Metak Fatigue Part 21

Then - so suddenly he cried aloud - his head exploded with light and sound.

The reactivated icons and screens of PolNet filled his mind, blinding him to reality for a bare instant. Data scrolled down his vision; remote inputs booted up his implanted processor, checked its status and opened the channels he had tried to access on the way to Old North Street. And on top of all of that, Barney's voice urgently called his name.

Cati's fingers found his throat while he was distracted. The killer lifted, began to squeeze. Roads dangled li e a rag doll. The muscles in his throat and the strengthened bone of his spinal column prevented Cati from actually snapping his neck, but there was littlie he could do to stop the closure of his windpipe. He pulled at the clenched fists with all of his fading strength and s.h.i.+fted them less than a centimetre. His modified autonomic systems slowed his heart and diverted as much blood as possible to his brain, yet still he could feet consciousness gradually ebbing.

Gritting his teeth, he stared into the killer's alien eyes. The babble of voices intensified as darkness filled his vision and the fire in his lungs began to go out.

Then the hands suddenly eased, allowing him a brief gasp of air. He struggled, kicking more by reflex thananything else. His body still fought desperately for life, despite its slim chance of survival. Whether any of his blows struck home, he couldn't tell.

His eyes hadn't recovered fr om the lack of oxygen in his blood, and his limbs were little more than vague nerve-endings a long, long way away.

Then he was in the air, flying across the room in slow motion. His eyes cleared enough for him to see the wall coming for him. There was little he could do to stop it. The pain was like a bomb going off in his head as he hit.

He slumped face-forward onto the bare floorboards, retching for breath.

Outrage burned everywhere in his battered body, and the taste of blood was stronger than ever: like failure, sharp and bitter. But he had to move. His life depended on it.

With an effort so draining that he thought it might burst his heart, he managed to roll over and look up.

Frustration cut deep the lines of Cati's face; despair lay in the bottomless black pools of his eyes. But he wasn't coming for Roads. He stood exactly where he had been moments ago, frozen in place as though by some terrible internal struggle.

As Roads watched, the killer shook his head once, raised his clenched fists to the ceiling. His mouth formed an 0, and he screamed silently. Every muscle in his body quivered in rebellion.

Barely had Roads registered this impression than Cati sagged. Every muscle went limp, and the killer looked down at the floor. Any thoughts Roads might have entertained of taking advantage of Cati's distraction vanished. The killer already looked beaten, doomed.

Then Cati moved. So quickly that Roads could barely follow, the killer ran from the lounge and into the bedroom. The crunch of footsteps traced his path to the window and beyond.

352.

k twitched, wanting desperately to set off in Cati was slipping through his fingers for the time that night, and unlike before he had no idea ti;i- the killer might be going. But there was nothing 114-we" F41 do in time; he could hardly even keep his head .MbNbMt listen.

1 @, ft,'i gentle thump from the roof above followed, then a o the building across the lane. Footsteps led into n x;@ distance, gradually fading even to Roads' sensitive 1c. Finally, only Katiya's voice remained, calling the lw back, sobbing helplessly for him to return. Cati was gone. Apart from the voices calling both Mrlt-., and outside Roads' head, the night was silent ffir Will you talk to me, for G.o.d's sake?" "Take it easy, Barney." Martin O'Dell leaned over the seat she occupied. "He's probably busy, and you're fiful, [email protected], the h.e.l.l out of him." "For ten minutes? He can't be that busy."

O'Dell shrugged and moved away. In the dim light glowing from the screens and control panels of the RUSAMC control van, his face looked different. More serious; in a strange way, more at home.

Barney wasn't sure she liked the change, even if he was helping her. For the first time, she felt like an Outsider. "Phil, this is an emergency. I need to talk to you now!"

Nothing. She closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands. The last sighting of Roads had occurred almost threequarters of an hour ago, when he had stolen a patrol car from the back of Mayor's House. Nothing had been seen or heard of him since.

She was beginning to suspect the worst.Behind her, O'Dell oversaw the rest of the operation. RUSAMC technicians had isolated the frequency of Roads' cyberlink, and were using the control van's transmitters to boost Barney's signal. Also, the information from the old CATI files retrieved from her laptop had enabled them to search for any illicit transmissions through the radio-silence still blanketing the city's official airwaves. They had already detected one such transmission, and were working hard to decode it.

Barney sighed. If the cipher proved to be impenetrable they were wasting valuable time.

Outside the control van, chaos reigned. Visible through a monitor was the ring of MSA officers surrounding Mayor's House, each armed with a rifle and under strict orders to keep everyone out - RSD and RUSAMC included. Search parties had found no sign of Cati, and the city's communication network was still effectively down, despite the mysterious subst.i.tute that had appeared to take PolNets place. Communication was limited to the few intercoms the RUSAMC had loaned to the RSD squads during their retreat from the area.

Yet she refused to give up. The long-run was more important than the short: neither Cati nor the Mole had been captured; both had disappeared along with Roads. She needed him to help them resume the search, before the Mole or Cati went to ground again.

She kept trying, sending her voice echoing across the city, boosted by the RUSAMC transmitters.

Finally, after another five minutes of calling, a weak signal returned: "Barney, be quiet. I'm here." Roads' voice issued from the, speakers in the console in front of her as well as in her ear. He sounded terrible, even over the cyberlink, but Barney was too relieved to notice at first.

OW" Her cry brought O'Dell instantly from the far iN of the control van. "Is that really you?"

Don't start that again. I'm not up to it." '"We've been looking for you everywhere. Where the 11 have you been?" "Hunting," he said, "and being hunted. I saw Cati [email protected] from Mayor's House and guessed he was heading to Old North Street. The Mole must have guessed well or followed me part of the way, because it beat at. here. By the time I arrived, the place was a mess and [email protected] Mole had gone.

Then Can arrived, thought I'd done and _" He stopped. "And?" she prompted uneasily. "Let's just say I'll live, and leave it at that. I've no 1r;P.- where he is now. Katiya's still here. She's been To MTN around too, but she'll be okay." "Cati hit her?" "No, the Mole did. Why, though, I'm not sure." "Maybe to enrage Cati," said O'Dell, leaning across the console to talk into a microphone. i "Is that you, Martin?" Roads asked, surprised to hear the extra voice through the cyberlink.

6cyes." "I guess you'd know better than any of us what the L Mole really wants. It's your toy, after all." "Perhaps." O'Dell glanced at Barney. "But we'll talk about that later. For now, we're in the control van listening in on the old military frequencies. There was an unauthorised transmission about fifteen minutes ago that we think came from Cati's controller -"

"It did," Roads interrupted. "If not, I wouldn't be talking to you now. Have you translated it?" "Not yet. We're doing our best. Do you have any ideas?"

"No. As I told Barney, I'd only heard of the CATIproject by name - no details. You've tried all the standard encryption keys?"

"Everything in the old files. None of them match." "Then it must be something unique to the project, and could take hours to crack. Although . . ." Roads thought for a moment. "PolNet's back on the air. Does that mean RSD is up and running again?" "No," Barney answered. "PolNet just started working again.

No-one knows why. We thought you might have had something to do with it." "Me?

No - in fact, it d.a.m.n near killed me. But I have an idea who is behind it."

Again Roads hesitated. "And I think I know him well enough to guess that he's listening in right now. If he'll hear us out, I'd like to ask him for help again. And to be given the chance to apologise."

Barney opened her mouth to ask Roads what the h.e.l.l he was talking about, but a new voice over the cyberlink cut her off. "Apologise?" The voice spoke from the console's speakers with an amused - and familiar - air. "My dear boy, what on earth is there to apologise for?" "For thinking that you were Cati's controller, of course. "

Laughter filled the line. "Really? If you believed that even for a second, then you don't know me as well as you think." "No?" responded Roads. "You're here now, aren't you?" "Too true. . . " The chuckle tailed off into silence.

Barney stared at the console. "Phil, is that who I think it is?" "Probably.

You tell her, Keith." "Keith Morrow at your service again, my dear."

Barney wasn't quite sure what to say. She and O'Dell exchanged quick, disbelieving glances.

RUSAMC captain cleared his throat. "I'd always agined our first meeting to be on somewhat less rdial grounds," he said. Again the Head chuckled. "I'll bet you did, Captain 'Dell. And don't bother trying to trace this nsmission." "Why would we do that?"

You know very well why," returned the Head. "For meone so cruelly maligned by both RSD and the 'Reunited States, I have certainly gone out of my way to --help you all in the last week. I hope you appreciate that."

-We do, Keith," said Roads. "We do. And if your face hadn't appeared in Cati's diary, I wouldn't have @suspected you at all. It took me far too 1()ng to work out the real reason behind that." "Wait - let me get this straight." Barney rubbed a hand across her forehead, trying to retie the threads of the conversation.

"You resurrected PolNet? "Of course," replied the Head. "Do you think Phil is the only person in Kennedy with a working copy? Or that my motives are necessarily malign?" The Head tsked impatiently. "Did you pick up the CATI command?" Roads asked. "If you mean the most recent, from nineteen minutes ago, then yes." "Can you decipher it for us?" "Decipher, yes; I already have.

For you, though, I don't know. Should I?" "That's entirely up to you. just remember, we only want the controller. Cati's as innocent as I am, despite all he's been made to do. He had no choice in the matter, and shouldn't be punished." . Barney opened her mouth to protest, but O'Dell touched her on the shoulder and shook his head."My thoughts exactly," said Morrow. "The controller ordered Caei to rendezvous with him at Patriot Bridge in forty-five minutes. Twenty-six minutes from now." "Did he say why?" Roads asked. "No." "Then that probably means he suspects we're listening, and doesn't want to broadcast too much." "I'd say so. All previous transmissions were quite explicit. "You mean - ?" she began, but again the hand on her arm silenced her. "What about the control code?"

asked O'Dell before she could push him away. "No," said Morrow. "One person has it already, which is bad enough." "But having it would save us a lot of trouble. We could just order him to -" "My point exactly." Morrow's voice was regretful but firm. "Humans don't know when to stop. How you ever reached the point where you were able to create an intelligence as sublime as mine is quite beyond me, to be frank. " "We've had this conversation before, Keith,"

interrupted Roads. "And now isn't the time. You've given us what we need and, for that, I'm grateful. The rest can wait until later. Did you catch all of that, Barney?" "Clear as a bell." "Okay, tell Margaret to send reinforcements ASAP. Keith said 'he' every time he mentioned the controller, so she's in the clear. But be careful who else you talk to. We don't want to scare Carl's controller away." "Understood, but -" She paused. "It may not be as easy as that." "What do you mean?"

14 K A.

Mrl, ve been some problems at this end. The MSA umed control of Mayor's House, sealed it tight. ,@,07,v a.s.s ", AS!" RSD personnel not inside have been ordered off the along with Stedman's troops. Martin and I L ma. e d it to the control van before it got ugly." "How ugly, exactly?" "The Mayor issued a statement half an hour ago M, W an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on bim, not Stedman. Margaret has been arrested on g*, of conspiracy, along with David Goss. A FImmsi for you has been issued as well."

Roads grunted. "The Mayor said this? Are you "Positive: he's in there, running things. It's not a if that's what you're thinking." "A gross over-reaction, then." "It seems that way. DeKurzak's obviously been giving him ideas." "Have you tried talking to him?" "No chance. Until the phone network is running again, we don't really have a way to contact them." "There are signals coming out of the building along one of the landlines," put in O'Dell, "but they're also coded. Given their frequency, we're a.s.suming them to be official, some sort of emergency system we can't tap into." "And how's your boss taking this, Martin?" "In his stride, for now," the RUSAMC captain replied. "He understands how the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt looks, and how you feel about the Mole. But it's still a stand-off. There are Reunited States personnel inside the building, too, and we haven't heard from them for almost an hour." "s.h.i.+t," Roads said. "This could mean the end of the Rea.s.similation.""Or worse," Barney added. "But there's not much we can do until the Mayor decides to talk." - "No, not really." Barney heard the frustration in his voice as clearly as she felt her own. "Our only option is to keep after Cati," he went on. "I'll head straight to the bridge. It shouldn't take too long by car." "If you leave now," said O'Dell, studying a map of the city on a screen. "We'll do what we can from this end - maybe rustle up reinforcements from somewhere. Whatever we do, you'll beat us there by at least fifteen minutes. You won't have backup for that long. Do you think you can handle him?" "Do I have a choice?" asked Roads. Barney thought she heard an echo of a sigh through the cyberlink.

"Anyway, I need to get moving if I'm going to make it in time. I'll call when I'm on the way. You can fill me in on the Mole then, Martin." "Will do," said O'Dell. "I think it's time you all knew the truth." . "Agreed. See you at the bridge," said Roads, and killed the line.

Roads let his head fall back onto the floor. The pain had ebbed slightly during the conversation as endorphins rushed through his body, but he still felt terrible. He rubbed the tight skin of his cheek, felt the roughness of dried blood, and willed himself to move. He didn't have time for self-pity.

The apartment had fallen strangely silent while he talked with O'Dell and Barney; the background weeping had stopped. Opening his eyes, he looked upward.

Katiya was standing over him with a knife in one hand. She stared fixedly at him with her one good eye narrowed. The other had closed entirely, pinched shut by the vivid bruise on her temple.

I was listening to you," she said softly. "You were 1, to yourself, you said that Cati was innocent, and Her hands were trembling. "And you're bleeding.'

He leaned on the nearest wall for balance and 'Yes.' M-1 to his feet. She backed away automatically. im does that tell you?" "That you're not the same one who was here earlier." "That's right." He straightened his clothing and V7,MoTT-11 off the dust.

Katiya lowered the knife to her side, where it dangled Roads wished there was something he could do to [email protected] the woman's obvious pain, but time was too short. '4 1 can't stay here.

Will you be okay?" "Where are you going?" "To find Can."

i4you. know where he is?" "Yes. Or at least where he'll be very soon." "Then I want to come with you." "It'll probably be dangerous "I know." She glanced down at her shaking hands, then back at him. Her eyes blazed in the darkness.

"But what else can I do? He needs me. He doesn't want to hurt people. Maybe ... maybe I can even help him free himself -" "Okay, okay," he relented. "But I'm leaving now. If youlre coming, we have to hurry." "Yes." She nodded. "Yes, I understand." She looked around the room, at the devastation of her home, and straightened her shoulders.

As soon as they were on the way, Roads reopened the cyberlink and whispered across the city: "Okay, Martin," he said. "Tell me everything."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

1 1:SS P.M.

"The device you call the Mole is known under another name in the Reunited States," said O'Dell, "and even then only by a few. We call it Project Cherubim - after the word's original meaning: a creature that is halfhuman, half-animal and full of eyes." "So it is a spy," said Barney. "But -"

"Let me finish." O'Dell's tone was brisk, almost terse - as though delivering a lecture to hostile students. "I'm probably going to get my a.s.s kicked for talking about this, so at least give me the chance to get it right. "By experimenting with field-effects and making a few improvements on the old designs, and by using camouflage techniques we developed ourselves - not stolen from the bunker files, as you thought, Phil - we've built a robot capable of changing shape at will. Holograms give it appearance, while the fields make it solid when it needs to be. Given enough data, it can a.s.sume the appearance of anyone it chooses - right down to the smallest visual detail. It can even simulate body heat and voice patterns, which enables it to pa.s.s ident.i.ty tests that many other methods of impersonation do not. "This makes it perfect for internal security, as you now know, but it can also be used for espionage. It can and replace anyone in a rival government well to fool all but their closest companions." t's not perfect, then?" Roads asked. "The less frequently it comes into contact with people better, obviously, for not even we can design a sfisr;@- that will completely recreate a person. The M_ subject is someone who lives alone, and whose f allows them to be fairly independent." "Someone like me, in other words."

1, 4, "Exactly." O'Dell's voice displayed discomfort. "You Chosen from a group of ten candidates as having it;, best lifestyle for the Mole to imitate. Usually the would be someone fairly high up in a local Mi4sr-*@ force or government, but not too high; the has to be disposed of, of course, and we don't want to be accused of disrupting the target government if found out. Our information suggested that you lived alone and were high enough in RSD to give you access to sensitive information. You were an ideal target for Project Cherubim." "Wait a minute,"

said Barney. "Isn't disrupting the government the idea? Send it in, get it to become the local mayor or whatever, have it initiate a take-over from within and -?"

"No," O'Dell said. "That's not the idea at all." "But it can be used that way.

And if it can be, then it will be one day. Isn't that the way the military mind works?" "Not everyone's." O'Dell sighed. "But I take your point. You have to understand that without the old bunker files the Reunited States' expansion would have been much slower than it was. On a small scale, the weapons and tools in the archives provided an invaluable means of combating biomodified enclaves. The rogue packs had an edge over us norms that we couldcounteract only by superior weaponry. We've had no choice but to develop new weapons. "But we required something more sophisticated when dealing with larger communities - biomodified or not. Some of the collectives, west and south of here, are as large as the original states. Outright war is expensive, not to mention bad for public relations. We are attempting to avoid the mistakes of the past, after all, and that makes negotiation our most important tool of all. "Yet at the heart of all negotiation lies information, and information is often best gathered by espionage. We needed a way to infiltrate rival states without arousing their suspicions, and preferably without risking our own people. The best way to do this was by exploiting internal corruption, but that can take time too. And General Stedman wants to rea.s.similate the continent peacefully before what remains devolves too far - or other nations dig their heels in and force us to fight." "The Mole is a kind of middle ground?" asked Roads. "Exactly. The pacifists like it because it reduces loss of life; in the long run, it might even encourage peace. The expansionists, on the other hand, admire its efficiency, its ability to keep campaign costs down." "So you sent one into Kennedy. Can I ask why?" "For several reasons.

The obvious one is to a.s.sist Rea.s.similation. Things aren't as perfect on the Outside as you've heard, and official military policy is delicately balanced at the moment. There's been a lot of resistance to our expansion in recent years, so much that some of General Stedman's colleagues are calling for a big push: one single offensive that will crush everything in its path. If that happens, we will be betraying everything we've stood for - so it's all the more important that the 4, - $I$ Of Kennedy goes ahead smoothly. If it F1 it 'L, then the warmongers will have even more

95.

The image of the Reunited States Military Corps across the face of North America like some angel of the Apocalypse filled Roads' mind for an before he could banish it. "So the Mole followed me," he said, "broke into my .01411b1ii Studied me in enough detail to allow it to become ssz% But why go to so much trouble for so long? You Mrs-r put the Mole into position until the envoy arrived; 1140 then you must have had a fair idea that the Bill would be accepted. Why continue s- the operation when you knew you'd have complete *r-rg& to the Kennedy darapool in just a few weeks?" "Bec ause the information we needed wasn't in the ly. datapool," replied O'Dell simp "It wasn't? Neither the MSA nor the Mayoralty have any obvious secrets, as far as I know." "That's right. They don't." "Then -" Roads broke off as a thought suddenly T, struck him. "Wait,"

he said. "I think I'm beginning to understand now." "The thefts," O'Dell said. "Yes. The EPA44210s, and the explosives." "And much more besides."

It was Barney's turn to be confused. "Will someone please tell me what you two are talking about?"

O'Dell sighed. "To put it succinctly, one of General Stedman's purposes in coming to Kennedy Polis was to hunt down a criminal and bring him to justice.

That criminal wasn't the Mole - although he was a thief - and he wasn't Cati, either. He was a smuggler in a small town who made the fatal mistake of underestimating his opposition.51"You mean -" the tone of Barney's voice effectively conveyed her disbelief the Head?" "Who else?" Roads said. 'The EPA44210s stolen from Old North Street had to have come from somewhere, and their disappearance would have been noted." "Noted, and responded to," added O'Dell. "The thefts began over five years ago. A major trade route between Philadelphia and our southern frontiers pa.s.ses near here, and I guess it proved fairly easy to arrange a few 'accidents' along the way, with help from allies on the Outside. At first we thought Kennedy itself was behind it - until we actually contacted the city and realised how entrenched its isolation was. You didn't even know we existed. Later information relayed by Project Cherubim suggested that an independent person or organisation was responsible." "I can't believe it,"

said Barney. "You came all this way to deal with Morrow?" "Why not? Most of the supplies were intended for a campaign in South Texas. He was hurting us, hurting the expansion; we had to do something. And he was hurting you too, don't forget." "How?" "By letting things in that should have stayed outside.

Like Cati." "Eh?" "Morrow's a high-tech [email protected], Barney," O'Dell said. "He never would have been able to resist something like that for his collection.

"Of course." Barney groaned bitterly down the cyberlink. "That's why his face appeared in Cati's diary. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d." "My sentiments exactly," said O'Dell.

"Which only makes me wonder why he's helping us now."

A.

If Morrow was listening, he made no comment. "So the Mole did what it was supposed to do,"

[email protected] said, bringing the subject back to its intended NNW. "It followed me everywhere I went in order to my behaviour, then raided datapools using my face a cover. But I'm still here.

Why didn't it subst.i.tute U for me at the first opportunity?" "Because this is only a trial run," explained O'Dell. IMM111 had never been used in an uncontrolled -before." "We're guinea pigO" asked Barney. "Yes. Kennedy was chosen as the testing-ground sWOMMIt. it was isolated, and any mishaps could be ITTW more easily. Add to that the fact that we needed to Know for certain who was behind the thefts before we entered the city, but didn't want to make any overtly .hostile moves until - or unless - we absolutely had to. The Mole's subst.i.tution imperative was therefore disabled: it was instructed, in other words, not to harm you or to allow you to come to harm, although it would continue to perform all other tasks unimpeded." "Is that possible?" Roads interrupted. "I mean, its fundamental purpose is to imitate someone. By removing the condition required for it to do that, surely that violates its core programming?" "And why didn't you call it off when you knew the truth about the thefts?" interrupted Barney.

"I couldn't." O'Dell answered Barney's question first, obviously a little overwhelmed by the interrogation. "By the time I guessed what we were dealing with, it was . too [email protected] "Bulls.h.i.+t." "I'm not lying, Barney. I knew we had a source in Kennedy, but didn't suspect what it was until Blindeye, when I first saw the Mole in action. And even then Ididn't know for certain until I finally squeezed a confession out of my superiors." "At which point," Roads leapt ahead, "they ordered you to take the case from me, to avoid a diplomatic incident? " "Partly. They also ordered me to do everything I could to find the d.a.m.n thing . . . "

There was a long, contemplative silence until Roads said: "Are you telling me you've lost it?" "More or less. It seems that even from the beginning things weren't going well. First, it failed to deliver a convincing version of your speech. Second, it transmitted data but didn't respond reliably to instructions beamed into the city. Then, when it was finally cornered during Blindeye, it stopped transmitting altogether. Noone's sure exactly why, but the technicians we brought with us think it might have been because of Cati."

"How?" "Well, part of its mission as a Military Corps tool is to detect and eliminate biomodified agents. As soon as it saw Cati, it reported the discovery to its human controllers. Some d.a.m.n foot ordered it to dispose of the threat, thinking that Cati was a berserker and a possible threat to the General. They should have known better. The Mole ceased transmitting immediately, and now refuses to respond to all priority codes, including selfdestruct. " "I don't get it," said Barney. "Why would telling the Mole to kill Cati make it refuse to respond to orders?" "As Phil suggested earlier: its original program included the urge to kill the person it was impersonating. In an ordinary computer, that wouldn't be a problem - but the Mole is anything but an ordinary computer. Its processing core is modelled on the human brain, with numerous independent cognitive modules chaotically as units yet combining to give one Mis response. That makes it more flexible than a b also less robust. Complete reprogramming ut A , time and, due to the elasticity of consciousness, give rise to greater chaos than before. The usual MW is not to get rid of what's already there, but to a new equilibrium over it: to take a given state and !p it in a slightly different direction. This is very tricky, requiring chaotic tendencies to be ordered first, and then ordered again; the risks of destabilising the ry high. system are ve So, when our programmers started mucking around with the Mole's basic tenets, by subverting the original "kill' direction with a 'don't-kill', they deliberately disturbed the balance slightly. The Mole was allowed to steal data and mimic to a certain extent, but couldn't dispose of Phil even if it wanted to. The new equilibrium it found was unstable, however, and caused it to behave erratically in some areas.

"Then, when it was ordered to hunt down and destroy Cati, matters only became worse. The 'don't-kill' was supplanted by another 'kill' and the system had to find yet another equilibrium. Unfortunately, this new path was even more unstable. As you saw, Phil, when the a.s.sa.s.sins ambushed you outside your apartment, it was behaving in a highly violent manner in order to protect you - which it was still trying to do, even though we had ordered it to kill Cati. Now it appears to have found a Ai new compromise: it wants Cati to kill you for it." "It still wants to impersonate me?" "That's what I think. This evening, when it attacked Katiya, it was trying to arouse Cati's anger. If Cati had killed you, then it could have taken your place without violating its overrides. After which I imagine it would have wiped the slate clean by killing Cati itself.""I can't believe the Mole is really that intelligent," protested Barney. "I mean, it's only a machine -" "It's far more than that, Barney. It has to be.

iQuite apart from the way it thinks, the Mole has a Cyc-type commonsense knowledge base that we designed especially to help it know what it's sensing.

The computers you're used to wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a cat and an atomic missile, but the Mole can. Two years of development brought it to the point where it was able to complete its tasks independently of its controllers - and although the bugs obviously haven't been ironed out completely, I think you'll agree that its performance is pretty impressive. To comprehend and interact with an environment as varied and ambiguous as a city requires more processing power than that contained in all of Kennedy itself, and -"

"Sorry, Martin," Roads b.u.t.ted in. "We're almost out of time. After we've neutralised Cati's controller, how do we bring the Mole to heel again?" "To be honest, I don't know," O'Dell admitted. "Maybe seeing Cati in our hands will bring it back to a state in which we can control it. Failing that, we can attempt to trace its processing core. It'll be hidden somewhere in the city, smuggled in by the Mole itself and placed well out of sight. The signals between the mobile units and the core will be hard to locate, though; the artificial intelligence will have relays everywhere, casting false transmissions in every direction. It might take us weeks to track it down -"

"By then it'll be too late," said Roads. "We have to deal with this before it gets even more out of hand. If we can't bring Cati to heel, we could be in the middle of a war before the night's out. The last thing we need is the Mole on top of that." Again Roads' voice faded for an instant, then returned: "Are you two on your way?"

."Fifteen minutes, minimum," said Barney. "Things are I messy at Mayor's House. No word from the Mayor 'T,N. DeKurzak, although shots have been fired inside. I Faft"L get sense out of anyone until I found Roger. He V "PL, out of the building, and able to put a squad together isio a few people loyal to Margaret. We're coming as as we can, so don't feel abandoned." "And I'm not far behind," said O'Dell.