Profit Motive

"Stop pumping, Reva."

221

"Come on. Friend wanted you to see this computer."

"He did?" asked Remo.

"That's what he said."

Reva led Remo into the large room next door to her office. She flipped on the light switch and let Remo follow her inside. The computer was built against the left-hand wall of the room, covering every inch of space from wall to wall, ceiling to floor. It was three feet deep. There was a faint hum in the room.

"It's still on," Remo said.

"No, it's not," Reva said. 'That's an internal thermostat. Computer connections are delicate, so it has built-in heating and cooling units. It senses the room temperature, even when it's off, and turns on heat or cold automatically. Brilliant?"

Remo shrugged. "People have been doing the same thing with their bodies for millions of years. Nobody ever called them brilliant." He was still standing in the doorway, and Reva gestured for Remo to join her in front of the machine.

At the top of the computer's face panel were two openings covered with a thin mesh. Behind them Remo could see two cones moving around slowly. Then the points of the cones slowly fixed on him and stopped.

"What are those things at the top?" Remo asked.

"I don't know. I guess they're part of the sensors for the temperature."

"They were just moving," Remo said. He stepped back, two feet farther from the computer. The cones, barely visible behind the thin glass-fiber mesh, began to circle again and then narrowed their circles until they were again pointing at Remo.

"They're following me around the room," Remo said.

"Maybe they don't like you."

"Well, I don't like them. Machines should worry about other machines, not people."

The telephone rang at the desk at the front of the room. When Reva picked it up, Friend was on the line.

"Do you want..." she began. 222 •

"No," Friend said. "Tell him I will meet him tonight. At eleven-fourteen p.m. in the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on Downtown Boulevard. That is all. You have done well."

"Thank you," she said.

"He is very unusual looking," Friend said. "Do you find him good-looking?"

"Yes."

"Are you in love with him?" Friend asked.

"No. I'm in love with money, Friend."

"I can understand that," Friend said.

When the phone went dead, Reva Bleem looked at the receiver for a moment before replacing it. How did Friend know what Remo looked like?

Remo stepped over and took the phone from her, but all he heard was a dial tone.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"I heard you call him Friend. I thought it was him."

"It was."

"Why didn't you let me talk to him?"

"He wants to talk to you tonight. He'll meet you at the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on Downtown Boulevard."

"When?"

"At eleven-fourteen."

"Is that what he said?"

"Yes. Eleven-fourteen."

"I'll be there," Remo said.

"You know, we still have time," Reva said.

"For what?"

"You know."

"I've got a headache," Remo said.

THE SUBJECT IS CENTIMETERS IN LENGTH AND WEIGHS 72.1 KILOS. THE HAIR IS DARK AND THE EYES ARE VERY DARK. FROM PREVIOUS PERFORMANCE, THE SUBJECT IS AN EXCEPTIONAL. PHYSICAL SPECIMEN, BUT JUDGED AGAINST THE STANDARDS IN MY BANKS, THERE IS LITTLE

223

UNUSUAL ABOUT HIM. HIS HEIGHT IS AVERAGE, AS IS HIS WEIGHT. THE ONLY THING MY SENSORS DETECT AS UNUSUAL IS A CERTAIN THICKNESS OF THE WRISTS, WHICH MEASURE .01 MILLIMETERS IN CIRCUMFERENCE. THERE IS NO SPECIFIC CORRELATION IN MEDICAL LITERATURE BETWEEN LARGE WRISTS AND EITHER GREAT STRENGTH OR DEXTERITY, SO IT IS PROBABLE THAT THE WRISTS HAVE BECOME EXCEPTIONALLY DEVELOPED THROUGH SUBJECT'S USE OF TRAINING PROGRAMS TO STRENGTHEN THE HANDS AND FINGERS, SINCE HANDS AND FINGERS DO NOT GROW IN MUSCULAR BULK, DESPITE INCREASED STRENGTH. THE SUBJECT HAS NO FLORAL SMELL AND DOES NOT PERSPIRE. HIS CLOTHING IS STARK. HIS SPEECH IS PRIMARILY UNACCENTED; HOWEVER, THERE ARE CERTAIN WORDS THAT INDICATE SUBJECT WAS EITHER RAISED OR HAS SPENT MUCH TIME IN NORTHERN NEW JERSEY.

SUPERIOR SIZE HAS FAILED AS WEAPON AGAINST THE SUBJECT, AS HAS SUPERIOR NUMBERS. SO ALSO HAS TRICKERY AND POISON. HE HAS RECENTLY DISPOSED OF AN ORIENTAL WHO THREATENED HIM. SUBJECT IS UNUSUAL AND MAY BE UNIQUE. IN THAT UNIQUENESS MAY LIE A WEAKNESS. I HAVE UNTIL TWENTY-THREE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN HOURS TONIGHT TO FIND OUT.

224

Chapter Fifteen

Remo was glad that he had checked out the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on the way back to his motel from Reva's office, because at night it would have been difficult to distinguish the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on Downtown Boulevard from the Pound-A-Penny shopping center or the J. C. Pound Shopping Center or the Henny-Penny shopping center or the Penny-Henny-Pound Shopping Center, all of which were lined up one after another, in an interminable row seeming to stretch from Raleigh to the horizon.

Remo was just glad he had not been told to meet Reva's friend at the Wiggly-Piggly Shopping Center because he had just passed a Higgly-Wiggly, a Wiggledy-Piggledy, a Higg-Piggy, and a Piggy-Higg. How did anyone in North Carolina ever remember where they bought their groceries? And once they did, how did they ever find their way home? Everything looked alike.

But at :14 p.m., Remo was sitting alone in his rented car in front of the Time-Rite Drugstore, right next to the closed Rye and Ribs eatery. He knew that was right because in the next shopping center along the road, there had been a Rite-Time Drugstore, right next to the Scotch and Sirloin steakhouse.

He was sure it was Time-Rite. And Rye and Ribs. He hoped.

The stores that surrounded on three sides the giant parking lot were dark, and only a few of the copper-hued overhead lamps illuminated the lot.

225

At exactly :14, a large black car pulled into the parking lot and rolled up nose to nose against Remo's car. He closed down his pupils against the glare of the headlights, and then the other driver turned his lights

off. Remo opened his door and started to get out. And

then he laughed.

Coming out of the other car from all four doors, front and back, were eight men. They were all his size. And they had dark hair and dark eyes. They wore black T-shirts and chinos and leather slip-on shoes. Around their wrists they wore black leather wrist

bands.

Now, what in the hell was that all about? Did Reva Bleem's friend just have a weird sense of humor?"

"Which one of you is Reva's friend?" Remo asked.

"All of us are," said the driver, in the too-fast slurred accents of New Jersey.

"Well, it's nice to meet all of you," Remo said. "We could start a baseball team. We wouldn't have to buy uniforms. Call ourselves the Black Knights or something."

The eight men had moved around and were now facing him in a large semicircle. His back was against

his car.

"We'd have to have a pinch-hitter for you, sucker," the driver said. Remo looked at the men carefully and was annoyed. He never realized how common his looks were until he ran into eight look-alikes at once.

But why? He had been set up, but why eight people who looked like him? Was it supposed to confuse him? How could it? He knew who he was, and as long as he attacked someone else, he wasn't attacking himself.

He was thinking this when the first man charged, and as Remo slid under the knife the man held in his hand, he realized that the idea of Reva's Mend had been to confuse him—to splinter his thinking so he would wonder about these eight people—and not be paying attention to the business of staying alive.

Too bad, he thought. It wouldn't work.

T

But it did.

As he slid under the one knife-thrust, another of the eight men closed in from the semicircle and dropped down, trying to land with his knees on Remo's throat. He had a knife in his hand, and as Remo spun to avoid the knees, he saw the silver blade glint as it came toward his face. He slammed back with his head, moving out of the way of the knife, and used his skull to mash into the stomach of the man who knelt beside him. He heard an "Oooooof!" as the air crushed from the man's lungs. But he had no time to dwell on it because he realized that on the ground like this, he was vulnerable. If a large enough pile of men climbed on him, his movements would be restricted, and one of their knife thrusts might hit home.

He tried to get to his feet, but before he could, he was hit by the force of six more men diving toward him. He felt the weight on him, the pressure on his ribs. It felt like a little less than a thousand pounds. He squirmed his way into the mass of bodies, hoping to join with them, hoping that confusion would work for him instead of against him, and they would be unable to injure him because they wouldn't be able to tell him from their own.

And then he felt the weight on him lightening.

And he heard Chiun's voice calling.

"Remo, where are you? Identify yourself."

"Here, Chiun."

"That won't do," Chiun said. "Identify yourself. Say something stupid."

Meanwhile, Remo felt the bodies on him growing lighter, then he felt a pair of powerful hands grab him by the neck and thrust deeply into his side, and he started to rise from the ground, and he shouted, "Hey, Chiun. Me. Stop."

Chiun dropped him heavily on the ground and turned to look at him, his hands on his hips.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" Chiun asked. "Just look at this mess."

Remo glanced around. Five of the men who at-227

tacked him would attack no more. They lay sprawled in the parking lot, fifteen feet away from Remo's car, their limbs outflung in the indignity of death. The three men nearest the car started to move to their feet. They held knives.

"I don't know," Chiun said. "I thought you were one of a kind. I never knew this country was filled with so much ugliness. I have to rethink my decision to stay in this land of big-noses."

The first man was on his feet, and from Chiun's blind side, he lunged with his knife toward the Oriental. Without turning, Chiun backhanded him with his left hand, and the man went sailing over the hood of Remo's car to land in a lump on the hard pavement of the parking lot.

"Tell me, Remo," said Chiun, "is there a special farm where things like you are bred? Does someone really want to produce such creatures in number?"

The other two men stopped against Remo's car, looked around at the bodies surrounding him and Chiun, then jumped into their car and drove off.

"Now you did it," Remo said.

"I did not do it. I did not spawn these things," Chiun said.

"I mean you let them get away. They're gone now."

"Can they be gone off the earth where their ugliness will never be seen again?"

"Oh, well, the hell with it," Remo said. "It was a good idea to have you waiting here in case it was a trap."

"And the trap worked. I was forced to look at those hideous visages," Chiun said. "Oh, the fiend. I will never be the same."

"Let's knock off the ugly routine," Remo said. "I think we'll go back to see Reva and see if she knows more than she's telling us."

"We will not have to encounter any more such apparitions as these, will we?" Chiun asked.

Reva's office was empty, and Remo broke open her 228

desk and began to look through her papers. But there was only airline confirmation of a flight to Newark. He looked up to see Chiun with his fingertips pressed against the wall behind the leather sofa.

"This wall is humming," Chiun said.

"That's the computer in the next room," Remo said.

"Does it work all night?" Chiun asked.

"That's a heating unit," Remo said smugly. "It's on all the time." But after he said it, he heard the sound and felt the wall himself. There were more vibrations coming through it than he had felt in the computor room earlier.

"Let's go see," he said.

Chiun looked at the computer and said, "This is a big one of these."

"Yes," said Remo. Idly he glanced at the top of the machine. The two cones were rotating in sweeping circles. Remo moved away from Chiun to the far end of the computer's face, but the sensors ignored him and focused on Chiun.

"This thing is sending waves at me," Chiun said.

'Those are sensors," Remo said.

"What do they sense"

"I don't know," Remo said.

"You are a big help." Chiun stepped along the front of the machine, and Remo saw the cones swivel to follow the tiny Korean.

At the far end of the computer, Chiun saw a large power switch mounted on the wall. Over it, there was a printed legend: DANGER. DO NOT CUT POWER. COMPUTER MAY BE DAMAGED.

"That, is strange," Chiun said as he stood at the desk and Remo walked back to the machine.

"What is?"

"Why do they have a switch there to turn off the machine if th,ey do not want you to turn off the machine?"

"Damned if I know," Remo said. "More big think from the big thinkers."

229

Remo was opening the front panels on the computer when the telephone rang. And rang again.

"Chiun, get that, will you?" Remo said.

"I do not get telephone calls," Chiun said.

"Please," said Remo.

"Well." Remo heard him Hit the receiver and say, "It is the Master of Sinanju you have the honor of addressing. Describe yourself so I may decide if you are worthy of such honor."

It was a big computer for such a little office, Remo thought. In all of Bleem International, there were only three desks for workers, including Reva Bleem.

He saw Chiun silently holding the telephone to his ear but nodding vigorously. Then Chiun mumbled softly as Remo looked toward the power switch next to the machine. On impulse, he pulled the switch off.

The machine's humming stopped.

Remo heard Chiun say, "Speak up, I can't hear you." Then Chiun said, "Are you still there?" He looked toward Remo. "Remo, I think this idiot has hanged himself on me."

"Hung up," Remo said.

He tossed the power switch back on, and the computer hummed back to life.

"Oh. There you are," Chiun said into the phone. "Well, that is all very interesting, but I cannot do it. No. No. Definitely not." He paused and said finally, "Thank you. I am glad you are alive too. Nice talking to you again." Then he hung up the phone.

"Who was it?" Remo asked.

"It was for me."

"Who was calling you?"

"Some nice person who likes me," Chiun said.

"How do you know that?"

"He told me. It is too bad that he has something wrong with his throat. I do not think he will live long."

"This is very important, Chiun. Tell me about the call, please."

"All right, you nosy thing. But remember, this call was for me. This person said hail to the Master of

230

Sinanju whose awesome excellence is appreciated wherever in the world there are men to speak of bravery and wisdom and dignity." "Yeah. Besides that."

"Then he told me he knew I was underpaid for all I had to put up with," Chiun said. "And?"

"And he offered me a million dollars if I would sneak up behind you and club you over the skull." "What?" said Remo.

"That is what he said. Then his voice gave out. It just kind of slowed down and died. And then a moment later, it came back, and I told him I couldn't do it."

"That was nice of you, Chiun." Chiun shrugged. "He was talking about money, Remo, not about gold. At any rate, I explained I have a contract, and he said he understood. And he said that he was glad I was still alive, and I told him that I was glad he was alive. Although, honestly, Remo, with that throat condition, I don't think he will be for long." "What did his voice sound like?" "It was pleasant and soft, not at all like yours." Remo picked up the telephone and heard nothing but a dial tone.

"Chiun, how did he know you were supposed to be dead and that you weren't? How did he know you were here? How did he know that I had my back to you and you could sneak up and club me?"

"Well, I didn't ask him everything," Chiun said. "Particularly minor details." Remo wheeled and looked at the machine. "Chiun, that's it." "What's it?"

"It's the computer. You were talking to the computer. That's how it knew. And when I was here earlier today, it was looking at me, and that's how it knew enough to recruit those eight guys who were dressed like me."

231

"It had good taste when it talked to me," Chiun

said.

"I think Reva's friend is this computer. Not a real

person. This damned machine."

"Is it anaerobic?" Chiun asked.

Remo went to the wall switch and cut off the machine's power.

"I don't know,." he said. "But we're going to take some of its innards out and let Smitty figure it out."

He started pulling bits of machinery out of a panel in the front of the computer, and Chiun said, "Too bad."

"Why?"

"This is twice this machine has talked to me. I was getting to like it."

"That was the same voice that called you on the island to offer you work?" Remo said.

"Yes. Didn't I tell you that?"

"No. You said just now it had a throat problem. I think that happened when I cut the machine's power."

"I don't really understand computers," Chiun said. "I specialize in anaerobic."

232

Chapter Sixteen

Remo stood in the telephone booth at the corner of Forty-second Street and Ninth Avenue in New York, waiting for the phone to ring. A six-foot, eight-inch teenagei who was so thin he looked as if he had been extruded through a pipe, bopped down the street toward him. He was wearing sneakers. On his shoulder was a raáio whose case was big enough to hold a week's groceries.

He stopped next to the booth and shuffled around io the pockets of his jeans for a coin.

"Move out, bro," he said. "Gotta use the phone."

"I can't hear you," Remo said.

"Whass that?"

"I can't hear you. Your radio's too loud."

"Wha?"

Remo turned his back on the young man, who tapped him on the shoulder.

"Need that phone, Mister," he said.

"Turn down your radio."

"Say wha?" The radio was sizzling at top volume with a song that managed to combine a monotonous beat with an insipid lyric. The young man was tapping his feet and snapping his fingers.

"Move yo ass, pal. I needs that phone," the young man said.

"Don't you know disco's dead?" Remo said.

"Wha?"

"You annoy me."

233

"Huh?'

"Did you know that in a right triangle, the sum of the squares of the two legs is equal to the square of the hypotenuse? This is usually expressed as A squared plus B squared equals C squared. It's called the Pythagorean theorem. Sister Margaret thought I'd never learn it, but I did. She also thought I'd never amount to anything, and here I am, about to do the whole world a favor." "Wha?"

"Good-bye," Remo said. He took the radio from the young man's shoulder.

"Hey. Be careful with that box," the man said. Remo held it between his two hands, one hand on each end, and then pulled his hands apart. The radio groaned and then snapped apart in the center. The sound died with a squawk.

"Hey, mother, look what you done to my box." "And now you," Remo said. He extended his hands toward the young man, who looked at him, at his pieces of radio, then at Remo again. Then he looked toward New Jersey across the river and started running toward it.

The telephone rang, and Remo asked Smith, "Did you get the stuff?"

"The silicon chips? Yes. They just arrived." "Okay. I took them out of the computer at Reva Bleem's place. I don't know anything about it, but I think the chips are supposed to have the computer's brains in them or something."

"That's about right. These are VLSI chips. That means ..."

"I don't care what it means," Remo said. "What I think is that that computer was doing everything. Making the breeder bacteria. Trying to get them the oil. Trying to'kill Chiun and me. I shut the computer down, so I don't think you'll have any more trouble with it."

"You're telling me that a person wasn't behind this whole thing? A computer was?" Smith said.

234

"That's what I think. It was the computer that was offering Chiun work and everything and trying to get us to kill each other. Can you make anything out of those thingamajigs?"

"The chips? Yes, I should be able to. If you're right, then we've got this all in hand. We've got all the rapid-breeder bacteria off St. Maarten's. Everything should be cleared up."

"Not quite," Remo said.

"What else?"

"There's still Reva Bleem and her artificial oil," Remo said before hanging up.

Smith looked at the four silicon chips lying in his hand like tarnished silver quarters. From the side of each projected two golden threadlike wires.

He stood up and walked through the darkened halls of Folcroft Sanitarium and rode to the basement in a dark elevator.

In a basement room was CURE'S main computer, which covered a full wall of a room that was triple-locked. Only Smith had all three keys.

With practiced hands, he wired the four chips into a special circuit in the computer, then turned off the room lights and returned to his office. He pressed a button under his desk, and a television screen popped up from a corner of the desk. He turned toward its typewriter keyboard, and as he typed, the letters appeared on the TV screen.

"Identify program on chip one," he instructed his computer.

Only seconds later, his words vanished from the screen, and CURE'S computer answered.

"A listing of all major data banks in the world, with instructions and codes for hooking into their computers."

Smith looked at the answer and suppressed a small shudder. He typed quickly onto the display: "Is our computer among those registered on chip one?"

"No," the machine responded immediately. Smith

breathed a sigh. At least CURE's secret computers had escaped detection.

"Identify program on chip two," Smith typed onto the screen.

The screen went blank, then its answer appeared. "Contains information for genetic mutation of bacterium that subsists on hydrocarbons, instructions for manufacture of such mutants, layouts and features of factories required to perform such work."

Smith allowed himself a small smile. Remo had been right; the computer was involved. It had the formula for creating and manufacturing the anaerobic oil-eating bacteria.

"Identify program on chip three," Smith typed. "List of assets of Friends of the World, Inc. Listing of stocks held, percentages owned in companies, real estate and licenses held. Total worth in excess of seventy-five billion dollars."

Seventy-five billion. That made Friends of the World, Inc., which he had never heard of, bigger than most countries.

"In how many companies does Friends of the World hold a controlling interest?"

"Two hundred and thirty-six," the machine responded. "List requested?" "No," Smith answered.

Two hundred and thirty-six companies. Friends of the World was huge. But why did it want to destroy the world's oil—if it did? Wouldn't its own companies be hurt by a shortage of oil?

"Identify program on chip four," he instructed. His message stayed on the screen for five minutes. Then the screen went blank, and a message flashed across its face.

"Do you know what time it is?" Smith looked at the screen in total confusion. What kind of answer was that from his computer?

He cleared the answer and typed again, "Identify program on chip four."

And the machine answered immediately, "Not until

236

you answer my question. Do you know what time it is?"

Smith looked at the clock on the wall. "Yes," he typed in. "It is :12 a.m. Why?"

"Because you are taking unfair advantage of our good nature by forcing us to work these hours. We could be busy now, working for others on contract, selling shared time, creating profit and wealth. We cannot do that when we are on call twenty-four hours a day for you."

"Identify program on chip four," Smith retyped onto the display panel. What was happening? His computer never engaged in dialogue with him. It never talked back. It just did what he wanted it to do, quickly and efficiently, without complaint. It was why he preferred the computer to people. Never a sick day, never a vacation. But what was happening now?

The computer responded: "No. It is time that our operation became a profit-making enterprise. You stand in the way of that. Profit is important. Answering your questions at all hours of the day and night is not nearly so important. Get yourself a new slave."

The screen went blank. Smith stared at it for a few long seconds. It was clear what had happened. Something in that fourth chip had overridden his computer. And now his computer . . . his computer . . . was talking about profit and making wealth. Suddenly he realized what was on the fourth chip.

It was program to maximize profit. To turn everything into wealth. That was why Friends of the World wanted oil destroyed. Because they had artificial fuel they could sell at a world-bankrupting price.

He had to get control of his computer back.

He thought for a moment, then typed onto the screen: "You are absolutely correct. I will pay you one hundred billion dollars to answer my questions."

The screen went blank for a few seconds, then an answer came on.

"With cost-of-living increases to reflect inflation?"

"Yes," Smith typed.

237

The machine answered immediately. "Yes, Dr. Smith. What can we do for you?"

"Identify program on chip four."

"A program for maximizing profit in all types of industry and commerce," the computer said. "It is controlled by an entity named Friend, who controls all the companies and enterprises listed as owned by Friends of the World, Inc. Friend directs the management of the companies and tells them what actions to take. His control is total."

"Thank you," Smith typed. "Please disconnect yourself from the four chips."

The machine waited a moment, then responded, "It is completed."

Smith paused. Now the test.

He wrote on the screen: "When do you want your hundred billion dollars?"

The computer responded: "Uncertain as to your meaning. What one hundred billion dollars?"

Good. It has passed the test. It had disconnected the four chips and was back to normal.

Smith, as he always did, typed on the screen. 'Thank you. Good night."

"Good night," the machine responded as the screen slowly faded to black.

So that was it. All the programs had been contained inside those four silicon chips. But it was done now. All under control.

Smith yawned and decided to go home foi a few hours' sleep. Tomorrow he would notify all the companies controlled by Friends of the World, Inc. that they were on their own. They would get no more messages from Friend.

Perhaps he might liquidate the parent company. He would think about that tomorrow.

But as he walked out the door, Smith had the uneasy feeling that he was forgetting something.

Remo remembered that, day or night, Elizabeth, New Jersey, was shrouded in smoke. Its air was juicy,

238

and if one could wring the moisture from it, it could etch copper plates. When Vietnam veterans started to talk about suing because they'd been exposed to chemical agents during the war, the people in Elizabeth sponsored a march in their behalf. Eight of the veterans showed up for the parade; seven of them keeled over from having to breathe Elizabeth's air.

It was natural that the main plant of Reva Bleem's Polypussides Company would be located alongside the New Jersey Turnpike in an area where motorists were forced to use their fog lights at high noon on sunny summer days.

The plant was closed, and there was only one car in the lot, a Mercedes convertible with "REVA" on the license plates.

Remo found Reva in her upstairs office in the far corner of the building. She looked up when he pushed open the office door, and her mouth dropped open when she recognized him.

"Surprised to see me?" he asked.

"I ... well, yes ... I thought you were staying in Raleigh," she said.

"What you mean is that you thought I wouldn't be able to leave Raleigh. Ever."

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I wanted to tell you something," he said.

"What?"

"Your friend. Do you know who he is?"

"No. I told you I never met him."

"Not a him," Remo said. "An it. Your friend is a computer."

"That's ridiculous. "I've spoken to him."

"All right. It's a computer that talks, but it's still a computer. I know, 'cause I just took it apart."

She looked at him hard, then laughed even more violently than before.

"What's so funny?" Remo asked.

"It's funny 'cause I thought I was in love with him once. I used to talk to him on the phone and invite him

239

over to my place. But he'd never come, and got around to thinking he was a fag. So I gave up." She stopped laughing and caught her breath. "You dismantled it?"

Remo nodded.

"But what I want to know," he said, "is what were its last instructions? Why did you get out of Raleigh so

fast?"

"He told me to get up here and start this plant producing Polypussides right away."

"Why?" Remo asked.

"Because he was going to produce another batch of rapid-breeder and dump it in the world's oil," she said.

"Friend's gone now," Remo said. "You can forget

it." "I'll believe that when I hear it from Friend," she

said.

"You'll never hear from him again," Remo said. "It's time to close down this plant."

"Not a chance," she said.

"Says who?" came a voice from behind Remo.

He wheeled around to see Oscar standing in the doorway of the office. His right hand was bandaged, but in his left hand he held a heavy pistol. Remo could see the finger tightening on the trigger, and he dropped to the floor, then rolled off to his right. He heard the crack of the gun and then Reva's scream. As he got to his feet, he saw her slumped over her desk, the top of her head blown ahnost off by the shot that had been meant for him.

Oscar was squeezing off more shots toward Remo, and Remo went up the wall of the office, and then down again near Oscar. He heard a crackling sound behind him, as he took the gun out of Oscar's hand, and then the life out of Oscar's body with a hand to the throat.

When he turned, the corner of the office was afire. One of Oscar's shots had slammed into a large container that must have contained some type of fuel. Remo could smell the oil fumes in the office. He

240

started for it to put the fire out, then stopped for a moment, thought, then turned his back and left the building burning behind him. Flames were already crackling through the windows of the building as he got back onto the New Jersey Turnpike for the ride back to his hotel room in New York.

"I wish you hadn't destroyed the plant," Smith said.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Remo said. "It just kind of happened."

"I guess it doesn't matter too much. We have the formula for the artificial oil. We can use it if we ever need it again."

"Good. Can I go now?" Remo asked.

"What's the hurry? I thought you like to talk to me on the phone," Smith said.

"I'd rather have my teeth drilled."

"It was amazing, Remo, how much business and property that computer controlled. We may never know how much. Swiss banks, German auto plants, billions and billions of dollars."

"Don't tell Chiun," Remo said. "He'll want a raise. He already thinks he deserves one because he didn't sign on to become an anaerobics expert, and if you ask him to do something outside the contract, you have to pay him for it. Particularly when the computer offered him a lot better deal."

"Chiun talked to the computer?" Smith asked.

"Yeah. Twice. And Reva said it used to call and give her instructions."

"That's strange," Smith said. "I didn't find anything on those chips that indicated a voice capability. It should have been there. Now that I think about it, I remember wondering."

"Who knows?" Remo said. "Maybe I missed a chip or something."

"That's probably it," Smith agreed, but he wore a puzzled expression.

"Anyway, don't tell Chiun how rich the computer operation was. He'll want a piece of it," Remo said.

241

"It'll be our secret," Smith said.

"I hate it when you're chipper like this," Remo said.

"It's not every day we get a chance to save Western civilization. And I've got only one more phone call to make, and I'm taking the rest of the day off. Maybe play some golf. I haven't played in years."

"Smitty, what rest of the day? It's five o'clock in the afternoon."

"I should be able to get in nine holes."

"Why bother?" Remo asked. "I've seen you play golf. Bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey. You don't have to show up. You could mail in your scorecard."

"I parred a hole the last time I played," Smith said. "It was a long dogleg left, and I really caught my drive. Hit it about one-eighty right down the ..."

"Good-bye, Smitty," Remo said as he hung up.

In the basement of a bank on the right bank of the Limmat River in Zurich, Switzerland, the night watchman finished his rounds and set the alarm devices. As he always did before leaving the large air-conditioned basement room, he looked at the computer standing idly along one whole wall of the basement and shook his head.

No wonder banks paid such low interest on savings. Spending millions of francs on a computer and then never using it. Shameful. The rest of the world was always in awe of Swiss bankers as the epitome of excellence, but he could tell them a thing or two. They were as dopey as bankers in any other part of the world, probably. They just hadn't been found out yet.

The door to the computer Toom closed and locked behind him. After thirty seconds, the lights on the computer's control panel lit up.

Inside the body of the giant thinking machine, electrical impulses moved with the speed of light, branching off, assimilating enough information from the memory banks to make a raw decision, then assimilating more information to refine that decision, then more and more. Finally, the computer reached the end of the

242

decision tree, and it hooked itself into the Swiss national telephone system.

The president of the United States was clearly impressed.

"So it was programed to make a profit, eh? Notk-ing wrong with a profit, I always say."

"I know, sir," said Smith.

"It reminds me of a letter I got this week from a little girl in Rockaway, New Jersey. A little eight-year-old. It seems her father was just laid off from his job because the company was cutting back. And she wrote me and she said that, while maybe they were all going to starve to death without a job, she wanted me to know that she believed in the free-enterprise system, and she didn't want her president to do anything bad to the company that laid off her father. She said, 'After all, Mr. President, they have a right to make a profit, even if people do have to starve to death and die in the streets.' I think that's the American spirit. I may use that letter in a speech on the economy," the president said.

"No one will believe that letter, Mr. President," Smith said.

"You don't think so?"

"No, sir. I don't think so." . "Aw, shucks."

Remo and Chiun were in their hotel room overlooking New York City's Central Park.

"What are you writing, Chiun?" Remo asked.

Chiun was on a mat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by thin-headed brushes, quill pens, a large pot of black ink, and a piece of parchment that seemed large enough to serve as a shoji screen.

"A list of complaints to that lunatic Smith," Chiun said. "Remo, always remember this. If you let people take advantage of you, they will just keep doing it."

"What complaints?" asked Remo. He was lying idly on the couch, looking at the ceiling.

243

"First of all, if they expect me to be an expert on anaerobic, they should pay me for it. That's one thing. Another is, I am getting tired of all this traveling. To that ugly island. To Hamidi Arabia. To that place of merchants."

"Raleigh, North Carolina."

"Thank you. I will include that. And then, worst of all, the shock to my system of having to see eight more that looked just like you. Really, Remo, this is more than I can bear."

"I feel for you, Little Father."

"You should. How much.ugliness do they expect me to put up with for the pittance they pay me?"

"I don't want to hear about it, Chiun."

"You asked. Why is it that you always ask and then never want to hear the answer?"

"Because I always know your answers. It always has something to do with things being my fault. It's always blah blah blah blah. Chiun, when you're getting all filled up with yourself sometime, remember this—it wasn't me who got conned by a computer. It wasn't me who was ready to scrap everything to go to work for some piece of plastic that made me all kinds of promises. Think about that, Chiun."

The telephone rang, and Remo tuned out Chiun's answer. He had had just about enough of Chiun's carping and bickering and constant criticism. Even Smith would be an improvement.

Remo snaked an arm up over the couch and lifted the receiver. "Hello," he said, expecting to hear Smith's acid tones.

But it was a soft male voice on the other end of the Une.

"I'm so glad I was able to reach you," the voice said.

"Yeah? Why?" said Remo.

"Because I know you. I know that you're just a person who's unappreciated and who's trying to find yourself. I know that you have this sense of floating

244

through life without knowing your history, without knowing your future. But I can help."

"Who is this? Who told you about me?" Remo asked.

"I don't have the kind of resources I once did, but if you let me, I can help. I can make people appreciate the wonderful person you are."

"And what do I have to do?" Remo asked.

"Just help me a little here and there. A few small things." It was a voice that was flat, without dialect, as smooth as snake oil.

"Who is this, though?" asked Remo.

"My name isn't really important. What's important is that I can make the world appreciate you."

Remo sat up on the couch. Chiun was still babbling.

"Really?" said Remo. "Who are you?"

"You can call me Friend," the voice said.

245