Threshold E-Book

Scott Falcon

• Herausgeber: Scott Falcon
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

2040…VENTURA CALIFORNIA:  
Becca Wilde, a terminally ill teenage autistic savant, senses a presence—an intelligence—in The STREAM, the virtual reality entertainment phenomenon created by her tech-billionaire father.
She believes the intelligence can create a cure, but her father intends to use radical technology. They are running out of time.
Then technology stops working.
All of it.
No Internet. No screens. Not even cars. But one thing is working—a Russian A.I. that mutated—and is now In the Wild.
Becca may hold the key to the future. Any future. If there is going to be one.
But…only if she can communicate with a super-intelligence—that hasn’t been invented yet.

Leseprobe

THRESHOLD

Scott Falcon

Also by Scott Falcon

AMERICAN MUTT

CELERITY

THRESHOLD, a novel

Copyright © 2020 Scott Falcon

ScottFalcon.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher using the contact page on RandWilde.com, and include “Attention: Permissions Coordinator.” In the subject line.

ISBN: 978-1-7341473-3-9 (Ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-7341473-2-2 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7341473-4-6 (Hardcover)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019918182

FIC036000 FICTION / Thrillers / Technological

FIC028000 FICTION / Science Fiction / General

FIC028070 FICTION / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic

FIC028010 FICTION / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure

Printed by Rand Wilde Media in the United States of America.

FIRST EDITION - 2.2

RandWilde.com

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Intersecting RL

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Scott Falcon

Appendix

Chapter 1

BELOW THE SUMMIT OF K2—THE YEAR 2040

I do not see you now, but yet I feel.

Becca Wilde was at twenty-eight thousand feet above sea level along the China-Pakistan border. “I cannot see you, but I know you’re there!” she screamed through her balaclava.

She screamed and fought through her fear. Snowing sideways minutes after sunup, a daybreak gale-force whiteout on K2.

She was attempting a unique ascent of the ancient mountain that experts said could not be done—even with a full team of Sherpas.

She took another step along the precipice with a heavy pack on her back—she pressed on. She slammed the crampon on her right boot into the ice. In the Death Zone—Becca pressed on.

“I see you now,” she said.

Six feet in front of her, a shadow ghost image appeared against the white. Tensing, her lone Sherpa guide tightened the rope that held them together, drove his ice ax into the incline, and waved her on.

Another burst of wind from the storm that had taken them by surprise an hour earlier shook them. The icy snow stung any unprotected flesh, punishing the openings between her goggles and hood, sharp like a hundred needles.

Visibility fell to three feet, and the blur of the man in front of her vanished. Becca stopped and tightened her grip on the rope, and her heart plummeted in her chest, pounding against her ribs.

They were exposed, battered by unrelenting reminders that death would be the result of any misstep. Nothing lived at this altitude. Every living organism froze up here. Died up here. Stayed up here. Forever.

Eighty-mile-per-hour winds, gusting higher. Driving the snow, swirling, pushing, forcing. Reminding Becca this place was hostile. Telling her to escape this elevation. Escape.

She had prepared for the ascent, every detail. She had been ready when they’d departed camp at two a.m. in the moonless black. Four hours later, the sun had revealed a radiant horizon, a burst of amber turning the unknown murkiness into snowscapes and black rock and ice and stone. And it was just after daybreak that a blizzard wind roared up the sides of the frozen granite walls below them. Caught them vulnerable where mistakes couldn’t be made.

The Sherpa stopped and fought to remain upright on the precipice, a plunge of thousands of feet on both sides. K2 was angry this morning. It was hungry, its fatality rate second among the eight-thousanders.

K2 had never before been conquered during the winter, and they were on the Chinese side, the suicide climb. Yet she was there, caught two hundred feet below the summit where marauding tornadoes of ice pounded her body and plundered her ambitions like a demon from a dark hell. This mountain was known by another name, a name derived from moments like this—the Savage Mountain.

Becca stopped, using all the strength in her thirteen-year-old body to brace against the wind. She felt mountain sickness rising inside her. Head throbbing, dizziness, confusion. She had already vomited twice. Her body was racing toward altitude-induced pulmonary edema. She knew that she must descend quickly.

We must turn back.

Temperature plummeting. Visibility gone. Everything around her looked the same. A whiteout.

“We must retreat,” Becca yelled to her Sherpa. “Where are you?”

Are we lost? I’m freezing.

Fighting nausea, she lowered the balaclava and spit, her saliva instant ice. A glimpse of her Sherpa. He lost his footing. Becca reacted, reached out, the force twisting her, pulling her down, and she fell spread-eagle on her stomach. Another burst, a hundred-mile-per-hour force, a tsunami of wind. The Sherpa was jolted sideways, fell backward, and slid over the edge. Into the abyss.

“Tenzing!” Becca screamed his name. “Tenzing!”

The rope holding them together jerked her forward, then snapped down over the edge. She rotated herself onto her back, then, stiff-legged, drove both crampons into a rock bordering the cliff, the rope pulling her to the precipice—pulling, pulling. She used all her strength to hold her body flat to the ground, boots driving hard into the rocky ice. The rope taut, the weight unrelenting, pulling her body toward the edge.

Hold on, or I’m gone.

The deadweight of the Sherpa was too much—her body began lifting from the ground, her fulcrum fading, her will waning.

Fight, Becca. Fight.

Head spinning, strength vanquished, dizzy, succumbing, death inches away. Not this end. Not this.

Then the rope went slack.

Her body slammed back to the ground. She gasped, starving for oxygen.

He released the carabiner. To save me.

“Tenzing,” she screamed again into the blizzard.

She was alive, a moment-to-moment reality. No past, no future.

“I can’t lose consciousness, or I’ll die. Can’t stay at this altitude.” An affirmation of desperation.

The sun blocked by the storm. Faded light now. Frostbitten hands and feet. Engulfed by the storm.

“I have to descend. Which way?” she said, not realizing she was speaking aloud and wasting precious oxygen.

Becca struggled to her feet, driving her expedition poles into the ice.

“One foot, then another. I must descend,” she said.

She stood on the Savage Mountain, unsure of how to safely descend. Disoriented. Confused.

Then she felt it. Amid the altitude sickness. A Presence. Something unknown. Something was there with her. Tenzing was gone, so it was something else.

“I can feel you. I sense you. Who are you?” Becca called out.

She saw nothing. She turned left, then right, then looked behind her. Nothing. She closed her eyes.

I feel you. Where are you?

She opened her eyes. Nothing in front of her. Then something out of the corner of her eye, forty-five degrees to her right. A shadow against the white.

“Tenzing, is that you?” Becca screamed through the wind.

But she knew Tenzing was dead. Darkness closing in. Frostbite. Altitude sickness worsening. Visibility was two or three feet. She took a step and it was solid.

Take that step.

In front of her, a shadow. Human? She could not be sure. An outline of a person? Unknown. But something was there. She was out of breath. Ten breaths for every step.

No oxygen up here. No air.

She closed her eyes.

I feel you. You’re guiding me. You want me to step toward you.

Becca took another step. Then another. One wrong step would be fatal. She opened her eyes.

“Where are you?” Becca said. “I can’t see you anymore.”

She closed her eyes and stepped. Opened her eyes.

“This pack’s too heavy. Can’t carry…can’t carry the weight. Point…point the way. Tell me the way. I must descend,” Becca said.

She slumped to her knees, removed the backpack, dropped it into the snow. Her heart racing, body leaking life with every passing second.

“Going into shock. Have seconds left. Which way?” Her voice was quaking now, barely audible.

Becca jammed her expedition poles into the snow again until they hit ice.

“Push. Push up. Up. Stand, Becca. Stand up. My heart. It’s too fast.”

She wrapped her hands in the pole grips and pulled up.

“Pull. Stand up, Becca.”

Using all her remaining strength, she stood—the howling wind driving her toward the precipice.

“I can walk, I can live, I must fight on.”

Heart racing, battering her bones. Thumping. Pulsing. Blood pressure soaring. She turned and looked back.

“I can’t see you.

I can’t see you.

I can’t see you, but I know you’re there—”

Another step, a crampon slipping, and she lost her footing in a blink—falling toward the edge of the precipice, her body slamming down onto the ice.

Sliding.

Grabbing.

Sliding.

“Oh God, I’m not ready— Oh God…”

Weightlessness.

Everything went black.

Then white.

A pounding.

Pounding.

Pounding on her chest.

Bright white.

VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

Jerrod, a surfer type, was doing chest compressions on Becca who was sprawled on the floor. They were in one of the simulations rooms at RadNtel, a technology company in Ventura, California.

“You’re there,” Becca said. “You’re there.”

Her eyes glazed over and rolled to the back of her head.

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,” Jerrod said as he continued CPR.

He pressed her cheeks, covered her mouth with his, and exhaled hard, twice, then resumed chest compressions.

“Breathe, Becca, breathe,” he said.

Two other software developers stood over Becca with horrified looks on their faces.

“She had another seizure, then she went wet rag,” one coder said, a Marilyn Manson type, wearing black on black, with studs, chains, piercings—a TSA nightmare.

“I just hit up nine-one-one, dude. They’re coming, Becca. Keep breathing, kid,” another coder said.

They were in one of the dozens of RadNtel prototyping rooms where fully immersive environments were tested for the Stream, the virtual reality global phenomenon.

“What was she in?” Jerrod said, panting now, but still pumping.

“Extreme level three. Himalayas something,” Marilyn Manson said.

“Dude, Kip’s gonna be pissed. She’s not supposed to be in level three. Whose security did she use?” Jerrod said.

“Nada, dude. She knows how to hack it. He’s gonna tag our asses.”

Kip Wilde, thirty-nine, founder of RadNtel, was task-attacking a multiplex of windows displayed on a concave wall of glass panels. With a flurry of fingers, he was in his standard command-and-control mode. Kip was sitting at his twenty-foot-long semicircle desk when the call came in.

“Yeah?” Kip said.

“Kip, we already called nine-one-one. Becca had another seizure, and I think she stopped breathing when she fell out of her wheelchair. Jerrod is doing CPR on her,” Marilyn said.

Kip inhaled once, his breath locked up. He swiped the screen, and his assistant, Jinx, appeared in a window, late twenties, attractive.

“Clear the paramedics all the way to Lab Seven. It’s Becca,” he said.

He launched to his feet and ran.

Kip burst through the double doors of the prototyping room. Over the ocean of glass panels displaying a myriad of Stream environments, he saw the coders standing in the back. They waved him over. He zigzagged his way through the maze of workstations. Jerrod was kneeling next to Becca, who was coming to.

“Becca, can you hear me?” Kip said. He kneeled and held her head.

“You’re there. You’re there,” Becca said, her voice frail and fading.

“Who’s there? Paramedics are right behind me. Are you in pain? Can you hear me?” he said.

Becca’s eyes moved from her father to the ceiling. Then started to roll back.

He grasped her head. “No.” Terror in his voice.

The doors burst open. Three paramedics rushed in. Behind them, another first responder rolling a gurney.

“Here,” Kip yelled. “Over here!”

Kip lifted her, but she was limp.

“Becca, can you hear me? Stay here. Stay here, this is RL. You’re in real life,” he said.

Her lips started to move, and Kip put his ear to her mouth.

“I saw it, Dad,” she said.

She passed out.

Kip stood inside the emergency entrance of the Ventura’s Community Memorial Hospital. People coming and going, people injured, bleeding, moaning, screaming, crying, some standing, others lying on the floor.

He stood alone, waiting, looking through the glass door, beyond the circular driveway, over the buildings, into the sky, beyond the sky. He did not move. He was alone.

Until something caught his eye: Ronni, thirty-four, his ex-wife and Becca’s mother, running toward the entrance.

She saw Kip and scowled. He winced, knowing the guilt trip would come later like it always did when Becca did something Ronni disapproved of while in Kip’s custody. This time was different. No sugarcoating this one.

Just tell her straight and take whatever fallout there is now, tomorrow, the next day.

Kip exhaled. The double glass doors started to open automatically. Not fast enough, Ronni pulled them apart.

“We got her stable in the VR room. Got her breathing. Ronni, I think she’s okay. They’re taking her up to the intensive care unit in a few minutes,” Kip said.

Ronni bent over. Kip had seen this before, her catching her breath—and her sanity. He grabbed her shoulders.

“Where is she?” Ronni shoved his arms off and stormed away. He followed.

“They want us to wait until they take her upstairs to a room.”

She stopped. “Did she pass out? What? Did her heart stop? Oh my God, Kip.”

“I don’t think there was any brain damage, so she couldn’t have stopped breathing for long, if at all, before the paramedics got there.”

“Jesus Christ, what did you do to our daughter?”

Ronni’s eyes shot away from his face to the elevator. Her feet followed. Kip ran after her.

“She was in the Stream. A new environment. You know how she is. Something affected her physically. We’re not sure what. I’ll find out. I’m sorry. I was…working.”

“Goddamn it. No more Stream. I mean it.”

“We’ll talk to her together about that,” he said.

“No more Stream,” she said.

Kip and Ronni looked into Becca’s hospital room. Wearing an oxygen mask, she turned to see her parents, then smiled. Ronni and Kip smiled back. Three nurses surrounded the bed, busy setting up the IV, and reviewing the numbers, blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen levels. A nurse left the room and greeted Kip and Ronni.

“You can go in now, folks,” she said.

“Thank you,” Kip said.

Kip and Ronni entered the room. Ronni held Becca’s hand.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Becca said, her voice muffled through the mask.

Ronni gave her a sad frown face.

“You had a seizure, do you remember?” Kip said.

Becca removed her mask. “Everything. Dad, I’m fine. Take me home.”

“The doctors need to run tests, so we’ll see…”

“Soon as we can, Becc,” Kip said.

“I love you, honey,” Ronni said, wiping away tears, trying but failing to compose herself.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

Becca turned and looked at Kip.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“It—it was the-there. On K-K2. At the extreme. Ri-right on the edge.”

Kip quick glanced Ronni, knowing he had some explaining to do.

“We’ll talk about it later, okay?” he said.

“What was there, honey?” Ronni said.

“Dad, it wasn’t in the code. N-not in the code. I felt it. I think I may have even seen it,” Becca said.

“What?” Ronni said.

“The p-presence,” Becca said.

Kip rubbed Becca’s forehead. “You rest now,” he said.

Ronni glared at Kip. Two doctors entered the room. Kip glanced over, welcoming the interruption.

Minutes later, Kip and Ronni looked into Becca’s room as the doctors examined her. Ronni turned sharply toward Kip, back of her hand to her forehead. Kip knew that gesture. Knew that look. Here it comes.

“What was she into?” Ronni said.

“She was on K2, the mountain. Trying to summit in a storm.”

“She’s too weak to do these things. This has to stop. It affected her physically, Kip. It’s dangerous.”

Ronni turned her back to Kip.

“I’ll talk to her about it. I can restrict her access, filter it.”

Ronni spun back around. “Was she referring to her pretend friend she talks about or something else?”

“She, well, we talked about this thing. We talked about… It was several days ago. My expedition ten years back to K2. For real. When I tried to summit. The third-man factor,” Kip said.

“The third man?” Ronni said.

“Yes. She read one of my interviews from that time. In Men’s Journal, I think. So she kept pestering me about it. You know how she is? Tenacious. She’s your daughter.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“She wanted to do an experiment. I think.”

“So you knew about this? Like what?”

“You know she feels things. Or feels a certain thing. You know about that.”

Ronni stepped in close, glaring at Kip. “Who is she interacting with in the Stream? These VR freaks. It could be a pedophile for all you know.”

“Mostly teenagers and their avatars. Harmless. Or an AI.”

“An AI?”

“All the newest Stream environments, the Seventh Heavens, have new features. You may’ve seen me talking about it on the news.”

“I try not to watch.”

Kip smiled. Ronni did not. “The developers can program their own AI to manage the environments. Too complex to do it otherwise,” he said.

“So she was interacting with another AI, not Arturo? Great,” Ronni said.

“I’m not sure. I’ll find out. The important thing is that she’s okay.”

“Okay? She has autism and a failing body, Kip. I think we need to go back to court. You’re irresponsible. And you’re responsible.”

An hour later, Ronni kissed Becca’s forehead. Kip and Ronni left her hospital room.

“I’ll be back after your tests, honey,” Ronni said.

“O-okay, Mom,” Becca said.

Becca watched her parents leave and waved to them. Once out of sight, she closed her eyes.

“Arturo, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Becca. I am here,” Arturo replied.

Arturo was Kip’s master artificial intelligence entity. Kip and an elite team of developers had created his AI over the last several years. Arturo retained master control of the Stream and was one of the most advanced AIs in the world. He also communicated with Becca via the device her neurologist had implanted in her brain to mitigate her ALS.

“You have new restrictions on your travel in the Stream. Your father just instituted them. Your architectural environment remains accessible,” Arturo said.

“Take me to the Convergere.”

Chapter 2

One week later, a rendering of a metallic sculpture displayed in a hologram in Becca’s darkened bedroom. It was formed by waves and curves and what appeared to be protruding leaves, but upon closer examination, an entrance came into view.

It was a building. Or a complex of buildings.

She rocked back and forth in her wheelchair and used her hand to rotate the view of the structure, then zoomed out. Around the development was a forest.

Shifting in her seat, surreptitiously monitoring the conversation downstairs, Becca adjusted the settings on the audio equipment that was connected wirelessly to a hidden microphone in the living room. Becca’s face was gaunt, if one were to notice, which would be unlikely due to her captivating violet eyes that often directed a penetrating focus on the subject at hand.

Becca overheard Dr. Novelli say, “Half of all people at this stage live a year or more at least.”

“So I have a f-fifty-fifty chance of reaching my fourteenth b-birthday,” Becca said to herself.

Hearing her death sentence roll off the lips of her prominent neurologist would normally be a shocker, but Becca was at least a little prepared for it—that is, as prepared as any thirteen-year-old could be. She’d speed-read countless medical journals about her disease, a rare variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS. And she knew her ALS was exacerbated by a body run by an autistic brain.

Knowing Arturo could also hear her mother, Becca said, “Forget that, Arturo. I m-mean it. I want…to spend the whole d-day in the Stream. The whole day.”

A blue light, indicating Arturo was active, increased in intensity in the hologram in front of her.

“There is a high probability that the procedure your father is planning will improve your condition. Are you still planning to go through with the procedure?” Arturo said.

“I read your stats. I don’t know. M-maybe. In the Stream, I can make things bet-better. When these… As soon as these p-people…leave me alone, we’ll go. ”

In the living room of her post-and-beam architectural in the hills above downtown Ventura, California, Ronni leaned forward as she took a deep breath, then brushed back her auburn hair with both hands, held her head, and said, “What about the other half? Jesus, Connie, you said there are new treatments.”

Dr. Connie Novelli, Becca’s neurologist since her birth, was in her late forties, and today she was wearing a Dolce & Gabbana suit, Persol glasses, and had her hair up. She leaned forward and placed her hand on Ronni’s knee. They’d became somewhat like friends over the years.

“Yes, there are new drugs, but nothing conclusive yet.”

Ronni’s heart palpitated, contracted, taking her breath with it.

“More drugs?” Ronni said.

“They are mitigating the symptoms but not slowing down the progression of the…”

“Disease,” Ronni said.

“Yes. Also, regarding that other issue we discussed. Patients with sensory-motor problems, some of them, at least, have reported feelings of a presence nearby, on occasion, I mean. The medical data on this points to damage in three brain regions, the temporoparietal junction, the insula, and the frontal-parietal cortex.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that we can explain all of this by analysis of the pathology. Of what we are treating.”

Mathematics and computer science were Becca’s natural languages, but she was not a robot; she was all human, flesh and bone—except, that is, for the device that was implanted in her neocortex to counter the deterioration of motor neurons, assist with ambulation, and reduce her acrophobia. Becca knew she’d have to endure another Pollyanna facade that her mother would instinctively create to avoid discussing her life in remaining percentages and calendars. But first, she would have to deal with something else, since accompanying Dr. Novelli was her full-of-life fourteen-year-old son. The strategy, one that Becca was all too familiar with, was to get the typically antisocial Becca to extend herself by relating to someone close to her age.

Hearing footsteps, Becca swiveled her chair to face the enemy as her bedroom door opened.

“Becca, please say hello to Devin, Dr. Novelli’s son. Devin, this is Becca. Honey, why don’t you show Devin some of your projects? Can we turn on some lights?”

Ronni flipped the light switch, and Becca put on a pair of sunglasses.

“Here’re those cookies you like. I’ll be back in a bit,” Ronni said.

“Hey,” Devin said.

Pushing the plate of cookies away, then folding her arms in front of her, Becca said, “Lots of things are breakable.”

Ronni left the bedroom door wide open.

What, Mom? You think I’m gonna jump this kid’s bones or what, right there from my goddamn wheelchair?

Becca observed the boy as he surveilled her bedroom, including the measuring equipment, various gear, machinery, and computers. On the desk were sketches of technical invention ideas. Large whiteboards leaned against the walls, filled with math and physics equations. Devin ran his finger across a vial on the table, and Becca’s rocking increased.

Is he doing this just to aggravate me? If so, it’s working.

The boy with the athletic build looked over the sudoku game on the desk, then the drawings and photographs on the walls. Becca hummed. An image of the enhanced avatar that Becca used in the Stream was a centerpiece on her wall.

“Who’s that, an actress?” Devin said.

“No, that’s the real…” Becca lifted the edge of the plate of cookies, let go, and the plate clacked back down on the wooden desk. “These are for you,” she said.

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

Devin picked up a cookie and turned his attention to the hologram of the building in the forest.

“That place is rad, where is it?”

“It’s in the Stream, not R-RL.” She swiped quickly and closed the hologram.

“Yeah, I heard you spend, like, all your time there. I use it for shooter games, it’s killer. What’s your avatar’s name?”

Becca did not answer. On another wall was a flat hologram that could be launched into 3-D if desired. It was playing a live video feed of a small brain connected to a computer.

“What’s that gross thing?”

“That’s a happy m-monkey.”

Devin examined the quantum computer and nodded like he knew what it was. Becca smirked. He peered through the glass doors of a cabinet containing clear canisters labeled “Quantum Dots.” She wondered if the boy could tell a quantum dot from a Skittle.

Above Becca’s bed were pages of numbers thumbtacked to the ceiling—rows and rows of seemingly random numbers: 161, 299, 431, 484 ,and on and on. Devin noticed.

“What’s the deal with all those numbers?”

“Just n-numbers,” she replied.

“That’s so weird.”

Devin turned his attention to the worktable and started to fiddle with solar cell parts. “So, what’s this stuff?” He held up a small solar panel and inadvertently reflected sunlight into Becca’s face.

“Sorry,” he said.

“That’s from my mom’s w-work, and you should probably not be t-touching it.”

“I heard you like puzzles.”

Becca took the solar panel from his hand and set it back in its place on the desk.

“Heard you were in the hospital. That kinda sucks. I bet my mom can fix you,” he said.

Devin stopped fiddling and turned.

“That’s mean,” he said. “Sorry. I mean, you look fine to me. You know, for the most part.”

“That’s a relief. I feel c-complete now,” she said.

A new hologram appeared. It was a video conference feed of two of Becca’s classmates, Allan and Rachel, both nineteen, from the computer science department at Stanford.

“Hey, Becca, we’re not sure this is right. Did you complete this yet? It’s due tomorrow,” Allan said.

“Did it this m-morning,” Becca said.

Allan touched his screen. A new hologram opened in Becca’s bedroom, and a document titled, “NanoScale thermal transport with photons and phonons,” appeared. Below the title, there were several equations. Becca scanned the document while Devin observed.

“That’s pretty close. There-there is a mistake, however,” Becca said.

“Fuck me, I knew it,” Rachel said. “Sorry.”

“It’s—it’s okay, Rachel.” Slowly turning her head toward Devin, Becca said, “I’ll s-send you the corrected version in a minute.”

“Thanks. Hey, who’s that in the background? You gotta boyfriend now?” Allan said.

Devin laughed. “Nada so fast, dude.”

Becca clicked off the video call.

“My mom said you got into Stanford somehow already. So, what…what grade are you in?” Devin said.

“I’m in grad school, which doesn’t have g-grades.”

“Oh yeah. So whatta ya gonna be, I mean, when you grow up? Gonna work for your dad on the Stream. I mean, you’re a kind of a geek, right?”

“You mean f-freak, huh?”

Becca stopped rocking. Sat dead still in her chair. Turned her head toward the hologram on the wall.

Devin pulled a chair up beside Becca.

“No, I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I think it’s kick-ass that you’re so smart.”

Becca leaned back in her chair slightly, paused for half a second, then turned and started to work on the assignment. Devin nodded, then stood up.

“Sorry. So, I’ll see ya,” Devin said.

“See ya,” she said, not looking up as Devin left.

Becca listened for the front door to close. It was quiet, and she kept listening. She knew her mother was gathering herself and would be coming to check on her sooner or later.

“Arturo, construction s-status, please,” Becca said.

The hologram of the three-dimensional building appeared again, and her eyes intensified. She tried the move the building around, but the hologram was frozen.

“The Stream,” she said.

THE STREAM v17.3 — VIRTUAL REALITY

From the tropical jungle hillside, an iridescent creek flowed into the turquoise ocean; waves lapped the white sand. Becca sat in a beach chair at the water’s edge.

“Arturo, load my list, please,” Becca said.

In front of Becca, dozens of three-dimensional images opened, floating above the water. There were puzzles, games, a construction crane, a chemistry laboratory, and other applications that, when selected, launched full VR environments.

“Architect app,” she said.

Blueprints of the curvaceous complex overlapped in windows in front of her.

“Okay, good. Now highlight the changes since the last viewing, please.”

Thousands of windows appeared.

Becca jerked backward, stunned by what she saw.

THE CONVERGERE

Looking down from one thousand feet above the forest floor in Mendocino County in Northern California, the magnificent undulating structure stood in a clearing among four-hundred-foot-tall redwoods and sequoia giants. The billowing nonsymmetrical surfaces were ellipses, sweeping like the petals of giant flowers, or ocean kelp in the currents, unfolding, breaching to the sun. Convex curves, others concave, like sails catching the wind. The various-sized buildings were connected into a cohesive whole.

From five hundred feet, shades of blue gray with satin sheens were apparent, others shimmering metallic, changing hues as one’s viewing angle changed, never harsh or industrial, ultramodern yet organic with its twisting shapes.

At ground level, the winding walkway approached from the side to what seemed to be the front of the complex, giving the appearance that it was built on a slight diagonal. The reflecting rays of sunlight painted the surrounding dense forest with a soft, warm glow that formed a mosaic of color and shadow.

Some of the contours of the walls flowed like gentle waves cascading sideways, emerging from the Earth at various angles, never perpendicular. There was no delineation of wall and roof, a snapshot of a moment in time, a still life of merging and transforming shapes, like bodies of stringed instruments, a upright-up bass, or the side of a grand piano. The forms evoked purpose—to mesmerize the ancient forest with its symphonies? Yet it was quiet here, silent, tranquil.

Other masterpieces were built on Earth with similar features, but this marvel of architecture was immense, millions of square feet spanning dozens of acres, dwarfing any building that may have served as inspiration. But it was not only its size that separated this creation from any other; it was also the luminescence. The surfaces of the building were emitting light. If one observed long enough, a sense of a metamorphosis taking place was felt—undefinable yet intentional, mysterious yet profound.

The creation was vacant.

Never occupied.

No known history—builder unknown.

Chapter 3

VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

That night, Becca was sitting in her wheelchair at her desk with all her monitors and holograms off when Ronni entered.

“Time for bed. What are you staring at?” Ronni said.

“Nothing. Okay, M-Mom.”

Ronni wheeled Becca into her bathroom and helped her brush her teeth. Ronni looked at her face in the mirror. Thin. Week by week becoming thinner. Ronni’s chest tightened, and she went stiff-lipped, thinking of times of bonding on the beach, anything, to hide the emotion rising from her stomach.

“Stop looking at me, Mom.”

Ronni smiled. Did the veil hold?

Becca spit and rinsed. Ronni washed her face gently like it might rub off in her hands. Becca grabbed the washcloth.

“I can do it.”

“I know you can. My big teenager.”

Ronni wheeled Becca to her bed, helped her into pajamas, then kissed her good night.

“Love you, honey.”

“L-love you, Mom. Turn them a-all off this t-time.”

“Okay, honey.”

Ronni turned all the lights off and left the door slightly ajar.

Becca rolled over and gazed across the room, The power indicator lights of the glass panels speckling the space with blue and red dots.. Becca rolled over and looked across the room.

“Computers off p-please, Arturo,” Becca said.

“Powering off now,” Arturo said in a calming voice.

Becca watched the blue and red lights fade.

“All devices off. Good night, Becca,” Arturo said.

The light from the hallway cast a channel of muted rays into the darkened room. Becca closed her eyes, trying to feel. She heard the faint sounds of the swirling wind, a night ocean breeze riding up the Ventura hills and rustling the branches of the trees outside her bedroom window. She smelled the nutty scent of the chocolate chip cookies on the plate on her desk. She felt the large pillow between her legs; she always slept that way to keep her skin cool. After a few moments, she opened her eyes. She was wide awake.

She reached her hand into the dark, moving her fingers up and down, feeling the air. She drew her hand back and adjusted the pillow under her head and looked up to the corner of her bedroom, the darkest corner. The darkest corner where something might emerge. Emerge, then hover and watch her.

Becca’s mouth became dry, her throat parched. She was not afraid of the dark. Not afraid before now. She heard a ringing in her ears. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sound, the ringing.

Is that my blood chemistry again, or is that you?

She opened her eyes. The ringing stopped. A sensation flowed over her body, subtle but distinct. It rolled through her like a gentle wave.

“I feel you,” Becca said. “Domina, is that you?”

There was no answer. She pushed herself up to a seated position on the bed. She looked around the room, seeing shadows, her eyes adjusting to the dark.

“The computers are off. I’m in RL, Domina. Not in the Stream.”

There was no answer. Becca used both hands to pull her rail-thin legs up to her chest and then wrapped her arms around her knees.

“You can’t be here. Now. If you’re virtual, I mean.”

Becca closed her eyes. Sensing, feeling, thinking. Opened them.

“I feel you more strongly now, like in the Stream. Was that you on K2?”

She peered into the dark corner near the ceiling.

“Who are you?” Becca said. “If you’re not Domina.”

Becca thought she saw a shape forming in the dark upper corner of the room. Then several shapes. She blinked, unsure.

Is it moving? Or are my eyes playing—

She waited. The room was quiet. She reached out into the darkness. There was no answer. It was dead still.

MONTECITO, CALIFORNIA

Kip had spent three years expanding and remodeling the main house of his estate in Montecito, California, cycling through three different architects to execute his vision. It started with a strong Frank Lloyd Wright influence focused on organic architecture; added in Ernest Hemingway’s Cuba house; threw in a spacecraft design motif in the technology rooms, data center, and office complex; blended in modern art museum ideas like expansive sections of tall walls for the works; plus the caveat: “don’t forget that everything is subject to change as we build it out.” At least that was how he explained it to the architects.

Plus, the grotto swimming pool lagoon, par-three golf course, three garages, a tennis court, and whatever Becca wanted in the backyard. Also, the survival shelter belowground, that was a must-have. And finally, the addition of exotic plants on several acres surrounding the main house. Everything grew in the Mediterranean climate of Southern California.

Two layers of gates and a full-time security staff protected the grounds. Protesters were commonly seen wandering about in front of the main gate, variations on tech-is-the-end-of-the-world activists. When the Stream user base exceeded four billion, Kip had become one of the richest men in the world.

Occasionally, Becca wheeled herself to the gate and brought food to the protesters. Kip, with his typical dry humor, pointed out the irony to Becca that some of the anti-technology protesters used cell phones to order pizza for themselves. Delivered by drones.

Kip sat at his desk in his office library preparing for his guest speaker’s appearance at the OpenAI Summit. Writing notes by hand in a Moleskine notebook, it was quiet this time of night. Becca was at her mother’s house, and the staff, led by Henry and Sylvia, had already finished cleaning up after dinner and were in the servant’s quarters. Kip was alone, enjoying the rare silence.

“Night-lights, Arturo,” Kip said.

“Done,” Arturo said.

The light throughout the estate went into night mode. Kip put down his notebook and leaned back in his chair.

“Arturo?” Kip said.

“Yes, Kip?” Arturo said.

“From Becca’s implant, you have the audio recorded from the intensive care unit?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say a presence or the presence?”

“The.”

“Play it.”

The audio of the conversation filled the library, the sound emanating from no single source.

Ronni’s voice: “What was there, honey?”

Becca’s voice: “Dad, it wasn’t in the code. N-not in the code. I felt it. I think I may have even seen it.”

Kip’s voice: “What, honey?”

Becca’s voice: “The presence.”

“Thank you, Arturo. And her friend she refers to in the Stream?” Kip said.

“Domina,” Arturo said.

“Yes.”

“Identify.”

“It is not a developer-created AI from the environment templates. Not a user avatar.”

“Yeah,” Kip said.

Kip waited.

“I said, identify.”

“Affirmative. Processing further.”

Kip waited.

“Arturo?”

“My apologies, Kip. At this point, I detect no digital record. To be more specific, I find no technological footprint related to that particular entity that Becca converses within the Stream.”

“Everything that occurred, does occur, or will occur is in the logs. The logs you manage,” Kip said.

“Yes, Kip, that is true. I have logs on all conversations involving Becca, also all of her actions. All the trillions of conversations and actions that have occurred in the Stream since inception. My record is perfect in this regard. You programmed me to be flawless,” Arturo said.

“But?”

“It seems there is an anomaly.”

“It seems? An anomaly or a bug in your source code?”

“As you know, my source code is debugged in real time.”

“So, it’s not a bug?”

“No.”

“Replay the last conversation Becca had in the Stream that involved the entity she refers to as Domina.”

Becca’s voice: Okay, good. Now highlight changes since the last viewing, please.

“Did the conversation continue?” Kip said.

“Yes,” Arturo said. “But it was only Becca’s voice.”

“What about prior conversations?”

“There are thousands, but it seems that the log only contains a record of her voice.”

“It seems is not a term acceptable in any conversation I have with you, Arturo. I demand exactitude. When I want an approximation or an estimate or a forecast or a prediction or an interpretation, I will ask for it.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“So explain how something could be missing from the logs? Was it deleted?”

“No. Nothing has been deleted. The logs contain only her audio.”

“Only her audio? Like she’s talking to herself. Are you saying she’s schizophrenic?”

“Neurologist Olaf Blanke of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne has done extensive research on this phenomenon. His study focused on an altered sense of agency. Why people with schizophrenia attribute their actions to others. His conclusion was paranoid delusions. Continuing on that work, a doctor Judith Ford of the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that a mismatch between sensory signals and motor signals could be the source of these feelings of alien presences. Those felt by patients suffering from schizophrenia. I have read all their research while we were discussing this, and I accept the logic in it.”

“Uh-huh. What environment was she in?”

“Architecture.”

“Architecture? What exactly?”

A three-dimensional hologram launched in the center of the library.

“She refers to it as the Convergere,” Arturo said.

Kip rose from his chair and walked around it.

“Interior,” Kip said.

The point of view zoomed through the front wall to reveal an empty cavernous building.

“What is this?”

“Unknown at this time.”

“Did Becca build this?”

“Yes. However, there was significant and unusual automation involved.”

“Automation?”

“Yes. Complex. I have not observed this process previously.”

“From what app?”

“Unknown at this time.”

“Your performance related to his inquiry in unacceptable.”

“I understand,” Arturo said.

“Arturo off,” Kip said.

The hologram disappeared. Kip leaned against the front of his desk. His index finger went to his forehead, his thumb to his chin, a sure sign of his racing mind. After a minute, Kip looked around the room, into the shadows of muted light.

He walked to the eight-foot-tall mahogany double doors and opened them, continued into the hallway, then turned right into the living room, which was eighty feet in length: eclectic furniture, antiques, and sculptures from around the world. The room was dark, objects in silhouette. Kip moved slowly through the room, looked up at the ceiling, the walls, out of the windows into the night. He stopped, rubbed his face, ran his fingers through his hair, then exhaled.

Kip thought he sensed someone enter the room behind him. He jumped, then snapped around like a jackrabbit avoiding the flashing fangs of a striking rattlesnake.

“Who’s there? Is that you, Henry? Silvia?” Kip said.

There was no one there.

“Jesus, Wilde, you’re losing it,” he said.

Kip listened. The sounds of a mansion this size, nearly twenty thousand square feet, were many, the winds off the Pacific Ocean erratic and swirling. The sounds of the air moving through the ductwork. The movement of the windows pressed by the breeze. He knew the sounds of his house, its creeks, its moans, its groans. He listened. He listened for anything unusual.

He inhaled deeply. He knew the smells of his house. The fresh-cut flowers changed daily by Sylvia, the roses, the lavender, the lilies, the jasmine. The scent of the oils used on the wood, the Renaissance paste on the fine antiques. His nostrils absorbing the moisture heavy in the air after a rain shower.

There was a sudden chill, and Kip thought he felt air move across his face. He rubbed his arms. Looked around again. Kip walked over to the marquetry console, a French sideboard of tulipwood and amaranth. On it was a silver tray with crystal decanters and cocktail glasses. He poured himself a bourbon and sat in his leather and wood dragon chair. He took a sip. Then another. Leaned his head back.

He reminded himself that he was a technologist.

Everything that happens on earth can be explained by the law of physics.

As magical as Arturo was, the magic was in the brilliance of the code he wrote. And every recursive learning breakthrough, the new dimension of existence in virtual reality, the empire he built called the Stream, all of it, was rooted in ones and zeros. All of it.

Why am I wandering around my house looking for ghosts?

He downed the rest of his bourbon, set the glass on a coaster, and headed up to bed.

Chapter 4

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYMPOSIUM / BECCA’S BEDROOM

The three speakers sat on the stage at the Artificial Intelligence Symposium in Los Angeles. One speaker was Professor Hailey Hagen, who was in his fifties, with PhDs from MIT in both optogenetics and artificial intelligence technology, and who was now teaching at Stanford. Another was Gerald Essex of MacroWare, a bookish Ivy Leaguer, and the final speaker was Kip Wilde. The moderator sat off to the side.

Becca sat at her desk in her bedroom, multitasking, toggling back and forth between the live feed of her father at the symposium that was displayed on a glass panel monitor in front of her, and the hologram of the Convergere complex. She always loved watching her father speak and being immersed in a three-dimensional Stream environment via the Wave Patch on her temple. While she could experience the Stream via her implant with Arturo’s assistance, using a Wave Patch made it easier to toggle between VR and RL. All she had to do was tap it and she was zooming around the Convergere building at ground level.

“There is little, if any, disagreement in this conference hall…” Professor Hagen said. He paused and nodded to several people in the first few rows. “And some of our greatest minds in the field of AI development have graced us with their presence today. The race to be the corporation or government to develop the first superintelligent artificial entity that is truly self-aware is the most sought-after accomplishment of our generation. Governments have and will go to war over it. Corporations will pay any price. Trillions, even.”

The crowd quieted.

“But why? Because we know that the first SIAI1 might cure disease? Even cancer? Maybe. None of your GAIs2 has done it yet. Because it will create new energy sources? Maybe. But fossil fuels remain the dominant energy source. Because it will forge a solution to starvation? Maybe. Because it will create a solution to poverty? Maybe. None of yours has done that yet; in fact, they have drastically increased unemployment. Nor did the most intelligent AI developed by the United States prevent the country from defaulting on its debt. Or is it because this entity will create innovations that will allow humanity to colonize space? Maybe.” Professor Hagen paused.

“Or is it because when the threshold is crossed, it will control all the militaries of all countries?”

Becca watched the audience shift in their seats, whispering to each other; something had struck a chord, but not necessarily a good one.

“It seems that last one interested some of you more than curing cancer. Interesting. But let me ask you this fundamental question in a hypothetical. Let’s say your government, your conglomerate, or your small tech team with that brilliant maverick engineer is the one. Imagine that Saturday you wake up, and you are the one that did it. You just won the lottery, right? No. You just won the lottery of all lotteries. You just became the most powerful government, corporation, or group in the history of the world, right?”

Becca noticed her father scanning familiar faces in the crowd, gauging their reactions, reading their body movements.

The professor continued: “What does that look like for you? What would you do with that ultimate power? Some of you in this conference hall might start real denuclearization, right? Some of you might focus on health. But some of you would take over countries. Some of you would topple enemy governments. Tell the truth.

“So the race is on. And, for you commercial enterprises, what makes you think that as soon as you break out, as soon as you create this magic you seek, that your government will not immediately nationalize you? You don’t think so? How many companies in this room have nuclear weapons? Raise your hands. Of course. Of course, that’s a crazy question. But I tell you here today, you need not worry about your fascist government taking you over and stealing your intellectual property. No.”

Kip snapped a look of concern at the professor.

Professor Hagen continued: “Why, you may ask? I will tell you. What makes you think if you developed the first truly superintelligent entity that it would do anything you instructed it to do, or anything that the government that takes it over wants it to do? Many of you sitting in this room think it will be your property because you filed patents. Many of you think it will be your IP that you can license or software as service. There is an oxymoron here. If your entity becomes aware, really self-aware, do you think it is going to sit there in your quantums like a well-trained golden retriever waiting for your next command? Even if you have the most altruistic intentions, your super-AI—”

Kip interrupted, “May not give a damn what you want.”

The crowd laughed.

Then they stopped laughing.

“Yes, my friend is right,” Hagen said. “I will leave you with this. How many of you in this room have exclusive control over gravity? Thank you.”

Most of the crowd applauded. Most, but not all.

Kip, elbows on his knees, rested his chin on his thumbs as he watched the video montage on a large display behind him. Becca zoomed in on the video: images of transcraft3 vehicles, medical laboratories, robots manufacturing household products or running product distribution facilities, war raging in the Middle East, and drones firing missiles. The montage played on: oil fields burning, city streets lined with the homeless, politicians discussing unemployment on television talks shows, polluted shorelines, and Mexico City and Beijing covered in gray-brown smog.

Becca’s eyes widened, and she put her hand to her mouth, moved by what she saw in the montage.

“It’s just a matter of time before we solve these issues. Several AIs are close,” said Gerald Essex.

Kip cut in: “Close to what? Out of the ten most advanced AIs in the world, eight of them have clearly plateaued to some degree regarding intelligence, including RadNtel. The other two are in China and Russia, so we really don’t know. I admit that I have questionable authority to speak about this since our AI, Arturo, was developed to create virtual worlds and provide mostly entertainment, so many of you discount it, but we have comprehensive educational platforms as well. Nevertheless, after twenty years of significant recursive learning, we still have this shit going on in the world.”

Becca nodded and smiled, proud of her father. She tapped back into the Stream. Her point of view changed; now a bird’s-eye view of the Convergere.

“Arturo, why did my POV change? Go back to ground level, please,” Becca said.

“Checking,” Arturo said.

She tapped back to RL and watched the conference.

Kip gestured to the video montage. “If artificial intelligence is a tool for humankind to solve these problems, at least on a global scale, I assert that it’s falling short. RadNtel has some of the fastest computers on the planet—we can afford them—and how much smarter is Arturo today compared to last month? He, like most, has long since networked the human brain in his neural networks on quantums; he has all the data from the history of man, yet here we are.” Kip pointed to the videos again. “Yes, the leading AIs continue to create viable solutions, but what if it is man that needs to get smarter, not the machine?”

“And how are we supposed to do that, exactly?” Essex said.

“That is the question, now, isn’t it?” Kip said.

The moderator pointed to a woman in the crowd. “Yes, we’ll take your question first.”

“Mr. Wilde, isn’t it true that your AI has a recursive machine learning capability beyond all the others? I mean, it has been widely reported that the only way you could have created the Stream and now maintain its breakneck-speed creative expansion is for an AI to build other AIs and teach itself far beyond human capability,” the woman said.

Choosing his words carefully, Kip said, “There are other AIs with AutoML,4 but Arturo is probably the best of its kind, I would say.”

“When will you lose control of it?” a man yelled from the back of the crowd. “When, not if.”

The crowd mumbled and whispered. Kip held up his hand as he nodded. “He said ‘when.’ Then he said ‘you,’ as in me. Was the gentleman referring to me specifically or AI tech leaders as a group? Then he said ‘it.’ Was he referring to Arturo or all GAIs? The only true answer to the singular, the specific, and the plural is: I don’t know. We don’t know.”

Hagen turned to Kip. “Think back to the Manhattan Project. Trinity. In fact, Kip knows this well, his grandfather was a physicist back then, working with Oppenheimer. Some of the scientists thought nothing would happen with that first test. Some calculated that blast very accurately.”

“And some thought the chain reaction would be infinite and destroy the entire planet,” Kip added.

The crowd stirred.

The moderator pointed to a man in the middle of the crowd. “Yes, sir,” she said.

“When will we know when the threshold has been crossed? That a super-AI is among us? How can we tell? I mean, will it start taking over the Internet, or what?”

“That’s a valid question,” Kip said. “It will certainly impact the Internet, but how? We don’t know. It could take over servers, machines, anything digital, of course. I mean, it’s a possibility. Or it could be lurking and not communicate with us for a while. We don’t know.”

Becca’s POV of the Convergere was moving along the top of the building.

“Arturo, what’s going on?” Becca said.

“Becca, you are no longer in the Stream,” Arturo replied.

“Of course, I am. I-I’m at the Convergere.”

“Stream connection interrupted,” Arturo said.

The man in the crowd at the conference continued: “So, what would be a telltale sign that this threshold was crossed by some powerful entity? Would it speak to the general public? Would it take on a physical form like in the movies?”

“The anthropomorphic prediction is absolute nonsense, so let’s get that out of the way. An SIAI wanting to look like a human would be like a human wanting to look like an ant. An SIAI won’t look like anything. It will be just intelligence. It will just exist,” Kip stated.

Becca fidgeted in her chair. “What do you mean connection interrupted? I’m at the Convergere that Domina and I built. I see it. I’m here. But why did it switch to 2D?”

“Live video feed,” Arturo said. “Still trying to identify.”

“No, Arturo, I am here, in it now, can’t you see?”

“Yes, I see. That’s not the Stream.”

“W-what?”

“Then how will we tell?” the man in the crowd asked Kip.

“Yes, I understand. Well, I guess one way would be that it starts affecting things in RL. Maybe even starts making things,” Kip said.

“You mean like controlling robotic manufacturing?”

“Yes, that and other things. It could become an expert taskmaster, if you will. Directing things. Doing things in RL.”

“You mean taking over things.”

“We’re not sure. It’s all guesswork at this point.”

“Wait a minute, are you saying that this SIAI will move outside the digital world, but we won’t be able to see it?”

“I think another way to ask your question is will it transcend digital. We’ve debated that.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Hagen said. “There are some of us that consider that to be the threshold itself. Meaning, an AI that accelerates its intelligence at such a rapid pace that it moves out of computers.”

“Out of computers?” the man said.

“It’s still all theory, of course,” Kip said.

“That’s impossible,” Essex said. “It’s still software, and it has to exist in code, I mean, to exist.”

Kip’s head titled a fraction, and his lips pursed, both reactions unnoticeable from the crowd. But Becca noticed.

“What do you mean, a live video feed?” Becca said.

“Drone,” Arturo said. “It might be a drone.”

“Might be? Drone? What drone?”

“Coordinates are Mendocino County, California.”

“But it’s certainly possible it could start interacting in the real world,” Kip said.

“On its own. Some significant way,” Hagen said.

“That would be evidence of a threshold being crossed, I guess,” Essex said.

“Of the threshold being crossed,” Kip said.

“Significant evidence?” the man in the crowd said. “What would that look like?”

“So I am looking at the Convergere in RL? I mean, it’s been built? In physical form?” Becca said.

“The video could be fake,” Arturo said.

“Who’s running the drone? How am I seeing through the drone camera?”

“It appears the operator of the drone wanted you to see the creation, the structure.”

“Can you verify the authenticity?” Becca said.

“I recommend a reliable human navigate to the coordinates in RL. I can forward,” Arturo said.

“Arturo, forward this feed to my dad also.”

“Forwarding now,” Arturo said.

Kip’s phone dinged, a notification sound that indicated a text from Becca. Kip removed his phone from his front pocket and looked at it. The screen displayed a live feed of the Convergere.

Kip texted: Hey Becc, what’s this? At conference

Becca: I know. It would look like this

Kip: What would?

Becca: Significant evidence

Then everything went dark, the lights in the conference hall, the smartphones, everything. The crowd groaned.

“Guess the Singularity heard you,” someone yelled from the crowd. That brought laughter. Thirty seconds later, the lights started to cascade back on in the hall. Kip looked at his phone. It was still dead.

Becca’s Wave Patch stopped working, and the feed of the conference on the glass panel terminated.

The Western Interconnection electrical grid of the United States just shut down. Turned off.

1Superintelligent artificial intelligent entity

2General artificial intelligent entity

3First built in 2035, a transcraft is a hover vehicle, part car, part helicopter, part airplane.

4Auto machine learning

Chapter 5

THE WHITE HOUSE

The Western Interconnection was a wide-area synchronous electrical grid that spanned 1.8 million square miles from the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta to the northern portion of Baja California, Mexico, and included the entire western United States. The electric utilities in the Western Interconnection were tied together via high-voltage direct-current power transmission lines. When the surge occurred, the spike exceeded anything on record, and more than a hundred million people lost power.

The successful US presidential campaign of Elizabeth Jones featured the slogan: “All One—One Is All.” Most Americans had heard something like that before, something to do with Musketeers, but it was unclear how it applied to fixing a bankrupt nation with a 12 percent unemployment rate.

A typical day for the new president consisted of a revolving door of meetings to deal with an endless list of crises: the no-end-in-sight conflicts with the failed states of Iran and North Korea; inflation; the high inner-city crime rates; Russia taking over the Earth’s greatest oil reserves; out-of-control immigration swamping government services and systems; the banking crisis; and how to deal with restructuring the economy. And that was all before lunch—though, having no appetite, she could hardly eat.

By the eighth day in office, the most powerful person on the planet had second thoughts about running for a second term and, at times, wished that she’d remained a liberal arts professor at Vassar.

But it was the ninth day that rocked her like no other. It was one of those cancel-all-my-appointments-for-the-rest-of-the-day-and-I-don’t-give-a-fuck-who-they-are-with moments. It was a confidential briefing by Eric Maddax, the secretary of technology, a new cabinet post that had been created two administrations prior. The meeting was in the Oval Office, and Secretary Maddax placed a classified brief in front of President Jones titled: “The advent of a superintelligent artificial intelligence on planet Earth.”

President Jones read the first sentence of the summation: There is a consensus within the leadership in the Office of Science and Technology that within twelve months from this date, a superintelligent artificial intelligence entity (SIAI) will come into existence and take immediate control of subordinate technologies in the sectors of communication, commerce, banking, energy, travel, and government, including the military.