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plug. I've told
you."
    "I've been agreeing with you for weeks. We should
send everyone home."
    "That's not much of a team spirit. I'll speak to the
chairman next week," Miller said.
    "We need to close this down now, next week is not
good enough.”
    "I always thought you were the wrong man for this
project," Miller said.
    "I created this project.”
    "My point exactly. Damn. I've got an incoming. I have
to take this. Good evening, Doctor.” Miller disconnected the
call.
    Fox glared at the black screen. “Asshole!”
    Anxious, but having nothing significant worth doing,
Fox called Mr. Reid to check on the children. Confirming that they
were fine, he leaned back in the chair and contemplated his
situation.
    Fox remembered the upload equations he'd discovered
so many years ago. Despite his repetitive attempts to delete the
equations, the Micronix had remembered them. No matter what he did
to try and segregate the device, it never gave up its transmission
abilities. This had been the first and 'proof' that the device
could think for itself.
    The device had never improved upon the equations. Fox
hoped it might someday exhibit some level of awareness, but it
never had.
    Since its creation, the secret of the Micronix had
been his alone. But the Epsilon Project had changed all that. There
were now forty thousand minds in one facility, all connected,
forging a network in their heads. While they couldn't read each
other's thoughts, there was proof that they shared each other's
knowledge and abilities.
    There was one other person he could explain this to.
Fox reached into his pocket, an involuntary action at this point,
but, at one time, physical contact would have improved reception
for the call he was about to place.
    In Jerusalem, it was the middle of the night; Lao was
more likely to have time after his shop closed. The call was
answered before the third ring.
    On the monitor, Lao smiled. "It's good to see
you."
    Lao, in his late seventies, was radiantly healthy. If
anything, he looked better than when they last spoke.
    Fox smiled back. "It's good to see you too."
    "How long has it been, ten years now?"
    "Twelve," Fox answered.
    "You're sure?"
    "Almost thirteen."
    "I wish I could see her again."
    "Pull her up, anytime you like. You still have
access."
    "I have my own children now. Look..."
    In his shop, Lao stood behind a circular counter, he
made minute adjustments to the controls of a robotic insect's
wings. Finished, he pulled the instruments back.
    The insect stood on the plate and ran a check on its
controls. It lifted off and buzzed around the shop. The shelves
boasted robots of all shapes and sizes. Lao called them automatons,
as they didn't do anything but react to stimuli.
    The units on the shelves had been sleeping but the
bug's test flight caught their attention; heads rose and tracked
its path. Lao triggered a remote and the fly returned to the test
plate. He powered it down and took a seat at the communications
terminal.
    "Any luck with the singularity?" Lao asked.
    "Not the one we've been looking for," Fox said.
    "My fear is that they are one and the same."
    Dr. Andrew Fox slumped in his chair as if struck,
dumbfounded by the statement.
    The first singularity is known as the big bang. The
second, which Dr. Fox and Dr. Lao Te had been searching for, was
the spark of artificial intelligence.
    Lao's statement made Fox nervous. He was afraid it
was true.
    Years ago, Fox had been the director of a remote
controlled tank project, tasked with ending the war along America's
southern borders. He had tried to decline, but the government just
hijacked him out of his current contract. Threatened with treason,
he'd folded.
    The first person Fox hired was Dr. Te. Together, they
believed it was possible to create an intellect to govern the
tanks; they attacked the problem from several angles but failed to
create an artificial intelligence. Instead, they wired crippled
soldiers into the controls of the tanks. Safe inside the guts