by Jeff Gunhus
Rick flinched, thinking they’d discovered her after all. He felt better when Keefer replied.
“I’m sorry, but she wasn’t able to be taken alive.”
Morris leaned back in his chair, removed his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose. A low moan came over the sound system. Rick noticed Dr. Kalabi and the technicians look away from the screen as if embarrassed to intrude on the moment. Rick felt fleeting compassion for the man, until reminding himself the son of a bitch was helping Keefer kill thousands of people, billions if he was to be believed.
Keefer waited a full ten seconds and then cleared his throat. “Brandon, can we move on?”
Morris replaced his glasses and stretched his neck from side-to-side. “Dr. Kalabi, I’m sending the final data packet to you now.”
Keefer looked at the doctor who walked over to a computer terminal, watching carefully.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t … wait … yes, I see it now,” Dr. Kalabi said. “Integrating the data now. Processing.” He turned to Keefer. “A few minutes.”
“Brandon, do you want to explain the science to our friends here?”
Morris shook his head. “Not really.”
“Don’t mind him. He’s just shy,” Keefer said. “Dr. Kalabi?”
The doctor looked up from his computer as if wishing he had a good excuse not to comply, but he was just waiting so he stood and exhaled heavily. “Essentially, there are two separate discoveries that we’ve brought together to change the world as we know it.”
“He’s better than you at explaining anyway,” Keefer said to Morris on the screen.
“The first is the ability to tap into the potential of the entire brain. This started with the groundbreaking work of Dr. Cassandra Baker.” He nodded to Rick’s synthetic arm. “It’s what makes your prosthetic seamlessly integrate into your nervous system. We took that and found our way into the brain. The entire brain. A machine of unparalleled power.”
“There are 225 million billion separate interactions in the brain,” Morris interrupted. “It’s a massively parallel computer that’s self-organizing, uses content-addressable memory versus byte-addressable, differentiates through analogue rates of firing neurons in either synchrony or relative disarray creating an essentially continuous variable.” The man spoke so quickly that it was hard to follow him. “Not only that, but each and every neuron contains a leaky integrator circuit with ion channels and fluctuating membrane potentials. It’s so powerful that even though the brain only comprises three percent of the average human’s body weight, it uses twenty percent of the body’s energy. It’s really unbelievable when you think about it.”
Keefer looked at Rick and shrugged as if to say he didn’t follow the explanation either. “Bottom line, the brain is a powerful tool if it’s fully unlocked.”
“Like they always say, we only use ten percent of our brain,” Dahlia said.
Keefer looked pleased. “Yes, only that’s a complete myth. Basic neurological studies, even from the beginning of the twenty-first century, showed we use most of our brain, most of the time. Just not even close to the extent with which we could use it.”
“We’re talking pure computing power here,” Morris said. “Not telekinesis and all that nonsense.”
“You said there were two inventions,” Rick said. “What was the second?”
A beep sounded from the workstation. “Processing complete,” Dr. Kalabi said, leaning back toward the computer. “Systems on line.”
“Sorry,” Keefer said to Rick. “That’ll have to wait.” To the doctor he said, “Proceed.”
Dr. Kalabi looked up at the screen and Morris nodded.
Technicians paired up at each bed but didn’t touch any of the equipment. Dr. Kalabi typed instructions into the computer keyboard and then stopped, his finger hovering over the ENTER key.
“Do you want to execute the command?” he asked Keefer.
He shook his head. “I’ll do it in the next stage. This honor is all yours.”
Rick noticed Dr. Kalabi’s finger shaking as he held it above the button. Judging by his body language, the man didn’t regard what he was about to do as an honor of any kind.
But he pressed the button and the drills started.
51
Rick felt a visceral reaction to the sound of the high-speed drills springing into action. It was the same sound as the drills used in a dentist’s office, only there were dozens of them going at once. And worse, it was clear what they were intended to do.
Rick stepped toward the bed with Bertie on it, but one of the drones flew in from his left. He still held Charlie in his arms. Rick took a step back and pulled the boy closer to him, turning his head away from the scene in front of them in case he woke up.
The robot arms descended slowly, the spinning needles inside the disk entering the white material, causing the high-pitched whine of the drills to change by an octave. They sunk deeper until the pitch changed again once they hit bone.
He watched Bertie’s face shake with small vibrations as the needles drilled through her skull and into her brain. The image on the screen next to her bed, the one showing the three-dimensional image of her brain, showed dozens of white lines entering folds of the organ, stopping at different depths. Her heart rate spiked and her chest heaved with rapid breathing. An alarm went off on the monitor, but one of the techs quickly pressed a button and it disappeared.
Then, in unison, the drills stopped.
The robot arms pulled back and left the metal disks in place, thick cords of electrical wire draping off the back of them like macabre ponytails.
“Implants successful,” Dr. Kalabi said. “All subjects stable.”
Rick looked back at Bertie’s face. Her breathing had calmed back down and her heart rate slowed with every beat.
“Activating now,” Dr. Kalabi said.
Rick saw the image of Bertie’s brain change colors. Bursts of blues and reds radiated out from each of the probes. Soon the entire image was a swirl of brilliant color.
Despite the horror of it all, Rick couldn’t deny that it was beautiful.
Keefer’s reaction was similar. He stared at the brain image of the patient nearest him, reaching out to the screen and touching it gently.
“Shall I start the linking process?” Dr. Kalabi asked. The question was directed at Morris, not Keefer.
“If you’ve installed the equipment correctly, then there shouldn’t be a problem,” Morris said. “We’ve been this far in the lab here in Denver.”
“With two subjects,” Dr. Kalabi said.
“Theoretically, it shouldn’t make a difference,” Morris responded.
Dr. Kalabi didn’t look convinced, but he turned back to his computer station, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Rick thought it ironic that the good doctor wasn’t about to let one of the new brain-machine interfaces burrow inside his own head, choosing the old-fashioned keyboard instead.
“What’s happening?” Dahlia asked.
“What is it, Keefer?” Rick asked. “What’s the second discovery?”
Keefer looked back at him, then to Dr. Kalabi, seeming to reach the conclusion there was time. “In this room in front of you are the four most powerful supercomputers in the world. Each of them is capable of solving mathematical modeling problems that would take our best computers weeks to work out. Weather patterns, drug interactions, particle physics research.”
“None of which you’re interested in,” Rick said. The realization came at him fast and hit him hard. It was the only thing that made sense. “Jesus, this is about encryption, isn’t it?”
Keefer clapped his hands together. “Very good, Rick. Yes, it’s about encryption. Cyber-terrorism has turned every computer system into an island, each one protected by sophisticated encryption technology, codes that are considered unbreakable. And that belief is what makes them vulnerable. Given time, these computers could beat that technology, opening up any system it wanted. That alone is a game changer.
But add the other discovery to it, and you change the world.”
“You can connect them,” Rick said, feeling his stomach turn as he realized the implications. “Somehow, you can link them together.”
“Yes,” Keefer said, excited. “Good, you understand. I can see it in your face that you do.”
“It’s called a brainet,” Morris said over the video connection. “Linking together multiple brains to essentially create a massively parallel supercomputer. Researchers have been playing with organic computing for the last two decades, but it has never lived up to the hype. With Cassie’s work with the brain-machine interface, everything changed. Linking the brains is so complex that unless you create a superbrain first to manage the process, it just spirals out of control.” Morris turned away from the camera. “This is really her invention, even though she never knew it.”
“We’re ready,” Dr. Kalabi said.
“I don’t understand. Why did you come to our town? Why our people?” Rick said. “Why go through all this when you could have used soldiers? Or just paid people to do it?”
“Quiet, please,” Keefer said. “You’ll want to watch this. This is history being made.”
Rick eyed the drones next to him. He needed to stop this, but there was nothing he could do.
“Proceed, Dr. Kalabi,” Keefer said.
The doctor pressed a button on the computer and stepped back.
At first nothing happened. The room was silent. Everyone held their breath, watching the four patients.
“There,” Dr. Kalabi whispered. “It’s happening.”
Slowly the brain images on each screen turned a brilliant royal blue, pulsing from light to dark in unison.
The techs applauded. Keefer crossed the floor to Dr. Kalabi and shook his hand.
“Does that mean those people are connected now?” Dahlia whispered to Rick. “Their brains are part of this … brainet thing?”
He didn’t respond.
“So now they have a computer powerful enough to do what?” she asked. “What are they planning?”
“They’re planning to end the world,” Rick whispered, realizing that Keefer’s threats had been real all along. If he could hack the most sophisticated encryptions, then nothing was safe. He could access the banking system. The military. Maybe even nuclear launch codes. He was worse than a madman prophesying the end of the world. He was a madman with the ability to make his prophesy come true.
“Performing trial calculation to clock processing speed,” Dr. Kalabi said.
Keefer walked back to Rick. “This will take some time. We need to––”
“It’s done,” Dr. Kalabi said.
“What?” Morris said, leaning toward the camera.
The doctor looked up from his computer, beaming. “Trial calculation complete,” he said.
Keefer stopped. “You thought it would take nearly an hour to complete the trial, even with the new computing power of the four linked units.”
“I know … I know …” Dr. Kalabi said. “But the processing speed is greater than anything I ever imagined. It appears they solved the trial calculation … in less than one second.”
“That’s impossible,” Morris said on the screen, his voice echoing in the room. “Let me check the data. I’m calling a hold on any further steps until we can sort through this.”
Dr. Kalabi looked to Keefer.
“We’re not holding for anything,” Keefer said. “Prepare to initiate.”
“No,” Morris said. “If the computation is that much more advanced, then we don’t really understand what’s happening. Our models are completely wrong.”
“It’s better than we thought,” Keefer said. “More powerful. That’s not a problem, it’s an advantage.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Morris said. “I’m shutting it down until we can understand what’s happening.”
Keefer shook his head slowly. “I can’t let you do that.”
“You can’t let me?” Morris snorted. “This is my invention. I’m in charge here. Kalabi, patch me into the data stream.”
Kalabi slowly put his hands to his side. Keefer smiled.
Morris looked confused. “This is not your call. You work for me, Keefer. You’re an … an employee.”
Keefer barked out a short laugh. “For being the most brilliant mind in our century, you really are a dumb ass, Brandon. I don’t work for you. I never have. Did you think I would do all this just so that you could save yourself? Use this technology to transfer into a new body?”
“That’s our deal, Keefer,” Morris said, furiously typing on the keyboard on the desk in front of him. “Then we’d use what I’d become to make the country great again.”
Keefer laughed. “This is bigger than you. This is bigger than all of us.”
Rick watched the interchange between the two men and he realized the truth of it. Morris had no idea what Keefer’s real plan was.
“Morris,” Rick yelled. “He’s going to destroy the world outside the United States. Nukes, power grids, all of it. You’ve got to stop this.”
Morris looked horrified. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m pulling you off this. It’s gone too far.”
On the screen, Morris continued typing, his fingers flying.
“Morris,” Keefer said. “It’s too late.”
Morris looked up, real fear on his face now. “I’m locked out.”
Keefer nodded. “The trial calculation we used to clock the processing speed of the four person brainet was the encryption code for the Genysis servers.”
“That’s impossible. The encryption is unbreakable. It would take centuries to hack.”
“The solution was arrived at in less than one microsecond,” Dr. Kalabi said softly, as if to himself. “Perhaps faster. That’s the smallest unit of measurement for the system.”
“This project is mine,” Morris mumbled, typing again. “You can’t take it away.”
Keefer smiled. “Trying to activate those security protocols you put into place?” he said. “The ones to make sure I couldn’t use the machine we were building together? Yeah, those won’t work anymore.”
“You can’t do this,” Morris yelled.
“I already have,” Keefer said.
He turned to the camera in the corner of the room, reached his hand into the air and closed it into a fist.
“What are you––”
The explosion came from behind Morris, so the wall of flame shared the frame with him for a split second before the image disappeared, replaced with a simple message:
The room was silent, no one moving. Dr. Kalabi stared at the ground. Only Keefer seemed unaffected by the whole thing.
“Dr. Kalabi, are we ready?” he asked. When there was no response, he raised his voice. “Dr. Kalabi!”
“Y-yes,” the doctor stammered. “Of course.”
Keefer waved Rick to follow him. Rick, clutching Charlie protectively, followed Keefer to a double set of doors, like those opening to a hospital corridor. Dahlia followed him.
“Morris never knew what you had planned, did he?” Rick asked.
Keefer shook his head. “Brandon had stage three lymphoma when I met him. It’s stage four now. He wanted the brainet to create either a cure for his disease or, at the minimum, unlock how to replicate his mind into another body. For a visionary, he never really thought big enough.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that you were going to change the world,” Rick said. “I’d say you’re going to need more than four linked supercomputers to do that.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Keefer said.
He pressed a button on the side of the wall. There was a click and then the doors slowly opened outward.
Rick walked through the opening, feeling like he was in a bad dream.
The space in front of him was enormous. Several football fields in size, supported by periodic stone columns.
Stretching out for hundreds of yards were row afte
r row of hospital beds.
Each one set up exactly like the one in the lab behind them. A cart of electronic monitors. An articulated robotic arm. A single spotlight creating a circle of light on the bed.
And every bed had a person on it, sitting up at a forty-five-degree angle and wrapped with chest straps. The white skull helmets stood out, reflecting the bright light above each bed. Hundreds of them lined up in a perfect row.
Here were the two thousand people from Resurrection’s Fall Festival. About to have their heads drilled, their brains transformed into computing machines, and then connected to form the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind.
And there was nothing Rick could do to stop it.
Keefer stood next to him, staring proudly out over the result of so many years of planning. He put up his hand, hesitated for a moment, and then swiped it downward in a cutting motion. Instantly, two thousand robotic drills spun into action.
52
Cassie stifled a scream as robot arms came to life over each bed and the air filled with the deafening whine of drills spinning up to full speed. She’d nearly made it to the far side of the cavern, near the access point for the data trunk, when it’d happened.
She knew exactly what was happening. Cerebral probes were the cornerstone of her research in brain-machine interfaces. Most of the clinical work took place on animals, but she’d overseen the procedure on early adopters of the artificial limb program too.
Only that surgery had always been completed under full anesthetic.
Most of the people in the beds were still passed out from the drug they’d been given in town. But spread out among them, perhaps every tenth or fifteenth bed, was someone who was awake, kicking and thrashing in their beds. Mouths open wide in screams that were drowned out by the sounds of the drills.
They were fully awake and about to have their brain cavity drilled.
Cassie ran to the nearest bed where a man struggled against his straps, hands frantically pulling at the straps.
“Help me! Oh Jesus, help,” the man screamed.
He flailed and bucked against the straps so hard that she couldn’t get a grip in the buckle.