Cyber Rogues (54 page)

It was such a peculiar question that Joe didn’t know how to answer. When he looked at her, her eyes, although fixed on him, seemed to have an emptiness that gave him the feeling of talking to a shell.

“What do you think when you look at me like that?” she asked.

“That everyone I meet here is strange.”

But it could be because of the way he was seeing things, he told himself. Maybe people never had been the way he thought he remembered.

He remembered being with a group of young people, laughing and teasing each other as they walked along a road by a shore, where waves broke over rocks below. It was an old town somewhere, of imposing, high-fronted houses built in terraces around squares with green lawns. Ships sailed out of a harbor, past a lighthouse at the end of a long stone pier.

“You were involved in some unconventional experiments involving processes deep in the brain, which have affected your mind and altered the way you see the world,” Dr. Arnold told him.

“I seem to remember I worked with computers. I came to this country to work with them from somewhere else.”

“Ah, excellent! You’re getting better every day. Now I want you to meet Simon, who’s going to be your regular counselor. Simon, this is the man we want you to help. His name is Joe. Do you remember your full name, Joe?”

“Corrigan. . . . Joe Corrigan. Pleased to meet you, Simon.”

One Saturday night there was a dance for the patients to get to know each other and begin rediscovering long-unused social skills. Corrigan felt as if he had been caught up in a charade of walking character clichés.

“How are you finding it, Joe?” Dr. Arnold inquired, rubbing his hands together like an anxious headmaster showing his face at the annual high-school ball.

“Tell me these people aren’t real,” Corrigan answered.

Arnold seemed unsurprised but interested. “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

“I feel as if I’m in an old, corny movie.”

“The parts of your memory are starting to come together again. Not as much of what you think you see is really out there. Your mind is filling the gaps by projecting its own, stored stereotypes from long ago. Don’t worry. It’s a healthy sign.”

There came a day when Corrigan grew tired of being restricted. He wanted to get out in the air and work with his hands. In a shed in the rear grounds of the hospital he found some garden tools, and decided on impulse that he would plant a vegetable patch. There was no need to seek approval—one of the advantages of being deemed unstable was that nobody was surprised at anything one did. In any case, asking would simply be an invitation to be told no. A phrase came to mind from somewhere in his past and made him smile: “Contrition is easier than permission.”

The world was coming more together now, and although he hadn’t said so, inwardly he considered himself to be virtually back to normal. But when he turned over the first fork of soil, there was nothing underneath—just blackness. He stared, confused, then closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, nothing was amiss: he saw earth, roots, a shard of pottery, and a few rocks.

“You see, you’re not as well as you imagine yet,” Arnold told him when Corrigan described the experience. “Your perceptions can still be disrupted by sudden changes of mood or intent. That is why it is important for you to get into the habit of thinking smoothly. Avoid discontinuities. . . . But wanting to get out and about again, I can understand. It’s perfectly natural.”

“Maybe I could visit my old company?” Corrigan suggested. He could remember a little now about the organization that he used to be with, and his work there. It had involved supercomputers and other advanced hardware.

“That project was abandoned a long time ago now, Joe,” Arnold replied. “And I’m not sure that digging up those ghosts would really be for the best. But I agree that we should begin broadening your experiences as a start to getting you on the road back to a normal life.”

“How long have I been here?” Corrigan asked.

“It’s getting close to three years now,” Arnold said.

“Don’t I have any family? Why does nobody come and visit?”

“They did, in the early days. Don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“You didn’t respond well. It set off a regression that threw us back months.”

“I’m better now. Can’t we try again?”

“Sure. But it would be best if not for a while just yet. All in good time, Joe. All in good time. . . .”

He remembered courts of cobblestones and lawns, closed in by tall buildings with frontages of old stone. An archway led through to a busy street with green, double-decked buses. There was a pub by a river, filled with talkative youths in heavy-knit sweaters and pretty girls who wore black stockings. They danced and sang to music in the back room.

“You have to get rid of Simon,” Corrigan said. “I can’t get along with him. It’s not working.”

“What’s the problem?” Arnold asked.

“There isn’t any communication. I feel like I’m talking to a sponge.”

“Are you sure the problem is with him and not you?”

“I didn’t say it was him.”

“What’s the biggest problem area?”

“He doesn’t understand jokes.”

“Is that so terrible?”

“It means he isn’t human. To be effective, a counselor really ought to come from one’s own species.”

Arnold considered the statement. “I’m not so sure of your conclusion,” he replied finally. “I believe there are traits among certain animals that some researchers have tentatively identified as indicative of humor.” To Corrigan’s amazement, Arnold showed every appearance of being perfectly serious.

“That was a joke,” Corrigan said wearily.

They gave him an apartment of his own—still under supervision, but at least it was a start toward regaining independence.

“I had a wife,” he said to Arnold one day.

“Things weren’t so good between you, though, were they?” That was true. Corrigan could recall more now of the conflicts of those final months—both professional and domestic.

“What happened to her?” Corrigan asked.

“She got a divorce on the grounds of your incapacitation,” Arnold said. “I think she’s abroad somewhere now.”

“Now that I’m out again, maybe we could track down some of the people I used to work with. There must be some of them still around. Maybe I could even get some kind of a job there again.”

Arnold didn’t seem overenthusiastic. “Maybe, in time. But we feel that reviving those associations too soon could trigger another relapse. Let’s see how well you rehabilitate in the short term first.”

“Joe, this is Sarah Bewley. She’s going to be your new counselor. We’ve been talking about you to a company that does a lot of work in your field, and they’re willing to give you a try at a job. Isn’t that great? It will also be farewell from me pretty soon. I’m moving on.”

Sarah elaborated. “It’s a Japanese corporation called Himomatsu, who are concentrating on virtual, self-modifying environments. That is the kind of thing that you used to do, isn’t it? Naturally, it won’t be as senior a position as you had before, but we have to start somewhere. I’ve arranged an interview for you with their local general manager on Monday—his name is Rawlings. If they do decide to take you on, you’ll be going on a familiarization trip to Tokyo.”

“You’ve been busy,” Corrigan complimented.

“We just want to see you functioning again, Joe.”

“Sarah,” Joe said, “is the world going crazy, or am I not as well as I feel?”

“Didn’t you like Japan?”

“It was all the bad tour guides you’ve ever seen, come to life. They do everything in regiments over there. Somebody’s churning them out of a clone factory.”

“It’s a different culture. You have to make allowances,” Sarah said.

“They drill their employees on parade grounds. I thought I was joining a company, not the Marine Corps,” Corrigan protested.

Sarah smiled patronizingly. “That’s just a new idea that they’re trying out. Employee motivation is important. You can’t learn if you don’t experiment.”

“They’ve got dude-ranch-style fantasy farms, where you can act out daydreams. Later, the scripts get incorporated into VR scenarios. Unreality is getting more real than reality.”

“People probably felt the same way about movies once.”

“They’ve got education being dispensed by actors posing as media characters, actresses endorsing scientific theories, and ads in everything you look at—even grade-school political messages on cereal boxes. And it’s getting more like that here every day. If this is where it leads, I’m not sure I want the job anymore.”

“Give it a try,” Sarah urged. “It will get you out again, and among people. Think of it as purely therapeutic.”

Graham Rawlings didn’t look happy as he perused the annual review from Corrigan’s file. “It says that you haven’t enrolled in the golfing tuition program,” he observed.

“That’s right,” Corrigan agreed.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to play golf.” (Wasn’t it obvious?)

“But all our executives play golf,” Rawlings said. “It’s part of the accepted corporate image. Don’t you want to share in the feeling of strength and security that comes from uniformity of outlook, shared ideals, and a common purpose?”

“No.”

Rawlings seemed taken aback. “Surely you seek promotion and reward, recognition and success? Everybody needs to proclaim to the world what he is.”

“But you’re trying to make me exactly what I’m not.”

Rawlings looked worried. “Maybe you’re more ill than we realize. Possibly you should see a counselor.”

“I’ve already got one.”

“The corporation can provide a comprehensive package of counseling, regular physical checks, drugs as required, and remedial therapy.”

“No, thanks.”

“At the company’s expense.”

“But I feel just fine.”

Rawlings sat back, shaking his head, as if that one remark revealed all. “That proves you’re sick,” he said gravely.

Sarah was prim about it when Corrigan stopped by her office to announce that he was quitting. “Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I tried my best,” she said. “So what do you want to do?”

“I’m not sure. Just be myself, I suppose.”

“And what, exactly, is that?”

“Ask the people who are always telling me. They seem to know. I’m still trying to find out.”

“Have you talked it over with Muriel?”

“She thinks I should do my own thing in my own way—try to find myself again.”

“She sounds very supportive,” Sarah conceded.

“If that’s the right word. Lately she’s been dropping hints about as subtle as a tax demand that we ought to get married.”

Sarah sat back at her desk and regarded him thoughtfully, as if the world had just shifted on its axis and presented itself in a new perspective. “You know, Joe, that mightn’t be such a bad idea,” she said at last. “You’ve been on the program for nine years now. That kind of stabilizing influence could be just what you need. Then we could let the two of you find a place of your own independently. I can’t think of a better road back to complete normality than that.”

Muriel and Joe married early the following year. However, when they had talked about individualism and being himself, Muriel thought he was describing his determination to pursue a career vigorously within the corporation. When he quit, explaining that what he’d meant was that he was going to chuck all of it, and announced that he’d taken a job as a checkout clerk at a discount store, it put a different complexion on things.

And, predictably, life continued on a downhill course from there. . . .

CHAPTER ONE

Few things, Corrigan thought irritably as he lay washed up on the pebbly shore of wakefulness from the warm, carefree ocean of sleep, could be more maddening first thing in the morning than a chatty house-computer—especially one afflicted with the kind of advanced neurosis that he usually associated with swooning aunts or psychiatric rehabilitation counselors.

“It’s almost nine o’clock, Joe,” it babbled again in the fussing English accent that projected Muriel’s conception of professional conscientiousness with a touch of social style. “As a rule, this is your absolute
latest
for getting up on a Saturday.”

Corrigan thought that it sounded gay. He pictured it as lean and limp-wristed, with a receding hairline, mincing about the room and throwing its hands up in agitation.

“Oh. . . . Hmm.” Corrigan yawned, stretched, and opened his eyes to the homey disarray of the apartment’s bedroom. “Is it Saturday?”

“Well, of course it is, Joe. Why would I have said so if it weren’t?”

Horace. What kind of a woman gave the computer a name like Horace? Corrigan allowed wakefulness to percolate through his body gradually. She had gotten the name, and its emulated persona, from Horace Greal, the equally insufferable confidant and financial adviser to the playgirl-adventuress star of the series
Fast-Lane Lady,
which depicted high society, fast sex, and mega-money in a bright-lights, big-city setting. Muriel, apparently like most people these days, was able to relate to such roles totally, elevating experience by dissolving the barriers between fantasy and actuality, and letting “is” merge effortlessly into “could be.” Corrigan couldn’t. The two categories remained obstinately unfused in his mind. That, he was told, constituted the principal cause of the inner alienation, insecurity, and resentments that the experts assured him he felt. The only thing wrong was, he didn’t.

Saturday. That meant that he wasn’t due at work until the evening. He rolled over and contemplated the ceiling. As he began thinking what needed doing today, a disharmony of clashing chords tied together by an ungainly, clickety-clack rhythm started up from the apartment’s sound system. Muriel’s kind of music. He wondered if the choice presaged the role that she had decided to adopt for herself today. Would it be luminescent, green spiked hair, purple jumpsuit, and “Astra, Queen of the Mountains” (who also promoted Vaylon cosmetics and the Salon Faubert fashion styles), or imitation combat fatigues, calf boots, and . . . And then the last shreds of sleep fell away from his mind, and he remembered.