Norton, Andre - Anthology (13 page)

 
          
 
The virtual Dickens' tail curled at the tip,
his ears perked and triangulated, and his hindquarters poised for a pounce. The
fuzziness moved rapidly about the confinement of the parlor, growing
desperately active. It began to scrabble against the ceramic jug that Mary had
readjusted. Mary knew it was searching for escape back into the mains. It kept
sniffing at the traces of outside command code left there. Dickens crept
forward.

 
          
 
**What do you know,** rose from deeper levels
of Mary's thoughts, **maybe androids do dream of electric sheep. Virtual
kitties chase Electric Mice.**

 
          
 
**What?** thoughf
Beverly
.

 
          
 
Before Mary could explain the reference, a
cat-shape blurred the VR image. Dickens sprang. Not a pounce, not a leap,
Dickens just appeared at the site of the Mouse. Before the startled sisters
could form a response, the Mouse was gone. Only an irate cat remained, pawing
and mewing at the spot.

 
          
 
Another Mouse popped in across the drawing
room, almost under
Beverly
's VR feet. She shrieked. Dickens struck. The Mouse was gone.

 
          
 
Mary had begun it all by asking for a secure
lab; between the three of them, they had built the room into a very secure
trap. New Mice emerged at different virtual locations inside
Beverly
's drawing room. Through his strenuous
gymnastics, Dickens formed up the hallway, then the next room that he knew had
to be there. The house expanded outward with each of his frustrated, mewing
explorations after disappearing Mice. Whenever a Mouse formed, the image of
Dickens exploded onto it. At no time was any item in
Beverly
's virtual parlor disturbed in the least.
There were just fleeting glimpses of fuzz and fur.

 
          
 
**Incredible!** thought Mary.

 
          
 
**Wonderful**pride**cat** was the affectionate
thought from
Beverly
.

 
          
 
From Dickens came a series of impressions:
sight, depth, smell, spatial dynamics and relationships, arousal, muscular
strains and pressures, and no small amount of amusement. The roar became
leonine. **PLAY!**

 
          
 
With all her skill Mary slipped out of the
direct VR link. Smoothly, she isolated
Beverly
in a seductive little library subroutine
pod, distracting her with images of shelves full of books she'd been too busy
to read. The program could easily call up pages of text for
Beverly
to read to her heart's desire. Mary moved
on swiftly. Timing was critical. She had the VROOM's own record, of course, but
bitter experience with the contaminations of Mice taught her to make sure she
had some kind of outside backup.

 
          
 
She'd made sure. She knew Lenny. She'd known
there was no way, in spite of his promises of a secure lab, that he'd fail to
peek in on a new Mousetrap. Even after they'd chased him off, she knew he'd
still be there, watching. And his unofficial recordings were always much better
as detailed backup than dry tech summaries. He's a fool, but a predictable fool
Now if he'll just do what he's supposed to . . . "Lenny!" she yelled
into the VROOM, "Lock! Save program!"

 
          
 
Mary's next surgery went fine, as did the one
after that, and the one after that. Each time the peripheral fuzziness would
appear, so would an image of Dickens, and the virtual reality would resolve
back into its initial parameters. Mary would spare a virtual stroke and praise
for the virtual cat. It always purred in response to Mary's attentions.

 
          
 
Beverly
's share of the program rights made her
financially secure enough to move. This annoyed Dickens, but after only a year
the cat seemed to have gotten over most of his resentment, and allowed it to be
known that he approved of the nice new place.
Beverly
talked with the same indiscriminate
affection to the real cat and to the VR Dickens that popped up, prowling, in
her office work.

 
          
 
Lenny Houge got a share of the program rights
and became a reasonably wealthy man. He himself rarely used the program. For some
reason it appeared to dislike him. Perhaps because of his distrust, he
continued to monitor the AI subroutine from the sidelines as the VR Dickens
expanded into the mains. It wasn't easy. The program seemed to take a positive
delight in tormenting him. Nobody else seemed to have any problems, and nobody
else knew the full extent of the effort Lenny devoted to the challenge. They
were only aware of the volumes of memos he was sending out.

 
          
 
It was the second anniversary of the capture
of the Virtual Dickens program, and Mary and Beverly were celebrating their
annual dividend checks in Mary's office. Of course the original Dickens was
there to take his share, translated into crab puffs and proper homage from the
humans: As the sisters clinked their glasses, the phone flashed. Taut-faced,
Lenny appeared on her monitor. "Dr. Henderly, could you come down here,
please?" Her first thought was Doctor? Doctor Henderly? What is this
'Doctor' business? Who are you, and what have you done with Lenny Houge?, but
his expression did not invite levity. She was half out of her chair before
replying, "On my way." To
Beverly
, she simply said that she'd be back soon.

 
          
 
The door barely cleared her in time as she
charged into Lenny's office. "All right, what's wrong? You look terrible.
You look like you've seen a ghost."

 
          
 
Lenny palmed his optipad and waved Mary to a
chair. She pulled it up next to his desk. "Ghost, huh? Very funny, Mare.
I've been monitoring our furry artificial intelligence subroutine."

 
          
 
Mary rolled her eyes. "Yes, Lenny. I
know. I've seen the memos." Lenny's memos were becoming legend.

 
          
 
Lenny went on as if he hadn't heard.
"Here, let me make this simple for you. This is a pie graph of the mains
as of two years ago." Mary looked at an orange circle on his monitor and
nodded. Lenny continued, "This is the same graph as of one day after you
introduced Dickens to the mains. See the narrow purple wedge? That's the
subroutine we sectioned off to give the program AI status." Mary nodded again,
and Lenny plodded on. "Here's six months farther along." By now the
narrow purple slice was big enough for a dab of whipped cream.

 
          
 
It reminded Mary she was still hungry. In a
few minutes
Beverly
was going to cut the cake and she'd miss
the surprise
Beverly
had promised her.

 
          
 
Lenny was busy on the pad again.
"Progressive growth was expected as more and more users got access. Plus,
even nonsecurity level operators claimed they got better results with the
damned thing's help, and licensed in. That would be about ... here." Mary
exhaled as the screen image formed. Nearly a quarter of the pie was purple.
"Again," he continued, "this traffic was within projected
parameters, but I sent several memos to the Director requesting a temporary
restriction of new licensees until my staff could do further simulations."

 
          
 
Mary was all too aware of Lenny's memos.
"So why am I here?"

 
          
 
One more stab at his board, and the screen
coalesced into a new image. "I did another map of the mains last night,
Mary—tell me what you see."

 
          
 
A circle of pure orange formed on the screen.
No sliver of purple. The Virtual Dickens traffic had vanished.

 
          
 
"That can't be," she said. "I
used the program yesterday. I know Bev uses it daily. If it went down, our
clients would have been asking for our heads—it's got to be there."

 
          
 
"Oh, it's there," he said bitterly,
calling up a new image. "It's just not part of the mains." A
wider-angle view appeared, showing two circles. One orange, and one, smaller,
pure purple. "Here's your 'ghost.' "

 
          
 
"What is that? A new main?"

 
          
 
"Sure looks like it, doesn't it, Mare?
Somehow the Dickens AI managed to relattice part of the mains for itself
without crashing the system. It's entirely independent now. I can't touch
it." Always one to give credit to another who has made a mistake, Lenny
said, "You started this thing—any more bright ideas?"

 
          
 
Mary made an irritated hand gesture, urging
calm. "Let me think. The program is running perfectly, right? And the main
Nets have been operating normally, right?" Lenny nodded. "I assume
you put techs onto studying that relatticing—if they could shut down nodes and
partially relattice, just like that, with modern code, maybe they could clean
up all the Nets. I haven't forgotten about Mice, even if everyone else has. So
that'd be a real nice second bonus from our program to the people clever enough
to work out how Dickens did it."

 
          
 
Lenny looked sour. He and his techs obviously
hadn't been getting anywhere.

 
          
 
Mary took the optipad from his desk and called
her office. "Bev, do you remember how to get to Lenny's office? Good.
Please apologize to our guest and come on down." She broke the connection.
Mary wasn't sure where this meeting -lead, but now she felt it might be better
if Lenny didn't know that Dickens was in the building.

 
          
 
"Curious."
Beverly
arched one eyebrow, and addressed the cat.
"You're on your own for a bit, child. Don't cut the cake until I get back,
and no long-distance calls."

 
          
 
Dickens rolled on his side in Mary's
overstuffed chair and heaved an innocent, overstuffed sigh.

 
          
 
Beverly
got a replay of the graphs. Her response
was decidedly different. "Not bad, but you're off on the date of
separation. I noticed it a couple of months ago."

 
          
 
Lenny did a split-take onto his pad. "You
knew!”

 
          
 
Beverly
spoke slowly, as if to a child throwing a
tantrum. "Yes, Lenny, I knew."

 
          
 
"Yes? You said yes? Mary, your sister
said yes." Mary sighed. Lately a lot of his memos had deteriorated into
this sort of gibberish. Mary thought it was actually an improvement, since he'd
lost interest in harassing the staff—paranoia beat bullying. Lenny kept
babbling. "Yes. She said yes. Would you like some more tea,
Beverly
? Why yes, she'd say. Do you take sugar? Why
yes, she'd say ..."

 
          
 
Mary turned to her sister. "Well, we've
lost Lenny for the duration." She explained to
Beverly
what a partial relatticing program could
mean, both for cleaning up and modernizing the mains, and in terms of licensing
fees for a whole new cascade of programs. She glanced aside. Lenny's babbling
was beginning to run down. "But I get the feeling some of this isn't
exactly news to you, is it, Bev?"

 
          
 
"It's clear neither of you have roomed
with a cat lately. The first thing they do in any new place is establish their
turf. Usually as big an area as they can defend. The Virtual Dickens just set
up his little separate territory and put a 'don't tread on me' sign on it. I
had a horrible time getting in myself."