Part 9 (1/2)
”No,” said Desh. He considered telling the Black Ops officer that she had told him her goal was to recruit him to her side, but immediately decided against it.
”Did she explain away all the bizarre deaths and disappearances that occurred around her when she was growing up? Or the death of her boss? Or the murder of her brother?”
”She insisted she didn't kill her parents. The other incidents didn't come up at all. Neither did any mention of Ebola or bio-weapons. She mentioned terrorists only in the context of denying that she had any connection to them.”
”I see. Then on what grounds did she claim to be innocent if she made no effort to refute the airtight evidence against her?”
Desh shrugged. ”I don't know. Your men interrupted before she got that far.”
”Let me understand. She wanted to prove her innocence. Yet after an hour of discussion she had not addressed even a single thing she was accused of?”
”That's right,” responded Desh.
Smith took both eyes off the ruler-straight road and studied Desh for several seconds. Finally, apparently unable to find any signs of deceit, he returned his attention to the road. ”So what did she talk about in that time?”
Desh sighed. ”About experiments she conducted to increase her own intelligence. The theory behind it, the results of the experiments; that sort of thing.”
Smith raised his eyebrows. ”Did she say she was successful?”
Desh nodded. ”She claims to be able to enhance her intelligence to immeasurable levels.”
”I see,” said Smith, noncommittally. ”And did she tell you how she applied this newfound brilliance of hers?” he asked.
”Not a word,” said Desh.
”Did she offer you anything?” asked Smith.
”Like what? Money?”
Smith studied him carefully once again, as if this would enable him to precisely judge the sincerity of Desh's response. ”Like anything. Money. Power. Enhanced intelligence of your own.” He raised his eyebrows. ”Other considerations that might be appealing.”
Desh furrowed his brow in confusion. ”Other considerations? You can't mean s.e.x,” he said in disbelief.
Smith shook his head irritably. ”Of course not,” he replied.
Desh shrugged. ”Then I'm afraid you've lost me. But regardless of what you're trying to hint at, she didn't offer me a single thing. Period. Not a thin dime. Not that I could be bought in any case,” he added pointedly.
Smith paused for a long time in thought. ”Did you believe her story?” he asked finally, taking a new tack.
”What, about her ability to elevate her IQ, or that she was innocent?”
”Both,” said Smith.
”With respect to enhanced intellecta”I don't know,” said Desh, shrugging. His eyes narrowed in thought. ”She's an extraordinary scientist, that's beyond dispute. And she weaved a very convincing scientific rationale around the concept. Autistic savants do exist and do demonstrate what one hundred billion neurons can do when wired slightly differently than normal. As farfetched as it is, she made optimizing her own brain seem possible, even reasonable, for someone with her talents.” He paused. ”Is she innocent? That one is easier. Of course not. Other than claiming she was innocent, she didn't provide a shred of evidence, as we've discussed.”
The corners of Smith's mouth turned up in a knowing smile. ”But she still got to you a little, didn't she? Even without providing any evidence, you half wanted to believe her, didn't you?”
”What I might have wanted to believe and what I actually do believe are two different things,” snapped Desh defensively.
”I've never met her,” said Smith. ”But she's brilliant and I'm told she has a way about her. She can suck you in, dazzle you with logic that seems irrefutable, and do it in a way that's absolutely sincere. Not to mention that she has a wholesome, doe-eyed beauty that some men find hard to resist. You must have felt her pull.”
Desh frowned. ”A little,” he admitted. ”But I know what she is and my guard was up. She may have intended to provide evidence of her innocence. Maybe she would eventually have even tried to bribe me, but we'll never know. Your men crashed the party and all she talked about was her ability to make herself smarter.” He paused and added sharply, ”You can believe anything you want. That's what happened. That's all that happened.”
Smith was silent for several long moments as they continued hurtling down the dark highway. Traffic was still spa.r.s.e but had begun picking up, ever so slightly, with the gradual approach of dawn. ”I believe you,” he said at last. ”I conducted a number of interrogations in a past life and I think you're telling the truth. On the important things at any rate,” he added.
”Good,” said Desh. ”So are you ready to take your turn in this little information exchange of ours?”
Smith considered. ”All right,” he replied. ”First of all, we believe Kira Miller really has found a way to turn herself into the ultimate savant. And our experts seem to agree that, properly organized, there's almost no level of intelligence the one hundred billion neurons you spoke of can't reach.”
”Do you have actual evidence of this optimization?”
”Yes. Most of it circ.u.mstantial, but enough that we're convinced. What you say she told you fits right in with what we know. It's interesting that she told you she gave herself this immeasurable IQ,” continued Smith, ”but she didn't say a word about how she applied this intelligence.” He eyed Desh meaningfully. ”If you had supreme intellect, what problem would you tackle?”
Desh shook his head tiredly. ”Look a Smith a usually I'm up for riddles and guessing games. Really. But I haven't slept in almost twenty-four hours and it's been a tough day, so why don't you just tell me.”
”Immortality,” said Smith simply.
19.
David Desh sat in stunned silence, replaying the word in his head to be sure he had heard correctly. A flying insect slammed into the winds.h.i.+eld like a tiny missile and became an instant smear. ”Immortality,” he repeated finally, shaking his head dubiously. ”Impossible.”
”Yeah, so is amping up your own IQ,” shot back Smith. ”And no, she hasn't achieved it. Yet. But it's only a matter of time. She has managed to double the span of human life, though. Not immortality, but certainly good enough to win the high school science fair,” he added wryly.
”You're sure about this?”
Smith nodded. ”You can never be positive until the first person treated lives to be 160, but I understand the animal and early human evidence is pretty strong.”
”How does she do it?”
”h.e.l.l if I know. It takes an injection, repeated once a year. I have no idea what it does. All I know is that it slows aging to a crawl, so that a man of seventy will have all the physical characteristics and abilities of a man of thirty-five.”
”Remarkable,” said Desh in wonder.
”We believe she sees immortality as a three stage process. She's already completed the first stage. The second stage would be to design microscopic nanorobots that would be injected into the bloodstream, patrolling and repairing the body and replicating themselves as necessary. A vast army of tiny MDs. This could theoretically extend the lifespan five hundred years or more.” He paused. ”The third stage, her ultimate goal, would be set up an artificial matrix into which she can transfer her intellect. She could repeat this process any number of times. That would be closer to true immortality.”
”What do you mean by an artificial matrix to transfer her intellect? Are you saying she plans to transfer her consciousness someday into an artificial body? Turn herself into some kind of cyborg?”
”I don't know. Maybe. Maybe she'll just clone herself every fifty years and transfer her consciousness into a younger version of herself. And what we think she's trying to do may never be possible. Even for her. But that's beside the point. The key for our discussion now is that she has already managed to do the impossible: doubling human life expectancy.”
Incredible, thought Desh, as he allowed himself to truly consider the earth shattering implications of this discovery. More than incrediblea”surreal. But as he thought about it, it all made perfectly logical sense. If he a.s.sumed Kira Miller really could optimize her mind and become autistic-savant-like in every area of thought, she wouldn't focus these transcendent abilities on solving pedestrian problems. No, she would go after the ultimate prize: conquering death. The ultimate Holy Grail of the species. And she was a genius in gene therapy even before any enhancements.
Now the journals Kira had been receiving at home made perfect sense. Human Brain Mapping. The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Both would be quite useful in her efforts to rewire her own brain. But she had also subscribed to a journal having to do with gerontology, the branch of science that dealt with the aging process. Desh had found this odd at the time, but hadn't thought any more of it. But now the pieces of the puzzle seemed to be fitting together quite nicely.
Desh pulled himself from his reverie. ”But if she was able to accomplish something like this,” he said, ”why didn't she announce it? She'd be recognized as the greatest scientist in history. She'd be an instant billionaire as well.”