Cathy inched toward the top of the stairs that led to the basement. She opened the door. It was pitch black down there; for their fifth anniversary, Peter and Cathy had treated themselves to a home-theater system, so the blinds on the basement windows had been replaced with Mylar-lined curtains on electric rails — and the curtains had been drawn. Cathy thought she knew the layout well enough to find the incoming phone line even in the dark. She stepped onto the top stair—

The overhead sprinklers came on. No alarm — nothing to summon neighbors or the fire department. But cold water started showering down from the ceiling. Cathy gasped and ran back up into the living room. The sprinklers shut off behind her and came on in there. She moved onto the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. The sprinklers cut off in the living room and went on in the stairwell.

Cathy realized that they were following her — the sim had presumably keyed into the motion sensors that were part of the burglar-alarm system. Through the mist, she could see that the LEDs on the VCR were now off — presumably to avoid starting a fire by electrical shorting.

Exhausted and wet, with no way to escape, Cathy decided to head for the bathroom. If the sprinklers were destined to follow her, she might as well be in the room in which they could do the least damage. She got into the bathtub and unhooked the shower curtain, using it as a tent to shield herself from the cold water.

Three hours later, Peter came home. The front door unlocked normally for him. He found the living room carpet soaked, and could hear the sprinklers running upstairs. He hurried up to the bathroom and opened the door. The moment he did so, the sprinklers stopped.

Cathy pushed off the shower curtain. Water streamed from it as she rose to stand up in the tub. Her voice was full of tightly controlled fury. “Neither I nor any version of me would ever have done anything like this to you.” She glared at him. “We’re even.”

Cathy, quite sensibly, refused to stay in the house. Peter drove her to her sister’s apartment. She was still angry, but was slowly calming down, and she accepted his embrace as they parted. Peter then went directly to his own office and logged onto the net. He sent an E-mail message out into the world:

It didn’t take long for them to reply.

“I’m here,” said one of his ghosts.

“’Evening, Pete,” said another.

“What is it?” asked a third.

They all spoke through the same voice chip; unless they identified themselves, there was no easy way to tell which sim was speaking. And even knowing the nodes they were using wouldn’t tell him which sim was which. It didn’t matter.

“I know what’s going on,” said Peter. “I know one of you is killing people on my behalf. But tonight Cathy was threatened. I will not tolerate that. Cathy is not to be harmed. Not now, not ever. Understand?”

Silence.

“Understand?”

Still no reply.

Peter signed, exasperated. “Look, I know that Sarkar and I can’t remove you from the net, but if there’s any repetition, we will go public with your existence. The press would go apeshit over a story of a murdering AI having taken up residence inside the net. Don’t think they wouldn’t do a cold restart to get rid of you.”

A voice from the speaker: “I’m sure you’re mistaken, Peter. None of us would have committed murders. But if you go public, people will believe your claim — you are, after all, the famous Peter Hobson now. And that means you will be blamed for the deaths.”

“I don’t care at this point,” said Peter. “I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Cathy, even if it means going to jail myself.”

“But Cathy has hurt you,” said the synthesized voice. “More than anyone in the entire world, Cathy has hurt you.”

“Hurting me,” said Peter, “is not a capital crime. I’m not kidding: threaten her again, harm her in any way, and I will see to it that you are all destroyed. I’ll find a way to do that somehow.”

“We could,” said the electronic voice, very slowly, “get rid of you to prevent that from happening.”

“That would be suicide, in a sense,” said Peter. “Or fratricide. In any event, I know that’s something I wouldn’t do, and that means it’s also something that you wouldn’t do.”

“You would not have killed Cathy’s coworker,” said the voice, “and yet you believe one of us has done that.”

Peter leaned back in his chair. “No, but — but I wanted to. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I wanted to see him dead. But I would not kill myself — I wouldn’t even think about killing myself — and so I know you wouldn’t seriously think about doing it, either.”

“But you’re thinking about killing us,” said the voice.

“That’s different,” said Peter. “I’m the original. You know that. And I know in my heart of hearts that I don’t believe that computer simulacra are as alive as a flesh-and-blood person is. And because I believe that, you believe that, too.”

“Perhaps,” said the voice.

“And now you’re trying to kill Cathy,” Peter said. “At least that must stop. Don’t harm Cathy. Don’t threaten Cathy. Don’t do anything to Cathy.”

“But she hurt you,” said the synthesizer again.

“Yes,” said Peter, exasperated. “She hurt me. But it would hurt me more if she were not around. It would destroy me if she were dead.”

“Why?” said the voice.

“Because I love her, dammit. I love her more than life itself. I love her with every fiber of my being.”

“Really?” said the voice.

Peter paused, catching his breath. He considered. Was it just his anger talking? Was he blurting out things he didn’t mean? Or was it true — really true? “Yes,” he said softly, understanding at last, “yes, I really love her that much. I love her more than words can say.”

“It’s about time you admitted that, Petey-boy, even if you had to be pushed into it. Go get Cathy — doubtless you took her to her sister’s house; that’s what I would have done. Go get her and take her home. Nothing more will happen to her.”

CHAPTER 42

The next day, Peter made sure Cathy got safely on her way to work, but he stayed home. He’d disconnected the electronic door system and had called a locksmith to come and put in old-fashioned key-operated dead bolts. While the locksmith worked, Peter sat in his office and stared out into space, trying to make sense of it all.

He thought about Rod Churchill.

A cold fish. Undemonstrative.

But he had been taking phenelzine — an antidepressant.

Meaning, of course, that he had been diagnosed as having clinical depression. But in the two decades Peter had known Rod Churchill, he’d seen no change in his demeanor. So maybe … maybe he’d been depressed for all that time. Maybe he’d been depressed even longer than that, depressed during Cathy’s childhood, leading him to be the lousy father he had been.

Peter shook his head. Rod Churchill — not a bastard, not an asshole. Just sick — a chemical imbalance.

Surely that mitigated what he’d done, made him less culpable for the way in which he’d treated his daughters.

Hell, thought Peter, we’re all chemical machines. Peter couldn’t function without his morning coffee. There was no doubt that Cathy became more irritable just before her period. And Hans Larsen had let his hormones guide him through his life.

Which was the real Peter? The sluggish, irritable guy who pulled himself out of bed each morning? Or the focused, driven person who arrived at the office, the drug caffeine working its magic? Which was the real Cathy? The cheerful, bright, sexy woman she was most of the time, or the cranky, quarrelsome person she became for a few days each month? And which the real Larsen? The drunken, sex-crazed lout Peter had known, or the fellow who apparently had done his job well and been liked by most of his coworkers? What, he wondered idly, would the guy have been like if someone were to cut off his dick? Probably a completely different person.