by Lisa Smedman
"So ka?" Lady Death said. "I knew it!"
Dark Father nodded. "It's true. I think I spoke to it."
Lady Death turned to him, a thoughtful expression on her face. "I also spoke to it."
That startled him. For a moment Dark Father stared at her. Then he turned away as the executive icon at the front of the room continued its presentation. »In 2047, Psychotrope disappeared from the Matrix. We believe that it retreated into a host of its own creation- a virtual "pocket universe." A sanctuary that we could not locate.«
"And that we haven't been able escape from," Dark Father muttered grimly. "Yet." »When we re-discovered Psychotrope two years ago, we concluded that it must have been contemplating its own self-awareness all this time-the Al equivalent of a hermit retreating to an isolated cave to ponder the meaning of life. Its knowbots had disappeared from the Matrix, years ago, and there appeared to have been no activity that could be related to the program. But then one of our researchers inferred a startling correlation with some disturbing real-world events. »Back in the early '50s, disturbing rumors had begun to surface. Impossible-sounding stories of deckers-none of them older than their mid-teens-who could access the Matrix without a cyberdeck. Something had happened that allowed them to use the datajacks implanted in their minds to access the Matrix via nothing more than a fiber-optic connection and jackpoint.«
Lady Death smiled. So it was true. Wonderful. »We dismissed these stories as rumor, at first. But when we heard the first reports of the "deep resonance" that these so-called otaku experienced, we realized what must have happened. When we heard deep resonance described as being an intensely emotional experience, one that first laid bare the deepest fears of the subject, then calmed the mind and forever laid those fears to rest, we realized that positive conditioning was at the heart of it. And the only known program capable of producing such profound results was our own: Psychotrope. »We now know what the artificial intelligence has been up to for the past fifteen years: rewriting and "repairing" the "programming" of the human brain. Working with children rather than with adults, since children have a greater capacity for learning language-including the "language" of Matrix iconography. Turning these children's brains into bioprocess computers. Creating otaku. »At first we had hoped to study this process, to duplicate it. But it appears that the Al and the "deep resonance" effect it produces are an essential part of the process-one that cannot be omitted. Those whose minds and wills are strong enough to survive it are transformed-those who do not are plunged into cyberpsychosis. »We had hoped to keep any knowledge of the Al firmly within the confines of NovaTech until we found a way to utilize it for our own purposes, but we now realize that there were data leaks to Fuchi Asia-and possibly to Pan-Europa Fuchi as well. And now all indicators point to our former partners as being on the verge of a major technological breakthrough, thanks to this leak. In the meantime, we remain unable to, ah… persuade the Al to cooperate with us. It seems to have rejected us, in the same manner that a child will reject one of its parents and favor the other in a divorce. »We simply cannot allow our fiercest rivals to succeed where our own researchers have failed. If this happens, NovaTech will be the one left in the dust, when all existing computer technologies become obsolete. And thus the drastic measures recommended by Mr. Lanier several months ago now must be taken. The Al must be destroyed. »Fortunately, the Echo Mirage programmers who developed what would later become Psychotrope included a "trap door"-a password that would allow access to the heart of the program itself. Using this trap door, we intend to insert a virus into the programming of Psychotrope- one that will confuse its core programming, forcing it to continuously edit its own logic systems until it has achieved "perfection." But the code it uses to perform this operation will be flawed. Instead of drawing from its own positive conditioning programs, the Al will be using the comparative data on psychoses and other negative experiences. The more it attempts to repair itself, the more "psychotic" it will become. Eventually, the Al will have no other option but to crash itself-to self-destruct. »We anticipate that the virus will be ready in mid-March. And then the threat faced by the intractability of the Al will be at an end.«
The executive at the front of the room froze in place once more. The file folder closed.
Lady Death looked at Dark Father, her eyes wide. "They want to make it kill itself," she said softly. "That's what the crystal child meant when it said that soon its pain would end. The Al wants to commit suicide."
Dark Father nodded. "And we're trapped inside a pocket universe of its creation," he said. "On an ultraviolet host, the deckers themselves are at risk, exposed-not just their personas. If the artificial intelligence 'dies' and the ultraviolet host crashes, what will happen to us?"
"We might die," Lady Death said in a trembling voice. "The child told me that when its pain ended, my pain would end, too."
Then a thought struck her.
"We can try using the trap door to escape!" Lady Death said. "Perhaps by using it we can find a way into the core programming of the Al and can repair the damage done by the virus. Then we can ask it to set us free. Perhaps the algorithm for the trap door is in the file we just read-"
"I searched it already, the first time I scanned this file while you were executing your repair program," Dark Father said. "I tried every keyword I could think of, but none worked."
Lady Death felt a rush of anger. "You were going to leave me here," she said accusingly. Tears filled her eyes as she turned her back on him. "I hate you!"
Dark Father clapped his bony hands together, applauding her. "A fine performance," he said dryly. "But where's your sense of wal Remember what you said earlier? We need team spirit to get out of here."
"Then we should find the other deckers," Lady Death said petulantly.
"Yes," Dark Father agreed. "We'll need all the help we can get."
09:53:18 PST
(12:53:18 EST)
New York, United Canadian and American States
Richard Villiers contemplated his shot. The 18th hole was precisely 165 meters from tee to green. A sand trap lay to the left, a patch of rough to the right.
He was playing from an uphill lie, so he shifted his stance accordingly, placing his weight over his right foot. The result of the shot would be a hook, so he had to play slightly to the right of his objective.
He placed the head of his driver behind the dimpled ball and made sure its face was square. The club was custom-made and balanced to Villiers' exact specifications for length and shaft stiffness, with a weight of 434 grams. Its shaft was of chromium-plated forged steel, its head of actual hardwood rather than polyplastic. It cost what a mid-level executive made in a month, as did each of the other dozen clubs in his golf bag. But Villiers was hardly a mid-level exec.
He made sure his grip was correct, then raised the club slowly behind him, pausing briefly at the top of the upswing.
Keeping his eye on the ball, he brought the club arcing down, striking the ball at precisely the moment of maximum acceleration. Only after his follow-through was complete did he look up to see how his shot had fared.
The ball hit the green, bounced twice, rolled…
Villiers clenched his hands tighter around the driver as the ball came to a stop a mere centimeter from the hole. Inwardly he raged at his lack of perfection. Outwardly he acknowledged the polite clapping of his two guests.
He took a step forward and was on the green. Selecting a putter with a platinum-plated face, he corrected his stance and drew the club back slowly. The shot might look like a sure thing. But haste and carelessness were inexcusable. Villiers hadn't gotten to where he was today by being sloppy.
When he was certain the putter was aligned with absolute precision, he tapped the ball into the hole. The flag disappeared and the ball settled with a satisfying rattle.
"Congratulations, Mr. Villiers," the disembodied voice of his executive secretary said over the commlink in Villiers' cyberear. "That birdie places you four under
par for the course."
The game was over.
Villiers bowed to his guests: Sherman Huang, divisional manager of Renraku America, and assistant divisional manager Tarn Doan, who had joined him on the virtual golf course via private satellite uplinks. Unfortunately Steven Chin, head of Renraku's Seattle corporate accounts division, had been forced to leave the game after the 17th hole, citing "urgent business" that he was forced to attend to personally.
Ah, well. For the Seattle-based Chin, the working day was just beginning. For Huang and Doan-and for Villiers-all headquartered on the eastern seaboard, it was the lunch hour. They could afford to relax a little. Even so, Villiers had instructed his secretary to keep him apprised of anything of import.
Having bowed his farewells, Villiers removed the sim-sense rig from his head. The computer-generated golf course disappeared, and was replaced by the workout room in the Boston headquarters of NovaTech. Filled with exer else equipment tailored to Villiers' physical proportions and muscle mass, it was also wired for a number of more leisurely, virtual games. Villiers could play any golf course, anywhere in the world, at any time-and never have to worry about inclement weather or waiting while other parties played through.
He slotted his driver into the golf bag beside him and stepped off the gimbaled, multi-directional treadmill that served as tee, course, and green in one.
It had been a profitable meeting. Villiers had managed to forestall yet another purchase of Renraku stock by one of his former partners. He hadn't quite convinced the Renraku execs that the technological breakthroughs that Nakatomi had been promising to deliver as part of the buyout were seriously flawed. But he'd planted a few seeds of doubt. And he'd made subtle slips that would point Renraku in the right direction, so that their runners would find what Villiers wanted them to find. When Renraku completed its investigation of Nakatomi's offer, they would find that what Nakatomi had promised was completely without value.
Villiers sighed. Not so very long ago, a meeting between himself and Renraku's executives would have been beyond contemplation. But in the wake of the terrifying collapse of Renraku's Seattle arcology, Villiers' former enemies had called a halt to the ongoing hostilities between their corporation and NovaTech. Exhausted by yet another failure, Renraku had declared a truce-a truce that had made this meeting possible.
The sudden departure of Steven Chin from the golf game, however, was troubling. Had Renraku's Seattle representative been unconvinced?
Villiers slipped off his cleated shoes and exchanged them for loafers, then changed his white polo shirt for a crisply pleated business shirt and jacket. He looked at his reflection in one of the many mirrors that lined his private exercise suite. Reflected back was his tall, slim figure, with its neatly cut gray hair that was only starting to recede, exposing the datajack in his left temple. He looked impeccable in his double-breasted charcoal gray suit, custom designed by Mortimer Lonsdale, of Mortimer of London.
The tie was a whimsical touch: sea-green silk with a discreet elven scrollwork pattern. The cufflinks were emerald, from Amazonia.
The commlink in his ear interrupted the careful scrutiny of his appearance. This time, the voice of his executive secretary Lo'hran held a tense, businesslike edge.
"Sorry to interrupt you at lunch," the elf said. "But there's been another attack on one of our subsidiaries."
Villiers continued adjusting his cufflinks so they were square to his cuffs. "Which one?"
"Cyberspace Development Corp-or, more specifically, its subsidiary, FTL Technologies. Approximately five minutes ago, Raymond Kahnewake, a programmer in the personal software division, was killed.
"What hole was I playing at the time?" Villiers asked.
Lo'hran paused. The question might have taken him by surprise, but his assessment of it and response to it was flawless. "The 17th hole. But the attack doesn't appear, on the surface, to be a Renraku-sponsored hit. According to the preliminary report from Eagle Feather Security, the killer was a child."
Villiers paused, one hand on the knot of his tie. Slowly, he slid the knot into position against his throat. "A child?"
"A nine-year-old girl," Lo'hran clarified. "The weapon used was a bow and arrow, disguised to look like a child's toy. It's possible the hit was carried out by a mage using a masking spell that transformed her appearance, making her look equally harmless. I've ordered the security company's shamans to check into that possibility. In the meantime we're making sure that the programs Kahnewake was working on are all intact. I've instructed the security contractor to search for evidence that another corporation was behind the-"
"That won't be necessary," Villiers said, a touch of anger in his voice.
"Sir?" Lo'hran's questioning tone showed that he was obviously taken aback by Villiers' brief display of temper. Villiers mentally disciplined himself, then asked the most pertinent question: "Was the child captured?"
"Unfortunately, no. The ah… child… got away."
"Then we don't know if she had a datajack."
"Sir?"
"Never mind. Just find her," Villiers said. "She's the key. We put a great deal of nuyen and effort into flushing one of these kids out into the open, and I don't want this bungled now. Tell the teams that go after her to handle her carefully. She's an extremely valuable resource. I want her wetware intact when she is recovered."
"Understood, sir."
Villiers smiled as the commlink went silent. His executive secretary had been professional enough not to ask any unnecessary questions, but still hadn't been able to hide the trace of confusion in his voice. Well, let Lo'hran stew about it. The fact that this was the fifth such assassination of a Fuchi researcher-all carried out by children-was strictly need-to-know information.
There was someone, however, who did need to know about the attack: Samantha Villiers, vice president of the NovaTech Northwest division. This was sensitive information, not appropriate for dissemination over insecure telecom lines. Iconferencing would be the way to go on this one.
Villiers turned to the cyberdeck mounted on one of the exercise cycles and plugged its ultra-slim fiber optic cable into the jack at his temple. He logged onto the Matrix, and made his way to Northwest headquarters via the corporation's secure host systems in the NCE, MW, WE, ALM, SLS and SEA grids…
And opened his mouth in a rictus of utter terror as a nightmarish series of images and sensations flowed into his mind. His father, beating him with a belt for overlooking a spot of polish on his classic 2019 Ferrari-Benz. The belt turning into a razor-studded chain that tore his buttocks and thighs to ribbons. The shame and horror of knowing that his expensive suit pants were being stained with blood, and that this would only cause his father to strap him harder…
Moaning softly, Richard Villiers, CEO of NovaTech, one of the most powerful corporations in North and South America, sank into a fetal position on the floor while little Rickie Villiers received the beating of his life.
09:53:42 PST
Bloodyguts shivered in the cold wind that blew down the ruined street. The buildings on either side looked like something out of the tridcasts showing the aftermath of the Euro-Wars-empty shells, their windows blown out and roofs collapsed. The sky overhead was the same dull gray as the crumbling cement walls on either side of the road.
Occasionally Bloodyguts heard a sputtering engine and was forced to step out of the street and onto the rubble-strewn sidewalk in order to let a battered-looking automobile or truck hurtle past. The driverless vehicles bumped along on flattened tires. Each was filled with garbage-the crumpled tins, fast food wrappers, and bags of rotting food were the visual representations of the information that was streaming along the city-street dataline.
The data might look like garbage, but it was very much intact. Trid, telecom, and automated data signals were still passing through this section of the Seattle telecommunications grid. The only stuff getting fragged up were the signals that were sent or received by the human and metahuman deckers who were
linked to this RTG via direct neural interface. "Tortoises" like Pip were still able to get a signal through-but they were too fraggin' s-l-o-w to be of any use to those trapped inside this virtual pocket.
Bloodyguts and his chummers were on their own.
Bloodyguts was following the icon that represented his track utility. It clicked along the pavement on feet that had been fitted with cybernetic cleats. Unlike the silver-furred German shepherd that formed the tracking core of the smart frame that Dark Father had used, this dog was a solid black pit bull that was bulked to the max with grafted, vat-grown muscle. The dog had the usual cybernetic enhancements of a fighting dog. In addition to the cleats, it had implanted surgical-steel teeth, subdermal armor plating, and a thermographic vision system built into its cybereyes that would have allowed the real-world version of the dog it was modeled after to home in on the heat signature of an opposing dog's jugular. And, of course, it had a brain box-an implanted simsense recording unit that captured the "wet record" of the dog's experience in the pit.