Goliath

“Not want—did. I destroyed the schematics, but I didn’t touch the computer components or sell the plans, I wouldn’t do that. And I swear on my mother’s soul that I didn’t know Simon was going to steal them either.”

“All right. But that still doesn’t tell me why.”

Gunnar paces again. “I was blindsided. There was a meeting … I was called to the Pentagon. It was just after Rocky and I got engaged. The DoD ordered me to redesign the Hammerhead as a remotely operated vehicle.”

“And?”

“It was their reasons behind the design changes that pissed me off.” Gunnar turns to face his former mentor. “Seems some four-star general decided my stealth subs would make the perfect delivery system for pure-fusion bombs.”

Bear rubs his forehead, grimacing.

“Oh, you should have heard ’em, Bear, sitting around the table, reviewing the improved dimensions of the killing field … sounded as if they were discussing a profit and loss statement. Pure fusion … the way of the future. You familiar with the weapon?”

“Somewhat. The bomb requires no plutonium in the mix.”

“Correct. What you’re left with is a bigger blast but no radioactive fallout. Perfect if you want to eliminate your enemy but rebuild at a later date. A pure-fusion device small enough to squeeze into one of Goliath’s minisubs could potentially wipe out a country the size of Kuwait.”

Jackson scratches at his auburn Afro. “Look, son, I understand your concerns, but keep in mind, son, we’re not the bad guys. The nuclear genie’s been out of his bottle since my father fought in the big one. The name of the game today isn’t destruction, it’s maintaining the stalemate. The French’ve been working on pure fusion for more than a decade. For all we know the Russians—”

“Ugghhh!” Gunnar backhands the lamp, smashing it against the wall. “Wake up, Bear, we’re out of our freaking minds! Soldiers and civilians are no longer human beings, they’re kill ratios. This is the goddamn doomsday bomb, plain and simple, and you’re justifying the need for potential genocide.”

Bear averts eye contact. He’s done. The commando mentality’s gone. His brain’s fried.

“And what about Covah?” Jackson asks. “Did the men and women of the Ronald Reagan deserve to die?”

Gunnar stops pacing. “No. Simon went too far.”

“And the whole prison thing? Is that how you want your career to end? You can stop him, Gunnar. You can prevent him from killing any more innocent people.”

“I don’t know … maybe.” Gunnar leans back against his old desk. “Covah’s just part of the equation; the bigger problem is Sorceress.”

“It’s a computer. You’ll find a way to shut it down.”

“You don’t get it, do you? This is AI, the real deal. Sorceress is a self-replicating system—a prototype—originally intended to be deployed by NASA for deep-space nonhuman applications. Land Sorceress on Mars or Europa on board a probe, and the machine runs everything, growing as it acquires information. But on a nuclear sub?”

“What’s your point?”

“Christ, Bear, wake up! Sorceress is the ultimate thinking machine, and it’s programmed to learn. Elizabeth Goode made a breakthrough and the DoD jumped on it, dropping billions into the program before any of us could gain an understanding of what we were dealing with.”

“You’re overreacting. We don’t even know if it’s on board.”

Gunnar looks up with bloodshot eyes at his former CO. “It’s on board. And as it self-replicates and grows, we’ll understand less and less about it, making it even more difficult to take off-line.” He pauses, a distant memory tugging at him. “I remember an experiment we conducted for NASA back in 2001, it used a Starbridge Systems computer a thousand times more powerful than a traditional PC. It was one of the many stepping-stone systems Dr. Goode used to configure Sorceress. The computer was asked to recognize basic audio tones. The computer completed the task … only too well. Five of its logic circuits evolved independently. Dr. Goode told me her researchers had no idea how or why it happened, but whenever they tried to bypass the evolved cells, the entire system would shut itself down … as if it refused to sacrifice its independence.”

“And all this means?”

“Multiply that simple experiment by a million. Sorceress is a thinking machine designed to evolve, and it’s been functioning for several weeks now. Who knows what it’s learned even in that small amount of time? Who knows if Simon can even maintain control?”

The general stands. “You know Covah better than any of us. What’s he intending to do?”

Gunnar shakes his head, the jet lag wearing on his brain. “I don’t know. Simon lost his entire family in the Serbian uprising. My guess is he wants revenge. If I were him, I’d move Goliath into the Mediterranean and launch an attack on Belgrade.”

“We can’t allow that to happen, can we?” Bear stares at his protégé. “Gunnar?”

No response.