Jericho Iteration

by Allen Steele

  John briefed me on Tiptree along the way. The company was a relative newcomer in the computer industry, one of the many that had been started during the late nineties as a result of the seventh-generation cybernetic revolution. Unlike other companies, though, Tiptree had not gone after the burgeoning consumer market for neural-net pocket computers or virtual reality toys. Instead, it had become a big-league player in the military aerospace industry, albeit a quiet one.

  “Name a major Pentagon program,” John said as we drove down Clayton, “and Tiptree probably has something to do with it. It’s a major subcontractor to the Air Force for the Aurora project, for instance. Now—”

  “You have reached your destination,” a feminine voice announced from the dashboard. “Repeat, you have reached your—”

  Tiernan stabbed the navigator’s Reset button, hushing the voice. We had already spotted the company’s sign, a burnished aluminum slab bearing the corporate logo of a T transfused with a stylized oak tree. “Now they’ve delivered on their largest contract yet,” he continued as he turned right, following a long driveway just past the sign. “Want to guess which one?”

  I was studying the plant itself, seen past ten-foot-high chain mesh fences artfully obscured by tall hedges. It was your typical postmodern industrial campus: a long white three-story edifice surrounded by tree-shaded parking lots and some smaller buildings, unimaginatively designed by an architect who probably collected old calculators as a hobby. If Tiptree’s headquarters had been damaged at all by the quake, they had been rebuilt quickly; there were a few scaffolds around one end of the main building, but that was the only indication that the company had been affected by New Madrid.

  “Umm … a player piano for the Air Force Academy?”

  John smiled but said nothing as he pulled to a stop in front of a gatehouse. A uniformed private security guard walked out to the car and bent low to examine the invitation John held up for him. He stared at me until I showed mine as well, then he nodded his head and pointed the way to a visitors’ parking lot on the east side of the main building.

  “Does the name Project Sentinel ring a bell?” he said as we drove toward the designated lot.

  I whistled; he glanced at me and slowly nodded his head. “That’s what this is all about,” he went on. “They designed the c-cube for the satellite … that’s command, control, and communications. The bird’s being launched from Cape Canaveral at noon, so it’s show-and-tell day for these guys.”

  “Probably more show than tell,” I said. “And you think this ‘ruby fulcrum’ business has something to do with—”

  “Shhh!” he hissed, and I dummied up as he looked sharply at me. “Whatever you do,” he said very softly, “don’t say that again … not even in the car with me.”

  He tapped his left ear and pointed outside the car. It wasn’t hard to get the picture. We might be invited guests for a public reception, but as soon as we had driven through the gates, we were in injun territory. Any high-tech company involved with a defense project as sensitive as Sentinel was probably capable of hearing a sparrow fart within a mile of its offices.

  John pulled into an empty slot. “Pick up your camera and make like a log,” he murmured. “It’s showtime.”

  Showtime, indeed.

  We walked into the main building through the front entrance, wading through a small crowd hanging around the lobby until we found the reception table. A nice young woman took our invitations, checked them against a printout, then smiled and welcomed us by name—Jah’s, in my case—as she clipped a pair of security badges to us, each of them reading PRESS in bright red letters, which either made us honored guests or social lepers. She handed a press kit to John and ignored the disheveled beatnik with the camera behind him, then a polite young man who could have been her chromosome-altered clone pointed us through the crowd to a high archway leading to an atrium in the center of the building.

  I had to rethink my opinion of the architect’s style; whoever designed this place had more on the bean than just playing with antique calculators. The atrium was three stories tall, its ceiling an enclosed skylight from which hung a miniature rain forest of tropical ferns. Small potted trees were positioned across the black-tiled floor, and dominating the far end of the room was a videowall displaying a real-time image of a Cape Canaveral launch pad so large that it seemed as if the shuttle was just outside the building.

  Yet that wasn’t what immediately captured my attention. Holographic projectors, cleverly concealed among the hanging plants, had suspended a monstrous machine about twenty feet above the floor: the Sentinel 1 satellite, its long, thin solar arrays thrust out from its cylindrical fuselage, gold Mylar-wrapped spherical fuel tanks nestling against its white segmented hull just short of the black maw of its gun. The image had been shrunk somewhat—the real Sentinel was nearly as long as a football field—but the overall effect was nonetheless impressive: a giant pistol in the sky, and God help whoever tried to stare it down.

  Milling around the atrium was a large crowd of business types, clustered in conversation circles, standing in front of the bar or taking drinks from the robowaiters, idly watching the shuttle countdown on the videowall. There was a buffet table at one side of the room; the aroma of hors d’oeuvres was too tempting for someone who hadn’t eaten all day, so I excused myself from John to go get some free chow.

  After wolfing down a plate of cocktail shrimp, fried mushrooms, and toasted ravioli, I was ready to start thinking like a professional journalist again. John was nowhere in sight; I eased myself into a vacant corner of the room and took a couple shots of the holograph, then began to scan the room through the Nikon’s telescopic lens under the pretense that I was grabbing a few candid shots. The nice thing about posing as a down-at-the-heels news photographer is that, under circumstances such as this, you fade right into the woodwork; no one pays much attention to the photog because no one wants to seem as if they’re posing for pictures.

  At first sight, no one seemed particularly remarkable; you’ve seen one suit, you’ve seen ’em all. The only exception was another photographer across the room, a young lady in jeans and a sweater who looked just as seedy as I. She scowled at me before melting into the crowd. Professional rivalry; she was probably from the Post-Dispatch. I wondered if she could help me adjust my F-stops …

  Enough of that. Like it or not, I was still married, even if Marianne had sent me to the darkroom. I continued to check out the atrium.

  For a few moments I didn’t see anyone recognizable. Then I spotted Steve Estes. The most right-wing member of the City Council was standing in the center of the room, yukking it up with a couple of other guys who looked as if they were fellow alumni of Hitler Youth. The pompous prick was probably bragging about how he had managed to get ERA to roust a bunch of panhandlers out of the park the night before.

  Estes was clearly maneuvering for a run against Elizabeth Boucher in next year’s mayoral election; every public statement he had made since the quake hinted that he was going to oppose “Liberal Lizzie” (to use his term) on a good ol’ Republican law-and-order platform. It would be an easy run; Liz had been caught off guard by the quake and everything that occurred afterward, and in the last few weeks she had been rarely seen or heard outside of City Hall. Rumor had it that she was suffering from a nervous breakdown, a drinking problem, or both, and her foes on the council, chief among them Big Steve, had been quick to capitalize on the rumors. If she ran for reelection, it would be as an unstable incumbent; if you believed Estes’ rants, you’d think Boucher had gone down to New Madrid and jumped up and down on the fault line to cause the quake herself.

  Estes glanced in my direction; the grin on his face melted into a cold glare. I took the opportunity to snag his picture before he looked away again. If anything, the shot could be used for Bailey’s next editorial against Estes and his hard-line policies. Then I happened to notice a small group of people standing across the room.

  Unlike nearly everyone else at
the reception, they were inordinately quiet, seeming somewhat ill at ease even though all three wore the blue badges that I had already recognized as designating Tiptree employees. Their apparent nervousness caught my attention; they appeared to be in terse, quiet conversation, occasionally shutting up and glancing furtively over their shoulders when someone happened to pass by.

  I zoomed in on one of them, a distinguished-looking guy in his mid-fifties, tall and rail-thin, with a trim gray Vandyke beard and a receding hairline. Although his back was turned toward me, it was apparent that the two other people were deferring to him. When he looked over his shoulder again, I snapped his picture, more out of impulse than anything else.

  Then, in the next instant, he shuffled out of the way, for the first time clearly revealing the shorter person who had been standing opposite him …

  A middle-aged black woman in a powder blue business suit and white blouse, not particularly distinguishable from anyone else in the crowd—except I recognized the shock of gray in her hair and the stern expression on her face.

  No question about it. She was the very same lady I had encountered in the park last night.

  Fumbling with the lens-control buttons, I zoomed in on the woman as much as the camera would allow. The Nikon’s varioptic lens did wonders; now it was as if I were standing three feet in front of her. I could clearly read what was printed on her name badge: BERYL HINCKLEY, Senior Research Associate.

  As if she were telepathic, her eyes flitted in my direction when I snapped her picture. I lowered the camera and smiled at her.

  She recognized me. Her face registered surprise, and for a moment I thought she was going to come over to speak to me.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, if I could have your attention please … we’re about to get started here.”

  The amplified voice came through hidden speakers near the ceiling. A young executive was standing at a podium below the videowall. The drone of conversation began to fade as everyone quieted down.

  The exec smiled at them. “We’ve been told that the shuttle has come off its prelaunch countdown hold and will be lifting off in just a few minutes,” he went on, “but before that, I’d like to introduce someone who has a few remarks to share with you …”

  I glanced across the room again, only to find that Beryl Hinckley had vanished from where I had last seen her. I looked around, trying to spot her again; I caught a brief glimpse of her back as she disappeared into the crowd, heading in the direction of a side exit. She had a true knack for making her escape.

  “… Our chief executive officer, Cale McLaughlin. Mr. McLaughlin …?”

  A smattering of applause, led by the exec, as he stepped away from the podium to make way for McLaughlin. Tiptree’s CEO was an older gentleman: tall, whip thin, and white haired, with wire-rimmed glasses and the focused look of a man who started his career as a lower-echelon salesman and clawed his way up to the top of the company.

  Probably a pretty good golfer, too, but that didn’t mean I was more interested in him than any other corporate honcho I had seen before. I zoomed back in on the conversation circle, only to find that the two men who had been talking with the mystery lady had also faded into the background.

  “I’ll keep things brief, because it’s hard to compete with a shuttle launch.” Some laughter from the audience, which had otherwise gone respectfully quiet. McLaughlin’s voice held a soft Texas accent, muted somewhat by the careful diction of a well-educated gentleman. “The Tiptree Corporation is pleased to have been part of the Sentinel program since the very beginning. Hundreds of people have been involved with this project over the last few years, and we believe that it is an important asset to the national security of the United States …”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So was the B-2 bomber. I was too busy wondering why this Hinckley woman needed to take a powder every time she saw my face.

  I was about to wade into the crowd in hopes of finding her again when a soft voice I had never expected, nor hoped, to hear again spoke from behind me.

  “Mr. Rosen, I presume …”

  I turned around to find, not unlike the devil himself, Paul Huygens standing at my shoulder.

  Not much can surprise me, but in that moment I nearly dropped Jah’s expensive camera on the polished floor. If Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa had appeared to announce that they were married and were now living in a nudist colony on Tierra del Fuego and that Marie de Allegro was their love child, I couldn’t have been more shocked. I might even have made note of a certain family resemblance.

  The only thing that Paul Huygens bore a resemblance to was something you might find when you pick up a rock and look underneath. He was a squat, greasy little toad of a guy, the sort of person who wears five-hundred-dollar Armani suits and still manages to look like a cheap hustler. Imagine the Emperor Nero as a lounge lizard and you’ve got the general idea.

  “Why, hello, Paul,” I said quietly. I tried to disguise my disconcertment by coughing into my hand. “Long time, no see …”

  Behind us, Cale McLaughlin continued his short, brief, bah-bah woof-woof about how wonderful Sentinel 1 was to the future of all mankind. Huygens nodded slightly. “A couple of years at least,” he replied. As before, his voice was almost girlishly high pitched: a little startling, since one rather expected a deep-throated, froggy tenor. “Still up to your old tricks, I see.”

  “Hmm? Oh, this …” I glanced down at the camera. “Sort of a new gig. I’m working for the Big Muddy Inquirer now. Switched over to photojournalism.”

  “Uh-huh. I see.” He frowned and made a show of looking closely at my badge. “You must have changed your name, too … or does Craig Bailey write columns under your byline?”

  I felt my face grow warm. He grinned at me. I had made a big lie and he had caught me in it. I made a sheepish, well-shucky-darn kind of shrug and changed the subject. “So … how’s everything in Massachusetts these days?”

  Huygens looked me straight in the eye. “I wouldn’t know, Gerry,” he said. “I quit CybeServe and moved to St. Louis about six months ago.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Oh, really.” He nodded his head. “I’m working for Tiptree now. Director of public relations.” The grin became a taut, humorless smile. “Remember what I told you? We’re from the same hometown.”

  More surprises, and just a little less pleasant than the first one. Yeah, Huygens had told me that, two years ago when I had first spoken to him on the phone, back when he had held the same job for CybeServe Electronics in Framingham and I had been a staffer for an alternative paper in Boston. Back then, of course, I hadn’t known what sort of eel I was dealing with, or how he’d eventually try to destroy my career. Damn near succeeded, too.

  “Well, well,” I said. “Like a bad penny …”

  The smile disappeared altogether. Huygens cocked his head sideways as he peered closely at me. “Excuse me? I didn’t quite get that—”

  “Never mind. Just a passing thought.” I coughed into my hand again. “So … what high school did you go to?”

  It’s an old St. Louis line, akin to asking a New Englander about the weather, but Huygens didn’t bite. Over his shoulder, I spotted John halfway across the room, making his way through the crowd with a drink in his hand. Probably a ginger ale, which was unfortunate; I could have used a shot of straight whiskey right then. He caught my eye, gave me a one-finger high sign, and started toward us.

  “Hmm.” Huygens’s thick lips pursed together. “Y’know, Gerry, to be quite honest, if I had wanted you to be here, I would have sent you an invitation—”

  “Things were tight at the office,” I began. “Craig was sort of busy, so I—”

  “Covered for him, right.” He pretended to rub a dust mote out of his left eye. I recognized the gesture; it was something he always did just before he asked you to bend over and drop your britches. “Well, I might have overlooked it, us being old acquaintances and all, but you see … well, I just received a complaint from one of our
guests.”

  “Oh?” John was still making his serpentine way through the mob; the cavalry was taking forever to get here. “From whom?”

  “Steve Estes. He said …” He shrugged. “Well, you know these politicians. They don’t like to be photographed without prior permission. That’s what brought me over here in the first place.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Of course not. After all, if just anyone was able to take their picture, they might actually be accountable to the public.”

  Huygens nodded agreeably. “Well, yes, there’s that … but nonetheless, Mr. Estes is an invited guest and you’re not …”

  I shrugged off-handedly. “Sure, I understand, but Steve shouldn’t worry about the shot I took of him. It probably won’t come out anyway.”

  Huygens blessed me with a blank, mildly bewildered look. “After all,” I continued, “old Transylvanian legends claim that vampires can’t be photographed.”

  Assholes are always the best straight men: they don’t have a good sense of humor. As his expression turned cold a few moments before John arrived at my side, I raised the camera to my face. “Let’s test that,” I said, focusing on Huygens’s wattled chin. “Say cheese …”

  Applause from the audience as McLaughlin wrapped up his speech. It could have been an appreciation for my jab. Now it was Huygens’s turn to make like a boiled lobster.

  The gag didn’t last long. The picture I took was of him reaching into his breast pocket to pull out his PT and tap in the codes that negated the electronic passwords embedded in our smartbadges. John walked right into the middle of the whole scene.

  “Hey, Gerry,” he said. “Did you get something to eat?”