Extinction

by Mark Alpert

  “Wait a second.” The Caltech reference had caught Jim’s attention. He scanned the list of file names on the screen and recognized a pair of Mandarin characters, qí and yì. “Look at that.”

  Kirsten stopped scrolling. “What?”

  He pointed at the characters. “That’s Qíyì. It means ‘singularity,’ right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And those four characters next to it? That’s a phonetic spelling of a Western name. It’s Arvin Conway. The Caltech professor. And chief executive of Singularity, Inc.” He leaned toward Kirsten and tapped the frames of her glasses.

  She was silent for a few seconds, struck by the coincidence. “Well, whaddya know. Nice catch, Pierce.”

  “The Guoanbu agent mentioned him, too. He said he knew I worked with Conway.”

  “Let’s see what the file says.” She clicked on Qíyì and called up the document. “Okay, it’s another Second Bureau analysis. A summary of the operations of Singularity, Inc. Headquarters in Pasadena, California. Revenue of 120 million dollars in 2012, annual R&D investment of 100 million, blah, blah, blah. This is boilerplate. Nothing that you couldn’t get from a business magazine or a…” She paused. “Wait a second. This is strange.”

  “What?”

  “Hold on, I’m still reading.” Kirsten leaned forward, training her eyeglass-cameras on the screen. “There’s something here about export controls. The microprocessors in some of Singularity’s devices have possible military uses, so normally they can’t be exported to China. But Singularity received an exemption from the dual-use controls.”

  “Why is that strange? Doesn’t that happen pretty often?”

  “Yeah, but it usually takes forever. The Commerce Department has to sign off on every exemption. But in Singularity’s case, another agency expedited the process.”

  “Which agency?”

  Kirsten stopped herself. She turned away from the screen.

  Jim felt a rush of adrenaline. “Come on, Kir. Don’t hold back on me.”

  After a few seconds, she nodded. “The file says there was a request from the CIA. The agency asked Commerce to approve the exemption immediately.” She scrolled through the rest of the document. “That’s all it says. No further explanation.”

  It was more than strange, Jim thought. It was positively bizarre. “Since when does the CIA get involved in exemptions from export controls? I never heard of such a thing.”

  “You’re right. They’re usually trying to stop the Chinese from getting any dual-use technologies. But in this case it looks like they made a special effort to push it through.”

  “So that’s why the Guoanbu is so interested in Layla? Because she uncovered some deal involving Arvin’s technology?”

  Kirsten shrugged. “Hard to say. But it does look suspicious.”

  Jim ran his hand through his hair. He needed to think. The evidence was sketchy and he couldn’t see how it fit together. It would be nice to get some more information on the export exemption, but unfortunately he couldn’t go to the CIA headquarters at Langley and start asking questions. He used to have some contacts there, but they’d left the agency long ago. So that meant he had to go to Arvin. Jim felt some trepidation at this prospect—he hadn’t spoken to his old professor in four years. They’d had a falling-out when Jim left Singularity to start his prosthetics work at Walter Reed. The argument got so heated that Jim vowed never to speak to Arvin again. But he was going to have to break that promise.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost 10:00 A.M. If he hurried, he could catch a flight that would land in Los Angeles before the end of the day. He needed to do this in person.

  “I gotta go,” he said, stepping away from Kirsten. “I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

  She frowned. “Let me handle this, Jim. I know a few people at Langley. They might tell me something.”

  Jim appreciated the offer, but he knew how the intelligence community worked. Each agency was a closed shop. Despite all the calls for greater cooperation since 9/11, they still kept secrets from each other. He looked over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Thanks for the help, Kir. I owe you one.”

  FIVE

  After Layla left New York City she had one overriding desire: to put as much distance as possible between herself and the Guoanbu agents.

  She started by taking a train to Montclair, New Jersey, where she went to the home of the most fervent InfoLeaks supporter in the area, a Marxist history professor named Max Verlaine. Last winter Professor Verlaine had let Layla crash on his couch for two months, and now he was even more generous. Without asking any questions, he gave her six hundred dollars and let her borrow an ancient Honda Civic with a full tank of gas. Even better, he handed her a driver’s license belonging to one of his ex-girlfriends, a brunette who roughly resembled Layla, at least judging from the fuzzy photo on the license. Layla thanked him profusely, then got on the interstate and headed south.

  She didn’t stop until she reached Philadelphia, where she found an all-night copy shop. After buying an hour of time on one of the shop’s computers, she examined the files from the flash drive Dragon Fire had given her. There were only two documents and they weren’t encrypted, but they were in Mandarin. She downloaded a program to translate the files, but the results were gibberish—the text was too technical. One of the files was accompanied by thirty-three illustrations, thirty-two of which were circuit diagrams with Mandarin labels she couldn’t even begin to fathom. But the thirty-third illustration was more helpful. It was a line drawing of the thing she’d seen in the specimen jar, a housefly with electronic devices attached to its head, thorax, and abdomen.

  Layla was too afraid to stay at the copy shop for the full hour. If Dragon Fire was right and the CIA was cooperating with the Guoanbu, she wasn’t safe anywhere. Using an anonymous sign-in, she logged on to the InfoLeaks network and quickly searched for someone who could help her understand the files and the specimen. Reviewing the list of InfoLeaks supporters and volunteers, she saw two people with the necessary expertise, but one of them lived in Manhattan. Layla had no intention of going back there, so she sent an e-mail to the other guy and returned to her car.

  Over the next twenty-four hours she drove 1,500 miles, stopping only three times to refuel, load up on junk food, and take catnaps in the backseat. It was one in the morning when she arrived at the University of Texas in Austin and parked in the lot behind the Engineering Science building. The campus was dark and deserted, but at the arranged meeting spot—the Engineering building’s emergency exit—she saw the man she’d contacted. Tom Ottersley, a graduate student in the aerospace engineering department, leaned against the exit door, keeping it propped open. He was several years older than Layla and a foot-and-a-half taller, but they had something in common. In his spare time, when he wasn’t pursuing his Ph.D., Tom hacked for InfoLeaks. Even though she’d exchanged only a couple of e-mails with the guy, she sensed he was a kindred spirit.

  He waved at her as she got out of her car. Then he looked left and right, surveying the area. When she reached the emergency exit, he nudged her inside and swiftly shut the door behind her. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m not supposed to be here this late and the campus security guards are always snooping around.” He held out his right hand. “It’s good to meet you. You don’t have to tell me your name. It’s probably better if you don’t, right?”

  Layla shook his hand. He didn’t fit her image of an engineering grad student. He had broad shoulders and a square jaw and long hair the color of corn silk. He looked like he could pose for one of the university’s promotional brochures. She wasn’t usually impressed with physical beauty, but this guy was a phenomenon. “Thanks for doing this,” she said. “Are you sure the lab’s empty? No one working late?”

  “Yeah, we’re good. Everyone else in the research group is at a conference in Seattle.” He led Layla down the corridor. “I’m the low man on the totem pole, so I couldn’t go. But now I’m glad I stayed home.�
� He glanced at the zippered pouch in Layla’s left hand.

  “I’m sorry for being so vague in my e-mails. The truth is, I’m not sure what I have here.”

  “Don’t worry. You described it well enough. I think I know what’s going on.”

  They came to a door that read AEROSPACE DESIGN LAB. Removing a key from his pocket, Tom unlocked the door and hit the light switch. The room was large and the furniture oddly arranged. All the desks were lined up against the walls, leaving the center of the lab as clear as a dance floor. Someone had used strips of duct tape to mark several X’s on the linoleum, making it look like a giant tic-tac-toe board. When Layla stepped closer she saw a strange contraption sitting on one of the X’s. It resembled a small, diaphanous bird.

  Tom shut the door and locked it behind them. Then, noticing what Layla was staring at, he went to the X and gently picked up the contraption. “This is Texas Flier Nine,” he said, cupping it in his hands. “Our latest ornithopter.”

  Up close, the thing looked more like a robotic dragonfly than a bird. Its body was a stiff black wire, four inches long. At one end of the wire was a microchip connected to an antenna and a tiny motor. The motor, in turn, was connected to the wings, which were made of a cellophane-like material stretched between shorter wires. At the other end was a horizontal stabilizing wing and something that looked like a rudder. It was so fascinating that Layla had to restrain herself from plucking it out of Tom’s hands. “Ornithopter?” she asked. “Why do you call it that?”

  “Because it doesn’t fly like a fixed-wing craft or a helicopter. It flaps its wings like a bird.” He stroked his thumb along the edge of one of the diaphanous wings. “Actually, we used insect flight as the primary model for the Flier. At very small scales, the laws of aerodynamics are completely different. To a bug flying through the air, the forces are similar to what we feel when we’re treading water. The viscosity of the air becomes an important factor.”

  Layla had studied physics at MIT before dropping out, so she was pretty familiar with aerodynamics. She pointed at the Flier’s antenna. “You operate it by radio control?”

  “Yeah, like a model airplane. We transmit instructions from the base station. The radio system we built is powerful enough to control the Flier from ten miles away.”

  Looking a bit closer, she noticed a small lens at the nose of the Flier. “Is that a camera?”

  He nodded. “We added an ultralight video camera to allow the Flier to correct its navigation. The ornithopter is designed for indoor as well as outdoor flight, so it has to avoid crashing into walls. And the camera can also be used for surveillance, of course.”

  “Surveillance?”

  “That’s the whole point of the thing. Our research grant came from DARPA, the Pentagon’s R&D agency.” He went back to the X on the floor and returned the ornithopter to its original spot. “I’m not happy about working for the Defense Department, but they’re the ones with the grant money.”

  “So the Flier is supposed to be a surveillance drone? Like the ones they’re using in Afghanistan?”

  “Yeah, the Pentagon wants a ‘microdrone,’ a small, inconspicuous device that can sweep low over the terrain and go into caves and houses to hunt for terrorists. Our Flier would fit the mission because it can fly in and out of tight spaces.” Tom put his hand on Layla’s back and led her to a computer on one of the desks. “Here, let me show you.”

  He turned on the computer. Smiling awkwardly, he kept his hand on her back as they waited for the machine to warm up. Layla realized, with some surprise, that Tom was attracted to her. She found it unusual that this handsome, red-blooded Texan would be interested in a pasty-faced, flat-chested waif like herself, but the signs were clear. He kept sneaking glances at her.

  After a few seconds he picked up a wireless controller that looked like a joystick for a Sony PlayStation. “Okay, prepare for takeoff,” he said. “Please put your seatbacks and tray tables in the upright position.”

  He pressed a trigger on the joystick and the ornithopter’s wings started beating. They flapped as furiously as an insect’s wings, whirring and blurring, and the device climbed straight up, rising five feet in less than a second. Tom released the trigger and the Flier halted in midair, hovering at eye level. Then he said, “Wave hello,” and pointed at the computer screen, which showed the video feed from the Flier’s camera. Layla saw herself on the screen, waving.

  “Now watch this.” He flicked the joystick and the Flier darted forward, heading for the desks along the wall. Bobbing and weaving, the ornithopter whizzed over the desk lamps and computers and telephones. The computer screen on Tom’s desk showed a dizzying riot of video, but apparently the Flier’s microchip could make sense of the information, sending navigational corrections to the rudder and wing motor whenever the drone came too close to an obstacle. Layla was impressed but also a little disconcerted. It was easy to imagine the government using these things for other purposes besides hunting terrorists.

  Tom continued demonstrating the Flier for another two minutes. Then, without any warning, the ornithopter’s wings stopped beating and the drone fluttered to the floor. “What happened?” Layla asked.

  “The battery ran out.” He stepped to the place where the Flier landed. “We need to use lightweight batteries, and they can power the drone for only two or three minutes.” Bending over, he picked up the ornithopter. “It’s our biggest problem, actually. The Flier’s an amazing machine, but we can’t keep it in the air. We’ve tried all kinds of ideas, even a tiny combustion engine that runs on a few drops of gasoline. But it didn’t last any longer than the batteries.”

  “And I guess that limits the drone’s appeal to the military?”

  Tom nodded. His face was serious, drained of its earlier enthusiasm. “Yeah, you can’t do a lot of surveillance in three minutes. The officials at DARPA have been pretty patient, waiting for us to solve the power problem. But now it looks like they’re pulling the plug.” He placed the ornithopter and the wireless controller on his desk. “We just heard that DARPA isn’t going to renew our grant. So I’m gonna have to find a new research group pretty soon.”

  “What made them change their minds? About funding your work, I mean?”

  He looked at her for a moment, his face so serious and beautiful. Then he pointed at the pouch in her hand. “I think it might have something to do with what’s in your bag. Can I look at it now?”

  Layla unzipped the pouch and removed the specimen jar. She felt a little hesitant as she handed it to Tom, even though this was why she’d come here. She had a bad feeling about the thing.

  Tom sat down in the chair in front of his desk. He opened one of the drawers and removed a few tools—tweezers, an X-Acto knife, a small screwdriver. Then he unscrewed the jar and used the tweezers to pick up the insect. Layla stood behind him, watching carefully. It’s just a dead fly, she thought. Nothing to be afraid of.

  Tom held the thing up to the light. “I’ve heard about this. You see, DARPA never puts all its eggs in one basket. They’ve funded dozens of research groups that are developing different kinds of microdrones. And at least three of the groups are working on cyborg insects. Instead of building mechanical fliers, they attach the radio controls and surveillance cameras to flying bugs.”

  Layla thought about it for a second. “Interesting. I guess that would solve the power problem.”

  “Exactly. A moth or a fly can go for hours on just a crumb of food. It’s a superefficient biological engine. The bug dies after a few weeks, but that’s long enough for most surveillance missions.”

  “But how can you control the insect’s flight?”

  Tom raised the tweezers to give her a closer look. “You see the tiny wires in its head? Those are electrode stimulators. By delivering pulses to the optic lobes of its brain, you can make the insect start flying and stop. There are also electrodes in its thorax that send pulses to the flight muscles, which allow you to turn the bug left and right. The radio antenna is
connected to the microchip on its thorax, and the video camera is attached to its abdomen. This is an incredible camera. It’s the smallest I’ve ever seen.”

  Layla was amazed that the bug could carry so much hardware. “It looks like the chip is actually embedded in the thorax.”

  “Yeah, researchers at Cornell developed that technique. They implant the microprocessor into the pupa while the insect is metamorphosing. When the adult bug emerges from the chrysalis, the chip is part of its body.”

  She cocked her head. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “No, they’ve been implanting the chips since 2007. It sounds far-fetched, but it’s a routine thing now. Just go on YouTube and search for ‘cyborg insect.’ You can watch videos of the critters flying around.” Tom maneuvered the tweezers so he could look at the fly from another angle. “But this bug has something new. An extra chip.” He studied it for several seconds. “Well, look at that. It’s a piezoelectric device.”

  “What’s it doing there?”

  “It converts the mechanical energy from the bug’s movements into electricity. For powering all the other implants. Nice engineering.”

  “So this fly is more advanced than the others you’ve seen?”

  “Definitely. More advanced and much smaller. The experiments at Cornell and Berkeley used moths and flying beetles. But a housefly’s better. Totally inconspicuous. And perfect for surveillance indoors.” He shook his head. “Now I see why DARPA’s canceling our funding. They already have their microdrone. Where the hell did you get this?”

  Layla paused, wondering how much to reveal. Tom would probably be very interested to learn that this cyborg fly came from China, not an American lab. But she didn’t want to endanger the guy by telling him too much. She was staring at the dead insect and trying to decide what to do when she noticed something else on its body, a tiny barb protruding from its underside. “What’s that thing next to the camera? On the abdomen?”