Society of the Mind

by Eric L. Harry

  Instead of a Porsche, Gray naturally had a two-seat, nearly soundless, high-tech helicopter.

  That figures, Laura thought. She ducked her head to keep well clear of the rotors, now blasting her hair all around her face in a wild dance as the wind roared past her ears.

  She climbed into the form-fitting bucket seat, glad to be free of the windstorm outside. When the door closed automatically, all was suddenly peaceful. Laura reached up and swept her hair back over her forehead. Gray had twisted around to look at her.

  "Buckle up," was all he said before resuming some conversation into the boom microphone extended in front of his mouth.

  "Keep them there, then. I'll be back in a little while." After a pause, Gray chuckled. "You're good at the niceties of diplomatic protocol, Mr. Hoblenz. Just offer them tea and crumpets and amuse them with your wit."

  He turned and reached over his seat to tug on Laura's harness. Her seatbelt was secure. Straps over both shoulders buckled at her waist.

  "Ready?" Gray asked. Laura opened her mouth to ask him… The words sunk into her stomach as the helicopter shot straight into the air. Her stomach, in turn, was left on the pavement in front of Gray's house.

  After several seconds of blood-draining ascent, there was blue ocean and blue sky all around. Laura didn't see the lush green island until Gray rolled the tiny helicopter onto its side. They then began another terrifying experiment in Newtonian physics, plummeting down the steep slope of the mountainside toward the empty quarter of the island.

  Laura feared suddenly she might become sick.

  "Joseph," she groaned, "could you take it easy?" Her head swam and ears popped.

  He leveled the helicopter out. "Sorry. I'm in a bit of a hurry. There's a delegation from the UN waiting for me in the Village. Hoblenz is playing host, and I'm afraid he'll get hungry and shoot them for food."

  The scrubby land slid by underneath the clear, Plexiglas floor. They were surrounded by glass, and the view was spectacular. The joystick on her armrest tilted slightly to the left in time with the helicopter's shallow bank in the same direction. "I didn't know you could fly," she said.

  Gray dipped the nose to begin a descent, but this one was gentle. He looked back over his shoulder with a grin. "It's one of life's little pleasures. You should try it. I bet I could have you soloing in ten hours." The ground was rushing up at the windshield behind Joseph's turned head. "This helicopter has some amazingly good exhaust baffles, and the ceramic insulation around the turbine deadens the engine noise. Plus it uses jet exhaust to compensate for torque instead of a noisy aft rotor."

  She spun her finger in the air with a worried look on her face, and he returned his attention to his flying. He pulled up on the stick and raised the nose of the helicopter, an invisible hand crushing Laura into her seat. After long seconds of multiple Gs, she felt a slight jolt through the thick foam cushions. The nose fell, and the dark blue ocean replaced the light blue sky. Gray busily flipped switches, and there descended now upon the cabin a quiet so complete that every move he made sounded like the pop of a recording flaw on a digital disc.

  Gray removed his headset and turned to her again. "It also has a sound system that counteracts background noise by generating an equal but opposite acoustic wave." He turned to flick one more switch. The silence was replaced with a much more natural though less complete absence of sound. The two doors on the left both rose with a hiss.

  Laura heaved a deep sigh, inhaling the thick sea air. The ocean crashed onto the beach just outside. She unbuckled herself, but she had difficulty at first getting out of the tightly conformed seat. Its cushions had molded around her, and she had to twist her body to extract herself from the cavity. She felt pain throb from her various bruises.

  Laura smiled to hide the grimace. "So, what are we doing here, if I'm allowed to ask?"

  "A security patrol found something Hoblenz thought I should see."

  "More footprints? Model Eights?" she asked as Gray got a small shovel out of a compartment.

  "No, although they're all over this part of the island." She followed him toward the beach. He climbed down the rocks to the black sand, and Laura trailed just behind.

  "What are we looking at, then?" she asked, standing atop the last rock as Gray went on.

  The beach formed a small U-shaped cove and was notable mainly for a large bulge in the sand. The mound was approximately the size of a human grave. Gray stepped on the shovel, and the blade sank easily into the black pile.

  Laura felt sudden shock and disgust. God, she thought. It's happened again!

  Gray stood up, pulling a thick black bag from the sand. Laura looked away with a shudder when she heard the loud ripping sound of a zipper.

  When she forced herself to turn back, she saw Gray holding a long black rifle in the air.

  Laura hopped down off the rock and walked out onto the beach. He laid the rifle back in the bag and extracted a rocket launcher.

  "What's this stuff?" Laura asked.

  "It's equipment used by navy SEAL commandos. Hoblenz said they're experts at 'clandestine seaborne infiltration,' or something like that." He lifted another rocket launcher out, then another looking at them like a curious boy. He even read the bright yellow instructions and warning labels printed on the sides of the tubes.

  "How'd they get here?" she asked. "The SEALs, I mean?"

  "Submarine, probably. They swim to the beach and plant their equipment so they can bring another load when they come in for real." Gray closed the bag and pushed it back into the hole with his foot. "Hoblenz says they bury it the night before their mission." He began to shovel sand onto the bag.

  "What are you doing?" Laura asked.

  "Putting it back."

  "But… why?"

  He finished covering the weapons and looked up at her. "It's theirs." He passed her on the way back to the helicopter.

  She grabbed him by the arm, and he turned to face her. "Why, Joseph? Why are you leaving that for those commandos?"

  His eyes drifted out to the sea. He spoke slowly. "If they land here tonight — in the empty quarter, in the dark — they'll need everything they packed in that bag."

  The small helicopter lifted into the sky, and the green earth began to streak by just underneath.

  "They should've finished laying the cable to the annex by now," Gray said, but Laura just marveled at the view. From the sky, the exterior wall of the old volcano was lush and green. It was almost impossible to see the roads for all the foliage. Only Gray's house stood out in all its splendor.

  The mountain rose up at their feet through the transparent floor, then fell away completely in a dizzying rush. They flew over the crater wall to the inside, and the sights far below amazed Laura.

  She was transfixed by the tiny Village nestled quaintly in its bed of trees. The massive, flat roof of the computer center. The huge assembly building, which sprang from the grassy fields of the restricted area. A second assembly building was under construction near the coast. Not far from it was a structure she'd never seen before. "What's that concrete building?" Laura asked.

  She should've known better. Gray rolled the helicopter onto its side and plunged through the air like a dive-bomber. Laura held on, the whine of the air growing ever louder, despite the sound-deadening system. The ground rose up toward their windshield.

  Laura's eyes were pinched almost shut by a grimace, but she looked at Gray from behind. His cheeks were spread wide by a broad grin.

  "A simple answer would've sufficed," she said just before grunting under the crush of gravity as Gray pulled up on the stick.

  "It's the annex," Gray said, ending the radical maneuver in a placid hover just over the trees. The massive slab of concrete spread out before them. The cockpit was again soundless, but the jungle canopy thrashed this way and that under their rotors. The lighter underside of the leaves tippled outward in a tidal wave of disturbed air. The jungle clung to the walls of the building.

  "Where are the roads?"
Laura asked.

  "There aren't any. There's no human access to the annex. It's fully automated."

  "You mean there aren't even any doors? None of the observation windows you seem to love so much?"

  "Nope. No humans allowed. It's much easier that way. No dust problems. No amenities like plumbing, heating, lights. It's going to be the same with the new assembly building."

  The idea of large-scale operations under the complete control of computers disturbed Laura in some fundamental way.

  There was a single cut through the jungle — a small path cleared to the wall of the annex. In the center of the cut was a recently dug ditch of some sort. It led straight to the computer center in a line of rich, dark soil that was cut across the otherwise green fields.

  "What's that?" Laura asked.

  Gray craned his neck to see where she was pointing. "Those are the new optical cables that we ran over this morning." Without warning he turned the helicopter's nose away from the concrete [unclear]. "You know, we did some really innovative things with this helicopter's engines. You can really feel the boost. Watch." The nose dropped, and Laura felt a kick in her seat as he gunned the nearly silent engine. It vibrated vigorously through her seat back as they accelerated rapidly just over the tops of the trees.

  "Do you have to fly like that?" she asked. Her voice sounded as if it came from the bottom of a well as her ears popped and the crushing weight of gravity forced her ever deeper into her seat.

  They were going faster and faster, and the low jungle trees streaked by just under the helicopter's skids. "Joseph, you're acting like a teenager!" The helicopter's nose shot up, and they rocketed straight into the sky. There was nothing but blue in the windshield ahead. Laura thought about screaming but gave in against the Gs and rested her head in the foam cove behind it. Gray kept pulling up and up on the stick, and the helicopter practically sat on top of its tail.

  She looked at the joystick on the seat's arm. It was all the way back. Suddenly the world outside the cockpit was upside down. The blue sky was beneath her feet and the green jungle above her head. She almost reached for the stick to fight Gray for control before she felt the helicopter drop like a stone. Upside down in a helicopter, they plummeted from the sky toward the earth.

  From then on everything was a confusing jumble of sensations. The jungle filled their sky, the blue sky at their feet. Then just as suddenly they traded places in a rush to return to their accustomed locations.

  It was a sickening, draining pull on her head and stomach. She was pressed harder and harder into her seat, and then it was over.

  The helicopter hovered in front of a massive construction project, whose bare girders rose high above the jungle and promised great things to come. "And this is the new assembly building," Gray said, continuing his tour. "It'll be significantly larger than the old one."

  "Why the hell did you do that?" Laura mumbled — a steely taste in her mouth. Her head still wobbled, the unsteadiness disorienting her further.

  "You mean the loop?"

  "Yes, I mean the loop!" she mustered. "Jesus Christ, Joseph!" She wasn't through with him yet.

  But when he said, "I've always wanted to do that," with an apologetic laugh, she hesitated.

  There was something in the way he'd proffered his weak explanation that cut her tirade short. He was saying this might be his last chance. Laura looked out through a side window. Three ships were there now, the new one much larger than the first two.

  "I guess it's time to get back to work," Gray said with a touch of disappointment in his voice. He banked the helicopter gently and began a slow flight to the computer center.

  They settled uneventfully to the grass inside the circle formed by the roadbed. Over a dozen men and women in formal attire stood at the top of the computer center steps. They were a delegation from the planet Earth sent to parley with the stranger in their midst.

  The cockpit doors hissed open, and Gray and Laura emerged.

  Laura walked toward the group at Gray's side.

  "Mr. Gray," a Japanese diplomat said, stepping forward with a gracious smile and a bow. Gray began to shake hands while Laura tried to edge her way around the crowd. But her path to the door was blocked.

  Hoblenz stood off to the side, looking at his watch in evident disgust. He wore slacks, a button-down white shirt, and a tie that hung loose around his collar.

  "Good day, Ms…?" a distinguished-looking white-haired man with a British accent said, holding out his hand.

  "Oh, Aldridge," she replied, shaking his hand. "Dr. Laura Aldridge."

  She was caught. The hands of the others were extended her way in ritualistic succession. She ended with a bow toward the Japanese gentleman.

  "Why don't we all just head down into the computer center?" Gray said to the diplomats.

  They split into two groups for the walk down the steps — the lead group clustered around Gray, the trailing group around Laura. She craned her neck to find Hoblenz while being swept up in the abundant small talk. The grinning man stood with his foot propped on an ATV, bidding her farewell with the tap of a finger to an imaginary hat.

  "You certainly have built quite an impressive facility here, Dr. Aldridge," the British diplomat said.

  Laura started to object, but changed her mind. "Thank you," she said.

  As the heavy blast door closed on the group ahead, a woman with a French accent said, "This is built very much for security, yes?"

  In the silence after the departure of Gray's group, Laura felt all eyes focused exclusively on her. "Oh, the computer center? No! It's because of the launch pads. We're about half a mile from pad A over there," she pointed, and heads turned in unison, "and this area gets some of the, you know, blast and heat."

  There were nods and whispered words.

  "Where're all the robots?" a tall American man asked. Everyone looked at him, but he kept his eyes on Laura. He looked athletic, and he wore a good-natured smile on his tanned face. "We've read so much about them, I just thought they'd be all over the place delivering mail and things like that."

  There was polite laughter, but the man was clearly waiting for Laura's answer.

  "Well, they're a bit too expensive to be used for delivering the mail," Laura said, then wondered whether that really was true.

  "But they are here somewhere, aren't they?" he persisted, still the picture of politeness.

  "Yes," Laura said. "They're here."

  Her words seemed to chill the group, and they cast furtive glances all around. The vault door opened with a hiss, and the visitors' eyes shot toward it. They were a jumpy bunch.

  "Why don't we all head inside?" Laura directed. "There's a blower in here that will give everybody a little dusting." That was all the warning she decided to provide. She gathered her hair at the back of her head and waited. The blowers powered up, and the unexpected blast of stiff wind sent hands grabbing for handrails.

  The inner door opened, and the windblown and shaken group joined their equally unkempt colleagues inside.

  Laura immediately noticed the new addition to the control room. Row after row of white pipes ran the length of the far wall.

  They were low-tech metal in the otherwise molded plastic world of the computer age. To the new arrivals, however, the whole scene was so new their eyes roamed over each uncertain object with equal curiosity.

  "Why don't we all head back to the conference room?" Gray said in a loud voice. "If you'll follow Dr. Filatov. He's head of computer operations and will be able to answer your questions about the main computer."

  As the group wandered down the hallway with mouths agape, Gray walked across the room to the pipes. Laura joined him. "Are these the fiber-optic cables?" she asked.

  "Yep. They should breach the partition and give the computer a chance to grab some of its boards back from the Other."

  "So these things connect the two halves of the computer's brain?" Laura asked, and Gray nodded. "Like a corpus callosum," she mumbled.

&
nbsp; Hoblenz walked up to Gray. "Well?" Gray asked.

  "The tall American, for sure," Hoblenz said. "And the Frenchwoman. Maybe the Chinese guy. I'm tryin' to find out more about him."

  Gray nodded.

  "What about the American and the Frenchwoman?" Laura asked. "You mean those people I was just talking to, right?"

  Gray nodded. "They're spies. The rest are probably diplomats, who are also spies but have another agenda to boot. But Mr. Hoblenz thinks those two at least are full-time spooks."

  "Not think, I know. Or at least the computer knows. The guy is garden-variety CIA, but the woman is trouble. She works for the French Foreign Ministry in Tokyo but is really Mossad — an Israeli plant. The French know about her. That's where the computer got her file. But she's good and they use her for dirty work."

  Hoblenz held Gray's gaze for a moment, but Gray said nothing.

  "Did you break into government computers?" Laura asked in a whisper.

  Hoblenz looked at her with a contemptuous frown. "What?"

  Laura said. "So I'm supposed to assume that you broke the law?"

  Filatov stopped by to remind Gray that the diplomats waited.

  "I need a minute with you first, sir," Hoblenz said.

  Gray turned to Laura. "Could you go tell them I'll be a moment?"

  "Me?" Laura asked, and Gray nodded. Hoblenz said nothing until Laura was gone.

  She went up to the closed conference room door and pressed the manual plate. The door slid open, and the room fell silent. The attentive eyes of the delegation turned to her. "Mr. Gray apologizes. It's been a busy day, as you can all imagine. He's been delayed by pressing business for just a minute or two."

  Before she could turn to leave, the tall American spy said, "You haven't been on the island all that long, have you, Dr. Aldridge?"

  She was shocked that he knew who she was. "No. Not long."

  They seemed to hang on her every word, which raised her already acute level of discomfort.

  "Come," the Frenchwoman said. "Here." Her hand rested on the empty seat next to the head of the table. Laura wanted to extract herself but couldn't think of any polite way to do it. She headed for the chair, and the men at the table rose to their feet.