03. The Maze in the Mirror (43 page)

The routine went on and on, and she endured, as always. She deliberately didn't count the days, though; she really didn't want to know.

Finally, one day, near dawn, when she was about to pack it in and go back to the bunker, she heard something. At first she just dismissed it as more imaginations, but she kept hearing it, getting closer and closer, and for the first time she realized that somebody else was actually out there.

As the motor sound came up to the edge of the water and then was cut, she stood, looking out in that direction although she couldn't see it, waiting, a mixture of fear and relief inside her. One way or another, for good or evil, it was ended.

She heard someone fumbling with something, then the sound of someone coming towards her, among the mass of wood on the beach.

"Hello!" she called nervously, her voice cracking.

"Hang on, babe, I'm coming!" she heard a familiar voice respond, one not heard in a very long time.

She felt tears well up inside her and she shook and quivered, fearing that she hadn't heard what she had. "S-Sam?" she managed, limply.

And now he was right up to her. "You didn't think I'd ever give up the hunt, did you?" he asked her gently.

She threw her arms around him and cried and cried, and he just held her tight.

Sam shined a light on Carlos' remains but only briefly. It was a hulk crawling with-well, he didn't want to know.

"They packed it in a month ago, but I been coming back here with a small security force every chance I could get. We were pretty damned sure that nothing got off this world and no powered vehicles went as well, and we knew from Bill you couldn't have been too far away when the joint blew. I figured that he had to be hiding out waiting for us to leave, but that he'd go nuts and make a break-we have every single possible exit covered. When time dragged on, though, I got worried, and I started patrolling hundreds of miles of this coastline, along with a lot of other security people when they could be spared. They thought I was nuts, insane, after all this time, but I knew you better than that."

"Bill-he's all right?"

"He had some damage from that dive, but not anything serious. Not for Penn's former diving team captain. He almost made the Olympics once, he keeps telling us. Yeah, he's okay. A big wheel now, too. On the new Board. Things have changed a lot."

"The others-the ones with Carlos. You got them, too?"

"Uh uh. Not a prayer. The way it's working out is that they have a fair chunk of this side-I'm under super-heavy guard and such when I come up here-and we retain most of the other, with lots of pockets and islands in the other's territory. It's a whole different ball game. Come on-let's get you home, or what's passing for home these days."

"Sam-he stuck me on the juice again."

"I figured as much. Don't worry about it. We'll bring some of this supply to tide you over, but we can get a nearly limitless supply from the biomed people. Remember, we never really played with this shit on the Company world-too dangerous. I won't put you through more risks to health and sanity by kicking it again. It's the non-communicable variety, since that's what infected Carlos way back when, and there's ways to even grow your own. Kind of like methadone maintenance. You'll have your own and nobody ever has to know."

On the way back he filled her in on everything that had happened, and how, and why. She was amazed to learn the extent of the plot and his own side, upset at the idea Dash had been kidnapped, and almost as upset to think that their farm was no more, but all that paled. She was back and she was home again and this was better than she'd ever
dreamed. She never wanted to go in the Labyrinth or visit another world again.

Sam Horowitz went down to the Company security area one afternoon months later and picked a totally secure terminal. He'd been meaning to do if for quite some time, but it had been a crowded and busy period.

First there was designing and building the new place, and making it secure. They picked a small Caribbean island, one the Company owned. Not real big, but there was some high ground. It hadn't been inhabited because there was no water source, but that was easy for the high-tech wizards to fix, and provide power as well. Brandy helped design the whole place and it was not just for them but separate nice quarters for a few other families carefully chosen and with kids Dash's age. There would be their own small school, and there was enough kids for a gang although they made a very small class, and it was totally secure. Sam saw to that.

Not that they would be prisoners there; there was a helipad and 'copter available, and it was only a few hours to Florida or a few more hours back up to Pennsylvania. But trips could be planned and worked out with Company security to reasonably assure as much safety as possible.

And since there was no station or substation within a thousand miles, the only threat they couldn't do anything about was the possibility of hurricanes, but they could build for that.

Dash even had two Mommies, in a way. His own, and the one who'd replaced his real one for "the bad guys." There wasn't much trouble telling
them apart, except maybe on the phone or overhearing a conversation without seeing the speaker. Brandy's eyes had not cleared up; in fact, the "juice" seemed to have given up on them and just shut down that system. It was a minor setback in an otherwise unexpectedly happy resolution and she didn't waste any tears on it. The island and the main house were designed with her in mind, and it would take an expert to even realize she was blind.

She was also in tremendous shape, a byproduct both of her existence back at the Castle and of the efficiencies of the drug, looking years younger, trim, athletic, and working to keep that way. That, in fact, was the initial problem-the other Brandy, who could see, looked more like Mom than Mom did to Dash. He finally settled it by deciding that he was the only kid in the world with
two
Mommies and that two was much better than one.

It was also useful to have a duplicate Brandy around. It allowed some extra protection, and allowed Dash trips further afield than his own mother might feel comfortable going.

The fact was, though, that Brandy, the
real
one, was home, safe, with those she loved also there and safe, and she had no more taste for adventures.

Sam, however, found himself a bit busier. With a new Board, composed of the top non-Company world managers, and a new computer link that seemed to be working well, he found himself appointed chief of security for Company operations on this world. What with satellites, jet 'copters, and computer links he could and did as much as possible from home.

With the Labyrinth basically repaired, commerce resumed, although on a more limited scale.

They had millions of tons of surplus computer chips alone to ship out of Oregon and they'd be a long time catching up with the demand down the line. Now, too, they were facing in many areas something the old Company had never faced before-not a small underground opposition, but true competition on all levels, sometimes down and very dirty. Nobody had complete, secure control of an entire Labyrinth main line segment any more, and neither side had sufficient forces to knock the other out. It had become true competition, then, with victories measured in little gains, and in a way it seemed healthier.

Sam closed off the door to the secure terminal area and sat back in the chair.

"All right," he sighed, "it's time. I've been meaning to do this for a long time and now it's finally time. I know you can hear me, and this is secure on my end so I know you can make it secure the rest of the way. Speak to me. What the hell's the difference? If I ever actually told them the complete truth they'd lock me away in a loony bin anyway."

For a moment the screen was blank, but then it suddenly typed, "All right-so what?"

"How does it feel to be a god, Pandross? The god of both sides in this unholy game of commerce?"

"I am content," the screen responded.

"I got to hand it to you," he admitted. "No human mind could ever have figured this out and made it work, let alone sustained the current conditions. I mean, the Company, the Opposition, they both have the same access to the same computer net, only they don't realize it. Why not merge them? We could do without some of the personalities involved, particularly on the competition's side."

"Every G.O.D. requires a Satan. That is what turned the Company race into the vegetative, cold, and distant folk they became. G.O.D. had no rival, no real threat, anyway. They had no incentive to do it better, cheaper, more efficiently; no pressure to make their power and traffic go both ways and help the people and worlds they exploited. The new system does just that. The Board itself is composed of senior managers who were products of their own diverse worlds, politics, economic and cultural values, etc. That diversity alone assures a better, more understanding and compassionate Company. The fact that if they do not do it better and retain the loyalty of the locals on whom they depend that the opposition will exploit their lapses and cost them keeps them on their toes."

"Uh huh. Well, maybe it's better. It's certainly no worse. I'm still not thrilled with the likes of Voorhes and particularly Valintina out there, though."

"Valintina has made it a personal vow to someday get you and make you into a pet boy," the computer told him. "She is delighted by the turn of events and now controls their Security and is now second to none in pharmacology. Voorhes would like to strangle you, slowly. He is quite bitter that his hopes have been dashed and they are turning into a mirror image of the Company, and he has withdrawn from the Council. I am keeping an eye on him. Tarn considers the debt paid; he has withdrawn to his colony and will not participate. Cutler is now participating but probably will quit the first time they louse up a world on their own
for greed. Kanda, of course, is barely aware that a change has happened but considers it irrelevant in any case. The opposition Board, like the new Company Board, is and will be run more by senior level management than the old crew, but the old crew can still be influential-and threatening. Valintina in particular. But if you are as good as you think you are and if you avoid making stupid and rash errors in the future, you should be able to avoid them. They are far too busy to make any concerted efforts in your direction and will remain so, so only you can give them an opportunity."

He sighed. "Fair enough. I'm not as sure I'd be as tough and determined and strong as Brandy if I were stuck in a position like she was. I'd rather not find out."

"A question."

"Yes?"

"How did you know? About me, about the rest of it?"

He chuckled. "It wasn't hard to figure out. It was just so damned weird and outlandish that I could only suspect. A computer who wanted desperately to know what it was like to be human. A human who wanted just as desperately to be a machine. An interface that only required physical contact with the walls of the machine, and a guy who knew how it all worked. Somehow, some way, Pandross really is in there with you, isn't he?"

"Everything that Pandross ever was or saw or experienced is a part of me," the computer admitted. "When it is Kanda's time to die, I will absorb him as well."

"That pair is gonna give you a real distorted view
of what it's like to be human," he commented dryly. "Still, I suppose you have an almost infinite variety to choose from when you get the itch."

"That is a consideration. It must be voluntary, though, or there is much damage and it is not worth the effort. It would be nice at some point to get a worthy female, if only to broaden my outlook."

Sam didn't want to respond to that.

"Okay," he said at last, "having confirmed that you are who, or what, I suspected all along, let me follow it through. The thing that finally drove Pandross to merge with you was the grand plan. But you knew the grand plan wouldn't work. You'd had it run through you."

"It would have worked," the computer responded. "It simply would not have burned out any worlds. It would have followed the path of least resistance and scoured the Labyrinth all the way to its ends, ultimately erupting there, at the limits of construction, and doing some damage but not to anything close in or that we know now. The Company's world-destroyer system worked because they cut it off, terminated it at a given point, and gave the surge nowhere else to go but out. But it would have destroyed the Labyrinth, and totally cut the power. That was what I could not allow."

"Uh huh. So you set them up, and set
me
up as well. There were other sidings that would have worked, weren't there? But you kept coming up with figures mandating this one because you heeded a way to screw it."

"Guilty, to a degree. Their plan would have worked with alternatives. My plan would not. I needed just the right position to make certain it
sealed and shorted the Company world and did minimum damage to the Labyrinth itself. I also needed someone to do it for me, of course. I tried to see if I could do it on my own, but the security access system I deduced they would put into place after the initial raid prevented it. That meant that I had to make certain that you were not permanently injured, even killed, in the initial attack. That is why I put an operative in the raiding party-to save you, ironically."

He smiled at that and leaned back. "Yeah, and that's one of the open questions. Who the hell was that Pandross on the raid? A clone? And who was the Pandross killed at Tarn's?"

"I grew him out of the cells taken from the autopsy. Grew him and programmed him remotely. Alas, even I can not foresee everything. You were supposed to be home. Everything was predicated on that. But the unusual snowstorm blocked your scheduled return. All that care, all that concern, and I was thrown off by a storm. As you can see, even G.O.D. has limits."

"You
grew
him?" Sam was appalled. "Grew and
programmed
him?"

"You find a man merging, mating as it will, with a computer plausible enough to deduce it, yet you find making a duplicate of him hard to accept?"