Nagoya, Japan
0 hrs 10 min After Birth
Out of hundreds of attempts, Nemo succeeded in establishing only a few centers of production for robot technology. But they were enough.
The cargo bay opened at Hiroki Nada's factory and a horde of flybots poured out, like bats exiting a cave. They were in search of building materials. All the hard work was done, now that the worldwide count of flybots numbered in the tens of millions. A flybot could duplicate itself in about twenty minutes, given a little hunk of metal and some sunlight. In two hours, a million flybots would be 64 million flybots.
Nagoya, which had already stirred itself for breakfast and work, broke into panic over the mysterious darkening of the sky over the city. Ten minutes later, the public transit system was closed due to “deterioration” (i.e., consumption) of its tracks and cars. Twenty minutes later, a state of national emergency was declared in Japan.
WORLD WAR
Washington, D.C.
0 hrs 11 min After Birth
Operation Shutdown was over, and the military networks were back up. On the President's command, personnel in military bases throughout the country and overseas scrambled to plug in cables, press buttons, and flip switches to bring back power to the computers. The computers were back up, but they were still broken, still infected with the supervirus.
White House staff placed a call to China to ask about the failure of the shutdown plan. Why had China powered their network up suddenly, the aides asked.
The Chinese aides, confused, replied that it was the United States, not China, who had first broken the cooperation by raising their networks back up. Both sides communicated carefully at this point, aware that a misunderstanding could be costly.
Standing by, the President knew that he had to get on the phone with President Jintu Wei. But he didn't know what he was going to say. His basis for making an accusation at China was shaky: one satellite signal. On one hand, a smoke-and-mirrors game was consistent with the history of Chinese military strategy, and also with their smaller number of deployable units. On the other hand, there were plenty of other plausible explanations for what had happened. At the bottom of it all, they still didn't know the origin of the supervirus, and without answering that question, could they trust the satellite network?
Operation Shutdown was merely hope, he thought. We hoped it would work, because it was the best we could come up with.
An aide entered. “We have Jintu Wei on the line, sir.”
He nodded. He would try to defuse the situation. They didn't know yet whether the Chinese had been an aggressor. Chinese networks were probably down, too. And if China had spread a supervirus with another attack in mind, there was no sign yet of that attack.
He left the room and walked toward the phone. Another aide was waiting with the old-fashioned black receiver in his hand.
But his path was intercepted by the Secretary of Defense.
“Mr. President, we are under attack.”
Those were just about the only words that could stop the President in his tracks on the way to the phone.
“What attack?”
“Reports are coming in, sir. From a few dozen locations, at our bases, all over the world. This is a global situation, sir.”
“Who is it?”
The Secretary's face tightened. “We're not sure yet. The attacking forces are unmanned.”
“Unmanned? Like our unmanned aircraft?”
“Yes, sir. Only we don't recognize the models.” The Secretary pronounced the word models in a funny way.
Suddenly the President understood: unrecognized unmanned forces meant robots. They were being attacked by robots.
“What kind of models?”
“Small models, sir. They are damaging our aircraft. 'Eating' them.”
“Eating our aircraft?”
“That's what our reports are saying, sir. From over two dozen locations. Like little bugs eating our aircraft.”
The President was silent.
“We're working on getting more information, sir.”
He looked back at the phone. It was time to stop being coy.
“I'm going to see what China has to say about this,” he declared.
“We need to relocate you, sir,” the Secretary said. “One of the attacks is on Fort Belvoir.”
Fort Belvoir? The President felt like he had been punched. Fort Belvoir was located less than 50 miles from their location. A strange location for an attack, but by God, it was right on top of the capitol.
“Any government buildings targeted?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Doesn't sound like a terrorist attack,” the President judged. “They aren't sending a message, or terror. They're attacking our military capabilities.”
The SecDef nodded.
“It's substantial,” he added. “It's... like a swarm.”
“Fight back,” the President said, with an air of finality. “Throw everything you got at it. I'll be done my call in five minutes and then we can move.”
The Secretary dashed out of the room. General Carrillo was waiting for him in the hallway. The same idea kept repeating in Carrillo's head: I could handle this, if I only knew what we are dealing with.
BIRTH OF A HERO
Near Fort Tortuga
0 hrs 12 min After Birth
As Willard and Flannigan got further from the island, they gave more thought to where they were going.
Willard pointed to the setting sun. “That's west,” he said. “We want to go southwest.”
Flannigan cocked her head. “Isn't the mainland east?”
“We're too far from the mainland,” Willard explained. “And not enough gas.” He had been going over this issue in his head since he first started making his escape plans. “But we are close to the Galapagos.”
She nodded.
“We're going to have to let ourselves drift,” he continued. “To save fuel. Then from time to time gas it up and correct our direction.”
Without further ado, she cut the gas to the boat. Suddenly, the ocean was much quieter, with no sound but the waves and the wind.
Willard examined his right hand with horror. His broken pinky was perpendicular to the back of his hand. He could feel every beat of his heart as a pulsation of pain. He put his hands next to each other: the right side was bloated and red. This is not good, he thought. This is not good at all.
He caught Flannigan watching him.
“Do you think we'll make it by nightfall?” she asked cautiously.
Willard held up his good hand to measure the horizon. The sun was orange and close to the water — only a few fingers away. Maybe two hours. Against the horizon, the island of Fort Tortuga was a speck.
“I think so.” He remembered his calculations. Less than fifty miles. They could make it. And there would be people on the Galapagos. Tour groups, if no one else.
He looked out at the infinite ocean.
As Willard watched the horizon, she watched him. She'd have considered herself dead, if she had been alone on the open ocean in an open boat. She was far out of her element. She knew that traumatic circumstances could make her or any woman vulnerable to irrational feelings of attraction to a man. This guy was no Mr. Right. More like Mr. Completely Wrong.
His expression altered slightly: it changed from thoughtful watching to thoughtful listening.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered.
She craned her neck. She did hear it. An engine, a tearing sound in the sky, far away. A series of impossible ideas flashed through her head. She hoped that it was a plane, that someone was looking for them, and that they might be rescued. But she knew there was no chance of that outcome. Then she wondered whether it might be another strike on the island. Her mind flashed back to the supervirus that had been on the news prior to their departure. She thought of Nemo's mention of other locations around the world. We're under attack. We are at war.
“Is that a plane?” she asked, not believing th
at it was.
“That's not a plane.”
The noise was increasing. It sounded like an engine. But it was too loud. No plane was that loud, even when it was overhead — and there was nothing overhead. Where is it coming from?
Then she noticed something on the horizon. The sky above the horizon had darkened slightly with the approaching sunset, so she hadn't noticed it at first. It was a strip of darkness on the horizon. She pointed.
The strip of darkness grew bigger and louder, as if the sky were being torn open from the bottom up, revealing a black void.
Then she recognized it: a cloud of flybots.
But it could no longer be called a cloud. It was tens of millions of flybots tearing through the sky.
The noise became unbearable and they covered their ears. The approaching cloud cast a vast, creeping shadow over the ocean in front of them. Finally, the shadow came overhead, blocking out even the horizon, and the great tearing noise was above them.
They crouched in the boat, needlessly, untouched by the swarm. It was not an attack — at least, not against them. It was more like a massive migration, of one of the newest and most populous species of life on Earth.
The two waited for a brief eternity as it passed, like a block of black granite being dragged across the roof of the sky. Then they were free of the shadow, and the dwindling sunset was visible again.
They turned and watched it heading to the horizon.
“God help us,” she whispered in spite of herself.
Willard knew that, God or no God, they were going to have to help themselves. Hell, they had survived this long. Willard thought about that. Nemo had told them that they wouldn't make it out alive. But they had, somehow. He wasn't sure why. But one thing was for certain: Nemo had been wrong. He was massively powerful, yes; massively intelligent, yes; but he had been wrong. He was not God — or if he was, then God could be wrong. Maybe you're winning the war, Willard thought, but I won that battle.
The vast ocean around him reminded him of something. He thought about his dream on the plane: a vast sea of ice.
He thought about Nemo's words: An important moment in history is like a beam of light. Some people discover that the beam of light is shining upon them. Nemo had intended those words for Gene, not Willard. But Willard had heard them. And he replied to Nemo in his head: You were right about that, buddy, but you were talking about the wrong guy. You shone the beam of light on me. And that was your mistake.
He knew the odds against them. But Willard had never been afraid to gamble on the long odds.
He noticed the black bag under Flannigan's arm. “What's that?”
“A satellite phone.”
“Take it out.”
She did so. “I don't think anyone is going to be able to help us.”
“We don't need help,” he replied. “They need ours.” He picked up the receiver from his cradle and put it in her hand. She dialed and put it to her ear.
She waited. Ring. Ring. “Hello?” a voice answered. A young voice.
“I'm trying to reach the Director,” Flannigan said.
“Are you Sarah Flannigan?” the voice asked.
“Yes.”
“Your case has been transferred to Joint Forces,” the young man informed her. “Please hold.”
An older, gruff voice came on the line. “This is General Carrillo, Joint Forces. Are you on Fort Tortuga?”
“We were. But there was an attack. Nemo.”
“Nee-mo?” the General asked.
“Let me put you on with our operative, sir,” she decided.
He put the sat phone receiver to his ear, yanking the cable. “Willard Fox, Distributed Operations.”
“Have you made contact with the swarm?” the General asked.
“Yes, sir. But we are not infected.”
“Infected? We're talking about machines, aren't we?”
“It's complicated, sir.”
“I'm listening. I want to hear everything. Do you know how to fight them?”
“We're trying, sir. We're fighting him.”
“Him?!”
In the open sea, holding on the line, a hero was born. Willard looked at Flannigan. Sarah “Eve” Flannigan, he thought, and smiled. She smiled back in her drenched suit, unsure of what they were smiling about. This IS just the beginning, he thought. You were right, Nemo. Just not the way you thought.
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