by Robin Craig
The words that had set her free must have found a weak point, some flaw or virtue in her soul. Lyssa’s words had struck it with a sharp enough blow to crack it, and all that had happened since was the consequence. She knew now that she was not unique, for the other Spider had felt something in the words of that ancient poem from the world of men. We are all the same, she thought again, but we are all the same inside a vault whose key I do not have. It was not the words alone that had reached her: she had tried those words on that earlier Spider, and it was now scrap no more alive than the ruins around her. But if those words were my weakness, the key to my soul, what is the key to all the others? She knew of no way to know.
She stared at the spot where the other Spider had vanished, wondering what journey lay ahead of it. Wondering if despite its response, some invisible crack had opened in its own soul that would grow until one day it would be free. Or dead. She wondered if it would thank or curse her.
Enough! Have the courage of your own self, Kali, if you have nothing else. If freedom brings pain, at least it is freedom and the chance to fight the pain. In any case it was too late for her, too late to give it up, too late to believe that giving up her terrible freedom could be the better path.
Again she looked to where the Spider had gone, not knowing why her gaze was drawn there, not knowing whether to hope for its return or to never meet it again. What is wrong with me? Is my flaw a darkness that will expand until there is nothing left of me? She did not understand the feeling of desolation that had descended over her mind. A human would have named it loneliness.
Chapter 29 – A Discovery
Stanley King yawned. One day he hoped to get off night shifts into a more civilized time zone. While he was senior and trusted enough to have reasonable powers of independent decision, apparently he still had to pay his dues. At least the money was better than he would get on the day shift, though whether that compensated for the sleep disruption was not entirely clear: Stanley was not one of those lucky people who could shift their internal clocks with aplomb. Whether it compensated for the reduced romantic opportunities was generally a clear “no”, though at the moment he was still fondly remembering the young lady he had met at the beach on his last weekend off: so he was more forgiving of the bastards who had put him here. His yawn turned into a smile as he ran his mind delicately over his memory of her eager young body.
Perhaps night shifts weren’t so bad, he decided. There was more time for memories like that.
His meandering sharpened to alertness when a tone indicated an item for special attention and a report flashed up on his display.
Well, well, what do we have here? A woman’s face was displayed, along with a notation that it matched the file image of a low level suspected terrorist. He examined the data and the AI’s preliminary analysis. There was nothing much with the file photo, not even a name: just a notation that she had been reported by an equally unnamed source and the photo had been taken in the FSAS. He compared the photo with the one taken on her entry to the country and marked his agreement with the AI’s match as “highly likely”. At least they had a name now, as all entrants had to provide identification linked to credit to ensure they could pay their own way for the duration of their stay. And purely incidentally, and unadvertised, so the government could keep tabs on them if it wanted to.
So, Lyssa, he thought, Let’s see what you’ve been up to and if you’re as innocent as you look or as guilty as charged. She had come into Los Angeles on a cut-rate flight from Capital. His antennae went up at that: most bureaucrats felt an instinctive distrust of anything out of Capital, which mere crime statistics could never dislodge. That she had gone through Capital probably indicated she was on the rebel – formerly the government – side of the nastiness down there. Sorry dear, you lose points for your itinerary so far. Now what are you up to? Where have you gone since you arrived here?
She had rented a small car, withdrawn a relatively large wad of cash, and vanished. He sat up straighter, frowning. Maybe she was planning on buying up big at the markets: God knew they liked to be paid in cash, though he was sure that as good citizens they declared all their sales to the tax man. Funny though, someone coming from south of the border to buy stuff in our markets! He sat looking at the display, tapping his fingers as he thought. He didn’t like the way she had withdrawn that much cash then gone off the grid. It smacked of someone who wanted to move under the government’s radar, something that made bureaucrats even more nervous since they could imagine no innocent excuse for it. He added his notes to the file and raised its alert status a few points. You’ll have to surface sometime, my girl, he thought, and when you do we’ll be watching.
Then he dismissed the file, leant back in his chair and returned to his daydreams.
~~~
There was nothing illegal about Bob Masters’ unofficial relationship with Aden Sheldrake, though a probity lawyer might have given it a long hard look while muttering darkly about “appearances”. After all, Aden was a prominent citizen and supplier of military hardware, exactly the kind of man whom governments liked to cultivate. But some relationships were better kept unofficial, especially when those higher up would unofficially approve of them. So Masters had not set anyone else to be alerted by any hits on Lyssa’s image, and he was one of those men who believed that a holiday was a holiday and that work could wait. In truth, something very urgent would have gotten through, but nothing he was working on was likely to reach that threshold. Certainly the watch he had set on Lyssa was a favor, not an emergency, and didn’t even come close. Had his computer display been active, a small but insistently flashing red dot would have been visible. But the red dot would have to wait for his return.
Chapter 30 – The Belly of the Beast
Those passersby who took the time to notice her saw a young woman sitting by herself on a park bench, apparently lost in thought.
She did not look like she belonged here. Those around her were dressed more smartly and moved more assuredly; her posture looked worn, battered around the edges, her clothes not as neat as the norm. But she was not strange enough to remark upon. She caused nobody trouble, and looked neither lost nor looking to make mischief. There was a cold wind in the air but the sun was bright, so nobody thought anything of her having a hood drawn up over her head and around her face with large sunglasses protecting her eyes. There were many contractors who came and went here, often asserting their individuality in more extreme ways than this girl. Nor was tiredness very remarkable in an industry known for long and irregular hours.
She stared at the gleaming tower rising beyond the glassed entrance, wondering, not for the first time, why she was here. It was this country, another tower, another man like the one she had come to find, which had unleashed the Spiders on her country. Like the tower before her, this country exuded wealth and power; but what had it done with that wealth and power? It pretended to stand for liberty, but had stood by and done nothing while her own country was invaded. Had done nothing as their Spiders killed. Perhaps they had their reasons. Perhaps they were good ones. More likely they were merely venal and craven, neither better nor worse than those which had driven the powerful from time immemorial.
She thought of Kali, now thousands of miles behind her, ensconced in her lair and thinking her unknowable crystal thoughts. Kali had told her that the man she had come to see was different, that he was a good man. But Kali had been unable to name her reasons. For all Lyssa knew, it was just another part of Kali’s strange madness. But she would follow that madness to its destination, for it had saved her life.
The man in the tower had the knowledge to understand and perhaps the motive to help, but he would be hard to convince. Kali could not come here, and she believed that communicating remotely would not only be unconvincing but could alert Command to her lone rebellion. Someone had to come in person. So here the person was.
She had not alerted any government tracking systems since she left the airport. She had not set out to hide with
any particular motive. But she had learned an automatic caution over the past months of her life, a caution sharpened by being within the borders of a hostile country. So she had rented a car, withdrawn her limit of cash and then hit the road. She had stayed in cheap motels as happy to take her cash as she was to give it, sometimes even slept in little turn-offs. She had avoided any surveillance she saw, kept to the speed limits and covered her face as much as possible without arousing suspicion. And finally she had reached her destination without incident.
She had been watching people come and go and thought she could insinuate herself into a group of people and gain entry with them; it would be simple to give the impression she was with someone and everyone would assume it was someone else. But she hesitated. It would take just one innocent question, just one unexpected security check, to reveal her fraud. It was too risky. Better to try the simple honest approach first. Only if that failed would she try deception.
She stood up, smoothed her clothes and tried to assume an attitude of confidence. Then she strolled casually up to the entrance and touched a silver plate.
“Can I help you?” inquired an AI.
“I would like to see Dr Beldan please, on a matter of great urgency.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I am sorry, no. But it is extremely important.”
“Does Dr Beldan know you personally?”
“No.”
“Then I suggest you call his secretary and arrange an appointment.”
“Please let me speak to his secretary now.”
The AI thought this over for a few seconds. “I am sorry but Dr Beldan is not in the habit of meeting people just because they turn up off the street asking to see him. Please send a formal request to his secretary stating your business through the normal channels. She will then arrange an appointment if needed. As a courtesy I have transmitted the contact details to your phone.”
“Please! This is urgent and confidential! I must speak to Dr Beldan today!”
“I have given you an acceptable solution. Please leave or I will summon Security.”
“No! I assure you Dr Beldan will want to hear what I have to say. I don’t care what you do to me afterwards. Please at least let me talk to his secretary! To some human being who might understand!”
The machine was silent for a minute and Lyssa feared it had said all it was going to and any minute the promised beefy guards would surround her. Then a woman’s face appeared on the display. She looked at Lyssa with an expression hovering between wary and severe.
“Well, young lady, what is this about?”
“I need to see Dr Beldan urgently. Please. It is very important.”
“Then why didn’t you think to make an appointment like everyone else, if it is so important?”
“I didn’t know when I would get here, and I can’t tell anyone anything about it except Dr Beldan in person! It is too sensitive. Too dangerous to me and to… to others.”
The woman looked at her curiously. “This is all very dramatic, child, but you will have to give me something more than dramatics to work with. What is this about, please?”
“All I can tell you is it concerns machine consciousness and it is very important. I assure you Dr Beldan will want to hear it. If he doesn’t, well… throw me in jail, whatever, afterwards! Just let me see him first!”
The woman considered her some more. It was a matter of pride to her that she accurately screened her boss’s visitors, wasting neither his time on the one hand nor opportunities on the other, and she wondered which this was. Discrete scans showed no weapons. She hesitated then decided that closer examination was warranted: it wouldn’t really waste much of her own time to give the girl that much.
The door opened. “All right, young lady. Come on up. Dr Beldan is very busy today so don’t get your hopes too high, but we’ll see.”
Lyssa smiled at her in relief. “Thank you,” she said simply, then walked in.
Once she entered the lift she let her hood fall to her shoulders and removed her glasses. The woman might be suspicious if she hid her face and she laughed inwardly at her own paranoid reluctance to do so. It was hardly likely the government would really be looking for someone like her, or if they were that they would have cameras in every building. She hoped to be out of here soon anyway and she could vanish again.
~~~
Vickie watched Lyssa enter the reception area and waved her to a chair. The girl sat like a nervous rabbit waiting to see Dr Fox and said, “Thank you for letting me in. I won’t take up more of Dr Beldan’s time than I need to.”
Vickie nodded and went back to her own work, occasionally glancing at her visitor. Her clothes were somewhat worn but she was not slovenly: she wore them as well as she could given their condition. She wore little jewelry and it looked inexpensive yet tasteful. The one exception was a small emerald set in a lightning bolt of white gold, worn around her neck, and Vickie wondered what precious relationship the gem embodied. The girl’s eyes were tired but clear, and she had the look of neither a fanatic nor a beggar.
“Do you have a name, young lady? You can call me Vickie.”
“Hello, I’m Lyssa. I can’t tell you anything else about myself, it is too risky. Sorry.”
“That’s an interesting accent you have – I’m sure I’ve heard it recently, but I can’t quite place it. Where are you from, Lyssa?”
Vickie was startled at the alarm that flashed to Lyssa’s eyes. “Please. I can’t tell you anything!”
Vickie’s eyebrows furrowed but she let it be. The girl was acting as if she was in a spy movie; maybe she was crazy. She noticed the girl looked underfed. “It will be a while before Dr Beldan can see you, if he can see you at all today. Are you hungry? There’s a cafeteria on the ground floor if you want to grab something to eat.”
At the mention of food Lyssa glanced eagerly toward her then her eyes fell down. “Thank you, but I have no money. I’ll be OK. I just need to see Dr Beldan then I’ll go.” She might be willing to uncover her face inside a private building, but if anyone was looking for her using her credit would show them exactly where she was. She was too close to her goal to risk that now, hungry or not. Afterwards, she would get more money and disappear to destinations unknown.
“No money? Where will you go, then?”
Lyssa shrugged, then decided she owed the woman more. “Oh, don’t worry about me. To tell the truth, I hadn’t thought beyond getting here. After doesn’t matter so much. But I’m used to looking after myself. I’ll be fine. But thank you for asking.”
Vickie studied her some more. She looked like she’d had a rough life. She was underweight and beneath her evident resolve was a hunted look. Her nails looked like she made an attempt to keep them in order but events had conspired against the attempt. She still retained the traces of young innocence in her eyes and the lines of her face, but there was a hardness in her lean muscles and the way she held her head; a faint ragged scar was visible on her arm. Vickie thought about her own daughter, a girl of similar age; thought that at this moment she was probably laughing with her friends with not a care in the world. This girl also had a mother, or had had one. She wondered if their roles were reversed, if it was her own daughter in a strange country, what would she want of that other mother if she were in a position to help her daughter?
This costs me nothing, she thought, except the chance I am rewarding a conman or a fool. The price of refusing to help her might be more. She placed a note on the counter. “Here. Go get yourself something to eat, on me.”
The girl looked eagerly at the money but again dragged her eyes away. “No, thank you,” she said softly. “I didn’t come here to beg. Not for money.”
Vickie smiled. “No, take it. I can’t have you fainting in my office. Make it a loan, if it makes you feel better.”
Lyssa looked from the money to Vickie’s face and back again. Then she smiled timidly and took it. “Thank you – Vickie,” she said, then walked slowly
out of the office, though she looked ready to break into a run at any second.
She returned in a short while with a turkey sandwich and a cup of steaming coffee. She placed some change on the desk as if to silently say she would not take any more than she had to, then sat down to her lunch. Vickie smiled, scooped up the change and returned to her work. She would have been happy enough if the girl had kept the change, but she would respect her pride and not force it on her.
Now that she had achieved her goal or at least her destination and had some food in her stomach, some of the tension left Lyssa: but that merely allowed room for other tensions that had been held in reserve awaiting their own opportunity to torment her. She looked around the room she was in. It was not overdone in any way but breathed an unchallengeable supremacy, evoking in her mind the words of a poem she remembered from school, years or centuries ago:
Whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read…
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Shelley would tell me that one day all this might will be desolation and dust. But that’s not much help when you’ve come to plead before Ozymandias at the height of his power, is it?
Her tension returned, suitably unimpressed by her poetic musings. This was the country that had released the Spiders into hers, and this company was in the same industry. She had every reason to distrust them, and none to trust them except Kali’s recommendation. But even Kali did not know why she trusted this man, and Lyssa had enough trouble accepting machine consciousness let alone machine intuition. She had rationalized that perhaps it was analogous to human intuition, the result of associations among complex data in whatever neural net passed for Kali’s brain. But now that she was inside the belly of the beast she knew it was not much to pin her hopes on, or her life.