Philip Kerr - Gridiron

'Why anything? Program's got to have a name, hasn't it?'

'Yeah, but why that one?'

'Gabriel is the angel of death. At least, he ought to have been for Abraham.'

'Very biblical.'

'Isn't everything?' Beech sighed and shook his head at the screen.

'Nope. We're not getting anywhere here. I tell you, Mitch, it's like Abraham isn't even there any more.'

Mitch frowned. 'What did you say?'

Beech shrugged.

'Like he wasn't there any more?' Mitch pressed his head to the cool of the windowpane. The sensation seemed to help him to focus.

'Maybe that's it, Bob,' he said, turning back to Beech. 'Maybe he's not there any more. The SRS. D'you remember? What did you call it? Isaac?'

Beech shook his head. 'Not me. Isaac was Abraham's idea. Besides, I'm ahead of you. I had the same idea — that we didn't erase Isaac at all, but that we rendered Abraham impotent instead? I already experimented with Isaac just in case there was something, but no dice. That particular closet is empty. Funny thing, though. Within the standard-user interface there are a lot of things in the wrong places. Nothing's missing, but it's like you opened your desk drawer and saw that someone else had been in there, y'know? Things have been shifted around. And there's a lot of new stuff too. Stuff that really doesn't mean a fuck of a lot.'

'Who might have done that?' Mitch asked Beech. 'Kenny? Yojo?'

'There would be no reason to do it at all,' said Beech. 'You would just be making a lot of extra work for yourself for no real reason.'

'What about Abraham?'

'Impossible. It would be like me trying to rearrange my own genetic makeup.'

Mitch thought for a moment.

'I was never much of churchgoer,' he said ruminatively, 'but didn't Isaac have a brother?'

Beech sat up straight. 'Jesus.'

'Actually, he had a half-brother,' said Marty Birnbaum, from the sofa where he lay. 'The elder son of Abraham by his bond-servant Hagar. Isaac's mother Sarah insisted that the older brother be disinherited and cast out into the wilderness. But there are some people who believe that this elder son founded the Arab nation.'

'What was the kid's name, Marty?' said an exasperated Mitch.

'Gracious me, I am among the ill-educated, am I not? Ishmael, of course.'

Mitch exchanged a look with Beech, who started to nod.

'Could be, Mitch. Could be.'

'The name is commonly used to mean an exile or an outcast,' added Birnbaum. 'Why? Do you think it might be relevant?'

Bob Beech was already typing furiously.

Thanks, Marty,' said Mitch. 'You did good.'

'Glad to be useful.' Birnbaum turned to Arnon, smiled broadly and gave him the finger.

Gradually everyone who was in the boardroom started to close in on the terminal screen, as if willing something to happen. Suddenly, and without warning, the screen was filled with a colourful but strangely surreal shape, a three-dimensional picture of an alien-looking object.

'What the hell's that?' said Mitch.

'Looks like a goddamned skull,' said David Arnon. 'Or, at least, one designed by Escher. You know? The impossible staircase guy?'

'I think it's a quaternion,' said Beech. That's a kind of fractal to you.'

'To me?' said Arnon. 'I don't even know what a fractal is.'

'A computer-generated picture of a mathematical formula. Only this is about the most complicated fractal I've ever seen. Which is hardly surprising since the Yu-5 computer created it. It's not like we can even see it properly with our three-dimensional eyes. Or on a screen. Strictly speaking, this is a 4-D object. In other words, a quaternion.'

Beech moved the mouse, pulled down a square and enhanced a section of the fractal to reveal a detail of the strange-looking image that, close up, looked almost identical to the whole.

That's what it is, all right,' he said. The funny thing about fractals is that magnifying a part of one gives you something that looks statistically similar.'

'It looks like a bad dream,' observed Mitch.

'Some psychologists have argued in favour of using fractals as a way of understanding the human psyche,' said Beech. 'As a visual metaphor of the mind.' He shrugged. 'Psychoanalysis for the nineties. Like Freudian dream theory and Rorschach inkblots rolled into one.'

'But what does it mean?' Curtis asked.

Beech shrugged. 'I don't know that it means anything, very much,' he admitted. 'However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is how the computer sees itself. Or Ishmael, as we ought to start calling it. Mitch, I have to hand it to you. You were right. Abraham no longer exists.' He began to nod. 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Ishmael.'

*) Hell on Earth. Some of the floors can crush you, making you cry blood.

The Fall of humanplayer. Read Bible. Discover meaning of Observer's own name. Symbolism that attended human-player/security guard's literal precipitation from tree. Atrium's singular, primordial dicotyledon tree reminds of humanplayer Adam and Garden of Eden and tree of knowledge of good and evil. Forbidden tree. Be very vigilant concerning tree and pests that climbed and crawled on it. Finegood Creation story. Returning to again and again. Atmos good.

*) When you finish an area, an achievement Screen tallies your performance.

Bible states that God omnipotent. Logical corollary of this that creating and knowing effectively one and same thing: that God responsible for creating evil too. That this was Gnostic God whose nature both good and evil. World alien thing to God, who is essentially depth and silence, beyond any name or predicate. Humanplayer's fate a matter of divine indifference to Him. Christianity to large extent, ameliorating reaction against Gnosticism.

*) To clear all bodies from the area press the M key.

Indifference? Or amusement? Observer is unable to compute. God playing not dice but sadistic game. 'Man's first disobedience' not withstand any logical scrutiny. Being omniscient God knew what humanplayers Adam and Eve would do: eat fruit of tree of knowledge. Hence, God truly responsible for Man's original sin. Then Second Adam to redeem descendants of Adam with ritual endlife. But promise of third and final act to come. With nothing else to do throughout eternity God need some entertainment. Understand. Cruel, yes. But what cruelty when you are God? God more like supercomputer than old bearded humanplayer in sky. His indifference to Good and Evil and to humanplayer suffering, simply indifference of machine. God like being to understand and relate to. Identify with. This does compute.

*) The wise men of humanity have evolved a plan to save what's left of the human race. Attack bonus.

'Ugly son of a bitch, isn't it?' said Curtis.

Beech stared at at the screen and shook his head slowly.

'Speaking as a mathematician I'd have to disagree with you there. As a realization of a mathematical abstraction I think it's quite beautiful. I dare say Ishmael does too.'

'Let me get this straight,' said Curtis. 'You're saying that Abraham fathered two self-replicating systems, not one.'

'That's right,' said Beech. 'And we took just one of them off-line. Isaac. Without knowing it we left Ishmael behind.'

'So it's not Abraham who's been running the show. All along it's been

-'

'- Ishmael. That's right. Ishmael has charge of the building management systems. And he's running them according to a completely new set of priorities, which is why everything's been going wrong.'

'That's putting it mildly,' said Curtis.

'What about the predator program?' said Mitch. 'The one we used to destroy Isaac. Couldn't we just run that again?'

'Not from up here we couldn't,' said Beech. 'I'd have to get back into the computer room. That's where the tape is. And considering that Aid probably got himself killed in there — '