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cigarette appeared between her lips. "But I can't stand any more. I
wish I was an accountant like you, Rose. Or a detective like you, Albert. Then
I could help. But I'm just a truck driver."
"You're keeping an eye on things," said Rose. "What are the other Lisas
doing?"
The window screen flickered, and there was Lisa, in bed alone. Flicker, and
Lisa was on the street, hinting to a man who looked young--but probably was
not--that she wanted company, and perhaps a little something more. Flick
again, and Lisa was surrounded by crimson walls and other women wrapped in
transparent silk. Flick once more, and Lisa was standing in her garden, one
hand holding her chin while the other showed a dozen servants, each as
haggard, each as torn between fear and desire, as Michael, where to stand and
how to pose. "That's where I want it," she was saying. She waved a hand, and
they were naked. Again, and the human forms fused into a head-high wall that
might have been carved from stone. They lingered longest over that one, for
there was something
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both macabre and fascinating about a Lisa who could preserve her victims and
their anguish forevermore, presumably while still diverting their trickles of
data energy to her own uses. But then Ingrid gave her head a single abrupt
jerk and sought for more Lisas. She found them too:
shopping, dining, swimming, walking, usually accompanied by men who hung on
their every move, ensnared, eager to be drained as only she could drain them.
"How many are there?" asked Rose, sounding awed. "I count fifteen," said
Ingrid. "Sixteen, with the first."
"A power of two," said Albert. "The original Lisa must have doppled four times
since she was copied. The dopples too. She's a glutton."
"Not just that," said Rose. A glutton would wish only to consume all she
could. Lisa wanted to spread the gluttony as far and as fast as possible.
"She's a disease." Then she shuddered at the thought of what the ability to
dopple would mean if it could possibly spread to the meat world. Fortunately
... But there was nothing fortunate about it, was there? The meat world
already had the ability, not for individuals, but for groups, for populations,
and human numbers had doubled and doubled again, and again. Lisa was just
acting out the nature of her species.
Ingrid cleared the screen to let it be a window once more, and Rose remembered
that Lisa was not stealing only from her lovers, but also from the computer
itself, creating defects in the common space, the world Marvin had created for
all his guests to share when they were not enjoying their private realities.
And there those defects were: several ancient cars along the curb; litter
windrowed in the gutters and scattered across lawns; boarded-up windows that
spoke of abandoned buildings; dirt and shabbiness, increased already to the
point where she suddenly wondered whether she had truly ever left the meat
world. A
glance at her hands reassured her. Before, she had been wrinkled, weak, old.
Her body had even smelled different, and her nose had retained just enough
sensitivity for her to recognize the odor of her great-grandmother and her
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apartment. She had died when Rose was only six. But Rose had not died. She had
left her meat behind, yes. But she still lived. She still enjoyed reality, a
reality, even though that reality now seemed flawed, contaminated, far too
much like the reality she had left behind. But was Lisa really acting out the
nature of her species?
Or a nature? Other people littered and were careless of their world. But
Rose knew of no one else whose carelessness was so extreme, whose acts struck
at the very underpinnings of reality, whose impact could not be reversed by
time or human effort. She also knew of many who were not careless, who were
concerned with the integrity of the world, who strove to conserve and preserve
and repair. Yet one was all it took, wasn't it?
If Lisa doppled again and again, whether she preyed on men or not, she would
destroy the world in which they all lived. She would destroy everyone. She
would even destroy herself. Rose laughed curtly, dryly. If
Lisa ever thought of that possibility, it could not matter to her. It was too
far in the foggy future, unreal, something for other people to fix if they
could, and if they couldn't ... Tant pis. So much the worse. The root of the
problem was the same in both the virtual and the meat worlds.
Short-sightedness. Lacking that, greed and irresponsibility could be tempered.
With it ... If there were any hope for the virtual world at all, it lay in
stopping Lisa and any like her who ever came again. They would have to prove
her guilt and figure out precisely how she did what she did so that Marvin
could install safeguards. Would they then be able to turn Lisa loose? If the
safeguards worked, of course they could. But no one would trust her. Surely,
no one should trust her. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]