04. Birth of Flux and Anchor (29 page)

"Interesting. Dr. Suzuki has just informed me that she will not object to or interfere in this. It is up to you."

She wasn't sure. "You mean—she's decided just like that that I'm expendable and she's willing to allow me to be the subject of my own experiment for her learning purposes."

"That's about it. I feel personally, though, that you should reconsider right now. You are working from a predominantly emotional rather than rational viewpoint, and you may regret it later, if you're able to. You don't have to give it up now. The price you will pay for doing this in the manner you suggest is quite high."

"What's the price?" she asked him.

"First, the method is to add the desired localized program to the master program in such a mathematical string that it would be impossible to alter your specifics without altering the master Anchor program itself. That is effective permanence."

"You mean—I would become a part of my own program instead of an overlay?"

"That's right. And the 7240 maintenance computers would be obligated to maintain you that way to the same degree as they maintain the trees, grass, and hills. The only modifications possible would be at Guard, since those computers would be handling maintenance, not me. This is true of every mathematical string involved, in case of extreme emergencies. To get around this, you would have to supply your own personal string and allow me to make it infinitely more complex. You would have to supply the original string for the 7240 Guard to remove you from its master program."

She thought a moment. "But I could be just put under by any shrink or slipped a pill and I'd give the number."

The computer seemed to hesitate. Then it said, "Not if a filter were in place at activation that removed your computational abilities. This would be necessary in any event to preclude any involuntary interactions with the grid should you go into the void."

So that was the price, and it was a big one for her. Mathematics had been a good part of her life. "That's a hell of a price," she told the computer.

"Actually, it's computational abilities. You would be able to count to twenty, perhaps, on your fingers and toes, and you might manage subtraction in that range if the numbers weren't large, but even multiplication and division would be beyond you. Further, the organization of each human brain is unique. The filter required might also trap other skills or abilities you have learned."

She considered that as well. "But I would still have my memories? My identity? I wouldn't come out, like, well, Hasim?"

"Oh, no. Nothing like that."

"Seventeen—work up a simulation and I'll get back to you today on this."

'' Understood. Please reconsider though

"I am," she said seriously.

She switched off, but the interloper on the other end, sitting in her office, did not. Suzuki had a private voice terminal line to Seventeen, worked through the Security link downstairs.

"Seventeen," said the doctor thoughtfully.

"Yes, Dr. Suzuki?"

"Can you send programs to her when she's on the amp interface?''

"Yes, Doctor. Very limited, but it's possible."

"Seventeen—priority security alert master command flag on."

"Flag on. Password?"

"General McKenzie has fig pajamas."

"Acknowledged. Send?"

"When Connie Makapuua signs back on, I want you to unobtrusively reinforce a conviction to accept her program. If she decides to go with it, I want it locked in so tight she will never reconsider. If she decides not to proceed, I want her mind changed. I want this with no hint that it is being imposed or reinforced to the subject—ever. Project security demands it."

"Understood. Writing routine. Writing subroutines. Stored. Activation authority?"

"Mayor Snorkum will lay a cake."

"Acknowledged. Done. I am out of place here, but may I ask the reason for this?"

Interesting. Seventeen had never asked something like that before. "Because she is emotionally unstable and undepend-able. Her emotive state, reinforced by her physical alterations, makes her a risk for future work with our equipment, but she simply has too much knowledge, skills, and training about things like Special Projects and the grid to be allowed to just roam all over. I don't have the months it might take to cure her, nor the personnel, nor is she vital enough to be worth emergency treatment. This way she can be of value both to psychiatry and to our understanding of the programming process. More, because we are creating her expressed deepest fantasy, she will be happy. Is that sufficient? And why does it concern you one way or the other?''

"Understood. I am always reluctant to part with one who is in such direct communication with me. Loss of one who is at the point and has the ability to directly interface with me so that will is known semantically and intuitively, reducing error probabilities to negligible, is a slight diminishment of my external interface and abilities. Why are you so intent on the permanency factor?"

"That, right now, is none of your affair," replied the doctor.

It had been a long, hard trip, but both Haller and his horse made it to the center amp, where Tombi and Caussa, a Nigerian married couple both of whom were technicians in engineering, had things prepped and waiting.

He had dwelled for a long time on Connie and her problem. He felt both guilty and responsible for the situation, yet his own inner feelings kept him in agony. He
could
circumvent it, but it went against his grain to do so. Worse, she was close to the void and now she not only knew the procedure but could get pointers from Seventeen. She could reverse it again, unless he bound her into the landscape program itself— and that would lock her in her old body and old mentality, but with memories of how she might have been and who prevented it. He didn't need an analysis from Seventeen to tell him that he might just be prescribing a suicide. There was just too much about Connie he'd taken for granted that was proving wrong. He wondered if anybody really understood anybody else, deep down.

He managed to get a good night's sound sleep, and spent the next morning checking out the gear. It wasn't until well past midday when he got word that the north point was staffed and on line. Interestingly, the pair going down the east side and also had experiences with the grid, but they had less hours, overall, on the big amps than either he or Connie, and maybe they were less emotional, but nothing major happened to them.

Connie came on line, sounding bright and cheerful, and he was glad to hear that.

"Connie, I've decided that whatever you want to do has my blessing," he told her. "I have no right to interfere."

"I'm glad to hear it," she responded, "and I don't want you to feel guilty or responsible for anything. This is my last job out here, Toby, but I should tell you I checked out everything with Medical and higher-ups and they said they wouldn't stand in my way either, so you're off the hook."

He felt better about that, but sad to be losing her. He switched over to his private computer line. "Seventeen—is it true? She has the O.K.?"

"It
is
true," Seventeen responded, but it seemed somehow saddened. "I—I think without violating any instructions, though, I should warn you that she has written a program for herself that will be included in the master system. It will cause severe, permanent, and irrevocable changes which she knows and accepts. It will do no good to talk to her, only cause her pain. My analysis is that there is absolutely nothing that can be done."

"How severe?" he asked, mouth going dry.

"Very. But she'll be happy, Toby. I guarantee that. I will not, however, be specific. That is outside your provence."

"Cancel it, then. No matter what."

" I can't. She's anticipated you all the way."

"Not in one way. I can refuse to run the program. That would buy time."

"It would buy nothing. She can run hers without you and create a bad imbalance that might cost lives. She's that determined. And, Toby—the storm has finally broken just south of the core. It's worse than the first one and it'll be within populated limits in less than ten minutes. Something of this size isn't done in an instant, you know. We'll be lucky to minimize damage and possible loss of life if we run it right now. The only shot we've got is the pressure drop we'll create that could suck that thing north and dissipate it. I don't like to run it now anyway. It's bigger than anything we've ever done, and a couple of modules at the north point haven't even been verified yet, but we must take the gamble."

He swore and hit the side of the metal casing so hard it hurt.
Why all this right now? This instant? Why couldn't that damned storm hold off another twenty minutes? Another hour?

"Toby—it's many lives and maybe the Anchor versus a fruitless delay talking her down. I tried myself already. Insert your modules. Give the orders.
Run the program now
!"

"Damn!"
he swore aloud. "Station One, insert modules. Stations Two and Three, insert modules. Station Four, insert modules. Sound out on my mark!"

"Mark!" came back four times—including Connie's voice.

"We've got to roll. Storm is in. Repeat, storm is in. Just pray this works, guys, or run for whatever hills we manage to build. Inserting master module. Master in. Locked on. Guard, on my mark—key off. Mark! Guard—key on. Mark!"

"Fired and ready," came the response from the Guard safe and cozy deep inside the headquarters complex.

"Amp check! Full power! Report!"

"Full power!" they all reported.

"Computer link. Do you have program read?"

"Program read, aye," responded Seventeen. "Running normal checksum. Done. Recommend a Go code at your command."

"All amp keys off on my mark. Mark! Computer—execute on completion of five-key circuit. Ready remotes! Hands on keys—" He hesitated just a moment. The difference between leadership and just having a job was taking the responsibility for some pretty damned shitty necessities. "Mark!"

He turned his key, and watched all five lights go on almost at the same time. She hadn't even hesitated.

There was nothing to do now but turn and see if this whole damned cursed bloody thing worked. If it didn't, he was a ripe candidate to cut his own bloody throat.

The crackling wall went out from his position and expanded away in all directions, raggedly rather than in a circular manner, but that was the way these things went. He watched in fascination as it left him, and then struck Cuassa's position below, which was not as protected as it should have been. The line of fire came up to her, parted right around her feet, and continued on. She gave a yelp, although there was no real sensation, and jumped back. Two shoeprints of dirt stood where she'd been, surrounded by grasses.

It looked fine here, but now he'd have to depend on Seventeen's sensors and the satellite links to tell him if his gamble had paid off with only five amps. He couldn't help but notice the energy guage creep rapidly down on his own panel. The farther the wall traveled, the more energy would be expended, since it was fed from the amp and the amp alone. If it ran dry, or too low to make the conversions before it hit the other walls of fire, they'd have five disconnected Anchors and hell to pay with atmospherics, stream flow, and natural drainage and seepage. Even Seventeen had said it was too close to call.

"Well? Status check?" he commanded.the computer.

"It sucked those storm clouds clean back north so fast, it was hard to believe," the computer informed him. "First time there's been real daylight on the core since that first one. Everything's holding fine, but it's going to be really chancy between you and the east point wall. Five minutes or so should tell."

"And Connie?"

As soon as she turned the key, Connie had felt a shock, then a tingling that seemed to reach into her very core and through every cell of her body. Then she seemed to black out—the world shifted for a second—and it was over and the wall was moving away from her.

She removed the headset. It didn't interest her anymore. Slowly, she climbed down from the cab and felt her bare feet touch real grass, and it felt good. There was a slight wind blowing, and the sky overhead blazed now with the big planet that was its light source.

She knew who she was—or, rather,
had
been. She had to put Connie Makapuua to rest, she knew. She didn't have a name in mind, but she'd think of something. She wanted to find some surface to see herself, and she found that the side of the big amp was pretty shiny and with its Guard panels down reached the ground. She gasped at what she saw. She was in every way more than she desired, but she was also Seventeen's, and Suzuki's experiment. The computational filter wasn't absolute. As she'd discover, she could not compose music, but she could sing perfectly just about anything she heard even once and her ability to intuitively play the string instruments she'd always played in an average way remained and was enhanced, although she'd never read a note of music or anything else. The computational flag had also filtered basic literacy.

Nor could she relearn these things. The filter was permanent and would block it, and prevent any understanding of it.

Psychologically, Seventeen simply took the libido she'd suppressed and craved and made it the master. She was still human—she could think, reason, learn and remember—but the nonaggressive parts of the animal brain would take precedence. Aggression centers had been neutralized by the creation of specific peptides for the necessary receptors in the brain and the continued natural creation of these peptides would be a normal body function. Pleasures of the flesh would later take supremacy over pleasures of the mind, yet future memory would be nearly photographic. The baser emotions, such as jealousy and possessiveness, would be dampened by a combination of data filtration and self-perpetuating biochemistry. Her attention span was short, her behavior generally governed by the impulse of the moment. But for the brain, she would not physically age, each cell renewing itself, even to the point of regeneration.