by Kyle Mills
Not long after he escaped, the entire malignancy called the Soviet Union had collapsed. But in many ways, that collapse had made the world even more dangerous. Humanity’s evil now churned quietly beneath the surface, growing at a geometric rate, but never coalescing into something tangible enough to fight.
The technology and social mobility that had once held the same promise as communism were again being twisted by a species that would simply not allow itself to live in peace and prosperity. Bizarre ideologies were replacing religion as the opiate of the masses and were being used by politicians to keep the common man off balance. Concentrations in wealth were returning to the corrosive levels of the distant past. Weapons of mass destruction were falling into the hands of fanatics. The world’s financial systems had become a boom-and-bust engine that enriched its participants while starving everyone else.
And the trend seemed to be an inescapable downward spiral. The growing choices in media allowed people to retreat from anything that didn’t reinforce their own prejudices—creating an increasingly xenophobic population consumed with passion and unencumbered by facts. Wars were being fought over resources that weren’t yet scarce, and democracy was deteriorating into nothing more than the tyranny of an ill-informed and superstitious majority.
He’d believed he could change it all. Like so many before him, he’d thought he could perfect humanity. Create a Utopia.
Dresner looked down at the snowflakes melting on the spotted, damaged skin of his hands. With another fifty years he would have succeeded. He would have triumphed where Plato, Marx, and even God himself had failed.
But that dream was dead—a victim of time and the encroaching frailty that he so carefully hid. Now the best he could do was take a place in history among the monsters he despised. It was the only way to give humanity the time it needed to save itself.
13
Khost Province
Afghanistan
RANDI RUSSELL EASED LEFT on the steep slope and leaned against a boulder, making the outline of her body unrecognizable as it melded with the stone. A three-quarter moon was nearly overhead and the hazy streak of the Milky Way cut across the black sky, casting a dull glow over the landscape.
The three men tracking the same fleeing Afghan she was were below, completely invisible in the inky bottom of the canyon. She’d made it to within a hundred meters of them a couple hours ago and spent a few minutes watching and listening. Languages were one of her greatest gifts but she hadn’t understood anything she’d heard beyond identifying it as Ukrainian.
Since the Ukrainians weren’t part of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, it suggested that these particular gentlemen were mercenaries. And not just any mercenaries. Based on their speed, silence, and equipment, they were highly trained operatives that even she felt compelled to give a wide berth.
So she’d taken the high road, creeping along the steep slope above them, concentrating on not knocking down any rocks that would alert them to her presence. It wasn’t the only reason for taking the most precarious possible route, though. In fact, she knew something they didn’t. About six months ago, she’d chased an al-Qaeda operative though this same corridor and had made the exact same mistakes the Ukrainians were making now.
The canyon walls steepened consistently as they rose, finally topping out in loose, slightly overhanging cliffs at least fifteen meters high. As a far better-than-average rock climber, she’d concluded that there was no chance of her target escaping that way and focused on keeping her pace quick enough to catch him before the terrain opened up. What she hadn’t known at the time—and didn’t learn until the terrorist was long gone—was that there was a narrow arch near the top of the canyon’s northern wall that went all the way through.
She looked up at the dark cliff band and took advantage of a powerful gust to push on, confident that any rocks she kicked loose would be written off as having been dislodged by the wind.
Randi slowed when things went still again, feeling the cold starting to freeze the sweat trapped between her back and the light pack she was wearing. Her eye picked out a movement twenty meters above and she started for it, worrying less about speed than staying completely silent.
She considered her options as she closed in but, as usual, none was good. Her best bet was the same as it always was—to turn around and get the hell out of there. Discounting that, it was a choice between trying to make contact while she still had room to maneuver, but also a terrific opportunity to fall to her death, and catching the Afghan in the arch where the confined space would neutralize what little advantage she still had.
Option one seemed marginally better. In fact, if she was clever, it might even work.
“Wait,” she said in Pashto, muffling the word slightly with her hand.
While she could communicate perfectly well in the language, she hadn’t been successful at fully eradicating her accent. Better to communicate in one-word sentences if possible.
The movement visible in front of her stopped abruptly. “Who is that?”
“Adeela,” Randi said, picking a woman’s name common in the region.
There was a long pause before the man spoke again. “Adeela? How did you escape? Come. Hurry.”
Randi slid the sniper rifle down in its sling on her pack. The butt hit her in the back of the legs as she climbed, but the long barrel wouldn’t be silhouetted over her head.
Ahead, the man slipped behind a low pile of rocks that had been created to obscure the entrance to the arch and provide a defensive position if it became necessary.
She approached slowly, eyes widening as she tried to penetrate the gloom and pick out the man she was pursuing. There was no way, though. The area behind the wall was so dark, it looked like a gateway to a dead universe.
Heart pounding uncomfortably in her chest, she let her assault rifle hang from its strap and pulled a silenced pistol from the holster on her hip. Stepping behind the wall was like going blind and she tried futilely to pick up a hint of the man she knew was only a meter or so away.
“Adeela,” he said quietly. “Are you—”
His eyes were obviously better adjusted and he lunged, but the motion was what Randi needed to pinpoint him. Before he could get hold of her, she had a silencer pressed up under his chin.
“Be calm,” she said in Pashto. “I’m not with those men and I had nothing to do with what happened to your village.”
“Then who are you?”
“Randi Russell.”
She felt him nod through the motion of the gun barrel. “The woman from the CIA.”
“That’s right. Farhad Wahidi’s friend,” she said, naming the elder she’d had occasional dealings with.
He let out a bitter laugh that sounded alarmingly loud in the silence. “He did not call you a friend.”
“Okay,” she said, searching for the correct words to get her thought across. “Occasional convenient acquaintances. Who are you?”
“Zahid. What do you want?”
“I want to know what happened in Sarabat.”
“Why should I tell you?”
It was a good question. Her eyes had adapted enough to see his rough outline and she took a step back, lowering the pistol as an act of good faith. “Why shouldn’t you?”
He stood there for what seemed like a long time before speaking again. “The men below were with the ones who attacked my village. They killed not only the men but the women and children.”
He was in no position to climb onto that particular piece of moral high ground, but she decided that now probably wasn’t the time to point this out. “So?”
“I have no weapon. It’s why I ran. So I could live to find them. To find them and kill them. Now God has delivered you to me.”
“I don’t think God had anything to do with this meeting.”
“I disagree. He has created an opportunity for both of us to get what we want.”
Randi frowned in the darkness. More likely, God was playing one of the cruel
jokes he seemed so fond of. The risks of engaging the men below were high even by her standards, but Zahid didn’t care. In fact, he likely wanted nothing more than to join his friends in paradise soaked with the blood of men who had killed them. She, on the other hand, just wanted to satisfy her curiosity and retreat to base for a cocktail or ten.
“Fine,” she said, holstering her sidearm and handing the Afghan her assault rifle. “But we do it my way.”
“I’ve heard the stories about you, but I believe none of them.”
She dropped her pack and unfastened the sniper rifle. “Just another woman, right?”
“These men will not let themselves be distracted by the promise of sex from a whore.”
She found a stable surface to set up her rifle and scanned the canyon floor through the starlight scope. “I’m not looking to damage our new friendship with threats, but next time you open your mouth, it better be to tell me about Sarabat.”
There was a lengthy silence but finally he spoke. “Our village was attacked from the air and the ground. We killed a few, but they came on us too quickly and with too many weapons. They murdered everyone. I don’t know who they were. Not American uniforms. Many different accents and many different weapons.”
“You’re mistaking me for someone who cares, Zahid. Tell me about Sarabat.”
When he didn’t answer, she looked up and found him staring up at the stars.
“Do we still have a deal?”
“I said I would tell you if you helped me. You have done nothing.”
She returned to the scope and swept the weapon right, stopping when she got to the man bringing up the rear. He was partially obscured from her position and she kept going, finally settling on the point man. He was moving almost directly away from her and she held her breath, centering crosshairs between his shoulder blades and silently counting off the beat of her heart.
A gentle squeeze of the trigger was followed by a less gentle recoil and the earsplitting crack of the round leaving the barrel.
It struck a little low and left but the high-caliber bullet didn’t need to be perfectly aimed to tear away a substantial piece of his torso. She didn’t bother to watch him go down, instead pulling back as automatic fire erupted from below and began ricocheting off the rocks around them.
“One down,” she said, pressing her back against the stone wall. “Now start talking or you’re going to be next.”
14
Outside Baltimore, Maryland
USA
WHEN THE ELEVATOR DOORS OPENED, Craig Bailer ushered them out into an underground facility that was large enough to be almost disorienting. The modest building they’d entered through housed little more than a security desk and a couple of abstract sculptures, but now Smith found himself in a room that was probably two hundred meters long and half as wide, with a ceiling hidden somewhere beyond the steel support grid fifteen meters above.
At the far end was a live jungle guarded by a full-sized tank and various sandbagged machine-gun placements. The extensive computer equipment and personnel that Smith would have expected at a demonstration of a bleeding-edge technology were conspicuously absent as he followed Bailer to a simple table containing two Merges and a couple of laptops.
General Pedersen picked up one of the units and turned it over in his hands. It was slightly larger than the commercial version, with a matte-black exterior displaying a visible carbon-fiber weave. Smith examined the other one, noting that the indicator light was missing, as was the on/off switch and power cable connector. In fact, there was nothing at all that would suggest it was anything but a solid piece of plastic.
“All right,” Bailer said, waking up the laptops. “Is it safe to assume that neither of you has used a Merge before?”
They both shook their heads.
“In our stores, we do demos on how to set them up, but for the most part I’m just going to let you have at it yourself so you can see how simple it is. What I will point out, though, is that the military version of the unit has no connectors at all. That’s for two reasons: First, we found connector ports to be responsible for over ninety percent of failures. And second, it’s simpler.”
“If it’s so much better why do the commercial units have a power switch and USB port?” Smith asked. “Cost?”
Bailer gave a bemused shake of his head. “Excellent guess, Doctor, but the reality is much stranger. Our market research suggested that people are comfortable with wired connections and that not having them made the perceived value of the unit less—even though they’re completely outdated and serve no real function.”
“How do you charge it?” Pedersen asked.
“Dr. Smith? Care to guess?”
He winced perceptibly at the question and considered purposely answering wrong, but his ego wouldn’t allow it. “Induction.”
“Well done,” Bailer said. “There’s a small mat that plugs into the wall and you just lay the unit on it. Takes about an hour for a full charge, which in turn will last about twenty-five hours of normal usage. The increased battery size is almost entirely responsible for the additional weight you may have noticed.”
“And how does it connect to the computer?” Pedersen asked.
“Standard Bluetooth. But it’s only necessary for the initial setup. After that, it stands alone.”
He crouched and dug out two military helmets from boxes beneath the table. Both looked more or less government-issue with the exception of elaborate fore-and-aft cameras bolted to the top. “If I could have you put these on and take a place in front of a laptop, we’ll get you up and running.”
“So the system is built into helmets?” Pedersen said.
“Yes. But only for the purposes of this demonstration. In a combat situation, you’d have to use the head studs.”
As he tightened his chin strap and sat, Smith couldn’t help feeling a little excitement. Dresner’s demonstration, while impressive, had been nothing but a big screen and some interesting parlor tricks. To actually feel a machine-brain link, though, was something he never thought he’d experience in his lifetime.
“Uh, how do you turn it on?” Pedersen said.
“Dr. Smith? You’re doing so well. Care to take another shot?”
“I have no idea,” he said honestly. That seemed to cheer the general up a bit.
“It couldn’t be simpler. Just give it a good shake.”
Smith did and the computer screen in front of him immediately recognized the unit, bringing up its serial number and asking if he wanted to enter the setup routine.
“Do I just choose yes?”
Bailer retreated a bit. “No more help from me. I want you to get a feel for what it’s going to take to get your people up and running.”
Smith clicked through and five images of a tree came up on the screen. The caption asked him to select the sharpest image. He did and what felt a bit like an eye exam continued through a few more screens, asking him to judge color, rotation, and the relative speed of objects. Finally, the word “silver” appeared and he was asked to repeat the word over and over in his mind. A few seconds later, a notification came up that he was done and icons sprang to life in his peripheral vision.
“Whoa,” he said, leaning back in his chair and blinking hard.
“It’s a little disorienting at first,” Bailer explained. “But the effect goes away after a few seconds.”
Smith stood and began walking unsteadily forward. The unit, sensing his movement, caused the icons to fade until they were almost invisible. Bailer was right. In less than a minute, his mind had grown accustomed to them.
“General Pedersen? How are you doing?” Bailer asked.
“Done,” he said, standing a little too fast and having to steady himself on the table.
Bailer waited for him to regain his balance before starting his pitch. “With the studs, what you see would be quite a bit sharper and will have a more three-dimensional quality. You can manipulate the icons through rudimentary mental com
mands like ‘weather’ or ‘current location’ but it takes a couple of hours to get the hang of it so I’m going to use our demonstration software to run the apps on your units if that’s okay.”
They both nodded.
“As I said before, this is really just a basic platform. We don’t have access to your weapons systems and Christian didn’t want to get involved directly in that anyway. But I think you can imagine what the Merge could do if it was, say, linked to a fighter jet’s onboard computer. You potentially wouldn’t need a canopy or even any physical controls. You could have a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view using cameras and all flight and weapons systems controlled mentally. But right now we’re going to concentrate on less ambitious applications. Now, if you gentlemen could look down at the jungle and tell me how many combatants you see.”
“Two,” Pedersen said, squinting to pick out two camouflage-clad mannequins nestled into the trees.
“Dr. Smith?”
“Four. One directly behind the most obvious guy and one pressed up against a tree on the looker’s far right.”
Bailer’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m impressed. No one has ever picked out the fourth man from this distance.”
It wasn’t surprising. He’d always had a naturally good eye and had spent a fair amount of time putting a fine point on that innate ability. It, among a few other skills he’d picked up over the years, was responsible for him not currently residing in the Arlington Cemetery.
“Let me launch the application that takes feeds from the camera on your helmets.”
An icon floating to Smith’s right flashed once, but nothing else changed.
“Okay, now I’m going to start layering in different vision protocols. The first is an outline enhancement. For this, the computer uses an algorithm to search for lines that have a potential human or military component and bolds them. The human mind actually does something similar, which is what makes some optical illusions possible. With all due respect to evolution, though, our system is quite a bit more advanced.”