The boy spun and fired into the rocks toward the source. It was some kind of game, and the boy leapt off the rock to go play it.
The closer Laura and Gina got to the Laura clone, the older the woman appeared to be. She had gray hair pulled back behind her head.
She was kneeling on the ground and pulling up some kind of bulbs — vegetables of some sort. People might not have evolved, but rutabagas appeared to Laura to have mutated. The woman looked up to check the horizon again. The sky was alive with swirling purples and reds. It was beautiful, but Laura felt more drawn to the woman than the landscape. To the computer's depiction of what an old Laura would look like.
"So," Gina said, "what do you think?"
Laura shrugged. "On the whole, I appreciate the flattery. I'm a fine-looking old lady."
"I mean, what do you think about the tour?"
"I think you've been reading too much Kurt Vonnegut on CD ROM."
"That's all? No conclusions you'd like to share with me?"
"Well, let's see. A few million years ago, people didn't live past their mid-thirties because they were dumb as stumps. A few million years in the future, after major advances in nutrition and plastic surgery, we'll all be healthy and happy and attractive well into our eighties."
"She's over a hundred and thirty," Gina said, nodding at the Laura-like woman.
"A hundred and thirty, a thousand and thirty, whatever. I get the point. Knowledge is good."
Gina tilted her head to the side and frowned sadly. "Oh, I'm sorry, Laura. You're not getting it at all. You're just not ready yet. Georgi is coming down the hall, so I'm going to have to say 'bye."
She raised her hand and waved.
"No, wait!"
The scene disappeared, the last vestiges of the lithe girl receding into the nothingness of the black walls — her fingers still waggling their goodbye.
40
"It was unbelievable." Laura said to Filatov. He was leaning over a monitor just outside the virtual workstation with a grim look on his face. "The world was so totally realistic that I completely forgot where I was. Those things open up some incredible opportunities. I mean, the guide could teach medical students how the aorta works by taking them inside a full-sized model of the heart."
"What guide?" Filatov asked distractedly.
"The guide, you know, who leads you around in cyberspace."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Filatov said, straightening up. "But don't get carried away. These things aren't quite ready for home use. That one little simulation of yours cost about thirteen million dollars in computer time."
"What?"
"I hope you enjoyed it, because we haven't done more than a dozen class ones since the 4Cs came on-line. The computational power is too expensive."
"But… what about when computing power comes down by a billionfold? That thirteen million dollars would drop to… what? A single penny!"
"What are you talking about?" Filatov said, brushing past her for the door.
Laura followed. "The computer said that computational power will expand by a millionfold for the next generation and then by a billionfold the generation after."
"A-a-ah!" Filatov said, passing her comment off with an irritated wave of his hand. "How the hell would it know?"
When they got to the control room, Laura saw idle technicians clustered about in groups. The computer center's smooth functioning seemed to have been interrupted by a mass coffee break.
"What's going on in here?" Laura asked.
"They're scared," Filatov said.
"Of what?"
"Hoblenz."
"Why."
"He says he caught one of my operators committing sabotage, Filatov said, his tired eyes rising to Laura. "He was trying to load an optical disk into a drive. The disk is full of control codes for some foreign power, governmental or corporate, we don't know which. Hoblenz thinks he's just found the cause of all our troubles, and he now suspects everyone on my staff, even me!"
"Do you think that operator is the cause of our problems?"
Filatov shook his head. "No. But he would have caused more if he hadn't been stopped."
"What does Mr. Gray think?"
"Hoblenz hasn't called him yet. He wants to find out more before he makes his report."
"What does that mean?" Laura asked. "Where has he taken that man?"
"To the conference room — the main—"
"And you let him?" she burst out. "Just Hoblenz and the man alone?" Laura ran all the way to the conference room and slapped the pressure plate on the wall. She almost smashed her nose into the door when it didn't open. She pressed the plate again — this time harder.
Nothing. Laura began pounding on the door. "Hoblenz! Let me in!" She pounded over and over until finally she heard someone inside.
"Stand back, Laura!" the muffled shout came. "Move down the hall away from the door!"
"Okay!" she replied, and stepped back. Remembering it was Hoblenz, she thought better and headed even farther down the hall to wait.
A blast tore open the wall beside the door with a tremendous boom.
The remains of the pressure plate came to rest on the floor. Two soldiers pried open the door and slid it back into the wall. The stench of smoke from the gun still filled the air as Laura peered sheepishly into the room.
One of Hoblenz's men safed his smoking shotgun with an audible click. There were half a dozen other soldiers, all heavily armed. Hoblenz stood over the conference table, one hand holding a pistol to the nose of a white-jacketed herd, the other holding a thick shank of the man's hair.
But his eyes were on the scene at the door. "What the hell are you doing?" Laura demanded.
Hoblenz looked concerned. "Are we havin' some kinda power problems with those doors?" he asked, ignoring her question. Laura turned to see Filatov standing in the doorway behind her. He was staring at the prisoner — his former operator.
"Mr. Hoblenz," Laura began, "I don't think—!"
"Is the goddamn power on out there?" Hoblenz shouted.
"Yes!" Filatov answered. "We've had no trouble with power."
Hoblenz let the prisoner's head go. Blood ran down the man's upper lip, and one lens of his glasses was cracked. He looked even paler than the norm, and his hair stood straight up where the big man's firm grip had been. Hoblenz walked over to peer into the hole in the wall.
"I'll be goddamned," he said in wonder.
"What?" Laura asked.
"The door didn't work. I mean, even the manual didn't work."
"You didn't lock it?" Laura asked.
"No! You can't lock it! It don't lock!"
"Then why…?" she began, realizing immediately the answer to her half-expressed question. The computer, she thought.
It was the only explanation. Hoblenz looked at her, obviously thinking the same. "Why would the computer lock the door?" she asked.
"Guess it wanted to know what that pissant over there had to say."
Laura looked at the man. "Are you okay?" she asked him.
He looked sick, but he nodded his head.
"Aw shit, Aldridge! What'd you think? That I'd kill the guy?"
"You sure as hell beat him up!"
"That weren't nothin'. I get a call every other night about a scrap worse'n that between my own men!"
"What's going on?" they heard, and everyone turned to the door to see Gray.
"We caught this rat bastard tryin' to load an optical disk into a drive," Hoblenz said, picking up the disk and tossing it to Gray. "It's got control codes on it."
Gray walked up to the man. "Is that true?" he asked in a low voice.
The man looked down, then nodded. "Why? Who do you work for?"
"CIA," Hoblenz said. "'Least that's the version he gave before the good Dr. Aldridge here arrived. And it's the damnedest thing. We heard her bangin' on the door like the Gestapo, but when we hit the plate the damn thing wouldn't open. We had to use plan B — the ten gauge."
"Was there a power outage?"
"Nope," Hoblenz said. "Those pneumatic hoses were as full as an Irishman's bladder."
"It didn't want Hoblenz to stop torturing his prisoner," Laura said.
"I wasn't torturin' him! I was just askin' him kinda rough."
"Get this man on the plane with the others," Gray ordered.
Hoblenz seemed outraged. "When they land, sir, the spooks'll just snatch him right up."
"I don't care. I want him gone. The last flight leaves in an hour." He looked over at Laura. "Janet packed your things. There's a car outside with your suitcase. I hope you don't mind."
"Don't mind what?"
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave, too, Laura."
"Leave! Why?"
"I'm evacuating everyone. There are three jumbo jets down at the airport. I'm sorry, but you've got to go."
"Are you leaving?"
"No, but you are."
"Who all is staying?"
"Just me, the security people, my management team, a few others. Everybody else has to go."
"All the nonessential personnel, you mean." She felt the blood rush to her face in a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Hoblenz and the others stood around in awkward silence. "Why the sudden change?" she asked, a bitter smile thinly masking the pain she felt. "Yesterday, you were piling people in here, Joseph. Today. you're shipping them off! A little bit flighty, don't you think?"
"Please, Laura, just go."
"At least tell me why I'm getting kicked off the goddamned island!"
"It's not safe here."
Even the prisoner seemed interested in the confrontation. "I get it," she said, nodding her head.
She bit her lip to forestall the quiver. Gray was silent.
"Jesus! Of course I'll leave! I don't know why I didn't leave on the first day!" She tore out of the conference room, brushing past Gray, Filatov, and the soldiers. She felt humiliated, her face glowing hot and tears welling up in her eyes, angering her further. Thankfully, the control room was already empty.
Laura stopped at a console, meaning to say a quick good-bye to the computer. There was no keyboard, just a series of buttons and trackballs and a headset with one clear lens hanging down in front of the right eye. On the screen was a confusing array of unrecognizable windows. Laura abandoned the effort and just walked out, feeling guilty for not trying harder to find a terminal.
She hadn't realized how late it was, but it was almost dark outside. The winged door of a car rose into the air with a hiss. Her suitcase was in the back seat. "The fucking airport!" she said angrily once inside, and the car took off. The Village was totally deserted.
The sun was failing, and everyone left on the island was indoors.
Not so much as a thank-you, Laura thought bitterly. Not a job well done. Not… anything!
The car headed out of the Village, wheeling onto the undulating, curved road that ran through the jungle toward the airport.
Laura wondered if she would ever see the island again. This world may not exist much longer if the rest of the earth had its way. Laura wondered if she would ever see Gray again.
She cringed at the fleeting glimpse of a spider's legs as they flashed in front of the windshield. A crashing explosion of sounds preceded the gut-wrenching flight through the air of the tumbling car.
The screeching and tearing of metal and the violent jerks of her body against the seat restraints went on forever as she waited helplessly in anticipation of the end.
All was still. Laura lay on her side. She had been in a car that had gotten into an accident, she remembered. Slowly, she came to her senses. The car lay on its side, and she was still strapped inside it.
It was nearly pitch-dark outside.
When she moved, there was no great pain, just dizziness. A flashing light sparkled through the smashed but largely intact windshield. The tree line ahead was lit in time with the blinking light of her car's headlights. She undid the seatbelt and slowly struggled out of the wreck of the electric car. The broken headlights continued their flashing strobe as she leaned against the chassis to steady herself.
There was something in the headlights' glare. A twisted lump of gray metal lay on the ground just beside the road.
The steady, building roar of a commercial jet's engines on takeoff disturbed the otherwise surreal silence of the crash scene. Laura saw the airplane rise into the air above the trees, its red and green lights illuminated against the dark sky. She wondered how long she'd been unconscious. A second jet roared off, and shortly after that a third — taking away the last of Gray's departing employees.
Laura's suitcase lay on the ground beside her, and she picked it up and stood there in a daze. All was still again save the blinking of the lights. Without knowing what she was doing or for how long the moment had lasted, Laura realized she was staring at the lump of metal in the headlights' beams. From the size of the object she knew it wasn't some part broken off of the electric car. It was too big.
She headed toward the crumpled metal, her light suitcase gripped firmly in hand. A spidery leg was lying on the ground next to the main piece. It still seemed to be connected.
The leg moved suddenly, and Laura jumped back. From a few feet away she watched as the leg rose into the air in a slow and graceless arc. Its progress was chronicled in a series of still images shot by the headlights' strobes. The leg pressed down against the ground and rocked the dismembered mechanical body pathetically onto one side.
It was a Model Seven — only one of its four legs still attached.
Its "head" stared up at Laura. She walked over to it and knelt, laying her hand on its smooth metal panels. It was twisted and mangled and rent with great gaping wounds. Cables dangled loose. Precious liquids dripped onto the soil with hisses and bursts of smoke from where they landed.
The robot's long leg began to move again. This time it rose into the air above Laura. She kept her eye on the spider's limb, which slowly descended toward her. She caught only snapshots of the leg's descent in the flashes of light from her car, and there were too many gaps in the illumination for her to feel secure about the aim of the leg. But somehow Laura wasn't frightened. Its motions were too slow, too weak.
The wheel at the end of the leg was inserted into the tool belt the robot wore at its waist. When the leg came out it was bare.
The robot plugged it into another slot and pulled out a three-fingered hand.
The overturned Model Three's faulty lights blinked on and off and on again. Three short blinks, followed by three long, followed by three more short.
Morse code! Laura realized, a chill spreading instantly over her body. She remembered it from some long-ago movie about a passenger ship that sank. Dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot—"SOS." It was a distress signal, and it was meant for her.
The Model Seven hand wobbled and shook at maximum extension as it groped for a panel on its body. The increasingly spastic robot succeeded finally in opening the door to a compartment.
Inside she saw a thick sliding switch. The robot's fingers jerked spasmodically — the switch just out of their reach. Laura leaned close.
The words "Main Power" were written in red. A single large exclamation point was clearly visible in a black triangle just underneath. Threaded through the switch was a thin wire for security against it being thrown inadvertently.
The robot convulsed — its arm thrashing not dangerously but dismally through the air just over her head. Laura reached up into the box and grabbed the switch, pulling down as hard as she could.
With a pop the resistance gave way. The robot's limb collapsed to the ground beside her, and the mortally wounded robot fell still.
The lights of the car shone steadily now, forcing Laura to squint as she turned to look at them. After a moment they went dark, and a faint electric motor in the car wound down. All was now still on the narrow pathway between the curb and the jungle wall.
The thick, dark growth seemed to close in from all sides.
>
Laura eyed the empty road in both directions, a rising tide of fear quickening her heart rate. Grabbing her suitcase, she began a brisk walk toward the Village, her head turning from side to side and to the rear in a constant search for danger. The black edge of the jungle formed a solid wall, and it lay not ten feet from the sides of the pavement.
There was movement under the lights on the road ahead. Laura could see people at the outskirts of the Village. She started to yell, but decided they were still too far away to hear her. She began to jog — afraid they would be gone before she caught up with them.
The contents of her suitcase shook noisily with each stride she took down the hill.
A blur of movement from the side preceded a jarring blow to Laura's body that knocked her to the grass beside the road. She looked up at the rounded metal head and single unblinking eye and screamed.
A hand went over her mouth. "Jesus Christ, lady!" a man whispered. "Quiet! There's robots up ahead!" You could hear the fear in his voice. After a moment, he let his hand off her mouth and got off her.
He wore a military-style helmet and night-vision goggles with a single wide lens in front. The Cyclops-like eye was pointed down the hill toward the Village. "Who are you?"
"U.S. Navy. Come on."
She followed the man into the jungle. Other soldiers were waiting there. "Two in the jungle on the right," someone whispered, the words not meant for Laura, "one in the clearing, the fourth one in the town. Looks like they're searching for something!"
"In the town?" Laura asked. "The Village? There are robots in the Village?"
"Who the hell are you?" came a voice whispered from the darkness.
"Laura Aldridge. Dr. Laura Aldridge."
"Can you take care of my man?" the soldier asked.
"Does he have psychological problems?"
"What?"
"I'm a psychologist."
There was a sickly moan from the darkness.
"What's the matter with him?" Laura asked.
"He almost got torn apart by one of those goddamn robots."
"A robot hurt him?" There was a pause.
"Where the hell have you been, lady?"
Society of the Mind Page 48