“You’re talking in tongues about nothing of interest to me,” I told him. “And you don’t really believe all that yourself.”
He smiled.
“Okay, Steve. How ’bout lookin’ at it this way, then—Marie and me, we just mess up the competition. You and Ann are the ones who really bring in the goodies. The stuff you bring home is more technical and more important. That makes you important. Forget about what you might think are right and wrong. You’re on the winning side. You can write your own ticket, not skitter around like a hog on ice. If you still feel bad ten years from now, when you’re really on top, that’ll be the time to repent. You’ll be in a position for all kinds of good works to ease your conscience. I know all about consciences…”
I shook my head.
I just don’t see it that way.”
He sighed. He shrugged.
“All righty. I can tell The Boss I tried. Want a drink?”
“Yeah.”
He passed me his hip flask and I took a pull. He took a generous one himself before he restored it to his pocket.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Get it over with.”
He looked startled.
“Sorry if I made that seem like your last meal. I’ve got no orders to send you to your reward yet.”
“Do you know what Barbeau’s going to do with me?”
“Nope. He hasn’t said. See you around.”
And that was the last time I’d seen him till he tried to kill me in Philadelphia.
It wasn’t until later that Barbeau, flanked by armed guards, gave me the pitch himself, in very obvious sociological terms. My answer was still the same.
He pursed his lips.
“What are we going to do with you, Steve?”
“I can guess.”
“I’d rather not. Hate to see a talent like yours wasted, especially when you could change your mind one day. Who knows what time might bring?”
“You going to keep me locked up for a few years to find out?”
“I was thinking of a more congenial way for you to pass the time.”
“Oh?”
“How would you like to be someone else?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t have you walking around, knowing everything you know. My contacts at ICC were able to dispose of your message properly. At least, I think that matter’s closed. Hate to have to send Willy Boy to Washington at this point. He should never have to waste his time there on anything less than a congressman.” He chuckled at his own wit. “Now, I can’t just wait around and wonder what you’ll do next time. So you’ve just earned yourself a very long leave of absence—maybe permanent.”
“Meaning?”
“A good doctor can do wonders with hypnosis and drugs. New identity. A whole new set of memories. It’s even easier, I understand, if the patient is cooperative. Now, if the alternative is death and the new life promises to be one long, pleasant vacation, what would any sane man say?”
“You’ve got a point there,” I said, after a time.
… And I dreamed of Baghdad and awoke to palm trees.
I watched the sun go down, lighting low clouds. I was tired. My crazy sleep schedule of the past few days was getting to me. The lights of advancing traffic became a molten stream in my aching eyes. There was no sense in pushing on to Dallas and arriving dead beat. I located a motel outside Texarkana, came up with another new name and paid cash again, just to be cautious. I showered, went out and found a diner, ate, came back and went to bed.
That should have been the end of it for the day, but as I lay there, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, my mind moved toward the nearest focus of data processing activity. A telex, receiving reservations, was chattering away somewhere nearby.
Chattet-tet-ter.
… Low-level stuff, hardly even recreational for the semi-conscious. Yet I drifted with it—somewhere…
“Hello”—flat and mechanical, her entire being. For a moment, I forgot that she was dead…
“Hi, Ann.”
“Hello.”
… Slowly, an awareness that something was wrong came over me. Her image was superimposed upon a twinkling array of lights—a magic loom? consciousness weaving?
Memory crept back.
“What happened?” I asked her.
“Happened…” she repeated. “I am—here.”
“How do you feel?”
“Feel… Where are my flowers?”
“Oh, they’re around. What—what have you been doing?”
“I am not all here,” she said then, as if just discovering it. “I—doing? Waking. I think—waking. Waking up.”
“Is there something you want?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I do not know. More. Yes, more. And my flowers…”
“Where are you?”
“I am—here. I—”
… And then the lights faded and she was gone.
I woke up and thought about it for a time. It had seemed as if she were somehow being turned into a computer program. Not a terribly advanced one, at this point. It seemed as if her mind were somehow preserved in a manner similar to a body’s being maintained on a heart-lung machine. Basic, low-level functioning. How? Why?
I was too tired to return to the data-net and look for answers. A deep, black sleep was rushing toward me…
I cast my plans over an early breakfast. Whether it was impatience or a hunch, I decided to switch modes of transportation in Dallas if I could. I was beginning to feel more confidence in my abilities.
From breakfast to Dallas was not a bad ride; a bit dusty in places, a bit gusty in others, but I made it out to the big Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport in good time. I left the bike in the lot there and found out from an information unit the section of the terminal from which the Dallas to El Paso shuttle departed. I also learned that it routinely stopped at Carlsbad and at Angra Test Facility Number Four. Then I cleaned myself up, had lunch at a counter and rode the monorail to the proper building.
When I arrived, I studied the posted schedule. There were several shuttle flights that afternoon and evening.
Then I went and sat down in a deserted section of the waiting area. I could feel all of the computer activity around me. Since Angra was responsible for this whole damned trip, I decided that they ought to start footing the bill.
I coiled and worked my way eastward through the data-net. Nothing as spectacular as my earlier raid on Big Mac was in order now. The information I wanted would not be in Double Z. By comparison, it would almost be lying about in plain sight. I was still very fresh on the first, outer layer of defenses, and I passed through them like smoke through a window screen.
Angra, too, had multiple-input credit accounts—different ones for different executive levels. I selected a sufficiently high one that it might give me priority on the shuttle—like bumping some lower-grade executive—as Angra appeared to be a steady customer with reserved blocs of seats on the thing. Then, in a whimsical mood, I added Donald Elpat to the list of Angra executives entitled to use that account. Even if the airline were to check back now, I had my bona fides. But why go halfway?
Next, I instructed Big Mac to make the reservation for Elpat, for a seat on the next shuttle. I waited for a confirmation.
I coiled out then, jotted the account number on a scrap of paper from my wallet and rehearsed it until I could call it quickly to mind. Then I went over to the desk, told the man I was Elpat and that I wanted my ticket. I passed him my doctored card at which he did not even glance, save to orient it and insert it into a slot before him. I controlled the signal, and a moment later my ticket emerged from an adjacent slot. He handed it to me.