The Tomorrow File (62 page)

“I’ve got to see him,” I said.

“No, Nick,” she said. “He’s got a full plate.”

“It’s about GPA-11,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Take a beat.”

She went off screen. Then came on a moment later.

“Should Bigelow be there?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Take two beats,” she said. And disappeared again. Finally she came back on.

“Got you in,” she said. “At 2030 tonight. Here, at the EOB.”

The shuttle got me to Washington an hour before my meet. I took the Metro to the Lafayette Square stop. I was carrying no luggage. I intended to stay overnight, but I had clothes and toilet gear in the Chevy Chase place. As I did in Grosse Pointe. It would, I thought, be nice, some day, to settle. Put down roots. Obso thinking. To settle was to stop.

I was still early for my meeting with the CD. I walked in, unannounced, to the office of the gestating Department of Creative Science. After all, it was
my
office. In the basement of the EOB. A suite of three rooms, in the disarray of enlargement. No one about. Machines shrouded. But in the inner office, Paul’s sanctum, lights and the sound of voices. I pushed open the door. Paul, Mary, Maya Leighton, Seth Lucas, Art Roach.

“Ah-ha,” I said. “Gotcha.”

“Hey, Nick.” Paul said. Genially. Uncoiling from his swivel chair behind the desk.

“Dr. Flair,” Roach said. Solemnly. “I haven’t had a chance to thank yawl for what you did.”

“Sure,” I said. “We stroke you, you stroke us. Keeping an eye on the stamps and petty cash around here?”

Then they were all silent. Suddenly.

“Art just took over,” Paul said. “A few days ago. Doing good service. Some creative ideas. What gives, Nick?”

I thought the mass was stressed. But when you lived in a paranoiac world, you learned to breathe suspicion.

“Got a meet with the CD, Paul,” I said. “Can you make it?” “About the DCS?” he asked anxiously.

“No. Something else.”

“Nick, I have a meeting of the Beists’ finance committee.” “Go,” I said. “By all means.” I turned to Seth Lucas. “How’s your patient, Seth?”

“Just stopped by to say hello,” he said.

“Lewisohn did?”

“No, no,” he said hurriedly. “No change in Lewisohn. Maya and I came over for a seminar.”

“Oh?” I said. “What seminar?”

“Not a seminar,” Paul said testily. “How many times do I have to tell you, Seth? It’s not a seminar, it’s a hearing. House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Nick. I wanted to condition Seth and Maya to the drill. They may be called upon to testify.” “They may indeed.” I nodded.

“See you later, Nick?” Maya smiled at me. “After your meeting?”

It was pulling in all directions. Stretched and disturbing.

“I may be a while,” I said.

“Seth is going back to the Hospice,” she said. “I’m staying over with Mary out in Chevy Chase.”

“Fine,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you there. Paul, can I talk to you for a minute?”

It had been a curious exchange. No structure. I could not compute it. It was my fault, I supposed, for barging in suddenly.

Paul followed me out into the corridor.

“That business in GPA-11,” I said. Low voice. “It’s a manipulated strain of
Clostridium botulinum.
Aerobic.”

He looked at me. Startled.

“My God,” he breathed. “How did you get onto that?” 

“Heavy analysis of specimens from the National Epidemiology Center. The strain was developed during chemwar research in 1988.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t. Not the original research. Before your time. But it was listed in the restricted drug code book. I’d have thought you’d remember. Didn’t you scan it when you were AssDepDirRad?” 

“Well, sure,” he said. “But Nick, there must be a hundred stews in that book."

A serpent began to stir.

“Close to it,” I said.

“Well, there you are,” he said. '‘How is it administered?” 

“No idea,” I said. “I’m telling Wingate right now. Then it’s Bigelow’s migraine.”

“Oh? He’ll be there?”

“Of course.”

“Well, don’t take any kaka from him, Nick. I happen to know his status is fragile.”

“My son, the pol,” I said.

Chief Director Michael Wingate and Chief of the Bureau of Public Security R. Sam Bigelow were seated in the dining area of the CD’s office when Penelope Mapes ushered me in. The remains of a meal littered the table. Both ems appeared frayed.

“Well, Nick?” the Chief Director demanded. “What have you got for us?”

“Sir," I said, “I had heavy analysis done on specimens sent from the National Epidemiology Center. That outbreak in GPA-11 is caused by a manipulated strain of the botulism bacterium. It’s aerobic. Meaning it can exist in the presence of oxygen.”

“I don’t believe it,” R. Sam Bigelow said angrily. Frog face going in and out.

“It’s not important what you believe,” I said. I was, I admit, relieving my growing hostility on him. “It’s operative.”

“Now see here, you—” he began.

Wingate raised a hand. Bigelow’s mouth snapped shut. The CD stared at him.

“Why didn’t Heath know about this?” he said coldly. “More to the point, Sam, why didn’t
you
know about it?”

“Listen, Chief,” Bigelow said hotly, “you can’t expect the Bureau’s labs to know about every poison developed by the Department of Bliss.”

“It wasn’t developed by the Department of Bliss,” I said. “This particular poison was developed by the Department of Peace. In a Phase II alert, ten years ago.”

“Shit,” Bigelow said disgustedly. “All right. Write it down. We’ll check it out.”

I looked around for something to write on. Penelope Mapes was at my elbow instantly with pencil and scratchpad. I jotted the name of the bacterium and the code number and slid it across the table to Bigelow.

“Any cure, Nick?” the Chief Director asked.

“An antidote? No, sir. Not to my knowledge. The alert was canceled before we went that far.”

“Shit,” Bigelow repeated. And glowered at me as if I had personally stopped every one of those victims in GPA-11.

“Then the outbreak is programmed,” Wingate said. No idiot he. “Yes, sir.” I nodded. “No doubt about it.”

“Any idea how they’re doing it?” the Chief Director asked. “No, sir. Not really. You might have the field investigators check out fiddled cigarettes and cigars. But it’s a very long shot, considering the age-victim numbers. It’s something else. Got to be.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find it,” Bigelow grumbled.

“I’m sure you will,” I said equably. The toadish em bored me. Suddenly the whole fracture bored me. Not half so significant as a soft kiss, in a closed car, on a swift turn, in Central Park.

“Grace told me you entertained her at lunch in New York,” Michael Wingate said. Walking me to the door. “That was kind of you, Nick.”

“My profit, sir.”

“Yes. And thank you for your service on this business. We’ll take it from here.”

It was late, but I was able to draw wheels from the EOB motor pool. I drove to Chevy Chase slowly. Much had happened in the

past hour that I wanted to compute. But all I could reckon was my own obsession.

I estimated her weight at about fifty kilos. All stuff. Wind it up and set it ticking. No different. It was operative that she was comely, but so were millions of other efs and ems. Why she? No great beauty. No great wit. She was simply who she was.

I drove in a glaze. What bemused me was my chilly sombreness in computing all this. And my total disregard of the possible consequences. Dreaming of her, even doom seemed a profit.

From an address to a cadre of fourteen-year-old neurophysiologists under accelerated conditioning at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, February fourth, 1999:

“There was a time when a conditioned obso, expert in his discipline, might spend a lifetime studying Sumerian script. I suggest to you that this was less discipline than self-indulgence! (Laughter)

“I will not insult your intelligence by calling you the ‘wave of the future.’ I will say only that today, and tomorrow,' your brains are needed. There is vital service to be done, a world to remake, and it is to enlist your aid in remaking that world that I am here tonight.

“When you leave this hall, you will be given Instox copies of HR-316, a bill to establish a Department of Creative Science in the Public Service, as submitted by the Chief Director to the House of Representatives for debate and approval. We hope!

“I would like to call your attention to Division III, Section 8 of that bill. It deals with staff organization of the proposed Department. You will find frequent mention of the term ‘omnists. ’ I would like to take a few moments, if I may, to analyze for you what our computing was on this subject, and why we created the term ‘omnist’ to describe the scientist of tomorrow.”

From an address to the National Association of Drug Manufacturers at their convention in Miami, Florida, February fifth, 1999:

“All right, having now outlined the new bill, let me ask and answer the question: ‘How will the Department of Creative Science affect your organization and the future of drug biz in the US and in the world?"

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear: We haven’t yet moved the bill out of the House Committee considering it, arid already, amongst those serving to do exactly that, aspirin consumption is up three hundred percent! (Laughter)

“Seriously, I believe the DCS will prove the greatest boon to the drug industry since the synthesizing of steroids. Not because there is any one division, section, paragraph, or even a single word in the bill that applies particularly to the drug structure. But because the fundamental belief of the new Department of Creative Science will be in the holistic nature of science. The goal of all science is the improvement of the species. It’s as simple as that. And it is there, precisely, that you and your industry will be expected to play a crucial role.

“I suggest to you that the time has passed to consider drugs within a limited, therapeutic frame of reference. Up to this point in time, you have been engaged essentially in producing a negative pharmacology: antiheadache, antiarteriosclerosis, antipimple, antidepression, and so forth.

“We, who are devoting our energies, talents, and brains to the DCS, believe the time has now arrived to develop a positive pharmacology. We are irrevocably committed to serving closely with you in researching a whole new spectrum of physical strength and mental health stimulators, to enable the human race to cope with the future and to fulfill its potential as the most creative species the universe has ever seen.” (Applause)

From extempore remarks to a symposium of hostile media students at the University of Missouri, February 8, 1999:

“What on earth makes you think you are the anointed? To sit in • judgment on the actions of objects in high places? To scorn their talents, misrepresent their motives, ridicule their sacrifices?

“You are falling into exactly the same trap that demolished th% reputation of professional economists in the 1970’s. They saw their occupation as a discipline apart, existing
in vacuo,
with its own laws, precepts, equations, logic, and goals. Then they awoke one day to discover it was all mush. They had neglected to consider the political factor, the social element, and all their fine computing amounted to a heap of kaka because their input was faulty.

“I suggest that you ponder that example. Do you really believe you can write your news stories, shoot your documentaries, film your interviews, compose your editorials, from some slightly yellowed and stained ivory tower where reality is not allowed to intrude? Such an attitude is worse than foolish; it is dangerous. You are of this world. Your service is of this world. You deny the future at your peril.”

From final remarks to a meeting of graduate neurobiologists at the National Science Academy, February 11, 1999:

“The important thing is not to waste time searching for answers to questions for which there are no answers.”

I delivered 12 speeches in eighteen days, and took part in 6 symposia, 8 colloquies, and submitted to 16 radio and television interviews. I visited nursery schools, academies, colleges, universities, laboratories, factories, power installations. I stroked innumerable palms, smiled until I feared my face would crack, and was photographed in close conversation with a former President. His breath was foul.

Joseph Tyrone Wellington provided a PR staff of four. An advance em moved one day ahead of us, confirming arrangements, making contacts, setting up local media. Traveling with me were: (1) A technical em who checked out public address systems, seating arrangements, local radio and TV coverage, etc.; (2) A security em in civilian clothes who was responsible for antiterrorist planning and travel arrangements; and (3) An extremely tall, attenuated ef named Samantha Slater. “Just for laughs,” Joe Wellington had whispered. Winking.

In fact, Samantha was remarkably competent and held the entire safari together. She got us where we had to be on time, paid motel bills, carried an inexhaustible pharmacopoeia, and, from the first day, when we surrendered to the hysteria, she and I used each other with profit. Frequently. Everywhere. Once, standing up in a phone booth. Once, blue with cold, on a hotel terrace. Her corpus was incredible. Like using a worm.

We finally got to Detroit where I addressed a formal dinner meeting (red tie) of richnik industrialists. I told them that, if they didn’t know it already, research and development were their only guarantee of continued growth. And the proposed Department of Creative Science stood foursquare for research and development. Applause was generous.

So generous that I told them that as industrial managers, they must also learn that innovative ideas in political and social orbits could be just as lovable. This time the applause was polite.

We had structured a break upon reaching Detroit. The rest of the party went on to Buffalo where I would rejoin them in two days. I cabbed out to Grosse Pointe and fell into bed. Coming down slowly from my energizer high. I awoke fourteen hours later, wishing Samantha Slater was there. She could twist her . . .