“You’re having me on!”

“I wish I were. The company is in Tijuana. Salaries are still cheaper there. That’s just across the border, about twelve miles from here. Lots of American electronic assembly plants there. This company was probably founded to service them. Should we start thinking about a trip down there?”

“No, not for the moment.”

“That’s what I thought you would say.” Benicoff smiled at Brian’s look of surprise. “Because I understood that your military legal eagle has the Megalobe lawyers running in circles and screaming in pain. They’ll come around in the end. I’ve gone upstairs about this. So now there is pressure on the military to pressure the company to come up with a new contract.”

“Upstairs — talking to God?”

“Almost. And I figured you weren’t going to look at those files until your future was set.”

“You’re one step ahead of me.”

“Not hard to outwit a fourteen-year-old!”

“Brag, brag. This is one fourteen-year-old that has developed a taste for beer. Join me?”

“Sure. As long as it’s Bohemia ale.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“From Mexico, since we are talking about that country. I think that you’ll like it.”

Brian phoned down and a mess attendant brought the beers. He smacked his lips and drank deep.

“Good stuff. Have you talked to Doc Snaresbrook lately?”

“This morning. She says that you are going stir-crazy here and want to crack out. But she wants you in the hospital for another week at least.”

“That’s what she told me. No problem — I guess.”

“I suppose you are going to ask me next if you can go to Mexico.”

“Ben — is this your mind-reading day?”

“Not hard to do. You want security for those files — and so do we. Phone lines can be tapped, data copied. And GRAMs can go astray in the mail.”

“GRAM? Don’t you mean DRAM?”

“A thing of the past. Dynamic random-access memory is now as dead as the dodo. These gigabyte ERAMs are static, no need for batteries, and have so much memory that they are replacing CDs and digital audiotape. With the new semantic compression techniques they’ll soon replace videotapes as well.”

“I want to see one of them.”

“You will as soon as the trip can be arranged. And I am also not going to embarrass you, force you to say no, by offering to go there in your place. I’ve talked to various security people about this already.”

“I’m sure that it made them deliriously happy to even think about me leaving the country.”

“You better believe it! But when the shouting died down it turned out that the FBI has an ongoing agreement with the Mexican government about this kind of thing. There is a regular trade in going down there after drug money and computer records — usually in banks. Special armed Secret Service officers will accompany us all of the way. Mexican police will join us at the border and will bring us back to the States afterwards.”

“So I can go there and retrieve my files?”

Benicoff nodded. “Just as soon as the doctor says you’re fit. And it will be more like an invasion than you strolling across the border on your own. You’ll be escorted all the way there and home again.”

“And the files — will they be taken away from me?”

“You have a nasty and suspicious mind, Brian Delaney. What’s yours is yours. But — and I’m just guessing now — this trip will probably be difficult, it not impossible, to set up until you have signed a new contract with Megalobe. The government does have an investment to protect.”

“And if I don’t agree to the contract — I don’t go?”

“You said it — not me.”

Brian had to think about this. He finished his beer and shook his head no when Ben offered another one. Once before in his life he had tried to develop AI on his own; the records he had gone through showed that. Showed that he went broke too and had to sign that Mickey Mouse contract with Megalobe. If you can’t learn by experience you can’t learn. If he was fated to relive this part of his life he was certainly going to do a better job of it the second time around.

“It all depends on my new employment contract,” he finally said. “If it is fair then we retrieve the file and I go back to work for Megalobe. Okay?”

“Sounds like a winner. I’ll start setting things up.”

Benicoff was scarcely out the door when Brian’s phone rang; he picked it up.

“Who? Of course. Yes, she has clearance, check with Dr. Snaresbrook if there is any doubt. She has been here before. Right. Then please send her up.”

A marine guard brought Dolly in. Brian climbed to his feet and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“You’re looking a lot better, filling out,” she said, looking at him with the exacting eye of maternal scrutiny, then holding out a package. “I hope you still like these — I baked them this morning.”

“Not chocolate-chip cookies!” Brian tore open the wrapper and bit into one. “Always my favorite, Dolly, many thanks.”

“And how are things going?”

“Couldn’t be better. I’ll be able to get out of the hospital in a week. And the chances are I’ll be getting back to work as soon after that as I can manage.”

“Work? I thought that your memory, that was the trouble.”

“It shouldn’t be a hindrance. If I find any gaps when I start on the research — well, I’ll face that if and when it comes up. When I actually start working again I’ll quickly find out how much I have forgotten.”

“You’re not going to do that artificial intelligence thing anymore?”

“Of course. Why do you ask?”

Dolly leaned back in her chair, twisting her fingers together. “You don’t have to. Please, Brian. You tried once and look where it got you. Perhaps you’re not destined to succeed.”

He couldn’t tell her that he had succeeded once, that his AI was out there somewhere. This information was still classified. But he wanted to make her understand the importance of his work. And “destiny” had nothing to do with it.

“You know I can’t go along with that, Dolly. It’s free will that makes the world go round. And I’m not superstitious.”

“I’m not talking about superstition!” she said warmly. “I’m talking about the Holy Spirit, about souls. A machine can’t have a soul. What you are trying to do is a blasphemy. Dealing with the devil.”

“I have never been a great believer in souls,” he said softly, knowing she would be hurt whatever he said. Her mouth pursed angrily.

“You are your father’s son all right. Never went to mass at all, didn’t want to talk about it. We have God-given souls, Brian — and He is not giving them out to machines!”

“Dolly, please. I know how you feel and what you believe, remember that I was raised as a Catholic. But my work has given me some insight into the brain and what might be called the human condition. Try to understand that I am no longer satisfied with what I was taught to believe. Can machines have souls? You ask me that and I ask you if souls can learn. If they can’t — then of what importance is this concept? Sterile and empty and unchangeable for eternity. How much more preferable it is to understand that we create ourselves. Slowly and painfully, shaped basically by our genes, modified steadily by everything we see and hear and attempt to understand. That is the reality and that is how we function, learn and develop. That is where intelligence came from. I am just trying to discover how this process works and apply it to a machine. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Everything! You deny God and you deny the Holy Spirit and the soul itself. You will die and burn in hell forever…”

“No, I won’t, Dolly. That kind of destructive theory is where religion sinks into pure superstition. But what really hurts is that I know you believe that and suffer and worry for me. I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t really want to argue religion with you, Dolly. No one wins. But you’re an intelligent woman, you know that the world changes, even religions, change. You’ve had a divorce. And if the new Pope hadn’t ruled that family planning wasn’t a sin you wouldn’t be teaching birth control—”