Waking Gods

  I wish you could deal with all this ten years from now, but we might not have ten years. So if you choose to be a ballerina, we’d better get going on those dance lessons.

  FILE NO. 1623

  PERSONAL JOURNAL ENTRY—DR. ROSE FRANKLIN, HEAD OF SCIENCE DIVISION, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

  I’m important, “useful” is what he said. That’s why I’m alive. I’m supposed to do something. I don’t know what that is, but given our circumstances, it has to be something like saving the world. That’s what I was told. That’s right. Someone told me that. He told me the same way he said it might be too early for kung pao chicken. How does one process that kind of information? Did I need to know? Would I not have done it otherwise? Will knowing stop me from doing it?

  I’d love to believe it. I’d love to be special. But I’m not. I’m not important. I’m not a savior. I wish I were. The only thing that stopped me from taking my own life is that people were dying by the millions. I thought I could … do something. I thought I could help. I never thought I could do it on my own, but that’s why I stayed. I thought … I hoped I might be important.

  I wanted to save everyone. I wanted it so bad. Maybe it’s because no matter how much I try, I can’t shake the thought that they’re dying because of me. I fell on a hand and I brought the world to the brink of war. They brought me back to life and a hundred million people died. I am the harbinger of death.

  Now I’m staring at my computer. I’m looking at every piece of data we have on the alien robots and I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. If there’s a reason for me to be here, there’s a good chance it has to do with what I’m good at. So I’m focusing on the metal, its composition, waiting for the answer to jump out of the screen. It’s entirely possible that what I’m supposed to achieve has nothing to do with physics. I could be wasting what little time I have trying to convince myself I’m a good scientist. Now I’m overanalyzing everything, wasting time thinking about wasting time.

  And what if they’re right? What if wiping us out of history is the right thing to do? I can’t claim to have any objectivity on the matter. Everyone I care about would die in the process and I’d be left to live the most horrible life I can imagine, so my bias is obvious. But these aliens are evidently more evolved than we are. Their technology is incredibly more advanced. It’s at least possible that their understanding of everything else is also leaps and bounds ahead of ours. Maybe they know what’s best.

  I feel so alone. I don’t do well on my own. I need people to guide me. I need … I need Kara. I need someone I can talk to about anything, anything but this. I need someone who won’t judge me based on whether or not I can save the world. I suppose no one really does judge me that way, but Kara was the only one who made me feel like I could just … be.

  I need you, my nameless friend. Would you be OK with my calling you friend? You died with your arm around me, that has to count for something. Still, you’d probably be uncomfortable with the idea. Talking about you, I realize I’m still angry at you. I can forgive Kara, but you … You had no right to die. You had no right to leave me behind. What would you say if you were here? Something caustic, like: Are you talking to yourself, Dr. Franklin?

  Yeah, I’m talking to myself … There’s no one else to talk to. Everyone’s dead. What would you do? What would you say to make me see? You weren’t a scientist, but you’d have made a good one. You were detached, methodical. You could see this problem for what it is. I can only see … nonsense. How can I—me, alone—defeat giant alien robots that can withstand a nuclear explosion, without using anything that was invented in the last three thousand years? What can I do without any technology whatsoever? I can’t even go near them. What would you say to that? You’d probably ask: Do you believe you can defeat them by conversing with the recently deceased?

  Probably not. But I’m … allowed to talk to an imaginary friend. It’s in the rules. They had crazy people three thousand years ago. There was nothing else around, though. Nothing but rocks, and dirt, and bugs. I’m sure I wouldn’t like what you’d have to say now. It would be dry, bordering on insulting, but somehow supportive, in your own twisted way.

  I know: If that is true, Dr. Franklin, I suggest you stop talking to the dead and find a way to defeat these robots with rocks, dirt, and/or bugs.

  I’m losing my mind—I believe that was the general idea that I was trying to convey.

  Why does that sentence ring a bell? Rocks, dirt, and/or bugs. What can I do with that? Rocks … Dirt … Bugs … I can throw rocks at them … Maybe they’ll take pity on me, decide we’re not that evolved after all. Think, Rose. Think …

  Rocks …

  Dirt …

  Bugs …

  Rocks, and dirt, and …

  I think … I think I’ve got it.

  Thank you. I don’t believe in the afterlife, but thank you, wherever you are.

  FILE NO. 1626

  INTERVIEW WITH BRIGADIER GENERAL EUGENE GOVENDER, COMMANDER, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

  Location: Shadow Government Bunker, Lenexa, KS

  —You can sit down, Dr. Franklin. You’re stressing me out.

  —Thank you, General.

  —The Quebecois said you have a plan.

  —I do. Half of one anyway.

  —That’s a half more than what we had an hour ago.

  —I suppose so.

  —Well? What are you waiting for? We don’t have all day!

  —Yes, sir. You know I’ve been going through everything we learned about the metal these robots are made of. There are slight differences, but it’s essentially the same material they built Themis with. It’s an alloy, mostly iridium, and it has a bunch of properties we can’t explain but that we’re beginning to understand. For example, we know it’s able to store energy. We don’t really know how it works, but we can make things with similar properties. We can make metal that stores solar energy and releases it when we want it to. We turn ruthenium into fulvalene diruthenium. That will store reasonably large amounts of solar energy that can be released using a catalyst.

  —Ruthenium … Isn’t there some of that in the metal that makes up Themis?

  —There is, but in very minute quantities. Nothing that could explain what it does. And the metal in Themis actually prefers nuclear energy. It can store a phenomenal amount of power. The closest thing we have is something like uranium. We can’t make it do what the metal in Themis does, but uranium does store energy and releases it over time. It’s slow if you don’t do anything to it, but it’s enough to keep the Earth cooking. About half of the heat inside the planet comes from radioactive decay. We have little control over the amount of energy uranium releases and the speed at which it does, but if we create a fission chain reaction—in a nuclear reactor, for example—we can release a lot more energy, and a lot faster.

  Anyway, I decided to think of it as uranium, see where it would lead.

  —And?

  —It gave me an idea. There’s this special kind of bacteria, Geobacter. They have tiny wires on them—they’re called pili—that insulate them from the toxic environment they live in, and they’re able to transfer electrons to radioactive metal and change its properties. Basically, they can clean up radioactive waste, turn radioactive metal into a mineral by changing its molecular structure. It’s a slow process, though, way too slow. Takes years for these things to eat just a tiny bit of radioactive waste.

  There’s a lab at Michigan State—it’s run by a Dr. Lina Texera. They play with a particular kind of these bacteria, Geobacter sulfurreducens. They were able to increase the strength of the pili and make them more efficient. Basically, they added armor to the bacteria, made them more resistant so that they can mineralize uranium a lot faster.

  It sounded promising. Even with some superarmor, it would take forever for these things to colonize something as big as the alien ro
bots, but I thought it was worth a shot. Anyway, I called her. Nice woman. She called me Rose, said we met at a conference before—must have been before I died. I had her send over a sample by helicopter.

  It’s really disgusting, green, gooey stuff. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Anyway, I put on two pairs of gloves, one on top of the other, I took the little shard we had chipped off one of the panels and rubbed some of that goo on it with a Q-tip. The plan was to expose it to radiation and see if it would take longer to saturate and discharge, maybe release less energy, something. I let it rest on a block of plutonium for a good hour, I couldn’t get it to release anything at all. The last time I had tried that, it took only ten minutes to destroy half my lab.

  I tried a few drops of the mixture on one of the panels. Nothing happened. I put some of it under the microscope and all the bacteria were dead. So I took the whole thing—about a cupful of it—and just poured it on the panel. It didn’t do anything at first, as I expected. I figured I’d come back later during the day. I turned off the light on my way out, then I noticed that the turquoise light in the symbols was wavering. Just a bit at first, then a little more. After about five minutes, the panel went completely dark. That was two hours ago and it hasn’t turned back on.

  Whatever makes that metal do the things it does, it must be a very fragile equilibrium. I think the bacteria just throws it off balance, enough to make it stop functioning.

  —So that’s your plan? Throw some green goo at the robot—

  —At one of them, yes.

  —When you got back from Washington, you told me you believe these aliens are waiting for us to demonstrate that we could be just as evolved if they hadn’t messed with our gene pool.

  —Yes. I could be wrong, of course.

  —So the idea is to beat them without using anything that didn’t exist before they showed up thousands of years ago.

  —That’s what I’m running with.

  —But you said these bacteria have some kind of body armor that makes them better at eating up metal. Isn’t that … cheating? I mean, I don’t know the first thing about any of this, but this sounds like cutting-edge shit. Seems to me you wouldn’t have these superbugs without modern science.

  —I wouldn’t have the regular kind either. These things have been on Earth for millions of years, but we’ve only just discovered them. If the aliens want to be literal about this, then we’re screwed. I can’t unlearn everything I know either. I’m hoping they’re just looking for us to make a point. Like a … proof of concept.

  —Sure. If you think it’ll work.

  —I don’t know that it will. Even if it does, I can’t be sure they’ll get what we’re doing.

  —That’s what I was gonna say. You wanna throw bugs at them. Aren’t you worried you’ll just piss them off?

  —I don’t think we have much of a choice. If Mr. Burns is telling the truth, there might be about three million people left on this planet by this time tomorrow. Vincent and Eva will die first. Then everyone else who doesn’t have my crappy DNA.

  —Lucky you. What do you need me for? I don’t know the first thing about bacteria.

  —I need more. I need a lot more. Dr. Texera is sending me what she has, but it’s not much, and there’s no time to grow enough of them there. She said there’s a lab in Dalian, China, where they’ve been growing the same bacteria for about a year to run some experiments in a wastewater-treatment plant. I’d like you to send Themis to get it.

  —With Eva?

  —Yes. They can be back in a couple hours. I don’t wanna waste a day having it flown here.

  —I can order Vincent to go, but I can’t send a goddamn child against her will.

  —Just ask. I think they’ll want to go. If Vincent doesn’t think she’s ready, he’ll tell you.

  —I suppose if the world’s gonna end in the next twenty-four hours, she’s as ready as she’s ever gonna be. I’ll talk to her.

  —Thank you. She was playing outside a few minutes ago.

  —I have one more question about that half plan of yours.

  —Go ahead.

  —How are you gonna get the goo on the bad guys if you can’t touch them? You’ve shown me birds dropping down a good foot away from the robots. Kara and Vincent fired lightning bolts at one of them and they couldn’t hit anything either. Your superbugs are gonna get zapped by the robot’s energy field before they can do their thing.

  —Yes, that’s … the other half of the plan, the one I don’t have. I have no idea how to get around their energy field. I thought about building something that could go through it. I don’t know what force could be used to build an energy field that stops solid objects, but if it’s anything like electromagnetism, something made of superconducting material might make the energy field flow around it. I don’t know. In any case, superconductors have to be kept insanely cold. We don’t have anything I could just carry around. And even if we did, I couldn’t test it. Besides, we don’t have that kind of time. I’m betting on something much simpler. I don’t believe their shield extends all the way to the ground. I think the bottoms of their feet are exposed, maybe the first few inches from the ground.

  —Achilles’ heel? That’s your plan!? That sounds a little … convenient, don’t you think?

  —It would be extremely convenient if I could figure out how to reach under their feet. I don’t think a few inches of bacterial culture around their feet will be enough to power down something that size. I’ll need more surface for the bacteria to survive. The whole bottom of a foot might be enough, but I doubt they’ll cooperate and stand on one leg.

  —Maybe you can bring it a giant treat, teach it to give paw. Don’t take this the wrong way, Dr. Franklin, but that has to be the dumbest, most ill-conceived plan I have ever heard! And believe me, I’m in the military, I’ve heard a lot of dumb plans.

  —If I could make it walk … You’re right. I have no idea how to do this. But it has to happen today, so I’ll just have to improvise if I can’t come up with anything before Vincent and Eva come back with the bacteria. I’ll bring a shovel.

  —Seven billion lives on the line, and you’ll improvise—

  —I wish I had something better, I—

  —Dr. Franklin.

  —Yes?

  —Good luck.

  FILE NO. 1629

  MISSION REPORT—VINCENT COUTURE, CONSULTANT, EDC AND EVA REYES

  Location: Shadow Government Bunker, Lenexa, KS

  —This is Vincent Couture. I’m with Eva Reyes, back at the base. We had a lovely trip to China. They said they needed an extra couple hours to get the bacteria ready for transport. They had put it in a refrigerated container that wasn’t gonna fit through our hatch, so … I asked Eva what was on her bucket list, and she said she’d like to see the pyramids. We crossed that one off. We were only there for five minutes, but she was happy. You were, Eva! You looked happy, anyway. She’s smiling. Eva was a champ. We didn’t even fall once, and she didn’t freak out—OK, maybe a little—when we were at the bottom of the sea. We made it to Dalian just in time. We loaded the cargo and headed home. Total duration of our Chinese escapade: two hours, forty-seven minutes.

  Dr. Franklin left for New York with the bacterial culture about an hour ago. As least I hope that was bacterial culture. It might have been beer. The friendly folks at the Dalian University of Technology gave us three kegs. For real, regular college-kid drink-from-the-tap-until-you-pass-out kegs. So, if Rose can’t save humanity with what’s in there, there’s at least hope for a decent end-of-the-world party. Not for you, Eva, but we’ll find you some Army-issued apple juice somewhere.

  —Hey!

  —OK. Maybe a sip. I could use a beer right about now. Dr. Franklin is probably there already. General Govender and the rest of the staff are in the control room. They have a bunch of drones up there—really cool quadcopters, they wo
n’t let me play with them—so they can see from different angles. It’s like a football game. Eva … I think Eva was scared a little. She didn’t wanna go, but she’s racking up the nerves as we speak. I guess we’ll—

  —It won’t work.

  —I’m sorry, what’d you say?

  —IT WON’T WORK!

  —What are you talking about, Eva?

  —Rose! Her plan. It won’t work!

  —How do you know?

  —I … I just know.

  —You saw something, didn’t you?

  —Yes.

  —What did you see?

  —She’ll get stepped on. She’ll die.

  —Why do they step on her?

  —I don’t know! Maybe it’s an accident. Maybe they just don’t see her. All I know is she’ll die. She gets crushed into the ground. Her body—

  —OK, that’s enough! Rose said that your visions are … possible futures, that what you see might not happen at all.

  —She’ll die! Don’t try to make me feel better. I’m telling you, she’ll die.

  — …

  —Vincent, please!

  —We’ll die if we go, Eva. You’ll die!

  —We’ll all die if we don’t. Please trust me.

  — …

  —Say something!

  —Crap.

  —What does that mean?

  —That means … That means crap! Grab your gear! We can’t just let her die, now can we? Hell, I’ve lived a good life. You got to see the pyramids, and Kansas, eat MREs three times a day. What else is there, really?

  —Thank you.

  —Ha! This might be the greatest mistake anyone has ever made in the history of the human race. You’re just lucky there aren’t any adults left around to make responsible decisions.