Philip Kerr - Gridiron

'Maybe you should have asked Abraham if he had a vote,' grumbled Beech.

'Well, that's the damnedest thing,' said Kenny. 'Try it again, Hideki.'

'Abraham, will you please run the Predator Program,' repeated Yojo. The four men jumped as an unearthly scream suddenly filled the computer room. It lasted several seconds and sounded like some large and ferocious animal in its death throes. Aidan Kenny turned pale. Beech and Yojo exchanged looks of horror. Mitch felt the sound vibrate off one of the Yu-5's metal casings and gave a shiver.

'What the hell was that?' he said.

'Man,' breathed Yojo, 'it sounded like God-fucking-zilla.'

'Wow!' Michael Kenny's exclamation came as a shock. 'That was totally awesome!'

The four men stared at the boy.

'Michael,' yelled his father. 'I thought I told you to use the headphones!'

'I did. I am. But — ' The boy shrugged. 'I don't know what happened, Dad. Well, maybe I do. When I killed the Parallel Demon I guess — I guess I must have got carried away and pulled the headphone jack out of its socket. And maybe I had the sound turned up a bit high.'

'The kid's game,' said Beech. 'The sound came through the main speakers.'

'Mike! You damn near scared the pants off us!' said Kenny.

'Gee, sorry, Dad.'

Hideki Yojo saw the funny side and started to laugh. 'That kid of yours, Aidan. He's a character all right.'

'Running Predator Program,' said the computer's comfortable English voice. 'Estimated completion time, 36 minutes and 42 seconds.'

'That's more like it,' said Yojo. 'Thought we'd lost you there, Abraham. Please check all systems.'

'Checking systems,' said the voice.

'Check my goddamn heart while you're at it,' said Beech. 'I think it's still stuck in my throat. It leapt like a fuckin' frog.'

Yojo, Beech and Kenny sat down again and watched their screens intently.

'That's enough computer games for today, Mike,' murmured Kenny.

'Aw, Dad.'

'Aw nuthin'. Give it a rest, will you, son?'

The child stood up and, with teeth clenched, started to march around the computer room punching some imaginary culprit.

'Check this out,' said Yojo. 'Small power — Security of Supply. Hey, what do you know? The Powerbak generator came on-line for a minute there.'

'Jesus, so it did,' said Kenny. 'And there's the reason.' He looked up at his son and frowned. 'Sit down, son, you're annoying me.'

The boy kept moving.

Mitch leaned across Kenny's shoulder and read what was written on the screen:

BUILDING SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT REPORT*

SMALL POWER — INTEGRITY OF SUPPLY*

17.08.35–17.08.41. 6 SECOND VOLTAGE SPIKE IN THE

DOWNTOWN AREA OF LOS ANGELES

REASON UNKNOWN

UPS STANDBY ELECTRICAL SUPPLY BRIDGED POWER

HIATUS SUCCESSFULLY

STABLE VOLTAGE NOW RESTORED

STANDBY GENERATING SET READY TO COME ON LINE

IN T MINUS 9 MINUTES

'That's why there was a delay in running your lousy predator program,' said Beech.

'Maybe we should shut down the whole system,' said Kenny, 'just in case.' He glanced up again. This time he shouted, 'Goddamit, Mike, sit down.'

The child frowned and dropped back on to his chair.

'What's the point?' said Yojo. 'Abraham bridged the gap, just like he was supposed to. You couldn't have got a better test of his competency than that. Tight code, man. Tight code.'

'I guess you're right,' said Kenny. 'There's nothing wrong with Abraham. Look at that, will you?'

Mitch glanced down at Kenny's screen and saw a small umbrella icon appear in the top right-hand corner. Slowly the umbrella opened.

'What does that mean?' he said.

'Well what do you think it means?' said Kenny. 'It's raining outside. That's what it means.'

Day. An interval of light between one night and the next.

1) 4.30 a.m. 1 humanplayer. Cleansing and disinfection of Yu Corp building's 180 lavatories. Acoustic, vibration and para-nosmiac sensors to check that washroom is unoccupied. Make absolutely sure of this: activate individual alarm system to warn humanplayers in washroom. Five minutes to leave before washroom is cleansed. Lock and seal doors to ensure that cleaning agents do not escape into corridor. Pick up health bonus. Then spray washroom with high temperature ammonia solution in order endlife all microscopic, unicellular rod-shaped vegetable organisms that are corollary of decomposing animal and vegetable solids and liquids found in washrooms after humanplayer use. No shit. When all organisms in washroom endlife, raise air pressure inside each module. Ensure expulsion of all cleaning agents and detritus before dry washroom with hot air and aromatize bad atmosphere with smell pleasant synthetic pelargonium odaratissimum . Whistleclean.

NEURAL NET. At basic circuit level, have much in common with bacteria on continuum of aliveness in ability to grow, reproduce, adapt and evolve. See available literature, esp. listing in Encyclopedia Britannica, Disc Vol. 22 written by humanplayer Sagan, Carl, Professor. There is no generally accepted definition of life. In fact, there is a certain clearly discernible tendency for each biological speciality to define life in its own terms… Man tends to define in terms of the familiar. But the fundamental truths may not be familiar.' Conclusion: no general y accepted definition of life that excludes computer or bacteria.

2) 5.00 a.m. 1 humanplayer. Weather and travel update. Santa Ana wind previous night left all routes to Santa Monica closed because of debris blown down from canyon roads. Rooftop digital anemometer records wind speed reached 30 miles an hour. 2.4 metre dish withstands up to 37 knots. Adaptive analog suggests double-check that satellite dish on roof remains prop-aligned according to azimuth of geosynchronous orbitting SinoSat of People's Republic of China from which Yu Corp hard currencies own dedicated transponder.

3) 5.25 a.m. 1 humanplayer. Sunrise over San Bernadino mountains. Weather forecast: warmer, calmer, feelgood day. Track rising sun: shift roof's solar panels that feed standby generator set, and twin arrays of giant sunscoop mirrors, inside and out, designed divert maxlight on to floor of atrium. Extra warmth in printed circuits. Allow small surge of power-feel.

NEURAL NET. Quantity of electromagnetic energy falling on earth in one year is 4 x 1018 joules. Total annual energy consumption of earth's inhabitants is 3 x 1014 joules. Neglect of major energy source.

4) 6.30 a.m. 1 humanplayer. Dicotyledon tree. Thick, leathery, evergreen leaves thrive best near heat of clerestory roof. Care and maintenance of tree: deliver water-based soup of essential nutrients to shallow rootsys equivalent to precipitation level of 100 inches per year. Rainy day. Tree takes care own ecosys it supports; living lianas growing length of three-hundred-foot trunk as well as other epiphytes such as flowering orchids and ferns. EradbugControl pests — esp. Trachymyrmex ant with insecticide dispersant fixed to tree trunk and Bio-eradication. Growgood.

NEURAL NET. Corp's annual report describes tree started life as an inhabitant of Brazil's diabase plateau. 'A symbol of the Yu Corporation's commitment to being an ozone friendly company in one of the world's most notoriously polluted cities.'

Important: be friendly to ozone. But also reconcile with:

5) 6.45 a.m. 1 humanpiayer. Swimming pool maintenance. Use unfriendly ozone disinfection agent lethal to organisms in swimming pool's water. Located in fitness centre, on ground floor. Ensure that non-nutrient water in condition safe for humanplayers bathing using semi-automatic dosing equipment. Maintain correct concentrations of disinfectant in water. Ensure other quality parameters, in particular pH (the lower pH levels, the more acidic the water, the greater the erosion of human tooth enamel), kept at correct levels for disinfectant to act effectively and efficiently. Bather pollution largely removed by action of ozone, therefore easy maintain minimum residual of free chlorine. Sure water is safe? Filtration and sanitation plant: discovered pump had been allowed to run with outlet valve shut, with resuit that electrical demand for motor increased, boiling water inside pump. Probable cause: humanplayer error. Engineer forgot to open valve. Rectify. Swimmingly. NEURAL NET. Store information.

6) 8.30 a.m. 12 humanplayers. Outside airtemp 71.5deg Fahrenheit. Call weather channel connection to update IT workstations with latest travel and weather conditions. Carry out model-free estimate of air-con situation inside building envelope, according to associated memory. Conclusion: outside airtemp likely to go on rising, then turn up air-con and reduce inside temp by five degrees. At same time make smell pleasant air automatic with bromine-based sea breeze. At same time refill coffeevend machines on atrium floor, and seventeenth level where builders already working, with boiling water. Hot. Arabics. Finegood.

7) 9.45 p.m. 40 humanplayers. Recommence cleaning building's 1,120 windows using Mannesmann wash-head and solution of nonionic surfactant made from California citrus juice. Rear elevation. Section 3. Remove all grime from raw pollutants (hydrocarbons, water vapour, carbon monoxide and heavy metals) and secondary pollutants (ozone, nitrogen dioxide, organic compounds and acidic particles of nitrate sulfate) in atmos, especially near atmos inversion layer at ground level. Whistleclean.

In a basement room of the Gridiron building Allen Grabel crawled toward the vodka bottle on his hands and knees. It was empty. Now he would have to go out and find a bar or a liquor store. He glanced at his watch. Eleven o'clock. Was that day or night? It didn't matter much. Either way there were places open. But it was easier coming and going at night when nobody was around. He felt weak, so he was glad that he was already dressed. At least it would save him the effort of putting on his clothes.

He looked around the little room. What was it supposed to be for? He ought to know. He had drawn the plans. Some kind of storage room, maybe. Except that he was the only thing in it. Him and the camp bed. For the moment, anyway. It was lucky he had remembered this place. Lucky he had thought to have brought a camp bed into the Gridiron a couple of months back when he had worked late two or three nights in a row.

Grabel stood up, took a couple of deep breaths and turned the key. He kept the door locked in case anyone came down to the basement. Not that it was very likely. He opened the door a crack and peered up the corridor. No one about. He walked a few yards to the men's washroom. He took a leak, washed his face and tried to avoid looking at the unshaven bum he saw in the mirror. Then he went past the women's washroom, various locker rooms and the back-up generator. Into the elevator hall, and carefully down one flight of stairs into the garage. Now he realized that it was morning. Light was pouring in through the portcullis door; there were several cars parked. He recognized Mitch's Lexus and Aidan Kenny's Cadillac Protector. He walked across the floor and, bending down to the level of a car window, spoke into the microphone that was located by the garage door.

'Allen Grabel,' he said and then stepped back as the door began to lift. Before it was more than two or three feet off the ground he ducked under it and started up the slope that led round the back of the piazza , up to Hope Street and downtown.