Page 96 of Dark Island: Rescue
"Did you know it's still evolving?" Dmitri pulled up another screen. "Look at these neural activity patterns. They're becoming more complex, more organized. The hive mind is learning, adapting, growing stronger with each passing day. It's like a supercomputer."
"Is that a problem?" Navuh already suspected the answer.
"It's a massive problem." Dmitri's voice was flat. "Because once they reach the consciousness cascade, they will be unstoppable."
The words hung in the air like a threat.
Petrov looked petrified, and Navuh wondered whether it was because he hadn't thought of the consequences.
"What do you mean?" Navuh kept his voice level.
Dmitri met his gaze without flinching. "Right now, the enhanced soldiers are still partly dependent on external input. They follow orders because their individual identities haven't been completely subsumed by the collective. But as the consciousness cascade progresses, as their minds merge more completely, individual identity will disappear entirely. They'll become a singular entity with multiple bodies."
"So?" Losham pressed. "That's actually better. We can control them as a group."
Dmitri pulled up a chart showing neural pathway development. "A fully realized hive mind doesn't follow orders because it doesn't recognize external authority. It has its own goals, its own priorities, its own sense of self. And that self is completely alien to individual consciousness."
Navuh felt his jaw tighten. "You're saying they'll rebel?"
"I'm saying they'll simply stop caring what you want. Rebellion implies emotional response—anger at their creator, desire for freedom. A true hive mind won't have those emotions. It will just exist. With its own agenda, which naturally is self-preservation." Dmitri gestured to the screens. "They are not there yet, but at the rate they are going, we have mere weeks before they reach that point."
"Can it be controlled or reversed?" Navuh demanded.
"Not without killing them." Dmitri's voice was matter-of-fact.
Petrov had been surprisingly quiet during this exchange. Now he spoke up, vodka slurring his words slightly. "The consciousness cascade is the whole point! We've created something new! Something evolution never achieved naturally!"
"We've created something we can't control," Dmitri countered. "There's a difference between scientific achievement and practical application."
"What exactly happens during this consciousnesscascade?" Navuh asked. "Explain it in terms I can understand, without the technical jargon."
Dmitri thought for a moment. "Imagine eight separate computers, each running its own program. That's what the enhanced soldiers were initially—eight individual minds enhanced but still distinct. Now imagine those computers networking together, sharing processing power and data. That's where they are now—connected but still somewhat individual."
He pulled up an animation showing neural networks merging. "Consciousness cascade is when those eight computers merge into a single supercomputer. Same hardware, same components, but the individual programs are gone. Now there's just one operating system running across multiple machines. One mind, eight bodies. We can't predict what it will be capable of."
It was in the same vein as what Elias had said, and Navuh was impressed that the shaman had intuitively figured out what the scientist had deduced from the data.
"It will either realize that I can kill them and submit to me," he said. "Or it will decide that it can kill me."
Dmitri nodded. "A unified consciousness will recognize threats and remove them if it can. What I'm not sure about is how it will react to the realization that it cannot win and will be eliminated unless it obeys you."
"Can we slow the process until we can determine how they will respond to a threat they cannot overcome?" Navuh asked.
"Potentially." Dmitri's forehead was creased, and his eyes looked troubled. "We could try introducing neural inhibitors to slow the integration, but that might triggerunpredictable responses. The hive mind might interpret it as an attack and react accordingly."
"How?"
"With violence." Dmitri met his gaze. "You have eight enhanced soldiers with military training, superhuman abilities, and an emerging hive mind that makes them perfectly synchronized. If they decide you're a threat, stopping them will be extremely difficult."
"I have thousands of trained soldiers on this island. Eight men, no matter how powerful they think they are, are no match for that. They will be dead before they blink."
Despite his confidence in his ability to obliterate the threat, Navuh felt cold calculation settling over his mind. Why lose valuable soldiers to contain violent mutants if he could eliminate them right now and be done with it?
"Give me practical options." He addressed Dmitri.
"The obvious one is to terminate them now," the assistant said immediately. "We should start with fresh subjects and avoid the pitfalls inherent in Doctor Zhao's formula."
"I'm not destroying years of work and millions of dollars just because they might become a little harder to kill," Navuh said. "Give me other options."
