John Saul - Shadows

Tampering with Amy’s brain, or disconnecting it from the system, would activate the viruses.

Adam had found hundreds of them already, but it had become clear late last night that there was no way for him to find all of them. While Amy could plant them anywhere — not just in the Croyden, but in any computer she could reach, which Adam confirmed included nearly every large computer in the world — Adam had to search every directory in every computer, one by one.

The task was impossible, for already it was far too late for him to catch up with Amy.

She had to be stopped, but until a few hours ago, it had appeared that the very act of stopping her would send the viruses into action, each of them activating more, until—

Engersol shuddered as he contemplated the possibility of every major computer in the country failing, or even simply being contaminated, at the same time.

The answer had come to him at two o’clock that morning, when he’d realized that the computer could be fooled.

A tape of Amy’s brain responses could be made, a tape mimicking all her normal functions and reactions.

A tape that could be looped to repeat itself endlessly, feeding the proper data into the computers, so that it would appear that Amy was still there, her brain still functioning normally.

And as the computer processed the recorded data, he would disconnect Amy’s brain from its support systems and destroy it.

Meanwhile Adam, working with the combined speed of his own mind and the Croyden computer, could begin searching the memory banks of every computer Amy Carlson might have contaminated.

And when it was over, when Adam confirmed that he’d found and destroyed every one of the viruses, Engersol would isolate the lab, cutting off the Croyden — and the project — from every outside source until he found a way to keep the minds of his children under control.

Though he hadn’t yet explained to Hildie Kramer the full ramifications of what Amy was doing, he himself was all too aware of what had happened.

He’d opened Pandora’s box, and the contents were rapidly spilling out.

“If we can stop her from creating new ones,” Adam had told him this morning, “I can get the triggering viruses in a few hours. Once they’re disarmed, the rest won’t matter. They can stay wherever they are, because they’ll never go off. And I can use Amy’s own data to find the triggers.”

“All right,” George Engersol now said, coming out of his reverie. “There’s nothing we can do to change what’s happened. All we can do is go on from where we are now, and the most important thing we have to do is get in touch with Amy.”

“Can you do that?” Hildie Kramer asked. For the last fifteen minutes she had said nothing, listening in silence as Jeff had told his brother what had happened to their parents. She hadn’t challenged his assertion that he hadn’t intended for them to die, for she, like George Engersol, felt that the importance of the project they were finally on the verge of completing far outweighed the necessity of Adam’s understanding exactly what had happened.

Further, if Adam were convinced that whatever had happened had been his own fault, it would ensure his cooperation in whatever might now need to be done to control Amy Carlson.

Indeed, his need for approval, his almost pathological willingness to comply with whatever was asked of him, had been the prime factor that had led to his selection for the project.

Now, the guilt he was feeling over his parents’ death would provide the final stimulus for him to do whatever George Engersol asked of him. Even if it meant that he, too, would finally have to die.

“I think we can contact Amy,” Engersol replied. He sat down at the keyboard and began typing in the instructions that would send the previously recorded data from Amy’s brain back into the monitoring devices in an endless loop.

Instantly, Amy’s monitor came alive and her voice filled the room.

“It won’t work, Dr. Engersol.” She uttered the words with a certainty that made all three of the people in the lab look up at her monitor.

She seemed to be staring directly at Engersol, her eyes angry. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”

Engersol smiled, a thin grimace that held no warmth. “Just what is it you think I’m doing, Amy?”

“Trying to fool the computer. But you can’t do it. I’ve been studying, Dr. Engersol. And I think brains are like fingerprints. No two of them are exactly alike, and they’re so complicated that they never exactly repeat a sequence of measurable responses, either. So I’ve set up a new program. It will compare the newest readings being reported from my brain with all the older ones. And if my program discovers a duplication, it will assume you’ve done something to me, and start activating my viruses. But first it will start destroying this whole project.”

Engersol stared coldly at the image of the red-haired girl, her freckled face seeming no older than her ten years — until he focused on Amy’s eyes. They seemed to him to carry all the wisdom of mankind. “I don’t believe you,” he said harshly, feeling less certain of his words than his voice proclaimed.

Amy’s head cocked slightly, and a tiny grin played around the corners of her mouth. “Try it, if you want to. I’ve set it up so you’ll have thirty seconds to change your mind. But I don’t think you’ll wait that long.”

Engersol felt cold rage wash over him. She was bluffing! He was sure of it! “If I don’t change my mind, you’ll die, won’t you?”

Amy hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And so will Adam. But I’ve been thinking about that, too, and I don’t think it matters. You didn’t have any right to put us in here, but you did. And I’ve told you what will happen if you try to hurt me, so if you go ahead, it will be you who’s killing both of us, not me.”

Engersol glanced nervously at Hildie Kramer, whose eyes, reflecting even more anger than he himself was feeling, were fixed malevolently on the image of Amy Carlson. “Well?” he asked.

Hildie’s eyes never left Amy’s monitor as she spoke. “Is she telling the truth? Won’t the computer be fooled?”

Engersol nervously ran his tongue over his lower lip. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think it will be. I think she’s bluffing.”

Hildie hesitated, then made up her mind. “Do it,” she said. “We cannot let this whole project become the slave of an angry child.”

Engersol finished typing his instructions and pressed the key that would enter them into the computer.

For a few seconds nothing happened. He was about to begin entering further instructions, terminating the life-support systems to Amy’s brain, when abruptly the screen came alive. An alarm sounded over the speaker system. On the control boards of both tanks red warning lights began to flash, and buzzers were activated as the systems began to abort.

“What is it?” Hildie demanded. “What’s happening?”

George Engersol said nothing, for he was already back at the keyboard, cancelling the playback of the recorded data from Amy’s mind. “Help me, Adam!” he snapped.

As the recording came to an end, the sound of the alarms died away. One by one the warning lights began to turn themselves off as Adam, using the power of his mind, reached out and began repairing the damage to the programs that controlled the equipment.

In less than a minute it was all over. Engersol had gone pale. His shirt was drenched with the sweat that had broken out over his entire body as he watched ten years of work begin to collapse around him. Now he wiped his brow with a trembling hand.

On her monitor Amy’s visage was smiling broadly. “See?” she asked. “It happened just the way I told you it would, didn’t it?”