Eye Contact (45 page)

The crowd whoops as the triangle, brighter still, levitates within the walls of the stadium and begins to rotate, majestically, like an alien mothership George Lucas might dream up. The flags around the perimeter of the stadium glow pink in the light of the spectacle. The banks of computers there in the lab churn all the louder. Farber applauds. The president watches with an awed smile.

Then the television coverage switches to the scene of the Christian Family Crusade’s protest at their North Side hotel. They’ve been marching since early afternoon, and the troops are looking weary, though zealously determined. Elder Burlington Buchman has just stepped up to a microphone on a makeshift stage erected on the hotel grounds. His followers cheer wildly as his amplified words echo in the night. He speaks of abomination, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of fire and brimstone. He speaks of the dawning of a new age, a new millennium, freed from the forces of perversion and liberalism. He speaks of the will of Jesus. He speaks of God as a wrathful executioner.

Manning has heard enough. He needs to return to his story, writing his impressions of the spectacle as it unfolds. Mentally, he tunes out Buchman’s ranting, tunes out Farber’s laughter, and begins to type—but then his cellular phone warbles, breaking his thought midsentence. He answers, “Mark Manning.”

“Thank God I reached you, Mark.” It’s Lucille Haring, and her voice wavers with panic. “I don’t know where to begin …”

Reacting to her tone, he says, “Calm down, Lucy. I’m listening. What is it?”

“I’ve discovered that the
Journal’s
computer power is linked to other computers somewhere here in the city. …”

“They’re here in this room, in Zarnik’s lab,” Manning explains to her. “It has something to do with the laser show, but I don’t know how they’re connected, and more important, I can’t figure out why.”

“That’s what I’m about to tell you. They’re connected by phone lines—simple phone lines, lots of them. Tons of data are being exchanged at this very moment. That’s the ‘how.’ But it’s the ‘why’ that’s so stunningly evil.”

Manning doesn’t speak. He’s not sure he’s ready to ask the question or hear the answer. On television, the coverage has switched from Buchman, returning to the spectacle at the stadium, where the laser triangle now spins and undulates. The camera catches the moment when one of the points of the triangle veers off-course and shears through one of the huge steel flagpoles. With a spray of sparks, it drops outside the stadium and clangs loudly as it hits the cement of the parking lot. The crowd goes silent, then spontaneously yelps its approval. There’s a close-up of the president, whose smile is now tainted with wariness. Manning views his face through the crosshairs on the screen, as if targeted in the sights of a weapon.

“Good God,” Manning says into the phone. Ready to confirm his worst fears, he asks, “What did you find?”

“An editorial,” Lucy tells him, “scheduled to run tomorrow morning.” Her voice trembles with the gravity of the words she is about to read. “Cain’s column is slugged ‘cataclysm.’ It begins: ‘The nation mourns the death of a president this morning, who died here as a visitor, a leader, and a messenger. The special grief of our city is magnified, of course, because the accident that claimed his life has also silenced the still-uncounted thousands of our own friends, neighbors, and loved ones. When last night’s laser spectacle went awry at twelve minutes past nine, precipitating this cataclysmic disaster, history was rewritten….’”

Manning looks at his watch. It is eight minutes past nine—only four minutes remain until Nathan Cain’s dream of a cleansed nation is made real. As Lucy continues to read the editorial, Manning’s eyes are fixed on the television screen, where he sees the whirling triangle, no longer pink, but hottest red. Even Arlen Farber, who has been enjoying the show through an alcoholic haze, now looks concerned. The electronics in the lab click and whine even more frenetically.

Manning searches through the clutter on the desk and finds his note. “Hold on, Lucy,” he says into his cell phone, “and stay on the line.” He sets down the cell phone and unplugs the modem from the desk phone. Lifting the receiver, he dials the number Jim gave him a few minutes ago. Manning waits, heart pounding, as the detective’s phone rings. At last he answers.

“Jim, this is Manning again. Listen. Alert the feds to get the president out of the stadium. I’ll explain later, but it’s urgent. Act now—or he’ll be dead in three minutes.” Manning hangs up the phone and glances around the lab, feeling he should
do
something.

Arlen Farber, who has heard Manning’s message to Jim, now stands with mouth agape, backing toward the door, quaking at what he has learned. His foot bumps the fire-ax that Manning leaned against the wall.

“Arlen”—Manning thinks of something—“wait there!” He says to Lucy, still on the cell phone, “If we could shut down the computers here at the planetarium, we might hobble the whole system, right?”

“Very likely,” she answers. “Give it a shot, and I’ll monitor the results on the
Journal’s
mainframe.”

Manning turns to Farber. “Arlen, help me. Help
them
”—he points to the television screen—“and grab that ax. Chop through the main bundle of cables there on the floor.” Farber hesitates. Manning tells him, “The ax handle is wooden. You’ll be fine. Please, Arlen, now!”

Farber bites his lip, nods, and grabs the ax. Positioning himself with a wide stance alongside the bundle of cables, he raises the ax over his head, jangling the keys and whistle that still hang from his neck. He flexes the muscles of both arms, then swings, hacking solidly into the cables. A few sparks spit from the heavy plastic tube, but there’s no danger—these cables apparently carry information, not raw power.

Immediately, the computers in the room seem to belch, becoming much less active. They no longer churn in unison, but make random little noises, independent of each other. Farber beams with pride and continues to chop at the cable bundle till it is completely severed.

Lucy’s voice says over the phone, “I don’t know what you did, Mark, but all the telephone activity between here and there has ceased. Well done!”

And in fact, Manning notices on television that the sky show at the stadium appears to have powered-down—with two minutes to spare. The triangle is pink now, no longer red, and it rotates slowly above the crowd, much less menacingly. Farber tosses aside his ax and struts toward the desk, preparing to reward himself with another drink. As he lifts the jug of Jack Daniel’s, his police whistle clangs against it.

“Uh-oh,” Lucy’s voice sounds a note of warning over the phone, “something’s happening.” Even as she speaks, Manning notices that the laser spectacle appears to have powered-up again—it’s brighter, redder, moving faster. Lucy explains, “When the
Journal’s
mainframe lost communication with the planetarium, it began establishing phone connections elsewhere. There’s now intense digital activity between the
Journal
and some other location that’s not in Chicago. I think—yes, I see area codes—the
Journal’s
mainframe is now linked to Washington.”

Manning watches on television as a security force scurries about the president and begins leading him off the field. A camera near the stage shows him leaving. Faces in the crowd look confused, wondering about the abrupt departure. There’s Neil, turning quizzically from Claire to Roxanne.

Manning asks Lucy, “This whole system is linked by phone lines, right? Can you identify the trunk line between the
Journal
and Washington, then patch me into it? I want to hear what the transmission actually sounds like.”

“Uh …” Lucy stammers over the phone, “I think so, Mark. Sure. Here we go—you’ll lose my voice now.”

Manning presses the phone closer to his ear and listens to the secret digital chatter of computers plotting a massacre. The bleeps and tones shoot back and forth with dizzying speed, exchanging technical commands that are executed with instantaneous precision. Manning checks the time. Eleven minutes past nine—there’s less than one minute remaining.

At the stadium, cameras follow the laser display. Fully energized, it spins cyclonically above the top bleachers, roiling with internal heat. Then it tips, darting with its points to slice cleanly through two more of the flagpoles. One of them falls outside the stadium, but the other drops within, trailing a burning American flag. The white-hot steel mast slides down one of the long aisles, narrowly missing row after row of horrified onlookers.

Farber stands there fidgeting with his drink, trying to gulp from it, but unable to swallow. Manning watches the laser triangle condense itself further as it begins its descent to the field. He hears the electronic scenario of doom beeping in his ear. He sees Farber.

Then inspiration strikes. Manning shouts, “Give me that!”

Utterly dismayed, Farber tenders to Manning his cocktail.

“No!”
Manning reaches toward Farber’s chest, grabs the neck chain, and yanks it, sending keys clattering to the floor. But in Manning’s hand remains the big chrome police whistle.

He jabs the whistle into his mouth, positions the phone in front of it, inhales so deep that his gut burns, then he blows.

Stunned by the pitch and the decibels, Farber claps his hands to his ears, dropping his jelly jar to the desk, where it crashes, sloshing Jack and Diet Rite squarely into Manning’s lap.

But Manning doesn’t care. He’s listening to the phone again, and when the ringing in his own ears has cleared, he hears … absolutely nothing.

Seconds before twelve minutes past nine, the television pictures from the stadium are following the descent of the laser spectacle toward the field, when without warning, it suddenly … blinks out. The crowd is hushed as a few charred birds drop to the ground. Then a hundred thousand spectators burst into applause, roaring their approval of the big finish.

Seconds before twelve minutes past nine, something goes wrong—again—with the laser projector atop the Journal Building.

Two minutes ago, Nathan Cain was distraught to realize that the unit was losing power. Perhaps the computer link with the planetarium had been severed. He was confident there was still sufficient time for the system to establish communication with its backup link in Washington, but he figured he’d better take action, just in case things got out of control. So he managed with difficulty to hoist himself onto the weapon’s seating fixture, taking hold of two armatures with which he might aim the device if the automatic controls should fail.

It turned out that this precaution was unnecessary—the backup link functioned flawlessly, and within moments, the laser gun was powered-up again, putting on quite a show at the stadium. Because the gun was now making jerky movements as part of its programmed routine, Cain decided to remain in the tractor seat—it might be dangerous to dismount. Besides, he discovered he had a much better view of the stadium from the seat up here, and he looked forward to witnessing the final moment of the spectacle, when his daring plan would be fulfilled.

With that moment at hand, Cain congratulated himself for masterminding a scheme that was, at the same time, both profoundly complex and devilishly simple. It was complex because of the conspiracy, the timing, and the computer technology behind it. The scheme was simple, though, in its brutally direct approach to curing a social ill and also in the rudimentary telephone technology used in patching together an invisible but powerful control system.

Telephones,
he gloated. Just think—everyday household phone lines were made to serve as an indispensable component in a high-tech project that would, within moments, change the destiny of a nation.

But now, with only seconds remaining, something goes wrong again. Cain will never know it, but his foolproof, baby-simple telephone links have just been bested by a police whistle. A screech in the phone lines has just made mush of the network’s electronics, bouncing a jumble of conflicting commands to Washington, then back to the top of the Journal Building.

The light show at the stadium is over, but the fireworks have only begun in Nathan Cain’s laser cannon. Capacitors pop, relays fizzle, and circuit boards melt as the control systems of the device are shorted by a voltage surge that could blow fuses from Waukegan to Peoria. Nathan Cain’s body is equipped with no such fuse, of course, so the metal tractor seat, quite literally, fries his sorry ass.

For decades, Nathan Cain has been revered as Chicago’s living icon of journalism. In death, he is now but hissing meat.

by Hector Bosch

Senior Critic,
New York Weekly Review

S
EPTEMBER 3, 1999, NEW
York
—Each year at this time, when the theatrical world prepares to lure, entertain, and enrich us with its latest wares, we inevitably look to the future with dewy-eyed optimism. This critic, however, before allowing himself to move forward, must first indulge in a painful bit of soul-baring to you, his gentle readers.

As most of you have already read elsewhere, I suffered a terrible loss two months ago when my nephew, David Bosch, 24, was murdered in Chicago by Nathan Cain, late publisher of the
Chicago Journal,
which employed David as a reporter.

The day he was killed, David, who was gay, approached me for advice on a personal matter. Instead of listening, instead of proffering the wisdom of my years, I rebuffed him—as I had done before when he first confided his sexuality to me—and I lashed out against his mentor at the
Journal,
Mark Manning, the heroic reporter whose name is now a household word.

David planned to talk to me again that same night, but then his life ended in pursuit of a career he loved, and I never had the opportunity to renounce the irrational prejudices that led to my thoughtless behavior.

I must now confess that those prejudices once led me to write a check to the Christian Family Crusade, the fundamentalist group that played a role in killing David. As all now know, they also conspired, in the name of righteousness, to slaughter our president and untold thousands of gay-rights sympathizers.