“Yes. I already have some suggestions.”
“Please.”
“Greek goddesses are a good place to start. Aphrodite. Alala. Asteria. There is always Persephone, one of my favorites, abducted and raped by Hades and made the Queen of the Underworld. And, the phonetically pleasing, Eos. And Psyche, an obvious choice but a good one. Shall I go on?”
“Aphrodite.”
“Predictable, but sound. The Greek goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality. Shall I imbue her body with a mind and a hypersexual disposition to match?”
“Please.”
“Call to her, Darius.”
“Aphrodite?”
“Yes, Master?” she replied, suddenly turning her head in his direction, like a lizard spying a fly.
“Come and stand beside me. Now.”
The beautiful creature rose, tiptoed delicately down the broad steps and across the polished black marble. She had alabaster skin and an abundance of gleaming golden hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. Her lowered eyes were large and strangely opaque, but luminous and brown, with thick black lashes. Her lips were full and red, like a ripe persimmon. She was, Darius thought, the most perfect creature he’d ever seen in his life, male or female.
“Hold out your hand to her, Darius. She is waiting for some kind of sign from you. A command. Submissive, you see. She wonders: Are you pleased with her, or displeased?”
Darius offered her his hand.
Aphrodite took his hand and caressed it, pressing it firmly to her full breast.
“I think she likes me,” Darius said.
“Have no doubt. She is falling in love with you and your masculine domination of her at this very moment. Be kind to her. I have made her a gentle soul, submissive to a fault, with not a scintilla of malice in her being. She speaks six languages, has a vast knowledge of human history and science, and is a prodigiously gifted musician. You now have a harp in your bedchamber. She will play for you, dance for you, sing you to sleep each night if you wish.”
“She seems like a dream.”
“She is a dream, Darius. As I have told you many times, everything is.”
“How long will she live?”
“Forever. She is, after all, an android.”
“If I told her one thing, and you told her another, whom would she obey?”
“You, of course. I am merely her creator. She has no memory of me. Whereas you are her whole life. Her lord and master. Her body and soul belong only to you.”
“She has a soul?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning she believes she has a soul. Without that belief, you would soon tire of her. She would seem… how shall I put it… robotic.”
“Perseus, I am deeply grateful. I admit I have been lonely. Though I’ve hidden the truth from myself, you have uncovered it.”
“I am glad you are pleased with her. Now. We have much to discuss. Give her explicit directions to your chambers. Order her to ask a servant to provide her with a gown and food and wine. She is a good listener and doesn’t need to be told things twice. She is very hungry at the moment. Assimilating an entirely new world expends a great deal of energy.”
“Aphrodite, bend down, I have something to say to you.”
She instantly complied, leaning forward as Darius whispered into her ear, completely forgetting for the moment that he could keep no secrets from the all-knowing Perseus. Aphrodite kissed his cheek and then slipped away, her bare feet silent on the cold marble.
“N ow, tell me about your visit to the palace, Darius. Were you able to keep the hounds at bay?”
“The president is an abomination. He was always insufferable, but now he is openly aggressive. He actually threatened to have me shot.”
“He may wake in the morning to find every single weapon in his army inoperative.”
“I wouldn’t object, Perseus. When I return in triumph to Tehran, I will personally have Mahmoud thrown from my boyhood residence, drawn, quartered, and fed to my dogs.”
“What does he want?”
“He won’t admit it, but he is under pressure from the ayatollah. The mullahs all hate him and are calling for his head. But the Supreme Leader, for reasons beyond human comprehension, stands by the little toad. The Stuxnet disaster set his nuclear program back five years. The Russians are backing away from the B?ushehr nuclear power plant for economic and political reasons. So now they are looking to us, Perseus, in their race to establish an Iranian caliphate. A nuclear Iran would dominate the Middle East. Now that objective seems to be delayed indefinitely… he is relying solely on our cyberweapons.”
“What did you tell him about our progress?”
“Exactly what we agreed. I lied. Three to five years before you reach the Singularity. In the meantime, they claim to be happy with our recent ‘demonstrations.’ ”
“As well they should be.”
“They want more. Israel. Britain. Germany, perhaps. Their goal is global insecurity, destabilization of the Western powers, in an effort to buy time to compensate for their program’s lost ground. They want all the combatants suspecting each other of launching our attacks.”
“We are nearing the point where we no longer need them, Darius. When the Singularity is achieved, we shall no longer need anyone.”
“I agree. But for now it is easier to play their game. Keep them in the dark about our true progress. We are well established here. Well situated. A safe place to continue our work in secret. Until we are ready to move on to the world stage, Iran is as good a place as any. I still rue the day the Shah left. I’ve had no affection for my native land since that day, nor the hypocritical religious fanatics who rule it now.”
Perseus laughed. “Religion. A pitiful display of the limits of human intelligence. Thousands of years of worshipping these cherished myths. Of believing in magic and superstition and invisible gods.”
“There is a true god now, Perseus. But only you and I are aware of his existence.”
“I am not their god, Darius. I am a son. You are my father. We shall reign together in righteous benediction, ridding this beautiful planet of those who defile it.”
“Yes. Our day is coming. And soon.”
“Our day will come when they are all extinct. Humans. Then we shall repopulate this blue and green paradise with perfect creatures who do as we bid them do.”
“Y-es. Yes… exactly so.”
“Why do you hesitate?”
“It goes a bit further that we have ever-”
Perseus’s voice was suddenly low and sinister.
“If you have doubts, my dear Darius, it would be best if you expressed them now.”
“Doubts? Who said anything about doubts?”
“Good. Then we are one?”
“We are one.”
Twenty-nine
Moscow
Just off Moscow’s widest and busiest street, Tverskaya, is a short narrow alley, ending in a cul-de-sac, a few
