Norton, Andre - Anthology (11 page)

 
          
 
The cat brushed Mary's shin, demanding
attention. She gave Dickens a distracted pat and took a drink of her Scotch.
"Now, here's where it gets amusing. When the photonic mains were latticed,
a mouse interpreter was in those initial formatting commands. Which was fine.
But then some irresponsible little hacker forced a linkage with the mammalian
databases on lab rats and mice. Then stupid techs tried to fix it. And that
really did it." She got angry again, remembering disasters.

 
          
 
Beverly
murmured in dry agreement. Sorting out
other people's messes was three-quarters of her job.

 
          
 
Mary sat back and finished her Scotch. She
sighed. Then she reached down and gave Dickens' back a good scrubbing. Dickens
arched his tail happily and made a furry comma around her leg.

 
          
 
Beverly
smiled inscrutably into her Scotch glass.

 
          
 
Mary went on, "Programmers couldn't
remove the problem without relatticing the operating system. It's not urgent
for most uses. You wouldn't run into it because most of the time it's hidden,
but whenever the architecture is asked to create a complicated experimental
construct, something sophisticated enough to require a security matrix—say,
traffic control, computerized seawalls, high-atmosphere solar power or,"
she scowled, ''high-level surgeries—it bloody well creates a Mouse and drops it
in. Some programming glitch makes a fuzzy sort of a field or matrix or
something. Totally random input. I've been fighting it for a year now, ever
since we got that new VR suite. You remember I was so excited because I could
try out lots of new ideas? Yeah, well, the place is elaborate enough to get
into system trouble on the mains and generate Mice. They creep into the imagery
and make the VR collapse. You lose control. Sometimes patients."

 
          
 
Beverly
said, "H Mice got in back then, can't
somebody nowadays take them out? Invent some type of, oh, what's it called,
tapeworm? Antivirus? Is that the term? Isn't there any way they can fix it
along each of the mains?"

 
          
 
Mary shook her head. "There's no center.
A main's pathway changes with relative usage, and the operating system is
distributed into something like a billion nodes, each one capable of reviving
the system in an emergency. Nobody knows if we can shut it all down to relattice.
The security is absolute. Each command node is blinded and quantum encrypted;
any attempt to alter the basic instruction set is automatically rejected."

 
          
 
"So you're stuck with Mice."

 
          
 
"Yeah," Mary said, "Mice and
dead patients."

 
          
 
Beverly
got up and shuffled through her laser cubes
until she found something she thought would be soothing, understated, cheerful.
She tossed it into the field for play. "Well," she said, looking at Mary's
glass, "someone needs a refill."

 
          
 
When she returned with their drinks she
decided to try more bluntly to cheer her sister up. She threw her shoulders
back and her voice took on orotund tones. "Sit back and I'll tell you the
wondrous tale of 'Dickens, the Mouse Slayer, Scourge of All that Scuttle and
Scamper,' " and she proceeded to tell the kind of stories that, were the
subject children, might be inflated by proud parents for an indulgent audience.
On cue, Dickens jumped up on
Beverly
's lap to receive praise in person.

 
          
 
"Ah, there you are, Mighty Hunter."
Beverly
stroked the cat, who curled up and purred.
The innocent little tabby looked nothing like the Four-Footed Terror Tiger of
Beverly's story. "Yes, the Universe of Rodents Trembles in Fear whenever
the Great Mouser ..." She stopped. "Oh. Oh, my. Mary, I think I just
had an idea."

 
          
 
Mary had to laugh at the look on her sister's
face. "What are you talking about?"

 
          
 
"Dickens. Dickens is the answer!"

 
          
 
"The answer to what? Where hairballs come
from?"

 
          
 
"No, no, no, you don't understand.
Dickens. The Mouse Slayer."

 
          
 
"Yeah, you just told me all kinds of
stories—"

 
          
 
"A cat. Use a cat! A lovable, cuddly,
affectionate, bloodthirsty, devious little carnivore of a cat!"

 
          
 
"For what, surprises in slippers?"

 
          
 
"Don't you see, Mary? Put a cat in the
Nets!"

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
Beverly
waved away the lack of comprehension.
"It's downright elegant." She ruffled Dickens' fur. Oblivious to the
conversation, he had rolled around, chin up, and gone to sleep. "Think
about it, Mary. Who's better equipped? Cats have been catching mice since Adam
and Eve got their eviction notice!"

 
          
 
"But—"

 
          
 
Beverly
patted Dickens' loose forepaws. "Do
you think the Egyptians domesticated cats because they were fond of
fur-balls?" Her voice became playful. "They liked cat hair on their
furniture? They didn't have enough sand for litter boxes? You have grain, you
get mice, you find a cat! You told me once that VR links with animals are
feasible—you said they tested on primates. They use it with disabled children
in rehabilitation. What's so different? What have your techs tried so far?
Programming mousetraps? Maybe a VR cheese world to distract them?"

 
          
 
Mary's sour look showed this was closer to the
truth than she was supposed to admit.

 
          
 
Beverly
laughed out loud. "Look at Dickens.
Look at his whiskers twitch. His claws grab. He chases mice in his sleep, for
God's sake. Dickens is the answer! Dickens is the answer to all your
problems!"

 
          
 
"Uh, Bev, not that I'm trying to be
negative or anything, but how much did you have to drink before I got
here?"

 
          
 
Beverly
laughed, and eased the cat off her lap.
Dickens was so visibly annoyed at being dislodged that Mary laughed, too.
"Come on,"
Beverly
said. "Let's go pound the pepper steaks. You've got to see the
acrobatics Dickens gets up to with the box. We can watch him try to find his
way into a locked room mystery. While we annoy him, I'll annoy you with my
cunning plan."

 
          
 
Under the weight of a mild hangover, Mary
thought about their conversation in her office the next day. It should be
possible to put a VR link on a cat, but what could a real cat do to a VR Mouse?
Would VR Mice know that they were supposed to be afraid of cats? Would placing
cats in the Net just compound the situation? She remembered dinners with her
sister when
Beverly
's cats seemed to materialize in the middle
of the table. She remembered the constant thwacking last night as Dickens
pummeled the plastic, probing for a way into
Beverly
's 'cow aquarium.' What would a virtual cat
do when Mary was cutting human meat? Now there's a gruesome thought . . . But
still . . . in a controlled environment . . .

 
          
 
Mary remembered part of a book she'd read in
college. Don Marquis seemed unusually appropriate for something that bobbed up
in her unruly subconscious. Aloud, she drawled, "As Mehitabel the cat told
archy the roach, '/but wottheheWarchy wotthehell/it's cheerio/ my deerio that/pulls
a lady through/.' Might as well. Mehitabel was right, 'life is just one damn
kitten after another' anyway." She tapped the phone. "Yes, this is
Dr. Henderly. You remember? Upstairs? I need to speak with a Mousetrap tech. Yes,
downstairs." Now that's another problem, she thought as she waited,
they've got to have all the data in the mains, but can data like that simulate
an artificial intelligence subroutine if needed? And if they can, will the AI
be able to —

 
          
 
Her thoughts were interrupted by a bored and
nasal voice, "Yes, Doctor," delivered in tones that would curdle
gases into solids. Mary began the conversation politely. When that didn't work,
she tried a different approach.

 
          
 
"Yes," Mary snapped, "and then
I said 'cat.' I don't have time for this, I ask questions, you give answers,
it's a service type of thing. Yeah, I know, 'the mains contain the wealth and
breadth of all human knowledge,' but that takes too long. Do your research
files have neurological databases involving cat predatory behavior patterns? I
need data on interactions with other species, spatial perception, route-finding
behavior, and limits on independent action. I also need to know if your cage
studies showed that Mice in the system mimicked the behavior of real mice. Yes,
I know your boss is on vacation. No, you are not going to go query the project
manager—no, you're not going to go bury it in channels—I know you're not that
busy, and I know where your access codes are kept, dear. You just send it all
to my account, stat." She broke the connection. I hate it when a misplaced
sphincter cuts off blood to the brain. She took a deep breath. Now I can face
Lenny.

 
          
 
The basement lab was not what anyone ever
expected. It wasn't a gleaming white factory clean room filled with the soft
susurrus of scrubbed air. It wasn't a dim, clammy, raw cement lab crowded by
jury-rigged equipment tied together with duct tape. That was because Lenny
Houge was fixer, scrounger, lord and master down here. The systems were so
out-of-date that equipment had to be kept at a constant temperature and
humidity—so it was the only place in the entire building that stayed
comfortable year-round. They needed to be protected from noise and vibration—so
Lenny had chosen plush carpeting, thick wallcoverings, and heavy, solid antique
furniture. And he was simply helping recoup overhead by renting storage space
for all those expensive paintings hung up in his steady-state stronghold. It
wasn't his fault it made the place look like an opulent nineteenth century plantation
house. Unfortunately, his manners seemed to belong to that era, too.

 
          
 
"Lenny." It was important to speak
in very precise, plain terms with Lenny to avoid any impression of
friendliness, which, with him, was like mentioning you'd heard of something
kinky and couldn't wait to try it. Mary enunciated the words very tightly.
"I need an input-only VR program with security encoding and a recursive
protection algorithm. No, not the place you stuck me in yesterday. If you
remember, despite how you swore you had such a great cage—and you know what I
think of the whole cage idea— that did not work" At least that unpleasant
reminder of failure might keep his paws off her. "Now. I need input-only,
security, recursive."

 
          
 
"Oh sure, that's easy. Mare." Lenny
had familiar names for everyone. If there ever was a second coming of Christ,
Mary thought, Lenny would say "Hey Jeez, what took ya so long? How's the
Big Guy? End of the World comin' along okay? Good, good." He leered
cordially at her. "What do you need it for? If it's about that trouble
yesterday, a secure lab still wouldn't help. An input-only lab on your access
levels would still be hanging a welcome mat out for our little furry
friends."

 
          
 
Rather than inviting him to restate the
obvious yet again, Mary told him the truth: She wanted an appearance by Mice.