Philip Kerr - Gridiron

Beech had never told anyone that he was the author of TOR. It was his darkest secret. Ten years on, with numerous TORNADO anti-viral programs still on the market, fifth- and sixth-generation mutations of TORNADO continued to survive inside PCs all over the world. He had written a few anti-viral programs himself, one of them for TORNADO, and reckoned he knew as much about disassembling rogue SRPs as anyone.

GABRIEL was the most sophisticated disassembly program — ever since TOR he had disliked the term 'computer virus' — Beech had ever written, based on principles he had learned from epidemiology and biological virology. As a piece of livewire it was, Beech considered, a real bastard. Not only was GABRIEL designed to be completely autonomous, it was also supposed to be extremely aggressive to the infected host. Except for the circumstances in which he now came to trigger GABRIEL, Bob Beech might have been proud of his disassembly program. The only fly in the ointment was that it did not work.

GABRIEL was, as he had told Frank Curtis it would be, slow acting, but even after a few minutes Beech knew that he ought to have seen some sign that GABRIEL was having the desired effect on Abraham's architecture. But there was nothing to indicate that Abraham had suffered so much as a minor thrash, stray, bozo, hung file or line gremlin. Beech had positioned himself at a vantage point within the system-architecture where, like some epidemiologist staring at the progress of a virus under an electron microscope, he ought to have been able to witness Abraham in the very earliest stages of the infection: the clock. GABRIEL had been designed to destroy Abraham's sense of time first of all. As the minutes rolled by on the clock it was plain to see that the DP was inoperative. It was now eleven-fifteen and Abraham was still behaving like the blue-ribbon program Beech had helped to create, with no errors and no bugs. Plainly GABRIEL was impotent, at least as far as Abraham was concerned.

A couple of times he retyped the transactions that would trigger the DP, just in case he had made a mistake, but with no more success. When David Arnon asked him how things were coming along, Beech did not answer. And he hardly noticed the commotion that followed Willis Ellery's electrocution. Stunned, he sat in front of the terminal, motionless, waiting for something to happen, recognizing in his heart of hearts that nothing would. His remarks about the responsibilities of a god struck him as hollow now. It was as if God, having decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, found that his much vaunted fire and brimstone just bounced harmlessly off the city walls.

Turning in his chair, Beech found Frank Curtis standing behind him, wearing an expression so frightful that he was suddenly more afraid of the policeman than he was of the consequences of what had failed to take place in the silicon heart of the machine.

'I don't know why,' he said, shaking his head. 'But — but it, GABRIEL, the disassembly program, it doesn't fucking work. I've tried several times to trigger the DP but there's no sign that Abraham has been infected. No sign at all. It's weird. I simply don't understand how he could be resisting it. I mean, the DP is specific to Abraham, written into his basic architecture. It's like you were born with some kind of congenital disease, or some genetic predisposition to cancer, and all you needed was the wrong kind of diet to set it off. The only thing I can think of is that somehow Abraham has discovered a way of making himself immune. But I really don't know how.'

The already angry expression of the face of Curtis grew more murderous.

'So you can't unplug it,' he growled. 'Is that what you're telling me?'

Beech shrugged apologetically.

'You dumb bastard,' said Curtis, and drew his gun.

'For Christ's sake,' yelled Beech and leapt off his chair, backing away across the boardroom. 'You can't. Please. No one writes a tighter code than me, man. But you've got to believe me, this is completely beyond my control. There's nothing I can do.'

Curtis looked at the gun in his hand as if surprised at the reaction it had produced. He smiled.

'I'd like to. Really, I would. If my partner drowns, I might.'

He turned abruptly and walked out.

Beech dropped into a chair and pressed a hand to his chest.

'That crazy fucking bastard,' he said, shaking his head. 'I thought he was going to shoot me. Really I did.'

'Me too,' said David Arnon. 'I wonder why the hell he didn't.'

Standing on the lid of the toilet, the top of his head inches from the ceiling, Nathan Coleman felt the cold water lapping at his shirt collar. It was only a couple of weeks since he and Frank Curtis had gone to Elysian Park where the naked body of a young black female had been found floating in the reservoir that ran under the Pasadena Freeway, just a few hundred yards from Dodger Stadium.

Coleman would have hardly thought it possible, but at the very moment when the water was right under his chin, he began to remember the taped commentary given by the pathologist during the girl's p.m. At the time he had hardly been paying attention at all, leaving Frank to ask the questions. But now he found that he could recall Dr Bragg's account in uncomfortable detail. Like he had prepared the subject of drowning for an exam. Yeah, thanks very much. What a time to improve your fucking memory. A complete mindfuck.

Drowning wasn't so bad if you were committing suicide. At least then you didn't struggle. But when it was accidental, you usually tried to fight it by holding your breath until you were too exhausted or hypercarbic to continue. The girl from the reservoir had tried to fight it. Not surprising since she had been held under the water by a gang of South Central crackheads. According to Dr Bragg, she had put up quite a struggle. It had taken three to five minutes for her to die.

Coleman didn't know if he could deal with something that took that long.

When you eventually let out your breath and drew water back into your airway, that could set off the vomiting reflex, after which you just aspirated the contents of your own stomach. Plus the water. You could aspirate so much water that it might account for as much as 50 per cent of your blood volume. Jesus Christ. And if that wasn't bad enough, drowning was not just an asphyxial event. It fucked up your fluid balance and blood chemistry: the circulating blood diluted, your electrolyte concentration reduced. Red cells might swell or burst, releasing large amounts of potassium which proceeded to fuck your heart around. Actual death might be precipitated by vagal inhibition originating in the nasopharynx or glottis. But just as often you could die from fouling of the lung by filthy water.

What a fucking way to go.

Coleman tucked his toe into the door lock and pushed his mouth another inch clear of the water. His head touched the ceiling. He wasn't going to get out of this. Just like in the movies. Like one of the poor guys trapped in the torpedo room. The only things missing were the depth charges.

He drew his gun clear of the water and pressed the muzzle against the side of his head. He would wait until the last possible minute. Until the water was over his nostrils. Then he would pull the trigger.

Halfway along the corridor, Curtis met Jenny coming towards him.

'I thought I told you not to stop,' he snapped at her.

'But Will's breathing again,' she said. 'I think he's going to be OK. And what the hell gives you the…'

Jenny's voice faltered as she caught sight of the 9mm Sig in the policeman's big hand, and the thunderous expression on his face.

'What is it?' she asked anxiously. 'What's the matter?'

'The unpluggability scenario. That's what the matter is. Your friend Beech screwed up. We might just as well try and unplug the Hoover Dam.'