And each time she’d come to the door to collect the trolley, Wilson had been forced to reach a little further.
Until at last there came a time when Wilson, to reach the trolley, had to take a single pace into the room. Just a pace, that was all-but Kate hoped it would be enough.
Two running steps took her to the doorway. A shoulder charge knocked Wilson forward into the room, and Kate made it as far as two paces out the door.
Her room turned out to be just a box, standing alone in a giant, hangar-sized chamber, the walls high and remote and dimly lit. There were other guards ail around her, men and women, getting up from desks, drawing weapons. Kate looked around frantically, seeking a place to run-
The hand that had closed on hers was like a vise. Her little finger was twisted back, and her arm bent sideways. Kate fell to her knees, unable to keep from screaming, and she felt bones in her finger break in an explosion of grinding pain.
It was, of course, Wilson.
When she’d come to, she was on the floor of her prison, bound there with what felt like duct tape, while a medic treated her hand. Wilson was being held back by another of the guards, with a murderous look on that steely face.
When it was done, Kate had a finger that throbbed for weeks. And Wilson, when she next came to the door on her twice-daily routine, fixed Kate with a glare full of hate. I wounded her pride, Kate realized. Next time, she will kill me without hesitation.
But it was clear to Kate that, even after her attempted escape, all that hate wasn’t directed at her. She wondered who was Wilson’s real target-and if Hiram knew.
In the same way, she knew, she had never been Hiram’s real target. She was just bait, bait in a trap.
She was just in the way of these crazy people with their unguessable agendas.
It did no good to brood on such things. She lay back on her bed. Later, in the routine she’d used to structure her empty days, she’d take some exercise. For now, suspended in light that was never quenched, she tried to blank her mind.
A hand touched hers.
Amid the chaos and recrimination and anger that followed the retrieval of Mary and Kate, David asked to see Mary in the cool calm of the Wormworks.
He was immediately jotted by the familiarity of Mary’s blue eyes, so like the eyes he had followed deep into time, all the way back to Africa.
He shivered with a sense of the evanescence of human life. Was Mary really no more than the transient manifestation of genes which had been passed to her through thousands of generations, even from the long-gone Neanderthal days, genes which she in turn would pass on into an unknown future? But the WormCam had destroyed that dismal perspective. Mary’s life was transient, but no less meaningful for that; and now that the past was opened up, she would surely be remembered, cherished by those who would follow.
And her life, shaped in a fast-changing world, might yet take her to places he couldn’t even imagine.
She said, ‘You look worried!’
‘That’s because I’m not sure who I’m speaking to.’
She snorted, and for an instant he saw the old, rebellious, discontented Mary.
‘Forgive my ignorance,’ David said. ‘I’m just trying to understand. We all are. This is something new to us.’
She nodded. ‘And therefore something to fear? … Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘Yes, then. We’re here. The wormhole in my head never shuts down, David. Everything I do, everything I see and hear and feel, everything I think, is.’
‘Shared?’
‘Yes.’ She studied him. ‘But I know what you imply by that. Diluted. Right? But it isn’t like that- I’m no less me. But I am enhanced. It’s just another layer of mind. Or of information processing, if you like: layered over my central nervous system, the way the CNS is layered over older networks, like the biochemical. My memories are still mine. Does it matter if they are stored in some- body else’s head?’
‘But this isn’t just some kind of neat mobile phone network, is it? You Joined make higher claims than that. Is there a new person in all this, a new, combined you, A group mind, linked by wormholes, emergent from the network?’
‘You think that would be a monstrosity, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know what to think about it.’
He studied her, trying to grasp Mary within the shell of Joinedness.
It didn’t help that the Joined had quickly become renowned as consummate actors-or liars, to be more blunt. Thanks to their detached layers of consciousness, each of them had a mastery over their body language, the muscles of their faces-a power over communication channels that had evolved to transmit information reliably and honestly-that could beat out the most expert thespian. He had no reason to suppose Mary was lying to him, today; it was just that he couldn’t see how he could tell if she was or not.
She said now, ‘Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?’
Disturbed, he said, ‘Very well. Mary-how does it feel?’
She said slowly; ‘The same. Just … more. It’s like coming fully awake-a feeling of clarity, of full consciousness. You must know. I’ve never been a scientist. But I’ve solved puzzles. I play chess, for instance. Science is something like that, isn’t it? You figure something out-suddenly see how the game fits together- it’s as if the clouds clear, just for a moment, and you can see far, much farther than before.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a few moments like that in my life. I’ve been fortunate.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘But for me, that’s how it feels all the time. Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘Do you understand why people fear you?’
‘They do more than fear us,’ she said calmly. ‘They hunt us down. They attack us. But they can’t damage us. We can see them coming, David.’
That chilled him.
‘And even if one of us is killed-even if I am killed-then we, the greater being, will go on.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘The information network that defines the Joined is large, and growing all the time. It’s probably indestructible, like an Internet of minds.’
He frowned, obscurely irritated. ‘Have you heard of attachment theory? It describes our need, psychologically, to form close relationships, to reach out to intimates. We need such relationships to conceal the awful truth, which we confront as we grow up, that each of us is alone. The greatest battle of human existence is to come to terms with that fact- And that is why to be Joined is so appealing.
‘But the chip in your head will not help you,’ he said brutally. ‘Not in the end. For you must die alone, just as I must.’
She smiled, coldly forgiving, and he felt ashamed.
‘But that may not be true,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I will be able to live on, survive the death of my body-of Mary’s body. But I, my consciousness and memories, will not be resident in one member’s body or another, but-distributed. Shared amongst them all. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’
He whispered, ‘And would it be you? Could you truly avoid death that way? Or would this distributed self be a copy?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know. And besides the technology is some way away from realizing that. Until it does, we will still suffer illness, accident, death. And we will always grieve.’
‘The wiser you are, the more it hurts.’
‘Yes. The human condition is tragic, David. The greater the Joined becomes, the more clearly I can see that. And the more I feel it.’ Her face, still young, seemed overlaid by a ghostly mask of much greater age. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’
Kate couldn’t help but jump, snatch her hand away.
She finessed her involuntary gasp into a cough, extended the motion of her hand to cover her mouth. Then, delicately, she returned her hand to where it had been, resting on the top sheet of her bed.
And that gentle touch came again, the fingers warm, strong, unmistakable despite the SmartShroud glove which must cover them. She felt the fingers squirm into her palm, and she tried to stay still, eating the peach.
Sorry shocked you. No way warn.
She leaned back a little, seeking to conceal her own handspelling behind her back. Bobby ?
Who else??? Nice prison.
In Wormworks right?
Yes. DNA trace. David helped. Refugee methods. Mary helped. All family together.
Shouldn’t have come, she signed quickly. What Hiram wants. Get you. Bait in trap.
Not abandon you. Need you. Be ready.
Tried once. Guards smart, sharp …
She risked a glimpse to her side. She could see no sign of his presence, not so much as a false shadow, an indentation in the bedcover, a hint of distortion. Evidently SmartShroud technology was improving as rapidly as the WormCam itself.