“That must be me.” Cocking one eyebrow. “Any word of this sabotage being stopped?”
“Not that I heard.”
“Good. At least they didn’t make that ridiculous promise. Because it can’t be stopped. I guess you all know about tapeworms … ? Good. Well, what I turned loose in the net yesterday was the father and mother—I’ll come back to that in a moment—the father and mother of all tapeworms.
“It consists in a comprehensive and irrevocable order to release at any printout station any and all data in store whose publication may conduce to the enhanced well-being, whether physical, psychological or social, of the population of North America.
“Specifically, whether or not anybody has required a printout of it, information concerning gross infringements of Canadian, Mexican and/or United States legal enactments respecting—in order of priority—public health, the protection of the environment, bribery and corruption, fair business and the payment of national taxes, shall be disseminated automatically to all the media. For this purpose ‘gross’ is defined by setting a threshold: no such infringement shall be published unless at least one person made from it an illegal profit of at least ten thousand dollars.”
He had straightened as he spoke. Now he was arrow-rigid, and his voice boomed in huge resounding periods like the tolling of a death bell.
“This is indeed the father and mother of a tapeworm. It’s of a type known as parthenogenetic. If you’re acquainted with contemporary data-processing jargon, you’ll have noticed how much use it makes of terminology derived from the study of living animals. And with reason. Not for nothing is a tapeworm called a tapeworm. It can be made to breed. Most can only do so if they’re fertilized; that’s to say, if they’re interfered with from outside. For example the worm that prevents the Fedcomps from monitoring calls to Hearing Aid, and the similar but larger one that was released at Weychopee—Electric Skillet—to shut down the net in the event of enemy occupation: those are designed to lie dormant until tampered with. That’s true of all phage-type worms.
“My newest—my masterpiece—breeds by itself. For a head it wears a maximum-national-advantage rating, a priority code that I stole from G2S. It was allocated to the corporation because like other hypercorps it’s been treated for years as though it were above the law. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to make known all the bribes, all the graft, all the untaxed kickbacks, which don’t appear in G2S’s annual report to the stockholders. …
“Right behind that, my worm wears a U-group code, which does the same for individuals. The owner of a U-group code will never find himself in court. Never. No matter if he rapes the mayor’s daughter at midday on Main Street. You don’t believe me? Go punch a veephone. Ask for a plain-language printout of the status label worn by a U-group code. As of about an hour and a half ago it will print out for anybody … and it’s enlightening.”
Two or three people rose in the body of the hall as though bent on confirming Nick’s assertion. He paused to let the disturbance subside.
“In back of that again, there’s the key which opens the secure data banks at all secret psychological research establishments, including Tarnover and Crediton Hill. Behind that is one which opens the Treasury files on tax-avoidance suits unpursued by presidential order. Behind that is the one which opens similar files belonging to the Attorney General. Behind that is the one which opens the files of the Food and Drug Authority. And so on. By now I don’t know exactly what there is in the worm. More bits are being added automatically as it works its way to places I never dared guess existed. The last I found out about before I came along to talk to you was a key for the CIA’s sexual-blackmail file. There’s some raunchy material in there, and I predict it will be popular home viewing this winter.
“A couple of final points before someone asks me. First, is this an unforgivable invasion of privacy? Invasion of privacy it is; unforgivable … Well, do you believe that justice shall not only be done but shall be seen to be done? The privacy my worm is designed to invade is that privacy under whose cover justice is not done and injustice is not seen. It doesn’t care whether the poker who leeched his tax-free payoff spent it on seducing little girls; it cares only that he was rewarded for committing a crime and wasn’t brought to book. It doesn’t care if the shivver who bought that congressman was straight or gay; it cares only that a public servant took a bribe. It doesn’t care if the judge who misdirected the jury was concerned to keep her lover’s identity secret; it cares only that a person was jailed who should have been released.
“And—no, it can’t be killed. It’s indefinitely self-perpetuating so long as the net exists. Even if one segment of it is inactivated, a counterpart of the missing portion will remain in store at some other station and the worm will automatically subdivide and send a duplicate head to collect the spare groups and restore them to their proper place. Incidentally, though, it won’t expand to indefinite size and clog the net for other use. It has built-in limits.”
He gave a faint smile.
“Though I say so myself, it’s a neat bit of work.”
All of a sudden a man no older than his thirties, but pot-bellied, who had been in a seat near the back of the hall, came yelling down the aisle.
“Traitor!” he howled. “Goddamned stinking traitor!”
With his right hand he was tugging at something under his jacket; it appeared to have caught. It came free. It was a pistol. He tried to aim it.
But a quick-witted student in a seat on the aisle stuck out his leg. The fat man went sprawling with a yell, and next moment a booted foot tramped on his right wrist and he was disarmed.
From the platform Nick said, “Ah. That’s the first. It won’t be the last.”
AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU YOU
Q This place Tarnover you keep talking about. I never heard of it.
A It’s a government establishment, one of several. All are under the direction of the spiritual successors of the people who deployed nuclear weapons in overkill quantity. Or maybe I should cite the people who thought nothing of taking a fee to condition little boys out of playing with themselves.
Q What?
A You don’t believe there were such people? Punch for data concerning the income of the Behavioral Science Department of the Lawrence campus of the University of Kansas back around 1969, 1970. I swear it’s true.
Q Same again, but this time Weychopee.
A Ah, yes. Working for G2S I moused deep into their banks. That’s Electric Skillet, the continental defense center. By defense they mean they override the controls on all incoming chunks of asteroid ore and send them crashing down on the eastern hemisphere like a rain of thousand-ton hailstones. I haven’t yet checked out how many of the people who bought asteroid drivers from G2S realized that facility was built in.
Q But that’s insane!
A Sure it is. The blast wave from the impact would level every structure on this continent taller than fifteen meters. They don’t core. They want to turn Ragnarök into rain-of-rocks. Excuse me. Yes?
Q The bottom dropped out of stock in Anti-Trauma. Your doing?
A Mostly theirs. Their failure rate has never fallen below sixty-five percent, but they’ve kept it such a close secret that last year they doubled their clientele. Never again, I hope.
Q Some weird things happened to Delphi odds lately.
A I’m glad you brought that up. Data from Crediton Hill are in the net by now. Check them out. A lot of you probably have deeveed tickets you can claim against. The legislation authorizing Delphi betting obliged the organizers to make refunds if it could be shown that the pool was manipulated, and there’s no reference to the organizers themselves being exempt.