“What’s a shibboleth?”
“It’s from the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. The men of Gilead went to war against the men of Ephraim, and the Ephraimites got slaughtered. When the survivors tried to pass themselves off as members of another tribe, their accents gave them away: Ephraimites couldn’t pronounce the ‘sh’ sound, so when they said the word ‘Shibboleth,’ it came out ‘Sibboleth.’”
“And a shibboleth device…?”
“Same basic idea. It’s a tool for sorting good monkeys from bad monkeys.”
“By the way they talk?”
“By the way they feel. The device tests for inappropriate emotional responses. Like, someone tells you your mother died, and you’re happy instead of sad. Or someone makes you talk about this shameful thing you did, only you’re not ashamed.” He laughed again. “You look worried. Don’t be. I don’t know what went on between you and Dixon, but if he had any serious doubts about you, you wouldn’t be here. This operation’s too important.”
“What is the operation, anyway?”
He handed me a silver medical bracelet like the kind epileptics wear. On one side was a cluster of Egyptian hieroglyphs over the legend OZYMANDIAS LLC. On the other side was an inscription:
in case of death
keep body cool & call
1-800-EXTROPY
for further instructions
—————
$50,000 cash reward
“You know what cryogenics is?” Wise asked.
“Sure. It’s where they put you on ice until doctors can invent a cure for whatever killed you. I didn’t know there was a rewards program, though.”
“That’s the deluxe version. The goal is to get the cadaver into cryostasis as quickly as possible, to minimize postmortem decay.”
“Let me guess: this is one of those clever-sounding ideas that turns out not to be.”
“There is a contradiction,” said Wise, “between wanting to live forever, and offering a cash bounty for the discovery of your corpse.” He passed me a stack of what looked like baseball cards. But the pictures were of both men and women, and the stats on the back weren’t sports-related. “These are all the customers of the Ozymandias Corporation who’ve died within the past six months.”
I counted thirteen cards. “How big is their client list?”
“Not that big. Going by the average of previous six-month periods, there should be two cards in that stack at most.”
“So someone’s killing them off for the bounty money…But wouldn’t that be kind of hard to get away with? I mean, you’d think the company would get suspicious when the same person kept claiming all the rewards.”
“The bodies were all discovered by different people,” Wise said, “and there’s no obvious connection between any of the discoverers. But we believe a connection exists.”
“So it’s an organized racket? Murder for profit?”
“Profit, and one other motive.”
“What?”
“Evil. We believe the killers’ ultimate goal—after making as much money as possible—is to attract the attention of the police.”
“Aren’t the police already paying attention?”
“Not yet. But their involvement is inevitable if the deaths continue at this rate—and the first thing they’ll do when they launch their investigation is order an autopsy of all the bodies.”
I thought about it. “Autopsies mean thawing them out…”
“Thawing them out, and cutting them up.”
“So not only are they dead before their time, they lose their shot at resurrection.”
“You find that amusing?”
“Well no, I think it’s horrible, but…come on. The whole cryogenics thing is bullshit anyway, right?”
“Yeah, like organ transplants. Or cloning.”
“OK,” I said, not wanting to argue the point, “OK, back up, I still don’t understand why the police aren’t already investigating this. If thirteen people were murdered—”
“You didn’t look closely enough at the stats.”
I shuffled through the cards again. “Cause of death: heart attack…Cause of death: heart attack…Cause of death: stroke…Cause of death: heart attack…” I looked up. “Are you guys missing an NC gun?”
“Along with its owner.” He laid one more card on the counter.
“Jacob Carlton.”
“Former Good Samaritan, transferred to Bad Monkeys in 1999. He disappeared last June during an operation in Reno. Originally the thinking was he’d been taken out by the guy he was hunting, but now it looks like there’s another explanation.”
“So how do we find him?”
“We believe Carlton has taken a job inside the Ozymandias Corporation. Panopticon’s been trying to bug their headquarters for weeks, but the surveillance equipment keeps malfunctioning. You and I are going to go in there today, posing as clients.”
The Ozymandias facility was another forty miles out in the desert. “If they’re in such a hurry to freeze people,” I asked, as we drove across the wasteland, “wouldn’t it make more sense to build the place in town?”
“Zoning regulations,” Wise said vaguely.
“They have those in Vegas?”
The first sign we were getting close was a shimmer of color on the horizon. I thought it was a heat mirage, but within another mile the shimmer had resolved itself into a green circle with a white building at its center.
A big cargo helicopter came screaming overhead as we passed through the gardens of Ozymandias to the visitor parking lot. The helicopter touched down just east of the building, and a team of guys in moon suits came running to unload a silver body bag and hustle it inside.
“OK, so what’s our cover?”
“We’re married,” said Wise. He handed me a ring. “Mr. and Mrs. Doe.”
“Jane Doe? Yeah, that’s not suspicious.”
“Don’t worry about it. When we get inside, I’ll be doing the talking. You just nod your head and keep your eyes peeled for Carlton.” He opened the glove compartment and brought out my NC gun. “One more thing, we’d like to get him alive if we can.”
“No problem.” I set the gun’s dial to NS, narcoleptic seizure.
Coming in the building we got hit with a blast of arctic air, like the company wanted to let us know right away it could deliver. We went to the reception desk, where a woman in four layers of wool printed us badges and told us a Dr. Ogilvy would be right with us.
Ogilvy reminded me of Ganesh. There wasn’t much of a physical resemblance—except that he was small, and looked like he’d be easy to beat up—but he had a nervousness about him, and also a sadness, like this wasn’t the career he’d planned on having. Once he’d introduced himself and got his game face on, though, he was pretty peppy. “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Doe, thank you so much for coming out here today! Let’s go back to my office and talk about what Ozymandias can do for you!”
Ogilvy’s office had a big bay window that looked out on an acre of fruit trees and flower bushes. The greenbelt was shot through with rainbows from an automated sprinkler system, and if I’d had a tab of acid I could have stared at it all day. But Ogilvy didn’t offer us any drugs, just comfy chairs and tea. Then he got down to business: “I understand you’re interested in purchasing one of our life-extension plans.”
I must have looked like I was going to make a crack, because Wise laid a hand on my arm before answering, “Yes.”
“And will this be for both of you, or…?”
“Neither,” Wise said.
“Neither.” Ogilvy’s eyebrows went up and down a few times. “Is it a gift, then? We do have gift packages, it’s actually fairly common, or well, not common, but…For the friend who has everything, or a valued employee about to retire…”
“It’s for our son.”
“Oh! Oh, I see. Your son…?”
“Philip.”
“I see. And how old is Philip?”
“He’s ten.”
“And is he…ill?”
“He was in an accident. He was playing outside, and his sister was supposed to be watching him, but…Well, you know how kids are. She got distracted.”