by John Nelson
“Okay, good to have you back then,” he said, oblivious to the nuance of the situation.
Chapter Four
10.
Walking home that evening, I thought about telling Sherry that the schedule for my borny village assignment was set and that I was going to Washington next week to be briefed. Feeling guilty about its “perk package,” I was first going to suggest that we get away to the mountains this weekend.
“That sounds great,” was Sherry’s first reaction, as we sat in the living room after dinner. Then, she stopped herself. “You’re getting ready to head out, aren’t you?”
“Well, they did set the schedule, and I begin briefings in Washington next week.”
“With your cover wife, who you’ll be fucking the whole time, I take it?”
This was never easy, but I thought we had worked our way through this aspect of such assignments last time I went “in country,” as we called it at work. “Sherry, we’ll be staying in separate hotel rooms but getting ‘used’ to each other, as the briefing material calls it.”
“Well, I think you should store up your energy; wouldn’t want you to waste it on me, when the fate of the country depends on you and your fucking cover wife.”
I scooted over on the sofa next to her, but she stood up and stepped away from me. “No, Alan. I’m not fine with this; I never was, but went along with it last time because … I actually don’t know why. Maybe low expectations.”
“I’ve been putting this off for a year now, and one reason was because of this aspect and its fallout for us.”
“And that’s supposed to make me all warm and cuddly?” she asked.
“Look, when my contract is up with K Industries in two years, I won’t renew.”
This seemed to mollify her somewhat, but she still had her pride to defend. “Well, while you’re away this time, don’t expect me to sit home and pine away.” She went over to the closet, took out her coat, and stormed out the door. “Don’t wait up for me.”
I figured she was going to call a girlfriend or two and go out to a bar, to get picked-up in an attempt to assert her independence. I guess I couldn’t really blame her or get indignant. I could understand her feelings about my in-country assignments and sleeping with cover wives; I doubted if I could go along with it if the situation were reversed. I liked Sherry and we did get along, but the idea of love—if any of us moderns actually knew what that was—didn’t seem to be in the equation any which way you figured it.
The next morning I was the one who was up and out of the apartment early. I arrived at work ahead of everybody, which as it turned out was timely. There was an electronic message from Klaus; he wanted me to take a trip out to the Bradbury Institute on Long Island, where they were holding Dr. Quirk, and to interview him. The assignment criterion was to probe his background and try to figure how this religious impulse had developed. Was it part of his early background? Were his parents religious? Did he have any spiritual experiences as a child? He had sent a further list of general questions that wasn’t very elaborate, but I certainly didn’t want to talk with Klaus about further amplifications. The least contact I had with him, the better for me. I assumed this was preparation for my field assignment, since our division had already done its job in regard to Quirk. I hoped this wasn’t a prelude to them dropping us into some kind of religious ashram or born-again revivalist camp. That would be a real downer.
I forwarded Klaus’ authorization to Gene, but by the time I closed down my workstation and headed out, I ran into him in the hallway.
He smiled. “Short day, Alan?”
“I wish. Klaus has me on assignment today. Forwarded the autho to you.”
“Klaus. The two of you are getting pretty chummy.” He smirked.
“Yeah, like sharks and prawns.”
Gene laughed and patted me on the back as I headed for the elevator. The underground took me to Grand Central Station, where I picked up the commuter to Long Island. The Institute was located in Yaphank at the far eastern end of the island, but far enough away from the coast not to be swamped by the rising waters. It was always an eerie sight to take the train or drive out to Long Island and see all the crumbling seashore mansions, whose dikes could not hold back the encroaching waters of the Atlantic. While I was familiar with the Bradbury Institute, the state-of-the-art psyche center where the first neural processors had been developed, along with all their updates over the years, I was unfamiliar with the town and did a Web search of its history on my portable. It was amusing to find a reference to Camp Siegfried there, a summer camp for Nazis during the 1930s. This was particularly interesting, since many liberal thinkers had compared genetic and neural-implant technology to the Nazi’s eugenic programs of an earlier era—culling out and ostracizing the outcasts who wouldn’t accept neural implants. I had no doubt that Klaus was a board member of the Institute.
The urban sprawl of Long Island—or what was left of it—had receded by this point, and the town of Yaphank itself was fairly rural. Like most towns, it had UV protective screens over sidewalks and all the windows were heavily tinted. A car met me at the train station and drove me to the Institute outside of town, where a small city had arisen—homes and apartments for the staff and businesses that catered to them—around the ultramodern buildings that housed the Institute, all of which were protected by a gleaming hundred-foot high UV dome.
I was met at the front door by a very pretty PR person, or so I assumed, a Sara Irving. She was more casually dressed, just a blue skirt and white blouse, than what I would have guessed for her position.
“It’s a long train trip from the city without maglevs,” she said as we walked down the hallway. “Would you like lunch first?”
I had eaten breakfast and wasn’t really that hungry, but I was interested in hearing Sara’s line of inquiry, since it could be revealing. “Sure. Lead the way.”
The cafeteria was quite plush, and while they were still setting up for lunch, Sara was able to round up some roast-beef sandwiches and really good potato salad, along with some healthy chips and beverages. We sat down at a corner window table that looked out under the dome’s overhang, to the sparse and largely burnt brush in the sandy soil.
Finally, after some chitchat about things in general, Sara posed her first question. “You know, Alan, Dr. Quirk’s psychosis has nothing to do with his neural processor, that’s been checked and found to be totally functional.”
I smiled. “I never thought as much.”
“We’re familiar with K Industries recent … incident with Frank Harkum.”
I nodded my head.
“I believe you … interviewed him as well?” she said.
I chewed my bite of food and dabbed my mouth with the paper napkin. “You’re particularly well informed.”
She smiled. “Dr. Klaus has discussed this situation with our people, and we don’t agree with your conclusions: that his anxiety short-circuited his neural processor. There have been malfunctions, but few of these emotional outbursts or rampages have been attributed to a defective processor.”
“Excuse me, Sara, but this is rather heady territory for a PR person.”
She smiled again, a little tighter this time. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to give that impression. I’m a neural scientist and part of the new-product development team, and as such receive and research such inquiries.”
I took my last bite of the sandwich and pushed my plate aside. “Well, I’m not here to debate or justify my opinions, but to interview Dr. Quirk. It’s going to be a long day, so I suggest we get on with it.”
Sara looked slightly abashed. “I didn’t mean to offend you; we’re just curious about your assessment of Harkum. I mean, if it were proven to be correct, then we need to understand its implications and adjust our product line.”
“Well, I think since you’ve done such a good job mirroring the brain’s own neural processing, that these artificial processors might be subject to the same kind of psychosomatic p
ressures.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “I guess I can take that as a compliment.”
“You should; the fault may lie beyond your realm or your control,” I said.
She squinted her eyes trying to grasp my argument. “You mean sociological factors?”
I nodded my head. I could see that this was an area that she was unwilling to explore, given its political implications.
“Well, I’m just a scientist.”
“And I’m just an … interviewer.”
“I suspect that’s the only understatement you’ve made today,” she said sharply and stood up, straightened her skirt.
I followed her out of the cafeteria.
11.
When Sara led me to the monitoring station for the interrogation room, I handed her an FBI mandate that my interview with Dr. Quirk would not be recorded or viewed by them, and the station, in effect, would be closed down for its duration. As Sara read the paper, she knitted her brow and couldn’t mask her aggravation. She carefully folded the document, pocketed it, and told the technician to shut down all audio and video surveillance and leave.
She stepped to the door herself, and then paused and turned back. “You know, Alan, when I first met you, I was hoping you would be staying over and we could have dinner together and get to know each other better.”
“But …”
“It’s probably best that you finish up here and get on your way.”
I figured that would just be a prelude to some pillow-talk interrogation, which would only further disappoint her. “Well, it’s been interesting,” I said.
She forced a smile. “We do hope you’ll eventually share your … speculation with us, since we want to nip this in the bud,” Sara said, then turned and marched out the door.
Yeah, I thought, nip the speculation but not the problem.
Unlike standard police interrogation rooms, this one was more like a high-end living room with sofas, chairs, and soft natural lighting. Dr. Quirk, in a casual blue, one-piece jumpsuit with its metal loops, was sitting on one of the sofas drinking a beverage—I assumed something cold that couldn’t be used as a weapon. Klaus had insisted that no behavior modification be used on Quirk until we had a chance to interview him.
He looked up as I entered the room and scrutinized me for a long moment. “Ah, you’re not from here. FBI? DOD?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Not the eyes of clinician,” he said.
“The private sector.”
He smiled. “Ahah, the think-tank guys who picked me out,” he said, without a trace of rancor, as if his being caught and incarcerated was all part of some cosmic plan.
I pulled up a chair. “I’m Alan Reynard, and I have a few questions for you?”
He nodded his head. “Well, I hope they’re more imaginative than some of the questions asked of me recently.”
“I’ll try.” Quirk looked hopeful. “Doctor, maybe you can help me out. We’re trying to figure out how this religious impulse arises in the population, and …”
“So you can … ‘nip in the bud?’”
This startled me, but I quickly recovered. “I see you’ve been talking with Ms. Irving.”
He caught himself. “She’s not listening, is she?” he nervously asked.
“No. This is totally confidential, just between you and me.”
“And Big Brother,” he said, smirking again.
“Tell me, since you weren’t raised religiously, how this … impulse first came to you?”
Quirk snickered. “Not very imaginative after all.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Better,” he said, then paused. “Alan, we live such isolated cutoff lives, mostly in our heads and our gonads. As a scientist, I was always interested in the bigger picture, but our culture is so … pedestrian, everybody given their little box and encouraged not to stray beyond it,” he said in a plaintive tone. “All we have left is our own speculation.”
“So, your exploration was a reaction to the mindset of our culture and its restrictions?” I asked.
“Yes, I realize, given the downside of high-tech hazards in the hands of aberrants, that 24/7 surveillance, even the inside of your head, is called for; but it makes some of us want to seek out ‘high-end intimacy,’ as someone once called it.”
“And that led you to the religious philosophies?”
“Not at first. It took me years to get beyond the rationalists, the Hegels and the Kants, but …”
“Was it a personal experience that provided the impetus?” I asked.
Quirk nodded his head and stared at me more closely, wondering if he had found a compatriot, and then caught himself. “I assume you’re recording this?”
I smiled; he got the message.
“Yes,” he continued. “Hikes in the woods, walks on the beach, hang-gliding off mountaintops. I felt so … connected to something bigger.”
“And this led you to …”
“The real classics: the Hindus. The Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras, and The Bhagavad Gita.”
“But, to interfere with another’s free will, or force-feed them an experience as you did …”
Quirk almost looked apologetic. “Yes, still a product of this century and of our force-fed mechanistic culture I’m afraid.”
“I assume in arriving at your formula that you ingested psychedelics yourself?”
He took in and let out a deep breath. “Please, don’t reduce this to some drug-induced mania. The impulse … my experiences were as pure as those Hindu sages of long ago, just working with less fertile ground.”
“And you wanted to help others to experience this … mystical state?” I asked.
“To help them break free and experience something … real.”
“I see.” I took out my portable, and opened up a file. “Now for some really pedestrian questions.”
Quirk laughed. “Yes, we all have our masters …” He paused, stared at me intently, and added, “Some more … expansive than others.”
I ate dinner in town, not wanting to run into Sara or to get hijacked by another of the Institute’s technocrats at one of the campus restaurants. I dined at a seafood place since I was out on Long Island, but the crab and lobster from the “fish farms” weren’t very tasty, and I could have been dining in Iowa and it would have tasted the same. Nobody ate seafood from the polluted oceans these days, or at least not those who could afford alternatives. I was almost willing to risk it for a tasty bite, but no legitimate restaurant would serve it, given the risk of contamination and the lawsuits. So, I only ate half my meal and had some fresh strawberries for dessert to wash away the taste. Of course they were grown in a greenhouse, but I guess it was the degree of artificiality—soil was soil, unless they were hydroponically grown—that made the difference, or at least in my mind.
But, sitting there drinking my coffee and waiting for the seven o’clock train, I was in a rather sour mood. After a day at the Bradbury Institute, where the culture was as shallow as the neural implants they produced, I was in desperate need of something real to counter the effect. However, the restaurant’s feeble fare, the less-than-engaging service, and the heavily tinted windows that cut one off from the sky and the early-evening dusk, all only emphasized the lifeless, artificial world we had created to keep us safe from hostile nature and from our own terrified selves. I could almost empathize with Dr. Quirk and his quest to find a greater connection to nature and his natural self, and once he found it, to share it with others. And we labeled him a terrorist.
My portable beeped, alerting me to the train’s arrival. Since I had already paid the bill, I took one last sip of the coffee, picked up my portable, and headed across the street. I had reserved a private compartment, at Klaus’ insistence, and was glad now, since I would be spared from riding back in a car full of unhappy people, making me even more miserable. About ten minutes into the trip, there was a knock on my door. I opened it to discover a rather pretty young woman. S
he was wearing a short black skirt, her blue blouse opened to reveal some cleavage.
“Hate to impose, but I saw that you were alone, and I was hoping you wanted some company.”
I gave her a questioning look.
“Oh, it’s not like that. I’m trying to get away from … well, it’s complicated.”
I was still leery.
“Please. I won’t bother you at all,” she said.
“Sure. If it’s life or death.”
She smiled amorously as she stepped sideways through the doorway, lightly brushing up against me. “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, but who knows.”
Since I had been trained to be leery of such offers while traveling, knowing how intelligence agencies or even private-sector firms use pretty young things for their own purposes, I was as interested in seeing this through as I was in breaking my mood with some engaging company. The woman didn’t have any luggage or a carry-on, just a purse, and she sat down across from me, her knee-length skirt hiked up to reveal a well-toned thigh.
She reached over, offering her hand. “Hi. I’m Marcy Kent.”
“Hi, Marcy. I’m Peter Travers.”
She smiled a little too knowingly at my cover name. “So, what brings you out to the smelly shoe of New York?” she asked.
“Quaint way of putting it. I was just meeting a business client in Yaphank, and heading back into the city.”
“Me too. I had a meeting at the Institute there; I’m a graphic designer, and they want to … buff up their image.”
Since she wasn’t carrying a portable to display her designs, unless they were on a pocket device, I doubted her story. Then, it dawned on me: this was a set up, and some goon of a boyfriend would be knocking on my door shortly and creating a scene to compromise me. So, despite its gentile persona, the Bradbury Institute could play hardball. I immediately grabbed my portable and stood up.
“Marcy, since you need the car more than I do, it’s yours.”
Before she could protest, I opened the door, stepped out and slid it closed behind me. Two cars down, I walked past a big guy on a mission; he did a double take as I passed him in the aisle, but kept walking. I entered the dining car, sat down and ordered a coffee and pastry. I also asked the server to tell the train’s security guy to drop by. I decided to nip this in the bud, as Sara would say. But, at least all of this maneuvering had broken my mood, and I could thank her for that.