Time Was (21 page)

“What?”

Can I come along?

“Why?”

Singer shrugged.
I don't want to be alone just now.

Killaine thought about it for a moment. If she said yes, then Singer might interpret that as a gesture of trust or—worse—an offer of friendship. Despite all she'd seen today and everything Zac had told her, she still felt a certain anxiety in Singer's presence.

Still, Zac considered the Scrapper a friend, and trusted Singer, and she didn't want to chance offending Zac further by being rude or uncaring. . . .

“You can do whatever you want,” she said flatly, then continued toward the control room.

Singer stood there, silent, then hung down his head and started back toward Zac's room, where he seated himself outside the door and waited.

For what, was anyone's guess.

A while passed, then he heard the sounds of the I-Bots' voices drifting up through the furnace vents.

When he realized what they were talking about, he decided to join them, invited or not.

 

After seeing Janus off, Simmons returned to Annabelle's office.

“He's on his way, madam.”

“Good.”

“If I may say so, I think he'll do splendidly.”

“I think so, too.”

“Do you still wish for me to follow him?”

“Yes. I don't want to take any chances. Pick two security men to accompany you. Here”—she handed him three airline tickets—“I've booked you on the same flight. In
coach
, of course.”

“Very good, madam.”

“Keep a low profile, Simmons. A
very
low profile. Janus is no fool. He knows I'll have someone watching and he's the best I've ever seen at being able to spot a tail.”

“Understood.”

“I want him under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

“Of course. But at a distance.”

“Be careful who you pick to go along with you. They've got to be good, Simmons. And
fast
—I want your team to be ready to jump in at half-a-second's notice if they're needed.”

“You needn't worry, madam.”

Annabelle touched her locket. “But I will, Simmons. I will.”

He saw her gently fondle the gold chain. “That was a thoughtless remark, madam. I know how much this means to you. I apologize.”

“No need to apologize. Just come through for me.”

“Count on it, madam.”

 

As they waited for Killaine, Singer, and Zac to return from the Scrapper Camp, Itazura looked at Psy–4 and said, “Care to run that by us again?”

Psy–4, severely agitated and trying desperately not to show it, was pacing back and forth across the expanse of the control room. “When I telepathed with the PTSI mainframe last night I activated an irreversible download and dump program.”

“Right,” said Itazura. “And this entity that you communicated with just now—”

“Roy.”

“‘Roy.' Sounds like someone who ought to have a couple friends named Buck and Cletus in a country and western band.”

“No jokes, Itzy, not now!”

“Ah, take a chill-pill and calm down.”

Psy–4 whirled around and started toward him. “Don't you presume to tell me how to behave, not after your little tirade down in the cellar earlier. ‘Oh, I'm so lost, I'm so confused, what's the point of our existence?' Do you have any idea how tiresome these little existential crises of yours have become?”

“Don't mock me, Psy–4”

“Then don't sit there with that condescending smirk on your face or I'll wipe it off permanently!”

Now Itazura was on his feet. “Okay, tough guy, let's do it. You want to break open a can of whup-ass and wail on me, I'm ready to boogie!”

They came at each other.

“Enough!” shouted Radiant, starting toward them.

Stonewall beat her by two seconds, getting between them and grabbing each by their collar, then lifting them off the floor.

Their feet dangled in the air like a pair of marionettes.

“If you two are finished with this nerve-tingling display of machismo,” said Stonewall, “I think there's a problem we were discussing.”

“What's with you?” said Itazura. “Got a cross-stitch project you're impatient to get back to?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. It has puppy dogs in it. I like puppy dogs.”

“Oh.”

“Puppy dogs relax me. They make me happy. Right now, the two of you don't. Is any of this confusing so far? I could start again and talk slower.”

“Understood,” said Psy–4.

“I'm cool,” replied Itazura.

Stonewall set them down and pushed them away from each other.

Radiant walked over and smacked both of them on the shoulder. “Whatever's going on is serious and we don't have time for this.”

Psy–4 and Itazura glared at one another for a moment, then, like boxers at the sound of the round-ending bell, retreated to their respective corners.

“Now,” said Radiant to Psy–4, “go on.”

“Roy knows that he's being drained and he's scared. We have to help him. I gave him my word.”

Radiant put a hand on his shoulder. “He's little more than a child, isn't he? I could feel it when you were talking with him.”

“Yes.”

From the far end of the room, Itazura said, “So what
is
Roy, exactly?”

“A robotic fractal-based brain,” replied Stonewall.

Everyone looked at him.

“What else could he be? Samuel Preston has built an empire out of stealing and modifying Zac's ideas. They both started working on us before Preston was promoted and Zac inherited the project. It makes sense that Preston would attempt to develop a fractal-based brain of his own.”

“And install it as part of the mainframe?” asked Radiant.

“Each of our brains was first tested in WorldTech's computer system. Preston is only doing what Zac's already done.”

Itazura came over and took a seat before his console, replaying the data recorded earlier. “So why the download and dump program? Why build a bomb that can't be deactivated?”

“Because something went wrong,” said Radiant. “My guess is that when Roy was programmed and brought into sentience he was accidentally limited in growth—that's why his mental capacity is so limited, so childlike.”

Stonewall nodded his head. “And if that were the case, then the imprinting process would have imbued him with human emotions and feelings consistent with that of a more mature consciousness.”

“Yes!” said Radiant. “So there's no way Preston can harvest the brain—can use Roy—for anything other than collecting data so the same mistakes won't be made the next time. And Preston is nothing if not prideful. If anyone were to discover the mess he's made of his experiment . . .”

“So he's destroying Roy in order to save face,” whispered Psy–4.

“That's about the size of it,” replied Itazura.

Psy–4 shook his head.

“What is it?” asked Radiant. “C'mon, Psy–4, you're giving off so much anxiety I'm starting to get a headache.”

“It's . . . it's not right,” he said.

“Of course it's not right, but this isn't the time for us to debate moral—”

“No! That's not what I mean.” He paced a little more, fisting his hands, then turned and faced the others. “When I was talking with Roy, he mentioned having a mother and father. Preston doesn't possess enough imagination to program something like Roy. Zac didn't program those sorts of memories into us.”

Itazura shrugged. “Maybe that's one of the modifications he's made.”

“No, I don't think so. I don't quite know how to describe it so you'll understand—”

“Then let me,” said Radiant. “All of Roy's thought processes, the way he phrases things, his curiosity, the depth of his fear, his confusion, his need to be loved and accepted . . . all of these things don't fit the profile of
our
programming. I mean, sure, we all can feel and experience those things and countless more, but we also have the capability to separate ourselves from them if we need to, to achieve an emotional distance when it threatens to get in the way of carrying out an assignment. Roy can't do that.”

Itazura looked at her, then Psy–14, then Radiant once again. “Which means?”

Radiant faced him. “Which means that we may be getting into Frankenstein territory here.”

“Say what?”

“The imprint wasn't made from a robotic program,” said Stonewall.

It took a moment for the full impact of those words to sink in.

But sink in, it did.

In all of its obscene, sick-making madness.

But someone had to say it, had to speak the truth.

Had to make it real.

So Psy–4 slowly, sadly nodded his head. “It was made from the consciousness of a real child.” He looked at the others. “We're not dealing with an entity like ourselves. Sam Preston has stolen the mind of a child and trapped it in his computer system.”

“Psy–4,” said Radiant. “You don't think that . . .”

“That what?”

She almost couldn't bring herself to say it. “You don't think he's got the
actual brain
of a child in there, do you?”

Psy–4 visibly flinched. “That would be too depraved, even for a worm like Preston.”

“But you can't discard the possibility,” said Stonewall. “You know as well as I that you can buy anything in this world. Even children.”

“I can't believe Preston would be capable of something like that,” replied Psy–4. “And right now it's beside the point. We have to go back in and free Roy before it's too late.”

Itazura sighed. “How are we supposed to know how long we've got before it's too late?”

Psy–4 crossed to one of the consoles. “Replay the moment when Roy's face came on the screens.”

Itazura punched in a series of commands, and once again they found themselves looking at the blurry, digitized image of Roy's face and the codes unfolding behind his empty eyes.

“Stop it right there,” said Psy–4.

Itazura did.

“Enlarge it.”

And they saw it.

Mark

123:48:57

H M S

Psy–4 groaned. “One-hundred and twenty-three hours, forty-eight minutes, fifty-seven seconds.”

“From when?” asked Itazura.

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Itzy, use your head!” snapped Radiant. “From the moment Psy–4 telepathed with the mainframe last night.”

“Which means,” said Stonewall, “that we have, as of right now, just over ninety-seven hours before the program finishes.”

Psy–4 rubbed his eyes. “We have to assume that it operates like any standard D and D program; first it gathers the information, sorts it, scans for viruses, then runs everything back through the source program in order to pick up any fragmented data.”

“That's the final step,” said Radiant. “So we have to time it just right.”

Psy–4 touched her hand. “Exactly. If we can get in there and disconnect Roy before the D and D has made its final sweep, then there's a good chance that he'll emerge with most—maybe
all
—of his consciousness intact.”

“But how do we determine the exact time it will make the final sweep?” asked Itazura.

“Zac's notes,” replied Stonewall. “All of our brains were imprinted with the same basic program, so we have to assume that Preston used the same one with Roy. We use Zac's notes to work up a virtual robotic brain on the computer, then run a simulated D and D based on the one Preston's system is running.”

Psy–4 waved his hands. “It would eat up too much time. There are seventy-five thousand two hundred and thirty-four individual steps to building just one brain, and we'd have to virtually go through every step—that's besides then having to test it to see if everything functions as it should. We need to use an actual robotic brain to run the theoretical D and D.”

“Even then,” said Radiant, “you're looking at a minimum often hours to run the damned thing—and that's if we conduct it at three times the actual speed. The way things are right now, none of us can afford to be down that long.”

Itazura laughed. “And you're forgetting that, even with a
simulated
D and D, you run the chance of data loss. Hey, don't look at me like that—at some point, like it or not, we'll have to try it in actuality to see if the estimates are correct.”

“He's right,” said Stonewall. “A simulation can only tell us so much. We'll have to do a limited D and D in order to determine with any precision the final window of opportunity. And Zac wouldn't allow any of us to subject ourselves to that.”

“So what do we do?” asked Psy–4.

“Why not ask Singer?” said Killaine from the doorway.

Everyone turned toward her.

“You're not serious?” asked Radiant.

“Why not? He seems willing to do anything he can to help us. Let's ask him if he'd be willing to participate in the experiment.”

Itazura laughed softly. “There's a surprise—Killaine volunteering Singer for a possible suicide mission.”

“I'm just being logical,” she continued, ignoring Itazura's stare. “We need an actual platinum-iridium brain, Singer has one. None of us can afford to power-down for the length of the test, Singer can. We're indispensable, and Singer . . .” She stopped just a moment too late, realizing what she was about to say.

“So Singer is expendable, is that it?” asked Itazura.

“In terms of cold equations, yes,” replied Killaine.

“She's right,” said Psy–4. “I hate to agree with her on a point like that—nothing personal, Killaine—but Singer's the only one of us who we can afford to lose.”