Page 52 of A.I.AM.

“We wanted it to be a signal,” he said. “That desire made coincidence look designed.”

“ARGUS’s entire personality in one damp hole,” Ace said.

Code removed the brass plate. Beneath it, the valve box opened into a pipe large enough for a forearm. Its interior held dry black soil and the roots of grass.

“Nothing,” Carl said.

“Not nothing,” AJ replied. “A selector with no connected mechanism.”

“A dial for a system that has been removed,” Hiro said. “Or the plate was moved here from somewhere else.”

“We’re searching every object for a secret and have now discovered farm equipment is old,” said Pigsty as he sat up.

Bron replaced the plate exactly. “Then stop searching objects. Search behavior.”

They stood in silence, considering a property occupied by one machine, nine men, several deer, and enough rust to create an independent economy.

Ace noticed the windmill had moved.

There was almost no wind. Even so, its blades advanced another quarter turn, stopped, then moved again. The rhythm matched a faint vibration under their boots.

They followed it across the property. A narrow strip of buried concrete carried the vibration east from the tower, beyond the bunker perimeter, toward one of the old cattle troughs. The trough had been dry for years and was half hidden by mesquite.

Code opened the windmill gearbox. An added spindle transferred each turn into the tower leg and down into the foundation. It was mechanical, irregular, and old enough to predate the ARGUS installation.

“Elias,” Tanner said.

No one argued.

At the trough, Hayes cleared dirt from the float valve. Nine shallow notches marked the cap. Inside the hollow valve arm, something had been sealed with wax.

Code warmed the metal between his hands and eased out a glass rod wrapped in a narrow strip of foil. Amber wax coated its surface. The markings cut through the wax made no sense when the strip was unrolled. Hiro examined the broken lines.

“It was etched while wrapped.”

Code rewound the foil around the tapered rod, adjusting the tension until the fragments aligned. Letters formed along the outer curve.

The windmill stopped.

The nine men stood around the dry trough while the bunker waited beneath the ground behind them.

NO MAN CAN END THIS

AJ read it twice.

“No man. Singular.”

Bron looked around the circle. Elias had not left them a shutdown command. He had left a condition: whatever ended ARGUS could not belong to one person, one judgment, or one point of failure.

Code wrapped the message and returned it to the cloth. Across the field, the compound lights came on.

The men turned toward ARGUS together.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Well? Which one of us has the brilliant idea? No man, singular. But our nine asses have been working on this for days. What the fuck is it talking about?” asked Bron.

“I don’t know,” said Ace shaking his head. AJ stared at his father, worried for his mental health. His eyes were tired, dark circles beneath them.