Extinction

by Mark Alpert

  Kirsten thought for a moment. Then she gave Jim a skeptical look. “But how are you going to input the code to Supreme Harmony? Didn’t you say that the network has a firewall to block any unwanted transmissions?”

  “I’m betting there’s a control station at the bottom of the radio tower. If I can log on to one of the computers at the station, then maybe I can slip the code past the network’s firewall and transmit it to all the Modules at once.”

  “That’s a big ‘if,’ Jim. And if this tower is so critical to Supreme Harmony, wouldn’t the network put defenses around it? The whole area is probably full of surveillance cameras and Modules.”

  “Don’t worry, I can handle them.” He held up his sat phone again and waved it in the air. “For one thing, I have the picture of Medusa. I can use it to knock out any Modules I run into. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always this.” He pointed at the Glock tucked into the waistband of his pants.

  Kirsten looked unconvinced. She pressed her lips together. “You know, the Burmese border is just a few hours’ drive from here. And we still have some money left, almost four thousand dollars. That should be enough to make a deal with the local smugglers. After they help us cross the border, we can use our sat phones to call Washington. Even if Supreme Harmony detects the call, it can’t send the Chinese police into Burma to get us.”

  Her tone was matter-of-fact, but Jim could hear the desperation in her voice. He felt a sudden rush of feeling for her, a tight, burning sensation in his chest. Her face was so serious. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, but, instead, he put an equally serious expression on his face. “You’re right,” he said. “We need to do that, too.”

  Her mouth opened in surprise. “Wait a second. You’re willing to consider changing your plan?”

  He took a deep breath. “No, not change it. I want to add to it. I want you to drive to the border while I hike up the mountain to the radio tower.”

  Kirsten slammed on the brake, and the car skidded to a halt. Dirt from the unpaved road rose in a cloud all around them. She shifted the car into PARK and waited a few seconds, her hands gripping the steering wheel. She didn’t look at him. She faced forward, her gaze fixed on the horizon.

  “This is so typical of you, Pierce,” she finally said. “You had this in mind all along, didn’t you?”

  “It’s the logical thing to do. We only have one gun, so it’s better for me to go in alone. And while I’m going in, you can cross the border and call for backup.”

  “You said before that calling for help was a bad idea. You said we couldn’t afford to wait.”

  “This is different. The Burmese government doesn’t control the region near the border. It’s controlled by rebel groups, the militias of the local Kachin people, and those guys have been working with the CIA for decades. If you can find one of the agents and explain the urgency of the situation, he might be able to do something quick. Maybe organize a covert operation with one of the Kachin militias.”

  She still wouldn’t look at him. Her face was blank, and Jim couldn’t tell what she was thinking. When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible. “I thought we were in this together.”

  Jim’s chest tightened again. “We are, Kir. We’re working together. We just need to do different jobs now.”

  “And your job is a suicide mission. Come on, admit it. That’s why you don’t want me to come with you.”

  “No, that’s not right. It’s like I said, I need you to contact the—”

  “Don’t do this. Please.” She turned to him and clutched his arm. His left arm, his flesh-and-blood arm. “Let’s both go to Burma. Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help Layla.”

  Now it was Jim’s turn to face forward and look at the mountains on the horizon. He knew he couldn’t leave this place. He couldn’t drive past those mountains without searching for his daughter. It would be like ripping his heart right out of his chest. And Kirsten had to know this, too, he thought. If she knew him at all, after all these years, she had to know he couldn’t do such a thing. So he didn’t say a word. He just stared at the white peaks of Yulong Xueshan.

  For almost a minute they sat there, silent and motionless, like two mannequins propped in the front of the sedan. Then Kirsten let go of Jim’s arm. She shifted the car out of PARK and stepped on the accelerator. “All right,” she said. “I’ll drive you to your funeral. Just tell me when you want to get out.”

  She resumed driving down the dirt road, moving at the same speed as before, but now her eyes were wet behind her camera-glasses.

  Jim took another deep breath. He forced himself to turn away from Kirsten, to dispel the image of her stricken face. He had things to do before he could start hiking toward the tower.

  First he checked his Glock. The gun was in good shape, clean and well oiled, but there were only twelve bullets left in the clip and he had no extra magazines. He’d have to make every shot count. Next, he reached for his satellite phone and deleted all the files he’d copied from Arvin’s flash drive. Jim had already memorized all the useful facts, and during his years in the NSA he’d learned to avoid carrying sensitive information if he didn’t need it. After deleting the files he pressed a special button on the NSA phone that demagnetized its hard drive, removing all traces of the erased data. Then he did the same thing to the Dream-catcher, the disk that Arvin had cut out of his scalp just before he died at the Great Wall. Jim had already copied all the files on the disk to Arvin’s flash drive, which he intended to leave with Kirsten. If he was strictly following NSA procedures, he’d delete everything on the flash drive as well, but he decided to leave it alone. Arvin had begged him to protect the digital hoard of memories, and although Jim was furious at his old friend for unleashing this catastrophe, he was going to honor the man’s last request.

  Then there was just one more task. Jim picked up Arvin’s flash drive and retrieved a file holding an unusually complex image. Labeled with the innocuous name CIRCUIT, the file showed the location of the Trojan horse amid the billions of circuits in the retinal implants’ microprocessor. This was the information Arvin had hoped to trade to Supreme Harmony in exchange for the use of one of the Modules. If the network acquired the file and discovered the Trojan’s location, it could adjust its programming to create a detour around the altered circuit. Then the shutdown code would have no effect on the chip and the network would no longer be vulnerable.

  Jim had no desire to bargain with Supreme Harmony, but he sensed that this information might still be useful. The file contained fifty megabytes of data, so it was much too big to be memorized. Instead, he downloaded the file to his sat phone and encrypted the data, using an NSA cipher to turn the diagram into a nonsensical hash of ones and zeroes, unreadable to anyone who didn’t possess the encryption key. He transferred this encrypted file to the Dream-catcher disk, which he slipped into one of his socks. Then he deleted the original file from his sat phone and demagnetized its hard drive again. Finally, he downloaded the image of Medusa from Arvin’s flash drive to the phone.

  By the time he was done, Kirsten had driven closer to Yulong Xueshan. The base of the highest mountain was less than five miles to the west. The dirt road curved south here, heading toward the city of Lijiang, but to the right Jim spotted a footpath zigzagging up the tree-covered slopes. Assuming the path was in good shape, he could reach the summit by nightfall.

  “All right, stop here,” he said. “It looks like this is as close as the road gets.”

  Kirsten slowed the car gently this time and parked on the side of the road. She turned to Jim, but her face was blank again. Her tears had dried and her mouth was firmly closed. She gave him an impersonal look, like a taxi driver impatient to get rid of her passenger.

  He handed her the flash drive. “Keep this safe, okay? I already downloaded everything I need.”

  She took the device, stared at it for a moment, then tossed it over her shoulder. It landed on the backseat.

  Jim bit his lip. It wa
s difficult to see Kirsten this way, so hurt and angry. He pointed at the road ahead. “Once you get to Lijiang, go west on Provincial Road S308. You should be able to cross into Burma near the town of Pianma.”

  She frowned, apparently irritated by his directions. Jim saw this as a sign of progress. He leaned closer and looked directly at the camera lenses in her glasses. “Before I go, I want you to answer one question. In the twenty years you’ve known me, have I ever failed to do something that I set my mind on doing?”

  Her frown deepened. “No, you haven’t. You’re the most stubborn son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”

  “That’s right, I’m stubborn. And now there’s two things this stubborn S.O.B. is going to do.” He raised his prosthetic hand and pointed its index finger straight up. “One, I’m going to find my daughter. I’m going to bring Layla home and lock her in her room and take away all her goddamn computers.” His voice was loud, booming inside the car. He lowered it as he uncurled his middle finger. “And two, as soon as we get back to the States, I’m going to take you out to dinner. I know a great French restaurant in Georgetown. We’ll order champagne, the whole works. What do you say?”

  She still frowned, but there was a slight change in her expression. She blinked rapidly behind her glasses, as if there was a bit of dirt in her eye. “You’re making a big assumption, Pierce. How do you know I’ll want to have anything to do with you after this?”

  He lowered his prosthesis and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll turn on the charm. I’ll recite love poems. Whatever it takes.”

  The frown stayed on her face for another three seconds. Then, without a word, she lunged toward him, practically jumping into the passenger seat. Jim unfolded his arms and wrapped them around her. She buried her face in his chest and started to sob. Her whole body trembled.

  “Promise,” she murmured against his shirt. “Promise you’ll come back.”

  “I promise. With all my heart.”

  SIXTY-FOUR

  The cave that Layla found on their first night in the mountains was cold and dank, but she and the boys were so exhausted they slept on its stone floor until noon the next day. Layla woke up first, shivering. Because she wore nothing under her down coat except the thin hospital gown, her legs were freezing. She found a place to pee at the back of the cave, then spent a few minutes watching the children sleep. They lay on their sides, snuggled against each other for warmth. Their snores echoed against the rocky walls.

  She’d learned their names the day before during their long walk along the mountain trail. The older boy was Wu Dan, and the younger one was Li Tung. When she tried to teach the boys her name, they both said “Lei-lei” instead of Layla, but that was close enough. She also learned three important Mandarin expressions: wŏ kě le (I’m thirsty), wŏ lèi le (I’m tired), and wŏ è le (I’m hungry). Her response to the first complaint was straightforward—she led the boys to one of the rivulets streaming down from the glacier on the mountaintop—and she solved the second problem when she found the cave. But addressing the third complaint was more difficult. The mountainside was almost bereft of life. Nothing grew on its steep slopes except moss and yellow grass and small purple flowers. Layla thought of the hikes she used to take with her father and tried to remember what he’d told her about edible plants, but it was hopeless. She’d been too busy playing in the woods to pay attention to him. And the plants on this mountain didn’t look familiar anyway.

  After a while she turned away from the children and stepped out of the cave. The sun was directly overhead, lighting both sides of the ravine and the brown river at the bottom. She stared longingly at the lush fields on the other side of the river. The slope was much gentler on the western side, and it was covered with trees and farms and grazing cattle. If there was a trail that went down to the river, she and the boys could possibly swim across and find refuge in one of the farm villages, but so far the trail had followed a level path, about halfway between the river below and the peaks of the mountain range. Layla estimated they’d walked about seven miles yesterday, and they might have to walk another seven miles before they reached the northern end of the ravine. With a shiver, she wondered if the boys could make it.

  And then she saw the raven. It was big and black, at least two feet long, perched on the mountainside about five yards to her right. It had been staring at Layla the whole time, probably waiting for her to drop a piece of food. Pretending not to see the bird, she bent over to scratch her ankle, and at the same time she scanned the ground for a suitable rock. When she found one, she palmed it in her right hand and stood up straight.

  She was still facing west, but out of the corner of her eye she judged the distance to the raven’s perch. The bird probably weighed close to four pounds. It would make a good meal for two hungry children. Although Layla had never played baseball or softball, she knew she could throw a rock with speed and accuracy. It was a fundamental human skill, unique to the species. No other animal could coordinate the hand and eye with such precision, making the dozens of small adjustments needed to hurl a projectile at its target. It was such a complex maneuver that only an intelligent being could execute it. In fact, human intelligence might have arisen simply to perfect this crucial ability, which had been so essential to survival for so many millions of years.

  Slowly, languidly, Layla pulled back her right arm. Okay, she told herself, it’s time to show the world how intelligent you are. Prove that you’re smarter than that bird.

  Her arm whipped forward and the rock whizzed through the air. Startled, the raven flapped its wings, but the rock hit it square in the chest, knocking it sideways. Layla scooped up a larger rock and slammed it down on the raven’s head, putting the bird out of its misery.

  She whispered, “I’m sorry,” as she picked up the ugly carcass. Then she started to collect dry grass for making a fire.

  * * *

  After finishing their lunch, Layla and the boys hiked for three hours, going five miles farther north on the mountain trail. But they were still nowhere near the northern end of the ravine. If anything, the snowcapped peaks seemed even higher in this part of the range. On top of the highest summit Layla saw a tall radio tower, with a prefab trailer at its base.

  During the first two hours of their march, the boys had been energized by their meal of roasted raven—which hadn’t tasted so bad, actually—but now they were lagging. Layla tried to encourage them to walk faster by singing various songs she thought they might recognize. She was in the middle of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” when they came around a bend in the trail and saw a broad shelf of rock jutting from the mountainside. The shelf was covered with a thin layer of soil, and rooted in the dirt were half a dozen dead trees. Standing below the farthest tree, about a hundred yards away, were the first two people Layla had seen since she escaped from the Operations Center. She grabbed the boys and ducked behind a boulder.

  Jesus, she thought, what an idiot I’ve been, singing those stupid songs! Now everyone within earshot knew there was an English speaker on this mountain. But when she peered around the edge of the boulder, she saw the two figures still standing under the dead tree, apparently oblivious. They were a man and a woman, both elderly and dressed in rags. The man was stripping bark off the trunk and passing the pieces to the woman, who stuffed them into a cloth sack. Squinting, Layla caught a glimpse of their faces, which were gaunt and wrinkled. Their hearing was probably bad, she thought, which explained why they hadn’t noticed the singing. What’s more, they definitely weren’t Modules. Supreme Harmony wouldn’t incorporate such old people.

  Layla made a decision. She grasped the boys’ hands and looked at them intently. “Wu Dan, Li Tung, I need you to do something. I want you to go to those two people.” To make herself clear, she pointed at the boys and then at the old couple. “Talk to them, okay? Tell them you’re hungry, you’re tired, wŏ è le, wŏ lèi le. They seem like nice old folks, so they’ll probably help you. But don’t tell them your names or where y
ou live, all right? Because if you do, they might send you back to Tài Hé.” Frowning, she pointed south, toward the Operations Center. She could tell from the frightened looks on the boys’ faces that they understood this last sentence at least.

  Staying behind the boulder, Layla pushed the boys forward. She assumed it would be less confusing for the old folks if she remained hidden. Wu Dan and Li Tung walked hesitantly down the trail at first, but after a few seconds they broke into a run and yelled “Wŏ è le! Wŏ lèi le!” as loudly as they could. The man and woman stopped stripping bark off the tree and stared at the frantic children, who made for an unusual sight with their shaved heads and school uniforms. But instead of greeting the boys and asking them what’s wrong, the old couple started shouting angrily and sweeping their arms in furious “Go away!” gestures. The boys stopped in their tracks, bewildered. Layla was also puzzled—what was wrong with these people? The old man picked up a stick and waved it at the children, while his wife hefted the sack of bark and retreated northward, following the trail around another bend in the mountainside.

  As Layla watched the old woman disappear around the bend and the old man slowly back away from the schoolboys, the explanation became clear to her. The elderly couple wasn’t supposed to be there. They were trespassing on government property to collect firewood, and they were terrified that someone would report them. Still, the encounter wasn’t a total loss. Now Layla knew they weren’t far from a village. If she and the boys just followed the trail a few miles farther north, they were bound to come across some friendlier people.