Level Two was harder; the Security Manager politely informed Johnny Johnny that he would be allowed access to only one file at a time, and that a human webdancer in the Operations Information Center would be notified of each file accessed. Johnny Johnny ghosted himself, split himself into dozens of copies for the Security Manager to deal with. The Security Manager accepted one request for a file, and then another, and finally a third before informing one of Johnny Johnny's ghosts that it could accept only three requests before a webdancer approved the request. Johnny Johnny ignored the Security Manager, delved into the files.
The Security Manager screamed for help.
Human response time is slow; Johnny Johnny guessed he had at least three full seconds, perhaps as many as five, before a webdancer came to see what was wrong.
While the Security Manager watched, helplessly, Johnny Johnny tore through the database on Level Two.
Nothing.
Over a second had passed.
There was a sentinel, a sort of primitive web angel, at the entrance to Level Three. Johnny Johnny submitted to the sentinel a request for access, watched the sentinel as it executed, considered the request and denied it. The sentinel was a small program, though well coded, with less than ten gigabytes of workspace memory assigned to it. Johnny Johnny fired another request, and then another. The sentinel employed a primitive sort of ghosting, multitasking the two requests together. It slowed noticeably, and expanded slightly to claim more of the memory available to it.
Johnny Johnny ghosted himself a thousand thousand times.
And then each ghost started asking for entry to Level Three.
Nearly two seconds had passed, and now the System Tools apeared, scanned through the workspace Johnny Johnny occupied, running diagnostic test upon diagnostic test to determine the cause of the malfunction. Some of the tests Johnny Johnny was able to fool; most of them he could not.
The sentinel ballooned wildly, expanded to fill the maximum workspace allotted it. Johnny Johnny fired request after request at the sentinel even after it had reached peak load. The sentinel attempted to re-allocate memory internally, to shell out memory being used by the instruction stack and reassign that memory to the queued requests of a million ghosts.
Web angels appeared out of nowhere, tore into Johnny Johnny's ghosts. Johnny Johnny ignored the web angels, concentrating on the sentinel--
--which was faltering. The sentinel oscillated wildly, thrashing senselessly in its attempts to deal with the massive overload of data. Johnny Johnny kept up the stream of new requests, pushing now as the sentinel--
--crashed.
More than half of Johnny Johnny's ghosts were dead. Johnny Johnny dissected the sentinel quickly, disassembled the instructions that had composed it. In its default configuration the sentinel used less than two gigabytes of RAM; it was going to be a hell of a squeeze.
Nearly a full four seconds had passed before the web angels reported the files secure. Four and a half seconds from the moment when the Security Manager had first screamed for help, a human webdancer shimmered into existence, loaded Diagnostics and started hunting.
Johnny Johnny, wearing the sentinel's code as a disguise, responded as the code he had absorbed said he should when the webdancer came at last to him. The webdancer paused a thousandth of a second, examining the shell of the sentinel, and then passed on.
Fully ten seconds later, Johnny Johnny applied once more to search the Level Three files.
And then gave himself permission.
Ten minutes after entering the cubicle Trent opened his eyes to Realtime. He began shedding attachments; removed his handheld from the terminal.
Johnny Johnny said aloud, "Boss, are you sure this was a good idea?"
"Hell of a time to ask, Johnny."
"Well?"
"No, Johnny. I'm not sure." His Image's silence seemed almost reproachful to Trent, and he said at last, "It's a start. We have to start somewhere."
"And what's this supposed to do? Changing one file? Boss, I don't understand."
"It's going to make them look silly, Johnny. It's worse than killing them, you know. They'd rather die gloriously than be laughed at."
"Oh."
Johnny Johnny was silent after that, and Trent also. Trent spent his free ten minutes in meditation.
When the guard rapped on the door, Trent exited without hurry, briefcase in hand.
* * *
21.
November 1, 2069.
He stood in the Operations Information Center from which Spacebase One was run, at the core of the long cylinder about which Spacebase One was constructed, protected by layer upon layer of radiation shielding; a direct hit by a tactical nuke upon the surface of Spacebase One would not have harmed him.
With the departure to Earth of Etienne Géricault, he was the senior PKF at Spacebase One. A tall, grim man who looked older than he was, gravely handsome, dark-eyed and dark-haired, surveying a monument to his own failure.
His name was Mohammed Vance. He carried himself with a peculiar power of presence that only physically impressive, intelligent men possess.
That the operations center was silent at the moment was his failure. Until just the prior day it had been filled with PKF officers, coordinating the details of the search for the Player, the thief, the man named Trent.
Now the webdancers' terminals were empty. The monitor posts scanned silently without human intervention.
There was one other person actually in the operations room, a young Elite candidate named Melissa du Bois. She sat rigidly at her station, her recently shortened hair waving gently in the breeze from the vents.
On the great holofield, stretching out to cover most of a twenty-meter expanse of hullmetal, burned the image of a Hand of the Trinity, a too-confident young man named Jean Lumet.
Lumet was saying, placatingly, "Commissionaire, I appreciate your desire to continue your search for this criminal. If it were up to me I would allow it." He shrugged in a very Gallic manner. "It is not up to me, and you have no choice."
In the calm, deep voice that gave junior PKF officers nightmares, Mohammed Vance said, "I tell you, Hand Lumet, that he is alive."
Three seconds passed, the lightspeed lag from L-5, in Lunar orbit, to Earth; Lumet made a helpless gesture. "Commissionaire...what would you have me do? I am not an officer of the PKF, sir; and the order to desist in your search has come from Elite Commander Mirabeau herself."
Vance scowled with displeasure. Something would have to be done about Mirabeau, as something had been done about her predecessor, Elite Commander Breilleune.
Eventually, there would be a competent and sufficiently ruthless Elite to represent the interests of the PKF to the Unification.
Eventually....
Lumet took another tack. "Commissionaire, the vehicle that the criminal stole was broken cleanly in two. Most of the hull was torn away in the missile blast--and don't think that words have not been said about that missile salvo you fired. It was the most fantastic luck that--"
"Luck," Vance said impatiently, "is something fools rely upon. The north end of the base was evacuated at my order following the attack upon the slipship bay. If anyone had been hurt it would have been due solely to disregard of orders. There was minimal danger."
"Oh?" Lumet lifted a sardonic eyebrow. "And if one of the warheads had detonated?"
"Simulation showed the possibility of such an outcome at only one in approximately forty."
"You ran that simulation, Commissionaire, only after giving the command."
Vance stared unblinking at Lumet. The accusation was completely correct; only Vance and two of his most trusted assistants had been present when that simulation had finally been run. One of those two--
Vance said quietly, "I withdraw the objection. Nonetheless, the damage done to the reputation of the PKF Elite by the murder of one of its members cannot be tolerated. The example is one that--"
"Commissionaire, please." Lumet waved a hand in d
ismissal. "It has been three months without a sign of the man. This Dark Clouds criminal--there, I think, you grasp at straws. A random and completely unproductive attack by ideologs on a DataWatch facility in Luna City. Vague, unreliable reports that a 'nephew' appeared at approximately the same time as the stolen Space Force vehicle crashed--a partial print in the ruins of the, ah, 'bolt hole,' I believe it is called--which may have belonged to the criminal Trent--why go on? You postulate a ridiculous chain of events. The man cannot be alive."
Lumet turned off-holocam momentarily. "One moment." He turned back to Vance. "My presence is required elsewhere. I think we have covered the situation."
Vance said grimly, "Samples at the site of the explosion of the Space Force vehicle did not show the trace elements that should have been there had a living human been present at the time of the explosion."
Lumet sighed. "Commissionaire, your own recordings show how badly that vehicle was damaged. Conceivably his body fell over some other part of Luna."
"The engines were firing. The vehicle made a soft touchdown."
With strained patience Lumet said, "Sir. The piloting was characteristic of a vehicle on autopilot. You--"
"Or of a vehicle controlled by a Player."
Lumet ignored the comment. "--told me this yourself! I have discussed this as much as I care to. I am not responsible for originating this order, but I will see it carried out. That I have tolerated your argument so long as I have is only in recognition of your years of valuable service. Your abnormal interest in this solitary criminal will stop and it will stop now. The search is called off, and you will report back to Capitol City at your earliest convenience. All of these things you will do."
Mohammed Vance said very evenly, "Do you realize to whom you are speaking?"
Lumet took a long, slow breath. "Sir, yes. Commissionaire, I do not want you as my enemy. I believe Elite Commander Breilleune became your enemy, and he is dead. However--sir--I have no leeway in this matter." Lumet paused a moment and said, "Nor do you. Good day to you, sir."
The field went blank.
After brooding in silence for several minutes, Vance said, "Officer du Bois."
The woman did not look at him. "Sir."
"You have met this man. You have spoken with him. Alone among our officers, you chose to wait for him at the North Bay. What is your opinion?"
She said slowly, "I do not understand, sir."
He turned slightly, stood looking at her. "Do you believe him to be alive?"
Her head bent slightly, in an attitude of contemplation. Her voice, when she spoke, was little more than a whisper. "He is ... the most alive person I have ever met. He would not die so easily."
"Easily?"
The sharp word brought her up; she held her gaze wavering against his for several moments. "Sir, he is alive. I know he is."
Vance studied her for a moment, then nodded. All the tension spilled out of him at once. "Yes, it is interesting. And disappointing ... a man," he said, looking now toward the empty holofield, "is defined in some ways by the things he tests himself against. The Erisian Claw, the Johnny Rebs, most Players even, they are too easy. I have rarely faced a challenge such as this boy Trent." He turned away abruptly. "Nor, I think, will I again. Access his file. Reassign it to Access Level One, as per orders."
Melissa du Bois did as instructed, through the traceset at her temples issued the necessary commands. She did not realize she had made any sound whatsoever, surely nothing that would have brought such instant response from Commissionaire Vance. In the ambient blue glow from the holofield her features had taken on an icy cast, like a statue formed of wax.
He said, "What is it?" in almost the same instant that the word, "Sir," tore itself from her throat.
Vance turned back to her with a degree of grace highly improbable in a man so large. He approached her op station, the certainty growing within him, and leaned over to stare at what should have been Trent's file.
The file was gone.
In its place were five words.
Five scarlet words that glared up at Mohammed Vance, glowing bright red against the blue backdrop of the holofield, shining on his cyborg retinae as though they would permanently inscribe themselves there, and a harsh, fierce joy descended upon Mohammed Vance, like the answer to a prayer.
Vance said softly, "Officer du Bois. We are going to Luna together, you and I."
Five words.
Catch me if you can.
* * *
22.
"Hey, you can't go in there."
"Why not?"
"There's going to be a news conference," the Peaceforcer said.
"I know that." Trent examined the Peaceforcer standing duty at the entrance to the Luna City Hall conference room. She seemed awfully young to Trent; tall and painfully thin, two hundred and sixty centimeters at least. Pure homegrown loonie. Trent hadn't even known that there were native loonies in the PKF. "But that's two hours from now, sweetheart. I have to fix a line of dead lasercable."
"But I'm not--"
"What's your name?"
"Officer Stout."
"You don't look it. Listen." Trent stepped closer to the loonie and had to tilt his head up slightly to meet her eyes. "The System Business Journal Board pays sixty CU a month for the privilege of recording PKF news conferences. The first time in five years you have something that's really news, we have a dead line. If we have to lease coverage from some other Board, Officer Stout, I guarantee you you're going to hear about it."
"But you'll have holocams with you--"
"Come on," said Trent impatiently, "we pay for the fixed holocams because they give a steadier image. Five minutes tops. I'm in and out."
The Peaceforcer looked Trent up and down in momentary indecision; Trent stood patiently, clutching the Black Box tool kit in one hand. The SBJ insignia on his jumpsuit was crooked. Though he had yet to undergo biosculpture, Katrina had done his makeup for him, and he looked only slightly like the Trent of whom the PKF had holos.
With a quick movement the Peaceforcer reached behind herself and slapped the pressure pad to open the door. "Do it fast."
The conference room was large and empty; about a hundred and fifty seats, a raised platform at one end with holocams already set up and focused on it. A pair of vending chefs held sentinel against one wall. A smaller empty platform to the right of the main platform was to be used for displaying holos; the projector was already turned on, an empty holofield dancing just this side of visibility upon the platform.
Trent wasted no time once the door had closed behind him. There were two access panels at each side of the room, marked as such, in the ceiling four meters above Trent's head. Trent stood under the closer panel and jumped up once, pushing lightly at the panel as he reached it. The panel was not secured; it popped free instantly. With his free hand Trent pulled himself up through the ceiling, into the meter-high crawlspace above the conference room.
It took a moment for Trent's eyesight to adjust to the dimness. Every other panel in the ceiling sported a fire sprinkler; the water pipe that fed the sprinklers emerged from the wall at the far side of the conference room. Trent sighed, and on hands and knees moved as quickly as he could through the crawlspace to the spot where the piping originated. He reached the place where the piping entered the wall and touched the pressure point to open the tool kit. Inside the tool kit there was a small red canister filled with concentrated Complex 8-A. Trent had designed and built the canister himself; in response to a question from Katrina he had declared that it was a tool for use in an adventure in plumbing.
He fastened the canister to the pipe, glued it carefully to the pipe's surface, and waited while the glue set. The mechanism inside was simple; Trent touched a point on the canister's surface, and a small spike inside the canister punched down into the pipe, opening a passage between the fadeaway and the water that fed the sprinkler system.
He closed up the tool kit, crawled back to the accessway and poked hi
s head down into the conference room. Empty. Trent dropped down to the ground and then jumped back up again to close the access panel.
At the huge double doors that let into the conference room, Trent withdrew a small spraytube of vacuum glue and blasted the surface of the double doors with it.
On the surface of the spraytube it said, DANGER--EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE IN PRESSURIZED ENVIRONMENTS. DO NOT USE NEAR OPEN FLAME, WELDING LASERS OR ANY INTENSE HEAT.
The residue the glue left when it dried was slick, but not sticky; Trent was almost certain it would not be noticed.
Trent touched the pressure pad at the door, waited while the wide double doors curled open, smiled at Officer Stout on his way out, and went down a level to A1 to have breakfast.
Trent would not have guessed that there were seventy-five newsdancers in all of Luna who would let themselves be roused for an 8:00 a.m. press conference.
The conference room was packed. Trent slipped in just behind the System Business Journal team, still wearing his blue jumpsuit with the SBJ insignia. The same loonie Peaceforcer was at the door, glancing at press badges as the newsdancers filed in. Officer Stout smiled at Trent when Trent walked by.
There were four seats and a podium set up on the central platform that had not been there when Trent had been in earlier that morning. Four Peaceforcers were up on the platform together, along with one nervous loonie in a business suit. The loonie turned out to be Luna City mayor Jerry Hoff, who made a brief speech thanking the PKF for their efforts in making Luna safe.
Trent recognized one of the Peaceforcers.
Mohammed Vance sat impassively through the mayor's speech, arms folded, staring with glittering black cyborg eyes out into the crowd of newsdancers.
In the back of the conference room, Trent found somebody to stand behind.
The Long Run Page 29
