Blasphemy

Something was materializing in the central hole, with little bits and flashes of color, swarming faster, coming up from infinite depths, shimmering, taking shape. It was so strange, Ford wasn’t sure if his brain was interpreting it right.

Hazelius pulled the keyboard over and rapped in a command. “Isabella’s having trouble managing the bitstream. Rae, kill the checksum routines—that should free up CPU.”

“Hold it,” said Dolby. “That’s our early warning system.”

“It’s a backup to a backup. Rae? Please do it.”

Chen hammered in the command.

“Computer’s still funky, Gregory.”

“I’m with Ken—I think you should turn the checksum routines back on,” said Kate.

“Not yet. Take it up a tenth, Ken.”

A hesitation.

“Up a tenth.”

“All right,” said Dolby, his voice uncertain.

“Harlan?”

“Power’s deep, strong, and clean.”

“Rae?”

Chen’s voice was high-pitched. “It’s happening again. The computer’s getting all glacky on me, just like it did with Volkonsky.”

The shimmering intensified.

Cecchini said, “Beams still collimated. Luminosity twenty-four point nine. Tight and focused here.”

“Ninety-nine point eight,” said Chen.

“Up a tenth.”

Dolby spoke, his usually laconic voice uncharacteristically tight. “Gregory, are you sure—?”

“Up a tenth.”

“I’m losing the computer,” said Chen. “I’m losing it. It’s happening again.”

“It can’t be happening. Put it up a tenth!”

“Approaching ninety-nine point nine,” said Chen, a slight tremble in her voice.

The singing had become louder, and it reminded Ford of the sound made by the monolith in the movie 2001, a chorus of voices.

“Take it up to ninety-nine point nine five.”

“It’s gone! It won’t accept any input!” Chen tossed her head, her hair sweeping back in an angry cloud of black.

Ford stood with the others, just behind Hazelius, Cecchini, Chen, and St. Vincent, all of whom were riveted to their own keyboards. The image, the thing in the center of the Visualizer had taken solidity, and it was shimmering faster, with purple and deep red darts whipping in and out, a whirling hive of color, deep and three- dimensional.

It looked almost alive.

“My God,” gasped Ford involuntarily. “What is that?”

“Slag code,” said Edelstein dryly, not even looking up from his book. Instantly the Visualizer went blank.

“Oh no. God no,” Hazelius groaned.

A word popped up in the middle of the screen:

Greetings

Hazelius smacked the keyboard with his hand. “Son of a bitch!”

“Computer’s frozen,” said Chen.

Dolby turned to Chen, “Power down, Rae. Now.”

“No!” Hazelius turned on him. “Up to one hundred percent!”

“Are you crazy?” Dolby screamed.

Suddenly, instantly, Hazelius became calm. “Ken, we’ve got to find the malware. It seems to be a bot program—it’s moving around. It’s not in the main computer. So where is it? The detectors have built-in microprocessors— it’s moving around in the detectors. And that means we can find it. We can isolate the output from each detector and corner it. Am I right, Rae?”

“Absolutely. That’s a brilliant idea.”

“For God’s sake,” said Dolby, his face covered with sweat, “we’re flying blind. If the beams decollimated, they could slice through here, blow the shit out of all of us—not to mention frying two hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth of detectors.”

“Kate?” said Hazelius.

“I’m with you all the way, Gregory.”

“Take it to a hundred, Rae,” Hazelius said coolly.

“Okay.”

Dolby lunged for the keyboard, but Hazelius stepped into his way, blocking him.

“Ken,” Hazelius said rapidly, “listen to me. If the computer’s going to crash, it would have already happened. The controller software’s still running in the background. We just can’t see it. Give me ten minutes to trace this.”

“No way.”

“Five minutes, then. Please. This is not an arbitrary decision. My assistant director agrees with me. We’re in charge.”

“Nobody’s in charge of my machine but me.” Breathing hard, Dolby stared at Hazelius, stared at Mercer, then turned back, his arms at his side, fists clenched.

Without turning, Hazelius said, “Kate? We’re going to try what you and I discussed earlier: type in a question—anything. Let’s see if we can get it talking.”

“What the hell’s the point of asking it questions?” Dolby turned. “It’s a chatterbot program.”

“Maybe we can trace the output back to the source. Back to the logic bomb.”

Dolby stared at him.

“Rae,” said Hazelius, “if it outputs, you troll through the detectors looking for the signal.”

“Gotcha.” Chen jumped up from the console and went to another workstation, where she began typing.

The others stood almost paralyzed, as if in shock. Ford saw that Edelstein had finally put down his book to watch, a distant look of interest on his face.

Hazelius and Dolby continued their face-off, Hazelius blocking access to the power control board.

Greetings to you, too, Kate typed in.

The LED screen above the console flickered, went dark. Then an answer appeared:

I am glad to be speaking to you.

“It’s responding!” Kate cried.

“Did you get that, Rae?” Hazelius shouted.

“I did,” said Chen excitedly. “I’ve got a bead on the output stream. You were right, it is coming from a detector! This is it! We got it! Keep going!”

Glad to be speaking to you, too, Kate typed. “Jeez, what should I say?”

“Ask who it is,” said Hazelius.

Who are you? Kate typed.

For lack of a better word, I am God.

A derisive snort from Hazelius. “Stupid-ass hackers!”

If you’re really God, typed Kate, then prove it.

We don’t have much time for proofs.

I’m thinking of a number between one and ten. What is it?

You are thinking of the transcendental number e.

Kate took her fingers off the keyboard and sat back.

“How’s it going, Rae?” Hazelius called to Chen.

“I’m tracing it! Just keep typing!”

Kate straightened her shoulders and leaned forward to type again.