Death Match

“On the grid itself?” Mauchly interjected. “Not distributed to the interfaces?”

“Just the grid.”

“Since when?”

“It’s spiked over the last minute. The bandwidth is intense, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What’s the initiator?”

“Command, sir.”

Liza. Mauchly nodded to Sheldrake, who grabbed his radio. “Sheldrake to security central.” He waited. “Sheldrake to central, report.”

The radio crackled and spat, and Sheldrake replaced it with disgust. “It’s that damn baffle.”

“Try your cell.” Mauchly turned back to Gilmore. “How’s the grid holding up?”

“It’s not meant for this kind of stress, sir. Tower integrity’s failing already. If we can’t bleed off some of the load, the—”

As if in answer, there was a loud report from below, followed immediately by another, echoing and reechoing in the hollow space. Then came a rumbling, so deep it was almost below the threshold of audibility. The floor beneath Mauchly began to tremble.

He exchanged a brief, frozen look with Sheldrake. Then he whirled, cupped his hands around his mouth. “Dorfman!” he shouted over the forest of equipment. “Report!”

“It’s the security plates, sir!” the voice came back faintly from the hatchway. It was pitched high, whether from excitement or fear Mauchly could not tell. “They’re closing!”

“Closing! Any sign of backup?”

“No, sir! I’m getting the hell out before—”

“Dorfman, hold your position. You hear me? Hold your position—”

Mauchly’s words were drowned by an enormous boom that shook the heavy equipment around them. The security plates had closed, trapping them atop the Eden tower.

“Sir!” Gilmore cried wildly. “We’ve got a Condition Gamma!”

“Triggered by the overload? Impossible.”

“Don’t know, sir. All I can tell you is the tower’s locked down tight.”

That’s it. Mauchly raised his cell phone, dialed Silver.

No answer.

“Come,” he told Sheldrake. “Let’s get him.” He tucked the phone back into his jacket pocket, pulled out the 9mm.

As he turned toward the ladder leading up to the private quarters, the lights went out abruptly. And when the emergency illumination came on, it drenched the digital city in a uniform fog of crimson.

SIXTY

There was a moment of intense blackness. And then the emergency lighting snapped on.

“What happened?” Lash asked. “Power failure?”

There was no answer. Tara was peering intently at her screen. Silver remained within the Plexiglas cubicle, barely visible in the watery light. Now he raised one hand, tapped out a short command on the keypad. When this had no effect, he tried again. And then he sat up, swung his legs wearily over the edge of the chair, and got to his feet. He plucked the sensors from his forehead, removed the microphone from his collar. His movements were slow, automatic, like a sleepwalker’s.

“What happened?” Lash repeated.

Silver opened the Plexiglas door, came forward on rigid legs. He seemed not to have heard.

Lash put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You all right?”

“Liza won’t respond,” he said.

“Won’t? Or can’t?”

Silver merely shook his head.

“Those ethical routines you programmed—”

“Dr. Silver!” Tara called. “I think you ought to take a look at this.”

Silver walked toward her, still moving slowly. Lash followed. Wordlessly, they bent over the monitor.

“The power’s completely out in both the i

“Why aren’t we dark, as well?” Lash asked.

“There’s a massive backup generator in Liza’s computing chamber beneath us. It’s got enough juice to run for weeks. But look: the whole building’s under Condition Gamma. The security plates have closed.”

“Security plates?” Lash echoed.

“They seal the three sections of the building from each other in case of emergency. We’re shut off from the tower below.”

“What caused that? The power loss?”

“Don’t know. But without main power, the security plates can’t be reopened.”

They were interrupted by the shrill ring of a cell phone. Silver pulled it slowly from his pocket. “Yes?”

“Dr. Silver? What’s your condition?” A wind-tu

“I’m fine.” Silver turned away. “No, he’s here. Everything’s — everything’s under control.” His voice trembled. “I’ll explain later. Can you speak up, I can barely hear you over all that noise. Yes, I know about the security plates. Any word on the cause?” Silver fell silent, listening. Then he straightened. “What? All of them? You sure?” He spoke sharply, any hesitation gone. “I’ll be right down.”

He looked at Tara. “Mauchly’s in the computing chamber directly below. He says that Liza’s spi

“Everything?”

“Everything with a motor and moving parts.”

Tara turned back to her monitor. “He’s right.” She tapped at the keyboard. “And that’s not all. The devices are being pushed past tolerance. Here, look at this disc array. The firmware’s set to spin at 9600 rpm: you can see in the component detail window. But the controlling software is pushing the array to four times that. That’ll cause mechanical failure.”

“Every piece of equipment in the computing chamber has been overengineered,” Silver said. “They’ll burn before they fail.”

As if in response, an alarm began to sound — faint but persistent — far below.

“Richard,” Lash said quietly.

Silver looked over. His face looked haunted.

“Those ethical routines you programmed into Liza. How does she think murder should be dealt with if there is no chance for rehabilitation?”

“If there is no chance for rehabilitation,” Silver replied, “that leaves only one option. Termination.”

But he was no longer looking at Lash. Already, he had turned and was heading for the door.

SIXTY-ONE

Silver led the way along the hallway, down the narrow staircase, and across the great room. In the dim wash of emergency lighting, the wide, glassed-in space had the cloaked oppressiveness of a submarine. The cry of the alarm was louder here.

Silver stopped before a second door Lash hadn’t noticed earlier, set into the end of the bookcases. Reaching into the neck of his shirt, Silver drew out a key on a gold chain: a strange-looking key with an octagonal shaft. He inserted it into an almost invisible hole in the door: it sprang open noiselessly. He pulled the door wide, revealing another, very different one beyond: steel, circular, and immensely heavy, it reminded Lash of a bank vault. Its surface was broken by two combination dials, set above stirrup-shaped handles. Silver spun the left dial, then the right. Then he grasped both handles, turned them simultaneously. There was a click of machined parts sliding in unison. As he pulled the heavy door open, faint eddies of smoke drifted past them into the penthouse.

Silver disappeared around the edge of the door, and Tara followed. Lash hung back a moment.

Mauchly would be waiting down there; Mauchly, and the guards that were chasing him. Shooting at him.

Then he, too, ducked around the door. Something told him that, right now, he was the least of Mauchly’s problems.

Ahead lay a tiny space, more a closet than a room, its only feature a metal ladder disappearing through a port in the floor. Silver and Tara had already descended the ladder: he could hear the ring of their footsteps coming up from below. More wisps of smoke drifted up through the hole, turning the air hazy.

Without further hesitation, Lash began climbing down.

The smoke grew thicker as he descended, and for a moment he could see little. Then the haze thi