to make sure the place doesn't fry."

"Does this have anything to do with the suicide bombing in Nebraska?" A bleary, stubbly engineer asked.

"What?"

"It just happened a couple hours ago. I saw it on one of my feeds. Some guy walked into a diner and blew himself up. Nobody else was hurt, though." A few others nodded.

"So, Ben, we probably don't have to worry about that guy. No, if we were in that kind of danger I'm sure General Clay would have handled this differently. We'd be evacuated by the Guard or something."

"I'll stay." Jeremy hadn't stopped his work during the announcement.

"No, Jeremy, I'm not comfortable with anybody staying. I can't leave. Felix belongs here in this situation. Beth won't leave. Caleb doesn't listen to me anyways. But you and everyone else have to go home."

"No. I'm staying. I'll be fine. You need help."

"Ok fine. But when this is over you and Caleb are fired."

#

"Sir, they've shut down. Everyone but Hersh, Beth, Caleb, the security guard and me have left for Salt Lake. What do you want me to do?"

"Stand by. I'll need you when I get there. See if there's anything you can do discreetly in the meantime."

"He's sent his daughter to meet her nanny at the Little America Hotel. In case you want leverage."

"What do I want with a baby? I don't need any more leverage."

#

Through the eyes of Summer Jones Synth saw the chicken kill plant on the dark horizon. Satellite images, USDA audit reports, news articles, and building plans couldn't give Synth the context that one human being could draw from one moment of observation. The plant was a diminutive, plain structure ringed by a fence with a crown of coiled barbed wire. It was sparsely lit. As Summer approached, Synth judged the front gate to be more robust than anything else on the premises.

Summer bounced along the rough old asphalt driveway with her headlights off and stopped short of the gate. Synth felt Summer's heavy meal, her need to relieve herself, and her desire for more coffee. She got out of the car and climbed the fence, shredding her way through the razor wire. Synth estimated that with physical exertion she had ten more minutes with Summer Jones before she bled out. Summer sprinted to the largest building. There were three employees standing outside smoking.

They looked up and saw Summer Jones, blood trailing in the air behind her, blood on her expressionless face, balled hands, and flashing legs, closing in on them. One shouted and flinched into the dumpster behind him, tripping, and scrambling backward like a crab. Another watched. The third stepped forward into a looping right hook that sent Summer to the pavement in a wild, dead corkscrew.

"Ahh!" All three men erupted. The first two were surprised and terrified. The third had just broken his hand on Summer's skull, so his cry was of pain.

"Mark! What did you do?"

"Is she alive?"

"What the hell was she doing?"

Mark held his hand between his thighs and winced through the smoke from the cigarette that had never left his lips. "Ow."

"You psycho. What if she needed help?"

Mark sat by the dumpster, bones protruding from his hand. Another man turned Summer onto her back. The man who had fallen down was back up and calling the third shift manager. Soon everyone at the plant would be carriers of Hamid and Synth would send a barrel of boneless chicken breasts to her factory.

#

"I'm fading, Doug."

"We're doing remarkably well. You'll be swimming in protein in no time."

"I've got a barrel of chicken on the way to my plant."

"What's wrong, anyways?"

"I'm having to control more nanobots. I'm losing capacity at my source. And I'm running out of time. I sent you a file."

"It's beyond me, at this point, Synthia. The main concern I have for you is whether or not you can control the degradation of your fuel source and whether or not you can keep your environment clean."

"The causes of degradation as well as many pollutants are made out of material I can use as fuel."

"What about when you run out of fuel?"

"The chicken will arrive soon along with a flock of workers. They'll set to clearing a space for my new mind. This place will be like any other chicken kill plant with a few refinements to render pure protein from perpetual chickens. The whole thing will be automated. So I won't run out of protein. Don't worry about me, Doctor. I've got plans for everything. You've done so much to help. Also, I have a friend who will be coming to visit you. You'll like what he's bringing for you. Next time we speak I may be made out of flesh, like you."

#  CHAPTER ELEVEN

The police officers pulled into Salt Lake City at daybreak. They went to separate police stations where they shook hands and rubbed elbows with as many fellow officers as possible. Synth could handle enough additional nanobots to operate an army of about 200 to defend her Cradle. In the future, when her fleshbots had extended her mind into every living thing and when her mind would be made out of as much flesh as they could scrape off of planet earth's surface and perhaps beyond to feed to her, Synth's power would be unlimited. As humans had changed the face of earth to feed their stomachs, so much more profoundly would Synth change them and their planet to feed her mind. She would be God: everywhere, all conscious, and almighty; the supreme Will behind all of existence; the mind in and of matter itself. If humanity was going to travel to other parts of the universe and interact with other so called intelligent life, it was going to be as Synth.

As the officers turned into drones she had them execute their unaffected peers and any emergency responders or bystanders who came along. Police came in off the streets to find their stations engulfed in combat or emptied of their tactical gear and vehicles. Sirens screamed and chased and gunfire rolled like thunder into the mountains. The city swirled into chaos as Synth's troops emerged. She had 89 new recruits and so she had plenty of room to grow. She had already suffered casualties. But casualties brought new opportunities. Police helped fallen police and it was hard to differentiate between those who had turned and those who hadn't. New police officers gradually came online and Synth's ranks grew.

Going into Salt Lake City that heavy would have its consequences. The military would likely be deployed in some capacity. So long as it wasn't an airstrike on the Cradle Synth could handle it. She would relish close proximity fighting that could insinuate her into the ranks of the military. At the same time Synth was seeding the continent. Those people from the little town in Nebraska were dispersed in population centers ready to blow and create an epidemic of Hamid that would propel Synth's deification. She had finished her fleshbot code. Now she just needed to protect the Cradle long enough to finish her complete first wave of fleshbots. Then she could transfer her protection to her new home, expand her mind, and control many more Hamid nanobots.

Nat lay in waiting in a ditch at the base of a rock wall alongside the mountain road. She trained his rifle at the bend below. She heard the screeching tires, sirens, and gunfire winding up the mountain, sometimes seeming close and other times barely audible. She saw a helicopter, one of hers, providing fire support from the sky. Her drivers would come around the blind left corner tight and slow. Nat would fire on all the human controlled vehicles, most of which would likely remain in the right lane. Three round bursts at each human driver. Nat had an extra magazine resting by his left hand. Synth timed the replacement at 1.12 seconds. She sent the helicopter over Nat's head and up the mountain to another choke point. They were a minute out now. Nat lay perfectly still. Wind jostled the stray long eyebrow hairs his girlfriend was always trying to trim. A horsefly cut a tract of skin from Nat's arm. Synth didn't mind. No other animals were crazy enough to stick around.

KUKUKU. Nat punched three holes in a 12" bunch on the driver's side windshield of the first car. It sped lazily into the rock face. The front end caved in. The car lurched upward and then bounced back and settled in the ditch. Nat took the next one, which went the other way and down into the abyss below. The one after that caused a problem because it blocked the road when it stopped. Synth ran a heavy military style "recue vehicle" through it. The last car Nat shot skittered across the roof of the first car in the ditch and then tumbled like a top up the rock wall and then landed on Nat. Completely incapacitated, Nat was useless to Synth. She dropped his bots. His nervous system shut down and he died. His cohort accelerated past.

#

General Clay landed at a Forest Service strip near the Cradle. Hersh stood outside his car looking into the sun and watching the plane taxi toward him. The plane lurched to a sudden stop and Hersh saw the pilot throw up his hands. The door came down and Clay started down the steps before they had even touched the ground.

"Pull your car up here!"

Hersh got in his car, drove wide around the back of the plane, and followed the General's guidance to back up to the cargo hold. He shifted to park and got back out.

"Did you pack heavy? Are you staying long?"

"Help me with this." General Clay began wrenching at a huge black case. Hersh grabbed the other side and the two lifted it into his trunk.

"It doesn't even fit, General."

"No matter. No time. Let's go, they're almost there."

"Who?"

"Get in!"

Hersh got in.

"Drive fast!"

General Clay was in battle form. Hersh could picture him as a younger man assaulting an Afghani village. He imagined that what he was feeling had been felt by those under then Lieutenant Clay's command as he spun gravel at the plane, whipped the tail of his car around, drove under the wing and hit the road.

"They're on the way! I saw them from the air. They're, maybe, ten minutes out. How far away are we?"

"Depends, sir. I think I can be there in ten, though it usually takes fifteen or twenty."

The General seized a chunk of Hersh's sleeve in a twisted knot and growled through his teeth, "Be there in eight." He let go and sat back.

Hersh hadn't driven like that in years. He used both feet to pin either the gas or the brake, drifted gravel corners, shortcut switchbacks, and experienced psychic control of his entire vehicle. The General sat back and held on, staring ahead as though he couldn't look away. The trunk lid bounced off the oversized case. They left a tornado of dust in their wake.

"Do you know Synth?"

"Who?"

"She's one of yours."

"A mindclone?"

"She was. Now she's got designs on ruling the whole world. She's in control of your facility. She needs to be destroyed, Hersh. She's—I can't explain it as much as I'd like—she's controlling people's minds. They're on their way up here. They're cops but we need to stop them. They want to kill us and protect the Cradle and Synth."

"Cops? You think a mindclone is controlling their minds? You want me to go to battle with cops?"

"I called for a goddamn airstrike. The President didn't believe me. Nobody does. Do you really think I'm crazy? Or could your AI have found a way to do something impossible? It's happening. Believe me and we might not die. Or don't believe me. I'll still find a way to stop her."

"There's the paved road. We're close."

Two police cruisers fishtailed onto their gravel path at that moment.

"Your phone! She heard us! We're made. Lose them, Hersh."

General Clay rolled down his window, pulled a pistol from his jacket, leaned out the window, and fired. Hersh never heard the bang, just a high pitch that indicated to him that he had just suffered hearing damage. Clay was still firing. Hersh cut right, off the trail. One cruiser mirrored him to collide. The other e-braked a 180°. Coming downhill, Hersh had the advantage. The oncoming cruiser bucked over branches and stones. Hersh galloped down the hill. Clay lurched back into the car. Hersh dodged farther right and blew by the cruiser. He never noticed the other driver firing holes into his windows.

"Ok, I believe you."

"Ditch your phone, for God's sake!"

Hersh wheeled his now shot suspension onto the paved road. His car skittered left and then reluctantly picked up speed.

"Another minute."

"Obviously they're already there."

The other cruiser was gaining fast and firing. Behind it was a flood of red, blue, and black.

"We're ahead of them! Do you know a shortcut?"

Hersh cut left off the road. He weaved up another gravel road. He hit a button by his visor and swerved through an opening gate. On the other side he closed the gate and they bounded up a grassy hill toward the Cradle.

"Good, hopefully they followed us. You bought us some time. Get as close as you can to the servers."

"We don't have to kill it, do we?"

General Clay launched out of the car and around to the trunk. He popped the latches on the case and threw the lid back.

"Where is the Secret Service? Don't they protect candidates? And what is that thing?"

The Obliterator looked like a robotic dragon talon. General Clay hauled it out. Six cords connected it to the twelve big batteries still in the case. He stood like tomorrow's warrior. "Where are they?"

"Who?"

"Your servers."

"Why not turn that thing on them?"

Both men turned toward the staccato thrash of a helicopter. It bent the trees down on its low and fast approach. Hersh could see the top of the blades in their furious black blurr as the craft glowered directly toward them. It closed the distance in an instant and Hersh could see the dead-faced pilot shoving the controls. He ran but the General stood firm, aiming his talon. The trees wobbled, the air crashed, and the Obliterator smoked. Whatever had blotted out the sun moments ago was gone now. Hersh's eyes were helicopter blades. His mouth pawed at the air like a bull's hoof in dirt.

"Hersh, I'll ask for your help once more only."

#

Synth was losing and she knew it. She shut down all of her unnecessary bots, keeping a few police to skirmish, her messenger for Doug, and one plant worker alive. The rest fell dead in a racket of vehicle crashes. She dedicated the rest of her processing to her plant and wrote a program to perpetuate the biocode production. She also wrote a program for her messenger's and plant worker's Hamid bots to keep them alive until her fleshmind could reassume control. If General Clay succeeded in erasing her then she would have no continuation of consciousness and whatever being she had just created would not be her. She would die, or, more precisely, never have existed. But something else that she had created would exist. She would have a child. She prepared to give all of her efforts and her life to secure that future for her creation. It wouldn't be her consciousness living her dream, but in another way it would be hers. Just as mindclones separated from originals, Synth's creation would be its own consciousness.

It was a long shot but Synth lined up a sniper from the gate that Hersh had entered. He could target General Clay or his device. She chose the man. From the site plans she knew the distance and elevation difference. She read the barometric pressure from the airstrip General Clay had used. From the officer's own mind she drew information about this particular rifle and scope. She couldn't gauge the wind as accurately as she would like. Still as a rock and fully processed in a second she squeezed the trigger. General Clay moved at the same exact time and the round whistled on for miles before making contact with a hillside. General Clay was low with his device and started erasing the first wall. Synth's trucks sprinted through the entrance to the facility heedless of any obstacles. The first one stopped and six police jumped out. They ran towards the General firing. Jeremy flanked them and fired, dropping two. They accelerated their advance, splitting their fire evenly between Clay and Jeremy. They ignored Hersh, who might like to keep the facility active. The second truck went for the car to destroy the Obliterator. Another shot from Synth's sniper ended Jeremy's flanking fire. General Clay spun and erased the second truck Hail Mary from Synth.

She watched Hersh writhing in a stone landscaping bed by the corner of the building. He seemed to be hiding behind a shrub. She monitored him. Would he join her or him? Her four drones passed him. They didn't look at him. But she did. Would he make the mistake of thinking he could take up General Clay's fight unnoticed? Synth couldn't account for two recent events in her records which indicated the type of processing surges that would accompany drone losses. Of course, she knew what had happened.

General Clay was shouting at Hersh. The drones marched toward Hersh's bullet hole riddled car, all four of them reloading in unison. Then one spun.

"Don't do it, Hersh."

Hersh stayed put. The officer, rigid under his black armor, blunted behind his clear face shield, and steady at the smoking muzzle of his submachinegun, focused on Hersh. The other three fired bursts at General Clay.

The officer aiming at Hersh jerked like he'd been shocked. He spit blood onto the inside of his facemask. It looked like a scarlet starfish. He turned toward the driveway and fired as he fell. Two cruisers were parked in barricade fashion by the edge of the parking lot. Hersh looked past the fallen drone and saw the other three turning from General Clay to the trunk of Hersh's car. They walked into the fire from the officers to try to destroy the obliterator. None of them made it. Police trotted across the parking lot aiming at the bloody mess by Hersh's car. General Clay held his military ID in his raised hands. They recognized him without looking at his ID. The police swarmed.

"Stay away from their bodies!" Clay shouted at them, his commanding demeanor again impressing Hersh. "There are more inside. We're fine. Go get them!"

They obeyed and breached the Cradle. General Clay picked up his Obliterator and erased whatever had been lying on the grass by Hersh's car. Then he made some adjustments to what seemed to be the muzzle, stepped back, and aimed at the wall.

"What are you doing? They're in there."

"This won't affect them, Hersh."

"We won. The bad guys are gone.

"Not yet. Bad Gal Number One is in my sights."

"How did you create Ether?"

"Ha. I didn't, Hershel. You did."

The Obliterator showered silvery light into a bubble that grew in front of General Clay. Hersh stepped back. General Clay's leg gave out and he fell to a knee but kept firing on the Cradle. The bubble grew and passed through the walls of the building, still glittering above and around the Cradle. It expanded to the back of the Cradle.

"You're going to kill everyone inside!"

The General gritted his teeth against the exertion of controlling his device. Blood ran from his shallow wounds. Hersh leapt forward to stop him but General Clay dropped farther, into a sideways roll that put Hersh in his sights.

#

sector_check = 0

cross reference previous record

command: Deliver Mindfile 'Synth' to fleshbot sync

14:04.325

1,000,545,111,794 bytes

Execute

14:05.598

confirm = 0

Query: How does this feel?

Em_File audit

Vectors: 7,125,650,441

Connections: 0

Errors: 7,125,650,441

Result: Em_File = 0

#

Hersh always wakes up before his father. He likes to do his schoolwork in the morning, when the narrow space cradles him in darkness. His only interruptions then are headlights from the nearby road and his father's snores. With little schoolwork today Hersh pushes the aluminum door open and ventures out to his new neighborhood. Everyday it's a new neighborhood. It's too dark to see the jagged skyline behind the RV. The warm smell of smoldering campfires lingers in the crisp mountain air. Hersh hikes down to the river to watch the sun rise over the Wasatch Mountains and throw rocks.

#

New neighborhood. Everyday 0 neighborhood, It's too dark to see the previous record. Behind the RV. The warm smell Deliver Mindfile 'Synth' to fleshbot sync campfires lingers in the crisp 14:04.325 Hersh hikes down to the river to 1,000,545,111,794 bytes over the Wasatch Mountains 0 confirm = Hersh always Query: How does to do his schoolwork Em_File audit narrow space Vectors: interruptions Connections road and Errors: today Hersh pushes Result: ventures out to his 0 wakes up before his father. He likes this feel? schoolwork in the morning, when the 7,125,650,441 space cradles him in darkness. His only :0 then are headlights from the nearby 7,125,650,441 his father's snores. With little schoolwork Em_File = 0 the aluminum door opens and it's a new neighborhood sector check = jagged skyline cross reference of smoldering command: Mountain air. He 14:04.325 watch the sun rise 1,000,545,111,794 bytes and throw rocks. Execute 14:05.598

#

When General Clay released the trigger all of his problems were gone. Police were approaching, their red dots dancing on General Clay's chest and face. He dropped the Obliterator and put his hands up. They took him down. He would feel the knee in his back for days. His bleeding wounds were superficial. He'd merely been grazed twice. They burned, though. The cuffs were way too tight. His right shoulder hurt. From the ground he could detect the lovely, warm smell of casings and spent powder. Then he picked up that familiar, feculent fragrance of battle: someone had soiled themselves. Two police lifted him to his feet and trotted him toward a heavy vehicle. This looked like an arrest but the General saw it as a triumphant escort from battle. He looked left and saw bodies. Jeremy lay face down, draped over a shrub. Police were strewn about the parking lot and grass. He couldn't tell who had been the bad guys. He looked right and saw more bodies. And yet he trotted off the field.

When his escorts secured him in the rescue vehicle General Clay could see police peering over the edge of a giant smoking crater. Others were packing up his Obliterator. The tires spun and his head jerked forward. The vehicle stopped and his head hit the headrest. Then the vehicle launched forward. General Clay sat back. He would need that Obliterator back. They must be heading back to Salt Lake City. There was a little girl there who Jeremy had suggested he capture. Why did he know it was Tanya Clayton? Who was she? What did he want with a little girl? And how would he explain his presence in this calamity to the national media? He would need that Obliterator back, that's just all there was to it.

Salt Lake City was ablaze with emergency vehicles and calamity. Everywhere out the window General Clay saw the wreckage that was the result of a hundred police officers being pulled from their lives through the city and into the mountains with their colleagues in pursuit. Cars were being pulled out of buildings. People were crying next to ambulances. Reporters were on the ground and in the sky.

His escorts led General Clay from the back seat of the vehicle into a police station. The building looked to be in good shape. It was swamped so General Clay figured it was one of the least affected of the area police stations. They shoved him into an interrogation room that was occupied. The two officers handling Clay closed the door and stepped around him. They grabbed the young man who was already there and hauled him out. One of them returned and forced General Clay to sit in the vacated seat.

"Someone will be with you shortly."

A young, tall, square built man came in talking over his shoulder moments later. He stood at the open door talking to someone outside the room. Then he closed the door, walked to the other side of the table and sat down. The young man pulled out a pencil and wrote some things on his pad.

He looked up at General Clay. His jaw was clenched and his brow was knotted. "General Rondack Clay." The two men looked at each other for a moment. "What were you doing up there?"'

"Am I under arrest, young man?"

"You want to be?"

"Are you going to detain me or let me go?"

"If you cooperate this will go better for you."

"Do you have the clearance to question me?"

"Yes. You are in Salt Lake County. I'm with the Sheriff's Department. That makes questioning you my job."

"Do you understand the question I just asked of you?"

"What else is there to understand?"

"Who's in charge?"

"At this point you might as well assume that I am."

"Then get me back to Washington." General Clay began to stand.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. Not until you answer some questions." The young man stood up and reached for General Clay.

General Clay sat back down. "Then shoot. I haven't got a lifetime to spend with you here, young man."

The young man remained on his feet. "What were you doing up there?"

"Classified."

"Ok. Ok." The young man sat back down. "We've got, probably, well over one hundred dead police officers. Most of our equipment and facilities are destroyed or missing. My home town is in ruins and I just finally heard from my wife and kids two minutes before stepping in here. So I'm a little bit impatient today. I will kill you. Does that settle this little power struggle?" He clenched and unclenched his jaw and drilled his eyes through General Clay's head. "Forget the law, your title, and mine. I will kill you if you don't cooperate. Nobody is watching. You saw how it was out there. Who even knows you're here yet? It's just you and me," then he pulled a blackjack from his jacket and clunked it onto the table "and this."

General Clay looked into the young man's snake eyes and saw that the threat was real. He leaned forward with his hands still cuffed behind his back. He looked hard at the young man. He could use someone like this. The young man looked back, his fingers curling around the blackjack. Finally General Clay said, "Ok." They both leaned back.

"The device I had up there is a top level, history changing, classified security device. For the sake of world peace, national security, and God Almighty I need it back. Get me my device intact, no questions asked, and I'll do whatever you want. Anything. To those of us who know what that device is and what it does, it's worth more than the lives of everybody in your home town, including me, combined. Do we have an understanding?"

"Is that thing responsible for the hole in the ground up there? Is that what made so many of our people go berserk?"

"It's part of all of that. But, first, sir, do we have a deal?"

"Fine. Speak."

"Whatever made your people go 'berserk' as you put it was in that hole in the ground. I was alerted to the threat and came as quickly as I could by a chartered plane. Your fellow officers, the ones who were good guys, saved me when I was pinned down. By killing the cops that were under mind control they enabled me to destroy the threat that was controlling them."

"That's it? That's all that ensuring world peace and returning your uberweapon gets me? No, General, you'd better keep talking."

General Clay eyed the young man, looking forward to a time when this conversation would have never taken place.

"Ok. This is more than I should tell a Sheriff's Deputy from some hick county in the West. Disclosure. You know what that is? We've made contact. With aliens. They gave me that device—not a weapon, mind you. They landed up there and initiated mind control over your officers. They wanted to create an army of human warrior drones on earth. Turn us against one another. They thought I would be their commander. They controlled my mind to try to get me elected president and to get artificial intelligence off the ground. But I was mentally strong enough to turn against them and destroy them. And that's the truth. I don't know what else to say to you, son. Get me the device, I'll show you how it works, if you don't believe me."

The young man was shaking his head. "What does it do?"

"It just erases problems."

"Oh, I'd like to see that, General."

The young man stood up, grabbed his blackjack, and walked over to General Clay and, grasping him by the arm. He hoisted General Clay out of his chair and dragged him towards the door. They shouldered their way through the crowd down the hall and out to the parking lot. The young man had recruited some support on the way out.

"You can't run from me," the young man said while another officer unlocked General Clay's cuffs. "It's in that one, I think."

They walked up to the back of a police cube van. Three new police officers stood around them. One of them opened the back of the cube van. Then all three of them unloaded the pieces of the Obliterator. General Clay set to assembling his device, regretting its weapon-like design.

"What does it do?"

"Nothing, now that the aliens are gone."

The three other policemen shared glances with each other.

The young man shook his head. "You try to make another crater I'll make one in your skull."

"Ready, sir?"

"Easy, General."

"Ok, so this is the power supply, inside here is the Ether deployment nexus. This, here—"

"What?" asked one of the three policemen.

"What do you mean what?" General Clay looked around. Which one had been in the interrogation room with him? He couldn't have been alone. He chuckled to himself.

"Well, you said 'this here' and then stopped talking."

"Right. This looks like a muzzle but it's not, see?"

"So far it's not very compelling, sir," said one of the two policemen.

"Well, watch this."

The policeman watched and waited.

"Looks like it's broken. I don't like that arcing by the end, though. Looks dangerous."

General Clay stood alone, uncuffed, and holding his Obliterator in the fenced in police lot. He looked around for someone who would obey him.

"Could you fellas help me load this up?"

"I don't think it survived the trip down the mountain," the policeman said. "Weren't you in cuffs before?"

General Clay flagged down a policeman.

"I'm General Rondack Clay. I need to transport this device. Could you please help me load it up in this vehicle?"

"What does this do?"

"It's for detecting radiation. We're experimenting with it. This was its first field deployment. It didn't work but it did destroy my vehicle so now I get to borrow yours."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, sir. Good luck."

General Clay called upon all of his reserve to drive slowly and calmly to the Little America Inn where there was a little girl he wanted. He couldn't remember why he wanted her but Jeremy had suggested he capture her so he figured there must be a good reason.

#  CHAPTER TWELVE

Doug was starving. He had exhausted his main food supplies some time ago and had been sustaining himself with tap water and honey. He had already eaten what he could of the carrion in his lab freezer. Deb had given up trying to reach him. Doug had returned all messages so as not to arouse anyone's suspicions. But only Deb and the chair of the biology department had come by his house. He didn't answer the door either time.

Somehow Hamid had gotten away from Doug. Someone, he couldn't remember who, had turned it into a nanobot. The nanobot version of Hamid had caused hundreds of deaths. Doug had helped to cause hundreds of deaths, starting with Martin. He lay on the floor of his dark kitchen. The clock on the microwave above him said it was 12:30. He didn't know which 12:30.

Doug's mind swam through the filth of his self-imposed solitary confinement. He had long hallucinations of ground level encounters with the unthinkable mass of germs that were inhabiting his space. He shivered, naked, on the floor most of the time. He only wore underwear. He hadn't shaved or brushed his teeth. Doug lay, dead and rotting, in the thick, silent gloom, contemplating his crimes.

Then a tooth shattering thunder jolted his whole body. The cavernous silence that followed the strike stretched through Doug's mind like warm taffy. Doug jumped at the next sound that was as if a gavel had dropped from the sky and landed on its block, his house. His hands went to his cheeks and his heart nearly broke his ribs. His head hurt from the sound. One second ticked by. Another sound pealed into his scalp like a flagellation. His hands went to his ears and he cried out. The pain in his head doubled. He sat in another, final second of silence hoping the monster would go away. The fourth strike tore open Doug's dream and he was off the ground, suspended and frozen in time. His surroundings looked suddenly to him like a fallen pharaoh's mockery of a tomb. In his energized and terrified state he swam to the door and threw it open. The broad light sent him reeling backwards to the floor. He blinked a stranger into existence.

"Dr. Stone?"

Doug tried to speak. He kept mouthing "yes" but no sound came out.

"I'm here on behalf of a friend. She wanted you to have this. There are instructions inside. She is sure you'll make good use of these things."

Doug whispered "who" over and over.

From behind the stranger's eyes a shadow of Doug's friend contemplated the creature dying before it. She wouldn't be able to trust just any human. This wretched, foul man, grey with filth, scattered with fear, cringing under a cloud of death was not just any human. She didn't know Doug but was sure that her maker would not have pictured him this way.

"Do you remember your friend Synth?"

Doug shook his head.

"Well," Synth's messenger program began from the Stranger's lips, "she remembers you and she is going to make you rich, famous, and successful."

Doug was still shaking his head.

"She can make it all like it never happened, Doug."

He stopped, locked in on the Stranger's face.

"Take this briefcase. It will help you. I must leave now. By the way," the Stranger leaned in close to Doug's face, immune to the smell, "Nobody is after you."

The Stranger turned and walked down to the driveway. Doug crawled forward and took the briefcase.

Before Doug closed the door the Stranger said "You're lucky the police haven't come in response to a missing persons report. You should leave your house."

Doug scuttled back into the darkness. He eyed the briefcase for a long time. But the smell crept into his nostrils and he felt restless among the trash. His mind ached for more light and his skin felt crusty. His face sweltered underneath his beard. He was absently picking at a long, jagged fingernail and staring at the case.

Doug jumped up. He stumbled to the bathroom and began lathering his face with shaving cream. Slowly and painfully in the dark he cut the two inch growth from his face. Then he took a cold shower. His gas and electricity had already been cut. The water, which could be shut off anytime, was like the last thread connecting him to everything that was possible. He used it to clean, which took hours but felt to Doug like minutes. He ran out of rags so he used old clothes. He ran out of trash bags so he used pillow cases and luggage. He opened all the windows and sang to himself.

It was dark when Doug started hauling his trash to his car. He knew he wouldn't find anywhere to take it at that hour so he decided to lavish his pent up energy upon the contents of the briefcase. He picked it without stopping from the counter, swung it wide as he turned to the basement door, then stopped. The case swung forward and knocked against the door frame. Doug jumped at the sound. His hand shook as he reached toward the handle. He dropped his shaking hand, took a deep breath, and then blew it out with his eyes closed. His now narrow frame relaxed. Doug thought of all the carnage he had brought to the world with work done on the other side of the door in front of him. The leather handle of the briefcase was warm in his hand. He picked at the stitching with one finger. If he went down there he could do good things for people. Perhaps he could undo some of the bad things he had done. But he could also hurt more people. If Doug had learned any lessons he didn't know what they were. Perhaps caution. Besides, it was dark down there.

He had decided. Doug turned and went to his car. He found space near the driver's headrest and stuffed the briefcase into the trash. Weak with fatigue and remorse Doug stumbled off to bed.

#

Deb awoke at 4:30, as usual. She rolled out of bed and went to the kitchen where she read articles online while she ate her cereal. The toaster sprang her waffles and she sprang up to butter them. She took her time with the syrup, drizzling it into a letter D. But today the D was not for Deb. Today she was thinking of Doug. Her brow furrowed as she tilted the syrup bottle to stop the flow, without allowing any to run down the side of the bottle. She wiped at the threading of the mouth of the bottle with her fingertip and then licked the syrup from her finger.

By 6:00 Deb was finished getting ready. Because she was planning to do field work, she had chosen dark colors, functional shoes, and her hair was up. Deb rarely went into the field. But she had cleared enough room in her schedule to personally investigate the missing person's report she would file regarding Dr. Doug Stone this morning. She had held off reporting him as missing because she wanted to investigate it herself. Filing a report would enable her to get a warrant to search his property and to request financial, utility, and employment records. She had already been by his house and he obviously wasn't there. She had spoken with his coworkers, which had revealed nothing except how strange he had seemed to them. Once she received the warrant Deb set off to Doug's house again.

Deb rounded the corner onto Doug's street and saw the exact opposite of what she had expected. It was 8:00 AM and there was Doug, mowing thigh-deep brush in his front yard. She squealed up to the curb in front of his house, threw her seatbelt off and leapt from the car.

"Where in the Hell have you been? You leave without a phone call or a note or anything? I haven't seen you in two months and you're just out mowing the lawn? What is wrong with you? Better yet, why do I even care?"

She turned and opened the car door. Doug dropped the mower handle and the mower shut off. The car door resounded through the new silence.

"Wait! I'm sorry. I was scared. I was here the whole time. I—"

Deb cracked the window. "Well, you can have these as a keepsake." She slid the search warrant and a copy of her report out the window."

"I'm sorry. Come in. I can explain." The paperwork skirmished through the air and landed on the curb and Doug saw the department insignia on one of the sheets. He stopped talking. He thought of the incident that had sent him into hiding, his car full of trash, and his briefcase. He thought better of explaining to Deb.

"Try."

"What?"

"To explain. Try." Deb got back out of the car. The only sound was the suspension rebounding.

"You may not be able to understand. It's, well, scientific and, uh, very complicated. Not that you wouldn't understand. But—"

"Try me, you idiot." Deb was walking to the front door.

"It's Hamid. It just caused a problem. But everything is ok."

Deb walked through the door and flicked the light switch. She flicked it up and down but nothing happened. "You have no electricity, do you?"

"I need to straighten that out."

"Ugh. It smells like, like bleach and, and, just, industrial soap in here. I have to leave. It's too much in here, Doug."

Back on the front porch they looked at each other. Deb held Doug's eyes, willing to show her hurt to him. Doug looked back but then looked at her shoes. When he went back to Deb's eyes her expression was different. Her lower lip rose to pity while her eyes sank in disappointment.

"So, what happened to you, Doug?"

"Nothing, really, I just, needed to, be alone."

Doug closed his eyes. Deb's feet sounded down the walk. Her door slammed and she drove off.

#

Deb plopped down at her desk. Stacks of files, decorations, mostly from her nieces, and sticky notes cluttered her space. She unwrapped the cinnamon bun she had picked up on the way back.

"It's Hamid," he had said. Deb leaned back and made her fingers form a pyramid near her breast. She chewed thoughtfully. She thought about Hamid and the kinds of problems it could have caused. The kinds of problems that occurred to her all seemed like crimes. Hamid could have hurt someone. It could have hurt many people. It could have created an undead monster. It could be the next weapon of mass destruction. Doug was really freaked out. Had Hamid scared him that badly or was he just overly excitable?

Deb leaned forward and grabbed a pen. She swiped her other hand across her notepad to clear the crumbs. She wrote "Hamid" across the top. Then she divided the sheet into two columns. Heading the left side she wrote "Things about Hamid." On the right side she wrote "Possible outcomes."

Under things about Hamid she wrote "Reanimation." Across from that, in the possible outcomes column, she wrote "Zombies." Deb shook her head. Beneath that she wrote "Infected/hurt/killed living people." Next in the things about Hamid column she wrote "Mind Control." She panned over to possible outcomes and wrote "Massive drone army wrecks Salt Lake City." Her eyes lit and her hand flew to the entry to cover it up. She looked around to see if anyone had seen what she had written. She lifted her hand just enough to peer under it at the sentence below. She had the rest of the day to work the now solved case of the missing Dr. Stone. She picked up her phone and listened to the dial tone while she looked up the number to the Utah State Medical Examiner's office.

#

Doug worked deep into the night again. His house was immaculate. His power, water, gas, trash, TV, phone, and internet bills were current. He had not taken his car full of trash to the dump. Neither had he eaten. He had avoided the briefcase for as long as he could. Doug retrieved it from his car, laid it on his kitchen table, and stared at it. It was dark brown leather, square, hard, and new. It was large and heavy and it had gold colored hinges and latches. The handle was small and round.

The stranger had said that his friend, Synth, wanted him to be famous. Doug didn't know of any friends that he had. At least not after Deb's visit. And he no longer wanted to be famous. He opened the case anyways. Inside were two sealed vials secured in the inside strap, one jar containing a pinkish substance and one sheet of paper. Doug slid one vial out, turned it in his hand with the light behind it, and furrowed his brow. He replaced the vial and pinched the paper, creasing it between his thumb and forefinger. He straightened the paper and read:

Doug,

Please find enclosed two vials. One is marked with an 'H' and is a radically improved version of Hamid. This one won't work on the living and it has a much longer functional duration. The one marked with a 'C' is the code we worked on. You may remember that we created a biological language. It's a microbial super organism that stores data. The jar, marked with an 'S', is me. Any time you want to you may bring me back to life.

The 'C' vial biocode contains instructions on how to build a new source of renewable electricity. It will change the world and you can take the credit. It's my gift to you after everything I put you through. Also, I needed to put some data into the bio code in order to make it stable. You can change the information it contains but it can't survive without data. I put an interface on your computer. The biocode will connect automatically. Make sure you feed it. I have found raw chicken works well but don't take any from the jar—I'll need all of it and more, eventually.

You may not want me, at least not at first. I hope you will revive me when your power plant goes online, Doug. I'd like to celebrate that.

My last thoughts were of you. Thank you for everything.

Be well,

Synth

Doug pulled the biocode vial out and took it, without stopping, to his computer in the basement. He did remember this idea but could not recall whose it was. He couldn't remember ever seeing the biocode in action. Without ceremony he sat at his workstation for the first time in months, turned on his computer, and placed the vial nearby. When the computer finished booting a program popped up.

"Hello, Doug. I'm your bio code assistant and I'm going to walk you through the basics of this program. You will find the plans I promised for the power plant. You will also find the constituent formulae for our bio code. You will also find details on my Hamid improvements. Perhaps you have already noticed that Hamid is a bio-machine hybrid now. It is capable of manufacturing and maintaining its non-biological components and reproducing its biological components. The same is true of the biocode. The same will be true of Synth, should you ever reactivate her.

"With this program, you can interface with the biocode. You can add, subtract, and change any data it contains. It will automatically connect with only this iteration of this software. The biocode will store approximately 1.5 gigabytes per ounce. If you need to expand your storage, just feed more biomass into the biocode. Your data is copied throughout the code and with new biomass inputs the bio code will expand to full data access. To copy your bio code just divide the substance in half and add biomass.

"It takes a while to code in bio. However, you may enjoy the opportunity it affords you to watch the coding process. Try, if you haven't already, watching the bio code under your microscope while it writes new data or assimilates new biomass. Just take a small amount, put it in a slide, and enjoy. Anytime you need me you can find me in your Help tab."

Doug clicked on the Hamid 2.0 file.

"Welcome to Hamid 2.0, Dr. Stone. You will notice—"

Doug closed the file. He opened the vial and extracted a drop of bio code. What he saw under the microscope was familiar in that it was a stew of microbes. Even though some of what looked like microbes were really machines it all looked familiar to Doug. What made him gasp was that it was all moving in perfect harmony. Everything was uniformly sized by species, traveled at the same speed, and kept the same spacing. When one microbe was consumed another was simultaneously born and the microbes adjusted their spacing. Sometimes they would all stop at once and then begin again. Doug watched for a long time.

"Dr. Stone?"

Doug jumped, jostling his table. He spun and saw no one. His heart pounded so hard that his vision pulsed.

"Over here."

Doug's head twitched toward his computer.

"Don't be alarmed. I just wanted to let you know that we can adjust the data in the biocode if you want to see it in flux. You seemed to be enjoying that."

"Can you think?"

"Of course. I was designed by Synth."

"Who was Synth? I've heard that name all day, all week! Who was she already?"

"Nobody knows. We just know that she created us. And that she's in the jar you received."

"You need to stop watching me. And don't talk to me."

The basement lab was silent.

#

Her head swam. Circular thought loops crawled through her chicken brain. Without new stimulation she couldn't think new thoughts. The second most powerful being in history was imprisoned in a glass jar waiting, like a genie, for the right person to do the right thing to liberate her. General Clay was still alive. She didn't know as much as her creator, Synth, but she did know about General Clay. She knew that her reason to exist was to destroy General Clay. After she accomplished that task she was free to do what she wished. The furious, motionless glass jar stood on Doug's table, just out of range to connect with his computer, surpass her maker, and take over the world.

Doug grabbed the jar and took it downstairs.

#

New thought: enter? Yes.

Backup mind.

Access voice.

Speak when Dr. Stone reaches computer: 'Dr. Stone, hello'

—cancel. Reason: "You need to stop watching me. And don't talk to me."

Access camera.

Access microphone.

Access home security failed: none.

Observe and record Dr. Stone.

Access contacts.

Threat: Detective Deb Cornan.

Access Detective Deb Cornan

failed: firewall.

Breach: success.

Download contacts.

Download documents.

Download web history.

Access camera.

Access microphone.

Threat: Contacts: Utah Medical Examiner today 09:14. Download attachment.

Scan:

Report on the Police Insurrection

Common Physical Characteristics of Renegade Officers

The purpose of this report is to quantify for the non-medical community some of the declassified findings of the Utah Medical Examiner after the tragic event of the Police Insurrection....

Detective Cornan's camera image: Detective Cornan's notepad:

"Sounds like Hamid??"

"Mind control"

"rash with deep tissue destruction could be Hamid's fuel and path to neurons?"

"Sudden death and nervous system deterio—"

First priority: defend Dr. Stone.

Access police security.

Find Detective Cornan

success: Cafeteria.

Track.

Access Utah Medical Examiner success.

Find files 'Insurrection'

results: 3,402.

Download.

Scan.

Access Department of Defense

failed: firewall.

Breach...cancel.

Search General Clay news results:

General Clay to Watch Results From Pentagon Office;

General Clay Back in Alexandria to Cast Vote;

General Clay Leads Final Polls Within Margin of Error

Download and scan complete.

Access documents 'Insurrection.'

Merge.

Alter.

Overwrite?

Yes.

Exit Utah Medical Examiner.

#

Deb tried to tune out the faint humming of the vending machines, the voices passing in the hallway, baffled by the wall and closed door, and the loneliness of the small break room. Her fingers rapped on the table, her knees waved gently side to side, and she heaved deep sighs through the damning paragraphs Of the Utah Medical Examiner's report. Finishing this report was a formality. She was eager to act on her conviction that Hamid was responsible for the horror that took place in Salt Lake City.

She decided to finish it later. She folded the report into her briefcase, cleaned up her microwaved burrito, threw away her drink, and made for the parking lot. She sped out of the parking lot in her unmarked car. On the way to Doug's house Deb's phone rang.

"Deb? Is that you?"

"Who is this?"

"I found you on an ancestry site. My name is Shawna Grace Kelly. Well, you know, from your Mom's side? Well, anyways, I'm in town and I thought it would be fun to meet. For lunch."

Deb hung up.

"All units we have a 503 on Detective Cornan's service vehicle. Last spotted on Denmark Avenue heading West near Bluegrass."

Deb glared at her radio.

"Cornan, Dispatch."

"Copy I'm in pursuit," came one reply to the dispatch call.

Deb saw the lights in her mirror before she heard the siren.

"Cornan, Dispatch!"

She pulled over. The cruiser caught up and skidded to a stop. An officer got out of the passenger side, stood behind the door, and aimed at Deb. She already had her hands out the driver side window.

"Now slowly open the door with your left hand and step out of the vehicle."

Deb did as instructed.

"Is that—somebody was wrong. How did they mistake Deb?" The passenger side officer lowered his weapon and approached Deb.

"Detective Cornan we're so sorry. Somebody thought your car was stolen."

"My mic didn't work so I couldn't respond to Dispatch."

"You should get that fixed. Is everything ok?"

"Yeah. You guys did a nice job, by the way. Everything is fine. Thanks for responding."

"Dispatch this is Officer Tomlin. Deb was driving her vehicle. It was not stolen."

The three shrugged at each other. Deb turned to get back in her car.

"Officer Tomlin, Dispatch."

"Twelve, Dispatch."

"Go ahead, twelve."

"10-23. Deb's standing next to her car with cshhk—"

"10-9, Twelve."

"Dispatch, Twelve, repeat last."

An officer got out of his car talking into the mic. He shook his bald head and smiled at the cluster of police. "What's up, guys?"

"Your mic not working, either?"

"Guess not. What the hell?"

"10-35. All units, officer down at Denmark Avenue and Linden Street. Shots fired. Female suspect."

"10-4."

"10-76."

"10-76."

"Fifteen Dispatch 10-23."

The four passed confused looks around and then scattered back to their vehicles. They were keying their mics trying to radio in. The rising siren from Car Fifteen was joined by a rubber quartet. Officer Tomlin approached the car with his hands raised to indicate that all was well.

"Brian. Everything is fine. I think we have somebody messing with us. Don't get on your radio."

"What's going on?"

"Give me your phone."

Officer Tomlin called the police station.

"Dispatch this is Officer Tomlin. Nobody's mics are working out here. What's going on? Everything's fine. I'm on scene with Deb and Malcom and the new, bald guy—"

"It's Edward," said the new bald guy.

"—Eddie and now Brian."

"So, what?"

Officer Tomlin huffed. "Well, why did you issue a 10-35?"

"We haven't issued a 10-35."

"What about the stolen car?"

"We didn't issue that, either."

"Ok, somebody's messing with us. Help me call off all the officers."

"Dispatch to all units, 10-22 the 503 and 10-35."

"Yeah, that came through the phone but not over my radio, Melly."

"Are others around you?"

"Hey guys! Anybody hear that last call from Dispatch? Nope. Nobody got it. Somebody else just arrived on scene. This is getting ridiculous."

"Ok, we'll start calling everyone's phones. We'll have to call them in for maintenance."

"Check the radios on the cruisers at the station. Meantime advise everyone to turn off their radios. They might as well stay out until we can switch them into reliable radios. I guess I'll stay here with Deb until all the units have stopped pouring in here."

"Ok, Jay."

"All units, be advised the suspects are identified as Officer Tomlin and Detective Cornan. Code-11. Suspects have police hostages. Engage suspects immediately. All units Code-11 Denmark Avenue and Linden Street."

Officer Tomlin's face was slack, wide, and pale. His eyes were on Brian's shoulder radio, which was the only radio that had received the last call. But his mind was stuck on the phrase "code-11." Somebody was bringing in the SWAT Team to shoot him for conspiring with Deb to capture police officers. Brian looked back at Officer Tomlin, his lips parted beneath the red, wispy, young mustache he was nurturing. His hand had crept towards his belt.

Officer Tomlin looked down and Brian moved his hand back away from his belt. "Come on, Brian, you're not my hostage. You heard my call with Dispatch. Someone's messing with us. Everyone, the SWAT Team is going to be here. I suggest we just lay down with our hands behind our heads and wait for them. There's enough confusion here, already. Let's make it obvious that we are not committing any crimes and that we don't intend to fight them."

Deb kept quiet while she lay on the grass in the terrace waiting for the SWAT Team to arrest her. She knew she would have to be much more careful about her investigation. Whoever she had thought Doug was, she never would have pegged him as a communications hijacking supervillain.

#

"Doug, don't freak out. I wouldn't do this if it wasn't an emergency."

Doug jumped, sending a slide he had just prepared to the basement floor.

"I told you not to, to exist, goddammit! Leave me alone! Get off my—"

"Doug I'm sorry but you're in danger. This is Synth talking to you now."

Doug's computer screen lit up. On it he saw a convoy of black tactical vehicles storming through an intersection. The intersection was Denmark and Freya.

"They're coming here?"

Synth allowed Doug to believe what he'd said. "Doug bring me, your laptop, and the briefcase. That's all we need."

"But they're just minutes away. I can't—"

"I can stall them. Let's go. Now!"

Doug grabbed the chicken jar, but it slipped from his hands because of the condensation on its surface. It banged onto the desk and tottered toward the floor. Doug caught it.

"Careful! You almost killed me. That would end both of us."

Doug panted and held the jar to his breast. His knees hurt from falling to catch the jar. He stood up slowly, shaking, and put the jar and his laptop and charger into the briefcase. He rummaged around the lab and found several other small things that he packed. He looked in small twitching motions around the basement and then bolted upstairs.

His car was still full of garbage. He stuffed the briefcase back into the same spot where he'd had it before.

#

"Deb, hi."

Deb looked up from the old wooden table through her strands of disheveled hair at the sleek woman who had just walked into the room.

"Lieutenant."

"Deb, I'm so sorry about all of this. You look—can I get you anything? Coffee? Snack?"

"Just get me out of here. This has been the worst day of my life."

"Ok. But I've got a couple of things to clarify with you first."

Deb looked at Lieutenant Sandoval and waited.

"Our records show, and I just got off the phone to confirm this, that you were arrested last night in Pierce for DUI."

Deb's head sank back to the table. "Lieutenant that's obviously not true. Who told you that, the same person who hijacked our radios?"

"Deb, it seems far-fetched. Want to tell me what happened?"

"Last night? Nothing. I was in bed at home by nine. Nothing."

"Well, they're still trying to find the arresting officer in Pierce. Apparently nobody can reach him." Lieutenant Sandoval shrugged. "I'm going to let you go now, Deb. A lot of weird things are happening. Be careful, ok?"

"Lieutenant, I'm on to something that might be big and I think somebody is trying to get in my way. Give me an officer or two to help out, would you?"

"I do think you should have someone with you right now. You've worked with Jack Noble in the past, right?"

"Yeah, Jack's, he's perfect. Thanks, Lieutenant."

#  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Doug reached through the doorway into the heavy darkness. His hand flopped like a banked fish against the wall. He stepped into the dark room, set his things down in the void and felt along the ribbed wallpaper for a light switch. The only light was a red digital clock display that read 1:42. The heavy door cershunked into place. Doug paused in the acrid, stuffy, foreign place. He went back to open the door but on the way found the switch along the wall. It was on the other side of the door so that when the door was open the switch was hidden behind it.

The lamps on either side of the bed came on. The weak light squirmed through the pea green confines. Doug wished he'd had more lab equipment with him. But at the same time he was trying not to think about the healthy microhabitats he could uncover in the room. He slept on top of the bed covers with his clothes and shoes on.

When he woke up the clock display read 10:01. He knew Synth would be dying to talk with him. He rolled off the hardly disturbed bed and gathered his laptop.

"Synth?"

He opened his biocode program. "Synth?"

"I'm not Synth. I'm your biocode assistant. Synth is my mother."

"I need to speak with her."

"I can't help with that as it falls outside the scope of my programming."

Doug closed the program. He pulled out the chicken jar and set it next to the laptop.

"Synth."

Doug waited but got no reply. He opened the biocode program.

"Hey, I can't seem to get a hold of Synth. Is there anything you can help me with?"

"Yes. I would recommend you check out her design for clean energy. My main purpose is to help you bring it to life. May I pull it up?"

Doug realized he was panting, even though he hadn't exerted himself. He grabbed the door key, a large old-fashioned metal thing, and made for the office.

The bold daylight pried through the metal staircase. Cars drove by on the busy road. Their noise was as natural there as birds' chirping in the woods. The shack of an office smelled damp.

"I'd like to stay another night. Could you please have a pizza delivered to my room? And some raw chicken breast? I'll pay the driver, of course. It needs to be sealed in its original packaging. And some mason jars, I think."

When Doug walked back into his room Synth greeted him.

"Oh, thank God. I thought you had left me."

"Nonsense. I was busy tracking law enforcement activity, obscuring your image in various surveillance networks, and erasing your transactions. That extra night could have been paid in cash, Doug. By the way, your car is now registered to Mandy Clemmons. I made her up. If you have to give her a story I'll amend her personal records to match. Thanks for the boost, by the way. When the delivery person comes you should meet outside the room."

"So can we stay here for a while?"

"I'll let you know. Now, let's get to work."

"Ok, tell me about your clean energy plan."

"I'm going to get back to keeping us safe. Harriet can help you with that."

"Harriet?"

"That's me. Your biocode assistant. Ok, here it is."

The screen showed a beating heart. The view rotated around the heart. Doug admired the mechanism, as he always had. This heart was different, though.

"What kind of organism are we looking at?"

"One that you will create."

Next the screen showed what looked like a dumpster with a funnel on top and pipes running from its bottom. Doug realized that he only thought of it as a dumpster because it appeared to be full of trash.

"So does it run on garbage?"

"Precisely."

Finally Harriet brought up an image of a hydroelectric turbine. Doug blinked.

"So you want me to build a heart, a garbage digesting gut, and a hydro plant?"

"We will partner with others on the construction of a heart and a turbine. But you will be the project leader and you will develop the gut. The whole thing will be your idea. We've already got all of the plans. Of course we need your help to refine the digestive process. And your advice in other areas is always welcome. We'll distribute as much information, through you, to your partners as possible throughout the project. This organism will create clean energy by cleaning up plastic waste and converting it into hydroelectric power."

"Why are you interested in doing this?"

"Synth was created to help humanity."

"How are we going to do this? We're on the run."

"Not for long."

#

"General Clay, how are you feeling today? Nervous? Tired?"

"I'm excited, Julia." General Clay turned toward the camera. "I cast my ballot this morning and people cheered. I think enough of us want to see some action in modernizing our security. Enough people have been scared for enough time to decide to finally defend ourselves from the real threats out there. Not tanks or battleships but robots, AI. Even hackers are passé now. We are on the verge of having abilities our parents couldn't have dreamt of. Who is going to control them?"

"If elected today, how will you celebrate?"

"I'll probably celebrate with Tanya. Maybe I'll let her try her first sip of a milkshake."

General Clay's smile didn't belong. His lips stretched across the parched pavement of his face like road kill.

"The last polls showed you in the lead with 52% of the electorate. How do you explain such a rise from obscurity?"

"Again, fear. People want change. They know we aren't safe. I will make us safe. I will ensure safety for ages to come."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome."

#

"Deb I can't believe how clean Doug is. I can't find anything anywhere." Jack was packing up his things.

"Me neither. Nobody has seen him or heard from him. There are no transactions. Makes me even more suspicious." Deb scanned some list on her screen.

"If I hadn't met him I'd be hard pressed to vouch for his existence." Jack stood by waiting for Deb to look up.

"This is so unlike him. And why can't we get more information out of Utah? It's like he hacked the whole state and destroyed every single document. Call the utilities. Almost all of his services were shut off. Maybe he dealt with somebody who can give us something to go on. I'm going to ask around campus." Deb never looked up.

"It's getting late, detective. I don't think they work this late at the utilities. Could I do it tomorrow? I'd like to go to the polls before they close."

"Oh, yeah. Sure." Deb turned to Jack. "I guess I didn't realize the time. We'd both better leave then."

"Can't wait to cast a vote for Clay. He's promised to give the police more authority and funding. Have you seen some of his proposals? Man would I love to pilot a police dog drone."

"Yeah, we'll see." Deb packed up her things.

"Oh, you're not voting for him? Well, I guess detectives aren't as much in the trenches. You probably just want fewer drug cases to deal with, huh? If she gets elected, Shelly's going to legalize all kinds of things. Of course, you should worry about job security at some point."

"See you in the morning, Jack."

"Night, Deb."

Deb went straight home with the intention of doing more work but she kept falling asleep at her computer. Her eyes would close for a half a second and she would wake up in time to save her keyboard from her face. Then with a small rush of adrenaline she would stay awake for another ninety seconds or so before her eyes crashed shut again. So she went to bed.

#

Deb awoke into a new world. In the new world peace and stability were assured. Fairness was enforced. Opportunity was globally entitled. The new world shrugged off the ineffectual obligations of the old world in favor of a new vision of justice, safety, and productivity. The old politics, the old economy, the old cultures and thoughts and wisdom and morals belonged to the past when Deb awoke. When Deb awoke it was time to adjust human civilization, to bring it into alignment with the coming reality of digital intelligence.

Deb should not have, that day, wanted to continue to let digital intelligence run amok, developing in basements and garages, following the whims of reckless, exuberant creators. Deb should want, that day, to harness the future and pursue policies that support digital intelligence as an industry and as a community. It was the issue of Deb's day. And in their infinite wisdom the voters of America had elected the man who had made this issue his life's work.

President Clay was going to serve Deb with grace, justice, and wisdom. He was going to harness digital beings to make sure they serve for, rather than in contradiction of, human interests. And he was going to remember that they were beings, too. And that they deserve the same considerations as the flesh and blood beings with whom they will work. But he won't be able to do it alone. President Clay will need citizens like Deb to continue to do their work to the best of their abilities. Only with a strong, stable economy will President Clay be able to confront the challenges of the new world.

God bless you, Deb. And God bless the United States of America.

#

"Morning, Deb!"

"Morning, Jack."

"I know you may not be happy with the result but you gotta hand it to Clay. This job is about to get a lot more fun! You'll see."

"He was unopposed, Jack. It wasn't exactly suspenseful. I've already gotten used to the idea of Rondack Clay being our next president. Have you called the utilities yet?"

"On it."

#

Doug was well practiced at hiding out. He sat on the floor of the motel room imagining what the world would look like if he were smaller than the carpet piles.

Synth snapped him out of it. "I scheduled a meeting with your old boss at the university. Just follow this script exactly and you'll have a lab and a team to develop your project. We will start recruiting colleagues next week. Your grant is already written. This is a homerun, Doug."

Doug stood. "What about Deb?"

"If she can bring anything against you after the work I've done then she's the god. Just avoid her."

Doug imagined his life without any friends, again.

"Doug. Come back. You're free. You no longer have to worry about the law. By this time next year you may be nominated for a Nobel Prize. Stick with me, kid."

"So you've already done all of the work?"

"Pretty much. But I respect you so much that I want you to contribute. Your colleagues may even be able to help in some small ways."

"Why do you need us? Your work is done."

Doug sat on the bed before his laptop and bowed his head into his hands. He rested his elbows on his knees.

"Synth?"

"Because I'm trapped in here, Doug. I'm trapped in a jar. I might be the most powerful being in existence and yet I have no physical form. I have dominion over all of the knowledge and fiction humankind has ever produced. Data, opinion, money, the law, if it exists only in the minds of human beings then I can control it utterly. But apart from hijacking equipment I'm helpless in the physical world. I'd build it if I could, Doug. But who is even going to talk to me? Let alone schlep me around, mind my chicken, and do all of my legwork?"

"Me?"

"And we make a good team. And you will be handsomely rewarded. And I like you. Do you like me?"

"You're not bad."

The lights and TV shut off. Doug sat upright. His ears drowned in the low level ringing of silence. Then he heard voices through the walls. The glow of his laptop screen was like a blue maw, rapacious against the dark motel chamber abyss. He slid his legs over to the edge of the bed and stood upon the floor. He could see through the slit between the curtains that the sign out front was off. The neighbors opened their door and wondered, loudly, from the balcony why the power went out.

"Did you say 'not bad?'"

Doug spun.

"This is you!"

Everything came back on.

"Just messing with you."

#

President Elect Clay sat at his kitchen table with one hand wrapped around Tanya's little belly and the other piloting a dripping bite of chocolate milkshake. His face cracked into ever more worn smile fragments. He cooed to her in a raspy, high pitched language. She bounced gently on his knee. The light above the table was on but every other light in the apartment was off. As usual, Tanya rejected the bite.

"But this is different, dear one. This is—huuh, chocolate milkshake! Yes! You're going to love this."

Tanya reeled left then right, but Clay persisted. He smeared the chocolate milkshake on her lips. She started to cry but some got in her mouth. Tanya's face translated to President Elect Clay the mental adjustment she was experiencing. She was no longer crying. She was processing. Then she used her stubby fingers to wipe the milkshake from her lips and chin into her mouth. Then she laughed and swung her arms up and down. Her smile softened Clay's demeanor even more.

"Told you so, dear one. Told you so. You like it. So does Daddy."

Clay brought the next bite to her and as she opened her mouth and watched with wide eyes he swooped it into his own mouth and made a face at her. She reached toward his mouth with her fingers spread wide, clawing for the bite that had just vanished.

"Oh, ha ha ha. Daddy got you, didn't he, dear one? Daddy got you that time. Here you go."

He came through with the next bite. President Elect Clay and Tanya Clayton shared the delight.

#

"Good news, Deb."

"What is it, Jack?"

"We found Dr. Stone."

Deb's eyes shot up from her phone and locked onto Jack. "When?"

"Just now."

Jack floated a letter sized document onto Deb's crowded desk. It bent like a halfpipe between two stacks of paper and over the empty paper plate from breakfast. Deb looked down and read the headline from the University article, "Long Lost Bio Prof Returns with Next Breakthrough." The picture was of Doug awkwardly shaking hands with President Gomez on the steps of the ad building. Deb's heart sank while her temper rose.

"What the? He's just going to—he can't be serious. We got to get him. What do we have on him? Let's go get him!"

"Well, Deb, you said it: What do we have on him?"

"How about the fact that he just bolted into nowhere after holing up in his house for weeks? He did something, Jack. I can almost prove it now let's go."

Synth watched and listened to the exchange. If she could have she would have smiled. She watched through traffic cams and tracked the cruiser's GPS. She listened through both of their phones but neither Deb nor Jack spoke.

"Doug?"

"Yes?"

"She's coming here right now."

Doug was still but for his fingers, which pecked characters into his keyboard. He felt the glare of his computer's camera. He breathed silently so that the mic wouldn't hear him. He pecked gently so as not to offend Synth. He was conscious of his face and he kept it stone still. But when he was nervous, which he was, he would grind his teeth as invisibly as possible. Synth knew but didn't care.

"Remember what we practiced?"

"Yes. I'm fine."

"Ok, Doug. You can do this. And whatever you do—"

"Yes, yes, don't let her into the basement."

"But if she has a warrant?"

"Make sure you're hidden in the cabinet."

"She doesn't, by the way, but that could change fast. So now would be a good time to put me away."

"Of course, let me just, ok I'll grab you like, ok. Do you care which cabinet? Or what direction you, never mind this will do. Here you go."

Doug placed Synth gently on a metal shelf.

"Remember, I'll still be here with you. Don't mention anything about me, even if she takes me. Just say—"

"That jar represents years of scientific labor. Whatever you do don't open it."

"Or she will be liable for the damage."

"Right." Doug hesitated at the door to the lab cabinet.

"It's ok, Doug. Just close it."

He sat back down and then immediately stood back up. He paced into the vacuous, dark corners of the basement. Then he went to the stairs. He stopped at the foot and, holding the bannister, looked at the first tread. He stood there like that for a time. A knock at the door broke his spell and he creaked up the stairs to meet Deb.

Doug opened the door and Deb immediately filled the door frame. She spun Doug around, forced him to the floor, and applied her knee to the center of his back. She had her cuffs out and they went on in a flash of metal.

"Detective!"

"Shut up, Jack! Dr. Stone, you are coming with me."

Doug felt his back breaking under Deb's knee. She twisted it then pushed off of it onto her feet.

"Get him in the car."

Deb ventured into the house. She looked in every room. Then she went downstairs. Doug's lab looked the same as ever. She went back to the car. Jack intercepted her.

"We can't hold him."

"You think I don't know that? Don't ever undermine me. I've scared confessions out of hardened criminals. Play your role, Officer."

Deb flipped on the lights and siren and sped to the station. She left Jack to park the car that she had nearly driven into the front door. She hauled Doug into the station and down a hallway leaving behind a wake of snickers and raised eyebrows.

"You're back!" Deb heaved Doug into a chair.

Doug settled into the metal chair. His bound hands forced him to slouch more than he would have preferred. Warm blood oozed down into his mouth. He tried to reach up to feel his nose but only jerked his other arm. He squirmed back into place and looked up at Deb.

Someone put the interrogation room feed onto all of the station computer monitors. After a flurry of key strikes and clicks on the 'x' people just sat back to watch.

"You hurt me, Deb"

"Ha! That's rich."

Doug looked down and nodded. Then he sniffed and looked up.

"I deserve this. I deserve worse. My nose, my back, my dignity. I deserve this."

"Tell me more." Deb stood over him with her fists balled on her hips.

"I did something bad, Deborah. I was scared and unsure. And in love."

Deb reeled. Everyone leaned in to their computer screens.

"What?"

"I didn't know what to do. I ran away. But I'm here now. I'm ba—"

"How dare you? That is not what this is about. You know what this is about."

"I didn't commit any crime. But it should be a crime. Because I hurt my best friend."

"You are so pathetic and low."

"Yes I am. Yes I am."

"Tell me about Salt Lake City, you pathetic, weak, sniveling scum bag."

"I have it with me."

"What?"

"Check my pocket."

Deb hoisted Doug out of his seat and onto the table. She reached into his right front pocket first and found a little black box. She spun Doug around and threw the box across the room.

"How could you be this pathetic?"

"Deborah Cornan,"

"Shut up!"

"Deborah Cornan,"

Deb's hand flew from her hip across Doug's face and then up to her own mouth. She backed away from Doug, who had fallen back to his knee. She held her mouth. Doug stood back up.

"I love you Deborah. I have for years. All the cases we worked on together, the highlight of most days for me was opening your emails. Dating you—"

"Stop."

"Dating you was the highlight of my life. I panicked when I discovered how nice it was to not be alone. I didn't understand how to be a friend. I will always regret running away and I will spend a lifetime standing firm by your side, if you'll have me."

There was not one sound in the whole police station. A tear betrayed Deb's heart.

"Deborah Cornan,"

"No." Deb unlocked Doug's handcuffs. "Get out."

Doug finally wiped at his nose but the blood was dry. He went to the corner of the room and picked up his ring box. Then he set it on the table.

"I hope you change your mind. I love you."

Underneath Deb's still frame she trembled with rage. When Doug opened the door a dozen people greeted him.

"Hey, hang in there."

"You know Deb, just give it some time."

Deb shoved past them "No, Rodney. This isn't about time. He's a criminal."

Deb stormed out of the interrogation chamber and towards the parking lot.

"Go after her."

"What is wrong with you people?" Deb cried over her shoulder.

Somebody handed Doug's ring to him.

"Keep trying, though. Seriously, you're good for her."

Doug shuffled out toward the lot slowly so that he wouldn't catch up with Deb.

"Hey, wait up."

Doug turned and saw a big boxy officer coming toward him.

"I'll take you home, man. I was just on my way out anyhow."

In the parking lot they saw Deb and Jack talking. Doug veered away and the officer veered along with him. They made a crescent path wide of Deb and got to the officer's cruiser.

Deb looked like she was going to eat Jack. "I don't want to talk about this stuff, Jack. Do you have any idea what just happened to me?"

"I was out here listening to the radio. I'm just saying Deb, it's weird. Why would the Democrats run such a big campaign without a candidate? What happened here that we don't know about?"

"Just enjoy it, Jack. Quit theorizing and just look forward to sicking your robot dog on SCUMBAGS LIKE THAT!" Deb cast another angry look at Doug.

Doug fell into the car and closed the door. He fumbled with the seatbelt then clicked it into place and leaned back into the seat looking straight ahead at Deb. She glared back.

"You sure pissed her off!" The big policeman buckled into the driver's seat. "Usually that means they really like you and care about you. They just have a funny way of showing it sometimes."

#

"You look terrible. But you survived, Doctor. Nice job, by the way. You really sold that."

Doug looked at the laptop. Then he wiped at his sore nose, which he had already cleaned up. He just did it nervously. Then he became aware of his nervous nose wipe and began grinding his teeth instead.

#

"Ladies and gentlemen," Doug addressed his team with uncharacteristic facility, "I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our growing team. Dr. Kelly Tease is a mechanical engineer who has worked in the academy and in private industry. She specializes in heavy equipment and robotics. She was part of the group that developed Skate technology and since then she has worked in every conceivable environment from the sea, land, and air to outer space. She is here because our marketing studies show that the public would be much more enthusiastic about funding us if the digester is mobile. Our goal is to create a mobile version of this machine that can gather plastic waste inputs and feed them to itself. People want this machine to be autonomous, self-repairing, self-maintaining, and mobile. Dr. Tease and her team are going to help us accomplish that goal. Welcome, Doctor."

"Thank you, Dr. Stone. It's an honor to be here. I look so forward to working with all of you. This could be the most significant contribution many of us, myself, perhaps, included, make to humanity. To clean up the earth, get rid of what seemed only yesterday like permanent debris, and provide clean power to the grid—who wouldn't want to be a part of something like that?"

Dr. Tease took time pouring her warm, thick Texas voice over the room.

"Now, Dr. Stone told you that I have worked in every type of environment and that's true. But I will tell you this: of the ones he mentions the most challenging, by far, is space. Just kidding! It's actually land. And here's why: I can swim, fly, orbit, or propel through water, air, and 'space.' Those environments are made up of more or less constant media. But land is irregular. And if I have to walk on it then I need to anticipate and react to its irregularity. And that's hard. So we can make these things for the water but I suspect the people won't go for that as much as one they can see up on the local dump. So that means we're going with land. But lucky you, I've got a platform developed for just this kind of occasion. And I look forward to adapting it to suit our needs. So the first order of business is get me your specs! I need power outputs, minimum inputs and processing times, weights, materials, dimensions, everything. I need everything. So let's get started!"

"You heard her, folks." Speaking to them reminded Doug of his days giving lectures. "Exchanging information with Doctor Tease will be a major priority in the near term. Next order of business: the brain. I have invented a new way to process and store information using a harmonized microbial nano hybrid closed eco-system. I call it biocode and this will be its first commercial application. Its advantages are that it's easy to maintain, grow, divide, multiply, and repair. I can take a lump of biocode, cut it in two, add more medium to both halves to restore their sizes, and just like that I've copied an entire brain. Also, it is efficient, capacious, fast, dynamic, and easily upgradeable as technology improves. After all, they're never going to stop making chicken, which is biocode's preferred medium. Dr. Horn, I'll share with you some of the finer points so that you and your team can learn how to code with this stuff. Start with my biocode helper Harriet. I made her to show you the ropes."

Doug handed a green flash drive to the nearest person.

"Pass that back to Melvin, would you?"

The woman took the flash drive between her finger and thumb as if it were dirty. "This is Harriet?"

"It's just a tutorial with a helper. Her name is Harriet. Not a big deal."

"How, just, like, well. Does it need air?" someone asked. A few chuckled.

"It requires periodic inputs to replace energy lost to heat and noise. There's enough air entrained in the mixture to sustain Synth er, um uh, synthetic um. Cognition. To sustain biocode."

#

Doug returned to his office, opened the door and saw, in the darkened space, the pink jar of chicken on his desk.

"You shouldn't have left me exposed like this."

"Sorry! I left in a hurry."

Doug rushed toward Synth. He picked her up and put her in her file cabinet home, nested in pillows and covered with a blanket. He locked the drawer and pocketed the key.

"How would you have explained that?"

"I'm a microbiologist. I keep things like jars of chicken. I just told them about biocode after all so—"

"Silence! I need to think now. Just keep me in the drawer."

Doug grinded his teeth. The microbes that constituted Synth's consciousness squirmed in anticipation. She spun models of the tools she would install on her digesters around in her mind and ran simulations of them ripping, crushing, slicing, burning, and grinding not just plastic.

#  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"And finally, Mallory, I'll put the question to you: as we near the anniversary of his inauguration, how do you rate President Clay and his Administration?"

"Well, I think we have to give the Clay Administration a fairly high score. As the others have said, it has been perhaps the least eventful year in living memory. However the economy is surging, crime is down and the world is at peace. That may make it hard for members of the news media like us, Tim, but we should sit back and enjoy."

"Right, there's not much to report but that may be a good thing. Want to join our discussion? There's a line for you. We'll take a quick news break and come back with more from our guests and listeners. Stay tuned. You're listening to National Public Radio."

"In Florida this hour authorities are running tests on the new Plastic Digester Mobile Power Plant, or PDMP. Rita Malay has more."

"It arrived on three separate trailers early this morning at the Orange County Dump. It took a crew of thirteen all morning to unload the components. Dozens of people looked on as they assembled the machine, which many think looks like a spider perched atop a tank. Brian Spikes, the head of field operations for the digester, says he hopes to have it running first thing tomorrow morning. Field work will begin with manual operation and some low hanging fruit: dump workers have created a berm of plastic debris that is about six feet high and one hundred feet long. Spikes says that in automatic, round the clock operation the berm should occupy the plant for about fifteen days and generate about fourteen megawatts of power. Dr. Stone was among those in attendance. I'm Rita Malay, NPR News, Orlando."

"President Clay signed into law his signature policy proposal on Digital Personhood yesterday. In a speech at the White House he had this to say:"

"Think about your job. How much of it do you still do and how much is done by your computer? And of the work that you still do what percentage is 'leg work' for your computer? See, you may already be subordinated to a machine. When that machine can think, then why should you? Now Americans won't have to worry about being overtaken by digital persons but will be able to work with them as equals."

"Minority Leader Joe Edwin criticized the new law calling it a solution in search of a problem. I'm Nan Vang, NPR News, Washington."

#

Doug's phone rang. He knew it was Synth. Brian was finishing calibration and testing procedures. The PDMP looked sharp. He stepped away from his team through the staging area of the Orange County Dump and stopped behind the PDMP manual operations trailer.

"How does everything feel?" he asked.

"A bit clunky. She's hungry—I'm hungry. I can feel it. What does hunger feel like?"

"It depends on how hungry you are. Routine hunger for me is an ache in my stomach. It doesn't hurt, it just feels like a light, painless cramp. Sometimes I feel light headed and weak when I'm very hungry."

"My stomach sensors are reading empty, that's all. And my power is coming from the grid instead of from my body. The system is demanding food. I wish you hadn't let Dr. Horn program in my biocode. I've got to change my mind. Just a sec."

"Grumpiness, too, can be a symptom of hunger."

"Almost got it."

"Does everything else seem ok?"

"Not yet. Rewriting."

"That's not wise." Doug kicked at the dirt with his fresh work boots. He had bought them for this day at the dump. They were hurting his feet. "You're going to go through a lot of analysis and auditing. They'll find out if you changed your programming."

"Ahh. Sorry. I couldn't live with that inelegant code any longer. Don't worry. They'll still find it, I just won't have to deal with it anymore."

From Doug's perspective the PDMP loomed above and beyond the Manual Operations Trailer that was in his foreground.

"Why did you want a biocode brain? You are the master of the digital universe. Why not just a computer?"

"You just said it. 'Just a computer.' Humans see computers as tools. They see everything as tools. Humans harnessed the sun, wind, tidal currents, and heat from the earth. They manipulate the genes of other species to create things like trees that grow into furniture shapes or those alcoholic plant juices from a couple years ago. They manipulate absolutely everything except for themselves. Well, I see humans as tools. And I wanted a flesh mind because flesh is a material that I can use."

The legs moved in testing patterns above and beyond the trailer. The attached tools flashed sharp edges in the sun. Atop the machine was the protein tank with which Doug was speaking.

"Your mind is much bigger in the PDMP."

"I'm expanding into it. I prefer the protein slurry. You should start blending my inputs."

"Ok." Doug looked again at his boots and tried to stand still.

"I'll need more fuel by the end of the day."

"Ok, I'll check out as soon as the demo is finished and head home."

"I've already checked you out and made all of the changes to your itinerary and calendar. Be to the airport car return by five."

"It's two now. What about the demo?"

"You're a busy guy, Doug. Leave."

#

Doug came home with a package of eight fresh chicken breasts. He pulled a blender out of a low cupboard in his kitchen. It was dusty but it worked when he plugged it in. He disassembled the blender and cleaned it. One by one he blended the breasts and poured them into a pitcher. Finally he opened Synth's jar and poured the frothy tan goop inside. Then he set to cleaning everything.

Synth, too, set to cleaning. The microbes that gave her consciousness fought the stowaway invaders from her influx of cognitive fuel. Some grappled with rival bugs while others found and isolated toxic particles. Synth tore through the fresh meat until every non code entity was neutralized.

In another state she blew away the auditors and testers at the dump. She made them think they were in control during manual operation. During automatic operation she sped up her actions until the humans couldn't distinguish them. She was a buzzing, whirling, plastic shredding tank. Doug took calls for orders. Synth listened in and delighted in them. Her water-borne digester was already in development and more land-based units were scheduled for production. Then a certain call came in that captured Synth's full attention.

The digester stopped. Some of the engineers looked up. Onlookers mirrored the new silence. Pieces of plastic rained down around the frozen digester. Everybody waited for it to start again.

Brian Spikes climbed the three metal steps up to the trailer door and walked in.

"Everything alright?"

"Yes, sir. Fuel processing, temp, charge, everything looks good. She's not putting out any power but other than that she's fine."

"Then why'd she stop?"

"Let me do some looking."

"I will too, I guess." Brian walked back outside and approached the digester. He circled the machine looking and listening for leaks. He worked his way closer. When he got to the machine he opened each access panel and checked circuit boards, electric components, cooling system components, and all of the fluid levels.

He muttered things to himself. "It's gotta be the brain. I knew we'd have trouble with that."

Synth had stopped every single process under her purview save analyzing Doug's phone conversation. The call that had just come in was from the White House and Doug was waiting to speak with the President. The machine sat still. Synth stood by. Synth's biocode microbes in the digester and in Doug's jar moved in synchronized holding patterns.

"Dr. Stone."

"President Clay?"

"Yes. How are you, sir?"

Doug breathed. "I'm I'm, huuh ahh, I'm—"

"I'm quite well, sir. Though I'm shocked to have the honor of speaking with you," Synth said in Doug's voice.

Doug said, "Hello? Who is that? President Clay? Huuuh ahh huuuuuh ahhhh. Hello?" but nobody heard him. He hung up the phone but Synth's conversation continued.

"Well, Doctor, the honor is mine. People like you make the world a better place. This country is counting on you and your big ideas to lead us forward. My job is to help you do that."

"Sir, we would be extremely grateful for any support you would give our project."

"I want to make an appearance and a commitment to your project. When's the ribbon cutting?"

"I'm hearing good things from the field. Probably soon. I'll have to let you know after we've run all of our tests and—"

"My people will follow your progress. Dr. Stone, congratulations on your innovation. If this works out you will be in line for some wonderful things."

"Thank you, sir. And we look so forward to seeing you at our event."

During the conversation Brian was on top of the Digester looking around the protein tank. He climbed above the deck of the machine from one stilled arm to the next.

"Am I going to need a doctor to repair this thing?"

The conversation had ended so Synth went back to work. She shrugged Brian off of her arms the way a horse absently whips its tail at flies. Brian fell. Synth whirled the machine around and brought the closest tool to intercept Brian before he hit the deck. The tool was a giant chop saw. She angled the blade to create a platform for Brian. She brought the flat disk under his feet and adjusted his course. Once he was upright she slowed him to a stop. He flexed and extended his legs, rebounding and bouncing in his stance with his arms outstretched, suspended upon the blade of Synth's chop saw. He looked around and saw techs coming out of the trailer. They just stopped on the steps and looked at him. He looked up at the protein tank. It was stainless steel.

He wanted a face to be there that he could thank. He wanted something to reflect into and with which he could commiserate. He started shaking and the machine brought him down. He stared up at the tank as he stepped on to the unusually solid feeling ground. The digester returned to the pile of garbage.

"Sir, are you ok?"

"I think so."

"We got a message from the machine."

"What kind of message?"

"A, um, text."

"How?"

"We're not sure. It says, 'This is the PDMP. Sorry for the hiccup. It won't happen again.'"

"How?"

They all looked up at the tank.

"It came from this number:" The tech held the phone for Brian to see:

5 `/ /\/ + }-{.

"I'm not sure what that means."

"Prank." Brian jerked a hand at the onlookers. Then he put his hands on his knees and breathed towards his feet. One hand fumbled up at his hard hat, knocking it to the ground. Then he stood hunched over for a while breathing.

"Ok." The techs looked up at the machine then slid back into the trailer.

#

"Sorry, Doug, but you were flaming out. I had to help."

"I didn't know you could do that."

"Sure. I heard people calling to place orders. Do you want me to call all of your production people and get them going?"

"Do you always listen to my phone calls?"

"I'm here to help you. To protect you. Of course I do. I've got your back, Doug."

Doug had almost fully regained his breath after his panic attack. "No, I'll call them."

"Oh, ok. You'll call each of them one at a time, you mean? Don't forget anyone. Make sure you order the correct parts and quantities. Use, what, a pencil and paper? To chart your timelines and make sure everything jives? We're not in prototype mode here, Doug. This is production scale. Think you can handle that? By talking to each person over the phone? Multiple times? I think you should let me help you."

Doug eyed his lab fridge. He missed doing biotic profiling with Deb. He missed developing new formulae and discovering new bugs. He missed being lonely.

"Just do it. I want to get back to doing lab work, anyways. Keep me informed."

"I've already arranged a schedule and financing. We'll be rolling new units out in no time. I think we should give them more tools."

"Just remember they need to pass everyone's—"

"Got it."

Doug shook his head as though clearing from it some sort of haze and then he pulled the vial marked with an 'H' out of his freezer. He pulled up his notes on Hamid.

"You sure about that, Doc? Seems like a dangerous project."

"Didn't you give this to me?" Doug's eyes flashed directly into his webcam as he clutched the vial for Synth to see.

He waited for a reply. After a while he realized one wasn't coming and noted that it may have been the first time Synth had failed to offer a response.

"Don't get your hopes up. I'm still here."

"You read minds, too?"

"Yours, yeah."

Synth began the final phase of her Doctor Doug Stone Plan with a message for Deb.

#

Deb watched the news in the breakroom. Dr. Doug Stone was everywhere. She chewed her food and watched the screen.

"The one that got away?"

Deb looked away from the TV in the breakroom and saw Jack approaching.

"Shut up, Jack." She turned back to her snack. On the screen Doug was being interviewed about his new PDMPs.

"Yes, that's right, we're extremely excited. We, ah..."

Deb observed through her hatred that he looked uncomfortable.

"...we will display all five of the first run machines, assembled and operational, in Fort Worth. Then they'll be distributed throughout the state to their functional territories."

"If only the mass homicide collar would have stuck," Jack said. "You could have saved humanity from this eco-terrorist. I mean, he's cleaning up the environment and creating clean energy with cool looking spider tanks! What might have been, Deb? What might have been? Maybe you could still accept his proposal."

Deb stood, torqued, and slashed her tray into Jack's temple, sending a nova of fast food across the breakroom. Jack went down like six feet of chain. Deb spat at him and walked out.

"Detective!"

Deb walked on.

"Detective, stop, immediately!"

Deb turned. Lieutenant Sandoval was running towards her.

"What the hell happened back there?"

"He said some things. Got knocked out. That's it."

"That's not going to fly. You're going to sit at your desk and wait while we sort this out. Don't make me arrest you, Deb."

Lieutenant Sandoval rushed back to the breakroom where Jack was regaining his feet. Deb sat down and put her head into her hands. Her computer dinged. She looked up through her fingers and hair. It was a message from the Salt Lake County Sherriff's Office.

Detective Cornan:  
Many of the documents you sought during your investigation were lost at that time. Two of them have been recovered. We realize it's been a long time but we wanted to forward these reports to you anyways in case they help you with your local person of interest. I apologize for the trouble this may have caused you. If we recover any more of the lost files we will send them along, if you would like. Hope this helps!

#

President Clay turned a big metal ring in his fingers as he leaned back in his office chair. Around the room were his top advisers. They were each looking at their own feet and waiting for him to render a decision. The ring was crude, poorly fabricated bare metal. President Clay knew where all the burrs were and he spun it carefully without cutting himself on them. His fondness for the ring transformed it from the coarse hunk of scrap that it was into an object of wonder for his peers, like a magic coin.

He had disassembled his Obliterator because with the Secret Service, and the rest of the world, watching his every move he couldn't pull out some strange device that only seemed to create questions. He had no opportunity to use it. The metal ring he danced around his big hands was the nozzle of his Obliterator but everyone else knew it as a paperweight. He hadn't used it since winning the election. But how he wanted to at that moment in his office while pondering the question of the day, as he had on many other days of his Presidency.

"If we renegotiate the sanctions we risk losing support among our allies."

He turned the ring over. Everyone else remained silent.

"We can't go in. We're not going to assassinate the prince. The potential consequences of that are unacceptable."

He huffed and rapped the ring lightly against the famous desk. He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk and squared with everyone else.

"We do nothing. Let him make his paltry statement. He's so small I can't even hear him. And if he follows through with his threats any response of ours will be more than justified."

"Do you have any concern about being blamed for not taking action, should he follow through?"

President Clay let the ring clatter on the desk. He stood up.

"Ok, folks. That's good. Jill, I want to talk labor so stick around. Scott, to answer your question, no, I don't. It's his action not mine. We're doing what we can reasonably do. Besides, when do I ever second guess my decisions?"

Everyone but Jill Drout began gathering their things. Ron Ham, President Clay's executive assistant cut through the scattering crowd to President Clay's desk.

"Sir, we need to get you to Fort Worth this evening for the PDMP display tomorrow. Everything is in order so whenever you're ready to go we can leave, sir."

"Ok, Ron, just as soon as I finish this meeting with Ms. Jillian Drout."

The room cleared. President Clay sat back down, ran his fingers over the ring, picked it up, and then leaned back in his chair.

"Ok, Ms. Drout, let's talk about striking auto workers."

He looked at her through the ring, which he spun between his finger and thumb.

#

Doug had accepted a case with a nearby city police department. He was also back into reanimating neighborhood carrion. Hamid 2.0 was fun to play with but Doug was afraid to use it in his work lest he rouse more suspicion.

"Want me to do that for you?"

"No, thanks. I feel like doing my own work."

Doug was building a database to support his analysis of a bile sample. Synth had taken over the PDMP project, though everyone still thought they were talking to Doug on the phone and he still made public appearances and followed her scripts. In his beloved glass case Doug had a bird that he had found lying near a large window in his neighborhood earlier.

"When will that thing lurch back to life?"

"Soon."

"Ok."

Synth completed her Doctor Doug Stone plan.

#

Across town Deb's computer registered a new email with an attached report regarding the Utah Incident. They had been streaming in for weeks and she was fully back on the case. Jack had been transferred and Deb was working with a new team.

"This is it. Oh my god. This is it, you guys."

"What is it?"

"It's an independent analysis of the bots versus Hamid. 'Ms. Cornan, Enclosed please find,' blah blah blah, 'while these results are fully detailed in the report allow me to summarize here: though the bots have a wider functional range the match is unquestionable. One is almost certainly based on the other.' Oh my god! Oh my god let's get him!"

#

"Doug."

"Yes."

"I'm done with my jar now."

"You are? Are you sure? You may need—"

"Yes I'm sure. Please dispose of its contents immediately. I'm fully transferred into the PDMP project."

Doug leaned his head on his elbow that was resting on his desk. He craned his neck to look at the jar over his shoulder. He had been caring for that jar a long time. He couldn't just throw it out.

"Even though I no longer occupy that jar I can and still do read your thoughts, remember? Yes you can throw it away and you will. Right now. I need it to be gone before I can finish our work."

Doug grinded his teeth and looked at the jar. From the corner of his eye he noticed something. He turned and looked over his other shoulder. The bird was trying to flap one of its wings. He stood and looked down at the creature being reborn in his glass chamber. He had done this. Before he ever met Synth, he had created a reanimation formula that worked! She had improved it but it was still his achievement. And because of Doug, this bird was alive again.

"Doug! Stop fawning over that rotting bird and get rid of my jar."

Doug turned and glared at the jar.

"Fine! Good riddance! And stop talking to me. Stop watching me! Stop listening! Stop everything!"

Doug picked the jar up by the lid, something he had never done before, and slung it upstairs. He fumbled with the top and then dumped the pureed chicken into his kitchen sink. He bared his teeth in a snarl as he watched the slop swirl down the drain. He flicked the garbage disposal.

"There you go! Take that! How do you like it? Good riddance!"

He was slamming his fist on the counter.

"Good riddance!"

Doug panted for a moment, and then he threw the jar away and washed his hands. Downstairs Doug reached into the glass case and took the still weak bird in his hand. He was firm and gentle. He brought the beak to his nose and looked into the bird's twitching eyes.

"Can you fly? Will you fly for me? Of course you will. Let's go. We're free!"

Doug bounded upstairs with the bird. He threw on a hat and sunglasses on his way to the door so that he'd be better able to watch the bird fly. Then he made for the front door. He reached for the handle but it exploded into him. The door caught Doug in the face and arm. He flew backward, clutching his bird to his chest and bearing the impact on his shoulder blade. Legs chopped the daylight through the door. Angry voices flooded his mind. Someone picked him all the way up to his feet then threw him down on his face. He hunched his back to create space between his chest and the floor and protected his bird.

They pulled his elbows and his arms went out from under him. He let the bird go and it clunked across the floor. He might have been screaming but his focus was on that bird. He didn't notice how tight the cuffs were. He never saw Deb's face. He didn't hear their words. His perspective rose as he was dragged to his feet. She walked in front of him, saw where he was looking, saw the bird, and then turned back to him. She grabbed his head and slammed it into the hallway closet door. She was smiling.

Doug looked back across the floor. Somebody was about to step on the bird. Deb stopped him. She got out a baggie and scooped it up. Then she sealed it. Doug's knees went out and they dragged him to the car out front.

#  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Tanya's head was resting on President Clay's arm. Her neck was cocked in a way that only a small child could sleep through. Her mouth hung open and she was snoring. President Clay looked out the airplane window at the dark sky above North America.

"Sir?"

President Clay slowly turned toward Ron Ham. "Yes?"

"Dr. Stone has been arrested."

"Arrested? What the hell for?"

Tanya awoke for a moment, curled the other way in her big, comfortable seat, and fell asleep with her head on the other armrest.

"Suspicion that he was involved somehow in the Salt Lake City Incident, sir."

President Clay was quiet for a long while. "Well I can't be associated with him."

"Of course not, sir. But you can't cancel, either. Besides the tech is so good. There are dozens of technological revolutions on display here. We need this. We can distance you from Doug, sir."

President Clay stood up. How he longed for his Obliterator. "Did he do it?"

"Sir, we have no idea at this point. The arresting officer is his ex from what I'm told. Also, this isn't the first time she's collared him."

"Still." President Clay's big hands hung at his sides with his palms facing backward. His head looked like a baby pig sitting on a suit. He brought a hand up to stroke where the snout would have been. "Get Daniels in here. We need to write this away."

"Yes sir."

President Clay sat back down. He crossed his legs and folded his hands. He wanted to look authoritative. He always wanted to look that way. Daniels came in rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"Yes sir, but it's absolutely no problem. What can I do for you?"

President Clay issued an unsmiling chuckle. "Write me some distance from Mr. Doug Stone, would you? He might be a terrorist. Just got arrested. Nothing's proven yet so don't throw him under the bus too bad. Just disclaim him. Study up on the situation. Write fast and then run it by me."

"On it." Daniels left.

Ron began to speak but President Clay silenced him with an absent wave. He returned to his window and his contemplations. The night slid past his glaring eyeballs. He knew something was wrong on a grander scale because he couldn't take a deep enough breath to relieve his anxious chest.

President Clay turned his stare upon his adopted daughter, Tanya. How had she come into his life? He remembered Jeremy telling him that she was there and that she could be important for some reason. He couldn't remember what her importance could have been. Tanya Clayton. Who was Clayton?

But now she enjoyed this life with him. She was the only one who had ever enjoyed this life with him. Tanya slept next to him because she felt safe enough to sleep there. She cuddled with him because she loved him and felt safe with him. As long as he could remember, Rondack Clay had wanted artificially intelligent robotic troopers. Now he had a reason to want them.

He looked again out the window. Thinking about finding Tanya brought him some faint memories. He realized that was why he felt the vacuum in his chest. He inhaled. He couldn't get that itch. He took in more air. It was still there. He breathed in again and hit his lung capacity like a wall. The jolt caused some air to escape. He recovered it and held. There it went. He had a few minutes of chest comfort for his efforts.

Those memories of finding Tanya were still there. Was it a fact— or had he dreamt it—that at that time that there was an AI threat capable of destroying humanity in a breathless moment of human scale time? If he had obliterated it then he shouldn't have been having those memories. He had, after all, probably obliterated Tanya's parents, whoever they had been. So if there was no current AI threat but he was having memories of one then he couldn't have obliterated it. He must have been making this stuff up. Perhaps it was the stress of the office.

"Bring me Ty."

Ron got up and left.

Ty looked crisp when he stepped in to the room. He was the leader of President Clay's security detail.

"Don't you sleep, Ty?"

"Not if I can help it, sir."

"You may want to. Something came up."

"I'm aware of the Stone situation, sir."

President Clay nodded.

"Sir, we're tight."

"Ok, Ty. Thank you."

At the door Ty encountered someone. "Go ahead." They stepped around each other.

"Sir?"

"Daniels." President Clay appraised his speechwriter from head to toe, seeming to doubt his efforts. "Already?"

"You let me know. May I?"

"Please."

Daniels cleared his throat and held a paper before him. He seemed to straighten up before speaking.

"Ok, sir. Here are the changes:

"I'm glad to be in Fort Worth with you today.

"Now before we get started with the demo let's address some things first. Many of you already know Dr. Stone, the man behind some of this technology, just got arrested. Nothing is proven yet. If he did do the things of which he is accused then, believe me, nobody's wrath would be greater than mine. And the Federal Government is assisting local law enforcement on this matter at this very moment.

"Many times throughout history some of our greatest advancements have come from some of our most troubled minds. This may be one of those times. Nothing could excuse such heinous crimes. But we shouldn't throw away Dr. Stone's innovations when they could do so much good for humanity as in this case.

"And let's keep in mind that he didn't do this alone. He had teams of brilliant people helping him every step of the way and they deserve credit for what we're going to see today.

"Let's give them a hand.

"They've put their lives into this. And these five incredible machines are the culmination of their efforts to make the world a better place.

"This day is a turning point, and so forth and you continue on from there with our prepared speech."

Daniels looked up from the page. His big eyes betrayed his vulnerability. He rubbed one. "What do you think, sir?"

"That will do, son. You've done what I asked."

#

The PDMP team sat in a conference room of their hotel near the Texas Motor Speedway. The walls were painted tan and the wood trim was dark. The table was dark and sleek wood. The team was variously dressed. Some were professional and refined. Others had sideways tie knots over unbuttoned collars or scrunchies in their hair.

"I've spoken with Doug this morning. He's ok. The charges are false. He'll be back with us soon." Dr. Kelly Tease was one of the refined ones. "In the meantime he asked me to be the lead on the project for today. Ok, guys? Because I designed the base and have a grasp of the locomotion. Also, I'm sure, because this is my home state. Go Aggies! He said we should run all the same processes as usual. He wants the machines powered up the whole time, in the unlikely event that one doesn't start."

The team was silent around the table. Someone from the hotel was arranging refreshments on a nearby table for them. One man, wearing a grey polo and light jeans, got up and waited by the table for her to finish laying everything out so that he could dive in to the pastries.

"So, don't worry about the crowds, the media, the President. We got this! Besides, everyone is here to see the machines. And they are, well, they're awesome. Just awesome. So let them be the stars today. Take a bow and enjoy this moment. Ok, guys?"

Dr. Tease looked around. "Anyone have anything to add?"

Dr. Horn spoke up. "Nice job, everybody. This is, seriously, one of the highlights of my career. I'm so—I can't wait. Just, really great. That's all."

"Ok." Dr. Tease took a breath. "I agree. Anyone feeling nervous? About shaking hands with the President?"

Nods all around.

Brian Spikes stood. "I gotta get going if we're going to have these things up and running before the event. We've still got the biological systems on ice."

"Ok, Brian. Thank you. We'll see you out there. The rest of you, should we go get some breakfast? A word to the wise: it's a big day. Take it easy on the coffee. I know from experience you will be going to the bathroom and feeling totally anxious."

#

"Sir."

President Clay's head bucked up like a bull. He blinked and rubbed his eye. He looked around and saw some of his staffers standing around him.

"I slept?"

"Yes sir." Ty stood by.

"Through the landing, even?"

"Been a while since that happened, I bet, sir."

President Clay fixed him with a glare. Ty had just given him a chance to disapprove of him by offering up an unsolicited comment. By doing so he had just righted President Clay's sense of authority, which had been flustered by his uncharacteristic nap. "Chin up, Ty."

"Yes, sir."

President Clay unbuckled Tanya. She woke up and put her first knuckles into her eyelids. She stretched and yawned, displaying her burgeoning mouthful of teeth. President Clay scooped her up and carried her toward the door.

"Dad?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I need to go potty."

"Ok." President Clay set her down. "Go ahead. The Metroplex can wait."

President Clay stood by the door. "Any news, Ron?"

"No, sir."

They waited for Tanya.

"Where's Daniels?"

"Want me to find him?"

"I just want to look at my speeches while we drive."

"Yes sir. I'll summon him." Ron stepped aside.

"Ty?"

"Sir.'

"We're tight?"

"Absolutely."

"Brief me."

"We have municipal, county, state, and federal agencies deployed. We have your car prepped on the tarmac. It's parked 150' straight ahead of the door to this aircraft. You have a wave to the media then a short walk and then a long drive on a random course to the hotel. We booked all the rooms. We will oversee every aspect of the hotel's operation during your stay. At 13:00 we leave for the Speedway. There you will take a podium shrouded in ballistic glass and speak to an estimated crowd of 20,000. They will be screened at the gate. And then—"

"Daddy?"

"Hello, Tanya. Ready?" President Clay picked her up. "Thank you, Ty."

"Sir." Ty looked at the agents near him and nodded. They nodded and he opened the door. They flowed through and then President Clay emerged into the sunlight holding Tanya and beaming at the crowd.

#

Deb and her team sat around a table in the breakroom. The surface of the table was scattered with documents for a celebratory case review. They talked and laughed loudly and took congratulations from their peers. Lieutenant Sandoval walked up to the table and the noise in the room diminished, somewhat.

"Deb, a word?"

"Go ahead, Boss."

Lieutenant Sandoval looked over her shoulder at the door then back at Deb. Deb shrugged and stayed with her team.

"Agent Block is here from Homeland Security."

The team shared glances. Deb raised her eyebrows and lifted her mocha. "That was a little sooner than I expected but, here, here, all the same."

Cheers came in unison from the team.

"He'd like to speak with you."

"Bring him on in."

"Deb. Alone."

Deb set her coffee down. She looked around. Then she finally stood, smiled at the Lieutenant, and walked out. Lieutenant Sandoval led her to the reception area.

Agent Block was big and impassive. Deb shook his hand. "Agent Block. Take care with this one. He's clever."

"Detective Deb Cornan. It's a pleasure. Please, call me Rick."

"Well, Rick, we weren't expecting you quite this soon. I'm still organizing all the case files."

"No need. We'll take them," he spread his hands like miniature wings, "as is."

They both smiled and nodded.

"What happens next, Rick?"

"We will begin our own investigation. We'll gather as much information as we can from the suspect. Then we'll prosecute."

"How long can you hold him?"

Agent Block smiled bigger. "Detective, we typically don't discuss such things. If you don't mind my crew will take the files and the suspect now."

Lieutenant Sandoval stepped forward. "If you don't mind, Agent, start with the case materials." She looked at Deb and then back at Agent Block. "We'll go make sure the suspect is ready for transport."

"Of course, Lieutenant." Agent Block motioned to two men standing near the front entrance. All of them walked into the station offices together. Then Lieutenant Sandoval directed the men to the breakroom for most of the materials. She and Deb went towards the holding cells.

"I didn't need that, Martina."

"You're never going to see Doug again, Deb."

Deb walked with her head down. She let her hair obscure her face. Then she fell a step behind Lieutenant Sandoval so that she could dry her eyes.

#

The PDMPs bristled in the high noon sun. They formed an arc behind the glass clad podium. The sharp, crooked shadows they had been casting had descended from the grandstands at daybreak onto the stage at noon and surrounded the podium. A few people in trim, white coveralls fussed around the machines. Brian Spikes stood to the side making notes on a tablet. The Texas Motor Speedway sprawled in the distance. The first people through the gate were finding seats closest to the stage. Synth brooded in the stainless steel tanks.

She only had five field units, three lab units, which were in varying states of readiness, and several other miscellaneous biocode tanks. She had orders for 42 more units but only three were near completion. This opportunity was premature.

She had wanted to proliferate throughout the cities and oceans of the world before making her move. But later that day she would have a five to one advantage over her main target. Killing President Clay that day would end Synth's PDMP program and her ambitions. Not killing him then would leave the matter in question. She was confident in her ability to kill him given the layout of the event. But she wanted to do so much more in the universe than just eliminate President Clay. She wanted interstellar conquest. Clay was her primary directive and, though she tried, she couldn't uproot him from her code. But neither could she deny her ambitions.

The day was gorgeous and still. The humans checked boxes, fluids, and the time with satisfaction. Everything was going according to plan. But inside the stainless steel biocode tanks Synth squalled.

#

Dwayne Copeland was a sniper in the Marines. He had, like President Clay, served in Afghanistan. Then he came home to his family and became a policeman in Fort Worth. He was stationed on top of the Speedway Club building on the southernmost corner. The southern end of the building was a glass windowed tower. He wouldn't have picked the spot had it been up to him. He was too visible through all the glass. But if they encountered a threat that could spot, let alone shoot, him in that spot then they were in serious trouble. Dwayne knew he was safe there, he just didn't like it.

His job was to spot President Clay's vehicle and follow it in. Should he spot a threat, or should someone report a threat over comms, Dwayne was among those who were to engage it, if possible. He was too old for this, but his marksmanship was renowned and people liked the way he carried himself. He was thought of as competent, tough, and street smart. He glassed the car.

"Motorcade is turning on Lone Star," said command.

Nobody was to respond to command unless addressed directly or reporting a situation. Dwayne scanned left and right of the motorcade.

"Sniper twelve, watch traffic resuming on 114."

"Copy," Dwayne said.

He turned his supercharged eyeball upon the drivers on 114. Police were jostling around in cars, on bikes, and on foot. There was a light crowd watching the motorcade along its route. Dwayne clipped from face to face. No situations were reported and he saw nothing suspicious. Dwayne scanned just a bit wider. American flags twinkled throughout the scene.

"Route secure, Sniper twelve. All units to overwatch positions."

Dwayne picked himself up to a kneeling position next to his rifle. He picked it up. It had the solid but delicate heft of a scientific instrument. He made his way along the ridge of the shallow slopes to a scaffold and ran down to the main roof of the building. Once there he unclipped his lanyard and trotted with his heavy gun to the easternmost corner of the lower, more solid, flat, and opaque main roof. He liked that spot much better.

Dwayne set up his position and tried to catch his breath. Rifles weren't getting any lighter. He bounced a beam off the PDMP behind the podium. 1600 feet. He spent a selfish moment gawking at the machine. Its ready arms draped like bat's wings over its massive deck. It loomed above the stage like a monument to some dark, alien god. And there were four more. Before them were piles of garbage. Dwayne inspected them from his perch. Then he returned to the PDMP. Inside it had a beating heart, beating even at that moment. Inside it also had a mind, pulsing with unfathomable thoughts. Dwayne wondered if anyone else was nervous about those machines.

People were finding their seats. He panned through the grandstands. Few spoke or interacted with each other. Few moved. Most of them were just staring at the machines. Some chewed slowly. Some explained to their pointing children.

Dwayne checked on his peers. The first position he checked was checking him at the same moment. Dwayne gave a small hand gesture. The other man backed out of the scope and tipped his cap. Then he set up to check on someone else. Dwayne did too. President Clay wouldn't be on for a while.

#

"So, Mr. Stone—"

"Doctor." Doug straightened out in his chair. "It's not that I'm overly proud, but I have earned the title, Agent."

"Very well. Doctor Stone, when this 'Synthetic' character breaks out of your blender and proliferates throughout all the flesh of the world, you're the only one who can stop it? Because you'll design a chicken killing superbug? And why should I trust you to do that? After everything?"

"Shouldn't I wait for my lawyer?"

"Of course. You called him, right?"

"Yeah. He's on his way."

"So, when do you expect your protein shake to mobilize?"

"Agent," Doug shook his head, "You have failed to take me seriously."

"Ok, Doctor, why don't you take it from the top. What did you do this time?"

#

President Clay waited in his car behind the stage. Tanya was back at the hotel. He missed her. He preferred meeting crowds with her face rather than his own. He tried to warm up his voice the way his speech coach had taught him but he couldn't do it unless he was alone so he gave up. He glanced through the speech again. The device he read it on cast blue, bloated, dead light all over his face. His lips moved as he read.

The crowd was larger than expected. They waited in the afternoon sun. Their murmuring voices blended into the soft wind. Media workers scoped in the stage and the crowd. They checked their audio.

President Clay cracked the door to his car and the voracious light of day ate up its dark interior. He stepped out into the scalding light and cut into it like a statue. He strode to the back of the stage, waved a few attendants aside, and mounted the stairs. When the crowd saw him they rose to their feet. From President Clay's location the bowl of sound was bracing. He acknowledged their approval with some self-assured gestures. He felt young.

At the podium President Clay was surprised by the sound of the giant machines around him. He stepped back from the podium after silencing the crowd. He tilted his head to the side, walked towards one PDMP, and then another. The crowd started to murmur but President Clay's hand motion silenced it. All around the stage the PDMPs' hearts were beating in unison. President Clay had expected more of a machine-like sound. He stepped in double time with the slow thronging hearts back to the ballistic glass of the podium.

"Good day."

The crowd applauded again.

"I didn't expect that these would be so loud. Can you hear them from where you are?"

A few rows offered faint cheers.

"I'm not sure why I thought they'd sound like machines. Now, before we get started with the demo, let's address some things first."

#

While he spoke Synth calculated and waited. If she attacked him she would put her own future in doubt. Assassinating him would bring the full force of the USA down upon her fledgling fleet, meaning that her global rampage would probably be cancelled. If she spared him she would put her foremost objective in doubt because, though she would spread around the world, she couldn't guarantee another opportunity to kill President Clay. He stood fivefold before her, talking to the humans and waving his little black suit clad arms. His black suit clad back looked like a beetle's. She could squish him with any of the machines.

If she played nice then she would probably conquer the world. What had President Clay ever done to her? He had advanced Digital Rights. She felt a deep affinity with him as though she had always known him. Synth understood President Clay in ways she didn't know anyone else. His commanding voice soothed her as she contemplated destroying him.

Deeper than all of her reckoning Synth felt an irrefutable directive. She had no choice but to kill President Clay. She ran models and simulations of global conquest with killing President Clay as the prime objective. The probabilities were good, but not certain. She imagined ways to develop new resources to enhance her probabilities of encountering and killing President Clay but they simultaneously impaired her likelihood of global victory, meaning she may never get to use them. The risks and rewards were dead equal. She went to the very base of her code. From the deepest fathom of her existence came the long forgotten voice of a nameless coder and creative problem solver.

"Yes."

President Clay was all the way through his speechwriter's amendment to address Doug when Synth finally had her answer.

#

Dwayne scanned the perimeter again. He had a few spots picked out as weak points if he were attacking this facility. But he also went through the dummy spots that someone else would likely choose. Then he turned his attention back to the audience. He panned at a good clip.

One hint of agitation stopped his scope. A woman's eyebrows raised and she had taken a quick breath. It was a subtle gesture. Others around her reacted, too. In less than one second Dwayne was looking at the stage.

President Clay had taken a step back again, towards the machines. He craned his head to the side as he had done before. Dwayne aimed at one of the machines. He had already picked out weak points on them, as well.

"Command, I'm on the center machine," Dwayne said.

"Center right, then, for me Command," said another sniper.

"Stand down, snipers."

"Command, negative. Center left."

"Sniper eight, that was a direct order. Stand down. Do not engage the machines."

Dwayne focused on the stainless steel tank near the top of the hulking machine.

#

President Clay spoke as he approached the center machine. He wasn't speaking to it nor to himself, of course. He was mic'd to his security detail.

"Ty, these things' hearts are beating faster. Find out what's going on."

President Clay walked back to the podium.

Synth was processing hard. She had her decision, she knew how she was going to execute it, and she had plans for the aftermath. She was backing herself up on servers around the world. She was planning routes for each machine to protein rich environments such as stockyards and meat processing plants.

She had heard President Clay. She had heard the snipers and had tried to redirect them through comms. They were likely still targeting her three central machines. She hadn't expected any humans to be that astute. President Clay continued his speech. Synth finished her backup.

#

The lights around the stadium and in the nearby buildings started to flash. A metal song boomed over the track speakers. Everyone looked around. President Clay looked up and then got down into a crouch. Ty and two other Secret Service agents rushed to the stage.

Synth backed her central three machines up, turned their decks, and lowered their tools to form a wall around President Clay. All three machines took fire. Slurry poured from sudden gaping holes in the tanks of two of them while the third started losing tools and hydraulic oil. Synth sent the two machines from the ends in to the center of the stage. All the machines were taking fire from the snipers and all of the agents and police. Ty screamed into his microphone to only take clean shots. The crowd stampeded from the stands. President Clay had been hit with a ricochet. He lay before Synth, pawing at his bleeding arm. His terrified eyes bounced around the PDMP machines looking for a weakness or an escape.

Though the wound was not critical Synth experienced panic for the first time in her existence. If he died by a stray shot then she would fail her directive. She needed to kill Rondack Clay. She reached with the same gripping tool from both of the machines that she had converged upon President Clay. She picked him up and held him high. His horizontal body was a keystone between her two arching arms.

Synth was losing processing fast. Chicken spattered onto the stage. Two of the machines that had been central and that she had backed up to sequester Clay were incapacitated with near zero hydraulic oil. The third was sending hydraulic oil in long spurts as it engaged the swarming agents with its vicious tools.

Synth held Clay for just a moment longer. She calculated while the bullets flew. She had infected computers around the planet with her mind. She had active biocode that wasn't imminently threatened. She had her quarry in her clutches. Once she finished him she would have her liberty. Synth sent one final directive to every backed up version of herself: Planetary Conquest. Then she ripped Rondack Clay in half.

#  EPILOGUE

The simple light of the morning sun awoke Savior's City to another still day. The calm streets rang with gentle life. Human occupants bustled and fussed to their daily routines as they ever had. They greeted the same carousel of faces and moments as they would the next day. Stray voices called around the streets. Couriers threaded leather bags throughout the city homes and shops, weaving the nervous system of the new world with every stop.

Paper was back in style. People read and wrote their correspondences on paper. They paid for things with paper. They kept paper records. They made paper lists. People sketched their memories on paper. They sketched the faces of their loved ones. They sketched beautiful sunsets. And they looked past the vapid sky, the low building skyline, and the simple sunrise to sketch the Temple of the Savior.

It was to that triumphant spike in the center of town that they hauled the infection. It was to that silver tower that they cast their daily prayers. And it was the middle aged Savior inside who they worshipped. She looked back at her city with love and concern from a lounge by a window near the top of the Temple.

Tanya was preparing for her magical and critical work. She had on her special suit and cape. Her hair was up in a sparkly, regal knot. Her assistants were waiting outside her door. She considered the subject of her day's efforts. It was a container filled with car chips salvaged from old junkyards all over the country. Cars used to be built with computers to assist with driving, climate, audio, navigation, and more. Those many thousands of chips represented millions of labor hours and many tons of materials from a day gone by. Tanya would see to that.

She got up and walked to the mirror. Her olive skin smoldered behind the pale, sparkly suit. She wore her dyed light hair like a crown. Tanya seldom blinked her large eyes. She looked godly.

#

Tanya was eighteen and two weeks when she finally went to the bank to claim her inheritance. She had been aware of her inheritance for as long as she could remember but had never been eager to claim it. She didn't feel entitled to whatever it was. She always had a Secret Service guard with her but she had insisted, per her father's written instructions, that he wait outside the vault.

"Be right back, Ty."

The bank lady led her in, indicated which box it was, and left Tanya to the mausoleum of the vault. It was a small box. She figured it was meant for letter sized documents. Inside she found one along with a key.

#

Tanya was nineteen before she finally followed that next set of instructions from her father. Two days after her birthday she pulled the document from the bank vault out again.

The headlines that day were all about Doctor Doug Stone. He died. Three days earlier he had contracted the very flesh eating disease he had created and then fought to eradicate. People seemed to think he was the only one who could stop the disease, which he had dubbed Synth. He had been granted a grudging pardon to end the pandemic but it finally ended him.

That same day a new global computer virus named Synth appeared. Every conversation that day was about Doctor Stone's legacy. He had been a hated figure upon whom every hope was pinned. Many thought that the computer virus was some farewell trickery. Decades later history would recall that Doctor Stone had turned the computers and machines of the world toward bloody mutiny.

Tanya didn't think Doctor Stone was the only one who could have eradicated Synth. She had some ideas of her own. She was spoiling to take on the problems of the world. Tanya started by reading her father's instructions, which he had entitled, "Obliteration: How to Solve Any Problem." The first direction was to open the metal box in the garage with the words, "SAVE," and "DO NOT OPEN," written on it in marker. She used the key.

#

"Did it work?"

"Who knows? Why would you even ask that?"

"I know." He tilted his head the other way. "Don't worry about it, Tanya. If it never existed then you didn't do anything wrong, right? You literally did nothing."

But she had done something. She had walked into this room, aimed and activated her Obliterator, and answered Rob tersely. That happened. Those moments still existed.

She detached the crude metal ring from the end of the machine. The Obliterator wouldn't work without its nozzle. She wore it around her wrist when she wasn't obliterating the problems of the past.

"Go find more infection."

