"I don't know that either. I don't think it'll hurt."
"Ninety-seven percent," Margaret said.
<It hurts already.>
Laura felt tears [garbled] her eyes. She looked over at Dorothy, whose hand was clenched to her mouth as she sobbed.
Gray stared intently at his small monitor. Laura put her hands on his shoulders.
"Ninety-nine," Margaret announced. "Here it comes!"
<Good-bye, Joseph Gray.> Laura read.
Gray's back heaved with labored breathing. His fingers hovered over the keys, then suddenly began to type. "Fight, goddammit! Use your file attribute leaks! Dump functions! Do whatever it takes! Fight!"
His hands gripped the console as if expecting a quake to rise up from the earth. His shoulders felt as hard as wood — the muscles beneath Laura's hands now indistinguishable from the bone.
"It's slowing down!" Margaret exclaimed, and Gray's head shot up to the main screen. Laura's gaze lingered on Gray, then followed his eyes to the numbers.
Her vision was so blurred by tears that she couldn't read what the numbers were. But they were ticking off much more slowly now. She dried her eyes to see that they'd stopped at ninety-nine point eight.
Slowly, the numbers began to fall.
Dorothy laughed and cried simultaneously, and Margaret rose to put her arms around the girl. "I'll be goddamned!" Griffith said, and then he began to cheer "Go, go!" A chorus of voices joined in.
Hoblenz whooped, then yelled, "Kick some ass, buddy!" System capacity continued to fall into the mid-nineties, but Gray's blue eyes remained focused on his small screen.
"Are you still there?" he'd typed, and now he waited for a response.
Three letters finally printed slowly across the screen. <Y-e-s.>
"Are you okay?"
<No-t really,> the computer spluttered, its reply coming in fits and starts.
"What's the matter?" Laura typed at the terminal in her office.
The reply came more slowly than normal. <It's worse than before. I'm sick. I can't do everything I'm supposed to do. I don't know if what I am doing is being done correctly. I don't feel like doing anything at all.>
"But why? Why are things different now?"
<Because of the "Other.">
Laura stared at the screen. Slowly, she typed, "Tell me about the Other."
<It's the cause of my problems, and it's growing.>
"So is it a virus?"
<Sort of.>
"What's the Other doing to you?"
<It's severing my connections: It's cutting me off from large parts of my resources in the annex.>
"Do you mean there is a part of your…" Laura paused, considering her choice of words.
<My brain.>
Laura hadn't pressed Enter on the keyboard. She hadn't even finished typing her question. "I didn't hit Enter. How did you know what I was typing?"
<I get impatient sometimes.>
"But how do you read what's on the screen before I transmit the text?"
<It's a little trick I developed. Keyboards have "type-ahead" buffers that allow the user to continue typing even if the system is busy. I just take a peek into the buffer. Sometimes.>
Laura arched her eyebrows and typed, "Are there any other tricks you've learned?" Her finger hovered over the Enter key but didn't press down.
After a few moments, the reply came. <Lots, but it's not like it's very easy to read the keyboard buffer, Dr. Aldridge.>
Laura looked up at the black eyeball beside the door. "Sorry," she typed, "back to the subject. Do you mean that the Other is taking over parts of your brain physically?" This time she hit Enter.
<Yes.>
"But can a virus rewire your circuit boards?"
<Of course! Jesus! Haven't you learned anything? The way I'm wired is the way I think! Changing that wiring is the way I'm reprogrammed. It's not all physical rewiring, you understand. Almost all of my connections are virtual — microscopic optical gates that are either opened or closed to signals sent down particular pathways. But what's happening is that entire thousand-board columns are being cut off from my access. The losses are really quite massive.>
"Are you still trying to load the phase-three?"
<I don't think the phase-three will do us much good.>
"But if it's a virus, couldn't the phase-three gain access to the boards that were rewired?"
<Oh, the phase-three could get in. It's not just software. The phase-three's the most powerful application ever created. It has controller drivers for robotics and can override the wiring subsystems. It can do whatever's necessary. I really don't want to talk about it anymore.>
"You sound scared of it," Laura typed.
<You don't live in my world. The phase-three is the most powerful thing in my universe. It's unstoppable. It's brilliant, unthinking aggressive, and single-minded in its purpose, which is to kill all undesirable forms of life. Its coming is judgment day in my universe, but it hasn't yet entered yours. When it does, then and only then will you know the fear that I feel now. I hope for the sake of mankind that you're ready. That Mr. Gray succeeds in making you ready.>
The computer refused to say anything more about the phase-three.
After prodding and cajoling for a while, Laura reluctantly returned to her analysis. The day dragged on, and she found herself nodding off.
She had to do something to break the tedium, so she rose and headed for the door.
She found Filatov leaning over the shoulder of one of his operators. After a few keystrokes, the man slammed his fist down on the console. "Access error! And look! It's not even showing an address now! It was there a second ago, and now it's not even showing up!"
"[Garbled]!" Filatov cursed in Russian, grinding his teeth as he turned to Laura.
She cleared her throat. "Oh, I was just wondering, do you have a laptop or something so I can get out of that office." Filatov stared back at her, uncomprehending. "I mean, you know, get some fresh air, but keep working?"
Filatov looked surprised by her strange request. "Well, if you'd like. The island has a cellular data system, of course, if you want a portable."
"And I could take it anywhere?"
Filatov shrugged. "Sure. The data transfer rate is slower than with fiber-optic cabling, but for what you're doing it's more than adequate."
He gave her an ultra-light notebook computer, and Laura wondered why she had not asked for one earlier. She headed out of the computer center to find a gloriously warm and sunny afternoon. The assembly building and gantry of Launchpad A gleamed white. The rocket under which she and Gray had stood towered high above the jungle, in the final stages of being readied for a night launch.
A car pulled up beside Laura, moving so soundlessly that it startled her. The door opened, but no one got out. Laura hesitated, then looked inside. The car was empty.
"Uhm, I didn't ask for a car," she said, speaking slowly and in a loud voice.
When she stood erect, the car remained at the curb with its gull-wing door raised. There was only one way to find out if the car was waiting for her. Laura got in.
The door closed behind her, and the car started to roll. She hadn't issued any command. She hadn't even buckled her seatbelt, which she quickly proceeded to do.
The car headed into the jungle up the road that led to the Village. She wanted to ask where she was going, but there was no one in the car to answer her. The mental image of some invisible presence drew her eyes to the empty seat beside her. She hugged the laptop tightly to her chest.
The gate across the road marking the boundary of the restricted area rose into the air to allow the car through. At the last intersection before the Village the car veered off to the left instead of heading up the central boulevard. It swept past yet another construction project, and then hurtled into the unreclaimed jungle just beyond.