The Siren Project (51 page)

“An innocent super-Einstein,” Mouse agreed.

“This is all very interesting,” Mitch said
impatiently. “Now get super-Einstein here to tell us where Christa is so we can
get her and get the hell out of here.”

“What about EB?” Mouse persisted.

“Even if it is self aware, even if it is
intelligent, it’s a threat to everything we are. That's why we have to waste
it.”

“But EB’s learning,” Mouse protested. “He
can learn right from wrong.”

“And then what? Go to Sunday school?” Mitch
said. “Take a look around. This hunk of junk isn't going anywhere. If you
change its programming, what’s to stop them changing it back? Take a look in
the mirror. In a few hours you’d be one those poor bastards in there, taking
your food through a needle and having wires plugged into your brain.” Mouse
felt his bald head uncomfortably. “Now, find out where Christa is.”

Mouse grudgingly returned his attention to
the keyboard.
Where is Christa?

STORAGE ROOM N34, NORTH WING.

“What’s she doing in a storage room?” Mitch
demanded. “Can EB bring her to us, the way he brought you here?”

Mouse relayed the question.

NEGATIVE.

CHRISTA MALLESON IS LOCKED IN A ROOM WITH A
MANUAL LOCKING SYSTEM.

ONLY AREAS PROTECTED BY THE AUTOMATED
SECURITY SYSTEM ARE UNDER MY CONTROL.

CLEANING UNIT 04 CAN SHOW YOU THE LOCATION.

Mitch glanced down at the robotic janitor
and saw that it had the numbers 04 stenciled in white letters on its side. “Okay,
R2-D2 can show me. Find out if EB can give us something to send to the FBI,
something that will put people in jail.”

“You mean, send it before you blow him up,”
Mouse replied bitterly.

“Exactly.”

Mouse typed in the request.

THE FOLLOWING FILES ARE AVAILABLE DETAILING
ALL ASPECTS OF THE SIREN PROJECT.

The screen filled with the names of
thousands of files, which began scrolling up across the screen so rapidly, the
text blurred.

“I guess he does not realize he is the only
one in the room who reads at the speed of light,” Gunter observed.

“No time for us to sort through all that
stuff,” Mitch said. “Send it all, and tell it to have 04 show me where Christa
is.”

I CANNOT TRANSMIT THESE FILES.

Why not?

I HAVE NO INDEPENDENT COMMUNICATION LINK
OUTSIDE THE BASE.

WHEN IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT INFORMATION HAD
BEEN SENT TO YOU, COMMUNICATIONS FROM THIS BASE TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD WERE
TERMINATED, AS A SECURITY PRECAUTION.

“But I could access the base from the
satellite,” Mouse said, typing his words. “Why can’t you access the satellite
from your side?”

I AM ISOLATED FROM THE COMMUNICATION LINK.

YOU MUST MANUALLY RESTORE MY ACCESS.

“How do we do that?” Mitch asked
impatiently, wanting to follow the robotic janitor to Christa.

ACTIVATE MY DIRECT DATA LINK WITH THE
SATELLITE COM-NET.

A map of the base appeared, showing the
control room, the immersion tank, the labs, workshops and many other parts of
the complex. Colored lines formed a patchwork overlaying the floor map. Green
lines glowed indicating where the satellite communications network connected to
the switching room at the end of the building, beyond the immersion tank. The
switching room glowed red, indicating where the data link could be activated.

YOU MUST CLOSE THE SWITCH.

I CAN ACCESS MANY SATELLITES ONCE I CONTROL
THE GROUND STATION.

“I’ll do it once I get Christa. Tell him to
show me where she is on the map. R2-D2 can take me to her, then to the com
link.”

Mouse input the question, then the map slid
sideways until a small room glowed with a red outline.

Mitch studied the map, trying to memorize
it. “Got it. What’s the security situation like? How many guards? How many
people on duty this time of night? How secure are we here in this room?”

Mouse typed furiously, then the answers
flashed onto the screens.

I CONTROL AUTOMATED INTERNAL SECURITY, NOT
THE GUARDS WHO PATROL THE PERIMETER AND OPERATE THE VEHICLES.

SCIENTIFIC AND SURGICAL STAFF NOT CURRENTLY
IN SLEEPING QUARTERS CANNOT ENTER THIS ROOM UNLESS I PERMIT IT.

“Mouse, as soon as I open the com link,
download everything to the FBI, and keep a copy for yourself if there’s time. G,
you start planting the explosives. Find out from EB where the important
sections are. When we blow this thing, I don’t want anything left standing.”

“What about them?” Gunter said, indicating
the nearly one thousand people attached to the nodes, floating mindlessly in
the immersion tank.

“I know, I know” Mitch replied troubled. “They
may not be dead, but they sure aren’t alive. You heard what he said, without
his life support, they can’t survive. Now tell EB to get Droid Number Four over
there to lead the way.”

Once Mouse typed in the instruction,
robotic janitor 04, spun around on its tiny wheels and headed for the door.

Mitch followed after it, calling back over
his shoulder. “I’ll be back soon, then we blow this place to hell! Where it
belongs!”

“Well?” General Nathan Gray demanded
impatiently, “What’s wrong?”

Dr Nautern watched Caroline’s sleeping
form, lying face down on the surgical bed, with some confusion. “She should
have recovered from the anesthesia by now.” He felt for a pulse, counting
silently to himself. “Her pulse is unusually weak.”

“Could the conditioning process have
failed?” McNamara asked.

“No, we were very careful. The telemetry
indicated the procedure was executed perfectly.” The surgeon picked up the tilt
control and rotated the bed from the horizontal to forty five degrees.

As the bed lifted, revealing Caroline’s
face cradled by the head cushions, McNamara’s eyes widened as he swore under
his breath.

“What have you done!” General Gray
declared.

“I don’t understand,” Dr Nautern stammered.
“It’s impossible.”

“Obviously not,” McNamara said dryly. “Is
she going to recover?”

The doctor's face paled. “We implemented
the daughter’s neural design. The damage to the mother’s brain would be . . . catastrophic.”

“So she’s unconscious because she’s a
vegetable?” McNamara demanded bitterly.

“I can’t explain it. The computer should
have alerted us immediately. It must have detected the mother’s neural scan was
different from the daughters.”

“Didn’t it occur to you to look at her
face!” General Gray snapped. “You people rely so much on your damn
technological toys, you forget to think for yourselves!”

“Can we use her in the Neural Net?”
McNamara asked. “She's still got a lot of classified knowledge we could use.”

“She'd be chronically brain damaged,” Dr
Nautern replied. “Accessing her memories will be impossible now.”

“So what happened to the girl?” General
Gray demanded. “And who put the mother in her place?”

McNamara’s face showed a flash of
realization. “The mole! He switched them to cover his tracks, then he sabotaged
the computer systems, to conceal the fact a different subject was being
conditioned.”

“Is that possible?” General Gray asked.

“If they were a systems expert, it is.”

“How many people on the base could do it?”

“Not many, a couple of computer scientists.”

“Arrest them immediately, and anyone else
who has the skills to override the computer system,” General Gray ordered. “Perhaps
some good will come out of this. Our mole has finally made a mistake.”

An orderly entered the recovery room and
whispered to Dr Nautern. The Chief Surgeon’s face reddened, then he nodded. The
orderly glanced apprehensively at the general and McNamara before making a
hasty retreat.

Dr Nautern exhaled despairingly. “That’s
not all. Szilinsky is missing. Someone has removed him while he was
unconscious.”

“Seal off every building,” the general said.
“Have security teams search the base, room by room. Put guards on every door in
and out of the main complex. I want to know what every single human being on
this base has been doing for the last three hours, and I want corroborating
statements. Anyone who cannot get at least two witnesses to testify to their
whereabouts is to be arrested.”

McNamara nodded. “Szilinsky can’t have been
taken off the base. Neither can the girl. We’ll find them.”

“You’d better,” the general declared angrily.

“What should we do with her?” Dr Nautern
asked, indicating Caroline’s unconscious form.

“She’s useless to us now,” General Gray
replied. “Dispose of the body.”

“She’s still alive,” Dr Nautern noted
uncomfortably.

“You created the problem. You fix it.”

The head surgeon stared at Caroline’s
sleeping form. “I could give her an injection to put her to sleep.”

“She’s already asleep,” McNamara said
starting for the door to organize the search teams. “You want to stop her
breathing.”

McNamara hurried out of the recovery room,
followed by the general, leaving Dr Nautern alone with Caroline. He did not
relish extinguishing her life, even though he knew she was now brain dead. He
decided to wait a few hours, hoping she would expire naturally. Most of the
chronic failures had died soon after their procedures.

Except for that
bureaucrat in Washington,
he remembered. Rayborne’s
survival had been a miracle. He'd been totally unsuited to the procedure. Dr
Nautern hoped Caroline Malleson would not prove to be another miracle.

* * * *

Christa roused slowly from a deep slumber
filled with inexplicable memories. The sensation of movement, the strange
impression of her mother holding her, the nightmare of her mother’s living
death. The thoughts jarred, waking her, giving her the presence of mind to
force open her heavy eyelids. A tiny light glowed above her with enough
strength to fill the room with soft shadows and obscure shapes. She rolled her
head, confused at the sight of the machine parts, odd tools and electronic
devices. Through the fading effect of the tranquilizer, she recognized a storeroom
of sorts.

Christa pushed herself weakly onto an
elbow, wondering how she got there. She saw the bag at her feet, and the clothes
and gray flecked golden hair on the floor, then she rolled clumsily off the
trolley, sending it skidding across the room. On hands and knees, she crawled
to the hair, picked up a handful and looked closely at it. She touched her own
shaved head absently, knowing it was not her hair, recognizing the unique blend
of colors.

Mama, what have you
done!

Christa took a calming breath, then focused
her mind and reached out for her mother, but no answering thought came to her. Instead,
she sensed smaller, closed, aggressive minds nearby. She concentrated on those
little minds, realizing they were searching for her, and were getting closer
all the time.

Christa crawled to the trolley and pulled
herself up onto it. She opened the bag at the end of the trolley, hoping for a
note from her mother, but found only the clothes she'd been wearing when
captured. Christa wanted to shed the hospital gown, but knew in her current
uncoordinated state, it would take too long to change, and the angry little
minds were getting closer. She grabbed the bag and stumbled to the door,
listening for the approaching guards. She saw the key at her feet, and realized
it had been slipped under the door. Quietly, she turned the handle, discovering
she was locked in. She started to reach for the key, when she heard a door slam
in the hall outside, followed by the sound of heavy boots. The footsteps grew
louder, stopping outside the storeroom door.

The handle twisted several times as a
security guard tested the door. “It’s locked. Go get the key.”

“Map says it’s just a storeroom.”

“They said every room. Get the key.”

Hurried footsteps sounded as one of the
guards ran back down the corridor to find a key. Christa forced her mind to
focus on the man beyond the door, sensing his impatience. She knew she was in
no state to use a mind trick on him, and even if she were, she couldn't run far
while the tranquilizer kept her arms and legs like rubber. She looked anxiously
around the room, fighting off a desire to sleep. There were no other exits,
only a small air conditioning vent near the ceiling.

Christa took several wobbly steps to the
trolley, then slumped across it as her head started to spin. Lying half across
the trolley, she walked it to the wall beneath the vent. Gathering her
strength, she climbed shakily onto the trolley using nearby shelves for support,
then pried open the vent and pushed the bag inside. She dragged herself part
way into the vent, then gently nudged the trolley away from the wall with her
toe, sending it gliding into the middle of the storeroom. For a moment she
teetered, half in, half out, with weak unresponsive arms scrambling for grip,
then she pulled herself up into the vent.