Authors: Justina Robson
A video clip appeared as Max and Malachi sidled out of the way and came to lean against Lila’s bed. Teazle swivelled his head around to look the right way up at it.
On the image a human presenter and a demon who looked like a cat-person looked with slight stage fright at the camera but began without preamble. “We are part of the mathematical analysis teams who’ve been working on the physics of what we know about the new cosmology since the Bomb . . .” The human, a young man, cleared his throat and glanced at his colleague but continued. “We’ve been studying the crack patterns in the various regions and comparing them with what is known from akashic science about I-space. We’ve also been consulting with groups about unexpected phenomena . . . wherever we can get that information. You’re now a part of that organisation. It’s not exactly government from anywhere, but we are funded and . . .”
“Digression,” murmured the cat.
“...um...the point is that we have reason to believe, if our equations are right, that there is a fundamental instability governing the space-time and aether matrix which permits our worlds to coexist. It is getting worse and various activities increase the instability . . . however, the major point about our research is that we think the primary cause of the problem is: our theories predict the existence of another world. But nobody seems to be able to detect it.” He glanced at the cat who nodded sagely. “The fact that it isn’t there, apparently, means that the fabric of our dimensions is starting to rip itself apart and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s reasonably slow. We think years, not months. A decade to fatal instability. Before that . . . we don’t know what will result as things get worse. But they will get worse, probably in unequal jumps.” He paused and took a drink from a glass of water that had been out of shot.
“But,” the cat interrupted in a smooth, soft voice, “we think that if this world could be found and somehow reintroduced to the matrix, the pattern will stabilise. The equations clearly predict that the presence of the seventh realm would balance everything out. It’s because it’s not there that everything is starting to warp. Everything points to its existence.”
“How could it exist and not be there at the same time?” Zal asked the recording, just as the cat continued.
“Of course it seems impossible for something to exist, yet not be there at the same time. We have postulated that maybe it does exist but has become separated from our continuums in some way and is therefore only detached and not nonexistent in the greater cosmos. If it has been destroyed or failed to arise then, of course, nothing could be done. Demonia, Alfheim, and Faery also note for the records that the instability issues were present, yet at much lower levels, prior to the QBomb event in Otopia. We never considered looking for other worlds before now. If there is evidence . . . I am not allowed to discuss it here. Another department will take care of that. That concludes the summary findings.”
The recording ended.
“Well, I think that says it all.” Williams switched off the display and put her Berry back into her pocket. “Now, staff if you would return to your duties I will take Lila and her sister home and assist with the arrangements for the immediate return of Mr. and Mrs. Black. If that’s all right with you, Lila?”
Lila took a deep breath, “I think I’d like to be alone for a while,” she said, and got down from the gurney. She gave Zal a nod that said he was included in “alone” and gave Max a small smile of apology. As she passed Malachi on her way out he signed that he’d look after Max and she picked the technician’s device from his hand. The soldiers guarding the door stepped aside for her silently.
As she was walking Lila re-cued her access to her AI and set it to full interface. The extra machine mind lay seamlessly with hers. She only had to think for all its possibilities to be controlled: she closed the door behind her and locked it, using her new security permissions to invoke Protocol 111b (higher-ranking agency staff are temporarily countermanded in event of emergency or suspicion of threat) to ensure it could not be overridden. She did the same thing to the control system in her hand, locking out all others from access—and not only to this single unit, but to all units of any kind containing the same program.
On her shoulder Thingamajig tugged at her hair but she ignored him and began to walk down the hall, orienting herself via her internal schematic of the building. “Where are we going?” he piped. “Are you on some mission?”
She didn’t answer. Inside her chest the exhausted Tath watched her with quiet interest. Her feet took her at a steady pace through doors she had never had cause to open before, their locking mechanisms opening at the touch of her fingers. As she walked she also opened up regions inside the secure zones of the AI systems where the hot-working copies of several million different operational programs were kept, located the ones which gave remote access to her internal software and hardware, and watched them closely. Meanwhile she was really looking for a master command somewhere in the whole works—several security levels higher than she was allowed to command she knew it must exist: a means to shut her up and shut her down. As that was going on she took a cursory glance at the flow of comms traffic to see what was bothering most of the other agents.
Weird reports of supernatural events flooded the lines.
She turned into an airlock and waited for it to cycle, reading all the time: all over Otopia, mostly in regions of isolated country, people were reporting strange creatures, humanoid but greyish with red eyes, who could move at incredible speeds and seemed to haunt certain places. They also told stories of strange people arriving late at isolated places and asking favours, who then made cryptic warnings about impending disasters, usually minor, although one of these had occurred shortly before the collapse of the entrance to a lead mine in which two men were killed. It made peculiar reading but less peculiar if you were armed with the knowledge that these things were almost certainly unknown people from a known place. The media was rife with speculation that they were undead, vampires, and ghouls that were coming through from Thanatopia—a place never out of the popular press. Lila was ready to discount this, as they sounded quite wrong for that. In any case, although they were disturbing, they so far posed no threat she could see.
She put the matter aside as the airlock opened and let her into the machine room deep in the basement, where some of Otopia’s most sensitive computer systems were encased in carefully designed sarcophagi. The people who worked here were mostly maintenance engineers and they were few and far between, doing regular checks at times that didn’t coincide with her visit, so she was alone.
“Whaddya gonna doo?” Thingamajig asked with abominable enthusiasm, looking all around them for something that he, perhaps, could get stuck into vandalising.
Lila moved to one of the interface access points, opened the cover, and pulled out the relevant cables. She plugged them into her arm where the technicians usually applied their much smaller portable units to her and continued her search for the trojan while she reset the airlock system to 111b rules, shutting everyone else out.
By this time there were various other people attempting to figure out what was going on and taking moves to prevent her damaging the main setup. They locked her out of personnel files, spy data, and all secure processes important to their main operations but she was only interested in certain parts of her own programming. Thanks to 111b she was temporarily allowed to isolate herself by her own command—she guessed it made sense that she ought to be able to if she were being interfered with and was a danger to others. But it went both ways. If she were being ridden by a programmer it would be the ideal opportunity to break into the entire network. Nothing was perfect. She stared for a second at the 111b rulings and saw, underneath it, some special addenda which stood out with the oddity of their statement:
Agent Black Systems Exception—this unit is considered secure to all outside systems . . .
There followed a great long swathe of information she didn’t understand which referred to high-security documents she was not allowed to access. Her AI mind summarised it for her into a single conclusion that stopped everything she was doing except the AI’s regimented search for the trojan command.
The security people did not regard her as a hackable item, due to the fact that the systems which had been used to create her were of a type not available to any known technology-competent race. There was mention of a thing called the Rosetta Artifact and the fact that her machineries were of a different order to the rest.
She was absorbing this when her AI abruptly halted the trojan hunt. All interface attempts went through this object, or program—the Rosetta Artifact. The machine she still held in her hand, and the others which were really only simple interfaces, used a single programmed password to initiate a command switch from her to themselves. Cracking an unknown password of unknown dimensions would take longer than her reactor would last. It was impossible. For a moment she sagged literally with the weight of failure.
Meanwhile, as she had been involved in this brief minute of study, the imp had walked down her arm and was amusing itself with the wiring, tying knots of various sorts in the unused cables. “Mm,” it said as it felt her spirits sink. “At least you tried though, eh? Better than sitting there listening to all that guff and waiting for them lot to try and make a decision. Suppose there’s nothing to be done. You didn’t think they’d let you get away did you?”
She had already gone through several scenarios and a host of searches, looking for the physical location of the Artifact. It was not listed anywhere.
With a jerk she tore the cable inputs out of her arm and sat down on the floor. The determination that had driven her here, certain direct contact would make a difference, certain she could do something, was gone. The only possible action she could think of was to find the Artifact. Even then she might be unable to do any more than hold it and know it was the immovable object in her way to freedom.
The signal for an incoming call flashed on in her vision. She knew who it would be suddenly without needing to look, and answered silently.
“Lila?” Dr. Williams voice was gentle and concerned. “I suppose you’ve found out now, about yourself and the codes. I’ll be waiting, when you’re ready to talk.”
Lila cut the line and rescinded all her commands, letting the doors open.
The imp was murmuring to itself, “. . . rabbit goes over and down through the hole, then around the tree root . . .” as it tied a particularly complicated hitch.
“There’s no way back,” she said to the air. Tath sighed.
“Back to where?” the imp asked, tugging to test the strength of its work.
Lila got to her feet, feeling another twinge in her hip. “Let’s go,” she said and waited for the tiny creature to walk its way back to her shoulder.
The imp moved slowly and pouted its lower lip, “Don’t you resent me no more? Time was you’d just have left without me.”
Lila looked at the ugly thing for a second. It sat uncertainly on the ruined shoulder of her suit like a tiny god. “You’re just another one like me,” she said and passed through the airlock silently on her walk back to the exam room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“
...C
rossworld group of uniquely powerful allies?”Teazle was ... saying to Zal with incredulity. “What is this, a comedy?”
Zal shrugged and made a so-sue-me face. “The woman was so annoying. I couldn’t help myself.”
They turned around as Lila came back and everyone looked at her with a variety of concern, expectation, and curiosity.
“Are you all right?” Zal murmured.
“No,” she said. “I wonder if you all would mind moving to another room so that Dr. Williams and I can talk alone.” She glanced quickly at Zal and Max to see if this request had upset them, but if it had neither of them were showing it. Malachi spoke in warm tones, ushering everyone competently away, diverting them with suggestions of drinks and untangling the dogs’ leads from the chair legs. At last Lila and the doctor were left together in the cool, clinical light.
“That was quite a coup,” Lila said.
“A necessary one,” Williams replied. “Cara has become too nervous to be effective. And who is this?” she indicated Thingamajig and looked at him with interest.
“This is what you get in Demonia when you go to Hell,” Lila informed her, knowing that Thingamajig was in one of her reports and she didn’t need to go into excessive details. Williams was simply making pleasantries of a kind to pave the way to other things.
“I’m a Lord of the Infernal temporarily inconvenienced by a curse: overcome by your plight and beauty I have become your companion in adventure and adversity and analysis,” Thingamajig corrected her haughtily. “I’m as good as that elf or that faery any day of the week.”
Inside Lila’s chest Tath was laughing but his amusement didn’t touch Lila’s personal core of sadness. She shared a frank meeting of eyes with the doctor.
“I don’t like the world I’m in,” she said. “I don’t like what happens in it. I don’t like the agency for lying. I don’t like myself for believing in the best all the time when I should have been paying attention to what was really true.”
“You like Zal,” the doctor countered with her trademark mild tone. “And Malachi. You have your sister. You seem to have collected a couple of demon admirers. That’s more than most people can say.”
“Yeah but this girl here used to believe in things,” the imp said with great feeling. “Like truth and justice, and adventure being a nice thing, and heroism and salvation and a whole bunch o’ other candy-sweet nonsense that you people like to fill your heads with morning, noon, and night. So what you’re offering her is a couple of sensational lovers, some friends, and a relative in exchange for the universe. I hear a lot about elves in the bedroom department and we all know demons are worth the cover charge but still you haveta consider what that weighs up to when it’s matched with your great and powerful motivating abstractions like goodness and purity and rightness and the work ethic and the notion of the world being a good place to live in which is continually moving towards a state of bland but acceptable pleasantness. The faeries sure did a number on this place and no mistake.”