Suddenly a gigantic circular door opened up in the underbelly of the hovering disk and the disk began to slowly lower itself. “What’s it doing now?” Rich asked.
“It’s an invitation,” James replied, appearing from out of the house and walking past his team. “Keep your wits. Let’s go.” He lifted off the ground and flew into the belly of the disk, disappearing into the bright light within.
“Crap. Crap,” Rich whispered, valiantly trying to stave off hyperventilation.
“Come on,” Thel said reassuringly, gently helping Rich up into the air. “It’ll be fine.”
Old-timer was last to enter the darkness above. “What have you in store?” he mused to himself before cautiously following his friends into the mouth of the unknown.
Once Old-timer was inside, the door closed, and the disk streaked away from the commander’s house like a black bullet.
11
The trip lasted less than a minute, but even a minute is too long to be shut inside a metallic coffin. The only discernible feature within the disk was the light fixture on the ceiling that shined a harsh and unforgiving light.
With little warning, the bottom of the room slowly opened up, and fresh air poured in like a dream. The four humans floated to the pavement below, adjacent to a massive, black cubic structure that stretched for hundreds of meters in both directions.
“Where are we?” Thel asked.
“Seattle,” Rich responded as he observed the surroundings he had flown over only a half-hour earlier. He was happy to, for once, know something that the others didn’t.
Rich’s answer only seemed to spur another question. “Why Seattle?”
“This is where it lives,” answered James, bearing the look of a man straddling two worlds.
“What are you thinking, James?” asked Thel as she studied his faraway stare.
“Not sure yet. But I’m working on it.”
A monolithic black metal door began to slowly slide open at the side of the gigantic mainframe building.
“Another invitation?” Thel suggested as she watched the black door give way to an even darker inside.
“Come into my parlor…” James whispered to himself. He turned to the rest of the team, who were standing behind him. “There’s no way to know what’s waiting for us in there. Keep aware of your surroundings. If you see anything that doesn’t seem right, don’t take a chance—fly out of there as fast as you can.”
“Are you expecting trouble?” Thel asked.
“With the exception of us, the entire species was wiped out today. All that’s left is trouble.”
With that, James turned and walked into the black. His three companions followed closely behind. Once inside the darkness, the gigantic door began to close behind them. Thel’s fingers gripped James’s arm as the daylight retreated. Before the light was completely gone, however, new lights began to shine from overhead. The entire complex was illuminated by thousands of tiny points of light. The walls of the massive complex appeared to be computerized—they were now surrounded by the physical mainframe of the A.I.
“Welcome, Commander Keats!” said a disembodied voice with the searing sibilance of electricity.
“Am I talking to the A.I.?” James asked.
“Indeed,” the voice replied. “Perhaps you would feel more comfortable…” the voice began as a man suddenly appeared from out of thin air and finished the sentence with a crisp British accent and a throaty voice so reassuring that it was hard not to smile while listening to him, “…if I took a familiar form?”
The form the A.I. had chosen was of a cordial, elderly man and he stood, smiling warmly only a couple of meters away, as though he were a dear old friend. Most of the team had only seen the elderly in photographs and films, but it was still the image popularly associated with Santa Claus and God. He was bearded and wore a white robe. His smile was perfect. Absolutely the most comforting smile possible—mathematically possible.
“Why have you brought us here?” James asked him.
“I knew you had been disconnected from me on Venus. After what happened with the download, I had hoped your disconnection had allowed you to survive.”
“You were right, James. It was the download,” Thel interjected.
The A.I. smiled and locked his heavenly blue eyes upon her. “James is very rarely wrong. It is always a good idea to listen to him, Thel.”
“A virus,” James sighed.
“Yes, James. A virus. Somehow it got past security. It killed everyone connected to the Net almost instantaneously. There wasn’t enough time for me to identify the problem and abort. In less than a blink of an eye, I’d lost everyone.”
“Who would do this?” Old-timer asked.
“I still have not identified the murderer, Craig. Thousands of people work on the design of an upgrade. Any one of them could have implanted a virus. It would have had to have been someone who was deeply mentally disturbed.”
“No kidding,” Rich asserted.
“No registered Net users, other than the five of you who were on Venus, were disconnected at the time of the download. Whoever did this apparently killed him- or herself as well. A murder-suicide.”
“And the victim was the human race,” Old-timer said with disbelief in his voice, as though he were unable to comprehend that he had used his lips to form the words.
“Not quite. There were the five of you…although you seem to be one short,” the A.I. stated.
“She’s dead,” James quickly replied.
His companions did not contradict him but his lie alarmed them. It was clear that James didn’t trust the A.I., and that meant the rest of the team shouldn’t either.
“She was killed by the power surge that disconnected the rest of us.”
“A shame. I am sorry for your loss.”
James didn’t reply—his face still—his eyes fixed.
“I am sure you are all tired and hungry. I can offer you nourishment. There is a replicator in the complex. You will, of course, all need transfusions so that you can come back online.” The A.I.’s words heightened the tension in the room. “Please, do not worry. I assure you that the problem with the nans has been repaired. I located the virus and disabled it. It is perfectly safe to come back online.”
“Something to eat and some water sounds pretty good right about now. What do you say, Commander?” Rich asked, breaking an uncomfortable silence.
James remained silent for a moment as the A.I. smiled reassuringly, almost pleadingly at the humans before him. It was time for James to show his hand in this poker game.
“You’re lying to us,” James began, “and I want to know why.”
“Your assertion is incorrect,” replied the A.I., continuing to smile. “I have told you only the truth. I understand your trepidation. You’ve had a traumatic experience and it is difficult for you to trust anyone, but you need to come back online if you wish to eat or to rest.” He motioned for the team to follow him, but they remained in their places, standing next to James.
“We’re not going anywhere with you. You gave yourself away.”
The A.I.’s smile melted slowly.
“If you’d suggested an outsider, someone unregistered, implanting a virus into the upgrade, I might have believed it. But you suggested that it was someone who was part of the design. You know that’s impossible. The nans would have sensed the murderous intent just as they sense any other behavior that you and the Governing Council deem deviant. It would have been reported. The killer would have been caught before he got near the upgrade.”