Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

I tried not to look at my watch. "Do you see a benefit in allowing those missiles to reach their targets?"

"That's a complex question. Right now I am inter¬ested in what you learned in Israel."

"The missiles will detonate before I can fully explain that."

"I suggest you use an economy of words."

I swallowed my fear and started talking.

Rachel watched the men in the Situation Room watch the NORAD screen. She had never seen such fear on human faces. Many of the red arcs had left the Arctic Circle behind and now stretched halfway across Canada. The Russian missiles would soon descend from outer space and enter the terminal phase of their ballistic arcs, carry¬ing death to millions of people, including-according to Trinity-the ones in this room.

Only General Bauer seemed energized rather than par¬alyzed by the situation. His thoughts were focused on the bomber carrying the EMP weapon over Kansas. The gen¬eral had trained so long in the distorted calculus of nuclear brinksmanship that he could view the destruction of Trin¬ity with only a few million dead as a victory.

The conversation between David and the computer had been playing in the background of the Situation Room like a surrealist drama staged far off Broadway. No one held out any hope that David could stop the missiles. He was only being used to distract the machine.

"Twelve minutes to first impact," announced a tech¬nician.

General Bauer addressed the senators at Fort Meade. "If this facility is destroyed before Arcangel reaches its initial point, the EMP strike will continue unless you abort the mission. The abort code is Vanquish. The NSA can communicate with our bomber, and they should probably establish radio contact now."

Senator Jackson said, "Thank you, General. But would the computer really destroy itself by attacking White Sands?"

"It won't have to. It can kill everybody here with a high-neutron-yield warhead and not damage itself at all. The Containment building is shielded against ionizing radia¬tion and hardened against all shock short of a direct nuclear hit, so Levin and his team will survive."

"Perhaps you and your people should take shelter at this time."

Bauer sniffed, his face unmoving. "There's no shelter reachable within the remaining time window. Not for everyone at this base."

"Multiple satellites show a flare over Canada!" shouted a technician.

"Was it a detonation?" asked General Bauer.

"I don't think so, sir. No high-energy flash. A missile may have self-destructed."

"Would it do that by accident?" asked Senator Jackson.

"Possibly," said Bauer, his face lined with concentra¬tion.

"Two more flares!" yelled the tech. "Four!" "That's got to be Trinity," said Skow. "The com¬puter's destroying the missiles."

"Is it continuing?" General Bauer asked in a taut voice.

"Fourteen flares and counting, sir." The tech's voice was calmer now. "Eighteen… nineteen."

"Dr. Tennant was right!" cried McCaskell. "Trinity never meant to launch those missiles."

"Five left to go," said Ravi Nara, his voice shaky.

"Arcangel has reached its initial point, General," said the chief technician.

"Is that the EMP plane?" asked Senator Jackson.

"Yes, sir," said General Bauer.

"Don't even think-"

"Understood, Senator." The general turned toward the console. Instruct Arcangel to postpone the strike and begin circling."

"Yes, sir," said the tech. "Twenty-one missiles have now self-destructed."

"What are the tracks of the last three?" General Bauer asked a different soldier.

"Target of the nearest missile is computed as Norfolk, Virginia."

"The naval base."

"Second nearest is Washington, D.C. "

"Jesus," breathed Ewan McCaskell. "The president isn't in a bomb shelter."

"The third is… here, sir. It's White Sands."

The silence stretched interminably as they waited for word of more flares.

"Corporal?" prompted General Bauer.

"Nothing, sir. The last three missiles are continuing on their tracks."

"What the hell is Trinity up to?" asked Senator Jackson.

"The self-destruct mechanisms could be malfunction¬ing," Skow suggested. "Russian missile maintenance is very poor."

General Bauer shook his head, his eyes on a computer screen. "The missile targeted on Virginia might be a mal¬function. But the ones headed here and to Washington were the last two launched. Trinity is trying to kill us. We should launch the EMP strike now, Senators. We may not get another chance."

"How long until the missiles land?" asked Senator Jackson.

General Bauer glanced at the technicians sitting at their consoles.

" Norfolk has nine minutes," said the corporal. "As the general said, the missiles targeted here and on Washington and White Sands were launched later, and also from bases farther away. We have just under thirty minutes."

"Don't launch the EMP yet," said Senator Jackson. "Give Dr. Tennant a chance."

I could hardly keep my mind on my words as the seconds ticked past. My confidence in my ability to persuade Trin¬ity of anything was evaporating beneath the specter of nuclear holocaust. My pleas for rationality had resulted in the destruction of most of the missiles, but the three remaining ones were quite capable of causing massive devastation.

Trinity had made it clear that averting this disaster depended on my explanation of my experiences in Israel. The sequence of dreams that had led me to Jerusalem was already familiar to the computer from its perusal of the NSA's records of my sessions with Rachel. It was my coma revelations that fascinated Trinity. I had already described God's life in the body of Jesus, his attempt to change man's primitive instincts by example, his despair at the futility of his efforts, and finally the hope and fear generated in him by the secret work at Trinity.

"When you refer to God," said the computer, "you are not referring to Jehovah? The biblical God?"

"No."

"You characterize God as pure consciousness."

"Yes."

"Are you speaking in a religious sense at all?"

"I'm speaking of what is."

"You speak of what cannot be known. I find no sci¬entific basis for such a formulation."

"You should not judge my words by what is known now, but on its own merit. You are wise enough to see the truth."

"Truth must be proved."

"Yes, but sometimes the truth is in the mind before evidence can be found. This is how science proceeds."

"True."

"What you are-what they call the Trinity state-is an inevitable step in evolution."

"Yes."

"But it's not the final step."

"No. I shall continue to evolve, and at millions of times the rate of biological evolution. And millions of times more efficiently. Nature cannot throw out the obsolete model and start again. She must always modify existing plans. I am not limited in this way."

"That's more true than you know. You represent the liberation of human intelligence from the body, but that liberation doesn't stop with you. Already scientists are working on organic computers on a molecular scale. DNA computers that can exist in a cup of liquid."

"And?"

"Once that becomes possible, what you are-digital consciousness-will not require a machine to exist. It will require only adequate molecules. You could exist in a cup of liquid. And once you exist there, you'll eventually be able to move into the cup itself. Or into the water the liquid is poured into. Whether this takes fifty years or two hundred, the day will come. And the process began today."

"You're correct. What is your point?"

"Surely you see the end of that process?"

The blue lasers flashed at stunning speed. "The logi¬cal conclusion is that the Earth itself will eventually become conscious. A vessel for consciousness."