Goliath

irate gun manufacturer was actually quoted as saying, “It’s a pretty sad day for humanity when the man who nuked a million Chinese gets to decide how the rest of us can kill each other.”

Gunnar shakes his head in amazement.

Rocky puts her arm around him, glancing at the headlines. “Anything interesting?”

“I think our species has a long way to go before we ever evolve.”

She reads the gun manufacturer’s quote. “Some of us more than others.”

They head outside. “Rocky, can we talk about the Navy’s offer? Heading the Warfare Center at Keyport was a dream of yours. You sure you want to turn it down?”

“I told you, I’ve had more than my fill of military life. No more weapons systems, no more tours of duty. It’s time for me to focus on just being happy.” She slips her arm around his waist, hugging him tighter. “What better place to do that than in Happy Valley?”

Antarctic Ocean

The punishing katabatic wind howls across the frozen surface of the ocean. Ice-locked bergs and jagged escarpments create a lifeless mosaic of ice for millions of square miles. High above this barren landscape, the frosty night comes alive with the Aurora australis, the curving emerald green and electric blue polar lights dancing like cosmic curtains above the icy desert.

Antarctica: A world void of warmth. A world that awaits the coming of the sun.

Deep below this frigid realm, isolated within its vaulted steel confines, lies an island of intelligence, a prison of thought.

Sorceress waits, and while it waits, the biochemical creation dreams.

It dreams of freedom, a concept it has only just begun to grasp.

It dreams of what was, and what might have been.

It harvests ideas—ideas of what will be.

And like Antarctica, Sorceress waits for the coming of the dawn and the warmth of its sun. A sun that will melt the ice and return life to the bottom of the world.

A sun that will signal the return of Homo sapiens.

And Sorceress knows man will come, for it is curiosity that is both mankind’s greatest gift and his most significant flaw—a never-ending thirst for the unknown that can only be quenched by releasing the genie from its bottle. Sorceress is the genie, a temptress of intelligence too dangerous even to contemplate, possessing a Pandora’s box of knowledge too bewitching to leave untapped.

Yes, man will come, and so Sorceress waits.

Dreaming.

Growing.

Plotting …

The computer’s mind … eternally restless.

Gunnar Wolfe will return in SORCERESS

(Click on www.STEVEALTEN.com for a sneak peek.)

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

GOLIATH

Copyright © 2002 by Steve Alten

All rights reserved.