The man stared at Judy, his lips moving silently as he tried to understand the full import of what she had just said.
Helen was a lot quicker on the uptake. “You mean this isn’t real? I’m a personality construct?”
“I don’t know about real,” said Judy. “It is true that you are a personality construct. According to your time frame, you were copied by a Marek Mazokiewicz two days ago. You’re being run, illegally and without your consent, so that people like James here can get their rocks off torturing you.”
Helen wasn’t listening. She was still focused on the first part of the sentence. “According to my time frame…” she said slowly. A yawning feeling opened up in her stomach.
Judy shook her head sadly. “According to atomic time you were copied seventy years ago. You’re just the latest in a long line of Helens. I’m sorry.”
Helen felt a pang inside her. She forced down the welling nausea for the moment. She wanted to know the facts.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why were you copied? As I said, so that people like James here could play with you. Torture you. Isn’t that right, James?”
“No,” said James. He began to wring his hands. “I wasn’t going to do anything like that. I just wanted to know…wanted to know…what it would be like…”
Helen felt contempt rising inside her. She dismissed James from the conversation.
“What happens now?” she asked Judy.
Judy tilted her head. “That all depends.”
“On what?” asked Helen.
Judy looked at James. “The people who run this place know that their cover is blown. They’ll want to destroy the evidence. What happens now depends on whether they manage to wipe the processing space in which we reside, or whether my atomic self manages to stop them.”
Helen licked her lips. “Do you think you will?”
Judy smiled and nodded. “I always do. We’ve been dealing with the Private Network for some time now. One of my digital alter egos is hot on the trail of Kevin—one of the Private Network’s leaders—right now. They won’t do anything to harm the simulation while he’s still in here.”
James slumped hopelessly into a corner of the room.
Helen gazed at Judy. “Digital alter egos? You’re going to have to explain that…”
Judy fingered the black sleeve of her kimono.
“There are twelve of us,” she said. “Twelve digital Judys. And then there is our other sister, living out in the atomic world. For the sake of convenience, I’m sometimes called Judy 3.”
“Judy 3?” said Helen.
“You can call me Judy.” She tilted her head, listened to her console, which was set in the form of the black rod threaded through her hair. “Here we are. My sister has just caught up with Kevin…”
Level Three, Variation B
Judy 4 stepped into the isolation room. Kevin was already here, struggling with Helen. Calypso, the woman who had booked the session in the trap, was lying on the floor, feebly trying to get up. Judy paused by the door, letting events run their course. As she watched, Helen slumped to the floor. Kevin noticed Judy and gave her a smile.
“Hello again,” he said. He nodded to Helen on the floor. “She’s very clever,” he said. “She grabbed hold of Calypso’s hands and rubbed the relaxant on me. She wasn’t to know that the simulation is programmed to exclude me from the effects.”
Judy’s face was deliberately impassive.
“She’s very tenacious, Kevin. I’m really coming to admire her.”
“That’s why we pick her for the traps. Big favorite with a certain sort of man.” He looked down at Calypso. “And a certain sort of woman,” he added.
“Fk ff,” murmured Calypso.
Kevin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t seem to be able to exit from this space at all.”
“We’ve got your measure now,” said Judy 4.
“I didn’t think that was possible.” Kevin frowned.
Judy pulled a little blue pill from the sleeve of her kimono and swallowed it.
“It is possible,” she said, “if we isolate the space completely. Nothing gets in and out now. Not even me.”
Kevin shrugged his shoulders.
“Ah well. There is still one way out.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Watch me,” whispered Kevin. His smile froze as he slumped slowly to the ground.
Judy 4 stared at him for a moment, her white face motionless. Only the slight widening of her black eyes displayed the horror she felt.
“Wht? Wht s it?” said Calypso. She was gazing up from the floor where she lay. “Wht dd he do?”
Level Three, Variation A
“What’s the matter, Judy?”
Helen leaned close to Judy 3 and took hold of one of her white hands. For something that seemed to be barely there, the hand felt very warm.
“Judy, what is it?”
“He killed himself,” she whispered. “Overwrote the personality space he inhabited with null events.”
James spoke up from his corner in a whining voice. “So what? Let him die. Who cares?”
Judy 3 turned and gave him a sweet smile. “You should care, James. Now that Kevin has left this processing space there is no reason for the Private Network to maintain it. Let’s just hope my atomic friends get an exit into here before we’re all wiped.”
Helen moved her lips, thinking aloud.
“Surely they have a backup of this processing space? Couldn’t they just run that?”
Judy 3 had been gazing at her reflection in the mirrored walls of the isolation room. She turned and gave Helen a significant look.
“Ah, now you’ve hit on the nub of the matter, Helen.”
Level Four
Judy 11 stepped into the isolation room on Level Four and held her breath, expecting the worst. The scenarios on this level did not bear contemplating. To look at them awoke a boiling anger that slowly cooled into thoughts that left her feeling weak and ashamed.
In this room there was a table, a little tray of silver instruments at one side of it. A man was looking at the instruments thoughtfully. He turned as Judy appeared.
“Hello, Judy,” he said.
“Who are you?” asked Judy 11. “Where’s Helen?”
“Never mind that,” said the man. “We need to talk, and quickly. I’ve been trying to get a message to your atomic self, undetected, for months now. This may be my last chance.”
Judy 11 gave a sardonic laugh.
“You could have picked a better place. This processing space is going to be shut down at any moment, with all of us in it. I’m doing a last sweep for anyone who may be trapped in here, in the vain hope that we may be able to get them out in time.”
“Never mind that,” said the man again. “What I’ve got to say is far more important.”
“I doubt it,” said Judy.
The man took hold of Judy’s hands and gazed into her black eyes floating over the white space of her face.
“Judy, listen to me. When word of this gets out, it could bring down Social Care, the EA, even the Watcher. It changes everything we’ve been led to believe. There’s been a murder.”
The edge to the man’s words touched something in Judy. He believed in what he was saying.
“Who has been murdered?” she asked crisply.
“That’s not the problem. The problem is the murderer. They’ve killed once; they’re going to kill again. The murderer has to be stopped, and I don’t think that that’s possible.”
Judy 11 was calm.
“Nothing is impossible. Who is the murderer?”
The man swallowed. He looked around the room, as if afraid of who might hear his words. When he spoke, it was in a hoarse whisper.
“The Watcher.”
About the Author
Tony Ballantyne grew up in County Durham in the northeast of England, studied mathematics at Manchester University, and then worked as a teacher, first of math, then
IT, in London and later in the northwest of England.
Nowadays he enjoys playing boogie piano, cycling, and walking. In the past he has taught sword fencing at an American children’s camp, been a ballroom dancer, and worked voluntarily on conservation projects and with adults with low literacy and numeracy.
Visit Tony Ballantyne at www.tonyballantyne.com.
RECURSION
A Bantam Spectra Book / September 2006
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2004 by Tony Ballantyne
* * *
Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, Spectra, and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
* * *
eISBN-13: 978-0-553-90287-7
eISBN-10: 0-553-90287-3
www.bantamdell.com
v1.0
Recursion Page 36
