The Tomorrow File (55 page)

“Nick,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

“My profit, sir,” I said.

He introduced me to Sady Nagle. She was across the room. I bowed in her direction. She smiled sweetly, bobbed a great mass of iron-gray hair. She was so ugly she was charming.

“Nick, entertain Sady for a few minutes, will you? Mix a drink if you like or ring for the steward.”

He and Seidensticker went back to the office area. The Chief Director sat down heavily behind his desk. The Executive Assistant was carrying my briefcase. He stood at Wingate’s elbow and began to lay out the evidence: tapes, film, lists, journals, notebooks.' He leaned far over Wingate, whispering, whispering. . . .

“May I get you a drink, Miss Nagle?” I asked.

“Sady,” she said. In an unexpectedly hoarse, emish voice. “Tea would be nice. For that you push the little button over there by the pantry door. Then Tommy comes in. He knows how I like my tea. In a real glass. And whatever you want.”

I did as she instructed. I pressed the little button, a red steward appeared immediately, listened to my request, nodded, disappeared .

“Come sit here,” Sady Nagle called to me. Patting the couch beside her. “You’re really a doctor?”

“Really.”

“So tell me, Nick . . .” she went on. “I can call you Nick?” “Of course.”

“Tell me, Nick, what kind of a doctor are you? Head? Foot? Stomach? Heart? A professor maybe?”

“All kinds,” I told her.

“Good.” She smiled approvingly. “So tell me, doctor, what do you recommend for an endless headache?”

“Two aspirins every four hours,” I said. “Endlessly.”

She laughed until her face was pink.

Her tea was brought, and my iced Smack. We had a most enjoyable conversation. I had never met an object who could
listen
as well as she. She asked personal questions about my birthplace, my parents, why I wasn’t, married. But never did I feel she was prying; I felt she
cared.

She was said to be a political genius, the one object in the US perfectly attuned to the wants, needs, ambitions, and dreams of the political hierarchy and the public. And to their sins and weaknesses. I could believe it. It seemed difficult to withhold a confidence from her, and impossible to deceive her. I think her gift, in addition to that ugly, grandmotherly appearance, was that she could never represent a threat. She was sympathetic, disarming, and so worldly-wise and understanding that if I had suddenly blurted out, “Sady, I have just betrayed an ef I admire,” she might pat my arm and say, “You shouldn’t have done that, sonny.” And I would then be less horrified by my deed than by the realization that I had diminished her good opinion of me.

“Nickola,” she whispered. Leaning close. “What you and the Stick brought up . . . it’s serious?”

I nodded.

“I knew,” she said sadly. “I could tell. The poor boy is so upset today. His stomach? I asked him. But he said no, it’s not his stomach. Not his feet. It’s his wife, no?”

“Partly,” I said. I could keep nothing from her.

“That poor girl,” she said sorrowfully. “So lovely. I tell you, Nickola, what we women have to put up with you wouldn’t believe.”

I was rescued by the Chief Director. In a cracked, almost angry voice, he called, “Nick, would you come over here a moment, please.”

When I got to the desk, he was standing at a window, staring out.

“Does Angela know anything of this?” Wingate asked. Tonelessly. “Is she aware that
you
know?”

“No, sir,” I said. “Not to my knowledge.”

We stood there silently another minute. At least. Then the Chief Director turned to us slowly. I hoped I might never again see an object’s face so tortured. He was a stranger, twisted out of shape. Blank eyes looked at me without seeing. Then slid over to his hatchet.

“Take her!’ he said harshly.

An hour later I was curled up on the back seat of my limousine. The radio was on, turned low. The current jerk-and-jag star, Jock Rot, was singing, “If you don’t like my artichoke, please don’t shake my bush.” I went to sleep to that.

I slept all the way to Manhattan Landing. It was a good sleep, deep and dreamless. At the guardhouse of the compound I picked up an urgent message from Ellen Dawes, asking I flash her the moment I returned.

We left Mary to return the equipment to the night duty officers and the limousine to the motor pool. Paul and I went up to my office.

Paul kicked off his shoes, sprawled wearily on my couch. I stood behind my desk, flipping quickly through the red messages.

“Satisfaction Rate is down point five,” I said.

Paul groaned.

I tossed the messages aside. Sat down in my swivel chair, put my feet up on the desk. Paul and I drank in silence. I don’t know why we didn’t feel more elation. We had done what we set out to do. “Will you get DIROB?” Paul asked. Languidly.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. Directorships are in the political realm. I don’t have enough clout.”

“Surely you’ll get
something
out of it?”

“I got what I wanted,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer.

I finally railed Ellen Dawes. She said Phoebe Huntzinger had been trying to contact me all day. Phoebe had said it was very, very important, and I was to flash her at any hour of the day or night, whenever I returned.

“Thanks, Ellen,” I said. “I’ll flash her right now. Sorry to bother you.”

I switched off long enough to break the connection, then switched on again and punched the number of the Denver Field Office. “What is it?” Paul asked.

“Phoebe Huntzinger in Denver,” I said. “Probably about Project Phoenix. Says it’s important.”

Paul got up, came around to stand behind me, watching the flasher screen. The Denver Field Office operator came on. I asked for Phoebe Huntzinger.

“Yes,
sir,
Dr. Flair!” She grinned. “At once, Dr. Flair, sir!”

“Now what the hell?” I muttered.

The flasher flicked to a scene of bedlam. A mob in the background. Shouts, calls, laughter, screams. Total confusion. A naked ef dancing about.

“Jesus Christ!” Paul said. “Have they gone mad?”

Then Phoebe was on screen. Grinning and more than slightly drunk. Holding a plastiglass of something.

“Nick!” she screamed. “Nick, you old fart!”

She was bumped, shoved. Objects kept poking their heads over her shoulders to get on camera.

Phoebe, ” I yelled, "what the hell is this? What’s happening?" Someone shoved a piece of computer printout at her. She held it close to the flasher camera eye. Our screen filled with print. Paul and I leaned forward to see.
XXXXXX I XXXXXX

XXXX I FEEL XXXXX XXX I FEEL GOD XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

We scanned it. Looked at each other. Realization growing.

"Phoebe!” I screamed. “Phoebe!”

The printout was jerked away. She was grinning at me again.

“We did it, daddy!” she yelled. “We really did! The first declarative sentence! A conception! Brain to computer printout! Untouched by human hands!”

“ ‘I feel god’?” I repeated. “What is—”

“No, no!” she screamed. “It’s a little booboo in the circuitry. ‘God’ wasn’t fed into the memory bank. It should be ‘good. ’ ‘I feel good.’ We can correct it. No problem. A little slippage. ‘I feel good.’ We did it, Nick!”

“Put it up there again,” I yelled at her.

She held up the computer printout.

XXX I FEEL GOD XXX

Paul was laughing now. I was too. Everything we had bottled up for days, weeks, months came bubbling out. All our disappointments, fears, tensions, anxieties, terrors. All released. We hugged each other, roaring, screaming, tossing papers into the air, dancing wildly, stamping our feet.

XXX I FEEL GOD XXX

We had done it. Done it! Picked up an object’s thought and printed it. Negated will. Tapped the brain. We were all one now. All one!

XXX I FEEL GOD XXX

Chief Director Michael Wingate sent me an Instox copy of Angela Teresa Berri’s voluntary statement. It was delivered by courier and stamped “FYEO-S&D” on every page. For Your Eyes Only—Scan and Destroy.

Clipped to the sheaf of manuscript was a small, handwritten note: "Thanx. M. W. ” So apparently he was appreciative of my service.

I saved the mss. for late-night scanning, in the privacy of my apartment. I had succeeded in purchasing a case of natural beer, allegedly of Dutch origin, from a black-market pusher. The entire case was chilling on the bottom shelf of my fridge. Scanning Angela’s
mea culpa
seemed as good an occasion as any to sample my treasure.

The medical report attached to Angela’s statement described an ef of basically good health, in a somewhat debilitated state. At some point in the past, she had been hysterectomized and had undergone plastic surgery for the implantation of polyurethane sacs of silicone gel to increase the rotundity of her buttocks. I had not been aware of either operation.

The psychological diagnosis listed strong competitive drive, oral orientation, possible narcissism, positive self-esteem, and other labels of a similarly general nature. The final notation—“severe depressive anxiety”—was, I would say, normal under the conditions in which she had found herself following her arrest. But the citation of severe depressive anxiety served another purpose. As I well knew. It justified treatment by cocaine or some other alkaloid to relieve the symptoms. The report ended as I knew it would: “Subject signed Informed Consent Statement voluntarily.” Of course.

In 1998, the judicial system of the US operated approximately as it had for 200 years. An object charged with a serious criminal offense was tried by a jury of his peers in a public court. However, in 1991, the Public Security Control Act created an additional court within the federal judiciary. It was designed to deal solely with crimes against public security or prejudicial to the public interest. Trials under the PSCA were held
in camera.
Rather than a jury, the verdict was decided by a board of appointed judges whose security clearance was sufficiently high to enable them to hear and consider evidence of a sensitive nature. Appeal could be made through higher channels in a manner similar to that specified in the Code of Military Justice. But in the great majority of public security cases, especially those involving objects in Public Service, full confessions with a signed and witnessed Informed Consent Statement reduced most trials to an automatic plea of guilty before a single judge.

That was what happened to Angela Teresa Berri. Her sentence, as prescribed by law: “To be determined in such a manner as to maximize the convicted object’s future usefulness and benefit to the State.” The trial judge, after accepting and recording the guilty plea, invariably released the corpus of the convicted object to the US Government’s Chief Prosecutor. That officer, in turn, usually transferred the corpus to the Public Service Department in which the object had been a member. The convicted object was then assigned to “service of the greatest public benefaction.”

I opened another bottle of that delightfully biting beer and began scanning Angela’s statement. It had been transcribed from dictated tapes. There was a great deal in it that was discontinuous, some that was irrational, and some merely gibberish. Considering the conditions under which the statement had been given, that was understandable.

I turned first to that portion of Angela’s confession dealing with the conspiracy of the Society of Obsoletes, previously described in this record. I was concerned as to Angela’s account of my activities and involvement in that affair. But nothing she said implied any serious improprieties on my part. In fact, she gave me generous credit in helping thwart the plot of Dr. Thomas J. Wiley,
et al.

I then started at the beginning and scanned straight through. Finishing the manuscript and my fourth bottle of beer just before 0200. It was interesting. Not only had she murdered Frank Lawson Harris, but she had manipulated the suicide of her husband when she was eighteen.

Her ownership of the Washington, D. C., bordello, the Sexual Congress, was a fairly recent business venture. It had not been used for overt blackmail attempts, although she was aware of the membership. She had a few other minor scams going of which Art Roach was unaware.

There was no mention of her relationship with Chief Director Michael Wingate. But of course I might have been supplied an edited copy of her statement.

The final page of the manuscript was a copy of a document assigning the corpus of Angela Teresa Berri to Hospice No. 17 for “service of the greatest public benefaction.” This Hospice was a small facility, near Little Rock, Arkansas, that was, and had been for many years, engaged in a single project: the chemical synthesis of human blood. I scanned their reports regularly. The most recent had announced the survival of a human subject for twenty-two hours following complete transfusion of a newly formularized fluid.

Incidentally, the assignment to Hospice No. 17 was signed by the new Director of the Department of Bliss. He was Chapman, the fussy little bookkeeper type who had formerly been DEPDIRPRO. I told Paul I was not disappointed. But I may have been.

Four days after the Congressional elections, Paul and I received invitations to a dinner party to be held at the Chief Director’s residence in Georgetown, to honor B. Anthony Chapman, the new Director of the Department of Bliss. Such an invitation was a polite command. In the lower left-hand corner of the card was printed “Decorations,
s’il vous plait."
From which I inferred this was to be a gathering of official guests only: all Public Service. If civilians had been invited, the instruction on expected dress would have included “Red tie,
s’il vous plait.”

Paul and I discussed our travel arrangements. We agreed that guests would probably include the Chief Director’s personal staff, directors of all Public Service departments, section deputy directors of Bliss, and some division assistant deputy directors. We would be fools to arrive at this august assemblage in a battered, dusty cab after having taken the air shuttle to Washington. We opted for a drive down in my limousine. Chauffeured, of course.