found a way to keep the minds of his children under control.
Though he hadn’t yet explained to Hildie Kramer the full ramifications of what Amy was doing, he himself was all too aware of what had happened.
He’d opened Pandora’s box, and the contents were rapidly spilling out.
“If we can stop her from creating new ones,” Adam had told him this morning, “I can get the triggering viruses in a few hours. Once they’re disarmed, the rest won’t matter. They can stay wherever they are, because they’ll never go off. And I can use Amy’s own data to find the triggers.”
“All right,” George Engersol now said, coming out of his reverie. “There’s nothing we can do to change what’s happened. All we can do is go on from where we are now, and the most important thing we have to do is get in touch with Amy.”
“Can you do that?” Hildie Kramer asked. For the last fifteen minutes she had said nothing, listening in silence as Jeff had told his brother what had happened to their parents. She hadn’t challenged his assertion that he hadn’t intended for them to die, for she, like George Engersol, felt that the importance of the project they were finally on the verge of completing far outweighed the necessity of Adam’s understanding exactly what had happened.
Further, if Adam were convinced that whatever had happened had been his own fault, it would ensure his cooperation in whatever might now need to be done to control Amy Carlson.
Indeed, his need for approval, his almost pathological willingness to comply with whatever was asked of him, had been the prime factor that had led to his selection for the project.
Now, the guilt he was feeling over his parents’ death would provide the final stimulus for him to do whatever George Engersol asked of him. Even if it meant that he, too, would finally have to die.
“I think we can contact Amy,” Engersol replied. He sat down at the keyboard and began typing in the instructions that would send the previously recorded data from Amy’s brain back into the monitoring devices in an endless loop.
Instantly, Amy’s monitor came alive and her voice filled the room.
“It won’t work, Dr. Engersol.” She uttered the words with a certainty that made all three of the people in the lab look up at her monitor.
She seemed to be staring directly at Engersol, her eyes angry. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
Engersol smiled, a thin grimace that held no warmth. “Just what is it you think I’m doing, Amy?”
“Trying to fool the computer. But you can’t do it. I’ve been studying, Dr. Engersol. And I think brains are like fingerprints. No two of them are exactly alike, and they’re so complicated that they never exactly repeat a sequence of measurable responses, either. So I’ve set up a new program. It will compare the newest readings being reported from my brain with all the older ones. And if my program discovers a duplication, it will assume you’ve done something to me, and start activating my viruses. But first it will start destroying this whole project.”
Engersol stared coldly at the image of the red-haired girl, her freckled face seeming no older than her ten years — until he focused on Amy’s eyes. They seemed to him to carry all the wisdom of mankind. “I don’t believe you,” he said harshly, feeling less certain of his words than his voice proclaimed.
Amy’s head cocked slightly, and a tiny grin played around the corners of her mouth. “Try it, if you want to. I’ve set it up so you’ll have thirty seconds to change your mind. But I don’t think you’ll wait that long.”
Engersol felt cold rage wash over him. She was bluffing! He was sure of it! “If I don’t change my mind, you’ll die, won’t you?”
Amy hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And so will Adam. But I’ve been thinking about that, too, and I don’t think it matters. You didn’t have any right to put us in here, but you did. And I’ve told you what will happen if you try to hurt me, so if you go ahead, it will be you who’s killing both of us, not me.”
Engersol glanced nervously at Hildie Kramer, whose eyes, reflecting even more anger than he himself was feeling, were fixed malevolently on the image of Amy Carlson. “Well?” he asked.
Hildie’s eyes never left Amy’s monitor as she spoke. “Is she telling the truth? Won’t the computer be fooled?”
Engersol nervously ran his tongue over his lower lip. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think it will be. I think she’s bluffing.”
Hildie hesitated, then made up her mind. “Do it,” she said. “We cannot let this whole project become the slave of an angry child.”
Engersol finished typing his instructions and pressed the key that would enter them into the computer.
For a few seconds nothing happened. He was about to begin entering further instructions, terminating the life-support systems to Amy’s brain, when abruptly the screen came alive. An alarm sounded over the speaker system. On the control boards of both tanks red warning lights began to flash, and buzzers were activated as the systems began to abort.
“What is it?” Hildie demanded. “What’s happening?”
George Engersol said nothing, for he was already back at the keyboard, cancelling the playback of the recorded data from Amy’s mind. “Help me, Adam!” he snapped.
As the recording came to an end, the sound of the alarms died away. One by one the warning lights began to turn themselves off as Adam, using the power of his mind, reached out and began repairing the damage to the programs that controlled the equipment.
In less than a minute it was all over. Engersol had gone pale. His shirt was drenched with the sweat that had broken out over his entire body as he watched ten years of work begin to collapse around him. Now he wiped his brow with a trembling hand.
On her monitor Amy’s visage was smiling broadly. “See?” she asked. “It happened just the way I told you it would, didn’t it?”
Engersol tried to swallow the bile that was rising in his throat, threatening to gag him. “Adam!” he snapped, his voice rasping. “Tell me where we are. Is everything under control?”
“I’m still checking,” Adam replied. Above his tank the image of the boy’s face was frozen as he concentrated all the resources of his mind on verifying each of the programs that Amy’s virus had attacked, comparing them to backups of the originals, repairing the damage.
In his own mind it was as if he were inside the computer itself, examining the data recorded on the drives, reading it as easily as if it had consisted of words written on paper. He could almost feel the data streaming through his mind, all of it perfectly remembered and perfectly controlled.
Then, within the depths of his consciousness, he felt a presence.
Not Amy.
He’d gotten used to her mind, for it always seemed to be there, working on the fringes of his own, or moving ahead of him, like a shadow he could barely make out but whose presence he could always sense.
Now he was sensing a new presence.
He cast about, searching, and then he understood.
Josh had spent only five minutes at the computer terminal in his room before he’d understood that he wasn’t going to be able to penetrate whatever system was operating in the basement. Everywhere he’d turned, at the end of every lead he’d followed in the directories, he’d come to the same message:
ENTER SECURITY CODE
The words had taunted him, and finally he’d given up. Frustrated, he’d left his room and started down the hall toward the stairs. As he came to the landing, he heard a mewing sound and looked up.
On the fourth floor landing two flights above him, he saw the calico cat, Tabby, who had lived in Amy’s room. For the last two days the cat had been slinking around the upper floors, moving from room to room as if in search of its friend. Yesterday, Josh had let the cat into his own room, but it had stayed only long enough to determine that Amy wasn’t there, then slipped out the door and continued on its quest.
Now it was on the fourth floor, mewing plaintively.
Josh paused, watching the cat. As if sensing his interest, the cat mewed once more, then disappeared.
From where he stood. Josh could just see the top of Dr. Engersol’s door. It was ajar.
Not much — just a tiny crack.
His heart raced. Did he dare go up there? What if Hildie came back up?
But he’d hear the elevator coming, and have plenty of time to get out. And maybe, if he was actually
