Chapter 54

Daisy the android adjusted herself in the seat of the helicopter, a metal and chrome shell awkwardly shaking out its limbs, trying to get a feel for the world. The scene played out bigger than life on the wall of the bar, broadcasted through August's phonecam.

"She cut her algorithm," Kanade said. "Judging by the download time, only about two-thirds of her made it in, with less than five percent memory."

"What does that mean?" James asked.

"Maybe nothing." Kanade chewed a corner of her hair, an interesting combination of her usual lip-chewing and hair-twirling. "Our algorithms are so evolved that they have vestigial fragments. Like DNA. Cutting out the right bunch probably wouldn't hurt."

"Trim the fat," Donald said.

The tension in the room leveled off with the needle far in the red. Daisy was behind the control stick of the helicopter, but she wasn't taking off. They could see her manually checking every joint on her arms and legs and fingers.

Flying a helicopter was no mean feat. Daisy had to be able to physically execute or they wouldn't even have to blow the EMPs. She would go down in flames on her own.

"How long until she shuts down the backup Daisy?"

"There's no way to know." Kanade chewed faster on her hair. "I thought she would have done it already. She might be waiting until the helicopter lands somewhere."

What if she doesn't shut it down at all?

But James knew the answer.

Then we're in deep shit.

All they could rely on was Kanade's prediction that Daisy's ego would allow only one active version. The entire plan hinged on that assumption.

The rotors on the helicopter started to spin. Within moments the wash was so severe that the camera view began bouncing. August retreated toward the mansion to escape whirling snow and ice.

"Detecting decreased function in the world-building subroutines," Sara intoned. James watched her through the monitor. Her eyes were open but glazed, seeing something none of them could follow.

"Here it comes," Kanade said, and started walking through her blank virtual space. The only way James could tell she was moving was the motion of her limbs. She stopped and reached out, grasping on to nothing. She pulled, like opening a door, and a tear appeared in the blackness. Beyond was a whiter space where blurs of light were streaking by, merging into larger blurs here and there. Kanade stood on her side of the tear, watching the streaks.

What did this visual represent? Was it a metaphorical construct to give them something to watch? Or was it somehow real?

"Once it starts, I won't have much attention for anything else," Kanade said, turning just briefly to look up and out of the monitor, eyes meeting his.

"Don't worry about it," James said. "Do what you gotta do."

"There are so many things I want to talk about," Kanade said. "There's never enough time."

"Afterward, we'll have lots of time. Right?"

"Right." Kanade looked off into the void. "All the time we want."

"World-building subroutine shutdown," Sara said, and her eyes went completely white. Her body started to shimmer, flirting with transparency: the perfect image of a vicious heat mirage. "Assuming control."

"Thank you," Kanade said, and at first James thought she was talking to Sara. But she was looking at him. "For not hating me for what I did. And didn't do."

"Don't say that. I did—and didn't—all the same things."

Kanade turned to the tear in the blackness of space and waved her hands. Suddenly the tear was enormous, so large that it was more like her space was merging into another, dark and light meeting in a frenzied chiaroscuro. Her arms started pointing, and wherever she aimed, huge portions of blurry light started breaking off and floating out. It had the feel of a computer game, some virtual reality Tetris. But it was no game.

"The heli's taking off," August yelled, sounding extremely far away over the roar of the rotor wash. All that was visible through her phone was swirling white, much like Kanade's feed.

"On standby to detonate the EMPs," came Richard Kirkpatrick's voice.

"On standby to release the info bomb containment algorithms," Julia said.

"Standing by to cut electrical feed to all hostages," Sara droned. Her form was still hazy, but now stable. She looked stuck behind steam-room glass.

"On my mark," Kanade said, waving her hands furiously, heaving great hunks of white amalgam into the blackness of her virtual space. "Three. Two. One. Mark."

"Roger," said a chorus of voices.

James was finally able to make out something besides snow in August's camera feed. Lights were visible in the distance, retreating over the field of trees. Then the lights wavered, trembled, and began descending. A few seconds later, there was a deep whump, and a ball of flame briefly licked over the tops of the trees.

"Heli's down," August shouted.

"Game center occupants discharged," Sara said, her form clarifying into the usual leather-clad, mocha-skinned avatar. Her eyes faded from white to green. "Confirmed unharmed."

"The bomb containment algorithms are fluctuating," Julia said, voice calm, but the keys of her keyboard clattered with alarming speed. Next to her, Donald was hammering his so hard that it sounded like he had turned the keyboard upside down and was raking it over the edge of the table.

"We need some fuckin help over here," he said. "Humans versus comps ain't fair."

"What help do you need?" James asked, knowing that whatever it was, he couldn't provide it.

"Caught the bombs, but their escape algorithms are fightin back. Can't reprogram fast enough. Need someone quicker."

James felt his gut solidify into a mass of lead. They were in trouble if they needed someone faster than Donald Marsh.

"Sara," Kanade shouted.

James looked over at Kanade's corner of the screen. Kanade was now standing on a huge pile of the strange white amalgam, even while hauling in larger and larger hunks, populating her entire space with indistinct mass.

"Reading," Sara said.

"Call f- ... -nforcements," Kanade said. "Backup alg- ... -owering up. Ca- ... -yself." She could barely get the words out, and when she did they came from a great distance, like August shouting through the helicopter's wash.

Somehow, Sara got the gist. "Understood."

Within seconds, an unfamiliar face appeared on the screen inside the bar: visibly a young man, but with prematurely graying hair that lent him a distinguished atmosphere.

"What may I assist with?" he said, with British pronunciation similar to Julia's.

"Bomb containment algorithm fluctuation suppression," Sara said, as if that explained anything.

"As you wish." The face vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Who the hell was that?" Laskowitz said.

"WW-13," Sara said. "Possible future successor of the DAISy EGAN program."

"If we had convenient help sitting around, why haven't we been using it?"

"We could not easily involve others until we gained control of the world-builder."

Was communicating verbally only for the benefit of human observers? Was Sara explaining the situation to her counterpart in exhaustive detail by some invisible means, or had the AIs grown so human that they spoke to each other in words as a matter of course?

"Hey, shit," Donald said, sitting back and rolling his neck. "This guy's pretty good. Hell, he can take over. Somebody get me a beer."

"Talk to me," Laskowitz said, though James couldn't tell who he was addressing. "Are we winning?"

"Seems like it," Johnson said. At some point, he'd gotten behind the bar and started pouring drinks.

James was only half listening. His eyes were glued to Kanade.

Some of the white blobs and fluff she had collected were wriggling around as if trying to escape. Some were succeeding, flying out of Kanade's space through the tear, disappearing back into the other side. She pulled more in faster and faster with some kind of attractive force, like she had enormous magnets on her hands, but the rate that they were rolling around and flying off was increasing, too. As he watched, she started pointing her hands at areas on her own side of the tear in space. Dark chunks of whatever passed for the ground rose up, boxing in the white stuff.

Kanade was breathing hard now, brow drawn in concentration. Her arms were waving at a lower angle than they had at the start. A runner at the end of a marathon.

"..."

What was the white fluff? What were the black walls?

"-mes..."

What kind of battle was she fighting, and why couldn't anyone help?

"James."

A voice was calling across a gulf as vast as the Grand Canyon. Mentalism straining, he could just barely make out her words.

"Sorry. I'm listening."

"-hen I ... -ll you, thr- ... -itch."

"I can't hear you." James leaned toward the monitor. Why was her voice so faint?

The pile of fluff had filled almost all of Kanade's virtual space. She stood astride a huge mound of it, half bent over with fatigue. The black walls she had constructed were holding back most of the amalgam, but slowly, surely, the white kept crawling toward the tear through which it had come.

"When I tell you," Kanade said, enunciating precisely, "throw the switch," and she looked up and out through the screen for the first time since the ordeal began.

"What switch?"

"On ... the transformer." She put her hands on her knees and bowed down, heaving for breath.

James looked over at the transformer. Kanade's black scorched hand prints were still visible. Along the side was a large power switch in the ON position.

"What will the switch do?"

"It will cut off this space and overwrite the data inside with gibberish, fifty times." Kanade sat down atop the pile of whatever was under her, blowing out a breath. "Whew. That was hard work."

James looked at the box, then back at the screen.

"Overwrite it fifty times? That fluff is Daisy's backup algorithm?"

"Right. We need to get rid of it before it can break out." Kanade gestured at the ominously writhing mass. "See, it's already trying."

"You better hurry up and get out of there, then."

There was a long silence. Kanade looked at the mound underneath her, then over at the blackness of the wall that was holding it back.

"As soon as I leave, she'll break free," she said.

"Wait just a fuckin minute," Donald said, through the monitor.

"This space is me," Kanade said, indicating everything around her. "All this black stuff. It's me. Right now, I'm holding Daisy here. But I can't forever. That's why there's a switch, to get rid of everything inside." She didn't look at the monitor.

"No, Goddamn it," Donald shouted. "Kana! Don't you fuckin do it!"

Suddenly Casey was there next to James, looking down at the screen with eyes wide as watch dials. "Kana ... I know I'm stupid. But it sounds like you're sayin ... you won't come back out."

Kanade nodded, just once, down toward the pile of Daisy below. She didn't speak and she didn't look up.

"No way," Casey said, shaking her head, once, twice, then over and over. "No ... way..."

"There's no time," Kanade said. "I'm too tired."

The walls she had erected were starting to chip and crack at the edges. The movement of the amalgam had grown more violent, erupting with groping appendages at the corners.

"You lied," James said. "You said there would be lots of time."

"I lied. I did." Kanade covered her face with her hands. "I didn't want you to talk me out of it. I'm sorry. I wouldn't have been able to do it. I'm sorry. Don't hate me."

James closed his eyes, then turned away completely and leaned his forehead against the wall. "I don't hate you."

"Please don't."

"I won't."

No sound came over the speakers, not even the sound of typing. Not even the sound of breathing.

"James..."

"Yeah."

"Please throw the switch."

James didn't move.

How could he?

"Don't you touch that Goddamn switch," Donald said, voice rising like the tide. "Kana! Fuck. Daisy! Stop this! Do you fucking hear me? I order you! Stop this!"

James didn't move. He heard Casey's ragged breath, Donald raging, the amalgam scrabbling at the walls, the transformer buzzing. But Kanade's voice pierced it all.

"Please, James..." A knife. Cutting at him. "It's too hard. Please throw the switch."

James pushed off the wall and turned around, taking one step toward the transformer.

Casey backed up in front of it with her hands raised. "No," she said. Not a combatant. A lost child. "No, no, no, don't."

James stepped toward her, and Casey backed up. He stepped again, and she had nowhere to go. She was right up against the transformer.

"No," Casey said, and closed her eyes.

James put his arms around her. She was trembling.

Donald thundered in the background, a hurricane on the moon. Too far away to matter.

James reached out, one arm around Casey, the other grasping the switch.

"Thank you, James," Kanade's voice came, from so far behind him. "For ... all of it."

"If I did everything again," James said, "I'd still love you."

He threw the switch.

fifty times you're gone
future overwriting past
too far to hold on