Blasphemy

“How can we find that out?”

Lockwood thought for a moment. “There’s a guy named Bernard Wolf up at Los Alamos. He was the right- hand man to the chief engineer, Ken Dolby, who designed Isabella. He knows the whole layout, the systems, the computers, how it all works together. And he’ll have a full set of blueprints.”

The president turned to his chief of staff. “Get him up and ready to roll.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Morton sent his assistant scurrying from the room on the task. Morton walked to the window and turned. His face was red, and the veins in his neck pulsed faintly. He looked directly at Lockwood. “For weeks, Stan, I’ve been repeatedly expressing to you my concern about the lack of progress with the Isabella project. What the hell have you been doing?”

Lockwood was stunned by his tone. Nobody had talked to him that way in years. He kept his voice under rigid control. “I’ve been working on it day and night. I even put a man on the inside.”

“A man on the inside? Sweet Jesus. Without running it by me?”

“I authorized it,” said the president sharply. “Let’s stay focused on the problem at hand and stop bickering.”

“What, exactly, is this man supposed to be doing?” said Morton, ignoring the president.

“He’s looking into the delay, trying to figure out what’s behind it.”

“And?”

“I expect results tomorrow.”

“How are you in contact with him?”

“By secure sat phone,” said Lockwood. “Unfortunately, if he’s in the Bunker with the rest, it doesn’t work underground.”

“Try it anyway.”

With a shaking hand, Lockwood wrote the number on a piece of paper and handed it to Jean.

“Put it on speaker,” said Morton.

The phone rang five times, ten, fifteen.

“Enough,” said Morton, staring hard at Lockwood. Then he slowly turned to the president. “Mr. President, may I respectfully suggest that we move this meeting to the Situation Room? Because I have the feeling it’s going to be a long night.”

Lockwood stared at the Great Seal on the carpet. It all seemed so unreal. Was it possible they had gotten to Ford and turned him, too?

45

HAZELIUS LAY SPRAWLED ACROSS THE LINOLEUM floor. Ford rushed over to where he was stretched out and the other members of the team crowded around. Ford knelt and felt the pulse in his neck. It was strong, rapid, and steady. Kate grasped his hand, patting it. “Gregory? Gregory!”

“Get me a flashlight,” said Ford.

Wardlaw handed him a flashlight. Ford thumbed Hazelius’s eyelid open and shined the light in. The pupil contracted strongly.

“Water.”

A styrofoam cup was thrust into his hands. Ford took out his handkerchief, dipped it in the water, and patted it on Hazelius’s face. The scientist’s shoulders moved slightly, and both eyes fluttered open. They darted around, full of alarm and confusion.

“What—?”

“It’s all right,” said Ford. “You just fainted.”

Hazelius stared around uncomprehendingly. Realization crept back into his eyes. He stuggled to sit up.

“Take it easy,” said Ford, gently keeping him down. “Wait for your head to clear.”

Hazelius lay back, staring at the ceiling. “Oh my God,” he groaned. “This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.”

The smell of hot electronics hung heavy in the stifling atmosphere. Isabella moaned, the sound coming from all directions, as if the mountain itself were keening.

“Help me into my chair,” Hazelius gasped.

Kate took one arm, Ford took the other, and they helped him to his feet and walked him to the center of the Bridge, letting him settle into the captain’s chair.

Hazelius steadied himself on the arms of the chair and looked around. Ford had never seen his eyes such an eerie blue.

Edelstein spoke fiercely. “Is it true? The names? I must know.”

Hazelius nodded.

“There’s an explanation, of course.”

Hazelius shook his head.

“Obviously, you told someone,” Edelstein said. “Someone found out.”

“No.”

“The doctor who gave your wife the news. He learned the names.”

“It was a home kit,” Hazelius said hoarsely. “We only found out . . . an hour before she died.”

“She called someone. Her mother, perhaps.”

Again, a vigorous shake of the head. “Impossible. I was with her the whole time. We did the test and talked about the names. That was it. Sixty minutes. We didn’t go anywhere, we didn’t talk to anyone. She was so happy. That’s what burst the aneurysm—the sudden rush of happiness from the news spiked her blood pressure. Cerebral hemorrhage.”

“There’s a fraud in here somewhere,” said Edelstein.

Chen shook her head, setting her long black hair awhirl. “Alan, the data is coming out of that hole in space- time. It’s not coming from anywhere in the system. I traced it once, I traced it again, I force-quit the processors in each detector, I did every test I could think of. It’s real.”

Hazelius drew a shuddering breath. “It knew my thoughts. Just like it knew Kate’s. There’s no getting around it, Alan. There’s no way it could have guessed. Whatever it is, it knows our innermost thoughts. ”

Nobody moved. Ford tried to wrap his mind around it, find a rational explanation. Edelstein was right: it had to be some kind of deception.

When Hazelius spoke again, his voice was calm, matter-of-fact. “The machine’s running unattended. All of you, back to your stations.”

“We aren’t . . . going to power down?” Julie Thibodeaux asked, her voice quavering.

“Absolutely not.”

Isabella continued to hum on autopilot with the immense flow of power. The screens hissed with snow. The detectors sang their strange song. The electronics crackled—as if the tension of the scientists had infected the computer and taken the machine itself to the edge.

“Alan, get back on the p5s, keep everything steady. Kate, I want you to do some calculations on the geometry of that space-time hole. Where does it go? What does it open into? Melissa, I want you to work with Kate and get on that data cloud. Analyze it at all frequencies—find out what the hell it is.”

“What about the malware?” Dolby asked, as if unable to comprehend what had happened.

“Ken, don’t you get it? There is no malware.”

Dolby looked stupefied. “You think it’s . . . God?”

Hazelius returned the man’s look with an unreadable gaze of his own. “I think Isabella’s in communication with something real. Whether it’s actually God—whatever the hell that word means—we don’t have enough data yet. And that’s why we have to keep going.”

Ford looked around. The shock of what had happened was still sinking in. Wardlaw’s face was dripping sweat. Kate and St. Vincent looked pale as death.

He took Kate’s hand. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

Hazelius spoke to Dolby. “How long can we keep it going?”

“It’s dangerous to keep running at full power.”