Realtime Interrupt

by James P. Hogan

  The significance was apparent immediately. Here, possibly, was a totally new way of approaching the problem that Corrigan's group had been grappling with of representing major portions of the real world. Instead of trying to supply every detail of an image, feed in just the right cues and let the subjects fill in the details themselves, from the inside.

  But surely it couldn't be that simple. Hans watched the frown forming on Corrigan's face, knowing the objection that was coming.

  Finally, Corrigan said, "These resonances. Are they unique—different for each individual? Or does everyone share the same ones? . . . I mean, if they're unique, they can't produce the same world for different people."

  "Yes, I know what you're saying, Joe. But the fact is, there does seem to be a surprising degree of commonality. We are still very much in the fact-gathering stage, but the way it looks is that similar input code patterns do result in similar things being perceived by different people."

  Corrigan was looking undisguisedly skeptical. "How could that be, now?" he demanded.

  Hans refused to be put on the defensive. "How do we know that we all see the same world anyway?" he challenged. "Oh, sure, we agree on the same broad descriptions—I'm not disputing that. But how do we know . . ." he paused, looking first at one, then the other, to emphasize his point, "that what we're seeing is identical? We don't. You'd be surprised how much in ordinary day-to-day living, people habitually see what they expect to see, not what's there. Our tests show measures of agreement that are comparable. So the differences that we get are no worse than happen every day in the real world anyway." He shrugged and turned up his hands to make one final point. "And in any case, we all tend to dream about similar things. That says there's common circuitry at work somewhere."

  "But surely the degree by which different people disagree can't be the same for all of them," Evelyn said.

  "That's right—it varies as a Gaussian spectrum," Hans said. "Ninety percent more-or-less agree what it's like out there, and they define the `norm.' But the fringe groups differ increasingly, until in the extreme cases they live in a different world entirely."

  "And we call them insane," Corrigan said, getting the point.

  Hans grinned at him jestingly. "Maybe you're tackling VR the wrong way, Joe. Instead of trying to shovel a whole world into people's heads, perhaps you should try inducing the right dreams, and let the machinery that's already there inside do the work. That is what it evolved for, after all. Just as the best cures use the body's own defenses."

  * * *

  Ivy arrived late in the afternoon. She was looking good, had found herself a place in San Jose, and was heading up a space-imaging program at NASA, Ames. She asked about Tom Hatcher, Eric, and the others back at CLC, but—not so surprisingly, Corrigan supposed—did not show a great deal of curiosity about the progress of the project itself. Corrigan took the hint and didn't push it on her. Evelyn got the same message.

  From the university they went to eat at a place in Palo Alto that was a popular nightspot as well as a restaurant. Afterward, they stayed for a couple more drinks, and to dance. Late into the evening, while Evelyn was on the floor with Hans and the other two were taking a break, Ivy looked across at Corrigan over the rim of her glass and asked, "Are you going to marry her?"

  Corrigan was used to Ivy's direct way of saying exactly what was on her mind. He had found it disconcerting at first; later it became refreshing. He grinned forbearingly. "Now, why would I want to go and be doing a thing like that?"

  "You two go so well together."

  "Exactly. Why go and spoil a good relationship?"

  Ivy sipped her drink unblinkingly. "I think you should risk it. She wants to, you know. Women have this kind of radar. We can tell."

  "There's an old Irish saying," Corrigan told her. "If you want praise, die; if you want blame, marry. People change when they feel owned. They start blaming each other for not coming up to expectations that were never realistic in the first place."

  "If you're smart enough to think that, you can't be dumb enough to believe it, Joe," Ivy said.

  Corrigan took a mouthful of drink, thought for a moment, and set his glass down. "Ah, enough of this heavy stuff," he said. "Have you got your breath back? This is a great one that they're starting now. Let's go back and show Hans and Evelyn a thing or two."

  But Ivy's comment about he and Evelyn going so well together had struck a sympathetic chord in him somewhere. Some of the women back at CLC had said the same. For some reason, it was always the women who noticed such things—or at least, who mentioned them. And socially, it was one area where his life felt incomplete.

  He was unusually quiet and thoughtful all the way through the drive back up to San Francisco.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was too late in the season to visit Yosemite as Evelyn had wanted—reports were that the approaches were already treacherous due to snow. So, following a suggestion of some people that they talked to at breakfast the next morning, they postponed that for another occasion, and instead drove across the San Joaquin Valley and up into the Sierra foothills to the Mother Lode country of 1849 gold-rush fame.

  They toured the old mining town of Columbia, preserved as a state monument, where the buildings remained inside and out just as they had been a century and a half before, and residents wearing traditional dress still worked the old crafts. The Wells Fargo Company office was still there, whose scales had weighed over one and a half billion dollars' worth of precious metals during the gold era.

  Eight miles away they found California's largest public cave, Moaning Cavern, estimated to be a million years old and large enough to hold the Statue of Liberty upright and still leave room to spare. The bones of approximately a hundred people dating back to prehistoric times had been found at the bottom, 180 feet below the surface—probably the results of unfortunates accidentally falling into the cavern, since until its opening up in recent times the entrance had been just a small, vegetation-covered hole in the surface. The guide, who was also the owner, told them that from the positions that the bones were found in, some of the victims had apparently survived the fall and tried to climb out—a tough proposition, considering the overhangs. Traces of carbonized wood suggested that perhaps others at the surface had thrown down torches in an effort to help. "Of course, it's impossible to be sure," he told them, pinching his mustache and chuckling. "But we like to think that some of 'em made it."

  They drove higher into the Sierra, the wild range separating California from Nevada. In every direction they looked they saw tree-covered hills, sweeping expanses of canyon and rock, unfolding vistas of lakes and mountains. Corrigan found himself intoxicated by the feelings of freedom and openness. They gazed down at foaming creeks far below them in sheer ravines, stared up in awe at sequoias with trunks more than twenty feet in diameter. From a crag high in the Sonora pass they clung close as they stared out over the vastness, and it seemed that all of it belonged just to them.

  "This time you've got to admit it, Joe," Evelyn said. "Come on. There are some things that even Ireland doesn't have."

  For once, Corrigan failed to rise to the provocation. The jocular side of him that would normally have responded reflexively was suppressed by a more serious mood. "You can judge for yourself when you see it," he said.

  "When," Evelyn repeated bitingly. Corrigan had been promising for the best part of a year now that they would go there one day. She didn't take it seriously anymore.

  "Sure." Corrigan kept his eyes fixed on the distant ridgeline and forced his voice to remain matter-of-fact. "We can go there for our honeymoon."

  She drew her head back slowly, turning to look at him. "Are you serious?"

  "Oh, I know I can be an ass about most things, but do you think I'd joke over something like that?" And then he relaxed and smiled, spreading his hands to indicate that was all he had to say.

  "You mean it? . . . You really, really do mean it?"

  "Of course I mean it, you silly
cow of an American female. So do I get an answer, or are you going to stand there looking like that all day?"

  She threw her arms around his neck. He pulled her close. They kissed and hugged, rubbed and nuzzled.

  "So you will, then, eh?" he murmured.

  "You know I will. Didn't you? . . . Couldn't you tell?"

  "I wasn't sure."

  "How could you not?" She drew back, shaking her head, laughing out loud, unable to contain herself. "So when? . . . Where? How are we going to do it?"

  Corrigan shrugged, able to feign nonchalance again, now that he had gotten it out. "Whatever you like. Do you want to hire a cathedral, and maybe a symphony orchestra to go with it?"

  She shook her head. "Nothing like that. Something small and informal."

  "Short and quick?"

  "Just that. I want it just to be us. It doesn't have anything to do with anybody else."

  "I was hoping you'd say that," Corrigan said. "We can go straight on into Nevada and do it while we're here. How's that?"

  Evelyn gaped at him. "While we're here? You mean now?"

  "Why not? If you're going to live with Irish impulsiveness, you might as well get used to it. We could make Carson City or Reno tomorrow. A couple of days there. Then a flight to San Francisco or L.A., connecting to Dublin via London. You're always saying how much you like to support wild life. Okay, then, how about Christmas and New Year's in Ireland? Your life will never be the same again."

  She shook her head disbelievingly. "But . . . what about work? We're expected back there. We can't just . . ." She left it unfinished, not quite sure what she had been about to say.

  Corrigan made a dismissive wave in the air. "Ah, to hell with the lot of them. They can manage on their own for a while, this once. We've both got enough leave due to us. We've been saying ever since we got on the plane: it's about time we started living a little more for ourselves for a change. Well, I'm thinking, the time to begin that is right now."

  "But shouldn't we at least call them and let them know what's happening?" Evelyn asked.

  "Oh, not at all. We'll make it a surprise for them when we get back," Corrigan said.

  "I don't think I've ever felt so happy."

  They went back to the car. As they got in, Corrigan pressed the button to disable the phone from accepting incoming calls. "There," he said. "Peace guaranteed. Come on and get in. I wouldn't want you catching a cold. You're mine now, exclusively, for the rest of this year. CLC can start taking its share again when we're into the new one."

  * * *

  Eric Shipley had a feeling that something unusual was in the air when Pinder appeared in the DINS laboratory, being genial and showing an uncharacteristic concern about how things in general were going. As a rule he spent most of his time holed up in the Executive Building with the others of the managerial elite who had transcended the mortal plane of solder guns, screwdrivers, and rolled-up shirtsleeves. Shipley believed that a chief's place was where the troops were—in the trenches. When managers collected together in comfortable surroundings remote from where things were happening, it usually wasn't long before they started inventing realities of their own that were far more virtual than anything going on in the labs.

  "It's come a long way since the days when it was you, some programmers, and a couple of techs," Pinder said, casting his gaze around. He was referring to the group that had first experimented with adding DINS feedback to the MIMIC prototype that Carnegie Mellon and MIT had developed jointly—the combination that became Pinocchio.

  "It's going to go a lot farther, too, and get a lot bigger," Shipley replied, sensing the way the conversation was headed. He might as well give Pinder his opening now, he decided, and find out what this was about.

  Pinder obliged. "And the organization has to adapt to anticipate that. It was fine for handling things the way they used to be. But that has all changed. We see things going toward a more comprehensive organizational structure that will combine all the interactive environment work under one reporting function. Bring all the decision-making together, eliminate the duplications."

  By "we," Shipley presumed he meant the Olympians across the parking lot. Pinder refocused away from the distance, where he stared when he was being evasive, and back on Shipley, which meant that he was getting to the point. "Don't you think that the DINS group would function more smoothly all around as part of an integrated system like that?"

  In other words, apart from possible semantic jugglings with job titles, Shipley couldn't expect any promotional prospects. Pinder was sounding out his reactions to merging DINS under a larger structure that would be headed by someone else. "Integrated" was always the managerese code word for "more controllable."

  Shipley thought it was plain to everyone that his interests lay in science, not in whatever satisfaction came from exercising authority over people. He was not surprised, for he had never entertained the illusion that, by the generally accepted criteria, he was particularly promotable material. Neither was he concerned. The decision was one that he had made consciously, a long time ago. He replied, "I don't think that the neural work on P-Two and EVIE would be affected much, either way. If it fits in better with other plans, then fine."

  "Such an arrangement would be acceptable?"

  "I'm assuming that my present group remains intact."

  "Oh, no question. You and your people simply transfer under the new system as is. It's really the other sections that get reorganized more, around you. You carry on as normal."

  "Okay."

  "We're responding to new opportunities in a changing world," Pinder said. "Naturally, the new organization that we're talking about would benefit from the direction of somebody whose background best qualifies them to exploit those opportunities. I'm sure you see my point—the contacts and resources that Tyron's government and industrial experience give him access to are something that the corporation can't afford to ignore."

  "I see;" Shipley said.

  What he saw was Corrigan being shoved into a subordinate position incommensurate with his ambitions, tied to a project that Shipley was becoming increasingly certain was not going to be the corporation's mainline development thrust. But he had seen that much coming for some time anyway. More disturbing now was to see these overtures being made in this fashion, while Corrigan was away. It invited suspicions of more devious motives behind them. Shipley had no idea what these might be, but his instincts detected something underhanded.

  Back in his office, he brooded for a while over the situation. Then he asked his secretary, Kathy Rentz, to find out Corrigan and Evelyn's planned schedule in California, and to try to get ahold of them. Kathy checked with Judy Klein in Corrigan's office and got back to Shipley half an hour later.

  "They were due back in San Francisco today, but the hotel there says they called last night and canceled the reservation. Judy hasn't heard anything."

  "Dammit. . . . What about their mobile number. Did you get that from the car-hire company?"

  "Yes I did. I've tried it half a dozen times at least, but it's not accepting. Sorry, Eric. That's all I can tell you."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Corrigan didn't know Lilly well enough to have any real idea what she might do. She seemed sane and stable enough on the surface, but he had been confounded by human nature often enough to know not to trust first impressions. For his part, he had no difficulty accepting and adjusting to the situation—he knew the background to Oz and was committed to its success. But how might somebody else react in a world where no action could have "real" consequences, and who really believed that twelve years of a life had been stolen?

  The trouble was, he still hadn't been able to trace her. He had gone to the North Side again, with no result, and got Horace to call companies listed under "Shoe Manufacture" in the city directory, to find out if any of them employed somebody called Lilly. This had produced four Lillys, none of them the right one. Either her firm was listed as something else, or she had told him a wrong
story for some reason, or given him a false name for some reason, or she went by a different name at work for some reason . . . or any one of a thousand other possibilities that knowledge of human nature said happened every day. If this was the kind of thing that the machines were supposed to figure out, then good luck to them, Corrigan thought. Ten thousand years hadn't been enough for humans to even begin figuring out each other. Whether those twelve years had been real or not, he had to admit that they had certainly changed some of his attitudes.

  What he needed to do, then, was talk to Dr. Zehl. It was obvious now, of course, why Zehl seemed so different from most of the people that Corrigan met: he was different—not an internal animation created and manipulated by the system, but, like Lilly and himself, a real-person surrogate projected in from the outside. Corrigan realized now that he had met others, too, in the course of those years. If the original plan had been adhered to, there should be fifty or so of them mixed in among the regular population.

  But Zehl was not one of the ordinary surrogates. Supposedly, he was Washington based, appearing and disappearing spasmodically, and often not seen again for long stretches of time. This, along with his position as Sarah's "supervisor," told Corrigan that he was really one of the controllers, entering the simulation from time to time in an effort to keep track of how things were going. In all likelihood he was somebody that Corrigan knew, but the physical appearance of injected surrogates could be changed at will. But whoever he really was, Zehl was Corrigan's only ready channel of communication to the powers outside who had the ability to determine Lilly's whereabouts, given the nature of the situation.