Overclocked (8 page)

She wanted to go back to her world. Con­tinue her re­search. Lec­ture.

Find a man?

She tried to dis­miss the ques­tion but that wasn’t fair. In­tim­acy was as much part of the hu­man con­di­tion as ac­quir­ing know­ledge. And Carl Orin….

Her gaze roamed his face again. She was still so mad at him she thought she could nail him a good one but events in cy­ber­space had moved too fast to al­low her her dose of right­eous an­ger. And, damn him to hell, be­sides be­ing hellishly good in bed, he was also one of the smartest men she’d ever met. She hadn’t come across that com­bin­a­tion too of­ten.

Fi­nally break­ing eye con­tact, she looked down at the disc at her belt, pon­der­ing it for sev­eral long minutes. When she clicked open the lid, she was sur­prised that her hands weren’t shak­ing. The small screen showed the pack­ets of data, in­dic­at­ors of her po­s­i­tion and status, trav­el­ling back to Base­ment Five. Us­ing the small thumb key­board, she entered the com­mand to ter­min­ate the tether.

“You have to enter it in twice, you say?” she asked, not look­ing up.

“Twice.”

Tania con­firmed the shut­down the first time and one of the icons along the up­per rim of the disc’s lid flashed am­ber. She took a deep breath and typed the com­mand in again. When the second con­firm­a­tion flashed on the screen, she hes­it­ated only for a second be­fore com­mit­ting to her de­cision. As the icon blinked red, the sil­ver line van­ished from her belt.

For bet­ter or worse, she had ter­min­ated her tether. She just hoped to hell she had done the right thing.

As Carl watched Tania, a de­li­ri­ous form of joy filled him. He had missed her so much. Missed the feel of her body next to his, warm and soft from sleep. Missed her acerbic wit and the not un­pleas­ant way her per­son­al­ity rubbed up against his. Missed the sharp in­tel­li­gence that lurked in her tawny eyes.

Back when he was young and stu­pid—oh, maybe a day ago real-time, he ad­mit­ted wryly—he thought life was a game and the ob­ject was to amass as much prestige and money as he could. There was noth­ing and no wo­man Carl Orin couldn’t coax around to his point of view. He was the first guy in his high-school class to get laid, one of the first hack­ers to crack into his bank’s sys­tems, and the first com­puter spe­cial­ist to enter the Blue. He was Base­ment Five’s poster-boy and he had lived up to that im­age even in cy­ber­space, view­ing the in­form­a­tion land­scape around him as noth­ing more than one more puzzle for him to con­quer.

It had taken en­forced solitude, and a few vis­its from a friendly yet in­sist­ent gi­ant white rab­bit, to make him see the truth. What he needed was not to be the
richest
man he could be. Or the most
at­tract­ive
. He needed to be the best
man
he could be. Which was why he was still in cy­ber­space, rather than try­ing to find a way back to the lab. The Rhine-Temple bot­net was more than a semi-sen­tient ac­cu­mu­la­tion of in­fec­ted pro­cessing cycles. It was his test. His trial of fire. The ul­ti­mate or­deal, and an op­por­tun­ity to prove to him­self that he had really grown up, that he was worthy of call­ing him­self an adult rather than an over-eager, over­sexed teen­ager.

And, as if he was part of some mythic quest, Tania Flowers had dropped into his home at ex­actly the right point, just be­fore he was about to com­mit sui­cide.

Carl watched Tania enter the shut­down com­mands in her tether and, no mat­ter his noble in­ten­tions, he couldn’t force him­self to stop her. He might be con­demning her to an ac­cel­er­ated life in the Blue, but he needed her with a yearn­ing that was al­most phys­ical.

He would make it right for her, pay her back for this sac­ri­fice, he prom­ised him­self that much. He would find the time to trans­fer all his as­sets to her name, launch her back to real­ity, and wish her all the best in a world he would never be part of again.

Be­cause by the time she made it back, he would be dead. That was the only way.

A flash caught his at­ten­tion and he saw the tether wink out of ex­ist­ence a split-second after Tania jabbed a but­ton on the small thumb key­board in front of her. She looked up at him but, be­hind the de­fi­ance, he saw a tremor of fear. He didn’t blame her.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now we re­lax, while I fill you in on what I’m plan­ning.”

He got to his feet and she fol­lowed suit.

She looked at him in dis­be­lief. “
Now
we can re­lax? We couldn’t have done that be­fore? You couldn’t have taken time out of your busy sched­ule to fill me in on the grand plan be­fore I ter­min­ated the tether?”

He knew the heat in her voice had more to do with ap­pre­hen­sion than an­ger.

“Not while the tether was alert­ing every ran­dom seeker bot out there to your pres­ence,” he said. “Now that it’s gone, we can take our time.”

He launched him­self from the roof of the tall grey block and, with all the grace and pres­ence of a sharp-eyed rap­tor, she fol­lowed. He wasn’t used to the com­pany, to the feel of someone next to him as he soared through cy­ber­space. It felt..
good
.

There was little hes­it­a­tion in Tania’s move­ments as they ar­rowed in on his apart­ment/lab and Carl real­ised he was proud of how fast she was ac­cli­mat­ising her­self to the Blue. He was sure it had taken him longer. He re­membered the days of in­tense loneli­ness and aim­less wan­der­ing be­fore he had dis­covered the gen­esis of the Rhine-Temple bot­net. He had watched the bot­net grow, ori­gin­ally drawn by its un­char­ac­ter­istic struc­ture, then fas­cin­ated and re­pelled when he fi­nally figured out what it was try­ing to do. When the first spiders from the bot­net de­tec­ted him, Carl knew he had no choice. It was either ac­tiv­ate the tether and flee to the safety of Base­ment Five. Or break it, stay in the Blue, and try to find some way to des­troy the mon­ster.

Every now and then, he’d meet someone. A per­son who man­aged to stay in cy­ber­space long enough to clock up and carry on some mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion, but such epis­odes were few and far between. And between his in­nate stub­born­ness, the Rhine-Temple, and the oc­ca­sional dis­trac­tion, it had taken years be­fore he real­ised what was miss­ing from his life.

Tania.

She had star­ted out as his rival and a po­ten­tial con­quest. The wo­man he needed to best, both men­tally and sexu­ally, in or­der to win the prize as the world’s first cy­ber­naut. Did he have some­thing to prove? Of course he did. He was the
en­fant ter­rible
, the self-taught hacker who had pro­gressed from be­ing al­most a high-school dro­pout to own­ing his own high-tech con­sult­ing busi­ness. He knew he didn’t have the qual­i­fic­a­tions of his rival, Doc­tor Tania Flowers, nor the in-depth know­ledge of how in­form­a­tion slot­ted to­gether. Where Tania had lo­gic, he op­er­ated on in­tu­ition. It was good enough to land him a spot at Base­ment Five, but the lack of formal edu­ca­tion had made him feel de­fens­ive through the en­tire period of tests and tri­als.

And now?

He looked at Tania as he ushered her through the front door of his “apart­ment”.

Now, after more than a dec­ade of self-re­flec­tion, Carl de­cided that he didn’t like his real-time self any more. The sooner it was gone, the bet­ter, and he saw his im­pend­ing death as a form of atone­ment. The ul­ti­mate apo­logy. He only hoped she ap­pre­ci­ated it.

She turned to face him the mo­ment he shut the door.

“You said you had a plan?”

Had he ever been that im­pa­tient, he wondered, and con­ceded that he prob­ably had.

“We have time.”

Strange how he had needed to speed up in or­der to learn how to slow down.

He moved through the lab, tidy­ing up but, in real­ity, just keep­ing his hands oc­cu­pied while he tried put­ting his thoughts in or­der.

Her voice drew his at­ten­tion. “How much time?”

“You won't give up, will you?” He smiled to soften his words. “Okay, here goes. At the be­gin­ning, the Rhine-Temple moved very quickly. I didn’t think I had any room to move at all. I’d watch it in the morn­ing and, by the time I paid a re­peat visit in the even­ing, it would have doubled in size.”

“What I failed to real­ise,” he said, mov­ing to his small pod of liv­ing room space, “was that the first growth is al­ways phe­nom­enal. Like watch­ing em­bryonic cells di­vide.”

He sank into a plush chair and ges­tured for her to do the same. After a slight hes­it­a­tion, she cau­tiously ac­cep­ted the in­vit­a­tion.

“But then it be­comes like that game of cel­lu­lar di­vi­sion. You know, when cells die un­less a series of con­di­tions are met.”

Tania frowned. “Do you mean the game ‘Life’?”

She was so quick. She knew in­stantly what he meant. At one time, their be­ing on the same wavelength scared the hell out of him. It made him want to dom­in­ate her. Now, he just sat back and smiled, a small curve of pride on his lips.

“Ex­actly. How does it go again? Cells di­vide but with con­straints. If they can’t find food in an ad­ja­cent cell, they starve and die. If they’re sur­roun­ded by sim­ilar cells, they also starve and die.”

“Yeah,” she said, “some­thing like that.”

He could feel the im­pa­tience rip­pling off her and hid his smile. “So, when I first cut the tether, I thought I had been watch­ing months of in­cred­ible growth and I made the in­cor­rect as­sump­tion that it would con­tinue at the same pace.”

“But it slowed down in­stead?”

“Right. The bot­net had to move in or­der to ex­pand and, as you’ve no­ticed, there isn’t much of an in­form­a­tion high­way
between
levels in this uni­verse.”

“Just flat lay­ers, one on top of the other.”

“Flat lay­ers,” he re­peated, nod­ding his head. “Not only did the Rhine-Temple have to ex­pand and
not
can­ni­bal­ise it­self, but it also had to cre­ate its own ver­tical ‘streets’ to go from one layer of the Blue to an­other.”

“And that took time.”

“Lots of time. Lots more than I had ex­pec­ted.”

Enough time for him to come up with a plan. It wasn’t per­fect, but it was the best one he had.

Sud­denly, his hands ached with the need to hold her. It had been so long since they’d em­braced and she had con­sumed al­most every wak­ing thought of his that hadn’t been fo­cused on how to des­troy the Rhine-Temple.

Know­ing he was tak­ing a chance, but un­able to stop him­self, Carl moved to her chair. He saw the sur­prise and war­i­ness in her warm eyes and the flush that heated her cheekbones un­der her lus­cious tanned skin, but he con­tin­ued to draw closer.

Ex­pect­ing a re­jec­tion, he was sur­prised when she shuffled over, giv­ing him some space on the cush­ion.

Now what was he sup­posed to say?

Sorry I was such a bas­tard to you, but a dec­ade and a half of al­most sol­it­ary con­fine­ment has a way of sharpen­ing a man’s thoughts?

I knew you had to be someone very spe­cial for me to ob­sess over you as much as I did?

Gah!
He had heard bet­ter lines on com­edy shows.

“Do you know what I re­mem­ber about the mo­ment I first met you?” he asked.

She shook her head, mouth­ing a word at the same time. “No.”

“I re­mem­ber be­ing scared.”

She hadn’t ex­pec­ted that. He could tell from the way her eyes widened, let­ting him in. How had he ever thought she was an ori­ginal ice maiden? Right now, he thought he might hap­pily bask in her warmth for all etern­ity.

“You knew so much more than I did. I read up on you when I was told we could be work­ing to­gether, and what I learnt scared the shit out of me. I could only go by the look and feel of a situ­ation. You knew, in­side out, why some­thing be­haved the way it did. Without even know­ing every de­tail, you could find a way to cir­cum­vent every prob­lem Base­ment Five threw at us.”

He hes­it­ated. “If it wasn’t for that trick I pulled on you that morn­ing, I’m pos­it­ive you would have been chosen to be the first cy­ber­naut.”

Carl saw re­mem­brance spark in her eyes and braced him­self. It might have been stu­pid re­mind­ing her of how selfishly he’d be­haved, but he needed to have the situ­ation out in the open, es­pe­cially if he wanted to make peace with him­self.

“I wanted to apo­lo­gise,” he said. “I be­haved like a com­plete bas­tard.”

“Why did you do it, Carl?” Her voice was soft with hurt and that made him feel even worse. He thought he could deal with rage, bounce off it and per­haps rouse some right­eous­ness of his own, but her quiet vul­ner­ab­il­ity un­did him com­pletely.

“Be­cause,” he stopped.

No, he had to do this. He had to be hon­est with her. She de­served no less.

“Be­cause I knew I would’ve lost if I hadn’t.”

She frowned. “And be­ing the first was so im­port­ant to you?”

He looked straight into her face. “It wasn’t to you?”

She was si­lent for a while then she smiled. “Maybe we’re not so dif­fer­ent after all,” she said.

Had he heard that right?

“
I
thought we were as dif­fer­ent as zero and one. On and off. You, the ex­pert with all the in­form­a­tion at her fin­ger­tips. Me, the self-made guy who finds out how things tick by kick­ing them. You, the fa­vour­ite of Base­ment Five’s dir­ector. Me, the dude who al­most scammed his way to suc­cess.”