The Omega Project

by Steve Alten

  “And what mission is that?”

  “The destruction of GOLEM, as well as the computer’s hives. This must be accomplished before tomorrow evening’s cosmic event — before the AI spreads its seed beyond the subcontinent.”

  “I don’t understand. Why can’t you destroy GOLEM? Your drone took out that giant croc, and you did a real nice job on those crabs.”

  “GOLEM’s crater is surrounded by an impenetrable radar detection system. If one of our drones comes within fifty kilometers, it is destroyed.”

  I checked my air gauge — down to six minutes. “If you can’t get close enough, how am I—”

  “The transhuman hovercraft created with your fiancée’s genetic code remains close by, awaiting your next communiqué. The mutation can be used to transport the explosive. Detonated over the crater, the device will release an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to short-circuit GOLEM.”

  “What device? I see no—”

  A slice of white light fractured away from the male’s holographic projection, illuminating a twelve-by-thirty-inch oval canister set on a control panel.

  “You must instruct the hovercraft to fly at an altitude of twenty thousand feet at a velocity of seventy miles an hour. Proceed east to the Holy City. The moment you cross over the crater’s western border, press the control switch twice and the device will become active. Count eight seconds and release the device over the side, then instruct the hovercraft to turn around and execute a rapid descent to three hundred feet. The blast will be contained in the crater, shutting down and incinerating the computer and its brood.”

  “Wait … what blast? I thought this was an EMP?”

  “Dr. Eisenbraun, the device you see before you is a fifteen-kiloton nuclear bomb, carrying roughly the same charge as the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima. The plutonium was salvaged from the Oceanus reactor.”

  “How did you recharge the plutonium? Never mind. I’m sure you’ve accomplished greater endeavors over the last twelve million years. But there’s a problem with nuking the Holy City — the cephalopeds want the clones spared.”

  “They are unique creatures,” the man said. “However, they cannot possibly comprehend the dangers of allowing their masters to live.”

  WARNING: LESS THAN TWO MINUTES OF AIR REMAINS IN YOUR TANK.

  “Dr. Eisenbraun, there is much to discuss. Tomorrow night’s lunar event will allow us to bring both you and Dharma Yuan to Alpha Colony so we may brief you in person. For now, it is imperative that you collect the explosive and leave the habitat before you lose consciousness.”

  I still had a million questions, but they would have to wait. Grabbing the sixty-pound lead capsule in both arms, I struggled with it up the aluminum ladder. My brain was operating in a fog and the egress passage was spinning by the time I made my way out the exit to daylight. I dropped to my knees, carefully laid the explosive down in the sand, and tore the suffocating mask from my face as Dharma rushed to my side.

  36

  Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive.

  — ALBERT EINSTEIN

  The electrical storm had passed while I was inside Oceanus. Oscar used the break in the weather to locate his baskets of provisions. Alone with Dharma, I quickly briefed her on my contact with the Alpha Colonists, grateful our cephaloped friend was not around to question the nature of the device lying on the ground before us.

  “Ike, you do realize that using a nuclear weapon to wipe out GOLEM violates your agreement with the cephs? They specifically wanted the clones spared.”

  “I didn’t create the poison pill, Dharma. Right now, it’s all we’ve got.”

  “Then inventory the rest of the ship. Have ABE create another option.”

  “And what if this is the best option?”

  “Since when is mass murder the best option?”

  “If you had seen how they torture the cephs you’d realize this is more like an act of self-preservation.”

  “Those you wish to preserve don’t see it that way.”

  “Well, maybe I was placed here in order to act in their best interests.”

  “That is the spirit of the Hungry Ghost talking. The anger experienced during your past lives is dictating your actions.”

  “I don’t remember any past lives. But if I could go back in time to World War II and wipe out the Nazis before they exterminated six million of my people, then I’d do it.”

  Before Dharma could respond, we both felt a deep reverberation in the sand.

  “Ike, what was that?”

  “Tidal waves, beginning their run on the shoreline. The ocean is rising with the approaching moon. We need to get to higher ground fast. This entire area’s going to be underwater pretty soon.”

  Reaching into my sweat suit pocket, I squeezed the remains of Transhuman Andria’s severed finger, praying the neurons within the digit were still active enough to allow us to communicate. Andie, it’s Ike. If you can hear me, baby, we need your help. We’re at Oceanus. Please try to get to us.

  Oscar returned with the food basket. Dharma and I ate while the cephaloped examined the small nuclear device, pressing one of its sucker pads to the protective lead casing.

  Touching my arm, he communicated — ABE translating the creature’s thoughts internally for me: IT IS WARM ON THE INSIDE. LIKE THE SUN’S HEAT.

  Yes. I replied, avoiding eye contact.

  “Explain it to him, Ike. It’s his species’ future; let him have a say in it.”

  God, she could be annoying. “Oscar, we’re going to use this device to destroy GOLEM — the ball of energy calling itself the Creator. We’re going to stop your kind from being hunted down and slaughtered.”

  YES. THIS IS WHY YOU ARE HERE.

  I glanced back at Dharma — catching sight of a seven-foot-high wave as it blasted its way up the beach like a wall of blue-green foam.

  “Look out!”

  Oscar was first to react — looping a powerful tentacle around each of us, clutching the nuke in another as it dragged us behind Oceanus. The sphere rattled as it split the wave, shielding us for the moment.

  The tide rushed inland another two hundred yards before beginning its retreat. Oscar timed the back flow, maneuvering us around to the front side of the sphere to avoid the powerful suction.

  When the roar of water had finally passed, we made our way back east toward the cliff face, careful to avoid the gurgling crab holes, the surface of the slowly draining pools shimmering beneath the clearing afternoon skies.

  Oscar cradled the explosive in one of his sucker pads, still oblivious to its destructive power. There was no time to inform him — the next wave was minutes away — so my thoughts turned inward, using ABE to analyze my conversation with the holographic colonists.

  Query: Were the transmitted projections of real people or holograms made to appear human?

  ANSWER TO QUERY: UNKNOWN.

  A distant thunderclap abruptly ended my internal conversation. The three of us stopped jogging, turning in unison to face an advancing ocean still too far away to see. From the sound, I guessed the wave bearing down on us in the distance had been three to four hundred feet when it broke; from my gut I estimated the source of the rumbling beneath our feet would be upon us within a few short minutes, its advance gobbling up beach at eighty miles an hour.

  We sprinted to the periphery of boulders that formed a rise along the base of the cliffs. Escaping into the cave system was not an option — to get to the Holy City we needed the Hunter-Transport, which meant we needed to remain accessible.

  It was like a bad déjà vu — we needed to climb.

  Oscar made short work of the boulder field, carrying the two of us and the nuclear device three hundred feet to the highest perch — seconds before an eighty foot wall of water smashed like a freight train into the rocks below, igniting a blast of foam that splattered us like a cold, heavy rainfall. Shivering, Dharma and I held on to one another until the late-afternoon sun warme
d us.

  I gazed up at the journey still to come — an expanse of rock that had taken all my willpower to conquer. Oscar had descended the face with me weeks earlier, but that was down and this was up, and there was two of us to carry, plus the nuke.

  Oscar remained on his boulder, no doubt exhausted from having just scaled the boulder field.

  “Dharma, have you ever done any climbing?”

  She looked up, her almond eyes widening. “You will teach me, yes?”

  “One day. Not today.” I reached out to Oscar. Dharma can’t handle the climb. Can you get her and the device up to the summit?

  ABE translated the reply. OSCAR SAYS YES. HE IS CONCERNED ABOUT ROBERT EISENBRAUN.

  Tell him I’ll climb as high as I can, but he needs to go. The waves are getting larger; the next one will easily reach this perch.

  The cephaloped rose, extending one of its powerful arms around Dharma’s waist.

  “Ike, wait—”

  “You take the elevator. I’ll manage the stairs.”

  And up they went, Oscar’s sucker pads adhering to the small crevices and creases in the rock, the cephaloped drawing four to five feet higher with each extension, the fatigued creature adding a second appendage to secure Dharma as the first one tired.

  I watched until they melded into the stone, then reached up to find my first handhold — a four-inch wedge of slab that led to nowhere, forcing me to retreat back to the boulder.

  EIGHTEEN MINUTES UNTIL THE NEXT WAVE.

  “Shut up, ABE!” Taking a moment to survey the potential routes, I made my way to another boulder and reached up with my right hand to a crack in the rock … yet was unable to muster the strength to pull myself up.

  Get your mind right. You’re relying on Oscar. You need to climb … now!

  I fought on scraped knees and elbows for the next perch, refocusing my eyes on the rock directly above me. For several minutes I bore down, no songs in my head, only ABE’s intermittent warnings.

  TWELVE MINUTES UNTIL THE NEXT WAVE.

  The cliff face was still warm, the sun a yellow-white glare in the western sky. Sweat poured off my face and down my arms to my hands, forcing me to wipe them dry on my pants before feeling for the next ledge.

  SIX MINUTES UNTIL THE NEXT WAVE.

  ABE, estimate the height of the next wave upon impact. How much higher do I need to climb to be safe?

  EIGHTY-TWO FEET.

  My heart pounded in my chest. Reaching inside my pocket, I squeezed the transhuman’s severed finger hard enough to drain pus. “Andie, I’m on the cliffs. Now would be a really good time to come and get me.”

  Pressing my face to the rock, I reached higher. Three successive ledges raised me a pitiful fifteen feet. I contemplated using the Superman protocol, but excessive adrenaline and free climbing made for a deadly cocktail.

  TWO MINUTES UNTIL THE NEXT WAVE. FORTY-ONE FEET TO SAFETY ZONE.

  Can’t make it. Need to find a fissure … wedge your arms in and hold on tight.

  Looking up, I scanned the slab above my head, spotting only a two-inch-wide jagged slice in the rock. With no other options, I wedged the toes of my left shoe onto a higher ledge and inched my way up, my muscles trembling.

  ONE MINUTE UNTIL THE NEXT WAVE.

  Balancing my feet on an uneven knob of rock, I shoved eight fingers two inches deep into the sharp fissure, feeling the faint rumble of the approaching tidal surge reverberate in the stone.

  THIRTY SECONDS …

  Unable to contain myself, I stole a glance over my left shoulder and nearly let go.

  More tsunami than wave, the three-hundred-and-ninety-foot foam-spewing blast of ocean was approaching so fast and furiously that I knew it would flay me to the bone against the cliffs before I ever got the chance to drown.

  Please God, quick and painless … Reunite me with my family.

  Curled up against the slate, I hyperventilated my last breath against the echoing roar — as my fingers were torn from the fissure and my body violently pried from its perch.

  Eyes closed, it took me seconds to realize the pain — a vise squeezing my armpits into my clavicle, was actually Oscar’s tentacles and that I was being hoisted up the wall at a miraculous speed.

  Make that near miraculous.

  Looking down, I caught sight of the wave a second before it exploded into the cliff, igniting a geyser of grit and foam that blasted me full in the face. Blinded, I surrendered to Oscar’s embrace — only to be swallowed by the eruption of ocean that ripped the two of us away from the rock and devoured us in its vortex.

  I opened my eyes underwater in time to see the coffee-brown wall of rock accelerate into my forehead with a dull thud … clouded in blackness.

  And then I heard my name and ABE summoned me back into consciousness.

  I was racing backward along the surface of a raging river, my head and chest cradled by a thick bristle-haired tentacle, the cliffs retreating before me. I could feel Oscar’s remaining limbs fighting to keep our heads above water, the bully ocean sweeping us into its agitated bosom even as it readied its next assault upon the land.

  TRANSHUMAN ANDRIA IS BECKONING YOU.

  Looking up, I located the platform flying overhead on my left — its biological pilot attempting to match our fluctuating course and speed as she descended. I remember thinking that there was no way she could rescue us, and then a coil of hemp shot out from a portal and Oscar snagged it.

  The rope held fast as the Hunter-Transport peeled us free of the receding sea.

  Oscar swung us onboard. I collapsed onto the platform, then crawled to the mutated version of my fiancée and verified that she was missing her ring finger. “Andie, thank you.”

  THE CREATURE IS HOLDING AN OBJECT. PLEASE IDENTIFY.

  “It’s a means to free you from bondage; it’s why I needed your help. Before I explain what must be done, there’s another member of the Oceanus crew on the cliff face. Can you locate her?”

  The transport banked into a tight easterly turn, accelerating toward the rise.

  Dharma was two hundred feet from the top, clinging like an abandoned puppy to an outcrop. Reaching out, I pulled her onto the transport and into my arms.

  Big mistake.

  Part biological, part machine, the transhuman female still had Andria Saxon’s memories and her cognitive responses.

  Wrenched from my arms, Dharma was violently splayed out on deck, her body pinned beneath three g’s of gravity.

  “Andria, let her go.”

  YOU HAVE SLEPT WITH THIS WOMAN?

  “Of course not,” I lied, quickly instructing ABE to adjust my biological responses to back my claim. “Dharma and the cephaloped are friends, they’re here to help me free you and the others … to make you whole again.”

  She turned to me, looking at me through scarlet eyes that spewed a jealous rage. Reaching out, she gripped my wrist in her right palm, reading my pulse — ABE quickly slowing my racing heartbeat.

  After a moment, her expression changed. YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH.

  “I’d never lie to you. Search your memories aboard Oceanus. Access Commander Kevin Read. It was you who cheated on me … but I forgave you.”

  For several seconds her head twitched as she attempted to reconcile the contradictions between a life she believed she had lived and the dichotomy of existence she had been condemned to serve.

  To my surprise, her lower lip quivered and she displayed emotions I would never have thought possible for a biological machine.

  IKE, CAN YOU MAKE ME HUMAN AGAIN?

  I could have lied, I could have simply told her what she needed to hear in order to get her to deliver the bomb, but suddenly she was no longer a genetic mutation to me, nor was she a random seed on an assembly line … she was a living being who aspired to be better than the warped depravity of her Creator.

  “Andie, I can make your life better, only you have to trust me.”

  I TRUST YOU.

  “Then release Dharma and take us t
o the Holy City. Most important, do not reveal our presence to the Creator.”

  37

  An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

  — CHARLES DARWIN

  I had been born into a world of intolerance, a world where man’s negative nature — fueled by the human ego — had determined that greed was good, that hatred could drive a political campaign as well as an entertainment medium, and that fear could be used to coerce a nation into war. I had grown up in a maelstrom of cynicism — democracy had been poisoned by the power brokers of extremism who were given unrestricted backdoor government access to perpetuate their own agendas, overseen by politicians who wore their religion like a convenient garment.

  My father had been my moral compass. Though not religious, he was a spiritual man who lived by the creed. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” In 2003, he had spoken out against the invasion of Iraq and was labeled a traitor; in 2005 he had established a blog that foretold the future legacy of Peak Oil.

  One of my lasting memories with my father was the two of us watching the 2016 presidential debates, the topic: How to deal with a nuclear Iran. “Listen closely, Robbie. You’re about to hear two supposedly devout Christians invoke God’s name to justify a future nuclear attack that will accelerate the end of civilization as we know it. And yet, it’s not them I blame, it’s the rest of us — the morally blind majority willing to consider the annihilation of millions of innocent people just because they happen to be Muslim, never realizing their indifference will destroy all of us.”

  Indifference. It was so easy when we weren’t the ones being bombed or tortured. When it wasn’t our job lost, our home foreclosed upon, our family living in a shelter.

  When had caring about others become a debatable political issue? When had peace and love been labeled a weakness?