The humvee swerved on to the road up to the house they were staying in. ‘I don’t see how that worked,’ Kohn said. ‘Logan couldn’t have been on any list that Josh drew up.’
‘It was a very intelligent mailing list,’ MacLennan said. ‘And then the other day you triggered the main program. At some other time maybe not much would have happened, but in the present situation…’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ Kohn said. The vehicle lurched to a halt. MacLennan led them into the kitchen of the house, where Dr Van greeted them, bleary-eyed. He poured them coffee as they sat down around the table.
‘MacLennan has explained our findings?’
‘Yeah,’ Kohn said. He lit the cigarette Van offered him. ‘Still doesn’t explain these things I encountered, the Watchmaker AIS.’
Van steepled his fingers and talked around his cigarette like a diminutive Bogart. ‘We have to be very careful in drawing conclusions,’ he said. ‘These programs are in some sense spin-offs, replications, reflections of an aspect of the Plan.’
Janis heard Kohn’s indrawn breath.
‘The Plan has evolved considerably over the past twenty years,’ Van continued. ‘Consequently, its products – we may suppose – are by many orders of magnitude more sophisticated than anything Josh Kohn originally intended. Nevertheless, they remain basically information-seeking software constructs, with a specific task.’ He smiled, thin-lipped. ‘Such as cleaning out my company’s databanks, and many others. Which they have accomplished.’
‘You’re telling me they’re just gophers?’ Kohn sounded indignant. ‘That’s not what I encountered. These things think, man.’
Van sighed out a cloud of smoke. ‘Comrade Kohn,’ he said, ‘please, let us be objective. Your experience was subjective. And drug-mediated. That is not to say,’ he went on hastily, ‘that it was necessarily invalid. The situation may indeed be as you perceived it. If so’ – he shrugged – ‘time will tell, and soon. The fact remains that they are in a very real sense artificial intelligences, and ones to which you have an access which is for the moment unique. It is imperative, now that the final offensive is opening, that you contact them again and persuade them to keep a low profile. Will you do that?’
Moh turned to Janis as if searching her face for something. She didn’t know what answer she gave, if any. He turned away, looked at the table for a moment.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘When?’
‘Now,’ said MacLennan, standing up.
Moh had instructions. While he was trying to contact the Watchmaker entities, Van was to liaise with the Army Council by landlink…
‘And what about me?’ Janis asked.
The big officer paused at the door, frowning.
‘Och, just guard them with your life,’ he said, and disappeared down the stairs. The door slammed. A minute later they heard the helicopter take off.
Van went out and came back with an armful of televisions which he placed in a semicircle with a couple of chairs in the middle. He tossed a remote control to Janis.
‘Keep zapping the news channels,’ he said. ‘Watch the local ones for the subtext until they start to come over to our side. For hard coverage go for the globals. CNN is fairly reliable on such occasions.’
Janis settled herself with a mug of coffee to hand and glanced at Moh, who was gazing out of the window. Van bent over the terminal.
‘You’re very confident about taking some local stations,’ she said wryly. ‘You really expect to get that far in the first hours?’
Van looked surprised.
‘Don’t you understand…Oh, I’m sorry, we never explained it. If the system has decided it’s time for us to strike it means we can take the country in the first hours. We intend to proclaim the republic on the six o’clock news from London. If things don’t go smoothly, the news at ten. If we’re wrong, or the system is flawed, then—’
He spread his hands.
‘You’ve been wrong before,’ Moh said. ‘Four defeated offensives in fifteen years doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.’
‘We didn’t have all the bugs out of it,’ Van admitted. ‘Call those campaigns user-acceptance testing.’
‘With live data,’ Moh said.
Van’s lips compressed for a moment. ‘I understand the offensives would have been attempted anyway,’ he said. ‘The costs would have been higher without the system. And remember: the system learns from its mistakes.’
‘As does the state,’ Janis pointed out. ‘And if you lose – if we lose – the best we can hope for is winning a bloody civil war.’
‘What do you think you’re having already?’ Van snapped. ‘The Hanoverian forces are being bled constantly by what you call the troubles. The local militias are mostly cynical mercenaries without conviction. The best of the autonomous communities will welcome an end to the war of all against all. Strikes and demonstrations are frequent in the major cities. This is the most violent and unstable country in Europe. You hear much about the NVC, but to be honest we are well behind the ANR.’
‘That’s what I like to hear,’ said Moh, settling again by the terminal. ‘All we have to worry about is the Yanks coming in and bombing the shit out of us. Again. Well, I’ll try to convince the electric anarchists out there to keep their heads down.’
Van offered him the gun leads and the glades. Moh took them, his other hand already moving like a skilled weaver’s.
Colours came up.
Van looked away to the other screens, where interesting items were appearing on local channels, usually in traffic reports.
‘Jesus wept,’ Cat muttered as she and Jordan struggled along the crowded pavement of the Broadway. ‘Half the bloody country seems to have gone on strike.’ Traffic was gridlocked, a knock-back effect of distant junctions blocked by buses whose drivers had simultaneously decided to exercise their right to a mid-morning break. Several office buildings were picketed by workers in white shirts and ties. Even with all the honking of horns and chanting of slogans, Norlonto seemed quieter than usual.
Jordan glanced sidelong at the good communist and loyal daughter of the revolution beside him and smirked. In the Modesty dress which she’d magically produced like a coloured scarf from an egg she could pass for a well brought-up young Beulah City lady, except…
‘Language,’ he chided. ‘Apart from that you’re doing fine. I’m amazed at how you’ve mastered the effortless glide.’
‘Effortless, hell,’ Cat choked. ‘You have to kick the goddam petticoats out of the way with every step you take, and if I’m not careful I’ll blow my foot off.’
She had jeans on underneath, two side-arms in boot holsters, and ammo strapped to her thighs.
Jordan took her elbow and ostentatiously steered her past a trodie who’d collapsed in the doorway of a Help the Waged charity shop.