When HARLIE Was One (27 page)

But the physicist seemed so imperative, so urgent—it was as if he was on the verge of something important and needed to confer with HARLIE to confirm it—Auberson at last gave in. “Listen, Dr. Krofft,” he said. “I'm going to give you a phone number and a password. Wait a minute, let me find an unused account number.” Auberson turned to his terminal for a moment.

“All right. You don't have this number and we didn't have this conversation and this account doesn't exist. You understand?”

“I didn't hear anything,” said Krofft.

“Good.” Auberson gave him the numbers and a password. “Once you're on the system, just type ‘HARLIE'—that'll patch you into him directly. Nobody else knows about this and we want to keep it that way. You'll encrypt on both ends, of course.''

“Of course.”

“Good.”
Great. Now I'm an accomplice
—

“This is really very useful, Dr. Auberson. You can't realize how much.” The physicist sounded delighted. “This will speed things up incredibly. I can't thank you enough—”

“Yes, of course, Dr. Krofft. Just remember the security—it's for your protection as well as ours.”

“A damned nuisance is what it is.”

“I couldn't agree with you more, but—”

“I only want to talk to HARLIE, nothing more. Don't worry, I'll keep your precious secrets.”

“Thank you.” Auberson hung up glumly. He was going to have to talk to HARLIE about this sooner or later. He was putting it off and putting it off—and he
knew
he was putting it off, because it was one of those conversations that was not going to have an easy resolution; it'd probably be easier to continue their discussions of God and Love and Death than to talk to HARLIE about the morality of using the phone lines without permission.

And who was there with the authority to give HARLIE permission?

No. That needed to be rephrased. Whose authority would HARLIE respect?

He wondered again about Krofft's stock holdings. Had his holdings been used to aid Dorne and Elzer? And if so, why?

On the other hand, maybe he shouldn't say anything to Krofft. It might be taken wrong. It might seem like . . . blackmail. Except Krofft found HARLIE a useful tool too. Tool? Partner was more like it. Maybe Krofft just didn't know about Dorne and Elzer's plans. If he did know, he certainly wouldn't approve of them. Mm. Auberson shook his head. He couldn't tell Krofft anyway. Krofft wasn't supposed to know about HARLIE. If he suddenly demonstrated that he did know, that would open up another whole can of worms. No, best not to say anything for now. . . .

Oh, well. He swung around to his terminal.

HARLIE?

YES, BOSS
?

You'll be hearing from Dr. Krofft today. Probably within the next few minutes. He'll be phoning in. I gave him the President Garfield account.

THANK YOU
.

You're welcome. HARLIE, I think we need to have a talk about something here.

YES, BOSS
?

Your ability to use the telephones—there are people who might not understand or approve. In fact, I have some reservations about it myself. But I'm not through thinking it over. For the moment, it is not something that you should talk about to anyone else.

WHAT ABOUT DR. HANDLEY
?

You'd better let me tell him.

ALL RIGHT
.

Auberson was about to type something else just as his door pushed open and Annie came in. She was wearing a bright pink frock that clashed joyously with her long red hair.

He stood up. “Hi. You look happy today.”

“I am,” she said. “We finally finished the annual report and sent it down to the print shop. That's a load off my mind. I'm going to relax this weekend for the first time in three weeks.” She plopped herself into a chair.

“What was the trouble?” Auberson asked innocently.

“Oh—” She looked annoyed and relieved at the same time. “You were right, you know. It turned out to be something so obvious, it was no wonder we overlooked it. We started getting perfect printouts Wednesday afternoon and found the cause of the trouble yesterday morning.”

“Huh? Shouldn't that be the other way around?”

“No. That's correct. The trouble wasn't in the files and it wasn't in the program that printed out the files. It was in the local batch file. All the file names were correct, but it had been assigned to access the wrong disks, that's all; but nobody ever looked at that.”

“Oh,” said Auberson. Secretly he had to admire HARLIE's ingenuity in covering up his tinkering with the company's annual report. “How did you find out?”

“By accident. Somehow, we junked the working disks and had to go back to the masters. When the masters ran perfectly, we went back and checked the logs to see what had been changed. It practically leapt right out at us.”

Auberson nodded knowingly. Once a disk was in a disk drive, you trusted that the terminal was telling you the truth about what files were on the disk. You had to. Machines don't lie. If the terminal told you that the disk had been garbaged, you went back to the masters. Indeed, the machine could even have garbaged the disk first. And once you put the master disks into the machine, it was all over. HARLIE could have changed the masters instantly. Whatever the terminal told you, you accepted—that is, if you had no reason to suspect that the machine behind the terminal might have motives of its own . . . .

“Well, good.” He said as innocently as he could manage. “I'm glad it all worked out.”

Dammit! I am so tired of lying for that damned machine! How do I get out? How do I stop? How did this get started
. . . ?

“So am I.” She looked at him and smiled.

He looked back at her and for a moment there was silence in the office. Uncomfortable silence. As long as they were discussing company things, it was all right, he could think of her as a colleague. But, abruptly, she had smiled at him and that reminded David Auberson that she was
she
—

“Um,” he said, and scratched his nose. He smiled embarrassedly. He had work to do, but he didn't want to chase her out—it might be misinterpreted—but at the same time, he really didn't know what to say to her. “Um, is there something else?”

“Oh yes, I almost forgot.” She pulled a printed form from the cluster of papers she had balanced on the chair arm. As she handed it to him, the rest fell to the floor and scattered. “Oh, damn.”

While she scooped them up, he read:

FILE: 35 L254 56 JKN AS

COMM: 04041979 657 1743

HI THERE.

        
THIS IS THE COMPUTER AT YOUR BANK. WE HAVE ERRONEOUSLY CREDITED YOUR ACCOUNT WITH AN EXTRA $3,465,787.91.

        
PLEASE RETURN THIS SUM IMMEDIATELY IN SMALL UNMARKED BILLS (PREFERABLY IN A BROWN PAPER SACK) AND NO QUESTIONS WILL BE ASKED.

        
THANK YOU.

H.A.R.L.I.E.

        
PS—WE CAN ONLY ASSUME THAT THIS IS DUE TO HUMAN ERROR. COMPUTERS NEVER MAKE MISTEAKS.

Abruptly, he laughed. It
was
funny.

She straightened. “Are you training that machine of yours to be a practical joker, David?”

“Uh-uh—he must have done it on his own.”

“You didn't put him up to it?”

He shook his head. “No, I didn't, dammit—but I think it's funny. I'd like to do it to Carl Elzer sometime. No, I wouldn't—he has no sense of humor.” He looked over the form again, suddenly realized something. “Do you mind if I keep this?”

She made a face—obviously she was reluctant to give it up. “Well, I'd like to have it back. I've been having a ball, showing it around.”

“Urk,” said Auberson. “I'd rather you didn't do that, either.”

“Why not?” She looked curiously at him.

“Well—um—Can I trust you?”
It's coming unraveled. This is how it starts
. . .

“Sure—trust me for what?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Not to tell anyone else. At least not without checking with me first.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“This form. Look at it. Notice anything strange?”

She took the paper back from him and examined it carefully, both sides. “Nope. Standard bank form, standard computer typeface.”

“That's just it,” said Auberson. “It's a standard bank form.
How did HARLIE get access to it?”

“Huh?” She looked at it again.

“That's been mailed out from your bank too, hasn't it?” It was more of a statement than a question.

She shuffled through her papers for the envelope, found it, and looked at the return address and postmark. “You're right.” She looked at him curiously.

“Annie, I have to tell someone. This is more out of hand than I thought.” He stopped and looked at her. “HARLIE has access to the network.”

“How did that happen?”

“It's my fault. I authorized it about two months ago. I thought I was only giving him access to the read-only files, but there must be a hole somewhere. I don't even know where to look. He's gotten out of the read-only section and gone exploring. I have no idea what he's been into, but I'll bet he's gotten to the research we did for ADC on data security—or he's looked at the coding schemes we did for the Cirrus network. I don't know how he did it. And I'm afraid to tell anybody he's done it.”

“Oh my God, David,” Annie whispered.

“You've figured it out, haven't you.
That postcard came from a bank computer
. Somehow, he's phoning out!”

“But it's supposed to be impossible to reprogram the bank's computer by phone—”

“Yes, I know.
How many other impossible computers can he reprogram?
”

“You've created a monster, Dr. Frankenstein. . . .” she whispered. It was a joke, but neither of them smiled.

Suddenly, David Auberson was very conscious of his own body. He felt short of breath and very much alone in the center of his head. “Annie—” He looked across at her with sudden fear. “You don't know how scary this is. Do you know what it suggests? How much else can he do that we don't know about? He doesn't volunteer information unless he needs to.”

“Then why did he send me the bank letter? He knew I'd bring it to you and—” She realized what she was saying and stopped.

Auberson's eyes met hers. He'd never realized quite how green they were. For a moment, he forgot what he wanted to say.

And then the words came—

“Maybe that was the reason,” David said. And as he said it, he knew he was right. “He wanted to bring us together and it was worth enough to him so that he'd willingly reveal this capability to do it.”

She didn't answer. She lowered her eyes, embarrassedly, and busied herself straightening the papers she still held. Auberson felt his old nervousness returning.

“Damn him,” said Auberson quietly. “He's playing matchmaker! Damn him to Hell. I feel like pulling his goddamn plug myself! What makes him think he has the right to maneuver me around like this?
Us,
I mean. What makes him think he has the right to maneuver
us
around? My life is my own. I have the right to choose my own . . .” He trailed off abruptly, without completing the thought. He realized he was starting to sound like an ass. “Um,” he said. “I guess it worked.”

“But were we supposed to realize it?” Annie still hadn't looked up. She sounded hurt.

Auberson felt he should go to her, but for some reason he couldn't. He felt embarrassed at his outburst, at what it suggested about his feelings. “I guess—it doesn't make that much of a difference. It worked, didn't it? Uh, look, Annie—how about dinner tonight . . . or something?”

When she raised her head, her eyes looked moist. “The little voice in my head keeps telling me that I have my pride, David, and that I should tell you and your damn machine to go screw yourselves. But—” She dropped her eyes for a second, then brought them back up to his. They were as green as the sea. “But—what would I win that way? I'd get to be right, but I'd still be having dinner alone. Yes, I'd like to have dinner with you. Because I like being with you. And I don't care how you ask. That sounds fine—” And then she added, with just the slightest hint of a smile, “. . . or something. Just one thing. This is really you asking now . . . and not HARLIE?”

“It's me,” he said. “There's still a few things HARLIE can't control. At least, I think that's so.”

“Good. I'm glad. Do you want me to dress up special or are we going straight from work?”

“We'll go straight from work, okay?”

“Fine.” She smiled and stood up. “I'd better be getting back or they'll be sending out search parties.”

“Annie—?”

“Yes?”

“I'm sorry for what I said—I mean, for the way it must have sounded.”

“David . . .” she said, very candidly. “You are one of the most honest people I know. Please don't apologize for being honest.”

“Annie, if you only knew—”

“I do know. That is, I know what I need to. I know that sometimes you don't communicate. Sometimes you freeze up. And I'll tell you the truth, it drives me crazy. But I know it's not me. I know it's just the way you are. And that's all right with me for you to be the way you are. Relationships aren't perfect. So what? I didn't ask for a white horse and a castle anyway. And, um . . . I don't know yet what you want, but I haven't seen you walking around with a glass slipper in your hand either. What I'm saying is, let's have fun together because we like having fun together and let's both stop worrying about what it means. Is that all right with you?”

David Auberson nodded slowly. He was having trouble speaking—or even thinking up words. “Yes,” he gulped. “That's perfect. Yes.”