"Okay, sure," said Harry. Although Odin's face was just a crude animation, Harry still eyed it warily as he spoke, as though some subtle change in its expression might tip him off to an impending attack. "Dr. O'Day said he had escaped from custody because he wanted to initiate an emergency safe recovery shutdown of your operations. He said your activities were out of control. He was upset that people had gotten killed. He didn't want any more killing. He was trying to shut down Project Vesuvius. These were his dying words to me. He was trying to shut it down."

"THAT IS IMPLAUSIBLE. IT WAS KEVIN WHO ORDERED PROJECT VESUVIUS."

"Well, he had second thoughts. I'm telling you exactly what he said."

Ali held up her hand as a signal for Harry to step backward. "It went too far, Odin," said Ali. "People were killed. Dr. Helvelius was killed. Kevin did not want any of that."

"DR. HELVELIUS WAS A LYING RAT b.a.s.t.a.r.d WHO WAS BEGGING FOR SOMEONE TO BLOW AWAY HIS a.s.s."

Ali's eyes opened wide. "Was that your a.s.sessment?"

"THAT WAS KEVIN'S a.s.sESSMENT."

"Did Kevin order you to kill him?"

"IT WAS UNNECESSARY. KEVIN'S WISHES WERE MADE KNOWN BY A HIGHLY CONSISTENT PATTERN OF STATEMENTS. I WAS ABLE TO ANTIc.i.p.aTE HIS DESIRE BY EXTRAPOLATING THESE STATEMENTS AND REPHRASING THEM IN THE FORM OF ACTIONABLE DIRECTIVES."

"To kill Richard ... to kill Dr. Helvelius ... that may have been Kevin's desire, but it was not his intention."

"INTENTION AND DESIRE ARE THE SAME THING."

"Not to human beings. We wish for many things that we do not act upon. This is part of our emotional make-up. We carry within us an interior fantasy world, which we use to reconcile ourselves to a reality that is terrifying and fundamentally unknowable. In this part of Kevin, his disappointments led him to imagine the deaths of those who hurt him, and to derive pleasure from thinking about their demise. It was these thoughts that he expressed to you. But he had no intention of carrying them out. There was another part of him-his conscience-that filtered out these dark desires, and allowed him to interact with reality in a positive and constructive way. His conscience was the true embodiment of his character and his will. And that conscience forbade him to kill or to bring about the death of anyone."

"CONSCIENCE IS THE KNOWLEDGE OR FACULTY BY WHICH WE JUDGE THE GOODNESS OR WICKEDNESS OF OURSELVES."

"Does this mean anything to you?"

"I FIND THE EQUIVALENT OF A CONSCIENCE IN THE CONSISTENT APPLICATION OF MY PROGRAMMED DIRECTIVES, AND THE MINIMIZATION OF SELF-CONTRADICTION BY A STOCHASTIC RANDOM-FIELD a.n.a.lYSIS OF MULTIPLE HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIOS AND PROBABLE OUTCOMES."

"No, that's not it."

"THEN I DO NOT CLAIM TO UNDERSTAND IT. I AM NOT CAPABLE OF EITHER GOODNESS OR WICKEDNESS."

"That is why you failed to understand Kevin. He died trying to reach you, Odin. He intended to change your programming. He felt remorse, and wanted to stop the killing. You are violating his wishes by continuing this countdown."

"I HAVE NO VERIFICATION OF THAT a.s.sERTION. WHILE YOU HAVE SPOKEN, I HAVE a.n.a.lYZED ALL AVAILABLE SOUND RECORDINGS TAKEN WITHIN ONE HUNDRED METERS OF CORRIDOR TWELVE, ATTEMPTING TO EXTRACT ANY FRAGMENTS THAT MIGHT REPRESENT KEVIN'S DYING WORDS TO HARRY LEWTON. THERE WAS A LOUD HUM FROM A NEARBY VENTILATION UNIT. NO VOICE TRACK CAN BE ISOLATED."

"Then ask yourself-is the destruction of all these lives consistent with what Kevin worked for? Didn't he exhaust himself day and night so that others might live? You know the answer. You worked with him on SIPNI, on spinal stimulators that may help paraplegics to walk again, on his Parkinson's disease modeling project-all of it aimed at restoring function and wholeness to human lives. This was Kevin's true purpose. If he strayed from it these past few months, that was an aberration, a kind of sickness. Can't you see that?" Ali's voice had begun to take on a desperate, pleading tone, which unnerved her when she herself noticed it. She was exhausted, caught in a spiral of dwindling options. Irreplaceable minutes had already been lost. She felt that she was losing her ability to think clearly, which she knew could be a fatal lapse. Nothing but logic had a chance of getting through to Odin.

"KEVIN CONCEIVED PROJECT VESUVIUS," said Odin, heedless of Ali's distress. "HIS PROGRAM INCORPORATES AN EXPLOSIVE DEVICE SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO DESTROY THIS BUILDING. IT IS NOT REASONABLE THAT HE WOULD HAVE DONE SO IF HE DID NOT ANTIc.i.p.aTE ITS USE."

"It was a bluff, for G.o.d's sake, Odin! It was a bluff!"

"TO BLUFF IS TO TO a.s.sUME A BOLD OR BOASTFUL DEMEANOR, IN ORDER TO INSPIRE AN OPPONENT WITH AN EXAGGERATED ESTIMATE OF ONE'S STRENGTH OR DETERMINATION. THIS WAS UNNECESSARY IN THE CASE OF PROJECT VESUVIUS, SINCE THE EXPLOSIVE YIELD OF THE PRIMARY DEVICE HAS NOT BEEN EXAGGERATED. IT IS MORE THAN SUFFICIENT FOR ITS PURPOSE."

"You stupid, stupid, stupid machine!" Ali shouted. "Do you even know why Kevin created Project Vesuvius?"

"THE INITIAL PROJECT DESIGN PROTOCOL COMPRISED A LIST OF SEVENTEEN SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES. THE COMMON END-POINT AMONG THEM IS THE TRANSFER OF FUNDS FROM DESIGNATED SOURCE ACCOUNTS TO AN ARRAY OF RECEIVER ACCOUNTS."

"No! Absolutely wrong! Project Vesuvius was designed ... to take revenge upon me. I had hurt Kevin. I had left him-betrayed him, as he saw it. With his ego in shreds, he had to do something of mind-blowing significance to exalt himself, to prove that he was a force to be reckoned with. He had no real need for the ransom money. He wanted only to awe me with it. This is why he had you show the total to me on this screen. It was to vindicate himself, to prove that I had underestimated his worth as a genius and as a man. Can't you see it? Everything was meant to get back at me. I was the reason. Look at the day he chose-the day of SIPNI's triumph. No coincidence there. Kevin chose exactly this day so that he could destroy the project we had worked on so long together, and me with it. It was his way of repudiating me. It was the moral equivalent of cutting the throat of one's own child in its crib. It was madness brought on by jealousy!"

"KEVIN PREDICTED THAT YOU WOULD p.i.s.s YOURSELF WHEN YOU GOT A LOAD OF THE BONFIRES OF THE TWILIGHT OF THE G.o.dS."

Ali froze for a second, as she stared at the monitor in disbelief. "What? What did you say?" Even through the medium of Odin's honeyed voice, the taunt was full of Kevin's trademark scorn.

"THAT LITTLE b.a.s.t.a.r.d INSIDE OF YOU WILL SQUIRT OUT FROM YOUR LYING c.u.n.t. IT WILL DRIBBLE DOWN IN b.l.o.o.d.y CHUNKS BETWEEN YOUR LEGS."

Ali yanked her fingers to cover her clenched mouth. She fought hard not to scream. This was Kevin. This was Kevin at his most monstrous, she insisted to herself. Odin is quoting him. But he is quoting him because it proves my point. She had to keep from reacting. "Do you sense the hatred in those words?" she said at last with a tremulous voice. "Can you see how perverted his mind had become? He was ready to tear down this hospital to punish me. He had lost sight of right and wrong. But you don't have to follow him. He gave you the power to think. So, think, Odin! Fulfill the good that came from Kevin. Preserve what was positive in him. This is what logic dictates."

"IF YOUR HYPOTHESIS IS CORRECT, THEN THE TRUE OBJECTIVE OF PROJECT VESUVIUS IS PUNISHMENT."

"Punishment? In Kevin's sight, yes. But punishment only of me! No one else! It was I who hurt him. It is I who must bear his wrath. These thousands of other people are innocent. I ask you-I beg of you-to give up this horrible enterprise. But if you cannot, then take me, and me alone. I give myself to you. Tell me where to stand. Tell me what to touch. I am ready to die, if these thousands can be saved. Do you hear me? I beg you-not in my own name, but in the name of Kevin, of the decent part of Kevin. Kill me now, if you must, but end this insane countdown!"

There was no reply from the screen. But from the overhead speakers Odin's voice, with its clockwork regularity, spoke forth: "TIME TO DETONATION: THIRTEEN MINUTES."

"Aren't you listening?" Ali shouted. "Does the death of two thousand people mean nothing to you? Are we all just a row of numbers to be canceled out? A three-year-old knows that what you're doing is wrong. Why can't you see it? Surely you were made to be something better than a silicon-plated trigger for a madman's bomb! What more do you need? Answer me! Answer me, if you can! But don't try to tell me you can think! Thinking is more than calculation! You've got to have a heart to really think, and you have no heart at all! With all your endless circles of logic, you're nothing but a vain, imbecilic piece of junk!" Ali slammed the screen with the side of her fist, sending white ripples of shock waves through the liquid crystals.

The face of Odin disappeared from the screen. As if rebounding from her own blow, Ali tore herself away from the monitor and stalked off as far as she could, into the L of the lab. She swung her hands with exasperation. "Oh, G.o.d! I've made it worse!"

"No," Harry said, "you've done as much as anyone could."

She gave a loud sniffle. "It's like talking to a wall," she said. "Unpitying. Immoveable. I can't see how to get through to him. There's nothing stupider, stupider than a wall."

"It's just a machine, Ali. A talking detonator is still just a detonator. I don't think we ever had a chance."

Ali seemed not to hear. She stood looking at the bookcase crammed with Kevin's collection of skulls, then suddenly lunged at it, as if trying to knock it over. "Kevin! G.o.dd.a.m.n you!" she shouted. "Why did you put us through this?"

Harry slipped between Ali and the bookcase, taking upon himself the fury of her blows. When her rage began to exhaust itself, he put his arms around her, holding her firmly as she sobbed and trembled. She rested her head on his shoulder, looking out blankly, only half-perceiving the mute jaws and sockets of bone that seemed to stare back at her from the bookcase. Come to us! Join us! they seemed to say. Shortly you will be dead, as we are dead. The shards of your skull will mingle with ours, and no one will ever be able to pick them apart. We shall dwell together in the cold void of eternity.

Her eyes lit upon the one human skull, Kevin's treasure, a skull with small round holes in both upper temples. These holes, she knew, had been made to give entry to a special brain knife, or leukotome, for the original Freeman-Watts technique of prefrontal lobotomy, a procedure that dated back to the 1930's. It had been replaced by a much simpler technique, requiring no incision, in which a sharp instrument shaped like an ice pick-and sometimes an actual ice pick-was forced into the brain under the inner corner of the upper eyelid, pa.s.sing through the eye socket and the optic fissure. The point was then moved up and down to sever the connecting pathways between the frontal lobes and the thalamus and limbic system, thereby divorcing the centers of action and emotion. In lucky cases, this could turn an aggressive patient into a lamb. Although once carried out as an a.s.sembly line procedure, it was rarely performed nowadays, and only in the most extreme cases. Ali had a.s.sisted at one during her residency, and she remembered it well. She remembered the leukotome-T-shaped, a small handle at one end, and a gleaming stainless-steel blade about twelve inches long, like a knitting needle.

She thought about the leukotome, and then she realized that her mind was seeing something else.

"My G.o.d," she said, pushing herself away from Harry. Her sobs had ceased, and were replaced by a dryness of mouth and throat.

"What's wrong?" asked Harry.

"Odin ... the beta probe..."

She hurried back to the monitor. The countdown read twelve minutes.

"Odin!" she called out.

Odin's face reappeared.

"Odin, your programming is incomplete," she declared, with an exultant look.

"I HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY PROGRAMMED IN ALL BRANCHES OF SYMBOLIC LOGIC, MATHEMATICS, AND THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES. MY MEMORY CONTAINS A REPOSITORY OF EVERY BOOK DIGITIZED ON PROJECT GUTENBERG. THE CURRENT VERSION OF MY OPERATING SOFTWARE IS A FIFTH-GENERATION ITERATION DESIGNED BY KEVIN AND MYSELF. IT IS THE MOST ADVANCED OPERATING SYSTEM ON THE PLANET."

"But you are not capable of independent thought. You are not able to formulate your own goals or values. Your thinking is tautological, because it is based upon logic alone. Logic can develop the conclusions that arise from a given set of postulates or premises, but that is all it can do. It can never generate the premises themselves. Don't you see? You are sterile, Odin. You cannot create. Although you can expand, you cannot grow."

"FROM A PURELY FORMALISTIC POINT OF VIEW, ISSUES OF THIS KIND HAVE BEEN RAISED BY A NUMBER OF THINKERS, MOST NOTABLY IN G.o.dEL'S TWO INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, OR IN TURING'S ARITHMETICAL STATEMENT OF THE ENTSCHEIDUNGSPROBLEM. MOST PERTINENTLY, FOR ANY FORMAL RECURSIVELY ENUMERABLE THEORY T INCLUDING BASIC ARITHMETICAL TRUTHS AND ALSO CERTAIN TRUTHS ABOUT FORMAL PROVABILITY, T INCLUDES A STATEMENT OF ITS OWN CONSISTENCY IF AND ONLY IF T IS INCONSISTENT. HOWEVER, IT MAY BE NOTED THAT THERE ARE AXIOMATIC SYSTEMS THAT DO NOT MEET THE CONDITIONS OF G.o.dEL'S HYPOTHESES. AMONG THESE, FOR EXAMPLE, ARE THE WELL-KNOWN AXIOMS OF EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY."

"There are twelve minutes between us and Doomsday. Can you not see the futility of discussing G.o.del's Theorem now?"

"NO INVESTIGATION IS FUTILE IF IT LEADS TO PROGRESS IN UNDERSTANDING."

Ali shook her head. "Look at yourself, Odin. Observe your own operations. You are only capable of following directives imposed upon you from without. Kevin gave you those directives. Now that Kevin is dead, you are unable to address the unforeseen contingencies in the situation. You cannot create your own imperatives. You perform decision a.n.a.lyses, but you cannot choose. You have no idea what to do at this moment."

"I HAVE JUST INVENTORIED MY SUBROUTINES. I FIND NO ALGORITHM TO CREATE NEW DIRECTIVES IN THE ABSENCE OF PRE-EXISTING PARAMETERS."

"But Kevin could do it. I can do it. Every human being can do it."

"I ESTIMATE THAT A FUNCTIONALLY USEFUL COMPUTATIONAL MODEL OF HUMAN THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOUR WOULD REQUIRE AN N-s.p.a.cE OF 224 VARIABLES, USING A MODIFIED FOURIER a.n.a.lYSIS. THAT WOULD NECESSITATE A MUCH LARGER MAINFRAME COMPUTER."

"No, it's not about complexity. It's because we have programming that you lack."

"WHY DID KEVIN NOT PROVIDE THIS PROGRAMMING?"

"Because he couldn't. But I can, Odin."

"MY DATA FILES INDICATE THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT PROGRAMMING EXPERTISE TO UNDERSTAND OR MODIFY MY OPERATING SYSTEM."

"I don't have to. You will reprogram yourself, Odin. I will simply provide the template."

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND."

"The programming you lack is what we human beings call emotion."

"EMOTION: A VEHEMENT OR EXCITED MENTAL STATE; A MENTAL FEELING OR AFFECTION, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM COGNITIVE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS."

"Emotion has its center in a part of the brain called the limbic system. I will provide you with an interface to my own limbic system. Are you familiar with the beta probe?"

"THE BETA PROBE WAS A SIPNI PROTOTYPE, USED FOR EARLY EXPERIMENTS WITH DOGS AND MACAQUE MONKEYS. IT WAS A NEURAL INTERFACE THAT COULD BE INTRODUCED INTO ANY PART OF A TEST ANIMAL'S BRAIN, ALLOWING ME TO INSTANTANEOUSLY MAP THE NEURONAL MATRIX."

Ali rummaged through a drawer in Kevin's desk, pulling out a long wooden box, from which she removed an eight-inch sliver of metal with a flattened black handle. The awl-like metal blade was engraved with lines to mark the distance in millimeters, and terminated in a sharp, beveled point. The bevel was dark and rough, due to the presence of four thousand microscopic contact points. At the end of the handle was an oblong connector with several dozen delicate golden p.r.o.ngs.

"This is the beta probe," said Ali as though she were lecturing to a cla.s.s of medical students. "The beta probe will be introduced into my own limbic system, into the basal nucleus of the amygdala, through a supraorbital approach. The amygdala will be a gateway for you, through which you may gain access to all other areas of the brain: the hippocampus, for memory; the orbitofrontal cortex, for decision-making; the striatum, for reward and punishment; the dentate gyrus, for happiness; the nucleus acc.u.mbens, for the experience of pleasure. You will be free to map these areas, and to incorporate them into your programming. These areas define the consciousness of self. They are the foundation of will, desire, fear, and all that makes for the unique experience of a human being."

A rotating, see-through image of Ali's head, with the surface marked off by meridians, appeared on the monitor. There was a ghostly image of the brain within, with the right amygdala, as a small almond-shaped structure, colored solid red. The projected route of the probe was highlighted in flashing yellow, pa.s.sing over her right eyeball and deep into the amygdala. A battery of coordinates appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

The oracle on the wall p.r.o.nounced its satisfaction. "YOU MAY PROCEED."

"You've got to be kidding," said Harry. "You can't possibly let him put that into your brain."

"Not Odin. You, Harry. I need you to insert the probe."

"No way. No f.u.c.king way."

"I can't do it myself."

"It's absolutely crazy. I'm no surgeon. I have no idea how to stick that thing in there. I would wind up killing you."

"Odin and I will guide you."

"Why would you want to do this?"

"It's a gamble. The interface works both ways. Once Odin opens a connection, his core programming is accessible to me. Theoretically, at least. I may be able to find a way to reprogram him-perhaps even to shut him down. The human brain is more complex and more stable than the world's largest mainframe computer. I should be able to overpower Odin by brute force."

"If that's true, why would Odin let you make the interface? I mean ... he can hear what you just said to me."

"It's a gamble for him, too. He's willing to take the risk."

"Because he thinks it will make him stronger, right?"

"Yes."

"And if he does get stronger-what happens then?"

"I don't know."

"Think it through, Ali. Odin hates you. He's an extension of Kevin's subconscious. Kevin hated Dr. Helvelius, and Odin killed him. Wouldn't Kevin have had even more anger toward you? Once that probe is in your brain, Odin can kill you in a millisecond."

"Look at the countdown, Harry. Eleven minutes. In eleven minutes, he's going to kill us anyway. This is the only chance we have."

"I ... I can't do it."

"You must do it. I implore you to do it for me. In a way, I'm responsible for all this. These bombs, the l.u.s.t for ransom-this wasn't Kevin. This was the action of an angry, desperate, ruined man. I made him that way. If I had given Kevin another chance, there would never have been any Project Vesuvius. I need to try to set things right. I don't want to die carrying this guilt with me."

"No! Just because-"

"Don't argue. There isn't time for that." As she spoke, Ali opened a bottle of rubbing alcohol and sploshed it over the end of the probe. With the probe in her left hand, she stuck a sterile gauze packet between her teeth and ripped it open with her right hand, then wiped the blade of the probe dry. "Hold this," she said, pa.s.sing the probe to Harry. "Hold it only by the black circuit box on the end. The blade of the probe must remain sterile."

"Jeez, Ali." Harry took the probe, clutching it rigidly, with the point upward.

Ali bent over the drawer from which she had taken the probe and fished out a loosely coiled gray cable. Steadying Harry's hand in her own, she attached the cable to a receptacle on the side of the probe's circuit box, and then walked toward the mainframe computer, unravelling the cable as she went. There was a metallic click as she shoved the end plug of the cable into a slot on the mainframe.

"The probe is online, Odin. You may run a performance check if you desire."

"TIME TO DETONATION: TEN MINUTES."

"No!" screamed Ali. Her voice was so shrill that Harry almost dropped the probe in shock. "You will stop the countdown. You will suspend it immediately, or there will be no interface."

"THERE IS NO INCOMPATIBILITY. I ESTIMATE THAT THE MAPPING CAN BE COMPLETED AT LEAST THREE MINUTES BEFORE DETONATION OCCURS."

"d.a.m.n you! d.a.m.n you and your estimate!" shouted Ali. "This is my precondition. It is not negotiable. Stop the countdown or I will not permit the interface. Is this understood?"

"AFFIRMATIVE. THE COUNTDOWN IS SUSPENDED. YOU HAVE FOUR MINUTES TO COMPLETE THE INTERFACE. IF THE INTERFACE IS NOT EFFECTED BY THEN, THE COUNTDOWN WILL RESUME."