by David Archer
Sam looked at him for another five seconds, then went back to the cab and climbed out of the truck. He walked quickly toward the SWAT van and stepped inside.
“What’s going on?” Merrick asked. “There are jet fighters overhead, are they…”
“Those are military drones under his control,” Sam said. “He says the RPG won’t even scratch that truck, and that it can even survive the missiles those drones are carrying, but he’s threatening to clear the road if we don’t. Can you call off the roadblock? Otherwise, all these people are going to die.”
“If we call it off, Sam,” Summer said vehemently, “he gets away with everything. If he can control those drones, he can attack anybody, anywhere. We won’t ever get another chance, Sam.”
“Hold on,” Sam said, “I’m not done. Merrick, you call off the roadblock, but one of you guys give me a grenade. I’m going back up there. Doctor Hu is still in there, and an orderly who probably thought he was just doing his job. I’m going to try to get them out, but if there’s no other choice—collateral damage, right?”
One of the officers handed him a grenade, and Sam gripped the spoon tight while he pulled the pin. He reached behind himself and tucked it into his waistband, positioned so that the tension of his belt prevented the spoon from releasing and setting it off.
“Wish me luck,” he said, and then stepped onto the road again. Merrick was on the radio speaking with the dispatcher, and by the time Sam got to the truck again, he could see the fire engine starting to move out of the way.
He tapped on the truck door and opened it again, but before he could step inside, the orderly appeared, standing behind the little armed robot. The poor guy looked like he was on the verge of tears.
“He–he says you gotta lose the grenade,” the orderly said, “or he says he’s gonna kill you.”
Sam’s mind reeled. How could Joel have known? Surely, he couldn’t have predicted that Sam would try this, could he? For a second, he thought of protesting that he was unarmed, but he knew that Joel would never believe him.
He reached behind himself and took out the grenade, carefully keeping the spoon in place. The truck was in the second lane from the right shoulder, and there was a deep gully a couple dozen feet away. Sam cocked his arm like a baseball pitcher and threw the grenade over the car beside him, and it dropped into the gully. He spun and covered his ears, and a moment later it went off harmlessly. People in the cars around him began to scream, but no one got out of the vehicles.
He looked up at the orderly and the robot as both of them moved into the rear compartment. Sam reached up and grabbed the door and climbed inside, shutting it behind him.
“It was a good plan, Sam,” Joel said. “Might have worked, but I predicted a ninety-nine percent certainty that you would try something, so I tapped into your cell phone. I listened in while you talked to them, and I heard you ask for the grenade.”
Through one of the windows, Sam saw the cars outside begin moving, and then the truck started rolling forward. Sam’s hip twinged and he grabbed onto a handle on the wall beside him, then sank into a seat attached to the wall of the truck. The little robot parked across from him, its gun trained on his face again.
“So, what now?” Sam asked. “Where are we headed?”
“Actually, not that far. I’ve got several places set up around the world, places I can defend even against a much bigger force than you brought after me. That reminds me, I’m sorry about the people who died back at the warehouse. If you hadn’t tried to stop me, though, they’d all still be alive.”
“So all of this is my fault? You blame everything you do on someone else?”
“Of course,” Joel said. “Sam, as the good doctor here pointed out, I am basically now a god. Over the next few weeks, my computers will be able to copy my persona so completely that I’ll still be here long after this body withers away. With the developments being made in quantum computing and artificial intelligence, I’ll be the most powerful being that ever existed. That pretty much sounds like a god to me, doesn’t it to you?”
“No, it sounds like a madman,” Sam said. “I don’t know what to say. This doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Sam, it makes perfect sense. Mankind has always needed someone to watch over him, and we finally made it possible. This chip means that I can take control of almost half the military firepower in the world, so I can put down a war before it even begins. I can predict what world powers are going to do, so I can stop them before they get started. All I want to do is make the world a better place, Sam, why can’t you see that?”
“Because I prefer to put my faith in the God who created the world,” Sam said.
Joel shook his head. “No, Sam, you’re putting it in the God that was created by the world. People wanted a God, so they made one in their own image. But I don’t need you to put your faith in me; I just need you to understand that you can’t stop me.”
Sam stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. “‘Who is like unto the beast?’” he asked. “‘Who is able to wage war with him?’”
“Revelation 13:4. Is that what you think of me, Sam? The antichrist? No, wait, you already dealt with him, didn’t you? Sam, you could be such an ally to me if you would just swallow your pride and prejudice. There is so much you could help me to accomplish.”
“Help you? Why do you need any help? Absolute power, remember? The omnipotent Joel, Joel Almighty, what other names can we come up with for you?”
Joel’s face tightened, but his eyes remained closed. The fleeting thought went through Sam’s mind that Joel’s eyes would eventually atrophy, now that he didn’t actually need them to see.
“How about, ‘Joel the Smiter?’ Remember, Sam, I’ve still got two Avengers circling overhead. And just so you know, they’ve already tried to scramble fighters to bring them down, but all military aircraft are now subject to my control to at least some degree. Every fighter they’ve tried to launch has had issues that forced the engines to shut down. I think they’ve finally figured out that I’m not going to allow it.”
“You can control all those things at the same time? You’re driving this truck, controlling the drones, and you can still control those aircraft?”
“The computers do a lot of it,” Joel said, “but I can exert control anytime I want to. I simply set the drones to follow the signal from my phone. They’ll keep circling around this vehicle until I send them back to be refueled.”
“And you think the Air Force is going to refuel them for you?” Sam asked. “I think they’ll be more likely to destroy them.”
“I have my doubts about that,” Joel said with a grin. “Especially since they’ll know that I can destroy the entire base if they don’t do what I want. These aren’t the only drones I’ve got in the air. Three more are circling the base, ready to engage any aircraft that comes close.” He shrugged. “I can’t quite control everything at the same time, yet. That will take a little time, but I’ll make it.”
Sam sat in the seat and stared at him. He had known it was going to be futile to reason with Joel, but he had felt he had to try. After a moment, he looked at Daphne and tried to convey how sorry he was she had ended up in this predicament.
“I had no choice,” she said. “He showed me children with armed guards and told me that if I didn’t do the procedure, he would have them killed.”
“I knew he would have had something to use against you. So, I take it the operation was a success?”
“I am afraid so,” Daphne said sadly.
“A rousing success,” Joel said. “I just wish there was some way to convince you to join me, Sam. I actually like you, believe it or not.”
Sam glared at him. “What? You’re not going to try to blackmail me into doing your bidding?”
“No,” Joel said thoughtfully. “No, you’re too resourceful. I might be able to keep you under control for a while, but letting you be close to me would probably end up my undoing. There’s no sense in that, no
w, is there?”
He flinched suddenly, and one of the monitors began to beep more rapidly. Daphne looked at it for a moment, then turned to Joel.
“You are in pain,” she said. “You didn’t give me time to bring anything. There’s nothing I can do for you at this moment.”
“It’s bearable,” Joel said. “We’ll be at our new home in a couple of hours, and everything you need will be there.”
“And what are you going to do with me?” Sam asked.
“That is a bit of a conundrum,” Joel replied. “I suppose, Sam, the best thing I can do for you right now is to simply drop you off somewhere. If I take you with me, I’ll either have to keep you locked up or kill you, and I don’t really want to do either of those. The next town is Gilroy, so I guess I’m going to stop long enough for you to get out there.”
He turned his attention to the orderly who was still holding Sam’s gun. “Johnny, when Sam gets out, I want you to hand him his gun. Don’t worry, he won’t shoot you. It wouldn’t do him any good, because he still wouldn’t get to me, and he knows it. Besides, as far as he’s concerned, you’re just an innocent bystander. Isn’t that right, Sam?”
“That’s not for me to decide,” Sam said. “Given the chance, I would arrest all of your medical staff and let the courts figure out whether they were involved in your plans.”
“Just tell the man you’re not going to shoot him, Sam,” Joel said with a note of irritation. “Can’t have a super investigator running around without his gun, now, can we?”
Sam looked at Johnny and shook his head. “He’s right,” he said. “I have no reason to shoot you.”
The orderly, who looked to be in his early twenties, swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay,” he said.
Joel grinned, but it only lasted a few seconds. “Oh, now what?” he asked. “Sam, have you got some kind of trick up your sleeve?”
Sam’s eyebrows rose. “Me? The only trick I had was a hand grenade, and you made me get rid of it. Why? Is there something going on outside?”
“Maybe not,” Joel said. “Another traffic jam, but it looks like there’s some kind of repair work going on up ahead. We’re still moving, just slowly.”
Sam could feel the truck slowing down, until finally it was in stop and go traffic. He could see out the windows that other cars were only inching along, as well.
He glanced at Joel, and wondered if he was concentrating on watching whatever was happening outside. It would take him a couple of seconds to leap across to where Joel was laying, and Sam knew that a good hard strike with the heel of his hand to the base of Joel’s nose would bring all of this to an end.
Unfortunately, Joel could react quickly, and the little robot even faster. Sam shoved the fleeting thought down, knowing he would never survive the attempt. If it had a chance of success, he might consider it worth sacrificing himself, but he doubted he’d ever get close enough.
“Ah,” Joel said. “It’s just a lineman working on the power lines. They got one lane shut off, that’s all it is.”
Sam, who had secretly been hoping that the delay was caused by something that would put a stop to this madness, felt his heart sink.
42
“Sam? Sam?” Indie shrieked in fury as she realized that he had hung up on her. She started to call him back, but then common sense prevailed. Whatever he was doing, it was what he thought he had to do.
She looked at the screen in front of her. Joel’s position had not changed in a few minutes, while they had been stopped at the roadblock, but if Sam didn’t pull off a miracle quickly, he’d be moving again before long.
“Oooh, I wish there was something I could do,” she said in frustration. “There’s got to be some way I can help, even from here!”
Her phone rang suddenly, and she snatched it up without even looking at the display. “Sam?”
“No, it’s Summer. Indie, I hate to bother you, but we need some ideas. There’s got to be some way to shut Joel down. Is there any way you can do it through his computer?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I was just explaining to Sam a bit ago, he’s got mirror servers set up all over the world. The most I could do would be to take down this one, but the others would simply take up where this one left off. He’d probably know we did something to it, but it wouldn’t interfere with him much at all.”
“Damn, damn, damn,” Summer said. “We can’t reach him physically. What about some way to kill that phone of his? Can you get into it and shut it down?”
“If it was on a regular carrier, I could,” Indie replied. “It’s not, though, it’s actually on a direct satellite link, and I have no idea what satellite or what carrier wave or anything. Herman could probably find it eventually, but it would take days at best, maybe even weeks.”
Summer growled. “Okay, we can’t hurt his computer and can’t hurt his phone. What other way could we interrupt his signals?”
“EMP,” Indie said. “It would take an electromagnetic pulse that was either close enough or strong enough to burn out the chip in his head.”
“Yeah, they used one on Chang. It was some kind of helmet they put on his head and it created a pulse that burned out the chip Joel was using to control him. How can we make one that would be big enough to get him while he’s inside that truck?”
“Oh, geez, it would have to be big. Like the kind you might get from blowing out a big transformer, that might do it.”
“Transformer? You mean like the big ones on the poles beside the highway?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Indie said. “If you could overload it to make it explode, that might do the job. The problem would be getting him close enough to it. I don’t know the physics involved, but I think he’d probably have to be pretty close to it.”
“Sam always said you were a genius,” Summer said. “You definitely given me an idea, thanks.”
The line went dead, and Indie went back to watching the screen.
*
Summer looked at Merrick, who was driving the SWAT van slowly down the highway. He knew he wasn’t supposed to follow the truck, but the thought of letting it out of his sight completely was more than he could handle. It was probably a mile ahead, but he wanted to be close if he got the chance to do anything.
“Electromagnetic pulse,” she said. “Indie said you could create one by blowing up a transformer with an overload. What’s the chance you can get somebody to set that up somewhere ahead of that truck, so it happens as they pass underneath?”
Merrick glanced up at her, then turned his eyes back to the road. “Brubaker, get on it.”
Brubaker, still in the passenger seat, grabbed his phone and started making calls. It took him almost fifteen minutes to get through to the right person at PG&E, and then Merrick took the phone to explain the situation.
The regional manager he was speaking to thought he was crazy. “You want me to blow a transformer at this time of night? You’re talking about down by Gilroy, that would put all of Gilroy, probably most of Morgan Hill and Hollister out of power. It could take us a day or more to get it restored.”
Merrick tried to argue with him, explaining that it was a matter of national security, but the manager wouldn’t budge. Summer stood there and listened for a moment, then took out her phone and dialed a number. She spoke into the phone briefly and quietly, and then ended the call and put it back in her pocket.
The manager suddenly asked Merrick to hold and took another call. He was gone for less than a minute, then came back.
“Okay, I’ve just been informed that we’re going to cooperate. Apparently, somebody at the NSA or some such group just called my supervisor. I’m looking at the transformer map now, and there’s one a half mile north of Gilroy on 101 that’s big enough to do what you want. I’m sending a crew out now, so they can be on hand after it blows.”
Merrick grinned. “You do that, old buddy,” he said. “You do that.”
*
The lineman sat in his truck, his lights flas
hing and his warning cones and signs out, moving traffic into the left lane. This was the craziest job he had ever been sent out on, but his boss, Mr. Rodriguez, said the orders came straight out of Washington, D.C. All he was supposed to do was watch for a certain truck to appear in the slow-moving lane, and tell Rodriguez when it was just about to pass under the transformer.
There it was. Big, great, ugly thing, looked like something military. He picked up his handset and pushed the button.
“Base, this is four ten. I see that truck you’re talking about. It’ll be under the transformer in about twenty seconds.”
“Roger that, four ten. Give me a go when it’s just about to go under.”
“Roger, base. Get ready, get ready—go!”
The lights on the poles along the highway grew brighter for just a second, and then the transformer exploded in an awesome fireworks display. Bluish-green flames shot out of it as it broke free from the pole it was mounted on and flew across the road to land in the median.
A half-dozen cars suddenly went dark and came to a halt, as the electromagnetic pulse burned out every sensitive electronic component they had. A few of them managed to coast into the right lane, trying to get out of the way of other traffic, but a couple stalled out right where they were.
The truck didn’t even hiccup. It stopped for a second when a car in front of it came to a halt, but then it started moving again and simply pushed the car off the side of the road before proceeding down the highway.
*
Joel started laughing, and his eyes finally opened and focused on Sam’s.
“Oh! Oh, Sam, that was priceless,” he said. “Where did you get that, out of a movie? Blow up a transformer to create an electromagnetic pulse, right? Sure, that’ll work, but do you think I wouldn’t protect myself against such things? This truck? It’s a rolling Faraday cage, Sam. We’re fully protected from EMP, I can assure you. You know what? That little stunt almost pisses me off. Maybe I should just go ahead and blow up your friends in the truck back behind us, would you like that? Would that be a suitable response, do you think? Oh, yeah, they’re still following. There back about a mile, but they’re still there.”