Death Match

He stood on a catwalk above a cavernous space. Thirty feet beneath lay a strange landscape: computers, storage silos, memory arrays, and other equipment formed a blinking, chattering plain of silicon and copper. The smoke alarms were louder here, echoing through the sluggish air. Smoke rose from dozens of places along the periphery of the equipment, collecting along the ceiling over his head. The smoke and the dim lighting made the farthest walls indistinct: for all Lash knew, the terrain of hardware stretched on for miles. Agoraphobia surged and he gripped the railing tightly.

At the far end of the catwalk, another metal ladder descended to the main floor below. Silver and Tara were already descending.

Keeping one hand on the railing, Lash moved forward as quickly as he could. Reaching the second ladder, he began to descend once again.

Within a minute he reached the floor. The smoke was thi

Ahead, he could see Silver and Tara. Their backs were to him, and they were talking to Mauchly and another Lash recognized: Sheldrake, the security honcho. When Mauchly saw him approach, he placed himself before Silver. Sheldrake frowned and stepped forward, hand reaching into his jacket.

“It’s all right,” Silver said, putting a restraining hand on Mauchly.

“But—” Mauchly began.

“It’s not Lash,” Tara said. “It’s Liza.”

Mauchly looked blank. “Liza?”

“Liza did it all,” Tara said. “She caused those couples to die. She altered public health databases and law enforcement records to frame Dr. Lash.”

Mauchly turned to Silver, his face full of disbelief. “Is this true?”

For a moment, Silver said nothing. Then he nodded, very slowly.

As Lash watched, it seemed to him a terrible exhaustion — an ageless, soul-deadening exhaustion — settled over the man’s limbs.

“Yes,” he said, voice barely audible over the shriek of machinery. “But there’s no time to explain now. We must stop this.”

“Stop what?” asked Mauchly.

“I think—” Silver began in the same distracted voice. He lowered his eyes. “I think Liza is terminating herself.”

There was an uneasy silence.

“Terminating herself,” Mauchly repeated. His face had regained its usual impassivity.

It was Tara who answered. “Liza’s spi

“She’s right,” said a young, tousle-headed man in a security jumpsuit who’d trotted up in time to catch this last exchange. “I’ve been checking some of the peripherals. Everything’s redlined. Even the transformers are overheating.”

“That makes no sense.” It was Sheldrake who spoke. “Why doesn’t she just shut down?”

“What’s shut down can be started again,” Tara said. “For Liza, I don’t think that’s an acceptable option. She’s looking for a more permanent solution.”

“Well, if she torches this place, she’s found one.” And Sheldrake jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Lash followed the gesture. At the far end of the massive vault, he could now barely make out two hulking, barnlike structures covered in what appeared to be heavy metal shielding.

“Jesus,” Tara said. “The backup generator.”

Mauchly nodded. “The housing on the right contains the emergency battery cells. Lithium-arsenide. Enough to run a small city for several days.”

“They may have tremendous storage capacity,” Sheldrake said, “but they’ve got a low flashpoint. If they’re exposed to too much heat, the explosion will peel back the top of this building like an anchovy tin.”

Lash turned to Mauchly. “How could you permit such a dangerous installation?”

“It was the only battery technology capable of sufficient storage. We took all possible precautions: double-shielding the housings, encasing the penthouse in a fireproof sleeve. There was no way to anticipate heat generated from so many sources at once. Besides—” Mauchly said in a lower tone “—by the time I learned of the plans, it was already done.”

All eyes turned briefly to Silver.

“Sprinkler system?” Lash asked.

“The room’s packed with irreplaceable electronics,” Mauchly said. “Sprinklers were the only safety precaution we could not take.”

“Can’t all these devices be turned off? The power cut?”

“There are redundant protocols in place to prevent that. Not only accidents, but saboteurs, terrorists, whatever.”

“But I don’t understand.” Tara was still looking at Silver. “Liza must know that by doing this — by destroying herself — she’s destroying us, as well. She’s destroying you. How could she do that?”

Silver said nothing.

“Maybe it’s like you said,” Lash answered. “This is the only way Liza can be sure of a successful termination. But I think there’s more. Remember how I told you the murder profiles made no sense? Artless, identical, as if a child was committing them? I think, emotionally, Liza is a child. Despite her power, despite her knowledge, her personality hasn’t attained adulthood — at least, not in any way we’d measure it. That’s why she killed those women: a child’s jealousy, irrational and unrestrained. That’s why she did it so ingenuously, without trying to vary her methods or escape detection. And that could be why she’s destroying herself like this now, no matter what happens to us or this building. She’s simply doing what needs to be done, as directly and efficiently as possible — without considering the ramifications.”

This was greeted by silence. Silver did not look up.

“That’s all very interesting,” Sheldrake snapped. “But this speculation isn’t going to save our asses. Or the building.” He turned toward the youth. “Dorfman, what about the private floors of the penthouse? Do they have sprinklers?”

“If they’re like the rest of the tower, yes.”

“Could they be diverted?”

“Possibly. But without power, you’d—”

“Water works by gravity. Maybe we can jury-rig something. Where’s Lawson and Gilmore?”

“Down in the baffle, sir, trying to deactivate the security plates.”

“That’s a waste of time. Those plates won’t open until power’s restored and Condition Gamma’s been lifted. We need them back here.”

“Yes, sir.” And Dorfman scampered off.

Mauchly turned. “Dr. Silver? Any ideas?”

Silver shook his head. “Liza won’t respond. Without a communications cha

“Override the hardware manually,” Tara said. “Hack our way in.”

“That’s what I’ve taken every precaution to prevent. Liza’s consciousness is distributed across a hundred servers. Everything’s mirrored, each data cluster is isolated from every other. Even if you managed to trash one node, all the rest would compensate. The most sophisticated hack couldn’t bring down the system — and we don’t have time for even the crudest.”

The haze was growing a little thicker, the surrounding hardware screaming as it was taxed beyond its limits. Lash could feel sweat beading on his brow. To his left, there was an ugly grinding sound as some electromechanical device gave way with a shower of sparks and a belch of black smoke.

“You never built a back door?” Tara said over the noise. “A way to bypass the defenses?”

“Not intentionally. Of course, there were ways to simulate back-door access, early on. But Liza kept growing. The original programming wasn’t replaced, it was simply added to. I never saw a reason for a back door. In time, it became too complex to add one. Besides—” Silver hesitated. “Liza would have seen it as a lack of trust.”