Nothing. Nothing…
Flicker.
The terminal in the office had been activated. The person was taking a room. The desk clerk was inserting a credit card…
… Coiling into the unit, I moved in a direct line to the credit company’s computer.
I sought out the company accounts listings and ransacked them for multiple input numbers with good high ceilings on the amounts chargable in a day’s time…
… Then I got fussy and looked for one that was easy to commit to memory.
There.
Elpat had found his place of employment.
Just as I coiled out, a wavering image of Ann presented itself to my mind’s eye. Just a blink—flickerclick—and she was gone and I was staring at the ceiling and wondering again at the contents of the subconscious.
I committed the number firmly to mind, then turned the tv on again and watched for a while.
Moving off. Pine pinched my nostrils. An incontinent bird decorated my bike. The day grew warm, but at least I had the wind to cool me somewhat through it. Traffic was moderate. I saw no truck dancers…
Donald Elpat had had no trouble at the vehicle rental place. He had decided upon a motorcycle for a number of reasons—one very good one being that they are not equipped with any devices which would make them show up on traffic data computers; another being that cycling had not been one of my hobbies in Florida, nor had I even done much of it in my previous life. It seemed that I might reasonably expect to take the opposition by surprise by doing it now. At some point in the past I had at least learned how, and these new ones were particularly easy. Re-chargable at any Angra station, the one I selected was powered by ultra-highspeed flywheels which also provided a gyro effect that helped to give it road stability. Donald Elpat signed for it, and we were moving off.
Since I had already zigged, I decided that it was time to zag, and after I had crossed the river I headed to the northwest, for Little Rock.
Yes, the memories had been there, of the occasions when I had biked in the past. They had started back in college, with Ann. We had occasionally continued them, afterwards:
Down in the pine barrens, eating our lunch under the trees…
“I’m beginning to feel funny about this work, Ann. But of course you know that.”
“Yes. But what can I tell you that I did not tell you before?”
“You never told me before that Marie was going to be wrecking other people’s research.”
Her brows fluttered in puzzlement, like dark wings.
“But it is sometimes necessary, to maintain our lead.”
“I thought that the whole point to all our pilferage was that once we had what we needed we could cut through all the rivalries and begin producing cheap energy faster than anybody else.”
“That is correct.”
“But if other people are gaining on us to the point where we have to set them back, it means that maybe they could do a better job than us if they were left alone. Maybe our whole premise is wrong.”
“You thinking of changing employers?”
“No. I’m thinking that maybe we’ve got enough of an edge that we don’t really have to step on the competition. After all—”
“A clear superiority,” she interrupted, sounding like Barbeau now. “We have to be so far ahead that nobody can impede us in the slightest way. Only that will permit us to move quickly and efficiently to save the economy and maintain a high quality of life.”
“You’re talking monopoly, you know.”
“If that’s what it takes, what of it? The alternative is chaos.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know any more. I guess I never knew for certain. And what about this Matthews, anyway? What does he do? There’s something vaguely sinister about him.”
“He is a highly specialized technician,” she said, “and his work is even more secret than ours.”
“But you can read his mind. Is he trustworthy?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “He can always be relied upon to do what he says. I’d trust him with my life.”
I was again persuaded for a time. Some birds were singing. Angra continued to tick along, like a bomb within my mind. I learned a little about bikes in those days, anyway.
I rested in Little Rock that afternoon and chowed down on junk food. Then, batteries recharged, having zagged, it was time to zig again, headed for Dallas, ears buzzing, body vibrating.
Moving off, the beat of the road filling me, my mind went back again, to those last days at Angra. I had learned of Willy Boy’s talent, but still I stayed on, actually buying Barbeau’s explanation that Matthews only incapacitated the competition, putting out researchers with unexplained fainting spells, resurgences of ulcers, false angina pains, temporary blindness, aphasia, bouts of the flu, transient neuropathies of various sorts. Then, one day, on its way from Double Z to destruction, I had come upon the kill order for an executive in a rival company. The only reason it even caught my attention was that I had read the man’s obituary that morning and the name stood out. He had died of heart failure. I’d even met him once. He was young and had seemed healthy. The order had only gone to Willy Boy the day before. There was no way this could be a coincidence…
I stormed into Barbeau’s office. At first he denied it. Then he admitted it and tried to explain that the action was necessary, the man too dangerous.
“Too dangerous to go on living?” I shouted.
“Now listen, Steve. Calm down. You’ve got to understand the big picture…”
He moved around his desk and tried to put his hand on my shoulder, a spurning one of his paternalistic poses. I knocked it away.
“I am starting to understand the big picture. That’s what’s bothering me. I’ve done a lot for good old Angra—a lot of things I felt badly about—but I always consoled myself that a lot of good was going to come out of it all. Now I find out you’re killing people, too! Damn it! We’re not at war! We’ve got to draw the line somewhere—”
The door opened then and two company guards entered. Barbeau had obviously signaled for them when I’d started getting loud. Unfortunately for them I was in the mood to hit something. Right after I’d gotten out of the hospital, after the accident, I’d started in martial arts classes, to build up my muscle tone, my coordination. I’d never stopped, because I’d taken a liking to it. I’d switched disciplines a number of times over the years. I had a whole battery of reflexes.
I left both guards unconscious and Barbeau trying to tell me that Matthews was always quick and merciful. I stalked out and went back to see Big Mac. Before I was taken at gunpoint, I had transmitted the entire contents of our Double Z file to the Interstate Commerce Commission’s computer.
I was held prisoner for three days after that, and I was not physically abused. First, he sent Ann to try to talk me back into the fold, but I was onto her trick of seeing my objections before I voiced them and having the best possible reply ready. This time it was a little different. She couldn’t change the facts and I wasn’t buying anything she had on the menu. She seemed saddened by my attitude, as if I were blaming her personally for everything.
Willy Boy himself actually came around later, and I thought that the show was over for me. But not yet. In an almost eloquent way, interspersed with Biblical quotations which didn’t really apply, he tried to justify himself. Angra was the Chosen People and he was the Joshua for Barbeau’s Moses. For a moment, he almost seemed pathetic, but then I remembered how much he got paid for his expertise.