Snake Eyes | Page 4

of blood of f her left breast, explored fine, white teeth with his tongue, they seemed twinned, as if there were cables running between the two of them, snapped into the shining rectangles beneath their jaws.
Someone had a Jahfunk program running on a corner. Innis showed up and tried several times without success to get his attention. Charley Hughes wanted to know if the snake liked Lizzie--it did, George was sure of it but didn't know what that meant. Then George fell over a table.
Innis led him away, stumbling and weaving. Charley Hughes looked for Lizzie, who had disappeared for the moment. She came back and said, "Where's George?"
"Drunk, gone to bed."
"Too bad. We were just getting to know each other."
"So I saw. How do you feel about this?"
"You mean do I feel like a traitorous bitch?'
"Come on, Lizzie."
"Well, don't ask such dumb questions. I feel bad, sure, but I know what George doesn't--so I'm ready to do what must be done. And by the way, I really do like him."
Charley said nothing. He thought, Yes, as Aleph said you would.
Oh Christ, was George embarrassed in the morning. Stumbling drunk and humping in public ... ai yi yi. He tried to call Lizzie but only got an answer tape, at which point he hung up. He lay in his bed in a semistupor until the phone's buzzer sounded.
Lizzie's face on the screen stuck its tongue out at him. "Candy ass," she said. "I leave for a few minutes, and you're gone."
"Somebody brought me home. I think."
"Yeah, you were pretty popped. You want to meet me for lunch?"
"Maybe. Depends on when Hughes wants me. Where will you be?"
"Same place, honey. Caff four."
A phone call got the news that the doctor wouldn't be ready for him until an hour later, so George ended up sitting across from the bright-eyed, manic blond--fully dressed in SenTrax overalls this morning, but they were open almost to the waist. She gave off sensual heat as naturally as a rose smells sweet. In front of her was a plate of huevos rancheros piled with guacamole. Yellow, green, and red, smelling of chilis--in his condition, as bad as cat food. "Jesus, lady," he said. 'Are you trying to make me sick?"
"Courage, George. Maybe you should have some--it'll kill you or cure you. What do you think of everything so tar?"
"It's all a bit disorienting, but what the hell? First time away from Mother Earth, you know. But let me tell you what I really don't get-- Senlrax. I know what I want from them, but what the hell do they want from me?"
"They want this simple thing, man, perphs, peripherals. You and me, we're just parts for the machine. Aleph, which is the Al in residence, has got all these inputs--video, audio. radiation detectors, temperature sensors, satellite receivers--but they're dumb. What Aleph wants, Aleph gets--I've learned that much. He wants to use us, and that's all there is to it. Think of it as pure research."
"He? You mean Innis?"
"No, who gives a damn about lnnis? I'm talking about Aleph. Oh yeah, people will tell you Aleph's a machine, an AI, all that bullshit. Uh-uh. Aleph's a person--a weird kind of person, sure, but a definite person. Hell, Aleph's maybe a whole bunch of people."
"I'll take your word for it. Look, there's one thing I'd like to try. What do I have to do to get outside ... go for a spacewalk?"
"Easy enough. You have to get a license--that takes a three-week course in safety and operations. I can take you through it. I'm qualified as an ESA, extra-station activity instructor. We'll start tomorrow."
The cranes on the wall flew to their mysterious destination; looking at the display above the table, George thought it might as well be another universe.
Truncated optic nerves sticking out like insect antennae, a brain floated beneath the extended black plastic snout of a Sony holoptics projector. As Hughes worked the keyboard in front of him, the organ turned so that they were looking at its underside. It had a fine network of silver wires trailing from it but seemed normal.
"The George Jordan brain," Innis said. "With attachments. Very nice."
"Makes me feel like I'm watching my own autopsy, looking at that thing. When can you operate, get this shit out of my head?"
"Let me show you a few things." As he typed, the convoluted gray cortex, became transparent, revealing red, blue, and green color-coded structures within. Hughes reached into the brain and clenched his fist inside a blue area at the top of the spinal cord. "Here is where the electrical connections turn biological--those little nodes along the pseudoneurans are the bioprocessors, and they wire into the so-called r-complex-- which we inherited from our reptilian forefathers. The pseudoneurons continue into the limbic system, the mammalian brain,