Pulling The Dragon's Tail (48 page)

Es and Nate exchanged looks of exasperation.

“Ready?” asked Nate.

At that moment, Dugan made another monumental,
almost too human choice. “I’ve attached myself to the shaft wall
next to the bot. It will do you no good to pull.”

Es nodded, and at the count of three, heaved
with all their strength to haul the suddenly stubborn computer
companion robot up and out of the hole in the ground.

“Dugan!” pleaded Nate. “What are you doing?” He
tugged furiously and futilely at the taut rope.

A steady, gentle rain began falling.

The CCR was unrelenting. “Listen to me, Skip. I
have fourteen minutes and fifteen seconds left to work on
detonation codes in an attempt to disable it. Your attempt to save
me is wasting precious time for you to escape.”

Es stopped pulling on the rope. She grabbed
Nate’s arm firmly. “Dugan’s right.”

Nate glared at the transhuman. “NO!” he yelled
vehemently.

In a calm, firm voice, Es replied, “It is
difficult for you to accept this, but Dugan is a fully autonomous
being JUST LIKE YOU PROGRAMMED HIM TO BECOME! He’s made a choice
and you don’t have the right to rescind it.”

His face contorted in rage and anger. “NO! GOD,
NO! FATHER!” With lips quivering, Nate slowly eased his grip,
fingers dancing tremulously. He tied the end of the rope around a
post next to the shed.

He returned and stared helplessly into the hole.
“Dugan!”

Es needed all her strength to drag him away. She
knew the CCR could never leave the hole.

They ran, tumbling down the jungle terrain, a
bit behind the other soldiers. Nate fell, sliding on the
rain-slicked ground.

“Status report, Dugan,” said Es, puffing
slightly.

“I have discovered the location of the bomb,
located 168 meters below me. Time to detonation: nine minutes,
thirty-seven seconds.”

A minute later they had arrived at the robotic
legs.

“Dugan, progress report.”

“Minimal, Es. Firewall after firewall keeps
popping up.”

The robotic legs carried them far and fast down
the steep mountainside.

“Seven minutes, fifteen seconds. It is advisable
to be off the island if I am unsuccessful.”

Nate, pumping away in the robotic legs, said, “I
wish you were here with me.”

“I wish you were here with me,” replied the
CCR.

“That’s certain death for me,” he replied.

“I am unconcerned with death. I realize that you
are afraid of it,” added the CCR.

Nate opened his mouth, but was too confused to
speak.

“I do not know the human emotion of bliss or
joy. But to obtain knowledge is, as Campbell Devereaux puts it,
exquisite. The next seven minutes may prove crucial in the lives of
many people and the geography of this island.”

“Dugan, I’m not so much afraid of death, as I’m
afraid of not living long enough to do what I want to do, what I
believe Father Abraham wants me to do. But what good is
accumulating data that you call bliss if you’re not around to use
it and benefit from it?”

Nate stopped his robotic legs, confusion
reigning within him.
My CCR is willing to sacrifice himself to
save others. If human, he’d make a great CHOFA member. He’s
protecting others
.

Dugan ignored Nate’s last comment. “I am
downloading data on Sheridan’s bombs. It should prove useful.”

“What about our End-Date data?” Nate asked. He
was moving forward again.

“A backup plan is currently being executed,”
Dugan answered.

“A sliver of good news,” Nate said, a blank look
on his face.

“Please let me get back to work, Skip.”

Nate shook his head.
Was this more gallows
humor? Dugan can process data thousands of times faster than the
human brain, so it wasn’t possible to interfere with the work of
Dugan. Dugan can have a conversation, play a game of chess, scan
and sift all the news of the day and leave a summary for me,
complete entire math books, and still have room left over to do
what he’s doing right now
.

They arrived at the clearing where the ‘copter
awaited them. The skies were clearing. The rain slowly
dissipated.

Dugan reported, “Four minutes, five seconds
until detonation.”

They clambered aboard. Nate lay on the floor of
the small craft, exhausted. Then the craft lifted off the
ground.

“Two minutes, eighteen seconds!”

Will I ever hear that voice again? Will I
ever install new software in him? I’ve spent so much time nurturing
him to …life.

“Where are you now, Skip?”

“Approximately four kilometers from your
position,” replied Es, noting Nate’s inability to respond.

“That is not far enough away. Shock waves may
kill you,” Dugan noted.

“Are you making progress?” asked Es.

“Yes. I believe I have taken one of the six
bombs off-line on the eastern flank.”

“There are more bombs planted under the ocean on
the western fault line, aren’t there?” asked Nate.

“Yes,” came the reply. “The fault lines are five
kilometers off-shore, imbedded approximately fifty meters into the
crust.”

Once again Dugan cut off communication. The
small helicopter droned down the side of the mountain, just above
the treetops. Nate gazed upward at the formidable presence of the
volcano. After eons of a commanding overlook of the sea, its reign
of supremacy was quickly evaporating.

An agonizing silence followed. Nate nervously
checked and re-checked his dataport clock. Es slung her backpack
onto the floor of the small craft, re-sorting her supplies. They
studiously avoided eye contact with each other.

Dugan finally spoke again. “One minute, twelve
seconds remain. I have been able to take one more bomb off-line and
reduce the strength of one positioned under the ocean.”

“Dugan,” spoke Nate, voice trembling, “you’re
incredible. You have—” he choked back a sob.

“Dugan,” chimed in Es, “you are the bravest of
souls on this new Earth. Good-bye. I will miss you.”

“So long, Es. You and Nate are my best friends.
Skip, I only wished I had more time.” Then the voice was cut off.
Only hissing static remained of what was once an inseparable
connection.

“Dugan.” Nate had found his voice again. “I …”
He fought back tears as briefly cursed himself at crying over a
machine-based intelligence
. But Dugan was so much more than
that. A companion. A confidant. It was almost like losing
a…son.

As his tears ran freely, he saw Es, stoic,
unfeeling. “Have you no soul? The being who called you his best
friend is going to die! Don’t you care? Crying won’t stop you from
being a transhuman, you know.”

She grabbed his shoulders with her hands. “Of
course, I will miss him, but probably not as much as you. Do not
mistake absence of tears as absence of caring. Tears will not bring
him back. We have to focus on staying alive.”

“Yeah, I know, crying isn’t strategic,” he said
bitterly.

Es looked up at the mountainside as Nate was
left alone in his thoughts
. I never said good-bye.

Then the rumbling began. The air shook around
them as a deafening roar filled their ears.

The ‘copter pilot glanced over at them. “I’ll
need to put her down. Shock waves may destabilize us!” He hastily
landed the craft, but not without difficulty. They landed with a
thud.

Stepping out of the open-air craft, Nate felt no
safer. The ground was quaking all around. He felt the rumbling
under his feet.

“Look!” yelled another soldier, pointing up at
the Cumbre Vieja volcano.

One moment the entire top of the island was
visible far to the north and south. The next moment it was gone. A
cacophonous noise drilled into their ears as the island split in
two.

“Oh my God!” screamed Nate. The horror sank in.
Five hundred cubic kilometers of solid Earth plunged at 150
kilometers per hour into the ocean.

With eyes transfixed on the fifteen-kilometer
long island that had suddenly lost two-thirds of its width, Nate
said, “I don’t think it did any good. It’s massive, just
massive.”

He sighed then bowed his head, burying it in his
hands. It was too painful to watch anymore. Impulsively, he spoke
up, “Dugan, are the tsunami warnings—”

Es grabbed him and shook her head
. No,
she mouthed silently. She then went to work, accessing the Net. A
minute later she was speaking to her UN Security contact. “Massive
explosions have occurred on La Palma Island. The island is gone.
Warn everyone about the tsunami wave!”

“It’s just now registering on our sensors. I’ll
take it from here. Stay safe! There’s video footage from a ship a
few miles off the Canaries. It’s being hit by a wall of water. My
God!” gasped the woman.

Nate’s spirit sank lower.
The first of many
of Sheridan’s victims
, he thought bitterly.

“The crew is racing to secure the top deck,”
continued the UN Security woman. “You can see the ship, it’s
tipping, tipping. The wave is—oh, God!”

With eyes open and looking at the sky, he
wondered,
How many more, Father?
Nate then scanned his
dataport for the computer model program Dugan had created.
Reviewing the simulation of the wave, he watched it wash across the
coast of Africa first, followed by Portugal. Hours later, after
marching across the Atlantic, it would hit the eastern seaboard of
the North American Union and South America.
At least people
should have enough time to – my God! Bermuda! Dr. Hilliard’s
headquarters lie in the center of the tsunami’s path. Campbell,
Ryker, and Thatcher!

There was no answer a moment later as both he
and Es tried to establish contact with Campbell and the others at
Hilliard’s headquarters.

Father Abraham, keep them safe
. After
pressing his fingertips together in the sign of CHOFA, he reached
for his neck pendant for additional comfort. It was gone! He felt
around his neck, then in his pocket. Had he put it anywhere
else?

Then he realized what must have happened.
Leaning over the mineshaft, it must have slipped over his head and
fallen in. It was obliterated now, along with Dugan.

The pilot tried to start the ‘copter’s
engine.

Failure; utter, complete failure
,
lamented Nate.
I’ve killed, and now Sheridan North is going to
kill thousands more. Could anything be worse?

Es pointed up at the remaining mountain. “Forest
fire!”

They made a mad dash for the sandy beach and the
safety of water. Hopefully, the docked aircraft would be safe from
the reaches of the flames. As the fire raced down the mountainside,
Es uncharacteristically fell behind. Looking back he spied her just
as she fell. Rushing back, Nate picked her up, finding a renewed
and unexpected strength. He had the strange sense of Dugan running
beside him. His left ear, next to the installed dataport computer,
tingled with warmth.

Moments later, on the water’s edge, and under
the shadow of the hyperjet, Es stirred. She saw a worried Nate
hovering over her. “I have such a headache,” she moaned. His look
of worry grew; Nate had never heard her express pain of any kind
before.

She suddenly grabbed her head, gently shaking it
back and forth. In an even more halting cadence, she said, “It…
appears… that… Dugan… has… downloaded… part of… himself… into… my…
neural… circuitry.”

Nate worried about many things at that moment:
the people at Hilliard’s headquarters, the millions along the
eastern seaboard, the ominous warning signs about the End-Date.
Now, here was a transhuman, a person he grudgingly was learning to
care about, in pain and possibly delusional.
That’s what
happens
, he thought,
when you suppress your emotions
.
“Dugan’s gone, just like you told me,” he said bitterly. “There’s
no use talking about it.”

“But this is real,” she insisted, vigorously
massaging her head.

“Look, you can give up this fantasy right now.
You have no way to prove what you say. I’ll grant you something
like Hilliard’s supercomputer, MAGNUM, could have conceivably
achieved personality transference, but there are too many
uncontrollable factors for a CCR to accomplish it. The only way you
could ever convince me is if you knew our secret code.”

A slow smile crept into her usually stoic face.
She cocked her head to the left and then to the right, but it was a
different pattern from her normal nutations of turning her head
constantly and methodically back and forth. A moment later, she sat
up and looked him right in the eyes. “The code word is Miss Miller,
your first-grade teacher.”

Nate’s jaw dropped. “I’ll be damned!” In the
recesses of his mind, even as he began to silently rejoice over
Dugan’s apparent resurrection, he had a new worry. How would
Dugan’s insertion of his programming into Es’s cyber circuits
affect her? In other words, could she still fly a plane?

Campbell, Thatcher and Ryker entered the
floating complex which served as Dr. Hilliard’s headquarters. Es’s
explicit instructions and training on how to use the underwater
scuba gear had worked. Even more importantly, she had given them
the code to unlock the underwater portal. There had been no problem
getting through the portal, located in the underbelly of the
complex, next to the engine room which powered the floating
city.

They stepped through the air lock and into the
engine room, still dripping wet. The engines throbbed and hummed
from a nearby room, making the walls vibrate. As they began
shedding their wet suits, they extracted their street clothes from
waterproof backpacks. With dry clothes on, they checked the other
gear which they had hauled in.

Suddenly, they were accosted by five bizarrely
attired humans. The five strangers each had neural ports on the
right side of their heads. One man’s port was bloodied, as if the
wired connection had been hastily pulled out. Two of the people
appeared to be women. But that was difficult to assess with their
partially shorn heads. Additionally, all five were wearing pants
and shirts that were best described as pajamas. Some also wore
white lab coats.