Realtime Interrupt

by James P. Hogan

  Judy had been away from her desk seeing Yeen from the building, so Corrigan was spared having to improvise some other pretext for getting her away from her desk to cover for Morgen and Sutton's abrupt disappearance. One other detail that he did need to justify to keep things from getting difficult, however, was the continuing presence of Lilly. It seemed odd, at a time like this, to have to give consideration to satisfying the pseudocuriosity of a computer animation, but it was the easiest way of keeping things simple in the meantime for himself.

  When Judy returned, Corrigan informed her that Lilly wanted to spend the rest of the morning going through her notes and listing any final questions before going back to California, and would be using the small conference room that Yeen had questioned her in. Lilly disappeared accordingly, and the routine calls and queries continued unabated until late morning. Then Judy announced that Mr. Ulsen was on the line from the Advisory Office of Advanced Technology, Washington. Corrigan told her to put the call through.

  "Mr. Corrigan?"

  "Yes."

  "Ulsen again. How are things in there?" At least there were no attempts at pretense this time.

  "Never mind the niceties," Corrigan growled. "Morgen and Sutton are back out, so you know the score. What's the situation?"

  "Your request is understood and appreciated, Mr. Corrigan. A delegation is on its way back into the simulation to talk to you."

  "That wasn't a request, dammit. And there isn't anything to talk about. Do you intend doing as I said, or do we start unhinging the whole works from the inside here?"

  "Please understand that I am merely an intermediary. I have no personal authority in this. It's all gone way over my head."

  "Then just get back out there and tell whoever is in charge to shut down the whole operation—now. That's all there is to it. End. Period. Do you get the message, Mr. Ulsen?"

  "Yes, I understand perfectly. But I have been asked to remind you of the reality of the time-rate differential. Some finite time will be required however urgently matters are expedited out here, and that will translate into a delay that may seem unduly protracted."

  "All you have to do is restore tee-tau to unity. Then we'd be able to talk direct and wouldn't need an intermediary. It's perfectly simple."

  "That is already being done. But as I'm sure you appreciate, it will still necessitate a considerable delay at your end. All we're asking is for you to bear with us."

  Only if the intention was to talk. But Corrigan had already said that there was nothing to talk about. He was just about to launch into another outburst of invective when he saw Pinder hovering in the doorway of the office. Pulled in two directions, he wavered suddenly. "Be quick about it, then," he muttered to Ulsen.

  "Thank you for your understanding."

  Corrigan put the phone down and looked up. Pinder came in, closing the door. His expression was accusatory, yet at the same time questioning—unable to condone but reluctant to prejudge. Corrigan had been expecting it. Pinder had been involved when the police appeared with the news about Hatcher, and gone over the river to convey the tidings to Head Office. The calls from on high had begun soon afterward, and now he was back as an emissary to find out what in hell was going on.

  Pinder opened. "I was prepared to overlook your indiscretion of yesterday, Joe, but this is going too far. Don't you realize, the president of the company has been personally trying to contact you since first thing this morning. And you don't seem to give a damn. What on earth's gotten into you? I told you the last time that you are not the technical director yet. Now I think I'm beginning to realize just how unsuited you'd be to that task. Now, are you going to at least cover while we get the project up and running, or do I put in Frank Tyron as acting coordinator, effective immediately?"

  Corrigan stared at him indifferently, feeling like Archimedes having to put up with the babbling soldier from Rome while trying to ponder things that mattered. On the other hand, Archimedes had gotten himself killed. There could be no letup yet; the game had to continue. But he had learned how to deal with animations.

  He forced an expression of shocked surprise. "Surely you're not referring to the project . . . not at a time like this, after the news about Tom?" He shook his head to say he knew that Pinder hadn't meant it—giving him the opportunity that any decent person would have to put it another way. "We're not imagining that tomorrow's schedule still stands?"

  Pinder faltered while unseen circuits hastily recomputed weighting evaluation matrixes. His change of stance was as abrupt as yesterday's, or as Barry Neinst's a few hours earlier.

  "Well, of course, I didn't exactly mean to imply that. Naturally we must observe a proper sense of priorities. . . . But there are certain interests with a considerable stake in the outcome, who don't share our dimension of, shall we say, `personal involvement'—as I'm sure you appreciate. If the schedule is affected—as it has to be, of course—we still owe it to them to be kept informed."

  "I'm working on it now," Corrigan lied. "But I don't have a full picture yet. Yeen should be getting in touch again at any time."

  "Very well. But in that case please call Endelmyer back and inform him of that much."

  Corrigan sighed beneath his breath, nodded, and entered the code into his desk unit. Anyway, it would be as easy to turn Endelmyer's animation around too, he reasoned. The features of Endelmyer's secretary appeared on the screen. "Hi, Celia. Joe Corrigan for himself," he said.

  "Oh, at last. I'll put you straight through."

  Then Judy's voice came from outside on another line. "Sorry to interrupt, but Harry Morgen and Joan Sutton are back with Frank Tyron, wanting to see you. Victor Borth is with them. They say it's urgent, and you know what it's about."

  "All right!" Corrigan exclaimed with relish, and forgetting all else, sprung up from the desk and headed for the door.

  "Joe? . . . Joe Corrigan, where are you?" Endelmyer's puzzled voice said from the screen.

  "Hello? No, it's me," Corrigan heard Pinder splutter behind him as he went out. "Well, he is, but he's just gone. I don't know what's happened to him. . . ."

  Whereas Morgen's approach had been conciliatory and placating, Tyron immediately launched into the offensive—possibly because Morgen had got nowhere; more likely to maintain a firm image of the heavyweight in front of Borth.

  "What do you people think you're playing at?" he demanded. "Don't you realize that the information that's coming out of this is already priceless? You're sabotaging what could be the biggest breakthrough in the whole field in the last fifty years."

  "Everything's on this now," Borth pitched in, pushing his way forward beside Tyron. "If it blows, Xylog folds—the whole works. If it flies, we've got the oyster. You have to see this one through now."

  Corrigan, furious, pointed an arm in the general upward direction to indicate "out there." "That's all you can think about, even after what you forced Tom Hatcher into?"

  "Unavoidable collateral," Tyron said. "It's a shame it has to happen, but there's some in every operation."

  "Unavoidable collateral!" Corrigan exploded. "Is that what you call it? It's still all just—"

  Tyron brushed it aside with a tired wave. "Look, he's okay. I just talked to him. If you want to be part of the Big League, you've gotta start thinking in big terms, Joey boy."

  Judy, who had been listening bemusedly from her desk, gasped. "Tom, okay? But how could he be? I don't understand. . . ."

  Tyron ignored her. Corrigan, however, was a person whose habits died hard. "Let's do this somewhere less public," he said. He looked back at the open door of his office, but Pinder was still talking at the screen in there. There was still the room where Lilly was ensconced. "Come on. This way." And before anyone could object, he began herding them away. "Don't worry about it, Judy," he threw back as they disappeared around the corner. "I'll explain it all later."

  Lilly was sitting in a chair to one side of the room, apparently thinking to herself, when Corrigan came in followed by the
others. Tyron halted when he saw her, a frown of puzzled recognition on his face. She seemed unsure of whether she had met him before or not.

  "Yes, you know her, Frank," Corrigan said, reading the situation as Morgen came in last of all, closing the door. "This is Lillian Essell, one of the Air Force volunteers that you interviewed in California a month ago. Except for her it's been twelve years. I'm not sure if they've made that clear to you yet, out there—the memory suppression of the first run didn't work. It was a neat idea, but you messed up. We still remember everything."

  But Tyron was already waving a hand impatiently and grimacing. "You don't understand. The rerun is showing some amazing things already. Just stay with it for a few more days. There's—"

  Corrigan slammed a hand down on the table in the center of the room. "Days for you!" he stormed. "That's the whole point I'm trying to tell you, but you don't seem able to space for get it into your head. It's going to be years all over again for us!"

  "Not years," Tyron argued. "The contradictions are beginning to show now. It can't go much farther. You've got to push it to its limits. That's the only way we'll learn what we need to know to make it better."

  "So that you can deliver what they want, while I'm the schmuck locked up inside it? What do you take me for? I might be Irish, but I'm not all Kerry green. The answer's no—no way. Forget it. It's over. We're getting out."

  Tyron's expression changed to something approaching a leer. "Well, it's a pity you feel that way, Joey boy, because when the chips are down you don't really have that much of a choice. We can exit at any time. . . ." To prove it, Tyron vanished before their eyes and reappeared a moment later ten feet away, on the opposite side of the table. He pointed a finger at Corrigan. "But you depend on an external disconnect." He shrugged with a grin of emphasized unapology. "And we've got the switch out there. You don't."

  Lilly stood up and broke in, "That's not true. What about Tom Hatcher? We can get out anytime."

  Tyron shrugged again, evidently having already considered the point. "So go ahead and opt out," he told them. "That won't score very high with the people who own the show, will it? So the simulation loses a couple of surrogates. So what? There are still four dozen others. The show goes on, with you or without you."

  "You talk as if you think it's yours," Corrigan said.

  Tyron leered again, more broadly this time. "You quit now, and it will be," he answered.

  Corrigan shook his head, bunching his mouth grimly, and threw out an arm. "Oh no, it isn't as simple as that; at all. Haven't you heard? You've created another crazy world out there. Ever since Hatcher showed them how, they've been wiping each other and themselves out all over Pittsburgh. What use do you think a simulation like that is going to be to anyone?"

  Tyron made a show of being unperturbed. "We overcompensated on the assimilation parameters. So we set them back a little. It's no problem."

  Corrigan's neck reddened. He was about to reply, when the door opened again and Pinder appeared. Pinder moved a pace into the room and stood, looking around at the company perplexedly. "Will somebody tell me what the hell's going on around here?" he demanded. His eyes singled out Corrigan, and he was about to say something further, when he noticed Lilly beside him, and her visitor's badge. "Who are you?" he asked her.

  Pinder was an animation. He would know nothing of what was being discussed in the room. Corrigan knew more about what Lilly was doing there than any of the others. He gave the only answer that he could: "Her name's Lillian Essell. She's a journalist from California, doing a piece on the project. I told her she could use this room for the morning."

  Pinder waited a couple of seconds to see how that explained anything, and when nothing more was forthcoming, shook his head, refusing to add another layer of complication to what there already was. "I'm sorry, Ms. Essell, but this is strictly an internal company matter. I must ask you to leave us, please."

  Lilly looked questioningly at Corrigan. "My office is empty," he said. "Use that for now. You know where it is." He moved with her to see her to the door. She nodded, happy to let them get on with it. Pinder stood aside and held the door for her to leave. But just as he was about to close it behind her, he saw Ken Endelmyer and John Velucci approaching along the corridor. They halted just outside the room. Endelmyer looked at Pinder strangely. Pinder looked strangely at him.

  "What are you doing here?" Endelmyer asked, looking puzzled. "I thought we left you outside. How did you get inside?"

  "Inside what?" Pinder replied, just as puzzled. "I've just come across."

  "Across what?"

  "Across from HQ. You asked me to."

  "1 did? When?"

  Pinder tried desperately not to look like a subordinate suddenly confronted by a superior who has taken leave of his senses. "Ten minutes ago. You wanted me to get over here and see what the problem was with Joe."

  "No, you were already here," Endelmyer said, looking equally suspicious. "We've just come over from HQ—to join Frank and the others here. But we left you outside in the Monitoring Center."

  "Outside?" Pinder queried.

  "Outside Oz—outside the simulation," Endelmyer replied.

  Pinder looked uneasily around the room in a silent plea for somebody to tell him that he wasn't the only one for whom this was getting insane. The others returned looks as devoid of expression as a fog bank.

  Then Corrigan realized what had happened. Pinder, the animation, had just left an Endelmyer animation in HQ, across the river, and now had run into the real Endelmyer, who had entered the simulation as a surrogate; and since Pinder knew only the animation Endelmyer, he was presuming this one to be he. The real Endelmyer, on the other hand, had come over from HQ in the real world, and by the sound of things had talked to the real Pinder before being coupled in. Corrigan groaned inwardly. It could only get worse. Nothing was going to sort this out now.

  Pinder looked back at Endelmyer. "Outside the simulation," he repeated. "That's very interesting. I'm not quite sure I follow, though, since the simulation isn't due to begin until tomorrow." His voice was polite and inoffensive, like a student not wanting to say that the professor was wrong when it was obvious. "Perhaps you could explain?"

  "Tomorrow?" Endelmyer blinked, nonplussed. "It's been running for three weeks, Jason. What in God's name are you talking about?" He sent an uncertain look around the room in his turn, then moved in through the doorway to appeal to them all directly. "Is Jason not making sense, or is it me?"

  Tyron hadn't quite seen it yet either. "I understand you, but not him," he said, but sounding distant as if fearing that he might be missing something. "Of course, it's been running for three weeks. We just came into it."

  "You're all mad," Pinder declared flatly.

  "What kind of talk is this?" Endelmyer demanded. "First Hatcher flips. Then Corrigan won't talk to anybody. Is there something we don't know about this process that affects . . ." His voice trailed away when he saw that Corrigan was staring past him, out into the corridor, with a look of open disbelief. Endelmyer turned to follow his gaze, and his jaw fell. Another Endelmyer and another Velucci were coming along the corridor from the elevators.

  "Ah, there you are, Joe," Endelmyer called ahead, seeing him. "I figured that maybe you were having bigger problems over this Hatcher business than I realized, so John and I decided to follow Jas—" He stopped in midword and came to a dead halt as he saw who was with Corrigan, just inside the doorway of the conference room. The Endelmyer and the Velucci inside stared at the Endelmyer and the Velucci outside. The ones outside stared back. All of them seized up.

  Joan Sutton came out of her stupor first. "Frank, freeze the animations," she said sharply.

  At the far end of the room, Tyron fished out a communicator and hammered in an emergency code. "Control? Do we have synchronization yet? Hello? Does anyone out there read? This is critical. . . ." All attention in the room focused upon him. Perspiration showed on his forehead. His eyes were wide with alarm behind his spe
ctacles.

  "Will somebody tell me what in Christ is going on here?" Borth demanded darkly.

  "Oh shit," Harry Morgen groaned as the truth slowly dawned.

  "Who are you talking to?" the animation Endelmyer asked, moving in through the door and pointing at Tyron. "I demand an explanation!"

  That was enough to shock the other Endelmyer into life. "You don't demand anything around here. I run this company."

  "Come in, control. Does anyone read? . . ."

  In the middle of it all, Corrigan slipped out into the corridor. He walked quickly back to his own office, past Judy, who was talking with Betty, the sixth-floor receptionist, and straight in through his own door. Lilly was sitting in a chair to one side of the desk, contemplating a figurine of an Irish leprechaun that she had taken from the shelf above. She looked up before Corrigan could say anything and asked him, "Didn't you tell me that somebody gave this to you and Evelyn as a wedding gift? But I saw it at the house, too, last night. How do you come to have two of them?"

  "Jesus, can you believe women? We've no time for things like that right now. The whole . . ." Corrigan stopped speaking abruptly and jerked his head around to look at her as he realized what she was saying. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes. It was on a ledge in the den." That was right. On the morning of his mysterious awakening, when he came into work and looked around his office, Corrigan himself had thought that it ought to be at the house. But he hadn't been sure because it had been twelve years ago. Then, with everything else going on, it had completely gone from his mind to check in the evening. He took the figurine from her and turned it over in his hands, staring at it.