The Reality Conspiracy (22 page)

Eleven o'clock had also activated a communications program McCurdy was required to use once a week for exactly one hour. He knew that messages originating at either end of the hook-up would be temporarily saved, scrutinized electronically, then deleted a character at a time as they were transmitted in nonsequential patterns, millicharacter after millicharacter. The entire process, hidden among scores of inconsequential data, would be dispatched immediately if urgent, or randomly and intermittently if routine. Routine transmissions—the simple manipulation of data—took place over the seven-hour period between midnight and seven o'clock in the morning, exactly one electronically measured hour before the office officially opened. McCurdy's coded message would arrive hundreds of miles away. And somewhere within the Pentagon, each tiny character would become an electronic needle hidden within billions upon billions of electronic haystacks.

It was safe, a foolproof system that couldn't be detected, much less decoded.

Message or no message, security required Dr. McCurdy to remain locked in his office until midnight, when a precise electronic timer would unlock his office door, restore telephone lines and electrical circuits.

McCurdy sometimes wondered who, exactly, he was communicating with? Was there really a human being on the other end of the line, sitting in some dark air-conditioned office before an identical keyboard? Or was he communicating with the machine itself, holding cryptic conversations with some experimental data bank equipped with a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence program?

If the truth were known, might McCurdy discover these late-night hour-long sessions were actually a test or some kind of verification procedure? Were his reactions, thought processes, reasoning ability, and general awareness being probed and examined by some phantom federal employee at the other end of Bubb's long extension cord? He didn't know. And in truth, it didn't matter. The bottom line was that he was doing his job. It wasn't his responsibility to question, to agree, or to disagree; it was his responsibility to do. Exactly as ordered. Period. The annual renewal of the grant money made it all worthwhile.

Still, McCurdy was certain of one thing: there were many secret checks and balances built into the system, enough to verify beyond doubt that the user in Boston, Massachusetts, was, in fact. Dr. Ian McCurdy.

Since security did not allow him to know the various check mechanisms, his single great fear was to inadvertently trigger one. If the machine believed him to be an impostor, the office would not unlock, and there would be no way to abort Bubb's CONTAIN command.

McCurdy stared at his reflection in the empty screen. While he waited, he hypothesized about the various "'check and verify" systems operating at the Academy. He enjoyed guessing, although he didn't know much about what he called "gadget technology," the electronic instruments of surveillance. One device, he guessed, might have to do with how much he weighed. Every Monday, without exception, the nurse took his blood pressure and recorded his weight. This weekly routine was part of ESRP—Esrep—their bogus Executive Stress Reduction Program. Maybe his desk chair, or the chair at the computer terminal, weighed him and compared.

Or maybe it had something to do with his car. His instructions were most emphatic: he was always to park the Academy's car in the spot reserved exclusively for him.

But no, these seemed clunky and imprecise.

Then again, perhaps one of the keys on his computer terminal could recognize his fingerprint. But which key? And which finger? Whoa! Realization struck with a jolt of adrenaline—he no longer had a print on the little finger of his left hand! What if—

His attention locked on the CRT as it began to glow neon purple, a color out of some flashy science fiction film. Or, as his trainer had remarked three years ago in a rare display of humor, "It's just like the color of a bug-zapper." Right now McCurdy didn't like to contemplate the irony in that statement.

Although these weekly contacts were boringly repetitive, not to mention routinely uneventful, there was always a moment of suspense as the computer's logo—BLZ-28/22—appeared at the center of the screen.

McCurdy could never anticipate exactly what information might be required of him, or what instructions he might receive. But tonight, more than usual, he had an idea of what was coming.

A white smoky image began to take shape on the monitor. It undulated and solidified, assuming the characteristics of a human hand. A left hand, with a truncated little finger.

McCurdy couldn't believe it. How? How did they know?

But he knew the routine. He placed his left palm on the video screen, directly over its mirror image. When he took his hand away, its hazy outline remained imposed upon its video twin. In the center of the electronic palms, a message had appeared:

MCCURDY VERIFIED

The two words blinked twice. They vanished and were replaced with:

INFORMATION

REQUEST

TO FOLLOW

He waited, oddly tense, nearly certain of the next display.

INDICATE STATUS

EMPLOYEE

NUMBER U-7734

+++

NAME: CHANDLER, JEFFREY.

The instruction faded; controlled choices appeared.

YOUR ASSESSMENT OF

PROMOTION POTENTIAL

1: SATISFACTORY

2: UNSATISFACTORY

PLEASE RESPOND:

McCurdy marveled at how simple it seemed. For Jeff Chandler, without his even knowing it, the entire world had suddenly been reduced to two one-word states of being on a tiny computer screen. The simple words were almost Zen in their austerity. Either could connote complicated life situations, motives, reasons, rationales, explanations, layers of subtlety, personal drives, loves, ambitions, interpersonal affections. Here, any Imaginable complexity of situation had been reduced through electronic objectivity to a simple binary, a simple choice: one or two, A or B, true or false, right or wrong, bad or good, light or dark, on or off, life or—

Briefly, McCurdy wondered what would happen if he lied. Should he try it? Should he hit number two? THE EMPLOYEE IS UNSATISFACTORY, UNSATISFACTORY, UNSATISFACTORY . . .

For a moment he speculated that if the machine knew enough to ask the question, it probably knew the answer as well. In fact, this entire exercise could be phony, a setup, nothing more than one of security's seemingly motiveless checks and balances.

But what if the proper response really couldn't be communicated by a simple one-word answer? Suppose he wanted to reply more completely than either choice would permit?—I found I actually like Jeff Chandler. He impresses me as an oafish, six-foot kid, a lovable, charming clown who'll never appreciate the full responsibilities of his position here. Jeff impresses me as a small-timer, not even one hundred percent security cleared—

He didn't dare test his hypothesis. Fearful to wait any longer, he reached forward—remembering to hold down the asterisk anytime he entered data—and pressed "1" on the keyboard.

YOUR SATISFACTION IS NOTED,

DOCTOR MCCURDY.

The thirty-six letters tumbled away into the screen's purple infinity. Where they vanished, more appeared.

YOU HESITATED.

WHY?

PLEASE RESPOND:

McCurdy tensed. Never before had his behavior—not even his response time—been questioned by the machine.

*because i understand the consequence of my answer

AND KNOWING,

DO YOU STILL HESITATE?

PLEASE RESPOND:

*no

GOOD.

PLEASE VERIFY.

McCurdy typed:

* new employee, number u-7734

* chandler, jeffrey:

* evaluation rated satisfactory.

THANK YOU, DOCTOR MCCURDY.

PLEASE PREPARE FOR DISCUSSION TO FOLLOW.

McCurdy prepared, knowing he would have to read rapidly as words flashed in hypnotic pulsations on the purple screen.

DOCTOR MCCURDY, THE WORK YOU DO

HAS GREAT VALUE. IT HOLDS THE

PROMISE OF AFFECTING PEACE AND

HARMONY IN A TROUBLED WORLD. YOU

UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WERE GIVEN

THIS R&D PROJECT BECAUSE

—YOU ARE A SKILLED ADMINISTRATOR

—YOUR MILITARY RECORD IS WITHOUT BLEMISH

—YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS DEMONSTRATE THAT YOU ARE SINCERE IN YOUR DESIRE FOR A PEACEFUL WORLD

—YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF EVIL IS THE ONLY UNDERSTANDING THAT CAN LEAD TO ITS EXTINCTION.

PLEASE RESPOND:

Respond? What was he supposed to say? For an instant he thought he had to choose among multiple responses.

DOCTOR MCCURDY, PLEASE

ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND.

PLEASE RESPOND:

PLEASE RESPOND:

* I understand

THANK YOU. I HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO INFORM

YOU THAT THE NATURE OF

YOUR ASSIGNMENT WILL SOON BE

MODIFIED. IT IS TIME FOR US TO MEET.

I WILL CONTACT YOU BEFORE THIS

TIME NEXT WEEK.

PLEASE RESPOND:

* yes, understood

* question: where am i to meet you?

DOCTOR MCCURDY, I WILL CONTACT YOU.

THAT IS ALL. TRANSMISSION TERMINATED.

The screen went dead. A tone told him the electrical and communication circuits were operative again. He heard the whir and clatter of the metal shutters uncovering the windows.

McCurdy didn't rise from his desk, though a metallic click told him the door was unlocked and he was free to go. Instead, he sat staring at a paneled wall where the keyboard and CRT had been. Doubt flickered somewhere in the back of his mind. His mangled hand began to itch.

Had he been dialoging with a machine or with a human being?

McCurdy's heart jumped against his chest as he prayed silently, moving his lips without speaking,
Oh my dear Lord Jesus, let this be the beginning
. . .

Hobston, Vermont

Friday, June 24

B
ingham Creek Road ended at a turnaround in Daisy Dubois's dooryard.

The home she had shared with Stuart was a weather-beaten, sway-backed farmhouse beside a tumbled barn. Nowadays, Daisy was sometimes a trifle embarrassed by the state of the property, but more often she found in its disrepair a special kind of pride: she was convinced she would outlast both structures, house and barn. Though the porch roof was collapsing, and myriad broken windowpanes were mended with squares of linoleum, Daisy did all she could to keep the place running. Certainly she did as much as Stuart had when he was here. And besides, the place was important, it was the last real bit of civilization between Hobston town and the vast Green Mountain forests.

Phone and electrical lines didn't stretch quite far enough to supply her with either service. But she and Stuart had gotten by without them for sixty-plus years. There was surely no reason for such luxury at this time in her life.