Harry Harrison - The Turing Option

“That’s terrible!”

“These are terrible people.”

“But they would have to listen in twenty-four hours a day… no, I take that back. Easy enough to use automatic word-recognizing machines. Let it be on the lookout for certain words like FBI or Megalobe, that’s all you have to do. It would sound the alarm when one of the words triggered the program, get someone on the line at once to listen in, decide what to do. The people behind this are horrible. While we were listening to what was happening in that office — somewhere else, someone evil, was listening as well. When he heard what was happening, understood the situation—”

“He ended the conversation. This is bad but don’t let it depress you too much. This is not the end of the investigation but only the very beginning. They hid their tracks well — but you and Sven found them. One villain dead, more in hiding, but all the evidence to hand. We’ll get them yet.”

“Meanwhile I’m still locked inside Megalobe. It’s like a life sentence.”

“It won’t be forever, I can guarantee that.”

“You can’t guarantee anything, Ben,” Brian said with a great tiredness. “I’m going to lie down for a while. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

He went to his quarters and dropped onto the bed, fell asleep at once. When he awoke it was after ten at night and he realized that it was his stomach that had growled him awake, protesting the fact that he hadn’t eaten in over fourteen hours. He had drunk a lot, too much probably. There was cereal and a fresh quart of milk in the fridge and he poured himself a bowl. Turned on the recently installed window that really wasn’t a window and pulled a chair up before it. Ate the cereal slowly and looked out at the moonlit desert. Stars right down to the horizon. What was going to happen next? Had they reached another dead end with Thomsen’s murder? Or would the investigation turn up the people behind it? The dark and murderous group mat had planned the theft, the killings.

It was very late before he pulled his clothes off and finally fell into bed. Slept like a rock until the buzzing telephone woke him up; he blinked at the time, after eleven in the morning.

“Yes?”

“Morning, Brian. Going into the lab today?”

He hadn’t thought about it at all, too tired, too depressed. Too much else happening.

“No, Shelly, I don’t think so. It’s been a seven-day week for too long a time. We both could use a day off.”

“Talk about it over lunch?”

“No, I’ve got — things to do. You take care of yourself and I’ll phone when we are ready to get back to work.”

The black depression just would not go away. He had got his hopes up so high when they had traced his AI to DigitTech Products. He had been so sure that this would be the end, that his imprisonment was going to be over soon. But it wasn’t. He was still inside and not getting out until they found the conspirators. If ever. It didn’t bear thinking about.

He tried watching television but it made no sense. Nor did the National Almanacs that he had printed and bound. Usually he enjoyed browsing through them to catch up on his missing years. Not today. He made himself a margarita, sipped at it, wrinkled his lips at the taste so early in the day, then poured it down the sink. Turning into an alcoholic wouldn’t help. He slapped together a cheese and tomato sandwich instead and permitted himself one beer to wash it down.

When Ben hadn’t called by noon Brian phoned him instead. No news. Slow progress. Stand by. Contact you the instant anything happened. Thanks a lot.

In the end he fell back on an old favorite, E. E . Smith, and reread four volumes, then some Benford robot stories before he went to bed.

It was noon of the second day before the phone rang again — he grabbed it up.

“Ben?”

“It’s Dr. Snaresbrook, Brian. I’ve just got to Megalobe and I would like to see you.”

“I’m, well, a little busy now, Doc.”

“ No you are not. You are in your quarters by yourself and haven’t been out for two days. People are concerned, Brian, which is why I am here. Speaking as your physician I think that it is important that I see you now.”

“Later, maybe. I’ll phone you at the clinic.”

“I’m not in the clinic — but right downstairs in your building. I would like to come up.”

Brian started to protest — then resigned himself to the inevitable. “Give me five minutes to pull some clothes on.”

He pulled on his clothes, answered the door when the bell rang.

“You don’t look too bad,” the doctor said when he let her in. She looked him up and down professionally then took a diagnoster from her bag. “If I could have your arm, thank you.”

One touch against his skin was enough. The little machine buzzed happily to itself, then filled its display screen with numbers and letters.

“Coffee?” Brian asked. “I just made it fresh.”

“That would be very nice,” she said, squinting at the tiny screen. “Temperature, blood pressure, glucose, phospholamine. Everything normal except a slightly elevated alpha-reactinase. How is the head?”

He brushed his fingers through the red bristle. “Like always, no symptoms, no problems. I could have saved you a trip. What’s bothering me is not physical. It is just good old melancholia and depression.”

“Easy enough to understand. Cream, no sugar. Thanks.”

She settled into one of the dining chairs and stirred her cup, staring into it as though it were a crystal ball. “I’m not surprised. I should have seen this coming. You are working too hard, using your brain too hard, putting a strain on yourself. All work and no play.”

“Very little chance to play in the barracks — or the lab.”

“You are absolutely right — and something must be done about it. I blame myself for not stopping this even before it started. But we both have been so enthusiastic about your recovery, accessing your CPU, everything. And your work, it’s gone so well that you have been on an emotional high. Now you have come down with a thud. The murder at DigitTech and the dead end there were the last straw.”

“You know about that?”

“Ben swore me to secrecy, then told me about everything that happened. Which is why I came here at once. To help you.”

“And what do you prescribe, Doctor?”

“Just what you want. Out of here. Some rest and a major change of scene.”

“Great, but very little chance of that in the near future. I’m really just a prisoner here.”

“How do you know? Hasn’t the situation changed since the discovery of DigitTech? I believe that it has. I have told Ben to get here at once with all the details. I think that a big rethink is needed on security — and I am on your side.”

“You mean that!” Brian jumped to his feet, paced the room. “If I only could get out of this place! With you helping me we might just be able to work it.” He rubbed his jaw and felt the grate of his whiskers.

“Help yourself to more coffee,” he called out, heading for the bedroom. “I need a shave and a shower and some clean clothes. Won’t be long.”

Her smile faded when he left. She had no idea at all if the authorities could be convinced to give Brian a bit more freedom. But she was damn well going to press them for some changes. She had made a decision and had deliberately put herself on Brian’s side, given him the moral support he so badly needed. Even if it had been a cynical attempt to aid his mental health she sincerely wanted to help. Hell, it wasn’t cynical, it was logical. She had never married, her work was her life. But the Brian that she had brought back from the grave, given renewed life to, was just as much her responsibility as any biological child could ever have been. She was going to fight like a mother cat to see that he got some rights, privileges, pleasures.