AI - Alpha Part 44

Thomas smiled. "Not a poet, I guess."

She lifted up a spoonful of her soup. "Look at this bowl."

Thomas saw nothing unusual. The surface resembled porcelain, but it was a composite woven with a

rudimentary mesh that monitored the temperature of the soup and kept it warm. It wasn't any different than most modern synthetic materials.

"It looks fine," he said.

"It's a d.a.m.n computer. Everything we use, everything we wear, every place we sit, stand, sleep-it's all woven with meshes. We can't escape them."

He knew what she was getting at. "Our ability to secure them has also developed with the technology."

He had to believe that, because if he didn't, it would weaken the tight lid of control he had over his fear.

Alpha believed he was in danger, but he had no idea what form that threat would take or even if it really existed.

Chang clunked her spoon back in the bowl. "Find out what the Alley is up to."

"Do you have a contact for them?" he asked.

"Sam Bryton. But I want her out of this. She empathizes too much with EIs."

It had been his thought, also. "I'll see what I can do."

She sat appraising him for a while, until he grew uncomfortable. Then she said, "I'll put through your

clearance to see Alpha."

That was unexpected. Appreciated, yes, but she had to have ulterior motives. "I take it you want me to keep you informed of anything I learn.""That's right. And Thomas-""Yes?"Quietly she said, "Be careful."

By the time Thomas reached the safe house, night was settling over the mountains, with stars sharp in a cold sky. Major Edwards was driving, Hernandez sat in the pa.s.senger's seat, and Spaulding was in back with Thomas. The closer they came to the house, the more Thomas's agitation grew. He didn't know how he would react when he saw Alpha. What he had thought he felt before could have been brought on by his intense situation. He might see her tonight and feel completely different.

Alpha's room was dark when they entered. Edwards, Hernandez, and Spaulding came with him, and also two guards thinly disguised as orderlies. One of them brought up the lights, but just a bit, a simple kindness that left the room dim enough so someone's eyes could adjust. Someone human. For Alpha, it didn't matter.

She was lying on the bed, on top of a blue quilt, dressed in a blue jumpsuit, her eyes closed. Thomas sat on the bed, gazing at her face-and knew without doubt that his feelings hadn't changed. The same rush of desire came to him. No, desire was only part of it. He wanted to talk to her, laugh with her, tussle with

her, all those things people did when they fell in love. It was ridiculous for a man his age, especially with a forma, but nevertheless, it was how he felt.

Alpha opened her eyes. "h.e.l.lo, Thomas."

"h.e.l.lo."

She sat up easily, with no sign of the stiffness people usually had when they awoke. She looked past him to his armed guards, then back at him. "You don't trust me."

"Actually, General Chang doesn't trust you."

"And you?"

She was so close, it was all he could do to keep from embracing her. He couldn't, though, with all these

people in the room, no matter how discreet they made themselves.

He answered in a low voice. "Should I trust you?"

"Probably not." Her eyes smoldered. "Stay here too long, and I'll be tempted to haul you off to another

island."

When she looked like that, he didn't care how many people were watching. He pulled her into his arms and held her, his head against hers, his eyes closed. She put her arms around his neck and molded

against him. It stirred memories of the island, both fear and desire. It was useless, wanting her, because he couldn't have her, but his emotions had a vexing tendency to ignore his logic.

After a while, one of the orderlies s.h.i.+fted and his uniform crinkled. Thomas drew back, self-conscious

again, and Alpha regarded him with a scorching gaze that made him glad he had guards, because otherwise he didn't know what she would have done with him. But ah, the pleasure of finding out.

"Your emotions are so easy to read," she said.

That was new. All his life, people had told him he needed to express more, not less. "What do you read?"

"I scare you."

"You don't." Or maybe it was a thrill of fear.

"Oh, I do," she said. "You like it."

"I think I frighten you, Alpha."

"No one frightens me."

"Not even Sunrise Alley?"

Her posture stiffened and she seemed to withdraw, though she hadn't actually moved. "They don't like me."

"Why?"

"I'm Charon's lackey."

"You're a forma," he said. "Ask for their protection. We're negotiating with them. If they make your

safety a part of those talks, no one will touch you."Her voice cooled. "You wouldn't tell me that unless you want something from me.""I do." And he told her the truth. "I want you to live." He couldn't say, I'm afraid I'm falling in love with you, so instead he added, "Your well-being matters to me."She let go of him and crossed her arms. "If that were true, you would never have brought me here."He wished he knew how to make it all right. "I couldn't do what you wanted.""Why not?" Her fists clenched in the cloth of her sleeves. "All you had to do was let me go."

Quietly he said, "My country also matters to me."

"I won't contact Sunrise Alley."

He spoke in a deceptively soft voice. "Interesting."

"What?"

"You never asked how you would contact them. Do you already know?"

She only hesitated a moment, but that pause spoke volumes. "I didn't ask because it doesn't matter. I've no intention of contacting them."

"Why not try?"

Silence.

He didn't know how to judge her reaction. If an EI could act guilty, she was doing it. She had no reason to simulate guilt. In fact, he didn't believe she planned her emotions anywhere near as much as she claimed. Her mesh code was evolving on its own, without her specific direction.

"How long can you stay?" Alpha asked.

He touched her cheek. "You're avoiding the subject."

She pushed away his hand. "I don't want to talk about it."

He let it go. His a.n.a.lysts could tell him later if they thought she was experiencing guilt or faking it. He wasn't objective enough to judge.

"I can stay maybe an hour," he said.

She indicated his guards. "With them?"

"Afraid so." He wished they were gone, too. When she looked at him with that dark gaze, he wanted to stay with her all night. But he couldn't, not now, maybe never.

So instead he said, "Walk with me by the lake."

"It's dark." She tapped his temple. "You have no IR." Her finger lingered on his skin.

He folded his hand around hers. "I don't mind."

This time she didn't push him away. "All right."

So they went out into the woods on the grounds of the safe house. Edwards, the orderlies, and Thomas's bodyguards came with them as they strolled through the trees. Lampposts along the path lit their way like sentinels of yellow light.

Neither he nor Alpha mentioned Sunrise Alley again.

Thomas discovered the message at 2:56 a.m.

He couldn't sleep. He kept brooding on his visit with Alpha. Over and over, he castigated himself for his infatuation. Except it wasn't infatuation. He was old enough to recognize love. Why couldn't he want someone safe, a woman of his age and background? Alpha was off-limits, bad for his health, and not human.

Finally he got up, donned his robe, and took out his polished oak cane with the lion's head at the top, the present his sons had given him when they visited earlier this week. Then he made his way to his office downstairs. Hernandez and Spaulding were on the night s.h.i.+ft, Hernandez in the front room and Spaulding pacing the house. Thomas missed his privacy.

His console was active twenty-four hours a day, with a fast mesh connection. It was similar to the setup in his office at the Pentagon, except he couldn't do secured work here. He had bought the best fortress- firewall protection available, though, and tonight he ran an extra check to verify his system was clean of invading programs.

Then he saw the message: Here is your call.The words glowed in the lower left corner of the screen, along with an old-style Internet address, a string of numbers and periods, a protocol used before the advent of the mesh. Nor was that the only oddity. The message didn't appear in any screen. It was part of his console's background design. Whoever put it there had reached into the guts of his unit at a basic level, which meant either his security was a lot less effective than he thought or else his visitor was a mesh bandit on a level beyond just about anyone.

Thomas had left Bart the note at the base "to call" him so he could find out if the EI could access the NIA

-and was willing to admit it. If this was Bart's response, that meant Sunrise Alley had infiltrated the base. That the message appeared here instead of at the NIA at least gave Thomas reason to hope the break hadn't gone far.

He had to admire the approach, though. Most people wouldn't recognize the IP address Bart had left because browsers no longer dealt with them. But Thomas had lived through the birth of the computer age and the rise of the world networks, from the days of ARPAnet, Bitnet, the Internet, and the World Wide Web, which had become just the web and finally the mesh.

It took a while to make his system recognize the old address. When he finally figured it out, an ancient grey web page came up on his screen, one so dull and dated, he wondered if that was a message itself, an oblique means the Alley used to say they wouldn't contact him. Then a swirl of speckled lines replaced the grey, and a holo about one foot high formed in front of the screen. It was a man, but not Bart, at least not the image he had used before. This man looked more mature, more seasoned, with darker hair. He had a sense of intelligent confidence possessed by few people Thomas knew.