by John Nelson
“Boy that’s fucked up,” Bart said.
“So, Gene, what’s going to happen to him,” I asked.
“Well, normally, when nobody’s hurt, they would use behavioral modification and drugs to recondition the perp, but this kind of thing scares them.”
“Yeah, when there’s something inside your head they can’t quantify,” Beatrice offered.
“I figure ten years, and he’s a vegetable when he comes out,” Gene said. “And they’ll circulate his gene genome here and to police agencies abroad, to catch this tendency before it spreads.”
I looked around at the others, and we all were thinking the same thing: as if this was strictly genetic or chemistry-based, but nobody was willing to air that opinion in public, since we were also being monitored.
Gene turned to me. “I told the guys upstairs that you nailed him. You should get a bonus out of it.”
“Wow, that’s great,” I said, smiling at the hidden camera in the ceiling.
On the way down in the elevator after work, Bart asked Beatrice and me if we wanted to get a cup of coffee. Since neither of us drank much of the stuff and he knew it, we figured Bart had something else on his mind. Since the genetic basis for alcohol and drug addiction had been somewhat weeded out of the genome, the most popular stimulant of the day was still coffee and its derivatives. Maxi’s was a new chain, with a retro Art Deco style of furniture and posters that appealed to the post-modern artist types or the pseudo intellectuals. But it also offered a smooth coffee blend for those winding down from their day, instead of revving up, or taking a break. It was also chatty and loud and thus harder for others to monitor conversations.
“You know, the whole thing with this Dr. Quirk is really fucked up,” Bart finally said after the waitress had served us and walked away.
“Yeah, kind of thought-police stuff,” Beatrice added, sipping her cappuccino.
“Bart, I thought you said his motive was fucked up,” I added.
“Well, it was, but squeeze-drying his brain isn’t the answer.”
“No, I agree. But, if you remember our contract, we agreed to carry out operations and not question the results.” When I don’t know or trust somebody, I usually give them the company line.
Bart glared at me as if I had changed my leopard spots.
“So, we don’t take responsibility for our actions? Is that it, Alan?” he asked.
“We can always leave and take our conscience with us.”
My attitude seemed to upset him. “You sound like one of the politicals. Bucking for a promotion, are we?”
“No. This was a bad one, but mostly we’re a force for good and the results are justified,” I said.
“And we’re not supposed to question them otherwise?”
“As I said, we can always leave.”
Bart stood up, electronically paid his bill, and walked out on us.
Finally Beatrice turned to me. “Let’s go.” We paid and headed out of the coffee shop and strolled down the street. It was winter but at this latitude still in the 50-degree range in the early evening, so we were dressed fairly lightly.
As always, the street lights passing through the green, overhead, UV environ screens cast an eerie glow. “I figured this was safer,” she said.
I nodded my head.
She glanced over at me. “So, you think he was profiling you?”
“I trust Bart about as far as I can throw his fat ass,” I told her.
“Aren’t we paranoid?” Beatrice laughed, squeezed my hand and said with a smirk, “Say hello to Sherry for me.”
I watched her walk down to the underground; she lived downtown, and I headed home for another fun-filled weekend with my rather deranged wife. Since we couldn’t afford to fix her virtual computer yet, and she seemed to like our last “session,” my romantic services were in high demand. Lucky me.
3.
Apparently Bart was working undercover for Internal Affairs because Monday he was transferred to another unit in our division, for more of the same I assumed, and I was scheduled for an appointment with Dr. Klaus. Of course, that isn’t his real name—none of the higher-ups use given names in intelligence. Since he’s the company psychologist and the government’s security compliance officer, he had probably picked a name out of an old Nazi film to make him more menacing. He needed it because at five-foot-five, with his baldpate and retro eyeglasses, Gerald Klaus wasn’t physically intimidating. Of course, that was for effect as well. My session was set for the end of the week, but on Wednesday there was an opening and I was notified after lunch to see him at two o’clock. A typical mind game ploy to throw you off-balance.
I took the elevator up to the 18th floor and walked down to his office. While sitting in his rather pleasant waiting room, with impressionist paintings on the walls and classical music piped in, I tried to clear my emotions, figuring the room was wired to check one’s anxiety level. After fifteen minutes, the holographic receptionist told me that he would see me now.
“You have a lovely glow, dear,” I said, opening the door to the inner sanctum.
“As if I haven’t heard that before,” she replied, rolling her eyes and flirtatiously twitching her nose at the same time. I almost did a double take.
Unlike the waiting room, Klaus’ office was all chrome and glass, with simulated black leather chairs and dark abstract paintings on the walls. The whole set-up was so yin-yang that I had to suppress a smile.
Dr. Klaus pointed to a padded chair with head and armrests across from his glass-top desk. He was wearing a brown suit with a dark shirt and tie—very post-Nazi. I could almost feel the monitors clicking on as I sat down. The glass was actually a slightly tilted horizontal computer screen, which no doubt flashed readouts of my bios. “And you can smile, Alan. I’d expect nothing less. The room set-up is all so obvious.”
I laughed. “Yes. Isn’t it though?”
“Well, it does unnerve some.”
I nodded my head.
“Alan, everybody is impressed with your read on Dr. Quirk, which together with your astute analysis of Reborn Village shows particular … talent, if I may use that word, for some of the thorny problems in contemporary intelligence work.” He paused for a moment. “But, you seem reluctant to … grab the brass ring, as it were.”
“You mean, putting off another borny village assignment?” I asked.
Klaus stared at me for long a moment. “Well, there is that.”
“As you’ve no doubt read Dr. Bowman’s notes, I had a severe reaction to their high-feeling level, and we’re working to understand it.”
“Alan, everybody in our techno society, especially our community, has this kind of reaction. Our technological world, while offering amazing benefits and safety to those of us at this level, does tend to suppress the feeling function, as Jung would say.” He sat back in his chair. “I’ve consulted with Dr. Bowman, and he agrees that this kind of therapy could take another year.”
“Really. I thought we were making good progress.”
Dr. Klaus shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure, but I take more of a hand-in-the-fire approach to such … dilemmas.”
“Such as,” I asked reluctantly.
“Reintroduction to the same set of conditions, to consciously deal with what arises, or recreate the stimulus and deal with it in a controlled environment.”
“Put me back in the field, or …”
“Or, put you in a psyche ward for a week where the emotions run quite high.” The doctor glanced at his monitor screen and frowned, apparently not getting the desired reaction.
“It’s the feeling, not emotions, we’re talking about, and I don’t believe you can … simulate that,” I said.
The doctor gave me a rather odd look. “Well, there’s always sexual therapy?”
“Really. Twenty women and a water bed?” I joked.
“More like Reichian therapy, or an extreme form of it,” Klaus added with a cynical laugh. The Nazi was coming out of the closet.
“It tends to bring repressed feelings to the surface.”
“I thought Wilhelm Reich’s work was totally discredited?”
“It just took the right conditions to find it relevant.” He had a thought and smiled. “A hundred years ago, any red-blooded male would’ve jumped at such an opportunity. Shows how far we’ve come … or not.”
I started to wonder if Sherry’s little tizzy fit and the subsequent rededication of our sexual life wasn’t orchestrated by them. These thoughts and the attendant emotional reaction were apparently lighting up Heir Klaus’ monitors, much to his delight. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a second, and brought the reactions under more control. When I opened my eyes, Klaus was staring at me with clinical interest.
“Where did you learn to do that? Yoga? Mediation? Some other Eastern practice?”
“You mean reeling in my emotions?” I asked.
“It’s different than that. From your brain-wave readings, it was more like a shift from one mode to another.” He thought about this observation, and then hurriedly added, “Well, let’s not go there, yet.” He sat forward in his chair. “I’m not saying these are the only alternatives, but you’re an asset we need to use and we have to figure out how to speed up this process.”
“I see. Can I have some time to think this over?”
Dr. Klaus stood up. “Why, of course. Just don’t take too long. There’s a … pressing need for the evaluation of a certain critical situation in the field.”
“Okay. Give me three or four weeks.” I turned and walked out without an exchange of goodbyes. As I passed the receptionist’s desk, she stuck out her finger and my portable registered the electronic transfer.
“Your next appointment is in three weeks.”
I didn’t stop for further pleasantries. This meeting had been definitely unsettling, and I needed to get out of there and think things through for myself. Mostly I was concerned that my little therapeutic process had been recorded. It was a technique I had picked up in college, from a survey course on twentieth-century experiential psychotherapy, and had used ever since to deal with feeling and emotional upsurges. But, when I got back to the office, there was an emergency that needed my full attention.
Gene quickly briefed me. “It’s another recombinant viral plague, some wacko scientist was fooling with in his basement lab.”
“He released it?” I asked in alarm, looking around for my bio mask.
“No. Didn’t plan to, he says. Just part of his legitimate research, although he stepped outside the boundaries by bringing it home.”
“What about all the bio monitors at these places?”
Gene just shook his head in frustration.
“And his neural processor?” I asked.
Gene shook his head. “The basement has lead-lined wallpaper.”
“Okay, so where are we?”
“Well, before undercover could contain him, the police stepped in and pushed him to the wall. Now he says there’s a sample hidden at the university, which will be released if he doesn’t retrieve it.”
“Let’s see the vid footage,” I said. The man, in his late twenties—a big guy for a research scientist—was in a fortified basement bunker, in a high-rise apartment building they were still evacuating. All we had currently was his tense face speaking into his vid screen.
“Sci-fi has run all the visual and auditory tests, and the readings are mixed, but he could be telling the truth.”
The video was on the big screen and everybody was watching him make his declaration and then step back from the screen. He was wearing long pants and a sweatshirt, and with our 60 degree daytime winter temperature, it must’ve been really hot down there. There is no air-conditioning allowed for winter months.
“Any other footage on him?” I asked.
Carl, Bart’s replacement, uploaded his interview with a science magazine. He was a PhD microbiologist doing independent research on recombinant viruses and their threat. It had been recorded in his basement a year ago about the same time. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
“Anybody see what I’m seeing?”
Beatrice asked for a split screen of the two images. “It’s hot but he’s overdressed.”
“Check for blood stains on his clothes or any bloody utensils within view,” I said.
Billy ran the visual analysis. “No. Nothing.”
“So you think he’s cut himself up to create a biological reaction to fool our readings?” Gene asked.
“Ask the police what the temperature is outside the door?”
A moment later, Gene looked up from his com-link smiling. “Guy says it’s at least 90 degrees.”
Jeffrey did the mathematical computation. “Given all the variables, the statistical program rates this call as at best 50/50.”
“Beatrice. What’s his psych profile?” Gene asked.
“A little off, but not psychotic or anywhere near it, but who knows these days.”
We all stared at each other. Gene finally said, “I’m going to tell the police chief he’s bluffing.”
“That’s a big risk,” Jeffrey said.
“Well, while we don’t get paid big bucks for it, it’s the kind of assessment we’re asked to make.”
Twenty minutes later, we learned that the police had stormed the basement and taken the guy into custody, and that, as I had guessed, his legs were pretty cut up and bandaged, to disguise his bio readings to back up his bluff. We don’t exactly celebrate such calls, but we did close down shop half-an-hour early.
As I was getting ready to leave, I asked Gene, “This wasn’t a difficult read. Why couldn’t they handle it?”
“These city cops are the worst of the lot; they think like computers; it’s all option-driven, no imagination or intuition whatsoever. That’s why they need us.” As we were heading out the door, he asked, “How did it go with Klaus?”
“Something similar to our wacko. He put a gun to my head, but I don’t think he’s bluffing.”
Chapter Two
4.
On Friday evening, coming out of the underground station near our condo on the Upper Westside, I spotted a woman standing across the street. She lit a cigarette, which was almost unheard of in public these days, but immediately put it out once she had caught my attention. She was wearing a black and purple exercise outfit with a hood, so I couldn’t see her face. The woman then stepped over to the corner receptacle and threw in a cigarette pack and jogged off. I walked to the corner, waited for the light to turn, then headed across the street. On the way I took out a notepad—the only recording device that couldn’t be hacked—wrote something and continued down the street to a coffee shop. I wanted to establish for surveillance that I was using a writing pad.
Inside I ordered a cup of coffee, sat at a booth, and turned on the viewing screen scanning through the day’s news. There was something unusual in the daily mix of political and financial posturing: some anti-tech militia group had blown up an Internet hub in the Midwest and interrupted service in the region for eight hours. There were also reports of another workplace rampage, leaving several people dead. I knew this was happening on a daily basis, but the government usually suppressed the reports. I continued making notes, again for surveillance purposes. By mandate all commercial businesses had surveillance cameras, all street corners, and all government offices—and those having to do with tech or biological research had work station surveillance as well. Given the “explosive” downside to high-tech malfeasance—like a viral plague or self-replicating nanobots—most people accepted the loss of privacy in exchange for safety.
I left the coffee shop and headed back to my street, continuing to make notes on my pad. At the corner, I shook my head, tore the page out of the notepad, stepped over and dropped it in the receptacle. I noticed the cigarette pack; took it out and smiled in apparent amusement. I also palmed the note stuck to it before throwing the pack back and walking off. Once inside my condo, I unloaded my tech pack and went into the bat
hroom. I looked at the note: E=MC2. I immediately knew that it was Emma who was contacting me. She was a real fan of Einstein and his work, and used to refer to us as Emma=AR2. I could only assume that she was in some sort of trouble with our employer, or she would have contacted me through normal channels. I also assumed that the next point of contact would be at the Einstein exhibit at the New York Museum of Communication Technology, tomorrow, my next day off. I felt the texture of the paper: it was definitely IP, “invisible paper,” that would dissolve on contact with water, so I just flushed it down the toilet.
I slipped on a light jacket and went out to the patio to think about this dilemma. As a rule, any contact with compromised operatives was to be reported to the company’s security bureau. Emma knew that I wouldn’t automatically report her, but she was being cautious and would no doubt watch me at the Exhibit, to see if I was being followed or was setting her up. Upon further consideration, this approach had dangerous ramifications. Did I really want to jeopardize my position and standing in the community with this kind of illicit contact? The other possibility was, given my recent talk with Dr. Klaus and my upcoming deadline for fieldwork, that I was the one being set up. Bart’s profiling was along this line. I really liked Emma and felt that I owed her the benefit of the doubt and would assume the best. I also missed the level of intimacy we had shared on our borny village assignment and that bothered me more than any breach in protocol. It was the trigger for my current “self-exploration.”
When I stepped inside our apartment, Sherry was cooking dinner in the kitchen, or I should say, heating up a prepared meal which actually wasn’t that bad. I’ll have to admit they couldn’t compare to the freshly grown fruits and vegetables at the borny village and the chemical-free chicken and beef that was almost impossible to get in the city.
“I was thinking Chinese,” she said as I came into the kitchen.