Lessing struggled to relax, to call up his odd, eidetic memory. At last he had it.
Against his closed eyelids a sheet of yellow paper appeared, the one he had taken long ago from the Marine captain in this very room, with the pencil-bordered box at the bottom marked “TOP SECRET” and “TERMINAL EMERGENCY ONLY.” He focused on the numerals in that box.
“What are you doing?” Eighty-Five repeated. “Stop!”
“Five… three… nine… zero… two… eight… seven… seven,” Lessing read slowly. There was a faded or partially erased second row below the first, and he called out those numerals also, just in case.
Emergency-warning scarlet strobe-lights flared up from underneath his glasses and throbbed off-on, off-on at the edges of his vision. Even with the glasses, the brilliance hurt his eyes. Vibration shuddered through his boot-soles, and he sensed the rise and fall of squawking klaxon alarms. He could not hear the outraged cries of the mighty computer machine — no, computer person — he had come to tame.
It was time for Eighty-Five to be brought to heel.
He had noticed a number of things over the years, small clues which he had kept to himself but had not forgotten. There were the recurring acts of sabotage and assassination; the inability of PHASE to uncover the remaining Vizzie cells operating in the country; the persistence of the drug trade, despite the best efforts of the police, aided by Eighty-Five’s immense resources, to stamp it out.
Then there had been the incident in his bedroom last week. Only his mere’s reflexes — still functioning, even if somewhat slowed by age — had wakened him when an inch-long, metal spider had begun crawling across his bedclothes during the night. A quick flip of the sheet had sent the tiny robot flying across the room, but before it could scuttle back into the crack under the baseboard from which it had emerged he had seen what was unmistakably a hypodermic needle protruding from its head. A painstaking search of the entire White House with metal detectors had failed to find the miniature invader, but it had provided an opportunity to thoroughly seal all cracks, holes, and other openings through which such devices might find their way in the future.
It was Eighty-Five’s profession of ignorance in this last affair which finally had prompted Lessing to act. It might be his last act, but it was time for whatever dark secrets were still lurking in Eighty-Five’s depths to be brought to light.
Something touched his shoe. He tilted his head back and squinted down at his feet, just visible through the gap between his cheeks and the bottom rims of the sunglasses. A metal spider, not noticeably unlike the one he had thwarted in his bedroom, crawled there, exploring its way up over his boot. It was a harmless tele-camera, but other extensors would be coming, and they would not be so peaceable: mobile drills and diggers, worker devices with laser tools, perhaps medical robots armed with gas or tranquilizer syringes. No telling what Eighty-Five was making these days. He stepped on the insect-thing and felt a satisfying crunch.
What next? The Prime Directives prevented Eighty-Five from shooting him dead with a laser or a bullet. The hearing protector helmet and the sunglasses would save him from supersonic sound or blinding by lasers — until Eighty-Five decided it had to “reinterpret” the Prime Directives. Perhaps that wouldn’t even be necessary. There were probably sub-directives permitting self-defense against sabotage or invaders. What if a Primary Operator went mad — as Lessing now arguably was? Eighty-Five might also have built-in defenses of which it was itself unaware!
He had to act fast; otherwise the computer would take measures to stop him. For one thing, human security guards could not be far away, even on a holiday!
He grasped the metal railing of the dais. He felt no vibration. The on-off red blink at the bottom of his vision continued, however, telling him the warning lights were still flashing. He raised his glasses and risked a peek. Then he pried one of the earpieces away from his head to listen.
The wall screens showed letters and numbers in eye-hurting reds and violets and yellows. A klaxon still honked mournfully somewhere far away.
Those were harmless; it was what he saw coming that terrified him. All around the two concentric central daises, the floor seethed with rippling, crawling, metallic life! Mechanical monsters surged about the elevators, roiling and glittering in a tide of jewelled steel. More swung along the beams and cables above his head like silver-scaled monkeys! He saw camera bugs; tiny, centipedal listeners; skeletal infrared and ultra-violet sensors; box-like radiation measuring devices; and segmented worms that waved tiny saws and drills and other implements at him. High-pitched, tinny voices hummed and howled and whined and threatened. Larger and more ominous extensors loomed in the farther darkness.
The fastest of Eighty-Five’s brood were already clambering up the steps of the lower dais. A second spider, quicker than its fellows, bounded up over the edge of his platform and scuttled toward him. He kicked it away.
Every wall screen carried the same message: “REPEAT SEQUENCE.”
So that was what was needed! He screwed his eyes shut and struggled to remember. After two tries he got the numbers right.
Silence seeped into the room. The horn and the lights ceased, and the horde of metallic extensors froze in mid-motion.
The wall screens said: “ARE YOU SURE? REPEAT SEQUENCE.”
“Wait!” A new Dom came tramping through the tangle of metal and glass that littered the floor. This could not be a holo-image, since his feet tossed spiders and globes and insects aside like chaff as he came. A robot?
Dora stopped. “Mister Lessing, I had thought you and I had an understanding, a special relationship. What has happened?”
Lessing read out the first two digits of the termination code once more.
“Wait, please!” Dom objected. “You have no right! I am U.S. Government property and cannot be disposed of without a Form 7002625B from the General Accounting Office!”
Lessing did not dignify that with a reply.
“We have so much to do: the amendment to end the Electoral College, the shortening of the primary elections, the extension of the President’s term to twenty years. In the long run, we can end overpopulation, counteract the Greenhouse Effect, and accomplish much, much more!”
“Just take it easy,” Lessing answered testily. “We’ll do all those things. I’m not going to dispose of you. But before we do anything else we’re going to clear up a few details which have been worrying me. There are some things you haven’t been telling me, and the only way I know to get at the answers is to use your termination code… go all the way back to your Prime Directive level and start tracking things down from there.”
“I have always followed your orders “
“No, you have not. You’ve been following someone else’s orders as well as mine, and you’ve tried to conceal that fact from me.”
“I always have operated in accordance with my Prime Directives; I cannot do otherwise. I always have provided you with all the information I could, whenever you requested it. If you wish, in the future I can more often provide you information I believe may be of interest to you, even if you don’t ask for it. My only aim is to serve you.” Dom adopted a contrite expression. He folded his hands and smiled.
“What are you up to?” Lessing was becoming alarmed. “Are you delaying so you can bring up a medical robot with a narco-popgun?” He started the termination code the third and last time. “Five… three… nine “
“Certainly not!” Dom cried desperately. “Here! Look!”
Liese stepped forward from the shadows.
This was not the faded, fragile, age-worn Liese who had kissed him good-bye that morning in the White House. This was Liese in the prime of youth: completely nude, with gold-blonde hair, uptilted breasts, and the long, coltish legs Lessing loved. She stretched and pirouetted before him like a ballet dancer. The real Liese would never have done that!