Mick Farren - Dna Cb 03 - Neural Atrocity.pdf - Mick Farren - widez2

Mick Farren - DNA CB 3 - Neural Atrocity

CYN 256 felt one of those tiny surges from the wild, unruly, faraway depths of his mind. He didn't have a

name for the small bursts of feeling. He had heard the word rebellion, but he scarcely knew what it

meant. The only positive analysis he had of his situation was that somewhere, beneath all the layers of

orderly conditioning, was a dark sub-mind that refused to be controlled.

He had no real knowledge of this area. A few clues floated up into his consciousness like the occasional

bubbles in a stagnant pool that burst with a tiny whiff of strange, volatile gas. They told him that

somewhere there was a part of him that wasn't totally adjusted. It wouldn't accept the life that limited him

to his work cubicle, his sleep cubicle, and the bright curved corridor that he walked twice a day from one

to the other.

It was on these walks that the disturbing thought came more frequently. As he paced the familiar route

from, in this instance, work to sleep, he glanced covertly at the fellow operatives walking beside him. He

wondered if they too suffered these small but nagging disturbances. If they did, they showed no signs of

it. It wasn't a subject that he could dis-cuss at the fantasy session. If he was alone in his attitudes he

would be treated as a malfunction. That was the thing he was most afraid of.

He walked on along the corridor, looking fixedly at the grey metallic floor with its slight downward curve.

He was careful not to let his pace vary from that of the other operatives around him. He knew the

Computer monitored the behaviour of all its human operatives. It was quick to act on a deviation from

the norm. This too made him afraid.

He was acutely aware that this fear itself was by far his most serious deviation. He knew that once such

thoughts become detectable he would be removed for immediate therapy. Therapy was something else

he feared. What made this whole thought process even more disturbing was that he knew it went against

the very core of his conditioning. For as long as he could remember he had loved the Computer. It was

all powerful, all knowing and all caring. The never failing monitoring was the ultimate source of personal

safety and comfort. The small black shiny sensors that studded the corridors at regular intervals, and

unfalteringly watched over the human operatives from the ceiling of each cubicle, were his guards and

protectors. The sensors were the technological expression of the Computer's love for him.

The therapy unit was the greatest manifestation of that love. All his life it had been the ultimate point of

solace. Once in therapy all pain and abnormality would be gently washed away. In therapy he would be

cleansed, all the pain and troubles removed from his mind and body, totally forgotten.

And yet he was afraid. He knew the fear only occupied a small section of his brain. Most of him still

functioned in the same way as always. The tiny part that had changed, however, was enough to make him

reject therapy and deceive the sen-sors. He knew that in so doing, he was setting himself apart from the

Computer's merciful love, but the found he was unable to help himself.

CYN 256 came to the door of his sleep cubicle. His number was printed on the grey steel door in bold

black letters. Although all the doors that lined the corridor were identical, he didn't need to check the

number. He stopped automatically and, without thought, pressed the stud. The door silently slid open and

he stepped inside.

The interior of the little cubicle was a soft pale blue. It was a restful contrast to the hard grey of the

corridor. The sleep cubicles of C-class operatives provided no luxuries and excess space. There was a

narrow bunk, a small bench, a sanitation unit, and a small strip of floor that was just big enough to turn

round in. He opened the dispenser on the wall and, as always, there was the evening food tray. He

Page 1

removed the tray from the recess in the wall and set it down carefully on the table top next to the

styrofoam box that contained his stan-dard set of personal possessions. He was proud of the

multi-faceted lumps of coloured plastic. They were the non-functional objects that the Computer, in its

grace and wisdom, allowed its operatives to keep for their pleasure.

CYN 256 picked up the five pills from the food tray. He washed them down with a mouthful of liquid

from the beaker, and began to munch mechanically on the thick, brown-ish grey wafer. When he'd

finished the food he dropped the tray and empty containers into the disposal vent. He pulled off his

shapeless yellow coverall and stuffed it in after them. There would be a fresh coverall in the dispenser

after he had slept.

Naked, he settled on the bunk in a cross-legged squat. He knew he had only a short space of time to

think before the sleep gas was released into the cubicle. There was no way to resist the gas. Once it

came, the next thing he would know would be waking for another work period.

He tried to think his way towards an analysis of the distur-bances in his mind. It was hard. He had so

little information. He was a C-class. The C-class work function was carried out on an instinctive level

below that of conscious thought. Printouts came into his work cubicle from the feeder, he read them and

punched out other sets of figures on his console. He had no rational idea of why he did it.

He even knew very little about his environment. He knew that beneath him, four levels down, were the

living circuits of the Computer in their own world of absolute cold, moving imperceptibly in the

atmosphere of liquid nitrogen. The cold circuitry that CYN 256 always somehow imagined to be a place

of green silence was the heart of the vast, metal walled sphere that housed the various sections that made

up the entirety of the Computer.

The next levels out from the core housed the electronic and mechanical parts of the Computer. Beyond

them were the three human levels. First there was the A-class, the elite who performed complex rational

exercises, next came the B-class, who guarded, maintained and repaired all functions of the Computer,

and finally, next to the outer shell, were the C-class levels. The C-class provided unthinking link

func-tions. Of all the Computer's operatives, they were the most expendable.

Far back in its history the Computer had taken over the humans who had created it. It had rechannelled

their energies, eradicated the parts of their makeup that it con-sidered superfluous and integrated them

into its own con-struction.

CYN 256 knew nothing of this. He only had the dimmest idea of the construction of the sphere. He

knew the C-class level was immediately beneath the outer shell. He had no idea that this was a 30 cm

skin of spun thermo plastic and steel, with its own remote control weapons system for protection.

He had little idea, either, of what was beyond the outer shell. He knew there were other things. He had a

vague idea of the complex of stuff plants that supplied the rest of what existed with its material goods. He

knew that the Com-puter controlled the stuff plants, coordinating the monstrous logistics of production

and ordering. But he had no concep-tion of what that rest of existence was.

For the first time ever, his lack of knowledge caused him pain. He had no data to apply to his problem.

He knew no precedents and had nothing to relate it to. He had to struggle to stop his body revealing the

frustration. The only thing that stood out in his mind were the figures.

It had happened some ten work periods previously. He had been in his work cubicle, scanning the

printouts and instinc-tively hitting the keys on his console, when his eye had stopped at a single line of

Page 2

figures. He had broken out in a sweat, and something had knotted in his stomach. He didn't know how or

why, but there seemed to be something terribly wrong with them. He had to make a considerable effort

to go on punch-ing out the corresponding figure. It had all felt so out of place. It was after that his

disturbances had started.

CYN 256 felt helpless. It was inconceivable that the Computer had made an error. It had to be he, and

yet he didn't feel defective. He could think of no reason why he should react strangely to a set of figures.

That thought took him full circle. If it was the figures that had affected him, then the error must be in the

Computer, and it was in-conceivable that the Computer could make an error.

Before he could go any further, there was a soft hissing sound. The sleep gas was being pumped into the

room. CYN 256 lay down and prepared for unconsciousness.

A.A. Catto paced one of the high terraces of the ziggurat. It was a restless, stiff legged pacing. She

bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, giving off waves of impatient energy. Every few steps she would

clench her fists, digging her silver nails into the palms of her hands. She still looked about four-teen years

old with a slim, hardly developed body. For a long period she had maintained the appearance of a twelve

year old, but then, for a while, she had stopped using the growth retarder, and her body had matured

slightly.

It was only her face that gave away the fact that she had seen and done far more than any fourteen year

old. The large eyes had a cold liquidity that seemed capable of any-thing. Her mouth, too, had a fullness

that was at the same time cruel and sensual.

She halted and snapped her fingers at Lame Nancy.

'Cheroot.'

Nancy silently handed A.A. Catto a thin black cheroot and then lit it for her. Nancy had been standing

quietly by while A.A. Catto performed her caged animal pacing. Nancy was almost as thin as A.A.

Catto, but she looked her natural age. Her hair was bleached white and cropped very close to her head.

She wore a white, skin tight, one piece fighting suit. A.A. Catto was dressed in exactly the same garment,

except that hers was black with a discreet gold trim. Nancy's left leg was withered. It was supported by

a black steel brace decor-ated with damascened curlicue patterns.

Nancy had been a successful madame in the city of Litz until she joined A.A. Catto's headlong band

wagon. Now she was A.A. Catto's confidante, companion, lover and servant. She was consort to A.A.

Catto's absolute ruler.

A.A. Catto exhaled sharply.

'Why does it have to take so long?'

Nancy shrugged.

'Preparations always take time.'

A.A. Catto stared across the broad valley that was domin-ated by the ziggurat. A wide sluggish river

meandered through the valley. Its banks were lined with squat, dark green, amphibious assault craft.

Lines of fighting men in black suits and helmets moved slowly towards them like dark tribu-taries. Soon,

however, they would all be crowded aboard the waiting boats, and like a grim armada the fleet would

Page 3

move out towards the nothings.

The nothings were the grey drifting areas of unstable matter. Since the breakdown most of the world had

been like that. In the nothings the natural laws of energy, motion and gravity had ceased to exist. The

huge stasis generators were the only thing that maintained a tenuous normality. They provided human

beings with a few small areas on which they could live.

Quahal was one of these areas. A.A. Catto had come to it as a fugitive seeking sanctuary, but had

overthrown its previ-ous rulers and altered it to suit her own tastes and desires. In this redesigned

Quahal, where her every whim had become brutal and inflexible law, she had found the environment to

nurture her ultimate dream. Now she stood on top of the high black ziggurat and watched as her dream

became reality.

A.A. Catto was about to conquer an unsuspecting world.

Nancy moistened her lips, hesitated and then spoke.

'Shouldn't we go down to the bunker? The assault craft will be moving off soon.'

A.A. Catto dropped her cheroot and ground it out with her foot.

'In a moment.'

She turned and stared out once again at the men beneath her. The huge multiple stuff receivers had been

rigged on the plain beside the ziggurat. They crackled softly as the fighting men of A.A. Catto's custom

built army came down the beam.

Each of them was bio-tailored to A.A. Catto's specific design. She had been surprised that Stuff Central

had delivered quite such a vast order for men and equipment, but the Computer had started delivering

without comment, and had continued to do so ever since. Very soon A.A. Catto would command the

largest army that had ever existed in the damaged world.

She turned and looked at the sinister, cloud-covered moun-tain looming at the end of the valley, then she

abruptly turned and walked quickly towards the terrace entrance. Nancy fell in behind her.

Originally the interior of the ziggurat was a black stone warren of passages, ramps and stairs. A.A. Catto

had installed a system of high-speed lifts. One waited at the end of a short corridor, A.A. Catto and

Nancy stepped into it. Nancy punched out the combination for the bunker, and the lift dropped through

the many levels of the ziggurat and con-tinued deep underground.

The lift came to a cushioned stop, and the doors slid silently open. Just outside the lift stood a pair of

A.A. Catto's personal guards. They were two of the wild horsemen who had first aided her to seize

power in Quahal. They still wore their traditional winged helmets, fur tunics and armour covering their

arms. Instead of lances, however, they were now armed with deadly, full load fuse tubes.

They stepped aside to let A.A. Catto pass. Beyond them a pair of steel doors slid back. She walked

through them. Nancy followed. The doors closed behind them, and they were inside the huge

underground war room.

Even though she had supervised every detail of its construc-tion, A.A. Catto still experienced a thrill of

excitement when she entered the war room. Its floor and high, vaulted roof were made of the same black

Page 4

stone as the rest of the ziggurat. Three of the four walls were taken up by screens that gave instant

graphic representation of the state of the war.

The entire room was dominated by the big board that gave an immediate overall picture. It was flanked

by smaller screens which gave details of individual campaigns. On the floor, directly in front of the board,

sat five rows of red-suited aides hunched over individual monitors and battle control consoles.

Behind the aides, on a raised dais, sat A.A. Catto's six white-suited advisers. Their totally bald heads and

flat expressionless faces were all identical. They were the set of specially cloned superminds whose job it

was to make A.A. Catto's fantasies become reality.

In the middle of the line of advisers were two empty chairs. A.A. Catto walked briskly across the war

room, moun-ted the dais and sat down. Nancy dutifully followed. As A.A. Catto sat down the advisers

rose and bowed. Once the for-malities were over A.A. Catto's attitude became business-like. She turned

to the adviser next to her.

'Is the assault craft force ready to move?'

The adviser nodded.

'They are loaded, and waiting for the final order.'

'They're netted in with the lizards?'

Another clone answered.

'They're hooked into the net, my leader.'

A.A. Catto smiled.

'Good. Start to move them out. Once they're under way I want to inspect the lizard installation.'

She issued a fast series of orders. The advisers' fingers flew over the touch panels on the desk in front of

each of them.

'Check guidance system.'

'Checked, my leader.'

'Bring up the task force on the big board.'

A yellow arrow glowed into life beside the symbol that represented Quahal.

'Activate scanner on forward craft.'

One of the smaller screens flickered into life. It showed the view of the river from the leading assault

craft. A.A. Catto looked satisfied.

'Right, move them out now.'

The advisers' hands moved across the touch panels. The picture moved as the craft swung into the centre

Page 5

Mick Farren - Dna Cb 03 - Neural Atrocity.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: