Billion-Dollar Brain (17 page)

‘Green top is yoghurt, silver top is milk,’ said the student.

‘Good.’ The bottles disappeared and a street scene appeared. ‘What is the name of this cinema and what was showing there at Easter weekend?’

‘I never go to the cinema,’ said the student.

‘Very well,’ said the commentator, ‘but you must have noticed the posters. Isn’t this where you line up for the tram coming home from work?’

There was a long pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ said the student.

‘We’ll have to do local geography again,’ said the commentator. ‘We’ll leave it for now and stream Uncle Manfred a few times.’

Pictures of a man were flashed upon the screen in rapid succession. They were in chronological order and I saw him grow older before my eyes. The lines on his face and the slope of his eyes varied as the pictures changed. It was an uncanny thing to watch. I shivered. Harvey noticed me. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘That’s how it makes me feel. Mind you, that’s just a short sequence they are streaming. Later they will stream longer and longer episodes, until a whole life whistles past in about three minutes. It goes right into the subconscious of course; no memorizing involved.’

‘Again,’ said the voice, and the screen showed the whole stream of pictures through again.

‘In five days,’ said Harvey when we were outside the cubicle, ‘we can indoctrinate a man so that he really believes his cover story better than he believes his own memory. By the time that man gets to Riga he will know his way around the town and every detail of his life from the day his father gave him a light-brown teddy-bear, to the movie show he watched last night. He doesn’t need to remember facts and figures, he actually sees the things and people of his cover-story life. We photograph special set-ups, his motor cycle, his dog, we use actors to make a movie of his relatives sitting in the rooms where he grew up. We show him photos and a movie of his home town when he was a kid. By the time they leave here no one could crack them, they believe their own cover story, they are schizophrenic. Did you notice the smell in there? It’s always the same temperature and humidity and has that scent so that the mind is conditioned by environment.’

Harvey stepped up to a door marked ‘Recreation’. ‘What about a litte recreation?’ he asked. ‘This is where we keep the curvy blonde.’

I said, ‘I knew this was science fiction.’

‘By the time those indoctrination students have done their training they deserve a break,’ said Harvey. ‘They just stay here twenty-four hours per day talking nothing but the language of their region from the minute they wake up, till the time
they go to bed in those tiny cubicles over there. Even then they don’t get a break, because they are woken suddenly at night and asked questions in some language they are not supposed to speak. If they even look like they are going to answer they get an automatic extra twelve hours. They learn fast, believe me. They learn fast.’

Inside the recreation room there was a bar-counter with coffee, doughnuts, iced milk, hot soup, Alka Seltzer, bread and a toaster. Harvey poured two glasses of milk and put two doughnuts on to paper plates. We sat in fibre-glass easy chairs. There were a dozen magazines, a TV set, four telephones—one red one marked ‘emergency’—and a small illuminated panel which gave a current weather report. ‘Low today 70º Downtown San Antonio 79º Humidity 92% Pressure 29.6 Partly cloudy, Wind from South-East at 12 m.p.h.’ There was no blonde except for a lady on the TV who was showing us Sani-flush in the new unbreakable plastic bottle.

‘It’s complicated, eh?’ Harvey asked between bites on the doughnut.

‘That’s the understatement of the year,’ I said.

‘Cost over a billion dollars,’ Harvey said. ‘Over a billion. The old man—General Midwinter—has got a private suite at seven floors below ground level. I’m not allowed to show you in there but that’s quite a terrific place too. He even has a swimming pool there. The pumps that change the water in that pool cost three thousand dollars each. It’s
fantastic; the lighting is arranged so that you’d think it was daylight down there. He can see the surrounding country on colour TV if he wants to. Really fantastic; sixteen guest bedrooms, each with a bathroom as large as my sitting-room.’

‘It’s nice to know that when he survives World War Three he’ll have guests.’

‘I’d sooner be a crisp than survive. I had four months on permanent duty here. I went out of my mind.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to bore you,’ Harvey said, ‘but you should understand that these heaps of wire can practically think—linear programming—which means that instead of going through all the alternatives they have a hunch which is the right one. What’s more, almost none of them work by binary notation—the normal method for computers—because that’s just yes/no stuff. (If you can only store yeses and noes it takes seven punch holes to record the number ninety-nine.) These machines use tiny chips of ceramic which store electricity. They store any amount from one to nine. That’s why—for what it does—this whole set-up is so small.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

We finished our milk. ‘Back to the salt mines,’ said Harvey, standing up. ‘And if you want to do me a real favour, stop saying yes, for Christ’s sake.’

Harvey went through two doors and down a moving staircase. ‘This is what we call the Corpus Callosum; it’s the most complex computer in
existence today. The machines in this building cost over a hundred million dollars to develop and the machine equipment and construction set Midwinter back nearly as much again. These operators are all college graduates with postgraduate qualifications in either maths or a similar subject.’

We walked through a small data room. Operators were using punch machines and then transferring the results on to tape. Two men were standing under a no-smoking notice trying to hide a burning cigarette, and one college graduate with a postgraduate qualification was sitting under a sign that said ‘Think Tall’ reading an illustrated journal called
Voodoo monsters invade earth.

‘You saw the operational machines,’ said Harvey. ‘They are working on the Latvia project. If the Latvia project is successful, then the total resources of the Brain will come into use.’ He paused before a locked door marked ‘Main Project’. Two guards stood outside, khaki-clad and motionless like shop- window dummies. They exchanged code words with Harvey, then each of them opened his shirt and fished out a small key on a neck-chain. There were three key-holes marked, Alpha, Beta and Kappa. Harvey produced a key for the third and a red light came on over each lock. Harvey opened the door. This room was gigantic: like the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier. The banks of computer machines stretched away into the distance and there were only a few dim lights glowing. Our footsteps echoed as though there were other people walking to meet
us from the far end. The machines were only ticking over. ‘Non operational’ the plastic ticket said. Over the banks of machines were signs: ‘District 21 including Odessa’. ‘District 34 as far as environs of Kursk’, ‘Moscow Central and dispersed centres of Government whatever their location’, ‘Coastal Zone 40’.

The machines hummed and snick-snicked as if they had been warned to keep their voices down. The thin oil that coated each vital component, the enamel and metal tapes were warm enough to aromatize the air as fast as the air-conditioning changed it. The smell was sobering and efficient like ether and antiseptic, as though this was the casualty ward of a vast hospital run by machines.

‘This operation in Latvia,’ I found myself speaking in a whisper, ‘what is it doing that these machines will do for the rest of Russia?’

‘Usual thing,’ said Harvey. ‘Sabotage of communications, cache of arms, instruction in guerilla warfare, preparation of landing fields and drop zones, clandestine radio, beach reconnaissance, underwater demolition, contact with ships and aircraft, then G-2 work for the military. Usual stuff.’

‘Usual stuff?’ I said. ‘If that’s usual stuff, for God’s sake don’t ever try to surprise me. This is total war looking for a place to wage!’

‘Stop worrying,’ said Harvey. ‘It’s solely for Midwinter. Three-dimensional chess, that’s how to look at it. Three-dimensional chess for a millionaire.’

‘Fool’s mate,’ I said.

Harvey lived with his wife and two children a few miles outside town on the road to Laredo and the Mexican border. I drove through the city instead of round the loop. It’s not a typical American town, not one of those low modern places with chrome and neon and glass; the Alamo City is beat-up, chewed at the edges and in need of paint. I passed the second-hand clothes shops and the sign that said ‘Used books and guns’ on Commerce Street. The Texans share the town with Mexicans, and they share it with soldiers. It was seven
P.M.
; already military police were sniffing around the clubs and bars of what Texans call ‘occupied Mexico’. Out on the far side of the town signs were jammed down the highway: Liquors, Drugs, Breakfast all day, Speed radar control, Watch for deer roaming at night, Exit, fasten seat belt, Mexiteria; all you eat $.10, Hot Pizza to go, Gas, Regular 25.9, Tomatoes 35c. I watched for the gas station on Harvey’s map and turned off on to an unmade road that kicked up
stones against the underside of the Rambler and laid a film of dust across the tinted windscreen. There were whole fields of dead tree-stumps here, like a World-War-One battlefield. In places the topsoil had broken, revealing bleached stones that were luminous in the fading light. A long way ahead of me, on a narrow farm road, were half a dozen cows. A man in a pick-up truck slammed his hand against the door and shouted ‘wow-wow’. The sound was louder than the buzz of cars along the highway I had left. My tyres rumbled across a cattle grating; I watched for a marker board of the Screw Worm Quarantine Line. I turned there and followed the twin scars that marked the track to the house.

The slope was covered with white and yellow wild flowers, and near to the house was a cluster of small trees. The house was narrow, transparent and bright with yellow light. One end was supported on steel legs and the other end bit into the rock. Under the high side there was a grey Buick that I had seen Harvey driving and a long black Lincoln Continental that looked like the President of the United States had come over for pizza and beer.

Harvey waved from the balcony and dropped ice cubes into a large glass. There was a scent of wild flowers and grass cooling after a hot day. Harvey’s two kids were chasing around the trees in their pyjamas. Mercy Newbegin called to the kids, ‘C’mon now; time for bed,’ and there were more Indian war whoops and whistles and cries
of ‘Another five minutes, Mom, huh?’ Mercy Newbegin said, ‘OK, but exactly five now.’ She came through into the sitting-room where I was nursing a martini. The house had a simple luxury. It was little more than a glass-sided army hut, but there was plenty of mahogany, ebony and zebra skin, and a tall cone of polished copper in the centre of the floor became a fireplace at the touch of a switch. Harvey was lounging full length across the sheepskin seats that followed the wall around the corner. Mercy sat down next to him.

‘Did you see the Brain?’ Mercy asked me. She was wearing lacy raw silk pyjamas like people wear in drink advertisements.

‘Did he see it,’ Harvey said. ‘He had the full transfers-between-airports-taxes-tips-and-porters-included-plan-A tour. And he took it like a hero.’

Mercy said, ‘I don’t know why you have to speak like that, Harvey. Surely you’re interested in the way the Brain works. It’s your job after all.’

Harvey grunted.

Mercy called, ‘Are you children in bed yet?’

There was a jumble of children’s voices, then the smaller child looked round the door. ‘Is Simon in here, Daddy?’

Harvey said, ‘No I don’t believe so. Simon’s the cat,’ he explained to me. ‘He was a war profiteer.’

The child said, ‘He wasn’t, Daddy.’

Harvey said, ‘He was, Hank, your mother and I weren’t going to tell you.’ Harvey turned to me. ‘During the Korean war see, this cat…’

Hank said, ‘No he was not,’ very loudly; he was angry and pleased both at once.

Harvey said very reasonably, ‘Then why does he go around wearing that ankle-length overcoat with the astrakhan collar? And smoking cigars. And smoking cigars. Explain that if you can.’

Hank said, ‘He wasn’t a war profiteer, Daddy. Simon doesn’t smoke cigars.’

Harvey said, ‘Not when you are around maybe, but when he goes across to see the Wilsons’ cat…’

Mercy said, ‘Cut it out, Harvey. You’ll give my children a complex before you’re through.’

Harvey said, ‘Your mother doesn’t want you to know about Simon’s cigars.’

Mercy said, ‘Come along, Hank. Bath time.’ She marched him out. I could hear the child saying, ‘Candy cigars, Mommy, or real ones?’

Harvey said, ‘Mercy’s got a kind of thing about the old man—Midwinter—she feels she has to support him. You know what I mean?’

‘He seems to rely on her,’ I said.

‘You mean his hand. He’s a showman, Midwinter. Never lose sight of that. He’s a pitchman from way back.’

Mercy Newbegin came back into the room and closed the sliding door. ‘There are times when you make me scream, Harvey,’ she said.

‘So scream, honey,’ Harvey said.

‘You know more ways to fold up my marriage than any other man living.’

‘Well, that’s only right, honey, I’m your husband. What is it you need, a little more romance?’

‘I need a good deal less.’

Harvey said to me, ‘Women are never romantic. Only men are romantic.’

Mercy said, ‘It’s a little difficult for a woman to be romantic about her husband’s amours.’ She smiled and poured Harvey another drink. The tension was gone.

Mercy smoothed Harvey’s hair. ‘I went to a sale today, honey.’

‘Buy anything?’

‘Well they had this sale of nylons twenty-eight cents below what I usually pay. Two women tore the nylons I was wearing—really good ones—another dragged a baby carriage across my ninety-dollar shoes. Net gain: one dollar sixty-eight. Net loss: one pair of two-dollar nylons and one pair of ninety-dollar shoes.’ The screen slid back. Hank said, ‘I’m washed, Mommy.’ Mercy said, ‘Say goodnight quickly then.’

Hank said, ‘Simon wasn’t really a war profiteer, was he, Daddy?’

‘No, son, of course, he wasn’t,’ Harvey said in a kindly tone. ‘He was just doing his bit towards victory.’ Harvey turned to me suddenly. ‘We have another cat named Boswell: a labour leader. He’s organized every cat in the neighbourhood except Simon. Boy is he ever a crook. He takes more kick-backs than…’

Hank got very excited. He yelled, ‘He’s not, Daddy. He’s not, Daddy. He’s not, he’s not, he’s not…’

Mercy picked Hank up and put him over her shoulder. ‘Off to bed,’ she said.

Hank yelled, ‘You’ll give me a complex, Daddy, before you’re through.’

Dinner was set on the patio. From this end of the house—the end on legs—there was a magnificent view. Through the cleavage of two low hills the lights of San Antonio rippled in the warm rising air. Harvey said, ‘I’m a city-boy, but this cow-country has a lot of magic. Imagine great herds of long-horns—perhaps three thousand head—walking across that landscape north, to where there was plenty of money and an appetite for beef. This was the starting point for those cattle drives. Tough guys like Charles Goodnight, John Chisholm and Oliver Loving pioneered routes to the railheads at Cheyenne, Dodge City, Ellsworth and Abilene. You know what sort of journey that would be?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said.

‘I did a trip along the Goodnight Train to Fort Sumner, then took the Loving Train to Cheyenne. That was in 1946. I bought a war-surplus jeep and followed the Pecos River just like Loving did. From here to Cheyenne is nine hundred miles as the crow flies, the trail is nearer fourteen hundred. I took it real slow. I did it in ten days, but in 1867 Loving took three months to do it. Rustlers,
outlaws, storms that had rivers breaking their banks, Indians, droughts. These trail bosses…’

‘Is Harvey playing cowboys and Indians again?’ Mercy said. ‘Help me with the trolley, Harvey.’

‘It’s interesting,’ I said.

‘Don’t let him hear you say that,’ she said, ‘or he’ll get his guns out and demonstrate the “Border spin” and the “Road Agent’s shift”.’

‘The Border shift and the Road Agent’s spin,’ Harvey corrected wearily. ‘Get it right.’

We sat down and Harvey speared fried chicken on to the three plates. ‘Yes sir,’ he said. ‘The end of the trail was little old Dodge where Earp would challenge any man wearing his plough-handles north of the railroad tracks.’

‘Look what you’re doing, Harvey. Serve the food properly or let me do it.’

Harvey said, ‘Yes mam. The kinda hombres who’d raise hell and put a plank under it…’

‘You haven’t opened the wine, Harvey. The chicken will be cold if you don’t stop it.’

‘Let me open the wine,’ I said.

‘I wish you would, Mr Dempsey. Harvey gets so excited sometimes. He’s just like a big child. But I love him.’

I opened the wine carefully; it was a very fine Chambertin.

‘Quite a wine,’ I said.

‘We made sure it was a good one. Harvey said you knew about Burgundies.’

‘I said he liked them,’ Harvey corrected.

‘What’s the difference?’ said Mercy without wishing an answer.

Mercy Newbegin was a good-looking woman who looked even better in the light of the flickering candles. Her frame was small, her arms looked frail and very white against the raw silk. Women would say she had ‘good bones’. Her skin was tight across her ivory face and although one suspected that the tautness was maintained by a beauty parlour, it didn’t lessen the harmony of the face, in which brown eyes seemed bigger than they really were, like a sun at sunset. She was a silk-and-satin girl; it was hard to imagine her in denim and cotton.

‘Doesn’t that General Midwinter have style?’ she said. ‘He has his own train. He has houses in Paris, London, Frankfurt and Hawaii. They say the servants prepare food and set his table every day in each of these houses just in case he arrives. Isn’t that something? And the plane—you came down in it—did you ever know anyone with two four-motor jet planes for private use?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘It makes me discontented, the life he lives. Here I am stuck in Texas for weeks on end. The droughts make the chiggers unbearable and the floods bring out the rattlesnakes and copperheads…’

‘Grab some chicken,’ Harvey said, ‘while it’s still hot.’

Mercy handled the porcelain and silver with her elegant hands and measured out the wild rice and caesar salad. Mercy gave me a chance to stare deep
into her limpid brown eyes. ‘I’ll bet even your Queen doesn’t have two four-motor jet planes for her private use. One of them with interior décor of a nineteenth-century sailing clipper. Even your Queen…’

‘You’d better not get into a hassle with this guy,’ Harvey interrupted. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know a squeeze play from a loud foul, but once he senses he’s being got at he can be a vicious SOB.’

Mercy gave me a smile made of homogenized gossamer, ‘I’m sure it’s not true.’

‘That’s just the two of us then,’ I said and Harvey laughed.

‘You British are such clever losers,’ Mercy said.

‘It comes with practice,’ I said.

‘Let me tell you about this guy,’ said Harvey pointing a thumb at me. ‘The first time I ever saw him was in Frankfurt. He was sitting in a new white Jensen sports car that was covered in mud, with a sensational blonde, sensational. He was wearing very old clothes, smoking a Gauloise cigarette and listening to a Beethoven quartet on the car radio, and I thought, “Oh boy, just how many ways can you be a snob simultaneously.” Well this guy…’ he paused for a moment to remember the name I was using, ‘well this guy Dempsey knew.’

‘I can never remember names,’ Mercy said. ‘I remember when I was at college men would phone me and I wouldn’t have any idea who they were. So I would say, “What kind of car do you have now?” and that would help me to remember. It
would also help me to decide whether I should go out with them.’ Mercy laughed delicately.

‘Husbands are a by-product of marriage,’ said Harvey.

‘A waste product,’ corrected Mercy Newbegin. She laughed and touched Harvey’s arm to show that she didn’t mean it.

‘I keep telling Harvey to sell that Buick. Can you imagine what people think, with him in a Buick? Especially with General Midwinter thinking so highly of him. A Buick just isn’t us, Harvey.’

‘It isn’t you, you mean,’ said Harvey.

‘You could go to work in my Lincoln,’ said Mercy. ‘That has style.’

‘I like the Buick,’ said Harvey.

‘Harvey is so anxious that we live on his income. Why, it’s so foolish. It’s sinful pride. I’ve told him: sinful pride and it’s me and my children who suffer.’

‘You don’t suffer,’ Harvey said. ‘You still buy your Mainbocher dresses, you still have your horses…’

‘On Long Island,’ said Mercy. ‘I don’t have them here.’

‘So you go home to Long Island once a month,’ said Harvey. ‘You go to St Moritz every February, Paris for the Spring collections, you are in Venice in June, at Ascot in July…’

‘With my money, darling. I don’t take it out of your housekeeping.’ She laughed. She had perfectly proportioned features and perfectly proportioned
hands and feet and small even teeth that flashed as she smiled. When the conversation deserved to be punctuated she threw back her head and gave a perfectly proportioned peal of carefully modulated laughter. She turned to me, ‘I don’t take it out of his housekeeping,’ she said and laughed again.