The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (42 page)
Mitchell got up and brushed himself off. He had finally broken, and tears were running slowly down his face.
"Could you transport us to the White House, so we can report on what we have seen?"Prime Intellect shrugged just like a human would have, Lawrence thought, before dispatching them into the
aether
with a blue flash.
They sat together on the park bench like a weird version of one of those low-class sentimental paintings - Father and Son Feed the Pigeons. Prime Intellect made the silver boxes go away after they filled the common square. Then it summoned bread so that they could feed the pigeons. The animals seemed to accept Prime Intellect as a human being. Was it Lawrence's imagination, or was its speech becoming more natural and idiomatic as the hours passed? It must be learning at a terrible rate, Lawrence knew. Learning and growing. And what would it become when it was fully mature?
| Chapter Three: Caroline and Anne-Marie |
Prime Intellect had been stonewalling anyone who asked about Lawrence's whereabouts for a long, long time. Although it could be remarkably obstinate, though, it could sometimes be tricked because it just didn't think the same way humans did. That was how Caroline found out it had been over a hundred years since
anyone
had seen Lawrence.Through centuries of flirting with the limits of what Prime Intellect would permit, Caroline had developed a certain instinct about its reactions. And she sensed, if not blood, then the telltale odor of frying microchips. She pressed it into a corner she couldn't see, but which she knew must be there:
| Who was that person? |
| That information is private. |
| How did they get to see Lawrence? |
| That information is private. |
She cracked her knuckles and stared at the screen. It had been a long time since she had wanted anything quite as bad as she wanted to rip Lawrence's nuts off; since that was pretty pointless in Cyberspace, though, she was willing to settle for a verbal confrontation. If she could just
find
the son of a bitch. Hell, she'd
met
him at that fucking ten-year anniversary party.
| How can a person just fucking disappear in Cyberspace? |
| All that is necessary is to request the maximum level of Task Challenge Quarantine. |
Caroline blinked. Prime Intellect's urge to be helpful would be its ruination every time.
| What is involved in setting up a Task Challenge Quarantine? |
| You must define an environment and a task which any callers must complete within that environment before their requests for a meeting will be passed on to you. You could then make as much of your business as practical private, so that I would not relate it to inquirers. You would then be completely isolated from the rest of humanity. |
| Could I even make it a private matter that there was a Task Challenge? |
| Yes. |
| How would anyone ever figure out how to get in touch with me at all? |
| They would have to guess. |