by Paul Dueweke
Elliott could not lift his eyes from the last remains of his Pete’s. “I know. That’s one of the things I can’t figure out. I can understand money being stolen from people and them feeling powerless to stop it. But I can’t figure why they would voluntarily line the pockets of so many worthless people. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Maybe we don’t consider Jugs and The Fungi and Hard-Ons to be worthless. Maybe they bring us something we need. Maybe our lives and their gimmicks are so intertwined that we need them just as much as they need our bucks. They represent reality for us in a world that seems to have lost all reality. But they have as much value to us as your equations have to you. Isn’t my TV family just like your science? It doesn’t mean anything to anybody else, but that’s enough for me. Now you’ve lost your fantasy world, but don’t blame me for that. It’s time you grab onto what’s available and quit griping about it.”
Martha turned and walked back to the TV room where she fumbled with controls and menus and icons to reestablish her own reality. Elliott finished cleaning up Pete’s and paused for a long time before the trash receptacle. How easy it was to discard what you didn’t want. Pick it up, open the little door, throw it in, and it’s gone. And if they wanted to, it could be even easier. They could get one of those little handmaiden robots that follows you up and takes care of all those details like spills and dirt. Elliott looked at the trash door. I wonder if COPE has a robot to clean up little messes like Halvorsen or Townsend … or Burns.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Susie
Elliott and Martha sat in their breakfast room, one reading, and the other just staring into the newspaper.
“Susie called yesterday while you were out,” Martha said without raising her eyes. Elliott looked up at her media-focused face. “She wanted to know if you’d be home this morning.” Elliott continued to stare at Martha. She turned the page and began reading a new article. “I told her I never knew what kind of trouble you were out getting into, but I’d at least tell you about it.”
“Is she going to call back this morning?” Elliott said.
“She has some business at the University today. Said she’d stop by this morning. Her flight gets in at ten.” Elliott’s eyes wandered back to his unread front page. Martha turned another page and scanned the headlines. “She’s going to rent a car and come over.” Her eyes stopped. “Isn’t that interesting? Junkie Gordon is suing NBC for a rematch. I wonder why? Lizzie won the debate fair-and-square.”
“It’s good for prime time advertisers,” Elliott said.
Martha looked up at Elliott and then back down at her paper. “I suppose you’ll be pulling one of your disappearing acts this morning.”
Two hours later, Elliott stood in the late morning sun of their rear deck picking faded geranium leaves from a flowerbox. The sound of a door behind him caused him to turn. A slender woman stepped out onto the deck. Elliott faced Dr. Susan Alvarez.
“Good morning, Dad,” she said as she stepped toward him. After a brief hug, Elliott stepped back and looked into his daughter’s eyes. She maintained a hold on one of his hands, but he seemed not to need this restraint as his eyes rummaged through her hair and her lips and then back to her eyes.
“I never appreciated before … just how beautiful you are, Susan. Why do you suppose that is?”
“I don’t know.” She swallowed hard, biting her upper lip. She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb.
He looked down at her hands and was startled at how similar they looked to Guinda’s. His beautiful daughter was a few years older than his exquisite lover. “Martha is watching TV. She’ll be so glad you’re here.”
“Please don’t tell her just yet. I’ve got some things I wanted to talk to you about first.”
They sat down on a pair of chairs beside a glass table.
“You’re probably wondering what all this is about. I don’t really have an appointment at the University this afternoon like I told Mom. There are a couple things I had to tell you in person … and one of them just can’t wait.”
Elliott took a deep breath and sat back, running his fingers over his forehead.
“We haven’t had a very good relationship for a long time,” she began. “I blamed you for turning away from me a long time ago, but over the last few years, I’ve realized that I’m the one who turned away from you.”
“No, no, Susie. It wasn’t your fault. I—”
“Wait a minute, Dad. Let’s not play this game of each of us blaming ourselves until after you’ve heard me out. I’ve thought a lot about this over the years, and I convinced myself I’d forgiven you for abandoning Luke and me. Then I thought, who abandoned who? I knew you were tortured by that day at the science fair, and I could have helped you—but I didn’t.
“You see, I knew what really happened that day. You thought I was just a kid and those skis and your big scene were so important to me. But I was a smart kid, and I saw what happened. You saw your little girl being stepped on and insulted, and in a way that would leave some indelible imprint. So you attacked that bitch, Dobbs, in my behalf.”
Susie reached for Elliott’s hand and held it. “You might have been a little more delicate about it.” Elliott fought back a grin, but Susie encouraged it with her own. “But you sure as hell let everybody know what you thought of her, and they better not pull any more crap like that with you around.”
Father and daughter held hands and laughed to each other. Then Elliott’s smile faded and he said, “But then I ran away. Your hero abandoned you.”
“Yeah. And that’s what I held against you for so long.”
“What changed your mind?”
“I finally realized that I was the one who kicked you out of my life.”
“But you were just a kid and very upset.”
“I knew you’d come home and apologize to me. I had a couple hours to think about it. I was a very smart kid. I knew exactly what I was going to say to you before you ever walked into my room. I’m not sure to this day why I had to hurt you. Maybe it was really Dobbs I was trying to get.”
“Maybe you weren’t as smart as you thought.”
Susie nodded her head. “There is that possibility.”
“So why was it so important for you to come here today and tell me this?”
“Okay. Now I’ll tell you what precipitated this trip. I heard through the grapevine that you’ve been stirring up trouble again.”
“What do you mean?”
“COPE trouble—with a guy named Sherwood.”
Elliott squinted his eyes. “Did Martha tell you? But wait, I never told her Sherwood’s name.”
“Mom had nothing to do with this. You see, I’m somewhat of an insider at COPE. I’ve been doing some consulting work there, and I’ll tell you one thing, Dad. Don’t cross swords with COPE. Or Sherwood.”
Susie sat back in her chair and began her tale of computer development in the grand style of COPE and Dr. Planck. “Then a while after Planck’s supposed suicide, I got a call from a woman right in the guts of COPE named Jenner, just Jenner, a real nerd. She wanted me to help her sort some things out with the COPE main frame, but the funny part was that she didn’t want me to visit her or even call her. She came up to see me a couple of times, and the kind of stuff she was asking told me she was right in that computer’s brain and plucking strings that should never be plucked, at least if you have any regard for self preservation.
“Day before yesterday, she came to see me with this wild scheme for sending the computer back to the Stone Age, and I helped her refine it. But mostly, I was the Planck history. Planck never documented what he was doing.”
“So you and Jenner are the only ones who know what’s going on at COPE?” Elliott said.
“Don’t worry about me, Dad. Jenner took very careful precautions to keep me clean. There’s no way to tie me to her scheme. But here’s the interesting part. On this last visit, she was just talking over lunch about this really weird guy
named Sherwood. Apparently, she and Sherwood collaborated on some super-secret program at COPE that had something to do with enforcement robotics. That’s all she’d tell me, but you can probably guess what it means.
“Anyway, she was telling me about this Sherwood guy who is apparently a cross between an Einstein and a Dracula. He wears some different hats at COPE, but his latest job is a Field Liaison Officer right here in this district. And his first case is some physicist who just retired from the Hyper Collider and is an anarchist. It didn’t take me too long to figure that one out, so I thought I’d better get over here and give you some sound advice—get off your white horse, Dad. Whatever you’re doing, stop. It isn’t worth the risk.
“Don’t try dueling with this Sherwood creep. He plays with some very dangerous toys. And it’s no game.”
PART FOUR
Spiders
—the present—
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
— Voltaire
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The Halvorsen Secret
A distant bolt of lightning cast subtle beacons across the bedroom ceiling. Elliott lay in the darkness waiting for each illumination and its thunderous sibling. Other spectators closer to the storm endured its savagery, but here the softer strokes prevailed.
Martha lay beside him, sedated by her multi-media day, oblivious to nature’s multi-media night. Her face turned toward him, scintillating in the bursts. Her lips tight and her face intense, she may have been refining some dream, condensing it, mixing applause, replaying the action, adding a laugh track, saluting the trivia. He wondered if he figured into her dream, or if it was reserved for her real family.
Another flash, then a longer delay. The flashes grew dimmer, the crashes rumbled longer and lower until they lost their discrete identities and merged into a single chorus.
This light show took him back to the Fourth-of-July fireworks displays he enjoyed as a boy. But this time, a blue explosion spotlighted Guinda’s eyes. In a green burst, he saw Guinda in her forest green dress with the single button undone. In a multicolored star, she stroked every part of him, slowly reviving the man who had lived in another century. Then a flood of other images returned, beckoning him to follow, drawing him in, and at the same time offending him. There were Halvorsen, Sherwood, the bouncing ponytails, the synchronous tits and peckers, the hype and gimmicks, the childlike followers, the fraud.
Elliott suddenly became aware of the silence. The storm had vanished, bathing the room in uniform emptiness and steady breathing. Images blended, then faded one by one into the darkness.
A few minutes later, Elliott found himself where he knew he would end up. He logged on to his computer at the lab, wove his way through the security labyrinth, and transferred the Halvorsen files to his machine at home. He logged off and began sifting through the mass of documentation. GAMES 46 was slightly more interesting than the nonsense he and Guinda had reviewed at her house. Some of the files were multi-media videos of various election game shows from recent years while others were transcripts. Elliott didn’t know what he was looking for, adding to the tedium. He watched several videos on double-speed, jogging through the advertising. He slowed it to normal speed for a while.
“Campaigns for $6000.”
“In 2036, a nationally aired videotape of Senator Ted Cassidy giving oral sex to the First Gentleman inadvertently began this now-common political strategy. … Yes, Gaff?”
“What is Blowing Your Way to the Top?”
“Right, Gaff, and you’re certainly blowing away your competition tonight. That puts you in a commanding lead.”
“Presidents for $8000.”
“Soap Digest has given this man the crown for the championship Presidential Erection. … Yes, Gaff?”
“Who is Bondo Longo?”
“Right again, Gaff, and you’re a long way ahead of the competition.”
“Drugs-in-Office for $8000.”
“First Gentleman, Darin Nightly, advised parents across America to give this drug to their teenage children daily. … Gaff?”
“What is hormone-atrol?”
“Right again, Gaff, and you certainly have control tonight!”
“You know, Alan, I have a confession to make. I still use hormone-atrol every day. It keeps me clearheaded under pressure, but the best part is it prolongs my orgasms. I just can’t say enough good things about it.”
“That’s some good advice and the end of tonight’s round. It looks like Gaff Trolley is well on her way to becoming California’s next senator. One more performance like this next week, Gaff, and I’m sure everybody back home will be convinced of your qualifications. After your spectacular career in the Soaps and MTV, you’re one of the best-known faces in America. Your political career will be just as spectacular … and rewarding,” Allen said with a wink.
The video portion of the multi-media file ended. An editor’s note appeared immediately:
“End of test clip 7. (6APR46) Trolley – no shadows.”
Elliott wondered what that meant. He’d zipped through similar notes, so he backed up a couple of minutes and replayed. Hmm, that’s interesting. There really aren’t any shadows on Trolley. I wonder how they did that. He froze several frames and inspected them. There were shadows on the others but none on Trolley’s face.
According to the note, this tape was made over two years ago. Trolley must be a senator in California by now with all that network hustle behind her. … I wonder. Elliott performed some brief magic with menus, and he quickly had an up-to-the-minute almanac on his display. US SENATORS he queried. Hmm, Trolley isn’t there. He tried HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Trolley wasn’t there. Then he tried SOAPS. Hmm, Trolley isn’t there either. How about MTV? … Nope. ENTERTAINERS? … Not there either. Strange. How could Gaff Trolley be such a superstar and not even appear in this almanac? They list thousands of entertainers. Maybe she didn’t get elected after all and just decided to retire with her billion dollars. Could be, I guess.
He registered the problem and continued, reviewing several more test clips in various game-show settings. Finally he happened upon a file called “test-clip index.” It listed nine test clips dating from 2045 to 2046, each with a cryptic descriptor like “Felter – eyes/lips synched” or “Wacker – without gestures” or “Wacker – with gestures” or “Trolley – eyes muted.”
Elliott sat back and stared at the screen in disbelief. Suddenly all those test clips began to make sense. “So that’s what those bastards are up to!” he shouted. “Could this be what got Halvorsen murdered?”
Elliott thought about the files he had left on his computer at the lab, the same files he was now reading. Maybe I ought to hide those things or put access restrictions on them, he thought. He reentered the lab computer and asked for a directory of his files.
ZERO FILES. ALL FILES DELETED 04:22: 36 JULY 23, 2048.
Elliott looked at his watch, 5:11. While he’d been watching Trolley and the others, someone broke into the lab computer and erased all his files. He wondered if they were totally gone or if he might retrieve them as he had done at Guinda’s.
He menued a command, and the computer responded: ALL FILES DELETED AND SCRUBBED 04:22:36 JULY 23, 2048.
The lab computer had a special SECURE DELETE command that wrote over the deleted files with random numbers to prevent them from ever being retrieved. The hacker knew how to use it.
Elliott queried the system to find out how this hacker had entered. The computer responded:
USER: FIELD SERVICE
FILE EDITOR: GNU-EMACS.
So that’s it, Elliott thought. He used the field service account and then got super-user privileges through the Gnu editor. I thought that bug had been fixed years ago, in fact decades ago. That was a classic bug when I was in college. What the hell good is our computer security department if they can’t close a simple trap door in I-don’t-know-how-many years.
The hacker knew what he was doing. Computer
manufacturers frequently leave an account open that their service reps can later enter to debug system problems. In this case it had the tricky password SERVICE. Once into the system, the hacker used an old bug in an old editor program to gain privileged status as a super-user, that is, they could access any account in the entire system. Elliott was sure that his account with its stolen Halvorsen files was the target.
If the hacker could break into the lab computer, would it be possible to break into my computer here at home? That’s unlikely, but I am on a network.
Elliott quickly wrote a copy of the Halvorsen files on a portable optical disk. Then he decided to retrench to that archaic form of communication called paper. All the fancy electronic and optical data-storage media were fine for most purposes, but he would feel so much better now if he could just hold in his hands a pile of old-fashioned sheets of paper with printed words and pictures. No electronic necromancer would be able to spirit that away from him with some digital wizardry. No more electronic cat-and-mouse. He transferred the files once more to the lab computer for it to spit out a copy on paper. It would be a considerable stack of paper, but it would be totally his, not subject to the whims of some cowardly hacker in front of an anonymous machine electronically snooping from a million miles away. Just to make sure, he disconnected his computer from the network as soon as he received the cue that the transfer to the lab was complete.