by Alex Bratton
“What?” Alvarez asked. The annoyance in her tone was clear.
Lincoln imagined his own expression must have mirrored hers, a mixture of surprise and irritation. “Look, Lieutenant—”
“I’m sure Colonel Nash will explain everything,” Halston said. He left the door open, moving to one side of the table with Schmidt.
One by one, the team sat again, adjusting their seats, subconsciously drawing them closer to one another.
Nelson closed his laptop but drummed his fingers on the table as if his mind were still working through the lines of code. “What’s going on out there?” he asked.
Halston sat down in a chair along the wall near the door. “Nothing’s changed with the towers.”
“That’s it? Billions of dollars at your disposal, years of preparation, and all you can say is ‘nothing’s changed?’”
They all stared at Nelson. Halston fixed him with a dangerous look, measuring him, maybe, to see what size coffin he needed. Lincoln shook his head and got ready to jump in to save Nelson from himself. The younger man didn’t get along with a lot of people. Small wonder.
Halston seemed to decide Nelson wasn’t worth the trouble and smiled, flicking an imaginary piece of lint off his neatly pressed uniform. “You’ll want to watch that attitude with the Colonel.”
“Or what? You’ll send me home?”
“Might not be a home to go home to.”
The air in the room, already chill, dropped several more degrees.
Nelson smiled back, a genuine grin. “Oh, this is going to be great, Lincoln.” He chuckled. “Just great.”
Right after he’d hired Nelson, Lincoln had spent half his time putting out fires the guy started. Nelson was brilliant with code and therefore worth the trouble. Lincoln had learned to tuck him away at the office most days and always told him to work from home when they had a guest coming. After that, Nelson was manageable. This project, though, was going to be a test of his patience.
“You don’t think,” Alvarez asked Halston, “that our homes will be there?”
The team held their breaths, waiting for the Lieutenant to clarify. Before he could, a trim man in his late forties walked through the door unaccompanied. His dark hair was graying at the temples. He held a tablet and manila folder in his hand. Halston stood, nodded to him, and closed the door.
“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Nash,” the man said, extending his hand.
The team rose again, and everyone shook his hand, including Nelson, who clearly had decided to play along. When they finished, Nash pulled a chair to the head of the table opposite Nelson and settled into it. Everyone sat back down.
“I’ll get right to it,” he said, blue eyes looking straight at Lincoln. “My orders are to take you to the ARCHIE facility in West Virginia.”
Lincoln shifted in his chair, leaning forward over the table. “I wasn’t previously aware ARCHIE had a facility in West Virginia. What is it?”
“You haven’t been there?” Nash looked around at the others.
Lincoln shook his head. “Cummings just told me about it last night. Where is he?”
“He decided to meet us there. We’re going to take a small unit with us in convoy. It’s a few hours’ drive.”
“We can’t fly?” Alvarez asked.
Nash leaned back in his chair. “The helicopters are occupied, naturally.”
“Can you tell us what’s happening?” she asked, ignoring his sharp tone.
Alvarez was the opposite of Nelson in temperament. She rarely started a confrontation. Observant and even-tempered, she had the air of someone who was always going to take the logical path. Her approach often meant she got her questions answered before anyone else did.
“Nothing’s happening,” Nash responded, “and everything. The cities are a free-for-all. No one is obeying curfews. The towers look the same as they did three days ago, so there’s that.”
Lincoln ran a hand over his face to wipe away some of the sleep. “What are we going to do at the ARCHIE facility?”
Nash slid his manila folder over to Lincoln. “You’re still writing your program. Cummings said the facility would help you somehow, and he’s sending more people to us as soon as he can round them up. If they’re not here by tonight, we’re leaving without them.”
Lincoln undid the metal clasp and opened the folder, letting the documents slide out onto the table. He picked up the top sheet. It opened to a large topographical map with faded contour lines. The next piece of paper contained a hand-drawn map. The bottom read Mine Entrance with arrows pointing down tunnels that said to ARCHIE.
“It’s in a mine?” Lincoln looked around at his team, eyebrows raised. He passed the documents and waited for Nash to answer.
“Looks like it,” Nash said. “That map was already here at APG. Halston found it hidden in storage in a box that hadn’t been opened in years.”
Halston sat perfectly still in his seat against the wall, eyes staring at Nash without really looking. He glanced at Lincoln, nodded, and said, “Took me hours to find it.”
Carter rubbed his eyes, fatigue making the lines on his face more pronounced than usual. “Let’s be clear. We’re still writing our code, but we’ll do it somewhere in West Virginia. It is inside a mine, no one in this room knows exactly what’s in the facility, and we’re waiting on Cummings and his people to tell us more about it.”
Nash leaned forward with his tablet. “That’s about it. If you’ll sign these documents, we can get going.”
He gave the tablet to Lincoln first, who signed with a stylus and passed it to Nelson.
As the tablet went around the table, Lincoln struggled to make sense of what Nash was saying. His interest had been piqued, and the lack of explanation only deepened his curiosity.
“Can you tell us what the facility is like?” he asked. It was but one of the many questions swirling around in his brain.
Once Carter signed, Nash stood. “It will all be clear once we arrive. We’re leaving at 1900 hours. Corporal Schmidt is going to stay with you from now on. If you need anything, ask him.”
Schmidt nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m also in charge of getting any supplies you need. Is this everything you brought?”
He looked down at the bags scattered around the room. Lincoln hadn’t gone home to pack, so he had nothing but his messenger bag, jacket, and the clothes he was wearing.
“Yes,” Carter said.
“I’ll secure extra gear for you.” Schmidt stood. His wiry body barely filled the uniform he wore.
He couldn’t have been more than twenty. Just a kid. Something about that fact irritated Lincoln, as if his team wasn’t being taken seriously. Was a corporal the bottom of the ladder or next? Lincoln couldn’t remember. He thought corporal was a promotion above private, so that was something, but it still bothered him. Stuffed in a tiny room, no sleep, no information, and they put a kid in charge of us.
Halston picked up the maps from the table and stuffed them back in the envelope.
“Can’t we study those?” Alvarez asked.
Halston hesitated. Nash nodded, and Halston tossed the envelope back onto the table. The two men walked out, closing the door behind them. Schmidt took inventory of their things and made a list. Then he left, too.
Nelson opened his laptop and began typing again. Unable to focus on anything, Lincoln put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. He began to doze again, lulled by the shuffling of papers, Nelson’s rhythmic typing, and Carter’s low voice as the kid came back in to ask a question.
Lincoln’s phone buzzed. He sat up quickly. The text was from Cummings: Your sister flying to Atlanta, arriving 5 a.m. I told her you would meet her there.
Lincoln tried to focus. He must have misread the text. He read it over again until he was certain of the message. Instead of texting back, he called Cummings to speak to him directly. Why would Cummings tell Mina that Lincoln was going to Atlanta when the team had just found out they were going to West Vi
rginia? He must have made a mistake.
The call went straight to voicemail. Lincoln tried three more times with the same result. He typed a pointed text message and sent it. Then he emailed Mina, explaining that he wouldn’t be in Atlanta.
Mina would be safer in the States, but why did Cummings lie about Lincoln’s whereabouts? There was a need for secrecy but not a need to lie about Lincoln meeting his sister. Lincoln didn’t worry about Mina being stranded. She could navigate airports and bus stations better than he could, but the unnecessary deception irritated him.
In London, the promised storms arrived on schedule, with the first peals of thunder rumbling through the entire airport. The low-pressure system interfered with landings, and planes had to be rerouted to other runways to avoid the nasty wind shear.
Mina’s gate changed. She walked to another terminal. Then, her flight was delayed. Then, her gate changed again, reassigned to the original one. Mina walked back. Her flight changed three more times. So did her gate. By the time she boarded the plane, her good mood had evaporated, and the atmosphere aboard the plane did nothing to improve her state of mind.
Passengers jostled one another down the cramped aisles, arguing about seating arrangements and overhead storage. The crew hurried up and down to resolve conflicts and help passengers stow their baggage.
In coach, the Boeing sat ten seats across in a three-four-three arrangement. Both aisles were jammed with people. Mina squeezed past an irate businessman and took her seat in the left section, two rows behind the emergency exit. At least she had a window seat. She plugged in her phone and pressed the power button, hoping to text Lincoln before the plane departed.
“Ladies and gents, this is your captain speaking. I need everyone to find your seats as quickly as possible. This weather isn’t giving us much of a window. I’m afraid if I can’t take off in the next ten minutes, we’ll be here another ten hours.”
Two men took their seats to Mina’s right. Seatbelts clicked all around. Mina’s phone finally turned on, hostilely declaring No Service. Mina mashed down the power button with a sigh.
With the final snap of overheads, the plane was ready. Every seat had been filled. The preflight safety announcement started, and the plane began to roll forward before it finished. The captain skipped the usual speech welcoming everyone aboard. Lightning flashed outside the windows, rain streaming as the plane taxied down the runway. The plane shook for several minutes after takeoff, followed by a tense moment where the turbulence worsened. When they finally climbed above the storm, a smattering of applause went around the cabin.
Mina scanned the dark clouds, biting down on the inside of her mouth. Lightning streaked across the sky like white fingers reaching out for the plane.
Shuddering, she thought again about all the movies Lincoln had made her watch as a kid. He was always a geek, more absorbed in science fiction than she was, but Mina had read enough of his books and seen enough movies to make her nervous.
Maybe something was lurking out there, waiting for the plane to become airborne before blasting it out of the sky. She had tried not to think about it much while waiting in the airport. If she had, she might not have boarded the plane. Other planes had taken off and landed without any problems, so Mina knew her fear was irrational. However, nothing about this situation was rational. The anxious knot in her stomach, ever-present now, swelled. She forced herself to turn her attention back to the cabin.
Across the aisle, a family with two pre-teen children was already watching movies on their phones. Mina was sure she recognized the family as one who had held a charging station hostage in the airport. She bit back her resentment about not contacting Lincoln again. He was the only family she had, and keeping in touch with him felt urgent considering the circumstances.
Mina tried to check her email on her phone, but Wi-Fi service was down. All she got was a blank white screen. Tired, frustrated, and irritated, she jammed the phone into her bag and settled back into her seat. More than likely, Lincoln was safe, but it didn’t stop Mina from worrying about him. She would see him in a few hours, and then she would be certain.
When Lincoln re-entered the conference room, Schmidt sat at the table talking to Carter.
“You can really do that with robots?” Schmidt asked.
“We’re trying.” Carter shifted the laptop away from Schmidt. He had been showing him the video of their success with David.
“You want to send robots into space instead of people?” Schmidt asked.
“Technically, we already have robots in space. NASA launched Robonaut 2 to the ISS in 2011.”
“What does Robonaut do?”
Carter sat back in his chair. “It performs mundane or dangerous tasks. They have plans to further the program.”
“Why don’t you just work with NASA?”
Lincoln chuckled. “Because our programs are better.”
Nelson glanced at Lincoln. “Lincoln wants NASA to come to us.”
Schmidt’s eyes widened.
Lincoln shrugged. “Eventually, a robot will do all kinds of things on a manned mission. Collect samples of foreign matter, determine up-to-the-minute weather conditions, apply first aid to humans. Our AI is smarter and more advanced than NASA’s. We want to be the ones to put the next generation of genetic programming into space.”
“We hope,” Alvarez added.
Schmidt furrowed his brows. “What is genetic programming?”
“Basically,” she said, turning to him, “it’s all about giving a computer a problem to solve without telling it how to solve it. The computer uses algorithms to find its own solution, and before you ask, an algorithm is a set of logic instructions programmed into the machine.”
“What can it do?” Schmidt asked.
Carter pulled out another cigarette and grinned. “Anything we want.”
“Like?” Schmidt asked.
“Like,” Lincoln answered, “our robots will act like humans and eventually look like them decades before anyone expected them to.”
“Sounds like something out of a movie,” Schmidt said.
Lincoln smiled. The comparison didn’t bother him. Schmidt looked at him quizzically, so Lincoln explained.
When Lincoln had met Carter ten years earlier, Carter had just left a lucrative civilian military position in which he had designed a robot interface for dangerous fighting zones, specifically for urban warfare or hostage rescue situations. Lured by the idea of reducing human casualties, Carter had contracted with the Department of Defense on the project. His system had exceeded their expectations, a robot that could make independent decisions and calculate the likelihood of hostilities to within one one-thousandth of a percent. Thrilled, the DOD envisioned other applications for the interface, including within civilian police forces on American soil. When Carter had learned of their intentions, he’d worried his system would shift from protecting troops in combat to replacing peacekeepers in cities. He’d walked out on the entire job.
About the same time, Lincoln was finishing his graduate work at MIT, and he teamed up with Carter, who was more than ready to work at a small private company. Using grants and several rounds of fundraising, they started Interface Labs. Soon after, they recruited Alvarez and Nelson with the idea of putting artificial intelligence into space.
“What kind of program are you writing now?” Schmidt asked.
“It’s very similar,” Carter said, “and actually simpler because right now, the program we are working on is for one purpose only. Instead of providing general support, it will be used to communicate with the aliens. It’s based on work I did a few years ago.”
“As soon as we find out how they communicate,” Alvarez added. “I don’t think it’s similar at all, Carter.” She drained her coffee cup and looked at Schmidt. “The problem is we’re writing blind. Until we have real data for input, we’re just sitting in front of a bunch of useless algorithms. Carter’s program was written for humans, and we have no way of knowing if our AI can wor
k with an unknown life form. Until it’s tested, all our theories are just that. Theories.”
Lincoln nodded. Two years ago, when Interface Labs began turning heads with their innovative work, Lincoln had received a call from the Department of Defense. At first, he didn’t believe who he was talking to and spent several days verifying the identity of Paul Cummings, the caller. Cummings wanted Interface Labs to sit on an advisory panel regarding cross-species communications, specifically in the event of contact with alien intelligence. Because of Carter’s background and the lab’s recent successes in artificial intelligence, the DOD wanted Interface to present several scenarios, hinting at further contracts in the future if Cummings liked what the lab provided.
After consulting with Carter, who gave in with some persuasion, Lincoln agreed to update DOD files from an outdated program initiated in the fifties—ARCHIE. The work was all hypothetical, of course, and Lincoln’s team had more than a few laughs over it as they wrote computer models to determine various possible means of communication. They did their job and collected the fee with the assumption that their models wouldn’t be used for anything but simulations. Lincoln hadn’t heard from the DOD in over a year, until last night. Cummings’ call seemed like a lifetime ago now.
Lincoln checked his watch again. 5:00 p.m. An entire day wasted. He drummed his fingers on the table.
Nelson stopped typing and closed his laptop. “I wonder what they want,” he said. “Why are they here?”
Carter scratched his whiskers. “How can we possibly know? Maybe the towers don’t have anything in them.”
“Maybe the towers are the aliens,” Lincoln added, smiling. “Sentient spacecraft. Maybe they have different senses from us, and there’s no way to communicate with them.”
“What are they doing here, though?” Nelson asked.
“Research?” Alvarez asked. “Maybe they’re explorers here to observe.”
“Right,” Nelson said. “Here to observe every major city on the planet. It’s just coincidence they picked the most powerful cities to land in.”