Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

At an altitude of exactly 22,236 miles, an object’s orbital velocity and period reach a sweet spot that almost perfectly matches Earth’s rotation. The tether’s center of mass was located at this point, and it was growing both down and up at the same time. This resulted in a stable orbit that kept the ISS hovering directly above a single familiar point on the planet’s surface—the anomaly.

Kline’s plan was culminating in a literal blaze of glory.

The ribbon trailed over the Amazon, the sheer weight of it overcoming the effects of variable winds. In an incredible feat of coordination, its leading edge had reached a specific spot above the jungle: a black spire, rising a mile into the sky from a circular brown lake.

The “finger of God” video did not directly capture the moment of contact. But just above the jungle canopy, the gossamer ribbon was sweeping over the treetops toward the black spire. Made of the same material, they seemed to exhibit a magnetic attraction to one another. The ribbon was out of sight as it touched the spire, sending a burst of light and energy that flared in all spectrums.

The two fused on contact.

In the video, reflections of the energy burst could be seen racing across the sky like heat lightning. The long arc of the ribbon faded to a silver line of light that seemed to bisect the heavens. And then the glowing line simply winked out, leaving only pale pink morning sky.

Slowing down, the material had cooled and faded to a near-invisible black. It was now an incredible umbilical cord reaching from the International Space Station to its anchor point on the ground.

The AS-3 material held its structure, even under the titanic force of its own weight and the pull of a five-hundred-ton counterweight.

In the final frames of the video, Sra. Veloso had lost sight of the ribbon, but the camera remained trained on the wing where it was last seen. In the background, a hushed conversation could be heard, in a mix of Portuguese and Spanish.

Translated to English, the last words spoken in the video were not far from the truth. “My god,” said Sra. Veloso. “The heavens are broken. It is the end of the world.”

Realignment

AFTER FIVE DAYS OF CONTINUOUS EMERGENCY OPERATION, the team at Peterson AFB was growing haggard. The normally pristine control room was littered with empty paper coffee cups, mounds of research material, and hundreds of scribbled notes. The console operators on the “orbit one” shift, from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., wore lines of exhaustion under their eyes that the promise of overtime pay could not erase.

At the command console, General Stern was coming to terms with the nightmarish knowledge that one of his Wildfire team members had gone rogue on board the International Space Station. Compounding that disturbing fact was his missing field team on the ground. Stern’s assumption at this time was that his career was over.

He had failed, utterly.

A preauthorized backup field team had been dispatched when the primary team had missed rendezvous. But the beta group was currently anchored at the quarantine line and moving at a snail’s pace. Meanwhile, foreign governments had been paying attention, and rumors of something in the Amazon had finally begun to leak. Countries around the globe were scrambling teams of commandos, scientists, and flocks of every variety of journalist—all of them pouring into Central American airports. The mayor of the British territory of Bermuda had even sent a group of alien linguists.

Stern sighed, feeling the sidelong glances coming from his room of worn-out analysts.

Thankfully, news of the ISS going dark had been explained as a training exercise. The constantly patrolling American fighter squads over the Amazon had dissuaded any unwelcome visitors from penetrating the jungle quarantine, including a limited Brazilian Air Force. And the unlucky passengers of TAM 401 were currently sequestered on the tarmac at a military airstrip in western Bolivia. Stern estimated the civilian eyewitnesses could be held for the rest of the day, but not longer.

Unfortunately, the “finger of God” video had already been shared online.

The only recourse had been to hand the video situation to military information support operations. Formerly known as psyops, these air force veterans had moved beyond dropping leaflets from transport aircraft years ago. Now, multiple task force groups were busy generating misleading articles in multiple languages, using AI to generate “deep-faked” versions of the original video and spreading a series of conspiracy theories about the true intentions and background of poor Mrs. Veloso on all types of social media.

Stern resisted the urge to sigh again.

The general understood keenly that it would only be a matter of time before an international incident was triggered. The likelihood of a military conflict had increased to over 90 percent, according to an event chain simulation report sitting on his desk. The highest likelihood was a territorial dispute between Brazil and the United States, fomented by the action of disguised Russian or Chinese actors infiltrating the area.

All attempts to contact the International Space Station had failed, and it was impossible to send more astronauts without cooperation from the station. The field team was also impossible to reach, and had been since their last desperate message was discovered. In short, Stern was out of ideas.

That was about to change, for better or worse.

Stern later described the moment the call came in from Sophie Kline as one of immense relief. “Everything up to then was standing on the gallows with a rope around my neck. I was glad when she called. It meant the lever had been pulled, and I could finally get it over with.”

An encrypted message from the ISS came through at UTC 11:04:11. General Stern promptly took it offline and into his backroom office, away from the looming monitors and room-wide main speaker loop. Watching him through the window glass of his small office, analysts noted among themselves that Stern exhibited no reaction during the call besides weariness.

Stern began the call by waiting fifteen seconds as Kline determined how she was going to compose her message.

“Go ahead,” he urged. “Out with it, Kline.”

“General Stern. You can’t be very happy with me right now.”

The general snorted. It was quite an understatement.

“But I don’t need you to be happy. I only need you to understand,” she continued. “You and everyone else are afraid the Andromeda Strain will be weaponized. What I have to tell you is that its true purpose is not as a weapon. In actuality, the Andromeda Strain is an immensely powerful tool .”

“Kline, listen to me,” responded Stern. “You’re brilliant, but stand down. Give this up, whatever it is. You can’t make unilateral decisions for an entire species—”

“Then who does? You? Another man in a uniform? Today, I am making the decision. And I choose freedom.”

“You’ve chosen treason,” he pointed out, wearily.

The conversation had gone quickly off the rails. Stern’s hopes for a rational resolution were fading. He was beginning to suspect mental illness was playing a large part in this situation, based on Kline’s grandiose language.

Which is why what happened next was so stunning.

It is well known among security specialists that the majority of hacks are not carried off by reprogramming computers, but by manipulating the human beings who control the computers. In other words, hacks are usually carried off through convincing conversation, which is in itself a complex skill. Advanced social engineering requires meticulous preparation and a deep knowledge of your subject.

In this case, Kline demonstrated both.