F Wilson: Fatal Error

She lay just as Weezy had left her, but… she'd been solid then. As before, her eyes were closed. Still conserving energy, or unable to open them?

She reached a hand toward her and noticed how it trembled. She pushed it toward the Lady's shoulder, finally touching it -and passing through.

She snatched it back. She'd felt something-the best she could describe it was a tepid liquid. The Lady's substance had sublimated to a semi-solid state. Was this how it would end? From solid to semisolid to… what? A vapor, her molecules dissipating into the air? Was that how she would end-a victim of Brownian motion?

And yet… why hadn't that already happened? If the Internet was down, why was she here at all? Weezy could only assume that the damaged noosphere was trying desperately to maintain her existence, and obviously losing the battle.

The mountain lake she'd described was draining dry.

"Lady?"

No motion, no response, not even a flutter of the eyelids. She seemed even less substantial than a moment ago.

Weezy felt a sob building in her chest. No need to suppress it, so she let it burst free. She'd come to love the Lady as a person. She knew she was simply a projection of the noosphere, but she seemed more than that. She seemed to have her own personality. Most likely that was merely a projection as well, but whatever it was, Weezy had come to love it.

She pulled a chair up beside the bed. She didn't want to look at what was left of the Lady, so she turned out the light. But even though the Lady wasn't human, she shouldn't have to die alone. Someone needed to be here to bear witness to her passing.

"I'll sit with you until…"

She couldn't bring herself to say it.

… until there's no more of you to sit with.

Weezy awoke in the dark with a cold left hand. She remembered resting it on the bed next to the Lady's earlier. She must have fallen asleep. A cold weight rested on that hand.

Reaching across with her right, she turned on the light and gasped.

The Lady still lay on the bed as Weezy had last seen her, but she seemed more visible. No, she was more visible. She could no longer see the covers through her. The cold weight resting on Weezy's hand was the Lady's. It had substance now. Last night she'd been reduced to some sort of strange semiliquid, progressing toward vapor. Now she seemed to be gathering mass and moving in the other direction.

Weezy slipped her hand from under the Lady's and touched her arm. Definitely solid now.

But how could that be?

She shook her gently. "Lady? Lady, can you hear me?"

Nothing. No breath. No movement. But she was still here. And she must have moved sometime since Weezy dozed off, or else how would her hand have come to rest atop Weezy's?

She gave the Lady's arm a gentle squeeze. The flesh rebounded. How was this possible? The Internet was down, and yet she not only survived, she was rebounding.

Unless… had the Internet somehow rebounded just in time? It seemed too good to be true, but…

She looked around for a clock but couldn't find one. She dug out her cell phone and touched a key. The display lit to show no service and no time. She'd left the TV on in the front room and heard it now. She hurried out to see if she could learn anything from the tube.

The time was posted in the lower right corner of the screen: 2:32. A harried looking newsreader on one of the local stations sat at his desk, reading a press release.

"… of Homeland Security says that Jihad-four-twenty, the virus responsible for the crash of the Internet, originated from a server in Tehran. In an unprecedented step, the intelligence services of the world are uniting to hunt down the hacker or cabal of hackers or the terrorist organization responsible."

He switched to another sheet of paper.

"The DHS has also revealed that shortly after the myriad servers and routers that feed the Internet crashed, terrorists launched a well-organized and widespread attack against the Internet's physical infrastructure. All across the globe, but mostly here in the United States, explosions ripped through the fiber-optic cables that crisscross the country and the oceans, linking data centers and nations. This will make rebuilding the Internet even more difficult. Not only will the countless crashed servers and routers need to be reprogrammed, but the damaged cables that link them will have to be repaired or replaced."

Weezy hit the mute button and stepped to the window. Clearly the Internet had not rebounded, and would not for some time. Below, the traffic was still snarled. Only a few headlights remained on. Nothing moved except a rare pedestrian.

The Internet crashed… the noosphere further weakened… the Lady should be gone. But she was hanging on.

No, more than hanging on-rallying.

How? Whence was she drawing strength?

The clock on the wall behind the Marriott's registration desk said it was a little after six-thirty. Jack looked out the front door. The sun hadn't yet cleared the horizon, but the sky had lightened enough to make travel feasible.

He'd spent the night trying to think of a way back to Gia's place that didn't involve a six- or seven-mile walk through the cold. Even if he could fit Gia and Vicky on the motocross bike, he couldn't guarantee their safety. He couldn't rent a car because the roads-at least all the roads he could see-were still jammed. The side streets here in Queens had probably eased up, but the problem was getting to them. Enough people had abandoned their cars, at least temporarily, to create a near-permanent snarl.

The fact that it was Sunday, without millions trying to get to work, would help, but it still might take all day to untangle this mess. They couldn't wait for that. The hotel coffee shop was out of everything but coffee, and that was in short supply. He'd managed to snag a couple of cups for Gia and himself, and an OJ for Vicky.

"Are we ready for this?" he said.

Gia and Vicky nodded. They were both well bundled up. Good thing they'd been returning from Iowa instead of Florida.

Gia looked at him. "How long do you think it will take?"

Jack had borrowed a map from the concierge during the night and checked out the shortest route to the Queensboro Bridge. Gia lived in its shadow.

"If we take the Grand Central to Northern Boulevard to the bridge, it's between six and a half and seven miles. It shouldn't be too hard to move at around three miles an hour-"

He caught Gia's glance at Vicky, then at his hip.

"I'm okay. The rest has helped." True enough. He'd checked it in the men's room: big bruise, but much less painful. "And Vicks will be on my shoulders. I think we're talking two and a half hours, less if we're lucky."

Gia smiled. "Home by nine. You have no idea how good that sounds. I'll have scrambled eggs and coffee on the table by nine-thirty."

"You have no idea how good that sounds. Let's go. I'm starved."

Jack had paid the bell captain to check Gia's bag. So, unencumbered, they stepped out into the cold. Jack swung Vicky onto his shoulders and the three of them set off for Manhattan.

Vicky started singing "We're Off to See the Wizard" and Jack thought that was somehow appropriate. He would have sung along, but he feared that after last night, the Wizard's name was Rasalom.

"I… live?"

The Lady's voice was faint, hoarse, like a broom sweeping sand. She lay as she had before, but her eyes were open and she was conscious. Weezy had been watching her, talking to her, touching her. She'd seen her mouth move a few times, but these were the first words she'd heard her speak since last night.

She leaned closer. "Miraculously, yes. How?"

"Don't… know."