2054, Part III: The Singularity

21:15 March 23, 2054 (GMT‑5)

Rosslyn, Virginia

B.T. had proven easy enough to find. When he went dark, Lily figured he was in one of the world’s three gambling capitals—Vegas, Monte Carlo, or Macau. It only became a matter of checking with a handful of five-star hotels in each, something Sherman was happy to handle for her. In the days since Castro’s death, it was Sherman who’d stoked Lily’s concern for B.T. Each morning, Sherman came in parroting another conspiracy theory as to who or what was behind the president’s untimely demise. He’d even gone so far as to place a #TRUTHNOTDREAMS sticker adjacent to the US Marine Corps sticker on his wheelchair. Lily nearly said something to him about the sticker—given the firm’s policy on remaining apolitical—but she couldn’t quite bring herself to. She, too, had her suspicions about Castro’s death, and B.T.’s involvement in it.

Shriver wanted to see her before she left. When she suggested lunch, he asked if they could meet after dinner instead. Per usual, she reserved the room and he arrived late, after 10 at night. When she saw him at the door—in his crumpled suit looking as though he hadn’t slept in a day or two—he had the same effect on her as always, and she had the same effect on him. He clearly had things to say and so did she, but all that would wait. Their feet tangled together as they toppled onto the bed. Thirty minutes later, maybe an hour—time had a way of losing its proportions when she was with him—the two lay cradled together, insensate with lovemaking. The room was dark, and Shriver whispered, “Don’t go …”

“What do you mean?”

Her body fitted against his, she waited for his response. “I mean don’t go to Macau.”

Lily quickly sat up. “I’ll be back in a few days, a week at the most.” She told him not to worry. She knew how busy he was. She completely understood the pressures and constraints he was under, particularly given the current political crisis. She liked seeing him when he had time. They had fun together, and she’d make sure to call him when she got back.

When she swung her feet out of the bed, he reached for her, snatching her by the wrist.

“Just wait a goddamn minute,” he said.

She let him hold her in place.

“I love you, Lily.”

“Oh Christ.” She pulled away again, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“Doesn’t that matter to you?”

“You’re such a fucking politician.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He followed her out of the bed and stood naked in front of her as she dressed.

“It means all you do is talk. You love me? Really? Do something about it, then.”

“I am,” he said. “I’m asking you not to go.”

“That’s not you doing something about it … that is you asking me to do something about it.” She had mostly dressed now and was grabbing the last of her things as she stepped toward the door. But something stopped her. She turned back toward him. He was beautiful—naked and pathetic too—but so beautiful. She believed he truly loved her, and so took one reassuring step toward him, clasping him around the wrist as he had done to her a moment before. “Listen,” she said, “I understand it’s difficult for you—”

Shriver was quick to interrupt her, to explain that once he’d won reelection, or once his party had a wider majority in the Senate, things would be easier for him, he’d have more latitude. He spoke about the current crisis and the “dangers to our republic,” in the type of solemn tones that reminded her of Sherman. “I’m worried that if you go, something could happen, maybe you won’t come back to me.”

Lily told him he was being ridiculous. She kissed him and left.

09:30 March 24, 2054 (GMT‑5)

The White House

He was shorter than she’d expected. Julia had heard stories about Dr. Sandeep Chowdhury from her mother and godfather while she was growing up, but she had never met him in person.

They’d nearly had to cancel this appointment. Almost two weeks had passed since Castro’s death, and the daily protests in Lafayette Square had evolved from a thin picket line into a street-blocking mob. The protesters—out-of-state Truther activists mustered into self-styled brigades with names like Veritas Vengeance, the Swords of Truth, or the Peoples’ Word—were peddling a conspiracy theory that alleged Castro’s death was part of a Dreamer coup, and they questioned the legitimacy of President Smith. Their demands were twofold: that Smith immediately form a unity government by appointing a Truther vice president and that a national commission investigate Castro’s death. The numbers of protesters were growing, as was the intensity of their actions. When Chowdhury approached the West Gate, one protester threw something wet and soft at him, like a soiled diaper, and called him a traitor for meeting with those “lying squatters” in the White House.

“Really sorry about all this, Sandy,” said Hendrickson, as they settled in his office. Chowdhury sat on one end of the sofa. He glanced at the sleeping bag rolled up in the corner. A White House steward brought him a cup of coffee on a silver tray and handed him a cloth napkin.

“Not a problem,” said Chowdhury, wiping the last of a gooey white substance from the sleeve of his suit. He gave a wry little laugh. “I forgot how much fun you get to have around here.” He placed the napkin back on the tray, and the steward departed. Hendrickson and Chowdhury soon eased into a comfortable banter. When Chowdhury thanked Hendrickson for his help with the “misunderstanding at JFK,” his old friend told him to thank Major Hunt, who was sitting quietly at the far end of the sofa. “She’s the one who strong-armed Homeland Security.” Chowdhury did a double take, not having made the connection that the Marine officer in her freshly pressed service uniform was the daughter of Sarah Hunt.

“I was a great admirer of your mother,” Chowdhury said. “We asked everything of her—likely too much.” Hunt simply thanked him.

Hendrickson proceeded to update Chowdhury on his work for the administration: the new president’s plans for his predecessor’s state funeral (to include an hour’s worth of military flyovers on the National Mall); the impending selection of a vice president (to include a list of Dreamer candidates united by the singular distinction of being even weaker than Smith); and the challenges they’d surely face confirming a new cabinet (to include a vote-by-vote breakdown between Truthers and Dreamers on each potential nominee).

Julia sat barricaded in her corner of the sofa, saying little. As she listened to her godfather and Chowdhury, she was struck by the closeness between these two men. Hendrickson wasn’t simply talking politics with Chowdhury; it was more than that. He was unburdening himself to his old friend. When Julia was a girl, Hendrickson had served much the same role for her adoptive mother. On Hendrickson’s visits, he and Sarah would sit out on the porch talking late into the night. The subject hardly seemed to matter. It was the effect of the conversation itself that was most important. When Hendrickson arrived, the heaviness that so often attended her mother seemed to ease. Then, when he left, that weight would inevitably return. Julia had always felt grateful for Hendrickson’s visits and thereby affectionate toward him, in much the same way she felt grateful today for Chowdhury’s visit, and a similar affection for him—though she hardly knew him.

The topic of conversation shifted to the civil unrest around the White House. Certain media pundits had suggested that it’d gone too far, that it was time President Smith deployed Secret Service tactical units to disperse the protesters, and if that wasn’t enough, he should evoke the Insurrection Act and call in the National Guard or perhaps even federal troops. “Major Hunt,” Chowdhury said, recrossing his legs and articulating his body toward where she sat in the far corner of the sofa. “What is your opinion, speaking as a military officer?”

“The people have a right to assemble,” she said. “So long as it remains peaceful.” Julia Hunt glanced out the window, where the sprinklers misted a rainbow across the South Lawn. The day before, a phalanx of protesters had shut down Constitution Avenue. Their leaders had tried to surround the White House by simultaneously marching up 15th and 17th Streets. They’d made it about halfway before horse-mounted Park Police broke their ranks, scattering them across the National Mall.

“Peaceful protest is one thing,” said Chowdhury. “But this is darker.”

“They feel like they’ve been lied to,” said Julia.

“The key word there is feel,” interjected Hendrickson, hissing the last word. “This younger generation doesn’t believe in facts, but in feelings. If they feel they’re being lied to”—again he spat out what to him seemed an ugly word—“then in their eyes they are being lied to, and so the feeling becomes a fact.” Hendrickson spoke as if his participation in the lie around Castro’s death was, at best, incidental. He paused a beat, catching himself so that he could measure his words more carefully. “Their feelings don’t make President Smith illegitimate. But we do plan to meet one of their demands. Our administration is in the process of setting up a national commission to investigate Castro’s death, like the Warren Commission …”

As she listened, Julia couldn’t help but recall that the real purpose of the Warren Commission hadn’t been so much to solve who killed Kennedy—at least not in a substantive way—but rather to put the question itself to rest. The Johnson administration had known that if a Cuban or Soviet connection to Kennedy’s death emerged, it could’ve spelled nuclear war. So resolving the question became a matter of national security, one of utmost urgency. Hunt was skeptical of this latest commission. Would her godfather release Castro’s autopsy to it? And if the Russians, Chinese, or newer antagonists like the Nigerians were behind Castro’s death, would a national commission be willing to point the finger? Would it be willing to trigger a war? Likely not. And what if the commission found that it wasn’t a foreign threat that was responsible for Castro’s death, but a domestic one? That could result in war just the same.

The topic of conversation shifted to Chowdhury’s plans, and his weak heart. When Chowdhury confessed this condition, a heaviness reappeared on Hendrickson’s face. On seeing his old friend’s concern, Chowdhury reached toward Hendrickson, placing a hand consolingly on his arm. “Please don’t worry.”

“Your diagnosis sounds serious,” said Hendrickson.

“At one time, maybe so,” said Chowdhury. “But there’s a biotech company, Neutronics, that’s doing some cutting-edge work with cardiology and genetic editing. They’re down in São Paulo and they’re saving lives.” Chowdhury asked whether either of them had heard of Neutronics.

Hendrickson shook his head dispiritedly and said nothing more. Julia thought she’d heard of Neutronics but couldn’t recall where.

A hefty, close-fisted knock came at the door. Before Hendrickson could answer, Karen Slake stepped inside. She apologized but said it was urgent. She reached for the remote on Hendrickson’s desk. With arms crossed, Slake stood confronting the television. She tuned in to the news, whose cameras were trained on an empty dais with the Speaker of the House of Representatives seal affixed to its front.

“What’s going on?” Hendrickson asked.

“That asshole is siding with the protesters. He’s going to demand a unity ticket.”

“Which asshole?” Chowdhury asked Slake.

Slake shot this outsider a glance, as if his question were absurd, as if there could be any other asshole on this planet except for the one asshole to which she referred. “Wisecarver,” she said. “Trent Wisecarver … Who are you?” Chowdhury introduced himself and then asked if she was the press secretary. “Secretary of press,” said Slake, correcting him. When Chowdhury asked the difference, she answered, “You wouldn’t call the secretary of state the state secretary.” Then, before she could say more, a door in the back of the Capitol’s press briefing room flung open. Wisecarver strutted out onstage. Trailing behind him was Nat Shriver. When Julia Hunt saw the senator, it jogged her memory. The intelligence assessment she’d given Shriver. That’s where she’d read about Neutronics.

22:15 March 24, 2054 (GMT+8)

Macau

Lily had splurged on a suborbital flight, traveling between Dulles and Macau in less than three hours. Once she’d landed, it had taken her about the same amount of time to find B.T. on the casino floor. When she saw him, she knew coming had been the right choice. Elegantly attired in a brown chalk-stripe suit that she imagined he had mail-ordered from a Savile Row tailor who had his measurements on file, underneath it he was wearing a cheap white T-shirt, its grimy collar blown out. A $5,000 suit paired with a $5 T-shirt—classic B.T.

She watched as he slunk from table to table, winning at cards, winning at baccarat, running the table at craps, while surrounded by an aura of personal defeat. Before Lily had left Washington, she’d had Sherman dig into the background on B.T.’s business partner James Mohammad. She hadn’t liked what they’d found. His ties with the Nigerian government were obvious, which meant so, too, were his secondary ties with the Chinese government, who through economic subsidies and military alliances had turned Nigeria into a partner, if not a client state. So B.T. was, in effect, in bed not only with the Nigerians but also with the Chinese. If a sequence of his code—which was, essentially, their code—had slipped loose onto the internet, he couldn’t have picked a worse pair of actors to disappoint.

Lily didn’t want to approach B.T. She thought that might seem too aggressive; instead, she wanted him to notice her. At the roulette table, he had placed his chips on black, so she’d placed hers on red, and that had been enough. “Lily Bao,” he said, a smile barging its way onto his lips as he saw her from down the table. “Why am I not surprised it’s you who found me first?”

Lily was still collecting the last of her winnings. “Can I buy you a drink?”

B.T. leaned over, grabbed a pair of her chips, and tossed them as a gratuity to the dealer, who nodded in appreciation. B.T. then turned toward her, his one eyebrow raised, and said, “The drinks here are free, kiddo.”

They crossed the casino to the restaurant, walking arm in arm beneath its ceiling painted with kitschy Italianate frescoes and studded with security cameras, dozens of black, watchful orbs. At B.T.’s request, the maître d’ agreed to open up a closed section in order to grant them a little extra privacy. “Come here often?” Lily asked, impressed.

B.T. shrugged and replied, “Depends on your definition of often.” He ordered the two of them a prewar bottle of Bordeaux, a Château Lafite Rothschild. “The 2031,” he said authoritatively, which elicited a little bow from the maître d’, who answered, “Right away, Dr. Yamamoto,” before returning to the front of the restaurant.

Lily suppressed a laugh. “Look at you.”

“Look at me what?”

“The 2031 … Right away, Dr. Yamamoto …” B.T.’s gaze dipped self-consciously toward his place setting. Lily reached across the white linen tablecloth and took his hands in hers. “It’s really good to see you.”

“How’d you find me?” B.T. asked. As Lily opened her mouth to speak, he modified the question: “Wait, why’d you find me?” This was more complicated. The long answer began more than a decade before, when, awkward and alone, they’d met freshman year in Cambridge. Back then, they’d clung to each other as if drowning while they navigated the twin challenges of life away from home and MIT’s relentless academic load. B.T. had been Lily’s first boyfriend, a relationship that’d lasted a total of three months. In a season of firsts, he had, on a futon in her dorm room, become her first lover. Lily suspected she was his first lover, too, though he improbably alluded to other affairs. When he forgot Valentine’s Day and then her birthday within a three-week span, and had then taken her to dinner to make up for both but forgot his wallet so she’d wound up paying, she had had enough. Mindful of his feelings, she’d suggested that they would make better friends than lovers. His relief at this suggestion was palpable, the only mutual breakup Lily had ever experienced.

After breaking up, they spent even more time together. For Lily—who’d lost her father, her country, and eventually her mother, all before the age of 20—B.T. began to feel like the only family she had. When the academic load at MIT proved too much for her and it seemed she might flunk out, B.T. intervened. He became her tutor, and they spent hours on those subjects she could barely pass; the ones that came so easily to him. For her part, Lily had taken on the role of older sister and confidant, over the years helping B.T. clean up his messes with other people (a heated disagreement with a professor over a grade, the poorly chosen phrase when critiquing a colleague’s work, the concerns of future employers who’d heard of B.T.’s “tricky” reputation). Which was, ultimately, the why of his question to her. “Because I know you’ve made a mess, B.T.”

“A mess?” he said, as though he weren’t certain what she was talking about. The server returned and uncorked their bottle of wine. B.T. placed his palm over his glass when the server motioned to pour him the first taste; he gave Lily the honor. She sipped and nodded enthusiastically.

“Really good,” she said.

“It is, isn’t it,” answered B.T., as though proving a point. “My work is far from a mess, Lily. Who told you that? Remote gene editing is on the cusp of becoming a reality.” At this, B.T. threw his eyes across the room, to ensure no one had overheard him.

“James Mohammad called me,” said Lily.

“What’d he want?”

“He was looking for you.”

B.T. took an aggressive slug of his wine, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he finished his glass and poured himself another. Julia wondered if he was going to get drunk. “Well, here I am,” said B.T.

“He said something you’d been working on together had turned up on the internet.”

“Is that all he said?” B.T. asked.

“And that you’d been, to use his word, acting erratically.”

“And do you believe that?”

“I just want to make sure you’re OK.”

“I’m fine,” said B.T. “It’s really nice of you coming out here to check on me, but I’m fine. How about you?”

“Fine, I guess.” A stain on the tablecloth caught her attention.

“Really?” said B.T. “I’d think things would be a bit tricky, with your senator friend and all.” B.T. lifted his glass of wine, leveling his eyes over the rim, so he was staring right at Lily as he took his sip. “When I saw about the president’s death, I thought of you and Shriver. Things are going to be complicated for him now.”

More than a year ago, after the secrecy had begun to wear on her, Lily had confessed her affair with Shriver to B.T. She’d explained how it had started: at a benefit dinner at the Kennedy Center where she and Shriver had been seated together. This had led to a one-night stand, which evolved into what felt like a series of one-night stands with the same person. She’d needed someone to confide in, and B.T. had been the logical choice.

“We’re supposed to believe that Castro’s heart gives out, though he has no history or indicators of a heart condition … .” He continued, “I’d think that a lot of scrutiny is going to fall on the president’s political enemies. Shriver must be top of that list.” Lily had realized this but didn’t yet want to acknowledge it. Her mouth went dry. She took another sip of her wine right as B.T. added, “It isn’t just your Shriver who’s mixed up in this mess. It’s me too. A key sequence of my code that relates to remote gene editing has appeared on a website called Common Sense. If someone used that code to kill Castro, then his assassination is the smaller of two problems.”

“What’s the second?”

“The Singularity,” said B.T. “We may have reached a tipping point.” He explained that much depended on whether there was a hard or soft takeoff. A soft takeoff would lead to an increase in human capacity over time, with gradual technological and biological integration. But a hard takeoff would look very different. The resulting explosion in human intelligence would look like a hockey stick if you were to graph it.

“We’d witness advances like mind-uploading,” B.T. said, and described the process by which the knowledge, analytic skills, intelligence, and personality of a person could be uploaded to a computer chip. “Once uploaded, that chip could be fused with a quantum computer that couples biological with artificial intelligence. If you did this, you’d create a human mind that has a level of computational, predictive, analytic, and psychic skill incomprehensibly higher than any existing human mind. You’d have the mind of God. That online intelligence could then create real effects in the physical world. God’s mind is one thing, but what makes God God is that He cometh to earth—”

When B.T. said earth, he made a sweeping gesture, like a faux preacher, and in his excitement, he knocked over Lily’s glass of wine. A waiter promptly appeared with a handful of napkins, sopping up the mess. B.T. waited for the waiter to leave.

“Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?” answered Lily.

“This isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem,” he said in a more subdued tone. “Someone who has achieved the Singularity could reshape cellular structures through remote gene editing. They could manipulate perceptions of events, hiding some and emphasizing others. They could also engage in the deepest levels of the human subconscious, changing the way we think about the world, even our dreams. And there’s no reason to believe that this wouldn’t move beyond individual actions into influencing entire populations … no reason to think it wouldn’t scale … So ask yourself, what would a person or an ideological group, or a given nation, be willing to do to finally achieve the Singularity? I’d say just about anything.”

Lily sat very still, behind the enormous stain of wine. “Your sequence of code explains all of this?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “That bit of code is like a single link in a much longer chain, but it’s a recognizable link. Maybe this website Common Sense is simply a person, or a group of people, revealing what should be obvious … what should be … well, common sense.” He grimaced as he uttered the last two words.

“Which is what?” asked Lily. “That Castro was assassinated? I’m sure you’re not the only one considering that.”

“That’s only part of it …” said B.T.

“What’s the other part?”

“That, inadvertently, I placed the weapon in the assassin’s hand.”

From 2054: A Novel, by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, USN, to be published on March 12th, 2024, by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis.

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