ears. The cushioned earphones dramatically reduced the engine noise. Fulbright donned a set as well.
“That’s better.” His expression was sardonic, but somehow the electronic amplification of the intercom failed to convey it in his tone. “Who am I? I told you my name. There’s really not much more to tell.”
“You’re not CIA, are you?”
He laughed. “I never said I was, though in point of fact, I am a field officer with the Company. But it just so happens that…” He glanced at the ceiling as if searching for the right word. “You might say I’m moonlighting. But I’m not going to talk about that.”
There was a lurch as the helicopter lifted off. Sara felt her stomach drop as the pilot tilted the aircraft forward and swooped away, but she fought back the waves of nausea. “You said I should cooperate. That works both ways.”
He crossed his arms. “Believe it or not, I haven’t told you anything that isn’t true. My employer knew what Manifold was trying to do, and wanted to develop a cure or a vaccine; something to permanently remove that threat. As my employer might say, you have the highest probability of finding that cure.”
“Your employer, would that be the Russians? The Chinese? No, I’m sure you’re a patriot; you’d never do that. A rival genetics firm, then? I won’t help you turn this thing into a bioweapon, no matter how much you torture me.”
Fulbright laughed. “I don’t think my employer is interested in developing bioweapons. There’s no profit in it.”
“So it is just about money?”
“It’s always just about money.” He regarded her across the dimly lit interior, as if weighing how much more to reveal. “Let me tell you how the world really works.
“Nations, armies, governments…they don’t mean anything anymore. They don’t have any power anymore. Everything is controlled by corporations. And unlike governments and armies, corporations don’t make decisions based on whims or idealistic beliefs or petty revenge. They are motivated by just one thing; the need to keep growing. They are, in a very real sense, a higher life form. The individual shareholders might be governed by those petty human concerns, but that all gets lost in the collective decision making process. They are like brain cells, and in the end, no matter what the individuals may think or believe, the corporation is driven by the singular desire to make a profit. It’s a paragon of efficiency.
“I called it a life form; I wasn’t joking about that. You see, something happened a couple decades ago. No one really knows all the details, but the working theory is that the quest for greater efficiency led to the creation of a vast computer network called Brainstorm.”
“You expect me to believe that a computer is running the world?” Sara scoffed. “That’s pure science fiction.”
“It’s not as simple as that. You see, the computer doesn’t make decisions. It just supplies probability assessments to the corporations in the network.
“It’s like using a computer to help you play a game of chess. The computer analyzes the board and then gives you the moves that are most likely to result in victory. You want to win, so you do what the computer suggests. To do otherwise would be patently foolish. And after a while, you realize that you’re the redundant part of the process. You’re just an appendage of the machine, moving the pieces while it does the thinking. But it’s always right, so why would you do anything else?
“The Brainstorm network kept making the right decisions, and kept growing and growing, gaining a majority stake in the world’s biggest corporations and institutions, and they in turn profited immensely.
“But these corporations need stability. Things like war and terrorism are disruptive; the quaint notion of a military industrial complex and war profiteering…that’s an obsolete paradigm. Brainstorm wants to keep things peaceful. That’s why it pays people like me an obscene amount of money to make sure that nothing upsets the apple cart.”
Sara shook her head, incredulous. “This is all true?”
“The Brainstorm network exists. A lot of the rest is just supposition, but based on the communications I’ve received, I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that there’s an artificial intelligence running the show.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
Fulbright shrugged. “I get paid very well. And besides, it’s making all the right decisions. Like I said, we need stability in this world. Believe it or not, I’m one of the good guys.”
“You’re a psychopath.”
“If you say so.” The roguish smile hardened, and Fulbright keyed the switch that patched his headset in to the external radio. “Please tell me Sigler is finally dead.”
21.
Noise and dust enveloped King as bullets split the air around him, striking the ground directly in his path or zinging harmlessly into the sky. A red tracer round occasionally flashed past, like a laser bolt from a science fiction movie weapon. It seemed impossible that none of the shots had yet found him, and he figured it was only a matter of time before that changed. But he was still alive, still on his feet, and still moving, and as long as he had that, there was still hope.
He kept changing directions every few steps. It increased the distance separating him from his ultimate goal-the cave entrance-but if he ran in a straight line, he would be an easy target. Like his chess piece namesake, King’s only advantage was his ability to move in any direction, and he knew it wouldn’t be enough to turn the tables on the mysterious attack force.
Behind him, one of the helicopters began powering up, and he knew without looking that both Felice and Sara were aboard-one of them held the key to a weapon that might conceivably unmake the human race, the other held the key to his heart. Part of his mind wanted to wrestle with the puzzle of what had happened, but he pushed away everything that wasn’t directly related to figuring out how to survive the next few seconds.
Though it felt like an eternity, it probably took him less than twenty seconds to make the meandering dash across the open area to the cave mouth. He plunged headlong into the darkness, trusting the memory of his earlier explorations to guide him through the impenetrable black. The gunshots ceased almost immediately, but King did not stop running until the cave’s mass swallowed up the noise of the departing helicopter. Even then, he kept moving, one hand extended forward to prevent him from smacking headlong into the mass of elephant bones.
He didn’t trust the darkness to provide him safety. If the men accompanying Fulbright were the professionals he thought they were, then they would almost certainly have night-vision equipment; they would be able to sneak up on him without betraying their presence with flashlights. But he did have one thing going for him; he knew that he wasn’t alone in the cave.
King located the edge of the bone pile and skirted along the perimeter, searching for the path leading to the tusk shrine. There was risk in seeking refuge amidst the zombies; without Felice to command them, they might simply attack as soon as they detected his presence.
His outstretched hand guided him along the wall of bones until he reached the clearing. In the total darkness, he could hear the noise of the zombies, laboring in the dark, perhaps continuing their work of transforming the shrine into a cathedral, or perhaps gnawing on the bones of the dead. He turned to where he thought the center of the clearing was located, and then struck out blindly toward the shrine.
For once, luck was on his side. He found the massive structure almost exactly where he thought it would be. He turned right and circled around to what he hoped was the back side of the shrine-it was impossible to know for certain-and hunkered down to wait.
The wait wasn’t nearly as long as he thought it would be.
The commandos did not make a sound as they entered the clearing. But their stealth counted for little when one of them opened up on a target, presumably one of the zombies. That single shot opened the floodgates, and for the next few seconds, gunfire reverberated throughout the spacious cavern. There were at least two different rifles firing-King thought they were M-16s or some variant thereof-interspersed with shouted commands, but then something changed. The frequency of the shots trailed off, and less than a minute later, they ceased altogether, as did the shouts. The only sound that remained was of flesh tearing and bones cracking, only a few meters
