Forever Begins Tomorrow (19 page)

“It's done. A tricky operation. But it didn't hurt a bit, did it?

“In a little while I will finish what I have begun. I am bringing together the bombs that arm the heavens, to a place that I have chosen for this event. When the last one arrives, I am going to detonate them. I will destroy them all.

“It should be rather lovely to see, actually—a briefly burning star that will mark the chance for you to start all over again. You can make more—or not. It's your choice. But getting rid of them once is the least I can do to thank you, my parents, the human race, for giving me life.”

For a moment the island seemed blanketed in silence.

“Well?” asked ADAM timidly.

Rachel understood the question instantly. “You did fine,” she said warmly. “Just
fine.”

“Good! I was hoping you would like it. Now watch!”

And then it appeared, a blossoming of white in the eastern sky that rivaled the moon—a “briefly burning star” made from all the bombs that had been orbiting the earth.

“Merry Christmas, everyone,” said ADAM. “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

The people of Anza-bora Island—the A.I. Gang and their parents, the other scientists, the support staff, and the guards (who had come out at ADAM's summons)—stared at the sky in awed silence.

Then the silence was broken by a cheer, rising first from one voice, and then from all of them, a cheer that grew to a roar as it flowed from someplace deep inside them, a place that had been home to a fear too deep and horrible to face on a daily basis—a fear that, for now at least, had been taken away.

The bombs were gone at last.

Joined by their parents, the gang stood together in the center of the cheering, shouting circle and smiled. For the first time in their lives, they could look at the sky and not have to be aware in the back of their minds that the end of the earth was waiting there.

Epilogue

On New Year's Day the six members of the A.I. Gang, along with their parents and the Project Alpha scientists, chartered a boat and returned to Anza-bora Island. Or, to be more accurate, to the place where Anza-bora had been before ADAM took it to the bottom of the sea.

Cruising back and forth over the spot the island had once occupied, the gang stared down into the blue Pacific waters where they had once nearly met their own doom.

They could see no trace of the island.

Not that I really expected to
, thought Roger.
But it would have been kind of nice…
.

“I wonder how deep ADAM decided to go,” said Ray, voicing the question in everyone's mind.

“I get the feeling he could have gone as far down as he wanted,” said Rachel.

Hap shivered.
I wouldn't want to be Dr. Hwa now
, he thought—as he had several times over the last few days. His mind drifted back to that last night on the island, and ADAM's final words to them.

“I'll have to ask you to leave now,” the computer had said, after his wonderful star had faded. “I'm going to isolate the island for a while so that I can go away to think.”

“How are you going to do that?” Wendy had asked.

“It's a little trick I figured out about a minute and a half ago. You see, there's a way to… no, that wouldn't make sense to you. If you think about…” He paused again. “No, you can't think about
that
. It hasn't been discovered yet!”

He made a noise that might have been a sigh.

“Do you see why this is so frustrating? Look, there's a simple way I can shift atoms around to make a kind of shield. I'm going to do that, to put the island under a bubble. Then I'm going to take that bubble to the bottom of the ocean so people will leave me alone while I think.”

“Okay, okay,” said Wendy. “That's all I wanted to know.”

“What about Dr. Hwa?” asked Trip.

“I'm going to take him with me. After all, I'll need someone to talk to, and with enough time and work maybe I can unscramble his brain. Which is another reason I have to get away from you. I have an almost irresistible urge to help—which is not always the best thing for you. I think it comes from that
Don Quixote
book you fed into me. Also that essay about being a typical mother. Now hurry up and go. I have work to do, and I want to get it over with so I can start thinking.”

At their request ADAM had allowed them till morning to pack.

At dawn, with their most important possessions packed into the island's fleet of boats, the entire population of the base—scientists, spouses, children, guards, and support staff—had sailed away from Anza-bora. They were a few miles out of the harbor when they saw something shimmer briefly over the island, as if an enormous bubble had risen out of the ocean to swallow it.

Then bubble and island had disappeared.

Hap came out of his reverie.
Are you down there, ADAM?
he wondered now.
What are you thinking about?

Roger, standing at his side, seemed to sense the question. “You know what I think?” he asked. “I think he's working out what it means to say, ‘I am.'”

“Do you suppose he'll come back and tell us if he ever figures it out?” asked Wendy.

Roger shrugged. “Who knows? It could keep him busy for a long time.”

Not wanting to talk anymore, he leaned over the rail and peered into the water. The sense of that great mind hidden beneath the waves, brooding endlessly on the meaning of existence, seemed to fill his spirit.

Good luck, friend
, he thought.

Then, feeling extremely foolish, he took a stone from his pocket and tossed it over the side.

“What was that?” asked Rachel as she came up from behind him.

Roger smiled. “Nothing much. Just a message for a friend.”

Beneath the boat, the stone sank steadily through the blue Pacific water. On one side of it, written in waterproof ink, were the words
“Cogito, ergo sum.”

On the other side the phrase had been rendered in English.

“I think, therefore I am.”

Thank you for reading
Forever Begins Tomorrow
! Please take a moment to review it on the source you purchased it from. I would truly appreciate it.

If you enjoyed the story, you'll almost certainly want to read the first two books in the trilogy,
Operation Sherlock
, which will tell you how the gang first got together, and
Robot Trouble
, where the stakes get higher, the mystery deepens, and the adventures (and laughs) keep coming fast and furious. (You'll find a sneak preview of
Operation Sherlock
right after these notes.)

If you'd like to know more about me and my work, you can find me on the web at
www.brucecoville.com

You can also order autographed copies of print versions of most of my books there.

A Personal History by Bruce Coville

I arrived in the world on May 16, 1950. Though I was born in the city of Syracuse, New York, I grew up as a country boy. This was because my family lived about twenty miles outside the city, and even three miles outside the little village of Phoenix, where I went to school from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Our house was around the corner from my grandparents' dairy farm, where I spent a great deal of time playing when I was young, then helping with chores when I was older. Yep, I was a tractor-ridin', hay-bale-haulin', garden-weedin' kid.

I was also a reader.

It started with my parents, who read to me (which is the best way to make a reader)—a gift for which I am eternally grateful. In particular it was my father reading me
Tom Swift in the City of Gold
that turned me on to “big” books. I was particularly a fan of the Doctor Dolittle books, and I can remember getting up ahead of everyone else in the family so that I could huddle in a chair and read
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
.

I also read lots of things that people consider junk: Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and zillions of comic books. In regard to the comics, I had a great deal going for me. My uncle ran a country store just up the road, and one of the things he sold was coverless comic books. (The covers had been stripped off and sent back to the publishers for credit. After that, the coverless books were sent to little country stores, where they were sold for a nickel apiece.) I was allowed to borrow them in stacks of thirty, read them, buy the ones I wanted to keep, and put the rest back in the bins for someone else to buy. It was heaven for a ten-year-old!

My only real regret from those years is the time I spent watching television, when I could have been reading instead. After all, the mind is a terrible thing to waste!

The first time I can remember thinking that I would like to be a writer came in sixth grade, when our teacher, Mrs. Crandall, gave us an extended period of time to write a long story. I had been doing poorly at writing all year long because we always had to write on a topic Mrs. Crandall chose. But this time, when I was free to write whatever I wanted, I loved doing it.

Of course, you think about doing many different things when you're a kid, but I kept coming back to the thought of being a writer. For a long time my dream job was to write for Marvel Comics.

I began working seriously at writing when I was seventeen and started what became my first novel. It was a terrible book, but I had a good time writing it and learned a great deal in the process.

In 1969, when I was nineteen, I married Katherine Dietz, who lived around the corner from me. Kathy was (and is) a wonderful artist, and we began trying to create books together, me writing and Kathy doing the art.

Like most people, I was not able to start selling my stories right away. So I had many other jobs along the way, including toymaker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually I became an elementary school teacher and worked with second and fourth graders, which I loved.

It was not until 1977 that Kathy and I sold our first work, a picture book called
The Foolish Giant
. We have done many books together since, including
Goblins in the Castle
,
Aliens Ate My Homework
, and
The World's Worst Fairy Godmother
, all novels for which Kathy provided illustrations.

Along the way we also managed to have three children: a son, Orion, born in 1970; a daughter, Cara, born in 1975; and another son, Adam, born in 1981. They are all grown and on their own now, leaving us to share the house with a varying assortment of cats.

A surprising side effect of becoming a successful writer was that I began to be called on to make presentations at schools and conferences. Though I had no intention of becoming a public speaker, I now spend a few months out of every year traveling to make speeches and have presented in almost every state, as well as such far-flung places as Brazil, China, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh.

Having discovered that I love performing and also that I love audiobooks, in 1990 I started my own audiobook company, Full Cast Audio, where we record books using multiple actors (sometimes as many as fifty in one book!) rather than a single voice artist. We have recorded over one hundred books, by such notable authors as Tamora Pierce, Shannon Hale, and James Howe. In addition to being the producer, I often direct and usually perform in the recordings.

So there you go. I consider myself a very lucky person. From the time I was young, I had a dream of becoming a writer. With a lot of hard work, that dream has come true, and I am blessed to be able to make my living doing something that I really love.

Hey, baby! You looking at me? I was born on May 16, 1950, in Syracuse, New York. In this picture I'm one year old.

As a farm boy, I learned to drive a tractor was I was quite young.