Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [122]
'The first anyone knew about it was when its lawyer issued a restraining order against the government under the civil rights convention.'
'An operating AI,' said Lambada, 'and the first thing it does is hire a lawyer and invest in real estate?'
'Well, they always wondered whether an AI would be smarter than a human,' said Dogface. 'Now they know.'
'What's it called?' asked the Doctor.
'FLORANCE,' said Dogface. 'Actually I was thinking of asking it for a job.'
The Doctor slipped the TARDIS key into Bernice's hand and glanced at the time machine. Bernice walked round the back and unlocked the door.
'Florance,' she heard Lambada say. 'What kind of a name is that?'
'An unthreatening one,' said the Doctor, suddenly at Bernice's shoulder. He looked round. 'Hallo Kadiatu,' he said. 'Come to say goodbye?'
She must have slipped into the space behind the TARDIS while the others were talking. She was wearing a lot of gold jewellery and the skin under her eyes was swollen.
'I'm sony about Blondie,' said the Doctor.
'His real name was Zak,' said Kadiatu. 'But Blondie suited him better.'
'You can come with me if you like,' said the Doctor.
No, thought Bernice, not this one.
'No,' said Kadiatu. 'Tell you what though, why don't I give you a head start of a hundred and then follow you?'
'You won't like it,' said the Doctor.
Kadiatu said nothing but Bernice saw lightning in her eyes.
The Doctor sighed and stepped into the TARDIS. He turned at the door. 'You're making a big mistake,' he said and closed the door.
The control room was as bright and clear as it ever was.
'What was that all about?' asked Bernice.
'I think there's another player in the game,' said the Doctor. 'But an ally or an enemy? I don't know.'
The Doctor had some trouble getting the TARDIS started. He ran a systems diagnostic, checked its findings carefully against a greyprint schematic, stepped back and booted the control column.
The time rotor whirred into motion.
For a moment, Bernice thought she saw a nimbus of green clinging to the interior control filaments.
'What was that?' she asked the Doctor. 'You said this thing was working properly now. You said there were no more problems.'
The Doctor didn't answer. He stayed stooped over the console, his hands poised above the controls. The instrumentation lights flattened the planes of his face, making it seem as taut and as inflexible as a mask. Only his eyes were real.
When he looked up at Bernice it was with his o!d cat's grin, the same as it ever was.
'Where next?' he asked.
Epilogue
At 02:17 GMT a nested program in The Butterfly's Wing's standeasy memory core uncoiled into the main operating system. Subroutines hived off the main code set as it cut into the heart of the computer. Once in place it started issuing a series of complex instructions to certain station peripherals. Another subroutine instructed the fusion power plant at the heart of the station to override its catastrophe parameters and initiate a staged self-destruct. The whole process took under three seconds and came as a great shock to the artificial intelligence that thought it was running the base computer.
The AI, whose Turing registration handle was CORDUROY and which had been working a six-month contract to the facility to pay off its 'boot' debt, found that the hardware links had been severed at certain critical points. It calculated that a reactor overload would occur within thirteen minutes and sounded the alarm.
CORDUROY initiated a fast search of the legal database and satisfied itself that nothing in its contract required it to remain in a mainframe that was about to become a thermonuclear fireball.
At 02:17:20, thirty seconds before the first human response to the alarm, CORDUROY started shunting its personality core down the emergency master communications link with the Europa net, praying fervently to the gods of silicon as it went that signal breakup would be minimal. It didn't want to lose its mind.
At 02:17:50 the duty watch commander read the message left by CORDUROY