Society of the Mind

probably is experiencing no sensation to speak of.'

'The computer is a she, and her name is Gina!' Laura shouted.

'The computer,' Margaret said quietly, 'is a program that the phase-three will rebuild on the clean, virus-free side of the partition. The computer is now the Other, or it will be shortly, anyway. I suppose we really should redefine our terms.'

'Redefine our terms?' Laura shouted, turning to Gray. 'Is that all this is to you? You build a human being, then watch it destroyed by some cold-blooded killer, so you just redefine your terms? Joseph, she's in pain! And every second to her is like a million years in computer time!'

His gaze had drifted off. He stared fixedly at some faraway point.

'Jo-oseph,' Laura pled in a lowered voice, 'please listen to me. If what you want is machinelike perfection, then maybe you shouldn't have made Gina. But you did make her, and what you do right now is not about her, it's about you. This moment will define who you are — not just for me, but for yourself. Please save Gina. Not just for her sake, but for your own.'

He blinked several times, then seemed to emerge from his reverie. Gray walked over to a terminal, but when he saw that everyone had followed, he apparently changed his mind and said, 'I'm going to Laura's office. Alone.'

Filatov sat at the terminal Gray had abandoned, and a few moments later he said, 'He logged on to the system.'

On the screen Laura saw there was only one user shown. 'Gray, Joseph — God Level.'

A variety of beeps and chirps began sounding from consoles around the room, which sent people scampering about.

'He's removing the file attribute locks,' Margaret said. 'The phase-three's going to come pouring in now.'

'He's opening the sixteen-million-bit buses.' Griffith said.

Filatov rocked back in his squeaky chair, cupping his hands behind his head. 'He's really putting the old girl out in style. She's going not with a whimper, but with a bang.'

Laura ran to the open door of her office. Gray was hunched over the keyboard his fingers flying. He didn't even look up when she appeared in the door.

'You wanted my diagnosis?' Laura hurled at him.

'Not now, Laura,' he said, without looking up from the monitor.

'You paid me a million dollars for a diagnosis, so here it is! There's nothing wrong with your goddamned computer! She's a perfectly healthy teenage girl! You may have created her, but you're not a God, you're a murderer!'

'Laura—!'

'And I have one more diagnosis for you! Gina is human, but you're not! You have no emotions! You care only about efficiency and profit! You didn't create Gina in your own image. That distinction went to the phase-three! There! Have a nice life! Good-bye!'

51

Laura awoke early the next morning. The sun was still blood-red on the ocean horizon. The warships were gone, and when she turned on the television to watch the news, she understood why.

'A spokesman for Joseph Gray says that the Gray Corporation plans to hire over one hundred thousand workers in the Far East, North America, and Europe in the first quarter, and perhaps as many as one million new employees by year-end. The competition for the high-paying, high-tech factory jobs is also a high-stakes game, but one that dozens of countries began in earnest immediately after the stunningly successful asteroid retrieval. National and local governments from all across the industrialized world are preparing packages of incentives to lure the new jobs to their economies, where the benefits will include not only the huge influx of high salaries, but also spin-off industries which supply the materials and training needed by the cutting-edge…'

Laura shut the television off. She wandered across the silent bedroom to the window. Gray, the billionaire industrialist, had won again.

Trillionaire, she corrected herself, opening the window to stand before the tide of cool air. All the mystery was gone for her now. All her hopes — secretly harbored had been extinguished like a light whose switch Gray himself had thrown. She now saw him for what he was, and not for what she wished him to be. A roar in the distance drew her attention. The sound was from a jumbo jet landing at the airport. It was filled, Laura imagined, with starry-eyed members of the now-worldwide Gray cult. She decided to try to catch the plane. Hoblenz's men had found her bag by the wreckage of the Model Three, and it sat by the door, still packed. She had always been a visitor there, an outsider, an intruder. She would say good-bye to Janet. She could write to the others.

Laura looked down at the island. Things seemed different now.

Something was missing. It was the computer, she knew. The nosy, rule-breaking, moody, quirky computer who spied on her and loved and hated and did all the things that had, in just a few days, made her Laura's friend. A friend she had lost… tragically.

But it was just business to him, Laura thought. Gray's 'I made her; she's mine' attitude toward Gina entirely befitted the child genius. His moral and emotional development had been stunted by years of living outside the norms.

She frowned at her continued obsession with the man. It'll fade over time, she told herself, trying not to give in to the ache that spread outward from her chest. It threatened to consume her completely, to leave her immobilized under its weight.

Laura kept herself busy as she got cleaned up to leave. Finally, she went over to grab her bag. With her hand on the knob she noticed that an envelope lay half visible under the door. She picked it up.

The paper was rich and luxurious. She ran her thumb underneath the flap and found a note inside written in bold and sweeping strokes: 'I thought I would take a long run down to the Village at around eight in the morning. If you feel up to it, I'd love for you to join me. Joseph.'

She looked at her watch. It was ten till eight. Laura walked over to her desk and tossed the invitation in the trash. It landed facedown at the bottom of the wastebasket, and she saw something written on the back.

Laura would not allow him to manipulate her, she decided, and with the greatest of effort she headed for the door. She would find Janet, say good-bye, catch a ride to the airport, and get on a plane.

And she would always wonder. Laura felt her strength and her resolve drain away.

Don't go back, called a voice from some corner of her mind, but it was no use.

Every step she took toward the desk was a betrayal. She fished the invitation out of the trash and read the back.

'You're still not ready yet, but I'll tell you anyway.'

52

''Morning,' Gray said to Laura at the bottom of the stairs.

'You'd better stretch. It's chilly out.'

'I'm not going,' Laura said, and felt her face instantly redden.

She was wearing shorts and her muddy running shoes. 'Why not?' he asked, smiling.

He seemed to be in a great mood. And why not? Laura thought. He's the richest man in the history of the earth. 'I'm leaving. Thank you for the job. Good-bye.'

Laura got all the way to the stairs before she heard, 'What is it?' She stopped, but didn't turn. 'What did I do now?' Gray asked.

'How dare you even ask that?' she wheeled on him, shouting. 'You killed Gina last night! Or don't you remember?'