the globe, but mostly here in the United States, explosions ripped through the fiber-optic cables that crisscross the country and the oceans, linking data centers and nations. This will make rebuilding the Internet even more difficult. Not only will the countless crashed servers and routers need to be reprogrammed, but the damaged cables that link them will have to be repaired or replaced.'
Weezy hit the mute button and stepped to the window. Clearly the Internet had not rebounded, and would not for some time. Below, the traffic was still snarled. Only a few headlights remained on. Nothing moved except a rare pedestrian.
The Internet crashed… the noosphere further weakened… the Lady should be gone. But she was hanging on.
No, more than hanging on-rallying.
How? Whence was she drawing strength?
2
The clock on the wall behind the Marriott's registration desk said it was a little after six-thirty. Jack looked out the front door. The sun hadn't yet cleared the horizon, but the sky had lightened enough to make travel feasible.
He'd spent the night trying to think of a way back to Gia's place that didn't involve a six- or seven-mile walk through the cold. Even if he could fit Gia and Vicky on the motocross bike, he couldn't guarantee their safety. He couldn't rent a car because the roads-at least all the roads he could see-were still jammed. The side streets here in Queens had probably eased up, but the problem was getting to them. Enough people had abandoned their cars, at least temporarily, to create a near-permanent snarl.
The fact that it was Sunday, without millions trying to get to work, would help, but it still might take all day to untangle this mess. They couldn't wait for that. The hotel coffee shop was out of everything but coffee, and that was in short supply. He'd managed to snag a couple of cups for Gia and himself, and an OJ for Vicky.
'Are we ready for this?' he said.
Gia and Vicky nodded. They were both well bundled up. Good thing they'd been returning from Iowa instead of Florida.
Gia looked at him. 'How long do you think it will take?'
Jack had borrowed a map from the concierge during the night and checked out the shortest route to the Queensboro Bridge. Gia lived in its shadow.
'If we take the Grand Central to Northern Boulevard to the bridge, it's between six and a half and seven miles. It shouldn't be too hard to move at around three miles an hour-'
He caught Gia's glance at Vicky, then at his hip.
'I'm okay. The rest has helped.' True enough. He'd checked it in the men's room: big bruise, but much less painful. 'And Vicks will be on my shoulders. I think we're talking two and a half hours, less if we're lucky.'
Gia smiled. 'Home by nine. You have no idea how good that sounds. I'll have scrambled eggs and coffee on the table by nine-thirty.'
'You have no idea how good that sounds. Let's go. I'm starved.'
Jack had paid the bell captain to check Gia's bag. So, unencumbered, they stepped out into the cold. Jack swung Vicky onto his shoulders and the three of them set off for Manhattan.
Vicky started singing 'We're Off to See the Wizard' and Jack thought that was somehow appropriate. He would have sung along, but he feared that after last night, the Wizard's name was Rasalom.
3
'I… live?'
The Lady's voice was faint, hoarse, like a broom sweeping sand. She lay as she had before, but her eyes were open and she was conscious. Weezy had been watching her, talking to her, touching her. She'd seen her mouth move a few times, but these were the first words she'd heard her speak since last night.
She leaned closer. 'Miraculously, yes. How?'
'Don't… know.'
Speech seemed a war, each word a victory.
'Well, your enemies succeeded in bringing down the Net, but I guess the noosphere is stronger and more resilient than anyone imagined.'
'No… not.'
'But your continued survival is proof that it is.'
'No… not.'
'Not what?'
The Lady closed her eyes again. Weezy wanted to shake her-gently, of course-and ask her to explain, but she seemed to have slipped back into her sleep mode. The Lady had said she didn't sleep, but she was doing a convincing imitation. Except for the not-breathing part. Weezy couldn't get used to that.
She leaned back. No… not. What did she mean? That the noosphere was not sustaining her? How could that be? She was a creation of the noosphere, a projection of humanity's neuromass. Weezy had come to conceptualize her as a sort of hologram. But if the hologram's projector suffered a power failure, or its light source fizzled to a point where it could no longer sustain the projection, the hologram vanished.
The noosphere had suffered two crushing blows in less than a year. The nuclear strike from the Fhinntmanchca should have been a knockout punch. And would have been if not for the Internet. The Net had been swelling the noosphere with a massive, ongoing infusion of sentient interactions that had cushioned the blow, allowing it to continue supporting the Lady's existence. The Fhinntmanchca had knocked it down, but not out. It was regrouping but still had a long way to go before it regained its former depth and breadth. It needed the Internet input for recovery. Loss of that would put it on the critical list. It could never die-so long as humans existed and interacted, there would always be a noosphere-but what had happened last night should have reduced it to a shell of its former self, to Stone Age level, unable to maintain its avatar, its beacon, the Lady.
The Lady should have vanished. Yet she persisted.
And her persistence meant that this corner of reality was still perceived as sentient, and valuable-a worthy marble in the Ally's collection, and thus still under its protection.
Somehow, against all odds, Rasalom and the Order had succeeded in bringing down the Internet yet failed to bring down the Lady.
Weezy wandered out to the front room. She wished Jack were here. Even more, she wished Mr. Veilleur were. He might be able to explain. But he hadn't returned from wherever he'd gone off to. She'd checked upstairs but the nurse he'd hired to watch over his wife said she hadn't heard from him.
She went to the window and looked out at the bright winter day.
'What's going on!'
4
Hank Thompson couldn't sit still, so he left his office in the Lodge and strode down the hall toward Drexler's. Along the way he passed the grinning faces of his Kickers. They assumed their leader had been behind the fall of the Internet and they were digging it.
'Nice work, boss!' someone called.
'I didn't do anything. It was those crazy Muslims.'
'Sure thing, boss.' Then a laugh.
