The Doomsday Equation Read Online Free PDF Page A

simple questions: Has someone messed with the inputs? Has someone altered the List? Easy way to find out. Jeremy can just ask. He can run a check to make sure that the variables the computer is using as the basis for its apocalyptic prediction do, in fact, match up with the actual variables in the world.
    “Just out front?”
    They’re three blocks from the ballpark, passing the petering nightlife in this gentrified concentric circle around AT&T Park, home to the San Francisco Giants. The high-rise condos emerge onto the gray skyline. These are home to the future leaders of Silicon Valley and the engineers who will make them rich.
    Jeremy picked the ballpark as his destination because it’sroughly equidistant from his apartment and his office and he wasn’t sure where he’d want to wind up.
    “Thirtieth and Balboa.”
    “I thought you wanted the ballpark.”
    “And I’ve changed my mind.”
    “So now you want to go to the Richmond.”
    “That’s what I said.”
    Cabbie shrugs. It’s another easy fare. He’s no stranger to people wasting time in his cab doing computing. In fact, he’s managed to squeeze out a few extra bucks now and then while circling the block while the fare, oblivious, plays a video game on the phone.
    He turns a sharp right, changing direction. He clicks on the windshield wiper for a single swipe at the foggy condensation.
    Jeremy feels acutely for the first time the light numbing from the tequila. He doesn’t like the feeling, not tonight. He has an on-again, off-again relationship with booze. He’s in an off-again stage, one of those times it serves only social functions. Other times, he craves the taste and the feeling, but not to the point he’s ever in danger of overuse.
    He looks at a young couple on the street, together but the man walking a quarter step ahead of the woman. Human nature, Jeremy thinks, the need of one creature to dominate another, even by a quarter step.
    He closes his eyes. Puts his hand on the iPad. He pictures a conference table, surrounded by brass. At the head of the table, a real big shot, a lieutenant colonel, taking all the air out of the room. Flanking him, majors in uniform with the oak leaves and medals, one in khakis, white shirt, red tie. Projected onto a screen, there’s a videoconference feed. It’s an image from Berkeley of Dr. Harry Ives, the Cal scholar whointroduced Jeremy to these monkeys. The aging man looks impassive, ensconced in a white beard, old eyes hard to read. It’s at least eighteen months earlier, in a lifeless room at the Pentagon, Jeremy’s technology on trial.
    “Bullshit,” Jeremy says.
    A major purses his lips, not appreciating the language.
    “Mr. Stillwater, they’ve taken a new village in the last twenty-four hours, their largest yet.”
    “And I’m bin Laden’s pet monkey.”
    Jeremy cannot believe that the rebels continue to push through the mountains. His computer, armed with a ton of rich and updated data, was all but 100 percent conclusive: this mini-insurgency should’ve died weeks ago.
    “Jeremy.” It’s Andrea.
    He looks at her, raven-black hair in a ponytail, a silk shirt covering the Day of the Dead tattoo on her left forearm, her whole package buttoned-down and ironed. Then turns to the head of the table, to the Army intelligence guy who must be important because he has the confidence not to have a crew cut, never carries any papers or BlackBerry or anything, and because he rarely speaks.
    “You messed with my data.”
    “I assure you . . .” Andrea starts.
    He cuts her off with a wave. He’s not even sure how they would’ve messed with his computer. Maybe on his last visit to Washington; he got drunk with Andrea at a karaoke bar and left his computer in his room. No way; he dismisses the thought. He was the one who ran the tests, scoured the data, knows he’s right. He’s sure they’re lying.
    “Where’s my iPad?”
    “You surrendered your device for security reasons at thefront, just like