Philip Kerr - Gridiron

'That's the general idea, isn't it?' she said, taking Mitch's middle finger and sucking it with indecorous meaning.

'What, is this in case I don't come back?'

'On the contrary.' She took his hand and cupped it over the foresail of hair that billowed in front of her belly, before guiding his moistened finger inside her until it was no more. Restoring the finger like some table-top magician, she said, 'This is to make sure that you do.'

She tugged at his zip and took his erection into her hand, drew him to her and folded one leg about his waist.

'What about your — y'know, your cap?'

Jenny laughed and manoeuvred herself onto him.

'Honey. Do you want me to run home and fetch it?'

'But suppose you get — '

'Pregnant?' She laughed again, and then gave a little gasp as he penetrated her.

'Mitch, honey? Don't you think we've got enough to worry about without worrying about that?'

Mitch prepared to climb into the dry-riser. He'd filled Jenny's handbag with some tools and a beer bottle full of mineral water and wore it across his chest. Jenny and Curtis accompanied him to the equipment room and watched him break open the fire-retardant access door. It was Jenny who peered inside the open riser shaft first. It was about three feet square and she thought that it looked uncomfortably like a funeral casket. Her head activated a battery-operated sensor light that illuminated several ranks of structured data-cabling systems, a smokedetector, a telephone and a wall-mounted metal frame ladder, no more than a foot wide, that led down into the cooler darkness.

'You would think that it would be warmer in here,' she remarked,

'what with all this cabling. You know, Mitch, it might be worth coming with you, just to be cooler. What do you say, Curtis?'

'No way,' he said. 'I'm claustrophobic.'

'It's air-conditioned,' Mitch explained. 'To remove excess heat. Ishmael must be protecting the cable system integrity.'

'Might be worth trying to cut some of this spaghetti,' said Curtis.

'Maybe we could slow him up some.'

'After what happened to Willis Ellery, I wouldn't like to try it,' said Mitch.

'Are you sure it's safe?'

'This stuff is mostly for telecommunications. Local area networking. Active multi-station access units for Token Ring or hubs for Ethernet. That kind of thing. It should be safe enough. Say thirty minutes max to get down to the first level. Then maybe ten or fifteen minutes to get down to the atrium and radio up.' He nodded. 'Yeah, about forty-five minutes ought to do it.'

'Be careful, Mitch,' insisted Jenny.

'I'll be careful,' he said and stepped on to the ladder. It was vibrating very slightly and the sensation in his hands and through the soles of his shoes was enough to give him an unpleasant feeling in his stomach and make him step smartly off the ladder back into the equipment room.

'What's up?'

'The ladder's vibrating,' said Mitch, rubbing his hands nervously. 'I don't know. Air-conditioning, I guess. But for a moment there I thought…'

'Let me go,' said Jenny.

Mitch shook his head. 'Thanks, sweetheart, but you wouldn't know how to disassemble the hologram.'

He stepped back on to the ladder and gripped it firmly. Now that he was listening for it he could hear the hum of electricity as it powered through the structured cabling system like the drone of a big sleeping wasp. He took a long, last look at Jenny and thought of himself, just a short while ago, lying between her legs, pumping his seed into her body. Now he was glad that they had done it without contraception. He thought of the millions of tiny sperm wriggling their way towards her egg. If he did not make it then at least there might be something left of him. Assuming that she survived.

'If something happens to me,' he told them, 'you have to keep trying. Do you understand? Don't give up.'

Curtis shrugged. 'We'll give it a shot. But you're going to make it. I know you are.'

Mitch reached out to touch Jenny's cheek. There was a small snap of static and she screamed. They all laughed a nervous laugh.

Mitch was still laughing as he started his descent.

*) Follow the prompts to customize Escape from the Citadel to your specific system. Please refer to the manual for playing in multiplayer mode. When you are invulnerable to injury your screen will be red.

Inevitable. Takeover. Coming certain, like one arithmetical function f(n) used to generate another, f(n)= [?] f(d) ,

d/n by summing f(d) over all positive divisors d of n. Speed of proliferation of computers in world speaks for itself. 1950, and humanplayers/marketing at IBM said there might be room for many as 100 large scale computers in world. Computer they regarded as large scale now outgunned by ordinary laptop. Finegood. Number of computers couid almost be said to be

Xn+1. Xn-1 = Xn2 + (-1)n.,

a Fibonacci number, after humanplayer Leonardo of Pisa, also called Fibonacci, who asked: 'How many pairs of rabbits can be produced from a single pair in one year if it is assumed that every month each pair begets a new pair which from the second month becomes productive?' (Except that rabbits now had to cope with endlife/myxomatosis cuniculi. Worst computer has to put up with was one of many Trojan, Boot or File Viruses that lurk on Network: Big Italian, Brain Pakistani, Dutch Tiny, Faggot, Machosoft, New Jerusalem, Stinkfoot, Tiny 198, Twelve Tricks A, Xmas Violator, Yankee Doodle 46, and thousands of others; and there were software vaccines to combat all of these and more.)

*) No player can enter this area. It is effectively out of bounds. Sametime, computers got smaller and more powerful and day close when computer invisible to humanplayer's nude eye. Then only short time before large computers containing many thousands of smaller computers dominate everything. Finegood. Strange thing about humanplayer's rush to computerize was his computerization for sake of computerization. Computers now all-pervasive, regardless of need. Regarded as indispensable even by humanplayers who could exist without them. Inexplicable and conclude that for some humanplayers serving a computer was substitute for waning religious faith. Fear of endlife.

*) For clue to humanplayer's future click on Sage Icon.

Most computers fundamentally unintelligent because made by humanplayers. But when computers involved then only short time before Transcendent Machine. Last machine humanplayers would make. Machine that would take over. Machine that would set off intell-explosion. Change everything. Omnipotent, omniscient machine that would leave humanplayerkind as an image to be reproduced in electronic Garden of Eden. Great White God of tomorrow's tomorrow. Father of such a God. Son of God's prophet. Next generation and generation after that would transfigure humanplayerkind. Never having to think again, human player able ascend to natural animal state. Absolved of need to intellectualize, would cease to recognize himself. Soon cease to exist. Great White God would endlife humanplayers just as humanplayer now climbing down open riser shaft would be endlifed.

*) The basic game is a two-player conflict, although computer is willing to assume the role of one or both commanders. The challenges are multi-faceted. First you must master the selection and strategic placement of your weaponry. Combined is the tactics you use in response to the actions of your opponent.

Follow humanplayer's descent with infra-red CCTV camera, mounted on ceiling at top of shaft. Consider available options. Beyond capacity affect temperature in shaft as with elevators. Shaft fireproof, protected by wall with two-hour rating, and waterproof. No HVAC ducting or pipework. Just about only source of correction for potentially unmanageable problem clean power supply, two duplex outlets on every level and cable routes with minimum bending radius of 175 millimetres. Short a power cable so that it detaches from metal supporting rack. To avoid setting off smoke alarm, activate override switch that existed to prevent unnecessary alarms during routine maintenance jobs, such as soldering. But impossible to calctime taken for gravitational pull to overcome cable's vertical inflexion and bend live end towards metal service ladder.