Death Match

“Couldn’t we destroy everything?” Sheldrake asked. “Smash it all to pieces?”

“Every piece of equipment has been hardened. It’s stronger than it looks.”

Dorfman came trotting back through the smoke, dabbing his eyes. In his wake were the security techs, Lawson and Gilmore.

“Dorfman,” Sheldrake said, “I want you to check out the backup generator. See if there’s a way, any way, to take it off line. Lawson, check the conduits from the generator to the hardware grid — most are probably buried under steel plates, but see if you can find any weakness, any place we could cut or divert power. And you, Gilmore, go up into the penthouse and check the sprinkler system. See if we can divert water from the roof reservoir down here. If there is, let me know and we’ll send a team up to help you. Now move.”

The three ran off. A silence fell over the remaining group.

Sheldrake shifted restlessly. “Well, I for one am not going to stand around, waiting to crisp up like a suckling pig. I’m going to search for alternate egress. There must be some other way out.”

Silver raised his eyes, watched Sheldrake vanish into the haze.

“There is no other way.” He spoke so quietly Lash barely heard over the machinery.

Abruptly, Tara grabbed Lash’s arm. “What was it you said just now? That emotionally, Liza’s like a child?”

“That’s what I think.”

“Well, you’re a psychologist. Say you’re dealing with a stubborn, misbehaving child.”

“What about it?”

“And say threat of punishment isn’t an option. What would be the most effective way of getting past a child’s willfulness, of reaching him or her?”

“Child psychology isn’t my field.”

Tara waved her hand impatiently. “Never mind, I’ll pay extra.”

Lash thought. “I guess I’d appeal to their most atavistic instincts, prod their earliest memories.”

“Their earliest memories,” Tara repeated.

“Of course, children have lower long-term memory retention than adults. And it isn’t until around age two, when they develop a sense of self, they can put a context to memories that would help you—”

Tara stopped him. “Atavistic instincts. You see? There’s a parallel in software. Except it’s a weakness.”

Lash looked at her. He noticed Silver did the same.

“Legacy code. It’s a phenomenon of very large programs, applications written by teams of programmers, maintained over years. In time, the oldest routines become outmoded. Slow. Compared to the newer routines that encapsulate it, that original code is a dinosaur. Sometimes it’s written in old languages like ALGOL or PL-1 nobody uses anymore. Other times the original programmers are dead, and the code is so poorly documented nobody can figure out what it really does. But because it’s the core of the program, people are afraid to tamper with it.”

“Even though it’s obsolete?” Lash asked.

“Better slow than broken.”

“What are you getting at?” said Mauchly.

Tara turned to Silver. “Can you take us to the original computer? The one you first ran Liza on?”

“It’s this way.” And without another word, Silver turned.

As they traced a path through increasingly acrid palls of smoke, Lash grew disoriented. The peripherals gave way to tall pillars of supercomputers; then to rows of refrigerator-size black boxes, covered with lights and switches of orange plastic; then to older, hulking devices of gray-painted metal. As they moved into the center of the chamber, away from the supporting electromechanicals, the sound ebbed somewhat and the smoke subsided.

They stopped at last before what looked almost like an industrial worktable. It was scratched and bruised, as if from years of rough handling. It supported a long, narrow, boxlike structure, with a black faceplate above a white control surface. Perhaps a dozen lights winked lazily on the faceplate. A row of one-inch square buttons ran along the control surface below. They were of clear plastic, with tiny lights indicating whether the buttons had been depressed. Only one was currently lit, but the entire device was so scarred Lash thought the others could just as easily be burned out. There was no screen of any kind. The far end of the table bent at a gentle angle, and an electric typewriter had been permanently mounted atop it. Surrounding this relic were others of similar shabbiness: an old keypunch machine; a card reader; a tall, cabinet-like box.

Tara stepped forward, peering at the device. “IBM 2420 central processor. With a 2711 control system.”

“This is the heart of Liza?” Lash asked in disbelief. The machine looked ludicrously antiquated.

“I know what you’re thinking. You wouldn’t trust it to do a third-grader’s multiplication table. But looks can be deceiving — this was the soul of many a college computer lab in the late sixties. And by the time Dr. Silver began serious work on Liza, these were just old enough to be picked up at fire sale prices. Besides, you’re not looking at it from a programmer’s perspective. Remember, Liza’s physical self was never moved — just expanded. So think of this as the spark plug of a vast and very powerful engine.”

Lash looked at the old computer. Spark plug, he thought. And we’re going to pull it.

“Let’s just turn it off,” he said.

Beside him, Silver smiled: a faint smile that sent a chill up Lash’s spine.

“Try,” he said.

Of course. If Silver had gone to such elaborate lengths to safeguard Liza from attack or power loss, he would certainly have disabled all the power switches.

“We won’t be doing anything that crude,” Tara said. “We’re going to run a new program on this old 2420. A program to instruct it to order a stand-down from Condition Gamma. That should restore electricity, open the security plates.” She looked at Silver. “What’s the original computer ru

Silver did not return the look. “The bootstrap loader. The back-propagation learning algorithms that seed the neural network.”

“When was the bootstrap loader last initialized?”

Another faint smile. “Over a decade ago. That was the last time Liza was restarted: thirty-two major program releases back.”

“But there’s no reason it couldn’t reinitialize, is there?”

“No reason at all.”

Tara turned to Lash. “Perfect. We can use the old bootstrap routine to load in a new instruction set. This is the core machine, the first domino in the chain. It retains those earliest memories you talked about.”

“So?”

“So it’s time to reacquaint Liza with her own i

“Octal machine language.”

“And how long would it take you to code and keypunch a program like I’m describing?”

“Four, maybe five minutes.”

“Good. The sooner the better.” And Lash watched Tara’s eyes drift beyond the old computer, toward the smoke that was rolling toward them in great gray sheets.

But Silver did not move.

“Dr. Silver?” Tara said. “We need that program now.”

“It’s no use,” came the weary reply.

“No use?” Tara echoed. “No use? Why the hell not?”

“I prepared Liza for every eventuality. Don’t you think I prepared for this, too? There are a dozen simulacra of this 2420, ru

Tara went pale. “You mean, there’s no way to modify its programming? No way to change its instruction set?”

“None that would make any difference.”

A terrible silence descended on the little group. And — as he stared at the expression on Tara’s face — Lash felt the hope that had surged within him wither and die.

SIXTY-TWO

A thousand feet above the streets of Manhattan, the chamber trembled as countless devices shrieked, pressed beyond their electromechanical capacities, spitting sparks and belching ever darker gouts of smoke. Even from where Lash stood — in relative quiet at the center of the hive-mind — the surrounding sound and vibration were terrifying. He coughed. Sweat was ru