Iris

'Well . . . that's the way GAM programs are supposed to work. I just never ran across one that was quite so poetic before. I suppose I should congratulate you for making a thing like that.'

'Me? But Brendan's the one who did all the programming for Bright Illimit! I just gave him my generalized ideas.'

That brought a narrow grin. 'You have a typical misconception of what programmers do, Demo. Without software, the machines are useless. Everyone knows that; but without ideas, there's no software either. Brendan just took your ideas and expanded them to a logical final form.' He paused, rubbing his hand in among the hair of his beard, seeming to ruminate. 'It's like doing a bronze sculpture. The artist comes up with an idea, maybe roughs out the moldwork in wax, then a craftsman comes along, finishes the mold, and casts the statue itself. The two work together because, without either one, there is no final work of art.'

The other turned to stare back at the body. 'So . . . You're probably right, but he . . .' The Arab stood up to face Krzakwa. 'This isn't what I wanted to talk about, Tem! Who the fuck cares who made what part of Bright Illimit? It's what we can do with it now that matters. . . .'

'I know, I caught some of what you were thinking before we resurfaced. I don't know if I understand what you meant, but it was the germ of an idea. . . .'

Demo's anger was supplanted by a look of desperation. Hesat down again. 'Just a germ. I'll tell you about it and you tell me if it'll work.'

Krzakwa pulled up another chair and sat down opposite him, caught up in the somberness of his mood. 'OK. What, then?'

'Look. These things are called Guardian Angel Monitors because they're supposed to follow you around, keeping you from getting hurt in Comnet. I knew about that, but why the Redux part?' The other started to speak, but Demogorgon held up his hand. 'I know! I looked the word up, it means a return or a recovery, like getting better after an illness, right?'

'Yes.' Krzakwa nodded and, seeing that an amplification was awaited, went on. 'If a GAM fails in its primary duty, the Redux is supposed to hook you back out before the various components of your personality can dissolve into the circuitry. If these programs didn't exist, on-line discharge wouldn't be a rare phenomenon and no one would be able to use Comnet.'

'OK, so it gets you back from inside the machinery. Why didn't Brendan use such a thing?'

'He did. Me.' Tem looked away. 'We didn't realize Centrum would be as capable as it turned out to be. I lost my grip on him and couldn't go in after him because I had no lifeline on me.'

'We know where he is, don't we?'

'Maybe. In Centrum, sure, but he came apart right at the end. That thing that we experienced as a loss of consciousness was him dissipating into Centrum's data control nexi . If we could find all the pieces, reintegration would still be more than a little difficult. We . . . might get most of him back, even now, but he'd never be the same again. The Brendan that went in is surely as dead as the Seedees.' Demogorgon looked down into his lap, where his fingers were twisted together into an agonizing double fist of frustration. 'Shouldn't we try?'

'How? Can you tell me?' Krzakwa felt a sense of intentional cruelty in that statement. Creative or not, ideas or not, the artist just wasn't competent in this area of technology. Taking a deep breath, he looked up. 'Yes, I can.' He stood and paced over to the body, not looking away. 'Part of Brendan is in here still, the parts that made him act so bad all the time. They were the reptilian parts, the hard-wired brain-person that was a soulless monster. A lot more of him is locked up in Centrum. Those were the illusory conscious parts, the mind- thing in all of us that says 'I' and thinks of itself as the whole being, even though it isn't. The rest of him is in Shipnet. . . .' Krzakwa sat back in his chair, bewildered. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

'His real soul is in there, Tem, the part of him that helped me make Bright Illimit. A programmer operating with routines so close to the Turing point must leave a little bit of himself in his creation. I know that, if nothing else.'

'Are you talking about the GAM? If so . . .'

Demogorgon interrupted him with 'No! Well . . . maybe a little bit. I mean all of Bright Illimit, maybe the whole body of work that Brendan did. There's a lot of him recorded all around us!'

'I ... see.' Krzakwa closed his eyes. 'You're talking about more than an abstraction. It would make a powerful ally ... a whole fucking operating system if it was done correctly. I never thought of it that way before.' He thought, How much data can we pump out of these things? A lot? Enough? Ideas have to come from somewhere!

The Arab shook him angrily. 'Do you know what I'm talking about, dammit?'

'Yes.' That was said flatly, abstractedly.

'Will it work?'