The room voted on the AI’s motion. John and Shahim waited till the last moment, but the other six all voted for Lana to help the AI analyze the antigen, as the two double agents would have in their place. It would be pointless for them to risk their cover by being the only two Agents on the other side of a losing vote; and so, begrudgingly, but with well-feigned enthusiasm, they acquiesced.

“Arbiter,” said John after voting, still keeping his concern hidden behind his virtual face, “I am worried about how long it will take to develop a counter to this antigen once you have analyzed it. What would the turnaround time be for production of a response to the humans’ immuno device?”

<We estimate that once a chemical analysis has been completed it will take at least a further twenty-four hours to design and synthesize a counter-measure for deployment, though it may be longer based on how complex the device is. We will then need a further seventy-two hours after that in order to produce the necessary quantities and prepare our deployment pods to use the new construct. Therefore we estimate approximately four days from the end of our analysis before we are ready to deploy a virus capable of having the same 100% kill rate that our previous viral attack mechanism had been designed for.>

Four days. John looked at Shahim. As there was really no way for the two conspirators to communicate with each in secret during these meetings, they had agreed on a simple method of signaling using their virtual body’s movements. It was a limited form of communication, little more capable than the hand motions of a batting coach in baseball, but they had only planned to use it to make some basic signals to each other while in Council meetings.

While looking at Shahim, John tilted his avatar’s head slightly to the left, then nodded, blinking his eyes once. Shahim kept John’s stare. This was it, then. Among all the codes they had developed, this was by far the most important one. Shahim acknowledged with the same movement, and they both blinked once more.

They had no more time. Within four days the satellites would have a new bio weapon capable of wiping out humanity. Worse, now that they were alerted to the humans’ ability to defend themselves, the AIs would not wait to use the new virus. The team would not have another chance to build and spread a new supercell in response.

For better or worse, this was it.

Chapter 49: A Dark Night

Silence. The only noise is the gentle mountain breeze wafting through the desert night.

Nothing disturbs the darkness deep in the mountains of northern Afghanistan.