“All right, you two,” said Mason. “We’ve had this debate before, and it will only be resolved once we’ve put our theories into practice.” He had enjoyed the show, but it was time to move things along.
“Sorry, Mr. Mason,” said Snelling. “Continuing with my report, we identified two trends, one barely discernable, the other in the minimal range of confidence.”
“What was the final quotient, for the higher one?”
“Ninety-three point one, just above the threshold.” Snelling knew what the next question would be.
“What was the trend?” asked Mason.
“Valentine’s Day.” Snelling look triumphantly at Kayoko.
She shook her head. “Doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “What else would they have on their minds? Valentine’s Day is later this week.”
Snelling held his hands out. “That’s the whole point. We expected to get this result. Now we can go on to phase two.”
“Phase two?” Kayoko had obviously not been briefed.
Mason took over. “Phase two is where we get them talking about something else.”
“I don’t understand,” said Kayoko.
Mason leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He enjoyed playing the role of lecturer. “When this agency was formed, we were tasked with the mission of determining dangerous social trends, in recognition of the fact that internal collapse has been the greatest threat to powerful empires throughout history. To maintain U.S. preeminence in the world, any such internal propensities must be dealt with before they become unmanageable. Thus societal profiling was born.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” said Kayoko. “Social trends can lead to social movements, which can be precursors to national decline, or so the theory goes. What does it have to do with phase two?”
“Did we ever actually come close to getting the profile right–before now?”
“No,” said Kayoko. “Not until the Internet started to take off.”
Mason nodded. “And how did that change things?”
“We could capture communications, store them in databases, and analyze them–quickly. It made a huge difference. The more communications moved to cyberspace, the more accurate our profiles became.”
“And now we’ve seen that we can indeed create an accurate societal profile, correct?”
“Perhaps, but I’m still not convinced…”
Mason held up his hand. “I’m convinced that the trend identified by our profile is accurate. Do you know why?” Kayoko shook her head. “Because Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Of course that’s what people are concerned about. But now, in phase two, we’re going to change that.”
“Change what?” asked Kayoko.
“In a very short period of time, we’re going to alter the societal profile.”
Kayoko sat motionless, her eyes wide. “That was never our mandate! Identify, yes, but alter?”
“It’s the next logical step,” said Mason.
“Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“If the profile wasn’t successful, it wouldn’t have mattered. Now it does matter, and now you all know the direction we’re headed.”
Muted conversation broke out around the table. This was new territory, a dramatic shift in direction and policy. Kayoko alone sat silently. At last Mason regained everyone’s attention.
“We have a lot of work to do. The process of altering a profile won’t be easy, and of course, once the procedures have been run, we’ll have to run another profile for comparison.”
Kayoko was afraid to ask. “What exactly are these ‘procedures’?”
Mason nodded towards his boy wonder. “Norbert, the floor is yours.”
Chapter Four
After he and Bobby fled their home, Stanley drove to the only place he knew of that offered safety from the bizarre events that seemed to follow the palmtop. The small motel that they checked into was remote, yet not so far away that they could not return home on short notice. The morning after arriving they purchased some fishing gear and headed for the nearby lake.
Stanley watched his bobber dancing on the surface of the water. They had caught nothing after several hours of fishing, but he didn’t care. He wanted some time to think things through, and to plan his next move. The serene backdrop of the sparse foliage reflecting off the water soothed his nerves.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Bobby?”
“What’s going on?”
“I guess the fish aren’t hungry today.”
Bobby shifted his position to get a better look at his father. “No, I mean, why did that man want the palmtop, and why did those others want to hurt him?”
Stanley gazed intently at his son. “That’s a very good question. What do you think?”
Bobby tugged on his pole, taking up the slack as his line drifted closer. “The palmtop must be valuable.” He watched the ripples where his line entered the water. “Maybe it doesn’t belong to the first guy, and those others wanted to get it back from him.”
“Could be.” Stanley absently toyed with his line. “None of them were especially friendly.”
“No. That first guy–I don’t know his name…”
“Slocum. At least that’s what he said on the phone.”
“Yeah.” Bobby nodded. “He was, I don’t know, different. Not as scary as the others.”
“I suppose,” said Stanley. “But he did force his way into our home. With a gun.” Stanley looked over his glasses at his son.
“Yeah. That was scary.”
“You okay now?”
“Uh huh.” The boy leaned back, watching the waves lap against the shore. “Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t we just give the palm thing to the police and tell them what happened?”
Stanley didn’t answer for a moment. He had his reasons, but was it fair to burden his son with all that? “You know, Bobby, I don’t have a good answer to that one. I guess I just got so caught up in what was happening, it didn’t occur to me.”
“Don’t do it, Dad.”
“Do what?”
“Give it to the police. At least not ‘til you figure out what’s in it.”
Stanley smiled. “I’m not going to. Not yet, anyway.” He looked out over the cold water. It was far too early in the season. “Nothing’s biting today.”
“I’m kind of tired of this, Dad. Let’s go back to the motel.”
“You sure? I don’t mind staying a little longer.”
“You can work on the palmtop.”
Stanley nodded his assent, and reeled in his line. After gathering up their tackle and loading it into the car, they drove back to the motel, only five miles away. It was a small affair in an out of the way place. Stanley and his wife had first come here many years earlier, and he had brought Bobby here on fishing trips several times since. They left the fishing gear in the car and went to their room.
“You can watch television while I shower,” said Stanley. “Then I’ll get to the palmtop.”
“Okay.” Bobby turned on the set while Stanley used the shower. He finished quickly, exiting the bathroom fifteen minutes later.
“Ah, much better. Now it’s your turn. Into the bath with you.”
“I’d rather not.”
“But you will.” Bobby knew that it was pointless to argue, and went to fill the tub.
Meanwhile, Stanley placed his laptop on the single small table that came with the room and plugged it in. Like most motels, this one had a data connection, so he logged on to his private email account and checked for the file he had sent himself just before he and Bobby left their home. It was the one that he had downloaded while Slocum was at his house. He saved it to his laptop’s hard drive and logged off, and considered what he knew so far.
Pascua. It could be a name, as he had originally thought, but he was becoming less convinced of this. That it was important–significant–he felt certain. He was equally certain that the palm unit itself had capabilities
that went far beyond the ordinary. Coupled with the actions of Slocum and his associates, this seemed to indicate the involvement of forces that were well beyond his own sphere of activities. While this was intriguing, it also worried him. Not so much for his own sake, but for Bobby. Perhaps it was time to involve the authorities after all.
As these thoughts went through his mind, he attempted to process the latest file. It was large compared to the earlier downloads, and yielded much more information. He was able to recover several nearly complete sentences, as well as a number of words and partial words. Most of it, however, was unintelligible, which Stanley found perplexing. If his software was able to decipher part of the file, it should be able to do the whole thing. It occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t one file, but a combination of two or more files. Could it be that they were intermingled, perhaps in an effort to thwart any attempt to break the code? If so, it would follow that some other decoding methodology would have to be applied to the more resistant portion of the file. Unfortunately, the only other methodology immediately available to him was his wits; he had used up his electronic bag of tricks.
The file, or at least part of it, was a communiqué or a bulletin of some kind. The intended audience was fairly generic, based on the use of the passive voice in the few passages he could read. Slocum was mentioned as having been ‘relegated’, but precisely what that meant was unclear. It also referenced the palmtop, indicating that its recovery was paramount. Most unnerving, however, was the fact that his address was listed. The remaining bits and pieces were a puzzle. Torn between curiosity and concern, Stanley pressed on.
***
When Slocum left Stanley’s house he went straight to his ‘secure’ apartment–a place he hadn’t even told the agency about–and set up Stanley’s computer. Slocum may not have been Stanley’s equal in matters electronic, most notably computers, but he had enough savvy to get into Stanley’s hard drive. After switching a few cables from his own computer to Stanley’s he was in business.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he knew who he was looking for–the owner of this PC. He had to find the palm unit, and that meant finding Whipple. The man and his son had disappeared somewhere, and the only clues available might be in this computer.
When someone wanted to hide, Slocum knew, especially if it was on the spur of the moment, they often sought a place that was isolated, but familiar. Whipple had run, out of fear, to a place where he felt safe and untraceable. Where would that place be?
He examined the various folders. The usual ones were here; system folders, documents, music, and several miscellaneous entries. There was a folder with a ton of saved emails. When Slocum opened this he was impressed at how organized it was, calling to mind the neatness of Whipple’s house. Everything was categorized, with out of date and personal entries separated from more important business correspondence. He spent over an hour scouring the possibilities, and made several phone calls that resulted in dead ends. As he scrolled down the list of entries his eyes stopped on a line that read ‘reservation confirmed’. It was from a motel, and the message was over two years old. It included a number, and on a hunch Slocum dialed it.
“Lake Motel, how may I help you?” It was an older woman.
“Hi, my name is John Whipple. My brother and his son were headed up that way for a little vacation, and I’m supposed to meet them. I think he said they were staying at your place, but I lost the piece of paper with the information on it. Can you help me?”
There was a pause before the woman replied. “I really shouldn’t say. We don’t generally give out information about our guests.” The hesitation in her voice spoke volumes. If they weren’t there, she would have said so.
Slocum wanted confirmation. “You don’t have to give me their room number or anything. I just don’t want to drive all that way for nothing. It would be a tremendous help.” He tried to sound as helpless and harmless as possible. It had the desired effect.
“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt. A man and a boy did check in late last night. They asked about buying fishing gear this morning.” She laughed. “Land sakes, the only thing they’ll catch this time of year is a bad cold.”
“Sounds like them.”
“Is there a message I can give them?”
“No thanks, but could I bother you for directions?”
***
Mason’s stunning revelation that the agency would now attempt to alter the societal profile was a bombshell. Norbert took center stage in explaining the technical details behind how it would happen.
“In case some of you aren’t aware, the mechanism we employ during a profile is a one way street. Over time, we’ve installed hundreds of optical transceivers throughout the physical infrastructure of the Internet. These very small, very complex devices reflect an exact image of the optical signal back to us, while the original proceeds merrily along to its intended destination. Data arrives here, where we analyze it and create a profile. Nothing flows back out to the world. At least, not if everything works correctly.”
“What about our own email, faxes and so forth? That goes out, doesn’t it?” asked Kayoko.
“Yes, it does,” said Norbert. “But it’s on a completely different infrastructure, and uses different technology.”
“I see.”
“Of course, we do use the Net for communicating with the palm units, which is also separate from our email, and again, employs a different technology. We actually invented a non-routed protocol that only the palmtops are programmed to recognize, so we have a completely secure data stream that…”
“Let’s keep on topic.” Mason saw that the others were starting to drift.
Norbert continued. “In short, yet another system has been developed for phase two. This will be strictly outgoing.”
“Why,” asked Tom Snelling, “does the profiling stream have to be one way only? Why not utilize it for regular communications as well?”
“Societal profiling requires astronomical amounts of data,” said Norbert. “We don’t have the time to worry about two-way communications, electronic handshaking to verify a successful connection, waiting for busy queues or overloaded servers. We just suck in tons of raw data that’s flowing across the Net. What’s good goes into the repository, what’s not is thrown out. Security is a factor as well. The less complex the operation, the easier it is to protect, although the technology behind the critters that we have planted in the Internet is quite advanced.”
Mason took over. “It’s time to reverse the flow. To alter the societal profile we’re going to have to initiate a series of actions that will require a robust, yet secure outgoing data stream. It will also require some creative thinking.”
“Mr. Mason.”
“Yes, Kayoko.” He knew she would be the first to raise an objection.
“What kind of actions are you proposing?”
He was surprised. He had expected outraged indignation. “Something serious enough to get the public’s attention. I have some ideas, but actually I wanted to get some input from you folks, some suggestions as to what might supplant Valentine’s Day as a topic of conversation among the general population.”
“It’s unlikely that they’ll talk about Valentine’s Day indefinitely,” said Kayoko.
“I only use that as an example,” said Mason. “We won’t be ready to attempt an alteration for several weeks.”
Kayoko nodded, apparently satisfied. Inwardly, her stomach was churning at this bizarre turn of events. She would have told Mason exactly what she felt, but that would only have resulted in her dismissal. Perhaps she could work from the inside to stop this madness.
***
Robert Slocum observed as Stanley pulled into the motel parking lot in his Chevy, and then watched as father and son entered their room. There was only one other car besides his own parked in the lot, and that, he knew, belonged to an elderly couple. Just to be safe, Slocum watched the room for a full half hour, making certain that the ag
ency hadn’t already found this place. Inside the motel room, Bobby had just turned on a science program about sharks, while Stanley worked his file.
“The Great White has no natural predator, except man.” On the television, dramatic music accompanied close-ups of a shark circling a man in a shark cage. Outside, Slocum had left his car, and was moving towards the motel.
“He stalks his prey, just as his ancestors have for centuries.” The shark swam back and forth, seeking a way to get at the man in the cage. Slocum was now alongside the motel, nervously looking around to see if he had been detected.
“For a moment, the shark disappears into the murky darkness. Has he gone for good?” Bobby was mesmerized. Stanley, still working with the palmtop, sat on the edge of his seat, struggling to coax more meaning from the jumbled characters on his display.
“Suddenly the shark appears from out of the inky darkness and rams into the cage.”
Slocum had been quietly fiddling with the lock, and now threw the door open, his gun drawn. Bobby, startled by the sudden intrusion, jumped reflexively. Slocum quickly closed the door behind him.
Stanley looked up from his laptop. “Mr. Slocum, we meet again.”
It took a moment for Slocum’s eyes to adjust to the room’s lighting. Then he seemed to notice something for the first time. “I’ve seen you before.”
“You broke into my home and held me and my son hostage. Does that count?”
“No, before that. Let me think.” He glanced quickly out the window at the Chevy, and remembered. “Yeah, now I’ve got it. I saw you coming out of a fast food place.”
“We do like burgers.” Stanley looked at Bobby, who nodded his agreement. “Not to change the subject, Mr. Slocum, but you have a problem.”
Slocum was instantly alert. “What’s that?” He looked outside again, suspecting a trap.
“You’ve been relegated.”
Slocum’s eyes narrowed. It was impossible. The man sitting before him couldn’t know the meaning of what he had said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Where’s the palmtop?”
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