Synapse

by Steven James

He’d never delivered bodies before, and he wondered if that was what he had with him today, but since he was scheduled to take this cargo to Terabyne headquarters up north in Cascade Falls, he doubted he had corpses with him.

  Still, it did seem a bit odd.

  However, he knew better than to ask what was inside the crates. That was none of his business. He just needed to make the delivery, and if he was prudent about it, he could take care of things and still get home in time to see his daughter’s soccer game this afternoon.

  To avoid the possibility of being hacked, the armored car, which he’d affectionately named Ole Betty, was not self-driving, nor was it in communication with the Feeds in any way. Too much was at stake in this job to chance the possibility that the vehicle could be hacked into or taken over remotely. As a result, he was at the wheel of one of the few vehicles on the road still designed to accommodate a human driver.

  Sometimes Aubrey slept on these long drives along I-5 while it was still dark like this, but today she was wide awake, guzzling her way through a thermos of truck stop coffee and offering repeatedly to take over if he needed her to drive.

  “I’m alright,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. Fine. I could drive this route in my sleep.”

  Just another day at the office, here in Ole Betty waiting for the sun to creep up over the far horizon.

  34

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  10:00 a.m.

  9 hours left

  On the way to the airport I’d logged us in for our flight through the Feeds, but with the current threat level, we were still required to show our documentation at the airline’s front counter before heading to the security checkpoint.

  The line moved slowly, chewing into our time, and I realized that, even arriving at the airport as early as we had, it might be tight catching our flight.

  At last we came to the desk and the airline representative who was accepting peoples’ luggage, an Artificial with an overly congenial smile attached permanently to her otherwise expressionless face, verified my identity, then glanced at Jordan, and said, “Sir?”

  “He’s an Artificial,” I explained. It took a moment for Jordan to convince her. After he did, she still wanted a record of his fingerprints, so he placed his left hand—the one with the scar from when he had cut himself—onto the scanner.

  Once everything was set, she accepted my suitcase, put it on the conveyor belt with the other checked luggage, and then directed us to the line leading to security.

  * * *

  Seattle, Washington

  Trevor finished breakfast and climbed into his car to take him to his office, thinking about Kestrel’s trip to come visit him.

  What should he make of it?

  Evidently she was interested in resolving things between them and, while he wasn’t by any means against that, it wasn’t the primary reason he’d so readily agreed to see her.

  His sister had lost her baby less than a week ago. She’d invested nine months of her life in that tiny child, and he was sure that for her that meant countless hours of thoughts and prayers. And now Naiobi was gone, lost in a heartrending, devastating tragedy.

  If there was ever a time to treat Kestrel with patience and a listening ear, it was now.

  Trevor’s car took off for the on-ramp to the highway.

  Ever since their parents had been killed, things hadn’t been great between them. Over the subsequent years the situation had deteriorated, until finally they weren’t speaking at all.

  Then, of course, the faith issue came into play—that was always there in the background. The tension from their different perspectives was unmistakable whenever they were together.

  But now, their conversations over the last few days had gotten him thinking more about religion than he had in months.

  She believed that God loves people. But why would he?

  Why would a divine being fall in love with an inconsequential breed of higher primates on an insignificant planet in a tiny, negligible solar system? Surely there had been millions of civilizations throughout the universe in the last thirteen and a half billion years on its hundreds of billions of planets. And out of all of them, God just happened to choose us to love? What about us is worth loving? We self-indulgently destroy everything we touch. We relentlessly exterminate other species. We’ve hardly been around for a microsecond in the grand sweep of time, and yet we’ve already managed to bring our planet to the brink of ecological collapse.

  And yet God chose us, from all other life forms from all of time, from all across the trackless expanse of space to single out and uniquely love—and then sacrifice himself for?

  It made no sense.

  Trevor could almost hear Kestrel’s reply: “And that’s exactly why Christians worship God—because we are unworthy and yet he chose to love us. He chose to save us.”

  And his response: “So, if there’s life on other planets, does it mean Jesus went there to die for them as well?”

  And hers: “I can’t say what Jesus has done or would do for other life forms, but I can say that if he loved them as much as he loves us and they rebelled against God as much as we’ve rebelled against him, he would have taken whatever drastic measures he needed to take in order to restore them to a right relationship with himself.”

  It was all so inexplicable, and despite how comforting it might be to believe in a loving God, Trevor wanted his fate and the course of his day-to-day life to be guided by truth and not simply wishful thinking. No, a person wouldn’t need to understand an omniscient God before being able to worship him—of course not, that would be a logical impossibility—but he would certainly need to believe. And that was something Trevor just couldn’t see himself ever doing.

  However, beliefs about God were not the only thing that separated him from his sister.

  It was also their view of the uses of and promises of technology. She seemed to fear the direction it was taking humanity. Contrarily, he believed that, even though it might not be able to solve all of our problems, it would at least put us on the right path.

  And even more so after this weekend, after the reveal of Terabyne’s newest product—the most advanced and accessible Artificial Intelligence the world had ever seen.

  With the mounting regularity and severity of Purist attacks, the time had come for a definitive step to be taken for the good of all, for the benefit of society as a whole.

  And that’s what the Synapse would do.

  * * *

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  I sent my purse through the X-ray machine and then Jordan and I passed through the body scanner. After retrieving my personal items, I waited in line at the final checkpoint.

  Just three people in front of us.

  I noted the time: 10:51.

  We still had over forty-five minutes before our flight left. I reassured myself that it would be more than enough time for us to get to our gate.

  As I stood in that line, it occurred to me that security and freedom don’t necessarily go hand in hand. All too often, the more there is of one, the less there is of the other.

  The law enforcement Artificial cleared the next passenger and I edged forward, Jordan right behind me.

  I wasn’t alive when 9/11 happened, but I’d read about it and how, in the wake of the attacks, during the government’s crackdown against terror, personal freedoms were intruded upon. Like it or not, “enhanced security measures” inevitably meant “decreased privacy measures.” You can be secure or you can be free. You don’t get to have both at the same time.

  As a result, now it was my freedom and that of the rest of the passengers here today that was being intruded upon, by forcing us to arrive as early as we had and to jump through all these hoops before we could board our planes.

  The Artificial waved the gentleman he’d been speaking to on his way.

  Just one more person, an elderly woman, quiet and earnest and bent with the years.

  As I thought of spe
aking with the agent, anxiety clutched me.

  They shot your parents. They killed them. Here in this very spot.

  I noticed my hand shaking and I pressed it against my thigh to try to calm it. To try to settle my nerves.

  Though I hadn’t flown since that day all those years ago, I wondered if, because of who my parents were, any red flags would come up from me being here today.

  It only took a few seconds for the Artificial to clear the woman. He waved her on and then signaled for me to come forward.

  I swiped my finger across the identity scanner, and then, somewhat apprehensively, approached him.

  He didn’t greet me, but simply checked his monitor and then eyed me closely and consulted his screen again before saying, “Ma’am, can you wait here for a moment?”

  “Um, sure.”

  He turned his head to speak into a radio transmitter mounted on the shoulder strap of his body armor, calling in a code fourteen.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “Just a minute, ma’am.”

  His false pretense of politeness annoyed me. He was a machine, just a machine programmed to refer to me as “ma’am.” It wasn’t his choice, like it would have been with Jordan.

  I waited, but he said nothing more while two armed law enforcement Artificials clambered our way—the one on the left was a newer model; the other unit appeared to be closer in design to the one that’d killed my mom and dad.

  I didn’t like this.

  Maybe they’d somehow found out about last night, that I’d gone to speak with a known Purist.

  Some of the people behind me glowered at me as if I’d done something wrong. Others edged hesitantly backward, and I heard a teenage girl whisper to her friend that I was probably a Purist. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Right?” she said. “I mean, why else would they be treating her like that?”

  The two Artificials arrived and led Jordan and me to a secure room off to the side of the security lines and away from the anxious, staring crowd.

  35

  11:00 a.m.

  8 hours left

  The confined, monochromatic room reminded me of interrogation rooms I’d seen in movies—with the prerequisite impassive steel table, nondescript chairs, and the wall covered by a mirror that was almost certainly some sort of one-way observation window. A pair of conspicuous video cameras stared down at us from two separate corners of the ceiling, their operational lights glowing accusingly.

  What’s going on? Why are these Artificials hassling you like this? What do they want from you?

  After we were all inside, the more advanced Artificial gestured for Jordan and me to have a seat at the table.

  “You’re flying to Seattle?” he asked me, once I was positioned on one of the stiff chairs in front of him.

  “Yes. Is there a problem?”

  “What exactly is the purpose of your trip?”

  Before I could mention that I was simply going to visit my brother, Jordan spoke up. “She’s taking me to Terabyne’s world headquarters. I’m the latest model of Artificial and they need to do some diagnostic tests on me. It has to do with recovering data from a water-damaged unit.”

  There was enough truth in what he’d said that if they’d done their research, it just might convince them.

  And just enough of a lie that he might get us in trouble.

  “And the CoRA,” he added, “establishing a link between it and current breakthroughs in ASI research.”

  That was even more of a stretch and I wished Jordan would stop and just stick with the simple truth.

  The two law enforcement Artificials glanced at each other, then the one who’d been speaking with me appraised Jordan and announced that he would be right back.

  He whisked out of the room through a sliding door beside the mirrored glass, leaving us behind with the Artificial who hadn’t said a word so far. He stared at us stoically with both hands on his semiautomatic rifle, ready to kill us if he perceived us to be a threat in need of being neutralized.

  All his choice.

  No Natural in the decision-making loop.

  Our lives entirely in his hands.

  And in that moment, the slaughter of my parents came back to me, images heartbreakingly vivid and unrelenting, ones I’d done my best to repress over the years.

  “So, how is your semester going?” my dad asks me.

  Mom stands beside him, her champagne-colored hair cascading elegantly across her slender shoulders, that look of quiet mischief in her eyes.

  “Pretty good,” I say.

  A smile from Dad. “And guys?”

  “Guys?”

  “In your life?”

  “Oh. Nope,” I tell him quickly. “I don’t have time for—”

  And then, all at once, the alarm. Piercing. Abrupt. And the Artificial shouldering his way through the crowd, ordering me to step away from my parents. Then Dad’s nod to me.

  I obey.

  Confused.

  Frightened.

  And then.

  A verbal warning that means nothing, because even though my parents hold up their hands in surrender and begin to insist that there’s been some sort of mistake, the Artificial fires.

  The nearly indistinguishable sound of rapid, rapid, rapid gunfire fills the air. Round after round. Dozens of bullets in a handful of seconds. The smell of gunpowder.

  Then—blood everywhere. The floor is slick with it, and when I scream and run to their side I slip and go down, sprawled on the floor in my murdered parents’ warm, spreading blood.

  Though my eyes were open, I was caught up in my thoughts and was startled back to the moment when the Artificial here in the interrogation room with us cocked his head at me arbitrarily and the movement caught my attention.

  My heart clenched within me like a fist, closing tight. I wanted to cry, wanted so badly to let the tears come and to mourn my parents’ deaths all over again, but I wasn’t about to lose it in front of him, so I held back. My mouth went dry, and I swallowed and held my pain inside and tried to let the past live in the past and to focus instead on the moment, on being here, now, detained by these Artificials.

  Your flight.

  You need to get going.

  You’re never going to make it.

  As if on cue, the Artificial who’d gone to check on things returned and my sorrow crawled down, burying itself beneath my nerves.

  “You’re clear. Have a safe trip, ma’am.”

  I blinked. “We are? We can leave?”

  “That’s right.” He signaled to his partner, and then, without further explanation, the second Artificial led us through a warren of back hallways to the concourse.

  After he’d left, Jordan said to me, “What was all that about?”

  “I have no idea. But we’d better get moving so we don’t miss our flight.”

  We hastened through the airport.

  “You told a couple of fibs back there,” I said, glad to be out of that room, away from those Artificials and those memories. “Would you ever lie to me?”

  “If I said yes, then you wouldn’t have any reason to trust me from then on. But if I said no, it might be a lie. So I’m not really sure what to tell you.”

  “I’ll take that as a no. Come on. Let’s find our gate and get out of here.”

  * * *

  En route

  Time passed quickly for Nick as he worked on the plane.

  His flight was nearly half over.

  Good.

  Using the onboard connection to the Feeds, he checked his notifications.

  Still nothing from Ripley.

  He sent another request for him to check in.

  Also, there was nothing so far about the search for the dead Purist’s wife. Agent Fahlor was pursuing a lead that led back to the tool and die warehouse where the metal shavings used in the truck bombing had come from, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Honestly, finding her in time might be a long shot since Conrad and his peop
le were clearly good at staying beneath the radar and at disappearing when they needed to.

  As Nick processed what he knew, Ripley came to mind again. And the more he thought about him, the more things just didn’t click.

  Sienna’s eyeballs had been stolen and, according to the reports, Ripley had been attacked when it happened. But what was he doing there? And why then? He was on administrative leave and wasn’t even supposed to be in the building.

  Also, with his augmented strength and prior military training, was it really believable that he’d so quickly been bested in a fight that left nothing in the room disturbed? How had the security footage of the hallway outside the autopsy room just happened to disappear—as well as Sienna’s account on the Feeds?

  Then there was his version of what’d happened at the hospital, claiming that he’d arrived too late to interview Ethan Bolderson. And what about shooting Sienna? Had he really been in fear for his life, or had there been another reason why he’d fired at her? Ripley kept showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time—or at precisely the right place and time, depending on how you looked at things.

  Though Nick didn’t like where all of this was pointing, he wasn’t about to ignore the evidence.

  After a short deliberation, he put a call through to the NCB office in Cincinnati to have them track Ripley down.

  “Are you saying you want us to bring him in for questioning?” came the disbelieving reply.

  “Yes. I can do the interview remotely. Just let me know when you find him.”

  “You’re sure, sir?”

  “I need to speak with him to clear a few things up. That’s all.”

  “Alright. We’ll find him.”

  Nick read up on Stuxnet and the Greek myths regarding the Phoenix, a bird that experienced eternal life through its cycles of death and rebirth. Then he followed up on the facial recognition of the person who’d visited Ethan at the hospital before Ripley showed up to speak with him.

  “Was it Sienna Gaiman?” he asked the agent who’d been investigating the footage. “The Terabyne technician?”