The Path Read online

  I put him out of his misery: “Cramer, the other person who needs to come in with us is Tom Makerman.”

  CHAPTER 6

  A LONG WAY DOWN—OR WAS THAT UP ?

  Makerman, I couldn’t call him Tom any more. He was too pissy and I had lost my sense of job loyalty. I was fighting for my life and maybe Fred’s, oh, and the Nation’s. I had little time for his whiny-ass pouting. In there, where I know he’s never been, I could drop him any time I liked, he’ll be lost, scared, and maybe lost forever. In there, I was the guy in charge, not like out here, playing the fly in the SND’s net with him as the web spider watching my every twitch.

  Cramer had other ideas. “Bank, you’re crazy if you think I’m letting you take Makerman in there unless you tell me why.” To drive his point home his hand rested on his stun gun. Oh, good, I was thinking, please pull it and put us all out of our misery. I decided to convince him instead.

  I explained that I thought we could not make the trip in there more than once. I had seen that the System was into self-preservation more by the way it had copied the file and re-stored it in the new library arm, Colis 6 code and all. That may mean a level of non-sophistication but it did not mean a level of impotence. If it saw my entry as an intrusion, we were dead on arrival at the System portal. What I didn’t tell him was that maybe I could throw Makerman at it to buy us time. Of course, if it didn’t see us as a threat, or me as a threat assuming it only saw one dome entering, then by the time I was through poking around it damn well would, unless it wasn’t sentient, in which case I’d be done in there quickly, new safeguards in place. But I wasn’t going to tell Cramer I needed Makerman in there for a different kind of diversion, one that was directed at him.

  Cramer wasn’t fooled really, he knew I must have an ulterior motive, “Okay, Bank, spill it, give me the rest of your reasoning, why Makerman?”

  I nodded, grasping at straws, “It knows him, he may be a diversion. I may need him as part of a learning curve for the System in there, the firefly in the jar thing. Once in, I can’t come back out for him.”

  “Knows him? How?”

  “The file it removed, his job file. Am I correct in assuming that a SND job file is complete, down to his last toe-nail clipping?” Cramer nodded. “Pretty complete profile it has got then, hasn’t it?” Again he nodded. “Couple that information with the “humanness” we codifiers have been instilling daily and maybe what the System is doing is learning from Makerman’s data to become a human of sorts.” I turned to the doctor, “What do you think Doc?”

  “In theory, yes. With sufficient data, a character profile, and the foibles now within the System to teach it to better interface with humanity, it is possible for someone’s file to be part of the roadmap to sentience. It would have to be a relevant file to it, not necessarily to us. It would be useful to know what’s in the Makerman file.”

  “Cramer?” I asked. I had to ask, to make the point of who’s calling the shots here, now. Makerman looked at Cramer as well. Cramer simply nodded, Makerman threw up his hands in disgust. Still dressed in his Control rumpled clothing, it was clear he had been told it was unavailable, lost, he was still in limbo, had to wait it out, etc. “Cramer will you pass the personnel file on Makerman to the doctor, so we can have some expert help in there? Makerman, I assume you have no objection?”

  “None, as long as I get a copy for later if we survive this. I want my life back but not,” and he turned to face Cramer, “with you sons of bitches.” Things must have been hard for Makerman over there at Control for him to throw his SND career away. Maybe I felt a little pity for him there. Maybe, but just a very little.

  I remember a discussion over coffee watching the afternoon doubleheader, with the Mets fielding their weaker home team while the road team was away playing in Chicago. The Mets were getting creamed, as usual, well perhaps twice as usual given that it wasn’t the first string players out there. Suze had made a crack about wasted time, all this coding and decoding, maybe we should find something else to do. Mary had glowered at the prospect at not having puzzles to solve. Tom had surprised me with: “As long as he can keep it up, we’re here to undo his mischief.” At the time I thought it a way-too personal attack. Now I realize he meant it literally. That was his job, to undo and monitor only me. No wonder he was so pissed over the blue tomatoes, I had not only tagged it with his name, but I had managed to destroy his professional reputation as a watcher and SND stooge at the same time. Kind of like the Pink Panther, when Niven plants that jewel in Peter Seller’s pocket to be revealed during the trial, turning the tables. Sellers went down in flames, Niven the suave hero lives to carouse another day! Of course, Mary or Suze were no Capucine nor Claudia Cardinale, but the scenario fits anyway.

  Someone opened my office door behind me and Meg Ryan’s voice asked for instructions. Interesting connection in my head. Have to ask the shrink about that when this is all over. If it’s all over.

  Wait, the door was off-system, how did . . .

  “Cramer, shut down the System access here, now.” He touched his sleeve. The room and hallway went dark.

  “Can you bring up power without the System, even your safety System?”

  “Done.” And the lights came back on. “What gives? The System can’t have access at the moment.”

  “If Meg’s voice, that is my sub-routine replacement door activation command module, is up, that means the System is open to this floor. I only loaded that module onto what I thought was my System here. There is no other copy.” He looked worried.

  Mary chimed in: “I think it’s okay, the System doesn’t know who’s here, you smashed all the receptors along with the cameras, they’re built in together. Simon gave the door open command. The only thing it can read is floor pressure in Simon’s office. The System may be searching for Simon, sensing something is going on in there.”

  The Tech, McVay, had just come out the door, triggering Meg’s voice. She looked at me and then Cramer to see if she’d done something wrong. She was lighter than me by about 35 kilos. “Mary,” I asked, “does the floor sensor have weight measurement accuracy, can the System tell if it was McVay or me in there?”

  Mary looked thoughtful, “Maybe not the weight, but the length between strides, if it’s calculating. And that’s a big “if,” assuming your theory of sentience is correct. I’m still not convinced about that.”

  “Now’s not the time Mary. We need to assume the worst. When we get in there, if it’s not, then I’ll reset things manually if I need to. ½ hour tops. If it is . . .” I’m leaving that one hanging. I have ideas I’m not willing to share, yet. “Okay, let’s assume it knows it wasn’t me in there. McVay, you cut through the harness as I requested?” She nodded. “And you have now hooked up the third dome and are ready to patch all three as one into the grid?” Again she nodded. “Okay, we have a problem. We need to get three bodies in there, my walking speed, onto one stool, with McVay in there as well, hooking us all up. Any suggestions?”

  A babble of voices, lame-brained ideas, surged around, each discussing the other’s merits. Ladders as a bridge to the stool. Overhead harnesses hooked through the false ceiling, using the air ducts, cause a short-circuit in the floor detector. On and on they came and went. Finally Cramer came out with, “Idiots, longer wires.”

  McVay set to work lengthening the Cat32 cables for two of the domes, leaving mine short, as normal. It was clear I would have to connect the harness myself. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect while already wearing the dome. One wrong wire and maybe I would get a partial imprint and become unstable myself. Who knows what damage three people, hooked up together, all unstable, could do. Tech McVay seemed to sense my anxiety.

  “Mr. Bank, I will number the sequence of splice, put 30 wires in splice one and two in splice two. Hook up the 30 splice first, nothing will happen. When you close the splice on splice two, then the power will bring it all on line and you’re in.” Fair enough, seemed a plan, it should work. So why was I stil
l nervous?

  Maybe I’m not too keen on bashing around in there. Cramer and I were clumsy together last time, keeping Cramer focused on what I knew needed to be done wasn’t easy. His capability to communicate, even if only vocalized feelings heard inside my head, instead of data, was useful and might save the day. But Makerman had all this hostility going. I knew Cramer would have to get him sorted out beforehand. As usual, Cramer’s got the idea before me. They went off in a huddle. Makerman’s arm was getting a damn good squeeze in Cramer’s claw.

  I went off to talk to the three codifiers.

  ------------

  We were ready. It was suddenly quiet. Cramer and Makerman looked silly sitting there; both wore eye masks and had their legs swinging off the edge of a desk, wires flopping from one dome to the other. It wasn’t good ergonomic design, but what the hell. It was the ten-meter cord, with the two splices in my hand that had me worried.

  “Okay, put the node in now.” The pain was familiar and just as painful as ever. You really never get used to someone sticking a knitting needle through an occipital port behind your ear, even if you have the advanced model I had, with the silicone stopper. I wouldn’t be needing the waterproofing so I told her to leave that off. “Save it, they’re tough to fit.”

  “Glad to know you think you’ll be needing it later sometime.” Cramer, always ready with a quip. Still, it did relieve the pressure a bit. Somebody laughed, I think it was my brother William.

  Makerman was talking to Mary, asking her advice on what to do and not to do. She’d been in there with me on this buddy system, knew the ropes. But Mary’s a genius; Makerman’s a clod by comparison. Cramer could sense my thinking as usual.

  “He’s no dummy Bank; he’s your same grade, 5. He’s capable, just not so devious.” Again, the little dig I suppose. I let it go. Mary’s voice had chimed, Genius, into my inner ear somewhere echoing about my head, and a little loud.

  I vocalized, lips moving but without making a sound. Mary, I heard you clearly, but turn it down a bit, will you? We can work on minimal volume and intensity here, there’s no background noise to interfere.

  Okay Simon I hear you too. How’s this?” I nodded. And the data transfer, should I send that now? I gave another nod.

  I heard the doctor’s Cornell data, my brain processed it, and it streamed across my vision. I was blinded, confused for a moment. “Mary that speed may be fine for when I’m deep in there, but only if I ask for it at that speed. I think I need to have this again much slower. Could you try a tenth of that speed out here and, say, half in there?” So she tried again and the data came through fine. It was fairly useless to me out here, I was pretty sure of that. It’s one thing to send simple pressure and decompress readings when we’re diving, kind of like a heads-up display on a car or bus. But raw data like this, algorithms, complex matrices of comparisons of maturity/development neuron activity, it was beyond my ability to hold the material in my head. In there I suspected that I would be able to download it and use the right-brain, left-brain trick to have it accessible if I needed it.

  “Okay Mary, now Makerman’s file, just place it in the transmit queue and await my command.” I turned to Cramer, “You two all set?” Two nods. “Procedure Cramer?”

  “Up to you, same as before, flag as you go and we’ll clean after you.” He didn’t sound too confident any more.

  “Okay, I won’t delete anything; red means Mary grabs and dumps immediately. Blue means grab and repair and re-install ASAP. Yellow, Mary again pay attention to those, if we don’t make it, they may be your best bet to fix this damn thing. Remember yellow Mary, watch the yellow ones.”

  Cramer wasn’t so sure. “Red, gotcha. Yellow, why bother? If we don’t make it out, crash the damn thing and go for a reinstall. System 2 is almost ready at Control, Eastern Seaboard or in Central Library in Mexico City. Either way, those are untainted we think. Dump this one and replace.”

  Mary was aghast. “But that will take 2 weeks or more. People will die and the Nation will be defenseless!”

  “Well, it’s Control’s decision, but if we don’t make it out, either it is sentient as Bank says or we have a psychotic human imprinted rogue program or there’s a saboteur in there. In any of those events, the only safe thing to do is to dump it. And if Bank is right, then they have to dump the whole thing at once, WeatherGood, PowerCube, FarmHands, everything at once, clean cut. Clean the cavity and fill her up with new clean material.”

  Makerman had said nothing. I was watching his hands as they inched up his shirt towards the dome. He was aiming to remove the dome, probably before it was too late.

  “Makerman, relax. Either you go in or Cramer here is going to stun you to death. That right Cramer?” Cramer said nothing, just rotated his arm, tapped Makerman, who lifted his eye mask so he could see what was on Cramer’s sleeve. Makerman turned ashen and nodded.

  He put his eye mask down. “My kids.” It was a simple statement.

  It was profound not because Control was resorting to extortion of Makerman but because it showed a desperation that went beyond the immediacy of what we were about to try and do. If they were holding his kids hostage it meant they needed this dive to succeed. It wasn’t so simple as dumping the System and starting again, that must be a lie, they needed this to work and they were prepared to hold young children, aged 4 and 6 as I remember, to make it happen. I concluded there was no System 2. Or at least not one unconnected to this one.

  “Cramer. Give me an update on Fred.”

  He did. He showed off his sleeve. Fred was safe, out of harm’s way, or NFI (non-field involved) and OOD (out of danger). They had no reason to lie. It wouldn’t matter if they did. We were going in and they knew it. Bastards, but that was SND for you.

  Simon, careful what you think, I get it all, there’s no filter, I’ll edit what I can.

  Oh, thanks Mary. How come you never communicated with me, as Cramer did, when we did the piggyback?

  I wasn’t sure Control wouldn’t hear as well. I know the System would receive.

  Just as well you didn’t, I agree the System might be able to hear. I’ll bet it heard Cramer blabbing away in there.

  I gave last instruction to my co-jumpers, “Okay, one last rule. No sending mental transmissions in there. Visual signals only. Once it knows there’s two of us in there, now three of us, it may react differently. Right doctor?”

  The doctor confirmed that we should try and get it to speak to one person, with two or three, it may try and play one off against the other; it may use torture on one to get the others to comply. It doesn’t have morals yet, it’s too young. “I’ve been analyzing the waves, assuming they are thought wave impulses, and you’re right they match a child of huge intellect, perhaps aged 3.”

  Cramer swung around to face the doctor. “Does anthropomorphization have any relevancy here?” Cramer still hates the idea that it’s sentient, becoming human-ish.

  “Of course, you could say it’s just mammal aged 3, but that would be to deny the human imprint you’ve been encoding for 30 plus years. Once it accesses those human synaptic patterns—and that’s what humanness over mammalian is—it can mimic them or adopt them. The end result will be the same. It will act as a human. Does that make it human? No, but it might make it appear so in everything except for our smaller intellect.”

  Cramer shut up. Makerman was head down. I donned the dome and, keeping the cable stiff behind me, off of the floor, went to my door. “Cramer, System power on please.” The lights came on full and Meg asked for my password. She only does that on the first entry of the week (something I built in) after I shut up for the week. In other words, the System was waiting for me, it had logged me out, for no power-down could initiate my log out procedure. I told Meg’s disembodied voice to “Let me in, damn it.” The door opened. Some password, huh? Male machismo. False bravado more like.

  I calmly walked over to the stool, grabbed the wires above my head and connected splice one. Nothing. Good.

/>   I positioned splice two and looked back at Cramer and Makerman and the tech, holding the cable and keeping the door from closing with a chair. The chair was a safeguard. Her foot as a stop may have been electrified had the System thought of how to zap the floor. No one said good-bye or anything. I sat on the stool, turned away from them all to the blank wall and snapped the second splice closed.

  Good luck Simon, remember you’re a genius.

  Thank you Ma. . . . an abrupt end to useful two-way conversation. Hopefully the data transfer would be more fluid. Mary would be frantically thinking ahead, trying to anticipate what I would need. Or maybe she’s just going to send everything again and again, figuring that I’ll need it sometime. I suppose that’s best, I’ll try and avoid reviewing it as she sends it. I’ll try and put it on my platform, right brain, instead.

  It could join my six little programs that I had secretly reloaded off my platform inside here, as soon as dome power had come on.

  Time for the portal. Ready? We were still outside the System’s arena, it shouldn’t read anything here.

  Anger. Go. Work. Cramer, true to form.

  CHAPTER 7

  WHAT I WAS EXPECTING . . . OR . . . WHAT WAS I EXPECTING?

  Really, I amaze myself sometimes. Before the drop through the portal into the System, my conversation with the three guys who had done my job, codifiers all, was an eye-opener as I knew it would be. The simple reality of talking to them, three people who had been in there as I had, was illuminating. Control was, of course, monitoring everything but I’m not worrying about that anymore. I needed to know the truth from them and had no time for the niceties.

  What it all boiled down to was this: they were expert at what they did, more ruthless than me, and the guy before last was especially nasty. He really wanted to screw things up. Yet, not one of them had produced a measurable effect like the tornado on 3rd. When I explained what I had encountered, they were amazed or amused, all except for Charlie.