by Jim Nelson
“I guess he’s dead now,” Lotte said.
“That's not something to guess.”
“Did you know him well?”
“Well enough.”
“Well enough for what?”
He was so soapy, I couldn't tell if he was baiting me. “Well enough to miss the guy.”
“You weren’t my first pick,” he said. “Mr. Aggaroy was. You were my second.”
“At least I made your top three.”
“I didn’t have three picks,” he said. “Just you and your friend.”
“He wasn’t my friend,” I said. "But I did respect him."
Lotte had all the personality of a coat of paint. The coffee brewer in the corner had finished a short pot. I offered Lotte a cup. He passed, saying he was caffeine-free. I poured myself one. The half-and-half in my dorm fridge had turned, so I reclined behind my desk and drank it black.
Lotte said, “If you could tell me your price—”
“It’s not about my rate,” I said. “My day planner is filled at the moment.”
Lotte reached into his jacket. He produced a bulging letter-sized envelope of burgundy-colored paper. It was unsealed. He leaned forward and opened the flap. His thumb riffled a stack of green bills inside.
“What I’m trying to tell you is, this would be a cash transaction,” he said.
I reached forward and took the burgundy envelope from him. I estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars. I returned the envelope to him.
In this business, the amateurs talk about finding clients—the pros talk about turning them away. Agg taught me the art of turning away clients. He also taught me about the clients who press a little too hard for your time. There’s something to be said for accepting clients who won’t take no for an answer. Sometimes it’s best to pry up the lid and see with your own eyes what’s burning their heels.
“All right, I’ll bite,” I said. “Explain to me this job.”
Lotte smoothed the envelope flat on his crossed knee. “I forgot my password.”
9.
I asked to see the burgundy envelope again. Once more I counted the money, this time confirming it was a cold five thousand dollars and not a number living in its neighborhood. The envelope and outer bills were slightly damp from resting in Lotte's jacket pocket next to his underarm. It was the sweat of desperation and not the humidity. I handed him back the envelope of damp money and returned to my chair.
“What’s the password for?” I asked. “A computer you own? A bank account?”
“It’s for a safe,” he said. “A wall-mounted safe.”
“What kind of password is it?”
“A sequence of twelve lines from Shakespeare’s sonnets,” he said. “I have to recite them in the proper order to unlock the safe. That’s problem. I don’t remember the exact order.”
“But you know the lines?”
“Yes. They’re marked in a book. I have to read them while my memex is connected to the safe’s computer.”
“So it’s an engram-based lock?”
“I guess that's what it's called,” he said with a shrug. “It also has a back-off timer.”
“Fixed? Geometric? Exponential?”
“I think exponential.”
“Have you tried to unlock it?”
“I’ve tried.”
“How many times?”
“Six,” he said. “I have the right lines from the right sonnets, but I’m reciting them in the wrong order.”
Imagine a man who wishes to lock away a secret, such as a piece of paper or a photograph. This man—a proud man, a foolish man—believes there is no such thing as too much security or too high a price. He buys a safe with twelve numbered dials on its door. To open the safe, all twelve dials must be turned to the right number in a specific order. Any variance at all and the safe won’t unlock. There is no other way to open the safe, other than with explosives or acid.
Now it so happens this proud, stubborn man forgets the combination. Exponential back-off means if this man twirls the dials incorrectly, the safe won’t allow him to try again for, say, four hours. After waiting four hours, he spins the dials again. If he’s incorrect once more, he has to wait eight hours for another try. A faulty third attempt and he has to wait sixteen hours. The delay doubles with each failed spin of the dials. Soon the foolish man is waiting weeks and then months to open his precious little safe, each attempt digging the hole twice as deep. Engram-locked safes can go into hibernation for years, or even decades. Computers are fast, patient, and unforgiving. Computers don’t care about proud, stubborn men and their petty little secrets.
“What’s the initial back-off time?”
“Twenty-four hours,” he said.
“So on your sixth failed attempt, it went into hibernation for about…a month,” I said, doing the quick arithmetic.
“It came out of hibernation last night,” he said.
“And if you don’t enter the correct password this time, it’ll go to sleep for two more months.”
“I must get that safe open,” he said.
I leaned back in my desk chair and chuckled up toward the ceiling. “What on earth possessed you to buy a safe with an exponential back-off? And don’t tell me it’s not relevant. If you want my help, it’s absolutely relevant.” Before he could protest, I said, “It’s relevant because I’m not going to help you break into a safe you may or may not own.”
That caused him to skipped a beat. “What are you suggesting?”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law—except when it comes to locked safes,” I said. “Just because you own the box doesn’t mean you own what’s inside it. You understand me?”
“You think I stole my safe?”
“I can’t break into a safe purely on your say-so. I need to know what’s in it.”
Lotte didn’t like that at all. He scraped his lips with the edges of his front teeth, first the upper lip, then the lower lip. He was fuming.
I laid it out for him. “People store memory-retention servers in engram-locked safes. You understand? Retention servers? Important people in this world configure their memexes to relay every thought and emotion their mind produces to a retention server. They have good reason to keep that machine in an engram-locked safe.”
"Not all people," he said, a touch sore. “I heard some celebrities use safe deposit boxes.”
“You trust a bank with your money, not your memories. A retention server stores everything. What you see, what you hear, what you say and taste and touch. Your internal monologue, that voice in your head that everyone has? That’s recorded too."
“So you think I’m asking you to do something illegal?”
“I’m saying this goes beyond the whys and wherefores of the law. If I crack this safe—if I hand over another person’s retention server to you—I’ve handed you their soul.”
He uncrossed and crossed his legs impatiently. He looked ready to stand and leave, which would have been fine by me. He returned to smoothing the damp burgundy envelope on his crossed knee. How much easier this would be for him if I shut up, took the money, and did the job. There are people in this world who need to learn they cannot have every little thing their way.
“I’m a doctor of psychiatry.” He spoke as though establishing his credentials also established his credibility. “I’ve practiced in California for twelve years now.”
He seemed too young for the years he claimed, but I let it slide. Diet, exercise, and plastic surgery have a way of coordinating themselves in California. “Go on," I said.
Lotte removed from his breast pocket an eyeglass case. From it, he unfolded a pair with perfectly round lenses the size of old-fashioned dollar coins. He slid them on his face self-consciously, as though further reinforcing his credibility.
“I count some influential people as patients,” he said. “My list includes elected officials, CEOs, heads of the financial industry, and so on. Some live here in San Francisco. Others come to me
from elsewhere.” He halted to peer at me through his officious glasses. “I’m not bragging, you understand.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You have all their secrets in this safe.”
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “The mere fact these important people are seeing a mental health professional looks guilty in its own way. You must recognize that.”
“You don’t think it’s incriminating, of course.”
“It’s perfectly healthy to seek help.” He craned his neck to separate his Adam's apple from the tight knot in his tie. “It’s not my fault the public can’t move past these stigmas about mental health. Especially when you consider the number of people that seek psychiatric help themselves—”
“So why the military-grade safe?”
He considered his answer for a moment. “I guess I didn’t understand what I was getting into when I purchased it,” he said. “The safe was sold to me as the best line of defense for physical document retention. See, I still use pen and paper for note-taking. I also have a voice recorder for planning upcoming sessions.”
It was a problem you become familiar with in the computer security industry. While these physical documents can be converted to digital format, the law prohibits destruction of the originals for reasons of trial discovery and such. This is why most medical professionals use purely digital systems now. They only need to lock down one set of documents, the electronic ones, instead of two, the electronic and the physical.
Still, it didn’t smell right. “Why the rush? You’ve already had to wait over a month now.”
“Honestly, after this entire experience, I simply want to get my papers out of the safe and stored in something more reasonable.” Perturbed, he adjusted his eyeglasses. “You can understand that, I would think.”
I tapped my foot, trying to piece together his tale. My shoe rubber slapped the varnished stage surface. My feet were like skis, ungainly and disproportional to the rest of my body. When I was young and overweight and wearing T-shirts and sweatpants and white sneakers, in silhouette, I looked like a monstrous anthropomorphic duck. The slapping of my shoes against the stage floor sounded like an oar slapping a marching band bass drum.
“Why can’t this wait until next week,” I said.
“I need to get my papers out today. In order to explain why, I’d have to name one of my clients. You understand the violation that would involve. It’s also why I’ve muted myself,” he added softly.
My slapping foot quickened. “I need more. Otherwise, you’re going to have to wait until my schedule clears. Ah, hell,” I fumed. “I don’t need to take this on. Go find someone else to wave your money at. If you find a guy to crack your safe without a word of explanation, you’ll be getting exactly what you paid for.”
He sat staring at me, breathing. “If I tell you my current situation, will you open the safe tonight?”
“Tonight?” I said. “I don’t know about tonight, but an explanation will improve your odds with me.”
He motioned to the coffee pot in the corner. “Maybe I’ll take a cup of that after all.”
I poured him a mug of strong black and offered him a packet of sugar, which he refused.
After a timid sip, he said, “The files in the safe aren’t my clients.”
I coughed a laugh and shook my head. “Is it even your safe?”
“It’s as you said earlier. I do own the safe, but not its contents.” He spoke up over my laughter. “I moved into the office three months ago. I discovered the safe in a back closet hidden behind a utility cabinet. The previous occupant died while leasing the office. I guess the safe was overlooked going through probate. Since I’m leasing the office now, it seems to me the safe belongs to me, free and clear.”
“I’m not sure a lawyer would go to the mat on that line of reasoning,” I said.
“I admit, I don’t know what’s in the safe,” he continued. “But I’ve worked in this profession long enough to know what it probably holds. And,” he added quickly, to cut off my next quip, “I’ve asked around about the kind of people who came to the previous doctor for help. See, my predecessor was a psychiatrist too. It sounds like she had quite a clientele. Some big players in this town who wouldn’t be happy if their secrets came to light. I’m certain they think her files were destroyed when she died. Most of them were, in fact. But not the ones in the safe.”
I laughed once more and sized him up. “So are you really such the big-shot head-shrinker you made yourself out to be a minute ago?”
“No,” he admitted, shrinking in his chair. “Most of my patients are white-collar men raging about their wives and professional women crying about their husbands. My predecessor, she was the big-name psychiatrist.”
“So whose secrets do you think are locked away in this safe?”
He began naming names, names from San Francisco politics and names from Silicon Valley’s profit centers. He named a family who’s lived in the city for six generations and owns more property downtown than most people realize. He named another family every business in town has to do business with, from buying office equipment to installing storefronts to hiring construction contractors. He named hypernovel scriptwriters and hyper-reality stars, not international celebrities, but personalities on their way up in the world of Nexternet entertainment.
Lotte’s flat, colorless personality loosened and unwound with each name revealed. He spoke these names like a hairdresser dishing the dirt. A grin developed as he took down these important people, and he was taking them down with each revelation, this staunch defender of mental health care.
Finally, I cut him off. “You’re certain this safe holds patient files and not a memory-retention server?”
“I’m pretty certain,” he said. “Could you determine if the safe held a retention server from the outside?”
I nodded. “There would be external signs.”
“Then you’re free to examine the safe first.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “You never told me this psychiatrist’s name. Your predecessor.”
“Does it matter?”
“You’ve spilled this much. Might as well hear the full story.”
He spoke his next sentence carefully. “Her name was Dr. Daryl Lund.”
I tried to maintain a poker face, but I’m certain I let slip my shock hearing her name. Hand over my mouth, I stared off at the coffee pot for a moment to gather my next move. I couldn’t take too much time. Lotte did not strike me as a particularly thoughtful man, but to take him as clueless was a mistake. I could feel the pulse in the back of my neck rise. My face was growing hot.
Finally, I said, “You understand this job will require all the money in that envelope.” The final name he’d uttered still gripped me. I couldn’t look him in the face as I spoke. “It’s not about my professional rate. Engram locks require specialized equipment.”
“I’m fully prepared to give you the entire contents of this envelope for services rendered,” he said. “I can put together an additional payment of the same amount upon completion of the job.”
Agg's warning about clients pushing money into your hands roared up in the back of my mind. I kicked his advice to the curb. “So why the rush?” My brain felt about to burst.
“All I can say is, I’m in contact with a party who is deeply interested in the contents of the safe.” He held up his hands. “But I cannot say more.”
I guessed Lotte was working with some tabloid journalist looking for the salacious scoop, some political blogger looking to score partisan points with their Nexternet following. Hell, his motivation could have been straight-up extortion. Releasing private information on public celebrities was big money on the Nexternet.
“Tell me whose file they’re asking to see,” I told him. My face was growing moist around my chin and cheeks.
“I don’t understand why it matters—”
“Because that’s the deal,” I snapped. “I won’t open that safe until you tell me whose history y
ou’re selling.”
Lotte, the twerp, was put out. He answered me with sniffy disdain.
“The patient’s name is—” And Lotte said my birth name. My full name, first-middle-last, my first name, the name of my childhood, the name I used until I fled this country. Fifteen years later, I returned a new man with a new name, C.F. Naroy. If anyone looked up the name Lotte mentioned, they would discover he was the star of Detachment, the viral sensation from 2010 and 2011. Of course, they wouldn't be able to view the film itself. It was gone.
Lotte sensed a change in me. “You know who this person is?” I asked him to cover it up.
“Not a clue,” Lotte said.
I began to press Lotte to reveal this mystery party's name, but I knew he wouldn't budge. He would suspect I'd sell the information directly to his third party and cut him out of the deal.
I gathered myself up. “I can’t do it today,” I said. “Don’t touch the safe until I can examine it. You hear me? Leave it be.”
“When will you open it?”
“I need complete access to the safe. Do you share the office with anyone else?”
“No, I’m the only one. You can take all the time you need with it. When can you come around?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll be there at ten sharp.”
He rose from his chair, beaming. “I can live with that.”
“Tell me where your office is at.”
He recited an address for me.
“Just give me your business card,” I said.
“I didn’t think to bring any.” He felt around his jacket for his cards, but in a phony kind of way that told me he knew he’d not find any there. “My office is on the eleventh floor of the Medical/Dental Building.”
I did not remember Dr. Lund’s office number, but knowing the floor number, I figured I could locate her door again.
“See you then.” He gathered his jacket with a happy little bounce in his step and showed himself out.
As soon as I heard the waiting room door close and knew he was gone, I scraped my fingernails at the cap of my memex. The back of my neck felt like it was jacked into an electrical socket and receiving all one hundred twenty volts. I pried out my memex and its hair-like tendrils flailing and wet with spinal fluid. Its cap was hot to the touch. I tossed the memex across the floor. It skittered like a cockroach into the far corner. The flesh of my neck surrounding the pinpoint-sized socket was enflamed and sore to the touch.