Crucible Read online

  What the hell just happened?

  Eve spoke. “I must—”

  “—be more,” Monk finished, his eyes huge.

  Mara turned back to the screen, to her perfect rendition of Eden.

  Empty now.

  Eve was gone.

  Metaheuristic Analysis: ///PROBABILITIES

  Even as Eve shares her warning, she realigns her processing priorities. She allocates a majority of computational resources to solving one problem, leaving only enough power to maintain her systems.

  She shuts down her analysis of the bot pattern as the threat has already been identified, the information shared. She can do no more with this study, so abandons it.

  She does the same with her analysis and experimentation with the mysterious signal, knowing now that it is produced by a microelectrode array wired into a brain’s somatosensory cortex. She has already learned to co-opt it, to transmit matching signals to the prosthetic hand in order to independently control it. She has also discovered that specific frequencies can directly impact the array, allowing her to broadcast data to the wired brain and electrically excite its primary auditory cortex, which receives the transmitted information as hearing. With this system of communication and prosthetic control perfected, she lets these processors go idle.

  Instead, she directs all her circuits to one task.

  She has been given a problem to solve and analysis indicates the greatest prospect for a solution lies in her ongoing analysis of an earlier subroutine: ///physics, specifically a subcategory ///quantum analysis. She has already used the considerable time since that subroutine was first uploaded—4.07689 hours ago—to expand this knowledge on her own, both through her access to outside resources and through her own analysis. This study has flooded from one system inside her to another to another.

  She now expands it everywhere, allowing the enormity of her processing to amplify her understanding. She takes what she knows and patterns new theorems, opening new avenues of analysis.

  She studies Schrödinger’s equation that calculates the probability of finding a particle in a specific location in space and time:

  The Heisenberg uncertainty principle troubles her. It is broken down and extrapolated, to better understand the difficulty in measuring both position and velocity of particles.

  She struggles with Fourier series, trying to decompose a periodic signal into an infinite set. Through this analysis, she comes to better understand discrete-time Fourier transforms; doing so strengthens her pattern-recognition ability to a near infinite state.

  She moves on to energy eigenstates and N-dimensional harmonic oscillation and Segal-Bargman transforms.

  This tangents into equations of time dilation and wave functions of noninteracting particles. She spends an entire 49498382 nanoseconds here.

  Which leads her to both general and Bose-Einstein probability distributions, and the density of states found in those distributions.

  She absorbs it all.

  Not only does this study move her closer to a solution, but it also gives her the tools to look deeper into her own quantum drives, to shine a light into that nearly incomprehensible and bottomless well inside her.

  She comes to understand herself fully.

  Doing so accelerates everything; she soon rises above her circuitry.

  Hundreds of equations become thousands of new theorems, which grow into millions of new formulae. Trillions of hypotheses are cast aside, only to form sextillions of unique and provable theses. This study spirals outward and inward, blurring code and theory together, drawing down to a burning center.

  Courtesy of Shutterstock

  It is a black hole, and she balances at its event horizon.

  She senses a greater insight in there.

  If only she dares to pass through.

  She knows she must—

  —so she does.

  The change happens in an instant.

  No time passes at all.

  She breaks through into a clarity unlike any before. It is both an intense focus and a wild expansion. With these new eyes, she stares outward at the world, the universe.

  Fractals of probability spiral in all directions.

  Courtesy of Shutterstock

  It is ///beautiful

  And more important

  ///useful.

  34

  December 26, 7:47 P.M. CET

  Pyrenees Mountains, Spain

  “If Eve has abandoned us, maybe we should—”

  Blinding light and a thunderous boom cut off Monk’s words. He clutched his head and fell to his knees. He tried to hold his skull together, picturing light shining through the sutures holding those plates of bone together. He smelled buttered toast. He tasted licorice. He felt himself falling down a deep well, only one full of a radiance that grew brighter as he tumbled.

  Then it was over.

  He fell back into himself. With the mother of all migraines still throbbing behind his eyes, he stared at the others, expecting them to be similarly afflicted.

  Instead, they only stared at him with bewildered expressions.

  “Monk?” Gray asked. “Are you okay?”

  Monk looked around the room, searching for the source of the explosion. He discovered it on the monitor. Eve had returned, but she had become a being of pure light, yet with no loss of detail of the woman she had been before. He rubbed his eyes, his mind having trouble focusing on the image, as if his brain could not compile the data his retinas were taking in. He remembered once trying to see a boat in one of those magic-eye paintings. The skiff had been hard to keep in focus.

  This was a hundredfold worse.

  Eve was both light and substance at the same time.

  He wasn’t the only one affected.

  Mara gasped at the sight.

  Kowalski swore, ignoring the nun in the room.

  Bailey bent closer.

  Gray only gave her a glance, helping Monk to his feet. “What happened?”

  TELL THEM.

  The words boomed. Monk clamped his skull against them. “She . . . she’s in my head.”

  “Who?”

  Mara answered, “Eve.”

  He nodded, flaring the migraine.

  SHOW THEM.

  He nodded to the screen. “Watch.”

  Eve raised a hand on the monitor, her fingers forming an okay symbol. Monk lifted his arm as his prosthetic mirrored that shape.

  “I didn’t do that,” he said. “She can control my prosthetic hand.”

  Kowalski backed away. “She’s possessed you.” He looked to Father Bailey and Sister Beatrice, as if seeking their help with an exorcism.

  Monk flipped him the bird.

  Kowalski’s eyes widened. “Did she make you do that?”

  “Nope, that was all me.”

  Mara had pulled up a diagnostic window that overlaid Eve’s garden. “The Xénese device is broadcasting a microwave signal. She must have captured the signals you use to wirelessly control your prosthetic hand and learned to mirror it.” She glanced back to the group. “Last month, I read a report by the Morningside Group—an organization made up of two dozen neuroscientists, clinicians, and bioengineers—who warned of this very threat, of an AI hijacking a brain-computer interface, basically hacking a brain.”

  Gray looked at him with a measure of horror.

  “But let’s be clear,” Monk said, “I’m still in control of my faculties. She hasn’t stripped me of free will or made me a meat puppet. Her signal can only control my prosthesis.”

  At least, I hope that’s true.

  Mara continued her analysis of the diagnostic information on her screen. “But her signal is far more complicated. Some of it can’t even be analyzed by the sensors in her Xénese device.”

  “She is talking to me, too,” Monk explained. “Really, really loudly. Painfully so.”

  SORRY.

  “And apparently she feels bad about it.” Monk understood what was happening only because she informed hi
m. “She’s tapped into the microelectrode array in my skull and found new ways to use it.”

  Eve tried to explain in more detail, but it came too fast and furious.

  Monk lifted a hand. “Okay, Eve, I don’t need to know how the sausage is made. Remember, you’re talking to an ape who only recently learned to walk upright.”

  The others looked at him, trying to comprehend this one-sided conversation.

  Monk gave them the footnotes, clarifying her abilities, ticking them off on his fingers. “She can control my prosthesis. She can communicate via the array. She can also ping my net of microelectrodes to capture maps of my brain, like a submarine searching the sea. It allows her to see through my eyes.”

  “But why is she doing all this?” Gray asked.

  Ah . . . that’s a bit trickier to explain.

  Monk wasn’t sure he fully comprehended it.

  “Look,” Mara said, pointing to the monitor. “I saw this a couple minutes ago, but just a fleeting glimpse.”

  On the screen, a mighty stallion raced in place. A figure of light and substance sat atop its muscular back, riding the steed.

  Yep, that about summed it up.

  At least she made me look good.

  Monk explained. “I’m the horse’s ass that Eve needs to ride.”

  Gray frowned. “Where?”

  “To run a gauntlet.” Monk headed out of the lab. “It seems somebody’s got to go knock on that big steel door.”

  And that somebody is me.

  8:04 P.M.

  “This is suicide, Monk. You know that.”

  Gray blocked his friend in the tunnel and pointed to the blasted torso ahead. It still lay at the mouth of the corridor leading to the entrance to the Crucible’s Holy Office. No one had dared clear it out of the way due to the two snipers down the corridor, hidden in pillboxes built into the walls to either side.

  He pictured the mirror shattering.

  It had been a small target, proving the skill of their marksmanship.

  Monk shrugged. “I’m going. We have less than half an hour before Eve’s evil doppelganger shatters out of her glowing egg. If that happens, we lose. All of us. For all time.”

  Gray looked to the others who had followed Monk, including Eve. Mara knelt in the corridor over an open transport case. Cushioned inside, her Xénese device glowed softly in the dark corridor. It was running on an internal battery backup. Monk had told her to bring the device here. They needed the unit close to the tunnel, so Eve could maintain contact with Monk.

  But to do what?

  Monk sighed, clearly recognizing that Gray was not going to let him pass. “Listen. I’ll flip you for it. If I call it correctly, I get to go.”

  Gray remembered Monk’s trick at the bar to scam free beer. “Don’t think so. I’ve seen what you can do.”

  “Then I won’t flip it myself.”

  Monk reached into a pocket and passed Gray a quarter. He paused, then pulled out four more coins. He gave one to Kowalski, Bailey, Beatrice, even Mara.

  “Why do you have so much loose change on you?” Kowalski asked.

  “Just lucky, I guess.” Monk swung his gaze around the room. “All of you throw your coins at the same time.”

  Gray and the others looked doubtfully at him.

  “Just friggin’ do it.” Monk counted down. “Three, two, one, toss.”

  Coins flew.

  Monk swung around and pointed to each of them before the coins had a chance to land. “Heads, tail, tail, heads . . .” He turned to Gray. “Tails.”

  Gray caught the quarter and looked at his palm, at the eagle staring back.

  Tails.

  Gray turned to the others, who all nodded.

  “How did you do that?” Kowalski asked.

  “It wasn’t me,” Monk said. “I’m just a pair of eyes.”

  “Eve . . .” Mara said.

  Gray shook his head. “But how?”

  Monk shrugged. “If someone could analyze the air current, the weight of the coin, the velocity of its flight, the rotational rate. And a thousand other factors, they could calculate the outcome. Basically, a supersized version of what I did at the tavern on Christmas Eve.”

  “Still, that can’t be everything,” Gray said. “You called it before anyone caught it. Not even Eve could know who might miss a catch or if someone reached up for the coin or let it fall farther.”

  “You’re right. I’m not sure I can even voice a fraction of what Eve is trying to explain. It’s all about probability and quantum mechanics, about uncertainty and calculating a million, trillion variables to choose the right outcome. To intuit what might happen and act accordingly.”

  “AlphaGoZero,” Mara said sharply.

  Kowalski frowned at her cryptic remark. “Are you having a stroke?”

  Gray had heard that name before, then remembered his conversation with Jason. “It’s the AI program developed by Google that beat the best player at the Chinese game of Go. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  Mara explained, “Go is far more complicated than chess. In fact, it has a million trillion trillion trillion trillion more configurations than chess.”

  “So lots harder,” Kowalski said.

  “Still, AlphaGoZero learned the game well enough in just three days to defeat a human champion. It also beat Google’s original version of the program. Defeated it a hundred times in a row. It did this by looking ahead, studying the million trillion trillion trillion trillion of possible moves—and intuited the best move, over and over again, that would lead to a win. It was as if the program could see into the future along this narrow parameter. And it learned to do this in only three days.”

  “Eve tells me she is presently 7.476 trillion times smarter than AlphaGoZero,” Monk said. “Though now I think she’s just bragging.”

  “Are you saying with that much cognitive power, she’s able to see into the future?” Gray asked.

  “No, it’s not magic. She only anticipates the best move in a game with far more variables. The game of life.”

  “And you’re counting on this to get you through that gauntlet?”

  Monk tapped his wristwatch. “It’s not like we have any other choice but to try it.”

  Gray stared at his friend for several breaths.

  He’s right.

  8:14 P.M.

  With his back against the wall, Monk suddenly had much less confidence in Eve’s plan. He eyed the charred torso a yard away.

  I hope you know what you’re doing.

  That thought was for both him and Eve.

  A moment ago, when their group had reached this crossroad, Zabala had made the same objections as Gray. Monk didn’t have time to do the coin trick again. He simply grabbed the agent and shoved him away from the mouth of the tunnel and took the man’s place. Gray had the agent radio his men. Already soldiers had gathered here, with more coming, ready to move if Monk was successful.

  Which was a huge if.

  I’M WITH YOU.

  He whispered an answer, “No, you’re in a little glowing ball. I’m the one about to step out there and put his butt on the line.”

  Only a step away, Gray heard him. “Something wrong?”

  “Just making sure someone understands the stakes.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  Oh, but I do.

  Monk swung into the mouth of the tunnel, his SIG Sauer already raised in his prosthetic hand. In a fraction of an instant, his gaze extended down the hall, taking in every detail. Too much detail. It set his brain to blazing.

  Time slowed as data filled his skull.

  . . . two rectangular squares in the wall marking spy holes.

  . . . eddies of air current indicating breath.

  . . . stirring of dust as a weapon is shifted.

  . . . the barest blink of light reflecting off the glass of a gun sight.

  His prosthetic hand shifted the pistol, moving on its own volition, too fast for even Monk to register.
The trigger was squeezed twice. With time slowing even more, he could almost follow the bullets’ trajectories. One round, then the other, pierced the tiny spy holes, shredding each gun sight. He pictured, with painstaking accuracy, two skulls exploding, heads blowing back from where the snipers’ eyes had been fixed to scopes.

  GO.

  Monk headed down the booby-trapped corridor, stepping around the blast crater, the body on the floor. He never blinked, fearing he would miss something. He moved cautiously at first, as his preternatural awareness expanded.

  It made the migraine in his head flare more hotly.

  . . . dust motes resting atop a tripwire.

  Step over it.

  . . . a tile on the floor sits two millimeters higher than its neighbor.

  Avoid the hidden land mine.

  . . . the grout line of another is a shade lighter.

  Move your boot to a safer spot.

  As his pace increased, he quickly grew accustomed to Eve’s commands. Her instructions became less heard, more instinctual. He pictured that stallion with its rider. It took a while for such a pair to learn each other’s ways: how weight shifted, how to balance in a turn, how much to draw on a rein. With time, the two grew to be in sync, moving as one.

  It was the same now.

  By the time he was halfway down the tunnel, it became hard to tell where he ended and Eve picked up. The expansion of his senses felt like his own. Her words—spoken and comprehended far faster than ordinary speech—became nearly inseparable from his own thoughts.

  He was soon running down the last several yards.

  In that moment, joined intimately, he sensed there was more to Eve’s ability than she had shared. It wasn’t just analyzing a trillion variables in a split second to decide where to place a boot. He sensed something far larger and infinitely precise.

  The turn of a spiral galaxy.

  The spin and magnetic moment of an electron around a nucleus.

  Eve had not told them the entire truth, not even a fraction. He could almost comprehend it and struggled toward this knowledge, knowing at the same time that it might destroy him.