“Tom came up with a way whereby maybe you can. His idea was to plant something of personal significance in the simworld environment that would take on a new meaning when you know that you’re looking for it. In other words you know the way you think, and when the need became strong enough, you’d realize that you would have put something close by somewhere—something that you’d recognize when the time came. So for as long as the simulation was running normally, it would effectively be invisible. Get the idea?”
Lilly did, but its relevance was less clear. From what Corrigan had just said, the notion had been purely hypothetical—something to think about if the decision had been to use suppression in the project. But—as far as Corrigan had been aware, anyway—the decision had been not to use suppression. So why would he have implemented an ejection button? She tried to think back to what she had overheard Hatcher say from the screen.
“Back in your office just now, he said something about you and he talking late into the project. You went into the simulation a day before he did.”
Corrigan nodded that she had got it. “So my memory erasure went back a day earlier than his did. Something was going on that aroused our suspicions enough for us to decide that maybe an `out’ button would be a good insurance. And what he’s telling me is that we went ahead and put them in somewhere. It means that there is a way out, Lilly, whether Sylvine and the rest of them out there feel like cooperating or not. All we have to do is find it.”
* * *
They drove along a road of comfortably aloof homes lying in upper-middle-class seclusion among shrubbery and pines, and turned off into the driveway of a low-set, contemporary composition of lacquered timbers and stone chimney breasts, with brown shingles, a screened porch, and large expanses of glass.
Corrigan parked without saying anything, got out, and walked around to open the passenger door. Outside a house a short distance farther along, a man who looked like the occupant was standing with a woman by the mailbox at the end of a driveway. They looked across while pretending not to as Lilly climbed out of the car—unwilling to permit anything approaching eye contact, even at that distance, but too intrigued to miss anything. Then the gazes averted, and the chins began to wag.
“I think I’m the sensation of the street already,” Lilly said as they began walking up toward the house. “How long is it since Evelyn left?”
Corrigan snorted. “Three weeks. You know, it’s funny. I can remember how smug and self-satisfied I felt when we picked this place. Now I think I’d prefer that flat in Oakland. Better neighborhood. Less insufferable people.”
“Drunks, deadbeats, students, dancers? Even bartenders.”
“Exactly.”
The dog from next door was out front, secured by a sliding chain to a line that gave it the run of the lawn on the far side of the scattering bay laurel and flowering dogwoods separating the two properties. It was a shaggy gray mass of indeterminate origins, and had paused to watch them hesitantly, as if unsure what it was supposed to do. Corrigan stopped and looked at it strangely for a couple of seconds. Then he held out a hand and called jovially, “Hey, Bruce, old fella. How’s it going today, eh?” The dog scampered as close as its chain would permit, tongue lolling from jaws panting wide in delight and tail wagging. Corrigan grunted to himself, followed Lilly up to the door, and let them in.
“I never knew you were a dog person,” she said as he closed the door.
“I’m not. That was an experiment. Checking out the system.”
“What do you mean?”
Corrigan cocked his head and pointed back over his shoulder with a thumb. “Its name isn’t Bruce—I don’t know what its name is. And it never acts like that. It hates me.” Lilly frowned uncomprehendingly. Corrigan moved to the hallway window beside the door and looked out. The dog had gone back to investigate something under a shrub by the lawns; the two people across the street were still talking.