Zimmerman's Algorithm

3.09 Thur. April 2

RUTH stepped out of the car after him and said, "You should still be in the hospital."

Gideon grunted. He was on crutches again. This time, he had severely sprained his ankle, and his body ached where the doctors had removed a six-inch piece of helicopter shrapnel from his side. He felt like hell. But that wasn't going to stop him from testifying.

"I've got to do this," he told her. Her expression showed she expected nothing different.

The press were on them in moments, and Ruth had to help run interference for him. The reporters shouted now-familiar questions—

"Are the rumors true that you were working undercover for the FBI?"

"How does it feel to be the cop to blow the biggest spy scandal since the Aldrich Ames case?"

"Is it true that President Rayburn is offering you a position in the next Administration?"

Ruth led Gideon through one of the ground-floor entrances into the Capitol Building—the presence of the metal detector effectively gave them a respite from the reporters. Gideon didn't know what to make of his change in fortune. The way the Rayburn Administration was spinning D'Arcy's fiasco had the side effect of turning Gideon into some sort of national hero.

He shouldn't complain, since now that the ever-pragmatic D.C. city political machine had decided that he was an asset, they had called off Magness and Internal Affairs. Even so, Gideon didn't think he liked it.

They walked down the halls toward the committee chambers, their progress slowed by Gideon's crutches. On the way, when they finally seemed to have some privacy to talk, Ruth said, "I still can't believe it."

"Believe what?"

"She jumped in front of his gun. She acted as if she wanted to die."

Gideon nodded. "Maybe she did."

"What? No, she lived for her work, and she never completed what they were doing. Aleph never got off the ground. . ."

Gideon didn't answer.

Ruth grabbed his arm and asked, "Did it?"

"I don't know if anyone's in a position to know that," Gideon said slowly. "I know that there are a lot of computer scientists out there saying that the 'event' was little more than a gigantic practical joke. The ultimate hacker prank, printing its little message on every available space across the globe . . ."

"You don't sound convinced."

"Your sister wasn't a prankster, was she?" Gideon stopped to lean on his crutches and look at Ruth. "Have you noticed the nervous little laugh that the computer people get when they talk about this? Isn't it kind of odd that no one's found any trace of the massive program that was used to accomplish this? Combine that with a dozen of Julia's grad students preaching the faith on every talk show that'll have them—"

"You think Julia actually managed to contact God?"

"Her God, maybe." Gideon started walking again. "D'Arcy didn't realize—maybe Julia didn't even realize—how much computing power Aleph needed. The Daedalus itself was just a single part of a much larger entity, an entity that may have existed only for fifteen minutes or so . . . Julia's viral programs had years to evolve, a billion times faster than their biological models. They're long past the point humans are at." Gideon smiled and chuckled weakly. "Aleph was a good choice for a name."

"What do you mean?"

"The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, possessed of a certain religious significance all its own, and juxtapose that with Aleph-null, the symbol for infinity. You could consider it as close to a symbol for God as you can get from the language of mathematics. Julia's perfect mathematical world. Aleph, effectively aeons evolved beyond us, exists completely in that world. It—He—would have to be perfect. A mind that can perceive all of that world, in all of its perfection—"

" 'God is a Theorem,' " Ruth said, quoting her sister, " 'and someday he will be proved.' "

Gideon nodded.

"So you actually think she created God?"

"I think she created a collection of parallel processing programs that became very smart, and have since become very good at hiding themselves." Gideon chuckled again. "Wouldn't do for someone to decide to format God's hard drive."

Ruth shook her head. "At least they're probably not going to have you testify about that."

"Amen to that."

"What are you going to say about D'Arcy?"

"You mean Rayburn's posthumous labeling of him as an out-and-out traitor?"

"Uh-huh."

"The truth— He was just another Ollie North. Patriotic to the point where little niceties like the law don't particularly matter."

They reached the chambers and Gideon showed his identification to the guard. After a moment he opened the door for him. The guard glanced at the crutches and asked, "Do you need any help, sir?"

"No, thanks, I'll manage."

He moved laboriously to the table before the committee. They had him raise his hand and swear to God to tell the truth.

Gideon looked at the cameras, microphones, and television monitors clustered in the room and had the ominous sensation that Julia's God was listening.