Up Against It Part 13

"OK. We'll put the disaster recovery plan on standby right away."

"And I want an hourly update on your progress. Use Marty to produce them for you, if necessary. He'll be in by three. I'll let him know you have priority." Even as she said it, she shot a note off to Marty. Then, "I want you to be ready to perform an extraction in eight hours."

She looked shocked. "No way! That won't be enough time!"

"It'll have to be. We can't afford to leave this critter on the loose any longer than absolutely necessary."

"I suppose you have a point. I'll do what I can in that time frame." Tania added, "There's one more thing. We've been careful to use highly technical language to discuss this and a lot of veiled Tonal_Z talk to avoid revealing our suspicions to 'Stroiders' viewers. Should we continue?"

As Tania spoke, a horrible realization dawned on Jane. The riots... rumors of an infection in their life-support systems...

"What time did you discover the sapient?" Jane asked.

"We began to theorize about it at around nine-thirty or ten this morning. Just after the staff meeting. But we weren't sure till the early Casper-Dozois results came in around eleven."

Ten a.m. And the riots had started at eleven-thirty. Just enough time for a once-back-and-forth communication from Earths.p.a.ce.

She told Tania, "Word is already out."

"Are you sure? We've been careful..."

"Pretty d.a.m.n sure." Jane gave Tania a brief version of what had happened in the New Little Austin Mall. "Some tech-savvy 'Stroiders' fan Downside must not have been fooled," Jane finished. "And they pa.s.sed the word along to someone who lives or works in New Little Austin. The rumor is too close to the truth to be coincidental."

Tania looked chagrined.

"Oh my G.o.d! I had no idea..." She thought for a second. "More likely it was one of the local Upside-Down techs, prepping the transmissions for broadcast. There's a twelve-hour lag before they beam them to Earth."

Jane thought it over, and shook her head. "We can't have you not doing your job just because some Upside-Down geek was second-guessing you. It's this d.a.m.n 'Stroiders' contract." She sighed. "I'll take the matter up with the PM and get back to you with instructions."

"All right."

Jane remembered Thomas Harman's mention of odd computer problems throughout Phocaea. "Oh-do you have someone tracking computer glitches and failures on systems the sapient has access to?"

"No, but we are tracking its activities closely. We have a good handle on what it's doing."

"Just in case, I want someone monitoring all anomalous activities. Prepare a broadcast asking people to immediately report to you any bugs or oddities in their waveware's behavior. I'll get clearance for you. I want someone compiling all unexplained computer problems and correlating them with your data on the sapient's activities."

Tania's gaze flickered again, in approval. "Good idea. That'll give us another angle on it. A 'wetware' tracking system. I hadn't thought of that."

"It's why they pay me the big bucks."

Tania laughed.

After Tania and Thondu had left, Jane floated around the room, collecting her thoughts. Her interface was still up; she resisted an impulse to take it down. Ghosts in the machine, Ghosts in the machine, she thought. She shivered again. Her breath came out in puffs of fog. BitManSinger. she thought. She shivered again. Her breath came out in puffs of fog. BitManSinger. This is very not-good, This is very not-good, she thought. But then she realized how it could be turned into an opportunity: one that would solve any number of problems. She called the PM. ( she thought. But then she realized how it could be turned into an opportunity: one that would solve any number of problems. She called the PM. (There's no way the sapient can understand me, she reminded herself sternly.) she reminded herself sternly.) Thomas Harman intercepted her. "He's not taking calls."

"Still?" Jane began to suspect Thomas was playing power games with her; the PM would not keep blocking calls from her at a time like this. She felt a spike of anger that Thomas could be so petty when lives were at stake. She could always call his bluff, but that would only escalate the conflict. She tried a different tack.

"I have important news," she said. "Extremely important."

"Oh?" He tried not to appear interested. "Tell it to me and I'll pa.s.s it along."

"If I do, it's important that you don't take this news anywhere until the PM says it's OK."

He eyed her. She had him. "All right."

"The depressurization lockdown failures in my warehouses up top were caused by an emergent feral sapient," she said, "tampering with our systems. My people are mapping it and we will be extracting it tonight."

His eyes and mouth opened wide.

"You're not quite old enough to remember what happened on Kasbah," she went on, "when that feral sapient emerged from their systems, forty years ago, but you've probably heard about it-"

"Kasbah? Oh, the Saudi Earth-orbital. Oh, my G.o.d." He blanched, drew a deep breath, and said, "One moment, please."

His image blinked out. Benavidez appeared. "Thomas tells me you have something urgent."

Jane repeated what she had told Thomas. The PM's expression grew grave. "What are our options?"

"Tania Gravinchikov is in charge of the cl.u.s.ter resource computer systems, and she's one of the best. She says that our best bet is to attempt a live extraction, rather than an excision."

"Sounds risky."

"I won't lie to you, sir; until the sapient is out of our systems, we are all at risk. But Tania did her post-doc work at MIT, and she specializes in complexity and emergent computer systems. She has a great team working for her. If she says it's safer to extract this thing live than to try to destroy it, I believe her.

"I've ordered her to be ready to erase the sapient's ident.i.ty-structures at the slightest hint that it's about to replicate itself or damage any critical systems. My people are also bringing up Phocaea's disaster recovery systems. Our physical resources are strained right now, but we have redundancy built into our computer systems when it comes to life support. I feel confident that in the worst case, we could keep the situation stable long enough for Tania to bring us back up with minimal losses if the sapient took our computer systems down."

"The public is already jittery. If anything else goes wrong, we could have widespread riots on our hands."

"Yes, sir. But wiping the sapient out poses some serious risks of its own. I believe that a careful extraction is the better of two, admittedly bad, options."

The prime minister said nothing, merely looked at her.

"The sapient is still young. Dr. Gravinchikov believes it'll be a day or so before it poses a serious threat of self-replication. I've given her eight hours to prepare for an extraction. If that's not enough time, she'll pull the plug on it and we'll trigger our disaster response plan.

"With your support," she went on, "we'll also put out a citywide alert, so the populace can be prepared if something goes wrong. We won't reveal the feral sapient's presence, but simply state that we're making major changes to the life-support systems and want to be prepared."

His gaze went t.i.tanium-hard. "You're sure this is the right way to go?"

Her heart pounded and her mouth went spitless. She wasn't just betting her job; she was betting human lives. "Yes."

"All right." He gave a brisk nod. "Do it. Anything else?"

"We also need to discuss the public relations angle," she said. "Regarding the riot this morning in New Little Austin. It looks as if someone in that neighborhood got word from a local Upside-Down tech working on the show that we're tracking a feral sapient. It's unlikely that rumors would start circulating about our life-support systems a short while after my people began tracking a computer problem in life support, otherwise."

"Why do you think it was a local technician?"

"The timing. Tania informs me that there's a twelve-hour lag between when Upside-Down captures the signals and when they broadcast them Downside. Before that, it's only the local technical staff and the show's executives who have access. And the execs would most likely call the city government or us, rather than some random person in New Little Austin.

"I could be wrong," she added. "It's an educated guess."

"I see what you're saying," he said. He fell silent. Jane waited.

"I'm pulling the plug on the broadcasts," he decided. "We can't have lives endangered because of an entertainment broadcast. I'll call John Sinton myself. He has no room to complain if it was one of his people who leaked the information. And I'll get Val's intel people onto tracking the rumors. Carry on and keep me apprised."

"Very good, sir. And there's one more thing," Jane said. "I've come up with an interesting option for you, regarding the Ogilvie & Sons ice."

"Ah?" That got his attention.

"Upside-Down is a subsidiary of Tangent Systems Inc.," she said.

"I'm aware of this."

"Tangent is ma.s.sive, as I'm sure you know. It's one of the largest transnational corporations on Earth. And one of their main subsidiaries deals in military software, communications-you name it. Including artificial sapience research. They would jump through all kinds of hoops to get their hands on our critter, wrapped up in a tidy package."

He looked thoughtful, then shook his head. "I have people already pursuing the Upside-Down angle, but it's not optimal. They have a lot invested in us, I realize, and they've offered to give us a loan on the ice, to help defray costs. But they can't help us with all Ogilvie & Sons' 'hidden' costs, shall we say. Tangent's primary business ventures are in Earths.p.a.ce and the inner system. They have limited clout outside of Earth orbit. Upside-Down is the only exception. They just don't have the leverage. Especially not as nasty as the Ogilvies can get."

"They will change their minds when they hear about the feral. We give them the first naturally occurring feral sapient in who knows how many decades, they buy the ice from Ogilvie & Sons and give it to us. Tangent's so big even the mob won't be able to touch them."

He shook his head. "Even if Tangent would be willing to, I'm afraid Ogilvie & Sons isn't going to give up this chance to get its hooks in us. They won't sell to them."

"Tangent has more leverage with Ogilvie & Sons than they may realize. I read last month that a Tangent subsidiary has formed a consortium to build a new atmospheric research station on Venus."

"So?"

"So, the shipper the consortium has hired for that project is Ogilvie & Sons," she said.

"You think Tangent might be able to influence the Ogilvies through its Venusian research sub, by dangling the possibility of more influence in the inner system?"

"Yes."

"A research station won't be that big a contract, though," he said. "And Tangent's sub is only one of several companies involved in the deal. I can't see how Tangent could wield that much influence. Besides which, financially, Ogilvie & Sons won't have much at risk."

"On the contrary. The Venus station is Ogilvie & Sons' first real inner-system deal. It's allowing them to get a hand in the door and set up nodes to start competing on some lucrative inner-system commerce." She remembered Morris Ogilvie crowing about it in a press release recently. "They'll be very anxious to play on this one, sir. And Tangent is big enough that its sub will have plenty of influence with its partners-well beyond its financial contribution to the project."

"I see what you're getting at." He paused. "Our pulling the plug on 'Stroiders' may strain the negotiations with Tangent."

"Possibly, but I don't think so. Our security issues can't be left out of the picture, and they should understand that. Besides, a new feral sapient is a huge a.s.set. It's like the Hope Diamond of artificial intelligence."

"More like the hydrogen bomb. But I take your point."

"OK, so, how about this? We could offer to allow the 'Stroider' recordings, and merely hold on to them-freeze transmissions temporarily. Upside-Down could have access to those once the crisis is past. I can't see any harm to us in that. Over and above the usual annoyance factor."

"Unless someone in our organization screws up and we end up with egg on our faces."

"Mr. Prime Minister," she replied, "if everything goes to h.e.l.l, we'll have egg-face no matter what."

"True." He laughed. "And we can always renege, if releasing the broadcasts threatens cl.u.s.ter security. OK, I think we have a good approach here. Thanks, Jane."

Jane signed off, feeling better than she had in days. Phocaea's resource crisis was near being solved. If her people could trap the sapient intact.

12.

Late that afternoon, Sean headed down to Zekeston's main precinct to get an update from his buddy Jerry, the police chief, on the disaster investigation. The station was noisier than usual. Everyone wore parkas or coats. Food wrappers and coffee squeeze-packs floated in the cross breezes. Clearly, these people were as overworked as the Cl.u.s.ter Resources Division was.

Sean asked the sergeant at the desk to see the police chief. A moment later Jerry lofted out of his office. They shook hands Downsider-fashion, clinging to the bulkheads for stability: two military ex-pats from the CFAS.

"How's the investigation coming along?"

"Nothing definite, but we've found some interesting leads. Come on, I'll introduce you to my detectives in charge of the case." Jerry took him to meet two young women: Janna Wilkes and Bella Duran, whom Sean had spoken to the day before.

Sean knew a handbrush made it easier to stay balanced in microgee than a handshake. But old Downsider habits died hard; he often found himself grabbing the proffered hand and throwing people-and himself-into a tumble. This time he managed to suppress the impulse to grab hold when Wilkes and Duran extended their hands, and merely slid his fingers across their palms.

"We've learned more since yesterday," Detective Duran said. "Let's head down to the labs."

Jerry said, "Sean, I'm going to leave you with my detectives. We're still processing the rioters, and I have the DA and the mayor's office breathing down my neck."

"Go, by all means."

"Also, we're deputizing some folks to help us with crowd control. Your name came up. Have you got time today?"

"Sure. I'll stick my head in before I leave and you can do the deed."

"All we have so far is circ.u.mstantial evidence," Wilkes said, as they led him down the tubes toward the labs. "We're still trying to get a line on Kovak and his spouses-nothing yet. But the forensics are coming up with evidence that this was no act of pa.s.sion."

"That's what I wanted to hear," Sean said.

First they took Sean into a computer lab. The room was dim. Lights from the displays created waves of chromatic, dancing shadows. A young man sat at a display station running a video version of the incident, as well as animated mockups from different angles and zooms.

"This is Fidel Ramirez, our forensics programmer," Wilkes said. "Fidel, will you play the original video sequence at normal speed?"

"You got it." The programmer's hands moved over the keys, and they all watched as Kovak climbed into the crane. The crane moved over to a dumpster, picked it up with a grappling arm, carried it over and emptied the trash into the chute above a vat. A moment later, Carl Agre entered the warehouse and suited up in coveralls. Meanwhile, Kovak's crane picked up another dumpster and moved toward the vat.

This time, though, the grappling arms loosened. The dumpster fell slowly to the floor, spilling metal sc.r.a.p. The grappling clamps came together, stiffened into a diamond-shaped wedge, and plunged into the throat of the trash chute. The rest of the crane followed. Kovak had to have triggered the maintenance unlock sequence, which would cause the crane to be released from the rails. Disa.s.sembler fluid erupted. Sean caught a glimpse of Carl ducking behind a dumpster, which deteriorated as bug juice splashed across it, and he felt rage as raw as when he had first seen the wreckage. The technician froze the image.

"That had to be deliberate," Sean said. "He had to choose to put the grappler into that configuration. He had to choose to put the crane through the maintenance unlock sequence that would cause it to fall into the vat. Clearly it was a suicide."

"Yes," Duran said. "We interviewed your engineers yesterday."

"And there's more," Wilkes said. "Supposedly Kovak was severely depressed. I believe I mentioned his marriage breakup to you yesterday."

"I recall."