Savant (14 page)

Tobe stood up, lifting his robe off over his head as he made his way to the bathroom. He dropped the robe on the floor, carried out his ablutions, and walked back to his room, naked, less than five minutes later. Ten minutes after that, Tobe was asleep.

Metoo waited for a further ten minutes, steadying her nerves for what was to come.

A tone sounded in the flat.

Metoo signed in to Service.

“Yes,” she said.

“Operator Saintout will speak to you, now.”

“Does he have a Medtech with him?”

“He does. All of your questions will be answered.”

Metoo signed out of Service, and walked to the garden room door. She took two deep breaths, and smoothed down the front of her robe. Her hands were still and dry, and her skin felt cool. She dropped her shoulders, took hold of the door knob and entered the room.

She stood with her back to the door, as she had several times during the day, so that she could hear Tobe, and respond if necessary, and so that she could escape if she wanted to. Saintout took a couple of paces towards Metoo, and smiled at her.

“What do you need to know?” he asked.

“What will they be able to read in my mind?” Metoo asked.

“That isn’t the point of the exercise.”

“Never-the-less.”

“Theoretically?”

“Theoretically.”

“More or less, whatever they want to read,” said Saintout, “but, I repeat, that is not the purpose of the exercise.”

“What is the purpose of the exercise?”

“It was your idea. In fact, I seem to remember that you insisted on this as the best, if not only, course of action. We don’t need you to sanction anything, you realise that?”

“Of course I do,” said Metoo, resigned.

“We are trying this as a first step,” said Saintout. “Service Central is unconvinced.”

“But they sanctioned this,” said Metoo, frowning.

“I’ve said too much.”

“Service Central told me that you would answer all of my questions.”

“I believe that Service Central told you that all your questions would be answered, I don’t recall any mention of who would furnish those answers,” said a voice to Metoo’s left.

She had seen the woman, bending over a collapsible, stainless steel table, setting out instruments, had recognised her as Medtech from her overalls, but had, otherwise, disregarded her presence. She had dealt with Saintout throughout her ordeal, and it was him she turned to, now.

The woman from Medtech gestured to Saintout. He stood in front of Metoo for a moment longer, and then reached out, and touched the top of her arm with his open palm, very lightly.

“I don’t have clearance,” he said, “and I’m all out of liberty. I have to go, now.”

“I’ll order specified clearance, through Service Central,” said Metoo, but she knew she was grasping at straws. She clasped her hands lightly together in front of her, and said, “Don’t go far, okay?”

“I won’t,” said Saintout. He turned his back on her, opened the large, south-facing window, onto darkness, stepped onto the ledge with his right foot, and out into the garden with his left. The window closed behind him.

“Questions?” asked the woman from Medtech.

“What’s your name?” asked Metoo.

“Wooh. Doctor Wooh. The procedure is very simple. I need to locate the atlanto-occipital joint, and insert the chip. I will immobilise your neck for a few moments, while I’m doing the procedure, but it shouldn’t be painful, and we should have immediate results.”

Wooh gestured at the instruments on the tray table beside her, and picked up a device that looked like a pen.

“This is the only instrument I should require. I keep the others on hand, merely as a precaution. If I can’t gain access to the joint in the cervical vertebra, we might need to use a light anaesthetic, and make a small incision, but there won’t be any scarring.”

“Apart from the emotional kind,” said Metoo, tersely. She didn’t like this woman, and she didn’t like what was being done to her.

“I assure you, I won’t allow you to be in any pain.”

“I don’t care about pain. This isn’t about pain. Pain, Doctor Wooh, is the least of my worries.

“The procedure will no doubt be exactly as you describe, but I have questions before you start immobilising me and sticking things in the back of my neck; I take it that’s what you mean by atlanto-occipital joint?”

Wooh looked at Metoo, caught entirely off-guard. Most of her patients, in the past, had been eager Students having adjustments to their chips; Service advised that Medtech should continue to use doctors and medical professionals to perform the task, because it seemed to reassure the kids, even though there was generally no reason why the adjustment couldn’t be made remotely. Wooh wasn’t used to patients that talked back, and she had never inserted a chip into a patient more than a year old. In fact, Doctor Wooh hadn’t inserted a chip in anyone for ten years, or made an adjustment for that matter, outside of her lab, but she was the superior on duty in Medtech, and she outranked the superior on duty at the infirmary, so it had fallen to her to do the procedure. Her clearance was among the highest, in College, and she outranked Saintout by several levels.

Saintout had been given specified clearance for some of the information that Metoo would need to know, because Service Central realised that she had begun to trust him during their day together. It was up to Wooh to deliver the rest of the information, and she didn’t relish the prospect.

“Let’s sit, shall we?” she asked, gesturing towards a chair.

“I need to be close to Tobe,” said Metoo, “in case he needs me.”

“That, I can help you with.” Wooh produced a headset, identical, in appearance, to the ones worn by Operators on the Service floor, and handed it to Metoo.

“You can wear this,” she said. “Put it on. It’s tuned to Master Tobe’s wavelength, so that you can monitor his activity, remotely. If he should wake up, you’ll know about it before he does.”

Metoo looked at the contraption in her hands.

“I can see and hear Tobe through this?”

“No. We avoid invading anyone’s privacy; in fact, there are laws against it. We can only monitor basic brain activity with this type of headset. You don’t have –”

“The necessary clearance,” Metoo said, cutting Wooh off.

“Visual and Audio are available to higher ranking Service Floor Operators,” Wooh continued, “but if you put the headset on, and tell me what you see, I can guide you through it.”

“And I just have to take your word for it?” asked Metoo.

“I’m afraid that’s all you have,” said Wooh. “I should also warn you that a lot of people find this a deeply unsettling experience, the first time around, so if it becomes too much for you, let me know, and we’ll take it off.”

Metoo slipped on the monitor, which sat high on her head. A bead extended down from it, which she inserted into her ear, and then she pulled down the screen in front of her eyes. All she could see was a swirling mass of yellow threads, which appeared to be throbbing slightly, and all she could hear was a soft, low tone, which had a lilt to it.

“What can you see?” asked Wooh.

“A ball of yellow, stringy lights,” said Metoo.

“And hear?”

“It’s like someone humming. It’s almost like a lullaby.”

“Good. The lights will probably stay yellow, but that’s not what you’re interested in. You need to look out for changes in individual strands, which might show up brighter or duller than the rest, or the pulsing that you can see... Can you see pulsing?”

“Yes, a little.”

“Okay, good. You want to watch out for the pulsing getting faster, or for different areas pulsing at different rates.”

“And the sound?”

“Listen for changes. Lower in pitch and slower ululations means he’s more relaxed, and faster and higher means he’s more active. From what you describe, he’s obviously sleeping soundly at the moment. Let me know if things change, or if you’re worried.”

“Okay,” said Metoo.

“Just one other thing,” she said, after watching and listening for a minute. “The outcome of all this could change my status with Tobe, couldn’t it?”

“It could,” said Wooh, “and it probably will.”

“I thought so.”

“Are you ready?”

Metoo kept watching and listening, engrossed in the experience. She began to say something, but thought better of it. After tomorrow, she might never be so close to Tobe again, and she was determined to enjoy these last peaceful moments.

She breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling to the pulse of the light-threads and the lilt of the hum.

“As I’ll ever be,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“I
F WE ASSUME
that everyone who had direct contact with the room, and/or the data, is contaminated, what are the parameters for containment?” asked Control Operator Branting.

“We need to work out a safe zone,” said Mr Johnson, “to include Companions and Assistants of the five Masters.”

“What about Students?” asked Miss Goldstein. “Some of them would certainly be susceptible, if we include persons with similar mental acuity or personality types.”

“What about maintenance personnel?” someone else asked.

“By which you mean what?” asked Mr Johnson. “Cleaners? Technicians? Ground crew?”

“We should put a ring between those directly in contact with the data, and the people who have come into contact with them since. We should be able to trace their activities, but let’s hope they didn’t do too much socialising in the last couple of days.”

“Medtech should be isolated too,” said Miss Goldstein. “We’ll put a ring around them. They can work with the subjects in isolation, but once we’ve established the team, no one goes in or out.”

“One of the subjects, the Student, was also interviewed, so anyone in the interview room should be taken to Medtech, and their contacts monitored,” said the neuroscientist.

“This thing is growing fast,” said Branting. “Let’s begin with a curfew, and keep everyone where they are. We can call people to Medtech as we need them, and give them Service escorts.”

“What about the Schools?” asked the viral specialist, whose name was Nowak.

“We should isolate them, immediately,” said Branting, gesturing to Qa. “See to it.

“It is unlikely that there has been any contact between the Schools and any of the subjects, but we’ll cross-check, and isolate any Students and Seniors who have come into contact with any of the subjects. The numbers will be small to none.”

Qa returned before Branting had a chance to pursue his thought any further. He put a finger up in front of his chest in the smallest of gestures.

“If you would excuse us, ladies and gentlemen,” said Branting.

Chairs scraped back, and the dozen men and women that had been sitting around the table, filed out of the room.

Branting turned to the console in an alcove close to the door. He sat down, keyed in his Morse signature, and followed it with the letters C-Q-D. He pulled in his chair, and put on a headset as the screen came to life.

Five minutes later, Branting signed out of Service Global, and gestured to Qa to bring his advisors back into the room.

Once they were all seated, Branting got to his feet.

“We have a problem,” said Branting. Some of the advisors present looked at each other. How could their problem possibly be any worse than it was five minutes ago? “The mini-print slot system is not secure.”

“No, sir, it isn’t,” said Mr Ahmed, “not locally, and not globally. It is intended as a medium for the free exchange of ideas, and so, anyone can access anything.”

“Precisely,” said Branting.

“The mini-print was used to distribute Master Tobe’s data?” asked Mr Ahmed, his skin turning a pale, ashen colour. He clenched his teeth together, so that the muscles under the sharp cheeks on his gaunt face tensed, visibly. Mr Ahmed thought he was going to vomit, and he fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief to catch it in. He gagged slightly and swallowed hard, the bulge in his neck bobbing alarmingly.

“So, isolation plans are pointless?” asked the neuroscientist.

“Probably,” said Branting. “Anyone tuned in to a mathematics-based channel, or even the news, could fall prey to whatever is causing these problems. We will continue with quarantine procedures at the Colleges, but we must remember that we’re casting a net, rather than locking anything down.

“What’s our legal position, Schmidt?” Branting asked, turning to the man at the far end of the table, who had not yet spoken.

“It’s a civil liberties issue,” said Schmidt. “I know that you know this, but, for the record, ‘Neither Service Central, nor Service Global is empowered to censor, interpret, interrupt or remove any intellectual property made freely available by any Drafted member or by any Civilian’.”

“Where do we stand on interpretation of the law?” asked Branting.

“We can’t do it. I just quoted the first sentence of a three hundred page document. This thing has been around for as long as Service has, and no one gets to mess with it.”

“Are there no extenuating circumstances?”

“Extenuating circumstances would have to be fought in the courts at the global level,” said Schmidt. “It’s do-able, but, I fear that it’s grossly too late for this event.”