Death Match

FORTY-FOUR

Lash turned a corner, dashed headlong down a new corridor, turned again. Then he stopped and pressed himself against the wall, looking around wildly. There was nobody in sight. In the distance he could hear raised voices, running feet. His heart — which just moments before had seemed to beat so slowly — was hammering with a machine-gun cadence. He waited another second, trying to slow it down. Then he pushed himself from the wall and continued. The sounds were not quite as distant now, and he ducked into yet another corridor, passing a door labeled ARRAY MAINTENANCE / SUBSYSTEM B. Apparently, he had moved into a hardware support area, manned by relatively few workers.

But it made no difference. It was only a matter of time until they ran him down and resumed the interrogation, with handcuffs and restraints and meds this time.

He struggled against overwhelming disbelief. How had this happened, and happened so quickly? Had he really risen from bed that morning a free man, only now to be hunted as a psychotic murderer? It seemed impossible that anybody, especially a man like Mauchly, could believe it. Yet it was all too clear that he, and everybody else, did believe. And Lash could imagine what the proof was. Mauchly had recited the list of phony but no doubt all too credible evidence: telephone bills, psychological evaluations, even a criminal record. How was it possible to fight someone with the almost infinite resources of Eden at their fingertips?

Somebody appeared in the hallway before him — a technician, dressed in a white lab coat — and Lash trotted past her, head down, without nodding. Another intersection, another quick turn. The hall was narrower here, the doorways farther apart.

Had it really begun as far back as those missing newspapers, the E-ZPass and ATM snafus, the tampering with his mail? Was it possible it had begun so early?

Yes. And then the credit card refusals, the problem with his mortgage payments. It had all been part of a campaign of increasing pressure. Pressure brought to bear because he was getting too close.

And now — now that he knew all — steps would be taken to make sure he would never be heard. He’d be locked away, and his cries would mingle with those of every other inmate protesting his innocence…

He stopped suddenly. Was he becoming paranoid in his extremity, or was it possible even the parole of Edmund Wyre was part of this elaborate attempt to silence him? And was it also possible the mistake that put his own rejected avatar in the Tank, that seemed to promise such a bright future, had simply been a method to keep closer tabs on…

He willed his feet forward once again. But as he did, Mauchly’s words echoed: Steps have been taken to place Diana Mirren out of harm’s way. You won’t be hearing from her again.

There had to be somebody he could talk to, somebody who’d believe. But who inside the fortress of Eden knew anything about him, much less why he was really here? It had been a carefully guarded secret from the beginning.

He could, in fact, think of only one desperate chance.

But how? He was lost in an endless maze of corridors. Everything was monitored. His hand fell to the identity bracelet circling his wrist. A dozen scanners would no doubt have tracked his progress. It was only minutes, seconds, until he was found.

His eye fell on a door marked WEB FARM 15. He reached for the handle, found it locked. With a low curse, he moved his bracelet toward the identity scanner.

Then he paused. Stepping back quickly, he trotted down the hall, positioning his bracelet below the scanners of half a dozen other doors, in turn. Then he returned to the first door, positioned his bracelet. With a click, the door sprang open, and Lash stepped inside cautiously.

The room was dim. As he’d hoped, it was deserted. Twin banks of metal shelving rose from floor to ceiling, jammed with rack-mounted blade servers: a tiny fraction of the massive digital horsepower that made Eden possible. He walked between the shelves to the back of the room, scanning the walls and floor. At last he saw it: an oversize metal plate, set just above the floor molding. It was painted the same pale violet as the walls, but it was clearly visible.

He knelt before it. The plate was perhaps four feet high by three feet wide. For a minute, he feared it might be locked, or guarded by an identity scanner like the doors. But it was fastened with a simple hinge that yielded to his touch. He drew it open, looked inside.

Beyond, he could make out a cylindrical tube of smooth metal. The sides and ceiling were covered in a dense flow of cabling: fiber-optic, CAT-6, half a dozen other types Lash did not recognize. A cold cathode line ran along the ceiling, emitting faint blue illumination. Farther down the accessway, Lash could see the tube dividing, first once, then again, like the tributaries of a great river.

He smiled grimly. A river was a pretty good metaphor. This data conduit was a river of digital information, linking every place inside the Wall with every other. He remembered how Mauchly had gone on about the high levels of security, about the countless roadblocks preventing data from straying outside the Wall. And Lash knew — from firsthand experience — that the Wall was virtually impregnable. All the scanners, checkpoints, security apparatus, were fanatically devoted to preventing secrets from getting out. They would be just as efficient at preventing him from getting out.

But what if he wasn’t trying to get out? What if, in fact, he wanted to stay inside the Wall — penetrate deeper into its secret recesses?

Lash looked around the room one last time. Then, as quickly and carefully as he could, he crawled into the data conduit and shut the panel behind him.