“Well, you could bring in the suit you have in mind—”
“No, I mean with a whole lot of my clothes.”
“I—”
“See, I’m pretty particular about my stuff. I don’t have a good eye for colors, though.”
“There are several shades here that will go with just about any—”
“If you was to give me advice like that, I’d sure appreciate it.” He turned toward the ties.
Kathryn found this a welcome relief from his penetrating dark gray eyes. She slipped her hands under several ties to make them stand out, while saying something automatic about color pairings, then saw that he was not truly following her proffered wares. Instead, he was focused beyond the counter, and as she followed his line of sight, she found herself staring straight into his eyes, reflected in a display mirror. He was studying her from a different angle while seeming to be following her routine discussion. A cold sensation swept across her skin.
He saw her answering stare in the mirror and turned toward her. “In fact, I really am kind of more interested in you than I am in the clothes. I can buy plenty of ties, but a fine woman like you is hard to find.”
“Well, sir, I—”
“It’s about noon now, and I figure you could stand some lunch. Let me take you out, just to get acquainted.”
“I really cannot.”
“Anyplace you want. I’m just tryin’ to be friendly. Got a brand new car, we could shoot over to one of the fancy spots near Main Place.”
For an instant she thought that a quiet hour in a pleasantly darkened, atmospheric restaurant, away from the bleached light of Fashion Circus, would be agreeable. He was ruggedly handsome, and his rough manner had a certain animalistic charm, she had to admit. Not that this guy could replace Alex, who had a musky maleness about him as well. Alex could be a touch unpolished, he promised a certain rugged zest in the more intimate contests, and he got his grammar right. But a woman was free to do a little window shopping in the Mating Mart, was she not?
As she hesitated, she saw him make a little grin, a preliminary hint of triumph, sure that she was going to agree. He stared hard at her. Where had she seen that?—and then she remembered the man on the street outside earlier, during the little tremor.
Had it been this one? Had he seen her before and come back now, just before lunch? He might have been that attracted by the angle of her jaw, her pert nose—but from across the street?
No, not enough to come back with timing perfect for a lunch invitation. Something funny here.
Women have a finer sense of hazard, and Kathryn’s made the decision.
“No,” she said decisively. “I really can’t.”
“Well now,” he said, in what she had to admit was a classic aw-shucks ingratiating manner, “I’d sure appreciate it if you would.”
“I can’t. Thank you for your invitation.”
“I’m new here in town. Maybe I could take you out to a proper dinner, then. What time you get off work?”
Uh-oh. The persistent types she was well versed in brushing off. Ever since a neighborhood boy had kept after her for weeks when she was fourteen, she had developed a set of hard-line retorts for men who thought they could simply wear her down.
“I have a policy—no dating customers. Sorry.”
“But, hey, I’m not a customer. Not yet, anyway.” He spread his big hands with boyish innocence. “Haven’t bought nothing.”
“That is precisely what you will buy, sir,” Kathryn said sternly. “And you can forget about talking to me when I get off work.”
“Ah’m sorry you feel that way.” He cocked his head to the side in studied puzzlement. “Real sorry.”
“I have work. Excuse me.”
As she turned away, a glint came into his eyes and his mouth returned to the mail-slot severity. “I have a feelin’ you’re gonna be sorry, too.”
Something in the steely coldness of the words propelled her away from him, her high heels clicking rapidly on the tiles as she fled to the rear of the store. Sheila was in the clerks’ tiny back room, already eating a brown-bag lunch beneath the time clock. She raised her slim eyebrows when she saw Kathryn’s face.
“Hey, you have trouble out there?”
“Ummm.” Kathryn was still trying to sort out her emotions. She had felt a real attraction to him, had very nearly accepted the lunch date, and then a powerful pulse of alarm and outright fear had run through her. Her intuition was odd that way—it seemed to lurch from one reaction to another. “It—it was ugly. Strange.”
Sheila shrugged. “Don’t get in fights with ugly strangers. They got nothing to lose.” She told her a brushoff technique, one she had learned in high school: “Just give the guy your phone number, only when he dials it, he gets Acme Pest Control.”
“Subtle girl,” Kathryn said, her voice rickety.
She sat down on a fold-out chair, her knees suddenly wobbly. Her alarm signals were still clanging, but she did not know why. There was really no rational reason for her becoming so alarmed. After all, the guy had only asked her out to lunch. A car ride, some pasta—big deal, right, girl?
But her nerves were so jangly that day, she didn’t end up eating lunch at all.
6
GEORGE
The dream had been worse that morning.
He had squirmed upward through cool water that tasted flat, metallic. Thrashing. Bubbles spurting from his aching chest. Through warmer layers, then a chilly, heavy wedge squeezed his ribs as his legs pumped wildly, driving into a sudden layer as warm and startling as freshly spilled blood.
Radiating down to him from the shimmering silver sky above, unreachably far, came long, slow waves of absolute malevolence. Something massive and malign waited there.
Then there were the voices shouting to him, the plastic faces that stretched and yawed and droned, trying to pull him into their world, their horrible blaring lights and cutting smells.
Then the white creatures with their twisted faces had jerked away, shouting, dissolving into the dawn glow.
Awake, his dreams were like the dried husks of cocoons, their moths flown away, or the split husks of seed pods. Dead shells at the edge of some primitive sea, empty, their slug life already crawling farther up a gritty beach.
He had ached from the dream this time, his joints rolling sluggishly in their bony beds, his throat like #4 sandpaper.
Luckily, even though he knew that his dreams were in some warped way the Master’s Messages, he had been free of them for days. This new one was worse, though. Smeared plastic faces trying to pull him out of the metallic waters, into their blistering light.
He thanked the Lord that it was His day. The Sunday cathedral service had been a wonderful pageant—busloads of the faithful from all over Orange and L.A. counties, women in cream dresses with crinoline, and men in shiny dark suits showing hanger marks at the shoulders.
Sister Angel had sung alone, her voice clear as a sunrise. In her white robes she was the embodiment of spirituality. He loved the enveloping, motherly air of the cathedral and its flock. It reminded him of the dimly remembered times when his real father and mother had lived. It helped erase the cold years in foster homes. He had seized a chance to exchange veiled greetings with Reverend Montana. The Reverend’s rousing sermon against both the corruption of government and the corruption of values represented by cryonics had fevered the crowd. Montana’s TV assault on I2 was swelling cathedral attendance, bringing more back to the simple truths of faith, when confronted with the horror science had wrought.
That brief contact had energized him anew to his appointed task. The congregation was excited, eyes bright, and he had talked for hours to others, staying for the buffet supper featuring roast beef, gaining conviction as he heard the righteous outrage in the voices of so many good people.
He felt the prickly fire in his belly, knew how to keep the embers banked and glowering red, ready to burst into righteous flame—but only when his cool, certain self gave
the signal. Just as a man walked on two legs, each catching the fall of the other with every step, so did his dual nature work.
So after the day’s services, George sat down to work. Once more he blessed the minister who had gotten a shambling orphan boy into a special Information Science course.
He set about doing a deep recon of Immortality Incorporated. No creeping about—he would save that for tonight. For the moment he was content to dive into the dense thickets of computer programs that told more about I2 than any eye could see.
He had broken into their systems before, the night when he killed the hell-hound. That was nothing compared with the several days he had taken now to penetrate the shell around the I2 computer files. He still reddened when he remembered his first outing.
He had entered the FINNet system, since he knew that electronic financial labyrinth well. Then he had made a routine payment to Immortality Incorporated, and from the receipt tag he got the corporate financial codes. A quick zig-zag through some directories yielded the I2 telephone numbers, which carried data. So far, so good. But then a FINNet system manager had spotted his activity. On George’s screen popped up
I HAVE BLOCKED ALL YOUR TRANSACTIONS PENDING IDENTIFICATION.
SUBMIT PASSWORDS AND ID IMMEDIATELY!
He had been so frightened at this nearly instantaneous trouble that he turned off his computer and sat in shock for a full minute. Then he had realized that he had to go back into FINNet, under a legitimate purpose—because even an instant turnoff left his log-in signature behind.
This worked—he had erased his footprints.
Now, days later, he was ready to try again. He had researched the myriad gossamer pathways that webbed North America, searching for I2 tendrils. Their weak spot was their system of medical bracelets. Each member had tied their bracelet code into the I2 mainframe. That gave him a thread to follow.
He had gotten the idea from his background work on the woman he had attacked. It showed that she was at UC Irvine. To learn more and also to cover himself, he developed an indirect routing through the UCI mainframe, a big IBM.
This was the blanket he needed. UCI had numerous connections to communications satellites. So did I2. They used the STARFIND satellite system to locate a medical bracelet instantaneously when it sent an alarm.
George typed, COPY SYS.MANAGER:MEDALARM{OVERRIDE}.DAT[SUPP]. Side-slipping the security precautions took a few delicate moments. Finally, onto his screen leaped the background files on all medical alarm bracelet holders.
HAGERTY, SUSAN A., 22123 CASTLE ROCK ROAD, LAGUNA BEACH 92651.
The woman God had brought to him, who had treated the waitress, and who hid her chiller works behind the honorable shield of UCI. The Lord had pointed His finger at Susan Hagerty for him, as part of His unfolding plan.
Her UCI address followed, with BitNet code and information on doctors. There was even a list of the medical procedures Hagerty had set up for when she was in terminal condition.
Curiously, there was a footnoted entry:
TRAVIS, CANINE, ANCILLARY. SEE: 3282A.
Could that be the dog he had killed? He had to search further.
George had to be cautious now. This was big-time hacking here, on a playing field as broad as the planet. He had gotten this far by a variation on the Trojan horse gambit. By simply patrolling the waiting list for clients, he had found the name of a UCI user who generated a lot of simple-minded programs; that minimized the chances that his tinkering would be noticed. Then George simply logged into UCI using the user’s access code, asking for help running a fresh program. This time the system manager readily helped—probably because he had done so for the real user many times before. So under the system manager’s imprimatur George’s program ran, free of the usual defensive checks. It swiftly awarded George privileges in the operating system. SYSOP OK, the screen assured him.
Now to work. The connections into I2 led from UCI’s bulky IBM through a twin-Cray array. He found there lightly protected internal I2 files and broke in. The actual routines for locating bracelet holders were in a VAX machine located in Los Angeles.
George called up the VAX on his modem, using a parallel telephone line. He asked for the system manager’s name, then departed. Typing swiftly, he set up an account in that same name in a lesser system. Then he entered the VAX system again, using a different NET connection. He tapped his fingers anxiously on the work table as he waited for the VAX to process his requests—and the screen said
ACCORDED SYSOP ACCESS. INFORMATION BEING RETRIEVED.
Now he wore the system’s own skin as a disguise. He made three typing mistakes in his eagerness to send in commands. First, the Hagerty woman.
To the VAX operating system he was Immortality Incorporated, asking for a routine position check on its client. Within two seconds the order flew to a distant satellite, which in turn transmitted a narrow frequency search wave, looking for Hagerty’s bracelet. An answering ping came up from the coast of California. The satellite measured the bracelet’s location to within ten yards, squirted the information to the VAX. There a program matched this data with a topographical map.
On George’s screen appeared a grid and contour lines. Northern Laguna Beach, El Morro Bay. He wondered why she was there, when her home lay out in Laguna Canyon.
COWELL, ALEX M., 29850 SILVERADO CANYON, ORANGE COUNTY
The tracer showed him to be at I2 on Santiago Canyon Road. Or was he? George leaned close to his flat screen monitor and called up the general locator flag for I2.
Cowell’s telltale came from a few hundred yards back into the arroyo behind the buildings.
He frowned. This satellite grid was supposed to be more accurate than this. For a moment he considered how he might complain about this failure. I’m illegally penetrating your files and want to gripe about the resolution. Sure. If he was to use this effectively, though—
As he watched, Cowell’s blip moved back toward the I2 marker. So he was far back in the arroyo.
Did I2 have another installation tucked back there?
Or more likely, maybe Cowell was just out for a walk.
Of course. That was where George had met the Hagerty woman and the devil dog. It had been no coincidence. Godly signs echoed down through his life, and here was another. He had escaped clean and free from the arroyo, and here a Sign pointed there again. He would meditate upon the significance.
George put that aside, lit up a Camel, and thought at last of the girl.
He had followed her two days ago from I2 to Fashion Circus. He had made a move on her on impulse, and it had nearly worked. He liked the pursuit, the bursting joy of watching the prey up close, even though it was risky to let anyone see him. Something electric had swarmed in the air around her. He felt it the moment he had casually sauntered into the clothing store. It had seemed to radiate from her, like deep pulsing waves unheard but felt through the press of his sweaty skin.
Something had put her off at the last moment. He didn’t know what it was, but that didn’t matter so much as the simple fact that she had gotten a good hard look at him. And he didn’t even know her name.
Not yet. But the I2 background data files were excellent, including photo ID. He ran the entire directory, flashing digital photos on the screen at high speed to get through the hundreds of “clients.” There—
SHEFFIELD, KATHRYN J., 37454 WOODFERN,
TUSTIN, 91707.
An employee entry. She was making chump change, he saw.
That did it for him. He had been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, a young woman with a fresh smile, new to the cryonics blasphemy, probably involved with that Cowell guy, falsely led into it by him. George had been willing to allow for that.
But she worked there at I2 a lot. He had seen her car there. With Cowell, probably wrapping long legs around him, her knees drawing up, the hair patch there dripping and smelling, spreading to receive his thrusts—
He caught himself, smothered the carnal fever. He
would not let his jimmy-john rule him. Especially when he was doing the Lord’s work. He stubbed out his Camel and let his pulse slow, getting the better of it, putting his cool and analytical self back in control.
She had turned him down for a lunch date, peering at him with those inspecting eyes that laughed. He was not sure what he would have done if she had gone with him, just as he was never sure which of his natures would manifest itself with women. Generally his cool outer shell was enough. It dealt with them well, kept them at a distance. But he had felt his inner self was pressing close to the skin in that clothing store, surging for release, and maybe she had sensed it, too.
She was of them and had rejected him with her mocking, tart tongue and so would have to bear the consequences.
He breathed deeply, studying the screen. Hundreds of I2 members, all believing in the foul heresy. Which ones were essential? He could not strike at them all.
He entertained the idea of setting some bugs loose in their computing system. He remembered when he was a boy, and someone had sent the infamous Naked Ladies program into the Macintosh he used at school. It appeared innocently in your directory, and if you tapped it with your mouse, sure enough, it showed you naked ladies. He had done that and been hot-faced with embarrassment when he could not stop the flow of fleshy images while his classmates gathered around, the girls tittering, his rage building. And while the computer had showed him the disturbing pictures, it had systematically erased every program he had in the directory. Retribution. A lesson.
No, that was too simple, too obvious. He could slip in a Trojan horse, pillage their software without ever leaving this chair. But that would not stop the heresy.
Only action could stem this tide.
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