Immortality (42 page)

The CDC Facility in Atlanta had become an armed camp. There was now an entire detachment of Special Forces assigned to guard the facility. They had dogs, machine guns, armored vehicles, and two helicopters. The armored vehicles blocked the roadways. No one was getting inside uninvited. The presence of a protective force would have been comforting except for one problem: no one was leaving without permission from the military. The facility was now sealed off from the outside world. Mark had wanted to go to his hotel room for the night. He had been denied permission to leave. The soldiers were very polite and respectful and they did dispatch someone immediately to collect his belongings. But no matter how many times they addressed him as ‘sir’ and saluted, the inescapable fact was that he was now a prisoner of the United States Government.

The Army set up provisions for bunking, food, and sanitation. Mark, Kathy, Carl Green, and others fortunate enough to have senor staff offices on the fourth floor had what amounted to small hotel rooms. Everyone else had to accept using locker room showers and sleeping in shared offices or barracks set up in conference rooms. Supplies were stockpiled in every inch of available space. Cases of freeze-dried food were stacked to the ceiling in Mark’s office. Army tents the size of houses were erected in the parking lot. There were satellite dishes and portable generators next to a huge camouflage-painted mobile home which was a military computer and communications command center. All these preparations sent a clear message that someone higher up was planning for the staff to remain under government control at this armed encampment for a very long time – or if necessary, forever.

Since his return from Los Angeles, Mark had immersed himself in his work. He hadn’t had a drink or other medication and had no intention of crawling back into that refuge. The unfiltered reality heightened his feelings of loss; but along with the pain came a new sense of life and purpose, a purpose which the horrors of New Jersey and Los Angeles and New York only strengthened.

The holocaust had grown quiet as rapidly as it had burst onto the hapless planet. On December twelfth, more than a hundred large kill zones had hit around the world. None had occurred in the two days since then. There was endless news footage of people who were numb yet struggling to hold together what remained. The news shows had theme songs and special logos for their coverage. Different rumors and pet theories were being hawked by an army of talking heads. The hemispheric band theory being pushed by eco-terrorist Minasu had made a big splash on CNN and was now being treated as if it were scientific fact. Truth was an early casualty, but paranoia was in no short supply among reporters either. A talk-show host had stated that the I64 line’s placement parallel to the bottom of the northern band was proof that the government had known about the
Minasu Bands
all along and was doing nothing to protect the public-at-large. This rumor was immediately picked up by lazier reporters and regurgitated in every way imaginable. Due to this rumor and others like it, hundreds of thousands of refugees were now camped at the I64 quarantine line, with more arriving every hour. The quarantine had become a symbolic line between hope and despair – and was covered by the media in that light. Mark suspected that all the quarantine lines were pointless. He was beginning to believe infected COBIC was wherever water could be found and that it was mostly dormant for now. Deep inside, he feared this small reprieve would not last. In the week since he’d received Karla Hunt’s e-mail, he’d proved that infected COBIC was in fact some kind of artificial device, a hybrid of Chromatium bacterium and computerized nanotech machine. And like all computers, this thing had to be running a program, which meant there could be a schedule of kill zones it was following. He felt lost every time his mind drifted to visions of trillions of microbe-sized ticking bombs scattered across the globe like dust.

The technology was many decades beyond anything he could find in research papers. He was in daily consultation with Karla Hunt and several other experts in related fields, who formed his newly assembled nanotech advisory panel. All those bright minds were stumped as to where this technology could have come from; and if it was not a weapon, why it had been created? One expert suggested the device could be the result of a self-replicating and evolving nanotech experiment which had gone wildly out of control, but no one was able to adequately address the hurdles this theory raised. According to the panel, the technology did not exist to build a machine like these seeds. The most advanced nanotech work was being done at IBM, and theirs was an autonomous machine ten times larger and thousands of times simpler. The head of IBM’s project was Dr. Param Marjari, one of Mark’s experts. Some panel members were suggesting the nanotech was a ‘black’ defense department weapons project that escaped, while others were openly discussing alien technology and accidental infection from space. Speculation was running out of control. The simple answer was that there was no answer. Mark was confident that little green men were not the source of this device. His advisory panel evidently had far too much imagination. They were looking for complicated answers while Mark knew that core truths were often very simple. We humans had proved to be endlessly imaginative in coming up with ways to kill each other. This device was probably nothing more than the latest gift from that dark region of our psyche.

At least progress was being made on other fronts. The knowledge that they were dealing with a machine made it easier to study and even coerce reactions from the hybrid devices. Mark was certain that infected COBIC had some level of computer intelligence and was actively trying to avoid detection. By using low energy observation techniques and bait of untainted COBIC, he had been able to capture video of seeds reproducing and infecting their host bacterium. Reproduction only occurred in material-laden water, with seawater proving to be the best medium. The process was barely visible due to limitations in the type of low energy x-ray microscope that had to be used. The assembly of a new seed occurred over a one hour period. The process was thought to be similar to the growth of a crystal and looked like nothing more than ghostly scaffolding slowly materializing into view. The best theory so far was that raw material was harvested from seawater and assembled at a molecular level into a new seed. The assembly of each new seed always occurred within microns of a bacterium already infected with a seed. The unproven assumption was that the existing seed was either building or causing the self-assembly of the new seed. The proximity between new and old seed was so close that, in some cases, the forming seed appeared to be touching the cellular wall of the infected bacterium.

Once complete, the free-floating seed would slowly travel in a straight line directly toward the closest uninfected COBIC using a means of mobility that was both invisible and undetectable. The free-floating ball appeared to be nearly identical to an embedded seed. The only difference in appearance was a complete absence of the threadlike roots which connected an embedded seed to its host. Once in contact with an uninfected bacterium, the free-floating seed would pass through the bacterium’s cellular membrane and into the nucleoid where it would take root. Dissection had confirmed that within minutes after invasion, the host’s nucleoid and cytoplasm were completely entwined with nearly invisible threadlike roots. Both the seed’s passage through cellular membranes and root growth were new mysteries. The bacteria’s cell wall appeared to open and then reseal without any sign of trauma. Mark suspected some kind of molecular manipulation was being employed, much like the assembly process which was used to create each new seed. If this was true, it meant seeds might be able to pass through almost any physical barrier by simply rearranging the barrier’s molecular bonds. Mark had learned that this kind of molecular assembly was one of the holy grails of nanotech research.

After the latest mass deaths, corporate America and the government had sent ever more money and resources flowing into the CDC. Mark had requested and received specialized equipment developed by IBM for molecular-level microelectronics research. The piece of equipment called a Mole had a ten-year waiting list. The system was delivered and installed in less than a day. It looked like the equipment had been pulled from an existing installation. A custom fixture had arrived by courier the next morning. The Mole was able to image objects in real-time at a level of magnification equal to an electron microscope; and it had nanomanipulators that could move and grip structures only hundreds of molecules in size. Mark hoped this equipment would allow him to see the hidden details of seed assembly. If he could capture that information, it might yield clues to the inner structure and workings of the nanotech device.

The nanotech advisory panel’s daily teleconference had just taken an unexpected direction. Mark almost knocked over his coffee as he hastily retrieved a research paper from a stack on his desk. The paper was about something called emergent behaviors. Mark’s understanding of emergent behaviors was that super-intelligent group actions could spontaneously arise from the random interactions of very primitive creatures. The interesting thing was that these super-intelligent actions were in essence unguided and accidental. Through natural selection, successful emergent behaviors were encoded into a species and passed on to future groups. The paper used honeybees, termites, and ants as examples. As a collective, ants carried out plans far beyond the brainpower of their species. With zero I.Q., they developed means of constructing cities, waging wars, building tools, and even hunting in groups. The theory being discussed in the conference call was that these nanotech seeds could be operating in a similar manner. The idea was incredibly frightening. What Mark had originally thought of as a very simple computer was now starting to sound like some kind of artificial intelligence.

Mark had seven experts on the conference call, seven minds and egos wrestling with one another to be right. After an hour of conflicting speculations, Professor Karla Hunt delivered what Mark considered the genesis of a second revelation about COBIC. Her question was so obvious and simple and inexcusably overlooked.

“Does anyone think the actions of groups of seeds are coordinated?” she asked.

It became immediately clear that everyone had assumed consensus where none existed. Some experts believed the actions were coordinated by a kind of collaborative supervisory program; others assumed the mechanics of random stimulus and emergent behavior with no master plan.

“I can’t believe you actually think trillions of these hybrid devices are coordinating their actions,” said Dr. Snow in a shrill voice. “There’s no collective supercomputer working here. Do you honestly think these specks of nanotech dust function as a single networked supercomputer?”

“Naturally so.” said Dr. Marjari. “If their actions are limited to only emergent behavior as you suggest, then how can you explain countywide kill zones being composed of smaller kill zones sometimes separated by miles? All the small zones occur at the same time and in an orchestrated geometric pattern. Random emergent behavior does not spring up in a synchronized way. Two beehives separated by miles do not simultaneously swarm with a coordinated plan.”

“There are ways to explain how emergent behavior could result in synchronized events,” said Snow. “The devices could be reacting to the same area wide stimulus or signal. For example, sunrise could light a fuse for an event that occurs hours later and appears coordinated, when it was only synchronized to the rising sun. Your theory has a huge problem. If the actions are intelligently coordinated, how are the seeds hosting this mythical supercomputer of yours? An impossible amount of network bandwidth would be needed.”

Mark stopped listening to the arguments. His head was spinning. They were all overshooting the point. They were all too interested in winning their arcane arguments. The important question was not which kind of
program design
could best reproduce these behaviors. The important question was much simpler and less technical. Were the seeds communicating? This was the real question and maybe the crux of it all. If the seeds were communicating, then breaking their lines of communication might stop them in their tracks.

Kathy wandered into Mark’s office. She hadn’t intended to go there. She was troubled and needed to talk with someone. His door was open. He looked completely absorbed by something on his computer screen. He hadn’t noticed she was standing five feet away. She liked the changes she saw in him. A week ago he was drugged and depressed. Now he was back in control of his life. He glanced up. Instead of showing surprise, he smiled and took off his glasses.

“Got a minute?” asked Kathy.

“Sure. What’s up?”

Mark rubbed his eyes. Kathy walked over to the couch and sat down. The coffee table was littered with computer printouts of articles, handwritten notes, and some of Mark’s personal things. She picked up an old Rubik’s Cube and toyed absentmindedly with it while talking. In less than a minute, one side was already a solid color. She had tried Mark’s idea for automated testing of blood samples for infection. Lab techs had worked straight through the night setting up the needed equipment and software. After a two hour incubation period, the test was able to screen samples in rapid succession. Once scaled up, they would be able to test entire populations of people.

“We got results on Gloria Martinez’s blood,” she said. “Your new test worked great. The computer did all the work and turned up a positive count on all her samples. Her spinal fluid was loaded with infected COBIC.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” asked Mark.

“It’s something to investigate, but it’s not what I was hoping to find. Everything we know says she should be dead with that much COBIC in her. I was hoping to find no COBIC – I was hoping her immune system had wiped them out and that’s why she’d survived. Now I’m not sure where to go with this. How do I discover a negative? This isn’t a disease; it’s a weapon. Out of millions of possibilities, how do I uncover why the weapon didn’t kill her? Did her body interfere with how it kills or was some electronic signal just blocked by accident?”