'I've been trying to delude myself that they're not.'
'I'm coming, too,' Carl informed me. 'And Lori. We're cutting class.'
Lori turned up her nose. 'Who wants to see a bunch of books?'
I said, 'I could be wrong, but I doubt that Prime was talking about books per se.'
'Or pipettes; or tapes, or any of that stuff,' Lori said. 'Anyway, I never went to school, and I'm not going to start now.'
'Never? No school at all?'
'Well, a little, when I was real small. I learned to read okay, and arithmetic and everything, but I mostly taught myself.'
'Oh.'
John came over. 'We'll meet you later in the library, I suppose?'
'If I can find my way there,' I said.
'I should go with you,' Susan said. 'But I really want to see what they have.'
'It's okay. Have fun.'
'Be careful.' She looked at Darla. She seemed about to add something, but hesitated.
'We'll be careful,' Darla said reassuringly.
'Please do.'
The two of them had been getting along much better recently. They weren't exactly friends-far from it-but they respected each other's feelings, at least. Anyway, it was a great improvement over the fistfight they'd had a while back.
We found the down chute easily enough. It looked exactly like the up chute, leaving us to ponder how you were supposed to tell the difference.
'How do you know whether it's working?' Carl wanted to know. 'If it isn't you'd walk right into the hole and drop.'
The silver ramp started in the middle of the hallway flush with the floor, went through the oval opening in the wall, extended over the edge of the floor and arched downward.
'Well, I guess I'll be the guinea pig,' I said, and tread on the ramp. I walked toward the opening. The gravitic force snared my feet about a meter from the drop.
'Looks like you're supposed to be smart enough to stop if this doesn't happen,' I said. 'Hop on.'
They did.
It was an exhilarating trip down. The temperature dropped a little. The shaft was dark, but light was coming from somewhere. Didn't know from where, though.
The shaft let out into a big empty room. We walked out of it into the garage. I looked around and spotted the truck. It was a good hike across the cavernous expanse of the garage. We made it, not dawdling too long, looking at exotic vehicles and machinery.
The hatch didn't open. Maybe something's wrong with the exterior cameras, I thought.
'Sam? It's me, Jake.'
The driver's gull-wing hatch hissed open, and I climbed in. 'Sam?'
'Good day, sir,' a bland, pleasant voice said.
'Huh? Who are you?'
'I am a Wang Generation-Ten Artificial Intelligence software multiplex read into a Matthews 7894Z submicroprocessor. Have I correctly identified you as the owner and principle operator of this vehicle?'
'What! Where the hell's Sam?'
'I'm sorry, sir, I don't have that information. Is there anything else I can do to help you?'
'Damn!' I raced to the aft-cabin and checked the screws on the panel covering the CPU rack. No signs of tampering, but an intruder might have taken pains to be careful. I got out a power driver and extracted the screws. I looked inside.
There's not much to the guts of a computer. In Sam's case, his VEM, the seat of his intellection and personality-what made Sam something more than the usual colorless, off-the-shelf A.I. spook-was the biggest component. It had been years since I'd taken this panel off. Sam rarely had problems in the CPU area. The VEM looked like an undersize wax pear.
I had to conjure up its appearance from memory, because it was gone.
'Oh, Christ.' I sighed and sat down at the breakfast nook. I stared at the table for a moment, then looked up. Darla had been watching.
'Prime, of course,' she said.
'Yeah. Or maybe Moore.'
'He couldn't have gotten in here.'
'Maybe not. But some of his boys are pretty good technicians. Maybe they zapped Sam with an electromagnetic pulse generator and broke in.'
'For what reason?'
I got up and went to the safe. I let it read my thumbprint, then opened it.
'The cube is gone, too,' I said. 'There's your reason.' Darla sat on the cot. Carl and Lori came in.
'Gee, that's too bad, Jake,' Carl said. 'Sam was a good guy.'
'They're probably holding him hostage,' Darla said. 'They wouldn't destroy his VEM.'
I shuddered. As much as my intellect told me that what we were talking about here was only a very sophisticated Artificial Intelligence program, the thought of losing Sam was hard to bear. It would be like losing a father for the second time.
'Anyway,' Darla went on, 'I don't think Moore could have gotten into Emerald City without Prime's permission. And if Prime let them in, I doubt he would have let them do any mischief.'
I hoped she was right. I didn't trust Prime, and Moore bore me malice. I could picture him crushing Sam's VEM beneath the heel of his huge, muddy lumberjack boot.
'If Sam's gone,' Carl said, 'who's in the computer?'
'The A.I. program that came with the hardware,' I said. 'Sam works in tandem with it when he has a lot of stuff to do. It really doesn't have much of a personality.'
'Oh.'
I got up, went into the cab, and sat in the driver's seat. 'Computer,' I said. 'Um… did I ever give you a, name?'
'No, sir.'
'Okay. Well, never mind.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Computer, what happened? There's been a security breach. Report.'
There was a brief pause. Then: 'I'm sorry, sir. I have no files containing any data on a breach of vehicle security.'
'Do you have anything recorded on video pipette?'
'Searching… Yes, sir.'
'When was it recorded?'
'Minus six days, fifteen hours, twenty-one minutes, sir.'
'That's no good. Anything recent? Within twenty-four hours?'
'Searching… Nothing recorded within the last twentyfour hours, sir.'
'Damn it. Okay. Sam must have left a message. If security was threatened to the point where he thought he might be disconnected, he would have recorded something somewhere. Make a search for this file name: Revelation Thirteen Colon One. Got that?'
'Yes, sir. Searching.'
'And stop calling me `sir.''
'Very well. File labeled Revelation Thirteen Colon One has been located. Security protected. Positive voiceprint identification of vehicle owner needed to access. Processed… checked. Additional security-code word sequence needed to access.'
'Heartbreak Hotel,' I said.
'Access now available. Shall I access the file?'
