B018YDIXDK EBOK Read online

  Solomon was the closest thing he had to a friend anymore. Diane was busy running her half of the world, rubbing elbows in Washington and abroad as the “More Than a First Lady”-lady that had helped him win his second term. They had grown apart, a fact every news outlet and media channel that still existed in the world never let them forget, but there was work to be done.

  He’d already given her the assignment, moments ago, that he needed her to carry out. She stood in front of him, next to Solomon Merrick, waiting for Myers’ instructions to the others.

  Myers forced himself to breathe. His doctor had added the most recent — and so far most expensive — of the auxiliary internal enhancements available to the wealthiest individuals last week, and he was still getting used to the heightened state of awareness and burst of energy that would be his new normal.

  Now, in the confines of the most impersonal personal office on the planet, one that had been shared by and visited by many thousands of people over the course of almost three centuries, he had a captive audience of three. He was in his element: delivering a speech that outlined his plans. Planning was his forte, and he could weave a web of scenarios and possible outcomes and their associated contingencies that would make an economist blush.

  But even in the midst of the confines of his own space, in front of the three people he trusted more than anyone else in the world, and with a perfect plan that would fix everything, he balked.

  He didn’t know what to say next. He was speechless.

  The breadth of the control he was losing by the day was staggering, and the extent of the damage that could be caused to his nation, his life, was unbelievable. He’d told Sol what he needed, the man reacted exactly as Myers had calculated, and now… he wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Sol frowned. Diane did as well, but neither spoke.

  “I know you trust me, and I also know I’m pushing it. But please understand. I’m not trying to —“

  “To hurt us?” Diane said. She immediately stopped, realizing that she wasn’t in an argument with her husband — she was speaking with the President.

  “…To make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

  “This is ‘not making this more difficult?’” Sol asked.

  The third person in the room was already starting to cry, their eyes glassing over as Myers spoke.

  “It’s not,” Myers said. “I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s not. It’s the only way.”

  Solomon clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  Diane lost her composure and she had to catch her herself from stumbling backwards. “Solomon, you —“

  He held up a hand. “It’s okay. It has to be.” He turned back to Myers. “Will you send the details over to my office?”

  “No,” Myers responded. “They’re delicate, and I don’t want anything digital. Stay back after we’re done here and I’ll make sure you’re briefed.”

  Sol nodded, turning to the last person in the room. “Whatever he says, Shannon, do it. Without question, without compromise. Understand?”

  Shannon struggled back the tears, but she nodded, weakly at first. She pulled herself straighter and nodded again.

  Myers put on the solemn, respectful smile that he used when a diplomat had passed away or when he wanted someone to recognize his empathy or concern. “Thank you, all of you. I will never be able to pay you back for this. If you two will excuse us, I need to discuss something in private with Shannon.”

  RAND

  “WE’RE NOT LEAVING YET, RAND.” Diane shot a glance at Jonathan Rand from across the inside of the hut.

  “You heard them,” he said. “They’re just going to turn him over to the Unders.”

  “But that’s because they think it’s the best solution —“

  “It is the best solution,” Lansing said. “For them, anyway. They don’t know about the ICPL, or what our plans are.”

  “Lansing, we tried telling them about —“

  “It didn’t take,” Rand said. “You were there, Diane. We mentioned it, and Crane just laughed us out of the room.”

  Rand sighed and stood up from his cot in the side of the room. They were currently inside one of the “dugout” houses lining the main square, near where they’d met with Josiah Crane. The cinder block and brick structure’s walls looked precipitously high, due to the nature of the assembly. The Relics had dug out the ground, opening a ten-foot deep square hole in the ground and building the structure up around it. The end result was a huge, high-ceilinged house that was amply protected from the elements.

  The three of them — Lansing, Diane Asher, and Jonathan Rand — had been tossed in here after a day-long tour of Relica, and after their meeting with Crane. They were shown the greenhouses and Superstrain growth areas, the solar assemblies that powered the small amount of electronics and technological devices that Crane and the others deemed safe, and the hard-packed dirt streets that weaved throughout the city. It was a shantytown — buildings “built” using nothing more than the bricks and rocks they’d been able to find or uncover, each building and house slightly different from the others, in all stages of disrepair — but it was still somehow respectable. Rand thought it must be the way the people — the Relics — held themselves. It was an attitude that seemed to border arrogance, as if they knew they were going to not only survive out here, but thrive.

  “Families” of Relics, nothing more than groups of houses at the ends of streets, shared centralized water storage units, and Crane explained how his pseudo-plumbing system worked. Rand didn’t understand half of it, but he was nevertheless impressed that out of nothing but a dry patch of earth in the middle of nowhere, these people had created civilization.

  It was a luddite civilization, no doubt, but it was functional. And the Relics seemed happy.

  Still, there was something threatening about the way they all stiffened a bit as they passed by, led by Crane and his cronies. No one spoke to them, and most didn’t even glance their direction. They knew Rand and Diane and Lansing weren’t part of them. They weren’t welcomed here, and it was clear this was all for show.

  The tour took them the entire day, and afterwards Crane deposited them into this one-room building. He’d told them to get some rest, and food would be delivered soon. Then one of his men opened the door and ushered three of them inside.

  Myers was taken somewhere else, no doubt being guarded by some of the Relics. Rand, Diane, and Lansing had all fought against it, but there was nothing they could do. Crane had said he wasn’t doing anything with Myers tonight, and Myers himself finally told them not to worry. Rand was unconvinced, but their hands were tied. When Myers had been pulled away from their group and tossed into a small building near the tent they’d met in earlier, Rand began working on his plan.

  They’d descended down the stairs of the building to find four cots around the room, a long, narrow table set against one side, and a small ceramic pot at the other.

  Rand didn’t want to guess what the pot was intended for, but he assumed this room wasn’t one of the “outhouse cycling” buildings Crane had mentioned earlier.

  They’d been arguing since they entered the building over an hour ago, and they still couldn’t come up with a plan they all agreed on.

  Lansing went on. “Think about from his perspective,” Lansing countered. “He’s got the ego of a greek god, and the tenacity of a bull. Not only is it a decent plan, it’s the one he came up with. They’re all going to rally around it, and damn whatever we say.”

  “A decent plan?” Rand said. His voice was escalating in pitch and volume, and he took a moment to compose himself. He didn’t want anyone outside their hut to be able to hear the conversation. “Our plan is a decent plan.”

  “Our plan is insane,” Lansing said. His voice was steady, the calm of many years as a pilot. “Get Myers back to ICPL so he can log in as the magic superuser and save the day? That’s —“


  “That’s what’s going to work.”

  “No,” Lansing said, his voice dropping another few decibels. “It’s not going to work, Rand. It can’t work, or that would be the plan everyone has. Just let him log in, type a few commands, and that’s it? The System’s out for the count?”

  Diane shook her head. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Rand said. “And so it’s not the easiest plan, and it’s not the plan the Unders, the Hunters, or whoever the hell else is going attempt. That’s why it’s going to work.”

  Lansing considered this for a moment. “Then why don’t we explain that to them. Let’s just tell Crane why it could work, and see if he’ll help —“

  “I can’t believe I’m listening to this,” Rand said. “Diane?”

  She looked at each man in turn, then spoke. “Lansing, listen. I know these guys, the Relics. They’re all out here looking for something to prove. They’re leaders, people who expect other people to follow them. They’re not all waiting around for someone else to come up with a better plan. They’re fighting to be the person in charge. It’s all politics with them. We all need to rest, and Crane won’t do anything tonight. We — and Myers — are safe here until tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t we try to get Myers to —“

  “You saw him in there, Lansing,” Rand said. “He’s wiped. Completely useless now. After the System scraped him, and the last few days he’s spent out here, he’s worthless.”

  Diane shot him a glance that said, careful, I was married to that guy.

  Rand backed off a bit. “Sorry, I just mean he’s in no shape to be negotiating for us, not to mention leading us.”

  They all sat quietly for the first time since they’d entered the room, and Rand thought about Their discussion some more. He kept waiting for someone to talk, but no one did.

  Lansing sat against the wall opposite Rand, and Diane lay on the cot next to him.

  Each of them seemed to be deep in thought, but Rand knew the truth. None of them could believe they were really here — at a Relics camp. No one knew there were Relics still alive, aside from the handful that were released from the System’s grasp each year.

  And certainly no one knew they’d been building a city. If Crane was telling the truth, and Rand had no reason to suspect that he’d lie about this, there could be thousands of Relics still alive out there. Many of them had settled here, but he’d told them there were others, as well. Rand wondered if there might be other Relic communities somewhere out there, too. Maybe even other cities.

  He wondered what that meant for the Unders, if the threat Crane had alluded to was real or not. It had to be — Unders wouldn’t allow anyone else in their vicinity, and certainly not a group of Relics.

  Any Hunters in the area would be solitary, like Solomon Merrick, so neither group would have to worry too much about them.

  But how is it all related to the System? Rand thought. He knew it was all because of the System, and the new world it had inadvertently — or purposefully — created, but he wasn’t sure what sort of tapestry it was attempting to weave with their lives. He didn’t know what each side truly wanted, and that meant there were too many wildcards.

  He looked around the room again and found that Lansing had started to fall asleep as well. If their discussion was over for now, Rand decided it would be a good time to catch up on sleep. He tried to drift off, but instead found his mind racing through the events of the past few days. He thought of Umutsuz, and meeting Myers in the streets, and the Unders’ attack on the city, all related to events he had put into motion.

  A pang of guilt tore through Rand’s insides. He pushed it back, forcing himself to believe that those events were necessary, crucial to their survival.

  To all of them.

  He thought of the meeting with Crane, after they’d landed in the sprawling Relic “city.” As his mind churned through the recap and replay of the meeting, he remembered Myers’ response to Rand when he’d asked him to explain his thoughts on why the System was acting the way it was.

  Myers had dodged the question, wriggling away from answering. He’d claimed to not remember anything, but Rand remembered talking about it just a day ago. It had seemed like the response of a defeated man. Someone who had given up.

  It didn’t seem at all like the response of a man who’d won the vote to the highest office of the most powerful nation in the world at the time.

  What did the System do to this guy? Rand thought. He’d known people who had been scraped, and had seen the effects — they were generally fine, except for a dazed looked in their eye that eventually wore off. They lost the memories they’d had during the time they were implanted, and there were some minor residual effects, but Myers was different.

  Myers had changed.

  The System had somehow taken the man’s personality as well as his memory.

  Diane was clearly reeling from the blow of seeing her ex-husband alive and — mostly — well. Rand had tried to bring it up a few times, but she kept changing the subject. She would need time to examine her own feelings, and then she’d be ready.

  Rand knew her well, and he knew she was strong. She’d eventually recover. Until then, Rand knew he needed to step up and take control of their situation, for their sake, for Myers’ sake, and for the sake of the future of humanity.

  Tonight, Rand would take things into his own hands.

  He had an idea brewing, and he just needed to wait until the others fell asleep.

  SOL

  THE KID’S SMART, HE THOUGHT. I have to at least give him that.

  Solomon Merrick had been studying Ravi since he’d seen the younger man stumble out of the tent he’d been held in by the Unders.

  He’d hated leaving Ravi behind in the desert, but with Myers struggling, Unders right behind them, and Ravi bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds, it was all he could do at the time. He’d made a silent vow to the kid that he’d come back for him, if he could.

  Their fates had been intertwined, and now they were back together again. Ravi had proven himself to be a resourceful, cunning individual, interested in his own safety over others,’ but that didn’t necessarily mean he was a bad guy.

  Sol remembered plenty of times in his own life he’d acted the same way.

  Back at EHM, he was known behind the boss’ back as the guy who “really ran the place,” the Chief Operating Officer who was always making rash decisions that left shareholders and board members stunned and outraged, only to be silenced at the end of the quarter when Sol’s decision turned out to be extremely profitable.

  He and Myers fought a lot, as Sol’s general outlook on life, running a business, and just about everything else was “do what you want, regardless of the outcome.” He was smart, and providence had shined on him enough for his ideas and decisions to create more good than bad, but it was that tension between himself and Myers that made it almost impossible to stand each other — and why they were so successful as a team.

  When Sol had grown a little as a leader, and Myers had come to the realization that he might be able to loosen up just a little, they both initiated a project that would change the face of technology — and the world at large.

  OneGlobal.

  The software package, a self-installing and replicating collection of libraries, scripts, and applets meant to streamline efficiency in government organizations and offices, worked like a charm.

  In a week after its initial launch, OneGlobal was nearly ubiquitous. No one outside the company knew exactly how it worked — the code was more than proprietary, it was completely truncated and obfuscated, running only what was needed on local independent machines, “phoning home” for the main control of the software itself.

  The purpose behind the intense level of secrecy wasn’t commercial, it was security. Anyone with the code core OneGlobal used could theoretically infiltrate every computer the software was installed
on.

  The plan was simple: at the end of Myers Asher’s run as Chief Financial Officer for EHM, he would run for president. A lifelong dream, Asher and his wife hoped to create a new style of politician: politicians who weren’t politicians at all, but savvy business, military, or nonprofit leaders who actually cared about the future of humanity instead of padding their pockets with the money of lobbyists and interest groups.

  Myers had no real interest in what organizational software was installed on government computers — he was an accountant, after all — but Sol had talked him into leveraging his platform as leader of the free world to get EHM software on every US machine. There was little need for Myers’ support, though. The software was quickly hailed as a “saving grace” by all but the most contrarian tech pundits, and even with a proprietary company like EHM at the helm, no one considered that there would be any downside to the program’s quick adoption rate other than a successful company growing more successful.

  He’d told Sol at a closed-door meeting right before he left the company that OneGlobal was a disaster waiting to happen.

  “It’s too powerful,” he’d said.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Solomon responded, standing up from behind his huge glass desk — a psychological symbol of power.

  “I don’t know how the thing works, no,” he said, “but it scares me to think of the data this program will have access to. Email correspondence, personal files, everything on a user’s machine.”

  “Myers,” Sol said, “calm down. We talked about this way back at the beginning, and everything is safe. The data isn’t interpreted on the user’s machine. It’s sent back to the cloud processing system in Paris, then fragmented to separate storage devices. The only purpose of that is backups and redundancy. The ‘brains’ of everything is simply an algorithm that analyzes the habits of the user. It doesn’t use their own language to respond back to them.”

  Myers frowned. “I know, Sol, it’s a great innovation. But still… it seems so… human.”

  “It is. It’s based on the same neural networks we use, but not biologically. It’s all electronic, parallel, and fast. It’s meant to seem human, because that’s who its creators are. We’re human, and we need what it can offer.”