“No, nor anything else in this rational world. The project here was already under way, and he told me I’d get an invitation to supervise its final stages once construction was complete—and I did. He also sent a number of people to me; bright, young people with solid computer backgrounds who were none the less involved in cults of one kind or another. We designed many of the proprietary chips and circuits at Cheltenham for SAINT, and they were there, offering suggestions that were far beyond their possible knowledge, and he was there, too, in the shadows. The innovations he and they offered were brilliant, far beyond the capability of anyone I had ever known, even the Japanese geniuses on their projects.”
“And you never tried to fight them? Never tried to foul them up? You just went along?’’
“I—I’m not as strong a man as you might think. How do you fight someone like Geoff? How do you rationalize it? You tried—and see where it’s gotten you. And as a man of science, a man whose whole heart and soul was in computers, to be fed those incredible new designs, those whole new and revolutionary ways of doing things—it put me on top. It was the sort of knowledge a man of science would sell his soul for.”
“And that’s what you did.”
“I suppose you could say so.”
“Reggie—what are they doing out there tonight?”
“Something revolutionary. Something that many of those new circuits were designed to handle, and something that fulfills almost an ultimate dream.”
“Eh?”
“The fusion of human and computer. To actually link someone directly to the machine so that the two are essentially one. The human mind can never hold or comprehend the power, speed, and data of a computer, but imagine having all that at your command, instantly, when and if needed. To get any fact, do any computation—instantly. To control any computer-controlled device as needed.”
“Angelique. You mean Angelique, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s not possible, Reggie! I say that having looked into the face of a living corpse and surviving a bout with a monster that could not exist. You said it yourself. The brain would fill up.”
“No, we licked that. Even the personality shell will reside within the computer, not the brain. Only the autonomic functions, the lizard brain and the mammalian brain, will remain. The rest will be a blank slate, able to hold whatever data is needed. The transfer is at the speed of light. There is no need to hold anything permanently there.”
“Good lord! You mean she’ll look like Angelique, sound like Angelique, but she’ll really be nothing more than an extension of SAINT, a living robot.”
“It’s a bit more than that. I would gladly do it myself if I were permitted.”
“Uh—Reggie? What time is it? How long until this happens?”
The Englishman looked at his watch. “It’s eleven thirty-five now. No more than twenty-five minutes.”
MacDonald’s heart sank to its lowest depths. Eleven thirty -five… We should all have been radioactive dust five minutes ago.
15. THE MESSIAH CHOICE
“When is this all taking place, Reggie?” MacDonald asked him. “The witching hour of midnight?” He was still amazed at being alive, and amazed, too that being alive now disturbed him so much.
“Oh, that’s rubbish. They have all their leaders here, you know—kings of African tribes and Himalayan principalities, ministers from many countries, all that. They’ll give them a real show before the climax, from their point of view. They have until the crack of dawn, as I understand it. His power wanes in the daylight.”
“But not SAINT.”
“No, not SAINT.”
“How come you’re not down there watching it all, or running around fixing up our damage?”
“I’m very tired, and stick of all this, frankly. They are taking the scientific breakthrough of the century, perhaps for thousands of years, and turning it into a mumbo-jumbo circus. As for SAINT—the sort of work you are talking about is heavy stuff, best done by the staff. When it’s ready to be operational again, I’ll have to check it all out I suppose.”
“Why?”
“What? What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly that. Has it occurred to you, Reggie, that you’re not really one of them? They needed you as the front to get their stuff installed in the computer, and they needed you up to now as insurance. But once they have this done, once SAINT and Angelique are one, the computer will be in complete control and you’ll be like the revolutionary that puts the dictator in power. His friends know how to wage a revolt and topple a government, and they have expectations when their man is in. So, the first thing the dictator does is wipe out his friends who put him there—if he wants to survive himself. It’s called a purge, Reggie.”
Sir Reginald nervously took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. It took him two tries. “That’s ridiculous. Oh, I admit I’ve been used, but I’ve gotten a lot out of it as well. They still need me. No one but me could have located that diabolical erasure program Sir Robert snuck in with a mass of accounting data. Not even SAINT could remember or find it—but I did.”
“And you totally deactivated it just in case we killed Angelique while she was in our hands. Clever. Now it fears nothing. As soon as it enters into Angelique, it’ll have only one human being, one in the whole world, it actually fears, because there will be only one man it doesn’t own who can harm it. You, Reggie. I don’t think I’m going to live to see that dawn, but by god you aren’t, either. When it’s sure, if it works, you’ll be the first item on its agenda. You’re the ultimate sucker. You sold your soul for knowledge, but they always leave loopholes, don’t they, eh? They always have an out. The very knowledge you gave them is the very same knowledge that they can’t afford to have loose any more. Your only hope is that the project fails. The possibility of that is the only reason you’re still alive now.”
“You think I’m stupid?” he snapped. “Do you take me for a dunce? I figured that out long ago! That’s why the erasure program is still there. Oh, I deactivated it all right, but I left in a code I could give to have it be carried out anyway. They know it’s there—I told them, truthfully, that we’d have to shut down half of its core memory to get it out—but they don’t know that it’s not dead.” He looked smug. “Now what do you think of that?”
“Well, Reggie, I’m impressed—but can’t SAINT hear and see in this room, too? Didn’t you just tell him how he could die? And didn’t you just say that the only man who knew that code was you?” MacDonald pressed, sensing an opening he never expected and pushing it for all it was worth with the one weapon left to him. “Any chance you had of surviving before just went out the window.”
Sir Reginald suddenly got up and looked around nervously. All was quiet in the eerie emergency lighting, although there were dead bodies all over. MacDonald could see it in his face, though, and in the way he looked around, that the computer genius was suddenly more terrified than tired.
“I’m afraid he’s right, Sir Reginald,” said the smooth, unhurried voice of the computer from a wall speaker. “The truth is, up to now no decision had been made on you. Call me—sentimental, if you will. Now, though, I fear Mr. MacDonald has done you in, although in so doing he has done me an inadvertent service.”
Sir Reginald picked up the pistol with its two strange clips. “SAINT! I created you!” he shouted, his voice echoing against the walls. “No one else could have done so! I—I did more than create you! I loved you!”