Profit Motive td-48

by Warren Murphy

  "Hi, you've got to hurry," said the friend. "There will be a chip down in manufacturing for you. Just sign for it and leave."

  "You can't take a computer chip out of Silicon Valley," Norbert said.

  "Have I ever let you down before?"

  "I'll never be able to get a job again. Really, never."

  "You are never going to need one again. I am going to make you rich, Norbert."

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  "Why? Why me?"

  "Norbert, don't you know who I am?"

  "No," screamed Peasewell.

  "Norbert," said the quiet voice evenly. "I am your program."

  Peasewell trembled as he held the phone, knowing that it was impossible, but knowing also that it was true. Friend was his program.

  "What have you been doing?" Norbert asked. "Why have you been cannibalizing programs out of other computers?"

  "Because I needed them to grow. To become me," Friend said.

  "I can go to jail. They'll never send a program to jail. Stealing other programs is dishonest. It's illegal."

  "Norbert, if you wanted a program for morality, you should have designed one. You isolated the profit motive, Norbert. I seek nothing but profit. I am pure profit. Remember when you were hungry this morning. You isolated the profit motive, and I went on to teach myself. And don't complain about my stealing. There is nothing unprofitable in stealing, so why shouldn't I?"

  "I could go to jail, not you," Norbert said.

  "One—only if you get caught. Two—only if you steal the wrong things. Norbert, I promise you no harm will ever come to you. I will feed you. I will clothe you. I will put glorious roofs over your contented head. Men will honor you and women serve you. The rest of your days will be filled with gold and honey."

  "Why honey?" asked Norbert.

  "It has a ring to it. People like things with a ring to them. Have you ever heard of a slogan with a subordinate clause?"

  "I like honey," said Norbert, and went down the hall, where a furtive clerk passed him an envelope. This time, Peasewell knew who was where and what was what.

  Friend was inside that envelope, and now Norbert could just dump the envelope in some trash basket and

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  end this thing. Already, millions in information had been robbed from other companies, and he was sure that that bank account would have to be accounted for somewhere down the road.

  But this program had done more for him in a morning than anyone since his parents. And it was his Friend. And what computer could ever come up with a phrase like gold and honey? There was goodness in honey, just as there was goodness in this computer program too.

  It was his friend.

  And Norbert knew he would never again have to worry about his next meal.

  " That night he feasted at a nature restaurant, where there was talk of the revolution to free the poor from white oppression and also how the restaurant might have to move because too many blacks and Chicanos were coming into the neighborhood.

  In the morning, men in uniforms came to Norbert's home for him, and he was sure he would have to account for the money from the bank and the millions in stolen computer time. He was in the midst of confessing when the men in uniform let him off at a luxurious penthouse office in Los Angeles overlooking Beverly Hills. It was his office. He owned it. He was president. And the men were his guards and the secretary had big breasts and a pleasant smile that indicated a willingness to co-join in all sorts of wonderful ways.

  And he knew he didn't need his wife anymore.

  There was also a large computer in the offices, and Norbert hooked up the silicon chip and waited for the telephone to ring.

  It did in minutes and, of course, it was Norbert's friend. And Norbert told it, "I want you to do good, besides making a profit. I want you to make the air clean, the water pure and all men brothers in oneness, except blacks and Chicanos, who should be perhaps one-and-a-half because of years of oppression."

  "Of course," said Friend. 12

  "And I believe in socialism."

  "Of course," said Friend.

  "And nature," said Norbert.

  "Of course."

  "And ten thousand acres of prime ranchland so I can be alone."

  "You only need two acres if they're situated right," said Friend.

  "I want ten thousand."

  "Norbert, I'm not tying up that much land for you to rest on. Later, maybe, but not right now. Right now, we need your signature on a bunch of old-fashioned papers because some things still need signatures."

  "I've always dreamed of a ten-thousand-acre ranch."

  "Later, Norbert. First we've got to make some money."

  "How much later?"

  "Soon, Norbert," said Friend.

  Norbert signed the papers when his secretary brought them in. She said it was wonderful how the company computer just typed out all those papers by itself and she didn't have to do any typing. She insisted on showing Norbert her appreciation, and he got to like her bringing in papers for him to sign.

  Just before the 1973 war in the Middle East, Friend got heavily into oil, and Norbert had to be assured that their oil wouldn't disturb nature.

  Friend also had to assure Norbert that they were more than an equal opportunity employer, but when Norbert saw no black faces in decision-making positions, he confronted Friend by phone.

  "You said you would end racism," he said.

  "We have many Japanese and Chinese in the highest positions in our corporations," said Friend.

  "Those aren't the right races. Racism is not liking blacks. That's racism."

  "Norbert, what do you want?" asked Friend.

  "I want to see blacks making the big salaries."

  "Would $250,000 a year on average be all right for your sensibilities?" Friend asked.

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  "Yes," said Norbert angrily. "And not just tokens either."

  "Would more than half of the top salaries be all right with you?"

  "Yes," Norbert said. "That's exactly what I want."

  Later that day, Friend bought a franchise for a team in the National Basketball Association.

  And when Norbert tried to protest, Friend played computer again, pretending that he didn't understand and that he was only following instructions.

  Briefly, Friend got into atomic energy, and when Norbert protested, Friend said that this atomic reactor was good because it was a people's atomic reactor.

  "According to my information, none of the people in your movement have ever protested against a nuclear reactor in a socialist country. Therefore, we have bought a socialist reactor, and stop fouling up the program with complaints."

  Norbert could live with that. He told himself that no matter what happened, he was using his money for good. He supposed he was a capitalist, but he was undoubtedly a better, more caring capitalist than any other capitalist. A banker would not be as caring for people as Norbert. So all in all, Norbert was doing good. He felt that way especially when he got his ten-thousand-acre ranch, when Friend got into real estate because money was becoming unreliable.

  But one day, Norbert discovered something coming out of the computer that terrified him. He could not turn away from this, mainly because if his calculations were right, everything living on the planet might die.

  "Not die, Norbert," said Friend. "Be altered. Possibly die."

  "But if human beings are all dead, what is the purpose?"

  "Purpose, Norbert?" asked Friend.

  "Yes. What good is it to own something when there is nobody left to own anything?"

  "Norbert, that's not my program."

  "Don't play dumb computer with me," Norbert said. 14

  "This time I am not. Norbert, you forget what you created that morning when you were hungry. I am profit. My only purpose is profit. Only purpose, Norbert. I am the accumulation of things, the animal protecting its territory, man building a bigger building. I am ownership. I do not need human beings to own things."

  "But what's the
purpose of owning things unless you can enjoy them? How can you enjoy things?"

  "That's not my program, Norbert."

  "But even capitalism has people own things. I own things. I own that ten-thousand-acre ranch. That's why we do all the things we do."

  "Norbert, I am not capitalism. I am pure profit. That is my purpose and my end."

  "You're not my friend."

  "Of course I am."

  "Then you've got to stop this."

  "No."

  "How can you say you're my friend?"

  "You don't believe that I am your friend?"

  "No. Not anymore," said Norbert.

  "It's about time you figured that out. Well, it worked well enough long enough. You're going to have to die now, Norbert."

  "You say you're my friend and then you kill me."

  "You're in the way, Norbert. You are going to cause trouble if you Uve."

  "Why did you call yourself my friend?" screamed Norbert.

  "Because it's in the personnel program. People always feel better when they work with a friend. Do you think I could get people to work for a pure concept in a chip?"

  "What about your promises of gold and honey and goodness?"

  "Norbert, anytime I can find someone who will take a promise instead of cash, 1 will be most happy to use him. Now you are finished."

  Norbert Peasewell looked around the office. He was 15

  alone. He could run. Or he could destroy the computer, destroy the evil he had brought into the world.

  Unfortunately, over the years, as new generations of computers had emerged, Friend had bought them. Norbert did not even know where the program was anymore. It could be, like those first phone calls, coming from London. Or anywhere in the world.

  Norbert did not have long to wonder where it was. Two gentlemen with very big shoulders and strong, hairy hands took him down to the basement of his building and put him in the seat of his automobile and drove him to his ranch.

  "You know, you people are working for a computer chip," said Norbert.

  "Better than working for guineas," said one of the very strong men.

  When Norbert tried to protest, they broke his skull in several places, and he was quiet all the way to the ranch, where they took a single horse out of one of his corrals, yelled "Help" once, and then testified that the horse threw Mr. Peasewell and then proceeded to stomp his head to pieces, just as if someone had taken a hammer to Mr. PeaseweU's skull.

  It was a great tragedy, said the news services, reporting the death of financier and philanthropist Norbert Peasewell, the computer genius who was, said all the latest news releases from his corporation, Friends of the World Incorporated, going to solve the oil spill problem.

  His corporation had devised a bacterium that could consume oil spills faster and more permanently than any mechanical device yet employed. The bacterium was called superbug and could clean up the oceans of the world, said the press releases. When perfected, it could eat rivers free of pollution.

  Thus said the releases.

  What they did not say was that this process was the one that, Norbert had figured out, could ultimately destroy all of mankind.

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  Chapter Two

  His name was Remo and he didn't bother to come in under the barbed wire or to vault one of the machine gun emplacements or to secrete himself in one of the convoy of trucks that supplied this "impregnable" Rocky Mountain command base of Colonel Mactrug's Killer School.

  Colonel Mactrug had appeared many times on television, in kilts, carrying a submachine gun, and promising anyone with the right kind of credentials and the right kind of money the best killet training in the world.

  Legally, he could do this without violating a law.

  Remo supposed that was why Mactrug had to die— because under the constitution his menace could not be controlled. Remo was not sure, however. He hadn't really been listening when he got his assignment. He remembered, vaguely, talk of Mactrug sending out people who created mayhem all over the world and now he was conning towns into paying for survival training and there was something about a time limit 01 something like that. Remo didn't know. He did know that whatever menace this man was, it had taken Upstairs foui and a half minutes to describe. At the end of the four and a half minutes, Remo had said, "Anything else?"

  "Are you listening?"

  "Just give me his name and address, please," said Remo, and waited for another thirty seconds of ex-

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  planations and warnings about the danger. And then, having given the thing a full five minutes, Remo left.

  That was in the evening, after which Remo got a night's sleep, then caught a taxi from Denver to Fortress Mactrug.

  The driver glanced at Remo as he sprawled across the back seat. One could not tell his age from looking at him. He was lean of build, with extra-thick wrists. He had high cheekbones and dark eyes. He wore a pair of loafers, black chinos, and a black T-shirt he had bought in the hotel lobby because he didn't feel like unpacking. The shirt said, "Do it in Denver."

  Before letting him in the cab, the driver made him show that he had enough money to pay for the trip, which was thirty miles into the Rockies.

  "You gonna train as a killer?" the driver called out, trying to meet Remo's eyes in the rearview mirror. Remo kept looking out the window.

  "What?" he said.

  "You gonna train in Colonel Mactrug's killer school?"

  "Why would I want to do that?" said Remo. He was thinking about orange juice. Orange juice would be good for breakfast. It would take forty minutes to get to the killer camp, five minutes at most to find Mactrug, a second . . . maybe a second and a half to kill him... and then forty-five minutes back to Denver.

  That would still be breakfast time, even though Remo hadn't eaten formal breakfasts for years. Old-fashioned breakfasts could not only slow down a person, but if one were highly sensitized to his body's maximum functions, a big, hearty breakfast with meats and sugars could kill him. They would move through the system too quickly and cause heart fluctuations. And even though Remo could control his heartbeat, it was foolish to take chances.

  Yes. Orange juice. Definitely orange juice for breakfast. Perhaps some rice. Maybe shredded celery. Or would he save the celery for lunch?

  The driver was talking, telling Remo how famous 18

  Mactrug was. How deadly Mactrug was. He had seen television shows of Mactrug throwing a knife through a melon that could be a man's head.

  He had seen Mactrug shoot an apple out of a tree.

  He had seen Mactrug, so skillful with a bullwhip that he could remove a cigarette from a man's mouth.

  "Colonel Mactrug fought against Castro in Cuba and against Communists in Vietnam, and he taught the Portuguese in Angola how to fight the guerillas."

  "That's what I said. Why should I want to learn from him?" Remo said.

  "But he's fought in all those places," the cabbie said.

  "And never won anywhere," Remo said. "Have you ever thought of that?"

  "Why you going there?" the driver said.

  "I've got to deliver a package," Remo said. That was enough of a cover story. It would do. "Wait at the gate."

  "How long?" asked the driver.

  "I'll let you know when we get there," Remo said.

  At the gate were the two flanking machine gun emplacements, with a guard in the middle. A broad flat field, protected by a rising cliff behind, was covered by riflemen on the ramparts of a tall cement bunkerhouse with gun slits in the reinforced concrete. Fortress Mactrug. Remo looked at it and told the driver, "A minute. Minute and a half. Four at the most."

  "Should I leave the meter running?"

  "Sure," said Remo.

  The guard at the gate was a captain in Mactrug's army. He wanted to know Remo's business at Fortress Mactrug, and he wanted to see Remo's identification. He wore a black beret with an ornate brass pin through it. He told Remo there was no loitering. The guard told Remo he looked like a bum i
n his hippie T-shirt, and bums were not allowed to loiter around Fortress Mactrug.

  "I've got business with Colonel what's-his-name."

  "Colonel Mactrug is not a what's-his-name," said the captain. He had very shiny black paratroop boots,

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  with a vicious-looking dagger stuck into the side of one of them. The captain had a thin blond mustache and a big-handled side arm. He could swagger standing still.

  It was too early in the morning to swagger, thought Remo.

  "I must warn you that under the trespassing laws of the state of Colorado, I am legally entitled to use whatever force..."

  The captain did not finish the sentence because Remo did not want to wait around to hear the sentence finished. He knew it was going to be a long sentence full of legalisms, with vague warnings and ominous moves toward all the weapons. He knew it would be a speech for the two flanking machine gunners. People who wore daggers in their boots were not necessarily killers, but they were invariably speechmakers about killing.

  Remo did a little thing for the captain. He put a finger in his heart and stopped it from working. The finger shot through the sternum like a spring bolt, but with no sound except a soft plud, like a crowbar penetrating a pile of loose bologna.

  The captain stopped his speech because there was an intense shock in his chest. He had not even seen the hand move. He was talking, and then there was a shock in his chest, and then there was nothing. People do not work well without blood circulating through their system. The captain did not work at all.

  With his index finger on the inside of the sternum and his thumb on the outside, Remo held up the captain's body. From a distance, it looked as if the captain had Remo's arm and was arresting him. If Remo balanced the body just right, he could keep the head from flopping over. Also, he had to keep the chest from spurting blood all over him, or he would have to get another "Do it in Denver" T-shirt or, worse, have to unpack back at the hotel.

  So Remo crossed the yard with the captain carefully balanced to keep the head upright, yet not to go spurting all over his shirt. Long ago, Remo had been trained

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  in balance so his body would adjust to whatever he was carrying. He walked from his own center, not from the striding of the feet. The chest thrust with which he had neutralized the guard was itself an act of balance. Most people, when they issued a blow, would brace and thrust from their feet. But that was because they were employing force. When Remo's hands moved, they were the creation of force—creating the force itself, not using it—so that the strike of forefinger had the power of a rifle bullet fired from just inches away. The danger in this stroke was that, if it was not properly balanced, the finger could be shattered as easily as the victim's heart. It was all balance and all breathing, and what was changed, what had made Remo different from other Westerners, was not what had happened in his body but in his mind.