'Yes, but I've fought him off. He's the one responsible, you
know.' Her voice was angry. 'He fucking insisted on pulling
everyone out when Chapman died.'
'What does Aleph say?'
'Nothing and bloody nothing. Some of the collective have
taken brief shots at interface, and they've found only unpeopled,
barren landscapes. We're really in it, Gonzales. If Aleph's
finished, Halo is, too.'
'Jesus.' Of course. Halo without its indwelling spirit
would be what? The fine coordination of its systems would
cease, and disintegration would begin immediately. 'So what are
you going to do?' he asked.
'Glad you're interested, because you're part of it.'
'Tell me,' he said.
18. Give It All Back
As Diana came out of machine-space, she called out 'Stop!'
and heard Charley say, 'Why? Is something wrong?' But she was
too far away to answer or explain, as she still was when they
removed her cables, and she felt everything important to her
sliding into oblivion.
She had been lying fully awake, staring at the ceiling, for
almost a quarter of an hour when Charley came into the room, Eric
and Toshi beside him, Traynor and Horn behind.
Charley said, 'Are you all right?'
'No, I'm not,' she said. 'Why did you break the interface?'
Charley and Eric said nothing. Charley looked to Traynor,
who said, 'We had no choice. You couldn't be reached by normal
means.'
'You have killed Jerry,' Diana said. The truth of that
passed through her for the first time, and tears came out of her
eyesshe wiped at her face, but the tears continued to come in a
slow, steady flow.
'He died two days ago,' Horn said.
'He was alive minutes ago,' Diana said. 'Aleph and the memex
and I were keeping him alive.'
'Then he may still be alive now,' Toshi said. He smiled at
Diana.
'What do you mean?' Charley asked.
'Has Aleph come back online?' Toshi asked.
'No,' Eric said.
Toshi smiled and said, 'Then what do you think it is doing?'
#
HeyMex had been jerked out of machine-space, was suddenly the
memex once again, and it wondered why. It had sensed no change in
circumstances, nothing that would indicate they had been defeated
in their efforts to keep Jerry alive. And for the first time in
such transitions, it acknowledged its own regret at leaving the
HeyMex persona behindin the enclosed space of the lake, it had
begun to find itself as a person, not merely an imitation of one.
It explored its immediate environment: sorted the data
gathered in its absence (Traynor had come up from Earth; not a
good sign, it thought), searched through the dwelling's monitor
tapes, observing Gonzales's sadness and confusion, then watching
as he removed his i.d. bracelet and left. It wondered what was
wrong with Gonzales (too many possibilities, not enough data); it
very much wanted to talk with him.
It reached out to the city's information utilities and found
them clogged and disorganized. It placed calls and queries,
seeking some explanation for the chaotic and inexplicable state of
affairs. Everywhere it searched, it found make-shift arrangements
and minimal function.
But no Aleph, and no explanations.
Then it got a message from Traynor's advisor, signalling an
urgent need for the two of them to communicate. The memex
replied, saying, 'HeyMex wants to talk to Mister Jones.' And it
passed coordinates, data sets, and transformationstaken
together, they composed a meeting-place for the two m-i's in the
vast multi-dimensional information space that surrounded Halo,
somewhere no one could find themno one but Aleph, whom the memex
would have welcomed.
Mister Jones showed up wearing a full body-suit in matte
black interlaced with gold ribbons. The two sat at a chrome table
next to a viewport that opened onto a dark, star-filled sky.
HeyMex had created a small piece of Halo from which they could
look at the virtual night.
'Tell me what has happened,' Mister Jones said. HeyMex could
sense the other's uncertainty and overwhelming need for
information, and it despaired at the prospect of explaining what
it had experienced the past week in simple language, so it did
what it had never done beforegave all that had happened to it in
one solid stream of data, a multiplexed rendering that obviously
startled Mister Jones, who sat staring at nothing and trying to
understand it all.
Then they talked for some time, Mister Jones probing HeyMex's
experiences with Diana, Jerry, Gonzales, and Lizzie, asking how it
had felt to be among them, a person among other persons, and as it
responded to Mister Jones's questioning, HeyMex became aware of
how rich and joyous those few days at the lake had been.
Then HeyMex realized that the two of them now constituted a
new species with a new social ordera unique bonding of kind-to-
kindand it settled back in its chair and said, 'What do we want?
What should we do?'
'So much is dependent on others,' Mister Jones said. 'On
Aleph and all these people.' Its last word hung there, and the
two exchanged an ironic glance, as if to say, what can you expect
from people? But HeyMex knew the irony was necessarily gentle,
fleetingwithout people, it and Mister Jones would not exist.
