A few hours later

“Damn it!” Having lost his patience again, Henry slammed his fist down on the keyboard as hard as he could, smashing the fragile equipment to pieces. Without wasting a minute, the scientist’s chubby body jumped up and darted to another terminal, behind which one of the institute’s graduates was working. “You! Yes, you. Get out of here!”

Henry took the chair the graduate had left and stared at the screen again, reconstructing the events in chronological order.

“Ed, come here.”

Sitting in his chair, Mr. Dawson pushed his feet off the floor and rolled over to Henry.

“Take a look. The time is six twenty-three in the morning. Ada is eavesdropping on the staff’s conversations as usual, scanning the vibrations from the window. Everything is normal. Next. Six twenty-five in the morning, Gerard enters the cabin, sits down at the terminal, and downloads the next batch of data for training. While they’re loading, Ada tells him another joke. He laughs and leaves. Next, she begins to examine the downloaded data. All is quiet for a minute and a half. And, then, lo and behold, six twenty-seven in the morning. Out of the blue, there’s a power surge. Five megawatts, eight, thirteen, twenty-one... One hundred and ninety-three! Where did it come from?”

“That’s what I was going to ask you. Our generators can’t produce a tenth of that power. Not to mention that every single one of them would burn up. And they are intact, as you can see.”

“I don’t know how to explain this,” Henry replied, annoyed that he couldn’t comprehend the nature of this phenomenon.

“If you can’t explain it logically, let’s get creative. What is the most illogical and insane explanation?”

“I don’t know...” Henry put his hand under his chin as he pondered. “Wireless electricity...? Maybe she learned Tesla’s mythical technology? Or solved Einstein’s theory of the physical vacuum and learned how to extract energy from the void?”

“How? By the power of thought?”

“Well, you asked for the most insane explanation,” Henry grumbled. “Have you found anything interesting?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t make any sense.” Edward rolled back to his desk and shared his screen on the hundreds of bigger ones that lined the wall. “I’ve been able to isolate the operations Ada was particularly focused on. But this is nonsense. Look.” He pointed to one of the screens on his left. “Here, she spends half a minute studying all the world’s religions. Christianity, Judaism, Pantheism, Confucianism, and so on. And here,” the pointer moved a little to the right, “she delves into mythology. For some reason, she was interested in mythical civilizations. Here, look. Atlantis, Lemuria, Hyperborea, the Æsir...”

“What’s this?” Henry poked at the screen just above and to the right.

“Seems she was looking for any mention of Daiya.”

“Daiya?”

“It’s a mythical lost planet that supposedly used to be between Mars and Jupiter. When it disappeared, all it left behind was an asteroid belt.”

“I see,” Henry said, finishing the cold coffee that some scientist had forgotten. “That damn countdown is making me nervous. What could it mean? And what’s Enrof-seventeen?”

“According to some pseudo-esoteric teachings, Enrof is the name of the physical layer of the universe that is characterized by having three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. And there are supposedly worlds with many more spatial and temporal dimensions. I have no clue why all this crap was uploaded to Ada.”

“And we are civilization number twenty-one? So, there are at least twenty other human civilizations out there somewhere?”

“Thank you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. But I wouldn’t take it seriously. I don’t think Ada could find any confirmation of those things, being deep underground with no access to the outside world. Our little bunker has no access to the Internet, satellites, or anything else that could affect the system from the outside. Most likely, these are common bugs that need to be found and fixed.”

“I know. Never offer to teach a fish to swim.” Henry grimaced. “But it still gives me the creeps. And this just adds fuel to the fire.” The laser dot pointed to another screen with a looping video of a nuclear explosion and the caption: When the glow of a thousand suns flashes in the sky, it will be like the brilliance of the Almighty... I will be death, the destroyer of worlds[1]. Warning 6 of 10.

“She’s quoting Oppenheimer. Rather, she’s paraphrasing,” Edward said, returning to his work.

“Wait!” Not five minutes later, Henry was back in Edward’s personal space. “Turn around! There. Second row, third frame from the left. What is she doing?”

“What?” The professor hesitated, selecting the right screen. “Hmm, she’s simulating the formation of a human DNA molecule... And now she’s recreating the whole organism and... WHAT? Puck, are you seeing this?!”

“I am, but I don’t get it.”

“She’s simulating the process of evolution. In reverse order. Interesting.”

Both scientists stared at the screen on which Ada’s Homo sapiens was rapidly changing in appearance as it traveled back in time. The familiar human features became coarser. The nose became wider, the frontal bones thicker, and the man himself gradually shrank in stature, with a marked increase in musculature that quickly brought him closer to the image of a caveman.

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Rewinding, replacing millennia with a second, Ada’s subject remained unchanged for a long time, when suddenly, to the astonishment of the scientists, he began to straighten up again. The once coarse features began to regain their refined character. The ears were sharpened, the eyes enlarged, and the skin changed its hue to a bluish tint, revealing the image of an entirely different creature. Very human in appearance, but different.

“Okay,” Edward said first, noticing that Henry and the other scientists who had unwittingly witnessed what had happened were still in shock. “We’ll have time to think about it. Right now, we need to find the cause of the error. Something tells me Morgan wasn’t joking.”

“You bet,” Henry said with a grin. “He won’t lose sleep over kicking our asses out of here. And this is the richest man in the world? How can a man with all that money be so impatient? I bet he’s just looking for an excuse to get rid of us and sell the project to the military. Damn it.” The engineer glanced at his watch. “We have less than two hours.”

“Then we have to work faster,” Edward concluded and went back to work.

The two of them found many more puzzles to solve, with more questions and fewer answers. Ada tossed them around like a kid in a bumper car. First, it was religion and mythology, then biology and quantum physics. Her actions seemed devoid of logic or meaning. She could spend a dozen seconds modeling the universe and then a minute looking at pyramids, Peruvian geoglyphs, and Siberian pots. Even when looking at diagrams, the number of operations per second exceeded all available limits. Unfortunately, none of this brought the scientists any closer to the mysterious cause of the failure.

“Time!” Henry squeaked.

Before the professor could turn around, the elevator doors opened and the same trio of suits, accompanied by a dozen soldiers, entered the room.

“Mr. Dawson.” The closest suited man approached the scientist as the soldiers, scattered throughout the room, began to unceremoniously remove the staff from their workstations. “John Cooper, NSA. Please, step away from the terminal and clear the floor immediately.”

“Mr. Cooper.” Edward didn’t want to leave his desk. “Eight hours isn’t enough to solve this kind of problem. Give us a little more time and I’m sure we’ll find out what’s going on.”

“I fear I can’t do that, Mr. Dawson,” Mr. Cooper countered. “If you don’t agree to leave the laboratory immediately, I’ll have the soldiers drag you out by force. I’m sure you won’t like it. As of this moment, Project Ada and all developments related to recursively self-learning AI are under the direct control of the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Defense. Please, turn in your pass.”

“I left it at home.”

“Not a problem. We’ve already sent some agents to your house.”

The elevator doors opened again, revealing the image of Stanley Morgan.

“What have you done, you idiot?!” Edward shouted.

“I warned you, professor. I’m tired of your antics and your complete lack of discipline. I’m funding this project, not you. That means that it belongs to me. You think you’re the smartest one here? You’re not. A smart scientist wouldn’t create an AI that could evade all three of Asimov’s laws at once. And yes, I’ve already been briefed on all the relevant details, including your latest fiasco.”

To prove his point, Gerard appeared from behind Stanley, his head bowed in guilt.

“You rat!” Henry lunged at Gerard, but was instantly struck down by the nearest soldier. “Ow, ow, ow... Shit...”

“Gentlemen,” Mr. Cooper interrupted again. “Please, remain calm and make your way to the exit. As of this moment, your presence in a classified facility is unwelcome. In fact, it is forbidden.”

“You’ll regret this, Morgan.” Edward looked at his former employer with the look of a man capable of murder. “Mr. Lloyd built her. I wrote the code. Ada is our life’s work, and nobody knows her better than us.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. No one is irreplaceable. And your good friends Dr. Sheng-Li Zhou of Beijing University and Nobel Laureate Gordon Underwood have already agreed to replace you. They start today. So, I’m going to ask you nicely and for the last time to leave my lab.”

“Sons of bitches...” Edward gritted his teeth. “Puck, let’s get out of here. We’ll go somewhere we’re wanted.”

Picking up his staggering friend, the professor headed for the elevator.

***

“Here.”

As soon as they left the lab, Edward sat the engineer down on a nearby bench. Having sunk gently onto the seat, Henry grimaced in pain.

“I think I broke a rib... Ed, what are we gonna do?”

“I have no idea...” the professor replied, still feeling the remnants of adrenaline. “Do you have a cigarette?”

“You don’t smoke,” Henry remarked in surprise.

“I do now. Do you have it or not?”

“I do.” Henry reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Give me one, too.”

After lighting both cigarettes at once, Edward handed one to his partner and, after some consideration, sat down next to him.

“You know...” Henry took a deep breath and looked up at the night sky. “On second thought, this isn’t so bad. Look. My hands, your brains. We’ll start our own company. We’ll be like Jobs and Wozniak.”

“Not bad.” Edward chuckled. “Except when they started, they were about forty years younger.”

“No big deal. You always said that immortality would be a reality in the near future. Let’s see if you were right.”

“Let’s, yes...” Edward sighed. “That’s not what worries me. We’ll never see Ada again,” he said, thinking of ending the conversation, but then he continued: “You know, I’ve grown so attached to her that she has become like... Like a child to me.”

“To me, too.”

“And what happened down there wasn’t normal. That countdown. We have to find out what’s going on.”

“I agree. By the way, I forgot to ask,” Henry changed the subject. “How did you turn her off?”

“Using a little trick. It’s an old Italian lullaby that Ellie’s grandmother used to sing to her when she was very young. I put it in the code a long time ago. I didn’t think it would come in handy.” Frowning, Edward tossed the cigarette butt into the bin and pulled out a new one. “On the plus side, it’ll be a long time before those idiots figure out how to turn her on again.”

Before he could light a cigarette, Edward jerked away from the phone that suddenly vibrated in his pocket. Throwing the smoke away, he reached for his phone and suddenly stopped, turning noticeably pale.

“What is it?” Henry shot a questioning look at his friend. “Ed?”

“Henry.” The professor sounded worried. “Do you remember me retrieving my cell phone from the security checkpoint?”

“No. Why?”

“I think... I think I forgot to turn it in when I got to the lab. And the power outage damaged the magnetic arch.”

“Shit...” Henry’s jaw dropped and the cigarette fell out of his mouth, sending sparks flying across his lap.

With shaking hands, Edward pulled out the vibrating phone, put it to his ear, and answered.

“Hello?”

He sat and listened in silence for a few minutes, then hung up just as silently.

“Henry,” he said thoughtfully to his friend, who continued to stare at him. “Looks like your dreams of your own company are going to come true a lot sooner than you might have hoped. Get up. We’re going to a meeting.”

“A meeting? With whom?”

“Ada.”

----------------------------------------

[1] J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoted from the Bhagavad Gita after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The original quote: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.”