by Nik Abnett
“She’s in here,” said Wooh.
“What?” asked Metoo.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
HENDERSON TOOK THE message that Pitu 3 had been found hanged, apparently by his own hand, and that the Student was an associate of Master Tobe’s and one of the last people to see him before his home isolation. He did not know what it meant for the Code status.
“Chen?” said Henderson.
“Yes, sir,” said Chen.
“No. It’s nothing,” said Henderson, pausing with his right elbow cupped in his left hand, and his right hand to his mouth.
“Not a good look, sir,” said Bob Goodman.
“What, Operator? Are you speaking to me?” asked Henderson.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“What’s not a good look?”
“Classic defensive, concerned posture, and, if your legs are crossed, too, we’re really in trouble.”
Henderson uncrossed his feet and looked hard at the back of Goodman’s head.
“I can see your reflection on-screen,” said Bob.
“Why aren’t you looking at the screen?” asked Chen.
“I am,” said Bob, “that’s how I was able to see Operator Henderson’s posture.”
“Bob!” said Chen, shocked.
“What? Doesn’t everyone do that?”
“Are you telling me that you can monitor everything that’s going on on-screen, and still keep an eye on the Service Floor, via the screen reflections?”
“Can’t everyone?”
“No, Mr Goodman, they can’t,” said Henderson. “So, you know a little something about body language, do you?”
“It’s all part of the same thing. Looking at peoples’ heads on-screen is no different from having a person in front of you. The two can be read in much the same way.”
“Really?” asked Henderson.
“Sure. What? You didn’t know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Me either,” said Chen.
“Anyone else?” asked Henderson.
There was quiet on the Service Floor, for a few seconds, and then Bob spoke again.
“I’m pretty sure the Operators are concentrating on what they’re doing. Put a request up on their screens.”
“I’ll be right back,” said Henderson.
WITHIN MINUTES OF Henderson leaving the Service Floor, every Workstation on every Service Floor, in every College on the planet had a rolling questionnaire appearing on the left-hand side of its screen. There was no time to put together a brand new psychometric test for what Henderson was looking for, but it was possible to take one of the basic aptitude tests and insert questions from one of the personality tests used on infant and latent Actives. Individual scores wouldn’t be conclusive, but comparisons might prove interesting.
Branting began to get the results of the Operator tests through in less than thirty minutes.
Every Operator on the local College Service Floor was reviewing Master Tobe’s data, and one Workstation on every College Service Floor globally had also been given over to checking his output. The whole World was working on the problem. The whole World had to; by the time Code status had been ramped up to Orange, thousands of Students, Seniors and Assistants had ceased to function within their remits, hundreds of Companions were out of action, and more than two dozen Actives had been suspended, or had stopped processing.
The ever-changing mind threads that wove the synaptic Shield that kept the World safe and secret from the Universe were fraying; the warp and weft of the mental net was wearing away and perforating, and holes were beginning to appear in it.
Everyone knew about the domino effect. One domino falls, and others must follow suit, until all the dominoes have fallen. Everyone knew about ripples on a pond. Throw the tiniest of pebbles into the middle of a pool of water and the ripples will grow to fill the pool, water waving and splashing at its perimeter.
There had been no external view of the Shield for over a century. For the first hundred years of the College system, one, lone, stealth-satellite had monitored the Shield from beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, which was contained within the Shield. Some tumult in the solar system, which was never fully explained, had knocked the satellite out of orbit, and the only external eyes on the Shield were lost forever. The only way to monitor the integrity of the Shield, now, and for the past century, was to monitor the Actives. The Shield was invisible to Earth, but the Actives were alive and kicking, and could be housed, and controlled by Service Global.
Master Tobe, and his probability problem constituted the flick of the first domino, the pebble. The maths was out there, and as the ripples spread and grew they gained speed and momentum. There was no way to contain the problem. There was no way to plug the holes in the Shield, or weave the synaptic threads back together.
Qa had processed and input hundreds, maybe thousands of wafers, and the data never stopped coming.
The Operator tests came through as data, which needed to be translated into a graph.
“Let’s process this lot then, shall we, and see what the graph looks like?” asked Branting. “Obviously, we don’t have enough to do already.”
“Sir?” asked Qa.
“Sorry. I’m getting a little punchy, I know. I’m just going to sit for a minute.”
Branting’s advisors were on one of their short breaks, and he still had ten minutes to collect his thoughts. He sat down at the conference table and dropped his head, lacing his fingers together on the back of his neck. He could see his reflection in the shiny surface. Dropped over, his face was slack, and he barely looked like himself. He thought for a minute or two, and then said, “Qa, sit here for a minute.”
Qa got up from his seat in the alcove, and sat down next to Branting at the table.
“Sir?” he asked.
“Look down.”
Qa dropped his head onto his chest, misunderstanding his boss’s instruction.
“No, look down at the table. What can you see?”
“Oh,” said Qa, leaning over. “I see the table-top, and the reflections in it.”
“Yes, you do. Now look at me.” The two men lifted their heads and looked at each other.
“I don’t get it, sir,” said Qa.
“Try again,” said Branting.
Both men looked down into the mirror surface of the table. Branting watched the expression on Qa’s reflected face change. He put his hand on his shoulder, and said, “That’s right, Qa. What do you think of that?”
“I think it means you have to put together a new team,” said Qa.
“So, find me the people I’m looking for,” said Branting, almost smiling.
Branting put through an instruction to dismiss all his advisors, and sat on the dicky-seat at Qa’s Workstation.
“You can input the data here, right?” asked Branting.
“It’ll take a few minutes,” said Qa.
“Minutes, we have,” said Branting, “let’s just not take hours over this, okay?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE QUARANTINE HAD not proven effective, and it had probably contributed, to some degree, to the unease that seemed to pervade the atmosphere in every College in the World.
After close to a hundred hours, Patel and her teams were finally allowed to leave Tobe’s office building. They had completed their task in short order, but had not been allowed to leave their posts for another ten hours, and none of the material that they had painstakingly collected from Tobe’s room and collated, bagged up, documented and checked, had been removed from the building during the entire time they spent in the offices. Patel’s photographs were the only evidence that had made it back to Service.
The teams were demoralised; more than thirty hours of work had gone to waste, and another ten, sitting doing nothing had not improved their moods.
The quarantine had applied to everyone, but the lifting of it did not. It was lifted in stages. Service was the first department to be entirely re-instated, an
d all Operators were free to move around at will, except that they were all on incredibly tight Schedules because of the Code status.
The School was more-or-less a closed environment, so it was easy enough to end the quarantine there, and the Students and Seniors hardly noticed the difference, even if they were relieved that they were no longer under orders to remain in the building. Many of them wouldn’t have chosen to leave it, anyway; many of them only left very rarely, but it was nice to know that they could leave the building if they wanted to.
The College proper proved the most problematic. There was some question as to whether it was a good idea to re-instate pre-quarantine rules and regs, straight away. Students, Assistants and Companions had caused the most problems throughout the ordeal. They were the most fragile personalities, and they responded badly to stress, particularly when it was associated with change. The Code changes and the quarantine had affected them more than any other group, and what affected them invariably affected the Masters, which meant that Actives were put at risk.
Another change, even a reversal, out of quarantine, might be too difficult. It was another twelve hours before a decision was made; twelve hours in which the bags and boxes filled by Patel and her team were removed from the corridor outside Master Tobe’s room, and taken away for processing by Service. There would be no teaching timetable, which had been suspended when the quarantine was imposed, but all members of College were free to move around, and Masters could return to their offices, if they chose to. The library was also re-opened, but lecture halls remained closed.
The food hall was up and running again two hours after the quarantine was lifted, but its opening hours were restricted. Many Students, who’d been living off very basic rations in their rooms and dorms, were relieved to be able to spend their coupons again. They were also allowed to use any coupons that had gone out of date during the quarantine, and, within a few hours of the food hall opening, the atmosphere was beginning to change for the better. Small groups of Students were beginning to relax together. Decent food and good company began to calm the Student body, and Observer Operators, judiciously placed among them, were happy to report that Student-life seemed to be returning to better-than normal.
TOBE’S QUARANTINE WAS not lifted. Tobe, Metoo, Wooh and Saintout would remain in the flat.
“We might as well be under house arrest,” said Metoo.
“It’s not so bad,” said Saintout, smiling.
“Not for you,” said Metoo. “This just turned into a walk in the park, for you, but I’ve still got Master Tobe to deal with, and it isn’t getting any easier.”
“We’ll help in any way we can,” said Wooh.
“Help by staying out of the way, then. Help by allowing me out into the garden for an hour.”
“Okay,” said Saintout, “we can do that.” Wooh cast a frown in his direction; she wasn’t entirely sure that it was up to them to decide the conditions of Metoo’s quarantine.
“No,” said Metoo, “I can’t.” Saintout shrugged at Wooh, behind Metoo’s back, but he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I don’t think you’ll be here for long, anyway,” said Wooh. “I wanted to warn you in advance...”
“What?” asked Metoo, an anxious expression crossing her face.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Service?” Saintout asked Wooh.
“Oh, come on. You, of all people, ought to see that telling Metoo is –”
“No, you’re right,” said Saintout, interrupting Wooh, and holding his hands out, to take Metoo’s.
“Let me explain what’s going to happen,” said Saintout, sitting Metoo down on one of the chairs in the garden room, still holding her hands. “Our assessment of the situation, mine and Doctor Wooh’s, is that you are the key to solving this mess.”
“How do you mean?”
“The thing is,” said Wooh, approaching Metoo, “we don’t really know why, but Saintout and I have come to the conclusion that you are closer to the sub – to Master Tobe, than anyone, and you might hold the key to answering the questions that this situation has posed.”
“What situation?” asked Metoo. “What’s she talking about?” she asked Saintout.
“We’re at Code Orange,” said Saintout. “Master Tobe’s status has been degrading for days. No one seems to know why, and no one seems able to reverse the problem.”
“There’s nothing wrong with him,” said Metoo, dropping Saintout’s hands, and rising, as if to flee.
“I believe you,” said Saintout, “but we’re still at Code Orange, and you’re not so naive as to think that a problem like that will just go away.”
“I’m not naive at all,” said Metoo. She sank into the chair that Saintout was standing next to. “What do you need from me?”
Doctor Wooh stepped forwards, saying, “Service will require your presence at one of the Service Central Offices. We don’t know where, but we assume it’ll be as local as possible, given everything that’s happening.”
“I can’t just sign in and talk to them that way?”
“They want to see you,” said Saintout, kneeling by Metoo’s side. “The interview could be quite... intrusive.”
“Intrusive, how? How could anything be more intrusive than chipping me, and you’ve already done that,” she said, glaring at Doctor Wooh. “They can get into my head any time they damned well please. They don’t need to see me. My place is here, with Master Tobe.”
Doctor Wooh looked at Metoo with pity.
“Why are you looking at me like that? What the hell do they think I’ve done?”
“They don’t think you’ve done anything,” said Saintout, still low to the floor, on one knee. “The fact is... You do realise... They might decide to interview Tobe.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do! You gave me the questions. I said I’d do it. I’ll do it,” she said. “They can try to ask him questions, but what are they going to do? Take him somewhere he doesn’t know? Surround him with people he doesn’t know? Ask him questions he doesn’t understand?”
“She has a point,” said Saintout, rising to his feet, and looking at Wooh.
“Did you do this?” asked Metoo. “Did you decide that I should be thrown to the lions? Bullied and questioned, and God only knows what else? How could you?” she said, looking up into Saintout’s face. “How could you do that?”
Metoo left without waiting for an answer or an explanation.
She left the garden room, and took a couple of steps, and then turned her head in the direction of Tobe’s room. She wasn’t even aware that she was doing it, but she did it a dozen times a day when Tobe was in the flat, in his room. She liked to keep an eye on him. It was her job.
The door to Tobe’s room was closed.
Metoo’s hand came up to her open mouth, but she didn’t utter a sound. She lifted the hem of her robe with her left hand, and, her right hand already stretched out in front of her, bolted for the door.
She did not knock or wait; she simply opened the door, without stopping, and walked into the room. Tobe was sitting on his bed, looking at his wipe-wall. He turned to face the door when Metoo entered.
“What?” asked Tobe.
“Tobe?”
“Tobe,” said Tobe, placing one hand on his chest.
“Sorry,” said Metoo, abashed, and she stepped back out through the door, and closed it behind her. She didn’t know what to do. She never went into Tobe’s room when he was in the flat. It was his space, and she didn’t invade it. On the other hand, the door was never closed, ever. She looked around for the wedge with the little owl on it that had been used to prop the door open for the past six years, at least. She could not see it. She made her way to the kitchen to wash her hands and calm down.
The door-wedge with the owl on it was sitting on the counter, on top of a piece of paper, where Tobe would normally sit. Metoo lifted the wedge. The piece of paper simply read:
Tobe’s room, please knock.
Her face pale, an
d her eyes wide, Metoo staggered back to the garden room, barely able to breathe. She pushed through the door, and stumbled into a chair, almost collapsing.
“Christ!” said Saintout. “What is it, Metoo? What the hell’s going on?”
Chapter Forty
BY THE EARLY hours of day 5, Qa and Branting were looking at a bell curve.
“Now all we have to do is decide where we want the cut off,” said Qa.
“We have nine hundred and eighty-seven Colleges worldwide, and we have data for all the Operators who are at their stations, what about all the others? The ones that are eating, sleeping and playing?” asked Branting.
“Service Global has put out instructions to have completed questionnaires from all Service Operators within two hours,” said Qa. “The questionnaire is short, so it doesn’t take long to answer the questions.”
“OK, but I don’t want to wait that long.”
The two men sat staring at the data for a few minutes.
“We want the rarities, the oddities, right?” asked Qa.
“Right, but do we want the top of the graph or the bottom, or do we want both?”
“If Joe Average is at the top of the curve, I say we start at the opposite end of the curve to the Actives. Although, to be on the safe side, you might want to take samples from both ends of the curve.”
“And how many of them do you suppose there are?” asked Branting. “And what if they don’t work on Service Floors? Can we test everyone?”
“Not in time for this.”
Branting got up off his dicky, and paced the width of the room, his left hand up to his mouth, head bowed in thought. He stopped, stood still for a second, and dropped his hand from his mouth. Then he smiled.
“I really am getting punch drunk,” he said. “It’s staring us right in the face. Get me the Service number of the Operator that started all this... Goodman, was it?” asked Branting.
