Disclosure: A Novel (42 page)

He put on the headset.

Sanders saw the blue screen, surrounded by blackness. He looked to his left and saw Fernandez standing beside him. She looked entirely normal, dressed in her street clothes.

The video was recording her appearance, and the computer eliminated the walker pad and the headset.

"I can see you," she said, in a surprised voice. She smiled. The part of her face covered by the headset was computer animated, giving her a slightly unreal, cartoonlike quality.

"Walk up to the screen."

"How?"

`Just walk, Louise." Sanders started forward on the walker pad. The blue screen became larger and larger, until it filled his field of vision. He went over to the ON button, and pushed it with his finger.

The blue screen flashed. In huge lettering, stretching wide in front of them, it said: DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS DATA SYSTEMS

Beneath that was listed a column of oversize menu items. The screen looked exactly like an ordinary DigiCom monitor screen, the kind on everybody's office desk, now blown up to enormous size.

"A gigantic computer terminal," Fernandez said. "Wonderful. Just what everybody has been hoping for."

“Just wait." Sanders poked at the screen, selecting menu items. There was a kind of whoosh and the lettering on the screen curved inward, pulling back and deepening until it formed a sort of funnel that stretched away from them into the distance. Fernandez was silent.

That shut her up, he thought.

Now, as they watched, the blue funnel began to distort. It widened, became rectangular.

The lettering and the blue color faded. Beneath his feet, a floor emerged. It looked like veined marble. The walls on both sides became wood paneling. The ceiling was white.

"It's a corridor," she said, in a soft voice.

The Corridor continued to build itself, progressively adding more detail. Drawers and cabinets appeared in the walls. Pillars formed along its length. Other hallways opened up, leading down to other corridors. Large light fixtures emerged from the walls and turned themselves on. Now the pillars cast shadows on the marble floors.

"It's like a library," she said. "An old-fashioned library."

"This part is, yes."

"How many parts are there?"

"I'm not sure." He started walking forward.

She hurried to catch up to him. Through his earphones, he heard the sound of their feet clicking on the marble floor. Cherry had added that-a nice touch.

Fernandez asked, "Have you been here before?"

"Not for several weeks. Not since it was finished."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm not exactly sure. But somewhere in here there's a way to get into the Conley-White database."

She said, "Where are we now?"

"We're in data, Louise. This is all just data."

"This corridor is data?"

"There is no corridor. Everything you see is just a bunch of numbers. It's the DigiCom company database, exactly the same database that people access every day through their computer terminals. Except it's being represented for us as a place."

She walked alongside him. "I wonder who did the decorating."

"It's modeled on a real library. In Oxford, I think."

They came to the junction, with other corridors stretching away. Big signs hung overhead.

One said "Accounting." Another said "Human Resources." A third said "Marketing."

"I see," Fernandez said. "We're inside your company database."

"That's right."

"This is amazing."

"Yeah. Except we don't want to be here. Somehow, we have to get into Conley-White."

"How do we do that?"

"I don't know," Sanders said. "I need help."

"Help is here," said a soft voice nearby. Sanders looked over and saw an angel, about a foot high. It was white, and hovered in the air near his head. It held a flickering candle in its hands.

"Goddamn," Louise said.

"1 am sorry," the angel said. "Is that a command? I do not recognizèGoddamn.' "

"No," Sanders said quickly. "It's not a command." He was thinking that he would have to be careful or they would crash the system.

"Very well. I await your command."

"Angel: I need help."

"Help is here."

"How do I enter the Conley-White database?"

"I do not recognizèthe Conley-White database.' "

That made sense, Sanders thought. Cherry's team wouldn't have programmed anything about Conley-White into the Help system. He would have to phrase the question more generally. Sanders said, "Angel: I am looking for a database."

"Very well. Database gateways are accessed with the keypad."

"Where is the keypad?" Sanders said.

"Make a fist with your hand."

Sanders made a fist and a gray pad formed in the air so that he appeared to be holding it.

He pulled it toward him and looked at it.

"Pretty neat," Fernandez said.

"I also know jokes," the angel said. "Would you like to hear one?" "No," Sanders said.

"Very well. I await your command."

Sanders stared at the pad. It had a long list of operator commands, with arrows and push buttons. Fernandez said, "What is that, the world's most complicated TV remote?"

`Just about."

He found a push button marked OTHER 1311. That seemed likely. He pressed it.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again.

"The gateway is opening," the angel announced.

"Where? I don't see anything."

"The gateway is opening."

Sanders waited. Then he realized that the DigiCom system would have to connect to any remote database. The connection was going through; that was causing a delay.

"Connecting . . . now," the angel said.

The wall of the Corridor began to dissolve. They saw a large gaping black hole, and nothing beyond it.

"That's creepy," Fernandez said.

White wire-frame lines began to appear, outlining a new corridor. The spaces filled, one by one, creating the appearance of solid shapes.

"This one looks different," Fernandez said.

"We're connecting over a T-1 high-speed data line," Sanders said. "But even so, it's much slower."

The Corridor rebuilt itself as they watched. This time the walls were gray. They faced a black-and-white world.

"No color?"

"The system's trying to generate a simpler environment. Color means more data to push around. So this is black and white."

The new corridor added lights, a ceiling, a floor. After a moment, Sanders said, "Shall we go in?"

"You mean, the Conley-White database is in there?"

"That's right," Sanders said.

"I don't know," she said. She pointed: "What about this?"

Directly in front of them was a kind of flowing river of black-and white static. It ran along the floor, and also along the walls. It made a loud hissing sound.

"I think that's just static off the phone lines."

"You think it's okay to cross?"

"We have to."

He started forward. Immediately, there was a growl. A large dog blocked their path. It had three heads that floated above its body, looking in all directions.

"What's that?"

"Probably a representation of their system security." Cherry and his sense of humor, he thought.

"Can it hurt us?"

"For God's sake, Louise. It's just a cartoon." Somewhere, of course, there was an actual monitoring system running on the Conley-White database. Perhaps it was automatic, or perhaps there was a real person who actually watched users come and go on the system.

But now it was nearly one o'clock in the morning in New York. The dog was most likely just an automatic device of some kind.

Sanders walked forward, stepping through the flowing river of static. The dog growled as he approached. The three heads swiveled, watching him as he passed with cartoon eyes.

It was a strange sensation. But nothing happened.

He looked back at Fernandez. "Coming?"

She moved forward tentatively. The angel remained behind, hovering in the air.

"Angel, are you coming?"

It didn't answer.

"Probably can't cross a gateway," Sanders said. "Not programmed."

They walked down the gray corridor. It was lined with unmarked drawers on all sides.

"It looks like a morgue," Fernandez said.

"Well, at least we're here."

"This is their company database in New York?"

"Yes. I just hope we can find it."

"Find what?"

He didn't answer her. He walked over to one file cabinet at random and pulled it open. He scanned the folders.

"Building permits," he said. "For some warehouse in Maryland, looks like."

"Why aren't there labels?"

Even as she said it, Sanders saw that labels were slowly emerging out of the gray surfaces.

"I guess it just takes time." Sanders turned and looked in all directions, scanning the other labels. "Okay. That's better. HR records are on this wall, over here."

He walked along the wall. He pulled open a drawer.

"Uh-oh," Fernandez said.

"What?"

"Somebody's coming," she said, in an odd voice.

At the far end of the corridor, a gray figure was approaching. It was still too distant to make out details. But it was striding directly toward them.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know," Sanders said.

"Can he see us?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"We can see him, but he can't see us?"

"I don't know." Sanders was trying to figure it out. Cherry had installed another virtual system in the hotel. If someone was on that system, then he or she could probably see them. But Cherry had said that his system represented other users as well, such as somebody accessing the database from a computer. And somebody using a computer wouldn't be able to see them. A computer user wouldn't know who else was in the system.

The figure continued to advance. It seemed to come forward in jerks, not smoothly. They saw more detail; they could start to see eyes, a nose, a mouth.

"This is really creepy," Fernandez said.

The figure was still closer. The details were filling in.

"No kidding," Sanders said.

It was Ed Nichols.

Up close, they saw that Nichols's face was represented by a black and-white photograph wrapped crudely around an egg-shaped head, atop a gray moving body that had the appearance of a mannequin or a puppet. It was a computer-generated figure. Which meant that Nichols wasn't on the virtual system. He was probably using his notebook computer in his hotel room. Nichols walked up to them and continued steadily past them.

"He can't see us."

Fernandez said, "Why does his face look that way?"

"Cherry said that the system pulls a photo from the file and pastes it on users."

The Nichols-figure continued on walking down the corridor, away from them.

"What's he doing here?"

"Let's find out."

They followed him back down the corridor until Nichols stopped at one file cabinet. He pulled it open and began to go through the records. Sanders and Fernandez came up and stood by his shoulder, and watched what he was doing.

The computer-generated figure of Ed Nichols was thumbing through his notes and e-mail.

He went back two months, then three months, then six months. Now he began to pull out sheets of paper, which seemed to hang in the air as he read them. Memos. Notations.

Personal and Confidential. Copies to File.

Sanders said, "These are all about the acquisition."

More notes came out. Nichols was pulling them quickly, one after another.

"He's looking for something specific."

Nichols stopped. He had found what he was looking for. His gray computer image held it in his hand and looked at it. Sanders read it over his shoulder, and said certain phrases aloud to Fernandez: "Memo dated December 4, last year. `Met yesterday and today with Garvin and Johnson in Cupertino re possible acquisition of DigiCom . . .' bla bla . . .

`Very favorable first impression . . . Excellent grounding in critical areas we seek to acquire . . .' bla bla . . . `Highly capable and aggressive executive staff at all levels.

Particularly impressed with competence of Ms. Johnson despite youth.' I'll bet you were impressed, Ed."

The computer-generated Nichols moved down the hall to another drawer and opened it.

He didn't find what he wanted and closed it. He went on to another drawer.

Then he began reading again, and Sanders read this one, too: " `Memo to John Marden.

Cost issues re DigiCom acquisition' . . . bla bla . . . `Concern for high-technology development costs in new company' . . . bla bla . . . Here we are. `Ms. Johnson has undertaken to demonstrate her fiscal responsibility in new Malaysia operation . . .

Suggests savings can be made . . . Expected cost savings . . .' How the hell could she do that?"

"Do what?" Fernandez said.

"Demonstrate fiscal responsibility in the Malaysia operation? That was my operation."

"Uh-oh," Fernandez said. "You're not going to believe this."

Sanders glanced over at her. Fernandez was staring down the corridor. He turned to look.

Someone else was coming toward them.

"Busy night," he said.

But even from a distance, he could see that this figure was different. The head was more lifelike, and the body was fully detailed. The figure walked smoothly, naturally. "This could be trouble," he said. Sanders recognized him, even from a distance.

"It's John Conley," Fernandez said.

"Right. And he's on the walker pad."

"Which means?"

Conley abruptly stopped in the middle of the corridor, and stared. "He can see us,"

Sanders said.

"He can? How?"

"He's on the system we installed in the hotel. That's why he's so detailed. He's on the other virtual system, so he can see us, and we can see him."

"Uh-oh."

"You said it."

Conley moved forward, slowly. He was frowning. He looked from Sanders to Fernandez to Nichols and back to Sanders. He seemed uncertain what to do.

Then he held his finger to his lips, a gesture for silence.