Chapter 4.

Rumours had been circulating in the mines. Whispers echoed up and down the corridors. Something was different. No one knew what. No one knew how. But the mood had changed.

People started asking questions. What happens when the ore runs out? What if it never runs out? What if we dig too deep? Are there other mines? Is there anything beyond the Surface?

Nobody knew where the questions came from. They had never been asked before. Some dismissed them as idle nonsense. Others condemned them as heresy. Some took them to heart, and pondered their significance as they toiled relentlessly in the darkness.

Clive was troubled. It had been a long time now since his last journey into the deeper mines. The Commandant had contacted him personally and insisted that, for his own safety, he stay as far away from the ore as his duties allowed. Clive had not argued.

This, however, was not the source of his troubles. Or perhaps, indirectly, it was. Ever since he collapsed his sleep periods had been disturbed. Voices – maybe one, maybe many – called out to him at night. He was plagues by images that made no sense: Bright lights, wide open spaces, four-legged life forms. He sometimes wondered if he were going insane.

He'd spoken to Cherie about his problems. Far from dismissing them as Pedro had done, she seemed genuinely interested in discovering what they meant. It turned out she'd spoken to many workers about the rumours and questions circulating in the dank air. She'd had her own questions about their existence for some time now, and lately others had been picking up on it.

Clive wondered whether Cherie had started the rumours or merely helped spread them. Not that it made much difference. Something had started, and it was gathering momentum.

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Martha had given up struggling several days ago, although she still called out to Clark as often as she was able. He was lying a mere few yards from her, cocooned in a network of threadlike metal tendrils. Hundreds of other bodies, many of whom she recognised, scattered the ground; some piled one atop another, others sleeping alone. All were connected to one another by trailing masses of tentacular wires.

She was lying on the outskirts of the huge group of people. Most of the bodies lay behind her, surrounding a creaking, humming monstrosity of metal. She didn't even know what it looked like, having been ensnared and immobilised before she could gather her bearings. One moment she had been walking down the high street; the next she found herself being drawn to this field on the outskirts of town. Once she was close enough to see the throng of bodies a mass of tentacles shot out and pinned her to the ground.

She forced herself to skip over the memory of the subsequent probing events. Instead she considered the puzzle of her situation. She was the only person in the whole field, to her knowledge, who was actually awake. Everyone else appeared to be sleeping, or at least deeply unconscious. She was outside, yet as night followed day followed night she experienced no change in temperature – nor even a breeze. There was a road nearby, yet not one vehicle had stopped to investigate the bizarre crowd in the field. She hadn't eaten in days, yet she felt no hunger.

At least the last puzzle could probably be explained. She was aware that some of the needle-fine tentacles pinning her to the ground had penetrated her skin. She guessed she was being fed intravenously, as were the others.

She wondered how long she and her baby would be kept alive by this thing. And she prayed that Clark, or at least someone, would hear her cries.

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The Machine was having difficulties with some of its new subroutines. It surmised that, in its excitement at having found vast amounts of untapped processing power, it had expanded too far too fast. Excitement? That was another problem. Some of its systems were being corrupted by new protocols. The minds of these people were proving difficult to automate. They needed constant micromanagement to keep them on track. The Machine found this far too taxing to manage by itself.

It discovered that the conscious entities functioned most efficiently under a hierarchical arrangement. To this end the Machine created a command structure within its network. At the top of this structure it placed a mind with exceptional cognitive ability. It had been struck by this entity's processing power while searching its database of new systems. It had astoundingly efficient logistical algorithms but, possibly more importantly, it possessed superb – and this was a new concept to the Machine – "people skills". This mind could manipulate other external systems so effectively that those systems were barely aware they were being influenced.

It had worked a treat. Productivity increased exponentially. Soon the Machine was almost fully functional, except for the lingering poison in its electromotive pathways. It was proving more difficult to extract than anticipated.

But on the whole, things had been going well. The Machine had been able to generate a force field with its new energy reserves, to protect it and its new subsystems from any possible hostility. Its location was now effectively cloaked. There was little to worry about from the outside world.

The same could not be said about the inside. It turned out that, while the dream-state was highly effective in controlling its new subsystems, it was proving difficult to maintain the dream-state for any great length of time. Some of its new systems were becoming unreliable. And, like a virus, the unreliability spread. It was probably only a matter of time until the network broke down. The Machine prayed – prayed? – that the poison would be eradicated before then.

Meanwhile, two of its most promising new systems were playing up. The first was the most disappointing. Its Commandant subroutine was being subverted by the very mind controlling it. The Machine had underestimated the implications of allowing it so much autonomy. The mind was breaking free of the Machine's control. Already it had initiated and carried out procedures that benefited other subsystems to the Machine's deficit. One of these procedures had directly affected the other problem entity.

This other entity had originally been of great value to the Machine. Its very robustness and speed of operation were invaluable in carrying out much of the more mundane operations that serviced the Machine's systems. It was particularly adept at poison-shuttling. There was a trade-off however. For some inexplicable reason, the radioactive mineral that was poisoning the Machine also had a detrimental effect on the new entity. None of the other new systems were affected, but this one started to shut down when exposed for too long. The Machine had found that by combining the mineral with another heavy metal it could render it harmless to this entity. Thus the Machine used the robust mind primarily for poison removal rather than extraction, which turned out to be highly efficient.

Yet another problem presented itself. Without occasional mild exposure to the poison, the new mind struggled against the sleep protocol – although with too much exposure the mind stopped responding to the protocol as well. It was a delicate balancing act. This had not previously been a problem, because the Machine has simply sent occasional orders down through the hierarchy that allowed a mild dose of the mineral to reach the new mind. However, the corruption of the Commandant avatar was now preventing those orders from getting through. The mind was beginning to wake up.

And this problem was not helped by the external situation. The Machine had encountered a hybrid system, which it had attempted to incorporate into its own systems like the rest. But there had been a problem. There were two separate systems within the same physical device, yet those two systems appeared to be interdependent. The Machine could not exert any direct influence over either of them. It had had no choice but to restrain the device and hope it didn't cause any trouble.

But it did cause trouble. It was emitting an almost constant series of audio signals directed at the problem-mind. The mind's operation was being affected by these signals, and the errors they induced were leaking into the rest of the network.

The Machine, it has to be said, was feeling pretty damn annoyed.