She seemed to be staring directly at Engersol, her eyes angry. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
Engersol smiled, a thin grimace that held no warmth. “Just what is it you think I’m doing, Amy?”
“Trying to fool the computer. But you can’t do it. I’ve been studying, Dr. Engersol. And I think brains are like fingerprints. No two of them are exactly alike, and they’re so complicated that they never exactly repeat a sequence of measurable responses, either. So I’ve set up a new program. It will compare the newest readings being reported from my brain with all the older ones. And if my program discovers a duplication, it will assume you’ve done something to me, and start activating my viruses. But first it will start destroying this whole project.”
Engersol stared coldly at the image of the red-haired girl, her freckled face seeming no older than her ten years — until he focused on Amy’s eyes. They seemed to him to carry all the wisdom of mankind. “I don’t believe you,” he said harshly, feeling less certain of his words than his voice proclaimed.
Amy’s head cocked slightly, and a tiny grin played around the corners of her mouth. “Try it, if you want to. I’ve set it up so you’ll have thirty seconds to change your mind. But I don’t think you’ll wait that long.”
Engersol felt cold rage wash over him. She was bluffing! He was sure of it! “If I don’t change my mind, you’ll die, won’t you?”
Amy hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. And so will Adam. But I’ve been thinking about that, too, and I don’t think it matters. You didn’t have any right to put us in here, but you did. And I’ve told you what will happen if you try to hurt me, so if you go ahead, it will be you who’s killing both of us, not me.”
Engersol glanced nervously at Hildie Kramer, whose eyes, reflecting even more anger than he himself was feeling, were fixed malevolently on the image of Amy Carlson. “Well?” he asked.
Hildie’s eyes never left Amy’s monitor as she spoke. “Is she telling the truth? Won’t the computer be fooled?”
Engersol nervously ran his tongue over his lower lip. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think it will be. I think she’s bluffing.”
Hildie hesitated, then made up her mind. “Do it,” she said. “We cannot let this whole project become the slave of an angry child.”
Engersol finished typing his instructions and pressed the key that would enter them into the computer.
For a few seconds nothing happened. He was about to begin entering further instructions, terminating the life-support systems to Amy’s brain, when abruptly the screen came alive. An alarm sounded over the speaker system. On the control boards of both tanks red warning lights began to flash, and buzzers were activated as the systems began to abort.
“What is it?” Hildie demanded. “What’s happening?”
George Engersol said nothing, for he was already back at the keyboard, cancelling the playback of the recorded data from Amy’s mind. “Help me, Adam!” he snapped.
As the recording came to an end, the sound of the alarms died away. One by one the warning lights began to turn themselves off as Adam, using the power of his mind, reached out and began repairing the damage to the programs that controlled the equipment.
In less than a minute it was all over. Engersol had gone pale. His shirt was drenched with the sweat that had broken out over his entire body as he watched ten years of work begin to collapse around him. Now he wiped his brow with a trembling hand.
On her monitor Amy’s visage was smiling broadly. “See?” she asked. “It happened just the way I told you it would, didn’t it?”
Engersol tried to swallow the bile that was rising in his throat, threatening to gag him. “Adam!” he snapped, his voice rasping. “Tell me where we are. Is everything under control?”
“I’m still checking,” Adam replied. Above his tank the image of the boy’s face was frozen as he concentrated all the resources of his mind on verifying each of the programs that Amy’s virus had attacked, comparing them to backups of the originals, repairing the damage.
In his own mind it was as if he were inside the computer itself, examining the data recorded on the drives, reading it as easily as if it had consisted of words written on paper. He could almost feel the data streaming through his mind, all of it perfectly remembered and perfectly controlled.
Then, within the depths of his consciousness, he felt a presence.
Not Amy.
He’d gotten used to her mind, for it always seemed to be there, working on the fringes of his own, or moving ahead of him, like a shadow he could barely make out but whose presence he could always sense.
Now he was sensing a new presence.
He cast about, searching, and then he understood.
Josh had spent only five minutes at the computer terminal in his room before he’d understood that he wasn’t going to be able to penetrate whatever system was operating in the basement. Everywhere he’d turned, at the end of every lead he’d followed in the directories, he’d come to the same message:
ENTER SECURITY CODE
The words had taunted him, and finally he’d given up. Frustrated, he’d left his room and started down the hall toward the stairs. As he came to the landing, he heard a mewing sound and looked up.
On the fourth floor landing two flights above him, he saw the calico cat, Tabby, who had lived in Amy’s room. For the last two days the cat had been slinking around the upper floors, moving from room to room as if in search of its friend. Yesterday, Josh had let the cat into his own room, but it had stayed only long enough to determine that Amy wasn’t there, then slipped out the door and continued on its quest.
Now it was on the fourth floor, mewing plaintively.
Josh paused, watching the cat. As if sensing his interest, the cat mewed once more, then disappeared.
From where he stood. Josh could just see the top of Dr. Engersol’s door. It was ajar.
Not much — just a tiny crack.
His heart raced. Did he dare go up there? What if Hildie came back up?
But he’d hear the elevator coming, and have plenty of time to get out. And maybe, if he was actually inside Dr. Engersol’s apartment …
He made up his mind. Glancing up and down the empty hallway, he darted up the stairs to the third floor, and then the fourth.
Tabby, still at the door, turned to peer at him, then scratched at the door in a demand to be let into the room beyond.
“Can you smell her?” Josh asked, his voice low. “Can you smell Amy in there?” His heart pounding, he reached out and pushed the door wider.
The cat darted in.
A moment later Josh followed. His eyes scanned the room, falling almost instantly on the computer terminal that sat on the desk near the window.
Dr. Engersol’s computer.
Moving quickly, Josh crossed to the terminal and began tapping at the keyboard.
This time, no demands for security codes appeared.
He started searching through directories he’d never seen before. In the third directory a file name caught his eye:
GELAB CAM
His mind instantly translated the file name: George Engersol Laboratory. Camera.
Using the mouse on the desk, he placed the cursor over the file name and clicked twice.
A window opened at the top of the screen and an image appeared.
Josh stared at it in silence, for what he was seeing was a laboratory he’d never seen before at the Academy, filled with equipment that, though he had no idea of its use, still made his flesh crawl.
Instinctively, he knew that he had found Adam Aldrich and Amy Carlson.
Far to the left he could barely make out the Croyden computer in its separate room, but at the end of the room he could see two tanks, each of which had a monitor on the wall above it.