“You know?” His voice quaked as I had expected the Contact Unit’s would when I finally confronted him.
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t eventually figure it out?”
“How did you find out? Did Heath tell you? Dorothy?”
“They both know too?”
“Well, they had to, didn’t they?”
My fingers worked restlessly. I had to verify the identification. Then I had to kill him before he could report to the Simulectronicist in that Upper Reality that I had slipped my puppet strings.
“You mean,” I asked, “that there are three Contact Units?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What in hell are we talking about?”
I wasn’t so sure now. “Suppose you tell me.”
“Doug, I had to do it—for my own protection. You realize that, of course. When Dorothy told me you intended to betray me and the party, I had to take countermeasures.”
All the tenseness drained out of me. We hadn’t been talking about the same thing after all.
“Sure, I brought in Heath,” he continued, “in case you became intractable and had to be dumped. You can’t blame me for protecting my own interest.”
“No,” I managed.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I like you. It’s just unfortunate you can’t see everything my way. But it’s not too late. As I said, Heath is merely my ace in the hole. I don’t want to use him.”
Disinterested, I headed for the door, aware that locating the Contact Unit might not be as simple as I had imagined.
“What are you going to do, son?” he asked softly, following after me. “Don’t try anything stupid. I’ve got a lot of strings handy. But I wouldn’t relish pulling them—not against you.”
I turned and faced him. It was more than evident now that he wasn’t the Contact Unit. The ambiguity in our conversation, at the outset, had struck close enough to home to have flushed him out if he had been. Moreover, a Contact Unit would know infinite frustration. He would be endlessly appalled over the futility of all things. He would be withdrawn, philosophical. Siskin? Never. He was too motivated by the material-wealth, possessiveness, ambition.
“I haven’t given up on you, Doug. You can reinstate yourself. Just say the word and I’ll drop Heath. I’ll even call off Dorothy. All you have to do is prove you’ve changed your mind about me.”
“How?” I asked superficially.
“Go before my own notarypsych with me for a complete affirmation probe.”
More as a means of getting away than for any other reason, I said, “I’ll think about it.”
On the way back to REIN, I gave only passing attention to what had happened in Siskin’s office. It was obvious he was merely executing a delaying movement. He was holding out the promise of forgiveness and acceptance only as a means of discouraging me from making a public issue of his political schemes.
But if I posed such a threat, why didn’t he simply pull his police strings and have me arrested for Fuller’s murder? True, that would deprive the simulator of many refinements Fuller and I had planned together. But certainly he must have guessed by now that the system was equal to the task of mapping foolproof political strategy even without further improvement.
Then, as the car began its descent along the vertical control beam nearest Reactions, Inc., I tensed under the impact of fresh, disconcerting suspicion. Was Siskin manipulating the police—to prevent me from betraying him? Or were the police actually an unwitting agency of the Higher Existence, poised to arrest me for Fuller’s murder the moment the Operator became aware I had learned the true nature of reality?
I sank miserably back against the seat. I was hopelessly confused, squeezed between the calculating malevolence of two worlds, so utterly confounded that I couldn’t recognize whether any particular assault was coming from one or the other.
And all the while I had to maintain my composure. For the simplest demonstration of the fact that I knew about the existence of the Real World might result in my being immediately yanked into the oblivion of total deprogramming.
At Reactions, I found Marcus Heath seated at my desk, pouring over two stacks of memoranda he had rifled from the drawers.
I studded the door closed and he looked up through his bifocals. There was no uneasiness in his intense eyes. It was clear he didn’t consider that he had been caught red-handed.
“Yes?” he said impatiently.
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my office now. Orders straight from the Inner Establishment. For the time being you’ll find desk space with Mr. Whitney in the function generating department.”
Understandably indifferent to so prosaic a development, I turned to leave. At the door, however, I hesitated. Now was as good a time as any for finding out whether he was the Contact Unit.
“What do you want?” he asked irritably.
I returned to the desk and scanned his frozen features, wondering whether I was finally about to prove I didn’t exist. Then I rebelled against the utter incongruity of that thought. I had to exist! Cartesian philosophy provided ample refutation of my self-doubt:
Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am.
“Don’t waste my time,” Heath said, annoyed. “I’ve got to get this simulator ready for public demonstration within a week.”
Sweeping irresolution aside, I straightened. “You can quit acting. I know you’re an agent for that other simulator.”
He only remained rigid. But there had been an inner upheaval. I could tell by the sudden ferocity in his eyes. Then I realized that at this very moment he might be coupled empathically with his Operator in that Upper Reality!
Calmly, he asked, “What did you say?”
Now he wanted me to repeat it for the benefit of the Operator! Already my delay had been fatal!
I lunged across the desk, reaching out desperately for him. But he lurched back out of range and his hand came up from the drawer with a laser gun.
The broad crimson beam fanned out at my arms, my chest, my abdomen and I slumped across the desk, instantly deprived of all muscular control from waist to neck.
It was simple for him to haul me upright and set me upon my feet. Then he forced me backwards towards a chair and shoved me into it. With the laser gun he sprayed my legs.
I sat there slumped sideways, able to move only my head. Frantically, I tried to work my arm to determine how complete the paralysis was. Only my index finger twitched. That meant I’d be immobile for hours. And all he needed was minutes. I could but sit there and await deprogramming.
“When will it happen?” I asked hopelessly.
He didn’t answer. After a moment he studded home the locks on both doors. Then he leaned against the edge of the desk.
“How did you find it out, Hall?”
I hadn’t spent a conscious minute over the past day without wondering how I would react on finding myself trapped in just such a final confrontation. Now that it was here, I wasn’t nearly as terrified as I had imagined I would be.
“From Fuller,” I said.
“But how could he have known?”
“He’s the one who found out. You must know that much.”
“Why should I?”
“Then there’s more than one agent?”
“If there is, they’ve kept it a damned good secret from me.”
He glanced at the intercom, then back at me. It was evident he was troubled over something. But I couldn’t imagine what. He had surely discharged his function creditably, as far as the Higher Reality was concerned.
Then he smiled as he returned and seized a handful of my hair. He forced my head back and sprayed my throat lightly.
Again I was perplexed. If I was going to be yanked at any moment, why was he temporarily paralyzing my vocal cords?
He ran a comb through his hair and straightened his coat. Settling back in his chair, he spoke softly into the intercom:
“Miss Ford, will you please get Mr. Siskin on video? And put the ca
ll on a security circuit.”
I couldn’t see the screen. But Siskin’s voice was unmistakable as he asked, “Any trouble over there, Marcus?”
“No. Everything’s in hand. Horace, you’ve given me a damned nice setup here and things are going to be profitable for both of us because we see eye to eye—on all matters.” Heath hesitated.
“Yes?”
“That’s important, Horace—the fact that we do see eye to eye. About the party and everything else. I’m stressing that point because tomorrow I want to appear with you before a notarypsych.”
I was becoming more confused. Not only had I not been deprogrammed, but this conversation was completely irrelevant.
“Now hold on,” Siskin protested. “I don’t see why I should have to validate anything I said to you.”
“You don’t.” Heath’s features were heavy with sincerity and subservience. “It’s I who must convince you that henceforth I’ll be the most loyal cog in your organization. It’s not only that I appreciate a good deal when it’s dumped in my lap. The main reason is that you and I belong together—on the same side.”
“You’re not making much sense, Marcus. What’s on your Blind?”
“Simply this: I came over here as an agent for that other simulator project.”
“Barnfeld?”
Heath nodded. “I’ve been in their pay right along. I was supposed to steal all of Reaction’s secrets, so Barnfeld could perfect a simulator that would rival yours.”
Even in the grip of laserparalysis, I finally understood. Once more I had leaped recklessly at an ambiguity. Heath had been an inside simulectronic agent, all right, but only for a rival simulator in this world.
“And did you?” Siskin asked, interested.
“No, Horace. And I never intended to. Not since the second discussion I had with you about coming here. The notarypsych will verify that.”
Siskin remained silent.
“Don’t you see, Horace? I want to be loyal to you. Almost from the beginning I’ve wanted to serve you in whatever capacity I can. It was only a matter of deciding when to make a clean breast and ask for a notarypsych probe.”
“And what decided you?”
“When Hall burst in here a few minutes ago to say he knew about my connections with Barnfeld and to threaten to expose me.”
There was amusement hanging on Siskin’s words as he said, “And you’re ready to verify all this before a psych?”
“Any time. Right now if you want.”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough.” Then Siskin laughed delightedly. “Barnfeld planting an agent here! Can you imagine that? Very well, Marcus. You’ll stay on—if the notary gives us an affirmative, of course. And you’ll supply Barnfeld with all the supposedly secret information he wants. Only, we’ll see that it’s the type of false data that will bust him completely.”
Heath disconnected and came over. “Now, Hall, you don’t have your hatchet any longer, do you? Even worse, you’re going to feel like hell after that laser spraying.” He paused and savored his triumph. “I’ll have Gadsen send you home.”
Neither Siskin nor Heath had been the Contact Unit. Whom would I try next? Frankly, I didn’t know. The Unit, I saw at last, could be anyone —even the most insignificant file clerk. And I was hopelessly convinced that long before my search was over I would find myself suddenly reeling under the head-splitting impact of the inevitable next empathy coupling. The Operator would then find out that I knew all about His Upper Reality.
12
Streams of liquid fire raced one another through my veins all during the night as the after-effects of the laser spraying ran their excruciating course. I might have hidden the pain beneath a tide of vindictive rancor for Heath. But I had long since lost the delusion that petty physical matters might still be of importance.
Shortly before midmorning, the guard whom Gadsen had detailed to my apartment helped me out of bed and led me into the kitchen. He had punched out a light breakfast from the autoserver. Nothing substantial. My stomach wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
After he left, I munched on a corner of equitoast and swallowed some coffee. Then I sat there wondering whether it would ever be possible to adjust to the knowledge Fuller had bequeathed me.
I was nothing—merely a package of vital simulectronic charges. Nevertheless I had to exist. Simple logic demanded no less. I think, therefore I am. But then I wasn’t the first person to be troubled by the possibility that nothing is real. How about the solipsists, the Berkeleians, the transcendentalists? Throughout the ages, objective reality had been held up to the closest scrutiny. Subjectivists were far from the exception in efforts to understand the true nature of existence. And even pure science had swung heavily to phenomenalism, with its principle of indeterminacy, its concept that the observed is inseparable from the observer.
Indeed, ontology was never lacking in its tribute to conceptualism. Plato saw ultimate reality existing only as pure ideas. For Aristotle, matter was a passive nonsubstance upon which thought acted to produce reality. In essence, the latter definition wasn’t too far removed from the concept of an ID unit’s subjective capacity, biasing and being biased by its simulectronic environment.
My newly acquired appreciation of fundamental reality required only one ultimate concession: Doomsday, when it came, wouldn’t be a physical phenomenon; it would be an all-inclusive erasure of simulectronic circuits.
And of all the metaphysical concepts that had cropped up during the long course of philosophy, mine was the only one open to final verification. It could be proved conclusively by merely finding the teleological agent—the hidden Contact Unit.
By noon, a hot shower and airblast rubdown had taken out the final kinks and I had returned to Reactions.
In the central corridor Chuck Whitney stepped from the function generating department and caught my arm. “Doug! What’s going on?” he asked. “Why is Heath installed in your office?”
“Let’s just say I locked horns with Siskin.”
“Well, if you don’t want to discuss it…” He stepped into function generation and beckoned for me to follow. “I’m supposed to show you where you’ll hang your hat from now on.”
He led me past the huge master data integrator and down a row of bulky input allocators, each squat cabinet standing like a somber sentry with hundreds of blinking eyes and whirling discs.
We reached the other end of the room and he indicated a glass-walled cubbyhole. “Make yourself at home.”
We went in and I spent a moment surveying my newly decreed austerity. Bare oak floor, unpolished. One desk with a fold-away vocascriber to handle my own correspondence. Two straight-back chairs. One filing cabinet.
Chuck straddled the extra chair. “Siskin was here this morning. Brought in two new assistants for Heath. As I understand it, he’s set on a public demonstration of the simulator as soon as possible.”
“Probably wants to nail down public sentiment with a big show.”
He said, “You’re on the way out, Doug. Why?”
I sank into the other chair. “Siskin has his own ideas about how the simulator should be used. I don’t agree with them.”
“If there’s anything I can do, just sound off.”
Whitney—the Contact Unit? Someone I’d known for years? My best friend? Well, why not? In our own simulator Phil Ashton had close acquaintances too. None of them suspected his true nature.
“Chuck,” I asked pensively, “how would you contrast the perceptual processes involved when we see, say, a chair, with those that take place when an ID unit sees the simulectronic equivalent of a chair?”
“This going to be a brain-twisting session?” He laughed.
“Seriously, what’s the difference?”
“Well, in our case a 2-D image of the chair is projected onto the retina. It’s scanned neurologically and broken down into a series of sensory impulses that are sent directly to the brain. Coded information. Linear transfer.”
&nb
sp; “And with the ID unit?”
“The analog chair is actually a pattern of stored impulses. When the unit simulectronically comes into ‘visual’ contact with the chair, one of its perceptual circuits is biased by those impulses. That circuit in turn transmits them to the unit’s memory drums.”
“How efficient is the ID’s perceptual system?”
“Compares favorably with ours. Each of its drums stores over seven million bit!’ and completes a revolution in two-thousandths of a second. As a result, recognition and reaction times are roughly equivalent to ours.”
I leaned back, watching his face carefully, wondering whether he suspected I was leading him down a forbidden lane. “And what happens when an ID unit goes off the deep end?”
“Goes irrational?” He hunched his shoulders. “An allocator gets out of phase. The ID’s perceptual circuits receive conflicting impulses. Something that isn’t supposed to be there crops up—or vanishes. Suspicious, operating under faulty modulation, he begins to notice the chinks in his simulated environment.”
Suddenly emboldened, I suggested, “Such as stumbling upon a road, a sweep of countryside, and half a galaxy that aren’t there?”
“Sure. Something like that.”
He said it without even twitching an eyelid. As far as I was concerned, he had passed the test.
On the other hand, wouldn’t a Contact Unit, conditioned by the Upper Reality Operator, be just that efficient?
Then, as I stared out through the glass partition into the function generating department, I tensed with the realization that at that very moment I was looking at one of the “environmental chinks.”
Seeing my expression, Whitney cast a puzzled glance out into the room. “What is it?”
Immediately I recognized the opportunity for a second test, to establish more fully that he was not the Contact Unit. I laughed. “I just noticed something odd about our master data integrator.”
He studied it momentarily. “I don’t see anything.”
“The cabinet is a single, welded unit. I think I can call off its dimensions. Five and a half by twelve. A little over ten feet high. You remember when we installed it?”
Counterfeit World Page 11