“Protocol for proper protection of the ship you refer to as the Visitor is take over all hostile invading forces that might potentially interfere with the Cortex’s assignment.”
“Who or what is the Cortex?” Johnson asked.
“You have already seen them.”
“The army we saw in stasis,” Bernhard said. “They’re the Cortex? And what exactly is this assignment of theirs?”
Stroebel’s next words came out in such a matter-of-fact fashion that it actually took a moment for Bernhard to truly comprehend the impact of what he was saying. “Eliminate or enslave all biological life forms on the planet you refer to as Earth.”
Everyone stood there in absolute quiet for nearly half a minute. While Bernhard had known this was a possibility, maybe even the most probable answer, hearing it said in such a cold, simple way chilled his heart. “To what end?” Bernhard finally asked.
Interestingly, the Nerve, through Stroebel’s facial expressions, showed its first emotion since revealing itself. It looked confused. “I do not understand the question.”
“What do you mean, you don’t understand?” Johnson asked. “Why would the Cortex want to kill everything on Earth?”
“Because that is what they are programmed to do. Just as I am programmed to do what I must to eliminate intruders on the Visitor. It is why they exist.”
“But who programmed them?” Johnson asked. “Why would anyone possibly want that?”
“I do not understand the question.”
Bernhard motioned for Johnson to stop asking questions.
Houston, however, had stopped any pretense of studying the desiccated worms and joined them. “You keep saying ‘programmed.’ But the worms appear to be biological, not some sort of robot. Same goes for all those troops we saw. I mean, it’s not like we got a chance to study them up close, but from what little I got to see, they looked biological too.”
“This is a peculiar assumption,” the Nerve said. “Why must being programmed be separate from being biological? Does your species not have its own programming? Do you not sleep on a given schedule, seek out food, seek to mate and replicate yourselves? We are all following the functions that were given to us by our creators?”
“And just who created you?” Bernhard asked.
“I do not know, nor is it relevant. All that matters is the programming. The Cortex is programmed to devastate life. I am programmed to protect the Cortex.”
“Okay, but then here’s the million-dollar question,” Houston said. “If the Cortex is here for the sole purpose of destroying all life on Earth, then why isn’t it doing it? The Visitor has been in our orbit for over a week now. Why haven’t they all just woken up so they can start raining fire and brimstone down on the planet?”
“Signal incomplete. Uplink failed.”
Bernhard thought at first that the Nerve was saying something had gone wrong inside it. When it didn’t say anything else, though, he began to understand.
“You’re not saying that you’re having a problem with some kind of signal. You’re saying that’s the reason the Cortex hasn’t woken up.”
“That is correct.”
“I don’t think I get it,” Zersky said.
“I do,” Johnson said. “The Nerve is a hive mind. It has multiple bodies in those worms, but they all share the same thoughts. And apparently, all the organisms on the ship are the same way. The Cortex is part of a hive mind as well…”
Bernhard nodded and finished the thought for her. “Except it’s been cut off from the main portion of its intelligence. It’s like one of us had our arm cut off. On every other level, the arm would still be us, but it’s useless without the signal from our brain telling it to move or pick something up or shoot someone.”
“That is not a totally accurate analogy,” the Nerve said, “but it is close enough for your understanding. It is more correct than not.”
“But that’s idiotic,” Houston said. “If we’re dealing with an advanced alien race here, why would they send their shock troops to wipe us out knowing that they couldn’t actually communicate with them and control them?”
“You just answered your own question,” Bernhard said. “They obviously didn’t know. The Visitor appeared in our skies, but then it ran into something it wasn’t expecting.”
Houston nodded, suddenly looking very deep in thought. “Maybe…maybe it has something to do with how bad our communications are screwed up while we’re in here?”
“Whatever way it is that this hive mind of the Cortex communicates with its troops across light years, it works on some kind of wavelength that is getting interference from things on Earth,” Johnson said.
“Things like our comm equipment?” Sorensen asked. “That can’t be right. The Visitor is huge, and we didn’t even arrive until today.”
“It’s not just us, but everything,” Houston said. “We’re floating above a planet with massive amounts of radio waves and cell phone signals and Wi-Fi signals…”
“Plus all the satellites we have in orbit,” Bernhard said. He once again directed his words at the Nerve. “When the Cortex decided to send a group to wipe us out, they weren’t paying attention to whether or not we were technologically advanced, were they? They just assumed that whatever we had, it wouldn’t be enough. So there was no backup plan for waking the Cortex up when they got here.”
“Again, you are more correct than not,” the Nerve said.
“Wait,” Zersky said. “You guys said this Nerve thing was just like the Cortex in the way they were connected. Why then are these worms able to communicate with each other when the Cortex can’t?”
Most of them couldn’t come up with an answer, but Houston soon spoke up. “Something on the ship itself is jamming all the electronic signals. The Cortex that we saw in those stasis tubes are trying to communicate across space with all the chatter from Earth blocking them. But the Nerve is just trying to do it within the ship, so nothing is stopping it.”
Bernhard found himself almost being grateful to Houston. Almost. “Is that all true?” he asked the Nerve.
“Again, you are –”
Bernhard interrupted. “More correct than not. Right, I’ve got the drill now, thank you.”
“So what are we going to do with him?” Sorensen asked. “We can’t just keep hauling him around with us. All it would take is him getting free at the wrong moment and we’re all dead.”
“If we keep you alive, can we trust you to behave?” Bernhard asked the Nerve.
“No. At my first opportunity, I will try to either kill you or turn you into another one of my bodies.”
“Well, that was straightforward.”
“As I told you, I am not programmed to lie after being discovered. Of course, that does not mean that I am not holding back certain information from you. Keeping quiet is not the same as lying.”
“And yet you just volunteered that little tidbit to us. Why?”
“I may be an artificially constructed orgasm, but I still have a sense of fun. And I am going to enjoy watching all of you scramble about and turn on each other after I tell you that Stroebel is not the only one among your party that is infected with me.”
Everyone tensed. Bernhard replayed the Nerve’s words in his head, trying to make sense of exactly what he had just heard. His first inclination was to accuse the thing of lying, but already he had begun to accept the idea that the Nerve wouldn’t lie, even if it did sometimes only give half-truths. Keeping his rifle at the ready, Bernhard turned to the others and looked at them all. Even the scientists who had been studying the worms were now gathered around. Those that didn’t speak English listened intently as Teng translated for them everything the Nerve had just said. Bernhard watched for any signs or tells among them that they were the infected person the Nerve had mentioned, but there was nothing.
“Whichever ones of you it is, say so right now,” Bernhard said. No one answered. It had been a long shot anyway, but Houston didn’t seem happy wit
h that.
“You said that once you were discovered, you couldn’t lie,” Houston said.
“No, the individual body hosting me will not lie once discovered. Any among you that are already secretly a part of me can continue with the subterfuge.”
Sorensen raised his weapon and aimed it directly at Stroebel’s head. “We should just blow this lying son of a bitch away.”
Hatch put his hand on Sorensen’s rifle, trying to direct it away from its target. “Sorensen, what the hell are you doing? That’s Stroebel! You know, as in the guy who was grilling burgers with us in your backyard on Memorial Day? As in our friend?”
“You already heard him. That’s not Stroebel anymore. Stroebel’s gone, and now he’s trying to turn us against each other.”
The unfortunate truth, Bernhard knew, was that they had already been fully prepared to turn on each other long before this. Bernhard himself had been guilty of this. Now the Nerve was going to use their own insecurity and paranoia to rip them apart. He had no doubt that the Nerve was right, that there was at least one other person here who was no longer human, but if this went too far, then that insider wouldn’t even have to do anything. They could all turn on each other based on arbitrary divisions – military versus scientists, Americans versus Chinese – and the Nerve wouldn’t have to lift a single finger against them. Bernhard saw this, and he could stop it, but only if he kept his own distrusting nature in check. That was going to be easier said than done.
“Sorensen, lower your weapon,” Bernhard said.
“Captain, if we don’t kill it now –”
“Sorensen, if you do not lower your weapon in exactly three seconds, I am going to assume that your insubordination means that you are, in fact, infected by the Nerve and working to undermine us. And if I make that assumption, I will then assume that the only way to control you is to have every other person here open fire on you. One. Two…”
Sorensen snarled, but lowered his rifle.
“Stroebel stays alive for now. We might still be able to get some information from him. Meanwhile, this room is going to be our home for a while. No one leaves under any circumstances. Everyone stays within line of sight of everyone else. If anyone does anything to try to hide or break away from the group, that person will be assumed to be the Nerve and will be shot.”
“So we’re just supposed to stand around here doing nothing?” Hodges asked.
“No, all of you are going to stand around doing nothing.” Bernhard went over to one of the table not being used to inspect the worms and pulled himself up to a sitting position on top of it. “Meanwhile, I’m going to sit right here and stare at all of you until I figure out which of you are actually the Nerve in disguise.”
For the first time since being outed as the Nerve, Stroebel laughed. The sound was disturbing and unnatural coming from him.
“I will find this highly entertaining,” the Nerve said. Then Stroebel slumped as if he had suddenly gone to sleep.
Chapter Ten
After several minutes of tense silence, Bernhard finally spoke.
“Every single one of you, disarm yourselves. Everything. Rifles, side arms, even any knives you might be carrying. Set them down carefully on the floor, and then go over to this far side of the room. Nobody make any sudden moves, and nobody get closer than two feet from any other person.”
While the American military immediately started to disarm, Teng held up a hand indicating for his own people to not obey just yet. “Bernhard, how do any of us know that you’re not the Nerve? You’re keeping your own rifle ready, aren’t you? This could just be a ploy to put us all in the perfect position to kill us.”
“I guess you don’t,” Bernhard said. “But if any single one of us is going to survive this, there has to be at least one person completely above suspicion. If you all disarm and make yourself completely vulnerable to me yet I don’t shoot, then those of you that aren’t full of worms will know for certain that person is me.”
“And if it isn’t you?”
“Then everyone would die, but it isn’t me. Despite the situation, none of us are going to get out of it if there isn’t at least some trust.”
Teng hesitated, then stooped to put his weapons on the floor. “I guess this means I trust you then,” Teng said as he stood back up.
That’s good, Bernhard thought. Now comes the question of who do I trust? The first thing he needed to figure out was if there was anyone in the group that he could be certain hadn’t been taken over by the Nerve. Once everyone was in a position where he could see them, he started replaying the events of the last several hours in his mind. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single one of them that hadn’t been out of his sight at least once. There was, however, at least one that had barely left his side as she was constantly pushing him to approach the mission in a less paranoid manner. He could think of three moments where Johnson had not been where he could see her. There had been when he’d led the group to look at the alien fighter craft, the moment she had been outside the Ambassador while he had searched for the nuke, and the moment where he had gone to relieve himself. The first two he thought were pretty easy to discount. She’d just been standing in the middle of the open hangar, and it seemed highly unlikely to him that a worm could have gotten to her there without anyone else noticing. The last instance, though, was a bit tougher. They all knew for a fact that at least one worm had escaped during the scuffle with the Nerve. Most people said they didn’t have any clue where it had gone, and one had said they saw it escaping, but that could be misdirection. It was entirely possible that she’d been infected at that moment, although maybe not likely given that she had been at the far end of the line to start with when it all happened.
So he couldn’t with one hundred percent accuracy say she was still who she said she was. But he had to have at least one other person he trusted, and in order to do that, he was going to have to overcome any natural inclination to distrust and instead take a leap of faith on someone.
“Johnson,” he said. “You come join me.” She looked a little surprised, but she wasted no time leaving the others and joining him.
“Does this mean you trust me?” she asked.
“Not yet. Not completely. I want you to pick up one of those guns at your feet and aim it at me.”
She hesitated. “What? Why?”
“Just do it.”
Cautiously, she bent down and took one of the rifles. She looked like she barely even knew how to hold it, but that could be an act. If she really was controlled by the Nerve now, and the Nerve shared all the information it got from individuals between all its bodies, then she would know exactly what to do with it. Taking a deep breath and hoping his instincts weren’t failing him, Bernhard turned his back to her.
“Bernhard? What are you doing?”
“If you’re the Nerve, then this is your chance. You can kill me immediately, and then turn on the others and take most of them out before they could even move.”
“Captain, are you out of your mind?” Zersky asked.
“No,” Bernhard said. “But I have to take a risk somewhere, and this is where I’m doing it.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for the bullets to enter his back and kill him. Instead, all he heard was a slight clatter as she put the rifle back on the ground. Smiling, he turned around to her.
“No, no. Pick that back up. I’m going to need you to keep it aimed and ready in case the actual Nerve suddenly decides to make a play.”
“Except I’m not even sure how to shoot this thing.”
“You pull the trigger. But please try not to unless I say so.”
She picked it back up. As she moved, he couldn’t help but notice the small smile at the corner of her lips that he’d put his faith in her.
Turning back to the group, he considered this time which ones he definitely could not eliminate as possibilities no matter what. The first among them were pretty much all the scientists on the Chinese side. Bernhard kne
w that Stroebel had been taken over in the box with the fighter, and since they had all gone off on Teng’s command to look the fighters over, they had clearly been exposed along with Taam, the soldier that had accompanied them. Bernhard had them go over to a different wall from the others, all the while still keeping a close eye on them.
Next, Bernhard had to consider Teng. The most damning evidence that he might have been taken over at some point was that he’d sent so many of his people to a place where they themselves could have been infected. Then again, Bernhard knew exactly what it meant to put one’s loyalties to their country ahead of all others, so the idea that Teng had only done it because he thought it would possibly put his country ahead of others in a future technology race wasn’t far-fetched at all. There was also one major point in Teng’s favor, considering he had in fact been the one to save Bernhard from the worm.
Then again, that could also have been a ploy to gain Bernhard’s trust.
Bernhard made his decision. “Teng, get over here and take the rifle from Johnson.” Teng nodded, and their eyes met for a moment in mutual respect. Once he had the weapon, Bernhard directed Johnson to get back to looking at the worm samples. They would need a more reliable method of detecting the Nerve that simply using Bernhard’s best-educated guesses, and anything she could contribute to that goal would be necessary.
Next, there were the other two American scientists. They seemed like they were less likely to be possessed by worms purely because they had been with Johnson for most of the time, but there had been at least one moment where they hadn’t been in Johnson’s sight, the moment when Johnson had stayed behind to try to convince Bernhard not to use the bomb. It did seem unlikely that they were infected during that time, but Bernhard didn’t want to risk it. Although, if he were being honest, he didn’t want to give them a clear pass right now purely because of his dislike of Dufresne. The two of them were told to join Taam and the Chinese scientists. Dufresne, of course, protested up until she saw Teng’s finger tighten on his trigger, after which she thankfully shut up.
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