Page 39 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest
“I don’t understand.”
“Medieval mapmakers could only draw what was known to them. What lay beyond was a mystery. So on the edges of those great navigational charts they scratched a dire warning to those who would dare sail into the great unknown.Cave! Hic dragones!is Latin for ‘Beware! Here be dragons!’ ”
“I will not fail you,” Bose said.
Fierro’s eyes sparkled. “Of that, I am sure.” He ended the call.
Bose basked in Fierro’s vote of confidence as she stood to leave. But a sudden tingling on the back of her neck stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to the monitor.
Was that a compliment?
Or a threat?
?
Dr.Bose returned to the picture window overlooking the lab floor, monitoring the technicians hard at work. But like a proud mother, her attention returned to the giant containment tank in the center of the unit, the home of the Neural Reef—the pulsing heart of Project Q.
The organoid Neural Reef earned its name because of its appearance. Each “coral” node of the Reef was a cluster of neural organoids, and together they formed a vast, living synaptic “reef” with a unique—and fragile—metabolic cycle. Its flickering bioluminescent nodes indicated the AGI’s evolving thought processes. Some clusters pulsated erratically, while others remained in a dormant, low-energy state. The color and intensity of those pulses shifted based on computational load. The closer the Neural Reef came to achieving AGI, the brighter the entire complex became. Once the Reef achieved sentience, it would be lit up like a Christmas tree.
The organoid Reef was housed within a reinforced, cylindrical tank roughly nine feet tall and six feet in diameter. Inside the tank, the Reef was fully immersed in a genetically modified “neuroplasm”—a semitransparent gel designed to sustain and optimize neural organoid function. Like an amniotic sac for a developing fetus, the specialized bio-suspension medium provided structural support, maintained electrochemical balance, and facilitated real-time data transmission between organic and synthetic interfaces.
Oxygen, glucose, amino acids, and neurotransmitter precursors diffused directly from the gel into the organoid structures, eliminating the need for traditional blood vessels. The womb-like gel also contained bio-nano conductors and synthetic neurotransmitter compounds that enhanced signal transmission between organic and digital components.
The tank itself was made from a high-density biopolymer that resisted pressure fluctuations, radiation, and physical impacts, ensuring the delicate system remained stable even in a turbulent environment like a ship at sea.
The Neural Reef was designed to push AGI development beyondthe limitations of traditional silicon-based architecture, which relied on transistor-based logic gates and rigid binary logic. Instead, organoid computing relied on living neurons that mimicked the distributed architecture of a biological brain. Unlike silicon chips, the neural structures within the Neural Reef could adapt, learn, and reorganize themselves in real time. This led to a more fluid and intuitive decision-making process, enabling the system to achieve contextual reasoning and pattern recognition far beyond the capacity of conventional machine-learning models.
The Neural Reef interfaced with the ship’s computational infrastructure through a bio-digital neural link, a hybrid of organic tissue and superconducting fiber-optic cables. This link allowed the AGI to interpret raw data streams as sensory inputs. However, it was sensitive to electromagnetic interference and, worse, power fluctuations.
The greatest challenge the Neural Reef faced was its need for an absolutely stable power supply. Even the smallest micro changes in voltage could disrupt and even destroy the highly sensitive system. Powering up the ship’s engines risked diverting crucial energy from the Reef, potentially destabilizing the AGI or causing catastrophic neural collapse.
Bose had likened the Reef’s rapidly evolving cognition and physical development within the gel-filled containment tank to a human embryo. Though never having been a biological mother, Bose was well aware her organoid creation had triggered her latent maternal instincts. Her pride and future reputation rode on the success of Project Q.
But something far deeper and more primal stirred within her soul. She would defend her creation against any threats—including Fierro—even at the cost of her own life.
22
Colombia
A firestorm raged in Amador Fierro’s otherwise highly disciplined mind. If Bose was correct—and he had no doubt she was—he was only ten days away from realizing a plan he had initiated ten years earlier. A decade of preparation, investment, and sacrifice was about to culminate in the Project Q launch.
Few understood the implications. Fierro’s possession of AGI would change everything—a massive tectonic shift, rocking the very foundations of the world order.
With AGI, he would first seize control of America’s power grid and wage a campaign of confusion and terror, initiating total blackouts, freeze banking systems, crash financial markets, and paralyze commerce. The resulting economic collapse would drive the arrogantyanquisto their knees.
Even if he never used it, merely possessing the grid would gain him a blackmailer’s advantage. Never again would the Americans demand anything of La Liga or her national allies lest he strangle them to death. Thenorteamericanoswould be reduced to cowering dogs shivering in the corner of history, each panting breath a desperate prayer begging Fierro to withhold his wrath.
But that was only if he took things to the ultimate limit. Fierro fantasized about his soon-to-be AGI hacking border patrol drones, satellites, and surveillance cameras to guidela migrainto fatalambushes by his gunmen. And he’d treat theyanquispecial ops teams the same way—drawing them into inescapable kill boxes and targeted assassinations.
Equally important, Project Q could help him decapitate the American judicial system by infiltrating top secret personnel files and doxing the names and locations of unreasonable judges, relentless prosecutors, and incorruptible prison guards—not to mention their families. He would terrorize the law enforcement community as well with targeted assassinations of undercover agents, police detectives, confidential informants, and meddlesome journalists. And he’d use AGI to throw open the cell doors of every prison and mental ward around the world to flood offending countries with armies of raging killers and psychopaths.
Once the Americans were brought to heel, the rest of the world would fall in line as well—or feel his wrath. His AGI would defang and leash all national police and military forces around the globe. La Liga would have free rein.
That prospect alone was worth the billions of dollars invested in the project. But a viable, organoid-based AGI would more than recoup its development costs. La Liga’s profits would skyrocket as it designed more powerful and addictive hallucinogenic drugs, streamlined transportation and logistics networks, executed extortion and blackmailing schemes, manipulated stock and currency markets, and stole digital bank accounts.
Nor would Fierro fear a popular uprising. La Liga’s AGI would mold minds, condition public opinion, and even remake human culture into its own image. Project Q would seize control of the infosphere through relentless campaigns of hacktivism, misinformation, and faultless deep fake videos. People would come to see his organization as the heroic vanguard of a new world order, crushing the greedy, power-hungry ambitions of the old-guard politicians around the world intent on exploiting the impoverished masses.
In short, Project Q would turn the world’s most dangerous collection of drug cartels into an unstoppable criminal superpower.
