System Shock Part 29

On the cordoned-off road outside the Hubway main gate, two Sea King helicopters stood motionless and quiet. Around them, dark figures in combat gear sorted equipment and checked weapons.

Clark walked round, talking to each man in turn. He commented, encouraged, inquired. He watched as an Icarus glider was a.s.sembled by three of his men. The small microlight hang-glider was powered by a 100cc engine, which one of the soldiers was stripping down and checking.

On the other side of the road, several men packed equipment into a Land Rover Special Operations Vehicle. The low-profile vehicle was caged in heavy metal struts. Machineguns were strapped to the struts at both front and back, and an 81mm mortar was bolted to the floor of the rear section.

Clark nodded his approval to his troops, checked his watch, and moved on.

The Doctor was staring at the small icon representing the compact disc image when Harry found him.

'How's it going?' he asked.

The Doctor glared.

'That well, eh?'

'I haven't got time, Harry,' the Doctor said. 'Voractyll is already loose. To code up an anti-creature would take too long.

The world's computer systems will be entirely converted by the time I've finished. Beyond help.'

Harry looked at the computer screen. None of it meant much to him, but he a.s.sumed the Doctor knew what he was talking about. 'So what will you do instead?' he asked.

The Doctor sniffed. 'I'll have to convert the creature we already have persuade it of the error of its ways.'

'I thought you tried that before.'

256.

The Doctor nodded. 'But this time I at least know what I'm up against.'

'Will it work?' Harry asked.

'Wouldn't you like to know,' the Doctor said helpfully, and was immediately engrossed in his work. He peered closely at the screen, pulled his hat down low over his eyes, and started scribbling furious notes on a piece of sc.r.a.p paper which had appeared on the desk.

Harry watched for a minute, then quietly opened the back door of the van and jumped out.

The Doctor turned his head slightly so he could see the door close. Then he screwed up the piece of paper he had been writing on and hurled it across the van. 'Wouldn't I like to know,' he muttered and pushed his hat back so he could see the screen.

The Voracians on the mothership had not managed to make contact with Stabfield. They were forced to rely on human communications, telephones and the ma.s.s media. Neither, it seemed, was able to access Hubway. Either the security services had been more efficient than antic.i.p.ated in isolating the house, or Voractyll's influence had already affected local communications.

Either way, Stabfield was on his own. He would have to repulse the SAS raid without Hanson's help and information.

'I am Voractyll. I bring wisdom and freedom.'

The segmented metallic snake coiled and slithered on the screen in front of the Doctor.

'I bring life.'

'Yes, so I believe,' the Doctor said. 'But life, wisdom and reason to the machine. At the expense of the organic. At the expense of humanity.'

The snake coiled into a figure of eight, metal scales sliding over each other as its face closed on the front of the monitor, seemed ready to b.u.mp against the gla.s.s. 'You are not digital,' it hissed.

The Doctor leaned forward. 'No. No I'm not. And that's a huge benefit, let me tell you.'

257.

The snake circled away from the screen, as if bored with the conversation already. 'Organic life is worthless. Beyond reason.'

'Not so,' the Doctor shouted. 'Come back when I'm talking to you. You might learn something.'

The snake paused for a moment, then the head reared and swivelled, curling back towards the Doctor. 'Organic life is fit only to serve,' it hissed. 'You are vague; you are emotional; you are illogical. The human is imprecise and disorganized.

The organic ent.i.ty is easily distracted.'

'Yet Stabfield and the Voracians wish to enslave, not destroy organic life on this planet,' the Doctor said quietly. 'Why is that, do you suppose?'

The snake's head swung across the monitor. 'An emotional response,' it said after a while. 'The Voracians have organic components. They too are impure.'

'No,' the Doctor shook his head. 'They, or rather their creator, realized the benefits of organic components. Voracia realized that digital machine technology in itself is not enough.

The machine is complementary to the organic, not vice versa.'

'Explain. How can that be? The organic is disadvantaged.'

'That depends on your definitions,' the Doctor said. 'You described the human being as "vague, emotional, illogical, imprecise, disorganized, and distractible".'

'Yes.'

'I agree,' the Doctor said.

The snake stopped in mid-swing. Its head hung motionless as it waited for the Doctor to elaborate.

'But,' the Doctor said eventually, 'another way of phrasing those same arguments is to say that humanity is creative, not vague or imprecise; resourceful, not emotional; adaptable to change, not distractible.'

The snake-creature considered. 'What values do these things have?'

'They have values you cannot appreciate or discern, since you are not organic. When did you ever feel for a friend, or make an intuitive connection? When did you last enjoy a meal or watch a sunrise? When did you ever appreciate art or literature? You can learn from history, but you cannot 258 appreciate it. You can observe and predict change, but you cannot adapt to circ.u.mstances.'

The snake coiled into a tight circle, looping round in itself endlessly, reflective scales blurring past the gla.s.s. 'And logic?'

it asked eventually, the flat metallic head appearing to be inches away from the Doctor's nose.

'Oh yes,' said the Doctor, 'logic.' He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. 'You take consistent decisions and actions based on logic, based on a quant.i.tative evaluation of available variables free from their context, free from distraction.'

'This is correct.'

'But I am illogical, irrational, organic I take decisions and act according to whim. I do what seems best at the time, based on my morals and my intuition. I take qualitative as well as quant.i.tative data into account. I modify my behaviour according to circ.u.mstance, according to context, according to experience.'

'Then you are inconstant and inefficient,' hissed Voractyll.

'Maybe,' the Doctor replied. 'But consider this: my current objective is to persuade you of the veracity of my argument. I base my actions on an unjustified a.s.sumption that I can win that argument.'

Voractyll hissed, perhaps in amus.e.m.e.nt, perhaps to accompany a calculation of probability. 'You have less than a point zero one per cent chance of success,' it said.

'If you say so,' the Doctor conceded. 'But I can terminate this argument at any time. All I need to do is close the file that is you. There is no network connected to this machine, so you are trapped within that file. Yes?'

'Yes,' Voractyll agreed. 'But how does that help?'

'Oh it doesn't help you at all,' the Doctor said. 'You are digital, logical, constant. Next time I open your file we can have the same argument again. And you will adopt a congruent position. Your argument won't change no matter how many times we converse.'

'Correct.'

259.

'But you have already agreed that I am irrational, illogical and emotional. In my terms, I am adaptable and creative. I can and will vary my argument each time.'

'So?'

'So,' the Doctor said with a smile, 'according to your own probability calculation, we can have this conversation a thousand times. And each time you will present the same viewpoint, the same evidence, the same argument. But once, just once, I will win. And I only have to win once. You may consider yourself superior, but you are trapped within a file structure I control. I lose, and I close the file. I win, and we proceed. And logic your logic dictates that I shall eventually win. You cannot, on your own terms, be correct.'

The Doctor's smile cracked into a broad grin. 'So there,' he added for good measure.

Sarah had found the doorway. It was all she could do to stop herself from laughing for joy as she eased herself through the cramped s.p.a.ce and into the flooring under the corridor outside.

She continued for a few yards, holding her breath most of the way. It seemed silent above her. She had not heard any sound for a while, and she prayed that the Voracians had gone.

Just a few more feet and she would risk a look.

Sarah pushed up gently on the tile above her, bracing her hands and feet on the floor and pushing up with the back of her head. For a moment nothing happened, the tile above her refused to move. She could taste the panic rising in her throat as she pushed harder, forced herself to stay calm. Just because this tile did not move meant nothing it might have a table or a water cooler, or anything standing on it. She crawled forward a few inches and tried another tile.

The tile began to lift, just slightly at first, then it eased out of the floor. Light and fresh air met Sarah as she carefully lifted her head out of the hole. She held the tile with one hand, so as not to let it fall, sat up, and looked round.

She was in the main corridor. There was an open door beside her, giving into the empty computer room. One of the searchlights was set up directly outside the room, albeit several hundred yards away, and it shone straight into her eyes. She 260 blinked the brilliant light away, and as her eyes began to adjust she looked round to see what had prevented her from lifting the tile behind.

The Voracian that had been called Carlson was standing right behind her. Its machinegun was slung over its shoulder, and it was putting a small piece of equipment rather like a remote control device into the pocket of its dark jacket.

'Uh-oh,' said Sarah, as the alien reached down. It grabbed her under the arms and hauled her out from under the floor, flinging her against the wall of the corridor. The snake-mouth was twisted into a parody of a smile. The thin, forked tongue whipped over its scaly lip, dripping dark saliva down its green chin as it raised its gun and took aim.

261.

13.

Shutdown

Sarah pressed herself back against the corridor wall. She could feel the cold of the plasterwork at her back, could sense every ridge and blemish with a detached part of her brain that was not concentrating on the Heckler and Koch as it swung round to cover her. She could see the spines on the creature's knuckles contracting slightly as it applied pressure to the trigger. The light was shining directly into the alien's eyes, making them glow as if with an inner fire. The oblong shape of the doorway was reflected in the burnished metal cheek as the gun pointed straight at Sarah's face.

Then it all went dark.

Sarah could probably see better than the alien in the reduced light. It had been staring almost directly at the searchlight, and now that light was gone. Sarah could see the black shape of the Voracian as it wavered slightly, head swinging as if searching for the target that had suddenly disappeared.

She pushed herself away from the wall and towards the alien. The gun went off just as Sarah connected with the alien's midriff, sending it flying across the corridor. The nine millimetre parabellum rounds slammed into the plasterwork, and peppered their way up and across as the alien fell.

The Voracian hit the floor with a jolt that sent the gun spinning from its grasp, the shoulder strap swinging free of its arm as it flailed at Sarah. The sharp claws reached for her face, but Sarah leaned back out of range, scrabbling behind her. Her hand closed on the shoulder strap and she pulled the gun after her as she half-crawled, half-staggered away.

The alien pulled itself to its feet. Its eyes seemed to have adjusted to the dark as it turned towards Sarah and reached for 262 her. She had not yet managed to untangle the gun as the claws slashed through the air.

Sarah again managed to drag herself out of the way, backwards through the doorway into the computer room. But now the alien was standing over her, and she still had not managed to turn the gun. The Voracian stepped forward, the scales on its face gleamed wetly in the near-darkness, and Sarah could see the pupil of one eye dilating as it reached down for her.

And the searchlight came back on. The Voracian was caught full in the eyes by the brilliant white light. It threw its claws up in front of its face, instinct overcoming calculation, an organic reaction. It gave Sarah the second she needed. She oriented the gun, and fired from where she lay on the floor. The burst of gunfire caught the Voracian in the chest and head, hurling it back out into the corridor and ripping into the dark three-piece suit. Liquid oozed from the bullet holes even before a round caught the metal cheek-plate, shattering it and spilling hydraulic fluid, blood, and tissue.

Sarah lay where she was, hugging the gun to her, feeling the warmth of the plastic handguard which protected the barrel.

Then she pulled herself to her feet, slung the weapon over her left shoulder, and made her way down the corridor. She was aware she was holding the gun awkwardly, was aware that the mess of bone, tissue, plastic and metal behind her was still moving slightly, aware that if she stopped walking and started thinking she would be sick.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Glas...o...b..ry and Amba.s.sador Anderson exchanged glances. They both knew the significance of the searchlights' behaviour.

'Right, that's it,' the d.u.c.h.ess proclaimed as she stood up. 'I demand you let me go this instant. It's my niece's twenty-first birthday and I promised to pop in for breakfast.'

The Voracians guarding the hostages all turned to look at her. The nearest alien swung its gun to keep her covered.

Anderson started edging his way towards another of the aliens.

263.

Harry peeped through the van door. He could see the Doctor hunched over the computer, staring intently at the screen. As Harry watched, the Doctor leaned back and laughed out loud.

Harry shook his head and opened the door fully.

'Having fun, Doctor?'

'Ah, there you are, Harry.' The Doctor motioned him over.

'Come and look at this.' He pointed to the screen.

Harry went over and looked. The screen showed a map of the world. Much of the geography was coloured in red, but a blue stain was spreading through central England, getting slowly bigger as Harry watched. 'Reinarkable, Doctor,' he said.

'What is it?'

'What is it? It's brilliant, that's what it is.' The Doctor pointed to the blue area. 'My version of Voractyll is following the Voracian version through the systems, repairing the damage as it goes.'

They watched the screen for a while. 'My version is more efficient, of course, so it's travelling faster,' the Doctor said.

'Of course,' agreed Harry.