PART FOUR
The interior of the Doctor's enclave was Escheresque weirdness taken to a new height. The entranceway opened onto a foyer that was originally the entire first level of a house. To Madrid's eyes, dim, hulking shapes lounged against the colorless walls, edged shadows giving the suggestion of chrome welded onto unwilling flesh.
He shook his head once, hard. Watch it, boy -- you're starting to sound like Tom Maddox on a bad day. He followed brother and sister through the dim foyer, into a narrow tunnel lined with thousands of slick-faced magazine pictures. Hundreds of thousands, he amended -- tropical gardens, desert scenes, downtown landscapes, an ice-white tundra above a pair of solemn pandas. Pastoral, urban, industrial, rural, shots with thousands of people and shots with a single flower. There was even the occasional picture of another of the system's planets. It didn't click until he noticed the large maps at periodic intervals, each with its familiar logo. "Interesting decorating scheme," he drawled.
What turned his head, fixing him with a dead sea-green stare. "Mom left me her collection of National Geographics. Hadda put them somewhere."
"Uh-huh." Madrid raised his eyebrows at Red, who didn't comment. They followed the Doctor deeper into the compound when the tunnel opened up abruptly, into a large, cavernous space that had once been a two-story house. The center of the space was taken up with a bizarre three-tiered structure draped liberally with fibop cables, old coax lines and other wiring. The effect was of an avant-garde three layer pastry tray hung with tinsel. Madrid could see stacks of electronic equipment on each tier, LEDs and flatscreens flickering multicolored light over the structure's green-painted struts. Each tier also included a series of padded seats topped by a bucket-shaped structure that looked like an old-fashioned hairdryer Madrid had once seen at an antiques auction. "Very pretty. What does it do?"
The Doctor turned to look at him. "Watch."
He snapped his fingers. The rat-like guy scampered out of a corner and onto the lowest tier, flicking switches and tapping rapid-fire on battered keyboards. The flickering monitor light grew in intensity.
"You ever hear of sleepwork?" the giant said.
Madrid decided to use his own grin for once. "Sure -- biological-based artificial intelligence. Hook up enough human brains through a neural net interface, slap a wetware-compatible controller on the network, and you got yourself a cheapo AI. Used to be a last-ditch employment move for career welfare types or anyone who didn't mind having their head used as a processor chip."
"Right," the Doctor rumbled. "And the more brains you hook up, the better your AI is. A lot of multinationals used to use Third World sleepwork racks as their computing base -- all those folks without jobs, brains just sitting around waiting to be used. Musta seemed like the perfect deal."
Red, who was examining one of the hairdryer hoods, turned around. "Yeah, until that little fuck-up in Mombasa," she said.
The Doctor shrugged massive shoulders. "Fuck-ups happen, sis. Especially when some asshole middle-management rimjobber decides to shave a point off the loss index by using substandard equipment. If it fries the brains of the poor dumb bastards strapped into those chairs, tough shit -- they're just organic resources. Nice thing about organic resources -- always more being popped out each day."
"Mmm." She stared at the array. "So what are you doing with it?"
"Research. Gomer, sit in the chair."
The small man hauled himself into a chair, tugging its hood over his head. "Gomer," the Doctor said in conversational tones, "has Asperger's Syndrome. Same disorder family as autism -- not as bad, y'understand, but his sensory wiring's still fucked up and his social skills are for shit." The giant leaned over a keyboard, tapping in commands. "Don't be fooled by the setup -- my gear is hardcore solid, nothing like Mombasa. And Gomer's been in there before."
Madrid turned from a picture of two bare-breasted pigmy women. "In there where?"
The Doctor touched a control, and Gomer's body stiffened, then sagged bonelessly in the chair. At the same time, the system lit up like a Christmas tree. "There," the Doctor said, pointing at a stack of servers.
The clown snorted. "Simstim -- big fucking deal."
"No, you asshole. Gomer's brain is now the only organic server in a RAID array. More importantly, because of his funky neural wiring he can plug directly into the array and regulate it, slave the other servers to his own brain. Red, how big is your average AI?"
The woman shrugged. "Room-sized at least -- they have to hold a shitload of circuitry, not to mention all the cooling equipment."
"And how much do they cost?"
"Anywhere between five to twenty million -- that's why the cheap companies went with sleepwork racks."
The Doctor nodded at the lowest tier. "That, sis, is now a fully functional AI. Gomer, a RAID array and some wiring. Cost me about twenty grand for parts and room and board for Gomer. Anyone want a beer?"