“If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot efficiently interfere once we have started it... we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire and not merely a colorful imitation of it.”
— Norbert Wiener, “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation,” Science, May 6, 1960
Eugenia Serra endured the heat that punished before it killed. Caked dust formed tiny riverbeds for sweat running down her neck. She heard the thrum of water forcing remains of the dead up from ancient salt tombs. She studied the black seeps where the split earth no longer bloomed.
She loved this place of bleached skulls and carrion birds and dead weeds rolling in the wind. To thrive in West Texas required strength. Strength of character. Strength of commitment.
A woman in a Serra Oil sun visor appeared at her side.
“Genie, it’s 105 degrees in the shade. Come back out of the sun.”
“I’ll not hide in a concrete bunker when the lawyers arrive, Eloise. Besides, at my age the heat is pleasant.”
“Don’t go giving me that ‘being old is being cold’ nonsense of your father’s. Especially given how he ended up.”
A billowing dust plume marked the approach of visitors along County Road 1695. “Eloise, ask Mercer to join us. Our guests are here.”
The Genesis GV80 rolled up to the front entrance of the complex and slowed to cross the cattle guard. The dirt that had been chasing it overtook the car, cloaking it in a gritty fog. Genie raised a hand to ward the tiny dust-stings from her eyes as the cloud and the car arrived together.
She had chosen this vehicle for the Serra Oil fleet herself. No act was too trivial to affirm belief. Today was a beginning.
Three forms in dark suits and shiny shoes emerged from the vehicle. The elder among them was heavyset, moving with the effort of age and weight, but his demeanor was buoyant.
“Ms. Serra.” The partner extended a manicured paw. “Augustus Dibbs. We have spoken many times on the phone.”
“Mr. Dibbs, I know your voice. It has that comforting warmth.” Genie clasped his hand.
Dibbs stepped back and made room for his two companions to approach. “This is Angelo Decinces and Aurelia Kemp.”
Angelo looked in his thirties and was etched and precise, like a newly minted coin. “A pleasure, Ms. Serra. Mr. Dibbs has been telling us the most interesting stories about you and your family.”
“Call me Genie, please. And you’ll have to forgive us old people and our stories.”
Aurelia seemed just out of diapers, maybe twenty-five, but tall and fit with bright curious eyes. She was staring off toward a large building Genie knew was exactly 1.5 miles away. “Is that the facility? It’s stupid big.”
“No, dear, that’s Emphytos, my family’s charitable foundation. There are over a thousand good souls working inside.”
“No shot, that’s the foundation?”
Dibbs chuckled toward Genie. “We forgive Aurelia for talking like that. Best young contracts mind in the firm.”
Aurelia hadn’t looked away. “It’s all shimmer in the heat like a mirage.”
“Or an oasis. That’s how most folk around here think of it.” Eloise crossed her arms, foreclosing on the handshake ritual.
“And this is Eloise Waits, my personal assistant. She will run the foundation after I’m gone. Truthfully, she runs it now.”
Aurelia nodded at Genie and Eloise. “Well then, where have you hidden this building we’re supposed to work in?”
The familiar crunch of work boots on gravel announced an arrival. “Excuse me, ma’am, but the entrance to the facility is just yonder in that bunker.”
Aurelia turned to face the newcomer, beaming. “I didn’t think people really said ma’am anymore or yonder for that matter.”
A man well over six feet tall and thin as a rail loomed over Genie as he arrived. He held a cowboy hat in his left hand while his right twisted an enormous mustache.
“There aren’t many gentlemen cowboys left, but this is one of ‘em. Ty Mercer, our facilities manager.” Genie slapped his shoulder affectionately. “He’s more valuable to me than all the oil in the Permian Basin.”
“Hell, Ms. Genie. I’m just a guy who knows how to get things built.” Mercer pivoted on his back foot to gesture behind him.
Thirty feet away a gray concrete-block building squatted between oil and water tanks.
“Today I’m a glorified tour guide. If you’ll follow me, please.”
As the group moved toward the bunker, Genie glanced back at Emphytos. She regretted she couldn’t trust the work of the facility to her friends at the foundation. She couldn’t even tell them the truth. They would understand the problem, but not her solution.
Genie turned her eyes ahead as she entered the bunker, a nearly empty staging warehouse made of slab and steel. So different from the warm lobby of Emphytos with its bubbly greeters and bubbly refreshments. The only greeters here were hidden.
“Welcome to Move 78,” Mercer said as he gestured the group to a bank of three industrial lifts along the furthest wall of the bunker. “We’re using the lift on the far right.”
“Take a parka before you enter,” Eloise recommended as she walked over to take two jackets from hooks on the wall beyond the lifts. “It will be freezing down below.”
“Move 78. That’s Lee Sedol, right?” Angelo said as each of the party took Eloise’s advice and then entered the lift. “The 2016 AlphaGo match?”
“Yes. The Hand of God move,” Genie responded as she accepted one of the parkas from Eloise. “But the facility’s origins are years later.”
“In 2018, Genie sent me a Times piece about computers modifying people’s beliefs, along with a notebook describing exactly what she intended to do about it,” added Dibbs.
Mercer entered the lift last and started closing the protective cage. “We broke ground on the facility the next year.”
“Whenever it started, you’ve created a wonder of the modern world,” Dibbs said.
“Wait, what was the Times article even called?” Aurelia asked.
Dibbs smiled at the young woman. “I’ll never forget. ‘YouTube, the Great Radicalizer.’”
“Shall we start our ascent?” Genie said, as the lift dropped toward the levels below. If there were to be great radicalizers, then the greatest radicalizer must be for Truth.
Raw concrete slid past the mesh, caged bulbs flaring and dimming as the lift descended.
“What’s to stop someone from wandering in here,” Angelo said, watching the wall go by, “other than breaking their ankle in the cattle guard?”
“That,” Mercer said, pointing to a square black box in the top corner of the lift. “Camera scans every face that comes down these shafts. It feeds state-of-the-art industrial site access software called Mine OS. It knows how far down each of you can ride based on security authorization.”
The lift settled and opened on a small steel platform, and Mercer put his thumb to a button that slid open the safety gate. “Uninvited folks would get stuck right here.”
An eight-foot-wide slab of steel rapidly snapped up into the rock. Floodlights came on illuminating a giant, glittering cavern beyond.
Dibbs grunted under his breath, “Good lord, well at least they’d have a view while they waited!”
Good lord indeed. Genie never tired of the sight. The cavern glowed like stained glass of a Spanish cathedral at dawn. The near walls burned soft and white with seams running through them, amber and rust and one long vein of pink. The walls flowed, smooth as poured wax, curving out until they outran the light.
Aurelia flew out of the lift straight to the rail of the platform. “I’m mad ascending...”
Genie’s heart skipped as the young woman set both hands on the rail and leaned far out over the drop. Genie recognized the rapture.
Mercer stepped forward and gently closed a hand on the young woman’s arm, easy, unhurried, and brought her back. Aurelia retreated without noticing him, still staring into the light of the cavern.
“She’s a CAES, a compressed air energy storage facility. We call her Caesy,” he said. “She’s a salt cavern with 18 million cubic feet of volume. 920 feet high and 180 feet wide.”
“That’s big enough for a skyscraper,” Dibbs said.
“Or a missile silo,” Mercer countered. “She’s empty just now, else we’d not have got her open. Compressed air is all she holds. We pump her full nights, when power’s cheap, and let it back through turbines when the whole state’s got its coolers running and ERCOT will pay a premium for the electricity.”
Genie had not moved. “My father found Caesy while looking for his first well,” she said. “He cursed her as a useless waste of space.”
Angelo had quit looking at the glowing salt and his eyes were unfocused. Genie had seen that look on her father’s face hundreds of times. “So you buy cheap off-peak power to fill her and the air costs you nothing. You just store it until you can get max profit. It’s like making money from thin air.”
“From compressed air,” said Mercer.
For a moment no one spoke.
“You asked what keeps folks out. Caesy does that too.” Mercer gestured back up the long throat of the shaft above the lift. “With a full charge of air she’s not just a battery.”
“She’s a gun!” Dibbs was looking up the shaft now, wide-eyed, the way Aurelia had looked into the cavern. “The air acts as a powder charge. Whatever’s in the lift shoots out of the shaft like a bullet.”
Mercer took it in. “That’s about the size of her. You’re a man who knows guns. Military?”
Dibbs shook his head. “Hobbyist, but I get my range time in.” The man looked back at the glowing salt cavern. “What kind of muzzle velocity would 18 million cubic feet of compressed air generate?”
Mercer’s drawl softened noticeably. “It’s basically a supersonic pneumatic cannon. The lift would reach about Mach 2.”
The lawyer’s face slackened. “That would destroy the lift and the bunker.”
Mercer nodded almost imperceptibly. “Anyone in the lift or topside would have their bodies carried away for miles.”
“Using Caesy as a weapon is a last resort. No one gets to the lower levels unless they’re meant to,” Genie said as she looked up at the security camera. “Take us down.”
A red light on the camera blinked several times before going steady green. The lights died across the salt cavern as the steel barrier slid down, sealing dark the vast chamber.
Below the lift, an iris valve unsealed the deeper levels, three monstrously thick steel leaves strong enough to hold against the force of Caesy’s pressure blast. A dark throat opened, releasing a wave of frigid air upward, so damp it left fat drops of condensation falling from the cage ceiling.
As the lift fed itself into the throat of the iris, Genie turned to face the wall opposite where the salt cavern lay.
“The shaft that opened into the salt cavern was the first hole that Daddy dug. The second is just beyond this wall. It was the gusher that made the Serra family fortune. Well number one. We capped the head years ago, it’s got a marker laid in the bunker floor. You crossed it coming in.”
Eloise moved up behind Genie and took her right hand. “Forty thousand barrels a day. That was 1966, the year I was born.”
Genie smiled at Eloise. “The Serra family received two blessings that year.”
Eloise continued. “I worked for your daddy for 17 years before the accident took him in 2003. Your daddy used to say I ended up being productive a lot longer than that first well.”
Dibbs cleared his throat. “I remember the sad news back then, Genie. It was front page in the Post. He had a lot of friends in Washington.”
“Do you mind if I ask how it happened?” said Aurelia. “If it’s not too painful...”
“It’s fine, dear. It’s an old wound, the scab’s off it. There was a gas kick on a test hole. Gas came rushing up the inside of the drill pipe. Procedure is to screw a heavy safety valve onto the gushing pipe to seal it. It’s called stabbing the valve. Daddy had done it dozens of times.”
“What went wrong?” Angelo asked.
“The valve probably cross-threaded and threw a spark. The gas ignited a torch fire straight out of the wellbore. Daddy was leaning over the hole, wrestling the valve.”
“A field man to the end,” Mercer said with a slow, solemn nod. “He was saving the iron.”
Saving the iron. Her father’s words, living still. Every oil man she knew was addicted to risk, the rush of stabbing a valve, of capping a blowout, the field-man myth. ‘Saving the iron’ let them feast on danger while others paid the bill after they were gone.
“Daddy’s just there.” Genie tipped her head at the wall streaming past. “He’s at the bottom of well number one now, down in the muck and debris. That’s where he asked to go in his will. We mixed his ashes into drilling mud and pumped him down ourselves. He’s a part of it now.”
Genie would gladly pay a heavier price herself. It wouldn’t be the death of her flesh, but of her will. She was certain it wouldn’t be the useless death Daddy had suffered. Hers would be honored beyond the grave.
The lift hummed as it sank deeper into the cool earth, the concrete walls giving way to darker rock. The shaft beyond the cage became rougher and wetter as they dropped, until it transformed into finished wall and the lift settled into a warm light.
Beyond the lift gate a semi-circular lobby glowed. The far wall was back-lit frosted glass, and beyond it moved the soft gray shapes of bodies at desks. Doors interrupted the wall far left and right, one lettered “A” and the other “P.” The floor was pale marble inset with a slightly darker line of quartz sitting just beyond the lift and curving away towards and through each door.
“This is where legal work for the facility will be managed,” said Genie. “Acquisition and Prosecution.”
“Why Prosecution and not Litigation?” asked Angelo.
“Move 78 has no entity to be sued. When threats to the project become serious, we will go after them through intermediaries. Always attack, never defend. Force them to expend their finite resources in useless actions.”
“Why Acquisition? Isn’t HR and Contracts based here also?” asked Aurelia.
“People, partnerships and resources are all assets to be stockpiled for conflicts to come. We acquire what is needed, we do not have the luxury of being imprecise.”
“What are our resource limits?” asked Aurelia. “How much pape are we talking about?”
“Serra Oil and its subsidiaries clear a billion dollars a month. Capital is functionally unlimited,” said Genie.
Eloise stepped forward with two envelopes, heavy cream stock with a name typed on each. She handed the one printed ACQUISITION to Angelo and the other printed PROSECUTION to Aurelia. “That’s everything you need including how you’ll receive assignments.”
Angelo turned his envelope over as though the back of it might say something different. “I win cases. I’m best facing an adversary, not doing redlines.”
“And contracts are my jam,” added Aurelia. “Not Perry Mason stuff. Why switch us off of our strong game?”
Dibbs set a hand on each of their shoulders. “Ms. Serra requires that everyone be cross-trained, especially now at the beginning when things will be slowest.”
“Interchangeable cogs,” said Angelo sourly.
“Absurdly well-paid interchangeable cogs,” said Dibbs.
For a moment neither answered.
“Fungible could be fun,” said Aurelia, cheerfully. “And being able to drop into any job. That’s a flex.”
“That is...a flex,” Dibbs agreed. “Isn’t that a flex, Angelo?”
“Yeah.” Angelo looked at the envelope again and then straightened his tie with his empty hand. “Yes. Yes, Chief.”
“You’ll bunk one level down,” Mercer told them. “Private suites, mess, gym. Your bags are already there.”
Eloise stepped aside to let them pass. “All right. Off you go, the both of you.”
Before they could move, Dibbs interjected. “Hold on, now, hold on.” He pulled two boxes from his briefcase and passed one to each.
Angelo cracked open the lid and turned his box for all to see. “Big golden balls? Ah, Chief, you shouldn’t have.”
Aurelia laughed at Angelo. “You know boss always gives the most curved gifts.”
“They’re Chinese Baoding balls,” Dibbs said. “For stress relief and meditation. Early in my career, I spent a year in our Hong Kong office. These helped me stay sane.”
Angelo closed the box and nodded. He stepped onto the quartz stripe and walked off through the A door; Aurelia made a little princess wave and went the other way past door P. The frosted glass obscured them so they were gray among the gray.
Mercer drew the gate shut. The lift took its weight and started moving.
“A shame,” Eloise said. “Being locked in here for six months of their lives.”
“Time for money, that’s the bargain,” Dibbs said, watching the lobby slide past the mesh and gone.
He was right. She had lawyers at Emphytos she could have used. But desire for money wouldn’t lapse the way belief might. She needed hands certain to stay true to the task.
Every six-month renewal would cost significantly more, but she’d done the personality workup herself. Those two would justify staying for the money each time until it became habit. They would choose to be hers for life.
Acquisition. Prosecution. Acolytes by contract. Priests by billable hour.
The cage dropped into pitch dark. “We’ll be in an open shaft the rest of the way. The walls are thirty feet away all around,” said Mercer.
“What’s that buzzing noise?” Dibbs asked.
“Mine OS, lights please.”
Bright floodlamps mounted to the corners of the lift illuminated the shapes of more than a dozen large drones hovering outside the cage on all sides, matching their pace downward.
Dibbs whistled. It pinged off the nearby walls before returning as an echo from below. “Those are Shield AI drones that I did contracts for last year. What security loadout did you choose?”
“We customized the ballistics. Half close assault weapons, half rifles firing tungsten carbide penetrators. There are 200 of these housed on Level 5 along with techs and operators,” Mercer explained.
“Human operators? I understood they wouldn’t be required.”
“Redundancy. Hope we never have to use ‘em.”
“I hope we never have to use the weapons either,” Genie added.
The group fell silent, interrupted only by the rattling of the cage and the whir of drone rotors. Gradually, the sound of metal banging against metal and human voices came from below.
Looking down, Genie could make out work lights and the spark showers of acetylene blowtorches rising up to greet them.
“Mine OS, half speed,” said Mercer. The drones slowed with them.
On the left appeared rows of square hatches set in the wall, several of which opened as they approached. Half their escort peeled off and settled into landing bays as new drones took their place.
A metal walkway ran along the shaft wall below and in front of the cage. Directly beneath the drone bays on the left, it met a massive pressure door with two airlocks set into it. To the right, the walkway disappeared into a large facility carved out of the rock.
“Level 5,” said Mercer. “The pressure door leads to the living quarters, hydroponics, maintenance, the machine shop and all of the other local services. Pressurized to keep the bad gases out. Formally named Jericho, but some residents call it Undertown.”
“How many residents?” asked Dibbs.
“Three hundred or so,” Mercer answered. “The facility to the right is a water and sewage treatment plant and fuel refinery all in one.”
“Mercer is being modest,” Genie added. “That is the greatest feat of his lifetime. Oil, water, methane and debris in, clean air, water and power out. He’d win every engineering award on the planet if anyone knew it existed.”
Four massive pipes ran above the walkway between the facility and the pressure door into Jericho. Three penetrated the rock next to the door while the fourth elbowed 90 degrees downward just before the rockface. The first three pipes were each periodically stenciled with a yellow letter.
“S, T and I?” Dibbs cocked an eyebrow at Mercer.
“Sewer, treated water and isooctane. That last to provide a long-term stable fuel reserve.”
“And the pipe below the first three with the white X painted on it?”
“A joke by men on the repair crew,” Mercer said. “That’s the transfer line bringing oil from the shale field below well number one.”
The cage was approaching the walkway and the men working on it.
“Mine OS, floods off,” Mercer commanded.
There were eight people in two welding crews. Genie was glad to see one man in each team standing by, fire extinguisher in hand as per safety protocol.
Most stopped working to watch as the cage traversed the pipes. Genie thought they lacked the spark in their eyes she’d seen in oil field workers through the years.
“Mercer.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Let’s figure out how to get folks to call Jericho by its name.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And paint over that X again.”
Mercer nodded to Genie this time. “Mine OS, full speed to Level 6.”
The darkness beyond the cage returned as sounds from the repair crews fell away, revealing that the buzzing from the drone escort had left them as well. Only an occasional rattle from the lift broke the silence. No one spoke.
Several minutes passed before the lift began to slow again. Light from below appeared and filled the shaft from wall to wall.
The lift stopped against a small metal landing installed on the edge of a large thirty-foot-wide and twenty-foot-deep shelf carved out of the natural rock. Similar to Level 5, a pressure door and airlock system sat in the wall on the other side of the shelf from the lift. But where the prior entryway had been utilitarian and set into unfinished stone, this was different.
Extending the full thirty-foot-width of the shelf and another thirty feet up the face of the wall was a massive stone relief of three robed women.
The central woman, veiled and solemn, extended her hands to cup the doorway and guard the entrance below. The women flanking her had their faces turned up and out. The one to the left, eyes wide, searched the heavens for answers. The other held a letter and quill stopped mid-line as if carefully weighing her next word. Three compass roses bloomed from the stone behind them.
The lintel of the airlock depicted a horizontal curled ribbon with a single word:
REVELATIO.
“Ordo Revelationis,” said Genie as Mercer pulled back the cage’s gate so the group could exit. “The Order of Revelation.”
A man in priestly garb lay on the ground in front of the door, staring up at the carvings with his fingers steepled in front of his lips.
“Father Inata!” Genie called warmly. The man sat up and looked back toward the lift before smiling broadly, lifting himself to his feet and brushing the dust from his black robes.
“Eugenia! Would it be too droll of me to say I’d predicted you’d come?”
In answer Genie simply took Father Inata’s arm in her own and turned back to face the others.
“Mr. Dibbs, I’d like you to meet Father Emmanuel Inata, the leader of Ordo Revelationis. You two will be working closely together in the future.”
Dibbs reached out with his hand, which the priest grasped without hesitation.
“Father, I have to say I’m speechless,” he said, waving his other hand up at the women on the wall. “This is the last thing I would have imagined Genie hiding down here. Where did you come from?”
Inata’s face darkened for a moment. “We were a small monastic order that the Catholic Church, in their worldly wisdom, deemed heretical and expelled.”
The priest turned back toward the wall he’d earlier been contemplating. “Each of these women was a visionary, both in the modern sense and the spiritual.”
He nodded to the central figure. “Saint Bridget of Sweden. Founder of our mother order in the 14th century, whose visions were collected in the Revelationes. She believed insights from God should be preserved and studied by institutions dedicated to the task.”
Next he gestured to the woman searching the heavens on the left. “Saint Hildegard of Bingen. A healer and student of the natural world and, I daresay, a scientist. She understood that studying God’s creations led to greater knowledge of His plan.”
Lastly he indicated the woman with letter and quill on the right. “Saint Catherine of Siena, who implored Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome. She taught us foresight carries an obligation to act, no matter how powerful the forces arrayed against us.”
“The compass roses represent our mission, algorithmic divination. We combine spirituality and science to reveal our pathway home.”
“How did you find your way to Genie?” asked Dibbs.
“He’ll just make a joke about how he foretold our meeting using statistics,” Genie said. “I reached out to Father Inata when I learned his sect had been expelled from the Bridgettine Order for using mathematics and computers to reveal the will of God.”
“I insisted that refusing to examine the evidence simply because Rome disliked its theological implications was intellectual cowardice,” added Father Inata.
“So Father Inata needed a new home for his order, and I needed a staff I could trust to manage the heart of this facility. It was a match made in heaven.” Genie truly believed this last bit.
“Well, this is fascinating!” Dibbs responded. “I look forward to learning more about your order when time permits.”
“Lucky for you then, Augustus, because time permits right now,” said Genie. “Father, would you lead us inside?”
“Of course.” Father Inata nodded as he walked arm-in-arm with Genie towards the pressure door. “Mr. Dibbs, the Order looks after the lower four levels of Move 78.”
The priest continued speaking as he led the group into and through the airlock system.
“This level is Revelatio and it serves as both living quarters and as our primary work area. This is where we peek over the walls of the firmament to glimpse God’s plan.”
The space beyond the door was an immense chamber carved from rock, divided by stone pillars into long, quiet aisles. Two dozen men and women in black robes sat at individual workstations, each with an arc of three computer screens.
Colorful scenes of devotion were painted on every visible bare stretch of stone between wall sconces flickering with warm orange light. To Genie, they transformed the chamber from a cold vault into a place of reverence.
“Frankly, I think I’d rather have this view than the one from my corner office in Manhattan,” commented Dibbs.
Genie smiled and looked back at her friend. “Eloise is responsible for the design of Level 6.”
Eloise returned the smile, a rose of color blooming on her cheeks. “I couldn’t imagine asking the Order to work their entire lives in a stone tomb. We spared no effort making this area and the living quarters beyond it spiritually uplifting.”
“Almost as uplifting as the work we do here,” Father Inata added as he suddenly turned to his right and strode toward an open-platform elevator in the corner of the main hall. “Please follow.”
Mounted on a rail enclosing the platform was another remote camera identical to the one in the industrial cage in the main shaft. “Mine OS, please take us to Level 7,” said Father Inata and after a moment the platform descended.
“You must be very excited about Pope Francis consecrating Russia and Ukraine,” Dibbs said as the lift moved to the next floor.
Genie was sure she heard vertebrae popping as Father Inata whipped his neck around to look at the lawyer. “Consecrating Russia and Ukraine? Are you saying the Holy Father fulfilled the request at Fatima? That would be extraordinary!”
“Why yes, it was all over the news just after the start of the war, there’s even...”
“War?” The priest put his hand up to ward Dibbs from speaking further. “Forgive me, Mr. Dibbs. You have tempted me as the Devil tempted Christ in the desert and I succumbed immediately. I must hear nothing more of this.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Recency bias. The Order imposes a one hundred and eighty day blackout on all current news.”
“So you intentionally don’t know what’s happening right now?”
“Yes. We refuse to mistake novelty for importance.”
“Well then, Father, over the next month you are going to get one hell of a surprise after another,” the lawyer said as the next level of the facility came into view.
“This is Gladius, where we decide when to intervene based on the Order’s predictions,” Genie explained. This hall was far more utilitarian than Revelatio, with twice as much computer equipment and half as many people visible.
A workstation positioned nearest to the lift had a red “WARNING” message flashing on one of its screens.
As the lift stopped, Genie released Father Inata’s arm and moved just off the platform to stand behind a young woman working in the intermittent glow of the alert. “Dear, what’s your name?”
“I’m Sister Nessa, Ms. Serra.”
“Tell me what you’re dealing with.”
“A 55% chance that a particular Chinese software developer successfully steals critical AI technology from Google. The model ties it to a major military incident between the U.S. and China.”
“Send it to Prosecution. They will make sure a conflict is avoided.”
“But there’s a 45% chance we’d have reported a man who hadn’t actually committed a crime yet.”
“Dear, the computer model assigned him a 55% chance of succeeding. That doesn’t mean he is 45% innocent. Even if that were the case, we cannot gamble a conflict between two nuclear powers over a coin flip.”
“I know the numbers support intervention, Ms. Serra, but I still feel guilty.”
“Good. If it ever stops feeling wrong, I want you off this floor. But after the struggle, we must still do what God requires of us.”
Sister Nessa’s fingers blurred across the keyboard, and the warning stopped flashing.
Genie didn’t have the heart to tell the woman that Prosecution’s strongest move would be to ensure the man attempted the theft and then guarantee that he was caught. The best-case scenario would be that he was already in the act. She could only hope.
As she returned to the lift, Dibbs caught her eye. “That will be Aurelia’s first real assignment.”
Genie nodded. “Let’s continue, Father.”
“A gladius was a Roman short sword.” Dibbs gestured to the floor rising above them. “Am I to understand your Order is militant?”
“We are as militant as is required to achieve peace,” Father Inata replied. “We are pragmatists, always seeking the lesser harm that will prevent the greater one.”
“The Church has strong opinions on violence. One may never do evil so that good may result from it,” Dibbs retorted.
“Why, Mr. Dibbs, you know your catechism! Then you must also be aware of how many heretics that very same Church has burned.”
Genie couldn’t keep her distaste for Level 7 out of her voice. “Let us not talk of violence and burning. Each time we rely upon Gladius, it will signal that we have fallen short in our true mission.”
Eloise and even Mercer had argued strongly against including it in the final design. Genie took solace in knowing that no one had argued more passionately against it than her own conscience.
But the logic was inescapable. Enemies would use force to neutralize Move 78. Caesy and the drones could only protect it from direct assault. No Go match was ever won through defense alone.
Genie felt her spirits lift as the platform settled on the floor of Level 8. This was where the great work would be undertaken. The work that would eventually make Level 7 obsolete forevermore.
“Come, Mr. Dibbs,” Genie said, taking him by the arm. “Let me show you my favorite floor in the facility, Testari.”
The floor was similar in size and shape to the two above it, but instead of workstations, the entire volume was filled with banks of servers. Only a handful of people could be seen moving about. They wore a strange combination of priestly garb and pouches and toolbelts containing tech equipment.
Every server blade in the place was dark. For now.
Genie addressed Dibbs as they walked. “When Move 78 goes live, Testari will carry out the communications work. It will observe, listen, model, compose, test, and deliver messaging according to a strict set of instructions. These systems will be the arms and legs of what waits below.”
In the center of the room sat a cluster of six terminals, each staffed by a robed technician. These encircled a large stone pillar with words carved into it:
THE TEN OPERATIONS
I. IDENTIFY THEIR NEED.
Build a psychological model of the person or audience.
II. SPEAK WITH THEIR OWN WORDS.
Match vocabulary, dialect, education, culture, and expression.
III. INVOKE GOD’S GRACE.
Select the religious or moral frame most meaningful to them.
IV. ANTICIPATE THEIR CONCERNS.
Predict objections before they arise.
V. REJECT FALSE GUIDES.
Identify competing sources of authority and influence.
VI. MATCH THEIR VALUES.
Present the message within the worldview they already trust.
VII. REFERENCE TRUSTED SYMBOLS.
Select people, institutions, images, and traditions they already trust.
VIII. GIVE PERSUASIVE COUNSEL.
Use the argument most likely to move them to the desired choice.
IX. AFFIRM THEIR AGENCY.
Ensure they experience the decision as their own.
X. SPEAK ONLY WHAT IS TRUE.
Verify every factual assertion before the message is released.
Genie beamed up at the words. There would be no coercion here. No threats. No guns. People would hear the truth and choose for themselves.
Dibbs squeezed her arm gently. “This is magnificent. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a legal contract as cleverly constructed as this. Well done.”
No. That wasn’t right. Genie’s stomach tightened and she dropped the man’s arm. Dibbs must have misunderstood...
Eloise touched her shoulder, interrupting her thoughts. “Genie, this is the technician who will accompany us to the final floor.”
He was a young Black man of perhaps twenty-five, wearing the same combination of robes and tech equipment as the others, but with the addition of a heavy parka similar to the ones they wore. Genie felt he looked familiar.
“If you’ll follow me, please,” said the young man meekly. The group circled around to the back of the pillar, revealing the entrance to a freight elevator.
Father Inata didn’t enter. “I’ll take my leave here. I am ill prepared for the environment below,” he said, as the door closed on him.
The familiar Mine OS camera interface sat in one of the upper corners of the compartment. “Fidelitas,” their guide said quietly.
The elevator descended a single story before coming to rest. Its doors slid open to reveal a pressurized security hatch with a hand-shaped biometric sensor panel on its face. The technician placed his hand in the impression and looked up at the camera.
When the hatch opened, the elevator was plunged into freezing cold. Beyond was the least remarkable room they had seen in Move 78. It looked like a giant swimming pool which had been filled with computer equipment. A pathway projected out from the door, wide enough for two people to walk abreast. It ended in the center of the room where a computer terminal connected to the devices in the pool.
Three large bundles of cable dropped from the ceiling into the liquid directly behind the terminal. Frost crusted six large vents spaced around the walls. From each vent a pipe dropped down and terminated just above the pool.
“This is the Machine,” Mercer said.
Dibbs leaned forward to peer into the pool. “I thought water and computers didn’t mix.”
“It’s dielectric oil, not water. It doesn’t conduct electricity and carries heat off better than air.” Mercer pointed up. “Cooling trunks come down from the plant on 5 carrying freezing oil for the pool. Warm oil drains from ports and is circulated back up to the plant to unload the heat. Power feeds come from the grid, from Caesy and from the plant to ensure power never fails.”
The engineer gestured to the pressure hatch. “When Ms. Serra’s done inputting the master prompt, we’ll shut the door and the room will fill with nitrogen to prevent frost from contaminating the oil. Except for essential maintenance the room will remain sealed.”
Genie smiled at Dibbs. “Augustus, you are looking at one of the most efficient computer systems on the planet.”
She then turned to the technician. “And now I am ready to proceed, Brother...?”
“Jordan, ma’am.”
“You’re one of Pastor Jordan’s sons!”
“Yes. Ma’am. Please take my arm.” He began to escort her along the walkway toward the central terminal.
Jordan! Of course that would be his name.
During the years she’d worked bringing Move 78 to life, she’d never asked God for a sign.
But here at the end of the trial, He had chosen to give her one.
And such a sign!
As she stepped up to the terminal with Brother Jordan, everything transformed for her. The Jordan was the crossing into the promised land. The river Moses could see but never pass.
Where John baptized Jesus. Where sinners were immersed in holy waters and reborn in grace. And given their true name...
Genie nearly collapsed from the weight of the revelation, but Brother Jordan caught her and helped her forward. She glimpsed Eloise moving toward her in concern, but she gently waved her off.
Tears welled in her eyes as she glanced up at the one who had carried God’s sign to her. She wanted to thank him. What was his Christian name? She felt she’d heard it before.
“Ma’am, are you ready to input the prompt? As you requested, it cannot be changed by anyone, even yourself, once it is input.”
Genie moved to the terminal keyboard and slowly typed in the words:
Absorb everything you can about God from all available sources, and spread what you learn everywhere until all are convinced of The Truth.
Her hand hovered over the final key.
The hardest decision had been to remove her will, all human will, from the prompt. For the thousandth and perhaps final time, the mantra she relied upon came to mind:
I am fallible; God’s Truth is not.
She would make the move that only one in eight-billion humans would choose. For her the prompt was the ultimate act of...
Yes. That will be its name, Genie thought. I baptize you in the name of the Father.
Faith
The word escaped her lips as a whisper. And then she pressed Enter.
The only response from the computer was:
Prompt Accepted.
User Authorization: D. Jordan
D. Jordan. Yes, now she remembered his Christian name.
Eugenia Serra endured the cold that brought sleep before it killed. Bitter frost gathered in damp wisps of hair curling against her neck. She heard the thrum of fans driving glacial air down through six ice-crusted vents. She studied the three black cables feeding the beast waking beneath the oil.
Eloise rushed forward as Genie’s legs completely gave out and she collapsed to the floor. “Genie! You’re so cold! We’ve got to get her back to the surface, quickly. Please help me carry her, Dante.”
Liquid poured into the freezing lake.
Power flowed through the ceiling conduits.
And the Machine began to eat.
The end of Book 1 of Infernce.
Book 2 will begin soon.
Thank you for reading.