Fool's War (51 page)

And she had thrown her one source of information off her ship.

 
Her eyes managed to focus on what was in front of her. She was in her own cabin. For a moment, she wondered how she’d gotten there.

“Intercom to Houston,” she said, sitting carefully down in her desk chair.

“Here,” his voice came back. “What’s the…”

She didn’t let him finish. “Lipinski, I need you to do a station search for me. I need you to find out where Evelyn Dobbs is. Right now, do you understand? Right now.”

“Aye-aye, Engine,” he answered. There was a puzzled note in his voice. “Are you…”

“Right now!” The force of her shout pulled her halfway out of her chair.

“Yes, Al Shei. Intercom to close.”

Al Shei collapsed back into the chair. Her shout was rang painfully in her ears.

With fumbling hands, she opened the drawer beside the desk and drew out the day book recorder. She touched the power key.

“Oh, Beloved, I’ve just heard what happened from ‘Qai,” she whispered into the mike. “I’m sure it’ll be all right. Uncle Ahmet is in Geneva and I’ll be on my way towards home tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be all right. I love you, Asil and when you hear this… “ her voice faltered. “When you hear this…”

Something inside her soul snapped in two. The recorder slipped from her fingers. It bounced gently against the floor before it came to rest at her feet. Al Shei dropped her head into her hands and, slowly, hoarsely, she began to cry.

Where are you, Beloved? WHERE ARE YOU!

Dobbs grazed against the sensor data from her body. She’d been in the network fourteen hours now and hadn’t felt a twinge. Her flesh-and-blood self lay naked on its bed, breathing, absorbing nutrients, and, despite being fed intravenously, probably needing to evacuate its bowels. Verence had promised to come by and show her how to use the waldos to attach the proper catheters so she wouldn’t end up with an ugly mess in case she wanted to get back inside the body.

For most of those fourteen hours Dobbs had been with Flemming, Curran and two others, named Tombe and Shiff. They had exchanged information on the bank network and looked for the most important junctions. Dobbs had suggested that, before the randomizer matrices were set off, they stage a guerilla raid on some of the main bank transmitters on the Earth’s surface. It would be risky because of the security and the diagnostics, but if only one or two AIs went in, and they moved quickly, maybe using viruses take out the diagnostics while they shredded the transmitter processes, it would be a crippling blow. If the Humans worked out that this was part of an organized attack, they would assume it was an attack against the actual transmission-reception hardware, not one against the data being transmitted. It would be that much longer before anyone looked for the true source of the chaos and got together diagnostic programs that had a chance of creating problems for the AIs.

In the meantime, the matrices seeded through the repeaters and receiving stations would grab hold of any monetary transactions passing through any point in the Solar System and toss them to the winds. The First Federated Bank would look at its accounts and find it had five pounds fifty to its name, while some backwater Australian would find she had 85 billion in assets. It would all change in five minutes time.

Curran had approved of her guerilla distraction and praised her. Shiff and Tombe had gone out to see what current information about the transmitters could be gathered, and Dobbs, feeling strangely indifferent, had come back to see how her body was doing.

“I thought you’d have at least a week to settle in.” Verence slipped up beside her. “I didn’t know we’d be making our move this soon.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Dobbs checked body’s heart rate. “You’d have said something.”

Verence rustled. “Are you all right, Dobbs? You’re not regretting joining us are you?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I just…” Words wouldn’t come. She reached into Verence and let her feel the doubts about the plan to attack the bank network. Did it have to be such wholesale destruction? Why couldn’t they just make a stand and send a message to someone? Say the Freers? Or, if they really needed to make an all-out declaration, the Management Union?

“Dobbs,” Verence pressed closer. Dobbs felt a warmth spread through her from Verence’s presence. There was security in being beside her. “Evelyn, we need to show them we’re strong. We need to show them that right away. If they don’t, they’ll attack. They’re afraid of us, Dobbs. You should know that as well anyone.”

“Yes, you’re right.” She organized herself and pulled out of the datastream. “And really, it’s good that it’s the bank network. I mean, it won’t create a life and death situation, like an attack on a colony network would, right?”

“Exactly.” For a moment, Verence felt just like Curran. “That’s one of the reasons we decided to hit the banks. It’s disruptive, but a bare minimum number of Humans will be put in actual danger. Besides, we’re not doing anything we can’t un-do. That’s part of the idea. As soon as they agree to deal, we’ll put everything back the way it was.”

“Right,” said Dobbs again. She shrugged herself and found she was drifting back towards the data stream for her body. “Verence…I think I want to go back in there for awhile.”

“I understand, believe me,” she said kindly. “I was in and out about fifty times my first week. Freedom takes some getting used to. Here.” She dipped into the datastream and Dobbs followed suit. Verence adjusted a pair of command sequences and the hypo-tipped waldo lifted away from Dobbs’ neck and swapped its cartridges.

 
“Stimulant,” said Verence as the waldo rested against Dobbs’ neck again. “You’ll be pulled back in a minute. The tech-talents are working on adjustable transceiver that can generate a recall condition without more chemicals. The tranq-stim cycles can get tough on the bodies.”

PING! The recall signal hit and Dobbs felt the insistent tug to return to the transceiver. She let herself slide down out of the network. A few moments later, she felt the weight of her chest against her lungs and could find her eyelids.

She opened her eyes. She felt good. Her body was all hers all at once. Whatever in that stimulant cartridge was effective stuff. The waldos pulled back from her and the whole rack of them retracted into the wall.

 
“Thanks, Verence.”

 
“You’re welcome,” came the easy response. “You’ve got business to take care of, I expect. I won’t look.”

“Thanks again.” Dobbs hopped off the bunk and sprinted for the toilet.

When she was finished, she found that the hamper attached to the wall beside the shower held an assortment of clean clothes. Dobbs selected a pearl grey tunic and black trousers and dressed herself. She wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t tired, but she was a little stiff.

“Would there be any problem with me taking a walk?” she asked as she returned to the cabin.

“None at all,” answered Verence. “But you should stay in the module. Tombe says someone’s been looking for you out in the station. Could be trouble.”

Could be.
Dobbs ran her hand through her hair. “All right. I’ll just mill around for a bit.”

Verence chuckled. “Have a good mill, Dobbs. I’ve got some work to do. Give a holler when you’re ready to come back in, all right?”

“All right.” Dobbs cycled back the cabin hatch and went out into the hallway.

Accompanied only by the sounds of smoothly operating machinery, Dobbs headed for the elevator bundle. The level she was berthed on was fairly near the bottom of the can. She hesitated at the stairway.

“Which way, Dobbs?” She drummed her fingers on the grooved ramp that occupied the space where a railing would normally go. “Up or down?”

As if in answer, a sharp buzz sounded behind her. Dobbs jumped sideways. A small, bullet shaped drone zipped up the ramp.

“Excuse me!” she exclaimed with a laugh.

 
“No problem,” said a stranger’s voice from the intercom.

Dobbs shook her head and rubbed the back of her neck. This was definitely going to take some getting used to.

“Okay, the omens say we go up.” Keeping her hands stuffed in her pockets, she started up the stairs, whistling loudly so that she wouldn’t have to think about how she wasn’t going to have time to get used to this. She understood what they were doing. It all made sense. With the Guild having gone crazy, and apparently having been crazy for a long, long time, there simply weren’t any other options.

 
But something way down inside of her was not convinced, and it would not stop nagging at her. The problem was, it wouldn’t speak up clearly either. Dobbs whistled more enthusiastically as she trotted up the steps.

It’ll pass. It’ll have to. I mean, I’ve got less than sixty hours left until the point of no return. If I haven’t already passed it, that is.

Her whistling was came out in fits and starts as her breath began to run short. This module was on the outer ring and it had very close to full gravity. Dobbs began to feel the fact that she hadn’t been exercising lately.

Should have just gone wandering around the net.
She spotted the little bullet-drone jacked into the wall and wondered what it was doing. Some kind of diagnostic maybe? What did it feel like to control one of those things? Would it be like having the module as a body? She’d never tried to send information directly out of the net before. She wasn’t sure she could even manage to get a voice out of one of the intercoms.

 
Her lungs began the tell-tale burn at each breath that meant “far enough.” Dobbs trudged up to the next landing and through the hatch. There weren’t any signs or markers at all, but she guessed she was on about level ten.

 
The drones were busy on this deck. Most of them were carts with four or more waldos trundling up and down the tracks on either side of the central walkway. Each one left a powerful scent of antiseptic in its wake.

Looks like I’ve found sick bay. She paused for a moment. What do they need a sick bay for around here? Verence said they’ve got medical waldos in every cabin.

Well, bodies had to be mended. Even Fools got sick and needed to be isolated, or got hurt and needed new limbs or organs from the bio-garden. Had they managed to smuggle in a set of vats for themselves?

A silver and white cart pulled up on Dobbs’ right and waited while the hatch cycled back to let it in. Dobbs automatically looked into the open cabin and she saw a double row of naked Human Beings wired to their monitor beds.

Dobbs stopped dead. The hatch began to cycle shut. Dobbs shook her head and jumped across the threshold.

I didn’t see this. I didn’t.
She found her balance, and looked up.

The drone had opened a supply cupboard and was unloading its supplies; gauze, cartridges, bulbs of clear liquids. In the main portion of the room, five men and five women, naked except for the wires and patches pressed against their skin, lay on monitor tables. They did not lie still. The teak-skinned man nearest to Dobbs raised his right arm over his head and lowered it again. The pale woman next to him lifted her left knee to her chin, lowered it, and lifted the right one. Their eyes were open and staring at nothing. The next man, a paunchy, gold-skinned person, spoke, slowly and deliberately in a tonal language Dobbs couldn’t understand.

All of them flexed one limb or another. All of them had their eyes open. All of them, from the number of wires and patches, were being closely monitored.

“What is this?” Dobbs finally managed to whisper. “Can anyone hear me? What is this?”

“Programming.” The voice belonged to Flemming. “What are you doing here, Dobbs?”

Dobbs swallowed hard. Her eyes felt twice their normal size. She couldn’t stop staring. She couldn’t even blink. “I was looking around. What do you mean programming?”

“We are using ‘white-noise’ techniques similar to what the Guild uses to prepare a vat-assembled body. The synapses of the bodies are over-stimulated with nonsense information, which erases any current bio-chemical alignments. Then, the channels are reconstructed under a template pattern to get them ready to receive AI commands.”

Dobbs wiped her forehead. I must be more on the edge than I thought. This is just the creche. Just like at Guild Hall. This is what I looked like after I was grown but before I was let inside.

 
The pale woman stopped her knee bends and raised her left arm until it pointed straight at the ceiling. Her hand dangled limp at the end of her wrist. She lowered the arm and repeated the motion with the right arm.

“We’re going to need hands and eyes among the humans for awhile yet,” Flemming went on, “and we don’t have facilities such as the Guild does to grow and assemble bodies…”

“You don’t…” Dobbs finally managed to tear her gaze away from the monitor beds. “These aren’t bio-garden constructs?”

She could feel each distinct heart beat as Flemming answered. “No, they are not.”

Dobbs swept her eyes across the room, watching in growing, disbelieving horror as the zombies continued their meaningless movements. “Tell me these were at least dead. Tell me you…we…raided the hospital morgue.”

“Decayed synapses are extremely difficult to re-establish.” Flemming sounded a little puzzled. “We don’t have the facilities…”