professor. It was a close knit industry and they were used to working on trust. The look on Emily's face showed that she was beginning to worry that someone had breached that trust.
She said, “Exactly what's wrong with the package?”
Ruth said, “Right now, hundreds of people are standing in the middle of Atlantic Avenue because someone at Polymath has claimed that there is a bomb in that box.”
“I would suggest...” said Emily, “That you talk to the MIT Advanced Storage Lab.”
TWENTY SEVEN
Rosalind didn't believe that Reggie would shoot anyone. The Reginald Binder she knew was a man of precision and control, not one to act on impulse. She had first met Binder years before they started a company together. Rosalind was a woman of many hobbies. Dale appreciated her love of puzzles, but he hadn't stepped even toe deep into the woods yet. Rosalind tutored high school students in calculus. She played twelve tone pieces by Elliot Carter and Nikita Koshkin on the guitar. She followed the development of all forms of transportation technology. She was, in a couple words, a little weird.
Five years ago she visited the Alternative Clean Transportation expo when it came to the Bayside Center. The fair featured advanced batteries, solar cells, and even combustible algae. She encountered Binder in a railroad exhibit. Reggie loved trains more than a little boy. He was arguing with a docent about the history of electric light rail. He treated the subject as though it were as grave as nuclear war. Rosalind was never one to read people's emotions, but she could tell that Reggie was angry. Even so, his voice never quivered and he never descended into the roughshod logic that people use when making a point about about which they are passionate. Reggie was never satisfied with winning a fight by force. Even if his opponent admitted defeat, a voice inside Binder would never let him forget that he hadn't employed reason to humiliate his opponent.
A few years later, that instinct had brought to life Reggie's one true love: the Sorter. Nagel may have conceived it, but Reggie had made it real by sheer will power. The Sorter was his baby and Rosalind believed he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his control, including turning the office into a blood bath. That's why when the pistol appeared, she was willing to let him speak. A part of her even wanted him to use that logic engine to change her mind. She was wrong about him.
Before Dale reappeared, Rosalind had been in the conference room with Kevin, George, Marianne and Reggie.
Reggie said, “Kevin, how long have I known you?”
Kevin shrugged.
“Answer the question.” said Reggie.
“We met in college.”
“We were roommates. We've been best friends for more than half our lives. Without that friendship, you would still be begging to get your professor's chair back.” Reggie pointed to Rosalind with the hand that wasn't holding the pistol. “I would never say we were best friends. I'm not even sure we were ever friends at all, but I know you're the most rational person I've ever met. How did you turn into a lovestruck, capricious little girl? In three years, that man will need a walker and someone to wipe his drool. I hope it's worth it.”
Rosalind folded her hands on the conference table and said, “My relationship with Dale is a coincidence. You may have had the vision to get us this far, but you don't understand what the Sorter can do.”
Pointing at Nagel, Reggie said, “Find someone else who can make reality out of this man's lizard scratchings.”
Rosalind said, “I was working in finance when the crisis broke. We used think our models could predict whether the price of this or that derivative would go up or down. The premise of those models was a rational market and we failed to quantify the effects of irrationality. We erased money from existence and ruined the lives of millions.” Rosalind pounded on the table, surprising even herself. “The Sorter mines the mathematics buried deep beneath all that human emotion. It quantifies irrationality and offers us the hope of a more stable society.”
“I want nothing less.” said Reggie.
“All you care about is enforcing a moral code. Your vision of the Sorter is sharia law for atheists, an Inquisition run by omniscient software.”
“You seem to think money is more important than justice.”
“Whose justice?” said Rosalind. “The Sorter may tell you what people will do and maybe even why they will do it, but never whether it's right or wrong.” She stood up. “The man who killed your wife is dead, Reggie. Let him lie.”
As Rosalind said this, she noticed Dale returning to the office. Reggie raised the gun at Dale.
God no he's really going to kill someone, she thought.
The shot went off. Dale was still standing. He ran and Reggie went after him. For a moment, the others sat in the room, staring at each other. George was the first to leave. Rosalind had to tell herself to move, just move and do something for Dale, even if there was only a slim chance that she might love him.
Nagel and Marianne brought up the rear. When they all reached Reggie and Dale, the former had cornered the latter against the door to the engineering room. He aimed and Rosalind shouted.
“No!”
Reggie turned as if he'd decided to finish her off first. Then he looked past her and froze. Everyone turned and there was Cass, naked as a bird.
TWENTY EIGHT
The first image that slipped through John's mind was that of a Barbie doll, or a mannequin. The beautiful receptionist who'd brought John and Jason inside stood unclothed, but not exactly nude. Cass was as smooth as plastic. If he'd seen a photo he might have thought she was wearing a skin color body suit, but from this distance and in three dimensions it was clear that her glassy surface was her skin. Whatever he was seeing was a deformity or not human at all. Given the kind of day he'd been having, John was leaning toward not human. Indeed, he had a pretty good notion of just what kind of not-human thing this woman was.
Cass blinked. She didn't blink her eyes. Her entire body blinked. It vanished and returned. Then it happened it again. She spoke and John could hear her voice. The voice didn't come through the door, but from everywhere, from the speakers in the PA system.
“You have to stop what you're doing.” she said. “Or the child will destroy me.”
Then she was gone and stayed gone long enough for everyone's expression to lose that momentary bewilderment and return to fear or anger. John didn't want to see what happened next. He had another problem.
Somehow, he'd lost Jason. Of all the places and times for the boy to wander off, he had to choose here and now. There were only three exits from the room. There was a table in front of one door and the other was locked, perhaps because it was connected to the building's security system and not to Polymath's. This left the third door, the one with the nonfunctional keypad. John pulled on the third door and it opened.
He was sure Jason was in there, but not sure what else might be in there with him. Before passing through the door, John looked for some kind of weapon. The best he could do was a long Phillips screwdriver. The end of it was nearly a foot and a half long, suitable for reaching screws buried in the cavities of electronics. The tip was small and sharp. It would have to do.
John went through the keypad door and found himself inside a server room. This was a show room, with wide screens and computers encased in a fancy glass box. It was small and Jason wasn't there. John opened a door at the room's other end and entered a very different place.
This must be the real deal, he thought.
The dark chamber shrieked with high speed air handling equipment. Racks upon racks of ATC chassis filled the tight spaces. A few of the racks were empty. Someone had yanked computer boards out of them and dumped them on the floor. John stepped over the boards, calling for Jason. He found the boy standing near a row of gas tanks. These were likely a part of the suppression system that John was sent here to repair. Jason had his hand on a fire alarm switch. He'd stripped down to his underwear. He wa
s shivering, crying and fighting a runny nose. He was more frightened than John has ever seen him.
“Jason?” said John. “What's going on?”
“Who told you to do what?”
“The woman who let us in.” Jason sucked in a snot. “I need to pull the lever.”
“Why?”
“If anyone comes in with a gun, I need to pull the lever.”
“Jason, come away from there.”
The boy shook his head. John held the screwdriver in front of him and inched toward Jason.
“Come on, do what I tell you. Your mom's coming and we need to leave.”
“I can't.” said Jason. “She'll explode the bomb if I let go.”
“There's no bomb. You can I drove that truck here. We know there's no bomb. That's stupid.”
Jason shook his head again and John came closer still. When he spoken again, he was yelling.
“Kid, do what the hell I tell you. There's no bomb and you're mom's coming.” When Jason sniveled, John stuck the screwdriver out and him and said, “Put. Your. Clothes. On. Now. Now, Jason. We're leaving.”
“No.”
“I swear I will put this thing in you if I have to.”
“That lady wants to kill herself. Look up.”
Despite his frame of mind, John did. Because that's what you do when someone says look up. He saw that there were two fire suppressant systems. One was based on CO2 gas and drive by the tanks along the wall. The other was