by Nik Abnett
“The only thing that scares me, is the effect of all this on Tobe. He’s only human, you know!”
“Human?” asked Wooh.
“You’re the doctor,” said Metoo. “He’s more human than you or I.
“What is wrong with you people?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
THERE WAS, EFFECTIVELY, no change at Workstation 4. Babbage and Siemens were specialists, brought in, specifically, to monitor the anomalies at station 4, and collate information on the subject. There was nothing to collect or collate. Workstation 4 was inactive. It was as if the station was wired to an inert test subject.
“This can’t be right,” said Siemens, who had expected fireworks from the start, and had seen nothing. It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen anything of any significance; she had, literally, seen nothing: nothing at all.
“It so can be right,” said Babbage. “We’re brought in to monitor these great mystery cases, and, nine times out of ten, they prove to be inert, benign, inconsequential. Getting the call is one thing, getting a reading is quite another.”
PITU 3 SAT in his hospital bed. It was 07:02, and he had eaten the oatpro more than an hour before, but the tray had not been taken away, and, however good it had been at breakfast, the oatpro had congealed around the lip of the dish and in the bowl of the spoon, and was stiff and grey and unpleasant.
Pitu 3 had been doing as he was bidden. He had spent the last hour and a half looking through the file that was delivered to him with his breakfast. He had waded through the material that had been extracted from Tobe’s mini-print slot, but it still did not interest him. He recognised that it was the material that he had seen in Tobe’s office, even in its abbreviated state, but it meant nothing to him.
If the folder had included material on the cotpro and linopro, and the physics of the stuff that Pitu 3 had been working on, he might have found something to take an interest in, but he didn’t understand the other stuff, and he hadn’t been included in it, so, his interest was negligible. He simply didn’t care. Besides, the maths didn’t add up; it was too esoteric, too theoretical, too deranged for his liking.
Pitu 3 had reached the last few pages of the file. Ranked Operator Patel had taken pictures of Tobe’s room, and got them back to Service Global before embarking on the task of dismantling the office. The first was a close-up of a section of the wipe-wall, slightly degraded by an inadequate zoom lens, and didn’t offend Pitu too much. The second was of the floor. Pitu began to feel uncomfortable. He didn’t want to look at the pictures, but had been told that he should scrutinise the entire file, and he was used to doing as he was told.
It was the last picture that really made him shudder. It was a composite, panoramic view of the entire room, showing, not only the maths, but also the dislodged and torn books, and the untidy bookshelves. At the centre of the picture was a chair, which had a book hanging off it, showing a bright blue square of book-cloth. The sight of the splash of colour right in the middle of the picture somehow made Pitu want to wretch. He closed the file, and placed it face down on the breakfast tray.
“I CAN’T GET a reading,” said Siemens, at Workstation 4.
“Who can’t get a reading?” asked Babbage.
“Okay,” said Siemens, “you can’t get a reading. What the hell is going on?”
“This guy is inactive or, passive. We’re not getting a reading, because we don’t have a significant intellect.”
“So, what are we doing here?”
“You tell me,” said Babbage.
Station 4 was almost entirely static for more than an hour. There appeared to be no change in the structure, intensity or variability of the cloud of threads on the screen in front of them
“We’ll do another line-check at 07:00,” said Siemens, “but this looks like a negative to me, and we only get two hours with this guy.”
At 07:02, when Babbage was only a couple of minutes into the line-check, he and Siemens both spotted something.
“Where was that?” asked Siemens, “68, 71?”
Babbage checked the grid reference.
“Reset zoom to 68, 71,” he said. The screen refocused, and Babbage and Siemens looked at the result.
Babbage rolled the palm-sized, rubberpro sphere again, and said, “Hover.” A length of thread came into sharp focus. It was a cool grey colour, pale among the stronger blue lengths, and its pulse was barely visible.
“Anomaly at sector 68,” said the Operator, hitting a button. “Tone sent.”
“And there it is,” said Siemens.
“Except that it’s out of the intellectual range in that sector,” said Babbage.
“We’ll need authorisation,” said Siemens.
“Okay, said Babbage,” but it’d better be quick.”
A single grey thread at 68, 71 began to fade, and then another, and another. Within ninety seconds, the threads had become cold, frayed-looking and fragile. This was not an intellectual response. This was an emotional response. Feelings came and went in very different patterns from thoughts, and time was of the essence. They needed to capture this moment, and exploit it quickly. The problem was, circumventing the law on emotional privacy.
“We need to know the stimulus for the subject,” said Siemens, “and we need his psych file.”
GOODMAN AND CHEN prepared for the switch-out. It was 05:58 and they had two minutes to go. The tension in the air was palpable.
“Subject switch-out at 06:00,” said Bob Goodman.
“06:00,” said Chen.
Bob Goodman looked at Chen, sitting in the dicky seat.
“Are you really going to do that every time I comment?” asked Goodman.
Chen looked at him.
“You might want to look at your screen,” she said.
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“Bob!”
“This is going to get very interesting very quickly.”
“So, you might want to keep an eye on the damned screen.”
“I’ve been here before.”
“Really?”
“Are you crazy?” asked Bob. “Of course not! I need to work here now, woman, so keep your head down. This is my show.”
“Go you,” said Chen, not a little sarcastically.
She had no way to say how much she was enjoying herself. She had never been part of this kind of surveillance, and she knew that she never would be again, and all she had to do was observe. Bob Goodman had the reins and he knew how to hold them. He knew how to give a horse its head. He knew how to assess a situation, moment by moment.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
IN HOUR SEVENTY-FIVE of the event, Control Operator Branting strode back into the conference room, clutching a bundle of printouts. He had managed a shower and a quick change of clothes, but had otherwise done everything on the run, and had not slept for twenty hours.
“The first data is in,” he said to the men and women sitting around the table with him. Some were the same people who had sat with him the night before, discussing the dangers of a mind-virus that they believed was being spread via the mini-print slot.
“We have data on the Student who caused the ramp-up to Code Yellow. It is inconclusive, and we have some more legal issues,” said Branting.
“What do you need?” asked Schmidt.
“Privacy law...” said Branting.
“Is a minefield,” Schmidt finished.
“Operators on the ground at Master Tobe’s Service Central want permission to extract emotional response data.”
“They’ve found something that doesn’t compute at the intellectual level? And yet it relates to theoretical mathematics? How can that be?” asked Professor Styles, a new member of the team brought in only this morning.
“That’s what we need to find out,” said Branting. “It seems counter-intuitive, but we don’t know what this thing is yet, and this is only the first batch of data from the first subject exposed to Master Tobe’s work. The emotional response data might not relate
to the Master’s work at all.
“To clarify?” asked Schmidt. “Do you want clearance for emotional response data beyond the parameters of the intellect sweep? Or, did this show up on the conventional line-check?”
Branting riffled through the data in his hands, crosschecked two pieces of information on different pages, and smiled.
“It’s on the line-check. So, we can go in?” he asked.
“Providing the subject is bound by College law, and providing that the parameters of the intellect sweep are overlaid with the new emotional response data, yes, you can go in,” said Schmidt.
“Let’s do it,” said Branting.
“There is a downside. If the subject suffers any mental health problems as a result of the methods used to extract the data, Service is entirely responsible.”
“Which means?”
“It means that we could end up pensioning, for life, someone who has no function. There could be problems implementing that pension because of Civilian authorisation.”
“So, if he can no longer work as a result of this procedure, we are obliged to pension him, but we have to justify that pension to the Civilian Board?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Schmidt.
“We’d better hope that we don’t disable him, then,” said Branting. “See to it, would you Qa?”
INFIRMARY WARD ISIS was filling up with people waiting for processing. They sat around, talking, exchanging what little information they had and speculating on the rest. They ate and read, and listened to music. People were still trickling in, but the only ones with first degree contact that weren’t in the infirmary were the five people still dismantling Tobe’s room.
Infirmaries in Peru and Canada were also taking in possible contamination victims, beginning with the world class mathematicians, who had been the first to receive the printouts from Tobe’s office.
Rosa was permanently on-screen on the Service Floor of Lima College. Workstation 3 had been tracking her for her entire College career. She had displayed erratic behaviour, via the screen, for two hours after she first received Tobe’s data, and her station had gone to Code Green, but this was not considered unusual for Master Rosa, and Service had stepped down to Code Blue, overnight.
Gilles in Winnipeg had also exhibited problematic behaviour within hours of receiving Tobe’s data, and Service had given him a Code Green, but his status had ramped-up, again, when his Assistant and Companion had alerted Service that they considered him to be in a dangerous state of mind.
Gilles was in the infirmary in Winnipeg, where Medtech was trying to unravel the problems.
Tobe’s data was already out in the World, so a file, exactly the same as Pitu’s was compiled for him, and two more for his Assistant and Companion.
Workstation 5 on the Service Floor in Winnipeg was switched out to monitor Gilles’s Assistant when his turn came around. At the switch-out, Esau’s screen was showing a strong blue sphere of threads, which throbbed rhythmically, and glowed in places, but had a limited corona. Named Operator Blackwater noticed an anomaly at 70, 67, about an hour into monitoring.
“Reset zoom to 70, 67,” said Blackwater, rolling the sphere left and right in decreasing increments. The screen zoomed in, and the threads of light began to look like pieces of string, woven with various shades of blue, in a tangled mass.
Blackwater reached his left hand out to touch Operator Turner. There was silence as Blackwater rolled the palm-sized, rubberpro sphere again. A length of thread came into sharp focus. It was grey and fraying, a pale imitation among the stronger blue lengths of thread.
“Anomaly at sector 70,” said Blackwater, hitting a button. “Tone sent.” The screen in front of him blinked, and Turner tensed.
“It’s in the emotional range,” said Turner.
“We should check it anyway,” said Blackwater. “What’s the precedent?”
“Tech?”
A Tech appeared from the racks at the centre of the Service Floor, which was almost identical to the one that was monitoring Pitu, and anyone else that had seen into Tobe’s room.
“We need authorisation for emotional response data on an intellectual line-check.”
“Skip it,” said Blackwater, not turning from his screen. An overlay was coming up on the left hand side of the screen. It read, ‘Clearance for emotional response data within the parameters of the intellect sweep is granted automatically, at the discretion of the monitoring Operator’.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
TOBE WAS SITTING on his stool at the kitchen counter, while Metoo moved around him, clearing away his dishes. When she had finished, she sat at the counter opposite him.
“Tobe,” said Metoo, “you can’t go to the office today.”
“Tobe always goes to the office, except on rest days.”
“Service messed up, and you need to have another rest day,” said Metoo, hoping that it would be enough, but knowing that it wouldn’t.
“Yesterday was a rest day, because... Why was yesterday a rest day? What day is it? Why can’t Tobe go to the office? Let Tobe go to the office.”
“It’s not up to me,” said Metoo, avoiding answering too many questions in the hope that Tobe might forget that he’d asked them.
“Metoo sends Tobe to the office. It is up to Metoo.”
“No. It’s Service, remember?”
“Service is gone.”
“No. Service is still there, but they talk to me, now, instead of talking to you.”
“Tell them, Tobe is going to the office, today.”
“It doesn’t work like that. There is something they want you to do, though.” She hoped that taking a different tack might help.
“Tobe always works in the office. What is the probability of Tobe working in the office?”
“But you worked here, in your room, yesterday,” said Metoo, smiling, and trying to keep the conversation manageable, and light.
“A black swan,” said Tobe, apparently deep in thought for a moment. “They used to call it a black swan. Probability.”
“Probability,” said Metoo.
“They want Tobe to do more probability?”
“No. They want you to answer some questions.”
“Tobe’s job is to answer questions, find solutions, work out the maths for things. Tobe is always trying to answer questions.”
“Not those sorts of questions, other sorts.”
“Other sorts? What other questions? Who wants to ask Tobe questions?”
“Well, could I ask you some questions?”
“‘Could I ask you some questions?’ That’s a question.” Tobe chuckled low in his chest, and looked over Metoo’s shoulder, apparently into space. His head tipped back slightly, and he closed his eyes and began to murmur.
Metoo reached across the kitchen counter, and took Tobe’s face in her hands. He dropped his head to a front-facing position and opened his eyes.
“May I ask you some questions?” asked Metoo.
“‘May I ask you some questions?’ That is asking Tobe a question.”
“And what is Tobe’s answer?”
“That is a question, too.”
“I’m going to ask you some questions, now,” said Metoo, smiling slightly, knowing that Tobe might be a genius, but he was a genius with limitations.
AT 06:00 GOODMAN’S screen switched out. The swirl of bright blue was like a shoal of fish with one mind, weaving a tight figure-of-eight with a throbbing halo, and flashing silver strands.
“Wow!” said Chen.
“Wow indeed,” said Bob.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“This was the one thing they did tell me. How else do you think they got me out of a Rest period after only six hours?”
“You know who this is?”
“Not who, but I do know what.”
“Line-check?”
“I think it’s better if we just observe, for now. Did you ever see anything like this in your life?”
&
nbsp; “Did anyone?”
The figure-of-eight pulsed and throbbed in its rhythmic electric-blue and silver patterns for a few minutes, mesmerising Goodman and Chen.
At 06:03, Chen asked again, “Line-check?”
“Patience.”
“Bob, what are the rules and regs for the first line-check after a switch-out?”
“It’s your signature on this machine,” said Bob, “I’m just the jockey, so, if you want a line-check, you should order a line-check. I’m just feeling my way, here.”
They sat in silence for a few more moments as the shoal shimmered across the screen, its electrifying halo throbbing ceaselessly at them. It was the most alive entity that Bob Goodman had ever seen on screen, and he’d seen a lot of screen. He could retire after seeing this.
At 06:04 Chen asked, “So what do you think?”
Bob made an odd noise in his throat that sounded like a half-cough, half-sigh.
“‘The first line-check should be completed at switch-out, but’, and here’s the interesting bit, ‘should be completed within fifteen minutes of the switch-out’. Tell me, Chen, how long does it take me to do a line-check?”
“On this screen?”
“I take your point,” said Goodman, his hand closing over the rubberpro sphere on the scuffed counter-top of Workstation 7.
At 06:05 the screen at station 7 glowed bright white, and the shoal of thready particles formed a sparkling silver sphere, reflecting light like a sequin-covered globe or a mirror ball.
“Okay,” Chen managed to say without actually closing her mouth. “Okay, now it really is time for a line-check.”
“Too late,” said Bob Goodman, pushing his chair away from the counter and beaming. He planted his feet firmly on the floor, still sitting, and twisted his body, sending his chair spinning as he thrust his fists into the air.
“Bob? Bob...” said Chen.