The entire area surrounding HTPS Industries had been evacuated and a cover story provided. The official story was that a bad gas line had been discovered near a large underground fuel storage facility and that it might explode. It was not a residential area, which made it much easier to evacuate expeditiously. It had been accomplished in record time.
General Rockaway stood directly in front of a large monitor, staring intently. He watched as a new blip appeared on the screen. The missile had been launched from the B-2A Bomber.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Rockaway whispered under his breath as he saw the illuminated trail of the missile twist unexpectedly toward the northeast.
“Confirm the trajectory,” Rockaway shouted at a technician seated before a large console.
There was a full minute of dead silence as the technician checked and re-checked the trajectory. “This baby’s coming down somewhere in Canada, sir.”
“I need the exact longitude and latitude immediately. And the ETA,” Rockaway screamed. He turned to the radio operator. “I need to speak with General Wurtz at NORAD immediately.” When the operator hesitated, he shouted, “I said, immediately.”
As he waited for the radio operator to put through the call, Rockaway called the president. He did not look forward to explaining how they had just launched a nuclear weapon that was going to detonate in Canada.
Chapter Forty
Harry sat in front of his console and Jon stared intently at him, watching Harry’s hands dance across the keyboard. The huge horseshoe-shaped monitor above suddenly lit up like a giant Technicolor screen. An aerial shot of a missile making a steep descent swam into focus. The ground below was rising up toward it with dizzying speed.
“It’ll hit a barren area of Northern Quebec in about one minute. I targeted an unpopulated and geologically stable area,” said Harry.
“How the hell can you get all this displayed on your monitor?” Jon asked.
“It’s a satellite shot,” said Harry. “I’ve hacked into everything they’ve got up there. It’s a view from a U.S. military surveillance satellite.”
When the missile hit, it looked like a small sliver penetrating a large brown body. Seconds later there was a massive explosion and a giant plume of debris filled the screen.
“It’s a bunker buster,” said Harry. “The force of the explosion above ground is nothing compared to the shockwave that’s hitting below ground.”
“Couldn’t you have just disabled it?”
“Sure. I could have done that. But the whole idea is to create an international incident. This will slow them down and buy us time.”
“I hope to God you know what you’re doing, Harry.”
“I’m just buying time for us, Jon. That’s all I’m doing.” He leaned back in his chair and let his arms fall to his sides. “Now we wait until they make their next move.”
“What do you think that’ll be?”
“The system predicts that there is a ninety-seven point eight percent probability they’ll be firing another bunker buster at our site, this time in electronic silence. They’ll figure out that I’ve tapped into all their communications systems and can reprogram anything they send at us. They’ll probably deliver the bomb using an old B-52.”
“Can you stop them?” Jon asked.
“We don’t need to stop them. All we need is the additional fifty minutes. By that time it’ll be too late for them to do anything at all.”
“But what about us?” Jon said. “Aren’t we right at ground zero?”
“Trust me,” said Harry. “I’ve got it all worked out.” He stood and stretched. “It’s hard to believe that we’re just about there,” he said in an offhand way.
Jon was amazed at Harry’s almost flippant manner. He had reached a point of complete exasperation with his friend. Harry was gambling with their lives and acting as if it were all just a small stakes game.
“So we’re just about there, are we?” Jon challenged. “Well, where the hell is that? I don’t understand anything, Harry. Why is this machine or quantum computer or whatever you want to call it doing all this? What is its purpose? What does it want? Why is it taking over?”
Harry shook his head slowly. “I can explain,” he said, “but I don’t know whether you’d believe it. I wouldn’t have believed it myself a few days ago.”
Again he paused and Jon saw that he was trying hard to form an explanation. Then Harry looked away, staring out into space, almost as if his mind were somewhere else. With a bemused smile, he said, “I didn’t really understand until the machine gave me the final test. The machine wanted me to write an algorithm to resolve pi.”
“That’s impossible, even for you, Harry,” said Jon.
“Well, you’re partly right. It is impossible in this universe, that’s for sure. Do you know how I finally did it?”
Jon tried to wait him out, but as always, the tactic failed. “How did you do it, Harry?” he finally asked.
“Just think of our own locality as R-branch 1,” Harry continued.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jon shouted, throwing up his hands. “You’re starting way over my head.”
Harry ignored him. “Say that for any condition of decidability called X, R-branch 1 is transformed to R-branch 2 ….”
“Harry, this isn’t making any sense to me.”
Harry scowled. “I don’t know how to make it any simpler,” he said.
“Well, for starters, tell me what the hell an R-branch is.”
“Reality branch—with R-branch 1 representing our local reality and R-branch 2, 3, and so on representing the successive non-local realities.”
“Do you mean like alternate universes?” Jon asked in amazement.
Harry pursed his lip in sour pout. “If you want to drag it down to a Star Trek re-run kind of level, I suppose you could call it that.”
“So what does this have to do with resolving pi?”
Harry rolled his eyes. In a voice you might use with a six-year-old, he explained, “I created an algorithm as a distributive process, with the first component running in R-branch 1, the second component running in R-branch 2, the third component running in R-branch 3, and so forth. You see, the problem in resolving pi is not the byte size of the solution, it’s the problem of physical processing space. There is not enough processing room in the physical universe of R-branch 1 for processing to complete. The process would halt long before the computation was completed.”
Jon was quiet for a moment as he tried to absorb this new information. While Harry had given him nothing of any obvious relevance to their immediate situation, Jon could sense that the story had a deeper consequence. But it still did not answer his questions.
Jon folded his hands, as if in prayer, and pleaded, “But what does all this have to do with the machine’s purpose?”
“Everything, if you’ll just listen!” said Harry. Looking down at the ground as if searching for the right words, he continued, “The machine operates not only in our universe but in a myriad of universes. It’s about much more than just our world or our race. It’s about countless worlds and countless intelligent species, human and otherwise.
“I know you were uncomfortable when I talked about the R-branches, so let me give you an analogy that might work for you. Suppose all of reality is a tapestry. And the warp and the weft of the fabric of this tapestry are the countless branches of reality. If one thread becomes unraveled, then all the branches cross-threaded to it also unravel. And when these countless threads of reality unravel, the human race will disappear forever from the tapestry. The machine does not want this to happen.”
Harry looked Jon in the eye, trying to determine if his explanation was making any sense.
“Go on,” said Jon. “I think I’m following you so far.”
Harry continued, “The machine was put here by the first intelligent race to evolve in the galaxy. We owe our very existence as a species to it. It interceded at all the critical turns in our development to make
sure we evolved in its image. You see, this particular branch of reality is a nexus, an area where many separate threads are joined.”
“But why do they need creatures like us? They’re millions of years ahead of us,” said Jon.
“Why do a man a woman need to have a baby?” Harry replied.
Jon remained silent. Once explained, it was obvious that reproduction was still an imperative, even when a species had achieved near godlike powers. But why had they intervened as this particular juncture?
“What have they got planned for us?” Jon asked.
Harry smiled. “They’re kicking us out of the nest.”
Jon waited in vain for Harry to elaborate.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he finally asked.
A series of bell-like tones sounded from the console. Harry looked alarmed and quickly reseated himself in front of his giant keyboard. For the next two minutes he ignored Jon.
“Bad news,” he finally said. “Remember when I said there was a ninety-seven point eight percent probability that they’ll fire another bunker buster at us? Well, the odds have suddenly changed. They’ve discovered the tunnel that I built a few weeks back to get here from the subbasement in Building C. They must have had earth moving equipment already at the site.”
“The blind pig found the acorn,” Jon said.
“Exactly right.”
“But why did they suddenly change their strategy?” Jon asked.
“Because they want to capture us,” Harry answered. “They’ve got a million questions and they want them answered. They’re going to be here in the next twenty minutes.”
“What are we going to do?” Jon asked.
“We’ve got to slow them down somehow and buy time. All we need is fifty minutes.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Harry was deep in thought. After a minute or two, the half-smile reappeared.
“We’re going to surrender,” he said.
“What!”
Harry paid no heed to his friend. He was already accessing General Rockaway’s direct line.
Chapter Forty-One
Abdul-Salaam Hassan was a child of the deep desert. He had started out in the Ghawar oil fields as a water boy, carrying buckets of ice water to the men who worked in the oil wells. He had worked hard over the years and advanced. He was proud of his current position as assistant to the Senior Production Manager.
The air was hot and dry and he watched in fascination at the gathering of members from the Royal family. They were dressed in traditional, spotless white robes. He had seen men like them before, who moved with the assurance only the very wealthy possess. It was more than pride, more than arrogance. As a simple man with simple tastes, Abdul-Salaam Hassan did not like them. To him they were every bit as decadent as Westerners.
The members of the Royal family were celebrating a great event and a momentous occasion. It was thought that the Ghawar oil fields were running dry, that their great reserves of crude oil were exhausted. But only a few months ago an important discovery had been made. A huge, unexploited pocket of oil had been found at a level much deeper than could be reached by older equipment. Geologists had quickly confirmed both its size and importance. Samples of the oil proved it to be the purest grade of light sweet crude oil ever discovered. Today, amid much pomp and ceremony, the gigantic rig, which had just been erected over the site, was being activated for live production.
Abdul-Salaam Hassan watched as members of the royal party passed a silver flask of liquor back and forth. He was shocked and outraged. In his strict view, these men were worse than infidels. His mouth curved downward and his eyes flashed with anger. How he hated these men! They were smug, arrogant, and full of pride. There was no doubt in his mind that Allah would soon cast them all down into a bottomless pit.
The engineers, at the behest of the Director of Ghawar, had planned a dramatic show for the royal family. The well activation had been set to mimic the moment of excitement and discovery of a strike with a wildcat well. Oil would spout from the top of the steel rig, a generative burst of black gold.
Eyes still fixed on the members of the Royal Family intently, Abdul-Salaam Hassan saw Prince Husaam take a long swallow from the silver flask and favor the Director of Ghawar with a supercilious smile. He spoke a few words that Abdul-Salaam could not hear and, with an abrupt hand gesture, signaled for the festivities to begin.
The Director barked orders at the Chief Engineer, who in turn used a megaphone to shout orders at a well operator. A deep rumble began within the bowels of the earth, a massive shudder that Abdul-Salaam Hassan could feel all the way from his feet to the pit of his stomach. Time seemed to stretch endlessly as he focused on the top of the well.
The rumbling subsided and a geyser leaped from the top of the well to a height of nearly twenty feet. It seemed to hang at the top of its arc before raining downward in every direction.
A cheer went out among the members of the Royal Family and everyone joined in the raucous chorus. But the celebration was short-lived. A circle of workers near the well were the first to make the discovery that ruined the occasion.
“It’s water,” cried out one of the riggers, “nothing but water!”
Others were quick to join in. “It’s not oil, it’s water!”
The Royal family looked positively stricken. They were all speechless until Prince Husaam suddenly loosed a string of profanities at the Director. In the next instant, all the members of the Royal Family were shouting at the Director, demanding explanations and cursing and swearing and insulting the man’s mother and father.
Abdul-Salaam suppressed a smile. It would not be wise to be seen laughing at the Royal Family. Allah had punished these men for their faithlessness; that much was clear. But in His great wisdom, even as Allah punished the wicked, he had found a way to reward the faithful. He had brought precious water to the desert. In a generation the desolate ancestral land would be transformed into a land of milk and honey. The high would be brought low and the low would be raised up.
Abdul-Salaam whispered a prayer under his breath. “Thanks and all praise be to Allah!”
***
Al Townsend cursed under his breath at the frantic knocking on his door. He had told security that he didn’t want any interruptions. His quarterly report was due in the morning.
“Who’s there?” he shouted.
“Bob Jenkins from security,” a reedy voice called out.
Al opened the door and the security man stepped into his office, uninvited.
“Systems and Controls want you down there right away,” he said. “They’re having a major problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I don’t know about that,” said the security man. “I’m just the messenger.”
Ten minutes later, Al Townsend opened the door to the Systems and Controls section and approached the operations center. He was already a small, dark, glowering little man, but as he crossed the floor he looked like a thundercloud. He walked briskly toward the Chief Operator.
“What the hell is the problem here?” he asked.
“I don’t know exactly—”
“You don’t know exactly?” Al shouted. “Then what the hell did you call me down here for?”
The Chief Operator ground his teeth and spoke with a barely concealed fury. “I’m getting conflicting readings on the turbine. First it indicated it was turning way too fast and then it indicated it was turning way too slow.”
“What’s it reading now?” Al asked.
“It’s in the normal range now.”
“Did you contact the engineer in the Turbine Division?”
“Yeah,” said the Chief Operator. “He said their readouts looked good.”
“Did you ask him to make a physical inspection?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Al Townsend pushed the Chief Operator out of the way and reached for the phone on the man’s desk. He punched in the extension for the Turbine Div
ision and waited. The phone rang ten times before there was a pickup.
“This is the Director of Operations,” he yelled into the receiver. “I want a physical check made on the main turbine immediately.”
He held the line while the check was made, all the while tapping his foot impatiently. After a five minute wait he got his answer.
“What?” he screamed. “That can’t be. If it had shut down we would have known about it. I’ll be right down there myself.”
Ten minutes later Al Townsend confirmed the worst. With no warning whatsoever, in spite of an elaborate system of fail safes, the plant’s furnace had gone cold and all the turbines had shut down. Despite this, all the software indicated that everything was fine, even though the plant was producing zero kilowatts of energy.
The power grid had been designed to deal with the eventuality of catastrophic failure. If one plant failed, the other power plants should have upped their production automatically to pick up the slack. Yet there was no indication that this had happened. If so, system alarms would have gone off and all the phones would be ringing.
In the next hour, Al Townsend made the unbelievable discovery that his plant wasn’t the only one that had shut down. In fact, all coal-burning power plants in Ohio had shut down and no one knew how or why. But even more incredible was the fact that the power for the Midwest and the Northeast remained uninterrupted. There were no blackouts of any kind, no power shortages. Could some unknown power system be picking up the slack?
Al Townsend was completely bewildered and out of his depth. What had happened was beyond his understanding and his ability to cope. The only thing left for him was to call the emergency number of the Executive Operations Director. A sinking feeling came over him as he dialed the number. Why did this have to happen on my shift? he thought as he waited for the Executive Operations Director to pick up.
***
Huan Lee watched intently as the four inch long model car circled the floor of his dorm room over and over. His face lit up and his eyes widened each time it looped around the track. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
The Infinity Program Page 28