Free The Singularity Race by Mark de Castrique Page B

letting his dynamo of a mind run free.
    The house he’d leased on Lake Lure in Rutherford County, North Carolina, had been an unexpected delight. With residences in Manhattan and San Francisco, plus a rented condo in Charlotte, he’d feared the rural isolation of the eastern range of the Appalachians would have him climbing the walls of whatever backwoods accommodations he could find close to his billion-dollar Artificial Intelligence complex. The seven-hundred-twenty-acre Lake Lure was nestled amid the ancient mountain ridges and provided an escape from his world of high tech, high pressure, and, most of all, the high stakes riding on the success of the Apollo project.
    Brentwood held his glass of bourbon skyward, toasting the spot where the sun had slipped behind the ridge. Apollo. The name he’d christened his soon-to-be-birthed baby. The Greek god of light, healing, the arts, and, yes, plague.
    Ned Farino had argued the name Apollo had already been taken by the United States moon mission. But wasn’t that the point? Brentwood saw it as a continuation of that exploration into new frontiers. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Or was the sentence, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind?” Nearly fifty years after the historic quote, the debate still continued as to whether Neil Armstrong had inadvertently omitted the “a.”
    Brentwood would make sure there was no such controversy with his Apollo mission. The words would flash around the world. A new world. Spoken by a new being. “I am—so that you will be. And together, we keep our destiny.”
    Although the proclamation would come simultaneously to all humanity, the words wouldn’t immediately be understood. Brentwood wouldn’t offer the translation. He would make the point that the new age of common good spoke a common language, free of national prejudice, and the words in the original tongue would reverberate throughout the millennia. Mi estas—tiel ke vi estos. Kaj kune, ni plenumu nian destinon.
    Brentwood stood and walked to the dock’s last board. He took a deep breath of the mountain air. This place suited him. He decided not to extend the lease on the Charlotte condo, but instead make the owners of the Lake Lure house an offer they couldn’t refuse. He turned and looked up the slope to the rambling old structure standing amidst the white pines. It had character. It had soul. The house was big enough to accommodate a chef and a personal assistant whenever he needed them. And there was a guest cottage less than a hundred feet away. The idea formed quickly. No, not for the staff, he thought. The perfect place for Dr. Li and the boy. Their own quarters, but close to him.
    Lisa Li needed to share his vision and this setting would be more conducive than the labyrinth of servers and processors humming constantly in the layers of Apollo’s central core.
    Of course, Ned Farino would object. But he and Li had much to discuss, and Ned wasn’t to be privy to those conversations. Nothing was of greater priority.
    T-Day was three months out. Target Day, as Farino had labeled it. Initial test forays would begin as soon as Li set the partitions and thresholds. In Brentwood’s mind, T-Day was nonnegotiable. They would be ready. The symbolism was crucial to reinforce the magnitude of the moment.
    His thoughts wandered to that person he’d most like to be with him on that day. Steve Jobs. Although they’d only met once, Brentwood knew they had been kindred spirits. Brothers. Jobs got it. The power of symbolic presentation and the power of innovative performance went hand in hand in the quest for knowledge. The Apple icon with one bite taken. A return to the Garden.
    Brentwood wasn’t eating the forbidden fruit. He was planting its seeds.

Chapter Eleven
    The Monday morning after Allen Woodson’s surprise appearance, Mullins