Hatcher’s chest heaved with laughter that was stifled by the thermometer in his mouth. The medic standing by him took it out and nodded that it was okay for him to drink the coffee now. He had flatly refused to be taken to the medical department for a rest and checkup as stipulated in the exiting procedure, and come straight up to the M & C floor instead. Nothing would make him miss what happened now, and that was final. Jason Pinder was hovering nearby, watching him anxiously, genuinely concerned.
“We’re initializing real-time resynch now,” a supervisor called from where he was standing behind two of the console operators. “T-by-tau is dropping at one per second. Should have reintegration in about three minutes.” It meant that the simulation’s accelerated time was being slowed to bring it back into synchronization with the real world.
Despite all these signs that it was over, Victor Borth was not ready to concede final defeat just yet. He turned from where he had been listening with his back toward Tyron and the others, and spread his hands appealingly. “This is crazy,” he told them. “Somebody tell me I’m not hearing this. Are you people saying that two guys can screw up a whole project of this magnitude? I mean, what does it take to keep two guys sweet? All they’ve got to do is name it.” He turned and walked toward the side of the room where Hatcher was sitting. “Hey, you. Tom, is it? What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever dreamed of getting out of life? Cars? Boats? Broads? You could be a millionaire, know that? Everybody’s got something. You could have some of the most powerful people anywhere on your side for the rest of your life—anything you wanna do. There has to be room for us to talk, right?” Hatcher shook his head, sighed, smiled wearily to himself, and looked away.
Of more concern to Tyron than Hatcher’s future right now was the matter of his own. He was the one who had convinced the consortium of F & F’s client-backers that a functioning pseudoworld was feasible; he had coordinated outside development of the advanced system that went past the original specification drawn up inside CLC; and at his instigation, Borth had organized the flow of funds to support it. If he delivered as promised, the wherewithal to smooth over all these embarrassments would be forthcoming. He’d have the leverage; he’d have the friends. If he failed to . . . No, they were all in it too far. There could be no backing down now.
He had authorized temporary resynchronization to permit direct communication with Corrigan from the outside. Now he decided that a more direct form of intervention was needed. He turned to the operators at the section monitoring operation of the COSMOS neural-coupling interfaces on the floor below. “Initialize another two units.” Then, curtly, to Morgen, Sutton, and Borth, “We’re going back in.”
Borth looked taken aback. “All of us? You mean . . .”
Tyron smiled thinly at him. “Why not? You’ve been saying for a long time that you’ll have to try this thing yourself someday. Well, now’s your chance. Use your arguments on the guy who matters.”
“T-tau one seventy-five and falling,” the supervisor reported.
“Come on,” Tyron said, striding across the floor in the direction of the way out to the main corridor. Borth followed, and after a moment of faltering Morgen and Sutton fell in behind. “And anyhow, we still have the final argument,” Tyron tossed back at them over his shoulder as he reached the doors. “We’ve got the switch out here, and he doesn’t.”
They disappeared, and the doors closed behind them. Some of the operators exchanged curious looks. Others shrugged. Pinder leaned closer to Hatcher with a worried expression. “How do you feel?” he asked.
Hatcher stared dully across the room and considered the question. “I’m not sure,” he said finally, looking up. “How is the victim of a successful suicide supposed to feel? . . . Not bad, considering, I guess.”
Chapter Forty-two
For Corrigan this was the most unreal part since the beginning of the entire experience. The full-scale Oz project, culmination of everything he had been working toward for the past several years, was about to go live in the next couple of days. Technicians and managers assailed him constantly for decisions about last-minute details; Endelmyer, the president of the corporation, was demanding that his calls be returned. And none of it mattered. There was going to be some delay no matter how quickly events moved in the world outside. His only choice was to either make a dramatic exit as Hatcher had done, or wait it out.