Page 50 of A.I.AM.

“This is terrifying,” whispered another reporter.

“It is,” nodded the president. “It’s been the most terrifying thing humanity has ever faced. Do you want to know why? Because it is not human. We’ve asked ourselves the question for years. We look up at the sky at night and wonder what’s out there. Is there some other form of intelligence? Well, we got our answer only it wasn’t in the stars or the skies. It was in a basement created by a man whose pure genius wasn’t appreciated, rewarded, or taken care of.”

“You sound as if you’re defending him, Mr. President,” said another reporter.

“I’m not defending his actions. I’m condemning our inactions. This man fought for our country and provided a service so valuable we were set back ten years after his mandatory departure. He was being refused treatments he needed. He modified his own prosthetics because no one would listen to what he really needed.”

“Sir, are you saying this is our fault?” frowned another reporter.

“I’m saying we, as a nation, as a society, are partly to blame.” The president stood at the podium in silence for a moment, staring down at the papers in front of him, then at the prompter. Reporters were quiet, wondering if he were crying. One started to ask another question but he raised his hand.

“Let me ask a rhetorical question of all of you. When did we stop caring for our neighbors? When did we start not helping the man on the street who was hungry for a meal? When did we begin allowing ourselves hours of guilty pleasures that may, or may not be real, on a screen, instead of getting up and going for a walk in one of our beautiful parks? Or how about actually walking with our children? Taking their little hands in ours as we went on an adventure.” He shook his head.

“I guess I’m being nostalgic. I miss when my kids were that little. When chasing butterflies in a field was a day of adventure that they talked about for years. I miss bedtime stories and family night.

“This man, Elias Vale, begged for modifications to be made to his treatment plan and his prosthetics. He begged. The pain he was in, mentally and physically, drove him to do something that most of us do not understand, nor will we.”

The president was quiet again for a long moment.

“There are groups of people out there right now trying to stop this. Here is my suggestion. Go home tonight, hold your families, and thank those people. Pray for them. And while you’re at it, pray for all of us and our loss of humanity.”

He stepped off the dais and stormed out of the room. The press secretary stared after him, then cleared his throat stepping up to the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s all for now.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

They reached the Texas property after dark by three different routes and at four different times. Code had proposed it. Pigsty called it four kinds of trouble just to reach one locked gate. The gate stood open. No lights showed in the main compound. Beyond the fence, the dead windmill turned in a wind too weak to move the grass.

“Subtle,” Ace said.

Bron left the gate untouched and led them along the fence line. The county parcel map showed the facility as a clean rectangle, but the old seed operation had spread beyond it: buried irrigation pipe, a drainage pond, two concrete troughs, and the remains of a scale road disappearing into scrub. Code unfolded a paper aerial photograph from 1978.

“Before the silos, this was a demonstration farm. Soil tests, drought crops, experimental irrigation.”

“Government?” Hayes asked.

“University and county partnership.” Pigsty brightened.

“So somewhere out here is a plaque thanking six committees for a ditch.”

“That is the most likely object we’ve identified,” Tanner said.

They split into three groups but stayed within sight. The mood would have been almost leisurely if not for the fact that the black geometry of the ARGUS bunker sat under the earth to their west. Bron and Hiro took the old irrigation line. Ace, AJ, and Carl followed the scale road. Code, Hayes, Tanner, and Pigsty moved toward the drainage pond.

The pond had become a basin of cracked clay surrounded by cattails. At its center stood a concrete standpipe with a rusted wheel.

“There. Crank.” Pigsty pointed at the object.

“Valve,” Code said. Pigsty shook his head.

“No. A crank with a job.” Hayes knelt beside the inlet channel.

“And recent footprints.”

Tanner examined them. Deer, raccoon, one boot with a broken heel, and a broad drag mark that ended at the cattails.

“County worker?”