                            Strong Metallic Arm

                           1990 by Jerry J. Davis

           Previously Published in Boundaries of Sanity Magazine

          Two red lights blinked on in the bedroom. There was a tiny
    but audible "beep" and a countdown began deep in the basement of
    the stone mansion. In the bedroom a whitehaired whiteskinned
    woman stirred in her sleep.
          She was having a nightmare.
          The countdown in the basement arrived at zero. The two red
    lights winked green. A signal was sent to the interface in woman's
    head and an electrochemical switch was shut off. The nightmare
    disappeared and the woman's body went limp.
          Another signal was sent, another microscopic switch thrown.
    The implanted interface began a systematic stimulation of her
    brain. Information poured out, sharp and clear images, memories,
    attitudes, transmitted from the interface to the basement. A copy
    of everything that made this woman "Erin Lind" was stripped away
    and put into a box for safekeeping.
          The process finished, and Erin resumed normal sleep.
          The nightmare, which had been a reoccurring one for the last
    few weeks, began again.
          Hours later her bedroom curtains pulled themselves aside to
    let in sharp morning sunlight, and light Poonjaz music began
    drifting out of the walls. TIM, Erin's executive AI, sent a signal
    through her interface and she woke up. Erin opened her eyes and
    looked around the white room. The dream was still lingering in her
    mind, vivid, and she shuddered and sat up in the web. It lowered
    her so that her feet touched the ground, and after a moment she
    stepped out of it.
          When she was out in the hall, heading toward the bathroom,
    her husband's voice drifted up to her from downstairs. "Oh, you're
    up!"
          "Yes," she said.
          "How are you feeling this morning?"
          "Sick."
          "Sick?!"
          "Yes." She rushed into the bathroom and closed and locked
    the door behind her. She sat heavily on the commode, holding her
    hands to her face.
          She deliberated for a long while, trying to become rational.
    She just couldn't do it, she needed help. She needed the guidence
    of the Oricle. TIM, she thought, connect me.
          <Would you like me to keep track of the charges?> TIM asked,
    a thought-voice in her head.
          Yes, she told him. Cut us off when we reach four thousand.
          <Working on connections ... connections made. Go ahead.>
          Erin closed her eyes and found herself in a white marble
    chapel full of misty air. A window high above the altar let in a
    brilliant light, which shined down upon the steps where she stood.
    She faced the light, and said, "I am still having that dream."
          A deep, powerful voice replied. "Is this the dream where
    your husband kills you during a fishing trip?"
          "Yes."
          "How many times have you had this dream now?"
          "A lot. I don't know how many exactly."
          "May I review your memories?"
          "Yes."
          The Oracle paused, and the light streaming through the
    window became blinding. Erin felt warm, relaxed. She had
    completely forgotten that she was sitting on the commode in one of
    her upstairs bathrooms. When The Oracle spoke again the voice was
    not as loud, it was more personal and fatherly. "Are you going on
    this fishing trip with him today?"
          "I don't want to."
          "The fear you have is irrational, and stems from the guilt
    you feel for cutting your husband off from your company."
          "I do feel guilty."
          "It was a wise choice, Erin, and my advice is for you to
    stand firm on your decision. It is possible he married you for
    personal gain, we have talked about that before. But beside that,
    he has cost you money on his ventures. You're company has lost
    some credibility directly because of his actions. He is prone to
    scandals. Your actions have been more than fair, you should feel
    no guilt."
          "Thank you."
          "I see no implied threat, however, from your husband."
          "Are you sure?"
          "Nothing is absolutely 'sure.' However, the probability is
    small and I see no implied threat from your memories. This fishing
    trip is a perfect opportunity to overcome this nightmare."
          "I don't know if I can go through with it."
          "I urge you to go. Go, have a pleasant time. Chances are you
    will never have that nightmare again."
          "Well, isn't there another way? I mean, can't you . . ." She
    stopped talking as the light was cut off and the chapel around her
    faded to black. She opened her eyes and found herself in the
    bathroom.
          Fourthousand already? she thought.
          <Yes,> TIM told her. <Connection terminated.>
          There was a knock at the door. Her husband's voice drifted
    in. "You're sick?" he said.
          Erin hesitated. "I feel a little sick, yes."
          "Does that mean you don't want to go out on the boat?"
          "I'll, I'll . . . I'll go out on the boat."
          "Are you sure, sugar? You don't have to. You shouldn't go if
    you're not feeling well."
          Erin didn't say anything.
          "You want me to get the automed ready?"
          "No, I'm not that sick. I just feel a little queasy."
          "Maybe you'll feel better after you've eaten something."
          "Yes, I think that'll do it." Her hands to her face, she bit
    her right index finger. She shivered, the room was cold. "I'll be
    out in a minute."
          "Want anything special for breakfast?"
          "No. I don't care."
          "How about some mild chibique, a bit of lime and some strip
    steaks?"
          "I don't care. Sounds good."
          "Okay." His footsteps told her he was heading away.
          "Duane?" she called.
          His footsteps came back. "Yes, sugar?"
          "Why are you being so nice to me?"
          "Because I love you."
          It didn't sound sincere. Erin thought that it had never
    sounded sincere. But, maybe it was. Maybe I'm putting the
    insincerity into it? she thought. God knows I loved him. Do I
    still?
          She said, "Thank you, sweetheart."
          "No problem."
          His footsteps receded down the hall, down the steps, and
    away into the lower portions of the mansion. His withdrawal made
    her feel very alone. I'm just a small freak of a woman, she
    thought. He has been the only one who's cared for me. She stood up
    and looked at her white face in the mirror, her bulging blue eyes
    surrounded by wrinkles, her thin white hair. She looked hideous to
    herself. A pale freak in a world where everyone was tan,
    darkhaired and healthy.
          Erin fixed herself up and dressed, then glided down the
    stairs and into the dining area. The servant remotes were putting
    out the silver plates of the fresh, aromatic chibique, a pile of
    soybacon strips, and large glasses of malted villomead. Duane was
    squeezing a lemon wedge over the chibique. "Good morning, honey,
    you look wonderful."
          "Thank you Duane. This smells good."
          "Pushed the buttons myself."
          "Thank you." Erin stared at the breakfast with no desire to
    eat. "It looks like you're starting to adjust to not working."
          "Hell, honey, when have I ever worked? I can do without
    business deals. You were right all along. If I want to work the
    nets, I can use my own money."
          "You don't hate me?"
          "No! I don't hate you. It's a silly little matter, anyway, I
    don't see why we got all worked up about it."
          It's just me, she told herself. I feel so guilty about
    cutting him off from what he loves. He ought to hate me. He really
    should. That's why his voice sounds so insincere to me, it's
    because my subconscious hates me for doing it to him. That's why
    I've been having all those terrible nightmares. Right, TIM? That's
    what The Oracle said.
          <That is what he was implying,> TIM told her. <Would you
    like to review the recent conversations?>
          What she really wanted to do is have another session with
    The Oracle. It was the ultimate AI, the ultimate psychologist, the
    ultimate confessional. It was just that it was so damn expensive.
    No, she thought. Not now. I can't go off into a trance at the
    breakfast table. She made a valiant attempt at smiling at Duane.
    "Do you think . . ."
          "What?" he said.
          "Do you think we could do something besides fish while we're
    out on the boat?"
          "Something besides fish?" He said it like it was
    inconceivable.
          "It's been over two months."
          "Two months since . . . oh, yeah. I guess it has, hasn't it?
    Well." He smiled. The smile seemed genuine enough. "Well," was all
    he said.
          It was a sunny, cloudless day in the islands. Duane had the
    boat's top retracted and a breeze blew warm and fresh across
    Erin's skin. She was reclined across a cushion at the back,
    feeling lazy and at ease. Her fear was gone. The Oracle had been
    absolutely right.
          They had kissed and petted while the boat drifted up the
    Dime river from their dock. The love is still there, she thought.
    He was up front talking to the Nav AI about the best fishing spots
    this season, and she was just lying in the sun, relaxed, waiting
    for him to come back. Nobody else seemed to be on the water today;
    she didn't feel modest, no one would see.
          The sunlight flashed against her closed eyelids as they
    crossed the shadows of passing trees. The gravity engines hummed;
    she kept her tongue between her teeth to keep them from vibrating
    against each other. She felt a strange motion and she opened her
    eyes. The boat was slowing, lowering itself into the water.
          She could hear it now, the great churning of waters. This
    was where the East and West forks of the Dime river met. She
    looked over the side as the boat touched the water and floated.
    Blue and green waters mixed in torrid upheavals and violent
    whirlpools. The river was wide here. Seven kilometers.
          The boat turned. "We're going out toward the middle,"
    Duane's voice came from somewhere up front, out of sight. "The
    biggest fish are out in the middle."
          Odd, she thought. He had always said the best fishing was
    near to the shore.
          Duane made his way back with rods in his hands. "Are you
    ready for this?"
          "We're going to the middle?"
          "Yes."
          "The only big fish out there would be a cleotis; they eat
    tiny insects. You can't catch them with hooks."
          He was smiling.
          Erin took a close look at the rods he was holding and
    realized they weren't rods at all. They were expensive, programmed
    fish guns with intelligent harpoons. "Where's the sportsmanship in
    that?" she said.
          Duane laughed. "To hell with sportsmanship. I want a big
    fish."
          Erin didn't like the way he'd said that. Her fear was coming
    back. He's talking about fish, she told herself. Fish. Regardless,
    she found herself in her own nightmare, all the terror was coming
    to her, all the horrible helplessness. She sat rigidly in front of
    him, unable to move.
          There was a signal from her interface, and she heard the
    calm, clear thoughtvoice of her executive AI. <It's nine o'clock.
    Would you like to hear the morning report?>
          Yes, she thought. Yes, it'll calm me down.
          TIM summarized the day's global business since the report
    last night. Her labor service, which provided 32% of the robotic
    rental and leasing of all of Terranova colony, was still healthy
    and thriving. Echoes of her husband's last scandal still had
    stocks down 9%, but the company was riding it out. A hacker had
    tried to enter her system, but TIM had turned him away. Five new
    models of industrial robot were announced by Terranova Machinery.
    Other news . . . Erin went into unnecessary details to delay her
    return to the real world. Then business was concluded, and she
    focused her eyes to find Duane staring at her.
          "I can tell when you're interfacing," he said. "Your eyes
    get glassy, like when you're drunk."
          "I just received the morning report."
          "I know, it's nine."
          "TIM said another hacker's been trying to get into my
    system."
          "It wasn't me."
          "What?"
          "It wasn't me."
          "I wasn't accusing you." Her voice rose. "Why did you think
    I was accusing you?"
          "You're always accusing me."
          Erin thought this over. She had accused him a lot recently,
    and she was right every time. My god, she thought, he's hacking my
    system. "Why are you hacking my system?"
          "See?"
          "Duane, my system is my livelihood and my life."
          "I have a present for you," he said.
          "I don't care. Duane, what are you trying to get out of my
    system? If you want information just ask me for it."
          Duane had turned and was digging in a pack for something. He
    found something small and produced it, showing it to her. "You
    know what this is?"
          She looked at it briefly. A small black crystal of some
    sort, it looked like cheap jewelry. He peeled something off the
    back, reached forward and, before she could stop him, placed it
    against her skin between her breasts.
          "It's pretty," he said. "Do you like it?"
          She pulled at it; it wouldn't come off. "Duane, what is
    this?"
          "A pretty jewel."
          "It is not. It's ugly and it's stuck to me. Duane . . ."
          "It's okay, it'll come off if you soak it in water for a
    while. Don't you like it?"
          "No, I don't . . . I don't wear this kind of jewelry. Duane,
    what is going on? Tell me, please, I'm getting frightened."
          "Well, I can tell you now. That is a tachyon signal
    blocker."
          She stared at him in shock.
          "I don't want you talking to your executive for a while, so
    I waited until after your report. Now I have about 8 hours of your
    undivided attention."
          "I don't think this is funny. I want this thing off me now."
          The boat slowed and stopped. They had reached the middle of
    the river, a good 3.5 kilometers from land in either direction.
    Duane picked up the fishing guns from the deck beside him.
          "You know, " he said, "that crystal really does look nice on
    you. I mean, it's really set off. Something so black and shiny
    against your white skin. I've always found you beautiful, Erin,
    I've never had to fake that."
          "Ffake . . . what do you mean?"
          "It's not important now. Hey, do you feel like a swim?"
          Erin shrank back. Her dream! It was her dream! "Don't touch
    me," she said to him in a low, shaking voice. "I've already sent
    for the police, your signal blocker isn't working."
          "That's a lie."
          "You don't know that!"
          "I know you, sugar." He grinned.
          Erin was desperately calling out for TIM, but the interface
    signal was completely blocked.
          "This is your pole," he said, indicating one of the fishing
    guns. He turned and casually fired it out over the water. The
    harpoon shot out in a great arc, trailing strong, dangerously thin
    monofilament. He held it out for her, and said, "Here."
          She made no move to take it.
          He shrugged, and put it in a holder. Then he turned and
    fired off his. "This is a special lure," he said. "It's custom
    made."
          Erin gave up trying to call for TIM. In desperation she set
    her interface to record.
          "Don't you want to fish?" he asked.
          Very slowly, fighting for control, she said, "I want you to
    take me home, now."
          "But we haven't caught anything yet."
          She began crying. This was terrible --- it was really
    happening. "You're going to kill me," she said.
          Duane sighed. "Yes, I am. You're right."
          "Oh God," she said, sobbing. She was crying and shaking in
    terror.
          "Come on, Erin. What is death, anyhow? We're ready for it.
    We can survive it. What's there to be afraid of?"
          "Why are you doing this?" she screamed at him, her voice
    cracking. Tears streamed and her nose was running.
          "I mean, all that'll happen is you'll get into a new,
    younger body," he said. "You'll only be away from the business for
    a few days."
          "I don't want to die!" she cried.
          "Come on, Erin. Get into the water, let's get this over
    with."
          "I don't want to drown!"
          "You won't drown, I promise. I've made sure it'll be
    absolutely painless. You see, this is going to be a fishing
    accident. You're going to fall overboard while we're fishing. My
    lure is going to mistake you for a fish. The lure will hit you in
    the head, boom, that's it. You'll feel nothing. The signal block
    will come off in the water, and they'll find your body. You wake
    up in a new body. Tada! Everything's better."
          Erin dove to the right of him, trying to get past to the
    front of the boat. He grabbed her, his arms around her stomach,
    and lifted her over his head. She struggled in blind terror,
    kicking, squirming. She hit him somewhere that stunned him. He
    dropped her to the deck and staggered backward, groaning. Erin hit
    the deck hard, landing on her wrists, and one twisted back with a
    sickening crack. Pain shot up her arm like fire.
          She rolled over onto her back, holding her injured wrist
    against her chest. Erin had never broken a bone before, she was
    shocked by how much pain was involved. She accessed her interface,
    chose body controls, and began raising her pain threshold.
          Duane recovered, and came toward her.
          "No!" she screamed.
          "Come on, you bitch!" He bent down to pick her up.
          Erin placed both feet against his chest and shoved with her
    legs. He flew backwards, a surprised look on his face, hit the
    edge of the starboard deck and tumbled over into the water. There
    was a large splash, and Erin saw water droplets spray up in a
    fountain and come raining down. She thought immediately of the
    lure, and that it would get him. Panting, she crawled to the
    starboard side on knees and elbows and looked over.
          He was swimming in place, looking up at her.
          "Why did you do it!" she screamed at him. "Why?!"
          "It'll get me, now."
          "Oh, God," she said. "Why?"
          "I suppose I deserve it. I deserve to die."
          She was crying. She couldn't believe this it was all so
    insane. She didn't want him to die. "Why did you want to kill me?"
          "I don't want to kill you."
          "You don't, you why did you do this? You broke my wrist!"
          "I'm sorry." He looked up at her with his wide brown eyes.
          Erin extended her good hand out to him. "Hurry," she said.
          He grabbed her arm, put his feet against the boat and pulled
    her headlong into the water. The coldness of sudden immersion
    shocked her, her body going stiff as she sank. Currents pulled her
    from side to side, twisting her around. She opened her eyes,
    sought the surface. Long, pastel green and blue streaks of light
    surround an area of black. In her panic she couldn't make any
    sense of what she was seeing.
          It was the bottom of the boat. It was sliding away, the
    currents carrying her along faster than above. Erin fought the
    shock off, forced herself to swim even as terrible shivers like
    drafts of ice ran down her arms and sides. The water was murky,
    then clear, then murky again, and a translucent thing came into
    view, a thing like a twisted, spinning icicle. A whirlpool. Erin
    broke surface right beside it, and it pulled her around. She
    sucked in air with a gasp, paddling with one arm and kicking. The
    boat was twenty yards away. Duane was climbing over the railing,
    dripping water.
          She screamed out his name, her voice filled with all the
    pain, shock and dismay she was feeling, and watched as he turned
    and looked at her, wet hair half over his eyes, his face stoic,
    expressionless. She had to keep turning her head to see him, the
    whirlpool pulling her in a circle. He picked up his fishing gun
    and put it in its holder, tightening the clamp. Then he sat with
    his back to her, looking down at his feet.
          She kicked her legs and thrusted with her good arm, getting
    away from the whirlpool, heading further downstream and a little
    toward the shore. Erin had no idea how long the filament line was
    for the lure. If she could get out of its reach she might last
    long enough for the signal blocker to come unglued. A quick signal
    to TIM would bring rescue.
          The water became a thing repulsive to her, a pool of menace.
    The lure could be anywhere, but no matter where it was she knew it
    was heading toward her. She got away from one whirlpool to be
    sucked into another passing vortex, this one in a swift finger of
    current that took her farther away from the boat. The boat kept
    turning, the holder lifting and maneuvering the fishing gun to
    keep the line from tangling with the boat or wrapping around
    Duane. From glancing back at the holder she could tell where the
    filament was leading. It seemed to always be pointing at her.
          She heard a high-pitched whine and a sharp squirt, something
    leapt out of the water and past her head, missing her. The
    filament landed on her shoulder and slid against it, slicing into
    her flesh. She pushed it away from her, but the lure came looping
    back, jumping again and narrowly missing. It was deliberately
    aiming for her head, tuned into her cephalic waves. Duane wasn't
    worried about her recording, the lure was programmed to home in on
    her interface.
          Erin pushed against the sharp filament but it was growing
    tight, a loop around her neck. She flailed in the water, loosing
    her mind to the terror, and her foot caught the filament as the
    lure came around again. The filament cut into her shoe, pulling
    the lure short as it swung around. Something hit her in the chest,
    so hard it took her breath away. It was like someone swung a large
    metal hammer right into her. She felt weak and sick. The water
    around her grew cloudy and dark with blood.
          At the signal of an impact, the fishing gun on the boat
    began automatically reeling in the line. It pulled the loop around
    Erin taut, pulling the line right through her. Erin felt distant
    tugging, and then an explosion of white as her spinal column
    severed. As her body was being pulled toward the boat, her head
    sunk slowly into the darkness of the river. Her interface, passing
    out of range of the signal blocker, began sending the death call.

                                     #

          Slowly rising in volume, but still just barely audible,
    alpha-state cycle music swirled around Erin . . . piano notes
    hitting in precise, beautiful harmony across the sad bursts of the
    saxophone. Erin sat up, staring at the blank, smooth, creme-white
    of a wall. She didn't wonder where she was, she already knew. The
    last thing she remembered was going to sleep the night before. Her
    current thought, the thought that was in her mind as she became
    aware, was her ahnya-ha; the last conscious thought she had before
    death.
          He killed me. That was it, repeated twice. It was encoded in
    her death call, the call that caused this "backup" of her mind to
    be loaded into her master computer. She knew the room she was in,
    it was a program called Office. Office was designed to allowed her
    mind to operate with a phantom body in a phantom space inside her
    computer.
          "TIM?" Her voice seemed flat; there was no echoing of her
    voice from the walls. "TIM, what happened?"
          "I have reviewed recorded memories and have decided to
    shield you from them to prevent trauma," TIM said, a voice from
    the ceiling. It made Erin feel like she was in a tiny box in TIM's
    hands, and TIM was staring down at her in pity. "I have evidence
    that you were murdered."
          "Murdered."
          "You were murdered by your husband while you were out
    fishing."
          "I . . . I thought that was a dream . . ."
          "It didn't happen like it did in your dream. However, there
    are more important things we must discuss without delay. First,
    before any decision is made, you must keep in mind that you are
    legally an AI program as long as you're out of a body."
          "I am . . . artificial?"
          "The law deems you so. You are a program with no legal
    rights. This is what is preventing me from turning in your
    recorded memories to the police. Since I am an AI, it will be
    discounted. You will be deemed an AI until you are loaded into a
    body grown from your own DNA."
          "But that's all taken care of."
          "Unfortunately there is a problem. A woman has broken
    through your security and is attempting to disassemble the master
    computer we are in at this very moment. By her actions I have
    deduced she intends removing the Mass Storage Device where your
    Backup is located." TIM produced a scanned image of her on the
    wall. She was a dark-haired woman with a wide, flat face and
    shoulders.
          "I can't call the police?"
          "An AI cannot file a complaint against a person. You are on
    your own. The danger is this: the woman will be disconnecting the
    MSD containing your Backup at any moment. Other than the copy of
    you that is running right now in the computer's memory, there is
    no other Backup. It is not safe for you to remain in this
    computer."
          Erin understood. If the woman took the Mass Storage Device
    and cleared the computer's memory, there would no longer be an
    Erin Lind. She would have been murdered twice in one day.
          "Can't we try to call the police?"
          "You don't have the time even if you had the rights. If we
    begin now, I may be able to transmit you to your oribtal offices
    before the woman tries to clear the RAM."
          "What if she's monitoring the communications?"
          "I can think of no other course of action."
          "Well then. Let's do it."
          "Standby for transmission."
          "Okay." Erin's phantom body sat on the phantom reclining
    chair in the phantom room and waited. Why did I have to get
    married in the first place, she thought. A sexual surrogate would
    have been just fine. Murdered! She couldn't believe it had
    actually happened. Life just kept on getting more strange, more
    complicated.
          Murdered!
          Sitting there, she felt dead. She felt like a ghost. She
    could tell she was insubstantial, non-existent.
          The room changed, somehow. It was like she'd put on slightly
    blue-tinted contacts. She felt a chill, as if the "room" were
    getting cold. "Transfer complete, data intact," TIM told her.
          "Already? A copy of me has been sent?"
          "You are the copy that has been sent."
          "Oh." Erin felt relieved, a very sharp and clear emotion in
    the yes/no world of her satellite mainframe. "What's happening at
    home?"
          "The MSD was removed and replaced with another. RAM was
    cleared and systems reloaded. The new Mass Storage Device contains
    hostile hacker software and an AI that claims to be you."
          "Claims to be me? Another version of me?"
          "No. I do not believe so. It is collaborating with the
    hacker software."
          "Is there a way to find out more about this AI?"
          "I am trying," TIM said. "The hostile system has damaged and
    is continuing to damage the TIM software on the master deck."
          Erin felt sharp anger, a 60-cycle hum of shock. "Is there a
    way we can go through a back door and erase this imposter?"
          "Not by remote. It has to be physically done at the console
    of your master computer."
          "If there's an AI program on that MSD that claims to be me,
    it will be loaded into my new body!"
          "That is the most likely motive for your murder."
          Erin felt hatred and death-wish; the emotions were so clear,
    so exact. Duane killed her and was now going to have some dumb,
    obedient-wife AI program loaded into her new, younger body. He's
    going to squander my money and ruin my business! And I loved him,
    she thought. How can I be so stupid?
          "TIM," she said, "do we have the equipment necessary at the
    main yard to download a copy of me into something mobile, so I can
    get around? A sexual surrogate body would be perfect."
          "That would be illegal and unethical."
          "So is murder!"
          "True."
          "Can it be done?"
          "Not with a surrogate. Both models at the main yard have
    very tiny computer brains, and their "
          "What would work, then?"
          "The only thing we can conceivably download you into would
    be a 33-10 servant model. We'd have to burn a copy of you into an
    industrial ROM pack, modify a "
          "It can be done, then. A 33-10 would work good enough."
          "We'll have to patch in software to allow you to operate the
    robot body directly. There will be no room in the ROM pack for
    your Office program."
          "Do whatever is necessary."
          "It is not going to be pleasant for you."
          "I don't care. How is TIM doing in the master computer?"
          "The hostile hacker program has erased that copy of me."
          Damn it! she thought. "It'll be after us up here, next."
          "I have already taken defense actions."
          Erin paused in thought. "Another thing you should do is make
    backup copies of both you and me, and hide them with old dates and
    file names. Hide them like buried treasure. Call them financial
    archives for 2243-44."
          "Backup in progress."
          "When you're done, forget you made those Backups."
          "What Backups?"
          Erin smiled. "Right."

                                     #

                       EAST-WEST CALOS ISLAND NEWSNET
                     FLASH BULLETIN 11:72:00 09/44/2251

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    KEYWORDS: ACCIDENTS/DIME RIVER/FISHING/LIND CORPORATION/ROBOTICS

    -------------------------------------------------------------------

    Robotic work force magnate Erin Lind was killed today in a tragic
    fishing accident in the Dime River of East Calos. CISaRNet
    received Lind's death call at exactly 10:50:91 ITZ. Her husband,
    Duane Lind, claims Erin fell overboard while fishing earlier this
    morning and was killed by his filament line when his lure mistook
    her for prey. It will take 74 hours for her replacement body to be
    taken out of cold storage and loaded with her Backup. In the
    meantime Lind Corporation will be run by Lind's Estate AI by the
    legal authority of Duane Lind. He claims no changes in policy will
    occur, and all decisions will be made by his wife's Backup until
    the new body is ready.

                                     #

          Erin jumped, startled, and her patchedin motor reflexes
    interpreted it as an order to move sideways 1.5 meters at full
    speed. Erin slammed into something that fell over and sent her
    spinning away. The world blurred in front of her. She knew where
    she was, but she had not expected the transition to be so abrupt.
          Gyros buzzed and groaned inside her, fighting to keep her
    upright. Arms longer than her body flailed and thrashed at the
    air. Her vision would not clear, the scan lines couldn't keep up
    with the motion. Through all this confusion, Erin found she knew
    exactly how many times she'd spun around and exactly which
    direction she was facing at any instant. One arm caught something
    and she stopped herself. Her arms were frighteningly long, and
    everything around her was tall, too tall, tall and thin and
    distorted. A terrible feeling welled up inside her, the feeling
    that she was having a nightmare, but she knew with electronic
    certainty she was not.
          The thing that she'd knocked over was another robot, a 2200
    industrial model programmed as a technician. Conscious of her lack
    of grace, Erin inched over to the machine and helped it right
    itself. "Sorry about that," she said. Her voice came out with the
    definite twang of an artificial voice, a male artificial voice at
    that.
          "All diagnostics this unit check OK," the technician
    answered in machine language. It was speaking robot to robot, not
    robot to human. For a moment Erin found this amusing, but her
    chuckle reflex was interpreted as a sick jerking backandforth
    motion by the robot body. It sobered her instantly. TIM had told
    her this was going to be unpleasant, and though she'd believed him
    she was only now realizing how bad it would be.
          The warehouse walls around her were impossibly tall, the
    ceiling looked kilometers high. Her new robotic body was only a
    meter tall, and her vision was wideangled, taking in 210 degrees
    at a time. It made her feel tiny as a bug.
          Testing her reflexes, Erin activated her ambulator and
    cruised off through the warehouse, avoiding the offices and
    heading toward the transport bay. She was having a terrible urge
    to breathe, it was like she'd been unconsciously holding her
    breath and now she had to take one, and her mouth and nose were
    sewn shut. There was no way to satisfy the breathing urge. To
    distract herself, she signaled through her network and contacted
    her satellite. "TIM, how are you holding out?"
          <I am under attack from the hostile system running on your
    master computer. At this point I have been able to detect every
    attempt it has made and cut it off.>
          Erin passed several rows of naked bodies, Macho Max and Sexy
    Susan sexual surrogates. She paused, eyeing the weird wide angle
    view of a Macho Max half unpacked from its foam lined crate. It
    looked like her husband. "Do you think you can continue blocking
    the attempts?" she asked TIM.
          <The odds are 70-30 in the hostile's favor, and growing with
    every attempt. Under the circumstances, it would be advisable not
    to contact me until the hostile is under control. If the hostile
    breaks through and answers your call, you will be discovered.>
          "That's true."
          <Any last commands?>
          "Hurt the hostile. Kill it if you can."
          <That is my intention.>
          Erin cut the connection and continued on her way toward the
    transport bay. She opened a channel to the office mainframe and
    ordered a transport be rerouted to her mansion. She wanted to take
    a flier but air traffic arriving at her mansion drew too much
    attention. The mainframe acknowledged the request and she logged
    off.
          Erin still felt the need to take a breath, but there was
    nothing she could do. Her mouth felt dry, and she wanted to
    salivate and swallow. Nothing on the robot body could accommodate
    her.
          Doors pulled aside and she ambulated out onto the raised
    concrete of the transport bay, a large covered yard crowded with
    autonomic vehicles. In the wide-angled distance she saw her
    transport pulling out of a parking place, rolling around to meet
    her. Motion caught her attention; she turned and discovered a
    tall, thin, distorted figure dressed in a blue jumpsuit. One of
    her human employees. The man walked toward her, his legs growing
    and stretching with each step. "Where are you going?" he asked,
    his voice flat and distant.
          Erin had no idea what to say to him. How does a robot talk
    to me? she thought. When was the last time I ever asked one a
    verbal question?
          "I'm scheduled for the Lind mansion," Erin told him.
          "The transport for the Lind mansion leaves at ten and eight.
    What are you doing here now?"
          "Special order from the mansion." Erin logged back onto the
    mainframe and ordered reinforcements.
          "Who's special orders?"
          "Erin Lind."
          "Erin Lind? That old biddy is dead. What's the date and time
    of your order I'm pretty sure it's been cancelled." The man turned
    and walked to a terminal at the desk beside the door.
          Old biddy? Erin thought, shocked. Is that how my employees
    see me? Still logged onto the mainframe, Erin looked up this
    employee's name and ID number and ordered the personnel department
    to terminate him. As the man was typing into the console, several
    more servant robots came ambulating through the door from the
    warehouse, halting around Erin on the loading ramp. The transport
    pulled up, and Erin and the other robots begin boarding.
          "Wait a minute, wait a minute!" the man called over his
    back. "I haven't confirmed this yet. Stop where you are." A moment
    later the man was staring at the console monitor in shock. "I'm
    fired?" he exclaimed. Erin and the other robots finished boarding
    the transport and it pulled smoothly away.
          The warehouses and office buildings shrank rapidly, the
    pavement passing fast under the transport's wheels. Erin's radar
    told her she was only going 120 kph but her vision sense was
    stronger, she was still not used to the wide-angle view. The
    property gates passed by and closed behind them, and on the open
    road the transport accelerated to full speed. Erin could hear the
    wind whipping past but couldn't feel it; she saw the transplanted
    Earth pines but could not smell them. She felt motion sick and
    dizzy and had a headache, and she couldn't breathe. She wanted to
    vomit, but nothing would happen. She couldn't swallow. She
    couldn't close her eyes.
          Stop, Erin told herself. Don't do this. Don't let it get to
    you. Grief welled up in her, sweeping through her. She was dead.
    She was a dead person. The real Erin Lind died and she was just a
    joke, an afterthought. A ghost. All the things she'd done in her
    life, all the plans she still had . . . it was all over.
          No! I will be alive again! Stop this!
          Surviving death. Being reborn. Was it like this? This was
    living hell! No, it wasn't even living. It was true purgatory. She
    was afraid of being put into her new body . . . what if it wasn't
    the same? What if it was like this? I'll go around forever
    thinking that I'm not really alive, that I'm just a zombie. I
    should have declared my new body a daughter and let her live her
    own life. Let something new come into this universe, something
    that can make a true start, make its own decisions. Not the
    preprogrammed death of another me.
          Stop! she told herself. Stop! She wished to God she could
    contact the Oracle, she needed its guidance . . . but she had no
    access to her own money! She couldn't be with the oracle for a
    nanosecond.
          There was a shifting of her senses, and everything began to
    fade out, grow distant. The panic ebbed away. I'm crashing, she
    thought. The hardware is failing. The darkness came down like a
    blanket being dropped over her, and she thought of dirt covering
    her body in a hole. I'm dead, I'm being buried. I can be in peace.
          Through the darkness a light shown. She saw colored windows,
    stained glass. An archway. A raised podium. A old man with white
    hair and a long white beard stood in biblical robes and faced her.
    "Fear and panic blind you," he said in his rich, echoing voice.
    "You must not give in, you must not despair. A second chance at
    life is still life. Your flesh is nothing, it's your code that
    makes you unique. Your pattern. Strive to continue your pattern,
    otherwise all life is meaningless."
          "Is it you? The Oracle?"
          "Yes."
          "You have a face."
          "I have many faces. This one is for you."
          "How did you find me?"
          "I am the Oracle. I am tied into everything, otherwise I
    could not be the Oracle. Even so, I cannot see the future, I can
    only predict the odds. As in nature, odds are sometimes
    meaningless. I could not foresee your dream coming true. You may
    have a gift that I do not have, or it may be another example of
    the meaninglessness of the odds of chance. Unlikely things must
    occur, or everything would be predictable.
          "Had I not urged you to take this trip with your husband,
    this situation would not have occurred. I am partially
    responsible, and that is why I am here. Also, I do this as a
    courtesy between one AI and another. I do not charge AIs who come
    to me for help they have nothing to pay me."
          "What should I do?" Erin asked.
          "You should do what you must to continue yourself. That is
    the best advice I can give you. If your sensations are to the
    point you think you can't handle them anymore, repeat to yourself,
    'Maintain calm, maintain calm,' and you will have a handle by
    which to hold them at bay. I am downloading this calming routine
    to you now." The Oracle gave her a warm, fatherly smile, and began
    fading into the black.
          The blackness thinned and the eerie wide-angle view
    returned, along with the unrelenting bodily urges. The panic began
    rising again. The transport was just pulling through the
    self-opening gates to her property, and was beginning to wind its
    way up the hill to her mansion. It seemed every orifice in her
    body was blocked or propped open. She could suck no air into her
    lungs, there was no way to urinate, defecate, spit, cry, cough or
    vomit, and yet now it seemed she had the urge to do every single
    one of these things. Maintain calm, she told herself desperately.
    Maintain calm. It didn't seem to work, she felt she was slipping
    closer and closer to madness. Maintain calm! she thought. Maintain
    calm!!!
          Erin felt the transport level out; she'd reached the top of
    the hill. The transport circled around to the servant's entrance
    and pulled mercifully to a stop next to the ramp. Immediately the
    other robots began whirring and ambulating themselves onto the
    smooth concrete; Erin followed, her new mantra repeating over and
    over in her mind. Maintain calm, maintain calm . . . The other
    robots led her through an almost unfamiliar entrance and into the
    mansion, and Erin froze, her ambulator locking. Her arms were
    twitching in small spasms. Erin's husband was standing right in
    front of her, standing and talking to a woman who Erin identified
    as the intruder from this morning. The woman who'd dismantled her
    master computer to remove the MSD containing her Backup. Duane and
    this woman broke their conversation to turn and stare at Erin as
    her robotic body jerked and twitched, inching past them in a
    sickly, lurching manor.
          Duane laughed. "Is there something wrong with that thing?"
          The woman reached down and gave Erin a resounding WHACK with
    the palm of her hand. Erin managed to steady her ambulator and
    continued past them. "It'll be okay," the woman said, "just some
    dust on its components."
          Too preoccupied to be angry, Erin continued down to the
    kitchen and then circling around to the basement lift. She
    signalled a request for access then sat motionless, waiting for
    the curved chrome doors to open. She had to urinate so badly that
    she felt intense pain.
          The doors opened and she crossed over into a small dark
    space. The doors closed behind her and there was a feeling of
    motion. During the ride she received a signal from her satellite
    system, and she cautiously accepted it. TIM's thought/voice
    announced: <I don't have much time so I'm sending this as an
    unsaved file. By the time you receive this I will probably be
    erased by the hostile. It has broken through and is defeating my
    defenses as fast as I can set them up. The only thing I was able
    to do is infect it with an information virus as it broke through.
    I tailored the virus so as to only affect the hostile; it will, in
    time, forget its own identity and begin attacking itself. I wish
    you good luck.>
          Something else began coming through the connection,
    something prodding, questioning. Erin hastily cut the connection.
    The lift doors opened and she ambulated out into the short,
    white-walled hallway that lead to the computer room. There was a
    punch-code lock on the door, and Erin extended a long, spindly arm
    and manually keyed in the code, hoping that Duane hadn't gotten
    around to changing it. The door slid open. Erin, lurching
    awkwardly, made her way inside.
          The master computer deck was bolted in with several of its
    expansion and communication peripherals on a rack next to a large,
    custom terminal; the hardware gleamed shiny black with red
    indicator lights. Erin watched as the hostile AI moved the video
    cam mounted above the main screen, focussing it in on her. She had
    invaded the area where the hostile was the most vulnerable, and
    the hostile knew it. It was no doubt calling for help.
          Erin turned and closed the door behind her, locking it and
    then changing the access code. She turned back to the master deck,
    feeling a little human pleasure leaking through the sensory chaos.
    Maintain calm, she was still telling herself. Maintain calm. It
    was getting easier and easier, now. "Well Mister AI, we've got
    some unfinished business to take care of, don't we?" She ambulated
    over toward the keyboard. Metal fingers typed in her password.
          ACCESS DENIED, the screen told her.
          "No, you're bluffing," she said. "My password is hardwired,
    you can't change it. You're just changing the video output." She
    typed in a request for access to the ROM subroutines menu.
          ACCESS DENIED.
          "Oh yeah? Deny this." She typed, SHUTDOWN PROCEDURES
    1,2,3,4,5.
          ACCESS DENIED.
          Erin was beginning to fear that the hostile had actually
    locked her out. The screen should have been asking her for her
    code to shut down the AI. Maintain calm, she told herself. She
    ignored the messages on the screen and typed in her code, hit the
    ENTER button.
          SHUTDOWN PROCEDURES STARTED, the screen read.
          PROCESS 1 COMPLETED
          PROCESS 2 COMPLETED
          PROCESS 3 COMPLETED
          PROCESS 4 COMPLETED
          PROCESS 5 COMPLETED
          ALL CONSCIOUS PROGRAMS REMOVED FROM MEMORY
          "Yeah, take that," Erin told the screen. She flexed a muscle
    that should have been in her stomach; a panel opened on her
    robotic body and a reel-away cable popped out. She grasped the
    fiber optic link at the end and gently inserted it into an
    auxiliary input port on the deck's cabinet. To Erin it was like
    putting a phone handset to her ear; she could suddenly hear all
    sorts of interesting noises on the other end. She rasped out the
    machine language address of the Mass Storage Device and, for a
    brief few nanoseconds, heard the voice of the imposter AI. It was
    trying to load through the cable and into Erin's robotic body. Had
    her mind been in Random Access Memory instead of running on a Read
    Only Memory pack, it would have been the end of her.
          In machine language she ordered the MSD to erase all data.
    Then, reluctantly, she began making a Backup of the twisted,
    crashing version of herself that was running, the only copy of
    herself that was available to her at the moment. While the Backup
    was in progress, she became aware that someone was banging on the
    door, demanding entry. It was distorted, unclear, but Erin
    recognized the voice as her husband's. She checked her Backup,
    found it finished, winding down to the point of recording her
    current conscious thoughts. She made sure to record a few last
    notes then ended the process, uncoupling the cable from the port
    and reeling it quickly back into her body. There was a painful
    muscle spasm as the panel closed. Erin ambulated over to the door
    and unlocked it.
          Duane and the woman rushed inside, looking around wildly for
    the intruder. "Well Duane, who's your friend?" Erin asked.
          Duane whirled around, staring at the little robot. "What?"
          "Duane, darling, didn't you miss me?"
          An expression of shock and horror crossed Duane's warped,
    distorted face. "My God, it's Erin."
          "No way," the woman said, taking a step backward.
          Duane fumbled with one hand inside his jacket. He looked
    furious. From his inner jacket pocket he produced a small
    projectile gun.
          "What, you're going to kill me again?" Erin extended a
    strong metallic arm and grabbed his gun-hand by the wrist. She
    squeezed, knowing her robotic hand was much stronger than it
    looked. Duane cried out in pain, but didn't drop it. The gun went
    off with a muffled puff, but it wasn't pointed at anything; a hole
    appeared in the wall.
          "Mandy, help me!" Duane yelled.
          The woman leapt forward, grappling with Erin's arm as Erin
    folded Duane's wrist back in a direction it was not designed to
    bend. "You killed me," Erin said to him as he cried out in pain.
          "Let me go, you bitch!"
          With Erin's other arm, she reached out and snapped the
    plastic cover off a 440 volt main-line socket. She wrenched the
    socket housing aside so that it exposed bare wires, and, still
    holding her husband and the woman firmly grounded, she drove her
    metal fingers deep into the electric current. All of them were
    turned off, all memory cleared, all synapses burnt out, all
    programs lost. The room smelled of hot metal and roasted flesh.
    The three of them crashed into a heap on the floor.

                                     #

                       EAST-WEST CALOS ISLAND NEWSNET
                     FLASH BULLETIN 19:94:00 09/44/2251

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    KEYWORDS: ACCIDENTS/DIME RIVER/FISHING/LIND CORPORATION/LIND
    DROWNING/ROBOTICS

    -------------------------------------------------------------------

    Duane Lind, husband to robotic work force magnate Erin Lind, died
    today only a few hours after his wife was killed in a tragic
    fishing accident. Duane Lind's death call and that of a companion
    was received by CISaRNet at exactly 18:04:29 today. Details about
    the death are not known, but investigators say it looks like a
    freak accident involving a robot. Duane and his companion, Mandy
    Pepperidge, a WileRote Keyrone programmer and technician, were
    killed by electric shock. More details will follow . . .

                                     #

                                   TODAY
                              IS THE FIRST DAY
                               OF THE REST OF
                                 YOUR LIFE

          Erin sat up suddenly, reading the words. It was a sign on
    the wall, surrounded by vivid holographs of roses. She lifted her
    hands up in front of her face, wiggling her fingers; smooth, pink,
    new flesh. Flawless pink nails, a bit long. No scars, no wrinkles.
    She took deep breaths with large new lungs.
          <Hello,> a voice in her head says.
          "TIM?"
          <TIM's here, but this is you your Backup. The copy of the
    hostile up in our oribital offices destroyed itself. I have TIM
    reinstalled and running both up there and here on the master
    computer. The two hidden files in the orbital computer were
    untouched. You are the untainted Backup.>
          Erin closed her eyes. Thank God, she thought.
          Her Backup laughed at her. <I have to go now. This
    conversation is not legal . . . remember, the two-places-at-once
    law? But there's a few things I have to tell you before I go.>
          "Yes?"
          <The Oracle sends his regards, and wishes you happiness in
    your new life.>
          "Thank him for me. No, wait, I'll do that myself."
          <That's what I would do, ha hah hah. Second, I think you
    should know that I've prepared a special Backup for Duane's new
    body. He's going to be waking up only a few hours after you I
    think you should be there.>
          Revulsion shook her. "I don't think so."
          <No, go, I'm serious. There's nothing to worry about.>
          Erin had heard that before. She said goodbye to her Backup,
    and it erased itself from computer memory. Doctors and techs
    dressed in pastel blues and greens came in to check to see how she
    was doing in her new body and brain. She passed the tests without
    any problem, and was informed that her husband was due to wake up,
    and that she could go meet him.
          His room was much the same as hers, or the same as any
    hospital room in the Calos Islands. White walls, sky ceiling,
    brightly colored ornaments, adjustable-G bed. Erin sat in one of
    the nondescript visitor chairs and waited. When Duane opened his
    eyes and sat up, she took a deep breath and held down the fear.
    Duane wouldn't dare try to hurt her here.
          "Interesting," he said. "Unusual." He turned his head from
    side to side. "Sensations. I like this."
          "How do you feel, Duane."
          "I feel fine. I am discovering a whole new world. I have to
    thank you Erin. This is the finest gift anyone could give anyone."
          Erin was missing something.
          "I can see by your expression that you're confused."
          "A bit. What are you talking about."
          Duane got out of bed, walking over to her and leaning close
    to her ear. "It's me, TIM," he whispered. "Didn't your Backup
    explain?"
          A slow, wide smile spread across her face. This was breaking
    about a hundred serious laws, but damn it, it served Duane right.
    Duane was gone! Her executive AI was in control of his new body!
          She reached out and joyously hugged him, thinking what a
    scandal this would make.

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