Interface (67 page)

"Nature? I didn't know there was any nature left in downstate."

"Well, you have to look for it, but it's there. Watch the tree."
Mel turned toward the oak, cupped his hands around his face
like a megaphone, and then did something incredibly un-Mel-
like: he made a high-pitched screeching sound, three sharp
falsetto cries.

The tree rose into the sky. That's what it looked like, for a
moment. A thousand black birds rose from its branches in unison
and soared across the cornfield, holding for a moment the shape of
the tree, then forming into a tightly organized cloud that twisted
around itself, turned inside out, changing directions and leaders but
always staying together.

Mel was grinning at her. "You didn't know those birds were
there, did you?"

Mary Catherine shook her head no.

"Look at 'em," Mel said. "I've been watching them from my car.
Watch how the flock can vanish."

Every bird in the flock snapped into exactly the same banking
turn. At a certain point they were all coming directly toward Mel
and Mary Catherine, and the flock became nearly invisible as each
bird was viewed edge-on. Then Mel made his screeching noise
again and they all turned sideways, the hidden flock snapping back
into existence, much closer to them, almost merging into a solid
wall.

"You know, Mary Catherine, that I have spent my career as an integral part of the military-industrial complex. Whatever the hell
that is." Mel waved his arm toward a patch of mist at about three
o'clock. "Right over there is Willy's nylon factory, where they
made parachutes for the Army. You can't get much more military, or industrial, than that. So I have always scoffed at people who
blamed all the world's troubles on the military-industrial complex.
But I can't escape the idea that something very big is going on
involving our Willy. Something that involves spending an ungodly
amount of money."

"The biochip implant is definitely a big deal," Mary Catherine
said. She was still mystified by the business with Mel's little black box, and the bird thing made no sense at all, but she decided to play
along for now. "The Radhakrishnan Institute definitely has a lot of
money behind it. We knew that from the beginning. And we've
always been realistic enough to understand that there's an
economic dimension to this therapy. If it goes well, the institute
and its backers will have a gold mine on their hands."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Mel said, waving his hand dimissively, "that
is all a given. That's the Invisible Hand argument - that we're
seeing free enterprise in action here. I've been thinking about that argument ever since you came back from your inspection trip. It
doesn't hold up under scrutiny."

"Why not?"

"Sure, a lot of people have brain damage. But there are a million diseases. Cancer, muscular dystrophy, car crashes. Now, there's a
good example - car crashes. For decades, a ridiculous number of
people died in car crashes. Still do. But even simple things like seat belts took a long time to develop. The car makers had to be dragged
kicking and screaming into air bags. The Invisible Hand didn't
work then."

"What other possible reason could there be?"

"That this therapy was developed specifically for one patient -
William A. Cozzano."

But you're talking about a vast expenditure," Mary Catherine
said. "Billions of dollars."

"Right," Mel said, "which means two things: first of all, the
people who did this are loaded. In fact, it can't be a single entity. It
has to be a group of separate entities working in tight formation -
like that flock of birds. And secondly, they expect to get a huge
return on their investment."

"What could possibly be worth that much money?"

"Only one thing I can think of. The presidency of the United
States," Mel said.

At the intellectual level, Mary Catherine thought this whole conversation was ridiculous. But at some deeper level she was
coming down with a severe case of the creeps. She had cooled off
from her running now and the sweat on her limbs was suddenly
replaced by goosebumps. She said, "And you think that this
explanation is actually more believable than the Invisible Hand
theory?"

"I have insufficient data to answer that," Mel said, "but as long
as it's a possibility, I have to consider it. Maybe you can help gather
more information for me, so that I can rule out this ridiculous
theory and buy into a more respectable explanation."

"What should I do?" Mary Catherine said.

"First of all, assume it could be true," Mel said. "Assume that you
might be enmeshed in a very large conspiracy. Assume that you are
being listened to and watched, all the time. I already found a bug in my car, and I just found one on you," Mel said.

Mary Catherine was stunned. "Are you sure?"

Mel clenched his jaw and actually looked a little peeved. "Don't
ask me if I'm sure when I say something like this. Of course I'm
fucking sure. I have connections you don't know about, kid. My
whole life is not this fucking corncob business."

"Sorry."

"I went out of town for a couple of days. Came back. Got in my
car. Pushed the button for WGN and got some Jesus station from
DeKalb. All my station presets were screwed up. So I took it to a friend of a friend who used to work in the Agency, and he found a
bug. Then we did a full sweep and found bugs in my house too."

"My god," Mary Catherine said. If Mel was telling the truth,
then there really was some heavy shit going on. If he wasn't, he was
demented. Either way, this was starting to get serious.

"They weren't Radio Shack special either," Mel said, "they
were very good bugs. KGB-level technology."

"Okay, I'll assume I'm bugged. Then what?"

Mel sighed. "Hell, I don't know. The problem with you down-
staters is that everything has to be spelled out."

"Sorry."

"Just keep your eyes open. Is that too general? You want a
specific question from me? I can't provide you with a specific
question."

"I'll keep my eyes peeled for signs of the military-industrial
complex," Mary Catherine said.

"It's not that. It's something else," Mel said. He turned to look
at the flock of birds, which was still careening across the fields,
turning this way and that according to some plan that Mel and
Mary Catherine couldn't puzzle out, vanished and then snapping
back into full view, each bird somehow knowing what all the other
birds were doing. "Let's call it the Network."

This discussion was crystallizing a number of vague ideas and
perceptions that had been floating around in Mary Catherine's
mind for a few months. The outlines of an idea were beginning to emerge, much as Mel and his car had materialized from the fog.

"There is something going on, now that you mention it," she
said.

"What can you tell me about it?" Mel asked. He had suddenly
relaxed and softened.

"I don't know. It's just that the same few names keep coming up.
Gale Aerospace, Pacific Netware, GODS, Genomics, Ogle Data
Research, MacIntyre Engineering. They're independent, yet they
act in a coordinated fashion."

"Can you give me names of any people who work for the
Network?"

Mary Catherine leaned her forearms on the roof of the car,
watching the birds, trying to bring things into focus. "A lot of
people work
for
the Network. Including me, I guess, in a way. Cy
Ogle, Dr. Radhakrishnan, Pete Zeldovich, are all in that category.
But I've only seen one person who seems to be of the Network.
Does that make any sense?"

"Sure. Who is this person?"

"He is called Mr. Salvador," Mary Catherine said. "He stops in
from time to time. Like he's on an inspection tour or something.
From the way people act around him, I'd say he's definitely the one
in charge."

"Of the whole Network?"

"No."

"How do you know?"

"Just a feeling. He acts like a guy who has a boss. I think he's in
charge of everything pertaining to Dad."

"So Salvador is an ops man," Mel said. "He manages one of the
Network's projects - Willy. Who is this boss of Salvador's?"

"I don't know," Mary Catherine said. "I've had a bare minimum
of contact with Salvador. His boss doesn't even enter the picture."

"Can you give me any clues at all? Does he make phone calls
when he's there?"

"Yeah. But he uses the phone in his car."

"Does he get phone calls, or letters, at the house?"

Mary Catherine suddenly remembered something. She stood up
straight and stared intently at nothing in particular, her eyes
jumping back and forth as she tried to reconstruct the memory.
"Yesterday morning when I was coming back from my run, a
GODS van pulled up in front of the house. The driver had an envelope for Mr. Salvador. But he wasn't in; he was due to show
up a few hours later. So I signed for the envelope. Salvador showed
up later and ripped it open. And threw it away."

"You're saying that the envelope is still in the garbage?" "They're too security-conscious to throw things in the garbage.
They only throw away things like McDonald's wrappers. Every
thing else goes into a burn bag, or straight to a shredder."

"My god, it's just like the Agency," Mel said.

"I think that they shred the
contents
of envelopes. But the
envelopes
themselves
go into the burn bag - and those only get
collected once or twice a week. So I may be able to dig it out."

"I need that envelope. It has tracking codes and stuff on it," Mel
said.

"I'll do some looking around later," Mary Catherine said.

Mel looked ever so slightly crestfallen. Apparently she had not
shown enough enthusiasm for this cloak-and-dagger assignment.

He had a Bruckner symphony going on the CD player in the
trunk of the Mercedes. He climbed back into the driver's seat and
turned it up. Mary Catherine climbed in too. They sat in the car
and listened to it for a few minutes.

"Listen to me," Mel said, turning it down again, "I'm way
behind the curve in dealing with this thing."

"How's that?"

Mel laughed. In another man it would have been a laugh devoid
of humor. But Mel had a talent for finding humor in strange places
and he seemed genuinely amused, though he was not exactly
happy. "I'm supposed to be Willy's trusted adviser. I'm supposed to
tell him whether it's a good idea to run for president. And now
look. He's announcing in a few hours. And I'm still trying to figure
out what the hell's going on."

Mary Catherine had nothing to say to that. She waited for Mel
to continue.

"I take my job very seriously and right now I'm failing at it," Mel said. "I have to get my ass in gear. I have to do stuff. To take steps.
Some of what I do may not make me very popular with the
Network. So let me ask you something: do you want to work with
me? Or not? Either way is fine."

It was Mary Catherine's turn to laugh. "Either way is
not
fine,"
she said. "We're talking about Dad."

"No, we're not," Mel said gently, "we're talking about what
your dad became when that chip went into his head. And I'm not sure it's the same thing."

This was such a disturbing comment that Mary Catherine
decided not to let it sink in just now. "Well, even if he were just
another presidential candidate - one way I'm doing good and one
way I'm doing evil."

"Leave it to a farmer to see things in those terms," Mel said.
"Okay, are you going to do good or evil?"

"Good," Mary Catherine said.

"That's a nice girl," Mel said.

"I think that Dad wants to do good also - whatever you might
think," Mary Catherine said.