04. Birth of Flux and Anchor (12 page)

Coydt looked down at the dead body of the scientist. "Play Jesus Christ—I hope."

On her order, Watanabe's body was stripped and then carried out into the lab itself and placed inside one of the clear tubes. It looked like a discarded rag doll stained with crimson ink.

She ordered just Marsha Johnson fetched and brought down to her. The lab assistant was white as a sheet and clearly scared to death, a set of emotions not at all helped by having to face the notorious Brigadier Coydt herself. Still, Johnson couldn't help thinking what an attractive woman the security chief was. It just didn't seem right. But there was something in Coydt's eyes and manner and tone of voice that was both scary and chilling.

"What's your name?" Coydt snapped.

"Marsha Johnson, ma'am."

"You worked for Dr. Watanabe?"

"Yes, ma'am. The past four years."

"Ever run the computer?"

Johnson was puzzled at the question. "Yes, ma'am. I'm qualified independent at Guard and second class at Override."

"Good. Now, listen up and get hold of yourself. Your boss just committed a particularly spectacular form of hara-kiri. I'm going to need your help here if we're to salvage anything from this."

The lab assistant felt suddenly numb. "
That's
who—
that
is? Director Watanabe?" She felt as if her whole world were crumbling.

"The one and only. She dressed herself in ancient clothes and even took time to do the ancient styles. Then she came in here with the idea of erasing or blowing whatever she could until she was cut down."

Johnson couldn't believe it. "She—she
wouldn't
!
This was her whole
life
!"

"She would, she could, and she almost did."

"But—
why?
I know she decided to quit, but—"

Coydt's voice and manner turned suddenly and disconcertingly soft and gentle. "Child, the pressure just got too much. You said it yourself. This was her whole life—the culmination of everything she'd worked for all that life. Then she got obsessed by the ethics of her work. She became convinced that she was an inadvertent monster, one who'd loosed an uncontrollable evil while looking for good. You know she was always deep into history. She's been reading and collecting books on scientists who found themselves in her position in the past. Her fears fueled her imagination and she built up tremendous guilt for something that was still theoretical."

"But—the project's going on! The programs and discoveries are now being used! She couldn't stop it!"

"Well, she thought, I think, that she could slow it down, maybe mortally wound it. If this got out, there would be outcries and inquiries, and commissions and the like, and she'd be a martyr to everyone who wants to shut us down tight, fueled by the propaganda of our enemies. Mostly, though, I doubt if that was foremost in her mind. I think— well, she was simply trying, in reverting to an ancient culture she barely knew except from books—not so much to reverse things as to
atone
for her works. In the ancient fashion she was taking responsibility and guilt for it all."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Here's the point. I haven't time to look it up. Did Watanabe herself ever go through digitization?"

Marsha Johnson started, beginning to see where Coydt was headed. "Why, yeah. After it was well along. She said she needed to experience it to fine-tune the programs. But—if you're thinking what I
think
you're thinking, it's not possible. She's not digitized. She's
dead."

"Go take the Guard position. I'll take Override. Let's get her in the system before rigor mortis sets in. I'm going to have a linkup between this computer and the 7800 crew in orbit. Because of the time delay, it might take a while, but I'd like to find out what's possible. If there's a chance, even a chance in a million, isn't it worth some time and work here? If we can't, we don't lose anything. If we can, maybe we can show her that this thing isn't as evil as she thought, huh?"

Johnson was doubtful, but she couldn't stand by when there was any possibility of it. And if they did it, she'd have her own paragraph in history.

A few of the files on transmutation had been erased, but since nothing else had been done on the computer, they were recoverable. The computer had only deleted them from its index and marked them free for overwriting; the more stringent erase command had not been given when the bullets flew.

Coydt was far too busy to think beyond each moment right now. She was making this up as she went along, and somewhat pleased with her own creativity, but none of it would be worthwhile unless they pulled off this ultimate trick.

The brigadier was not expected to know how to operate the computer, particularly something like a Kagan, nor be rated as Overrider, but she was both. She had, in fact, worked with the 7800 at Site K, the orbiting station out in the depths of space between Saturn and Uranus which had its own small Borelli Point. Because it was used primarily as an automatic backup point for all work on Titan—with the knowledge and even the connivance of Westrex but not known to those not on the Operations Board—it was entirely under her section. She couldn't really qualify as more than a mere operator, but that was good enough if she could link up with her top computer personnel running the 7800 itself.

She had to shout over to Johnson for the exact passwords, name, and form to direct the digitization process, but once done she could run it without any problems. The computer accepted her as an authorized operator; as a matter of form, all members of both boards had authority to operate, although they didn't necessarily have the information to run the thing. The good fortune of having Marsha Johnson there was the thing that gave this a chance.

Outside, Rembrandt van Haas had never felt as frustrated as he was now, trying to gain information and entry into the transport lab. Like Coydt, he'd been awakened by an aide and told of an alarm and reports of weapons fire and, since then, had received only the official line from the Security troops ringing the building. Those troops themselves were decidedly uncomfortable; they felt that no matter what they did regarding the director, they were alienating one of the two people who could effectively do something nasty to them. The young lieutenant finally decided on bluntness with the director and rigidity to Coydt. She'd gotten the officer into this mess, and she would be expected to get her out.

"Sir," the lieutenant said carefully, "we have no idea what went on there except what the brigadier stated. Her orders were most emphatic and included you, I'm afraid. I don't like this any more than you and didn't ask for this, but you must see it our way. Our immediate superior has given us an order. You are her superior, and normally it would not apply to you, but the brigadier was pretty graphic as to what would happen to us if we allowed anyone through. You may threaten us with good cause, but we will still have to answer to the brigadier first. We can see no compelling moral reason for disobeying her. She has said she will answer to Admiral Cockburn and to you later. We must accept that."

Van Haas nodded. "All right. Carry on." There was no purpose served by keeping these little fish between a rock and a hard place. He strode back to his small electric vehicle and picked up the phone. "Get me Brigadier Ryan, and I don't care what you have to do to get him." Then he ordered his driver to take him to Signals building.

Michael Ryan looked like the stereotypical Irish pub crawler, the sort that would be cast in an Irish working-class drama. Ireland had survived the Borelli pulses better than most of the West because it was so lightly industrialized, and he was the only member of either board who had actually been born and spent his early childhood in "The North," as it was called, leaving him with a characteristic Irish brogue.

His parents had eventually managed to immigrate to Australia when he was twelve, joining relatives there for a generation, escaping the poverty and lack of future that remaining in the homeland meant. Still, he'd known very hard times and he never forgot them.

He had joined the Australian army to pay for his university, and had managed the nearly impossible feat of rising from the enlisted ranks all the way to colonel on merit. He was an electronics expert and a brilliant politician, and yet maintained a close relationship with his troops. With little hope of making it to general officer ranks because of his background, however, he'd jumped at the chance to oversee the Signals part of Westrex, even though the task and even the means of accomplishing it were unprecedented. Although still a colonel in the reserves of Australia, inside Westrex's independent corporate army he had finally made brigadier.

Ryan, in fact, trusted his enlisted personnel more than he trusted his fellow officers, which was what made him so useful at times like these.

The Irishman was already sitting in a communications monitoring post when van Haas arrived. He turned, nodded to the director, and said, "I thought you'd have been here before now."

"I'm not used to being told there's someplace I can't go here," the director responded. "What the hell
is
all this?"

"I'll punch it up and you can watch it for yourself."

Security had been forced to use Signals to run much of its own communications system. While Coydt now had her own experts, they still had to use the system Ryan had designed and the laws of physics. While Coydt spied on everyone, Ryan spied on Coydt—and everything Coydt saw. Security suspected it. That was why much of its work was now being carried out at Site K, beyond Ryan's range and authority. However, they had no idea just how extensive his network could be.

Van Haas watched with horror the strange dimly lit play acted out between Watanabe and the security staff. He was as much stunned by her apparent ease at circumventing the Guard position as he was watching her die. "Oh, my God!" Then he paused a moment. "We'll have to revise our whole interlock now."

"No need," Ryan told him. "Oh, it's true you can circumvent the 7240 computers if you have to—we've just seen it, and certainly we'll find out how it was done. It won't apply to the 7800's though. Their Guard design isn't modular, it's integrated and in a different way, and there are lots of nasty little safeguards for meddlers. Still, 'tis an unnerving sight. I'll grant ya that."

"But—what the hell is Coydt trying to
do
in there?"

"As near as I can make out, I think she's going to try to resurrect the old girl. She's tied into her pet people up on K, and their 7800. I can't get past that encryption system as of now, but I could jam it if you want."

Van Haas considered it for a moment. "No. In this case, if she can pull this off, she'll save us no end of grief, as well as demonstrate the powers of the 7800—or limitations, if it doesn't work. Besides, I really liked Suzy."

"'Aye," Ryan sighed. "Still, 'tis unnerving to think this sort of thing is even remotely possible. I mean, she's not even waiting the traditional three days."

The 7800 was characteristic of its type when asked if Watanabe could be restored. It responded that it saw no theoretical reasons why it couldn't be done, with some limitations, but having never tried it, there was no way to be sure.

There was certainly no way to restore the scientist at the point where she'd been shot; the only good bet was to ignore Watanabe-present and run the prior program for when the scientist had allowed herself, months earlier, to be turned to energy and encoded. Some restoration might be possible if it knew the exact electrochemical arrangement at the time of death, but it did not, and by the time it had been fed the body, too much time had elapsed for any accuracy. The brain had a complex and efficient automatic method of shutting itself down in an orderly way at death, and this had already taken place.

It was all very methodical and very pedestrian until the remote computer asked very matter-of-factly,
"Has the soul gone or dissipated?"

The question startled not only Coydt and Johnson but everyone listening in or monitoring on K. Where the hell had a computer gotten
that
?

"Uh
—
the soul is an unknown quantity,"
Coydt managed.

"No empirical evidence of its existence is known. Question cannot be answered and may not be material here."

"Empirical evidence undeniable,"
the computer responded. "
Suggest attempt at reforming using matter currently in conversion and programming matrix from earlier experience."

"Approved.''

"However, additional mass must be introduced. Blood and tissue loss is severe. Bleed in power from the grid and channel it to the object tube. Power will briefly dim the network but the amount required is relatively small enough that it will cause no effect and little notice to others."

"Approved. Do it.''

There was, in fact, a very slight dip in the lights and a momentary flicker on the screen in Ryan's office, but otherwise nothing happened. At the light speeds computers and energy networks moved, they never noticed the slight loss, only the aftereffects, and then only because they were expecting them.

"Potential mass now sufficient for proper conversion,"
the computer told Coydt.
"Request permission to download required programs to slave computer system."

"Granted. Go."

The conversation between the 7800 and Coydt's position was extremely slow, both because of time delays and because of the slowness of human thought versus computer thought, but it was a silent conversation. Neither Ryan nor van Haas nor any of the observers on Titan could know exactly what was going on unless, like the power drop, Coydt announced it vocally.

"Permission to integrate elements?" 
the 7800 asked.

Coydt thought a moment. '
'Can subject be brought back in sedated condition?"

"No evidence subject can be brought back at all.