Touchstone (Meridian Series) (30 page)

       Kelly
just looked at him, then squinted at his monitor again. His face was a mixture
of perplexity and disbelief.

       “Come
on,” said Maeve. “What do the little critters say about all this?”

       Kelly
gave a sigh and swiveled in his chair to face them. “I’ve got no variance flags
on the RAM bank, no Golem warnings at all.”

       “Great,”
said Nordhausen. “That means this isn’t a major transformation after all. The Golems
have found nothing amiss.”

       “Yes,
and let me tell you why.” Kelly’s voice had a warning in it now. He looked at
them, his eyes shifting from one to another, even as the conclusion he was
arriving at grew more certain in his mind. “The net must be down…”

       The
words seemed to linger in the air when he spoke them. He saw the faces of his
friends crease with concern.

       “What
do you mean?” Robert spoke up first. “What do you mean the net is down?”

       “I’ve
been trying to query the network,” said Kelly, but I can’t seem to get a
response. There’s over 100,000 machines out there on the net with my Golem
program installed, but I can’t connect with a single IP address. It’s very
strange.”

       “You’re
saying the Internet is down?” Nordhausen had an unbelieving expression on his
face. “How is that possible? I mean, it was designed to survive a nuclear war,
wasn’t it?”

       “Theoretically…”
Kelly was thinking hard now. “There’s no one single hub on the net that could
bring the whole thing down if it failed. It’s a widely distributed network,
with hundreds of thousands of servers scattered all over the world.”

       “Then
the problem must be local,” said Robert. “Check your connection, Kelly. You’re
the networking guru.”

       “I
have
checked it—give me some credit, will you?”

       “Then
it must be the damn ISP.”

       “No,
it’s not. We have no ISP. We’ve got a direct high-speed optical fiber link,
right into the backbone of the Internet.”

       “Then
what’s the problem? Is your machine in order?”

       Kelly
held up a hand, fending off the professor as he came up to the history module.
“You don’t understand,” he said as firmly as he could. “The hardware here is
fine. I just ran system calls on every lab console. Our RAM bank memory is
holding true, no problem there, but it’s the
net
, I tell you. It’s not
there…”

       Nordhausen
just looked at him, a half smile on his face, fading with each second against
the resolve in Kelly’s voice. “Not there?” He repeated the phrase, unbelieving.

       “I
can’t get a response from my Golems because there’s no network traffic,” Kelly
explained. “No network traffic of any kind. My query packets are being
generated, but they all time out with no response from the network.”

       “This
is absurd,” said Nordhausen. “How could the entire Internet be down?”

       Paul
was off his chair and heading toward the stair well. The professor had turned
to him for an answer to the dilemma when he saw him go. “Paul?” The plaintive
twang in Nordhausen’s voice was plain to hear. Somewhere, deep inside, he was
possessed with the notion that this was all his fault. It was his insatiable
curiosity, after all, that had started the whole thing. He had to take that
train ride to steal
Lawrence
’s lost manuscript… he had to go back to
have a look at the Rosetta Stone in the British museum. While Paul had tried to
comfort him, explaining that nothing he did could have caused a major
transformation, the professor was still nagged by guilt, and the look on
Maeve’s face did nothing to assuage his embattled conscience.

       “Where
are you going?” He called, following after his friend.

       “The
observation deck,” Paul said flatly. “It’s only two flights up, and the Arch
effect should still encompass the dome. I’m going up to have a look outside.”

       “Good
idea. Let’s have a look outside.” Maeve started after him, but Kelly remained
behind, hunched over his keyboard as he stroked his chin in thought.

       Paul
led the way into the stairwell and up a few short flights of stairs. He reached
for the door at the top, and Nordhausen saw a slight tremor in his hand. Then
he took hold of the latch and pushed hard. The door opened with a metallic
squeak and Paul went through. Robert and Maeve crowded close behind him, as if
his presence would offer them some protection from whatever they would find on
the other side.

       The
room was very cold, and completely dark. There was an acrid smell in the air,
like ozone on a smoggy day in the city. Nordhausen saw Paul grope for the light
switch, and it flicked on. Their gaze was immediately drawn to the far wall,
where a series of windows marched in a circle at the base of a shallow dome.

       “What
time is it?” Nordhausen asked an obvious question, for there was inky darkness
beyond the panes. He stepped to the edge of the dome, feeling the cold grow
more pronounced as he approached the glass.

       “It’s
half past four
, in the afternoon,” said Paul.

       “What?
Is it storming? Why is it so dark?
Look
at it, Paul, you can’t see a thing
out there. Is that fog or are we just socked in with overcast?”

       “Weather
report was for clear skies, sixty five degrees,” Paul said matter of factly.
“You were just telling me how the atmospheric conditions had to be ideal for an
FM signal to reach us from the
Middle
East
. That’s the bay side of
the dome there, Robert, and we should be able to see the sun starting to set
over the city by now.

       “Sixty-five
degrees? Come over here! It’s freezing out there! It must be a freak storm that
blew in off the ocean. What else?”

       Paul
came to his side, immediately noticing the chill. Maeve hung back, her arms
folded tightly against the cold that was ever more penetrating now. There was a
flash of light outside the dome, lending support to Nordhausen’s suggestion.

       “See
what I mean?”

       “I’d
like to,” said Paul “but I don’t think that’s lightning.” While it looked like
a tempest was raging outside, Paul could not believe his eyes.

       “Not
lightning? Come on, Paul, come to your senses.”

       “It’s
green,” said Paul. “Ever see green lightning? And don’t tell me it’s the Aurora
Borealis. We would never see them this far south. Besides, I’d recognize them
at once.” Paul had served a three year stint as a teacher in
Alaska
when he was just out of college.

       “Not
lightning?” Nordhausen repeated the objection again, unbelieving, but his own
voice quavered, and now the cold was sending chills all though his frame.

       “Feel
that…” Paul’s breath was frosty. “This is
San
Francisco
, Robert. That’s
arctic
cold. Ever feel that here before?”

       Nordhausen
turned to him, shivering. “Are you saying something’s happened to the weather
now? Are you saying the world is spun off its axis and this is the North Pole?
Damn it! What’s going
on
here?”

       “Let’s
get back downstairs.” Paul tugged at him, pulling him back from the opaque
murkiness beyond the windows. Maeve was pale and cold, clearly worried as they
retreated to the door.

       “What
does this mean, Paul?” Nordhausen’s voice was punctuated by the clatter of
their footsteps echoing in the stair well, but Paul said nothing, deep in
thought.

       When
they reached the bottom and opened the door  they were surprised to see that
the consoles seemed alive again. Lights were flashing to the staccato
electronic beep of the computers. Nordhausen beamed when he saw it, smiling
with relief. “He’s got the net back. I told you! It was just a local problem
after all—must have been the storm.” He rushed toward the consoles, gleeful to
have a plausible explanation in hand at last. But Paul’s trained eyes scanned
the room quickly and came to another conclusion that had escaped the professor
entirely.

       “What’s
the read, Kelly?” Nordhausen was at the history console now, but Kelly was
looking over his shoulder at another bank of equipment. “Is the net back up?”
Nordhausen persisted, more enthusiastic now. “Is this a variance report coming
in?”

       “Quiet!”
Kelly was watching the other workstation now. “Paul?” He looked for Paul in the
room, finding him with worried eyes.

       “I
see it,” said Paul. “Let’s get power back up beyond standby mode.”

       “Right,”
said Kelly, moving quickly past the professor to another console across the
room.

       Maeve
stood in silence, watching as the two men went to work with a feverish urgency.
She knew what was happening, being familiar enough with the equipment from her
stint with Kelly on the initial operations.

       “Now
what in blazes is going on here?” Nordhausen was getting angry.

       “Be
quiet, Robert,” said Maeve. “Can’t you see what’s going on? That’s the
retraction module.” Maeve’s revelation did little to dispel the professor’s
confusion.

       “The
retraction module? Is it still operating? We’ve been here for over an hour now.
I haven’t even had time to get out of these clothes. Turn the damn thing off,
Paul, we’ve got to check on this Golem alert.”

       Kelly
gave the professor a withering look. Then he put his hands on his hips and
explained. “Look Robert, there
is
no Golem alert. I told you—the net is
down. It’s not responding. There’s nothing out there, at least not that I can
reach. And this—“ He pointed to the workstation where Paul was making quick
adjustments to the quantum infusion chamber. “This is the retraction module,
just like Maeve said. So sit down and be quiet. We’ve got to focus now.”

       Robert
was dumbfounded. He took a deep breath and recovered a bit of his composure. “I
know very well that’s the retraction module. Why don’t we just turn it off and be
done with it? If the net is down then we’ve got to start thinking on our own.
What about the stone?”

       The
professor felt two hands grip hard on his shoulders, pushing down firmly. He
found himself plopped into a swivel chair and twisted about to see Maeve
frowning at him again.

       “Quiet,
Robert,” she said in a low voice. “They’ve got to be sure the system timing is
balanced now, understand?”

       “But—“
The flare in Maeve’s eyes silenced him, and she spoke again, the words striking
Nordhausen like a hammer.

        ”Someone
is coming through the Arch.”

23

All
eyes
turned to the far end
of the lab complex where a massive circular door gleamed in the cool light of
the overhead neon. It was the portal that would lead to the access tunnel of
the Arch.  Far below the lab, the on-site generators were thrumming away to
provide the enormous power required for the operation. Kelly was monitoring the
buildup, watching as the power indicator swept through 80% on its way to
maximum surge. It seemed sluggish to him, and he was concerned. As if he could
read his friend’s thoughts, Paul looked over his shoulder and tossed him a
question.

       “How
are we on power?”

       “Eighty-seven
percent, and building. But it’s not ramping up like it should. I think we may
have lost our connection to the outside power grid.” He toggled a bank of
switches and nodded his head. “Yup, nothing coming in from PG&E.”

       “Damn
storm has the whole Bay Area down,” put in Nordhausen, who looked at Maeve to
see if he was about to suffer any reprisal for breaking silence. She let the
remark pass, giving him a sideward glance, her attention primarily focused on
Kelly.

       “We’re
on internal power now,” said Kelly. “Fuel looks good, at least for the next
several hours. How’s the particle infusion?”

       “I’ve
got enough left for a retraction, but…”

       The
question that was in everyone’s mind was left unspoken. Who was coming through
the Arch? How were they shifting in? Where were they coming from?

       “Robert…”
Paul looked away from the infusion chamber. “Make yourself useful. You and
Maeve will have to form our welcoming committee. I have no idea what to expect,
but could the two of you get down to the Arch?”

       “But
what if it’s the Assassins?” The professor was the first to vocalize the
obvious fear. “Do you expect me to fend them off at the elevator? We don’t even
have any weapons here.”

       “Relax,”
said Maeve. “I’ll take my parasol.” She was pulling him up from the chair and
heading for the titanium door. Kelly had toggled the breaching command, and the
massive door was swinging open on its oiled metal hinges.

       “Come
along, Robert. We’ve got to get through before it closes.”