The liquid crystal displays glistened with each new input to the neural search algorithm, almost as if it wanted the answer as badly as Denise did. But, of course, it didn’t. The massively parallel supercomputer known as Big John had only one purpose: to mine all available data on selected targets, then to cross-correlate that data with all other available information. And Denise knew: Big John’s tendrils extended into everything. When it came to data mining, like its namesake from the old Jimmy Dean ballad, Big John did the heavy lifting.
The most amazing thing about Big John was that nobody understood exactly how it worked. Oh, the scientists that had designed the core network of processors understood the fundamentals. Feed in sufficient information to uniquely identify a target and then allow Big John to scan all known information: financial transactions, medical records, jobs, photographs, DNA, fingerprints, known associates, acquaintances, and so on.
But that’s where things shifted into the realm of magic. Using the millions of processors at its disposal, Big John began sifting external information through its nodes, allowing the individual neurons to apply weight to data that had no apparent relation to the target, each node making its own relevance and correlation calculations. While one node might be processing Gulf Stream temperature measurements, another might access data from the Ming Dynasty.
No person directed Big John’s search. Nobody completely understood the complex genetic algorithms that supplied shifting weights to its evolving neural patterns. Given enough time to study a problem, there was no practical limit to what Big John could accomplish.
Therein lay the problem. Denise Jennings knew all too well the competing demands for the services only Big John could provide. Her software kernel had been inserted into antivirus programs protecting millions of computers around the world. And although those programs provided state-of-the-art antivirus protection, their main activity was node data analysis for Big John.
Big John was a bandwidth hog. No matter how big a data pipe fed it, Big John always needed more. Denise’s software provided an elegant solution to that problem. Commercial antivirus programs scanned all data on protected computers, passing it through node analysis, adding their own weighting to the monstrous neural net. It didn’t matter if some computers were turned off or even destroyed. If a data node died, more and better processors constantly replaced it. And through a variety of domains, Big John managed the entire global network.
Denise had been at the heart of the program from its beginnings in the late twentieth century, her software underpinning the secret government effort to encourage hackers to develop computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and on and on until everyone needed protection. And to fill that need, huge antivirus companies rose up to meet the challenge.
The funny thing about it was that every Tom, Dick, and Harry had an antivirus package on his computer to protect it from unauthorized access. Little did they suspect that her kernel lay at the heart of every single one of those packages, constantly scanning every piece of information on the system as well as every bit of Internet traffic passing through the computer’s network cards. Now cell phones needed antivirus protection, providing hundreds of millions of new nodes for Big John’s neural net.
Denise ran a hand through her graying hair and leaned back in her chair, letting the Herman Miller lumbar support stretch her lower spine. What time was it? Midnight? A glance at the lower right corner of her monitor provided the answer. Two thirteen a.m. Leave it to Dr. Hoffman to schedule an eight a.m. senior staff meeting. Ah well, might as well make it another all-nighter, especially since she needed to be extra careful covering her electronic tail.
Damn it all to hell! It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to do her job and then retire, not get involved in international intrigue likely to get her killed. She knew Big John wasn’t alive, but she couldn’t help hating him for what he’d done to her, for what he was still doing to her. He’d shoved this in her face until she couldn’t resist a little extra digging.
The November Anomaly was still top secret, but with leaders of the world’s most powerful countries scared shitless, it wouldn’t stay that way much longer. The Anomaly had attracted Big John’s attention on multiple levels, but if Denise had been a typical nine-to-fiver, she’d never have noticed the interwoven threads tying the event to something far more disconcerting. Jesus. It was insane to even think that something could be more terrifying than a singularity sitting at the center of the ATLAS detector, threatening to destroy Earth. But what she’d found while tugging on those threads filled her soul with a horror that crept into every idle thought, invading her dreams until she dreaded sleep.
Because the Anomaly had occurred on Friday morning, November twenty-seventh, she’d missed the association, but Big John hadn’t. Here in America it had still been November twenty-sixth, Thanksgiving night. And what a night of activity that had been. That was the night that Jack Gregory had attacked the GPS satellite command center, uploading a signal that had effectively disabled most of the world’s nanite inoculations. It was the night that military personnel at Schreiver Air Force Base had found Eduardo Montenegro’s body, not far from where Jack had performed the uplink. It was also the night the government discovered that Dr. Donald Stephenson had participated in a number of unauthorized activities under the umbrella of the Rho Project, activities that included the horrifying experiments in the warrens beneath Henderson House and modifications to the nanites that made them programmable through an external signal via the GPS system.
Big John had identified two other incidents that occurred at almost the same time. That Thanksgiving night, the alien Rho Ship, kept in a secret facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, had lost all power, losing the camouflaging cloak and all its internal lighting. It was as if the thing had just suddenly died. Even more astoundingly, three gravitational wave detectors, ALLEGRO in Louisiana, EXPLORER in Geneva, and AURIGA in Legarno, detected gravitational waves of such magnitude that scientists initially dismissed the results. Later correlation with ATLAS detector data showed them to have been caused by the November Anomaly.
For Big John, this series of apocalyptic events occurring nearly simultaneously had raised a red flag, one that tugged at Denise’s curiosity. Thus seduced, she had added a new priority intelligence requirement to Big John’s list, and yesterday Big John had delivered.
A recently published paper by Dr. Frederick Botz, an obscure physics professor at Arizona State University, offered up a triangulation of the three gravitational wave observations that placed the origin of the event not at the ATLAS detector, but in the general vicinity of the New Mexico–Colorado border. Although the paper had drawn almost no attention in the scientific community, it had brought beads of cold sweat to Denise’s brow. Due to her long relationship with Big John, her mind had come to function in harmony with the machine. Like tumblers in a lock, the pieces clicked into place.
Los Alamos. The gravitational event had originated at Los Alamos at the same time that the Rho Ship had died, just as the November Anomaly appeared in Meyrin, Switzerland. Everywhere she looked, Dr. Stephenson’s tentacles touched the surface. He was the common factor. Stephenson had been the first to open the Rho Ship. He had been in charge of all the research on alien technologies, behind the scheduled release to the public. Add to the pot the fact that every serious political opponent of the Rho Project had turned up dead. Then, on the night his plans came crashing down, the Rho Ship had died, somehow triggering a gravitational event detected across the world, possibly causing a quasi-stable singularity to form at the heart of the ATLAS detector.
Now Dr. Stephenson was about to be exonerated and placed in charge of the scientific effort to save the planet from the November Anomaly. Of course all of this was speculation on Denise’s part. No one else would believe her even if she brought it to the NSA director’s attention. Besides, she didn’t relish the idea of going public with her allegations against Dr. Stephenson.
But Big John had identified another anomaly, this time a statistical one. Through a correlation so mysterious that it had bypassed everyone else’s notice, Big John had identified a group closely connected to Dr. Stephenson’s current situation, a group for which the connection made no sense. That’s what drew Denise in so irresistibly. Score one for curiosity.
Turning her attention back to the bank of LCD monitors, Denise finalized Big John’s new command.
Highest priority intelligence requirement.
Heather McFarland. Mark Smythe. Jennifer Smythe.
Restricted access override...Denise Jennings...eyes only.
Buried far beneath Chekhov, Russia, the spartan briefing room represented an insignificant fraction of the Russian General Staff’s wartime command post. The assemblage of military officers sat in total silence, a silence that the scientist who had just concluded his briefing dared not break.
General Sergei Kharnov leaned sideways in his chair, his chin propped on his left hand at an angle that made it difficult to see his eyes through his bushy brown eyebrows. He didn’t trust the American, despite the fact that he was the most important Russian spy since Klaus Fuchs penetrated the Manhattan Project. Still there was no denying the quality of the scientific information he had provided to the Ministry of Defense. The American government’s furious reaction to Dr. Frell’s defection had held no surprises for Kharnov, coming as it did right after the news about Henderson House. That, and the tremendous effort the Russian government had thrown into smuggling Dr. Frell out of the US, should have convinced him of the man’s loyalty.
But General Kharnov had a rule of thumb that had served him well throughout his long career. Never trust politicians or spies.
A drop of water fell from a crack in the concrete ceiling to splash onto the corner of the table nearest the general, an occurrence so common in the huge facility that it normally attracted no attention. But against the backdrop of silence, the sound seemed preternaturally loud, just enough to finally rouse General Kharnov from his contemplation. He leaned forward once more.
“Dr. Frell. We’ve all seen and heard your drawn-out presentation on the wonders of your research. But I want to cut through the sales pitch and ask you some very specific questions. And I expect to hear, from you, very specific answers. Do I make myself clear? Da?”
At the far end of the room the American cleared his throat and answered in barely understandable Russian. “Yes, General. I understand.”
“Three months you’ve been here. We set up a lab for you in this facility. Have you been able to recreate the Rho Project nanite fluid?”
Dr. Frell paused. “Yes. I’m speaking of the original formula delivered to Africa.”
“You made samples? Tested it?”
“On animals. Yes.”
“Why not human subjects?”
“Risk. First we make sure it works on animals, then humans.”
General Kharnov scowled. “You waste time. What are you doing here? Developing a cosmetic product? Stop being stupid. From now on, no animal tests. Tell Dr. Poranski how many subjects you need and they will be delivered. Clear?”
Dr. Frell nodded, sweat beads popping from his brow despite the sixty-degree temperature maintained throughout the underground bunker complex.
General Kharnov rubbed his palms together as if in anticipation of the next exchange. “New subject. What about the nanite formula you were using at Henderson House? Have you replicated it?”
“No, sir, we have not. I directed our initial efforts here toward reproducing the successful first formulation. What we had at Henderson House was a failure.”
“So you made no progress there?”
“No. We made many advances. Unfortunately we failed to resolve the problems that arose from those advances within the time allotted us.” A frustrating response.
“And if you were given more time?”
Dr. Frell stared directly into General Kharnov’s eyes. “Given sufficient time, I believe I can deliver a formulation that can correct any human deficiency.”
As much as Dr. Frell’s quibbling annoyed him, the man’s potential future successes meant that Kharnov would continue to tolerate the American scientist.
“How much time would you say you need?”
“Six months.”
“Done.” General Sergei Kharnov paused. “But I have one more question before I let you return to your work.”
“Yes?”
“The formula you failed with at Henderson House. Can it be weaponized?”
Dr. Frell paused, his eyes losing their focus for several seconds. “Well...yes, General. I believe there might be a way.”