John Colby Brown

By Richard L. Barkley

John Colby Brown is the final product of artificial intelligence. He awakens as he usually did at five oclock in the morning. This is what he was programmed to believe. The only thing is that this is the first day that he has awakened. There has been a span of five hundred years gone by, since he was programmed.

The earth and all of its inhabitants have long since passed away. Everyone on earth has been translated into mathematical code and placed for safe keeping within John Colby Brown. As he goes about his programmed functions he learns more about what he is to do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 26, 2009
• ISBN: 9781469107912

Richard L. Barkley

I took early retirement out of aerospace in order to write and raise thoroughbred horses. Writing has always been a passion of mine and I decided that it was about time that I did something with my passion. It has been a struggle and labor of love at the same time, but I have finally arrived at the crossroads of endeavor and perseverance. My ambition to be published has finally become a reality. I don’t know if I will be successful or not, but I have realized my goal of being published. I have now started writing another book.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

One

Dr. William Zelligman sat staring into space, completely removed from the present and what he had been doing. His silver blond hair belied his age and gave everyone looking at him the misconception that he was much younger than he actually was. A stray lock of hair still refused to be trained and remained in a state of disarray. The errant lock of hair only added to the intrigue of his incalculable age. At two hundred pounds, he was still lean and athletic looking because of his rather large bone structure, and he carried his weight quite well. He had somehow avoided developing the spare tire that so many men in their fifties usually acquired. Adding to his athletic appearance was his natural ruddy complexion. This natural skin condition made him look like anything but a scientist that had spent the better part of his life inside the reclusive atmosphere of laboratories. At first glance, Dr. Zelligman might appear to be a man that lived in the great out-of-doors, which had led many people astray as to what he actually did for a living. The fact that he did not look at all like a scientist only added to his tally of personal pluses.

Bill Zelligman was the leading authority in the world on artificial intelligence, and he had read anything and everything on the subject. As a matter of fact, he had even written two books on the subject of artificial intelligence before he had earned his doctorate in the field. Because of his specialty, Bill had never had any of the problems associated with working for the government. He had always had all the funding he had ever needed for any of the projects that he had worked on. Never—that is, until the last one when he had been approached to work on the one that he was currently engaged with. Suddenly, the program had been canceled, and he had no choice but to acquiesce to this place.

The lack of ozone filtering of the sun made the sunlight much harsher as it filtered into the laboratory where Bill Zelligman had ceased to work even though a special filtering material had been developed and placed on all the windows of the lab and all the other buildings at the facility. The brilliance of the light could not be diminished enough to eliminate the harsh glare. The United Nations had placed sixteen of the world’s top scientists at this facility, and they were going to have the very best that the United States government had to offer. They were better off than anyone else in the world that was not associated with a world power. They had the best of everything, including light filtering systems that the normal citizen could not afford, no matter how much they may desire it or even need it. Unfiltered sunlight seemed to penetrate every corner and aspect of life, and the effects had become deadly and no longer beneficial to life on the planet.

The very concept of what the world leaders had begun tossing around amongst themselves was so ludicrous that at the onset, Bill Zelligman had thought that he was being the butt of someone’s sick practical joke. All too soon, he found out that what they had alluded to him was in fact not a joke, but a very real project that he could not say no to.

Two

Grand Lake, nestled high in the Northern Rocky Mountains of Colorado, is a picturesque, touristy sort of place. The lake itself is surrounded on three sides by mountains, and the town sits on the northern side of the lake. Many of the residents do not live full time in this Rocky Mountain paradise and only vacation there from the spring until the first good frost when they leave for other parts of the country to winter. The citizens that live there year-round are a cross between pioneers and just plain hearty folks. When the government began to build the facility at Grand Lake, they had made it look like just another condominium development. A full quarter section of land, one-half-mile long by one-quarter-mile wide had been purchased. A prime concern that had to be employed was the absolute saving of all trees on the grounds. All the units of the facility had to be built in such a way as to not require the removal of any trees. A series of tunnels connecting all the buildings to one another had been an architectural nightmare, but it had been accomplished. No one had to go outside to go from one unit to the other unless they chose to do so.

On the outside, the buildings were just twelve-inch log units. Every unit, whether it was to be in actual use or merely a building without a true purpose, was identical. There was almost a mechanical appearance to the precision of the perfection of the logs. In actuality, the logs were ten-inch seamless steel tubes that had a special synthetic coating over the outside to resemble actual logs. The core of these steel tubes had been injected with a special synthetic expanding foam insulation. The insulating qualities of the foam inside of the steel tubes were almost three times greater than a true twelve-inch log. From all outward appearances, the new condominiums by the lake were merely a new private community where people had come for privacy and not publicity or socializing.

A block and log wall was erected around the entire facility as it was being built. Rather than erect a twelve-foot security fence, the wall had been erected at a height of eight feet. The wall would further enhance the idea that this was a private community and not a government installation. Fifty feet inside the wall, a sensor mesh was installed just below the surface of the ground. The sensor mesh was laid around the entire perimeter and had been designed to accept no more than fifty pounds of weight before being activated. The sensor mesh was also in varying widths, ranging from thirty to fifty feet.

The only thing that could possibly walk through the compound and not be detected was a wild animal. Infrared sensors had also been installed around the entire perimeter. Because of the methods used in building the facility, the buildings were entirely soundproof. No one on the outside of the compound could use any type of electronic equipment to hear what was going on inside. The special filtering that held out the brilliance of the white light of the sun also held out anyone who might want to eavesdrop. The parabolic design that had finally been developed for filtering the light also had a natural sound-scrambling ability, which was perfectly suited for the facility. Signs had been placed on the walls of the facility that attested to the desire of the inhabitants: Hummingbird Retreat, a private community for serenity and privacy.

Communication from the facility was handled through satellite communications. All phones were tied into scramblers and rerouted through high-speed microwave quick-burst transmission. It was physically impossible for anyone on the outside to gather any information on what was happening on the inside of the compound. The governments of the world had finally arrived at the most sophisticated facility in the world, and it was impervious to anything and everything other than a nuclear attack. There were those that thought it would even survive that.

Three

For every scientist that had been assigned to the project, whether by free choice or coercion, there was a National Security Agency agent as well. Assigned to Dr. William Zelligman was Ian McCrory. All the NSA people that had been assigned also had degrees in the sciences, so they too had some idea of what was truly being done at the facility and could perhaps forestall any attempt at circumventing progress or delaying completion of the project as scheduled.

Ian McCrory was a much shorter man than Bill Zelligman. His stocky frame made him look more like a truck driver, or laborer, than anything else. At five feet six, he weighed an even one hundred and seventy pounds, but he was not fat. He had big hands for a man his size, and they were exceptionally strong hands as well. Ian’s hair was sandy brown blond, and his eyes were ice blue. He wore a neatly trimmed beard that had been liberally peppered with white and gave him an air of distinction. He had studied at the University of Michigan and also at the University of California at Los Angeles.

A facet that Bill Zelligman had never seemed to get over was the fact that Ian had shared many of the classes they had taken when they had both been in school. They had a common ground of being classmates to further their bond of friendship. They were not merely government agent and scientist. They were alumni, and that was a special bond, no doubt about it. Another special kinship of sorts rose out of the fact that both Bill Zelligman and Ian McCrory were both avid fly-fishermen. Both men enjoyed tying their own flies, and they would often spend countless hours trying to outdo each other with their own ingenious designs for flies and fish stories.

Neither of the two men was married. Bill had experienced a total collapse of his last relationship nearly two years before he had begun this present project. Ian had been married a number of times, but he could not seem to stay married for very long. He would blame his job for the lack of any lasting relationship, but in his heart, he knew that it was him and not the job.

Part of the equipment that Bill Zelligman had ordered had been a Zeos 586DX-2\60 minicomputer with two 330 meg hard drives, two floppy drives, and a Super VGA monitor, with a Super TVGA card installed. The Cyrix math coprocessor that had come with the machine, Bill had taken out and modified to do what he wanted the unit to do. He had the finest computer that money could buy, but he had ordered it in a bare-bones configuration. That is, all he had wanted installed on the machine was the latest disk operating system and the latest CAD programs. The CAD, computer-aided design programs, would allow him to do all the drawing he deemed necessary on a monitor rather than sitting at a drafting table, which he abhorred. He had also requested that there not be any word processing programs installed because he was not going to sit at a computer and write reports. If anyone were going to write reports, the government would just have to hire a report writer.

There was a second computer set up in the lab where Bill Zelligman was doing his work. Ian McCrory was sitting in front of it, playing a game called mah-jongg. The game consisted of 144 tiles in sets of four. Each time a board would come up on the screen, the tiles would be in a different configuration. The object of the game was to eliminate all the tiles. Ian sat fuming under his breath that the game could not be won by anyone with the slightest intellect because the game was rigged to make people look like idiots. Bill had stopped working and sat looking into space when his attention turned to Ian. Getting out of his chair, he crossed over to where Ian sat facing his opponent—the computer monitor. Bill was smiling a broad sheepish grin.

What’s the matter, Ian, letting a little computer program get the best of you? Ian’s eyes were as bloodshot and sore as Bill’s. Sitting back and trying to relax from his latest defeat by the program, Ian turned his attention to Bill, who was now standing next to him.

I don’t care what they say. Anyone who has the slightest bit of intellect cannot win at this game, or if they do, it won’t be very damned often.

Bill had known of Ian’s penchant for mind-teasing games and had modified many of the games that Ian liked to play to make them more challenging for Ian, while at the same time exercising his uncanny ability to see beyond what was in front of him. The two men had developed a great esteem for each other over the long time they had spent together. Each one admiring the innate qualities of the other for what they had chosen as a life’s work. Bill was quite satisfied with the modifications he had made to the game. Ian was also satisfied with the modifications and, by haranguing the game, was complimenting Bill’s genius. The two men were silent for a few moments. As if reading each other’s thoughts, they had decided in unison that it was time for them to leave the lab and go to the bench that they had set up in another building for tying their flies.

The bench was eight feet in length by three feet wide. Swivel-based lamps with high-intensity bulbs had been placed on each end of the bench so both men could work at the same time. Shelves with drawers full of supplies ran the full length of the bench and rose up almost two feet above