The cot was there, as well as some elementary plumbing, for the same reason that the truck was still fitted with a full set of manual controls and two seats. The Teamsters’ Union had been given large blocks of stock in companies profiting from this accelerated trend to automation. They no longer raised serious objections to the gradual cutback in the number of drivers’ jobs, but the issue of requiring a live driver on board was not completely dead. It had not exactly been a Big 10-4 all the way—more a forty-roger, finger-wave, 10-65. So, the trucks still came equipped and continuing negotiations still raised the possibility of some form of featherbedding. For which I was, at the moment, grateful. This because, in addition to the facilities, I had also located some freeze-dried food evidently left by the last human driver or passenger. I had eaten enough to take the edge off my hunger before I had collapsed the seat and stretched out, overcome by fatigue.
All right. I had to provide for my continuing safety. Which meant that I had to know as much as I could before I allowed myself the luxury of sleep. There was still too much that I did not know about this freight run and everything connected with my passage, and there was only one way that I could discover more—
Click. Clicket. Clicketderick.
Down, twisting, into, through, expanding now, out branches and sub-branches… Dots of light… Break-voids… The elegant symmetries of the programs and contingency programs within the onboard computer… Laid out like an incandescent formal garden… No scents here, however, and sense coded… Pause and consider its ways… The rest will come. . .
The computer steered and controlled speed, receiving information on road conditions and other matters through a communications strip buried in the pavement. Its radar probed continually on all sides for other traffic and for unexpected obstacles. In principle, it was similar to the manner in which the Hash Clash moved along the channels among the Keys, obtaining information from broadcast units on their banks. And at the same time as this one managed the driving, it was monitoring engine performance, the condition of the brakes and all other systems.
I passed in analogue through these various functions, coming to understand them as I did so. And this, in turn, provided a number of insights into the overall design. I coiled further then, attacking the travel-code. There were a number of obscurities—bits with no immediately apparent referents, the precise meanings of which would have to remain unknown until they were actually called into operation—but the general picture began to fall into place. It seemed likely that our destination was Memphis.
Further, further… Winding through the programs… The biggest question of all still pended… The Why still waved and fluttered like a bright banner before me… I ransacked the instructions until I came upon it—strange, and at the same time familiar…
Ricketerclick.
I withdrew from the bright microcosm, puzzled.
I groped beneath the dashboard then for a small first aid kit which the computer’s inventory had told me should be present. I located it and brought it out. I found some bandages and an antibacterial ointment within.
There was also a small drum of water with a flexible hose and a tap nearby. I drank some and used some more to wash my cuts. I applied the ointment then and covered the wounds.
Running in darkness like a company of migrating creatures, untouched and untouching, the great trucks bent their course across the land. We maintained a precise distance from the one before us. If a car cut in there was an immediate adjustment. The lane in harmony lay to the central beat of the mechanical heart. I felt the stern march of its program all about me. Yet—
I had seen it there… My signature. As plain as if it were in longhand. I had seen it as I had seen that it was the hand of a stranger rather than Cora’s which had left the message back at my condo. It made no sense… And yet it made sense.
I reclined myself completely, to where only gangs of passing stars were visible beyond the window. More thinking was definitely in order, and I stoked my tired brain and sought the tracks of reason.
The instruction that the truck stop back when it did to pick me up had not been a part of its original programming package. I had seen the alterations in its instructions, and it had been plain to me that I had somehow put them there myself. I had ordered the truck to stop for me. But how? I had never done anything like that before, had never been able to, was not even certain how to go about it.
And then I was uncertain of my uncertainty. There was the matter of the transposed digits when the policeman had punched out my SR number. Had he really made a mistake, or had an alteration occurred in the signal itself? I wondered. Was my signature on that one, too?
And the odd behavior of the monorail cars back at the terminal… I had been striving to do—something—as Willy Boy applied his cardiac arrest routine. Even then, could I have been operating at some new level?
I again recalled Marie’s words—“…getting better at what I do”. Had my ability continued to develop, along new lines, during its long period of quiescence? Had all of the recent stresses to which I had been subjected then forced me to use it in this new range, my much-abused subconscious pulling the strings?
If this were the case, and if I could learn to do it consciously, I saw a travel insurance policy suddenly presented.
But I continued to rack my still-incomplete memory. Nothing. I had always been a passive receiver, monitoring the internal activity of data processing equipment. I could not recall a single earlier instance where I had ever actually altered the programming. Now, it seemed that it could not have come to pass at a more appropriate time.
Terdickterclick.
… And around and in, again. The magical landscape lay all about me. I sought the place my mind chose to perceive as a fiery waterfall dropping into a bright yellow pool… Yes. There.
I plunged into the pool.
Down, down… Down through the immaterial linkages with the communications strip beneath the pavement… Now, like an underground river, flung… Rushing, off and away, into the vast, interconnected network of terminals and processors and junctions… What I had in mind would require adjustments at both ends…
Now, could I affect the pattern of the flow?
I willed it. I pushed. Spread out myself, both here and there, I strove to alter things at both the broadcast and reception ends, to change the characteristic signal which continuously reported the vehicle’s position to the central traffic control systems. On the far end, I worked to alter the record, to make it suitable and proper…
I watched the bits fly by, like a line of blazing bees…
Success.
I had disguised the vehicle I was riding in. When Barbeau discovered that I had not been hit and killed trying to run across the highway and that I could not be located on the other side either, he would begin to wonder who or what might have stopped at night to pick up a bleeding refugee. Let him wonder. Let him look. This truck had not passed that way.
I trickled through systems for the sheer pleasure of the ride, resisting the temptation to tamper in small ways for the fun of it. A feeling of enormous elation passed through me at the realization of this new aspect of my power. If Barbeau only knew what I had now, what mightn’t he offer me?
Cora? And my life?