04. Birth of Flux and Anchor (46 page)

They were finally off for the full day's ride to the Gate, with a complete Signals escort. The reached the Gate itself long after dark, but Suzuki and her own people who would actually go in wanted to enter in the middle of the night, when the administration building itself would be pretty well dark.

Coydt did not tell Ryan or even her own people how she was going to bypass the supposedly foolproof security system leading from the dish to the transmission line down the tunnel, but she went first and had no problems, and the worst thing the others received going down the tube was a very bad attack of nerves.

Suzuki went first, activating the transmission key and being digitized and transmitted at the speed of light to the basement of Anchor X-ray's administration building.

The area was well lit when the psychiatrist stepped off the terminal plate, and a number of robed and hooded figures stood there as if they were expecting her. One of them stepped forward and threw back her hood.

"Patricia!" Suzy Watanabe exclaimed, coming forward and hugging and kissing the psychiatrist. Then she stepped back. "Oh, you look
wonderful
!
Any problems?"

"No. The worst thing was all that time on a horse. I'll ache for years from it. Nobody ever expected that bastard to turn off the transport power."

"I have massage treatments that are out of this world! We'll get you normal again in no time. And we'll fire up those transports again in a few months, I promise you!"

The rest of the infiltration team arrived, one by one, and none of them seemed any more surprised at being met than had Suzuki.

"That's all of them," the psychiatrist said at last. "Some of the finest computer minds short of your own."

"We will need them. And Coydt?"

"Why, she's the boss, sitting back there and running the show, of course!" Suzuki replied with a broad wink.

They both broke into gales of laughter. Finally, Watanabe said, "Come. Up the back way to my old offices. The military made a mess of them, but it's better comfort than here. We have much to talk about."

When one has gotten used to wishing and having one's wishes fulfilled, it is very difficult to have to go into a piece of complex machinery with a set of tools. Toby Haller and five other computer engineers had been working almost constantly on the big amp for weeks now, but to no avail. They had practically taken it down to the bare remote computer—a shockingly small cube perhaps two meters square—and built it back up again. They had determined that the circuitry was live, but the contact point was simply being shut out. There was nothing wrong with the big amp except that it was being ignored.

In the meantime, the evacuation of the small colony of Sensitives was under way, first to pre-prepared pockets close by, later to God knew where, but at least out of range of this madness. It had not been without incident. Right now, much of the place was a ghost village, as Anchor Guard forces, very ably commanded, had moved in and surrounded the area. Right now it was a stalemate, although shots had been exchanged and some of the troops on both sides had died.

It was a totally discouraged and disheartened Haller who reported the bad news to Lisa Wu.

The director seemed almost preoccupied. "If we can't hold at least one Anchor against this, it's all over," she told him. "That was our only hope. It looks like Coydt and Ryan have accepted the inevitable as well. I get a real funny feeling talking to their headquarters."

"What do you mean?" he asked her.

"I've never trusted Coydt or her people. They always see human lives as toys or things to alter or push around to suit their needs. Why did she try to resurrect Watanabe in the first place? What made her even
think
she could do it? Ever wonder about that? Ever wonder how all these miracle programs just happened to be there and available as needed? You of all people should know what it would take to program that kind of operation. The only way she could have pulled it off is because she knew beforehand that it would work. Knew because she had the programs on tap and her scientists had done it before, up on her orbiting headquarters."

"Go on. I've thought a little about this myself, but nobody else ever talked about it before."

"She had Watanabe exclusively on that orbital station for six months. Sure, they didn't have the level of sophistication and fine tuning that they managed eventually here in their Special Project section, but they had a lot of knowledge even then, and all the tools of psychotherapy at their command, yet we're asked to believe that all they did was turn Watanabe around by giving her a will to live and curing some social hangups. I think that's bullshit. I always thought it was. They
re-created
Watanabe there, Toby. She was their ultimate experiment. To retain all that genius and that force of will while making her their creature. They created this mad monster so that they and they alone would be in control of the real powers of the 7800 series. They needed her unique genius and they needed her believable enough that she'd retain a position of authority and leadership. You couldn't
piss
within any place having access to a 7800 without Security knowing about it and even measuring and recording the urine flow and analyzing its chemical contents. She
couldn't
have put something this monstrous over on them.
Couldn't.
They knew, Toby. They
let
her do this."

His eyebrows went up.
"Why in hell would they do that?"

"Because she was pushing the technology to its limits. She alone was making the 7800's and the net jump through hoops and literally make gods of the operators. Don't you see, Toby? I wonder why we all didn't before.
That's
what Special Projects was all about, and why it was run not by programmers and mathematicians but by a psychiatrist. Watanabe's psychiatrist at that."

"Well, they almost admit something like that, but she fooled them. Frankenstein's monster."

"Uh-huh. But
did
she fool them? Or is it just that Ngomo fooled them? I find it just as impossible to believe that a conspiracy involving the highest levels of the military and thousands of subordinates could have been kept from Security. I think the thing was set up with Security's full knowledge, if not complicity. I think the only thing that went wrong was that it leaked
so
badly, and Ngomo was so much smarter than Coydt gave him credit for, that he moved precipitously, before they were ready. How did he get all those military codes if Security didn't give him a key part? The only thing they didn't expect was for him to lock
them
out as well."

"I've never read Machiavelli," Haller told her. "You sure you aren't dreaming this up out of your old history books?"

"History changes constantly, but human beings change very little. That's why we can learn from history, although we seldom do until it's too late. I think the commanders were all in on it—except Cockburn, of course. I think there was supposed to be a deal. Ngomo got the government and civil authority. Security would maintain enforcement and control the computer access, and Ryan would get the void—and, with it, a monopoly on trade and commerce between the Anchors. I think Security was planning the very action we're now fearing. A double-cross of Ngomo and maybe Ryan too. Make everyone into Watanabe's basic vision and they'd be totally under the control of her lunatic church—which means Security. Coydt would never accept an Islamic fundamentalist state in which women are subordinate to political power. She's a career military officer."

"How long have you been thinking like this?" he asked her. "Is this something that's been building or something that just came like divine revelation?"

"A little of both. A
lot
of both, actually. None of it meant a lot until the Gates were sealed. Contingency planning, the military calls it. Once we were cut off, though, everybody started having plots. Five out of seven directors have vanished into the void, but some of their own loyalists tried a coup at headquarters to get the control codes for the Gates. It failed, and was really hushed up, but I found out about it. It must have
panicked
them all. That's why they clung to military rule. Then Ngomo starts his plotting and is discovered by Coydt, but instead of stamping on him she co-opts him. She wants two things because that's the way she sees the world and her own place in it. She wants a safe and secure world which is orderly, disciplined, and needs little
control, and she wants to retain her own power base and authority. I was told that Ngomo would make a deal with the devil himself to win. At the time I thought that devil was Watanabe. This Brigadier Singh was very convincing, you know. He pointed out that Ngomo was the only black man and the only non-Western culture represented. What he failed to point out is that Coydt is the only one whose native language and culture is not English or English-influenced, and that she was the only woman on the command level."

"1 didn't remember Singh at all when you described him, but a few days ago I remembered meeting him once, years ago. A tremendous time ago. I jogged my memory enough to get out some old impressions. I can't remember much except the turban about his looks, but I
can
remember that he was very impassioned and idealistic. Unless that was a hell of an act, I can't see him going along with this. I particularly can't see any man working to create a world in which the women have the ultimate power."

"Singh is a very complex man. I had him checked out as much as I could under the circumstances. Although he's nominally number two, I seriously doubt if he knows this or even suspects it. He's been close to Coydt for so long, I don't think he believes she'd put anything this monstrous over on him. I
do
think he knew about Watanabe, and perhaps the whole business with Ngomo, but I believe he has been sold the Frankenstein scenario. I think that's also been sold to Ryan. No, this was hatched, possibly improvised, by Coydt and Suzuki. If I'm right, Coydt's out there now fooling everybody by acting as if she's going to take out Watanabe and prevent the activation of these programs, but in reality she and Suzuki were the ones who fed the old girl the theory of the military command programs. They'll have their church and it'll be controlled by Watanabe, who in turn will be controlled by Security. Security will become the church, and will also have virtual complete control of the computer network."

"And Ryan?"

"He went along with the initial plot. His turf is inviolate. He's the one man all sides need to deal with. Ngomo's been trying to cut a deal with him for weeks now because Ryan needs the power restored to his transports and weapons and Ngomo desperately needs a secure system for sending goods and personnel between Anchors to diversify the economies. In the end, I think Coydt knows that Ryan has to deal with whoever winds up in control of Anchor and its population. For half the world and half the power, Ryan really won't care who wins. I got through to Ryan's executive officer with all this days ago, and that's basically the response I got. They don't like it, and hope I'm wrong, but no matter what, their position is unchanged and there's nothing really they can do about it."

"Damn! I wish we knew this for sure! If only we could talk with Seventeen!"

"We've got to give it up, Toby. We're outgunned, outmaneuvered, and our backs are to the wall. I'm ordering total evacuation in three days."

He sat there, dejected. Finally, he asked, "Lisa—how the hell do you get this kind of information?''

"A historian is like a detective. Collecting evidence and testimony and sifting through it, putting seemingly unrelated things together, rejecting others, until you get as accurate a picture as the evidence supports. You scientists run down people like me, but it's no less technical or important a field."

"Yeah, well, that's not what I meant. Where do you get these bits and pieces to begin with? About things like this, I mean?"

She grinned. "If you want to know what's going on, don't ask the boss, ask the janitor. The bureaucracy, Toby. It's large and it's essential. Not even Ngomo dares dispense with it. He changes the heads, not the lower-downs, and a good bureaucrat works for anybody. I talk to clerks, secretaries, janitors, gardeners—you name it. I have quite a list, and others I know have
their
lists and swap with me." She paused a moment, then looked directly at him. "As long as there are people,
my
machine never breaks down and can never be totally cut off from me."

Toby Haller gave a start. "Say that again."

"What? You mean about the bureaucracy?"

"Uh-uh. You said as long as there are people . . ."

"My machine never breaks down and can't be totally cut off from me. Why?''

"That's
it,
don't you see? We've been trying to repair that big amp, and it isn't broken. We've been trying hardware and software bypasses. All that, and we had the perfect bypass all along."

"I don't—"

"
Us!
The sensitives! Because we weren't even imagined to exist, the military made no provision for us, nor the programmers, nor the defensive systems. Even the computers couldn't predict us. That's why we've kept in contact on a command level even when everything else was cut off! And as long as a Guard position is staffed, someplace, in the main computer room, we have no problems getting those commands through."

"Yeah, so? It's strictly command level. You can't converse, only order execution."

"Lisa-—
what about a command to turn the damned big amp back on
?"

She sat back. "It
can't
be that simple!"

"You once told me that, on paper anyway, the potential command power of Micki and me together was greater than a single big amp. Well, I'm going down and get both Micki and Chris, who's showing real strong power herself, and all three of us are going to have a go at it."

"I still think it can't be that simple."

"Well, let's find out."