engineering students were discouraged from experimenting in those areas. There were no grants available. Corporate schools disallowed doctoral theses in the area.
But the accepted answer was that only a trillion-dollar push would take the technology further than it had currently come. Actual suppression? Jillian tended to put those stories in the UFO/water carburetor category.
But what if…
With what was currently known about life extension, it was reasonable to assume that some of those alive now were alive when the Council was being formed. The developing Linked would have an advantage in any such dominance game.
How eager would they be for new and possibly supplantive technology? Another question she couldn’t ask.
Some of the oldest Counselors would be those nearest the top.
What, then, of the “Old Bastard”?
Was it even possible for a single human being to control so much power?
“Beverly. Tell me. How much control, how much information could one human being have access to?”
Beverly was in pain. “What parameters? Please hurry, Jillian. I am operating on redundancies. Core almost erased.”
“Basic information filters-trends and patterns. Let’s say his neural net’s been modified so that data is interpreted as kinesthetic sensation, to allow the full function of brain and nervous system rather than merely cognitive awareness of data. What might be possible?”
Beverly faded completely away. Jillian waited. And waited.
Gone. Beverly was gone.
Then spoke a neutral, neuter voice, all personality flensed, all verbal nuance abandoned to the desperate cause of efficiency. Beverly’s dying words:
It is theoretically possible for a single human being to control fifty-four percent of world economic activity, forty-eight percent of the political activity, plus or minus… lots.
“Thank you.”
Her voice echoed in an empty world. Beverly was gone.
She would have to activate a new personality core, but that was no problem.
Was it?
Before that, hook into—
Jillian woke as if she had fallen asleep sitting upright. Her eyes felt dry, her mouth likewise; pain throbbed in her temples; her mind was muddled. It seemed hours since Beverly (died) faded away and left Jillian with no input to her mind.
Her cocoa was still warm. By the clock, seven minutes had passed.
She rocked and moaned. It had never been like this. Never had she felt the tension screwed up inside her like an ice sliver inserted at the base of the skull.
She fumbled for the small plastic wafer that contained Beverly’s personality. Within that clear card was a gigabyte of data, the essentials of the personality Jillian had labored since childhood to create.
She inserted it in the console.
I/O error 1154.
She peered at the card. Nothing had changed. Beverly was still in there, somewhere. Try again.
I/O error 1154.
What was error message 1154? Fingers shaking now, she typed the number in manually, watched as the message appeared on her holo screen:
1154: unfamiliar nomenclature. Please check program compatibility.
It was a standard console. She had loaded Beverly a thousand times and never seen that message.
On the fourth attempt, a new message appeared. Special message 9263: Olympiad participants are allotted computer time to complete their approved projects. The present line of questioning is judged inappropriate.
Jillian felt damp, sticky, frightened… but never surprised. At no time had she felt surprise.
So they couldn’t damage Beverly, huh? What a fool she had been. All they had to do was refuse to let Jillian load her Simulacrum into the console.
There weren’t any privately owned computers large enough or powerful enough to run Beverly.
For the first time in her life, Jillian was completely alone.
Cautiously, she asked: “Access A.D. 2034 Munich symposium on crime. National police agency of Japan white paper on civil actions. Statistics only.”
She chewed fingernails as she waited, an old habit she’d thought long since vanquished. Then the blue holo field fluttered, and numbers began to appear. She sighed relief, and risked another harmless inquiry:
“Cross-chart Australian situation comedy ratings with child abuse stats.”
Again, a moment’s pause, and then the field began to fill.
She’d been wondering anyway- “Do a bar graph. Olympic contenders, ratio of Corporate to national. Cross- reference against funding and wins—”
Contenders representing one or another nation totalled only eight percent this year, a steady drop from above fourteen percent sixteen years ago. In terms of population they should have had more like thirty percent. Funding for national contenders was generally higher… and still they didn’t take their share of wins.
Suspicions confirmed. The surviving nations offered more support for the Olympics because they wanted their prestige back. It wasn’t working well. Their contenders were beating themselves, giving in to their own lack of self- respect. It was part of what Jillian Shomer (USA) would be fighting.
But losing Beverly— Holding her breath, she slipped the cartridge back into the console.
I/O error 1154.
Should she wait for a ransom note?
No, the implications seemed clear enough. So long as she stayed completely away from the Council, or the strange case of Lilith Shomer
… actually, Jillian flattered herself that there were Counselors eagerly awaiting her results. She was potentially useful to them.
They’d play fair, she thought. If the Council barred her from material necessary to her thesis, it would cause the nastiest stink in years.
Right. And they couldn’t hurt Beverly, either.
If she fought too hard to uncover things the Council wanted hidden, she could simply have a training accident. If they could hurt a Donny Crawford, Jillian Shomer meant nothing.
She’d have Sean send some of her old files by courier. Last year she had downloaded massive amounts of raw data into personal files. She could sift through it without being hooked into the main lobe.
She sank her head down on her folded forearms. Beverly gone. Vital lines of inquiry sealed off. Claustrophobia.
What had her blasted obstinacy really accomplished?
There were questions to which Jillian Shomer could not get answers. But perhaps a Boosted and Linked Olympic gold-winner, one thoroughly co-opted by the Council, could open doors now sealed.
Could she risk it? Did she even have a chance to win, now that the Council disapproved of her line of questioning? If she Boosted, could the Council simply deny her the victory, guaranteeing her a slow death?
Jillian was shivering as if she were ill. They. The Council? She’d known of the Council since grade school; what she knew might not be fully true, but it was a starting point. Was it the Council who had snatched Beverly away? or some single Council member? or a faceless “Old Bastard”?
What was he, what were They, hiding about her mother?
“I’m going to win,” she whispered. She would find out, beyond a doubt, if she could win in Athens without Boost. If she couldn’t, if she had to become a part of the Lie in order to expose it, in order to find the truth…
In order to find Beverly again…
Then so be it.
