Capacity Read Online Free PDF Page A

A
             
    “What’s the matter, Judy?”
    Helen leaned close to Judy 3 and took hold of one of her white hands. For something that seemed to be barely there, the hand felt very warm.
    “Judy, what is it?”
    “He killed himself,” she whispered. “Overwrote the personality space he inhabited with null events.”
    James spoke up from his corner in a whining voice. “So what? Let him die. Who cares?”
    Judy 3 turned and gave him a sweet smile. “
You
should care, James. Now that Kevin has left this processing space, there is no reason for the Private Network to maintain it. Let’s just hope my atomic friends get an exit into here before we’re all wiped.”
    Helen moved her lips, thinking aloud.
    “Surely they will have a backup of this processing space? Couldn’t they just run that?”
    Judy 3 had been gazing at her reflection in the mirrored walls of the isolation room. She turned and gave Helen a significant look.
    “Ah, now you’ve hit on the crux of the matter, Helen.”
             
    Level Four
             
    Judy 11 stepped into the isolation room on Level Four and held her breath, expecting the worst. The scenarios on this level did not bear contemplating. To look at them awoke a boiling anger that slowly cooled into thoughts that left her feeling weak and ashamed.
    In this room there was a table, a little tray of silver instruments at one side of it. A man was looking at the instruments thoughtfully. He turned as Judy appeared.
    “Hello, Judy,” he said.
    “Who are you?” Judy 11 asked. “Where’s Helen?”
    “Never mind that,” said the man. “We need to talk, and quickly. I’ve been trying to get a message to your atomic self, undetected, for months now. This may be my last chance.”
    Judy 11 laughed sardonically.
    “You could have picked a better place. This processing space is going to be shut down at any moment, with all of us in it. I’m doing a last sweep for anyone who may be trapped in here, in the vain hope that we may be able to get them out in time.”
    “Never mind that,” the man said again. “What I’ve got to say is far more important.”
    “I doubt it,” Judy said.
    The man took hold of Judy’s hands and gazed into her black eyes.
    “Judy, listen to me. When word of this gets out, it could bring down Social Care, the EA, even the Watcher. It changes everything we’ve been led to believe. There’s been a murder.”
    The edge to the man’s words touched something in Judy. He
believed
in what he was saying.
    “Who has been murdered?” she asked crisply.
    “That’s not the problem. The problem is the murderer. They’ve killed once; they’re going to kill again. The murderer has to be stopped, and I don’t think that that’s possible.”
    Judy 11 was calm.
    “Nothing is impossible. Who is the murderer?”
    The man swallowed. He looked around the room, as if afraid of who might hear his words. When he spoke, it was in a hoarse whisper.
    “The Watcher.”

Justinian 1: 2223
    Only three weeks had elapsed since his arrival on Gateway, but Justinian was increasingly wondering why he was still there. At 5 A.M. subjective time his frustration was the only thing that could compete with his exhaustion. Standing at the rear of the flier, the exit ramp slowly dropping away into the early morning, he gave a half yawn, half sigh as he shifted the baby on his hip. His son pointed at the darkness revealed by the opening ramp and turned to face him.
    “Bah buh bah,” said the baby earnestly. “Bah buh bah!” A stinking breeze twisted into the cabin through the widening gap, scattering grass seeds before it: a bad-breath yawn that matched Justinian’s.
    As the ramp dropped further, the flier’s exterior lights came on, illuminating a long sloping finger of mud that slid down into black water. Justinian wiped his sticky eyes with one hand and set off down the exit ramp. Outside of the calming yellow glow of the cabin that had been his home for