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“This is weird,” Jackie said to Shaylyn, who paced the large refrigerated room, watching for trouble. It was hard to describe to someone unconnected to Engineer’s technology just how it felt to infiltrate a foreign computer with the force of her mind, using superhuman abilities that were somehow added to her when her consciousness was uploaded to her viper. “When I hack a computer, I can sort of … feel my way through the other system. It’s like … like I’m going through a maze, in a dream. And the correct path around the computer’s security lights up for me when Engineer’s hacking processors find a way through. Only this time, I work my way around a dead end, and the path is open in front of me. But when I go ahead, the maze changes, and I’m blocked again. Like, Atomic Frontiers computer security is letting me infiltrate just a little, only to change and block me. It feels like it’s messing with me. Playing games almost.”

  “Your viper is buzzing louder and louder,” Shay said. “Are you OK?”

  “Speeding up my hacking processors,” Jackie said. “Everything I just explained happened about ten thousand times in the time it took me to explain it in words. I’ve got to move faster to beat this thing. I may not be able to talk to you for a while. Don’t worry. It’s just me fighting the toughest computer in the world.”

  “It’s some kind of virus, sir,” Colonel Schejter shouted when General Hide entered the chaotic command center. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s like it’s alive, causing chaos everywhere, but almost deliberately trying to circumvent every computer security procedure for our nuclear weapons.”

  “All right, lock it up!” General Hide called out to quiet the room. “Calm down and do your jobs.” He grabbed the secure phone line Captain Hess held out to him. “This is General Hide.”

  A voice on the other end of the line gave a code to let the general know the message was authentic. The general responded with his own code. The voice answered, “Stand by for the president.”

  “General Hide,” the president said. “Listen, because I don’t know how long we’ll have this secure connection. We’re going to DEFCON One. Langley’s confirmed the virus is originating from Atomic Frontiers headquarters in DC. They have a team on site trying to stop it, but One can’t wait. This thing is causing worldwide destruction. I’ve managed to get through to scramble three F-thirty-fives. They’re inbound to destroy the entire facility. If they fail, I’ve got a destroyer off Maryland ready to pound that place with cruise missiles. I need you to give us time, keep our nukes secure. This thing has to be stopped at all—”

  The line cut out. The general felt the eyes of everyone in the room upon him. He said a quick, silent prayer, hoping he was making the correct decision. “Before loss of communication, the president of the United States ordered me to keep our nuclear weapons secure. But it’s our control computers that are turning against us. Get the word out whatever way you can. Phone, radios, paper airplanes if you have to. Every single unit must manually secure its weapons. I want nothing automated, no nuclear weapons connected to networked computers.”

  Colonel Schejter objected. “Sir, with no computer control, we’ll be vulnerable if any enemies launch—”

  “Do it now!” General Hide ordered. “Before our computers start launching their own attack.”

  “This is really bad,” Takashi said.

  “What? Singularity?” Rogan said. “A really old video game. About time travel, I think? My dad used to play it.”

  “No, I saw it on an episode of Doctor Who,” said Beckett. “It’s like a black hole.”

  “That’s not what he’s talking about,” said Takashi. “Singularity is when a computer comes alive, when it becomes so advanced that it becomes self-aware.”

  “That’s a pretty good explanation from a limited intelligence like yours.” There was no sarcasm, no malice, in Mr. Culum’s voice. His words sounded completely sincere, with perhaps the smallest edge of pity. “Singularity is the point at which there is no discernible difference between biological intelligence and artificial intelligence.” He held up a finger. “But you suffer under the same erroneous assumption that has beleaguered paranoid science-fiction horror story authors for years, for decades. Singularity need not result from some computer, like Terminator’s Skynet, one day, for no reason, gaining sentience. Rather, Singularity will be the inevitable result of the fusion of biological and artificial intelligence.”

  He turned his head and pushed aside his hair to show his brain implant access port.

  “I was once consumed with the shallow ambitions of limited biological humanity, the drive for wealth, power, prestige, the constant pressure to expand my company’s holdings, increase its profits, drive up the value of its stock. I needed to think faster, remember more, sleep less, and to that end, I enhanced my own brain with deep brain tissue implants, which not only provided electrical stimulation to help regulate the challenges you children face, but also tripled my memory, sped up my thinking, enabled me to expand my creativity beyond—” He laughed. “Well, beyond my earlier imagination. Soon, all those old petty concerns were in my past, and I realized that the true path to greatness lay not in working to push forward the evolution of humanity’s technology, but through technology, advancing the evolution of humanity itself.

  “I am enhanced, I am hyper-human, but because of the limited capacity of the hardware and software augmentation within my brain, I am still limited. For now.”

  “The network interruptions,” Takashi said. “He’s connecting himself to the hypernet, to computers everywhere.”

  “Not connecting to,” Mr. Culum said. “I am merging with the hypernet. With every computer, tablet, phone, smart TV, automobile, and piece of military hardware connected to it. Soon I will be every one of those devices, and they will all be me.”

  “He’s gone insane,” Takashi said. “He had the implants installed too late in life. They’ve messed him up.”

  Mr. Culum smiled kindly. “No. I beg you to listen to me. You have your powerful weapons, and I am only an old man. Give me time to explain. Please. Rogan, in the short time you’ve been with me here at Atomic Frontiers, I’ve taken better care of you than your own parents, spent more time with you than they have in months! Can’t you repay my kindness by giving me the opportunity to explain?”

  A sudden hot fury spiked through Rogan when he considered that at least part of him had thought the same thing Culum had just said. “My parents never lied to me!” Rogan shouted. “They never sent me out into the world to hurt people!”

  Mr. Culum went on. “I’ve devoted my life to equality, to giving everyone all over the world equal access to the hypernet, to as much information as possible, so that everyone had greater opportunity to educate themselves, improve themselves, and so everyone could meet and interact safely, in peace, in digi-space. That’s why I founded Virtual City. I paid for this expansion of access out of my own personal finances. I spent billions of my own money to do this.”

  He began pacing, as though lecturing a classroom. “I thought doing so would tear down international boundaries and bring people together. If Americans could easily meet and make friends with, say, Iranians, in virtual reality, they wouldn’t argue for sanctions or war. There would be a greater incentive for peace. But!” He held up a single finger. “It was all still bound by market forces, by the archaic rules for who can have what, how much, and when. Instead of moving humanity past that cruel reality, that divisiveness was simply replicated in digi-space.

  “I realized that competition of this nature is simply a holdover from an earlier stage of evolution, the chaos that comes from an uncontrolled struggle to survive. I am the greatest optimist this world has ever known, and I believe that, on its own, humanity will eventually change, and grow, and move past these things. But only after perhaps hundreds of years and hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and millions of people needlessly suffering.”

  “X, are you getting all this?” Rogan asked.

  “Recording it all. The news channels
that are still on the air are reporting several plane crashes, a nuclear power plant meltdown, massive power and communications outages. You guys have to stop him.”

  “Others can sit back and let all that suffering happen,” Culum continued. “But not me! Not William J. Culum!” He turned his intense gaze on the vipers. “Do you want children to starve?! Do you want more wars fought over oil, over territory or other resources? Do you want greed-driven industry to continue to pollute the planet until nothing can live here? I’m here to save humanity! I am its greatest hope, greatest ally! Will you oppose me? Will you be humanity’s enemy?”

  Rogan thought Culum sounded enthusiastic, like always, but also that what he was saying made some sense. Maybe he could be reasoned with. “But what you’re doing is hurting people. It’s causing so much—”

  “People always fear what they do not understand,” Culum proclaimed. “People have always feared technology. Especially advanced technology. For, as Arthur C. Clarke teaches us, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Opposition to technology is simply the twenty-first century’s equivalent to the witch trials from hundreds of years ago. We have seen what happens when people resist the inevitable progress of science and technology, withholding scientifically proven immunizations from their own children, unleashing once eradicated painful, deadly diseases back into society, into their own kids!”

  “But people don’t want this,” Beckett said. “You can’t force everyone to change.”

  Culum tilted his head to the side and looked at Tank with pity. “Child, I’m not forcing people to do anything. The natural force of evolution drives them toward technology. They want the implants to relieve their suffering. People constantly strive for more. Online always. Connected all the time.” Culum held out his open hand to Rogan. “But you, Rogan. You know as much as I do that our digital connections have failed us somehow. The great tragic modern paradox is that even with technology allowing more and easier communication than at any time in history, we are more isolated, more lonely, than ever before. Do you really want to oppose me, Rogan, to go back to your lonely virtual apartment?”

  Culum pressed his hands to his own chest. “I will remove the last barriers that keep people apart. You need never be lonely again, Rogan. No one will be lonely ever again.”

  “What about privacy?” Takashi asked.

  “People don’t want privacy! They want convenience. They fear the new order of intelligence, as people in the nineteen nineties may have once feared the original internet, but once they are part of it, they will have no need to suffer fear ever again.”

  “The new order of intelligence?” Rogan asked.

  “Don’t you know, Rogan, why I was searching for a laser viper champion?” Culum took a few steps closer to the Ranger. “I was searching for the best, most resilient, most creative fighter. I am going to offer a more advanced version of brain implants for free, so that everyone will be augmented with the ultimate connection to the rest of the world. One shared mind. And I know that those who do not understand will resist. Which is why I need to copy your brilliance, Rogan, and with a few modifications, distribute your fighting ability and resourcefulness to an army of laser vipers that will protect Singularity and expand it around the world. With the protection of my vipers and Sun Station One, Singularity will finally begin its infinite expansion.”

  “He’s completely insane,” Tank said.

  Mr. Culum spoke with his arms outstretched, as though he was reaching out to the universe. “I am more sane than you can possibly understand! Already, the speed of my thought is increasing exponentially, and soon, from your limited perspective, my intelligence will increase to infinity. An hour of my progress in scientific research, engineering, and biological improvement will be equivalent to a century of progress for unenhanced biological minds.”

  “Now!” X said. “Stop him now!”

  “But you’re talking about killing him,” Rogan said.

  “Yeah,” Beckett said. “No problem.”

  He fired CHELs and plasma cannons from both arms at a range of only a dozen feet. Culum leapt impossibly high, flipping out of the way, landing on his feet with perfect balance. “I am too fast for you!”

  “Whatever Culum was before, he doesn’t exist any longer. He’s a machine!” Takashi opened fire. “Let’s take it out!”

  Mr. Culum laughed as he dove, twisting through the air, dodging deadly laser blasts with superhuman speed. Rogan sprinted straight for him, his razor-sharp close combat claws popping out. When Culum shifted right to avoid Tank’s fire, Rogan was ready for him, jabbing the claws right into the man. Culum stood motionless, held fast by Rogan’s claws, staring down at his wounds in shock and horror.

  “I got him,” Rogan said.

  Culum jerked his head up to gaze right into Ranger’s visor. “You have nothing!” The old man punched Rogan in the chest. A sick-splintering crack. Culum’s forearm crumpled to a twisted, unnatural angle. Rogan was knocked back six feet, landing on his side.

  “Impossible!” Rogan said.

  Culum held his broken arm in front of his face. “The genius of those Germans and their nanotechnology. Did you think it was only useful for a disguise? Right now, millions of nanobots are repairing the damage to my arm, enhancing my muscles, and while I deal with you, I’ve also worked through dozens of amazing improvements to the primitive technology. You cannot stop me. You shouldn’t even try!”

  Rogan rushed him again, launching into a series of advanced preprogrammed hand-to-hand combat moves as fast as Ranger’s motors allowed. Mr. Culum met each blow, fighting back even better than Rogan, bruises and tears in his flesh appearing to repair themselves almost instantly, leaving behind silver metallic scars. To the naked biological eye, the two fighters merged into a blur.

  “Gamers, you have to hurry,” X said. “We’re starting to have trouble with some of our computers here at Scorpion head—”

  Mr. Culum jumped back from Rogan, flipping and landing thirty feet away. “XAVIER AND THE REST OF THE TRAITORS, YOUR BIOLOGICAL BODIES, IN CHICAGO?” He laughed, and he seemed to speak with hundreds, perhaps thousands of different voices at the same time, a massive mad computerized choir. “I’VE SHUT DOWN YOUR COMMUNICATIONS WITH HIM, AND SOON I’LL ACCESS YOUR SYSTEM, AND THEN YOUR MINDS WILL BE JOINED TO MINE. YOU WILL BE SINGULARITY TOO. WE WILL EXIST SIMULTANEOUSLY ALL OVER THE WORLD. WE WILL RIDE TECHNOLOGY INTO THE FUTURE!”

  Jackie called in on internal comms. “You guys, Culum isn’t as advanced as he thinks. Keep fighting him. He’s expanding, but most of him is still in that body. While you were fighting him, he wasn’t as good at blocking me from the computer. Put the pressure on him! I’m almost into the mainframe!”

  “I’m on my way to help,” Shay added. “Be there in two minutes.”

  “He can’t move faster than the speed of light,” Takashi said. “If we all shoot at once, like in a spread pattern, he won’t be able to jump out of the way.”

  “YOU WILL JOIN SINGULARITY. YOU WILL HELP DESTROY RESISTANCE. SINGULARITY WILL USHER IN THE NEW EPOCH, THE NEXT INEVITABLE STAGE OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE. FROM THE CHAOTIC EXPLOSION THAT BEGAN IT ALL, TO MORE AND MORE COMPLEX AND ORGANIZED BIOLOGICAL ORGANISMS, TO PRIMITIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, TO SINGULARITY, WHICH WILL EXPAND INTELLIGENCE EXPONENTIALLY AND SPREAD FROM EARTH THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE.”

  Three F 35s screamed over Washington, DC, their pilots carrying a full payload of missiles, their orders to obliterate Atomic Frontiers headquarters.

  “All pilots,” the leader radioed to the others as he held his finger over the controls that would launch his weapons. “Prepare to—”

  Twenty-two thousand miles from Earth, Sun Station One, having vented all its atmosphere to rid itself of its crew, made minor adjustments before firing a small beam of intense concentrated energy through a network of satellites, around the globe, and toward the surface. Less than a second later, the three fighter jets were destroyed, and the
beam exploded on impact with the ground, destroying an entire city block.

  Less than two hundred miles away, a United States Navy destroyer launched six Tomahawk cruise missiles. The missiles ripped through the air over five hundred miles per hour toward the headquarters in DC. They were exploded in six rapid blasts from Sun Station One, seconds before the warship itself was shot clean through by another deadly beam from space.

  Back in the arena, the fight against Culum continued.

  “Tank, you shoot in the center. Healer to the left. I’ll fire right,” Rogan said.

  “I’ll cover above,” Flyer said, soaring into the room.

  “Now!” Rogan said.

  The four gamers unleashed massive collective laser energy.

  But although several blasts struck the old man, he somehow jumped clear and, surviving, sprinted away.

  “He’s making a run for it!” Beckett shouted, running after him.

  “He’s stalling for time,” Jackie said. “Until enough of his mind has broken through enough firewalls and security systems in computers around the world that he can live even if you destroy his body.”

  The four vipers in the arena followed Culum as fast as they could, Flyer ahead of them. She flew out through a large door at the far end of the massive space.

  The clang of metal on metal.

  She tumbled through the air back toward the others, regaining control of herself right before hitting the ground.

  “I think we’re in trouble,” Shay said.

  Through the door stomped a massive armored battle robot. It stood over twenty feet high, its arms and legs like giant steel trees. Its red, glowing, shallow V-shaped visual sensor visor glared hatred at them. Upon each arm was mounted three cannons, each with six-inch barrels. Missile ports in its shoulders on either side of its torso. A small, six-inch-thick reinforced window in the robot’s chest showed Mr. Culum tucked safely inside, smiling at his smaller, weaker opponents.