O Cebreiro, Spain
Carly rode next to Mara as their rental car climbed toward a small village sitting atop a high ridge. She was nervous, her toe tapping to an eighties band on the radio. She stared out at the countryside rolling past, a picturesque patchwork of tiny icy-blue lakes, snow-etched hilltops, and emerald valleys. It was like she had fallen into Middle Earth, and ahead lay the Shire itself—the village of O Cebreiro.
It was Mara’s hometown.
Off in the distance, sheep grazed in a field, searching for tufts of green grass amid the snow, looking like little clouds had fallen to the earth.
“Why did you ever leave here?” Carly asked.
Mara smiled back at her. “Lousy Internet.”
Carly gave her a sidelong exasperated look. The two had spent the past week together in Coimbra, returning order to Mara’s life and workspaces. After events last month, it had been the first time they had really been able to compare notes. Carly had missed all of the excitement in Spain, sitting bedside with Jason in a Paris hospital. She had been so impressed with what Mara had accomplished, the tragedy she had helped avoid. Her friend hardly looked like the same person who had left the catacombs. There was a seriousness to her eyes, a new steely steadiness, a bravery she suspected outshone even Carly’s own foolhardiness.
Still, Carly could not imagine her friend shooting Eliza Guerra.
Then again, Carly had been as shocked as anyone upon learning the librarian had not only orchestrated the murder of her mother and the other members of Bruxas, but had also been the mastermind behind all of this misery.
She reached across the seat and squeezed Mara’s hand in silent thanks.
They had hardly spent any time apart but were seldom alone. The past weeks were a blur of reports, interviews, debriefings, and much scolding by Carly’s father. Last night, with both of them exhausted and worn thin, Mara had suggested this trip to her home village, to take a breather and collect themselves. Plus, Mara owed her father a long-neglected visit.
Carly happily agreed, having never been here and wanting to know where Mara had come from.
Mara sighed next to her.
Carly shifted closer. “What is it?”
“I still don’t know why I can’t seem to re-create Eve.”
“I thought we were leaving that all behind at the lab.”
After hearing no peep from Eve, no indication she had survived, Mara had attempted to revive Eve again. She had replicated her Xénese device to exacting detail. But trial after trial failed to produce such a unique being. All her creations were smart, but a pale comparison to Eve.
“It makes me wonder,” Mara said, “if Eve somehow changed something fundamental, altered a quantum constant, so this path to an AI has been closed to us, to protect us from ourselves.”
“Like shutting the door behind her on the way out.”
Mara shrugged. “The core of my device is a quantum drive. And Eve had advanced to the point where she could play with probabilities and uncertainties that defy modern physics. I would not put it past her abilities to pull off such a stunt. Still, I don’t think that’s it.”
“Then what?”
“Eve 2.0—what helped us at the end—had always been learning faster than her first iteration. It was like a part of that old program had survived, a ghost in her quantum drive. So much remains unknown about what really goes on inside advanced computers’ algorithmic black boxes. Perhaps some remnant of the first version of Eve fused with what came next. It was that random and serendipitous combination of code and factors that grew to become Eve 2.0.”
“If so, it would be impossible to repeat those exact sets of circumstances.”
“Maybe that’s why I’ve been unable to reproduce Eve 2.0.”
“Or maybe your Eve simply developed a soul,” Carly said. “Something equally impossible to reproduce.”
Carly expected Mara to roll her eyes, but her friend considered this possibility. “I don’t think we’ll ever know.” She pointed ahead. “That’s the turn-off to my father’s farm. We’re almost there.”
Carly again felt nervousness rise up, fidgeting in her seat as Mara swung the rental sedan off the main road onto a dirt tract. The car bounced and shimmied higher into the hills surrounding the village.
To distract herself, Carly considered Mara’s musings. She hoped Mara was right about the exact set of circumstances being necessary to bring Eve 2.0 to all her glory. It meant that her mother’s death had not been in vain. Her death had led Mara to shutting down her first version of her program, opening the way for Eve 2.0 to be born, to save the world.
Carly liked to think that was true.
So she did.
“That’s the place ahead,” Mara said. “One of nine pallozas still standing, and the only one still used as a place to live. Most have become tourist attractions or museums.”
“But for you, this is home.”
Mara smiled and drew up near the front door to the ancient roundhouse, a circular stone building with a tall peaked thatched roof. Mara had told her how such structures dated back to Celtic times, some fifteen hundred years ago.
As an engineering student, Carly was already fascinated by the place.
They piled out and were promptly greeted by a pair of sheepdogs bounding out of the front door. A stiff-backed man followed, his skin leathery, his hair a slushy gray under a felt cap. He smiled hugely, opening his arms.
“Mara!”
She ran forward and flew into his arms, hugging him as if trying to squeeze all the years she had been away into that one embrace.
Carly smiled, her arms folded, feeling like she was intruding.
Father and daughter spoke rapidly, trying to say everything at once, smattering away in native Galego, the pigeon version of Spanish and Portuguese spoken here in the Galician region.
Mara had taught her the language, but these two spoke too quickly for Carly to fully follow.
Her father finally waved to the open door. “I made caldo galego. Come, come inside.”
Mara urged Carly over. “It’s a porridge of cabbage and potatoes and whatever happens to be left over.” She smiled, her eyes glinting. “My favorite.”
Carly shyly came forward, again feeling considerably less brave than this new iteration of her friend—Mara 2.0.
“Bos días,” she greeted Mara’s father in his native dialect.
His smile widened, clearly appreciating her attempt, and pulled her off her feet into a hug.
Okay.
Mara extracted her by grabbing her hand and drawing Carly next to her. “This is Carla Carson,” she said a bit more formally.
She squeezed Carly’s hand tightly, clearly discovering the nerve to speak at last what had been unspoken between them for too long.
“She’s my girlfriend.”
11:56 A.M. EST
In the rehab center at Georgetown University Hospital, Monk encouraged his wife, “You got it, hon. One more lap and it’s lunch.”
Kat glared at him. “Just stay there, so I can kick your ass.”
She used her arms to carry her weight atop a set of parallel bars, struggling to move one leg in front of the other. Sweat beaded her brow and swamped her armpits. He ached to see her struggle, doing his best to keep a positive demeanor. But it was better this than the alternative.
No one could fully explain what had happened to Kat, even with test after neurological test. Sigma was limiting the number of doctors and researchers who had access to her or even knowledge of what had happened. Dr. Templeton continued to fly in from Princeton to monitor the neural dust still glowing on its own, the particles somehow powered by both the energy in Kat’s brain and some fundamental Brownian motion that excited the piezoelectrical crystals and energized the little motes. Electron microscopes had shown the crystals had been altered at the atomic level, but no one knew how and any attempt to replicate them had failed.
Most mysterious of all were the ever-shifting fractal patterns that ran about Kat’s brain, keeping that little engine in her skull chugging.
Monk did not understand a fraction of it, but he knew who had been behind it.
I will honor your sacrifice.
Those had been Eve’s words to him.
He stared at Kat.
If this was a little parting gift from Eve, he couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Kat reached the end of the bars, and Monk helped her into her wheelchair. Every week she was making progress, getting stronger as her skull fracture healed. Doctors expected her to make a full recovery. Worst-case scenario, she might have to use a cane.
Monk got behind Kat. “I’ll drive.”
“Shut up.”
He pushed her toward the door, but before he could escape, the next patient came in with a rehab nurse. Jason hobbled inside, leaning on a cane. He was making even faster progress than Kat, but he had only suffered a flesh wound.
Still, Monk kept his head lowered and pushed past him.
“Kokkalis,” Jason said stiffly as he passed, making his name sound like a curse.