PARANOIA A1 The Computer is Your Friend
Page 2
“Gotta go, Melba-O.” As Thaddeus pulled the trigger, Sheila flung herself from the girder into empty space. Flaring past her ear, then past the thief, the purple beam hit the hatch dead on. In a blast of ozone and subatomic particles, the shot instantly vaporized bars, hatch, and a gaping circle of the ceiling.
As Sheila fell—
don’t hit the beam don’t hit the beam
—she flashed back, without connection or reason, to a moment one morning at the bathroom mirror in the low-clearance barracks among the other proles, staring at pouchy eyes and puffy cheeks and her awful, awful hair, thinking, I’m on a track to nothing—doing today what I did yesterday and will do tomorrow, to the end of my life.
When was that? It could have been any morning—every morning. As she plummeted, she had nothing better to recall, from across her life, than tedium. Amazed at her life’s emptiness, she resolved to do better—to rise higher in clearance, higher in The Computer’s esteem, higher in—
Sheila fell past the beam and into the vat. She hit custardy goo with a colossal splat. As she plunged deep, it closed over her with a sound like abplanalp.
Sheila thrashed to the surface and spewed a mouthful of warm emulsion. The morale song greeted her: My VSPs show everyone / I’m working hard and having fun!
Far overhead Thaddeus shouted, with careful elocution, “Oops. I missed!”
Blind, Sheila gasped for air. She pulled away strands of goopy hair and opened her eyes—just in time to see Parker-Y, still holding (or stuck to) a two-meter length of catwalk railing, hit the goo right in front of her.
A tacky wave drove her under. A rotator arm swept by, dragging a line of agitators, long hanging strips of rubberized canvas. The strips pulled over her and pushed her down; it felt like fighting a carpet. In high agitation herself, she grabbed one strip and pulled herself up. As she broke the surface again, viscous gruel clutched at her. Her hair—her dratted, blasted, traitorous hair—!
Sheila shook her head so hard her cheeks flapped. Her vision cleared—and she froze.
On the catwalk in front of her stood a stout black-haired woman in a goo-stained orange jumpsuit—Sheila’s sole ally on the team, Recording Officer Henriette-O-JSV-1. With short arms and small, manicured hands, Henriette wrestled the bulky multicorder to point down at her. “Smile, Sheila-R. What do you think about your first adventure as a Troubleshooter?”
I just almost died. I swallowed some of this I-don’t-know-what and I hope it doesn’t mutate me. I don’t have a laser so I don’t even count as a Troubleshooter. “It’s—” She groped for words. In Alpha Complex, one particular word almost always worked. “—fun! I hope I can be a good team member and make my teammates proud.”
Her own words took her by surprise: She really felt that, ardently—not the fun, but the team. Troubleshooters were heroes. She wanted to help them serve The Computer and Alpha Complex. She wanted a fuller life, something with meaning—excitement—and also, if possible, promotion.
Parker-Y grabbed her ankle from below. She yelped, then tried to turn the yelp into a simulation of enthusiastic cheer. “Whoooah! Yeah, fun!”
Pushing the YELLOW thief back down into the vat with a discreet out-of-frame kick, Sheila crawled onto the catwalk. She noticed she’d lost her HearMeNow Earscapes headset in the vat. She also noticed, acutely, none of the others were helping her. Though disgusted—not least with her hair, now plastered in random orientations across her face—she tried for enthusiasm. “I sure hope my actions are impressing Team Leader Fabian-O.”
But Henriette had stopped recording. She was listening to a call on her PDC—her Personal Digital Companion, the indispensable Alpha Complex smartfriend—and her brown eyes were bulging. “It’s Fabian-O. He left, along with Giles-R. He says they’re chasing the real thief.”
Sheila cried, “Real thief?” Thaddeus and Roscoe, running up, repeated, “Real thief?”
“This FunFoods facility is JSV043. We’re actually supposed to be in a Cold Fun plant near here, JSV034. Who took down the instructions from Dispatch?”
Thaddeus and Sheila looked at Roscoe, who looked at the writing on his sleeve. “Huh. I guess I swapped the digits. I’m a little dyslexic.”
Sheila asked, “Why didn’t you take notes on your PDC?”
“Little spooky box tracks everything, man.”
Thaddeus scowled. “Then why did Dispatch tell us to go after Parker-Y?” He stabbed an angry finger at the man in the vat.
Henriette was still listening. “Fabian-O says we’re looking for a small-time Free Enterprise agent-for-hire—Palmer-Y.”
Thaddeus and Sheila looked at Roscoe, who peered more closely. He held out his sleeve. “Does that look like an ‘R’ or an ‘L’?”
Breaking the tense silence, Sheila spoke in sweet, friendly tones to the YELLOW mutant in the vat. “And who might you be, friend Parker-Y?”
He was clutching an agitator; apparently his glue-skin wouldn’t stick. He had dropped the length of handrail. “I work here! I was just doing my job, supervising this Hot Fun line, when for no reason you ran at me.”
Thaddeus sounded affronted: “Then why’d you make us chase you?”
“I’m a mutant. Of course I’m going to run.”
No one could argue with that. On her PDC Henriette was checking the factory’s staff records. She looked up and nodded.
The Troubleshooters traded glances of wary contemplation. The only one who seemed not to be ruminating—on vat contamination, property destruction, illegal VIOLET laser barrels, and (this was the killer) multiple counts of assault on an innocent citizen, and more to the point (this was really the killer) a citizen of higher clearance—was Roscoe. As if just waking, the Hygiene Officer looked around. In a nasal voice like a soprano saxophone he said, “These dirty uniforms are gonna get us an Official Reprimand.”
Henriette nodded with slow politeness. “Riiight—our uniforms will....”
Thaddeus snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Citizen Parker-Y!” He pointed at where the YELLOW had been, then tracked around in a circle to the man’s current position. “Your uniform betrays unacceptably poor hygiene. We’re taking you to Internal Security for correction.”
“What? You threw me in here, you bastards!”
“Such language. It sure is lucky this Troubleshooter team noticed your poor hygiene and bad attitude. Our friend The Computer can encourage you to do better.”
Now Parker’s attitude grew still worse, as he shouted imprecations that demonstrated, beyond any doubt, extreme unhappiness. Nodding with satisfaction (unhappiness = treason), Thaddeus raised his laser. (Sheila noticed he’d replaced the treasonous violet barrel with a legal orange one.) “Sorry, guy, just following orders.”
Sheila considered this idea of “orders” a stretch. She wondered what to do. But Thaddeus was ORANGE, and a Loyalty Officer; his report could send her to the Bright Vision Re-education Center, if not to a termination booth.
She got ready to wince. She looked away.
—So she got a great view as a loose length of handrail snagged an agitator arm and gouged a long sloping gash in the wall of the vat. And so she, of all the Troubleshooters, understood why its thin metal wall suddenly sagged, shuddered, and collapsed; why 40 kiloliters of Intermediate Emulsion 14b cascaded forth like a tsunami of pudding; why the rotator mechanism snapped and landed on Parker-Y, killing him instantly; and why the agitator arm flew up and wide, showering Team Adenoidal with vitaminized pink swill.
In the brief silence, one thought rose uppermost in Sheila’s mind and, she guessed, in every other: Gonna be a fine....
Roscoe spoke first. “Like I said, man—our uniforms are really dirty.”
“We should change. Somewhere else.”—“Yes, right away.”—“Sounds good! Let’s—”
The chime.
ATTENTION, TROUBLESHOOTER TEAM ADENOIDAL-352.
They all looked at Thaddeus. He forced a smile, but his eyes showed despair. “Hellooo, Friend Computer!”
Sheila’s mouth went dry. Two minutes ago she had hoped to make her teammates proud. Now she thought, If Thaddeus blames me, VIOLET laser barrel. If it’s Roscoe, he’s a mutant anyway. Henriette won’t fink on me because I’ll fink on her.
LOYALTY OFFICER THADDEUS-O-JSV-2, YOUR MOST RECENT FORM TS-2952-445 EMERGENCY BATHROOM BREAK REQUISITION, DATED 214.03.27, 06:14, REQUIRES A SUPERVISOR’S SIGNATURE. PLEASE RETURN TO JSV SECTOR TROUBLESHOOTER DISPATCH AFTER YOUR MISSION TO CORRECT THE FORM.
Thaddeus seemed to grope for words. Down on the factory floor, bots were vacuuming up emulsion (and Parker’s body) and piping everything into the next vat.
“I—ah—I apologize, Friend Computer. I’ll correct that immediately on my return to JSV Sector Troubleshooter Dispatch.”
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION. YOU MAY RESUME YOUR MISSION.
The speakers clicked off. The Troubleshooters stared.
Sheila’s PDC rang. It was Team Leader Fabian-O. “Are you off the beam yet? —Good. I just wanted to check whether you smoothed things over with that YELLOW guy. I don’t trust Thaddeus-O.”
Good thought. Thaddeus-O was even now silently mouthing, Lie to him. Sheila shook her head. “We—uh—we resolved the situation.”
“I’m going to assume that means—” Fabian began, but Thaddeus grabbed the PDC and interrupted: “The thief escaped. We’re pursuing him.”
“Don’t! We—”
But Thaddeus broke the connection. “I distinctly heard our Team Leader say, ‘Don’t worry,’ and I applaud his vote of confidence. As for you, RED—” Thaddeus used Sheila’s PDC to point at her. “When I need you to back me up, you back up. Troubleshooter Rule 1: Do what I say.”
She took back her PDC. “At least this Rule 1 matches the previous Rule 1.”
Roscoe ticked off the various Rule 1s on his fingers. “So the score is, ‘Do what I say,’ 2; ‘Get out of my way,’ 1—”
Henriette had her own PDC ready. “Do we report Parker-Y’s death?”
Thaddeus waved her away. “Just a mutant.”
“Hey!” Roscoe started to protest, but he trailed off—“heyyy....” Maybe he’d forgotten what he was hey-ing about in mid-hey.
Sheila disliked the team’s overall flakiness. If these were the heroes of Alpha Complex.... “Won’t we get in trouble if we don’t report all this?”
Thaddeus frowned. “After the mission. I didn’t expect someone of your background to be so naive.”
Sheila bit back her next question. Background? As an admin in Troubleshooter Dispatch? Or—she felt a shiver—did Thaddeus know she belonged to a secret society?
No. Even that idea made no sense. Among all the dozen-plus major societies of Alpha Complex, few were considered more naive, more harmless than hers. Pro Tech had no doctrines, no agendas—it was just a bunch of gadget-heads who gathered in informal, slightly illegal groups to study equipment they might or might not technically, legally own.
Yet this morning, ever since Roscoe had dragged her out of her barracks to join this bunch of strangers—well, and Henriette, a buddy from Pro Tech—Thaddeus had shown weird expectations about Sheila. He’d asked her to plan their assault on Parker-Y—rather, Palmer-Y—and he’d acted like she was some kind of combat expert. Huh?
“Now.” Thaddeus pointed at her, then to the ceiling. “It’s time for you to—”
With a tremendous crrrack the floor tilted. The Troubleshooters grabbed railings, or each other. They exchanged looks of panic. For one awful moment Sheila wondered what might be below this factory. Another FunFoods level? Offices? Caves?
Alarms rang. Bots raced back and forth. A clamor of distant footsteps.
Thaddeus broke his grip on Roscoe’s neck and pointed again. “As I was saying, RED. Lead the way.”
—————
The Underplex stretched deep under, and over, and around all of Alpha Complex. It was a disjoint and chaotic network of abandoned rooms, dead-end tunnels, and lost accessways that interpenetrated every sector of the underground city. None of it existed—officially. Every part of it grew from calamity and misconception. A lab contaminated beyond purification; a corridor built at an unwise angle; a subsector infested with traitors; in each case, some official found it expedient to resolve his error with bold determination. And bulldozers.
With every record erased, and every citizen who remembered those records also erased, the errors compounded. Across the centuries, beyond awareness and memory, rooms and tunnels had metastasized into a jangled labyrinth. Now the Underplex harbored fugitives, refugees, mutants, secret society meeting halls, and relics of unhistory. Often only a wall panel or bulkhead separated them from the lighted world.
The four members of Team Adenoidal-352 crept along a corridor as dark, fractured, and weird as their relationships. They had to jump from one section of flooring to the next, and the walls were chokingly narrow, as if the whole corridor had been sliced lengthwise. The air smelled of dust and garbage. Along one side, slanting doorways opened on what looked like ordinary offices, now wrecked. The opposite wall looked temporary, makeshift, yet unknowably old. Who could tell what might lie on the other side?
Sheila felt tense. She’d lived every minute of her 23 years in sight of a camera or an Internal Security officer. Now, two minutes from the FunFoods hatch, she had already moved beyond PDC range, beyond surveillance, beyond even electricity. It was unbelievable, surreal, like ducking into a cafeteria for a quick snack, leaving, and discovering the whole city had been replaced by a mold colony.
Sheila was scouting in front with her flashlight; Henriette followed close. Thaddeus and Roscoe hung back, visible only as one bobbing flashlight beam; Roscoe could see in almost total darkness, and also sensed his surroundings by listening to air currents. The two men talked in low voices.
Glancing back at them, Sheila grew even more anxious. “Do these guys understand they’re supposed to be heroes?”
Henriette glanced back and shifted her multicorder. “If you’re pathologically unpleasant and like committing treason, but maybe you aren’t ready to face the termination center just yet—hey, Troubleshooter.”
“And now I’m one, too. Hope I can live up to their example.”
“If you plan to follow their example, I won’t turn my back.” Henriette sidled closer and whispered, “Why are you here, anyway?”
Sheila was dumbfounded. “Wait, didn’t you tell Roscoe-R to recruit me?”
“I didn’t know anything about it. I think it was Thaddeus-O.”
Her mind reeling, Sheila nearly stumbled into a crack in the hallway. She leaped, then helped Henriette over. The two men waited for the two women to move further on, then followed, still out of earshot.
Sheila couldn’t make sense of it. “How would Thaddeus-O know about me? Is he Pro Tech?”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t spot my signals. Nor Roscoe-R either. —Know what about you?”
Sheila halted and looked around. Darkness and silence. She leaned close to Henriette and whispered, “I know where it is.”
Henriette’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean—”
“Yes.”
“This sector’s Central CompNode?”
“What? No, I mean—”
“Or, no, Internal Security’s crowd-control armory? Omigosh, I know, you found the Pro Tech INDIGO warehouse!”
“No!”
“Not—” Henriette’s voice was hushed. “—the formula for Bouncy Bubble Beverage?”
“I wish. Are you done?”
“What do you know where it is?”
With liturgical gravity, Sheila enunciated each syllable: “The Bot Graveyard.”
Silence. “The what?”
“Oh, come on. You’re Pro Tech, you know this.”
“I don’t keep up with all the mailing lists.”
“Hey, RED!” Thaddeus shouted. They both jumped. “Keep going.”
Sheila and Henriette picked their way forward. Sheila kept whispering: “I have a
friend at a History Purifiers firm. Years ago he was scrubbing an old file, and it pointed to a really, really old file. He found it on the Gray Subnets.”
Henriette murmured, “Right.” On the illicit data networks maintained by the secret societies, you could find any contraband file, any shady secret, and every kind of illegal fun.
“He decrypted the file,” Sheila continued. “You know about the Pro Tech bot programmer from a hundred years ago, Marcellus-B? No? He pulled off a tremendous hack. Marcellus-B inserted his own custom code in every bot brain. When the bot suffered severe damage and would ordinarily head to Tech Services for recycling, his code redirected the bot to a hidden location.”
“That would be the—Graveyard?”
“Right. Unfortunately for Marcellus-B, his aide in Pro Tech, a woman named Annalise-B, was actually an infiltrator, a spy from Free Enterprise. Annalise-B sold out Marcellus-B to Internal Security. They erased him.”
“Oog.”
“Annalise-B stole the Graveyard’s coordinates and then went searching. No one ever saw her again. So the bots kept going to the Graveyard, with nobody to salvage them. They’ve been stacking up for decades. By now all those parts are worth a fortune.”
Across tedious months and years of filing, with the precision of an architect, Sheila had imagined every detail of the Graveyard. In her vision, bots filed into a spacious factory-warehouse and solemnly mounted a conveyor belt that swept them forward. Solicitous automated systems disassembled the bots with finicky exactitude, polished the remains, stickered every piece with chips of metadata cryptic yet profound, then sorted them in glittering hoppers. Forkbots seized the bins and whirred down aisles, onto ramps, up cantilevered corkscrew spirals, careening millimeter-close by shadowed shelves in endless towers, to the foredestined spots where at last, with pinpoint care, they brought their charges to their designated rest.