An automated voice asked for a name and fingerprints, and I think the rough screen took a sample of my skin. Then a warmer voice cautioned me that the Master was deep into meditations but cared for me and wished to hear my thoughts. Clarence Parcy had used a deceptive resume to win a first meeting with the young Desmond, and I took the same approach. I wasn’t just working on pivotal research into the nature of Bonds. I was linchpin of the operation, and I had some very big news to deliver firsthand.
That voice said, “Thank you,” and then added, “Wait please while your request is given every attention.”
Thirty seconds into the wait, I felt like an idiot.
Seventeen seconds later – I was timing the event – a third, decidedly more feminine voice gave her apologies and said thank you before sadly admitting that no meeting would be possible today.
The idiot walked back through the squalid, muddy camp, fending off the sober, happy looks of madmen.
I was climbing into my car when the fat guard appeared. He wasn’t running, but judging by his gasping and the wet muddy uniform, he had tried to run and fallen at least once. Seeing me, he waved. I climbed back into the rain, and he asked, “How many are watching us?”
“Everybody,” I admitted.
He said, “Shit,” and took a long look at everyone. Then something in the sorry situation became funny, and he laughed. “It’s never happened before. We’ve got rules, codes. I knew what to do. But eleven years at the gate, and you’re the first. I think even the software was startled when he said, ‘Yes.’”
“Allegato,” I said.
“Dr. Allegato,” he whispered. Then he turned, telling me, “Keep close. If they get wind of this, we could have a goddamn riot on our hands.”
The Article
T
HE EXPECTED ROBOTS
lived inside the big house, and not one had a face.
A bipedal machine offered me a place for my muddy shoes and coat, and then it asked if I wanted food and drink, and when I said that I wanted nothing, thank you, it combed its software for the next viable topic. “Sir, if I may... which office do you hold in the company?”
“None,” I said.
“Are you a political figure or a Nobel laureate?”
“No and not yet, but maybe soon.”
A smaller, even less human robot wheeled itself between us. “He wants you and please come with me.”
I followed. A mansion that was grand on the outside was decidedly ordinary within. Room after room passed by, every door open and each furnished in the same ascetic style – white carpeting and screens on three walls, no windows and no second doors, and in the middle of every room, the same model of lounge chair. The chairs that had been used were outnumbered by chairs still wearing plastic. No room had two items of furniture. What would be the need? Every surface looked clean, but that could have been the result of busy robots. The sole tenant remained a mystery until I was twenty rooms into his quiet, quiet palace.
My guide stopped, studying me with its cameras. “This is an honor for you,” it claimed. “Treat it as such, and the intrusion will be forgiven.”
I dripped my “Thank you” in sarcasm.
The only closed door in the house was opened, and a jointed limb waved me into the only occupied room.
The man was heavier than his present doppelganger, and what hair remained was white and clustered about the ears. Desmond Allegato looked healthy if not fit. He was sitting in the middle of the room, eyes focused on one of the giant screens. I expected to see gnomes in battle, and I was wrong. Various geometric shapes were dressed in bright colors, and the famous man was moving the figures about a landscape that possessed the illusions of three dimensions and endless size.
I stood just inside the doorway, waiting.
Allegato’s hands moved through the air, interfacing with controls that I couldn’t see. Then the shapes froze in place, and a subtle rumbling ended, and he looked at me and past me and then at the floor in front of my stocking feet, telling nobody in particular, “Make this brief.”
I wanted nothing else.
He turned ahead, saying, “You have news about the Bonds?”
“Yes.”
“I keep up on the papers, you know. I recognized your name.”
“This news hasn’t been published yet.”
“So you said.” He gave the ceiling a skeptical stare, and something in that gesture told me one obvious fact that I should have guessed. Whatever the man had done with his life, he managed it while pushing through a crushing case of shyness.
The shy man gave my face one brief look. Then talking to the ceiling again, he asked, “What have you learned?”
“Bonds are important,” I said.
A small laugh ended with one heavy sigh, and silence.
“In fact,” I continued, “they are more important than we ever realized. They aren’t just little mathematical tricks that connect minds. They possess matter and energy that tie into the dark parts of the universe. The universe exists because of the bonds. There’s no more pre-eminent player in the universe at large.”
I was hoping for curiosity or revulsion, any sign of interest. Instead he acted mildly offended, asking, “Are you upset about something?”
“Humans,” I said.
“What?”
“We’re nothing, or nearly so.”
“Are we?”
“The math tells us that. When you and the Method liken humans to elements, when you talk about hydrogen and oxygen, you make a big mistake. It doesn’t work that way. Elements have mass. They have nuclei and presence. But the bonds we’re talking about – not your Bonds, the real ones – are far more profound and universal than the little impurities that we represent.”
He said, “Oh.”
“My mind and yours are the smallest part of the equation, contrivances built out of baryonic residues.”
Something here was humorous. He laughed and said, “Baryonic? I don’t know that word.”
“Ordinary matter,” I explained. “It’s the smallest component of the universe.”
Allegato squinted, and I realized he was tied into the web now.
“Dark matter and dark energy,” he read aloud. “Is that what your bonds are made of?”
“They’re part of them, but there’s even more energy from other dimensions. Which is the most astonishing, unsettling part of this, at least in my mind.” I lifted my arms and put them down again, trying not to shout. “We think we matter. We tell each other that we count for something. But we don’t. All those wishes for free will and power, but our thoughts predate us and will outlive us, and they inhabit our heads only because we just happen to have a place that welcomes them.”
“I need to think about that,” he said softly.
But my thinking was finished. “Everything in my head is determined by other forces, forces that have remained invisible until now.”
Allegato frowned, something tasting sour. Then he laughed abruptly and looked at the white carpet between us. “You know, I don’t read faces or voices particularly well. I never have. But under these circumstances, I would have guessed that you would sound somewhat happier than this, telling me about these great discoveries.”
I wasn’t happy. I was furious, and it was important to explain why. “Your people are using my work and your likeness. I don’t know if you realize this, but they’re making enormous claims with no basis in fact.”
“Well,” he said to the carpet. Then the eyes returned to the screen and its geometric players. “I give my people considerable latitude. If they think they can enhance my company, then I wish them all the best.”
“They’re making you into some kind of god,” I shouted.
He sighed and said, “Well, yes. It is an aggressive scheme.”
“And you approve?”
He shrugged. Allegato was the master of the indifferent, world-weary shrug. Then he finally looked at my eyes and left his eyes on me, saying, “According to everything that you have learned, there is no ‘me’. I am a... what was the word? Contrivance, yes. I am virtually nonexistent. Which makes me blameless, the same as you and everyone else on this little planet.”
Again, he offered the perfect shrug.
I breathed and looked at my shaking hands.
Then, with the careful tone of a professional, he told me, “You should try and relax. If these thoughts are as big as you think, then maybe they know what they are doing. Or they don’t, and what can you do about it?”
“I don’t know,” I managed. “What can I do?”
Dr. Allegato turned away, and lifting his hands into the air, he said, “Try closing the door on your way out.”
TICKING
ALLEN STEELE
Originally a journalist, SF was always Allen Steele’s first love, so he ditched journalism and began producing what made him want to write in the first place. With eighteen novels and nearly a hundred short stories to his credit, Allen’s work has received numerous awards, including three Hugos, and has been translated worldwide, mainly in languages he can’t read. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and SFWA, and also belongs to Sigma, a group of SF writers who serve as unpaid consultants on matters of technology and security. Allen is a lifelong space buff, which has not only influenced his writing but also taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and, in 2001, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He dreams of going into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so. Allen lives in western Massachusetts with his wife Linda and a procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
H
AROLD AND
C
INDY
were trying to find something to eat in the hotel kitchen when they were attacked by the cook.
Shortly after the refugees moved into the Wyatt-Centrum Airport, they’d divvied up the jobs necessary for their continued survival. Harold and the remaining desk clerk, Merle, had drawn the assignment of locating the hotel robots. That’s all they had to do; just find them, then tell Karl and Sharon, the two Minneapolis cops who’d taken shelter at the Wyatt-Centrum when their cruiser died on the street outside. The officers had their service automatics and a pump-action .12-gauge shotgun they’d taken from their car; unlike most of their equipment, the guns weren’t rendered inoperative. And they’d already discovered that an ordinary service robot could be taken out by a well-aimed gunshot; it was the big, heavy-duty ones that were hard to kill.
So Harold and Merle spent the second day after the blackout prowling the hotel’s ten floors. Merle knew where the robots normally operated, so they only needed to confirm their positions while avoiding being spotted, and once they’d located all the ’bots Merle remembered, they returned to the pool and told the cops. Karl and Sharon made sure the barricades were secure, at least for the time being, then went up into the hotel and, moving from floor to floor, blew away all the ’bots the civilians had found.
This search-and-destroy mission netted ten housekeepers, five custodians, two room-service waiters, and two security guards. According to Merle, that accounted for the hotel robots; this didn’t include the huge bellhop that killed two staff members and a guest before someone picked up a chair and used it to smash the robot’s CPU. That happened on the first day; most of the guests fled after that, along with most of the remaining staff. After that sweep, everyone thought all the ’bots had been accounted for and destroyed.
By the end of the third day, the thirty-one people hiding in the Wyatt-Centrum’s cathedral-like atrium were down to the last few cans of the junk food a couple of them had scavenged from a convenience store a few blocks down the street. Nobody wanted to venture outside, though – it had become too dangerous to leave the hotel – and the cops were reluctant to tear down the plywood boards they’d had nailed across the ground-level doors and windows. So when Cindy asked Harold if he’d mind coming along while she checked out the kitchen – “It can’t all be fresh food,” she’d said, “they must have some canned stuff, too.” – she didn’t have to twist his arm very hard.
Hunger wasn’t the only reason he went with her, though. Truth was, he wanted to get into Cindy’s pants. Sure, she was at least twenty years younger and he was married besides, but Harold had been eyeing her for the past three days. Only that morning, he hadn’t entirely turned his back when she’d taken a bath in the atrium swimming pool. As afraid as he was of dying, he was even more afraid of dying without having sex one last time. Such are the thought processes of the condemned. Perhaps he wouldn’t get a chance to knock boots with her during this foray, but at least he’d be able to show off his machismo by escorting her through the lightless kitchen. That was the general idea, anyway... but before he got a chance to nail Cindy, that goddamn ’bot nearly nailed them instead.
Unfortunately, when Harold visited the kitchen earlier, he and Merle had neglected to check the big walk-in refrigerator. It wasn’t entirely his fault; the two cooks they’d found attacked them the moment they pushed open the door, forcing a hasty retreat. Those were the first robots the cops had neutralized, and Merle believed they were the only ones in the kitchen. But he was wrong; a third ’bot had been trapped in the fridge when the lights went out.
The walk-in was located in the rear of the kitchen, just a little farther than Harold had gone the first time he’d searched the room. They’d found a carton of breakfast cereal, which would be good for the kids, and Cindy was hoping for some milk that hadn’t spoiled yet. She’d just unlatched the chrome door handle, and he was standing just behind her, when they heard the sound everyone had come to dread the last few days:
Tick-tick... tick-tick-tick... tick... tick-tick-tick...
“Watch out!” Harold yelled, and an instant later something huge slammed through the door. Cindy was knocked to the floor; falling down was probably the only thing that saved her from having an eight-inch ice pick shoved into her chest.