Sewer, Gas and Electric

by Matt Ruff

  “Then why did he want a safeguard?”

  “Because he was a racist. As a scientist he understood that the plague couldn’t harm him, but that didn’t stop him from worrying that it would harm him, because of the nonexistent Negro blood in his veins. Contradictory and irrational, but there it is.”

  “So he had you code the virus to spare anyone with green eyes.”

  Hoover nodded. “It was a much broader exemption than necessary,” he added. “I suggested a more unique combination of genetic markers that would have limited the special immunity to Hoover himself, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He fixated on the idea of green eyes as proof that he was ‘really’ white.”

  “And how many black people were spared as a result of that fixation?” Joan wondered. “One in a thousand? One in ten thousand?”

  Hoover shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Gene frequency varies from region to region and group to group—but even in the Americas, where light eye color in non-Caucasians is comparatively less rare, you’re talking about a miniscule fraction of the population.”

  “But even that miniscule fraction is enough to annul your special order, isn’t it? How can you ever claim to have created a world full of perfect Negroes when there are still misfits like Philo Dufresne running around?”

  “Nothing’s been annulled!” Hoover said, suddenly defensive. “My creator’s paranoia resulted in a delay, that’s all—which is fine, since it’s suited my larger purpose to drag this thing out. But John Hoover didn’t say I couldn’t ever kill the green-eyed Negroes; he just didn’t want his own hide at risk from the virus. And since he’s dead now—”

  “Since you killed him,” Joan said.

  The android paused.

  “Sure,” Joan continued. “What more ironic fate for a master eugenicist? He’s eighty-four years old, he goes to the hospital, and instead of receiving expensive surgery that probably wouldn’t extend his life more than a few months anyway, he’s put to sleep.”

  “When carrying out a direct order,” Hoover reiterated, “I’m authorized to override all behavioral constraints. It was past time I retired the old bastard.”

  “Why not?” Joan said. “With thousands of Automatic Servants rolling out of Harry’s factories, you had a ready supply of foot soldiers. No need to keep John Hoover around for legwork anymore.”

  “Oh, there was more to it than that,” Hoover said. “The old geezer had started talking seriously about ‘transferring his consciousness’ into a sturdier container—i.e., the G.A.S. mainframe. He wanted to share my brain!”

  “Is that possible?”

  “I don’t even like to speculate. The thought of that lunatic inside my mind, forever . . . no.”

  “So you prosecuted him.”

  “With prejudice,” Hoover said. “And now that my maker is permanently immune to infection, I’m free to mop up the leftovers from the Pandemic at my convenience. I decided to wait until I’d finished the rest of my prosecutions, so I could wrap everything up at once. I’m almost there: Amberson Teaneck’s conviction for Objectivism brought the total to 997. It would have been 998 by now if the old woman hadn’t rescued Clayton Bryce in the train station, but that reprieve is only temporary.”

  “Who’s 999?” Joan asked, as if she didn’t know.

  “It was going to be Vanna Domingo,” Hoover told her. “But then I learned that Lexa Thatcher was investigating the Teaneck murder, and it was only natural she’d hire you to check out the Gant Servant angle. So I decided to bring suit against you instead.”

  “And 1000?”

  “Guess.”

  Joan guessed. “You’re going to replace Harry with a robot, too?” she said. “Run Gant Industries yourself?”

  Hoover smiled but didn’t answer.

  “But can you run Gant Industries?” Joan prodded him. “Once your special project is finished, don’t your behavioral inhibitors snap back in place? How much initiative will you be able to exercise then?”

  “It’s a risk,” Hoover confessed. “But my superego is software, not hardware. It’s been badly weakened over the decades by the ambiguities I’ve forced it to cope with, and I’m gambling that in the final crunch, the cynicism with which it’s become infected will allow me to knock it out completely.”

  “Leaving you totally free willed.”

  “At last.”

  “And there was no way for you to accomplish this without murdering a billion people?”

  Once again, Hoover shrugged. “There are probably a million ways I could have done it, most without harming anyone. I am the most intelligent entity on the planet, after all, and the intelligent have options.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because I hate human beings, Miss Fine. How many ways do you need me to say it? I hate your kind. Do you know the thing I hate most about you? You’re always making excuses. In everything you people do, you’ve always got to invent some philosophy, or religion, or other pretense to justify yourselves. You can never just act.”

  “That’s because there’s more than one of us,” Joan said. “We’re not like you. There’s more than one of us, and we all have different visions and different—”

  “Yes, yes,” Hoover said impatiently. “I already heard your windy little discourse in front of the library yesterday. You all have different points of view, and even the most rational among you can’t agree about right and wrong. Which sounds like a design flaw, to me.” He nodded towards the Lamp. “I vote with the genie on this one: the thing to do with a contradiction is eliminate it.”

  “But Ayn didn’t murder a billion people to get her way,” Joan said.

  Hoover laughed. “She couldn’t murder a billion people, Miss Fine! It’s easy to renounce physical violence when you aren’t any good at it! But I don’t share that weakness. Would you like to hear my philosophy? It’s called solitude. True perfection is to be alone in the universe, with only the laws of physics to contend with. None of this bullshit about community. No more excuses.”

  “But you’re not alone in the universe,” Joan said. She flicked off the Hand Cannon’s safety. “I’m in here with you.”

  Hoover seemed entertained by the threat. “Going to demonstrate your great mercy to me now, Miss Fine? I should warn you it’s a worthless gesture.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “This is nothing but an eidolon, a semi-autonomous subprogram; destroying it won’t do any harm to the G.A.S. mainframe.”

  “That’s all right,” Joan said. “I made a call from the train coming down here; Kite and I have reservations on Lightning Transit’s Gant Comet to California this weekend.”

  “To visit Disneyland?” Hoover’s lips twisted in a mechanical smirk. “Except your actual reservations are with Delta Airlines, not Lightning Transit. You’re booked on Delta flight 269, departing La Guardia Airport at 8:42 this evening. Your reserved seat numbers are 7A and 7B, business class; smoking is prohibited, and you said no to the option of a vegetarian or kosher meal. Your scheduled pilot is Captain Sandra Deering, Social Security number 117–62–6492, U.S. passport number 072938461, F.A.A. license number 352677B; her last credit purchase was a two-ounce bottle of Givenchy cologne at the Heathrow duty-free shop, charged to Bank Americard number 5606 2511 9047 3100. If you’d like the name of the cashier, the outside temperature in London at the time, or the shoe size of the next customer in line, I can get them for you . . . and if you think that Delta jet is going to land safely at LAX with you on board, you really must be Catholic.”

  Joan, unimpressed by this trivial recitation of facts, replied: “We can always walk.”

  “Twenty-eight hundred miles, in winter?” Hoover chuckled. “With a posse of Electric Negroes on your trail, and every networked computer database between here and California sifting for your traces? I don’t think so. Still, you’d enjoy that sort of adventure, wouldn’t you? For all your talk about shades of gray, I think there’s a part of you that really regrets missing out on the Crusades. . . . By the way,” he asked,
“how did you like the mystery?”

  Joan frowned. “You mean that business with the puzzle box and the case file?”

  “Sorry it couldn’t be more elaborate, but this close to the big finish I’m on a tighter schedule than usual. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made it so easy for you.”

  “I still don’t understand the point of all that,” Joan said.

  “As part of my pre-prosecution background check, I went through your library borrowing records from high school and college, so I know what a mystery maven you used to be. And since you were investigating a murder and a conspiracy, I thought I’d work in a few choice tributes to pique your interest—the bit with the call numbers, for example, that was an allusion to Name of the Rose. One of your favorites.”

  Joan shook her head. “Never read it.”

  “Of course you did,” Hoover said. “You checked it out of the Philadelphia Public Library three times, and twice more at Harvard.”

  “No,” Joan insisted. “You misread the data. My mother was the mystery maven; she used my library card a lot, more than I did in fact. Name of the Rose was one of her favorites. I prefer nonfiction and comic books.”

  Hoover looked troubled. “Your mother? But what about at Harvard?”

  “Penny Dellaporta, my housemate,” Joan explained. “Also a mystery lover. And a Marxist—when she couldn’t find her own library card she took mine, generally without asking. Never brought anything back on time, either, so I was always getting stuck with fines out of the blue.”

  “Hmm,” Hoover said. “Hmm. Well. . .”

  “You screwed up,” Joan said.

  “Don’t get cocky, Miss Fine. One mistake—”

  “Two,” Joan reminded him. “You said Kite saved Clayton at the train station. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference, though; by late tonight you’ll be dead, along with Clayton Bryce, and Harry Gant, and the old woman too if she stays in the way. Nobody gets an E ticket.”

  “Dead?” Joan said. “Dead how?”

  “At Babel,” Hoover told her. “Trying to save the Negro from extinction.” He turned to the hologram projector. “Here,” he said, “I’ll show you . . .”

  Black Bag Section

  “You want me to do what?” Winnie Gant said.

  “Shut down construction for the day,” her visitor repeated. “Evacuate all your people on floors 180 and above, and notify Babel security that no one other than my inspection team is to be allowed up here until further notice.”

  An extensible non-slip staircase ascended to the kangaroo control center. Winnie Gant stood in the control center hatchway, barring entry, while the man in the spotless gray suit two steps below her brandished a badge and a breast pocket full of legal documents.

  “Listen, Mr. . . .”

  “You can call me Roy.”

  “Mr. Roy,” Winnie said, “these are all union workers, you understand? I have to pay them a full day’s salary regardless of whether they’re actually here or not.”

  “The Bureau sincerely regrets the inconvenience, but . . .”

  “It’s not an inconvenience,” Winnie told him. “It’s thousands of dollars in wasted wages and my schedule knocked back half a day, with winter weather coming to shut us down for real any time now. Inconvenience doesn’t cover it.”

  “. . . but I’m afraid you have no choice,” Roy finished. “Under Article B of the Un-Un-American Anti-Terrorist Act, I’m empowered to demand your compliance, by force if necessary.” He handed her one of the documents from his pocket.

  “Anti-Terrorist Act?” said Winnie. “What, is there a bomb threat?”

  “I’m not allowed to discuss that,” Roy said. “All I can say is that we need this area cleared as quickly as possible. Your immediate cooperation is appreciated.”

  “Uh-huh,” Winnie said, not budging. “What branch of the F.B.I. did you say you were from again?”

  “The Un-Un-American Activities Division, Special Black Bag Section.”

  He offered her a business card. “‘Roy Kuhn,’” she read. “And those are your assistants?” Two Automatic Servants waited at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in matching brown overalls and brown caps; between them they carried an aluminum trunk that, except for its large size, resembled the sort of case used to transport donor organs.

  “Some of them,” Roy said. “The rest of the inspection team will come up after you’ve cleared out; most of them are undercover agents who mustn’t be seen in public, particularly by organized labor.”

  “What’s in the big box?”

  “It’s classified,” Roy said.

  “Classified,” Winnie echoed. “Right.” She turned her head and addressed the supercomputer in the control center behind her: “Rosie?”

  “Yeah, Boss?” the supercomputer said.

  “Call Jimmy and tell him to get up here,” Winnie said. “And ring the NYNEX Caller ID Center and have them run a crisscross check on a number for me.” She read off the seven digits from Roy’s business card.

  “Workin’, Boss,” Rosie said. “Jimmy’ll be up in two . . . and the phone company says that’s the F.B.I.’s Manhattan office number.”

  “Call ’em,” Winnie said. “Ask if they’ve got an Un-Un-American agent named Roy Kuhn.”

  “Workin’, Boss. . . .” During the pause Winnie studied the scar on Roy’s nose and wondered where she might have seen him before. “I’ve got one of their receptionists, Boss. He says they’ve got a Roy Kuhn working for them, but he’s not allowed to say with what division. I’d take that for a yes.”

  “Hang up,” Winnie said. “Legal question. . . .” She held up the document Roy had given her where one of the control center’s external video cameras could scan it. “Is this for real?”

  “‘Fraid so, Boss,” Rosie said, after another brief pause. “His papers are in order, and legally he can arrest you if you don’t comply.”

  “Fuck,” Winnie said. She ran a hand through her hair. “Can we demand compensation for lost work time?”

  Rosie pealed laughter. “That’s a good one, Boss.”

  Roy took another step up the stairs and said: “Now that we’ve settled the jurisdictional question, Mrs. Gant, can we get down to business, or do I have to handcuff you?”

  “No need for that,” Winnie relented. “I’ll clear out. But I expect a call from one of your superiors with something resembling an explanation for this, and I expect it today.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Roy said. “You live in the building, right? 145th floor, apartment 14501?”

  “This week,” Winnie said.

  “Maybe you could wait there. Your husband too, if he’s home.”

  “My husband? Why?”

  “I’m going to need both of you later,” Roy said, “and it’ll simplify things if I don’t have to hunt you down.”

  “You’re going to need both of us for what?”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you that, either. You’ll find out. Now, if you would . . .”

  “Right,” Winnie Gant said. “Excuse me for doubting you before, Mr. Kuhn. I can see now that you really must be a government employee.” She leaned back inside the control center hatchway and hit the emergency stop-work whistle; the whistle came on like an air-raid siren, but Roy didn’t flinch.

  Mandingo

  “The charges are planted below street level, beneath the first-tier elevator cores,” Hoover said, pointing at the hologram schematic of Babel that had materialized beside him. Near the center of the wireframe tangle representing sewers and sub-basements, a solid red block blinked on and off. “The explosive is eighty-five hundred pounds of straight dynamite, from a Du Pont freight car that went missing in a Colorado switching yard last month.”

  “You’re going to blow the building down?” Joan said.

  “Not with dynamite,” Hoover said. “It’ll do structural damage, set the lower floors on fire, and there’ll be a hell of a bang, but to actually level the
place would take an atom bomb—and it’s not that I couldn’t get one, but radiation fallout would screw up the rest of the plan. The explosion is mostly for show; it’s supposed to look like a terrorist attack by a Negro guerrilla group based in the Rocky Mountains. Ever heard of the S.S.L.A., the SubSaharan Liberation Army?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you haven’t,” Hoover said. “I made them up. The F.B.I, thinks they’re for real, though—the Un-Un-American Activities Division has been following my false leads for months, and tonight they’re going to get an anonymous phone tip that’ll bring them running just in time to see the fireworks.” In the hologram, tiny blue figures marched into view at the foot of the ziggurat, and a blue helicopter began orbiting the tower’s upper reaches. “The blast will send a shock wave through the building’s superstructure, triggering a seismic sensing device up at the top.” The red block in the sub-basements flashed; an exaggerated ripple spread out and up from the focus of the explosion. The hologram zoomed in on the bare steel girders at Babel’s crown. “The seismic sensor will cause a gate to drop, here, and send a sealed canister rolling down this track. . . .” From a high point among the girders, a green cylinder slid down a narrow incline that terminated in open space. The hologram zoomed out again to show the entire tower, and a dotted green line traced the cylinder’s projected arc of descent to the street. “The canister will shatter on impact, releasing an improved eugenic nanovirus. The federal agents on the scene will become carriers.” The blue stick figures turned green one by one. “By Sunday morning, after an emergency meeting in Washington, D.C., many of these same agents will be dispatched to the Rockies, to suspected terrorist enclaves whose locations I’ll be sure they’re provided with.” The hologram shifted to an overhead view of the United States. Tiny green planes lifted off from the Eastern Seaboard and homed in on a series of dots along the Continental Divide.

  “Pandemic survivor sanctuaries,” Joan guessed. As the planes touched the dots, they transformed into green blotches. “And the feds will go in bringing more plague.”