The Utopia Experiment

  The corridor was so long it seemed to stretch into infinity. No guards were present and the only sound came from the confused rhythm of their footsteps and breathing. Dresner put a hand on Park’s shoulder and then pointed to his holster. Understanding came quickly, as would be expected for a man like him.

  The Korean pulled his sidearm and held it out as they walked. Dresner took it with no outward demonstration of the hesitation he felt, no acknowledgment of the terrifying weight of it in his hand.

  He had done so many horrible things and there were so many more to come. None had touched him personally, though. And that was hypocrisy.

  Dresner raised the gun to the back of his friend’s head. He wouldn’t feel any pain. None of them would. The computer that made him who he was would just turn off. Forever.

  The sound echoed through the confines of the concrete passage, and blood splashed hot across Dresner’s face. He let the gun fall next to his friend’s body as he once again told himself that there had been no choice. That Eichmann was a weak link in the chain he’d spent the better part of half a century forging. And while it was all true, it did nothing to diminish the profound sense of emptiness he felt. For the first time since he’d been dropped in front of the orphanage in Erfurt, he was truly alone.

  61

  Frederick, Maryland

  USA

  JON SMITH PULLED THE CHEESECAKE he’d bought from its box and limped into his living room with it and a newly opened bottle of whiskey. The new sofa was a bit of a monument to form over function, but exhaustion had a way of making just about anything comfortable.

  He took a large bite from the edge of the cake, feeling it settle uncomfortably on top of half the Taco Bell menu. He’d dropped more than ten pounds in the last two weeks—weight his already spare body couldn’t afford to do without.

  The slap of bare feet became audible and he lay back in the cushions, closing his eyes and listening to Randi drop into the chair across from him.

  “Nice place,” she said, pouring herself a drink. “Looks like a picture from a catalog.”

  “And the cabin doesn’t?”

  “Yeah, but not a Kmart catalog.”

  There was no denying that the place she stayed in was a lot nicer and had the added benefit of being nearly as well armed as a Ticonderoga-class cruiser. Too bad it was full of workmen trying to get the smell of gas out.

  “You gonna eat that pie, Jon?”

  “Help yourself.”

  She gnawed noisily on it for a few moments before speaking through a full mouth. “So what now?”

  It was a question he’d known was coming. In some ways Randi Russell was a complete loose cannon, but in others she was infinitely predictable.

  “Back to work for the both of us.”

  The silence that ensued seemed a little angry and he kept his eyes closed, avoiding confirming that impression. What did she have to complain about? She’d go back to Afghanistan or Yemen or Iraq and lose herself in her life again. He had no such luxury.

  Tomorrow, he would go back to integrating the Merge into the U.S. military, not entirely sure of its full capabilities, its security, or the purpose of the mysterious Division D. And worse, he’d know how the technology was developed. It was strange how his life had come to be built around the motto “The end justifies the means”—a philosophy he didn’t really subscribe to.

  Maybe it was time to leave this life behind. There were a number of universities after him, including one in Cape Town that had all kinds of interesting possibilities. Let someone else save the world.

  His phone started ringing and he ignored it, knowing it would be Marty for the fifth time that hour. Right now, the idea of talking to the manic computer wizard was about as appealing as a brick to the side of the head.

  “Who keeps calling?” Randi asked.

  “A guy I play racquetball with.”

  She tried to sip calmly at her drink but started fidgeting noticeably. “So you’re just going back to work?”

  “After I shake off the hangover I’m working on, yes. I’m going back to my life. We both are.”

  “Your life passing out Merges to our soldiers.”

  “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe that Antarctica post is still available. Who would have ever thought that it would sound attractive? Or maybe a leave of absence. A real one this time. I have a friend setting up an expedition to Borneo to look for a new butterfly species. He needs a team doctor.”

  “Butterflies?” she said. “That’s an interesting mental picture.”

  Another silence stretched out between them.

  “This is bullshit,” Randi said finally.

  “Here we go.”

  “Fred’s getting played and you know it. By Whitfield, by Dresner, by the president…”

  “Trust me, Randi. Fred Klein doesn’t get played. He knows what’s happening. He just doesn’t feel he can do anything about it.”

  “So we’re going to let our military—and the rest of the world—get completely reliant on a technology that was secretly developed using human test subjects. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “We’re done, Randi. We have direct orders to walk away.”

  “Orders from Fred.”

  “Yes.”

  “Covert-One doesn’t exist, Jon. And orders from an organization that doesn’t exist aren’t binding.”

  This just wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. His phone rang again and he reached for it, hoping for a diversion. But it was just Marty for the sixth time.

  “Man,” Randi said. “Your friend must really like racquetball.”

  “Nuts for it.”

  A moment later a different ringtone sounded, this time from the kitchen. Randi’s.

  Her eyebrows rose a bit and she crossed the room to answer it. Smith only half listened to her side of the conversation, already knowing what would be said.

  “Really? You’ve been trying to get in touch with him all night?”

  She sat down again and switched to speaker.

  “Over and over!” Marty Zellerbach said. “His phone is on and has signal and I know he’s there because the last three times, he declined the call.”

  She glared at him.

  “Jon?” Zellerbach said. “Are you there? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

  “Because I’m tired, Marty. I’m dead tired.”

  “But there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “What is it?” Randi said.

  “I don’t really want to say on an open line. It’s about that stuff you wanted me to look into. You know. With the thing?”

  “Forget it,” Smith said. “Job’s over. Bill me.”

  “I don’t want to bill you, Jon. I want to talk to you.”

  “Email me the invoice, Marty. Put what you’ve got to say in the comment section. Or better yet, don’t.”

  “But this is important,” he whined. “Forget payment. It’s free.”

  He reached over to disconnect the call but Randi snatched the phone off the coffee table. “I’d love to meet with you, Marty. When and where?”

  * * *

  MAJOR JAMES WHITFIELD sat in his dark office listening to the voice of Martin Zellerbach.

  “My place, Randi. Now. Yesterday. A year ago. Just get here.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “What about Jon?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  The connection went dead and Whitfield leaned back in his chair. With Klein involved, it had been too dangerous to contact his friends at the NSA to get bugs on Smith’s and Russell’s phones. Fortunately, he also had people at AT&T who had been able to feed the unencrypted calls in real time.

  He reached for his keyboard and brought up the now-archaic Google homepage, searching on the name “Martin Zellerbach.” LayerCake would undoubtedly have better-organized information, but it was impossible to know if Dresner was watching.

  Wikipedia had a picture of a muscular, shirtless Ze
llerbach that looked suspiciously like it was taken from the cover of a romance novel. The text gave detailed accounts of his role in the defeat of the Nazi Germany, his improbably acrobatic sexual escapades with the entire cast of America’s Next Top Model, and his defeat of Chuck Norris in a bare-knuckles tournament. The fight was accompanied by a surprisingly convincing video and seemed to have taken place in the bar from Star Wars.

  Impressively, every other link he clicked on corroborated those events.

  Convinced he was getting nowhere, Whitfield dialed his organization’s tech guru and waited impatiently for him to pick up.

  “Yes sir. What can I do for you?”

  “I need you to get me some reliable information on a Martin Joseph Zellerbach. I ran an Internet search and came up with junk.”

  “Marty Zellerbach? I don’t need to do a search, sir.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not personally. But I know of him. Everybody does.”

  “Well, I’m not everybody. What have you got?”

  “Marty’s a hacker—maybe the hacker. Reclusive and pretty crazy, though. From an online perspective, not a man to be screwed with. The last guy who crossed him has spent the last five years living off the grid in Indonesia because it’s the only place he can get any peace.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Whitfield said, severing the connection. A tech expert. Not exactly a surprise.

  He looked at Jon Smith’s military record sitting on his desk but didn’t reach for it. There was no need. He was an honorable soldier who could normally be counted on to follow orders. The problem was Russell. And now an unstable hacker with a massive and entirely fabricated online presence.

  It was clear that the control he thought he’d regained was nothing more than an illusion. If the situation continued on its current trajectory, it could end up beyond even Castilla’s power to rein in.

  What had Zellerbach found? And more important, had he released information about his discovery to the Internet? Because once that door was opened, there was no shutting it again.

  Whitfield let out a long, angry breath. He’d actually started to believe that he’d be able to get out of this without the blood of two American patriots on his hands.

  A card with Castilla’s direct number was on his desk, but he pushed it aside. This wasn’t a situation that could be solved by political hand wringing and Fred Klein could be counted on to do everything in his considerable power to protect his people. The time had come to put an end to this.

  Whitfield dialed another number. This one was picked up on the first ring.

  “Sir?”

  “I need a team.”

  “Target?”

  “Three. Jon Smith and Randi Russell. The third is a computer tech named Martin Zellerbach.”

  “Yes sir.”

  There was a worrying, but understandable, excitement in the man’s voice. Payback for what had happened to his comrades.

  “I’ll be directing the operation personally.”

  “Sir?”

  The NSA had taken the position that the Merge’s encryption was uncrackable, but he couldn’t help wondering if Zellerbach had found a way in. Dresner’s control over his technology was an ongoing problem that Whitfield would be very pleased to resolve.

  “You heard me. And Zellerbach is to be taken alive for questioning.”

  “What about Smith and Russell?”

  He let out another long breath, this one quiet enough not to be picked up by the microphone. “They’re to be eliminated.”

  62

  Near Washington Circle, District of Columbia

  USA

  JON SMITH LAGGED FARTHER and farther behind Randi as they moved along the dark sidewalk. She slowed and finally was forced to stop in order for him to catch up.

  “What’s wrong with you? My grandmother moves faster.”

  “I don’t want to be here, Randi.”

  “Quit being such a Boy Scout. It’s getting on my nerves.”

  “We’re going off the map here. Beyond this point, there be dragons.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “I’m so not sure. Fred told me to walk away from this and to make sure you do the same. I know him, Randi. And I can tell you he was serious.”

  “You need to be more creative, Jon. Think of it this way: We sicced Marty on this before we got those orders and he called us with something before we could tell him to stand down. All we’re doing here is debriefing him and making sure whatever he’s found is permanently buried. Isn’t that exactly what Fred would want us to do?”

  Of course, he’d already considered—and rehearsed—that precise rationalization. Its plausibility, combined with his burning curiosity and loyalty to Randi, was the only reason he’d come this far.

  They stopped in front of Zellerbach’s gate and this time it swung open without them having to use the call button. Smith hung back, letting Randi take a hesitant step inside while he waited for the stink bombs and fish to fly. When nothing happened, he reluctantly followed.

  The front door opened, and Marty scanned his property nervously while they squeezed by.

  “What took you so long?” he said, pushing the door closed and activating a high-tech dead bolt.

  “Jon’s been sulking,” Randi said.

  It was impossible to know if Zellerbach heard her response. He just turned and started for his office in the rushed waddle that Smith remembered so well from high school. Back then, it meant he’d pissed someone off and needed protection. What it meant now was a mystery.

  The Merge that had been disassembled on the table was still in pieces, but now bristling with countless wires that led to the Cray in the corner. It looked a little like something out of a Frankenstein movie—though Zellerbach was more Igor than Victor.

  “What did you find?” Smith said, anxious to get this over with.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Are you kidding? You got me all the way out here to tell me you’re not sure?”

  “What’s gotten in your bonnet?” Zellerbach said.

  “Ignore him,” Randi said. “Tell us the story.”

  “Well…I figured out a way to trigger something.”

  “Something?”

  His expression was as familiar as his odd gait. He was trying to figure out how to explain something to the slow kids. They’d been friends for a long time, but suddenly Smith remembered why it was that people always wanted to kick his ass.

  “Okay…” he started. “There are certain parts in this thing—small stuff spread out all over the place—that no one’s been able to figure out. What everyone agrees on, though, is that they never activate no matter what app you use.”

  “Twenty-eight of them,” Smith said.

  “That’s right! How did you know?”

  “My team’s been over that thing with a fine-tooth comb, Marty. We talked to Dresner and he says most are upgrade paths and a few relate to a power cell he’s developing. So thanks, but we’ve got it covered. Can we go now?”

  “No. Because Dresner is lying. They don’t have anything to do with batteries or upgrades. They work together as a whole—kind of like a hardwired piece of software.”

  “Hardwired software?” Randi said. “Isn’t that contradictory?”

  “Not really. All software does is tell hardware what to do. It sends a little electric pulse that, say, turns on your computer’s speakers. Or causes your modem to upload something to the Internet. This is the same thing. If you send each of the twenty-eight components just the right signal, they launch all at once and act in unison.”

  “It seems like if that was the case, my people would have triggered it by now.”

  Zellerbach shook his head. “The problem is that each component needs a slightly different signal. Think of it this way: You’ve got a safe with twenty-eight keyholes. You need twenty-eight keys, right? But more than that, you need to know what order to turn them in and how far to turn each one down to the tenth of a mi
llimeter.”

  “There would be an almost infinite number of combinations,” Randi said.

  “Tell me about it. Took me ten days to finally hit on it.”

  “If there are really that many possibilities, ten days wouldn’t be anywhere near enough time. Even with your Cray.”

  Zellerbach looked at the floor and chewed his lower lip for a moment. “I have to admit that I had to borrow some other people’s computer power.”

  “Other people?”

  “Well…I figure you don’t care about the Chinese government, but I did accidentally crash Amazon. Twice if you want to be technical about it. And you said you were in a hurry, so I maybe didn’t cover my tracks as well as I normally would…”

  “Are you saying they could trace the crashes to you?” Smith said.

  “Not if you were to smooth it over.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Randi said before Smith could find a blunt object to hit him with. “So what happens when you give it the right signals?”

  “The twenty-eight individual components run for eighteen seconds and then it goes back to its normal mode.”

  “Why? What’s it do?”

  “Dunno. Without Dresner’s knowledge of how the Merge communicates with the brain, there’s no way to simulate the outcome. The only option would be to just stick it on your head and turn it on.”

  63

  Near Dupont Circle, Washington, DC

  USA

  JON SMITH SIFTED THROUGH the piles of dirty dishes, selecting the only glass clean enough to see through and filling it from the sink. He leaned against the counter, staring vacantly at a wall of yellowing pizza boxes as he considered what Zellerbach had said.

  Was the discovery real or just another delusion? His mild clinical paranoia had caused all kinds of problems in the past, including a lengthy episode when he thought people were putting poisonous spiders in his locker. When it came to computers and technology, though, his vision tended to be a hell of a lot clearer. Crystal, in fact.

  Randi appeared in the doorway and leaned against the jamb. “So what now, boss?”

  “I don’t know,” Smith admitted.

  “The cat’s just about all the way out of the bag. I’m not sure we can stuff it back in.”