System Shock Part 24

But the sound of his voice was drowned by the gunfire that followed. The televisions in front of the Doctor exploded in showers of gla.s.s and plastic, cathode ray tubes collapsing and flat-panel displays rupturing under the impact of the sh.e.l.ls.

The Doctor dived for cover behind the nearest server machine, grabbing a grubby hanky from his pocket and waving it as he went. He waited for a while, then peered cautiously round the metal computer cabinet. A pair of boots with high heels were stood a few inches from his face. He was still examining them and admiring the cut of the leather when Johanna Slake dragged the Doctor to his feet. She jabbed him in the stomach with a sub-machine-gun and he coughed in surprise.

'Mister Stabfield can spare you a few minutes from his busy schedule now,' she told him. 'I a.s.sume that will be convenient.'

The Doctor nodded. 'It's very kind of him,' he said.

215.

Sarah had not noticed that Lewis had left the room until he came back in. She glanced up from her muted conversation with the d.u.c.h.ess and the Amba.s.sador as Lewis entered. He came in and went out frequently, so she almost ignored the slight interruption and returned to planning various disruptions when the signal came. Almost.

But there was something in Lewis's determined manner, his purposeful walk which held her attention. Sarah watched as he came straight towards her, ignoring the other people in the way, just treading a direct path to where she was sitting. She looked up at him. 'Yes?' she asked.

'Get up,' he said curtly.

'Why?'

Lewis did not answer, but hauled her to her feet and propelled her in front of him towards the door.

'All right, no need to push,' Sarah told him.

But Lewis ignored her, grabbing her arm just above the elbow and dragging her through the corridor and down the stairs. He led her back through the house, paying no attention to her gasps of pain or questions about where they were going and why. Sarah wondered if he had been listening all the time to her conversation and now she was to account for her misdemeanours. Lewis gave no clue as to what was going on.

Sarah just managed to read the sign above the door before she was hurled into the Main Computer Suite. She skidded to a halt on the polished wooden floor, almost falling on her face as she stopped.

'h.e.l.lo, Sarah,' said a familiar voice. The Doctor was standing just in front of her, hands in trouser pockets, hat pushed back on head.

'I a.s.sumed you two would be acquainted.'

Sarah looked round. Lionel Stabfield was sitting in an office chair, tilting it back on its base and swinging it gently from side to side as he watched the Doctor and Sarah. Beside Stabfield stood Johanna Slake, machinegun levelled and ready.

'I think you will agree, Doctor,' Stabfield said as Lewis closed the door and folded his arms, 'that I am in control of the agenda.'

216.

The Doctor ignored him. 'Are you all right?' he asked Sarah, leading her to a chair and sitting her in it.

'Fine, Doctor,' she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. 'It takes more than a few snakes in wolves' clothing to get me rattled.'

'Good girl.'

Stabfield coughed theatrically. 'If we could have one meeting, please.'

The Doctor turned and nodded politely. 'Of course.'

'Thank you.'

'Well then,' the Doctor threw himself down into a chair beside Sarah, 'what's on this agenda of yours, Lionel?'

'I don't think we need to recap on our previous meetings, so I suggest a single workitem.' Stabfield's lip curled slightly and he leaned forward, rocking the chair as he did so. 'Your enforced separation from this world.'

The Doctor sighed. 'Not again,' he said. 'I went through something similar a few centuries ago. But I imagine you have execution rather than expulsion in mind.'

Stabfield nodded. 'Indeed.'

'Aren't you going to explain your plan first?' Sarah asked.

She doubted if Stabfield was the talkative kind, but it was worth a try.

'Indeed not. I doubt there would be much point, since I think the Doctor has already deduced much of the background. And I don't really see any utility in expounding our intentions like a second rate villain in a cinematic drama.'

Sarah shrugged. 'Oh well. I'll have to die in ignorance.'

'Not at all.' The Doctor took her hand and patted it enthusiastically. 'I'm sure our hosts will allow me a few moments to explain what's going on.' He shot Stabfield a quick glance. 'I've no illusions about being second rate, and I'm sure Mister Stabfield here would be willing to correct any "operational details" I may have misconstrued, eh Lionel?'

Stabfield steepled his fingers, elbows resting on the arms of the chair. 'It would be useful to get a ball park feeling for the depth of your knowledge and breadth of your deduction,' he said at last. 'But be under no illusions, this meeting will soon be accepting apologies for your permanent absence.'

217.

The Doctor leaped to his feet. 'You're very kind,' he told Stabfield. 'Now, if I can just use one of these antiquated contraptions a few visual aids may be helpful.' Quick as greased lightning, the Doctor started a.s.sembling a collection of computer equipment.

Lewis and Johanna both made to stop him, but Stabfield waved them away. 'So long as he has no network connection, there's no problem.'

The Doctor had practically finished now anyway. He hunted round for a moment, then jammed a cable from the computer system unit he had commandeered into a junction box. He flicked a switch on the box, and the whole of one wall of the room lit up a giant computer screen. Sarah and the aliens watched as the machine started and the Doctor opened a graphics package. His fingers flew over the keyboard, and words appeared in distinctive shadowed lettering on the screen.

Voracian Invasion of EarthThe Plan The Doctor walked over to the illuminated wall, cleared his throat and looked round his small audience. 'Now, if I have your undivided attention, we can begin.' He pulled an impossibly long metal pointer from his sleeve and clattered it against the text on the wall. 'Your plan seems, rather disappointingly, to be to take over the world.' The Doctor paused, as if considering. 'Hardly original, but I suppose one has to start somewhere,' he grinned.

'Be careful, Doctor,' Stabfield warned, 'or I may be tempted to exercise the chairman's prerogative of moving on to the next item on the agenda.'

The Doctor continued undeterred. 'Now the manner of invasion seems rather more interesting, although I have to confess the motivation escapes me. Perhaps we can return to that later in the question and answer session?' he hazarded.

Stabfield made no comment, so the Doctor went on. 'You hope to gain control of the global information superhighway by means of ' The Doctor broke off for a moment while he crossed to the computer and hit a key. The display on the wall 218 changed to a single word in bold lettering on a graduated blue background.

Voractyll 'What do you know about Voractyll?' Lewis snapped, taking a step towards the Doctor.

Stabfield wagged a gloved finger. 'I'm sure the Doctor will explain. Won't you, Doctor?'

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically and smiled at Lewis.

'Voractyll, for those of you who don't know,' he said, 'is the software creature on the compact disc you murdered poor Mister Sutcliffe to recover. Without much success, I might point out. Now Lionel here will have to fill in the blanks, but basically this Voractyll thing will infiltrate the superhighway and corrupt the systems it comes into contact with. In the confusion, caused by this virus creature, you can take over.

Right?'

Stabfield stood up and walked over to the display wall. He paused in front of the huge screen, stroking his chin. 'Voractyll is far more than a virus,' he said at last. 'It is a living being, a software ent.i.ty intelligent; reasoning; aware.'

Sarah had watched the proceedings so far in silence. Most of it she could follow, although it was hard not to be distracted by the technology the Doctor was using. The notion of using a whole wall as a computer screen was as intriguing as the amount of computer processing that could be condensed on to a small piece of silicon. 'Well, whatever Voractyll is,' she said, 'what does it matter if it gets into this superhighway? How will upsetting a few computers enable you to take over the world?'

There was a pause. Sarah was aware that everyone was staring at her. After a while, the Doctor said: 'It's considerably more than just a few computers, Sarah.' He turned to Stabfield.

'Do forgive my friend, she's a little out of touch, I'm afraid.

Now, Sarah, you need to understand that the superhighway links everything everything. Voractyll can get at anything on the highway, and that means anything in the world, or nearly anything, that has a computer chip in it.'

219.

'So?' She knew that computer chips were now quite small and cheap, but Sarah was still not convinced the problem was that extensive.

'So Voractyll can control just about any digital equipment, and today that means almost anything that uses electricity.

From your video recorder to your kettle, from your hi-fi to your telephone. It can corrupt and control your central heating, or it can reschedule every train in Europe. It can operate the nuclear launch systems of any major power which gets military data from the superhighway and has a link, however indirect, to its command and control systems. It can lock the doors in an office block and set off the fire alarm. It can order a million copies of War and Peace War and Peace for Mister Jones in Dorking as easily as it can turn off the lights all over the world.' for Mister Jones in Dorking as easily as it can turn off the lights all over the world.'

'You are very perceptive, Doctor,' Johanna said. 'Voractyll has immense power. The power to deliver to us your world.'

'OK, OK. I begin to get the picture. But what is Voractyll, exactly?'

It was Stabfield who answered. 'Voractyll is the culmination of our process of development. It is, as I said, a reasoning software ent.i.ty. It combines logic and reason with intelligence and rationality. It will convert your planet's software and hardware systems to Voracian philosophy.' He looked round at them all. 'It is the ultimate evolution of our race.'

The Doctor was shaking his head sadly. 'Then I pity you.'

Johanna, Lewis and Stabfield all turned to him. There was silence for a moment. Then Stabfield said, 'There is no need for pity. The natural order is changing.' He walked over to the Doctor's computer and clicked a key. The projection vanished from the wall, collapsed back to the monitor. It was replaced by an image of an oil painting a stretch of river, with figures by a house on the left bank and a bridge spanning the water in the distance. Stabfield ignored the painting. 'The organic will take its place as a secondary component in the planetary system.'

'You mean people?' Sarah asked Stabfield nodded. 'There will still be people. Our own past demonstrates that there is a need for an organic element alongside the technological. But it will be slaved to technology 220 rather than trying to hold power over it. That is the way of evolution.'

'What do you know about evolution?' the Doctor asked quietly. 'There's nothing evolutionary about you.' He was standing right in front of Stabfield now, almost nose to nose.

Without averting his eyes the Doctor jabbed a finger towards the Voracian technician sitting at a console nearby. The Voracian's snake-head swung round to look at the Doctor, the metal and plastic of one half of the face gleaming in the fluorescent light.

'You perverted the course of your evolution when you amalgamated the organic and the technical,' the Doctor said.

'You're nothing but a failed experiment thrown out of somebody's toybox.'

'Be careful Doctor,' Stabfield warned, his eyes flaring.

'No, you be careful,' the Doctor retorted. 'Be careful not to lose your cool, not to give way to the emotional responses of your organic side.' He laughed suddenly. A single, loud snort.

'Can't be easy, keeping the two sides together. I imagine there's some degree of contention between your two components components.'

He was walking round the room now, examining equipment and furniture as he went, as if he was looking for something.

He paused for a moment in front of the wall-painting, nodding in appreciation. Then he continued his meandering. Eventually his perambulation brought him to Johanna. He stared into her blank face. 'Get nightmares, do you?'

She blinked, but said nothing.

'Thought so.' The Doctor continued his tour. 'I expect you all do. It's a natural consequence as the subconscious mind gains control while the digital one rests, recharges its batteries. I bet it galls you that you still need to sleep. Just as you are disgusted with yourselves that you still need to eat or drink.'

'Still?' Stabfield's head was swaying, as if he were working out the implications of the Doctor's wording.

But the Doctor continued without pause. 'You are traitors to yourselves, to your essence. You talk about evolution yet you haven't the courage to follow your own destinies without augmentation. Why can't you just be yourselves?' He flung 221 himself down in a chair and swung it round so he was facing them all.

'It's a bit late for that,' Sarah said, nodding towards the nearest technician.

'I suppose so,' the Doctor replied, with a tinge of sadness and regret in his voice. 'But it isn't too late to reconsider what you are doing here. It isn't too late to realize what you once were, before you started tinkering, before you tried to better yourselves.' He leaned forward in the chair, hands clasped in front of him, and fixed Stabfield with his huge eyes. 'Consider what you have lost in the process, and think of the future of those here who have not suffered in the same way. What do you say, hmmm?'

The three Voracians still in human guise exchanged glances.

Stabfield went over to the desk where the technician was watching the monitor. A map of the world was slowly filling with colour.

Stabfield watched for a moment. Then he turned back to the Doctor and Sarah. 'Voractyll is running,' he said. 'It will infiltrate and convert the systems at every major node on the highway. Then it will reroute to the secondary systems and convert them.' The red that showed Voractyll's progress slowly inked its way outwards from Wilts.h.i.+re. 'Keep us updated,'

Stabfield told the technician.

'Can't you stop it?' Sarah asked.

'You could develop a counter-creature,' the Doctor suggested. 'Imbue it with arguments and reasoning contrary to Voractyll's and send it through the systems after Voractyll. Let it convert them back, let it cancel out Voractyll.'

'Voractyll has reached the primary London nodes,' the technician announced without emotion.

Sarah watched as the Doctor took his copy of the Voractyll CD from his pocket. She could see the hesitation, guess that he was wondering if his words were having any effect, if his gamble would pay off.

'I have a copy of Voractyll here,' the Doctor said. 'I could develop such a creature myself, now I understand what Voractyll is. A creature that would encapsulate all that gives humanity an advantage, all that you have lost.'

222.

' Bristol and Norwich Bristol and Norwich.'

Stabfield took the CD. He held it up for a moment, letting the light glance off its surface. And what might that be, Doctor?' he asked.

'Instinct,' the Doctor said, 'intuition, an appreciation of beauty. Emotion, feeling, companions.h.i.+p. You repress what emotions, what feeling you have left. Take a look at that.' He gestured at the painting which covered the wall. 'Turner's Thames near Walton Bridge Thames near Walton Bridge. Magnificent. A true life study painted from a boat on the river, the work of an artistic genius.'

He gazed for a moment, holding his hands in front of his face to frame the image. Then he turned suddenly and pointed at Stabfield. 'What do you see?'

Stabfield was silent for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. '1807. Oil on wood,' he said at last. '37 by 73.5 centimetres, currently in the Tate Gallery in London. One of a series of eighteen studies in oil painted along the Thames in oil on mahogany board.'

'Just as I thought,' said the Doctor. 'You see beauty but you don't understand it. You know the history, you can probably talk about the techniques used the wide brush strokes, the lightly watered colour.'

' Ma.r.s.eilles Ma.r.s.eilles.'

'I2 owns the rights to every major work of art,' Lewis said.

'We publish discs of them, complete with notes.'

'But you don't appreciate it, except in business terms and historical technique,' the Doctor insisted. 'You know what it is worth to own the right to distribute digital renderings of the greatest paintings in the world. You can read a thousand books about technique and brushwork, and remember every word but understand none of it.'

The Doctor paused to let his words sink in. He stared at the painting again. 'What do you care,' he asked quietly, 'about the way the colour breaks up against the background? What do you know about the way that technique brings transparency and motion to the painting? Do you appreciate the sense of airiness? Do you even notice the use of light greens in the water to make the dark reflections from the river banks seem transparent? Turner spent years searching for a technique that 223 would give him the depth and clarity of natural light. But he was interested in the effect, in what it looked like in art. All you understand is the mechanics of the technique.' He shook his head sadly. 'You know a lot about art, but you don't know what you like.'

' Paris. Moving into Belgium and Germany Paris. Moving into Belgium and Germany.'

The Doctor leaned close to Sarah as Stabfield considered.