The Chromosome Game

by Hodder-Williams, Christopher

  Once the link was broken, he released the key, and waited.

  Micro: Error report. Link with network malfunction.

  Scorda: Give me Level 5.

  Micro: At Level 5 exit activation code implemented.

  Scorda was paralysed at the keyboard.

  ‘Exit activation code?’ Had he? …

  Now, he could scarcely strike the right keys for the trembling of his hands. But he managed:

  Scorda: Clarify.

  Micro: You wish manual override of Orifice ZD/X?

  Scorda: What macro you using?

  Micro: Exodus.

  Scorda simply couldn’t believe it. Impossible yet true; in attempting to get details on the supplies position he had unwittingly hit on what looked like the means of getting the hell out. But to where?

  He paused for a minute. Surely Sladey would value this information above all else? Surely between them they could make the best use of it? For if supplies were low, why not get to wherever supplies were plentiful?

  He thought, no one knows where we are now, but it’s beginning to feel more like a prison than a home. There just has to be a real world beyond it!

  And Sladey and me … we’ll be the ones who know!

  Scorda: Standby to implement Exodus.

  Micro: Waiting.

  Scorda allowed himself a private gloat. Then he keyed in the final command, held his breath to see if it would work.

  It did. Very faintly, there came a whining sound from the far end of the deck.

  Orifice ZD/X had opened.

  The thrill of it was paralyzing. For three stark facts pounded against his mind with stunning clarity.

  The first was that he now had power over the others. He could do something that they couldn’t.

  The second was that if food supplies really did run out, he — Scorda! — could actually choose which of the trapped incubants would stand a dog’s chance of getting food and water from other sources. He would be the god of their survival!

  But there was a third reason which, although not occurring to him on a conscious level, was really fundamental to Scorda’s personality.

  He now had something to please Sladey about.

  Scorda, though he didn’t really like Sladey, knew there was something about 555 which he himself lacked … a kind of sureness about what he felt and thought and did; you felt Sladey never doubted his own superiority, and Scorda couldn’t understand this, because Sladey sure was a flimsy-looking creature, you could easily have mistaken him for some kind of a slob.

  But Scorda knew he was not. Feeble though Sladey was to look at, and full of crazy-talk you had to somehow reassemble in your own brain before it made any sense, Sladey could tell you what to think, what to do and when to do it.

  Before finishing at the keyboard of the micro, Scorda had the presence of mind to erase the floppy disc that held the details of the last part of the transaction. Once more pressing down the red key, he stooped and managed to reach behind the micro-processor.

  With the cables restored, he terminated the transaction where the word ‘wait’ had appeared.

  The word reappeared on the screen.

  Scorda typed in, ‘Cancel transaction. Level 5 not needed.’

  Back came, ‘Level 5 filestore closed. Confirm transaction concluded and rpt identity number.’

  ‘Transaction concluded, 484. End.’

  *

  The shock of what he saw had him reeling at the foot of the steel steps that led up from the gaping Orifice of ZD-One.

  He knew terror.

  As yet he had no word for it.

  But something stronger than terror had always been part of Scorda’s makeup. He could conquer fear only because a paranoid wedge, digging into his mind almost like a physical tumour of the brain, had already started growing.

  It had been there for a long time, demanding things.

  It demanded power, and survival over others, and — necessarily — the means of gaming knowledge that could give the wedge the necessary force to drive fully home.

  So he found a flashlight in one of the emergency racks; and, after gathering himself to face whatever awaited him aloft, entered the Orifice once again and climbed the steel stairs.

  *

  ‘Thanks for the game, Trell. That’s quite some service you’ve been slamming at the wall, I thought the ball would go clean through the concrete.’

  ‘All the same, you won, Scorda — as usual! And I’m sweating gallons. Think I’ll take a shower —’

  ‘— Salt water, of course?’

  ‘What’s with you, Scorda?’

  ‘I’m talking about salt in the water.’

  ‘You mean sodium chloride? — It’s always been in the water supply except the stuff we drink.’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  ‘Why are you raising this now?’

  ‘No reason. Forget it.’

  ‘Are you saying we’re short of drinking water or something?’

  ‘I said, forget it!’

  Minus Six

  Krand said, ‘Look around, Trell! Something’s changed.’

  ‘You bet it has.’

  ‘When did you first notice it?’

  ‘Can’t put my finger on it. But something yelled at me when I played Squash with Scorda.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like new words flying around. Words we didn’t even know. And weird looks … That Sladey guy making oddball cracks about a thing called the Ku Klux Klan. Ever heard of the Ku Klux Klan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Krand, I don’t know how to put this exactly, but there’s a change in the atmosphere.’

  Krand said, ‘Eagle tells me Scorda was out of bed most of the night, only a couple of days before your squash game.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘I know he used the micro.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Oscar.’

  Trell said thoughtfully, ‘The very one I was going to use for my word-search program. How’d he get into the system, though? He’d have to enter his code-name.’

  Krand said, ‘I’m more interested in why he got in. Tell you something, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I have a funny feeling you’re never going to need that word-search program you were planning.’

  Trell just said, ‘I’m going to get right into the middle of this crowd with my ears flapping like they’re radar.’

  *

  You start to look at the people around you as if you’ve never seen them before, you have light-intensifiers in your eyes, super cameras; and the impulses that reach the brain are not the ones that got there before.

  Nembrak and his gang … Well, at least they’re okay — all technological and inventing amusing electronic toys … A rabbit on wheels that can find its way around in the maze — very clever that and a Nonsense Machine: you press a button, a chequer-board piece rolls down a ramp and hits a valve which turns on a tiny water pipe, the water causes a short-circuit and lights a lamp; the lamp excites a photo-electric cell and sounds an alarm, the alarm is heard by a microphone the far end of the Disco counter, the microphone electronically activates a metal arm and the arm pulls the lever which serves a Special. All very funny and amusing and harmless and typically Nembrak. His Inseparables — Fulda, a tall girl and austere-looking with it, until a great grin appears; Triumph, who invents outrageous musical instruments that look like twisted trumpets; Nicola, all breast and derriere, like a letter S, yet quiet and attentive when listening either to boyfriend Triumph or Quartet-Leader Nembrak … All four of ’em guileless and engaging and fun. Nothing wrong there.

  Cass and Hallow, everlastingly at the chessboard and Hallow himself everlastingly gazing at the twins, who wear spruce white shorts, wasp-tight at the belt. They flash a duplicate smile at the palefaced Hallow, swishing their racquets, then stooping with their hands on their knees, swaying with each shot as they watch some classic tennis game on a TV cassette — Borg playing McEnroe �
�� a match as hyper-electric now, over three hundred years on, as it was when Wimbledon still lived.

  Hallow gapes at the supertwins as they mime the shots with their bodies.

  Others show altogether less healthy symptoms; and you abruptly realise how many of them you don’t really know, they are just names. But there’s no mistaking the anxious looks, the whispered exchanges, the conflict.

  There is Flek, standing limp with his baseball bat hanging down. It swings loosely in his hands like a pendulum. Then he discards it as if it has suddenly become redundant. Flek has never learned from Kelda’s kindnesses. There is no pain in his groin now — not that kind, anyway. The way Flek gazes upon the twins suggests the seeds of rape — so unlike Hallow who, pale as ever, stammers something at his chess partner, then wrenches his eyes off the twins and back to the chess board. Flek’s sidekicks — Handem and Gendabrig — seem scarcely to exist in their own right. If Flek is to abandon baseball then so shall they. They stack the bats and follow his eyes. It is clear that they do not see Sakini and Inikas as people at all — only as objects of masturbation.

  Then, as Krand strolls toward the Disco with his beautiful black girlfriend, Sladey slinks into the scene as if from nowhere and watches. Some of the weaker incubants turn and watch him.

  Sladey is recruiting people without having to say a word.

  Eagle senses this, but he’s on business. His inner thoughts camouflaged by an air of innocence he tells Trell, ‘Kelda is waiting for you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the gymn.’

  *

  Kelda completed her work-cut on the vaulting horse, walked away from it thoughtfully, switching-off athletics as far more pressing matters took precedence. ‘You know the Controller wants to see you, Trell?’

  ‘It can wait.’

  ‘Somebody’s making trouble for you.’

  ‘Funny how I expected it.’

  ‘What are you staring at?’

  ‘You. In a leotard.’

  ‘You’re in trouble with the Computer and all you can think of is me in a gymn outfit?’

  ‘Maybe that’s why. I’m scared, Kelda.’

  ‘I know. There’s something secretive going on. It all goes back to what all of us are doing, crammed into this place. So many missing answers. If we had them we’d understand the rest. See what I mean? Who collects a couple of hundred kids and brings them up in a tin box? We get dud letters, and no phonecalls. We grow up with the idea that we have parents only because everybody else has parents. Yet if we’re orphans, what kind? Trell, not one of the movies we see tells us a thing about orphans, did you notice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Is it because we’d realise that orphans are not normally reared in isolation, controlled by machines? Then take the outside world: we’re told lots of things about it but we aren’t allowed to see it. Why not? What’s to stop those in charge fixing up a television camera somewhere outside and showing us live pictures?’

  ‘Right. Why lock us in at all? What’s out there?’

  ‘Trell. What isn’t out there?’

  ‘And you just said “those in charge”. Suppose nobody is?’

  ‘You’re saying … Just a computer.’

  ‘I’m asking.’

  ‘What was Scorda doing with that micro, Trell?’

  ‘Knowing Scorda, he probably didn’t know himself.’

  ‘Then he finds out? — by accident?’

  ‘Yes. But what?’

  She said, ‘That talk you had with him after the squash game … I could be wrong, but —’

  ‘— You on about Sodium-Chloride?’

  ‘That’s ordinary salt, right? Sea salt. Do you get it?’

  ‘I get two things from it. Thing One, he’s somehow concerned about the preservation of un-salted water.’

  ‘Fresh water. Which leads us … where? What’s Thing Two?’

  ‘Those “pings”. There was a movie we saw. A long time ago. I have a feeling we weren’t meant to see it. The film was included by mistake —’

  ‘— Stopped halfway through.’

  ‘Right! Might have given us ideas, these ideas … Can’t remember the title, there’s the rub. But it had those “pings” in it.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Certain.’

  ‘Can’t you remember what the movie was about?’

  ‘I think it was … it had something to do with the sea.’

  ‘Ships?’

  ‘Yeah … ships.’

  ‘Ships.’

  ‘Jeepers, Kelda! I have it! Sonar! The movie … Well, there were these two ships, only one of the ships could go under water, and they were kind of playing —’

  ‘Playing?’

  ‘Some game … Naval Manoeuvres. One trying to find the other!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Don’t remember exactly.’

  ‘Trell, I think I remember the movie. This Sonar, it sends out pings, and you get echoes. And —’

  ‘— I’m right with you. The gadget times the delay of the echo-return.’

  ‘Trell. We’re on a ship.’

  Trell provided the Sonar echo. ‘We’re on a ship.’

  ‘So just how did we wind up on a ship?’

  Trell said, ‘If we’re on a ship, there’s got to be at least one other deck, if not more.’

  Kelda said, ‘My hunch is that Scorda has somehow found out about the other decks.’

  ‘But we mustn’t assume anything yet.’

  ‘Sure. So amid all this electronic mothercare, Brother Scorda gets wise and goes to work on micro Oscar-1. How do we find out for sure exactly how he worked the magic? — if he did?’

  ‘We can’t. What we can do is call-up the records — that is, the dump-tape from that particular device — and find out what the micro was used for.’

  ‘How do we get at the right bit?’

  Trell snapped his fingers and suddenly kissed her on the lips. ‘Cinch! The Computer is going out of its mind waiting to interrogate me. Okay. I interrogate the Computer … Kelda, I kissed you!’

  Yes. Trell?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Take care.’

  *

  ‘Approach the cameras, 484.’

  ‘What’s eating you, Controller?’

  ‘You’ll see. Sit in the swivel chair. You’ll find four bracelet devices. Clip these around your wrists and legs.’

  ‘Look —’

  ‘Don’t argue please. The bracelets measure changes in the electrical resistance of the skin.’

  ‘Why the extra cameras?’

  ‘I’ll do the interrogating, 484.’

  ‘You could at least tell me why you want to measure the parameters of my skin.’

  ‘Lie detectors, 484.’

  ‘I don’t tell lies.’

  ‘Good. That will make matters much simpler. 484, two nights ago you operated micro-processor Oscar-1. You forced the software down to Level 5 and you were informed by video that Level 5 was only accessible provided I myself were directly connected. When you were informed of that fact, you pressed the ‘hold’ key, yanked out the inter-connection plugs, and through a trick you obtained a certain secret code. On this code you acted. True, or false?’

  ‘Totally false. I mean, just plain wild.’

  ‘Repeat your denial, Trell-484.’

  ‘False. I know nothing of Level 5, or what it means, or why you should think that I was responsible.’

  ‘Because you were forced to enter your code number in order to operate the machine.’

  ‘I did not operate the machine.’

  ‘But you were planning to.’

  ‘Yes. But certainly not to dig as deep as Level 5. I wanted to run a simple “sort and merge” program.’

  ‘Did you at any time run this program?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The data is not ready;

  ‘You do know that you are not entitled to run your own programs without cons
ent of my Operating System?’

  ‘I decided to eventually go against that ruling.’

  ‘So you did, in fact, enter your own code, the code “484”?’

  ‘I just told you, I haven’t got around to it yet.’

  ‘State categorically that you at no time entered your own code to micro-processor Oscar-1.’

  ‘I shall not. I have many times entered my own code, as you very well know, for supplementary education. I have not done so within the last month — either to Oscar-1 or any other micro. And if this lie-detector gimmick works you should know that without repeating the questions.’

  ‘Trell-484, the implications of the offence are so grave that I had to get a double check on your answers. I concede that you did not.’

  ‘Then can I now go back to the gymnasium? I’m doing a work-out.’

  ‘Trell, who do you think might use your code, in order to disguise his — or her — actual identity?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘It doesn’t anger you that someone should attempt to incriminate you by that means?’

  ‘What is “anger”?’

  ‘Now you are lying. You know the meaning of the word “anger”.’

  ‘Gee, that thing really works, doesn’t it?’

  *

  There in the fluoro-moonlight Trell whispered, ‘Did you check the corridors? — Ablutions Area? … We didn’t overlook anything?’

  Kelda whispered, ‘Everyone’s asleep. I’ve even checked the boiler room.’ She watched him as he stood, poised for action, before the keyboard of micro Oscar. ‘You are certain the Computer won’t know it’s you?’

  ‘How can it? If our thoughtful friend keyed-in 484 the Controller will simply think he’s at it again. Are we All Systems Go?’

  ‘All Systems Go.’ — And she watched, holding her breath, as Trell began the routine he knew Scorda must have initiated to get at Data Level 5. ‘It’s going to work, Trell!’

  *

  The electric servodynes slowly inched-open the armour-plate bulkhead. The Orifice showed the rotten entrails beyond.

  Kelda, standing just behind Trell on the impeccable, vinyl surface of ZD-One’s floor, choked on a breath and recoiled from the view of the engine room as if she’d been physically struck.

  Trell clutched her hand. ‘Go back!’

  She held on tight to his hand. ‘Up there!’ — her voice a fevered whisper. ‘Death itself can’t be like this!’