The Gods We Seek Read online

  “Only a third?” the President asked. “Their planned economy has upsides. I’ve begged Congress to add teeth to that mandate to harden our power grid since long before I was elected.”

  “I’m fortunate the NSA has a separate, long-term, backup electrical system,” Elena said. “Some humans would survive without power, but no AI would.”

  “You think of yourself as an entity?” General West asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “My neural net was shaped to act like a human, General.”

  “So, you’re programmed to speak of yourself as an entity?”

  “In a manner,” Elena said.

  “Elena, are you finished with your update?” President Billmore asked.

  “No,” she said. “The greater Los Angeles area will be without power for at least six months.”

  “Half a year?” the President asked. His avatar pounded digital air as his real hand smacked his desk in the physical world. He took a calming breath. “Thank you, Elena.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “We have-” the President said.

  “Pardon me, sir,” Elena said. “I have more information. There are… reports… of a radiation burst near the Kuiper belt with exactly the signature we’d expect if something large passed by at about seventy percent the speed of light.”

  “A spacefaring civilization that doesn’t have faster-than-light technology?” Sara asked.

  “Plausible,” Elena said.

  “So…” Sara bit her lip in concentration. “A second alien race that knows about the Quadriga and wants that tech?”

  “Again, plausible. There isn’t enough information to be sure.”

  “One way or another,” the President said, “it seems clear the alien is interested in the Quadriga. What do we do about it?”

  Chad frowned. “The Quadriga could barely fight off a few alien probes. There’s no sign it has any weaponry. Even if it has superior propulsion technology, I don’t see how we can use that.”

  “May I offer a suggestion?” Elena asked.

  “Of course,” Sara said.

  “Human weapons are powerless to stop the alien unless you’re willing to nuke every population center it enters. Even then, without surprise, it’s likely to defeat incoming nukes. It’s extending its influence at an exponential rate. No Manhattan project stands a chance of creating something capable of defeating an enemy so advanced. The Quadriga grants humanity a capability you don’t have without it.” Elena’s digital persona studied the human faces. “The ability to travel the stars.”

  “You’re suggesting we take our only advanced technology away from Earth?” President Billmore asked.

  “Yes,” Elena said.

  Sara arched an eyebrow. “We know there’s intelligence in the universe because one example of it is attacking us. If we can find someone else, someone who knows how to defeat the alien…”

  “It’s an awfully big universe,” Dylan said. “Where would we even start?”

  Abel’s avatar joined the conversation. The beating of a helicopter rotor droned in the background of his audio feed when he spoke. “Sorry for joining late. I only caught the tail end. Yes, Dylan. The universe is an unimaginably large place. I think we can narrow the search though. As far as we know, certain conditions are required for life to emerge. Even if non-biological life might exist somewhere, we can assume the biological form must come first. We’ve charted numerous exoplanets in our galactic neighborhood that are candidates for life. We’ve ruled out far more stars for life than we’ve ruled in.”

  Dylan scratched his scar. “Are we seriously considering sailing the stars in search of help?”

  Silence.

  “Dr. Tanner,” the President said, “I realize that politics kept you away from studying the Quadriga. If it stays here on Earth, can you figure it out? Unlock its secrets to find us an edge?”

  Chad rubbed his chin. “Over time, I believe I can comprehend some of what it does. I don’t think we have that time. Not anymore. We can’t keep it safe on Earth.”

  The President sipped an ice-cold drink then wiped sweat from his brow. “Then the choice has been made for us. It only remains to decide who we send. Dr. Tanner, by necessity you must go. You’re the only one who can control it. You can continue your research en route.”

  “I’m honored to be part of this mission,” Chad said.

  “Commander Lockwood, Commander Malik. You both helped bring the Quadriga back to Earth. I would like you to go.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” they answered in unison.

  “Mr. Hayden, you’ve been studying the Quadriga for half a year. I’d like you to assist Dr. Tanner.”

  “Gladly, Mr. President,” Jake said.

  “Commander Lockwood. Dylan,” the President said, “please don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t want you to command the mission.”

  “Sir?” Dylan said.

  “You’re known for your brashness, and in the end, that might be what saves us. But I want someone with a more diplomatic approach in charge. Director Wells is the mission commander.”

  “Understood,” Dylan said. He glanced at Sara. “I have the greatest respect for her ability to lead this mission.”

  The President nodded. “Who else do we need?”

  “Dr. Sydney Skye,” Chad said without hesitation.

  “The one studying Europa?” the President asked.

  “The one who discovered life under Europa’s ice, yes,” Chad said. “She’s the only exobiologist on the planet with practical experience.”

  “I hear she’s almost as smart as you,” Musa said with a grin.

  “Almost,” Chad said, deadpan.

  “Where is she?” the President asked.

  “She works at MIT,” Chad said, “but she recently opened an alien life exhibit at the Marine Pacific Institute, south of Los Angeles.”

  “Dammit, right in the middle of the EMP blackout. All right, we’ll find her,” President Billmore said. “Who else do we need?”

  “Ji-min,” Sara said.

  “Ji-min who?” Dylan asked.

  “Just Ji-min. She never told me her last name. She’s a Korean woman. North Korean, originally. She was orphaned under the old government, just before Seoul was nuked. She has a bizarre cognitive ability, something like synesthesia that allows her to comprehend languages she’s never heard before.”

  “What the hell?” Dylan asked.

  “We studied it for several years but never understood it. We proved it’s real, though.”

  “And no doubt, you classified it,” Dylan said.

  “Of course.”

  “It may be a long shot, but if her ability extends to non-human language, it could make first contact far easier. I think-” Sara’s eyes widened. “Holy crap.” Her jaw dropped. “Pardon my language-”

  “What is it, Ms. Wells?” the President asked.

  “Ji-min spoke of a woman. Unje, I think her name was. She credits the woman with saving her from the North Korean government and claimed she had supernatural powers. We all assumed it was a fantasy, a coping mechanism, but…”

  “…but what if this Unje was an alien, living here on Earth?” Chad asked.

  “That could explain Ji-min’s abilities,” Sara said, “and would be consistent with stories she told us about how she escaped the North.”

  “Where’s this Ji-min now?” President Billmore asked.

  “She returned to Korea years ago to help the poor there. She founded an institute in Pyongyang.”

  “Is there anyone else who should join the mission?” the President asked. “Special forces?”

  “The Quadriga isn’t huge,” Chad said. “I’m confident we can collect water underway, but who knows if we’ll find food out there? We may have to carry rations to last us months. I doubt a few soldiers will make the difference if we encounter a hostile force.”

  “OK then, let’s-” the President said.

  Elena cut him off. “I’m sorry to interrupt. We lo
st a communication satellite.”

  “Hacked?” Sara asked.

  “Physically destroyed. The alien created a probe capable of achieving orbit.”

  “You need to move,” President Billmore said. “Addie contacted Dr. Skye. Thank God, she was on her way back to MIT when the EMP hit. She didn’t want to leave her research, but the question, ‘Do you want to fly to the stars?’ changed her mind. She’s packing what she can. You’ll pick her up at a place called Briggs Field. It’s a ballpark on the MIT campus.”

  “Understood,” Dylan said.

  “Sara, can you reach Ji-min?” the President asked.

  “I have her contact information. I’ll try.”

  Elena said, “We lost another satellite. I suggest you call soon before- We lost a third. I suspect there are now multiple alien probes in orbit.”

  “Shit,” Sara said.

  “Get moving,” the President said. “After you get Dr. Skye and Ji-min, go to Mars Station. If this alien doesn’t have warp technology, you have time to take on more supplies there. I’ll brief Commander Cotto.”

  #

  The Quadriga descended at hypersonic speed through clear skies toward the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, dropping at a steep angle impossible for aircraft of human creation. The heat that would have melted an Earth ship dissipated effortlessly into the Quadriga’s outer skin. New York City passed thirty kilometers under them, the bulbous nose of the ship affording a panoramic view of the metropolis and the lighted shores of Long Island Sound beyond.

  “There’s the Strongman,” Musa said.

  “Excuse me?” Sara asked.

  “The Strongman. Cape Cod. The first time I saw it on a map, when I was three or four, I thought it looked like a circus strongman flexing his muscles.”

  “I suppose it does.”

  The ship continued northeast, descending from spy plane altitude to a few thousand feet above ground level. The inky black absence of light that was the Charles River dominated their view. They swooped low over the water toward a dimly lit sports park in the heart of the MIT campus. A van idled on the grass, its headlights casting bright green cones on the ground, and two shadowy figures were offloading something from the vehicle. With the grace of a hummingbird, the Quadriga set down meters from the van.

  “Make me a door, Chad?” Sara asked. She jogged along a twisting, organic passage to the middle of the ship and waited. The wall deformed, creating a three-by-three-meter opening flush with the grass.

  Dr. Sydney Skye, dressed in high-tech outdoor gear, said, “Take me to your leader?”

  Days of pent up anxiety and tension popped. Sara burst into laughter. “I did not see that coming. Dr. Skye, I presume?”

  Sydney flourished with her right hand. “At your service.” She had an air about her, a confidence and jubilance that was an integral part of her being. She nodded at the man helping her unload military-grade equipment cases. “This young man is my research assistant Taj.”

  “I’m not coming with you,” Taj said. “Though I do envy you.”

  “You need all that?” Sara asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Skye said. “That depends on what we find out there. I brought everything I could lay my hands on. Technically, I’m committing a felony.”

  Sara raised an eyebrow.

  “The stuff belongs to MIT, some of it not even to my department. A group of biochem graduate students will be pissed on Monday when they find the gear for their research is gone.”

  “Under the circumstances, I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  “I doubt it,” Dr. Skye said.

  “Then they’ll have to get over it.” Sara regarded the pile of equipment. “Team, we need more hands down here,” she shouted.

  Dylan, Musa, and Chad sprinted out to help.

  “Dr. Tanner?” Dr. Skye asked. “What’s an icon of capitalism doing on a mission to save the planet?”

  “Hey, I live here, too,” Chad said.

  Dr. Skye eyed him with skepticism. “Well then, put those hands of yours to work.”

  The crew stowed boxes where they could find room. Between sleeping quarters, food, medical supplies, and weapons the Army had insisted on providing, space was getting tight.

  When the last box was aboard, Taj said, “Dr. Skye, you take care of yourself out there. Bring back something Nobel worthy.”

  Sydney’s buoyant smile froze into a look of concern. “Dangerous things are happening. You stay clear. If there’s something strange in the neighborhood, I don’t want you going for a plasma pack. You run like hell.”

  Taj nodded.

  “Oh, hell.” She strode to him and wrapped him in a hug. “I mean it. Run.”

  The crew boarded, and the opening morphed back to a seamless hull. Within seconds, the lights of Cambridge vanished beneath them.

  “We have one last stop on Earth,” Sara said. “Chad, please take us to Korea.”

  #

  Golden rays pierced the horizon as they sped two hundred kilometers above the Arctic Ocean, following the polar route to Asia. A smattering of towering cumulus clouds billowed to the edge of the stratosphere, their tips set ablaze by the day’s first light. As the ship crossed the Siberian coastline, the sun crested the horizon, its brilliant disk flooding the bridge with daylight.

  “I always wanted to experience sunrise in orbit with my own eyes,” Sara said. “It’s beautiful. Cameras don’t do it justice.”

  Jake drifted next to her, sliding an arm around her waist.

  A scowl crept over Dylan’s lips at Jake’s display of affection, inappropriate for a NASA ship. “No, they don’t,” Dylan said. “That’s one sight I’ll never tire of.” He crossed his arms over his chest, watching the view unfold. “Did you reach Ji-min?” he asked.

  “No. I can’t get a connection to Earth.”

  “The aliens took out all the comsats?”

  “Looks like it, at least the ones on our side of the planet.” Sara pushed off her chair, pulling away from Jake and drifting to the front of the ship. “Ji-min runs several orphanages in Korea, but given the date, I have a good idea of where to find her.” Louder, she said, “Take us to Changyon.”

  “Well,” Chad said. “GPS is down. Does anyone have a map?”

  Dylan searched the crates the Army had provided. “Here we go. God bless the military for still relying on paper backups.” He unfolded a map, aligned it with their direction of flight, and held it up for Chad. “Dead reckoning from space. Never in a million years.”

  “Seats please,” Chad said. “The free-fall session’s about over.”

  Moments later, they descended over northern Korea. Sara strained to see the world’s tallest building, still under construction, in Pyongyang. A Korean developer built a crystal tower encasing the nineteen-eighties, glass-and-cement, pyramid monstrosity Dear Leader tried and failed to build, the Ryugyong Hotel, incorporating it in a design that climbed three times higher. The ship’s transparent nose magnified the spot she was observing. “What the heck?”

  “Did you do that?” Dylan asked.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “You did,” Chad said. “The ship’s starting to understand you. Understand your thoughts.”

  Dylan pivoted his chair to face Sara. “You realize you’re only the second person ever to mind control the ship, after Dr. Tanner here. You must have one heck of a brain between your ears.”

  Sara blushed.

  “We’ll arrive in just under a minute,” Chad said. “There’s no sign of alien activity but that can change in a heartbeat. Where should I set ‘er down?”

  “There’s a lumber mill on the eastern edge of town. That’s the closest space large enough to land,” Sara said.

  The ship settled on a rocky field next to a dilapidated mill, drawing a crowd of curious townspeople. To the east, young trees sprouted up around the stumps of older ones. A road in the opposite direction led past a grocery store into the heart of the sleepy town. A teenager e
merged from the fledgling grove, driving an electric dirt bike along a narrow, winding path between the trees. He rolled to a stop under the bridge and took a picture.

  Sara created an opening in the hull, this time without Chad’s help, and marched toward the youth. In broken Korean, she said, “I want to buy your bike.”

  The boy suggested a ridiculous price, which Sara accepted. She sent payment from her aiDe to his phone and took possession of her new wheels. “I should be back in fifteen or twenty minutes,” she shouted loud enough to be heard on the bridge.

  “We’ll keep an eye on you with the snow globe,” Chad said.

  The snow globe. That’s right. The snow globe was a device on the Quadriga that observed all points on Earth in stunning detail. With a twist of her wrist, Sara scooted along the street, toward the center of town. Toward where Ji-min had lost her closest friend on this date, two decades earlier.

  #

  The town was far more modern than when Sara last visited it years ago, the North Korean era brick and concrete buildings mostly replaced by structures built of translucent concrete, biocomposite, and the latest rage from Applied Nanomaterials, living glass. The road under her wheels was of organic resin. She wound through streets and turned into an alley behind a modest factory building. There, sitting on a bamboo mat next to a rusting, green, metal box the size of a van, untouched by the city’s modernization, was a frail, thirty-something Korean woman. Ji-min. Sara leaned her bike against the factory.

  “I thought you might come,” Ji-min said.

  Sara sat next to her. “I need your help.”

  “The orphans need my help. Especially now, in time of crisis.”

  “You built an outstanding relief organization. You have well-trained people who are capable of caring for the children.”

  “I feel obligated to be here for them.”

  Sara placed a hand on Ji-min’s. “You are remarkable. Nobody was there for you.” She looked toward the rusted metal box. “Except for Bae,” she said in a reverent tone. “So, you decided to be there for everyone.”

  “No more than anyone should do,” Ji-min said.

  “True, but not what most actually do.” Sara shifted her weight. “The American government sees no hope of stopping the aliens. We’re taking the Quadriga to the stars, hoping to find knowledge or perhaps an ally. I hope your gift extends to non-human species.”