The God Machine

by Martin Caidin

  I did have one great advantage, of course. The manner in which the cybernetics system functioned was better known to me, perhaps, than to any other living man. I would not suffer the delusion that 79

  was incapable of anticipating patterns built up out of random activity or motivation. Few people realize that continued randomness itself, after a sufficient interval of time passes, becomes an identifiable pattern.

  I was not about to underestimate the opposition. Quite the contrary. I had to struggle within myself not to impart to 79 capabilities that not even its superbrain capacity could grasp.

  Anonymity, freedom of action, careful planning, and a never-compromised flexibility to meet any situation were my immediate and most overwhelming assets. But could I handle this terrible responsibility on my own? One man against not simply the cybernetics creation, but against all those whom it already controlled? Could I tackle an adversary of such unproportionate strength and not only survive but accomplish my purposes? The odds were staggering— against me.

  I watched for the highway signs and finally swung right onto the road that pointed southeast to La Junta, 150 miles distant. From La Junta I could catch an airliner to wherever . . . That was a hell of a question. Where was I going to go? I pushed the question aside. There would be plenty of time to decide between here and La Junta.

  The car raced along the highway now sprayed with the pink touch of the approaching dawn.

  Though I craved coffee, I didn't dare to stop at any of the frequent diners. Speed and distance were my needs now; the coffee must wait until I gained the airport.

  For some time now I had considered the idea of getting to another advanced digital computer, into which I could program any number of possibilities, and from which I might draw the plans I was seeking.

  There was little difference in the speed of operation between an advanced system such as, say, the IBM

  10114 utilized by the Space Agency and the Air Force and that of 79.

  With the electronic swiftness of computer calculations I could—I must have made an expression of disgust on my face to match my sudden feelings. It is so damned bloody easy to overlook what is thunderingly obvious!

  Use another computer? Fool! It would require weeks, perhaps months, simply to program another computer with data before I could even run a test of the circuitry to assure myself that the damned thing was functioning properly! And programming of that nature meant a large and highly skilled staff ready and waiting to work at least twelve-hour shifts, perhaps more. You just don't walk up to a computer, kick it in its cooling system, and order it to count probabilities upon its electronic toes.

  I stuck a cigarette between my lips, and as I lit up I noticed how light the sky had become. In a few minutes I could turn off the headlights.

  I knew I was doing my best not to underestimate the opposition. Perhaps I had leaned over so far backward to retain objectivity I had lost my perspective. It's possible to seek too strongly for the right balance, and that was precisely what had happened.

  The fastest computer in existence, in terms of grasping the kaleidoscopically interwoven ramifications of this whole mess, as well as anticipating the possible random moves, was my own brain.

  About time you remembered that, Steve, old boy!

  I burst into laughter—and didn't that feel good! There was that voice again, my voice. When I felt in need of seeing both sides of an issue, I could always whip up a good thumping argument with myself.

  And sometimes—I laughed again—I came to the right conclusions. . . .

  At La Junta I left the Ford in a parking lot, paying a month in advance. That would keep the car effectively off the streets, and it was one of the last places where a search would be made. I walked several blocks, stopped in a diner for breakfast, and took a cab to the airport.

  It took nearly two days, changing planes in different cities and using different names, to reach my destination. It was remote, beautiful, and out of the way. Six thousand feet above sea level, in the heart of the Grand Tetons.

  Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

  I registered at the Wort Hotel under a different name, took a long bath, and treated myself to a tremendous steak. That night, for the first time in weeks, I slept soundly.

  34

  four days later the scenic majesty of the Grand Tetons had crumbled and the crisp mountain air in which I had delighted on my arrival went unnoticed by me. For those four days I struggled with the problem that daily swelled its presence in my mind, and at the end all I had for my pains was a terrible sense of frustration. To say nothing of the realization that in the time elapsed 79 could have done no less than to develop further its still groping capabilities. God alone knew how many key officials in whom 79

  was interested had been "brought around" by that devilish light in Cubicle 17.

  I had gone over a mental checklist at least a hundred times in my attempts to produce a modus operandi that would give me some percentages of getting past the defenses of 79. No longer was I concerned with whatever damage I might do to the cybernetics Brain. It mattered little to me if I accomplished my original purpose—creating just enough havoc so that it would be necessary to reprogram the neural blocks and take measures to prevent what had already happened in 79's own programming of human subjects. There were ways and means of assuring that a repeat performance wouldn't take place. I hadn't wanted to tear up the electronic fabric of the computer. At least I had exercised such restrictions before. Now I wanted nothing more than to get inside that blasted brain, with high explosives if that could be arranged.

  But how could I do this? 79 itself maintained eternal vigilance against my approach. The superb system of defenses— fingerprints, ID card with its own radiation signature, retinal patterns, body mass, and others, precluded any subterfuge on my part that would allow me entry to the interior of the computer system. And unless I got deep inside, not even an atomic bomb would do me any good. The way 79 had been assembled, with shock-resistant structure, one spherical layer of defense after the other

  ... I groaned in exasperation. If there was a way through this mess, it still eluded me.

  On the first leg of the trip outbound from La Junta, I had managed a call to Tom Smythe. Over his vehement and angry protests I shouted that I would be gone for several days to a week, perhaps longer.

  I managed to calm him down sufficiently to describe that someone had tried to ambush me in the apartment (I did not give him Barbara's name) and that I had found my car booby-trapped with dynamite, which was still there. I felt a growing desperation in my desire to seek an accomplice, but outside of Kim I dared trust no other person.

  After several days of stewing in my own inadequacies, I placed a call to Kim. At night, so that while we talked there wouldn't be any attempt by someone to run a check on the originating point of the call. Kim didn't greet my voice with sweetness and light. She blew the proverbial cork at my long and unexplained silence, and then the warning bells went off again in my skull.

  "But where are you, Steve? Why don't you stop playing ghost and come back?" Her voice changed from brittle anger to soothing tones.

  I chose my words with caution. "What's the difference, Kim? My department is out of the running for a while and—"

  "It's not that," she broke in hurriedly. "It's Dr. Vollmer, Steve. We're loaded down terribly with—oh, I can't go into it on the phone; you know that; security and so forth. But that new program with Melpar, you know the one I'm talking about. We're working day and night on it, and Dr. Vollmer is having fits. He's driving us crazy trying to find you."

  I'll bet, I thought. Vollmer's one of 79's unwilling playmates, and I'm sure he'd like to lead me into Cubicle 17, as he's already done with several others. But Kim? She knew what the score was. Why her sudden insistence on my return? I felt a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. . . .

  "Tell the old goat he'll just have to do without me for a while, honey. I can't leave what I'm doing right now, and—"


  Peevish anger in her voice. "Why are you hiding, Steve? What's wrong? You act as though you don't want to come back here. As if I didn't matter any more. Is that what's happened, Steve?"

  I stared at the telephone as if it had changed into a snake. I had never heard Kim talking like that, and a suspicion grew swiftly into what was almost a certainty. Somehow, in some manner, Kim had been brought before that light controlled by 79. But she knew better than to get within any distance of Cubicle 17, and—whoa; hold on, there. How did I know that only 17 was being used by the giant brain for its efforts to gain control of selected personnel? I didn't, of course. Controlling key technicians and programmers, it would have taken only a suggestion for the light system to be installed in every programmer cubicle!

  I knew I didn't dare to trust even the girl I loved. I don't even remember what I said before I hung up the phone. I went outside and discovered that the weather had changed to match my mood. Rain pouring from the night skies.

  Three days later it was still raining, and I thought I would go out of my mind. There was a small crowd at the hotel, and they were as fed up as was I with the weather. One night, out of desperation, we agreed to a poker game. I raised my eyebrows at the suggested limit of $20. That was a bit steep for my brand of poker, but what the hell. I wasn't going anywhere, and the money wasn't doing me a bit of good. We agreed to the rules; no limit on the number of raises, check and raise, and poker —no fancy nonsense. The bartender brought around glasses, made bottles available, and passed out cigars. He'd been here before during the long rains. Thirty minutes later we were enveloped in a smoke cloud of our own making; I'd had just enough Scotch to loosen my natural caution in the game, and I was on a mild winning streak.

  There were five of us. Besides myself, a fisherman, griping about the weather; two hunters, also griping (as was I); and Old Mike. I didn't know his last name. Everyone called him Old Mike and I wasn't about to step on the toes of local tradition. Old Mike was grizzled and leathery, smoked a terrible pipe, and had been a guide in the mountains for nearly forty years. The bartender told me Old Mike could have retired years ago with the money he'd earned as guide to some of the wealthiest hunters in the country, but he liked what he was doing, and stayed on.

  I didn't know it then, but Old Mike also contained the answer to the question that had haunted me for weeks.

  He had the secret for getting past the defenses of the cybernetics brain.

  Four hours later I was feeling the Scotch with considerably more effect than I had early in the game. My winning streak had held up and I was $900 to the good. One of the hunters, losing heavily and disgruntled with the betting limit of $20, suggested we "quit playing like a bunch of kids and play pot limit." Silence met the suggestion for a while, and I showed how stupid I was by saying I was game for anything. Murmurs of assent from the others followed my lead, and what had been a pleasant game became serious, no-nonsense poker.

  My luck held. Not the same as before, because in pot stakes you're not so eager to call bets. Not when a man will back up two pair with a few hundred dollars and you become suspicious of the strength of the three eights you're holding against those two pair showing. But I did pretty well, and the chance for a big hand came when our fisherman was dealing, seven-card stud, and I found myself with an ace-high heart flush.

  The others folded when four hearts showed on the table. Only Old Mike was left, with queens over nines staring at me. I pushed $100 into the center of the table. Old Mike snuffed a bit, chewed on the stem of his pipe, peeked again at his cards—I began to worry that I was walking into a full house in his hand —and slowly folded, giving me the pot. It held more than $600, and I grinned hugely at my luck.

  I couldn't lose. I felt it, I knew it, and the cards were backing me up. Every game such as we had going invariably has one or more really big pots during its playing when at least two players end up with powerful hands, and this night was no exception. It turned into another showdown between myself and Old Mike; only, this time I was in a much better position than before. Because my hand was hidden.

  You get seven cards total, four face up and three down, in seven-card stud. Heavy betting marked the hand, and when the last card was dealt I had a pair of sixes, an ace, and a king showing. But I had been dealt two aces in the hole to start off the hand, which gave me a full house going into the last card.

  I caught an ace. Four aces.

  I looked at the cards on the table before Old Mike. He was sitting back, tamping his pipe, and studying my hand. Old Mike had a four and seven of hearts, and the sevens of spades and clubs. Three sevens showing against my open cards of a pair of sixes, ace and king. I figured Old Mike for at least sevens full.

  But maybe, just maybe, he had caught the fourth seven. What a spot I was in! If Old Mike had four sevens he would bet to the hilt. He'd shove in everything he had to back up those cards. And I sat there across him with four aces of which three were hidden. It was the dream spot for any poker player, and I intended to cash in on it.

  By the time we were through sparring with each other I'd bet $500. Old Mike looked at me through clouds of blue smoke, and squinted.

  "Mm-mm. Didn't figure you that way, son." More smoke and a smacking of his lips on the scarred stem. "Didn't think you could sneak in a filly on me. Sixes full, eh? Um-mm." This went on for several minutes before he committed himself.

  "Think I gotcha' beat, know that?" he chuckled. "Don't think your sixes full is very strong. Eh?" He counted through his money. "Well-ll, now, we'll just see how strong they are, eh?"

  I grinned at him. "I got $500 out there, Old Mike, that says they're strong."

  "Um-mm, sure, umph." Old Mike pushed $500 into the pot. But he wasn't through yet. He began to count, and secretly I exulted over what was happening. He had to have sevens full or the four sevens, and I knew he'd come back with a raise. He did. He called me and raised $500.

  "Hate to do this to you, Old Mike," I said with a grin. "Call your raise and bump you"—I paused for effect—"$1,000." I winked at him. "Just want to tell you your sevens full won't hold up."

  Old Mike almost swallowed his pipe. He blew smoke and coughed and scratched his ribs and chuffed away like a steam locomotive fighting a steep upgrade. Finally, after five minutes of this, he sighed.

  "Gotta' call ya', I guess," he said slowly, counting out $1,000, easing it into the center of the table.

  No one else made a sound. The other players leaned back in their seats, watching like hawks.

  "I hate to take your money like that, Old Mike," I said.

  "Ummph, gromph," Old Mike said with the pipe in his mouth.

  I laughed, flushed with the Scotch and the hand I held secreted from view. "Aren't you going to raise me?"

  He shook his head, spilling ashes on the table. "Nope, don't reckon like I will. Hate to take all yer'

  money away in just one hand," he said. "Like to be sociable-like iffen' I can."

  "Just calling?"

  Old Mike nodded. "Ummph, jes' callin'."

  I shook my head in mock sympathy. "Hate to do this to you, old-timer," I said, "but I've got better than sixes full."

  He didn't bat an eye. "Guessed as much," he answered.

  "In fact," I said slowly, relishing every word, "I've got better than even aces full." I started turning over my cards, one ace appearing after the other. Murmured comments drifted from the onlookers.

  "Figured that, too."

  I looked up, startled. Old Mike hadn't moved a muscle. "What'd you say, old-timer?"

  "Said I figured that, too."

  I looked carefully at the leathery face behind the cloud of smoke. "Four big ones, Old Mike," I retorted. "Four very big aces."

  A long silence followed my words. Then Old Mike cut me down to size.

  " 'Tain't no good."

  I didn't believe it. I still didn't believe it, or at least I didn't want to believe what I saw.

  Old Mike laid down, one after the other, the four, five, six
, seven, and the eight of hearts. Straight flush!

  He beat the four aces. . . .

  "Like I said, coulda' raised you back." Old Mike was stacking the money before him. "But you're young, gotta' lot to learn yet. Nice feller, too. No use clobbering ya' all at once." He winked at me.

  And he was right, too. He could have raised me back and I would have called every dollar, wiping out my ready cash. As it was, the head-to-head betting proved to be the last hand of the game. I had been way ahead. I ended up $700 the loser.

  At that, I was lucky. With a few words the old man could have cleaned me out completely.

  Old Mike invited me to have a few drinks with him.

  "You're one of them scientifical fellers, y'say?" The leathery face with its startlingly clear blue eyes hovered just beyond the cloud of smoke.

  "Uh-huh." I nursed the drink, aware that I'd long before had more than I should have drunk.

  "Mathematician." I grinned ruefully. "That's what hurts even more than losing. I know numbers and systems and the odds better than my own name. I should never have lost in that game. By the way, I want to thank you."

  "What in thunderation fer?"

  "You could have wiped me out on that table," I said candidly. "I wouldn't have hesitated a second to throw everything I had into that pot. But you didn't raise me back. Even when," I added, "you knew you had me beat."

  Old Mike waved a hand to dismiss the importance of the matter. "Were only money. At my age don't matter so much any more. But I like the feel of the game," he confessed. "Pot limit is a good measure of a man. I enjoy it."

  "Well, you sure had me measured." I laughed. It sounded sort of hollow.

  He peered at me over the battered end of his pipe. "That was the whole game," he said after a long pause.

  "I don't get you," I said, puzzled.

  "Hell, young feller, poker ain't got a damn thing to do with cards. Not when you're playing pot limit or table stakes, it don't. Then, by God, you're playing the other feller across the table."