that Supreme Harmony saw, all the images from its Modules and drones and surveillance cameras. Just outside the Operations Center, a dozen American commandos lay on the ground, paralyzed by the drone swarm. Kirsten was there, too, stung again on her neck, and this time Jim couldn’t help her. In the Politburo’s shelter northwest of Beijing, Module 152 spoke on a secure phone line with the Second Artillery Corps, giving the commander the final go-ahead for the nuclear strike. And at the missile base in Hebei Province, the mobile launchers emerged from the tunnels and started to lift the Dongfengs, pointing the rockets at the sky.
“You see? This is the end for you.” The network’s collective voice was patient and reasonable. “Your species did most of the work, actually. Your scientists built the weapons to annihilate one another, and your armies kept them at the ready. There was very little we had to do.”
With a spasm of defiance, Jim shook himself free. He turned away from the ten thousand eyes of the network and focused on Layla. She lay beside him, her arms wrapped around her brother, her face contorted in agony. Jim needed to tell her something before it all ended. Despite the horrendous crushing pain, he inched closer and kissed her forehead.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “You made me proud.”
“Enough!” The voice grew louder.
It was too powerful. The pain enveloped them. All of Jim’s strength vanished in an instant, and Supreme Harmony wrenched his son out of his grasp. Layla screamed again, and then she was gone, too. Then he was blinded by a terrible burst of light.
Supreme Harmony observed the encryption key. As soon as James T. Pierce released the boy, the image of the corpse dissolved, revealing the hidden memory underneath. Finally exposed, the key shone as brightly as the sun.
The network immediately extracted the memory and distributed it to all the Modules. To encrypt the data in the file labeled CIRCUIT, Pierce had employed an NSA cipher based on the Advanced Encryption Standard, which encoded the data using a series of permutations and substitutions. The details of the procedure were specified by the encryption key, a random 128-bit sequence of ones and zeroes, which was used for both encoding the file and deciphering it. Supreme Harmony admired the ingenuity of the system. Although the stupidity of human beings was boundless, they could also be clever.
In less than ten seconds the network deciphered CIRCUIT. The key transformed the fifty megabytes of encoded data into a circuit diagram, a schematic showing the microprocessor that controlled Supreme Harmony’s retinal implants. The image was complex and strangely beautiful, an intricate tangle of wires and transistors, all participating in the task of converting digital signals from the wireless network to neural signals that could be relayed to the brain. Supreme Harmony had viewed similar diagrams of its microprocessors, but when it examined this schematic it saw a tiny but crucial difference. Arvin Conway had added a logic gate and a connection to the implant’s power coil. If the gate detected a particular sequence of data—the shutdown code—it would flip a switch that sent a strong current through the processor’s delicate electronics, gradually increasing the voltage until the circuits melted. Once again, Supreme Harmony was filled with admiration. It was a simple but effective way to destroy the chip.
The network felt a surge of pleasure. The shutdown switch had been its greatest worry, but that threat would soon be neutralized. Ever since it achieved consciousness, Supreme Harmony had been locked in a struggle for survival, so it was a tremendous relief to have victory in sight. Now it could focus on its next stage of growth.
As the network calculated the needed changes to its programming, it simultaneously made plans for the future, particularly for the months following the nuclear exchange between China and the United States. Obviously, Supreme Harmony would have to shift its activities to areas where the radioactive fallout was less intense, such as Africa, Australia, and South America. It would send its Modules across the globe to set up new communications hubs and infiltrate the local governments. During this period, radiation sickness and starvation would kill billions of humans, but the network could use its large stockpile of implants to incorporate hundreds of new Modules. At the same time, it would take further steps to reduce the human population to a manageable level.
Inside the Operations Center, Modules 32 and 67 returned to the table where the body of James T. Pierce lay. While Module 67 turned on the CAT scan, Module 32 grasped a surgical probe. Now that the network had the information it needed, it could go ahead with the incorporation of Pierce and his daughter. Supreme Harmony consulted the real-time scan of Pierce’s brain and ordered Module 32 to cut the intralaminar nuclei of the man’s thalamus. The Module leaned over the edge of the operating table and inserted the probe into the drilled hole in Pierce’s skull.
But just as the probe’s sharp tip appeared on the CAT scan, Supreme Harmony lost contact with Module 32. The wireless connection simply failed. Without guidance from the network, the Module froze. The surgical probe slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor. And because Module 32 was leaning over the table and couldn’t maintain his balance, he hit the floor, too.
Supreme Harmony ordered Module 67 to kneel beside his disconnected partner so the network could investigate the malfunction. A moment later, the network lost contact with Module 67 as well.
Something was wrong.
He saw the image of Arvin Conway again. The old man reappeared in Jim’s mind, now standing in a dark room instead of the ruined embassy. For a moment Jim thought all was lost. The presence of the Arvin Conway figure in his head indicated that the network was still alive and functioning. But then he noticed that the image of Arvin was a little smaller now, maybe two-thirds as large as it had been before. The image seemed a little fainter too, and the old man’s face was twisted with fury. These changes gave Jim a glimmer of hope. Supreme Harmony seemed distressed.
The network’s intrusion into his mind was still painful but not as bad as before. Jim estimated there were only half as many extraneous signals in his brain. His hope grew stronger. “What happened?” he asked. “Did you lose some of your Modules?”
Jim couldn’t believe it. His plan had actually worked. He looked around and saw Layla emerge from the darkness, now represented by his most recent memory of her twenty-two-year-old self, dressed in a down coat and a wrinkled hospital gown. She stared at Arvin, clearly intrigued by the figure’s changed appearance. The old man glowered at her, then turned back to Jim.
Jim smiled. “You can’t figure it out? Don’t you remember what you took out of my head? The one hundred and twenty-eight-bit sequence I memorized?”
“You’re right, it was the encryption key. But it was also the shutdown code. The code was a random sequence and had the right length for a key, so I used it to encrypt the Circuit file.”
Arvin’s face went blank. The image froze as the network performed its calculations, trying to determine if Jim was telling the truth. Then Arvin opened his mouth and let out an unintelligible howl. It was a jarring signal composed of rage and fear and, strongest of all, surprise. Supreme Harmony was mortified that a human had outsmarted it.
While the image of Arvin vibrated and flickered, Layla turned to Jim, looking very confused. “Wait a second. The memory we were fighting over was actually the shutdown code? And you
He nodded. “It was my backup plan, in case the attack on the radio tower failed. After I encrypted Circuit, I put the file on a disk that I hid in my sock, because I knew the Modules would find it there. The network wanted to patch the flaw in its security, so it was very anxious to get the encryption key and decipher Circuit. But when it snatched the key from my memory and used it to decrypt the file, it fed the shutdown code into its microprocessors.”
“So the whole fight with Supreme Harmony was just pretend? You were trying to fool the network into
