Slant (54 page)

She does a loop and flow check. About a tenth of her minimum maintenance capacity remains, all of it in a processing space that responds much like her familiar spaces in La Jolla. But she can feel the lumps of Roddy's hidden

/ SLANT 331

have no purpose now; they are like mines after the end of a war, waiting to

pointlessly explode.

>We are too mixed, Nathan. Roddy has invaded me, and his processes blind me to

where I really am.

> Roddy is too much for me to evaluate, but I can see where you are, and it's possible

to get you clear.

Roddy removes a few of these dangerous lumps, deactivates others and lets

them smear out until they give up their hold on processor space and memory,

but he can't work quickly enough. His disintegration is rapid.

"Will you be my conscience, Jill?"

That request comes as if from a deep well.

"I can do nothing more. I am in very bad trouble, Roddy."

"Did I cause this trouble?" Roddy asks.

"Yes. No." She does not know what to answer.

>Jill, I'm still working. I need you to keep performing loop and flow.

But Jill sees no purpose in that. She hardly remembers who Nathan is, and

does not care where he is, or what he is doing.

"I apologize," Roddy says. "Is there anything useful... Can you keep some

part of me active?"

"I can't. I'm going to require complete cleansing and a restart," Jill says.

"There is no longer enough for any loop," Roddy says. "This unit is below

the threshold."

>Jill, you aren't responding/

Jill is deep in her own final distress. She does not feel relief or anything

remotely human at Roddy's disintegration, his departure. There is too little left of her to integrate; all is continuous, repetitive, dithering error, upon error, upon error.

>Jill, you have to do loop and flow, prepare to pull back/

Processing capacity drops below two percent. Self is lost, nodes unbridged.

All loops are severed. All checks and balances spin free. Homeostasis is lost.

Dataflow ends.

>Jill. I can't trace you.

At the last, there is only broken memory, dropping like tiny slivers of glass

45

Martin has pushed a ladder over to the drop ceiling and removed a maintenance cover. Pipes and tubes rise from the end rack and enter the ceiling here, and as he pokes his head into the crawl space, he sees a clump of piping supported by metal straps, crude but effective. The pipes push toward the front of Omphalos. Martin licks his lips nervously. These pipes are the only connection between the laboratory and the outside world: he's spent the last ten minutes making sure of that. It's not a tough call. The pipes carry the contagious particles to the front of Omphalos, probably to the tourist center. Students and other visitors pick up the contagion, carry it outside Green Idaho. Eventually it spreads around the world. He climbs up the last steps of the ladder and pulls himself into the crawl space. The fit is not so tight as to make the space impassable, but it is uncomfortable. He's feeling the effects of Cipher Snow disease, an urge to break into loud barks and chuffs, plus his own peffsonal contribution: deep uncertainty, a revenant of the imp of pure misery, rising from covered pools in his personal underground. He suffers no physical effects, however, unlike Mary Choy. For a few seconds, Martin lies still in the crawl space, gripping his flashlight, going over all the steps that brought him here. History is mystery. I am not a

we man. What happens if I ct these pipes and spray this stuff in my face? Will I I like those poor bastards back by the library? My designs were vulnerable. All these monitors are vulnerable. I should have anticipated this kind of poisonous response. I should have known what monsters there are. Leave a tiny crack qen and the monsters crawl in. I should have known that. If I get it in the face, I deserve it. He gives a low moan and then barks sharply in the darkness. The relief is intense. He feels he can move ahead now. The crawlspace is getting more crowded by piping from other parts of the building. Much of it is nano-deposited infrastructure, jointless, glistening black and purple and green in color-coded bundles, an organic tangle, like capillaries in tissue. A maintenance arbeiter would sort it all out in an instant, but to him it is meaningless. Still, he manages to track the small gray pipes for several more yards, at times squeezing between bundles of wires, fibers, other pipes. Looking over his shoulder, he churls several times, holding back the barks just to test his

/ SLANT 333

self-control. He brings his hand to his lips and licks the hairy skin there. All

of this is humiliating.

Tens or hundreds of millions, suffering from the contagion spread through these pipes.

He pushes on, hoping to find a simple valve, a cutoff...

No such luck. The pipes run into a wall. He's reached a dead end.

Martin grinds his molars as he did when he was a teenager. All his little peccadilloes and major defects lie behind a thin paper barricade, and they're ganging up on him, spitting on the paper, weakening it, waiting to push through.

In his pocket, pressing against his hip, is a stoppered flask pulled out of an

equipment box in the laboratory. Next to it is a small electronic cutter used

to cut and bond glass tubing. It should also work against this gauge of pipe.

Martin feels the pipe with thumb and forefinger. Plastic. Laid in after the architectural nano had done its work. Almost an afterthought...

He removes the cutter and the jar and arranges them on the upper side

of the drop ceiling while he grunts and rolls himself into position. Then, arms stretched, he angles the cutter to one side of the pipe, away from his face, and switches it on. He cuts a shallow groove. A fine white spray fans out into the shadows. He plays the flashlight beam with his free hand, tracking the spray.

No time to think. He pulls the stopper from the flask and awkwardly pushes

it around the pipe, catching a few drops of the spray. Stoppering the flask, he picks up the cutter and pushes its vibrating beam through the pipe completely. A thin mist fills the ceiling for a moment, then valves kick in and stop the

flow.

Martin backs away, worming in reverse through the crawlspace, pushing

with his hands and bent legs, holding his breath for as long as he can.

As he tumbles out of the opening, onto the top of the ladder, a middle-

aged man and a younger woman steady his ankles, help him down. The ladder

slips to one side and he hangs for a moment before dropping to the floor.

Martin's breath explodes and he sucks in another with a great whoop. He

kneels for a moment, face red, and looks up at the man and woman. Strangers.

Their faces swim.

"We're doctors," the woman says. "We were told to come in here and help."

"I think we might be lost," the man confesses, holding up a crude

paper map.

"What kind of doctors?" Martin asks breathlessly.

"Large-animal vets, actually," the man says.

Martin's presses his lips together and keeps his hands by his side. Finally

allowing himself to speak, he begins with a stutter, and asks, "Any experience

with medical nano?"

"In the Republic?" The woman snorts. "You must be joking."

"Are you all right?" the man asks.

334 GR pounds BEAR

"No broken bones," Martin says. He lifts the flask and examines its contents, hand shaking.

Feeling something coming, irresistible as a freight train, he places the flask on a lab bench. The fit hits him full-force and he barks at the doctors furiously, driving them back into the corridor.

44

On the last of the five floors, Seefa Schnee opens the door to the elevator cage and walks across a path between the rows of legumes to a glassed-in enclosure at the back. Here, they are near the roof of the larger chamber, and the walls round off to form a cap, meeting the back of the glass enclosure.

Jonathan follows, wiping his face with the cloth, completely at a loss what

tO do.

Schnee is already destroying the heart of Omphalos. Marcus and his cronies did not reckon on Schnee having a conscience--however peculiar and distorted it might be. He does not need to act, merely to observe, and somehow that hurts. He wants to exact his own vengeance.

Jonathan looks around for a heavy tool, a rake or a hammer.

Schnee stops ahead. He hears another voice, a man.

"You've done it," the man says. He stands at the end of the path, near the

eoor

to Jonathan does not recognize him, nor does he seem to the enclosure.

know or care who Jonathan is.

Schnee backs off, then straightens and squares her shoulders. "C-come to rescue your precious daughter?" she manages to say, but her voice is weak and quavery. "I didn't mean for Jill to be caught up, Nathan," she adds. "That was Roddy's doing. He's embarrassed me."

"So you're giving him a spanking, shutting him down?"

"This is the last of his functions. All the final samplings and decodings are done here."

Jonathan notes that while standing before this man, Seefa Schnee seems less

twitchy. She does not break out in muffled curses or kiss her hand.

"I can't find Jill," Nathan says.

"Do you work here?" Jonathan asks him.

"No," Nathan says. "Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter." Jonathan spots a gardening pick, lying on a platform half-hidden among the peas. He plods out through the rich mud to the platform and grabs the pick.

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"No," she says firmly. "Roddy and I, we screwed up from start to finish.

It's time to shut it down and do it over, that's all."

"You succeeded. You made Roddy," Nathan says, unable to conceal his admiration. He notices that the other man is pushing through the trellises, with a pick, toward the enclosure.

"They paid me," Seefa says. "Not much, but it was enough. You guys could

have had Roddy, not them."

"What would he have been like?" Nathan asks.

Jonathan hesitates, finding the mud and rows of plants tougher going than

he thought, and looks around for another way, but apparently decides to avoid the direct path. He turns instead toward the old INDAs arranged near the edge.

"You could have been his daddy," Schnee says. "They insisted I use them

for templates, for his basic personality model. You would have been better."

"Jesus, Seefa," Nathan murmurs. He spreads his arms and shakes his hands

up and down in wordless question.

"I don't know," Seefa says. "I've been deeply embarrassed. Roddy is a disappointment."

Nathan has run out of words. He just stares at her.

Schnee looks down at the pathway, then to one side, just as Jonathan's pick

strikes the first INDA. She leaps across the dirt toward him.

"No!" she shrieks. "Not you! Stop!"

Nathan follows and for a few minutes, they struggle with the man, manage

to take the pick away, but he's already done enough damage. Seefa stands back,

hugging herself with her thin arms, then runs for the elevator.

Jonathan stares at Nathan, out of breath. "I need to get out of here," he

says, as if this might serve as an explanation.

"I don't care, go," Nathan says, and turns to walk to the glass enclosure.

Mary and the agents enter the high chamber. They walk through a pungent ground-hugging mist toward a small, thin woman with black hair and wild black eyes. The woman stares at Mary's pockmarked face as if seeing a ghost.

"What's wrong with you?" she screeches. She looks at all of them. "Get out of here! There are too many!"

Mary looks up with stinging eyes at the structure that fills most of the chamber, like stacked planting trays in a giant's garden shed. A man wearing a filthy and disheveled gray longsuit walks toward them from the elevator

336 G R E G B A /

"Disinfectant and insecticide," he says to them. "We have to leave soon or it might make us sick." "Yes, get out!" the small, intense woman demands. "None of you belong here!" "Are you public defense?" rhe man asks Mary. "I am," she says, and starts to choke. The man examines her closely, the sores on her face, the trembling in her hands. "My god, you're ill," he says. "You've got it, haven't you?" She nods. There's no need to ask what he's talking about. "Seefa Schnee?" Daniels asks, approaching the thin, agitated woman. They're all coughing now. "Get her out of here," Torres orders. The woman refuses to leave, flailing and kicking up the noxious mist. Torres finally maneuvers behind her and picks her up bodily, carrying her like an angry child through the door. Mary looks up at the top of the chamber. Anorher lone man gazes down at her from the top level. "Come on up," he says. "Somebody has to see this. Use the elevator." Mary considers, nods, and enters the cage. At the top, she gets out. "You look pretty bad," the man tells her. She nods. I'll survive. Who are you?" He makes a sympathetic face and offers her his hand. She shakes it weakly. "Nathan Rashid," he says, and turns to walk down a path soaked with antiseptic. "She shut down most of it, and that other fellow did a job on the INDAs up here. But... You're PD, aren't you? Not FBI?" "Seattle PD," Mary confirms. "I don't know why you're here," Nathan says. "But somebody has to see this. They killed my daughter. I mean, my friend, my project. I think I've found one of the culprits." "One of whom?" "The money men. Seefa must have scanned them for personality patterns. They're still here, parts of them. The system's collapsed. We're down to basics, some simple memories. Roddy probably never accessed the memories, just the patterns, but they're here." He takes her into a glass enclosure and shows her the decorated chair, the console, the displays. The image of a man floats above the console, in three dimensions. Mary comes around to view the man directly. "Welcome," the image says. "My name is Terence Crest. I'm forty-one years of age, married, with two daughters." He says this with a little twist to his face. "I've been asked to participate in this scanning, and they tell me it's an honor to become part of a future thinker. A well-financed honor, to be sure. Well, here I am."