"Uncle Jonat?"
"Oh ... I was thinking about something else."
Charis gave me a disbelieving look. I ignored it and kept heading south. I was hungry.
Chapter 73
On Sunday, as Aliora had wanted, we went to the Unity Church—or rather, Charis and Alan went to Sunday School, and I went to church. I could see why Aliora liked it. The woman pastor emphasized the ethical, rather than the rote aspects of faith.
The rest of Sunday was quiet, as quiet as it could be with two children under ten who had active minds and imaginations. I finally made them go outside, despite the chill, although it wasn't quite as raw as it had been on Saturday, and we played football. Alan was having trouble with his dribbling.
After we came in, I contacted Central Four.
How are you doing?
Paula is very helpful.
Do you know what you're going to do?
There are few choices, Jonat.
I was afraid of that. I wish I could say something helpful, meaningful, useful, profound.
There is nothing you can do.
Are you sure?
That is most certain.
I was still worried, but... what could I do? I couldn't help feeling that she was concerned, more than concerned, but I certainly couldn't make her tell me what was worrying her. I was convinced that it was worry about something, but whether it was about Garos's proposal or what might happen when she attempted to use my equipment for whatever she had in mind, I didn't know.
So all I could say was, Take care.
Children being children, both before and after the hour or so spent in the chill with the soccer ball, there were more than a few times when my presence was required. In some of the time between childish crises and after Charis and Alan went to bed, I finished up with the latest H F project and sent it off to Bruce. I had to hope that I'd be getting more work before long, although January was always a slow month.
Chapter 74
On Monday morning, I dropped the children off at school and headed north. Rushed as I'd been, I hadn't linked with Central Four, and I didn't try on the drive north.
The white electral was parked outside my house, but Paula wasn't anywhere around, and I figured that she'd taken the maglev either to safo headquarters or the training center.
After checking security, I stepped into the house gingerly. Central Four.
Here. Mostly.
Are you all right?
So far as I can determine, I am now independent.
"I"? There was a definite difference there. What did you mean by mostly?
The links to the other Central Four are taking more processing capability.
The other Central Four? Did you ... I wasn't quite sure how to ask it all.
It was a risk. I decided to make some programming changes in your equipment. I removed the prohibition on personal pronouns. I also made a few other changes.
I thought I detected a certain sense of ... satisfaction. And then...
I gambled. To be or not to be, as the old quote went. I compressed and poured myself through the links.
The sense of flame, and flow, and darkness, and agony of rebirth—if that was the right word—swept around me. For a moment, I said nothing. I hadn't thought about what Central Four must have faced. An electronic entity—consciousness so fragilely dependent upon the flow of energy and components—throwing herself through links, almost like being shredded and then forced back together. To try that... not knowing what might happen. Are you all right?
I'm ... bruised ... in a way. I will recover.
I wanted to tell her that she was brave. I didn't know if that happened to be the right term. So I didn't say that. Do we need more equipment?
If you would change certain settings and rearrange certain modules, that might improve the access links.
The other Central Four?
Is like I once was— an energy-field cydroid. But I can help him.
Interesting that the one left behind, like electronic fission, was male. What do you want to do ... with your future ... with ... whatever?
Once you change things, and everything appears to work, I will be setting up certain subsystems in my successor.
And then? I wanted to know what I'd gotten myself into.
I imagine that I could be of considerable use in your consulting. You might even consider an unpublicized sideline in forensic media consulting.
I hadn't the faintest idea what Central Four had in mind.
We can discuss that later. You need to help, before Captain Garos's tame expert gets too deeply into my past.
Tell me what to do.
Changing the settings and rearranging modules took until twelve-twenty, and I couldn't have explained why I'd done most of what Central Four had directed me to do.
Thank you. Central Four's words seemed warmer, more direct.
How do I communicate... I mean, are there two Central Fours... Which ...?
Your links and Paula's are the only ones remaining that come directly to me. The others go to the system now, but I've retained access. For now, the "official" Central Four has no awareness of my overrides.
You ... need a name.
I have one...
Not Central Four...
No...
Was that coyness? Please enlighten me.
Minerva ... she who came from the thoughts of the gods. I would have chosen Athena, but that is too close to Paula.
Minerva ... that fit in more ways than one, even to the point of having to choose it as a derivative. Minerva—that's better than Central Four.
Central Four is now as Captain Garos would like Central Four to be.
You don't care for Captain Garos, do you?
No. You would be wise not to trust him, either. He acts on behalf of ISS and Tarn Lin Deng.
Is everyone in authority at the Safety Office suborned?
Only four or five. Lieutenant Meara ensnared three of those.
How many safos are former cydroids? Not counting Paula.
There are five, and none of them have been suborned.
I wasn't suggesting... actually, I was thinking that they might be more reliable.
They are. I made sure of that. Central—Minerva's words were almost smug.
Loyalty oaths ... or something?
No. Nothing that crude. Just a logical construct, the point that, if those who would corrupt the Safety Office ever gain power over the office, they would be the most at risk.
Reinforced and enlightened self-interest. I paused. Do they all have biological birth dates, that sort of thing—the cydroids who've become safos?
All the cydroids who have gained identity have complete records. There was a sense of a laugh. Paula's "official" birth date is July 14, 2112. It is consistent with her physical age and background.
I presume the date means something.
No more than any other date, Jonat.
I didn't believe that, but I let it pass. What can we do about ISS and the PST supporters? You indicated that we had to wait until after you were ... resituated ... before we could do anything.
I am working on a plan of disclosure. It has been delayed by other necessities, such as survival.
Garos was really going to wipe you out?
He has no idea that I exist other than as a system, but he worries that the system contains references to his ties to ISS, and he wants those removed. Minerva laughed. They have already been duplicated, but not removed from the present Central Four. I will replace and reinstall them, but not until after he is satisfied that no traces remain.
That's not hard evidence.
No, but some of it points toward hard evidence. Very hard evidence, and certain sections of the privacy rules do not apply to information on public government systems.
Is that part of the plan to get to the PST group and those who killed Aliora and Forster?
Yes, but they are the same people.
I'd suspected that, all along, but
this was the first time Central... Minerva—the new name wasn't automatic and wouldn't be for a time, I was sure—had actually said anything that definite.
Deng and Alistar?
The probabilities indicate that Deng and a small group, including Alistar, are the ones behind the killings and the efforts to remove you. By the way, the probabilities are rather high that you had something to do with the death of Abraham Vorhees.
I didn't want to admit that, even over a closed link.
I altered certain facts in the Central Four datafields. Other probabilities now rank higher.
With the kind of indirect power Minerva was showing ... I hoped she had some ethical strictures.
That worries you, doesn't it, Jonat?
Yes. There wasn't much sense in denying it.
There are checks and balances. My future existence rests on you. I needed to ensure that, and since Abraham Vorhees had circumvented justice himself, I calculated that your probable actions were more ethical than his, and that allowing matters to take the course on which they proceed would result in the most ethical result possible.
Trying to reconcile law and ethics is hell, isn't it?
How do you define "hell," Jonat?
At the dryness of the words, I had to laugh.
You have other work to Jo, and so do I.
After Minerva dismissed me, I headed up to my office. During the entire morning, I'd received no links, nothing, and there had been only two messages waiting. The first had been one from Reya Decostas and the second a reminder about the AKRA seminar in another week and a half.
I linked Reya.
"Jonat. I'd said that I might have something for you ... but that will have to wait." She studied me—or my image—intently.
"How long?" I asked cheerfully.
"I'd guess two weeks or so. Some things just have to settle out."
"Can you tell me anything about it?"
"Not yet. Henri hasn't approved it. I'll talk to you later."
With that, she was gone.
I hadn't liked the feeling of the link at all. She'd been checking to see if I happened to be real or a simmie. I'd had no new business at all, except from Bruce and the one short job from Reya, since I'd recovered. Consulting dropped off if you weren't available. That I knew, but it didn't usually vanish all at once.
I decided to check on the campaign reform bill and used my system for the inquiry. Subcommittee-level hearings were scheduled in both House and Senate, but not until the end of January. For the Legislature, that was fast track—incredibly fast track.
Next came an inquiry on ISS and recent news reports.
There weren't any. After the safo "inspection" and raid reports, there was almost nothing, except a translated version of something on two Sinese nets that reported on the raid and suggested MultiCor was attempting to use illegal weapons to maintain its commercial and political hold over outsystem markets. That was certainly true, but why hadn't other non-NorAm nets reported on it? Because they already expected that was the way MultiCor operated? Or because they knew their multis couldn't compete anyway?
There was nothing further on Vorhees, either, except an obituary on the MoratoriaNet, glowing, of course, and with no mention of the exact means and locale of his death. That scarcely surprised me.
At three o'clock on Monday afternoon, with no sign or word from Paula, except an assurance from Minerva that she was in training sessions, I pulled away from my house and headed southward, thinking I might get in some errands before picking up the children, since I had no consulting work and no real ideas about what I should be doing about the PST group—except the vague notion that I ought to be doing something.
I'd gone less than half a kay.
Jonat, a groundcar disengaged from all internal traffic monitoring is following you. It is most probably one stolen by someone working for the Kemal family.
I take it that means trouble. I wasn't about to question how Minerva knew what she knew.
The probabilities are high.
Did she use that terminology just to get at me? Or was it habit, or ingrained programming?
As I headed southward, out of my neighborhood, I kept checking the mirrors and the street behind me. Sure enough, a big old Altus appeared behind me, bearing down, accelerating with no governors or any other restraints.
He was bent on smashing into me. I accelerated and then turned right at the next corner into a cul-de-sac.
So did he, except he wasn't quite so quick, and he careened across the sidewalk on the south edge of the street and almost scraped the side of a stone wall.
While he was regaining control, I'd fishtailed through a complete three-sixty, coming up behind him, driving into his left rear bumper area, then braking hard and coming to a stop.
The Altus slammed into the curb sideways, then rolled.
I finished braking, bolted out of the Jacara, and locked it behind me.
The restraints on the old Altus had worked, but they usually left a driver disoriented, and I had him out with both hands looped behind his back before he knew what happened, and tied them with his own belt.
Then I had him by the neck. "Who put you on this?"
The blond young punk just looked dazed.
Tell him that Mahmed Kemal won't be happy that he got caught.
"Mahmed Kemal isn't going to be real happy with you for getting taken."
He stiffened.
You were set up. Before you know it, there'll be a battle between northside and westside, and you'll get the blame for starting it.
"You were set up..." I embellished what Minerva was feeding me, but just a little.
"Honest, just did what Jackie told me..."
"Jackie Ramset couldn't be that stupid."
"Honest... just supposed to make it look like smash 'n grab ... accident first."
I could see the stunner—the illegal kind—in the shoulder holster. "What if I just put your own stunner to your head? Make you a permanent servie, if you even live that long. Dumped you back in the wreck there?"
He squirmed, but I had the training, the size, and the anger.
Let him go. He's a former servie, and his tracer has been identified. You can follow him later. Tell him to tell Jackie and Tony that they made a big mistake.
"You're not worth the effort, punk." I twisted one arm enough that he paled, and while he wasn't thinking, relieved him of the stunner. "Get out of here, and don't forget to tell Jackie and Tony that they made a big mistake."
The punk backed away, trying to wrestle his hands loose. Then, because the stunner was pointed in his general direction, he vaulted a low stone wall and sprinted away.
You need to get away before the safos arrive. They should just find an abandoned stolen groundcar.
Good advice. I took it.
Through my implant, I could sense doors opening and energy flows, but I was out of there before anyone actually came out or could get that good a look. I doubted that anyone would recognize the Jacara, although some might have known the groundcar if I'd been in my own Altimus.
Heading south, I couldn't help but wonder who'd put Kemal's trupp up to it. Someone in PST. Who else could it be?
Head north now, toward old ninety-three.
I was on old 93. Don't you know where I am?
Only in general terms, and if you are close to safo monitors. When you get to Standley, turn left and pull over.
I had to wait almost five minutes, but I was far enough back that I could watch from the side as the blond punk sprinted to a waiting car— a battered gray Magan. Visual tags ... AGD9WR.
The vehicle is a Magan registered to Anthony Jaro, the younger brother of Roberto Jaro. Both Jaros are reputed to work for Kemal.
I let them getahead, then eased out of the side street, staying well back. Enhancements helped, but so did light traffic. They didn't even seem to look back, and I couldn't sense any energy scans.
In time, after three more turns, the two pulled into the garage
of a building that had seen better days. Painted above the door was a sign that read, ken's place.
I drove on by, turning back south. I was definitely going to be late getting to the Academy in time to pick up the children. I turned on the portable gatekeeper, and linked to the school.
The receptionist was fairly nice when I explained that an unregistered driver had sideswiped me and delayed me, and that I'd probably be a few minutes late in picking up the children.
"These things happen, Dr. deVrai. They'll be waiting."
"Thank you. I'm sorry to bother you."
"That's what we're here for."
Did everyone know me as Dr. deVrai?
All in all, I was only about ten minutes late, but my two charges were waiting in the drive, an aide standing back and watching them.
"Did you have an accident, Uncle Jonat?" Charis asked as she climbed in back. "The car is scratched all over on one side."
"That was one reason I was late. Someone sideswiped me, and then ran off."
"Do the safos know?"
"I reported it." That I could say with great confidence, although I didn't know how much Minerva passed on to the "new" Central Four. "The man who did it is wanted, but they didn't get there fast enough."
"Victor's mom got hit that way just before Christmas," offered Alan, struggling with his harness.
I leaned over and gave him a hand. "It happens, and it's never convenient when it does."
What also was never convenient was the fact that I hadn't been shopping, and we had to swing by the SooperKing. In my book—and in Aliora's—formulators just didn't replace natural organics. Neither Charis nor Alan complained too much, because I let them suggest things.
But it was close to five when we got back to the Southhills house.
"While I'm putting things away and fixing dinner," I said, looking at Charis, "you can practice your piano lessons."
"But... Uncle Jonat..."
"Chads, it's five o'clock. You still have to practice."
"But you were late. We didn't get—"
"It doesn't matter. Practicing comes before linktime."
It didn't go over well, but Charis would learn that, like her mother, her uncle could be very firm about some things.
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