The Future Is Ours

by Hoch Edward D.

  * * * *

  They turned in the rented car at the Vegas airport, even though he knew it would indicate the direction of his flight. He was not a criminal, and had not yet learned to act like one. He was merely a man in flight, with no reason for covering his tracks.

  On the plane east they held hands like teenagers of some era long ago, and he told her what he remembered of the crowded streets of Manhattan. “There are people, sure, and sometimes it’s difficult to stay on the sidewalk, but it’s all worth it. The last time I was there, New York really got to me. The smallest event brings out thousands of people. It’s a people’s town—people everywhere!”

  “And they all drive cars.”

  “Little electrics, smaller than in California. Traffic is still bad, though. I’ll admit that. With so many people in the New York area there are times when nothing moves.”

  It was night when they landed at Kennedy International Airport, and close to midnight by the time they took the express subway into Manhattan. Lola was hungry, so they had something to eat in the hotel coffee shop before going up to their rooms.

  “Tomorrow we’ll look for an apartment, and jobs,” he said.

  “It’s good to be here with you.”

  “Even with all the people?”

  “Even with all the people. That other life in California—it seems like a nightmare now.”

  “It does, in a way,” he agreed. “We’ve gone back a long way in this country when words can be so dangerous they have to be banned. And it’s no longer the obscenities that frighten people, but a simple word like earthquake. I feel like standing up and shouting it here. Earthquake! Earthquake!”

  She took his hand. “You know, I think I could learn to love you.”

  He was touched by her gentleness. “I guess I already do love you.”

  Later, after they’d finished eating, they left the coffee shop and headed across the lobby to the elevators. Gregory saw the two men first, waiting for them, and he was reminded of Vitroll and the others in California.

  “Lola, those men!”

  “What?”

  But then it was too late to run. “Sorry, sir, I’ll have to ask you and the lady to accompany us.”

  “Not her,” Gregory said. “I’m the one you want.”

  “It’s both of you we want.”

  Lola tried to move away, but the second man seized her arm. “Will you take us back to California?” she asked, and her voice was close to a sob.

  The first man frowned. “We don’t know anything about California. Here’s my identification. George Bates of the Population Control Board, New York City Police.”

  “New York? But we—”

  “You were overheard using a certain word that is not in keeping with the laws of this city. A word that could be harmful, or lead to harmful acts.”

  “What word?” Gregory demanded, feeling his heart sink.

  The man named Bates consulted a notebook. “I believe the word was…love.”

  ABOUT “COMPUTER COPS”

  Written for Hans Stefan Santesson’s anthology of science fiction crime stories, this story introduces Earl Jazine and Carl Crader, agents of the Computer Investigation Bureau, an agency dedicated to solving computer-based crimes. Hoch wrote the story in 1969 and set it forty years in the future. He couldn’t have known about the fall of the World Trade Center, or that the Nixon International Airport would never exist. The story mentioned “Flippies,” a political youth movement similar to the Hippies of the late 1960s, which would come up again in his story “Night of the Millennium.” Hoch’s predictions about online stock trading and computer hacking, though, are uncanny. As mentioned in the introduction, Hoch would go on to write three novels featuring cyber-sleuths Jazine and Crader (The Transvection Machine, 1971, The Fellowship of the HAND, 1972, and The Frankenstein Factory, 1975).

  First Publication—Crime Prevention in the 30th Century, ed. Hans Stefan Santesson; Walker, 1969.

  COMPUTER COPS

  Crader’s office was on the top floor of the World Trade Center, overlooking all of New York City and a good deal of New Jersey. On a clear day he could see the atomic liners gliding silently through the Narrows, or the mail rockets landing at Nixon International Airport far to the west. That is, he could see these things when he had time to look. On this day, a Tuesday in February of 2006, he had no time to look. He was listening to a teletaped report of the previous week’s investigations and arrests, while at the same time jotting down notes in the margin of a computer wiring diagram.

  Carl Crader was the Director of the Computer Investigation Bureau, an organization which had not even existed a decade earlier. From this New York office he directed a field force of 95 investigators and technicians, trained in the highly sophisticated 21st century science of investigating computer crimes. The CIB was a wholly independent government agency, reporting not to the Justice Department but directly to the White House. It was this independence, plus continued feuding between Justice and Commerce, which had placed the world headquarters of the CIB in New York rather than Washington. “I want to be where the action is,” Crader had told the President nine years earlier when the idea was first suggested to him. “And that’s New York, the computer center of the world.”

  He’d never regretted his decision. The CIB had proven to be a highly effective law enforcement agency, operating with limited manpower against some of the best brains in the criminal world. Even now, as he jotted notes and listened to the activity report, he was amazed at how much his Bureau could accomplish. The newspapers liked to call them “The Computer Cops,” and he’d come to take a certain pride in the name.

  Earl Jazine found him at his desk, staring off into space, when he entered a few moments later. “Dreaming of past triumphs, or future ones?” he asked.

  Crader smiled and used the remote control switch to silence the teletype. He liked Jazine, liked the cool brash confidence of the fellow and his way of treating Crader almost as an equal instead of showing the stilted deference the others seemed to feel necessary toward the Director. “Trying to figure a way to screw a BX-7809, if you must know, Earl. There’s a guy over in Jersey City who’s figured a way to program a 7809 so it’s mailing regular checks to all his relatives, and I can’t for the life of me scam how he did it.” Scam was a technical word they’d adopted for general use around the Bureau. Earl especially was fond of it, and Crader threw it into the conversation whenever he wanted to get through to his assistant.

  “Well, I’ve got something a lot bigger than a little payroll swindle for you to worry about, Chief. Nobel Kinsinger just phoned from his office.”

  “Kinsinger?” He was, perhaps, the most spectacularly wealthy man in the Western Hemisphere—an aging soldier of fortune who’d starred in the public press during the ’70s and ’80s, and had now shifted to the financial journals and business magazines. As the inventor of the airwiper for auto windshields, he still received a royalty from every one of the fifteen million cars turned out by Detroit and Birmingham in a year’s time.

  “That’s right—Kinsinger. He wants to see us at his office right away. Somebody’s tapped into his SEXCO system.”

  Crader frowned. “That could be serious. But can’t you handle it, Earl?”

  “He wants nobody less than the Director in person. You’d better handle it personally, Chief. He might get upset and invade you.” Nobel Kinsinger had first come to public attention in the early 1970s, when he’d organized a private army and invaded Cuba in the final days of Castro’s regime. It had been a nine-day wonder, which came dangerously close to starting a world war. In those days, commercial airliners were still being hijacked to Cuba by criminals and mentally unbalanced persons, and Kinsinger had used that fact as the basis of his invasion scheme. One hundred of his crack minutemen had been aboard a plane falsely reported as bei
ng hijacked. When the Cuban officials allowed it to land, the armed troops seized the airport and held it until helicopters could fly in with more men. The private army, numbering less than a thousand, had succeeded in capturing all of downtown Havana and most of its suburbs before being driven back and wiped out by Cuban army troops.

  The whole incident greatly embarrassed the United States government, which spent weeks in the United Nations denying any knowledge of the invasion. Whatever the truth, Castro’s government toppled a few months later, and Nobel Kinsinger returned from a Cuban prison as something of a folk hero. As a self-appointed soldier of fortune and champion of conservatism, he went on to further triumphs, mainly in the Arab-Israeli War of 1978.

  “I hope Kinsinger is beyond his invading days,” Crader said. “He must be nearly seventy years old now.”

  “But still vigorous enough to command a financial empire.”

  Crader thought about it and nodded. “If high friends in Washington still mean power in this country, Kinsinger’s about the most powerful man there is, next to the President himself.”

  “If you don’t go see what his trouble is, he could get on the phone to the President,” Jazine observed, and Crader knew that this was no exaggeration.

  “Let’s go talk to him,” he said with a sigh. “See what the trouble is. Tell Judy to hold all calls and cancel my appointments for the afternoon.” He glanced out at the misty blue sky. “We’ll take the helijet and beat the traffic.”

  * * * *

  Ten minutes later they were airborne, sweeping over lower Manhattan in the twin-engined helijet. The craft was hangared on the roof of the 120-story building, one of the few allowed to operate over Manhattan since passage of the Air Congestion Act. The trip to Nobel Kinsinger’s headquarters across the East River took only a few minutes by air, and they were lowering for a landing when Crader noticed the Kinsinger trademark staring back at him from the helijet windshield. “They’ve even got his airwipers on this thing!” he remarked to Jazine.

  “Sure, they’re everywhere. That’s why he’s the richest man in the country, or one of them anyway.”

  Not just anyone got in to see the richest man in the country. They were met by a burly-looking guard armed with a laser, and escorted past the latest thing in metal-detection devices. Crader never carried a weapon, but Earl Jazine’s M-3 pistol was detected and confiscated.

  They passed through an electronically controlled door and an ultra-violet germ screen before they were met by a smiling secretary in a blue body-stocking. “This way please. We hope you’ll excuse the necessary precautions.”

  Earl Jazine, never one to overlook a pretty girl, eyed her with open admiration. “And what would your name be, Miss?” he asked.

  “I’m Linda Sale, Mr. Kinsinger’s personal secretary. This way, please,” she repeated, urging them on.

  The inner sanctum was a dimly lit, windowless room which seemed more like a chapel than a business office. There was no traditional desk in evidence, only a great padded swivel chair and an altar-like bank of computers set against the far wall. As Crader adjusted his eyes to the dimness he saw the great bulk of a man move out of the shadows to confront them.

  “You’re Carl Crader?” the husky voice asked.

  “That’s right, sir. You’re having some trouble with your SEXCO unit…?”

  Fully visible now as he stepped to the center of the room, Nobel Kinsinger was a vast, elderly man, a spiderweb of wrinkles across his hairless face. He looked older than his 60-odd years, much older, though when he moved there was still something of the old vigor about him. Crader could almost see him leading his troops down Havana’s main street, like some latter-day Teddy Roosevelt.

  “Trouble is an understatement, young man. I’m glad to see you’ve brought a technician with you.”

  Crader hid his smile. “This is Earl Jazine, one of our deputy directors. Everyone in the CIB is a technician of sorts, of course.” As he spoke to Kinsinger he moved over for a better view of the SEXCO unit.

  SEXCO was an acronym for Stock Exchange Computer Operation, a system by which businessmen and wealthy individuals could function as their own stock brokers, buying and selling with the push of a button. To operate it, one simply pressed the code access buttons, then the credit card number the stock was to be charged to, then the stock symbols and the number of shares to be bought at the current market price. The information was relayed instantly to a master computer which matched up buy and sell orders, printed a bill, printed a fresh punched-card stock certificate, and adjusted the market price of the stock upward or downward—all in a matter of seconds.

  SEXCO had proven immensely popular since its introduction some years earlier. Its operation was said to be foolproof, and it enabled the Stock Exchange to handle a volume of fifty million shares a day without flinching. The fact that some younger and more immature businessmen around town used it as something of a gambling device did not detract from its charm. Crader himself had seen men punch the buttons to buy a stock, then immediately punch to sell it, without knowing the price change. It might be up or down, and the thrill of it was something akin to operating a slot machine in one of the plush casinos of Las Vegas or Kansas City.

  “What seems to be your trouble?” Jazine asked, also moving over to examine the machine.

  “Trouble again!” Kinsinger exploded. “That must be a favorite word with you fellows. My trouble is that someone is buying and selling stocks in my name, using my machine.”

  “Don’t you keep it locked?” Crader asked, but he could see for himself that both locks were on.

  “Of course I keep it locked! There’s no way anybody but me could operate it. But someone is, nevertheless.”

  “lmpossible,” Earl Jazine stated flatly. “These things are foolproof. When you punch your code number, an additional code is sent out by the machine itself. The two have to agree, or the computer rejects the order. If someone is buying or selling in your name, he has to use this machine. Yet you say no one but you has access to it.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s impossible! Here’s my bill from the Stock Exchange. I’ve lost close to fifty thousand dollars already through unauthorized manipulation of my holdings.”

  Crader nodded sympathetically and motioned Jazine to start making notes. Then he asked, “Just how is manipulation affecting your holdings, sir?”

  Nobel Kinsinger dropped into his swivel chair, seemingly fatigued. “In a number of ways—mainly by selling short. An order is put through to sell one thousand shares of some stock I don’t even own. If the stock goes lower, a buy order is relayed to the computer the following day. If it goes higher, nothing happens and I get the printed notice demanding delivery of the shares. The same works with buy orders for shares I never heard of. Look on this monthly statement—5,000 shares of Comsat, purchased at 56½, and then sold two days later at 59¼. If it had gone down, I would have received a bill for the shares.”

  “But this swindle would only work if the swindler had access to your mail,” Crader pointed out, thinking of the blond secretary in the blue body-stocking.

  “Of course! But for someone who already has access to my double-locked SEXCO unit, that seems to be no problem. The shares and checks never reach me—only some bills and this monthly statement of my holdings, which is mailed by computer.”

  “Then you suspect someone in your office?”

  “Certainly. I want you to find out how the SEXCO unit is being rigged and who’s doing it.”

  Crader turned to his assistant. “Earl, give the unit a quick check and make certain there’s no runoff cable to another office. In the meantime, Mr. Kinsinger, I want to get a complete list of everyone who could be working the machine or intercepting your mail.”

  Kinsinger swung around in his chair until the overhead light was reflecting off his balding, web-lik
e head. “No one could be working the machine and only two other people have a key to my private mail tube.” Like most of the newer office buildings, Kinsinger’s headquarters was equipped with an air chute connection to the post office substation on the ground floor. Once sorted, mail addressed to Kinsinger or any other officer of the corporation was delivered directly to them by private air chute, there deposited in a locked box until claimed.

  “Your secretary would be one,” Crader said, stating the obvious.

  “Yes, Miss Sale has a key and John Bunyon has a key. He’s my administrative assistant. I have a key, though I only use it when I’m here alone after hours and have to mail something.”

  “I’ll want to talk to Miss Sale and Bunyon,” Crader said. The case suddenly began to seem dull and routine to him. Bunyon would prove to be a handsome young fellow with an unhappy married life, whose office romance with Linda Sale had led them both into the muddy waters of conspiracy.

  Earl Jazine had been on his knees examining the SEXCO machine. Now he stood up and brushed off his pants. “No lead-offs. Could I have the keys to this thing, Mr. Kinsinger?”

  He unlocked the switches and ran a few standard tests while Crader and Kinsinger watched. First a special code was punched into the computer and then Kinsinger’s regular code. A test grouping of stock symbols was run through, and the SEXCO responded as it should, sending back a complex message of numbers and letters. “It checks out,” Earl told them. “Nothing wrong with the unit.”

  “All right,” Crader said. “Then how about the keys?”

  “Only set,” Kinsinger insisted, “and they’re never off my person.”

  “Could I speak to this John Bunyon?”

  “He’s out this afternoon. Had to make a quick flight to Rio. But he’ll be back in the morning. You could speak to Miss Sale.”