Max was rude. “Sorry, Archie,” he said, “but we don’t allow visitors-at least not those we can see-before our morning coffee, or whatever this shit is that we drink with breakfast each day.”
Nicole rose from the table as the octospider turned to leave. “Don’t pay any attention to Max,” she said. “He is in a permanent bad mood.”
Max now jumped up from his chair, holding one of the mostly empty packages in which there was a little cereal remaining. He swooped the container through the air, first in one direction, then in another, before sealing it tight and handing the package to Archie. “Have a few quad-raids,” Max said in a loud voice. “Or did they move too quickly for me?”
Archie did not reply. The rest of the humans felt awkward and embarrassed. Max returned to his place at the table beside Eponine and Marius. “Shit, Archie,” he said, facing the octospider, “I guess pretty soon you’ll be marking me with a pair of those green dots. Or will you just terminate me instead?”
“Max,” Richard shouted. “You’re out of line. At least think of your wife and son.”
“That’s all I’ve been thinking about, friend,” he said, “for almost a month now. And you know what, Richard? This Arkansas farm boy cannot figure out anything he can do to change…” His voice trailed off. Suddenly Max slammed his fist against one of the chairs. “Goddammit!” he yelled. “I feel so useless.”
Marius began to cry. Eponine scooted away from the table with the baby and Ellie went to help her. Nicole took Archie with her into the atrium, leaving Richard and Max alone. Richard leaned across the table. “I think I know what you’re feeling, Max,” he said gently, “and I empathize with you. But we don’t improve our situation any by insulting the octospiders.”
“What difference does it make?” Max said, looking up at Richard. “We are prisoners here, that’s obvious. I have allowed my son to be born into a world where he will always be a prisoner. What kind of a father does that make me?”
While Richard was trying to soothe Max, Nicole was receiving from Archie the message that she had been seeking for weeks. “We have obtained permission,” the
octospider said, “for you to use the data library today. We have compiled videos featuring your daughter Katie from our historical files.”
Nicole made Archie repeat his colors to make certain that she had not misunderstood.
Archie and Nicole did not converse as the transport carried them, without stopping, across the Emerald City to the tall building that housed the octospider library. Nor did Nicole pay much attention to the street scenes outside the transport. She was completely immersed in her own emotions and her thoughts of Katie. In her mind’s eye she recalled, one after another, key moments from her life when Katie was a child. In the longest memory segment, Nicole relived both the terror and the joy of her descent into the octospider lair years earlier to find her missing four-year-old daughter. You’ve always been missing, Katie, Nicole thought. In one way or another. I have never been able to keep you safe.
Nicole could feel her heart pounding furiously when Archie finally led her into a room that was empty except for a chair, a large desk, and a wall screen. Archie indicated that Nicole should sit down in the chair. “Before I show you how to use the equipment,” the octospider said, “there are two things that I want to tell you. First, I want to respond officially, as the optimizer for your group, to the request by some of you to rejoin the others of your species in New Eden.”
Archie paused. Nicole collected herself. It was difficult for her to put Katie temporarily out of her mind, but she knew she had to concentrate completely on what Archie was about to tell her. The others in the group would expect a verbatim report.
“I’m afraid,” Archie continued a few moments later, 4.I4 “that it is not possible for any of you to leave in the near future. I am not at liberty to tell you anything more than that the issue was considered by the Chief Optimizer herself, in a major staff meeting, and that your request was denied for security reasons.”
Nicole was stunned. She had not expected this news, certainly not at this time. She had told everyone that she thought they would be allowed-
“So Max is right,” she said, fighting the tears that were threatening to flow. “We are your prisoners.”
“You must interpret the decision for yourself,” Archie said. “But I will tell you that insofar as I understand your language, I think the term ‘prisoner,’ which Max has often used lately, is not correct.”
“Then give me a better word, and some more explanation,” Nicole said angrily, rising from her chair. “You know what the others will say.”
“I cannot,” Archie replied. “I have transmitted our entire message.”
Nicole paced around the room, her emotions swinging wildly from rage to depression. She knew how Max would react. Everyone would be angry. Even Richard and Patrick would remind her that she had been wrong. But why won’t they explain? she thought. It’s not like them. Nicole felt a slight pain in her heart and slumped into her chair.
“And what’s the second thing you want to tell me?” Nicole said at length.
“I have personally worked with the data engineers,” Archie said, “to prepare the video files you are about to access. From what I know about human beings, and you specifically, I think that if you see this material, it will cause you extreme distress. I would like to ask you to consider not looking at the files at all.”
Archie had chosen carefully what he had said, doubtless because he understood how important the videos were to Nicole. His message was clear. What I am about to see will cause me grief, she thought. But what choice do I have? “Between nothing and grief,” she remembered, “I will choose grief.”
After Nicole thanked Archie for his concern and informed the octospider that she wanted to see the videos anyway, Archie pushed the chair in which she was sitting over in front of the desk and showed her how to control the data access. The time code had been translated by the
octospiders into human numbers, in terms of days before the present, and there were four speeds at which the images could be shown, covering four octal orders of magnitude, from one-eighth real time to sixty-four times normal speed.
“The data on Katie are nearly complete,” Archie said, “for about the last six months of your time. It is our normal data management process to filter and compress older data, based on its importance. The extended files on Katie show most of the key events for the past two years, but are fairly scarce before that.”
Nicole reached out for the controls. As she dialed up the most recent data entry and saw Katie’s face appear on the screen, she felt Archie tapping on her shoulder. “You may use this facility the rest of today,” the octospider said to her when she turned around, “but that is all. Since the amount of data available is enormous, I suggest you use the high speeds to locate events of interest.”
Nicole took a deep breath and turned back around to the screen.
She felt as if she could not cry anymore. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut from the constant stream of tears. Nicole had watched Katie inject herself with the drug kokomo at least half a dozen times already, but as she saw her daughter tie the rubber cord around her upper arm and plunge the needle into a bulging vein again, a new set of burning tears found their way into Nicole’s eyes.
What she had seen in almost ten hours was so much worse than her most horrible imaginings that Nicole was utterly destroyed. Despite the fact that there was no sound with any of the pictures, it had been easy for Nicole to understand what Katie’s life was all about. First, her daughter was a hopeless drug addict. At least four times a day-more if life was not going well for her-Katie retreated to her fancy apartment, either by herself or with friends, and used the elegant drug paraphernalia that she kept in a large locked box in her dressing room.
Katie was charming immediately after the drug rush. She was friendly, funny, and full of both energy and apparent self-confidence. But if the drugs wore off while she was still partying, Katie was quickly transformed into a screaming, hostile bitch who ended many evenings alone with her needle in her apartment.
Katie’s official job was the management of the Vegas prostitutes. In that position Katie was also responsible for recruiting new talent. At first Nicole’s broken heart was unwilling to acknowledge what her eyes were telling her. But one long, sordid sequence, which began with Katie befriending a lovely but poor teenage Hispanic in San Miguel and ended with the girl, now magnificently dressed and bejeweled, becoming a temporary concubine for one of Nakamura’s zaibatsu chiefs a few days later, forced Nicole to admit to herself that her daughter had absolutely no morals or scruples.
After Nicole had been watching the videos for many hours, Archie entered the room and offered her something to eat. Nicole declined. She knew that in her agitated state there was no way she could have retained any food in her stomach.
