Spark: A Novel

  “This used to be a logging camp. Bobby’s great-grandfather helped dig the ditch from here up to Cato Springs. Once they had the ditch, everything else was easy. They’d fell a tree, trim off the branches, roll the log into the water with a cant hook, and float the wood downhill to the catch basin.”

  Thomas left me alone for a few minutes and then returned with a bottle and two paper cups. “Would you like some Irish whiskey, Mr. Underwood? I know it’s awkward, but I could hold a cup to your lips.”

  “No.”

  Thomas sat down on a bench, poured himself an inch of whiskey, and gazed out at the forest. “Before we came here I didn’t know how to identify the different trees.” He pointed his finger and began to recite. “White oak. Holly. Maple. Beech. Hardwood trees near the house. White pine and pitch pine around the bunker. I can’t tell you why, but it makes me happy to know the names of all the things that grow around here. It’s going to be difficult to leave.…”

  “That’s your choice, Mr. Slater.”

  “I agree. But you’ve also made some choices. Haven’t you? Emily told me a little bit about what happened in New York City. You were supposed to kill her, but you refused to follow orders. So why did you say no? What was going through your mind?”

  “I just did it. There doesn’t have to be a reason.”

  “And does that choice put you in danger?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “So you rejected machine thinking and made a free choice. That means the two of us have a starting point for a larger conversation. Have you ever heard of the French philosopher René Descartes? He established an entire method of thinking based on a single premise—”

  “Cogito, ergo sum,” I said. “But most people get it wrong. Just because something thinks, doesn’t mean that it exists.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Underwood. And this isn’t just a trivial philosophical distinction. It took me years to realize that a computer would never truly be able to say cogito, ergo sum, although dozens of lurid Hollywood movies about robots want to leave that impression. A computer thinks … that is, it realizes it has been switched on … but it doesn’t know it exists.”

  “After you figured that out, you wrote ‘The Decision and the Choice.’ ”

  Thomas raised his paper cup filled with whiskey. “Here’s to you, Mr. Underwood. I’m impressed that you’ve read my work.”

  “I wanted to know more about you, so I told my Shadow to find a few articles.”

  “ ‘The Decision and the Choice’ was my attempt to show that thinking does not mean reasoning. Our instincts, our emotions, and our moral consciousness shape the way we think.”

  “The article said that you designed artificial-emotion software. You were going to teach computers how to cry.”

  Thomas took another sip of whiskey and smiled. “The entire project was a complete failure. Or, as Helen would say, ‘a full-face fall into pig shite.’ I designed programs that could imitate the human emotional response, but the machines were never really aware of anything. A Shadow can be programmed to say ‘This makes me sad.’ But it won’t feel sad. Human beings don’t think like computers. Our human consciousness is a spectrum of different kinds of thinking with different levels of intensity. Do you ever daydream, Mr. Underwood?”

  “Sometimes. But I don’t like it.”

  “And why is that?”

  “When I close my eyes and see memories, it feels as if I’m wandering through a shadow land.”

  “I feel the same way,” Thomas said. “I have high-focus thoughts when I’m solving a problem, and that gives me the illusion that I can control my thinking. But as the focus level falls, I lose control of my thoughts. This is when I can free-associate and relive memories. No machine can daydream. When they’re not switched on, they’re as cold as a toaster in a midnight kitchen.”

  “So machines can never be human.”

  “That’s right. Not unless we alter our definition of humanity. My own life changed when I realized that fact. I wrote books and made speeches around the world, but nobody wanted to listen. They were impressed when the nubots told jokes and sold them subway cards. And the Shadows whispering in our ears were supposed to be as real as your best friend.

  “Eventually, I stopped thinking about the function of these new machines and began to ask myself: What is their purpose in our society? After the mass arrests that followed the Day of Rage, I began to have ‘political’ opinions. The fact that the EYE system and nubots are watching us and controlling our lives gives those in power an easy way to hide their manipulations. Artificial intelligence is a concept that obscures accountability. Our problem is not machines acting like humans—it’s humans acting like machines.”

  “Maybe we are machines,” I said. “A scientist named Morris Noland told me that our minds make a decision a half second before our conscious thought.”

  “Yes. Of course. Benjamin Libet’s experiments.” Thomas reached into his shirt pocket, found two treats, and tossed them to the dogs. “But Libet also proved that even though we have the ‘readiness potential’ to do something, we also have the power to say no. That potential is always there, always waiting. ‘No—I won’t believe this. No—I won’t do this. No—I refuse to go along.’ Keep saying no and you can change your life.”

  “I had an accident several years ago, and it transformed me. I can’t change that fact.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to work for people who want to control our thoughts and actions. What they want isn’t just wrong or misguided—it’s evil.”

  “A word like ‘evil’ doesn’t mean anything to me. Nothing is real but the present reality.”

  Thomas didn’t argue. He poured some more whiskey into his paper cup, swirled it around for a few seconds, and took a sip.

  “Well, if you don’t believe in philosophy or theology … then what about science? Quantum theory tells us that objects exist in a suspended state until observed, and then all possibilities collapse into one outcome. This also means that what happened in the past may not be determined until a future action occurs.”

  “I don’t want a theory.”

  “It’s a theory that’s been proven by various experiments. For example, scientists have split twin photons apart and made sure that one of them would hit a monitor first. They were trying to answer a simple question: When would the first photon stop being a wave and collapse into a particle? Somehow the other photon knew what happened, as if there was no space and time separating the pair. A particle that became a wave would transform itself back into being a particle the moment its twin was observed by the experimenter.”

  “I’ve killed five men in the last three weeks. They’re dead. I can’t change that.”

  Thomas lowered the cup and stared into my eyes. “My God … you really did that. Didn’t you? But what happens in our future can change the meaning of what has occurred in our past. Perhaps your decision not to hurt Emily was when your life began to move in a different direction. We’re not captive to our past, Mr. Underwood. We’re not doomed to a certain future. Unlike machines, we can always choose a new direction for our journey.”

  The dogs sensed that someone was approaching the shack. They trotted down the path, then reappeared with Emily and Helen. The two women pushed through the weeds and climbed up onto the porch.

  “The Polish girl broke the code,” Helen said.

  Thomas raised his paper cup and toasted them. “Good. I didn’t think it would be that difficult.”

  Emily stood beside Helen. She was watching me as if I was about to break free of the wheelchair and disappear into the forest.

  “There were three special files,” Helen said. “All of them provided different information. The first file was a summary of banking transactions made over a two-year period. A large amount of money was transferred from a BDG account in America to a Pradhani Group bank account in India. Then smaller amounts, in different currencies, were sent to banks in England, France, and Germany.”
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  “So Rajat Pradhani was laundering money for someone in the United States.” Thomas poured some more whiskey into his cup. “That’s not surprising.”

  “The second file was just a collection of e-mails,” Emily said. “Someone in America calling himself ‘Chip Shot’ was flying to Mumbai for a banking conference, but he planned to stay in India and meet someone he called ‘my young friend.’ Chip Shot wanted a location that was completely private, so he asked Rajat Pradhani for suggestions. After several e-mails, Rajat suggested that Chip Shot use a family houseboat that would travel through the Kerala backwaters parallel to the Arabian Sea coast. If they took certain routes, they could travel for days and never encounter another boat.”

  “That’s also not difficult to figure out,” Thomas said. “A married banker in America wanted to have a vacation with his mistress.”

  “No. It’s much more important than that.” Helen took a step forward. “The third file is a digital video that’s about five minutes long, and there’s a date and time stamp in the lower-left-hand corner. The cameraman is hidden in a grove of banana plants and his camera is pointed toward one of the backwater canals. A houseboat comes around a bend and slowly approaches the camera. Two men are sitting on chairs in a front deck area, under a sunscreen. When the boat passes the banana grove, the cameraman zooms in on the men. They’re drinking beer and talking.”

  “One of the men is Alexander Serby,” Emily said. “He’s the head of the Brooks Danford Group. And the other man …”

  She paused and glanced at Helen. It felt like they had just peered inside a box and didn’t want to release what was still hidden.

  “You’d recognize him,” Helen said to Thomas. “Just about everyone knows his face. It’s Danny Marchand, smoking a cigarette. Alexander Serby knew Marchand, met with him on that boat trip, and helped finance the Day of Rage.”

  Thomas sat back on the porch bench and blinked. He stayed silent and blinked again. “And you’re sure this video is authentic?”

  “I watched Serby give a speech at last year’s holiday party,” Emily said. “And everyone knows what Danny Marchand looked like.”

  “Go take a look at the video,” Helen said. “We’ve already watched it four times.”

  “When was the laundered money sent to Europe?”

  “All the transfers took place after the meeting,” Emily said. “About four months after the transfers stopped, Danny Marchand and his followers bombed the schools.”

  “So who was the cameraman?” Thomas asked. “Sounds like he knew the boat was coming down the canal.”

  “It could have been one of Rajat Pradhani’s employees. Pradhani wanted to know who Serby was meeting.”

  “And that’s all we have? Is there any other evidence that connects Alexander Serby to the Day of Rage?”

  “I don’t know about Serby, but there have always been questions about Danny Marchand. I went online and skimmed through the report of the Presidential Commission on the Day of Rage plus the British investigation led by Lord Harwood. Marchand took fifty thousand euros from his family’s trust fund, but that’s not enough money to fund an attack in nine countries. It wasn’t clear how Marchand paid for plane tickets, hotel rooms, and weapons.”

  “It’s difficult to believe that Alexander Serby wanted to kill all those children.”

  Emily shook her head. “Do you remember what was going on during the time Serby and Marchand met on the canal boat? We had all those ‘No Jobs’ demonstrations, and bash mobs were vandalizing cars and breaking windows in just about every major city. They even attacked the BDG office in London.”

  “Serby and his friends were worried about the future,” Helen said. “Maybe it wasn’t their idea to bomb schools, but they needed some kind of incident that would justify mass arrests and a permanent surveillance system.”

  “I don’t want to make an instant decision,” Slater said. “Emily, stay here with Mr. Underwood. I’m going to take a look at the video.”

  Thomas and Helen hurried back to the bunker and the two dogs followed them. When they disappeared behind the trees, Emily began pacing back and forth, kicking up dead leaves and gravel with the tips of her boots.

  “I was planning to apologize to you because you got hit by the Taser, but now I’m glad Bobby did that. Somehow … in some way … you were involved with this plan.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You’re lying, Jacob. I’m sure that your boss told you why these files were important.”

  “She didn’t say anything. I assumed that the files had information about offshore bank accounts and hidden income.”

  “And you just follow orders, right? Do this. Do that.”

  “Thomas and I just had a conversation about machines and the way people think. Everyone has the power to say no.”

  “But you have to use that power, Jacob. You can’t just sit in your room and ignore the rest of the world.”

  The grumble of a car engine and the sound of tires splashing through a pothole passed through the forest like smoke from a distant fire. Emily spun around and looked through a gap in the trees. A white delivery van and blue pickup truck emerged from the forest and followed the driveway to the parking area. Both vehicles stopped and four men wearing identical windbreaker jackets got out. A tall man with long hair circled the truck. Lorcan Tate.

  “Go into the workroom and find a knife—right now,” I said. “Cut me free. We need to hide in the forest.”

  “What’s going on? They look like policemen.”

  I recognized one other member of the group—a stocky Japanese man named Koji who had visited the training camp in North Carolina for a few days. There was a bearded man as tall as Lorcan and a young man with curly hair.

  “The big man with the long hair is Lorcan Tate. He’s an enforcer—like me. The other three men are also working for Miss Holquist. They’re going to kill everyone here.”

  “How did they find this place? Did you have something to do with this?”

  “No. Of course not. I’m also a target.”

  So far, the four men hadn’t noticed us. The cottage was at the edge of the clearing, partially concealed by weeds. As Lorcan stepped forward, the front door of the main house slammed open and Bobby walked out carrying a shotgun. He raised the weapon to his shoulder, and then lowered it when Lorcan pulled a badge out of his coat pocket.

  Lorcan approached the house in a slow and deliberate manner while the others remained by the van. The two men chatted for a minute or so, and then Lorcan laughed and shook Bobby’s hand. “No,” I whispered. “No.”

  Time slowed down as each small action led, in sequence, to a finite conclusion. Lorcan turned away. His right hand reached into his jacket, only to reappear clutching a handgun with a silencer. Turn. Pivot. Fire.

  Blood sprayed out of Bobby’s chest and he collapsed onto the porch like a bag of meat. Then Lorcan stood over the empty Shell and put a bullet into the dead man’s head.

  “Cut me loose,” I told Emily. “We need to get out of here.”

  Emily stepped off the porch and ran into the forest. My Shell tried to follow her, but I was still captive, a frozen mechanism strapped to a chair. I pulled upward with my legs and arms, trying to break free. The wheelchair creaked and shivered like a living creature, but the plastic ties didn’t break.

  I took a deep breath and tried again. This time, the chair’s left armrest moved slightly when I pushed outward. Look up. Koji and the young man entered the main house while Lorcan and the bearded man approached the bunker. If Emily was inside the building, she’d be killed with the others.

  I pushed with my legs and twisted my entire body so that all the strength of my Shell was concentrated on my left arm. There was a cracking sound and then one of the steel tubes fastened to the armrest snapped off. I pushed even harder, concentrating on this fragile point of resistance, until the second tube snapped. Now my left arm was free.

  Gripping the push rim on the outer part of th
e wheel, I muscled the chair forward. The screen door was still propped open and I maneuvered through this opening until I was back inside the cottage. Reaching up with my free hand, I began to search the surface of the worktable. Nuts and bolts. A cold soldering iron and a discarded fan. Near the center of the table, I found something flat and narrow with a sharp edge. It was a rusty scalpel that Thomas had turned into a shop tool.

  The scalpel helped me cut the plastic ties. As each one fell away, my body felt more flexible and mobile. Finally I was free of my restraints and stood up in the middle of the dark room. My phone had been taken away from me and I had left my computer back in New York. That meant there were no Shadows to comfort me with their soothing voices.

  I ran out of the cottage and was absorbed by the undergrowth at the edge of the compound. Each movement of my Shell created sounds—leaves crunching, twigs snapping. I pushed a branch away from my shoulder and it whipped back at me.

  Half hidden by a spruce tree, I watched the two enforcers leave the main house. Koji spoke into a phone headset as they strolled over to the pickup. Then they pulled back a plastic tarp—revealing four red jerry cans in the back of the truck. Talking softly to each other, they pulled out the cans and placed them on the gravel. A door slammed and the bearded man returned without Lorcan. He picked up two of the jerry cans and headed back to the bunker.

  An ivory-colored crescent moon glowed on the horizon. It looked like someone had taken a knife and slashed a purple canopy. Night grew in the forest; little bits of darkness were clinging to the trees. Manhattan was a grid of lines, but nothing was ordered and symmetrical in the forest. Whenever I tried to walk in a straight line, a tree blocked my way. Mud clung to my shoes and thornbushes scratched my legs.

  A few steps forward. Stop. A few steps more. Finally I returned to the clearing about fifty feet away from the bunker. I circled the building and stopped when I found a back entrance. All the windows were covered on the inside and I couldn’t see what was going on. I didn’t have a weapon. Was Lorcan still inside?