Alice got up from the bed and laughed. "You don't give up, do you?"

"I'm persistent. I don't give up until I get what I want. It's what makes me good at my job."

"Good thing, 'cause you certainly won't get by on your looks."

"Hey! What about my nice a.s.s?"

"Why do you think I was looking at your a.s.s instead of your face?"

Spence mimicked being wounded in the chest. "Ouch! Shot to the heart."

"Don't worry, Spence-if I ever really really shoot you, it'll be between the eyes." shoot you, it'll be between the eyes."

"That isn't very romantic."

Her voice grew serious. "This job isn't romantic. It's mostly boring, mindless, and irritating, right up until they need you to perform, at which point it's exciting, nerve-racking, and requires you to be either absolutely perfect or really really dead." She looked away. "Romance doesn't enter into it."

Even as she spoke the words, she thought about living with Spence for three months, babysitting the secret door in the mirror, checking people as they came in and out, filling out daily reports that she could, after five years, do in her sleep, and otherwise just sitting around going through the books in that library or the DVDs in the sitting room.

A breeting sound echoed through the high-ceilinged mansion. Alice tensed, then realized that it was the cordless phone on the nightstand next to the bed.

She walked over, picked it up, and hit the talk b.u.t.ton. "Yes?"

"Ja.n.u.s," said the voice on the other side.

That, Alice knew, was the code word indicating that this was a security call. She immediately hung up the phone and moved into the living room. Spence got up and followed her.

Next to the Louis XIV couch-which Alice had been afraid to sit in when she first arrived for fear that a museum guard would yell at her not to touch the exhibits-sat a beautiful wooden end table that looked to be as much an antique as the couch. It doubled as a cabinet, probably originally intended to store drinks or table linens or some such. This one housed a red phone that was attached to a phone line installed under the end table via a hole drilled into the bottom that probably cut the piece's value by eighty percent. The receiver was attached to the hook via a good old-fashioned spiral phone cord. As good as telephonic security could be, a hardwired line was infinitely easier to secure and harder to penetrate.

Alice picked up the red phone. "Prospero."

The voice on the other side was the same androgynous voice that had called on the main phone. "Verify position."

At that, Alice let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. It was just a simple check-in call, making sure that she and Spence were safely ensconced. "We're in the house. All's well."

"Verified. Out."

The line went dead.

"And you have a nice evening, too." She sighed, hung up the phone, and closed the end table cabinet door.

Spence smiled. He had, she decided, a charming smile. And he really did have a nice a.s.s.

"So, ten o'clock and all's well?"

"Something like that," she said. "So, want to show me how to make an ashtray?"

He laughed. She liked his laugh, too.

Maybe this a.s.signment wouldn't be quite so boring after all...

Four.

OVER THE LAST TWO MONTHS, LISA BROWARD had learned to well and truly despise the Hive's computer system.

Since it first came into existence, Umbrella had always had state-of-the-art computer technology, always first with the newest innovations in both hardware and software.

What they put on the market was usually about five years behind what they had for themselves. The head programmer for the most recent upgrade to the Hive was a British man named Dr. Simon Barr.

Lisa had first encountered Barr at MIT when she was an undergraduate, and he was teaching a cla.s.s in applied artificial intelligence. He opened the semester with a variation on Lewis Carroll that had fooled most of the students, including Lisa, into thinking he would be one of those charming, daffy old Brits.

"The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things," he had said. "Of bits and bytes and decision trees, of compilers and of MRIs, and if the software's well designed, and whether they're truly living machines."

After lulling the students into a false sense of security, he dropped the bombsh.e.l.l: n.o.body in the cla.s.s would receive any higher than a B, and most would receive a C or D grade. His theories, he explained, were far far too sophisticated for any undergraduate to possibly too sophisticated for any undergraduate to possibly begin begin to comprehend. He only taught the cla.s.s because the powers-that-be had convinced him that he might find one or two great programmers there, and it behooved him-and those potential great students-to benefit from Barr's own vast stores of knowledge. to comprehend. He only taught the cla.s.s because the powers-that-be had convinced him that he might find one or two great programmers there, and it behooved him-and those potential great students-to benefit from Barr's own vast stores of knowledge.

However, he had said, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of his students would not be great programmers, and probably that last point-one percent wouldn't be either, and this was truly an appalling waste of his time, but he supposed they had better get on with it and get it over with.

That speech alone prompted half the cla.s.s to drop it.

Barr announced the second day of cla.s.s that-now that he had weeded out the stragglers and the ones who wouldn't amount to anything except some job as a corporate drone writing drab code for unappreciative middle-management types-"you are going to work your brains to the very nub."

He also reiterated his position: n.o.body would get higher than a B. "But you will learn more from me than from any other professor you will ever have in your life."

Half the remainder dropped the cla.s.s after that.

Lisa decided two things at that point: that she would stick with the cla.s.s no matter what, and that she would get an A.

She spent the next three months being subjected to an amazing amount of abuse, vitriol, condescension-and also the most brilliant theories on AI she had ever heard before or since. Barr came by his arrogance honestly: he truly was an absolute master of the field.

He also made no effort to talk down to the students, leaving most of them scrambling to try to decipher what he was talking about.

Except Lisa, who lost a great deal of sleep, dropped ten pounds off an already rather skinny frame, got sick regularly, and came dangerously close to a nervous breakdown more than once. But dammit, she followed every single word Barr spoke in that arrogant tone that was peculiar to Brits.

On her final exam, he wrote the following on the back: "Miss Addison, I commend you. You have tremendous drive and a willingness to apply yourself to the task at hand. You also have a stick-to-it-iveness that one does not see in the younger generation much anymore. One might admire you for your perseverence in pursuit of understanding of this subject.

"However, you will not number me among those admirers. All you have proven is that you are able to parrot back the works of greater intellects. The fact that you had to work so hard to comprehend this cla.s.s merely proves that you lack the creative spark yourself. You are, in fact, precisely the sort who will become the type of corporate drone that I despise. The only difference is that you will be much much better at it than most, though to my mind that is akin to being the best muck-raker in the cow farm.

"Nevertheless, you have performed the tasks you were given in the cla.s.s, and I would be dishonest if I did not give you fitting reward for that accomplishment, even if it is less of an accomplishment than I might desire.

"A.".

In later years, Lisa would admire Dr. Barr's ability to fulfill her every wish and destroy them all at the same time. Back then, however, she was up most of the night crying.

Now here she was, ten years later, having fulfilled his prognostications by spending her career as a corporate drone-even excelling at it, as he had also predicted-only to find herself providing security for his latest and greatest system.

The Red Queen.

Barr was currently working in Umbrella's London office, working on some new system that would be even better than the Red Queen, but for now, this AI-which was about a decade ahead of any other computer system available on the open market-was the best possible.

This was a computer system that was in many ways the holy grail of AI: it was adaptable, flexible, and even had a personality.

For some inexplicable reason, the personality he gave to the Red Queen was that of a ten-year-old girl. Specifically that of Angela Ashford, the young daughter of one of the muckitymucks in Research & Development. Lisa couldn't imagine that Barr came up with that himself, as it required a level of sentimentality the old man simply did not possess. No doubt it was required by Ashford or one of his supporters on the Board of Directors.

Never having met Angie Ashford, Lisa had no idea if the personality Barr had programmed in matched that of the young child. She suspected it didn't, that Barr had made the girl as unpleasant as possible in revenge for the political sop to Ashford that modeling the computer after his daughter likely was.

If, on the other hand, the personality did did match that of the real Angie Ashford, Lisa had the utmost sympathy for Dr. Ashford's pain and suffering. match that of the real Angie Ashford, Lisa had the utmost sympathy for Dr. Ashford's pain and suffering.

Lisa's job description was to make sure that the Red Queen's systems remained secure. In reality, this meant spending all her days dealing with a ten-year-old girl who had inherited her creator's att.i.tude problem.

"It isn't working," the Red Queen said in her prissy little schoolgirl voice. The voice came crisply from the Perrymyk speakers sitting on either side of Lisa's flatscreen monitor. The upper-right-hand corner of said monitor was taken up with the image of a prissy little schoolgirl face, whose lip movements matched the sounds.

Sighing, Lisa wondered why anyone would find this preferable to a simple error message. As it was, that face was a daily reminder of why she was eternally grateful that she and Nick had decided not to have kids.

"All right," she said, typing in a sequence of commands, "let's compile it again, see where the error crops up."

"We don't need to do that. The error is in the patch you wrote. Don't worry about it, I can rewrite it for you."

"No you can't, either," Lisa said. "Show me where the error is. I'll I'll fix it." fix it."

Eight weeks, and the d.a.m.n machine still was treating her as if she were an idiot. Like programmer, like program.

"Very well, if you insist, but it's wholly unnecessary. I can can do this myself. The whole point of having an artificial intelligence is to give me the opportunity to do this myself. The whole point of having an artificial intelligence is to give me the opportunity to be be intelligent intelligent."

Barr had said the same thing ten years ago at MIT, word for word. No surprise he programmed it into his greatest achievement.

Luckily, Umbrella's higher-ups were a bit more far-sighted-or, at the very least, had seen 2001 2001. No matter what happened, there was always to be some human oversight to anything the Red Queen did.

In the last two months, Lisa had learned that Barr had not been thrilled with this, and had tried to have Lisa's position eliminated after her predecessor transferred to another department.

Instead, they took the job out of Barr's purview. Although she worked with the computer system, she was not not part of the Computer Services staff-she reported to Security Division. part of the Computer Services staff-she reported to Security Division.

Though most of their work involved the physical security of Umbrella's various corporate headquarters and their employees, Umbrella's bosses decided to include electronic security. That meant that she reported directly to the head of Security Division, a taciturn man who went solely by the unlikely codename of "One."

They still put her in with the other techies, though, giving her a sleek metal desk indistinguishable from all the other sleek metal desks. On the far wall was a large window, covered in blinds, that gave a spectacular view of the Racc.o.o.n City skyline.

All the more spectacular by virtue of its being fake. They even piped m.u.f.fled street noises in. It was Umbrella's way of making them feel like they weren't a thousand feet underground. After all, despite the size of the Hive, it could still get d.a.m.n claustrophobic, knowing you were spending all your time in a big hole in the ground, surrounded on all sides by earth, rocks, mud, or whatever the h.e.l.l made up the underside of Racc.o.o.n City. Lisa had no idea, nor did she care to. She just tried, like everyone else did, to pretend that the view out the window was real, that the sounds she heard were genuine.

Sometimes she even believed it.

She often wondered how anyone stood this for five years, and was grateful that-one way or another-she was not going to find out for herself.

Even as she found the error in her patch-which was a simple typographical error, one she would have caught five minutes ago if the Red Queen hadn't insisted on getting huffy about it-the phone rang.

Wanting to keep her hands free to type, she plugged the headset into the appropriate jack in the phone, hooked it around her ear, adjusting the mic so it was near her mouth, then hit the speaker b.u.t.ton. The phone routed the sound, which would normally go out on the phone's speaker, to the headset. "Broward."

"Lisa, it's Alice."

Smiling at the familiar voice, Lisa said, "How's life among the rich and famous?"

Dryly, Alice said, "Oh, thrill-a-minute, like usual."

Unlike One, who was at HQ in Racc.o.o.n City proper, Alice-currently in charge of security for the Hive, stationed along with Spence Parks at the lavish mansion that served as one of the main entry points into the Hive-was approachable and easy to work with. Like One, she didn't take any s.h.i.t. Unlike One, she didn't give any, either. As long as there wasn't a crisis, she could actually talk to you like a real person.

Although Lisa's desk was in the same general area as the other Tech folks, they viewed her with disdain, as she wasn't really one of them. Unfortunately, she didn't really have much in common with the gaggle of ex-cops and ex-cons that made up the Security Division, either.

Alice, though, was different. She didn't treat Lisa like some kind of weird other being who didn't belong in the club because she couldn't field-strip an M16, or whatever kind of fancy weapon the thugs in Security hauled around.

Not that it mattered all that much whether or not Lisa made friends. Not given her long-term goal.

Still, in the short term, it was nice to have someone to talk to.

Especially when that someone also had the potential to help out with the long-term plans.

"So what's the problem?" Lisa asked.

"I can't get into my account."

Again, Lisa sighed. "I know, I know, there's a problem with the protocols. I should have it fixed in a few minutes, a.s.suming Her Royal Highness doesn't throw a fit."

"I heard that."

Making a face at her monitor, Lisa said, "You were meant to."

Lisa heard Alice Abernathy laugh.

After rewriting a few more lines of code, Lisa said, "Okay, try it now."

There was a pause, though Lisa could hear the clickity-clack of Alice's fingers moving quickly over her keyboard.

"f.u.c.k! I still can't get in."

Lisa frowned. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It says 'access denied' in big letters on top of my monitor."

"That's a pretty good indicator, yeah. Hold on a sec." She entered a few more commands. All the computers in the Hive-including the two in the mansion-were hardwired to the overall Red Queen network, and it was a simple matter for her to provide a more direct link between her and Alice. When she was finished, it was as if they were a single workstation that just happened to have two keyboards.

Her monitor lit up with a window taking up the right-hand side of her flatscreen display. It showed her what Alice was seeing on her monitor, complete with access denied in big letters along the top. In the center of the screen were two fields, currently empty, asking for username and pa.s.sword.

Lisa hit F11, then entered her own username and pa.s.sword at another prompt. The latter was a series of numbers she had literally picked at random. Lisa had always had a good memory for numbers-she never had to write down phone numbers, nor use a speed-dial for them-so she was always able to pick wholly random pa.s.swords, always the most secure. Her username was standard, of course: LBROWARD. All the usernames were keyed to last name preceded by first initial-the latter a necessity, especially since there was a guy down in Medical named Phillip Broward. In fact, just in the Hive alone there were fourteen people named Smith, ten named Jones, six named Clark (plus one named Clarke), three named Martinez, two named West, and, oddly, three named Milewski (all three unrelated to each other).

Entering that username and pa.s.sword rewarded her with a series of commands and codes in another window on the left-hand side, right under the faux adorable face of a ten-year-old child that Lisa had never met yet desperately wanted to drown.