Von Neumann’s War

“And it’s got to, somehow, supply power equivalent to a multistage rocket,” Tom pointed out. “The runs from it shouldn’t even be able to handle the power. We know these things can accelerate at something like a hundred gravities. Even with their relatively low mass, we’re talking about terawatts of power and there’s no way that the power runs that we’re seeing could handle that load. And we’re still not sure what the tractor beam is generated by. Nothing in this thing makes sense.”

“The brain is the worst,” Roger said. “It’s unbelievably complicated. I mean you’d expect it to be, but this thing is light years beyond our current tech. I think it’s basically a controller chip, but it’s constructed in three dimensions. We’ve been trying to do that for decades but, besides the sheer difficulty and expense, the programming algorithms are a bitch. And the actual processing seems to be at the atomic level. We don’t have the instruments to study it, here, much less make head or tail of it.”

“What do you want to do?” Riggs asked.

“Give it to other people,” Roger replied definitely. “We’ve got three of the brain cases, if that’s what they are. We’ll send one to the redoubt at the LockMart facility in Denver, another to MIT, and the last one to Georgia Tech. Tech’s setting up a redoubt using some of our plans, so they could hold out even after Atlanta gets hit. Hopefully they can make some sense of it. I’m also going to request that all the data be turned into open source. We need anyone and everyone looking at this data. We don’t know who might have the right way to look at it.”

“That will need authorization,” Riggs pointed out.

“I’ll bring it up with the secretary, but I think I have that authority though I’m not sure,” Roger said. “But we need to make this information open to the public.”

“They’re going public with the fact that we sent a team into Greenland and it won a small battle with the probes,” the general said, nodding. “If we start putting out data about the probes it will be obvious where it came from. I’ll suggest making it a two parter. Do a dog and pony show with Shane and his team along with the bits of probes that we recovered. Civilian morale needs a shot in the arm; it’s getting really low.”

“I couldn’t believe the media when I got back,” Shane said, nodding. “It’s all doom and gloom.”

“There are plenty of people who have just given up,” Riggs admitted. “All of the media included.”

“Not that I particularly want to do a dog and pony,” Shane added. “But I think it will help.”

“I’ll call the Chairman,” Riggs said musingly, then chuckled. “You know, a few months ago I was surprised he knew my nickname. Now I’m calling him just about every day. Or, more often, he calls me. Strange.”

“Hell,” Roger said, trying to be humorous with his deepest accent, but his tiredness, fear, and somberness was hard to overcome. “Ah’s a deputy secretary with the weight of the world on my shoulders. How strange is that?” He said through a very thin, pursed lipped, halfhearted smile.

“As strange as getting invaded by metal probes from beyond the solar system?” Shane asked, shrugging.

Chapter 20

Ret Ball: So my friends, if you are still on the Internet then you haven’t been overrun by the machines yet. If you happened to catch the news of the team that went to Greenland — that’s right Greenland, they’re getting awfully close to us now — then you know that the machines can be beaten by our military. I wonder though: Can we beat them in a full out attack? We’ve lost contact with China and Russia and all of Europe. Parts of Africa and India are out of contact and I’m hearing rumors from my friends in the South Pacific that Japan is under attack. What do we do, friends? I’m taking your calls and e-mails here tonight on the Truth Nationwide. Bart from Chicago, you’re on the air.