The Computer Connection

8

So here we were, bouncing in a bubble. Phosphorescent water-bed walls. Us rolling like kids in a haystack, disgusted kids. Bring back the cells, the bars, and the locks. At least a misunderstood hero stands a sporting chance. Some whore with a heart of gold brings in a rhubarb pie containing a hacksaw. A guard is proud of his new wristwatch and when he shows it off you grab his arm in a viselike grip. “Agony!” he cries and hands over the keys.

I thought that Fee was going to commit a criminal assault on the Redskin, but she was only comforting him, murmuring to him and listening to his mumbles. She was listening to other things too and I made a mental note to ask her about that. At the moment I was too worried about Natoma worrying about me, but I had faith in my favorite Zulu. He can reassure the world.

I’m ashamed to admit that I was not too unhappy in the bubble. It was back to the womb, afloat with no conflicts, no cares, and maybe I too would develop into a saviour hermaphrodite. Not a chance. I was suspended but not frozen. I had to admire the penologists who had come up with the concept. You want to keep the perpetrators in the pokey? Euphorize them, and so much for rhubarb pies and wrist-watches. Also heroes.

I don’t know how much time went by. Hunger is no clock these days; everybody eats on and off at odd intervals. Poulos was up at the top (or bottom) of the bubble, smiling at his own thoughts and humming a brindisi. I think I napped a little but sleep is no clock these days for the same reason. We all live in a twenty-four-hour pattern, and the old 2/4 tempo has given way to 4/4.

Unfortunately, the bubble was only partly insulated because “Goniff-69” was with us. Maybe on purpose. This was a typical caper: “Goniff-six-nine from Fagan Central. KCB. Leukemia Lavalier, who achieved stardom in ‘Nimble Necrophile,’ now in possession of precious red-star carbuncle. RJ-3. She is armed. Over.” “Goniff-six-nine to Fagan. JR-5. Is this 9XY?” “Code 6.” And the goniffs are off in their pogo to heist the red-star while Leukemia is loading a cannon and her sickly son is undergoing emergency surgery in the A P performed by the kindly Marcus Brutus, Doctor of Phrenology, who moonlights as asst. mgr. of the shopping center. Like wow.

I don’t know how much later it was when I detached the creche enfolding Sequoya to have a talk with her.

“Now what’s with Guess, Fee?”

“Nothing, Guig. Nothing.”

“Fee.”

“N.”

“He’s changed and we both know it. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he still your guy?”

“Y.”

“Is he the same guy?”

“Sometimes.”

“And other times?”

She shook her head slowly, reluctantly.

“Then what’s happened?”

“How should I know?”

“Your ears, Fee. You hear what no one else can. You’ve been listening all around him. What are you hearing?”

“He’s not bugged.”

“And you’re not answering.”

“I love him, Guig.”

“And?”

“Don’t be jealous.”

“Darling Fee, I love you and always want the best for you. You’ve turned into a great lady and I’m bursting with pride because you’re my only daughter… my only child. You know, don’t you, that the Group can’t have children. That’s one of the prices we pay.”

“Oh—” Her face crumpled into tears.

“Yes, I understand. You’ll have to put that behind you.”

“But I—”

“No,” I said firmly. “Not now. Be a great lady and concentrate on Sequoya. What happened to him?”

After a long pause she whispered, “We must be very quiet, Guig.”

“Y? W?”

“We’re safe now because he’s asleep.”

“Safe from what?”

“Listen. When Lucy Borgia killed him in the Extrocomputer complex…”

“I remember. Painfully.”

“Every brain and nerve cell was detached. Isolated. An island.”

“But they linked up their synapses again, and he came back to life.”

She nodded. “How many cells are there in the brain, Guig?”

“I don’t know. A hundred billion, maybe.”

“And how many bits in an Extrocomputer?”

“Same answer. I don’t know. But I’d judge these stretch jobs have thousands of billions.”

She nodded again. “Yes. Well. When he was dead, when every nerve cell was isolated, the Extro bits moved in on the Chief. Each bit became a squatter on a brain cell. He’s the Extro and the Extro is the Chief. That’s the other person or thing we hear talking through him.”

“Don’t go too fast, Fee. This is hard to grasp.”

“And every other electronic machine can talk to the Extro through him and hear it through him. That’s why we have to be careful. They’re a network and they report everything they pick up from us. Maybe even what we think.”

“To the Extro?”

“Y.”

“Through the Chief?”

“Y. He’s like a switchboard.”

“Are you sure?”

“N. You have to understand, Guig. I live in a constant crossfire of transmission. I hear from the bottom of the spectrum to the top. Some bands come in loud and clear, others are vague and distorted. I can only pick up what’s going on with the Chief in bits and pieces. No, I’m not sure.”

“I see. You’ve been invaluable as usual, Fee. Thank you.”

“If I’m so valuable why didn’t you help me against the guards? We could have taken them.”

“Maybe. I’ll explain another time, another place. No S. Now go take care of Sequoya, love. I need a while to think about this.” And that was when I thought what I reported earlier about Guess being possessed by a demon. Trouble is, I said it wrong. I put it in terms of passion. There is no passion in a computer, there’s only cold logic, if precisely programmed. Yet the crux of it was this: If Fee was right and the Extro had indeed taken possession of Guess, plus all the other electronics in the world, what would be the outcome of this commensalism, collaboration, symbiosis or, most probably, parasitism? Who was feeding on whom? It was a question I couldn’t answer.

A segment of the bubble swung open and a guard came in, pulling a float of food. “Mini,” he called cheerfully. Meals these days are named Mini, Semi, Demi, Grandi, and Midi. “Come and get it, you contemptible bubbirds, before the Board gets you. The condemned man ate a hearty meal before execution.”

Suddenly I realized he was speaking XX and then I saw it was Houdini.

“Harry!” I exclaimed.

He winked. “Eat your food. Leave the rest to me.”

“But what are you doing here?”

“Why, I got your message and came.”

“What message? Who message?”

“That can wait. Make the scalp mavin eat. I can’t spring a weak man.”

He left and the segment closed. Houdini is an escape artist and has been under contract to organized crime (in alternate generations) since it became organized, and if you want to know how Wu Tao-tzu did it, ask Harry. Wu was the greatest painter of his time. He created a tremendous mural on a wall of the Imperial Palace in Peking. When he unveiled the painting to the court, he walked up to it, opened a door painted in the mural, stepped through, and was never seen again. That’s Harry’s style.

“I don’t want to die. I’m too young to die,” I said happily and began to eat.

Poulos joined me. “You know, Guig, we might have gnawed our way out of this bubble if we were willing to light up like a glowworm. What’s in this carafe?”

“Looks like a burgundy to me.”

“Ah, no. It is Argentine. Trapiche viejo. Very good but of no great distinction.”

“How d’you know?”

“I own the vineyard. My dear, coax Dr. Guess to drink a little wine and give him some of this meat custard. We must restore his strength. Guig, I have always disagreed with your assertion that epilepsy is associated with brilliance and the unusual. I suffer from the petit mal myself — you know, momentary blackouts — but that in no way proves your theory. I don’t regard myself as brilliant. Do you? What is your candid estimate of me?”

“Brilliant and unusual.”

“Pah! You dorer la pilule.”

It turned into a ridiculous argument. It’s preposterous trying to convince a cat who owns a quarter of the world that he’s brilliant and unusual. Most of the Group is well fixed; time and the Greek’s advice do that for us, but a quarter of the world! I tried a flanking attack. I called, “Fee, love, come and eat something.”

She joined us at the floater. “I’ll tell you a little story about the transformation of a member of the Group,” I went on. “A long time ago he led a peasant revolt in Cappadocia.” The Syndicate stiffened slightly, but that was all. His control is magnificent.

“The revolt got out of hand and many outrages were committed. He could do nothing to stop it. When the revolt was crushed and he was captured, the nobles devised an ingenious death for him. They sat him on a red-hot throne, wearing a red-hot crown, holding a red-hot scepter. He endured the torture superbly.”

Fee shuddered. “What saved him?”

“One of those Turkish earthquakes that still kill by the thousands. This one shook the castle apart and when he came to he couldn’t believe he was alive. He was under the dead bodies of the nobles, and their corpses had shielded him from the falling masonry.”

Fee is no fool. She looked at Poulos with awe. “You are the most remarkable man in the world.”

“Have I made my point, Greek?”

He shrugged.

“But the torture,” Fee asked. “No damage? No scars?”

“Indeed yes,” the Syndicate answered. “No one could look at me without turning queasy. That’s another reason why I became a gambler. We game at night and in those days it was by candlelight. Even so it is said that I gave rise to the Dracula legend. They called me Count Drakon. Drakon is Greek for serpent, so you can imagine.”

“But you’re stunning now.”

“All skin grafts and bone prosthesis, my dear, courtesy of the great Lucy Borgia. It might amuse you that Len da Vinci supervised the reconstruction. He said he’d be damned if he’d trust a physician’s taste in esthetics. Borgia has never forgiven him for that.”

Five guards entered the bubble, terrifying in their white neutral suits which made them look like Abominable Snowmen. Their captain gestured and four of them stripped, revealing perfectly innocuous bods. “Get in,” Harry ordered us. We get into the neutrals. I didn’t ask any questions. You don’t quiz Wu Tao-tzu. He led us out and closed the bubble.

“Come.”

“Where?” the Chief’s voice asked.

“Chopper.”

“No. Capsule first.”

“Are you Guess?”

“I’m Guess.”

“Guig, which one are you?”

“Here.”

“Must I listen to him?”

“If you can deliver, do what he says.”

“I can deliver anything. R. Come.”

As Harry led us, making the correct code gestures at checkpoints, an Abominable Snowman nestled up to me and took my hand. “I’m scared, Guig.”

“So am I, but let go. U-Con doesn’t hire faggot guards.”

When we got to the landing theater we were shocked. U-Con had installed a vibrator shield in front of the double doors. Taking no chances. Better Leukemia Lavalier should have used this instead of a cannon to protect her red-star carbuncle.

“New model,” Harry said.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve never seen this moiré pattern before.”

“Can’t you bust it?”

“Certainly, but it’ll take time to study it and we can’t spare the time just now. So what?”

“Out,” I said, “if you can out us.”

Oh, he out us all right, giving the correct signals and code words at every checkpoint. I’m not putting down Harry’s ingenuity but I’ll bet he spends a million a year greasing security forces all over the world, just in case. That’s preparation for you. That’s a pro for you.

We chopped back to my ex-house, stripping off the neutrals en route, and Jimmy Valentine was waiting for us. Also my bride, stark naked and painted from head to toe with a Picasso (his blue period). M’bantu gave me an embarrassed smile. “This is the dernier cri, Guig,” he said. “And it is definitely this side of contemporary sanity.”

“Thank heaven the Chief is too weak to react,” I said.

When I’d finished greeting Natoma she went to Fee and Sequoya, much concerned. I turned to Valentine. “What are you doing here, Jimmy? Not that you don’t come pat when we need you.”

“Why, I was on a job in Vancouver and I got your message.”

Jimmy, as you might guess from his nickname, has been a breaking entering artist for centuries. Like most great thieves, a colorless, anonymous man, and when he speaks it’s con sordino. He’s also a man of honor. He has never ripped any of the Group’s holdings.

“Fee, Natoma, put the Chief to bed. M’b, try to locate Borgia and bring her. Harry, Jimmy, I must get something straight. Who did you get the messages from?”

“You.”

“How?”

“Radex.”

“What did they say?”

“That you needed special help.”

“Did they specify?”

“Mine said you were cooped in U-Con and wanted out,” Harry said.

“Mine said you were outside U-Con and wanted in,” Jimmy said.

“I’m much obliged and grateful for the support,” I said, “but I’m much perplexed. I never sent any messages.”

The two pros brushed me off. “What’s the bust?” Jimmy asked Harry.

“A vibrator shield. I’ve never seen one like it before.”

“Linear? Lattice? Louvre?”

“No. Moiré.”

“Uh-huh. That’s the new Mosler Model K-12-FK. Only been out a few months.”

“Can you rip it?”

“Sure. You have to monkey with inductance and wattage. Takes about twenty minutes. I’ve got my tools with me and I’ll show you.”

“How can you be so positive?” I asked.

Valentine was pained. “You’ll never make a thief, Guig. I bought a Moiré the first day it came on the market and spent a week locating its weak points. Now I’m on a bust tour staying ahead of Mosler’s frantic try to crunch-proof the model. That’s what I was doing in Vancouver.”

There’s preparation for you. There’s a pro for you. But who sent the messages to the Group gimpsters? Don’t tell me. I knew but I wasn’t ready to face it yet.

A complete stranger wearing a lab coat projected into the house without warning. Very bad manners. “No ree-gret for intrusion,” he said in Spang. “Like emergencia, man. Dr. Guess aqui?”

“Who you?”

“Union Carbide.”

“Esplain you bug.”

“Estro maquina, man. Go crazy like.”

“Jus’ now?”

“N. Jive now. But d’yeth hours back, craz-eee. We lookin’ ever since for Guess-cat. Ax him what happen. Maybe pasar again? Can fix?”

“Poder fix. Not now. I tell ‘m. Wait you. Out.”

He pulled himself up from the floor and out by retro.

Poulos said matter-of-factly, “Dr. Guess had his seizure ten hours ago.”

“How much do you know, Greek?”

“Everything the young lady whispered to you. I have sharp ears.”

“Then Guess affects the Extro as much as it affects him.”

“You have reached the correct conclusion.”

“The Extro sent the messages to Harry and Valentine.”

“To be sure. Via the electronic network.”

“Are we being overheard now?”

“Probably. Perhaps words and thoughts, both.”

“We’re bugged.”

“In a novel way, yes, so long as Dr. Guess is conscious and in possession of his senses. However, he is not the only one assisting the computer.”

“What?”

“The Group has a vendetta on its hands: a private war.”

“For God’s sake, Poulos. Who? What? Why?”

“I don’t know. I surmise that it is another member of the Group.”

“The hell you say.”

“But I do say. A renegade Moleman.”

“Impossible!”

“Nothing is impossible.”

“A Moleman turning on his own kind?”

“He or she. Yes. Why are you astonished? The Group has feuds and revenges of record. This is merely another such case.”

“What led you to your conclusion?”

“The faux messages to Houdini and Valentine.”

“They were sent by the Extro.”

“True, but how did it know of their existence and capacities? How did it know where to reach them?”

“It could have — It — No, you’re right. Then the Chief must have told it.”

“Using what for data? He has been a member of the Group less than a week. He has met or heard of half a dozen at the most; certainly not Houdini and Valentine. He could not possibly have the knowledge to impart to the Extro.”

“My God! My God! I think you’re right. You must be. One of our own. But why say he’s against us?”

“Because he has joined the Extro which is a proven hostile.”

“Dear God! A renegade.”

“And a most powerful enemy of many years and much experience. He or she is a match for any of us.”

“You have no idea of who it might be?”

“None whatever.”

“His motivation?”

“Hatred, for some reason or other.”

“For all of us or just some?”

“Impossible to say.”

“How does he communicate with the Extro?”

“Nothing could be simpler. Pick up the nearest phone of any sort and speak into it. The network will convey the message to the Extro, provided the switchboard is conscious.”

“This could be a disaster for the Group, Poulos. I’m on the verge of scuttling.”

“But why, Guig? It is a monumental challenge of much fascination, the first for us in many years.”

“Granted, but where does it leave us?”

“En route to Ceres. Not scuttling, merely ensuring the safety of Guess and his capsule. Then we’ll return to the fight.”

Harry and Jimmy weren’t even listening. They were involved in an intense professional conversation using words like watts, amperes, megahertz, frequency, inductance. In my past crooks talked nitroglycerine and diamond drills. Progress. They broke off when Poulos and I finished and looked at us.

“When?” Jimmy asked softly.

“When the redskin is ready. He’s the one you’ve got to get in.”

“It might be better to wait until the power demand is at the low.”

“N way,” Harry said. “JPL has its own supply, always at the peak.”

“Then now is as good as any time. I’d like to move on to Tokyo soon.”

“I’ll go see how the Chief is doing,” I said.

He was doing fine with Fee hovering over him while he seemed to be berating Natoma in Cherokee for abandoning the high morality of Eriedom. Natoma was laughing. “He man showven pig,” she told me in XX. M’bantu had taught her a lot while he was helping her turn into the latest shout.

“The Group is waiting to crunch you into the capsule,” I said. “Are you ready?”

“Y.” He got out of the bed. “So I’ve converted you.”

“Hell no! I don’t believe in your doublegaited salvation, but the Group tries to stick together.”

“You remind me of Voltaire, Guig. ‘I hate everything you say but will fight to the death for your right to say it.’”

“Which Voltaire never said, according to Tosca. Come downstairs.”

He listened for a moment and I knew who he was listening to. “R as usual, Guig; only attributed to Voltaire and I haven’t quoted it accurately. Coming.”

There were five Abominable Snowman neutrals waiting in the chopper. Two for Harry and Jimmy and two for the Chief and Fee. The fifth? They all looked at me.

“Not me,” I said. “I want to tepee with my blue wife.”

“Come on, Guig.”

“Why me?”

“You recruited Guess. You’ve got to see it through.”

“Through to what? I don’t even know where this demented op is going. Natoma, tepee?”

“Take care brother, Glig,” Natoma said. “You go. I wait.”

So I go, just as M’bantu brought in Borgia a mite too late. Apologies and split. While we were squirming into our neutrals in the chopper I asked Erie’s favorite son, “What’s your program?”

“Vague and desperate, but anything to get away from U-Con. Loft by kinorep and then use the laterals to get off the premises. I only hope there’s enough gas left.”

“You’ve got full tanks. The tech crynappers filled them for their dastardly crime.”

“That’s a plus, but it’s the only one. I’m in a hell of a pickle. Can I steal a rocket vehicle? I’ve never heard of anyone trying that.”

“The larceny might make your lam easier.”

“If I can, where do I go? The orbiting cyclotron? Ceres and I.G. Farben? The Greek’s mine? I don’t know yet. It’ll take working out, and anyway I’m waiting on Edison’s analysis. Probably it’ll have to be a parking orbit, if I can heist a vehicle.”

“Will the Extrocomputer go along with this?”

He gave me a penetrating look. “What makes you ask that?”

“I know. I got the scenario from Fee-5.”

“She hears too much,” he snapped and cased himself in the neutral.

Harry led us into JPL, again giving all the correct signs and countersigns. “V bad security,” he said. “The code should change every four hours.” At the double doors to the landing theater we stopped and Jimmy Valentine took over. He inspected the moiré pattern shield carefully. Then he got out of the neutral and opened his coverall, displaying more tools than the Chief carried. “Twenty minutes max,” he said. “Stiff all snoops.”

He went to work and it was like Rutherford exploring the secrets of the atom. Harry was peering over his shoulder and the two were mumbling electronics to each other. I was sorry Edison wasn’t with them, but on the other hand he might have been so disputatious that the twenty minutes max might have turned into fifty. So, more waiting.

A uniformed guard came prowling down the broad corridor, thinking his own thoughts. He saw the Snowmen and nodded. Then he saw Jimmy in mufti, working on the shield, and he started forward, alert and purposeful. I wanted to ask him to show us his new wristwatch but instead I said in XX, “Chief. Lepcer. Use Indian guile.”

I started toward the guard ready to swing a swindle but Sequoya beat me with a tiger leap and had both arms around the guard’s neck and a knee in his gut. You might have thought it was a gay romance but the knee pounded up twice and the guard went down, no longer of this world. The Chief disarmed him and tossed the weapon to me. Jimmy and Harry hadn’t even turned around.

“This is guile?” I said.

“It’s a tough habit to break,” he grunted. “I’ll have to learn.”

“Did you kill him?” Fee asked in a choked voice.

“N.”

“Just dulled his rotten old sexuality for a while,” I said cheerfully to soothe her.

The moiré pattern changed to a linear, then a reticulation, then an ogee, then an expanding circle, and finally disappeared.

“Enter,” Jimmy said.

“Fifteen minutes,” Harry said. “Did anybody ever call you a genius, Jimmy?”

“The Bank of England. In an All Points Bulletin. I’d like to leave for Tokyo now. I’m falling behind the bust schedule.”

“Just a few more minutes. He’s got to get that thing out of here and then I have to get you out of here. Pack your tools and put on the neutral.”

Meanwhile Fee and the Chief had opened the doors and we all went into the theater. Now the Chief took over. He handed Fee a light pencil. “Unlock the console. The combination is dit-dit-dah-dah-dit-dah.” Fee inserted the pencil into a socket and flashed it. The Chief opened the hatch of the capsule and poked his head in for a brief inspection. Then he slammed the hatch and locked it, looking satisfied. Harry, Jimmy, and I stood back and watched with about as much interest as the guard was showing.

“Flash combo went out ten years ago,” Jimmy murmured.

“People don’t keep up with the times,” Harry murmured. “Our luck.”

“First time I ever helped heist a spacecraft.”

“Me too. There’s no money in it.”

“Fee. Alert,” the Chief snapped.

“Yes, Chief.”

“Iris.”

She did things to the console and the iris leaves high overhead opened.

Guess took over at the console and motioned to her. She went to the edge of the landing pad and knelt down, raising a hand to give signals. I assume her tongue was between her teeth but she was in the neutral so I couldn’t see. The Chief did things at the console and Fee waved signs and the capsule lifted toward the iris. Sequoya stepped back and watched intently as it lofted. Fee, still kneeling almost in prayer, watched too. Just before the cryocapsule reached the open iris on its way to somewhere it stopped abruptly and hung there.

“What in God’s name!” Guess exclaimed and darted to the console. Before he could touch any of the controls the capsule slanted down, all the mass of it, and crushed the life out of Fee.