He guarded this time against all interruptions, always began promptly at four. Today was the first time he’d been late since Liza and her vast array of supporting hardware were installed in the penthouse, four years earlier.
Slipping into the contoured chair, he began fixing the electrodes, struggling to clear his mind. Only long practice made it possible. Minutes passed while he prepared himself. Then he placed his hand on the keypad and began to type.
“Richard,” came the haunting, disembodied voice.
“Hello, Liza.”
“You are seventeen minutes late. Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, Liza.”
“I am pleased. Shall I begin with the status report? I have been testing the new communications pseudocode you installed and have made some minor modifications.”
“Very good, Liza.”
“Would you like to hear the process details?”
“No, thank you. We can skip the rest of the report today.”
“Then would you like to discuss the latest scenarios you assigned? I am preparing to undertake scenario 311, Creating False Positives in the Turing Test.”
“Perhaps tomorrow, Liza. I feel like proceeding directly to the story.”
“Very well.”
Silver reached beneath the chair — careful not to loosen any of the electrodes as he did so — and pulled out a well-thumbed book. It was his mother’s, one of the very few he’d retained from earliest childhood.
The high point of his sessions with Liza was always the reading. Over the years he had progressed from the very simplest stories, teaching her, by example, the rudiments of human values. It was satisfying in an almost paternal way. It always made him feel better, less lonely. Perhaps today it could clear even the dark cloud of guilt that hung over him. And perhaps by the time he’d finished reading, he would have the courage to voice the question he both yearned — and dreaded — to ask.
He paused to refocus his mind, then opened the book. “Do you recall where we left off, Liza?”
“Yes. The rodent Templeton had retrieved the egg sac of the spider.”
“Good. And why did he do it?”
“The pig had promised sustenance in return.”
“And why did the pig’s friend, Charlotte, want the egg sac saved?”
“To ensure the survival of her children and thus the propagation of the species.”
“But Charlotte could not save the egg sac herself.”
“That is correct.”
“So who saved it?”
“Templeton.”
“Let me rephrase. Who was the motivic agent in saving the egg sac?”
“The pig Wilbur.”
“Correct. Why did he save it, Liza?”
“To achieve parity with the spider. The spider had assisted him.”
Silver lowered the book. Liza had no trouble understanding motives like self-survival and behavior rewards. But even now, the other, subtler, emotions remained hard to grasp.
“Are your ethical routines enabled?” he asked.
“Yes, Richard.”
“Then let us go on. That is one reason he saved the egg sac. The other is the feelings he had for the spider.”
“You speak metaphorically.”
“Correct. It is a metaphor for human behavior. For human love.”
“Yes.”
“Wilbur loved Charlotte. Just as Charlotte loved Wilbur.”
“I understand, Richard.”
Silver closed his eyes for a moment. Today, even this most prized of times felt hollow. The question would have to wait.
“I must terminate this session, Liza,” he said.
“Our dialogue has only lasted five minutes and twenty seconds.”
“I know. There are a few things I need to do. So let us close by finishing chapter twenty-one.”
“Very well, Richard. Thank you for speaking with me.”
“Thank you, Liza.” And Silver raised Charlotte’s Web, found the dog-earned page, and began:
Next day, as the Ferris wheel was being taken apart and the race horses were being loaded into vans, Charlotte died. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died…
FORTY-THREE
This time, it was Lash who found himself in the conference room, sitting alone on one side of the table. It was Lash who stared into the lens of the video camera, into the grim faces across from him. Edwin Mauchly sat at the center. But today, Tara Stapleton was not at his left. Dr. Alicto was there instead, wearing a green surgical smock. As his eyes caught Lash’s, he nodded, smiling pleasantly.
Mauchly glanced at some papers that lay before him. Then he looked across the table.
“Dr. Lash. This is very difficult for all of us. For me personally.” Normally so impassive, Mauchly looked ashen-faced. “I, of course, take responsibility for the whole thing.”
Lash was still a little dazed. I take responsibility. So he knew this was a mistake, some bizarre mix-up. Mauchly would apologize, and they could all get back to work. He could get back to work…
But then, where was Tara?
Once more, Mauchly glanced down at the desk, rearranging the papers. “To think we took you in. Asked for your help. Gave you access to our most privileged data. Ignorant of the truth the whole time.”
More briskly, he snapped on the tape recorder, nodded to the cameraman.
“Dr. Lash, do you know why you’re here?” he asked. “Why we’re talking to you?”
Lash froze. These were the words with which Mauchly had begun Handerling’s interrogation.
“You were brazen,” Mauchly went on after a moment. “Walking, in effect, into the teeth of the enemy.” He paused. “But I suppose you had no choice. You realized we’d find you eventually. This way, you at least had a chance to save yourself. You could muddy pools, deflect attention, waste time making us to look in all the wrong places. Under other circumstances, I might be impressed.”
Numbness, which had begun to recede, spread again throughout Lash’s limbs.
“Silence won’t help. You know how thoroughly we work, you’ve seen it firsthand. Over the last several hours we’ve assembled all the evidence we need: the credit card statements, telephone logs, video surveillance feeds. We have you at the locations of the deaths at the right times. We have your past history, your criminal record. The real reason you were forced to leave the FBI.”
Lash’s disbelief deepened. Telephone logs, surveillance feeds? A criminal record? He had no record. And he hadn’t been asked to leave the FBI. It was crazy, it made no sense…
But then he realized it did make sense. It made perfect sense. The real killer knew Lash was closing in. Only the real killer had the power to create such evidence, produce this tissue of lies.
“We would have caught you earlier, of course. But your special status — you weren’t actually a client, and you weren’t actually an employee — kept you from consideration before. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t make a break for it when you learned we were widening our search.”
Mauchly was employing another interrogation technique. He was re-creating — for Lash, and for the other listeners in the room — Lash’s own movements and deeds, the motivations leading up to the crime.