Realtime Interrupt

by James P. Hogan

  Corrigan saw from the look on Lilly's face that she had already completed the rest for herself. What somebody had said was that they could do so much better still if they could start all over again, only this time with the benefit of everything that the system had learned the first time.

  "They've reset everything back to the beginning," Lilly said. Corrigan nodded. But it still didn't add up. Lilly's face creased in puzzlement. "But how could they hope to run it again with us knowing what we know now?" she said.

  Corrigan shook his head. "We weren't supposed to. They've got memory suppression. All that was supposed to have been erased, so that we'd start out again yesterday with clean slates, really believing that it was the real world, just before Oz was due to start. But they screwed up somewhere. That suppression didn't work. And now they're all set to run the whole thing through again—only this time from more realistic beginnings."

  Lilly stared at him aghast. "The whole thing? You mean . . ."

  "Sure. Why not? It's only a few more weeks. But the returns they stand to collect are enormous."

  "That's out there!" Lilly choked. "It might only be a few weeks to them. But in here . . ."

  Corrigan nodded curtly and took her arm to resume walking. "Exactly. If we don't find a way out of this, it's going to be another twelve years!"

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Lilly was still struggling to come to grips with it when they arrived back at the main entrance to Xylog. "They can't," she protested as they ascended tie front steps. "No way. Not another twelve years. There's got to be some way of telling the outside that they've screwed up."

  Corrigan nodded curtly. "Graham Sylvine."

  "Who's he?"

  They went through the glass double doors into Reception.

  "One of the people that I had dinner with last night—supposedly an observer from Washington. But he's really that Dr. Zehl from before that I told you about—the same person. One of the outside controllers."

  The receptionist at the desk smiled inquiringly. "Mr. Corrigan, right?"

  For the first time in two days, Corrigan registered that her face was new. The plaque on her desk gave her name as Chris Iyles. "No Nancy?" Corrigan said.

  "She left, I guess. I'm her new replacement."

  "Hi." Newer than you know; Corrigan thought to himself. Every synthetic personality was one less real one to get right. The system didn't have attribute files on everyone. He gestured at the screen to one side. "A Graham Sylvine from Washington was here yesterday. Can you find out if he's still around?"

  "Do you know who he's with, Mr. Corrigan?" the receptionist asked, turning to call up a schedule of visitors.

  "He's been all over—here and at Head Office. That's all I can tell you."

  "One moment."

  Lilly flashed Corrigan a questioning look. He explained, murmuring, "Twenty-four hours to us is only seven minutes out there. It's not practicable to give advance notice when you're coming in, which is why they're always showing up unexpectedly. But once you are in, there isn't any great haste about having to get out. So he could still be around somewhere."

  But no. "I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan, but it looks as if Mr. Sylvine left yesterday," the receptionist announced.

  "Damn! . . ." Corrigan drummed his fingertips on the desktop. "Is Jason Pinder's secretary still here? She should have his Washington number." With the imminence of the project, practically everyone was working late.

  "I don't understand," Lilly murmured. "He's not going to be there, is he? . . . Is there even a Washington here?"

  "It'll activate a code to have him called on the outside," Corrigan said. "I used it with Zehl."

  "She's not at her desk right now, Mr. Corrigan."

  "Here, let me." Corrigan swiveled the unit and entered his own ID, which gave him access to Pinder's files up to "Restricted" level. He keyed through several layers of indexes, found the database for personal contacts, and located the record for Graham Sylvine. It gave a Washington number. Corrigan selected it and initiated the call.

  Lilly looked away and watched the receptionist with a fascination that she tried not to show. Even now she was unable to detect any hint that it was an animation. Surely this wasn't possible.

  A legend appeared on the screen to say that all personnel had left for the day, which was confirmed by a voice-over. Callers were invited to leave a message. Corrigan snorted softly, but he had expected something like this. "Joe Corrigan from Xylog, Pittsburgh, for Graham Sylvine," he said. "Tell him . . ." He paused. "Tell him that it won't wash this time either. He'll understand. The memories from last time have not been erased. Repeat: have not been erased. We need to talk. Get in touch ASAP." Corrigan hung up and stood staring at the screen. He was clearly dissatisfied, but just for the moment no immediate continuation suggested itself.

  "That's it?" Lilly said, echoing what he felt. "That's all we can do?"

  "The time differential," Corrigan muttered. "If it takes him five minutes to respond and connect back in, that'll still be tomorrow morning for us."

  "There aren't any others?" Lilly said.

  "Maybe Pinder," Corrigan said, half to himself. He found it difficult to believe that somebody of Pinder's seniority would have been misled into becoming a memory-suppressed surrogate. Therefore, Pinder would be participating in a fully aware state, probably having decided out of sheer curiosity as much as anything to see the launching of the rerun for himself, from the inside.

  Corrigan's eyes, shifting around restlessly, came back to the terminal. He reached toward the keypad, then hesitated and shook his head. "No, let's do it from my office upstairs." He glanced at the receptionist. "Thanks, Chris."

  "You're welcome." Lilly still had her visitor's badge from earlier. The animation nodded a smile as they went on through toward the elevators.

  Upstairs, Judy was still at her desk and had a sheaf of messages. "Joe, where on earth did you go? The whole world's been calling. There are a couple of urgent—"

  "Later. Can you get Jason for me right away? Whatever he's doing, it's more urgent."

  "Tom called in at last, but he wouldn't leave a number. He said he'd call back."

  Corrigan stopped. It was the first time he'd thought about Hatcher since he and Lilly figured out the situation. And suddenly he knew why Hatcher hadn't shown up for two days. Hatcher had been scheduled to enter the simulation as an observer periodically, just as Corrigan had. And the same thing had happened to him. Tom had been there, somewhere in the simworld, all those "years." And yesterday he had found himself back at the start of it, just like Corrigan and Lilly.

  "How is he?" Corrigan asked.

  "Acting weird. He didn't say why."

  "If he calls, put him straight through."

  Corrigan went through into his office with Lilly and closed the door. "Let's assume I'm right and we weren't supposed to remember anything about having gone through this once before, but something's gone wrong. Pinder will be able to decouple straight away and let them know. That way we don't have to wait for Sylvine to get back to us."

  Lilly sank down into a visitor's chair, but Corrigan carried on prowling about the room. "No, that isn't it," she said, watching him. "You're just mad as hell at what's been going on. You can't wait to get at them."

  Corrigan stopped pacing and looked at her, then emitted a loud sigh. "Hell, what else do you expect?" He folded his arms and propped himself back against the desk. "They've been working some secret deal with Borth and his backers all along, and taken control when they got me inside the simulation. They've stolen the damn project. My project! . . ."

  The call tone sounded from the desk unit. He straightened up and turned to accept. Judy's voice came through. "Jason for you. He's across the river at Head Office."

  "Thanks. . . ." Pinder's face materialized. "Hello, Jason."

  "Yes, Joe? I've ducked out of a meeting, so this had better be good."

  Corrigan was still in two minds as to whether Pinder had been a party to the c
onspiracy. If he had, then much of what Corrigan thought he remembered didn't add up. But those memories were from what had been twelve years ago to Corrigan, and it was impossible to be sure. Giving the benefit of the doubt where due, he decided to play things low-key.

  "It's no good, Jason," he said, shaking his head. "We know. You'd better tell the others. There isn't anything wrong with the set, as you've seen for yourself. In fact, it's way ahead of anything that I'd have bet on. But we know it's being rerun. The memory tape from last time didn't get wiped. It's still there."

  "Joe, what are you talking about?"

  Now Corrigan was irritated. He'd played it straight with Pinder, and he would have expected at least the same in reciprocation. "Look," he said tiredly, "acting dumb is unbecoming, as well as being insulting to the intelligence. We know what's going on, and we want out. I'm not saying you were involved personally, Jason, but some people out there are going to have to do a lot of explaining. I've had twelve years of this shit, and I'm not in a very patient mood for talking. So get yourself out of that cubicle and go and tell whoever's running things to shut it down—now!"

  But Pinder, far from conceding anything, glared back with a look of outrage. His jaw clamped tight, his mustache quivered, and even on the screen his face turned visibly a shade redder. "Who in God's name do you think you are, and who do you think you're talking to like that?" he spluttered. "Allow me to remind you that you are not a director yet. And if this is a foretaste of how it's likely to go to your head, I have a strong mind to recommend to the Board that they reconsider."

  For a terrible moment, Corrigan did wonder if he had made one almighty, god-awful mistake. But no, there could be no doubt. The memories of the simulation were clear in his head. Lilly was there, right behind him. There was no flaw in the argument. They had to be in a rerun, for all the reasons they had figured.

  Conscious of Lilly watching him, Corrigan's mind wallowed as if in a gel. This sudden change in demeanor of Pinder's had thrown him completely. Earlier today and the day before, Pinder's disposition had been almost deferential, acquiescing to Corrigan on just about every point that had been raised. Corrigan remembered thinking to himself how their roles seemed almost to have reversed themselves, and in his headiness he had attributed it to the transformation that he then believed himself to have undergone. But now . . .

  Then Corrigan realized what was happening. He swallowed hard and blinked. Pinder was being belligerent, yes; but at a deeper level nothing had changed. Corrigan had come on the line spoiling for a fight, and Pinder was simply responding in kind. He was still taking his lead from Corrigan. Corrigan stared disbelievingly. No wonder there had been something naggingly but undefinably different about Pinder, which he hadn't been able to put his finger on in two days. Pinder wasn't going to be of any help. Pinder really didn't have any idea what he was talking about. Not this Pinder.

  "I'm . . . I'm sorry," Corrigan mumbled. "It's a misunderstanding on my part. I guess all this last-minute stress has been getting to me. I'll explain tomorrow."

  Pinder's face relaxed immediately. Unnaturally so. Real feelings didn't just evaporate that quickly. Here was further proof if Corrigan needed any. He wondered how many other clues he'd been surrounded by for two days without noticing. "Very well, Joe," Pinder said. "I'll get back to my meeting. I hope you feel better tomorrow." The screen blanked out.

  Corrigan sat down shakily on one of the other chairs. "Jesus!" he breathed, shaking his head.

  "What is it?" Lilly asked.

  He waved vaguely at the screen. "That wasn't Pinder. He isn't coupled in as a surrogate at all. That was a system animation."

  "Never!"

  Corrigan nodded. "He's been acting out of character since yesterday—only marginally, but it's there. You'd have to have worked with him to spot it. It even took me until just now."

  "But how? . . ." This time Lilly was incredulous. "How could the system possibly learn to mimic somebody that accurately who wasn't in the first run? He wasn't there. He was never a surrogate."

  "The system had a Personal Attribute File on him that it had been building up before then—from early experiments and calibration runs that he took part in. Practically everyone in the company tried it. It got to be a fad." He shook his head again, still having trouble accepting it himself. "God, they're getting close! . . . The whole idea of Oz was that the animations would improve by modeling their behavior on that of the surrogates. Something wasn't right the first time around, and they went off in their own direction instead. But near the end, some of them were getting amazingly good—remember Sherri at the Camelot?" Corrigan stared at Lilly wonderingly.

  "People like Zehl were reporting back, and it amazed everyone else too. Then somebody got the idea of rerunning the whole thing—going back and starting out with everything that the system had learned. Think what that could produce. They'd stand a strong chance of actually being able to deliver what the backers had been expecting—but which nobody who understood the technicalities had taken seriously. So they gain control and collect all the accolades from the people with the money, while I'm stuck here on the inside. Neat."

  "But you have to come out sometime," Lilly pointed out.

  Corrigan shrugged. "Then what? What do I do, cry foul? File a lawsuit? With the money they've got behind them now, they can ride all of it. . . . At least, that's the way they'd figure it."

  Lilly looked at him for a few moments longer, as if waiting for something. "Well?" she said finally.

  "Well what?"

  Suddenly, everything that she had been fighting to control since waking up the previous morning came boiling out. She had sought out the one person she knew who offered a hope of making sense of anything, and he was acting as if the situation were no more serious than missing their stop on the subway and having to ride it out to the next. In reality, the sheer enormity of it had numbed him past the point of being able to react.

  "For Christ's sake, Joe!" she exploded, rising up from the chair and coming nearer. "These people have as good as abducted you and taken control of the project. We're just about to start all over again from the beginning. And you're just sitting there like . . ." She turned away to get a grip on herself. Corrigan heard her draw in a long breath. She turned back again, her hands turned upward and extended. "Surely you're not saying that all we can do is wait like a pair of dummies until someone outside decides it's gone far enough? There must be some way of getting out of here. There has to be a way we can do something!"

  "Pinder can't help us. All we can do is wait for Sylvine to get the message," Corrigan said.

  "Sylvine won't do any good either," Lilly answered.

  "Oh? And what makes you say that?"

  Lilly looked at the desk, then at the wall. Finally she brought her gaze back to meet Corrigan's and shook her head as if it should have been obvious. "There isn't any reason for them to be in a hurry, is there, Joe?" she said. "As far as they're concerned, the longer we're in here, the better. So why should they rush to shut everything down when the results are way past all expectations? Just because Sylvine comes out and tells them we've sussed it? Come on."

  Corrigan looked back at her long and hard. It was obvious. "No reason at all," was all he could say.

  He slumped back in his chair and spread his hands, indicating that he had nothing more to say. Then the desk unit buzzed. Corrigan accepted, and Judy's voice came through. "It's Tom." At once, Hatcher's face appeared on the screen. He was unshaven and looked haggard.

  "Tom! Where are you?" Corrigan exclaimed.

  "It doesn't matter. Look, I'm gonna have to make this quick, Joe, but it's important, so listen. First, let me see if I'm right about something. Did a very peculiar thing happen to you yesterday—yesterday in the morning? Like, I've seen all this before?"

  Corrigan nodded curtly. "Yes. . . . Yes, it did."

  "Okay. We're talking the same language." Hatcher saw Corrigan's mouth starting to open and cut him off with a wave of his hand
. "Not now. I need to get together with you. I'll see you at your house—say, half an hour from now. You know and I know that nothing else in this place we're in matters, right? So is that okay?"

  Corrigan nodded. "Half an hour."

  "I just want to tell you one more thing in case I don't make it. Do you remember that talk we had, way back, with Charlie Wade and Des Jorrecks about ejector seats? Well, you went into the sim a day before I did, so you won't remember. But I do. You and I talked about it again after the phase-two tests were started. There were some funny things going on then that you'll have forgotten about, that we didn't like. We agreed that some insurance would be good to have. Do you hear what I'm saying, Joe? The ejector buttons exist. We planted one each, the way we'd talked about before."

  Corrigan stared incredulously. "You mean—"

  Hatcher looked around warily, as if worried about being watched. "Gotta go, Joe. Your place, half an hour. See ya." The screen blanked.

  Lilly looked at him, not bothering to ask the obvious. He rose and ushered her to the door. "I'll tell you on the way," he said.

  Judy swiveled in her chair as they came out. "Do you want to see any of—" But Corrigan declined with a wave.

  "Sorry, Judy. We have to leave right away. Thanks for holding the fort. Talk to you tomorrow."

  Judy eyed Lilly suspiciously. Corrigan paused, staring at her. Her eyes shifted from Lilly to him, her brows rising inquiringly. He peered, trying to pierce the veils to penetrate to the person inside. Was she? Wasn't she? . . . But it was no good. For the life of him, he couldn't tell.