Mark Tiedemann - Mirage

Ariel blinked at her. "I admire your ambition."

Rana shrugged. "No option. But…" She waved at the screen.

"Maintenance…" Ariel mused. "What about the reference template? Did you check it?"

"Can't find it," Rana said. "Everything is so random-"

Ariel leaned forward and worked the keyboard. She entered a few more commands, then sat back. Two of the peripheral screens began to display new patterns.

Rana stared. "How did-?" she began, but Derec gave her a minute shake of the head.

"Every positronic brain has a reference template," Ariel said quietly, more to herself than to them. "A basic pattern of behavior and attributes against which the working brain can refer…" She frowned. "I don't understand this. They're randomized, too." She tapped more commands. The screens changed.

Ariel touched one of the screens. "This comline isn't right. It's one-to-one, no buffer to shield the matrix. Same with this one. What kind of accessory systems were installed on this?"

"Don't know," Derec said.

She scowled at him impatiently. "What do you mean, you don't know? Didn't you do an on-site inspection?"

"We didn't get a chance to before we were taken off the job and barred from the site."

"What about before this? Are you telling me you only looked at the system during the install and not since?"

"We went back in once, a few months after the installation. After that it was supposed to be on an as-needed basis and we never received a call. Now that we need to get in there, we're blocked."

"That's ridiculous. Who issued that order?"

"It came from the director's office of Special Service," Derec replied. "Their authorization was legal."

"But Phylaxis-"

"We were removed, Ariel. Period."

She stared at the screens before her, but Derec was sure she saw nothing on them. She absently scratched her chin once.

"I see. And you think I-we-had something to do with that?"

"The thought had occurred to me," Derec said drily.

Ariel nodded slowly, still looking at the screens. "You said no one knows you have this copy?"

"No one has shown up yet to take it away from us." That elicited a grin.

"Do you have any theories about what this is?" She pointed at the screen.

"The staff told me that just before the assault, the RI took itself off-line to play a game. It was completely unaware of what was happening in the gallery until it came back online and witnessed the aftermath."

"And that's when the collapse began."

"Exactly," Derec said. "Now, the paradox loops and the mirror sites suggest that something was physically attached to the RI network. When I asked about problems with the RI before this, I was told that a few glitches had occurred, but they were minor and they'd been told that 'adjustment errors' were to be expected, to contact the Calvin Institute about them before contacting us. Most were dismissed."

"Adjustment errors…" Ariel stood and walked slowly around the lab. After one full circuit she stopped directly in front of Derec. "What do you want from me?"

"To Start with, I'd like to know who issued that maintenance directive."

"You want my help."

"Just-" Derec began.

"You want me to pry into the operations of my own people to see if any of them are somehow culpable." Her voice was growing edged, caustic.

"Ariel-"

"You want me to help you figure out why the RI went insane."

"Well"

"You want me to forget about everything else, drop my responsibilities, and be a spy for you." Ariel folded her arms across her chest and grunted derisively. "I have to credit you, Derec-you have nerve."

Derec could feel his own irritation grow. He feared a repeat of their last fight. "Are you going to tell me you're not interested in this?"

Ariel glared at him briefly. "Damn you, yes. You knew that would happen, once I saw this." She slapped the top of the console. "You relied on that. You used it."

"And you hate being used. "

"Damn it-!"

"Then help us," Derec said softly. "Whoever did this is using you in a much worse way. Whoever did this did it to kill Galiel Humadros and Clar Eliton. They also killed the two surviving members of Eliton's security team. It will get worse. At the very least, this completely discredits positronics on Earth. This undoes everything Eliton hoped to do. Even if the conference goes on now, without finding the people responsible nothing will be accomplished. Tell me this doesn't concern you."

Ariel caught herself, face red, mouth open to respond. "I need to know more."

Derec felt a moment of hope, a brief twinge of success. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, folded his arms, and, in as calm a voice as he could manage, told her what he had learned. All the while he watched her, hoping he could still trust what he saw in her expression. Rana kept glancing over the top of her console at Ariel, who sat on the opposite side of the lab, arms folded, staring at the floor.

"What are you wondering?" Derec asked finally.

Rana gave him an annoyed look. "She enters a couple of commands and in half a second gets to where it took me hours to fail to reach." She shook her head. "I'm not sure if I'm wondering or just resenting."

"Ariel's one of the best."

"Along with you?"

"Sometimes I think she's better."

"How long will she take to make up her mind?"

Derec looked at Ariel. "I don't know. It will take as long as it takes."

Rana shook her head. "I was really excited when I found out you knew Ariel Burgess. It was a major disappointment when it turned out you weren't on speaking terms anymore." She glanced at him. "I knew there was a problem between you two, but…"

"Philosophical differences. "

"You said that before."

"You didn't believe me?"

"People don't usually display that much heat over philosophy."

"Not the abstract kind, no. But when it relates directly to what you do, who you are…" Derec frowned. "She believes I betrayed her trust. We… it sounds like a clichй, but we really had everything together for a while."

"Until?"

"Until I started playing around with the ideas that became Bogard." He looked at Rana. "You can be damn nosy."

Rana shrugged. She began to say more, then nodded toward Ariel. "Decision time?"

Ariel was walking toward them.

"We'll see," Derec whispered.

Ariel leaned on the console. "What do you think is going on?"

"Obviously, someone had a stake in seeing the conference stopped or at least rendered useless. I don't think anything constructive can come of it now."

"Do you believe what the news nets are saying? That it was the Managins?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"They don't have the resources," Derec replied. "The will, yes, but the ability to subvert the Resident Intelligence of a facility like Union Station? Get several armed people inside? And then escape?" He shook his head. "I gather no other arrests have been made?".

"None that I'm aware of."

"Someone used the Managins, maybe."

"Who?"

Derec shrugged. "I don't know."

"Do you think the Calvin Institute is involved?" Ariel asked.

"Someone issued that maintenance directive. Someone who understood the nature of positronics and knew what I might find."

Ariel's mouth was a thin, hard line. "I can't disagree. Not entirely. But I have another problem."

"Which is?"

"That robot of yours. The bodyguard unit. Why did it fail?"

Derec felt himself stiffen. "I don't know. "

"You admit that it did?"

"It… something went wrong."

"It was designed to defend a primary subject, correct? In this case, Senator Eliton. It didn't. Eliton died. Why?"

"I wish I knew. It's more complicated than that, even. From what I saw, it was defending Eliton. Then, for some reason, it abandoned him."