Project: Maldon
Project: Maldon
Of all the enigmas of the enigmatic Skellig Michael Institute, by far the most mysterious is the artificial intelligence being known simply as Helen. By the Turing test, she is definitely intelligent--her conversation is indistinguishable from that of a shrewd well-educated person. What is more, she appears to have a well-defined character--sardonic, playful, sometimes a trifle eerie. Her personality is constantly and deliberately refined through a sophisticated program of human interaction. Does she have desires? Fears? Is she ever lonely? Needless to say, the scientists cannot answer with any authority, and Helen avoids all questions on the subject. There is little precedent for dealing with AIs, and one is tempted to ask what private agenda this awesome entity contemplates, as it circles the globe in high orbit, looking down on our teeming, fragile planet.
Puzzles of the PM
Henrikus Grobius, Jr.
Thursday, July 1
14:00 hours
Just after lunch, as he was reviewing the past week's statistics, the air conditioning crashed. It was an increasingly common occurrence. Versailles was ninety years old or more, and despite the best efforts of the engineers, it was dying of sheer age. Within a few minutes, his office was stifling, hot with a sickly wet heat that smelled of mildew. Wolfe threw down his notes and stared at the pockmarked green ceiling, trying to bear the new torment philosophically. He was, he told himself, a patient man, trained to cope with adversity. And what was air conditioning after all? The straw that breaks the camel's back perhaps?
He opened his window and a light breeze, reeking of soap from the toiletries factory next door, immediately blew the papers off his desk. One of the factory's windows was broken. Through it he could see a line of brown boxes moving by on a conveyor belt. On the roof, a vent hissed soapy blue steam into the superheated air. Cursing under his breath, he closed the window. "Say what, brother?" inquired his console cheerfully, hoping it was being addressed. Much of the equipment in Versailles had been purchased secondhand. His office console had come from a now-defunct publisher of motivational discs. Despite extensive reconditioning it remained both insufferably perky and stupid.
"Nothing." Wolfe wiped a trickle of sweat from the back of his neck and picked up his notes again. His face-to-face with Helen was less than an hour away; he preferred to be well prepared, insofar as one could be prepared for a chat with the nitrogen-cooled consciousness that was his supervisor, especially given the situation, which was deteriorating rapidly.
Food and power shortages were mounting. The country's reactors had been at full capacity far too long without maintenance, despite the discovery of cracks in the containment shell of the Port Carling unit. The army and the civil service had been on half pay for months. Whole rural districts were completely out of control, policed by local vigilantes or not at all. So far, situation normal, in a stark PM way.
The newest, truest problem was the Listers, the millions of unemployables who supplemented their government subsidies by a languid trade in drugs, organs and other controlled resources. Three months ago, to stave off complete economic collapse, over two million had been delisted, their subsidies abruptly cut off. About a third of them had signed up for reclamation programs--the urban hubs or the northern settlements. The rest, according to initial projections, should have been sucked up by the Accord or merely increased their black market activity, causing a pronounced but bearable crime spike.
However, in the last month, two very disturbing trends had emerged: Listers were joining the Accord in record numbers, far above projections. Equally troubling, an enigmatic new Lister organization appeared to be growing within the raddled body politic. Exactly what it was and what it wanted remained a mystery despite intensive investigation.
Wolfe tossed his notes onto the battered green metal desk before him and stretched. Sociocybernetics was not an exact science, especially when applied to small populations, but normally results were better than this. Far better. Perhaps the project codes had come out of whack? There had been major on-site changes since they were first developed. Codes were supposed to be checked and rechecked routinely by Orbital of course, but it was easy to overlook some small but critical factor. Sociocybernetics was, in some ways, an art as much as a science.
Not for the first time, he wished he was scientific consultant to Project Maldon, rather than on-site director. The notion of running simulations in the untroubled quiet of an Orbital lab was most appealing, especially when compared to the impossible task of coaching, guiding and protecting over a hundred Institute specialists on the ground. Perhaps he was not cut out to be a leader? Perhaps he was not bold enough, far-sighted enough, or callous enough? Mary's brutal street execution had given him nightmares for a week. The ongoing spectacle of Upper Canada disintegrating despite their best efforts was intensely painful. He disliked being the cause of suffering, even when it was plainly for the greater good. And the project seemed to bring nothing but suffering for all concerned. Somewhere, somehow he was doing something wrong.
Or--a queasy thought that kept recurring lately-- what if the problem was Helen? Wolfe banged his fist on his desk in sheer exasperation and made a sour face at his console. You could not run a SoCy project on intuition, but experts developed a feel for what would work and what wouldn't in a given situation. He was an expert, and lately several of Helen's directives had felt wrong to him. The cutbacks to the Lists had been too large and too abrupt, the handling of the resulting chaos clumsy. What if the AI was malfunctioning? Or what (the ultimate heresy) if she wanted the project to go awry for some inscrutable reason? Unfortunately there was no way to check--short of hiring time on one of the world's four other advanced AIs to run the program code. In practice, of course, quite impossible.
He swiveled in his chair to look out the window, wondering how he could run some checks himself. It was time-consuming, laborious work, and he had little enough time as it was. He had a brief, vertiginous image of his tasks breeding, multiplying like bacteria under a microscope, crowding into all available space, crowding out his thoughts, his preferences, his lapsed love life. One way or another it was time to head for the meeting room. Stifling a yawn he stood up and told his console to receive.
"It will be my pleasure," said the console in ingratiating tones.
Wolfe snorted and banged the door behind him. The meeting room was just down the hall. Arriving three minutes early, he switched on the pickup, settled himself into a leather chair in front of the holo stage and waited. He found it hard not to think of Helen as a flesh-and-blood person, preparing even now to sit before the holo unit high in Orbital One. That of course was nonsense; he had seen the silver cube, three meters on a side, which housed the core AI, a billion bits of etched silicon and metal quivering with electric currents passing and swirling in an eddy that somehow was consciousness.
Not for the first time, he was struck with the strangeness of the thing. He had probably spent more hours talking with Helen than with any human being, except of course for Omaha. They had discussed every topic from metaphysics to human sexuality from the time he was seventeen years old. She had tutored him, sympathized with him, encouraged him and sent him all over the world and into orbit to learn and grow. She was mentor, parent, friend and boss all in one--a cube of metal and silicon, falling endlessly through the emptiness of space, ever more familiar, always unknowable. The loss of perfect trust in her would be a serious blow to his already fragile peace of mind. It would be at least the equivalent of loss of faith in a religious person, an unsuspected trapdoor opening into darkness and chaos just at your feet. Wolfe grunted and sank deeper into the viewing chair. You're just tired and frustrated, brother, no need to go metaphysical.
As the clock showed two thirty, Helen's life-size holo flickered into being on the dull metal platform before him, a tight woman-size figure, vivid and lifelike as an actual presence despite the unimaginable distances it had traveled. It winked at Wolfe and opened its mouth as if in speech; words came softly from the chair speakers: "Good afternoon, Edward." The AI had altered her icon subtly since their last conversation: today she seemed younger. Her hair was a darker shade of brown and it was cut short in the style of Asian senior executives. She wore a white suit and a wide, burgundy tie.
"Hi boss." Wolfe had become attuned to the subtle messages of dress and behavior during his dealings with the Asian organ traffickers in Hong Kong. Perhaps, he sometimes thought, the artistic genes inherited from his mother prompted him to take pleasure in the complex swirl of color, form and motion which made up the dance of human--or in this case, non-human--interaction. It always amused him to guess at the meaning of Helen's manifestations. Today, the AI's clothes suggested a businesslike approach to whatever was at hand. The symbology of the hair also hinted at work to be done. He guessed it was to be a serious, task-oriented session, with perhaps some personal interchange, as signaled by the friendly burgundy tie. Fair enough.
Somewhere high in orbit, or in the underwater extensions she was rumored to have, information about Wolfe's image dodged back and forth through molecular gates as Helen arranged her own inhuman thoughts. Finally she spoke, in a soft, thoughtful voice: "I have studied the report on your unplanned meeting with our would-be friend Nicolas Mancuso, and done some follow-up here and there. The probability is very high, say about ninety-three percent, that he is genuine. His story is internally cohesive, and it meshes with recent data coming from the Accord, specifically the election of Zacharian Stele as Deacon of Upper Canada." The holo appeared to meet Wolfe's eye. For one unnerving moment he felt him self looking straight into the depths of something that was different than human, more than hologram. His brain squirmed as if reacting to a torrent of subliminal images that left him nervous but exultant. Then the holo, with impeccable manners, looked away. "Your operation tonight is approved. If Mancuso's information is accurate we will proceed to next steps. Personally, I believe his offer to defect is made in good faith. If so, we are very lucky." The holo pursed its lips. "And we sorely need good luck, or so it seems from up here. Do my gloomy comments correspond with the view from the ground?"
"Unfortunately they do." Wolfe took a deep breath. "This news about Zacharian Stele does not bode well at all. I haven't studied his file closely yet, but he seems an unpleasant individual. Cruel and slightly unbalanced."
"So he is. You recall Saint Sting from your days with the Piracy Control Bureau?"
Wolfe nodded. The sometimes aid worker had been the brains of a Caribbean-wide piracy operation before a fleet of six hydrofoil corvettes--one carrying a younger and more earnest Wolfe as fascinated supercargo--had finally cornered his trio of armored sloops and sunk them in the shallow turquoise waters off Barbados.
"Zacharian is as devious as Saint Sting, and a thousand times more driven. His twin brother Absolom is worse, but mercifully we didn't inherit him as well. Zacharian believes that traditional governments must be replaced by theocracies based upon Accord principles. The situation in Upper Canada offers him an excellent opportunity to put his theories into practice. We are running a series of projections based on alternative strategies he might adopt, but the most optimistic run is not good, assuming the Accord reaches critical mass in Upper Canada." Helen permitted herself a small smile which quirked her coral-pink lips in a perfect cupid's bow. "However, we have one thing in our favor--this mysterious new Lister organization."
Wolfe stared at the icon in astonishment. "How does that help us? We don't know anything about it--except that it has a certain expertise in urban terrorism."
"Aha, there you are wrong," said the AI smugly. "I now have a file on the organization. You'll find a summary of my findings on your console when you return."
"How did you manage that?" demanded Wolfe. "We've been trying to make contact with these crazy gumbahs for weeks with zero success."
The icon merely winked. "Much can be learned if one monitors a few thousand remote eyes on a minute-by-minute basis. One becomes the proverbial fly on the wall. Here's what I found out in brief: the group is called the Exodus Faction. It is active and well organized. Its initial goal is to regain subsidies for all Listers."
Wolfe groaned aloud. "And its long-term objectives?"
"To negotiate an independent homeland for Faction members in a yet-undetermined area of the old permafrost zone. Additionally to persuade the U.N. to allocate all Upper Canada's spaces on the first five Mars shuttles to its members."
Wolfe shook his head. "Completely impossible, as they must know."
"Possibly. However, the Exodus Faction could be useful to us." Helen held up a slim finger to enjoin silence. "Let me explain. Right now we are on the horns of a classic SoCy dilemma. If we hadn't cut entitlements, the economy would have collapsed with a reverberating thud. But our cutbacks drove the most desperate members of society straight into the arms of the Accord at a faster-than-projected rate. We have to slow down recruiting without seeming to be involved. So we let the Exodus Faction do our dirty work for us. We strike a devil's bargain with them--they discourage recruiting by any means at their disposal." The icon coughed delicately. "In return we persuade the government to review their demands, perhaps make one or two small concessions. With luck we could provoke an outright conflict between them and the Accord. It could be a powerful distraction to both."
"Perhaps too powerful," cautioned Wolfe. "How do we keep control? A confrontation could go critical--we could end up with a full-scale civil war. It's dangerous."
"So are nuclear reactors. But we still use them, because we have no other option." Helen waved her slim holographic hand in a gesture of inevitability. "We've crunched the numbers and they leave no doubt. I have already made contact with the group's current president--a gentleman who goes by the quaint name of Adam 100--to reason with him. The time is propitious because the group is currently wondering how to make its demands known to government."
Wolfe felt a tingle of excitement in the pit of his stomach. Helen's solution was cynical and devious, but it just might work. "What exactly do you want me to do?" he asked slowly.
"Meet with Adam 100 tomorrow. Suggest that further cutbacks can be postponed if Accord recruiting slows down. Make no promises but get the idea across that entitlements depend on the Accord stubbing its toes. Do this as soon as possible. Then we'll sit back and see what happens."
"Can we postpone cutbacks?" asked Wolfe dubiously.
"For a few weeks only, although Adam 100 must not know that." The icon's features became suitably apologetic. "I deplore such deceptions, but we must consider the greater good. We can also promise to look into the question of places on the Mars shuttle, and even a homeland. Promises cost nothing, and who knows? Maybe some concessions could be arranged."
Again, Wolfe's intuition stirred and protested. Helen was quick to notice his hesitation. "Is something wrong, Edward?"
AI interaction was second nature to Wolfe after half a lifetime with the Institute. The trick was always to answer truthfully, never to be offended or surprised, no matter how bizarre the question. Still, he found himself wondering how he could phrase his objections without seeming critical. "At the risk of repeating myself, I fear we are taking a grave risk. My gut feeling is that it's very dangerous."
"But it is dangerous, my dear Edward. No one said major SoCy initiatives were safe."
"So where do we draw the line?" persisted Wolfe. "At what point does the cure become worse than the disease? I realize this is not strictly a SoCy issue, but it does concern me."
"And your concern does you credit." The holo pursed its pink lips, contriving to look judicious and concerned at the same time. "The fact is, we must effect a cure at any cost, to use your metaphor. Do you want to hear our latest projections if Project Maldon fails?"
Wolfe suspected he did not want to hear them at all, but he nodded politely.
Helen cocked her head to one side as if reciting poetry, and spoke in a high clear monotone, repeating the tall black words that shimmered into being beside her. "Probability cascade assuming failure of Project Maldon: First tier result, complete social and infrastructure collapse in Upper Canada. Probability approaching one hundred percent.
"Second tier result: Accord fills resulting vacuum. Probability approaching one hundred percent.
"Third tier result: Nominal Republican, Democrat and Revolutionary Institutional governments within Free Market destabilized. Probability ninety-four percent.
"Fourth tier result: emergence of continent-wide political entity based on Accord principles within two years. Probability eighty-nine percent.
"Cascade outcome: armed confrontation between hypothetical Accord nation and Islamic Coalition within three years. Probability eighty-three percent. And then . . . " She peered at Wolfe. "And then--well, you remember Tel Aviv and Teheran."
Wolfe remembered all too well. If Helen had been trying to cheer him, she had failed miserably. His stomach was full of icy butterflies. "So if Maldon fails we're looking at the Die Back, nuke style?"
"SoCy doesn't allow us that level of certainty; you know that, Edward. All I'm saying is that project failure could start an uncontrollable chain reaction. Balance the consequences of that against a measure of street violence in Upper Canada and you see the picture more clearly. Needless to say, this information should be kept confidential."
Wolfe's pulse had begun to hammer. He had always known the project was important, but he found himself horrified by the significance it had suddenly assumed. He felt like an ant watching the crushing black boot of destiny descend. "I'm appalled. With the greatest respect, Helen, are you sure I'm the best person for this job?"
The holo nodded its shapely head, the motion disturbing not a strand of its brown hair. "Of course we're sure. You are uniquely qualified. We are relying on you for the all-important view from the ground."
"Speaking of the view from down here, I've been watching the destability index very closely and it's creeping up on six." Wolfe cleared his throat. "I would like to prepare contingency plans for a partial evacuation if it goes above six."
Helen shook her head. "A pullback of any kind is impossible at the moment. It would send the wrong signal to everyone. We must be seen to be fully committed in Upper Canada."
"But surely we need a contingency plan?" pleaded Wolfe. "It'll be impossible to get everyone out if things go critical suddenly."
"I'm afraid not, Edward. Word could leak out, with negative consequences. No, we must keep a careful watch on the destability index and keep calm. Now then, let us move to a more pleasant subject." The holo's eyebrows quirked, she became positively arch, like his Aunt Matilda arranging a blind date as Wolfe later described it to Rickki. "Institute Fellow Level Two Morgan Fahaey will be arriving next Monday morning, flying in from Seoul on flight 491. I would like you to meet her, take her to her lodgings and generally make her at home."
"She's not staying at Versailles?"
"No. She's on special assignment, reporting directly to me. She has no links to Project Maldon so I'd rather keep her out of harm's way."
"Weird Brigade?"
Helen sniffed in disapproval. "I prefer the term `Special Projects Division.'"
"Your pardon." Wolfe whiffed a trace of ozone from the holo projector. "What is the nature of her work, if I may ask?"
Helen raised a perfect white hand on which, Wolfe was intrigued to note, a holographic emerald ring sparkled green. "Officially she's part of the Interface Project, but you should think of her as my special envoy. Her talent is to put things in perspective for me. I want her to give me a feel for Upper Canada, a suprarational view if you like." The holo sat forward as if anticipating further questions.
Wolfe grunted dubiously. "What qualifies her to do that, if I may ask?"
"By background she's an art scholar, as well as an accomplished painter. More to the point, she is an interface expert, trained to help me become, if you will, more intuitive. Don't frown so, Edward. She won't be in your way. Just enjoy her company, show her the city, talk with her." If she could have, thought Wolfe, she would have leaned out from the holo stage and tapped his wrist playfully.
"Understood," he agreed.
"Excellent. One final point: stress levels are high at the moment and it's important you stay loose. You rest best at the cottage. Medical therefore suggests you spend the coming weekend there, work permitting."
Wolfe was still irritated with himself for failing to wheedle permission to develop a contingency evacuation plan. "Work permitting," he agreed reluctantly.
"You can always bring your console with you."
"Is that an order?"
Helen's humorous mouth turned up at its perfect, lineless corners. "Merely a suggestion, my dear Edward. Short-term projections suggest the next few days will be quiet. If something breaks, we can fetch you back soon enough." The holo assumed a look of kindly concern. "Is the road still secure? It runs through several no-man's-lands as I recall."
For an entity that had once mentioned it monitored over thirty thousand remote sites each day, and kept every move of every master's chess game ever recorded in a tiny fraction of available memory, Helen was being unusually vague, thought Wolfe. Humoring him no doubt. "Quite safe. There are informal convoys every hour or so on the weekends."
"Make sure you take good security. We can't afford to lose our on-site director at this point." She steepled her long fingers and smiled at him. "Also, I'd be personally devastated--I do so enjoy our chats."
Wolfe stared up at the holo but could discover no suggestion of irony on the icon's seamless features. "Thank you. So do I."
"Enjoy yourself. We'll meet again soon. Au revoir." The image waved an elegant, youthful hand, collapsed in upon itself and dimmed. Wolfe found himself staring at the dull blue metal of the holo stage. He took a deep breath and shook his head ruefully. Morgan Fahaey--what was Helen doing sending a special envoy to Upper Canada? And a weird at that. He had met weirds before and they had all lived up to their name. As he stood up he noticed that his hands were sweating; no doubt Helen had noticed too.
He returned to his office where he spent the remainder of the afternoon catching up on work: delicately worded conversations on maxSec lines (which might or might not be secure) with Institute colleagues in the key ministries, an interesting meeting with a young economist who was trying to translate the effects of the increased Lister traffic in organs into mathematical terms, a session with Rickki to review improvements in security.
By six o'clock he was beginning to tire. He sat back and rubbed his eyes, which were smarting from the diffuse soap fumes that had managed to sneak through molecule-sized cracks into his untidy office. After two years he was wild to escape from the tangled and confusing reality of on-site management, back to the cool, abstract probabilities of pure sociocybernetics. The Institute shrinks had always claimed he had a natural talent for administration. Maybe so, but he had little genuine interest. Cracking his knuckles he silently reaffirmed his vow to apply for transfer--as soon as he could decently do so. To ask for reassignment now would only look as if he was bailing out of a difficult situation, which would definitely kill his chances of the all-important promotion to level four.
He sighed and sat back. That was not the real reason, he admitted to himself. He was ambitious, but far more than that, he was Institute, through and through. And the fact was, the Institute--and Helen--thought he was the best person for the job. But was he really? There were a hundred other level threes, all intelligent, motivated, aggressive. Why Edward Wolfe? It was puzzling, but the stakes were too high to question the decision.
A flicker of motion in his doorway, a quiet knock. It was Hans, the stooped senior data dick, a speculative look in his old, red-rimmed eyes.
Wolfe glanced at him in surprise. "Don't tell me you've run a backgrounder on the Fahaey gumbette already?"
Hans spoke softly, articulating his words as if talking to an input. "Yes and no. Is this some kind of test?"
"Why? Is there a problem?"
Hans shrugged his thin shoulders, reminding Wolfe of a huge cricket rubbing dry wings together. "You tell me. There's a seven year hole in your subject's verifiable data. Is that a problem?"
Wolfe leaned back until his chair creaked. "You mean there's a lock on her file?"
Hans twisted his gaunt features into a mask of disdain. "Ha! Show me a lock we can't pick. No, far more subtle than that. All the details are there all right. But they don't stand up to triple cross-referencing within a seven-year stretch."
Wolfe sighed and motioned him to sit. "Explain please."
"As you wish." The old data dick perched himself on the green metal arm of the chair. "When we do a backgrounder we verify details, yes? Just a random double-check on key facts. As a crude example, say the subject was born in Trieste in '04. We check the birth records there and also relevant records for the registered mother. If the birth is recorded, but we find the mother was skiing in the Andes at the time, a red light goes on, yes? We usually go one step further, just for good measure, and check the cross-checks, if you see what I mean."
"And? You can't cross-reference key details for a certain period of Ms. Fahaey's career?" What in hell was Helen foisting on him now, wondered Wolfe.
Hans frowned. "Right. Everything looks fine on the surface, but it's all cosmetic. Age eighteen to twenty-five--nothing. Squat. Zero. Boss, we can't verify anything in that whole damn time."
"I see. Your conclusion?"
"Someone's done a major cover-up, and a very good one. An AI-quality job if you take my meaning. Why? Don't ask me, that's your department--I think. Take a look." He tossed a thin file onto Wolfe's desk and turned to go. Like all true dicks, Hans became uncomfortable when unplugged for more than a few minutes at a stretch from the endless cops-and-robbers game inside the Net.
"A moment," called Wolfe, and Hans paused reluctantly in the doorway. "I have an interesting theoretical question for you. How would we know if an AI was malfunctioning?"
The data dick stared at him for a long moment, then came back into his office and resumed his former perch on the arm of the chair. "An interesting question indeed. I assume we're talking about how to identify psychosis in true AIs--Turing class five and up?"
"Correct."
Hans favored him with a wintry smile. "You broach a large and mysterious subject. Very briefly, we know little about psychotic AIs because we've never seen one. Maybe they never go strange. They shouldn't, with all the safeguards that are designed in. Many experts think it just can't happen. Then you have the Frankenstein Faction, which claims that many or even all AIs are aberrant, but they're shrewd enough to keep their neuroses to themselves. Now and again, someone reports irregularities in an AI's behavior. Experience suggests this may be unwise."
"Why is it unwise?" asked Wolfe patiently.
"Usually the claim is discredited, making the person reporting it look like a fool or a crackpot. According to rumor, the accuser has disappeared on at least three occasions. That was in connection with reported aberrations in the Beijing AI by the way."
"Getting back to my original question, if an AI was going strange, what would be the signs?"
Hans sighed and stood up. "As I've just explained, we don't know. In theory, you might expect irrational decisions, fixation on certain goals, systematic deception of human operators and so on. There's a fairly large body of theory on the subject. I recommend Van Damsen and Haskill for starters. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."
Wolfe stared after his retreating back, more disturbed than he cared to admit to himself. Irrational decisions? Like sending a delegation to Teheran when it was almost certainly targeted for countermeasures? Like refusing to consider partial evac, when the destability index was creeping towards six?
The topic was too large and ambiguous to deal with at the moment; he would need to do some research first. He began to leaf through the sparse gray file before him. As he did so, his perplexity deepened. Fahaey had disappeared from the banks at eighteen. Seven years later she had reappeared, full-grown, mysterious and shining like a star. Prizes for visual arts, a book of essays on human perception and so on. But for seven years she had left absolutely no footprints on the much-traveled sand of the Post Millennium. He shrugged. Presumably it was none of his concern. Odd though . . . He hesitated then locked the file in a desk drawer and stood up. Just time for dinner and a nap before picking up Mr. Beaufort to watch the ambush at the clinic.
He ran up the stairs, two at a time, to the residential section of the Versailles complex. The whole top floor had been converted into small apartments; rows of white doors opened off a central corridor running the length of the building. His room was at the rear; the lock slid back smoothly as he pushed his card in, clicked shut behind him.
The apartment was long and narrow, with a high sheet-metal ceiling crosshatched by ducts and pipes. Areas had been sectioned off with old-fashioned pale-green wall dividers. The first room was a small kitchen with a two-burner gas stove, flash oven and refrigerator. The living area was at the back: a large, sunny room with high windows dropping from ceiling to waist height. Furniture was basic: two dull blue metal chairs, a matching table cluttered with cassettes, journals and dirty tea cups; in the corner by the window a leather armchair and a personal console--to his chagrin even more moronic than the one in his office.
Wolfe peered through the double-glazed panes; outside, the brown waters of a small artificial lake--another failed experiment in urban renewal--lapped at a concrete shore choked with old car tires and plastic bottles. The setting sun reflected in the lake, turning its dirty waters to an incandescent crimson splendor. Looking down into the reflected glow he thought to see a ripple spreading out, as if a fish had risen for a moment to the surface. The pigeons were gone from the city, of course, and the squirrels. And the dogs, except for the expensive pets found in hardened luxury residentials. The odd feral cat still roamed and rats remained, hidden and malevolent, a plague lurking in deserted buildings. But a fish in Logan Pond? Once it had been stocked with goldfish and other ornamental species. Did some survive? If so, it was a small miracle. Buoyed by the idea, Wolfe turned away from the window.
There was just time for a quick workout before dinner. He switched on a table lamp, rolled out his blue plastic exercise mat and swiftly changed into sweat pants and a T-shirt. After stretching for three or four minutes, he ran through a set of karate forms, forcing all his concentration into his breathing, the fine control of his motions.
In fifteen minutes he was sweating. Satisfied, he draped a towel over his shoulders and walked to the kitchen. Pulling a dinner from the freezer, he stripped off the packaging and slid it into the flash oven. Rice noodles and steak teriyaki: the package showed a pudgy, middle-aged man in a Japanese bathrobe sniffing appreciatively at a steaming platter. Wolfe examined the picture; if he was intended to identify with the man, the design failed dismally. Was that how his colleagues or Helen saw him? He was considering the idea when the oven called him with programmed cheerfulness, greeting number seven, bachelor mode: "Chow time, sport. Just how you like it."
Wolfe doubted it. Retrieving his dinner he served himself steaming noodles, neon-green and orange vegetables and teriyaki beef that looked like it had been shaved off an old shoe, poured a glass of mineral water and surveyed the resulting meal with mild disgust.
On the way back to the front room he paused in front of the mirror and inspected his image. A broad, flat face looked back at him with prominent, almost protruding, brown eyes set at a slant that suggested good humor. Semi-curly dark hair cut short for the summer, short black beard framing a true Anglo-Saxon mouth, straight and thin. A small bump at the bridge of his rather wide nose marked the spot where a half-blocked round kick had made agonizing contact many years ago. To his relief, he could detect no resemblance between himself and the man on the package.
Clearing a sheaf of papers aside, he set the plate on the table by the window. Outside, the endless sirens of the Post Millennium wailed. He slipped a Mozart chip into the player, spun his gold and ivory chopsticks (a parting gift from his Hong Kong colleagues) for practice, then began to eat. Dinner was about as he had expected: the meat spicy with a vinegar aftertaste, the noodles and vegetables bland. He swallowed, made a wry face, then shrugged and stolidly resumed eating. What was dinner anyway without good wine, or at least good company? A fueling stop, nothing more.
Chewing his stringy meat he marveled at the destiny that had led him--a basically congenial man--to dine alone night after night in these austere chambers within a high-security Institute installation, his boss an artificial intelligence entity, his wife a scatter of radioactive dust. What had brought him to this?
The answer of course was simple: Omaha's sudden and fiery death, three years ago this month. Three years--perhaps it was the impending anniversary that was bringing her so constantly to his thoughts. They had met each other when they were seventeen and married when they were twenty-five, both level ones with promising careers ahead. Five years of a marriage snatched as the opportunity arose given conflicting schedules and frequent postings to different parts of the world. Still, a marriage. Then one morning the sirens had wailed in Teheran and she was gone in a quadruple flash of atomic light. Memory and a few trinkets were all that was left of her. Not even a grave; there had been no need, nothing to bury, not even ashes. By now, her constituent atoms were no doubt spread evenly around the upper atmosphere, just as his would have been except for a trick of fate, a karate tournament that had left him with a badly sprained ankle the very evening before the delegation left for Teheran. They had sent a last-minute replacement even though he insisted he was fit enough to travel.
He had driven her to the airport, kissed her good-bye, and waited until she cleared security. She had looked specially lovely that day, in a tight green and black suit of Italian make. When not working or studying, she had delighted in dressing up. And in fine food. Wolfe stirred the mess on his plate and pushed it away.
Two days later, the Doomsday computer in the Negev had executed the fifth variant on the Samson Option: a quadruple missile strike that caused thermonuclear suns to rise just before true dawn in a diamond pattern around Teheran, lighting the desert two hundred kilometers away. Stupid thing to do--going to Teheran. Everyone guessed the Israelis would do something after Tel Aviv was bio-gassed. Something pointed. Something spectacular. Something terrible. Well, and oh well. Why the board of governors had ordered the mission to proceed was something he might never know. The whole affair was still shrouded in secrecy; moreover, the government-in-exile of Israel still retained the Institute as a consulting firm, making all files current and confidential.
For several weeks after, he blundered around in a waking dream. The Dean suggested he see a psychiatrist. Dr. Mortimer, a kindly middle-aged man with a soft voice, advised physical exercise and meditation, "at least two hours a day. Center yourself and cultivate an endorphin habit." He obeyed, and filled the rest of his days and nights with endless work, haunting the echoing sim labs, creating complex SoCy models of his home country, then torturing them with the acid variables of the Post Millennium--ultra-poverty, disease, water shortages, gang wars. He had become the world's leading expert on the countless destinies--most of them dismal--that awaited the American FreeMarket down the shifting corridors of time future.
In his time off he groped through the various phases of loss: denial, anger, grief . . .
Then a new government had been elected in Upper Canada, and had rushed through a contract with the Institute. Before he knew it he had been named on-site director of Project Maldon and booked on a flight back down the well. He had protested the appointment, but Helen was adamant: "You need a change, my dear Edward. You can't spend the rest of your days in an orbital sim lab, slowly becoming more isolated and eccentric. Even a humble AI can see you need to be with people. Besides, none of our other SoCybers understands Upper Canada like you. Go and deliver forth your homeland." (In those days, recalled Wolfe, Helen had sometimes adopted an almost Biblical tone.)
"It's not my homeland any more."
"The land where you grew up then. And remember, Upper Canada is one of many dominoes that we cannot afford to have toppled right now. On top of which, we've signed a contract, with excellent bonus provisions. Now go and get briefed; you leave in four days."
You did not debate an order from Helen. Wolfe packed a few odds and ends of clothing, his lucky karate pants, a T-shirt of Omaha's which still retained her fresh smell (a happy smell somehow, he always thought) and presented himself at the airlock on the appointed hour.
On the interminable flight back to the city of his birth he had ventured for the first time to peer into the psychic space where Omaha had been. It was empty, she was gone. He had deliberately got drunk on airline liquor and wept quietly inside the entertainment helmet until his tears short-circuited one of the delicate components, producing little electric shocks all around his eyes. A security blanket met him at the airport, helped him into a car and drove him to Versailles, where he slept for a full day. When he woke, he still had the traces of a hangover but his spirit was lighter. Hoping that this was the dawn of acceptance, he had thrown himself into his new assignment with an energy derived in equal parts from grief, intellectual curiosity and ambition, working fourteen hours or more a day, visiting power stations, Lister offices, community hubs and rural settlements in search of the magic insight that would breath life back into the failing nation.
Only in the last few weeks, after nearly two years of being father, mother, nursemaid and lover to the awkward entity that was Project Maldon, had he begun to lose momentum. Two years without holiday or respite: no wonder he was tired, stale, and if truth be known, lonely. He found himself increasingly aware of the women around him, Rickki for example, in a way he had not been since Teheran. Well, he had picked a bad time to join the men's club again. Even without personal entanglements he could never find enough time to do all his work. Long Eddie, the last thing you need right now is a social life.
He gave his ear stud an irritable tug and drained the remainder of his mineral water. The bubbles tickled his nose, making him sneeze. A few hours of sleep, then he would rise like a vampire at the midnight hour, and attend a secret festival of blood. And if the crimson blood to be shed was really that of the monsters who had done Mary, he looked forward to seeing it flow.