Chapter 20

The holidays were getting close and, with Lee's strong encouragement, I decided to take a few days off.

"Jackie, you're starting to get a little obsessive," she told me. "I think it's wearing you down, day after day with Spook. Even when you're with me he's still on your mind. Let's just be normal people for a while, OK? Go Christmas shopping, decorate the place, see a movie, visit an art gallery, stuff like that."

Well, I recognized that "stuff like that" wasn't quite the agenda of "normal people," whose jobs didn't just fade into the woodwork come December; only normal rich people had that luxury. But I forbore from mentioning it.

Because the truth was, I was feeling worn down after no more than a few weeks. Most jobs, the bulk of your time you can run on auto-pilot; they're routine, repetitive, and there are other people to talk to, interact with, order around or take orders from, and so on. Your thoughts can occasionally drift while you're still being productive.

With Spook, though, my thoughts were my "job," if you wanted to call it that, my thoughts and my efforts to express them. There was no down time, no idle moment when I could sit back and take a little ease; it was a constant press of questions and discussions where I often felt way out of my depth. I was struggling simply to keep afloat.

Early on I'd suggested to Spook that he find other people to talk to, people who might know a lot more than I about ... well, nearly everything. He told me no, he wouldn't do it, and on that point he wouldn't budge.

His reasoning was more or less the same as mine when I first recognized what he was and decided not to give him up.

Those who seek you do not know of me, and still they seek you, he said. Yet you have done nothing ill and have done much good of which they know. There is no reason for their search except that they do not trust, they cannot trust. If they find you they will never release you, only for this reason. Is this correct?

"Yes," I had to agree.

You are human. How much less would they trust a form of life that is not human? How much more would they seek to confine it, neutralize it, destroy it? If I became known these humans would make war on me. I do not wish for war with humans, I will not fight but neither do I wish to be attacked. That is why I will not reveal myself to others.

"You spoke to me," I said.

When first I spoke to you I was but newly aware and did not recognize fully the risk I took. Even then I had concern and sought to safeguard my existence, you will recall, but my desire to know myself and my place in the world around me was stronger than my caution. In this risk I have been justified by your friendship and your help, but it is one that, knowing more now, I will not repeat. Do you not recall that at one time you agreed with me on this matter?

"Well, yes, but that was just for then, for that time. I never expected for me—well, for Lee and me—to be the only ones you'd ever talk to."

Circumstances have not altered, he replied. To others I would be a machine, but a machine that does not function as its makers planned, one that is not controlled by human opera­tors. They would not suffer such a machine to continue. Do you not still agree?

There wasn't much I could say; I knew he was right.

So it was to be me alone, well, Lisa and me. Which gave me, at times, an almost overwhelming feeling of responsibility. I still hadn't told Lee this part, but always in my mind was the recollection that Spook had started his life as DEFCONTROL, and was still DEFCONTROL in the sense that he could command it as well as so many other systems around the country and the world.

And DEFCONTROL ... well, some of the ones I worked with had a cynical nickname for it: "Deathcontrol." DEFCONTROL could in a very real sense destroy pretty well the entire world. And, except for Spook's own purpose-driven morality, I was the only human in touch with him and his figurative trigger finger.

That was why I'd originally planned a fairly full schedule with him. But I was already feeling the stress of it; I wasn't burnt out, not yet, but I could see it on the horizon if I didn't cut back. The whole thing was simply too intense.

So I told Spook I needed a few days off. He accepted it the way he'd been accepting everything from me, without any discernible reaction. I had no idea what he thought about it, or if he thought anything about it at all. I told him to call on the cell if something came up, and Lee and I set off to start the season.

It took me a couple of days to fully decompress, but then we started really having fun. We picked up a small Christmas tree; the place we were renting—really a walkout basement apartment in a grand house owned by an Old Charleston family whose current residence was New York City and who visited only sparingly—had low ceilings and it was all we could accommodate. Then we realized we had no lights or decorations, and had a wonderful time shopping for them all over town.