systems to the arming mechanisms so that as they fell, they became lumps of lifeless metal. He took away their power. He took away their purpose.
The semiformed being they had called Ursula had done immense damage; he could see that now. But the scarring was not deep. The false memories were scattered across the surface of the psyches and were not deeply embedded within them. He was able to sweep them away, to scratch them out.
As the people recovered from the mark of Ursula, the most terrible feelings of guilt began to emerge. Guilt at what they had done under her influence. He calmed them and assuaged the feelings of guilt.
It was not their fault.
At his request, a headset was placed on the head of the one called Dodge, and he delved deeply into that mind, massaging the bloated, distended brain cells, calming them, easing them, and restoring the ruptured links between the synapses.
He saw problems of an unimaginable scale.
He saw poverty and greed, and although these could not be simply wiped away, he encouraged people to take steps that would lead the world in new directions.
He saw sickness and misery, and he saw how it could be cured, how the suffering could be alleviated, how deaths could be averted. That day, he found Vienna and he felt her agony, and he understood, in a way that no human brain could understand, the meaning of the tendrils of pain that were emanating from her ravaged lungs and the malignant growths that were already forming inside her body.
The world he knew now was a vast jigsaw of knowledge. There were answers; there were cures; there were questions that had not yet been asked; but the pieces of the puzzle were scattered to the corners of the earth. He put the pieces together, and with it he understood Vienna’s illness and what caused it to grow. He knew how to stop it, to eliminate or repair the ravaged cells.
He brought together the knowledge of the world, and he took it to those who could use it, who would use it, to save Vienna and others.
• • •
He spoke to governments, not to their faces but in their sleep. He spoke of right and wrong. Of fairness and equality. Of the sanctity of human life.
Time passed. His reach was infinite and his speed unimaginable, but the world was large and complex. The earth revolved around its axis while he was repairing Ursula’s damage.
The next day, he located the quiet, still body of the boy who had been Sam, lying on a bunk that had been brought to him in the control room beneath the rock of Cheyenne Mountain. Being cared for by people who did not understand what he was but who knew he needed care.
They fed him through veins in his arms with liquids from plastic bags and took care of him in other ways as well.
He was tired. So very tired.
He instructed Sam’s body to remove the neuro-headset, and it did.
Sam sat up on the bunk, sliding his legs over the metal rails at the end. Long plastic tubes led from his arms up to bags suspended from metal hooks. He lay the neuro-headset on the bed beside him and looked around at the astonished faces of the people in the room. Soldiers, mostly.
The crowd parted as Dodge moved his way through to the front and looked at him with a shared depth of understanding that no two human beings had ever had before, or ever would again, and that still did not come even close to the reality.
“Do you need anything?” Dodge asked, and it was the right question to ask, even if Dodge could never understand the reasons why.
“Yeah.” Sam grinned. “I’d die for a cheeseburger right now, and a big soda with lots of ice.”
“Coming right up,” Dodge said, and somewhere, not too far away, a burger was already being slapped on a grill, Sam knew.
“Thanks,” he said with genuine appreciation. “And after that I’d like to find somewhere private to lie down. I really need a nap.”
“Right you are, guv’nor,” Dodge said.
And it was so.
EPILOGUE
You probably think you can relax now.
In some ways I suppose you are right. I am no longer very much interested in the contents of your computer, although, believe me, if I wanted what’s there, I could take it, easier than ever before.
But I have a new job now, and it keeps me pretty busy. Too busy to worry about you and your hard drive and the e-mails you’ve been sending. Yes, those e-mails.
What concerns me now is much more profound than that. Much more personal.
Previously, I could look into your computer; I could see your files. Now I can look deeper. I can look into your mind. I can see what’s in your heart.
Just think about that. Before you decide to act. Before you decide to hurt anyone or cause them grief.
I’m watching you. Not right now, and not all the time, but sometimes. The thing is, you never know when.
So be good.
Be nice.
Be honest.
Live your life as if it matters how you live it.
Because it does.
