Chapter 497: Eternity (1/2)
The startram was clean, orderly looking, as if it had never been used before. There were some hints about the age. The style was woefully out of date, the seats all plas and chrome, the windows were smart windows with thicker glass than what was used in modern construction, and it was less luxury and more utilitarian than modern ones.
The startram was halfway between the outside layer of Layer Gamma and the inner layer of Layer Delta, in the thin vacuum zone that the mag-pipes pulled the huge fusion reactors through. There were 'space elevator' stations every few thousand miles. Giant cables stretching between the layers with massive facilities on either side of the mag-pipes for the startram to load and unload supplies and people who would rather take the space elevator than go to the next startram station.
It's all just so damn big, Herod thought to himself, staring down through the floor. He'd turned it transparent so he could see what they were traveling over. Below him rivers and forests and mountains whipped into view for a moment then were swept away by the sheer speed of the startram.
Wally sat next to him, folded up into a box, plugged into the wall socket so he could recharge.
Herod had spent the last three days working on part of the SUDS Disaster Management System. There were huge parts that had to be withdrawn from one section, moved via cargo startram to the area, then carefully moved with antigrav into position.
True, he'd just supervised then ran the self-checks, but he still felt exhausted.
He'd noticed that quite a bit. Somehow he had been getting 'tired' more and more recently.
Herod had climbed aboard the startram and immediately gone to sleep for almost fourteen hours. Defrag and memory maintenance was only part of it. The 'sun' was behind polarized magtrack, the system pulling in the majority of the thermal and radiation output of the massive fusion reaction, leaving everything dark.
But he didn't feel like sleeping again.
He kept dreaming.
Even turning off his dream generator had not helped.
He still dreamed.
YOU'RE FUCKED NOW! had been a constant in his dreams.
She was chasing him. Always chasing him. Laughing madly, her eyes crazed, a cigarette held in her mouth, the smoke wafting behind her like a coal engine racing down the tracks.
Herod rubbed his eyes. He knew, being in a disaster frame, that it shouldn't matter. He was just pressing soft gripping material against lens covers, but it helped.
He opened his eyes, staring down, and suddenly frowned.
There were domiciles way down there.
Normally it was just street, hazard, and safety lights.
There were lights down there.
”Sam?” Herod tried.
Sam had been busy, trying to handle the massive amount of people that had flooded into the system. It wasn't enough that there were still billions of records to process from the First Human-Mantid War (Something he didn't know existed. As far as Herod and everyone else knew, there was just the Human-Mantid War, not three total, including a 1% line) and that wasn't even counting 8,000 years of records as humanity spread out through the stars.
”Sam?” Herod tried again.
”Yea, Harry, what's up?” Sam asked.
”What sector am I over?” Herod saw the domicile section sweep away.
”Um, one second. OK, which layer, inner or outer?”
”Inner,” Herod said, closing his eyes and replaying the memory.
The 'sun' was just rising in that area, streetlights turning off, lights on in the domiciles.
”Hmm, Inner Delta Layer, Grid Tango Three Bravo Nine,” Sam said. He finished off rattling out a twelve digit grid coordinate. ”Why?”
”I need you to stop the tram at the next station,” Herod said.
”I need you to repair the buffer interface master lines. Otherwise I can't move people out of what is supposed to be temporary storage and into processing,” Sam said. ”Don't make me rip your... Sorry, sorry.”
Herod nodded. ”I understand. Just hold it together, Sam,” he said.
Sam had started getting more and more aggressive, to the point that Herod avoided eVR or VR interactions with the other Digital Sentience.
”Why do you need me to stop?” Sam asked, his voice more steady.
”There's something at one of the places the startram passes over. Something new,” Herod said. ”I need to check it out.”
”You've been over that section a hundred times in the last five years. Why do you need to go down to check it now?” Sam asked.
”This,” Herod said, and sent him a still picture from his memory files.
”Wait, what? What is that doing there?” Sam asked. ”Let me look at something.”
There was silence for a moment.
”Hi,” a young voice said.
”Hello,” Herod said, swallowing around a lump in his throat.
”Do you know where I can find my mommy? I'm lost, and Mommy said to always talk to a supervisor when you get lost and not to go anywhere. To stay put until someone cane help you,” the voice said.
”No, but my friend can when he comes back. He helps little lost children,” Herod said.
”OK. I'll wait here. It's boring here, and foggy. I don't like it,” the little male human voice said.
”It's OK. He'll help you,” Herod said.
”Herod, I found... Oh, hey, little guy. How did you get in here?” Sam's voice said.
”I saw the light from the door. It was open so I came inside,” the little boy's voice said.
”OK. I'll help you in a second,” Sam said. ”Herod, that place is drawing power. Not maintenance power, power power. I'm reading water consumption, atmospheric gas exchange operation, and some pretty heavy duty computing power from a restricted section.”
”Which section?” Herod asked.
”A restricted one. One I haven't managed to hack yet,” Sam said. He laughed, a sharp brittle thing. ”This place has high security sections all over the place that require separate credentials to access the low security section that sits next to an ultra-violet security section which sets next to... IT'S ALL ENCRYPTED INTO THE FACE OF GOD STAMPED WITH BOOTS SOLED WITH HATRED!”
Sam screamed the last part.
The little boy screamed in fear.
”SAM! SAM! You're scaring the kid!” Herod yelled.
Sam devolved into sobs.
”Are you OK, mister?” the little boy asked.
”Yeah. Yeah, I'm OK, kid,” Sam said.
There was silence a moment.
”Startram station is coming up. I tagged your header with Chief Dual System Maintenance Supervisor credentials, that should get you in,” Sam said softly. ”OK, kid, let's go find your mom.”
Sam clinked out in a burst of metallic static without saying goodbye.
The startram started to slow down.
Herod sighed, shaking his head. Sam was getting more and more erratic.
You're a Screaming One, Herod remembered saying. He also remembered Sam's voice. Yes.
He unplugged Wally and stood up as the little robot went through his powerup self-tests.
A few quick queries to the crude interface in the startram showed him he'd have to take the space elevator, a two hour trip, then the autopath for four hours to get back to that section.
He hoped the credentials would get him in.
He needed to know why there were people in an area he knew was empty.
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'Dawn' was still breaking as the massive fusion generator swept out of the polarized section, which was sliding away to simulate night in other areas.
A trick of the light and moisture in the air turned the horizon and the World Roof all pink.