by Jamie Metzl
“The GPS tracker is in the stern target’s front right pocket,” the voice from the helicopter drone says.
I look at Flores to warn him but one of the commandos is already reaching into Flores’s pocket. He yanks out the GPS, places it into a small electric box they’ve brought aboard, then dumps the smoking mess of what’s left of it into the ocean.
Flores is shaking. I sense he knows far better than I what can happen in the no man’s land of the high seas.
Another commando enters the wheelhouse and comes back with the radio he’s pulled from its mooring and stuffs it into the box.
“I’m going to ask you this once,” the ominous voice from the drone says. “Who are you and vy are you here?”
“My name,” I begin to say, my voice cracking. “My name is—”
“Stop,” the voice commands. “Stand by.”
I gape at the six men. The silence lingers. Their fierce faces betray nothing, as if they are prepared to do whatever needs to be done. Only the shaking Flores and I are expressive.
“Dikran Azadian?” the voice from the drone says.
“Yes?” I say, slowly and guardedly.
“You and your colleague will now be escorted to the ship. We will speak further upon your arrival.”
The commandos nod to a message being fed through their earpieces. They pull Flores and me up and pass us over the side of their boat and into their Zodiac.
As the boat pulls away, I notice Flores beginning to calm.
Until the small explosion smashes through the sound of the waves.
We turn to see the burning Perseverencia sinking into the deep blue sea.
47
“Ship” does not feel like the right word for the colossal structure dominating the space in front of us. It’s more like a land mass with a runway on top. A tall control tower with a large white ball at its head reaches from the top of the deck to the sky. A flap opens out from the back of the carrier as we approach. Our Zodiac maneuvers into the hold.
The massive landing area at the back of the ship is almost a marina in itself. Zodiacs and other small craft are suspended in the air on large conveyors. A bright spotlight beaming from above illuminates a path for our craft on the water toward a designated docking point. Reaching that place, I feel the mechanical arms lifting us from below, placing the Zodiac at equal level with the dock.
“Stand,” one of the commandos orders.
Two others lift me and then Flores to our feet as a third cuts the cuffs from each of our legs. Two commandos then climb onto the dock before we are instructed to follow.
The blue jeans, T-shirt, and leather sandals of the man stepping out to meet us on the dock do nothing to make him look casual. His deeply tanned face is weathered and creased under the dome of his bald head; his graying eyebrows jut over penetrating blue eyes. His body is wiry and short like a wrestler’s.
“Velcome to the SBNS Singularity,” he says, neither his words nor tone betraying a hint of warmth.
“Quite a welcome,” I say pointedly, recognizing the voice from the drone. “That ship was the captain’s livelihood.”
The man stares at me as if my words do not merit a response. “I’m sure you will understand, Mr. Azadian, that security here is always paramount.”
He takes my arm and moves to place a small blue biometric bracelet around my wrist. His grip deepens as I instinctively pull back.
“Everyone on the ship has their vitals monitored at all times. It’s how we maintain our health standards. We also have suppository sensors if the wrist monitor is not possible.”
I relax my arm and the bracelet locks on.
Flores is still clearly shaken up by the loss of his boat and acquiesces more easily.
“Now exhale into this.”
A commando lifts a small Menssanalysis device to my face. I hold my breath, not wanting to so easily provide access to my health indicators.
“The easy way or the hard way,” the man says.
I lock my eyes on his, then look down and breathe. Flores follows suit.
“We have agreed to bring you and your colleague on board, to ensure your safety,” the man continues. “The plane will arrive for you tomorrow morning. You will be our guests for approximately eighteen hours, and we will treat you as such. You will remain in your rooms, where you will find what you need to be moderately comfortable.”
“I need to make a call,” I say, “and I need to meet with the SBN Council of Elders.”
He shakes his head slightly with incredulity. “Follow me.”
We walk behind him through a small metal door and into a large hall lined floor to ceiling with a vast array of small drones: airplane, helicopter, and submersible. Commandos and other crew scurry purposefully about, a few augmented by exoskeletons helping them carry heavy equipment. We pass through a seemingly endless maze of long hallways and metal doors, unlocked and resealed by the commandos as we move through the ship. The walls are lined with gaudy wallpaper.
Our host notices my attention. “You are aboard a former Kiev class carrier of the Soviet navy.”
“This is interesting, believe me,” I say, “but I need—”
The man holds up his hand to stop me, then continues with his tour as if determined to fulfill his obligation
“The technology of the ship has been completely revamped, but the taste is actually Chinese. They bought it from the Russians in 1996 and converted it into the Tianjin Aircraft Carrier Hotel. We acquired it from them.”
”My call? The elders?”
The man looks at me but doesn’t answer. With a hand gesture, he tells two of his men to take Flores to his room. Flores’s eyes dart at me nervously, then angrily, as the three peel off.
As we approach what appears to be my room, my panic intensifies. If he deposits me here and I’m whooshed away tomorrow morning, where will I be? He moves his open palm toward the bioscanner beside the door.
“Wait,” I say sharply.
His hand keeps lifting.
“I’m not moving until you respond to my requests.”
He ignores me and places his palm on the scanner. The door opens but I do not walk through.
My level of desperation is rising fast but I steady myself to take my best shot. “I know you want me off of this ship,” I say. “That is clear. But you know from Shelton who I am. I’m a reporter. You can contact my editor if you like. Her name is Martina Hernandez. I can give you her contact information. I have a lot of pieces of this story. The missing scientists, the murder of Noam Heller, Heller’s research, Adam Shelton’s and Heller’s links with Scientists Beyond Nations. We have most of the files splashed up in a conference room. If you just kick me off the ship we’re going with the story tomorrow. We don’t have every piece of it, but what do you think it will mean for you if we report that Heller had links with SBN, that you’ve kidnapped the scientists from hospices, and that you may possess the secret of total cellular reversion? Do you think the world will leave you alone? Do you think you’ll be safe even in the middle of the ocean, even in your fifty-year-old aircraft carrier?”
His eyes lock angrily on mine.
“And how do you think I found you?” I press on. “Do you think I’m some kind of nautical genius? I just called a friend who used to work for American intelligence. He doesn’t even work there anymore. If I can find you, you can guarantee that lots of people are going to find you if you force my paper to print the story we have, if we tell the world the fountain of youth is located on this fucking ship.”
I stop a moment to let my now bulging veins calm.
“So now I’m asking you,” I say, slowly and intensely. “Are you going to introduce me to the Council of Elders or are you going to grab your umbrella to prepare for the shit storm heading your way if you don’t?”
48
If I were coming home drunk from a night of gambling in a Chinese casino, I’m sure this room would be perfect. The round white bed, the silver drapes, the space-age cha
ise longue, the zebra skin spread across the beige carpet, could all be used as a photo dictionary definition of the word “garish.”
But languishing in this locked room for over an hour under the glare of the poorly hidden surveillance cameras, watching the rain pelt against my porthole window and waiting to see if my desperate words have had any effect on the imposing man in jeans, feeling my clock ticking down toward my departure, I feel imprisoned. I pace back and forth nervously.
“Mr. Azadian, I’m opening the door.” The man’s voice sounds from an intercom embedded in the ceiling.
I stand in the middle of the room, facing the door as it opens. The host stares at me as if sizing me up. I still don’t know his name.
“Come with me.”
“My call?”
“Come with me,” he repeats, this time more forcefully.
I don’t move.
“Please.” The small word seems to pain him.
I follow him silently through multiple metal doors down a long corridor. We enter another large hall, this one with twenty or so whirling 3D printers and about ten robotic hologrometers along one of its walls. When we reach an elevator bank covered with gold mirrors, he presses a button and the doors open to reveal a red velvet and crystal-adorned interior.
“Nice,” I say as I enter.
“Xie xie,” he mutters, hardly moving a facial muscle.
The elevator goes up two levels and opens to a corridor lined with long couches upholstered in gold. He walks me to the end of the corridor, then knocks on a large door framed by silver flowers.
“It used to be the Soviet navy officer’s mess. The Chinese turned it into a disco,” he says, responding to the ironic smirk on my face.
The door opens electronically. He leads me in. The room is mostly dim. A plume of light highlights the six elderly people, four men and two women, standing in a loose semi-circle in the middle of what appears to be a dance floor.
I take in a deep breath, realizing where I am, as a silver-haired woman looking to be in her seventies or eighties walks toward me. Her face has a glow of wisdom, her hazel eyes radiating kindness.
“Welcome, Mr. Azadian,” she says warmly.
I’m unable to speak.
“Thank you, Captain Golan,” she says to the man, smiling at him until he gets the message.
“Madam,” he says deferentially with a slight bow. The door closes behind him as he exits.
“We’re very impressed you found us,” the woman continues.
Something about her draws me in, but I still hesitate.
“Oh, I’m sorry to be so impolite,” she says as if reading my hesitation. “I think you know what we are.”
I nod stupidly, aware I have yet to utter a single word.
“But please allow me to tell you who we are.”
She leads me toward the center of the room.
“My name is Lynette Margolies. The council operates as a collective, but I guess you could say I’m the secretary.”
“If secretary is synonymous with queen,” an elderly gaunt gentleman in a tweed jacket says in the King’s English with a devilish grin.
“Oh quiet, you,” she shoots back. “I guess we can start our introductions with this inveterate troublemaker.”
The man frowns unconvincingly.
“Bartholomew Penrose was an Oxford don for fifty years and one of the great geniuses of mathematical physics.”
“Was?” Penrose queries, feigning hurt.
“He’s no longer twenty—”
Penrose’s theatrical cough silences Margolies momentarily.
“But,” she continues, “we get the sense once in a while he still has a few tricks up his sleeve.” She points to the diminutive slouched man to her right. “Shinobu Yakamoto here was the first to develop a process for inducing any type of cell to become a stem cell, which blew open the doors of personalized and regenerative medicine.”
“Doors, of course, are meant to be opened,” he says slowly in a Japanese accent.
“They are indeed, Shinobu-san.” Margolies points to the tall woman with cropped silver hair standing next to Yakamoto. Her posture is surprisingly erect for a woman of her age. “This is our real superstar, Frederica Singer, recipient of two Nobel prizes for her work on the biochemistry of proteins.”
“Yes,” Singer says, “in 1874 and 1896.”
“Bite your tongue, young lady. You are a spring chicken,” Margolies responds, turning back to me. “Don’t believe a word of it.”
I can’t help but smile. I’m starting to feel like either I’ve stepped into the middle of a comedy routine or there is genuine warmth between the members of the council.
But an urgent thought penetrates my wonder. “I’m really honored to meet you all, but is there any way I can make a call? It’s really important. You seem to be getting messages from Adam Shelton somehow.”
“We are very sorry, Mr. Azadian,” Margolies says solemnly. “Our protocols for connecting with the rest of the world do not allow that, and we are all bound absolutely to following them.”
“But—”
She takes my hand in hers, then covers it warmly with her left hand. “I really hope you can understand. You will be able to communicate with the outside world during your flight tomorrow. That’s not very long from now.” She looks deep into my eyes and squeezes my hand gently. “Please. We don’t have much time.”
My face softens.
“Thank you,” she says sympathetically, leading me toward another council member. “Francis Achebe here might be the greatest African scientist ever. He developed a computer model that simulated the network connections of bee colonies, which had huge implications for network architecture and data analysis.”
“And it got me stung quite a few times, I might add,” the elderly African man says in his buttery accent.
“And rounding out our merry little band is the indefatigable Clinton Richards, another Oxford don. We seem to be drowning in them. He is, of course, the great expert in genetics and evolution and the man who single-handedly declared war on Jehovah.”
“He stah-ted it,” Richards says dryly, flicking a tuft of long silver hair away from his eyes. “And, if I may,” he adds, bowing slightly to the woman, “our queen—or did you say secretary, madam—in addition to her charming personality, is the mother of endosymbiotic theory, the simple yet radical idea that all species evolve in interaction with each other.”
“Or at least it proves that your pain impacts my derriere,” Margolies retorts.
The six elders face me quietly.
I stand nonplussed.
“You may speak if you like,” Margolies says warmly.
“I have to admit I’m just a bit overwhelmed,” I stutter. “I have a thousand questions, but … it’s just, just so nice to meet all of you. I hadn’t imagined …”
“We understand,” Margolies says. “What we’re doing is quite revolutionary. Scientists have often had troubled relations with their governments. Wernher von Braun wanted to send rockets to space and ended up being a tool of the Nazis. Heisenberg, too. Even Einstein, who escaped to America and helped win the war, had second thoughts about how his theories were used to develop the bomb. J. Robert played along but got crushed anyway.”
“And so …” I stammer.
“And so,” Richards responds, “with the dawn of this spectacular age of superconvergence, of breakthroughs folding into each other and causing the pace of technological change to increase exponentially, a number of us old timers got to thinking that science needed to advance but that governments could not be fully trusted to do the right thing.”
“Scientists Beyond Nations?”
“The name is a bit gimmicky, we admit,” Frederica Singer says, “but it makes the point. Beyond nations but not beyond accountability. That’s what our council is about. We don’t believe in stopping the progress of science. Quite the opposite, actually. We only believe in filtering some of its most potentially dangerous applicat
ions, or, should I say, protecting them from being monopolized and used for nefarious purposes by governments or others with ulterior motives.”
“Is that even possible?”
“We think so.” Singer leans in to make her point. “We’re not against governments and others having access to this science. Not at all. We just try to influence how, how much, and when it is made available. We try to hold ourselves to a higher standard of global accountability. Will our approach work over time? Our hypothesis will need to stand up under observation and challenge.”
“And experimentation?” I ask, my mind shifting to thoughts of Heller.
“We know that is why you are here, Mr. Azadian,” Margolies says, “and, to be quite honest, we are a bit desperate to learn more of what you know.”
Recognizing I may have something of value to this illustrious team gives me a small burst of confidence. “I believe you already may have learned quite a bit from Adam Shelton.”
“Yes, of course.” Margolies nods. “But we need to hear it from you and we have many more questions.”
“I have a lot of questions, too.”
“And we will answer them,” Achebe tells me, his tone authoritative and convincing as he leads me toward a circle of chairs just beside the dance floor. “Please let us all sit down and begin our conversation. May we offer you some tea? This will likely be a long night.”
49
A small voice in my head advises caution, but something about this warm, wise, and brilliant group overcomes my reservations. In a strange way, Heller has brought us together by dividing up access to his files. I’m in desperate need of information they have and sense deeply that the only way I’ll get it is by trusting them.
I walk them through every detail of what I’ve learned over the past eight days since I first showed up at the Kansas City hospice. They fire questions at me as I speak, asking for more specific details about my conversations with Heller, the configuration of his lab, what happened when Heller was alone with Toni in the dark room. It’s an exhausting interrogation, but as my story brings me to the SBN ship, it is time for the tables to turn.