In the next stage, the two sides worked together to seal the enclave completely, polishing the scar where its umbilical had been sheared away. When that task was complete, the map showed it as a single burnished ruby. No known process could reshape it now. Campbell’s method could have breached its border without touching it, reaching inside to reclaim it from within—but Campbell’s method was exactly what this jewel ruled out.
At the other end of the vanished umbilical, Sam’s machines set to work smoothing away the blemish. By early evening that, too, was done.
Only one tiny flaw in the border remained now: the handful of propositions that enabled communication between the two sides. The cabal had debated the fate of this for hours. So long as this small wrinkle persisted, in principle it could be used to unravel everything, to mobilize the entire border again. It was true that, compared to the border as a whole, it would be relatively easy to monitor and defend such a small site, but a sustained burst of brute-force computing from either side could still overpower any resistance and exploit it.
In the end, Sam’s political masters had made the decision for us. What they had always aspired to was certainty, and even if their strength favored them, this wasn’t a gamble they were prepared to take.
I said, “Good luck with the future.”
“Good luck to Sparseland,” Sam replied. I believed he’d tried to hold out against the hawks, but I’d never been certain of his friendship. When his icon faded from my screen, I felt more relief than regret.
I’d learned the hard way not to assume that anything was permanent. Perhaps in a thousand years, someone would discover that Campbell’s model was just an approximation to something deeper, and find a way to fracture these allegedly perfect walls. With any luck, by then both sides might also be better prepared to find a way to co-exist.
I found Kate sitting in the kitchen. I said, “I can answer your questions now, if that’s what you want.” On the morning after the disaster, I’d promised her this time would come—within weeks, not months—and she’d agreed to stay with me until it did.
She thought for a while.
“Did you have something to do with what happened last week?”
“Yes.”
“Are you saying you unleashed the virus? You’re the terrorist they’re looking for?” To my great relief, she asked this in roughly the tone she might have used if I’d claimed to be Genghis Khan.
“No, I’m not the cause of what happened. It was my job to try and stop it, and I failed. But it wasn’t any kind of computer virus.”
She searched my face. “What was it, then? Can you explain that to me?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t care. We’ve got all night.”
I said, “It started in university. With an idea of Alison’s. One brilliant, beautiful, crazy idea.”
Kate looked away, her face flushing, as if I’d said something deliberately humiliating. She knew I was not a mass murderer. But there were other things about me of which she was less sure.
“The story starts with Alison,” I said. “But it ends here, with you.”