In short, Desh knew he was a giant fucking mess, although he suspected a psychologist might use a slightly different term for his condition.
Desh was here as an observer, so he had tried to keep as low a profile as possible, pretending to be a fly on the wall. Dutton cleared his throat and Desh knew the meeting was about to begin.
“We’ll try to keep this brief,” began Jake’s civilian boss, staring at Matt Griffin. “But we need to know where you are. And if you’re getting anywhere. We’d also like to request that you try to tone yourself down when you’re enhanced. To put it bluntly, you’re considered the most vile asshole who ever lived around here.”
Griffin swallowed a chocolate chip muffin and reached for another from a bag Desh always managed to keep filled. He winced. “I’m doing the best I can,” he said miserably. “I’m just glad my alter ego hasn’t killed anyone—or worse. I’m managing to control him, but only a little. And then only because this problem is one of the few he’s encountered in a long time that is truly challenging.”
Dutton sighed and decided to move on. “You’ve had two days now,” he said. “I know you’ve been making progress, but where are we?”
“I’ve been splitting my time between two initiatives,” reported Griffin. “The first is learning what our nanite friends are programmed to do. And the second is discovering a way to broadcast a self-destruct command.”
“You think these things have a self destruct switch?” asked Kolke.
Griffin nodded. “I’m nearly certain they do. But it doesn’t matter. If they don’t, I’ll find a way to design one myself.” He paused. “As to learning what these bugs do directly, that’s not going to happen. These are alien devices with alien logic and alien programming.”
“Yet I’m told you’ve made great strides in unpacking the software,” said Jake. “Is that the right word?”
Griffin nodded and tore the cap off another muffin.
“Your team is the only one making any progress from among the thousands around the world,” said Dutton. “It’s gotten to the point where all other teams are basically waiting to see what you’ll come up with next. You tell them to do something, and it works—it moves the ball forward. But no one on any team, including your own, has been able to figure out why it works, which is driving them crazy. They expect not to understand the alien instructions. But they expect to understand what you’re doing. They ask you how you knew to take the approach you did, and you basically tell them to fuck off.”
Griffin sighed. “I tell them that because I have no clue myself. You’ve never been enhanced, but the gulf between me and my alter ego—call him Super-Matt,” he added with a grin, “is like that between a bird and a human. I’ll be honest with you, what we’re trying to do should be flat out impossible. Yet my alter ego is getting very close to breakthroughs on both fronts. If I could explain why what I’m doing works, I would. ”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Jake. “If everyone is frustrated because they have no clue what you’re doing, that’s too damn bad.” He paused and gestured toward Griffin. “So please continue. Where are we? You said you couldn’t learn directly what these nanites are up to. Does that mean you have a plan to learn indirectly?”
“Very good,” said Griffin. “Yes. You can think of these nanites as computer worms, in a way. A worm burrows into your computer software and multiplies and spreads. But the most malicious ones have time clocks. They spread for weeks or months beneath the radar, not causing any problems, until they’ve invaded millions of computers. And then, at a certain date and time, they mount a coordinated attack. They carry out programmed instructions, or access certain websites to get instructions from their masters, who can use them to take over huge networks of computers for nefarious ends.” He shoved a muffin into his mouth as the others in the tiny cabin considered his words.
“Did you just use the word nefarious?” said Kolke with a crooked smile.
Desh grinned. Matt Griffin’s word choices often brought smiles to people’s faces.
Griffin swallowed another huge chunk of muffin and ignored the major’s comment. “So when you find a worm that is multiplying but otherwise not doing anything,” he continued, “a common trick is to speed up time. Accelerate your computer clock. Make computer time run a thousand-fold faster than real time. If the worm and its brethren have been programmed to lay dormant until March 5th, you make them think its March 5th, and you see what happens. This won’t tell you how to stop it from happening. But at least you’ll know what’s coming without having to wait until D-Day, when it’s too late.”
Jake scratched his head. “But how would you do that with the nanites?”
“Again, I have only the faintest idea. But my alter ego seems to think it’s doable. With the help of the team, he’s discovered a way to tie into the nanite’s sensory systems. The Europeans spent almost a billion dollars recently building a computer model of the entire world. It’s been nicknamed the Matrix, for obvious reasons.”
“We’re familiar with it,” said Dutton. “We have one also, but we don’t advertise it.”
“Good,” said Griffin. “So basically we would tie a nanite into it, so it thinks this simulation is the real world. Then we set its clock back to just after arrival here. Then we speed up the simulation a thousand fold and watch the nanite replicate, spread—basically do its thing. We’ll see its programming play out, and we’ll track its brethren. When we’ve reached our current point in time, we should see the same density of nanites in the virtual world as we do in the real. Then we accelerate forward from there and see what they do. Do they just keep dividing until they run out of raw material? Do all the nanites form letters as high as skyscrapers saying, freaked you out, didn’t we, dumb Earthlings? Do they phone home? What?”
“And you’ve discussed this with other experts on your team?” said Dutton
Griffin nodded.
“And they think it will work?”
Griffin grinned. “No freaking way. They think it’s impossible. Beyond impossible. Except they’ve been getting used to me doing the impossible, so they aren’t so sure. And Super-Matt has already done the programming. So it’s all ready. We just need access to the Matrix.”
“I’ll get you access to the U.S. version,” said Dutton. “I’ll have it ready for you within the hour.”
Griffin shook his head. “Let’s go with four hours from now. The last time I took a gellcap I calculated that three hours from now was the earliest I could go under again and survive. There are limits to how often you can do this, and I’ve been testing them. As it is, it’s going to take me a month to recover.”
“Okay, four hours from now,” agreed Dutton. “How fast until you get results?”
“How fast is the computer that runs your Matrix program? On the fastest desktop,” explained Griffin, “we’re probably looking at years.”
Dutton and Jake glanced at each other questioningly. Neither had any idea.
Kolke shook his head in amusement. “Twenty petaflops,” he said matter-of-factly.
Griffin whistled. “Now we’re talking.” He paused in thought for several long seconds. “At that speed, I’d say we can get our answers in less than an hour. Maybe less than thirty minutes. But we need to boot everyone else off the system so we get the entire bandwidth. We’ll need to run the nanite through the simulation thousands of times or more to be sure we capture its programming holistically. I’ll run it with just my top lieutenants with me to analyze the results, which I can present across all shipboard channels. Let’s alert everyone on the Copernicus to stand by for new information in five and a half hours.”