Authors: Greg Krehbiel
"That's just the point, really," Dr.
Berry
said. "The visual information we feed to the brain through the implant is quite different from what the brain normally receives from the eye, but somehow the brain figures it all out and we see the image. The implant can only do what we program it to do, but the brain has the ability to adapt to differing kinds of sensory input. It's really quite remarkable."
MacKenzie was lost in thought for a moment. Hanna would have said she was in genius mode. Dr.
Berry
just watched, patiently.
"You might talk to a friend of mine," she said in an odd tone of voice after more than a minute. "He does a lot of contract work for me when I need a special analysis of implant problems. He knows more about the technical side of implant communication than anyone. His name is Duncan Douglas." She paused and studied MacKenzie's face. "Do you know him?"
MacKenzie was certain she had lost some color in her face. It was just too coincidental. "Know him? I don't think so. I may have heard the name around the lab. But there's one more thing I'd like to ask of you. Can I borrow an implant? A new one."
"Sure, but why would you want to?" Dr.
Berry
asked. "There are computer simulations available that are 100 percent reliable. If you tried to set up an interface between a workstation and an actual implant, you'd probably get noise in the signal."
"I just want to be thorough -- just in case something was overlooked in the simulation programs."
"On one condition," Dr.
Berry
said. "When you're done with it, come back and tell me about your research. That is, if you find anything. And be sure to talk to
Duncan
."
"Deal," MacKenzie said
Dr.
Berry
's expression was inscrutable as she led MacKenzie to the storage closet, gave her a small, sealed package, and escorted her out. "I hope to see you again soon, MacKenzie," she said. "By the way, is that your proper name?"
"It's my last name. I don't like my first name, so everybody calls me MacKenzie. See you soon."
*
*
*
"How did it go with the dragon lady?" Hanna asked over a burger in the dorm cafeteria. Hanna and MacKenzie usually met there for lunch, and almost always for dinner.
MacKenzie laughed. "That's a good description of her, I think. She's formidable, has strange, unknown powers," she said this in an eerie voice, like a magician casting a spell, "and a very large and obvious weak spot."
"So where's she vulnerable?" Hanna asked, straining to get her mouth around the over-sized sandwich.
"An ego like this," MacKenzie replied, holding her hands out as far she could reach. "But I found out something really important." She paused until she had Hanna's full attention. "She knows
Duncan
."
Hanna's jaw dropped open, and then she giggled at herself for having such a stereotyped reaction. MacKenzie shook her head. "Do you think that's how she knew all those creepy things about Jeremy?" Hanna asked. "Do you think
Duncan
has been feeding her stuff?"
MacKenzie shrugged. "It's the best guess we've got so far. If not, it sure is a remarkable coincidence." MacKenzie didn't believe in coincidences, and Hanna knew it.
"I spoke with Jeremy today," Hanna said. "It looks like his new job, whatever it is, is going to keep him pretty busy for a while."
MacKenzie nodded. "I hope he's okay. Personally, I think he's in over his head."
"So are we," Hanna said. "I'm still wondering if I'm going to get kidnapped again. But you look as if you've got something else on your mind. What else is there?"
"I borrowed an implant from Dr.
Berry
," she said. "So far, all my computer work has been on the simulators at the lab, but I'm beginning to think that the simulators don't tell the whole story. This is starting to get too creepy, Hanna."
*
*
*
Whatever the agenda had been for Jeremy's
10:00
meeting with Peter, it had been torn up and discarded. From the moment he came back to the office Jeremy noticed a frightened calm among the other staff. He didn't know that this was the telltale sign that the boss was in a lather about something. Jeremy found out as soon as he walked into his office.
"Do you have any idea how much we paid to set up this office?" Peter asked Jeremy. "It's supposed to be a secret. Your training has already covered that -- several times, I believe. Maybe you haven't picked this up yet, but this is a secret operation, and right now you're one of our biggest secrets. So what do you do? Your first week on the job you run off on a private mission and bring two of your girlfriends into the office to impress them."
There were a lot of things Jeremy could have said, but he kept them in. He didn't think it was wise to argue with an angry person, much less an angry boss.
"And then this morning you go and visit Lenzke. I don't know what you're thinking, mister, but we don't let on who works for the agency. The network would just love to follow a few of us around and find out who all our contacts and co-workers are." Peter paced around the room.
"From now on, Mr. Mitchell," he said, turning to face him, "you're on a tight leash. The only reason I'm not getting rid of you," Jeremy thought that was an intentionally ambiguous choice of words, "is because that stupid stunt you pulled at the Chocolate Bar actually gave us some good information." Jeremy searched for any signs of a smile, or an "atta boy," but it didn't show.
And because nobody else can see the net spies,
Jeremy thought, but it didn't do any good to argue.
"I know you're a young man, and this is all new to you, and you want to impress your girlfriends. But you need to grow up and get over it. This is serious business. The agency's work isn't for show and tell. Got it? We're dealing with a conspiracy that threatens the communications technology of the whole planet. There's no time for adolescent stunts."
Jeremy stood silent, waiting for the tirade to finish. Peter looked him over with something like approval.
"We want our agents to be risk takers. You've got that on your side, anyway. And I'm glad you can stand up to a good dressing down. But your training has only begun. You have no idea what you've gotten into."
"I'm transferring you to another office. Maybe you have what it takes to do field work, and maybe you don't. We'll find out. I'm sending you where you can be useful to me, and get some more training as well. The network has been trying to find our central operations center for a long time, and you're our only way to detect these spies they have. You leave immediately. There's a hovercar waiting for you outside."
Dismissed,
Jeremy thought Peter should have said as he headed for the door.
*
*
*
"Amazing," MacKenzie muttered to herself for about the hundredth time as she continued to monitor the differences between the computer simulations of the implant's function and what the implant actually did.
"Hey, brain child," one of the other students said. The dull ones regarded that as an insult, but MacKenzie thought it fitting that even when they were being rude they recognized who really knew what was going on. "If you're not going to tell us what you're working on, can you at least keep the ejaculations to yourself?" MacKenzie didn't even hear him. She was so involved in her work that a fire might have singed her clothes before she noticed the heat.
She was running a series of comparisons between the implant she borrowed from Dr.
Berry
and the computer-generated model. They performed precisely the same on all the standard diagnostic tests. It wasn't until MacKenzie started to simulate input from an optic nerve that the computer model and the actual hardware started to give different results. Whenever she entered any of the type of input the implant would use to adjust itself to its host, the computer model simply displayed an internal calibration routine. As far as the computer model was concerned, that information never made it onto the hole. The implant itself performed completely differently.
MacKenzie pushed her workstation to the limits of its remarkable abilities to find out what was going on. The artificial intelligence routines were searching everything ever written on the optic nerve and creating a database of its known, probable and even speculative functions. MacKenzie fed all of this into the computer model and, through an interface she designed herself, into the implant. The computer model's reaction was predictable: it didn't react at all, or it displayed the internal calibration routine. The implant, on the other hand, processed every type of input MacKenzie could throw at it and sent a corresponding signal into its communications relay.
The really disturbing thing was that all the normal functions -- all the things the implant and the computer model had in common -- corresponded to standard communications output. But whenever she fed simulated input from a human optic nerve into the implant, the resulting communications output had a completely different signature. MacKenzie could only think of one reason to give this output a different signature -- hiding it. Someone had designed the implant to feed visual information onto the hole with a carrier signature that every textbook on communications science said was not used or useful. Not only that, but the standard computer simulations of the implants were designed to cover over this feature.
The conspiracy was getting more and more complicated. MacKenzie called up the records on who designed the implant's communications routines, but the only record said "National Institute of Standards." The computer simulation, likewise, had been written by
NIS
.
So what is it? Did
Duncan
infiltrate them or something?
she wondered.
After coming to a logical break in her studies, she stored all her research for the day in her private file, encrypted it and recited her magic incantation, "My eyes alone or turn to stone." It was a silly thing she had picked up from a cheap novel, and it embarrassed her to say it, but it had become a habit, and a superstition. Besides that, invoking the cosmic forces against evildoers was the signal to her mind and body that crunch time was over and bed time near.
On the way back to her dorm she checked her in box, having, as usual, turned off her message indicator while she was working. Everything seemed pro forma except one anonymous message from a public terminal, which grabbed her attention.
From Public Terminal 21352,
it read.
Congratulations. You've figured out the technological side of the conspiracy. But at what price? Do you think Dr.
Berry
gave you one of the regular implants, or maybe a special one? Is the conspiracy so dumb that they let communications hole specialists find out their secrets, or do they want something from you in return? Are you going to join them when they make you an offer you can't refuse? You'd better hope they don't catch you.
She had once told Jeremy simply to shut his eyes and ignore the ghostly images of the net spies. Now she realized how hard that would be, and how much harder it was to realize that someone might be watching her, and she had no way to know it.
*
*
*
One of the conditions of Jeremy's employment with Peter was his agreement to spend at least five hours a day in the training center, which was a restricted address on the hole that contained a series of workbooks and interactive films. His scores on the first few lessons were impressive. They covered secrecy, surveillance techniques and, of course, procedure. Every once in a while Jeremy peeked into the intermediate lessons, which provided an introduction to martial arts and weapons training, but he was still a long way from graduating to those.
The number of rules in Peter's organization simply astonished him, and he had to have them all memorized within a week.
It seemed that every conceivable contingency had been anticipated and bludgeoned to death by lawyers. The underlying principle of it all seemed fairly simple -- learn how to break the law without getting caught, and, more importantly, without implicating the agency. The agency's operations were sanctioned at the highest levels of government, they said, but the government retained plausible deniability if an agent was caught in a transgression. But they couldn't say it that way. Sometimes it seemed incomprehensibly vague, while at other times the procedures were mind-numbingly restrictive and precise.
It was while he was trying to memorize one of these that his hovercar came to a stop and the door hissed open.
"Mr. Mitchell," a voice said. A man in a smart uniform, almost like a hotel concierge's, was waiting outside the door. "Peter told us to expect you. Can I get you anything?"
This benefit of agency life was worth getting used to. The staff treated him like a first-class guest at an expensive hotel, with 24-hour service. Peter was very demanding of his workers, but he also provided some phenomenal perks. Jeremy had left the main office with nothing but his clothes, and he didn't even need them. With a word he could have gotten a replacement.