by Nik Abnett
Saintout was still trying to remember what Metoo had said, and didn’t answer Tobe.
“Like a dice,” said Tobe. “A dice has six elements, so the probability of throwing a one is one in six, or one-sixth. The probability of throwing two ones in a row is one-sixth times one-sixth, which is one-thirty-six. Should Tobe draw you a probability tree?”
“Two scoops of eggpro powder to one of powdered milk,” said Saintout, hesitating for a moment before going on. “A pump each of salt and pepper, out of the dispenser, and let the steam do the rest: 45 seconds.”
METOO LOOKED AT Strauss.
“I know what he’s doing!” she said, beaming.
“We’d better tell someone, then,” said Strauss, unable to keep a broad smile off her face.
GOODMAN AND MAYER worked through the line-check, while the rest of the Operators and Techs on the floor stood or sat in silence, barely able to move, hanging on with bated breath.
Every time either man called out a sector number the other checked the corresponding position on his screen.
The sparkling blue shoal that wove its way in a magical infinity symbol, like a figure of eight or a mobius strip, across Goodman’s screen, was difficult to implement a line-check on; nothing on Goodman’s screen remained static for long enough to read it thoroughly, even at the speed Goodman could work at, and the intensity of the pulsing lights obscured Goodman’s view, even when he was able to home-in on something. It was also extremely difficult to track sectors in the line-check, since they seemed to be constantly on the move.
Operators Goodman and Mayer reset, zoomed in, and hovered, according to each other’s instructions, but coordinating the two very different screens was proving impossible.
“Abort line-check,” said Goodman. “This isn’t working.” He threw the switch on the facing edge of the counter, and got up out of the seat. “Stay on her, though,” he said, as Chen took over.
Goodman walked up behind Mayer, and looked at Tobe’s screen over his shoulder.
AS SOON AS Goodman left the interview room, Branting filled screen twelve with live feed from the Service Floor, so that he could keep an eye on progress. When Goodman aborted, Branting apprised Perrett and Marquez of the situation.
“The line-check has been aborted,” said Branting. “I need any ideas you might have, and I need them fast.”
Perrett and Marquez acknowledged Branting, and went back to work, scrutinising the screen-feeds in front of them.
RANKED OPERATOR CHENKEYED in her signature using the toggle switch on the facing edge of the counter. She sat watching the screen for a few minutes, mesmerised by the ebb and flow of the light and colour, and the sparkling of the particulars as they followed each other around and around, forming a perfect figure of eight. She rested her hand on the rubberpro sphere set into the counter-top in front of her.
Chen had seen Metoo’s screen before. She had been with Goodman when he had reviewed the screen; it seemed like months ago. She remembered suggesting that Goodman do a line-check, and she remembered him resisting her suggestions. Then the screen had...
“Oh my God!” said Chen, almost under her breath. She sat for a moment, staring at the screen.
“Goodman,” she said, still barely making a sound, and then, “Goodman”, a little louder this time.
Several seconds passed while the twenty-seven Operators on the Service Floor stared at their screens.
Branting switched audio out to Henderson’s headset.
“Check out Ranked Operator Chen, at Station 7,” said Branting.
“Goodman, sit here,” said Henderson, throwing his switch, and leaving his seat.
“You’re the boss,” said Goodman, “but I should be –”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Henderson, cutting him off.
Agent Operator Henderson walked up behind Chen at Workstation 7.
“What is it, Chen?” he asked. “Control Operator Branting wants to hear what you have to say.”
Chen stared more intently at the screen, partly because she couldn’t take her eyes off it, and partly because she was willing herself not to turn around and look Henderson in the eye when she told him what she needed to say. She wanted to make sure that he listened to her, and took her seriously.
“It’s this screen,” said Chen. “The last time Goodman and I viewed this screen, there was a massive change, to a form that might be easier to complete a line-check on.”
“Explain,” said Henderson.
“She can’t,” Goodman called from across the room. Chen’s voice had finally carried to him, and he rose from the seat that Henderson had just vacated. He crossed the room in barely a couple of strides, and was behind Chen before she’d had a chance to throw her switch. She did it now.
“I don’t need to sit,” said Goodman. “We just need to work out what triggered the switch from this pattern,” he said, indicating the screen, “to the spherical pattern that followed it, the last time we had Metoo on screen.”
“No names,” Henderson said, trying to maintain discipline on a Service Floor that seemed to be heading dangerously towards a free-for-all.
“Goodman, my station will be reset to the Assistant-Companion’s screen. Go... Sit until we have further instructions,” he said, relaying Branting’s instructions. Then he stepped back to the centre of the room. Branting had acknowledged that he was right to try to maintain Service Floor protocols, and he placed Henderson at the centre of the Floor with precisely that end in mind.
“Qa,” said Branting, switching back to his aide, “I want new feeds for Master Tobe and Metoo. Scroll back through activity on Station 7, take the time signature for the section from 06:00 on day 4, and marry it to Master Tobe’s time signature. Synchronise the feeds and get them up on my screens seven and thirteen as quickly as possible.”
“They’ll appear on Goodman’s vid-con,” said Qa, “and Perret’s, and Marquez’s.”
“Good,” said Branting, “the more the merrier.
“Wait,” he said, and switched back to Henderson’s audio channel.
“Goodman, Control Operator Branting wants you back in the interview room,” said Henderson. Goodman threw the switch on the facing edge of the counter in front of him, rose from the chair, and crossed the floor in a blur. He left the Service Floor as quickly as he had arrived, and was sitting back in his seat in the interview room when the screen fizzed and snow drifted across it.
The vid-con screens in three of the interview rooms showed side-by-side feeds from 06:00 on day 4 of the event.
Perrett, Goodman and Marquez watched them intently.
Chapter Fifty
“HELLO,” SAID METOO, “can you hear me? Tobe has changed, but I think I know how, and I think I know why.”
Assistant-Companion Metoo sat back in her chair, watching the vid-con, and talking to it, but not to her Master. She waited for a reply, but none came.
“Hello,” she said again. “Hello?”
“I’ll press my Service Button,” said Strauss, beside her, “perhaps we can raise someone that way.”
“No,” said Metoo. “Just take me home.” She rose from her chair, and raised her hand to the vid-con, as if waving goodbye to it.
Strauss rose, too, a little more hesitantly.
“It’s okay,” said Metoo, smiling. “Everything’s going to be fine, really.”
Metoo and Strauss exited onto the gallery, and left the building without anybody on the Service Floor realising that they’d gone.
“SO,” SAID SAINTOUT. “It is your hypothesis that it is impossible to make eggpro the same every time?”
“It is impossible,” said Tobe, “but it is the same.”
“And you understand maths, but would you agree that I understand life?”
“Life? Tobe doesn’t know about life.”
“My point exactly,” said Saintout, rummaging through the kitchen cupboards.
Tobe watched the Police Operator, somewhat alarmed by what was going on.
Saintout anticipated the problem, though, and said, “Now, don’t you worry about me looking through here. I’m just collecting the stuff I need for our little experiment. You understand experiments, don’t you, Buddy? You do experiments with numbers all the time.”
“Experiments with numbers,” Tobe repeated. He tilted his head back, slightly, closed his eyes, and began to murmur under his breath. Saintout saw what he was doing, and started snapping his fingers right in front of Tobe’s face, so close that Tobe could feel the disturbance the sound-waves made in the air around him. He opened his eyes.
“Stay with me, Buddy,” said Saintout. “Watch this.”
Saintout took the box of eggpro powder, and, using the scoop inside, measured out two level scoops full of the stuff into a dish. He took the powdered milk, and, using the same scoop, measured out a level scoop full of that, before adding it to the dish.
Tobe watched as Saintout took the dish over to the dispenser on the wall and pressed the salt pump once, followed by the pepper pump, once.
“That’s it,” said Saintout, vacuum sealing the eggpro into the steamer, setting the time to 45 seconds and closing the door.
“That’s it?” asked Tobe.
“That’s it, and now we wait for...” He watched the time counting down on the steamer clock. “... ten, nine, eight, seven, six...” He reached his hand into the drawer in the counter, and pulled out a spoon. He held it out to Tobe. “... three, two, one!”
The steamer stopped cooking, and Saintout opened the door. He took out the dish of eggpro, and put it in front of Tobe.
Tobe looked from Saintout to the dish of eggpro. He put his spoon in the egg and lifted it to his mouth.
“Ah!” he said, spitting Saintout’s eggpro out, and jumping off his stool at the same time, dropping his spoon, and spilling the dish of eggpro down the front of his robe.
“Ah!” he shouted again, as the hot eggpro soaked through his robe, burning his chest.
“Oh no!” shouted Saintout, crossing to Tobe’s side of the counter, and pulling at his robe to get it off over his head as quickly as he could, so that the Master didn’t get badly scalded.
“Oh, Buddy, I’m sorry,” he said.
“Hot.”
“Yes. Why didn’t you leave it a minute to cool down before you started eating it? You should’ve known it’d be too hot to eat.”
Metoo had heard the commotion as she opened the door to the flat, and waved Strauss away. She rushed straight to the kitchen, where she found Tobe hopping up and down, while Saintout wrestled with his robe.
“Let me,” she said, approaching them. Saintout stepped back, and watched while Metoo soothed Tobe. “Get me a cold, damp towel.”
Saintout went to the sink and soaked a towel in water. He squeezed out most of the liquid, and handed it to Metoo, who pressed it against Tobe’s chest. Tobe held his robe crumpled up in his hand, over his genitals, so that Metoo couldn’t see him, and jiggled furiously on the spot while Metoo tried to calm him.
After five or six minutes of Metoo saying soothing things, and rolling the towel over his chest, every so often, so that the coolest part was always against his skin, Tobe grabbed the towel out of her hand, and waddled out of the kitchen, the towel and robe pressed against his body.
GOODMAN, PERRETT AND Marquez watched their vid-con screens.
Exactly five minutes into the footage, Metoo’s screen coalesced into a sparkling mirror-ball of reflective silver particles. Marquez and Perret were taken aback, Marquez literally throwing his head back when the screen changed, as if suffering from whiplash.
Goodman was the first to see it.
“Open the channels between interview rooms,” said Branting, watching the three screen Operators at work.
“That’s it, right there!” Goodman exclaimed. He switched to look at Tobe’s screen, and pointed at a glowing thread in the lower right hand portion. “There, again, around sector 120,” he said.
“Got it,” said Perrett. Goodman hadn’t realised that he was talking to anyone, except Service Global, or maybe Control Operator Branting, but he didn’t have time to be surprised or to ask who he was talking to.
“There’s something around sector 80,” too, said Marquez. “Wow, the sparks are flying all over the place.”
“How did this happen?” asked Perrett, “and why have I never seen this before?”
“No time,” said Goodman. “Are you there, Control Operator?”
Branting fed his audio to the three interview rooms, excluding Metoo’s.
“What have you got for me, Goodman?” he asked.
“They need to be together.”
“He’s right,” said Marquez. “It’s symbiosis!”
“It can’t be,” said Perrett. “I know she’s... She’s...”
“The Mother of all things,” said Marquez.
“Get them together,” said Goodman, again, “and then get them on a couple of Workstations on the Service Floor so that I can do that damned line-check and verify this.”
TOBE RETURNED TO the kitchen. He had changed, but was still clutching the towel to his chest, making the front of his clean robe wet.
“If you give that to me,” said Metoo, “I’ll make it cool for you again; it’ll be more comfortable.”
Tobe looked at Metoo, and then handed her the towel. He lifted the silkpro of his robe away from his chest, where it was clinging to his skin with the damp.
Metoo soaked the towel in cold water, and squeezed out the excess, twisting the towel between her hands. She walked over to Tobe, pulled out his stool, and handed him the towel. He sat down. Metoo walked around the counter, and sat on her stool, opposite Tobe.
“I’ll... just...” Saintout said.
“Thank you, Saintout,” said Metoo. “You can stay, or go, as you like.” Metoo sounded very calm, and Tobe seemed relaxed, despite his scalded chest, but Saintout decided to stay anyway, just in case. He leaned on the kitchen wall adjacent to Metoo, so that he was out of her way, and faced Tobe, so that he didn’t embarrass the Assistant-Companion.
“What about the equivalence relation?” asked Metoo.
“I did that,” said Tobe.
“Difficult, though,” said Metoo. “Some people would have taken the eggpro to a lab, and got down to the molecular level. That would’ve proved that it wasn’t the same, of course.”
“Yes. It was the same to Tobe.”
“Was that what mattered? That it was the same to you?”
“Yes,” said Tobe.
BRANTING SWITCHED AUDIO and visual to screen fourteen on his square. He began to speak before he looked up.
“Sorry to have ke –” he said, stopping suddenly, mid-word. “Oh no... Where the hell are you?” Screen fourteen showed an empty interview room. Metoo and Strauss had gone, and both of their chairs were neatly tucked under the table as if they had never been there.
“Screen thirteen,” said Branting, “what’s on screen thirteen?”
Screen thirteen fizzed into life to show a great sparkling sphere, like a Christmas decoration, or a mirror-ball.
Bob Goodman sat at Workstation 7, waiting for the switch-out. He wanted to get on with the line-check, but he couldn’t help enjoying the sight of the silver sphere in front of him.
“Ready,” he said, still waiting. “Ready at station 7.”
“There will be a short delay,” said Branting.
Operator Goodman could not help himself. He began a line-check on the screen, in front of him, assuming that it was the old footage that he had been watching in the interview room. As he did the line-check, he began to notice things that contradicted what he had just been viewing on the vid-con.
“The footage on station 7,” said Goodman, “when was it shot?”
There was no answer. Goodman waited for several seconds, which began, very quickly to feel like minutes.
“Control Operator Branting,” he said, and waited, again for an answer.
“Mayer?” he asked.
“Do a line-check with me, right now,” said Bob Goodman. “Three, two, one.”
“Line-check,” they said, in unison.
“Qa, get Strauss,” said Branting. “I’ve lost the Assistant-Companion. We must find Metoo.”
“72, 84,” said Goodman.
“Check,” said Mayer, a moment later.
“102, 82,” said Goodman.
“Check,” said Mayer.
“This isn’t a coincidence,” said Goodman. “This is live. Check.”
“Sir,” said Qa,
“Have you got Strauss?” asked Branting.
“No, sir, I –”
Branting cut him off, saying, “I need to find Assistant-Companion Metoo,”
“No, sir, she’s at home,” said Qa. “We’re streaming her screen live to the Service Floor.”
“That’s what I can see on thirteen?” asked Branting.
“That’s what you can see on thirteen, sir,” said Qa. “Are you all right, sir?”
Branting had cut Qa off, and had opened a channel to Goodman.
“Station 7, Goodman, we are ready for your line-check.”
“Line-check complete,” said Goodman.
“Line-check complete,” said Mayer.
Mayer and Goodman rose from their seats, neither of them bothering to throw their switches. They strode towards each other across the Service Floor, and when they were within a yard of each other, Mayer stuck out his hand for Bob to shake. Bob took a small step forwards and threw his arms around the smaller man.
“Stuff your bloody handshake,” he said. “Do you know what we did? We bloody saved the World! That’s all!”
“We bloody saved the World,” Mayer agreed.
“YOU’VE CHANGED, TOBE,” said Metoo.
“Tobe doesn’t understand it. It’s not like maths,”