There were distractions, of course. Every now and then signals arrived from outside, and didn't stop until they'd been answered in some way. Some of them actually seemed to carry usable information— this recent stream concerning chess and checkers, for example. More often it was simply a matter of correlating input with a repertoire of learned arbitrary responses. At some point, when it wasn't so busy, 1211 thought it might devote some time to learning whether these mysterious exchanges actually meant anything. In the meantime, it continued to act on the choice it had made.

Simple or complex. File or Infection. Checkers or Chess. ßehemoth or biosphere.

It was all the same problem, really. 1211 knew exactly which side it was on.

End Game

End Game

Night Shift

She was a screamer. He'd programmed her that way. Not to say she didn't like it, of course; he'd programmed that too. Joel had one hand wrapped around a fistful of her zebra cut— the program had a nifty little customizing feature, and tonight he was honoring SS Preteela— and the other hand was down between her thighs doing preliminary recon. He was actually halfway through his final run when his fucking watch started ringing, and his first reaction was to just keep on plugging, and to kick himself later for not shutting the bloody thing off.

His second reaction was to remember that he had shut it off. Only emergency priorities could set it ringing.

"Shit."

He clapped his hands, twice; fake Preteela froze in mid-scream. "Answer."

A brief squirt of noise as machines exchanged recognition codes. "Grid Authority here. We urgently need of a 'scaphe pilot for the Channer run tonight, liftoff twenty-three hundred from the Astoria platform. Are you available?"

"Twenty-three? Middle of the night?"

A barely audible hiss on the line. Nothing else.

"Hello?" Joel said.

"Are you available?" the voice asked again.

"Who is this?"

"This is the scheduling subroutine, DI43, Hongcouver office."

Joel eyed the petrified tableau waiting in his 'phones. "That's pretty late. What's the payscale?"

"Eight point five times base," Hongcouver said. "At your rate salary that would—"

Joel gulped. "I'm available."

"Goodbye."

"Wait! What's the run?"

"Astoria to Channer Vent return." Subroutines were pretty literal-minded.

"I mean, what's the cargo?"

"Passengers," said the voice. "Goodbye."

Joel stood there a moment, feeling his erection deflate. "Time." A luminous readout appeared in the air above Preteela's right shoulder: thirteen ten. He'd have to be on site a half-hour before liftoff, and Astoria was only a couple of hours away...

"Lots of time," he said to no one in particular.

But he wasn't really in the mood any more. Work had a way of doing that to him lately. Not the drudgery, or the long hours, or any of the things most people would complain about. Joel liked boredom. You didn't have to think much.

But work had gotten really weird lately.