The Tomorrow File (41 page)

I then stopped at my mail drop and picked up the first report from Maya. As I was coming out of the building, an obso em, handsome, well dressed, looked scornfully at my silver zipsuit and said clearly, “Jinky shit.”

I think everyone in Public Service had experienced this kind of personal hassle. One reason why the wearing of official uniforms outside government compounds had been made voluntary rather than mandatory.

A few hours later, in my office, I scanned Maya Leighton’s report, laughed aloud, tossed it across my desk to Paul Bumford.

Subject from GA-8. Georgia, I think. Cracker. No wonder he’s so silent. Every time he opens his mouth he betrays his conditioning. Or lack of it. Brains in his penis. He’s very brainy. Heavy signet ring middle finger left hand. Loose kidneys. But frequently constipated. Doctors himself.
Everything!
But mostly laxatives and nasal sprays. Pimples drive him wild. Very clean personally. Rushes to the nest after using. Can’t pass a mirror without glancing at his image. With approval. Nick, a beautiful,
beautiful
ass! You wouldn’t believe! A muffin! Loves steam rooms, saunas, massage. Exercises strenuously every day. But hooked on the saunas. A kind of ceremony? Not intelligent—but shrewd? Hoo-boy! Nick, I was amused at first. Now he’s beginning to wear. Such a child. When he starts calling me “Mommy’ ’ I resign. He has absolutely
no
pubic hair at all. Well, of course, he has. But it is so blond, so fine, you must get up very, very close to see it. Miss me, you fork-tongued bastard?

Paul scanned the letter swiftly. Then he laughed, too. “Sardonic ef,” he said. “What do you want done with this?” “Dictate it onto a belt.” I said. “Leave out all personal references to me. Then send it down to your Neuropsychiatry Team and order them to start building a Psychological Profile.”

“It would be a lot easier if we could get into the Personnel Files and scan his original PP.”

“It would,” I agreed, “but we can’t. He rules those files. What do you want me to do, flash him and say, ‘Oh Art, by the way, could you send me a copy of your PP? I want to know what makes you jerk. ’ No, this is the only way to do it. I don’t need it on Angela because I compute that ef. And we’ll be getting background and financial input on both of them from my father’s private data banks. Just tell the Neuropsychiatry Team the subject is an object applying for sensitive service and we need a preliminary profile. No problem.”

“Nooo,” he said slowly. “No problem.”

I stared at him.

“What’s
your
problem?” I asked. “Something inoperative here?”

“No, no,” he said hastily. “I was just computing. For the Tomorrow File.”

“Oh? What?”

“These Psychological Profiles—they’re part of the Personnel File of everyone in Public Service. Right?”

“And the military. And universities. And academies. And every decent-size company, corporation, foundation, and conglomerate in the US.”

“In other words, they’re valuable?”

“Valuable? Invaluable! They cull out the nuts. And objects too ambitious or too creative for a particular service. What are you getting at?” -

“Everyone should have a Psychological Profile. Every citizen of the US. To be included in the National Data Bank.”

I shook my head.

“Illegal,” I said. “A PP requires a value judgment. By law, the NDB can only be a repository for raw data.”

“So change the law.” He shrugged.

“For what purpose? What benefit?”

“Nick, you know what’s been happening to the Satrat.” “Yes. It’s soft.”

“Soft? It’s limp! And terrorism is increasing.”

“How do you know that?”

“I hear things, Nick. Just as you do. Bombings, kidnapping,

assassinations. All over the place. Well, if we had a Psychological Profile in the National Data Bank on everyone, computerized, maybe we could weed out the violence-prone, the crime-prone, the nonproducers and the underconsumers. A PP updated every five years, or two years, or annually, would certainly flash warning signs. It could cut down on terrorism, reduce crime, give us a clearer picture of the number and identity of enemies of the state. ” “Yes,” I said promptly. “I think you’ve got something there. It’s interesting. Add it to the Tomorrow File. And while you’re at it, send me a tape of the entire file. I want to include some of our items in the prospectus for the Department of Creative Science. There’s a meeting of DOB early next month. While I’m in Washington, I’ll deliver the prospectus to the Chief Director.”

“Nick,” he said, not looking at me, “are you going to mention me? You know, as source of some of the ideas?”

“Not to worry,” I said. “I’ll spell your name right.”

He grinned at me then. I could remember when it was a little boy’s grin.

I took a commercial jet to San Diego. It stopped at St. Louis, Tulsa, Phoenix. But I didn’t regret the time lost. I used it to dictate notes into my Pockacorder, organizing ideas on the prospectus for the Department of Creative Science. I knew I not only had to convince the Chief Director of its value, but I had to provide—in a brief document—sufficient ammunition to make it politically viable. I had to manipulate his mind from concept to reality.

I decided, in the introduction, to move swiftly from the specific to the general.

“As recently as two hundred years ago, ours was an agrarian society. An em might spend his lifetime in the same log cabin, chinked with mud, in which he had been born. He woke to a cock’s crow, washed in well or stream water, donned garments woven and sewn by his wife, ate a breakfast of foods raised on his own land, turned his fields with a wooden plow pulled by a horse, sold what extra produce he could for needles and glass, read his Bible by candlelight, fell exhausted onto a rope bed covered with a straw tick. Ignorance, poverty, near-starvation, and hard, grinding, endless labor. Muscle labor.

“Today, two centuries later, the average em wakes on a plas-tifoam mattress when his radio alarm clicks on. He adjusts the temperature of his shower by regulating taps through which flows water brought from hundreds of miles away. He cleans his teeth with an ultrasonic strigil. He dons garments knitted of fibers made from petroleum. He drives an electric-powered vehicle. He serves in aseptic, air-conditioned surroundings. He rules machines that provide brute labor. He eats foods, nutritional foods, vitamin-enriched, of an astounding variety. He is able to learn from or be entertained by an amazing array of sight, sound, and scent appliances. He lives longer and he lives better.

“Science and technology have effected this change from the society of two hundred years ago. Revolution is a mild word for it. But since science advances exponentially, the next two hundred years will be, not revolution, but change so fundamental that those living today have less possibility of visualizing it fully than the em of 1800 conceiving today’s world.

“With these advances in medicine, comfort, personal fulfillment, and increased opportunities for all objects, have come new problems: the possibility of nukewar, uncontrolled population growth, despoilment of the environment, a shortage of energy, etc., etc. It could be said that science and technology have created these problems.

“If this is operative, then science and technology can solve these problems. When the need becomes imperative, the human brain will find a solution. Otherwise, we would be apes, would we not ? ’ ’

I played the tape back and listened intently. It would need greasing, but the gist was there. It was at once a challenge and a promise. It was almost a crusade. I felt it would impress Chief Director Michael Wingate because he would recognize the political potential. No one is against tomorrow.

I called Hawkley, Goldfarb & Bensen from the jetport and was told Simon Hawkley would see me at 1400. I purchased a map of San Diego at the newsstand. I sat down on a plastic bench, put my attache case flat on my lap, spread out the map. I found the approximate location of Scilla Pharmaceuticals. I refolded the map—not on the original creases, naturally-—left the terminal and rented a diesel-powered two-door Ford sedan, one of the new Shark models. The attendant gave me directions on how to get to the La Mesa area, to Alvarado Road.

I am conscious of having dictated the preceding paragraph in simple, declarative sentences. It is indicative of my actions at that point in time. After reflection and planning comes the go or no-go decision. This is the stage, I believe, at which most objects falter. Anyone can reflect. Anyone can plan. The crunch comes with the move from thought to action, a giant step that requires energy, resolve, and a willingness to accept change.

In any event, I became aware that once the go/no-go decision was taken and I had opted for action, a linear logic all its own took over.

A led to B which led to C, etc., almost with no volition on my part. Pilots speak of "the point of no return, " the exact second when their diminishing fuel leaves no alternative but to continue the flight, they hope to their destination. I believe I reached my point of no return on I that hot afternoon of August 20, 1998, in San Diego, California.

Did I believe in omens? Yes, I believed in omens, and Scilla Pharmaceuticals was a pleasant surprise. The main building was small, two stories high, built of cinder blocks painted a celery green. The architecture was inoffensive. There was a loading platform, several smaller outbuildings, a circular drive of white gravel. The landscaping was attractive: trees, bushes, shrubs, lawn—all obviously well tended, neat, clean. There was a chain fence around the area, a smartly uniformed guard at the gate.

I drove past slowly, staring, made a U-turn and drove past again. I was briefly tempted to stop, go inside on some pretext or other, and take a look at the interior. But I decided against it. I was satisfied with my first impression: a small, clean, moderately prosperous drug factory. It seemed to fit my needs exactly.

A few hundred yards past the gate the road was bordered by trees for a short distance. The shoulders of the road were wide; a driver could safely pull off onto the verge. Traffic, at that time of day, seemed minimal. At night, I guessed, it would be practically nonexistent. We could park in the shadow of the trees with our receivers and recorders.

I drove slowly back toward the business section, computing possibilities and variables. The difficulties were numerous, but not unconquerable. Mostly physical problems: equipment, timing, tactics. I might even bring it off by myself, but it would be awkward. I needed assistance. Which brought me back to something, or someone rather who had been troubling me. Paul Bumford.

He was, of course, my co-conspirator. Having divulged so much to him, having made him privy to my motives and plans, I should not at that point in time have even questioned his further involvement. He was already in. I could not deny it. But still . . . 

A year previously there would have been no problem. He was then my creature. But the events of the past six months—the smashing of the Society of Obsoletes’ conspiracy and Paul’s elevation to AssDepDirRad—had given him power. That was, as I had told him, a virus. He was as much a victim as I. But I knew it for what it was. And could, I thought, cope, recognizing the responsibilities and dangers of power. But did Paul?

I drove directly to the offices of Hawkley, Goldfarb & Bensen, and spent almost fifteen minutes searching for a parking space. Finally I did what I should have done in the first place: I parked directly in front of the building in a No Parking zone. A uniformed doorman seemed to pop up out of the Glasphalt sidewalk, but I had a five-dollar bill folded, ready to slip into his palm.

“I’ll only be a few minutes,” I said.

He glanced at the bill.

“Take your time,” he said.

Up to the thirty-fourth floor in a high-speed elevator that smelled of an estrogen-based perfume. Then down those chilled, empty corridors. The massive plank door swung shut behind me. Thudding. I was not conscious of having stepped into the past. I had stepped into an executive’s office on the star Arcturus. It was all foreign to me, including the unwrapped mummy propped behind the mahogany desk. These exhausted eyes stared thoughtfully at me. Again, the scrawny neck stretched from a starched white collar a shiny alpaca jacket.

“Sir,” I said, “I trust I find you in good health?”

He demanded language like that.

He waved me to a chair. He already had the decanter and two balloons ready. He poured me a half-glass with a slow, steady hand.

“I live, young man,” Simon Hawkley said.

We plunged right in. He had a sheaf of papers ready and flipped them over steadily, explaining what he proposed. My initial investment would be in a new corporation formed for the purpose of establishing a franchised chain of porn shops. Quite legal. The pom shops would then purchase controlling interest in a new company formed for the purpose of establishing a drive-in three-dimensional laser movie theater. Which in turn would invest its assets in a new factory to produce redi-mixed frozen salads with forty-eight different artificial seasonings. Which would. ... A classic "fuzz job.”

“To accomplish all this,” Simon Hawkley said at one point, “I will need a power of attorney from you, young man. This is where a certain degree of trust on your part is essential.”

“A degree of trust, sir?” I said. “I always thought of trust as complete and absolute, or nonexistent. You have my trust, Mr. Hawkley.”

He liked that. The silver lips compressed in what I hoped was a smile.

I signed all the documents he shoved toward me. I wrote out a check for an enormous sum drawn on a Detroit bank where my father’s loan against my inheritance had been deposited in my name. Hawkley immediately called in the bountifully hindquartered secretary. She took my check and BIN card and departed to open my account.

We raised glasses, sipped, looked at each other. Quite solemn.

“Now then—” I began.

“Now then,” he rumbled in that surprisingly deep, resonant voice of his. “Now then, you will need a personal representative at Scilla. Under the terms of sale, the executive staff stays on. You are allowed to bring in a chief executive. I have a man for you. I vouch for him completely. Agreed?”