Death Match

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 inner tower and the outer tower,” she said, pointing at the screen. “No backups, nothing.”

“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-tunnel howl almost drowned Mauchly’s voice.

“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 spinning up all her electromechanical peripherals. Disk silos, tape readers, line printers, RAID clusters.”

“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.