Realtime Interrupt by James P. Hogan
Realtime Interrupt by James P. Hogan
Acknowledgments
The help and advice of the following is greatly appreciated:
Joseph Bates and Mark Kantrowitz, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Liam Cullinane, First National Building Society, Ireland
Beverly Freed, for background on real reality
Brenda Laurel, for background on virtual reality
Marvin Minsky, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, and Thinking Machines Corporation
John Moody and the staff of Holland’s Lounge, Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
Brent Warner, NASA, Goddard Spaceflight Center, Maryland
Patricia Warwick, University of Wisconsin
Joe Corrigan looked at the monitor screen, which now read:
CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU ARE NOW IN COMMAND
OF THE SYSTEM PRIMARY COMMAND EXECUTIVE.
(COMMAND EXEC ANSWERS TO “ROGER”)
Tyron strode into the room ahead of the others. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he barked.
Corrigan ignored him and spoke quickly to the computer. “Roger, operand class by name: Corrigan, Essell. Zero reaction coefficients of M-sub-M, M-sub-P, and delete spacial conflict restrictions.”
“Get away from that. . . . What the? . . .” Tyron grabbed at Joe’s shoulder, but his hand met no resistance and went straight through. Corrigan had in effect turned himself and Lilly into ghosts.
“You don’t have control anymore,” Corrigan said. “I do.”
“That’s impossible,” Tyron declared. He stepped forward, moving through Corrigan’s body, but struck his knee on the edge of the chair, causing him to curse. Corrigan smirked and waved a hand invitingly toward the touchpad. Tyron stabbed savagely at several keys and saw that it was ineffective.
“Roger, reset k-sub-g to twenty percent,” said Corrigan. Papers in the office suddenly lifted and began blowing around in currents from the air-conditioning. Velluci, walking into the room, came loose from the floor in mid-step, in a strange, floating leap that carried him toward the wall. Corrigan had reduced gravity to a fifth of normal.
“Roger, reset all mu-f to zero.” Which reduced all mechanical friction to nothing. Velluci had been hauling himself back up, but went down again as his feet shot out from under him, as if the floor had turned into slick ice. Tyron managed to stay upright, but his spectacles slid off.
“Roger, rotate k-sub-g vector field ten degrees northward.” And gravity was no longer vertical, and all the horizontal surfaces were now sloping. Tyron tried pulling himself up the tiled floor, but his hands slid futilely.
“You’ll regret it, Corrigan,” he screeched as a tide of books, folders, furnishings swept him down again. . . .
BOOKS by James P. Hogan
Inherit the Stars
The Genesis Machine
The Gentle Giants of Ganymede
The Two Faces of Tomorrow
Thrice Upon a Time
Giants’ Star
Voyage From Yesteryear
Code of the Lifemaker
The Proteus Operation
Endgame Enigma
Mirror Maze
The Infinity Gambit
Entoverse
The Multiplex Man
Realtime Interrupt
Minds, Machines & Evolution
The Immortality Option
Paths to Otherwhere
Bug Park
Star Child
Rockets, Redheads & Revolution
Cradle of Saturn
Prologue
Faces, places, formless spaces. Blurred thoughts, smeared thoughts. Images dissolving away under swirling water. Words tumbling in dislocated time. Then, clearness emerging suddenly, like a momentary calming of the wind in a storm.
There was a small, plain room with a bed, a closet, and a window with closed slats. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a heavy plaid robe. Where this was or how he came to be there, he didn’t know. It could have been a hospital. He had a strange feeling of unreality about everything, as if the walls around him were all there was: stage props brought together in a void, with nothing behind.
He rose and moved to the window. The motion felt remote and disconnected, as if he were watching it from a vantage point that was distant yet still strangely within. Beyond the glass was a city with tall buildings and a river spanned by steel bridges. It felt familiar, but he was unable to name it. He searched his memories but found only faded and scattered fragments from long ago. Of his recent past—anything that might have some connection with where he was and why—there was nothing.
He turned as he heard the door behind him open. A man entered, dressed in a physician’s smock. “Good morning, Joe. How are you feeling today?” the man said.