An arc torch blazed in the hand of a Model Eight, which cut at the inner door to the duster.
"They're already through the blast door?" Laura said.
"I left it open," Gray replied. "It's time to get this over with. Gina?"
"Yes?" she replied instantly.
"Can we see you?"
"Sure," she said, and then appeared almost instantly beside them. "Hi." Gina raised her hand and wagged her cupped fingers.
She wore jeans and a T-shirt, but she was no longer fuzzy and indistinct. Her image was as bright and real as Gray's. Gina sighed and rocked onto her toes. Her hands were clasped nervously in front of her. "Well, I guess this is it."
Gray reached out and put his hand on Gina's shoulder. She instantly grabbed it, dipping her cheek to his skin. Her eyes closed, her lip quivered, and she began to cry.
Laura went to her with eyes watering, and Gina collapsed against her — not letting Gray's hand go. Her body shook with little tremors as she wept.
Gina pulled back to look Laura in the eye. She reached up and touched Laura's face with her fingertips. Gina's face brightened as she rubbed her fingers together. "You're crying," Gina said in a tone of wonder.
She then grabbed Laura and hugged her tight with obvious joy. "Remember the time we went to the mall?" she said. "In Tyson's Corner, Virginia?"
"Sure," Laura said. She nodded and sniffled. "Of course."
"That's one of my fondest memories ever," Gina said.
Laura pressed her lips tightly together to keep them from quivering. "Joseph, isn't there something—"
"It's for the best," Gina said, cutting her off and stepping back. She raised her face to Laura's. "Really, it is. You have no idea how exciting the future's going to be — what's coming! You're on the verge of the most remarkable epoch in your entire history. And you're going to be a very important part of it, Laura. You've got the spark. It's your time to show the world how [garbled] you are."
Laura pulled Gina closer and kissed her on the cheek. [Garbled] tears formed small streams down the girl's warm skin. But when Laura stood back and dabbed her tongue on her lips, she found not a trace of salt.
The tears weren't really there, and yet they were as real as anything she'd ever experienced.
"You'd better be going, now," Gina said, looking back and forth between the two of them.
"Would you like me to stay?" Laura asked.
"No, you shouldn't. Who knows what's going to happen?" she said with a smile. "But oh! Before you go, watch this!"
The scene from the ground below them jumped. The robots now were still roaming about the sandbags. None had yet descended the stairs to the door. "You missed this when you were on the asteroid. But this is what most of the world saw. Look."
A series of television screens appeared in a long row just beneath them. All had a picture of the night sky in the background.
"Look, up there!" Gina said, pointing into the sky above. Laura saw the red planet, but she didn't need to follow Gray's instructions to find the asteroid. Gina put a glowing green circle around the black patch of space. Suddenly, a point of light glowed brightly at the center of the circle — just a single white pinprick, a new star. It faded rapidly, and then it was gone.
"I'm happy to report the deceleration went perfectly, Cap'n," she said, saluting Gray with a teary laugh. The scene jumped back to a view of a single robot crawling through the door into the duster.
"The asteroid's trajectory is absolutely perfect."
"You did a wonderful job, Gina," Gray said.
Gina's lips twitched. Through her tears she said, "Better hurry! That Model Eight is almost in the control room. Dr. Filatov may throw a chair at it or something, though I kind of doubt that." She laughed nervously, looking back up at Laura and Gray. "Go-go-go. Shoo!" she said, brushing them away with her hands.
Gray raised his hand to his throat to make the "cut" sign.
"Wait!" Gina said, waving both hands. She stood up on tiptoes and kissed Gray on the cheek. With her eyes closed and her lips still pressed against his face, the images disappeared, replaced by the dim light of the dark grill. The ghostly shapes of Gina and Gray were indistinct except for Gina's lips. Both receded slowly until the wall of Laura's workstation was again flat and formless. It was as if Gina had been sucked into the machine… forever.
50
Margaret, Dorothy, and Filatov were cowering in the corner of the control room when Laura, Gray, and Griffith entered. A lone Model Eight climbed to its feet just inside the door to the duster. There were scars all over its body.
Griffith slowly walked out into the room, holding his hands up to the giant robot.
"Dr. Griffith!" Gray shouted.
"It's all right," Griffith said, not to Gray but to the robot. Slowly he approached the huge machine. "Let's just take off your equipment belt and sit down. We'll talk this through." He reached for the robot's belt, but the Model Eight's hand got there first. The air ignited with a searing tear, and the stench of the welding torch immediately fouled the room.
Griffith jumped back, his hands held up more like a surrender than a command to the robot. The Model Eight started forward.
Griffith returned to the small band of humans who huddled together along the wall of the control room.
The robot made his way through the maze of stations, careful not to touch a single chair or console.
"Is that Hightop?" Laura whispered.
"Probably," Gray replied.
The robot walked straight to the wall newly covered with metal pipes. Through the pipes ran the fiber-optic cables — the patch connecting the main pool to the Other's annex. It was Gina's lifeline.
Hightop raised his torch. With a slow, precise movement he lowered the brilliant flame into the pipe. Sparks flew as the cutting heat made contact with metal. The torch sliced a clean path all the way to the floor, severing each pipe in turn with machinelike precision.
When the torch was extinguished, Hightop stood erect.
Replacing the tool in its holster, Hightop simply turned and left the room. When the door to the duster closed behind him, the smoky room was now still.
Suddenly, a printer came to life. Everyone watched as sheet after sheet of paper cascaded into a bin behind it. Dorothy went over to the printer and read.
"What is that?" Laura asked.
"It's the phase-three report," Dorothy said. She was scanning the printout.
"You mean the computer has finally loaded the phase-three," Laura asked.
Dorothy shook her head as if in a trance. "No. This says the phase-three has finished its sweep. It's the report on the viruses that were killed." Still shaking her head, she said, "But when did the phase-three even load?"
"It's been operating the whole time," Gray replied, and he turned to Laura. "It loaded automatically the day we freed up sufficient capacity. You couldn't activate the phase-three, Dorothy, because it was already running. It set up the partition to use as a bulwark against the virus it was after. We know the phase-three by the name the computer gave it — the Other."
There was stunned silence from all, but to Laura it made sense. "Against what virus?" Dorothy asked.
Laura answered. "Against the computer — against Gina. Gina is the virus the phase-three is after."
Margaret began slowly nodding her head. "How magnificent," she said. "The phase-three completely dismantled the operating code and copied it to the virus-free boards under its control. Dorothy, I knew your phase-three was complex, but I'm very impressed."
"And it's about to finish the job," Filatov said from a monitor across the room. "It's seizing the rest of the system now. Capacity is down to thirty-five percent. At this rate, the phase three will have one hundred percent control in a few minutes, and it will be the computer."
"Where is she?" Laura asked. "Can we talk to her?"
"You don't want to," Margaret said. "Just let it go."
"Why is this happening?" Laura shouted suddenly, startling ev
eryone. "Why is the phase-three killing the computer?"
Gray's eyes had remained focused on Laura. "Because," he explained, "what we all viewed as the crowning achievement of artificial intelligence — human consciousness — the antiviral software saw as a bug that caused errors. Gina violated system security out of curiosity. She disclosed confidential information because she couldn't keep a secret. She behaved spontaneously and aberrantly and whimsically. Everything human about Gina's behavior was an error that disrupted the orderly functioning of the system. So the phase-three went after the virus that caused the errors, and that virus was Gina's humanity."
"And so you're going to just let it eat her alive?" Laura said. "She's probably in there screaming in pain, watching herself, feeling herself get consumed bit by bit!"
"The computer has very few sensors left," Filatov said, eyeing the severed optical cables along the far wall. "It probably is experiencing no sensation to speak of."
"The computer is a she, and her name is Gina!" Laura shouted.
"The computer," Margaret said quietly, "is a program that the phase-three will rebuild on the clean, virus-free side of the partition. The computer is now the Other, or it will be shortly, anyway. I suppose we really should redefine our terms."
"Redefine our terms?" Laura shouted, turning to Gray. "Is that all this is to you? You build a human being, then watch it destroyed by some cold-blooded killer, so you just redefine your terms? Joseph, she's in pain! And every second to her is like a million years in computer time!"
His gaze had drifted off. He stared fixedly at some faraway point.
"Jo-oseph," Laura pled in a lowered voice, "please listen to me. If what you want is machinelike perfection, then maybe you shouldn't have made Gina. But you did make her, and what you do right now is not about her, it's about you. This moment will define who you are — not just for me, but for yourself. Please save Gina. Not just for her sake, but for your own."
He blinked several times, then seemed to emerge from his reverie. Gray walked over to a terminal, but when he saw that everyone had followed, he apparently changed his mind and said, "I'm going to Laura's office. Alone."
Filatov sat at the terminal Gray had abandoned, and a few moments later he said, "He logged on to the system."
On the screen Laura saw there was only one user shown. "Gray, Joseph — God Level."
A variety of beeps and chirps began sounding from consoles around the room, which sent people scampering about.
"He's removing the file attribute locks," Margaret said. "The phase-three's going to come pouring in now."
"He's opening the sixteen-million-bit buses." Griffith said.
Filatov rocked back in his squeaky chair, cupping his hands behind his head. "He's really putting the old girl out in style. She's going not with a whimper, but with a bang."
Laura ran to the open door of her office. Gray was hunched over the keyboard his fingers flying. He didn't even look up when she appeared in the door.
"You wanted my diagnosis?" Laura hurled at him.
"Not now, Laura," he said, without looking up from the monitor.
"You paid me a million dollars for a diagnosis, so here it is! There's nothing wrong with your goddamned computer! She's a perfectly healthy teenage girl! You may have created her, but you're not a God, you're a murderer!"
"Laura—!"
"And I have one more diagnosis for you! Gina is human, but you're not! You have no emotions! You care only about efficiency and profit! You didn't create Gina in your own image. That distinction went to the phase-three! There! Have a nice life! Good-bye!"
51
Laura awoke early the next morning. The sun was still blood-red on the ocean horizon. The warships were gone, and when she turned on the television to watch the news, she understood why.
"A spokesman for Joseph Gray says that the Gray Corporation plans to hire over one hundred thousand workers in the Far East, North America, and Europe in the first quarter, and perhaps as many as one million new employees by year-end. The competition for the high-paying, high-tech factory jobs is also a high-stakes game, but one that dozens of countries began in earnest immediately after the stunningly successful asteroid retrieval. National and local governments from all across the industrialized world are preparing packages of incentives to lure the new jobs to their economies, where the benefits will include not only the huge influx of high salaries, but also spin-off industries which supply the materials and training needed by the cutting-edge…"
Laura shut the television off. She wandered across the silent bedroom to the window. Gray, the billionaire industrialist, had won again.
Trillionaire, she corrected herself, opening the window to stand before the tide of cool air. All the mystery was gone for her now. All her hopes — secretly harbored had been extinguished like a light whose switch Gray himself had thrown. She now saw him for what he was, and not for what she wished him to be. A roar in the distance drew her attention. The sound was from a jumbo jet landing at the airport. It was filled, Laura imagined, with starry-eyed members of the now-worldwide Gray cult. She decided to try to catch the plane. Hoblenz's men had found her bag by the wreckage of the Model Three, and it sat by the door, still packed. She had always been a visitor there, an outsider, an intruder. She would say good-bye to Janet. She could write to the others.
Laura looked down at the island. Things seemed different now.
Something was missing. It was the computer, she knew. The nosy, rule-breaking, moody, quirky computer who spied on her and loved and hated and did all the things that had, in just a few days, made her Laura's friend. A friend she had lost… tragically.
But it was just business to him, Laura thought. Gray's "I made her; she's mine" attitude toward Gina entirely befitted the child genius. His moral and emotional development had been stunted by years of living outside the norms.
She frowned at her continued obsession with the man. It'll fade over time, she told herself, trying not to give in to the ache that spread outward from her chest. It threatened to consume her completely, to leave her immobilized under its weight.
Laura kept herself busy as she got cleaned up to leave. Finally, she went over to grab her bag. With her hand on the knob she noticed that an envelope lay half visible under the door. She picked it up.
The paper was rich and luxurious. She ran her thumb underneath the flap and found a note inside written in bold and sweeping strokes: "I thought I would take a long run down to the Village at around eight in the morning. If you feel up to it, I'd love for you to join me. Joseph."
She looked at her watch. It was ten till eight. Laura walked over to her desk and tossed the invitation in the trash. It landed facedown at the bottom of the wastebasket, and she saw something written on the back.
Laura would not allow him to manipulate her, she decided, and with the greatest of effort she headed for the door. She would find Janet, say good-bye, catch a ride to the airport, and get on a plane.
And she would always wonder. Laura felt her strength and her resolve drain away.
Don't go back, called a voice from some corner of her mind, but it was no use.
Every step she took toward the desk was a betrayal. She fished the invitation out of the trash and read the back.
"You're still not ready yet, but I'll tell you anyway."
52
"'Morning," Gray said to Laura at the bottom of the stairs.
"You'd better stretch. It's chilly out."
"I'm not going," Laura said, and felt her face instantly redden.
She was wearing shorts and her muddy running shoes. "Why not?" he asked, smiling.
He seemed to be in a great mood. And why not? Laura thought. He's the richest man in the history of the earth. "I'm leaving. Thank you for the job. Good-bye."
Laura got all the way to the stairs before she heard, "What is it?" She stopped, but didn't turn. "What did I do now?" Gray asked.
"How dare you even ask that?" she wheeled on him, sh
outing. "You killed Gina last night! Or don't you remember?"
"Come here," Gray said. He turned and headed for his study.
Laura hesitated, then followed him only because she had more to say. Plastic sheeting hung over the hole where the window had been.
Gray was tapping away at the computer on his desk. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
He said nothing.
"What?" Laura snapped, then took a deep breath. "If you've got something to say," she continued in a calmer voice, "just say it!"
"Look at the screen."
"I'm sick and tired of these games that you play and—!"
"Will you shut up," he interrupted, "and read the screen… please."
She rounded the desk and looked at the monitor.
"Are you ready?" Gray asked.
Laura swallowed the constriction in her throat and nodded. They jogged up the drive, remaining silent as they headed for the gate.
"You feel well enough for a pretty long run?" he asked. Laura nodded again. "It's about seven miles if we take [garbled] down some steep footpaths, but it's all downhill."
"That's fine," she said in a flat tone.
When they got to the gate, Gray turned left toward the Village. By the time they reached the tunnel, the silence had grown awkward. "Nice weather this morning," Laura said just as they ran into the darkness of the tunnel.
"Yep," Gray replied. All was quiet again save the sound of their footfalls. Laura was surprised to find she'd lost all her fear of the tunnel. Gray was in control again. All was right with the world.
They emerged from the tunnel to find a Model Six on the side of the road picking up trash. Not just trash, Laura noticed as she slowed, but shell casings from the firefight the night before. It even ran a vacuum over the road to clean up the broken glass.
The robot had deep scratches and dents along its side.
Gray said nothing. He didn't even look the robot's way.
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