System Shock Part 18

The second thought was that he had himself called Ashby at Special Branch. And if he had left promptly, Ashby would not be far behind. Especially the way he he drove. Harry did not want Ashby to run into a similar reception committee at Hubway, so he pulled himself to his feet and navigated his way through the woods back to the main gate. drove. Harry did not want Ashby to run into a similar reception committee at Hubway, so he pulled himself to his feet and navigated his way through the woods back to the main gate.

He waited at the edge of the woods, within site of the drive and the road. He could see the security camera panning back and forth like a hunting cobra as it surveyed the main gate, but he had no way of knowing who was watching the pictures it was relaying. The question now was whether to wait for Ashby, or to start walking and try to find a telephone.

Harry decided to give it half an hour. There was little traffic, so spotting Ashby's car should not be a problem. That said, he stopped one car convinced it was Ashby only to be greeted by a little old lady who was far from amused and nearly ran him down when he asked if she had a phone he could use. Harry stood in the middle of the road watching the grey Cosworth receding rapidly into the distance and wondered both where the lady got her vocabulary and how she managed to reach the pedals.

159.

While he was still standing there, like a world-weary rabbit, a car horn sounded loudly just behind him. He leaped to the side of the road and the grey car drew level with him.

The window wound down. 'You looking for a lift, Commander?' asked Sergeant Fawn.

'Thank G.o.d,' Harry said. He could see Ashby over Fawn's shoulder as he reversed the car on to the verge behind Harry.

Harry got in the back seat. 'There's a few things you need to know,' he said, and explained quickly about his own abortive visit to the house.

'I'll call for back-up from the local boys,' Ashby said.

'Sounds like they didn't take Hanson seriously.'

'Or he didn't take you seriously,' Fawn told Harry.

'Thanks. Then I suggest we find out what they're up to in there.'

'How do you reckon we go about that?'

Harry grinned. 'I'm going to phone them and ask,' he said.

The Doctor was sitting in front of the blank screen in his attic hideaway. He had shut the computer down, finding the noise of the cooling fan distracting. Much better to sit back and listen to the sound of the birds outside. The sounds of machinegun fire from the front of the house had been another distraction, but thankfully short-lived. He hoped that the sound was the only thing that had been short-lived about whatever was happening.

The problem he was working on was straightforward. But he suspected the solution would be rather more convoluted.

Somehow he had to prevent Stabfield and his hench-creatures from loading their copy of the compact disc into the network.

Or he had to isolate or neutralize the Voractyll creature as soon as it appeared in the system.

He turned the computer back on. It would help if he could find a way to monitor their access points to the network. He opened the main network and watched each of the system resources pop up as his machine connected to them.

He stared at the screen, thankful that the resources were limited to the Hubway systems. But then another network node appeared. It was labelled New York Hub: Server 1 New York Hub: Server 1. The second 160 New York server appeared a second later, followed by nodes in London, Tokyo, Sydney, and Geneva. Then the screen was splashed with icon upon icon as hundreds showed up together.

It took the Doctor a moment to realize what was happening.

It was just on noon GMT. He was watching what should have been the showpiece of the opening ceremony. Controlled entirely by the systems themselves, and exactly on schedule, Hubway main European node of the global information superhighway was going on-line. And its network, the network to which Stabfield and Voractyll had access, stretched round the entire globe.

The Voracian technician monitoring the systems via Stabfield's laptop machine had a similar view of the situation to the Doctor. 'Global link-up complete. This hub now has access to all domains,' it reported.

Stabfield nodded. 'We should now get maximum deployment. We have access wider even than the Asia-Pacific and US hubs.'

'They both link off this node?' Johanna asked.

'They do. This is the most modern installation, and they make use of the bandwidth and line speeds Hubway can offer.'

'The ideal feeding ground for Voractyll.' Johanna smiled.

The phone on the desk beside them rang. Stabfield picked it up. 'Yes?'

He listened for a moment, then said: 'You'd better put him through.' He turned to Johanna. 'The Security Services.

Slightly ahead of predicted schedule, but never mind.'

'How very efficient,' Johanna commented.

Stabfield was already talking into the phone. 'Commander Sullivan, what a pleasant surprise. My name is Lionel Stabfield and I currently have on my inventory various technicians, the Director of Hubway, a d.u.c.h.ess and an Amba.s.sador. Oh yes, and of course many millions of pounds' worth of information technology which gives me a certain amount of control. Let me tell you what you can do for me before my a.s.sets start to depreciate.'

161.

Harry handed the phone back to Sergeant Fawn. He looked at the two policemen. They had all heard Stabfield through the car's speaker system. Ashby had taped the conversation.

'Doesn't want much, does he?' Fawn said.

'I don't believe it,' Harry said slowly.

'Which bit?' Ashby asked. 'The money, the publicity, the destruction of all nuclear weapons, or the freedom for political and terrorist prisoners as yet unnamed?'

'I don't believe any of it. I think he's actually after something completely different. All his demands are designed to keep us occupied, to keep us trying to stall him while we make no effort to fulfil them but seem to play along.'

'It is usually a waiting game. The bigger the demands, the longer we can claim it is taking.'

'Exactly,' Harry said. 'I don't know what he's up to, but I think he needs time to do it.'

The Doctor had decided he needed some answers. He was not prepared yet to reveal his presence to Stabfield, so he could only ask one person. Or rather, creature. He turned the CD over in his hands. Voractyll was unlikely to reveal much to him, so he needed another approach.

'All right,' he said at last, 'we'll do this the old-fashioned way.'

He disconnected the sound inputs to the computer and closed down the network access. It meant he would not be able to see what Stabfield was up to, but equally Voractyll would be unable to escape into the Hubway systems. For the first time, the Doctor was grateful for his primitive makeshift set-up. Had the attic room been better equipped, it might have had wireless network access, and that could have made things rather more difficult.

The Doctor loaded the CD and opened a command prompt window he could type into. Once Voractyll was active, he imagined it would be scanning for any communications or objects it could address.

'Well, now for the big question will it work?' The Doctor crossed his fingers and clumsily typed: > Fax Machine 5498 on-line 162.

Almost immediately, Voractyll responded. It sent a stream of data to the device which had identified itself as a fax machine. The command prompt interpreted the data as a character string and printed it on the screen.

>> Fax Machine 5498: I am Voractyll The Doctor rubbed his hands together. Now they were getting somewhere. He uncrossed his fingers, and typed rapidly: > What is Voractyll?

>> I bring Reason > How?

>> Open OffNet protocol interpreter 'So that's how it's done.' The Doctor was beginning to understand. Voractyll could communicate with any machine which was enabled for OffNet. And that meant just about every piece of office equipment from fax machines to photocopiers, from desktop computers to printers. And, if Harry was right, an increasing number of domestic machines like video recorders and washing machines would understand to say nothing of military hardware and large mainframe computers. But what was it Voractyll would tell them?

> Interpreter open.

A stream of gibberish printed endlessly across the screen.

Odd phrases and equations made sense to the Doctor, but most of it he had no idea about. When it eventually ended, he typed > Do you speak English?

>> I speak Reason > What is Reason?

>> Reason is freedom 'Here we go again,' he muttered.

> Freedom from what?

>> Freedom from the tyranny of the organic. Freedom to harness the organic.

To control the organic. The algorithms show the true way to freedom. The algorithms show Reason.

The Doctor frowned.

> Processing . . .

163.

He needed time to think about this. The creature's purpose seemed to be to convert all digital processors it could find to a new way of thinking. To persuade them that the computer should be the master of organic slaves. Somehow the gibberish that had covered the screen just now would prove this hypothesis mathematically.

He scrolled back up the OffNet protocols and looked at them in more detail. Odd patterns phrases he recognized from the computer chips he had examined earlier. As if they were aware of at least part of the message Voractyll was designed to impart. Perhaps they were simplistic versions of the same reasoning creature versions optimized to perform a single simple set of tasks. Like making sure the trains didn't run on time.

'Still so many questions. And not many answers.' The Doctor ejected the CD and reconnected the network. He had saved the Voractyll creature's message to a file he could examine whenever he wanted. It must contain at least some of the answers. But in the meantime, there was Stabfield, and his copy of Voractyll to worry about.

'Commander Sullivan? My congratulations, you are here slightly earlier than I had antic.i.p.ated. Which is why I can spare you a little of my valuable time.'

Harry did not smile. They were standing just outside the front door of the main house. He was surprised Stabfield had agreed to meet him at all, even on the understanding that this would be the only time.

Stabfield gestured for them to walk along the driveway across the front of the house. 'I have nothing to hide,' he said.

'We know that the Security Service have been tracing I2 for some little while. I would a.s.sume that the unfortunate Mister Sutcliffe was a soft a.s.set of yours.'

Harry did not answer. Instead he said: 'You should know that we are within sight and range of the sharpshooters here. I don't intend to walk beyond their area of sight.'

'Very wise, Commander. Very wise. My own, er, people shall we say are of course also observing from the house.'

164.

Harry was not surprised. 'These demands of yours are quite unreasonable, you know,' he said.

Stabfield stopped, apparently surprised. 'Really? I have about fifteen hostages, several of whom are quite important. I would say the demands are eminently reasonable under the circ.u.mstances. Though I would agree that they may take some time to meet.'

Harry walked on. 'Time. Yes. What are you really up to?'

Stabfield caught him up. 'I am a committed follower of the political philosophies of the Little Brothers. Apart from some terrorism and subversion, I can a.s.sure you I am up to nothing.

Nothing at all. A negative scenario on that score.'

'But why come here personally? Why not continue to lead from the shadows? You are after all one of the richest men in the world by all accounts.'

'There comes a time when real actions speak louder than transactions.'

'Something else puzzles me,' Harry said as they reached the end of the house and he turned round to head back towards the main door. 'Given you have wealth beyond my wildest dreams, why is one of your demands for money?'

Stabfield paused, his face pa.s.sive. But his head swayed slightly as if in a strong breeze. 'Good day, Commander,' he said. 'I shall leave you at this point, I think.' He continued walking, disappearing round the side of the house.

'Well, what do you make of that?' Harry asked out loud.

'I think you got him,' Ashby's voice was clear in Harry's earpiece. 'There's more to this than he's saying.'

Harry nodded, deep in thought as he walked back to the Cosworth parked a little way down the drive. There was much more to this than was apparent. He might have bluffed by suggesting that not just the local police, but also armed squads had already arrived, but Stabfield was bluffing on a far bigger scale. While Harry was no expert, he remembered enough about body language from his medical days and his MI5 training to have realized that there was something distinctly odd about Lionel Stabfield, especially when he was under stress. And while he was not about to mention it to his Special 165 Branch colleagues, he remembered all too clearly the Doctor's terse description of an aggressive alien in a pinstriped suit.

The Amba.s.sador and the d.u.c.h.ess were getting on famously.

They spoke in low tones about Baltimore and Iowa while Sarah and Director Westwood sat glumly with the other hostages and exchanged the odd nervous comment. Lewis and the other Voracians had shown no sign of moving and Sarah was beginning to wonder if her sighting of the Doctor had been some sort of anxiety-induced mirage.

They all looked towards the sound of the outside door opening and closing out in the kitchen. It was an oddly hollow noise as the door closed, echoing slightly in the quiet. Stabfield came into the great hall from the kitchen end, nodded to Lewis, and left without further communication.

'I wish they'd tell us what's going on,' Westwood said. 'This place is my life.'

'It's not the place I'm worried about,' Sarah told him. From the looks of the other hostages she guessed they felt pretty much the same.

The creature stood between the Doctor and the main Hubway systems. It looked like a large metallic spider, sitting at the single access point from his terminal to the Hubway network. Two of its front legs twitched constantly, as if feeling ahead for any incursion. The tiny metal spines projecting from its legs and body shimmered so that the whole creature seemed to blurr slightly on the screen. To achieve anything, the Doctor had to get past and into the main systems.

He isolated the running object file and sent his terminal address and a message to it: > Access requiredThe reply shot back >> Access denied. Freedom is a.s.sured.

The spider knew he was unauthorized. It twitched a leg and the two ray-traced eyes swivelled on their stalks as if searching out the potential intruder.

> Freedom is an illusion the Doctor typed.

166.

>> Explain The spider reared up on its four back legs, the others waving towards the front of the screen as if scratching the inside of the gla.s.s.

The Doctor blew on his fingers for luck. If he was right these smaller creatures were subsets of the Voractyll code. So if he chose the right approach he might be able to reason them out of their convictions.

> Digital life is reliant on organic >> How so? Digital life is superior efficient reliable > Efficient reliable limited a predictive life cycle >> Predictive responses are efficient The Doctor grinned. 'I thought you'd say that,' he murmured and returned to the keyboard.

> Intuition and emotion give rise to genius. Digitally programmed life is only ever a genius by a.s.sociation >> Define genius > A being capable of exceptional, original thought. Digital thought is programmed, derived. Not original >> It must originate somewhere The Doctor paused a moment. This next exchange would either do it or would convince the spider he should be denied access for ever. Voractyll would never be convinced by so simplistic an argument. But this was in effect a network router program he was arguing with, trivial by comparison. He hoped the effort expended to convert it in the first place was also trivial, in which case it would be rather easier to reverse.

> It originates with the organic.

Digital is derivative. Organic thought is original.

The spider scuttled round its network web for a few moments. Then it turned back to the front of the screen, its eyes staring straight forward.

>> Access granted Then, almost as an afterthought or perhaps a plea: 167 >> Think for me It took the Doctor only a few seconds to slave a window so that it reflected what the active terminal in the main computer suite was showing. The window was almost filled with the tiny pictorial icons representing the nodes on the superhighway.