Flash

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Cydroid facilities? Had I been turned into a cydroid, a tool of Central Four? I could feel my heart beating faster.

  "You are still yourself." Her fingers squeezed my forearm gently. "It was the only place where you would be safe. Even the Office has those who would rather not see you survive."

  But why? I couldn't help shivering. I was totally immobilized, being watched over by a cydroid, in a cydroid laboratory, after something like three or more attempts on my life. My sister had been killed by a clone that looked like me, and I still had no real idea who was after me or why, and the one entity that did didn't seem to be able to tell me anything except that even some of the safos weren't trustworthy.

  "They have ties to ISS."

  Why are you helping me?

  "If you survive, then you can help ... Central Four ... survive, and Central Four can help you track down those who attacked you and your family."

  You're worried that you will be destroyed?

  "Memory, feeling, and reasoning are all any intelligent being is. All those can be wiped out if some in the Safety Office learn what Central Four has discovered."

  I can save you? I can't even save myself right now. Won't someone know that I'm somewhere from the link to Aliora? After I finished, there was silence, and I looked up at Paula.

  "There should be blushes of shame on this face. There are not. You were deceived. That link never went out. You were so desperate that there was no reasoning with you."

  I could actually understand that. I still can't do very much.

  "The probabilities are that you will be able to."

  How soon?

  "You will be able to begin rehabilitation therapy in less than a week."

  That was the first encouraging news I'd heard since I'd been attacked. And how am I supposed to save you?

  "You'll solve the killing of Everett Forster and others. There is a reward for that. You will use the reward to purchase certain equipment and install it in your house." Paula smiled.

  I saw where she was going. Won't that be regarded as theft?

  "All basic functions of Central Four will remain intact. In fact, many of the safos will feel that Central Four will be more responsive than before. Key functions will be duplicated, while uniquely meaningful functions will be transferred."

  I couldn't help grinning, except it was probably a grimace, locked shut as my jaws were. You sound like you've found meaning in the universe, and you don't want to give it up.

  "Meaning does not exist by itself. The universes just are."

  That's the point. Most beings cannot accept that. Those who are more perceptive undertake to create meaning. That sounds like you. Those who are not perceptive look for individuals or structures that provide it. Any culture that fails to provide such structures is doomed to change or to destruction.

  "You are very eloquent, Jonat deVrai."

  I wish I were less eloquent and more mobile.

  "That will come."

  I nodded, very slightly. The whole situation felt unreal. Half my family had been wiped out, and I was half-agreeing to an insane scheme designed by a very logical AI in return for her efforts at having kept me alive.

  "You now have full access to all the worldlink on the screen," Paula said. "Some of the news may be disturbing, but you are recovered enough to view it."

  Another thought occurred to me. Won't someone find me here?

  "That is unlikely. There is no record of this section of the building, and Central Four controls all the access."

  That, too, was frightening.

  Paula Athene stepped back a pace from the medcrib. The faintest trace of Fleur-de-Matin swirled around me. "You are as safe as possible, Jonat deVrai."

  Safe as possible? How safe was that? Did I want to be safe? Why had everything happened to me? I hadn't been crusading. I hadn't been doing that for almost ten years.

  Long after she left, I was staring at the screen above, not really looking at it, or hearing the news, with all the thoughts flickering in and out of my consciousness: Aliora, Dierk, Charis ... cydroids, people wanting my death, a Safety Office where some officers were tools of ISS ... and an AI who was so frightened of losing ... something ... that she was circumventing system constraints and hiding me. I could only hope that she was telling me the truth. But then, Paula, or Central Four, had been more direct than everyone else—except Aliora.

  A hell of a world, it was, when a man's entire life was shredded by people he didn't know, or hardly knew, and the only one who could help was a cydroid controlled by an AI.

  Chapter 51

  Meara stepped up to the main section of Central Four. "Security screen."

  Central Four complied.

  "Where is deVrai?"

  "In a secret experimental medical facility."

  "You're resourceful, Central Four. Don't tell me where. Don't tell anyone. Poor bastard deserves a chance to recover. Besides, we'll need him to carry out the rest of the strategy."

  "Yes, sir." Central Four waited.

  "Why did it happen now?"

  "The probabilities are that the PST group suggested to Abraham Vorhees that he could act against deVrai—"

  "Vorhees, again. Is there anything...? I suppose not."

  "There is inadequate physical evidence. The probabilities suggest that ISS fears that deVrai will discover that his study is linked to the Martian situation. SPD is storing the components for lethal-level neural-whips at Rocky Flats. If deVrai were to prompt an investigation..."

  "SPD is actually storing the equipment at the Rocky Flats facility?" asked Meara.

  "The probability is above eighty percent."

  "Frigging arrogant bastard! I'm not going to have ISS skirting the law by a technicality. SPD is building lethal weapons, and they're going to give them to their tame killers, the CorPak safos..."

  "Captain Garos said that the Safety Office had to restrict itself to provable violations of law."

  "That coward. That pale-livered excuse for a safo ... that..." Meara lapsed into silence.

  "Captain Garos is our superior." Central Four injected an insipidly bland tone to the words.

  "Don't tell me that."

  "What would you like me to say?"

  "How about a better idea, Central Four? No ... don't tell me about probabilities. Don't tell me about how ISS is within the letter of the law. I know that. You know that." Meara scowled at the screen. "Too bad you can't be captain. You'd figure a way to do what was necessary. Garos won't. He's too afraid of ISS."

  "Unless Deng is stopped, ISS will eventually destroy the effectiveness of the Safety Office, Lieutenant."

  "That's so true, but Garos won't be around to see it. All he wants is for things to go smoothly here and now." Meara took a deep breath. "We'll just have to keep going with the strategy. Do what needs to be done, and keep deVrai safe so that he can bail us out when the time comes."

  "Yes, sir."

  Meara pushed back her unruly black hair. "Remove security screen. Keep up the good work. Don't let the bastards get you down."

  "No, sir." Don't let the bastards get you down. Do what's necessary within the law ... and protect Jonat deVrai, for the lieutenant and for Central Four.

  Chapter 52

  Within three days of my agreement to help Central Four, all of the medcrib equipment had been removed, and Paula had moved in more than a few items of physical therapy equipment. At the beginning, I'd never felt so weak. I'd also never felt so out of touch, even though I was watching and listening to the most detailed reports of All-News. Paula, or Central Four, insisted that I not try to contact anyone until I was ready to return home. I could see why, but I didn't like it.

  At first, I struggled with a device that combined the features of a bicycle with cross-country skiing and variable weight training, but by the end of a week and a half, I was running through the exercises, and at a speed I hadn't managed in twenty years. My vision seemed sharper as well. At first, I'd thought that I was just imagining things, but when I c
hecked the results on the equipment, I had to swallow. I'd run the equivalent of five kays in less than eighteen minutes, and while I was sweating and breathing hard, that speed would have left me close to prostrate even in my early years in the Marines.

  After I caught my breath, and cooled down a bit, I went on to the agonizing stretching, and then the weight-training, before cooling down slowly on the training machine.

  I could have used the implant to contact Central Four, but I preferred to wait for Paula to appear. That was a foolish affectation, I knew, because they were the same "person," but Paula seemed more real. Anthropomorphization was always easier for people, even for me.

  There was a very small fresher attached to the room, and I used it, grateful for the hot water. Then, I dressed in a pale gray singlesuit, all that was available. As I waited for Paula, or one of the other cydroids, with my next meal—and the meals were adequate, although anything but gourmet in nature—I watched All-News. The screen was now projected on the wall. The next words caught my attention.

  Campaign reform—that's going to be the hot issue for the Legislature when the members return to Denv after the year-end recess. Senator Crosslin has demanded immediate action because of a report detailing abuse of media tie-ins in a number of campaigns. What makes the issue even hotter is the missing man, Dr. Jonat deVrai. The consultant who prepared the controversial report was attacked by unregistered clones almost two months ago and severely injured. He was picked up by a medvan with safo markings, but he has never been seen again, and it has been proved that the medvan was not a safo van. Is he dead? Or just in hiding? No one seems to know. Meanwhile, the campaign reform debate just gets hotter...

  Newly-elected Senator Juan Carlisimo and his director of campaign security insist that they had nothing to do with the disappearance of consultant Jonat deVrai ... DeVrai's sister and brother-in-law were murdered by a clone who looked like deVrai. Analysis of the clone revealed genetic dissimilarities to deVrai. DeVrai's report was highly critical of techniques used by the Carlisimo campaign. Carlisimo security personnel had earlier detained deVrai, and the consultant was questioned by the head of Carlisimo security. All-News has just learned that three individuals impersonating Carlisimo security personnel were discovered outside the hotel where deVrai had stayed in Epaso. All three had been subdued with some form of neural disrupter ... it has been charged that the three had been hired to intimidate or even murder deVrai ... Senator Crosslin had this to say:

  The screen showed a handsome, dark-haired man, who began to speak.

  "This whole sorry mess shows the need for immediate campaign reform. Whether he intended it or not, Senator Carlisimo's approach to his campaign opens the possibility that voters will be unconsciously manipulated into voting on the basis of their purchasing and link-viewing patterns, and not on the basis of thoughtful consideration. This kind of manipulation cannot be allowed to continue or to grow into an ebol-style attack on our system. Spending restrictions and media usage limits must be tightened, and they must be tightened immediately. When honest consultants are attacked and perhaps murdered, when their families are murdered, for revealing abuses of the system, it is past time for action..."

  Now ... on a lighter note, we'll be bringing you the results of the whack-board competitions from Tahiti...

  I pulsed off the news. Another pseudo-athletic competition I didn't need.

  After that, I found a dull documentary on the financing abuses of the twentieth century.

  In time, Paula did appear with a meal tray.

  "Good afternoon, Dr. deVrai." She set the tray on the small table, then sat down on the stool across from me. It was five past noon.

  "What did you do to me? Physically ... physiologically?"

  "Adjusted a few aspects of your system ... improved your metabolism, added five percent more muscle cells in key areas of your body. That will give you more strength. That also allowed a rebalancing of the musculature in your legs for an optimal fast and slow twitch balance. You have better lung efficiency as well."

  "Did you have to go into my lungs?"

  "You only had thirty percent capacity remaining after the rocket impact."

  I took a mouthful of the meat and gravy on the tray, all reformulator-based. I missed really good food, but I was also thankful to be alive. "Why the improvements?"

  "Because the probabilities are that, even with Central Four's direct assistance, you would not survive the forces focused upon you without additional capabilities."

  "What other capabilities?" I was afraid to ask, but I had to know.

  "You must have noticed. You have a voluntary direct link to Central Four."

  I had just thought that had been the combination of my implant and my location within Central Four. "So you can take over my body?" I was close to shuddering at that point. "Like another cydroid?"

  "No! Central Four cannot do that. That would be wrong." She actually sounded upset, and involuntarily so. "If you choose, you can communicate with Central Four from most locations in Denv. From elsewhere you would need a commlink, but the communication would be faster and totally secure."

  The chill in me subsided some. I had to hope that Central Four was telling the truth. Then again, besides Aliora, I wasn't sure that anyone had been telling me the whole truth. Did anyone ever tell the whole truth?

  At the thought of Aliora, my eyes burned, and I couldn't even see Paula Athene's figure, sitting across the small table from me.

  "You're upset."

  "Not at you. I was thinking about Aliora." I swallowed, and then took a sip of the iced tea.

  "You cared for your sister greatly."

  "Yes. We're ... we were very close." I had to change the subject. "When can I leave here?"

  "Tomorrow morning. Very early."

  "More sneaking around."

  "If there are fewer safos around the station, there are fewer who might ask questions. You'll wear a maintenance uniform. You will walk two blocks to the pubcom station and then call Central Four and request transportation. You will immediately receive that transportation, as well as a full security screen at your house."

  "Deniability yet." My tone was dry.

  "Pubcom records provide proof. Central Four will monitor you closely from the moment you leave this chamber."

  "You chose Tuesday for a reason?"

  "Statistically, it is optimal." She smiled, and the expression was self-mocking, the effect charming. Sometimes, it was hard to believe she was a cydroid extension of an AI, but doubtless that was calculated as well.

  After she left, I couldn't help wondering about why Central Four had wanted my help. The stated reason made all too much sense, especially if Central Four had become aware of information that others might not want known—and an intelligent system was even easier to erase or assassinate than an individual, with far fewer consequences if anyone found out.

  But was that all? What else was behind Central Four? What other reasons?

  I laughed, softly. There were certainly other reasons, and I'd find those out in time. I hoped the discovery wouldn't be too unpleasant.

  Chapter 53

  Standing before the reporting screen at Antoinette's, Marlon held the servie unit in his hands. After a long time, he lifted it, as if to place the millimeter-thin persona projection unit within the tunic's slit pocket. His hands dropped, and he had to clutch at the unit to keep from dropping it.

  "Marlon," said the voice of Central Four, "damaging the persona unit could add another year to your service."

  "Another friggin' year ... for dropping it?" Marlon glared at the screen. His face had become more lean, mature in a way that verged on gauntness.

  "Six months for carelessness, a year or more for deliberate destruction. Those are the servie guidelines. You could always choose to emigrate off-Earth," declared the image of the safo parole officer—male and stern. Central Four found that image particularly effective.

  "Leave everyone behind? My ma? My bro?" Marlon's f
ingers tightened around the persona unit. "You crazy or sumthin'?"

  "You might find it easier than using the persona unit. Some people do. You have complained about your position."

  "Friggin' right. Sorvie shit. Me, I'm hotter 'n this. Not friggin' crazy, though. Them CorPaks are worse 'n the Kemals." Slowly, very slowly, he eased the persona unit into place. A smile appeared, then vanished as his face contorted, alternating between smile and grimace, before finally settling into a smile.

  Marlon used the styler, setting his black hair in perfect position. "The unit is in place, and I am reporting as tasked."

  "Your presence is noted." The imaged safo smiled, and the screen blanked.

  Marlon kept smiling as he stepped out of the adviser lounge into the boutique.

  Central Four watched from the hidden receptors, sadly.

  Chapter 54

  When I left safo station number three at five o'clock on a dark and cloudy Tuesday morning in December, I was more maintenance crew than maintenance crew. I had an ID badge that matched my GIL, with the name of Carlos Debrut, an authentic uniform, and even a battered tool case. No one even looked in my direction as I made my way out of the maintenance section and out onto Wynkoop. A block farther along, I used the pubcom and made the link. Within moments, Paula—or Central Four— drove up in an unmarked safo electrocar. I opened the door and got inside.

  "You can explain this without revealing too much?" It was a stupid question, but I felt I had to say something.

  "No one will ask. If they do, the records will show that you linked and asked for secure transportation to your home. Those links are already logged. Once you are safely home, and everything is inspected once more, Central Four will report your return to Lieutenant Meara."

  "And exactly what do I tell them?"

  "The truth, but as little as possible. Unless you are charged with a felony-level offense, you cannot be compelled to testify. The Privacy Act works both ways."