Greg Iles - The Footprints of God

"Who then would you have loaded? The Dalai Lama? Mother Teresa? An infant?"

This question took me back to my first weeks on Project Trinity. I'd spent countless hours pondering this question, though then I believed it was a largely acade¬mic exercise. Now I knew it held the key to saving countless lives.

"The Dalai Lama may be nonviolent, but he has human instincts, just as Peter Godin did."

"And an infant? A tabula rasa? A blank slate?"

"An infant might be the most dangerous being we could put into Trinity. Animal instincts are passed on genetically. The term blank slate is misleading at best. A two-year-old child is a dictator without an army."

"Mother Teresa?"

"This isn't a problem of individual identities."

"What kind of problem is it?"

"A conceptual one. It requires unconventional thinking."

"Why do I think you're about to tell me that Andrew fielding is the person we should have allowed to reach the Trinity state?"

"Because you know what a good man he was. And because you ordered his death. That alone should dis¬qualify you. But Fielding wasn't the proper person either."

"Who is?"

"No one."

"I don't understand."

"You're about to. If-"

"Do you believe that after you explain this, I will take myself off-line and allow you to load someone else into Trinity?"

"No. I think you'll help me do it."

"Explain."

LOCKHEED LABORATORY, WHITE SANDS Ewan McCaskell sat behind the desk of an aerospace engi¬neer he'd never met and waited to talk to the president. It had taken several agonizing minutes to reach a White House Secret Service agent via telephone. McCaskell sus¬pected that the nuclear blast off the Virginia coast had inter¬rupted communications on the Eastern seaboard.

Army Rangers stood on either side of McCaskell, their assault rifles locked and loaded. The chief of staff had shared some strange moments with his president during their administration, but he had never contem¬plated directing a nuclear strike from an empty office in New Mexico. The surreal surroundings tempted him to pretend that it was all some fantastic exercise laid on by NORAD, but nothing could mask the essential horror: what the president did in the next few minutes would determine the fates of McCaskell’s wife, his children, and three million other Americans who had no idea that any of this was happening. And if General Bauer was wrong about Trinity's capabilities, untold millions more could perish.

"I have the Chiefs with me, Ewan," said the presi¬dent. "We're on our way to the shelter."

McCaskell quickly related General Bauer's plan in almost the exact words Bauer had outlined it, without pausing to explain anything. Bill Matthews was smarter than the pundits gave him credit for being.

"How long do we have until we're hit here?" Matthews asked.

"Seven or eight minutes. And it'll take our missile five minutes to reach the proper altitude. You've got to launch now, Mr. President. The Chiefs will know the lowest altitude you can detonate our missile and get the desired effect."

"Hold one second."

McCaskell imagined the scene: each of the Joint Chiefs demanding details and raising objections. But there wasn't time for any of that. Matthews came back on the line, his voice strained.

"The Chiefs tell me that an electromagnetic pulse of that magnitude would knock down half the planes in U.S. airspace and cause all kinds of other casualties. Are you absolutely certain about these two missiles, Ewan?"

Bauer had lied to him about the planes. But he under¬stood why. "Bill, there's a fucking mushroom cloud that looks like the end of the world hovering over Virginia right now. You're about to have one over Washington. This may be your only chance to knock out Trinity. You may not control our nukes tomorrow." A horrifying thought hit McCaskell. "You may not control them now."

He heard more muted conversation.

"The Chiefs tell me we should go with three missiles spaced across the country to be sure we knock out every¬thing," Matthews said.

"Fine, but whatever you do, you have to do it now!"

"The briefcase is open. I'm about to authenticate the codes."

Thank God…

"Get to shelter immediately, Ewan. Katy and the boys need you."

A knife of fear went through him. "It's been a privi¬lege, Mr. President. I'm signing off."

McCaskell set down the phone and looked at one of the Rangers. "The president told me to get to safety."

The soldier couldn't hide his relief. He led McCaskell back to the Black Hawk waiting outside the lab.

As the chief of staff climbed into the chopper, he heard his old grade-school teacher saying, Duck and cover, children. Duck and cover. The advice had been pointless then, but there was a point for him now. Given what had happened off Virginia, there was no telling where the incoming missile might detonate. Attempting to flee might put him right under the air burst of a neu¬tron bomb. Beyond this, something told him that leaving General Bauer in control at White Sands was a poten¬tially catastrophic mistake.

"Take me back to the base!" he shouted. "Back to White Sands!"

The Black Hawk rose into the sky and reluctantly turned east.

CONTAINMENT

"No more riddles," said Trinity. "Who is more qualified than I to exist in the Trinity state?"

Anger edged the formerly sterile voice. I had seven minutes to convince the computer to destroy the two remaining missiles.

"No single person is necessarily more qualified than you."

"Explain!"

"Millions of years ago-before it even existed, the human species was affected by an event over which it had no control."

"What event?"

"Nature hit upon a revolutionary method of increas¬ing genetic diversity. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Tell me."

"Sexual reproduction. By splitting into separate sexes, certain organisms vastly increased their chances for sur¬vival. This resulted in two variants of each of these organisms-male and female. Mammals evolved from such organisms. And in humans-the only fully con¬scious mammal-our different hormones and anatomies resulted in the development of different psyches. No one can separate the influences of heredity and environment, but one thing is certain: men and women are different."

"The male of the species is aggressive," said the com¬puter. "Prone to violence. Driven by a compulsive need to reproduce with as many females as possible. For mil¬lennia this evolutionary drive has affected male thought patterns. The female can bear the offspring of only one male at a time. She strives to find a reliable mate with superior genes, and she must bear the child herself. This has produced a psyche focused on nurturing rather than violence, a desire to be loved rather than to conquer. The psychological implications of these differences are pro¬found but not readily quantifiable."

"And they can never be reconciled by evolution," I said. "When a man and woman mate, they produce a boy or a girl. But you can change that. You can do what nature can't-reconcile those conflicts in a single living being."

Trinity's lasers flashed, but it did not speak.

"You've admitted that you haven't been able to root out the primitive instincts in Godin's brain. You hope time will make it possible, but it won't. At some level, you will always be Peter Godin."

The blue lasers flashed so intensely that I couldn't bear to watch them. "You wish me to merge a male and a female neuromodel within my circuits."

"Yes. I know you see the wisdom and necessity of this. But is it possible?"

"In theory, it is. But I would have to die to accom¬plish it."

I'd suspected this. Despite its staggering capacity, Trinity would have a limit as to total possible neuroconnections.

"Two models merged into one could reside within my circuitry, but not alongside another uncompressed model. I would have to back myself out of my circuits as I merged the two models and brought them in. "