True that such accidental accession was unlikely. But impossible? Was anything impossible anymore? As any country kid knew, there were all kinds of ways to get into a garbage dump. Even dumps that were posted and guarded. If the web was everywhere, then it stood to reason it could be accessed from any place.
His thoughts raced onward, out of control.
What if we’re all, billions and billions of us—man, woman, and child—just tiny bits of walking, talking, thinking RAM? Components of the web. We’re not accessing something separate and distinct; we’re accessing ourselves. All you needed was the proper pattern, the right timbre in your voice. Call it metaorganic parallel processing: human and web, web and human. Side by side, working together. I, the Web. For what? The same questions applied to man that applied to the web. Was there a purpose involved, or was it all just garbage?
And in the center of the web, manipulating the Mandlebrot patterns of the universe and electrotactile Endless Snakes and me and thee and your Uncle Charlie, what? Something vast and unconcerned, cosmically indifferent? And why not? Since when does an operator worry about
his bytes? He doesn’t empathize with his database; he just switches it on and off.
He woke up drenched in sweat, the cot creaking beneath him.
CHAPTER 19
On a hill north of Cameron, Yistin Gaggii greeted the sun as it sucked the chill from the morning air on the Moenkopi Plateau. Four-legged shapes watched him emerge from the motor home. They had not slept because they did not need sleep. They had difficulty merely comprehending the idea.
Gaggii had not slept either. The night had been spent in preparation. He stretched and inhaled deeply, feeling no different save for a tingle of anticipation.
The track that led down into the little valley was narrow and treacherous, but the motor home would make it. He had come this way before. Without a word to the unblinking canine faces surrounding him, he turned and reentered his vehicle. The engine started smoothly.
Moody woke from a dream not of vast emptinesses between the stars or rainbow threads and tentacles of unfathomable purpose, but of fishing from the back of a flat-bottomed boat moored to the mucky basement of a cypress tree. The sun was warm and damp on Florida Bay and the solar cooler in the bow was stuffed with sandwiches and cold beer. It was the best of all possible worlds.
When wakefulness came, he resented it deeply.
The room was full of talk. Ooljee was sitting on the edge of his cot, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. He saw his partner eyeing him.
“You have not missed anything. Yet.”
Moody nodded, rose, and checked the location of his fly and his pistol. A partition had been erected to separate the temporary sleeping quarters from the rest of the room. Inspection introduced them to a dozen newcomers; a couple of techies, university security people, NDPS officers. He looked for Grayhills, didn’t see her.
People were clustering around an elderly guard. He was leaning against a wall for support. Someone thrust a cup of coffee into his hands and he drank gratefully. His hands were shaking and some of the brown liquid slopped over the sides, staining his uniform.
Moody fought his way forward, undiplomatically nudging people aside, and spoke to the NDPS officer nearest the trembling guard. The corporal looked alert and competent. “What happened?”
The younger man nodded at the senior. “This guy just came in. He was patrolling the tunnel when he was attacked. He says.” There was doubt in the young man’s voice.
Ooljee confronted the elderly paladin. “Was it by any chance a tall, hatchet-faced man about my age?”
The guard was too shaken to speak, so the corporal replied for him. “He claims it was mah-ih.”
Ooljee stared at the trembling oldster. “He says he was attacked by a coyote!”
The corporal nodded. “Says it went right for him and he had to shoot it. Three shots and it kept coming, but his taser put it down.”
“Coyotes keep their distance from people.” Ooljee was studying the elderly guard’s face. “They’ll come right up to a house looking for a dog or cat to snatch, but they avoid human beings. Unless this one was rabid.”
“Oh, it was rabid, all right.” Everyone looked at the
guard. “Crazy for sure.” He drained the last of the coffee. “Did you check for that?” Ooljee asked him.
The man straightened, not trembling as badly now. “I was a cop in a Flag for thirty years. I’ve worked security here for the last four. I know ninlocos and sneak thieves and purse snatchers. I’m not a veterinarian.”
“I thought all the entrances to the tunnel were sealed,” Moody said.
One of the onlookers spoke up. “A coyote might find a way in that a human would overlook.”
“That’s right,” commented a techie. “No matter how often we spray, we still have trouble with rodents in the conduits. A coyote that managed to find a way in could make a living in that tunnel.”
This wasn’t what they’d been expecting. Moody thought furiously. If it was just a burrowing coyote…
“Somebody find Samantha Grayhills, the lady who came with us, and get her down here. If she’s sleeping somewhere, wake her up.” A guard tech swiveled in his seat and picked up a phone.
“Maybe someone ought to have a look at this coyote,” the corporal suggested.
“Maybe we ought to stay right here.” Ooljee was staring intently at the wall of monitors. “If our friend Gaggii had a diversion in mind, this might be it.”
“You think maybe he shoved that coyote in there?” Moody mulled the idea over. “How could he do that without showing up on vid or setting off an alarm?”
“I do not know.”
“None of the alarms were tripped,” said one of the monitor operators. “Not one. Anyone entering the tunnel would have been seen.”
There were three operators, two men and a woman, seated at the monitor bank. Moody regarded each in turn.
“Nobody went out for a sandwich or anything?” If anyone had, he didn’t expect the guilty party to confess to it.
He’d been through this sort of thing before, in Tampa. Leaving one’s post while on duty could result in swift termination of one’s job.
The corporal wouldn’t give up. “You don’t think we should go and check the carcass?”
“Leave it,” snapped Moody. “If it’s just a dead coyote it’s a matter for the custodial staff, not us. If it’s something else, you don’t want to go running after it.” His eyes narrowed as he studied the guard. “You said you fired three rounds at it before you used your taser?”
The guard looked up at him. “That’s right.”
“Any of them hit?”
“Couldn’t say. I didn’t take the time to find out. I had three shells in my gun and I used them all. I might’ve hit it, maybe not. But the taser stopped it cold. It ought to, as many volts as that thing puts out, and it was set to deliver full charge.”
That was when the graduate student came running in. She rested one palm on her sternum as though it could somehow pump extra air to her lungs. Her expression was wild.
“I think—I think somebody better come with me.”
The corporal tried to calm her. “What’s the matter, miss?”
She was trying to speak and swallow at the same time.
“I—found a man near where I was working. I think he’s dead.”
The corporal glanced at Moody. “Want to check this out?”
Moody ignored the sarcasm. “Be right behind you. Oh, and can my friend and I get a couple of those tasers?”