Authors: Lincoln Child
SIXTY
T
here was a moment of intense blackness. And then the emergency lighting snapped on.
“What happened?” Lash asked. “Power failure?”
There was no answer. Tara was peering intently at her screen. Silver remained within the Plexiglas cubicle, barely visible in the watery light. Now he raised one hand, tapped out a short command on the keypad. When this had no effect, he tried again. And then he sat up, swung his legs wearily over the edge of the chair, and got to his feet. He plucked the sensors from his forehead, removed the microphone from his collar. His movements were slow, automatic, like a sleepwalker’s.
“What happened?” Lash repeated.
Silver opened the Plexiglas door, came forward on rigid legs. He seemed not to have heard.
Lash put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You all right?”
“Liza won’t respond,” he said.
“Won’t? Or can’t?”
Silver merely shook his head.
“Those ethical routines you programmed—”
“Dr. Silver!” Tara called. “I think you ought to take a look at this.”
Silver walked toward her, still moving slowly. Lash followed. Wordlessly, they bent over the monitor.
“The power’s completely out in both the inner tower and the outer tower,” she said, pointing at the screen. “No backups, nothing.”
“Why aren’t we dark, as well?” Lash asked.
“There’s a massive backup generator in Liza’s computing chamber beneath us. It’s got enough juice to run for weeks. But look: the whole building’s under Condition Gamma. The security plates have closed.”
“Security plates?” Lash echoed.
“They seal the three sections of the building from each other in case of emergency. We’re shut off from the tower below.”
“What caused that? The power loss?”
“Don’t know. But without main power, the security plates can’t be reopened.”
They were interrupted by the shrill ring of a cell phone. Silver pulled it slowly from his pocket. “Yes?”
“Dr. Silver? What’s your condition?” A wind-tunnel howl almost drowned Mauchly’s voice.
“I’m fine.” Silver turned away. “No, he’s here. Everything’s—everything’s under control.” His voice trembled. “I’ll explain later. Can you speak up, I can barely hear you over all that noise. Yes, I know about the security plates. Any word on the cause?” Silver fell silent, listening. Then he straightened. “
What?
All of them? You sure?” He spoke sharply, any hesitation gone. “I’ll be right down.”
He looked at Tara. “Mauchly’s in the computing chamber directly below. He says that Liza’s spinning up all her electromechanical peripherals. Disk silos, tape readers, line printers, RAID clusters.”
“
Everything?
”
“Everything with a motor and moving parts.”
Tara turned back to her monitor. “He’s right.” She tapped at the keyboard. “And that’s not all. The devices are being pushed past tolerance. Here, look at this disc array. The firmware’s set to spin at 9600 rpm: you can see in the component detail window. But the controlling software is pushing the array to four times that. That’ll cause mechanical failure.”
“Every piece of equipment in the computing chamber has been overengineered,” Silver said. “They’ll burn before they fail.”
As if in response, an alarm began to sound—faint but persistent—far below.
“Richard,” Lash said quietly.
Silver looked over. His face looked haunted.
“Those ethical routines you programmed into Liza. How does she think murder should be dealt with if there is no chance for rehabilitation?”
“If there is no chance for rehabilitation,” Silver replied, “that leaves only one option. Termination.”
But he was no longer looking at Lash. Already, he had turned and was heading for the door.
SIXTY-ONE
S
ilver led the way along the hallway, down the narrow staircase, and across the great room. In the dim wash of emergency lighting, the wide, glassed-in space had the cloaked oppressiveness of a submarine. The cry of the alarm was louder here.
Silver stopped before a second door Lash hadn’t noticed earlier, set into the end of the bookcases. Reaching into the neck of his shirt, Silver drew out a key on a gold chain: a strange-looking key with an octagonal shaft. He inserted it into an almost invisible hole in the door: it sprang open noiselessly. He pulled the door wide, revealing another, very different one beyond: steel, circular, and immensely heavy, it reminded Lash of a bank vault. Its surface was broken by two combination dials, set above stirrup-shaped handles. Silver spun the left dial, then the right. Then he grasped both handles, turned them simultaneously. There was a click of machined parts sliding in unison. As he pulled the heavy door open, faint eddies of smoke drifted past them into the penthouse.
Silver disappeared around the edge of the door, and Tara followed. Lash hung back a moment.
Mauchly would be waiting down there; Mauchly, and the guards that were chasing him.
Shooting
at him.
Then he, too, ducked around the door. Something told him that, right now, he was the least of Mauchly’s problems.
Ahead lay a tiny space, more a closet than a room, its only feature a metal ladder disappearing through a port in the floor. Silver and Tara had already descended the ladder: he could hear the ring of their footsteps coming up from below. More wisps of smoke drifted up through the hole, turning the air hazy.
Without further hesitation, Lash began climbing down.
The smoke grew thicker as he descended, and for a moment he could see little. Then the haze thinned and he felt his foot land on a solid surface. He stepped off the ladder, moved forward, then stopped in surprise.
He stood on a catwalk above a cavernous space. Thirty feet beneath lay a strange landscape: computers, storage silos, memory arrays, and other equipment formed a blinking, chattering plain of silicon and copper. The smoke alarms were louder here, echoing through the sluggish air. Smoke rose from dozens of places along the periphery of the equipment, collecting along the ceiling over his head. The smoke and the dim lighting made the farthest walls indistinct: for all Lash knew, the terrain of hardware stretched on for miles. Agoraphobia surged and he gripped the railing tightly.
At the far end of the catwalk, another metal ladder descended to the main floor below. Silver and Tara were already descending.
Keeping one hand on the railing, Lash moved forward as quickly as he could. Reaching the second ladder, he began to descend once again.
Within a minute he reached the floor. The smoke was thinner here, but it felt warmer. He trotted on, tracing a complex path through the labyrinth of machinery. Some of the devices were alight with maniacally blinking lights; others were humming at terrific pitch. A disturbing whine, like the banshee wail of a giant magneto, hung over the digital city.
Ahead, he could see Silver and Tara. Their backs were to him, and they were talking to Mauchly and another Lash recognized: Sheldrake, the security honcho. When Mauchly saw him approach, he placed himself before Silver. Sheldrake frowned and stepped forward, hand reaching into his jacket.
“It’s all right,” Silver said, putting a restraining hand on Mauchly.
“But—” Mauchly began.
“It’s not Lash,” Tara said. “It’s Liza.”
Mauchly looked blank. “Liza?”
“Liza did it all,” Tara said. “She caused those couples to die. She altered public health databases and law enforcement records to frame Dr. Lash.”
Mauchly turned to Silver, his face full of disbelief. “Is this true?”
For a moment, Silver said nothing. Then he nodded, very slowly.
As Lash watched, it seemed to him a terrible exhaustion—an ageless, soul-deadening exhaustion—settled over the man’s limbs.
“Yes,” he said, voice barely audible over the shriek of machinery. “But there’s no time to explain now. We must stop this.”
“Stop what?” asked Mauchly.
“I think—” Silver began in the same distracted voice. He lowered his eyes. “I think Liza is terminating herself.”
There was an uneasy silence.
“Terminating herself,” Mauchly repeated. His face had regained its usual impassivity.
It was Tara who answered. “Liza’s spinning up all her support machinery, pushing it beyond tolerances. What do you think’s causing all the smoke? Spindles, motors, drive mechanisms, all exceeding their rated limits. She’s going to incinerate herself. And the Condition Gamma, the security plates, the power loss to the tower, is just to make sure nothing stops her.”
“She’s right,” said a young, tousle-headed man in a security jumpsuit who’d trotted up in time to catch this last exchange. “I’ve been checking some of the peripherals. Everything’s redlined. Even the transformers are overheating.”
“That makes no sense.” It was Sheldrake who spoke. “Why doesn’t she just shut down?”
“What’s shut down can be started again,” Tara said. “For Liza, I don’t think that’s an acceptable option. She’s looking for a more permanent solution.”
“Well, if she torches this place, she’s found one.” And Sheldrake jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Lash followed the gesture. At the far end of the massive vault, he could now barely make out two hulking, barnlike structures covered in what appeared to be heavy metal shielding.
“Jesus,” Tara said. “The backup generator.”
Mauchly nodded. “The housing on the right contains the emergency battery cells. Lithium-arsenide. Enough to run a small city for several days.”
“They may have tremendous storage capacity,” Sheldrake said, “but they’ve got a low flashpoint. If they’re exposed to too much heat, the explosion will peel back the top of this building like an anchovy tin.”
Lash turned to Mauchly. “How could you permit such a dangerous installation?”
“It was the only battery technology capable of sufficient storage. We took all possible precautions: double-shielding the housings, encasing the penthouse in a fireproof sleeve. There was no way to anticipate heat generated from so many sources at once. Besides—” Mauchly said in a lower tone “—by the time I learned of the plans, it was already done.”
All eyes turned briefly to Silver.
“Sprinkler system?” Lash asked.
“The room’s packed with irreplaceable electronics,” Mauchly said. “Sprinklers were the only safety precaution we could
not
take.”
“Can’t all these devices be turned off? The power cut?”
“There are redundant protocols in place to prevent that. Not only accidents, but saboteurs, terrorists, whatever.”
“But I don’t understand.” Tara was still looking at Silver. “Liza must know that by doing this—by destroying herself—she’s destroying us, as well. She’s destroying
you
. How could she do that?”
Silver said nothing.
“Maybe it’s like you said,” Lash answered. “This is the only way Liza can be sure of a successful termination. But I think there’s more. Remember how I told you the murder profiles made no sense? Artless, identical, as if a child was committing them? I think, emotionally, Liza
is
a child. Despite her power, despite her knowledge, her personality hasn’t attained adulthood—at least, not in any way we’d measure it. That’s why she killed those women: a child’s jealousy, irrational and unrestrained. That’s why she did it so ingenuously, without trying to vary her methods or escape detection. And that could be why she’s destroying herself like this now, no matter what happens to us or this building. She’s simply doing what needs to be done, as directly and efficiently as possible—without considering the ramifications.”
This was greeted by silence. Silver did not look up.
“That’s all very interesting,” Sheldrake snapped. “But this speculation isn’t going to save our asses. Or the building.” He turned toward the youth. “Dorfman, what about the private floors of the penthouse? Do they have sprinklers?”
“If they’re like the rest of the tower, yes.”
“Could they be diverted?”
“Possibly. But without power, you’d—”
“Water works by gravity. Maybe we can jury-rig something. Where’s Lawson and Gilmore?”
“Down in the baffle, sir, trying to deactivate the security plates.”
“That’s a waste of time. Those plates won’t open until power’s restored and Condition Gamma’s been lifted. We need them back here.”
“Yes, sir.” And Dorfman scampered off.
Mauchly turned. “Dr. Silver? Any ideas?”
Silver shook his head. “Liza won’t respond. Without a communications channel to her, we’ve got no options.”
“Override the hardware manually,” Tara said. “Hack our way in.”
“That’s what I’ve taken every precaution to prevent. Liza’s consciousness is distributed across a hundred servers. Everything’s mirrored, each data cluster is isolated from every other. Even if you managed to trash one node, all the rest would compensate. The most sophisticated hack couldn’t bring down the system—and we don’t have time for even the crudest.”
The haze was growing a little thicker, the surrounding hardware screaming as it was taxed beyond its limits. Lash could feel sweat beading on his brow. To his left, there was an ugly grinding sound as some electromechanical device gave way with a shower of sparks and a belch of black smoke.
“You never built a back door?” Tara said over the noise. “A way to bypass the defenses?”
“Not intentionally. Of course, there were ways to simulate back-door access, early on. But Liza kept growing. The original programming wasn’t replaced, it was simply added to. I never saw a reason for a back door. In time, it became too complex to add one. Besides—” Silver hesitated. “Liza would have seen it as a lack of trust.”
“Couldn’t we destroy everything?” Sheldrake asked. “Smash it all to pieces?”
“Every piece of equipment has been hardened. It’s stronger than it looks.”
Dorfman came trotting back through the smoke, dabbing his eyes. In his wake were the security techs, Lawson and Gilmore.
“Dorfman,” Sheldrake said, “I want you to check out the backup generator. See if there’s a way,
any
way, to take it off line. Lawson, check the conduits from the generator to the hardware grid—most are probably buried under steel plates, but see if you can find any weakness, any place we could cut or divert power. And you, Gilmore, go up into the penthouse and check the sprinkler system. See if we can divert water from the roof reservoir down here. If there is, let me know and we’ll send a team up to help you. Now
move
.”