Coils

by Roger Zelazny

  And then I was uncertain of my uncertainty. There was the matter of the transposed digits when the policeman had punched out my SR number. Had he really made a mistake, or had an alteration occurred in the signal itself? I wondered. Was my signature on that one, too?

  And the odd behavior of the monorail cars back at the terminal… I had been striving to do—something—as Willy Boy applied his cardiac arrest routine. Even then, could I have been operating at some new level?

  I again recalled Marie's words—"… getting better at what I do". Had my ability continued to develop, along new lines, during its long period of quiescence? Had all of the recent stresses to which I had been subjected then forced me to use it in this new range, my much-abused subconscious pulling the strings?

  If this were the case, and if I could learn to do it consciously, I saw a travel insurance policy suddenly presented.

  But I continued to rack my still-incomplete memory. Nothing. I had always been a passive receiver, monitoring the internal activity of data processing equipment. I could not recall a single earlier instance where I had ever actually altered the programming. Now, it seemed that it could not have come to pass at a more appropriate time.

  Terdickterclick.

  … And around and in, again. The magical landscape lay all about me. I sought the place my mind chose to perceive as a fiery waterfall dropping into a bright yellow pool… Yes. There.

  I plunged into the pool.

  Down, down… Down through the immaterial linkages with the communications strip beneath the pavement… Now, like an underground river, flung… Rushing, off and away, into the vast, interconnected network of terminals and processors and junctions… What I had in mind would require adjustments at both ends…

  Now, could I affect the pattern of the flow?

  I willed it. I pushed. Spread out myself, both here and there, I strove to alter things at both the broadcast and reception ends, to change the characteristic signal which continuously reported the vehicle's position to the central traffic control systems. On the far end, I worked to alter the record, to make it suitable and proper…

  I watched the bits fly by, like a line of blazing bees…

  Success.

  I had disguised the vehicle I was riding in. When Barbeau discovered that I had not been hit and killed trying to run across the highway and that I could not be located on the other side either, he would begin to wonder who or what might have stopped at night to pick up a bleeding refugee. Let him wonder. Let him look. This truck had not passed that way.

  I trickled through systems for the sheer pleasure of the ride, resisting the temptation to tamper in small ways for the fun of it. A feeling of enormous elation passed through me at the realization of this new aspect of my power. If Barbeau only knew what I had now, what mightn't he offer me?

  Cora? And my life?

  No. I did not want to work for him again. I would find another way. But first…

  I lost control for a moment. My mind was filled with weather maps … I was lying in a field being rained upon, watching the advance of a high pressure front. It looked like a huge H in the sky… Miles away, I realized that my real body was yawning … I… I was falling asleep… My mind was drifting … I had done what I had set out to do… and now it was time to go back… but it was so pleasant just to drift into and out of the data-bases, floating on the systems streams, stroked by the pulses… washed by the baseball scores … I was…

  I slept. Never before had I dreamed in the coils of the data-net, never before had I surrendered my consciousness in such a state. But the fatigue had caught up with me—and I was gone—before I knew it…

  Asleep in the arms of the data-sea, asleep in the coils of the deep…

  I dreamed. I dreamed as I had never dreamt before, and only fragments protruded above the skyline of wakefulness, later…

  I dreamed that I was a computer—a vast, unsophisticated one—existing in a kind of Limbo. A shadowy figure came and stood before me. While I did not exactly know this individual, it was not unfamiliar.

  It moved to a keyboard and punched out a query—I do not remember what—requiring that I search my data-banks.

  Whatever it was that it wanted involved an extraordinary amount of information. My printer hummed and the copy began to emerge.

  The dark figure took the printout pages into its hands without tearing them loose and began to scan them at a rate which equalled my rate of output. They passed in a steady, shuffling cataract into accordian-pleated heaps upon the floor. Gradually the figure, still reading, was immersed within them.

  When I ended my response the papers were swept away as by a sudden gust of wind, and the figure keyed another question. Again I responded. And again. And again.

  Finally, it was typing upon my keyboard—something long and involved which did not really require a response on my part. It was trying to program in—well, tell me something. This input went on and on and on, and I was not really understanding all of it. Frustrated, the figure tried several more times…

  All that I remembered, from the crazy games the waking consciousness plays with dream materials, was, NET LOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS, IMPEDIMENTS REMIT…

  Amazing, the order in which a recovering memory recovers, the images in which we clothe things, the commonplaces within the mysterious, and vice versa.

  I awoke back inside my own skull and feeling somewhat rested. There was a moment of disorientation, and then the entire previous day's doings returned to me. I sat up and looked out of the window. Countryside, with a pre-dawn paling of the sky off to my left…

  I took a drink of the flat-tasting water, my throat feeling rather dry, then used the sanitary facility. I washed and combed and sponged a few spots from my clothing. Then I opened some nourishing but otherwise undistinguished rations and broke my fast while staring ahead and trying to remember something that seemed very important

  Something had happened. What, I was not certain. I did not doubt that I had actually altered the truck's signal and its reception. But there was something more. While not on a level with Hans Castorp's, perhaps, I felt that my dream did hold some significance. Maybe I was really a computer dreaming I was a man.

  The truck gave a sudden lurch, and I looked up in time to see a girl in bluejeans, a heavy sweater and tennis shoes pass out of sight to the left. What the devil was she doing in the middle of the highway? Then, up ahead, the figure of a young man crossed before me—not too quickly, and not at all like a person running for his life. His movements were studied—with almost a dance-like quality to them. The radar, of course, picked him up immediately and my truck slowed. Then he was left behind, in the interlane area on my left, passing as the similarly garbed girl had passed.

  Shortly, we braked again. There was no one before me, but naturally my truck would brake if the one before it braked, and it of course would brake if the one before it braked, and so on down the line.

  Another jerk, and we were going more slowly. Another—

  We passed two more of the youths, who had obviously repeated their predecessors' performances here farther along the line.

  And then I recalled having seen or read something concerning the practice. They were referred to variously as truck-bashers, truck-dancers and truck-dumpers. They got their kicks—usually in the early morning or late at night, when there were few witnesses passing in the "live" lanes—by dancing into and out of the automated lanes on the big highways. Knowing that the vehicles' radars would detect them and that their computers were programmed to keep them from striking foreign objects, they were aware of their own relative safety. Some merely enjoyed causing alterations in the speed and flow of the long lines of automated vehicles. Others had somewhat more catastrophic aims, in that their objective was to so alter the trucks' speed in a short period of time as to overload the control systems and cause a long chain of accidents to occur. Of course, there was some danger to this—outside of one's possibly passing into the "live" lane w
hile it was active—for they were gambling on the skill of the very same robot drivers whose systems they were attempting to overload.

  Was it just kids indulging in the newest way of getting lacks? I wondered. Or was it yet another incarnation of Luddism—that old imperative to smash the evil machines which are wrecking life as we know it—now transferred from sinister engines to the computerized, the automated?

  Or might it be neither of these, but something running deeper still and possibly a thing slightly more encouraging? I was reminded of something one of my professors had once said about ritual games and festal contests as being a general part of the human condition. Could the behavior I had witnessed represent a sort of modern rite of passage into the age of automation, an affirmation on the part of youth that man is still superior to his creations?

  We lurched again. Damn lads! Irresponsible foolery is what it was. Too much time on their hands. They ought to…

  … be out stealing industrial secrets?

  Well, maybe I'd done a few socially unacceptable things myself when I was a bit younger. Of course, there had been reasons—if I could only recall them.

  The ride smoothed out and we picked up speed again. Ritual ended, whatever. And the thing I had been trying to remember danced tantalizingly nearer.

  The day continued to brighten. Haystacks and farmhouses emerged from the night's retreating tide.

  And then the image of the dancer recurred within my mind, flagrant passer in the dawnlight, arms waving through radar pulses, feet measuring some secret beat. To prove one's self superior to the juggernaut by passing the body before it? To redirect the motions of the monster? To—

  Redirect?

  Change?

  Alter?

  Control?

  The new, improved version of the power… I wondered. It should be possible for me to work my way back from here—terminal by terminal, connection by connection, through the data-net—coming at last to Big Mac, the computer banks at Angra Energy. The installation was hedged about with every conceivable security defense, to protect Angra from others doing what we had done unto them. There were codes and scramblers, a security kernel… Phrases such as "hierarchical design", "stepwise refinement" and "Parnas modularity" passed through my mind, recalled from the days when I had worked to set up some of Big Mac's protections. Of course, everything must have been overhauled, revised, refined, pushed to much higher levels of sophistication in the intervening years. But, on the other hand, it seemed that something similar might have happened to me. If I could penetrate Big Mac and reach the Double Z sector, I was certain that information concerning Cora would lie within. My rite of passage, perhaps, to the new state toward which I had been growing—if I could manage it…

  All of these thoughts passed through my mind in a matter of moments, and I knew that I would have to make the attempt. Outside, the sun grew into the sky, spilling light across my path.

  Petals open, birds sing, I coil…

  Chapter 9

  Tick—I felt for the computer, reaching toward its innards, the sense of its constant operations coming to me as the extremities of waves touch the feet, barely, softly—etder—upon the beach. Then, striding ahead, their force growing upon my legs—icketder—I moved out toward the point of strongest impact, where—Swerving, not slowing, moving like a deranged elephant, a huge truck in the near lane upon the opposite side of the highway left the road and bounced across the median strip, headed directly toward me.

  My reaction was slow, since I had already begun my engagement with the computer. I lunged across the cab into the driver's seat, using the steering wheel to pull myself into place, my feet groping for the pedals. I sought frantically after the mechanism which would switch my truck's control to manual, since it seemed to be taking no action to avoid the oncoming vehicle.

  But I was not fast enough. It was upon me and—gone.

  I checked the side-mirror. I listened for the crash. A pair of negatives. It had simply ceased to be, as if it had been silently vaporized. A phantom.

  I sniffed the air, suddenly suspicious. No. No floral aromas had accompanied it. But it was the sort of thing that Ann could have managed, and I couldn't think of any other explanation.

  I waited. I sat there leaning upon the wheel, watching the road. If one had that effect on me, where were the others? It wasn't like Ann to be skimpy in these matters. A whole convoy ought to be headed toward me by now.

  Unless it were indeed something else. A hologram? No. It was just too damned substantial, and I couldn't see how that pinpoint accuracy and timing could be achieved, anyway, in the absence of a lot of complicated projection equipment. I looked skyward. There were no hovering 'copters. Anyhow, I didn't see how they could have located me to set the thing up.

  I waited. I sniffed. Nothing happened.

  All right, then. I had a job to do.

  Ticketder—I was back where I had been, bright lights now gleaming beneath the waters like the sunken city of Ys. The ocean, I knew, represented the data-net. I would swim into that city…

  … Rushing toward me, driving on the wrong side of the road, a bright red sports car, moving at an incredible speed—

  My fingers tightened upon the wheel. My left foot automatically fell heavily upon the disengaged brake.

  I did not remove myself from the computer, however. I moved immediately to monitor the radar unit, and I saw that, despite the evidence of my eyes, there was nothing there. There was not a trace of that small vehicle present.

  And it, too, passed away. One moment it was before me, the next it was not.

  —rick.

  The hell with it then. If whatever game was being played was ultimately this harmless, then it did not warrant my attention.

  Back to Ys.

  I began my plunge.

  No! Another truck! Only I could not be certain about this one for several moments. It overtook me on the left and moved to cut in far too soon. This seemed a possibly genuine thing, until the radar assured me that it was another ghost.

  I began to grow angry. Despite their unreality, the things kept distracting me from the task at hand. They broke my concentration, they set me back…

  And more than that. There was something about traffic accidents that I found extremely unsettling. I mopped my brow on the back of a trembling hand. I could worry about the why of it later. Right now I wanted to rid myself of the assaults. Even if I closed my eyes, I would be aware of their presence, as I had been of the illusions during my flight. But in this case, the awareness would be sufficient. They were touching upon some traumas I was not all that eager to unearth at the moment.

  I sniffed again. No. But it did not matter. It had to be her.

  "Ann?" I said aloud. "Why are you doing this to me, Ann? Didn't we used to be… friends? I seem to remember… The Boss can't possibly know that you've found me, that you're reading me—yet. Give me a break, will you? There's something I have to do. I'm not out to hurt Barbeau, to hurt Angra. I just want Cora back, and they've got her. If you want to tell them something about me, tell them that if they let me have her I'll go away and they'll never hear from me again. I mean it. "You're the telepath, look in my mind and see if I don't mean it. Lay off on the trucks, will you? They're getting in my way."

  An odor of violets seemed to fill the cab.

  "Okay?" I said. "Please? Just give me some time for the things I have to do. I'd do it for you. Hold off."

  The aroma persisted. There was no reply, but no new vehicles were rushing toward me either. I couldn't tell whether she was thinking about what I'd said or just biding her time for another onslaught.

  But waiting would solve nothing, I decided after several minutes. Tentatively, I began the Coil Effect again.

  Clickterclick. Tick. Derick.

  Down. Through the clear, gleaming water, turning even as I passed into some more tenuous substance, arrays of lights hovering like disciplined squadrons of not-water fishes… Moving, threading my way among blazing col
umns, along snaking cables…. There was a fascination here. There always was, but this was something different. Something stronger. More than fascination. There was a sense of expectancy rising within me, anticipation… Something was different about my continents-spanning microworld, and it almost seemed as if I should know what it was. But I did not. I continued to the point of passage to the larger system—a place of spark-emitting narrowness between a pair of glistening walls, darkness beyond…

  "Yes." A reply within my mind, which I read in Ann's voice. And all of the overtones which accompanied it. She was going to give me my break. But not just to be nice. I could feel her presence strongly now. I could feel the fascination she felt for the phenomenon she was witnessing within my mind. She followed me down the slow spirals that began beyond the shining walls. Something inexplicable seemed to be impending, for the network held my mind in such a grip as it had never seemed to possess before. I felt that it was also holding Ann's mind in the same fashion.

  Moving, around, around … A terminal… Through it… Another… Up and down … Now the wild roller coaster effect…

  Ann was like a child, clinging to my back. I felt her fear. I also felt a powerful curiosity, almost a longing.

  Turn, turn aside … Something… Summoning…

  No!

  Something, something out there… Calling, beckoning … I wanted to break my journey and go to it, but the thought of Cora, of my mission, made me resist, made me fight what was rapidly becoming an obsession. Something…

  I tore my mind away, shaking free. I knew my goal. I could not afford to be turned from it. I plunged ahead…

  … And Ann plunged with me.

  "Turn!" I felt her say within my mind.

  In that moment, I realized that the summons which I had ignored still held her. She wanted to travel that byway, trace it to its source.