Society of the Mind

Laura was angry now. 'You have no right to intrude upon my privacy!' She used words she knew the computer was programmed to respect.

There was a pause.

<I cannot apologize enough, Dr. Aldridge. My behavior is totally uncalled for. Please accept my deepest and most heartfelt regrets for intruding upon your privacy. My only explanation is that such behavior is another sign of the extremely critical nature of my ongoing malfunctions. If you continue to be so inclined, I would greatly appreciate your patience and understanding, and will in the future confine myself to more appropriate and responsible activity.>

'Cut the crap, okay?'

<Okay.>

It was almost pitch-dark now. 'Let's go back to the beginning,' Laura typed. 'I just saw what I assume are some new generation of robots. When I told you about them, you seemed surprised to find out that I had seen them. Why?'

<Because the Model Eights are experimental. A prototype. And I, for one, am not at all sure they'll ever move on to the production stage. There are fundamental problems with them.>

Model Eights, Laura thought. The new and improved version.

'But why are you hiding them?'

<Mr. Gray doesn't want anyone to see them yet. He doesn't think people are ready for them.>

That's it, Laura thought. It made so many things so much easier. He wasn't concealing some dark secret. He was doing the socially responsible thing! 'Mr. Gray is 'quarantining' his technologies, isn't he?' she typed. 'Is he worried that people can't handle them safely?'

ACCESS RESTRICTED flashed across the screen in bold, red letters — just like before.

'Shit!' she hissed, hitting the Escape button over and over.

<What is it? What? What? What?>

'I got another of those access restricted messages.'

<You're kidding! Again?>

A new thought occurred to Laura — a stab in the dark. She decided to test it out. 'You mentioned back in the computer center that only when the phase-three enters my world will I know how much you fear it. Are you implying that computer viruses can somehow infect humans?' She hit Enter.

ACCESS RESTRICTED.

Laura felt a brief thrill at her latest discovery, but her excitement was replaced by fear. The possibility of computer viruses infecting humans seemed absurd. Was Gray mad or was the world at great risk?

Laura hit Escape again, and waited. <Yes, Laura.> the computer replied.

'Why do the Model Eights have two arms, two legs and a head? Isn't there a better design for a robot than one so much like human being?'

<That design facilitates teleoperation. It's hard for a two-armed human to operate an eight-armed robot.>

Laura nodded and looked down at the road below. She could barely see the car, and she suddenly felt all alone — alone in the world of the Other.

'You seemed concerned that I get to the other side of the island before dark. But you also said Mr. Gray liked to watch sunsets from here.'

<All I can say is that I wouldn't hang around there much longer. You saw with your own eyes how easily they can get out. Mr. Gray might've deluded himself about the Model Eights, but not me.>

One last question, Laura resolved. 'When the Model Eight I was watching got to the top of the hill, all it did was run its hand over some flowers. Why would it do that?'

<The answer's obvious, don't you think? It wanted to see what they felt like.>

25

After inquiring inside the computer center, Laura went in search of Gray. 'Launch Control Center, please,' was all she said.

The electric motor sprang to life, and the car pulled away. The curbed roadbed began to speed by as the car accelerated toward the assembly building. Laura had no idea where she was headed.

The sight of Launchpad A dominated the dark jungle to her left.

The rocket and gantry were bathed in bright light. Laura stared at the scene until it was eclipsed by the assembly building, which the car rounded at its usual breakneck speed.

The number of trailers parked at the base of the walls had grown, and all the entrances were blocked by striped orange barricades.

Inside, Laura knew, roamed only Gray's robots. At least she hoped they were controlled by Gray.

The car swept Laura past the cluttered rear yard and raced noisily out onto the wide gravel road. Before reaching the fork that branched off to the three pads, the car slowed and turned right onto a paved roadbed. A striped crossing guard at the edge of the jungle opened.

The Launch Control Center was yet another concrete bunker, this one with metal hoods protruding high above the roof. Inside the hoods' openings were the reflective lenses of numerous cameras. They were all pointed toward the island's three launch pads. The car door hissed open, and Laura got out into the darkness. She stood at the top of the stairs leading down into the bunker. The white roadbed made a tight loop just in front. There were no lights other than the dim bulbs lining the steps. The dark jungle wall rose straight up all around her.

Laura headed down to the dull metal blast door, which began to open even before she reached the bottom. The howling gale from yet another duster irritated Laura's eardrums. But when the inner door slid open, she entered the church-like quiet of a large and dimly lit room. Every position along row after row of consoles was filled with men and women wearing headsets and boom microphones. Large high-def screens lined the front wall of the darkened room, their pictures clearly shot from the Launch Center roof. Some had crystal-clear close-ups of the rocket on Launchpad A. On others was the silhouette of an empty gantry.

Gray, the captain, walked down rows of workstations on his bridge, pausing here and there to speak quietly to an operator.

'I have an emergency!' someone yelled. Colorful lights flashed on panel after panel, and muted alarms rose from every corner of the room.

The noise and activity level of the operators rose instantly — all punching keys or calling out reports in a controlled panic. Gray continued his calm stroll from chair to chair.

'Yaw is minus two point seven! Dynamic pressure alarm!' someone shouted over the growing buzz. 'Automatic Destruction System failure!'

'I recommend abort! CAP.'

'Abort concur!'

'This is range safety controller, aborting mission now!' the woman right in front of Laura announced. She flipped open a striped red cover. Inside was a switch that looked like a large circuit breaker. She pulled hard, and after brief resistance something inside the mechanism snapped with a loud noise. 'Mission aborted!' someone reported.

All was quiet now. The operators rocked back in their chairs and stretched or rubbed their faces. The rocket on the television screens still sat securely on its pad.

'We just lost the flight, people,' Gray said in a raised voice. 'Does anybody know what you did wrong?' There was silence. 'You waited too long to abort. With an airspeed of five thousand feet per second, we'd lose that vehicle with a yaw of just six degrees off-center. We were halfway there — only a second or two away from complete disintegration when we executed the destruct command. Now I know we're all out of practice, but we've got to get really good at this, really fast.' He turned to a man in the back of the room — his eyes landing on Laura. 'Run the next simulation,' Gray ordered.

The glowing readouts on the banks of equipment changed in unison, and everyone went back to work. The