The two trysters in the back office were startled out of their fun by all the commotion and hastily began putting their clothes back on and then trying to figure out if they should try to duck out of there or just keep quiet. There was a small window looking out onto the lab and computer-control center from the office, though, and once they’d regained some measure of composure they found it irresistible. Both Johnson and Okieda thought at first that they were the ones who had somehow caused all this, but one look into the labs told them differently.
Soldiers converged from both sides on the small figure in the chair, soldiers armed with automatic weapons.
Bolts of electricity lashed out from the panels, catching the lead troopers and causing them to scream and drop to the floor, writhing. Watanabe was somehow doing it from the master computer.
The forces behind the fallen soldier didn’t need any orders to react. They opened up with short, precise bursts on the woman in the chair. The impact of the bullets spun her around and threw her backward in the chair. Sparks flew from the helmet connection, and before Watanabe had a chance at anything, if indeed she was still alive, hands snatched the helmet away and emergency switches were thrown, deactivating both computer-to-human interfaces.
Okieda turned to Marsha Johnson, a look of horror on his face. “What do we do now?”
She was as much in shock as he was. “I don’t know. Maybe you should just mix with them. One soldier more won’t be noticed. I can talk my way out of it.”
“You kidding? Logistics blue is a little different from Security red. Damn!”
Johnson went back and tried the rear door. It held fast, as if welded there. Okieda then tried the door to the lab, and found it much the same. “Security’s sealed the building!” he told her. “We’re stuck!”
Brigadier Coydt was in her quarters but not asleep, and she was immediately informed by the Security duty officer of the events so far. She threw on a shirt and pants and rushed downstairs, where an electric car was waiting to take her to the transport labs. Watanabe had been dead less than fifteen minutes by the time she arrived.
She stood there, then examined the blood-soaked body, and finally asked, “How many people know the specifics of this?”
“Just our personnel actually inside up to this point and the duty officer, ma’am,” a sergeant informed her. “Maybe a dozen in all, not counting our security computer that flagged us, of course.”
“I want an immediate seal on this,” she ordered. “I want absolutely no one to know anything about this who doesn’t already know.” Her mind was racing. “Have you checked the rest of the building?”
“Doing it now, room by room and office by office. Supposedly, there are two up in that office there—or so the computer flag tells us.”
She looked over in that direction and thought she could see a face peering nervously back at her, “Who are they?”
“A junior engineer who works here and some enlisted man from Logistics.”
“Were they helping her?”
“No. Computer watch says they were fuck—making out, begging the brigadier’s pardon.”
“All right. Keep those two up there bottled up for the moment, and get me a secured line to Site K—our channels, no routing. I need some advice.”
“The alarm’s been heard all over the place, ma’am. Curious folk are gathering outside now. Sooner or later we’re gonna get somebody big enough to bypass our lines through here. What shall I do?”
“Just get me that link!” She turned to a lieutenant just standing there, looking a little dazed. “You—what’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Symmes, ma’am.”
“All right, Symmes. Go down and keep that cordon tight until I tell you not to. Anyone, and I mean anyone, even the admiral or the director, makes it past you and you’ll envy this woman on the floor.”
“But—what’ll I tell them?”
“Tell them—tell them we caught a Soviet spy stealing master transport programs and we had to kill the agent. Tell them we can’t have anyone in until we determine not only who the spy is but how much damage was done. Tell anyone asking that it’s on my personal order and I’ll answer to them later. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
She looked around. “Casualties?”
“Two, ma’am. Both dead.”
“All right. There must be some lab clothes, something around here, that will fit one of them. Find them, get the one that fits best out of his or her uniform and into lab clothes. I’m going to need a convincing body to take past the crowd as our Soviet spy. We’ll give ’em proper burial under their real names when we get them away. Understand? One soldier casualty, one dead spy.”
The soldiers just stared at her for a moment. Finally, one asked, “Uh, pardon me, ma’am, but what are we going to do with her?”
Coydt looked down at the dead body of the scientist. “Play Jesus Christ—I hope.”
On her order, Watanabe’s body was stripped and then carried out into the lab itself and placed inside one of the clear tubes. It looked like a discarded rag doll stained with crimson ink.
She ordered just Marsha Johnson fetched and brought down to her. The lab assistant was white as a sheet and clearly scared to death, a set of emotions not at all helped by having to face the notorious Brigadier Coydt herself. Still, Johnson couldn’t help thinking what an attractive woman the security chief was. It just didn’t seem right. But there was something in Coydt’s eyes and manner and tone of voice that was both scary and chilling.
“What’s your name?” Coydt snapped.
“Marsha Johnson, ma’am.”
“You worked for Dr. Watanabe?”
“Yes, ma’am. The past four years.”
“Ever run the computer?”
Johnson was puzzled at the question. “Yes, ma’am. I’m qualified independent at Guard and second class at Override.”
“Good. Now, listen up and get hold of yourself. Your boss just committed a particularly spectacular form of hara-kiri. I’m going to need your help here if we’re to salvage anything from this.”
The lab assistant felt suddenly numb. “That’s who—that is? Director Watanabe?” She felt as if her whole world were crumbling.
“The one and only. She dressed herself in ancient clothes and even took time to do the ancient styles. Then she came in here with the idea of erasing or blowing whatever she could until she was cut down.”
Johnson couldn’t believe it. “She—she wouldn’t! This was her whole life!”
“She would, she could, and she almost did.”
“But—why? I know she decided to quit, but—”
Coydt’s voice and manner turned suddenly and disconcertingly soft and gentle. “Child, the pressure just got too much. You said it yourself. This was her whole life—the culmination of everything she’d worked for all that life. Then she got obsessed by the ethics of her work. She became convinced that she was an inadvertent monster, one who’d loosed an uncontrollable evil while looking for good. You know she was always deep into history. She’s been reading and collecting books on scientists who found themselves in her position in the past. Her fears fueled her imagination and she built up tremendous guilt for something that was still theoretical.”
“But—the project’s going on! The programs and discoveries are now being used! She couldn’t stop it!”
“Well, she thought, I think, that she could slow it down, maybe mortally wound it. If this got out, there would be outcries and inquiries, and commissions and the like, and she’d be a martyr to everyone who wants to shut us down tight, fueled by the propaganda of our enemies. Mostly, though, I doubt if that was foremost in her mind. I think— well, she was simply trying, in reverting to an ancient culture she barely knew except from books—not so much to reverse things as to atone for her works. In the ancient fashion she was taking responsibility and guilt for it all.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Here’s the point. I haven’t time to look it up. Did Watanabe herself ever go through digitization?”
Marsha Johnson started, beginning to see where Coydt was headed. “Why, yeah. After it was well along. She said she needed to experience it to fine-tune the programs. But—if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, it’s not possible. She’s not digitized. She’s dead.”
“Go take the Guard position. I’ll take Override. Let’s get her in the system before rigor mortis sets in. I’m going to have a linkup between this computer and the 7800 crew in orbit. Because of the time delay, it might take a while, but I’d like to find out what’s possible. If there’s a chance, even a chance in a million, isn’t it worth some time and work here? If we can’t, we don’t lose anything. If we can, maybe we can show her that this thing isn’t as evil as she thought, huh?”
Johnson was doubtful, but she couldn’t stand by when there was any possibility of it. And if they did it, she’d have her own paragraph in history.
A few of the files on transmutation had been erased, but since nothing else had been done on the computer, they were recoverable. The computer had only deleted them from its index and marked them free for overwriting; the more stringent erase command had not been given when the bullets flew.
Coydt was far too busy to think beyond each moment right now. She was making this up as she went along, and somewhat pleased with her own creativity, but none of it would be worthwhile unless they pulled off this ultimate trick.
The brigadier was not expected to know how to operate the computer, particularly something like a Kagan, nor be rated as Overrider, but she was both. She had, in fact, worked with the 7800 at Site K, the orbiting station out in the depths of space between Saturn and Uranus which had its own small Borelli Point. Because it was used primarily as an automatic backup point for all work on Titan—with the knowledge and even the connivance of Westrex but not known to those not on the Operations Board—it was entirely under her section. She couldn’t really qualify as more than a mere operator, but that was good enough if she could link up with her top computer personnel running the 7800 itself.
She had to shout over to Johnson for the exact passwords, name, and form to direct the digitization process, but once done she could run it without any problems. The computer accepted her as an authorized operator; as a matter of form, all members of both boards had authority to operate, although they didn’t necessarily have the information to run the thing. The good fortune of having Marsha Johnson there was the thing that gave this a chance.