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He could vape the incog he had adopted, call in, and have the power to the box shut down, or for that
matter, secure an order for shutdown or even demolition of the entire West Padre #3 industrial complex.
That was what police insurance was for. But a suitably advanced box designed to juggle secure national,
much less international, information and data would be in constant touch with several, perhaps dozens of
backup mollys scattered all over the planet. If he had this one destroyed, the rest of the system might
continue to function unobserved and undetected for an indeterminate length of time. That would include
continuing to process the gram demanding Katla Mockerkin's capture or destruction.
On the other hand, any command accepted here would promulgate instantly throughout the entire
network including one to terminate that order. In addition to which, if he called in a demolition team, all
the rest of the valuable information currently residing on the box, threads that could lead to the arrest and
prosecution of dozens, maybe hundreds of wanted individuals and enterprises, would be lost. Now, more
than ever, he had to proceed with discretion.
There was one more thing he could try. It might set off a flurry of unwelcome responses, but he was
determined to chance it. If it worked, at worst it might shut down the entire system without providing a
response to his request, but might do so without damaging any permanent files. Those were, and had to
remain, secondary to securing the health and safety of a certain twelve-year-old girl waiting back in
Nogales. Grim-faced behind the chameleon, he once again addressed the machine.
"Cleator Mockerkin is dead. Therefore all ongoing grams requiring his input should immediately be
suspended."
He waited breathlessly, uncertain of what to expect. Depending on their level of AI sophistication,
differentmollys responded in different ways to directives that offered the prospect of internal conflict. He
expected one this advanced to ignore him, or to reject the input as unprocessable, or possibly to demand
elaboration.
He did not expect it to say, without wavering or hesitation, "Iknow. Mr. Cleator Mockerkin was struck
and killed by an out-of-control bus going north on Houston Street, outside the Brazos Mall, in the inside
lane, temperature thirty-eight degrees Celsius, relative humidity sixty-four percent, at three fifty-four P.M.
on the afternoon of September seventeenth."
Cardenas swallowed. "If the gram relating to the recovery or... termination ... of Katla Mockerkin can
only be canceled by a command paradigm compiled by Cleator Mockerkin, and Cleator Mockerkin has
been dead for going on more than three months, then how is the gram to be canceled?"
"Under the scenario you describe, it cannot be canceled." The box exuded a chilling assurance that was
maddening. "However, the gram will lapse when its parameters have been fulfilled."
"But there's no one left who'd want it fulfilled!"Easy, Cardenas told himself.Calm, collected, composed.
Be like the box. Be a molly. Spin, but not off your axis. "The individual who entered the original gram,
Cleator Mockerkin, is deceased. Therefore there is no one left to see the gram fulfilled."
"There is," the box replied, with utmost seriousness.
Cardenas sat back in the chair as if he had been slapped, and gaped at the tunnel that glowed with
restricted lists and stats and images. There was a face somewhere back there, and it was not the face of
a person. Impartial, unsympathetic, unmoved, and efficient, it was interested in only one thing: carrying
out its programming. Scattered among the already unfathomable labyrinth of information that bound the
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world together, it could not be effectively neutralized except from this central source, and then only by
expert operatives with ample time to ferret out its secrets and avoid the traps that must lie buried within.
Cardenas would see to it that they were put on the job as soon as it was safe to do so. But first he had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]