As a matter of fact, Corrigan had. After all, no physical harm could come to an external operator from causing an internal surrogate to permanently deactivate itself. But for all anyone knew, the knowledge and the trauma of the event might leave some adverse psychological imprint. It was something that the system designers had talked about, but in the end been forced to leave as one of the many unknowns that the experiment would entail.
“Somehow it didn’t seem like you,” Corrigan replied. Lilly didn’t respond. He went on. “I was concerned that you might try to disrupt the experiment. Oh, I don’t know how, exactly. . . . Set fire to the city, start a riot, preach revolution from street corners—mess the whole thing up somehow. And that would have been a shame, because it’s all doing so incredibly well—despite the flaws.”
Lilly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared at him incredulously. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” She shook her head. “I’ve heard of loyal servants of the System, but this is unreal. I mean, they’ve stolen twelve years of your life, and all you can do is stand there defending them like Horatius on his bridge and say—”
Corrigan raised his hands protestingly. “No. Look, it’s not the way you think. We haven’t really lost twelve years.”
“Not lost? What would you call it, then?”
“I didn’t mean like that. It hasn’t—”
“Do you call being surrounded by this lunacy every day living a life?”
“Let me finish. . . .” Corrigan looked around. There was a small coffee shop, not too crowded, a short distance from where they were standing. He took Lilly’s elbow and began steering her in that direction. “We can’t talk like this. Come on, let’s take the weight off our feet in there. A cup of something might calm you down before you break a spring or something, too.”
* * *
“. . . and we finally settled on a factor of 200. A day to us is only seven minutes outside. A whole week is less than an hour. So the twelve years that you’re so hyped up about works out at about three weeks. . . . Hell, Lilly, you’re a scientist. What we’re going through is a unique experience. Three weeks isn’t a lot to exchange for it.”
Lilly, hunched over the opposite side of the small corner-table, sipped her coffee and sighed. Corrigan’s words had had some effect. At least she was listening. She indicated their surroundings with a glance and a motion of her head. “So this is all an accelerated dream. We can afford to sit here and talk about it. It isn’t losing us much.”
“If we sat here for the next hour, it would be a whole eighteen seconds out of your life,” Corrigan said.
Lilly fell quiet for a moment, reflecting on that. “You people might have told us,” she said.
“Tyron didn’t mention it when you were interviewed in California?”
Lilly shook her head. “They didn’t tell us a great deal about it at all.”
“Maybe they did tell you after you got to Pittsburgh,” Corrigan said. “But then somebody sprung this memory suppression, and it got lost with the rest.”
Corrigan felt more at ease for the first time in days. It seemed that he had saved the project and would have good news to report the next time Zehl contacted him. The thing now was to get Lilly back into playing her role normally. He made a conscious effort to discharge the atmosphere by being casual, resting an elbow on the edge of the table and draping his other arm along the back of an empty chair next to him.
“Out of curiosity, what gave it away?” he asked her.
“You mean how did I see through the simulation?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, not because of any one thing that you could put a finger on. Lots of little things.”
“But there must have been something that clinched it.”
Lilly stared into the distance and tried to think back. “I think it was cracks in a sidewalk,” she replied at last.
“You’re joking.”
“No. . . . I do remember a couple of days in Pittsburgh before it all goes blank—when the group from California that I was with first arrived. There was a briefing and some preliminary tests.”