Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330) (16 page)

“Is that it?” Flynn challenged. “That’s what
all this crap about exchange nodes and data bursts amounted
to?  Seems like we went to a lot of trouble just to watch a
few blinking words on a screen!”

Tauber was too relieved by the success of his
last-minute repair job to be particularly annoyed by Flynn’s
words.

“Like I said before the transmission, Flynn,
the disk in Drive A records the data burst. And now...” he leaned
forward and tapped a sequence of keys at the terminal “...we let
the Network’s own data-analysis program isolate the codes we
need...”  he tapped some more keys “...and we send the result
back to our disk in Drive A, to be saved along with the data
burst.”  He tilted back in his chair, once more enjoying the
soft
whrrr
of the drives as the computer did his
bidding.

Flynn, Wraggon and Barnard looked at each
other uncertainly.

“One more thing,” Tauber added after the
drives had fallen silent. He began punching in a long sequence of
numbers and letters that had appeared on the screen in response to
his previous directions.

“Yeah?” Flynn muttered, leaning closer to get
a better look at what Tauber was doing. “What’re you up to
now?”    

“I’m using the access codes to get into the
colonies’ Network and make some changes in the Network’s basic
programming….  There!” he said, lifting his hands from the
keyboard with the well-rehearsed flourish of a nightclub pianist.
“Done!  Amazing how much a few little changes can
mean—
if
you know just where to make the changes. With these
new instructions, we’ll be able to direct some of the colonies’
computer and robot operations without leaving any trace of what
we’re doing. And now that we have the access codes, we can get back
into their Network anytime we want to, and from any terminal on
Earth.”

“Looks like you have everything all figured
out. So what did you need us for?” Wraggon asked, a sharp edge to
his voice.

“Don’t look so glum,” Tauber said slyly. “I’m
saving the best part for last.”

The others waited expectantly as Tauber
carefully removed the disk from Drive A, placed it in its case and
returned the case to his satchel. Then, with contrasting abandon,
he disconnected the auxiliary drive unit from the terminal and
ripped the library’s data-analysis disk from Drive B.

“It’s party time,” Tauber laughed, throwing
the data-analysis disk to the floor and grinding his heel into it.
“Now....  Let’s wreck the hell out of this damn place!”

 “
And
tell Grimes over at Aerotech that Murdoch’s agreed to the terms we
discussed last week,” Keith said to the human facsimile on his
computer monitor. “Shouldn’t take more than another week to tie up
the legal loose ends. Put all the details into the usual language,
and let me see it before you send it.”

Keith rubbed the back of his neck, stretched
and then, yawning, shoved his chair backward a few feet. Funny how
tired he felt lately….

“How about dinner and dancing tonight,
Essie?” he crooned self-mockingly.

This new Electronic Secretary program was a
winner, he thought. Fast, efficient, accurate. But it had its
drawbacks. You can talk to a human secretary. You can have a cup of
coffee with a human secretary. You can strike up a friendship with
a human secretary....   He gave his head a quick shake.
Enough of that. He had work to do.

But instead of returning his attention to the
screen, he rose and walked to a large picture window that afforded
him a bird’s-eye view of the park across the street. It was a
perfect summer day—bright, clear, warm but not as hot as it usually
was in August. It was the kind of day you wished you could seal up
in a jar and take out again at your convenience.

He noticed the kids first. Kids and parks and
a summer day—they just seemed to go together. But the park didn’t
belong just to the children. An elderly couple strolled along a
path bordering the duck pond, and it looked as if the local youth
baseball league was about to get a game under way. Farther away,
players occupying three of the park’s four tennis courts were
engaged in lively matches.

Tennis. Keith grunted. How long had it been
since he’d  played tennis?  A long time. Not since....
 Not since the day he helped Rayna go through Al Frederick’s
permastore box. He stood there for a few moments, staring blankly
in the direction of the park. He missed Rayna. No, it was more than
that. It was something...intangible. He had a different sense of
himself when he was with her—a more complete sense. It was almost
as if there were two of him. And he liked the other Keith Daniels
much better than the one he was now.

The thought had barely formed in his mind
when he felt that familiar wrenching sensation in his gut. It was
getting too close. If he wasn’t careful, he’d suffocate. It had
been that way with every other relationship he’d ever known. Get
too close, and you choke off your own independence, your strength,
your individuality. Get too close, and you get hurt.

But loneliness hurt, too. In the last couple
of months, Keith had tried to handle it by casually dating a
succession of women, hoping to find in a series of escapades marked
by heaving bodies and meaningless small talk what he already had
found—but couldn’t permit himself to accept—with Rayna.
Unfortunately, all this only served to etch his pain more
deeply:  There is no loneliness quite like the kind you feel
when you’re with somebody else who’s busy having a good time.

“The material for Mr. Grimes is ready for
your inspection, sir,” Essie said in a soft and only slightly
mechanical feminine voice.

Keith inhaled deeply and blew the air slowly
out of his mouth.

“Yeah, right,” he mumbled to himself as he
turned away from the window and headed back to the computer
console.

“Put it on the screen,” he said. He seated
himself before the console and tried to focus his thoughts on the
Aerotech deal. “Ready,” said Essie.  

He studied the Grimes material, but the words
didn’t register. His mind was somewhere else. After reading the
first paragraph for the third time, he gave up.

“I’m sure it’s fine, Essie. Go ahead and send
it.”

“Yes, sir. Will there be anything more,
sir?”

“Not on Aerotech.”  Keith’s mouth
suddenly went dry. “How far did we get on the Rayna Kingman
adoption records search?”

“Not very far, I’m afraid, sir. Do you want
to see a status report?”

Keith nodded instinctively, then suddenly
remembered that his terminal had not been equipped with a visual
interpreter.

“Yes, Essie. Bring up the status report.”

Keith reached down and removed a stick of
cherry licorice from a tall, clear-glass jar he kept on the low
open shelf just to his right under the computer console tabletop.
His eyes, however, remained fixed on the terminal screen.

“Hmmmph,” he grunted, tearing off a piece of
the licorice with his teeth. “You’re right, Essie. We sure haven’t
gotten very far. The International Adoptions Clearance Board seems
to be giving us a lot of double-talk. Or at least, their computer’s
giving us a lot of double-talk. No offense, Essie.”

“None taken, sir,” the Electronic Secretary
responded with equanimity. “I am not programmed to respond with
what you call ‘offense,’ sir.”  Keith nodded, smiling at his
own tendency to translate Essie’s digital voice-simulation patterns
into the mental picture of a human being. “Do you wish to try the
board again?  It has been more than 11 weeks since the
official ‘Request to Unseal Adoption Records’ was filed—an
uncommonly long time for an answer to such a simple request.”

Keith leaned back in his chair and chewed his
licorice thoughtfully. Essie was right (of course). It had been a
long time since the request was filed. Why should the board be
taking so long?  He’d handled searches like this before, and
the response was generally very prompt, even in complicated cases.
The board was usually quick to help in the case of an authorization
to unseal, or, in those rare cases where the records would remain
sealed, to inform him of the decision and, to the greatest extent
possible, the reason for denying authorization. This time, however,
he’d received no response at all since filing the official
request—not even a brushoff in the Twentieth Century bureaucratic
gobbledygook that characterized the board’s answer to his first
inquiries.

Without thinking, he raised a hand to cover
his face as a guilty conscience berated him for failing to follow
up on the request long before this. He’d promised Rayna to report
on his progress promptly and regularly. He hadn’t kept his word.
Instead, he’d blocked all thoughts of her from his mind—including
anything related to the search. He hadn’t seen her for nearly
two  months, and since then, they’d spoken only once by
telephone. That, he suddenly realized, had been 10 days ago. He
ignored the churning sensation in his stomach and took another bite
of his licorice.

“Get me a direct comm link with Arthur Judson
of the clearance board’s London office, Essie. He owes me one for
helping him unravel the Seritopoulos records last year.”

Waiting for Essie to complete the connection,
Keith let his mind wander. Why didn’t he think of calling Judson in
the first place, he wondered. Then, with a sudden shock, he
understood his reluctance:  Judson would have helped him come
up with some answers, and that would have meant confronting Rayna
again. He felt his bowels tighten in a tug-of-war between his
desire to be with her and a growing fear of his own feelings. How
did this ever happen, he wondered. How did something that started
out as just a nice, casual, fun-loving affair turn into something
that scared him silly?

“Daniels, old man!” exclaimed a jovial,
mustachioed face on the terminal screen, which automatically
doubled as a comm link video receiver. “It’s been a long
time!  Still playing solicitor and barrister in one?”

“Still lawyering away, Arthur,” Keith said
with a tight smile. “In fact, that’s why I’m calling. I’m doing an
adoption search for a client, and there seems to be a problem with
getting clearance.”  He paused briefly. “Well, actually, I’m
having a bit of a problem just getting an answer.”

“Oh, yes?” said Judson, his eyes narrowing.
“How  very odd. When did you file the formal request?”

“About 11 weeks ago. Essie?”

“Request filed June 10, 2021,” Essie’s voice
responded. “Case Number 9J/8600015GLA. Jurisdictions 5B, 6E—”

“Send report to disk,” Judson instructed
Essie via the comm link. “I’ll check the records, old man, but
frankly, I suspect that your original request was lost when the Los
Angeles Public Library was vandalized. That caused quite a
stir,  you know. Many records had to be retrieved from backups
in other libraries, and, as you may recall, communications in and
out of Los Angeles were not very reliable for about three days. You
never sent a follow-up request?”

Keith looked down in embarrassment, then
glanced up sheepishly, shaking his head with distaste at his
unprofessional behavior. If the client had been anyone but
Rayna....  “I’m afraid I didn’t, Arthur. Do you think you
could expedite things now?”

“I’ll certainly give it the old college try,
sport.”

“Thanks.”

“You should be hearing from us in a week or
two. If not, don’t hesitate to call again.”

“Right. Thanks again, Arthur.”

“Take care, my friend.”

Keith took a deep breath as he watched
Judson’s face dissolve, to be replaced on the screen by the
features he had selected for his electronic secretary. Funny, he
thought, examining the oval face framed by a mass of curly, dark
brown hair. Essie looks a little like Rayna. Except for the eyes.
No CRT could ever capture Rayna’s deep-set hazel eyes. No
programmed image could ever reproduce those mystical flecks of
green and gold and aquamarine that seemed to shift with the light,
making Rayna appear as vulnerable as a newborn kitten one minute
and as powerful as a lioness protecting her young the next.

A sudden tone from the communicator
interrupted his .

“Daniels,” he answered simply as he pressed
the comm link’s “RECEIVE” button.

“Keith, it’s me,” Rayna’s voice blurted out
before her image had even coalesced on his terminal screen. “I need
to—”

Suddenly, the air seemed intolerably thin and
Keith’s throat was too constricted to contain his throbbing pulse.
“I know, I know,” he said at last. “I haven’t gotten back to you on
the adoption thing. I’m sorry about that, but remember, we did have
that breakdown in the CDN when they broke into the library here,
and things got screwed up. I just got—”

“I know all about that, Keith. I—”

“Well, I guess they lost my original request
for the search, but I just talked to my friend Arthur Judson in
London, and he said—”

“Keith!”  Rayna shouted over the comm
link, stunning him into silence. “Will you please shut up and
listen!  Right now I don’t care about that damn adoption
search!”

For the first time, Keith looked closely at
the haggard face that gazed out of the screen at him.

“What is it?  What’s wrong?”

Rayna pressed her lips together in
concentration and began twisting strands of hair about her right
index finger in a familiar nervous gesture.

“I can’t explain it over the comm lines. I
need to see you face to face. How soon can you get over here? 
There are some things I have to show you. Some things you’d better
hear, too. If I’m right, we’re in for some big trouble. And I do
mean big!”

“We?” Keith queried tensely. “Who’s
‘we’?”

“Everyone. The whole damn world. And it looks
like it all may have something to do with Al’s death.”