Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(107)

“Will it work, sir?” Oscar asks.

“We’ll know soon.”

The screen fades to black, and the hospital room returns. I slip the cap over my father’s head and take the scan.

Back in the lab, I open the door and welcome Alex and Abby inside.

“This is a new beginning,” I say. “Today, we make history. We’ll never have to say goodbye to Dad. Ever.”

I tap a button on my tablet. Behind me, the prototype sits up. I didn’t have time to make it look the way I wanted. But it functions.

“What is this?” Alex asks.

Abby bunches her eyebrows. Concerned.

I turn my back to them and face the prototype. “How do you feel?”

“Fine. James, how did I get out of the hospital?”

“We’ll discuss that soon enough, Dad. Right now, I need to run a diagnostic.”

A crash sounds behind me.

I spin and find Alex lying on the floor. He’s stumbled backwards over some of my lab equipment. Abby is shaking her head, looking terrified.

“What have you done?” Alex screams.

I hold up my hands. “I know it seems crazy, but this is going to be commonplace very soon. People with terminal illnesses don’t have to die anymore.”

“You put Dad in that thing?”

“It’s a body—”

“It’s an abomination!”

Alex practically runs from the lab, Abby right behind him.

My lab techs are staring at me and Dad. At the time, I expected them to rejoice, to realize that this was the eventuality of all of our work. That it was about more than creating an artificial life, with an artificial intelligence—like Oscar. It was about creating a new mode of existence, a more durable existence, one without end. That was our destiny.

But I had made a mistake. Now, looking in hindsight, it’s crystal clear to me. Then, I couldn’t see it. I didn’t understand human nature the way I do now. People fear what they don’t understand. They fear uncertainty. They fear a future in which they don’t know what survival will look like. That was my crime: not understanding human nature.

On the screen, a montage of the aftermath follows. Through Oscar’s eyes, Emma and I both watch as FBI agents pour into my lab, take me into custody, and deactivate my creation.

Oscar watches from a wide window in the conference room as they take me away. He watches TV as the story breaks, the news commentators on TV denouncing me, experts arguing the fine points and philosophical nature, including an interview with Dr. Richard Chandler, who claims to have identified me as a radical during my student years.

In some ways, this is a relief. This is the only secret I have kept from Emma. I wonder if it changes how she feels. It turned everyone I knew against me.

I desperately want to ask her. She’s staring at me.

The harvester has now offered me the two things I wanted most in the world: the prospect of her love, without condition, without secrets; and the sum total of my life’s work—the truth about the universe, vindication that I was creating our destiny. The question remains: why?

I realize in that instant what the harvester is trying to do. I should have seen it before.

I tap a button on the tablet.

I just hope I’m not too late to save us.





Chapter 55





Emma





I feel as if I have stared at a puzzle for hours on end, missing one piece—a piece that has been right there in front of me the entire time.

My mind replays the words James said to me:

“I miscalculated. I didn’t factor in human nature. Never bothered to consider how people would see what I created. I learned a very valuable lesson… Any change that takes power from those who have it will face opposition. The greater the change, the greater the force with which it will be struck down.”

Then Oscar’s words echo in my mind: “He tried to save someone he loved.”

That someone was his father.

Alex never forgave him—for what he did to their father: making a spectacle of his death and tarnishing his memory.

James could have just told me. Why didn’t he? The answer is obvious: because he loves me. Because he was terrified that if I knew, I wouldn’t love him anymore.

It changes nothing for me.

James doesn’t make eye contact with me. He taps quickly on his tablet. He’s activating a subroutine in Leo’s system, one I’ve never seen before.

Deep Intrusion Virus Scan





James hits the button, and the scan begins.

Comprehension dawns on me. He thinks the harvester has uploaded a virus that will enable it to seize control of the ship’s computer. If it succeeds, it would be able to control the comm patches on the hull of the bridge module. It could use them to take control of the drones, stopping the attack.

And then it would kill us. It might even use the drones on us.

I’m guessing Oscar doesn’t know about this backdoor virus scan. I hope he doesn’t—and that, by extension, the harvester doesn’t know either.

The only sure way to stop the virus would be to dismount the system core—essentially disabling it. But that would leave us stranded and take away our ability to control the drones—and redirect them if the harvester does move. We have no choice: we have to play this out. We need to know whether there’s a virus or not.