The Digital Dream

by Mike Cartlidge

  The other elevator passes our car and continues up. Vibration on the floor of our cage again. There is a dull clunk and the car shifts, moving downwards a couple of inches, then stabilizing. I can feel Kathleen’s hands clench, clasping the material of my shirt. I whisper close to her ear, trying to reassure her. The movement stops.

  Ten minutes later, we hear the creaks and rattles as the other elevator returns. It gets closer, stops at the ninth floor. Starts again, slowly. As it draws level to our car, it seems to stop. The lights flicker and die. We are alone in the silent darkness. The quietness stretches. Then, there is another groan of machinery. It echoes like the growl of a monstrous creature. The other elevator moves off. We sit rigidly in the blackness, waiting, our arms around each other.

  ***

  It takes over an hour. At last, the elevator gives another spasm, pauses, and starts to move downward. We scramble to their feet and wait nervously, unable to see anything, neither speaking but both knowing the other’s thoughts. How fast is the machine moving? Is it under control? The speed seems normal but we are both disoriented.

  The elevator reaches the ground floor, juddering to a halt. When the door opens we are dazzled by the sudden light. Facing us, we see a young, long-headed man wearing blue overalls and carrying a tool kit.

  “Hi there. Had kind-of a wait, huh?”

  I scowl at him, blinking my eyes, as the two of us walk into the blessed space of the entrance foyer. We look around. There is no one else in sight. The serviceman moves past us and starts to peer at the inside of the elevator door. He opens a metal-fronted panel and presses a switch and the lights come back on.

  “I can’t say I’m too impressed with the response I got from your people,” I say.

  “I made it fast as I could, man,” the man says in a casually aggrieved tone, his head still halfway into the elevator.

  “I don’t mean you,” I say, starting to walk away. “I’m talking about that idiot on the other end of the emergency phone.”

  “What d’ya mean, buddy?” The serviceman turns back from the elevator, his expression puzzled.

  “Some guy with a New York accent,” I say.

  He shrugs. “The phone system’s down. Ain’t no one there for you to talk to.”

  I’m aware of Kathleen stopping, her body tense.

  “No, I did speak to someone,” I says slowly. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “No way, man.” The serviceman seems to think I’m crazy. “Our diagnostic system picked up an automatic sensor reading that told it the elevator was stopped between floors. The computer pages me automatically. Can’t have been the phone, man. Something’s screwed up our switchboard. I heard it on the radio in the truck. Funny, huh? They put a new computer-controlled system in last week. Meant to be the last thing in reliability. It’s driving ‘em crazy back at base.”

  ***

  We drive through pouring rain. The wipers sweep the glass, blurring the street-side neon and traffic lights. Wind buffets the side windows and threatens to force water under the canvas roof.

  When I pull the Morgan to the curb outside her parents’ house, Kathleen speaks for the first time since we left the building. “What are you thinking?”

  I start to reach out a hand towards her, already missing the intimacy of the close contact we had in the elevator. But the circumstances have changed. We are back in what passes for the normal world. I hold back. She doesn’t seem to notice.

  My expression remains tense. “I’m thinking that I’m very glad that I didn’t give them your name.”

  16

  INTERNET CLOSED USER GROUP alt.religion.alt

  FROM: Wizard

  TO: Symbiote

  The prophecy will come true. Pestilence and death will hold sway. Plague will have its dominion. The Lord will sit in judgment on those who blaspheme against his name. The world ends soon, any day. Material possessions will vanish and be no more. Supply credit card number for more details.

  ***

  It’s a bummer. Predator still feels like hitting something. He would have just loved to hit something. Whack! Like his best days with the baseball bat. Or the “accidental” block under the basket. Or the slam tackle, like he when he was playing football, hard and low, leave some smooth bastard writhing, five minutes before he can get his breath back.

  Those days are gone. The temptation lingers. The lure of violence. There is always Raid Over Hanoi, kill some geeks. But Predator is too intelligent to let himself be fooled. Sometimes he wishes he had been born stupid. None of it would have hurt so much.

  He forces himself to think. A faded figure, crouched in the wheelchair, the bedroom neat and tidy, posters on the wall just visible as the light dies outside. The Lakers shirt pinned up over the wooden dresser. The rows of books on the double line of shelves, school chemistry texts, Collected Mark Twain, schools edition. Lines of science fiction, all sorted into alphabetical order. Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick... And the computer textbooks. JAVA Made Easy, Programming in C++, Windows User’s Guide.

  Maybe it’s just a setback. He’d love to know how that smooth bastard on the TV got the information. Stephen Garner. He mouths the name silently, with disgust. Typical politician. Smooth and slimy. Predator would have loved to block-tackle him...

  The politician’s release of the news came before Predator had the chance to do anything about the strategy he had thought out. The idea had been simple. He had the contacts, after all. Put the info up and see what the bids were. Great money-spinner, handled properly. So much for that, now.

  But it’s just a setback. If he’s done it once, he can do it again.

  He switches the computer back on. It’s grown dark around him and the only illumination in the bedroom comes from the screen. He sits hunched before it, like some mythical creature in its lair, shadowed and intense, his hands flickering in the half-light like the wings of a lost dove.

  17

  GreenGarden Message Board. Personal message.

  FROM: Jingo

  TO: All.group.green.chile

  US waste dumping program now in progress. Site under scrutiny but under armed guard. See newsgroup listed below for on-going reports.

  ***

  The next day, McAllister comes into the office just before lunchtime and sits with a concerned expression on his face as Kathleen and I tell him about our experiences of the previous night.

  “I suppose it could still be coincidence,” I say unhappily. I want him to agree.

  “You know my views on coincidence. I think you two had better start being real careful. And avoid elevators until this thing’s over.” McAllister rubs at his ample stomach, thinking: the movement pulls his tie to one side and makes him look even more crumpled than before. “Let’s just concentrate on the computer system for now. This punk, whoever he is, seems to have stolen incriminating information about Senator Francis off the computer and given it to the news media?”

  “Well, given it to the Garner election campaign, by all accounts. Stephen Garner and his buddies did the rest.”

  The big man shakes his head. “And one of the country’s leading politicians takes the long walk. I’m not sure that I want to think about this any more.” He pauses and notices that his tie is crooked. He absently smoothes it down: the tie seems to have a kink in it and springs back to its original position as soon as he lets go of it. “You’d better hear what I got.”

  Without thinking about what I’m doing, I get up and make sure the office door is closed. Then Kathleen and I pull our chairs closer to McAllister’s.

  “I put out traces on these guys who are signatories on the Blackdawn bank account: Selwyn Higgins and Ellen Smith. They both work for Sligo-McNeil. Now, I’ve got contacts inside that company from a couple of years back—I did some security advisory work for them at a couple of their factories. I’m told that Higgins and Smith don’t feature much on the operational side of the company and are mainly there as aides to David Sligo himself. In fact,
one of my contacts says they are just a pair of poodles doing their master’s bidding.” He sniffs. “I don’t think my friend is very keen on either of them.”

  “This Sligo. What do we know about him?” McAllister reaches for the inevitable notebook. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kathleen smile.

  “David Winstanley Sligo,” he reads. “Forty-three years of age, married with four children. An active member of his local church—Baptist—and a pillar of the community. Professional do-gooder. Contributes to charitable causes including women’s refuges and several orphanages. Outstanding educational record—I’ve got details if you want them. Good sportsman, too. After Yale, he could probably have played several sports professionally if the world of business hadn’t been waiting for him. Joined the family firm from college, following in his father’s footsteps.” He looks up. “The company was originally founded by David’s great grandfather, one Robert Burns Sligo, by the way. It was based in Chicago but it spread quickly. McNeil was old Sligo’s partner. There are stories, apparently, that the Sligo family found some way to force him out once the company became successful. The old boy, R.B. Sligo, was reckoned to be some sort of robber baron. Nowadays, the firm discourages people from inquiring too closely into his business methods. His great grandson places great store on being a model of propriety. Anyway, R.B. took full control, way back when, and the success story continued. Nowadays Sligo-McNeil’s reckoned to be one of the largest corporations in the world. They’re into steel, brewing, transportation, electronics, all sorts of things.”

  He glances up, grimaces. “Though I gotta tell ya, their beer tastes like elk’s piss.” He looks back at his notebook, sliding his finger down the page until he gets back to where he left off.

  “David Sligo became company president and CEO after his father retired six years ago. Before that he’d run the European operation for some years, based in London. According to my informants, while it didn’t do him any harm being his father’s son, he still got the job on merit. He’s reckoned to be a real sharp operator.

  “His personal wealth dived a bit after the share-market correction in 2000 and nowadays he’s only worth about four billion, poor little bastard. He’s probably had to cut back the polo ponies’ ration of caviar.” He gives us a wry grin before looking back at his notebook.

  “Besides Sligo-McNeil, he’s on the board of seven other corporations and in the past he’s served on several government task forces, including last year’s on penal reform. It seems he upset some people there with some of his views. Like, he thinks the best thing to do with sex offenders is cut their weenies off.”

  McAllister seems to remember Kathleen’s presence and for once looks mildly embarrassed. He gives a quick cough and carries on.

  “Politics: he generally keeps out of it as far as his public image is concerned. However, my contacts say that it’s usual for a big corporation like Sligo-McNeil to have friends in Washington. Lobbyists, congresspersons from states where the corporation is a big employer, say. The word is that Sligo has more than a few senators in his pocket. On a wider front, people reckon he used to be a supporter of the present administration until a couple of years ago, when he start to get disenchanted with its creeping liberalism. He’s been known to speak out in public against the rising tide of dishonesty and immorality and he wants the country to go back to the old values. He’s opposed big-time to everything from liberalizing cannabis to making prostitution legal to letting women into the clergy.

  “There hasn’t been anything about it in the press, but my contacts reckon he’s spent a heap of time and money helping to kick-start the Garner campaign. The word around the corporation is that he and Garner are big buddies. But he’s not publicly involved. Likes to operate behind the scenes. My contact reckons he has a hell of a lot of power and he’s happy to use it when it suits him. He’s not a good man to cross.”

  McAllister shuts his notebook and for several minutes the three of us sit in silence. Kathleen is the first to speak.

  “I think I need to go away and ponder this for a while.”

  “Yeah, me too.” I get up and stand looking out of the window. “I’m not sure whether we aren’t just making too much of the whole thing.”

  McAllister purses his cheeks and makes a sound like a tire going down. “What you mean is, you’re getting scared. Now I agree that what we got so far may just be a bunch of coincidences. In fact, it probably is. But it can also be conspiracy. I’ve investigated conspiracies before. They tend to make everybody kinda crazy. You just need to take a few deep breaths and carry on.”

  “I suppose so,” I say. I’m suddenly thankful for McAllister’s presence. The big man is a morale-boosting ally, honest, unflappable and apparently invulnerable.

  “Well, if we aren’t on the wrong track, then maybe we should hand this over to the FBI. It feels like it’s getting too big for us. And on a practical note,” I point out, “the firm isn’t getting paid for any of this.”

  McAllister shakes his head. “Hand what over? We may be able to show them something interesting, but I don’t somehow think the average field agent is going to understand too much of this stuff.”

  “There must be someone who’d be interested,” I protest. “The fraud people, say...”

  “Sure,” agrees McAllister. “They’ll be interested. But we still don’t have any evidence of lawbreaking by anyone identifiable and when I was with the CPD the fraud guys were always drastically overworked. Word was, the FBI guys were even worse. They only used to take on the big money cases where they had a chance of actually getting a conviction. Without anything firm in the way of evidence, my guess is that this thing of ours would just join the queue of things to be looked at if they ever get the time.”

  “If it’s a question of money,” says Kathleen. “I’ll work for nothing. I don’t want to just let this drop.”

  I think for a moment. “Okay. We’ll go on a bit further. What I think I might do is talk to this friend of mine who works in television news. I guess I’ll tell her some of what we’ve found out.” I raise a hand to my forehead. “Let’s see, that we’ve heard that the information on Francis was illegally obtained from a law enforcement computer by someone friendly to Stephen Garner. If my friend thinks it’s worthwhile, maybe she can get a chance to ask Garner himself what he knows about it.”

  McAllister nods. “Of course, we don’t know that Garner is in any way connected. It may be somebody down the chain of command trying to show what a good boy he is. Or girl.” He glances at Kathleen, grinning as she gives him a mock bow in return. “But I agree we should start at the top.”

  “I agree, too,” says Kathleen. “Do you think we should try to find out more about what’s been happening at Sligo-McNeil?”

  McAllister stretches expansively, his huge frame seeming to fill the office. “I’ve been thinking about that, too. Kathleen, you seen any sign of Sligo-McNeil’s computers on this phantom network of yours?”

  She thinks for a moment. “Sure. They have several different computer sites but I haven’t actually used the network to access them.”

  McAllister holds up a hand. “That’s all right, honey. The point is, you could get into them if you wanted to.”

  She nods. “As a matter of fact, that might be a good idea.” She looks at me. “Is it all right if I give it a try?”

  “Sure. We’ve broken every other rule in the book so why stop now?”

  “And another thought,” says McAllister, “is that I could try to get an audience with the great man himself.”

  “Sligo? He won’t see you. You’ll be passed on to an aide.”

  “Not necessarily.” He chews on the end of his pen. “I was thinking that I could spin him a story. Tell him the truth—that I do free-lance consultancy work—with a bit of exaggeration. I’ll tell him I’ve found out about some of this hacking stuff and some of it leads back to his organization. I can jazz it up. Tell him I’m concerned that his corporation could be at risk and tha
t I need to talk to him personally in case some of his people are involved.”

  “It sounds like a long shot,” I say.

  “Maybe, but you can never tell. Telling a Chief Executive that he’s at risk from fraud or sabotage is usually a very good way to get his attention. Anyway, trying can’t hurt.”

  “Okay.” I look at Kathleen. “Are you happy with all that?”

  She nods. “And in the meantime I’ll see if we can say hello to the Sligo-McNeil computers.”

  ***

  The phone’s ringing when I arrive home. I’m due at a rehearsal for Antony and Cleopatra and I’m tempted to let the answering machine take care of it. On an impulse I lift the receiver. It’s Michelle. Great. I can tell she’s been drinking. There’s an edge of hysteria to her voice that I know only too well. She’s lonely, she tells me, and scared living alone in the Richmond Park house. She thinks she heard someone creeping around the back yard last night. An old wino gave her a strange look by the supermarket that afternoon. I sit down and listen to her meanderings for an hour, occasionally hearing the chink of bottle against glass in the background, Michelle switching in time from her present-day problems to talk of the past, going over old events time and again.

  Eventually telling me she wants to move back in with me.

  When I try to tell her that it’s too soon, that I’m just not ready, she flies into the predictable rage and accuses me of always letting her down, all through the years we were together and I left her alone night after night, and now, when she needs me. Eventually, she slams the phone down and I sit, head in hands, before putting the problem to one side and getting changed. Enobarbus beckons, cynical sympathy all over his too-wise face.

  18

  GreenGarden Message Board. Personal message.