The Mirror Maze

by James P. Hogan

  He could be doing more with the rest of the day than sitting here in a hotel, he decided. And the whole of tomorrow was available. He checked his watch, then called Continental Airlines. There was a late flight leaving in a little over an hour and arriving at midnight, which would just give him time to make a few phone calls to set up a schedule for tomorrow and make it to the airport. He booked a ticket, spent the next thirty minutes finalizing his arrangements, and then called Stephanie at his flat in Boston to see how she was doing and let her know his change of plans. Then he called the hotel desk to summon him a cab, packed his things, and settled his bill on the way out. An hour later, he was gazing down at the receding view of Denver from a window seat of an aging Boeing 757 bound for Pensacola.

  CHAPTER 16

  Eva lived on her own near the center of the city on Palafox Avenue, the main north-south thoroughfare. Her apartment consisted of a suite of rooms above a coffee-shop restaurant called The Viennese, which had a small dance floor and bar in the basement. She had her own outside door, under an archway at the top of a flight of stairs at the rear. Another door next to it opened through to a flight of inside stairs leading down to the restaurant. Although, when Mel first met her, Stephanie had talked about moving in with her sister, nothing seemed any closer to happening in that direction, and Mel had formed the impression that Eva was gently but firmly steering Stephanie off the idea. When Eva showed him into the place, he began to see why.

  He had come to think of Eva as a very “feminine” kind of female, who dressed tastefully and matched colors that were vivacious without being showy, and who never foiled to keep herself tidy and personable. He had half expected her to have created what he considered a “feminine” habitat, probably with lots of plants and wickerwork, glassware and china, and soft, silky things draped over fluffy furniture. But what he found was more a mixture of office, mail room, studio, and library, with vague suggestions of a place that somebody might actually live in barely managing to make themselves noticeable here and there.

  There were two rooms facing down over the street, in addition to a bedroom and a bathroom. The smaller of the front rooms had a skylight and was dedicated to Eva’s work. It contained a drawing board that hinged down into a worktable, a copying machine, a corner with a table and sink that seemed fitted out as a photography lab, and two four-drawer file cabinets. The larger room fared a little better in that it did have a long couch by one wall—albeit stacked with books and papers except for space for one person to sit—a comfortable looking leather recliner, and a low wooden coffee table with a computer on one end, surrounded by manuals. There was a kitchen area at one end. But most of what was visible—piled on tables and displayed on the walls—was connected with the two passions that dominated Eva’s life—her political work: posters, pamphlets, bulging files, labeled wads of newspaper clippings; and her studies: books on history, books on philosophy, books on political theory, books on economics, heaps of references and notes.

  But then Mel began warming to it all as he looked around. It was as uniquely her as everything else she did. He had walked, he realized, inside Eva’s head as near as it was possible to do. Here she would be alone when she chose, with her thoughts, her mood, her mind, and her work. There was no place for a chattering younger sister.

  They had stopped for the pizza on the way. Eva put it in the oven to reheat, filled a pot of water for coffee, and then cleared away some space around the terminal. Mel took the things he had brought with him out of his bag, and settled down to begin work. Eva brought the pizza and coffee over on a tray, moved the box of brochures off the footrest of the recliner, and sat down. She watched as he worked in silence, using the keyboard deftly, pausing to examine a response or check a section in one of the manuals, then tapping in another string of code.

  “I like watching people who know what they’re doing,” she said after a while.

  “It’s my subject. It’d be kind of embarrassing if I didn’t,” Mel replied. In fact the system was almost identical to one he’d looked at a few months previously. This was going to be a piece of cake. “What does Dave Fenner do?” he asked, trying to sound more nonchalant than he felt. Dave had gone back to Washington a couple of days after Mel’s first visit to the Brodsteins’ with Brett and Stephanie, but that hadn’t prevented Mel from wondering how things stood.

  “He’s a purchasing consultant,” Eva said.

  “What does that involve, out of curiosity?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “Oh…” He was never going to find out if he didn’t go for it now, he told himself. “So, how is it with you and him? I mean…” Despite himself, his mind gummed up and left him hanging.

  To one side of him, Eva smiled and got him off the hook. “I’m my own person,” she said. “Nobody owns me.”

  “Yes, that’s how I think people ought to be, too…” Anxious not to make it sound as important to him as it was, he searched for another subject to move the conversation along. “You remember what you were saying when we were in the cafeteria with Sadie last week—about Apollo and Big-Government social programs, and people trying to apply methods that work in one area to other areas where they don’t?”

  “What about it?” Eva asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about it. It was really a case of history repeating itself wasn’t it?”

  Eva looked intrigued. “How do you mean?”

  Mel spoke as he continued working at the keyboard. “The Renaissance that ended the Dark Ages in Europe. In what seemed like no time, the new method of science brought understanding of subjects that had been dominated by superstition and ignorance for a thousand years.”

  “Religious tyranny couldn’t stand against the printing press,” Eva agreed. “So?”

  “A lot of people thought that the human race had found the solution to all its problems. It was like you said with Big-Govemment spending: poverty, oppression, injustice, inequality—all mankind’s social problems—would be solved by the same method that had proved so successful elsewhere. If science could unify astronomy with gravity, and explain things like heat, matter, motion, and all that kind of stuff, then science could accomplish anything. What we needed was the scientifically planned society.”

  “Oh, but it was with the best of intentions,” Eva said, with just the right touch of irony in her voice. “We must all be prepared to sacrifice ourselves for the greater common good.”

  Her tone was mildly mocking, not at him, he realized, but because she agreed with him all the way. Mel had never before had the feeling of being able to communicate with anyone so instantly. “But that’s exactly what destroys everyone’s freedom,” he said. “Because people who have a choice will never all agree with any one person’s idea of what’s best for them, and the only way you’ll ever get them to go along is by force. The institutions of a free society become obstacles to the plan and get swept aside to be replaced by coercion. And once you’ve made that start, the end of the line is the secret police, the Gestapo, the Gulag, and the concentration camp. Science may be great for explaining the physical universe and building machines that work, but it’s not the way to try and run a society—you end up turning that into a machine, too. Yet people keep on trying because it works so well in its own field. As you said about Apollo, it’s difficult to argue with success.” He glanced at Eva. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes…” she said. There was a fascinated light in her eyes as she watched him. “It’s so right… You think more than most people do.”

  Mel shrugged, enjoying the compliment. “I try.” He nodded at the screen. “Anyhow, I figure we may have cracked it. Let’s give it a try.” He entered a command. At once an instruction menu appeared on the screen. “There,” he pronounced. “You’re into the system executive. You can follow its directory from there. All you have to do now is define your own linking structure.” He sat back and looked at Eva challengingly.

  “Great,” she said. “You’re a genius.” />
  Mel sent her a look of exaggerated surprise and innocence. “What did you expect?”

  “You never know…” Eva spoke softly, with a curious edge to her voice, her eyes regarding him unwaveringly. Then, before he knew what to make of it, she unfolded herself from the recliner and went over to the cooking area. She had on a light blue dress that buttoned down the front and clung to her figure as she moved. She had kicked off her shoes, and the sight of her bare, tanned legs going up into the skirt of the dress excited him. “How about another coffee?” she said over her shoulder.

  “Sure, why not?” Even though she was only a few feet away, he missed the closeness that he’d been conscious of for the last hour. He looked around and saw the plates and mugs from earlier still on the coffee table. “Here, I’ll bring these.” He stacked everything else on the Styrofoam container that the pizza had come in, and walked around the counter close up behind her. The question had been building up inside him all evening, and now his chest was thumping suddenly with the realization that one way or another he would have to resolve it in the next few seconds. Eva turned, still with that same befuddling mixture in her eyes of interest and curiosity. They were only inches apart, close to each other to a point that couldn’t be ignored. Move or back off; this was the moment. Her eyes were scanning his face impishly, reading him, challenging him to dare it. And at the same time there was a sparkle in them, a hope that he would. For another fraction of a second he agonized.

  And then Eva moved her face forward and brushed her lips lightly on his. It was hardly a kiss, but it carried just the amount of reassurance he needed. “Society’s a bitch, isn’t it?” she whispered. “It gives men such a hard time.”

  Then he kissed her, just a peck, but with no mistake about it. She did the same back, and smiled. His slid his arms under hers and hugged the body he’d fantasized and dreamed about, then kissed her chin, her cheeks, her forehead, her eyebrows, her nose. And then their mouths found each other again, lingeringly this time, tongues feeling tongues and teeth. She tasted fresh and clean. She was breathing heavily, her breasts heaving against his chest. He slid his hands down her back and over her rear, pulling the middles of their bodies together, and felt her thrusting back at him wantonly. Then Eva pushed him away slightly and slipped through between him and the counter. For one panicking moment he thought she was stopping it there before things went further. But without saying a word she took his hand and led him into the bedroom, which opened off the back of the large lounge. He closed the door behind him, and when she turned to face him, he saw that she had already unbuttoned her dress. He watched, fascinated as she peeled the dress off her shoulders and let it fall onto a chair. Then, slowly, keeping her eyes on his face, she reached behind and took off her bra, slid the rest of her underwear down her legs and stepped out. She was as perfect as he had imagined, he saw as she straightened up.

  “Wow!” he murmured approvingly, but still not quite believing it.

  “Pleased? You said you wanted to seduce me.”

  “What?… But I never said anything…”

  Eva moved forward, silenced him with a kiss, and began undoing his shirt. “Mel, you’ve been saying it ever since that first night at the Brodsteins’. And you’ve been seducing me with your mind all evening.”

  And the bedroom, he noticed for the first time, was different. It was soft and warm and… feminine.

  Exactly the way it should have been…

  CHAPTER 17

  After renting a car at Pensacola airport, Mel made a detour on his way to the hotel, which took him along Palafox again. He couldn’t pretend that it was a sudden impulse. He had made the decision quite deliberately during the flight from Denver, with a mixture of nostalgic anticipation and curiosity to discover his own reaction. When he came to the block where she had lived, he eased over to the inside lane and slowed to a crawl—it was after midnight and the traffic was sparse. The Viennese restaurant was still there, lit up and doing business, with the usual mix of late-night coffee drinkers and arguing intellectuals huddled around the tables behind the plants in the front window. Prominently displayed in the door and visible in the light from a lamp across the street was a poster showing the Constitutional tortoise. Written underneath in large letters, presumably added since the election, were the words, GO WINNER. NOW THE 28th!

  And the apartment above was still there, too, just as it had been. Mel drew in to the curb and sat for a while staring up at the windows, his mind engulfed with memories, some happy, some tender, some painful. There were pleated orange drapes across the window of the large lounge, lit from behind by a lamp that gave a warm and inviting look to the whole place. He was glad that it still seemed to be well kept and taken care of. The thought crossed his mind of going into the restaurant for coffee, but he decided against it. He had just passed by out of a sense that it seemed proper to do so—as a gesture of respect to something that once had been; it hadn’t been to drown himself in a flood of emotion. And besides, he didn’t want to meet any familiar faces from the past. Somehow that would have been an intrusion into the privacy of a moment that belonged only to him and to a memory.

  He looked up again one last time, and noticed the flowers along the bottom of the window, to his mind looking forlorn in front of the orange drapes… Flowers for Eva. A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed, brushed the corner of his eye, put the car into drive, and pulled out into the traffic lane to head for his hotel.

  • • •

  His first call from Denver the previous day had been an attempt to solicit Paul Brodstein’s help in approaching the university. But the call had been redirected to the number of a friend of the Brodsteins, who informed Mel that they were away on one of their travels again, this time to the Middle East—he believed, to Lebanon. So, Mel had contacted the university directly, using his ploy of representing a Boston law firm again, and talked to the deputy registrar, a Mrs. Betty Crouch. He explained that he was working on a case involving patent rights for a certain type of computer software. There were claims that part of the design work had been the subject of student projects at the university several years ago, which placed it in the public domain, and Mel was anxious to contact some of the people who had been involved at that time. The information could be subpoenaed, of course, but it would be so much more convenient if he could obtain it informally. His story had been accepted without question, and the visit went without any hitches. He was even assigned a clerk to help him make copies of the records that he needed.

  From there he went to the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce, which had offices in an attractive Spanish-style villa near the waterfront, this time as an old friend and former student of Professor Paul Brodstein, whom he knew was well known to the Chamber through his work with the Constitutional party. He was doing some research on the guest speakers that the university had hosted over the years, he said, and in cases where the invitations had been handled jointly with the Chamber, he was anxious to make sure that the Chamber got appropriate credit and mention where due. The image of local education and local business working together would be good PR for both. Again, everything went smoothly, and he left feeling more than satisfied with his morning’s work. There were times, he reflected, when all the hours he’d spent researching facts as a lawyer had its advantages.

  On his way across town to return to his hotel, he passed Obee’s. He was dismayed to see that the place was closed down, with weeds growing on the forecourt, the workshop doors padlocked, and the office windows boarded. Mel pulled off the highway and into Mac’s, the convenience store next door.

  “Hey, I remember you from a few years back. Well, say, talk ’bout a face from the past… Mel, that was it!”

  “Hi, Mac. How are things?”

  “Oh, cain’t grumble, y know. Well, you can if you want to, but it won’t do you a helluva lotta good, hee, hee… How’s bout yourself? Where’d you finally end up?”

  “In Boston. I’m with a law firm now.”

&nb
sp; “Oh—made out okay, eh? Well, that’s good, that’s good. Ever’thing’s much the same around here as it ever was. Cain’t say as I’ll live to see it much different, either.”

  “What happened to Obee’s?”

  “Oh, yes, exceptin’ that, ’o course. Yep, that was a real shame, a real bad shame.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, the government was always givin’ Sam a hard time, what with regulations and taxes and the like, and he got to complainin’ and talkin’ to the papers, and I guess he musta got hi’self wrote down somewhere as a marked man. One day he came back to the shop and found some inspector woman from the Occupational Safety or whatever they call ‘em had been right in there while he was out and listed over twenty infringements that she said she’d found, and she left a paper tellin’ him it was a two-hundred-dollar fine right there, no messin’.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Right as I’m standin’ here. Well, he went to court and fought ’em—cost him upward of two thousand dollars. ’Said, ‘How can I be guilty when I ain’t had no trial?’ And he won, too, ’cause it turned out that she didn’t have more ’n a month ’o learnin’ in some kinda class they run, and he’d been in the business all his life… But it took the heart out o’ him, y’know. Didn’t wanna carry on no more. He said people shouldn’t be havin’ to fight their own government on top of ever’thin’ else. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. So he quit and moved down south someplace. I ain’t too sure what he’s doin’ these days.”