“You said that some of this biotech, like that related to AI, is ‘a little Frankenstein.’”
“That’s not what I think, David. It’s a concern of some people who, in my estimation, are simply ignorant.”
“Quicksilver’s work in bioprinting and all that—it’s medical research. How does that have anything to do with AI, artificial intelligence? AI is machine learning, right?”
The incessant drumming of rain on the roof of the Explorer was oppressive, as it had been in the vivid dream of Emily alone in the broken-down Buick. It was the sound of isolation, helplessness, and dark destiny.
After a long hesitation, Gurion spoke with evident caution. “I may have been rash, bringing that up. I get emotional every time I visit that house. I’m not sure I should talk about . . .”
When the attorney seemed uncertain how to continue, David said, “I understand that some Quicksilver projects are related to national security. I don’t want to put you in a difficult spot.”
Again Gurion hesitated before saying, “Quicksilver is of course a metal, bright and liquid at room temperature. Spill some, and it’s nearly impossible to contain. Ephraim said quicksilver is a lot like human intelligence and creativity. He said they’re as fluid as quicksilver. Intelligence and creativity can’t be long restrained, which is why humanity has a hope of solving all its problems. That’s what Ephraim and Renata believed.”
Phone to his ear, listening to Gurion’s breathing—an intimate sound that seemed to summarize the truth of human vulnerability—and the ferocity of the rain pounding on the SUV as though Nature meant to dissolve all works of civilization, David strove to puzzle out what he was to infer from the attorney’s words.
David said, “If bioinks and bioprinting can produce flesh, skin, capillaries, eventually organs . . .” He fell silent, troubled by where this line of thought inevitably led. “Does an AI have to be a machine? Or rather . . . does a machine have to be made of inorganic matter? Can a superintelligent AI be a . . . a bioprinted brain of extraordinary complexity?”
“Interesting to speculate,” Gurion said. “The technology is certainly possible, although it’s far in the future at this point, David. Far in the future. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been helping Georgina, my wife, prepare dinner. I’ve got to get back to that.”
“Of course, Gil. I’m grateful that you took my call.”
“I’m not sure I should have,” the attorney said, and hung up.
Judging by all evidence, Ephraim and Renata Zabdi had been kind and generous and innocent, acting only with the best intentions. It was possible to conceive, however, that some people might find their dream of an organic AI to be a nightmare. Even so, did that justify their being tortured and murdered? Surely not.
Whether Richard Mathers had seen exactly what he claimed to have seen, or if he gravely misunderstood what he’d seen, or if he hallucinated the entire experience while on peyote, it didn’t change the course on which David was embarked.
He had convinced himself that not only must he go to the Rock Point house, but also that Maddison wanted him to come there, wanted to be rescued from whatever situation she endured in that place. The note she’d left for him on his kitchen table; what she said about her loneliness and enduring fear, about starving for love: He took all of that as a cry for help to which he must respond.
Maybe it was foolish to go to Rock Point Lane without any idea of what trouble or trap he might be walking into. But if he was a fool, he was a fool for love, which felt better than the various other fools he had played during his thirty-seven years.
He would never claim to be a hero. However, there were moments when you had to show up, be there, assume risks, take bold action, if you still wanted to call yourself a man.
But what in God’s name was waiting for him on Rock Point Lane?
| 87 |
Beyond the viewpoint railing, the sloping meadow lay barely discernible, like a scratchboard work so lightly etched by the artist that the white clay beneath the black ink was revealed only as pale gray lines that didn’t portray gentle folds of descending land as much as suggest them. The sea was as black as blindness until lightning flared, whereupon twelve-foot dark breakers leaped out of the void and attacked the shore, as if they were ancient monsters of the deep returning millennia after their extinction.
David’s car was the only one in the viewpoint parking area, as Emily’s would have been on that night. Infinite beaded curtains of driving rain reduced visibility, and the lights of traffic passing behind him on 101 seemed more distant than they really were, like the running lights of submersible vehicles motoring on some mission into an oceanic abyss.