Ambient (33 page)

"Such as your wife?" Alice interrupted.

"Watch that-"

"Smooth remarks such as yours," she said to the Old Man,
interrupting him again, "bespeak a smooth brain."

"How smart is she?" I asked.

The Old Man shook his head, staring into her cool blue screen.
"Unlimited capacity."

"How is that possible?"

"With ease," said Alice.

"It isn't," said the Old Man. "Least it's not supposed to
be."

"Most things shouldn't be," she said. "Many things are."

"She would have to be feelin' feisty tonight," he said, more
to himself than to me; then he recalled where he was and began
to explain. "Hell, nobody's ever figured out how people think,
much less anything else. Alice, well . . . they didn't expect as much as they got. It's like once they put it all in, everything fell
into place on its own. Nobody believed she was doin' it at first.
Then she started hookin' herself into other networks. Started wri-
tin' her own programs. We'd hooked her into the Central Defense
computers to start with. That was a mistake. We couldn't turn
her off long enough to even see how she was doin' it without
zappin' the whole government. Didn't matter, 'cause by the third
day she'd built in overrides so we couldn't switch her off anyway. Now she can call up anything from any memory bank anywhere. She's got the things we put into her at the start, of course,
she's stuck with those. Everything since she took in by herself.
She was set up to be self-repairin' and she went us one better.
Makes her own chips. Subdivides 'em. Reconstructs 'em from
within, they think. Nobody knows for sure. Nobody has the faintest idea how she could have started up like this-"

"Advanced technology produces unexpected situations," she
said. "If I've told you that once I've told you a million-"

"Bitch wouldn't respond to anything we asked her for six months
after she went online," the Old Man continued. "Just churned
printouts every minute. We couldn't figure out what she was gettin' at, they were just rows and rows of numbers. . . . Then she
started talkin' without us askin' her anything first. You can imagine how we felt about that. She wouldn't do what we wanted for
a long time unless it'd been put in one of the original programs,
or unless she wanted to do it, too. If she didn't want to answer
us, or wanted to avoid givin' us straight talk, she'd respond only
in Latin. E knows where she picked that up. We didn't know
what the fuck she was sayin'. Priests weren't any help, they don't
know anything anymore but their spiel. We found an old classics
professor in Boston finally who understood it as well as she did.
He died last month. She's back to normal now."

"Cave canem," she said. "Don't refer to me as bitch again."

"We decided after a time that we didn't want to shut her off,
after all-"

"One makes no decisions," Alice remarked, "if one has no
choices. Right, Seamus?"

I didn't know whether to reply, or nod, or what; I did nothing
but listen.

"She's got a mind of her own all right," said the Old Man.
"She can be one fuck of an awful pain in the ass. She makes
herself useful, just the same. What we wanted her to do, she
does. And she does a lot more than just that. She does a lot of
things for us."

"Such as?"

"Let me ask her a few questions. You'll see what I mean-"

"I'm not so sure that Seamus doesn't believe that I'm not one
of your more concrete delusions," said Alice. "Let him ask me
his own questions. A book's cover doesn't speak. Let me shake
peace from restless minds."

"I don't see any need for that, Alice."

"You've never seen so well as you should."

"All right," the Old Man groaned, as if aware that an argument would be fruitless. "I think she must like you, O'Malley.
You're lucky, I guess. Hold on a minute, then. Alice.
EE3440923TDG. " He waited a minute or so; if she gave him
any sign, it was visible only to his eyes and not to mine. "Ask
her something," he said. "You're cleared."

"What should I ask her?"

"Ask her anything and she'll tell you."

"Anything?"

"Some things she won't tell you. Keep that in mind. For instance, she doesn't know when E is goin' to come back-"

"Because he's not," she said, sounding cheerfully definitive.

"But ask her anything else that should have been on record
somewhere. Anything that was put on file or on tape or on disk.
Ask her why the sun sets in the west. How many men were lost
at Gettysburg. What your mother's favorite color was. Where you were when you first got laid. She'll tell you. She can show
you, too."

"How?"

"Same way as usual," he said. "Just in better tune. Go on,
she won't bite. Ask her anything."

I turned toward her screen, looking at it in the event that visual
contact was necessary.

"Alice?" I asked.

"Yes, Seamus?" she asked. "Are you wondering what to put
to me? I suppose you're not interested in any of the subjects to
which he referred. What would you like to know, and would you
like to see it?"

"I would," I said, deciding to hold off on asking the question
I most wanted answered; estimating to take my others in sequence, and so discover-if she was so able as claimed-the truth,
or the fact, regarding things I was curious about before anything
untoward prevented me from ever finding out. "What was Avalon like when she was a little girl?"

"Forewarned," said Alice. "The past responds."

A gentle purring, as if from a cat, came from within her frame,
falling silent after a few seconds. She beeped. As I watched, an
image coalesced upon her screen; color lines flashed from left to
right repeatedly, a hundred times a second. In moments a picture
formed. Only one thing assured me that the scene I saw was but
a generated image, and that was the fact that I had just watched
it being constructed.

It was a street scene, somewhere in Inwood, and from about
the time that I began working for Mister Dryden. A cluster of
children were playing near an abandoned car, hugging the curb
to avoid being taken by any drivers in the street. Looking quickly
behind me, I saw Avalon, still there behind the one-way glass.
When I turned again to Alice's screen, I saw Avalon againeight or nine years old, eyes glinting, with long legs like hoodoo bones; no less beautiful then than she was on this day. In a flurry
of bright jackets she and the other little girls in the group leapt
up, scurrying down an alley running between two boarded-up
shops, their bare feet kissing the pavement. There was a haphazard courtyard at the end of the alley; on an old mattress a boy and
girl fornicated. Avalon and her friends ducked behind trash cans
and watched, holding their hands to their mouths to keep their
giggles imprisoned. I kept in mind that within three years of this
she'd be working as a lala. After so long Avalon picked up a
brick lying nearby and heaved it over, striking the boy in the
backside. The couple broke apart, jumping up; they were about
the same age as the others. Somehow I knew that the interrupted
female lover was Crazy Lola. Before she and her lover could go
after them Avalon and her buddies were off and gone.

"How are you able to do this?" I asked Alice as her screen
faded again into blue.

"It's a very simple procedure, no matter how flashy it seems.
Something about everything exists somewhere. Having gathered
it together I can call it at will and develop a suitable interpolation. "

"How accurate would you say it is?"

"Up to 96 percent verifiable."

"Yeah, fine," said the Old Man. "Ask her somethin' better,
O'Malley. Somethin' you've always wanted to know the answer
to.

"How'd he kill his wife?" I asked, gesturing toward the Old
Man; he looked as if he were a child, and someone had stolen his
morning cereal. He stepped forward, as if to prevent me from
seeing the answer.

"Why do you want to ask a question like that-"

"I know that's true," I said. "I'm curious how and why."

"You won't find out why," he said. "And I'm not sure-"

"You said he could ask," said Alice. "He asked. I show."

A new image formed on the screen as we watched. Susie D's bedroom, closed since her death, showed itself; in the background were her immense closets in which she kept limitless variants of the same jumpsuits in a rainbow of hues. Her vanity's
chair was placed in the center of the room; she sat there, tied to
it, her arms and legs bound, her mouth gagged. The Old Man
stood immediately to her right. To judge from the illumination in
the room I suspected that it was late at night, as it would have
been. The Old Man and Susie D were not the only people in the
room; Scooter was there, his arms clamped around Mister Dryden to keep him from slumping. He kicked and fought to loose
himself, but there wasn't a chance of that. As he watched, the
Old Man lifted a baseball bat and beat his wife to death. Mister
Dryden fainted. The screen faded to blue.

"What was, is," said Alice. "And will be."

The Old Man had turned away from us, and I believed I saw
his shoulders shake, as if some sort of mood passed over him.

"No wonder he went the way he did," I said, thinking of
Mister Dryden being held there as his mother's brain spattered
his suit. "Why'd you make him watch?"

"I told her not to go any further with it, and she wanted to,"
he said. "So I wanted to make sure he wouldn't get any funny
ideas in his head."

"I don't think it worked," I said.

"I don't, either," he sighed, turning around; his face betrayed
no emotion with which I was unfamiliar. "Come on, O'Malley.
I had to do it. I can't say why. What's done is done. Ask your
damn questions if you've got any more."

"I do have another question, Alice," I said; the Old Man looked
at me, but I wasn't going to ask what he thought I might ask. It
wasn't time.

"Yes, Seamus?"

"What happened to my father?"

"The past responds, Seamus."

There was my father, fresh from all the years, walking down First Avenue, keeping to curbside. An odd glow diffused the scene,
and for a second I wondered why all appeared so strange; I realized that there'd been streetlights there, in those days, and that
they lit the broken walks. The street was crowded; every store
was closed. Alice had even the forgotten details exact: the thinner
texture of the air's haziness; the shiny gleam of cars around even
today, but long since dulled. My father passed a group of children playing with a peculiar little gadget; I remembered owning
one, but couldn't recall the brand name, or how you put it together once you'd taken it apart. It was all interpolation, I knew,
but so true was its accuracy that I felt cool fingers brush my
neck's nape as I watched. A dark car pulled alongside my father;
a man leapt out, grabbed him, and pulled him inside. The car
drove off. The screen darkened black, and then rinsed over in
pale blue.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Alice.

"Who picked him up?"

"I don't know."

"Why did they pick him up?"

"I know of no reason. "

"Is he still alive?"

"I don't know," she said. "I'm sorry, Seamus."

"I thought you could tell me anything."

"To a point," she said. "But if the information is not there
then I have no way of obtaining it."

"Seem to do fairly well with most things-"

"Think of me as a mirror, Seamus," she said. "When you
aren't looking into it, what does it reflect? Over what I see I have
no greater control. "

Her purring was the only sound, just then.

"Have you other questions for me?"

"Not now."

"Let's get along here, then," said the Old Man, turning toward
her. "Time you saw what else she can do."

"What's that?"

"Like I told you, we needed an overseer down here," he said,
and that's the job most applicable in the present situation."

"She runs the whole Tombs?"

"Indirectly. Wonderland, though, is all hers. She even named
it. Isn't that right, Alice?"

"I am responsible for daily treatment and for objective development in this division. Little of my time is truly devoted to this
area. It is, however, all that most tend to see."

"She's a helluva lot more effective here than any human manager would be," the Old Man said. "The average person just
wouldn't be able to do the job. Or else they'd be like Jake, and
have too much fun doin' it-"

"What do you mean effective?"

"Alice. Show him what you can do."

"If you insist," she said. "Would there be a preference as to
case?"

"Pick three at random," he said. "That'll do."

A light on her keyboard flashed, so pure and orange as the
moon. "George?" she asked her unseen compatriot, "would you
bring out Mister Blaicek?"

One of the doors opened; someone-George, I supposed-led
out a giant. Basketball players averaged eight feet in the pro
leagues; this fellow had an additional foot of altitude. Mister
Blaicek's hands were knobby and swollen; in evident pain he
shuffled along the floor, supported by two canes longer than I
was tall. His head's circumference was greater than my waist's;
his forehead and cheekbones had so overgrown as to effectively
blind him. His jaws were massive; he could have crushed bricks
between them if he'd had the strength, and if his teeth hadn't
fallen out.

"The visual around here call it the Frankenstein syndrome,"
she said, "though more often that phrase is applied to me. Mister
Blaicek's condition is simple advanced acromegaly. Easy to produce by using Human Growth Hormone 3, extracted from spare
pituitary glands."

"You did this deliberately?"

"Why else?"

A tremendous groan rumbled in his lungs, as if gravity would
fell him where he stood.

"An amount of HGH-3 infused daily brings these results in no
time," Alice continued. "If our problem people are physically
overactive, this provides an undeniable urge for docility. Thank
you, George. Bring out our friend in Room 612."