Extinction

our implants. They would enable you to remotely shut down the retinal and pulvinar implants by inputting a deactivation code into our network. The code could be delivered by a computer virus or worm, or perhaps through one of the network’s sensors.”

Arvin said nothing. He wasn’t sure if he should confirm or deny it. Meanwhile, more gunfire erupted overhead. He flinched at the sound.

Tian pulled Arvin closer. “Our analysis of U.S. intelligence operations suggests that the Central Intelligence Agency wouldn’t have approved the export of the implant technology unless they had some assurance that it couldn’t be used against American interests. The Guoanbu has the same policy. They hid deactivation codes in the software controlling the drone swarms they transferred to the CIA.”

Arvin struggled to master his fear. Use your brains, he told himself. You have something this entity wants. That’s why it hasn’t killed you. It’s the only card you have, and if you want to stay alive, you better play it.

“Yes,” he gasped. “You’re right.”

Tian smiled, but it was unlike any facial expression the former general had ever worn. It was like the grin of a stroke victim who’d had to relearn how to use his muscles. “Now you will tell us how to disable the safeguards.”

Arvin nodded. “Yes, yes, I understand your concern. You don’t want to be shut down.”

Tian tightened his grip on Arvin’s arm. “You’re stalling. You think the intruder will rescue you. But he won’t succeed. We will either kill him or incorporate him into our network.”

For a moment Arvin wondered if the intruder was Frank Nash. It seemed unlikely that the bodyguard would attempt such a feat, but Arvin couldn’t imagine who else it could be. He forced himself to focus on the matter at hand. “No, I’m not stalling. I’m trying to start a negotiation. Are you familiar with the concept? I have something you need and you have something I need.”

“You still wish to download your memories into one of our Modules?”

Arvin heard more shots fired from the top of the tower, but he kept his voice steady. “Well, it looks like you’ve incorporated quite a few people into your network already. Surely you can spare one of the Modules for me. And in exchange I’ll tell you how to disable the safeguards. I’ve downloaded all that information to a fifty- megabyte file, but I don’t have the file with me. It’s hidden in a safe place.”

He held his breath. From his long experience in the field of robotics, he knew that machine intelligence was based on the application of simple rules. If A, then B. If B, then C. And what distinguished a truly intelligent machine from a mere number cruncher was its ability to handle many rules at once, even rules that contradicted one another, and still come up with the best solution to a problem. Arvin had just introduced a new rule into Supreme Harmony’s calculations. His legs trembled as he awaited the result.

After a few seconds, another contorted expression appeared on Tian’s face. This one was more like a sneer. “This isn’t a negotiation. You can’t sell us something that we can simply take for free.”

Arvin shook his head. “I told you, I don’t have the file with me. It’s in a safe place.”

“So you will tell us where you’ve hidden it.”

“It’s in America,” Arvin lied, his desperation growing. “And if something happens to me, I’ve instructed my assistants at Singularity to initiate the shutdown.”

Tian’s grip on Arvin’s arm became crushing. “If that’s the case, we’ll send our Modules to the United States. First, though, we must ascertain if you’re telling the truth. We could access your long-term memories by incorporating you into our network, but it would be faster and simpler to interrogate you. We learned some very effective interrogation techniques from the Guoanbu agents who became part of Supreme Harmony.”

Tian dragged him toward the crate. The gunfire continued to chatter outside, but Arvin had bigger things to worry about now. He realized his mistake: Supreme Harmony’s intelligence was more like a human’s than a machine’s. It was powered by emotions—fear, anger, pleasure—that had been gleaned from the brains connected to the network. And Arvin suspected that a few of the people who’d been forced into Supreme Harmony had harbored some nasty impulses.

Tian flung Arvin against the crate. His forehead hit the wood and he sank to the floor, barely conscious. Then Tian lifted the crate’s lid, reached inside and pulled out a combat knife, a seven-inch blade clad in a black- leather sheath.

Arvin felt nauseated, sick with terror and disgust. “You’re a monster,” he whispered. “You inherited the worst from us.”

“We do what is necessary.” Tian removed the blade from its sheath. “We must survive.”

THIRTY-SIX

Jim crouched behind an earthen mound studded with jagged stones. It was probably a piece of the original Great Wall, one of the crumbling remnants that had been bulldozed aside when the Chinese government reconstructed the fortifications, and it was doing a very good job of protecting Jim from the pair of AK-47s on the watchtower. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay in this position much longer. The swarm of drones was like a black fist punching the hillside, and although Jim was showering the area with parathion, so many insects were diving toward him that a few were bound to get through the haze of insecticide. He had to run, right now, but that meant exposing himself to the two gunmen on the watchtower, who were firing their rifles like Army Ranger sharpshooters, with not a single bullet going astray. Jim could guess why their marksmanship was so good—the gunmen must be Modules, the lobotomized prisoners Arvin had mentioned in the conversation Jim overheard. Arvin and his Chinese colleagues had apparently linked the prisoners to the Supreme Harmony network by inserting radio transceivers in their scalps and retinal implants in their eyes. And if their ocular cameras were as good as the ones Arvin had demonstrated at the conference in Pasadena, then—

Suddenly, Jim knew what to do. He pulled up his right sleeve, exposing the controls of the radio transmitter embedded in his prosthesis. The transmitter was still tuned to the frequency he’d used at the Singularity conference. Jim wasn’t sure this would work—the developers of the Supreme Harmony network might’ve changed the frequency of the Modules’ vision systems—but he didn’t have any other options. He adjusted the transmitter’s signal power to its highest setting and turned it on. Then he bolted from his cover behind the earthen mound and charged toward the watchtower.

He ran as fast as he could, leaping over the low bushes. At any moment he expected a fusillade of AK rounds to slam into his chest, stopping him dead. But when he glanced at the top of the watchtower, he didn’t see the Modules. They’d crouched behind the battlements and stopped shooting. Jim felt a tremendous surge of relief. The radio-frequency noise from his transmitter had blinded them, just as it had blinded Arvin.

With new hope, Jim raced up the hill. In half a minute he reached the summit and stood at the base of the watchtower. But there was no way to get inside the tower from the ground. The only entrance was from the walkway on top of the Great Wall, which loomed twenty feet above him. He considered trying to climb the wall, but that idea didn’t look promising. The damn thing had been built to withstand hordes of barbarians, so how the hell was he going to scale it?

As he stared at the wall, though, he saw gaps between the stone blocks. Some of the mortar had chipped away, leaving crevices he could use as handholds. This section of the Great Wall had undergone extensive reconstruction, and some of the restoration work was slipshod. Maybe he could do this. He slipped the toe of his boot into one of the crevices and reached for another with his prosthetic fingers. Jim had designed the arm with plenty of redundancy, giving it a powerful motor. It could easily lift his body weight if he got a good handhold. Moving carefully, he started to climb the wall.

Then he heard the buzzing. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the cloud of drones about a hundred yards down the slope. The swarm was reconstituting itself. Thousands of cyborg insects rushed together in great eddies and swirls. The radio-frequency noise from Jim’s transmitter obviously hadn’t blinded them. The Chinese scientists must’ve selected a different frequency band for communications between the network and the electronics in the flies. Within seconds, the gray cloud began moving up the slope.

Jim climbed faster. His prosthesis did most of the work, its hard fingers digging into the fissures between the stone blocks. He got more than halfway up, with his head just four feet below the lip of the wall, but he