They flew over rural Pennsylvania, crossing into New York north of Scranton.
It was seventy-five minutes since the chaos had begun.
D'Arcy strode over to Zimmerman, leaving Volynskji by the door in a posture that suggested that he'd shoot anyone who came near the exit.
"This project is my concern, Dr. Zimmerman." D'Arcy walked around the cubicles, staring at the screens, as if he was trying to make sense of what was displayed.
The guards by Gideon and Ruth took a few steps forward, as if sensing a problem. Gideon wanted to keep talking to Ruth about what her sister was actually doing, but it seemed that they might only have a few moments' worth of distraction. He took the opportunity to stand; no one seemed to notice him. He took Ruth's arm and pulled her up after him.
"This is supposed to be an isolated, secure operation," D'Arcy said. "All contact outside is supposed to be controlled. We can't have anyone detecting the uplink—"
Julia was typing madly now, watching the screen in front of her. She called out, "I want all our traffic shut down. Let the Daedalus have the uplink."
Suddenly, Julia was the only one typing. All the others stood by, watching their screens. "What are you doing?" D'Arcy asked.
"He needs the uplink to complete Himself," Julia said. "We're here to piece the entity together. That's what we're doing." She stopped typing and stared at the screen in front of her.
Gideon couldn't see what she was watching. The screen was angled away from him, and he was edging himself and Ruth back toward the private office. Their guards didn't notice. They were slowly approaching Julia and her terminal.
Julia wasn't paying attention to them, or much of anything other than the screen in front of her.
D'Arcy shook his head. "We can't permit unsecured use of the uplink. We'll have to shut this thing down . . ."
"Perfect," Julia muttered. "Perfect."
D'Arcy shoved one of the others away from the terminal he was manning and said, "How do you shut off the uplink from here?"
From behind D'Arcy, Mike Gribaldi said, "You don't."
D'Arcy turned on Mike and said, "What the hell do you mean, 'You don't?'"
Gideon had pulled Ruth all the way to the door of Julia's office. Ruth tried the door. It was unlocked and opened easily.
"The whole uplink is run from the Daedalus."
"So?"
"We don't have control of the Daedalus now. Aleph does."
Everyone, except for Julia, looked over at the end of the barn where the Daedalus sat.
Gideon and Ruth slipped into the office. Gideon looked at Ruth and asked, "What's going on?"
"D'Arcy doesn't understand what Julie is doing here."
"You said that—"
"Julie believes that Aleph will control everything now," Ruth said. "D'Arcy thinks of it as just an elaborate computer program."
Gideon nodded and knelt down. He felt around the floor of the office. Like the rest of this half of the barn, the floor here had been raised above the dirt floor of the barn so cables could be run underneath. Gideon felt until he found a panel he could move. "And Julia believes it's more than that."
Ruth knelt next to him and helped him with the panel.
Gideon began to understand what Aleph might mean for Julia. They had created this being out of the pure mathematical world that Julia worshiped. It was an entity wholly of that world. So, to Julia's point of view, it was always there, somewhere, since the -human mind couldn't invent mathematical entities, only discover them. If the universe was an objectified form of some mathematical object, then Aleph, by definition, would predate the universe. Aleph would perceive directly, and be wholly of, a world Julia thought of as divine.
God? Gideon thought. Damn close in Julia’s theology.
Between the two of them they worried the panel loose and saw about two feet below, down to the dirt. "Get moving. I don't know how long they're going to be distracted."
Gideon helped Ruth down first, then followed her into the darkness below.
The space under the platform was cramped, and seemed to magnify the pains in his leg. He whispered to Ruth, "Follow the cables in front of us. Some should go to the wall and the uplink."
"Do we know what the hell we're doing?"
Gideon was honest. "No." He carefully replaced the floor panel above him, plunging the two of them into near pitch-darkness. Two bright spots seen through the shadows were the only break in the dark. One was behind them, which led to the central area where the generators sat on a dirt floor.
The other end was much dimmer than the leaking florescent light of the barn, that was where they needed to go. "That way," Gideon whispered, "Straight ahead and to your left."
Ruth grunted, and he heard her crawl forward. In moments her body blocked out the dim glow of their destination. Gideon forced himself forward, following his sense of Ruth's presence. He could barely hear what was going on above him, muffled voices and footsteps, nothing intelligible. The flooring above him made good soundproofing.
It seemed as if they crawled for hours before Ruth whispered back, "The floor's gone."
It was a little brighter here, now that Gideon's eyes had adjusted. He crawled up next to Ruth and looked at what she was talking about.
She was right, the floor—the raised platform above them—stopped about six feet shy of the far wall. Gideon could see the cables snaking across the dirt floor toward a door that had the lower twelve inches sawn out of its bottom to accommodate them. It had to be the door to what was left of the adjoining shed where the uplink was.
There were three Kalishnikov-wielding guards there. Two were making their way through to the uplink, while one remained at the door.
Gideon could hear D'Arcy saying something about shutting off the uplink manually. Gideon could hear people milling around above him, Mike Gribaldi and the other computer scientists were watching their keepers trying to shut down their project.
No one moved forward to stop the guards making for the uplink. Then Gideon heard D'Arcy say, "Where are Malcolm and the woman? Find them!"
Gideon knew that there'd be little question about where the two of them went. There was only one place they could have gone. As if in response to his fear, a light burst into the space under the floor, throwing their shadows on the wall in front of them. Someone was lifting up the floor panels and shining a flashlight toward them.
Six feet. It seemed endless.
He didn't have much of a choice.
The one guard was left behind at the door. He was still focusing on the crowd facing him, straining to see the commotion beyond the people looking at him. He carried his rifle loosely in his hands, the barrel pointed away from Gideon.
Gideon took the opportunity to roll out into the dirt no-man's land between the raised floor and the barn wall. He chose a time when the guard wasn't looking quite in his direction. Gideon pushed himself to his feet, next to the guard, just as the guard was turning to see the disturbance. Gideon was in a half crouch next to the guard and brought his fist up into the man's groin.
The guard's eyes widened, and his cheeks puffed out with an exhaled breath. He still raised the Kalishnikov to bring the butt down on Gideon's head. Gideon dove up, under the blow. The stock slammed into his left shoulder as he grappled the man's waist. There was a flare of pain that paralyzed his left arm as they both slammed into the doorframe.
Gideon slammed his right fist into the man's kidney as he tried to force his legs to push himself fully upright. There was yelling from the spectators, and Gideon could hear movement from beyond the door next to him.
The stock came down again, this time on his back with an impact that felt as if it should crack his spine. The guard said nothing, his voice was coming out as inarticulate, painful grunts. He sounded a lot like Gideon felt at the moment.