He pressed the stud, and stepped inside the cubicle. He covertly looked round. He needed somewhere to hide his writing materials. He began slowly to eat his after-work meal, all the time scanning the small room for a possible hiding place in a way that wouldn’t be detected by the sensor in the ceiling. He opened the disposal vent and began to drop the containers down the chute. It was then that he noticed the narrow rim around the edge of the vent. He examined it carefully. It was just wide enough to take the scriber and the strip of paper. He began to strip off his coveralls. He had to restrain himself from an illogical glance towards the sensor, just to see that everything was okay.
Under cover of pushing the clothes into the vent, he carefully placed the scriber and paper on the ledge. Then he slowly closed it, and went to his bed. He had only just enough time to lie down and get comfortable before the cubicle began to fill with sleep gas.
During the subsequent work periods he pondered his next move. Now he had materials to keep a record he had to find a way of using them without the sensors catching him. It took four periods of heavy thinking before he found a solution. When it happened, it came to him purely by chance. He was using the sanitary unit, and toying with one of his polished lumps of plastic. In his new-found state of mind, having something to play with aided his thinking. When he first caught himself toying with them, he had been afraid that he might have given himself away, but when nothing came of it, he assumed that the Computer allowed its C-class operatives a few marginal idiosyncrasies.
He found that if he allowed his hand to drop to his side, he couldn’t see the sensor reflected in the polished surface of the block. He checked from a number of angles, but it seemed as though there was a blind spot in the sanitary unit that the sensor wasn’t able to monitor. CYN 256 smiled inwardly. The Computer was proving more fallible each time he tested its powers.
He spent two more work periods discreetly making absolutely certain that the spot in the sanitary unit really was unmonitored. Then he took seven more to devise a system to get the writing materials from the disposal vent into the unit so he could make his notes, and back to their hiding place in the vent. He tried to make the whole process appear to be nothing more than a slight variation in his regular behaviour pattern. He realized that as he moved deeper into his campaign he was developing a hard streak of patient cunning. It seemed to be proving successful. The Computer had, so far, detected nothing wrong.
With his test completed, CYN 256 began to keep his record. After each work period he returned to his cubicle, and furtively noted down all the figures that had come up during the day that didn’t seem right.
He divided them into his three arbitrary categories, and did his best to divine some meaning from them. Once again he was filled with an overpowering frustration at how little he knew. There were moments when he despaired of ever finding any sense in the figures, let alone doing something about what might be wrong inside the Computer.
The only idea he had, and that a matter of instinct rather than logic, was that the Computer was somehow running out of control. CYN 256 wasn’t sure. It was all so complex. It did seem, however, that the intake/output figures were escalating like never before. Where once the workings of Stuff Central had been finely regulated, they now speeded up without any kind of check.
A new idea began to flourish in the depths of his mind. It was loaded with danger, and he kept trying to push it away. But the more he tried, the faster it returned, gradually becoming the only possible direction for him to follow.
If he couldn’t learn anything from the figures, perhaps if he fed them back into the Computer he might learn something from its reaction. He was also well aware that if he put such a plan into action the Computer might just simply kill him.
***
A.A. Catto and Nancy lay on the huge circular bed that dominated A.A. Catto’s private suite in the underground bunker. They lay with their legs entwined and their bodies at right angles to each other. They lay with the stillness of total exhaustion. They were both naked, except Nancy still had the steel brace on her leg.
The bed cover was made from a metallic gold covered velvet that sparkled in the subdued light. The rest of the room was white. Being deep beneath the earth there were no windows. One wall was filled with a mass of different sized view screens. On one medium sized one two women, a small boy in lavish makeup, and an iguana acted out a silent, pornographic fantasy. The rest flickered on hold.
On the floor by the bed were two discarded, beaten silver goblets and a number of empty bottles. Some thick purple wine had been spilled, and it stained the carpet in a couple of places. There was a table beside the bed made from a cube of dark mirrored glass. A small jade box had been knocked over spilling a small pile of white powder.
Dumped in the corner of the room like a forgotten bundle was the body of one of A.A. Catto’s personal guards. He was naked and his wrists and ankles were handcuffed together. His torso was covered in ugly and very recent scars. He was dead. A.A. Catto’s personal guards were programmed to obey her absolutely without question. A.A. Catto had been exploiting this one’s unswerving devotion to have a little fun. A.A. Catto had exhausted herself, and the guard had died. Later she would call the clean-up crew to get the body taken away and the stains removed from the carpet.
A.A. Catto stirred and made a contented sound, halfway between a groan and a purr. Without appearing to wake, Nancy stretched out her hand and stroked A.A. Catto’s hair. A.A. Catto opened her eyes and raised her head languidly. She stretched out a lazy hand to a touch panel set in the glass table. One of the larger screens on the wall flickered into life and was filled with the expressionless face and bald head of one of her six advisers. A.A. Catto propped herself up on one elbow and regarded him.
‘Is the invasion going according to plan?’
‘Everything is right on schedule.’
‘Good. Patch the big board through to me here.’
The porno movie flickered, and was replaced by a miniature representation of the big board in the war room. A number of yellow arrows were moving inwards towards the centre. A.A. Catto picked up a little of the spilled white powder on one of her long metallic fingernails, put it delicately to her nose and sniffed.
‘What is the prevailing status at Feld?’
‘Our shock troops are in control of the entire city. We are about to move in occupation police prior to withdrawing the combat units.’
A.A. Catto raised an eyebrow.
‘There is no continuing resistance?’
‘Only a handful of ill equipped aristocrats. They are a problem more suitable to law enforcement than military action.’
‘Good. You can move in the occupation police straight away. Once they are in control they can start conscripting local volunteers, and selecting suitable subjects to form a satellite government.’
‘Yes, Miss Catto.’
‘Oh, and make sure the police squads take an adequate number of civilian hostages. According to our projections it’s an ideal safeguard against breaches of discipline among the local population.’
‘It is a priority order with all police squads.’
A.A. Catto smiled.
‘Excellent. Now, hook me into a camera on one of the leading police vehicles.’
Another screen came to life. The camera jiggled as though it was mounted on the front of a fast moving ground car. It was racing through streets of picturesque and, to A.A. Catto’s mind, painfully whimsical thatched houses. A few of them were on fire, but the majority seemed relatively undamaged. On either side of the street, lines of troops in black helmets and fighting suits moved on foot in the opposite direction.