—Won’t they report what happened when they get back?
—What could they report? The other submarine was there, and then it was not. Their ships were there, and they know we did not leave with a submarine. What matters is that we recovered the head. Have you attached it yet?
—No. We haven’t even unwrapped it. Dr. Franklin wants us to try everything we can on the console before we attach the head. If we can see the result on the hologram first, we can avoid accidents when she’s functional.
—I thought curiosity would have the better of you.
—Well, it would have had the better of me. I would’ve put that thing on the minute we got back. At least we’d know if it works, right? Then out of nowhere, Vincent was back to his old self for a few seconds. He said: “One of those buttons could be a self-destruct.” It was nice to catch a glimpse of him again. His eyes, they haven’t been the same since the accident, but he looked at me like he used to for a moment. Of course, I didn’t have anything smart to say after that. We all agreed to work on the console while Vincent gets better.
We didn’t find a self-destruct, but we did find the command to disassemble her. There is a small button on the top left of the console, if you press it long enough, she lays down on her stomach, arms along her sides, and all the parts disconnect from one another, at least they do on the hologram. There’s a hatch on top of the sphere for us to get out, since the sphere will stay level, but I don’t know how we’ll be able to reach it.
—Have you discovered any weaponry?
—Not yet, but it could be weeks before we try every sequence on the console, and some of the controls seem to have no effect on the hologram. These could be your weapons.
—My weapons?
—You know what I mean…All we can see right now is what makes her move. If there’s a button that makes her eyes shoot little turquoise lightning bolts, we won’t know until we can do it for real. We’ll have to figure out these things once she’s assembled if Vincent recovers enough strength.
—You mean when he recovers his strength.
—Sure, that’s what I meant. Promise me you won’t push him.
—You make it sound as if I could control him in some way. I cannot force him to do anything he does not want to.
—You sorta can, that’s the thing. He listens to you. Don’t ask me why. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why he’d trust you of all people, but he does. Don’t abuse that trust.
—You and I both know that Mr. Couture puts more faith in your opinion and that of Dr. Franklin than he will ever put in anything I have to say. To suggest otherwise is simply preposterous.
—No, he trusts us…he trusts me for just about everything, but he knows how much I care about him, and Dr. Franklin too. He knows we’ll always have his interests at heart. I guess, in some weird way, he trusts your…objectivity more.
—Do you believe I have lost my objectivity?
—Lost it? No. I don’t think you really had any to begin with. I don’t see how anyone can come into this and remain objective. Dr. Franklin is a scientist. If anyone can remain detached it should be her, but she’s not a robot, she’s curious, she’s proud. She can’t help but be blinded to certain things because of what motivates her. The same thing is true for me, and it’s blatantly true for you. You have your own agenda and you’re willing to go the distance for it. I’m not saying you’re in this for your own personal gain—I think, in many ways, your motivation might actually be less selfish than everyone else’s—but that doesn’t make you any less biased. The only difference between me and you, when it comes to Vincent, is that you really don’t care what happens to him if he can’t do this. That’s not objectivity.
—I can accept, and even understand, that you might question my motives. I find it more difficult not to respond when my integrity is questioned. Have I ever lied to you?
—A thousand times, I’m sure. Just don’t lie to him, that’s all I’m asking.
—I suppose I should be offended. Has it ever occurred to you to ask Mr. Couture if he believes I have misled him in any way? He is an incredibly intelligent young man, more so than either you or I could ever aspire to be.
—Come on. Be honest for one second. If he said: “No, I don’t wanna do this anymore,” you wouldn’t try to force him to continue, manipulate him, blackmail him, threaten him in some way?
—Who is being manipulative now? There are two possible answers to this question: one that you would not believe, and one that would make me a cruel and evil figure. So I can either appear cruel and dishonest, or honest but still cruel and evil. You have formulated a question for which the best possible answer is to admit than I am a dangerous manipulative blackmailer. You will forgive me if I do not give you the pleasure of answering it.
Fortunately for me, your question is entirely speculative, as Mr. Couture has expressed on several occasions, and to the both of us, his strong desire to help with this project in any way that he can. If, at some point in the future, his disposition changes and he wishes to remove himself from this enterprise, then you will have the only answer that really matters and we will know if I am everything you portray me to be. In the meantime, I hope you will not presume to know more about the needs and wants of Mr. Couture than he does, and that you will honor and respect the wishes of the man you claim to love.
FILE NO. 182
PERSONAL JOURNAL ENTRY—DR. ROSE FRANKLIN, PH.D.
Location: Underground Complex, Denver, CO
“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”
Those are not my words. In fact, I had to look up the exact quote. Like everyone else, I only knew “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” We tend to romanticize good quotes, and I always imagined Oppenheimer uttering those words while staring at the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. In reality, he spoke those words during an interview for an NBC documentary in 1965. He had had twenty years to think about it.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project these past few days. I haven’t been building a bomb, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore a very simple truth.
I am building a weapon, and a formidable one at that. But that’s not the truth I’m hiding from. There’s no hiding from that. I spend most of my time understanding just how devastating it can be. I realize it may have been an instrument of peace, but not the kind of peace achieved through righteousness and understanding. This is meant to be a killing machine, one of such might and power that no one would stand against it.
It works. I’m afraid of it. I’m reminded of it every night in my dreams. All of us are. I keep showing up earlier and earlier in the morning, either because I can’t sleep or because I don’t want to go back to whatever dream I was having. Inevitably, someone’s already there, or they show up a few minutes later. No one wants to talk about it, but we can all tell we’re going through the same thing.
My dream is usually the same: she’s standing over me, then she bends on one knee and brings her face a few feet above my head. She’s staring at me with bright, blinding turquoise eyes; she looks like she’s about to speak. That’s when I wake up in a sweat.